My advise is to start drinking; Heavily!
Posted on 05/08/2003 8:25:49 AM PDT by hilaryrhymeswithrich
I had a crisis at the concert of one of my favorite preformers. His snotty comment about the President, while not as heinous as many other musicians, made me sad! Talk me through it Freepers......
This post is probably too long, and it is intermingled with both RT and non- RT content. I was thrilled to have seen him last night in Atlanta and was pleased to see that, in the 15 years or so I have seen him live, he probably has the strongest voice and most consistent guitar work I have seen to date. His set choices were not, perhaps, what I would have wished for, and yet it all made perfect sense. It was more collaborative with the rest of the band as well, and both the drummer and Pete Zorn were fabulous. A throwaway remark he made about President Bush and “his inability to string together a complete sentence”, led me to a mini-crisis of faith and reinforced a previous belief that the time has come for me to depledge from the RT list after what I think is in excess of 4-5 years (it is a bit of a blur.)
I recovered after a few songs as my love for RT is strong. It was rather like walking in on your parents having sex. You surely imagine what is going on behind clothed doors, but the reality of it somewhat shocking and it takes a few minutes to wipe the mental image away. I knew he is certainly liberal and as such would not hold the President in high regard, but I assumed that his wit would prevail and his quips would be funny, rather than personal, much like his quips about the various horns and their origins as WMDs.
I found RT my senior year in college when I fleetingly heard Turning of the Tide. I was instantly smitten, yet could not find the source. On my first date with a new boyfriend, he put on that very song and I knew I was in love. We married, had children, and share RT as one of our many common passions. And on to the other reason of this post.
I am politically and socially conservative. I do not have three heads, I am neither a racist nor am I greedy and I am not an intellectual midget. I graduated Cum Laude from a fine University, am a full-time mother and I am just beginning to pursue some of my own passions again after trying to keep 3 little ones away from the light sockets and somewhat nourished. I have lived and studied in Europe and saved for 4 years to spend a month living in Belgium this summer to show my children a different way of life. I try to volunteer my time as I am able and my money when I can. The personal, rather than policy, attacks on both the President specifically and conservatives in general on this list since 2000 has been a disappointment for me.
While I embrace debate, that is hardly what occurs here. One of my brothers is about as liberal as you can be without officially being a socialist. We debate endlessly, never really agree on anything, and yet not once has he referred to Bush as Shrub, Dubya, or derided his intellect. I have likewise refrained from referring to our former President in the many unflattering terms that cross my mind. My brother seems to grasp, though far younger I imagine than many on this list, that to harp on a perception of intellectual deficiency makes a very dismissive assumption about me and others who not only voted for but actively support President Bush……I must be an intellectual lightweight if I don’t see it or agree with your assumption. The intellectual arrogance of it all is simply too much for me. I saw a quote once that has come to have profound meaning for me and has been underscored by what I have read time and time again; Conservatives think liberals are wrong, liberals think conservatives are evil. I am guilty too of painting with a broad brush in using that quote, but I have seen it held up more often than not. I spend time in both camps as it were with a diverse and politically active family, and the level of derision and condensation of the intellectual left is beyond my ability to either understand or explain. I am tired of wading through your contempt and insults to find your artistic insights. The ultimate irony at the end of the night (and as an RT fan I am a keen lover of irony), was that I was surrounded by people with whom I share a love of RT but who in large part sneer at my beliefs and intellect, and the stunning realization of the make up of the crowd. At 70% male and 99.99% white, it more closely resembled a unibomber convention than any Republican even I have been to in my life time.
Again, forgive the length. I thank you for the many insights into music I have gleaned here and the new CD’s I have added from your suggestions. I will, like always, count the days until I can see OH again, humming Zen chants to myself during political moments. I have been enriched by many of your insights, as well as deeply hurt by your assumptions about people like me. I will miss this place as a gathering spot of art lovers. Cheers.
My advise is to start drinking; Heavily!
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