I bet Robert Plant never had to spend money on dinner to seduce somebody.
I don't trust Paul either. He was Yoko to Edie Brickell & New Bohemians.
Art Garfunkel has a good voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWrdwP1YH0
The interviewer is such a contemptuous toad that it is hard to say much about Art Garfunkel. The books he's read are on his website, and that deserves contempt, seriously? Dude's a Telegraph columnist, maybe a claymation deathmatch with Friedman and Dowd would work, any outcome leaves the world a better place.
Here is NF being incorrect about Gore Vidal:
I'm not convinced, I say: his memoirs, his novels, all are an exercise in self-analysis. He is, after all, his own best subject.
Here is El Condor Pasa
https://soundcloud.com/rude-regez/el-condor-pasa
The books he's read are on his website
I know nothing about him, so went to his website to see this list. I can't see one.
5: http://www.artgarfunkel.com/library/list33.html
I think you (ttaM) may have completely misunderstood.
Anyway, I'm thrilled to find out that Art Garfunkel and I were reading Little Women at almost the same time.
6 was me. Also, while you might think Garfunkel is being a pretentious shit, you will then be confused when you see he listed 50 Shades of Grey as one of his "Favorites".
"Have you had dinner?" is followed by "Do you like to be spanked?"
"Would you like to come up to my room and hear my kvetchings?"
I remember reading in some article about Simon and Garfunkel one of them -- probably Simon -- saying that they got the kind of groupies that wanted them to read their poetry.
This is pretty confusing to me-- AG is at the periphery of fame. If he were obscure or completely forgotten, it seems to me that having a reading list at all is basically laudable, potentially a sign of reason and curiosity, I hope that's not controversial.
Pretentious is larding the list with important books that you haven't read, or reading for the purpose of namedropping, or otherwise mostly for display. Apparently many people read in this way. Is there evidence that AG is one of them?
He seems like a sincere eccentric who has been exposed to a dick, possibly also a moron, working for the Telegraph.
Poetry and the draft of Postcards from the Edge.
11: I agree with you, but the article was still amusing.
We find a quiet corner in the bar area and instead of ordering a coffee - it is 10am - he asks for a bowl of pea soup.
What was the second-stringer band Lisa joined in the Simpsons? Oates, Garfunkel, and Croft or something?
I remember disagreeing with my father about AG's interpretation of I Only Have Eyes For You in the mid-70s. He thought it precious. I saw my father's point then and even more so now, but I've always liked AG for doing it.
11: He should just put his books up on Goodreads like the rest of us.
13.last: that quote can almost be sung to The Sound of Silence.
11: He seems like a sincere eccentric who has been exposed to a dick, possibly also a moron, working for the Telegraph.
Most dicks are morons: that's why "little brain" is a synonym for the former.
Garfunkel sounds awful. Paul? The little guy with the Napoleon complex who became a total monster? Door's always open! Give me a call!
No wonder Simon ran away (and did just fine, one might note). Of course, Simon also seems like a twat.
Of course, this can all be subsumed under my rule that anyone you don't know, but have heard of, is an asshole.
An asshole is just a friend you haven't met.
Of course, this can all be subsumed under my rule that anyone you don't know, but have heard of, is an asshole.
So, anybody famous, that you don't know personally, is an asshole? Is that right?
A former housemate - someone not well known to any of the rest of us living there - upped and married a much older guy after having known him for only a couple of months. (Admittedly, we were all about 24 and he was in his mid-thirties, which seemed very old at the time). Because of his appearance and general fashion sense, we all referred to him as Disco Garfunkel. The housemate decamped abruptly, leaving a bunch of random stuff (including a shrimp-pink vintage corset) in her room. Ever since, I have had an irrational dislike for actual Garfunkel. Although the think about the groupies is creepy enough to give me a bit of a rational one.
I guess when you get married you want a wife with a new corset.
Paul Simon is one of the few people I give a pass to on the basis of talent. He can be an asshole and I'll still like him. I think the only other person who gets that pass from me is Charlize Theron.
I don't know how to establish the relative talents of musicians (or actors) like that. But I don't understand the esteem in which Simon is held. It's just generic-sounding 70s stuff.
"Disco Garfunkel [last name]" has a nice ring to it. Something to keep in mind for the next unfogged babysplosion.
25: Pronounced that way, but spelled "D'Escot Gloucestershire".
Fuck it, I'm reading all your comments in this thread set to The Sound of Silence.
I guess when you get married you want a wife with a new
(corset)
Neil Diamond
was much better.
14: Garfunkel, Messina, Oates and Lisa
23: Those two would probably be a couple now, if not for Edie Brickell and Sean Penn.
23. Dame Ma/gg/ie Smi/th. Greatest actress of her generation. Notorious for throwing abusive wobblies at her dressers and make up people.
Asking someone attractive to dinner doesn't strike me as an especially creepy seduction technique.
31: Good thing you googleproofed! She'd hunt you down and throw something at you for that comment!
32: Asking them to breakfast might be.
32: Yes, but doesn't the "had it down to an art form" make it sound creepy?
34: Especially if the breakfast includes pea soup.
35: I can't really make asking someone in a public place who is free to leave "have you had dinner?" become creepy. (Even if there was intent to have sex.) "Have you had dinner?" is totally refuse-able. "I have, thanks. Bye." "No, but I'm meeting someone. Bye."
As I think about it, I can't come up with any invitation that is less creepy. "Have you had dinner?" is as benign as opening the door to a liaison can be.
Presuming that the entire concept of groupies is creepy, this seems less creepy than the average groupie-groupieee interaction.
38: I'm sure there are ways to make "Have you had dinner?" sound creepy if you put your mind to it. Maybe spoken with a Bela Lugosi style accent?
41.1: By being Jeffrey Dahmer, for instance.
39 gets it exactly right.
I can't really make asking someone in a public place who is free to leave "have you had dinner?" become creepy.
It's a book signing for To Serve Man.
38: I think that isolating and hitting on women fans who want your autograph is creepy. Long ago and far away, in a scene that was so unfilled with hot people that I counted as comparatively young and attractive, I got that treatment from a famous-for-some-value-of-famous older guy and it was creepy. I did go to dinner with him, I did not have sex with him and it was really unpleasant. I went to dinner with him because he was interesting as an artist and somewhat locally important and because I thought to myself "I feel like he's inviting me to dinner in a creepy way, but maybe he's not? After all, I was the last person at the signing [it must be a well-known technique] and he just wants company for dinner?" I think a lot of young women fans are not actually expecting to be cut from the herd and "invited to dinner" as part of getting them into bed; while you know that's a risk, it's difficult to believe that it's actually happening.
I would be surprised if "dinner" did not involve a certain amount of "plying with cocktails".
If you want a hook-up, you need to be up front about that so that young women fans don't have to decide whether you actually want, eg, to talk about your work or whether you're just pretending to want to chat in the hopes that you can fuck them.
Moderately famous men with whom I have had dinner who were delightful - Seth Tobocman, Lu Edmonds, Terry Bisson. I am old and queer-looking enough not to attract creepy dudes any more, but there was ample opportunity for them to hit on younger, femmier women and and they were not creeps. Also, all are charming dinner companions.
What sounds at least irritating from this quote is that he seems to think his experience bespeaks some kind of skill at seduction. When he's surrounded by people who went to his show and are getting autographs, any tactic would probably have a decent hit rate, no?
I have no idea which of the two is the ur-dick but Simon certainly has his share now; and seems to love publicly pointing out Garfunkel's secondary role. For instance, from their R&R HOF induction ceremony (sometime early '90s):
Garfunkel thanked his partner, calling him "the person who most enriched my life by putting those songs through me," to which Simon responded, "Arthur and I agree about almost nothing. But it's true, I have enriched his life quite a bit."
According to my wife, Garfunkel was the "nice one" in a brief airport encounter she and her sibs had with him and Jack Nicholson (they were on a break from filming Carnal Knowledge).
... hmm
Surely that's a punchline? Maybe kidding on the square, but it doesn't strike me as all that dickish, especially since I'd assume a pun about riches.
44.3: That's just for sex right? I'd hate to have to be upfront with people as to why I'm talking to them.
"Just so you know, I'm only listening to your story because I know I'll need your signature on a form next week."
48: Sure, it's a bit of a joke, and if they were on friendly and "more equal" terms just a bit of banter. But given the context of their relationship and that particular moment it came across as something quite different. Per Wikipedia: After three songs, the duo left without speaking.
Anybody else remember this classic SNL sketch?
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86ememory.phtml
Not sure if it works better as performance or text.
anybody famous, that you don't know personally
Not famous, "heard of." Way lower bar.
Garfunkel just sounds like a loser whiner--not particularly more creepy than lots of guys in his position.
I did not have sex with him and it was really unpleasant
This line is too good; I can't do anything with it (but I think the joke ends with ...laydeez).
55: And think how much more unpleasant it would have been to actually have sex with him! I suppose the phrasing leaves the possibility open that the whole thing could have been pleasant had I only put out...but jeez, you didn't see the guy. "Clammy" is the adjective that comes to mind. "Clammy" and "easily twenty years older than me, and they'd obviously been a fairly rough twenty years".
I wonder if he likes to say things like "had it down to an art form" because he is punning on his name.
I refuse to have negative opinions of Art because of his great, simple* walk across the country. Just walked out his apartment one day. Eventually got a bit more organized about logistics, but it wasn't some big statement, it wasn't a publicity stunt, it was just the sort of thing that many of us would like to do if we had the chance, but that most people who have the chance find excuses not to do.
*not Thoreau-style simple, philosophically simple
I wonder if he likes to say things like "had it down to an art form" because he is punning on his name.
So you're saying he really is a monster?
At his Bar Mitzvah in 1954, Garfunkel sang as a cantor and performed over four hours of his repertoire to his family,
Now, that is a diva.
I'm thinking of walking the whole Laurel Highlands trail. But my ankle keeps hurting.
Maybe I should get trekking poles even though you can't walk with them and not look like a goober dumb ass.
Megan is so right in this thread (and generally), but TRO is awesomely funniest.
There's lots of creepy older man encounter territory I endorse but the asking someone out to dinner after having managed to sign her playbill/program/book last seems just like normal flirting/pursuit. Of course if the asker is just unpleasant well that'll be quite enough on its own to make the meal unenjoyable.
But then I may not be a reliable judge of the age differential factor contributing to creepiness as I read something the other day putting my own relationship in some vanishingly small percentage based in our age difference, it was quite the surprise!
64: You could buy a recliner bike with a custom rack for holding trekking poles. Then you'd be the king of cool.
If Megan is so good, she should tell me whether the potential pain reduction from using trekking poles is worth looking stupid while carrying them.
Maybe I should just get my ankle fused.
Also isn't it possible to have a very enjoyable dinner with someone with some portion of the enjoyment deriving from your companion's (perhaps ambiguous, or more overt) desire for you?
Never mind. The best case for that is six to eight weeks of no weight on that ankle.
69: It is possible!
There are also other possibilities.
When a naked man is asking a woman to dinner with a signed copy of his solo album and a hard on, I figure he isn't out collecting trying to reunite with Paul Simon.
69: See, all this stuff is possible....but that's not exactly what we're talking about. We're talking about the recurring situation where young women who are fans - not groupies - of musicians or artists are treated primarily as potential sex-providers. Young women who get their books/albums signed are not treated [by this kind of straight artist/writer] like male fans; they're treated as part of a pool of potential hook-ups, but we're not supposed to say this, or we're supposed to think it's flattering, or we're supposed to assume that young women fans are always-already groupies.
What's more, young women who are not deemed fuckable by creepy artists are often ignored - they're not even treated the same as male fans. (A youth spent amongst too many musicians gives me some familiarity with this side of things too.)
"Isn't it fun to go to dinner when you think that your musical hero might have only invited you to dinner because he wants to fuck you" is a way of framing the thing that assumes that all young women fans are straight and groupies.
(Also I used to know someone who has said that she was picked up and then pressured to perform a sexual act both gross and unsafe by a famous Minnesotan musician whose name and oeuvre would be familiar to most of you, and that although she had initially been flattered and into the whole having-sex idea, it quickly became creepy and gross and she was trapped at Famous Guy's house. Even the "hey, I get to have sex with this Attractive Famous Person can quickly get unpleasant due to the age/power differential. I mean, if these guys are so famous and rich and everything, why can't they just pick up girls in an upfront manner, or hire well-compensated escorts? What's the payoff, other than creepy power bullshit, for manipulating fans into sleeping with you?)
I don't have strong opinions about hiking poles. I don't think any benefits warrant the costs to one's appearance of a recumbent bicycle.
I'm struggling to know what to say about this, Frowner: on the one hand, you're obviously correct. On the other, the treatment of young women as (almost exclusively) potential sex partners extends far and wide in our society: I'm not sure why music fans should be less aware of that reality than any other young woman in any other situation.
...or hire well-compensated escorts? What's the payoff, other than creepy power bullshit
Because it's a huge turn on to be desired and to have sex with someone who desires you. Escorts, not so much. And why wouldn't creepy power bullshit be involved in hiring escorts?
I don't know. Charlie Sheen seems like a well adjusted gentleman.
75: I don't mean to sound cynical, but why else would a someone in that setting ask someone out to dinner? If Art Garfunkel asked me out to dinner, I would assume he was hitting on me -- I'm just not that interesting otherwise.
Business opportunity: dating site/app for famous people who want to be upfront about the fact that they are just interested in having sex with you.
78: Partly because it's considered (as is implicit in your comment) sort of naive/too sincere/trite to mention the fact.
Partly because in my own experience I really wanted to be able to interact with writers and artists I admired as a fan. It's reasonable to say "this particular scene is fucked up in this particular way and I, as a participant, think it should change"....no matter how much the rest of society is also bad.
Partly because when you're young I think it is difficult for many women to correctly identify and deal with this kind of creeping - you hope it's not happening, because you're really excited about [whatever cultural production] and you want to be respected for what you have to say and you want to participate in fan culture, so you hope it's not true. And because you want to participate in fan culture, you have an extra amount of pressure to shut up and make nice or to pretend that it's not happening.
Partly because even in my rather staid and prudish experience, music and arts scenes generally tend to be a little exuberant. More impairment due to substances, etc. As much as, say, a moderately successful tenured English professor has the opportunity to creep on undergrads, he and they are less likely to be drunk when it happens, and the "but she was at the show, she was practically a groupie" logic tends not to turn into "but she was in English class, she was obviously hoping he'd fuck her".
81: Because he wants to read my poetry?
81: As I said upthread, I've been to dinner with some modestly famous dudes, and the dinners were organized at the events, and we went to dinner because they wanted to get some food at a local venue with someone who knew how to find a local venue with good food and who would be pleasant company. Perhaps it's my immense charisma and charm, or perhaps it is the cultural desert of the Midwest, but I have been invited to dinner by men who just wanted to have a pleasant dinner, even when in theory they could have invited someone younger and hotter to liquor them up, etc.
All these responses seem to be assuming that if you're a young woman fan, you will of course be delighted and flattered if an older musician or writer wants to fuck you, and you won't be interested in talking with the guy for any other reason. This has not been my experience as a young woman-type-person. More, I have a couple of younger, really pretty music scene woman friends who have talked about how gross and frustrating it is for them.
she was picked up and then pressured to perform a sexual act both gross and unsafe by a famous Minnesotan musician whose name and oeuvre would be familiar to most of you
Garrison Keillor sings a bit, but I don't think he really identifies as a musician.
85.2: Not at all. It's assuming that the reason that older musicians and writers interact with younger women fans in more than a perfunctory way is to hit on them.
Nose whistling is an act, but that's the wrong adjective.
87: Well, right, kind of. For the interaction to be non-confusing for the fan, she has to have internalized that it's completely implausible that a higher-status man will want to talk to her unless he wants to fuck her; there's no chance he just wants to socialize.
This may be how a cynical person would bet, but it's a kind of depressing way to have to think about yourself.
87: Well, yes, and what I'm saying is that this is gross and creepy and misogynist....and not actually an unalterable law of the universe or even a universal practice by every somewhat famous straight guy.
90: And you have to internalize the idea that you must simultaneously know this about the interaction and never refer to it - the whole thing relies on the artist pretending to have some interest in the young fan as a fan or as a human being rather than a piece of ass, and the young fan recognizing that she's just a piece of ass but being too polite/savvy to say so. Again, gross.
Can't everybody just sublimate this stuff into the general miasma of interpersonal awkwardness?
Which gives you the somewhat paradoxical result that a somewhat more overt 'hitting on' is possibly less gross. "Are you single? And are you free for dinner?" is unambiguous, at least.
I don't really understand the fan bit so suspect my perspective on this whole thing not relevant to what is being discussed.
Yeah, which is why I think 83 is really hits the mark.
90: But why would a celebrity want to interact with a fan? Do celebrities seem like they want to interact with fans, in general? They usually only do it if there's something in it for them.
But there are (many?) people for whom the agony and ecstasy of ambiguous situations is part of what provides relations to other people with a charge that they don't want to give up. Many are these people are even good sports when it becomes clear that the other person probably isn't interested and continue to be friends with them.
Which gives you the somewhat paradoxical result that a somewhat more overt 'hitting on' is possibly less gross.
That doesn't strike me as paradoxical, really.
I am all in favor of overt 'hitting on', and I also think "have you had dinner?" falls squarely into that category.
Maybe this is a baseline problem. If your baseline is 'hitting on the fan', "have you had dinner?" is real benign.
If your baseline is "inviting a stranger to a chaste conversation about your art over food" maybe "have you had dinner?" ambiguously also allows proposing sex later.
I am not bothered by this behavior, since I think adults should be able to handle the introduction of the possibility of sex into social situations.
But how is it not overt hitting-on? Apparently Frowner has been asked to dinner by strangers who weren't hitting on her, but literally every time I've ever been asked to dinner by a stranger, it has been a gay man hitting on me. Maybe I'm unusually charmless except as a piece of ass.
91: But it isn't creepy and gross for someone to want to have sex with an attractive other person and try to arrange that, even if the arranger has some celebrity. Pressure would be creepy, manipulation would be creepy, not taking rejection well would be creepy. But asking people to dinner with the hopes that it would lead to sex isn't creepy.
92: I don't understand that at all. What is the bar to being upfront about the interaction at the time or in conversations with other people later? "Famous Dude was totally hitting on me, but I wasn't into it and left after dinner." I don't think anyone hearing that would think poorly on either participant.
In addition to the typo and grammar issues with 98, I don't think inviting a stranger to dinner is all that ambiguous. But inviting a casual acquaintance would be.
Well, okay, if we're talking about, like, Bruce Springsteen or someone, interacting with fans is probably a giant chore. But there are a lot of "big small" scenes where people do hang out with fans. That's how I met Lu Edmonds years ago - he was coming to town, my housemate knew him from a message board and we went to dinner. He said he was glad to have the chance to get dinner somewhere relatively small, quiet and not entirely unhealthy. We talked about gentrification in Brixton. I've also hosted various traveling writers and artists from scenes where there's a certain amount of fame but not a lot of money. It's usually pleasant, except for Rape Apologist Anarchist who came through to talk about anarchism in Greece.
I would not expect to interact with...hm, who is a really famous arts person whose work I admire? Uh, I guess I would not expect to chat idly with Jimmy Somerville or Green Gartside....but if I were at a book event and had the opportunity to go to dinner with Hal Duncan or Felix Gilman or someone at that level of fame, I'd expect that there was a degree of genuine "hey, perhaps this book tour is exhausting but these people seem pleasant and they very likely know where the adequate local meals can be found".
101: Or an exceptional piece of ass.
The English teacher who asks you out is responding to your writings, class discussion, and, I suppose, looks. He might be interested in conversation, in your ideas. The famous singer out on tour is responding only to looks, and this is immediately obvious to everyone. He's not interested in conversation, and certainly not in your critique.
I suppose also that the traveling singer has learned over the years that a certain percentage of young women would like to fuck him, and that, if so, they'll come up to him after the show and ask for an autograph. So he asks a question that everyone understands is a pretext and, he says, it works to sort those interested in fucking from those not.
I'm not sure what the better alternative is. No one fucks the singer? Those who want to fuck the singer submit their names, there a drawing, and the singer is informed who has won? People who just want to discuss ideas get to submit their names to a list, and the singer gets to decide between the ideas list and the dtf list?
Amending 101, of course in a professional setting I go to dinner with strangers who are colleagues. Maybe what Frowner has in mind is closer to that? For example, if you are the person who actually arranged the event, then if the person you invited hit on you after you took them to dinner, that would be creepier.
Perhaps the singer could, like, go out to a nightclub and pick up women, or go to an afterparty or a [creepy and gross in its own way] arts scene/industry mixer or something. That's how local musicians of my acquaintance seem to handle things.
I don't know. Charlie Sheen seems like a well adjusted gentleman.
Man should not want to eradicate his complexes but rather live in harmony with them; they are the legitimate directors of his living in the world.
104: But if they ask you, and you alone, to dinner, what would be their intent? Someone who wants to interact with fans would want to interact with several, right? Someone who wants to interact with a single fan, on the other hand...
My point, in terms of the "Frowner has met people" anecdotes, is that all of those guys could so readily have hit on young people at events, or could have creeped on the various young people who were also along at dinner or who have, on occasion, lived in my house. Except they didn't - they acted like ordinary, nice human beings and did not assume that if there was a pretty twenty year old at the table with them that was reason enough to try to get her alone later.
The way folks talk, you would think that attractive and successful men had absolutely no dating pool except girls at shows.
Since "have you had dinner" is, as has been pointed out, literally tied for the least pressuring way possible to hit on someone, the way I'm reading Frowner is "it would be nice if famous men were less into sex and more into platonic chats", which is fair enough.
Re Garfunkel, I concur with 18.1.
Felix Gilman
In that case you should just ask him if he wants to sex mutombo.
111: Maybe they were trying to sleep with you and knew it would take more subtlety?
I find both Frowner and Megan convincing, which I think I can reconcile by concluding that we can't know if, "have you had dinner?" is creepy without additional evidence.
110: The Famous Artist With The Unsafe Sexual Practice that I mentioned upthread actually said to the girl in question right off the bat, "I think you're hot, want to go back to my place?" and she was into it, and she did. Until the unsafe stuff happened. There was none of this pretense that he thought she was smart or fun or that he wasn't sure where he could get decent Thai this time of night or whatever. There was no possibility that she'd be, for instance, a naive eighteen year old who was excited to meet someone famous; there was no "I'm going to keep this ambiguous enough that when I ply you with drinks later I can pretend that this wasn't my intent".
Again, if these are famous and important musicians who hate hanging out with fans and only want to fuck random nubile attendees, why can't they just say this? That would make it readily apparent which ones are going to be flattered and which ones aren't, and it would save everyone time and catering bills.
111.2: It's more that it's the reason that attractive and successful men go into art so that they can hit at girls at shows.
I knew a bunch of aspiring (male) musicians back in my 20s, and for all of them "meeting women" was the main reason they were aspiring in the first place. Apparently you know a better class of musician.
Incidentally, I found the interview more sympathetic than the OP did. It does sound like Art Garfunkle is a bit of a whiner, but who isn't and, mostly, it made me think that he's had a very odd life.
It must be odd to have that sort of success early, and then try to figure out what to do next. It sounds like he has, in some ways, figured out satisfying things to be doing and, in other ways, still thinks about ways in which things could have gone differently during his phase of peak success -- and that sounds like a very human reaction.
(This is, of course, separate from the discussion of whether he was creepy in his approaches to female fans.)
113: Learn something new every day, I guess.
I just picked up The Revolutions last week, actually.
A friend from our local anarchist center absolutely insisted that I read The Half Made World and The Rise of Ransom City, and I borrowed them in a grumpy fashion and delayed reading them until it got somewhat embarrassing what with having the borrowed copies and then I kind of pretended that I had read them and yes we would certainly talk about them next time we were down at the ol' anarchist center together and then I had to read them and pretty damn quick, and they were really good. I'm thinking that the book group/class that I run will probably read them this fall.
I don't really understand what seems to be a nearly willful misreading of Frowner here!
Felix Gilman is enjoyable on twitter.
116: I honestly think that approach is fine (although someone who wanted to critique it could complain that it was too abrupt and reductionist, why can't he even pretend he is interested in talking to me?).
I also think the pretense is pretty damn flimsy, and naïve eighteen year olds might have to learn the hard way (by being disappointed to find out that sex is proposed, not by date rape) that adults sometimes have sexual motives when they interact. So long as more creepy stuff doesn't happen later, the invitation to dinner to give someone the chance to propose sex isn't itself a problem.
Garfunkel's approach could potentially have the drawback of investing time into someone who actually wanted dinner without sex, so he might do better with "you're smoking, want to bone?", which might have the same success rate for someone of his celebrity.
But barring further creepiness, I still can't see this approach as a problem for either.
90, 91, 92 reflect my experience and opinion of it. I was particularly round-cheeked and innocent looking and it pissed me off that my assigned role was to play stupid.
106.3: persons DTF wear miniskirts or very short doublets. Conversational persons wear dignified robes.
Is a doublet a singlet with sleeves?
A "singlet" is a license to perform songs in public. A "doublet" is a license to apply heavy reverb to songs in the studio.
The thread generally?
I'm probably being overly sensitive because I happened to have been the person (other than Frowner) who had commented most recently before your comment, but I thought there was an agreement, based on past experience, that if somebody is going to accuse somebody else of "willful misreading" that it's good to quote what they've written that you find objectionable.
The real ludicrousness of Art Garfunkel is involving a dinner in the first place. Would Vince Neil have done this? No. He would have downed some cheez whiz and cocaine for sustenance and then started having sex right there.*
*In fact, IME and to my knowledge, there both is and was a super clear music business distinction between professional/respectable sphere people, including appreciative fans or friends or friends of friends with whom you have a connection and who get treated just like any other ordinary people (often including women) and random fan groupies. I actually don't think as a practical matter for reasonably successful music biz artists there's much room for the kind of confusion Frowner is worried about.
But per 116 the up front approach didn't eliminate the ensuing creepiness! It still looks like a creepiness problem that may be more likely to occur in a "fan" situation, but sure isn't confined to it. And frowner the solution I think you are arguing for wouldn't have prevented your friend's situation.
Everyone is constantly willfully misreading me. My arguments are cogent, beautiful and persuasive, and only willful disagreement prevents everyone from...um....agreeing with me. This is true about all things, particularly about the effectiveness of anarchism and the deliciousness of hippie pizza.
I'm not agreeing to 90. I too was naïve and fuckable and I was able to hold in my head the two possibilities that someone might be inviting me because he wanted to fuck and because I was otherwise interesting and evaluate those options as the evening progressed.
it pissed me off that my assigned role was to play stupid.
Possibly I have never been especially aware of the roles others would put on me, nor willing to play them, but I still wouldn't conflate "invited to be fuckable" and "playing stupid".
It's because once we agree with you, we must fall silent. Our disagreement is us shouting into the void against our inevitable fates.
123, etc: big problem with this is that the attitude "grownups might have sex" gets slid into "so you were leading me on, you uptight prude" with social repercussions. Shouldn't, does. Countermove is to naively invite an older fellow fan along to take the artist to dinner... Oh yay, chaperonage.
Who was it with the lovely description of working with his estate and villagers, and in the evening putting on robes of antique style to speak to the ancients in his study? Machiavelli?
132 is awesome. Personally, I find that the only reason that people aren't entirely persuaded by my amazing arguments is that they don't understand them fully. I should probably repeat them until the disagree does understand them.
I am sad that my band never got anyone laid, but relieved that it never got anyone laid in a creepy way.
We did briefly have a fan, by which I mean "someone who came to more than one show and wasn't any of our friends," but I think she just wanted to shtup the drummer.
She shouldn't have wanted to that badly, per 137.1.
Unless shtup is being used in a literal, Yiddish sense.
136: I think that one can't really lose by repeating one's argument over and over in slightly different language, especially if one simplifies it a bit each time and uses a few more capital letters. I've found that this does eventually cause people to fall silent a la 134, at which point victory is declared and we all go eat pizza with a thick bready crust*.
*For me an early memory of Unfogged is arguing with nosflow (possibly others as well) about whether hippie pizza is an acceptable regional pizza variant or disgusting and barbaric. I felt very strongly about this at the time for reasons which escape me now. Of course, that was before I got into a work situation where there is free but gross pizza once a week.
We don't get free pizza once a week now. Because ethics.
133 is pretty Elysian. It's never possibly mattered to you who would believe you if you were accused of something (like, breaking the nice man's big toe?)
If you have only an average oven, not a real pizza one, thick bready pizza is probably the best way to feed a lot of people. Ought to be good bread, though.
I'd rather just call a place with a pizza oven and have them deliver.
But ready cash. Also the very long discussion of which pizza place has adequate politics and also adequate pizza. Also, maybe you're too far away.
Was I saying it's acceptable or disgusting? I guess I must have been saying it's disgusting if you were arguing with me.
My feelings on this matter have, in the intervening years, mellowed significantly.
I'm sure thick bready-crusted pizza is just fine!
Wait, maybe you were saying it's gross. I don't think I've ever even had it.
1: He really was the Garfunkel of that band, wasn't he?
Frowner, your argument makes a lot of sense as an account of why professors shouldn't sleep with their students--because students shouldn't have to wonder if they're being appreciated for their brains or their bodies. But I'm just not persuaded the artists have the same responsibility toward their fans. Fans might want one thing, artists might want another, and as long as they negotiate these differing expectations respectfully and consensually I don't see a problem.
143: I guess that's what I'm getting at, that there's a cultural pretense that young women in these situations are not at a big social disadvantage already, so all that is likely to result is a little bit of awkwardness and greater social savvy in the future - that the whole thing is more akin to confused romantic/sexual signals between equals of about thirty than anything, er, creepier. Presumably for some young women in some social situations, this is the case and the whole thing may just be a sadder-but-wiser situation. For me it was one of a series of bad interactions with creepy older men - almost all of whom were eventually angry because as a young, not that pretty, fattish person I misread their signals and/or did not want to have sex with them when I obviously should have been a sure thing due to the not that pretty fattishness - that stayed with me a long time and made other kinds of intimacy difficult. If I had been confident and good-looking this probably would not have been the case, but then at least two of the dudes in question wouldn't even have tried it.
149: No, you were saying that it was gross and making some kind of argument about authentic pizza fired in kilns made out of imported Etruscan mosaic or something. I admit now that the thin crust high heat kind of pizza is actually tastier, but I can't make that at home and also the bready kind is really good with a vast amount of minced garlic on it.
What a fool I was! I'm sure glad that I'm beyond all that now.
Possibly 'fan' is being used in two senses. In low-money, high-interaction fields like SF has been and folk and early music sometimes still are, it is creepy to assume that the celebrities can get nothing from fans but obedient sex.
On the bready pizza caccia nanza, also olive oil.
I don't think of e.g. Jordi Savall as having sf-style fans.
154: On the other hand I did end up buying a lot of fancy chocolate and bread in the aftermath of that thread - as I recall, the conversation strayed to acceptable breads and chocolates.
152: they get angry and they feel embarrassed or duped or shorted, and then it matters who has the social power.
Jordi savall is the equivalent of a writer with a movie contract at ComiCon, though. Plenty of folk/reconstruction/early musicians with recordings and awards and even almost careers will go out to dinner and talk about tuning, though. Or would 20 years ago when I still had a virginals.
I can't tell if that's low hanging fruit or a joke.
Well I nearly always agree with you frowner and certainly agree that less creepiness would be great. Also, it is totally possible and actually pretty easy to make delicious thin crust pizza in a home oven that reaches 500 degrees.
I loved Steve Van Zandt story about working very hard to convince AZANLA not to put out a hit on Paul Simon. Maybe they should have talked to Art!
155 gets to the part where I can't get with Frowner's (in many ways convincing) argument. If I, as a privileged (younger) male fan, wanted to tell myself that, if only I got to shout at Ian Anderson to sign my t-shirt, he'd find me to be a thoughtful and worthwhile companion for a bit of curry, I'd be fucking delusional. So why should we think that my cute, female peer should be able to have a comparable expectation that is realistic?
I can't think of any post-pubescent time of my life when I'd have thought that someone of Art Garfunkel's post-1965 stature would be randomly picking people out of autograph lines for potential intellectual communion. I take the point that smaller scene artistic types might be, but that's just the deal. I can reasonably expect to have a conversation with the chef at my favorite local restaurant that could lead to something other than a perfunctory exchange; if I think I'm getting that out of Ferran Adria, I'm delusional. World famous people don't seek random fans off the street for meaningful* interaction.
Come to think of it, it's a bit of a cliche world famous musicians lament that they don't get to have easy, peerish interactions with people who aren't in their entourages, because it's more or less impossible for e.g. Bob Dylan to grab a random fan and go to a restaurant for a meal that wouldn't consist of 90 minutes of agonizing fan talk.
*all due respect to groupie sex
"First you get the dulcimer, then you get the audience of 16 people, then you get the women."
"First you get the dulcimer, then you get the audience of 16 people, then you get the women."
Fantastic. But are you talking about a mountain dulcimer or a hammer dulcimer?
I suppose everybody else knew what "tuning" was.
165: see, it hurts men/celebrities too.
I don't recognize most of the names in this thread so can't tell who's expecting depersonalization only from our rois fainéants, and who from everybody.
In case you, like me, hadn't heard the story referenced in 164 before, here it is and you should read it. It also pretty much decisively settles in my mind who, as between Simon and Garfunkel, is the bigger asshole, and no the guy who asked fans to dinner in the hope of sex does not win the quien es mas asshole contest.
165.3: a coordination problem! They should trade fans! Within some cleverly calculated metric that allows intelligent discourse but makes infatuated gibble unlikely.
"Money. Money ruins everything."
170: There is no reason that they can't both be assholes, although I think that Simon's violation of the boycott is obviously much worse than Garfunkel's various creepy and petty shenanigans. I would hate for someone to go to a "oh, sexism is just trivial, shut up girls who want to attend concerts without being creeped on because you after all are not South Africans living under apartheid" place.
never possibly mattered to you
My sense is that I'm unusually impervious, in a bull-in-a-china-shop kinda way.
162: I was tripped up this week by an oven that could get to temperature, but not stay there if fed more than, say, a single muffin pan. We could do soft bread but nothing crusty and my pies were a pity.
I don't think you've actually established that Garfunkel is creepy, but he certainly is likely to be an asshole.
Anyhow, here's even more reason to hate on Simon. Wotta dick.
Imperviousness probably admirable but not available to everyone. Even bulls get brought down by enough snapping dogs.
girls who want to attend concerts without being creeped on
Did I miss the part of the story where he stops the performance to go into the audience to creep on girls? Everyone who wants to attend big [folk] rock concerts without unsatisfying interactions with the talent has the option of leaving at the end. I refuse to accept the idea that working your way backstage in hopes of interaction with strangers with whom you have nothing in common is a neutral act. And, again, while the stakes aren't (at all) gender symmetrical, nobody with any realistic sense of the world should be going back there in hopes of an intellectually rewarding discussion of the artist's work or anything else.
Again, I'm willing to say that the deal is different with minor/local talent, where the gap between fan and performer is much smaller (along every dimension), but the thing we're talking about here is a guy who went directly from Greenwich Village coffeehouses* to 500- and 1000-seat auditoriums to, a year later, headlining a 50,000 person festival. Once he left the coffeehouses, only delusional people could expect to be on even footing with him backstage. Patriarchy means the unequal footing lands more heavily on female fans, but nobody's gaining new best friends backstage.
I should add that, if he's hitting on high schoolers, it's creepy full stop. But during the S&G era, he was 25-28; I'd argue there wasn't a huge age issue with any woman of age (there's a power gap with almost any woman alive). In the '70s, I don't think he was getting any groupies of any age.
*actually, while Simon was in England, I don't even know if Art could get that
but nobody's gaining new best friends backstage
I think Edie Brickell got found by the New Bohemians that way.
Anyhow, here's even more reason to hate on Simon. Wotta dick.
Thanks for the links. I like much of Paul Simon's music but, yeah, that's crappy behavior.
Is Frowner's position (a) that it's not OK for musicians to hit on/sleep with their fans at all, or (b) that if they do so they need to say I AM NOW EXPRESSLY SIGNALING THAT I WANT TO FUCK YOU and not take them out to dinner because a dinner could be read ambiguously to mean just two buddies getting together over food to talk about making music? If it's the latter, which I think it is, it seems like a weird standard for "creepiness" to be "asking someone out" instead of saying "fuck me now."
|| Speaking of dogs, this happened at my friend's house on Saturday. He says the attack on his girlfriend's dog (a shih tzu) is the worst thing he's ever seen. He's probably never seen Art Garfunkel invite a fan to dinner, though. |>
Nobody tell me anything bad about Neil Diamond. I'm not as good at holding contradictory views on a single individual.
There's a small yappy dog next door ... let's just say the bear may have a call on some people's sympathies.
185: Neil Diamond is a contradictory person:
Diamond stated in 2007 that he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit. However, in 2014, he said in an interview on the Today Show that it was written for his wife, Marcia. He could not find a good rhyme with the name "Marcia," and therefore used the name Caroline.
If you look at Art Garfunkel's reading list, you'll see he apparently shares Paul Simon's odd affinity for Henry Kissinger.
I was thinking about the Megan/Frowner discussion about the creepiness (or not) of Art Garfunkle hitting on female fans, and wanted to attempt a summary, because I think there are some interesting issues.
Megan says, "have you had dinner" is, on the face of it, a polite and easily reusable come-on and, as such, doesn't seem like a problem.
Frowner suggests there it is problematic, and I identify two primary reasons for it (1) that it's annoying to be hit on while you're trying to do something else. If someone has gone to a concert or signing (or even gone to dinner in a situation where it would be normal for fans to hang out with musicians before or after a show) just because you're interested in seeing the musician then being hit on can make them feel like they aren't welcome just as a fan. (2) That there's a power differential and that some musicians deliberately exploit the power differential to take advantage of female fans.
Megan responds to (1) by saying that, while the situation may be awkward the advantages of allowing room for, "the introduction of the possibility of sex into social situations." outweigh the disadvantages of the awkwardness.
I believe that part of Megan's response to (2) is that people "don't have to go along with the existing power dynamic and can just act as if they have full agency in the situation." That may be a slight mis-reading, but I think she comes close to saying that with, "Possibly I have never been especially aware of the roles others would put on me, nor willing to play them, but I still wouldn't conflate "invited to be fuckable" and "playing stupid". "
I feel like some of Frowner's stories make clear that there are costs to pushing back, and not accepting other people's sense of hierarchy.
I also think that Megan's position is an appealing one, and that there are situation in which simply not playing along works and is a good response to a difficult situation. There is another important point to be made, however, and this is one reason why I wanted to do this summary.
The ability to not go along with social rules is an expression of privilege*. People who have less social standing or social capital are going to get punished much more severely for being confrontational or violating other people's scripts. This means, both, that it's quite possible for different people to have conflicting anecdotes about what the costs are of doing X, and that it's import to listen when somebody says, "it may not be a problem for you to do X, but it is for some people."
Reasonable summary?
* I was shocked to look up that post and realize it was over a year ago. It's been an odd year for me.
Neither Megan nor anyone else thinks the fan has to have dinner (much less sex) with the rock star. There's no cost to pushing back at that point. Obviously going to the rock star's house changes the power dynamic quite considerably.
189: I think you're running together two issues. Even if Art Garfunkel says to you "I want to have sex with you, but dinner first", and you agree, you are obviously entitled to change your mind. Because of power differentials, it's easier for you and I to change our minds without consequence than it is for a female fan. This is distinct from whether or not Garfunkel should be asking fans out to dinner as opposed to propositioning them outright.
I'm emotionally with Frowner, in that I think this is a kind of regrettable and mostly unpleasant interaction, but I do see the 'nothing actually wrong is going on here' argument.
Trying to pin down exactly what seems unpleasant about it, it's that I want to describe it as transactional in a way I don't like. Take your fan on line for Art's autograph -- possibly she's gagging to have sex with him, but can we agree that odds are, for a girl on line for his autograph, that she's a huge fan who thinks his music is amazing and would love to, e.g., read him her poetry, but probably does not actively want to screw him immediately.
At which point, what's on offer when he asks her to dinner? "I'm famous. You think I'm amazing, and want to interact with me socially, but don't particularly want to fuck me immediately for one night and never hear from me again. You're physically attractive, so I would like to fuck you once and never see you again. Let's make a deal -- I spend an hour socializing with you over dinner, which I'd rather not do, and then you fuck me, which you'd rather not do."
And, it's not a binding deal, people do interact like this. But it is a pretty clear implicit deal, if the fan goes to dinner and doesn't screw the star, there's a sense in which she's going to feel as if she's welshing, even if he doesn't get ugly about it. But from a star to a fan, the social contact is a really attractive offer, and hard to turn down.
Nothing's inherently nonconsensual, people treat each other worse than that all the time. But it does sound like a lot of pressure for the fan to do something that she doesn't necessarily want to do, at which point I find the whole thing at least depressing and wish people didn't act that that.
Also, 192 is exactly the case in which "who wants to sex me?" Is the non-creepy approach. One of the people in line may very well be hot to trot! Find her! Be polite if it's a him, etc.
Right -- the crude approach is how you find the fan who really is gagging to get his/her hands on Little Art, or whatever Garfunkel calls it.
192 Rock star isn't asking a fan to dinner knowing she doesn't want to fuck him. He doesn't know her state of mind. So he's asking her.
Isn't the traditional point of dinner not to bribe someone, but so that you have some time to interact so that you can both decide whether you actually want to fuck or not? The autograph is much more transactional. If I went for say Suzanne Vega's autograph (say when I was in my 20s and she in her 40s) I'd assume she probably wanted to fuck me. If I were single I'd be excited about that, I'm a huge fan of her music and it'd be a great story, but I'd want to work out that she's not a complete jerk first and dinner's a good way to do that
It all kind of depends on what the odds are. It's certainly possible that a fan might think that a one night stand with a star would be something she'd actively want to do. But my guess is that mostly, that's not what she's there for, at which point you get into the uncomfortable transaction I described.
"Gagging" is disturbing me v efficaciously.
I love it how the logical conclusion of this conversation is that Motley Crue were the real feminists.
I think it would be sort of weird for a famous musician to have to say "who wants to sex me?" instead of asking someone out for dinner, but you have to admit, it would make for better famous musician stories.
Are there any alternate history stories about Hitler getting involved with Dada instead of National Socialism? 'Cause that would be pretty awesome if there were.
He's a terrible SF author for... Disch?
But yeah, based on too many years spent dealing with artists, I can attest that any straight guy (and probably most of the gay guys) who has worked to achieve a position of power or at least recognition in the arts, is at least partly there for the sex. And, frankly, in many cases the sex is the primary motivator. So lawyering this up about intentions or consensuality is kinda missing the point, it seems to me.
Spinrad: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream
Surely you're wrong about fans not mostly wanting to fuck stars, LB.
204: we can do something with this.
I think this discussion is conflating two issues that seem similar but are actually quite different: whether Garfunkel's behavior is creepy from the perspective of the women involved, and whether it's creepy from our perspective, knowing how he perceives it (or at least describes it). Most people have been talking about the first issue, where I think we just don't have enough information to really know but multiple interpretations are plausible depending on your assumptions about the context, the women's intentions/understanding of the situation, etc. The second issue is more about whether it's appropriate for him to be doing this systematically and in a sort of detached, impersonal way that really does treat female fans as essentially interchangeable sex-objects. Again, though, we don't have all the information we need to really assess this. In particular, we don't know what other big stars do and how Garfunkel's approach compares.
That said, Frowner is totally right of course.
Natilo's totally right too, I'm sure.
196 is missing a "and she asked me to dinner" somewhere.
There is a presumption here that the direct approach might work for a famous person. I doubt that; I think he'd be subject to much harsher criticism for trying it however appealing it seems to be in theory.
I was willing to try it in the seventies, when there was already a line of opinion among feminists how much better it would be if these transactions were confronted honestly, and without hypocrisy, etc. I rapidly concluded that whatever support there was for this hadn't spread to my circles. At this point I doubt there was ever any substance to it in any actually existing society.
I'm sure it would "work" for a famous person in the sense that if you're a famous person it's probably pretty easy to find people who will have sex with you regardless of how you ask. It's the famous-person status that's doing all the work there, though.
Have shome Madeira, m'dear?
213: When I was a kid, a friend of the family told me that song had F&S's only dirty joke, but that they'd had to cut it. Apparently after "to view his collection of stamps" there was an aside "(all unperforated, of course)".
It took me literally years to work out what the joke was.
I can tell I'm jetlagged, because I'd wanted to write "that that song had had" and couldn't think of any way to avoid that construction
210: I thought it was rather presumptuous.
Like tindr, but matching celebrities with fans.
214: The version I grew up with had the "all unperforated" line in it. I had to ask my dad what "unperforated" meant. He explained the literal meaning but naturally left out the double entendre - similarly it took me years to work it out.
It certainly isn't their only dirty joke, however.
I can never summarize my experience without thinking of a counterexample. A ridiculously direct approach once worked for me.
In my last semester, senior year, I sat down next to a girl in my esthetics class, on the lawn in late spring warm weather, and more or less propositioned her. (I remember this all clearly because I told it to my Restoration-18th century tutor, a senior woman near retirement. Having made a narrative then makes remembering it as a narrative now easier)
The young woman on the lawn's reaction was very interesting. She wanted to know what in her appearance, her presentation might have given me the idea she'd be receptive. After a long time I managed to convince her that there was nothing, that I was in a mad mood and picked her, attractive though she was, almost randomly. Once I had established that, we made a date and went on from there.
Have I told this story before?
||
My boss just asked me what a gloryhole was, in front of the whole office.
Turns out that it's also a technical term in mining, which made my burst of hysterical laughter and subsequent explanation of gay subculture even more awkward.
|>
The worst thing was that he sort of nodded along thoughtfully: "Hmm... Ah... I see... So the rest of the person isn't visible?"
Then he explained that it was probably referring to a place in a mine.
Well, you know, there are surely gay miners, and some of them are probably into gloryholes, so...
True, but when you're in a gloryhole, stop digging.
Then he explained that it was probably referring to a place in a mine.
"Ah, no, I said it was something you might find in a mineshaft, not in the Mineshaft."
Although... "A gloryhole funk" is an anagram of "O! Holy Garfunkel!". Mere coincidence?
So in the lyrics to "A Simple Desultory Philippic*" maybe Simon had something specific in mind with "Been ... Art Garfunkeled."
*Mentioned in the recent thread on songs that quote other songs. In researching this comment, discovered that Simon had first released this on a solo album he did over in England (I had no idea he did anything outside of S&G during the '60s). The English version apparently had a somewhat different Dylan call out "It's all right Ma. It's just something I learned over in England," rather than "It's all right Ma. Everybody must get stoned." ... and that's the rest of the story.
222/224 is great. You should give the Urban Dictionary definition for any question at work. (I thought it was a glass blowing term.)
228 is also great.
I haven't read the whole thread with perfect attention, but 192 assumes a lot of attitudes not in evidence, to the point that it's bizarre to say that "it's a pretty clear implicit deal." Dinner with someone you find attractive -- even if the only thing you know about them is that they're attractive and that they're your fan -- is not necessarily felt as some onerous obligation. Many people enjoy dinner, flirting, the getting to know someone new, being seen out with a hottie, the experience of pursuit (because they actually aren't assuming they just get sex as a reward), and getting emotionally warmed up to someone so that they'll get more out of sex if it happens. And part of the point of dinner is the acknowledgment that sure, the fan's antecedent desire might not be so strong that she wants to drop trou in the alley (though it might be!), but that desire emerges over the course of an extended interaction.
Don't Art Garfunkel that joint my friend, pas it over to me.
Can someone please explain "unperforated" to me?
222/231: this has been covered at length on The Soup.
Just to give a slight hint of the depth of ignorance possible, I will confess that I had to google to find out who F&S were -- and I'd never heard of them.
And I'm up for dinner with Moby and JRoth, and Moby can explain to us the subtle innuendo of "unperforated".
240: That was going to be my next post.
241, same here. I assumed it meant "Gilbert & Sullivan".
234: Yeah, that's completely true. The problem for me is that so's 180. Fan in the autograph queue gets the dinner invitation, and let's assume she's not immediately eager to drop trou, but would be generally thrilled to spend time with her hero. So her thought process is (she reads unfogged) "Tia's persuasive in 234. There's no compelling reason to think this is meant as other than an invitation to a pleasantly social dinner, which if we find ourselves mutually attracted could go further or not. I'd love to get a chance to spend some time with (I'm trying to come up with a hyperbolically fawning description of Garfunkel here, but I really can't), and who knows, maybe we'll click and have an exciting night together, and I'd be a prudish fool, and one who was uncharitably failing to give him the benefit of the doubt, to turn down the chance to spend social time with him because I don't want to treated like an interchangeable piece of ass pulled out of the crowd. On the other hand, JRoth is persuasive in 180. I'd be an egotistically naive moron to think that the star is pulling some rando out of an autograph line as anything other than the most attractive available piece of ass within range. Any way I jump, I'm the fool."
The star's putting the fan in a dilemma: she's got a chance at something really exciting and fun if she's willing to be trusting that star is trustworthy, safe, and reasonably kind. On the other hand, you'd have to be an idiot to rely on J. Random Famousguy to be all of those things to a fan he'd pulled out of a crowd: J. Random Famousguy's record is pretty bad that way. Maybe Art Garfunkel actually was trustworthy, safe, and kind, but the setup is asking the fan to make a leap of faith in a way that feels sleazy and depressing to me.
(My posts in this thread are largely informed by a friend-of-a-friend's sleazy and depressing interaction with Bill Maher, back in the day. Nothing excitingly scandalous or nonconsensual, just an interaction that left her thinking "What an incredible dick.")
I will confess that I had to google to find out who F&S were
You should also familiarize yourself with Tom Lehrer. He's likely to come up as well at some point.
244 makes sense, but here's the thing: "Do you want to get dinner?", assuming it means "at a public restaurant", protects against the downside. If the guy's a creep, then the fan is bummed, but can just leave, which sounds a lot like any date to me. Contrast that with "come to my tour bus/motel room/dressing room/house": the invitation is much more upfront, but the risk to the fan is infinitely greater if the guy turns out to be a creep.
I guess here's how I'd break it down from the POV of fan who's uncertain what she wants (that is, is not impossibly naive, could be DTF, but isn't there with that intent):
"Wow, he asked me to his hotel room, that's awesome! But what if he's a total creep? If he starts to rape me, will I be able to get out?"
"Wow, he asked me to dinner, that's awesome! But what if he's a total creep? That could ruin my meal, as well as my idealized view of him."
How is the latter worse?
Any way I jump, I'm the fool."
You just have to embrace awkwardness (which doesn't actually resolve the dilemma).
I've heard of Tom Lehrer ad nauseum, but never these Flanders & Swann guys. I guess they don't have any songs about science.
I guess they don't have any songs about science.
You know who is universally loved and has songs about science? They Might Be Giants.
I'm the fool
Yes, you're standing in line to get noticed an autograph.
250.last: actually they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnbiVw_1FNs
Heat is work and work's a curse
And all the heat in the universe
Is gonna cool down cos it can't increase
Then there'll be no more work and there'll be perfect peace...
Anytime anyone asks you out for something that's probably supposed to be casual fun they're putting you in the same dilemma. A lot of people are unskillful, or dicks, or unskillful dicks in sexual situations and being willing to jump into the breach at all means risking contact with all of that bullshit. Hell, anytime someone invites you into a deep, meaningful relationship you have a version of this dilemma: can I trust this person or are they going to betray or abuse me in some way? Sure, people should be aware of the kinds of bullshit other people are pulling and incorporate that knowledge into a sensitive approach, but if that were a reason not to approach at all, sex would never happen.
I guess I feel like "I'm a random piece of ass," and "I'm being asked out because I'm attractive" are just ways of overlaying a different emotional valence on the same thing. I see people all the time who I'd like to talk to, and then see where it goes, only on the basis of how they look (which includes all the social signalling that's accomplished with appearances). Or maybe you're using that as shorthand for how you're likely to be treated during the encounter, in which case see paragraph 1.
I'm sure everyone here agrees that hitting on someone entails the responsibility to quickly read signals of unreceptiveness and desist when you get them. Weirdly, there is maybe not agreement about whether "Have you eaten dinner?" or "Who wants to sex Garfunkel?" is more respectful. Speaking only for myself, I prefer the former approach. But what really seems to be at stake as what settings are ok for hitting on people. NickS's summary was good, I thought: in any situation there are competing interests, and we need to weigh those interests for each setting. I think Laura Kipnis is ridiculous when she bemoans restrictions on sex between undergrads and professors. The interests in allowing the undergrads interaction with professors without a lot of stress of sexual gamesmanship outweigh the importance of the populations being sexually available to each other. Backstage at a rock show? For reasons JRoth outlines in 180, that does not seem like a setting that needs protecting to me. Even if some people would prefer to get an autograph without being hit on, their interests are not outweighed by the interests of fans and rock musicians in being able to communicate about their desire to sleep together. IMO.
Sure, I'm not advocating for regulations barring sex with groupies, and I can certainly, as I said before, see the 'nothing wrong at all happening here' argument. It still strikes me as sleazy in a way that doesn't apply to casual sex generally, but that's not a basis for a call to action.
Perhaps Garfunkel is enough off-date that groupie-related rules shouldn't apply?
Probably. And probably has been since before some of the younger commenters were born.
He's as afraid of you as you are of him.
Topically, I listened to an interview this morning on the way to work with one of the former members of Panterra, who was bemoaning the fact that the groupie scene is now long-dead. According to him, younger musicians don't even drink, much less do lines off of crowd-sourced boobs; they just hang out in the bus and play video games and Skype their girlfriends. This is our contemporary lame world.
"younger musicians don't even dink"?
"Panterra" would be a great Mexican knock off. Throw a tuba in the mix for authenticity.
It's a different band. They play world music.
I'm not even sure what "world music" is, but I don't think I'd like it.
Topically, I listened to an interview this morning on the way to work with one of the former members of Panterra, who was bemoaning the fact that the groupie scene is now long-dead. According to him, younger musicians don't even drink, much less do lines off of crowd-sourced boobs; they just hang out in the bus and play video games and Skype their girlfriends. This is our contemporary lame world.
That's because younger musicians don't have any money, Pantera guy.
267: Paul Simon invented world music with Graceland.
It's good to know my thinly-sourced music stereotypes work.
Let's all recall dsquared's aunt, who went on a date with Isaiah Berlin "and came back muttering about him taking three kinds of liberty".
Topically, I listened to an interview this morning on the way to work with one of the former members of Panterra, who was bemoaning the fact that the groupie scene is now long-dead. According to him, younger musicians don't even drink, much less do lines off of crowd-sourced boobs; they just hang out in the bus and play video games and Skype their girlfriends. This is our contemporary lame world.
That's because younger musicians don't make any money, Pantera guy. They're lucky they can get time off from their jobs at Kinko's or a warehouse to tour at all.
Sorry about the embryonic post there. I thought my computer crashed.
268 is of course the real answer. I ran this question by my wife, who has managed a few semi-but-not-really successful bands, and she said that the main interest her guys would have in asking someone out to dinner would be a free, nice dinner.
268: That just makes it more reprehensible on their part. You're not even making any money! At least get some drunken groupie banging going. Why else be out there? For your art? Please, that shit isn't fooling anyone.
274: Fans can avoid that by suggesting Dutch treat.
On the constant ankle pain, it turns out that over-the-counter NSAIDs make a huge difference. Which, you'd think I would have remembered before this morning.
275, the opposite is true. If being a rock star makes money, you can dedicate yourself to it at the expense of all forms of decorum or social skills. If it doesn't, you have to stay presentable because you need a real job.
Eartha Kitt is great in her memoir on the immense delight she took in wolfing down huge steak dinners provided by groupie/fan dates. Her sensual appreciation for a seriously solid meal is excellent.
The greatest thing a fan can supply to a struggling band that's touring out of the back of a minivan: showers. If two bands are touring together (again, on the cheap, not staying-in-hotels touring), it's even more important.* So if you really want to be a super-fan, build several extra bathrooms in your house. Your favorite (struggling) band will thank you.
*Common first question once you get back on the road: "So who got a shower, anyway?" It's like winning the shower lottery.
You know, truck stops have showers.
The question is, if a fan asked you to dinner, and you thought she probably just wanted to have meaningless sex with you, would you feel pressured to go along with it in case there was a chance you could get a shower out of the deal? Because that would be sleazy.
Two showers. One for her sake, one for the people in the minivan.
you have to stay presentable because you need a real job.
Banging groupies in other cities is going to imperil the job at Kinkos?
Save your towel. Laundry isn't free.
275. Whatever happened to "Not much money but more pussy than you can use", which was the line used by Ronnie Hawkins to recruit the Hawks in the late 50s/early 60s.
The greatest thing a fan can supply to a struggling band that's touring out of the back of a minivan: showers.
It plays the "Freebird" or it gets the hose.
a struggling band that's touring out of the back of a minivan
This reminds me, I should recommend Suck: a micro-budget, Canadian, Rock and Roll, vampire, road trip comedy. If that description sounds appealing, it delivers quite well (including two very funny boarder-crossing scenes). If any of those adjectives sound off-putting, then then you probably won't like it.
What happens if the answer to "Have you had dinner?" is "Yes"? Does Art have a back-up plan?
289: "What? You were hoping to screw Paul? Do you know how short he is?"
Shedboys - is that still PNW regional? - are also in it long-term for art and freedom and short-term for showers.
The best shower I ever had was in a Wyoming trucks top, followed up by unbelievable fresh cinnamon rolls. I can't even remember if lover & I technically had sex in the shower, the shower-ness was so good.
First shower after digging in the Mojave also good although we didn't really have enough water and it was scaly.
Also, 118 gets it exactly right. Art doesn't come off bad at all in that interview, I don't think.
I think "Shedboys" is regional to one county in Washington state.
I think "Shedboys" is regional to one county in Washington state.
A propos of the conversation, NPR has this summary:
On the very tip of Washington state's Olympic Peninsula lies the town of Port Townsend. There are people there that live in the woods, with no electricity or running water. They're known around town as great lovers. They're called Shed Boys and Shed Girls. Noah Adams tours Port Townsend, talks with locals and takes stock of the phenomenon.