don’t want no short people… round here

In a well researched article with plenty of fancy numbers in a sort of spreadsheet that should please Professor of Economics, the career advancing, facially hirsute, John Quiggin, THE SUN (UK) today presents an in-depth scientific investigation into the relationship between a male celebrity’s wealth and the height of his girlfriend.

We eagerly await an analysis at the Prof's blog on the utility of hot, tall, high maintenance g/f's and an investigation into my assertion that the market in these matters is not efficient.

I am also expecting Jason Soon to cave in and apologise to me. Out of 7 (ageing) rock and film star squillionaire shortarses 6 are wearing suits, of a sort. That's right, Mr (Scruffy) T Shirt Latte Cargo Pants and Sandals Blogger, only the Funky Short One, PRINCE, is sans suit. ha.

The long and short of it is that we wanted to know how titchy, ugly stars pull stunners with legs longer than a giraffe in heels. Our team of maths geniuses set out to find the link between lofty lovelies and big bank balances.

And our results show the greater the height difference, the more money the man needs.


Rising costs ... our height chart

But there’s an extra factor — the shorter the man, the more money is required per inch.

Read on about shortarses, Mick Jagger, Van Morrison, Artist Now Known as Prince again, etc....

lust, kids, family, marriage, wine, whine

I found a new blog last night and spent a delightful hour or so snickering and guffawing at the writing.

Go read Aussie Mama. Don't do it whilst drinking hot coffee in case you backblow hot drink up nose while laughing. Don’t start just at the latest post. Go back to archives. Start at the start. It’s a developing story.

I’ll vote it “Best Australian Blog I Only Just Discovered Before the End of 2004” if there is such a category in the 2005 Oz Blog Awards

nick cave carving nicked?

I had a small blogging piece on Nick Cave the other day, politely linking to the initial blog I came across, Sonata For Unfinished Yodelling, and also linking to news articles and Nick's own website.

Today in The AGE Steve Packer has picked up the Nick Cave statue meme and written about it . No blog links or acknowledgement. No news links. No links to Nick's page.

Serendipity?

More importantly, why can't news items or opinion pieces link to sources and further detail.

Makes you wonder. Doesn't it.

goody goody yum yum

I have very fond memories of The Goodies as they were on TV after the kids had got home from school when the kids were little. Not only were the Goodies funny but they were a little bit subversive and touched on politics a lot. I loved the Rolf Harris 's always popping up, the policemen at the pop concert were wonderful, the kitten sure was scary and I'm still looking for an Ecky Thoomp Club to practice my martial arts.

At around the same time we watched Kenny Everett. Kenny was so naughty and sexy and funny and crazy. I cried when he died of AIDS. The kids loved The Goodies and Kenny and his naughty bits, and I got to love them as well. There's nothing quite like genuinely enjoying something easily and naturally and in depth with your kids. I suppose real Australian dads do it through sport and being athletic. Us outsiders have to do it other ways.

James Russell wrote a nice piece on The Goodies some time back over at Hot Buttered Death (or HBD to us cognoscenti)

Immanuel Rant has spookily just blogged up something as I was typing here over at his corner of Ozblogyzthan

On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn literally died laughing whilst watching an episode of The Goodies. According to his wife, who was a witness, Mitchell was unable to stop laughing whilst watching a sketch in the episode "Kung Fu Kapers" in which Tim Brooke-Taylor, dressed as a kilted Scotsman, used a set of bagpipes to defend himself from a psychopathic black pudding in a demonstration of the Scottish martial art of "Hoots-Toot-ochaye." After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure.

The Goodies … British Comedy Legends Go LIVE in Australia 2005!….Tim, Bill and Graeme live up to their catchphrase “We go anywhere anytime!” Legendary British comedy trio The Goodies will appear live in their first ever touring stage show in Sydney on March 3, 4 and 5; in Melbourne on March 8; in Canberra on March 10 and in Brisbane on March 11.

Tickets to The Goodies Live @Sydney go on sale to the general public at 9:00am on December 13, through Ticketek www.ticketek.com.au, ph: 02 9266 4800

getting the feeling in those grooves

While watching a snippet of a TV program by Molly Meldrum tonight I learnt from Paul Hester that the night before they recorded "Don't Dream Its Over" , Neil Finn had told the others .." I don't think we're a band yet..".

They went to bed despondent.

They were still down and flat when they went into the studio to lay down the track in the morning.

They got the track IN ONE TAKE!. That one take is the song we listen to today.

Hester reckons the session and one take recording captured some of their sadness and ambiguity in that session.

I reckon Hester might be right.

whene'er we hear that glorious word

Loverly exchange caught on talkback radio in car today.

Thinking of our prolific blogging centrist and faux mick - Mark Bahnisch.

Discussion of Christmas.

Smarmy smartypants obnoxious inner city host*:

"So was your family from a religious background?"

Talk back caller:

"Heavens no - I was bought up a Catholic"

* how did you guess it was Virginia Trioli?

all you need is love

“The best thing we can do at Christmas is to show love."

Federal treasurer Peter Costello has already advised us to shower each other with love rather than spending up at Christmas.

Sometimes even Treasurers have something to teach us. I have taken his advice to heart and knocked up a series of handmade cards to send out to a few people.

To: Australian Tax Office

Dear Sir / Madam
You will no doubt notice that I have not as yet filed my tax return for 2003 /2004. From memory I owe around $20,000 GST payments and possibly a few K’s on personal tax, as well as super and employee payments.

I have prayed hard and have now formed a personal relationship with my maker. Following Peter Costello’s advice I wish to notify you that instead of the usual unthinking crass materialistic enclosure of money, I now send you, and all your staff, a love supreme.

Best wishes and good luck for next year.

With Love
FXH

Note to self:
re-jig letter for VISA and overdraft.
Think before sending one to Angelo the Bookie.
Ring Angelo’s “driver” re him visiting John Elliott to collect.

wangaratta, where there is no statue of nick cave

It's the season. Everyone is thinking of Old Nick. Certainly Sean Hegarty was when he wrote the piece on Nick Cave's hometown/s from which I purloined the heading above. I strongly suspect Sean's blog will reward further reading on most of his topics.

More on Nick from The SMH. A Nick interview from the UK Telegraph which is on Nick's own site Nick Cave Online where you can read Nick's letter to MTV on rejecting an award.

Extract from letter: (Nick wrote it in caps)

....I feel that it's necessary for me to request that my nomination for best male artist be withdrawn and furthermore any awards or nominations for such awards that may arise in later years be presented to those who feel more comfortable with the competitive nature of these award ceremonies. I myself, do not. I have always been of the opinion that my music is unique and individual and exists beyond the realms inhabited by those who would reduce things to mere measuring. I am in competition with no-one. My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and i feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature...."

Theres a good SALON article here on Nick, if you can negotiate through the adverts to get a free view. It is possible. The article is by Thomas Bartlett who also has a blog called doveman.

stigmata cheese and toast followup

" just as i was about to pour milk on my Nutra Grain the other day i looked down and saw E.T., well his head anyway. This piece of cereal has not been altered or damaged in anyway, it is the exact image of E.T. Truly amazing, one of a kind."

On eBay - bidding up to $1026

keywords: in the know, good oil, the drum

Yesterday I purchased a Rabbit Talk Phone Card for $10. We use these type of cards regularly to call overseas family members. The card gives me just over 15 hours conversation to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan. A bit less to UK, Ireland.

Today I talked for an hour to Kaohsiung, [politics Kaohsiung incident, expat humour and here] Taiwan. Very clear trouble free call on normal dial up phone. Cost me a 22c local call through Telstra plus about 60 cents off my phone card for the hour. I paid Telstra 22 cents for the call.

If I had used Telstra to make the call on the same dial up phone it would have cost me $58.20.

I still have about 15 hours worth of calls left on my Rabbit Talk card that cost me $10.

15 hours of talk with Telstra would have cost me $873.00

It does help to know what is around in the market.

bars, women and zero accountability

Via Flop Eared Amanda I found this web site called Plugged In Online.

Description:
"... we hope to spark intellectual thought, family discussion, spiritual growth and a strong desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

Now an example of a review:

License to Chill Jimmy Buffett

Pro Social Content
Buffett wants to relax and enjoy life (“Trip Around the Sun” with Martina McBride). On “Anything, Anytime, Anywhere” he assures a special lady, “Tell me what you need/I will surely come through.” Sailboats are a metaphor for unfulfilled dreams the singer is ready to pursue (“Boats to Build” with Alan Jackson). Amid sober reflections, a man claims to have learned from his mistakes on “Scarlet Begonias.”

Objectionable content
The irreverent “Coastal Confessions” finds a cocky, unrepentant man prattling to a priest about impure thoughts and marijuana use, saying, “Bless me father/Yes, I have sinned/Given the chance I’ll probably do it again.” Strangers have a fling that involves cruising bars and buying a thong (“Conky Tonkin” with Clint Black). With bad-boy aplomb, the spiritually confused Buffett calls himself a “Piece of Work” (a Toby Keith duet). Aided by Kenny Chesney on the title track, he misuses Jesus’ name, ogles half-naked women and calls his boss a jerk. Profanities mar several cuts. Beyond an s-word, “Simply Complicated” imagines receiving perverse news about family members.

Summary Advisory
It’s been 27 years since “Margaritaville,” and Buffett still lives for the weekends. A few positive moments aside, this CD finds him spiritually lost in a chronic midlife crisis full of bars, women and zero accountability.

“Bless me father/Yes, I have sinned/Given the chance I’ll probably do it again.”

"A few positive moments aside, this CD finds him spiritually lost in a chronic midlife crisis full of bars, women and zero accountability. "

I don't know which one to put on my gravestone.

cave music above ground

Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom has a comprehensive write up of Nick Cave's latest 2 CD set. Abattoir Blues and The Lyre of Orpheus. No sense in me trying to compete. It is really 2 album set rather than a double album. Beautiful packaging with booklet, sleeves for each CD and a well done cardboard and clothe cover box. And it was only $30 at JB HiFi. Why can't more people put out high quality packaging and for the right price. Oh and a few could learn to put out good content too like Nick. At this price and with this quality packaging, booklet plus great music it isn't worth anybody's effort to burn a copy.

May I take a quote from the comments over at Surfdom. The quote is from irant whose site resides here.

"Nick is one of the few modern artists that really understand the blues. Instead of merely politely copying the form (a certain English guitarist gent comes to mind), Nick descends into the existential core of the blues and sucks the religous imagery and angst for all it is worth. He reminds me for more of the Delta giants of the '20s and '30s than the usual contemporary blues artist suspects."

I must put in a plug here for the DVD, God Is In The House. I notice that the website claims this is the first ever DVD by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. It was watching this DVD that was my Nick Cave tipping point. Up until then I had been a bit lukewarm. Now I'm a fan.

The DVD contains live footage from Le Transbordeur in Lyon, France, plus the John Hillcoat directed documentary No More Shall We Part - The Recording Sessions. Recorded at Abbey Road, the documentary has exclusive film of the band recording No More Shall We Part. Also featured on the DVD are the videos Hillcoat directed for the singles 'As I Sat Sadly By Her Side' and 'Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow', the latter features cameos from the likes of Jarvis Cocker and Jason Donovan plus the video for the Australian released single, 'Love Letter'.

The Lyon concert from 2001's No More Shall We Part tour features the Bad Seeds line up of Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos and Warren Ellis playing tracks from eight of their twelve studio albums.

radio on net

Welcome to Radio-Locator, the most comprehensive radio station search engine on the internet. We have links to over 10,000 radio station web pages and over 2500 audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.

family values

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”

----Adolph Hitler Proclamation to the German nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933

red headed stranger - time of the preacher

Tim Dunlop over at Road to Surfdom quoted Willie Nelson from Time of the Preacher.

It was the time of the preacher in the year of 01.
Now the preachin' is over and the lesson's begun.

I suspect most punters only came across this song as the theme to the TV series Edge of Darkness. I was reminded that it was a while since I listened to The Redheaded Stranger all the way through. Because this is the kind of album that has to be listened to from start to finish.



Around 1973 Willie had had success writing songs that were recorded by others, notably “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and “Hello Walls” for Faron Young but he hadn’t had a great deal of success on his own. Prior to 1970 he was a pretty standard looking country singer, rhinestones suits, short hair, playing pretty much to the usual straight country music circuit fans. He did by then have his loping, behind the beat, (and in front of, and on and all around the beat) jazz singing style and plinked strangely tuned guitar (influenced by Joseph Spence to my ears) in the style which wasn’t all that well understood by the record company types.

Willie’s house burnt down around 1970 and he took sometime off to recoup and relax. He emerged with his now trademark longer hair and jeans style and a yearning to get back to a simpler way of presenting his music. A sort of a country punk idea. He played to fans at the famous Armadillo Headquarters in Austin Texas an artistic, student, music town with a population of traditional country rednecks and hip students and people like Townes van Zandt and others.

He signed a contract for an album but didn't have more than a few songs to record. His wife suggested he do a theme album based around the Red Headed Stranger, a tale of a jilted preacher who goes on the lam after murdering his wife and her lover.

Nelson and the Family began recording Red Headed Stranger, and Nelson felt gratified by what he was hearing. "It was fun putting together what I had wanted it to be", he told Chet Flippo in 2000. "I had wanted it to be real sparse. I had in mind, I remember, some of my favorite records: Eddy Arnold with just his guitar; Ernest Tubb with just his guitar; so I wanted to have that kind of feel with maybe just some help along the way to keep it from getting too, you know, obnoxious. Or monotonous".”

Red Headed Stranger
"It was the time of the preacher, when the story began," sings Nelson on the record's opening track, "Time of the Preacher". The theme, performed by Nelson and a lone acoustic guitar, returns twice during the record, acting as narrator and a sort of Greek chorus. Nelson's first pass at the song sets up the story, hinting at the infidelities that have happened, and the violence they will cause, when he sings:

It was the time of the preacher, in the year of '01
Now the preachin' is over, and the lesson's begun

The record continues in this vein with the second track, "I Couldn't Believe It Was True", a finger-picked ballad that details the preacher's discovery of his wife's dalliances. Although the track is an Eddy Arnold cover, Nelson is able to deftly slip it into the context of the tale he is telling. His quivering voice conveys the anguish and acceptance the preacher is feeling, giving new weight and poignancy to the lyrics:

The shock was so great I am quivering yet
I'll try to forgive her but I cannot forget
My heart breaking loss is another man's gain
Her happiness I hope will always remain

Following this song, Nelson drops back into the role of narrator, reviving the "Time of the Preacher Theme", to illustrate the course of action the protagonist is now forced to take, singing:

But he could not forgive her
Though he tried and tried and tried
And the halls of his memories, still echo her lies
It was the time of the preacher, in the year of '01
Now the lesson is over, and the killing's begun

The deed is committed, and recounted in the next track, "Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger". The song is haunting and visceral, with Nelson's vocal delivery serving to bring life to the story he is telling. Listening to this song, it is no wonder he opted to make a feature film version of Red Headed Stranger ten years later. Indeed, the scope and grandeur of "Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger" is very cinematic. The same holds true for the album's centerpiece, "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain". Another cover song, this one also brilliantly dovetails with the record's narrative. A touching, nakedly honest song about love and regret, the lyrics take on new meaning as a part of the Red Headed Stranger saga:

When we kissed goodbye and parted
I knew we'd never meet again
Love is like a dying ember
And only memories remain

The remainder of the record tracks the preacher as he tries to run from both the law and his past. Nelson weaves brilliant originals and covers into a dusty tapestry of the old West that is as resonant as it is unforgettable. Standouts include "Denver", one of the songs penned during that fateful ski trip in Colorado. The song eloquently captures the paranoia felt by the lonely traveler:

And it's nobody's business where you're going or where you come from
And you're judged by the look in your eye

Red Headed Stranger's final four songs blend originals and covers to bring the tale of the preacher to a quiet close. Nelson's cover of Hank Cochran's "Can I Sleep in Your Arms" shows the hero clinging to the thin hope of newfound love:

Don't know why but the one I love left me
Left me lonely and cold and so weak
And I need someone's arms to hold me
'Till I'm strong enough to get back on my feet

This thread carries on through the closing moments of the record, the cover of Bill Callery's "Hands on the Wheel" and the bittersweet instrumental coda, "Bandera". In "Hands on the Wheel", Nelson turns the song's reflective lyrics into a mantra of affirmation for the preacher:

At a time when the world seems to be spinnin' hopelessly out of control,
There's deceivers, believers, and all in-betweener's that seem to have no place to go.
I look to the stars, tried all of the bars, and I've nearly gone up in smoke.
And now my hand's on the wheel of something that's real, and I feel like I'm going home.

It cost Willie only $20,000 to record, but it handed him the success he'd craved after years as a hit songwriter and modestly successful singer. By blending originals and vintage material, he created a timeless Western saga.

The remastered later released CD preserves the original sequence but also adds four bonus tracks. One, a brief snippet of Bach's "Minuet in G" from the 1986 Red Headed Stranger film, is inconsequential. Three more, from the 1975 sessions, are enjoyable covers of Hank Williams's "I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You," Bob Wills's "A Maiden's Prayer," and Pee Wee King's "Bonaparte's Retreat,". These are pleasant enough but don't really add anything to the original.

This is the record that those who sneer at country music will either not get at all, in which case you should immediately class them as cloth eared idiots and cast them from your BBQ list, or it will hit them as a Road to Damascus experience and they will become that worst of all fanatics The Convert. To those who think Willie can't do great pop jazz hit them with his "Stardust" album. Better still get Stardust for yourself and file it alongside Sinatra's best and enjoy it. Forever.

The sparse short original, around 33 minutes I think, is a country music opera, a very serious work of art, and one of those life changing records you must have. Along with Neil Young "Tonights The Night", Bob's "Blood on The Tracks", Sinatra's "Wee Small Hours" and Van Morrison's live two album set "Its Too Late to Stop Now"

NB: Not all my own work. If you recognise some of the above from elsewhere you are most likely correct.

crouching stanley, hidden gangsta

You will remember the Fozzie Bear like bearded character from the JAZZ TV (or DVD) series by Ken Burns, his name is Stanley Crouch and he's renown as an outspoken and articulate conservative jazz and music writer.

In his book The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity, he sticks the boot into rap music, amongst other things, calling it “neo-Sambo … mugging or scowling” with “gold teeth, drop-down pants, and tasteless jewelry.” He bravely chastises producers and “artists” who peddle the same “bullying, hedonistic buffoons” D. W. Griffith portrayed in Birth of a Nation.
Read more in a review by Stefan Beck assistant editor of The New Criterion.

A sample of Crouch's writing from JazzTimes:
(He) ..accuses white critics of elevating white musicians "far beyond their abilities" to "make themselves feel more comfortable about . . . evaluating an art from which they feel substantially alienated." Crouch also claims that white writers, who were born in "middle-class china shops," ensure "the destruction of the Negro aesthetic" by advancing musicians who can't swing at the expense of those who can.....

Last year Crouch got fired as a writer from JazzTimes.
Read a bit more about it here in Village Voice.
The Voice called police and sacked Crouch about 10 years ago for snotting a fellow writer in a disagreement about rap music.

Scott Timberg of The Boston Phoenix reviews Crouch's book
THE ALL-AMERICAN SKIN GAME, OR THE DECOY OF RACE: THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT, 1990-1994.
A choice quote from Crouch: " Prince? He's a "Minneapolis vulgarian and borderline drag queen."

Crouch has also dissed latter day minor saint Spike Lee as: "a nappy-headed Napoleon"

More quotes from an interview:
CROUCH: What can Snoop Dogg do? He can't sing. He can't write. His ideas are so pedestrian. If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway. The only difference between an intellectual subway and the real subway is that the real subway actually goes faster than the cars on the street. In the intellectual subway, not only is it below ground, it actually moves far slower. So we're talking about somebody who's intellectually moving at the pace of a worm moving in very hard soil and somebody who's in a Lamborghini. That's the difference between Duke Ellington and Snoop Dogg.

Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music. It's not really connected to James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, the Supremes.

FXH Comment: Crouch is surely wrong here. It doesn't take much of an ear and brain to see that rap owes a lot to Mr James Brown.

Crouch on the death of Ray Charles.

A bit more about Crouch. Listen to Crouch talking about his view that the concept of authenticity is not easy for all Americans to grasp. He dissects the dilemma in his book The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity. The July 2004 Village Voice article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that I pinched my title from Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta. There is a bunch of Crouch columns, not on jazz, at Salon

A more sympathetic view of Crouch is here in a Salon piece by sometime friend Amy Alexander

fat freddies first friday

Playing catch-up with the latest fads from other places today is the Cat Pictures Posting Day for the Australian Blog Community.

carol link over at the decidedly rural beezlebublog has posted pics of her earless polar bear cat with the euro sophisticated name of Yves plus Oedipus Rex.
karma kameleon of karma to burn promised to post pics of her rabbit.
Chris Sheil of Backpages doesn't like cats pics "I don't get the joke or don't like the custom, or both" but has been posting pics of his red kelpie.
Dirk Thruster is way too manly and all australian outback type to post cat pics but has posted a pic of his lizard that lives on the verandah and a romantic pic of a tractor.
Anthony at Spiceblog will most likely be cooking up a cat on a Korean charcoal BBQ with Star Anise and marmalade, sage and apple stuffing and drinking an obscure imported beer.
I anticipant darp will have a cat with shaved balls and a messed up bed hair look and tatts.
Ms Fits will probably just post another pic of her old dog Bob Ellis again.
Ken Parish from Troppo Armadillo will just plonk up a pic of an armadillo. Or perhaps a pic of C.L at the vets surgery.
Currency Lad will probably post a pic of George Bush's dog Or a photo of Ken Parish having surgery at the vets.
John Quiggin is simply too cool to have a cat or post a pic of one. He's a bright sort of guy who just might have a picture of Schrodinger's cat. Or at least an economic theory of the cat and the box.
Paul Watson will most likely have a rant about how baby boomers have denied young people jobs by posting cat pictures.
The cat all axy mob who by rights should have a cat masthead with that title will have an argument about the utility of posting cat pics.

Need more? Links to lots of animal blogs.

As cat pics surface I'll update:zoe at crazybrave has Mr Klaw (kool spelling and all)
Sedgwick has weighed in with cat mind reading.
ooooh feministe has more of the sink kitty Pablo today
I had thought that Yobbo would post a pic of a nude asian beauty instead of a cat. But no, ever the creative boy, he has posted a pic of an asian beauty (possibly nude) with a condom hat.

Late update: mallrat has posted a pic of a cat called Sunday who seems to be caught in a messy custody battle. I'm worried the Blackshirts might now get involved.

Even Later Updates: Lushlife over at Life is Like has posted pics of Grizzy and Sylvester.
Felix at anyresemblance
boyton has a non feline looking blue heeler called Flo
spud from craftapalooza

FX Orange Cat waving provocatively to Sheil's Kelpie

FX Black Cat sitting cool on Jukebox

canaries cuties creeps cindies & cut rate cats - its jelly on the cuff

At the risk of appearing to be a girlie man and not the renown jazzbo, hep cat and finger poppin' daddio that indeedio I am-io, I am about to suggest that in this post election hiatus, while we are still sussing out "what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born", that what is needed is something like a Friday Cat Pictures Blog on Ozblogisthan.

Although it was percolating for a while, it is not an entirely original idea. I must confess I had occasionally peeked over at feministe to look at her very cute cat, Pablo, sleeping in its (un) usual spot. Then David Tiley over at Barista posted the chart of status in blogging. [at the moment Mista Barista's comments aren't digitalising upwards].

Naturally cat pic posting is looked down upon by all. Then I happened upon a link to this New York Times story about big time bloggers in USA posting pics of their cats on Fridays.

Let the posting begin next Friday.

I’ve got a feeling, a bit of an inkling, that this will lead to world peace, warm fuzzy feelings, love between bloggers, resolution of the Gaza strip problems, a cure for Yassar, reform in the Australian Senate, Tony Abbott turning all warm and cuddly and a resurgence of sales of incense and crystals.

Footnote: There is no way, abso-bloody-lutely no way, that I will be the one to suggest to the Mrs Slocum of Oz blogging, Ms Fits, that she be the first to post pictures of her pussy on her blog. No way.

teenage dreams, so hard to beat

Famous radio presenter John Peel has died. Born John Robert Ravenscroft he worked in radio in the USA then in the mid 60's he returned to join the likes of the brilliant Kenny Everett in the heady days of pirate radio. He then joined the BBC and was influential in shaping UK musical tastes and as a knockon effect UK musical output, for a few generations and was a reminder of the days when radio presenters had some knowledge and love of music and played the music they liked or thought that they or the listeners might like.

To look and listen to a Peel playlist is to be extended and see possibilities. Other than some community broadcasters these radio days are gone. Long gone.

Peel has always said his favourite single, and one of the best, of all time was “Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones. I agree.

Peel had said he wanted a line from Teenage Kicks on his headstone : "teenage dreams, so hard to beat"

Another Peel quote I agree with: "...I never really thought Oasis were much good to be honest...."

Amazingly Peel was in Dallas the day JFK was shot and at the site 45 minutes later then also at the press conference when they hauled in Lee Harvey Oswald.

Another BBC DJ Andy Kershaw, who might know, has placed him above Lennon & McCartney as the most important figure in the fifty year history of British rockmusic.

UPDATE: Limited time.The perfect single. Sublime guitar pop. MP3 of "Teenage Kicks" here. Instructions. PLAY LOUD.

dylan backs howard - twice not thrice

1 tune not lyrics:
“.. but if my songs were just about the words, then what was Duanne Eddy, the great rock and roll guitarist, doing recording an album full of instrumental melodies of my songs? Musicians have always known that my songs were about more than just words, but most people are not musicians.”

2 white picket fence:
"I was fantasising about a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard.

i'm fit, i'm fightin' fit, but i'm not fit to fight - just yet

In order to protect my psychy, what diminished remnants there was of it after the exercise of universal suffurage on 9/10, i have watched no tv or radio or newspaper current affairs, for seven days or more. I begun to become a somewhat better person or at least a not so grumpy one. I cooked, I read, I oddjobbed, I read, I listened to greatness, hell i even went out and saw The Fabulous Topp Twins. Then at the precise time to the week when I realised that Labor was another 3 years in the wilderness I was struck down by the scrofulous barcoo rot. No matter what I did it stuck to me with the tenacity of a long forgotten tithe to the AoG church. The bug took me down to the gates of the underworld for a few days. I fought it off - it was only one of Satans minor bovver boys anyway.

Slowly I fixed small things around the estate that had needed a hand for a while. I spoke to neighbours, took out and then bought back in the myriad of garbage bins we keep garaged here. I encouraged the wisteria to clime over the toppermost of the highest part of the pergolla.

Tonight I was uplifted further, my faith in ordinary Australians revived, my joy in music rekindled when I watch the ABC Doco: Damn Right I'm A Cowboy - more over at Amandas page about a group of community radio drifting dreaming darlins and daddies of the cowtunes, mixing western swing with crooning and tex mex with irish and pushing it out in an aural version of a progressive barn dance. I wished I was there. Lips so warm and tender ....My Rose My Rose of San Antone....


After making sure the outside speakers set under the eaves are actually working i pilgrimaged out to Bunnings and obtained a medium priced 4 burner BBQ with hood and spacial warming /roasting shelf in an attempt to both project myself as an outdoors type (singing the Lemonheads "I lied about being the outdoors type") and to "take my mind off things" and to allow for a better BBQ experience. This Better BBQ experience involves trying to replicate various smoked, baked, sauced spare pork and beef ribs that I tasted going around USA. The best from memory were from around Denver Colorardo.

Now i need to get the sauces right, the type of meat right, cooking times and methods right and I will be over the 2004 elections and on the road to recovery.

I now call on Little Anthony and the Imperials over at SPICEBLOG Can you direct me to good information on rib cookin that can be used on an a ausssie style BBQ from Bunnings.

ready for election night

Now the years have passed and memories come and go
He hears that voice that rocked him gently so
A calm will descend and there's peace at the end of the darkest night
Sometimes I cry, sometimes I fly like a bird.

Now the years have passed and memories come and go
He hears that voice that rocked him gently so
Well, the rain's gonna fall and the wind may blow in the darkest night
Sometimes I cry, sometimes I fly like a bird.

A calm will descend and there's peace at the end of the darkest night
Sometimes I cry, sometimes I fly like a bird

....Boz Scaggs

a diary 2

“Rents due Tuesday – Tiger”

It wasn’t the first time she’d called me Tiger. Last time I couldn’t pay the rent on time she eked the equivalent out of my white-belly thin-legged unbuffed flesh. Not that it was an altogether unpleasant experience or even un-anticipated on my part, but the residual worm of guilt and minor flush of a shame kept me paying interest on the loan emotionally for weeks afterwards.

I’d been down before but never really out. I’d been up before but never really in.

The election announcement revived memories of better times. Of wine in bottles not cardboard boxes. Of meals in cafes on white tablecloths.

My cotton trousers, shirt and jacket didn’t cost any more from Target than trackies and give me an air of respectability, at least in my mind, that sets me apart from the mob in this place.

I grabbed my mug from the dresser, stuck the mail under my arm, filled up from the urn and dropped in two tea bags. Out in the louvered in back veranda a few of the residents were smoking, studying the form guide and drinking beverages with no alcohol.

The window envelopes I shoved in my jacket pocket for later. All of the phone messages were scribbled on the back of one envelope. The not yet ex wife had rung to “catch up. nothing urgent”. In my morning fug I couldn’t dredge up an emotional response to her message. I stuffed it to one side in my mind knowing I would easily find it to make myself feel bad later.

hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies

Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies,
Knock me your lobes!
I came here to lay Caesar out,
Not to hip you to him.
The bad jazz that a cat blows
Wails long after he's cut out,
The groovy is often stashed with their frames.
So don't put Caesar down...."
.....
What a gas! Willie the Shake flipping wigs once again in this wild, crazy, "hipsemantic" translation of Marc Antony's funeral oration. And what sweet, swingin' stud laid this beautiful jazz down? None other than Lord Richard Buckley - a far out, wailin', nonstop, groovy gasser who stomped virtually unknown through the pages of history. He was known to ridicule an unhip audience, and was not adverse to doing his act with a joint dangling from his lips.
.......
The story of Christ, otherwise known as "The Nazz":

"...and I dig all you cats out there whippin' and whalin' and jumpin' up and down and suckin' up that fine juice, and pattin' each other on the back and tellin' each other who the greatest cat in the woild is. Mr. Malenkoff, Mr. Dalenkoff, Mr. Eisenhower, Woozinweezin, Weisenwoozer, and Mr. Woodhill and Mr. Beechhill and Mr. Churchhill and all them Hills, they gonna get it straight. If they can't straighten it they know a cat that knows a cat that's gonna get it straight. Well, I'm gonna put a cat on you was the sweetest, gonist, wailinest cat that ever stomped on this sweet swingin' sphere. And they call this here cat...the Nazz, that was the cat's name. He was a carpenter kitty. Now the Nazz was the kind of a cat that come on so wild, and so sweet, and so strong and so with it, that when he laid it -WHAM - it stayed there..."

.......
Lord Buckley left behind a substantial, if generally unknown, legacy. Honey Bruce in her autobiography says, "Lenny did vocal impressions of famous stars, but I believe he learned he could use his voice to create many comedy characters from his experiences with Lord Buckley. With Lenny's talents there was no problem coming up with the voices, but it was the dear Lord Buckley who did it first."

Larry Storch, Jonathan Winters, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams have acknowledged their debt to him. Henry Miller, Greer Garson, and Charlie Parker were some of his admirers. Frank Sinatra was his friend, until His Lordship supposedly marched sixteen naked people through the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where Sinatra was performing.

George Harrison's 1977 hit song "Crackerbox Palace" was indeed named after Buckley's tiny Hollywood dwelling. The Mr. Greif referred to in the song was once Buckley's manager, and "...the Lord is well inside of you..." refers to the earthly, not the heavenly, divinity. Jimmy Buffett has recorded and performed an original Buckley number called "God's Own Drunk."

Bob Dylan fell in love with "Black Cross," the story of a black man who is lynched for his supposed lack of religious beliefs. Written by a Cleveland poet named Joseph Newman, it was one of the few works Buckley recited in its original form. Dylan performed "Black Cross" in concert and two bootleg recordings from 1961 and 1962 do exist. If you look closely at the cover of Dylan's album, Bringing It All Back Home, you will see a copy of Buckley's album, The Best of Lord Buckley (Crestview), on the mantle over the fireplace. And Frank Zappa edited His Lordship's LP, a most immaculately hip aristocrat, when he was sixteen years old.

flat foot floozie flim flam floogle

A Personal MacVouty Memory - Jim Calvagna

As to Slim what can I say.

It was back in 1952 I was taking a date to Birdland. Usually when I went there I sat in the bleachers over by the bar where there were no tables etc. (i.e. the low rent district ) which Slim affectionately called Wino Junction. Since I had a date, I had to show off and sit at one of the tables on the expensive side (there was a $3.00 minimum per person).

As we came in Slim was playing, when he spotted us he played the first few notes of "Here comes the bride'" and nodded his head yes. I shook my head no. This was repeated several times.

When the tune finished, Slim announced:

" We would like to dedicate this next number to our newlyweds here spending their honeymoon at Birdland. What a drag! If that was me I'd go somewhere and lock the vouty and throw the reeney away."

A few years later we were married, we still are, but we will always remember Slim's dedication.

A few days later I was walking up Broadway and here came Slim the other way.

As he neared me I said:"Mac Vouty!!"

Without missing a beat he responded: "O rissimo reeny!"

FX says: How hip can a cat get?

a diary

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air.

It was a day like any other day in the boarding house.

It was the week that was starting to be different.

The clock radio scratched awake half statically untuned to the government station and the news from the un sovieted about another hundred or so deaths. Even as I rolled over and punched the off button I knew that the announcement of the vote a week ago had changed my life forever.

It was 20 past 10 am and cold as a black heart abbott. The mist had penetrated the thin plywood walls of the shelter and seeped its way into the bones and blood of all the residents. Not that we thought of ourselves as joined together by anything except our ambivalence toward mutual obligato and a sullen resistance to the resentful non judgemental assistance of our shared case managers.

The landlady opened the door and shuffled in with a bunch of messages and mail. Only after she was sure I was awake and not going to be another reportable death did she deign to tap on the door with her chipped bright faded red glued on nails.

“There’s been a bloody lot of phone calls for you in the last few days “ She weezed.

“I’m not your friggin' message girl y’know”

The bundle of paper and offcuts that indicated somebody still remembered me landed on the floor with a feint almost thump.

“Rents due Tuesday – Tiger”

mark (latham) of the beast

"And he {Antichrist} causes all, both small {small rodents} and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or upon their foreheads, "and that no one may buy or sell except the one who has the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name. "Here is wisdom. Let he who has understanding calculate the number of the Beast; for his number is that of a man and his number is 666.
"REV:13:16-18

The campaign period is 6 weeks.
The election will be held on the 6th day of the week.
Voting closes at 6 o'clock.
I have a 6th sense about The Rodent.

666 plus 6

Spooky

References: Here and here and here

rodent fanciers object to slur

The Queensland branch of the Australian Rodent Fanciers Society has objected to the bad name given rodents by association with lying or by association with John Howard.

The AusRFS is very proud to welcome rat and mouse lovers from all over Australia. Queensland Members of the club may in the future be able to use services provided by other members such as pet sitting, nail clipping, de-lousing and information hotlines.
Rat/Mouse Information Hotline - Email Tracey at theyorks@bigpond.net.au for answers to general questions about rats.

The Australian Mouse and Rat Information Service.
The aims of The Rodent Report is to:
Show people, young and old, just how enjoyable these smaller companion animals are.

I have just subscribed Pete Costello to the Rodent Report so he can discover 'just how enjoyable these smaller companion animals are'.

These 2 rodents below, Boris and Geralton, are up for adoption in Canberra. The hernia and "This boy will be travelling to Sydney for the March Show" makes me think Boris is really JWH. Geralton "He's just a little rough when playing with others" has to be Abbott.

Boris - Fawn Self boy - Canberra
This fawn self boy has a small hernia, and is very good and cuddly by himself, but just too rough with others. He is approx 12 months old. For more details, contact Linda. This boy will be travelling to Sydney for the March Show.

Geralton - Agouti Hood boy - Canberra.
This agouti hood is the perfect cuddly pet. He's just a little rough when playing with others.. He is approx 12 months old and for more details, you can contact Linda. This boy will be travelling to Sydney for the March Show.

oz politics easy reference guide

At last a useful, short guide to current to politics in Australia. Provided by the excitable Ms Fits. High Elvis quotient in this one.

Another longer guide, also written to explain Oz politics to USA persons, and Australians who only watch TV, is provided by Tim Dunlop at Road to Surfdom. Low Elvis score.

elvis quotient - on watch

The election is now formally on. Formerly it was informally on.

My monitoring of the underbelly will be through "Sheilsey", "Queequeg" and "The Priest" Parish. They will be my main weekly big shop, the supermarket of the Broadway and Off-Broadway.

I'll expect and rely on them to provide a reasonably healthy diet of nutritious angles plus the dubious thrill of reading the feverish comments pecked out by the camp followers with grubby nail bitten fingers on greasy food filled keyboards from the great sweating partially washed with their bloodshot eyes and waxy ears and bed hair and the spewed up heartburn reflux of midnight rants oozing out of the dimly lit fetid bedrooms and the detritus strewn studies of long suffering surfers of suffrage in ozonline.

For my Off-Off-Broadway I'll trawl around the sidestreets and then, as is my want, down the back alleys and garbage lanes of Blogstralia looking for the different, nice, unusual to link to.

Me? I'll stick to looking for the only thing that should influence voting. The only evidence that matters. The Elvis quotient of the candidates.

We all know what it means.

Howard has none. Latham has some. I can't see any in the Libs at all. Bob Brown looks like the sort of guy who can't dance and would wear a bright pale yellow finely knitted v necked jumper for smart casual. No Elvis quotient there. Julia Gillard has got enough Elvis for a duet. There's buggerall Elvis in the Dems now that whatsisname the ex goth boy is off the slops.

Keep tuned for any sightings of Elvisness. Comments and tips welcome.

abc radio bows to blog pressure

Michael Duffy just announced on his Counterpoint program 10 minutes ago that he has been forced to drop his theme music from the show and choose another.

I just know that it was because I'd pointed out on July 6 here that the theme is was the song "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers. A well known homage to heroin usage.

Now where are the rants against the "political correctness" and "luvvies" of the ABC?

the trinity, the holy ghost, van

Speaking in tongues: the songs of Van Morrison
Martin Buzacott and Andrew Ford (ABC Books 2005)
Excerpt from Part One
A Soul in Wonder: Themes and Variations

Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, Van Morrison is a part of all that he has met, a storehouse of experience and memory. To listen to Van Morrison singing his songs is to get inside his cluttered mind and follow him on remembered journeys around the East Belfast of his youth, up this street, down that avenue, across the viaducts, beneath the pylons. You’re carrying a window-cleaner’s ladder, on your back a knapsack containing Paris buns, the latest Ray Charles single and a copy of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums.

The landscape has a familiarity, and yet you feel a sense of wonder. All around you are childhood memories, and they provoke your imagination, inspiring you to the extent that you are constantly searching for a higher meaning and a connection with some perfect silence, most likely to be found in nature or in some ancient past. Frequently disappointed in your quest, and too often encountering shysters and people who distract you or seek to thwart your progress, you soldier on out of a sense of duty and because it’s your job (you are a Protestant and have a work ethic to match). Sometimes when you’re in a good mood you might hanker after a companion who will share the mystical quest with you, and if she’s female, you will walk with her down by the river (or railroad, or avenue), listening together to the wind in the willows, and at the end of the day the two of you might retire inside for a little bit of conversation, play some old blues, soul or jazz records, and then finish it off with that old backstreet jellyroll.

These repeated patterns of creative behaviour —the childhood reminiscences, the spiritual searching, the nature-worship, the homages to musical idols, the themes of innocence, experience and complaint—are everywhere in Morrison’s work. They are the building blocks from which the he constructs his songs and imaginative landscapes [. . .]. And in one of the most consistent careers in popular music, most of [these themes] were there right from the very beginning.

In autumn 1968 when he recorded his first proper solo album, Astral Weeks, Van Morrison had just turned 23. The degree of retrospection embodied in it is, then, surprising. Most 23 year-old men do not sing about their childhood. Most 23 year-old men do not even sing about the past: they sing about their girlfriends or their car, and the songs are in the present tense or in an ideal, chimerical future. But there, on Astral Weeks, on what are still regarded as some of his finest songs—‘Cyprus Avenue, ‘Madame George’, and the album’s title track—Morrison is already busy reminiscing.

Although it was surely never intended, Astral Weeks now seems like a manifesto, a statement of intent: this is the kind of artist I am, and this is what I will remain. In the first verse of the first song—‘Astral Weeks’ itself—we hear about venturing in ‘the slipstream’ which is ‘between the viaducts of your dream’ and we encounter his desire to be ‘born again’. These are words, images and themes that Morrison revisits to this day, and from the start some of these were more transparent in their meaning than others. The viaduct, for instance, is a tangible symbol of his childhood in East Belfast. Singing ‘Summertime in England’ at a New York concert in 1990, he intones the word over and over: ‘Viaduct, viaduct, viaduct, viaduct’. It becomes an incantation of an almost spiritual nature, similar to his whispered pleading at the end of Into the Music (1978) to meet him ‘down by the pylons’. One imagines these viaducts and pylons as symbols of Morrison’s childhood and early teenage years: tadpoles in jam-jars, illicit cigarettes, R&B records and the first, furtive fumblings of adolescent sex.

From the very start of his solo singing career, it was these songs in celebration of an idyllic youth that were least close to jazz, blues, soul or gospel, the popular music forms in which Morrison had been steeped as a child. Most significantly for 1968, the songs on Astral Weeks could hardly have been considered rock and roll ‘in any ordinary or hyphenated sense’, as Greil Marcus wrote at the time. Harmonically, these songs and all the childhood songs that followed tend to have a modal simplicity whose roots are in Celtic folksong . . .

might come in handy one day

In 1989 the American musicologist Alan W. Pollack started to analyze the songs of the Beatles. He published his first results on internet. In 1991 -- after he had finished the work on 28 songs -- he bravely decided to do the whole lot of them. About ten years later, in 2000 he completed the analysis of the official Beatles' canon, consisting of 187 songs and 25 covers. Here we have ordered this massive work in five categories.

ruby ann boxcar

Shes really funny. Clever. She was on ABC radio this afternoon, running rings around the private school girl presenter de jour.

From her website:

"Needless to say, Melbourne can be summed up in one word...BEAUTIFUL. Talk about pretty. And the people were so nice. Actually I'm writin' this here from the beautiful hotel them folks put me and my husband Dew in down in downtown Melbourne.

The only problem I've had to far was a freek accident. You see, it's winter time over here, which I LOVE, so I kind of came down with a little tingle in my throat on the first day I arrived. Well, I just popped a eucalyptus flavored cough drop in my mouth, and before you could say, "He Matilda is your dance card filled," I was attacked by a group of them Koala bears. They was on me like skank on my sister. They all was tryin' to suck that dog gone cough drop out of my mouth. To be honest with y'all, I think that was the first time I'd ever French kissed something that wasn't my husband or a relative. Anyways, I managed to break free and spit that dog gone thing clear across the street, and they got after that thing like my daddy on a wing at KFC after church on Sunday afternoon.

But like I was sayin', these folks down under are some of the most wonderful people you'll ever get to meet outside of a trailer park. But I'll have more of that for y'all next month. For now I got to run. My husband sleep medicine has finally kicked in and I'm feelin' robust. "

So if you're in the Melbourne area come and see me cook up a dish on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 27, 28, and 29, around 1 PM at the Malthouse or you can attend my one woman show, The Ruby Ann Boxcar Experience, on Sunday August 29 around 2 PM at the Malthouse. For more information call +61 (0)3 9645 9244

like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,

http://www.circlemakers.org/

bob + willie + western swing = bliss

"THE BOB DYLAN SHOW" TO PLAY IN 22 MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PARKS ON SUMMER TOUR . Joining Bob Dylan on the tour are Willie Nelson and Family and The Hot Club Of Cowtown. Kids under 12 will be admitted free with an adult ticket holder. Gig list, venues and dates

Campanelli Stadium Brockton. Sunday 15 Aug 2004
......Nelson, 71, took stage first, playing his classic hits, such as "Whiskey River," "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," "Georgia on my Mind," "Good Hearted Woman," and "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys."

Nelson played 25 songs in a 90-minute set, grinning and waving to audience members the entire time.

At various points during the show, Nelson tossed his hat or bandana into the crowd, only to have fans throw their own hats back to him. The crowd went wild at one point, when Nelson tossed his cowboy hat into the crowd and put on a Boston Red Sox cap a fan had thrown on stage.

While Nelson interacted with the audience, Dylan, in typical Dylan-fashion, only addressed the audience once — when he introduced his band at the end of his set. Still, his fans loved him.

Dylan's playlist consisted of very few of his classic tunes. He played mostly his more obscure Christian and gospel songs, and blues songs off his 1997 "Love and Theft" album. [my emphasis]

After playing a 12-song set, Dylan played a three-song encore, consisting of mainstream hits, "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "All Along the Watchtower," which brought about shouts of, "Yeah Bobby!" from the crowd.

Also in his typical, Chaplain-esque way, Dylan bounced and bobbled around stage seemingly in his own world.
At one point in the show, he stood in center stage looking like he was holding an air guitar, only to wander off stage and back on again.......

porn - moral panic

A bunch of idiots in the Labor party have come out in favour of internet filtering.

Jason Soon uses this to point out "that Labor has been captured by the Wowser Left in the shape of reactionary Tory socialist Clive Hamilton".

Irene Graham of the Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) has a personal web site full of censorship history and facts about filtering.

UPDATE: Al Bundy, Prof Bunyip's milder nephew, has taken apart the Australia Institute's porn polemic far better than I could.

UPDATE ON UPDATE: Ken Parish over at Troppo Armadillo has the beginnings of a thoughtful thread emerging on the latest porn filtering gambit.

Paul Watson reckons its because Hamilton is a baby boomer. Watson suggests that men who don't know how to handle women should become Friends of Dorothy and makes a subtle but self sacrificing offer - "I’m over here, guys! Now that porn’s corrupted you, poofterdom is more than ready to offer you a healthy sexual relationship!" [..more..]

UPDATE 3: Barista builds up a 15 bar pump head of steam and pulls the lever on the Gaggia and serves up a hot double shot of black on the porn issue.

busy week already

Its only Tuesday and the week is already a disconcerting blur.

On the radio is Toots Hibbert singing "Maggies Farm" from the album Is It Rolling, Bob? an album of Bob Dylan songs by reggae artists. I prefer Bob doing his own raggae on "At Budakan". I still think Pressure Drop is one of the best songs ever partly because it always grabs me and partly because I don't think anyone knows what its about and partly because I remember reading an interview where Toots said he didn't know what it was about. But we all know what it means. I was out of the country when Toots was playing live here this year.

A bunch of idiots in the Labor party have come out in favour of internet filtering. Jason Soon uses this to point out "that Labor has been captured by the Wowser Left in the shape of reactionary Tory socialist Clive Hamilton".
Irene Graham of the Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) has a personal web site full of censorship history and facts about filtering.

UPDATE: Al Bundy, Prof Bunyip's milder nephew, has taken apart the Australia Institute's porn polemic far better than I could.

Why on earth has Scrafton undertaken the "lie detector" test? I thought he was travelling well until then. Back Pages has a few good threads on the matter.

On a brighter note. Amanda from Flop Eared Mule tells me that Todd Snider has a new album "East Nashville Skyline" with good serious content. I always knew he could do it. Great interview with Todd and Lone Star Music.

Oh and I discovered a wonderful 1957 piece by Roland Barthes on the Citroen Goddess. I guess in 1957 post modern was just modern.

youthful exuberance - my arse

"...When Tavistock brought the Beatles to the United States nobody could have imagined the cultural disaster that was to follow in their wake. The Beatles were an integral part of "THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY.

The phenomenon of the Beatles was not a spontaneous rebellion by youth against the old social system. Instead it was a carefully crafted plot to introduce by a conspiratorial body which could not be identified, a highly destructive and divisive element into a large population group targeted for change against its will. New words and new phrases--prepared by Tavistock(1)-- were introduced to America along with the Beatles. Words such as "rock" in relation to music sounds, "teenager," "cool," "discovered" and "pop music" were a lexicon of disguised code words signifying the acceptance of drugs and arrived with and accompanied the Beatles wherever they went, to be "discovered" by "teenagers." Incidentally, the word "teenagers" was never used until just before the Beatles arrived on the scene, courtesy of the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations.

As in the case of gang wars, nothing could or would have been accomplished without the cooperation of the media, especially the electronic media and, in particular, the scurrilous Ed Sullivan who had been coached by the conspirators as to the role he was to play. Nobody would have paid much attention to the motley crew from Liverpool and the 12-atonal system of "music" that was to follow had it not been for an overabundance of press exposure. The 12-atonal system consisted of heavy, repetitive sounds, taken from the music of the cult of Dionysus and the Baal priesthood by Adorno and given a "modern" flavor by this special friend of the Queen of England and hence the Committee of 300.

(1) Tavistock: An Institute in UK where they research in mind control, run by highly trained psychiatrists who answer to the Illuminati. From here Ayatollah Khomeini, Radovan Karadzic and Milosevic among others were all trained for their mission. ..." [...read more...]

farting as a defence against unspeakable dread

Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread, Sidoli M
JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 41: (2) 165-178 APR 1996

Abstract:
This paper describes some features of the behaviour of a severely disturbed adopted latency boy. Peter was born premature, suffered several early hospitalizations and surgical operations, and at 2 months of age was removed from his mother's care by Social Services for neglect and abandonment.

Although his subsequent development has been clouded by a series of losses and sudden changes of caregivers, Peter has maintained an unexpected desire to relate, showing considerable innate resilience. When feeling endangered, Peter had developed a defensive olfactive container using his bodily smell and farts to envelop himself in a protective cloud of familiarity against the dread of falling apart, and to hold his personality together.

In the paper Fordham's views of development and Anzieu's concept of psychic envelopes constitute the theoretical underpinning. Bion's concepts of beta- and alpha-elements are discussed in relation to Jung's views on symbolic development and psychological containment.

Author Keywords: adoption, dread, neglect, resilience, sensuous olfactive object

Addresses: SOC ANALYT PSYCHOL, LONDON, ENGLAND. Publisher: ROUTLEDGE, LONDON IDS Number: UT493 ISSN: 0021-8774

same till different hands

Centrelink worker helps people, does job well, repays money to taxpayers, gets 9 months.

Governor General does bad job, doesnt help people, gets $650,000 gift from taxpayers, repays nothing.

"Centrelink customer-service officer Angelo Alateras handed out more than $92,000 in unauthorised payments because he felt compassion for his clients, many of whom were homeless or drug users.

The court heard most of the defrauded money was recovered, and the judge made a reparation order to the Commonwealth for the outstanding amount of $29,122.83.
Judge Walsh sentenced Alateras to nine months' jail, but immediately released him on a $1000 good-behaviour bond and placed him on a two-year community-based order."

--------------
"Mr Butler, a 62-year-old former United Nations weapons inspector, was the highest paid vice-regal representative in the country. The payout takes his earnings for 10 months to about $1 million. Included in the deal is another month in Government House, Hobart, to settle his affairs, plus moving expenses."

song for richard butler & peter hollingsworth

Once upon a time
You dressed so fine,
You threw the bums a dime,
In your prime,
Didn't you?

People'd call,
Say, “Beware doll,
You're bound to fall.”
You thought they were all
Kiddin' you.

You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out.
Now you don't
talk so loud.
Now you don't
seem so proud
About having to be scrounging
for your next meal.

How does it feel?
How does it feel,
To be without a home,
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

[..more..]

doctors and torture - abu ghraib - guantanamo bay

Prof. Robert Jay Lifton, author of "The Nazi doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide." New York: Basic Books, 1986, and many other works writes in the issue of The New England Journal of Medicine July 29, 2004 of the possibility that:

"There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal."
and
"... Physicians have served as actual torturers in Chile and elsewhere; have surgically removed ears as punishment for desertion in Saddam Hussein's Iraq; have incarcerated political dissenters in mental hospitals, notably in the Soviet Union; have, as whites in South Africa, falsified medical reports on blacks who were tortured or killed; and have, as Americans associated with the Central Intelligence Agency, conducted harmful, sometimes fatal, experiments involving drugs and mind control.
With the possible exception of the altering of death certificates, the recent transgressions of U.S. military doctors have apparently not been of this order..." [..more.. full text article..]

Since at least 1988 medical involvement in torture and mistreatment in Iraq was commonplace under Saddam Hussein with one survey reporting that 32% of physicians had falsified death certificates, 50% had conducted nontherapeutic amputation of ears as a form of punishment and 49% had falsified medical-legal reports of torture

[Survey published in Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 291 No. 12, March 24/31, 2004 - Abstract only]

Addition:
Irant over at Immanuel Rant in the comments below suggests this article by Robert Fisk on Abu Grhaib from September last year.