…but it looks like we could use an open thread.
I have a secret: John Denver is my guilty pleasure – for lots of reasons – probably because I was a very young Air Force brat, living in Colorado, when he came on the scene. An Air Force brat himself, who sang sweet songs at a time when I was moving every two years.
I follow this crazy page on FB and they are very British in their humor and I enjoy it
I’m watching the Netflix doc on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. What are you up to?
Open thread
Wag
Growing up in colorado in the 70’s, my mom loved John Denver. Whenever she went skiing, she said that his song Follow Me kept her turns well linked.
link
My 15 year old son and I have been watching The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It has been an interesting superhero meditation on race and the potential for fascism in America.
Steeplejack
Just watched a calming episode of Perry Mason on MeTV, now watching the animated series Batman Beyond on HBO Max. Middle of Season 2. And getting caught up on the Interwebs, of course.
Jerzy Russian
I also like to listen to John Denver’s songs. He did a duet with Placido Domingo that I like.
Jerzy Russian
@Steeplejack: Did the guilty party confess from the witness stand, or were they in the gallery when the guilty conscience was too much to bear, causing them to blurt out a confession?
sab
Wasn’t John Denver a serial wife abuser?
Chacal Charles Calthrop
Got the shot today & was able to show the Balloon juice “I got the shot” thread with all the “stickers” to the nice lady scheduling the second shot. She was amazed! and very carefully took down the name of the blog.
Steeplejack
@Jerzy Russian:
Ha-ha-ha-ha. Hi-lar-ious trope that happens less often than non-viewers think. This one was a grudging “Yeah, I did it” explainer after Perry nailed his ass.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
Tomorrow is 2 weeks since my second Pfizer shot. Can’t believe it’s done already.
I did discover that our property has termites and they have found some of my books that are in a wooden storage shed. I’ve already had to toss several boxes of books that had termite damage, so tomorrow I’ll be sorting through what remains and see what is salvagable.
mrmoshpotato
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Good to hear! Mark 28 days out on the calendar. And then 14 days from there.
mrmoshpotato
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini:
Damn. Hope most of it is salvageable.
Pete Downunder
I was a John Denver fan back in the day even when he got bound up with serial fraudster Warner Earhart in EST. He died tragically in an aircraft accident that should not have happened. A great loss to the folk genre of music
James E Powell
I just finished Season 2 of the Italian organized crime series Gomorrah.
I need to let it sit and watch something where there is no killing. The violence in the real world has really got me down.
sab
@sab: Yes he was. Jackals apparently do not care.
danielx
Spending hours to find out why an iPod classic won’t play in the first new vehicle I’ve bought in twenty years. Which dates me, but somehow I never got around to putting 8000 songs on an iPhone. Truly pisses me off to find out the trusty iPod (I replaced an original with a rebuilt a few years back) can’t coexist with all the fancy electronics on the new wheels.
badsanta
Yeah, fucking wholesome moral majority shit. Fuck that guy, his music sucked.
Steeplejack
@danielx:
There’s got to be a fix/answer somewhere on line.
Citizen Alan
@badsanta: Where the hell do you get “moral majority” from re John Denver?!? He was extremely liberal and worked extensively in environmental, sustainability, and anti-homelessness causes! He also campaigned for Carter and criticized Reagan when it was highly unpopular to do so.
NotMax
Trundling through the short-run British series Rose and Maloney on Prime, mostly as I can lie down, close the eyes and follow it perfectly well by only listening. Thin but harmless B-level dramatic fare. While plot holes and too convenient contrivances abound, they’re somewhat balanced from a mini-pretzel’s worth of twists.
hitchhiker
I watched the PBS Ken Burns shows about Hemingway yesterday and today. It’s funny, but somehow I’ve never read anything by him. My kids had to, in high school, and I’ve sort of absorbed the feel of him as a fucked up guy from the atmosphere, but aside from the famous titles, I don’t know his work.
Going into these shows with no experience of his prose (and as a writer myself) was really fantastic. He looms so fucking large for some of the commentators/friends, in terms of his writing & its influence on literature. And yes, he was definitely an asshole, and an alcoholic.
Here’s a quote (not exact) that I found while noodling around the internet looking for more context about him. When a writer knows things about his characters but doesn’t tell them, a story can be good. When a writer doesn’t know things about his characters, the story will always be bad.
It’s about having control of what you’re doing, I think, and feels true. Makes me want to read one of those books with the famous titles.
Ten Bears
He was extremely liberal and worked extensively in environmental, sustainability, and anti-homelessness causes! He also campaigned for Carter and criticized Reagan when it was highly unpopular to do so.
That explains the termites …
Poe Larity
I did a tour at Lowry as a brat in 71-72.
Amir Khalid
The critics said John Denver was uncool. What do they know? Grandma’s Feather Bed is the most fun country song ever. Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio is a wickedly funny classic. The Eagle and The Hawk is simply majestic.
Cckids
John Denver’s Christmas special with the Muppets remains one of the best in the genre. It’s a crime that you can’t watch it anywhere.
Zinsky
When I was a long-haired, pot-smoking hippie in the 1970s, I thought John Denver sucked! Too commercial and too much of a sellout. He had his own weekly TV variety show, for f*cks sake!
Now that I am a bald, teetotaler and retiree, I like John Denver a lot. He had a crystal clear voice and was a truly great songwriter. Many people don’t know that he wrote the classic song, “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane”. He did treat some women badly though, as I understand…
lowtechcyclist
@Zinsky:
According to my PP&M album with their recording of the song, some guy named “Deutschendorf” wrote it. ;^)
Wag
@Poe Larity: I lived right next to Lowry at that age (family was not AF), and went to Whiteman Elementary. Did you by chance go to Whiteman?
Lowry was decommissioned in the 90s and converted into a housing development. I now live in a house that is in the middle of a previous runway.
Betty
@lowtechcyclist: You do know that’s John Denver, right?
Johnny's mom
@Amir Khalid: Yes! The Eagle and the Hawk is probably one of my all-time favorites because it FEELS LIKE soaring. Not a musician, but 3/4 time – seems perfect. Stands out because of its fluidity. Not fluid seems like it would be a bad thing, you know, if you’re soaring. Oh, I LOVE that song!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty:
I think his emoticon at the end says yes.
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yeppers.
@sab:
It’s hard to care about something you never knew about, and this is the first I’d heard of it. But then, I rarely know much if anything about the personal lives of actors, recording artists, and the like.
And what am I supposed to do with this knowledge now? John Denver’s been dead for decades*: I cannot make his life the least bit better or worse by buying or not buying, listening to or not listening to his music.
ETA: *Wasn’t aware of that until this thread either.
LiminalOwl
John Denver… My favorite songs of his are “Calypso” and “Spirit.” But I like almost everything.
My tenth-grade best friend was a huge John Denver fan; alas, she followed him into est and we weren’t really friends any more after that. (Not just because of est; I contributed plenty of dysfunction to the relationship.)