On Act 32, when we officially crossed into 7 months only 1,000 people were in Paris and 40,000 nationwide. This is not nothing this is being comfortably numb after all the media, police and judicial onslaughts. Forty thousand nationwide on a regular basis is in the French context, which is a context that contains a lot of regular demonstrations by far the most vibrant political movement in the country and in recent history.
Like the annoying reporter/director in Live in Pompeii asking if rock is dead, the Yellow Vests are not dead despite all the false claims and begging that we believe that it is. The Yellow Vests are new, groundbreaking and unstoppable, just as rock 'n roll was.
I visited Iran to enjoy the end of Ramadan: there was a rock and roll band playing in public at a food festival downtown Tehran the night before the Eid morning celebrations. I didn't hear any Floyd from them, but they did do a lot of rather aimless, endless noodling must have been Grateful Dead fans.
The Western Mainstream Media can't imagine that Iran, too, has gone electric, and they also can't imagine that Yellow Vests are still going strong despite all the repression; they can't imagine that rock isn't dead in 2019, just like it wasn't in 1972 when Live in Pompeii was made.
Back on the night before Eid: the solo, traditionally-dressed, bearded Sufi singer/daft drummer rocked a song hard for 10+ minutes straight" even though I'm sure that 1,200 years ago unhip court-reporters said with great conviction, "The ghazals are dead!". It was amusing to see him on his smartphone and drinking bottled water while taking a break between songs - technology changes, but the song remains the same.
In 1974 The New York Times, declared Live at Pompeii to be dead on arrival: "Since its principals possess neither interesting personalities nor captivating philosophies, it is fortunate that the bulk of the film is given over to their music. It is unfortunate that their music, which ranges from traditional rock to sci-fi, fails the test one of the group sets for itmoving the listenerdespite the array of electronic equipment marshaled in its behalf.'Pink Floyd' may be for Pink Floyd fans. It may be for rock fans. But it's not for movie fans."
Hilariously bad journalism in every declaration, despite the critic's great conviction.
They wrote that in 1974 - it's amazing how they were way, way behind the trends: it's not like rock and roll was a new thing back then, yet that listener wasn't "moved"; that was written 6 months after The Dark Side of the Moon was released, which would go on to be bought by everyone, and their kids, too - it is estimated that 1 in 4 British households owns a copy of the album, and 1 in 14 people in the USA. Similarly, 50% of France still supports or sympathies with the Yellow Vests, according to the last poll on the subject (from nearly 3 months ago , amazingly.)
Such "top" reporters and critics also feel that individual Yellow Vests do not have "interesting personalities nor captivating philosophies"" mainly because Mainstream Media reporters are totally uncool, cynical snobs who have no idea what the hell they are talking about most of the time.
The reality about reporting on the Yellow Vests is that they only get Mainstream Media attention when they use civil disobedience and violence, but that's an important subject for another article.
A final snippet of movie dialogue which shows just how deep Floyd's leftism is Waters didn't become so pro-Palestinian by mere chance:
"There's a danger that we could all be slaves to our equipment, and in the past we have been. But what we're trying to do is sort it all out. So that we're out. But I agree that it worries me sometimes that we have this much equipment. And you can hide behind it."
Yellow Vests definitely aren't hiding behind anything - that's pretty rock 'n roll. Why don't Western journalists think that's cool?
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