Saturday, October 21, 2006

An Urban Myth Anecdote Nicked From The NYCWobs Discussion List

Bono is at a U2 concert in Glasgow when he asks the audience for some quiet. Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says softly and seriously into the microphone . . .

"Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies . . ."

A voice from near the front pierces the silence: "Well, fucken' stop doin' it then!"

6 comments:

Will said...

I read that somewhere else recently. Can't remember where. That is all. Glad to be of help.

One other thing. Why's that picture of the good lookin lass with the hairy monster up on your profile?

Imposs1904 said...

I've got a feeling the story may be an urban myth but, let's be honest, it's what everyone (and the Edge) has been wanting to say to Bono for years.

The picture? I couldn't find a decent pic of Charlie Nicholas in his Celtic prime to upload, so I put that pic of Kara and myself up instead.

hakmao said...

Charlie Nicholas had a prime? Back in my petit bourgeois autonomist highschool days when I followed a poncy sport and shandy drinking team from far, far away, I recall he was a severe disappointment.

Richard S. said...

I originally saw the Bono joke at CounterPunch; they said it was a bulletin from the CounterPunch News Service:

http://www.counterpunch.org/bono10192006.html

(I had the link saved because I was thinking of sending it to some people.)

Reidski said...

A Popbitch joke from a few weeks back, that one - but no less funny for seeing it again.

As for Bono jokes, I've just made one up:
Q: What would you do if you met Bono in the dark late at night?
A: The same as I would do in the middle of the day in a busy street - give him a good kicking!

Dontcha think it's brilliant?

figurepornography said...

Darren, M'Lad.

Saw the profile pic you've here, and, if anything, you strike me as bein' much younger and less hard-bitten than I thought you might be.

Oh, well. Just goes to show that imagination definitely takes a back-seat to reality at times.

As for the Bono joke, well, gave my response to that on MySpace, but, for those who didn't see that, the joke's basically a variant on the old vaudeville/music hall joke about the patient who comes into a doctor's surgery complaining about how it hurts whenever the former does some sort of outrageous gesture with his or her arms or legs, to which the doctor replies, "So, stop doin' it, then.".

Either that, or it's a mutant variant on Peter Pan's calling out to the audience to help revive Tinker-Bell and show that it believes in faeries by clappin' its hands.

Either way, it's quite a funny joke, although I admire Bono's intentions, if not his execution of those intentions, nor the way in which he sometimes takes himself far too seriously.

When one believes one's own publicity too much, that's the time when one can and will get seriously taken to the cleaners, and how.