This is a totally non-musical rant. I’ve never been a huge fan of Facebook. I’ve made no effort to do anything to encourage a presence and literally none of my real fans have encouraged me to push it. But Mark Zuckerberg has gotten a lot of press this week, what with the IPO and his marriage. And I finally have to come out and say it: I really have a visceral loathing for the guy. I don’t just mean ‘Facebook’ or ‘Internet Culture’ or what the guy represents. I mean the guy.

I never bought into all the Social Network caricatures. I’m sure he’s not quite as out there as all that. However, here’s what I wanna say…

Do you want this guy running the world? I mean have you really listened to him talk? It’s not just his affectations. It’s his message.

Unlike the other tech types, from Microsoft to Apple to Google, who are basically about the money, Mark really believes in changing people. He doesn’t just want to make a […]

The very best movie I’ve seen in a -long- while is Pina; a performance piece commemorating the life of choreographer Pina Bausch. First of all, it’s the first 3-D movie I’ve seen that was worth a shit. In fact, it just wouldn’t work well in 2-D. Director Wim Wenders cleverly exploits the formats innate tendency to render depth in discrete layers. He intentionally creates scenes that look almost like grade-school dioramas. In addition to being extremely cool looking, it also solves another problem of filming dance—what to leave in and what to leave out. How does one choose the angle you want the viewer to see? Well, with 3-D you can show it all in focus, but put the layer you want to emphasise highlighted.

And the choreography is amazing enough to warrant such imagination. It’s so good, in fact, I fear lots of people who aren’t big ‘modern dance’ fans will be so captivated by Pina that they go out and buy tickets […]

AKA, New Year, same ol’ whiney posts.

But this will likely be the last post before I switch web hosts. As doctors so like to say, ‘Some side-effects may include…’ But hopefully there will be no ‘dead air’. As always, if you notice anything untoward, please give me a jingle… e-mail… tweet… flaming arrow… semaphore…

I needed more space and some features to make the upcoming ‘Detroit’ site possible. There’s also the older concert videos which I haven’t had the time or the web space to present. So there are a lot of plans… if I survive. 😉

NB: I’m writing this from bed. Again. Don’t ask. Instead of opera-tin’ (get it? Even with the grim reaper at my door, I still got it.) But it’s making me even more ADHD than usual laying on my back. To avoid going nuts, I’m trying to remain ‘useful’ by doing stuff I always mean to get round to—like ITEM #318: Re-learn French by watching Canadian TV and old OSS 117 movies. (Did I say ‘going’? […]

Some people are just head and shoulders above the rest in terms of execution; the Michael Jordans. John Williams and Steven Spielberg are like that in movies. I’m not saying everything they do is ‘the best’ every year but, like His Airness what they do is of such a consistent quality that over time, they just dominate. They are the U of M ground game of movies.

Warhorse

And ‘War Horse’ is another example. It’s not the best work for either, but again, the execution is so damned good that you watch the implausibilities go by and feel your emotions being manipulated like a Swedish masseur and you give into it because, hey… it’s a fuckin’ Swedish Massage.

What makes Warhorse at the top this year is not that John can write in any style he wants and it’s gonna sound great. He may be the last guy who can really write a truly post-romantic score. (People forget that the guys who laid down the law in Hollywood’s Golden Age were largely […]

Just when I think there are no new ways left for me to injure myself, I’m currently recovering from my first ‘guitar shock’. I’ve had plenty o’ mic shocks before, but this is the first time I’ve gotten 110vac on the control plate of a Telecaster. I moved my pinky over to the knob to do a ‘pinky swell’ and POW! There goes a fingernail. Ruined the paint job on the guitar.

Worst of all, it didn’t even look cool. Just looked like a middle-aged man having some vague sort of mental breakdown—screaming for no apparent reason.

In case you were wondering… I lived. 😀

I was going to carry on about the end of ‘tradition’ in music when this story fell out of the sky like the sixteen tone weight in a Monty Python episode: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/24/144193341/taking-classical-off-the-pedestal-into-black-communities

Upon hearing this wonderfully inspiring and uplifting story about a guy worthy of much praise, a guy who is making a real commitment to bring culture to the disadvantaged black youth of my inner […]