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"That shouldn’t confuse you at all. Becker can be a Yiddish surname in the Northeastern United States as often as it is non-Jewish German, Becker grew up in distinctively Jewish areas like Scarsdale and Forest Hills, Queens, and Becker’s close kinship and long-standing association with Jews and knowledge and appreciation of Jewish culture makes the misconception quite understandable. Perhaps Becker’s relationship with his (I believe, mostly German) heritage is similar to your association with your Italian and English ancestry." -- ElijahAstin
I found myself thinking about this a bit yesterday after signing off yesterday for some reason...
For the greater part of my music listening time, starting with my first purchase of the 45 "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds (I was 8 years old then), I have to admit I knew little-to-nothing about the musicians who were putting out my favorite tunes. For me it was all about the music, and their ethnic heritage, religion, race and all else was of no matter to me. I wasn't interested in other than listening to their music.
Later, I also used to comment to fellow music lovers that the lyrics hardly mattered to me either. It was all about the sound of the music regardless what they were singing or saying. In part that's why I am a great lover of just instrumental music too.
Now as a result of our discussion and my later interest in reading these biographies and autobiographies, I've come to notice how my appreciation of music has evolved some since I bought my very first stereo.
So..., I can see why I would have never made the mistake of thinking Becker was Jewish. Not only would it not matter to me, but all the rest you explain I would have not known about. Which makes me wonder if it would largely be Jewish people who would wrongly assume Becker was Jewish, and not Steely Dan fans like me. Not that any of this really matters to me either, or in any way affects my appreciation of Steely Dan music, but when it comes to suggesting confirmation bias, it's interesting to consider from where that influence tends to come wherever it seems to exist.
When I was 14 I attended 1/2 of my 9th grade year at a high school here. I met a girl during that time and we became good friends. She had an older brother that was kind of dorky but nice. Long, long story but I was kidnapped at 3 am and taken back to the North for the rest of high school. I never saw my friend again until 5 years later when I moved here permanently.
One day in the North I rode my bicycle to the little country store at the end of the road. We lived in an extremely rural area, nothing much around except for that store and there were a lot of dirt roads at that time. I was still only 14 when this happened. I was alone hanging out in the carwash on my bike and I see this van pull up to the gas pumps.
It was like a Cheech & Chong movie, when they got out the smoke came boiling out with them. One short and round, the other, really tall and skinny. I kept looking because they looked familiar. I came out of the car wash and realized it was my friend's dorky brother! I went over to find out why they were there and 8 hours away from home.
There are two cities in both states with the same name, so the idiots were going to go to the one in their state but ended up in the city with same name in my state. They drove 8 hours in the wrong direction and I was the one who had to give them the bad news that they were in the same named town in a different state. Like I said, smoked up dorky idiots.
We all had a good laugh but what are the odds of that happening? I just happened to be at that store at that particular time when they pulled in, lost. I lived like a 1/2 mile from there. My friend, his sister, couldn't believe what had happened. It baffles me even now.
"That shouldn’t confuse you at all. Becker can be a Yiddish surname in the Northeastern United States as often as it is non-Jewish German, Becker grew up in distinctively Jewish areas like Scarsdale and Forest Hills, Queens, and Becker’s close kinship and long-standing association with Jews and knowledge and appreciation of Jewish culture makes the misconception quite understandable. Perhaps Becker’s relationship with his (I believe, mostly German) heritage is similar to your association with your Italian and English ancestry." -- ElijahAstin
I found myself thinking about this a bit yesterday after signing off yesterday for some reason...
For the greater part of my music listening time, starting with my first purchase of the 45 "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds (I was 8 years old then), I have to admit I knew little-to-nothing about the musicians who were putting out my favorite tunes. For me it was all about the music, and their ethnic heritage, religion, race and all else was of no matter to me. I wasn't interested in other than listening to their music.
Later, I also used to comment to fellow music lovers that the lyrics hardly mattered to me either. It was all about the sound of the music regardless what they were singing or saying. In part that's why I am a great lover of just instrumental music too.
Now as a result of our discussion and my later interest in reading these biographies and autobiographies, I've come to notice how my appreciation of music has evolved some since I bought my very first stereo.
So..., I can see why I would have never made the mistake of thinking Becker was Jewish. Not only would it not matter to me, but all the rest you explain I would have not known about. Which makes me wonder if it would largely be Jewish people who would wrongly assume Becker was Jewish, and not Steely Dan fans like me. Not that any of this really matters to me either, or in any way affects my appreciation of Steely Dan music, but when it comes to suggesting confirmation bias, it's interesting to consider from where that influence tends to come wherever it seems to exist.
It’s a very understandable mistake that people falling into any or all of the following categories might make: Jewish people, non-Jews familiar with American Jewish culture, and Steely Dan fans. I also don’t think it was a misconception that Walter Becker cared to correct one way or the other, which explains why it endured for so long. Although I find it interesting to know these sorts of things, Walter Becker’s ethnoreligious background certainly doesn’t dictate how I rate him as a musician, much less a human being. I certainly don’t think less of him since finding out he wasn’t Jewish. If anything, I admire him ever-so-slightly more, as a non-Jew who greatly appreciated Jewish culture and prided himself as an honorary member of the tribe.
I also like lots of musicians of all races, backgrounds, and religious identities. One of my all-time favorites is Fleetwood Mac, and while I respect his work as a blues guitarist virtuoso, the iteration of the band with (Jewish) Peter Green as frontman is actually my least favorite of its various lineups.
I like the Buckingham/Nicks era, of course, but the Bob Welch era happens to be my personal favorite, and he is criminally underrated as a musician (both within and outside the Mac). The fact that he was snubbed when the rest of the band was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a travesty. There’s nothing Jewish about any of those Fleetwood Mac lineups. There was at least one Jew in the studio who helped contribute to their success (namely, Richard Dashut), but that’s a very brief and incidental footnote to my Fleetwood Mac fandom.
It’s a very understandable mistake that people falling into any or all of the following categories might make: Jewish people, non-Jews familiar with American Jewish culture, and Steely Dan fans. I also don’t think it was a misconception that Walter Becker cared to correct one way or the other, which explains why it endured for so long. Although I find it interesting to know these sorts of things, Walter Becker’s ethnoreligious background certainly doesn’t dictate how I rate him as a musician, much less a human being. I certainly don’t think less of him since finding out he wasn’t Jewish. If anything, I admire him ever-so-slightly more, as a non-Jew who greatly appreciated Jewish culture and prided himself as an honorary member of the tribe.
I also like lots of musicians of all races, backgrounds, and religious identities. One of my all-time favorites is Fleetwood Mac, and while I respect his work as a blues guitarist virtuoso, the iteration of the band with (Jewish) Peter Green as frontman is actually my least favorite of its various lineups.
I like the Buckingham/Nicks era, of course, but the Bob Welch era happens to be my personal favorite, and he is criminally underrated as a musician (both within and outside the Mac). The fact that he was snubbed when the rest of the band was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a travesty. There’s nothing Jewish about any of those Fleetwood Mac lineups. There was at least one Jew in the studio who helped contribute to their success (namely, Richard Dashut), but that’s a very brief and incidental footnote to my Fleetwood Mac fandom.
I hear you...
It was only very later in life that I started paying much attention to where the musicians were from or much else about them, so unlike you it seems, I never really had any of that as part of my music knowledge or appreciation. We all knew the Beatles, the Who and the Stones were from England of course. Dylan, Steely Dan, and Led Zeppelin from America, but otherwise I knew little more than that most were white males.
I am also a big fan of Stevie Nicks, and her duet with Buckingham, "Landslide," is one of those that's too beautiful for words. Smashing Pumpkins does a great rendition of that song too. All are in my music library. I am a big fan of SP too. I've seen them live a couple of times as well. One of my first albums was Kiln House. Know that one?
Here's to how music has always been able to transcend so many of those difficult cultural and societal divides in any case. Another reason I'm a big fan...
A friend of our family who just recently passed used to tell a story about how he got delayed trying to make it to the airport to catch a flight he had previously booked. He was too late and missed the flight that he later learned crashed. Everyone on board perished in the crash. That is the kind of story that has made many a person religious, but he died a non-religious man despite a few amazing stories that would make most people believers...
You can choose the position of "nothing can reach you" if that is your heart's desire.
When you speak of something like that making most people believers, but not you, it seems you are separating yourself from them as you being the strong person. While it looks to me like you have built a wall around yourself.
You can choose the position of "nothing can reach you" if that is your heart's desire.
When you speak of something like that making most people believers, but not you, it seems you are separating yourself from them as you being the strong person. While it looks to me like you have built a wall around yourself.
I think the wall you have built around yourself is forcing you to read and interpret my comments in only one way. Your way, but not accurate...
All of us simply have different ways of what I call "connecting the dots" about cause/effect. Interpreting how and why things happen to us. I simply consider the facts, all of them, all the things that happen to everyone all over the world, "good, bad and ugly." I by no means separate myself from any of that, because I believe I am living through life's challenges -- ups and downs -- just like you and everyone else.
I simply do my best to understand the causes that have us experiencing either the best or the worst and all manner of degrees in between, and I can do so without imagining a god or other than very natural, normal, cases of how and why things happen to us. That's all. I would say it's the lack of a wall that allows me to see things the way I do. Nothing having to do with strength either.
No more than working a math problem or learning the truth about such things has anything to do with strength. This isn't a mental arm wrestling contest...
You can choose the position of "nothing can reach you" if that is your heart's desire.
When you speak of something like that making most people believers, but not you, it seems you are separating yourself from them as you being the strong person. While it looks to me like you have built a wall around yourself.
Some of the things you mentioned have very logical explanations. I'm not saying just because there are logical explanations that it disproves anything but for people like me our mind will default to the logical one.
Some of the things you mentioned have very logical explanations. I'm not saying just because there are logical explanations that it disproves anything but for people like me our mind will default to the logical one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LearnMe
I think the wall you have built around yourself is forcing you to read and interpret my comments in only one way. Your way, but not accurate...
All of us simply have different ways of what I call "connecting the dots" about cause/effect. Interpreting how and why things happen to us. I simply consider the facts, all of them, all the things that happen to everyone all over the world, "good, bad and ugly." I by no means separate myself from any of that, because I believe I am living through life's challenges -- ups and downs -- just like you and everyone else.
I simply do my best to understand the causes that have us experiencing either the best or the worst and all manner of degrees in between, and I can do so without imagining a god or other than very natural, normal, cases of how and why things happen to us. That's all. I would say it's the lack of a wall that allows me to see things the way I do. Nothing having to do with strength either.
No more than working a math problem or learning the truth about such things has anything to do with strength. This isn't a mental arm wrestling contest...
Quote:
Originally Posted by chief scum
You can choose the position of "nothing can reach you" if that is your heart's desire.
When you speak of something like that making most people believers, but not you, it seems you are separating yourself from them as you being the strong person. While it looks to me like you have built a wall around yourself.
I'll just stick with my bolded sentence from my previous post.
I wrote that from a reaching up position. Like a child. Which was the position I was in when I shared that story about being very down and being lifted up from that. And I don't want to fill you in on just how far down I was.
Last edited by chief scum; 11-21-2022 at 01:50 PM..
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