Operation Misery: Week 2, Day 6.

With Rihanna not performing a concert last night and no other drama taking place it gives me an opportunity to talk some more about Rihanna's upcoming concerts. This really follows on from I post I made on Saturday (16/3/13) that can be read here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/operation-misery-week-2-day-1.html

After playing Saint Paul's Minnesota on March 24th (24/3/13) Rihanna's tour will return to the west coast of Canada for a series of shows in Winnipeg (25/3/13), Edmonton (27/3/13), Calgary (30/3/13) and Vancouver (1/4/13). She will then return to the US for concert in Seattle, Washington state (3/4/13) before returning to her state of primary residency California for a series of concerts in San Jose (6/4/13), Los Angeles (8/4/13), Anaheim (9/4/13) and San Deigo (11/4/13). As I think I've mentioned the running theme of all the US concert dates is an attempt to test out domestic reaction the 2012 US Presidential Election campaign which I, Rihanna and Chris Brown all played a large part in.

I should point out that although my heavily tattooed Canadian with a penchant for violent men was born in raised in Toronto she had a brother who was (and I believe still is) in the Canadian army stationed along Canada's west coast. Therefore she was very familiar with that part of Canada and it's world class marijuana production. So although the Seattle concert has a specific resonance that I will get onto later this leg of Rihanna's tour is intended to provoke discussion about my heavily tattooed Canadian and marijuana. The idea being to pose the question about whether Rihanna's clear emotional problems stem from her relationship with Chris Brown or from her use of marijuana. This will build into a crescendo as Rihanna arrives in California just as Chris Brown is due to appear in court. No doubt the current plan is for Brown to continued to be protected from prosecution leading to him and Rihanna spending a lot of time together while she is in California.

The problem with this is that having been added to the tours itinerary Australia has already given their answer to this question. Firstly they released a list of what food Rihanna requires in her dressing room at a concert. This is basically a very long list of sweets and crisps/chips that people associate with marijuana users when they get 'the munchies.' Although it counts as going off on something of a tangent I should point out that marijuana doesn't make you hungry and if anything acts as an appetite suppressant. However what it does do is induce anxiety which a lot of people chose to counter by eating. After all the energy burned by chewing and digesting food helps to temporarily relieve that anxiety. Once you get over that psychological barrier you don't get the munchies anymore. In fact when I was in my really heavy marijuana smoking days I ended up losing about four stone in weight.

Next Australia put out a scientific study on the dietary habits of the great white shark which directly contradicted some US research from the 1980's on the same subject. Basically the Australians are arguing that great white sharks need far more food then the US thinks. This seems to be the Australians sarcastically asking the US exactly how much marijuana do they have to feed Rihanna in order so she can convince herself that she's in love with Chris Brown. That's because while Rihanna thinks she's the star of the greatest love story ever told everybody else of the age of about 15 is going; "Yep, one step above crack whore."

Finally Australian authorities are investigating with a view to prosecuting Apple's iTunes over Rihanna's "Unapologetic" album. This is basically them tapping the US on the nose and telling them that they know exactly how Chris Brown and Rihanna's reunion was engineered. Along with the Canadian authorities showing no interest in searching Rihanna's tour buses for drugs Rihanna's CIA handlers should take note of this as further evidence that the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing isn't fooling anyone therefore they should terminate with immediate effect.

This appears to be having some effect with the assassination of the head of the Colorado prison service. This is now being linked to a Saudi Arabian inmate who was essentially convicted of keeping a maid as a sex slave which is a fair assessment of Rihanna's current situation. This seems to be the US saying that they know what they're doing is wrong but that they have no choice because Saudi Arabia is forcing them to do it. The only thing I can say to that is that the Nuremberg defence didn't work at Nuremberg so come April 5th the US can either do the right thing or they can do the wrong thing. After all with the troubles they're having in the east of the country and to the south in Yemen and Oman it wouldn't take a huge gust of wind to make the Saudi Royal family a thing of the past.

The Seattle concert has special relevance because in the 1990's it was famed as the birthplace of the 'Grunge' music scene. This was spearheaded by the band "Nirvana" which was fronted by Kurt Cobain who shares Rihanna's birthday of February 20th. Cobain of course committed suicide in 1994 at the age of 27 making him a member of the so-called '27 Club.' Dating back to the death of Alexandre Levy in 1892 the 27 Club is a group of famous musicians including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and more recently Amy Winehouse who all died at the age of 27. Aged 25 many people have said Rihanna is on course to become one of the 27 Club's next members.

Following the California concerts Rihanna will move on to Las Vegas, Nevada (12/4/13). This of course the scene of Rihanna's first concert after the para-Olympic closing ceremony. It was also where I got to talking with a kind of drunk Rihanna on Twitter although to this day she'll never admit to it by following me back or anything. Therefore the Las Vegas concert poses the question of what went wrong between Rihanna and I between then and now? Try and answer without using the phrases; "Chris Brown's restraining order was lifted" or "The Unapologetic album was recorded."

The Las Vegas concert also raises questions about what has happened with Rihanna's Twitter use. Back in those days she would get messy and sit on Twitter chatting to her fans. Now she only seems to take to Twitter when she's trying to sell us something or perform some political duty. For example her Tweets on Tuesday (19/3/13) including one of her bed were a clear effort to cause confusion as the US tried to figure out what was going on with the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria. Obviously I doubt Rihanna's fans are too pleased about the way her Twitter use has changed and I doubt even nations like the UK and France who were pushing for Rihanna to use Twitter in a more responsible way (no riots at train stations please) are particularly happy about the current situation.

Finally the Las Vegas concert raises questions about Rihanna's mis-conception that she could come to my home city of London to launch her River Island clothing line at London Fashion Week and I wouldn't be a factor. Julien Macdonald's "Viva Las Vegas!" show at London Fashion Week which referenced both Rihanna and my little rendezvous at her last Las Vegas concert and my references to the Dead Kennedy's song "Viva Las Vegas" on US Presidential election night should have been a clue to Rihanna that some of her assumptions are deeply inconsistent with reality.

After Las Vegas Rihanna will move onto Texas to play concerts in Houston (15/4/13) and Dallas (16/4/13). Texas is of course roughly the same size as France which is in turn roughly the same size as northern Mali. Although it seems to have been easier to stop the war then to stop the tour I think by this point the US was hoping that there would be an African force active in Mali and they could use some scandal around these concerts to heap pressure on them. Obviously though as it turns out there aren't even going to be discussions about sending an African force to Mali by this point and there aren't going to be discussions at all unless Chris Brown is sent to trial and placed on some extremely restrictive bail conditions that at the very least prevent him from contacting Rihanna.

Houston Texas also shares it's name with Whitney Houston the black female pop-star who died of an effective drug overdose in February 2012 the hollowed out husk of a bad joke. A lot of people have compared Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown with Whitney Houston's equally abusive relationship with Bobby Brown (technically not a relation). Therefore the Houston concert is intended to promote discussion about how Rihanna will become a member of the 27 Club. After all those references to Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne's recent trip to rehab have not been aimed exclusively at me.

Following the Texas concerts Rihanna's tour will move onto the state of Florida for concerts in Tampa (19/4/13) and Fort Lauderdale (20/4/13). Of course during the original plan for the US Presidential Election Florida would have seen a repeat of the problems it had during the 2000 election leading to months of delays and confusion before Mitt Romney would eventually be crowned President. In reality this didn't happen with Obama sweeping the state due in no small part to the support of the states large number of Jewish retirees.

Apart from that Florida (specifically Maimi) is where a US TV Show called "Burn Notice" is set. Although this take serious artistic license with what a burn notice actually is in espionage circles it centres around a spy called Micheal Western who has been kicked out of the US intelligence community (the fact he was never in the actual CIA is a running joke) and now makes his living fighting local bad guys. It was around the time they brought in Garret Dillahunt the actor who played the bad Terminator in "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles" to play a character called "Simon" whose life had been stolen and given to the Micheal Western we sort of dropped any pretence that Burn Notice isn't loosely based on me. In 2010 a film came out called "The Losers" which basically takes the premise of Burn Notice but adds to it a young, black female character played by Zoe Saldana who could quite easily be compared to Rihanna. I actually saw this film for the first time while Rihanna was flying to London for Fashion Week. I think that was an attempt to make my head spin and cause me stress. However I must say as I'm getting older I'm learning to revel in the vanity of it all.

Therefore the Florida concerts are supposed to raise the question of how despite having no obvious talents I've managed to reach such a level of celebrity in the US that I am able to influence the outcome of Presidential elections despite all the challenges thrown at me. It also raises questions about freedom of speech and freedom of expression because while Burn Notice is far from a documentary it does give away a few tricks of the trade which actually annoys me a little bit too.

The Tampa concert is a very specific joke at Chris Brown's expense. For reasons that have very little to do with his artistic talents Chris Brown frequently gets compared to Micheal Jackson who we all now know was a prolific and predatory child sex offender although the LA County legal system protected him for years too. It was so widely known that Micheal Jackson was a paedophile for years the following joke got told over and over again; "I hear Micheal Jackson's going on holiday. Yeah he's off to Tampa with the kids." As "Tampa" is pronounced the same as "Tamper" which means to interfere with this pun was a reference to Jackson's paedophilia. So if Chris Brown does intend to join Rihanna on tour I suggest he goes off to Tampa with her.

Next Rihanna will travel to Atlanta, Georgia (22/4/13). Apart from being a reference to the 1996 Olympic Games (Rihanna's part of the Olympic family now whether she likes it or not) this looks like being one of the quieter concerts on the tour. The only thing I can think off at the moment is that Georgia is part of the southern Confederacy that fought the northern Union during the American civil war for the right to keep black people as slaves. It was also the birthplace of Martin Luther King a black preacher who was at the forefront of the civil rights movement during the 1960's. Therefore I think the main theme of the Atlanta concert is going to be America's attitude to race. With Rihanna being kept as an effective slave while the current President of the US is black this does raise some interesting issues about attitudes to race and slavery.

Then Rihanna will move onto Baltimore, Maryland (24/4/13) to perform the concert she was forced to cancel on March 12th. Originally this was supposed to be where Rihanna received a backlash for betraying  her race by campaigning for Mitt Romney against Barack Obama during the 2012 Presidential Election. However as it's now been taken out of sequence with the Boston concert I think everyone's really forgotten about that.

And after two hours I have to go off an make dinner but hopefully this will be continued later on this evening.


(Originally Posted) 18:20 on 21/3/13.