Eric Clapton: Not Vaxxed? Not Axed
The iconic guitarist shows his true colors (hint: they’re not Benetton)
By Ed Goldman
Legendary guitarist, likely racist and noted simpleton Eric Clapton has taken the courageous stand that he won’t play any concerts at which attendees must prove they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19, or its increasing number of spin-offs.
“Why restrict ‘ow much money I can make by restrictin’ payin’ customers?” he didn’t ask but could just as well have.
Masking for a Friend
“God knows me singin’ voice sounds like a 12-year-old soprano wif laryngitis, or Wayne Newton before puberty set in, so ‘ow much longer can I draw these crowds, mate?” he didn’t add.
If you’re wondering about my referring to Clapton as a “likely racist,” please allow me to share an excerpt from People Magazine about what a very drunk Clapton said during one of his concerts decades ago.
Urging foreign members of his audience to leave, Clapton clarified (and unlike above, these are real quotes), “Not just leave the hall, leave our country… I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country.”
Since the iconic intellectual suspected he wasn’t being sufficiently unambiguous, he went on to say (the magazine inserted all the dashes), “The Black w—s and c—s and Arabs and f—ing Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any Black w—s and c—s living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome.”
People Magazine: “The rant went on as he called England ‘a white country’ made ‘for white people.'”
All righty then. Message received.
Even so, because Clapton’s so successful as a performer, if not a human being, I’ve decided to follow his example by hereby announcing that readers of this column who’ve not been vaccinated may continue to be readers of this column even so.
If you live, of course.
If not, please be advised that your spouse or next of kin—or, if so designated as an heir, your ferret Horatio—will be granted a legacy subscription until he, she or it similarly succumbs to COVID-19 because, like you before them, he, she or it was too stubborn, stupid, frightened or phenomenally stupid to get the shot(s).
You may ask: How will we at The Goldman State know if you’ve been vaxxed or not, Ardent Reader?
Easy peasy. We have the metrics to double-check on you. And some very attractive algorithms, I might add. We also have search engines that can get up to 35 miles per hour in the city and 47, freeway. Our hybrid search engines, moreover, can go from here to the demoted planet Pluto on a single charge.
You’ll be pleased to know that this is a nonjudgmental column.
You won’t find anything here, three times a week, that will chastise you for not giving a damn about your family, friends, fellow homo sapiens, or even your fellow hetero sapiens.
This column will continue to respect your rights, as a fully contagious American, to ignore science and compassion. After all, getting a 10-second injection with a widdle bitty needle may not fit within your lifestyle of work, brisk Facebook scrolling, lunchbreaks, more Facebook scrolling, or home life, during which your spouse and kids spend most of their time Facebook scrolling. (They all agree that otter videos are the most precious— though watching a baby raccoon eat a Waldorf salad also has a magical fascination, even after 76 viewings.)
So, please sit back, put on either an Eric Clapton song or Wayne Newton singing “Danke Schön” when he was 12 (his voice eventually changed from a coloratura to the lovely contralto we all know and love) and enjoy today’s column. Maybe even the other two that’ll be coming later this week to your inbox. Or to your ferret Horatio’s.
Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).
