General Music Chat

I am much more impressed by a creator than I am by a mere performer.

We'll disagree on that one.

They are uniquely different skills. And very often it is a great performer, that brings life to something that otherwise may be just music notes on a page, or backing tracks, that only get HEARD but does not have the full experience of an EVENT.. a show that captures both the eyes and ears.

What he did was no less important than writing a memorable song that stands the test of time. He broke many barriers in his time. Popularized rock and roll, perhaps as no one else could have ever done, because he was an All American boy... willing to serve his country, worshipped his mother, believed in God and sung gospel from his soul. Though some did, it was hard to hate him. A charming smile, a humble demeanor in interviews, respectful of elders, parents, God and country, etc... He brought blues, traditionally the domain of black artists, into the mainstream... compare Elvis for example, to Pat Boone, who like all the other white rip-off artists, stole the melodies and words from black artists, and "whitened" them up, for what was pretty much, a stale peformance, without the soul and heart. Elvis grew up with black blues and gospel churches music, and he did NOT "whiten" up his style or make it stale.

Not to mention the dancing.

His moves were wantonly sexual, which shocked people at the time, as men DID NOT swing hips in public. It drove the women batty, all that sexual energy, unleashed in all-out everything or nothing, performances.

Elvis' effect on popular music, cannot be underestimated.

We owe a great deal of the "liberation" and "freedom" of artists, to this man.

The popularization of rock and roll.

Elvis raised the bar, like Michael Jackson after him, or like Tiger Woods in golf, and FORCED those who followed to give more, to be better, to measure up. That improves those fields for EVERYONE, and gives us more enticements for the senses.

In all honesty...

Elvis CHANGED what it meant to be... a man.

Men could now open up, be less reserved, express themselves sexually, not be boxed in to society's predetermined mold for what manhood is.

He is an historic icon. And rightly so.

He did things that NO ONE ever did before him, and no one will ever be able to do again, since he was really the FIRST to ever do them, to break those molds and barriers.

We are all, as performers and entertainers, and even as men, indebted to the path Elvis paved, and the legacy he left behind him.

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Gee, then to die fat, alone, drug addicted, and on the toilet.
And after accomplishing so much.
Seems that life style leads to a poor ending for far to many performers.
Not just beating a dead horse mind you, just a cometary on life in general.
Freedom is a double edged sword.
Freedom to express ourselves sexually, and add to the moral decay of a nation and a generation of "followers".
I have to wonder how many abortions are somehow resultant from this "hip swinging" revolution.



You know I have to play devils advocate.
If for no other reason than to stimulate some introspection.

Gee, then to die fat, alone, drug addicted, and on the toilet.
And after accomplishing so much.
Seems that life style leads to a poor ending for far to many performers.

People die fat, alone, drug addicted, and even on toilets, without ever having accomplished ANYTHING in life.

Freedom is a double edged sword.
Freedom to express ourselves sexually, and add to the moral decay of a nation and a generation of "followers".

LOL... Like the moral decay of ROCK MUSIC? The same beats and tempo as your own band plays? I know you are speaking of the sexual aspect, but still... Not long ago (and even now in many backwards congregations) rock music, in fact, ANY music with a "beat" was considered EVIL and SATAN WORSHIP.


But yes, freedom is a two-edged sword... just like the freedom God gave us through free will, in the first place.

I have to wonder how many abortions are somehow resultant from this "hip swinging" revolution.

As many as evolved from women getting the vote in the first place, or the women's lib movement, or more than any other single thing... Roe V Wade.

Elvis' hips, for all the lustful glory women saw in them, pale in comparison to a single law, my friend.

What's your point though?

Seriously. Is terminating a pregnancy the best litmus test there is of "evil" in the world or something?

Thank God, that God doesn't consider abortion to be murder (At least from my reading of the Bible) or women's bodies would be back to being enslaved by the will of men.

Luckily for women, God doesn't support forced pregnancies from rape, the way many religious zealots do.




I'm not saying you are one of those... I can't know.

But I would assume not, since most supporters of overturning Roe V Wade, do not also, support removing abortion in the cases of incest or life of the mother. Which of course, those two caveats, completely remove any rational claim for those same people, to call it murder.

If it's murder in one scenario, it's murder in ALL of them.

Boy, oh boy...

You know how to pick a topic.... and just when the religious threads have been dying... you run to abortion!!!

You dang trouble maker, you!



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As for me...

I support a woman's right to her own body, but I do believe in stricter limitations, such as no late term abortions. And it should be law to notify parents before ANY surgery, that is not life-saving, is performed on a child.

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Well, as far as I'm concerned, if Elvis changed what it means to be a man, he did a piss-poor job of the redefinition.

We've become so wimpy & "sensitive" it makes me wanna vomit.

Today's man thinks like yesterday's woman, imho.

Elvis stole his music from the blacks, & he stole his dancing from them, as well. He may as well have done it in blackface while crying "Mammy!" like his predecessors from vaudeville. He did not have his own style until much later in life, & by then he was hackneyed & laughable.

He was NOT original in any way, other than in the way he successfully copied the art form of others, while many more could not (like Pat Boone). His voice was okay, but he was overdramatic more often than not, & I didn't much care for his delivery in many of his songs.

He used the guitar as a prop. He produced nothing other than barely adequate entertainment. His movies sucked, cuz his acting sucked. He was everything the true musician is not. I saw some of his later performances, & he couldn't even sing in key cuz I guess he was too effed up.

I always thought of him as a poser, & I still do. I never understood the appeal, & I never will. Far as I'm concerned, he shoulda stuck to truck driving.

Me and Phil are in the same book on this one, perhaps not the same page but the same chapter at least. Men have forgotten what it means to be a MAN. It has nothing to do with reaching a certain age, or being born with testicles.
Elvis would probably not be such a hero to people if it was their 14 year old daughter he was banging.
The "sexual revolution" has just drug us farther down the crime poverty and disease filled sewer of immorality.
I know, I had to crawl out of that sewer myself.
I still have the smell of it about me.
As far as abortion goes IMO.
It is murder, period. I know this personal, in my heart as I have participated in this abomination to life for the sake of my own greed and convenience. God forgive me for the blood on my hands.
No Supreme Court Judge or popular sentiment can sway me from what I have learned first hand.
To shed all responsibility in life, is to loose all reason for life.
We can, as a race, stand up and be counted, and accountable.
Or live and die like cockroaches.
I ask myself every morning when I awake.

What do I stand for?

George,

Don't get me wrong, that I think promiscuity is a good thing, or something.

Not the case at all.

I've already said before, that in an ideal world, a COUPLE having their first sexual encounter together, and being faithfiul in marriage, is a better way to live, for sooooo many reasons.

But at the same time, it is IRRESPONSIBILITY that is the real problem, and not ocassional sex outside of marriage, at the end of a date or such.

One the biggest problems in our country is single motherhood.

Anne Coulter, who I despise most of the time, because she is deliberately offensive and vile, as a carnival sideshow to sell her books, but nevertheless, she is likely right on this one. In her most recent book, she details fact after fact, like how an enormous percentage of youth committing crimes, were raised in single mother households.


Some statistics:



Children from single-parent families account for:

63 percent of all youth suicides

70 percent of al teenage pregnancies

71 percent of adolescent chemical/substance abuse

80 percent of all prison inmates

90 percent of all homeless and runaway children

(Source: Index of Leading Cultural Indicators)




Children from fatherless homes are:


4.6 times more likely to commit suicide

6.6 times more likely to become teenage mothers

24.3 times more likely to run away

15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders

6.3 times more likely to be in state-operated institutions

10.8 times more likely to commit rape

6.6 times more likely to drop out of school

73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes



FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once said, “I never met a kid in jail who went fishing with his dad.”


The problem in this country is not the sexual revolution, it is not women in the workplace, or drugs, or anything else.

The biggest problem threatening the family in America is...

IRRESPONSIBLE AND NEGLECTFUL FATHERS!

PERIOD!


I'm masculine as hell, but I could care less whether a man is strongly masculine or acts more effeminate.

GIVE A F*CK ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN.

That's being a man.

Spend time with your sons and daughters.

Stop leaving your offspring all over creation, with 3 different mothers, and you leaving the raising of your offspring to single mothers, so you can run the streets, and only seeing your kids once every two weeks.

YOU and your wandering d*ck, are creating an epidemic of crime in your own country.

We don't need terrorists.

Irresponsible fathers are going to destroy us from within anyway.

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Good point.
Used to argue quite a bit with a dear friend about such issues usually over a case of Corona and a bag of limes.
His favorite point was:
You cannot legislate morality.
I would say then why is killing illegal.
Oh, that's different, there is a victim involved !!
We could never agree. My point was and is.
There is no such thing as a victimless crime. No matter if it is a violation of some arbitrary penal code or a violation of common decency in social behaviors..
As you said, irresponsibility is at issue.
On my second pass through college. I had a child half my age tell me he was a MAN, because he had offspring.
I told him even dogs procreate, if your not feeding them, putting a roof over their head, teaching them right from wrong, and giving them your love, your no MAN.
The young ladies in the class loudly voiced their agreement.

I totally agree with you brother George!

I had a similar conversation with someone, when he had introduced me to a friend of his, and I could tell this guy got sloppy ass drunk every day of his life, and his kids were just used to it, and kind of did whatever they wanted, with no one checking on them. And later, he came up, and I told my friend "Well, I'm sure he's fun to hang out with, but he's not being a very good father to his kids, raising them like that."

My friend said "Now, Craig you're judging him on one thing... he's a good dad, he works hard and provides for his family, keeps food in the house and clothes on their backs..."

I said "The government will do that for them... does that make the government a parent?"

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