Wednesday, June 17, 2020

JESUS, JIMI - he was MORE than a GUITAR HERO, he was a philosopher/intellectual genius. RIGHT??

In the world of idiot memes, you'll likely come across THIS eventually -- a gruesome photo of the phony Jimi (real name was JAMES) Hendrix, with a quote that...oh, that sounds JUST like him, doesn't it?

I mean, the guy who dressed like a pimp and managed to half-sing "FOXY...LAYYY DEEEE" in a purple haze of drugs, could certainly come up with THIS sober thought:

The "LEGEND" of the guitar hero who choked on his own vomit, continues.

Why people are so excited about GUITAR HEROES is beyond me. It's some jerk on stage, making a stupid jerking-off face, and usually belaboring ONE string of the guitar.

Unless the melody is actually good ("Layla" for example), all you've got is an idiot savant who happens to be playing fast, or stretching a note so oddly and expertly you forget that you're going deaf.

There was that "terrible, terrible, terrible" year when JAMES, JIMI and JANIS died. Between them, they came up with, what, a half-dozen performances that actually survive the test of time and might be art?

Morrison gets credit for "Light My Fire," but he was hardly the world's greatest poet. In other words, he need not have drunk himself to death. Give him a point for the pout, and for acting like a dangerous rock star post-Elvis, but most critics, when he was alive, said he wasn't that good of a songwriter and his singing was mediocre.

Janis Joplin? She gets credit for turning a lame country ballad about some dopey chick, written by Kris Kristofferson, into a drunken rave. Yes, "Me and Bobby McGee." Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah yeah yeah yeah BOBBY MCGEEEE!

If you saw some ugly woman raving about some guy the Janis did, you send for the men in the white jackets. You'd be doing her a favor.

Still, it's not everyone who can be convincing in singing a thoroughly mediocre lyric about some jerk she's missing due to delerium tremens. Joplin gets credit, from some, for rippin' off da blacks. It won't be long, in today's climate, when people start banning her from the airwaves, toppling her tombstone, destroying any statue there might be of her, and declaring her to be a racist, y'all. Nice of her to put up a tombstone for Bessie Smith, but, y'all, she ripped off Bessie, y'all, copped a black singing style, y'all, sang BLACK, y'all, and that's not GOOD, y'all. Y'all get that? GOOOOOD.

Oh. All right. If you want to be nice (and I always do), give Janis a point for her really good version of "Piece of My Heart," where her high-pitched screaming (and people complain about Yoko?) actually is moving. She didn't exactly have the full-bodied wailing voice of better white singers such as Judy Henske and Genya Ravan, but she was appealing to people who actually LIKED drinking Southern Comfort.

Now, back to Hendrix. Give HIM a point for that stupid "Foxy Lady" song. Give him ANOTHER point for being a wise-ass with the National Anthem (maybe a version Colin Winkydink wouldn't take a knee over). AND, give him YET ANOTHER point, for his cover version of "All Along the Watchtower," where his pimped out singing and druggy musicianship made people forget about the pretentious lyrics.

Now, where DID that faux-Hendrix quote REALLY come from?

“We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace,” William Gladstone.

Poor Willi Glad. Anybody know who the hell he is? Go to Wikipedia, stooge! He was...

"Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times." Or as the obscure (at this point) British Music Hall comedian Billy Bennett once said, "What did Gladstone say after '99? Why, a hundred, and he was right!" Gladstone was wrong quite a bit (part of his rivalry with Disraeli was probably basted in anti-Semitism) but get the quote right. It wasn't Jimi. It was Willi.

Now, just WHERE and WHEN Willi wrote or said this pithy line about the Power of Love (a phrase that does seem awfully Gibran, if not Rumi), nobody seems to know. They also don't seem to know WHERE or WHEN he wrote or said some other great quotes attributed to him, like:

“Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. ”

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”

“Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to haunt for happiness”

“Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong.”

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

It's possible none of the above are actually from Willi B., but one thing is certain...do NOT trust anyone who claims the author to be JIMI HENDRIX.

Just because it's quoted on some jerky-ass bot-created click-bait website...NO.

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