Bono is a jerk!

[Spiro C. Thiery]

First of all, I can fifth Bruce Dazzling and add the previous two albums and Passengers to the list of greatness. What happened to Passengers from a marketing standpoint was an indication of where the band were headed with their careers. Eno nailed it in his "A Year" diary at the time.

Yet for a long time I was just as annoyed by the hatred for Bono as I was by Bono himself. As late as his performance on the Val Kilmer hosted SNL, I thought he was sublimely amazing (if there is such a thing) as a front man and improviser.

Still, I found the South Park takes hilarious. Likewise the Searcher08 posted Bill Bailey vid on the previous page. I just happen to think that they got the most out of their limitations (unlike Bailey, who finds "The Edge" completely worthless). Yet even with Eno they don't do much for me anymore.

But part of the reason why I felt Bono hatred was a bit over the top was because I wasn't hearing it from people with a true beef. I was hearing it from people who hated their music and had the attitude that he should keep his place (case in point, the man who would be better known as "Bon Scott's vomit" whining about Bono's public charity in an interview where he touted his own charity work). But also people I know personally, who are middle-of-the-roaders politically, and just oppose him as a do-gooder.

And even Negativland were not in complete agreement as to the extent to which they held the band members themselves responsible for the litigation.

And having said all of that, I am pretty over them as a phenom, musically or otherwise, and think that Bono, whatever his motivations, has become a magnet for criticism from people with a legitimate beef. The extent to which he is a jerk is an open question for me. If I had to summarize him with one word (ha), that wouldn't be it.

Shouldn't there be a "Bono is an agent" thread somewhere. He resonates it pretty strongly.

[MinM]

Violence erupts as U2 rocks Glastonbury
Tom Morgan
June 25, 2011 - 11:22AM

U2 and its frontman Bono, known for their global poverty-fighting efforts, were accused of dodging taxes in Ireland by activists who crashed their performance at England's Glastonbury festival.

The anti-capitalist group Art Uncut inflated a 6-metre balloon emblazoned with the message "U Pay Your Tax 2." Security guards wrestled them to the ground before deflating the balloon and taking it away. About 30 people were involved in the angry clash...

They were probably just saving that money to replace the grass field in Spartan Stadium that was promised to Michigan State University.

Following tonight's concert.

The "University on the Make"

will also take part in the upcoming 9/11 Porn/PsyOps this Fall...

Representatives from the USS Carl Vinson greet Mike Whalen, of Morale Entertainment Foundation, before boarding the carrier, where plans were discussed for the Carrier Classic basketball game. / Lenny Ignelzi / AP

Coronado, Calif. — Staging the first NCAA college basketball game on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is going to be a task as big as the USS Carl Vinson itself.

Just less than five months before North Carolina and Michigan State are scheduled to play on Veterans Day, officials from the Navy, ESPN and the Morale Entertainment Foundation spent a few hours Monday inspecting the flat top, which last month buried Osama bin Laden at sea.

Based at North Island Naval Air Station, across the bay from downtown San Diego, the Carl Vinson returned Wednesday from a deployment of nearly seven months.

The inspection, which was to continue Tuesday, is a big step toward a final agreement for the game to be played.

Putting on the game on Nov. 11 won't be as simple as plopping a court and seating on the flight deck, which normally is full of jet fighters either about to be catapulted into flight or returning from missions...

Lighting designer Jeff Ravitz, who's worked with Bruce Springsteen and other rock acts, will coordinate the lighting for the game and a postgame concert. Although the sunset against the downtown skyline is expected to provide a dramatic backdrop, it'll be another issue to deal with.

"Jeff Ravitz has done lighting to the satisfaction and standards of Bruce Springsteen for a living, so if Bruce is happy, I'm sure the NCAA and ESPN will be happy," Rowe said...

The Carl Vinson and its sailors have attracted considerable attention since early May, when the carrier received a Navy SEAL team carrying the body of bin Laden, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Pentagon officials have said bin Laden's body was placed in a weighted bag on the carrier, an officer made religious remarks and the body was put on a board and tipped into the sea.

"I'm still trying to figure out where that was," Rowe said while looking toward the stern.

The Navy isn't saying.

"Unfortunately, I can't," said Lt. Cmdr. Erik Reynolds, spokesman for the Carl Vinson and Carrier Strike Group One. "I'm not authorized to make any comment."

He did say that since the Carl Vinson is known as "America's Favorite Carrier," it will be a perfect venue.

"It allows us to talk about our sailors and about the aircraft carrier, which is the premier ship of the U.S. Navy," Reynolds said. "Any chance we can get to do that, I think it's a good thing. It's also a lot of fun. There's a lot of NCAA fans in the Navy."

The Carl Vinson launched the first airstrikes in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. During its recent deployment, it launched most of the strikes in support of troops in Afghanistan. Reynolds said the ship also thwarted pirate attacks on its first and last days in the Middle East.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110621/SPO ... inspection

Coming to a TeeVee near you.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

The early nineteen nineties saw the launch of a pan-European effort to build a larger and more efficient douchebag than any that had come before. Despite virtually unlimited funding, and an engineering team who had previously proved their expertise in the construction of the CERN Reactor and the Salang Tunnel, the project collapsed. To this day, Bono Vox remains the largest douchebag ever seen by man.

[crikkett]

Just more gossip -- I've heard, from people who have worked with him, that Bono has a guy travel with him all the time who carries a briefcase just filled with different sunglasses, so that at any moment, Bono can satisfy his whim and change sunglasses.

That is a flagrant and shameless abuse of a weed carrier.

[Bruce Dazzling]

[The Consul]

Compared to Lennon at least Bono has Ono in his name the plastic bono panned one time screaming the word isn’t me the world is mine I don’t belong to all who belong yeah yeah yahwol make a difference I & I my aesthetic investment strategies and cases of Stella downed with Dylan on a break from his Cadillac add uniquely qualify my rationality to plough on forgiving everyone however unfaithful enough to lie on the stage with me & my cancer and sing for the hope of man but Billy Ownair and all my friends who come to me like moths to a mansion lamp or flies to shite pile I beg your point of view to pass through showers full of naked girls purring your name as you barely notice them pushing your way through them like a farmer through weeds to find the pharmaceutical coke jar of fame sucking down the last glimmer of your soul, what is it mate you could resist any better than me am I a wreck vanishing slower than thought as you can finally look no further than yourself where the starfish will hold long past our due the wheat of our weakness withers on beneath the setting price of our desires as the only form we have to frame these hopeless illusions.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQZpUFS ... re=related

[Gouda]

"A Decade of Difference"

Concert of a lifetime

Lady Gaga, Usher, U2's The Edge and Bono, and other stars will gather in October to honor President Clinton’s charitable work and 65th birthday.

http://news.yahoo.com/decade-difference-concert/

(Video, if you have the stomach, at the link)

[Twyla LaSarc]

In the old days they used to call those 'crisco parties'.

[freemason9]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but looking at Horowitz's site, I notice that he didn't make a page for Bono.

Touché.

I can't think of one U2 song that I don't turn off or change the channel or station from as soon as it comes on. Fuck, I hate U2.

The only thing I can bear by them is the impromptu Bloody Sunday video filmed at Red Rocks, but it has to be the video. Nature conspired to make quite the cinematic impression with that one.

I love U2. Spiritual band with beautiful, thoughtful lyrics. Like the Talking Heads of yore. Have you heard No Line on the Horizon yet?

[ninakat]

ooooh, eno talkingheads kingsleadhat.... can't resist.... sorry for the thread drift

[norton ash]

Spitting Image 1987 Nobody Knows What I'm On About

http://www.1video.com/upvideo_video.asp ... Mzg-0mjJEQ

[smiths]

Bono, the rock band U2's lead singer, has defended Apple's co-founder, Steve Jobs, after a New York Times columnist wrote the billionaire businessman was not giving enough to charity.
Mr Jobs had said there was ''nothing better than the chance to save lives'', when Bono approached him about a campaign to fight AIDS in Africa, the singer wrote in a letter to the newspaper.
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/m ... 1juz5.html

for context on steve jobs see the worldcom/apple/capitalist safety net concurrence that jeff highlighted not that long ago

[Gouda]

Rick Santorum’s foreign policy: combative hawk–and, according to Bono, “defender of the vulnerable”

Santorum "has a kind of Tourette's disease," Bono told New York Times columnist David Brooks in 2006. "He will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable."

[American Dream]

Rick Santorum’s foreign policy: combative hawk–and, according to Bono, “defender of the vulnerable”

Santorum "has a kind of Tourette's disease," Bono told New York Times columnist David Brooks in 2006. "He will always say the most unpopular thing. But on our issues, he has been a defender of the most vulnerable."

Yeah, I heard last night that Santorum and Bono are great friends.

Wonderful....

[The Consul]

If taking yourself too seriously was a crime Bonho! would have been executed 30 years ago. A billion dollar tour has allowed him to pontificate remorselessly. What's next? "I have read Charles Manson's poetry, and although I am not akin to his methodology, I respect his trenchant social comentary the same as I might Charles Bukowski, for what is blood but wine spilled the wrong way? For you see, I too, hate celebrity, even though I am one of the biggest celebrities that ever lived (pause, awaiting applause) and I have an ego that would put John Lennon's slobbering in a play pen with a binky."

To paraphrase John Cale.....It's too late to fall in love with Bonho!