Re: Slick JT/Bono not arrogant


Lilith ([email protected])
Thu, 06 Aug 1998 03:34:20 -0400


I'm convinced: this "Rob Okorn" creature is really a bot that some
evil-minded hacker has inflicted upon Wire.......

> Actually lilith,
>

"Actually," that's "virtually Lilith" -- since "Lilith" is my internet
alias. Am _I_ a bot? Who wants to place bets?

> not sure why you would use the word naive
>

Yes, one can hardly define hacker scripts and other computer
infestations by that appellation. My apologies to your creator. A better
term might be "iterative" -- or perhaps just "buggy."

> when I have
> described facets of the JT tour as paradoxically adlibbing contrived
> premediated notions, does that sound like rigid spontaneity, glad to
> clarify your omission and blanket generalization.
>

"HAL, please open the pod bay doors." "I can't do that, Dave."

> You haven't come up with any examples of arrogance from Bono from say
> '84 to '87, if you're going to make a blanket statement you should have
> ample evidence, so can you give some factual examples of Bono arrogance.
>

I guess whoever set up the Rob_Okorn.exe program failed to include
automatic recognition of keywords such as "magazine articles" -- or
perhaps was in diapers when the Joshua Tree was released, so that all
this seems like ancient history to him/her. Here, some examples of what
may be called "arrogance" -- or at least bone-headedness on the part of
Bono and Co., from the Joshua Tree tour:

Adding words to Bob Dylan songs, and lame ones at that: "all I've got is
a red guitar, and the truth!" Groan.

Having their tour made into a major motion picture. (Not that this was a
_bad_ thing -- but it was hardly an expression of seemly modesty and
spotlight-avoidance.)

Vandalizing public works of art without first clearing said
vandalization with the owners of said art. (Spray-painting the stone
sculpture during the "Save the Yuppies" street concert in San
Francisco.) It does not count that they had the blessing of the artist
of the piece -- the city of San Francisco had apparently paid said
artist real money for an undefaced sculpture, apparently _without_ the
proviso that from time to time rock stars be allowed to come add their
own "artistic expressions" to the piece.

Doing a video on top of a building in LA, causing a large crowd to form
after the shoot location was "leaked" (how shocking! who did that?) by a
radio station, and seriously pissing off the LAPD. One has to have a lot
of - well - cojones, shall we say, (hint: it is the opposite of being
"humble") to piss off the LAPD.

There are many more examples but these are just a few of the ones I
remembered off the top of my head.

And we can't forget what may have been the crowning arrogance:

Giving their support to an anti-Evan Meacham campaign (the then-governor
of Arizona who refused to acknowledge MLK Day as a government holiday in
his state), when they were, after all, not citizens of this country, but
of Ireland (still not part of the US no matter how many of its former
citizens have migrated to our shores). Even if you agreed with this
action of theirs, you still must admit it was fairly lacking in
humility, in fact, pretty darn arrogant.

> It's as simple as that, no need for the attitude and chip on your
> shoulder, simple facts would be fine, anything concrete. Let's see if
> you could tame your complex and come up with something tangible that's
> unequivically arrogant and not intentionally misconstrued.
>

Well, whaddaya think? Concrete enough? Unless whoever programmed the Rob
Okorn "bot" has "misconstrued" the meaning of the terms "arrogant" and
"humble."

Lilith

--
"Do you wanna make money? Sure, we all do!" -- Sally Struthers


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Aug 06 1998 - 00:34:49 PDT