FOT Forum

The Best Show on WFMU => Dear Tom => Topic started by: Steve Foremost on January 01, 2015, 04:16:23 PM

Title: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: Steve Foremost on January 01, 2015, 04:16:23 PM
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/thirty-three-hit-wonder (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/thirty-three-hit-wonder)

Helicopters!

A "bawdy" version of "Just the Way You Are!"

Partying with Sting and Paul Reiser!

The Mussolini of Madison Square Garden!
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: YesterdayDepartment on February 13, 2015, 10:20:09 PM
I'm not reading it but if someone wants to post the most ridiculous parts that would be great.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: Mr. Colin on February 14, 2015, 05:47:42 AM
“Actually, I composed myself a long time ago,” he said. He told a joke that involved Mozart erasing something in a mausoleum; the punch line was “I’m decomposing.” He knocked off an ash. Whenever anyone asks him about his pre-show routine, he says, “I walk from the dressing room to the stage. That’s my routine.” Joel has a knack for delivering his own recycled quips and explanations as though they were fresh, a talent related, one would think, to that of singing well-worn hits with sincere-seeming gusto. He often says that the hardest part isn’t turning it on but turning it off: “One minute, I’m Mussolini, up onstage in front of twenty thousand screaming people. And then, a few minutes later, I’m just another schmuck stuck in traffic on the highway.” It’s true: the transition is abrupt, and it has bedevilled rock stars since the advent of the backbeat. But this schmuck is usually looking down on the highway from an altitude of a thousand feet. He commutes to and from his shows by helicopter.

It's all the most ridiculous parts, and well worth reading.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: not that clay on February 16, 2015, 12:57:16 AM
The article both made me feel sorry for him because he knows how lame he is, and still hate him even more than I did before.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: Mr. Colin on February 16, 2015, 05:49:02 AM
Yup.  But it also made we want one of his sweet, sweet motorboats, and I'm a little ashamed of that.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: buffcoat on February 16, 2015, 10:22:12 AM
I read it with both sympathy and contempt, like everything.

I've believed for a long time this theory that human beings weren't designed to be famous and have no real mechanisms to cope with it, which is why nearly every person who's really famous is unhappy despite having what most people think they long for.

Me, I'd go in this order:
- Rich and not famous
- Rich and famous
- Not rich and not famous
- Famous and not rich

This ranking is why reality TV is completely incomprehensible to me.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: TheyGotEmma on February 22, 2015, 12:36:34 AM
This article was so much fun, I loved it.
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: moonlightmile on May 29, 2015, 12:39:01 AM
yes! i saw this article a few months ago and boy it was golden....!
Title: Re: Billy Joel New Yorker Profile
Post by: Krokodil_Gena on May 31, 2015, 01:53:48 AM
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/thirty-three-hit-wonder (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/thirty-three-hit-wonder)

Helicopters!

A "bawdy" version of "Just the Way You Are!"

Partying with Sting and Paul Reiser!

The Mussolini of Madison Square Garden!

If he could get small drones to land a toupee on his head during a performance, he would be golden.