Who Does Anybody Think They Are?
October 19, 2005
Who does anybody think they are? This is more of a diary entry than anything else. The “first person” is not my thing. Three weeks ago I was in Toronto to shoot a TV show with Colin James. I flew in late and was starving so Colin and I met up and walked across King Street to the Kit Kat for a bite. Great food. Jason McCoy (Canadian country music guitar slinger) and his fiddle player Shane joined us and we set up on the rainy patio. The place was packed and that was our only option. Something happened that would be the one thing you might remember in a situation like that. At one point in our meal a “rock posse” showed up and tried to get a table in the back. They were wearing their tour laminates which, in our little world, is the tackiest of rock crimes.
Sidebar: The ultimate rock crime, punishable by a round of drinks, is to be caught in a hotel lobby wearing sunglasses and sporting your laminate. It is called “Halening” (a verb). It is dubbed “Halening” because it is the practice of imitating a classic Van Halen photo shoot. All VH photo shoots involve sunglasses. The best ones include sunglasses and tour laminates. Indoor sunglass use crimes are doubled if it is dark out. You have then been caught “Halening” with an additional “Corey Hart” penalty. Indoor sunglass use is allowed if you are sleeping off a hangover while on a plane. That is a mulligan. Nobody needs to see your pathetic old eyes at that point.
On closer inspection this rock posse was a children’s TV show of rock clichés. One man carried a DV camera. None of their laminates matched. Some said, “press”. Some said “VIP”. Some were from last year. They all had one thing in common – they were all associated with U2. Each person looked like, “made for cable TV” actors in a dramatic reenactment of a U2 restaurant visit. It was then I spotted the longshoreman’s Bono. Not quite Bono but a weird stocky facsimile. The similarity peaked at his use of a crushed brim cowboy hat and wraparound shades. The rest of him looked like a Bono who pumped a few weights, when he wasn’t guzzling Labatt 50, and perhaps performed in some Internet porn passion plays on the side. I think Bono dumped the hat and glasses thing about 5 years ago. This hat was a $10 straw job and the glasses were basic airport issue. I can guarantee you that despite Bono’s Herculean humanitarian efforts on behalf of the impoverished his personal economy allows for only VERY expensive clothing and accessories. Was this a science experiment? Was this an exposé bringing to light how the rich and famous were able to get tables at restaurants that were full? Was it an exercise in being conspicuous? Bono would not have been safe sharing the patio overflow with us. He would be mobbed. He must have the back room. The posse was escorted to the back by the one posing as the burly road manager only to return to the street within a minute or two. No go. Bono did his best “looking around without making eye contact” version of rock star kinesiology. The four of us did our best analysis of what was going on and came up with no definitive conclusions. None of us had the energy to go ask any of the rock posse what was going down.
Over the last few weeks I have been experimenting with this myspace site. There are plenty of people on there snooping around, sampling music and imaging themselves to the world. It’s really interesting. I often scan around for people and just click on them to see what they’re about. On one friend’s “friend’s list” something caught my eye. The lighting was familiar. The tiny shapes played with a familiar gestalt. I clicked and zoomed. It was the woman hosting the site on a nighttime Toronto street with the longshoreman’s Bono. On closer inspection I believe this pure and genuine person was hoodwinked by the bogus Bono. I thought it best not to bust in and tell her that this was not the real deal. If she got something positive out of it then why subtract the good that was done. Hopefully this guy said the right things. Hopefully I won’t blow it with this missive but I couldn’t resist shedding light on such a spectacularly unlikely “small world” experience.
I liken it to the department store Santa. They can do a lot of good but they’re not the real Santa. Maybe we need more positive imposters. Identity theft is going to be stopped about as easily as the proliferation of “illegal” mp3s. Shall we embrace it too? It may break down the star system as hundreds of Paris Hiltons walk the streets and people just start to ignore the real Paris Hilton when she whines about room service. Wait ‘til the bellman tells her to respectfully shut the hell up. Does she think he is actually Paris Hilton? Who does anybody think they are?