Anticipated Beatles Bio Comes Out Tuesday

[randyz]

How does the saying go? A mind is a wonderful thing to waste? I don't know if I subscribe to your 'best minds' theory. I am glad that I grew up during the punk scene of 1977 rather than the flower power scene of 1967. Your 'best minds' opted out of the system. That seems like a poor strategy for changing the dreaded 'program'. I've never understood why people need to run away and create a special environments to 'find themselves' (whatever the hell that means). I stuck with the 'program', and I'm glad I did.

[jingle_jangle]

The best minds that I know from 1967--my second year in college--are all working at their careers and some are already retired.

The average folks from that time are just trying to keep above water. The money-grubbers are grubbing and stashing as never before.

We as Americans had a chance--with a huge budget surplus in '99--to begin to do good for ourselves to restore our health and educational infrastructures. Now my own grandchildren will be paying down a debt that should never have been incurred as our own "mighty" culture and weak economy (propped up by war instead of capital goods like steel and automobiles) is currently being financed by China (!).

On a personal level, I had a great 35-year career in design, and am now paying back my fun and successes by educating new students, who may never know it as good as I had it, but will at least find fulfillment as designers. My best friend from grade school through college is a world-renowned psychoanalyst in Chicago, my old girlfriend--a brilliant small-town lawyer--is still practicing law and is writing children's books explaining the American legal system. We are giving back in productive ways.

The so-called "best minds" (which term came from Alan Ginsberg's "Howl"--a cry of pain by a very troubled and dark mind) of my own generation were for the most part, self-serving narcissists who knew how to get attention for themselves. They were not great thinkers, merely uniters and troublemakers with personal agendas at odds with the good of the society which they were claiming to help. Should I name names? OK, for example: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden. You can read any of their books and find an occasional gem wrapped in doctrinaire nonsense that doesn't hold water in the light of history. Then you can read social commentators like Todd Gitlin, Newton Minow, and Daniel Boorstin and know that even back in the '60s, the REAL "best minds" were trumpeting the kind of terrible cultural changes that we've seen since then. Nobody was listening--the Beverly Hillbillies or I Dream of Jeannie were about to start, so it was time to sit down, grab a bowl of popcorn, and pay attention! while being blanketed in televised narcotics.

The educational system continues to decline. This is evident in our focus on nonsense like celebrity at the expense of tangible progress in self-realization and self-fulfillment in ways that help the community at large.

Media rules all. Talking heads who know less than they should are our so-called social consciences. And if the largely ignorant, overpaid and overfed American people want to continue this grand experiment in democracy, they need to wake up, but I don't hold much faith that they will without a tragedy of epic proportions befalling them.

So now, at this point, this thread will hopefully play out before we descend once again to political name-calling. Our politics have failed us since the 1940s, and it is my belief that our time of greatness is passing, and someone will take our place eventually.

[winston]

Nicely said Paul.

As a foreigner(non-American)and an interested onlooker, I am sympathetic to virtually every point made.

I also share some of your concerns from a global perspective.

[randyz]

Paul: I hope I didn't come off sounding angry or indignant in my posting, because that isn't what I intended. I felt a need to address the "best minds" portion of the previous post. Strangely enough, I didn't even connect it with "Howl". I'll happily let this thread die now. I strongly agree with your statement that politics have failed us. There should be no room for political bickering in a forum for guitar enthusiasts.

[ozover50]

My pet hate is "the inappropriate use of apostrophes" - drives me crazy!!

So often you see things like "CD's".... aaaarrrrggghhhh!! There was a series of signs along a major road here extolling the virtues of Pioneer bricks and tiles - the last one drove me to send a letter of complaint to the company. The sign read "Great idea's for your home". They changed it a couple of weeks later.

The use of the possessive in the plural is just another example of the slack attitude by many in our educational institutions!! They need a good caning (oops - can't do that these days!!)

[jingle_jangle]

You can in Singapore, where English signs tend to be Engrish.

Everywhere you see mailbox signs advertising "The Smith's" (or whatever surname you might think...).

I always think it refers to it being the Smith's mailbox.

Another fave was the hardware company that used to advertise the "Finest in Hardware for Professional and Hobbiest Alike".

Um, Hobby, Hobbier, Hobbiest, I guess.

I'm hobby. He's hobbier than me, but she's the hobbiest of all!!!

[ozover50]

So "hubba hubba!" is now "hubbiest hubbiest!"? Damned shame - doesn't sound anywhere near as good.........

[bigbajo60]

As a political hobbyist (heh), I tend to think that the Dumbing Down Of America is a process that was initiated in some smoke-filled, politician-packed back room sometime in the 1950's.

My imagination conjures a conversation going something like this: "Hey! Imagine how easy it'd be to get elected if the voters weren't so smart!"
"Yeah!" says another politico; "We wouldn't have to go around explaining ourselves all of the time! Let's start by dumbing down the way kids get taught at school and let it go from there!"

Of course, that's just my imagination running wild.

Right?

[jingle_jangle]

There's a germ of truth here, methinks.

Remember, ketchup is a vegetable, and we are what we eat.

[winston]

Aitch,

This site could be forwarded to anyone who annoys you in the described manner.

http://www.robdickson.co.uk/Moans/BadEnglish/UsingAnApostrophe.htm

[revolver323]

Ummm, I agree with you all! When's the last time THAT happened here?

[jingle_jangle]

Brian, that's especially irritating in this country, because if I sent that page (published in the UK) to a semi-lit here in the USA, the further confusion caused by the Britishisms and the UK spellings would probably cause the semi-lit to implode...

[ozover50]

Thanks for that, Brian. I'm pleased that my example is quoted:

"For example, the plural of CD is CDs, not CD's."

Now, you'se bloke's, lets get back to the busines's at hand, eh?

[revolver323]

OK ... back to the Beatle's ...

[winston]

Paul,

of course you are correct. But down under they generally use "Britishisms and the UK spellings" of course with a bit of a strange accent but.......... what was I thinking Hmmmmmmm.

Oh yes Beatles. Yes Beatles it is. Might be worth buying that book all 800 pages of it eh what?