Irrelevant Protestors

First, I’d just like to throw out that I managed to whet my whistle a little bit for Saturday’s Juliana Theory concert by going down to the pub last night to check out a couple of local acts with Nicole (thanks again for inviting and thinking of me!). The first band to play was a band called Roger……yep, just called Roger. I really enjoyed their hour long set. To get a grip on their sound, think of The Vines doing classic rock. Part of the reason I thought that when watching was because of the guitar tones they used and also the lead singer was strikingly similar to the singer of The Vines. They did two awesome covers, one was “My Generation” by The Who and the other was “Helter Skelter” by U2 (which was originally done by The Beatles, I know that). They pulled out another classic rock cover but I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out who originally did it. I really liked them and they got me primed for seeing the second band of the night.

The second and main act of the night was Paul Christianson. Nicole told me before we went that he sounded kind of like John Mayer and that set off alarms in my head right away as I cannot stand Mr. Mayer. I don’t know why, but I just don’t like his music. Fortunately, Paul was a lot better than the aforementioned John Mayer. Paul and his band played mostly really basic folk rock so I didn’t enjoy them as much as Roger, but they were still entertaining. He also played a couple of cover songs, but he didn’t tell us who they were by and I didn’t recognize them since I don’t really follow the folk rock scene very much. All in all it was well worth my $2……err, wait, my $4 since someone forgot their wallet……just kidding Nicole J Oh yeah, before I forget, the drummer for Roger was uber-happy the entire time he played. I’ve never seen a musician with such a big grin on his face while playing. He made my night!

The second big thing I wanted to make sure to throw out today was a little commentary on protests. As I was walking back from one of my classes yesterday, outside of Sexton a group of about 25 people were gathered holding signs telling us that war is wrong and singing songs about peace. Now would you please tell me what in the hell this is going to accomplish? I’ll tell you exactly what it accomplishes. They managed to pull off looking like jack-asses quite well. They are annoying and make people uncomfortable as they walk by.

A protest shouldn’t make people want to ignore you. A protest should educate the people that come by. Were these people doing that by singing and holding up signs that said “Say No to War!”? No. Take the time to talk to people and let them know about your stance and platform instead of singing children’s songs about peace. Solicit information describing your group and cause instead of standing out there, unorganized, looking like a bunch of 3rd graders who wanted to sit outside at recess and sing songs together. Be intelligent about your subject matter. Telling us to say no to war is a no-brainer. Who actually is pro-war? Honestly, how many people do you know that walk around saying “I love war. We need a lot more of it.”? Tell us why this particular instance of war is bad. Give me some evidence as to why it is wrong. Opinions and songs don’t matter—information and factual support for your argument do. All these peace study majors wonder why they get the bad name of being quacks, but they should merely look at themselves when they do something like this and they will find out that the tagging of their major as being dumb might not be too far from the truth.