Paul Banks Tumbles

At Live Aid, held at Wembley on 13 July 1985, in front of the biggest-ever TV audience of 1.9 billion, Queen performed some of their greatest hits, during which the sold-out stadium audience of 72,000 people clapped, sang, and swayed in unison. The show’s organiser, Bob Geldof, other musicians such as Elton John and Dave Grohl, and various music journalists commented that Queen stole the show.

An industry poll in 2005 named it the greatest rock performance of all time.

Well I know you don’t need the confusion
And I know you just ain’t the type
To get wrapped up in the illusion
Of doin’ something that you know ain’t right right right
Right right
Right right
Right right right

You’ve got to want to re-arrange
And keep it off the record, off the record
You’ve got to know that we will change
And keep it off the record, off the record
Come on!

—My Morning Jacket

But however the campaign ends, the GOP fury will likely slip into acrid disaffection. Time will water down the campaign-peaked antagonism, but the revulsion toward President Obama, toward liberalism, toward the government will remain. This is the outcome of the Republicans’ branding: a confused odium that prevents half the country from seeing D.C. as a place of potential good. There’s a story in the recent Tom Friedman book relayed by GOP strategist Mike Murphy who describes a campaign veteran’s advice to him. While negative ads do work, Murphy recalls being told, there’s a reason McDonalds never runs negative ads against Burger King, saying their burgers are riddled with maggots. “It might have worked for a year or two,” Murphy says, “but then no one would have eaten another hamburger.” Murphy, who’s worked for Romney and John McCain, says the old hand concluded with a piece of advice: “Never destroy the category.” Friedman notes that “just at a time when we need politics in America to be at its most credible and constructive in order to define and pursue the national interest, ‘we’ve destroyed the category.’” By focusing on short-term political assaults, this campaign season could very well tarnish the brand of politics itself, leaving us instead with a useless expression of a long and bitter campaign’s emotional state.

—http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/jamais-vu#

I’m part of the scene
I’m part of the scene
Suit jacket and jeans

I got the right LPs
I got the right LPs
I got the Lou Reed
And all the Blondie you’ll ever need

Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
You’re gonna drown, drown, drown

I’m part of the scene
I’m part of the scene
I got the drum machine
(A-boom tap boom tap, a-boom tap boom tap)

I got the right routine
I got the right routine
‘Cause the end justifies the means

Yes, lately I know
That it’s so hard to see where to go
And it’s so hard just to keep this to myself
When I live for no one else

Atlantic ocean
Atlantic ocean
You’re gonna drown, drown, drown

Dear Austin,

I saw you shyly eying me way back when and I ignored it, instead choosing to linger on the Riverwalk and take another tour of the Alamo. But San Antonio spit me out without even really meaning to, and I decided to return your gaze, and I guess it was love. We picked the bugs from each others hair and patted each other on the back, even when we’d done something terrible.

After awhile, you got over me and started slapping me with your velvet gloves, but I am a masochist and kept coming back for more. It actually didn’t hurt at all. That’s the funny thing about velvet gloves; no matter how hard you get hit, no matter how many times, you can still mistake it for something pleasant, for a benevolent impulse on the part of the slapper.

I only recently realized these slaps were meant to wake me up. And so I journeyed outside Austin and got slapped around by other cities. Boston’s rubber dishwashing gloves could never be mistaken for anything pleasant. And New York’s gloves were constructed from bits of a metal drainpipe and felt none too pleasant on the skin, although they were a marvel to behold from afar.

And so I returned to you with a renewed appreciation for your velvet slap. And you found something in me too. Now when I see you around, your gloves reach not to sting my cheeks, but wave a friendly hello.

Yrs,
Bill Baird
________

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