Colin Quinn doesn’t believe you don’t like The Beatles
Image: Graphic: Karl GustafsonPhoto: Mike Lavoie Aux Features Colin Quinn
A legendary stand-up comedian and performer, Colin Quinn was first introduced to the public via his role as the gravel-voiced, cigarette-smoking sidekick on the 1987-90 MTV game show Remote Control. His lackadaisical delivery of any episode’s given prizes (a Mitsubishi Montero, a ski vacation, a Zenith television, a pair of British Knights sneakers, and so on) drew advertiser ire, but endeared him to the show’s young viewers, who in turn ardently followed his stand-up career.
He turned that success into a series of writing and hosting gigs, eventually landing a slot on Saturday Night Live in 1996, where, in 1998, he took over hosting “Weekend Update,” a job he held until he left the show two years later. From there, Quinn headed to the funny but short-lived The Colin Quinn Show on NBC, and then to Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn, which ran for 200 episodes and found groups of Quinn’s comedic friends discussing the hottest topics of the day.
Quinn’s latest projects are his new book, Overstated: A Coast-To-Coast Roast Of The Fifty States, and his most recent Broadway show turned Netflix special, Red State Blue State. In both, Quinn seeks to point out that there’s more to bring us together than there is to divide us, in his view, though he’s still offers up individual criticisms of each state in his book. He’s also happy to use the book to cast aspersions on the system of representative democracy, saying, “We made promises in the Constitution that no one can live up to. And our system wasn’t set up to back up the words. A representative democracy has a lot of flaws to it—because representatives are humans.”
With all this in mind, The A.V. Club posed its 11 Questions to Quinn, who came through with plenty of thoughtful answers about smoking, death, and the machiavellian nature of Kris Jenner.
1. If you made a candle, what would it smell like?
Colin Quinn: You mean like the Gwyneth Paltrow thing?
The A.V. Club: Sure. It could be a smell you like, or what you think you smell like, or something entirely different.
CQ: Even though I quit 100 years ago, I loved the smell of cigarettes. So how about… Did you ever see The Deer Hunter? Remember the room where they’re playing Russian roulette? That room.
AVC: There really is something nostalgic to that smell as well. As a kid, I loved the smell of my parents’ packs of cigarettes.
CQ: I know. It’s so sad. I also used to love the smell of the packs, so I get that.
I just like the notion of a gym and cigarettes together, which I think is a smell from the old days.
2. What’s your favorite album from high school?
[pm_embed_youtube id=’PLvKru34OE46LpWyUf1ymuApZKxRZDVpV6′ type=’playlist’]CQ: Oh, that’s easy. This girl kind of broke my heart, though we did end up going back out after that. But I used to sit home and play My Aim Is True every night by myself. Elvis Costello. The whole album. The whole thing every night.
AVC: What do you like about that record?
CQ: I just liked it. It just came out of that time. I’m old, so it had just come out. I just kept playing it over and over.
AVC: Have you seen Elvis Costello live?
CQ: I did see him live. I saw him a couple of years later, but he was in his country phase. I was too radical. I saw him on 14th Street at what was the old Palladium, I guess. I remember he was like, “Hey, I’m a country guy now,” and we were like “No! It’s too early! It’s the middle of punk!” It was 1980, maybe.
3. What conspiracy theory do you think is the most plausible?
CQ: Obviously, the Kennedy assassination is the most plausible, but the least plausible point is that no one ever spoke about it all this time. But the rest of it is just insane. It just makes no sense.
I just read a book about the Kennedy assassination, about LBJ and his connection with the Dallas mafia. It was called Betrayal In Dallas, and I was like, “Geez, it all makes sense, you know?” That book really, really makes you think, “Oh, God, it’s got to be.”
AVC: So who do you think was ultimately responsible? LBJ?
CQ: I think it was LBJ or his buddies. Maybe LBJ was a big part of it, or maybe he just let it happen because he would have been screwed if he kept going whatever direction they were really going after the Dallas mafia. It does make sense.
I met Gabe Kaplan like 20 something years ago… You know, the comedian from Welcome Back Kotter? He worked for Jack Ruby at some strip club doing comedy back in 1962, and he said he was definitely a mob thug.
4. What’s the first time you were disillusioned by politics?
CQ: When I grew up, it was a time of disillusionment. It was late ’60s Vietnam and then Watergate. So everybody was cynical about everything. I grew up with that. That was just the way it was.
For me personally, in terms of politicians… When I was at Saturday Night Live, a lot of politicians came through, and I noticed that they all—Republican and Democrat—they all had a corny sense of humor. The first politician I met that really simply got everything was [Bill] Clinton. Clinton walked in the room and just kind of sussed out what the vibe was with the comedy and then just kind of kept it low-key, but was in there. He is one of those people that doesn’t try to be funny, and doesn’t try to go and compete. There’s just something about him. He understood, like, “Oh, here’s the way I work things that’s successful.”
5. Who would you call if you needed help burying a body?
CQ: You mean somebody famous?
AVC: They can be famous, or they can be non-famous. Up to you.
CQ: I’ll tell you what I would do. The person that I admire as far as the most underrated person who knows how to win, when to shut up, when to talk, and when to do whatever they do and keep it to themselves—and I’ve said this for a long time, but not in relation to that, just in relation to me—the person that nobody talks about being good at that is Kris Jenner.
Kris Jenner sat there quietly, “Never mind the O.J. trial. Never mind.” She just sat there. It could have easily been, “Hey, remember that lady that was married to the guy who was O.J.’s lawyer? They made all those beautiful kids?” No, she sat there and played the last 15 years like a poker champion and made all that money. She just sat there poker-faced no matter what. I’d bring her to to bury a body.
6. What’s your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever worn?
CQ: I’m not really a Halloween guy, but when I was younger, I used to like to throw a costume together.
I went as Robin Hood one year, and then while I was walking across the street, some guys in the car said something snotty to me. I cursed them back, and then we got in a fight. I got a little bit of a beating—not a bad beating, but a little bit of one. My costume was ripped and I had a bloody nose. Then I ran into a friend of mine and I was complaining… drunk, of course. And he said, “Well, where were your Merry Men?” And even then, I had to laugh. It was pretty funny.
7. If proximity to your industry was a moot point, where would you most like to live and why?
CQ: Wow. Sadly, I know that I would live in New York City. I mean, even right now, I just can’t quit. I can’t quit New York, even though it’s nothing like I remember and I complain about it every minute of every day. There’s no other place where I feel like I’m home.
AVC: Any specific neighborhood?
CQ: I live downtown by the Financial District and Tribeca, on the border, and I like it there. But I could live anywhere in Manhattan.
AVC: Upper East Side?
CQ: Yeah, even there. I know people there, though that’s a little bit out of the way for my taste. I’d rather live where I live, in the Village, or in Hell’s Kitchen.
I like to walk out and see a bunch of people on the street. That’s my whole thing. I don’t like an empty, quiet street. I like it to be crowded.
AVC: Have you always been like that, or did you develop that after years in New York?
CQ: Always. I like to be around people. I like staying up late at night. I like people to be at parties. I like all that to be happening.
8. How did you learn about the birds and the bees?
CQ: My parents may have said something, but it didn’t stick.
What I do remember is kids in school drawing pictures of naked women and a guy’s penis. I was like, “What the hell is going on here?” First of all, these were kids. They were my age. How did they get all this information? How do they get this anatomical knowledge? I didn’t even think that stuff existed.
AVC: How old were you?
CQ: I don’t know. 7 or 8?
Those kids would always tell you stories, too. I remember guys going, “Yeah. And then you get laid,” or whatever the expression was in those days for sex. I was like, “What? This is terrible, man. It’s terrible.” I really was disgusted by it. I was like a Footloose parent. “This is disgusting.” I was judging. “Oh, my God, how crude.”
That went on for a few years. I just remember thinking those kids were psychotic. They were like serial killers to me.
9. What’s the pettiest hill you’re willing to die on?
CQ: I don’t know if this counts and it may not be the same thing, but when people say they don’t like The Beatles, I feel like they’re just saying it to be different. It drives me crazy when someone says, “I don’t like The Beatles.” I don’t want to answer them. I feel like they’re just saying it to start shit. Everyone who says they don’t like The Beatles really does like The Beatles and they’re just trying to pretend so they seem unique.
10. What pop culture or art do you turn to when you’ve had a bad day?
CQ: I’ll tell you what it is, because it’s well known by anyone who knows me. It’s A Confederacy Of Dunces [by John Kennedy Toole]. You ever read that book? It’s the funniest. I’ve been reading it for 40 years now. Every time I open it, I read a passage and I start laughing. I’m serious.
AVC: How many times do you think you’ve read it, or is it all just in pieces like that?
CQ: Well, let’s say how many times I’ve opened it. I read a passage, let’s say, or a chapter or whatever, because I don’t read the whole thing every time. I would say probably over a thousand times. That’s how much I love it.
AVC: Have you converted other people to that book?
CQ: Yeah. And I judge people, like everybody does, by whether they like it or not. The most frustrated I get is when people I’ve turned on to [the book] don’t read more than a few pages. It makes me mad.
11. If you could find out the day you were going to die, would you want to know?
CQ: Absolutely. Who wouldn’t want to know that?
AVC: Oh, people who feel like they’d be too scared, or maybe that they’d then live their lives differently if they knew.
CQ: But it’s just the opposite. It would be great to know that. I would love it. And guess what? We should be scared. [And if I find that day out,] my enemies should be scared, too.
Bonus 12th question from Al Roker: If you could insert yourself into the universe of any Saturday morning cartoon, which one would it be?
CQ: Jesus. I mean, that’s a good question if you know cartoons, which I don’t.
AVC: If you want you could stretch a little and say something like The Simpsons or Looney Tunes.
CQ: It is a tough one. I mean, I hate most cartoons. I always hated the Flintstones and all that stuff. Popeye? Enh. That’s a tough one.
AVC: Jetsons? You could have a flying car.
CQ: I mean, the Jetsons were great. And it ruined a whole generation because we all thought those flying things would really exist. It was very influential.
AVC: And then what would you like to ask the next people who are doing this?
CQ: “Jerome Avenue or The Grand Concourse?”
AVC: Do you have an answer to that?
CQ: Yeah, I would say Jerome Avenue.
138 Comments
Great interview. I will say as a Punk-Thrash kid in the mid to late 80’s there were folks who absolutely HATED the but that also might have just been posturing.
Also, which 1960s acts are we allowed to hate? Can we hate The Rolling Stones? The Who? I’m nor saying I do, but it is weird how the Boomers deified one 1960s band out of the crowd. It’s just music. Like comedy, there isn’t a right or wrong answer; you either like it or you don’t. I’m a GenXer, but I don’t freak out when people say they hate Nirvana.
I live (and grew up) on Long Island and I hate Billy Joel, which is apparently punishable by jail time.Also, I despise with every inch of my soul Led Zeppelin.
“Also, I despise with every inch of my soul Led Zeppelin.”How unbelievably interesting of you.
Wow, thanks for the reply internet stranger! Your opinions and thoughts are interesting to me, and I post just to make folks like you jubilant.You have a great day, friend!
YOU DON’T LIKE SOMETHING I LIKE AND THAT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE
Are you me? (Except I don’t live on LI any more)
Considering you have a take off of Joe Strummer and the Clash are one of my favorite bands, it’s possible that I AM you.
Hate to break it to you, but if you hate Zeppelin you don’t have a soul.Just kidding. I don’t judge over this kind of talk.
It’s cool. I guess I just won’t make that Stairway to Heaven. I’m one of those musician music snobs – my favorite bands are Big Star, The Replacements and other failures.
You get your star for Billy Joel, but I’m tempted to take it back because of Led Zep. I didn’t grow up on L.I. (or anywhere near NY) but my official address is there. I love how I’m in upstate NY now (well, for now) and I’m yet to hear a single Billy Joel song on the radio. It’s heaven.
You are a very, very lucky man. Although admittedly in this day and age it’s not the same as being a kid in the late 70’s and 80’s.
I’ve always maintained that if the Beatles hadn’t existed the Boomers would have invented them. That they were mostly a case of right time/place. I certainly don’t hate them though.
Same with Elvis for that matter.
Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me.
Sorry, but the Beatles ARE different. Nearly every act of any worth that followed them, knew it.https://hyperscapes.com/quotes-about-the-beatles/
Yes, yes I know. My revolution is over. The bums lost.
I like the Stones and Who far more than I do the Beatles. There are quite a few individual Beatles songs I enjoy, but have never fully wrapped my head around the ‘best ever’ tag.
I think there’s an interesting distinction between what he said “not liking the Beatles” and “hating the Beatles.”Hating the Beatles is definitely posturing. It’s not surprising that people in a punk-thrash community would hate sophisticated melodies and instrumentation with politically simplistic lyrics, which is basically the opposite of punk’s simplistic melodies and instrumentation with politically sophisticated lyrics (generally, if not specifically).Hating the Beatles implies that you also dislike their contributions to popular music that weren’t musical. They changed how a pop group was perceived, and even listened to, by the general public. They popularized the album as the main piece of art of a pop artist (instead of the single). They introduced avant garde elements to popular music that were unthinkable before. Basically they changed the game in a way no one had been able to before, and no one will likely be able to again due to the fracturing of mass entertainment. You can’t discuss modern pop music without the Beatles, so hating them seems like hating the weather: it’s there, and it affects everything, and you can’t do anything to change that.Not liking the Beatles doesn’t necessarily imply the same thing as hating the Beatles, but (unlike Quinn) I can’t just let a statement like that go unquestioned. They weren’t just about the music. They were a cultural force that encompassed films, politics, religion, and more. Their sheer popularity made them influential in realms that pop musicians couldn’t even enter before.Sure, there were Elvis movies, but they were disposable trash. A Hard Days Night had an original style that was emulated well into the MTV era. Yellow Submarine was a challenge to the Disney homogeny of Western animation.Their (admittedly shallow) politics pushed the peace movement farther than protest singers like Bob Dylan, or American acts like Buffalo Springfield or CCR could. The Beatles were a pop sensation in a way that these comparatively alternative acts were not. The counterculture listened to these other acts, but everybody listened to the Beatles.Their engagement with Hinduism amplified something that, again, was happening in the counterculture (and of course in a huge world culture, but one that had little influence on the mainstream English-speaking world). Is there any other pop group that has been able to make a Christian-dominated society look into Eastern religions?To me, I can’t imagine someone just stating that they don’t like the Beatles, and then moving on. They are the one group that I would expect most music lovers to have a more nuanced opinion on. I understand why Colin Quinn wouldn’t want to engage with that sort of statement.
tl;dr but impressed by how long you gargled the Beatles balls there.
TLDR: The Beatles were good at the form of music they played. Whether you like that specific form of music is irrelevant. They were popular, both critically and commercially to a staggering degree. They were also more than just a band. They were a cultural force that encompassed music, film, politics, religion, and more. They are at the very least interesting, because of how much they changed the way we listen to music (not alone, but they were a huge part of it). Saying you don’t like the Beatles is so trite, it makes you sound like you know nothing about music.
People can like what they like, whether you like it or not.
Something that “people like” can still become irritating or even intolerable, just based on massive repetition.
Baby Shark.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you have to like the Beatles. However, if all you have to say about them is that you don’t like them, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t know how old you are, but I’m betting you’re over 35. That seems to be the rough cutoff point where the majority of people like or love the Beatles, and are astonished/miffed/outraged at those who do not.
There is no denying they have importance in the history of popular music. And there is no denying that the more time that passes, the more people there will be who have little to no interest in them, and who will probably think they’re corny or old fashioned sounding when you introduce the Beatles to them.
We will soon be beyond the point where you can argue about why you should like the Beatles, because the person you are talking to will never have heard them.
Once again, I don’t think you need to like the Beatles, and I never said you did. I’m not astonished/miffed/outraged that you don’t. I think that if you’re into music, and the only thing you can say about the Beatles is that you don’t like them, you probably have a fairly narrow interest in it. You could be an expert on one genre, or just contemporary music in general, but if you can’t speak on one of the most popular music groups of the very recent past (one that’s fairly accessible) what do you really know? It’s not like they’re completely irrelevant today. Kanye West recorded a song with Paul McCartney. Tame Impala is clearly influenced by the Beatles.Can you talk about classical music? Can you say why Beethoven is different from Mozart? Do you know anything about jazz? What did John Coltrane do with jazz that people think is so important? Do you have thoughts on avant-garde? Have you ever REALLY heard John Cage’s 4’33”? These are people who made lasting contributions to music. This is the league the Beatles are in.I’m 38. When I was young, I was interested in music from eras before my own. I’m betting you’re below 35. That seems to be the rough cutoff point where people think the most important music is being made now and everything before is corny or old-fashioned.
Damn. I came to snark on Colin Quinn for never being funny but then he went and ruined it by loving Elvis Costello.
“Jerome Avenue or The Grand Concourse?”Love Colin Quinn, but New Yorkers are annoying because they think shit like this means anything to people outside New York. Hope this question ends up getting posed to a non-New Yorker.
I’m from New York and to be honest this doesn’t really mean anything to anyone who’s not from the Bronx specifically. I have no answer for it either.
It’s one of those phrases where I know the individual words but the combination means nothing to me.Looking it up, it has something to do with the Bronx?
Honestly, I had no clue what these are. As someone who isn’t familiar with the entire Beatles discography (Colin can relax, I think they’re fine, I just never got into them), I thought it was maybe two of their albums and this question was part of his “you can’t hate The Beatles” hill.
It’s a good thing you didn’t forget that Colin Quinn is a fucking comedian, eh?
“I don’t fucking care.”
~Norman Lear
I am a New Yorker, and I have absolutely no opinion on this question, and have no idea what he’s atcually referring to (besides them being places in the Bronx, I can’t guess as to why they should be compared). Hopefully Desus and Mero, or AOC are the next guest…
According to Google maps, they’re streets that run more or less parallel through the Bronx, but the Grand Concourse is larger and Jerome Avenue is smaller. So I assume the question is “would you rather take a side street or a major thoroughfare?”I would absolutely love if the next person’s response is, “I don’t know what he’s talking about. Which one did Colin Quinn pick? … Then the correct answer is obviously the other one.”
You called it.
“I know those words, but that sign makes no sense.”
I’ve lived in NY, but I lived outside the city. When I travel into NYC, I mostly meet people who have lived their entire lives there, think the entire state is comprised of the city, and give me a blank look when I tell them I’m having car issues and can’t simply take the subway from Point A to Point B where I live, because there isn’t any subway, and there are places I need to travel that are over an hour away even with minimal traffic. It’s mildly exasperating.
Dick Miller, the greatest film actor there ever was, lived on the Grand Concourse for part of his childhood. So I pick that.
The only “Grand Concourse” I know is an interplanetary street (as in stretches of it are on several different planets, linked by spacetime-warping transport gates on the ends of each segment) from the sci-fi novel “Hyperion” and its sequels.
I had two New York coworkers at a job in California, and every time they’d get into talking about New York they would go into these long conversations that were just an endless daisy chain of New York place references. Like someone was scripting it to make them seem parochial and obnoxious. “You said you used to like in ABC neighborhood — did you ever visit BCD landmark?” “No, my place was over by CDE.” “Oh, on DEF Street?” “No, on EFG Street, kinda over by FGH.” “Oh, I know FGH, it’s like in the area of GHI. You know, I used to take the ferry across HIJ just so I could do IJK activity at GHI.” “Oh, wait, if you to IJK, you must hang out at JKL sometimes, right?” “JKL, uh, do you mean KLM?” “No, KLM is also great for IJK, but what’s really nice is to go over to JKL — it’s between LMN and MNO —” “Wait, is that on the NOP line?” “Oh, sure, you can get there on the NOP line, or what I like to do is take a taxi over to OPQ, ‘cause then you can stop by PQR at the same time.” “Is that close to QRS?” Like 75% of these conversations was just naming places in New York.
As an ex-Londoner, that conversation is very familiar.
It’s weird that bothers you
It’s weird that you think it’s weird
My official residence for the last three years has been just over the Queens/Nassau county boarder. I have multiple friends that have grown up in one of the five boroughs and it annoys me to no end when I get stuck in a conversation with only one of them and they start going on about this place/that place/road/restaurant/theater/whatever and I’m like Look, I have NO idea WTF you are talking about. And stop talking a mile a minute like you’re taking your last breath.
Especially in the moment we are living in, do people who seriously blame LBJ for JFK’s assassination realize what they are implying? That the president that did the most for Civil Rights is some sort of monster. That’s a pretty messed up world view.
Did you ever read “American Tabloid” by James Ellroy? I kind of agreed on his take of it being a Mafia driven hit due to the fallout of the Bay of Pigs screw up, with the caveat that J. Edgar Hoover may have been in on it.
No, I haven’t, but while I don’t particularly believe in any of the conspiracy theories, I agree that a Mafia-related hit makes more sense than others given how JFK angered them and the fact that killing people was kind of what they did.
I love James Ellroy.
loved American Tabloid.I do not take anything that comes through his benzedrine-addled, time-warped psychotic brain as fact.It’s all just bubbling craziness, pal. He’s a straight-up genius when it comes to story-telling and fun, but please- he’s not exactly a clear-headed realist with a foot left in normal-town.
I don’t disagree with a lot of what you said, but I will say that quite a lot of folks in that book are based on real people who might have had something to do with it. What surprised me was that Chuck Rogers was a real person who actually murdered his parents and was never seen again.
Yeah, Ellroy’s take on events in American Tabloid was basically this:
10,000% this.
I’m sorry but this is kind of hilarious when you consider how many times Johnson was called a child murderer when he was in office
People blamed the Vietnam war on LBJ, unfairly. We were involved in Vietnam since the Eisenhower administration. “US advisors” that theoretically were just involved in training South Vietnamese troops were actually involved in combat as early as the 1950s and their deaths were blamed on “training accidents”. LBJ can be blamed on not ending the war, much as Obama can be blamed for not ending the endless “War on Terror”, but neither of them started it.
Oh come on, that is an absolutely absurd equivalence. We can certainly argue about Obama’s approach to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and whether he could have done more to draw down US forces in those areas than he did, but nothing his administration implemented compares to the massive escalation LBJ oversaw in the Vietnam war, or the manifold war crimes that were committed by American soldiers in his administration’s name.
“People blamed the Vietnam war on LBJ, unfairly.”No, that was entirely fair. He might not have been the one to make the initial decision to send in troops, but he never took the opportunity to end it either because he didn’t want the US to look weak.
Yeah, I think the more discuss-able relevant statement is “People lionize Kennedy too much by saying that he wouldn’t have gotten us into Vietnam”, which isn’t letting LBJ off the hook as much as it recognizes that lots of politicians were bad about Vietnam.
Merely saying he “never took the opportunity” seems excessively passive. There was a significant difference after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and while it’s possible Kennedy would have done the same thing in his place, LBJ actually did do something rather than merely refraining to act.
It’s bizarre to say that the guy who instituted a draft, deployed large numbers of troops and military equipment, and had generals fight campaigns in Vietnam doesn’t deserve blame for the war. Also, your analogy to Obama isn’t internally consistent – if your point is that the person who escalates a conflict doesn’t deserve blame for initiating that conflict, the logical corollary is W Bush. The many, many differences between the Vietnam War and the “War on Terror” don’t really undermine your point because that point is, ya know, incoherent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incidentJohnson’s administration isn’t simply blamed for “not ending” the war; his administration is blamed, fairly, for drastically escalating US involvement in it on incredibly sketchy (if not outright fraudulent) grounds. He wasn’t the first to send American troops there, true, but he owns the Vietnam War in a way that Eisenhower and Kennedy do not.
Kinda gilding the lily, tbh. There’s plenty in LBJ’s life that qualifies as monstrous even without being involved in any way with JFK’s assassination.
I take the general point, and conspiracy theories in general are a lot less fun in the age of QAnon than they were back when JFK came out. But on the other hand, in fairness LBJ was hardly an angel of unimpeachable morals and purity of conduct who cannot be challenged about anything he did by anyone ever purely because he signed the Civil Rights Act. If nothing else, plenty of Vietnamese citizens might have plenty of reasons to look at him as something closer to a monster than a saint. There are plenty of reasons to view him with a more cynical eye.
I think most folks would argue that, in regards to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, LBJ was pushing through legislation that JFK either initiated or expressed his support for prior. Now, one can argue that the “JFK Legacy” and the national feeling of loss were important for solidifying support, or that you needed at bastard like LBJ who knew where all the congressional bodies were buried to force that legislation through. I think most folks who latch onto the “LBJ did it” theory are more often thinking of the legacy of Vietnam, not civil rights, and that there was some collusion between LBJ, the mafia, and the CIA who all on their own but also collectively had something to gain from removing Kennedy or something to fear from him staying in office.
Seriously. I’ve never heard of a leader who did some bad things and some good things; they all pick a lane and stick with it.
People can’t do both really good and bad things? Containing multitudes: pretty messed up.
I agree that people contain multitudes, LBJ’s obsession with showing people his cock is basically Louis C.K. levels of ick, but that is different from claiming the guy behind major civil rights legislation, the War on Poverty, and the Great Society — basically beyond Bernie Sanders levels of altruism — was a guy who had his predecessor murdered — that’s basically a right-wing fantasy not very dissimilar from the conspiracy theories involving Obama.
The conspiracy theory is a fantasy which is hard to take seriously… but not because of other things LBJ specifically did. LBJ became quite unpopular among the left in his own time, which is how that conspiracy theory spread (often with an assumption that Kennedy would have gotten us out of Vietnam). The stuff about his Warren commission being a politically motivated attempt to sweep uncomfortable facts under the rug is true though.
I mean, he also worked against civil rights legislation before pushing to pass a bill that was his predecessor’s (and his brothers) project. He was also notoriously racist. Did he do a lot of good for civil rights? Yes. Was he also a huge piece of shit? Also, yes http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/lyndon-johnson-civil-rights-racism“According to Caro, Robert Parker, Johnson’s sometime chauffer, described in his memoir Capitol Hill in Black and White a moment when Johnson asked Parker whether he’d prefer to be referred to by his name rather than “boy,” “*” or “chief.” When Parker said he would, Johnson grew angry and said, “As long as you are black, and you’re gonna be black till the day you die, no one’s gonna call you by your goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, *, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it. Just pretend you’re a goddamn piece of furniture.””
As far as JFK, I can absolutely believe the government was trying to cover its tracks about its connections to Oswald. He had all kinds of stuff going on that would make them try to approach him as a low level asset. And I can also see how they would cover things up out of paranoia about revealing any surveillance info to the Russians or Cubans.
But I also don’t see any way anyone — US, Soviet, Cuban, mob, etc. — would use him in an assasination plot. He was just too weird and unpredictable. He wasn’t all that different from John Hinkley, just with a more ideological set of obsessions.
“He was just too weird and unpredictable.”Too weird to be a presidential assassin.Maybe his unpredictability is why they chose him, then killed him.
Couldn’t agree more. He came off as one of any number of political weirdos who formed little useless communist groups in the U.S. at that time. The idea that someone who wanted the President dead would survey the countryside and say “Him!” is pretty laughable.
One of the weirder conspiracy theories I’ve read is that Hinckley was part of a coup by Bush against Reagan… and it SUCCEEDED.
Given where we are, JFK conspiracies are just kind of exhausting. He was driving around with 1960s level security in a huge crowd and open top automobile. There’s no particular reason why a lone nut couldn’t have just shot him. The “magic bullet” theory misunderstands the design of the car, and after that, there is no general agreement on who would have done it or how, exactly. And yeah, yeah, maybe it’s all part of a giant cover-up, but the amount of people that would have to be involved in that for no clear reason and working in near perfect lockstep for decades just makes it unlikely.
The president was murdered on camera. There was no way there was ever going to be anything but a huge torrent of conspiracy theories, but that doesn’t make any of them true. We’re starting to see the downside of encouraging people to believe in a malevolent, omnipotent deep state that controls everything. Bad actors can blame virtually anything on them, secure in the knowledge that it’s functionally impossible to disprove.
My theory is that JFK was shot by the jealous husband of a woman he was having an affair with.
The only conspiracy theory I can think of that could possibly have been kept secret all these years is that Oswald was a lone gunman but when the Secret Service jumped out of the car after hearing the first shot accidentally discharged their gun. Oswald’s shot’s hit Kennedy but so did that one.I didn’t say I believed it, I just believe it’s the only one that after 55 years, nominees would have come forward with information about.
“I don’t like the Beatles” is like “I’m voting for Trump but I’m an Independent”
For me, it’s more like I’ll vote for Biden if I have to, but I’m not gonna love it. Like, if I get to choose the music we get to listen to, but the only choices are The White Album or Silver Side Up by Nickelback, I’m obviously choosing The White Album. If I had the ultimate choice, I would probably pick Sign O’ The Times, but that’s not even an option, so I have to settle for The White Album. I’ll grin and bear it, and hope for better options that appeal more to me in the future.
Trump just said he won’t promise a peaceful transition of power. They’re stealing a third Supreme Court seat, this time with the help of Russia and a complete lack of integrity. Your childish whining that Biden isn’t what you wanted Santa Claus to bring you is falling on the deafest of ears.sorry that was harsh but it’s been quite a fucking week
You want harsh? Go fuck yourself. I literally said I’m voting for him because he’s the best choice I have. I’m allowed to not love him 100%, but I still fucking support him, you stupid piece of shit.
Oh cool, another neoliberal that’s so excited about another wealthy old white dude that has willingly done a ton of real life damage to citizens of this country (and others!) becoming president, they freak out if anyone dares to state that they don’t like Biden. They didn’t say they weren’t voting for him, you fucking asshole. Joe Biden is a terrible candidate and an awful person. I’m voting for him too but I’m going to hate every second of it.
Obviously, the Kennedy assassination is the most plausible, but the least plausible point is that no one ever spoke about it all this time. But the rest of it is just insane. It just makes no sense.It does, actually. Maybe try reading a book about it that wasn’t written by a crank, like Case Closed by Gerald Posner.I like The Monkees more than The Beatles. FIGHT ME, QUINN.
The Monkees are great. I love both bands.
Funny, my not liking the Beatles is completely irrelevant to someone’s belief in the act of not liking it. Crazy.Also, mind-bogglingly arrogant.
“Also, mind-bogglingly arrogant.”He is a comedian, you absolute moron. You are mind-bogglingly thick.
Yeah, it’s like, “And yet, here I am!”
It’s also an incredibly “white people” opinion
Nah, not liking the Beatles is a white people thing. Liking the Beatles is just breathing air.
I mean is it so hard to believe there are vast segments of the population that are looking for something more resonant to their own experience than what white millionaires had to offer
Never was. It’s just that white people seem to be the only ones who actively go out of their way to mention not liking the Beatles. Everybody else just goes on with their lives.
Myself, I’ve met a lot more white people who get outraged whenever anyone mentions not liking/not having heard the Beatles than the other way around.
Given your conversational style, I’m not really surprised. Guess you’re whiter than you thought.
What’s with the weird pissy attack tho
You know, for someone who dishes it out like you do, you have the thinnest skin.
Dishes what out? What have I even said in this thread that’s worth getting aggro about?
Sure you have. lulz…
What are you even mad about now
What? You keep score on what race dislikes the Beatles more? WHAT
Oh what are you assblasted about now
This is the dumbest post I’ve seen so far today
I mean, I grew up listening to the Beatles (by way of my parents) and so I have a lot of fond nostalgia for certain Beatles songs, but I don’t go out of my way to listen to the Beatles, I don’t know most of their lesser-known stuff, and I’m generally of the opinion that while they were very talented and groundbreaking, a large part of that was that they were first. I don’t really see the need to treat them like gods. If that qualifies as “not liking the Beatles” (the complaint feels more like “not endlessly fellating the Beatles”), then, sure, I don’t like the Beatles.Really, Boomers grew up on the Beatles and so they’re really important to Boomers, which is understandable, and then the Boomers spent the next 40 years trumpeting how great the Beatles were. You hear something a million times, you start to believe it.
I’m 100 percent with him on this. It’s not really about liking (or not liking) the Beatles per se. It’s about that guy (usually in a hipster bar) who can’t wait to tell you he doesn’t like the Beatles. (For some reason, they’ll often champion George Harrison’s solo work like he’s some sort of noble, esoteric underdog.) It’s always a white guy and he’s usually a musician in a local band.
I guess, but it seems like a pretty niche and narrow thing to get huffy about. Oh, wow, occasionally someone’s pretentious! Better call out the National Guard.
Eh, getting huffy is kinda Colin Quinn’s brand. He’s not too jerky about it.
Or maybe some Beatles fans have a hard time accepting people also don’t like them so they assume someone doesn’t like them just so they can tell everyone about it
No, that’s not it. While I am certain there are some disagreeable Beatles fans, I am also certain there are guys in bars whose idea of casual conversation is offering a contrary opinion to commonly held beliefs in an effort to appear edgy. The kids call them “edge-lords.”
I like The Beatles, they’re one of my favorite bands, but I can absolutely understand why people don’t like them.The Beatles (and Elvis & The Rolling Stones & a lot of other artists of that time period) started out doing covers of/were heavily inspired by Black artists who got considerably less attention than the bands that hit it big. They chose to do mostly radio-friendly songs and not tackle politics very much, even though they were active in a very politically volatile time, and could have used their massive fanbase to bring awareness to important issues.
John Lennon was allegedly a wife-beater (though he apparently regretted this later on in his life).
They put out so much music in such a short period of time that there’s some stinkers in their catalog (I’m not a huge fan of most of the second disc of the White Album, personally).
The people who hate them purely for being popular or “old”, yeah, I don’t agree with that, I think it’s petty and perhaps a bit childish. I understand their flaws as human beings and don’t put them on a pedestal.
I’m not a huge fan personally but as a white guy musician (as Recognitions of course has to point out skin color) I AM Impressed that they put out SO much music in so little time. The evolution of the music in 6 years is pretty incredible. I remember in old punk clubs after Lennon died folks would spray paint shit like “Ringo’s Next!” though
I only pointed out skin color because there’s been a long-running trend of Black musicians getting overlooked by the mainstream media, despite being talented & influencing a lot of other, more well-known musicians. I’m not Black myself, but I can understand feeling like there wasn’t an equal chance given there.
Being able to put out a wide berth of music in a short period of time is impressive, I agree. It doesn’t always work (my sister, a Pink Floyd fan, actually vehemently dislikes The Wall because it’s too different to her from, say, Dark Side and Wish You Were Here, but those are very different than Piper At The Gates of Dawn), but nobody’s going to say it’s creatively bereft.
John may have been a ‘problematic’ person, but I don’t feel comfortable condoning anyone’s murder, no matter what.
I’m not condoning his murder either but calling someone that physically and emotionally abused his wives and his kids “problematic” is reductive as fuck. He screamed into Sean’s ear when he was very little and caused permanent hearing damage
“a large part of that was that they were first.”the bar was not high in 1963 . electric guitars and acid made them completely different and more interesting people later in the decade.they’re the first boy band and everyone bought their on-the-fly reinvention. it’s hilarious.
someone in their 50s (or 60s? idk don’t care enough to google him) has an arrogant opinion about art and disregards anyone who doesn’t agree.yes, I’ve been to America
I split hairs and attest that Paul McCartney is and always has been a terrible song writer. For some reason I can spot a tune written by him very quickly even if I have never heard the song before. I can tell which parts of a Lennon-McCartney song was his and which wasn’t.Every single song he writes is the same exact song with barely any variation.My hackles rise when I hear his songs.
Yep, who could tell the difference between Helter Skelter and I’ll Follow the Sun? Temporary Secretary sounds exactly like Lady Madonna. Monkberry Moon Delight might as well be called Blackbird 2 because they’re so similar
Colin Quinn has never been funny or talented and has no business being asked one question, let alone eleven.
https://www.avclub.com/colin-quinn-1798208280O: What was the racial content? CQ:
The first week was kind of slamming Arabs, which nobody was saying at
the moment, or just slamming the idea that you couldn’t slam Arabs.
Everyone’s just kind of attacking each other’s ethnicity, which doesn’t
really go on unless it’s against white males. Nobody else is supposed to
be attacked in their generalized form. It’s old-school, or bad taste,
or something. In that way, it was kind of dangerous, I suppose. But
everybody who came up to me on the street–black, white, Puerto Rican,
anybody–they all loved it, because that’s how everybody talks growing
up, at least where I come from.
People can like what they like, but I do think there’s a certain lack of appreciation going on with people who outright dismiss the Beatles. Tearing down Boomer mythologizing is one thing, refusing to acknowledge creative accomplishment is another. But perhaps I’m doing same thing when I suggest calling Colin Quinn “legendary” is an overstatement.
Should have worked an anti vaxxer question in there. He doesn’t talk about Remote Control much but I’d be curious what he thinks of McCarthy these days.
McCarthy wasn’t on Remote Control. She was on Singled Out years later.
Once you start forgetting shit about the 80s you’re definitely old. Shit.
No, being old is when you realize the reason your young office co-worker is having problems making a call is because they have never made a long distance phone call on a landline and don’t know to put ‘1′ before dialing the number.
Throw in a rotary phone and it’s all over.
No, being old is taking a dump in your pants and not having the energy to change pants.
That’s why I insist to everyone that bellbottoms are coming back.
No, being old is when you realize that the co-worker who told you how he realizes how Stop Making Sense was groundbreaking when it came out after seeing it for the first time also was born the same week as the first time you saw the Replacements.
I don’t judge people by liking or not liking specific musicians or bands. But I feel confident, when discussing it face to face with someone, that I can instantly tell if they legitimately don’t like the Beatles or are just trying to be contrarian.What bugs me is people act like you can only like one of two bands. The popular one has always been the Beatles and the Stones. “Do you like the Beatles?” “Hell no, I like the Stones .” What? OK, I love them both, but whatever. . . It seems like such a bandwagon-sheeple thing to do. I remember plenty of that going on when people discussed the Seattle grunge-scene bands that emerged in the 90s.
I don’t dislike The Beatles (though I do think they’re overrated because boomers have spent their entire lives slobbering over the band), but saying that everyone likes them and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to be edgy or whatever is pretty stupid.
There’s definitely a sense that saying you don’t like something apparently means you dislike something, which is not really the case, so I’m with you. Plus, their influence is undeniable. Beatles can be mighty annoying though—case in point this interview. I think can overhype them but you can’t overrate them, if that makes any sense.
To be fair, the question is “What’s the pettiest hill you’ll die on?” It’s not like he just started the interview by ranting about people who don’t like the Beatles.
It’s also a very familiar bit – like the joke that goes around Twitter about the guy at a party who can’t wait to tell everyone John Lennon beat women. I do think that some people try these “hot takes” with iconic artists to seem cool, but there are also people who think they’re overrated or just don’t like them, and that’s fine too. I’m probably in the middle.
Maybe people just think it’s really gross that so many people worship someone that abused his wife and kids? That your problem lies with people that bring it up and not the abuse itself speaks volumes about you.
This was a less annoying article than I expected, which is meant as high praise. My enjoyment of the Beatles is tempered by all the great popular music of the time that I love which the Beatles’ arrival destroyed. If you were instrumental in killing-off folk, jazz and blues (and five other genres, besides) on American radio I’m going to hold a grudge for a long time.
bring tough crowd back
I haven’t followed Colin Quinn that much in recent years (although he was very good in Trainwreck – that film by and large had a much better cast than you would have expected, with a few exceptions), but I’ll always count him as a very underrated element of late ‘90s SNL. He was a good sketchwriter (although most of his pieces do not seem to be available anywhere…his main sketch was Rolf, who was in various bad positions and encouraging shit-talking and backbiting among his co-workers/cellmates/what have you until he would be discovered and killed), but more importantly, he was a more subtle performer who did not just shout or slap his ass, which is more than I can say for some of the big names on the show at that time. He also had a very thankless taking over for Norm on Update, which he handled better than most ever could have in those circumstances (and I would still watch those Updates over anything from the next decade of the desk). I can’t find much of his brief NBC sketch show, beyond a commercial saying it was too shocking to air on TV, which, given the congealed nature of NBC by that point, I find hard to believe.
I was disappointed with his New York Story, but pleasantly surprised by Red State Blue State.
Kinda does a guy dirty to prompt him to say something petty and then key in on that answer as the headline of the piece.
I don’t like the Beatles, but I normally don’t bring that up (here I go bringing it up). I don’t like the attention. I don’t like having the conversations about it. The conversations are always the same and it’s not fun. I’m sure there are people that say it precisely for the reasons he says, but it’s not me.I just don’t care about listening to them. Ever. My dad loved them, my mom is ambivalent. I’ve heard everything they have ever done. I just don’t care. It’s not that I think they are bad. It’s not that I don’t think they are important in music history. But I never, ever need to listen to them for any reason.Except “Helter Skelter” and the Muppets version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. I’ll fuck with those.
OK Boomer, it’s not that I hate the Beatles, it’s that I am good and goddamn tired of hearing them all the time. Seems like every rock station in the 70s and 80s not only played them every day, but foisted a “Beatles Brunch” or some other three-hour long “specialty” show on the weekend. Look, it’s not special if you have it all the time. It was fucking claustrophobic. I’m burned out on them. Beatles, sit down.