"But This Goes to 11..." Meme

I don't mind memes too much. Our own take on a defined set of questions. Variations on a theme, something I've always found fascinating in movies.

So thanks to Kath Lockett over at Goofing Off in Geneva for throwing this my way. She put me onto it ages ago and it's been languishing in my drafts folder forever.

1. When and why did you start blogging?
I'd been enjoying reading many brilliant blogs for about two years from say, 2005 to 2007 until finally it occurred to me to give it a go myself. I was apprehensive about whether I could add anything to the blogosphere but liked the idea of having a creative outlet and an audience for it, however small.

2. What is your middle name and why did your parents select it?
Joseph. Apart from being a good old-fashioned Mick name, I think it must have just flowed with my first given and family names. And thanks to mum and dad for making it happen that way. Flow is important where names are concerned. When we were choosing names for Moe; Larry; and Curly there needed to be no alliteration, and nothing that would sound funny when put together, like Evel Knievel or Loudy Tourky.

3. Toilet paper folder or scruncher? Provide your reasons
Probably a combination of the two depending on my disposition and the type.

You're sorry you asked, I know. But if you're reading this on the toilet, I hope you're in the Type 3 to Type 5 range.

4. What do you do at home when everyone else is out?
Play MY music. At MY volume.

5. You've been given five hundred bucks (two hundred and fifty quid, say) to spend on nothing useful and just your self. What do you do with the cash?
Amazon, folks. Five hundred bucks would clear my wish list out very nicely. I've listed mostly albums I've always wanted to own but never got around to buying and DVDs of my favourite rock artists.

In particular, The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, which is a 3-DVD expanded edition of the film Monterey Pop (1968) and includes the original Monterey Pop release and another disc containing the complete Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix performances plus a further disc featuring artists and performances that didn't make it into the original film. I already own it but I loaned it out to someone a couple of years ago and can't remember who.

There is also a DVD set of The Caesars, a 1968 BBC series that closely follows Robert Graves' I, Claudius, that I've had my eye on.

6. It's finally come true. One of the "five celebrities you're allowed to sleep with" has walked into your kitchen and is up for it. Who is it?

This assumes we're in a parallel universe where I'm both single and unencumbered, right? Okay, it's probably way too obvious but the one making goo-goo eyes at me from the kitchen doorway while I'm busy unloading the dishwasher is Jennifer Love Hewitt.

7. Name one famous person (so that all our readers know who it is) that you think 'has their shit together'. Explain why.
This is difficult, but only because I think there are many worthy candidates. Just at random, I'm going to nominate film director Martin Scorsese. There's his ultra-impressive and profoundly influential feature filmography going back to Taxi Driver (1976) through to Shutter Island (2010) but it's easy to forget that he's also helmed exhaustive, beautifully rendered documentaries such as A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies  (1995); The Blues (2003); and Living In The Material World (2011). Two brilliant careers in one.

8. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?
There's a clock-radio next to the bed that ushers in the new day for me. I'm alternately grateful and resentful for the invention of the snooze button.

9. Who would you like to smack in the face, publicly disprove all of their stupid opinions and freeze their bank accounts?
I'll eschew the personal violence and attempt at impoverishment. But there are just far too many extreme right-wing lickspittle commentators infesting the Main Stream Media in Australia, particularly News Ltd and commercial talk radio. And I would so like to see them all come a complete cropper that to pick one at random seems almost unfair. However, Brendan O'Neill will do very nicely for the moment.

Certainly, this self-styled "contrarian" (and it's a very selective form of "contrarianism") is a dream come true for neo-conservatives, and it's simply a serendipitously delightful coincidence that all of his opinions, every single one of them, on every issue, no matter what it is, err on the side of advancing News Ltd's interests and prevailing worldview.

And err he certainly does: the first time I saw him on ABC-TV's QandA he likened the Leveson Inquiry's investigation into phone hacking by the News of the World and other News Ltd outlets to the Nazis' persecution of Jews. That should have been the end of the ratbag's sojourn in Australian public life, dismissed as little more than the political equivalent of a front-row soccer hooligan. But he got off lightly by comparison with others who try to use the Holocaust as an analogy.

Which brings us to Brendan O’Neill’s bizarre claim on QandA that criticisms of Murdoch were somehow equivalent to a Jewish hate campaign. O’Neill’s strident defence of extremist commentary on the Right ignores the obvious historical fact that Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany was supported by some right-wing media owners.

Unfortunately, this clip concentrates on Stephen Mayne's rundown of News Ltd excesses and concludes before the audience's opprobrium at O'Neill's particularly stupid analogy becomes apparent. But no-one should have been surprised.

O'Neill and his ilk see themselves as brave bulwarks against the evils of political correctness, valiantly tilting at the windmills of the insidious left with only the collective resources of a rapacious, spiteful and vindictive multi-national media organization to back them up.

Jim Parker regularly analyses the Disneyland of spurious justifications so-called libertarians construct, among other things.

10. Low slung jeans on boys - how do we eradicate this disease?
I must have mellowed quite a bit. The latest clothing, hairstyles, slang expressions, you name it, they're all like water off a duck's back to me these days. Because as a fashion statement, they're transient, like all fads.

My worry is what happens when tattoos go out of fashion. Still, it's not like they're permanent or anything...

11. Tell us about an invention for the home that we desperately need.
I've given this some thought. A Fuck-Up Warning Light and Siren™, suitable for indoor and outdoor use, would be very handy at my place.

There is already a half-baked version of this operating inside my head. You see, having committed numerous atrocities against home maintenance over the years, I have developed a useful sense of self-awareness. The warning usually kicks in when I reach a point in a task like, say, drilling two holes in sheet metal a precise distance apart, with little margin for error.

I’ll realize the potential for fuck-uppery as it approaches, and go away and have a cup of tea while I contemplate how I might sidestep the looming cock-up.

More often than not, this approach means I narrowly escape making a balls of whatever enterprise I’m engaged in. So when fuck-ups do occur, I can rationalize them as being statistically insignificant and therefore both unforeseeable and unavoidable. And live harmoniously with their consequences.

The major issue with all of this is when I just sail right on, not realizing until too late that I’ve entered the Republic of Fuckupia’s territorial waters. Hence the need for the flashing light and wailing siren.

Hope that's okay. Thanks for the heads up Kath!

Things I Just Never Took To I: Horse Racing

Over at The Scrivener's Fancy a while ago, Tony Martin wrote a piece covering ‘Things That Everyone Else Is Into, But Which I Have No Interest In’. Have a read of it, sure. Just don't go on and on about how much funnier his article was than this one, alright?

This series is not one of those Grumpy Old Men-style rants about all of the things that piss me off. Fucking hell, you'd be here all night! No, this is more a list of things I just never took to. Things I feel a barely-disguised, hostile neutrality towards. Like Sweden's approach to Germany during WWII. Like every first date looked at me. I think we've gone about as far as we can go with the metaphors.
Horse Racing:
It used to annoy the absolute bejesus out of my 13-year old self that I had to endure every race form the Saturday Melbourne race meetings while I was waiting for the World of Sport Football Panel to come onto our black and white TV. Racing was a blocker. I'd made a half-arsed attempt to convince myself that I could get into it when the 50c mum put on Rain Lover for the 1969 Melbourne Cup paid $1.65 for a place.

But later that year, joining schoolmates from St Brendan's PS helping out at local stables in Flemington made me aware that horses put out a lot of shit. And the universal method of cleaning out their stalls was to do it with your bare hands and not complain. I wondered if a lot of horsy girls didn't have that piss-their-pants fixation with horses drop away completely at about the same point in the journey.

And it's not like there was any tyranny of distance, either. I grew up close to Moonee Valley, played football and cricket for the clubs that also bear that name, and include among my contemporaries many with a keen appreciation and significant weekly investments in the Sport of Kings. And for the last 22 years, Flemington Racecourse has been at the end of my street, for fuck's sake. Spring Racing Carnival? I'm almost oblivious to it. Hell, a lot of people who go are oblivious to it.But do I actively dislike it? Well, no. But I do have one issue. It bothers me not a jot that rich, famous people have it so much better than everyone else. There's an extent to which I even think that's as it should be. Just in case I'm ever rich and famous. But I don't like the way the Spring Racing Carnival, and its press coverage, is so insistent about rubbing our noses in it. That's all.

5 - Questions Interview Meme

I don't disparage memes. They sometimes take you into areas that your posts might not. This one is from the delightful Vancouver BC blogger Meghan, over at Blog Voyeur. I'd say here's lookin' at you kid but I get the impression she's the sort of standout person everyone would be looking at anyway.
1.) A lot of your blog posts have large gaps of time in between them throughout the year. Do you have any particular reason for that or just times when you're not feeling very 'bloggy'?

Not feeling very bloggy is priobably the best way to describe it, now that you mention it. Nothing noble about it. I'm not prevented from blogging because I'm busy manning a volunteer refugee support line or collecting for Greenpeace or any of the other things I should be doing. No, it's mostly explained in the profile: "Just a lazy Melbourne bloke..."

Although, I can be a bit pedantic about posts, and so tend to keep it to just a few, because they take a bit of time for me. You see, I proofread over and over and keep changing a word here and there until I think it's just right. Not that you'd know it from the quality of posts here.

2.) Are you closer to the goal you set of having your band reunite for your 50's birthday?

Shouldn't be too much drama about getting the guys back together again. The other guitar player works in my building, I'm in regular contact with the bass player and even though I haven't seen the drummer in ages I know he loves a gig and would jump at it. As would we all. I'll start moving on it in about April for the November party and work on a song list.

One thing I've learned from doing this ensemble at work is that you can't just pick up your instrument and do it. Plenty of practice and rehearsals needed. I'd like to do around 15 songs to make it really worthwhile. We did 12 at my fortieth.

3.) Since you're a man with amazing taste in music (and a self-proclaimed rock snob!), what music would your perfect road trip cd include?

Oooohh, I love this question. It's a little like Desert Island Discs. The two albums I reckon I could listen to over and over again would fit on one CD so here they are:

Who's Next (1972) by The Who - Just a simply amazing album and an LP I've known intimately since one of my older sisters bought it when I was about twelve. Pete Townsend had originally conceived it as another rock opera a la Tommy but when that project proved unworkable the Who were left with just ten great songs.

Let It Bleed (1969) by The Rolling Stones - this arrived when I was about fourteen and it was my other older sister's boyfriend who gave it to us to mind, along with a whole lot of other great albums while he went overseas. The intro to Gimme Shelter had me hooked right from the word go and I've been a Rolling Stones fan ever since.

Any road trip would be enhanced by the presence of these two classic albums.

4.) At the risk of flogging a dead horse, did your crush on Siobhan die or are you just better at handling it now?

Just a mild crush, that one. I suppose three blog posts was overstating the case somewhat but I wanted to articulate strange new feelings and behaviours.

Not much change in the situation. She's just as charming as ever. We're getting along okay and the ensemble is giving us plenty to do and talk about. It seems like quite a healthy friendship.

5.) Any New Years resolutions you've made and would like to share?

Yeah, I'll be visting a hypnotherapist in the New Year to have a go at giving up smoking. Just cigarettes. I'll still be having regular spliffs, but I'll be cutting back on that too. Reserved for when I'm in good company, or lack inspiration.

I just hope I don't come out of the hypnotherapy believing I'm the reincarnation of the Emperor Tiberius or anything.

Thanks again, Meghan!

Five Weird or Random Things About Me Meme

I’ve been tagged for this meme by the delightful Blakkat, whose gem of a response can be read here.

1. When I was 16, I somehow managed to get a school holiday job working for a toy company. The job involved making personal appearances at K-Mart stores in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. As Spiderman. These stores were selling a new range of Spiderman toys to coincide with an upsurge in interest in the web-slinger.

I’d like to think I brought a certain dark, brooding, teenage angst-ridden presence to the role. I’d like to think that, but the facts don’t quite accord with that alternate reality. For starters, I was painfully self-conscious: not a terribly helpful trait for one embarking on acting. And the costume was made of some kind of pre-lycra type stretch fabric that itched like buggery and threw my puny physique into fairly sharp relief, adding to my discomfort. 13 Ribs! Count ‘Em, 13!

What a trouper I was. Anyway, three times a day the company car would pull up at a K-Mart entrance and I would sit and wait while my boss got the shop PA system working and could announce my presence and the location of my show.

“Ladies and gentlemen, give Peter Parker, Spiderman in person, a big welcome as he makes his way to Aisle 5. You can have a Polaroid photo taken with your friendly neighbourhood Marvel superhero and he will also be demonstrating the new range of brilliant Spiderman toys and merchandise.”

I lapped up the applause and cringed at the odd giggle and guffaw that greeted my awkward entrance. I did it because it paid a princely (at 1976 value) $20 a day and I was keen to use the money to buy ugh boots and a lumberjacket.

The worst day was a one-off at Myer in the city, where for some reason that now escapes me my boss couldn’t drop me right out the front so I had to walk half a city block in costume. To make it fun, I walked in character too. But even a superhero has to obey traffic signals and I had to stand and wait at the crossings with all of the lunchtime shoppers, some of whom thought I was some kind of pervert, and said so.

But I still have my pride. If one of my mates mentions that I was once Spiderman I strike a pose, hopefully a relevant one, and tell them, “That’s The AMAZING Spiderman, thank you.”

2. I was on Sale of the Century in 1990. I went in to Channel 9 in Richmond as a standby contestant and squeezed in to the Friday episode where I finished ahead of a very popular, attractive, long-running female champ. So I imagine for that weekend, in many households I was that-bastard-who beat-that-lovely-what-was-her-name-again-oh-and-she’d-just-had-a-baby.
Anyway, I managed to convince myself that I couldn’t give a fuck whether I was popular or not. And the plan was to buy at any cost so I could at least maybe come away with something half way decent. I bought everything, but then kept winning anyway. One more show and I’d have the prize showcase. Two more shows and I could add the $234,000 cash jackpot. The show for the prizes was the last of the day, the one to be screened on a Friday night.

After being 30 down, going into the last sweaty commercial break, scores were tied at the end of the final round. Oh, and thanks to the Dixons, our next door neighbours growing up, who gave the nine year old Lad a book about pirates for Christmas. I managed to nail the final answer, Captain Kidd, right on the buzzer. So there was a tie-breaker question. After Tony Barber read just the one clue, the other contestant buzzed in and got it wrong.

So one more episode for $234,000. During the ten seconds of background muzak, all I could hear was, “You’ gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…..”

I took the prizes and ran for the hills!

3. The Monday after my son Larry’s team won last season’s U12 footy premiership was Mad Monday. Not for the boys. Don’t be stupid. They had school. For the dads. The boys had a brilliant season, going through undefeated, although they only won the last home and away game by one point and were behind at half time in one match and behind at quarter-time in the 2nd Semi-Final. Every other game was a massacre.

In the Grand Final, Larry was selected at full-back for the first time that season and kept the competition’s leading goal-kicker to just the one touch, and that from a dubious free kick. So Mad Monday was a fitting way to celebrate a sensational season.

We kicked off triumphantly at 11am at Ascot Vale’s Prince of Wales Hotel and then walked up Mt Alexander Rd (Mt Rd in our local dialect) to the now-defunct Chung On Chinese restaurant for a long lunch. There was only heavy beer at the restaurant for some reason so ol’ Lad Litter shrugged and joined in the serious drinking with predictable results. Stinko. But leavened somewhat by the three or four joints I’d brought along.

Back at the pub, wives and even whole families started arriving at about 10pm and quite a few tired and emotional dads were embraced and then bundled into waiting family vehicles. “Are you coming back a bit later?” I called to one staggering escapee whose charming wife giggled and shook her head resignedly.

Resisting exhortations to kick on elsewhere, the walk home was like live action pinball as I staggered and bounced off trees, fences and then eventually the interior of our house. I might have binged, but I’d binged responsibly, I maintain.

4. I have never had sex. I’ll just let that sink in first before I qualify it. In a dream I mean, silly. I don’t think there’ve been all that many erotic dreams for me, but I always seem to wake up just before actually consummating. Does it mean that my life is destined to always fall short of true fulfillment? Am I unable to meaningfully follow through on commitments? Or does it mean that someday I am destined to lead the Jews out of Egypt? I don’t know.

However, in a similar way, I always regain consciousness during particularly frightening nightmares when I am just about to be killed.

5. Barracking for Essendon means I have reason to be antipathetic towards Carlton. And just so you don’t think I’m understating the case here, I don’t hate them. Not at all. I despise them. So many of their supporters are loud-mouthed, boastful, bragging, solipsistic, gloating, skiting baboons who insist on deliberately arguing from an extremely illogical position What lovable larrikins they are. Larrikin is actually Australian for fuckwit, but there are enormous sections of the media industry devoted to convincing Australians that it isn't.

So you can imagine what sort of revelation it was when some family history research turned up that my great-great uncle had been Carlton’s captain back in the 1870s and was even club President from 1914-1921. And that a grandstand at Carlton’s home ground Princes Park is named after him. And that his two sons had also played quite a bit of footy at Carlton, one even going so far as to play 150 games, kick 330 goals, lead their goal-kicking in several seasons and feature in two Carlton Premierships.

Our second son Larry, just by coincidence, shares Mr President’s name and probably also coincidentally, some measure of football prowess.

Of course none of this makes me go around with a paper bag over my head. I am, actually, a little bit proud of my antecedents having been such high-achievers. And the many ex-Carlton players I have spoken to and corresponded with during further research have all been wonderful, charming, generous people. And it is a club with a rich, grand history. Quelle contradiction? Hypocrisy anyone? I beg to differ.

It’s the narrative I’m into and I rationalize it thus: you don’t have to agree with the policies of Nazi Germany in order to be fascinated by its history.

Carlton supporters I know have derided me for the forsaking of my family tradition. But I believe my relatives’ stewardship of Carlton was a lost Golden Age, before they let all the spivs take over.

So there it is and I’m tagging Ann O’Dyne; Lord Sedgewick; Jahteh; Edward Yates; and Geoff Dening. If they haven't been tagged already, that is. Should be some good reading with that lot.

Desktop Image Meme

Go over to Honey Smack to view the image she has on her PC desktop. It's a lovely shot of her and her daughter.

My desktop image is below. It's an image of the covers of all of the Rolling Stones albums released between 1964 and 1981. I've had this as my desktop image since about 1999.When a colleague saw it she said "Wow!"

"Hmm, another Stones fan," I thought immediately. "Yeah, I downloaded the album covers from Amazon, pasted them into MS-Paint and then re-pasted the lot into MS-Photo Editor to convert to a jpeg and there it is," beaming proudly.

"Now there's a bloke with a lot of time on his hands".

But thank heavens for memes. I've got about five major posts in various stages of development waiting to be finalized. Waiting for me to get off my bum and finish them, I mean. So I don't mind memes. They provide a quick and painless no-post remedy. Besides, I like variations on a theme and other bloggers viewpoints on the same topic always make interesting reading.

8 Things Meme

This is a long response to the meme. But it made me think. And post. Thanks to Eleanor Bloom, who tagged me.

Eight Things I'm Passionate About:

1) TLOML:
I think about her often. How to chat her up, make her laugh, win her, make her love me. We’ve been married for 18 years. It’s fun. I think it might even be fun for her too.
2) Moe; Larry; & Curly:
My three sons, but I'm not exactly Fred McMurray. They'd cack themselves if they knew they were my sporting heroes.
3) Cricket:
This is a good thing that was formerly a bad thing. It’s now okay for me to be involved up to my eyeballs with the local cricket club because we have three young players in the household.
4) Music:
I’m a reformed rock snob. These days, I even appreciate good pop music outside the narrow confines of my taste. So there’s a lot more tolerance about. But not for you, Johnny Farnham. Get the fuck off my radio with your overproduced cabaret mock-rock for complete morons. Maybe not totally reformed.
5) Movies:
I used to be able to watch anything just for the experience. Now it has to be good.
6) Mates:
Lucky to have them. Enjoy spending easy, relaxed time with them.
7) Dope:
Enjoy this too. Still of the view that things go better with...
8) Football:
Essendon: how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. We shall rise again and wreak a terrible vengeance on all those who have scorned us over the past few years. Which means just about everyone.

Eight Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1) Play In Another Cricket Premiership:
I was 18, batted last, didn’t bowl and fielded behind the tree when I played in my only flag. The only other Grand Final appearance came seven years later but we lost. We might even do it this year with a late charge at the finals.
2) See The Bombers Win Another Flag:
I’ve seen four of them but want more. Nothing quite like seeing your own mob win one instead of watching a whole heap of nobodies bask in glory.
3) Write A Film Script:
I have an idea that I think is a pretty good one. So does everyone I’ve pitched it to. Just at the outline stage so far. An Australian science-fiction film. Not too many of those about. Should be able to paper at least one wall of the study with rejection letters.
4) Get My Band Back Together:

I’d like to play at my 50th, just two years away. Get the ol’ 60s covers thing happening again. I reckon the blokes would be in it. Might be a bit harder to convince them we’ll need to rehearse! And more than just 12 songs like at my 40th.

5) The Other Four Things:

Can wait until after I die.

Eight Things I Say Often:
1) Alright:
The complete all-purpose word. It’s alright.
2) Dichotomy:
Describes a split without apportioning blame. Handy when you’re trying not to inflame a situation.
3) Running around like a headless chook:
Aptly describes confusion or incompetence and usually gets a laugh so you’re not immediately into a confrontation.
4) Carrying on like a two-bob watch:
Similar to above.
5) You beauty:
Use of this has passed in and out of ironic so many times I forget which is which.
6) Can you NOT do that?
When hints fail.
7) Sorry about that, Chief:
A useful catch-phrase from the Get Smart TV show that doesn’t mean much to post baby boomers.
8) I’ve got the hots for you, big time:
Only to TLOML.

Eight Books I've Read Recently:

1) Caesar’s Legacy: Josiah Osgood

Describes from primary sources the fifteen years of terror that followed Julius Caesar’s assassination in 43BC while Octavian and Antony struggled to seize total power.
2) The First of the Few: Denis Winter
This book about WWI fighter pilots is absolutely brilliant, and I’m not given to superlatives. Accurately describes the open cockpit conditions they experienced, making use of letters, diaries and manuals.
3) Stone Alone: Bill Wyman
He only got invited to join the Rolling Stones because he owned two good amps. His point of view on the band is unique and incisive. Especially about the Jagger-Richard monopoly on song-writing credits.
4) History of Australian Cricket: Jack Pollard
Okay, he got Essex left-armer John Lever mixed up with Lancashire’s right-arm fast bowler Peter Lever but it’s still a good read. All four volumes.
5) Miller’s Luck: Roland Perry
Comprehensive, well-written biography of Keith Miller. A great cricketer who is revealed as not quite the great bloke his eulogists would have had us believe.
6) Slaughterhouse Five: Kurt Vonnegut
A funny book that really resonated with so many. Vonnegut was still turning away pilgrims to his genius even just before his death earlier this year.
7) Players: Tony Wilson
Opens a window into the footy media industry. You’ll have no trouble spotting who’s who. And plenty of laughs.
8) Porno: Irvine Welsh
A sequel of sorts to Trainspotting. I just love the shifting first-person narrative and the way Welsh speaks the Leith idiom making no allowances for the uninitiated. You have to work out what a schemie is for yourselves. Go on. Work it out. Brave and bold writing.

Eight Songs I Could Listen To Over And Over:

1) Jumpin’ Jack Flash: Rolling Stones
Still sends a chill up my spine, so good is this song. Everything the Rolling Stones stood for: blues-based, open-tuned guitars, muddy sound. Many have covered it but never captured it.
2) Midnight Man: The James Gang
Brilliant electric country-rock. What else would you expect from Joe Walsh? Original recording features session singer Mary Sterpka sounding a lot like Linda Ronstadt.
3) For Your Love: The Yardbirds
Graham Gouldman, later of 10cc, wrote this 1965 hit for the London blues tyros. A great song. Eric Clapton left the band right after because it wasn’t bluesy enough.
4) Eight Miles High: The Byrds
Ushered in the psychedelic era and was then banned due to it’s drug-influenced lyrics. It was about a fucking aeroplane flight to England, you Christian fundamentalist fuckwits.
5) While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Beatles
Harrison wrote and sang, Clapton played the solo and fill-ins. Atmospheric and poignant. Can you believe it was the B-side to O-Bla-Di O-Bla-Da?
6) Hey Joe: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Their first single and a Joe South cover that took the original and made it something else. He would later do a similar job on Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower.
7) Tequila Sunrise: The Eagles
I don’t care how contrived it might have been, Glenn Frey really knew how to croon a sad she-done-me-wrong song. Despite being a misogynistic arsehole in real life. This one’s just beautiful.
8) High Flyin’ Bird: Jefferson Airplane
This performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival showcased an emerging band with three tremendous singers: Marty Balin; Grace Slick; and Paul Kantner.

Eight Albums That Trigger Memories:

1) After The Goldrush: Neil Young

I found this wide-ranging album with its mournful country-folk-rock ballads and stinging rockers uplifting during a summer of adolescent angst. The songs seemed so much more than just contrivances to make teenaged girls feel depressed, as I suspected The Eagles of doing.
2) Hotel California: The Eagles
Well, it was omnipresent, wasn’t it? The soundtrack to the summer of 1976-77. The whole album was just so chocka with great songs, you couldn’t not appreciate their artistry, even through any reservations you might have had about them. The first single to get airplay in Australia was New Kid In Town. What a song. Supposedly their reaction to a Bruce Springsteen gig.
3) John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan
First Bob Dylan album I ever heard, and only because my sister’s boyfriend left his record collection at our place. I was fourteen and I felt great about “getting” Bob Dylan. I had no idea it was a controversial Dylan album due to its country flavour. I just thought it was good.
4) Let It Bleed: Rolling Stones
Another boyfriend legacy, This was the first Rolling Stones LP I’d listened to and it completely knocked me out. Right from the first notes of Jagger’s harmonica on Midnight Rambler. This album sounded cool. I thought I was cool for liking it. Around when I started to become a rock snob.
5) Every Picture Tells A Story: Rod Stewart
One of five albums purchased for just $5.95 the lot when my other sister joined the World Record Club in 1973. This was his third solo album and it’s great. Terrific production with loads of moving instrumentation, including violin and mandolin. He was only any good before 1976’s Atlantic Crossing saw him more successful, but less interesting.
6) Flight Log: Jefferson Airplane
I was eighteen when I first heard this compilation and they just knocked me out. A patchy band whose best was sensational.
7) Front Page News: Wishbone Ash
English guitar-oriented rock. My out-of-touch purist mind regarded their stuff as rock reaching its zenith in the late 70s. Everyone else my age was listening to punk, which I thought was rock’s nadir.
8) Mud Slide Slim and The Blue Horizon: James Taylor
Now described as easy-listening, Taylor was your lonesome troubadour and this album was his high point. First time I realised I liked country-influenced music.

Eight Movies I've Watched Close to Eight Times:

1) Out of the Past: (1947)
Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas tussle over the ultimate femme noir, Jane Greer: “I didn't, Jeff. Don't you believe me?” “Baby, I don’t care.”
2) The Wizard of Oz: (1939)
How many people love this film unashamedly? The reason why so many people were so sad about the way poor Judy Garland’s life turned out.
3) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: (1962)
One of the greatest of all tributes to the genre, but not too self-consciously so. James Stewart is the hero, Lee Marvin the villain. John Wayne starts in the middle.
4) Murder My Sweet: (1944)
Best Raymond Chandler adaptation. Features terrific hallucinogenic dream sequence.
5) Shane: (1953)
The quintessential western. If I had to show someone what westerns were all about, I’d be starting with this. Pretty violent for a movie that looks like family viewing the rest of the time. Remade as Pale Rider (1983) with Clint Eastwood.
6) Citizen Kane: (1941)
Surely it can’t be THAT good? But it is.
7) Blade Runner: (1982)
At last, science-fiction met film noir! My two favourite genres in one! But I don’t like the Director’s Cut. Why the fuck would you take a voice-over out of a film noir? Also made filmmakers run to Philip K Dick novels and short stories for material. Shame he was to die soon after its release.
8) Psycho: (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense became the master of shock with this one. Transformed the horror genre by making people scarier than monsters.

Eight Bloggers Who Should Do This Meme:
If you’ve read this far, take it on.

Earliest Memory Meme

Mad McColl (go and visit his blog. He writes a great political argument) has tagged me for a meme which goes as follows:

1. Describe your earliest memory where the memory is clear, and where "clear" means you can depict at least three details;
2. Give an estimate of your age at the time;
3. Tag five other bloggers with this meme;

Okay, here goes: My younger brother was born just three days short of my third birthday. I can remember clearly when he was brought home from hospital. He was asleep and all wrapped up. He was being held by our mum and she leaned down so I could get a good look at him.

This was in the hallway of our house in Ascot Vale. Dad was standing behind mum watching. I can dimly remember my older brother and two older sisters, who were 13; 12; and 10 being there. My Gran, who lived with us, was there too because she would have been looking after us while mum was in hospital.

I wasn’t the baby of the family anymore. Well, we’d see about that.

And I’m tagging Blonde Canadian to find out how she felt; Eleanor Bloom because of her wit; Ann O’Dyne because she’s had experiences to fill a three volume autobiography; Boo to hear how she managed the situation; Legal Soapbox because she writes so warmly; and Phish to find out what sort of kid she was.

Hang on, that was six.

Go girls!

Animalia

The thoughtful, kind and generous Legal Eagle has tagged me for an animal meme which is currently doing the rounds of the blogosphere:

An interesting animal I had:
We acquired an axolotl (aka Mexican Walking Fish) and a tank some years ago. An axolotl is an amphibian closely related to salamanders and newts. They are native to Mexico and can reach adulthood without changing from their larval state, after which they lose the feathery gills located at the back of their head.

As pets, they stay in this larval stage, never leaving the water. But I was curious. I read that if a land base is built up in their tank and iodine is added to the water as the weather gets warmer, they’ll metamorphose. This intrigued me. Lad Litter saw far too many schlocky mad scientist movies as a kid. But over at Party Pooper Central, TLOML was horrified and forbade me from playing God in our house. The shed was the place for that. I was known as Dr Frankenstein for a while afterwards.

An interesting animal I ate:
We’d walked along Sunset Boulevard in the early evening, once more stamping ourselves as tourists, and not-terribly-bright ones. No-one walks Sunset.

Feeling hungry, we entered a restaurant and perused the menu. Escargots anis jumped out at me. I’d never eaten snails and was keen to try. The waiter took my order and came back a short time later.
“The chef just wants to make sure you know what you’re ordering.”
“Of course.”
“And that it is flavoured very strongly with aniseed.”
“Yes, I understand.”

I believe I still don’t know what snails taste like. To me, I was eating those licorice blocks that were the staple fare of primary school tuck shops in the 60s.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal:
We entered the Killer Whale show at the Stanley Park Aquarium in Vancouver later than the rest of the audience. It was crowded but there was a bank of unoccupied seats right up the front so we sat down and spread out. Ha! We’d sure beaten out all of those schmucks who were jammed into their seats like sardines. The young woman at the microphone said something we didn’t quite catch and the whole crowd looked at us and laughed good naturedly. Probably something about latecomers but, hey, we had great seats for the show.

The show’s finale was for the whales to demonstrate their capacity to leap from the water, leaving a large hole, then gracefully slam down in the centre just as the water rushed in to fill the hole, making a huge splash. Something about concussing their prey or maybe just for sport. The audience chuckled and looked in our direction as the announcer described what was about to happen. Another in-joke, but we were no longer latecomers so what was that all about? Oh well, the orcas swam around the tank getting faster and faster until they all reared up out of the water simultaneously, one of them right in front of us.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as the orca hung suspended some three metres in the air close to the edge of the tank and our front row seats. It dove into the gaping chasm left in the water by its exit (“We’re going to get soaked,” I thought) as it sent a huge tower of water straight up into the air (“Hang on, I think we’re going to be okay,” I revised) as the waterspout seemed set to collapse in on itself.

But a split-second later it exploded outwards instead. The mother of all splashes did indeed soak us. The auditorium was drenched in full-blown belly laughter. We joined in, the last ones to get the joke. The girl with the microphone came over to commiserate with us. I think we might have been simply the latest in a long line.

An interesting animal at the museum:
There are two main types of whales: toothed whales - which includes dolphins; orcas; sperm whales; porpoises and others; and baleen whales – right whales; blue whales; humpback whales and others.

Toothed whales hunt their prey, mostly fish, while baleen whales gather it. A baleen whale will hold huge amounts of water containing plankton in its mouth, and then strain the water out through baleen, which takes the place of teeth in whales belonging to this type. The plankton that’s left is then swallowed.

At the Melbourne Museum there was baleen in a hands-on display. It felt like giant fingernails.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat:
I'm terrified of sharks. I swim nervously in the sea, and don't dive. But a dive into Port Phillip Bay sounded a pretty good thing to do during a Queenscliff holiday.

Through the kelp beds at the edge of Pope’s Eye we circled. An unanticipated variety of fish ignored us. Around Chinaman’s Hat, the old navigation marker where male seals unsuccessful at mating congregated, we swam. Even from our watery vantage point, it was uncomfortably reminiscent of some share houses I'd lived in. Even the smells.

Then, the dolphins, mother and child. They swam alongside us as we were towed on a long rope out the back of the boat, making eye-contact and smiling anthropomorphically.

I repeated the experience when my mate from SW Yorkshire came over. He raved about it.

One year later, press reports appeared of a Great White Shark in Port Phillip Bay. I confronted TLOML’s brother-in-law, a keen fisherman.
“Hang on, Great Whites come into Port Phillip Bay?!”
“Yes, not that often, but not all that rarely either.”
“I thought they never came into the Bay. NEVER. Even if the last reported sighting had been in 1868, I WOULD NOT have done those two diving with the dolphins things.”

I still get the occasional shudder, but I’ve done it, so I don’t have to do it again.

Rage Programming Meme

With thanks to Go Away Please, who has tagged me for the Rage Programming Meme.

A bit of wish fulfillment involved in this because I quite often turn Rage off after a few clips when so many of them consist entirely of total visual gibberish. And music that doesn’t grab me either. Don’t start me on those old Countdown episodes…I might have a go at entering my faves via this link , where you can have a go yourself.

This list is about music I like, and me getting to see that music performed by those artists. There might be many clips that are better visually, but this is what I’d like to see if I happened to flick over to Rage, and would stop me from pissing off elsewhere, which I usually do. Song title links are to You Tube.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Rolling Stones
This clip is sort of live (probably miming to an earlier live recording) and shows them as they were in 1968. In black & white, it features the open-tuned guitar arrangements that Keith & Brian specialized in and is more faithful to the original studio recording than many subsequent live renderings of this classic track.

Mr Tambourine Man
Byrds
From the Ed Sullivan Show, so it’s bright, colourful, clear and you get a good look at all of them, not just the lead singer, as so much TV pop would later be guilty of. Kind of live, but only Roger McGuinn's guitar and voice. Not available on You Tube.

You’re Gonna Lose That Girl
Beatles
From the movie Help! Couldn’t leave the Fab Four off the list, and this is one of their best ever album tracks. Could so easily have been a hit single. The lads mimed to the studio recording.

High Flying Bird
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane were not well-known beyond the San Fancisco Bay area before they performed at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. This little-known song is a cracker, with all of their signature soaring vocals. From the film Monterey Pop.

For Your Love
Yardbirds
A band who featured Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page but were great in their own right, not just as a starting point for guitar players who would achieve greater fame afterwards. From the American TV show Shindig.

My Generation
Who
The Who’s film The Kids Are Alright opens with this clip of them playing live on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and it’s everything you ever hoped the Who would be, complete with a chaotic, smash ‘em up ending.

Light My Fire
Doors
Another Ed Sullivan Show live clip and interesting in comparison with the Oliver Stone film The Doors, where Val Kilmer leans close and leers at the camera as he sings the forbidden “higher”. See how Jim Morrison did no such thing. Not available on You Tube.

Crossroads
Cream
Live at the Albert Hall for their 1968 farewell concert, Eric, Jack & Ginger show why they are still regarded as the ultimate power trio in rock. Not available on You Tube.

Subterranean Homesick Blues
Bob Dylan
Just a great clip, part of Dylan’s controversial post-folk period doco Don’t Look Back. Filmmaker DA Pennebaker would later direct Monterey Pop.

Like A Rolling Stone
Jimi Hendrix
Available on The Complete Monterey Pop festival disk which features all of Hendrix’s performance at that seminal pop-folk-blues-rock gathering. The fluid nature of the guitar playing, weaving around chords and melody, underlines why Hendrix was such an innovator. And why I don’t think the label Hendrix-imitator should be a criticism.

Okay, I’m a bit hung up on the music of a particular decade. Guilty as charged, Your Honour, but I would plead that these are great on three counts: great clips; great songs; great artists.