U2 BASHER WILL NOT GIVE UP DESPITE E-MAILS
Montreal Gazette: Part 1 - Bono-basher won't bend
http://www.montrealgazette.com
March 2, 2002
From The Montreal Gazette:
This Bono-basher won't bend: Questioning effectiveness and motives
of U2 frontman's good deeds raises readers' ire
JUAN RODRIGUEZ
Everybody - show-biz types, tech and media moguls, CEOs, politicians -
loves to hate critics, those proverbial nattering nabobs of negativity.
Attacking rock star Bono for doing Good Global Deeds after Sept. 11
is a recipe for disaster, in terribly poor taste in these sensitive, traumatic,
need-to-heal - and war-mongering - times. So why do it? "What kind of
creep are you, anyway?"
"I hope you get paid a lot, because who would want to do your job
anyway?" quizzed one of dozens of E-mailers responding to my Bono
piece that was published Feb. 9. True, these were fans, when all is said
and done, and hell hath no fury like a band's fans scorned. Thus I was
called jaded, jealous, sad, frustrated, cynical, severely limited, sellout,
disgusting, mean-spirited, bitter ("turned my stomach"), "coward and
a bastard," a disgrace.
"Basically, I have two words for you: You suck." "I don't know what
type of human you are, but I know I hate those like you." "It should be you
dying of AIDS in Africa, sir, not some poor child who's never known envy."
Critics expect such barbs. But the tenor of many of the 80 letters was
that "critics" need not apply for the patriot games people play these days.
So much of the self-image of U2's fans is invested in Bono's do-goodism:
"rock star saves the day!," to paraphrase Time magazine's U.S. cover
story this week. Incredulity greets the notion that he's really rather
ineffectual.
The self-righteousness of the rage - how dare you - contrasts with the
torpid and supine reaction to the post 9/11 suspension of liberties (and free
speech) and wholesale surveillance of the U.S. citizenry.
Any critic worth his or her salt considers it part of the job to rain on
parades, fly in the face of conventional "wisdom," not trust a thing - least
of all human nature - and not give a damn what the readers think.
The critic IS a "killjoy" or "downer," as nasty as he wants to be and,
as Bart Simpson says, "proud of it." It's a dirty job, but somebody has
to do it (particularly when most record reviews read like company spew).
These days, the critic's role is extra dodgy: you could get arrested
anywhere for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. As a critic, it was
my duty to question how Bono's do-goodism jibes with U.S. patriotism
and corporate citizenship.
Hey, maybe Bono's slick. But suggest that his new corporate and political
pals might be even slicker - playing him like a violin to increase their street
cred - and that Bono drifts surrealistically through history, as obsequious
as Zelig or as clueless as Forrest Gump, and it's as if you're giving aid and
comfort to the enemy.
True, I paused while reviewing reams of material on Bono's Good Deeds:
give the guy a break, he's doing his bit for the human race. "The only thing
worse than a rock star," he quipped at a Harvard commencement address
last year, "is a rock star with a conscience. I've seen great minds and prolific
imaginations disappear up their own ass, strung out on their own self-
importance. I am one of them."
This is fine postmodern, ironic nudge-wink, yet Bono suspends disbelief
and skepticism, and so are we encouraged to. "Innocence is much more
powerful than experience," Bono told Gear last month. That's something
a critic could not in good conscience say.
Get with the program, let Bono do the talking. "Grow up" and "get real,"
advised readers, for whom Bono was beyond adolescent rebellious rock
cliche, selflessly sharing his time with these "iffy characters." While
demonstrators are arrested or gassed, Bono is fighting some rear-guard action,
softening up the leaders and barons and titans and captains of industry,
putting a happy face on anti-corporate dissent. How cunning of the pop star!
How crappy of the critic for not climbing on board. It's blasphemous to
suggest that Bono might be doing more harm than good in what boils down
to a battle of symbolic gestures. He's propping up an illusion, spread by
millions of U2 fans, that much is being done regarding Africa and "Third
World Debt" (nice slogan). According to many sources, precious little
(and inadequate) is closer to the truth.
Symbols last a lifetime. Bono is now forever the guy who spent the better
part of a year flashing the Stars and Stripes on stage (and DVD): Sept. 11
turns out to have played as both prophesy and profiteering, a show-biz
shtick that goes back to vaudeville. He comes on as just another
America-firster, which is the first thing the world can do without. Before
800 million global viewers, he cast his lot with a country that waved its
large middle finger in the face of the international community on the
Kyoto agreement on global warming, only a month before terror struck.
(Continued)
Montreal Gazette: Part 1 - Bono-basher won't bend
http://www.montrealgazette.com
March 2, 2002
From The Montreal Gazette:
This Bono-basher won't bend: Questioning effectiveness and motives
of U2 frontman's good deeds raises readers' ire
JUAN RODRIGUEZ
Everybody - show-biz types, tech and media moguls, CEOs, politicians -
loves to hate critics, those proverbial nattering nabobs of negativity.
Attacking rock star Bono for doing Good Global Deeds after Sept. 11
is a recipe for disaster, in terribly poor taste in these sensitive, traumatic,
need-to-heal - and war-mongering - times. So why do it? "What kind of
creep are you, anyway?"
"I hope you get paid a lot, because who would want to do your job
anyway?" quizzed one of dozens of E-mailers responding to my Bono
piece that was published Feb. 9. True, these were fans, when all is said
and done, and hell hath no fury like a band's fans scorned. Thus I was
called jaded, jealous, sad, frustrated, cynical, severely limited, sellout,
disgusting, mean-spirited, bitter ("turned my stomach"), "coward and
a bastard," a disgrace.
"Basically, I have two words for you: You suck." "I don't know what
type of human you are, but I know I hate those like you." "It should be you
dying of AIDS in Africa, sir, not some poor child who's never known envy."
Critics expect such barbs. But the tenor of many of the 80 letters was
that "critics" need not apply for the patriot games people play these days.
So much of the self-image of U2's fans is invested in Bono's do-goodism:
"rock star saves the day!," to paraphrase Time magazine's U.S. cover
story this week. Incredulity greets the notion that he's really rather
ineffectual.
The self-righteousness of the rage - how dare you - contrasts with the
torpid and supine reaction to the post 9/11 suspension of liberties (and free
speech) and wholesale surveillance of the U.S. citizenry.
Any critic worth his or her salt considers it part of the job to rain on
parades, fly in the face of conventional "wisdom," not trust a thing - least
of all human nature - and not give a damn what the readers think.
The critic IS a "killjoy" or "downer," as nasty as he wants to be and,
as Bart Simpson says, "proud of it." It's a dirty job, but somebody has
to do it (particularly when most record reviews read like company spew).
These days, the critic's role is extra dodgy: you could get arrested
anywhere for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. As a critic, it was
my duty to question how Bono's do-goodism jibes with U.S. patriotism
and corporate citizenship.
Hey, maybe Bono's slick. But suggest that his new corporate and political
pals might be even slicker - playing him like a violin to increase their street
cred - and that Bono drifts surrealistically through history, as obsequious
as Zelig or as clueless as Forrest Gump, and it's as if you're giving aid and
comfort to the enemy.
True, I paused while reviewing reams of material on Bono's Good Deeds:
give the guy a break, he's doing his bit for the human race. "The only thing
worse than a rock star," he quipped at a Harvard commencement address
last year, "is a rock star with a conscience. I've seen great minds and prolific
imaginations disappear up their own ass, strung out on their own self-
importance. I am one of them."
This is fine postmodern, ironic nudge-wink, yet Bono suspends disbelief
and skepticism, and so are we encouraged to. "Innocence is much more
powerful than experience," Bono told Gear last month. That's something
a critic could not in good conscience say.
Get with the program, let Bono do the talking. "Grow up" and "get real,"
advised readers, for whom Bono was beyond adolescent rebellious rock
cliche, selflessly sharing his time with these "iffy characters." While
demonstrators are arrested or gassed, Bono is fighting some rear-guard action,
softening up the leaders and barons and titans and captains of industry,
putting a happy face on anti-corporate dissent. How cunning of the pop star!
How crappy of the critic for not climbing on board. It's blasphemous to
suggest that Bono might be doing more harm than good in what boils down
to a battle of symbolic gestures. He's propping up an illusion, spread by
millions of U2 fans, that much is being done regarding Africa and "Third
World Debt" (nice slogan). According to many sources, precious little
(and inadequate) is closer to the truth.
Symbols last a lifetime. Bono is now forever the guy who spent the better
part of a year flashing the Stars and Stripes on stage (and DVD): Sept. 11
turns out to have played as both prophesy and profiteering, a show-biz
shtick that goes back to vaudeville. He comes on as just another
America-firster, which is the first thing the world can do without. Before
800 million global viewers, he cast his lot with a country that waved its
large middle finger in the face of the international community on the
Kyoto agreement on global warming, only a month before terror struck.
(Continued)
You can't really believe anything you have said really makes a difference to real U2/music fans
It's a Beautiful Day 
who cares.
that's why i said "who cares."
