Jimbuck2

2008-03-30T13:26:00.000-04:00

Thought about posting a blog entry today.

Naaahh.

Peeling The Layers

2007-06-27T20:25:00.000-04:00

A couple of interesting little interviews courtesy of The Onion's A.V. Club. One with Paul McCartney and the other with Nick Lowe.

I really liked this passage from the Nick Lowe piece:

AVC: If you had a choice between cutting a really great album or a really great single, which would you choose?

NL: Oh, a really great single, I think. [Pause.] Although, wait a minute. No, I answered that rather quickly. Well, you see, the sort of albums I like are the ones where no one song particularly stands alone. I like the sort of albums where you start at the beginning, and you listen to the whole thing, and there aren't any fillers. All the tracks actually bolster each other up, like the one that comes after the one before will make the one before sound better. So it does actually sound like one giant single.

All I can say is that back in the day, when I was producing a lot of records, I seemed to get gold records and awards and things all the time. They used to come by post, and I didn't know what they were. It almost didn't matter, it seemed completely irrelevant, so I sent them all over to my mother. And they were extremely ugly, these things. I mean, I know they represented something, but they were extremely ugly-looking, and I didn't really want to put them on the wall or anything like that. And then, unfortunately, when both my parents died in these last few years, I inherited all these hideous gold records and things. But amongst them was a gold 45 that I'd gotten in the UK for producing an Elvis Costello single called "Oliver's Army." And it's such a cool item to have, this gold 45 RPM single. I couldn't believe that I'd had it amongst that collection and I'd never realized it. I don't think they make them any more. Well, of course they don't make them any more.

AVC: Most bios of you now mention that you became a millionaire when a cover of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" appeared on The Bodyguard's soundtrack. But is that money still holding out? Or are you just about through it?

NL: Oh no, it went a long time ago. [Laughs.] It's amazing how not-very-far a little less than a million dollars will go. That's what I think I got. God knows what some people got for that record. Especially the guy who wrote the B-side of "I Will Always Love You" and got his album cut as well. So very nice indeed. But no, I managed to make two albums on that money really, and toured with them both, you know, with a band. Staying at reasonably good hotels, where we wouldn't get our stuff stolen. I could pay my guys right. So I financed all that, bought a couple of suits, took a couple of people to dinner, and that really took care of it.

But the thing is, my career had stalled a bit up 'til then, and I'd just found this new way of recording myself and writing songs for myself when this check came through the door, and hey, presto! I was able to realize it. If it hadn't gotten that money, I don't think I would have been able to. And once you're seen to be back in the game again—which I desperately needed to be—other things come to you. Even though the Bodyguard money per se is gone, that led to other things, and other people have cut my songs, and you know, my fortunes started changing for the better.

But the Macca interviewer sure doesn't know his shit. In discussing Dylan's influence, he asks: "When he went electric, were you and John and the guys booing?" I mean, really. Did he actually think The Beatles would have been booing Dylan's electric set at The Royal Albert Hall? Read a little, will ya?

Interesting, though, that McCartney still gets excited when he hears one of his new songs on the radio.

As The Jesus Of Cool says, And so it goes...

Being Kurt

2007-05-02T20:58:00.000-04:00

From the Onion:

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

Number 3

2007-04-15T17:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess this answers that question.

etc.

2007-04-14T14:20:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. June Callwood.

They say we lose prominent people in sets of three. I wonder who's next?

So it goes.

2007-04-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’"
--excerpt from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"When the city of London wanted to give [George Bernard] Shaw its Order of Merit, he thanked them for it, but said he had already given it to himself.
I would have accepted it. I would have recognized the opportunity for a world-class joke, but would never allow myself to be funny at the cost of making somebody else feel like something the cat drug in.
Let that be my epitaph.
--Timequake p.141

"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!"
--Timequake p.219

Happy Blogiversary!

2007-04-09T21:30:00.000-04:00

It was on Easter weekend, five years ago, that I started this little ol blog. Not for the fame. Not for the glory. Not for the hits. Just for the sheer...blogginess of it.

I've neglected it far too often, but here it waits, silently, to accept my whims and thoughts when the mood strikes me.

Bless you, little blog, and happy fifth birthday!

Right ONN

2007-03-27T19:57:00.000-04:00

The world just got better.
Now we have The Onion News Network.

And there's a podcast!

Jimbuck2's Joke Corner

2007-03-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

Bono is at a U2 concert in Ireland when he asks the audience for some quiet.

Then in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. Holding the audience in total silence, he says into the microphone, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."

A drunken voice from near the front of the audience pierces the silence...

"Fookin' stop doing it then!"

What's The New Jimbuck2?

2007-03-18T15:12:00.000-04:00

Dig the new blog redesign! Spiffy, eh?

Gotta figure out how to add the other banner elements from the old template, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Whoa, barely a peep out of me in 2007, then three blog posts in the past week! I'm on fire!

La Fheile Padraig

2007-03-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

Happy La Fheile Padraig*

That's St. Patrick's Day in Gaelic. If you want to know how to pronounce it, go here.

Slainte!

*accents deleted because they were screwing up the text formatting

Close Encounters...

2007-03-13T23:04:00.000-04:00

I don't know if it's a full moon tonight, but it sure was a bizarre trip home from work. First, I get on the subway, only a few other people seated sparsely about. This little lady, Filipina, I think, gets on with a bunch of bags of groceries and a big shoulder bag, and even though there's a whole row of seats open across from me, she makes me move my bag from the seat next to me and takes up the whole 2 seats with her bags and herself, sitting at a bit of an angle, and squishing me in the corner against the door buttress thing. Her bag is partly on my leg. I move a bit and try to make some more room for myself. She's still encroaching on me a bit, but it's not a complete invasion of space so I let it ride. She's like a 4.5-footer. Little middle-aged lady. But she could have easily given me more room. A woman sits across from us, and she's looking at the lady with a quizzical expression, as if to say, "what's up with this lady?"

Then, later, my "close" friend gets out a book to read, and in so doing, places her elbow right across my right arm. I reach up with my left hand, move her elbow off me, saying "excuse me"... If I hadn't been so worn-out from work, I think I may have told her to get the fuck off me and shoved her away from me if she hadn't.

I figured maybe she wanted some sort of reaction from me, for whatever reason. It was almost like she was purposefully trying to provoke me. As my station was coming up at Woodbine, I figured I would get up, and then lean back in to her and say, as overly genuinely as possible, "have a nice day, ma'am." And smile. And then if she responded abusively, I'd dump her groceries on the floor.

But I didn't get a chance. When the train pulled into Woodbine, they announced that the train was out of service because of a power outage at Broadview which was effecting the line from there to west of Yonge. So in the general hubbub of everyone moving to "de-train", the moment just wasn't there.

On the subsequent bus ride down Woodbine I heard other passengers saying that the power outage was caused by a suicide jumper at one of the stations. Don't know if that's the case, and, of course, they don't normally report those in the media, but as I walked home a police car went zooming up Kingston Rd, siren and all, almost hitting an idiot driver at the corner of Dundas who didn't give the cop car the right of way. Then as I crossed at the intersection, another idiot driver almost ran me over. I let him know what I thought of his driving. Then another cop car went screaming up Kingston Rd. So something's going on, but I don't know if it's related to the subway situation. Maybe that lady pissed off the wrong guy after she didn't get what she wanted from me.

Ah, life in the big city...

Nuff Said

2007-01-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

blogorrhea

Happy Holidays!

2006-12-20T00:08:00.000-05:00

If a blogger doesn't blog
Can he still a blogger be?

Yes, I've been very delinquent in my blogging. Just too damn busy and/or distracted with other things.

Just wanted to wish you all (...um, if there actually is anyone still reading...) a happy and healthy holiday season, and the very best of everything in the new year.

Cheers!

Modern Times. Modern Tools

2006-11-05T22:47:00.000-05:00

I need to revise my opinion of Dylan's "Modern Times" CD. I've been listening to it for the past week or so, and while I still feel some of it is trodding a lot of the same musical turf as his last couple of CDs, revisiting a lot of the same song structures, the new CD has grown on me considerably once I had time to live with it a bit.

The gems that jump out for me are When The Deal Goes Down, Spirit On The Water, Beyond The Horizon and the exquisite Workingman's Blues 2 (begging the question, where's Part 1?). Old Bob has still got it in him to make some compelling music. And I'm not even talking about the lyrics. Stir in the words and these songs arrive like fully formed characters from a movie. Swaggering, bittersweet, nostalgic, funny...full of complexities and nuance.

I've also been able to listen to several episodes of Bob's Theme Time Radio Hour, the show he does on XM Satellite Radio. Great stuff! Lots of old-timey music, blues, country, R&B, jazz mixed in with more contemporary artists, each show built around a theme: Time, Water, Drinking, The Devil, Cars, etc. Bob's delivery is priceless. Kinda sounds to me like he's channeling a bit of Walter Cronkite. Usually he'll preface a song with a bit of background on the artist, or a little anecdote. This is what radio should be.

The reason I've been able to hear his show isn't because I've subscribed to XM Satellite Radio, it's because I've finally got enough room on my computer's hard drive to start downloading large torrent files. And the reason I have more space on my computer is because I went out and got a new computer. My old G3 iMac was starting to really show its age (at the digitally decrepit age of five years), so I got myself a new iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 20 inch monitor, 2.16Ghz processor, 260GB hard drive (compared to 40GB for my old iMac), 2GB memory.

She's a wonderful machine. It's been hard to pull myself away from her. Got the built-in iSight camera, Photo Booth, Front Row with the remote, and, of course, apps like iDVD, iMovie and, most exciting for me, Garageband. I can't wait to get in there and start fooling around with recording. I really want to try my hand at making podcasts. I've always wanted to put together a radio show, and it looks pretty easy in Garageband. I could make my own Theme Time Radio show.

The built-in camera is fun, as is Photo Booth. Hard to imagine how I got by before I was able to make photos like these:

I wasn't sure if I needed a 20-inch screen. Thought maybe the 17-in would suffice. But, probably a few years down the road, it'll be pretty standard, if it isn't already. It's the same size as my TV. I have to say it's nice to sit back on the couch with the remote and watch movies and movies on the 'puter, cycle through music, etc.

As I said, I've been downloading lots of torrents. Got my hands on some films that are hard to come by. The Beatles "Let It Be", which I've only seen once, in a theatre in Moncton many moons ago, and Dylan's "Eat The Document", capturing the insanity of his 1966 tour of England. In the case of the latter, I can see why it was never released commercially. What a piece of crap. The editing is so annoying. Like something an inept film student might attempt. Apparently it was Dylan and his associate Howard Alk who edited it after D.A. Pennebaker, who shot the footage, submitted his version. Bob should have left well enough alone. Yes, it captures the madness of the tour, but the result is as unwatchable as that life was unliveable. The footage of the performances is good to see, and there are nice scenes of Dylan and Robbie Robertson working on new songs in the hotel room on two acoustic guitars, but the rest of it is ill-considered at best. Pennebaker's version is rumoured to be on the way, titled Something Is Happening. Let's hope so.

Also snagged The Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and "A Day In The Park", the latter documenting their July 1969 free concert in London's Hyde Park, where they introduced new guitarist Mick Taylor just a couple of days after Brian Jones' death. This free concert went over much better than the one documented in "Gimme Shelter", of course, that being the infamous one at the Altamont speedway. Interestingly, the Hell's Angels were hired to provide security at both events. Maybe the British Angels were more polite? Or maybe paying them in beer at Altamont was a mistake?

Lots of other stuff coming down the digital pipeline. Once I get some podcasts made, I'll post them here. Stay tuned.

Word

2006-10-07T11:20:00.000-04:00

Another installment from the dictionary.com Word of the Day.

Word of the Day for Saturday, October 7, 2006

gambol \GAM-buhl\, intransitive verb:

1. To dance and skip about in play; to frolic.
2. A skipping or leaping about in frolic.

I've been told dolphins like to gambol in the waves in these waters, and that sighting them brings good luck.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, "Where the Map Stopped", New York Times, May 17, 1992

The bad news is that while most of us gambol in the sun, there will be much wringing of hands in environment-hugging circles about global warming and climate change.
-- Derek Brown, "Heatwaves", The Guardian, June 16, 2000

Then they joined hands (it was the stranger who began it by catching Martha and Matilda) and danced the table round, shaking their feet and tossing their arms, the glee ever more uproarious, -- danced until they were breathless, every one of them, save little Sammy, who was not asked to join the gambol, but sat still in his chair, and seemed to expect no invitation.
-- Norman Duncan, "Santa Claus At Lonely Cove", The Atlantic, December 1903

Gambol, earlier gambolde or gambalde, comes from Medieval French gambade, "a leaping or skipping," from Late Latin gamba, "hock (of a horse), leg," from Greek kampe, "a joint or bend."

----

This is one I recall from my high school Shakespeare. Not from that other great tragedy "Kenny Rogers is The Gamboler" ("...know when to walk away/know when to dance...").

Check out the etymology, though. The Late Latin (can't they ever arrive on time?) for a horse's leg. Right away, the light went on in my head: gams; as in "check out the gams on that dame." I don't know much Italian, but is the Italian word for "leg" similar? Maybe that's where that leggy colloquialism comes from.

Oh, to be a linguist. And a cunning one at that.

Sunday Stones

2006-10-01T20:31:00.000-04:00

I love the fall. It's my favourite season. Today, the first day of October, was a pretty typical autumn Sunday. Started out rather crisp and sunny, but turned rainy by early afternoon. Later on, however, the sun returned and it proved to be a fairly nice day.

So I took a little walk up my street and strolled through the St. John Norway cemetary that starts at the Kingston Road and Woodbine intersection. It's a fairly nice old cemetary; some of the stones and markers go back to the early 20th century. I'm sure there are probably some that are older than that.

A couple of them in particular caught my eye. This first one is one I see every time I pass by on the sidewalk. I imagine it's made from granite, but to me, it seems rather iron-y...

Then there's this one...

I guess that's what they mean by... one Foote in the grave.

Oy. My apologies to the deceased, but I just can't pass up a good pun.

The pastor of the St. John's Norway church is often pretty creative with his signage. None of that doom and gloom, sin-and-salvation stuff. It's usually quite positive and rooted in the here-and-now. The current messages are no exception.

Almost makes you want to pop in for a sermon.
Almost.

Sweet Baby James

2006-09-24T12:49:00.000-04:00

Join me in welcoming to the world James Marshall Holland, the first-born to my good friend Joanne and hubby John. James was born at St. Joseph's Health Centre in Toronto, 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday September 20, weighing in at 9 lbs. 4 oz.

As for the excellent choice of name, the proud parents explain: "James is named after Joanne's father (James) and John's maternal Grandad (Marshall) -- two prominent men in our lives. It is purely coincidental that he shares the same moniker as James Marshall Hendrix, but we think he might be tempted go for the latter explanation when he's old enough to know who Jimi Hendrix is."

Congrats Joanne and John and welcome "little" James!

Helpless?

2006-09-02T13:04:00.000-04:00

Wow. Just noticed the "radical" redesign over at Neilyoung.com. Good ol' Neil is still fighting the good fight, only these days he's more feisty than ever. I guess having kids who are backdoor draft age will do that to you.

Check out the videos and documentaries for the LWW songs. Some are free downloads. Lots of other stuff, too. Anti-war editorials. The "Songs of the Times" section, featuring musical submissions on the theme; some known, some unknown.

You can also watch Neil's recent appearance on "The Colbert Report", and some archival footage from the 1986 Crazy Horse tour. This was the tour where they billed themselves as the "world's 3rd greatest garage band," taking the theme literally. The stage was designed as a garage where the band was rehearsing, complete with terrier-sized robotic cockroaches and periodic phone calls from "Mom" telling them to turn it down.

Go Neil!

Watching The Stream Flow

2006-08-31T00:07:00.000-04:00

You can listen to a stream of Dylan's new CD "Modern Times" in its entirety here.

Plus, watch the faux-vintage-Super-8-y video for When The Deal Goes Down, featuring the lovely Scarlett Johansson. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. But seriously, it's a nice video. Seems to enhance the song.

I listened to the songs at work today, but I can't say anything made much of an impression. Except the name check on Alicia Keyes in the lead-off track. Musically, it sounds like Bobby's mining the same vein from "Love And Theft"--not that that's a bad thing. But there are many distractions at work (like...work) so it's not fair of me to judge it yet. I'll have to spend some time with it alone. Kind of going through a bit of a Beatles/Lennon revival in my listening life right now, so we'll see if Bob can lure me over to his side of the river of song.

A Series Of Dreams

2006-08-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

With the upcoming release of Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" CD, Google Video has put together some Dylan footage from over the years.

I've always loved the Jokerman video. And Series of Dreams is quite impressive, too.

Listening again to Political World, from his brilliant 1989 album, "Oh, Mercy", it's hard not to be struck by the incisiveness of those lyrics. I picked these off of his own website. Not sure if the first line of that last verse is a typo or not.

We live in a political world,
Love don't have any place.
We're living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don't have a face

We live in a political world,
Icicles hanging down,
Wedding bells ring and angels sing,
clouds cover up the ground.

We live in a political world,
Wisdom is thrown into jail,
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank,
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last.

We live in a political world.
The one we can see and can feel
But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck,
We all know for sure that it's real.

We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear,
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you're never why you're here.

We live in a political world
Under the microscope,
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope.

We live in a political world
Turning and a'thrashing about,
As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out.

We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all,
It's turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall.

We live in apolitical world
Everything is hers or his,
Climb into the frame and shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is.

Copyright © 1989 Special Rider Music

See The Sites

2006-08-07T22:16:00.000-04:00

More gems from WFMU.org's Sites For Sore Eyes.

The Automatic 45 Label Generator. This is cool. I could have all kinds of fun with this.

Then there's the Huggable Urns. I'm not quite sure what to make of these. I've always felt that keeping someone's ashes around your house was a little odd. I mean, would you keep their bones in a box? Still, if it's important to you to hang onto an urn of a loved one's burnt remains, why not make it nice and cuddly? Just pray your pit bull doesn't get ahold of it.

Definitely some interesting efforts in the Top 10 Strangest Monuments. Roof shark?

And, of course, a new installment of the always entertaining Top 10 Worst Album Covers. Check out the comments, and you'll learn that some Queen fans are: A) a little too tightly wound, and B) quite adept at demonstrating the difference between an oxymoron and the normal variety.

But I think I laughed hardest at the Museum of Unfortunate Domain Names. Funny stuff...indeed.

In praise of one-syllable intransitive verbs that offer superb economy

2006-08-06T20:03:00.000-04:00

Here's an entertaining article from Slate that, well... doesn't suck.

Although I have been known to rail against the dumbing-down of our language, the author presents a convincing argument. I found this section particularly persuasive:

"When someone says Bill Gates is a geek, do you picture him as a circus performer biting the head off a live chicken? Of course not. The word's root meaning has been replaced with a new connotation. Similarly, when I call Paris Hilton a moron, I don't mean she's mentally retarded, and when I call bungee jumping lame I don't mean it's disabled. What once was offensive is now simply abrasive. Language moves on, and the sucks-haters are living in the past."

I might offer a dissenting viewpoint about Paris Hilton, but maybe that's just quibbling. And, as a matter of fact, I have often developed a mental picture of Bill Gates biting the head off...oh, wait, no...that was Ozzy Osbourne. Goshdarnit, I'm forever getting those two mixed up. (Hmm, has anyone ever seen them together in the same room?)

I'm not a language purist, but neither do I take a laissez faire attitude. I remember being chastized by my first-year university English professor for using the word relate as an intransitive verb, in the sense of to react in response, especially favorably: "I just can't relate to these new fashions" (dictionary.com). Perhaps she was right, in that uptight proper Queen's English kind of way. She was also probably the kind of person who would correct you for ending a sentence with a preposition. (Go here for a denunciation of that school of thought.) But the vast majority of people who use the language understand and accept relate being used in that sense.

Words and their connotations are organic; they evolve over time, as the above article ably demonstrates. I also feel that language is fairly flexible. I've probably committed a few syntactical and grammatical errors in writing this blog entry, but likely nothing (I hope) that is truly unacceptable, unless I was writing for an audience of grammarians and linguists. Or should that be "unless I were writing..."? Whatever.

Where I draw the line is between proper English and correct English. For instance, it drives me up the wall when I hear people failing to make their plural subjects agree with their verbs. There's many instances of this. See? I hear it all the time, even from people who should know better, such as television reporters. It seems to be a growing trend, and it's very annoying. It just seems to stem from laziness. Is this language butchering on its way to becoming naturalized, so that it becomes an acceptable way to speak? God, I hope not. I blame the Internets.

There's aspects of grammar and syntax that shouldn't be messed with!
Or is that with which one shouldn't mess?

And don't get me started on the ubiquity of absolutely. Whatever happened to responses such as of course, definitely and even good ol' yes?

Let's try an experiment. Let's all start using the word indeed where everyone else uses absolutely, and see if we can get it to catch on. If enough people use it in important settings, and if we use it in the company of people who get on the media enough--politicians, actors, police spokespeople, TV journalists--maybe...just maybe...we can replace absolutely with indeed. We can Spock-ify the language! It will be a cultural coup, indeed!

In the meantime, here's a really handy online resource for common errors in English.

Word up.

Dublin Up

2006-08-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

And here are my photos from Dublin and County Clare and the last few days in London. Enjoy!

Zebra Cam

2006-07-22T12:05:00.000-04:00

Ever want to see Beatle pilgrims and tourists risk their lives for a photo op? Now you can with the Abbey Road Web Cam!

This camera is situated in front of the studio (you can see the white post of the front gate in the lower-right corner), looking south-ish toward the crosswalk, the opposite perspective from the album cover.

It's probably not quite as dangerous as it seems. While cars in London have the unchallangeable right-of-way at most crossings, the only time they're required to give way to pedestrians is at the "zebra" crosswalks, such as the one at the Abbey Road intersection.

Bear in mind: if you're viewing this from North America, London is five hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. Probably best viewed on the weekend during day, local time.