Did King Charles put Trump in his place? Maybe it's like that "bike rage" incident with Benedict Cumberbatch we were talking about yesterday. Two entirely nonviolent men stopped to exchange a few sharp words.
The commenters over there at the London Times are going after Rod. Top-rated comment: "Rod Stewart put the King and Queen in a very embarrassing position by making political comments in a receiving line. It just shows he has no class whatsoever and doesn’t have the brains he was born with."
And: "Ah, Rod Stewart who made millions for being a hedonistic rockstar boasted about numerous, groupies, and rampant infidelity calling somebody else a 'ratbag' while shaking hand with the highest example of infidelity. Must have his picture in the dictionary next to hypocrite!"
Is this the first appearance of the word "ratbag" on this blog? No, it came up here, where I quoted the NYT obituary for Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna"). The NYT has printed "ratbag" a few times. In a 1984 piece about travel guidebooks, it has: "[I]n a section on 'picturesque patterns of speech'... the 'Maverick Guide to Australia' tells us that a bicyclist there is called a bikey, that to grizzle means to complain and that a ratbag is an eccentric character."
Well, Trump surely is an eccentric character. He should own it. Kind of cool too — isn't it? — in the American way of thinking — to have Rod Stewart calling you a "ratbag."
ADDED: Let's also consider the notion of putting someone "in their place." It reflects a background belief that people have a social rank or a station in life. For Rod Stewart — who, I hear, started from gasoline alley — to praise the King — a person of the highest rank — for putting someone "in their place" is pretty funny. And, we're told, the King just laughed. And didn't that put Rod in his place?
Take me back, carry me back down the gasoline alley where I started from....
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79 comments:
Rod Stewart calling Trump "eccentric" is a little weird. Almost everyone who becomes a star in show business is eccentric. It's nearly damning him with faint praise. The impression we got was that Charles and Trump got along great.
And not even his own countrymen are on Rod's side. Interesting.
I won’t repeat the rumor I heard about Rod Stewart when a was a boy in the 70s. Life was great when urban legends were taken as gospel.
Infidelity is one of those sins that is good when practiced by the left, and bad when practiced by the right. Polyamory, feminist bed notching, bisexuality, etc. are good because they sock it to The Man. Good motives. Infidelity on the right is, from the lefty point of view, proof of hypocrisy and predatory intent. Bad motives.
Recording artists tend to be dumb…
Trump sure does rub the Brits the wrong way. Travel overseas anywhere the wankers go and you will get an earful like he’s entirely your fault. To me it’s the sound of petulant children suddenly obligated to start taking care of themselves a bit rather than slipstreaming the biggest capitalist engine ever created..
He's not kid rock, eh annie?
Bawlwiddaballabangadangdickiedickiedickietotheboogiesaidupjumptheboogie...
Kid and pete win that latest war yet, cheerleader grrrl? Lol
…funny thing is once Trump is gone the next one will be hated with equal or greater fire. It isn’t Trump they hate it’s the success. Envy, contempt and the anger begat from cognitive dissonance is a powerful brew…
All Rod Stewart records before 1976 were great. All Rod Stewart records after 1976 are terrible.
Trump, most people would turn you away (turn you away)
I don't listen to a word they say (a word they say)
They don't see you as I do
I wish they would try to
I'm sure they'd think again
If they had a friend like Trump
An old man talking in his sleep while his house burns down.
Given the urban legend, Stewart is well schooled in avoiding the unpleasant imagery of calling anyone else a scumbag, hence “ratbag.”
https://youtu.be/i7TTSzfs2kw
Trump has been called worse things by better people.
Meade is calling our president a rat...
Get him, boys.
I used to manage a little restaurant to pay for the classes to finish my degree. An NFL Team used that campus for free training camp, and one day a certain player, who was well known to have kicked an opponent in the groin on Monday Night Football, and who had a reputation as a dirty player, took me aside and told me that one of my employees had a bad attitude. I knew that this employee was a huge fan of this player, and might have overstepped feeling that there was a bond. Anyway, when I talked to the employee, we both just laughed about it, and I am sure he took it as a badge of honor.
Can someone please link to the SNL clip of Belushi doing Rod Stewart ? Or maybe it was Joe Cocker. So easy to get those english rockers mixed up.
Brits cannot get out of the class mindset. But their not alone. The overcredentialed elite Uniparty in DC see themselves as a class above mere citizens. Trump broke an iron rule by busting into their domain when he won in 2016, even overcoming the attempts by Black Jesus and Hillary! to commit treason and effect a coup. They will never forgive him for not staying in his place, writing them checks and entertaining the masses.
So easy to get those english rockers mixed up.
No it's not. Your thinking of Manfred Mann.
Charlie said...
All Rod Stewart records before 1976 were great. All Rod Stewart records after 1976 are terrible.
That's pretty much the exact breakpoint.
More support for my long held theory that all Trump hate is rooted in snobbery.
It's just amazing to me how many people are obsessed with Donald Trump. Even people who don't live here!
another pop star I can place in the basket of deplorables.
I am proud to say I've never purchased any of his music.
"All Rod Stewart records before 1976 were great. All Rod Stewart records after 1976 are terrible."
"Gasoline Alley" and "Every Picture Tells a Story" — that's all you need and that is so perfect that it is more than enough.
I literally start to cry just *thinking* about "Reason to Believe."
Belushi did an impression of Joe Cocker, not Rod Stewart.
Better was his impression of Beethoven playing Ray Charles music.
I loved Every Picture Tells a Story as a single. Great 4 minutes of music.
Do you think im dhimmi
Rod Stewart speaking to the King as one entertainer to another.
There was a time when the King of England would have had anyone so impertinent beheaded, but the King is just an entertainer now.
There is no comparison between the job of President of the the United States and the role of King of England...unless you're talking about Joe Biden.
GABTAR
Wait. It's not Sir Rod?
Ann Althouse said...
"All Rod Stewart records before 1976 were great. All Rod Stewart records after 1976 are terrible."
"Gasoline Alley" and "Every Picture Tells a Story" — that's all you need and that is so perfect that it is more than enough.
I literally start to cry just *thinking* about "Reason to Believe."
5/12/26, 7:58 AM
—————————————
“Never a Dull Moment” includes my favorite Stewart Song: “You Wear It Well”.
“Stay With Me”, recorded with Faces, is one of the greatest Rock and Roll songs of all time.
He recorded a cover version of the Faces “Oh La La” in the late nineties with the help of The Corrs which is quite good. The back story on this is that he refused to sing it when Ronnie Lane presented it to Faces because he hated it. He recorded solo in order to generate funds for the late Lane’s family.
I couldn’t stand his late 70’s output, which bordered on parody, but he always seemed like a decent chap.
The commenters over there at the London Times are going after Rod. Top-rated comment: "Rod Stewart put the King and Queen in a very embarrassing position by making political comments in a receiving line. It just shows he has no class whatsoever and doesn’t have the brains he was born with."
Is it too much to hope that the recent trouncing of Labour and Starmer, and the electoral success of Reform, have given the common-sense Brits who have been cowed into silence the courage to assert themselves?
Or (perhaps more likely) will that "top-rated commenter" and those who upvoted be tracked down and sanctioned for making classist statements.
I'll add this to Joe's heritage...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcvoSoUT7EE&list=RDAcvoSoUT7EE&start_radio=1
Tedeschi Trucks Band.
Stewart’s politics are right of center. He was a big Thatcher supporter, currently supports Reform, and his anti-immigration.
I would imagine that his issues with Trump are not based on politics, but on Trump’s personality and his comments about the UK.
"Do You Think I'm Sexy" was pretty much the proclamation of the end of Stewart's great music phase.
Although he did an album of covers of crooning standards which is pretty good, as I recall.
'...Wake up 'Baggie, I think I got somethin' to say to yoooo...'
I never understood that big hit. What is a story Donut? Is it cream filled? Does it have a big hole in the middle?
If anything, Charles put himself in Trump's place.
Shorter Althouse: He can't do that to our ratbag. Only we can do that to our ratbag.
Maybe Sir Rod was putting Charles in his place, eh?
Bob Boyd at 7:53
Yes.
Most of the ardent Democrats I know are snobs when it comes to politics. It is as if they have some sort of intellectual and moral superiority.
"all Trump hate is rooted in snobbery"
Mine is.
* sent from my T1 Trump phone
No matter what King Charles thinks of Trump on a personal level, his job isn't to "Put Trump in his place". And its rather hilarious that some uneducated Rock and Roll singer, of slightly above-average intelligence, thinks he can look down on Trump.
Its amazing how leftists always think they're superior just because they follow the party line.
Jeff Beck thought Rod was a bit of a c*nt, so there’s that.
Gemini says Rod is likely normal to high average intelligence:
Given these factors, it is reasonable to assume he has a normal to high-average IQ (likely in the 100–115 range), with his achievements driven by creativity, emotional intelligence, and grit rather than raw, analytical intelligence.
A blog like Althouse makes it hard to live without.
Rod Stewart is overrated.
Although waking up to my clock radio alarm’s “Every Picture Tells a Story” and a framed photo falling off the dresser at the exact moment the Sylmar earthquake of ‘71 hit is a memory that stays with me.
When the sylmar earthquake hit the morning after my father's 40th birthday, I had a dream that these Giants were walking through our neighborhood and crushing homes and then I woke up and saw the open beam ceiling being racked two and four and I looked out my bedroom window and it appeared like a giant wave from the pool was about to crash through. I'm guessing that the primary compression waves caused my dream and then I woke up to witness the effects of the secondary shear waves.
I like Rod Stewart's "Downtown Town"
'Wake up daddy I think I got something to say to you'
What's most telling about this exchange is not that Rod Stewart called Donald Trump a "rat bag" but that King Charles was delighted by that description.
Rod Stewart may be a Tory. But the Tories are way to the Left of USA Republicans. And there are plenty of Establishment Republicans who despise Trump.
Like Waits version better but Rod's is good. Everything but a girl, has an excellent off-beat version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAuuw-uTnqw&list=RDzAuuw-uTnqw&start_radio=1
If we had adopted British titles and knighthoods:
Sir Michael Jackson
Sir Elvis Presley
Lord Duluth (Bob Dylan)
Dame Madonna.
Brits cannot get out of the class mindset. But their not alone. The overcredentialed elite Uniparty in DC see themselves as a class above mere citizens.
My husband and I spent a good hour on the road yesterday arguing over the term "American exceptionalism." I think I won, more or less, with my points about socioeconomic mobility and the fact that, whereas European systems appear to be based on envy and daisy-clipping such that it's easy to be poor or to be a colorless drone in European society (when I say "colorless," I'm not speaking of the celebrities - rather, the normies) but there's essentially no place for the innovator or entrepreneur, in the US you can be any of the above, as you choose. And furthermore, whereas the European innovator or entrepreneur can leave daisy-clipping Europe and come to the US to maximize her potential, there's nowhere but the US for such people with such desires. It's quite literally exceptional.
What's most telling about this exchange is not that Rod Stewart called Donald Trump a "rat bag" but that King Charles was delighted by that description.
What's "telling" about it? That Rod Stewart, famously trafficking on "sexiness" to young girls(? No, never mind, I won't give oxygen to the urban legend), calls Trump, notorious adulterer, a ratbag, and King Charles, even more notorious adulterer with a particularly gross manner of expressing his desires about and to his paramour, is "delighted" that he escapes the insult for once? Are you saying that Charles's opinion is somehow worth anything at all? Why?
rrsafety said...
"I won’t repeat the rumor I heard about Rod Stewart when a was a boy in the 70s. Life was great when urban legends were taken as gospel."
What was amazing about that, and the other urban legend about Richard Gere and the gerbil, was that those stories spread so far, so fast. You could literally go to any corner of the country, and everyone knew. There was no social media or cable news to spread it.
Fortunately he has no tour coming to America in the near future........oh wait, he's in Vegas for a bunch of dates this very month and has more dates throughout the summer. Smooth move, Rod. And it's not like he can address this from the stage - saying anything remotely positive about Trump onstage might cause a riot.
@RCOCEAN II: "Lord Duluth." LOL
Funny how Starmer is being absolutely destroyed politically in every way and labour is losing everything.
But the media focuses on 2 nobodies and their opinions on Trump.
Meanwhile Trump is dismantling the last remnants of the British empire and Britain is now a used up rag who let their girls be raped by foreign invaders just as labour and the tories wanted.
Reform run by farage is going to be too soft but they will pull out of the EU.
Looks like Romania is next.
Fun fact: Stewart is a huge model train enthusiast. Has been known to bring building models on the road with him and work on them after shows.
“And we're told, the King just laughed. And didn't that put Rod in his place?”
If you rank people by their significance and contribution, Rod places a lot higher than King Chucky.
Rat Bag, indeed. Takes one to know one - they both got The Hair!
He showed up at The Lex' in Roppongi after a concert in early 80s. Affable, amusing, brighter, I'd say, than other celebs finding refuge there.
As for the musical borderline; "Do you think I'm sexy?" nails it.
Although, the Tokyo gig mentioned above featured nothing but wild energy, old hits and Rod at his mischievious best. I liked that guy.
Whatever he's become probably reflects too much time in the Southern California Sun and Caesar's Palace in Vegas, where he's become the King of Covers (not bad).
There may be no more watchable musical performance than "I don't want to talk about it" at the Royal Albert with Amy Belle. I think Rod was in that. Amy Bell. Jesus...
That's how the monarchy has stayed in power for so long. Kings and queens are able to convince those who might naturally be their enemies that they are actually allies. Remember Thatcher versus Charles's mother. Snobbery came into play: Thatcher and her supporters were seen as vulgar upstarts by claret-drinking socialists and Liberal Democrats. Further back, you have kings siding with the Whigs or Liberals when Conservatives became too intransigent (1832, 1911). It was a neat trick that if other monarchs had learned could have kept them in power.
Get rid of the monarchy (and Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) and what's left of England and the "United Kingdom"? It was smart to write one's family's continued rule into the name of the country. What is England's national identity if all that goes. Canada has enough trouble staying together after it cast off its imperial Britishness. It would be even worse with England.
I'm shocked that a model railroad hobbyist can harbor such visceral antipathy for our President.
Way back in the 1970's (IIRC) there was an ABC series of shows called the "Battle of the network stars". Pretty stupid in execution.
In one episode, they featured soccer. Rod Stewart took shots on goal, apparently he was a pretty good club level player. And, in England that really is pretty good. Some other English rock guy played goalie. Stewart smoked him. Impressive EXCEPT it turns out Stewart insisted soccer be added as his "sport". No other star was a soccer player, so the rocker had offered to give it a go.
Then Stewart denigrated the goalie as beneath him in pretty caustic terms.
I believe wanker is the fitting term.
If you voted for Trump, you just have to accept the fact that most of your favorite actors and entertainers think you're deplorable. It's the price we pay for freedom in America.
Are there maybe five entertainers who are not TDSers?
"Dame Madonna"?
Nah. Lady Madonna.
In her facehugger form
To Rod Strewart--sod off you silly song boy--which after all is a wee step up from "soy boy"--but not much.
OK,Rod.
Trump is the greatest anglophile to sit in the White House since Theodore Roosevelt. The Brits should praise him to the skies. Unlike the rest of the world, he likes them.
"Gasoline Alley" and "Every Picture Tells a Story" — that's all you need and that is so perfect that it is more than enough.
Nope. Don't need. Mr. Stewart presumably has plenty of money, he's not getting any of mine.
I agree with Althouse. Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells a Story are all you need. After that there are a few songs here and there. I really like The Killing of Georgie (both parts) but they are scattered over more than a dozen albums. His attempts at the great American songbook are awful. Before an 80s appearance at Summerfest he was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal saying "great voice, could have been one of the best, but wasted it on mediocre material" and he was talking about himself. (the quote is from memory so it may just be a paraphrase).
"Ratbag" is not merely an "eccentric person", although the two can overlap. It's an insult meaning someone contemptible or despicable, along the lines of "bastard", "scumbag", or "lowlife"
Another old rock star to hate.
"Wake up, MAGGIE, I think I got somethin' to say to you.."
I have to say, as a young man, coming in from the Atlantic Ocean on a late night fishing trip, the sounds of "Maggie May" playing on the boat's cheap radio still resonates with me today. "Every Picture Tells A Story" was my very first 8-track and I played it constantly. I agree with the others that 1976 was when "Mod Rod" became cringe, even though that word was not in use yet.
Politics is the lowest cost spectator sport. You get to feel smarter, more virtuous, more entitled, and more powerful than you are or ever will be, and it doesn't seem to cost you a cent. Sadly, bad political beliefs have caused hundreds of millions of deaths and unparalleled misery. But there is a general amnesia about these things.
Perhaps politics should be regarded as the highest cost spectator sport.
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