I'm Gobsmacked

Smash Smash Rage Rage Bleed Bleed Big Screen TV

By Mark Morford - morningfix@sfgate.com

To the dismay of aging punk fans most of whom are apparently sad married balding accountants with only their deep love of setting cats on fire to remind them of happier, more anarchic times, a British TV company announced that former Sex Pistols singer and angry punk icon Johnny Rotten -- now known by his real name, John Lydon -- has agreed to appear in the reality show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" "I'm gobsmacked," said Tony Wilson, a British journalist, thus baffling and sort of annoying much of the English-speaking world by employing one of those cute little Brit terms that means nothing but sound like some sick kinky thing you do to sheep with a large zucchini. "I'm shocked, but I have faith ... I'm sure he's doing it for the right reasons." Other punk fans were appalled, because oh yeah right punk is like this big deep sacred thing and not a cute commercial sellout and as if the Pistols weren't discovered and packaged and marketed and hyped to death by a savvy entrepreneur. "The announcement made me feel instantly old. ... If it has come to this for the prince of punk, then mediocrity really does get us all in the end," wrote Lee Randall in The Scotsman newspaper, apparently not realizing he was stating something rather, you know, intellectually mediocre. In The Guardian, rock critic Charles Shaar Murray said "minds boggled" when rumors of Lydon's participation surfaced. "Whatever happened to punk rock, maaaaan?" Meanwhile, the line between true authentic raw art and commercial commodity would like it to be known that it never actually existed. Thank you.

Comments

[Cyn]

I'm curious though, usually the States "borrows" television programme ideas from the UK, but I think this one originated here. Is "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" a "native" Brit show?

[whitesquirrel]

He's been a middle aged fart for years I'm sure. I doubt if punks really care whether he goes on that TV programme or not.

[Cyn]

I doubt that what I liked would have been considered punk--The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders--kinda mainstream compared to the Pistols.

[Rose]

You were into punk, Cyn?

[Cyn]

Yes sad to say, for most success stories, there's a massive input of fundage to generate the publicity machine.

[Anne]

Here here! People forget that the Pistols were as mass-marketed and engineered as...say...the Backstreet Boys. Irony, no?