BEYONCE PROTEST? REVOLUTION 3

Ho ho.

HA HA.

HEE HEE.

Those were the names of the 3 stooges who protested BEYONCE at NFL headquarters. And the whole world LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED.

Actually, here's one of the forlorn guys who showed up:

Did you notice...THE UMBRELLAS?

One BIG reason for the low turnout, which nobody in the MEDIA bothered to mention, is that NYC suffered bizarre, bone-chilling BELOW ZERO weather just before the event.

The weekend before the protest, the thermometer dipped to arctic levels. There was record cold. It wasn't that cold in four or five years. Go outside and with the wind chill it was 10 degrees below zero. FAHRENHEIT. That's COLD.

This was followed by "rain, heavy at times," and temperatures still raw and unpleasant.

Who the fuck wants to carry a protest sign that will get smeared with rain? Who can carry a protest sign AND an umbrella? And who is gonna risk a counter-protest with a bunch of violent niggas showing up just as an excuse to shout and be violent?

Ny the time of the protest, the rain was not very strong, but it was overcast and dreary, and there were already lunatic niggas running around with stupid signs, trying to hog any attention.

Another reason for the low turn-out? White people have jobs!

It's one thing to Tweet about a boorish and stupid incident that happened a WEEK AGO, it's another to physically go down and bitch about it. And why? It's OVER. Beyonce isn't going to do it again, any more than Janet Jackson has exposed her nipple at another Super Bowl.

Another thing: almost nobody knew there was going to be a protest. How does anyone know about such things? Through the media? What if the media doesn't bother to mention it, or the time and place? Word gets out on Twitter? Why would some slug who took the time to Tweet, take MORE time to spend money in transit and risk being beaten by niggas or being identified in the media as some kind of conservative racist loony?

Most people in America are under 40 and have no idea who the Black Panthers were or why what Beyonce did was ignorant and offensive AND racist. In a world where anything BLACK is vitally important, and if there aren't enough BLACKS winning Oscars the world stops, who expects anyone to care that much about the Black Panthers? Revisionist history says Malcolm X was a sweetie, blacks single-handedly won their battle against segregation with NO help from whites (especially Jews) and the Black Panthers were just a bunch of chocolate-covered Ken dolls in military uniforms who just happened to be threatening to kill people.

So? So white people didn't show up for a meaningless protest of a super bowl entertainment show that's ancient history now. What's the incentive? NFL headquarters is not near an electronics store where you can break the window and steal a TV set.

So the REVOLUTION numbered 3.

Not even NINE.

Revolution #9. Yes, as my blogger friend mentioned the other day, NME-beloved (all of a sudden) Yoko was given an award for being an inspiration. MAYBE part of it concerned her unusual audio catalog. And yes, aside from screaming "Why Why Why," and the protest songs on "Approximately Infinite Universe," and odd things like the little girl "Who Has Seen the Wind" and the eerie mature woman "Mrs. Lennon" there was her earliest bit. It was helping, to some degree, John Lennon with the "Revolution #9" collage.

I sure remember it. I bought the album when it came out. It was full of challenging and unusual material, but the strangest thing was that long track. This was pre-headphones, by the way. Most of us had goofy stereos (if we had stereos at all) that had NO headphone jack and had speakers that were part of the furniture and couldn't be moved from either side of the turntable!

You got your "stereo effect" by sitting right in front of the fucking turntable. Anyway, I liked "Revolution #9" even if I didn't play it as often as the rest of the record. Whenever I let the needle go, it held together as a fascinating work of audio art. It was very much like a classical music piece, that had flurries of sound, slow passages, solo passages, and created a variety of moods. It wasn't monotonous. (Compare it to John and Yoko's "Two Virgins" album and other failures). With George Martin also helping out, the collage worked.

If NME was actually being serious, "inspiration" could've applied to "Revolution #9" and Yoko's solo audio work as well as the early staged works like "Cut Piece" and her odd art shows, and then "Grapefruit," which I mentioned to Yoko as, yes, inspiring.

While NME and its readers hated almost everything she did, probably even "Walking on Thin Ice," and even the disco-tech'd remixes that went to #1 when she was 70 or 80, it's nice that NOW they give her some credit. This very bright and artistic woman came from another culture, almost another planet, and had the nerve and the talent to forge an identity. Yes, she became worldwide-famous because of John, but on her terms. She didn't just sing along with Paulie on "Ram," and take some snapshots, after all. She deserves to be called "artist."

One could probably write quite a monograph on the history of the audio collage. No question, though, that "Revolution #9" was the bold statement that most people remember as the first time they heard, and enjoyed to any degree, a work of pure sound.

"Revolution #9" is much more memorable than any shit from Beyonce or Coldplay, to name two absolutely useless pop acts who are treated with such UNDUE respect.