Off for a soldier

[Gorgon]

Purple Haze. I always knew of it as the reefer reference.

 

The song is believed to refer to Hendrix's experiences with a similarly-named batch of LSD produced injello 1966 by Owsley Stanley. (In a 1967 BBC session, Hendrix recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Day Tripper" in which he shouts, "Oh, Owsley, can you hear me now?" during the climactic guitar solo.) Others believed that the song's name was derived from a strain of marijuana, called "purple haze." However, in interviews Hendrix would disclaim any association with recreational drug use, asserting that the song was drawn from a dream he had where he was walking under the ocean, surrounded by a purple haze. At another point, Hendrix said he took the phrase "purple haze" from Night of Light, a science fiction novel written by Philip Jos

Edited September 25, 2007 by Gorgon

[Dark_Raven]

Ya gotta love rock songs about war written by people whose only knowledge of war comes from watching Hollywood movies.

 

Anyway, nuts to alla youse. I passed with flying colours! Thanks for all your support (or otherwise, Gorgo). I have to tell you that it's worth doing if only for the experience, especially you young chaps.

 

..Oh I nearly forgot. Physical Training Instructors are neither born, nor excreted, they are condensed balls of misery.

One should think before they post.

 

Anyone with an imagination can write something about war by watching the bloody news, footage after a battle or images from pictures. Or do research and interview people who actually been on the front lines.

[Walsingham]

Ya gotta love rock songs about war written by people whose only knowledge of war comes from watching Hollywood movies.

 

Anyway, nuts to alla youse. I passed with flying colours! Thanks for all your support (or otherwise, Gorgo). I have to tell you that it's worth doing if only for the experience, especially you young chaps.

 

..Oh I nearly forgot. Physical Training Instructors are neither born, nor excreted, they are condensed balls of misery.

One should think before they post.

 

Anyone with an imagination can write something about war by watching the bloody news, footage after a battle or images from pictures. Or do research and interview people who actually been on the front lines.

 

They can certainly try. But I refute the notion that one can do justice to a situation with absolutely no experience of it. Would you accept the opinion of a farmer from the Congo on the life of an inuit? How much more extreme will be the disjunction when the phenomena in question is as dramatic as warfare? Moreover, I do not simply reference the logical failure, but can compare such work with the opinions of my many friends who have actually been in combat.

 

As Gromnir would say; Hah! Good fun!

[Gorgon]

I don't think people with no experience of violence and war are unable to surmise what it's about. It has always been a basic function of humanity after all.

[Walsingham]

True. But I do think in general we give artists far too much credibility. We accept their pronouncements on medical and scietific issues they haven't even a school grade education to understand, and accept tehir advice on drugs, love, sex, and life in general. I mean, if you went to your doctor and he said "Actually I'm not qualified as a doctor, but I can play guitar" Would you be very happy?

[Guest The Architect]

^ That depends on if you like the sound of their guitar playing or not.

 

@Walsingham, yeah, but those things aren't exactly rocket science, are they? I mean, I don't see what's wrong with listening to the advice of an artist that says things like "Don't do drugs, don't judge a book by its cover, use protection, don't put people down" and stuff like that. Who's going to take an artist seriously that preaches anything other than the norm? Only hippies.

Edited September 26, 2007 by The Architect

[Walsingham]

True, Architect. True. But ... I don't know... I agree we tend to only accept things from individual artists that fit our notion of common sense. But who shapes our common sense? Artists are a big percentage of our background noise.

 

It's not just a question of sense, IMO, but of emotion and ppower in the art itself. I mean who sings better about bad love? Ella Fitzgerald or the 'original' Britney Spears?

[Meshugger]

A fun note: Jimi Hendrix was actually in the army (navy IIRC) before starting to play the guitar in mid 60's.

[Hell Kitty]

But I refute the notion that one can do justice to a situation with absolutely no experience of it.

 

I take it then you've had experience with the subject in Eddo's thread? You don't need experience in something to understand it, to feel something about it, and having first hand experience doesn't automatically mean your view is more true than someone who hasn't.

 

I know a woman who angrily calls her two kids (5 & 12) "****ing freaks" or "little retards" whenever they do something that bothers her. As much as I insist this is emotional abuse, she claims it's no big deal because they know she is only joking. As I don't have any kids of my own, I guess she knows best.

[Guest The Architect]

I see what you mean, Walsingham. It makes sense. I mean, take two people, person A & person B, and they have the same type of parents, same everything, right. But they have a different sense of what's right and wrong. Why? What shapes our common sense is who we listen to, the people around us.

 

And who're you more likely to listen to, a person who speaks with volume, with confidence, from the heart, with passion, or a person who speaks with nervousness, uncertainty and a frigid tone? See, I don't think the reason why artists have had an influence in the shaping of our common sense is just because they're celebrity people who're admired for their outstanding qualities, whatever they may be, but because, many of these artists have the speaking qualities and stuff I mentioned of the former, not the latter.

 

Hell, take me for example. I'm no celebrity, but I've always been able to get people to listen to me and stuff when push comes to shove, even if I don't really know what the heck I'm talking about, because I've got good speaking skills and stuff like that.

[Walsingham]

I see what you mean, Architect. However, I'm objecting precisely because artisits get given preference because they 'taste sweeter'. Not every wise or right person can speak in a strong compelling way. I worked with cerebral palsy kids many years ago and I had a hell of a time understanding what they were going through, but a couple left me with more profound insights into life than any book or pop song.

 

Hell Kitty, you are of course correcty to bring me up on that point. We are endowed with imagination and empathy and reason prescisely so that we can renedr judgements on things which we have not directly epxerienced. It is basically what makes us special. However, it is my argument that there are limits to teh distance you can cover by pure thought. I'm not objecting to someone who has only driven in a cadillac singing about driving in a porsche. I'm bitching about people who've only seen a car on TV singing about driving a porsche AND people taking them as authorities. It's not the singing I mind, it's the audience credulity.

[Hell Kitty]

I'm bitching about people who've only seen a car on TV singing about driving a porsche AND people taking them as authorities. It's not the singing I mind, it's the audience credulity.

 

So I have two artists, both have created a work based on war, one pro and one anti, as well as two former soldiers, both have written a book about their experiences in combat, one anti war and one pro war. The views of those on one side contradict the views of those on the other. Who should I believe, who should I take as an authority? Help me Walsing-ham, you're my only hope.

Edited September 28, 2007 by Hell Kitty

[Darth Drabek]

Can't we all just agree that we should always hate hippies?

 

Those damn hippies... with their PETA and their drum circles and their Rastafarian beanie caps and dreads and their collection of Phish bootlegs. Guess what, maaaaaan? Your hair is dirty! There's a whole family of bugs in there! And guess what else? The String Cheese Incident sucks!

 

Look, I hate stupid wars as much as the next rational American. But ... I also hate hippies.

[Tale]

I'm with the hippy bashing.

[Laozi]

Man if there was only some way to kill String Cheese Incident and get Tale as collateral damage then we'd might be able to get a governement grant.

[Walsingham]

I'm bitching about people who've only seen a car on TV singing about driving a porsche AND people taking them as authorities. It's not the singing I mind, it's the audience credulity.

 

So I have two artists, both have created a work based on war, one pro and one anti, as well as two former soldiers, both have written a book about their experiences in combat, one anti war and one pro war. The views of those on one side contradict the views of those on the other. Who should I believe, who should I take as an authority? Help me Walsing-ham, you're my only hope.

 

I'd suggest you evaluate each on the merits of their reasoning. If the pro-war ones are pro-war because they like hurting people for example that would reflect negatively, just as it ould if the anti-war ones find taking pictures of animals injurious to their dignity. Of course I'd also suggest you read more and view more artistic work, expand the sample size.

[Hell Kitty]

I'm bitching about people who've only seen a car on TV singing about driving a porsche AND people taking them as authorities. It's not the singing I mind, it's the audience credulity.

 

So I have two artists, both have created a work based on war, one pro and one anti, as well as two former soldiers, both have written a book about their experiences in combat, one anti war and one pro war. The views of those on one side contradict the views of those on the other. Who should I believe, who should I take as an authority? Help me Walsing-ham, you're my only hope.

 

I'd suggest you evaluate each on the merits of their reasoning. If the pro-war ones are pro-war because they like hurting people for example that would reflect negatively, just as it ould if the anti-war ones find taking pictures of animals injurious to their dignity. Of course I'd also suggest you read more and view more artistic work, expand the sample size.

 

But what if none of them display any obvious bias? How will I know which one to take as an authority*? I don't want my credulity in question.

 

*The ones I agree with, obviously.

[Walsingham]

I would never question your credulity, darling. I merely question the likelihood of ever finding such a situation.

 

 

EDIT: That's rubbish, of course. It could happen.

 

For an example of what I'm talking about, check this out. NOTE THIS CONTAINS STRONG THEMES AND LANGUAGE

[Meshugger]

Can't we all just agree that we should always hate hippies?

 

Those damn hippies... with their PETA and their drum circles and their Rastafarian beanie caps and dreads and their collection of Phish bootlegs. Guess what, maaaaaan? Your hair is dirty! There's a whole family of bugs in there! And guess what else? The String Cheese Incident sucks!

 

Look, I hate stupid wars as much as the next rational American. But ... I also hate hippies.

 

They're harmless. Well, atleast those who aren't 100% PETA nuts. I mean come on, a couple people with a questionable hygiene and with an ideology based on fellatio and fornication for everyone, free drugs and awesome music. They're pretty low on my 'hate'-list. It's more like this:

 

1. Dictators and similar totalitarian (insert -ism here ) and theocratic a-holes.

2. Populists and politicians who run on dodgy 'moral'-grounds.

3. Corporate scum-f*cks who think that macchiavellian methods are quite a swell idea. This is however blurry, since these people and politicians usually go together.

4. Racists and other 'hate'-based groups, including anarchists, PETA, and similar.

5. Hooligans and other petty criminals.

6. General a-holes and alpha-male wannabes.

7. People who use "like" in every sentense and describe everything as "awesome". More or less, mainstream pod-people. Every culture have these kind of people.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

XXX. Health-nuts who complain about smokers and remind everyone, everyday how "awesome" life is without cigarettes. They usually don't drink alcohol and coffee either.

XXX + 1. Hippies, they who smell too much and care more about animals than our fellow man.

[Walsingham]

Like, awesome list.

[Tale]

describe everything as "awesome".

I do this. However, in my defense I was raised on ninja turtles. It's either call things "awesome," "radical," or "tubular" and people just look at me funny when I say "tubular." I'm not even sure what "tubular" means, but it goes quite well with "totally."

 

Totally tubular, dude!

Edited September 28, 2007 by Tale

[Walsingham]

Maybe you could use the term 'tentacular'? That would give even more alliteration.