The football was more relaxing.
We turned off Bad Bunny about one minute into his Super Bowl halftime show Sunday. The indentured servants were among over one in five who did so, we read. Wasn’t the politics. We just didn’t need to see female fannies wagging in our faces, or so the Missus ruled. We didn’t mind the Spanish; Jose Feliciano was pretty big in his day.
Clicked over to Turning Point USA — the MAGA approved alternative — but the flashing lights and frantic calisthenics only worsened our cardiac arrhythmia, already redlining due to the football game itself — dud though this one turned out to be. (This time, Drake Maye looked like he was seeing ghosts.) Instead, we took a sanity break.
If Bad Bunny hates America, he expressed it only in a “passive aggressive” sense. That’s the best Fox News can do, catering to its audience. Mr. Bunny was more overt at the Grammy Awards, where he declared, “We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens.” Sorry, that wasn’t the rant, unless you’re riding vicarious shotgun with Greg Bovino. But Mr. Bunny did “go there” interjecting “I.C.E. out!” thereby violating the Ricky Gervais rule.
Americans do not like being preached to whether religion or politics unless the sermon emanates from a pulpit of their choosing. But when has our entertainment been this divided into political, echo-chamber silos? if you’re not boycotting the likes of Springsteen, DeNiro, Clooney, and Taylor Swift, your loyalty is suspect. Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood? Fascists!
Artists are a little whacky, anyway
Neil Young is part of the soundtrack of our youth. Asked the lovely lady who would become my wife to listen to our newly acquired album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, in the early 1970s.
Down by the river, I shot my baby
Down by the river
Dead, ooh
Shot her dead, ooh
The Lovely Lisa wanted to know why Neil Young killed his “baby.” The troublesome thought occurred that girlfriend was suspecting homicidal tendencies in the man spinning this vinyl. “Aren’t you digging this guy’s guitar?” we parried.
Lisa still doesn’t worship guitar solos, which speak a universal language whether Santana or Jimi.
Many years later checked off a bucket list item to see Neil Young in concert at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. The artist apparently thought his live show should have some sort of political theme so he took aim at agricultural chemicals, even name-checking Monsanto. Young women opened his set by waving empty watering cans over artificial flowers. As absurd as it sounds.
His audience had to endure a couple message songs before getting to the good stuff, when he absolutely shredded his guitar in furious soloes. We Are Not Worthy!
Sound checks
The Canadian-born Californian who summoned “bullwhips cracking” in Southern Man prompted Lynyrd Skynyrd to respond, in Sweet Home Alabama, that “In Birmingham they love the governor.” That governor being George Corley Wallace. Why, not even Watergate bothered them. Did Neil Young’s conscience bother him?
Both artists sold millions to draft dodgers and ‘Nam grunts, alike.
Frank Sinatra modified his song High Hopes for JFK’s campaign before palling around with the Reagans (especially Nancy!) and suffered no blowback. The Searchers remains well regarded despite John Wayne’s support for Joe McCarthy. Richard Wagner made Hitler’s hit parade. John Lennon Imagined there was no religion. We’re not giving up our Beatles catalog.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Maybe the culture wars started with the Dixie Chicks. The “Dizzy Chicks” hated on Dubya and the President’s supporters returned the disfavor. Today, even Big Bird is suspect. If the music is good or the story sings or the humor bites, we’ll pay the piper regardless of the politics. But would like to see an entertainment where, for once, the businessman is not the ogre polluting Opie’s fishing hole.
8 responses to “It’s half time at the culture wars”
TPUSA was exactly what I predicted. An hour of selling merch that was made in China and grifting for donations. Thank God that wasn’t the case with Bad Bunny. Lots of stats except how much cash Kirk racked in.
Go placidly among the noise…
Don’t engage the furies of fools who insist you invest your time and attention to the daily tempest in a teapot.
What do you want that you don’t have? Get what you want (peace and quiet perhaps?) but want what you have.
Super Bowl? Half time? Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
Cheers.
Last evening on the PBS News Hour, viewers were treated to an analysis of Mr. Bunny’s performance courtesy of a professor of culture and media (or some such bogus academic discipline) whose credentials include writing an entire book all about Mr. Bunny himself. If you’re looking for a microcosm of the bankruptcy of higher education, your search is over. Naturally she gushed over his every move, noting the many subtle digs at racism, authoritarianism, colonialism, blah, blah, blah. College students today can spend four (or more likely) five years earning a degree without reading a single word of the foundational texts of Western civilization, but they can earn credit for taking a course in Puerto Rican popular culture. For Plato substitute Bad Bunny; for Dante substitute Ricky Martin. And to make matters worse, this person was employed by Loyola Marymount, a Catholic university. If that’s not enough to make you barf up your half-time smorgasbord, your stomach is stronger than mine.
Yes, I happened upon that, too. (Honest, I don’t watch PBS that often! Seriously!) Buckley’s God & Man at Yale, 1951, as true today …
If you’re not into fannies and boobs then you better not read the Epstein files. Looks like a big bunch of very rich guys do like them very much.
You share an inconvenient but pertinent observation. Around here, even not-so-rich guys visit the Silk Exotic Gentlemen’s Club in Middleton to get some jollies. I understand that Stormy Daniels brought her act to that venue a few years ago. Was anyone we know in the audience?
I bet they would ask the dancers for their papers before they tipped and probably only a dollar.
oh lazy-ack – do tell – pervert!