Corporate English

A friend of mine was sent this letter after complaining about a meal they'd had. One the one hand, it's admirable that a complaint should be answered when most companies of Wagamama's size could care less, but one has to ask, where were they when the punctuation was handed out? And is there some house style which bans the use of capital letters? They're obviously massive e.e. cummings fans.

Been making me chuckle all week. Mod out for random carriage return soup.

Welcoming Summer with the Candylion

I've just bought some music for the first time all year. Which felt weird, I can tell you. Tom Waits and the Arctics do what they say on their tins and shout about strange fish meals and annoying people in clubs respectively. Both recommended.

But the album I think I'll be mostly playing in the sunshine this summer will be Gruff Rhys' Candylion, a typically idiosyncratic collection of ditties and gentle strums. Less ambitious than the Super Furry Animals' stuff with none of that scary techno noisiness, it's deliberately playful (the sleeve features 70s kids TV style instructions on how to make your own candylion... fluff!) and a totally ego-free experience. Refreshing and almost as catchy as Mwng. Download tracks using the Hype Machine here.

My only gripe is that I wish more than a handful of the tracks were in Welsh. For some reason that makes it doubly catchy.

Mod i maes, look you.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Bugger

.
































An appropriate expanse of black space to suit my mood...

There's more, there's more...

God wallpaper

And to continue the theme, a screenshot following a recent game of (oh, the shame) online Boggle.

Overheard in Brighton

"I want to be a Goth! Can I buy these leggings?"

"When I worked at Fabric I got free alcohol, free drugs, free office space..."

More banners

Nicked off the RAWK forum.

The Road to Athens

The first in an undoubtedly irregular series of random Liverpool shit between now and next Wednesday.

Mod out in his brand spanking new Robbie Fowler scarf. Ooh. Which reminds me...

God has retired. Long Live God.

Spidey Ganesh Madness

This one's for Ford...

Terrorism Sussex Style

Someone I know was given one of these cards as he came out of Lewes station today. Obviously the investigation is not going well. As this article reports, since parking meters were introduced in the town in 2004 a steady stream of them have been vandalised and blown up by homemade devices. The last I heard was that police had done some DNA tests on a lager can found near the site of one attack, and managed to rule out a local wino. Fine work there, I'm sure we all agree.

Of course, this being Lewes, homemade devices are ten a penny. Half the town is involved in making things for the annual Bonfire celebrations, and the other half love the sound and fury it creates. So I don't think that CrimeStoppers are going to have much luck. It'll take more than cash to crack the omerta of the Bonfire Boys, after all they used to go to prison for their right to march.

The whole thing is alternatively hilarious and ridiculous. It's cool (I think) that people are taking the law into their own hands, and that a community as well-off as Lewes tacitly supports such activity. On the other hand, cars are shit and from my vantage point on the high street I have no doubt that the meters have made the town a lot less congested. So in conclusion, who cares. Only the Police...

The Scary Man

"Bob Dylan reportedly scared the children at his grandson's kindergarten after treating the class to a live show. The singer has allegedly been dubbed the 'weird man' by children in the class, in the Los Angeles suburb Calabas, where his son Jakob Dylan's child attends.
A source told the New York Post newspaper: 'The kids have been coming home and telling their parents about the weird man who keeps coming to class to sing scary songs on his guitar.
He's been visiting the school just for fun, but the kids don't appreciate they are in the presence of a musical legend.
They just think of him as the weird guitar guy.'"

Link.

All puns gratefully received for a heading, I can't think of any.

Aretha

Choons

Twice a year Ford and I exchange compilations to keep us both more informed about the stupid amount of music we miss all the time. While I miss tapes and their 90 minute running time, I can't deny the future rocks, and since he's posted his compilation, I might as well post mine.

It's a broadly funky set, with only a small dip in the middle to allow for Jenny Lewis. Tracks below, get it here. And if you can't be arsed to wade through it all, I'd advise you to get on your good foot, fire up the P2P and download It's My Thing by Marva Whitney, cos not even JB himself can be that insistent and in your face.

Mother Popcorn - James Brown

It's My Thing - Marva Whitney
Change My Thoughts From You - Erma Franklin
Proud Mary - Solomon Burke
When The Meth Comes Marching In - dj BC
How High The Moon - Slim Galliard
Streetlife - Randy Crawford & The Crusaders
Bottom Of The World - Tom Waits
A New England (live) - Kirsty MacColl & Billy Bragg
Paradise - Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
Liv pa Mars - Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Shinjiro ft. Mos Def - DJ Krush
Mr. Pharmacist - The Other Half
Memo from Turner - The Rolling Stones
Ya Ya - Lee Dorsey
Susie-Q - Dale Hawkins
You've Been Drunk - Champion Jack Dupree
Night Train - James Brown

Happy Birthday Speccy

It was twenty-five years ago today that rubber-keyed goodness descended upon us. Clive Sinclair got a knighthood out of it before suddenly failing to invent anything decent ever again. At 8 I was totally blown away by games like Knight Lore or Alien 8, and while both the BBC and Commodore could be argued to be better, the Speccy looked way cooler, and was significantly smaller as well. I still sort of miss it.

10 Print "Mod Out"
20 Goto 10

Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out
Mod Out

Bastard Bastard American Bastard Bastards*

Read this article from yesterday's Guardian. Go on. Written by one of the lawyers trying to help the prisoners in Guantanamo, it's a shocking indictment of how weird the US military is. Beyond the torture and the wider questions about how many of the men should actually be there, it details how hard they have made it for anyone to help them, let alone free them. Among the things he's prevented from taking into his clients are National Geographic and Runner's World; all his notes have to go via Washington where everything is censored, and they blatantly lie to him without seeming to care that he knows it.

What the fuck is their problem? This has gone so far through the looking glass and up the white rabbit's arse that I'm not even sure whether I know who to hate. Bush, Cheney, the US military, for sure, but what about the individuals involved at all levels? Don't they have a single bit of conscience? I guess you trade that at the door for a big shiny gun, and anyone who wants to be in an army is clearly psychotic to start with.

Although I do think that Runner's World looks dangerous. All those healthy people. It's not right.


*Not all of them, of course. Just the ones in uniform. And the rightwing ones. And the Dave Matthews Band.

New Yorker quote of the day

I've just read a 4 page article on Kingsley Amis on the New Yorker website (like you do) and this made me laugh...

"Pornography was to British writers of the fifties what the Communist Party was to French writers of the time; they didn’t entirely approve of it, but felt that being attached to it would keep them from being seen as mere intellectuals"

Maybe you had to have been there.

What about Paul and Ringo?

In scanning in graffiti photos for my fotolog, I noticed that I'd snapped two Beatles:-

It's going to really annoy me if I can't find the other two.

Fab Mod out.

Good weirdness

My latest web-comic find is A Softer World, which has just started replacing Steve Bell in the Guardian while he goes off and trims his beard or whatever it is that he does. It's appealingly bleak and odd while little pockets of truth shine through and make you nod in agreement, and the photographic format is definitely a winner. So that's at least 3, if not 4, online strips I'm checking daily now.

Mod out to find a life.

The Eye of the Duck Storm

David Lynch is doing weather forecasts. No, really. Every day on his site he sits there, peers up at the sky and announces the temperature, sky colour, passing cloud formations and other important data. Of course, being LA it's not very interesting weather, which is perhaps the point, but it's worth it for of his slightly out-there way of speaking and completely insane hair. I found it strangely comforting to be wished a good day by the director of Blue Velvet before I go to work.

Go see for yourself. It's the lower right button.

Beer and bonkers behaviour

So I went to Yorkshire properly for the first time over Easter. There was a duck race, too much food and lots of good beer. Under the influence of said beer I found myself admitting that ok, sure, Yorkshire beer was better than the Sussex stuff. In particular Absolution Ale from Sheffield, which at 5.3% was both delicious and deadly and made me into a turncoat for my county. Oh well.

I can't say too much about the Pace Egg play, beyond what was obvious. Some kind of St. George related mummery, performed four times in increasing stages of drunkenness, a character called Toss Pot and a lot of in-jokes and heckling. The performance we saw was the third, and was notable for St. George accidentally getting twatted over the head during a (drunken) duel and blood rushing down his face. Luckily a local mother darted in with a wetwipe to save the country's national icon from having to go to A&E. And on it went, bad singing, lines being forgotten, plenty of shouting and a sword fight every 3 minutes. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed something as much. Maybe it was the beer.

Beardyman

He's got a beard, he's the UK Beatboxing Champion, he's a Brightonian, and he cooks...
(arf).

FIP

Nope, it's definitely gone now. Both on 98.5 and 91. The man has won. Oh well.

Mod off to download another two Bob Dylan shows.


Edit - oh, it's back. I'm going to stop going on about it now...

Pulp Fiction

From a time when small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, the cover art of Ron Turner. More unlikely spaceships and angry Venusians than you could possibly need of a day. Gratuitous breasts, 1950s chrome-finned optimism, giant hands crushing the Empire State Building, it's all there. Magnificent. And isn't Vargo Statten is a superb name for a scifi writer?

Mod out to dust down his kill-o-ray and replenish the duodenium cells on his space hopper. Or something.

Dark Satanic Mills

I went to Yorkshire for the first time on the weekend. It weren't bad. Not as good as Sussex, or indeed Lancashire, but not bad. Nice hills and stuff. But I was mostly taken by the massive cooling towers right by the motorway going through Sheffield (above), about as dramatic a view as I've ever seen. They'd never allow that down south...

Reep Feep

One of the best things about living in Brighton (apart from the sea, the pubs, the overpriced everything, the Londoners and so on) is FIP. A French radio station which for years we've been mysteriously able to pick up on normal radios on exactly 91 FM. It plays everything from Billie Holiday to Wu Tang, and being French, they very sensibly play all the tunes with the swearwords left in. So refreshing. No ads, and almost no talking (and what talking there is is in French. Parfait). About one tune in four is actually French, and a similar amount are jazz, especially when you really need it on a Sunday afternoon. It's the sound of Brighton, they even come over and DJ in pubs and people sit round drinking red wine congratulating themselves on their taste. More than they usually do, that is.

But now it's gone. 91 FM is a wasteland of static, and I fear that maybe one of the urban myths about it was true; that some kind soul was boosting the signal in his loft, and he's just been busted. We can still listen to it online, but it's not the same as having it on a transistor radio in the park.

RIP FIP. Mod out to buy half of Maplins and put this injustice right.

Muse of the Month

Well, the last 3 months, really. Basquiat Scrawls' post on Joanna Newsom got me wondering why I haven't given her the time of day yet. The same friend that fixed her up pressed a copy of that album into my hand a while back, with what sound like the same fairly exacting listening instructions. And what have I done? Nothing. Because of Jenny Lewis. I only have time for one bewitching cute genius in my life, you see.

"Have mercy, have mercy, have mercy on me
Let's pretend that everybody here wants peace..."

"And it's a Pink Moon..."

Prague

No-one tells me anything. I was in the pub earlier when I noticed some people in the street pointing at the sky. Either it was the start of a bohemian production of War of the Worlds, or someone was naked up a lamp post. So I went outside and lo, it was a lunar eclipse in progress. Why don't people tell me these things?

All over the North Lanes people were standing outside pubs talking and looking at the sky, some trying, and mostly failing, to explain it to each other. I shared a Bonnie Tyler joke with someone while drinking a Lagavulin. Had to be done.

I was going to name this post after the Pink Floyd album. But then I went and sat on a bench across the street and watched it turning pink, or perhaps orangey-red if you're going to be pedantic, and thought of Nick Drake. Pink Moon's going to get us all, people...

Mod out to check on the celestial alignments for Doomsday.

PS Ok, so I can't resist it. "There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact it's all dark".

Billboard

Lovely. C/o the Gibson board.

Francis Wheen's Top 10 Delusions

Read this. He rants so much more elegantly than I ever could.

Pun of the day

I went to a stamp meeting tonight. Don't ask. Really. But it was sort of a family obligation and it ended up being mildly interesting, if only because I got talking to this guy who'd been a botanist and lived for many years in Borneo.

Apparently there's a family of trees out there with the latin name Fordia - Fordia Splendidissima, Fordia Coriacea, and so on (google tells me). Apparently this chap's friend who was constantly discovering new species discovered a new member of this family, and named it Fordia Cortina.

Genius. And a joke that will only apply for a few more decades before no-one will get it. See Ford Prefect.

From Shaolin to the Big Easy

I haven't checked out dj BC's site in a while, and there's lots of new mashed-up goodness to download there. Most thrillingly, Wu Orleans, a 10 track compilation of Staten Island's finest with various funky Louisiana grooves.

It's all a bit silly, but none the worst for it, and the final track "When the Meth Comes Marching In" does exactly what it says on the tin. Download it here.

I got the whole thing from a torrent, although it was sporadic and took a while to complete. In case anyone cares.

Mod out for gumbo, g.

PS In other news, I was right about 2000AD according to the BBC. And who else are you going to trust?

Pictures of New York

Fantastic old shots here. Make sure you have plenty of time, there are loads...

I'm So Excited...

...and I just can't hide it, yadda yadda. Marmite Guinness. Guinness in my Marmite. Marness. Guinnite. mmm.

Although I haven't tried it yet and it might be minging. Doubt it, though.

Next up, Earl Grey spliffs and pork crackling crisps (proper ones not pork scratchings, that is). Laphroaig chocolates already exist, hallelujah.

The Wisdom of Lasco

Whoever he may be.

True

Arf!

Health and Safety would have a fit

Ever since seeing Inside Man I've loved the Chaiya Chaiya song, but I've only just found the video. Bollywood dancing on moving trains. It's just the newest thing.

Link

Mod out to see if Southern Rail will allow bad body-popping on the 9.14 to Lewes.

"Ralph Richardson got stuck in the lift"

Occasionally life throws up unexpectedly storming evenings that are above and beyond your normal "see your mates and drink a bit" type night out. It was a friend's birthday last night, and all I knew was that it was a joint thing in someone else's house on the seafront. We pulled up to find that not only was the party was being held at a beautiful mathematically tiled terrace house in one of the posher crescents, but it was the one where Laurence Olivier used to live. Tumbling out of a transit van clutching off-licence carrier bags was clearly the only way to arrive.

God, what a house. The stairs just went up and up, every floor full of antique furniture and so much space. Even the plumbing was posh, apparently. There was a dumb waiter going right from the basement to the (?)third floor, and one detail we picked up was that Sir Ralph Richardson got stuck between floors in it once. I'm sure he played many important roles in his long career, but I know him best as god in Time Bandits.

We mooched around and stood in the kitchen for a while before it got a bit crowded and so we liberated a few bottles and headed upstairs. A sitting room had a gorgeous oak dining room table in the back that amazingly no-one had colonised. Morrissey was singing "Irish Blood, English Heart", which made me happy. We set up camp, using pieces of paper as makeshift coasters (it was a really nice table) and got into it. Over the next few hours random people wandered in and out or sat on the sofas over by the windows. Some introduced themselves, sat down and had a few drags on our jazz cigarettes. Tales were swapped (one of the hosts had a good line in stories about free parties and festivals) and the world set to right. There was dancing downstairs which a few people indulged in, but mainly we stayed put, occasionally foraging for more wine. It seemed like the best table in Brighton, and probably was.

For the first time in my ungrateful life I might even write a thank you note after a party. Scenes like that don't come along too often for us mortals.

Talking to a Scotsman about Serifs

In the course of my working day today I had a conversation with an old man about the typeface Joanna, designed by Eric Gill. We both agreed that the use of flat serifs on an otherwise classically-based font helped draw the eye along the page.

So there you go. Of course the thing about Eric Gill is that he used to regularly have sex with his children, which long after his death came as a bit of a surprise to the world considering a large portion of his work is religious in tone and he lived for much of his live in monastically styled artist's communities.

So does it affect his art and designs? Well, yes, because he had sex with his children. And no, cos they're some of the finest creative pieces of the twentieth century and art is art is art.

The biographer who uncovered all this in the 1980s writes a good article in the Guardian about it here, and as she comments, interest in him has actually increased since her book came out. The public love a bit of scandal.

But his influence was so widespread, and his sculptures and book illustrations so prolific, that it would be hard to get rid of them. Apart from the fact that his daughters grew up apparently well-adjusted, history is full of nasty shit that you can't escape. So I think it's all ok. And as you can see from one of his fantastically out-there wood engravings for the Song of Solomon below, sanctity and shagging were for him much the same thing. Genius is genius, even if it's not very nice.

A Peek at Mod Towers

Some friends were over for dinner last night, and their little boy was clicking away with their new camera. He took this random shot that came out rather well, and I thought I'd post it with a brief commentary into why these people are on my wall, especially as recent developments combined with an increasing need for wallspace mean they won't be there much longer...

The middle one is the simplest. The Stone Roses. 'Nuff said.

Top right is her from Echobelly, not Audrey Hepburn as many people have assumed. I had a serious Britpop crush on her back in the day, and old habits die hard, not least cos it's been up in every room and flat I've had since 1994.

And on the left is a shot from the film If..., from right at the end where our heroes get up on the roof and machine gun all the people coming out of chapel. If that seems a bit harsh, I'd advise sitting through the whole thing, a savage indictment of Public school culture and conformity. Having had to listen to the Kipling poem from which the title is taken at the start of every term at my own boarding school, I can't help but sympathise with Malcolm McDowell every time I watch it. That's not to say that taking to the rooftops to machine gun people on Speech Days is necessarily the best course of action, but it does remind me who to hate. (The Church, the Military and all the other people who tell you how to think, in a nutshell). And not, as ever, to believe the hype.

Mod out of bluetack.

Late Album of the Year entry

Ages ago Ford burned me "Rabbit Fur Coat" by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins. Being an ungrateful sort I didn't listen to it until last week, when getting a new hifi in our stockroom at work meant I could listen to cd's for the first time. So I put it on, and then put it on again, and it's pretty much been on ever since. It's just under 40 minutes long, so that's a lot of plays even since last week.

The first thing I noticed were the lyrics, pithy little verses with a certain cynicism and humour. Backing singers that chime in to emphasise lyrics, not just to make everything louder. And the tunes have catchy hooks and lines you remember ("my dad starts growing Bob Dylan's beard"), which is all I ask (is it so hard? Radiohead? hmm?). The songs wouldn't be out of place sung by either Emmylou Harris or some modern bunch of scruffy indie kids. Dolly Parton should definitely cover "Big Guns".
Late in the day, under the radar, Album of the Year round the Mod's place.

Hype Machine will probably get you some tunes, "Rise Up with Fists" or "The Charging Sky" are my faves but they're all good.
Also, the "Rise Up with Fists" video, briefly featuring Sarah Silverman. Which is always a good thing.

Mod off to google the b-sides.

Some Quotes from "Yes Minister"

"'The matter is under consideration' means we have lost the file. 'The matter is under active consideration' means we are trying to find the file."

"Foreign Office Honours: CMG - 'Call Me God'. KCMG - 'Kindly Call Me God'. GCMG - 'God Calls Me God'."

"It is only totalitarian governments that suppress facts. In this country we simply take a democratic decision not to publish them."

"The first rule of politics: never believe anything until it's been officially denied."

"Things don't happen just because Prime Ministers are keen on them. Neville Chamberlain was keen on peace."

"Politician's logic: We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do it."

"It was a good idea to partition countries like India and Cyprus and Palestine and Ireland as a part of their independence. It keeps them busy fighting each other so we don't have to have a policy about them."

"The Foreign Office is a hotbed of cold feet."

"Government is not a team. It is a loose confederation of warring tribes."

Two facts from the New Yorker

The American Embassy in Baghdad has just 6 fluent Arabic speakers (out of 1,000 employees).

The average American household owns 4 Bibles.

I'm. Not. Saying. A. Word.

Mod out (of patience for trying to feel sorry for America. Just a bit. Sorry).

Top Cat

I've been a fan of the wood engravings of Anatoly Kalashnikov (no relation, as far as I know) for several years, and have what seems to be the only collection of his bookplates in print, containing several hundred powerful modernist designs. I keep an eye out on eBay for them, and there aren't more than a few a year. I just got one there for what still seems a steal, especially as it's more than usually bonkers, and both cats and vodka are a few of my favourite things.

Here kitty kitty kitty...

Mod out and off to the picture framers.

Tramline 3 Smells of Pee

And other complaints from the Helsinki Complaints Choir...

Dude!!

That's, like, a totally rockin' tshirt you've got on...

And just in time for the Tenacious D film, too.

Powerstanced Mod out.

The Time is Right for Dancing in the Street

"The Republican beast is fuckin' dead! Twelve years of that rampaging Republican fuckin' elephant-beast finally brought to its knees. Yes! You're dead, you fucker! You fuck! You fuck, you're dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! We hate you! Hate you! Now do you know it? Now do you feel it? Feel the fuckin' hate. Feel it. Call off your dogs. Call your little Vietnamese pot-bellied Rush Limbaugh back to your fold, you demon fuck! Bring Pat Buchanan back! Call him back, you lost! Finally...the Republican beast-elephant brought to its fuckin' knees. 'Cause I feel like me and my friends and all the artists in the fuckin' country were like little pygmy tribes shootin' darts at that elephant for twelve years, and finally [elephant trumpeting, then crashing noise]. Do our little pygmy dance: [singing] Na na na na na na na! Na na na na na na na! Na na na! Yes!"
- Bill Hicks, 1993.

What he said.

Back to my Future

I've just discovered that 2000AD have all their covers scanned in. The one above is my all time favourite, from the beginning of the second "Bad Company" story. It was on the wall by my bed until I was about 22. (This one is my second favourite).

A few years ago I sold the four Bad Company graphic novels on ebay, and of course re-read them before doing so. It's an astonishing piece of work, drawing on many Vietnam movies as well as Conrad (and so of course Apocalypse Now), and a lot more complex that people would imagine. I found it too violent and slightly sick at 31, when I was 14 it was simply cool. Go figure.

Looking back at 2000AD, it was way more than a bunch of aliens or futuristic cops speaking in bubbles. The first time I read "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot I realised that a picture I'd cut out and had had on my wall for about 2 years featured a quote from it (from a strip called "Shadows" where a privileged woman loses her identity chip and thus her access to everything from hospitals and banks to her apartment building, all because the machines don't know who she is. Not so far-fetched these days...).
The last Strontium Dog story was basically the Holocaust set in a neo-fascist Britain, and warned of the dangers of having a set idea of "Britishness" that people (in this case mutants) could be excluded from. It referenced the KKK and Mosley and invented an entirely plausible set of icons for the state to champion, like Stonehenge and King Arthur. It probably helped me become the sceptical internationalist I am today.
Of course there was pap like Chopper, the sky-surfing champion, but even there his death was for me a moment of real shock. I still remember the series of wordless panels closing in from above onto his stationary board, inches from the finish line.

I'm glad it's still going, even though I haven't read it in about 15 years. We need sci-fi to tell us what to build next, and to illustrate that the future is just the past with fancy gadgets, so we'd better get thinking harder and knowing more.

Judge Mod.

When t'Internet breaks

I couldn't connect to the net last night. So I tidied up, cooked about 2 hours earlier than normal, drank beer and watched the Liverpool game, laughed at lot at The Secret Policeman's Ball (Sarah Silverman is a genius) and compiled a cd for Ford.

It was terrible. Thank god I'm back online staring blankly at this thing. mmm. Pixels...

Sedentary Mod.

PS El Reg reports that BT had a server problem last night. All over Britain people were tidying up, doing jigsaws or playing board games (maybe). Perhaps they could do it deliberately once a month to help us with our addiction...

An overlooked gem

Slightly hungover today, in a good way. Lunch is cooking, and the sun is shining. Some kind of Autumnal mood made me put on an album I haven't listened to in at least 5 years, First Fruits by Eggman. There are cellos, flutes and harmonies, the guitars cut in appropriately noisily and it's a beautiful little English rock album.

The fact that no-one's heard of it is hardly surprising, given the messy and entirely boring denouement of Britpop. In 1995 the Boo Radleys had their big number one album, and Creation were flush with all of Oasis' money. Maybe Alan McGee was high, maybe just in a good mood, but he let Sice (the Boo's lead singer) cut a solo album, which almost immediately slid into obscurity. Being a stupidly obsessive Boo's fan I bought it, and it's still a lovely collection of songs that have verses and choruses and the right number of eights in the middle and an edge of melancholy. Or at least that's how it seems today. I wish Autumn would get on with it, I'm bored of this Indian summer in October.

Mod inside and staying there.

I hate McDonalds, but...

...I'm not sure I feel this strongly. How much harm can one strawberry shake do?!

Seen here.

Mod out.

If I had 5 grand...

Still, Will Smith notwithstanding, the best scifi book of the century. (Ok, you could make a case for Fahrenheit 451, or A Canticle for Leibowitz, or Neuromancer, and I might even agree with you. But none of them have that dust jacket*).

Mod out.

*Although Fahrenheit 451 was issued in a limited edition with an asbestos cover. Which is pretty cool.

The Strangest Thing on the Internet

Now, I know, that's quite a claim. But it isn't really a product of the internet, so you could say it's the strangest thing in the world. But before you say, well, the world's quite a strange place, let me direct your attention to this video from 1978. Devo with "Jocko Homo". What the fuck?



I've become mildly obsessed with this video. Are we not men? We are Devo...

Mod out.

My favourite picture

I've been taking photographs of graffiti around Brighton for a couple of years now, defiantly using an old pentax in the face of the digital onslaught. It's something to do with not knowing what you've got right away, makes the experience less trivial. Or something.

But now someone's given me a scanner I can at least get them onto my laptop, and indeed onto my shiny new fotolog. The shot above is of one of Mr. Hutch's fine creations, off London road earlier in the summer. The best I've done so far, I think.

Marty Feldman would be 73.

Mod out.

Apache Boogie

From the dancers dressed as Native Americans to the moustache, it really covers all the bases of bad taste. Still better than the Shadows, though.

Mod out.

(Via Soul Sights).

Funny old world

Tony Bliar has the mark of the beast. Or of Dubya, anyway.

Vegan condoms.

Banksy in LA

Pictures

Some top stuff, but I do like the one of the Auction with the painting that reads "I can't believe any of you morons actually buy this shit". And with prices reputedly soaring into six figures, I can't either. It's cheaper to walk around London or check Wooster Collective. Still, good luck to him, and Brad Pitt has too much money anyway.

Mod out.

Just like Mousetrap*

But better. Originally created for a Japanese children's program (so not just bored physics students avoiding work).

Mod out.

(*That's Mousetrap the game, although no-one ever played it, just set it up and then found that a crucial bit was missing).

Gil Scott-Heron

I've been listening to some old records tonight that I haven't dug out since I needed daily political hits to get me through the shitfest that was the preamble to America's invasion of Iraq. Most mornings would start with a blast of Gil's "Work for Peace", or "B-Movie", where he compares the Reagan administration to a 50s black and white classic.

Even without his status as a progenitor of rap music, and one of America's most high profile black musicians, there's no doubt he's a fine poet, able to make you think and laugh in the same breath. So here's a quick sample of some of my favourite lines. Sadly as relevant now as in the past decades when they appeared.

"The Military and the Monetary,
get together whenever they think it's necessary,
they turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
they are turning the planet into a cemetery.

They took the honour from the honorary,
they took the dignity from the dignitaries,
they took the secrets from the secretary,
but they left the bitch in obituary.

The Military and the Monetary,
from thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
cause we couldn't understand the fuckin' vocabulary.

Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
but there was some dumb ones as well.

The only thing wrong with Peace,
is that you can't make no money from it.

We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
bombed Libya and killed Gaddafi's son hideously.
we turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
and saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.
watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
we better warn the Amish,
they may bomb the Pennsylvanians."

- "Work for Peace" (1994).

"A rat done bit my sister Nell
with Whitey on the moon
Her face and arm began to swell
but Whitey's on the moon
Was all that money I made last year
for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain't no money here?
Hmm! Whitey's on the moon."

- "Whitey on the Moon" (1970).

"What has happened is that in the last 20 years,
America has changed from a producer to a consumer.
And all consumers know that when the producer names the tune,
the consumer has got to dance.
That's the way it is.

The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia.
They want to go back as far as they can
even if it's only as far as last week.
Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards.
And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes riding to the rescue at the last possible moment.
The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse
or the man who always came to save America at the last moment
- someone always came to save America at the last moment -
especially in B-movies.

And when America found itself having a hard time facing the future,
they looked for people like John Wayne.
But since John Wayne was no longer available,
they settled for Ronald Ray-Gun,
and it has placed us in a situation that we can only look at
like a B-movie.

Come with us back to those inglorious days
when heroes weren't zeros.
Before fair was square.
When the cavalry came straight away
and all-American men were like Hemingway.
To the days of the wondrous B-movie.

As Wall Street goes, so goes the nation.
And here's a look at the closing numbers -
racism's up, human rights are down, peace is shaky,
war items are hot - the House claims all ties.
Jobs are down, money is scarce,
and common sense is at an all-time low on heavy trading.
Movies were looking better than ever and now no one is looking,
because we're starring in a B-movie.

And we would've rather had John Wayne."

- "B-Movie" (1981).

Mod out.

Top 5

Ford Prefect's top 5 Chanteuses list got me thinking, and so in a spirit of friendly disagreement and general "my 5 are better than his 5"-ness (although not nearly as contemporary), I give you my Favourite Five Female Singers...

5 - Audrey Hepburn. Not known for her singing, clearly, her inclusion here is due entirely to her rendition of Moon River in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which warms not just the cockles of my heart, but many other hard to reach parts as well.

4 - Roberta Flack. A relatively recent discovery for me, I found the above album in a thrift store in Brooklyn ($3!!) and bought it as much for the cover as for the fact that she's the "Killing Me Softly" lady. Full of gospel-tinged tunes and subtle arrangements, it totally blew me away.

3 - Joni Mitchell. Where would I be without Joni? Possibly the finest songwriter and certainly the best lyricist of her generation (and who's been better since?), she has the kind of voice to either scare you or excite you. Sometimes low and smokey, other times up in the stratosphere, she's always on target and never boring. Her style is often conversational and she does make you think she's telling you all this down the pub a lot of the time. I can't really believe she's only at 3, but...

2 - Ella Fitzgerald. This lady could sing the phone book and it would sound good. As musically perfect as anyone can be, her scats and improvised lines have to be heard repeatedly to be believed. She recorded pretty much everything in her long life, but you can't go wrong with her interpretations of either Duke Ellington or George Gershwin. The one above probably ain't bad, either.

1 - Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul, the best there is. I saw a clip a few years ago of one of those terrible VH-1 Diva events, with Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys and other wailing eejits giving it large, and on walked Aretha, in her 50s and the size of a small house, and in about 10 seconds had floored them all. Not with power, not with pitch, but with phrasing, craft, and the fact that she doesn't need to have big hair (and the rest) or appear nude on the front of Rolling Stone to sell records. I love her gospel albums even though I hate religion, and her version of Bridge Over Troubled Water is the best yet, but I'd recommend Aretha Sings the Blues - the first track, Drinking Again, will have you reaching for the spirits before she's finished the first verse. Which is a good thing.

And as Ford says, an honourable mention to Liz Fraser. Although she could have tried just a bit harder to make sense, if you ask me. Really. (tuts).

Mod out.

Butterscotch clouds

More youtube goodness, this time Prince on the Muppet Show being Very Silly Indeed. Ah, bless.




Purple Mod out.

It was a little bit frightening

Monks brawl during Peace rally

"A scuffle broke out... between saffron-robed monks and anti-war demonstrators at a peace rally in the Sri Lankan capital. About six or seven monks from a right-wing Buddhist faction had stormed the stage during a peace rally attended by about 1,000 people in the capital, Colombo, shouting pro-war slogans, an AP reporter at the scene said.
A member of Sri Lanka's parliament was addressing the crowd when the monks climbed on stage.
The monks unfurled banners reading "Take your protest to Kilinochchi," referring to the de facto rebel capital in northern Sri Lanka where hundreds have been killed in the last week..."

All together now - "Everybody was kung-fu fighting..."

Get on the Trane

The year is 1963. Over in Liverpool the Beatles are just getting started on learning their fourth and fifth chords. Much of the western world still thinks Elvis is about as far out as you can get, and the rest would probably mumble something about Shostakovich. But the more you look at the 20th century, the more that New York jazz in the 1960s seems about as good as it got. Before the excesses (and electricity) of the 70s when the politics and the fashion entirely obscured the tunes, it was a time when the gods were walking the earth, inventing new forms and movements sometimes weekly. No other music was this intense and creative, all the time, for years and decades. Let's not forget it was almost entirely improvised, and the charts and arrangements that started the ball rolling would've have scared the pants off any symphony orchestra.

Some people like Miles, others swear by Monk. I like them both. Sonny Rollins shook it up and you really can't ignore Charles Mingus (or he'll come and get you). However the John Coltrane Quartet made me a true believer about a decade ago and I've never looked back. His horn sounds like answers to questions I didn't know I'd asked, and I really can't put it clearer than that.

"Afro-Blue" is my favourite tune, the first track on Live at Birdland. I'm still pissed off I wasn't around to be there, frankly. McCoy Tyner playing the darkest chords yet heard, Elvin swinging it along with faint rumours of violence, Jimmy Garrison holding it together, and Trane riding the whirlwind and making it beautiful. This is from the Ralph Gleason show (he's the chap sitting by the piano looking fantastically out of place) and is one of the reasons for living...

Mod out.

Ees seelly, Senor

I went to see the new Jack Black film Nacho Libre yesterday. Ridiculous. Based on the admittedly far-fetched but true story of a Mexican priest who dons the cape and mask of a Mexican luchador to fight for money to feed the kids in his orphanage, there's probably a heart-warming tale with many examples of bravery and the best of the human spirit to be made of it all. But of course Black doesn't give a monkeys for all that and ditches all but the basic plot to make a film full of mugging, piss-poor accents and outrageous set-pieces that would have been rejected by the Chuckle Brothers as too flimsy.

If you liked School of Rock (and if you didn't, then don't come round Mod Towers expecting a warm welcome) or the mighty Tenacious D you'll love this. We all laughed like drains, and the sillier the pratfall or cheesy grin the more we laughed. Other highlights included a Penelope Cruz-a-like as a rather foxy nun and one of the best improvised soft rock ballads I've ever heard. Maybe you had to be there. Go see...

El Paranoico Mod out.

My Heroes

Protestors boarded a US Military plane at Prestwick Airport to perform a "citizen's inspection" for bombs. Story. Wonderful. The shame of how we let the US refuel their death filled cargo planes has been eating me up since the whole thing kicked off. Apparently it's not happening any more, but Bliar should be put in the stocks for a week for allowing it in the first place.

(Brought to my attention at The Scottish Patient).

Mod out.

Random

The best first lines of any novel ever...

"Coventry are fuck all. They've got a shit team and shit support. Hitler had the right idea when he flattened the place. The only good thing to come out of Coventry was the Specials and that was years ago. Now there's sweet FA and we've never had a decent row with Coventry. The best time was two years ago in Hammersmith with a bunch of Midland prototypes looking for a drink down the high street. About fifteen of them. Short cunts with noddy haircuts and tashes. Stumpy little legs and beer guts. Looked like they should be on Emmerdale Farm shafting goats for a living. They clocked us coming the other way and took off. You could smell shit over the petrol fumes, which is saying something in Hammersmith..."

And so it goes. From John King's The Football Factory, about a firm of Chelski hooligans. Don't bother with the film, but the book's got more energy than Irvine Welsh on a week-long speed bender.

Coventry City Football Club is 123.

Mod out.

Salvation and shrimp

I found the above sign at the Mountain Cycle Diaries. Apart from the fact that the quote is about as banal as you can get (or was Fear playing a game of Knock Down Ginger?) the food on offer is enough to make you want to get your salvation elsewhere. I've heard those hindus do a mean chicken dhansak with their karmic teachings. Never mind the Italians and their chianti-fueled masses. Still, when in Montana...

Mr. Mountain Cycle Diary is quite a chap, he's cycled all the way from Chile and is closing in on Alaska all the time. Someone should give him a medal, or at least buy him a pint.

Mod out (on his training wheels).

Sinfest

Since the halcyon days of Calvin and Hobbes, I've only really cared about Doonesbury, and only then because it's in the newspaper I read right next to the crossword. It's good, but. Randomly I've just discovered a new cartoon strip that's got me hooked. Sinfest isn't some dodgy porn site or new consumer campaign, but it does have something to say about both.

The cast features God (often doing puppet shows in the sky), the Devil, various bit part players such as the true believer above but mostly a couple of slacker friends, Slick and Monique, who don't have a lot of faith in anything except porn (Slick) and retail therapy (Monique). They argue, laugh, sit under trees and occasionally perform at open-mic nights, and generally carry on like, well, real people do. Or maybe that should be real people do in their heads.

Anyway. It's been making me laugh as I've worked my way from the very first strip back in 2000 (currently up to the middle of 2001) and the strip's creator Tatsuya Ishida has a nice line in everything I hold dear, from cynicism and manga to amusing stoners and gothic script. And every now and then a Chinese dragon turns up and has a scrap with God. What's not to like?

Mod out.

George Harrison sings "The Pirate Song"

Amazingly how quickly we've forgotten the cultural force that was Rutland Weekend Television. Ahaaarghhh me hearties!

One-eyed mad Captain Mod out.

"Yo, Blair..."

Overheard at the G8 conference. Confirming all our fears that Dubya's grip on facts and details is somewhat lacking, and all Blair cares about is continuing to be able to sit at the big boys' table. Excruciating.

Mod out.

Mastercard blues

Or rather reds and yellows. The Register has an amusing report on how Mastercard's new logo was achieved with reams of top class management bullshit.

"The launch of the new corporate brand identity follows an extensive analysis of the MasterCard brand and the value proposition it represents to constituents" is just one of the astonishingly content-free sentences... Well, it made me laugh.

mod out.


...I mean, brand and identity surely mean the same thing in this context. They use brand twice. "Value proposition"? Constituents? What are they, running for Parliament? Suckers of Satan's cock, every one of them.

ahem.