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Re: Death



At 17:53 -0800 2/26/2001, The Who Mailing List Digest wrote:
>Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 09:47:20 -0500
>From: "Mark R. Leaman" <mleaman@sccoast.net>
>
>No one bashed Earnhart,

You sure?  See below.

>its meaning. It's a much bigger event than Moon's death, undeservedly so
>because he was just a driver, not someone whose music had moved people. Not
>someone who created a form of performance no one had ever done before.

As I understand it, that's exactly what he did.

>Sports just are not on the same level as music.

Warning...snob alert.  There are plenty of people who see just as much
poetry in a beautifully-driven race (I'm not among them) as in a Who show.
Why deny the validity of their feelings?  I could just as easily argue
their artistic sensibility is higher than mine since The Who's music is
overtly art but these fans (some of them) can be moved to ecstasy by the
merely physical mechanics, skill, and intelligence of a well-driven race. I
take it you've never read Hunter S Thompson's description of the beauty of
a Hell's Angel, illiterate and unwashed though he might be, becoming one
with his hog.  "There's a million ways to laugh, and every one's a path."

>As I said the man was driving at 200 MPH in a pack of cars...that's asking
>for it! Moon certainly asked for it many times, but not the actual time he
>died (making his death as ironic as Stevie Ray Vaughan's, who had come clean
>only to die in a plane crash). Earnhart just died as many have died doing
>the same thing...it's hard for me to muster any sympathy.

No one's asked you to, but why bag on the people who DO feel sympathy and
are grieving?  Is it because they say "furst" rather than "first"?  If you
don't think there are people out there who will feel that we are a load of
dolts for giving two shits when Pete dies, you're wrong.

>If Moon fans made this big a deal about his death, I'd feel the same way.
>And let's not forget, when John Lennon died they didn't make this big a deal
>out of it.  The only times I can remember that come close are Kennedy and
>Martin Luther King's death. And there's something inherently wrong with a
>car driver being treated on that level. At least to my mind.

To your mind...but not objectively. The whole point of racing is to push
"driving" to the limits of skill and, yes, luck.  Saying "it's only
driving" is like saying The Who "are only creating sound...any 2-year-old
can do that."

>So you shouldn't feel personally insulted, if you're not one of those guys
>who think this death meant anything more than you'll get no more races out
>of the man...he changed nothing in society,

And did The Who?  Or rock music in its entirety?  Pete doesn't seem to
think so.

he contributed nothing but
>entertainment, the world is the same without him. That's the bottom line.
>Moon's death deprived the world of great and moving Art.

The Who are (were) just as much about entertainment as is NASCAR, and
NASCAR's top drivers (cf. Earnhardt) exhibit just as much artistic
worldview as does The Who in their performances.  As a dedicated Who fan
you ought to know about being looked on as a weirdo by those who don't get
it.  I'm surprised this hasn't done more for your sense of empathy.

RIP Dale.

Cheers,

Alan

"Never never hesitate, communicate, communicate..." --Pete Townshend