Sting's Alive, Foxy Lady, Clinton, PSYCHO...., REM & Women Fans

[Marc/Carolyn Hurwitz <MHurwitz@compuserve.com>]

Howard:

>HP:Did I miss something?  Is Sting dead?  When???  How??  And how did I
miss it?<

No, as far as I know, he's fine.  What I meant was that the group the
Police had
a short life span...they were only making records from 1977 through 1983.

Alan:

Re "Foxy Lady" being sexist:

>Not unless you're going to claim that a woman couldn't write an equally
intense song about how sexually attractive she finds a particular man.
It's heterosexist, if you must engage in PC Newspeak, but IMO labelling an
ode to sexual attraction "sexist" is a misuse of the language.<

What bothers me isn't the desire expressed, it's the way he expresses
it.  "You're a cute little heartbreaker...you're a sweet little lovemaker".
I venture to suggest no woman ever called Jimi a cute little lovemaker;
his manhood would've been insulted if one had.  I always felt as if
he were addressing this song to a teen or even pre-teen, which just
gives me the creeps.  FTR, other songs of this type, such as "Wild Thing"
or any number of songs by John Lennon about Yoko, for example,
don't bother me.


>>That man got up
>there in front of the American people and said "I have never had sexual
>relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky", and that was just a flat-out
>fucking LIE!!

It was not.  "Sexual relations" is a synonym for "sexual intercourse",
which he did not AFAIK have with MLewinski.  Had he said "I have never had
a sexual relation...", THAT would have been a lie.  It's on just such
micro-parsing of the language (e.g., the famous "It depends on what the
meaning of 'is' is.") that Clinton is basing his case.  He's a lawyer, he
knows too much to make a simple factual lie under oath so he resorts to
factually true but misleading statements.<

Hair splitting like this is why LIAR, LIAR is my fave movie concerning
the legal profession.  (OK, yeah, Carrey has something to do with it,
too....)  He meant to deceive the American public, then, and he succeeded,
at least with me.  Creep.

Andrew, Cheryl & Mark:

Thanks for the info on PSYCHODERELICT (music only).  I do
have a copy, and I also prefer it to the "dialogue version".
It took me about five listens before I understood the story in
the original; those English accents were/are *thick*! <g>

Mark:

>Hear hear! If we're not careful, we're going to "PC" ourselves out
expressing of any intense feelings. Which is unhealthy.
People are just too damned easily offended these days, and take everything
too personally!<

Actually, that was Alan who said that. <g>  See my comments
above.  BTW, I notice in general that those folks who are most
agin "PC" tend to be Caucasian males...if you're African or
Asian-American, please forgive my assumption. ;-)

>Actually, he said "sexual relationship" so...even though I like the job
he's done and don't think he should be thrown out, I do believe he lied. I
just don't care, because it's what 99% of people would have done. It's what
Bob Dole would have done, and what Bob Barr (and at least 10 others we know
of) DID!<

So because everyone does it, it's OK?  Do you feel the same
way about theft or murder?

>Now if he'd lied about selling arms to the Contras (Reagan) or funding
cocaine smuggling into the US (Bush), that would be different.<

It's not different, because he was lying for his own personal gain.
Besides, I believe he was using his position to get Monica a job,
which is unethical IMHO even if it's not illegal.  As far as immorality...
well, hell, why should it be OK for the leader of our country to fuck
around with a White House intern?  What if he were the CEO of
some corporation?  I'll bet the Board of Directors would fire his ass
in a second.

>He was in a trap. Had he told the truth, both there and in the Paula Jones
testimony, he would have been taken down. At least he had a chance to get
through it this way. I am not happy that he chose this course...he should
have said it was no one's damned business, but even that would have been
bad.<

Worse than he's in now?  I would've had a lot more respect for him then,
and I think the public in general would've, too.  Of course, most of them
don't seem to care either way.

>The problem I have is that Goldberg and Tripp conspired to bring down
the President, which is treason, and Starr also collaborated with the Jones
attorneys (who had no other way of knowing about Monica) which is also a
crime, and that is how this all became what it is today. The President
showed bad judgement in regard to his sexual behavior, but he (nor any
person) should have been put in the position he was as a result. Starr
created the "crime," intentionally, having a 50/50 chance Clinton would
lie.
Again, legally this means nothing since it was ruled as irrelevent. The
entire impeachment process has no meaning, except to show how strong the
Christian Coalition has become.<

Even though I no longer support Clinton, I have to agree with every
word above...perhaps excepting the treason part.  I don't know if
that constitutes treason or not.  But yeah, the Republicans are just
as contemptible as anyone in all this.  I'd like to flush them all down
the toilet.  Anyway, enough of this subject, back to REM....

>>Yeah, they lost it there.  But they've gotten it all back with UP.
> Which, I guess, brings me back to "do"....

For me, they've ruined it for themselves. HI-FI sounded like a collection
of rejects from GREEN to MONSTER, and UP just hasn't done anything for me.
But I haven't listened to it a lot either.<

I like it a lot (UP), although it takes a couple of listens for it to start
sinking in.  HI-FI had some really great tracks and some filler, but
at least was better than its predecessor.  I don't think REM's dead
yet...hope not, anyway!

Keets:

>If "Foxy Lady" sexist, then a bunch of Pete's stuff is too.<

No, no, NO!  I beg to differ.  Townshend is mostly non-sexist,
which is probably one reason why I love the Who so much.
There are a few numbers such as "Pictures Of Lily", yeah,
but for the most part Pete treats women like women and not
little girls.  And good for him!

Interesting point, BTW (at least for me):  I don't think most
women my age (thirty-something) are fond of the Who--at
least, I've never known any to be except for my best friend--but
the younger women seem to be.  I suspect this has something
to do with the rise of women's rights.  Please correct me if
I'm wrong and there are a bunch of older female Who fans
out there somewhere...I'd love to chat with 'em!

--Carolyn
"Mr. Reede, I'm going to have to hold you in contempt."
"I HOLD MYSELF IN CONTEMPT!!"--dialogue from LIAR, LIAR