what does daniel think about leviticus 20?

[Mindwalk]

                                 
Ray, I´ m curious......what your question is about?

[Henry Long]

"...and if a man seeketh to belittle or taketh poopie
on another of far superior talents and grace, yay, I say unto ye,
that man shall be laughed at and ignored, foolish though he be."

[Stallion]

I'm confused.

[Mindwalk]

Great one Henry !!! I second that!!!

I don´t know why "Rayjected" is so jealous.......

[ray pickens]

amen to henry long.
to the administrator (daniel's brother, i presume):
my question is quite timely and i am indeed quite curious as to what daniel's own convictions and beliefs are relating to gays and lesbians.  i know that daniel has been subjected his whole life to the teachings of the church of christ, and yet i suspect, he being an artist and free spirit, that he might be a little more open minded on the subject than your run of the mill church of christ member.  i am curious to see if my intuition is correct on this matter.
i do not know why you think that i am jealous of daniel.  my post contained not the slightest hint of such.  and why do you call me "rayjected"?  i have not been rejected any more than your average guy, and have actually had quite a string of successes, not least of all having written, produced, and sung on countless television commercials and written songs and underscoring for several national television shows.  I have even had a few songs recorded by some relatively known acts, namely Queen Ida and Patrick Juvet.  And I currently have a full-time job which utilizes my not inconsiderable skills at the piano, as well as arranging and vocal coaching.  believe me, i am not jealous of daniel, much as that may please you to think so.  i am merely plainly honest in whatever i write, and i can plainly state that i do not envy daniel's rather severe mental condition, and thank my lucky starts that i am sane enough to hold a full-time job.  what exactly should i be envious of?  if daniel had written and recorded smash hits maybe i'd be a tad envious, but i'm not aware that he has done such.  if i'm wrong, and he has written and recorded smash hit records, let me know, and i promise to be a little envious then.
cheers,
ray

[ray pickens]

i forgot to mention two other famous artists who've recorded my stuff:  michael bolton and valerie simpson (of ashford and simpson).
ray

[Disfranchise]

A reply to Ray Pickens on the matter of smash hits.

To succeed in doing a smash hit you need to be at the right time and right place as everybody knows and you also have to have a good recording of the song so it can be played on the radio without "disturbing" the avarage listener.
I admit, the songs Daniel's written in the past ten years or so is not that amazing, most of them is actually bad (even though some really stand out). Most, and I mean those who really love Daniel's work, loves the songs and recordings made in the 80's. If those songs would have been the work of, let's say Bob Dylan, they would defenetly have been SMASH HITS.

The thing is here, the most obvious reason why Daniel's music isn't too well known is because of his singing and playing which is not "perfect" so to speak. I'm not saying Dylan's got a great voice but Daniel has got that highpitch voice that makes people think "false singing" and doesn't listen to the song itself but the crummy recording and the childish voice.
Those who listen trough all that can see that his music is as good as most Beatles songs and poignant stories with amazing angles to it.

There are so many who make a living being a musician but there are very few that are good at what they do, just like any other job.
Sure, you make a living out of you music, so what? That not the point!
That's not what it's all about!

So what is it Ray that you've got against Daniel anyway?
/Disfranchise

[ray pickens]

i have nothing against daniel at all, and i don't know why you ask this question.  i was simply trying to find out what daniel thought about an important social issue and his attendant religious beliefs on such.  i'm just curious.  i was raised in the same kind of church daniel was raised in, and i escaped the narrow thinking which is part of that type of church, and i am hopeful that daniel escaped this kind of thinking as well.  i always liked daniel very much when i knew him, and i haven't seen him for a long time.  i would like to see him again in the future, but going to texas does not exactly appeal to me.  maybe he'll do a gig in rochester sometime.
as far as having hits is concerned, it seems to me that whenever someone doesn't have them, they always have some kind of excuse, but i've always believed that if you write hit songs, big name artists will want to record them, since everyone would benefit.  when i wrote jingles, they either sold or they didn't sell, they either stayed on the air for a long time and made me money or they didn't.  i could find a thousand reasons why such and such a jingle stayed on the air for three years while another one didn't make it past the demo stage, but the bottom line was that some made it and some didn't.  luckily, many of mine made it.  and, by the way, i am most definitely very good at what i do, or i wouldn't be in such high demand as a pianist and arranger in a town that hosts the eastman school of music.

[Mindwalk]

Okay Ray, Sorry to be so rude.......It was something i presumed.

First of all, I´m not Daniel´s brother, I´m just a fan helping to run this forum.

I really didnt know about your succesful career...I´m happy for you...   I typed "ray pickens" on google and couldn´t find relevant info...that´s why i came to that wrong conclusion....once again, i apologize.

  Not all artists are looking for "mainstream" success, and smash hits...

I really think that somehow, for us fans, it´s good that Daniel never wrote a "Smash Hit"....it gives him the freedom he needs to write his own kind of music....I don´t think he would like to write songs under pressure, etc.
Maybe it would have "smashed" his inspiration.

I´m just curious to know why you used a "very mad" emoticon on your first post. It made me think you were angry, or so........were you?Why?

[ray pickens]

thanks.  apology accepted.
i use the "evil" emoticon because it looks like the devil, who is a far more interesting character in genesis, and in milton's "paradise lost", than god.  you know, i have those issues about my church of christ upbringing.....  i just wonder if daniel has issues about it too.  i don't think there really is a devil or satan (though anything's possible) just as i don't think there really is some god named jehovah or yaweh or zeus or wotan (though anything's possible).  i hope that explains my (rather subconscious) use of the "evil" emoticon.  plus, i think it looks cool.

[Henry Long]

Not to harp on this for too long, but hey, we’re all here at rejectedunknown for one reason. A man’s work has touched us all deeply, even profoundly.

As for the idea of hits or even success, I have found, through many years of exploring my own creative endeavors, that there is a huge difference between entertainment (commercial jingles? Jeez...) and Art. Art takes the chances. Art survives. Art is the only thing that can connect people from all over the world without irony, without overt packaging, without a hit.

Another big fan of Mr. John Milton was William Blake (1757-1827). Never left London. Spent all his life writing songs and engraving his complex personal mythologies. Less than 30 copies of his illuminated “greatest hits” (“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and “The Visions”) were printed in his lifetime! He was considered a loony tune by his contemporaries and during most of the following century. But he directly influenced almost single-handedly English Romanticism and the Symbolist painters of a few decades later, to name only a few.
 
In fact, the argument could be made that without William Blake, and therefor the English Romantic movement in poetry and literature and painting, there would have been no Beatles. Very Romantic heroes, those guys.

As I mentioned in my little statement on the rejectedunknown fan list page, Daniel Johnston truly is a living William Blake. I say that with complete sincerity and honesty.

In my attempt to live an authenticated life, and create authentic works of poetry and art of my own calling, no living musician has pointed that direction out more clearly to me than Daniel Johnston.

To quote Stan Lee, the Paul McCartney to Jack Kirby’s Lennon, “Nuff said!”

[Anonymous]

Yeah Ray, I'm sorry too. I seemed like you held something against Daniel but now we all know that that's not the case.
On the subjects of hits (again...)
If it's like you say that great songs become hits, why does it happen so often that old songs which got very little attention when it was released, become hits later on when the timing is right and there's a demand for such songs.
I believe that the hit-phenomenon has very little to do with the song itself.
If you'd pick out any avarage band out there and promote it like hell it would surley sell, of that I am certain because it has been done on several occasions.
And there is other ways to make hits. Take for example all artists that does covers like Steps, A1 and A*Teens. What they are selling in those cases are something else than music; an image, and it really works!

/Disfranchise

[Disfranchise]

I'm a pain in the ass just going on and on about this, I know...
But I thought I'd add that Daniel, unlike you Ray, have some well-known fans, so to speak. Here's some:

David Bowie
Beck
Kurt Cobain
Wilco
Pearl Jam
Jad Fair
Butthole Surfers

These are people who knows what they're doing!!
So there's obviously something that they get which most people don't.

[ray pickens]

to the ignorant person who said i had no well-known fans.  i do indeed have some well-known fans.
these people are very well-known in their respective fields:
David Burge, the legendary pianist, is a fan of mine.  He once wrote that "I could very well be one of the great American symphonists."
Mark Barkan, who wrote hits for Manfred Mann, Leslie Gore, and Rod Stewart is a fan of mine.  He once told me that I am the single greatest musical talent he has ever  encountered.  Charles Strouse, composer of "Annie" and "Bye Bye Birdie" is a fan of mine.  He was a great supporter of mine in my NYC years and was completely knocked out by my rock opera fragment "Anthem".  I even went on to be musical director for one of his shows.  I am currently working on a  show project with Mark Barkan, by the way.
just a note:  kurt cobain is no longer a fan of daniel's, unless he has risen from the dead.
another note:  i'm getting tired of defending myself from ignorant and baseless put-downs.  please get your facts straight before writing such things about me.  thank you.

[ray pickens]

to henry long:
art is in the eye of the beholder.
to everyone else who put me down:
way more people out there (especially if they were kids in the late 80's and into the '90's) know my jingles than know daniel's "art".  mr. potato head.  transformers.  cabbage patch kids.  my little pony.  the jem show.  i could go on and on...
what is art?  wagner?  schoenberg?  mickey mouse?  pickens?  johnston?  beatles?  debbie boone?  bach?
it depends on your point of view.
i couldn't care less about labels.  i care about results and making money from what i do.  if it's art, great.  if not, i couldn't care less.
hint:  if you want to hear some really great and profound modern music, listen to arvo part.  but this is only my opinion.