I Am Old, Part 23

So, I learn last week on the radio that Don Letts has a new documentary out on The Clash. Cool. Come to find out, it's airing on PBS over the weekend. PBS? The same channel showing Sesame Street? Okay.

Then I find out the show airs at 11pm on Saturday night. Thank goodness for DVR. I'll never be up that late.

We record the show, anticipating it all week. The Clash is one of our favorite bands, and according to our friend, Richard, "the only band that matters." Or, at least that's what his six-year-old son says he says.

Sunday evening (at a respectable hour--before 60 Minutes) we sit down to watch, to find that this is part of PBS's pledge drive efforts. Uh, where did Peter, Paul, and Mary go? The Clash? Are you shitting me?

Okay, so they're using The Clash--one of the most influential bands of the punk movement--to sell public TV. And it gets stranger. The two guys pimping them are a Suit and a Hippie. Is it any wonder I love Nigel when he says things like, "Pledge now or we kill the hippie!"? In 1978 and 79, when The Clash first appeared on the scene, punks would have kicked Hippie in a dark alley somewhere in rainy London. Now, Hippie is embracing The Clash and telling us how much we need this documentary on DVD for our very own collections. And for a pledge of only $150.

As for the documentary itself, it was a letdown. There was no documentary to speak of. What the program is, actually, is rare concert footage--some amazing stuff--but not what either of us thought it would be. And freaking Rocky Mountain PBS said the program was 90 minutes and we lost the last part (probably 15 minutes or so) because of all the blathering on to donate. I can't help but wonder what Joe Strummer, co-writer of White Man in Hammersmith Palais, would think if he were still alive, of the following lyric being used to fund raise for public television.

The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha you think it's funny
Turning rebellion into money....

When the Nirvana pledge drive concert is on, I hope they'll let me watch it at the nursing home.