Venus and Mars: Valentines Weekend in Dublin, 2003

Husband: It's late Sunday. Mardi Gras is hours away and you're still grinding your gears on Valentine's Day.
Me: True. But you know...supposed to be resting my eyes this weekend.
Husband: Are you sure that's all?
Me: I don't want to write up that argument at the church.
Husband: It wasn't a big deal. We got lost walking there and when we showed up they were in the middle of something. And so we left without the ring blessing thing which I wasn't too hot for in the first place. There. Now it's written up.
Me: And my mother did like the gift we found for her at their bookshop.
Husband: Fifteen minutes later, I was already in a better mood.
Me: Oh, now I remember how that came about!

***
"She Died of a Fever"

We were back on Grafton Street and walking toward O'Connell Bridge. Suddenly the bulk of my husband's presence was no longer keeping pace with me. I turned to see what snagged his attention.



Husband: Well hey! Where do they keep the ones like her?
Me: In a plastic surgeon's office in Beverly Hills.
Husband: Can we grab a picture of this?
Me: Oh goodness. Let me deconstruct this moment of 'culture' if I may. That happens to be there courtesy of a company called Jury's, which is in the hotel business. So what you see here is the local variant of the grass-skirted hula girl icon designed to evoke pleasant associations in the visiting male psyche.
Husband: Well yeah!
Me: O come on! What person would walk around half-exposed like that in damp weather? No wonder 'no-one could save her!'

On my last visit, my camera was not handy to catch a charming shot of a local youth reclining on the barrow of cockles and mussels, smoking a cigarette and using the ample cleavage at arm's reach as his ashtray.

***

"The faces seem familiar,
And I know those songs they're playing."

My husband has a hard time keeping track of me in the crowds on Grafton. He's actually even approached another woman of my build and color, thinking she was me. But we negotiate the obstacle course from Jigsaw to Bewley's and other stops. I've been fighting a sore throat from my week in England and want something to sooth it. My husband remembers that he's forgotten to pack something indispensible for our weekend of romantic abandon. Both needs are met easily.



At one of the record stores, I find a copy of The Book of Invasions by Horslips. It has been recommended by those who would know as one of the first albums to move along to after the double CD of greatest hits. Much later in the day, I'll accidently buy the same album again from a different store. That copy is later given away as a gift.

I buy clothing wantonly. There's even a temptation to buy slacks, which I never do, because they look as if they will not require hemming.

Living in a tourist town ourselves, we easily ignore the more aggressive vendors of the usual in t-shirts, postcards, mugs, and china figurines. We do not even consider joining our fellow Americans on one of the tours designed expressly for our kind.



It's funny how my world goes 'round without you -
You're the one thing I never thought I could live without.
I just found this smile to think about you;
You're a Saturday night far from the madding crowd.

***

Merrion Square





***

After three years, it is hard to remember what day we visited the museums and galleries. It seems improbable that we did all of these on Sunday, but our Saturday plans swerved into an unexpected direction at midday.

The day before, on February 14, 2003, Hans Blix had delivered his latest report on Iraqi compliance with Resolution 1441 to the UN Security Council. In part he said:

How much, if any, is left of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programmes? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed. Another matter - and one of great significance - is that many proscribed weapons and items are not accounted for. To take an example, a document, which Iraq provided, suggested to us that some 1,000 tonnes of chemical agent were "unaccounted for". One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded. If they exist, they should be presented for destruction. If they do not exist, credible evidence to that effect should be presented.

We are fully aware that many governmental intelligence organizations are convinced and assert that proscribed weapons, items and programmes continue to exist. The US Secretary of State presented material in support of this conclusion. Governments have many sources of information that are not available to inspectors. Inspectors, for their part, must base their reports only on evidence, which they can, themselves, examine and present publicly. Without evidence, confidence cannot arise.

If we'd picked up a copy of the Guardian that morning, we would have seen the following article:

A case for war? Yes, say US and Britain. No, say the majority

Britain last night insisted it would press ahead with framing the resolution. An official said it was unlikely that a draft resolution would be circulated over the weekend. Instead, it would be pushed back until Tuesday at the earliest. "If you slap down a piece of paper right away, it doesn't look like you were listening."

The French and Russian foreign ministers were given rare applause in the council chamber yesterday when they demanded more time for inspections, in striking contrast to the stony silence that greeted hoarse and irritable insistence that time had run out from Colin Powell, the US secretary of state.

Me: I had forgotten that the march was today. I saw them organizing a bus for the people in the village to get to London last week. They'll be travelling from all over England for it.
Husband: They were already covering it in San Francisco before I left.
Me: Do we have anything scheduled this afternoon?
Husband: We do now.
Me: Alright. Let's go.

Next: "When we got to Yankee land..."

Venus and Mars: Valentines Weekend in Dublin, 2003

Valentine's Weekend 2003 was the one. After a week of work on a transatlantic project that still looms in office legend, I was off for the usual extra day or two in Dublin. But this time, after much persuasion and the fortunate alignment of a three day US holiday weekend near the traditional day for romance, I had convinced my husband to join me.

For me, it would be my fourth visit. For him, the first time travelling outside the United States. For both of us, the last time visiting this place in the pure, heedless state of tourism: knowing no-one and no-one knowing us.



As the advance scout, I had already discovered the Georgian on Baggot Street. The Harcourt Hotel, of my first visit, is fondly remembered for several reasons -- one of them being its appearance in Patrick McCabe's The Dead School and therefore part of the personal Horslips walking tour for me -- but it was one long trek to and from anything. And though closer to the action, the Comfort Inn on Talbot Street was an experiment not repeated. So the Georgian, where you go outside to get back inside, where a double set of Winchester Mystery House stairs misleads you every time, and where suspiciously rounded humps in the carpet seem to shift location during the night, won out in the end.

And in 2003, registering at the front-desk with a man in tow, I was rewarded with a vast, top floor suite and a high wide-mattressed bed fitted out in soft white linen and down-filled duvet. And a shower of unimaginably warm and ceaseless water. That first afternoon, I lost one of my earrings in the bedding.

It was a shame, actually, that we had so much sightseeing planned for the weekend.

The next day we followed the advice of the taxi-driver and set off to find the Church with the relics of Saint Valentine. Apparently, we were told, they'd bless our wedding rings for us at the place.



Me: Remember that church?
Husband: I remember we got into that bad argument there.
Me: Yeah. I was remembering that too. What were we fighting about?
Husband: Can't remember. Remember the museum?
Me: Which one? The Art Gallery or History museum?
Husband: I was thinking of the Dead Animal Zoo.
Me: Remember the guys at the Cobblestone?
Husband: And that dinner after the march?
Me: Remember the march?
Husband: That was like four percent of the population there.
Me: We found that other place...not as good as Cobblestone. What was that?
Husband: We went to Trinity too. Remember?
Me: We did a lot!
Husband: You could write some of that up.
Me: I'd have to do it over a few days. That's a lot to write up.
Husband: Use pictures too.

So, yeah. Three years ago, we went to Dublin and saw some sights. It might be something I could write about over the next few posts. Not as exciting as some. But there'll be pictures.

There's a MySpace for us...

I first heard about MySpace via the Duke De Mondo, who said something along the lines of "There's a lot crap music posted on MySpace."

Then I was invited to be a 'friend' to the good folks of Drumming Up Hope back in October. I went through the motions of registering and let it go at that.

In January, the Radiators from Space -- Phil Chevron's and Pete Holidai's great Dublin punk band -- invited me to be their friend.

That got me to upload a vintage photo and make a half-assed attempt at a profile. And to browse around.

Five minutes later, I realized that there was indeed a lot of crap music posted on MySpace...and a lot of good music and a lot of music in between. There's the John Matrix Blues Quintet and their song Arnie Syndrome, for instance, which takes a bunch of my Governor's famous movie quotes and strings them out over some "metal fret-wankery" (as one commentator describes it) and basically calls it a song.

After the first 24 hours of listening to it, I've told more people about this Arnie song than I did in a month about my first Horslips album.

To be fair, if Horslips had sampled a local politician in the mix (Gerry Brown? Sonny Bono? Or--God Forbid--Ronald Reagan?), I'da had an angle.

But imagine my surprise at my coworkers' reaction when I mentioned the source of all this free music. And this forum that has expanded my musical-interest base exponentially by the hour.

Me: So I've registered at MySpace and you'll never guess...
Coworker #1: MySpace? Isn't that for kids?
Coworker #2: You saw that program on TV this weekend? About that girl?
Me: Kids? The guys who got me hooked were playing punk rock in Dublin. In the 70s!
Coworker #2: And then this other thing on the radio was talking about the kids who bully on MySpace.
Me: Okay. There's a whole section on CyberBullying with tips and resources! And it is NOT just for kids.
CoWorker #1: My friend was telling me about MySpace. Actually...his kid was telling me about it.
CoWorker #3: Hey. Ease up. MySpace is a perfectly capable and popular Virtual Social Network. One of the most popular on the net...
Me: There! See?
CoWorker #3:..for kids.

The MySpace Generation

At the same time, her boyfriend IMs her a retail store link to see a new PC he just bought, and she starts chatting with him. She's also postering for the next Buzz-Oven concert by tacking the flier on various friends' MySpace profiles, and she's updating her own blog on Xanga.com, another social network she uses mostly to post photos. The TV is set to TBS, which plays a steady stream of reruns like Friends and Seinfeld -- Adams has a TV in her bedroom as well as in the living room -- but she keeps the volume turned down so she can listen to iTunes over her computer speakers. Simultaneously, she's chatting with dorm mate Carrie Clark, 20, who's doing pretty much the same thing from a laptop on her bed.

You have just entered the world of what you might call Generation @. Being online, being a Buzzer, is a way of life for Adams and 3,000-odd Dallas-area youth, just as it is for millions of young Americans across the country. And increasingly, social networks are their medium. As the first cohort to grow up fully wired and technologically fluent, today's teens and twentysomethings are flocking to Web sites like Buzz-Oven as a way to establish their social identities. Here you can get a fast pass to the hip music scene, which carries a hefty amount of social currency offline. It's where you go when you need a friend to nurse you through a breakup, a mentor to tutor you on your calculus homework, an address for the party everyone is going to. For a giant brand like Coke, these networks also offer a direct pipeline to the thirsty but fickle youth market.

Preeminent among these virtual hangouts is MySpace.com, whose membership has nearly quadrupled since January alone, to 40 million members. Youngsters log on so obsessively that MySpace ranked No. 15 on the entire U.S. Internet in terms of page hits in October, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Millions also hang out at other up-and-coming networks such as Facebook.com, which connects college students, and Xanga.com, an agglomeration of shared blogs. A second tier of some 300 smaller sites, such as Buzz-Oven, Classface.com, and Photobucket.com, operate under -- and often inside or next to -- the larger ones.

More at the link.

"We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now."

By all that is rock-n-roll, Hapa’s cover of U2’s Pride (In the Name of Love) wouldn't rate much from the critics. With the righteous majesty of Bono’s vocals replaced by Barry Flanagan’s sincere, understated delivery of the lyric and a blend of female backing vocals on the chorus, the song feels less like a rock classic and more like a communal hymn--the sort heard in one of the many open-walled, seafront chapels of the islands. Edge’s pyrotechnic guitar-work is not recalled either. Instead, Flanagan’s years of study in Kiho Alu, or slack-key guitar smooths the melody’s rough edges down to elemental form, polishing away ostentation and fire.

Like grey, featureless pieces of driftwood found in the wash of the tide, U2’s soaring tribute has undergone a sea-change in Hapa’s hands.

But if Hapa has detracted from the power and might of Bono’s stadium anthem, their version brings other qualities to the song. These -- as I describe them -- will sound like the theatrically emotional tricks of the overly-earnest. There’s the inclusion of the recorded voice of Martin Luther King Jr. himself, giving his “I have been to the mountaintop” speech, which, as the link says, he gave in support of the striking sanitation workers at Mason Temple in Memphis the day before he was assassinated.

And then -- and this is the part that will sound the most ridiculous as I describe it, but never fails to send an electric charge of thrill through me when I hear it -- there is a male voice -- older certainly, but strong -- that begins reciting in slow, cadenced Hawaiian a fragmant of the oral, tribal history of his people.

‘Hapa’ in Hawaiian means ‘half.’ It is often used as an adjective to modify a noun signifying some element of aboriginal cutlure touched by the post contact world. ‘Hapa-Haole’ -- half Hawaiian, half white -- describes the macaronic songs in the island’s catalog of music. “Tiny Bubbles,” properly sung with all the verses, is Hapa-Haole. “Little Grass Shack” on the other hand is pure Haole.

As their website states, Hapa, the band is "an amalgam of influences ranging from ancient Polynesian rhythms and genealogical chants to the strummed ballads of Portuguese fisherman, Spanish cowboys, and the inspired melodies and harmonies of the traditional church choirs of the early missionaries." Barry Flanagan, who left New York in 1980, is the founder. Fellow guitarist Nathan Aweau is from Honolulu. Charles Ka’upa, who provides the chant described above, is from a family that

comes from the island of Moloka‘i with another part of the family well established on the island of Hawai'i as well. He has spent the better part of his life teaching, be it History, Culture, Religion, lecturing not only at Maui Community College, Maui Campus, but on the islands of Lana‘i and Moloka‘i as well. He has also traveled to Washington D.C. to lecture at the National Geographic Headquarters, performing there as well at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian's ground-breaking ceremony.

Much can be written about what it was that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered to America. I am inadequate to this task. Instead, I believe that King’s own words speak for his life the best:

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him.

I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

LPs, CDs and Mp3sIt Goes to Show You Never Can Tell

When I posted yesterday's news about this Christmas being the digital music Christmas, I made an effort to find a rock quote that mentioned the technology of the era...because that 'record machine' in Eddie Cochrane's Twenty Flight Rock was no doubt affordable and portable. And check out the lyrics here in Chuck Berry's Mississippi romance:

It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished them well
You could see that Pierre did truly love the madamoiselle
And now the young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell,
"C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

They furnished off an apartment with a two room Roebuck sale
The coolerator was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale,
But when Pierre found work, the little money comin' worked out well
"C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

They had a hi-fi phono, boy, did they let it blast
Seven hundred little records, all rock, rhythm and jazz
But when the sun went down, the rapid tempo of the music fell
"C'est la vie", say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell

I will assume that the 'seven hundred little records' were 45s. The common currency of rock-n-roll music for a long time until album-length rock became ascendant. And Eddie's rockin Queen would have a fine collection of Sun 45s herself. Put your cat clothes on...

Ticharu makes a great comment under the post:

I currantly own over 3,ooo CDs but the writing is on the wall. Smaller is better. Full circle can't be far behind, where once again musicians will make a living simple playing live for an audience.

And it occurred to me that full circle has already been reached, in part, as the Mp3 of a single song standing alone or in the mix of many, many songs on the Mp3 player is well and truly a descendent of that 45.

Another thought: album length vinyl is actually on the rise among certain groups. I recently thrilled to finding an album from an obscure British psychedelic band called Forest that had first been released in 1971. Looking at the cover in the Brighton Record Shop, I was perplexed to see a web domain for the record label printed on the cover. After buying the album and -- so very carefully -- taking it home, I opened it up to find I had a brand new record! Re-issued obviously, but manufactured in this decade. Delicious!

"Well I got a girl with a record machine,When it comes to rocking she's a queen."

Digital music enjoys a dream week

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - There was so much legitimate downloading in the final week of 2005 that it recalled the impossible tallies research firms used in the late 1990s to dazzle venture capitalists and scare the daylights out of major-label executives.

In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers, Nielsen SoundScan reports.

In the process, consumers shattered the tracking firm's one-week record for download sales.

A look inside the numbers shows just how unprecedented a week it was for the download business:

- Before the week ending January 1, 2006, the record for the most downloads sold in seven days was 9.5 million tracks -- set just one week earlier.

- Sales of 20 million songs were almost three times the amount of digital tracks sold in the same seven-day span a year ago.

- Fifteen songs on the current Hot Digital Songs chart surpassed the one-week record for sales of a single track.

- Rap group D4L's "Laffy Taffy" took the top spot with 175,000 tracks sold, more than doubling the mark of 80,500 downloads Kanye West's "Gold Digger" set the week of September 17.

- Each of the top 11 titles on the Hot Digital Songs chart sold more than 100,000 downloads.

For the year, the digital track sales tally reached 352 million -- a 147% increase over 2004's total of 142.6 million.

In comparison to the volume of music that is downloaded through peer-to-peer networks, those numbers may not seem like much. P2P monitoring service Big Champagne estimates that at least 250 million tracks are downloaded worldwide each week from file-swapping services.

But a dramatic rise in the tide of authorized download sales in recent weeks suggests that changes may be afoot in the consumer's relationship to digital music.

The important question for the music business is whether 20 million downloads represents the new baseline for digital track sales. A year ago, a 33% pop in download sales in the week following Christmas permanently raised the bar on weekly download volume by 2 million tracks.

Technology and distribution executives at the major labels are not holding their breath that download sales will now run at a rate of almost triple the 7 million tracks that were being sold on average in December. They say big sales of gift cards are likely creating the current volume of such significant downloads.

Yet gift cards were available in 2004, too. If the market can retain volume gain as it did last year, the numbers are tantalizing. Last year, sales fell by about 20% in the weeks following New Year's; such a drop this year would yield a weekly volume baseline close to 16 million tracks. That would put the download market on pace for sales of 750 million to 1 billion tracks in 2006.

Likely to drive the download business is the fact that the number of iPods and other MP3 players in distribution have exploded in the last year. The Computer Electronics Assn. estimates that MP3 player revenue increased 200% to more than $3 billion in 2005.

Apple claims to have sold more than 30 million iPods to date, but will likely have shipped a total close to that number in 2005 alone.

Research firm NPD Group estimates MP3 player revenue at leading retailers topped $500 million on sales of more than 3.3 million units for the five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas--a 65% jump in dollar volume from the 2004 holidays. Sales of MP3 accessories were big too, topping $160 million during the five-week period.

NPD figures exclude direct sales of iPods through Apple Computer and online sales.

And for the first time, sales of MP3 players are surpassing sales of personal CD players and CD shelf systems, NPD reports.

"We have definitely moved," says Stephen Baker, VP of analyst services for NPD, "from MP3 players being a computer-oriented product to a consumer-directed product."

Reuters/Billboard

Posted in full because it's important news. As soon as one of the digital music sites I've been involved in for a while goes public, I'm buying stock.

It was written in 1843, after all...

After pulling out my small copy of A Christmas Carol for yesterday's title quote, I continued reading on a bit for the pure enjoyment of the writing. Came to the part where Marley tells Scrooge to expect his visitors on each subsequent night (it is 2:00 a.m. at this point). Scrooge awakes to hear twelve chimes on the clock and is disoriented by the sense of going backwards or far forwards in time:

“Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “That I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely colkd, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

Wow! Slam! Right out of nowhere with that one! Well, who’s your daddy now, Ebenezer?

Moments of aroused chauvinistic patriotism aside, I’m quite happy that A Christmas Carol is out there as one of the seasonal classics. First of all, and most importantly for a holiday story, it can scare the crap out of you as a kid (which it did) and features no less than three speaking parts for ghosts. (TGOCF doesn’t speak…remember?) It stands relatively alone in the field of holiday fiction in its use of the macabre to make a point. The Nightmare Before Christmas now possibly running a close second.

Then there's a whole gamut of family and extended family vignettes: young Ebenezer left at school for the holiday break; the classic office party at Fezziwig’s where we can imagine Ebenezer’s friend Dick dropping trousers and climbing up on the printing press to leave an amusingly inked holiday impression for the Monday morning crew; the lighthouse keepers celebrating alone with grog, song, and companionship; that insufferably cheery nephew’s party (take me away from this, o Spirit!), and – at the heart of it -- the threadbare Cratchit household which is quite depressing if you pay attention to the details. Almost the whole economic scale there.

I believe I’ve read somewhere that Dickens didn’t ‘do’ aristocracy, and their absence in A Christmas Carol is pretty telling. Instead at the very brink of the most cheerful Hallmark moment scene of syrup and sweet, The Ghost of Christmas Present pulls back his robe to reveal two small children:

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say that were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! Are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!”

Recommended quick read: John Nichols on “The Rebel Jesus”, Commondreams.org.

***

The other great thing about A Christmas Carol is that it has loaned itself to endless variations and parody over the years. I've seen the lot, but have a special fondness for the Jim Backus-voiced version with the song about Razzle-Berry Dressing:

"Oh Ebenezer, you've done it again!"

(From DVD Movie Guide)

and the WKRP one with the brownie-wielding Dr. Johnny Fever as the Ghost of Christmas Future:

Johnny Ghost: Bailey runs a television station in Chicago. Travis is breeding guard dogs in New Mexico. Venus owns a clothing company called "Upwardly Mobile." Jennifer married and bought herself an entire island off the coast of Sardinia. Les Nessman? The Republican whip of the United States Senate!
Mr Carlson: What about you and me? Fever and me?
Johnny Ghost: Well, Fever just sort of ... disappeared. There were rumours, of course, but really not much else.
Mr Carlson: And me? No no, don't tell me, I don't want to know. I'm dead, aren't I?

But this year, after seeing a Lifetime channel ad for some piece of fluff with a soccer mom over-extending her cellphone bill and not having enough 'face' time for the kids (I may be extrapolating on this plotline, but I'll bet I'm close...) called "A Carol's Christmas" I decided to ignore any more Dickensian tributes, homages, parodies, rip-offs and such.

Then I visited Generic Mugwump...

Now whatever little 'thing' the Duke De Mondo has going for Conor Oberst's fringe (yeah, I finally found that essay), it pales in comparison to the torch his otherwise-sensible friend Aaron Fleming keeps lit for Jeff Fahey.

It is a dark world where highways intersect with crash cymbals, and large portraits of varicose-veined eyes line the sky. Fayhey and his guide reintegrate beside a flaming Porcupine having sex with Bodger, this is indeed a mad world. As Fayhey stands looking at the chaos surrounding him, alphabet spaghetti starts to rain down from the sky. “What is the meaning of all this?” he asks the feedback. “Well,” it replies, “this is what will happen if you continue with this propensity to miss classic films at Christmas.”

And from this morning's visit to obtain these last few links, I see that the Uncle Duke De Mondo has had a change of heart and given us a Holiday themed Mondo Podcast #14.

Why, that even beats of bowl of razzle-berry dressing!

"I awoke in California, many miles from Spancil Hill"

The last of my Euros is paying for a bit of time online, but I'm coming home tomorrow and will repay all the kind visits from Brownie, Count Screwloose, Guy Wonders and others.

My 72 hours in Dublin can't rival the Duke De Mondo's, but a last minute inspiration and a good (new) friend got me to the Phil Lynott statue. Pictures may not be the best, but they were taken.

All in all, a fantastic trip.

More to follow.

"For Dublin keeps on changin' and nothing seems the same"

Well DAMN, but isn't Smithfield the wi-fi hotspot these days? When someone like me -- who has only been visiting for the last few years -- can tell that things are not what they were, you know that we're moving at a rapid pace.

I'd call it the South of Market of Dublin, but it is on the Northside, where I've spent the entire day today.

The lone ice-skating rink that was my landmark to the Cobblestone is now a full-blown Christmas Carnival and community meeting point. Buildings that weren't there last year...or indeed, when I went into the bar for a drink...are crowding the skyline. And any Bay Area realtor will tell you that these babies ain't cheap.


(Photo thieved from www.sherryfitz.ie)

Part of it must be that Luas Red Line running down
Jervis Street. And every passing train I see is filled to the gills with townbound and homebound shoppers.

Also along the Luas line, an internet cafe that has just knocked the Grafton Street internet cafe out of first place in the "most hip and functioning Internet Cafe ever" competition that I run for my own benefit. And the Grafton Street joint held that title for three years running.

The only disappointment is that my Saturday night entertainment would have been much improved if I had found the energy to get over here last night. For, at the Cobblestone, Leo Kelly, one of the members of my new enthusiam Tir na nOg (Good Lord! To have missed it by that much!) packed the back room at the Cobblestone. Tonight Grada does much the same. On New Year's Eve, New York City band The Prodigals will be in the house, and that's pretty fine because I caught them a few years ago too on Third Avenue and they play a hard and fast set. Indeed, one of their songs is partly responsible for me always choosing Baggot Street for my hotel when I'm in town.

So. Yeah. Smithfield! Not too bad at all...

Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor

James Joyce & Ulysses exhibition at the National Library

I didn't allow myself enough time to properly enjoy this unexpected pleasure, but they had to chase me out at Closing.

Not surprisingly, there's a great virtual tour online linked above. The Exhibit itself was one of the best uses of interactive computers and scanned images that allowed visitors to 'turn the pages' of manuscripts including Joyce's Paris-Pola Commonplace Book, two of the notebooks Joyce kept while constructing Ulysses, working drafts of the novel, and the novel itself.

Highlights for me were the recreation of the shopfront of Shakespeare and Company; an interactive family tree of the various publishers and editions of the novel; another recreation combining elements from different apartments in Zurich, Trieste, and Paris (loved the books piled on the floor and everywhere!); and -- naturally -- the small traditional display of sheet music and theatrical posters of the time which illustrated the source material for allusions and imagery.

And, indeed, there on a playbill for a Pantomine (!) of Sinbad the Sailor, you read down the cast of characters and see

Sinbad the Sailor
Tinbad the Tailor
etc...

Which naturally flips up the memory of:

Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer. (U 17.2320-8)

"Dude!" I wanted to grab the guy standing next to me. "It's from a pantomine! I've just seen a pantomine! I got it now! It's totally popular culture, isn't it?"

I did manage to muffle my American enthusiasm at chipping away one more chunk of cultural ignorance, and I may have missed other little treats such as that in my haste to see the entire thing before closing. So I plan to spend time online at the link above.

With apologies to Kate Bush, Emily Bronte,

Cathay Airlines* and possibly even LHR, which wasn't too bad again today.

Terminal Nights**

Up in the wiley, windy skies
I'd soar and fly in blue
You were the airport for my connection
So big. So crazy.
How could you fail me
When I need to get past you?
I hated you. I loathed you, too

Ice storms in the night
They told me I was going to miss my flight***
Stuck behind in Terminal, Terminal, Terminal Nights

Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway
Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway

Ooh you take Pounds! You take Euros too
At the coffee bar by the loo
I eat some junk. I buy some junk
At Terminal Two
I'm getting bored, love****
Cruel Heathrow, my one stop
My only option....

Too long a line out of sight
I'm checking my passport twice, and hold it tight
I'm spending time in Terminal, Terminal, Terminal Nights

Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway
Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway

Ooh! Let me have it
Let me grab that food voucher***** away
Ooh! Let me have it
Let me grab that food voucher away

Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway
Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway

Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!
Let me land-on-your runway
Heathrow, it's me Cathay
Going home. I'm so cold!


*which may not fly through LHR, but too good of a name to pass up...
**Briefly considered "Londoning Nights" because of the sound-alike parody value. But it's a pretty silly, meaningless word isn't it?
***This actually happened in Frankfurt, but I wouldn't put it past Heathrow either.
****Actually composed in ten minutes' time at Gate 90. I wanted to post it up right there for the justice of the moment, but the Heathrow Internet access points have Blogger.com blocked for -- and I quote -- "Excessive porn content." They need to check that last newsagent stand before the Aer Lingus gates if they're worried about such things!
*****When your flight is delayed, they'll give you a food voucher for about £8. Can't buy alcohol with it, and you've probably got a pocket of Euros which Heathrow will accept unless -- wait for it -- you are using a food voucher.

A hotel room of one's own

waits for me at the end of the hall to the left.

To my right, an airport hotel bar filled with twenty-somethings putting the moves on each other to the pumping beat of Madonna's Get Into the Groove.

Outside, a sky holding a half moon and the trails of airline flights departing for all corners of the globe. Mine will depart for Dublin tomorrow for the long weekend of vacation after a week of work.

And I think Roger will agree with me when I say:

Virgin Megastore at Piccadilly Circus in the City
It's alright It's alright...

"I fell in love with you before the second show"

There's a 1994 album called If I Were a Carpenter which features the leading young bands of the time taking on Richard and Karen's catalogue. A list of the various artists reads like a roster of yesterday's hitmakers: Cracker, 4 Non Blondes, The Cranberries, Shonen Knife...and on track 3 Sonic Youth with Superstar. With an embalmed vocal scraping away at the claustrophobic space of the lyrics and a guitar that slowly breaks down into careening noise by the third verse, it goes:

Don’t you remember you told me you loved me baby
You said you’d be coming back this way again baby
Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, I love you I really do

Loneliness is a such a sad affair
And I can hardly wait to be with you again

What to say to make you come again
Come back to me again

It ends with a sound effect that sounds like a shot. I've never checked on whether there was an intended subtext, but I can't hear this version of the song without thinking 'Dakota' or 'gun' or 'I'm your biggest fan.'

Twenty five years on, I did not expect I would find myself here in England for this particular anniversary. I didn't think I would have Liverpool in-laws or that I would have lost a close member of my own family to violent crime. Has any of this given me any insight? Not much, but I do think when the train sweeps by a long, depressed area of industrial decay or when I share a pint at the local pub with a life ruined by a lifetime of diminishing opportunities and expectations, I may just have a glimpse at what was going on when John Lennon added -- let's go ahead and say screamed -- the lyrics "I want to be Free" to Barrett Strong's Motown hit Money.

But twenty five years ago, I was watching Sunset Boulevard on a local television station when the news broke. That is, I watched up to the scene where Norma Desmond throws a grand New Years Eve party for her screenwriter turned sulky lover Joe Gillis. After that, I was listening to the radio, along with everyone else awake in America.

Much later I realized that the myth from Hollywood and the news from New York City that night were telling me two sides of the same dark, hungry story. Norma, crazed into murder by the fading glow of stardom leaving her, becomes a metaphor for the thing that is at the heart of the matter at hand. For behind the blinding hot spotlight of Los Angeles or the dark stage doors of the Dakota, there is that thing that wants fame. And when fame does not come, it will accept notoriety.

Celebrity and fame are bigger than ever these days. It would be too easy for me to blame that, but I can't. Or to castigate the ordinary person who devotes themselves to a jukebox hero. But it is a false argument. Many people survive the intense thrall of fandom and look back in rueful affection on their earlier phases. Others learned early to recognize the borders, where fandom becomes something a little less wholesome. One Take That fan recalled her days of loyalty in yesterday's Guardian:

Hailing from their hometown we enjoyed elevated status, but fans the world over made the pilgrimage to Manchester. They sneaked hallowed pebbles from the dirty pavements into their handbags, they graffitied the walls, they consumed the world's supply of Kodak film, they left lipsticked, scented love letters. The hierarchy was split in two; between "cravens" (ie screamers, the worst of the bunch) and those diehard followers who were actually known to the band and need not, therefore, scream. The latter category included Lisa-from-Burnage, Blonde Streaks, Emma'n'Karen (unbearably cool by virtue of being 17), and Alex-from-Germany who had relocated to Manchester, swapping her life for her love of Mark Owen.

To meet Robbie, though, you had to venture beyond the M62 to Stoke-on-Trent, and brave the risk (much rumoured) of Rob throwing buckets of water on fans, swearing at them and other such unimaginable horrors.

"Do me a favour, babe," grimaced Robbie one fine day as I melted into the pavement. "Get yourself home safely now."

Oh my God, "Rob" called me a babe! Could it have been my sparkley silver eyeshadow from Superdrug, now smudged across my face, or perhaps my favourite £6.99 green leggings, or the two highlights in my hair that were intentionally of a sophisticated deep maroon colour but somehow washed to a frizzed out ginga?

The world of a groupie is indeed a sad one. It takes place in liminal spaces: airport lounges, hotel lobbies, football sidelines, deserted city centre streets at four in the morning long after the concert is over, your head still hurting from all the screaming. It is the life of an outsider standing in the dark, looking into brightly lit chandeliered rooms.

The hardcore fans even ventured as far afield as London for the Brit Awards, the Smash Hits Poll Winners' Party, for (what was supposed to be) their final concert at Earls Court. They were the kids who would wait the longest, wait even though they knew TT wouldn't turn up, they were yearning to be part of a "group", emptying their pockets to fill their hearts.

Anoushka's mum was "a right old bitch who battered her" and her dad "couldn't give a fuck about her" but "Markie" apparently did. Whenever the word came out to "go home now, girls," she would desperately not want to.

At this point, it might be occurring to you that this entry has been written by someone running an unofficial fansite and a blog shamelessly devoted to all sorts of fan musings on a variety of things. I thought I'd be writing mostly about the irony of that. I thought I'd have to write and say "I have no neat conclusion for these observations." I also thought I'd write about my antipathy to ask for autographs, which looks like it dates from about that year. Even that time-honoured exchange between star and fan, which Lennon was willing to perform again after five years of staying far away from fame's glow, feels intrusive for me. Actually I don't know what I thought I'd write about. But twenty five years ago the night I spent grieving next to the radio was a night also spent writing page after page of bewildered rage in my sketchbook journal, and so it seemed only fitting that I write something tonight.

"It's Behind You!"

After a dull newsday yesterday, I spent the evening at the Four Chestnuts leafing through the day's tabloids and garnishing tidbits of interest that I am dying to share! Here's just a preview: Bono and the Pope. Bono and Justin Timberlake. David Cameron and Morrisey (Its just shocking too. Scandelous).

And I'm also working on a longer, more thoughtful piece for this week.

But not tonight! I apologize for the sparsity of news and there won't be any until tomorrow.

Tonight I'll be in (Jack) Worthing, watching Puss in Boots which, though described as a pantomime, I have been assured it will have lines and speaking and not too much white pancake makeup. From what I've heard, I should enjoy myself.

"Oh no you won't!"

"She's got it. Yeah baby, she's got it..."

A couple of years back at a friend's house for a BBQ, the women of the party decided to camp out in the rec room while the men grunted and postured around the Weber in a contest to see which one of them would invent fire. After driving the kids away from their gameplayers, we ladies decided to pop in a video of The Wedding Singer, which I hadn't seen.

It kicked off with a full-on shot of Adam Sandler in a narrow lapelled blue jacket, Johnny Cash coal-black hair standing up under a can and a half of mousse, and the world's skinniest black tie.

Then he started singing You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive.

A dizzying thrill which was equal parts repulsion and the-years-drop-away attraction went right through me. I suppose you learn you've entered the long period of middle age, the first time you look back on a fashion once worn to strut and stalk the world's pleasures (day-glo fishnets, rosary beads as necklaces, acid-wash jeans, Members Only leather jackets, or, say, crushed velvet elephant loon pants) and you think "Did we wear that?"

And sometimes you think "Did we listen to that?" And with You Spin Me Round, we did. We don't need to annotate those lyrics or develop a fansite for it; we don't even think we own a copy. But we are not going whitewash our musical past by denying that the song -- during its brief moment of glory -- got the job done, just as it does in the Adam Sandler movie. You listened, you danced, you made eyes at the rest of the neon-lit crowd and you had a good time. And if the next song was Bananarama's Venus...well, you kept dancing.

Until yesterday, I had no idea that this wave of disposable pop that flooded the charts of the eighties had a backstory. But it does, and it makes for a wild read!

Right round. Like a record, baby
Right round round round

Return of the Hitmen

Initially, the trio specialised in a pop take on "hi-NRG", the electronic dance music that soundtracked early 80s gay clubs. Indeed, they were so closely associated with the gay scene that on their first meeting, Dead Or Alive frontman Pete Burns automatically assumed that Waterman was homosexual. Says Waterman: "I wore a red leather suit with a white stripe down the side, my hair was green and blue, and I had a great big golden ear stud. When Pete Burns came in, he thought Mike and Matt were my boys and I was the madam."

Despite the confusion, Dead Or Alive's spectacular You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) was Stock Aitken Waterman's first number one. The trio claim its success sparked their war with the press and the music industry. The press were horrified by their autocratic style of making records ("If you get too friendly with an artist," counsels Stock, "the next thing you know, they'll be asking to do their vocals again or change the lyrics or something") and their refusal to countenance anything other than low-budget pop aimed at an audience they proudly described in 1990 as "ordinary people with Woolworth ears". According to Waterman, the industry was "intimidated because we were independent, we had our own studios in south London, we started our own label [PWL] when no one would sign Kylie Minogue".

It's hard to tell how bothered the trio were by the constant criticism. They can quote 20-year-old reviews, deliver word-for-word accounts of conversations with record company bosses who dismissed Bananarama's 1986 hit Venus. Aitken points out that their 1989 version of Do They Know It's Christmas? has been quietly erased from Band Aid's history by Bob Geldof, Midge Ure et al: "The bastards." Waterman starts telling a story about Sonia's record label publicly disowning her first number one, You'll Never Stop Me Loving You (1989), and works himself into such a froth that he ends up comparing the chirpy scouse songbird to Jesus: "Please don't get me wrong, but it was like trying to deny you knew Christ when the cock crows."

And yet they positively ooze belligerent self-confidence. "We did a record with this band called Brilliant," remembers Waterman, "the reviews were phenomenal and it got to 58 in the charts. I remember saying to the guys, fuck that for critically-acclaimed music, you can't pay the fucking rent with that."

More at the link. And worth the read.

"The Long and Winding Road"

In every pub discussion, in every chat at a Brighton flea-market stall, in the radio, in the newspapers, on the television and under the awning waiting for the rain to stop; this was the story yesterday.

Tears and rain mingle as Belfast's beloved son makes his final journey

Sean O'Hagan joins a nation in mourning at a sombre, respectful and heartfelt tribute
Sunday December 4, 2005
The Observer

It rained. And then, it rained some more. Belfast rain, drizzly and relentless, falling down over the city and its countless steeples, and the hills beyond. And yet they came in their tens of thousands, lining the streets of Cregagh in east Belfast, the Knockbreda dual carriageway, the rainswept roads around Stormont Castle, and the long sweep that is Prince of Wales' Avenue from the ornate gates to the steps of the parliament building.

They came from Belfast, and Northern Ireland, and from over the border, and across the sea. And though they applauded as the cortege passed, and threw flowers, and turned several sites in the city into impromptu shrines, the event that many had thought would teeter into showbiz artifice, and a collective outpouring of grief, somehow not quite real, was, in fact, the opposite: sombre, respectful, heartfelt. Even in death, then, George Best surprised us.

I think the only parallel in American sport would be the funeral of baseball legend Babe Ruth:

At 8:01 P.M., on August 16, 1948, the Babe passed away. He was fifty-three years old. He lay in state in "the House That Ruth Built" for 2 days as more than 200,000 paid last respects. Grieving fathers held up their sons and daughters for one final look.

Three days later the funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral. There were tens of thousands in the streets outside and tens of thousands more lined the funeral cortege route. At the funeral, Ruth's old teammates were pallbearer. Claire Ruth, Babe's widow, lived on at their apartment at 100 Riverside Drive for another 28 years until her death.

In contrast, Joe DiMaggio's funeral had been quiet, but he is well loved at Lefty O'Doul's on Geary and -- in my opinion -- we should rename the local corporate poker chip that is our ballpark after him.

A bit more on George Best:

Eriksson sheds a tear for Best

England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson wept for George Best in Belfast.
As thousands stood in the pouring rain outside Parliament buildings during the football legend's funeral service, the England coach admitted afterwards the heavy emotion of it all had become a little too much.

He said: "I have never been to a funeral like that before. It was beautiful and George and his family got the respect he deserved. It was fantastic... Yes, I shed a few tears myself."

International Football Hall of Fame

Rumble in Brighton Tonight

Just thought I'd write up an open post to the Duke De Mondo (and perhaps Simon of No Rock&Roll Fun who won't like it one bit) that I have just purchased

Motion Sickness, Bright Eyes
Down in Albion, Babyshambles
Capture/Release, The Rakes

All found at Rounder Records, The Lanes, Brighton. Rounder listed Capture/Release as its personal pick for #2 album of the year. I wasn't too sold on Bright Eyes until I saw the song When the President Talks to God. Down in Albion has received good reviews from other quarters, so there you are: the Mondo Irelando podcasts have made a significant impact on my music purchases to date.

Speaking of Brighton, have met up with a fellow business traveler who was home for a visit from his new digs in Spain. His name is Harry, which is easily remembered because I keep stifling the desire to sing Ray Davies' Harry Rag in his honor.

We started talking about -- what else -- music and he proudly recounted how he had a police record for a long-ago weekend in Brighton back in the days of the Mods and Rockers.

Me: Oh hey! Like Quadrophenia.
Harry: It was brilliant!
Me: Okay. I have to guess if you were a Mod or a Rocker.
(Quick furtive look at hairline, clothing...no clues there.)
Me: A Rocker?
Harry: No! I was a Mod!
Me: Look, you just told me that one of your life goals was to drive a Ford Mustang through the streets of San Francisco. That's something a rocker would want to do. And you knew your classic American cars. That's all I had to go on.
Harry: Nah...not me. Madras jackets, winkle-pickers, the lot.

And so on. Last night, Harry told me about a great three piece blues band down at the Fountain. So we had to go check it out. When they launched into John Mayall's All Your Lovin, Harry and I exchanged looks that said "Not bad, huh?" At the break the musicians stopped by our table, which had grown to a party of six, and we somehow got into a comparative discussion of Gary Moore and Rory Gallagher. "Rory," said the lead guitarist of the trio, "Rory was the pure thing."

And who could disagree?

I left Harry and the others to enjoy the music til closing time. Tonight I'll be solo at the Festival Theatre, but that's the music news so far from Brighton.

The Lonesome Boatman

All at Sea

The basic facts are these: Irish Ferries, which runs ships between Britain and Ireland, wants rid of 543 of its workers. It wants to replace them with cheaper workers, mainly from eastern Europe, and for pretty obvious reasons, the existing workers, and those concerned with the import of cheap labour from overseas, do not think it is such a great idea. The security guards were smuggled on board the ships to make sure that the handover to the new, cheaper crew went smoothly.

This conflict is rather more than a little local difficulty. Questions have been asked in the Irish parliament and a national day of protest is planned. There are dire warnings from trade unions that the dispute could ruin almost 20 years of good industrial relations. There are growing fears that the dispute could have implications for the shipping industry across Europe, perhaps even for land-based industry too. And there is more at stake than 543 jobs: this may spell the end for that most traditional, and romantic, of British workers - the ordinary merchant seaman.

One of the officers holed up in the engine control room of the 34,000-tonne Isle of Inishmore is 46-year-old marine engineering officer John Curry. He went into the engine room to protect the ship from supposed attack; he has stayed in protest at what was actually going on. "This is not just about us and our jobs," says the father of four, speaking to the Guardian from the engine room on a mobile phone. "It's much wider than that. If this company is allowed to get rid of its workers in one fell swoop, then what's going to stop other countries across Europe doing the same?"

Typed up at the Cyber Cafe - Southsea near Portsmouth. Not to be confused with Southsea which is not near Portsmouth. Because the one is pronounced Sow'see with both syllables carrying the same weight and the other is SOWZzy with the first syllable in the lead. See? No confusion whatsoever between the two should exist. (But thank god the taxi driver checked.)

Visitors from these shores to California have my permission to pronounce tortilla as if it rhymed with Godzilla, and I shall smile politely and not make comment. Offer expires on January 1, 2006.

"My thoughts I confess, verge on dirty"

It took less than four hours from wheels hitting runway to find myself listening to Come on Eileen on a store music stream for what will not be the first time.

On Edit: Now listening to Bohemian Rhapsody. Apparently there's a musical at Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London, W1.

The time is the future, in a place that was once called Earth. Globalisation is complete!

Everywhere, the kids watch the same movies, wear the same fashions and think the same thoughts.

It's a safe, happy, Ga Ga world. Unless you're a rebel. Unless you want to Rock. On Planet Mall all musical instruments are banned. The Company Computers generate the tunes and everybody downloads them. It is an age of Boy Bands and of Girl Bands. Of Boy and Girl Bands. Of Girl Bands with a couple of boys in them that look like girls anyway. Nothing is left to chance, hits are scheduled years in advance.

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

Goodness! How distopian.

Still, my Friday nite plans aren't firm, so this one is on the list. If only so it can be bumped by something else.

22 Grand Job in the City

Heathrow gets passing marks today, I'm amazed to say. Still remodelling those long labyrinthine hallways of theirs, but the lines were short and the baggage appeared unmolested by its travels. A young rock band was checking in behind me. Two guitar cases, a drum kit and a keyboard. They aren't too famous, because no screaming groupies greeted us at arrivals. They also aren't EU citizens because I spent time with them in the Passport line. Just a young group travelling and getting a few gigs on the way.

But Virgin is looking a little shopworn these days. Not as free with the online refreshments as before. And I miss the "Think Pink" radio stream with Jackie Clune.

The town is now a 'university' town, and there's the new movie theatre/bowling alley shopping complex to explore. Went into an MVC and Johnny and June were singing about Going to Jackson, which I'll accept as a good omen. Still: no copy of The Rakes. My taxi driver was a Hawkwind fan and his kids can't stand his taste in music. We had a great talk about everything including politics, media, the sorry state of the world and -- naturally -- music.

Off to check the work emails now.