(TV) Boston? / Right Thing / Patron of Arts / Archived "Yonki Time" Hy potheses

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jesse Hochstadt 
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 5:16 PM
To: tv@obbard.com
>Any word on whether Television will be playing any other 
>East Coast shows around the same time? ... Still, if there 
>were a Boston show that I could make, I might prefer to 
>do that.  (And then of course there's the possibility 
>of _both_..)  - Jesse

Although I am going to attend the NYC shows I am also 
more than a little interested in a Boston show to 
which I might more easily be able to convince a few of 
my more musically open-minded friends to attend.  

During Television's mini-reunion last spring, rock critic 
Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe had a tiny little 
piece/interview with Fred Smith in the 5/29/01 Globe 
Arts Section:   

Television's On

'All this recent advocacy talk about people turning off
their televisions got us thinking about Television: the 
rock band, not the idiot box. So we rang up Fred Smith, 
bassist for the legendary New York avant-punk group to 
find they'd just completed four dates in Europe - their 
first tour since 1992 - and plan another gig in Chicago. 
A US tour? Surely, the group - helmed by guitarist-singers 
Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd - wouldn't go to all that 
trouble for just those few gigs? "That's it for now," 
Smith said. "We are fools. It is possible that could 
happen. The right thing to do would be to play some 
shows, but I don't know if we ever do the right thing." '
---------------------------------------------

Unfortunately, Television will again be skipping the rest 
of East Coast at this time (a minor reason is that Rhino's 
remastered and expanded re-release of MM is being held up).  
But don't despair; it's for a good reason and it's only a 
temporary delay before their musical juggernaut starts on 
its inexorable roll. 

It turns out that there's a wee bit of justice in this world 
after all.  Television is just waiting for the green light--and 
signed checks---from Bill Gates, whose favorite song is "Yonki 
Time" (he feels a keen connection to its narrator).  Gates has 
decided---partly out of guilt about his shit-bum Operating 
System, partly out of a genuine concern about Television's 
career and its place in history, and partly for a hobby---to 
become Television's patron and benefactor by bankrolling the 
entire Television operation to the tune of $3 to $3.25 billion 
of his reputed $92 billion fortune.

After Bill's dollars are sprinkled about and after a year-long, 
ubiquitous marketing campaign, our boys will become 
*huge*---they'll be icons, more popular than Michael Jackson, 
Madonna, or REO Speedwagon at their zenith---truly a part of 
Americana.  Television's subsequent tour will out-do Bob Seger's 
(or was it George Thorogood's?) infamous 1980s' all-50-states tour 
by adding stops in Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Anguilla.  U-2 
will be Television's warm-up act, and the Edge will incorporate 
Verlaine's red shirt and Lloyd's pedals and effects into "Bullet 
the Blue Sky".  Cameron Crowe will be recruited to capture it all 
on film for a documentary; people will start naming their kids 
'Tom' again.


Last but not least--this is old but (yonki) timely:
http://www.obbard.com/tvlist-archive/0110/msg00277.html

The best art is rich in ambiguity; I think there's a chance 
there's some truth in both Jesse's and the critic's take on 
the song.

	Leo
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