I Have Forgiven Bono
(Editor’s Note: Let it be known that the majority of the editors with BWC are big U2 fans. Donald Miller likes their later stuff. Jordan Green likes their Zooropa phase. Still, this is a hilarious piece, and there are some good points.)
If you are fortunate enough to find yourself part of the elite group of Irish abroad, you will quickly become aware of the holy trinity of observations landed upon you by anyone savvy enough to recognize the accent. It begins with a high-pitched exclamation of glee, complimented with the infuriating statement, “Your accent is so cute, I could listen to it all day, just say something…” You then stand there like a mindless tube in line for coffee or groceries or just about anything—and believe me, this embarrassment can be visited upon you pretty much anywhere these days, even public bathrooms are no longer sacrosanct. Your mind blanks and you honestly cannot think of one word to say in your oh-so-cute Irish accent. Everyone in line glares, and desperation makes a fool of you as you find your tongue tripping awkwardly over “top of the morning to ye,” or some other colloquialism favored only by tour guides and leprechauns. You feel like a failure as a modern European. James Joyce is turning in his eloquent grave. Moving on you will be shamelessly informed that your interrogator is in fact Irish, that they have a granny, father, cousin or great uncle from the homeland, that they once visited Tipperary, have a backyard teeming with four leaf clover, taps that run with Guinness and most likely still bear the scars of the potato famine. At this point I find it best to smile, nod and hope against hope that the next question isn’t coming. But once you arrive here, what happens next is as inevitable as a wet weekend in Belfast.
The questioner will look at you with childish expectancy, beaming from ear to irritating ear like the two of you are lifelong buddies, members of some exclusive club. Then he or she will say, “So you must love U2, then!” Maybe you nod with Bono-loving delight and wax lyrical about that time you queued four days for a ticket to Popmart; I personally die a little inside. I will feel my palms clench and my mouth set like a trout and I will do my best to resist retaliation (blessed are the peacemakers I think, and meditate on Mother Theresa’s knotty face), but eventually the dark side will exert too great a pull and the poor guy will be imprisoned for the better part of an hour, listening to my furious rant on the shortcomings of the world’s biggest band. I apologize to anyone who has stood there brow-beaten under the weight of my Bono-bashing, simply be assured that this particular sermon pains me more than you. It rises in me like a nervous tic, every time I hear the man’s name. It has been learnt by heart and can be recited with great aplomb at the drop of a hat. Yet, lately I have grown tired of disliking Bono.
My friends are fed up with watching me rage with righteous indignation every time someone brings up the subject. My co-workers are tired of having their dearly beloved U2 records wrenched from their hands and replaced with supposedly superior music. Mostly I am terrified that one day mega-stardom might come a-knocking and I will find myself sharing Letterman’s sofa with Bono and the gang, mortified by the possibility that omniscient as he appears to be, he’s heard everything I’ve ever said about him. I figure that if Morrissey has worked through his issues and finally forgiven Jesus, the least I can do is have a go at forgiving his right hand man. What follows is a brief, mean-spirited jaunt into the seeds of my discontent, some delusional confessions of a recovering Bono-hater and an account of the uneasy truce the pair of us have lately arrived at.
To fully understand my deep-seated dislike of Bono, one must go back to my first awareness of his existence. Somewhere around the hazy age of twelve, back in the days when I thought INXS was pronounced inx (like the deodorant) and unconsciously humiliated myself in front of my NME-reading pals, I also became aware of the word Bono. Rolling it round on the corner of my tongue, it repeatedly emerged from my mouth pronounced as Bonio (which the casual European will instantly recognize not as the name of an internationally renowned rock star, but actually as a brand of dog biscuits). Some older teenager alighted upon my provincial misunderstanding, mocked me and sealed forever a blushing association between Bono and ritual humiliation. Further on the subject of names, as the bearer of a name given to me by my peers and the sister of a young man christened Alan by his well-meaning parents, but who twenty years later still goes by the name of Magic, I am unconvinced by the whole Bono Vox thing. Belfast boys (and I’m assuming here the two hour jaunt to Dublin doesn’t affect attitude that much) are anointed with names like Sheepy, Dinger and Spud and one unfortunate boy we grew up with who asked for a nickname and has answered to the name of Nob ever since. No one I know is called after the Latin name for anything. In Belfast no one knows the Latin name for anything, except maybe the odd Roman numeral and if you’re a tad intellectual perhaps that thing Robin Williams keeps saying in Dead Poet’s Society. I have to say I have always been slightly suspicious of Bono’s pretentious stage name. (Don’t even get me started on The Edge, perhaps he wrestled an American Gladiator for possession of his hard-as-nails title.) Our relationship was off to a shaky start.
Posted on September 1, 2006 12:00 AM
