Neil Young sucks
NEW YORK (AP) -- Boy George appeared briefly in criminal court to answer charges related to his October drug possession arrest.
Following a brief meeting at the bench between the pop singer's lawyer, Lewis Freeman, and prosecutor Craig Ortner on Wednesday, Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Anthony Ferrara postponed the case to March 8.
Boy George, whose real name is George O'Dowd, wore a long black wool coat, black slacks, a black shirt and gray sneakers with white stripes, and sported a buzz-cut hairstyle and a large dark blue or black Star of David tattoo on the top of his head.
Dear Bill,
Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning. All manner of freaks line the urban sidewalks just outside your window, and in their own way, they're all trying to get inside. Not necessarily for any nefarious purpose, but rather, to burst your psychological cherry. Moments earlier, you had been slumbering in peace, not aware that androgynous junkies were having their heads tattooed with ancient symbols to prove to themselves there is something stronger than the cocaine. In a flash the realization floods over you, and all the dots are connected and you suddenly surmise this is merely the first roach out of the wall; if you don't act fast, you'll have a new window on the world in your psychological house, and it won't have straight edges or a stylish frame.
Of course, the other side of this coin, in many ways, is "encouraged" stagnation. There were too many reasons Neil Young's Prairie Wind was going to suck: what I'm guessing is a photographic representation of his mother hanging the laundry in a brisk Canadian wind on the liner notes; a childhood picture of him and (guessing again) his sister on the back; guys named Spooner playing instruments. If we knew what was good for us, we were going to get the old man's laser again...a reinventing of Harvest with another lifetime of anger and hindsight.
We got Harvest again, all right. In fact, we really got Harvest Moon again. Didn't anyone around him pipe up and say, "Um, Neil...um, you know...um, you already made this record...um?" No, nobody said that Friedman, you know why? Because he's Neil Fucking Young.
I've listened to this disk all the way through probably seven times since I bought it. I've listened to Harvest along side it, just to see if I could find some context...I don't know. You don't live here in Minneapolis, Bill, but if you did, you'd know that this album is the equivalent of a Sid Hartman column. He's been doing it so long, he knows all of the requisite steps and conventions, but the substance of what he's doing has long since drained out of him. I'm listening to the damned thing again right now! I'm on song 3, "Falling Off the Face of the Earth," and I can't think of a time or place to play this song other than in a coma ward at a local hospital.
I'll tell you what really disturbs me Fagelson. Earlier this afternoon, I sat and tried to find a theme in this record, reading through the lyrics, listening, contemplating. It's kind of like a folk rock last will. It's as if he sat there with his pen and guitar and told himself, "okay, pretend you have a month to live and you want to write ten (10) sappy songs about what you'll miss." You and I have walked out of clubs where some long-hair trustafarian was navel gazing the crowd to death with a song like "When God Made Me."
When the fear of death creeps over most older men, Bill, they go buy a new car. That's what Neil should have done. He should have bought himself a convertible and cranked up all ten (10) minutes of "Cowgirl in the Sand," down Highway 1 near Half Moon Bay during a misty dawn, when you can taste the salt in the air. There's more interesting and relevant speculation on God in one refrain and instrumental interlude of that song than in all of the steaming turd he laid at the end of this record.
Everybody knows this is nowhere Friedman,
Rear Admiral Tamerlane "Rusty" Platano-Blanco
U.S. Navy (ret'd)
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