Weekend benifit concert

Anything that contained that Jerry Seinfeld skit and Kevin Smith's ode to NJ couldn't be considered a total failure in any concept at all. I will be thinking of Bill CLinton saying "What up?" in Harlem for the rest of my life. Rangers, baby, Rangers. "One time, like, this guy from Jersey asked me out...yipes. Fucking yipes."

didnt see it. But I knmwo Zaftig Sid would have displayed "The Loaf" for genuine eat

Highlight: Mr Bowie kicking the evening off with Paul Simon's bittersweet little song 'America', played on a Casio.

Lowpoint: Everything else, especially Paul McCartney's moronic new song 'Freedom'. Ultra-lowpoint: a family of bereaved women, weeping at the loss of their firefighter papa, look totally bewildered when the whole audience (including many surviving firefighters) cheer happily as if his death were somehow a triumph.

Ultra-lowpoint

*snipped for sanity's sake*

You see, this is why I hate people, reason #16454743956. Such bullshit, gah! No wonder the only TV I've watched the last six, seven weeks has been random soccer news, two E! True Hollywood Stories special and...well, that's it.

wow ned, you're so empathic.

I didn't know Ned was psychic! That's fantastic, he can tell me where I put my keys...

Viewers at home: learn to become empathic here.

...and only a few years ago Bowie was singing that he was "afraid of Americans."

I missed the concert, but have found Bowie singing "America" on his Casio in front of that crowd a totally weird, irresistible notion. (I'm imagining Bowie probably avoided the preciousness that often marrs Paul Simon's work, in part 'cause Bowie's a much more eccentric singer.)

sigh. If only Momus and DAvid Bowie would collaborate. It would be like a Father and Son..or maybe father and bastard ? Merlin and King Arthur?

Dumas pere et fils. And besides being incredible empathic, I have absolutely no FUCKING patience with anybody implicitly telling me how to apparently properly react to staged manipulations of emotions regarding an event that among other charming results has led to the deaths of who knows how many people in Afghanistan whose only crime happened to be being located where the bombs fell, so forgive me if I find your attempt at corrective moral inducement, Ethan, to be found wanting. I don't need a goddamn concert to tell me how I feel and how *to* feel, and I'm not one to equate cheering with sympathy.

...and only a few years ago Bowie was singing that he was "afraid of Americans."

Like there's any reason to rethink that judgment.

Ned, you sound like you're losing your shit, calm down cowboy.

Different people do different things. The people in the audience cheered, inappropriately or not, to honor the people being spoken about. Some of the families onstage seemed to appreciate this, others were bothered. Either way, I don't see why anyone here feels the need to point at either side as wrong in their way of dealing with things.

Its like the bizarre notion of the crowd cheering Diana's heares, and throwing flowers on to it. I tried to heave a tree but...

I guess the idea is that a heroic death is to be celebrated, not mourned. And also that a death in the service of the public becomes a thing for the wider public as well as for private grief. Both of which are ideas dating back to classical times and both of which are ideas I agree with, I think.

That said I just wish the agencies and charities trying to do stuff for the Afghanis were having as much, and as high-profile, support. Charity isn't a zero-sum game but it's not infinite either.

I have to say I agree with Ned on this. The moment recalled by Momus sounds to me like the most shamelessly exploitative thing on TV since Michael Bolton's "When I'm Back On My Feet Again" was played over footage of crying disabled children during the UK Telethon of 1990.

Still, at least Jeffrey Archer isn't involved to take the money for his own purposes (cf the Simple Truth concert for the Kurds, Wembley 1991, if you believe Emma Nicholson, and I do).

How is it exploitation if someone agrees to do it?

Hi All... Why don't you come on to ICQ? It's a great place to chat... :) Gale