rock lyrics of the early seventies

michael jackson
i have heard it said that the personal problems obscure the greatness of the work. really, there are a few good pop songs crafted by producers, without a single interesting lyric etc. i'm not saying the man couldn't sing and dance, whatever. but the outfits were ridiculous, the personae bizarre, the ego out of control. and the music, for the most part, is just dull, conventional pop. so fucking what?

ludwig wittgenstein
what is expressed in wittgenstein's philosophy is an overwhelming ambition to be taken to be profound. this perhaps accounts for the quality of his stuff as a kind of fog machine, swathing the intellectual landscape in purplish mist. just as irritating as this approach is the the fact that it worked: and now there's a kind of priesthood, robed acolytes who purport to be able to guide you through the smoke.

david bowie: "ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars"
it would be cruel not assume that this song is comic, because then you'd have to believe that people like the melody or receive some sort of message from the lyric. however, it is not funny. i am able to tolerate a few of bowie's songs, though i find the personae intensely irritating or perhaps just pointedly empty.

peter-paul rubens
The failure of taste is so signal and so global that one hardly knows where to begin. Do I like the chubby nymphs? No, I do not. Do I like the canvases so crowded with incident that they may take years to decode? No, I do not. Do I like garish colors covering gigantic canvases? Um, no. Sometimes the baroque was just too rococo. Stick to Van Dyck. Bernini. Veronese. Obviously, Caravaggio. But let the monsterchump of the Flemings burn in hell.

pbs
true, the news hour is the best news operation on television. but otherwise, the american government's broadcasting arm is very sad. it has a liberal slant, and is obsessed by political correctness. every single show is a circus of tokenism. but it also lives in fear of losing its funding and so is profoundly unadventurous. kids' shows such as barney and mister rogers are as weird and insipid as anything that has ever been produced in any medium. the fact that there is really only one maker of documentaries - ken burns - has put a serious crimp in the whole form: there is now only a single acceptable style. meanwhile, they go for ratings with deeply puerile business success and personal growth shows that are among the most embarassing things on television. i remember when i was living in england and thewre were only stations run by the gov. not only didn't i necessarily believe the news, but i could not stand the unbelievable blandness of it all. there is no reason that the u.s. gov should be in the broadcasting biz, and if they are, they've got to do a better job than this.

kevin spacey
the man is aptly named. if looking about vaguely were genius, ks would be einstein. ks is unable to focus, and i frankly am unable to focus on him. his performances are understated, yet meaningless.

lyrics of "all along the watchtower,"by bob dylan
typical of the gaseous claptrap that impressed so many in the sixties with its profundity

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

J.D. Salinger
It's bad enough when confused adolescents raise a mediocrity to the level of a god. But what's really insufferable is when said mediocrity starts acting like a god, hidden behind the flimsy facade of his creation. The mystery cult of Salinger is inexplicable. Salinger's participation in it is pathetic and ridiculous. That dude who shot John Lennon (who is also famous stuff that sucks) was clutching a copy of Catcher in the Rye. Whatever.

Woody Allen
Alright. The little neurotic dude was irritating and unfunny. The auteur is simply sad.

Sesame Street
Insipid, painful in its political correctness, boring beyond the speaking of it. They've spent thirty years repeating the alphabet and the numbers 1 through 10. Want to explain to me what's good about this thing?