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I watched a little bit of Live8. The spectacle was, well, spectacular: a testament to logistics and public relations. [It's hard not to be just a little cynical about the touring artists who's contribution garnered vast world-wide viewership . . .] I hope that it produces some progress toward its goals although I suspect that the issues being targeted are part of a complex web of high finance and international politics: not simple stuff. The television commercial is powerful. All good.
What I think was an "embarrassment" was, as a Canadian, having Tom Green represent Canada as one of the co-hosts of the Canadian show from that world-known metropolis of Barrie. Green did his very best to prove that he is a bumbling, poorly-spoken, intellectually retrograde, obnoxious buffoon with almost no awareness of what might pass as good taste for what could have been a global audience. [Well, who's kidding whom? The Canadian show may have got worldwide audience when Celine did her bit. Which brings me to my second point of embarrassment.]
Celine Dion is easy to make fun of because she's kind of corny and cheesy. The music she makes doesn't really run to my taste. In short, I can live without her. But, I would never -- for a global audience, again -- outright boo and jeer the woman's performance during a show like Saturday's. That's what the 40,000 in Barrie did though. Rather than have an internal conversation and say, "I don't care for her much, but she IS a Canadian doing the Canadian show when the Americans from Philly would gladly have promoted her as one of their own from LAS VEGAS, and she is arguably one of the top three female artists in the world, and she's brought an audience from Las Vegas into the programme, and she's doing the Live8 performance as a matinee on the same day she does her regular show, and did I mention she's Canadian . . . Suck it up and cheer for her.
"It's about 'inter-dependence' said the hosts of the program. Not in Canada.
Posted by Grayson at July 3, 2005 03:23 PM