Dear Sir... Readers' Views (10/06/16)

Your letters, your view

Celebrating our rock ’n’ roll heroes

I was left slightly bemused — and a little angry if I am to be honest with you — after reading Saturday’s article by Michael Clifford titled ‘More strolling bones than Rolling Stones’ (Irish Examiner, June 4).

I am a 40-year-old man, which leaves me in that grey area of the rock ’n’ roll arena — too young to be seated and not young enough to be up the front with the rest of the beautiful young people and their witty banners. However, whatever age one finds themselves at a Bruce [Springsteen] concert, the over riding fact remains the guy puts on a great show for all ages.

I felt my heart soar when Bruce pulled a child up on stage, who couldn’t have been more than 12 years old. Everyone cheered in the complicity of the beauty of it all as the kid sang ‘waiting on a sunny day’ word for word with the Boss. Surely this is the promise of rock ’n’ roll — to reach all ages at any time and to lift the human spirit with rebellion or joy or peace or whatever the emotion is at that time. I don’t think it’s just for Mr Clifford, and his feelings of solipsism.

In his article Mr Clifford expounded that rock and roll’s ‘promise of immortality has been exposed as a lie’. I feel what was exposed was Mr Clifford’s inability to express just what it is he is feeling at any given time. He says that ‘all around us people were chatting’; but when his friend texts ‘what a show’ he ‘pinged back’ ‘unbelievable.’ This gives us a great insight in Mr Cliffords psyche. Rock ’n’ roll has not failed us with its promise — Mr Clifford has failed himself in some sort of Prufrockian inability to say ‘just what it is he means’.

He also delineates how the ‘selfie’ is the anthesis of rock ’n’ roll and that its only function is to ‘show how [people] are busy being fun people’ the presupposition here is glaring. People only take photos so that they can pretend to be out enjoying themselves. I was at that concert, I took photographs with my wife and friends and I was enjoying myself. I was really enjoying myself in fact. Well, minus the insane rules that security had In place. But that’s for another time. I didn’t post them pathologically checking to see how many people liked them. Which I’m sure Mr Clifford did. Seeing as he was the one checking Twitter during the concert. Which, to me, speaks volumes about the experience he had at the gig. I don’t have a Twitter account and I certainly wouldn’t be checking it while Bruce Springsteen is paying a set in front of me.

I took my pictures because a photograph can capture a moment that might become precious some where ‘ages and ages hence’. That’s if I live long enough and don’t die early in my life. Which seems to be what Mr Clifford is really angry about with his heroes. They had longevity. Shame on them for living their life to the full and not becoming some sort of rock ’n’ roll cliché and dying young. What a positive message Bruce gives to all aspiring young rock stars — you don’t have to self destruct to be remembered.

When I was a teenager I loved The Doors and Jimi; Janis and Arthur Rambaud; John Keats and John Lennon (I’m his age now when he died). I used to think when I was a teenager how old Lennon was, I used to think at least he lived a long life — I’m only a kid now getting started in my life. I hope I have so much more to live and to experience and that rock ’n’ roll music will always be with me. And that Bruce will always be playing concerts. In the words of our great poet — ‘grant me an old man’s frenzy’ and let me not quietly fade away but always be rocking out like Bruce; Berry; Jagger and Richards; Clapton; McCartney; Young, and all the other heroes who made it to old age. Because that is the real challenge for all of us as humans.

When I was a teenager I used to think people like Morrison, Jimi and Cobain were the heroes for dying young but that was because I was viewing life through the myopic lens of a romantic child who didn’t really understand the world. Not that I do now — but I have a broader lens and I see more. The fact that Mr Clifford still views music/life through this scope is worrying for himself — midlife crisis seems to be coming down the mountain top like a pyroclastic surge.

We should celebrate our older heroes not castigate them for getting old. We should view them as inspirations. Bruce is still tearing down barriers and ripping up the evening. He has the sound and the fury like Timon and Blake and Lear. Old age is ahead for all of us, I hope. Let’s stop making people feel that they shouldn’t age and say instead, we should and let’s embrace it with all the spirit we embraced those romantic ideals of our teenage years.

And Mr Clifford, if you don’t want to take a selfie, don’t take it. And if you find social networking an evil, don’t use it. And if someone tells you they are having a great time and you are not, don’t say you are. To thine own self be true. This is no great matter and I am no prophet.

Richard Hogan

12 Stralem Crescent

Ongar Woods

Dublin 15

Education should teach children, not brainwash them

I keep hearing recently that people, mostly late teens or early twenties, should be taught about the dangers of taking synthetic drugs.

Perhaps if our education system ever thought about anything except trying to brainwash young people into complying with ‘The System’, they could consider educating young people on the subject of drugs (including alcohol and pharmaceuticals).

Some real lessons – i.e. not just a few passing remarks - on finance, the environment, justice and mens sana in corpore sano would also help the future of those young people and the country they live in.

Richard Barton

Tinahely

Co Wicklow

Presidential pair are embarrassing

Trump’s railing against Hillary over Benghazi and her misuse of her server that contained classified information are indeed grounds for jailing her.

On the other hand, the Trump University scandal that has his ex-employees saying the whole thing was a rip-off along with his rabble-rousing rhetoric should be grounds for his becoming Hillary’s cellmate. They’re both an embarrassment to this nation.

Herb Stark

175 Carriage Club Dr

Apt 11-108

Mooresville

NC 28117

Migrants bring benefits to EU/UK

Britain is about to hold a referendum on their membership of the European Union. Whatever the outcome, their relationship with the EU will change.

There is a malaise in Europe at present, mostly emanating from poor economic growth. Any measures to try to jump-start an economic upturn have had no measurable effect.

Paradoxically, the influx of migrants, if handled positively could be beneficial towards a growth paradigm. A large portion of the UK population view the migrant phenomena as a threat and use it as an argument against remaining in the EU, overlooking the fact that immigrants are doing jobs that ordinary Britons will not do.

Critical engagement is seen as an option that won’t deliver results. The very lack of critical engagement over decades has created a mass of people who are disenchanted and extremely susceptible to emotive rhetoric.

It is no surprise to find the radical right are finding fertile ground here for their anti-democratic agenda.

We in this country must come to see that critical engagement as a norm is a positive thing and it is not down to a few politicians shuttling on a weekly basis from one EU forum to another.

The people must see the EU as a continual live issue and that engagement however critical can expand the democratic content and form of all the institutions.

If this is seen as an unwelcome interference by the many bureaucrats and careerists who populate the temples of power, so much the better.

The message is clear, whichever way the British people decide to vote in their referendum.

David Lyons

54 Pier19

Bridgefoot Street

Dublin

We should be more fish friendly

Every year, countless “non-target” animals — including dolphins, birds, turtles, and sharks — are hauled up in commercial fishing nets. They are crushed to death, suffocated or thrown overboard to succumb to their injuries in the water. Altogether, more than one trillion fish and other sea animals die at the hands of humans each year. That’s about 143 sea animals for every human on earth.

And the ecological impact goes well beyond this so-called “by-catch”. As giant fishing nets are dragged along the ocean floor, they tear up whatever stands in their way. Deep-sea trawling is responsible for widespread damage to coral reefs and underwater mountains, and as a result, the ecosystems that depend on these habitats are crumbling.

This reckless destruction of the ocean is both cruel and unsustainable. The good news is that delicious cruelty-free options — including vegan fish fingers, faux-fish cakes and mock prawns — are affordable and easy to find. World Oceans Day was held this week so we should behave in a way that helps our oceans and shows respect for its inhabitants — by leaving fish and other animals off our plates.

Jennifer White

Society Building 8

All Saints Street

London N1 9RL