Posts

Showing posts from March, 2011

#258: Goin' On a Lion Hunt

Image
They never had anything like this when I was in the Elizabeth Park Cubs.  I only went to the Scouts a few times before I totally lost interest and got annoyed with one of the guys there who I'm sure now has a paedobear sticker on the side mirror of his car, but that's another story.  More than once my older brother and I would skip Cubs and head over to the Elizabeth Park Chip Shop where we'd play pinball machines for an hour or so - yes, pinball machines.  Asteroids was a delight, so be glad you live in a modern world. I did go on a few camps for the Cubs.  I suspect that I was shuffled off to these things mainly to get me out of the house and to give my mother some peace.  I enjoyed it because nobody was farting on my head or trying to beat the shit out of me just for breathing, and I had a couple of chums in the Cubs.  We did the Woodside camp - I remember that was fairly fun, especially the ghost stories and the various hunts.  What stuck with me was one of the Cub le

#257: Everyday I Write The Book

Image
It seems that everyone I know wants me, nay, expects me, to buy a bloody iPad so I can read books. The fact that I own several thousand books – not an exaggeration mind you – means nothing to most people, but it means something to me. Still, people do argue the point with me and insist that I’d be far better off with an iPad. I can see the merit in an iPod, indeed I have one, but I still hyave a pile of vinyl for the same reasons I’ll always have books – some things just aren’t the same with technology, and some things just can’t be found on new technology. But that argument aside, here’s the reason why I won’t be rushing out to buy an iPad anytime soon. I bought this today at a local market for the princely sum of $2.00. For one it’s cheaper than a download and for another, well, there’s nothing more exciting than finding a book that is almost sixty years old in such beautiful condition, and has a lovely inscription from the original owner in it’s pages. Ron and Elsie are pro

#257: It's Raining Men

Image
Standing on a box at the banks of the Torrens this morning was a tiny man being filmed by a camera crew. It wasn’t anything important, just a self described ‘weathergirl’ (his words, not mine) who, due to the many years present on the idiot box, clearly has an overinflated sense of worth and being. How tiny is he? If you dressed him in an all green outfit then the Irish would have thoughts that the leprechauns were invading St Patricks Day early this year, instead of around 10pm when the many pints of black stuff really kick in and the pubs start throwing the drunks out. So what made today any different for the Little Man from Channel 7? Only that he spent the better part of the morning alternately praising and abusing the city of Adelaide, egged on, for the most part, by the co-owner of the Sydney Kings, a bald headed thing who could give John Laws, Ray Hadley, Bob Francis and Alan Jones runs for their money in the uneducated, uninformed arsehole comments department, who was bor

#256: Drop Down Baby

Image
Jimmy Page once stated, with tongue firmly in cheek, “Usually my riffs are pretty damn original.” He was right, usually they are damn original, it’s just that he didn’t come up with the bulk of them. As a songwriter Page is lauded by many, as a producer he was as good as anyone out there for the genre that he worked in. As a thief, well he was as good as Ronnie Biggs really, in that he was better known for being a high profile, low level crook than anything else. Good ole Ronnie, best known for being a hanger on who became famous for being infamous than anything else. And Page is famous for being infamous, infamous in that he helped invent a genre, spawn several thousand other idiots with lesser talents and for stealing from those less fortunate than he’ll ever be. Page wasn’t bereft of talent by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been listening to the 1972 Bombay Sessions – where Page and Plant recorded Friends with a bunch of local, Indian, musicians in a forerunner to the