From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #553 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, March 26 2008 Volume 16 : Number 553 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Your racist Grandma [Barbara Soutar ] Re: My grandma was pretty racist -- Irish, you know. [Rex ] Re: A sweet treat for Rex! [Rex ] Re: Your racist grandma [Rex ] Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster ["(0% rh)" ] Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster [Rex ] Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster [2fs ] Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster ["kevin studyvin" ] Some tofu for Rex [Steve Schiavo ] Re: A sweet treat for Rex! [Jeff Dwarf ] Lou Reed: Metal Machine Maniac [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:42:58 -0700 From: Barbara Soutar Subject: Re: Your racist Grandma Jeff Dwarf puts the Obama phenomenon in perspective when he says: "More seriously, for a lot of the Obama is the new Christ crowd, it's more akin to the first decent guy boyfriend after dating a viciously and criminally abusive turd -- that he's not a fucking sociopath is so astonishing to you that you ending mistaking him for a god. Clinton can't tap into this since she was cowardly enough to vote for the war in the first place and refuses to truly disavow that vote." Barbara Soutar Victoria, BC ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:50:46 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: My grandma was pretty racist -- Irish, you know. On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:21 PM, The Great Quail wrote: > Well, we are probably reaching the limit on this particular exchange. I > don't mean that in a passive-aggressive way; I just think the horse is > about > to expire. It would be, but you just got kinda mean. > > Um, me too. That's how I know they are assholes. > > Some racists are certainly assholes, such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill > O'Reilly. And my the nurse who worked at the high school where I taught, > who > was black, and hated white people, and only read books written by black > people. Others are not necessarily assholes. I don't think my mom, > brother, > and grandparents are assholes just because they exhibit some > garden-variety > racism. I think it's very much part of their blue-collar Pennsylvania > culture, which makes overcoming those feelings all the more important. > Unlike you, I simply cannot condemn the majority of human beings as > "assholes." There was a little slippage there which could have occurred on either side of the exchange. The "assholes" to whom I specifically, explicitly referred were not *all* "garden variety", but particularly the vitriolic whiners and agitators who fixate on so-called reverse racism, using it as a coded battle cry to rally the troops. BO made reference to this in the speech. I just don't acknowledge much difference between the leaders and followers of the phalanxes (phalances?) of that army. > Semantically speaking, "legitimate" when used in politics means that > something has enough truth value to be taken as a serious topic of > conversation. I offer, then, as a substitute, "grounded in reality". > Not a great place to begin a conversation, I feel. What, in reality? Where better? Camelot? > > > > That's easy. Take that young black man, make him white, keep the hoodie > and > > all the other specifics (I'd imagine a certain manner of carrying > himself) > > and see if Typical White Person is less scared. > > Of course they'd be "less" scared, but they'd probably still be a bit > nervous. Since it's purely hypothetical, who's to say, but I disagree. It's dark and the hoodie's pulled up and the guy is loping along with a sort of gangly, gang-y teenage stride... I don't think you can even tell the guy's race. The fear comes from those media associations that you describe. There's a semiotics to crime that is definitely racially charged, but that > also reflects certain realities of time, place, poverty, and so on. > > The logical endpoint of discussions such as this would hopefully bring us > to > a discussion on the links between poverty and crime. Exactly, exactly. This isn't a race issue. Some of the iconography embodied by Threatening Hoodie Guy orginates in the black community, but it's more... erm, complex than that. > > > Yeah, I agree. All I have been doing is pointing out that your categorical > condemnations are pretty sweeping. I hope I clarified that. I'm really talking about a more specific kind of prejudice than you'd read (most likely my fault). > Well, it seems to have pleased a large majority of intellectuals, > political > thinkers, and cultural critics. I suppose we'll just have to count Rex > Broome among the unmoved and disaffected! I've said as much. > >-- and > > unfortunately at a time when I was highly open to embracing his > candidacy-- > > Really? "Highly open?" Really? You bet. The fallout from the negative turn of the Clinton campaign was off-putting, and I was ruminating over the fact that a voice in the back of my mind had always been suggesting Obama's campaign tactics had been above-board in a way that balanced out my minor preference for Clinton's policies. It was short-lived, but note that I haven't retrenched into Hillary's camp just because Obama let me down. > I was not referring to Obama supporters per se. But there's been a call, > for > a long time among thinkers within the Democratic party, for the > articulation > of a vision, rather than a reaction; for the construction of a narrative, > rather than laboring under the narrative developed by the Republicans. > Obama > is definitely an example of this; a case could also be made for Gore as > well. I did not mean to suggest that Obama *is* that call, or represents > its > only possible fulfillment. In this case I have misread you. I will say that I found the original stances of the Clinton campaign to be more substantial than simple anti-Republicanism; the similarities to Obama's positions bear that out (but are no excuse for any candidate's lousy behavior). I am unaware that I have ever described Hillary Clinton as a "fascist," a > "lunatic," or "like Hitler." I just don't understand why you can never > keep > an argument "clean," why you have to constantly distort the views of your > opponent in such needless ways. And I don't understand why you don't see that I was making a joke, and not ascribing any of those positions to you in any way that I expected to be read by anyone as anything other than satiricial. The roundabout reference to Godwin's Law was meant to be a clue that I was using language playfully at that point. "Fascist" was a not-unreasonable extention of your term "Orwellian" (assuming you didn't mean that HRC is a satirist in the mold of Orwell); "lunatic" is not too far from any of the other descriptions you've used with respect to her disconnection from reality as you see it. I hope I'm not obliged to quote you exactly, and the wording there was meant as humorous paraphrasing... not distortion. I did not put quotes around either term. find it curious that you would suddenly feel branded as a potential racist > by Obama's speech. It's a reaction I've only seen from pissed-off > old-school > white liberals, the very types who echo Ferraro and Clinton's sentiments, > the type that generally thinks themselves above racism. Curious why? You have me written off as a closet boomer anyway. > Granted, a lot of > these types prefer to discuss race from afar, rather than down in the > trenches, but I have no idea of your own history, so I can only assume you > are only echoing their sentiments; And there it is. I'm now supposed to respond to that with "some of my best friends are". Am I now guilty until proven innocent? That's the kind of poison I feared we'd see. And before you get pissed off, let me state for the record, I certainly have > racist thoughts, generally when confronted by a heavyset black woman who > stands between me and good service at the DMV. Oh, and I don't like Los > Angeles, I fucking hate cats, and I think Mexicans are much cooler than > white people. > > I haven't made my mind up about Koreans, yet. Their writing confuses me. Didn't you once slag me off for following up acrimony with lame-ass humor in an attempt to diffuse or disguise vitriol? > White racists, and in fact racists of any kind, are not my brothers and > > sisters. Non-racists of any ethnicity or persuasion are. > > Well, there it is then. I cannot say the same. In fact, I think that the > best way to have my racists brothers and sisters come to a more > progressive > understanding is not to disown them, but to lead by example. I never owned them to begin with, so I can't disown them. And I've talked about how I lead my life several times too many in this thread. > My association is > > in no way with whites, but with like-minded people-- I mean, yes, I > still > > love my racist grandma and identify myself as an Appalachian, because, > while > > accidents of birth, those things shaped me-- > > But that's exactly what Obama said! So, wait -- seriously -- is your > grandmother an asshole? Have you denounced and rejected her as a "sister?" Well, she's dead, of course. And I never heard her get publicly pissed off about affirmative action (etc.) so she doesn't fit my "asshole" qualifications. And Obama did say that vis a vis his grandmother, but it was another bothersome false analogy: you have not control over your grandmother, but you *choose* your religious leaders. Neither Obama nor I can do anything about Gramma Klanswoman, but he chose Rev. Wright, and I don't. Please note, that's a fallacy within his text-- I still say nobody should have gone after Obama over Wright to begin with-- but consistency would have helped his case. Oh, wait -- sorry. That's the comment I wrote to one of my Republican > friends, an avowed racist, who emailed me, "What pisses me off about > Obama's > speech is it made it seem that all white people are 'typically' racist. > That's supposed to be PROGRESS?" > Since you are a white California liberal, surely you mean it in a > different > way...? Of course, and you know that. I'd never say anything like that. I don't think Obama painted all whites as racists at all (and his "typical white person" comment post-speech was clearly not worth dwelling on). The difference between me and your Republican pal on this is that Republicans are grasping at straws, looking for confirmation that Obama must be anti-white. I'm not, nor do I think he is. Seriously, if there were any (erm) even semi-legitimate way of painting the "race speech" as anti-white, it would've gotten some traction in the whacked-out media by now. Why in the name of god do you hang out with an "avowed racist"? I have conservative friends, but... avowed? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:54:45 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: A sweet treat for Rex! On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:42 PM, The Great Quail wrote: > From one of my favorite conservatives! > > http://www.slate.com/id/2187277/pagenum/all/#page_start > Heh. I'd already seen this. Hitch has a much bigger problem with the Good Rev than I do, huh? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:54:45 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: A sweet treat for Rex! On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:42 PM, The Great Quail wrote: > From one of my favorite conservatives! > > http://www.slate.com/id/2187277/pagenum/all/#page_start > Heh. I'd already seen this. Hitch has a much bigger problem with the Good Rev than I do, huh? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:07:34 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Your racist grandma On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 1:18 PM, 2fs wrote: > Or keep the guy black and > > change all the other specifics to have him dressed and behaving just > like > > the TWP leaving the ATM. If the person is still more scared of the > black > > guy, they might have a problem. > > > > Yes...but the point is, what to do about that problem? My question exactly. > > > You're uncomfortable in your whiteness, because you're worried what others > might think of you because of it? Just how do you think non-whites have > always felt? I'm sure you're not saying that I (we) deserve to feel that way, any more than said non-whites ever have. It just rather blows that I feel more that way this week than last week. It's my own personal reaction, sure, but it blows. > > We're only going to have a Bill Clintonian disappointment if we're so > naive > as to believe that one man can turn everything around in four years - even > if he intends to do so. Exactly. A hell of a lot of people believe exactly that. In this sense I'm talking about an American disappointment, not a personal one. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:14:17 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster > (not you, lauren) don't be too sure about that ;) xo p.s. especially given that i missed an opportunity to quote fitzgerald in this thread (first paragraph of gatsby.) i'll be back when my teacher can't see me typing... - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:41:36 -0800 (PST) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, (0% rh) wrote: > > (not you, lauren) > > don't be too sure about that ;) > > xo > > p.s. especially given that i missed an opportunity to quote fitzgerald > in this thread (first paragraph of gatsby.) i'll be back when my > teacher can't see me typing... Aren't you supposed to be typing anyway? Hey, this isn't entirely related, but let's say Obama was forced to drop out for some reason. No, this Wright business won't cause it--but let's say he did. Would McCain vs. Clinton be unpalatable enough for someone like Bloomberg to actually jump in, or would it have had to be something more like Huckabee vs. Clinton or Huckabee vs. Kucinich? Is Kucinich going to lose his seat, by the way? What about Ron Paul? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:44:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: ain't it the truth Quail wrote: "Well, being a Robyn Hitchcock fan certainly brands you as white...!" Nothing is truer than this...and this really bothers me. It seems that most popular music that I'm passionate about includes exactly 0% black people. When I was a kid, I was a real Motown fan, especially the Four Tops and Smokey Robinson. And, of course, there was Richie Havens from my anti-war days (that war back then, not this war right now). And Hendrix. Then there were the two-tone bands from the 70s-80s and some reggae people that I liked a lot. But music is mostly so polarized now that it seems that everyone I like is very white. OK, two members of the Shins are Hispanic. It wouldn't bother me in and of itself if it didn't represent the current state of American life. It's sad to me that I had a bunch of black friends when I was a teenager, but that I have none now. Stewart, tell me about the British lightbulb. Don't you love the word shibboleth. I think it should be a circle dance. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:52:26 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > > > Hey, this isn't entirely related, but let's say Obama was forced to drop > out for some reason. No, this Wright business won't cause it--but let's > say he did. Would McCain vs. Clinton be unpalatable enough for someone > like Bloomberg to actually jump in, I don't think so-- Clinton isn't really that much less popular than Obama across the boards, or on the ground, or whatever the kids say these days. I was thinking last night about how pissed we all need to be at both Ralph Nader *and* Ross Perot for rendering the idea of a third party even more impossible than it used to be. It was within reach not too long ago, and now it's relegated to the status of one or the other flavor of nutjobbery. GDA! - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:00:49 -0700 From: "Jason Brown" Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > Hey, this isn't entirely related, but let's say Obama was forced to drop > out for some reason. No, this Wright business won't cause it--but let's > say he did. Would McCain vs. Clinton be unpalatable enough for someone > like Bloomberg to actually jump in, or would it have had to be something > more like Huckabee vs. Clinton or Huckabee vs. Kucinich? No, Bloomberg isn't jumping in. The possibility of Clinton v. McCain was figured in already. I think only would have won in a Clinton v. Guiliani election. > Is Kucinich going to lose his seat, by the way? What about Ron Paul? No, both Kucinich and Paul beat their primary challengers handily earlier this month. - -- "Never go with a hippie to a second location." - Jack Donaghy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:31:00 -0800 (PST) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Jason Brown wrote: > On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > > > Hey, this isn't entirely related, but let's say Obama was forced to drop > > out for some reason. No, this Wright business won't cause it--but let's > > say he did. Would McCain vs. Clinton be unpalatable enough for someone > > like Bloomberg to actually jump in, or would it have had to be something > > more like Huckabee vs. Clinton or Huckabee vs. Kucinich? > > No, Bloomberg isn't jumping in. The possibility of Clinton v. McCain > was figured in already. I think only would have won in a Clinton v. > Guiliani election. Oh well. One can dream. > > Is Kucinich going to lose his seat, by the way? What about Ron Paul? > > No, both Kucinich and Paul beat their primary challengers handily > earlier this month. Shows how much attention I've been paying! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:40:11 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster > I was thinking last night about how pissed we all need to be at both Ralph > Nader *and* Ross Perot for rendering the idea of a third party even more > impossible than it used to be. It was within reach not too long ago, and > now it's relegated to the status of one or the other flavor of nutjobbery. > GDA! > Maybe not so much. If the Democrats manage to blow this one, which is starting to look distinctly possible, their days could well be over and at that point I'd think all bets would be off. Maybe the Whigs could mount a comeback... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:58:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: "Extremely Successful" The Great Quail wrote: > >>> fuck obama. fuck hillary. fuck the democrats twenty-five ways > >>> from sunday. fuck them. fuck them. fuck them to hell. and > >>> then fuck them some more. the fucking shithole pieces of fuck. > > I'll fuck Hillary! Silda Spitzer might be looking for someone to help her get back at Elliot, though if what he said on Conan last week is true, you may have to get in line behind Snoop Dogg for the honors. > PS: But I am staying far away from McGreevey's chauffeur. "I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them." -- Tom Lehrer "The eyes are the groin of the head." -- Dwight Schrute . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:20:43 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On 3/25/08, kevin studyvin wrote: > > > I was thinking last night about how pissed we all need to be at both > Ralph > > Nader *and* Ross Perot for rendering the idea of a third party even more > > impossible than it used to be. It was within reach not too long ago, > and > > now it's relegated to the status of one or the other flavor of > nutjobbery. > > GDA! > > > > > Maybe not so much. If the Democrats manage to blow this one, which is > starting to look distinctly possible, their days could well be over and at > that point I'd think all bets would be off. Maybe the Whigs could mount a > comeback... The real problem is the inane belief that the way to *start* a third-party is to run for frakkin President. You build a third party from the ground ( i.e., local races) up - the Greens were starting to do that, until they fell in with Nader and disarrayed themselves. I think the reason third parties - or just partyless individuals - think they can run for President is part of the fallacious belief that the President can, all by him/herself, control or influence things far more than he actually can. It takes a party to run a government...if only because without a party, the *other* parties will make sure you gain no traction. But don't get me started on how deeply flawed and antidemocratic (small "d") our system is... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:05:15 -0700 From: "kevin studyvin" Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster > I think the reason third parties - or just partyless individuals - think > they can run for President is part of the fallacious belief that the > President can, all by him/herself, control or influence things far more than > he actually can. > Primate psychology is deeply heirarchical and hinges socially on the desire of all the other primates in a group to gain prestige by lining up behind the #1 primate. This hardwired mechanism is the result of thousands of generations of evolution and is the reason for your divine right of kings, your fascism, whatever you got, and will only go away if we manage to survive for enough further thousands of generations to evolve something like wisdom. > > But don't get me started on how deeply flawed and antidemocratic (small > "d") our system is... > Woudln't dream of it. I'd rather see a parliamentary system myself. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:33:00 -0700 From: Rex Subject: Re: Frank Rich on the forthcoming disaster On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, 2fs wrote: > > > The real problem is the inane belief that the way to *start* a third-party > is to run for frakkin President. You build a third party from the ground ( > i.e., local races) up - the Greens were starting to do that, until they > fell in with Nader and disarrayed themselves. > No kidding. I remember when Nader announced... I thought it was a match made in heaven, a grass-roots party with some infrastructure adopting household name as a candidate. Ha ha freakin' ha. Ah, youth. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:42:12 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: A sweet treat for Rex! On Mar 25, 2008, at 3:54 PM, Rex wrote: > Heh. I'd already seen this. Hitch has a much bigger problem with > the Good > Rev than I do, huh? Hitch probably has a much bigger problem with *any* Reverend than you do. - - Steve ______________________ Zermatism dictates that government can never be populated with anything other than filthy boil-stricken thieves, toothless whores bursting with gonorrhea, closet grave robbers, and drooling Satanists that laugh as they pull wings off flies. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:54:34 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Some tofu for Rex That's Not Wright You can always tell when a scandal story has peaked and is ebbing, almost down to the minute: when your political opponents start to raise it explicitly against you. That was the minute I knew Bill Clinton was going to weather the Monica story -- the moment when Republicans first started hitting him over it. It took a few days. And I remember rejoicing about it at the time. Same thing here with Wright. The Clinton camp can see that it's drifting. So they're deciding to stoke it. Also useful to get the Tuzla stuff off the front page. Here's one other point I want to raise about Wright. Having watched the full sermons that his sound bites were grabbed out of, it's pretty clear to me that the snippets running on Youtube were taken out of context and heavily distorted. (But that's life, to a degree - -- political hits don't usually come packaged with extenuating context) I'm also not going to get into the business of full-scale defenses of someone who has apparently suggested that the US government had some role in "inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." But in the debate about Wright, which Sen. Clinton has just reignited, it seems to be spoken of now as an unquestioned assumption that Wright traffics in racist rhetoric or hate speech. But is that really true? I've seen some stuff that strikes me as whacky. I've heard soundbites that critics would not have much trouble spinning as anti-American. But are there really quotes that justify the charge of racism? I'm not saying that purely as a rhetorical question. I have not made myself a full Wrightologist. But I do get the sense that a lot of people believe he's so radioactive that it makes no sense to point out when others are treating as granted claims that appear demonstrably false. - --Josh Marshall __________ I can't resist an anime that includes a small, cute, violence prone girl with a scythe. - John ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:16:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: A sweet treat for Rex! Steve Schiavo wrote: > On Mar 25, 2008, at 3:54 PM, Rex wrote: > > Heh. I'd already seen this. Hitch has a much bigger problem > > with the Good Rev than I do, huh? > > Hitch probably has a much bigger problem with *any* Reverend than > you do. Yeah. A minister could say he prefers wine to gin, and Hitchens would blame it on some religious delusion. Odd that such an alleged atheist would spend so much time worshipping Bush-Cheney.... "I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them." -- Tom Lehrer "The eyes are the groin of the head." -- Dwight Schrute . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:26:39 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Lou Reed: Metal Machine Maniac http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Article.aspx?id=6328 Lou Reed: Metal Machine Maniac March 26, 2008 by Braden Towne Typically the category of self-destruction most closely associated with rock bnb roll is the too-much-too-soon excess that inspires otherwise gifted individuals to take their new-found wealth and snort it, or inject it, or drive it into a swimming pool. Rarer is the sort of performer whose slow-burning career instills a sort of artistic self-destructiveness designed to help maintain a certain comfortable distance from glittery stardom. Some legendary artists have fallen into this latter categorybNeil Young, Paul Westerbergbbut the all-time champion of antagonistic crash-and-burn renegades has to be Lou Reed. Throughout his long and occasionally sordid career, Reed has commonly veered left of just about all expectations from fans, critics, producers, and bandmates. Beginning when he went AWOL on the Velvet Underground after completing their one and only bid at commercial success, Reed has consistently followed a creative triumph with at least one effort designed to drive us all insane. Surely there have been some pharmaceutical explanations for this behavior, but for the most part it would seem that Reed just loves to piss people off. In an uncharacteristic show of civility, Reed thoughtfully contemplates this facet of his persona in this 1982 interview. By all accounts clean and sober by this time, the songwriter acknowledges his destructive tendencies and stands by them, no matter who he managed to offend, even taking some jabs at the state of popular music and radio at that time that ring unsurprisingly true in our age of nostalgia for the not-so-distant past. With such a proliferation of contemporary bands drawing stylistic inspiration from the Velvet Underground, itbs disappointing to see no one in the current spate caring as little about what other people think as Lou Reed. Perhaps more than the actual music he created, his attitude will be his lasting contribution to the pantheon of rock, for at its core is one of the essential truths of life: All great art should make you think, even if that thought is, b What the fuck is this?b Lou Reed, 1982 **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #553 ********************************