Originally Posted by
maryc2130
Chaim - I hope you feel better soon. I'd be tense, too, if I had the flu for 3 weeks.
I wasn't arguing that bipolar was neutral. I agreed that it wasn't a nice thing to say,and I also am glad he's lightening up. I'm also sure that Glenn and Don H have said plenty of negative things about Felder, although not about his musical ability. (To my knowledge, anyway.)
My point was that Henley may have been agreeing with Felder, in a sense, in using the word mercurial to describe Glenn. Henley chooses his words with great care, and I personally believe, from the common use of the word, that he did not mean it in a positive way. I think he was attempting to give an accurate description of the Glenn he knew and loved, faults and all.
Also, I know I should shut up about this, but as an aspiring writer, word meanings are important to me. I noticed that someone said that they considered volatile a positive adjective. Volatile means something about to change for the worse. Another definition:
volatile. ... Volatile from Latin volatilis "fleeting, transitory" always gives the sense of sudden, radical change. Think of it as the opposite of stable. A person who is volatile loses his or her temper suddenly and violently. A volatile political situation could erupt into civil war.
I don't see how that could be positive. Anyway, I'm going to try to shut up after this, as much as I enjoy arguing semantics. I don't think I was arguing the original point you made, Chaim, and I'm sorry if I made it worse. I do still maintain that if Felder described Glenn as bipolar, and Henley and purportedly Browne (I haven't looked at Browne's quote myself) referred to him as mercurial, that gives some indication that Glenn's personality wasn't always the most stable. So what. Henley also said a lot of the good things. I believe he was trying to paint a realistic portrait of a person he considered his brother. I love Don Henley, but I'm sure he's arrogant and unyielding in some (many?) situations. None of these guys is perfect, and IMHO, it's silly to argue with every little implied criticism of them.