tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-312314112024-03-25T10:34:02.788+11:00An alcoholic's guide to modern lifeWe are all in the gutter, but some of us are drunkCarlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.comBlogger343125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-87347864223604956802023-12-02T10:58:00.018+11:002023-12-02T18:44:40.489+11:00The Devil Complains<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/11/30/8a7e6162-f6c4-4d3a-9ff5-42c7e1c26770/thumbnail/640x360/26fbc57eb2815b207fba9d551091fd4a/ot-kissinger-2490691-640x360.jpg?v=2a3c5d91939c9bf28fa0bc6fdfacfdd4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/11/30/8a7e6162-f6c4-4d3a-9ff5-42c7e1c26770/thumbnail/640x360/26fbc57eb2815b207fba9d551091fd4a/ot-kissinger-2490691-640x360.jpg?v=2a3c5d91939c9bf28fa0bc6fdfacfdd4" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><i>Hell. The Devil on his throne, phone in hand about to make a call</i><br /><br />THE DEVIL: [calling off screen] Henry! For crying out loud <i>put down</i> that flamethrower! I keep <i>telling you</i> there are no communists in Hell! People really gotta read the Bible… [dials number and puts phone to his ear]<br /><br /><i>Heaven. Jesus is in the midst of a raucous party when his phone rings amid the strains of a drunken crowd singalong: “I am going, I am going, where streams of whiskey are flowing…” Pint of Guinness in hand, he heads to a quiet corner to take the call.</i><br /><br />JESUS: Lucifer! So nice to hear from you. [Calls off screen] Yeah another whiskey! [returns to call] What can I do for you, only we are a bit busy up here [puts his pint down to accept a glass of whiskey].<br /><br />THE DEVIL: It’s Henry Kissinger! I think the guy is <i>too</i> evil for Hell! He’s already carpet bombed the Seventh Circle. He’s naplmed the Eighth and installed a fascist dictatorship over the Sixth where anyone who questions the official state ideology is disappeared! That’s the Heresy Circle! The poor souls can’t help themselves!<br /><br />JESUS: Luce, mate… what’s the problem? They’re meant to suffer! It sounds like you’ve finally gotten some help for that workload you’re always complaining about. [yells off screen] Hey Shane! “Dirty Old Town”!<br /><br /><i>Strains of a rough voice slur-singing: “I met my love, by the gas works wall…” </i><br /><br />THE DEVIL: Hang on… do you have Shane MacGowan up there???<br /><br />JESUS: What? Oh… yeah he’s on a double bill tonight with Sinead.<br /><br />THE DEVIL: You get all the good ones!<div><br /></div><div>JESUS: Yeah that's... kinda the deal, Luce.</div><div><br /></div><div>THE DEVIL: [sighs] I don't know how much more of this I can take! You pay me to torture these souls, fine. I think I do a pretty good job! Then some upstart psychopath comes down and starts trying to do it for me! Reckons he’s got more experience in making things “scream”! It’s like he wants my…<br /><br /><i>A knock on the door. The Devil gets up to answer.</i><br /><br />THE DEVIL: [to Jesus] Hang on.... [opens door] Yes?<br /><br /><i>Two uniformed soldiers march in and declare The Devil is under arrest in the name of the new regime established to restore order and destroy the Communist threat.</i><br /><br />THE DEVIL: [being dragged away, yelling into his phone] JESUS! Help me! JESUS! There’s been a coup… you have to intervene... JESUS! JESUS?!?<br /><br />JESUS: [hears Shane MacGowan start singing “It was Christmas eve babe, in the drunk tank...”] Sorry Luce, didn’t catch that. Look gotta go [downs whiskey] Shane’s just got Kirsty MacColl up on stage [hangs up and hurries off raising his pint glass]<br /><br />THE DEVIL: [being dragged down a firey hallway] JESUS!!!!!!!</div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-32764334184009995372023-08-03T20:46:00.033+10:002023-08-04T09:50:53.575+10:00Great, now Sinead O'Connor gets to be patronised<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/05/23/arts/23sinead-oconnor2/23sinead-oconnor2-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/05/23/arts/23sinead-oconnor2/23sinead-oconnor2-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Routinely described alive and now dead as "troubled", the key point about Sinead O'Connor is missed. The <i>world</i> is troubled, which is why she once <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/28/it-is-no-measure-of-health-to-be-well-adjusted-to-a-profoundly-sick-society-2/" target="_blank">wrote an article</a> called "It's No Measure of Health to be Well Adjusted to a Profondly Sick Society".</p><p>Sinead O'Connor never accepted the troubled world as it is and directed her immense talent to an assault on it's absurdities and crimes. She paid a high price -- the victim of real cancel culture -- but never stopped. </p><p>Alive, O'Connor was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jun/08/sinead-oconnor-retracts-retirement-announcement" target="_blank">dismissed by the media </a>as "the crazy woman in pop's attic". Now in death she gets patronised. An astonishing line in <i>The Guardian</i>'s obituary <a href="https://www.joe.ie/news/guardian-obituary-sinead-oconnor-778860" target="_blank">declared</a> she "lacked the determination needed to keep a top-flight pop career afloat". (They have since edited it to "she lacked the obessive drive needed" after a predictable backlash, like the cowards they are).</p><p>The briefest look at her life makes the statement ridiculous. </p><p>O'Connor grew up in what she later said was an abusive household. At 15, after being caught shoplifting, she was placed in an infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland" target="_blank">Magdalene asylum</a> for 18 months. Of her time in one of these institutions finally forced to close in the 1990s due to abuse scandals, she said: "I have never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything."</p><p>With this trauma compounded by her mother's death in a car accident when she was 18, O'Connor began a solo singing career in the mid '80s, Her defiance was obvious from the start -- refusing pressure from her record company to conform to societies expectation of feminine beauty to better sell her product, instead shaving her head. O'Connor's record company freted about how to sell her, but an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/glorious-rage-of-sinead-o-connor-rebecca-sheehan/102658162?fbclid=IwAR2xCpKJMl7-4dZJugJepLnT1SKHTUX4DWnXhmlHdh2UeQO2xESGZKkM6ao" target="_blank">ABC piece</a> posted since her death described the impact O'Connor's refusal had on young women in Australia at the time.</p><p>O'Connor's most famous controversy was speaking out about institutional child abuse in the Catholic Church, but she faced backlash over outspoken support for the marginalised from the start. The evidence is in the lyrics on several songs off her second album <i>I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got</i> -- released several years before the Pope controversy. </p><p>On "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ST-2mCibtM&ab_channel=RoyGM" target="_blank">Black Boys on Mopeds</a>", which declares England "the home of police who kill Black boys on mopeds", she sings: "These are dangerous days, to say what you feel is to dig your own grave."</p><p>On "Emperor's New Clothes" she states:</p><i><blockquote>Everyone can see what's going on<br />They laugh 'cause they know they're untouchable<br />Not because what I said was wrong</blockquote></i><p>The Pope controversy was still three years away.</p><p>That album made O'Connor a global superstar, but her mainstream career was killed in the US by the Pope incident. Elsewhere, she was derided or marganlised in the mainstream industry. But <a href="https://www.insider.com/sinead-oconnor-didnt-want-pop-star-life-2023-7" target="_blank">she said</a> she never wanted to be a pop star, but became a singer because she "wanted to scream".</p><p>Just some examples of O'Connor using her voice to support the persecuted or marganised through out her career that have been shared around social media since she died: </p><p>* Appeared at the 1989 Grammy's with a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/undergroundhiphopmixtapes/posts/pfbid028KhGKmbRsUtrwq75M64PEp2CSBF573RZD6d6LydXUHvTPz2UagVo3ihpzejtQyeUl?__cft__[0]=AZVhU69u6Hew3hKvfihKb2bQAZwbUz9lIaA-PoWIgK-Ux8L3vTACzLAgQIssCDhjrtt11GKjM1yT2LeiCxHAnKOkJSMnpdyVSQc4C_y-6KTJu907hvnlVlXkeI6dTYl4dOdmLGshmklJ_UuH95rnKg1nrWK9neoOAMF_YAIkrZ4XAcaxiihq2lOuNY9wkCWiAzk&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R" target="_blank">Public Enemy image</a> on the side of her head, at a time the racist music industry was refusing to recognise hip hop as a legitimate genre. (She subsequently <a href="https://www.distractify.com/p/why-sinead-o-connor-refused-her-grammy" target="_blank">refused to accept</a> a Grammy she was awarded and spoke about how the industry uses awards to control artists.) </p><p>* Wore a t-shirt of the Dublin AIDS Alliance on Ireland's biggest talk show in 1990 at the height of of the stigma and discrimination targeting HIV+ people. A <a href="https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/sinead-oconnor-used-her-fame-to-break-down-stigma-1507738.html" target="_blank">HIV Ireland spokeperson said</a>: “Many people living with HIV recall, years later, the profound impact of seeing Sinéad in the T-shirt and listening to her advocating for people living with HIV and Aids who felt judged, marginalised and frightened.”</p><p>* Respected the cultural picket line <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/call" target="_blank">called for by the Palestinian people</a> and refused to perform in Israel. The pompous windbag scabs Nick Cave and Thom Yorke should learn from her <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/136937" target="_blank">straight forward point</a>: "There’s not a sane person on earth who in any way sanctions what the fuck the Israeli authorities are doing,"</p><p>* In her last public appearance, she <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/sinead-oconnor-choice-music-prize" target="_blank">dedicated </a> an award for "classic album" at the Choice Music event to refugees in Ireland. At a time of rising xenophobia, she said from the stage: "I want to dedicate it to each and every member of Ireland’s refugee community. And not just the Ukrainian ones. You’re very welcome in Ireland. Mashallah. I love you very much and I wish you happiness.” (O'Connor had a long history of supporting refugees, <a href="https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/32069-Sinead-O%27Connor:-A-legacy-of-compassion-for-Kurdish-refugees" target="_blank">donating all revenues</a> from a 1991 EP to Kurdish refugees trapped in Iraq after the First Gulf War.)</p><p>Sinead O'Connor. Nice voice, needs more determination.</p><p>Of course, O'Connor's stunning singing voice was a big part of her creative successes. But this can't be easily seperated from how her she chose to use it.</p><p>O'Connor combined technical prowess with an intense passion and capacity to express raw emotion. That can't be faked, but comes from a deep determination to confront the world at any cost. It led to an avalanche of misogyny -- blatantly in <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/tv/joe-pesci-says-he-would-have-slapped-sinead-oconnor-in-viral-resurfaced-clip-3475027" target="_blank">public threats</a> from a Hollywood star to violently assault her but just as much in media dismissals of her as "crazy".</p><p>O'Connor has left behind a remarkable creative legacy, one that doesn't just span the 10 albums of her own but a huge array of collaborations across many genres. It includes, almost as a footnote, some arguably definitive versions of a series of traditional Irish folk songs.</p><p>The world has lost a remarkable voice -- in all senses.</p><p><a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mX5HReCW9_n3xZ-ajHvqnG" target="_blank">Playlist!</a></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mX5HReCW9_n3xZ-ajHvqnG" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-29485369037053093962022-03-02T19:00:00.010+11:002023-08-04T09:38:32.249+10:00The Carlo and Leslie Dialogues: On the matter of the vibe shift<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/039/624/Screen_Shot_2022-02-17_at_12.19.05_PM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/039/624/Screen_Shot_2022-02-17_at_12.19.05_PM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Well I am sure with all that is going on in the world, the greatest issue all humanity faces is whether we are indeed in the midst of yet another <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/what-is-the-vibe-shift/" target="_blank">vibe shift</a>. This crucial issue of whether trends in popular culture were changing was <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/what-is-the-vibe-shift/" target="_blank">bravely broached</a> in a <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/what-is-the-vibe-shift/" target="_blank">much-discussed </a><i>New York </i>magazine<i>'</i>s The Cut, where the question was bluntly posted: will any of us survive the vibe shift?</p><p>Mysteriously in this regard, I have received, out of the blue, a new "Carlo and Leslie Dialogue" transcription from sources unknown that confronts these very questions. I don't know who sent or why, but obviously the world remembers vividly the <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/p/the-full-published-carlo-and-leslie.html" target="_blank">first round of "dialogues"</a> drawn from my ASIO files that I posted in 2015. Or possible the widely-lauded autobiographical account I published, <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2020/05/the-adventures-of-carlo-and-leslie-tale.html" target="_blank">The Tale of the Rollerskating Archaeologists</a>. Could it be the CIA or Russian intelligence seeking to make an as-yet- unclear point?</p><p>I do not know. But there must be a reason so I provide it below. Shockingly, it's in a pub.</p><p>***</p><br /><br />(10.08am. Carlo is at a table alone in an empty pub with a pint and a whisky in front of him, looking quietly furious about something. Leslie walks up with a pint.)<br /><br />CARLO: (surprised) WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?<br /><br />LESLIE: (sitting down) Just recovered from the plague.<br /><br />CARLO: AGAIN?!? How many plagues can one man get? (Looks closer) Where are your buboes?<br /><br />LESLIE: Not that plague. I haven't caught that one for centuries. I mean the latest one.<br /><br />(Carlo looks blank)<br /><br />LESLIE: You know, Covid.<br /><br />(Carlo looks blank)<br /><br />LESLIE: The pandemic that's been wreaking havok over the world for the past two years?<br /><br />(Carlo looks blank)<br /><br />LESLIE: The one that closed the pubs for extended periods.<br /><br />CARLO: Oh is THAT what that was? I thought I was stuck in a recurring nightmare where each day I'd stumble to the pub only to find it shut and have to stumble back home. I thought maybe I was being punished by the Gods for cheating death again and was condemned to push my alcohol withdrawal-ravaged body up the hill only to go straight back down again every time. Like that other time with the rock.<br /><br />LESLIE: No it was a public health measure. Though you could say that about anything that denies you entry to a licensed establishment. (Looks at Carlo) What are you so furious about anyway?<br /><br />CARLO: (slams fist on table) THE FUCKING VIBE SHIFT!<br /><br />LESLIE: Another one?<br /><br />CARLO: Some hack journalist at the New York magazine wrote some piece about how they didn't realise a vibe shift was coming and they're terrified they won't survive and WHY THE FUCK DO THEY NEVER ASK ME ABOUT VIBE SHIFTS?<br /><br />LESLIE: You have definitely survived quite a few.<br /><br />CARLO: I can help! If only people would listen! <br /><br />LESLIE: Reminds me of that time in mid-17th century England when you tried to warn King Charles I about the coming vibe shift.<br /><br />CARLO: Exactly! He just told me to spend less time on Instagram obsessing about the latest fad in close cut hairstyles. No wonder he didn't survive!<br /><br />LESLIE: He came round on the hair cuts in the end tho.<br /><br />CARLO: Oh sure, as he was being led to the scaffolds he looked around and "You were right Carlo, just check out these roundhead styles, they're everywhere now". It was all too late!<br /><br />LESLIE: Still you have to admit he had a point with his final words predicting the whole long curly hair look would be restored before long.<br /><br />CARLO: I TOLD HIM THAT! WHY DO I NEVER GET ANY CREDIT?<br /><br />LESLIE: Still I'm not sure anyone will survive this latest vibe shift. It's got a very "armaggedon" vibe.<br /><br />CARLO: I SAID THAT! THE COMING VIBE IS TOTALLY ARMAGGEDON! DRESS FOR THE END TIMES! I'VE TOLD ANYONE WHO'LL LISTEN!<br /><br />LESLIE: Yeah but that's me, and only because of that ancient curse I've never been able to get lifted, and the bar tender who just pretends to listen while begging you to pay your tab.<br /><br />CARLO: Speaking of which, the bastard's cut me off again! (Points at his empty glasses). Your round.<br /><br />LESLIE: There's a vibe that hasn't shifted for millenia.<br /><br />CARLO: GET ME A FUCKING DRINK!<br /><br />LESLIE: (sighing as he gets up) I really wish there were some sort of public advice on how to lift a druid's curse. But no, it's all "wear a mask" and "try not to die in the latest extreme weather event".<br /><br />(heads off to the bar)<br /><br />CARLO: (yelling after him) PINT WITH A DOUBLE WHISKEY! (to himself) Plague-ridden cad.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Other less crucial matters:<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Global anti-war day of action</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Student Strike for Climate March 25</a><p><br /></p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-90452987994889088012018-05-21T23:24:00.002+10:002023-04-11T13:31:17.240+10:00And some people think capitalism is a system with nothing of any social value to offer any more???<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container tr_bq" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prince Harry and Princess Meghan, I think.</td></tr>
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Now, after the incredible scenes of the royal wedding on Saturday, it may be possible the world's had its fill of Prince Harry and Princess Meghan news.<br />
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But it would be a <i>fucking shame</i> if we let this moment pass, in which the very embodiment of imperial power, unearned wealth, inherited privilege sought to slightly soften its image by letting a ginger marry a biracial American while the homeless were physically evicted from the surrounds, without highlighting a profound point it has proven beyond doubt.<br />
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Because there are some people out there who refuse to stare social reality in <i>the face ... (possibly printed onto a single piece swimsuit)... </i>and say capitalism is <i>nothing more</i> than a social system based on gross exploitation of people and the planet that has long exhausted any historical progressive role it could play!<br />
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WELL SUCH CYNICS NEED TO COP A LOAD OF THIS!!! I'LL POST IT AGAIN IN CASE YOU MISSED IT THE FIRST TIME!!!<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah! Check it out!</td></tr>
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Yeah that's right, forget "but what about your smart phone" smart-arse answers to those who defend a social system that can only produce such technology in factories so terrible they put suicide nets to stop the modern day slaves from jumping... WE FINALLY HAVE THE EVIDENCE OF JUST HOW SOCIALLY VITAL CAPITALISM TRULY IS!<br />
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YES! The online printing company <a href="https://www.bagsoflove.co.uk/">Bags of Love</a> is offering customers the chance to have the newly-wedded royals faces printed on anything customers want, which is<i> exactly</i> the sort of individual choice directing a free market that Adam Smith famously described in his 18th century treatise: <i>An Inquiry Into How The Wealth of Nations Can be Extended By Putting An Inbred Ginger's Chin Onto a One Piece Swimming Suit So It Sort of Looks A Bit Like The Wearers' Exposed Pubic Area</i>.<br />
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A spokesperson for the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/royal-weddings/prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-swimsuits-might-be-strangest-royal-wedding-merchandise-yet/news-story/5ddb36a67f4005441ca2f021e24847d9">told</a> the Metro:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Our favourite [printing suggestion] has to be the Harry and Megan and Wills and Kate swimsuits. Nothing like printing the face of a Prince or Duchess on a swimming costume and rocking it proudly on the beach.</i></blockquote>
Oh no, nothing like it at all, and in case you've forgotten, HERE IT IS AGAIN!!!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CAPITALISM!!!</td></tr>
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Yes, according to <a href="http://news.com.au/">News.com.au</a><span id="goog_1517483540"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1517483541"></span>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Your royal creation will be printed and posted (to UK locations) within days ... The bizarre product will set you back $68.24 (£38) plus a $7 (£3.99) delivery charge (delivery in the UK only). </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>If a swimsuit’s not your thing, there’s hundreds of themed merchandise springing up on the internet to buy. From a commemorative coin to tea towels, condoms, T-shirts and napkins, <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/6074968/royal-wedding-merchandise-royal-mint-coin-condoms-tea-towels-napkins-t-shirts/">here are some of the wacky items on sale</a>.</i></blockquote>
My God, you read that right! Harry and Meghan <i>condoms! WHAT A SOCIAL SYSTEM!</i><br />
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Oh capitalism has its critics who <i>bang on</i> about how <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined">62 people own 50% of the world's wealth</a> while <a href="https://www.unicef.org/factoftheweek/index_53356.html">25,000 children die every single day</a> from mostly preventable causes. BUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE... HAVE ANOTHER LOOK AT THESE SWIMSUITS AND TELL ME IT ISN'T WORTH !<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sadly, no image of the condoms were available.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Do you think these would be produced in... oh I don't know... maybe Cuba??? I don't think so.<br />
<br />
Sure, Cuba has free health care and has a <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/31/tom-harkin/sen-tom-harkin-says-cuba-has-lower-child-mortality/">lower infant mortality rate than the United States</a>, but what is the point of raising children in a world where they cannot buy a swimsuit to allow Prince Harry's chin to cover their groin??? IT DOES NOT BEAR THINKING ABOUT!<br />
<br />
AND THE THREAT TO HARRY AND MEGHAN SWIMSUITS IS NOT JUST IN THE CARIBBEAN! No, the <i>leader</i> of Her Majesty's Allegedly Loyal Opposition is Jeremy Corbyn, an infamous self-confessed <i>socialist!</i><br />
<br />
And his left-hand comrade is Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, who <i>just fucking <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-20/u-k-shadow-chancellor-mcdonnell-vows-to-overthrow-capitalism">told </a></i><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-20/u-k-shadow-chancellor-mcdonnell-vows-to-overthrow-capitalism">the BBC</a> that his "job" was to "overthrow capitalism"!!!<br />
<br />
His pathetic justification was that he wanted to “radically challenge the system” to prevent another catastrophic economic crisis like the one ordinary people are still paying for with savage austerity, with the sick freak stating :<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Only a few months ago we had someone die, a homeless person die, within feet of a door at Parliament. I don’t want to live in a society like that and I don’t think the British people do either.</i></blockquote>
Yeah that's right. NO MENTION AT ALL of Harry and Meghan swimsuits or <i>even condoms!</i> Presumably such progress has no place in Comrade McDonnell's socialist dystopia.<br />
<br />
Sure, Corbyn-led Labour's policies aim to end homelessness and extreme poverty.... BUT AT WHAT COST TO SOCIETY???<br />
<br />
Well OK maybe their proposals actually say <i>nothing at all</i> about not letting people part with presumably hard-earned cash to get disturbing products over the internet, and are just about bringing the large corporations to heel and putting essential and major industry into public hands to organise the economy in a more rational and sustainable fashion... but can we afford to take the risk???<br />
<br />
LOOK AT WHAT IS AT STAKE!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/71e773b55f46457ab7a525df6550858d" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="650" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is too valuable to risk!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
No, we must stick with the social system we know and trust. The social system that <i>delivers! </i>OK maybe not in relation to action on climate change, as just <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change">100 companies are responsible for 71% of all global emissions</a>... but on the <i>important</i> things like how to commemorate a wedding involving an aristocratic, outdated, over-privileged institution <i>with real style!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
As the great, sadly late Texas country singer-songwriter Guy Clark puts it so clearly in the song below, let's stick with the "stuff that works".<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2mprD2MN5vo" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
Stuff that works, stuff that holds up<br />
<div>
The kind of stuff you don' hang on the wall</div>
<div>
Stuff that' real, stuff you feel</div>
<div>
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall...</div>
<div>
<br />
I can't say for certain, but I am <i>pretty sure</i> Guy Clark was talking about monopoly capitalism in this song.<br />
<br /></div>
Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-21595945154640913862023-04-04T21:12:00.002+10:002023-04-05T16:39:42.161+10:00Lucinda Williams' great Sydney show<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-syd2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/339745890_618745372962125_7256015623103260176_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=bCLvsEoYn5EAX_q1tf2&_nc_ht=scontent-syd2-1.xx&oh=00_AfDdpcItwUb79sLUuHX8BbO7ycDG7rv69fmYW4PZ_S4FuA&oe=6431A06A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="427" src="https://scontent-syd2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/339745890_618745372962125_7256015623103260176_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=bCLvsEoYn5EAX_q1tf2&_nc_ht=scontent-syd2-1.xx&oh=00_AfDdpcItwUb79sLUuHX8BbO7ycDG7rv69fmYW4PZ_S4FuA&oe=6431A06A" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lucinda Williams at Sydney's Enmore Theatre with Steve Earle. Photo: Lucinda Williams Facebook page.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xdj266r x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I wrote a post a couple of years ago <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2021/05/lucinda-williams-1998-austin-city.html" target="_blank">raving</a> about watching a Lucinda Williams' Austin City special on YouTube and last night I finally saw her live.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"> I wondered about the impact of the bad stroke she suffered in November 2020, but she was in incredible form. Williams has obviously worked hard to get back to the stage of being able to tour and perform at a very high quality. She had to be led pn and off the stage, she can't play guitar and she was visibly tired from the effort (the only explanation for no encore as the crowd could not have been more pumped for one). But her voice was incredible, the best I can remember hearing it. She's always been more renowned for the quality of her songwriting and the poetic humanism of her stories than her voice but she sung beautifully last night.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Williams' songs are frequently masterpieces. She played some of the songs in that ACL show, the remarkably evocative "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tUzhodl_rw&ab_channel=LiveFromAustinTX" target="_blank">Car Wheels on a Gravel Road</a>" and a surprisingly upbeat version of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na1Lv3eAcCk&ab_channel=HippetyHop" target="_blank">Lake Charles</a>" (one of a few songs she has about those she called "beautiful misfits" and their early deaths). </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">She also played the sensual "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpoX4_zZWuo&ab_channel=NPRMusic" target="_blank">Fruits of my Labour'</a>", "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx1ffuDoy6I&ab_channel=JKCHANG" target="_blank">Righteously</a>" (about demanding decent treatment in a relationship) , "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1leQwkEV-MU&ab_channel=NPRMusic" target="_blank">West Memphis</a>" (about 3 west Memphis youths framed for murder in a hysterical campaign against "satanists" in a gross miscarriage of justice) and a song she covered on her 2020 album "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dCgux3O1tM&ab_channel=LucindaWilliams" target="_blank">You Can't Rule Me</a>", originally by a Black woman country blues singer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI_9Xs_xtvE&ab_channel=MemphisMinnie-Topic" target="_blank">Memphis Minnie</a> from the '30s that Williams dedicated to "The United States Supreme Court". All helped by her tight as hell band Buick 6.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Williams talent in story telling is to remarkable detail for often mundane experiences, such as "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Fhf6nlQHI&ab_channel=madmission" target="_blank">Out of Touch</a>" about running into an old acquaintance on the street:</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"></div><blockquote><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>We speak in past tense and talk about the weather</i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Half broken sentences we try to piece together</i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I ask about an old friend that we both used to know</i></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You said you heard he took his life about five years ago</i></div></blockquote><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">She also played a new song from an upcoming album, itself a remarkable achievement post-stroke.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Oh and <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2017/07/steve-earles-beautiful-ode-to-guy-clark.html" target="_blank">Steve Earle</a> opened for her. He's a legendary singer-songwriter in his own right, but Steve Earle opening for Lucinda Williams is the correct order of things.</div></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-9304640169968898352022-11-30T20:02:00.005+11:002023-04-04T20:53:00.144+10:00'Is Clyde an existential threat to human civilisation?' and your other questions answered<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWfjyX45VY30Sc9EsAyFxAmhqURQ7rRiRLsHO_Z0izTcAH5IBzpPPpPGQ0F8oz3wivyJbzwitv2Ba6HMyQS2PcEF4u3AHpTstN1LYkof6ruMTbOxnTyXGl1dii8FTq3sCYSeTKoZgEW6-QJAm3rx01mAChHDl0nDigTj7AKErwU_F6io/s299/clyde.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="153" data-original-width="299" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWfjyX45VY30Sc9EsAyFxAmhqURQ7rRiRLsHO_Z0izTcAH5IBzpPPpPGQ0F8oz3wivyJbzwitv2Ba6HMyQS2PcEF4u3AHpTstN1LYkof6ruMTbOxnTyXGl1dii8FTq3sCYSeTKoZgEW6-QJAm3rx01mAChHDl0nDigTj7AKErwU_F6io/w400-h205/clyde.png" width="400"></a></div><br><div><br></div>Since the release of mg 44 44y short-yet-informative documentary <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1170548166/videos/1083020572360344/">Granville: A Tourists Guide</a> -- funded by the Granville Municipal Council -- I have been indundated with correspondence centred on one topic: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde,_New_South_Wales" target="_blank">Clyde</a>.<div><br></div><div>My film featured much useful information for tourists seeking to vi5sit Granville, part of the Cumberland Local Council in Greater Western Sydney, yet it was my attempt to infilitrate the neighbouring suburb of Clyde that has so clearly captured the public imagination. </div><div><br></div><div>And fair enough! Clyde is baffling and terrifying in equal measure! A suburb with an official population of 9 yet with its own train station??? You arebg<i>6 by 5</i> RIGHT to demand answers!</div><div><br></div><div>I have already "bloggeduu uh" (as the kids say) on the matter of Clyde before, <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2022/06/why-we-must-declare-full-scale-war-on.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2020/06/granvile-loses-its-mp-and-true-account.html" target="_blank">here</a>. But this is a big topic, arguably the most important issue facing humanity, so I will do my best to answer your questions below:</div><div><br></div><div>***</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>Why does Clyde exist?</i></b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>That's one for the philosophers. But at a guess, I'd say because God hates us and wants us to suffer.</div><div><br></div><div><b><i>What is the true population of Clyde?</i></b></div><div><b><i><br></i></b></div><div>That depends if you believe the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL10940" target="_blank">official ABS stats</a>:</div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhk24NJ5oai9n_oVVLs4q9qQstNyiFbSw-BtzmWPFyQpYSJxVzcUv9_mnP5oDGJ2IWoC8MPYMVtPRsX_4m6yil7BVelL0No-_5wFmOlrzpis9Nr_hfJDDSos0NTImFoa5xO6Pvps527xmiIfXXaV36cCDLrmT1DtotnAbTCbt6GsN_IQA/s588/Screenshot%202022-11-30%20191812.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="549" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhk24NJ5oai9n_oVVLs4q9qQstNyiFbSw-BtzmWPFyQpYSJxVzcUv9_mnP5oDGJ2IWoC8MPYMVtPRsX_4m6yil7BVelL0No-_5wFmOlrzpis9Nr_hfJDDSos0NTImFoa5xO6Pvps527xmiIfXXaV36cCDLrmT1DtotnAbTCbt6GsN_IQA/w374-h400/Screenshot%202022-11-30%20191812.png" width="374"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is their serious claim from the 2021 Census! That there are 9 people living in Clyde who are ALL MALE (what is this place, Jordanpeterstan???) YET there are 15 private dwellings??? That's 0.6 MEN per dwelling!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The official story makes zero sense. They must think we're fools!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So how many people REALLY live in Clyde?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">That I cannot answer. All I can say is I have seen with my own eyes MANY people get on and off trains at Clyde Station. I can safely say that NO ONE who resides in Granville and is EVERY DAY delayed by 2 or 3 minutes on their train trip home from work believes the official story. It's called "lived experience".</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><i>What do you think they are really doing in Clyde then?</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have no idea and it would be wholly irresponsible to speculate. But my guess is there's a secret underground suburb, hidden away from prying eyes, doing GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT EVIL.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><i>What should be done about Clyde?</i></b></div><br><div>I have <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2022/06/why-we-must-declare-full-scale-war-on.html" target="_blank">said it before</a> and I'll say it again. We MUST invade and occupy Clyde. The UN Security Council must stop sitting on its hands and immediately authorise a multi-national military force to take control. Clyde is an existential threat to human civilisation on a scale that makes climate change seem like a collective stubbed toe. Future generations will not forgive inaction.</div><div><br></div><div>ACT! ACT NOW OR BE CONDEMNED BY HISTORY!</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks to everyone who got in touch!</div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-79328355528266008442022-08-23T17:46:00.014+10:002022-08-23T18:06:26.119+10:00The Man Who Did No Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/03/32/58/88/360_F_332588811_bYNAWoxbBHaAvIFfHNKk71OZrNBlzAVQ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="540" src="https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/03/32/58/88/360_F_332588811_bYNAWoxbBHaAvIFfHNKk71OZrNBlzAVQ.jpg" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Nathan Harris was 33 when he discovered he could do no work. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Nathan, of course, did do some things. Everyone does things even if they merely breathe.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-57795d6c-7fff-f407-51f8-9c7037027944"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Nathan did many things more than breathe, but what he didn’t do was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">work</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Not, at least, if you define work as “engaging in productive activities”. And none of the many things Nathan did could, in honesty, be described as productive. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For his lack of work, Nathan took home a healthy salary for a man with no major expenses. Far healthier than earned from jobs he took in the naivety of youth at which he did, in fact, do actual work.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a discovery born of many mis-spent hours in the organisational services departments of various minor government agencies and large corporations. Both feature obtuse bureaucracies in which a man who does not wish to work can happily ply his trade.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It goes broadly like this. The first thing any department or “team”, depending on the language preferred, needs is a work plan. Nothing ensures that nothing productive ever happens quicker than starting a work plan.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For one, you can’t develop a work plan without a meeting. You can’t plan the work unless you bring the team together. Meetings were gold to Nathan and meetings to develop work plans were the shining jewel in his golden crown.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The best thing about these meetings is there’s never just one. The first meeting is filled with misunderstandings and confusions over the point of the meeting, the content of the work plan, the definition of work plans themselves and even, in the best cases, the very nature of the work they are supposed to carry out in the first place. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, having run over time, a new meeting will be scheduled.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This process can continue for a surprisingly long time, and Nathan found he didn’t have to do any work to ensure it happened. It happened naturally.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually the natural cycle of meetings to develop a work plan runs its course, but thankfully that doesn’t end the matter. Soon there’s new meetings to discuss the progress of the work plan and the cycle begins anew.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan’s next trick was to ensure he was only assigned non-productive tasks in any work plan. He never found a shortage.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For example, Nathan always volunteered to re-organise online filing systems. He drafted many proposals for new file-naming protocols involving shifting to, or from, the US date system of MM/DD/YYYY. These proposals always led to meetings.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Occasionally assigned a task that seemed dangerously useful, Nathan quickly discovered that introducing the smallest errors can bring large scale operations to a halt.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Asked to create an online form, Nathan would ensure one box was a little smaller than needed to function. Nothing so noticeable it would be picked up by those assigned to double check before green-lighting the form, but wrong enough to bring down the entire system the form was intended to serve. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And entire systems crashing down always leads to meetings.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or, if working in accounts, Nathan learned to raise an invoice with an error in the company name or address so minor only someone very specifically paid to notice would ever see it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those paid to notice were, of course, his counterparts in accounts at the company being invoiced. And by the time they see the invoice, a whole bunch of meetings will have happened at both ends just to get to the point that an invoice could be issued. All so accounts can bring the process to a shuddering halt over a spelling error.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn't even the fault of accounts. They have specially designed computer programs to automate the process that will not work if the specific data provided is wrong. A whole host of people spent many hours not working to create these programs.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emails will then ping back and forth to get the problem fixed. Ideally, meetings are held. Yet the issue will remain unresolved, because the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">different</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> specially designed computer programs to automate the process that Nathan used were always incapable of formatting the invoice in the specific way required by his counterparts. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The back-and-forth might never end. In his nine months in accounts at one job, Nathan failed to either successfully issue or pay a single invoice until the start-up finally went broke.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan uncovered endless tasks to avoid work, but few are better than those involving task management software. These software programs seem like glorified to-do-lists but they take up much more time. In between entering all the tasks to do, giving them deadlines, filling in the detail, assigning the tasks where required, answering the querying comments and scheduling meetings to clarify the querying comments, many a week flew by. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, Nathan once held a job where he couldn’t have done actual work if he tried. The job was a content systems specialist at a company producing task management software that sold themselves as helping increase productivity. That start-up folded too.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now as much as Nathan may have wished, you can’t actually hold meetings for every minute of every work hour. That’s where emails come in.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In breaks between meetings, Nathan always checked his emails. He even set it as a task in the task management software titled “check emails”. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emails were another gold mine. They frequently come from other sections of the organisation and would include a stream of tasks involving changing email signatures or filling in questionnaires for some organisational issue that would be filed in the wrong place in the badly organised online filing system and never seen again. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Nathan ran out of emails to read, he’d write his own. He liked to make these as vague and confusing as possible so recipients have no choice but to respond. This gave him even more emails to read and more to write in response. With a bit of luck, the ensuing confusion might even lead to a meeting.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan found entire years could be filled this way. Of course, he knew there were those better off than him. He still had to show up at a set time for a set period of hours each day to take home an adequate salary. It was a long way from that entire class of people who did nothing yet were worth so much that the very concept of money as a means to any end was incomprehensible. The world was simply there to take as their birthright. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, Nathan was not one of the 1% of non-workers, not even the top 50%. Yet Nathan was happy. Because if nothing he did mattered then nothing was at stake. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feeling no pressure helped Nathan do his job extremely well. Frequently, he was Employee of the Month and rose up the chain of organisations until the roles offered looked dangerously like they involved responsibility for something actually productive. At which point, searching through job ads for the many positions requiring no work, he’d move on.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan wondered if he could spend the rest of his work life doing no work. He couldn’t see why not.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-6112262991384564622022-08-06T12:58:00.006+10:002022-08-07T20:16:37.159+10:00Wow! The Demons-Pies clash was a classic and you can relive the commentary highlights here!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/87381dcd8d9e46cffca497e636a7209b" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/87381dcd8d9e46cffca497e636a7209b" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Wow-ee! Melbourne versus Collingwood last night, 2 v 3 on the ladder, was a blinder, played with finals-like ferocity! If you missed it, don't fret. I've compiled quarter-by-quarter highlights from Channel 7's widely lauded commentary team. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The main reason to watch Friday night footy is to hear legends of the commentary box like JB and BT -- their immaculate use of language marred only by Daisey Pearce's petty interruptions to offer insightful analysis of the actual play. No wonder Rex Hunt is so pissed off.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Commentating AFL is a very tought job. I only ever tried it once and Channel 7 called security, I was banned from the MCG and BT took out a restraining order (so there was one bright spot). My respect for the JBs and BTs could not be higher.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now you could watch a highlights package of the match, or you can just cut straight to the chase and read these collection of random comments culled from the game. If you don't know the result, I won't spoil it for you (your're day wil be spoiled enough when you find out).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, the talking point before the game was Demon player Ed Langdon publicly declaring Collingwood were "All duck, no dinner" -- will BT, and ex-Pies player, make any mention of this? Find out below.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-995093a1-7fff-0afa-8f80-9bd0c5cb87da"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> FIRST QUARTER</b></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-The bounce gets us underway</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- "They come straight after him!" "Looking for the duck, JB. There's his duck dinner right there! They have got him and they have given him chopped duck!"</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He's in for a torrid night'</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Now he knows there's a target in his back, he's going to be looking over his shoulder.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Big thump!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- It's the start they would have planned!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Exactly what the dr ordered for the Pies!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- PETRACAAAAAAAAA!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What about that from both ends?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Gives him the 'dont argue'</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Caught cold!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- We find out a lot about these two teams come the final series tonight</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- His hands were incredibly clean</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a start!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow, you thought Collingwood were pumped up! The last couple of minutes have showed we've got two of those tonight!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Jeez he had a good piece too</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The kick's a wobbler</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Ran out of tarmac </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- They just need a little bit of control here, the pies. To feel the footy a little bit, toss it around safely.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- It shows how amazing the drainage is at this ground</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The boos will come for Langdon all night </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- "The heat is on!" "Ohoho it's REALLY on JB! It's on in alright! Encouraging for everyone watching."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Dribbling ball </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Directly in front, obviously </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Four straight plays two straight. And that's good! For both clubs!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He wastes no time, he knows forwards like it in there quick </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- I think I said four in a row to Melbourne, I meant four straight </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Oh, got a good piece!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">- "J</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">ust for a moment I think he thought he was a genuine midfielder, Maxxy." "Not just for a moment BT, I think that's a permanent mindset for Big Max!"</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He can get wobbly with these, Big Max... and there's an example of it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- If they could get him they would, but they can't!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow! He says 'give me more,crowd!'</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- And the big man stands up!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- You can hear. The crowd. BUZZING.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Big grab!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- This just LOOKS like 2 v 3.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The best candy seller in the business!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow! He just carressed that!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Finals feel about it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Ah, got to love it!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Hot start!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He's got ground level issues here</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Jeez BT, this is a precurser to what we're going to be seeing in September. Bring it on!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a game of footy!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The little things matter </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Do they reload and go? Time will run out here. What a… A 50 METER PENALTY! A 50 METRE PENTY WITH ONE SECOND TO GO IN THE QUARTER!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow! What a mistake to make in the last 20, 15 seconds of the game … even if it is the first quarter.</span></p><br /><br /><b>QUARTER 2</b><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Little dribbler by Gawn.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Sizzle everywhere!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Not going to make the trip</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Real finals feel about it</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Viney's been instrument in this game… is he pinged here? No prior …</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- So relaible in the air </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Bit of a let-off there</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Good grab!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">They are dominating!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- They just got to start getting their hands on it, Daisy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Absolutely no prior there!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Straight into the guts of Jeremy Howe</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He can go all the way!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Pulsating game!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Salem's hands, always brilliant</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- It was a wobbler!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Loves it! Absolutely loves it!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Looking for Gawn, nailed him!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- How good are those hands?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- High scoring affair</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Wow!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a half of footy, it's had everything it really has!</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><b><br /></b></span></div><b>THIRD QUARTER</b><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He's got to remember in that situation the boundary line is his friend!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Can Craig McRae conjure another miracle?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a goal this would be! Missed.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Half messed this up</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- That guy there Clayton Oliver, he's just untackenable…. he's so good at getting </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">miraculouslous handballs out of the action zone if you like.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- They poked, they prodded, they teased, and they eventually found a way through!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Look out! Gone! Macrae is a pressure animal!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Colingwood just mounting a nice little mini campaign here.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Journey shouldn't be a problem here.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The pressure is really mounting .</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He's going to run out of room – GONE!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- His hands weren't up to it!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Everytime Collingwood go in they score, that's the issue for Simon Goodwin.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- They're right under the hot poker here, Melbourne </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Didn't they soak it up, Melbourne? They were RIGHT under the pump!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Gee, almost a 50!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The efficiency inside 50 for Collingwood tonight has been ridiculous!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- And deliberate, and fair enough too!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- They are CHARGING!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Oh boy, Maxxy's had a bad night by foot!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He'll have a crack for sure from here </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a final term we've got ahead of us!</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>FOURTH QUARTER</b></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Not a great bounce.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Had it and lost it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Gone!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now they have to grimly defend.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- I wonder if that's a throw, SURELY that's a throw!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Very hard to see how that's going to be overturned, that's a mark!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- "Can't overturn that BT". "Oh gee there is a little bobble there Hodgey!" "No bobble." "No bobble, BT." "I must have been imagining it!"</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- He could NOT have made a bigger mess of it!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- What a last 15 minutes we have got!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Collingwood will not be denied!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">- "Little bobble." "Yes, little bobble Daisey, thank you."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- How clean at the feet was Daicos?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Neal-Bullen pounded by Maynard!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- How are they going to view this? Insufficient!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Through to Daicos….YES PLEASE!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- it's a full on frenzy here in the last quarter!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- It looks every bit of 2 v 3!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Gee, offence is king! It wasn't that long ago, JB, that defence was king!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pressure is really mounting </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Big, big, big moment</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Time being chewed up</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Daicos with a little one</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Can you believe it, Collingwood are going to win again! In another thriller!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Tragically, the Collingwood club songs starts playing and I black out)</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-64396121114639095362020-09-23T18:33:00.037+10:002022-07-09T17:47:27.911+10:00QUIZ: Are you John Lee Pettimore from Steve Earle's 1988 hit 'Copperhead Road'? <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRnEuTsPTEoIfzccu4TAWEcrb4S0azQ4TDy_8yTK4dlKHuQdYlACaQ7vUifGf2GTZVmumMliy8uoljDetIMk8WNpqtLLom0rR_WMURNkgpxy8jmjrufGbcGNnKxI4FmBpl5UU/s1280/steve+earle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRnEuTsPTEoIfzccu4TAWEcrb4S0azQ4TDy_8yTK4dlKHuQdYlACaQ7vUifGf2GTZVmumMliy8uoljDetIMk8WNpqtLLom0rR_WMURNkgpxy8jmjrufGbcGNnKxI4FmBpl5UU/w400-h225/steve+earle.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There's quite a lot going on in the world right now, but one "hot topic" is the sometimes controversial question of "identity". </div><p></p><p>So if you've been asking yourself big questions about exactly who you are and how you fit into this world, this quiz could help you answer the most fundamental of questions: Are you John Lee Pettimore from Steve Earle's 1988 hard rock/outlaw country crossover hit song "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvaEJzoaYZk&ab_channel=SteveEarleVEVO" target="_blank">Copperhead Road</a>"?</p><p>***</p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Is your name John Lee Pettimore?</span></b></h3><p>A) Just like my daddy and his daddy before!</p><p>B) No, it's Lars.</p><p>C) What? Why are you asking me this?<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Has your family ever been involved in the bootleg moonshine trade?</span></b></h3><p>A) Everyone knew my granddaddy made moonshine. My daddy too, until the accident.</p><p>B) No, my father and his father were tax collectors, as am I.</p><p>C) What kind of question is that?<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Are you from the US state of Tennessee?</span></b></h3><p>A) Yeah Johnson County. Not far from Knoxville, though you hardly ever saw granddaddy down there, as he only came to town about twice a year.</p><p>B) Actually I live in Helsingør, which is a town of about 50,000 people in eastern Denmark, just a short ferry ride from Sweden!</p><p>C) What?<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Has a close family member ever bought 100 pounds of yeast and some copper wire?</span></b></h3><p>A) My grandaddy did!</p><p>B) No, what an odd question.</p><p>C) No, what an odd question.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Did your granddaddy ever had a run in with a revenue man who was never heard from again?</span></b></h3><p>A) Nothing was ever proven.</p><p>B) Definitely not as my familiy have worked for the Danish tax office for generations. We find the suggestion of foul play against a fellow revenue collector disturbing to say the least!</p><p>C) What's actually happening?<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Did your daddy ever drive a big block dodge?</span></b></h3><p>A) Yep. Bought it at an auction at the Mason's Lodge. Though that was before the accident.</p><p>B) No my family have always driven Volvos. Say what you will about those Swedes, they make a solid car!</p><p>C) These questions are getting weird.<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Did you serve with US forces in Vietnam?</span></b></h3><p>A) I volunteered on my birthday. They draft the white trash first round here anyway. I did two tours of duty.</p><p>B) No, Denmark was not directly involved in the US conflict in Indochina, although while the general public view in Scandanvia was against US policy, the Danish government was not as outspoken in opposition to the conflict as, say, the Swedish government. There were a lot of factors behind this, such as more right-wing forces governing Denmak at the time. However I'm not really sure what relevence the geopolitics of Scandanavia in relation to US imperialism in the 1960s has to do with this quiz.</p><p>C) What the fuck is going on?<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Have you ever grown cannabis for commercial gain?</span></b></h3><p>A) Look, I came back from Indochina with a brand new plan. Moonshine's yesterday's news, these kids want a different high. So I took seeds from Colombia and Mexico and planted them up the holler on ...actually I'm not sure I should be telling you this. Last thing I want is some DEA choppers in the air! Not with my PTSD! Any narcs reading this, keep in mind that I learned a thing or two from Charlie!</p><p>B) No, I find Denmark's national tax office pays well enough to avoid the need for recourse in the illicit drug trade. Sure I smoked a bit of pot in my uni days, who didn't? </p><p>C) WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THIS? WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING???<br /><br /></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Has country musician Steve Earle ever written a commercially successful cross-over hit about your life?</span></b></h3><p>A) Hey! That bastard owes me a shit-ton of royalities for that song he had in the 80s! That prick'd better stay away from Copperhead Road!</p><p>B) Steve Earle? I don't think so, no, but I don't know his full discography. It would certainly be pleasing to know someone had written a song about the life of a tax revenue worker in Denmark as it is a lot more intersting than you'd think.</p><p>C) I DON'T UNDERSTAND JUST PLEASE DON'T HURT ME.<br /><br /></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">ANSWERS<br /><br /></h3><b>MOSTLY As:</b> You are John Lee Pettimore and Steve Earle owes you a lot of royalities.<p></p><p><b>MOSTLY Bs</b>: You are Lars from Helsingør in Denmark and not John Lee Pettimore. To be honest, I'm not sure why you even did this quiz.</p><p><b>MOSTLY Cs:</b> You are in the grips of a major identity crisis. You don't know who you are, where you are, or why. Please, for your own sake and the sake of those who love you, get professional help.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xvaEJzoaYZk" width="320" youtube-src-id="xvaEJzoaYZk"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-4803882206238737672022-06-12T11:17:00.021+10:002022-06-12T15:43:04.294+10:00Why We Must Declare Full-Scale War On The Suburb of Clyde<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitFXZzQ63xuCjfMLJPMAM28uZEI6miMJWYv8ov8o5es81qKjQ5bJZv1ntdIUBjowDbeKHXrJsXQH2doQ05TlJh1Q6MUOvxHApNZOmuT8dZNr0GRH9lN2FQjCxzRDpkv-JMvw/s4000/IMG20200621123322.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1840" data-original-width="4000" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitFXZzQ63xuCjfMLJPMAM28uZEI6miMJWYv8ov8o5es81qKjQ5bJZv1ntdIUBjowDbeKHXrJsXQH2doQ05TlJh1Q6MUOvxHApNZOmuT8dZNr0GRH9lN2FQjCxzRDpkv-JMvw/w400-h184/IMG20200621123322.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>There's only so much provocation the civilised world can stand. Only so many insults to decency and humanity that those guided by such values can be expected to tolerate before they stand up and declare: ENOUGH!</p><p>This is why we must invade Clyde.</p><p>In regards to that disgraceful suburb in the Greater Western Sydney region, 21 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, the time for talking is past. We must act or regret our inaction for eternity.</p><p>Some may ask: why? Surely whatever Clyde has done there's more important issues. Runaway climate change, war crimes from Ukraine to Yemen, the despairing state of the Western Sydney Wanderers. Why Clyde?</p><p>Those who ask such questions do not live in Granville, next door to Clyde. They do not have the lived experience of being Clyde's neighbour. Such voices should check their privilege and create space for those of us who do!</p><p>Some of us actually have to live with the <i>consequences</i> of Clyde. Allow me to educate you.</p><p>Clyde is a suburb with it's own train station. Yes, you say, it serves as a junction for the Western and Inner West train lines with the Carlingford line, taking commuters northward through Rosehill all the way to Calingford itself. </p><p>Such an observation merely displays your ignorance! The Carlingford line closed in January 2020.</p><p>Now, we can all agree that fact is symbolic of the criminal neglect of Sydney's public transport infrastructure by successive state governments. Yet it remains a fact that Clyde is no longer a junction to anywhere!</p><p>No matter, you say, there must be heaps of people living in Clyde who depend on the station. What has this station got to do with your calls to bomb the place into oblivion then occupy it indefinitely with a large-scale multinational ground force?</p><p>How little you know! The residential population of Clyde is <i>zero</i>.</p><p>No one, according to the official statistics, actually lives there. Not a soul! Yet it has it's <i>own train station</i>.</p><p>And yes, it is an industrial area. Probably some people get trains to work and back. But enough to warrant a station at which <i>almost all trains heading to Granville see fit to stop?</i></p><p>I think not.</p><p>Yet every evening the good citizens of Granville are being delayed by up to 2 or even 3 minutes on their trips home from work. This affects many dozens of people. Hundreds! After a 35-minute train ride from Central, the final leg is prolonged <i>unnecessarily</i> by a stop at a station in a suburb in which <i>no one fucking lives</i>.</p><p>OK, you say, that sounds a bit annoying for Granville, but surely a UN Security Council-sanctioned full-scale war to wipe the place off the face of the Earth is an over-reaction.</p><p>But here's the thing. No one <i>lives </i>in Clyde, and yet each evening people get off at the stop. I see them each night! They can't all be going to work in one of the industrial complexes at 6 in the evening, so <i>where are they going?</i></p><p>I will tell you what all Granville knows. There is a secret suburb in Clyde set up underground, away from society's prying eyes. It is the <i>only </i>logical explanation and an open secret in Sydney planning departments, despite their official silence.</p><p>So what are the furtive residents of Clyde <i>doing </i>down there?</p><p>No one knows. Or if they do, they aren't talking. </p><p>There have been several expeditionary forces from Granville seeking to infiltrate Clyde's hidden bases, yet none have succeeded. The few who made it back alive refuse to talk. What can be said is each one returned <i>changed </i>and not for the better.</p><p>Whatever it is these Clyde people are up to, it is clearly unspeakable. Otherwise why the secrecy and heavy defences? </p><p>Anyone who has looked into the eyes of a traumatised survivor of an attempted Clyde raid knows this fundamental truth: Clyde must be stopped by the civilised world, or the civilised world has no right to call itself such.</p><p>There is always a human cost to war and there will be lives lost. But history's cruel accounting will record that the costs of doing nothing are far higher.</p><p>We must act! For Granville, for the world, for our children and for the future of human civilisation and for <i>basic common decency!</i> Members of the UN Security Council must put aside their differences and offer united support for immediate military action. </p><p>We must prepare the carpet bombing campaign and mass the troops on the Granville border in preparation for a military occupation to break Clyde's resistance so that we can finally put an end to this madness! ENOUGH!</p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-19559681833663291742022-03-20T13:15:00.142+11:002022-03-20T13:43:00.184+11:00A night on the Granville tiles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/e8/d8/a3e8d81c8cb4be359cf7c13dc2e40c45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="640" height="214" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a3/e8/d8/a3e8d81c8cb4be359cf7c13dc2e40c45.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>If there's one thing you need in a pub, it's to be left alone while you doom scroll your phone. That's a dream harder in the pokies dens with an obligatory bar tacked on that dominate Sydney's sprawling suburbia.<div><br /></div><div>Living in Granville, you have a choice of three such places and last Wednesday evening I hit the Granville Hotel for a beer before doing some shopping. In the small box that serves as a smoking area, my in-depth investigation of the multitude of views on offer on the matter of Russia's on Ukraine in my algorithm-driven Facebook feed was interrupted by an old heavily tattooed bloke who wanted to talk about his various pokies wins and losses. </div><div><br /></div><div>He was quite sanguine about some eye-watering highs and lows, and appreciative that after winning big and shouting an entire pub in Fairfield one time, the next time he saw anyone there, they shouted him back. </div><div><br /></div><div>Human solidarity is a wonderful thing, but I really just wanted to solve the Ukraine crisis in my head before picking up some cat food from the supermarket, so I finished my beer and left. Not before <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rh8smqTIsk" target="_blank">world-famous filmmaker Zeb</a> messaged that he was coming back from work and did I want a beer.</div><div><br /></div><div>So after shopping, I headed across the rail lines (noting the train timetable screens, which were showing no trains and no times, as is now the Sydney norm) to the Royal Hotel. </div><div><br /></div><div>Attempts to not engage with anyone immediately hit a rock when the enthusiastic athletic looking bloke who poured my beer declared, after seeing my details when I swiped my members card, said "oh you're the guy whose signed up for the footy tipping!"</div><div><br /></div><div>This was unfortunately true. I'd even paid $20 to do it. This came about due to a misunderstanding a week earlier when I wanted to become a member for the cheaper beer. But as I was using Zeb's membership card, the bartender thought as I was already a member and was asking to join the tipping comp. Being too awkward to stop what was happening, I just paid the $20 then had to ask to become a member anyway as you need your members number to take part in the comp.</div><div><br /></div><div>I grew up in Perth and follow AFL. NRL barely enters my conciousnes. But the bar tender who'd just discovered I'd signed up was extremely keen and made sure I swipe my card on the thing you have to do you can enter your tips. Anyway, I got 7 our of 8 tips right in round 1, denied the full sweep only by the West Tigers upset over Melbourne Storm. (We'll not discuss round 2.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Having swiped the magic thing that let me enter tips, we retreated to what they call their beeer garden, a narrow enclosed strip about twice the size of the Granville Hotel's smoking area without any of the plant life that usually goes along with things with "garden" in their name.</div><div><br /></div><div>And there we minded out own business, probably did what anyone whose spent too long on the left does and complained about the left while solving the Ukraine situation (not that we'll get any credit).</div><div><br /></div><div>Until we were interrupted by a young bloke asking to borrow a light who was clearly affected by more than the beer in his hand. He was all "hepped up", as the kids say, on unsteady but hyper and throwing a few punches in the air like oxygen offended him. An older guy he was drinking with came up too. Lex, as he found out his name was, was a retired truckie filled with unnerving stories about all the speed he snorted so he could drive a semitrailer from Sydney to Darwin in 60 hours straight.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lex, hopefully, was only on beer. seeing as he was turning 70 the next day and had survived three heart attacks. The only shocking thing, listening to his stories, was that he'd survived at all. Lex went off to get him and his young friend another beer and the young guy wandered off looking semi-steady.</div><div><br /></div><div>The young guy came back before long totell us he thought something was gonna kick off and what would we do if it did? I suggested we'd probably stay right here in our corner and he gave a laugh in a "fair enough" kinda way.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I should point out that this young guy, Lex, myself and Zeb are all white. Granville, however, is not a very white place. The last census, for instance, found one on in five households spoke English at home. Most people who drink at the Royal are not white but from the subcontinent.</div><div><br /></div><div>And nothing was said that night to make it explicit there was any racial element to what followed but ...well nothing was said to say it wasn't either. You spend enough time in pubs in largely non-wtie areas as white guy and you soon learn from other white guys exact what they think about the racial composition of the particular locality. Not. of course. <i>all</i> white guys (don't send me death threats).</div><div><br /></div><div>Before long, a group of 7 or 8 men of subcontinent bsckground came out to the "beer garden" and this guy went straight up them, joined their group and at first seemed to be cracking mutually appreciated jokes. It looked jovial, they were laughing and he was smiling and then, out of nowhere, they went for him.</div><div><br /></div><div>Siddenly, bodies were flying across the "beer garden". The brawl was brutally one-sided asthree or four of these guys just pummeled the instigator. They got him up against a wall as he desperately tried to fight his corner, then onto the ground as they whacked and kicked. Whatever he said to trigger the fight definitely did the trick.</div><div><br /></div><div>The bouncer came out to break it up, while the guy lay there getting hit with this grin on his face like he'd got what he wanted and was enjoying it. The bouncer looked down at him wearily, as if to say "again? why are you like this?" He was picked up and ejected, while the group who were hammering him went inside -- the bouncer didn't seem to bothered by them but I'm not sure if they had to leave too. </div><div><br /></div><div>As this was happening, Lex had re-emerged with a schooner in each hand, and stooed watching the scene with a bemused look. As the guy were taken out, Lex came up to ask what the fuck just happened? I said we didn't really know but, pointing to one ofhis two schooners, said at least he'd got another beer to drink.</div><div><br /></div><div>Lex look forlornly at the extra schooner and said: "But I don't drink New!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Well to cut the story short, Lex told more horror stories about his days as a trucker, like the time he nearly died when he rolled his semitrailer while off his face. Then finishing his beer, he reluctantly picked up the schooner of New, took a sip, grimaced but decided he could stomach it after all.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then we went left and I went home -- a place where the threat of violence comes from the cat and at least he doesn't talk much.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEge1lOVFxFKKFZ75f2sjq0KiqKpoBFcv10C49MKAcC2GOtD3W7j6M8sH4md27rF_ottcV0nkp-p56g78CLfqlzGsw7sna-Warjr1e2swf37N_dYKO1_N6d5BcYK3LUAQJq9wxlEbv2YD0aTrNYFN47tkNJa7jBrGimvrjXVfjepNlYRB6M=s1440" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEge1lOVFxFKKFZ75f2sjq0KiqKpoBFcv10C49MKAcC2GOtD3W7j6M8sH4md27rF_ottcV0nkp-p56g78CLfqlzGsw7sna-Warjr1e2swf37N_dYKO1_N6d5BcYK3LUAQJq9wxlEbv2YD0aTrNYFN47tkNJa7jBrGimvrjXVfjepNlYRB6M=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The source of backyard violence.</i></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-91742519906204141902022-02-10T21:54:00.042+11:002022-02-13T11:04:51.746+11:00Courtney Marie Andrews: a threat to Community Standards?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/private_images/w_1440,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/second_jpeg_shehrd/courtney-marie-andrews-may-your-kindess-remain-interview-honest-life.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="427" src="https://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/private_images/w_1440,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/second_jpeg_shehrd/courtney-marie-andrews-may-your-kindess-remain-interview-honest-life.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The notorious </i>C<i>ourtney Marie Andrews</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>It is easy to assume the doomsayers are wrong about the dangers we face from unaccountable multinationals controlling huge chunks of our lives. That they need to chill with their weird conspiracies about corporations "cynicaly weilding power for their own <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/07/facebook-appeal-over-cambridge-analytica-data-rejected-by-australian-court-as-divorced-from-reality" target="_blank">malign ends</a>" or "<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54691572" target="_blank">not paying taxes</a>".<div><br /></div><div>And then you get with a 3-day ban for posting a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joAkhr9dpvk" target="_blank">song</a> and some lyrics from Grammy-nominated country folk singer Courtney Marie Andrews (who is <a href="https://www.courtneymarieandrews.com/#Tour" target="_blank">touring Australia in March</a>) and you realise dystopia's not just here, it's got a long-term lease and hasn't even forked out for the bond!<div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLN8e3waIAIDlhE?format=jpg&name=small" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="387" height="640" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLN8e3waIAIDlhE?format=jpg&name=small" width="364" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>For context, my 3-day ban was on the heels of a 1-day ban for some equally harmless comment misunderstood by whatever AI systems Facebook employs. This presumably caused its robots to then scour other recent comments and the phrase "ugly Americans" tripped it's "UNACCEPTABLE!" wire.<div><br /></div><div>I appealed both bans -- my heart filled with hope that my cry for justice would be heard! My pleas of innocence were cruelly denied.</div><div><br /></div><div>I faced a choice. </div><div><br /></div><div>For myself, I'm not bothered. I've been banned before and no doubt will face the censor's wrath once more. I'll cope without Facebook for three days, I've got plenty of beer.<br /><br /></div><div>But... <i>Courtney Marie Andrews?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I mean.... <i>Courtney Marie Andrews? </i><i><br /></i></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Courtney Marie Andrews</i> <i>violated community guidelines???</i><br /><br /></div><div>What the fuck?<br /><br /></div><div>Courtney Marie Andrews of Phoenix, Arizona may be known for many things (mostly tender lyrics over sweet-yet-melancholic folky tunes), but "violating community guidelines" via hate speech is not usually considered one of them.</div><div><br /></div><div>A line must be drawn. If we have no freedom to get drunk and post sad country songs on Facebook for our so-called friends to politiely ignore, then what have we become?</div><div><br /></div><div>So I took it to the highest court available: Facebook's Oversight Board.<br /><br /></div><div>This secretive body, to which you can request taken-down content be restored, gives you 2 weeks to issue an appeal that will be considered final. Also, they explain they probably won't even see it as only "a small number" of appeals are even looked at.<br /><br /></div><div>It's like Mark Zuckerberg looked around for the world's most absurd appeals processes and settled on<a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/novak-djokovics-temporary-detention-shines-spotlight-refugees-detained-years-hotel-prison" target="_blank"> the Australian immigration system</a>.<br /><br /></div><div>Yet I made my case with the passion and self-belief of a man convinced that appeals to the ways quality songwriting in the country-folk tradition profoundly advance humanity cannot fail!<br /><br /></div><div>Asked to explain my appeal, I exposed the ridiculous falsehood and <i>slander</i> directed towards Courtney Marie Andrews' 2018 track "How Quickly Your Heart Mends".<br /><br /></div><div>Yes the Community Standards say hate speech includes speech directed at groups of people based on "Physical appearance, including, but not limited to: ugly, hideous."<br /><br /></div><div>And yes, Courtney Marie Andrews sings:</div><div><blockquote><blockquote><i>The jukebox is playin' a sad country song<br />For all the ugly Americans<br />Now I feel like one of them<br />Dancin' alone and broken by the freedom</i></blockquote></blockquote><div>But it is obvious this is not about <i>all</i> Americans, just those the character in whose voice she is singing views as ugly in a metaphorical sense. And that the character explicitly includes <i>themselves</i> in that category! Do Facebook AI programs <i>not even understand what metaphorical means?<br /></i><br /></div><div>I did not hold back! Asked to explain the social significance of the content I wished restored, I quoted no less an authority than Tom Waits himself (who's "Downtown Train" Courtney Marie Andrews has so beautifully <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKbyOHKcec&ab_channel=DualtoneMusic" target="_blank">covered</a>):</div><div><blockquote><i>“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.”</i></blockquote><p>It is an objective fact that surely even the Oversight Board must recognise that Courtney Marie Andrews does the opposite!<br /><br /></p><p>The ball is now in their court. I do not wish to prejudice judicial procedings so I will simply state: if justice is not rendered in ths case then all honest-hearted global citizens must reluctantly conclude that, despite it's public statements, Facebook does not indeed have our best interests at heart.<br /><br /></p><p>Finally, because I believe people should make up their own minds, I remind you that Courtney Marie Andrews is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/31231411/9174251990620414190#" target="_blank">touring Australia in March</a>. For now, here is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joAkhr9dpvk&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mfZ0DZ1bqO39XmfqvmmdLS" target="_blank">playlist of her songs</a>, starting with her most offensive ever. TRIGGER WARNING: Some are heartfelt.</p></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/joAkhr9dpvk" width="596" youtube-src-id="joAkhr9dpvk"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-38993063557693484462021-11-03T17:47:00.004+11:002021-11-03T17:49:55.565+11:00Dori Freeman's Ten Thousand Roses is defiant, lush and why we shouldn't detroy the world for any world leaders listening<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i1.sndcdn.com/avatars-1GICi7p4k6P8EI7A-DZTIJQ-t500x500.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="500" src="https://i1.sndcdn.com/avatars-1GICi7p4k6P8EI7A-DZTIJQ-t500x500.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Reps of world governments are insisting on meeting right now in Glasgow for COP26 to discuss all the ways to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-59116611" target="_blank">spin</a> letting global corproate power continue to wreck havoc on a planet increasingly crippled by mutliple fronts in an ecoholocaust. I mean, I wouldn't mind visiting Glasgow one day but I'll probably restrain myself from delivering <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-02/boris-johnson-warns-climate-summit-doomsday-approaching/100586720" target="_blank">dire warnings about "doomsday"</a> while also being <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2021/05/02/the-government-is-back-in-court-over-the-climate-crisis/" target="_blank">sued in court</a> for actively faciliting plunder and destruction on a truly planet-destabilising scale. Tho that might depend on how much whisky I drink.<div><br /></div><div>Against such odds, it can be easy to just gie up. But humanity has achieved great things far too valuable to lose, such as quality country music. There are no songs of being heartbroke and drunk on a dead planet!</div><div><br /></div><div>Lucky then that to coincide with COP26 (or <i>maybe </i>to coincide with the re-opening of society after many months of pandemic control measures), there is a whole bunch of new music being released by artists in the broad and badly named "Americana" genre (or "heavyweight songwriting", as Australian country musician and Double J "<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/programs/tower-of-song/" target="_blank">Tower of Song</a>" host Henry Wagons puts it).</div><div><br /></div><div>The best I;ve heard so far is Dori Freeman's <i>Ten Thousand Roses</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Freeman has a voice that can leave you speechless. The singer from the Appalachian region in Virginia matches devastating vocals with an understated persona and stage presence born of performance anxiety. Her 2016 self-titled debut was stripped back country/folk that stood out for its ability to convey emotional complexity in straighforward songs. On "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5wS01SM22g" target="_blank">You Say</a>", she insists she needs no man to save her before shifting to hurt-filled longing for a man.</div><div><br /></div><div>On his show, Henry Wagons described discovering Dori Freeman as one of those "holy fucking shit" moments. Freeman was in Australia for a festival in 2017 and he'd stumbled into some media event one morning in a hotel foyer where Freeman was playing to disinterested industry types and was blown away. It's no surprise, she has a voice up there with Emmylou Harris or Patsy Cline with its simple emotional power.</div><div><br /></div><div>Freeman's quality from the start was shown in the fact that she got singer-songerwriter Teddy Thompson to produce her debut simply on the strength of songs she sent him on a whim. Teddy's dad Richard, a giant in folk and rock circles, offered his legendary guitar playing to Freeman's second album (on which she also covered Richard and Linda Thompson's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P6L_YX-ecw" target="_blank">I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight</a>"). </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Ten Thousand Roses</i> is Freeman's fourth album and her best since her debut. But where the debut stood out for its raw, stripped back vocal-driven qualities, this album rounds out Freeman's sound. Produced by her husband and drummer Nick Falk, it deepens the trend of her previous album, adding a kinda indie and often lush sound within her existing country, folk and bluegrass style. </div><div><br /></div><div>Along with added complexity to her sound, the album lyrically covers far broader ground. Freeman sings directly to a woman being badly treated by her partner in "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRaJzGKFVqE&ab_channel=DoriFreeman" target="_blank">The Storm</a>", while on the "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwHRIg8JRvE&ab_channel=DoriFreeman" target="_blank">I Am</a>" she happily describes herself as a "drama queen" with a "mind as dirty as the bottom of a coffee can".</div><div><br /></div><div>There are songs of frustrated romance and lust, such as "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKS9HORz-GE&ab_channel=DoriFreeman-Topic" target="_blank">I Wanted To</a>" where, denied, she was forced to "call some other lover who was off the wall". But "he has to know, I was imagining you". </div><div><br /></div><div>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cql2ENoHdI&ab_channel=DoriFreeman-Topic" target="_blank">Nobody Nothing</a>", meanwhile, advises women:<br /><i><blockquote>Go on and find you a man if you want to<br />But a bed will keep you warm in the night<br />Go on and fall deep in love if you want to<br />But take care that your head is on right<br />You don't owe nobody nothin'<br />You built yourself right up from the ground<br />You don't owe nobody nothin'<br />Now ring the bell and make a joyful sound</blockquote></i>And then there is "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNONuI53OhQ" target="_blank">Appalachian</a>". On this stand-out track, Freeman confronts head on something she has often mentioned in interviews -- the idea that people from Appalachia are looked down on, not taken seriously, dismissed as "hillbillies" and patronised at best.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, like fellow Appalachian country singer Tyler Childers' <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnAQk51zrY" target="_blank">stinging response</a> last year to Black Lives Matter that appealed to Appalachia's history of violent rebellion in support of the anti-racist uprising that was ripping through the US, Dori Freeman goes further. Noting how people from Appalachia are viewed and treated ("I'm a can for the world to as"), she <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ3_AJ5Ysx0&t=1s" target="_blank">follows Childers</a> in savaging the corporate destruction of the region ("Another city they're carving, and here the people are starving".)</div><div><br /></div><div>The dismissive, hostile or patronising attitudes towards the Appalachian region is wedded to the de-industrialisation, abandonment and gross exploitation of the region by corporate power that "put's the money we make in the pocket of their suits"). </div><div><br /></div><div>This understated song (it's not exactly Rage Against the Machine) contains a defiant pride:<br /></div><blockquote><i>I come from the holler, me and the flowers got taller<br />We reached right out to the sun, we drank up all of the rain<br />Like a spider we spun<br />Our web in all directions</i></blockquote><p>But this pride is about far more than geography, it is shot through with real <i>class pride</i>: </p><blockquote><i>They'll try to wither you right down, tear you up from the red ground<br />If you're poor then you're stupid and blind<br />But I'd say a calloused hand<br />Is far better than a callous mind</i> </blockquote><p><i>Ten Thousand Roses</i> is Dori Freeman's best album so far. I can only believe ignorance could keep it off any serious list of best albums of the year. Surely.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gNONuI53OhQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="gNONuI53OhQ"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"I'm a can to to ash in..."</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VRaJzGKFVqE" width="320" youtube-src-id="VRaJzGKFVqE"></iframe><br /><br /></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"He says he's home and you believe him..."</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qwHRIg8JRvE" width="320" youtube-src-id="qwHRIg8JRvE"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwHRIg8JRvE&ab_channel=DoriFreeman" target="_blank">I'm not a good girl, although everyone thinks I am...</a>"</div><br /><i><br /></i></div></i>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-66542359253589746612021-09-07T19:40:00.006+10:002021-09-08T19:19:11.381+10:00Tom Waits' playlist of his lyrical ballads (part 2) if you like to drink whiskey and cry<p><i> <br /></i><a href="https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/603bdbe6003ee7af5a38f1d6/16:9/w_2000,h_1125,c_limit/tom-waits.jpg" style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/603bdbe6003ee7af5a38f1d6/16:9/w_2000,h_1125,c_limit/tom-waits.jpg" width="640" /></a></p><p><br />Part 2 of my<a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2021/08/tom-waits-has-just-released-playlist-of.html" target="_blank"> groundbreaking investigation/slash drunken notes</a> on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE" target="_blank">40-song play list</a> of Tom Waits' "lyrical ballads" released via his official social media pages comes as Sydney's Covid-related lockdown extend into its 578237th week. And I gotta say, Hollywood has really lied to us about just how exciting an Apocalypse would be.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><br />After all it's not just Covid and the related unleashing of polce and army on Western Sydney, home to large migrant working class communities that are both among the greatest victims of this pandemic and the ones keep society going through their essential work, yet who are blamed for supposed misbhehaviour while their bosses refuse to implement proper safety measures. </div><p style="text-align: left;"><br />There's no shortage of other horrors, from escalating climate change-related extreme weather to the fact the Taliban are now running both Afghanistan and Texas -- with the Australian government refusing refugees from either. </p><p><br />The point is, as Tom Waits and his people no doubt know, the world needs this "A Little Rain" 40-song playlist. Now this is part 2 of my in-depth investigation into it (songs 21-40) so you should really read <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2021/08/tom-waits-has-just-released-playlist-of.html" target="_blank">part 1</a> or you'll be very confused. </p><p><br />Also, drinking while listening is not mandatory as such (I prefer to focus on community education to get alcohol-while-listening-to-Tom-Waits ballads levels up), it is recommended. If not an actual necessity to get through it all (play list and world alike).</p><p><br />You can get <a href="https://tomwaits.ffm.to/alittlerain?fbclid=IwAR3RceU78qjjwHzg0B6ozlL3lMBiVPywXj11D2-kyfLR-a5T-xvUCap-pi0" target="_blank">the entire playlist on multiple platforms</a>.<br /><br /></p><p>21) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag2hddV1hE4&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=21" target="_blank">Invitation to the Blues</a></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>She said 'How you gonna like 'em, over medium or scrambled?'<br />You say 'anyway's the only way', be careful not to gamble<br />On a guy with a suitcase and a ticket getting out of here<br />It's a tired bus station and an old pair of shoes<br />This ain't nothing but an invitation to the blues...</i></blockquote><p> </p><p></p><p>Well, Tom Waits has sure started the second half of this playlist strongly. From his epic 1976 <i>Small Change</i> album, this is his heartfelt storytelling at its best. </p><p><br />It is quite a skill to make this song not creepy, seeing as it is actually about some guy going into the diner and becoming obsessed with the waitress, but it's the way<span> Waits</span> humanises her that makes the difference:<br /></p><p> </p><blockquote><i>But you can't take your eyes off her, get another cup of java<br />It's just the way she pours it for you, joking with the customers<br />Mercy mercy, Mr. Percy, there ain't nothing back in Jersey<br />But a broken-down jalopy of a man I left behind<br />And the dream that I was chasing, and a battle with booze<br />And an open invitation to the blues </i></blockquote><blockquote><i>But she used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple Caddy<br />And a bank account and everything, accustomed to the finer things<br />He probably left her for a socialite and he didn't love her 'cept at night<br />And then he's drunk and never even told her that her cared<br />So they took the registration, and the car-keys and her shoes<br />And left her with an invitation to the blues</i></blockquote><p><br />It makes the song's open-ended conclusion actually affecting..</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Cause there's a Continental Trailways leaving local bus tonight, good evening<br />You can have my seat, I'm sticking round here for a while<br />Get me a room at the Squire, the filling station's hiring<br />And I can eat here every night, what the hell have I got to lose?<br />Got a crazy sensation, go or stay? now I gotta choose<br />And I'll accept your invitation to the blues</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>22) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcpyiKHL9Oc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=22&ab_channel=TomWaits" target="_blank">Barcolle</a></p><blockquote><i>A cloud lets go of the moon<br />Her ribbons are all out of tune<br />She is skating on the ice<br />In a glass in the hands of a man<br />That she kissed on the train...</i></blockquote><p><br />This one isfrom his 2002 album<i> Alice</i>, which mostly features songs for "<a href="http://www.tomwaits.com/albums/album/7/Alice/" target="_blank">an avant garde opera</a>" of the same name directed by Robert Wilson. It's centred on the obsession of Lewis Carroll for the young Alice Liddell (immortalised as Alice in Wonderland). </p><p><br />That Waits manages to write beautiful songs on this unsettling and even disturbing theme says all you need to know about his quality as a songwriter, but then again my whisky glass keeps getting refilled so what would I know?</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>I'm lost in the blond summer grass<br />And the train whistle blows<br />And the carnival goes<br />'Til there's only the tickets and crows here<br />And the grass will all grow back</i></blockquote><br />23) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiHy6d1RBiY&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=23&ab_channel=TomWaits" target="_blank">Lucky Day</a><blockquote><i>The prettiest girl<br />in all the world<br />is in a little Spanish town<br />but I left her for a Bonnie lass<br />and I told her<br />I'd see her around...</i></blockquote><p><br />This is another one based on songs Waits wrote for a play directed by Robert Wilson -- this one 1992's <i>Black Rider</i>. This is filled with nostalgia and longing, which is of course very rare territory for Waits. It's certainly a long way from his usual happy go lucky, cheerful persona the world has come to know and love. </p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Why there's Miss Kelsey<br />She taught dance at our school<br />And old Johnny O 'Toole<br />I'll still beat you at pool<br />So don't cry for me<br />For I'm goin' away<br />And I'll be back some lucky day</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>24) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf1Ko2FqVqU&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=24" target="_blank">Whistle Down the Wind</a></p><blockquote><i>Whistle down the wind<br />Let your voices carry<br />Drown out all the rain<br />Light a patch of darkness<br />Treacherous and scary...</i></blockquote><p><br />Tom, for fuck's sake. I've explained VERY CLEARLY how much whiskey I'm consuming right now and before that it was whisky and you throw this one at me? </p><p><br />This song's tl;dr is shit's bad, it's dark, it's horrible but there's hope in friendship and love. If I'd known he was going to this shit on me I'd have not poured a double measure.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>So whistle down the wind<br />For I have always been<br />Right there</i></blockquote><p><i> </i></p><p>25) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAcTyXdKl9o&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=25" target="_blank">The House Where Nobody Lives</a></p><blockquote><i>There's a house on my block that's abandoned and cold<br />The folks moved out of it a long time ago...</i></blockquote><p><br />TOM! Come on. You follow up "Whistle Down The Wind" with THIS??? This is more of that fucking "heartbreak, nostaligia but still a light that shines" stuff he loves to do as if he doesn't know the average blood alcohol level of his listeners is already far higher than medically recommended limits.</p><p><br />Anyway, it's about an abandoned house. Of course it is. Why is it abandoned? Waits can only speculate:<br /></p><p> </p><blockquote><i>...and once it held laughter<br />Once it held dreams, did they throw it away, did they know what it means?<br />Did someone's heart break<br />Or did someone do somebody wrong?</i></blockquote><p><br />Waits doesn't know, but he does know a few other things he's learned the hard way:<br /></p><p> </p><blockquote><i>So if you find someone<br />Someone to have, someone to hold, don't trade it for silver<br />Oh, don't trade it for gold<br />'Cause I have all of life's treasures and they're fine and they're good<br />They remind me that houses are just made of wood<br />What makes a house grand, oh, it ain't the roof or the doors<br />If there's love in a house, it's a palace for sure...<br /></i></blockquote><p><br />Come on Tom, I don't need this shit right now. </p><p> </p><blockquote><i>But without love<br />It ain't nothin' but a house, a house where nobody lives</i></blockquote><p><i><br /></i></p><p>26) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-c5L_45_gA&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=26" target="_blank">That Feel </a></p><blockquote><i>But there's one thing you can't lose<br />And it's that feel<br />You can pawn your watch and chain<br />But not that feel...<br /></i></blockquote><p><br />Well this is just what we need isn't it. Now that I've switched to back from whiskry from whisky. We need Tom Waits teaming up with Keith Richards.</p><p><br />This one sounds like what you'd expect if Tom Waits teamed up to write and perform a song with Keith Richards. A staggering, bluesey duet about an indescribable feeling that follows you everywhere, that's "harder to get rid of than tattoos".</p><p><br />This one is fron 1992's appropriately Apocalyptic <i>Bone Machine</i>, with Richards previously playing guitar on a bunch of tracks on Waits' 1985 classic <i>Rain Dogs</i>. They teamed up again for 2011's <i>Bad as Me</i> (Waits most recent album! A decade ago!) for "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6_NJv0CUHk" target="_blank">Last Leaf</a>", which sort of continues the theme.</p><p><br />Waits and Richards is a match made in a drunken Hell, and Waits commented on writing with Richards: "You'll always finish SOMETHING. You might finish the bottle, you might not finish the song." Well luckily they finished this one as it's pretty good, especially with whisky.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>You can fall down in the street<br />You can leave it in the lurch<br />Well you say that it's gospel<br />But I know that it's only church....</i></blockquote><p><i><br /></i></p><p>27) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95YrS4tKNhc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=27" target="_blank">Fish and Bird</a></p><i><blockquote>They bought a round for the sailor<br />And they heard his tale<br />Of a world that was so far away<br />And a song that we'd never heard<br />A song of a little bird<br />That fell in love with a whale</blockquote></i><p></p><p></p><div><br />Jesus fuck this is all I need at this stage. A love story between a fucking little bird and a goddamn whale. It sounds absurd, but this is Tom Waits and this is his thing, taking something seemingly absurd and turning it into a song to destroy fools who listen while drunk.</div><div><br /></div><div><br />I mean get this shit:<br /><p> </p><blockquote><i>He said, 'You cannot live in the ocean'<br />And she said to him<br />'You never can live in the sky'<br />But the ocean is filled with tears<br />And the sea turns into a mirror<br />There's a whale in the moon when it's clear<br />And a bird on the tide</i></blockquote><p><br /> It's a fairytale without a happy ending. </p><p> </p><blockquote><i>So tell me that you will wait for me<br />Hold me in your arms<br />I promise we never will part<br />I'll never sail back to the time<br />But I'll always pretend you're mine<br />Though I know that we both must part<br />You can live in my heart</i></blockquote><p><br />I mean just fuck off. My whisky's empty again.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Please don't cry<br />Let me dry your eyes</i></blockquote><p><i> </i></p><p>28) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgFk92lNxVs&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=28" target="_blank">Bottom of the World</a></p><blockquote><i>My Daddy told me, lookin back<br />The best friend you'll have is a railroad track<br />So when I was 13 I said, I'm rollin' my own,<br />And I'm leaving Missouri and I'm never coming home</i></blockquote><p><br />Yeah Ok Tom, but how is this going to work out? Do you think it will go well? No, of course not. It's a Tom Waits song.</p><p><br />Of course, being a Tom Waits song there is still beauty to be found:</p><p></p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Well God's green hair is where I slept last<br />He balanced a diamond on a blade of grass<br />Now I woke me up with a cardinal bird<br />And when I wanna talk he<br />Hangs on every word</i></blockquote><p></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>29) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAtMpgdw9gc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=29" target="_blank">San Diego Serenade</a></p><blockquote><i>I never saw the morning 'til I stayed up all night<br />I never saw the sunshine 'til you turned out the light<br />I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long<br />I never heard the melody, until I needed a song.</i></blockquote><p><br />Tom. For god's sake. I'm in lockdown here. I'm not just drunk and a bit sad in some general sense. I'm drunk in fucking lockdown. I got loved ones I can;t see in Queensland and Western Australia. And you offer up this? Goddamn it.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>I never saw the white line, 'til I was leaving you behind<br />I never knew I needed you 'til I was caught up in a bind<br />I never spoke 'I love you' 'til I cursed you in vain,<br />I never felt my heartstrings until I nearly went insane</i></blockquote><p> </p><p><i>30) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBsSryj5LFk&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=30" target="_blank">In The Neighbourhood</a></i></p><blockquote><i>Friday's a funeral<br />And Saturday's a bride...</i></blockquote><p><br />Yeah alright Tom. Give it a rest.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>There's a couple Filipino girls<br />Gigglin' by the church<br />And the window is busted<br />And the landlord ain't home<br />And Butch joined the army<br />Yea that's where he's been<br />And the jackhammer's diggin'<br />Up the sidewalks again<br />In the neighborhood</i></blockquote><p><i> </i></p><p><i>31) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZ1lrywI9I&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=31" target="_blank">Kentucky Avenue</a></i></p><blockquote><i>Eddie Grace's buick<br />Got four bullet holes in the side<br />Charley Delisle is sittin' at the top<br />Of an avocado tree<br />Mrs Storm will stab you with a steak knife<br />If you step on her lawn<br />I got a half a pack of lucky strikes man<br />So come along with me</i></blockquote><p><br />Just another Tom Waits song of the dark side of suburbia with strong lashings of surrealism and an overriding sense of bittersweet nostalgia. Bastard is just lucky he knows how to write a song.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>I'll get a dollar from my mama's purse<br />Buy that skull and crossbones ring<br />And you can wear it round your neck<br />On an old piece of string</i></blockquote><p><br />32) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_f3Zk18abk&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=32" target="_blank">I Wish I was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward)</a></p><blockquote><i>Well, I wish I was in New Orleans, I can see it in my dreams,<br />Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me</i></blockquote><p><br />Well yeah. I've been to New Orleans, or anywhere in North America for that matter. But I get the point. This is one where Waits referrences his friend, the songwriter Chuck E Weiss who died recently, because of course he did. Everyone decent is dying these days.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Hoist up a few tall cool ones, play some pool and listen <br />To that tenor saxophone calling me home</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>33) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yi36fZjSQI&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=33" target="_blank">Day After Tomorrow</a></p><blockquote><i>I got your letter today<br />And I miss you all so much here<br />I can't wait to see you all<br />And I'm counting the days here</i></blockquote><p><br />Waits' whole career is telling stories of society's underdogs and the victims, but he is rarely explicitely political. And this anti-war song about a soldier who misses home, empathises with his supposed "enemy" and has contempt for his superiors, could be set in any war in modern history.</p><p><br />Yet coming out on 2004's album <i>Real Gone</i>, just one year after the Iraq War started and two after the Afghan War got under way (how well they went!), the song is unmistakably pointed. The genius of this song -- about a soldier far from home fighitng a futile war -- is it is both eternal and still a specific protest against the wars of his time.</p><p><br />At the time, Waits commented that writing songs against war was "like throwing penuts at a gorrilla", and it is true no song he or anyone else could write can be stop these bloody wars for oil, profit and geopolitical domination. But we can still admire his aim, so I'll just quote every other fucking line in this song:</p></div><p> </p><blockquote><div><i>It is so hard and it's cold here<br />And I'm tired of taking orders<br />And I miss old Rockford town<br />Up by the Wisconsin border<br />What I miss, you won't believe<br />Shovelling snow and raking leaves<br />And my plane will touch down<br />On the day after tomorrow</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><i>I close my eyes every night<br />And I dream that I can hold you<br />They fill us full of lies, everyone buys<br />'Bout what it means to be a soldier<br />I still don't know how I'm supposed to feel<br />'Bout all the blood that's been spilled<br />Will God on this throne<br />Get me back home<br />On the day after tomorrow <br /><br />You can't deny, the other side<br />Don't want to die anymore then we do<br />What I'm trying to say is don't they pray<br />To the same God that we do?<br />Tell me how does God choose?<br />Whose prayers does He refuse?<br />Who turns the wheel?<br />Who throws the dice?<br />On the day after tomorrow <br /><br />I am not fighting for justice<br />I am not fighting for freedom<br />I am fighting for my life<br />And another day in the world here<br />I just do what I've been told<br />We're just the gravel on the road<br />And only the lucky ones come home<br />On the day after tomorrow<br /><br />And the summer, it too will fade<br />And with it brings the winter's frost dear<br />And I know we too are made<br />Of all the things that we have lost here<br />I'll be 21 today<br />I been saving all my pay<br />And my plane will touch down<br />On the day after tomorrow...</i></div></blockquote><div><p><br />34) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRzIFJn4GNw&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=34" target="_blank">Pony</a></p><blockquote><i>I've seen it all boys, I've been all over<br />Been everywhere in the whole wide world</i></blockquote><p><br />Oh just another melacholic Tom Waits song filled with nostalgia as the song's weary narrator wishes he <br />"was home, in Evelyn's kitchen with old Gyp curled around my feet". My whiskey glass (I'm back on whiskey) needs refilling.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>I hope my pony<br />I hope my pony<br />I hope my pony knows the way back home</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>35) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2STibAky02Y&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=35" target="_blank">A Little Rain</a></p><i><blockquote>She was fifteen years old<br />And never seen the ocean<br />She climbed into a van<br />With a vagabond<br />And the last thing she said<br />was "I love you mom"</blockquote></i><p><br />Jesus christ Tom. I only just refilled my whiskey glass. What the fuck are you doing to me? This one is aptly the title of the whole playlist.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>And a little rain<br />Never hurt noone</i></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>36)<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmuYa9n4s1s&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=36" target="_blank"> You Can Never Hold Back Spring</a></p><blockquote><i>You can never hold back spring<br />You can be sure that I will never<br />Stop believing...</i></blockquote><p><br />Ah, the old Waits trick of hope amid the gloom. The old "you can't break the human spirit" shtick. It won't work on me, Tom. I'm not crying and if I am that's just a well-known side effect of whiskey consumption. </p><p> </p><blockquote><i>You can never hold back spring<br />Even though you've lost your way<br />The world keeps dreaming of spring</i></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>37) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhczgWUxY6w&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=37" target="_blank">Yesterday Is Here </a></p><blockquote><i>If you want to go<br />Where rainbows end<br />You'll have to say goodbye<br />All our dreams come true, baby up ahead<br />And it's out where your memories lie...</i></blockquote><p><br />More bittersweet nostalgia. I'll get another drink then.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Well, today's grey skies<br />Tomorrow's tears<br />You'll have to wait til yesterday is here</i></blockquote><p><br />38) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXQwDb7AUmo&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=38" target="_blank">Martha</a></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Operator, number, please:<br />It's been so many years<br />Will she remember my old voice<br />While I fight the tears?</blockquote><p><br />Possibly the most amazing thing about this song is it was released when Waits was just 23, on his debut album <i>Closing Time</i>.<i> </i>It's remarkably mature and finished song filled with almost unbreable pathos. Like so many Waits songs, it skirts the edges of OTT, but the quality of the writing and performance keeps it on the right side of absolutely heartbreaking.</p><i><p> </p><blockquote>And those were the days of roses<br />Poetry and prose and Martha<br />All I had was you and all you had was me.<br />There was no tomorrows<br />We'd packed away our sorrows<br />And we saved them for a rainy day.<br />And I remember quiet evenings<br />Trembling close to you...</blockquote><p> </p></i><p>39) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkBmSD0Gzrc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=39" target="_blank">Lullaby</a></p><blockquote><i>Sun is red, moon is cracked<br />Daddy's never coming back<br />Nothing's ever yours to keep</i></blockquote><p><br />God, this bottle's almost finished.</p><p> </p><blockquote><i>Nothing's ever as it seems<br />Climb the ladder to your dreams<br />If I die before you wake<br />Don't you cry, don't you weep<br />Nothing's ever yours to keep<br />Close your eyes, go to sleep</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>40)<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JGvFo9UyI4&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=40" target="_blank"> A Sight For Sore Eyes</a></p><blockquote><i>A sight for sore eyes it's a long time no see<br />Workin' hard hardly workin<br />Hey man, you know me...</i></blockquote><p><br /> Oh it's a drunk in a bar reminiscing about the old times. I wonder how this one will go? Well...</p></div><p> </p><blockquote><div><i>I guess you heard about Nash he was killed in a crash<br />Oh that must of been two or three years ago now<br />Yea he spun out and he rolled he hit a telephone pole<br />And he died with the radio on<br />Oh she's married and with a kid finally split up with Syd<br />He's up north for a nickle's worth for armed robbery<br />Hey I'll play you some pin ball</i></div><div><i>Hell you ain't got a chance<br />Well then go on over and ask her to dance<br />And hey barkeeper what's keepin you keep pourin' drinks...</i></div></blockquote><p><br />Yeah sure, Tom. I'll keep pouring drinks. You can really see why the bastard had to quit drinking three decades ago. Listening to this stuff makes you thirsty enough, imagine having to sing it.</p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-48903281889752816892021-08-10T21:07:00.043+10:002021-08-10T22:27:39.030+10:00Tom Waits has just released a playlist of his lyrical ballads if you like to drink whiskey and cry (part 1)<blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.repstatic.it/content/periodici/img/d/2011/10/15/182332966-6c0decfe-c30b-40e6-9e25-9f005439b2b6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="660" height="242" src="https://www.repstatic.it/content/periodici/img/d/2011/10/15/182332966-6c0decfe-c30b-40e6-9e25-9f005439b2b6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things." Tom Waits once said, but he really didn't need to. It's pretty much the definition of his 5-decade long songwriting and performing career.</div><p>Now this Covid pandemic thing has been a bit stressful, what with all the yelling on social media, and so when Sydney's lockdown was announced 79284 weeks ago on the very same day as Tom Waits social media page released <a href="https://tomwaits.ffm.to/alittlerain?fbclid=IwAR3RceU78qjjwHzg0B6ozlL3lMBiVPywXj11D2-kyfLR-a5T-xvUCap-pi0" target="_blank">a special 40-song playlist</a> his "most beloved lyrical ballads", I knew the greatest songwriter of his generation had my back.</p><p>I do not believe in coincidences. I believe Tom Waits knew what was coming and got his people straight on to it to ensure I'd remain entertained.</p><p>It would be an exaggeration to say this latest playlist is what the world needs. What the world needs is obviously<i> </i>some new music from an artist who hasn't released an album in a decade.</p><p>But, with sheer scale of the <a href="https://climateandcapitalism.com/2021/06/26/interacting-climate-tipping-points-may-fall-like-dominoes/" target="_blank">ecological catstrophe enveloping the world</a> faciliated by the same out-of-control system that both <a href="https://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/03/11/capitalist-agriculture-and-covid-19-a-deadly-combination/" target="_blank">helped create conditions for a global pandemic</a> and is incapable of responding to it <a href="https://climateandcapitalism.com/2021/06/03/abolish-vaccine-patents-now/" target="_blank">except though deadly profiteering</a>, we take what we get.</p><p>You can hear the playlist on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE" target="_blank">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://api.ffm.to/sl/e/c/alittlerain?cd=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" target="_blank">Spotify</a> and Apple Music. Here is part 1 (40 songs is a lot!) of my increasingly whiskey-affected take on each song. </p></blockquote><p>*** </p><blockquote><p>1) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhWTDvPLGTE&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=1" target="_blank">Time</a></p><blockquote><i>And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget.<br />That history puts a saint in every dream</i></blockquote><div>The playlist starts with a classic from Waits' 1985 <i>Raindogs. </i>Surrealist vignettes of broken people. There's a lot of broken people in a Tom Waits' song, it's really his thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>As always, it's the quality of the images make it. When Waits sings... </div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i>Well things are pretty lousy for a calendar girl</i></div><i>The boys just dive right off the cars and splash into the street</i></blockquote><div>...I see a a woman is trying to navigate a street filled with boozy young men who feel they own it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Most of all, <i>time</i> exists in this song to break your heart, while holding out the promise that tomorrow might be different. After all, it<i> is </i>time that you love.</div><i><blockquote>So put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips<br />As the dish outside the window fills with rain.</blockquote><p> </p></i><div><p>2) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbH6BUNsuts&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=2&ab_channel=TomWaits" target="_blank">The Heart of Saturday Night</a></p><blockquote><i>Then you comb your hair, shave your face<br />Tryin' to wipe out every trace of all the other days<br /></i></blockquote><p>This is the title track of Waits' second album from 1974. This was just before Waits developed his signature gutteral growl and it shows he could actually sing in a reasonably melodic tenor voice when he wanted to.</p><p>But it's not just the voice that sets this apart from almost everything he's released since: it is the <i>optimism</i>. This song looks at a Saturday night in an American city and sees <i>promise</i>. It's even <i>fucking hopeful</i>. </p><p>It's a great song for sure -- as always the vivid imagery places this song above other mid-tempo folk rock songs that were all the rage in one wing of the US music industry of 1974. But rest assured he lost that sweet hopefulness as quickly as he lost the strong notes of sweetness in that voice.</p><blockquote><i>Makes it kind of quiver down in the core<br />'Cause you're dreamin' of them Saturdays that came before...<br /></i></blockquote><p>3) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mSAfYomtr4&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=3" target="_blank">Hold On</a></p><blockquote><i>They hung a sign up in our town<br />"If you live it up, you won't live it down"<br />So she left Monte Rio, son<br />Just like a bullet leaves a gun...</i></blockquote><p>If you wanted the perfect lyrical ballad about youthful hope and possibility being dashed by a cold reality that leaves you lonely and far from home, then you'd come up with this song. </p></div></blockquote><blockquote><div><p>All that hope! All that possibility! All that inevitable heartache and loneliness!</p><p>If this song doesn't make you cry then you have no heart or just haven't had enough whiskey yet. Have one more then play it again. There you go. That's what it's like to cry, you'd nearly forgotten! This is why Tom Waits exists.</p><blockquote><i>Down by the Riverside motel<br />It's ten below and falling<br />By a ninety-nine cent store<br />She closed her eyes and started swaying<br />But it's so hard to dance that way<br />When it's cold and there's no music...</i></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>4) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rzTuh202fA&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=4" target="_blank">The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) </a></p><blockquote><i>The piano has been drinking, my necktie is asleep<br />And the combo went back to new york, the jukebox has to take a leak</i></blockquote>This song came out on 1976's <i>Small Change</i>, a mere two years after "Heart of Saturday Night". This is not the heart of Saturday night, it's where Saturday nights go to die. The hope and possibility has ended in a surrealist dive bar at 3am where "the telephone's out of cigarettes, and the balcony is on the make" and "the menus are all freezing, and the light man's blind in one eye and he can't see out of the other" and "the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire". You get the idea.<blockquote><i>The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me</i></blockquote><div class="ujudUb xpdxpnd" data-mh="-1" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.58; margin-bottom: 12px; max-height: none; overflow: hidden; transition: max-height 0.3s ease 0s;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><i></i></span></div><p>5) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORNWmeG4GbY&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=5" target="_blank">Pay Me</a></p><blockquote><i>They pay me not to come home<br />Keeping me stoned<br />I won't run away<br />They say it's easy to get<br />Stuck in this town<br />Just like Joan</i></blockquote><p>Why is this song so devastatingly sad? I honestly don't know, but the broken voice declaring "the only way down from the gallows is to swing" offers a clue. </p><p>This one is off his most recently released album... from 2011. For fuck's sake Tom Waits.</p><blockquote><i>And though all roads will not lead you home my girl<br />All roads lead to the end of the world</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>6) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULCIttuEZNs&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=6&ab_channel=TomWaits" target="_blank">The Fall of Troy </a></p><blockquote><i>It's the same with men as with horses and dogs<br />nothing wants to die</i></blockquote><p>This song is like an especially drunken Irish folk ballad, only instead of being about the English scum killing your family and sending you half way around the world from the girl you love with the auburn hair and those green hills you dream of every night after you drink yourself to sleep after a day's backbreaking labour on some capitalist-owned railway, it is about a bunch of working class kids caught up in a tragic spiral of violent crime.</p><p>So it's a drunken Irish ballad.</p><blockquote><i>why cook dinner<br />why make my bed<br />why come home at all<br />out the door and through the woods<br />there's a world where nothing grow</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>7) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n11Z98o54Rw&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=7&ab_channel=TomWaits" target="_blank">Ruby's Arms</a></p><blockquote><i>I will leave behind all of my clothes<br />I wore when I was with you.<br />All I needs are my railroad boots<br />And my leather jacket....</i></blockquote><p>Good god Tom Waits wrings every last bit of sentimentality out of this one about a soldier leaving behind the women he loves. All put to a strings section whose attitude to restraint is remarkably similar to mine to whiskey tonight. </p></div></blockquote><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>No one has the right to pack so much pathos into one song. Nobody! Jesus Christ I'm crying! <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>You're crying! We're all drinking whiskey! WAR IS TERRIBLE!</p><blockquote><blockquote><i>As I say goodbye to Ruby's arms<br />You'll find another soldier.<br />And I swear to God by Christmas time<br />There'll be someone else to hold you...</i></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>8) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9rmGay0epo&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=8" target="_blank">Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind In Copenhagen)</a></p><blockquote><i>Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did<br />Got what I paid for now....</i></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><div><p>This song is a masterclass in evocative lyric writing. It may be about, as Waits once said, "throwing up on yourself in a foreign country" but not a word is wasted in this tale of being far from home, drunk, heartbroken and very alone.</p><blockquote><i>And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace<br />And a wound that will never heal...</i></blockquote><p><br />9) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrYEvUOj5bg&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=9" target="_blank">Georgia Lee</a></p><blockquote><i>Cold was the night, hard was the ground<br />They found her in a small grove of trees</i></blockquote><p>This one from 1999's Grammy award winning<i> Mule Variations</i> album is an especially heartbreaking song even by Tom Waits lofty standards. That's because this is a <a href="https://www.songfacts.com/facts/tom-waits/georgia-lee" target="_blank">real story about a real tragedy</a>.</p><p>The 12-year-old Georgie Lee Moses disappeared from a place in northern California not far from where Waits lives with his family. She was eventually found murdered. What got Waits was the sense that the fate of Georgie Lee, as an African American kid, was not a priority for the authorities or the media. Wondering what the response would have been if she'd been white, he wrote the song because he felt no one else seemed to care.</p><p>The irony is, Waits wasn't even going to include the song on the record, until his own kid commented how much sadder it would be if someone actually wrote a song for Georgia Lee Moses and then didn't even bother to release it.</p><blockquote><i>Why wasn't God watching?<br />Why wasn't God listening?<br />Why wasn't God there for<br />Georgia Lee?</i><br /><p> </p></blockquote><p>10) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0uVNGca4g&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=10" target="_blank">New Year's Eve</a></p><blockquote><i>It felt like four in the morning<br />What sounded like fire works<br />Turned out to be just what it was<br />The stars looked like diamonds<br />Then came the sirens<br />And everyone started to cuss</i></blockquote><p>In a decent world, this song from Waits most recent album (2011!) would do for Christmas what The Pogues "Fairytale of New York" did for Christmas Eve (tho hopefully without the overbearing over-playing, weird insertion into modern culture wars and an endless host of terrible covers). It's about a New Year's Eve party populated by broken people who once had hope and possibility. New territory for the master, but he pulls it off. Almost like he's been writing this stuff for decades.</p><p>The contrast between optimism of "Auld Lang Sang" and these characters' dire reality is not especially subtle, but as ever it's how Waits writes them and sings them that make them make you want to drink more whiskey.</p><blockquote><i>I ran out on Sheila<br />Everything's in storage<br />Calvin's right I should go back to driving truck<br />Should auld acquaintance be forgot...</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>11) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcLw1j_aMI&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=11" target="_blank">Lost in the Harbour</a></p><blockquote><i>Over here the ladies all want sweet perfume<br />But there's never a rose<br />And over there the roses are frightened to bloom<br />So they never can grow</i></blockquote><p>Oh fuck off Tom Waits. What sort of song is this to subject a man who has drunk too much whiskey to? Really? Fuck off.</p><blockquote><i>And then I will fill the ocean back up with my tears<br />I still have a couple more years<br />And then I can come back to the harbor<br />Down to the harbor</i></blockquote><p> </p><p>12) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTLk3gjEec&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=12" target="_blank">Foreign Affair</a></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Without fear of contradiction bon voyage is always hollered<br />in conjunction with a handkerchief from shore<br />by a girl that drives a rambler and furthermore<br />is overly concerned that she won't see him anymore</blockquote><p>This song is off Waits' 1977 album <i>Foreign Affairs</i>, which for whatever reason has never been a favourite of mine (tho "Burma Shave" is classic Waits narrative storytelling and "I Never Talk To Strangers" is a charming duet with Bette Middler). Like a lot of the album, this song is very cinematic and kinda overblown; but most strikingly it is nostaligic but not actually sad. Which feels weird given every song around it.</p><p>Anyway, time to refill my glass, and this time I'll get whisky not whiskey.</p><blockquote><i>planes and trains and boats and buses<br />characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue<br />unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport<br />and the cargo that they're carrying is you</i></blockquote><p>13) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4I1cSkimMk&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=13" target="_blank">Fannin Street</a></p><blockquote><i>Once I held you in my arms, I was sure<br />But I took that silent stare through the guilded door<br />The desire to have much more, all the glitter and the roar<br />I know this is where the sidewalk ends</i></blockquote><p>Now this is more like it! A broken, stumbling and <i>very sad </i>song about an old man expressing his regret about a notorious street in Housten, Texas, where the old man's chasing of debauchery lost him the woman he loved. This is why we listen to Tom Waits while drinking whisky.</p><blockquote><i>You'll be lost and never found<br />You can never turn around<br />Don't go down to Fannin Street</i></blockquote><p>14) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fphxDPTV2Bw&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=14" target="_blank">Picture in a Frame</a></p><i>The sun come up, it was blue and gold<br />Ever since I put your picture in a frame</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Not all Waits' songs have to be sad to be brilliant. Waits' broken-in-the-gutter voice is crucial to making his tales of heartfelt love like this one from <i>Mule Variations</i>, but this song is so strong that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raEPae375BY&ab_channel=BeckaRogers" target="_blank">not even Rod Stewart</a> can destroy it. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>The lyrical hook, his love's picture in a frame as a metaphor for commitment, is so understated it works perfectly to offset the song's deeply felt pathos. If this isn't about his wife and long-tme collaboarator Kathleen Breenan (for whom Waits wrote "Jersey Girl") then it damn well should be and Tom Waits has some explaining to do. </div><div><blockquote><i>I'm gonna love you<br />Till the wheels come off...</i></blockquote><p><span face="arial, sans-serif" jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></p>15) <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Novemeber</a><i><blockquote>No shadow<br />No stars<br />No moon<br />No care<br />November<br />It only believes<br />In a pile of dead leaves<br />And a moon<br />That's the color of bone</blockquote></i>Fucking hell Tom I already warned you already about this shit! Some of us are drinking whisky, have some basic fucking human decency. Putting words like this to this Kurt Weill-esque drunken cabaret would test the tear ducts of even the whisky-less listener. Of which I am not!</div></blockquote><blockquote><div><blockquote><i> November has tied me<br />To an old dead tree<br />Get word to April<br />To rescue me<br />November's cold chain</i></blockquote></div></blockquote><p> </p><p>16) <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Widow's Grove</a></p><p><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">Near the breath of a swallow, petals dropped as you fell<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">And you grabbed then shyly held me, against the stone cold well</span> </blockquote>Look fuck off. I've had too much whisky for any more of your shit. You even made this one sound bittersweet but actually it is a tragic murder ballad. Just fuck off. <p></p><div><i><blockquote> Through the wind, through the rain of a cold dark night<br /> That's where I'll be</blockquote></i><p> </p><p>17) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIrKhNDhdic&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=17" target="_blank">Another Man's Vine</a></p><blockquote><i>Bougainvillea's bloom and wind<br />Be careful mind the strangle vines</i></blockquote><p>GOD DAMN IT TOM!</p><blockquote><i>Now I see a red rose<br />I smell a red rose<br />A red rose<br />Blooming on another man's vine</i></blockquote><p>18) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rgili5Eirc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=18" target="_blank">Chocolate Jesus</a></p><i><blockquote>Well, I don't go to church on Sunday<br />Don't get on my knees to pray<br />Don't memorize the books of the bible<br />I got my own special way</blockquote></i><p>Alright finally, a bit of absurdism to lighten the mood. The narrator in this song wants to praise Jesus and eat choclate and, well, he's got the solution.</p><blockquote><i>Well, it's the only thing that can pick me up<br />It's better than a cup of gold<br />See, only a chocolate Jesus<br />Can satisfy my soul</i></blockquote><p>19) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUcYOgXEovc&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=19" target="_blank">Bend Down the Branches</a></p><blockquote><i>The sky's as deep as it can be<br />Bend down the branches</i></blockquote><p>Oh good. Back to bleakness. I wouldn't want the last of this whisky to be put to waste. Like the best of Waits, it's more than just bleak of course. There's a rich vein of humanism in this short track about getting old. Not that it isn't bleak. Just humanely bleak.</p><blockquote><i>Close your eyes and go to sleep<br />Bend down the branches</i></blockquote><p>20) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol-jeTkop8g&list=PLTMN6OMDTnKlOoyjkFSIMq6_VP1_NGCEE&index=20" target="_blank">How's It Gonna End?</a></p><i><blockquote>They found a map of Missouri<br />Lipstick on the glass<br />They must of left in the middle of the night<br />And I want to know the same thing<br />Everyone wants to know<br />How's it going to end?</blockquote></i><p>I think we all want to know the answer to this one. And much like in Waits' atmospherically fearful song, the sense in the real world is "not good". Thank god for whisky then (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/02/scotland-whisky-climate-crisis-heatwave-distilleries-halt-production" target="_blank">for now</a>).</p><p>This is a great narrative song filled with foreboding, danger and fatal misteps. Like a few tracks from 2004's <i>Real Gone</i>, it's pretty much a mini film noir.</p><p>But as this just part one of my posts on this playlist, I am sure the real qusstion you are all wondering is "how will Tom Waits 'A Little Rain' playlist end?" Well, stay tuned, I just need to restock on booze.</p><blockquote><i>And down in the first row,<br />Of an old picture show<br />The old man is asleep, as the credits start to roll...</i></blockquote></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-89679083605377868342021-08-02T20:27:00.019+10:002021-08-03T21:59:30.725+10:00What's the best Hayes Carll song ever?<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/hayes-carll.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="630" height="249" src="https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/hayes-carll.jpg" width="400" /></a></p><p>This Covid lock down in Sydney has been going on for about 398 weeks with what appears to be twice that still to go. </p><p>Living in one of the "bad" local government areas of Western Sydney that is both home to the multi-racial working class that keeps the city running and also needs to be punished with cops and soldiers, we get the added benifit of police helicopters flying overhead yelling through megaphones at kids to stop playing basketball (which of course is the main source of community transmission in Sydney, whatever fake news you hear about it being essential workplaces without proper protections coz employers are a bunch of profiteering fuckers backed by corrupt governments whose attitude to workers' rights is like mine towards booze suuplies in lockdown -- they exist to be demolished).</p><p>With nothing else to do, it is only natural our minds turn to key questions such as "What is the best Hayes Carll song ever?"</p><p>Such existential questioning about the Texas country singer's two-decade-long career is only deepened by the welcome news of a new Hayes Carll single -- "<a href="https://youtu.be/uhDkCGjyDM4">You Get It All</a>", a heartfelt song of the sort Carll specialises in these days (ie: it's another love song for his wife, fellow country singer Allison Moorer).</p><p>Spoiler alert: there is no actual answer to the post's title. There is no "best Hayes Carll song ever", because it is all subjective -- and not just person to person, but anyone of us will change our minds constantly for a 1000 reasons,</p><p>It depends a bit which Hayes Carll you want. In the first phase of his career, with four albums released between 2002-11, Carll developed a a clear persona: the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuEFdL4056U&ab_channel=TexasOutlawVideos" target="_blank">drunken poet</a>. By his own admission, he played a character -- the dishevelled troubadour, stumbling from gig to gig all bleary-eyed romance and witty quips.</p><p>It was an enchanting character and I certainly loved it. I am just a year or two younger than Hayes Carll, so while he was drinking and gigging his ways through his 30s, I spent my 30s drinking and listening to him and wishing I was him in my weaker moments (after a few drinks, so most of the time).</p><p>Then, in the aftermath of the endless touring of his 2011 KMAG YOLO album, Hayes Carll hit a wall.</p><p>Playing the role of an outgoing charsmatic frontman of a full band rocking out with tales of debauchery and heartbreak was taking its toll. The character he was playing, that gave the introverted Carll the cover to go out each night, was starting to consume him. He was drinking way too much. His marriage disintegrated.</p><p>Hayes Carll called time and wrote a <a href="https://www.nodepression.com/if-i-may-be-so-bold-an-essay-by-hayes-carll/" target="_blank">heartfelt piece for No Depression</a> about the need to be himself and express himself as he actually is.</p><p>The result was a stripped back and deeply personal album "Lovers and Leavers", released in 2016 to justified critical acclaim. </p><p>His subsequent album (and now the new single) continue in the vein of a more honest portrail of himself and his views. And entering my 40s just after Hayes Carll, I can relate to leaving behind an alcohol-fuelled persona that seems fun in your 30s but leaves you wanting some genuine peace and serenity (I'm only saying this here coz no one will actually read this post).</p><p>So the answer to the question "What's your favourite Hayes Carll song?" is which Hayes Carll?</p><p>Of the pre-2016 Hayes Carll, you could go for the laugh-out-loud wit of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5D6dUhkoWc" target="_blank">She Left Me For Jesus</a>" (or possibly "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yZMnEBGMR0" target="_blank">Another Like You</a>"), or the aching barroom romance of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgyb2CaO8g4&ab_channel=HayesCarll-Topic" target="_blank">Beaumont</a>" ("<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8omYQ3mFW4&ab_channel=kxtradio" target="_blank">Chances Are</a>" also does the trick). </p><p>Or maybe you just want the "what the fuck is actually going on I am SO FUCKING WEARY" sense of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GStduDnBPOc" target="_blank">Wish I Hadn't Stayed So Long</a>" (and I really relate to this one for my own reasons, and if you put a gun to my head I'd chose it as my favourite).</p><p>But... getting older just slightly behind Hayes Carll... I find myself relating really strongly "Good While It Lasted" from "Lovers and Leavers".</p><p>So as far as tonight goes, I'll choose it as my favourite Hayes Carll song.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="381" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rKj8zUuFleI" width="458" youtube-src-id="rKj8zUuFleI"></iframe></div><blockquote><i>I smoked my last cigarette<br />I drank my last drop<br />Quit doing all the things<br />That I swore I'd never stop<br />I changed my direction<br />Sang a different tune<br />Gave up all those childish ways<br />That made me old too soon<br />Things were going good there for a while<br />I tried to straighten out the crooked road that I was on<br />It was good while it lasted<br />But it didn't last too long</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>I used to play down on broadway<br />The same song every night<br />Singing for the tip jar<br />Underneath the neon light<br />Had a good time with the women<br />And the compliments were free<br />I dreamed of something bigger<br />But it just wasn't meant to be<br />But I was happy there for a while<br />Just like a desperado, out searching for a song<br />It was good while it lasted<br />But it didn't last too long</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Nothing last forever<br />Time knows that it's true<br />Sometimes a little while's the best that we can do<br />You ended up beside me<br />Like some long-forgotten dream<br />You took my hand and showed me colors<br />I had never seen<br />We both said forever, forever till the end<br />But forever's something different<br />To a lover than a friend<br />We thought we had it all there for a while<br />Just like that perfect moment 'fore the darkness turned to dawn<br />It was good while it lasted<br />But it didn't last too long</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>The one thing I can tell from all this life that's come undone<br />It was good while it lasted<br />But it didn't last too long</i></blockquote><p> </p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-36118410142608346982021-06-29T18:51:00.011+10:002021-06-29T19:39:11.720+10:00Here are 6 John Prine songs to capture the spirit of being locked down with nothing to do and nowhere to go<p>When you are subjected to a lockdown, as Sydney is now, what you want, if you are like me, is entertainment that takes the ennui, anxiety, alienation from others and just general all-persuasive sense of melancholy and massively amplifies it. That's what I call living.</p><p>That is why it was a tragic irony that COVID-19 <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/vale-john-prine-common-voice-common-people-falls-covid-19" target="_blank">killed the great US country singer-songwriter John Prine</a>, coz his whole output seems designed to be a humanist, compassionate and empathetic summing up the strange emptiness and background sense of unease that comes with very limited options.</p><p>So here are the 6 songs that seem to capture all that and SURE these songs are generally about other things, whatever the similarities, but that's coz a lockdown is just the reality for many people in the "rich world" under late monopoly capitalism just exaggerated a bit. </p><p>Anyway, and I'm sure I don't have to say this but just in case, this is "whiskey-drinking" music. By all means substitute with your intoxicant of choice (as per the final song on this list) but for god's sake do not attempt sobriety at a time like this. Just don't. </p><p>You can listen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH" target="_blank">all 6 as a playlist</a> or I lst them below coz that's the kinda shit I do. I'm thoughtful.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cyFnHUEdcXU" width="320" youtube-src-id="cyFnHUEdcXU"></iframe></div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyFnHUEdcXU&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&ab_channel=JohnPrine-Topic">Clocks and Spoons</a></p><i>Clocks and spoons and empty rooms<br />It's raining out tonight<br />What a way to end a day<br />By turnin' out the light...<br /><br />Shoot the moon right between the eyes<br />I'm screaming<br />Take me back to sunny countryside</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1T5NuI6Ai-o" width="320" youtube-src-id="1T5NuI6Ai-o"></iframe></div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T5NuI6Ai-o&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&index=2" target="_blank">Angel from Montogomerry</a></p><i>There's flies in the kitchen<br />I can hear 'em there buzzin'<br />And I ain't done nothing<br />Since I woke up today</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OVhA01J0Zsg" width="320" youtube-src-id="OVhA01J0Zsg"></iframe></div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVhA01J0Zsg&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&index=3" target="_blank">Hello In There</a></p><i>Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more<br />She sits and stares through the back door screen<br />And all the news just repeats itself<br />Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen<br />Someday I'll go and call up Rudy<br />We worked together at the factory<br />But what could I say if he asks "What's new?"<br />"Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do"</i><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uudOduIbWAQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="uudOduIbWAQ"></iframe></div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uudOduIbWAQ&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&index=4" target="_blank">Crooked Piece of Time</a></p><i>Things got rough<br />Things got tough<br />Things got harder than hard<br />We were just trying to make a livin'<br />In our back yard</i></div><div><i><br />We were born too late died to soon<br />Anxiety's a terrible crime<br />If you don't come now don't come at all<br />'Cause it's a crooked piece of time.</i></div><div><i>It's a crooked piece of time that we live in...<br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Yesterday morning an ill wind came<br />Blew your picture<br />Right out of the picture frame<br />Even blew the candle out<br />From underneath the flame<br />Yesterday morning an ill wind came.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QgEkw1STE1A" width="320" youtube-src-id="QgEkw1STE1A"></iframe></div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgEkw1STE1A&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&index=5" target="_blank">Me, Myself and I</a></p><i>Well, tonight I'll throw a party<br />And I know who I'll invite<br />There's a strange and lonely person<br />With whom I'll spend this night<br />There'll be no old sad memories<br />To haunt me till I die<br />In that room there'll be a bottle<br />And me, myself and I...</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fP8WBS9A-LI" width="320" youtube-src-id="fP8WBS9A-LI"></iframe></div><i><br /></i><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP8WBS9A-LI&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6loiDSaaYuK6Ii2jDp5EOyH&index=6" target="_blank">Illegal Smile</a></p><i>When I woke up this morning, things were lookin' bad<br />Seem like total silence was the only friend I had<br />Bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down, and won<br />And it was twelve o'clock before I realized<br />I was havin' no fun<br />Ah, but fortunately I have the key to escape reality...</i></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-28173888467510629422016-05-06T01:40:00.004+10:002021-05-31T17:45:23.218+10:00An Open Letter To Jacobin Magazine On The Matter Of Merle Haggard: Please just shut the fuck up before you embarrass the Left any further<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Merle Haggard meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people but to me he was THE songwriter of California. Not the California of Malibu, Silicon Valley or Beverly Hills but the California of Highway 99, migrant workers and the struggle to survive in the promised land. All the political ambiguity and one dimensional stereotypes aside, Mr Haggard was one of the giants of modern American Music."</i></blockquote>
So <a href="https://www.facebook.com/davealvinofficial/photos/a.356067723145.205768.276769953145/10154811636198146/?type=3&comment_id=10154811697248146&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D">said Dave Alvin</a>, from roots rock/rockabillly band The Blasters, on Merle Haggard, who died on April 6. <br />
<br />
For his part, Tom Waits, not just one of the greatest songwriters but one of the best writers in any form in modern America, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-tom-waits-moving-poetic-tribute-to-merle-haggard-20160419">noted about Haggard</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"He takes the lives of common folk who we had all stopped seeing and put them in songs and gave them a voice, and kept them alive ... their particular poetry can only be born out of hard times lived through and then remembered."</i></blockquote>
You might think that any self-respecting left-wing magazine seeking to speak about -- if not give voice to -- the downtrodden might <i>actually</i> try to capture some of these points in any piece they ran on Haggard and what he represented.<br />
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In the case of US radical publication <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/">Jacobin</a> you would be <i>very</i> wrong. So wrong, I wrote the bastards a letter. Bizarrely, it got no response, so I will include it below -- edited to increase the degree of spite and hatred I feel, as there is no point being polite now...<br />
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***<br />
<br />
Dear Jacobin Magazine,<br />
<br />
As you know, Merle Haggard, a giant of American country music, died on April 6. You decided, God only fucking knows why, to run a hostile, distorted and factually wrong article on this man who was a huge part of American popular culture (in quite contradictory ways).<br />
<br />
Haggard's influence was massive, not just on country music but far wider. He was beloved by huge numbers of people, deeply respected by other artists across the popular music spectrum for his groundbreaking contributions, and he gave dignity and voice to some of the lowest of the low in our society -- prisoners.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W-ER-yo1V3s" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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How do you, as a respected left publication, respond? You publish one of the worst, most distorted hit pieces, combined with the most disgustingly staid, dogmatic Stalinist attitude to popular culture I have <i>ever</i> fucking read.<br />
<br />
Honestly, "<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/merle-haggard-country-music-reagan/">Merle's America</a>", by Jonah Walters, comes across as absurd, outdated, should-never-be-heard-from-again Stalinist socialist realism.<br />
<br />
I mean, if your thing is whinging that Haggard's songs about working people were not about them struggling for their "liberation", then just be fucking done with it and go buy the entire fucking back catalogue of that paradigm of pointlessness that is dull folk singers with acoustic guitars who sing of nothing else. (And no, in the interests of public health and safety I won't link to any such song, I will just note that whatever you think of the now politically degenerated ex-Smiths singer Morrissey, he <i>did</i> have a point when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NNqI2tZouo">he sung</a>: "I used to think if you had an acoustic guitar, it meant that you were a protest singer/Oh I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible".)<br />
<br />
The insulting piece's factual errors or omissions are so many -- and significant -- as to question how the author felt he could write on this topic. Jonah Walters appears so ignorant as to be unaware of how ignorant he is.<br />
<br />
Haggard was a contradictory figure with a shifting relationship to, and attitude towards, society -- one that evolved well beyond the two key songs the author highlights to prove he was just a reactionary (a redneck in the 60s, a Nixonite in the 70s, a Reaganite in the 80s, apparently...all actual evidence to the contrary conveniently ignored.) <br />
<br />
Walters' picture just isn't true -- as a simple investigation of the commonly known facts shows, such as that provided by <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/04/jacobin-walking-on-the-fighting-side-of-me">this blog post.</a><br />
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Walters notes Haggard's impoverished background as a child of "Okie" refugees -- the impoverished people who fled the Dust Bowl poverty during the great Depression and lived in terrible conditions in labour camps in places such as Bakersfield, California.<br />
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Haggard, like Buck Owens, became a major proponent of the "Bakersfield sound" in the 1960s -- a type of country music that was much rawer, harder-edged and less polished than the commercial country sound pushed by the Nashville establishment. It was a sound developed in Bakersfield's working-class bars.<br />
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Yet Walters managed to mention this only in passing -- as he does the decisive years Haggard spent as a young man in prison, serving a term for armed robbery.<br />
<br />
Haggard first saw Johnny Cash while jailed in San Quentin in the early '60s, a gig that changed his life and convinced he could and should make a career in music. (Cash's prison shows have always struck me as a truly radical act -- to go to San Quentin and sing directly to the prisoners songs like "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgja26eNeY">San Quentin</a>" in which he condemns the prison and, to cheering crowds of San Quentin's victims, sings: "San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell/May your walls fall and may I live to tell".)<br />
<br />
Walters fails to mention Haggard's multiple prison songs <i>despite</i> this being absolutely central to his life and his early music career.<br />
<br />
Haggard wrote many songs about prison and its impacts. The article states that Haggard's two breakthrough hits were the right-wing "Okie" and "Fighting Side of Me", but actually he had already had a string of number one hits before then, and several were quite humanist prison songs.<br />
<br />
The best example is "<a href="https://youtu.be/u6evsqCwwzc">Sing Me Back Home</a>" -- a major song the author misses entirely. It was released by Haggard in 1967, two year before "Okie". It was a number one hit in the country charts.<br />
<br />
It is a true story from Haggard's time in San Quentin, involving the death penalty. There was a prisoner (known as "Rabbit") that Haggard knew who planned an escape and asked Haggard to join him. Haggard decided not to, Rabbit escaped and, after two weeks on the run, was captured again -- but not before he had killed a state trooper, for which he was sentenced to death.<br />
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The song is about the prisoners, including Haggard, watching him being lead out to be murdered by the state -- an event that deeply affected the future country star.<br />
<br />
Haggard said: "Even though the crime was brutal and the guy was an incorrigible criminal, it's a feeling you never forget when you see someone you know make that last walk. They bring him through the yard, and there's a guard in front and a guard behind — that's how you know a death prisoner."<br />
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The song, while not explicitly political, is profoundly moving and deeply humanist. If you can watch Haggard singing it without being moved in the general direction of tears then... I don't know if I can trust you as a human being, you apparent <i>fucking psychopath.</i><br /><i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u6evsqCwwzc" width="320" youtube-src-id="u6evsqCwwzc"></iframe></div><br />'This one's dedicated to all the ex-convicts in the house...' WHAT A FUCKING REACTIONARY ARSEHOLE!</i><br />
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<br /></div>
The truth of Haggard is he was neither a progressive saint nor reactionary devil -- but a contradictory human being who was a product of his circumstances and times in a constantly shifting fashion.<br />
<br />
And what he was is so far from the piece in <i>Jacobin </i>as to be ridiculous. The piece, for instance, bizarrely states: "The America Merle Haggard sang about was an ugly, indefensible place ... where history and politics remained untroubled by the presence of non-whites. "<br />
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Clearly the author knows nothing of Haggard's anti-racist songs. He must have no idea that Haggard wanted the B-side to his anti-hippie hit "Okie from Muskogee" to be "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSNwaHxjvpI">Irma Jackson</a>" -- a song about inter-racial marriage at at time when it was still a hot issue in the South and among Haggard's fans who took him at face value over "Okie". <br />
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His record company overruled him on the understandable grounds it would upset his new, redneck, fan base. Haggard spent the next three years <i>fighting</i> to get the song released -- he finally won, and, of course, upset his right-wing fan base. <br />
<br />
Wikipedia records: "According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Songwriter">American Songwriter</a>, 'some conservatives who had flocked to '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie_from_Muskogee_%28song%29">Okie</a>' were shocked by 'Irma Jackson', Haggard's pro-tolerance take on interracial romance', but Haggard was 'unfazed' by this."<br />
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But I mean who <i>gives a fuck</i> for such minor trivialities of an artist going to war with their record company for the right to release an anti-racist song at the time the country was on fire with huge struggles over racism, when his own fans tend to be based among the still-solidly racist sectors.<br />
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Obviously not worth mentioning. That just gets in the way of a fucking <i>false, fake, bullshit </i>projection of an artist that fits nothing more than the author's own prejudices, which he is clearly happy with coz he bothered to do <i>zero</i> research before spitting on the grave of a giant of popular music beloved by millions!<br />
<br />
That is how <i>Jacobin</i> thinks the left should do popular culture is it? GOD FUCKING HELP US.<br />
<br />
Haggard released other anti-racist songs, including a song in the late 70s called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsy6gqni1go">The Immigrant</a>" that was entirely pro-immigrant and hostile to racist attacks on them. Pointing out it is the "illegal" migrant labour that keeps the US economy going, Haggard tells the migrants: "Viva La Mexico, go where they let you go/And do what you can for the land."<br />
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He continues a bit later about the gall of the "gringo" complaining about migrants when "he stole this land from the Indian way back when..."<br />
<br />
Yeah. What a racist piece of shit that Haggard was with his world vision "where history and politics remained untroubled by the presence of non-whites". Jonah Walters...<br />
<br />
Walters highlights two songs of Haggard's -- songs that are undeniably right-wing and were hits in the late 60s -- "Okie" and "The Fighting Side of Me". The songs were aimed at anti-war protesters -- hippies especially.<br />
<br />
"Okie" was clearly a joke that got taken far more seriously than Haggard intended -- though <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/merle-haggard-sometimes-i-wish-i-hadnt-written-okie-from-muskoge/">his comments</a> over the years about how much he supported its message are contradictory. "Fighting Side" was a deliberate attempt to cash in on the popularity among rednecks for "Okie".<br />
<br />
"Fighting Side" is unambiguously right-wing and actually threatens violence against those who "run down" the country Haggard loudly insists he loves. But Walters piece over-reaches itself when it tries to blame "Fighting Side" for contemporary country right-wing "patriot" Toby Keith's pro-war songs around time of the Iraq War.<br />
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In what is becoming something of a big fucking trend, Walters somehow fails to mention that <i>at the same time</i> as Keith was releasing his right-wing pro-war nonsense in the aftermath of 9/11, Haggard -- having moved a long way from the days of "Okie" -- was releasing songs <i>against</i> the Iraq War.<br />
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And actually, as terrible as the politics of "The Fighting Side of Me" are, it is nothing compared to how bad Toby Keith's song "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" is, because not only is "Fighting Side" a better song musically, it contains a clear crack, a clear point at which, for all its bluster, the singer gives a sign of ... God forbid ... <i>contradiction</i>. This is when Haggard sings:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"An' I don't mind 'em switchin' sides,</i><i>An' standin' up for things they believe in."</i></blockquote>
You cannot imagine Toby Keith singing anything like that. Singing that he didn't "mind" anti-war protesters post 9/11 supporting the other side. Admitting they were "fighting for what they believe in".<br />
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Haggard's song is clearly hostile to anti-war protesters from a jingoistic perspective, yet is <i>also </i>not "pro-war" in the way Keith is when the 21st century country star sings: "we'll put a boot in your arse, it's the American way". <br />
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As objectionable as the politics of "Fighting Side" are, there is more going on here, with contradictions clearly working within Haggard that are absent in the mindless patriotism of Toby Keith. <br />
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To note this is not in any way to defend what was Haggard's most right-wing song -- which threatened violence to anti-war demonstrators. It is just to note the fact that Haggard was always <i>more</i> than, and <i>better</i> than, the politics of that song, and that the song itself contains the hints.<br />
<br />
Haggard's songs like "Okie" and "Fighting Side" have to be understood in a certain context. "Okie" was a joke song that took off in an unexpected way. Haggard cashed in with "Fighting Side", but he was already trying to undercut his association with the Nixonite "Silent Majority" with songs like "Irma Jackson". <br />
<br />
That is not to say Haggard <i>disagreed</i> with<i> </i>what he sung, just that he also wasn't a hardened reactionary either. His attitude appeared to be something along the lines of a contradictory "well a man has got to eat" -- cashing in while seeking to move to undercut being stuck in that corner. He tried to exploit the "silent majority" label and rebel against it simultaneously.<br />
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So, Haggard's political consciousness was contradictory. Was one Jonah Walters born with some sort of pure consciousness? Or, like everyone else, is his consciousness a moving thing? <br />
<br />
If Walters has said things over his life that he would not, right now, wish to be held to, he probably won't be, as no one knows about them. Haggard, however, put his sentiments in songs that became hit singles, so he could never escape association with those views. This is despite the fact Haggard later described a song like "Okie" as a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time" (and he meant himself as much as anyone).<br />
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Walters makes the even more bizarre accusation that Haggard was a "hypocrite" or "maybe just confused" because he sung a line in "Okie" against marijuana, but later became a daily pot smoker and proud advocate for the drug. (The last film clip Haggard appeared in was the pro-marijuana song "It's All Going To Pot" with Willie Nelson, the video for which features the elderly Willie and Merle sharing joints.)<br />
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Maybe there is a different explanation than "hypocrisy". Maybe Haggard's views did not stand still. Maybe Haggard wrote a line against marijuana when he didn't know any better (which is Haggard's own explanation), and later had a totally different attitude towards the drug -- one he pushed, as even Walters admits, in public! <br />
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As to the idea in Walters' piece that Haggard sings of the working class as martyrs rather than in a context of a struggle for liberation -- well, that is how most working class people experience their condition. That is just a fact. And Haggard's songs gave them dignity.<br />
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This also applies to his songs about being heartbroken. Yes, there is a tendency for them, as Walters notes, to play into sexist stereotypes that reduce women to the role of heartbreakers or the heartbroken, but that is hardly unique to Haggard. It is not even unique to country music, but popular culture in general. By all means criticise it -- but don't imagine that it is any particular argument that Haggard was nothing more than a Reaganite reactionary.<br />
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And Haggard's "heartache" songs were also frequently really well-written songs. For instance, a Haggard classic like "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9zgXyjU9VU">Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down</a>" was a genuinely original take on the hardly original country music trope of the heartbroken character drinking hard in some dive bar. <br />
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In Haggard's tale, not only is the singer heartbroken, in a bar and drinking to forget... but worse... far worse... the fucking booze has <i>stopped working</i>. What an unspeakable nightmare!<br />
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<i>'The one true friend I thought I found... tonight the bottle let me down!' May I never experience such horrors.</i><br />
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Yes, I know. It is not about workers storming barricades or whatever visions help Jonah Walters sleep better at night, but it is a well-written angle on the "heartbroken and drunk" trope to which many people can actually relate.<br />
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(It was also cleverly re-imagined by young, contemporary country singer Lydia Loveless in her 2014 track "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfk_Q-xP348">Head</a>" — on the surface seemingly just a song about getting laid, but in reality a bold, sexually-explicit updating of Haggard's "Tonight The Bottle". No doubt Walters doesn't care for it -- after all, it may be a young woman vacillating between proudly owning her sexuality and dealing with heartache and alcohol abuse, but the track <i>also</i> features absolutely <i>zero</i> examples of a worker seizing their workplace and demanding its nationalisation under workers' control, so like <i>whatever</i>.)<br />
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Haggard's nostalgic songs for the "good old days" are also not as automatically reactionary as Walters says. The fact is, life for most people has gotten worse -- the "good times" have long felt over. The idea that Haggard's songs are reactionary for noting this ignores the facts that he tended to be either silent in terms of who is to blame, or contradictory on blame and consequence.<br />
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For all the contradictions and twists in Haggard's politics and their public presentation, he gave some of the lower ranks of the working class -- such as those jailed -- some real dignity. For all sorts of cultural reasons, the appeal of Haggard was often largely to the lower ranks of the <i>white</i> working class, but unless you think the lower ranks of the white working class are nothing more than scum, so who cares... that is surely still worth doing.<br />
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Plus, as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/davealvinofficial/photos/a.356067723145.205768.276769953145/10154811636198146/?type=3&comment_id=10154811697248146&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D">Dave Alvin noted</a>, he also had a strong appeal among migrant workers, too.<br />
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Maybe, rather than the ignorant and insulting muck Jonah Walters wrote, <i>Jacobin</i> could<i> start</i> by taking a lead from left-wing country singers like <a href="http://www.bakersfield.com/news/2016/04/14/i-tried-hard-to-hate-merle-haggard-but-i-couldn-t-he-was-simply-too-damn-good.html">Steve Earle</a> or <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjk7tXLsbHMAhUkGqYKHRzxALEQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmusic%2Fartists%2Fmerle-haggard-sometimes-i-wish-i-hadnt-written-okie-from-muskoge%2F&usg=AFQjCNHUUo4qKNE1H3kScWnxeFuzHKI33A&sig2=KOLguIwsr67-qctCBwCXCQ&bvm=bv.120853415,d.dGY">Kris Kristofferson</a> -- whose attitudes to Haggard are very different.<br />
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Or take a lead from those singer songwriters who know something of the craft, like Bob Dylan and <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-tom-waits-moving-poetic-tribute-to-merle-haggard-20160419">Tom Waits</a>.<br />
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Dylan, who <a href="http://forward.com/news/national/337989/merle-haggard-is-dead-and-no-that-hippy-bob-dylan-did-not-hate-him/">pointed out</a> he was at the opposite end of the "cultural wars" to Haggard in the late 60s, pointed out that Haggard had shifted and was with "the counter culture" in later years. Dylan <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/merle-haggard-country-legend-died-at-79-20160406">said</a>: "Merle Haggard has always been as deep as deep gets. Totally himself. Herculean. Even too big for Mount Rushmore."<br />
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And as Waits said: "He takes the lives of common folk who we had all stopped seeing and put them in songs and gave them a voice, and kept them alive."<br />
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Not "liberating" enough? Well maybe another Tom Waits <a href="http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/vanity%20fair/925E-000-021.html">quote</a> is valid here:<br />
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<i>"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate..."</i></blockquote>
Haggard's writing inspired and elevated. If only the same could be said of Jonah Walters. I appeal to <i>Jacobin</i> to never, ever run anything as stupid and factually wrong as this again.<br />
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I can only conclude that the author is one of a specimen of fucking middle-class university educated hipster "to cool for country music like LOL those cowboy hats" privileged pieces of shit who knows <i>nothing</i> about what they talk about once they move beyond their comfort zone of soft, comfortable rubbish of the sort pumped into late monopoly capitalism's empty void like Mumford and Sons or Bon Ivor.<br />
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And <i>maybe</i> that judgement is a <i>little</i> unfair... but I will <i>bet my life </i>it is nowhere near as unfair as the deeply absurd hit piece the author did on Merle Haggard that your magazine chose to fucking publish.<br />
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Thank you for taking the time to fucking ignore my letter.<br />
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best wishes,<br />
Carlo SandsCarlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-16565017771109507442020-06-21T19:04:00.003+10:002021-05-29T15:25:14.333+10:00Granville loses its MP and a true account of the mean streets of ClydeAs if there wasn't enough <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2020/06/cancel-rio-tinto.html" target="_blank">terrible news</a> in the world today, Granville's state MP Julia Finn has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-19/nsw-labor-mp-julia-finn-steps-down/12374156" target="_blank">stepped down</a> from the NSW Shadow Cabinet over branch stacking allegations.<br />
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I am not happy. This leaves those us Granville residents without any voice at all in the NSW Labor Shadow cabinet. It is a big blow.</div>
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It's no coincidence that these allegations come at a time when powerful forces have made clear their desire to silence Granvillian voices.</div>
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I personally give no credence at all to these allegations. I've never met Julia Finn but I do know Granville. Manipulating the rules of the NSW Labor Party to inflate your local branch membership so as to gain political advantage is simply <i>not what we do</i> here. </div>
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I've lived here for over a year and I've never seen any branch stacking. Either the branch stacking happens very discreetly or these are straight up lies by those whose anti-Granville agenda is well-known.</div>
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Some will say that now, at least, Julia Finn has more time to spend tending to the needs of her constituents, no longer distracted from high flying, high stakes world of the NSW Opposition's cabinet meetings. Maybe. Who knows, she might even find time to recruit actual humans to the local branch now. Anything is possible in these unprecedented times. </div>
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Now I am Granville till I die. I have "2142" tatooed across my heart.</div>
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But... well with all the heat we've been getting with this unseemly branch stacking scandal (I've heard property prices have dropped) ... well I thought there can't be any harm in checking out the neighouring places. Just to take a look.</div>
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And so on this day I set out to do something I had never done before. I would walk eastwrds to Clyde Train Station and there, I'd cross the train lines to the northern side, and walk streets of Clyde.</div>
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This was as far as I'd ever gone before:</div>
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On the other side was unknown territory. Forget branch stacking, did they even have Labor Party branches?</div>
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I walked forward with trepidation. I had to stop half way across to gather my courage.</div>
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It was when I began my descent on the other side of the tracks that I began to grasp just why these streets had such a notorious rep:</div>
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Look I'll not deny the sign caused me pause. But it takes a bit more than the threat of entering Kelly Country to scare me. I used hangout with the Kellys' back in the day. In fact I was known as the "Fifth Kelly", like with Stu Sutcliffe and the Beatles, only I didn't die of a brain haemorrhage but was kicked out of the Kelly Gang for excessive drunkardness. Which, if you ever saw how those bastards drank, you'd know was an achievement.</div>
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Anyway, if you walk closer you can see those red splatters on the wall aren't actually exploded blood splatters at all. They are actually just leaves! Look:</div>
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So I made it. I walked a free man into that barren wasteland that lies just east of Granville and west of Auburn.</div>
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I have seen more welcoming places to be honest.</div>
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I have read that as the suburb is just industrial these days, and no one actually lives in Clyde any more. Having seen how mean Clyde's houses are, I'm not surprised.</div>
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And I don't know what Clyde is hiding, but security is out of control! This place is protected by a flying jeep driven by a ghost child!</div>
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And I don't know what they dump in this body of water, but it's called Duck River and I didn't see a single duck. It's very suspicious.</div>
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Still, you can get all your cement needs met in Clyde, so it's not all bad.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7ub0i4JL-iu8-Y7Y8sRS0zRItty-keZO9lJT8eWycWk1m7sOVdZqT9pue2SalkwJ4Q5k2874gnM2xZlKw7pzsCs36EurAQVvdfnKn58X8JP-sQpTv8-n20MxpQJhiH5pSXg/s4000/IMG20200621125644.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1840" data-original-width="4000" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM7ub0i4JL-iu8-Y7Y8sRS0zRItty-keZO9lJT8eWycWk1m7sOVdZqT9pue2SalkwJ4Q5k2874gnM2xZlKw7pzsCs36EurAQVvdfnKn58X8JP-sQpTv8-n20MxpQJhiH5pSXg/w400-h184/IMG20200621125644.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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But the strangest thing I noticed about Clyde was that, while in Granville the berries on our trees are red or sometimes green, here the berries were purple.</div>
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Or yellow.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8uUnqzRpnPT-wOPlf8BIZwBe3ao7BhCnHRHfSdmcGq6gewOQyWMK9bHPQ4neVGf1pD6_c2UvM8eaAflfJzWj4kTxrH2pl_Ezyv3GG9vxg7AZlGKp2Q0ecxnJHfduYTnF_wqA/s4000/IMG20200621132935.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1840" data-original-width="4000" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8uUnqzRpnPT-wOPlf8BIZwBe3ao7BhCnHRHfSdmcGq6gewOQyWMK9bHPQ4neVGf1pD6_c2UvM8eaAflfJzWj4kTxrH2pl_Ezyv3GG9vxg7AZlGKp2Q0ecxnJHfduYTnF_wqA/w400-h184/IMG20200621132935.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This was very unnerving. It was the strange berry colours that convinced me something was not right.</div>
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I had to get out, I moved quickly, not raising me head to notice what I can only assume were an increasingly bizarre array of colours, like brink pink or off-white with magenta spots.</div>
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Finally, I made it back onto Granville land and headed straight to safety.</div>
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At the end of the day, whatever problems Granville faces, I think I am far better here, where it is relatively safe. Plus it turns ot the Granville elctorate takes in a large chunk of Clyde anyway.</div>
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Still, a nice day.</div>
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Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-1400355662672239282021-05-11T23:57:00.007+10:002021-05-14T12:06:18.422+10:00Lucinda Williams' 1998 Austin City Limits is one of the truly great live shows that you can find on Youtube when drunk!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/f2/33/e7f233cab66eab781d3d54176e5a4125.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/f2/33/e7f233cab66eab781d3d54176e5a4125.jpg" /></a></div><p>US singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams has <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/lucinda-williams-reveals-shes-recovering-from-a-stroke-2932641" target="_blank">revealed</a> she had a stroke in November. The 68-year-old is recovering and although currently unable to play guitar is expected to make a full recovery.</p><p>That is good news, because Williams is not just a great songwriter, but a great human. She was expelled from high school in the late 60s for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Alliegence in opposition to the Vietnam War and has remained outspoken in song and beyond all her life (her <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lucinda-williams-good-souls-better-angels/">most recent album</a> is filled with fury about racism and misogyny and the state of her country).</p><p>By coincidence, the news of her stroke came just after I went on one of my periodic Lucinda Williams binges, specifically repeatedly watching her brilliant Austin City Limits show from 1998, just after the release of her <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lucinda-williams-car-wheels-on-a-gravel-road/" target="_blank">career-defining album</a> <i>Car Wheels on a Gravel Road</i>. </p><p>The reason was a debate that flared once more on The Very Long Thread (VLT). This is a thread on my facebook wall whose only goal is to generate as many comments as possible. Having started in 2013, so far the VLT has more than 365k comments at an often meandering pace by arguing about such topics as "are song lyrics a form of poetry?".</p><p>Now, I argued no. Although obviously similar, the nature of the forms means different pressures and contraints on the writing. It is a semantic argument that can't be resolved because you can just keep shiftng the boundaries and definitions until you finally <i>finally</i> after<i> eight fucking years </i>reach the 500,000 comment milestone (we can only dream).</p><p>But inspired by talk about poetry and lyrics, I put on Lucinda Williams. The country/blues/folk/rock (I hate the term "Americana") icon being one of the more poetic and poetry-influenced songwriters that US has produced in recent generations.</p><p>The result was I conceded straight away. Williams' ACL show is just song after song of fucking poetry put to a raw mix of country/folk/blues/rock (yes <i>I know</i> "Americana" is less words) played by a tight-as-anything band. </p><p>Song after song I found myself yelling "IT'S MORE FUCKING POETRY!" then commented to that effect on the VLT because, after all, we need the comments. God knows when we'll reach 500K and if we can even <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StrikeClimate" target="_blank">beat the rapidly escalating climate apocalypse</a>. </p><p>It is an incredible show of a great artist at her peak. It deserves more recognition as one of the great live shows that you can find while on a drunken YouTube music binge. Williams' performance features a range of songs that can loosely be divided into three categories: death songs, "fuck you, arsehole!" songs, and deeply felt longing for a lost love songs. </p><p>Enjoy!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="391" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K1lDTiMxD5A" width="470" youtube-src-id="K1lDTiMxD5A"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>1. Pineola (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=19s">0:19</a>)</b><blockquote><i>I saw his mama, she was standin' there<br />His sister, she was there too<br />I saw them look at us standin' around the grave<br />And not a soul they knew</i></blockquote><p>They say start as you intend to contnue, and Williams starts with a tough bluesey song about a friend committing suicide. This will not be the last song about the death of a friend nor suicide, not by a long shot!</p><p>The song is very well-summed up in this <a href="https://entertainment.time.com/2011/10/24/the-all-time-100-songs/slide/pineola-lucinda-williams/" target="_blank">Time magazine piece</a> in which it features on a list of "100 songs of enduring beauty, power and inventiveness". It deserves it's place.</p><p><br /></p><b>2. Metal Firecracker (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=300s">5:00</a>)</b><i><blockquote>We'd put on ZZ Top<br />And turn 'em up real loud<br />I used to think you were strong<br />I used to think you were proud<br />I used to think nothing could go wrong<br />All I ask<br />Don't tell anybody the secrets...<br /></blockquote></i><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"></span></div>Slightly cheerier in that it's a song remembering a lost love with fondness. But it's not <i>that</i> cheery, due to the whole <i>lost </i>love thing. An up-tempo country rock track whose lyrical quality reminds me of the more recent and <a href="https://www.factorytwofour.com/americas-best-songwriter-nashville-sound/" target="_blank">much-lauded</a> Jason Isbell (with whom she's performing with in July in her first post-stroke shows, and who would be the first to name her as an inspiration). <div><br /><div><br /></div><div><b>3. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=518s">8:38</a>)</b><blockquote><i>Sittin' in the kitchen, a house in Macon<br />Loretta's singing on the radio<br />Smell of coffee, eggs and bacon<br />Car wheels on a gravel road</i></blockquote><p>Williams' signature song, or at least the glorious title track from her best album. A catchy honky tonk tune through which Williams evokes nostalgia with imagery of the minutia of daily life. It's key line comes right at the end: "A little bit of dirt, mixed with tears". This would be Lucinda Williams' best song if "Drunken Angels" didn't exist.</p><p><br /></p><b>4. Right in Time (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=799s">13:19</a>)</b><blockquote><i>Not a day goes by I don't think about you<br />You left your mark on me it's permanent a tattoo<br />Pierce the skin and the blood runs through<br />Oh my baby...</i></blockquote><p>This is<i> definitely </i>a cheerier song and that's because this folk-rocker is all about masturbation! More specifically, it's a vividly poetic and gleeful account of taking the time to pleasure yourself as you think of someone who.... well of some who "moves right in time with me". </p><p>Anyway, I think we shoud move on, not ... ahaha... because I am in any way unfomcortable with an open embrace of sexuality and self-delivered pleasure or anything. God no! It's just... what's the next song?</p><p><br /></p><b>5. Drunken Angel (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=1078s">17:58</a>)</b><blockquote><i>Sun came up it was another day<br />And the sun went down<br />You were blown away<br />Why'd you let go of your guitar<br />Why'd you ever let it go that far...</i></blockquote>Back on the familiar ground of death! This is a souring anthematic epic about her friend, little known Texas-based country singer Blaze Foley who was <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">killed in tragic circumstances</a>. Foley was shot trying to defend a friend from being robbed by his own son, with the jury aquiting the son of murdering Foley apparantly on the basis no one could understand what a white guy like Foley was doing in the home of his Black friend in a Black part of town in Austin, Texas.<br /><br />The notoriously down-and-out Foley, who never got far career-wise due to a mix of bad luck and drunken self-sabotage, has since become cult figure with a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">documentary</a> and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">film staring Ethan Hawke</a> about his life. The fact <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">John Prine</a> and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Merle Haggard</a> recorded him is a sure sign Blaze Foley could <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">write a song</a>. And as this song shows, so can Lucinda Williams.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>6. Greenville (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=1281s">21:21</a>)</b><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></p><blockquote><i>Empty bottles and broken glass<br />Busted down doors and borrowed cash<br />Borrowed cash, oh the borrowed cash<br />Go back to Greenville, just go on back to Greenville</i></blockquote>This is a superficially tender-sounding country ballad. Don't be decieved. It's the first of the "fuck you, arsehole" songs! And it is certainly not tender in its sentiments towards to bloke to whom she repeatedly insists "just go on back to Greenville". <div><br /></div><div>With an intesity that slowly builds through the song, she savages the sort of ego-centric, fucked up, selfish areshole you can imagine infesting the artistic circles around places like Austin, Texas through which Williams moved. The lines, "Looking for someone to save you, looking for someone to rave about you..." just nails the type. </div><div><br /></div><div>You know the type. They're on Twitter right now whinging about how woke cancel culture interferes with their God-given right to be a genius. Well, fuck you arsehole coz this song is genius.<div><span face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #030303;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #030303;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><b>7. Still I Long for Your Kiss (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=1543s">25:43</a>)</b><br /><p></p><blockquote><i>I know that I shouldn't but I want you so bad<br />I know it couldn't be but I want what we had<br />I know our love is gone<br />And I can't bring it back<br />Still I long for your kiss</i></blockquote>A straight up tender country ballad! No death, no suicide, no murder and seemingly no arseholes! I mean it's still sad of course. It's about a desperate longing for someone you can no longer have. This is, after all, country music. But it's possibly the most convention love song on here and it's fucking great, the band really go to town with this one. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>8. Lake Charles (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=1813s">30:13</a>)</b><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></p><blockquote><i>He was born in Nacogdoches<br />That's in East Texas<br />Not far from the border<br />But he liked to tell everybody<br />He was from Lake Charles<br /></i></blockquote>Oh my God this is another death song. It's about an ex-lover and I beg of you, for the love of God, do not listen to this song if you've been drinking whiskey. Or at least waterproof your house from the tears that will flow should you be so reckless.<br /><br />This song is truly poetry put to music. A strong challenger to "Drunken Angels" and "Car Wheels" for "best Lucinda Williams song ever". Fuck it's a heart-breaker.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><b>9. Changed the Locks (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=2142s">35:42</a>)</b><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="arial, sans-serif" jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><i>I changed the kind of clothes I wear so you can't find me anywhere<br />And you can't spot me in a crowd, and you can't call my name out loud<br />I changed the kind of clothes I wear</i></blockquote>This is another "fuck you, arsehole" song, with the guitars unleashed. Williams is determined to get a toxic guy out of her life, but for a while I struggled to get the full signficance of all the lines. I think because it's take on complex personal gender politics from a female perspective it is just a little above the head of another dumb man.<br /><br />Bascially, this song isn't just saying "fuck off" to a former lover, but acknowleging ongoing feelings of attraction. It took me while to fully get that this is because 1) people are complicated and therefore can still feel attraction to someone they no longer want anything to do with; and 2) this is something toxic arseholes try to cynically manipulate. <br /><br />When Williams sings she changed her phone number so he can't call her up "and make me fall down to my knees" or change the car she drives so "you can't chase me up the street and you can't knock me off my feet", it is a statement of a refusal to have her complicated emotional life manipulated by a toxic arsehole. <br /><br />Also, the song rocks.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>10. Disgusted (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=2371s">39:31</a>)</b><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" face="Roboto, Arial, sans-serif" style="background: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 0px; color: #030303; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="arial, sans-serif" jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"></span></span></p><i><blockquote>And I go with my baby<br />What man like a woman with a sassy child<br />I won't have to ask him no questions<br />Man, because he knows the reason why</blockquote></i><p>This is the only track in the show not written or co-written by Williams. By an old Lighting Hopkins associate Melvin Jackson, this straight up blues number is nonetheless still about saying "fuck you, aresehole". But it has a happy ending. The singer finds a man with lots of money and therefore no longer needs wake up early in the morning "coz i won't have nothin' in the world to do".</p><p><br /></p><b>11. Jackson (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=2565s">42:45</a>)</b><p></p><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><i>Once I get to Lafayette<br />I'm not gonna mind one bit</i></blockquote>Oh it's another tear-jerking tender country ballad. Like "Still I Long For Your Kiss", this is a relatively straight-forward tale of longing. It is, at the same time, absolutely pure and beautifully written poetry. <p></p><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Williams likes to incorporate a sense of place into her songs, and this is the third of these songs to be named after a place. This one goes further and names a different place across the US South in each verse. When you are onto a good thing, take it up a notch!</span></p><p><span class="style-scope yt-formatted-string" dir="auto" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></span></p><b>12. Sweet Old World (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=2942s">49:02</a>)</b><blockquote><i>The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips<br />A sweet and tender kiss<br />The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring<br />Someone calling your name<br />Somebody so warm cradled in your arms<br />Didn't you think you were worth anything<br /></i></blockquote>It's another death song! Specifically, another suicide song. An almost impossible mix of grief and beauty, this is a note to a loved one to ask them the hopelessly futile question: "How could you leave?"<p>Just don't listen to it if you've had a few. </p><p><br /></p><b>13. Passionate Kisses (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=3252s">54:12</a>)</b><blockquote><i>Is it too much to ask<br />I want a comfortable bed that won't hurt my back<br />Food to fill me up<br />And warm clothes and all that stuff<br />Shouldn't I have this<br />Shouldn't I have this<br />Shouldn't I have all of this, and<br />Passionate kisses</i></blockquote><p>This very catchy track is the only hit song Williams has written to date, with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxxBWajOK84&ab_channel=CareyMcGleish" target="_blank">Mary Chapin Carpertner's 1993 version</a> breaking into the top 5 of the US country charts.</p><p>It is a manifesto of Williams' "personal is political" brand of feminism. Williams has essentially produced her version of the famous poem "Bread and Roses" by socialist suffragette Helen Todd, which delcared: "Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too." </p><p>In "Passionate Kisses", Williams insists on her right to a fulfiling life and "passionate kisses too". It should not be a radical sentiment, and yet...</p><p><br /></p><b>14. Something About What Happens When We Talk (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=3414s">56:54</a>)</b><blockquote><i>If I had my way,<br />I'd be in your town.<br />I might not stay, but at least I would have been around</i></blockquote><p>It's another country ballad full of longing. But like all Williams' songs it doesn't just repeat a cliched formula. It's filled with little pockets of unique depictions of a very specific, personal relationship. By the time the guitar solo hits, this song has captured an emotional state best described as: "I've been drinking and listening to sad songs like this again".</p><p><br /></p><b>15. Joy (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=3654s">1:00:54</a>)</b><blockquote><i>I don't want you anymore 'cause you took my joy</i></blockquote><p>This is a straight-up all-out rocker of a "fuck you, arsehole" song. It's not complicated. Some areshole took her joy and she wants it back. This being a Lucinda Williams song, it also name-checks a bunch of locations across the US South. </p><p><br /></p><b>16. Cant Let Go (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1lDTiMxD5A&t=4173s">1:09:33</a>)</b><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Says he's sorry then he pulls me out<br />I got a big chain around my neck<br />And I'm broken down like a train wreck<br />Well it's over I know it but I can't let go</blockquote><p>The last song, with the band working themselves into a final frenzy as Williams delivers one her "longing" songs with a dash of "fuck you, areshole" chucked into the mix too. If only the arsehole also died it could have summed the whole thing up. Still, a fitting end.</p></div></div></div></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-42137289380776143092021-03-19T10:07:00.004+11:002021-03-19T10:11:38.745+11:00Missed the first AFL men's game last night? Here's the commentating highlights to get you up to speed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/77977301140234f28394b138b69fa5c8?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=2131&cropW=3789&xPos=0&yPos=48&width=862&height=485" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/77977301140234f28394b138b69fa5c8?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=2131&cropW=3789&xPos=0&yPos=48&width=862&height=485" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">The AFL is back, if you exclude the seven AFLW rounds already played this year, and no doubt almost all of you were
glued to the TV as there's really nothing else of interest going on in the
world right now.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Or maybe you were too busy celebrating
another week of no protesters being shot dead on our streets to. Or too distracted thinking about that <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-19/nsw-police-consent-app-criticised-by-sexual-assault-advocate/100016954">top cop's idea</a>, the one so dumb and offensive in equal measures it was like a Donald Trump tweet if the ex-president and future convict had suffered an especially debilitating aneurysm.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Or maybe you just couldn't bring yourself to watch
a game between Richmond and Carlton. After all, the game offered the unpleasant choice of a win
for a deeply unlikable, arrogant and entitled club with little respect for the
rules, or a draw.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Well don't worry, I've got your back. The best
part of watch AFL is undoubtedly the quality of the Channel 7 commentary, and
even without Bruce McAvaney in the box there's still plenty to like about this
team.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">So I collected a few of the commentating
highlights as they were uttered last night so you can get a full flavour of the
match. </span>As it goes on, you <i>might </i>feel the comments seem to get a little
homoerotic, if not outright pornographic. I can assure you this just you.
Australian Rules football is a pure, innocent game and you should be ashamed of
yourself!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">THE FOOTY'S BACK! (Spoiler: a deeply
unlikable, arrogant and entitled club with a questionable commitment to the rules won the match.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">***<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">THE CROWD ARE STANDING, THEY'RE ALLOWED TO
STAND…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">And the 2021 AFL season is underway!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Wrapped him up like a blanket<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Perfect conditions at the MCG, as BT said<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Wants to play on<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Massages it to half forward<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Can he find someone inside 50?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">For the first goal in the match and the season….
BANG!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">With the clearing kick<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Smooth as you like</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Worked it nicely<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">One on one, he rarely loses them<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Aren't the fans loving it being back!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Nice movement<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Hopeful start here for the Blues<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Defends to the boundary<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">This first 10 minutes are crucial<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Dropped what he should have taken<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Now the calvary arrive<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Only one home for the Blues<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He'll run all night!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Now they steady, the Tiges<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Ball's pinging around<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">It just emphasises the importance of decision
making <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Just a little bit too cute<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">You CANNOT turn the ball over there in that
part of the groun. You just cannot afford to do it!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Has got to be clean<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Great to be back here!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Level pegging… in goals <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">That was well done by the young gun<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Kept it alive<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Sits a high one up<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Got a nice look about it already, this game of
footy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They need to hit the scoreboard<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Two ready to do combat in the Coles centre
circle!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Excellent front and centring from the Carlton
smalls<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Belted in the tackle<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Coughed it up, you can't do that against the
Tigers!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">You couldn't ask for more! Scores level!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Knew he had to get rid of it<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Pouring the pressure on late in this first
term<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Goes for home, touched on the line<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Pounds a long one<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Strikes it perfectly!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">So much to like about this kid<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Mown down!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">High ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Does well in the end<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Crowds are back, AFL is back!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Six lead changed already, it's a great game of
footy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">SEVEN LEAD CHANGES!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Has he got enough on it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Funny little handball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Nice body work<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Might have been interfered with<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Turns around and says "Mate, I'm twice
your size!"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They have been explosive!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Centering ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Reiwaldt hits the board <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Tried to get boot to ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">The pressure from both sides… EXCEPTIONAL!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">What's he got ahead of him?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Now they're out!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Parked underneath it<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Puts it wide<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">It is on!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Now the human meatball…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">And is this deliberate? YES IT IS! </span>WHAT ABOUT THAT? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING
LIKE IT???</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Lowers the eyes, that's nice<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Seesawing encounter to start the season<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">AFL football is back in a big way!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Funny little kick<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Advantage is paid<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Got to make a contest<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Great vision out wide<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Right on the Toyota logo there<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They really got to steady here<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Wants to wheel and go<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Across the face, a minor score<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">There's been some decent mullets over the
Carlton journey<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Runners everywhere<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They start to get hold of it!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Interesting decision<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">It's a two goal spread<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He thought about going<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Thumped through<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">You get the feeling the Tiges will be careful
with the ball here<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Well it's a great game of footy at the MCG.
It's lived up to expectations!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He'll thump it back in<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Floats one forward<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Where was the pressure?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Blues fans furious!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Can't bend it back enough!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Hoisted it inside without great direction<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Let himself down there<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He can't help finding the ball!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Run down, holding the ball!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Ball in<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">The Blues are peppering<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Oh that's nice! They are<i> coming</i>, the Blues!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">That's a very nice set shot!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Good hands, quick release<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Hard at the pack<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Just couldn't handle the ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Their sub has been activated<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Just pounded it out of there<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Big coupla minutes!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">You thought he might have been towelled there
a little bit, BT?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Straight as! Perfect execution<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He slots it through<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Carlton have been rushing<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Hacks it across the face<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Probably should have hung on<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Martin's in great shape<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Nailed it!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">It ended up in the best possible hands<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">If you can't put it on the scoreboard it goes
to waste<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Had to go down deep<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Worked it through with great hands<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">And a ball up<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Only five touches this half after he was
enormous early<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Can the Blues find something just to steady
the ship?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Umpire said it was high<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Tigers fans not impressed!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Sprays it wide<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Inaccuracy really costing the Blues at the
moment<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Can they conjure something?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Swinging it away by hand <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Good call, Jobe<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Neat little ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He reels and goes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">What an important goal<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He's snagged a couple<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">A good late fist<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He sees it out<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Plenty of time on the clock!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Steers it inside 50<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">This is a must goal!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Just needs to hit it a little harder here. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">That's nice, well done!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Over the top and there's Blues everywhere!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Jeez JB they've got a bit of steam up now
haven't they!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They'll get a ball in very deep<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Still lots of time! That clock WILL NOT WIND
DOWN!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He's impossible to collar!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Keeps it in<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Ran into his own man! <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Plenty of time for both teams<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">He was mounted!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Stuck it down the throat of Reiwaldt<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">A penetrating ball<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Just composure to put it through<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">They've done enough here the Tigers, such a
professional outfit<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN">Too good, Richmond.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-62670042806359781522020-08-19T22:28:00.002+10:002021-03-19T10:07:30.996+11:00The Footy Frenzy has ended but you don't have to wait till Friday to enjoy the commentary!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPnZCtNJ2BMLah38-F_KO5V8fyES4PmFVr0wZj_WbNnw2xq2ZHR-5xm60fDEJFe6uxKhIfAvvmngwMSBw9Z5kXfD-FU7lqnJuNT17LCL8WLspLLogOMCv6h_tEz_i3ZdfZHgY/s1000/afl+game.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="1000" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPnZCtNJ2BMLah38-F_KO5V8fyES4PmFVr0wZj_WbNnw2xq2ZHR-5xm60fDEJFe6uxKhIfAvvmngwMSBw9Z5kXfD-FU7lqnJuNT17LCL8WLspLLogOMCv6h_tEz_i3ZdfZHgY/w400-h199/afl+game.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>We are all upset at the temporary end of the AFL's "Footy Frenzy", where by 33 games were played in just 20 days! And while the AFL is back on Friday, and another bout of frenzied game playing isn't far away, it has still left a gaping hole at the very centre of human civilisation.</p><p>Worse, it's left us with little to distract us from an out-of-control pandemic with no obvious end point, ecological collapse and Sydney FC winning the A-League premiership for a record fifth time, which has been set out in all known religious texts as the clearest signal of the End Times.</p><p>The loss is far less watching mediocre games whose results are beyond doubt by half time, with the few close games largely due to both sides finding ways to fail to kick goals with a level of skill previously only seen on the Australian left. </p><p>No, we all miss the Channel 7 commentary. So, having provided a basic script last week to allow people to not have to watch the game to get their shot of "BT action", I post a new script below so you don't have to miss out.</p><p>***</p>Both sides have everything to play for<br /><br />And we’re away!<br /><br />Great second touch<br /><br />Touch wasn't clean enough<br /><br />Beaten by the boundary line<br /><br />[obscure stat]<br /><br />It's pretty even around the stoppages<br /><br />Almost a throw<br /><br />He's normally a good kick<br /><br />Well<br /><br />Not his best effort there<br /><br />And that's not a good kick<br /><br />And he slots it through<br /><br />They set sail again<br /><br />Just bundled him out the way<br /><br />A bobbling ball<br /><br />And that's a miracle goal!<br /><br />[Blokey banter -- "You'd have got that one wouldn't you Kingo?" "Oh not sure about that Bingo, I reckon he's been practicising those in his back yard"]<br /><br />Happy to take a bit of time<br /><br />They're just slowing things down<br /><br />They're travelling well<br /><br />[obscure stat]<br /><br />And just a minor score<br /><br />They're keeping them in it<br /><br />Bundled him out the way<br /><br />He's found the boundary line<br /><br />Defence doing their job<br /><br />Some friendly fire<br /><br />They're grimly defending<br /><br />Great effort not to give away the free<br /><br />They've have done all the scoring this quarter<br /><br />Hugging the boundary line<br /><br />And it's touched on the line<br /><br />[obscure stat]<br /><br />It's within his range<br /><br />He's missed the mark by a fair margin<br /><br />Got the better of him that time<br /><br />Served it up to him on a plate<br /><br />He needed a kind bounce<br /><br />He just holds it up<br /><br />Oh! He felt that!<br /><br />[blokey banter like "I reckon you know about hits like that eh Kingo" "Oh I don't know about that Bingo, but I reckon I copped a couple of them from you back in the day" (blokely laughter all round)]<br /><br />It's a real arm wrestle<br /><br />It's evenly poised here <br /><br />And they hit the front!<br /><br />This game's got everything!<br /><br />He's taken a screamer!<br /><br />And the goal umpire doesn't move!<br /><br />Don't go anywhere!<br /><br />Might have got away with one<br /><br />Clever use of the footy<br /><br />And they are back in front!<br /><br />Who's gonna stand tall?<br /><br />Heard the umpires call, he's gotta go.<br /><br />Happy to see it over<br /><br />[obscure stat]<br /><br />They stream forward<br /><br />Just blazes away<br /><br />A bit of an up and under<br /><br />Crowd getting a little restless<br /><br />He's battling hard<br /><br />A lot of time on the clock<br /><br />[obscure state]<br /><br />They've started to even up the numbers around the ball<br /><br />This will be interesting!<br /><br />Goes across the face<br /><br />He'll be disappointed in that<div><br />They've just got a sniff here<br /><br />A low scoring affair<br /><br />Just over a goal in it<br /><br />He's missed a sitter!<br /><br />It's a chaos ball<br /><br />They've just gotta go here<br /><br />[obscure stat]<br /><br />Bounces unkindly<br /><br />Kicks into space<br /><br />He should have swallowed that<br /><br />The next five minutes crucial <br /><br />There's a bit of feeling in this<br /><br />[Blokey banter about how "Kingo" didnt mind a bit of a push and shove in their day.]<br /><br />And who else!<br /><br />You wouldn't expect anything different from him!<br /><br />They're hunting in packs!<br /><br />They're just hanging around<br /><br />They've clawed their way back into it<br /><br />And they can go!<br /><br />And he's picked his pocket<br /><br />And he makes no mistake!<br /><br />That's what makes this game so great!<br /><br />And didn't the crowd love it!<br /><br />That was on the back of some forward pressure<br /><br />This game just keeps delivering!<br /><br /></div><div>To ice the game..<br /><br />And that'll just about do it!<br /><br />What a great advertisement for our game<br /><br />There are a lot take aways from this tonight<br /><br />...will be very happy to walk away with four points<br /><br />As for... it's back to the drawing board!<div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GdLLoHn4ndQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="GdLLoHn4ndQ"></iframe></div><p></p><blockquote><i>Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti playing footy<br />Making it into contests when you're thinking that he couldn't<br />Arms like Arnie and hair like the predator<br />Just when you thought he couldn't get any better-e</i></blockquote><p> </p><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: programme, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">r</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: programme, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" /><p></p><p><br /></p></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-34643429880015392842020-04-16T16:41:00.006+10:002020-12-19T12:21:12.731+11:00Now that Ken Burns doco has proven that quality country music is actually awesome, here is my country music playlist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3w8dlo2orf8y3crtc22sslbh-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/johnny-cash-1-.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://3w8dlo2orf8y3crtc22sslbh-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/johnny-cash-1-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"Country music doesn’t deserve its right-wing reputation — its roots lie with the hopes and travails of working people." So <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/11/a-forgotten-country/">wrote left-wing music critic Alexander Billet in Jacobin Magazin</a>e in a piece Jacobin published that is almost enough to wipe away Jacobin's <a href="https://www.carlosands.com/2016/05/an-open-to-jacobin-magazine-on-matter.html">horrific, unspeakable Merle Haggard obit</a> (but still not enough... that was shocking).<br />
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Still, if there is one thing too-cool-for-school kids of all ages love, it is making jokes about how uncool "country and western" is. Stupid hats and suits and rednecks singing corny cliches in an irritating whine interupting only by yodelling and a whole gamut of ultra-conservative views. You know, just like the country music that Johnny Cash is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t51MHUENlAQ">so infamous for</a>.</div>
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So when Trump was first elected 3000 years ago (or "in 2016" if believe in conventional measurements of time, which I no longer do), a friend posted on facebook that the "worst thing" would be "all the country and western music". </div>
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Get it? Ignorant rednecks voted for Trump and they listen to country and western! HAHAHAHA if we get nothing out this nightmare we at least get hilarious jokes like that!</div>
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As no one has actually seriously used the phrase "country and western" to describe country music anytime in the past 70 years, use of the phrase "country and western" is a dead give away that someone just repeating mindless prejudices against one of genres of popular music that has proven, over decades, in multiples waves, to be a wonderfully literate, profound, poetic and grounded form of popular music, rooted in the real experiences of ordinary people. </div>
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I mean for god's sake, look at country music legend <a href="https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/vale-john-prine-common-voice-common-people-falls-covid-19">John Prine</a> who sadly just died from the virus and he was all that to every inch. </div>
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Of course, there is plenty labelled country music that is shit, cliched and absurd. This stuff is generated and sold by corporate record companies and played on corporate radio stations and it is manufactored and pointless and sometimes gets truly, insanely, mindnumbingly lame (search "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42uphHWxmFU&list=PLQXr_qE39uQIGhWibd2vK7nLT5iir0Zf_">bro country</a>" on youtube... I dare you).</div>
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But imagining that kind of stuff is the essence of country music is like imagining Vanilla Ice is the essence of hip hop. </div>
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The whole use of genres is pretty articifial to begin with. Most musicians cross over to some extent and all the genres to emerge in the 20th centruy of North America have common roots in the melting pots of cultures from Africa and the Europe, brewed in poverty and exploited by those with money to sell records. </div>
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"Country" (or hillbilly music as it was first known) was sold to white audiences, "blues" was sold to Black audiences, but both emerged as fluid mix of the musical and story-telling traditions from Africa and European nations like Scotland and Ireland. The influence of Black musicians on country and non-white country musicians gets written out of its official history, but the genre still remains very popular to play and listen to among <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEFJ3W4bpMs&list=PLcF9Lexo0zcmRbK1zQzsgXUESk6DOJqMZ">Native Americans</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsRnx2IXlak&list=PL9VuNwIRdzQfaxTTTyIZFbSSqCciYX4u1">Aboriginal communities</a> in Australia to this day.</div>
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Does it really matter if people reject "country music" on a false basis? Probably not, except you see people that you know, based on their other musical preferrences, would actually really like a lot of country music if they just let themselves. They are missing out. </div>
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A great antidote to stupid cultural prejudices is the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1692229187821/country-music-the-rub-beginnings-1933">Country Music documentary series</a> by acclaimed US film-maker Ken Burns, which is screening on SBS. It has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/sep/24/country-music-how-the-ken-burns-series-celebrates-the-outsider">justly hailed</a> as a brilliant social history of not just the genre of country music but US society and popular culture in the 20th century.<br />
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Those who already loved country music love the series, those who thought they hated it love the series. </div>
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It;s good, but as good as it is, it doesn't answer the question everyone wants to know: "If Carlo Sands was going to put together a playlist giving an overview of country music he likes, what 35 songs would he choose?"</div>
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And I am delighted to be able to answer... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6llNuluxJyxkO-ZY1UkvGzj">THESE 35 SONGS</a>!!! ON MY COUNTRY MUSIC PLAYLIST!!!</div>
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I've had a variation on this list for like the past half dozen years or so, but keep changing it. It is very sort of an introduction to country music but mostly...it is examples of the stuff within the broad church I like, which leans heavily to the "poetic singer/songwriter" wing that often gets called "alt.country" or "Americana" but is far truer to country music's origins than anything ever released by Garth Brooks. It starts with some classics, missing many, then on to those from a bumbper crop of high quality songs from 21st century artists</div>
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Anyway, I've got two versions, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9o-tOH7J3Y&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6llNuluxJyxkO-ZY1UkvGzj&index=1&ab_channel=LeftyFrizzell-Topic">longer version</a> that is 35 songs long and then the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mz3HY-9pzSW9Dqz1CuMtY-">shorter and sharper one</a> I've somehow cut down to 25 songs. All sorts of worthy artistis are not on it. This is not "the best of country music" just a sample of the shit I like. Both lists are 50/50 male and female singers, whicb no doubt underplays the role of female singers in the genre. Comment with what is missing in the comment section if you must.</div>
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<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9o-tOH7J3Y&list=PLqEVLhjXDh6llNuluxJyxkO-ZY1UkvGzj&index=1&ab_channel=LeftyFrizzell-Topic">THE FULL 35 SONG LIST!!!</a></b></div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6llNuluxJyxkO-ZY1UkvGzj" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/4EruqY61hvoZACGTL1vz55" width="300"></iframe><br />
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<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mz3HY-9pzSW9Dqz1CuMtY-">THE EDITED 25 SONG LIST VERSION FOR COWARDS!!!</a></b></div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLqEVLhjXDh6mz3HY-9pzSW9Dqz1CuMtY-" width="100%"></iframe></div>
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<iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/5SKroCCw0qNTPLKP9oV3c0" width="300"></iframe><br />
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Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-44380570082448360012020-11-13T22:45:00.114+11:002020-12-03T07:48:26.000+11:00I've Found The Exact Point The US Began Its Terminal Decline And It's Billy Joel's 1980 Single 'You May Be Right'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Jo9t5XK0FhA/maxresdefault.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Jo9t5XK0FhA/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Donald Trump losing is a boost to the world's morale. <div><br /></div><div>But if the now-defeated 45th President of the United States has taught the world one thing, it's that US people who draw the line at supporting a racist, alleged rapist and open supporter of the super-rich who <i>also</i> wears a dead guinea pig on his head, <i>really really </i>like to say, "What's <i>happened </i>to us?"<div><br /><div>It's a fair question.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>And how could they look at their history and NOT declare, "We used to be <i>decent</i> genocide committing slave-owning then lynching apartheid enforcing shooting black militants and anti-war activists dead mass murdering around the world governed by certified psychopaths child labour exploiting violent union smashing foreign government overthrowing planet destroying nuclear armed and willing to use it folk!</div><div><br /></div>"If only there was something, <i>anything</i>. in our history to provide some sort of context or precedent for this unsettling turn of events!"<div><br /></div><div>I understand. In Australia, we hear the same thing every time someone living in this nation founded on mass murder and dispossession that explicitely banned non-white immigration for decades and in which Aboriginal people are jailed at a higher rate than Apartheid South Africa expresses shock that we run concentation camps for refugees.</div><div><br /></div><div>But there is no doubt, whatever the historical context, that the US Empire is in steep decline. </div><div><br /></div><div>I mean for <i>fuck's sake</i>, their incumbent president just tried to launch a coup by getting his lawyer, who's just seemingly been caught on film trying to have sex with a woman he thought was a minor, to hold a press conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping on the outskirts of Philadelphia opposite a crematorium and next to an adult bookstore.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can't write that shit. I know coz I just did and ever cell in my body screamed, "PLEASE STOP!!!" </div><div><br /></div><div>However, we can't look away. For the sake of future generations, we must actually<i> figure out </i>the point at which US society began it's likely terminal decline.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I think I've found it.</div><div><br /></div><div>My exhaustive studies have narrowed the point of no return to the release on March 7, 1980 of Billy Joel's single "You May Be Right". It went on to reach the absurdly high position of 7th on the US Billboard charts. <i>7th! </i>I mean have you <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilsv0C1-aBw&ab_channel=billyjoelVEVO">heard</a></i> it?</div><div><br /></div><div>I know what you're thinking. I'm being ridiculous.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Is it really worse," I hear you chorus, "than his condescendingly smug 'Piano Man' or Joel's kinda creepy 'Only The Good Die Young' where the 28-year-old singer declares 'You Catholic girls start much too late', or even 'We Didn't Start The Fire', which pretends to be profound but just lists historical events followed by an especially nonsense chorus?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Look, I'm not denying the inherently barbarous nature of those songs, which clearly indicate a society being violently ripped usunder by its internal contradictions. I'm just looking for the <i>exact tipping point.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>To understand why that is <i>clearly</i> the release of Joel's "You May Be Right" in 1980, it is not enough to merely listen to the song. You need to watch the film clip. <a href="https://youtu.be/Jo9t5XK0FhA"></a><a href="https://youtu.be/Jo9t5XK0FhA">Try it!</a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jo9t5XK0FhA" width="320" youtube-src-id="Jo9t5XK0FhA"></iframe></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Wild boy on the loose!</i></div></i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Now it's not just the lyrics or the vague musical approximation of "new wave" that was all the rage back then. It's that fucking clip.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In it, Billy Joel displays zero sense of irony. There's no self-awareness here. Nothing to show he's thinking, "Jesus I made my name writing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATZ4Nc2SU7s&ab_channel=VoiceofReason06">long-winded faux-profound piano songs</a> and then punk rock and new wave came along and now the record company says my guitarist must look at least <a href="https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/2/photo-of-jam-and-paul-weller-erica-echenberg.jpg">slightly</a> like Paul Weller from The Jam and my songs need more <i>'attitude'</i> like what the fuck does that even mean?"</div><br /><div>No, Billy Joel just dons a pair of aviator glasses and tries to look like some super-cool but kinda outta control badass. Iggy Pop <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLRf0j80wU&ab_channel=umbrea">snarling</a> "Now I wanna be your dog" this is not.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IbLRf0j80wU" width="320" youtube-src-id="IbLRf0j80wU"></iframe></div><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Not Billy Joel.</i></div></i><div><br /></div><div>I feel for the music clip producer. They did not get paid nearly enough for being asked to make Billy Joel look like he might be <i>dangerous</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can see what the poor bastard had to work with. You can hear the producer yelling "Go Billy, dance like a madman!" and Billy Joel sort of kicks his legs out on either side of him a couple of times and you can <i>feel</i> the producer's soul shrivel into a raisin.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then there's the words. I'm not saying they capture everything wrong with the entire American psyche, I'm just saying that I'm also not not saying that. If you get what I'm saying.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>You May Be Right</b></i></div><div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i>By Billy Joel, aged 30</i></div><div><br /></div><i>Friday night I crashed your party<br />Saturday I said I'm sorry<br />Sunday came and trashed me out again</i><div><i>I was only having fun</i></div><div><i>Wasn't hurting any one</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Come on Billy, wasn't hurting anyone? What about the feelings of this unnamed romantic interest of yours to whom you were forced to apologise? Is this how you propose to treat them? By ignoring and downplaying their entirely legitimate emotional responses to your shit behaviour?</div><div><br /></div><div><i>And we all enjoyed the weekend for a change</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>No Billy. You enjoyed the weekend for a change. You just didn't care to check if that was just you.</div><div><br /><i>I've been stranded in the combat zone<br />I walked through Bedford Stuy alone</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>I had to google Bedford Stuy and Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford%E2%80%93Stuyvesant,_Brooklyn">describes</a> it as a neighbood in Brooklyn known for its "racial unrest". Put another way, Billy Joel is using venturing solo through a Black neighbourhood as evidence of just how "mad" he is and there is nothing ever that will ever be more revealing about Billy Joel.</div><div><br /><i>Even rode my motorcycle in the rain<br />And you told me not to drive<br />But I made it home alive<br />So you said that only proves that I'm insane</i></div><div><br /></div><div>No way Billy! You didn't ride your motorcycle in the rain? Didn't your mother tell you how dangerous that could be? But I did admire your skill in that clip in miming riding a motorbike, seeing as it's pretty clear there's zero chance you've ever actually touched one.</div><div><br /><i>You may be right<br />I may be crazy<br />But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Really? Has anyone in human history ever sat there and thought "You know what I need in my life? Another lunatic." </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Turn out the light<br />Don't try to save me</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>The thought never crossed my mind.</div><div><br /><i>You may be wrong for all I know</i><br /><i>But you may be right</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Odds are that they've had more experience in dealing with lunatic men than you, Billy, so are likely the one who's right. That's science.</div><div><br /><i>Remember how I found you there<br />Alone in your electric chair<br />I told you dirty jokes until you smiled</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Or they thought, "If I pretend to laugh he might go away".</div><div><br /><i>You were lonely for a man</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Were they, Billy? Or did you just see them one day not smiling enough and conclude "I bet they are lonely for a man!" Did you ask?</div><div><br /><i>I said take me as I am<br />'Cause you might enjoy some madness for a while</i><div><br /></div><div>Will they?</div><div><br /></div><i>Now think of all the years you tried to<br />Find someone to satisfy you</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Is this you making an unseemly boast, Bill? I sincerely hope not.</div><div><br /><i>I might be as crazy as you say</i><br /><i>If I'm crazy then it's true</i><br /><i>That it's all because of you</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Way to victim blame, Billy Joel.</div><div><br /><i>And you wouldn't want me any other way</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>That's what they really wants, isn't it Billy? They say it isn't, but you know better. You always do.</div><div><br /></div><i>You may be wrong for all I know<br />You may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right<br />You may be wrong but you may be right</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Get a grip, Bill! You're losing it! Seriously, they're on the verge of calling the cops! </div><div><br /><div>I think I've proven my point.</div><div><br /></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31231411.post-79259290237737208952020-11-30T20:20:00.036+11:002020-12-03T07:44:35.658+11:00Do read the comments: Forget John Prine's CMA snub, he was deeply loved by those who count<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/e8e9g7/picture236794648/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1140/John%20Prine" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://www.newsobserver.com/latest-news/e8e9g7/picture236794648/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1140/John%20Prine" width="400" /></a></div><p>They say never read the comments, but there are exceptions. </p><p>For instance, if you read the comments under any random Youtube clip of John Prine, who died from COVID in April 2020, you'llread a flood of heartfelt emotion about the US country singer who died from COVID-19 back in April. It is no wonder. He sung stories of ordinary people's lives and struggles with with and humanity in equal measure.</p><p>Yet this year's Country Music Awards, a notoriously corporatised event for country establishment which have also been criticised for lack of inclusieness over the years, did not see fit to even mention his name.</p><p>Nor did the CMAs make any mention of Jerry Jeff Walker or Billy Joe Shaver, who were essential figures in the vibrant, deeply creative Texas country scene that arose around Austin in the early 1970s. </p><p>In what I am sure is pure coincidence, the Texas scene personified independence from the country music establishment and Austin became an alternative to Nashville -- the base of that establishment that is personified in the CMAs.</p><p>Prine, on the otherhand, was a mailman from Chicago who played country but was closer in origin and spirit to the folk scene that emerged from cofee shops and bars in the 60s. It's hard not to see the left-leaning politics and social concerns being a factor in the snubbing.</p><p>The snubbings caused a predictable outcry. Singer-songwriter couple Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires -- both huge fans as well as close friends of Prine's -- <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonIsbell/status/1327072093670936576?s=20" target="_blank">handed back their CMA memberships</a> in disgust. </p><p>Representatives of a succeful brand of what is sometimes seen as "more authentic" singer-songwriters in country, Sturgil Simpson and Margo Price, <a href="https://www.brooklynvegan.com/margo-price-sturgill-simpson-blast-cmas-for-no-drama-stance-john-prine-snub-lax-covid-safety/" target="_blank">also voiced their disgust</a> with the CMAs.</p><p>The snubbings acted more as a final straw. Shires had previously worn a t-shirt to the CMAs criticising the country music industry's exclusion of women, while Price had already refused to attend on grounds of CMA's exclusionary approach and "plastic" nature (she'd already used her debut Grand Ole Opre show this year to support Black Lives Matter and slam the country music industry for its racist history). </p><p>As for Simpson, a hugely succesful independent country artist, he pointedly <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/watch-sturgill-simpson-busk-take-questions-slam-trump-outside-cma-awards-126215/#:~:text=Sturgill%20Simpson%20was%20at%20the,the%20ACLU%20via%20Facebook%20Live.&text=Anything%20helps%20(all%20donations%20go,God%20Bless%20America.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank">busked on the street</a> in front of the venue instead of attend,</p><p>Neither Prine, Walker or Shaver had the sort of sustained commercial success the CMAs thrive on. They have a reputation as "songwriter's songwriters", and while that is true (Bob Dylan called Prine his favourite songwriter), it's not the full story. </p><p>Far from lacking mass appeal, they had it in spades -- just not filtered through the corporate structures who <a href="https://twitter.com/CoreyRForrester/status/1327363525057126402?s=20" target="_blank">enforce a mindnumbly narrow set of cultural tropes</a>. Snubbing John Prine while embracing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF0DV0MsYrQ&ab_channel=FlaGeorgiaLineVEVO" target="_blank">Florida Georgia Line</a> is an act of war on popular culture.</p><p>But in many ways, for the CMAs to actually recognise Prine, Walker and Shaver after their deaths would be an act of hypocrisy after snubbing them while alive. It would never have been acknolwegment the counted.</p><p>The best tribute to Prine comes from those who loved him. </p><p>The contrast between the CMA sub and the love expressed "from below" is deeply symbolic. And you can get a taste through a spin through random Prine clips on Youtube -- the passion turning to grief in comments posted post April 7, 2020.</p><p>One example:</p><blockquote><i>"I was heartbroken before he ever sang a word. I was one of those with a 'hole in his arm where all the money goes'. I carried Prine around in a stolen walkman player with a beat up cassette over-due from a library loaned in another state. He spoke pictures of life folks lived like he knew us personally. Like he lived it himself and had the words that connected with the feelings. But i won’t miss him, too much, I’ve got the legacy he’s left us. I wish i could tell him 'thanks'."</i></blockquote><p>The lyric quoted comes from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLVWEYUqGew&ab_channel=JohnPrine" target="_blank">this song.</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OLVWEYUqGew" width="320" youtube-src-id="OLVWEYUqGew"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>'Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.'</i></div><div><br /></div>A random scroll through other clips produced a flood of tributes, a few examples I'll put below.<br /><i><br /></i><i>"God, I wept over my dinner listening to his music... I hate that he's gone."</i><div><i><br />"His songs can move me to tears, and I really don't care if the whole world knows."<br /><br />"His music and words resonate with me like few others can. His music helped me through some dark days. Actually he’s still helping me get through some difficult times."<br /><br />"I have had tears over the loss of 3 people in my life ,my mother,my sister and now John Prine .Im 73 and my heart is broken over the loss of one of the sweetest souls on earth.R.I.P. John "<br /><br />"John Prine could bring a tear to a glass eye. I am overcome with emotion every time I hear this song."</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"John wrote songs that captured the genuine, broken beauty of humanity. Leonard Cohen once noted that the cracks in everything are how the lights get in. John Prine was the light."</i><i><br /><br />"No musical artist has ever affected me as deeply as John Prine."</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"If you love John Prine, you are a friend of mine."</i><i><br /><br />"If John Prine needed a kidney and mine worked, I would give it to him."</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>"John Prine sings from the heart - and his songs tell the truth ... The working man's Mozart."</i><i><br /><br />"Tonight I am an old woman, and a mail carrier from Chicago, and Dear Abbie and a guy just trying to save his marriage while cooking sausages, and the one who wants people to quit hollerin at me. The kid wearing other peoples clothes, I am America, I am the underdog, the under served, the helpless. I am Prine."<br /><br />"John Prine is not dead. Until the last person who ever heard his songs dies, he will never die."<br /><br />"Makes me cry every time. 'Hello in there, hello'. Be kind. That is all."</i><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lB2E6RX7W44" width="320" youtube-src-id="lB2E6RX7W44"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>'Some humans ain't human, some people ain't kind'</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now I'm not saying John Prine wrote that aove song for the pricks from the CMAs, but I'm not<i> not</i> saying that either.</div></div></div></div>Carlo Sandshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12947602891142664168noreply@blogger.com0