I guess it’s no secret by now that I’m a huge U2 fan.
I say this in spite of how utterly crap the U2 business organization is. In this regard, loving U2 is like loving (fill in the sports-team-that-keeps-losing of your choice) — you keep hoping, and then you keep taking it on the chin. The U2 official fan club overcharges for membership and is always in utter organizational chaos. They can’t get a fan ticket pre-sale right to save their lives. The website is pretentious, hard to navigate, and the People In Charge have in the past been openly dismissive of fan concerns and contemptuous of anorak fans. And don’t get me started on what a Bad Idea I think a stadium tour and a zillion-dollar set are, or why an audience of 100,000 is not necessarily five times as wonderful as an audience of 20,000, or why saving the world and making compelling art are not always mutually inclusive.
But then I listen to the music that I love. I stand in the front row and sing my heart out with the band. And I see something like this, and am reminded why I love these guys: the human music and the human beings behind it. I wish human moments like this one were more possible in our Big Celebrity World.
And I wish more people treated Big Celebrity People like the T-Shirt Guy having the real conversation, as opposed to the Fluttering Woman. If I had to go out on a limb, I’d guess the Big Celebrity Person in this situation enjoyed the conversation more than the fluttering. I’m not a BCP, but I sure know what’s more interesting to me in my encounters with strangers. Bodies are great, don’t get me wrong: but sex starts in the brain, you know?
And I have to wonder what people want when they behave this way? Do they really want sex, or is that just the mechanism by which socially-conditioned/gendered women express admiration for accomplished men, or the desire to connect with someone whose work means something to them? I dunno…me, if I want to impress someone, I prefer to use my brain. Which I guess makes me a lot more of a sister-under-the-skin to T-Shirt Guy. In my younger days, I thought that I just didn’t know how to be a girl. It took a while to figure out that what I really always wanted to be was an adult.
Enjoy your day.
Hat tip to @U2‘s Fearless Leader Matt Mcgee for the link.
The thing the fan falls in love with is not (usually) the person that makes the thing. It’s the Thing. And when the fan acts like an idiot in an attempt to make some impact on the person, the person has to do a kind of “Oh, yeah, they’re getting off on the Thing, not me.”
Must be infuriating.
But I think people who do the idiot fan thing don’t want the Celebrity to be a person….because, hell, they’ve already got pals for that kind of “ordinary” stuff. They want a Celebrity moment—-but they don’t know what that is exactly. So their brain, which isn’t engaged anyway, goes on further sabbatical because it can’t function under the demands the idiot is placing on it.
Artists don’t put themselves in ivory towers, fans put them there, and then can’t understand why the artist doesn’t dig the decor.
Or something like that.
It was painful to watch that woman act like a muppet and do anything to grab his attention. She didn’t calm down until he finally held her close to his body. *sigh*
I fell in love when he did that song with Mary J. Blige. That was beautiful.
@Mark — I suppose you’re right. It’s a dynamic I can understand and talk about, but I don’t really get it on some level. I generally dislike relationships in which one person is Way Better than the other, and I don’t understand why many people’s celebrity response mechanism includes that need to approach someone like they aren’t real. For validation? To share the glow? I dunno. I’m all for expressing appreciation, but there’s a reason I don’t rush the limo hoping for an autograph — because that’s all about begging someone to notice me, and I just don’t beg that way.
@Donna — Me too on the painful. That begging for attention thing is hard to watch. And yet, that woman got what she wanted, didn’t she? And it’s entirely likely that she came away from the encounter absolutely happy with how it went.
People are complicated.
I agree with how painful it was to watch that woman. I literally winced as I was sitting here alone in my office. I was embarrassed for her.
I’ve been fortunate enough to briefly meet Bono twice…never as wonderful an experience as T-shirt guy had because he’s just cooler than I am (T-shirt guy). I get tongue-tied with Bono and I realize it’s my issue, not his. So, I try to say as little as possible so as to not embarass myself.
Some people don’t care what kind of impression they leave as long as they get the attention they want. Me? I care about the impression I leave, however fleeting any thoughts of the encounter may be for BCP. I don’t ever want the object of my admiration to think of me as “that one”.
A friend of a friend’s husband is a comedian. After one show, a fan asked to have a photo taken with him. As the picture snapped, she grabbed his crotch. His wife asked me if I would ever do that if I met Robert Plant (the only man I’m bi for, in a big way) – and I said no. My reason? Because I respect him . . .
K, I’m a huge fan of U2…love the music, always have. Although the earlier stuff connects more with my nature…its all about the pain, the emerging from darkness. Their more recent stuff is lovely, global, polished. Like the “One” version with Mary. It doesn’t punch me in the gut like a sot of Jameson’s the way their early music did, however. And that’s ok. I don’t respect Bono the person, never have. He’s a talented singer and musician for certain. He’s a complete hypocrite in his personal life, however. He preaches fiscal responsibility and asks govts to provide relief to Africa. That money comes from you and me, hardworking people who pay their taxes. Yet U2 has done everything imaginable to dodge paying taxes. And Bono is ruthless in his personal investments. I don’t care. He’s entitled to live his life as he chooses. And I still love the man’s music. I will buy his albums…I will not buy his bullshit.
@David, hey, I owe you an email.
The earlier music resonates more for me too. So much passion then, whereas now the passion often seems to me like they are reaching for it rather than just being there. That makes me sad, and makes me determined not to go that way with my own art.
I don’t buy into the Saint Bono image, and I am aware of some of the distance between the public and the personal. I don’t know… maybe I’m naive, or maybe I’m just getting old, but (non-violent) dissonances in people don’t bother me as much as they used to. Or maybe it’s that I know about too many of my own. Whatever it is, I just like the guy. I like his music, I like that he makes little noises to the baby, I like his 30+ year relationship with his band. I respect those things. I don’t need to respect it all. But I do miss that passionate young man and his powerful voice and that music…
@J, ah, Robert Plant. There’s nothing like a well-seasoned rock-and-roller… And yes, I think respect is part of it, self-respect as well as other-respect.
@Christy, I hope you enjoyed those meetings. I love talking to artists whose work I love.