1988_02 The Daily Collegian February 1988

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Subterranean Jungle
Weekly Entertainment Section
Friday, February 19,1988
\J2 Redux
Note: the following is the secondpart
of an unplanned two-part article, "unplanned" because space limitations simply
forced me to brutally chop the piece in
the guts with extreme prejudice. Enjoy,
and. if you don't remember last week's
gist, copies are available in the Collegian
City Room, Keats Campus Building.
By T. James Madison
Entertainment Editor
So what? Roiling Stone Random
■Notes item, February 25, 1988:
..Bono was in the papers again,
this time for the opening of an
exhibition of his photography at a Dublin
gallery. The show titled A String of
Pearls, features photos he took in 1985.
when he and his wife, Alt, spent a month
working in a relief camp in Wello,
Ethiopia..."The Ethiopians are very
beautiful people." says Bono..."I wanted
to focus on their dignity, humanity and
sexuality. Not in order to forget the
famine but to make their tragedy even
more poignant."
And they say humility is dead. Picture
this Ethiopian tribesman sunn' starvin' in
his lent, eating insects and his bds dying
got do medicine and the government lolls
anybody they feel like and here comes
BONO, European Son dressed down in
rags, and starts laying this trip on the
village, lalkin' poignancy and tragedy and
blah blah blah, and you're lucky you
didn't pA laughed ouna the village, boy,
if not, outright skewered is what I'm
sayiaf, I mean there's sympathy and then
there's something else, more like
pandering and sniveling and nipping at
the heels of a real horror story, and I
wonder whether you really know the
difference anymore.
And if you make a book of your
photography. what? You will be Ansel
Adams, Margaret Mead, Mother Theresa,
Unfortunately, the only on* to —■
wacker was Bono, and his shout
Martin Luther King, and I don't believe it
either. You've set yourself up to be the
paper savior the Yuppie Kingdom wants
and expects, and people can invest in you,
if not Jesus, because you ARE the new
Jesus, in your mind and a lot of other
people who are also wrong and deluded,
and afraid to sing about things for
themselves, or laugh, and I'm laughing
for you, and if you think about it, you d
he laughing too, that a bunch of street
punks from Dublin could be messiahs, if
they cry enough, just like Elvis, who
didn't even have to work at it, he jusi was
Elvis, and therefore a new Jesus (even if,
in fact, he was just a sad and lonely
hillbilly, who became worthless m he
became fat, as he was never smart enough
to get past the physical, into the cerebral.
A true man of his lime. The King, and all
he had to actually do was sign his name
every once in a while when Col. Tom
wanted to release another mediocre live
i tha approach of tha giant weed-
of warning cams just a bit too late.
album.)
But I digress.
_   _ ou used to be U2 because it meant
%# You, too. And it was a good and
W   admirable attitude. Not because
f     you meant to lake the troubles of
the world onto your shoulders. No one
can do that, and no one should try. least
of all people who never learned the lesson
that Elvis taught us. lhat is. saviors end
up diseased and incontinent and wasted by
their adulation, because there's no one
around who can be a messiah just by
telling everyone that he is one, and no
matter how many people you tell lhat
you're just musicians, it jusi doesn't
work; you lead by example, and your
example will undoubtedly inspire a
generation of rockers intent on winning
Nobel prizes.
The problem with that is lhat Nobel
prizes are most important to the people
who give them, not those they
supposedly serve. They're just a giant pat
on the back for people too insecure to
actually go outside and lock ass, and not
worry about the publicity, as you
apparently do. What it comes down to, is
thai, no matter how many limes you
slowly chant the name of your fallen
leaders and wave your black crosses in
solemn tribute, there are people in lhe
world risking what you don't have to, and
I'm not saying you should, really, but AT
LEAST THEY DONT GO AROUND
TELLING EVERYONE THEY'RE
SACRED, they just do iL
So, it's a matter of altitude, style. You
can hire a camera crew to film your every
grimace, and you have, and I salute you
for being what you really need to be.
Wanted, respected and a living memorial
lo your own sanctity. You now have lhe
right to be "awesome." You are Elvis,
and you are Dylan, and you are what an
enure generation will ingest and not feel
cheated. And 1 love you. because your
music still sounds so damn good, and I'll
sull get excited when I hear you on the
radio. But 1 cannot, and will not, worship
you as want to be worshipped. 1 can't find
il within my private discontent to feed the
fires of your sainthood, because one day
you will be sad and ugly, like Elvis, and
you'll be wandering what happened to
everything that everyone always told you
you were, and you'll be content to play
Bullet the Blue Sky" well into the 21st
century, just like the Beach Boys still
pumpimg out "California Girls" after all
ihcse years.
And then ITJ mourn. And I mourn
now, for what you are, and for what you
could have been, a tribute to yourselves
and the best of a triviality called rock and
roll, which some of us think may be an
end in and of itself, instead of merely a
stepping stone to the cover of Time .
wwh
hat's Going On
Tnnlyht
procession will appear at the
WlWBltie.IdontkiKnvtoo
mwcharxwtthisband,solei's
just^.then;li.bea,'cra,lOrnetoi
he had for evoyoiw tonight
Yeah.thM'stt.atfene.What
kind of time, I doht fcnow, but I
do know tiriatProcesstonteonfi.
ofthe b^est bands totown,
rtsi big, all owrstx feet tall
No, 1 don't really SAowif
theyr«ov%»stefi^eM»cr.I i-
just dent get ft. With Meta*
Bek^0^^standor^i
pe^rrmtx^ &^>pjn.,WM
ni48N>fmx0,2ictn4
wue* West, BpJtL, 'CTr/rnpto
TajDem(1426KVanNess), 21
andover.
Wednesday .
IliebsisjactstfActdoesrit
juggle things. WeS, really, they
doju^rirjgquirkyrnekdies
wlthofrbeath/tic»s..orioUtai
tjie rjthrr wiry arour^ Their
newaJbumcctlMrrdtlveMan,
'Thrw Squares and a Roof,'1
was one of tbe first releases for
that label and their blend of
■acoustic rrx&and hard-edged
: folkfiasiaatfethem
hottest «d»«« rxi^ege radios
:: There, I Srailly fl^imlltottt
with thelfiM Atom, 9 p.m..
WOd Bhte, 2J and ooer
M !1
Yoah,'nian. McetJaaUhe
Olympic Tavern,baby, cause
Dfuesc&aster JUJ. MaJone is
gosina blow down the house
J.J.'stheraanwi
right on. God; 1 sflS dent icno*:
wfelnitaBcing about! Wiih
tfta^horiisiEd
thMretumto
Sattttaj. Wlky&bcenaround for
a long time, so (in a poter^iaBy
greatwsekfoTjazz) cotnedown
and see him, because you may
not get a chance to see this Ktrid
of jazz for along while- maybe
iir^wfleyhiniselfcfjines --.y-
aroound agaircWiley and his
quartet (Bin Miller, piano;
Butch Reed, drums; Jfcfth
McNeaJ. guitar] are here as part
oi" the Black History Month
Celebration. 9p.nL, CtubOz
(CedaTandSpruigaue&l&at
ihedoae. ,
Thiirsday
The:HthtoTnuaJClovlsdazz
Fesb^wtBbeghaaCh^^
run at the Mercedes Edwards
'nieater.lhefesdvalwill"' :
.feature ^performances by,40
junior high school tin ough
taajbands from aS over
California, curmiiiatlng in an
ar^jearErce by saxaphorjist
Ettdp VB-tts Saturday. We«U
know what a hotbed of jazz
Clovis is. so this one should be
cewkin*. folks,Begtns&SQ
am.; ayriitmu*sa&day ivtthJt.
ttfghahd htgkscftDQ&   ;
MereedesEduxirdsthgater
(Cktrk Elementary Sctvxjl
cordis), admission. $4 for
Jesttinilppss,u^atu^idvdes
ail etxriis except Satuniay
QJi C-A MftIS
The CoUc^UaiaRB?^ara
Coracoi^i^^^prt^er^
film "Radio Days" as the second
part oftts^Oody-AJIen Week,1'
which, considering that ft
consisted ofrwofi)^&orna
career spanrdhgsor^
movlesiisabiiliiffipt^ntjiig; :
a. "Retrospective of America's
History" and only covering the
period after the invention of
the Borden Cheese Blender. Oh,
weU.It'SStlllarUcethought,
afteraE 7,9:15p.m., SateUtte
Cortege Untote $ ^SOsruderiis.
$Z50 general