Difficult Decisions

 

 The Beatles catalogue is out today on iTunes.  This brings me some sense of joy in that this is the music that I grew up with.  I bought my first Beatles album, which was the first Beatles album when I was just old enough to buy things.

My dad used to rage incessantly about how awful they were and what a bad influence, what with the hair and screaming girls and all.  You should hear him now! "You know, I think I may have misjudged those boys."

I was physically restrained from going to a Beatles concert in the Lynchian nightmare that was my childhood hometown, just as they became 'something'.  I don't think I have ever gotten over it, actually.

The most surprising thing, if it is surprising, is how...well...unrevolutionary much of their music is when you hear it now.  It's just good music. It's nice. It makes you feel good.

I think A Hard Day's Night and Help are two fine Richard Lester films with fantastic music and a pretty funny script, the both of them.

But here is where rock meets hard place.  I could see myself queueing up on iTunes to download the whole shedload and helping Lennon and Harrison, and maybe even that tired old manque´ Starkey get through their dottage.

But a penny for that smug, tiresome McCartney fellow?  With that nasty brown wig?  Bad taste in women? 

I have to think about this, maybe for a while.

R.I.P. Dino de Laurentis

Have you ever seen any of these films?  Blue Velvet, La Strada, Barbarella, Serpico, Conan the Barbarian, Ragtime, The Serpent's Egg, King Kong, Flash Gordon, Dune, The Shootist?

Dino de Laurentis died today, and yes he made some really crappy films, but he made some brilliant ones too that probably would never have been made if somebody as 'wacko' as him had not been around.

Whoosh!

And what do we make of this?

Not much to make of it really, other than 'Cool!', but I continue to marvel at the potty-mouthed Dawkins crowd who are so, so lacking in a sense of wonder.

I have had it suggested that this doesn't look at all like a black hole going 'whammo', and I wouldn't know myself, but that it could be 'God's fingerprint'.  Hmmm.  Don't know about that either, but it does make me think about Ed Emberley and then I really do go HMMMM. 

Cruelty can be fun

America's progressive, intellectual elite takes umbrage...

When's the last time you heard a British artist....

Do a cover of a classic like this...

Sing this in the shower if you dare....

Is that the best you can do...?

Embedding is disabled on this YouTube clip from CBS News in the US, but watching it I felt a sense of utter revulsion. Who *is* this greaseball Axelrod? How did he get into a position of responsibility like he has today? What is he, chief of staff to the freaking President of the United States or something? He looks like he needs a good scrub to begin with...but the dry, sticky mouth shite at the end of this cringe-making exercise in the dismantling of a once-promising presidency...is utterly...you know, I was going to use a word like 'devastating' but the real word(s) for this are 'second rate', 'cheap', 'tawdry' and 'shit-stained'. How did these little arse-wipes get into office. How, FFS!!