4 Oct 2004
Cat Stevens vows revenge by resuming music career
By ANDY BOROWITZ, Los Angeles Times
LONDON — Hours after being refused entry into the United States last week, 1970s recording star Cat Stevens lashed out at the U.S. government, vowing to resume his recording career “immediately” as the ultimate act of revenge.
Appearing on the Arabic-language satellite TV channel Al Jazeera, a visibly angry Stevens — now known by the name Yusuf Islam — threatened to attack the United States with the full force of his insipid folk-rock music. Brandishing an acoustic guitar, the erstwhile pop star warned that “no one in America would be safe from my insidious melodies” before launching into a spirited rendition of his 1971 hit “Peace Train.”
A spokesman for the CIA said that experts needed more time to study the chilling video but that it appeared to be authentic: “We do not believe that anyone but the real Cat Stevens remembers the lyrics to ‘Peace Train.’”
On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry blasted President Bush for the Stevens incident, saying Bush’s reckless actions had resuscitated an irritating singer’s long-dormant recording career. “When George Bush took office, Cat Stevens was not a threat,” Kerry told a rally in Akron, Ohio. “Through a successful policy of containment, his music had mainly been limited to classic-rock stations. But now, thanks to George Bush’s misguided decision to provoke Cat Stevens, we may be subjected to renditions of ‘Morning Has Broken’ and ‘Moonshadow’ and ‘Wild World’ for years to come.”
Aides to Kerry passed out lyrics of songs by Stevens, including this one from 1970: “I wish I knew, I wish I knew; what makes me, me, and what makes you, you. It’s just another point of view, ooo. A state of mind I’m going through.”
For his part, Bush defended the decision, telling a Denver audience, “Cat Stevens is the first front in the war on terror, with Seals and Croft a close second.”
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And this, Gentle Reader, an example of the heavy burden of knowledge and responsibility carried by those who think a bit more deeply, see a bit further. As Richard Clark apologized to the American people for failing them, I, too, must contritely ask their forgiveness.
For I, too, failed to connect the dots and realize what is now all-too-apparent: Mr. Stevens has been operating as a one-man terrorist sleeper cell for the past 30+ years! Operating from within the benign tolerance of his adopted country, England, he was beaming messages of coded Armageddon at our shores from across the ocean. Ah, my fellow Baby Boomers — it gives a chilling new meaning to the term “British Invasion,” does it not?
Yeah, I can see it now . . . freshman year at college, sitting around the dorm room with my roommate (a sensitive, poetical type), singing along with “Cat” and taking his lyrics VERY seriously. Oh, Cat, Cat . . . we hardly knew you.
But I, at any rate, should have known better. I, like Stevens, am of Greek ancestry. I, like Stevens, might smilingly be referred to as a “musician” (blessedly, my chosen instrument of abuse — the piano — left me much less prone to infection by the folk-rock virus). And “Cat Ballou” notwithstanding, red flags should’ve been raised regarding any so-called male who willingly adopts a feline first name (and that includes you, Mr. “Tiger” Wood).
But even more unsettling than those memories were the nagging questions raised by Stevens’ lyrics, to wit . . .
Longer boats are coming to win us
They’re coming to win us, they’re coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore, they’ll be taking the key from the door.”
Like Banquo’s Ghost, those questions haunted me relentlessly — and never more so than since moving to Iowa seven years ago.
Now then — I am no stranger to (ahem) longer boats. After growing up watching ore and grain tankers ply the Great Lakes, I did four years of sea duty in the U.S. Navy, followed by a stint as a pipefitter working on supertankers in San Diego’s shipyards.
So, OK . . . I guess that some “longer” boats probably were in a position to “win” me (us?) for all those years. And as for them absconding with the door key . . . well, I can’t honestly say I’m thrilled at the prospect of calling the locksmith for a replacement, but whatever; it’s not really THAT big of a deal, now is it? (By the way . . . does that make it “poetry” when one refers to inanimate objects as if “they” were sentient, acquisitive life forms?)
But what about now? I live near the Des Moines River, many miles upstream from Davenport on the Mississippi River — the closest any sort of deep-draft ship could get to me and my neighbors. Indeed, Iowa has been in something of a drought the past several years, and one could wade across the river at any number of places and scarcely have the water come to one’s knees. It is further worth noting that the shore ’round these-here parts offers precious little on to which one might hold.
Could this be a coded message, designed by some evil genius of fundamentalism as the “activator” message to other cells throughout the country — perhaps even cells in (gasp!) Des Moines?! Might “longerboats” be a euphemism for, say, planes, trains, maybe even gasoline and chemical tanker trucks?!
Homeland Security — are you listening?
All night long,
we would sing that stupid song,
and every word we sang I knew was true.”—Steely Dan, “Doctor Wu”
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