Jon Bon Jovi

The BBQ Pit
1

Perusing my dear wife’s copy of Now! celebrity magazine this weekend, I alighted upon a Q&A session with one Mr Jon Bon Jovi. A couple of his responses piqued my interest. Alas, it’s not available online, and nor do I have the magazine with me, so you’ll have to rely on my memory…

First thing was his answer to the following question:

“If you could choose five musicians, living or dead, to make the ultimate band, who would you choose?”

Remember, this is the ultimate band we’re talking about. You can choose the best musicians ever.

Here’s who Mr BJ chose for the first four:

Jimi Hendrix.
Elvis Presley.
Keith Richards.
John Lennon.

All geniuses in their own way. I don’t know how pleasant a band with four guitarists and no bass player would be, but then again John occasionally tinkled the ivories, and Jimi was a dab hand at the kazoo, and it’s all about bucking convention: who am I to question the man who wrote “I need a respirator cause I’m running out of breath / You’re an all night generator wrapped in stockings and a dress”?

So anyway, we finally come to Jon’s choice of drummer.

For the drummer, Jon chooses…

Bono.

Now I know that Bono is something of a polymath. He writes songs. He sings them. He makes political rants. He does a bit of primitive painting. He owns a hotel. He raises money for Africa. He may also be able to thump a couple of tubs in rhythm.

But he’s not known for his drumming prowess.

Perhaps JBJ got mixed up with bongo drum.

Or Ringo?

The second thing that caught my attention was JBJ’s response to the question: “what is your favourite city?”

“I love Dublin,” the great man replied. "Whenever I visit, it’s always a religious experience for me.

“Every gas station attendant is a poet.”

I am not quite sure which Dublin Mr BJ has been visiting. Perhaps he was visiting the “other” Dublin - the one that you get to by taking a steam train from Darby O’Gill and the Little People via the Quiet Man - and he might indeed have had his petrol pumped by doggerel-spouting WB Yeatses, his windscreen made sparkling clean by lyricising Brendan Behans, while smartly besuited James Joyces bitch-slapped Oscar Wildes over who gets to empty Mr BJ’s ashtray.

Or perhaps not.

Despite the flattering image Mr BJ paints of the city in which I reside, I need to point one crucial fact to him: in the real Dublin, there are no gas station attendants - they’re all self service.

If, of course, by “gas station attendant” Mr BJ means the person behind the counter, well, I don’t know how to break this to him, but with very few exceptions at all, every gas station attendant in Dublin is Chinese.

Now, they may of course be Chinese poets, and they may indeed be very good, but I get the impression JBJ doesn’t speak any Chinese dialects.

On the offchance that the person behind the counter is in fact a native Irish person, the typical lyrical response I find my ears being tickled with is such postmodern haiku-form verse as:

Which pump? Pump five yeah?
That’ll be thirty euro.
Thanks very much, bud.

Well OK, maybe JBJ does have a point here. Note the similarities with JBJ’s own remarkable:

I’m a devil on the run
A six gun lover
A candle in the wind

I guess it takes a poet to recognise one.

2

Typo? Maybe he meant John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. He was sometimes referred to as “Bonzo”.

3

yeah, but he’s livin’ on a prayer!

You tell me what insight a man who has not only appeared in Ally McBeal but releases a greatest hits compilation with all the hits done acoustically as ‘a treat for the fans’, and i’ll show you a man who tells you Bono’s a drummer and has his teeth whitened with a blue tinge so they show up better on stage and TV.

Now magazine, jjimm?

Hardly the source of good music journalism now is it?

4

Hmmm… couldn’t find “OK!” ?

I think there’e one in the Statoil in Goatstown who’s from Nigeria.

5

The biggest innacuracy in the OP is that jjimm calim’s it was his wife’s magazine.

'Fess up. The truth must be told.

6

A haiku is a Japanese poem. A Chinese gas station counter person writing haiku is about as probable as the same quoting Yeats.

7

No mate, I’m more of a Heat man myself.

8

I totally agree with you, and if you could show me where I said that Chinese people write haiku, I’ll gladly commit sepu-ku.

9

Forgive me if I’m stretching here. But when I read this, I assumed you were quoting the Chinese dude:

Anyway, I’m from New Jersey so I feel it’s my duty to protect my fellow NJ geniuses like JBJ: “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked 'em all!” Tell me Morrissey could come up with something like that line. BTW, The Smiths are my favorite band of all time.

10

Anyhoo on with the show :slight_smile:

11

Not so much “stretching” as “totally failing to read the sentence just before it”.

Ah New Jersey - first Bon Jovi, now this… :wink:

12

Oops. That was hella-stupid. My apologies. Actually my plot worked. Doesn’t JBJ seem like a true genius now?

13

Hey, not at all.

I just remembered, he also said he “hate[s] The Darkness” because they’re “trying to be Spinal Tap”.

Actually, that’s really only an opinion with which I disagree - but it’s also just plain dumb.

14

He probably did say Bonzo, but you silly laddies just assumed that he must want an Irish guy in his band.

And as far as the gas station attendant thing: It’s a bit of Jersey idiom. All gas stations in Jersey are full-serve. “Gas station attendant” is just another way of saying “regular ordinary working joe.”

FWIW, all of our gas station attendants are Indian:

Regular or high octane
Will you be having?
Cash or credit, sir?

15

Nope, he definitely mentioned U2.

16

Trying to be Spinal Tap. They ARE Spinal Tap.

17

Gotta give some props to any rocker whose bestest bud is Coach Bill Belichick. Bill got him interested in football, and now Bon Jovi owns the new Philly team in the Arena League.

18

There’s a football team in the UK owned by TV’s most excruciatingly dull celebrity chef.

19

Okay, then. The toxic waste must have gone to his brain.

(He may have weird taste in drummers, but I still love him. He’s so cute.)

20

See, this is why he’s able to do dumb things, like build a band with four guitarists and no bassist and drummer yet still make so damn much money. Because the ladies think he is just “so cute.”