The Dead Weight

I watched the first hour of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concert last night and it reminded me of how much I like Paul Simon-and how much I don't like Art Garfunkel.

So Paul Simon came out and did a couple of his solo songs, which were great. Then he introduced Dion and Little Anthony & the Imperials, which were both awesome.

And then, he comes out. With no introduction, like he is Joe Guy. Sporting the same white guy fro that he has had since LBJ was president. Wearing a pajama top, and dirty hippie jeans.

Art Garfunkel. And the elevator music portion of the show began.

The Simon & Garfunkel songs all sound the same to me, pedestrian folk tunes with no drums.

And Garfunkel brings nothing to the table. What took Simon so long to get rid of this dead weight?

Think about it: Simon wrote all the songs, and played guitar. All Garfunkel did was sing along to the words and music provided to him by Simon.

Talk about riding the gravy train.

And his singing sucks. Remember that scene in Animal House during the Toga Party when that guy sang in the stairwell "I gave my love a cherry" and Belushi walked by and grabbed the guy's guitar and just smashed it to pieces?

That guy represents Art Garfunkel to me. They should have gotten Garfunkel to play that role. Why not? It can't be because he was to busy. I mean, what has the guy done in the last 40 years since Paul Simon dumped him?

Is he still working on his album?

Once Simon got rid of that dead weight, he started making songs like "Me & Julio" and "Late in the Evening" music that was rhythmic and bouncy and interesting.

I read somewhere that Garfunkel used to bust Simon's balls, and say things like "I don't want to sing that" or "this song should be placed 2nd on the album, not third".

Talk about a guy who totally misread his position in life.

The guy who plays the triangle in "Earth Wind & Fire" brings more to the creativity table than Art Garfunkel ever has.

So once he came out, I shut it off.

After a hard nights work, Artie can now go back to what he has been doing for the last 40 years-cashing "Scarborough Fair" checks.