This is a part of a transcript of Roger's Amused To Death premiere in Toronto, 27 August 1992, fourteen years ago, right after the first Persian Gulf war, when it was bomb and blood in Bosnia. I found it among the old documents I think it comes from the website: www.ingsoc.com.
Jim Ladd, the host of the show, asks Roger the big question I like to have it here for a review:
Jim Ladd: In this particular work as in all of your work, you are adressing these issues. There was a time that you and I both lived through, I think everybody in this room lived through, called the 60's when there was a movement where we thought we were going to go out and change the world for a better place. Has there just been too much information come at us now? Is it possible to rally people again? How shocking does it have to be? How many people do we have to see rolled over by the tanks? How many great albums like Amused to Death before people will say, 'That's it. I draw the line here. We're going to do something.'
Roger Waters: Well, it's more complicated than that. The good thing about television, which is what this album is about, is that it is a two-edged sword. And it can cut through a whole bunch of bullshit. And some of it does. That's why it interests me so much. Is that it either is the prime tool of the market forces, but equally it can the prime tool for us to look at ourselves and to educate future generations. And for us to start thinking about what the nature of human life really is. And what we want it to be. And it does that. It does both those things. And it's doing it really fast. That's the other thing that interests me is that history appears anyway to be speeding up. Events follow one upon the other really quickly now. It doesn't take you like five days to get from Boston to New York or from London to Manchester like it used to when you had to get on a horse and ride.
Carter Allen: As you were saying, television is a double edged sword from the fact that for example that in the Persian Gulf we kinda did witness a tv show as presented by our government. We saw only what they wanted us to see. Not like the Vietnam war where we saw people coming back in body bags. Do you remember seeing blood and guts in the Persian war? You didnt' see it.
Red Beard: Well, hang on. The Vietnam war was a ground war and I think that is the very important distinction between what happened...what we saw on television this time around. And we touched on it earlier, it wasn't a real person being killed with a smart bomb it was a blip on a screen, like a video game.
Jim Ladd: In this particular work as in all of your work, you are adressing these issues. There was a time that you and I both lived through, I think everybody in this room lived through, called the 60's when there was a movement where we thought we were going to go out and change the world for a better place. Has there just been too much information come at us now? Is it possible to rally people again? How shocking does it have to be? How many people do we have to see rolled over by the tanks? How many great albums like Amused to Death before people will say, 'That's it. I draw the line here. We're going to do something.'
Roger Waters: Well, it's more complicated than that. The good thing about television, which is what this album is about, is that it is a two-edged sword. And it can cut through a whole bunch of bullshit. And some of it does. That's why it interests me so much. Is that it either is the prime tool of the market forces, but equally it can the prime tool for us to look at ourselves and to educate future generations. And for us to start thinking about what the nature of human life really is. And what we want it to be. And it does that. It does both those things. And it's doing it really fast. That's the other thing that interests me is that history appears anyway to be speeding up. Events follow one upon the other really quickly now. It doesn't take you like five days to get from Boston to New York or from London to Manchester like it used to when you had to get on a horse and ride.
Carter Allen: As you were saying, television is a double edged sword from the fact that for example that in the Persian Gulf we kinda did witness a tv show as presented by our government. We saw only what they wanted us to see. Not like the Vietnam war where we saw people coming back in body bags. Do you remember seeing blood and guts in the Persian war? You didnt' see it.
Red Beard: Well, hang on. The Vietnam war was a ground war and I think that is the very important distinction between what happened...what we saw on television this time around. And we touched on it earlier, it wasn't a real person being killed with a smart bomb it was a blip on a screen, like a video game.
1 comment:
I like the "a blip on a screen".
unfortunately it seems that some presidents and their government think politics is a video game and whenever they loose they will restart.
It is another side of TV story.
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