Yoko in 2008 - Mixing Pop and Politics

This past weekend, the O-Dog and I went shopping for a new music DVD to add to our collection. Since he's been belting out Sympathy for the Devil better than Mick himself for the past couple weeks, we opted to pick up a copy of the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. If this was going to be his first foray into Stones-ville, it'd better be a good one. A geriatric Mick might do more harm to the O-Dog's rock psyche than good, so vintage Stones it is.

We watched several acts, such as Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull and the Who. John Lennon and a star-studded supporting cast belted out "Yer Blues." Everything was copacetic in Rock-dom until the next song, in which John was joined onstage by his wife. It was at this point that I noticed the O-Dog was no longer sitting next to me on the couch. I saw his little butt hanging off the edge, and his head buried beneath the cushions.

"What's the matter, Rock?" I asked him. (Rock is short for Rockstar; one of his many nicknames.)
"I don't like this one," he replied.

To be honest, neither did I, but I try to let him be his own little tastemaker and not let my own opinion sway his. I gave him a little kiss and skipped a couple chapters on the disc.

Two or three songs later, the O-Dog got over his encounter with Yoko Ono; Daddy, on the other hand, was left with his musings. If a child can sniff lack of talent a mile away, how then did Yoko get away with it? Does the fact that she was John Lennon's wife endow her with the rights to warble and wail in front of a huge audience? And have her shrills met with applause? We are indeed dupes.

I was left to ponder (and this will likely twist the armpit hairs of the staunchest of feminists) is Hillary Clinton just another Yoko? I am not postulating about the qualifications of a woman President. I could give a rat's ass about gender. There are, however, millions of women in the United States. Now the best this country could do with the male population fell miles short of anything worthwhile these past two elections. Are we to put all of our proverbial eggs in the basket of a cuckolded coattail rider whose track record is in its infancy, just because she happened to be a President's wife and has charisma?

This is the same country that elected a wrestler to office in Minnesota, and a hack of an actor to the governership of California (and the White House, lest we forget Reagan.) If we are en route to being governed by the cult of fame, I vote for the hot little biscuit that played Topanga on "Boy Meets World." Better yet, I cast my vote for Yoko Ono, right before I bury my head in the couch with my son.