Posts by Rich Lock
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
And for those enjoying their Big Day In, something completely different
-
Dubnobasswithmyheadman is still the one album that I would press upon strangers if provoked.
Testify, brother! Ride those sainted rhythms on the midnight train to Romford!
-
The game some people are playing of "pick the best of these crappy overlords" seems rather bizarre.
Although I am rather enjoying the retro '60's aspect of it.
In the blue corner, Tom "Domino Theory" Semmens! Lean in close and smell the uranium on his breath!
And in the red corner, Country Gio and the Fush! They don't give a damn, next stop Afghanistan!
-
"we should give up on fighting this wrong, because it's not working"
Well, I never used the word 'wrong'. That was your interpretation.
But since that where we're at: in my opinion, current policy and enforcement does far, far more harm than good, for example by giving organised crime an easy source of funds and therefore power. There is no 'right' way of dealing with this, just degrees of 'wrong'. And prohibition is a far greater 'wrong' than legalisation would be.
So.
If something is wrong, I'd like to think we'd find alternative ways of dealing with it better.
We keep returning to alcohol because it's an easy comparison, and does have relevance. Alcohol is enjoyed responsibly by many people, and also abused heavily by many. Prohibition in the US showed that people won't stop drinking if selling it is illegal.
So the government licences alcohol for sale, and gains tax in return. Part of that tax is used for harm reduction strategies. Whether those licencing laws and harm reduction strategies are effective or not is arguable, and needs discussion, but that is the way in which we (society) deal with the 'wrong' aspects ofalcohol. We recognise that we can't outright ban it (ineffective), so we choose to get revenue from the sale of it, and then try to deal as best we can with the after-effects. Minimise the 'wrong'.
Certainly we should argue about who we sell alcohol to and when, and how to deal with binge brinking, drunk driving, etc, but effectively, we have taken the path of the lesser 'wrong'.
Yet with weed, it seems to me that we continue to take the path of the greater 'wrong'.
-
the furries scene in Entourage came to mind
That scene was both hilarious and disturbing in more or less equal measure. That which has been seen cannot be unseen.
Anyway, on topic: I'm mildly surprised that most of the arguments in this thread have crystallised around health and harm reduction, rather than practicality.
In a practical sense, is the current law and the related enforcement strategy working? Clearly not.
Therefore, maintaining the status quo is not an option.
So do we make the law and enforcement strategy harsher, or do we look at relaxing it?
In my opinion, and there is a ton of evidence for this (we could use any number of examples from the US), a harsher regime would be extremely counter-productive. And would also not work.
Therefore, the only sensible option is to look at relaxing the current law. And if we're going down that road, the government may as well make some money out of taxing it. So make it legal.
-
I think Johnny Cash is the exception to the 1% cover version rule, since he's done so many good ones.
I prefer his version of 'personal jesus', though, staying on the Depeche Mode tip. The Marylin Manson version....not so much.
Incidentally, I reckon Johnny Cash is a gateway drug to country music. I used to be able say I liked all types of music, except Country and R'n'B. Since Johnny turned me on, only one of statements is true. I'm happily snorting up thick lines of Johnny Cash, CC Adcock, Martina McBride and Jace Everett.
Still, I'll know I've hit rock bottom when I start mainlining Luther Vandross.
-
As for the third party remixes, that's like putting a $50 spoiler on a Ferrari. You could, but why would ya?
Well, 99% of the time I'd agree with you. Same with cover versions. But 1% of the time you get a glorious reinterpretation that puts a beautiful new twist on things.
Like this slab of aural delight: Kruder and Dorfmeister remixing Depeche Mode's 'Useless'.
Original here for purposes of comparison
-
I'd guess perhaps I'm a bit too young to 'get' the relevant context.
No offense intended, Rich, but that line always irks me. Amongst my most loved works are the Miles Davis collection, Birth Of Cool, Elvis' Sun Collection, a couple of Charlie Parker albums from the 1940s, an Ellington collection of remastered 78s dating back to the 1920s, Coltrane's Giant Steps, a swag of of NZ 45s from 60-63, many old Chess masters, and so on..all of which predate my time as a conscious buyer of new records. I love these records and fully understand their relevance and importance, in the same way I get the relevance of Guernicia or a billion other things that predate me.
Well, as Sacha has pointed out, I seem to have conflated "I didn't like it" with "It's overrated". Which may say something interesting about my ego, but I'm too busy telling myself how awesome I am to bother spending time examining that.
When I was growing up, my parents spent a lot of time trying to drum an appreciation of classical music into me. My dad was also a massive jazz fan, so I got exposed to a lot of that as well, including a whole bunch of the stuff you mention. Naturally, as soon as I hit my teens, I turned into the worlds biggest metalhead (I was 6-7 years too late for punk).
Intellectually, I 'get' the context. Since you mention 'Guernica', I'll note that I spent some time last year reading Anthony Beevor's 'Battle for Spain', along with Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia'. Plus the first two of the three Richard Evans books you mentioned in the Nazi thread.
And as I type this, I'm listening to tracks by Curtis Mayfield, Aaron Neville and Sly Stone. When they were first released, I was probably more likely to be listening to 'sing a song of playschool', if the album I salvaged from my parents collection is any indication.
I do actually like 'Blue Monday' (but not that much). I just...think it's overrated. But that's just my opinion and clearly I'm heavily outnumbered. So perhaps 'get' should be replaced with 'feel'. Or 'dig', or 'groove to', or somesuch. Intellectually, yes, fine, they changed the face of music. But it doesn't bypass my brain, hit my gut and set my toes a tapping. Same as The Beatles. I know what they did. But I'm probably not going to be sticking 'The White Album' on for a spin any time soon. I just don't like them that much (there. I said it).
Incidentally, since I'm intent on destroying all remaining traces of my musical cred, at the same time as I heard 'Blue Monday' for the first time, the same friend also played me this. Guess which one I liked more?
Blue Monday hasn't been remixed over and over again. There was the '88 mix, and then a brace of mixes in 1995, of which the Hardfloor mix was the killer (that was reissued in 2006), but that's all.
I know that. It just seemed to be omnipresent when I was growing up. In memory, just as it would start to fall of the radar, up pops another remix! A bit like Madonna's 'Holiday'. I was just having a wee troll.
-
Looks like we've finally found the PAS equivalent of an HR Bateman cartoon.
-
it's a warning of them needing extra care on account of their own driver being distracted and being more liable than average of making stupid maneuvers requiring my avoidance..
Yeah. "I'm chronically short of sleep, probably distracted by a screaming thing in the back seat, and chock full of hormones that may (or may not) cause me to make irrational descisions" doesn't fit so well on an easy-to-read rear window sign.