Comment of the Week

I'm borrowing a technique I've seen on a bunch of blogs, and elevating a comment to front page status - hopefully, each week. Now, which to choose.....hmmm.....let's see. Think I'll go with this one:

Tom, Thanks for being first to comment on my Blog. Hope you're a Who fan because you get a free CD. You can always sell it to help a pet charity. Your Blog is fascinating and I will come back. Pete Townshend

So, no fair - Tom K., Bruce, Tony Alva, Steve-o, Ralph, Fitz, Brendog, Slappy and the rest will have to wait. And a rather suspect choice of weeks to open this little featurette? Yes, rather. But what the hell: it's been a long, tough slog of a week in other non-blogging aspects and I need a little shot of The Punk Meets the Godfather. I want to revel in the glory for a few more moments. Fred convinced me, actually. Knee-deep in a major Townshend jag (as am I), he noted:

When your idols become your readers, well that's just super cool.

Yeah, it is. And that's why Pete is my initial Comment of the Week.

UPDATE: Getting lots of email from really smart people, terrific writers all, reduced to basically saying "cool, man." I feel the same way - and, incidentally, haven't heard that much usage of that phrase since about 1979. I also like PowerPop's take on it - rings true to me:

You know that great scene in Annie Hall, when Woody and Diane are behind the guy in the movie line who's spewing complete nonsense about Marshall MacLuhan, so Woody steps out of the screen and brings MacLuhan in to say he's wrong, wrong, wrong?

How many times in your life have you wished for that opportunity?

It's now yours.

Cool, man.

Tags: Pete Townshend

Comments

[atomic elroy]

TW,
VERY cool indeed!

cheers!
tmac

[brendog]

Tom -

for the love of mike, if there was ever a time to flog a quote, this is it. So, no apologies needed. While it's true that you did, at one time many years ago, execute one of rock and roll's greatest inventions of all time in a non-descript basement, that has been lost to time.

Alas, while the days of pillage in Bay Village are over, we won't *ever* get fooled again, will we?

[Matt]

That's, like, the ur-blogging experience. Very cool!

[Gardner]

That's amazing, just amazing. Wonderful. I'm pea-green with envy, but very happy for you as well. Congrats!

[Adorable Girlfriend]

Dude, will you sign an autograph?

[Tom K]

Tom: cross-posting from one of your regulars who I was lead to by your posts on this (or my equivalent of cross-posting, since I'm not sure I know what it is or how to do it).

* * *

"The Sea Refuses No River" and "Slit Skirts" are two of Pete's most under-appreciated great songs (at least, if we relate appreciation to airplay). Also, "Don't Let Go the Coat", if we discount its greater airplay for the fact that it was a Who song.

Query -- to what extent is "The Sea Refuses No River" influenced by T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding" and, for that matter, to what extent are Townshend's works more broadly influenced by Eliot? (Not just the obvious "Teenage Wasteland" v. "The Waste Land", but "All Shall be Well" v. that precise line from "Little Gidding", and the water images from "SRNR" and "Drowned" v. LG and Eliot's other uses of that theme.) There are many others, all of which must be considered against PT's Faber gig.

I raised this years ago at the TSE list (run out of the U. of Missouri), but didn't get much response. I doubt PT himself will enlighten us on this since, if I'm right and he is signficiantly influence by Eliot, he will likely follow the Possum's enignmatic lead. ("Q: What did you mean [in Ash-Wednesday' by 'Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree/In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety/On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained/In the hollow round of my skull . . .' A: 'I meant, 'Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree/In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety/On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained/In the hollow round of my skull'".

Any thoughts from TSE fans, PT/Who fans, or both, would be of interest to me.

[Tom W.]

Tom, I'll ask my boy Pete - it's a good question or departure point really for discussion - just as soon as you return 'Empty Glass.'

[Tom K]

My first reference to Little Gidding in the above post should have been to Dry Salvages. On Empty Glass, I'd gladly return it, as I no longer have a turntable, but I suspect you don't either, so I'll just leave it where it is, with that Chuck Yeager book you lent me.

[Slappy]

Someday you're gonna wish you'd gone with me for first comment. I've been teaching myself guitar. For real.
Re:PT/TSE/PhD/STFU: Turn off the computer and go for a walk. When you're staring at shit that hard, you're missing the point. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[Slappy]

Wow, another Slappy. Who knew?

And I play bass, not guitar.

[Slappy]

There's two of us? Damn.
Wanna do rock/paper/scissors for it?

[ElanaDMI]

So jealous of the Pete Townshend thing. And reduced to pouting. Pout.