Most of his songs are heavy on the saccharine, with flower child lyrics toddling along on wan melodies. Think of John's "Cry Baby Cry" as his blueprint. Even if the guy's 50 or whatever he is, he still has the vibe of being 15.
That high nasal voice has yet to break.
Having settled with The Dragon Lady, and perhaps getting some royalties off that first album that had everyone thinking, "Well, life goes on...here comes the son..." Julian doesn't seem to need money.
He has all the time to be a Farcebook Meme Pod.
That's someone who passes along slogans, memes and articles almost as if they're originals. It gets him a lot of NICE COMMENTS like "Oh, thanks!" and "You've opened my eyes!"
The usual alternative to being a Farcebook Meme Pod, if you're a celeb, is to just be a Narcissist Pod and run photos of yourself, or photos of your fucking lunch. Or some lovely sunset you're enjoying on your permanent vacation all over the world.
Sometimes the guy does run a meme you haven't seen before, or one that offers a nice little reminder about being nice to people (something usually ignored at this blog).
The other day he plucked the heart strings with a photo of Cynthia, timed for Mother's Day.
Julian misses his mum.
You want to leave a nice comment on that? I'm sure hundreds and hundreds did.
A recent link was to an article about how dumb Americans are.
This is nothing new. (Why he's re-printing a 2014 article, is only proof it's nothing new!)
A guy by the name of Steve Allen, who was more of a comedian, talk show host and jazz pianist than an intellectual wrote a book about this called "Dumbth."
It's also not very intellectual of Julian Lennon to just pass along a link without making any kind of statement on what he may or may not agree with in the piece. He's just using his celebrity to make his comment section a forum for discussion? A discussion is people communicating back and forth, and you don't exactly do that too well by leaving statements on Farcebook.
Maybe Julian's saying, "I'm not intellectual enough to be sure of how to react to this. Come on everybody, tell me your opinions. I have nothing better to do with my day."
The piece is from "Psychology Today," which is a pop culture parody of an intellectual magazine. The audience is the NPR crowd, really, the kind of people who think they're intelligent because they've heard Pachelbel's Canon on the radio. Or watch "Downton Abbey."
The article is just a Deja Vu of every other complaint about our downward cultural curve, aimed at people who will say they speak French because they know what "deja vu" means.
IF I'M BEING HONEST, we all know that despite computers, wonder drugs, and the trappings of technology, most of us are NOT more intellectual than our fathers or grandfathers. We didn't have to take Latin in school. We didn't have tough history or math classes. We didn't read Shakespeare and can't quote a line of Milton, Keats or Shelley.
We aren't encouraged to use our imagination. Steve Allen not only wrote an entire book about all this, he even revised and reprinted it. You might blame lazy racial groups (Blacks and Latinos come to mind) who use their "culture" as a shield against learning even the basics of proper English, or learning English at all. Nobody has yet to explain why poor Asian and Pakistani immigrants learn English and get employed while poor Blacks and Latinos living in the same neighborhood do not. People aren't prejudiced against little Gooks or big-nosed Pakis? Some white guy is anxious for his sister to marry one of those? Meanwhile there are rednecks in the South and white idiots in poor neighborhoods who are on drugs, acting just as stupid as any "person of color," and contributing to the dumbing down of the world by Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Just why this article singled out AMERICANS, I don't know. Maybe this was covered in the part of the article I was just too lazy to keep reading. Maybe it's because it's an American magazine and it's easier to say "we Americans" rather than to woefully say "the whole world."
To put it mildly, if you want DUMB, go to Africa. Go to South America. Go to Serbia and Croatia. Go to Poland. Go to The Middle East. Go to Grimsby.
Also, go fuck yourself, because being intellectual isn't the biggest problem in the world. It's being intelligent. It's being sensitive.
It's understanding birth control, gun control, self-control, global warming, the golden rule, and that Adele and Sam Smith stink.
Are stupid people anti-intellectual? Or are we talking a class problem, and that guttersnipes resent people who have any kind of culture?
Dull, mediocre people resent any bright or successful, not just intellectuals. Spike Milligan said, "Brush up mediocrity and you brush up venom." People are also jealous of beauty. They have venom for anyone famous or successful. The person who is anti-intellectual can also be anti-Taylor Swift, tofu and tea. Some people also think that intellectuals are phonies, and have enough confidence to say that there's nothing wrong with preferring The Beatles to Bach.
The infamous misogynist Mort Sahl once complained on a TV chat show that there were "no intellectual women, especially actresses and other female impersonators!" To which another guest on the show, critic John Simon, tartly responded, "actresses use their emotions, they don't need to be intellectual. There are probably as many intellectual actresses as there are intellectual ex-nightclub comedians."
During the commercial, the intellectual Mr. Sahl threatened to punch Mr. Simon in the nose. He warned Mr. Simon to "SHUT UP" and not respond to any of his witty insults and musings. Mr. Simon, of course, quoted him as soon as they were back on the air.
So what we have here, is basically an article in which people a lot more cowardly and fearful than Mr. Simon, complain about being told to "SHUT UP," and moan (using five-syllable jargon words) about how they aren't able to reason with the rabble.
"The world is ruled by violence," Bob Dylan once sang, "but that's better left unsaid." Except he said it, and nobody told him "SHUT UP," because he managed the neat trick of appealing to both the intellectuals and people of average intelligence and ordinary backgrounds.
Come to think of it, The Beatles were a fine example of common fellows whose work, abetted by an intellectual like George Martin, touched everyone high and low, smart and stupid.
Self-flagellating idiots complaining about Dumb America are the same ones preaching that the country should encourage more immigration, and embrace the stupidest peasants flooding in with nothing but backgrounds of greed and violence. Not too smart.
I wonder if Julian secretly would like to blame anti-intellectual Americans for preferring Kanye West and Taylor Swift albums to his. But then again, I don't know that he sells any better in England or Europe than he does in dumb America.
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