"Open Fly."

Subliminal Headline of the Day:

From the NYT home page, linking to this article (about influencers' high jinks at the Open).

I don't know about you, but I take line breaks seriously. I saw and thought about "Open Fly" far too long before the headline congealed into the imprecation to "let your freak flag fly." Is that expression still alive after all these decades? I associate it with Jimi Hendrix. And, yes, I see the original appearance of the expression came in Jimi's 1967 song “If 6 Was 9”:

They’re hoping soon my kind will drop and die
But I’m gonna wave my freak flag high

Then there was David Crosby, in 1970's "Almost Cut My Hair":

But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it to someone

But it's more than half a century later! Are we still saying that — I mean, other than jocosely and to refer to the trappings of hippiedom?

And I'm seeing it in the NYT now and then. For example, from 2022, there's "This Is What Happens When Election Deniers Let Their Freak Flag Fly." "Let your freak flag fly" seems to have come to mean "Be yourself" or "You do you," except that it includes the notion that what you are is weird. And not in a good way. For Crosby and Hendrix, it was good. Very good. 

A vogue word, rejected.

You don't need to care about the NYT crossword to be interested in what follows — it discusses a current buzzword — but it does reveal a couple answers. 

From Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle:

"The first time I saw Bob, I was still a folk singer and Bob was still a folk singer. He was playing at one of the big clubs in the Village...."

"I sat there and I listened to him and I said, 'Well, shit, I can sing better than that.' Then it penetrated to me what he was singing. I listened to the words. Then I thought seriously about just quitting the business and taking up another line of work. I knew I couldn’t match that...."

Wrote David Crosby, one of 80 artists quoted in the "80 Artists Pick Their Favorite Bob Dylan Song For His 80th Birthday" (Stereogum, 2021). 

"It is with great sadness after a long illness, that our beloved David (Croz) Crosby has passed away."

"He was lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django. Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music. Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched...." 

A statement from David Crosby's wife, sent to Variety.

I love David Crosby. The first rock concert I ever saw was The Byrds at Newark Symphony Hall in 1966.

Here he is talking about his health and about dying — to Howard Stern — just last year:

"I am at the end of my life, Howard.... People get old and die. And I'm gonna."

 This is from 1974 — somehow the most Crosby Crosby songs that comes into my mind:

Try some of my purple berries: 

David Crosby has questions and gets answers.

I’m not sure what band that is. I did send NPR a cassette of my music a few weeks back. I am a solo tambourinest and my songs promote positive thinking. You might not have heard of me because I mostly play in nursing homes and campgrounds with a gazebo.

— Marvin Phillips (@FlipsMarvin) April 10, 2022

Neil Young is back on Spotify!

 

Joni too: 

The spectacular Thanksgiving.

Our dinner was spectacular pic.twitter.com/lyxTWKbzhV

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) November 26, 2021

My Twitter feed serves up a strange run of male humor.

Suddenly, I get this:

Links: 1, 2, 3. 

I know Crosby's only passing something else along, and it's from an account that presents a female identity, but I'm counting that as Crosby's humor, replete with the casualness of masturbation and second-hand jokes.

Pick your favorite male humor style:

1

2

3

 

pollcode.com free polls

"I went to England and in the course of us meeting the Beatles, I became friends with George. He was a very nice cat, very open..."

"... a very decent human being. Invited me over to his house for dinner, that kind of thing. Hung out with us. Later on, he tells me that he’s gone to India and met this teacher, this guru. George is smitten by him. I listened to what he was saying and I wanted to say to George, 'That’s great, but take it with a grain of salt,' because usually when somebody comes on that strong that they’ve got the answer, it’s bulls—. I wanted to say, 'Have some skepticism.' But I was too chicken to do it, because I had too much respect for George. So I wrote him that song. 'I thought I met a man who knew a man who knew what was going on.' And I ended it by saying, listen, I don’t think he does know what’s going on. I don’t even know if George ever heard the song."

Said David Crosby, in an interview with the L.A. Times. 

Here's the song, "Laughing":

 

That's from Crosby's 1971 solo album that the critics "just didn’t understand," as Crosby puts it. "They were looking for another record that was full of big, flashy lead guitar and blues licks and screaming lyrics. It was not where everything else was going, so they thought it was irrelevant." 

Lester Bangs called it "a perfect aural aid to digestion when you’re having guests over for dinner." In 1971, that was a worse kick in the head than being told your music makes me want to vomit.

ADDED: Not only do I have a tag for Lester Bangs, the Lester Bangs tag appears on a post written on the first day of this blog, January 14, 2004. There is no other tag for a specific human being until the next day, when Herbert Muschamp and Dennis Miller appear. Interestingly, George Harrison shows up on January 17, 2004.

Why I'm reading about a shooting that took place in 2007 over the question of exactly how tall was James Brown.

1. In the first post of the morning, I asserted: "Some of the best videos have been made like that, with the singer randomly walking along someplace mouthing the lyrics and interacting with this and that." Instead of naming any actual video, I just wrote, in parentheses and italics, as if that helps, "(Yeah? Which ones?!)" 

2. That loose thread nagged at me for 3 hours — from about 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. — and I tried to call to mind a great video that fit the description. I came up with "Brass in Pocket" and watched the delightful video, even though it does not fit the description:

 

3. Who cares? I like it anyway. Primed by a good YouTube experience, I took the websites suggestion to watch "David Bowie imitates Mick Jagger!!"

 

4. Bowie does do a quick, excellent Jagger impression. About 2 seconds of that video, but watch the whole thing. You'll get to a part about how his wife bought him an old suit of Little Richard's and he must not have been so little after all because the suit was way too big for Bowie. 

5. That got me looking up how tall the 2 men were. Have you noticed the internet is ready to tell you the height of various people? Just yesterday I was watching a video of Bob Dylan and David Crosby singing at the same microphone and Dylan seemed to tower over Crosby. The internet says Dylan is 5'9" and Crosby is 5'10". Maybe it's something about the shoes or the camera angle.  

6. In honor of the first post of the day, which got this list started, I pause to see if the internet will give me the answer for the famous philosopher named in that post, and I'm pleased to be informed: René Descartes was 5'1". Anyway, it turns out that David Bowie and Little Richard were the same height: 5'10". Maybe Bowie's wife got conned on that suit deal. 

7. Since I was interested in the height of Little Richard, the internet assumed I would be interested to know that James Brown was 5'6". That is pretty interesting. If you didn't know that fact, I could see how you might get into an argument with somebody who — knowing the fact — would annoyingly stand his ground. And that's what happened in January 2007: "Man shot over argument about James Brown's height" That happened not long after "Brown, who was known to wear lifts, died of heart failure Dec. 25 at age 73."

"Democrats Have Abandoned Civil Liberties/The Blue Party’s Trump-era Embrace of Authoritarianism Isn’t Just Wrong, it’s a Fatal Political Mistake."

Writes Matt Taibbi (at taibbi.substack.com):

Whatever one’s opinion of [Michael] Flynn, his relations with Turkey, his “Lock her up!” chants, his haircut, or anything, this case was never about much. There’s no longer pretense that prosecution would lead to the unspooling of a massive Trump-Russia conspiracy, as pundits once breathlessly expected. In fact, news that Flynn was cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller inspired many of the “Is this the beginning of the end for Trump?” stories that will someday fill whole chapters of Journalism Fucks Up 101 textbooks....

The Flynn case was built on surveillance gathered under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a program that seems to have been abused on a massive scale by both Democratic and Republican administrations.... Anyone who bothers to look back will find hints at how this program might have been misused. In late 2015, Obama officials bragged to the Wall Street Journal they’d made use of FISA surveillance involving “Jewish-American groups” as well as “U.S. lawmakers” in congress, all because they wanted to more effectively “counter” Israeli opposition to Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran....

Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, they’ve raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in the response to the Covid-19 crisis, where the almost mandatory take of pundits is that any protest of lockdown measures is troglodyte death wish....

Much more at the link. Well done.

Democrats have "raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent." Why does the new generation allow itself to be raised by a political party intent on expanding its power? What makes people grow up to be followers? That's not the way we Boomers experienced youth! And yet somehow we Boomers grew up to raise kids to follow and to feel contempt for the values that we thought were fueling our rebellion against our elders.

I saw this yesterday and didn't know what had happened.

Not true https://t.co/Sej1JDm45V

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) May 14, 2020

This morning I see "Melissa Etheridge reveals son Beckett Cypher died from opioid addiction" (NY Post).

Etheridge met her ex-partner, Beckett’s mother Julie Cypher, in 1986 on the set of the video for her single, “Bring Me Some Water.” Cypher was, at the time, married to actor Lou Diamond Phillips, and after divorcing him in 1990, went on to have daughter Bailey, 23, and Beckett with Grammy winner Etheridge. They eventually revealed that their sperm donor was 1960s icon David Crosby.

More, here, at Variety:

The young family appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with Crosby and his wife, Jan Dance, [in 2000] (Beckett is the baby pictured in front), and also in a groundbreaking interview with Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes.” In it, they essentially explained to America their family arrangements and how the children might grow up with same-sex parents.

“I do not believe that my children will be wanting in any way because they didn’t have a father in the home every single day,” Etheridge said. “What they have in the home is two loving parents. I think that puts them ahead of the game.”

She and Cypher split up later that year, although they moved into back-to-back houses to facilitate coparenting.

Etheridge revealed in 2016 that she and Cypher had considered their close friend, actor Brad Pitt, to be the biological father of their children, but reconsidered when they saw how much he wanted his own family.... "I don’t want to share this with someone who really, badly wants children because my children don’t need another parent – they have two...."

A couple of heards...

This tweet is a couple of heards old
They keep posting it
I do not support Bernie this time
Good guy
Wrong time https://t.co/UD9PTnQ7ZB

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) April 3, 2019

I'm just trying to understand why David Crosby liked it.

I'm only seeing this because I follow David Crosby and he liked this:

This has been the news, from Samuel Beckett. https://t.co/RWyz5vcrGI

— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) February 23, 2019

I can't not look at a tweet involving David Crosby, Dan Rather, and Samuel Beckett. But let me get back to my reading....

David Crosby on the opposite of mediocrity.

Beatles,S and G , Allman’s , Joni , Bob, https://t.co/eds8S5nDLs

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) February 10, 2019

This was after Crosby announced that Steely Dan is his favorite band.

Sorry, I don't have a Steely Dan tag, and I'm not going to make one. I don't really get why someone would be that interested in them. "Reelin' in the Years"? "Rikki Don’t Lose That Number"? Here's Rolling Stone's "Steely Dan: 10 Essential Songs." I guess that depends on the meaning of "essential." I'm alive and the only Steely Dan title I could think of was "Reelin' in the Years." Meade said, "Rikki Don’t Lose That Number," and I said "That's Steely Dan?"

Could Meade think of any other Steely Dan song? He started playing "Bodhisatva" and #1, that's not one of the 10 essentials, but #2, in a matter of seconds, I was crying, "Turn it off, I hate that kind of music."

"If you smile at me, I will understand/'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language...."

There's an old hippie lyric about understanding that — ironically — can't be understood anymore.



CORRECTION: I had the lyric in the post title miswritten — now corrected — because I'd copied and pasted it from this old post:

"[I]n countries like Germany, Switzerland, China, and Malaysia, smiling faces were rated as significantly more intelligent than non-smiling people."

"But in Japan, India, Iran, South Korea, and... Russia, the smiling faces were considered significantly less intelligent.... In countries such as India, Argentina, and the Maldives, meanwhile, smiling was associated with dishonesty...."

At the link — to "Why Some Cultures Frown on Smiling/Finally, an explanation for Bitchy Resting Face Nation" in The Atlantic — there are some charts arraying the countries from one extreme to the other.

I was explaining this out loud to Meade, and he sang: "If you smile at me, I will understand/'Cause that is something everybody everywhere except India does in the same language...."

Better than Bob Dylan?

Not many ....if any ...better than Bob at wordsmithing ......a few in his league ....one better and a vastly superior musician and singer....Joni https://t.co/I356Od8nlb

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) December 14, 2018

We are golden.

Just a David Crosby tweet I've been meaning to embed...

My new album 'Here If You Listen' featuring @beccastevensbsb, @RealSnarkyPuppy, and @boutwillismusic is out now. Listen to it at https://t.co/p8UgQTTEuC and buy the CD/Vinyl at https://t.co/XQLiXQvbzc or your favorite record store. pic.twitter.com/Li7LppkgRA

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) October 26, 2018

... and remembered today because I saw "David Crosby Only Sometimes Tweets While He’s High" at The Cut.

Tweeting Columbus Day.

Christopher Columbus’s spirit of determination & adventure has provided inspiration to generations of Americans. On #ColumbusDay, we honor his remarkable accomplishments as a navigator, & celebrate his voyage into the unknown expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. https://t.co/Mg3dxRfPuN

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2018

I’m with you Amy https://t.co/OA32dUrKfs

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) October 7, 2018

The rock stars are in alignment — today, in my Twitter feed, the Daves are tweeting about vegetables.

I know the old saying, "Call any vegetable, and the chances are good that the vegetable will respond to you." But... tweet any vegetable, and what are the chances the vegetable will retweet?