Lindsey: Rock’s biggest jerk or misunderstood genius

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by Missy

We want to compare this with Christine and John McVie? They had a difficult breakup but I don't think I've ever seen anybody say that he did what Lindsey did.

It's a dangerous assumption to think it never happened, though. We don't know what happened between them because they have never really talked about it. That's a far cry from "it never happened". We need to be aware of when we are drawing conclusions from facts or when we are making our own assumptions.

Someone also made the statement that Christine wouldn't have worked with Lindsey if she had seen him really abuse Stevie. She saw him really abuse Carol and still worked with him, so.....

We all make the mistake of thinking that everyday life within FM is like everyday life for us. It isn't... like it isn't for most rock stars. Especially during the white-hot famous years, FM got away with a lot of sh$t. If we take the famous quote by our now president (regardless of how we feel about him) he said, when talking about the people who are his fans, that he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave (in NYC) and no one would care. Well, that's what being in the biggest band in the world is. You can behave ABOMINABLY and people don't call you out on it. You're famous, you're rich, you can be rude, obnoxious, demanding, waking helpers up at 2 am to go get you a sandwich, demanding the hotel repaint your room pink, punching your girlfriend, demanding the presidential suite, stealing people's spouses, whatever you want and no one calls you out on any of it. Ever.

What I'm saying is when people live with that going on around them everyday for DECADES, it just gets normalized. Things that would shock us and leave us standing with our mouths hanging open don't even get noticed anymore as unusual by them or people around them. Don't be fooled by how people are in interviews etc. That's a PERFORMANCE just like when onstage. Especially certain people in FM who are very, very clever at marketing themselves as a certain persona. As Chris said in RS about Stevie, she's all about herself, and she's made herself a 'brand'. Lindsey similarly markets himself as the misunderstood genius who does everything selflessly for everyone else and still they dump on him. Image management.

Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum

Got to be fair to Stevie and challenge you there...
Stevie has always been relatively modest regarding her body compared to most female performers. Yeah there was a thread showing some cleavage shots (most of them from late 80's/early 90's when she definitely did assentuate her chest) but she's never put her boobies fully on display. She's rarely worn short skirts.

It would be wrong to paint her as somebody who likes to flaunt her body.

I don't know where you've been for the last 40 years. She wore very very short skirts a lot in the late 70s/80s. Ever see her onstage with Bob Welch? Her very skimpy leotard tops and then camisole tops from the late 70s and into the 80s left absolutely NOTHING to the imagination. Why do you think Dave Letterman ran that short clip of her from I Can't Wait over and over and over again, leaning forward and shaking her maracas?? Again, there are the yarns people spin when doing interviews, and then, if you watch carefully, there's what they actually do.