Imatge de l'autor
19+ obres 618 Membres 16 Ressenyes 1 preferits

Sobre l'autor

Nota de desambiguació:

(eng)

Bono (b. 1960), Irish singer and member of U2; real name is Paul David Hewson

Crèdit de la imatge: Robert Scoble

Obres de Bono

Obres associades

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (2005) — Pròleg, algunes edicions2,446 exemplars
U2 by U2 (2006) 607 exemplars
Bono: In Conversation (2005) — Pròleg — 599 exemplars
Across the Universe [2007 film] (2007) — Actor — 306 exemplars
War [sound recording] (1983) — Vocalist — 146 exemplars
Rattle And Hum (1988) — Vocals — 137 exemplars
Peter and the Wolf [sound recording] (1975) — Il·lustrador, algunes edicions99 exemplars
U2: Rattle and Hum [1988 film] (1988) — Actor — 62 exemplars
Duets: An American Classic (2006) — Col·laborador — 53 exemplars
Sing 2 [2021 film] (2022) — Actor — 52 exemplars
U2 - Vertigo 2005 - Live From Chicago (2005) — Actor — 32 exemplars
Across the Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007) — Col·laborador — 31 exemplars
Blunderbuss (2012) — Redactor/compositor, algunes edicions31 exemplars
Elevation 2001: U2 Live from Boston (2001) — Actor — 28 exemplars
Tower of Song: Songs of Leonard Cohen / Various (1995) — Artist — 25 exemplars
Third Rail: The Poetry of Rock and Roll (2007) — Pròleg — 23 exemplars
U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle [2002 video] (2003) — Actor — 20 exemplars
U2: 360° at the Rose Bowl [Blu-ray] (2010) — Actor — 20 exemplars
The Million Dollar Hotel [2000 film] (2000) — Writer — 19 exemplars
Honeymoon in Vegas: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1992) — Vocalist — 17 exemplars
Classic Albums: U2: The Joshua Tree [1998 film] (1999) — Actor — 15 exemplars
U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky (1983) — Col·laborador — 13 exemplars
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (1992) — Redactor/compositor — 10 exemplars
Shine (2003) — Vocalist — 7 exemplars
Sun City — Col·laborador — 6 exemplars
Please (EP) (1997) — Redactor/compositor — 4 exemplars
Last Night on Earth EP (1999) — Redactor/compositor — 4 exemplars
Three (1979) — Vocals — 2 exemplars
Johnny Mnemonic: Music from the Motion Picture (1995) — Col·laborador — 2 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Nom normalitzat
Bono
Nom oficial
Hewson, Paul David
Data de naixement
1960-05-10
Gènere
male
Nacionalitat
Ireland
Lloc de naixement
Dublin, Ireland
Llocs de residència
Dublin, Ireland
Educació
Glasnevin National School
Mount Temple Comprehensive School
Professions
singer
songwriter
philanthropist
Relacions
U2 (member)
Hewson, Eve (daughter)
Organitzacions
U2
Premis i honors
TED Prize (2005)
Nota de desambiguació
Bono (b. 1960), Irish singer and member of U2; real name is Paul David Hewson

Membres

Ressenyes

N.B. Opinion drift, LOL. lol, so much.

……….

I didn’t listen to all the music mentioned incidentally, but I listened to all the chapter-title songs, most of which I knew, although some, like the songs off “Boy”, were new.

Bono is a smart guy, and he makes subtle ambiguous music that’s about love, and U2 is good Irish/“Anglo”/“American” music, and I’m not so deluded that I’m not that general sort of background, albeit from lands taken from the Lenape, you know. So I don’t know. There’s no need to sit and preen that he has a brain; even though he does, clearly Bono can make mistakes like everybody else. Still, if my father could be like Bono and find humor in someone like Paisley, for example—Noy Surrendah! ~ or however he did it—then my father would be much happier, and less hypocritical, even though Bono was clearly closer to that bomb-crater than us Lenape-landers, right. I don’t know. It’s pleasant, and it isn’t stupid. So why not, right. Why the hell not.

…. (listening to a song I’ve never heard before, by Joy Division) Now I remember why I was like, ill like that, when I was in my young youth years; I could not get myself to do anything but listen to songs with ‘love’ in the title….

And I GET that even some of Bono’s songs come from a subliminally suicidal state, you know. It took me years to realize that I was subliminally suicidal, at that age. Years. Literally, years.

Lots of pretty music out there, though. After awhile most people drift away from it, like I did.

…. And it is different to hear about America from someone who is—even if only a little bit—an outsider when he comes here; who says, in effect, They don’t build a country as big as this where I come from, you know.

…. I always liked the whole classical or church music aspect of U2, although it’s ironic now, that I’m deleting much of the “good” think-think religious books I had, and someone I know, a retired man, is taking theology classes, and I asked him why: “to get credentials.” Of course. Why are we going to the shop? —To get ice cream…. ~ So it’s nice, now, especially, that Bono can write a book like this, about his life journey, his faith journey, and not have him be like…. Mind-pooping on people, you know. “I have a degree that allows me to do that, you know….”

…. And they made him feel bad. Poor Christian village man little preacher man, the little man, “there’s no good life in which you express yourself in any way; the way forward is to be a defeated slave” little man, made him feel bad.

We built this church so that you would be a defeated slave little-man. God knows I am. Who are you to get stand up straight and tall, to sleep at night and wake up every morning?….

And it wasn’t because they picked the worst lot; they had one of the better church types of the 80s, but things were still set then, you know: you can talk like you want to evangelize the youth…. As long as you live your life, so as to try to crush them, basically….

…. How do you go to the serial daters and the junkies and the rappers, and say, Make beautiful music and live the right way, when you can show up with U2 and get told: having beauty is the opposite of living the right way, you know? It’s like—they’re right. Might they not be right? What’s the reward? It’s like you have to get off on being told off by people who don’t like you and won’t give you a dime’s compromise on anything that matters to your life after a year of Sundays, to go to church. That’s what it takes. It’s against the rules to like people! It’s against the rules to be kind! Follow the rules, dammit! We didn’t build this church so that people would live their best life; we built it to lock ‘em in!

…. “Perhaps sometimes you have to refuse the call of religion, to stand up to it and say no.”

Or else you can go on acting like it’s, I don’t know, indoctrinating your children with Narnia, (only the Bible that’s in Lewis, and only the Lewis that’s in Narnia, and only the Narnia that’s in some hairy sweaty freak you happen to know personally), or else, I don’t know—maybe the Republicans can pass a law, right, regulating people’s ability to say no to hairy sweaty local government authorities, who, if they’re not saying the right things, will be executed and replaced by white terrorists from Louisiana or something, you know.

It’s up to you.

…. I don’t consider myself very “Irish”, as I’m not from the Brooklyn of the 1950s, you know. It is true there are many British leaders I regard with humor, at best, given the way they’ve treated many, many countries. But I really don’t like Gerry Adams, and what those people stood for, you know. In a way they were fighting a war, but a lot of them liked it, and they liked not playing by the rules, or trying to make them up themselves, improv’d by the barrel of a gun, like a sort of tiny tyrant, you know. They didn’t need all the votes or popular art, you know. They had bombs. Even in the South they probably would have killed Bono if he had written a song Friday Bloody Friday, you know, it would be like…. Jason Momoa doing a movie about why Hawaii isn’t an independent monarchy anymore, you know. I guess Irish people weren’t always so white, you know, asleep underneath Odin’s tree, somewhere in America where it’s safe to be oblivious, but it’s hard to really like a people so tribal and bloody and clueless about the bottom and the top, you know, and it’s hard to like them thinking that they have some sort of claim on me when they don’t, even if Ireland isn’t a worse island than Britain or Maui, and even if some relatively normal people live there, to the extent that people in general aren’t just awful, you know…. I really liked that earlier line where Bono was making fun of Dunce Paisley—Noy Surrendah—instead of feeling afraid, enraged or engaged, you know; and I felt so irritated that if I tried to share that little joke with my father, he’d reach into the mick’s hypocrite bag of charms and troubles, you know—the honest, honest supporter of the American Paisley who never turned his back on the pagan tribal ways of race war, you know, Gosh, what an honest group of people micks tend to be….

…. Listen, I know that I’m not Irish, basically, so I shouldn’t trouble the wee little micks, right, and I know that there are plenty of perfectly normal places and people in Ireland, but the really “Irish” people, it’s like, I feel like I’m talking about some little troll, or a gremlin that lives in a cave, and he comes out at night to frighten children because he’s a fairy-tale villain, you know; and it’s like, I’m sorry, almost, but when are you going to grow up and stop being Irish, you know; it’s like…. I mean, it’s funny; it’s cute; it’s charming—and I like it, like I like a lot of things, until it turns into this ugly little troll from the tribe of the mick people who lives in a cave and fucks sheep, you know, and it’s like…. Really?…. You know, it’s hey, we’re all different; I’m the American cultural imperialist; you’re the terrorist who lives in the cave and fucks sheep and plots revenge, you know…. Revenge, troll-kin! Revenge! Fairy-tale land will come back, and blood will flow in the streets, unless! Someone betrays our plans, to the American cultural imperialists in Beverley Hills, you know…. Ooo, troll-kin mick tribe doesn’t want this to be a California fairy tale with a pop music video; this has to be a fairy tale for Irish trolls who live in the cave and plot their revenge by the light of the moon, for the sake of the holy fairy tale race of Erin!…. And the sheep that we fuck that we’re probably related to, at this point. Hell, that sheep could be my mother, right!

Thanks so much, (city name); I’m an Aquarius, and I love Bono, and I’m not sure about Ireland, and! I’m done. (puts mic back up in the holder, walks away)

…. Incidentally it’s kinda the same with the left. I’m supposed to feel indebted to the leftists who want to shoot Bono or whatever, or who think that Greta Gerwig isn’t cool enough, but if I want to be an intellectual bully who makes fun of Bono, Greta Gerwig, and probably Barack and Michelle, by the end of the day…. It’s like, No. I owe you nothing. Have fun hating everyone, and at the end of the day, yourself. I’ll watch you implode from a safe distance. I feel the same way about the church, too. So many bullies, so many intellectuals, so little time. The church is basically part of the system in our culture, even if it’s the little sibling part of the system, the struggling part of the system, I don’t care. Let it struggle. I don’t care anymore. The whole normative culture is intellectual bullies. Even film critics are intellectual bullies, mocking people for not being a dead Marxist from the Middle Ages or whatever we’re supposed to be, you know. Intellectuals think that you have some sense of obligation to them, either because “we’re both smart”, or, “I’m smarter than you”. I don’t care if you invented calculus, I don’t owe you shit. You’re a bully. Go away, right. Leave me alone. Stop intellectualizing every field, so that you have to put up with bullies no matter what you want to do with your life, even read film reviews. Grow the fuck up, genius, and get this: I don’t feel obligated to you.

Oddly enough, Brian Eno I can take, lol. Maybe not in person, though, ha. Atheists, at least in our culture, are about as elitist and cold as the sea is wide.

…. I mean, it boils down to this: intellectuals/“the left”:

The problem is, Everything. Something bad happens, it’s part of the Everything Is Shit system, like I been telling.

But don’t worry, there’s one simple solution to bring down the Everything Is Shit system I been telling you about. Man, it’s be a real man. The end.

Because real men can do no wrong?

Aww, man, that’s just in the Everything Is Shit system I been telling you about! See how when you’re delusional, everything confirms everything! Man, don’t learn shit to make your life better. Make it more circular. Embrace the mind cancer. Cultivate problems so your mind has something to do. Don’t be no little girl now, that ain’t Dead Father Marx’s teaching. It’s all real sim—complicated, but worth the study. We don’t want most people to crack our populist system, after all—them and the little girls. Jailbait, man, being that young should be illegal!

…. “Bullet the Blue Sky”

Oh, it’s about planes dropping bombs, okay.

I mean, yeah, I get it, in my own estimation. America is a very violent country. You don’t even need U2 to tell you, although it’s certainly a great song. Most Americans don’t really hide the fact that we’re a violent people. We brag on it. We’re proud of it. We’re not proud of peaceful people in America. It’s not a secret.

…. “Where The Streets Have No Name”—it’s like, you don’t know if it’s a white neighborhood or a Black neighborhood; you don’t know if it’s a “good” neighborhood or a “bad” one; you don’t know what the cops and the church people think about it; you don’t know if people there have a shot at making six figures in a month, right…. Because the streets have no name there, bro. It’s a more pure empire there.

…. It’s kinda common for the leftist religious person to be all psyched up when things are bad, beyond what’s healthy: like, misery is the balm for a happiness-wracked soul, you know. And I mean, I’m sure that a lot of good comes out of that, since there are things like famine in the world and most people don’t care, especially since they don’t look like us, right…. But I wonder how much more good you could do if you weren’t doing it all to please punk boys afraid of being pleased, you know. Blessed are the poor—who stay poor. Cursed are the poor who betray us by moving out of the old neighborhood, into the high rent district. ~ And, I mean, it’s easy to me to say, because I’m white, and because I’ve always been too proper to be punk. Supporting Marxist dictatorships was about as close as I got to being a rebel in high school; I was the tyrant of elf-land, you know. Even before I got into fashion or dance or whatever, it was never about being from the wrong side of town with me, because I wasn’t. Even when I was in the hospital—and I mean, obviously it was all luck or whatever you want to call it; there was no conscious plan—I think it was probably a pretty good hospital. Lord knows we could eat, you know.

But anyway, call this the tiny violin cue but, I feel confirmed in my feeling that there isn’t a seat in the church for me, not this time around. Church can be about anything, as long as it’s not about being happy. You can talk about commies or famines or both, but you don’t talk about Gossip Girl, you know. Which is ironic, because people Do gossip in churches, but…. It’s like, if you’re not a born Kiss On The Lips person, they won’t be teaching the proud boys and the leftist intellectuals how to do it. And sure, life has greater tragedies. But it does make the whole thing harder to get excited about, that it was never about what I wanted in this lifetime, and apathy is what they complain about from—well, I won’t really be young much longer, but I Was young, for a number of years, right.

…. Bono is defs a Two, you know. He’s all heart, but you turn your head and he’s a bleeding-heart type Eight, who thinks that women are tougher than he is. And he’s certainly into being a special Four, too. Mostly he’s a Two, though. And in denial about it, I guess. —Pop? U2 does pop? No, no…. We don’t do pop…. Not us, never! 😸

…. He’s actually not as different from Harry Styles as he seems, although Harry doesn’t characteristically spend as much time in Eight or even Four, so he doesn’t seem as smart (or tough, obviously), but their central energy isn’t so different (although their ages are different and you can kinda tell that Bono is an earthy Taurus, although he’s not like a lot of Taurus guys (like my brother the banker lol).

But I don’t know, it’s not bad. (It’s “Bad” like the song lol—boss.) And you know I saw a celebrity magazine with Taylor and Harry the other day, and I just can’t take those two together, although maybe (maybe) I could take them separately, you know. (“And he’s like, I still love you. And I’m like, This is exhausting…. ~ Taylor never changes, lol. We never change.)

…. I can deal with Bono; I think U2 has good material, and that he’s also a good prose writer—however, at this stage in my journey, he is kinda on the extreme ‘earnest’ end that I’m comfortable with. Not that I won’t probably end up reading worse, but I probably shouldn’t. And of course, he is quite tough at times, too. But it’s never just a flat, straight thing, you know; like, he’d never work as a high-end chef, or an auto mechanic, despite being sweet and tough by turns. He’s always prowling the borderlands where earnestness meets absurdity, basically.

…. I think it’s kinda cool that Bono could tell the Dalai Lama—as cool as the dally lally can be, you know—that actually he wanted to be a pop star, even though he didn’t want to be a wretched codependent, with the same singular amazing line, you know. “We’re one, but we’re not the same.”

I actually think that “One” might be my favorite song by a white guy artist or group, really. Defs on some sort of short list, at the very, you know.

…. And “The Fly” is pretty smarmy—dystopian, really, but I notice that now that I don’t think that the central axis of life is transcendent dignity, it doesn’t bother me anymore.

…. Bono must really hate himself sometimes: he always gets a hard on when some oppressed little death camp girl shouts that he should be in a Persian prison for singing a song about how meanie stalks her in the night. ~ Some people live outside the death camp: what a tragedy! What an aberration!

I remember when I read that first Esther Hicks children’s book, the ‘Solomon’ book, I was a little sad and unpersuaded when she had the bullied boy lash at the girl who tried to give him something, some attention, you know. But that is it, often, you know. Some people in a pickle do want support, of course, but plenty feel threatened by it. Improvement is change: and change is death.

And, of course, we all know that poor people are always having people knock on their doors, thanking them for their altruism in staying poor, you know—that anybody would ever give that up boggles the mind! To give up the Best Thing! You’d have to be like, not a Catholic or something! (Catholic mother with story time book) This is Saint Karl Marx children! He went to heaven for encouraging people not to improve their lives! The altruism of that, you know! But there’s sin in the world children! (turns page) Some people think that being happy should count for more than social control! (pictures of hell, etc.)

Not that there aren’t “bad” rich people, and oppressed races and evil wars and so on, much of which is called “capitalism” by the naive and nefarious. I used to think that that’s what Mary’s Magnificat was about. “The poor have gone up in the world; the rich have gone away empty.” But I think it’s just kinda a Psalm 73 moment: the evil rich man’s money is fairy gold—it disappears. The people who hated themselves can always repent, and the people who have it to burn can always get caught doing business the wrong way, so there are always people going up and down in the world.

That’s all. Although it must have taken more faith to see it, in a more militaristic, more static world.

…. HomeGoods RadioRestless made me hate “Mysterious Ways”, and then I listened to it, and it was alright, and then I read Bono talk about it and I hate it again. They should make Twos take some class so that their Eight energy doesn’t turn into a Downfall thing, you know. He’s always ranting about how the woman is going to crush you because you deserve it, you know. “She’ll crush you she’ll crush you she’ll crush you.” And who are you? The Goblin Queen’s slave lackey? Oh no wait; it’s better than that. You’re HER BROTHER, right. I mean, Who Likes, no matter what you think about women or how you treat them, who likes being bullied by some girl’s brother, right? Do girls look at that and say, This is utopia; I have an attack mutt of a brother who’ll stick his butt in people’s faces “for me”, right.

🙄

…. Of course, I have no memory of being a girl, so.

But Bono does have a lot of Scorpio energy lol. (Moon/Rising Sign). 😸

…. Re: “Pride (In the Name of Love)” music video

I love how the subtitles tries to describe the instrumental music before the singing. “Powerful upbeat rock music” 🪨

“One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow” 😎

Bono is really cute for a Jesus Boy, you know. 😸

Really, you have to laugh.

…. And then the pope, dressed in Gucci shoes, tried to shame the capitalists into being good to poor. After all, he doesn’t like capitalists: if you’re going to buy some bling okay, but don’t go all the way and be happy instead of stiff! Come on, now!

The Christian church: even when they’re right, almost, they can usually find a way to snatch sin out of the jaws of moral victory.

…. And I know this might turn into a big long thing, but I am so done with listening to Bono say he’s a bad person. You know what, Bono? I give up: you win. You’re a bad person; you’re going to hell; it’s the mystery of iniquity—you let Jesus down and the pope parade let you down, blah blah blah: but you know what? Shut the fuck up, you goddamn cry baby. That’s what you get for looking out for people who think that you’re the devil’s son, you know?

And now, I will finish this book, but after that, I would like to read specifically about The Rolling Stones and in general about women and people of color who are artists, maybe Madonna and Bob Marley’s wife’s book, you know—but, I’d also like to read a real punk book, you know. A book where the singer doesn’t fucking apologize for being a human being and go to hell to save the world, basically.

…. It’s like, say you’re the pope: you do a photo to prove you’re cool, but of course you immediately have some minion spirit it away to the bottom of the archives, because it’s like: I want to know, and I want you to know, that I can be cool: however, you know, and I know, that I don’t really mean it. ~Because you’re a fake, basically. The people who go to church are afraid of the priest, and the priest is afraid of the people who go to church. Because fear is the first step towards being a fake…. And that I guess, is the Way, as it’s been called. As in: the Way, or the highway.

…. I know this’ll seem overdone to any Real Bono fans, but, I mean, I like pop, and God-mind and all the rest of it, but just feel like U2 would have done better just making summery pop sometimes without always going for the theological kill shot, you know. “Boom, Jesus! I’m a genius!” Maybe a little light irony to keep it from being a song about the eternal church of girlfriend, you know, complete with smells and bells—what is it they call it, censer and whatever else?…. Maybe that’s what some people think U2 does offer, pop seasoned with a little light poesy….

It’s hard for me to read him and not think he’s a little much, though. Even his lyrics are a little much sometimes. Religion can be too much, whether it’s “paganism” and witchcraft or Jesus/The Importance of Being Earnest/Pity, you know. It just sounds like he’s going to crucify his wife because he’s a wretched sinner, bent on saving the world, before going up to the holy sepulcher of the cancer-killed father, for to go on pilgrimage…. Sometimes there’s something very un-pop at the heart of pop, you know. Pop is like W.J. Cash’s “pleasure-loving Negro” of yore who got his hands on a book of Bach chords and electric instruments; but then sometimes the people putting pop through its paces are just, I don’t know, people too drunk to find the Time Machine to go back to the Middle Ages with your parents, back when a man was a man, a woman was a woman, and a human being was scum in the hands of a fretfully mean God fluent only in Latin, you know. (Maybe Greek, too, on a good day.)

…. Bono is funny. I haven’t watched Ben Stiller in a long time and I do know that film critics are an unusually frumpy group of men, so I don’t know if this is justified or not, but I remember once reading that somebody said that Ben thinks he’s a great important actor, but critics think he’s just a throwaway silly actor, you know—and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Bono. (Although throwaway or whatever the frumpy film critic man said was harsh, obviously.) Bono will write these ordinary common songs, nice chords and unrealistic and kinda random words, and then he’ll write about it, and it will be like: Bono, Bono, we get it. You’re a good man! You’re Jesus; you’re a genius; you’re our date…. But here’s the thing: I just wanted to let chocolate. 😸 “Chocolate, that’s great! And drugs! And Jesus! Whoo-wee!” He’s very American. (More American than the Americans themselves.) We’re a simple people, you know. A lot of cultures do make those simple things work—passion and religions; a lot of Euro-frumps can be a veritable (cyanide) pill, you know….

But still. Sometimes, sometimes….

…. (Black teenager rapper) (spoken) This song is about, uh—world peace!

(rap) Bitch I like your thighs, your thighs, not your eyes; Bitch I like your thighs….

(spoken over the music) I went to Africa on vacation last year—whoo! Not doing that again!

(rap) Bitch I like your thighs, your thighs….

~~ An exaggeration, of course. But he claims in this overly-literary book that every song was about Africa or whatever, and there’s basically nothing in the actual song to back that up, you know. It’s just dishonest….

Of course, it’s not just rich people. The average “social person” cares nothing about other people: talking in public on their phone where other people are trying to concentrate or whatever, cursing out their friend—you don’t need money to do that! And ultimately those people make the celebrities, you know, although different ordinary-faces make different celebrities, obviously….

…. I’m not saying it’s an easy fix, because going full on National-of-Islam-Malcolm-X isn’t Such a great thing, but it’s a little awkward how Bono can interpret “embarrassment” over catching a fatal disease by Third World standards as “good manners” and “grace” (!), when you know that the main reason he’s there is to prop up the social system that equates suffering in silent shame unto death as goodness and manners and ~grace~, you know…. White people are always surprised when Black people don’t call them whitey or whatever, even if they’re effectively conking their hair, basically. Oh yeah, they love you, whitey…. “I love you whitey! I want my children to look like you! I go to church, you know! I love Jesus!” You know, it’s like, bad…. And that’s without even addressing the whole issue of the church and aids (the immunodeficiency disease) and the gay community, right…. “The grace these gay people show—really taking their shame in stride, you know! We should all be like that….”

…. I know I must be repeating myself, but maybe he got something out of the people tasked with caretaking the poor dying people calling him “Mr. Bono” and implying that he was wasting their time, you know; that’s what he seemed to remember. He loved that. Maybe when he was singing “Bad” to a million people who loved him he couldn’t accept the love, and he needed to find a way to discard it, you know. Find a way to get the outside to look like the inside. Of course, “good works”, pace Luther, are a good thing, but you do have to talk about motivation, too.

…. I want to like Bono. I really do. But he keeps making these “I’m the problem” speeches like he’s never made them before. We get it, Bono. You don’t like yourself. And if you weren’t a white man, you still wouldn’t like yourself—you’d get that jackboot in the rib cage and think, Wow, I must be weak; I hate myself!…. ~”I’m the problem.” Bono, you wrote a book that’s WELL over 500 pages. If you’re the problem, shut up. If you just cut out all the “I’m the problem” speeches to one or two, you’d be well on your way to having a normal-sized book on your hands. “Oh no, I’m very important. Everybody’s gotta know how I’m the problem, you know.” Neurotic. Clinical. Get a shrink, Bono. It’ll be someone to preach to, and/or someone to assign you acts of penance, right.

…. And I realize he doesn’t trash the models exactly, but it’s so bored; it’s like he tolerates them. “There were also models at the anti-apartheid show.” And this from a singer! It’s like, Good One, if there weren’t any beautiful people and people inspired by them and inspired by music inspired by them, you’d probably be flipping burgers—don’t pretend that’s not your career! Why can’t you admit it? It’s the classic crazy huemie (human) divided self—his lyrics are generally cryptic rather than debasing, usually, although you couldn’t frame a theology or a political platform out of them, you know; they’re meant to be sung. I guess that’s ok. But then when he sits in the prose seat, he just tries to make it sound like he’s the woke monk of the cult of Truth, you know. Maybe he’s an opera singer; maybe he’s an economist. We know he’s a monk, though. He gets up at 3AM to chant the psalmic odes of the Third World…. I mean, grow up, you know. Tell the truth.

…. (before the end) People tell you that you’re supposed to be loyal, that there’s one way to look at things, and that you can’t have the agency that lets you have more than one lens in your traveler’s bag, you know. But I just feel like it usually just makes people so much poorer to have one god, a monomania for power and the prestige and ‘knowledge’ so-called and conformity, and to have just one worn-out, cracked lens that should have received its reward and been retired already, you know. (Hasn’t the classic of yesterday already received its reward?) ~Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Every-thing is Je-sus! Everything is Je-e-sus; and, everywhere is cross, and death!

…. (last part before the end) I just don’t see how, guitar music aside, Bono is REALLY doing anyone any favors by making it so that people “see” that you have to be the primordial archetypal guilt-ridden Christian to know or care about the race issue, you know. Liberal Christians can be SUCH Christians, you know. I almost feel like they were Christians first, like they started it, and it’s almost their fault more, in a way. Conservative Christians are like, Jesus is organizing the Fourth of July party! Woot!, and it’s like, Jesus is for whatever they would have done or been had there been no Christianity, you know. (Just like they can throw around woke words like racism, incredibly, to attack whoever they already don’t like—not thinking white people are the best is racist, etc. It’s bad, don’t get me wrong.) But the liberal Christians are like, Why IS there even the Fourth of July? Jesus didn’t die in summer! What’s up with having a summer holiday! Pray and work, people! Poverty, chastity, obedience to the traitor-smashing god of the left, the new god! ~And it’s like, Hello Saint Patrick. Welcome to Ireland. So, you going back to Italy next week, week after that, or….?

…. (finis) I wanted to like Bono, you know. He says some things I agree with—until I hear them from him, you know. I guess that makes him like an anti-celebrity/anti-influencer, you know. Someone who either pushes you away from him, or makes you uneasy about yourself…. And not in any good way at all.

…. (coda) I wanted to like Bono.

I just feel like he never quite got over that October-era feedback of, You are not enough; you are not holy. ~He seems to have spent decade after decade saying, I am not enough: but I am holy…. ~or else just lost in shame; shame and importance.
… (més)
 
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goosecap | Hi ha 13 ressenyes més | Dec 16, 2023 |
A long autobiography thus far of Bono’s life. Original name: Paul David Hewson. This memoir could have benefited from a major editing job to sharpen it up. But sharp is not what Bono is known for. He’s known for feeling, and feelings need space to justify themselves and explain Bono’s opposite feelings described throughout the book. Bono is from Dublin. His father was Catholic, and mother was Protestant, but neither were empathic about practice, he was catechized as a kid at his mom’s Protestant church. Later he and the entire band of U2 joined the Shalom group which was apparently a non-charismatic Christian community devoted to living as the early church did. Bono says that he liked Brian Eno who claimed to be an atheist as U2 were also desirous of looking less into the rearview mirror of “Irishness” which implied traditional religiosity. Eno had noted elsewhere (in LA Weekly) though that he was encouraged by the nuns in his English Catholic school to pursue art and musical expression and those people were not backward looking. Bono said the group was then in an inquiry period of “music, religion, politics” and felt empowered to disengage from past patterns and blueprints. They were on the verge of producing The Joshua Tree.
The book is a chronology of Bon’s feelings. Some worthy, some unworthy. It leaves the impression of a venting since infancy, and with a final family revelation we see why. Bono tries to clean it up at the end (if you the reader persevered that long) at which point there is finally some welcome self-criticism. However, it may be too late for most readers. The history of his political activism is revolting for the listing of historical figures and failures he tries to curry favor with. I didn’t read this book for an accounting of his ideological predilections. In fact, the final chapters of his listing of shortcomings of political posturing add little to the readers power to absolve his narrow dismissal of whatever didn’t fit the clichés he always seemed to expect at every turn. I respect Bono as an artist from a band I have favored for years. In my reading for more than few memoirs from musicians, this book moved me with reservations about Bono personally.
Usually memoirs by musicians have been some of favorite books. Midge Ure, If I was…, Dave Stewart, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Conversations with McCartney are a few of my recent worthwhile reads. I am glad to have read this, and I appreciate the effort Bono put into it, but it was not a pleasant experience. I felt lectured to and brow beaten at some point in every chapter. This is hard to imagine for a book of length since it is a long book, as memoirs go. I felt the length showed that Bono was trying give the readers their money’s worth.
Cillian Murphy is allowed to give one of the few criticisms of Bono in the book. He says that he liked U2’s early work and The Joshua Tree, “but then I lost you”. Meaning Cillian likes Bono but had a preference for the early albums over the later productions as more faithful to “Irishness” which Murphy shares. Murphy is famous now but was not as well-known just a few years ago. Robert Hilburn from the LA Times is another funny episode. Hilburn is quoted as a supporter of U2 throughout their career. He was. Near the end of his time as a featured music critic he changed and started to criticize U2. He was famous for saying all U2 songs sounded the same. This was obvious and had been said by many people but in the stadium rock establishment it was forbidden to utter this truth in print. Hilburn was let go soon after. In reality, readers of the LA Times had soured of Hilburn’s fluff pieces on Springsteen, U2, Eminem, and The White Stripes. It made me laugh to see Hilburn’s name mentioned, except for the likely past debt reciprocation. Peter Hook mentions that Bono and the band came to see Hook and promised they, U2, would carry on Joy Division’s crucial post-Punk legacy. This was after the death Ian Curtis. Hook in his own book said nothing in reply to Bono’s consoling words except to refer to them collectively as “the Irish tw@ts” among the other New Order musicians. Bono leaves out Joy Division’s influence almost altogether and says that Patty Smith and the Ramones were the band’s seminal influences. Bono was happy to move on to other subjects. Bono says that he gave a Steve Jobs a signed copy of Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol” before Jobs died. That was nice. I wish Bono would have told him to abstain from the New Age witchdoctors and go to see an oncologist. At U2 concert at the Rose Bowl, LA in 2017, Bono said America should let in Syrian refugees. He never made an attempt to get Syrians to go to beautiful Ireland and set up shop in the wide open farmlands or near his coastal home. That was a big strike out. Irish men and women would have loved to have had the Syrians come and play with their kids.
The title of Bono’s book comes from a line in “Bad” a song from the album The Unforgettable Fire. The word “Surrender” becomes a concluding refrain as he sums up his life in the final chapters. Other notable Irish musicians are The Cranberries, Enya, The Chieftains, and Sinéad O’Connor.
Color Photos, Photo collages, No Index, Line drawings by Bono.
… (més)
 
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sacredheart25 | Hi ha 13 ressenyes més | Nov 13, 2023 |
Anton Corbijn’s "firstborn child" Famouz, our own publication launched in 1989, really sparked things off. All of a sudden, the photographer, who had long been a nominee for success behind the scenes of the pop world and record industry, entered the limelight. His portraits of rock and pop idols had a completely different, completely novel slant: they were pensive, melancholic, more personal, galaxies away from the world of showbiz, glamour and image makers. Corbijn is now famous all over the world. His photographs, which led to a new era of music photography, are on display at international exhibitions.

With an introduction by Bono and designed by star designer Peter Saville, the book contains photos of Tom Waits, Sinéad O’Connor, Pete Townsend, Joe Cocker, Siouxie Sioux, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Kate Bush, Sting, Leonard Cohen and many more.
… (més)
 
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petervanbeveren | Sep 10, 2023 |

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