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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2635
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 11:43 am: | 
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http://skittlesmaze.blogspot.com/2006/03/stanley-crouch-is-big-fat-idiot-who-is. html
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6246
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 11:58 am: |
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Funny. I think that would have been a much more CREDIBLE critique of Crouch had it's author AVOIDED the unnecessary namecalling.
But it is a blog. So, I suppose, you've gottah take the shaft with the wheat. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4982
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 12:18 pm: |
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If the blogger had avoided name-calling, chrishayden wouldn't have related to his rant. As for separating the wheat from the "chaff", his frustration with Crouch and Juan Williams stems from the fact that the only way crissyboy can rebut them is to make personal attacks on them. What they say galls him because their contentions expose his stagnant ideas as being irrelevant. |
Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 555
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 12:42 pm: |
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In Notes of a Hanging Judge, which I have read, Crouch's essays date from 1980 to 1985. Read this book carefully, and note the intellectual deterioration of Stanley as the book progresses....His thinking becomes increasingly less nuanced, more strident, the reasoning more fallacious, more generalizing....and mind you, the last essay in that book was penned twenty-one years ago. I agree with everything Crouch says about rap/hip-hop, which is largely total bullshit. On the other hand, when you really pick Crouch apart, it's clear that he's a right-wing shill who is allowed to jump all over blacks who he perceives as fucking up, while staying strangely silent about Bush and Co., not to mention ISRAEL. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4987
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 01:07 pm: |
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A lot of people say you can't categorize Crouch because he comes out of so many bags. What he's seems most beholden to is being controversial and unorthodox and I wouldn't hold him hostage to essays written 20 years ago. Maybe Crouch feels that there are enough black folks out there raggin on whites, drawing satisfaction from the idea that if whites do something wrong, that excuses blacks to do the same thing, not taking into account how counter-productive this is to black progress. Traditionally, it has been an unwritten law for blacks to not publicly criticize the race. Crouch's biggest sin would be that of airing our dirty laundry. |
Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 559
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 01:15 pm: |
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Ishmael Reed airs dirty laundry, too--he even wrote a book with that title--but more intelligently, and with less of an ideological slant. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6252
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 01:31 pm: |
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Cynique,
I'm glad you've got "Crissy" in your rhetorical torture chamber and not me.
JEEZ!!
Schakspir,
I'm not necessarily contradicting you, mostly because I suspect you've followed Crouch much more closely than I have.
Still. I've never really considered him to be some sort of bootlicker for the GOP & Israel (not saying he's not, though).
If anything, I agree with Cynique's categorization of him. I've often perceived him to be sort of a Black intellectual rebel of sorts. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4990
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 02:00 pm: |
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Ol Stanley is not above criticism. I just don't think he is the devil incarnate. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1277
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 05:27 pm: |
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I had a friend who used to say "Any man who has to go around sporting a replica of a [part of a woman's sexual anatomy] on his face has got to have some deep-seated issues he's dealing with."
I'm not name calling myself, mind you. Just passing along an observation. LOL |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2637
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 06:58 pm: |
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Of course I have problems with some of his views but if they were presented in a well thought out cogent manner I could at least respect him.
He is lazy and trifling like the rappers he excoriates. The one thing he did know something about was jazz and now he is slipping on that front--but since it is perceived in some white corners that he is willing to criticize negroes (almost exclusively from what I can see) he got a nice job and salary.
He knows what kind of dogs he is writing for--he gives them what they want.
He'll be cool until he loses it and slaps Bill O'Reilly or somebody. |
Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 560
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 08:46 pm: |
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"Ol Stanley is not above criticism. I just don't think he is the devil incarnate."
True. However, I read his latest piece on John Coltrane in Slate and in general I'm in agreement with him. But there's no doubt he's been shilling his ass off here and there for the right. I know this because a good friend of mine, Darius James, also happens to be a good friend of Crouch. Marc Jacobson (who I met some years ago) confirmed this. |
Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 561
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 - 08:49 pm: |
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I had a friend who used to say "Any man who has to go around sporting a replica of a [part of a woman's sexual anatomy] on his face has got to have some deep-seated issues he's dealing with."
I always thought those red lips were more evocative of racist Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1930s. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 4991
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 12:27 pm: |
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Stanley is really an alien from Mars and his face was damaged in transit. He came here to observe earthlings and he has been programmed to not display an inordinate amount of loyalty to any one species. |
Fortified
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Fortified
Post Number: 308
Registered: 04-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 06:14 pm: |
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I don't like Stanley Crouch's stance on black women and their dating patterns. He is secretly bitter that no half decent, self-respecting black women would want his catfish-looking ass. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 638
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 09:06 pm: |
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Stanley Crouch is a guy that you either hate or accept. I must honesty say that I have been to hundreds of forums where his name came up for one reason or another and the average collective response sounded like Jews discussing Adolf Eichmann! I’ve never seen any one so vilified and disliked. Everything from being a poor writer to a black racist (yes –I’ve seen that) to an Uncle Tom (180 degrees out) to blistering comments about his physical looks. Contrary to what a number of blacks believe about Stanley (that he is a stooge for white conservatism), he is equally disliked by whites. And after the pyrotechnic backlash (which lead to his dismissal) when he posted that article in Jazz Times in 2003, Putting the White Man in Charge, white people virtually lost their minds! He was already on the hit list for making inflammatory and provocative written commentary before, but when that article came out, the napalm began dropping!
I think I can discuss bro Stanley with some authority being that I have been following his writings and personally interacting with him since the 70’s. Some of you may recall when he left LA and moved to NYC and began writing a music column in Playersmagazine and had taken over managing a jazz club in the East Village called the Tin Palace. He lived with a tenor saxophonist named David Murray (some of you may be familiar with him) in a loft above Tin Palace. While attempting to be a drummer (something he cannot do –trust me!), he booked an avant-garde jazz series at the Tin Palace, as well as organizing occasional hard core improvisational jazz concerts at Ladies' Fort (which was owned by Joe Lee Wilson, the jazz singer –as I recall).
Since the early 1980s Crouch has become very critical of the more progressive commercial forms of jazz and has been associated with the neo-conservative attitudes of Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison. And his about face criticism of a music he once championed and supported, did not set well with a lot of people –including me. I recall his writings about the music in Players where he discussed and reviewed various concerts and artists. He was the only person writing about hard core creative improvised music at that time (e.g., Olua Dura, Fred Anderson, Philip Wilson, AIR, Revolutionary Ensemble, Dewey Redman, AACM, Cecil Taylor, Studio Rivbea concerts, Oliver Lake, Fred Hopkins, Sunny Murray, et al). I could not wait until his next reviews and articles came out.
As Many of you know, Stanley has a history of violence towards his critics and detractors. At the First Annual Jazz Awards, Crouch was invited to present an award, and while reading the nominees, he made disparaging comments about two of them: Dave Douglas and Matthew Shipp (why he did this –I will never understand). After the show, the Howard Mandel (a jazz critic who was largely responsible for creating and organizing the Jazz Awards) confronted Crouch about his earlier comments. Well, bro Stanley being who he is, punched Mandel and then was confronted by Matthew Shipp (piano player) himself. Shipp called Stanley "an Uncle Tom and a fucking loser". However, the two were separated and a brawl was avoided.
Some of you may also recall when Stanley confronted book critic Dale Peck (who had written an unfavorable review of Crouch's first novel, Don't the Moon Look Lonesome), in a Greenwich Village restaurant for daring to write a negative review of his book. Stanley bitch slapped him in the face and told Peck, "Don’t you ever do that again. If you do you’ll get much worse." Wow! Imagine that. Getting slapped in the face and then being told it will be much worse next time if you write another bad book review! Hard core!
He also punched a jazz writer named Russ Musto and Village Voice letters editor Ron Plotkin. And I remember his dismissal from the Village Voice (he used to write for them also –I used to read all his articles that ranged from movie reviews to jazz commentaries)and put music critic Harry Allen in a choke hold over a heated dispute about hip-hop music (something Stanley has zero tolerance for)which lead to his dismissal. I really hated to see him go because he did write some very interesting articles for the Voice. I also had a personal friend tell me earlier this year, that way back in the day, Steve Lacy (a phenomenal soprano saxophone player who passed away recently), got the beat down from Stanley for daring to enter the Tin Palace for free. From all of this, I’m sure you all get the picture about Stanley’s temper and intolerance for insubordination.
I unequivocally support Stanley for being a fierce critic of so-called gangsta rap and it’s dedication to promoting and celebrating violence, criminal lifestyles, thuggish idolatry and degrading women. He openly has defended Bill Cosby's controversial remarks (just as I have) and praised a women's group at Spellman College for speaking out against those same qualities.
I also think Cynique's assessment of Stanley is on the money. While I don’t totally agree with everything Schakspir said, I do understand his feelings. I will admit that Stanley has written things that needed to be said, openly defying the wailing and howling of the Politically Correct Race Police and excuse makers, while openly making proclamations that are rooted in shameless ignorance and stupidity.
As I said before, you either like him or hate him. From my personal experience, most people intensely dislike him. I guess that’s the price you pay for daring to speak your mind, ignoring all the apparent protocols of conformity and orthodoxy. Although I have disagreed very strongly with Stanley at times, I do like and respect him for his notorious dedication to not pandering to any particular group or party line. He freely insults and criticizes everyone –there are no sacred cows with him.
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Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 563
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 10:09 pm: |
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"He freely insults and criticizes everyone"
....except Jewish neocons, and Bush.
Then again, you know him a lot better than I do. I gathered that he says some things privately that he won't say in print. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1291
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 27, 2006 - 12:20 pm: |
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Interesting, to criticize gangsta rap but then go around punching out folks who you got beef with yourself. Maybe his AK was in the shop? |
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