There's something wrong with my fingers. Each time I start a comment on the Eagles, I wind up typing "Dong Henley". Can I hate the Eagles now? Can I hate Dong Henley especially? Crap.
It's fashionable, in the tedious hipster-doofus way, to express irrational dislike for the Eagles. You're only throwing sand against the wind. Compare them to Steely Dan to see the genius of the artist versus the (equally important) genius of the system. Deriding the latter is callow.
I'll cop to doofus, but not to hipster or fashionable. My dislike for the Eagles and their frontman Dong is entirely personal. That said, we owe them big time, because without them we wouldn't have this:
Acquire steelier knives and/or less resolute beast
Some of my most cherished memories involve not listening to the Eagles. I didn't listen to the Eagles, nor country-rock of any kind, at the birth of each of my children. And, I hope to live long enough to not listen to the Eagles at my kids' college graduations as well.
It's fashionable, in the tedious hipster-doofus way, to express irrational dislike for the Eagles.
This could just be my relative isolation from the hipster-doofii of the world, or (more probably) the lasting damage from repeated and sustained viewing of The Big Lebowski during college, but this sentiment is linked too closely to the Dude for me to pass up - "I hate the fucking Eagles, man!"
Your post clearly seeks to demonstrate the poor taste--if not total degeneracy--of the American middle mind, a project to which I'm normally sympathetic; but you choose incorrect instances.
In the best sense of the phrase, it is far more "punk rock" to appreciate the Eagles now than not.
The best sense of "punk rock" means "extraordinarily obvious attempt to go contrary to expectations"? (I don't really see why you would call "punk rock" someone who liked the Eagles now and had before and wasn't really concerned with fashion. Or someone who didn't like the Eagles now and hadn't before and wasn't really concerned with fashion. If fashion agnosticism is pun rock, then no specific act is.) No one now, I take it, would bother expressing extreme contempt for the Eagles, but I would suspect anyone in my peer group, at least, of being a tedious hipster-doofus who expressed Eagles fandom. ('course I like "Hotel California", so who am I to talk.)
Well, the thing about the Eagles is that they suck. The only particularly good song on, for instance, The Eagles Live is Life's Been Good. Desperado is so bad it makes me want to gouge my eyes out and shove them in my ears to block the sound. And it's arguably not the worst song on the album.
This counter-argument that the Eagles must be good because it's now popular to point out that they suck is strictly irrelevant. It reminds me of a recent conversation in which I had to defend Eliot Spitzer from the charge that his prosecutions are bad (and he should not be voted for) because his prosecutions are popular with voters.
Don Henley did employ Ian Wallace for many of his tours, IIRC, which shows good taste, although Wallace's Gumby-esque "My Hobby" skit on King Crimson's Live at Summit Studios 1972 does not.
That's actually linked to in Ben's link above.
A link which I repudiate! I much prefer the sentiment expressed in the parenthetical.
There's a point at which irony transmutes into earnest but face-saving enthusiasm.
Are you saying that's what Jonathan was getting at, or are you just, y'know, saying that? I think this point tends to come a lot sooner than people let on (but then I am not much for ironic appreciation and have generally tended to assume that anyone indulging in so-bad-it's-good-ism really just can't stand to admit genuine appreciation for fear of shunning or whatnot).
I tend to assume, rather, that they can't articulate what is good amidst the obviously bad, and so enjoy the former while attempting to distance themselves from the latter. (Which isn't meant as a repudiation of your point, oh thin-skinned b-dub.)
I don't buy it, Labs. A person in a position to know said that chun's new, real-named blog wasn't as interesting as his old, pseudo-nymed blog, which is manifestly untrue of jgoodwin.net.
Thriller is a great album--at least, an album with at least three great songs (the MJ-written side-openers) and some other good stuff.
The Eagles, on the other hand, perpetrated at least five of the ten most annoying songs ever. Seriously, make up a list of the most annoying songs ever. Aren't a lot of them by the Eagles? They're so annoying I can't even mention their names, for the suffering they cause. (#1, however, is a Billy Joel song that mentions Afghanistan; all the way.)
And Jonathan is sadly ahistorical. The hipster thing to do--at least, the hipster thing for those born around the turn of the 70s--is to praise the Eagles as an expression of an emotionalism that is too too missing from that ironic punk rock everyone's been practicing. How Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain turned out to be a great album anyway, we'll never know.
Of course it's not the real Chun, but you have to admit that this
Your post clearly seeks to demonstrate the poor taste--if not total degeneracy--of the American middle mind, a project to which I'm normally sympathetic; but you choose incorrect instances.
has the ring of Chunliness to it. I was initially irritated, then I invoked my old rules of Chun interaction and saved myself some trouble.
The question of whether the albums are good is separate from the question of whether god should continue to bless an America in which they're the two best-selling albums ever, is it not?
The truly damaging legacy of punk rock is its having pushed technical proficiency to the fore. Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, even the elaborate production and multiple guitar overdubs on the Sex Pistols records. It'll be a while before we can get back to the simple emotional appeal of Greg Lake singing "Everyday a little sadder/A little madder/Someone get me a ladder".
I never paid much attention to punk rock after the mid-80s, but the best clue I received of the genre's death was during an episode of Beavis and Butthead, when the two were watching a video by some stereotypically mohawked and leathered band (Rancid?). After a few chuckles, Butthead says derisively, "Honor students."
Trad epistemology doesn't really rely on the analytic/synthetic distinction, IMO; it's more like it survived (by ignoring) Quine's attack on all things normative. Or one might think it requires a distinction between observation and everything else, but even then it doesn't really, and anyway Quine himself eventually came round to observation sentences IIRC.
I've never understood the Soamesian line about how Kripke made analytic philosophy possible again (and the consequent Fodorian line about how no he didn't, so analytic philosophy is in deep doo-doo). In my subjective experience of analytic epistemology, Kripke is dispensable.
Perhaps if I pay more attention to the shower/grower distinction this will become clear.
We need to make our stand here. If Johnathan intimidates us into having a theoretical appreciation for the Eagles, the rest of the top 50 list includes Shania Twain and Hootie and the Blowfish. Bands for which even ironic levels of exposure can be dangerous.
It seems like we've settled on "AMTF" even though it corresponds to "a mind so fine" in the original. Comments?
Also, "AMTF" and "ATM" occur frequently, are similarly spelt, but are unrelated. Some people might mistakenly understand "AMTF" to abbreviate "at mineshaft the fefeoonfoon". This is serious.
SB, I think the original was actually "a sense of humor so fine." (Think, shit. I know.) But 'mind too fine' seems to have caught on as canonical (though numerically, this is not the case).
There's something wrong with my fingers. Each time I start a comment on the Eagles, I wind up typing "Dong Henley". Can I hate the Eagles now? Can I hate Dong Henley especially? Crap.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 9:02 AM
It's true what they say: you can check out of this blog, but you can never leave.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 9:08 AM
I liked Thriller. (Thank God for anonymity.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 9:12 AM
Why do you need anonymity? Thriller is a great, landmark album.
On a related note, Rock and Roll Part 2 is objectively catchy.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 9:43 AM
It's fashionable, in the tedious hipster-doofus way, to express irrational dislike for the Eagles. You're only throwing sand against the wind. Compare them to Steely Dan to see the genius of the artist versus the (equally important) genius of the system. Deriding the latter is callow.
Thriller's merits are widely appreciated.
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 9:57 AM
I'll cop to doofus, but not to hipster or fashionable. My dislike for the Eagles and their frontman Dong is entirely personal. That said, we owe them big time, because without them we wouldn't have this:
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:08 AM
One can see the genius of the system without actually liking that which the system produces.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:11 AM
Some of my most cherished memories involve not listening to the Eagles. I didn't listen to the Eagles, nor country-rock of any kind, at the birth of each of my children. And, I hope to live long enough to not listen to the Eagles at my kids' college graduations as well.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:13 AM
Hey, that's actually funny, SB.
(No one can be compelled to like the Eagles.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:14 AM
Another one with kids. Jesus.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:15 AM
Jesus had kids?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:16 AM
A son. Someone wrote a book about him.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:18 AM
Hey, no trickery; that would have had to have been a colon or comma for Jesus to be the one with kids.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:19 AM
Hey, that's actually funny, SB.
Infinite monkeys, etc.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:45 AM
I trust you are all familiar with Mojo Nixon.
Don Henley
Must die
Don't let him get back together
With Glenn Frey
Don Henley
Must die
Put him in the electric chair
Watch him fry
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 10:55 AM
This gesture no longer has significance. In the best sense of the phrase, it is far more "punk rock" to appreciate the Eagles now than not.
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:23 AM
It's fashionable, in the tedious hipster-doofus way, to express irrational dislike for the Eagles.
This could just be my relative isolation from the hipster-doofii of the world, or (more probably) the lasting damage from repeated and sustained viewing of The Big Lebowski during college, but this sentiment is linked too closely to the Dude for me to pass up - "I hate the fucking Eagles, man!"
Back to lurking.
Posted by oztk | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:24 AM
A careful reading of my post reveals no dislike (irrational or otherwise) of the Eagles.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:26 AM
That's obvious bullshit, FL.
Your post clearly seeks to demonstrate the poor taste--if not total degeneracy--of the American middle mind, a project to which I'm normally sympathetic; but you choose incorrect instances.
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:29 AM
In the best sense of the phrase, it is far more "punk rock"
It is decreed that anyone who uses his phrase shall be banned from commentary on music.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:29 AM
"this" goddamit.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:30 AM
In the best sense of the phrase, it is far more "punk rock" to appreciate the Eagles now than not.
The best sense of "punk rock" means "extraordinarily obvious attempt to go contrary to expectations"? (I don't really see why you would call "punk rock" someone who liked the Eagles now and had before and wasn't really concerned with fashion. Or someone who didn't like the Eagles now and hadn't before and wasn't really concerned with fashion. If fashion agnosticism is pun rock, then no specific act is.) No one now, I take it, would bother expressing extreme contempt for the Eagles, but I would suspect anyone in my peer group, at least, of being a tedious hipster-doofus who expressed Eagles fandom. ('course I like "Hotel California", so who am I to talk.)
Or for example.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:32 AM
Both of your comments are only symptoms of the ineluctable negation of the negation.
Briefly, the kynical reversal you speak is itself undermined. Cf. Sloterdijk, etc.
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:35 AM
pun rock
Referring to this or this?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:35 AM
Well, the thing about the Eagles is that they suck. The only particularly good song on, for instance, The Eagles Live is Life's Been Good. Desperado is so bad it makes me want to gouge my eyes out and shove them in my ears to block the sound. And it's arguably not the worst song on the album.
This counter-argument that the Eagles must be good because it's now popular to point out that they suck is strictly irrelevant. It reminds me of a recent conversation in which I had to defend Eliot Spitzer from the charge that his prosecutions are bad (and he should not be voted for) because his prosecutions are popular with voters.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:36 AM
Actually the Diesel Sweeties link isn't really apropos.
On the assumption that 23 was addressed to me, I am uncomprehending.
mm, biscuits.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:37 AM
What was that t-shirt I saw linked at Ben or Adam's? "Everything sucks if other people like it"?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:38 AM
That's actually linked to in Ben's link above.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:40 AM
There's a point at which irony transmutes into earnest but face-saving enthusiasm.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:41 AM
Don Henley did employ Ian Wallace for many of his tours, IIRC, which shows good taste, although Wallace's Gumby-esque "My Hobby" skit on King Crimson's Live at Summit Studios 1972 does not.
That's actually linked to in Ben's link above.
A link which I repudiate! I much prefer the sentiment expressed in the parenthetical.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:41 AM
The comic, the shirt.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:42 AM
There's a point at which irony transmutes into earnest but face-saving enthusiasm.
Are you saying that's what Jonathan was getting at, or are you just, y'know, saying that? I think this point tends to come a lot sooner than people let on (but then I am not much for ironic appreciation and have generally tended to assume that anyone indulging in so-bad-it's-good-ism really just can't stand to admit genuine appreciation for fear of shunning or whatnot).
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:46 AM
I tend to assume, rather, that they can't articulate what is good amidst the obviously bad, and so enjoy the former while attempting to distance themselves from the latter. (Which isn't meant as a repudiation of your point, oh thin-skinned b-dub.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:49 AM
Ben, mostly it was a response to your link in 22. I think Jonathan's comments would be heady and exotic, if we could make sense of them.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:58 AM
Oh, and welcome back, Chun.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 11:58 AM
High praise indeed.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:00 PM
I don't buy it, Labs. A person in a position to know said that chun's new, real-named blog wasn't as interesting as his old, pseudo-nymed blog, which is manifestly untrue of jgoodwin.net.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:02 PM
Told you so.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:02 PM
I certainly couldn't maintain that kind of delusion of grandeur, though if I were forced to start revealing the true names I knew...
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:02 PM
Thriller is a great album--at least, an album with at least three great songs (the MJ-written side-openers) and some other good stuff.
The Eagles, on the other hand, perpetrated at least five of the ten most annoying songs ever. Seriously, make up a list of the most annoying songs ever. Aren't a lot of them by the Eagles? They're so annoying I can't even mention their names, for the suffering they cause. (#1, however, is a Billy Joel song that mentions Afghanistan; all the way.)
And Jonathan is sadly ahistorical. The hipster thing to do--at least, the hipster thing for those born around the turn of the 70s--is to praise the Eagles as an expression of an emotionalism that is too too missing from that ironic punk rock everyone's been practicing. How Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain turned out to be a great album anyway, we'll never know.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:06 PM
Of course it's not the real Chun, but you have to admit that this
has the ring of Chunliness to it. I was initially irritated, then I invoked my old rules of Chun interaction and saved myself some trouble.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:07 PM
It seems that, if you were trying to get Chun to out himself, you'd have to do better than these crude appeals to vanity.
Posted by Jonathan | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:09 PM
The question of whether the albums are good is separate from the question of whether god should continue to bless an America in which they're the two best-selling albums ever, is it not?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:13 PM
Chunliness
Googlorphan!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:13 PM
The truly damaging legacy of punk rock is its having pushed technical proficiency to the fore. Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, even the elaborate production and multiple guitar overdubs on the Sex Pistols records. It'll be a while before we can get back to the simple emotional appeal of Greg Lake singing "Everyday a little sadder/A little madder/Someone get me a ladder".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:17 PM
I never paid much attention to punk rock after the mid-80s, but the best clue I received of the genre's death was during an episode of Beavis and Butthead, when the two were watching a video by some stereotypically mohawked and leathered band (Rancid?). After a few chuckles, Butthead says derisively, "Honor students."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:22 PM
I'm about to get logged off, but haven't we discussed Meet the Fockers as highest-grossing comedy ever? That's the monetary sense of 'gross'.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:23 PM
I believe that spot is currently held by Shrek 2.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:24 PM
Punk died when the first kid said, "punk's not dead".
This is fully generalizable to other fields.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:28 PM
Wolfson, I counterexample you thusly: 'traditional' epistemology in the wake of Quine.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:32 PM
It's the exception that proves the rule.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:35 PM
Punk died when the first kid said, "punk's not dead".
Is there even anything left of the corpse?
Results 1 - 10 of about 41,100 for "punk's not dead".
Results 1 - 10 of about 17,100 for "punk is not dead".
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,890 for "punk isn't dead".
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:35 PM
Told you!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:35 PM
51.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:36 PM
AMTF, Weiner, AMTF.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:37 PM
50: Is analytic/synthetic once again as respectable as shower/grower?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:39 PM
There's no need to take it to the Supreme Court, Wolfson.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:40 PM
M-Wei: do you have the link to that snees comment bookmarked, or what?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:41 PM
Trad epistemology doesn't really rely on the analytic/synthetic distinction, IMO; it's more like it survived (by ignoring) Quine's attack on all things normative. Or one might think it requires a distinction between observation and everything else, but even then it doesn't really, and anyway Quine himself eventually came round to observation sentences IIRC.
I've never understood the Soamesian line about how Kripke made analytic philosophy possible again (and the consequent Fodorian line about how no he didn't, so analytic philosophy is in deep doo-doo). In my subjective experience of analytic epistemology, Kripke is dispensable.
Perhaps if I pay more attention to the shower/grower distinction this will become clear.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:43 PM
I just searched Unfogged for "hung like a horse" and I found a link to it.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:44 PM
No one thought it all odd or worth comment that B-wo was reading a British women's magazine? Actually, I don't either.
I do wonder if British is modifying women or magazine, and if the former what about the magazine makes it especially appropriate for British women.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:45 PM
Me.
Posted by washerdreyr | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:46 PM
We need to make our stand here. If Johnathan intimidates us into having a theoretical appreciation for the Eagles, the rest of the top 50 list includes Shania Twain and Hootie and the Blowfish. Bands for which even ironic levels of exposure can be dangerous.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:46 PM
No, me.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:46 PM
It was a British magazine whose audience was women, presumably also British.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:47 PM
Are 57 and 61 apropos of anything?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:49 PM
Hey, 44 makes "googlorphan" heteronymic.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:50 PM
66: Follow your own damn link in 53.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:51 PM
Non-academic me: I read FL's Quine reference and thought, "Best punk guitarist evar."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:52 PM
You see? All that flashy punk virtuosity destroyed rock.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:52 PM
heteronymic
I though heteronyms were identically spelled words that are pronounced and defined differently, like tear and tear.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:55 PM
t
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 12:56 PM
71: Shit. I meant 'heterological'. Grelling's Paradox.
68: Good Lord man, you can't expect me to do that. And don't you think "breasteses" has too many 'e's?
69: W.V.O. was Robert's uncle; something that, shamefully, I did not know until I read Robert's obituary.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:08 PM
Actually I think it has too few 's's.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:09 PM
'breastesses' as distinct from man-boobs?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:13 PM
My mistresses breastesses are the bestesses.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:14 PM
Not as distinct from anything, I think.
You may be overanalyzing the situation.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:14 PM
My mistresses breastesses are nothing like the sun;
Melons are more round than her ripe melons;
If snow be white, why then her breastesses are dun;
ect.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:16 PM
Interestingly, "homological" has nothing to do with either paradoxes of language or teh gay.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 1:44 PM
Hey, there's a top-selling singles list, too. I do not know #1.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 3:26 PM
Best-selling artists is interesting too. Also noteworthy, 7 of the top 10 were born in the 40s.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 3:28 PM
ect.
Wolfson! Shame!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 7:39 PM
Chopper! AMTF!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 7:49 PM
Short for "ec tessera", natch.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 7:54 PM
"AMTF" is unfogged's "YHBT".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 7:57 PM
It seems like we've settled on "AMTF" even though it corresponds to "a mind so fine" in the original. Comments?
Also, "AMTF" and "ATM" occur frequently, are similarly spelt, but are unrelated. Some people might mistakenly understand "AMTF" to abbreviate "at mineshaft the fefeoonfoon". This is serious.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-14-05 8:06 PM
SB, I think the original was actually "a sense of humor so fine." (Think, shit. I know.) But 'mind too fine' seems to have caught on as canonical (though numerically, this is not the case).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-15-05 11:33 AM
But the original original is "a mind so fine that no idea could penetrate it."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-15-05 11:37 AM