I’d like to assume that I’ve been fairly successful at detoxing through social media. I’ve wasted too much time soaking up my energy through the anger on the web, through polarized anger, through the ugliness being barked at by the part I don’t like (am I polarized myself? I think so, but only in regard to certain ugliness, such as what one cannot help but choose to stay on one side of the fence, that of common sense, torn by the misfortune that has befallen us: we live in a time contagious denials and the seizure of idiots who call you a goat) and I feel that this keeps making you live better. You realize that the world is out there and that there are beautiful people, and there are enough of them.
Of course, when I talk about detoxing on social media, I don’t think of mine or the Marlenes’ (I have to stay there, and despite the daily excitement that brings, the fact remains that you can still engage with your admirers coming showing their affection and boosting the positive part of one’s sensitivity) but to everyone on the news among whose posts the crazy vectors of the skirmishes are concentrated so welcome to the news sites themselves who got it by now I think Am Started with a bit of disgust that it’s the only way to get a social network up and running with big numbers (the first to grab this chance were the right-wing parties, the Lega at the top, I’d say from six to seven ). eight years ago: And when the left, astounded by this equally fertile and ethically impermissible mode of communication, equipped themselves as well as they could, albeit never with the low quality of right-wing shamelessness, the polarization obviously took shape, and many are themselves now aware of it. So it’s silly when some people take it out on the “newspaper traders” who they think make money by providing crappy information: it’s the web, baby, where posting doesn’t really make any money – and sure enough, the new generation of journalists, those who don’t enjoy the old senior contracts, have starvation wages. You wouldn’t believe it if you knew them… Some people would buy the newspapers and read them from beginning to end, including the cultural pages, instead of getting a glimpse of the synthetic content that was necessarily created on purpose to making the daily noise that so much good data is emerging for the benefit of the usual suspects, Facebook and Instagram and the company at the top, and everyone involved in the sale is getting off, fueling a business we are all locked out of. And apart from being kept away from it, by the way, we offer them this business for free, since we have a constant presence there: four, five, six hours of daily navigation, the average standard for most. We are the workers of the Internet, and if you wish, think carefully about this simple but disarming statement. We are nothing but the workers of the internet, and that is demoralizing.
Here it is: Despite my slow and saving distance, a quick lap every once in a while is enough for me to calm the moods (I’ll also have to eliminate the quick lap as soon as possible).
So let’s talk about Springsteen in Emilia-Romagnabecause I intercepted the controversy surrounding his concert in Ferrara.
I’m not a Springsteen fan: I’ve never liked the role of the poet, nor have I ever liked what for me was the underhanded acknowledgment that the role worked great (but I’m willing to expose my malice and.. . judge them if necessary). Let me be clear: in very general terms and in the simple awareness of well-made music, the Springsteen rock musician (the least loud, I’d like to stress) is at times gratifying or very gratifying to me, and I am quite capable , him realizing the enormous size of one of his lives. Additionally, I really liked one of his most recent albums, Western Stars, which I understand his more structured admirers didn’t like.
Looking at social media the other day, it struck me that most of the controversy was that many felt that this concert should not happen. I’m part of the music industry, 90% of your readers know that (there’s always someone who comes under a post that concerns me and says, “Who is that? Even if we’re on Rolling Stone, a musical), but. I couldn’t imagine how much a Boss concert could cost. And now I’m telling you because because I’m in the industry, I can choose to get the right information. Based on the assumption that this would generate revenue of around EUR 5.3/5.5 million (net revenue, i.e. minus VAT and SIAE), costs of between EUR 4.5 and 5 million can be derived. Who knows if you find them reasonable, plausible, conceivable, predictable, of magnitude conceivable, or amazing, unthinkable, surprising, unbelievable, breathtaking… The doubt is not rhetorical: I would be really curious what you think.
Well yes: these are obviously costs that had already been incurred in full or almost in full, since the event took place shortly before the event … And in the circumstances, it seems difficult to decide to cancel a similar mess: find Don’t you too?
Let’s imagine what should have happened: an order of an institutional nature arrives (the region? the mayor of the city? who?) prohibiting the holding of the event: on the basis of which principle can one imagine that an acquired right can arise? rejected by the thousands of people who bought the ticket? Can we rely on everyone’s common sense and therefore on people’s ability to understand? Are we sure there wouldn’t have been an endless controversy as hundreds and hundreds of people showed their disappointment after organizing the day long ago? (A recent trend is that tickets for major events are now being bought even a year earlier: since I don’t go to certain concerts, this is basically ridiculous and paradoxical to me, but given that certain events sell out quickly, I am. .. I would say that I am obviously from another planet). A day organized long ago for many, with hotels and restaurants booked for a concert in a city not directly affected by the tragedy and therefore perfectly accessible (because yes, I was told that everything is fine in Ferrara and there are no there would be problems). if not obviously the contiguity not only geographically, but also emotionally-affectively, ethically, “parentally”). The president of the region should then have banned any other kind of entertainment in the area, I would say, and one wonders within what bounds the ‘close’ would be considered vital and sensitive to the cause. Or would it perhaps be more logical at this point to introduce a national day of mourning, since there was talk of a lack of sensitivity? (The question is rhetorical, but it has its basis).
In reality, none of this was done just because it was not possible: these are decisions that must be taken according to the criterion of proportionality and taking into account the rights of everyone, including those mentioned above.
And think for a moment the great hypocrisy that reigns everywhere if we don’t forget to consider the VAT that the state levies on a similar event: directly on the event with 10% on gross receipts and indirectly on any easy-to-guess ones Activities (hoteliers, restaurateurs, valet parking, shopkeepers and any other service you can think of). An extensive and attractive collection, which, moreover, if the ban had been decided, for example, by the President of the Region independently and on the wave of an understandable emotion under the pressure of public opinion, would have led to a severe sanction by the State itself for not collecting itself Steer.
Through this concert, the state and various local institutions collected several million euros for various reasons. That night, I was told, a hotel room that normally sells for 80 euros went up to 500 euros and clubs, which usually close at 8pm, also open after midnight. At 3pm we had lunch in restaurants that normally close at 1.30pm… All money, public money that could be immediately made available for relief efforts. Hypocrisy, rightly so… Not that I can argue much about these things (I’m terrible at business, tax, and finance), but I know how to deal with the right people in the industry who are there for me can say things as they are.
Well, maybe I gave you something to think about.
And then we come to the boss.
But there really are those who think that he should have chosen not to play?
Why would a foreign singer be so emotionally affected by the misfortunes in a region of a host country that he decides to give up one of his concerts without collecting the money from his work and without remunerating all his employees (dozens of people)? Who works for him on the production of a similar event and travels around the world with him at his expense)? But here we come back to the cost of the concert, of which that of his staff is only a small part: that’s a little less than 5 million I wrote about earlier. If it was the boss who, for some reason out of cosmic sensitivity, decided to cancel the event, did he have to bear the entire amount?
And if not him alone (perhaps everyone would agree at this point that it wouldn’t be quite right as a thing), with whom should he share the cost? With the organizers? With the institutions that then collect the fine from the tax office? How would you agree on the division?
Someone says that he should at least have donated his proceeds to charity… Continuing the above, I wonder: if hypothetically every place he went there was a tragic event, should he be in solidarity with everyone? (The paradoxical questions are intended to help understand the exaggerations of certain concrete and real things). Always my source of invaluable information, I realize that Springsteen has spent his time on all of the disasters that have plagued New Jersey over the years (New Jersey is his native state) and I would say maybe enough is enough to imagine that he is capable of being generous and generous at the right moment, at the moment that you can reasonably expect. As I have written above, to assume emotional responsibility for any possible dire event in the world would place him in a position of cosmic sensitivity, and if I must be honest this assertion reveals an acute form of highly questionable provincialism and self-reference ( which of course would be enough if he takes care of us Italians when he’s here in Italy, and who cares what happens in Poland or Portugal).
Let me copy and paste what my mole wrote to me because I think it’s exemplary and I couldn’t put it better: “Someone from New Jersey, passing by Ferrara one day, who recognizes that the state and local authorities don’t do this.” Also give up the concert for the money the concert takes in, which acknowledges the promoter isn’t forgoing revenue, which acknowledges 50,000 people don’t stop having fun…only he should have the seal of approval refrain, which would likely mean a donation much more (double or triple) of the million donated by a well-known company in the area (unofficial and plausible news)… Obviously, the same should be done in the event of a flood or tragedy in a to be done other part of the world ».
Finally, the scandal of not having said anything between one piece and the other remains: this too has been attributed to him. I understand it better, I understand it, I understand and justify the quality of the complaint, but I will once again close with the words of my confidant, because yes, they are perfect, and they align me with a dimension that is That is very familiar to me, namely that of modesty vs. shamelessness, of rhetoric, of the fear of falling into pompous forms of exposure and display of oneself, abhorring clichés, banalities, hypocrisy and often preferring the staid silence of composure: ” Cri, There’s only one truth: since he was old and didn’t give a damn what other people think, he didn’t have the crude ruse of dedicating “No Surrender” to Emilia-Romagna and donating those 500,000 euros that go to correspond to our 5,000 euros. But To understand that this requires an intelligence that cannot be asked of our interlocutors. Springsteen didn’t say anything, he sang, but unfortunately I didn’t expect that many people would come to it.
And if I may tell you, just the fact that he didn’t have that vulgar cunning makes me change my mind a little about my preoccupation with him and the former cunning of the poet he was: I rectify and unmask and condemn my opinion partly public malice, right a little bit, to soften the prejudices I’ve always cultivated (with one clarification: it is thanks to the role of the poet that he has assumed that people then expect the extraordinary and the unnecessary: Who is the cause of his illness…) .
Addendum 1: The reminder at the end of my article of the half-dreaded exposure and condemnation of wickedness was a delightful little twist that came to mind as I related my friend’s last words. A beautiful finish to an elegant finish. But I want to say two things, and I am expanding them in these two postscripts so as not to spoil the effect just made.
There’s this mentality: musicians are expected to be able to play for free (yes: they have to) for solidarity or charity reasons. I don’t think there’s that expectation in other fields, including entertainment (for example, footballers, actors or anyone else aren’t expected to do that, although there are of course benefit games). , albeit very rare occurrences). I avoid going into interpretations that are inherently rather simple, and leave this statement as an observation.
Postscript 2: Whatever word I used in writing this article, since I started talking about Springsteen and implicitly about Romagna, it has not dared for a single moment to obscure the drama of this region where I am few days before the tragedy for two of my solo concerts. The words I wrote for our social media on May 18th are still there, verifiable for everyone, and in support of what I am writing here. In those two days I met amazing people to whom I immediately sent my words of comfort and dismay on my cell phone, ideally trying to extend them to the entire affected area, and just as ideally I’m repeating it here now, marginally but firmly : in case someone somehow criticizes my possible, completely non-existent insensitivity.