MacArthur grants

[RonF]

was funny to me -

Me too.

[Hot Ptah]

I found Colbert's performance at the correspondents' dinner to be side-splitting funny--he spoke truth to power as it has never been done with this Adminstration, and got off many humorous lines, in my opinion. Humor is very subjective and personal though. We certainly don't have to agree on what is funny.

I find his entire show to be very funny--to conceive of an entire nightly show as a parody of Bill O'Reilly, and then to execute it well a surprisingly high percentage of the time--that is quite an achievement, I think. Plus, he just makes me laugh quite often.

To compare him to Dennis Miller-- I don't understand the comparison.

[RonF]

To compare him to Dennis Miller-- I don't understand the comparison.

There is none.

[AllenLowe]

both have 10 fingers - that's enough in common for me -

[dprfish]

Colbert can go fuck himself. He's not funny, he's like Dennis Miller with one ball missing.

Jim,

I've read your posts for some time now, but have agreed with almost everything you've had to say. Haven't felt the urge to strongly disagree until the above showed up.

Dennis Miller was one of the funniest, most intelligent comedians I'd ever heard until he seemed to do an ideological backflip about 10 years ago. Sure, he's stuck to his new right-wing guns with an impressive tenacity - but does that equal "balls" when there are countless other self-righteous pundits doing the same thing in an equally humourless fashion?

Colbert's humour presents itself in a subversive manner; a manner much more akin to a "lets examine each other's differences but still try to get along" way of thought than Miller's often venomous chest-pounding. Perhaps my position as an "outsider" renders my opinion invalid.

Without question I'll continue to respect you and your thoughts, but I really don't know about this one.

[Hot Ptah]

Dennis Miller can go fuck himself; he's like half-wit Allan Sherman (or retarded Tom Lehrer) with BOTH balls missing and not 1/10th as funny as a real female comedian (or even a hot female impersonator). I used to know this jackoff in Iowa into Dennis Miller. A "nice" guy but preening, arrogant & not 1/5th as erudite as he THOUGHT he was, wanted to be. Dennis Miller was his HERO. This was the early '90s if you wanna date it.

(& of course, if Dennis Miller didn't come out of the closet as a (fake? opportunist?) Republican, would he even have a fucking carreer in show biz at this point?)

I've never seen Colbert, etc. so I'm ignoring all that tho' on instinct I'd likely agree w/a fellow member of the Moms Mabley Society.

Speaking troof to power: also, I think ya'll give the dude waaaaaaaaaay too much credit. He's a fucking ENTERTAINER, well paid-- where's 'the risk'?

signed,

Woody Woodbury Jr.

p/s: & if ya'll dunno Woody Woodbury (or Moms), we ain't got no biz talkin' laffs.

Regarding truth to power, did you see the footage of Colbert at the Correspondents Dinner, with Bush sitting a few feet away? I agree that he wasn't going to get fired from an Administration post for what he said, but in my humble opinion, he showed more guts than anyone else has, in attacking this President to his face.

If you didn't see it, it is different than you seem to be imagining it to be.

[Hot Ptah]

p/s: Rusty Warren.

i rest my case.

knockers up!

c

What does this mean? I know who Rusty Warren is and have seen her Knockers Up! album at the local used record store. How does this relate to the previous posts?

[RDK]

I think the point is that Rusty Warren was another great artist who was denied a MacArthur grant...

[Larry Kart]

I think the point is that Rusty Warren was another great artist who was denied a MacArthur grant...

[J Larsen]

I know the joint in Woodside JZ is frequent customer of, heads up Catesta

Must be talking about Sripraphai.

[Popocat]

The safe & rich make each other richer and ignore the poor talented left-outs... So, what else is new?

It is interesting: America, the land of the Fulbright and the MacArthur. Wow, such rich privileges... I shouldn't wonder, though, that the systems in place do tend to promote the popular and/or mediocre; basically, a lot of politically correct (read: sub-literate losers) spend a lot of time and energy posing as "university scholars" in the hope of writing that single, small 70 page Master's thesis, all that "hard" work in the hope that they can step up to get a $50,000 dollar Fulbright fellowship... Well now, it goes without saying that the less-literate, and more systemically-oriented people will stand to benefit from any system today. They don't have time to read Tolstoy or Proust anymore. The true artists and visionaries are ignored, scanted and belittled until we are safely dead.

So, those who have the most publicly visible ego, plus a modicum of real talent, like John Zorn, stand to benefit, ha, ha... Needless to say, someone has noted that he is already a multi-millionaire. I should wonder why, then, he has been awarded this HUGE grant? Don't wonder. The committee is composed of cretins who ONLY know WHO-is-WHO, and do not know who the talented, genius outsiders are... John Zorn is 53, so he needs money to pay for women, now that he is getting on, I suppose. Projects? Nah, he doesn't need more money to feed his projects. Probably just wants to sell his condo and buy a new one...

So, you are not permitted to complain and wonder why the systems award people who have their heads up the ass of the system in the first place. You are Americans. You have to die in battle for no-reason, for corporate America, which is populated by lily-white pansies who got their foot in the mail-room door and clung to their privileges chicken-shittedly all the way up the corporate ladder. Born in NYC. Die in NYC. You know the routine, boys.

Meanwhile all those talented others who you guys know about -- nobody on earth knows anything about any one of them. That is simply the point of a grant system: it accords extra privileges to those who have achieved some mainstream acceptability. Their actual merits or talents are of secondary consideration to their viability as a visisble object. There are so many examples in your history. I think of Ronald Reagan, who was essentially a total moron who managed to appear as if he was clever. Well, he may have just been clever enough to fool the populace, but that doesn't say much for the collective consciousness of America -- in fact, you tend to take what you are fed and ask questions ten years later on... Like the Viet Nam war...

Connections are everything. Doesn't Regina come from the city, or at least, she had to migrate there. She didn't stay in the countryside. Did Nina Simone stay in the country? No, she ran away from her stupid, mean daddy to make it big in the city. Boring spirituals weren't where it was at... This process of getting connected has happened so many times!

I wonder why nobody has wondered about the consequences of getting an award like the MacArthur. Poor little John may now have to face selling his present condo and buying a new one! Or even, not buying one because 500,000 isn't enough to do that in NYC, ha, ha... He may be forced to retreat to Long Island and sleep with some ladies, plus sell his old house in town, just to afford a new one there! Such complexity must give the poor man a headache about what to DO with all that cash! I mean, if Regina wants a Ferrari, she has to consider that she will only have 380,000 left after she buys a slightly used one! Better go talk to Elvis Costello, he still doesn't know how to stop blowing the head off his own car... Change the oil boys!...

My point is: I guess a record contract just isn't enough! You have to be in the system. But, if you are a true artist, you are not likely to be in the system. Because -- you will not be interested in the system: you will be creative instead!

So take care... Nothing is new. You won't let it be known, in America... To me, America and Americans seem quite oblivious to the matter of what you are doing at the time of doing it; and you are even less aware of the actual consequences of what you are doing: look at the Viet Nam war: it took ten years and finally, 1,000 of your boys dying a week for the peace protests to get up enough steam...

Just as you will delete this topic because it is off topic, you should first realize how constrained the mentality becomes whenever it is subjected to too many strictures, limits upon "relevancy" and other points of awkward and limiting social-linguistic-thought-control... So, if you must live, subjected to a creative grant system, and harbor the hope that you will be awarded, by application or divine selection, it seems to me that you have to do far too many things to gain admittance to the approval system, like sitting on committees, brown-nosing untalented bureaucrats, and all sorts of idiotic hoo-ha that has NOTHING TO DO WITH ARTISTIC CREATIVITY, just to buy time... I will never get a grant because I cannot be bothered to demean my imagination by "submitting a plan" to the council. How can I submit a plan for an art work the creation of which is a spontaneous mental activity? It is preposterous! Insulting to expect me to reduce the creative process to an act of mere "planning". All of this goofy bureaucratic behavior has caused you to neglect your essential creativity, and distracted all your creative energies...

I am all for writing and making music alone -- and knowing that what you are doing has integrity and quality. Who cares what popularity means if all it implies is admittance to a system of approval and monetary reward? Commercial art and music is generally of poor and simplistic quality. You know that.

I shall myself die alone -- unapproved, ignored, dismissed and one day, my work will suddenly be declared brilliant by all those scholars with no talent, and nothing better to do, by those who could never really write anything themselves -- pople like Bloom and Stanley Fish and all those guys who really don't have very much to say beyond the establishment of a stance that can gain them tenure, a salary and membership to the society of edified general respect...

Good luck America -- you are still Number ONE at burying the living while we are still alive and remembering the great -- once they are dead... Suck on Hart Crane, then beat him up, sailor!!!

Don't forget that you only know who's who -- because you can afford to in the first place... I will never know who's who, and will never ever get to go your parties. So, why bother even pretending to be envious?

I guess, really, the main frustration has something to do with being silenced and rejected by inferior intellects who do not have the breadth of imagination, or genius or talent. There is nothing you can do about that. I know from experience...

Give the grants to the visible people, and forget the rest of the modest, quietist moron geniuses. What else can you do. The popstars and corporate cop producers need the LA sveltes, not you... The only consolation, perhaps, is that you unknowns have a much less chance of catching AIDS or Herpes than Lou Reed or whoever everyone already knows and whores with regularly...

They're still out banging those teens at the country commune. But I've heard they started charging the hipsters admission since it first opened......

The Grant Camp Totem Pole...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Dmitry]

Looks like clementine fixed his keyboard.

Good on ya, pal !

[Guy Berger]

Just as you will delete this topic because it is off topic,

I don't think you will be so lucky.

Guy

[Dmitry]

Clem, you're talking about the Street Sounds, aren't you? That used to be my local joint[sic!] when I was stationed in Bay Ridge f/t. I still stop by there every other kislev.

Clue - he's got some good jazz cds stacked on the floor under the jazz cd bins. Used to be more meaningful when he had the oop BN's, but now that they're rereleasing everything those goodies lost their luster somewhat. Vinyl is downstairs as you noticed, mostly dreck, but if you have the time you never know what you'll see. I got Moondog's eponymous Prestige there for $20. Only VG+ at best, but what the heck.

Tatiana's got a laptop? Does that mean Onegin has a Mac?

Whatcha smokin' these days?

Edited September 27, 2006 by Dmitry

[jlhoots]

D!/NO/KEYB/BUSTED/STILL/N/J&R/WAS/CLOSED/THIS/WEEKEND/FOR/SOME/PAGAN/HOLIDAY

C

Is this an "attempt" at humor or what?

Just wondering.

[Hot Ptah]

Am I the only one who wonders--Who is Clementine, and why does Clementine write that way?

[AllenLowe]

ahh, it's ok - you just have to understand Esperanto -

[JSngry]

Colbert can go fuck himself. He's not funny, he's like Dennis Miller with one ball missing.

Jim,

I've read your posts for some time now, but have agreed with almost everything you've had to say. Haven't felt the urge to strongly disagree until the above showed up.

Dennis Miller was one of the funniest, most intelligent comedians I'd ever heard until he seemed to do an ideological backflip about 10 years ago. Sure, he's stuck to his new right-wing guns with an impressive tenacity - but does that equal "balls" when there are countless other self-righteous pundits doing the same thing in an equally humourless fashion?

Colbert's humour presents itself in a subversive manner; a manner much more akin to a "lets examine each other's differences but still try to get along" way of thought than Miller's often venomous chest-pounding. Perhaps my position as an "outsider" renders my opinion invalid.

Without question I'll continue to respect you and your thoughts, but I really don't know about this one.

Well, it's kinda like saying (as I used to) that Stan Kenton was the white Woody Herman...

Edited September 27, 2006 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

Am I the only one who wonders--Who is Clementine, and why does Clementine write that way?

I find myself asking the first question more than I probably should -- which is in effect a tribute to what (or part of what) Clementine is up to. No answers, only guesses, but then that's a big part of the "what." Whatever -- why he writes that way can't I think be separated from the "who is he?" question, which again is in effect a tribute to etc.

[JSngry]

I know who Clem is in the literal name/address sense, and kind of know who he "is" otherwise, enough to say with confidence that the man is not to be taken frivolously. Not at all.

Disagreements are no doubt there to be had, but not dismissals. No sir...

[AllenLowe]

Clem and I have kissed and made up from our old battling days...

so there's hope for the Israelis and the Hezbollah -

[Hot Ptah]

I know who Clem is in the literal name/address sense, and kind of know who he "is" otherwise, enough to say with confidence that the man is not to be taken frivolously. Not at all.

Disagreements are no doubt there to be had, but not dismissals. No sir...

I have had no intention of dismissing him.

I can't tell if I disagree with him. I don't understand what he is saying much of the time. He is evidently quite intelligent and knowledgable, yet chooses to write in a deliberately obscure style, a sort of breezy shorthand which sometimes goes over my head. I find it unusual.

[Hot Ptah]

Colbert can go fuck himself. He's not funny, he's like Dennis Miller with one ball missing.

Jim,

I've read your posts for some time now, but have agreed with almost everything you've had to say. Haven't felt the urge to strongly disagree until the above showed up.

Dennis Miller was one of the funniest, most intelligent comedians I'd ever heard until he seemed to do an ideological backflip about 10 years ago. Sure, he's stuck to his new right-wing guns with an impressive tenacity - but does that equal "balls" when there are countless other self-righteous pundits doing the same thing in an equally humourless fashion?

Colbert's humour presents itself in a subversive manner; a manner much more akin to a "lets examine each other's differences but still try to get along" way of thought than Miller's often venomous chest-pounding. Perhaps my position as an "outsider" renders my opinion invalid.

Without question I'll continue to respect you and your thoughts, but I really don't know about this one.

Well, it's kinda like saying (as I used to) that Stan Kenton was the white Woody Herman...

Are we talking about the same Dennis Miller and Colbert? Matters of personal taste do not have to lead to agreement. I have usually been able to follow your thoughts on any topic, but cannot do so here. Whether or not someone likes Colbert, I see him as more like Lester Bowie to Dennis Miller as Wynton Marsalis.

[JSngry]

Substitute, say, Arturo Sandoval for Lester and we can agree.

[Hot Ptah]

Substitute, say, Arturo Sandoval for Lester and we can agree.

I chose Lester because in my humble opinion, the work of both Lester and Colbert is based on a self-conscious humor within a tradition--in a good sense, with both of them.