Comments for Peter Stone Brown Archives

Comment on Maybe or maybe not last thoughts on Lloyd Fonvielle by Howard Mirowitz

Howard Mirowitz — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 22:14:30 +0000

Back in the heyday of rec.music.dylan (or rmd for short), I used to get into massive philosophical posting discussions with Lloyd on all sorts of topics . He was an amazingly literate and keenly observational person with a vast and deep knowledge of all sorts of fields. Within a half hour after I’d hit the “post” button on short essays that I’d spent hours crafting , he’d reply with fantastically well-written rejoinders that not only taught me things I hadn’t considered about whatever topic we were on, but that connected that topic with this huge apperceptive mass of knowledge he had, to reveal that there was much more to the topic than I had realized, and that he was seeing it from a much broader perspective than I was. And he probably thought through and maybe even wrote all of it in less than 30 minutes. He must have thought in whole paragraphs instead of sentence by sentence or word by word when he was writing.

Anyway, during the back and forth between us on these rmd threads, occasionally other people would post their observations and comments, which would then turn into sub-threads, and so forth. And often, at some point in the process, Peter would pop in to offer his thoughts. Usually, when he did this, it was prompted by one of two things. The first was that I had made a factual error, or overlooked an important fact (Lloyd, of course, never made such mistakes) — especially if the fact related to things like the details of specific bootleg versions of songs at certain shows, or Dylan’s life history or the history of other people involved with Dylan. In these cases Peter would simply give the correct information and then perhaps add comments on how it would impact the overall point Lloyd and I were going on about.

The second reason he would post on these philosophical threads was that he was irritated by the trend of the entire discussion. Peter believed that rec.music.dylan was founded to be about Dylan, or at least things related to Dylan, and that it should remain true to that principle.. There even used to be a generally accepted convention at rmd that if you were going to post something that didn’t pass Peter’s sniff test of Dylan-relatedness, you had to put “(NDC)” in front of your post’s subject line to indicate that it had No Dylan Content. But, as any serious Dylan fan knows, Dylan was influenced by everything and influences everything, and these philosophical dialogues between Lloyd and I always did start with some Dylan-connected trigger, so we never labeled our posts as” (NDC),” even as their philosopical content became denser and denser, and the Dylan connections became more and more tenuous. And that’s what tended to bother Peter. So in those cases he would write things like, “OK, so why isn’t this NDC?” Or, “OK, so what does any of this have to do with the topic of this thread?” Or, sometimes, “OK, so why is any of this important? ” But Lloyd and I both greatly respected Peter, because (like Lloyd) he was a very good writer, he had total command of the facts on any Dylan-related topic (as well as on so many other music-related topics), and he always, always knew what he was talking about whenever he posted anything on rmd. So when Peter zinged us, we would immediately reply with what we hoped were appropriate justifications. I don’t remember whether any of those actually convinced him or not, but I hope he was at least relieved that we’d made the effort.

Comment on Peter on the Kennedys and the Murder Most Foul by harry briscoe

harry briscoe — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 20:40:25 +0000

“Some people like to point their finger at LBJ, I don’t think so. He wasn’t enamored of the Kennedys, but that wasn’t his style. ”

This ignores the fact that LBJ was involved in several murders including that of his sister and her lover and agriculture agent henry marshall, who was investigating billy sol estes (and lbj). lbj’s hitman of choice was malcolm “mac” wallace.

It’s not that I think the Kennedys were anything great ’cause I don’t and they weren’t.

read some history and find out what kennedy’s program really was. he was great. our last real president

Who knows if JFK was really gonna pull out of Vietnam? We’ll never know.

kennedy’s orders to pull out 1,000 troops out by the end of December 1963 (all out by the end of 1965.)
were still in effect when he was killed. they were countermanded several days after the killing. 125 spots were rotated home before things changed

read some history and find out what kennedy’s program really was. he was great. our last real president.

That said, I do think RFK underwent some kind of change, and I do think he would have won the nomination and the election.

part of that change involved LSD-25

He couldn’t say anything of course, and none of the Kennedys said anything for years, but I suspect RFK knew something wasn’t on the up and up about his brother’s death.

several days before his death rfk said “only the powers of the presidency will r veal the secrets of my brother’s death.

And I think the same people who killed JFK killed his brother.

and you can see some of them film in the ambassador hotel ball room before rfk’s last speech.

He was attorney general, a powerful man.

not once his brother was killed was he. jimmy hoffa said bobby kennedy is just another lawyer now.”

Comment on Peter on the Kennedys and the Murder Most Foul by John Carvill

John Carvill — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 09:44:02 +0000

Agree 100%. Anybody who spends any time even casually looking into the JFK assassination comes away knowing one central fact: JFK was not killed by Oswald acting alone. There was a conspiracy. The only question is who was involved. People who argue otherwise are either stupid, insane, or have an agenda. JFK was no saint, but the people who killed him, they are so extreme Right wing and evil that they regarded him as a threat so he had to go. Those people, they are still around today, in the shadows; maybe not the very same specific people – a lot of them will be dead by now – but the same sort of people, the people who are really in control of the so-called ‘democratic’ United States. They let people have the charade of democracy, most of the time, but if things get out of hand they will act. Always.

Comment on Patti Smith, the Nobel and the song that will outlast him by Trev Gibb

Trev Gibb — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:29:46 +0000

In reply to Stuart McKelvie. I agree Stuart, I think the nerves got the better of her.

Comment on Patti Smith, the Nobel and the song that will outlast him by Stuart McKelvie

Stuart McKelvie — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 16:34:19 +0000

Patti has said that she did know the song and had practiced it with no problem. She said it was the anxiety of the occasion that got to her. Of course, if you define “knowing” as being 100% certain that you will be correct and that you are 100% correct every time, then maybe she did not “know” it.

P.S. Does Bob know his songs?

Comment on Joni Mitchell on Bob Dylan through the years by Patty Wootton

Patty Wootton — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 05:37:33 +0000

I was so turned off by the comment “He doesnt brush his teeth”..Jesus Christ that has ruined my evening.

Comment on Bass legend Harvey Brooks on his memoir and 50 Years playing with Dylan, Miles Davis, The Doors and everybody else by Malcolm

Malcolm — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 15:05:46 +0000

Great interview, I’ll be ordering the book.

Comment on The first time I saw Rick Danko by Trev Gibb

Trev Gibb — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 13:25:18 +0000

In reply to Gary Solomon. Incredible that you got to play with him. Did you get a chance to check out Peters interview with Rick? It’s very funny.

Comment on The first time I saw Rick Danko by Gary Solomon

Gary Solomon — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 12:10:48 +0000

I saw Rick several times with The Band, once on his solo tour in ‘77, and many times in small clubs, often with Sredni Volner. I even sat in with him once (at the Turning Point in Piermont, NY in 1990). He was always great (except for one very drunken performance with Butterfield), and always gracious to his audience. That fiddle player, Larry Packer, is still around. He’s a great player and a cool guy with plenty of Danko stories.

Comment on The first time I saw Rick Danko by Trev Gibb

Trev Gibb — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 14:14:50 +0000

This was originally posted in rec.music.dylan on the day of Danko’s passing.