High life
Getting down to business
Taki
imagine that there must. have been some Spectator readers among the contri- butors to Live Aid, although not among the 1..9 billion that purportedly watched the rock excess of last weekend. Just think of it, 1.9 billion people glued to their sets listening to sounds that in a more civi- lised world would have the perpetrators in jail in no time for disturbing the peace.
The promoters of the (I hate to use the word) concert have come up with the 1.9 billion figure, and for once I believe them in view of the fact that I also believe H. L. Mencken's axiom that no one ever went broke underestimating the public's taste. In fact I have contributed to the futile project, I am simply against the commer- cialisation of human suffering. P. T. Bauer has said it much more clearly than ever I can: You can't eat money. The food that will be purchased is inevitably going to rot at its point of debarkation owing to the ancient infrastructure of Third World countries and, most important of all, the food that will reach them will not teach the hungry to farm, which is what our aid should be trying to do, to turn them into self-sufficient people.
That, of course, would be a long-term project, and in these days of instant grati- fication, I don't see any rock star perform- ing in order to raise money to send over experts to teach how to farm the desert. When I tried this line of thought on some young American friends they were appal- led at my insensitivity. Like Mr Bob Geldof — who may or may not win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts — they want instant results, and they refuse to understand that food to the starving at times does more harm than good. But there is nothing like buying a good clear conscience, especially when there are 17 hours of dehumanising music to help one forget the hypocrisy involved.
What I found most distasteful was seeing the grim-faced boyfriend of the egregious Madonna pushing people around because they dared ask for an autograph, a direct contradiction to the spirit of the concert (not that there are many rock stars around who treat their fellow men the way the Bible tells us we ought to treat them). Worse was the leering, bloated face of Jack Nicholson trying to score a few political points and managing only an inside joke about drugs. He gave a sly wink and warning to the audience that the fire trucks were coming, in order to hose the sweaty mob which was about to overdose on heat and body odour. 'Put away anything that might dissolve in water,' yelled Nicholson, wink, wink, and the crowd loved it.
Although some might think I'm letting my prejudices against actors and trained seals run away with me, I do believe that one way of stopping the young from finding drugs attractive is by getting trained seals like Nicholson to stop glamor- ising them. Trained seals and rock stars have a disproportionate amount of influ- ence on the young, and both the seals and the stars have made too many jokes about drugs (in the past have even bragged about how much they've been able to consume) ever to go blameless for the drug epidemic that has swept America these past 20 years.
But I digress. I am not a rock music fan. To me each song sounds like the last, and only the decibel noise makes an occasional difference. And speaking of noise, why weren't the Business invited to play? You know about the Business, they are the only rock band that makes more noise than the Dead Kennedys and the Rolling Stones combined, but whose members are neither drug addicts nor one tenth as ugly as Messrs Wood or Richards. And their lead singer, Teresa Manners, is far, far prettier than Mick Jagger, and manages to undress almost as much as he does on stage. The only thing wrong with the Business is their name. Vile Bodies would have been much more appropriate, as Michael Cecil, Harry Worcester and John Somerset have more in common with Waugh's heroes than the drug crazies that will save the world from hunger in the future.
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