Check out this article below on Gore … Amidst the modern tech, ground-up, grassroots, web 2.1 era, has he created another hybrid power position beyond the President of the free world??
Mos Gore: The Citizen-Artist-Entrepreneur Paradigm
By Virginia Heffernan
This is not more sycophancy to Al Gore, I promise. In fact, his enemies could even consider this a heads-up. In short: WHOEVER WINS THE PRESIDENCY, AL GORE HAS WON EVERYTHING ELSE.
Sure, the Nobel/Oscar/Emmy trifecta is impressive. But look at what else Gore has netted. As unlikely as it seems for such a square, Gore now has international prestige, media control and credibility on the online street. He rules our America-flavored post-nation-state world.
Check out Gore on MySpaceTV’s ‘‘Artist on Artist’’ show. It’s as Interview-mag style head-to-head conversation series. On video. Gore’s in there, talking to Mos Def, among other pairings like Fred Armisen and Jeff Tweedy or Marilyn Manson and Danny Elfman.
Sure, other candidates might sit down with Mos Def, in the post-Clinton boxers-or-briefs isn’t-this-a-gas? way. But it’s hard to imagine any other politician acting like this interview is another day at the office. Gore in Johnny Cash garb doesn’t look presidential here, and he’s not even charming. He’s just matter-of-fact, like a blogger with a cause. He doesn’t say anything about how kooky-crazy MySpace is, and he doesn’t try to act cooler than he is. He just looks as if he belongs
In short, men of Generation X like Mos Def believe that public office is like pop fame —a trap that keeps you from being a true artist. They — and increasingly this is true of people I know — are essentially libertarians and they DON’T CARE about Washington. (Mos Def even refuses Gore’s tacit invitation to roll his eyes at George Bush.)
Put it this way: If the most important issue in ‘‘domestic and foreign policy’’ (as Mos Def puts it here) is the environment, then Gore is that issue’s reigning superartist. Like Gore, Mos Def as an activist long ago forsook Washington for the Hollywood-private-sector-university-media-technology-en vironment-post-nationhood fantasy that has nothing to do with Senate and Congress and branches and bicameral whatever in Washington. Who ever understood all that stuff anyway?
I groot for the underdogs.