Word: bonos
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...buzz of impossible moments is what rock stars live for, but it's impractical for a political advocate. Two weeks after the Super Bowl performance, Bono is in Los Angeles to accept a $100,000 donation from the Entertainment Industry Foundation for DATA. He calls a meeting on the porch of his suite at the Chateau Marmont with Michael Stipe, Quincy Jones, Bobby Shriver (the record-producing and fund-raising son of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver) and Jamie Drummond, DATA's director. It's a new-ideas meeting, and Bono hopes to tap some of the music industry...
While Stipe scribbles away, Jones wonders aloud which part of the DATA Agenda--dropping the debt, making trade rules more advantageous for poor countries or getting more funding for AIDS drugs and health care--Bono wants the world to focus on. "I think you've got too many issues. That's how we blew it before," says Jones, who raised money for famine relief in 1985 as part of USA for Africa. "Americans don't know about f___ing Philadelphia, let alone Africa. Trade is some very sophisticated politics. You have to particularize the drama for them...
...Bono's not so sure...
...meeting breaks up when Bono leaves for a photo shoot. Driving across Los Angeles, he discusses Jones' notion of a melody line. "What we're all on about is: Africa. Seventy percent of the problem of HIV/AIDS is in Africa. We're talking about the continent bursting into flames while we stand around with watering cans. That's our one idea. But the closer you get to the policymakers, you need specificity, and you need to know what you're talking about. I'd go in and talk about debt relief, debt relief, debt relief, and people would...
...Bono says, he has given up on music as a political force. He believes his work negotiating in political back rooms is more vital and effective than singing in sold-out stadiums. "Poetry makes nothing happen," the poet W.H. Auden once wrote, and Bono wistfully agrees. "I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's, like, let's only have goals that we can go after. U2 is about the impossible. Politics is the art of the possible. They're very different, and I'm resigned to that now. Music's the thing that stopped...