The Idiot Winds

Monday Media Madness

2011-07-11T21:37:00.001+12:00

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

2011-07-03T20:52:00.000+12:00

'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

2011-06-27T04:20:00.000+12:00

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.

2011-06-13T17:10:00.000+12:00

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.

2011-06-12T03:43:00.000+12:00

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.

2011-03-24T06:59:00.000+13:00

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?

2011-01-11T17:31:00.000+13:00

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)

2010-09-25T17:28:00.000+12:00

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.)

2010-09-07T01:32:00.007+12:00

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)

2010-08-25T04:15:00.000+12:00

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.

2010-08-25T03:49:00.002+12:00

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.

2009-10-16T10:39:00.005+13:00

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.

2009-10-02T12:03:00.003+13:00

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

2009-09-19T19:50:00.006+12:00

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)

2009-09-11T13:23:00.004+12:00

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.

Mostly magical music news

2009-09-05T20:38:00.007+12:00

The Pixies are coming! Tickets go on sale Spetember the 18th; grab yourself a ticket quick as the vector arena - yeah it's a shame it's not somewhere decent - is going to sell out fast. So, mark down the 18th of September in your diary, grab yourself a ticket, then chill out... and then gradually get more and more excited at the prospect of one of the greatest bands of all time gracing lowly New Zealand with their presence. According to The Herald the show is going to consist of the entire Doolittle album plus selections from there other albums. It's going to be good and probably the concert of the year.

In other news Pere Ubu have a new album coming out in the next couple of weeks called Long Live Pere Ubu! It sounds interesting but of course one comes to expect this sort of thing from Mr David Thomas and so to quote from the press release, "Long Live Pere Ubu!" is the album of songs that was the genesis of the entire mess. It is a great leap forward in our pursuit of hyper-naturalistic recording techniques by which we replace microphones in the studio with wooden boxes, junked radio speakers, metal horns, and electrically charged window panes. Sound itself becomes the narrative. Everyone is going to hate it. We know that. The story, though satiric and comedic, is utterly bleak, lacking charm (the usual counter-weight to the band's noire tendencies) and devoid of redemption. Few people have ever read Ubu Roi, fewer heard of it. Wonderful. Altogether two years of work. Pere Ubu, the character, ruined Jarry's life. And now he's ruined our career. This thing is our Waterloo, our Bridge Too Far, our Pickett's Charge. Well, somebody had to do it." As another interesting aside the album will contain the singer Sarah Jane Morris, who has quite a large following in Italy and Greece as shown below.

And so we add that, with this.

And throw in a pinch of this.

And we get... this.

Other releases this month are Neil Young's Dreaming Man, one wonders if he ever just spends a day on the couch watching TV? My bet would be no, he'll write a song about spending the day on the couch watching TV.

Jay Z has an album coming out called Blueprint 3 - does he think he's Led Zeppelin or something?

Nick Cave has another album with Warren Ellis coming out, it should be good, as long as it's not all Nick Cave piano ballads. But overall, one must admit it's shaping up to be a good month for music.

It's about that time.

2009-09-05T16:57:00.003+12:00

There was always going to be a day where I'd start a blog with, "apologies for not blogging for so long... but I've been busy," and this would be the day. So, for all those that actually read my blog and have been malnourished for interesting reading here it is... sorry.

Ok, now that that's out of the way let me catch you all up on what's been happening. First, I got a job - an unglamourous job, but a job all the same. Second, I've moved from my delightfully quaint and fiscally prudent house, which could have possibly been the reason for the song Dominion Road by The Muttonbirds - but from all research undertaken by me seems unlikely - to a rather cold, yet nice house on Franklin Road. I moved a month ago and have only just come to grips with the added costs involved with living very centrally, running into celebrities, musicians, actors and other personalities whilst grabbing a coffee on Ponsonby Road or simply grabbing some milk from New World.

So, that's what I've been doing, fairly unexciting, fairly vanilla, fairly unworthy reading really; however there has been some interesting things happening in Auckland over the last couple of months: the film festival, an art festival or two, the smacking referendum, road works on Symonds street bringing traffic to a standstill most days, a rape in Victoria park - which is about five minutes walking distance from my house - and my own personal story regarding the 90 day fire at will bill.

I won't bother talking about the film festival except to say if there is one documentary you see this year, make sure it's We Live In Public, it's an incredibly interesting look at a particularly nutty man who was one of the first Internet pioneers. The referendum, of course, was an absolute joke and I feel there has already been far to much ink spilt in regards to that topic, so I won't weigh in, but I will weigh in on something which hasn't been in the media since it was first announced and that would be the 90 day fire at will bill.

As I said previously I'm gainfully employed in a job with a cringe worthy job title: telesales. Since I have been working there I've learned many things about corporate life and culture (will probably blog about this later) as well as seen first hand the ramifications of the fire at will bill. Since starting my job nearly three months ago I have seen five people fired, two people leave, and four new people start each week - the company I work for seems to have a revolving door policy in terms of retaining its staff. My own personal story is somewhat of a success story, in that, A, I haven't been fired, B, I've made a decent amount of money from my toils, and, C, I'm about to be offered a full-time contract; however it's not as easy as one would expect, before even discussing the contract, the pay rate, the hours, the leave, holidays and other stuff, I've had to undergo a myriad of psychometric tests - you know filling out forms answering questions about how I would react if someone lied to me, or if someone arrived late to a meeting, to determine whether I'm the right personality type to offer a contract.

Hopefully, the tests show me as a fine upstanding member of society and not the marginal alcoholic slash opinionated bleeding heart liberal that I am. Anyways, cross your fingers for me because if I have to stay on a casual contract I could go the way of many other staff members who have been fired within two days of starting work because they had a bad day or week. So, the 90 day bill works exactly how the National government wanted it to work, keep the workers in fear of losing their job so they work harder, take reduced pay, no holidays, no leave and of course if they prove themself to be worthwhile they can keep their job - hooray! - otherwise it's a new soul destroying job somewhere else where the whole process starts again. But it's doing even more that that because not only does it undermine your job security at the start of a job, it has a roll-on effect when you're actually under contract, meaning that when you sign your contract to get that job security that you've been wanting for so long, all that you really get is a piece of paper, your rights as a worker have pretty much already gone done the gurgler and so all you end up negotiating is what rights you have left, and in this current economic climate you can imagine just how many of those rights you'd give up for that piece of paper.

And with that, I'll leave for the time being, my laptop is about to die.

The Cottage Meeting

2009-06-05T15:36:00.004+12:00

On a cold Thursday night, people normally have better things to do, like watch television, huddle under the covers, crank the heater up to eleven and dream of Summer; however, for a political junkie like myself, the prospect of meeting the current front runner for the Mt Albert electorate was too good a opportunity to pass up and so I battled the cold, waltzed two streets over to my friendly neighbour’s house for what those in political circles call a “cottage meeting.”
Being that this was my first journey into a cottage meeting there was a certain amount of trepidation I felt as I turned up at the house - being the first person to arrive shows a level of keenness that most people find hard to understand. I was greeted courteously at the door by two people, one was Paul Chalmers, a friend of David Shearer’s, an active Labour party member and someone who ran for Labour in Whangarei in 2005 and 2008 - both times losing by a substantial margin.

“Come on in,” he said, followed by the words, “we have another body,” said in jest as he looked over at his friend Ainsley, who offered me a cup of tea. I was shown my seat on a plush red couch and asked about my political affiliations; this much I expected but what I didn’t expect was to be the youngest person at the meeting, and the only person not wearing Labour colours. Ten minutes passed as the impending arrival of David seemed to be an unlikely event - he was fifteen minutes late. But just as I was swallowing my last sip of tea he arrived dressed in tight-ish black jeans and a grey Kathmandu polar fleece - if there is one thing that can be said about David Shearer, it is that he certainly knows how dress casually. Handshakes were dispensed and Shearer was offered a cup of tea, which he takes black and weak, “the weaker the better,” he said as he was handed a birthday card to sign by Paul - apparently Phil Goff had already signed it. Then after taking time to sign the card Shearer shook my hand and sat down next to me as dips, sandwiches, fudge and crackers were placed on the coffee table in front of us. The one thing that struck me about Shearer was the incredibly relaxed attitude he seemed to exude: after this meeting there was another meeting he had to go to in Sandringham to discuss Plunket, which he admitted to being ill prepared for as well as nervous, he laughed and shrugged his shoulders in a way that the under-achieving generation Y chromosomes in me responded to affectionately.

I felt myself warming to Shearer, but then remembering the man next to me is a hopeful politician I cranked my cynicism up a little and opened my ears in the hope of catching him faking it. Three more people arrived and suddenly the lounge seemed a lot smaller. Paul Chalmers lead the conversation into the right avenues, the talking points of the electorate: the super city, the 1.4 billion dollar - un-costed - motorway National is proposing, the Westfield mall expansion, pollution around Meola Creek, what the electorate is saying, the National agenda to get their hands on the 28 Billion dollars in assets Auckland holds: water, ports, the Auckland Airport et al. Shearer described the super-city process as rushed with conflicts of interests arising from the “tight five” business elite composed board not having any accountability - except to Rodney Hide. Shearer then went on to describe the super-city as a “good thing for Labour,” and an, “albatross” for National. Then came an explanation on how the super-city was supposed to function; I went dizzy from the confusion I was experiencing from trying to understand all the ins and outs of the plan but managed to pick up the bottom line costs that would be associated with it: $700 per bill payer for the transitionary council, plus the costs associated with running for Mayor, $150,000 to $200,000 to do the simplest of campaign mail outs.

After the main talking points were hit the conversation was skewed to student allowances, training allowances, scholarships and grants, all of which had Shearer saying, “I don’t know, but Labour was committed to a Universal Student Allowance in 2012,” then the conversation moved to Shearer and why he had moved back to Auckland for the Mt Albert electorate, what followed was a carbon copy of his statement before he received the Labour nomination. This is where I noticed what I interpreted as a sense of insecurity. As Shearer’s eyes darted around the room occasionally fumbling over his answer his eyes always returned to mine; I felt that he was very unsure of his answer and he was looking at me to for some sort of validation or approval that he was getting it right. It was an odd experience to say the least, and then as he wrapped up his answer someone asked, “How are we doing out there David?” And with that, I saw some other emotions, anxiety and fear, which surprised me - especially after learning Labour supporters were flying in from all over the country to help with the final push, twenty students were flying up from Dunedin, people were flying up from Wellington, add to that the incredible presence of young Labour on the streets and you'll understand my surprise. Shearer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Um… well… we… honestly we don’t know what’s going to happen. Russel might take a few votes off us, we really don’t know.” I looked around the room to see if anyone else was surprised to hear that kind of doubt coming from a Shearer, the front runner, the odds on favourite, but the question of why he wanted to go into politics was asked, of course the clichéd answer of “wanting to make a difference” was offered, and then it was more smiles and handshakes as Shearer made his way to leave. There was a quick photo with all the guests next to Shearer - I tried to take a photo but unfortunately Shearer was going to have to rush to get to the next meeting on time - and then he disappeared along with everyone else.

I’ve met a few politicians in my time, but none have ever struck me as being human. Helen Clark was an impenetrable woman, Phil Goff is almost alien like, but Shearer - possibly, because he hasn’t been in politics long - seems to exude a true commonality that I imagine many people will notice and gravitate towards. I can see Shearer being a very important MP for the Labour party and can imagine him rising up the ranks very quickly; although the level of humility he has wouldn’t allow him to admit that before the by-election is done and dusted, and he knows just as his friend Paul said that, “one can’t expect all this attention to last.”

The anti-long weekend

2009-06-01T09:42:00.000+12:00

Long weekend's for someone of my age bracket tend to be a cliched affair of booze filled late night's, domestic travel to a rural area - which triples in size upon my arrival - parties and bands, which are all followed by the inevitable Monday morning hangover combined with a sense of failure for not doing those pesky tax returns, for being broke at the start of the week, for wishing you had done something worthwhile; and as the day goes on, reality eventually pierces through the smell of stale tobacco and mildew and one comes to the realization that the bill for their weekend extravagance is yet to be paid: the empties need to recycled, the kitchen needs to be cleaned, the house needs to be aired out and vacuumed, plus the preparation for the entry level job - if one is lucky enough to have one - has to be done: the brutal, menial task of washing clothes, the buying of cheap convenience foods, the returning of video tapes, and as the fog of the mind begins to lift one comes to the conclusion that, "I'm too old to be doing this," or the question, if one is being particularly reflective, "is this really what I want to do with my life, is this all there is?" which is always followed by the exclamation, "I'm never drinking again!"

My weekend has been a kind of anti-long weekend, the bare minimum of alcohol consumption, the smallest amount of correspondence between friends, the sojourn outside my warm room into the dirty, cold, empty streets of Auckland was done only to engulf some culture. The Academy has a rather good documentary on graffiti art called, "AlterEgo," showing right now and I highly recommend the documentary to any art lover, or anyone looking to get a further insight into one of the most oft' talked about art forms of this century. I was expecting a superficial look at the world of graffiti but was surprised to get an international, all encompassing look at graffiti with some rather interesting theories, our own Askew, some incredible graffiti coming from Brazil, and Berlin - which seems to be over run with graffiti. The doco touches briefly of tagging, and whilst it posits a particularly slanted and un-objective view, it actually makes the viewer reappraise their understanding of tagging and why it exists. There's some amazing artists on the documentary like DAIM, whose work shown in the last photo, SMASH 137, who has a website www.smash137.net showing all his work, and finally Herbert Baglione, who is an incredibly interesting artist that uses an ordinary brush and paint for his street art and has just had a few gallery exhibitions, of which, a sample of his work is shown in the photos above. The trailer for AlterEgo is below but go for a google of the artists I just mentioned and have a look around.

At the Academy screening of AlterEgo there was also a short doco called "Sand Dancer," which is awfully made, and contains no real information, but does have images of some amazing work by Christchurch sand artist Peter Donnelly, check it out below.

Budget 2009, yay!

2009-05-29T10:29:00.000+12:00

I'm only really writing this post to nudge the previous post down a little so it doesn't cover up the links to older posts. There's some really good analysis of the budget done by a lot of media commentators, especially Keith Ng on public address amongst others and so I'll refrain from trying to wax economics as I simply don't have the time. I will say that the budget had no real surprises, the cuts to the Cullen Fund are a downer but in all honesty I'm fairly sure everyone knew that was coming. Overall the budget has been described as a, "borrow and cross your fingers" budget, which is fairly correct although I would describe it more as a, "can't someone else do it," budget. It's quite clear that this has been National's plan to fight the recession all along, no ambitious ideas, no forward or progressive thinking, just cuts and wait for the rest of the world to sort their shit out - let's hope it works.

Eels up inside ya.

2009-05-29T09:26:00.000+12:00

It's three days until the new album by the Eels officially comes out; however, sneaky people like myself have managed to find a leaked copy. I'm giving it the first listen right now and I have to say I'm enjoying it very much. The album "Hombre Lobo" which is Spanish for werewolf is a conceptual album about desire, and is considered to be a very loose sequel to the "Souljacker" album with its loud guitars, heavy distortion, and big beards - as seen here.

Also we have some rather beautiful ballads - if that's the right term, I've never really understood the constitution of a ballad - as shown right here - is that a bass mandolin?

Here's the first official music video which was directed by Jesse Dylan - yep, that's what one of Bob's kids does for a living. The video seems a little David Lynch, Mullholland Drive, slash Inland Empire inspired and the film-maker inside me finds it a little underwhelming, but it's a good song and worth a listen.

Apparently there will also be a b-side album which will be very interesting as Mark Oliver Everett, or E as he prefers to be called, makes some incredible b-sides which are rich in sample potential. In other musical news Sonic Youth's album "The Eternal," comes out in a week and half "officially," but there are places on the intertubes that provide preview listens. After Sonic Youth we will reach a kind of black hole of sorts as there will nothing of real mainstream interest to come out for a few months apart from remastered editions of some Rolling Stones and Beatles records, which I imagine will have some audiophiles creaming themselves in preparation for the arguments they will have about the dynamics being lost in the new masters.

Ok, time to shower and plan my long weekend.

Melissa Lee's Titanic impersonation.

2009-05-26T05:40:00.000+12:00

So... If you follow my blog you'll notice I haven't blogged for a considerable amount of time. Why? Well, life happened: a pretty shocking flu - not swine related, or influenza b to be more correct - friends arriving for a catch up, a very interesting BBC series called The Ascent Of Man, art-house films aplenty from the interwebs, and a pile of things that needed more attention than blogging.

I originally intended to write something on the Mt Albert by-election; however the sands of time have meant that others have written far more depth analysis than I could ever hope to provide and it seems that the election is all over without a vote being cast. With the benefit of hindsight I can say now that I should've blogged as soon as I heard Melissa Lee on bfm for the sheer "told you so" factor; however not even Rasputin could of foreseen her complete and total collapse from a possible - although not very likely winner - to a hopeful third. There have been some very interesting phenomena occurring because of this election: Lee's self destruction - more on that later - the end to National's "honeymoon" period, the super city fiasco and finally the impact blogging has had on this election.
It wouldn't require anything more than a two minute google to see how much of the fighting has been done in the blogging trenches: first we had a particularly over zealous David Farrar claiming victory for the Nats because of his "Vote Twyford get Tizard" campaign which started in the Kiwiblog trenches, then we had the backlash from the left on The Standard following Russel Norman's decision to run and interestingly enough the mainstream media picked up both these stories and ran with them, adding some real tension and drama to what could have been a rather ho-hum affair. Much of the work around the supercity has also been done on the blogs, from organising marches, a hikoi, and of course providing information that gets left behind by the mainstream media, perhaps even the end of the honeymoon period can be attributed the work of numerous bloggers like no right turn, idiot savant, the standard community et al.

But let's focus on the destruction of Lee with a little back story.

Labour signaled very early what their campaign was going to hinge on: world experience, personality, credentials and so on. The Green's signaled that they were no longer going to be the whipping boy of NZ politics, no longer would they sit idly by and be picked last for the lunchtime game of touch rugby (the last drinking liberally was a further display of this particular sentiment) . Act began campaigning on all they know, big business good, people... irrelevant - they know they have no chance and instead are using the campaign as a branding exercise. The Nat's rolled out an ambitious, tough - kind of hot - woman who seemed to be a threat, at least on paper; however - as always - with National MP's one never gets a clear idea of what they stand for - we get pleasant platitudes and smiley faces but not much else. Then it became clear what Lee was going to run on, race. It started with a sneaky article in the Herald with a particularly racist chemist saying words to the effect of, I won't vote for a slant eyes like you - the actual quote is possibly even more racist than my interpretive sub-textual racial analysis - to which Lee mentioned the high percentage of Asian constituents inside the electorate. So it was clear from the get go what National's strategy was going to be, a dog whistle here, a few jabs at the previous government there, but it seems actually winning the by-election was never part of their strategy. As numerous commentators have already pointed out the real plan was to weaken the seat and claim a moral victory.

Proof of this came after listening to Melissa Lee on bfm with the other candidates, it was clear that winning the seat was a clear impossibility for National - people don't like brash, abrasive, arrogant politicians planning to demolish their houses for a mall or a new highway - and so the question has to be asked why did the Nat's run what they say was a very strong candidate instead of a well known candidate that had been active in the electorate for more than a few elections? If Melissa Lee was truly a face for the future of the National party why then did they distance themselves from her after some inflammatory comments at a election meeting and why were they made in the first place? Surely, Lee had some advisors that would've told her stereotyping the poorest and most populated area in NZ is not a good idea. Surely, they would've told her that phoning in an insincere apology after the comments is a bad move. And any advisor with even half a brain cell would've told her that admitting defeat is a move reserved for the likes of the nitwit parties like Bill and Ben, Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis Party, Destiny Church and the McGillycuddy party. It has been mind boggling, to say the least, for a political junkie like myself.

The fact National went negative from the start, the fact they rolled out a very controversial person like Christine Rankin at the same time seems even stranger. It makes one wonder if the wheel's are falling off the blue machine, but the truth is - as anyone that knows how incredibly good the National election machine is - that the by-election is the scenery and what's actually going on is something entirely different. Lee was never meant to win in Mt Albert, what she was meant to do and has done rather well is dog whistle to the party base. The Nat's got into bed with the Maori Party, a move not forgotten by their base, they recently got into bed with the Green's, a move that would scare most of its base, so really Lee's role is to let the National base know that, "hey we're still the tories, we haven't changed." This is why National ran her, this is why they have publicly left her hanging in the wind, so they can keep the veneer of being a soft-centre government for the masses by distancing themselves by her racial comments whilst winking at their party faithful. So I wouldn't be surprised if Lee stays in the party but later on gets bumped up the list.

And with that it's time to turn our attention to what is going to be the grimmest of budgets: prepare for the sky to fall in and the gates of hell to open up, prepare to watch panic pervade the media and people freak out in penny pinching hysteria, or have a glass of vino and chillax - wine's still affordable you know.

I like your old stuff better than your new stuff. (Take 302)

2009-05-01T06:31:00.000+12:00

A while ago I mentioned that Bob Dylan had a new album coming out called, "Together Through Life." It would be like shooting fish in a barrel to say the album is nowhere near as vital and ground breaking as his earlier works a la Blonde On Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, Blood On The Tracks and numerous others, so I won't say that. What I will say is that, "Together Through Life" is possibly the best Dylan album I've heard in years, sure it's got a senior citizen shuffle to it, but what we find on the album is some very catchy tunes sung by a particularly - can we say - rejuvenated Dylan. I've been doing a bit of a back track through Dylan's later catalogue and I have to say that, "Together Through Life" is Dylan's best work since "Oh, Mercy," which is definitely Dylan's best studio offering for the past two decades. There is three disc version of the album which has a - one must say - kooky, disc called "Friends and Neighbours" which is a mock radio show made by Dylan which contains a bunch of country, blues, grassroots and rock offerings introduced by a Dylan channeling a late night radio DJ - it's a particularly eerie listening experience let me tell you. So whilst I wouldn't go charging out to buy Dylan's latest offering it's nice to know that the "voice of a generation" is still alive and kicking, still pissed off, still lusting and getting his heart broken.

Here's the best song from Oh Mercy, which still sends a chill up my spine every time I hear it.

And here's the most immediately likeable song from the new album.

In other news, my friend Chris Matthews - Headless Chickens founding member - is in town with his latest musical vehicle, "Robot Monkey Orchestra" and will be performing songs off the debut album called, "Map Of Love" at Cassette Number Nine on Vulcan Lane - hopefully he'll also do some of his old stuff too. Tickets are $10 on the door, so if you're looking for something to do tonight why not pop down, also playing: Charlie Ash, Bang! Bang! Eche!, DJ A.D.A.M. There's also a benefit - of sorts - gig for the late Steve Android at the Bacco Room on Saturday night, Chris will be playing, as well as Newmatics, Spelling Mistakes and the Androids, entry to this is free.

Anyone sick of hearing about Swine Flu yet?

2009-05-01T05:19:00.000+12:00

If there's one thing that's truly annoyed me this week, there has been a lot to annoy me, but we'll stick with the "public health" story that I imagine everyone has been hearing about ad nauseam, Swine Flu - sigh.

While there are some interesting facts about Swine Flu, like the fact that the people most at risk are those in supposedly peak physical condition - the age group of 20 to 40 - and the fact we're one of the first in the world to have an "outbreak" of it, we were even mentioned on Fox News - yay! The fact still remains that this flu isn't as scary as those in the media would have us believe. Remember S.A.R.S? Remember Bird Flu? Remember how many people actually died from those "super-flus," well neither do I, but after talking to a particularly scientifically minded friend of mine I learned some facts that will either scare, or fill you with some sort of glee: more people die from the common cold in the world then from new, funky, hip, cool, super-flus. A thousand or more people die in the United States from the common cold every year - I can't remember the exact figures given to me so you'll have to Google it yourself but we're in the ballpark though - and so considering that in NZ we've only had two actual confirmed cases of Swine Flu, one has to think that now we're aware of this new flu, the actual danger of it is very low - sure wash your hands and don't eat from rubbish bins - but there is a real question that needs to be asked, as it is something much more serious, much more life altering, and it hasn't even been thought about yet: how high is the price of bacon going to rise?

Surely with the pigs being eradicated overseas the demand for bacon is going to rise and we as an export minded country will be exporting more bacon, perhaps making bacon scarce at your local foodtown, maybe the weekend bacon and eggs at a cafe is going to become even more expensive. I wonder if it's time to invest in some pork commodities on the share market.

Eek! Pop Music At 3am.

2009-04-23T02:42:00.000+12:00

I'm currently trying to finish off editing this video for ZM Waikato: it's actually a rather large job - lots of footage to scrawl through to edit into a nice 11-12 minute presentation of O' Week for the Zm website. I'd probably be about two weeks away from actually finishing if my computer would actually do it's job and not crash every time i try and edit a new clip - i have a feeling the problem is something to do with the rather large size of the project which is probably requiring too much processing power for what my meagre PC can actually provide.

Anyways, getting to the point of the title in the blog, "Eek! Pop Music At 3am." Most of the video i'm editing has to be covered up with music - two songs to be exact - as the sound - as one would expect from a roving handycam amongst the rabble of drunken students - is particularly wishy washy, and so I have to use music that: would most likely appear on ZM radio, is aimed at the target group of ZM's listeners, and is in some way relevant. Being that Orientation Week is basically an excuse for new students to get a serious "drink on" before the important study begins, the obvious drinking songs sprung to mind: Bliss, One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, Jesus I Was Evil, Dirty Deeds, Sweet Child O' Mine, Welcome To The Jungle and countless others that I'm sure you've found yourself drinking to before. However, and as I'm sure you'd probably have figured out by now, ZM's target audience, their particular format, is in no way similar to the "rocking" of my fave drinking songs, and so I find myself looking at ZM's website and in particular the "Top 20 Countdown" which looks like this.

Now, I'm what you'd describe as a music lover, a music aficionado - if you will - and from looking at the Top 20 I'm only really aware, or at least have heard of, ten of the names on the list, some I would describe describe as a plague on the musical landscape: Fall Out Boy, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson and Smashmouth - ew, just plain ew - and some i would describe as passable mediocrity: Beyonce, Kings Of Leon and - not actually on this list but further down the ZM page - Green Day and The Killers. Now I'm not bad mouthing ZM, I want to make that absolutely clear, as I do remember a time not so long ago when ZM, The Rock, Channel Z, Hauraki, and Mai Fm were my everday diet of music - my carbs if you will. But I will say that after around three hours of searching for suitable music, and listening to more U2-esque Kings Of Leon then one should at three a.m, I'm starting to get rather depressed at the state of music and my ears can handle no more Killers - their earlier stuff is ok but the latest album is awful - no more Beyonce - "Crazy In Love" has its merits - no more Green Day - Dookie was a great album but the more recent stuff is a little trite isn't it - and no more Kings Of Leon, no more pop, no more songs about bitches and hos, flash cars, jewellery, and how lost I would be without my "babby daddy."

Then just when I've written off humanity completely I look on CDwow - my favorite site for finding what's new and what's coming out - and find "Doves" have released a new album, "Kingdom of Rust," after two or three years of relative nothing since the incredible "Some Cities". "Kingdom of Rust" is well worth tracking down by whatever means possible to you - it's a superb album.

Here's a clip of why you should get into Doves if you haven't already - check out the drum solo at the end.

And here's them performing one of their new songs on Later... with Jools Holland - I wish that show was still on.

In other news, Bob Dylan has a new album called, "Together Through Life," coming out in a week, it'll be an anti-climax i know - but you never know. The Eels have a new album called "Hombre Lobo" due in June, along with Sonic Youth's new album "The Eternal."

Overall I guess the world of music isn't falling apart completely; all we need to do is get rid of Bono, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dog, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Natasha Beddingfield, Daniel Beddingfield, Daniel Powter, Lady Gaga, Pink, Fergie, Maroon 5, the rest of U2, Paul McCartney, and Chris Martin - then the world wouldn't seem so bad.

Top Five (or the never ending need to categorize and rate things I like)

2009-04-22T12:18:00.000+12:00

I'm listening to one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time right now, the incredible, inventive, influential and seemingly indestructible Lou Reed. I'm listening to possibly his most mainstream slash most well known album "Transformer" and as often happens - to me at least - when I listen to Lou, I feel myself wishing, praying, hoping and pleading for Lou to do something new; something amazing; something to prove that he's still current, worthwhile, and most of all, prove that the last decade or so hasn't been a rock and roll cliche of a rock star mellowing out, chilling out, and eventually becoming something similar to Paul McCartney - the perfect example of senior citizen mediocrity.

A few months ago, upon the release of Lou Reed's new album, "Berlin: Live At St Ann's Warehouse" the beacon of Lou shone brightly and my love of Lou seemed to be rekindled like the love of a newly found relationship with your emotionally distant father - inspiring at first but problematic once the sheen wears off and you start thinking of the past.

And so with that in mind I went through my Lou Reed collection and went about a crusade to narrow the work of a 67 year-old man - whose career has at times been astounding - into five albums you absolutely must hear before you die. (Note, I'm disqualifying live albums because of a technical anal retentiveness that resides in the core of my soul which believes a live album isn't a "real" album)

1. Berlin

The concept album of two junkie lovers meeting by the Berlin wall, falling in love, falling out of love, becoming jealous, violent, psychopathic and finally suicidal.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: Just like poison in a vial
She was often very vile
Funniest Lyric: I'm going to stop wasting my time
Somebody else would have broken both of her arms

2. Transformer

Songs of transvestites, transexuals, uppers, downers and a hairy minded pink bare bear.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: But She Never Lost Her Head, Even When She Was Giving Head
Worst Lyric: 'Cause you know what they say about honey bears
When you shave off all their baby hairs
You have a hairy minded pink bare bear

3. Street Hassle

Cheap, dirty and nasty Lou - just look at the cover - but still great - apart from the first song Gimme Some Good Times.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: She creamed in her jeans
as he picked up her means from off the formica topped bar

4. New York

The story of New York and America in general as experienced and told by Lou.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
Most Shameful line of self absorption: Take it Lou.

5. Coney Island Baby

Possibly the most "chillaxed" of Lou's albums, with the classic Lou content of loving hookers, skanks, hos and the like.
Best Lyric: Responsibility sits so hard on my shoulder
Like a good wine, I'm better as i grow older

And so that ends the "Top Five" for this week. For extra credit "Rock n Roll Animal" is also well worth a listen and "Berlin: Live At St Ann's Warehouse" is amazing so buy it, download it - Lou's got enough money anyway - and cross Lou Reed off your "artists to listen to" list.

A great interview with Lou Reed.

A very nice live version of Waiting for the man

The Arbitrary Test Post

2009-04-22T10:47:00.000+12:00

This is a test post to see how this actually works.

1	(--)	3oh!3 - Don't Trust Me
2	(+1)	Flo Rida - Right Round
3	(+1)	Evermore - Hey Boys & Girls
4	(-2)	A.R. Rahman & The Pussycat dolls - Jai Ho
5	(+3)	Midnight Youth - All On Our Own
6	(-1)	Smashproof feat Gin Wigmore - Brother
7	(+5)	Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
8	(-2)	Ladyhawke - My Delerium
9	(+4)	Basshunter - Angel In The Night
10	(-1)	Taylor Swift - Love Story
11	(-1)	Dane Rumble - Always Be Here
12	(-5)	Metro Station - Seventeen Forever
13	(-2)	Kid Cudi - Day And Night
14	(+1)	Lady Gaga - Lovegame
15	(-1)	Kings Of Leon - Revelry
16	(+1)	The Fray - You Found Me
17	(+1)	Ciara feat Justin Timberlake - Love And Sex And Magic
18	(-2)	Fall Out Boy - She's My Winona
19	(RE)	Beyonce - Halo
20	(--)	Britney Spears - If You Seek Amy

The Idiot Winds

Monday Media Madness

Sunday Media Soup numero dos

Sunday Media Soup

Traction.

Argh Bored.

Vincent's an art-house goon.

Really? Rugby Analogies? In an election year?

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

Humble Pie... (Maybe.)

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

Well it's about that time.

The Grinding Of My Gears: Bus Drivers.

The Grinding Of My Gears: Whinging.

That Wonderful Load Of Art

MMP and such (or the funny thing about referendums)

Mostly magical music news

It's about that time.

The Cottage Meeting

The anti-long weekend

Budget 2009, yay!

Eels up inside ya.

Melissa Lee's Titanic impersonation.

I like your old stuff better than your new stuff. (Take 302)

Anyone sick of hearing about Swine Flu yet?

Eek! Pop Music At 3am.

1

(--)

3oh!3 - Don't Trust Me

2

(+1)

Flo Rida - Right Round

3

(+1)

Evermore - Hey Boys & Girls

4

(-2)

A.R. Rahman & The Pussycat dolls - Jai Ho

5

(+3)

Midnight Youth - All On Our Own

6

(-1)

Smashproof feat Gin Wigmore - Brother

7

(+5)

Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

8

(-2)

Ladyhawke - My Delerium

9

(+4)

Basshunter - Angel In The Night

10

(-1)

Taylor Swift - Love Story

11

(-1)

Dane Rumble - Always Be Here

12

(-5)

Metro Station - Seventeen Forever

13

(-2)

Kid Cudi - Day And Night

14

(+1)

Lady Gaga - Lovegame

15

(-1)

Kings Of Leon - Revelry

16

(+1)

The Fray - You Found Me

17

(+1)

Ciara feat Justin Timberlake - Love And Sex And Magic

18

(-2)

Fall Out Boy - She's My Winona