Wouldn't be quite so bad, all this corporate shit, were there a fragment of truth in it; Europe and Japan make the best cars. And Sweden. And Korea. Poor old Bob, once upon a time he dressed so fine.
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The chronicles of Ruin, continued. Call me Ishmael said....intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. Anonymous said... When I don't know what to do,I come here. 10 September 2009 22:59
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42 comments:
I suppose he earned enough from this advert to enable his stock of hair dye to be maintained for a further week or two!
Yes, indeed. I have lived too long.
"...we will build your cars" Yeh right Bob. Fuckin sell out.
We will extraordinarily rendition your menfolks, we will torture them, we will kill them, we will steal your oil. We will drone-bomb you into democracy. We will imprison any fucker carrying the wrong vegetation.We will destroy your dollar 'till its fuckin worthless, and you can't afford the mortgage, then we will take your homes, cause we can. We will ignore the constitution your forefathers gave their lives for. We will shoot you to defend the rights of some desert fuckin tortoise, that we are killing anyways.
Oh, and we make shit cars, always have, always will.
Yours Bob.
Funny, mr inmate, most credit Karl Benz with onventing the car, Bob probably thinks it was Henry Ford, or Coca Cola, maybe; the clip also claims that Germany built the autobahn in imitation of the Interstate Highways, when in fact Eisenhower encountered the autobahn in Nazi germany, was knocked-out and when he became president vowed to build a similar network of roads in the States.
He is a big disappointment, Bob Dylan; his 'sixties albums and concerts were amazing, since then his meriitorious recordings are only Blood On The Tracks and Oh, Mercy, the latter largely being the brainchild of producer, Daniel Lanois. That young people buy his current trash is particularly depressing; his concerts are feeble, croaky, discordant affairs, yet to read the midnight Bobsessives on YouTube one would thing him at the height of his powers; terribly sad; 'snot you, mr mongoose, who's lived too long, it's this wheezy old redneck, spokesman of a corporation, jokerman by apppointment to the White House.
Can't think of anything the mericans have invented that has benefit mankind. Sure they can invent stuff to annihilate people, s'pose someone has to, keeps the bankers happy.
Yes Benz of Mercedes fame, and that gentle chap Adolf, was it, ordered the Autobahn.
I must confess I recently bought a compilation of Dylan songs, celebrating 50 years of Amnesty International; seventy odd covers by various 'artists', I think it's brilliant and Bob only sings one song, which is a blessing, £14 iTunes if I recall.
Yes, I received it as a gift, bit of a mixture, I thought, Pete Nose, for instance, of the Oo, was dreadful, Marianne Faithfull surprised.
I have the whole catalogue, right up until what was it, about three albums back, i thought, I'm fucked if I'm gonna listen to this tightfisted millionaire singing about Working Mens Blues.l
I'm ignorant of high quality non- classical music to my regret, though I enjoy much of the stuff you put on here, but it seems a common affliction with modern high profile artists that they become godawful with age. Classical composers seem to escape it by and large and indeed in obvious cases they become richer and more moving. So too with painters who seem to be able to go deeper. The best writers are a mixed bag, some poets like Larkin dry up or like Wordsworth become droning parodies of themselves but again there seems to be a relatively high survival rate. Is there anyone in the field of non- classical stuff who bucks this trend or is this just me not knowing the material and/ or generalising?
I never liked Dylan or, frankly, any of his work - shite - all of it. Tom Waits, on the other hand...
Jackson Browne, my age, has improved from an already high teenage level - at seventeen, he wrote These Days, containing the line Don't confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them. His songs are lyrical, melodic, sensitive and poetic; he is an accomplished pianist and an expressive, American, finger- style guitarist; he performs solo, in tandem with multi-instrumentalist David Lindley and with a large-ish electric band of virtuosi. In addition to his musical excellence he seems to be a sincere and modest, self effacing political activist. And as if he was insufficiently gifted he is also Dorian Grey personified, looking younger and healthier every year. There are a good number of his performances hereabouts, in Evensongs. Either here or on youtube I would recommend, as a representative selection, live versions of These Days, Before the Deluge and Poor, Poor Pitiful Me; the selections here are chosen from many and I believe are among the best versions.
I agree, entirely, with your premise, and seldom tire of rehearsing it myself.
There are other exceptions, to whom I will return.
Dylan....dull un
Dylan....dull un
Someone played me one of his songs Mr SG, funnily enough, the other day. I am afraid I can't remember what it was called but it was very touching and the chorus had Waltzing Matilda in it. His voice was extraordinary, does he gargle with turps?
I love all of SmallChange but that's all the Tom Waits I need,mr sg. No point, at this stage, in trying to reveal to you the breathtaking, formidable brilliance of Bob Dylan's first six or seven albums, is there?
Phones, lightbulbs, and electric guitars?
-richard
Tom Trauberts Blues (three sheets to the wind in Amsterdam) from Small Change, poignant, elegiacal and divine; wasted and wounded, Tom Waits best offering.
Mr BB - Regarding Mr Waits' voice I can do no better than quote a description offered by a music critic:
"like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."
He is excellent, still going strong, I think, and, as far as I know, has never sold out (despite the revenues he could probably draw out of the advertising industry if he was minded to...). Mr I will correct me on this, no doubt, as I seem to recall that he is a fan too.
I know the 'Waltzing Matilda" bit. Off the top of my head I think it might be off of Swordfish Trombones or maybe Frank's Wild Years - Mr I may be able to advise otherwise I will investigate further. Much of Tom Waits' work is available FOC on Youtube.
Thanks Mr I - You beat me to it! Re: Bob Dylan - I try to keep an open mind, and to be fair my exposure to his work has probably been a bit limited so I'll certainly give him another go (in the fullness of time...).
skyscraper, razor blade, suspension bridge, aeroplane....
Thank you both re that Tom Waits song. Have just listened to For A Dancer by Mr Browne and it is lovely.
Also, for what it's worth, Bob Dylan is, in that picture, the spitting image of Alan Rickman.
Another man who never married. Despite that I think he's a fine actor.
Loved him in 'Galaxy Quest'.
There are certain ears, mr alphons, in which Bob Dylan will never harmonise; for others, it is his tricksy phrasing, idiosyncratic rhyming and rasping timbre which attract and delight; a concert on his 1966 world tour was certainly the most electrifying musical experience of my life. I have seen many, since, more polished, rehearsed and constructed; 66 Dylan, though, was raging, train-crash genius, right befre your very eyes and his songs, some of them, although nof as many as some claim, display the same hard-wiredness to the essence as do the works of Bach and Beethoven and particularly Mozart.
.....to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, with all memory and fate, driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today, until to-morrow; Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me, I'm not sleepy and there is no place I' m going to, Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me, in the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.
If that's what it is, make me dull, Oh Lord.
There is a mesmerising live performance, youtube Bob Dylan, live at Newport, Mr Tambourine Man.
isn't it presence he has, Rickman, like Steve McQueen, not so much an actor, more a threat?
Well a lost of artists are not the kind one would want to share a bottle with and Dylan has always been someone I have found inexplicably repellant. However I LOVE his album The Tempest. He is a consummate musician and his theme time radio hour shows were compelling.
I stayed with him from Bob Dylan up to Love and Theft and then I thought I had spent enough time and money on the old fraud. Sales of Tempest were good but that's meaningless - Michael Jackson sold more copies of Thriller than Dylan sold of everything in his entire career and I don't know how awash are Eternity's frequencies with Dark Side of the Moon, the icy precision of its hateful dirges beaming across the Universe.
As for consummate musician well it's true that he attracts or his songs attract accomplished sidesmen, behind whose competence he hides his own ineptitudes. The inspired guitar playing on his first few albums was not his but that of tambourine man. Bruce Langhorne, his Don't Think Twice and Corrina, Corrina unacknowledged by Dylan to this day. Like A Rolling Stone was actually defined by Al Kooper, the album, Highway 61, by Kooper and Mike Bloomfield. Dylan's buddy and gofer, Bob Neuwirth, claims that he collaborated, uncredited, on classics such as Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. Dylan, perhaps fretful of his own meagre instrumentalism, has always whined and nitpicked about his studio musicians and producers, as you say, not a man with whom you'd happily spend time. Just to stay with his musicianship or otherwise it was his brother, David and some Minessotan musicians, uncredited, I think, who rendered most of those almost courtly acoustic accompaniments which so hypnotically hallmarked Blood on the Tracks and producer-musician, Daniel Lanois, who made gold from Oh, Mercy's misanthropy
Of course I do not decry your enjoyment of the Tempest, ms lilith, it's just that I have come to consider its composer, if that's the word, increasingly obnoxious, bogus and larcenous, his impertinent plagiarism more scandalous even than that of Messrs Led Zeppelin. And that's saying something.
Good to hear from you, glad to see you're still alive, lookin' like a saint.......
Sorry to go 'off subject' Mr I but the opinion polls are looking ominous this morning. I hope the pollsters have got it badly wrong and the somewhere there is a silent majority of sense that they have failed to tap. Nothing good can come out of this process as far as I can see. Unless there is a decisive 'no' vote of the 60%+ variety, which now seems highly unlikely, it will simply trigger the 'Neverendum' where they will be back again and again until they get it. If Salmond wins it will surely be by the slimmest of margins. Then things will start to get very nasty. I expect to see Salmond levying accusations of rUK engaging in economic warfare if it holds its ground and refuses to let him have 'his' pound. Then watch the anti-English sentiment grow as the Scottish economy begins to tank. I wouldn't want to be one of those English voices that I hear up there from time to time, those who are 'converts' to the SNP cause. Maybe PM Osborne will revoke their UK citizenship and refuse to let them back over the border. Then again it will probably be Millibean in the negotiating seat, in which case Salmond will get everything he wants including the keys to HM Treasury. Lynton Crosby is right about that guy - "as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle". An independent 'Alba'? Welcome to Albania more like....
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11078096/Friends-The-One-With-George-Lynton-and-tricking-the-Scots.html
I suspect there is a lot of posturing in this swell of support for the yes lobby so close to the vote and that the independence machine is also better oiled and with better connections among the loud media intelligentsia (self-appointed of course). They'll go for the best of all worlds in the booth: staying on the UK teat but with enhanced privileges. Only fucking idiots would go for Fat Alex's Caledonian twilight zone, so there is that risk; no, they know how to have it all do they not, and the overpowering danger at which they will eventually flinch is that they will be left with nothing to be aggrieved about but themselves. I share your constitutional outrage Mr I at the whole crackbrained procedure but most English people couldn't give a fuck, even if they should.
Here's a thing - if Scotland leaves the UK then there is no UK. In which case, who signed the Lisbon Treaty?
Hooray, big vacuum cleaners and incandescent lightbulbs for all.
- richard
The polls for the last Scottish parliamentary elections were absurdly wrong, in the other direction; Salmond won a theoretically impossible outright majority; even I voted SNP on the basis that they were not Jack McConnell's NewMcLabour, they were not Tavish McHooter and Jim Wallace's Beasting Democrats and the other protest vote, Cocaine Tommy Sheridan's Scottish Socialists, had succeeded only in destroying the Left for a generation. The referendum is an entirely different matter and many will eschew considerations of party loyalty or party hatred, feeling, rightly, that a temporary LibLabCon musical chairs parliament is preferable to separation.
It is correct to surmise that Scottish MediaMinster is as partial as it can get away with, all across the piece, gobby minorities, even consisting of one, Patrick Ear-ring, of the Greens, being given tremendous airtime out of all proportion to his significance; itnis no way for adults to behave.
I did read that a Scottish expert QC, working in London's Natrix chambers, was seeking judicial review of the whole thing on the grounds that 750,000 expat Scots residing in England are having their rights violated by being excluded from the vote. Even if this fails, I would expect a forest of writs and appeals following a Yes vote, which could, of course, postpone indefinitelybor completely derail independence day; Europe, mr richardproving of some use, at last.
Its a fucking outrage Mr I. The disenfranchising of Scots born voters is an affront to democracy. A nig-nog getting off a boat is given a vote but people born and brought up there who happen to be working elsewhere are denied it (apologies for racist vernacular). WTF is going on? Gerrymandering on an unprecedented scale even for these islands I think... I hadn't thought to check if there are any internatIonal observers in place for 'voting' day...
And another bloody thing... I see the 'No' campaign disfavours the idea of Mr Farage being sent North to stiffen the resistance. OK, last time Bute House had arranged a reception committee for him. All the same what are the 'No' people afraid of? A beer and fags man who can work the pubs and clubs and won the sixth Scottish seat in the EU Soviet? At least the man has a pair even if only metaphorically speaking...
I think the crux of the complaint I mentioned is that since Scotland will immediately cease to be part of Europe upon a Yes vote those living south of the border will be deprived of their European rights without having a say in the matter.
My own thought was that a judicial review should consider the circumstances in which a British prime minister can permit the potential destruction of the union on the say-so of as few as twentieth of its population ( a narrow majority in thevreferendum being less than three million.)
Indeed, Mr I, the fact that a small fraction of a Union could vote on its dismemberment has always struck me as an oddity. But if the English were included, wouldn't this increase the likelyhood of Scotland's exclusion?
But your part of the world; wouldn't you be better off joining Norway or even Russia? Geographic proximity has nothing to do with it - pace the Malvinas.
Hell, why not go all the way and vote to become a State of Australia!
I simply don't know the answer to that, mr mike, at first glance, the English would ditch Jock in an instant, yet the case for the union might overcome natural and wholly justifiable inclinations to do that; imagine, a guarded border at Northumberland or Cumbria; he is such a cunt, that Salmond, he woukd make us foreigners in our own land, he should be jailed.
If a majority wants to leave, despite aggressive propaganda from the establishment, then what right has anyone to stop them? Insisting on agreement from the English is like insisting that divorce must require the agreement of both parties. The tacit calculation of those who want it is that it is the only way of ensuring a socialist government in perpetuity.
Bob has a consummate ability to get good musicians to play for him :-)
A deeply flawed albveit common analogy, if you will forgive me, mr tdg, marriage; this not two people splitting-up, this is two or three million disrupting the lives of almost half of their close compatriots and fifty-five or sixty million of their fellow citizens. It is a fucking constitutional outrage, ipso facto, this is not divorce, this is vengeful vandalism; leaving aside the fact that it will prove catastrophic for Scotland and thus for all in these islands.
As for a hidden, socialist purpose that is as sincere as was NewLabour's; there are no socialists prominent in the SNP, it io the usual ragbag of posturing egomaniacs, thieves, bullies and degenerates; everybody can talk about social fucking justice, especially when they are on two or three salaries, pensions and all expenses paid. You watch, the first thing that Holyrood will establish is an upper chamber, into which all the shit can lu8cratively retire retire.
You should not endorse this, even tacitly, this is not about self-determination for a handful of bigoted imbeciles, this is just McMediaMinster, Ruin's Northern offshoot.
You may well be right, but how is a third party to be persuaded here? In favour of the status quo is only history and predictions of socioeconomic doom no more and no less plausible than predictions about where a hurricane will be a week hence. Against is "the will of the people": they may well be bigoted imbeciles but if the handful is 51% of the population then there is less in any other hand. And the media, prefixed or not, have been strongly in favour of NO, as of course has been Westminster.
What amuses me about this is that the fundamental objections are deeply conservative, in the most old-fashioned way, but as we are now firmly strapped into the ghost train of progress, hurtling somewhere, anywhere, with the only aim never to stop, it feels deeply uncomfortable to articulate them.
There is little Rumsfeldism about this - knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, all that sophistry.
Here are just a couple of facts: the SNP immigration policy will, must, fall outside the Common Travel Arrangement between both states in the British Isles; secure sea, land and air borders will need to be enforced or the South East of England will be ever more overwhelmed by immigrants than is the case; this follows, as the night follows day; pasports, visas, customs, guards; people of both countries becoming even more wretchedly suspects than citizens. Salmond, of course denies this, there is no need for a secure border between NewSalmondia and England, no immigramnts will try to sneak down the M6 to their cousins in Luton. that's just scaremongering.
It is alos refutation of your divorce analogy, mr tdg, it is as though one partner is saying, I'm off, but I insist on the right to allow millions of strangers entry to the former matrimonial home.
Twenty-eight ragbag members of Europe must all agree Scotland's membership and on the continued advantageous terms enjoyed by Britain, even though the majority of them do not share these opt-outs and exemptions; merely because Salmond blusters that some horse-drawn economy Eastern Europeans will fall over themselves to allow Scotland, a wealthy country, off the taxes which they, themselves, must pay on food and clothes it does not mean it will happen thus. But my little brown friend, Harris, holds these truths to be self-evident, none should need persuading over the perils attendant upon getting 28 nations to agree to anything, any single one of them can veto Scotland's membership, any single one of them, including the rUK. What is not to understand? International law is tricky and complex and time-consuming and nobody gives a fuck about the Clearances or Culloden, absolutely fucking nobody, and nor should they, nobody gives a fuck about Scotland's fathomless, historical grievances, be they Longshanks or Margaret Thatcher, why is anyone going to break laws, breach convetions and ignore statutes? Is it because, as we are led to believe, some fat smirking politician says they must, because of Scotch whiskey.
And that's not to go anywhere near defence, NATO, currency, commerce international relations and diplomacy, welfare, pensions, bureaucratic infrastructure. Nor to mention that if Scotland does join Europe every student in the rUK will be entitled to free university education in Scotland which will mean the collapse of free Scottish higher education.
We could go on all day but I predicted, in the Scottish newspapers, the imminence of the financial collapse, the collapase to which Salmond, an economist, an expert in everything and a proto-monarch, was oblivious.
Who would you trust, mr tdg, he or I? Who could persuade you?
....strapped into the ghost train of progress....by the way, that's beautiful, that is.
It is not the wisdom of a split that is in question -- homogenized in the digital blender of globalisation nations matter increasingly little anyway -- but the legitimacy of the decision. Neither the media nor the establishment -- the SNP hardly count -- were in favour, so whatever pathology the urge represents it comes from the land itself. More misery is masochism than sadism, it seems to me, and there is something strangely thrilling about so pointless a leap into the unknown.
That is the heart over head argument made here, often, when Reason otherwise triumphs, though seldom as gracefully as you frame it.
My equivalent but opposite emotional response is that the homgenisation which you mention is an evolutionary good - we need fewer borders not more.
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