WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? |
Consistently Crestfallen, Seldom Surprised |
"Normal service", whatever that is, ought to be resumed next month. For now, please enjoy the following musical presentation. While I can't claim the credit - or, if you prefer, the blame - for uploading this video,* the 63-minute track in question certainly constitutes one of the weirdest, heaviest and most gloriously insane albums I'm lucky enough to own.
* That honor belongs to a YouTube user by the name of
Believe it or not, there are still people in this world who favor intelligence over ignorance, integrity over inconsistency, reason over superstition, irreverence over piety, gallows humor over po-facedness and bravery over cowardice. Yesterday, we lost one of our own.
Rest in peace, Hitch. You certainly earned it.
Are there really 31,000 people in the U.K. who didn't know that Jeremy Clarkson is a complete prick prior to his recent appearance on The One Show?
He said the most wonderful thing about writing that song. He went down and hung around on skid row in L.A. because he wanted to get stimulated for writing this material. He called me up and said, "I went down to skid row... I bought a pint of rye in a brown paper bag." I said, "Oh, really?" "Yeah - hunkered down, drank the pint of rye, went home, threw up, and wrote Tom Traubert's Blues [...] Every guy down there... Everyone I spoke to, a woman put him there."
-- Record producer Bones Howe on Tom Waits. (Source: Wild Years, The Music and Myth of Tom Waits, Jay S. Jacobs, ECW Press, 2000.)
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While I've no intention of consuming these in one fell swoop and making myself sick in the process, I wanted a change from my once-rigid bourbon-only drinking habits. Indeed, I've been thinking of broadening my scope for quite some time and rye seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
So why now? Well, there are several reasons behind said decision, with most of which I shan't bore you, but I will admit that a recent encounter with this product played a prominent role:
Although it is often derided as the corporate face of American whiskey, and gets its fair share of criticism as a result, I'm usually disinclined to pick upon Beam Inc. in situations such as these. For one thing, it's far too easy to throw rocks at the big guys; for another, they actually make some pretty decent products if one can put aside one's puritanism long enough to judge them on their own merits. Even so, their decision to produce a flavored bourbon (as opposed to a bourbon liqueur) struck me as kinda disenchanting.
The most disappointing thing about Jim Beam Red Stag - which will soon be available in two new variants, Honey Tea and Spiced - is that it's been designed solely to appeal to people who don't like whiskey in the first place. From a business perspective, I can't exactly fault the folks at the distillery for trying to broaden their appeal and make more money in the process, but couldn't they have focused upon improving and extending their existing range without being seen to pander to the lowest common denominator of alcoholic beverage consumers?
Think about it like this: If Quentin Tarantino attempted to remake Reservoir Dogs in a bid to ensnare those who abhor cursing and violence, replacing scenes which feature one element or the other with lavish musical numbers, his core fanbase would be pissed off to the point of desertion and the (few) converts he made wouldn't even be the kind of viewers he'd want in the first place. What, then, would be gained? Nothing whatsoever! One step forward, one step back.
No doubt there's a certain hypocrisy in decrying snobbery and being snobbish in concurrent paragraphs. To paraphrase the late, great George Carlin, if the above causes you any cognitive dissonance, you're just going to have to work that shit out on your own.
Anyway, I'm now a rye drinker... At least, until some company or other produces a bubblegum-flavored rye and offends my delicate sensibilities in the process, whereupon I'll probably switch to vodka. Erm, hang on a second...
Never again will I go public with my views on incipient legal proceedings!
Before y'all all get carried away, let's remember that O.J. was found "Not Guilty" back in 1995. Moreover, the Italian Supreme Court - the Cassazione - will almost certainly be asked to examine this case before it's put to bed once and for all, so there's always a chance that the defendants will be re-convicted in absentia.
Then again, perhaps I was just plain wrong from the get-go. It'll be interesting to read about the appeal court's reasons for freeing Knox and Sollecito when its report is published in early 2012, that's for sure.
Regardless of the terminology deployed by the presiding judge this evening, my guess is that the defense teams did just enough to establish reasonable doubt... Which is, of course, all they needed to do in order to spring their clients from Capanne prison.
Perhaps the one thing upon which we can all agree is that the Kercher family deserves everyone's heartfelt sympathy right about now.
"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
-- Charles Bukowski, Factotum, 1975. Blatantly pilfered from a post made by Joe Cardamone on the official website of The Icarus Line, sometime last year.
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If I'd known six years ago just how accurate* Chuck's remarks would turn out to be, would I still have set off down this path? Probably. More fool me, I suppose.
* At least, the "isolation" part thereof. I haven't yet reached a stage wherein the second half of the quote might become applicable!
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith, August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003. Nearly eight years gone and still sorely missed.
[The song below is taken from Elliott's debut LP, Roman Candle.]
On the one hand, Johnny Knoxville and his Dickhouse cohorts were quick to chastise Roger Ebert for posting a trenchant, albeit somewhat ill-timed, tweet about drink-driving in the wake of Ryan Dunn's death; on the other, it seems as though half-assed wisecracks about the recent events in Norway are fair game.
"If you must insist upon it though, let's just say that Priya has face value for days with her outstanding track record for being very, very jumpy. Like scream-bloody-murder-summer-camp-killing-spree jumpy."
This remark isn't necessarily as crass as it seems to be at first glance, though. After all, there's no need to assume the existence of malice when simple ignorance will suffice as an explanation. Even so... Really, guys?
One of the main reasons why I took the decision to scrap my old website and start over, as opposed to simply altering its focus, was the dawn of my new-found apolitical nature. This change didn't happen overnight - if anything, it was a long time coming - but when it struck, it struck hard.
Simply put, the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009 irrevocably killed my interest in all things political, thereby rendering my site completely irrelevant. Although I knew I wanted to maintain an Internet presence of some sort, and my abject hatred for social networking sites meant that a stripped-down blog was always going to be the best way forward, the days of getting pissed off over something Bush, Blair, Brown or Obama thought, said or did were well and truly over.
Nowadays, the closest I get to paying attention to what's going on in the realm of politics, on either side of the proverbial pond, involves watching Real Time With Bill Maher; even so, I couldn't help but take a perverse sense of delight in watching the whole News International debacle unfold over the past few weeks.
Can it really be long before the Cameron-Clegg house of cards comes tumbling down around their ears? Here's hoping. Will the loathsome Piers "Morgan" Moron lose his comfortable CNN job over allegations that he, too, was involved in this unsavory practice during his time with Trinity Mirror? Fingers crossed. Are Rupert Murdoch's salad days really numbered? Let us pray (metaphorically, of course).
Sure, for every self-serving, cretinous little weasel who's forced to commit figurative seppuku over this fiasco, a dozen more lie in wait, ready to resume the current status quo as soon as the dust has settled. We'll never get 'em all, but it sure is fun to try every now and again.
