It's a way we had over here with living with ourselves. We cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a Band-Aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw them, the more I hated lies.
- Apocalypse Now (1979)
4/12/2006Here is a reprint of a photograph I recently posted on this Blog:
It was the center piece of one of my articles (“Integrity”) which also contained a very mild, rather abstract, critique of the Grammy Award winning U2 front man. I think the picture is self-explanatory but, to my surprise, I have received some resistance to the attitude I expressed in that post.
Several comments I have heard included:
The way I see it, Bono is WORKING THE SYSTEM so he can help people. What’s wrong with that?
Aw, c’mon. You CAN’T be knocking Bono! He is doing so much good for people.
You know when you really think about it, Bono has done a HELL OF A LOT MORE for humanity than John Lennon ever did!
Who are you to talk you fat, cubicle dwelling, drunkard?
Besides from the last line, which I whole heartily agree with, I do have answers for all of these criticisms. But before I explain myself I want to make certain things perfectly clear.
My dislike for Bono has nothing to do with his humanitarian efforts. In fact, I think IT IS EXCELLENT that he is, finally, using the fame and fortune he has amassed over the past two decades to do something…anything…for someone other than himself, his bank account and his huge megalomaniacal ego.
My feelings stem from the fact that he started (and to be fair, the rest of the band) as a “cool” alternative to the shit that the record labels were pushing in the early 1980s. Is anyone out there old enough to remember those truly dark days? When the brain trusts at Columbia, Capital and RCA decided the American public wanted to listen to Journey? The days when grey little men in grey little suits pushed Styx onto young naïve teenagers? When Hall & Oates scored #1 after #1 through sheer repetition perpetrated by men whose idea of a symphony was the clanging of cash registers in their lobbies and the jangling of coins in their pockets?
Well I am.
So out of that Mad Max landscape, came an Irish band that played songs that I would now describe as power-pop but, at the time, I considered edgy, or at least different, especially compared to the tired old feces that was being pumped out by the “music industry.”
Staying above the “Synth-Pop” non-sense that started to catch on around that time, their albums featured catchy romantic feel-good danceable tunes like “A Day Without Me” “I Will Follow” and “Two Hearts Beat as One” as well as harder, more political tracks, like “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” “Seconds” and “Pride” making U2 the group to watch circa 1982-1984.
And then, of course, there was Live-Aid.
At Wembley Stadium in London, during their performance of an obscure song off the Unforgettable Fire LP called “Bad,” Bono, in a stroke of brilliant showmanship, jumped from the stage and into the audience. With the lengthy and moody Edge guitar solo playing on, the large crowd parted so Bono could slow dance with an awe struck female fan. The spontaneity and surprise of this maneuver was extremely dramatic and exciting. Happening live on Television, being broadcast to millions of people around the world, it was truly one of the great moments of the rock era. They absolutely stole the show.
After that exposure, U2 was no longer a hip-kid’s little secret. They became total superstars. Unfortunately, but not unpredictably, the fame and the fortune went straight to their heads. In my opinion, the rest of the band’s musical career can be described as a slow descent into pretentiousness, self importance and cultural irrelevancy.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I detest the
fact that the band, and Bono in particular, are very quick to compare themselves to true Rock Icons, both living and dead.
They ripped off The Beatles with their own version of the “roof top concert” A liquor store in Vegas stood in for the famed Apple Studios in London.
They ripped off The Rolling Stones with their “flat bed concert” drive through Manhattan.
They ripped off Bowie (Who probably ripped somebody else off) doing the “heavy-make-up, cross dressing” glam thing on Achtung Baby.
They made a “trip to Graceland” and stood in front of Elvis’ grave implying that they were channeling the King. Remarkably, that little fiasco was filmed after the hilarious Rob Reiner film Spinal Tap was already popular
God, Part II
But enough about the history of U2. All of these opinions I have stated before both on this Blog and vocally to anyone who would listen to my incoherent ranting and raving. It is also safe to say that I will probably state them again so let me get back to my original point.
Just look at the picture:
(Oh, no…I accidentally inserted the wrong photo!!! Please ignore it and return to the top of the post and look at the correct image…I apologize for any inconvenience.)
On one side you have a completely self-delusional man who feels that because sometimes he plays a guitar and occasionally meets with world leaders who probably do not take him seriously that he is someone of high importance. A man who has convinced himself that he has substance just because international media outlets cow-tow to his every whim and send photographers to every where he goes for meaningless photo-ops. Just who the hell does he think he is anyway? Does he deserve to be listened to just because Time Magazine named him “Person of the Year”? Does the fact that his picture is in the paper everyday, usually next to some important, influential people of all nationalities make him some kind of Head of State?
And on the other side, you have Bono.
I am not going to mention the ridiculous rose tinted glasses Vox is wearing. Nor will I mention his whole “Man in Black” outfit. I think making fun of his hopelessly cliché attire would be childish, even if he does look like a cross between Johnny Cash and Tinkerbell. No. That would be too easy.
What puts this shot in the “over the top” bin is the whole fist pumping “We made it baby!” pose. After you are done digesting that, take a look at the ultra serious facial he is sporting. Now couple those two things with the absolutely ridiculous Slap-Happy-Local-Yokel look the Leader of the Free World has across his face.
So I reiterate:
Pretentious Cloths + Fist Pump + Ridiculous Facial + Dopey from Snow White = Intellectual Debasement.
It is actually quite good. I want to formally nominate the photographer for a Pulitzer Prize. In what category, do you ask?
Photo that best captures the incredible depths that a free society can fall under six years of Republican Domination.
or
Assholes gone wild.
Heads you win - Tails I lose.
As I guess you all know by now, Time Magazine has picked Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates as the “Persons of the Year” for 2005. A totally meaningless position that was once held by Adolph Hitler, George W Bush and Joseph Stalin (twice).
All three of the current recipients are well known for their philanthropical work. The Gates’ for example give away a whole lot of money every year and Bono goes around to the different western governments begging for third world debt forgiveness which helps a lot of people who are right now in the crapper. It is all together fitting that this kind of work receive some sort of recognition.
What, you may ask yourself, can I possibly find wrong in the selecting of the little leprechaun who sang “In the Name of Love” plus an absurdly wealthy geek and his wife? Not much, really, except that it is a good barometer of where we stand in social evolution and human development.
As I mentioned at the beginning, it was once said to me that Bono did more for humanity than John Lennon. I would like to suggest the exact opposite.
Monetarily speaking there is no argument. Bono has raised large sums of money for less fortunate people. For the last five years, or so, he has applied his pathological need for attention and outrageously oversized ego for good purposes as compared to the shameless self-promotion of his middle career. As a result of him “working the system,” less fortunate people are receiving some aid and their standard of living is being raised. That’s great. I really mean that.
But “The System” is not being changed, is it?
The status quo is the problem and as long as the totally arbitrary situation of winners and losers exists and is supported by THE PEOPLE, then other people are going to be screwed. With shipments of grain, an influx of medicine or even the ultimate goal of forgiveness of debt, I am sure many lives are being dramatically affected immediately…but temporarily. In ten years time they will probably be back in the same shit hole they find themselves in now, starving in pig shit awaiting the next rock star to grow a conscious.
I mean, are these people “less fortunate” because God wants it this way?
Kind of like our own ridiculous “war on drugs” that Ronald Reagan supposedly started in the 1980s. The theory being, if the US government used military means to knock out drug lords in foreign lands, then the substance abuse problem in our country would go away. So we knocked out all of these South American dealers with dramatic flare and zest. Guess what the results were?
That’s right.
Others just took their place and American cities turned into dens of human degradation, gun violence and crack use. You see, the problem was not that Pablo Escobar sold us cocaine by the ton. The problem was that WE wanted to snort it by the ton. THAT part of the equation was barely addressed in the Government’s waging of that first ambiguous, unwinnable war.
Using that analogy, Bono’s good deeds have a positive effect in the short term, but in a larger sense, are actually reinforcing the current status quo, which is the root of the problem in the first place.
John Lennon, when he was “working the system” would have pointed that out.
So, did Bono do more for humanity than John Lennon? It all depends on your point of view. If you believe that the most important thing that will help the truly wretched masses of the many underdeveloped countries around the world is to give them sporadic deliveries of first aid and food, then there is no contest. Bono Vox is the undisputed master.
And for all the people who are directly and indirectly affected by his charity work, I will understand why they would think I am crazy for even questioning his place in the pecking order of great humanitarians.
But, I believe, the first step to human equality and true social justice is the freeing of the human mind from the box it is currently locked in by an inhumane system that favors conformity over spiritual understanding. As long as we are mental prisoners, any amount of money we throw at “the problem” is essentially a band aid over a hemorrhaging wound, that threatens the health of the body entire.
I read somewhere that he is even being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize this year. Good for him.
But, there is a reason why thousands of people show up in New York City’s Central Park on December 8th every year. I think that reason is a hell of a lot more substantial than thinking that “Come Together” was a catchy tune.
After he is dead...
I doubt that Bono will have the same response.
Larry
