At Home in Hespeler

The mob rules.

Full flaming kitty-fur detail.

In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario…

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Lindsay Lohan’s holiday in France is over. As rough as it was, stranded in Cannes in the spring, all good things must come to an end. So it was the Lohan got her paperwork sorted out and landed in LAX into the arms of the law. Her bail hearing, which she missed while she was being shut out from Paris Hilton’s party, was promptly held and LiLo was ordered to wear an alcohol detecting bracelet. Lohan was quite pleased, until it was explained to her that this bracelet was not a divining rod for rum cocktails, but to allow the court to monitor her commitment to sobriety.

They are going to make an example of you now, Lindsay, and you deserve it (my emphasis)

So says former Lohan boyfriend Aaron Carter. Classy. Of note, when Carter and Lohan split in 1993, Carter was a top selling recording star. Today, he hasn’t had a CD in 8 years, he has been embroiled in a lawsuit with his recording company after reneging on his recording contract, and he’s reduced to appearing on, not winning, Dancing With the Stars. Remember, Carter considers himself a dancer first, musician second, and he didn’t win Dancing With the Stars. Apparently Lindsay Lohan isn’t the only person getting what they deserve. Michelle McGee, aka (cough)Bombshell McGee, is upset that her former lover Jesse James didn’t acknowledge her during his recent mia-culpa interview:

… at the very least, I was hoping for some sort of acknowledgement regarding the pain and embarrassment he caused myself…

Yea well, at the very least Sandra Bullock expected her husband to not screw around with some disgusting, egotistical skank-ho. But as philosopher-king Michael Jagger has noted, you can’t always get what you want. Gary Coleman (1968-2010) Gary Coleman was a child actor who small stature and comedic timing made him a sitcom natural. His role as Arnold Jackson on Different Strokes was a natural for him. He starred in the comedy for eight years. His catch line, watchou talkin’ about, was always good for a laugh, whether on the show or when we were at the bar and somebody was talking crap. After a lifetime of health problems, Coleman died this week after falling and hitting his head. Basically, he bruised his brain, and yesterday was taken off life support. He was 42 years old. Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) Dennis Hopper began his film career in the 1950’s, but it was as an unrepentant hippy of the latter 60’s that he made his mark. It was an image that would last his life. His acting career lists over 200 movie credits, including my favourite, 1990’s Flashback, where he plays and aging, unrepentant hippy. His personal life included five marriages, including the last one to Victoria Duffy, which he was trying to have terminated while he was terminally ill. Hopper suffered for the last year with prostate cancer, which has spread to his bones. Dennis Hopper died this morning at his Los Angeles home, age 74.

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Is it just me, or is this starting to get tedious?

Ontario’s alcohol regulator has moved to ban an Austrian beer favoured by connoisseurs because its name, Samichlaus, means St. Nicholas in Swiss-German.

In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario… beer, Ontario, Samichlaus, St. Nicholas, Swiss-German

I never got the whole Mike Harris was divisive shtick. Mike would say “I think teachers should have to re-prove their credentials every few years,” the leftists would shut down Windsor, riot at Queens Park and throw Molotov cocktails at police horses. While the clean up crews were still picking up the litter, the guy with the face mask, Zippo lighter and tequila bottle full of gasoline would be quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, it’s all because Mike Harris is so divisive.

Now that the great uniter, Dalton McGuinty has a hap-hap-happiest province since Bob Rae gave the fine folks at our local city halls and fire stations Rae Days, the ever divisive Mike Harris is at it again:

“I can think of some appropriate letters Mike Harris should have in front of his name, not after it,” Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee said in a statement released on Friday. “You don’t reward a person who was directly responsible for so much economic hardship and divisiveness in this province.”

Chief Madahbee will refuse to give a speech, receive his honorary degree or sit on the same stage at the same time as Mike Harris, because the Chief is an honourable, tolerant, reasonable man who unites people.

Some people say the great Genie, irony, is dead. It’s not, it’s just in it’s bottle and hiding, lest some great uniter throw it at the legislature.

Jacobian Piece of Impertinence Anishinabek Nation, Bob Rae, Dalton McGuinty, Mike Harris, Patrick Madahbee, Rae Days

Pitbulls are dangerous, Michael Bryant is not.

Hey I was only kidding:

Special prosecutor Richard Peck dropped criminal charges against former attorney general Michael Bryant this morning…

[Bryant] was charged in connection with a fatal crash last September that claimed the life of Darcy Allan Sheppard, 33, on Bloor St. W. near Avenue Rd.

…Toronto Police charged Bryant with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death.

Remember kids, since Michael Bryant banned those dangerous pitbulls, Michael Bryant has killed more people in the Province of Ontario than pitbulls have.

In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario… Darcy Allan Sheppard, Michael Bryant, Pitbulls, Richard Peck

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

In his classic heavy metal treatise, Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman says in the Prologue:

…if you wrote an essay insisting Thin Lizzy provided the backbone for your teen experience in the mid 1970s, every rock critic in America would nod their head in agreement. A serious discussion of the metaphorical significance of Jailbreak would be totally acceptable. I just happen to think the same dialogue can be had about Slippery When Wet

Critics, start your nodding.

 I missed Jailbreak when it came out in 1976. In fact, I only discovered it in the past few weeks. Who knows why, I was 13 that year, certainly into music. I knew who Thin Lizzy was, liked the songs Jailbreak and, of course, The Boys Are Back in Town. But I never owned the album, still don’t own it although I did recently acquire the album on MP3.

 Avast, and how would you be acquiring that? you ask. Fear not, acquiring a legal copy during my infrequent visits to my local record store is on my agenda. Bad news if you’re Phil Lynott’s survivors, I’ll be buying a used copy. The only reason I can figure I never owned it is that I have a Thin Lizzy Greatest Hits album, that returned with my mother from one of her occaisnal trips home to Ireland. I had all the Lizzy songs I’d need, I must have reasoned. That’s where I reasoned wrong.

Sure the hits are good: Jailbreak and The Boys are Back in Town are both great rock songs, classics even. And Cowboy Song, which I’m not entirely sure was ever released as a single or was a hit, but is a standard of the classic rock canon. “It’s just like Wanted, Dead or Alive,” people always say. It was the jumping off point for Chuck Klostermans comparison of the two above:

…the car radio played Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song“. I was struck by how much it reminded me of Wanted, Dead or Alive.

Yes, it is just like Wanted, Dead or Alive, in that both songs use the word “cowboy,” a lot, and both have electric guitars in them, and Wanted, Dead or Alive uses the cowboys as a metaphor for being a rock star and Cowboy Song uses cowboys as a metaphor for people who work on ranches in the American southwest, and Wanted, Dead or Alive is in the key of D, and Cowboy Song the key of A and that’s only like, four apart. Otherwise, there’s not that much the two have in common that they don’t also have in common with Stairway to Heaven and Kiss’s Black Diamond and Chilliwack’s My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) or any of the 1,000 other songs that starts slow before kicking it up.

 What makes Jailbreak such a good album though, is the non-hits. The real magic lies with the unheard songs in the collection. Romeo and the Lonely Girl might be the best song I never heard before. In the last week, it’s been the song that I’ve played over and over. Running Back is what amounts to a love song in Phil Lynott’s world. Not a ballad by any stretch, but a pretty song. And how can you not love lyrics like the following:

I’m a fool now that it’s over
 Can you guess my name?
I make my money singing songs about you
It’s my claim to fame.

That’s what almost every rock singer is trying to say in about half the songs they do: “I make my money singing songs about you.” They just can’t quite get those words out, and waste 3 1/2 minutes of your time not quite saying it. Angel from the Coast is a piece of guitar genius from start to finish. Different and original, yet unmistakably rock and roll.

Even the weaker songs, and Jailbreak has a couple of weak songs, have their moments. Warriors is just another hard rock song, the kind hundreds of bands were doing at the time, and would do for ten more years. But the guitar solo is a monster. One of those stunning solos that make you appreciate why so many songs have the guitar solo. Fight or Fall is weak, derivative work. But listen closely, because what’s unmistakable is that Elvis Costello was. Hell, who am I kidding here, listen to the echo section at the 1:25 mark: I’m tellin’ myself, tellin’ myself, tellin’ myself, tellin’ myself, tellin’ myself, tellin’ myself. Akon was listening. And this band’s real magic was there deft sense of melody. The delicate little solo in Fight or Fall is note perfect.

Listening to Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak this week, I can’t help asking myself: how was this band not one of my top three bands growing up? How did I miss these guys? And how did I ever miss this fabulous album?

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Akon, Angel from the Coast, Black Diamond, Chuck Klosterman, Cowboy Song, Dead or Alive, Elvis Costello, Fargo Rock City, Fight or Fall, Gone, Jailbreak, My Girl (Gone, Phil Lynott, Romeo and the Lonely Girl, Running Back, Slippery When Wet, Stairway to Heaven, The Boys Are Back in Town, Thin Lizzy, Wanted, Warriors

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Mr. Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, this week joined the “shut up and sing,” club. Costello cancelled two upcoming concerts in Israel, stating “…merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act…” This in contrast to cancelling already scheduled concerts, which is an apolitical act.

Last word to Israeli Sport and Culture Minister Limor Livant:

An artist who boycotts his fans in Israel is not worthy of performing in front of them.

I know, I know, you’re anxious to know. You can’t sleep at night wondering, worried. That one question that nags at you and won’t go away: how was Lindsay Lohan’s week?

Funny you should ask, actually. She lost her passport. Stolen, along with her other personal papers. Of course, losing your passport in France, better yet Cannes isn’t so bad. So you stick around, maybe visit Paris, until the embassy gets it looked after. Lets face it, it’s not like she has work to go to.

Alas, karma isn’t just a bitch, she’s a mean girl. While the consul was explaining to LiLo that it was going to take a few days, perhaps a week to get her a passport, the judge at a probation hearing in California was explaining to her lawyer why she was issuing a warrant forLohan’s arrest.

Ronnie James Dio (1942-2010)

When Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath the reasonable assumption would be that the legendary heavy metal band was done. They could get a new singer, but it would just be death throes. Surely Black Sabbath without it’s unique voice out front, could no longer reasonably be Black Sabbath. Who did they think they were, AC/DC?

A funny thing happened on the way to the requiem. Sabbath replaced Osbourne with former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio and produced what many metal and Black Sabbath fans consider the finest metal album, never mind Black Sabbath album, Heaven and Hell.

In 2007 Dio rejoined with his Black Sabbath bandmates, calling the band Heaven & Hell. They remained a viable touring act until last August. They were scheduled to perform some shows this summer, but early this month those shows were cancelled due to Dio’s health.

He died this week of stomach cancer at the age of 67.

Fluffernutter AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Heaven and Hell, Limor Livant, Lindsay Lohan, Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio

We start with the obligatory “I’m no artist, but…”

I’m no artist, but when I went to school and was bored I would, as school kids will do, doodle. The doodle was always this hippy guy, beard, peace sign &tc. Sometimes, I gave him a guitar, although not often because, I’m a crappy drawer and guitars are hard.

That out of the way, here’s “Mo & The Mullahs,” my contribution to Everybody Draw Mohammed Day:

More on Everybody Draw Mohammed Day:

The Fiery Kitty

The official blog

SDA

The Facebook Page that got Facebook banned in Pakistan.

Everybody Draw Mohammed  in the passive aggresive.

My favourite webgirl Wonder Woman

Uncategorized Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

I apologize for the inconvenience, but due to excessive spam, I’ve had to temporarily turn off comments and trackbacks. It may be a few days before I can sit and figure out how to solve this problem. If you have a comment you would like posted e-mail it to me, and I will find a way to post it.

Thanks for everyone’s patience.

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“If I was to knock on 1,000 Ontario families‘ doors and ask them for their top three concerns, I’d be surprised if anybody said, `Well … one of those is we’ve got to start this new kind of mixed martial arts in Ontario. That’s going to mean a lot to me and my family,'” said McGuinty.

“It’s just not a priority for our families and it’s not a priority for me.”

But if you knocked on 1,000 Ontario families’ doors and ask them for their top three concerns, they apparently would say…

please ban Dan Aykroyd’s skull shaped vodka bottle.

See how this works, banning things is Dalton’s priority: allowing things is not your priority.

In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario… Dalton McGuinty, Dan Aykroyd, MMA, Vodka

to manage the Toronto Blue Jays:

At a ceremony honoring veterans and senior citizens who sent presents to soldiers overseas, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut rose and spoke of an earlier time in his life.

“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam”…

There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records.

Back in 1999, Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson was dismissed from the Jays for an markedly similar offense:

The lies Tim Johnson told about his Marine service in Vietnam cost him the trust of his team. Now, it’s cost him his job.

Johnson was fired Wednesday as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays…

Johnson never saw combat, but supposedly made up stories – including one about shooting a young girl – to inspire the club. He taught mortar training to recruits going to Vietnam, yet never served there.

What does it say that Tim Johnson, out of baseball because of his Vietnam stories, could run for the Senate, but not a job with the Minnesota Twins?

Perhaps if Blumenthal loses, he could become a utility infielder with the Mexico City Diablos Rojos.

h/t Kate

Baseball, Politics American Style, Silly Politicians Richard Blumenthal, Tim Johnson, Toronto Blue Jays

“Come on, let’s see that letter from Guy to Mary Dawson,” a senior Ignatieff official says. “I sincerely believe that the Giorno letter is at the heart of this thing because it will show the true nature of Stephen Harper – because he obviously approved it.”

Unlike, say, those nice Liberals, who wouldn’t publicly accuse someone of “unethical or criminal activity…” or of associating with organized crime:

…you don’t get cocaine at a corner drug store, right? You have to get it from somewhere, from someone and usually that means organized crime.”

h/t neocon

Silly Liberals, Stephen Harper Conservative Party, guy giorno, Helena Guergis, Liberal Party, Mary Dawson, Michael Ignatieff, Stephen Harper

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? You know what I mean, that whole CDs, golden goose, dead thing. To hear the rockstars and industry execs tell it, sharing files – they call it pirating for Gods sake – will ruin the industry. Who’s going to make music if you can’t make obscene amounts of money doing so?

“Make a few bob and then open a hairdressing salon,” Ringo Starr answered when asked what he hoped to get out of The Beatles. It was The Beatles first trip to the United States, and the press was already asking “what next?” I’ll make enough money to start a little shop, thought Ringo. By the time I get around to writing Octopuses Garden, I’ll have no one to sing it to except my customers. They probably all thought that: A bookstore for John; a music store for George; a hat store for Nigel (Tufnel, the oft forgotten sixth Beatle).

Who indeed?

During a television interview aired worldwide before The Who’s live simulcast farewell concert from Toronto in 1982, Roger Daltry talked about the band’s habit of breaking their equipment at the end of their shows: ‘we would run into a store, grab a guitar off the wall and run out again saying over our shoulder, I’ll pay you later,’ he said. ‘We didn’t make any money until the mid-70’s.’ Yet they managed to come out with Tommy and Who’s Next, alternatively known as the greatest rock opera and the CSI soundtrack album.

Kiss would work their way to the west coast, and have to book gigs, any gig, to eat and travel their way back to New York. Ever seen those early Kiss shows? Phenomenal. They were hungry, they had attitude and they were good. They started making money around the time of the Destroyer album. They stopped making listenable music exactly around the Destroyer album. “They prostituted themselves,” a high school buddy said one day about Beth. I rather think not, think Beth was in retrospect, a reasonably heartfelt song. It was immediately after Beth that the Kiss act became red-light. “This is a great Rod Stewart song,” Paul Stanley told the band about Hard Luck Woman, hoping to sell the song to Stewart. That, my friend, is prostituting yourself.

Nobody got into the music business for the business potential until sometime in the late 70’s or early 80‘s. Before that, even the big stars figured by the time they were 30, then 40, they wouldn’t be acting like rock stars. Mick Jagger said once that he couldn’t imagine running around a stage when he’s 60. He knew then what he refuses to acknowledge now: that he’s become somewhat absurd. But somewhere late in the 70’s, early in the 80’s guys started choosing rock star as a career option. It is considered a remarkable coincidence that people stopped making rock music that was transcendental at the same time.

Who am I kidding? The moment musicians stopped thinking I’ll give it all I got until I’m 28 or so, then get a real job is the moment music changed. If you imagine music as a career, what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, then you’re not about to go out on a limb because you believe from the depths of your soul that the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse should be a C#m instead of an E. If the record company guy, the one in the charcoal suit, says it should be an E, then who are you to withhold the master tapes and risk your future until he concedes your point? And while one C#m may not matter in the grand scheme, once you concede the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse, then why not cut the solo because nobody does solos anymore? And why not rewrite the last verse to make it more radio friendly? Never mind that you talked to God on that solo, or the third verse was absolute poetry, this is about selling records. So why not let the art director from the design department design your album covers, why worry your pretty little head over artistic direction? After all, it’s not art, it’s business.

While the artists were busy working for the man, the people who buy the product, the important line in the supply and demand curve, stopped buying. Instead they, ahem, stole it. Not stole as in left the store with a product, stole as in they took a bunch of 0’s and 1’s that one person voluntarily put on their computer, and moved them to your computer without removing or in any way changing them. Want to talk about the law? Here’s a basic law of economics: price = scarcity. Without scarcity, there’s no need for price. Computer files are technically an unlimited resource. They can be duplicated an infinite number of times without experiencing any degradation of the original file. And if you can duplicate something ad-infinitum, you can’t impose a price on it in the long run. Notice I said can’t, not won’t or shouldn’t, but can’t. You cannot impose a price on something that has no scarcity. And if you can’t impose a price on a music file, the business model of the career recording artist falls apart.

My favourite theory is that recording will become the incidental effort, to promote the live experience that the musician offers. Sooner or later musicians will give away files, sell records and CDs to those (say, me) who must have them, but will make their money for what they do today, or rather tonight, not what they did back in 1982. For this to happen, some things within the industry will have to change, not the least of which is the expectation that musicians should be paid in perpetuity: musicians will have to be first, and always, musicians. Brittany Spears need not apply, we need people who can step on a stage, and sing, or play their instrument; the idea that a concert should be a spectacle will have to end. If you need a ten piece band and dancers – especially if you need dancers – then you can’t be expected to turn a profit on tour. No profit, no performance, it needs to be that simple. A five man band giving it their all, ala the Stones 1972 can be profitable work. An eleven man band playing Jumping Jack Flash while Mick, Keith and Ronny prance and preen ala the Stones now, no Dice, Tumblin’ or otherwise; prices need to come down. Sure Roger Waters or Madonna can carry a circus act, tractor trailer loads full of bricks and flying pigs, then charge $150, but nobody else can. Fourty dollars to hear some band on the margins is too much, they need to be able to play, profitably, for less, maybe a lot less. The trick is get enough people in the seats for $20, and sell them shirts, ring-tones, iPhone cases and downloads of the show.

I mention this because it is, I think, the future, and it is coming sooner than most believe. Here’s an item from this weeks paper:

Christina Aquilera has announced a 20-date North American tour… in support of her upcoming album Bionic. Fans will receive a digital copy of the album with every ticket purchased before June 4.

Give away the music, sell the concert. It’s a new idea, and will take some working out, but it’s economically viable. To put it simply, performance is a scarce commodity, one that can be charged for. As it gets harder and harder to collect on the bits and bites sitting on your hard drive, it will become more viable to look to the performance of music to make a living.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? That’s easy: musicians. And when they do, music consumers will be better off for it.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Beatles, Beth, Bionic, Brittany Spears, Christina Aquilera, CSI, Destroyer, George HArrison, Hard Luck Woman, John Lennon, Jumping Jack Flash, Keith Richards, Kiss, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Nigel Tufnel, Octopuses Garden, paul stanley, Ringo Starr, Roger Daltry, Roger Waters, Rolling Stones, Ron Wood, The Who, Tommy, Toronto, Who’s Next

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Nashville is sinking man, and Taylor don’t wanna swim…

It’s not making the news like other natural disasters do, mostly it seems because Nashvillian’s are looking after themselves, not looking for the federal government to look after them. However, Nashville is enduring a major flood and the country music world is stepping up. The Country Music Association is donating half the proceeds from their annual CMA music festival to flood relief. The festival runs June 10-13 in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Taylor Swift is donating half-a-million dollars to flood relief. She made the announcement on a local telethon, “Flood Relief with Vince Gill and Friends.”

In other country music news, two of country’s “hottest singles,” are off the market as Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton are engaged. Thirty-three year old Shelton, winner of 2010’s Country Music Associations, “Vocal Event of the Year,” proposed to proposed to the twenty-six year old, five time Academy of Country Music Award winner on Sunday in Oklahoma.

Being an olde timey kind of guy, Shelton even asked Lambert’s father, Rick, for permission to marry her. Rick apparently didn’t reply:

You marry Miranda? have you seen Miranda? Have you seen you? Go away and come back when you have won as many awards as her.

No word on when the wedding will be.

Meanwhile, in London, Julie Andrews fans are flooding the airwaves with complaints after Andrews gave a concert Saturday at the O2 arena in which she sang only two songs. The legendary actress and singer sang A Cockeyed Optimist, and My Funny Valentine, but left the bulk of the singing to others. Andrews, 74, who had a botched voice operation in 1997, also narrated a musical staging of the children’s book she wrote with her daughter.

One Brit-tab ran the headline, “The Tills are Alive with the Sounds of Refunds.”

Sean Penn pleaded no contest this week to charges of vandalism this week after he was videotaped kicking a photographer. He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and three years of informal probation. How does an assault, on video, become vandalism? What’s the charge for spray painting walls? A speeding ticket?

In other celebrity legal news, Lindsay Lohan missed a court appearance in her impaired driving case a few weeks ago, leading to speculation she will plead no contest to embezzlement.

Russell Crowe, somewhat known for being quick to rile, got upset and stormed out of an interview in England this week. When the interviewer suggested Crowe had a bit of an Irish accent in his new movie, Robin Hood, Crowe became angered and yelled:

What would you be talkin’ about, ya fekin gobsheit! Ya stupid wee man, ya wouldn’t know an Irish accent if it dropped it’s pot of gold on your toes.

He then finished his Guiness and stormed off.

Top signs that Russell Crowe is angry:

– Puts a petrol bomb under your bonnet
– Stands and drops his pants, all the while yelling Pogue Mahone
– Knee-caps you with a hurl.
– Dons an Aaron sweater and says, “I like it too.”
– Drops his pot of gold on your toes.
– Guest edit’s the Globe and Mail
– Bops you on the head with his shillelagh.

Lena Horne (1917 – 2010). Lena Horne was known as an actress and civil rights activist, but it was her silky voice by which millions knew her. Enduring racism early in her career, Horne became an activist in the American civil rights movement of the 1960‘s. She appeared in seven feature films, including Stormy Weather, which produced her biggest hit, the title track.

Lena Horne died this week, aged 92.

Fluffernutter A Cockeyed Optimist, Blake Shelton, Country Music Association, Julie Andrews, Lena Horne, Lindsay Lohan, Miranda Lambert, My Funny Valentine, Nashville, O2 arena, Robin Hood, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, Taylor Swift, Vince Gill

Boy, that Bono sure can be an annoying guy. Certainly I have criticized him on these pages before. I don’t like some rich celebrity coming into my town and telling my government how they should spend my hard earned money. Hey, Bono,yea you talking to Paul Martin, shut up and sing!

I also don’t like rich celebrities constantly telling governments they need to spend more, and more… and MORE, yet then they arrange their affairs to pay the least they can. If you think governments job is to spend lots of money, the least you can do, the bare minimum, is give your fair share. I know you have a legal right to organize your corporation to minimize your tax load, but when you start with all  the talking you take on a moral responsibility to give the maximum you can.

That said, I like Bono. He is, at least, sincere in his beliefs. Bono sings about his political beliefs, puts his politics in his songs. He, in other words, puts his money where his mouth is. I don’t have to always like it, but I respect it. Want to use your celebrity to advance a cause, then use your sell-able talent to advance the cause and I can reject it or not as I please. Bono, virtually alone amongst rock stars, does this.

Frankly, I love his sense of melody. U2 is not my favourite band, not by any stretch. The Edge – which isn’t really a name – is just an alright guitar player in my books. The rhythm section is good, but a tight bass and drum combo hardly makes for great rock, although great rock is impossible without it. What sets U2 apart is Bono’s sense of melody. Songs like Mysterious Ways, Angel of Harlem and Sweetest Thing display an almost playful melodic sensibility. The boy can sing, and he can sing with some style.

But the reason I wish Bono – real name Paul David Hewson – a happy 50th birthday is the following story, as told by Dave Thompson in I Hate New Music:

Bono stands upon the stage, his eyes sharp, his voice steady. Behind him, his bandmates slow the music to a rhythmic throb.  “Every time I clap my hands,” Bono says slowly, “another person dies of hunger.”

He starts to clap. One. Two. Three. The silence in the hall is absolute. Four. Five. Six. The audience scarcely dares breathe. Seven. Eight. Nine. Every time he claps his hands, another person dies of hunger.

And then a voice rings out from the back of the room: “Well you better stop fucking clapping then.”

So happy birthday Paul Hewson, aka Bono, because even if that story is untrue, it’s a great one. And it wouldn’t be possible to believably tell without you.

Birthday Wishes Angel of Harlem, Bono, Dave Thompson, I Hate New Music: The Classic Rock Manifesto, Mysterious Ways, Sweetest thing, The Edge, U2