2005-07-03 - 14:24

Sunscreen, reapply. Or what I learned from Live 8.

The Kaiser Chiefs rocked, and I want to get that announcement out of the way because the portion of the crowd I was standing in seemed very confused by their short set. And I don�t watch television so I can�t talk about MTV�s coverage or NBC�s coverage or anyone�s coverage. I can tell you that I have a sunburn (I look a little like a pink racoon from where my sunglasses were) and that I can now say I�ve seen Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and Stevie Wonder perform live. Yes.

I read the lineup of who was playing in Philadelphia and thought, �Man, that sucks, I�d rather see Coldplay or at least A-Ha and Lauryn Hill.� The idea of standing under an unforgiving July sun in the city of brotherly love on Independence Day weekend in order to see Keith Urban and the drippy Sarah McLachlan wasn�t particularly appealing. Regardless, May 31st my sister and I both read the headlines and decided, simultaneously that since we�d never been to Philadelphia we would take this opportunity and go.

As we were walking towards the show on Saturday, we were stopped by a man from a local paper who was considering doing a story on what people were wearing to the show. I dig it, there were a lot of ridiculously dressed people and by that I mean they were dressed to go clubbing, not to be standing in the sun all day. What had caught his attention were my sunshine yellow All-Stars. They are not particularly special in that they�re converse and you can go to any sort of punk show and see them in all colors and varieties and wonder if somehow they were part of the dress code. The reporter asked why I�d picked them. Honestly, I wear them to everything. These shoes have seen Red Chord, the Necromantix, A Life Once Lost and My Chemical Romance three times. I wear them until they rot off my feet and/or start reeking so badly that standing completely upright at 5'9" I can smell them.

While a photographer was getting shots of my shoes, we were asked a few questions. What brought us to Philly? (Live 8 and that we�d never been here before.) Are we students? (Yes and No. I start grad school in the fall and Beth just graduated.) What do we think of the motives behind the show? (Awareness is a wonderful thing. Democracy is another wonderful thing. Please forgive my naivety here, but isn�t the point of representative democracy that we elect representatives and then tell them how we feel about things so they can take it into account when they make policy and discuss things with other world leaders?) Do we think it will work? (No. But, then I don�t trust a million people to leave a rock concert and go home and continue to contact members of the government and share their feelings about things.) I checked this morning, There were no pictures of my shoes.

The sea of humanity that maybe made a difference.

The show was well worth the trip. Bon Jovi, Kanye West and Will Smith got the crowds going and they didn�t slow down until Sarah McLachlan announced it was nap time later in the day. Some of the highlights included Rita and Stephen Marley joining the Black Eyed Peas on stage to sing Stand Up and the entire crowd singing the theme song to Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Although, I feel the concert goers owe the city of Philadelphia an apology for all the litter. We tried to throw away everything we could (and by we and I mean my sister and I actually made the effort to walk to the trash can and toss things into them) but I will admit that I may have left an orange rind on the ground, forgotten as the crowd shifted.

I know its hard to tell, but that�s Rita and Stephen Marley singing with the Black Eyed Peas.

Relieving debt and getting a bunch of people together to show just how serious we are about giving Africa and hand up are great ideas. Its also why we have rallies and marches and people gathering to sit in public spaces with signs saying clever things. Here�s my thing, getting people to do this by bribing them with a free concert makes the act in and of itself A. No effort on our part because we�re getting something out of it and B. The sort of thing that makes me wonder how much we as a group really mean it. I�ll be honest, I went partly to say I was there and partly to see some of the people playing. Oh, yeah and because we�re raising awareness. Sure, I�ve signed the petition at one.org, and I wear a white wrist band and every time I get a form letter from one of my representatives I half expect it to begin, �Dear Ms. Donelson, You understand you�re not my only constituent, right?� But, I also know that economics are complex and bizarre. Saying, �Sure thing, you don�t have to pay us back,� has its consequences just like saying, �Nope, we want it all back now,� would. I can�t pretend I even begin to understand how it works. I just know that infrastructure and education are things that are ridiculously helpful and that they are also things you don�t fund when you�re busy trying to scramble out from under a loan. I also know that if it were as simple as forgiving a debt, we�d have already done it because it would make us look like the nice guy and let�s be honest, we could use a little favorable publicity.

At the beginning of the day after the Kaiser Chiefs, Will Smith came out on stage and introduced a video and then had us all raise our hands. According to the video, statistically once every three seconds someone dies as the result of extreme poverty. Along with Will on stage, every three seconds everyone in the crowd snapped their fingers. Which I found to be a pretty sobering experience. I thought about what that would mean to me, knowing that Malaria is treatable and TB and death from hunger are preventable but being in a situation where I was powerless to stop someone I loved from dying of them and I got a little teary-eyed. And then I got mad. That sucks. What�s worse, its unfair in that way we all remember from kindergarten. The slogan for Live 8 is The Long Walk to Justice, which is not as easy to remember as Feed the World but brings up an interesting point. A friend of mine once said that justice basically is no more than getting what one deserves. And no one deserves to have to watch someone they love die when there is something that can be done about it. Not in Africa, not here at home.

Me and a loved one I can't live without.

Round about snack time for me Linkin Park came out and rocked the house. I�ve never found them particularly enjoyable so I surprised to find myself grooving and singing along to the odd chorus or two as Jay-Z joined them on stage. The intensity and passion with which they attacked their songs was ferocious and powerful. Awesome, even. During the set, Jay-Z commented that we spend billions on war when we could be spending billions to help people out. To quote 2pac�s Keep Your Head Up, �When it rains, it pours, we�ve got money for war but can�t feed the poor.� Which got me thinking.

Going to a concert doesn�t change anything. Signing a petition doesn�t really change anything, either. We can say we�ll do something but that�s just saying. We have to follow through and take action for it to have any meaning. And, here�s my naivety and my idealism rearing their little heads again, but if its still a government by the people, for the people then the people have to actively do something. We can�t just wait for our president to have a chat with other world leaders and then sign a piece of paper. Economics being the complex thing that they are, there has to be some little thing that I do every day, that I could do without, that would be helpful in at the very least, not contributing more to the misery of others. I�m not sure what that is, but one of blogcritic�s very own suggested that maybe concert goers could have chipped in and gotten the ball rolling. Then there would have been a little extra to go with the one percent we�re asking our governments to give. When you�re conscious of it, a little extra can go a long way.

I�m not quite sure what my one thing I�m willing to do (or not do) in order to be helpful but I�m working on it. For now I�ll probably just have to keep clicking at the hunger site and feeling guilty when I�m wearing a skirt I know was made from sweat shop labor.

0 Comments

Artificial Sound for the Artificial World: Untouchable Outcaste Beats Vol. 1

Still more noir than you are.