[[name removed]]

I have to say i think Cleveland is a dump too and as
i fly over next i will endeavor to dump my frozen
poopies out of the plane... look out Virgil incoming..


>From: "Virgil Thomas Alexander Morant" <vmorant@wcoil.com>
>To: "Powderworks" <Powderworks@cs.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Powderworks] Willie's Bar & Grill
>Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:14:12 -0400
>
>The following remark stuck out the most to me in the Willie's thread.
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Mark
>   To: powderworks@cs.colorado.edu
>   Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 7:54 AM
>   Subject: Re: [Powderworks] Willie's Bar & Grill
>
>
>   I dunno if I'd call it dirt that were after, but I sure felt that the 
>book lacked a bit of depth in terms of Rob's emotional attachment. Rob 
>seemed quite emotionally blazay about it all. Sure he gives Jim and Martin 
>a bit of praise but I thought he could have expressed his emotional 
>appreciation and feelings more. He could have said what it felt like to be 
>a member of such a seamless and united band that rose to the pinnacle of 
>rock'n roll success, achieving so much and being (were) admired by so many 
>from diverse parts of the globe. There was never any acknowledgement as to 
>how lucky he felt to have such a great career spanning 25 odd years with 
>such a great bunch of guys who had not only the power, but the passion as 
>well.
>
>In response to a couple of other remarks, it's not that Hirst should have 
>written for an American audience; the problem is how little he wrote about 
>the American audience and the band's connection with it.  This is, after 
>all, a book about an American tour.  Yet he spent so much time with vague 
>criticisms of G.W. Bush and overbroad generalizations about American 
>society and culture, that the book was less about Midnight Oil or its tour 
>and much more about Hirst's meandering (albeit sometimes amusing) thoughts.
>
>The book ends with Peter Garrett's departure from the band.  What indeed 
>did all of those years mean, and how does the last tour of North America 
>fit into those years?  What Midnight Oil accomplished at its best was 
>something often seen by fans during its tours and enjoyed over the course 
>of many records whose songs are played on tour, and yet Hirst was more 
>interested in making fun of his bus driver and making sweeping conclusions 
>about American life.
>
>Again, my own favorite remark about my own hometown: "This [Cleveland] is a 
>town only a mother could love, what coastal Americans dismiss as 'fly-over 
>country'" (122).  That's just a blanket statement about Cleveland, the 
>subject of his statement.  It's not a subjective observation from an 
>admittedly brief observer of the town who only saw a small fraction of it 
>for a couple of days.  He just says it flatly.  It was, as was a lot of the 
>rest of the book, a great, big, bad conclusion, stated objectively, about 
>something he knows very little about.
>
>And I didn't want dirt.  But, when he slams a city he knows almost nothing 
>about, the statement is dirt.  Not about his bandmates.  Just about a town 
>has only spent scant few days in in his entire life, and those days during 
>the rigors of a rock and roll tour.  Thus it was a disappointing book for 
>one interested in Midnight Oil or its touring life, and clearly a source of 
>great enjoyment for fans of meandering travelogues.
>
>--Virgil.

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