Biggest Useless Twat Of The Century?

[manho]

January 11, 2009
Op-Ed Guest Columnist
Notes From the Chairman
By BONO

Dublin

Once upon a couple of weeks ago ...

I’m in a crush in a Dublin pub around New Year’s. Glasses clinking clicking, clashing crashing in Gaelic revelry: swinging doors, sweethearts falling in and out of the season’s blessings, family feuds subsumed or resumed. Malt joy and ginger despair are all in the queue to be served on this, the quarter-of-a-millennium mark since Arthur Guinness first put velvety blackness in a pint glass.

Interesting mood. The new Irish money has been gambled and lost; the Celtic Tiger’s tail is between its legs as builders and bankers laugh uneasy and hard at the last year, and swallow uneasy and hard at the new. There’s a voice on the speakers that wakes everyone out of the moment: it’s Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” His ode to defiance is four decades old this year and everyone sings along for a lifetime of reasons. I am struck by the one quality his voice lacks: Sentimentality.

Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year? In the mist of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra’s voice such a foghorn — such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away.

A call to believability.

A voice that says, “Don’t lie to me now.”

That says, “Baby, if there’s someone else, tell me now.”

Fabulous, not fabulist. Honesty to hang your hat on.

As the year rolls over (and with it many carousers), the emotion in the room tussles between hope and fear, expectation and trepidation. Wherever you end up, his voice takes you by the hand.

Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to. Right by the hole-in-the-wall cellar, I look up to see a vision in yellow: a painting Frank sent to me after I sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” with him on the 1993 “Duets” album. One from his own hand. A mad yellow canvas of violent concentric circles gyrating across a desert plain. Francis Albert Sinatra, painter, modernista.

We had spent some time in his house in Palm Springs, which was a thrill — looking out onto the desert and hills, no gingham for miles. Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis. And plenty of talk of jazz. That’s when he showed me the painting. I was thinking the circles were like the diameter of a horn, the bell of a trumpet, so I said so.

“The painting is called ‘Jazz’ and you can have it.”

I said I had heard he was one of Miles Davis’s biggest influences.

Little pithy replies:

“I don’t usually hang with men who wear earrings.”

“Miles Davis never wasted a note, kid — or a word on a fool.”

“Jazz is about the moment you’re in. Being modern’s not about the future, it’s about the present.”

I think about this now, in this new year. The Big Bang of pop music telling me it’s all about the moment, a fresh canvas and never overworking the paint. I wonder what he would have thought of the time it’s taken me and my bandmates to finish albums, he with his famous impatience for directors, producers — anyone, really — fussing about. I’m sure he’s right. Fully inhabiting the moment during that tiny dot of time after you’ve pressed “record” is what makes it eternal. If, like Frank, you sing it like you’ll never sing it again. If, like Frank, you sing it like you never have before.

If.

If you want to hear the least sentimental voice in the history of pop music finally crack, though — shhhh — find the version of Frank’s ode to insomnia, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” hidden on “Duets.” Listen through to the end and you will hear the great man break as he truly sobs on the line, “It’s a long, long, long road.” I kid you not.

Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course.

Singers, more than other musicians, depend on what they know — as opposed to what they don’t want to know about the world. While there is a danger in this — the loss of naïveté, for instance, which holds its own certain power — interpretive skills generally gain in the course of a life well abused.

Want an example? Here’s an example. Take two of the versions of Sinatra singing “My Way.”

The first was recorded in 1969 when the Chairman of the Board said to Paul Anka, who wrote the song for him: “I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it. I’m getting the hell out.” In this reading, the song is a boast — more kiss-off than send-off — embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere.

In the later recording, Frank is 78. The Nelson Riddle arrangement is the same, the words and melody are exactly the same, but this time the song has become a heart-stopping, heartbreaking song of defeat. The singer’s hubris is out the door. (This singer, i.e. me, is in a puddle.) The song has become an apology.

To what end? Duality, complexity. I was lucky to duet with a man who understood duality, who had the talent to hear two opposing ideas in a single song, and the wisdom to know which side to reveal at which moment.

This is our moment. What do we hear?

In the pub, on the occasion of this new year, as the room rises in a deafening chorus — “I did it my way” — I and this full house of Irish rabble-rousers hear in this staple of the American songbook both sides of the singer and the song, hubris and humility, blue eyes and red.

Bono, lead singer of the band U2 and co-founder of the advocacy group ONE, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

[owen]

best lyrics ever

Sexy boots
I don’t want to talk about
The wars between the nations
Sexy boots, yeah

[manho]

'Before U2 performed at a “standstill” roof-top concert on Friday in London, Bono sat down with Radio 1 for a live interview. Apparently less than two minutes into the interview, Bono got a question about Chris Martin, something about did Bono think Martin was as good a musician as Sir Paul McCartney. Bono then called Martin a “wanker”, then later in the interview he called Martin a “cretin”.'

i'm changing my mind over martin. if bonio thinks you're a cretin and a wanker you're ok in my book.

[cripes]

I just googled Chris Martin to find out who he was.

I do see a good number of current bands on TV....talk show appearances or Saturday Night Live. One thing that strikes me is that they're so fucking earnest. Guys like Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire and others I can't think of. I saw The Jonas Brothers the other night and thought they were ok....just play your instruments and sing about girls for fuck's sake.

[dino]

yep, i like hannah montana

[digit]

yes, for some reason modern bands think they have to be earnest to be any good. probably need a good run at mach schau for a few months to straighten them out a bit.

[cripes]

It's like any type of 'swagger' is uncool now.

I dunno. I imagine that their hearts are in the right place. It's not my generation. It would be stupid of me to try and dig what they all say.

[digit]

could be a knee-jerk reaction to the trashy charts. fleet foxes arent too bad though.

mccartney once said that a song can be a throwaway like a comedians one liner. thats kinda lost on the current generation. even the comedians dont do one liners...

[manho]

personally, i blame pete seeger. humourless cunt.

[cripes]

I heard Arlo Guthrie tell a story where Pete said something kinda funny. It was a bit Pete would tell onstage while he was tuning his guitar. He said that he went to see Segovia play and not once did he stop to tune his guitar. Pete added, 'I care.'

[digit]

Frank Zappa explains the decline of the music business

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0&feature=related

[manho]

there was a Totally Useless Cunts summit meeting this weekend:

[manho]

you know what it's like when you disturb a big rock in the garden and you discover a nest of slimy crawling horrors, right? well check out this story. there are enough useless cunts here to warrant a personalised landfill:

Bono and Chris Martin Are in on Bruno's Joke

Sacha Baron Cohen has pulled in two high-profile conspirators with his prank-happy character, Bruno.

British newspaper the Mirror reports that U2 frontman Bono and Coldplay warbler/Gwyneth Paltrow beau Chris Martin have banded together with Sacha—in his guise as gay Austrian TV personality Bruno—to record a single.

The song, rumored to be titled "Dove of Peace," mocks the efforts of charitable music foundation Band Aid—which Bono participated in with the 1984 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Martin has also developed a reputation as a musical do-gooder, particularly with his support of fair trade practices.

But that didn't stop the pair from playing along with Cohen's spoof. The song, which has already been partially recorded at legendary Abbey Road studios, bears the couplet, "For people of Africa who live in hell/ They will never wear Chanel."

"Chris Martin was in stitches throughout the recording and only just managed to get his lines out," says a spy at the session.

Other songsters rumored to be participating in the song include Madonna, Sting, Elton John and the Village People. The track will be included in the upcoming movie Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.

Interstingly, Bono recently insulted Martin during a BBC radio interview, characterizing the Coldplay singer as a "w@nker."

Apparently, the power of satire is strong enough to bring anyone together.

[digit]

'This year the choice was unanimous, for his obvious merits due to a lifestyle for which the words "rock 'n roll" fall short. Rod Stewart, Brian Jones, Keith Richards in their prime were schoolboys compared to him.'

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1230272/Silvio-Berlusconi-Rolling-Stone-cover-reward-rock-roll-lifestyle.html#ixzz0XoTLjkR1

[manho]

silvio may well be a twat but you can hardly call him useless. he's useful to many different categories: his small group of corrupt business friends; the mafia; the camorra; the 'ndrangheta: the sacra corona unita; prostitutes; drug dealers; african dictators; russian criminals; crap actresses who can't find work; freaks who couldn't get into politics without him; lawyers... especially lawyers. lawyers love him. he makes them rich.

[digit]

i think we have a runaway leader

Bono hinting at Chinese style Internet monitoring has drawn sharp criticism.

"Writing for the New York Times, Bono claimed internet service providers were "reverse Robin Hoods" benefiting from the music industry's lost profits".

"He hinted that China's efforts prove that tracking net content is possible".

The editorial drew sharp criticism, both on its economic merits and for the suggestion of net content policing.

"The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we're just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of '24' in 24 seconds," he wrote.

"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators...the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business."

In a move that drew significant criticism, Bono went on to suggest that the feasibility of tracking down file-sharers had already been proven.

"We know from America's noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China's ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it's perfectly possible to track content," he said.

Several commentators assailed both the logic of net monitoring and the economic arguments of the essay, pointing out that U2 topped 2009's list of top-grossing live acts.

"Bono has missed that even a totalitarian government...can't effectively control net-content," tweeted Cory Doctorow, a blogger and journalist noted for his study of file-sharing policy.

"If only greed and ignorance could sequester carbon, Bono could FINALLY save the planet," he added.


www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055786728

[manho]

the really sad thing is that boby likes bono.

[hobo]

Boby likes Jesus Christ and that dude out of Kiss too

[manho]

jesus might be a complete wanker but he's cooler than bono. don't know the guy in kiss but he can't possibly be worse than the ballymun goonbrain. bono's only real challenger for total cunt twat of all history is sting.

[hobo]

Sure, Bono has no real competition in being a fucko - just pointing out that boby's taste is pretty crappy and, sure enough, he thinks Bono is the coolest. In his book, it reads like he's really trying to impress him

"Dear Diary. OMG!!! i can't believe the 27 year old Bono wants to hang out with me? People think he's, like, a gnarly fucko but, I just think he is soooooo cooooool I'm drinking his Guinness and hoping he thinks I am cool (I hope he doesn't see me looking at him?) LOL!!!!"

Bob Dylan, bone fide genius artist, aged 46 and 3/4.