Monday Media Madness

As I haven't consumed much media this week, this will be a belated and short post. Curb Your Enthusiasm is available as of a couple of hours ago. Breaking Bad's countdown has begun, July 17^th, mark it down, schedule it – let's hope it doesn't completely suck.

Blow Out

Blow out 

De Palma has a rather un-canny habit of doing incredibly derivative movies with amazing style. Blow Out is essentially a mixture of both Antonioni's incredible Blow Up, and Coppola's The Conversation. The problem with doing obviously un-original works is that the best compliment that can be possibly made is the one of homage, whilst De Palma's work is certainly stylistic in his choice of angles, and Direction, the overall feeling that's reached after watching his work is to wish for the real thing, the real Cocaine, not the PCP.

(B+)

The Trip (Tv Series)

Post-modern, self-reflexive, existential, comic brilliance- this is Steve Coogan's most intelligent work yet, cleverly Directed by Michael Winterbottom, whom has directed both Rob Brydon and Coogan in Tristram Shandy. The series essentially revolves around a simple idea of two friends going on a trip of fine dining for a news paper article, what follows is quite possibly the best illustration of what Sartre meant when he said, “hell is other people.”

(A+) Unmissable viewing.

The New Zealand Film Festival is but a mere week away, the selection and variety as always is astounding:  choosing the privileged handful of films to see is always an arduous task so i'm currently scouring the internet to find what is available online. Currently I have thirty movies I want to see, or would see if i had the time and money - the only movies I'm absolutely sure about so far are: Werner Herzog's new 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Lars Von Trier's Melancholia and La Quattro Volte. The rest look amazing but whether I can wrangle people to go is another story, so here's the movies I'm going to try and source over the next couple of weeks.

Werner Herzog outside the Cave of Forgotten Dreams

The Tree of Life: Directed by Terrence Malick, nuff said.

Tabloid: Errol Morris documentary, nuff said.

Pina: Wim Wenders 3D dance documentary.

Incendies: Belgian made movie in the middle-east.

Winter Vacation: Any movie which is described as South Park in slow motion whilst being in Chinese is worth a look.

The Round Up: French WWII flick with Jean Reno and sexy French girls.

Point Blank: French action flick.

Errol Morris (Possibly the best documentary maker ever)

The Screen Illusion: French arty-ness.

A Seperation: Iranian thriller.

Sleeping Sickness: Any movie that references Conrad's Heart of Darkness is worth a look. 

Norweigian Wood: An adaptation of a Hauraki Murakami novel.

Mysteries of Lisbon: HD Portugese period flick.

Silent Souls: Russian bleakness.

Terri: John C Reily comedy.

The Guard: Made by the brother of the dude that made In Bruges.

Happy, Happy: Norwegian sex comedy.

Heartbeats: Canadian hipster comedy.

Martha Marcy May Marlene: American cult drama.

The crazy Dane himself Lars Von Trier. (Has anyone actually met anyone normal by the name of Lars?)

Michael: Twisted psycho kidnap caper, the Director is a big fan of Haneke - anyone see where this could go.  

Sleeping Beauty: Australian erotic fable.

Take Shelter: Michael Shannon's new psychological thriller (he plays the psycho FBI agent in Boardwalk Empire.)

The Turin Horse: An apocalyptic vision inspired by Nietzche.

Once upon a time in Anatolia: Turkish noir thriller.

Bobby Fischer against the world: Documentary about chess champion Bobby Fischer.

Still from 'Bobby Fischer Against The World'

Hot coffee: A documentary about frivilous law suits, and what really happened to the woman who spilled Mc Donald's coffee on her lap.

Windfall: Green energy doco.

Page One: Inside the New York Times.

POM Wonderful Presents the greatest movie ever sold: Morgan Spurlock's documentary about product placement, which is funded entirely from product placement.

Morgan Spurlock's new documentary.

The Black Power Mixtape: The clue is in the name.

Khodorkovsky: Russian documentry about what happens when you are a political challenger to Putin.

Aint in it for my health: Documentary about Levon Helm

beats and rhymes: A hip-hop doco made by Michael Rappaport

Magic Trip: Ken Kesey documentary

The Woman: A highly controversial misogynistic comedy, described as the feel bad comedy of the year.

Still from The Woman

Finally, I'd recommend checking this site over the next week as i'll update what's currently available on-line and link to it - just because you live overseas, or out of town, doesn't mean you should miss out on these movies.

Sunday Media Soup numero dos

'Curb your Enthusiasm's' new series will start in two weeks and from the previews I've seen it looks like it's going to be another quality season, especially when Michael J Fox and Parkinsons jokes are on the menu. Breaking Bad is quite possibly the most anticipated returning show, especially after the amazing cliffhanger it ended on in season three, I'm absolutely drooling in anticipation to see this show again, I'm even attempting to schedule how I'm going to watch the show: do I watch it before bed, or do I save all the episodes up to gorge like a fat person on cake? Too many choices. In the mean time, enjoy this weeks batch of soup.

A fat person eats cake

The Stranger

(Ugh, just ugh. Loud noises!!!) The movie adaptation of 'The Stranger' was always going to pale in comparison to the mighty book by Camus, but one can be a little hopeful with likes of Marcello Mastroianni playing Meursault and Luchino Visconti directing, that perhaps the production will at least be a worthwhile experience. What follows is a very true adaptation of the book that fails to fire in many ways. A couple of saving graces of the movie is Mastroianni's performance and Visconti's direction making the heat another almost tactile character in the movie, but overall the movie ends up being a rather dull, paint by numbers affair that leaves one asking the great philosophical questions of why, in a rather superficial way, like why did they bother? D- (The book however gets an A++)

Marcello Mastroianni as Meursault

Tucker and Dale Vs Evil

A hilarious slapstick slash horror film which turns the horror genre on its head, subverts, satirises and lambastes the horror stereotypes with incredible accuracy and precision. Think 'Shaun of The Dead' with hillbillies, then add a pinch of 'Cabin Fever' and some schlock gore and you have the makings of a classic comedy. A-

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Falling Skies

Pointless, mediocre, haphazard, sentimental, un-realistic, boring, and trite are just a few words I would use to describe this convoluted power-wank piece of sci-fi faggery - it's a word, at least it is now. The plot line for this new TV series is, aliens have taken over the world and the survivors struggle to fight back: expect melodramatic, cheesy, sentimental father son conversations - and expect to lose the will to live if you manage to sit through a whole episode. F

Noah Wyle plays a father in Falling Skies (Quite possibly the worst show I've ever seen)

The Pink Panther

Peter Sellers is still a comedic god and it's hard to find anyone that gets anywhere near close to matching his slapstick, character acting. The amazing thing about this series is the fact you're completely aware something funny is going to happen, but you can never imagine just how inventive it will be, nor just how big the laughs will be. A- (I'm taking a point off because of Claudia Cardinale's weak drunk acting.)

Peter Sellers as Inspector Closeau

The Mouse That Roared

I could double down on Sellers praise but I'd rather say, that only Dr Strangelove beats this movie at being the best satire ever made. A

That's all for now, next week expect more Visconti, maybe some more Sellers, and maybe even some De Palma. 

Sunday Media Soup

I've been meaning to do something like this for awhile and after looking at some stats I've decided to finally up and do it. The plan so far is to contribute a summary of my week's media consumption and, of course, offer reviews of said media in a rather Christgau-esq fashion - I'm pretty sure that's how he spells his name. (How he manages to live with himself after writing millions of noxious music reviews I'm completely in the dark.)

My new addiction is The Twilight Zone, the original Rod Serling 1954 -1964 black and white TV Series.

Rod Serling: Writer and Narrator of the Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone, whilst obviously dated is a refreshing easy watch on a weekend, the stories are creative,  the writing is inventive and the dialogue is crisp and makes one nostalgic for when white men had all the power and not just most of it. The acting can be a little bit hit and miss on occasion, but those occasions are very rare and in general everything is superbly crafted - even the dishes meant to look like spaceships.
A- (The minus is because of one particular episode called The Invaders where a whole episode relies on one Actress's performance: she is particularly cringe-worthy.)


The band-width strangler this week is a documentary website called Top Documentary Films. There are around 2000 documentaries on the site; all readily available to be streamed with awesome quality. The doco's are all arranged according to content or genre so finding something to watch is really very easy, which leads me to a series available on the site called, "Philosophy: Guide to Happiness."

Alain de Botton

Philosophy: Guide to Happiness, is presented by Alain de Botton who is apparently a popular British philosopher. The documentary is a six part series which skims through the ideas of Socrates, Seneca, Epicurus, Nietzsche, Montaigne and Schopenhauer, the ideas are explained eruditely by De Botton but the production of the series itself is lack-lustre, rife with awful 90s techno, filled with countless drab and contrived scenes of people attempting to put what Schopenhauer or Seneca said into practice in modern-day life. Whilst the information gained may be worth the occasional torturous contrivance, one eventually spends most of the time looking at de Botton and wondering where his hair went.
(C-)

All Watched Over By Machine Of Loving Grace, was for me a highly anticipated series because of the fact it was made by Adam Curtis. What followed however was a confused series which seemed to be unaware as to what its point actually was. The first episode is incredibly concise, clear, direct and promised to offer something special, but subsequent episodes get lost in the middle of nowhere incredibly fast. Is his point that computers and machines have made our world worse? Or is it that people have made our world worse by using technology? Watching the whole series makes one confused as to the filmmakers point and so to borrow from Waking Life, "Well, I hope you know what you're talking about. Because I've got no idea what you're talking about."
(C+)

Adam Curtis

The Living Dead, is the twenty dollar note you find in your jacket pocket after your jacket has been locked away in your wardrobe for a season - you're surprised it's there, and happy as well. This series is classic Adam Curtis, which means it's a highly subjective look at the world through technicolor perspex; the content is brilliantly coherent, the interviews incredibly informative, overall the series is compelling and cathartic - perhaps not as eye opening as previous works but, like crack, it leaves you wanting more.
(A)

So this is the first installment of what I'm hoping will be a long routine of posting on Sundays about media. Hopefully - time permitting - I'll post about politics during the week. The next post will be about Hone Harawira's by-election win, I'm itching to post about it now; however I'm a little confused about what his victory means at this point so once I've figured out what can deduced from everything then I'll wax politic.

In the mean time here's a funny clip of Fred Durst trying to play guitar.

Traction.

Has the wool finally become to itchy to hold over one's eyes; perhaps the pill has become a little too hard to swallow? I'm a little late to the party but I like to think i'm fashionably late and happen to be turning up just as things are heating up. I mentioned in my last post that I was going to save some political ruckus for a little closer to the election but after having a glance through the paper today I'm going to squeeze out some ruckus out for kicks.

The Labour Party finally - thank god - got some good news today with Cameron Slater managing an epic fail in hacking (not hacking) their donors list, also they had a rather good omen a couple of days ago via the latest Roy Morgan Poll which has them gaining on National - it may not be enough to govern but eight percent is a giant leap in the right direction. Most commentators feel it may be on the back of National's plan to sell off the silverware, or as they would put it, "mixed ownership," of said silverware, even though the silverware happens to profitable and continually profitable. Whether or not you believe our current fiscal situation is dire enough to warrant asset sales is a moot point. What is interesting is not just the poll's results but the causal relationship between the poll and the National Party's main political problem: the problem is how they actually managed to come into power all those years ago. 

When National began campaigning they made huge changes to the political landscape by moving their party closer to the center, away from the lunacy of Don Brash to a friendlier, broader and of course more like-able foil in the form of John Key. They had identified a need for change and campaigned hard on what gave them traction: the need for change, softer National policies, showers and light-bulbs. They used Key's personality, charisma and cocksure swagger to generate a picture of a reformed National Party. The picture consisted of a re-invigorated, ambitious, contemporary, every-man party; that should be given a chance to govern on the basis that Helen Clark had her chance - it was time for someone new, something new, and National was, of course, the something new and as a result the political pendulum swayed in their favor as the politically dis-interested began to swing.

Now while National have enjoyed amazing results in terms of polls and popularity they still have an Albatross indefinitely wrapped around their neck. The Albatross being that when you campaign on vague, lofty ideas you  invariably imprison yourself with those lofty ideas, you simply have no mandate or wriggle room to change anything meaningful - a Leopard cannot change its spots. And as we've seen over the last three years National have only been able to make minuscule changes to the country's political and social infra-structure, any divergence from their original position has caused ripples through the NZ psyche, small ripples but the ripples get larger as the volatility of public opinion gathers mass. They have tried their best to manage the size of the ripples by their use of language like "taking the edges off the recession," "mixed ownership, rather than selling assets," and other PR exercises. They have ducked and dodged where appropriate and been helped out by numerous natural disasters stealing focus: but the Albatross still remains. As soon as anything of substance about policy comes from them a la ACC, Kiwisaver, WFF, and more recently asset sales, the pendulum swings backwards and even vaguer language is used.

So the question must be asked: can they shake the Albatross from around their neck? With two thirds of the population against asset sales it's hard to see how they could, they have no mandate to remove it and their continual undermining of Kiwisaver hasn't done them any favors either. My gut feeling is National believes it has enough political capital to get through to another term and can afford to burn off some for the sake of getting something unpopular but nonetheless meaningful pushed through. Perhaps with the turmoil of the current economic crisis, the pike river tragedy, and Christchurch's numerous expensive rattles people are willing to believe the sky is falling, the end is near and drastic cannibalistic actions are needed. Perhaps National believe Goff's lack of personality means he is unable to offer a valid option to the NZ public and are capitalizing on the lack of political competition. All of these possible scenarios require a lot of selling, John Key is up to the task but the problem is the rest of the party aren't and the mistake is they have given Labour traction. Labour can quite easily ride asset sales til November, with two thirds of the country against asset sales you'd be a fool not to and they have more than enough time to hammer it home - they do of course require decent hammer hands, Mallard and Cunliffe should be interesting over the next couple of weeks. With Cameron Slater hacking (not hacking), releasing (not releasing) Labour's donors' information National have a tonne more headaches in front of them. 

The problem with the donor list is the potential of it being a smoking gun of National's party activities, whilst asset sales can be massaged, the privacy act, the law cannot, they're not Partisan issues: they are the law. No National supporter would like their privacy infringed upon, nobody would. Whilst Cameron Slater gets legal advice, which I hope for his sake is return the information, apologize and hope for the best. National have a huge choice to make in how they handle this situation, misreading it could be fatal. If they mock Labour for the security breach they are effectively agreeing and condoning a blatant crime. If they sidestep the issue and leave Slater to the wolves, then Labour can ask why National is consorting with confessed criminals - they can do this either way actually.    

Once again the Albatross of campaigning on personality and soft-policies means they cannot do anything else, they can't attack Labour overtly, they can't shift further to the right, they can't flip-flop on asset sales, Kiwisaver, ACC et all, as all this would do is cause the pendulum to swing further against them. The picture of an ambitious, new, contemporary, every-man party starts to become too diffuse, toxic and unrealistic - the pendulum continues to swing further away from them. National may think they can afford the luxury of tossing the Albatross off and running a campaign on their core values with Phil Goff's popularity floundering, perhaps that would be justified - but let's not forget Helen Clark was all but written off as a leader before taking on Jim Bolger in 1996, and Jim only managed to scrape by with a couple of percentages. Today's political landscape is different from 1996 and any further capital they lose would be too much, they will have to continue run on personality, soft-policies, leverage the numerous quakes as reasons for an impotent, lacklustre economy and government: but will NZ believe them?

I guess we'll find out in November.   

Argh Bored.

I would like to write a post about politics, you know all the stuff going on, but i kind of feel my time would be wasted. There's absolutely no chance someone else has written what I would like to write a billion times on numerous forums and opinion pieces - no chance in hell. So as much as i'd like to get my politic on I feel like i should save some of my political ruckus for, I don't know, the election. In the mean time there is some awesome new music available right now, firstly let's talk, 'My Morning Jacket,' or let's not - how about you go and listen to their new album 'Circuital,' which is pretty darn good. I have kindly put a link of the single 'Circuital' here, so if this kind of stuff floats your proverbial boat then perhaps you should purchase or find a good internet friend to help you find it - as a side note I've only embedded the easiest to find youtube link, the album gets much better.

Other interesting music available right now includes the 'Arctic Monkey's' new album 'Suck it and See,' which I have to say is probably the worst title for an album - unless you happen to be in the Rolling Stones. Funnily enough the album is the completely opposite of what you'd expect from an album of that name, very nice dynamics, no 4 by 4 mixes where everything is compressed and turned up to 11. Here's a link to the title track, which i'm already starting to get tired of. In other news Brian Eno has a new album coming out called, 'Drums Between the Bells,' which promises to sound exactly like a Brian Eno album, maybe some kooky synths only he knows how to make sound good, possibly a some interesting rhythms taken from a rare record cut by some genius who Brian Eno met and we never heard of.

But - and this is probably why I'll never be a Journalist - the absolute must listen music right now is Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi's new album, "Rome." (Anyone notice how my most important point is at the bottom of the page and not the top, Columnists would be aghast at that, but I'm a bad-ass, a rebel, whitey and the man can't bring me down.)

If you haven't heard "Rome", the run to your local CD shop, or briskly walk to your computer - up to you - and grab it, it's definitely worth multiple listening's and could be the Sunday hangover chill album of the year. There used to be a full link on youtube for the whole album, but apparently it's unavailable right now, so here's a link of the first song and here is a quick little promo slash feature about the album.

Video wise or let's say moving picture wise, Adam Curtis' series 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace' has finished and all 3 episodes are available online on youtube or other avenues, it's worth watching although I feel the last two episodes are kind of a waste of time. 'Breaking Bad' is finally going to continue after leaving the world with a two year cliffhanger - if you haven't seen this show, find it and watch them all, probably one the best shows after 'The Wire,' and  'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' which happens to be returning with Parkinson's jokes and the like very, very soon.

On a personal note, due to my poor health at present I will probably be posting a lot more regularly - not on my health, of course. Don't worry I'm fine, just can't do things that would prevent me from writing at the moment.

Vincent's an art-house goon.

I found an awesome site to "waste" band-with on the other day, it is pushing my HD to the absolute brink of destruction. The site "Cinema of the world" is probably the best film resource I've ever seen: you like Herzog, well how about every single movie he's made including documentaries made about him, Antonioni, how about everything he made and even his writings, essays, photography and even the first documentary he made about a textile factory, Rosselini, Bresson, Fassbinder, Passolini, Fellini, Haneke - basically any Director you could think of is there. The site uses direct links so need for a bit torrent or anything which also means your ISP won't know what you're doing. You can get Jdownloader if you want to set it and forget while you go about your day which I highly recommend even if the interface on Jdownloader is a bit weird.

The site itself has a bit of a finicky search again but nothing that makes it impossible to find the movie you want or director you want, or if you can't think of anything you can just search by country, funnily enough the New Zealand section is the most in-accurate section with Australian films mixed in and amazing name mix ups like Taika Waititi for some reason being named Taika Cohen but big whoop. Currently I'm going mental with the amount of Les Blank on offer, the other day I watched a couple of fairly rare short documentaries he made: one was about Werner Herzog eating a shoe entitled, surprisingly enough, "Werner Herzog eats his shoe," and I also watched a documentary about Lightning Hopkins who was obviously an amazing blue guitarist, although I suppose with a name like that the only other thing he could be is an athlete. Am now downloading Blank's amazing documentary, "Burden Of Dreams," which is probably his most well known documentary about the making of Herzog's movie "Fitzcarraldo."

So, when you've got some extra data to make use of go "shopping" on this site and find some absolute gem docos and art-house stuff, with all the tragedy going on in the world these days ala earthquake, tsunami, recession and fear-mongering journalism it's nice to find a good distraction other than Charlie Sheen - winning!

Really? Rugby Analogies? In an election year?

If you were bored enough to read the Herald today you may very well have read this "peach" of a quote said by David Cunliffe about Finance Minister Bill English's handling of the economy, "He's a little bit like a fullback taking a high ball and he's frozen to the spot rather than making a decision whether to kick it, pass it or run it, and the forward pack is coming at him. The flankers are there already. That's the global financial crisis."

Really? I mean really? The Labour party is using Rugby analogies to describe Bill English's lack-lustre performance with the economy, I mean, why? And secondly if you're going to use sports analogies surely you could find better ones, or perhaps even get the analogy correct in the first place.

Obviously the analogy denotes the indecision of Bill English; however I'm not sure English's performance so far can be described as indecisive, I think by in large his performance has been anything but indecisive, it's just been, well, poor. So let's take the Rugby analogy for the sake of... fun. If the National government and Bill English have done anything with the economy that can be translated to Rugby terminology, it's kicking for touch; however the kick was just outside the 22, went out on the full, so play had to come back to where the ball was kicked and there was a three man overlap when English went to kick. Now whilst my analogy could have the occasional person scratching their head, at least it's a lot less confused then Cunliffe's attempt, "The flankers are there already," whose Flankers, your team's, or the opposition's team? 

"That's the global financial crisis." What is? The Flankers? The whole inept analogy? I'm confused and I shouldn't be, especially not in an election year, albeit one with the Rugby World Cup looming. 

The point that I'm trying to make here is that the message of Cunliffe gets muddled because of the reliance on a simple analogy that doesn't fully describe the breadth of the financial crisis and National's reaction to it. Eventually Cunliffe becomes understandable when he uses real terms and not the Rugby-centric terms, "the Government has unimaginatively tried to "cut its way out" of the problem by reducing spending, shrinking the size of government and "so the neoliberal theory goes ... the private sector bursts forth and makes up the difference". See, clear and concise, the government tried to "cut its way out," like, kicking for touch and the result was meant to be, "the private sector makes up the difference," but,  "The problem with that, of course, is in the short term you shrink demand and make more people unemployed and end up paying more unemployment benefit," like, the ball going out on the full and retreating backwards. Of course,  "Labour favours trying to "basically grow our way out," like, taking advantage of the overlap.

I know Labour's PR team must be saying, try to relate to the ordinary person, try to use things that people like, Rugby, prosperity, vision, innovation, cuddly toys and so on, but what Labour really needs is to get traction, the kind of traction that National got with their, short shower energy efficient light bulb scare, and if they muddy things with lazy sport analogies, they are not going to get it. There's enough for Labour to attack: gst rises, tax cuts for the rich, rising unemployment, a failing retail sector due to Gst rises, a huge deficit, why not just stick to the facts and not get all cute because we've got a World Cup on the way. 

I'm a geek. (But at least I'm not a douche like Ice Cube)

It was bound to happen but one could never have foreseen just how much of the geek virus I would get. In a way I've always been a geek with my passion for movies, music, literature, politics and art: you certainly wouldn't level a dude-man-bro label on me, but you probably wouldn't call me a geek either. However, I am now officially one of those geeky people, you know the ones that use their computers to play games with their friends and it's starting to absolutely ruin my life, it's eating away at me from the inside. The virus can be traced to one game, Starcraft 2, which is an MMORTS. (Massive Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy - at least that's what I think that means.) The best description I can give of this game, is that it's a game where you build armies and attack the other player with said armies, however, it gets more tricky and strategy comes to play in terms how to attack, when to attack, what to attack and what with - bored yet? The reason why this game is so utterly addictive is because of the social aspect involved in it, if several of your friends play this game it's hard not to get involved and play with them - also the fun of flaming other players worldwide works on a rather base human emotion.
This is why I haven't blogged for awhile and also why I can't seem to get any sleep, I spend my nights lying awake thinking of ways I should've countered other players, strategies i could use in the future, this is also why I took a week off work to play and somehow get the monkey off my back - some sort of aversion therapy where you have so much of the drug that you lose your taste for it; however, it's not really working as the better you get at this game the better your competition gets, so there is practically no chance of getting bored as the game is always a challenge. So there it is, I officially have no self-control or will-power and I could quite easily fall into an ocean of geekdom become unemployed, fat, greasy, wear faux ironic t-shirts with things like LOL, ROFL, LMAO, FFS and possibly even start joking with people in HTML code - I'm not there yet thank god, but it's coming.

Since I've been playing this game only a few things have hit my periphery, the Super-City voting papers arrived the other day; they're not mine but I figure I'll vote for whoever's voting papers I received - every vote counts right. Also the new season of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia started airing in the US which means it's available on-line for people who can't wait for C4 to buy the rights for the season in another year or so. In music news apart from Lou Reed bitch slapping Susan Boyle - in a metaphorical kind of way - there's really not too much interesting going on. I'm still waiting for Mr MCA to kick the cancer so the Beastie's can release their new album, however, when that will be is uncertain. Kings Of Leon have a new album coming out - yay, more mediocre pop music. Ice Cube has a new one coming out soon, I've chucked an interview of Mr Cube which kind of shows how out of touch Mr Cube is with world events; apparently he's just realised large corporations - like the label he's on - have a negative effect on society in some cases - no he can't mean that? Not Mr Cube? Corporations? No...


Here's the new track I Rep The West, because apparently Ice Cube "represents" the western territories of U.S.A, in fact one could possibly even say the West is his house, his home, his domain shall we say, nay, in fact he is the West and as Jim said, "the west is the best," however I have a feeling Jim meant "West" in a different way - probably in a taking acid and dying in a bathtub in France kind of way.


I was going to post the offical video but embedding has been disable by the "evil" corporation that Ice Cube speaks ill against. 
The only real music news of any interest is Tricky releasing a new album in a week called Mixed Race, which is apparently the first album Tricky has made without the "enhancer" Marijuana. I've posted the official video for Murder Weapon below. To be honest seeing Tricky trying to be tough is laughable, especially when you consider he got his legs broken by Goldie - I'm not saying I could take him, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take much to knock him out, actually nah, I'd pwn his ass.


Probably even more interesting than me pwning Tricky, is the news about Brian Eno's new studio album Small Craft On A Milk Sea  is scheduled to drop early November, apparently he's going back to his ambient Music For Airports kind of sound. But that's about as interesting as we get, so... that's all for now, must get away from the computer and go out with real people and talk about real things of importance like when we're gonna do our next 4v4.

Humble Pie... (Maybe.)

If you were kind enough to read my last blog - that wasn't a girl opening a can of spaghetti and having a wee - than you may have remembered me talking about an album called Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, in fact you might have read something like, "I have a feeling that this might be the album to send Brian back into his room with the sand-pit, the Tonka truck, the donuts and the shaking of the Tookus," followed by other hypothetical gems such as, "this could be the butchering of some of the greatest songs ever written by one of the greatest musician's known to man." Well... finally I was able to get a copy of the album and give it a very long, considered listen over the course of the weekend. Whilst it certainly isn't the "butchering” of some amazing songs; I'm still unsure if it's actually any good.  

It starts with some amazing vocals on Rhapsody in Blue, then after a minute of lush vocals it mixes into the worst song on the album, The Like In I like You. I'm still not a fan of the song after several attempts at trying to like the Like In I like You I found myself skipping past it every single time until I just plain deleted it from the computer - points off obviously, but what follows after the excruciating Like In I Like You is amazing.

Summertime kicks off a four track Porgy and Bess Suite, the song is eerie, moody, intricately produced with finicky piano trills amongst amazing orchestral arrangements, huge flourishes, crescendos and Brian's voice sits perfectly amongst all this, then in a moment of brilliance there is an amazing key change that flows right into I Loves You Porgy. Here we get less piano brilliance but we get some amazingly well arranged vocals and more well crafted symphonic pleasure.

It wouldn't be a Brian Wilson album without wazoos and bass harmonicas, and luckily enough I Got Plenty Of Nuthin' satiates that particular idiosyncrasy of Brian's with a nifty little instrumental track that is very reminiscent of the Pet Sounds recordings. Then to complete the Porgy and Bess suite It Ain't Necessarily So goes back to sneaky intricate musicianship, production tricks aplenty, time changes, spirit finger drums and then fade out - flip to Side B. Overall the first half of this album is quite incredible, if you delete the dodgy track you've got yourself one half of an awesome album.

Then we flip over to Side B to an upbeat version of They Can't Take That Away From Me, which I could actually take or leave, it has a very early Beach Boys sound to it, it's good but compared to the other arrangements it seems to just be filler. Love Is Here To Stay gets the album back on track, it's superbly arranged, performed - pretty, pretty, pretty good. Then I've Got A Crush On You becomes a barbershop doo-wop band that would rival Frank Zappa's best; but overall one feels the album is starting to lag and become a much of the muchness. I've Got Rhythm is probably the least complex song on the album, a fairly lazy Beach Boys Surfin' USA kind of composition and you start to wonder if maybe your time would be better served cleaning or reading a book but the song finishes and Someone To Watch Over Me steers the record back on track with a nice Harmonium, some cellos, delightfully arranged backing harmonies and you remember why Brian Wilson is so highly regarded. Nothing But Love starts off with grutny distorted guitars, a hiss and a mild roar - it's basically as close as you could magine Brian to doing rock music really; the counterpoint to the guitar is chirpy harmonies which make you wonder if there isn't some gentleman's accord about distorted guitars with butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth vocals - if there isn't there certainly should be. Finally, the album goes back to a reprised version of Rhapsody In Blue; one wonders if the reprise is truly necessary as it's really only thirty seconds and not exactly earth shattering, it's nice, pretty, but would you be severely short-changed without it? No.

Overall the disappointing thing about this album is the glimpses of sheer brilliance, if it was all bad I'd be happy, I could write it off, leave it alone; however, the moments of brilliance make me continue to listen and wonder if I've missed something - it's similar to banging a hot girl then having to deal with numerous hand holding and dinner with her friends. The album is Utopian bliss, passion and fire followed by a slow descent into mediocrity, conversations about mortgages, taxes, that guy that you got in to fix your sink but failed to finish the job to your satisfaction. This doesn't mean the album isn't worth giving a listen as the first side is extraordinary, in fact, it's quite incredible and already there is talk of a grammy awards for this album - not to mention people selling the limited edition vinyl edition for 150 dollars American - so give it a whirl, but perhaps I've saved you the conversation about taxes, tradesmen, mortgages, car insurance, the grandchildren you've never met - nor care to - the amazing special at the supermarket on tea bags - just bang the hot girl and bail. (Words to live by.)

Because It's Art. (Or because we're in art school)

Okay, I have really nothing to say to this. This is just something you have to see no matter what you're feelings on "conceptual performance art" happen to be. Do I wanna analyse it? No. Am I still laughing like a madman after watching this? Yes. However, I will say that Cakefarts may very well have to pick up their game as this girl's going places, "and i don't mean a postcard."

Well it's about that time.

So here we are new and improved with a solid internet connection - finally - and a need to vent, inform and generally waffle. It's been far too long. Working for the man does that to you, and also having to deal with around five different companies to get a decent supply of interwebs means I've been tardy, nay, I've been absolutely non-existent. So, what's new....

First, the music (weird arty things coming later): Harmonica Lewinsky, Arcade Fire, Eels, LCD Soundsystem and Brian Wilson.

Harmonica Lewinksy finally got round to doing a gig at Nourish Cafe in Waiheke Island, the sound on-stage was awful but a very nice time was had by all, even though the groupie scene was rather lack-lustre - perhaps I'll try playing the right chords next time. We will be playing future gigs wherever we can, so if you see us advertised somewhere why not pop in and see us, I have a very nice guitar if that helps convince you. And there are CD's, downloads, tapes, and shirts available here http://harmonicalewinsky.bandcamp.com/

But now to things that aren't shamelss self-promotion. Arcade Fire have a new album out called 'The Suburbs,' which is an absolute grower. The first half of the album is quite awesome, but after awhile the album tends to fade out, become all Emo moody stuff with fairly cliched reprises and what not. It's absolutely well worth a listen as some of the first half of the album is plain superb, and to be honest there's a reason why this album is either number one or number two on whatever music retail website or store you wish to go to. Amazon has them at number two, they've been there solidly since the album was released a three weeks ago, although they were pretty much in the top ten for a month due to pre-release sales; however the only person beating them is Brian Wilson's new album which hasn't even been released yet, but more about that later.

The Eels have also been busy releasing the third and final - I'm hoping - installment of Mr E's conceptual album musical meanderings, and with this particular album i use the word meanderings very deliberately. 
The album, 'Tomorrow Morning' which follows, 'End Times' dropped a week ago and whilst it has some good moments, on the whole this feels like one of those albums that should have been left in the off-cut pile - along with half of 'End Times.' This is not to say it's not worth a listen as it has a rather interesting almost Baroque or Showtune like direction and where it works the songs are quite sweet, sublime, almost something you could imagine angels - faggy angels - playing whilst running in their nappies to serenade some fifteen year old girl with low self-esteem. But when the concept doesn't work it becomes like a soundtrack for a melodrama taking place in a funeral home with some moron saying, 'isn't this a tragedy,' every five minutes. The album deserves a listen as, as i said, it has some amazing musical moments, and even a bad album by Mr E is better than something by Lady Gaga.

LCD Sondsystem have released a third and apparently final album called, 'This Is Happening.' If you've ever heard 'Sound of Silver' or anything by LCD Soundsystem you know what cool powerhouse funk slash dance slash retro stuff they do, the new album follows that particular trend and is pretty darn amazing. So run, don't walk, to your local CD store and grab it, or... write the name down, make a cup of tea, search the places where one who would be in the market for free music would go, download it, listen to it with your cup of tea whilst checking the news and events of the day and praise the interwebs for free information. Spike Jonze - not that it matters - directed their music video for the song 'Drunk Girls,' which is probably my least favourite song on the album but everything else is darn incredible and probably the best music I've heard all year. It's annoying that I really don't have anything to say about this album - bar buy it, or download it, but that's really all you need to know.

In a week or so, Brian Wilson's new album comes out. I've listened to a couple of previews and although I'm looking forward to it, I have a feeling that this might be the album to send Brian back into his room with the sand-pit, the Tonka truck, the donuts and the shaking of the tookus. The album is called 'Brian Wilson Reimagines Gerswhin' and - as the title would suggest - has Brian interpreting some of Gershwin's classics, think 'Summertime,' with wazoos and harmonics, imagine 'They Can't Take That Away From Me,' with a sweet Maraca and a Banjo chucked in for good measure. Whilst the album could be fantastic, and let's hope it is, it could also be the butchering of some of the greatest songs ever written by one of the greatest musician's known to man. The album is currently available on vinyl but not on CD, or download, which is a pretty cool sales quirk.There is also a short little documentary - if you could call it that - available for viewing on youtube which I'm going to be kind enough to post at the bottom, along with the only full and complete version of the first single from the album called, 'The Like In I Like You,' which, as I'm sure you're already aware, is not actually a Gershwin classic: so what is it? It's a song that Gershwin never completed, sure he wrote the lyrics, but he never actually made the music, played it live, let anybody know about it, in fact, it sat in his draw along with probably thirty million other songs, ideas, melodies, notes and peripheral music that he probably put there for reason - perhaps he was setting up his children with a treasure trove of gems that they could pawn off to the highest bidder, but I doubt it. In a way I'm a little disturbed that Brian Wilson would actually go through someone else's music - that was never completed - tinker with it and finish it. Mike Love and the rest of the Beach Boys "completed" his work of genius 'Smile,' and called it 'Smiley Smile,' they changed quite a few things and very little of it actually resembled what Brian intended. The eventual outcome of all this was Brian locking his songs up, having a nervous breakdown and of course going into legal battles with the Beach Boys. Ironic? No. Stupid? Maybe. I guess I'll have to wait a week to find out.



I really want to like this song, but... Agh, I just don't know if I can do it.



Weird hipster arty people coming up in the next post, i just have to stop laughing and compose myself first.

The Grinding Of My Gears: Bus Drivers.

So, the strike i finally over - at least I assume it is since I managed to actually catch the Link bus yesterday after a long week of walking and taxi-ing to work. As a leftie I'm all for strikes, unions, pay rises, lunch breaks where you actually have time to eat something and let your food digest briefly; however if there's one group of workers that shouldn't really show just how much better the roads are without their existence, it's bus drivers.

Auckland roads have been much less congested, the traffic down Queen Street through normal peak hours has been almost non-existent and the initial annoyance at having to fend for yourself on the roads to get to work pretty much disappeared after two days. Perhaps my personal situation of living in the inner city anyway means the extra five minutes added to my journey is a moot point; however I do feel it's important to point out that if you want to get more money, rights, etc, perhaps one shouldn't go about it by showing just how much easier it is to go about your day without being at the whim of buses that arrive late - if at all. As someone that uses the Link bus, it boggles my mind how ridiculous the public transport system is, for example the Link bus actually comes to a complete stop at Victoria Park, Newmarket, and K'Road for anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes, why? Well, the Link bus is meant to arrive every ten minutes, so if it's five minutes late, they actually wait five minutes so they're on time for when the next Link bus is due. Yep, it makes no sense to me either and as you can imagine it means very often you have two buses arriving at the same time, which seems pointless. I talked to one of the drivers of the Link route and asked why they did this, his answer was, "It takes us 45 minutes to complete the circuit, we have 8 buses on from 7am to 6pm - four each way - and so we have 15 minutes to fill every hour otherwise we overlap too much and our lunch breaks get messed up."

Shall we pause and consider the mathematical intricacies of performing an eight hour shift where fifteen minutes of every hour is spent sitting doing absolutely nothing, in fact one bus driver actually has a PSP he plays in the wait time. So, if one works an eight hour shift, that would be 8 times 15, which would be 120. That's two hours where you're not actually doing anything, add in a half hour lunch break and you're only actually working 5 and a half hours a day. Now I know that this is an isolated story amongst hundreds of other bus drivers that have to deal with the scourge of Auckland getting to work from places like Onehunga, Albany, Pakuranga, Glen Eden and dare we say the dreaded Glen Innes, where the travel time is a topping an hour, with maybe five minutes leftover to sweep the bus then turn around and do the same thing again. But I think the Link bus route actually provides the basic sickness that's inside public transport in Auckland, the laissez-faire attitude of, just wait and be on time for the next one - the level of procrastination has to rank the all-pro category.

Now I know the drivers' have very little say with regards to policy, scheduling and what not, but there is a fundamental truth that they seem unable to understand: what drives up wages is more profitability. What drives up profitability is better productivity. (And so to unravel the business jargon.) Perform a better service then more people will catch the bus, which means more money for the bosses, which in turn means more buses on the road and more money for the people driving them - yes I know it's trickle down theory; however this is how businesses actually work: you're not going to change the beast by whinging about it, you tame it by working with it. It's a brutal reality but it's how the system works, yeah it would be nice if we all got paid what we're worth but it's not how the business world works, the business world works via numbers - increase the numbers and you find a very friendly ear, do nothing and your pleas fall on deaf ears.

And so to finish off the rant, which I know has a very right leaning slant to it, I hope the drivers' got what they wanted and I hope they haven't worked counter to what they actually need to do to achieve it, because I want them to get what they want, I want them to have more money - they have a hard job - but if they want it, please don't piss off most of Auckland to do it, we have cars that we're trying not to use, and have legs we wish we didn't have to use. Remember, we can actually get by without you, the late buses, the waiting, the running to catch the bus when you don't see us signalling you - we can turn on you if you force us to, and if petrol went down in price - not that it's going to happen - you'd be absolutely screwed. This is just a friendly reminder, we've got our eye on you now.

The Grinding Of My Gears: Whinging.

I was reading Brian Edwards Media earlier this morn' and read one of those throw away "what really grinds my gears" style blogs where someone just has a good ole fashioned whine without any kind of thought of what they might actually be writing. In Judy's case it's one of those age old whines about the fabric of society and how asking how someones day is going is just too annoying.

But, hooray for me, now I can have a whine about people having a whine: you see it's a cycle, one person whines, four people join in, and then another whines about those whining and we have a great cyclical beating of brows where eventually we realise the time we've spent whining actually outweighs the real impact it has on our lives, and then we move on - and do it again next time we're amongst friends with a beer or a wine.

But now to the important activity of the grinding of my gears. It always annoys me when people complain about other people, especially for marginal infractions like, trying to be polite and making the social interaction between absolute strangers slightly more palatable, or just plain performing the role they're paid to do. It's what society is built on for crying out loud. It's a social contract that we all adhere to willingly because there really is no alternative.

Oh, yes, we could all walk around not saying a word to each other, getting mad every time we're asked any kind of question at all, "would you like a separate bag for your meat, or can I stick it all in the one bag?"
"How dare you intrude my personal bubble and force me to be a part of society... Separate bags... Oh, and by the way, you're the reason why my day has turned to shit." Yes, let's get annoyed at a waitress asking how your day's going because that's such a hard question to answer, yes let's get annoyed at someone asking if you have any plans for the weekend because, yes, it's such an intrusion into your private life, when in fact you're going to post the pictures on facebook for all to see anyway. Yes, let's get annoyed at someone trying to earn a living to put food on their table for their kids, or just for themself to enjoy a brief flurry of joy in their life. Yes, let's pretend we're five and that the whole world revolves around us and what we want, or how about we act like adults, realise everybody has lives of their own and try and be courteous enough to let them live it without being total dicks; however as a wise old queer once told Uncle Bill, 'some people are just assholes darling.'

Everyone likes to think they're special, worthy of special treatment, above the law, the beautiful unique snowflake amongst the millions of dull carbon copies of each other but we all know deep down inside that we're in fact not, oh no, we're all part of the same infectious human waste that moves around this earth. So, how about people just grow up a little and enjoy life by actually taking part in it, or if that's too much to ask, find yourself a cave and babble about the annoyances of modern life from inside it where others don't have to listen to your drivel.

That Wonderful Load Of Art

The art world has had numerous moments where controversy has stormed blustery, vicious, cold and tumultuous, and like all storms: it passes, the world goes about its business with the wheels of progress never stopping, freshly galvanised and lubricated from the abrupt stop it came to earlier.

Years ago there was the beer crate fiasco, then there was the dildo shaped batons, the embalmed shark, the human excrement, and now... literal rubbish.



Made from the packaging of other entrants, and done via the webs without any consultation "Collateral" by Dane Mitchell won the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award and is the fresh storm brewing in the art world - or at least NZ for at least the time being. As far as the art work goes one has to admire the simplicity of it, and the sheer - for lack of a better word - balls. What always surprises me about these works is the arguments over the internets. Check out the herald's your views for amazing, well thought out analysis of what art is, and why this is a great piece of art because we're talking about art, or why this is awful because my three year-old son could have done a better job, and pearls of wisdom from the likes of ALISHA091 from Auckland who offers a wonderfully concise comment taken verbatim from the site so as to not detract from artistic merit, 'TRASH! Who were the judges? The locals on K road?'

A wise man once told me that, "a retard debates art's worthiness, and a true imbecile offers an opinion. A wise man would do well to stand back and watch them both squirm."

MMP and such (or the funny thing about referendums)

The other day I was cheating people out of their money over the phone, half asleep, half hungover - or possibly still drunk from the night before - and the oddest thing came on the television, in fact if I remember correctly, it actually interrupted whatever British drama series TV One was showing - Emmerdale, East Enders or something along that vein - with "Breaking News" - like it's an emergency or something, something that's going to change the trajectory of my day in an unimaginable way - I couldn't hear the reporter as the mute button was on but saw the text exclaiming 'Key Announces MMP Referendum' and went back to calling people about a four hundred dollar piece of plastic that's going to change their life - and in only three minutes!

The avid National supporter across from me yelled, 'about fucking time!' and I thought to myself, 'you realise it's only a vote don't you?' What followed was a comedy of errors on the National supporter's part as he made the mistake of talking politics to me. Now, normally if given half a chance to get on my soapbox and wax politics I would jump at the chance; however, being that I'm under a contract which actually states in no uncertain terms that, 'no employee should discuss politics, religion, and other controversial matters whilst working for... failure to do so will result in instant dismissal,' and so I bit my tongue, kept my head down and tried to go about my work but was asked if I liked MMP by the National supporter. I gave a non-committal answer and then was treated to an almost David Brent moment where the Nat supporter went about telling me everything that was wrong with MMP, everything that was wrong with Labour, why National was the only party he supported - ever since he began to understand politics - why taxes suck, why Maori's shouldn't be involved in the supercity, and to top it off, why Asians, Indians, Wogs - anyone not white was ripping him and the country off.

I held my tongue, then asked him to wait for my cigarette break and said that, "then I would be happy to explain my opinions on everything," to him, in words he could understand but he kept at me and so I decided to take my break early. What followed over a cigarette was your cliche' black versus white conversation where no-one would ever back down, no-one would show weakness and even the idea of admitting there was something we could agree on was unimaginable. I finished my smoke and walked upstairs saying, 'let's just get on with our day,' then went and sat at my desk. Five minutes later I was approached by the manager who said, 'we were listening to your conversation through the headset, you handled it well, I'm about to go and fire the fucker.'

And so five minutes later the National supporter was fired and asked to hand back his headset. The word schadenfreude sprang to mind as he left. After an hour or so I got reflective and wondered just how annoyed he'd be when he realised the referendum is two years or so away and the announcing of a referendum doesn't mean a win, it means um-ing and ah-ing, talking about it til you're blue in the face and don't care anymore, but people seem to think the vote is a formality and it's already a done deal, even when John Key himself said, "the country is in no mood to dump MMP." So... one has to beg the question if this is a waste of time that a National government would normally - as their ethos requires them to do - cut, or is this just Key placating the extreme edges of his support base with the hopes of grabbing some more supporters from Act when Act hits rock bottom?

Overall, people need to chill out, not be so premature in their ejaculations of victory when all a referendum is, is a nice exercise of democracy - and sometimes means keeping the status quo.