The Continuing Adventures Of Your Own Personal Jesus

How can you not like Richard Nixon? I mean, look at that face – you know when he told a hippy to shut up he meant it, just watch Futurama. You know that when he said he was not a crook he meant it. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the truth; he meant it all the same. Richard Nixon rewrote history even as it was happening, the ultimate in revisionist historians, and better than that people have been writing, and rewriting Nixon’s history by the day. I doubt that anyone would rightly remember if Nixon was actually impeached, if he quit or if he was sacked and prosecuted. If you know the right answer then help yourself to a cookie from the top of the fridge. Ol’ Dick did some strange things in his time. He appeared on television with a dog and saved his political career. It was a good thing for Nixon that Checkers, his mutt, didn’t do a Woodrow, who spread his legs out wide facing the camera and licked himself into a state of highest enjoyment. Oh, how we all laughed when Woodrow did tha...

I can clearly remember when I first read 1984 and the reasons why. When I was in grade 5 at school, at the tender young age of 10 years old, it was 1977 and my life began to change, in literary terms, for the better. That was a fairly good year to be a ten year old boy as Star Wars was released, so my life revolved around pulp magazines, comic books, Charlie Brown, Wizard of ID, science fiction and, well, crap really. I’d read almost anything that I could get my hands on, but when it came to books I was limited in what I was allowed to read as the guidance came from my teacher. I can’t remember her name, but if I close my eyes I can see her face and hear her voice, she was young and idealistic, as most young people in the ‘70s were. I hope she still is idealistic, and she was cute as well. All in all she was one of the few teachers I had who actually taught me something. In 1977 the focus was on problems around the globe, the proposed oncoming nuclear war (yes, we were taught to duck...

And a good time was had by all. Don’t mind me, I’m starting at the end of last night, that way you can get the happy ending straight away and can now leave if you don’t want to know what went on, you pervert. It was another night amongst the aging meerkats, men of dubious reputations with no hair on the top of the head but plenty hanging down the back and women of a certain vintage as we went and caught the reunion of Boom Crash Opera at a dingy pub. I think the last time I saw BCO (as they’re known amongst people of a certain vintage) was back in 1989 when they released the still excellent These Here Are Crazy Times album. Before that I’d caught them in Melbourne in 1986, second on a five band bill at the St Kilda Palace supporting headliners The Church and Icehouse. To say that they were crap back in 1986 would be doing them a favour, but at least they were better than James Griffith and The Subterraneans who were then next band up that night. The opening act was someone so ho...

Music today sucks. Seriously, it does. Each time I turn the radio on I’m faced with a choice between wailing women or whining men. “Arms wide open”, Jaysus, give me a break. And what passes for R&B these days, which was rap back when, all sounds the same. But it doesn’t come as any great surprise really, as music is cyclic, so I have faith that something will happen, eventually, to wipe these twats off the face of the map, and it won’t be named Cyrus or Beiber. Miley Cyrus. How did anyone think she’d be making quality music? If you take a punt on say Dhani Harrison, Julian Lennon or Jakob Dylan then you’re in a with a chance. After all their fathers were bloody good. Same with Jeff Buckley, but really, is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, he of the achy breaky heart, ever going to make decent music? It’s as if you have the chance of buying a horse sired from Think Big as opposed to some nag that went to the cat food factory last week. I just want to scream, “You suck!” ...

One word: why? I'll tell you why - because people are stupid enough to buy shit like this.  Coffins, condoms, shirts - hell, I'm waiting for the "Gene's Tongue Maxi Pad".  And if you do it Gene, then you'll have to cut me in now. I still listen to Kiss.  I think I always will, but I've gone right off them now.  One of the main reasons is the use of the make-up of Ace and Peter on people who aren't Ace and Peter, although guitarist Tommy 'Talentless' Thayer must surely be living the dream of anyone who's ever started out playing a character in a cover band by graduating to the band itself.  Good stuff Tommy, but, amazingly, he's uglier than Ace and has none of Ace's personality. But therein lies the rub.  Kiss isn't about personality anymore and frankly they ceased to have any personality once Ace did the noble thing and walked.  These days, moreso than ever, it's all about the cash and only the cash.  Gene and Paul want...

God, Lard Arse was everywhere in Adelaide back in the ‘60s wasn’t he? I’m sure that there’s going to be people who’ll think that this blog is rapidly becoming the Fat Francis Fan Club page, but seriously, no, it’s not. It’s just that it’s almost impossible to pick up any kind of local publication from the early rock and roll era of Adelaide that DOESN’T feature Honest Bob. Such was his influence and such was the impact of his many chubby fingers in many, many pies. I’m not sure that Bob wrote the Platter Chatter section of Young Modern; if only because of the lack of swear words, abuse and general insults. Where’s the love, Bob? And there’s Bob, resplendent in his sixe XXXL off the rack suit, nursing a bottle of Coke. Just imagine, forty years later he’d graduate from one small bottle of Coke per radio session to a bottle, and change, of red wine as he soundly tells those lovely ladies who once danced to his swinging discs and snappy chatter to piss of you stupid old bitch and...