There’s a very good article on the London Times web site about Barack Obama and his recent ascension to the throne as President of the United States and King of the World. This article is by a fellow named Matthew Parris, who makes the point that Obama actually did NOT become King of the World on Nov. 4; even though many people throughout the world seem to believe this. Obama is a man that the world loves, and Parris has some ideas on why this is. Here are some of his thoughts:
Each of us in our private chapel half believes that Barack Obama knows our hopes and has heard our prayers.
He, we sense, understands. He cares. He is like us, understands us, surely agrees with us, even though he has not yet said so. He would be our friend if ever we were to meet him. In some strange way he knows us already, though we have never been introduced.
He is the pop star whose poster adorns the adolescent’s bedroom wall; the Blessed Mary who understands her supplicant’s every woe; the gentle Jesus, a personal friend who will not forget us; the Queen Mother who, if she ever had come to tea, would have got on with us like a house on fire.
Ah, so Obama gives many people the impression that he is their secret friend. Why? Because Obama and his message seem so understanding and so “in synch” with their lives. But Parris then goes on to explain that we commoners who labor under such delusions, be they about Obama or any other celebrity, are best shielded from reality.
It is desperately important that we never meet these people, for reality would be cruel. We thought they knew our joys and woes, heard our prayers, and when it dawns on us that the demigod at whose feet we laid them hasn’t listened, can’t help, or doesn’t care, our sense of rebuff will be personal. In our minds we were friends. Believe me, the disillusion when Elton John looks bored to meet you and turns away can be bitter.
Actually, I once experienced something like the “Elton John send-off” that Parris describes. Back in the early 1980s, there was a DJ on WNEW-FM named Dan Neer.
Back then, 102.7 WNEW-FM was THE rock station of the New York area; my brother and I were devoted listeners. And Dan Neer, or “Dan-O on the Radio” as he called himself, was the funniest, wittiest, and coolest DJ on the top radio station in New York. He joked around just like we did when our group was out bar-hopping on a Friday night (ah, sweet days of youth). He played the music we’d be listening to in those bars. He seemed to be one of us, part of our gang; someone we could hook-up with at the next place we’d be stopping at.
Then we actually got to meet Dan Neer. WNEW sponsored occasional early-morning live broadcasts from a rock club somewhere in downtown Manhattan, and they would invite listeners to line up early for admission. They called these events “Finally Friday”. If you got in, you’d get some complementary goodies (I still have my yellow “Finally Friday” coffee mug somewhere), free coffee and danish, and you would get to watch a WNEW DJ doing a live show. Well, on the day we attended, Dan Neer was the featured DJ. Great! We would get to see our hero, live in person!
After an hour or so, Dan-O was mingling with the crowd between songs; mostly favoring the young, pretty women. My brother eventually went up to him and gave him a friendly greeting, like he was one of the boys. Dan-O wasn’t all that impressed; he responded to my brother like a stranger being asked for directions, not sure he could help. My brother finally requested that he play a favorite song; and Dan-O blurted out an uninterested “don’t know” as he walked off, probably spying some young female more worthy of his attention. We got some beer (despite the early hour, the bar was open) and commiserated about Dan-O being a jerk. Who knew.
Interestingly, Dan-O had a brother who was also a DJ on NEW, named Richard Neer. I recall that morning actually sitting down at a table where brother Richard was sitting and having a fairly nice conversation with him. Richard wasn’t quite as dynamic on the radio as Dan, but in real-life he was much more personable. (So I’ll give Richard’s book “Rise and Fall of Rock Radio” a plug, even though I haven’t read it yet).
Here is one more interesting quote from Parris regarding Obama-mania:
And this whole thing could go very sour. A politician who has subtly insinuated himself into the imaginations of millions as a secret friend and the personal champion of all their hopes for the world may find their disappointment the more bitter in the end.
All I can say is that after the Finally Friday live broadcast, my brother and I didn’t talk much about Dan Neer. We’d still listen to his show at times for the music, but would no longer make special effort to tune in whenever he hit the airwaves. I guess that he eventually wore thin with other listeners, as his show was rescheduled and he then disappeared from 102-seven. (He did come back in 1985, but I never listened to him again, or heard anyone rave about him; he’s currently a satellite radio DJ).
I’m sure that Barack Obama will have a much better fate than “Dan-O” Neer did. But it probably helps that only a minute fraction of the 65 million people who voted for Obama will ever get to meet him.
Jim,
A couple of things: First, perhaps I am being naive, but in the almost two years of the election campaign I never had the impression that Obama was himself out for celebrity as such. Perhaps he hid his secret ambition very cleverly, but I would tend to think not. I’ve always seen him as a serious politician who has (at least up to this point) had much bigger fish to fry than simple celebrity. He had not let us see into his mind so that we can even judge his motivation, but I think we can get some idea of his motivation by his short political past. While I was initially critical of his credentials as being only that of “neighborhood organization,” I have since revised my initial judgment about that aspect of his early political life for a couple of reasons. He has proved by his campaign that “neighborhood organization” should not be underestimated–as it is just that ability, to organize the grass roots, that got him elected. Then too there is the aspect that the areas he worked in–Altgeld Gardens (one of the extremely poor areas of Chicago) and the steel mills that collapsed some 20 to 30 years ago in the Chicago area (a working class relative of mine was caught up in that collapse and to this day has not really completely recovered from that collapse) were two of the areas Obama worked in. Those two areas are about as “grass roots” as one can get; and frankly, a man who has spent his early years working in those two areas earns my willing respect.
Second, I don’t think that in any of the campaigning there has been any evidence of Obama actively seeking any kind of “celebrity” status; he has seemed to me to be more serious than that. The “celebrity” aspect of his becoming president-elect is in the minds of those who look on him. This a.m. I saw a shot of him getting off his plane in Chicago, walking alone in the dark as he returned from the hoopla of yesterday’s visit to see the White House. Frankly, he looked quite alone, no one around (except Secret Service); he was carrying his brief case; he looked (from a distance) perhaps thought, but more likely simply alone.
Contributing to this silly adulation was an entire Oprah program the other day on HER OWN elation at Obama’s election. This said more about Oprah Winfrey than it did about Obama. Frankly, as I watched it out of the “corner of my eye” as I did other things, I thought, Oh, shut up! (With all due respect.)
Then too, perhaps all the hyper-verbosity from the world is a reaction that says more about the GWB administration (and resulting hopes for at least a different, and better, administration) than it says about Obama.
There there were the celebrations in Kenya about Obama’s election. One would think he had risen to President of the U.S. straight from Kenya, instead of his having seen his Kenyan father once in his life time for a month, only to have his Kenyan father disappear for the rest of his life.
All this adulation says more about the people doing the “adulating” than about Obama. Obama looks already burdened by what he has taken on.
And one last thing: I have had some ONE occasion in my life (how limited can one get, I admit) to meet a music “star” and speak with him personally. I found him to be just another person. In fact, because his interest in music was so very different from my own interest in music (after all, he composed his own music, arranged it, etc.), I found that I had little in common with him, little to relate to him as a person, little, therefore, to say to him, except to thank him for an enjoyable evening of music.
I wonder at people’s fascination with “celebrity.” What is missing from their lives that they hope to fill with the “celebrity” of others’ lives? I likely am the odd one, but I just don’t understand that whole thing. I see great–or simply well-known–people almost as I see myself, just another person. However, they are put in a position of having their private lives somehow entangled in the fantasies (and that is all
Comment by MCS — November 11, 2008 @ 7:52 am
Jim,
A couple of things: First, perhaps I am being naive, but in the almost two years of the election campaign I never had the impression that Obama was himself out for celebrity as such. Perhaps he hid his secret ambition very cleverly, but I would tend to think not. I’ve always seen him as a serious politician who has (at least up to this point) had much bigger fish to fry than simple celebrity. He had not let us see into his mind so that we can even judge his motivation, but I think we can get some idea of his motivation by his short political past. While I was initially critical of his credentials as being only that of “neighborhood organization,” I have since revised my initial judgment about that aspect of his early political life for a couple of reasons. He has proved by his campaign that “neighborhood organization” should not be underestimated–as it is just that ability, to organize the grass roots, that got him elected. Then too there is the aspect that the areas he worked in–Altgeld Gardens (one of the extremely poor areas of Chicago) and the steel mills that collapsed some 20 to 30 years ago in the Chicago area (a working class relative of mine was caught up in that collapse and to this day has not really completely recovered from that collapse) were two of the areas Obama worked in. Those two areas are about as “grass roots” as one can get; and frankly, a man who has spent his early years working in those two areas earns my willing respect.
Second, I don’t think that in any of the campaigning there has been any evidence of Obama actively seeking any kind of “celebrity” status; he has seemed to me to be more serious than that. The “celebrity” aspect of his becoming president-elect is in the minds of those who look on him. This a.m. I saw a shot of him getting off his plane in Chicago, walking alone in the dark as he returned from the hoopla of yesterday’s visit to see the White House. Frankly, he looked quite alone, no one around (except Secret Service); he was carrying his brief case; he looked (from a distance) perhaps thought, but more likely simply alone.
Contributing to this silly adulation was an entire Oprah program the other day on HER OWN elation at Obama’s election. This said more about Oprah Winfrey than it did about Obama. Frankly, as I watched it out of the “corner of my eye” as I did other things, I thought, Oh, shut up! (With all due respect.)
Then too, perhaps all the hyper-verbosity from the world is a reaction that says more about the GWB administration (and resulting hopes for at least a different, and better, administration) than it says about Obama.
There there were the celebrations in Kenya about Obama’s election. One would think he had risen to President of the U.S. straight from Kenya, instead of his having seen his Kenyan father once in his life time for a month, only to have his Kenyan father disappear for the rest of his life.
All this adulation says more about the people doing the “adulating” than about Obama. Obama looks already burdened by what he has taken on.
And one last thing: I have had some ONE occasion in my life (how limited can one get, I admit) to meet a music “star” and speak with him personally. I found him to be just another person. In fact, because his interest in music was so very different from my own interest in music (after all, he composed his own music, arranged it, etc.), I found that I had little in common with him, little to relate to him as a person, little, therefore, to say to him, except to thank him for an enjoyable evening of music.
I wonder at people’s fascination with “celebrity.” What is missing from their lives that they hope to fill with the “celebrity” of others’ lives? I likely am the odd one, but I just don’t understand that whole thing. I see great–or simply well-known–people almost as I see myself, just another person. However, they are put in a position of having their private lives somehow entangled in the fantasies (and that is all it really is) of others.
And I think it does a disservice to Obama that it seems the world has thrust him in a “king” role or even a simple “celebrity-who-will-meet-all-our-wildest-dreams” role.
Perhaps in the future Obama will show such a tendency to feed at that aspect of his role as President; but so far, I think it’s a disservice to him to say he has to this point.
MCS
Comment by MCS — November 11, 2008 @ 7:52 am
Jim,
A couple of things: First, perhaps I am being naive, but in the almost two years of the election campaign I never had the impression that Obama was himself out for celebrity as such. Perhaps he hid his secret ambition very cleverly, but I would tend to think not. I’ve always seen him as a serious politician who has (at least up to this point) had much bigger fish to fry than simple celebrity. He had not let us see into his mind so that we can even judge his motivation, but I think we can get some idea of his motivation by his short political past. While I was initially critical of his credentials as being only that of “neighborhood organization,” I have since revised my initial judgment about that aspect of his early political life for a couple of reasons. He has proved by his campaign that “neighborhood organization” should not be underestimated–as it is just that ability, to organize the grass roots, that got him elected. Then too there is the aspect that the areas he worked in–Altgeld Gardens (one of the extremely poor areas of Chicago) and the steel mills that collapsed some 20 to 30 years ago in the Chicago area (a working class relative of mine was caught up in that collapse and to this day has not really completely recovered from that collapse) were two of the areas Obama worked in. Those two areas are about as “grass roots” as one can get; and frankly, a man who has spent his early years working in those two areas earns my willing respect.
Second, I don’t think that in any of the campaigning there has been any evidence of Obama actively seeking any kind of “celebrity” status; he has seemed to me to be more serious than that. The “celebrity” aspect of his becoming president-elect is in the minds of those who look on him. This a.m. I saw a shot of him getting off his plane in Chicago, walking alone in the dark as he returned from the hoopla of yesterday’s visit to see the White House. Frankly, he looked quite alone, no one around (except Secret Service); he was carrying his brief case; he looked (from a distance) perhaps thought, but more likely simply alone.
Contributing to this silly adulation was an entire Oprah program the other day on HER OWN elation at Obama’s election. This said more about Oprah Winfrey than it did about Obama. Frankly, as I watched it out of the “corner of my eye” as I did other things, I thought, Oh, shut up! (With all due respect.)
Then too, perhaps all the hyper-verbosity from the world is a reaction that says more about the GWB administration (and resulting hopes for at least a different, and better, administration) than it says about Obama.
There there were the celebrations in Kenya about Obama’s election. One would think he had risen to President of the U.S. straight from Kenya, instead of his having seen his Kenyan father once in his life time for a month, only to have his Kenyan father disappear for the rest of his life.
All this adulation says more about the people doing the “adulating” than about Obama. Obama looks already burdened by what he has taken on.
And one last thing: I have had some ONE occasion in my life (how limited can one get, I admit) to meet a music “star” and speak with him personally. I found him to be just another person. In fact, because his interest in music was so very different from my own interest in music (after all, he composed his own music, arranged it, etc.), I found that I had little in common with him, little to relate to him as a person, little, therefore, to say to him, except to thank him for an enjoyable evening of music.
I wonder at people’s fascination with “celebrity.” What is missing from their lives that they hope to fill with the “celebrity” of others’ lives? I likely am the odd one, but I just don’t understand that whole thing. I see great–or simply well-known–people almost as I see myself, just another person. However, they are put in a position of having their private lives somehow entangled in the fantasies (and that is all
Comment by MCS — November 11, 2008 @ 7:52 am