I was at Farm Aid yesterday, standing in line at one point to use their disgusting shitters, when I saw a reporter and cameraman from local Faux News sticking their camera’s in people’s faces for "man on the street" shit for their despicable programming. There were about 35,000 people in the crowd, and one of them was a sort of tallish, straight man (I believe…at least he and I have never sucked one another’s cocks) who seemed to be being silly and enjoying it…so while this "reporter" (I have a hard time using that with respect to Faux News) was interviewing this other person, Mr. Silly was prancing along behind camera, pulling up his shirt to display his attractive torso for the camera (how they would have even got it in the shot is debatable…the camera was tight in on the interviewee, and there probably wasn’t a whole lot of background showing behind him.) Mr. Silly’s friends looked on, slightly embarrassed, it seemed, by their friend’s antics, but the interview proceeded unabated.
In any event…Mr. Silly did this a couple of times and all of a sudden, out of the crowd, came this uniformed cop, with a lot of brass on his starchy shirt. He commanded Mr. Silly, "Come over here!"…and Mr. Silly complied. And from my vantage point of about 20 yards away, you could see that Mr. Silly was getting quite the talking-to tongue-lashing, after which Brass Ass Starched Shirt marched away, and Mr. Silly’s friends had to sort of calm him down it seems, putting their arms around him and cooing calming things into his ear.
I couldn’t believe it! How DARE Mr. Silly interfere with Corporate Media’s shooting of the event!? And the amazing thing was the Faux News folks didn’t even need to ASK for this police escort, he jumped in unbidden to "preserve the peace" (yeah…right) like this silly prancer was creating some kind of threatening nuisance. Not even the Faux people seemed to think he was interfering with their interview, either. It was one of those small, little moments that makes my heart sink.
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The event was…an event. Seems it actually has to be "Earth Day" and a "Save the Earth" concert, and not just farmers, for some people to remember not to throw their trash on the ground when they’re done swilling their beer and chowing down on their organic corn dogs, as I saw repeatedly. Obviously it was a small percentage of the 35,000 or so people in attendance, but then that’s all it takes to sort of filthy things up, isn’t it?
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It was a nice day, not too hot, the music was good. Or at least it got better. Early sound left much to be desired. The sound guys just didn’t seem to get on the ball until later when the headliners showed up.
Counting Crows (who I wouldn’t know, other than by name, if they showed up at my front door); the ever cute Dave Matthews, singing and playing acoustic guitar fantasitcally with one accompanist. Ditto the Allman Brothers (electric), John Cougar Mellencamp (really great), adn Neil Young, who was magnificent, acoustic and quite mellow. At the end of the day, it was lovely to lay in the grass, swathed in the baby-blanket softness of the night air, and look up at the night sky and be serenaded by Neil Young singing:
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Workin’ hard every day
Never notice how
the time slips away
People come, seasons go,
We got something
that’ll never grow old.
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I don’t care
if the sun don’t shine
And rain keeps pouring
down on me and mine
‘Cause our kind of love
never seems to get old
It’s better than silver and gold.
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I used to have a treasure chest
Got so heavy I had to rest
I let it slip away from me
Didn’t need it anyway
So I let it slip away.
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I don’t care
if the sun don’t shine
and rain keeps pouring
down on me and mine
‘Cause our kind of love
never seems to get old
It’s better than silver and gold.