It's not the most dangerous place on earth. But you can see it from there. I'm calling it the stealth tour. I guess not everyone in the Mideast embraces American cultural values and for some, the more American something is, the less they like it.
And after all, you may wonder, what could be more American than Americana music? There's a simple solution---I won't call it that. The label "folk rock" will do just fine. Some of my material calls into question American government policy. Nothing like a good protest song to turn an audience in your favor, provided they agree with your point of view. Some of my material is more likely to get a hostile reaction in Washington D.C. than in the Mideast. I feel good about that.
Of all my songs, the one most likely to resonate with Mideastern sensibilities is almost certainly "Crawford" which you can hear at www.myspace.com/danneal. Whenever I perform "Crawford" in the U.S., I get a rousing response (every now and then, the odd W-supporter takes umbrage, but my odds of winning such people over was never good, and I don't really mind losing such folks as fans---I was bound to piss them off sooner or later). Folks love to hear a good lampooning of W in song and, if I do say so myself, "Crawford" delivers the goods. So I'm betting that in the Mideast, I'll make new friends every time I play it.
My tour starts in Jerusalem, then proceeds to the Dead Sea and Armageddon and Tel Aviv. Why Israel? I don't happen to be Jewish but my Jewish friends confirm what I've always believed about Israel, namely, that it's fascinating for its history, archeology and culture.
In Israel, we don't plan any excursions to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. This means that our odds of having a dangerous encounter are better than if we took an accidental detour from Brooklyn to the Bronx.
After Israel, we will spend a few days in Jordan where a visit to Petra promises to be the high point. If you don't know about this wonder of the ancient world, Google it. Jordan is known as being more pro-western than most countries in the Mideast, which may not be saying much.
From Jordan, we head to Egypt with stops in Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, a few days on the Nile and then to Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea. By the time we leave, I'm hoping to hear hundreds of folks from the Mideast singing "Why don't you go back to Crawford, and leave us alone"----lyrics I'm pretty sure will be richly embraced throughout the region.
Provided I can get internet access, I'll send regular weekly posts from the Mideast. I'll admit to being giddy about the prospect of performing in foreign lands, seeing countless archeological wonders and gaining new cultural insights. I can hardly wait.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment