biscuitdough wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:51 pm I have yet to hear a George Carlin bit that I found to be actually funny. He seems like my kind of people, I just never found him funny or even witty.

I love Carlin, but I get this, because I feel the same way about Lenny Bruce.

Maybe Bruce was funnier than Bob Newhart in 1960, but Newhart’s bits have aged beautifully.

biscuitdough wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 12:51 pm I have yet to hear a George Carlin bit that I found to be actually funny. He seems like my kind of people, I just never found him funny or even witty.

There's several distinct Carlin periods. There's the 1960s showbizzy slightly left of center goofball. There's the popular 1970s gentle stoned foul mouthed hippie taboo breaker. After a transitional 1980s period, there emerged the cranky old pissed-off Carlin. Gone were the silly "Ever really look at your SHOES, man?" bits. George sharpened his tongue and wit and vocabulary, turned up the anger, and tackled subjects worthy of deflating: government, the church, Wall Street, stupid Americans (stupid people, really), the rich, education, right-to-lifers, racism, sexism, foreign policy, businessmen, politicians, and as always, the use and misuse of the English Language.

I love this Carlin. This was serious shit for a comedian. He really tried to open peoples' eyes to what was going on around them, and he did it with humor and love. He kept it up until he died, too. This is a nice encapsulation of his late period:



Rest in peace, George.

JG shitting Ballard.

OK he wrote The Index, which is one of the great pieces of short fiction, but everything else? Behave. Nothing like as interesting as it's made out to be.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:27 am JG shitting Ballard.

OK he wrote The Index, which is one of the great pieces of short fiction, but everything else? Behave. Nothing like as interesting as it's made out to be.

I appreciate him because he can do postmodern without metafiction. I really can't take Paul Auster,
for example, because it's all too meta.

Bernardo wrote: Sat Jun 26, 2021 8:48 pm + 1 on the Dead. I don't get it, any of it, not a speck.

+1 from here, as well. They seem to evoke either "love them", or "hate them", with nothing in the middle.

biscuitdough wrote: Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:28 am I haven't driven these modern cars with the allegedly tiny shifter, but maybe you just need different seat and steering wheel positions. Can you even get a real manual with a clutch any more? I thought it was all semi-automatic now, so to speak.

Are you guys all talking about the "flappy paddle shifters" that were complained about in early Top Gear seasons? Or the gear shifters in between the front seats, that's about 5" long?

(off topic: I'm itching for a semi-automatic trans. I had a used 1969(?) VW Beetle that had an "automatic clutch", and that was a dreamy little box on wheels. You got the pleasure of shifting, without the annoying clutching, that in current day Chicago driving conditions would absolutely awful.)

Billie Eilish. Don't care if she's considered some kind of musical prodigy. She does "breathe-talk-singing" that grates on my nerves. Either sing, talk, scream, or rap, but this whispery shit with vocal fry all over it makes my skin crawl.

catwoman wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:28 pm Billie Eilish. Don't care if she's considered some kind of musical prodigy. She does "breathe-talk-singing" that grates on my nerves. Either sing, talk, scream, or rap, but this whispery shit with vocal fry all over it makes my skin crawl.

I like 'Bad Guy', but I can't take a whole album of that AMSR-type of pop.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:27 amJG shitting Ballard.

Haven't read any Ballard for over a decade, but when I devoured most of it I did tend to find the classics (Crash, High Rise, esp Atrocity Exhibition) had aged poorly while the last few he wrote (esp Cocaine Nights and Super Cannes) were pretty solid. Worth a punt, maybe?

Back on topic: Laibach. Have tried it so many times but can not get past the feeling that it's all total schtick - none of music does anything for me. Hate their covers, too.

catwoman wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:21 pm

biscuitdough wrote: Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:28 am I haven't driven these modern cars with the allegedly tiny shifter, but maybe you just need different seat and steering wheel positions. Can you even get a real manual with a clutch any more? I thought it was all semi-automatic now, so to speak.

Are you guys all talking about the "flappy paddle shifters" that were complained about in early Top Gear seasons? Or the gear shifters in between the front seats, that's about 5" long?

(off topic: I'm itching for a semi-automatic trans. I had a used 1969(?) VW Beetle that had an "automatic clutch", and that was a dreamy little box on wheels. You got the pleasure of shifting, without the annoying clutching, that in current day Chicago driving conditions would absolutely awful.)

Well, it turns out I was wrong, anyway. You can still get a clutch, but they're uncommon enough that you probably will pay extra.