Posted on 09/07/2006 5:58:57 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
No one can accuse Michael Franti of armchair activism.
When U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq three years ago, lots of musicians spoke out with songs, letters and freshly peeled bumper stickers. But the lead singer of the Bay Area soul-funk group Spearhead handled the situation in his own typical way. He turned off CNN, grabbed a guitar and started pricing tickets to Baghdad.
"I knew I wasn't getting the whole truth on TV," he says. "I wanted to see with my own eyes what was going on there."
Although the members of his own band didn't expect anything less, they were too afraid to join him on the trip. Other musicians he called not only turned him down but tried to talk him out of going as well.
It didn't work. In May 2004, Franti rounded up three video cameras and a ragtag eight-person crew, and made the journey to Iraq via Jordan. After some mild confusion at the customs desk, he was welcomed into the country as a tourist.
"I didn't feel like a tourist at all," laughs Franti, 39, who spent most of his time in Baghdad busking in the streets and chatting with locals. But that didn't mean he wasn't curious. His main mission was to see how people made it through their daily lives -- without electricity or drinking water, and car bombs constantly going off around the corner. "It's so incredibly dangerous, I was interested in seeing how kids get to school, how adults get to their jobs," he says.
Since he was in the neighborhood anyway, the songwriter also decided to stop by other Middle East hotspots in Israel and the Palestinian territories to see what was going on there....
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Let me guess--he somehow "became" a supporter of the Palestinians, though he "had no position" before he went over there?
I won't give them the hit to find out.
For anyone else who didn't know this word:
busk [busk] verb [ intrans. ] play music or otherwise perform for voluntary donations in the street or in subways .
For his sake, I hope he never comes face to face with the Nuge while he's over there.
If this guy has a pony tail I'm going to lash out in anger.
Actually, the article is pretty vague on specifics, not really worth a read since it doesn't expand on it's only real premise, that the guy has something important to say about his trip to Iraq.
It sounds like this guy's lucky his head didn't end up rolling on the floor while his body was sitting upright. What a dumbass.
Nuge would deal with him. This guy is wasting oxygen and needs to take a dirt bath!
LLS
[..."We can bomb the world to pieces,
but we can't bomb it into peace."...]
Vapid sycophantic child!
My take was, that he was a typical Berkeley liberal, naive to the point of dangerous, and somehow ignorant enough to think that he could make the world peaceful by playing his sophomoric songs.
Any musician worth his salt would pull a stunt like this for publicity; publicity intended to impress hot young chicks and getting them in the sack.
Pop music has and will always be a means of getting a BJ.
Make that "dirt nap!"
He looks like he already took a dirt bath . . .
HOw about Killa Kommie for Mommie!!
Hey! One of my favorite songs "way back when" was the FISH YELL! while I was in the USMC.
Haven't heard of it? Well it began ....
Gimme an F .....
Gimme a U ......
Gimme a C .....
.....
you get the idea - it came out after Alice's Restaurant (a lot better quality) Did it debut in Woodstock?
Well, we had a great one in SF School, "Napalm Sticks to Kids." Somehow I don't think that's in his repertoire.
Still, props to him for having the nads (or lack of judgment, sometimes that's the same thing) to go there. And I hope it brings him the publicity -- and the Clintonian favors mentioned by other posters -- that he was gunning for (with an eight-man film crew, this wasn't exactly the spontaneous impulse that the damn-fool writer makes it seem).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I've seen a short indy film highlighting this guy. Believe me, he is definitely a lesser talent but very impressed with himself and apparently charismatic enough to influence immature minds.
Nobody - and I mean nobody - has ever heard of the Beatnigs or the Disposable Heroes of Hipopricy or Gil Scott-Heron outside of a few cellar dwellers and lefty moochers.
I think this is the Chronic's way of publicizing his "annual Peace-in" or whatever he calls it. It's being held this weekend.
"Those who start wars never fight them/
And those who fight wars never like them."
Wow, look out Shakespeare and all the great songwriters of the world.
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