the sky is crying

steady rain today.
middle of summer.
soft gentle warm rain.
just changed chnannels from RNZ concert to the national programme and the prairie home companion.
must be early onset of dementia but I cant remember his name right off the bat.
?
anyway.
went for a walk in the rain earlier to get the sunday rag. no one around. ah poo was really glad to see me!
not much in it.
good piece by anthony hubbard on the power of the media to enforce the neo liberal programme and bash collectivization in the workplace.
this country is totally at the mercy of the media. it is saturated and there is no escape.
it is mainly run by uneducated troops on the coal face with right wing mavens on ebony row calling the shots.
they wont do anything about noise and the wingnuts on motorbikees who want to bash people up with deicbels because they are basically ineffectual people without their toys but they will let the country wallow in a sea of expensive toys for noo noo heads.
VERY DISAPPOINTED in the Guardian News & Media. they let their writer decca aitkenhead quote jarvis cocker including  all his interrogatives. whats wrong with them. either all their editors are married to women who watch coronation street and they have become infected with lower class use of dishonest rheroric or they are just bullies and dishonest people at heart.
what is it?
on that note a band on the PHC is doing a nice version of the  Grateful Deads Ripple and sweetness and light pervades the air.
hah. station break, its Garrison Keillor!!!!!!!!!!
saved by the bell.

wairarapa tragedy

woke up to the westpac chopper coming over.
when I went down town I saw a person I knew and asked her if anything had happened.
She told me that a balloon had crashed and there were eleven fatalities.
locals and tourists.

last night listened to stephen pinker on RNZ. a doco from BBC world services.
he is another person from whom I instinctively recoiled the moment I started reading one of his books over 20 years ago.
my opinion has never changed.
he reminds me of this Austrian diplomat who wrote a treatise in the 19th c that was full of big words but the content was vapid.
and they believe him because he has authority?
see my piece in the real deal blog and if you can then read his books and make up your own mind.
the trouble is that he has included so many red herrings that tracking them all down is a monumental task that requires reams of additional reading and lots of time and inclination.
otherwise you just have to take his word for it.
however if you do research it then you realise that much of pinkers writing is just speculation and basically worthless not to say meaningless.
he jumped on the computational theory of mind back in the late 1980's without really having any understanding of psychology or mind at all and tried to pull himself up by his bootstraps in academe without any preparation.
like chomsky he believes in the higher and deeper levels of mind that are somehow inaccessible to mere mortals like you and me but surprise surprise support the theory of innate scientific socialism.
yeah right.
if you want to know the real deal about language mentation then check out brian fay's work the contemporaray philosophy of soical science.
a no nonsense appraach that rings true and observes the principles of occams razor by not multiplying entities and keeping things simple.
not simpler.
just simple.
so there ae no leaps to HIGHER LEVELS and ordinary people can read and understand if they take the time.
ok folks.
thats enough from me.
just gotta say that after I started putting piccies of doris Day on my blog a little revival of sorts has begun??
It might be self conceit but I dont mind no recognition. its the way things are done in this post modern word.
somebody reads my blog.
the bastards wont click on the ads and generate some revenue for me. They just steal your ideas
And the other thing is that though they might use her to fill half a page you know that her movies are never going to be shown in New Zealand. Leonard Maltins book lists over seventeen thousand movies but they (?) showed the green mile and as good as it gets three times each last year.
is there something about the associated costs of showing decent pictures or a severe lack of imagination?  I may be wrong but I tend to believe the latter.
anyway I cherish my memories of Doris and Rock Hudson and Randolph Scott and Geoff Chandler and Audie Murphy and all those flix. There was something at the heart of them that had relevance and not just the clever clever stuff that wannabee auteurs come up with these days.

thank you Ryan for putting this pic on "my pictures" on this computer. 

oh and Mr President.

another puff piece in the rag today. supposedly an editorial but just a partisan freebee for the gop.

yetchhhhhhhhh!

We Had It All

We sure did and nothing is ever going to be like it again.
There is no logical connection between anything.
It just happened and what is coming next will happen when its ready but a study of technology and industry shows that the inferior is always being substituted for the best and it aint gonna change any time soon.

the duke wore jeans

ligger to the Duke of Edinburgh:

How was your flight sir?

Duke: have you ever been for a ride in an aeroplane?

Ligger: yes sir.

Duke: It was much like that.

hahahahahahahahaha.

About to go home and give Traffic a rip and tape it off.

for home consumption of course.

"Rainmaker" was big when we were hippies back in the day.

Wow?

 not much happening today.

all quiet.

nearly got run over in the main street but hey.

Thats what cars are for.

take em out.

scored a copy of  Faulkners "The Rievers" and patrick whites "Riders In the Chariot" yesterday so I have some reading.

and a cassette of Tanya Tucker with 'would you lay with me in a field of stone' and the great brothel song 'bed of roses"

I know cassettes aren't HIP but I dig em. acquiring a big collection which I only ever  play once when I get them home and then they go into the box!

I just look at them

I have a Slim Dusty tape which I am flogging to learn "When the rain tumbles down in July" from.

Charlie Jensen used to sing it all the time and now I really dig it.

?

hehehehehehehehehehe.

Barack Obama.

Hi Boss. Hope you get the Wellington Embassy to make a collection of the cuttings from the local rags on the Iowa caucuses and the rest of the campaign.

they are trying very hard here to make public opinion go for the gop but somehow one gets the feeling they are trying toooooo hard if you get my meaning.

and its not really any of our business.

pete seeger, john lee hooker, jimy reed and new underpants.

RONNIE GILBERT

santa left me a warehouse $20 gift voucher so I went to town intending to buy some new underpants.
I like that word. underpants. better than briefs or grundies.
it says what it means and means what it says. a refuge for klingons.
anyway I ended up grabbing four cd's that were cheap and very good quality.
jimmy reed.
john lee hooker.
JLH is a 2cd set with 50 trax.
pete seeger.
union songs.
and a compilation with the Staples singers on it.
original versions of "The Last Time" (?) and a gospel version of Will The Circle Be Unbroken that is totally different to the country version.
so died and went to heaven.
and the lady is Ronnie gilbert who if RNZ got of their asses and played some stuff by the Weavers then you could hear her really wonderful voice.
3 days ago I got a cramp in my frigging HAND of all places and now my middle finger wants to fall off.
anyway I went to town today and busked against all my inclinations not to.
funny thing is I have been thinking about Traffic's "Low spark of high heeled boys" and blow me down if there wasn't a pristine copy in the Family Shop plus Best of Traffic too!!!!!!!!!!
yay!
very hot in town and only made enough for my bus fare home, four records, a filled roll and $3.
but it was worth it and now my hand will need a long rest.
the girl selling strawberries didnt mind so I guess It wasnt my voice.
saw a few de-balled guys I used to know.
their wives got them cut.
they dont want to speak to me.
they know I dont drink and they know I dont stand round telling lies at the bar anymore.
been to many places.
they got all their status heirarchy's sorted out and no interlopers.
well fuck them.
they should man up but they wont.
they wanna buy a plastic hotrod or a hardly davison and be authentic but nup.
they stay little people.
nice trout  pool in the waignawa.
can see it from the bus.
will be gone when the next big fresh hits but I reckon there is a big one there.
and if you catch it then another one will be there tomorrow.
let em live.
btw Pop Staples has a neato role in True Stories.
why dont TVNZ play that one for a change.
I cant think of how many times they have played the green mile and as good as it gets.
kid on the computer next to me is watching Metallica in Russia.
wow and WOW.
bunch of posers but they great.
Had to turn the cricket off.
Danny Morrison needs to address his mode of speech.
every second word is an interrogative. isn't it?
it is the mark of a little person and he should be bigger than that.
using interrogatives is dishonest and disrespectful. asking to peopel to agree with you without giving them time to consider the evidence is an argument from authority and invalid.
listening to it an unending stream of it just grates ubeleivably and then the aussie commentators start doing it too and instead of telling people what is happening and letting them consider it we are being told how to think about it.
nada.
fix it.
the ABC editors should consult their style guide and make some rules as the commentary is fast becoming some sort of imitation of low grade english soap operas. 

we used to call it music

yup. we sure did.
now its just processed noise. very CLEAN but no guts. but THEY think its great.
who are THEY?
I had an intemperate burst about the crap they play on radio new zealand before the holidays and its true.
phil and sigh play the most awful rubbish and they are proud of it.
even worse is the horde of noo noo heads who think its great too???????
poor radio nz. it has descended into feeble mush.
they play an imported doco and you think, "hey thats good", and then krump or ryan come back on and you go, "oh No".
they research everything and then they try and tell the interviewer their business or krump especially tries to wrong foot the interviewee and make him look like a dork so he, krump can say, "look at me", I'm smarter than that guy.
pathetic really.
and TV1. when the nimnuls who got their jobs because they have great hair and teeth and played for the national tiddlywinks team try to be rude and upstage the professionals and every second word out of their mouths is an interrogatvie then it is just plain embarrassing.
rnz and tvnz are supposed to be flagships for something but I am not sure exactly what.
they seem to exist these days to provied sinecures for childish idiotes.
very strange.
and,
last year the gardener next door sprayed the hedgerow after it had been massacred.
there was one deadly nightshade bush there that seemed to be a way station for birds.
they all stopped there.
tuiis, waxeyes, bellbirds, you name it for a berry?
dont ask me why but dats de troof.
now.
nothing.
still it seems as if escargots are on the menu for the local thrush poulation.
they cracking them on the path outside my door.
sometimes I see them but the shells are everywhere.
the train kept a rolling.

barack obama, justin bieber and mitt

hi boss.
gotta tell ya the local metro mag never lets a week go by without running a piece on the seven dwarves that purports to be an objective analysis of the candidates but the sub text is always how to defeat your presidency.
its all pretty crummy but  I detect the hand of  crumley textual here.
they just want to gnaw away at you all the time and use any pretext to do so.
any other time the US presidential election is never mentioned.
might overtax the opinionates in their urbs but this time they going full out.
give em hell.

talked to a local boy the other day.
good musician.
good singer.
 he wants to make the big time. I tried to tell him how justin bieber did it but the moment I mentioned the name he froze. he could just not open his mind to make an analysis or a comparison. I found that very sad because if he saw the plan then he could imitate it but no. immediate mental constipation.
anyway the point is this.
the push is on to amalgamate all the polities in the wellington area into one.
the local rep on the regional council went to wellington to fight it but he has been bought off already.
somebody must have promised him something.
but I urge the voters in the Wairarapa to read as much as they can about the politics of Louisiana.
Thats Louisiana U.S.A..
They are arcane, esoteric and sui generis but they work.
they keep the grabbers at arms length but also ensure that the parishes and other local political subdivisions get their share of the funds.
The only argument the grabbers have is that amalgamation will keep costs down but so what.
Freedom always has a cost and in this case it is worth paying for.
it might cost more, but being outside the system, and still entitled to access  the funds is worth fighting for and the arrangement means that the people here  will always have more leverage and clout than if they are absorbed into the amorphous mass of the centralising pretenders.