three from clint

hello there


so i have watched a couple (a few) (well, three, look you see) of films lately. as usual this means that for some reason i feel compelled to post some comments here, along with some relatively nice and possibly interesting images.

but of course no, it's not three modern or "new" films i watched. give me a break, it is only within the last few days that i gave comment on the latest, finger on the pulse of Spiderman movies for you all. instead i went back and watched some films that i have seen "more than a few" times before, seeking and indeed taking considerable entertainment from the comfort of watching movies which i knew to be good.

as the title of this post implies (kind of), yes, three Clint Eastwood films. if you for some reason thought the title referred to me watching three Clint Howard films, actually that's not a bad idea, but not this time around. the usual warning seems appropriate around about now, so once you go past the picture below do be warned as something of a *** POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for all films.

what prompted this? one of the tv stations here had a thing where they seemed to screen High Plains Drifter every saturday night, without fail, for a month or so. although i thoroughly enjoyed watching this brooding, brutal masterpiece again and again, it occurred to me that what would be even better than watching High Plains Drifter every time a station cared to broadcast it was watching other motion pictures featuring Clint Eastwood. so, i did.

by no means do i have all of the Clint films on shiny discs or tapes. lots of them, though. for some inexplicable reason, for instance, i do not have them two where he had the monkey and went around punching people quite hard in the face (Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can, i believe they are called). let me get around to fixing that gap, but for now a look at the three (which is to say excluding the prompt of High Plains Drifter) that i did watch.

for some reason i have elected to do this chronologically in terms of when the films were released, rather than the order in which i have just watched them. some of you may be most pleased by this, some will be frustrated, but i would trust that the majority could not care less.

starting chronologically means going to the "most recent" rewatched, then, which would be (as you can no doubt work out from the above) Dirty Harry from 1971. having by this stage established himself as one of the most iconic characters in film history as "the man with no name" in those "spaghetti western" films (called such because they were made in and ostensibly for the Italian market if you've always been too afraid to ask), off Clint went and ramped it up to a whole new level with yet another creation of one of the most iconic characters in film history.

plot? a maverick cop who will stop at nothing to uphold the law and bring justice is called in when a vicious, seemingly unstoppable killer is holding San Francisco to ransom. his brutal, unnerving, unrepentant and relentless obsession with bringing evil to book frequently prompts the question as to how much of a monster is one prepared to tolerate in order to stop another monster.

if you wanted a "film history analysis" thing, it would be fair to say that Dirty Harry took the concepts of vengeance and redemption from westerns, observed how they could be transposed on a modern setting (specifically the magnificent Bullitt) and set the tone for all future action / thriller films. better, though, to just take it all as intended, which is as a remarkably entertaining motion picture that one shouldn't really ever tire of watching.

that said, on watching it again for the first time in a fair few years, something struck me that once you see it you can never ever unsee it. what this would be is just how influential Andy Robinson has proven to be in his role as Scorpio, the very very bad man of an antagonist. there has been acres of justified praise for the performance Heath Ledger gave as The Joker in The Dark Knight. once you watch Dirty Harry, you (well i) can't but help feel that somewhere around 75% of that magnificent performance can be seen as channelling Scorpio. have a watch and see.

a particularly famous piece of trivial trivia concerning Dirty Harry is of course that Clint Eastwood should have been nowhere near this film. it was hoped that Mr Sinatra would play the lead, but he flat refused, possibly rightly concerned by the levels of violence in it. it was so that Mr Sinatra also turned down the option to make a sequel to one of his films, The Detective, due to the violence in it. that one was Nothing Lasts Forever, and eventually got filmed as Die Hard.

with the other two Eastwood films i watched recently being 80s ones, i suppose i should really have elected to watch one of the two 1980s Dirty Harry films. however, i felt that Sudden Impact was just too dark and heavy to be suitable saturday evening entertainment, and The Dead Pool nearly won but then i spotted the Dirty Harry disc and that was that.

to Firefox, then, one of two films released by Warner in 1982 that somewhat "failed" at the box office due to every single film released in 1982 "failing" because they were not E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. as many of you will know, the other was Blade Runner. both were rather good films indeed, and it is most pleasing that they have survived. this is all the more true in the case of Firefox, for the "of its time" plot suggest it should maybe have become dated and of little relevance from the early 90s onwards.

and what is that plot? well, Clint Eastwood plays one of America's greatest ever military pilots, one troubled by the psychological scars of the tortures of being a prisoner of war. he is necessarily called into action, however, when the Soviet Union develop Firefox, a lethal, radar invisible fighter jet capable of causing great damage and fatally shifting the balance of the Cold War. America believes their only option to beat it is to steal it.

perhaps the greatest part of Firefox is that audiences are not spoon fed. the plot premise is simplistic enough, so as little time as possible is spent on any sort of "origins" story, or lengthy explanations. we, as the audience, are trusted to accept the scenario, and are allowed to just get on with watching the plot unfold. various "leaps of faith" in terms of plausibility are required by the audience of course, but would that not be true of all films?

watching Firefox again was most refreshing. for a start, it all seemed to have a much faster pace than i recalled from the first screening. and what or when was the first time i saw it? 1983. my Dad happened to be in the beloved video rental section of that petrol station when they were unpacking new releases, so we got both Firefox and Blade Runner first, and watched them as a double bill as a family. also, whereas it was fashionable to portray the "Commies" as bumbling idiots, in Firefox the Soviet Union is presented exactly as it was - a formidable, intelligent and in many respects superior opponent to Western ideas.

as mentioned earlier, it appears not to have fallen into the trap of being "dated". maybe that is because in this day and age we still see Russia as some dark, evil empire enemy, although things are no longer as balanced or as clear cut as they were in the balance, stalemate era of the Cold War. in terms of influence, well, one can't watch this and not think that maybe a certain young Tom Clancy watched this, and instead of going "cool" said "you know, i could do a book like that, except make it a submarine instead of a jet fighter". which he did go and do, to remarkably good effect.

not really much in the way of trivia i can share here on this one. for some reason one of those "internet browser" things took the name of this film for itself, perhaps that is the browser you are using here. i think this was an established trend by this stage anyway, but nonetheless Firefox reaffirmed the idea that anyone "foreign" in an American film should be played by English actors, as their accents would be plausibly "foreign" enough for purpose. the only other bit of trivia i can think of is that the supporting cast features not one, not three, but two actors who had speaking roles in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of A Clockwork Orange.

finally, then, the first of the three i recently (re)watched, in the form of Pale Rider. quite a natural selection, i believe, on the basis of being prompted by High Plains Drifter. this one works with very similar themes to that film, and in many respects is considered a "spiritual sequel" to it. in every sense, for a common interpretation of both films are that one is watching a ghost story.

plot? it is the gold rush. a group of individual prospectors are trying to find the precious metal on their claim, but face perpetual intimidation, violence and threats from a big businessman who wishes to drive them out and claim the land. just as all hope seems lost and the prospectors are prepared to quit rather than be crushed a mysterious stranger, who because of how he dresses they dub The Preacher, arrives and appears to change the odds......

this was one of the first Eastwood films that i saw in a cinema. it was certainly the first i saw at the movies in England, me and my good friend Mike went, somewhat with the approval of our fathers, despite us being slightly below the BBFC certificate of 15. first Eastwood i saw in a cinema? i think probably Honkytonk Man, with the family, whilst on holiday somewhere, most likely Malta. yes, i have been to see several since, and if i were asked which has been the greatest of them all then like most i would probably say Unforgiven, although for sheer entertainment In The Line Of Fire would be exceptionally close.

i haven't said all that much about Pale Rider have i? well, memories of youth suggested it was "a bit slow and boring in parts". this would not be the case on a rewatch, it's absorbing and perfectly paced. with regards to cast, well, there is a growing trend which says the world backed entirely the wrong Penn brother. we did. another stellar supporting performance from Christopher Penn here, the mind boggles as to why he got overlooked in preference of his gobsh!te brother Sean in the 80s.

a criticism of Clint Eastwood - both as a person and in his films - has been his apparent pursuit of a "right wing agenda". this is something i have always "seen" but never really understood. by no means, by all accounts, is he a flawless person, but he is somewhat more liberal than he is given credit for. for a start, Pale Rider has some "ahead of its time" aspects. it was very much a defence of the "little man" trying to make his way in the world against formidable opponents such as government, the law and big business. also, it rallies against pollution and for environmental concerns, all at a time when such things were not popular concerns. on a personal level, i think it was about this time (1985 ish) that he ran to be Mayor of his home town. a lot of his reason for doing so was to stand against the ridiculous and superfluous official and governmental interference in day to day life, with particular emphasis on the ban on eating ice cream in public. although leaning to the right, perhaps Clint is not quite the right wing advocate he is often pictured as.

may i make something of a serious observation here? a concern in the modern world is mental health, with being lost and a sense of loneliness being of major concern in general, but of often overlooked problems for "middle aged men", which is a bracket i guess i fall into. one identified worry in these confusing days is just how difficult it is to connect and make friends. may i suggest that for just about all men over 40, possibly the 35+ bracket, Clint Eastwood is the ice breaker? in my experience, all gents of this age have seen at least one Clint film, and liked what they saw. mentioning seeing one recently can often provoke memories of others seeing others, and act as a start for a conversation. this may not work for all, but this is something i have indeed experienced and seen work.

there is every likelihood that i shall be watching even more Clint Eastwood films in the near future. watching these three (four) again (and again) reminded me of how, given a free hand, basically i could sit with a massive pile of his films and just sit and watch them all day, every day, and be thoroughly entertained. whereas some of his films are not quite so great as others, each of them tends to retain a "perfectly watchable" quality, if just for his presence alone.

would there be any other actors i could watch three randomly (ish) selected films by on the bounce and be just as entertained? probably. 80s Schwarzenegger and Stallone i suppose are the obvious, if we assume in regards of the latter things like Over The Top and in particular Rhinestone were suspiciously unavailable. but, for now, i am inclined to stick with a spell of Clint re watches. let me see if i can dig out my In The Line Of Fire disc.......

if you are still reading this, many thanks for doing so, and hopefully some (if obviously not all) of it has been of some interest.



go ahead, make my day, do you feel lucky, punk, etc............

excuse me whilst i kiss the sky

howdy pop pickers


something of a double win here, look you see, for this is a Spiros update and a celebration of an American band who are, let it be said, quite good. very good, really, i suppose. now that i think, i suppose that this could be a "half win" or "double loss" for those of you either only partially interested or not interested at all. if the latter, well, it is on you that you read further.

legendary rockers Kiss, which is to say Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and whatever other bit part players they have taken on board now, have played their most recent of "last ever" concerts in London on their current "last ever" tour. we have heard this from them, and many other bands, true, but you never know.

as a loyal, devout Kiss fan, Spiros was indeed at this gig. just as he was at their previous "last ever" London gig, on their previous "last ever" tour, which i think was two years ago. will he and they be there again in two or so years? perhaps. but for now here are some of the pictures he sent.

that's them in full swing, doing one of their many classic pop hits, i imagine. maybe I Was Made For Lovin' You, or one of their other many amazing disco floor killers.

would i consider myself a Kiss fan? for sure. not as devout as Spiros, but i have always had an interest in them. whereas they never struck me as making it all that big in England, or the wider UK, during my days in Australia in the early 80s they were absolutely massive. as in when i visited friends they would show off which Kiss albums they had, be it Unmasked or Destroyer. or Dynasty, even.

if like Spiros you were at this most recent of final Kiss gigs and have hoped that maybe someone took a picture of the back of your head, you are in luck. here, see if you can spot yourself. or someone you know, i guess.

although i do not recall much in the way of all that much interest in Kiss in England in the 70s, 80s or 90s (bar their contribution to the soundtrack for one of the Bill and Ted documentaries), clearly enough to fill a massive concert venue exists today. well, either that, or the tickets were really cheap, and there is absolutely nothing else to be done in London on a night these days.

would i go and see Kiss? yes, i suppose so. it really rather depends on when exactly they do their next "last ever" tour. should it be convenient, i will certainly consider thinking about going along, having a bit of a gander, giving them a listen and maybe busting some moves.

a contractually obliged close up of Paul Stanley on one of the big screens there, then. which is fair enough, from what i can work out he and Gene are the brains and the talent of the band.

right, not much else for me to add here. enjoy the pictures!




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

far from home

hello there


yes, indeed, look you see, far from home as in Spiderman Far From Home, or Spider Man or Spider-Man, whichever you prefer. all of them seem to be accepted as relating to some lad what got bitten off of a spider and gained super spider powers.

we went and saw this motion picture, apparently one of the most "eagerly anticipated" of the year, a couple of weeks ago. i would reasonably expect that anyone reading this has either seen the film, or is not too bothered about finding any details. nonetheless, an extra special *** SUPER SPIDEY SPOILER WARNING *** is now in effect. read on at your own risk.

plot? after Spidey (Peter Parker) was resurrected (or whatever) in the events of Avengers Endgame, off he goes on a school trip to Europe. alas, Nicky Fury out of The Avengers is s*** out of superheroes, and so needs Spidey to team up with a hero from another dimension (Mysterio, played by the one out of the gay cowboy film that wasn't in the Batman film) to battle what can only be described as a big massive planet f****r. things are not what they seem.......

it is a pretty good, often very good, entertaining film, is Spiderman Far From Home. which means that they, Marvel Studios, whoever releases the movies (usually Disney, here Sony) have gotten away with it again. there is absolutely nothing new here, with similar plot details and devices being regurgitated for the (close enough to) 30th time and yet it all works.

what gets copied this time? ostensibly Iron Man 2, very much Spiderman Homecoming and arguably Ant Man, where the principal antagonist is a disgruntled ex-employee who feels hard done by. also Iron Man 3, and if you overthink things a bit Avengers Endgame, where illusions are cast as to who exactly the real "big bad" is. you can moan about the lack of originality if you wish, but the only thing that happens is you miss out on entertainment. by "borrowing" the elements that worked from other films and using them as a starting block, they do keep on coming up with inspired and highly creative new spins on it all.

one really wishes that other "franchises" would follow this model. for no apparent reason, both Disney with Star Wars and Warner with DC comics (Batman, Superman, et al) seem to belligerently reject all of the elements what made millions of people love the original stories and concepts, instead looking for "new angles" that are not needed or "subverting expectations" which just causes a lot of disappointment, upset and fuss. also nowhere near as much money as the Marvel films make, but do crack on. 

yes, the obligatory "blimey look at the prices of food and drink at the cinema" image for you. shocking, i know. the arguments are "this is how the cinemas make money though" and "you can always just sneak your own in". neither of those would appear to cover the obscenity that is what they charge for plain water.

are the performances any good? well, they are what they are. just what they need to be. the lad playing Spidey does a good job, as do his chums. him off of the cowboy film in it barely stops smiling, presumably due to the massive payday that comes with being in one of these types of film. and Samuel L Jackson has been playing the Pulp Fiction caricature of Samuel L Jackson for some 27 or so years now, and delivers precisely that.

if for some reason you are reading this and wanting to know is Spiderman Far From Home worth seeing, then yes it is. at no stage does it drag over the course of some two hours. at some point it will be, either via the law of averages or the lack of creative ideas for a rehash, that Marvel make a really, really sh!t film. this is not it, though. perhaps that will only come as and when they hire, for instance, the people that thought the last series of Game Of Thrones was actually good, or when they hire someone who patently and clearly hates the source material and fans, as Disney did when they hired whoever it was (presumably a fanatical, overzealous Trekkie) to make the mess that was Star Wars The Last Jedi. or Solo.

my spidey senses tell me that this is enough for this post, hope it has been of some use to someone.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

disco shark

g'day


one of those posts which may or may not be of interest, look you see, depending on how much and what sort of information you want on consumer things. also, the interest you have will rest pretty much on exactly how bothered you are about what sort of plug (plus attachments) you have in the bath.

if, indeed, you have a bath. many in the world have gone full tilt Kurtz, of course, abandoning baths to the wilds of the showers. for the record this is what i have done, sticking to showers for decades. mostly this has been on the off chance that what happened to Bobby out of Dallas is a real thing, but i feel i am moving away from the point of this post.

so, anyway, disco shark. or better disco shark plug, for that is what this relates to. and when you read this, please don't read "disco" conventionally, but the smart, stylish way. rather say, out loud or in your head, "dee eye ess see oh". you will feel all the better for it, and frightfully groovy.

yes. as the picture above sort of shows, we now have a plug what has a (reasonably buoyant) floating shark attached. not any shark, of course, but a light up one, and further of many colours. quite lifelike.

for what reason do we have a floating light up disco shark plug of many colours? William. i took him shopping with me, and he spotted it, and that was that.

undoubtedly a video would showcase the magnificence (if any) of this curiosity item. and so here we go, one of two (kind of) videos of the shark in action, doing its thing.

where did we get such a splendid item from? a store called B & M, which usually has all sorts of class stuff that you had no idea you wanted or needed until you see it. admittedly i was a bit hesitant at the cost, for one penny south of three pounds sterling seemed a bit steep for a plug, but i paid that with little fuss before i even knew of the splendid disco light up nature of it.

regular, or frequent if you will, readers of this blog might be confused by the lack of images of this disco shark plug presented in Commodore 64 mode. let me fix that for you.

if i were to be completely honest, and in doing so sound somewhat disrespectful to the wonders of Commodore 64 mode, i would say that the above doesn't really capture the quintessential disco (or shark) qualities of the plug.

conversely, paradoxically or whatever, though, a Commodore 64 mode "animated GIF" or just "GIF" if that is all you have to say works wonders in presenting the true magic of it.

do i feel like i have value for money - £2.99, let us not forget - from this disco shark plug? mostly, yes. the boys are entertained at bath time with it on the go, and in fairness it is fun.

one downside, though, is that the business end - the plug - isn't as smart or as clever as it thinks it is. by no means is it a snug or perfect fit, and one has to be careful inserting it, or else the water one runs with the intention of filling a bath shall just drip away before anyone has bathed and washed.

a shot of disco shark in blue? why not.

i suppose one is not limited to using the disco shark plug in a bath. so far i have not done this, but i guess i could just as easily place it in the kitchen sink when i do dishes, me being domesticated and what have you.

another bit of video to finish off? why not. i really rather suspect that disco shark is better watched with movement than a still image.

perhaps this has inspired you to go and obtain your own disco shark plug. most happy day if so. i should point out, however, that they also had a smart looking unicorn one. William, however, indeed alas, was having none of it. maybe i shall go back and get it anyway.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i walk outside just to take the air

greetings


another of the observational posts, look you see. but then again, i suppose all such posts here are of this nature, except for those ones written blind.

out and about, i was, to be sure, when i spotted what appeared to be the remains of a romantic street based cuisine interlude. well, if not romantic then most certainly affectionate, or perhaps optimistic on behalf of a suitor.

i know that many, some, a few, well, one or two of you (perhaps one) really rather enjoy it when i spot something curious on the streets. here you go, then, have a gander.

the truth is i would not really call myself a food and drink expert. with this in mind, there is only so much i can say on this, and even then it is rather limited.

but, if pressed, i would say the bottle was vessel to some alcohol based refreshment, and possibly a special edition variation as it had all hearts and things on it. most decidedly this elixir was used to wash down, or otherwise complement, and unspecified pie or sandwich, going on the wrapping materials carefully left by it.

was the bottle empty? i have no idea, this was as close as i was prepared to get to it. there is every chance that if the original liquid had gone from the bottle that the drinker (or drinkers) might have refilled it, so to speak, and so i felt it wiser to steer clear.

something of a close up above, then, for those of you interested. well, not really a close up, i just cropped the original image and "blew it up" a bit. quite pointless, looking at it, for one can't tell any specific further details of the banquet.

no. i suspect the back door to an unspecified store, located in a less obvious alley just around town, is indeed far from anyone's general idea of the perfect place for a food based romantic liaison. assuming it was romance, for all i know this was from a business dinner or "power lunch". but i would like to think that it was a meal of a romantic nature. love is where you find it, dear reader.

right, well, that's that for this post. more later on, or just above or below this post, depending on when you read it and on which device you do.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more calendar

hi


there has been some rebuff, rebuke and remonstrant reaction, then. i tried, look you see, to do something a little different with the calendar update for July, to be sure. for some reason this has not gone at all as well as i had hoped, with some insisting that i discard it, pretend like it never happened and put up the usual, more traditional one.

well, i am not inclined to either delete or edit anything on here. but, for the sake or interest of those of you who for some reason wish to have the full set, here you go.

yes, indeed, no you are not mistaken. up on the Winnie The Pooh calendar what we rather needlessly have in our kitchen (except me sister loves the character so there), things are a bit different. out of respect for the month, the artist responsible has not done a picture or painting of a traditional Winnie The Pooh "expanded universe" character. instead, he or she has done a very respectful portrait of Mani out of The Stone Roses, if he happened to be Winnie The Pooh.

quite a fitting (and quite brilliant) tribute, since of course on 1st July this year it was the 7th anniversary of myself, my (considerably) better half, two very dear friends and many thousands of fellow devotees seeing The Stone Roses perform their thing at Heaton Park.

of course i spent the day enjoying as much of their music as was possible. some one hundred and twenty miles over the course of four hours i drove to do this.

my listening encompassed a significant percentage of their vibes, covering the four "main" or principal discs released in their name. to go as chronological as possible, the playing order was The Stone Roses, Turns Into Stone, Second Coming and The Very Best Of The Stone Roses. what i missed out on, then, was Garage Flower, a few things on The Complete Stone Roses, less than satisfactory b-sides from Second Coming (which i think are Breakout and Moses), plus the two (in Stone Roses terms) recent tunes All For One and Beautiful Thing.

sadly, so far, Beautiful Thing has not had a CD release. i mean yes, i have the 12" single here, and the numerous mp3 downloads i ended up buying, so i suppose i could make a copy to listen to on my travels. as it seems a third album, even my much hoped for Christmas with The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses, is unlikely, perhaps they will release (yet) another "best of" and have the two new(ish) singles included.

right, well, back to the more classical calendar rundown for the month. which means of course a look at my "retro" cars one. unlike the Winnie The Pooh one, absolutely no tribute or homage to The Stone Roses is to be found here.

indeed that is a 1978 Austin Allegro, optimistically dubbed or also called the "1100 Deluxe" model. what colour is it? brown, of course, just like how absolutely everything made or imported into the UK during the 70s was brown for some peculiar reason. unless it was one of the few items which were a gaudy, horrid orange instead.

no, so far as i am aware this car has no particular connection or tenuous (at best) link to The Stone Roses. it is entirely possible that someone with this model car played a Stone Roses tape in it, but if asked for an opinion i would say that i suspect not.

anyway, this, i am certain, is enough to satisfy those who wished for a regular look at the calendars for this month. or, at the least, this is as good as it shall get.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jeremy conundrum

heya


the single biggest challenge to television broadcasters (commercial or state) in the UK is, look you see, the peculiar requirement that at all times someone called Jeremy must be employed in a presenting capacity. no one is quite sure as to how or even why this law came into being, but so it is written, and so it shall be.

at times this requirement - or if you like conundrum - is in no way problematic. often, as it happens, it has been stress free and quite rewarding. examples of Jeremy success are Beadle, who simply wished to entertain people, Clarkson before he developed destabilising ego issues and for that matter Vine, or at least Vine for the first tolerable five minutes he was thrust before cameras. sixth minute onwards has been a bit of a challenge, but no matter.

one of the rather ingenious ways around the Jeremy requirement placed on broadcasters was to use politicians to meet the quota. this had limited success at first, but alas (and perhaps inevitably) the wheels have right come off this one, what with Corbyn increasingly being aware they will broadcast anything he says and so he says anything, and Hunt presenting all sorts of complex challenges via his surname.

in recent times this whole Jeremy requirement has come to the fore with the rush to judgement on one of the more infamous of his name, Kyle. just as his success came from playing to the gladitorial, baying for blood audience, so he came to be blamed for the fact that the audience was, in nature, gladitorial and baying for blood. whilst his removal from the airwaves immediately fixed most of the problems in society, it has left a worrying gap in which we see no, or hardly any, presenters called Jeremy being our screens.

here is Spake, as in Jeremy Spake. yes, presented as an artists impression, if you call me an artist, for there seems to be a lack of free to use images of him around at the moment. that shall soon change, though, for the imminent huge surge in popularity and interest in him will see demand for icons, portraits and memorabilia increase to levels higher than they presently are.

unless our next Prime Minister, or even once and future King, is prepared to tear up the part of the constitution which states that at all times someone called Jeremy must be on our television screens, we need an answer to the question. Jeremy Spake is a ready made solution.

could he step up and step straight in to shows such as Top Gear, Eggheads, The Jeremy Kyle Show and Beadle's About, though? why yes, of course. this would be rather reactionary though. in order to let him flourish, and to have having someone called Jeremy being on the tele be more than just a legal requirement, he needs his own ventures.

here are just a few of the ideas i have had for how broadcasters can best harness the power of Jeremy Spake, and meet their Jeremy quota broadcasting volumes.

For F**k's Sake with Jeremy Spake - this would be a hard hitting, no nonsense news review and political commentary show. in it, Jeremy would look at all those stories and developments which make people utter "for f**k's sake" in disbelief and desperation, reaffirming that they are right to react in such a way.

Wide Awake with Jeremy Spake - just a nice, relaxing, hour long daily show during which Jeremy starts his day off with meditation, yoga and perhaps a cup of tea or coffee.

On a Lake with Jeremy Spake - early evening light entertainment in which Jeremy sits in a boat on a lake, observing things.

Jeremy Spake's Garden Rake - one for the environmental enthusiasts, seeing Jeremy inspect various gardens and advise if he finds them quite pleasant or believes they should be neatened up a bit.

Oh For F**k's Sake it's Jeremy Spake - adult orientated satire during which Jeremy affectionately pokes fun at the proliferation of Jeremy Spake shows on television.

All About Hake with Jeremy Spake - Jeremy turns the spotlight on this frequently overlooked, predominantly water based form of fish.

Take the Cake with Jeremy Spake - an engrossing, reasonable sized cash prize based quiz show, with contestants doing something cake related (literally or metaphorically) to win.

i could go on, but i shall not. absolutely any and all television production companies are most welcome to use any and all of the above ideas with no need for credit or royalties to me, i am satisfied just to help them out a bit.

well, anyway, that is probably quite enough Jeremy for one post.





be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

change horses in midstream

hello there


i appreciate that there are many things i do which certain people, look you see, disapprove of. going further, i know that one in particular - smoking - is a matter that rather a many in number would suggest, or directly state, i should not do. they are not entirely wrong in the reason, assuming the disapproval or concern relates to my health and not some ambition to make me miserable.

quitting, or at the least cutting down considerably is something that i have given whimsical, speculative thought to but never really got down to the business end of. this might (might) be about to change. and no, not for health reasons or anything so trivial.

one of the main barriers to such was the puzzle of whatever would i do instead. then, with almost perfect timing if i happened to be looking for an answer to that puzzle (which i was not, but anyway), information came my way which suggested an alternate. no, not "vape" or whatever.

yes, that is some heroin, or smack, or "h", or pony or whatever the kids call it. just calling things by their name is easier, i would have thought, but no matter. certain information has come to be known to me that gives every indication of heroin being a better thing for me, and using it gaining me a much greater level of social acceptance than smoking does, what with our society conditioned to believe that cigarettes are the worst thing ever. which, for a start, means that nowhere near as many people as you might think have heard a Sammy Hagar or Mr Kim Kardassian record to make such a claim on what is the worst thing in the world.

economics (money) come to the fore here. a rather interesting story over on the BBC website (which means it must be true) revealed that heroin costs as little as £5 a go, although i suspect that is not for a packet of 20. this means heroin costs 44% of what a pack of Marlboro red does, and 57% of what a pack of the cheapest fags (Players Red or Benson and Hedges Blue) costs. switching to heroin makes a huge amount of financial sense, then. also, when you run out of heroin, you can just turn up at a hospital or whatever, say "hello, i seem to have run out of heroin", and the people there apologise and give you some more (or similar) for free, ensuring that it is decent gear and making it safe to use. should i turn up at my nearest hospital and explain that i have run out of cigarettes, i suspect it would be less apologies and offers of free replacements, more threats of arrest.

quite how and why heroin has become a cheaper, and thus preferable, alternate to cigarettes is something of a mystery. perhaps it in some way relates to the fact that heroin sales generally tend to be of an unconventional nature, and thus do not go through the taxation process. it would probably be much better, then, if cigarettes also operated on a similar basis. especially the available for free when you run out part from above.

yes, there he is, look at him. at present he is the mr king of tax collection, the chancellor of the exchequer, although his dreadful reign should be over around the time you reach the end of this sentence. it is because of him that cigarettes get taxed so high, allowing attractive alternates such as heroin to flourish. how can it be that someone who collects all the taxes and gets all the money can have such poor dress sense is beyond me. for some reason he believes that "ill-fitting" is the best way to have a suit. also, i would not at all be surprised if he has rushed into a doctor at some stage, clutching his elbow, crying "ow, ow, doctor! nurse! ow, ow, my @rse knacks".

in this day and age heroin is, of course, made to seem cooler than smoking. once it was only really just the absolute boring b@stards in rock bands that did heroin, like Charlie Watts out of Rolling Stones and him what does the guitar off of The Who. but, ever since him out of Star Wars did that film about the trains, heroin has been adopted by cooler people. ones who once would have been cool smoking, but shoot it up instead. so, in theory, i should not get quite so many judgemental looks when i spike my vein as i do now when i light one up. very wise, they will think and say, presumably.

an interesting and reasonable question is how i shall get on being a (partially) functioning adult whilst smacked on some h. when i have a cigarette it takes but a few moments - a handful of minutes - out of my life, and i can just get on as normal. my understanding is that once one does some heroin, they are left in some semi-comatose state of being absolutely sh!tfaced and unable to do stuff such as operate equipment or cars, or walk in a relatively straight line. but it is cheaper than cigarettes, and given to you for free when you run out, so it must be better. just like how, say, alcohol is not knacked or disapproved of like smoking is.

when do i plan on changing midstream from cigarettes to heroin? i am not certain. at this stage i am still not entirely sure where one obtains it from (quite a few places, going on the article and pricing, but i am not aware of them) or how exactly one goes about "shooting up" or whatever you call it. perhaps whoever is kind enough to sell me some will see the long term benefits in teaching me how it all works, as well as assuring me that yes, financially, socially and in terms of support and encouragement, heroin in our society is really generally better viewed than cigarettes.

but, you know, maybe i shall not change. as much as i respect the fact that he was mates with Bowie, i have always tended to think of my life more in Oasis songs than i have Lou Reed ones, and it is not like i think of my life in terms of Oasis songs very often. if, or when, i make the change, i suspect i shall let you know by simply not updating here as i am all smacked out and wasted. but know that it will be that i am such in a much more socially acceptable way.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and the breeze blew back my hair

heya


every now and then (not often) i like to briefly indulge the (whimsical) thought or one or two of you, look you see, being here looking at this blog due to some curious interest in me. mostly (predominantly) (as in likely over 99%) i would imagine what draws readers / viewers here relates to the fairly generic, if frequently random, subjects which feature.

to this end, then, yeah, this is one of those posts that all blog posts are supposed to be like, or about' a me! me! me! thing. should this be of no interest, well, thanks for reading thus far, and now might be a good time for you to look at something else. although you may wish to look at the first couple of pictures to see what my new glasses (spectacles) are all about.

anyway, on i go. i suppose this kind of post is the one i should be doing more frequently, what with my curious, unsolicited and baffling status of being some sort of "influencer" on social media, whatever that actually is. for normal people, here are some pictures of some lovely places, blemished somewhat (to what degree you decide) by my presence.

in stating the obvious, here i am, by a particularly pleasing element of the Yorkshire coastline. a most grand and sunny a day it was too, with a gentle wind tempering the heat of it all. hence the title of this post.

these are my new "D Fens" glasses. i have no idea what the proper name is for them, i just call them that because they are like the ones what Michael Douglas wore when he was the character D Fens out of the film Falling Down. one i should perhaps watch again. i just really like these half frame (rimless?) ones, and am appreciating a pair of them again after not having such for a couple of years.

yes, it might be that these frames are slightly too big for me, looking at the above. however, they were the nearest closest to what i like in frames that the eye mender shop had.

another splendid day out and about in Yorkshire, then. not quite so much wind or hint of a breeze, hence my hair not doing much of interest. just sitting there, contemplating moving from gradually going grey to rapidly going grey, it feels.

these are the other ones i quite like. massive 70s assassin or hitman style ones. yes, to be clear, it is the glasses or spectacle frames i speak of. the eye menders offered to get these ones tinted for me, or made into sunglasses. i declined, but perhaps i should have taken them up on it. a bit tinted and they would have looked even more like assassin or hitman ones, or perhaps even like them ones what The King, Elvis Presley wore from time to time.

for the breeze to really blow back my hair i suppose i should let it grow somewhat longer. this is something i give a speculative try to every now and then, but get bored or lose patience and so i go to the hair menders to get it trimmed. rare it is that it has ever gone beyond, say, "collar length", which i am led to believe is a valid measurement.

now these ones were not necessarily my choice, but i can disclose no more than that. reasonably smart, they are, and they most certainly serve the purpose for which i have them.

just what style are these glasses? hard to say, really. looking at them now, in this picture, which is the first time i have seen them properly (normally i am at the business end), i suppose they are quite like the oversized, "power frame", flamboyant, extroverted ones what mid-to-large East End cockney gangster types would wear. or Michael Caine, for that matter. it would be lazy to suggest Elton John, for he has worn every style of glasses ever invented, so far as i am aware.

where was this particular picture taken? oh, still in Yorkshire. one tries not to leave the place too often, unless really quite essential. says he who has left the place often, but anyway. this is from one of the more southern aspects of Yorkshire, and as you can see is not really anywhere near the coast.

unlike the above picture, which was indeed taken by the Yorkshire coast. a little further south than the previous, and on a most decidedly (but not entirely disagreeably so) less sunny day. a bit of a breeze, though, hence my hair doing some interesting things.

i quite like this picture, and yes indeed i am "rocking" the D Fens frames in it. normally i am not at all comfortable looking at pictures of myself, and i have always suspected i am in a possibly slight majority to feel this way. still, the poor lighting, the obscuring of details makes it most agreeable for me. if any of you happen to like it, or me, well then so much the better.

and so another one in which i am seemingly lurking in the shadows, but this time on a much sunnier day. yes, indeed, they are them boss 70s assassin / hitman glasses i have on.

this was out in a particularly lovely, friendly and most beautiful of picturesque places in Yorkshire. for some reason the locals, and i use the term affectionately, seem to promote their place in the world purely with trains and sheep. i found it to be most wonderful without really experiencing either of those to any great length.

final one, then, of me out somewhere in Yorkshire with a bit of a breeze and some overcast weather conditions. again i find myself thinking i look "not so bad" in this one, bar the stray hair off of the breeze, and i suspect that is to do with this all being shadow related.

well, i think that's this post done. if for some reason you have a weirdly specific interest in just me, and that's why you visit this blog, nice one. for everyone else, who i presume to be a majority, no doubt normal service will resume with the next post, or soon thereafter.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

popular in the unknown

hi


one of those posts which could (reasonably) be interpreted as "blowing my own trumpet", look you see. but it really isn't, and even if it was, i am quite aware that its not all that a big of a trumpet to be blowing, to be sure.

every now and then the stats for this blog throw up some interesting points. questions, perhaps, rather than answers about who exactly reads all of this what i do, or done.

here, for example, is a "live" shot at from where it is that people reading my stuff are coming from.

yes, indeed, it is the "unknown region" one which fascinates me the most. i am not clever enough at computers and that to understand the above at anything beyond face value. but still, this "unknown region" one fascinates me.

with many seeing all things on the internet as devious, maybe them unknown region readers are just ones that "cloak" or "hide" their location. as i have said before, though, my understanding is that (quite like the movies) when someone does that, it reflects a different place in the world, rather than just plain "unknown".

my best guess is that it is sailors, who are out at sea, that are reading it. if we are honest about it, a good deal of the content here would appeal to sailors, whether it is rough fags that i have smoked and suggested that they are the ones what salty sea dogs would prefer or the adventures of Spiros.

would i like a life on the seas? there are many appealing factors to this. i would not be overtly keen on the idea of getting bummed off of a rough, brutal, salty sea dog, but i suppose such things are part and parcel of the unwritten ways of life on the waves. also, i think things are a bit stricter on boats these days, and after one or two incidents in particular i am almost certain that they have probably banned smoking on commercial vessels, oil tankers in particular.

just some of the search terms what people have used to find this blog, and in turn search terms that google, or similar, lesser used search engines, have opted to see me as an authoritative source of information on. the "walking with lovebeads" one is probably a complete misunderstanding of certain toothpaste related posts i have done, and the mind boggles on the "barbra s...." one.

the space shuttle search term is an interesting one. whilst i am no expert on the subject, for i never read what i write (hence does not every now and then appearing as doe snot), i do not recall making too many mentions of space shuttles here, ever. either i must have, or something i wrote sounded like it was all to do with that gone but not forgotten means of smart space travel.

so, where is this "unknown region" that i attract readers from? oil rigs is a possibility, but one i doubt. they do tend to be stagnant in the seas and so i would assume that anyone on a rig reading this (hello!) would register as being in the country to which the seas ostensibly belong.

on a similar note, it has occurred to me that the unknown region readers might be beneath the sea, in a submarine, or well above it, in a plane. what would be quite class is if astronauts in space were reading this, but i am not sure that the reach of google (or whoever) to produce these stats reaches all that far into the galaxy just yet.

for a look at the last four weeks, we can see that Unknown Region has attracted more readers than Ireland, which makes sense, for it has been a while that i have mentioned Bono or similar in this post. yes, there is much more to Ireland than Bono, but as far as i am aware he's the only Irish person i mention from time to time.

if you were to ask me why so many people from Italy, or France for that matter, have clicked on my blog, my answer would be that i do not have a f*****g clue, but all are welcome. presumably our friends in the United States and Russia are dropping by to learn of the English way of doing things, and your guess would be as good as mine (if not better) on the rest.

well, anyway. it has been a long day, and there is only so much i can write about what has been read. similar is probably true for you in terms of how much of it you can read.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we live as we dream, alone

hey there


since you are here, why not take a moment, look you see, to take a break from the very tortures or pains of existence? this post exists purely to give some respite, or if you like a moment of calm. some meditation, perhaps, maybe, if that is what you like to do or refer to it as.

it was fairly recently (as opposed to some point in the future that shall happen after i have written this) that my travels took me to a most splendid area of the country. yes, of course this means it was in Yorkshire. everything, as you would expect, hope, imagine or even be so brave to dare to expect, was splendid and lovely.

anyway, what with all that is going on, that which has passed and that which is to come, i was quite taken with how smoothing and calming this aspect of a river was. perhaps it was just my "mood" or state of mind calling out for any such remotely available nurturing, but also maybe not.

on the off chance that such might be of interest, or something either wanted or needed, i felt it best to take an image, then. let the above bring you some relaxation and inner peace, if but for a moment.

most, however, would associate a river - indeed, even a stream - with movement. of all the things such bodies of water are known for, being still is not one. a relative stillness would, i suppose, turn a river or stream into some sort of pond or similar. but even then, there is movement, there is motion.

with this in mind, then, i was indeed mindful enough to capture a few seconds of this most splendid, ripple like movement and motion of water on video. and, here it is.

to my mind few, if any, would consider this blog a natural stop off point for something soothing. generally it's all just a lot of noise, i am aware, with very little of it being anything much other than disposable or to be discarded. well, one can only write of what they know, or who the are. all the same, even if this is a change of pace from the usual, may it be of benefit and beauty to all who see it.

let me try not to tarnish or otherwise spoil the lovely image and video with too many more words. on the off chance that i do not get to say such again, or if this is simply the last time you intend to make a visit to this blog, once again many thanks indeed for reading.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

putting on some clothes i made my way to school

g'day pop pickers


and so it would appear that i cannot go a month without some sort of Bowie post here. further, look you see, it would seem that i am not quite prepared to let Tonight go just quite yet. well, it all too easily and (for me) lazily gets dismissed as "rubbish", etc, when that frankly or rather to be frankie, is not the case at all.

following on from my recent look at the mysteries surrounding at least one aspect of the Loving The Alien video, be it elements of controversy and censorship, time then for Blue Jean. well, actually, to be specific, Jazzin For Blue Jean, for this is somewhat different to "just" the standard pop video. those who know will, er, know. oh.

believe it or not (and it's not that i don't care which, i am just not interested), this quasi "follow up" post wasn't all my idea. it has (accidentally) been prompted by a good friend, but we shall get to that in a couple of pictures.

there it is, "my" tape copy of Bowie's Tonight album. as it happens, or actually, this was my Dad's. he presumably bought it for his car for his travels. somehow i ended up "borrowing" it, he never quibbled or requested a return, and so it became "mine". much more, this tape was my childhood friend. well, most of it. some of it. usually i listened to Loving The Alien, which was the first track on side one, then turned it over, rewound a bit, then listened to Blue Jean. every now and then, i suppose, i would give the titular song, Tonight, a spin. quite a soothing lullaby on this album, it is, to be sure, despite the original intention of the song being rather different.

was this the tape, the moment, the experience which turned me into a Bowie fan? yes, probably, for convenience. at this precise moment, no, i was not a "Bowiephile" or fanatic, or even aware of all that much of his work. thanks to a famously misunderstood joke on The Young Ones, here, at the age of 11 or so, i was one of those ones not entirely sure if Bowie was indeed Australian.

musically, then, i was at that crossroads which most who approached their teens from the 60s onwards face, where your tastes and passions change and tend to be set for life. no, i doubt anyone is interested in this too, but here we are. at this point i would say that i was coming to accept Adam Ant was fading fast, i was resisting the patent genius of Duran Duran for i was insanely jealous of how they, John Taylor in particular, looked better than i ever could, Frankie Goes To Hollywood were coming to be the be all and end all of everything, it was a struggle to know if Depeche Mode were really smart or really twats, i loved The Stones and The Who more than i could ever take to The Beatles, and this bloke called Bowie would not go away.

two of the above came together, then, in Jazzin' For Blue Jean. it was something i felt compelled to watch the "world premiere" of on Channel 4, as Channel 4 kept promoting it and advertising it during shows such as The Tube. and so i watched. yes, at the time, considering my age and lack of knowledge about Bowie, i was mostly confused to the point of boredom by it, bar of course the absolutely magnificent song at the heart of it all.

would i say my musical tastes led to my having a keen, or acute, sense of solitude, isolation and loneliness, or were they somewhat self-imposed because of my interests? both, i guess, and many other reasons. on top of the musical comments above, at this time i was only recently (in the grand scheme of thing) extracted from Australia and returned home. i did so filled with the music of that faraway land, and was most confused that none of England appeared to have (in 1984) extensive knowledge of the works of Split Enz and Mental As Anything, or even be aware of how something called the Starstruck soundtrack even existed. hey, we live as we dream; alone.

at the time of Jazzin' For Blue Jean it is worth noting that we are mid-1984. this is pre Band Aid and pre Live Aid love ins. whereas the music world mostly went quite tame and friendly after that, before such musical rivals could be a bit off with each other. this is kind of what happens in the video, although not dramatically nasty. at once Bowie bestows a great, virtually peerless in value blessing on Frankie Goes To Hollywood by simply acknowledging they exist, but in doing so has a bit of a dig.....

yes, indeed, it would probably be best for you to seek out the whole of the Jazzin' For Blue Jean video and watch it properly, but the above snippet shall hopefully do, since we are here now. in answer to Bowie's comment, about "not promoting Frankie until they tell us who Frankie is", well, as is widely known, the band (it is claimed) took their name from a Variety newspaper article about Mr Sinatra making the move into movies, headlined Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

no, that is not a genuine Frankie Goes To Hollywood t-shirt. the real ones said things like Frankie Say Relax, or Frankie Say War, or Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed and so on. bootlegs either just had Relax on them, or a grammatical error, namely Frankie Says not Frankie Say. Frankie was a collective group of (magnificent) people, not one person, so Say is right. personally, i like to think of Bowie buying this t-shirt off a dodgy market stall or barrow boy in Brixton, Camden, Bexley or similar. in reality, he probably paid one of his many designer friends, such as Vivienne and Jean-Paul, many thousands of pounds to "specially create" it for him.

how is that this, all of this, well no just bits of it, came to mind and now here we are, either writing or reading this? that is down to the adventures of Spiros. he was roaming around London, presumably looking to meet gentleman for short term yet mutually beneficial friendships, or maybe to fight a taxi driver or two, when he spotted this and very kindly sent me an image.

i have absolutely no reason at all to doubt the veracity and provenance of the above, for what reason would it not be the "real deal", the one worn by the gentleman himself. what saddens me is the fact that he gave it away, or had it pinched, rather than keeping it as part of his impressive and undoubtedly lavish wardrobe.

the manner of my departure, if we are honest, is most likely going to be a torturous, painful and agonizing one, brought about from my expressed interest in cigarettes. sympathy shall neither be supplied nor sought. it is something that shall undoubtedly bring a measured level of pleasure to more than a few, and it shall be a pleasure that is far more understandable in nature than it is sadistic. failing that, i have every confidence that some clever or inventive type shall construct a way to dispose of me in a way that prompts no questions beyond accidental or natural, or abide by the law which says that of there is no body then there is no crime. given the unexpected luxury of choice, then i think i would like to just drift away, with a tape of Blue Jean and Loving The Alien on repeat playing away. perhaps this happened some 34 or 35 years ago, and this is all some really strange existential awareness.

looking back at Jazzin' For Blue Jean reveals a lot more than was acknowledged at the time, and further makes a mockery of this idea that everything associated with the Tonight album is a complete write-off. superficially one could say yes, Jazzin' probably got green lighted to be made because of the insane success of "extended music video" Thriller a year or so before, with "success" meaning "it led to millions of record sales". but, let us not forget that Bowie started off as an actor, and continued to be an actor "on the side".  he very much used the "freedom" of the music video format to act and do all sorts of things, ones which we maybe did not pick up on a the time.

if we, as i believe was the intention (the climax of the video certainly suggests so), set aside the characters he is playing in the video, this scene is a clumsy, overbearing, over eager David Bowie confronting a fragile, frail, withdrawn David Bowie who happens to be watching the public, second to none performing David Bowie on tv. words such as "meta" and "existential" don't really quite cover it, and it's extraordinary for a mid-80s pop video. fort those who clamoured for a Bowie autobiography, or wished that he would reveal more of himself, he never really hid it. just when he dropped in aspects of how he felt, what he believed it, how he viewed himself, we all somehow merrily overlooked it.

anything i took away in particular from the Jazzin' For Blue Jean video? yes. what turned out to be a wildly inaccurate, fanciful and overtly optimistic idea of what going to pubs, clubs and concerts might be all like. bear in mind (if you will), please, that i was 11, so had no real idea and certainly did not know better.

in the video, whether it be the pub at the start of the nightclub where Blue Jean is performed by Screaming Lord Byron, there's a hip, cool, trendy, avant garde, sophisticated feel. there is also a sense of unity, of belonging, of being as one. so, then, yes, it was something of a frustration, and a great disappointment, by the time that i got to (merely three years before) the legal age where i may go to such places, they were nothing at all like the Blue Jean video. at least not the ones i went to.

perhaps it is just me (or i), but surely life would be much, much better if pubs, clubs and concerts were all as flamboyantly fabulous as presented in Jazzin' For Blue Jean. not to be, i guess, what with the world at large preferring much lower class and unpleasant things.

it feels like i have defended Tonight "more than once", but since we are here let me do it again. to dismiss the album entirely is just folly. for a start Loving The Alien is, musically and lyrically, astonishingly ambitious and complex. it would neither look nor sound out of place on any of his greatest works, in particular Station To Station or The Buddha Of Suburbia. equally Blue Jean is a superb, outstanding flat out pop single. it's brilliant. it is absolutely the case that this album is very much worth the time of any music lover.

some video of this much fabled "club scene" off of the Blue Jean video that i expected to encounter as i grew up? why not. look quite carefully at the band in the background, one of "musicians" kind of went on to be quite famous some seven years after the video was made. or, if you like, 28 or so years ago from now, when this was written. blimey.

yes, you are quite right. sort of semi clearly visible (Bowie was meant to be the focus, after all), and unusually resplendent with hair, is indeed Richard Fairbrass. on the bass, i believe. had you answered with words along the lines of "one of them bald twats off of f*****g Right Said Fred", technically you would have been correct but also quite mean. they were just a happy go lucky band, man, singing their songs and making people happy. get over yourself if you have the free time to think bad things about Right Said Fred.

earlier (as opposed to later on) i mentioned how concepts of "meta" and "existential" or what have you came to the for at the conclusion, or if you like climax, of the Jazzin' For Blue Jean film. we get treated to a moment of David Bowie jeering and hurling abuse at David Bowie, with one of the highlights of this being the dig that "your album artwork is more interesting that your music". no, it most certainly was not common in the mid-80s, in jest or for real, for any musician to rubbish their own work, least of all someone as famous as Bowie. as point of fact, the nearest closest i can think of anyone else doing something like this was Mick and Charlie off of the Stones, when they delightfully mocked their own age as part of an advert for the Monty Python "not all dead" reunion.

possibly due to lacking any sort of other coherent conclusion, the final scene of the film has a subversion of the fourth wall breaker, with a distant shot of David Bowie very much as David Bowie berating director Julien Temple for the film not ending as he had planned it. yes, this sort of thing was very much an 80s device, quite popular with The Comic Strip and others, from what i remember. or perhaps i am wrong.

inevitably the conclusion here is that never again shall we see the likes of Jazzin' For Blue Jean. whilst it would be easy to say this is because we simply lack anyone of the talent, vision and ability of David Bowie, that's perhaps not true. you have to think that out there is someone very much as talented. we have, in this era of free for all, dismantled all the standard filters for quality. also, with no money whatsoever to be made in just the music alone, you would not have a record label invest time and money in an artist to let them develop. i would be quite surprised if ever again someone got to make an avant garde, confusing, self subverting twenty minute video for a three minute pop song.

well, that's about that for this, then. i would say that i am fairly confident i've exhausted all possible things to write of Bowie for a while, but then it would not be a surprise to see me do something else in a month or so. and why not.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!