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Home » Open thread 2/14/22

Open thread 2/14/22

The New Neo Posted on by

This interview – one among many with the Bee Gees on YouTube – was from around 1989. After the Bee Gees’ early ballad success in the 60s and then their enormous disco domination in the late 70s, American DJs turned on them and wouldn’t play their music anymore. So the trio spent the 80s writing huge hits for other people:

For two examples of the hit songs they wrote for others during the 80s, here they are (also in 1989) performing a song they wrote for Dionne Warwick and another they wrote for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. You may recognize the songs but not realize the Bee Gees wrote them:

Comments

Open thread 2/14/22 — 49 Comments

  5. A few days ago someone (don’t remember who or in which thread) dismissed the idea that Trudeau is Castro’s son, maintaining that they were never in the same place (or within “1000 miles”) of Castro in the time period when Justin could have been conceived.

    This piece points out that Margaret and Pierre, as is well known, were in the Caribbean in early April 1971, and apparently visited “an undisclosed country” at that time. That’s not exactly a smoking gun, but it certainly refutes the case that they could not have met up with Castro. (Sorry if it’s already been linked here.)

    https://medium.com/@leibowitt/of-course-fidel-castro-is-justin-trudeaus-dad-nobody-has-debunked-anything-4db6fc8a9042

    There’s also the fact I’ve seen elsewhere that, the obvious resemblance aside, both Justin and Fidel are/were around 6’4″ whereas Pierre was more like 5’9″.

  6. Art Deco:

    Your personal likes and dislikes don’t create universal truths, nor do they create facts.

    The Bee Gees were the most popular pop music group in the world when the boycott occurred. That certainly doesn’t mean that you, Art Deco, have to like a single thing about them.

  8. Jimmy:

    They had just gotten married on March 4, and that was a honeymoon. A tryst with Castro would have been somewhat odd at the time.

    I think Justin actually resembles his mom.

  11. A lady who romanced Ronnie Wood, Geraldo Rivera, Ryan O’Neal and The Chappaquiddick Aquanaut was capable of trysting with Fidel on her honeymoon.

  12. A lady who romanced Ronnie Wood, Geraldo Rivera, Ryan O’Neal and The Chappaquiddick Aquanaut was capable of trysting with Fidel on her honeymoon.

    Geraldo Rivera claimed in a memoir to be a ‘grunting voracious pig in heat’ who had seduced a menu of famous women he listed. A writer for Esquire contacted them for comment and their remarks were incorporated into his Dubious Achievement Award for the year. They printed five comments. Three uttered variations on ‘not true’. One declined comment. The fifth was Bette Midler, who said ‘He was lousy in bed’.

  16. It’s interesting that Mirengoff has wrote the last four posts up at PowerLine.

    They have always been so gentlemanly but this has been brewing awhile I think as Mirengoff has become more and more out of step the last two years as he hid out in his basement.

    Do we have a coup?

  17. Mirengoff is the absolute worst and he has been going around attacking his fellow bloggers for months now and Hayward finally shot back.

    Mirengoff’s problem is the modal one for NeverTrumpers, contained to a degree one might suspect by a couple of factors: one is that he’s a lawyer and careful with phrasing and the other is that no one else there is of his disposition and some of them are ready to pwn him. His problem is that current affairs interests him less than manufacturing excuses to blame the former President for whatever passes within his field of vision; he differs from The Bulwark crew in that he’s not getting paid to do it by Pierre Omidyar.

    Mirengoff et al me of the late Henry Morgan’s description of a woman to whom he’d been briefly married ca. 1947 who chased him for alimony payments ever after. Interviewed in 1982, he said, “My ex-wife to my knowledge never had what we’d call a paying job and she gradually divested herself of outside interests. I’m the only interest left. I’m what she does”. Interviewer: “now, she never remarried?” Morgan: “No. Too busy”.

  18. neo wrote:

    Art Deco: Your personal likes and dislikes don’t create universal truths, nor do they create facts.

    That brought a smile to my face. I even lol’ed, as the kids say.

  19. Regarding Justin’s pere,

    I have no idea, but from what I’ve read of their relationship; Pierre and Margaret were not huge advocates for monogamy. A honeymoon tryst would not be out of custom for those two (or three, or four, or whomever else was in any given room).

  20. Thank you very much for sharing, dear Neo! Cool interview! I like their creative period of the late 80s and One For All Tour 1989 concert is my favorite <3 That medley is unforgettable, of course 🙂
    Here`s the Robin`s solo version of Islands in The Stream from the Mythology album, rather different and also very good

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKHW5T_Gk2Q

    Happy Valentine’s Day!

  21. The maskless celebrities at the mask mandated SoFi Stadium in LA yesterday was really something to see.

    The kids are back in masks today, though.

    The hierarchy lives.

  22. The masked kids and masked servants around unmasked elites is one of the most un American things I have ever seen.

    And unlike some other things it is not really getting better it just continues.

  23. Griffin; LeClerc:

    Yes, something odd seems to be going on at Powerline. I think perhaps Mirengoff crossed a line with this current focus on Trump supposedly shredding some papers, and the others are not pleased. I assume there’s no hierarchy there and that each blogger is able to post what he wants without the others having to approve. Thus, a rift.

  25. neo,

    They have always seemed to have a policy where one of the others could attach a comment to another’s post but the last few months Mirengoff has been attaching comments directly attacking the other blogger’s post and I think this one with Hayward is the first one I have seen where there has been a pushback.

    He was always a squish and with the combination of Trump and COVID he has ‘gone ’round the bend’ as my Grandma used to say.

  26. Hinderaker, Johnson, and Miringoff founded it jointly in 2002 or thereabouts. The first two are banking lawyers from Minneapolis, now retired. The third is a Washington lawyer. IIRC, Miringoff is an old college chum of Hinderaker’s.

    The other issue was Mirnigoff’s dismissal of a literature review of studies of lockdowns composed by a crew of economists at Johns Hopkins. It’s doubtful Miringoff has the chops to critically evaluate the review in question. Hayes was irritated by Miringoff’s ad hom contra Dr. S.H. Hanke, who was one of the participants in the study. (Fun fact, an old teacher of mine). I’d have told you 35 years ago that I like Dr. Hanke personally, but I’d reserve judgment. He’s 82 years old and working way outside his usual specialties. (Resource economics early in his career, monetary policy later).

    The trouble with NeverTrump discourse is that it’s sterile. It’s also a bore at this point. The latest hoo ha about National Archives material is another ‘walls-are-closing-in’ discourse. It’s not merely that electronic files likely exist for these documents. It’s also the idea of a senior executive boxing up paper himself.

  27. Art Deco,

    And Mirengoff left at some point because his hotshot DC law firm didn’t like his ‘conservative’ writings and he only returned when he retired and while he was gone I believe Steve Hayward came on board and I think Hayward brings a lot of different material to the table that the others don’t so his loss would be unfortunate.

  28. Mirengoff’s post about the alleged Trump tearing of documents was unusually silly, comparing Trump’s treatment of paper in the office (always saved digitally, as Hayward points out) to Pelosi’s ripping of the State of the Union speech copy on national TV in a display of deliberate disrespect and contempt.

    I hope the PowerLine guys get this sorted out, and I hope Hayward stays with them.

  29. For about a decade I had a fairly busy blog with two other “owners” and a few additional contributors. None of us had met in real life. We intentionally avoided discussing planned posts and encouraged debate or disagreement among us authors. I felt our readers would appreciate that more, (more open and honest) and the occasional disagreements were good for business. Readers seemed to enjoy when we were not always in lock step.

    One time a contributor edited something out of someone else’s published post and I drew a line there. It was done in sport, but I didn’t think it right to play fast and loose with authorship. If a contributor disagreed with another’s posts have it out in the comments or write a rebuttal under your own name.

    Which brings me to saying a word about zaphod. I understand why he ruffles feathers here (he ruffles mine), but I like when blogs aren’t one big choir singing from the same hymnal. I appreciate that there are folks who write contra opinions here, even when I don’t always appreciate their opinions. 😉

  30. Rufus,

    It has always seemed like bad form if you write at a site with multiple writers to go around attaching your rebuttals to others writings. Write your own piece if you feel so strongly about it.

    I don’t mind having writers with differing opinions but that crosses a line at some point like Allahpundit at Hot Air who was the sole reason I stopped going there and I think Hayward was pointing out how people like Allah and Mirengoff are still blindly taking as true these crazy ass MSM stories about Trump even after dozens of examples of them being proved outright false. But the next one will surely be correct.

  31. Just when you thought that it was simply not possible for CNN to get any sicker….

    This would make “Der Sturmer” blush:
    “CNN Accuses Joe Rogan of ‘Unleashing’ Genocidal and Insurrectionist Forces”
    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cnn-accuses-joe-rogan-of-unleashing-genocidal-and-insurrectionist-forces/

    In addition to being totally insane, it’s also wild and reckless incitement to violence.
    The network should be taken to court.
    Key grafs:
    ‘…The attempt to remove Rogan began with the accusation that he was guilty of “platforming” deadly “misinformation.” When that failed, he was somewhat predictably labeled a “racist.” Now that that, too, has failed, his critics have moved on to insurrection and genocide.
    ‘There’s a problem here, but it sure as hell isn’t Joe Rogan.’

  32. I got banned from commenting at PowerLine a long time ago, no reason given. Disagreeing and chastising (as Neo has done to me) is fine, I don’t mind pushback, gives me time to think about what I said. But I have never been back, because I though at the time they could be very pretentious.

  33. Not to dismiss the Bee Gees obvious talents but I must confess that I’ve always found those two songs to be mediocre pablum.

    I just realized that I can’t remember the last time I visited Powerline, it has to have been so many years that I’d entirely forgotten them. I can’t even remember if anything they wrote put me off. Just entirely dismissed from my mind. Just as I didn’t realize that yesterday was the Superbowl. Now the super woke bowl?

  34. Geoffrey Britain:

    I don’t like “Islands in the Stream” and never have. But it is one of the most popular country duets ever. The Bee Gees were writing songs for other people at the time, and the idea was to write hits for them. The song wasn’t really in their own style; it was for other people. It was a tremendous success at a time when they were otherwise shut out of the business:

    The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, giving both Rogers and Parton their second pop number-one hit (after Rogers’s “Lady” in 1980 and Parton’s “9 to 5” in 1981). It also topped the Country and Adult Contemporary charts. It has been double certified Platinum and gold certified singles by the Recording Industry Association of America for 2 million and half a million digital sales in US. In 2005 the song topped CMT’s poll of the best country duets of all time…

    On the other hand, I’ve always liked “Heartbreaker.” I’m very fond of Dionne Warwick. It was also her biggest hit of the 80s:

    Warwick admitted in The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits by Wesley Hyatt that she was not fond of “Heartbreaker” (regarding the song’s international popularity, she quipped, “I cried all the way to the bank”), but recorded it because she trusted the Bee Gees’ judgment that it would be a hit. It turned out to be Warwick’s most successful solo hit of the 1980s (although it may not necessarily qualify as a solo, due to Barry Gibb’s backing vocals in the chorus)…

    The song reached the top of charts around the world and stands as one of Warwick’s biggest career hits, selling an estimated 4 million copies worldwide. It made the Top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 1983. The track was Warwick’s eighth #1 Adult Contemporary hit[3] and reached #14 on the Soul chart. In the UK Singles Chart, the track reached #2 for two weeks in November 1982.

    Their goal was to write hits that fit the talents of other singers. They did that remarkably well. They became very popular among other singers at the time – they would get calls from them to write songs or whole albums. They (mostly Barry, but with some participation from the other Bee Gees) wrote Barbra Steisand’s pop album “Guilty,” also, with every song tailored just for her. You might not like it, but I bet she did. She did some duets with Barry on it as well, and he did some of the backing vocals:

    The lead single “Woman in Love” became one of the most successful songs of Streisand’s music career and spent a total of three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Two other singles were released, which also peaked within the top ten on Billboard Hot 100: the title track, a duet between Streisand and Gibb, won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1981, released as a second single for the album, and became an instant hit, peaking at number three, and “What Kind of Fool”, another duet with Gibb, reached number ten for three weeks.

    Barry and his brothers accomplished exactly what they set out to do. I’m not a Streisand fan but I like some of her songs, and I really like “What Kind of Fool” (this version, especially Barry’s contribution).

  35. Powerline is an extremely valuable source of opinion and its “Best Picks” are a tremendous resource.
    One can understand the frustration with Mirengoff’s post (though they do provide “balance”—if perhaps too much—by showing how a slightly right-of-center individual might view the issues); also, his posts on sports are generally insightful and usually very well written).

    It’s a tremendously important site. I really do hope these guys can patch things up FOR THE GREATER GOOD.

  36. Barry,

    I agree about Mirengoff’s sports posts. His all time teams for the Final Four participants are something I always look forward to. The soccer ones not so much.

  37. I try to remember to read Powerline’s “Week in Pictures” feature every Saturday. It always contains a few zingers.

  38. Griffin,

    I agree with your opinion. In time I learned there were a few things I disagreed with one or more of my co-writers on; the monarchy and same sex marriage, for two. After debating with them and others in the comments a few times I would stay out of future posts. What was the point? We had debated and neither changed the other’s mind, and plenty agreed with their opinions, so why keep beating a dead horse to try to damage their posts?

  39. people like Allah and Mirengoff are still blindly taking as true these crazy ass MSM stories about Trump even after dozens of examples of them being proved outright false. But the next one will surely be correct.

    Note, at the end of 2019, about 8% of the surveyed Republican voters indicated a general dissatisfaction with the Republican president. That’s the same share who were dissatisfied with Richard Nixon at the end of 1971, with Ronald Reagan at the end of 1983, and with George W Bush at the end of 2003. It’s rather lower that the share dissatisfied with Gerald Ford and George Bush the Elder at comparable points. It’s bog standard for about 9% of self-identified Republican voters to vote for the opposition candidate in a presidential election. I’ve never seen a study of this population of dissatisfied Republicans. I assume it is a mix of people with a miscellany of idiosyncratic complaints conjoined to the residue of the old liberal Republican vote, with the latter proportion declining as the actuarial tables advance. IOW, among the rank-and-file, NeverTrump voters are a small platoon of people with idiosyncratic complaints. You had another such platoon contra Mitt Romney, another contra John McCain, another contra George W. Bush, another contra Ronald Reagan (though I’d wager disgruntled liberals were a much larger share of that 9% in the Reagan era).

    What’s interesting here is that among politicians and opinion journalists, this segment is large and in some way purposeful. I’m not quite understanding why the disconnect. Victor Davis Hanson worked with National Review‘s editors for nearly 20 years, and he indicated in an interview that he had only a vague understanding of why they’ve taken the stances they have.

  40. Art Deco:

    I think it’s that more of them identify with the literati class and Trump was too uncouth. They tell themselves it was for other reasons, though.

  42. Went and voted today in the Texas Primary. No waiting in line. Very smooth operation. They give you a paper ballot, which you load into the voting machine. After you make choices, the machine prints your choices onto the piece of paper, then spits it out. You then take the paper to another machine and feed it in. So theoretically, there is a paper trail.
    Voted for Allen West for Texas Republican for governor.
    I get aggravated that I see so many articles assuming that Beto is facing Abbot in the election. There are several Republicans challenging Abbot. I think there is a chance there will be a runoff between Abbot and West.

  43. Jon Baker,

    I would certainly vote for Allen West for governor, given the chance. A great man.

  44. Geoffrey Britain, how about the ‘Stupor Bowl’? (I haven’t watched it in many years. Maybe this past one was genuinely exciting; if so, wonderful.)

  45. neo,

    I don’t dispute those songs popularity nor the skill that the Bee Gees exhibited in crafting songs for a specific performer. I also agree that Dionne Warwick does a fine, professional job with Heartbreaker.

    I’m put off perhaps more by the lyrics. If you give your all to a relationship and the other party throws it away, it is they who are the loser. You move on realizing that “No man (or woman) is worth your tears and the one that is won’t make you cry.”

    Giving your heart to another, only works, if they give you theirs.

    If incompatibility later arises, then ‘deal breaker’ issues were not revealed before giving one’s heart. Which is what long engagements are meant to unearth.

  46. jon baker and Rufus,

    Were I a resident of Texas I would vote for West if he were the nominee. That said, my sister a Texan, did some research into West when he was a representative in Fl. Her research revealed that he took donations from decidedly leftist orgs and donors. That leads me to suspect that he may be another Abbot. If so, he’s not a great man but a RINO.

    Philip Sells,

    I used to be a moderate fan but disgust with the NFL’s spitting upon the graves of men who gave that “last full measure of devotion” laid the NFL dead to me.

  47. Geoffrey Britain:

    People in love often don’t operate that way, or there wouldn’t be so many songs about hopeless love and broken hearts and having trouble letting go – a vast vast number of such songs and lyrics, going way way back hundreds of years.

    And “Islands In the Stream”, the one neither of us likes much, is about HAPPY love. Go figure.

  48. Geoffrey solves the riddle of the human heart, love, lost love, and sundry sincere emotions. Who knew that he had those age old questions dead to rights. What’s next? It isn’t 42.

  49. neo,

    I’m well aware of that point. When people start a relationship, investing their heart before they’ve determined whether basic compatibility on fundamental issues exists between them, it’s predictable that in time those fissures will lead to many experiencing “hopeless love and broken hearts and having trouble letting go”. There’s a reason why half of marriages end in divorce. Nor is it a mystery.

    om,

    No wisdom from on high, just bitter experience and long reflection on my mistakes.

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