No Commercial Potential: History is written by the winners. This is a loser's song.

Dalai Dalai Dalai Get Your Hassle Here 7 May 2007

We were one of the many thousands who attended Dalaipalooza 2007 in Millennium Park yesterday…

Dear Dalaipalooza Security,

Get the fuck over yourself. I understand that the presence of an esteemed personage requires a certain amount of precaution — especially with wily Red Chinese assassins no doubt hiding under every shrubbery — but give me a fucking break people. There’s security and then there’s being a dick because you’re the one with the keys to the metal detector.

Firstly: Why, why, oh why in hell would you be banning perfectly normal, personal photographic equipment for people with lawn seating? LAWN SEATING. Maybe you didn’t orient yourself properly to the environment so I’ll explain about lawn seating to you. If you are not sitting at the very front edge of the lawn (and sometimes even then) you can’t see bloody fuck all that’s going on on the stage. And you certainly couldn’t take a picture of it without a platform, a tripod and a lens as long as your fucking arm. So do please explain to me why you felt it necessary to confiscate plastic disposable cameras? If I’m going to carry a camera that I couldn’t possibly use to photograph the proceedings, and if I were to try would be entirely obvious anyway, how is it your business and why don’t you just lighten the fuck up?

(Security restrictions regarding personal still/video/audio recording devices is becoming increasingly absurd in general. Most any jackass with a mobile phone can take pictures/video/audio now and we’re already past the point where disallowing such capabilities is in any way realistic. People, just let it go.)

Secondly: No water bottles that have already been opened? Honestly, this is an even bigger what the fuck? than the camera thing. I defy you to even begin to explain the thinking behind this in such a way that will make me not believe that you are ridiculous dipshits. Also, don’t make us dispose of our water when there aren’t any water fountains available inside the pavillion and we’re going to be there for the next three hours. Fucksticks.

Oh, and by the way Dalaipalooza Security? My CoolPix S3 was at the bottom of Brenda’s bag and you never saw it and you might notice that it didn’t kill anyone. And also: no one even asked to see my ticket. So to summarize, your restrictions were not only overzealous, draconian, unrealistic, and pointlessly inconveniencing, they were at best haphazardly enforced. You are all fired.

And in conclusion, Dalaipalooza Security, imagine the worst case scenario and someone snuck in a camera-shaped sniper rifle in their water bottle and actually succeeded in assassinating the Lama from the lawn. So what? Dude’s just going to reincarnate anyway. Am I wrong? Just catch him the next time around. Lighten up.

Rama Lama Ding Dong

As to the message of His Holiness, well, it turns out the whole world might be a much more pleasant place if maybe everyone wasn’t such dicks to each other all the time. (I’m paraphrasing.) Ok, there was more detail to it than that, but that’s what it came down to. And I’m not in any way opposed to messages of universal peace and compassion, but I could have just listened to a John Lennon record and avoided all the bullshit of getting in, and the sunburn and just general nonsense. And I probably knew that going in, of course. But, Mr. Lama, please don’t tell me what a pleasant, straight-talking dude George W. Bush is. Not only do I not believe you, it makes me think you haven’t heard a news report for six years or so and that, frankly, is points off for you.

Please Define Free

Also, as you might expect, there was quite a lot of Free Tibet talk bandied about. Which is fine for what it’s worth, but I have this issue with it… Apparently the goal is to obtain complete political independence from the Chinese. Which is fine. But apparently the Tibetan ideal of freedom is a government indistinguishable from the national religion and all bound up in the person of the Dalai Lama. And he seems like a nice guy and all, but how is that not trading a foreign totalitarianism for a home-grown one? I’m not even being facetious now. I find that troublesome. A Buddhist theocracy is still a theocracy. I can’t get behind that.

It is lingering questions like these that make me want to give Richard Gere a good hard shake.

See more: Unjustified Text, Editorial