Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis

Author:Michael Lewis [Lewis, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Industries, Language Arts & Disciplines, Human-computer interaction, Computers & Information Technology, vl-nfcompvg, Computers, journalism, General, Social Aspects, Internet, Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780393323528
Google: 42RrJj73PPkC
Amazon: 0393323528
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2002-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

I left Daniel Sheldon and drove two hours south in the English countryside to have a look at something that had just happened, of which Daniel was unaware, that suggested his theories were more than fantasies. The address I had been given led to a sheep meadow reeking of what smelled like decades of shit. At one end of it was a barn. Inside the barn were four aging rock stars and a handful of computers. Coming through the barn door, I was met by Steve Hogarth, the lead singer of the band Marillion, dressed in the outrageous garb of a rock star—wild red coat and dashing World War I flying ace scarf and assorted jewelry that no human being other than a rock star could wear with a straight face. He couldn’t either. He was dressed up as he was only because he was about to appear on television, and it was the duty of the lead singer of a rock band to look like something other than an accountant. If anything, he seemed to be slightly irritated by the obligation. “Oh, hello,” he said, when he spotted me. “Come on in. Can I fix you a cup of tea?” And he instantly began to fidget with that embodiment of the middle-class British soul, the hot-water kettle with the electric cord coming out of its side.

Into the room bounded Marillion’s keyboard player, Mark Kelly. He had a shaved head and a wild bomb-throwing look in his eye and appeared altogether more rock-starish. But he, too, ruined that impression in an instant. “Did Steve offer you a cup of tea?” he asked, diffidently, in a way that would have made any woman proud to be his mother. In their defense, the place was a gloriously seedy mess, decorated only with a handful of dusty framed gold and platinum records underscored by the words, “From all your friends at EMI.” These are the last traces of the ten million records Marillion had sold. EMI was the record company, owned by Time Warner, that ditched them in 1995, when they were officially pronounced washed-up.

It’s hard to swallow the fact that a lot of middle-aged rock stars actually grow up into fully socialized human beings. They pay their credit card bills on time, pick up their kids from school, and are able to see the virtues of both a market economy and democratically elected political leaders. The only trace of rebellion or profanity about either of Marillion’s two most vocal members was a T-shirt Kelly held in his hand, which he wanted me to have as a gift. It said:

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