Sunday, October 16, 2005
That means U2!
The universe has come full cycle in our lifetime.
When we were in college, we were happy to pour scorn on those pop idols who invited public ridicule by singing such lyrics as
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
In fact, Graybill and I, as college freshmen, attended a concert in McCarter Theater, confident that having sat through a couple of hours of lyrics such as these, mumbled by Mr Dylan (nee Zimmerman), in a voice no better than our own, we had favourably impressed the young ladies at our side. They were impressed, but in those days, “impressed” plus a proposal of marriage got you where you wanted to get. Fortunately, we stuck to the concert and pouting.
Mr Zimmerman went on to represent our generation, all its irony, rebellion, pretense and confusion. Graybill and I got jobs and found better dating material with whom the proposal condition became feasible.
Tonight, 38 years later, more or less to the week, due to a hindered social calendar, I watched Bono doing his full hour on Conan O’Brian’s Late Nite show.
We will overlook Bono’s pink sunglasses, earrings, chain necklace and Sgt Pepper jacket, allowing today’s pop idols their own bling things, and acknowledging the age divide.
But when today’s champion for the world’s suffering masses, proposes this as his anthem
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
We can only wish that he limited his singing to his own company.
It’s very nice that you want to feed hungry people, but your music sucks, and you are using your Cause to sell records.
You, Bono, are so phony, untalented, and synthetic, that you make Bob Dylan seem avuncular and wise. At his most pretentious Bob never pretended to save all the starving masses of the world, to take a place next to the world’s leaders, and to lead millions up out of the mud to the chuck wagon. Bob merely claimed to be cool. We knew he was a dork, but Hey, he has willy nilly become our dork, better than you kids’ dork, who is a serious, total, dodgy dork.
When we were in college, we were happy to pour scorn on those pop idols who invited public ridicule by singing such lyrics as
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
In fact, Graybill and I, as college freshmen, attended a concert in McCarter Theater, confident that having sat through a couple of hours of lyrics such as these, mumbled by Mr Dylan (nee Zimmerman), in a voice no better than our own, we had favourably impressed the young ladies at our side. They were impressed, but in those days, “impressed” plus a proposal of marriage got you where you wanted to get. Fortunately, we stuck to the concert and pouting.
Mr Zimmerman went on to represent our generation, all its irony, rebellion, pretense and confusion. Graybill and I got jobs and found better dating material with whom the proposal condition became feasible.
Tonight, 38 years later, more or less to the week, due to a hindered social calendar, I watched Bono doing his full hour on Conan O’Brian’s Late Nite show.
We will overlook Bono’s pink sunglasses, earrings, chain necklace and Sgt Pepper jacket, allowing today’s pop idols their own bling things, and acknowledging the age divide.
But when today’s champion for the world’s suffering masses, proposes this as his anthem
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
We can only wish that he limited his singing to his own company.
It’s very nice that you want to feed hungry people, but your music sucks, and you are using your Cause to sell records.
You, Bono, are so phony, untalented, and synthetic, that you make Bob Dylan seem avuncular and wise. At his most pretentious Bob never pretended to save all the starving masses of the world, to take a place next to the world’s leaders, and to lead millions up out of the mud to the chuck wagon. Bob merely claimed to be cool. We knew he was a dork, but Hey, he has willy nilly become our dork, better than you kids’ dork, who is a serious, total, dodgy dork.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Why everyone wants to join the EU
In Paris Charles de Gaulle, after an all-night flight, at passport control: there are two windows open, one for EU Citizens, with a short, fast-moving line, another one for All Passports, with another, much longer and apparently immobile line of people. The EU line is composed of mainly white, urban-looking people, whereas the All Passports crowd looks more like a massive Benneton audition.
Another agent comes and opens a second window for All Passports. Amazingly, everyone stays in the same long line, which now begins to move perceptibly, as the people at the front break off one by one to one of the two windows. I am asking myself how long this will last. By and by an airline agent comes along, pushing a lady in a wheelchair, and takes her straight to the second window, bypassing the line. Everyone lets this pass, and all remain in line. Then, towards the back where I am standing, a gentleman who appears to be from someplace east of Babylon wanders up, unsure where to go. He looks over at the EU line, then sees All Passports, where one window has no line, only one person in a wheelchair. He goes up and gets behind the wheelchair. All hell breaks loose as half the people in the long line now race over the other line.
Question: was the Eastern gentleman showing a complete disrespect for the social conventions of those who were there before him? Or was he the smartest one there?
By the way, the only reason that the single line lasted as long as it did is because Italy is in the EU.
Another agent comes and opens a second window for All Passports. Amazingly, everyone stays in the same long line, which now begins to move perceptibly, as the people at the front break off one by one to one of the two windows. I am asking myself how long this will last. By and by an airline agent comes along, pushing a lady in a wheelchair, and takes her straight to the second window, bypassing the line. Everyone lets this pass, and all remain in line. Then, towards the back where I am standing, a gentleman who appears to be from someplace east of Babylon wanders up, unsure where to go. He looks over at the EU line, then sees All Passports, where one window has no line, only one person in a wheelchair. He goes up and gets behind the wheelchair. All hell breaks loose as half the people in the long line now race over the other line.
Question: was the Eastern gentleman showing a complete disrespect for the social conventions of those who were there before him? Or was he the smartest one there?
By the way, the only reason that the single line lasted as long as it did is because Italy is in the EU.
