For instance, we’re going to see these guys live tomorrow night:

And yes, we paid money for the tickets.  Actual American currency.

E-mail me if you want to know where to send the sympathy card.

UPDATE: For all my whining, I have to admit it was a fun concert, if a little short.  Beautiful weather at Pier Six and fun, funky, soulful jams.

Don’t feel bad if you can’t make it all the way to the end; I had to turn it off after the offensively didactic rap section (“someone to help you rebuild / after the rubble’s gone”.)

After you’re finished laughing, take a few minutes to watch the original, below:

We have American Idol to thank for this mess.  I’m proud to say I hardly recognized any of the faces in the new version, but I can name almost everyone in the original recording (here’s a cheat sheet,) which was made with about a hundred times more talent.

GRRRR!  Can we just pretend the remake never happened?!

I’m glad they didn’t, and I can forgive this display of mediocrity, but only because I know better.  Rob and I saw The Who live in 2002, a month after the original bassist died from a cocaine overdose.  (At 57.  These guys party hard.)  Daltrey’s voice was a little thinner than on their records, but the range was still there — he could perform most, if not all, of the vocal acrobatics for which he was known.  Townshend was as strong as ever, and both exuded an energy that sustained the crowd for a show that lasted more than two hours, with no breaks, and included every single hit we could remember.

The fun part: we brought my dad, who claims that at no time did “Who’s Next” ever cease to play on the record player in his college dormitory suite.  He knew all the songs by heart, of course, but was shocked that we did, too.  It was a little weird to be belting out power ballads (and occasionally smelling pot) with your dad, but my dad is comfortable with just about any crowd, so we all just enjoyed ourselves.  The memory of that concert is a lot bigger than the few pitiful minutes onscreen in Miami.

Unrelated rant about why else I hate football: at the end of the game, the Saints’ QB had his little baby on the field.  The child looked utterly bewildered and was wearing noise-canceling headphones, so undoubtedly missed this gem: one of the announcers said something like, “This is it.  This is THE most important and precious moment a father could possibly share with his son.”  Gales of laughter erupted from our living room at this, but I’m sure there were plenty of fans out there nodding in tearful agreement.  The same fans, I’m sure, who were touched by the earlier commercial in which the NFL thanked them for watching with open mouths and painted faces all season long.  People, please.  IT’S A GAME.

No, really, I know it was not an easy task.  Here’s what I came up with:

1) The Rainbow Bridge. This might have backfired on me.  Several of the students claimed there was too a rainbow bridge and threatened tears when I looked as astonished as I really was.

2) Virginia’s letter to the Sun. Many of the students had heard the famous line, but didn’t know where it came from.

3) The Magic Cape from “Crash.” I couldn’t find it online, and the computer in my classroom won’t play DVDs, so I brought in my own laptop and a pair of headphones for two students to watch and take notes.  Ridiculous?  Yes.

4) Mama Never Told Me, a song in which the narrator’s mother hid his father’s alcoholism from him as a child.  I couldn’t find an actual track to listen to, so I had them just discuss the lyrics.

5) The Special Hug. This was the last one to be presented, and our discussion was cut off by the bell (that, to me, is far worse than “Sold Out” — a clock that makes you think you have two or three more minutes when you don’t.)

“Democracy is the greatest thing in the world,” said Bono last night to a crowd which, judging by the eruption of cheering that followed, agreed with him.  “But it takes work – a lot of hard work.”  And as The Edge began the teasing trickle of echoing notes that led into the next song, my eyes suddenly filled with tears.

I didn’t know why at first.  Maybe I was just overwhelmed by being here, in the presence of one of the most accomplished and complex musical groups of our time, and my personal favorite.  Maybe it was late at night and I’d had too much Guinness.  Or maybe it was the words of the song that poured forth over the crowd, taunting, urging us to sing along:

I have climbed highest mountains; I have run through the fields, only to be with you.
I have run; I have crawled; I have scaled these city walls, only to be with you.
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

The music was thrilling, moving, but the lyrics troubled me.  They seemed to trivialize the things I find most fulfilling in life: love and marriage, the beauty of nature, the depth of faith.  If you’re not looking for those things, what in the world are you looking for?

By the end of the first verse, the crowd was singing so loudly that Bono put down his microphone and stretched out his arms, allowing them to finish the chorus as he soaked in the words:

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

He took the mike back, smiling: “We’re a work in progress,” he said.

And suddenly, I got it.  What we’re looking for, what we’re aiming for, is perfection.  We will never find it, of course, but we continue to look.  Sometimes we look outside of ourselves, and there we will be disappointed: even on the greenest hillside, in the sweetest kiss, after the most stirring final paragraph, there is a moment when we realize this can’t last, and that moment is utter and absolute defeat.  Even the best concert of my life, the one I’ve waited for since I bought my first U2 album at fourteen, is riddled with ugly flaws: traffic on the way, sniping words between friends, a faulty cup that dumped chocolate milkshake on my lap, scrambled cell-phone service, tired feet.  This is life.

So we look again, inside ourselves – and there, too, we will always fall short.  The next morning I had to drag myself out of bed and to class after very little sleep and even less of a speaking voice.  And, of course, none the articles for the newspaper were properly formatted, and student after student approached me with excuses and special cases and problems I couldn’t solve – you need a therapist, not a teacher, and you need a set of parents who will teach you responsibility, and pardon me, but you just need a good thrashing – and then none of the computers in the lab would run the program correctly, and they all pleaded with me to just play a game, please?  We don’t really need to study, do we?  Come on, Mrs. Lowe, there’s only thirty minutes left in the period anyway.

It’s easy to lay blame on the circumstances and the tools, but really, it’s my fault.  If I were on top of things, I would have found a way to be prepared – or at the very least, I would have a backup plan.  If I were a better teacher, I would have found a way to teach the lesson despite the problem students technology glitches.  Instead, I limped through the day, trying to keep goofing off to a minimum while I formulated a new plan of action.  And I silently pleaded with the clock to move just a little faster.  Please, let this day be over so I can try again.

Being a work in progress is no fun.  It’s much more fulfilling to be perfect.  Why can’t I be perfect, just for once?  Just for one day, or one hour, let me find what I’m looking for.  Something, anything, besides another struggle.

You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains, carried the cross and took my shame, you took the blame – you know I believe it.  But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Not here, anyway.  Not in this life.

Has everyone seen this movie but me?  I had to watch it for my summer class, “Dynamic of the City.”  Here’s why you should watch it too:

• Lush, defiant, sprawling urban murals. Or, if you prefer, graffiti.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Regardless of your personal preference, you have to admit it’s refreshingly beautiful.

• Old-school hip-hop. Before it was all about drugs, misogyny and cop-killing, it was about style.  Several students agreed that if rap still sounded like this, we’d be listening.  Many of the tracks are spliced with footage of break-dancers, another lost art form that has disintegrated into sex and violence.  (And the deadpan voice-over about “rocking your body” is priceless.)

• A sense of loss. I felt slighted that this movement had come and gone before I was even born (or at least old enough to appreciate it.)  I’m not sure how it ended except by a crackdown of security on the train yards.  The saddest part was watching the taggers turn into entrepreneurs, searching for a way to prolong their creativity — they suggested a supervised program of train murals with the public voting on which designs it preferred.  It was a great idea, but the MTA scoffed at it and the two retreated to their opposite corners to gear up for the next fight.

Every once in awhile we have a chance to reconcile opponents, to de-polarize opinions, to hold up what we have in common instead of what we disagree about.  Shame on us for looking the other way.

“Yeah, she was okay,” I said.  “A little showboat-y.”

“What do you mean? She was awesome — way better than that Yo-Yo Ma trio!”

“Quartet!”  I corrected him.  “And no way.  Aretha Franklin is most famous for demanding respect — Yo-Yo Ma is a world-class cellist, and Itzhak Perlman is universally acclaimed as one of the most accomplished violinists of our time.  Their music is moving.  And it was so American — a classic Shaker melody immortalized by one of our greatest symphonic composers, arranged by the composer of some of our most popular cinematic themes, with a nod to the roots of jazz in their choice of a black clarinetist and an improvisational pianist — how can you not appreciate the musical significance of all that talent?”

There was a long silence.

“So, do you still want to go see Mamma Mia next time we go to New York?”

Point taken.  I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

Aas long as I’m dissecting the moment, I want to say a word about poetry.  I hadn’t heard of Elizabeth Alexander before today, but her name sounded regal enough that I thought she might be classy.  She did read with distinction and simplicity (no convoluted theatrics a la Maya Angelou) but I was disappointed in the lack of rhyme and meter.  (Here’s the text.)  Why has modern poetry disintegrated into babbling sentences that take no note of grammatical rules (“the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of”)?  Come on, real poets.  I know you’re out there somewhere.

For eloquence, Dr. Joseph Lowery far outdid her in his prayer of benediction.  His glib little rhyme at the end merely tarnished what was an incredibly thoughtful and insightful opening, which quoted from “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before continuing on to preach repentance and humility — two themes I also heard in the opening prayer and the president’s speech itself.

What a thing, if the American people were to suddenly take responsibility for poor choices and bad decisions — and then to ask forgiveness and pledge to change their ways.  I can’t believe I’m seeing it.  I hope it’s not just talk.