Hipsters named Sid: Sid Viscious, Syd Barrett, and Sidney McCain
By now, everyone knows about McCain’s sweetheart daughter, Meghan.
(…at least those of us who roam around the blogosphere…)
As the media accurately reports, Meghan is a member of generation facebook, a not-so-secret admirer of Dr. Kissinger’s shoes, and a savvy politician in the making. She used her Generation-Blackberry know-how, her degree from Columbia University, and her experiences at “Saturday Night Live” and “Newsweek” to launch her website, The McCain Blogette.
For those of you who have not read this Pulitzer-in-the-making, the Blogette offers an up-close and personal perspective from Senator McCain’s campaign trail through the experiences of three young, professional women who get to travel along for the ride. As Meghan describes in her first post, the idea is that the election process becomes more fun when viewed through the eyes of three twenty-somethings. The public gets to hear about all the juicy things that really interest us (e.g. shoes, donuts, and weather).
In this way, the Blogette sets out to distinguish itself from “other [boring] campaign blogs.”
Examples of other campaign blogs
…which is an ironic distinction because the site disclaims any affiliation with Senator McCain’s campaign.
Nevertheless, for those who have not already perused the Bloggette (campaign blog or not), I’d definitely recommend it. In addition to her fashion tips, Meghan displays great pictures and offers playlists that prove she can hang with the cool crowd, the country folks, or her mom. Moreover, its dose of metacommentary reads like a journalism professor’s wet dream.
But, I’m not here to give more attention to the daughter who clearly wants the attention. As an older sister whose music tastes have been exploited by her younger siblings, I can’t help but wonder about Sidney McCain, John’s daughter from his first marriage, and her influence on little Meghan. In other words, for me, Megan’s exposé simply emphasizes the media’s “failure to perform” (pun intended) when it comes to offering any information about Sidney McCain.
Okay. We know from McCain’s official website that Sidney’s a baseball fan. And, she is an expat. “She has had a long and successful career in the music industry, most recently as General Manager of V2 Records, Canada.”
With a little extra digging, we find out that record producer means that she promoted bands such as…Spiritualized??
[insert sound of record scratching to a halt]
We’re not talking top 40 or even ABBA. We’re talking indie-street-cred like she was also best friends with Wes Anderson or Jack White…oh wait…
What popular musicians should know, though, is that the McCain family is far more rock-and-roll than the Obamas. His daughter, for instance, could arrange a spectacular inauguration concert.
Sidney McCain used to be the general manager of the V2 record label in Canada and has represented dozens of cool indie bands. She is particularly close to the White Stripes and Spiritualized. An inauguration concert on the White House lawn featuring those two bands – and, of course, Bjorn Again – is arguably reason enough why American voters should indeed take a chance on rockin’ John McCain.
Of course, I should have expected the British to scoop a story about a US Presidential nominee’s rockin’ daughter…
Hipster Haven Has No Records of Sidney?
Though there are a few anomalies published here or there or across the sea, with the lack of substance from the “real media,” shall we believe what the blogs are saying? (yes, that was some intended “metacommentary” of our own). For example, one blog reports:
This afternoon I had lunch with a woman who worked for me when I was president of Reprise Records. She was friends with a well-known and well-liked music industry publicist, Sid McCain. As soon as Sid realized her father was going to run for president again, she got a transfer from L.A. to Toronto. She isn’t the goodie-two shoes bleached blonde daughter who is part of the campaign. This one is famous for her work on Megadeth, Motorhead, the White Stripes and other cutting edge bands. When she was here in L.A. she was known as a cutting edge gal, very punk-fashionable (the cool kind of “punk,” not like her father’s disparaging high school nickname)… multiple piercings and all. She hates her father’s politics but has been cool enough to keep away from the political press. A few years ago there was a bit of a brouhaha at an extremist right-wing website which quotes Moby, one of Sid’s closest friends, as spilling the beans that McCain hates Bush. Free Republican misidentified Sid as “McCain’s son” but, according to others who know her, the story was true. Many of us recognized, like McCain, what Bush’s dangerous shortcomings were and even hated him the way McCain did. But McCain was not only dissembling about it; he calculated his own political career trajectory and decided to campaign for Bush and put him in a position to do all that he’s done to this country in the last 7 years, most of which was rubber stamped by… Senator John McCain.
Serious question: Why aren’t Republican hipsters talking more about Sidney McCain? (…Republican hipster is not an oxymoron! I’ve dated one!!).
True, Sidney’s persona raises some controversial issues for the McCain campaign (e.g. rumors that Sidney doesn’t share her father’s political views or her address across the border). But, family members are made to embarrass you – look at any movie with the name or theme “meet the parents.”
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