Beantown buzzing with Bono banter

With
a certain beloved Irish rock band in town for a three-night
stand, seems like everybody today is writing about U2. Me
too.

The Inside Track has tracked Bono to his ritzy
Boston bedroom.

Back in March, Bono
met with former deputy defense secretary and current World
Bank head Paul Wolfowitz. Bono, the only rock official
whose name was "bandied about" for the World Bank
post, pushed the Wolf Man to feed some cash to food agencies
and the Wolfinator gave Bono an idea for hit a song about
how great the war is going in Iraq.

Now Bono, though incredibly cool (“f—ing brilliant,”
you might say), has never been a heave the TV out the 12th-story
window kind of rock star. He’s more of an anti-poverty,
human rights, world peace kind of rock star.

Remember three years ago when he toured Africa with U.S.
Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill? Well, it just so happens
I sent an IBS News crew along and filed this must-read report:

Bono, O’Neill rattle and hum through Africa

By John Breneman

(May 28, 2002)  Irish pop legend Bono, now touring
Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in hopes
of alleviating third world poverty, today challenged the western
world to do more to supply impoverished Africans with the
rocker’s favorite blue-tinted Romeo Gigli sunglasses and black
Prada boots.

"These Africans are very cool people. But think how
much bloody cooler they could be if they were able to dress
like me," Bono said during a visit to a Ford plant in
Pretoria, South Africa. The rock star reacted emotionally
to conditions at the plant, where he observed that many of
the workers were clad in dusty generic black sunglasses and
beat-up Herman’s Survivor boots.

Noting that the global economy works in "mysterious
ways," Bono said he visited an HIV clinic located "under
a blood red sky" in a part of Uganda "where the
streets have no name" and was impressed by the people
and their "unforgettable fire."