{"id":4276,"date":"2006-05-23T16:55:41","date_gmt":"2006-05-23T16:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groonk.net\/blog\/?p=4276"},"modified":"2006-05-23T16:55:41","modified_gmt":"2006-05-23T16:55:41","slug":"lionel-ritchie-makes-grown-iraqi-men-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/2006\/05\/lionel-ritchie-makes-grown-iraqi-men-cry\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Ritchie Makes Grown Iraqi Men Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"blocked\">Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. &#8220;I love Lionel Richie,&#8221; they say. <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Nightline\/story?id=1974794&#038;page=1\" class=\"external external_icon\">Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, &#8220;The answer is, I&#8217;m huge, huge in the Arab world. The answer as to why is, I don&#8217;t have the slightest idea.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He has performed in Morocco, Dubai, Qatar and Libya. There is obviously something up there. The more we talked, the more he theorized as to the reasons his music might be so popular here. He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love.<\/p>\n<p>Richie says he was told Iraqis were playing &#8220;All Night Long,&#8221; on the streets the night U.S. tanks rolled into the country in 2003.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The mere thought of grown Iraqi men shuffling throgh the streets and all of a sudden breaking into a rendition of &#8220;Dancing on the Ceiling&#8221; is enough to make me feel warm inside.   Of course, that warmth is from the pee I couldn&#8217;t hold back when I double over from a horrendous case of laughter.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/community.livejournal.com\/ohnotheydidnt\/6862178.html\" class=\"external external_icon\">oh no they didn&#8217;t<\/a>)<br \/>\n(I&#8217;m developing quite a crush on that site.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. &#8220;I love Lionel Richie,&#8221; they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song. [&#8230;] I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, &#8220;The answer is, I&#8217;m huge, huge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-4276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","tag-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}