you too

These guys are like phenomenal. They've been in the airwaves long before I learned how to masturbate. Before CDs, DVDs and BlueRay Discs, they're already in the mainstream of clunky cassette tapes and vinyl records. I'm not sure about the latter though.

Yes, I'm talking about no other than Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Dik Evans collectively known as U2. Adored by millions all over the world, this group from Dublin, Ireland has been a big part of the music history and I bet my 5,000-peso life savings that their songs will remain for centuries to come.

It is not just Bono's impassioned vocals that made me reverred the group, it is also his passion for humanitarian affairs. Being a rockstar, a Nobel Peace prize nominee, a philantropist, a geopolitical activist (whatever that means) and dodging screaming fans (girls and boys alike) all at the same time is no easy feat.

I'm writing about U2 or Bono, in particular, because I happen to read his speech 4 years ago - 19th of May 2004 to be exact - at the commencement exercises in University of Pennsylvania. You know how I love people who can dish out socio-political issues with a splash of humor on a football stadium. He's just awesome. He got this wild, obscene - if you must - persona with a deep grasp about global issues that I can so relate. And he's doing something major about it.

I wonder why I haven't got hold of this piece of writing 4 years ago???...... Oh syet! Now I remember. 4 years ago I was in a self-delusion of daydreams and wishful thinking. I was in a world of ...... oh, never mind.

Here is the speech. It's a bit long but if you're a true-blooded U2 fanatic or a U2 groupie, and can wet your underwear out of sheer pleasure while listening to their songs, then I'm sure you wouldn't mind.

(photo courtesy of www.pulsemed.org/picture-of-hair-style.htm)

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Because We Can, We Must

by Bono

My name is Bono and I am a rock star. Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I'd just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N. Come to think of it 'Bono' is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity--I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. It's a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter.

It's true we were here before with U2 and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life, as well as you. I've got a great rock and roll band that normally stand in the back when I'm talking to thousands of people in a football stadium and they were here with me, I think it was seven years ago. Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems. I was wearing a mirror-ball suit at the time and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon. It was sort of a cross between a space ship, a disco and a plastic fruit.

I guess it was at that point when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor. Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it's an honor, and it really is an honor, but are you sure? Doctor of Law, all I can think about is the laws I've broken. Laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on a memorable night in the late seventies, I think it was Newton's law of motion...sickness. No, it's true, my resume reads like a rap sheet. I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay.

Read the rest of his speech here.

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