9 ms·

What happened to "Life's little instruction book"? What happened to "Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff)"? Every so often some "nice" but v

What happened to "Life's little instruction book"? What happened to "Don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff)"? Every so often some "nice" but vapid book or fad comes along and makes a lot of money from people in that literate but dull IQ range of 104-106 and while it's never fun to smilingly fend off recommendations from well-meaning friends ("You should read this! It's really inspiring!") it's all pretty harmless. McKuen put a semi-handsome face and a semi-pleasant voice to it and so lasted quite a while. He's really easy to hate though. I hated him before I even knew his name. He wrote the lyrics to "Seasons in the Sun". Fuck you, Rod McKuen.

readthenotes1 4y ago
That song sucks.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
  We can be glad we never heard the B-side: > Jacks released his version as a single in 1973 on his own label, Goldfish Records. "Put the Bone In", an original composition about burying a deceased pet dog, was included as the B-side. — Wikipedia
zasdffaa 4y ago
> dull IQ range of 104-106 Ouch. That's damning of you. BTW I don't know if being interesting is strongly correlated with IQ anyway.
m463 4y ago
What I miss is the ronco egg scrambler, that would scramble eggs in the shell. Or maybe stretch armstrong (they (lol) pulled him) I don't miss feelings. ("Feelings, wo oh oh feelings Wo oh oh, feel you again in my arms")
- googlryas 4y ago
  Just shake it like a maraca, that's what I do for hard boiled scrambled eggs.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
CharlesW 4y ago
> He wrote the lyrics to "Seasons in the Sun". Went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and learned that McKuen just translated them from the original French lyrics by Jacques Brel. Terry Jacks rewrote that translation for his popular rendition, which I'm guessing is the version most people hate^H^H^H^H are familiar with. You can hear McKuen's translation of the original lyrics in The Kingston Trio's version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnxktZzjD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnxktZzjD4
nl 4y ago
> Every so often some "nice" but vapid book or fad comes along and makes a lot of money from people in that literate but dull IQ range of 104-106 and while it's never fun to smilingly fend off recommendations from well-meaning friends ("You should read this! It's really inspiring!") it's all pretty harmless. While I'm not defending McKuen, if you are going to be a critic at least be an interesting critic. To quote the linked article: > Even the critics who weren’t quite so overtly snobby clearly disdained McKuen’s fans for the crime of merely being ordinary. Hentoff witheringly describes the crowd at Carnegie Hall as “contingents of thirtyish women who might have come from the airline offices, the telephone company, innumerable typing pools.” Future Hollywood writer Nora Ephron wrote a McKuen takedown in Esquire, called “Mush,” that observes the audience at a D.C. show: “You won’t see any of your freaks here, no sir, any of your tie-dye people, any of your long-haired kids in jeans lighting joints. This is middle America.” When Nora Ephron calls you middlebrow: sheesh! That at least is at interesting. > He's really easy to hate though. I hated him before I even knew his name. Fuck you, Rod McKuen. Hating on something easy to hate - how dull and vapid. Try - instead - hating on the faux-intellectualism of HN or its even more explicit intellectually snobby brethren (looking at you lesswrong). Criticism of easy targets with few defenders is as forgettable and boring as the material it seeks to attack.
- cafard 4y ago
  When I was first reading the NY Times Sunday Magazine, I would see articles interviewing e.g. Nick Nolte and leaving it to be understood that he was the greatest mind in the acting business since William Shakespeare. I thought them odd, and I took a while to understand that these pieces were timed to appear before the subject's next movie. A bit later, I noticed that the same magazine would now and then pick out some other figure--the columnist Lewis Grizzard or the singer Robert Goulet--for a good beating that seemed out of proportion with the space they took up in the readership's psyches, perhaps out of proportion with their demerits. Do we need figures to think poorly of to reassure ourselves of the value of our positive judgments? I imagine also that some of the critics who looked down on McKuen had good words for singers and writers equally forgotten now.

readthenotes1 4y ago

That song sucks.

kwertyoowiyop 4y ago
We can be glad we never heard the B-side: > Jacks released his version as a single in 1973 on his own label, Goldfish Records. "Put the Bone In", an original composition about burying a deceased pet dog, was included as the B-side. — Wikipedia

zasdffaa 4y ago

> dull IQ range of 104-106 Ouch. That's damning of you. BTW I don't know if being interesting is strongly correlated with IQ anyway.

m463 4y ago

What I miss is the ronco egg scrambler, that would scramble eggs in the shell. Or maybe stretch armstrong (they (lol) pulled him) I don't miss feelings. ("Feelings, wo oh oh feelings Wo oh oh, feel you again in my arms")

googlryas 4y ago
Just shake it like a maraca, that's what I do for hard boiled scrambled eggs.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

CharlesW 4y ago

> He wrote the lyrics to "Seasons in the Sun". Went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and learned that McKuen just translated them from the original French lyrics by Jacques Brel. Terry Jacks rewrote that translation for his popular rendition, which I'm guessing is the version most people hate^H^H^H^H are familiar with. You can hear McKuen's translation of the original lyrics in The Kingston Trio's version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnxktZzjD4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnxktZzjD4

nl 4y ago

> Every so often some "nice" but vapid book or fad comes along and makes a lot of money from people in that literate but dull IQ range of 104-106 and while it's never fun to smilingly fend off recommendations from well-meaning friends ("You should read this! It's really inspiring!") it's all pretty harmless. While I'm not defending McKuen, if you are going to be a critic at least be an interesting critic. To quote the linked article: > Even the critics who weren’t quite so overtly snobby clearly disdained McKuen’s fans for the crime of merely being ordinary. Hentoff witheringly describes the crowd at Carnegie Hall as “contingents of thirtyish women who might have come from the airline offices, the telephone company, innumerable typing pools.” Future Hollywood writer Nora Ephron wrote a McKuen takedown in Esquire, called “Mush,” that observes the audience at a D.C. show: “You won’t see any of your freaks here, no sir, any of your tie-dye people, any of your long-haired kids in jeans lighting joints. This is middle America.” When Nora Ephron calls you middlebrow: sheesh! That at least is at interesting. > He's really easy to hate though. I hated him before I even knew his name. Fuck you, Rod McKuen. Hating on something easy to hate - how dull and vapid. Try - instead - hating on the faux-intellectualism of HN or its even more explicit intellectually snobby brethren (looking at you lesswrong). Criticism of easy targets with few defenders is as forgettable and boring as the material it seeks to attack.

cafard 4y ago
When I was first reading the NY Times Sunday Magazine, I would see articles interviewing e.g. Nick Nolte and leaving it to be understood that he was the greatest mind in the acting business since William Shakespeare. I thought them odd, and I took a while to understand that these pieces were timed to appear before the subject's next movie. A bit later, I noticed that the same magazine would now and then pick out some other figure--the columnist Lewis Grizzard or the singer Robert Goulet--for a good beating that seemed out of proportion with the space they took up in the readership's psyches, perhaps out of proportion with their demerits. Do we need figures to think poorly of to reassure ourselves of the value of our positive judgments? I imagine also that some of the critics who looked down on McKuen had good words for singers and writers equally forgotten now.