I wrote last year about how to spot an adult: They're the ones who don't feel the need to brag that they're an adult.
Now, nearly six months into the job, Tony Abbott's next great claim is that his immigration minister is not a wimp. Really, Tony? After what can only be described as an utter balls-up, is that all you've got? Australians don't want a wimp?
To quote the classics, It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate; It takes guts to be gentle and kind. Strength is self-evident. If you have to boast about it, then you ain't got it.
Show me someone who brags about being grown up and I'll show you a petulant child.
Show me a grown man in a position of great power who still feels the need to prove he's not a wimp, and I'll show you a pathetic little WIMP.
You protest too much, Tony. And so do all the gang behind you.
By the way, one Catholic to another, Jesus was a "wimp."
24 February, 2014
20 February, 2014
Blood and Chocolate
The government has painted itself into a corner with its double standards on corporate assistance.
I tell you why at AusOpinion.
I tell you why at AusOpinion.
16 February, 2014
The eternal sunshine of Christopher Pyne
What a difference an election makes! Suddenly the Coalition thinks that a shrill and obstructionist opposition is a bad thing. And no-one is more upset about it than that master of hypocrisy, Christopher Pyne. At a doorstop press conference last Thursday, he revealed that he had suddenly become aware of there being a difference between holding government to account and being ill-mannered.
He also said,
Christopher Pyne, I accuse you of rudeness.
He went on to say,
I know better than to ask Mr Pyne if he doesn't think behaviour like this is rude:
The question I really want to ask, was best asked by Jon Stewart:
He also said,
"I don’t think anybody ever accused me of rudeness."The only way anyone could possibly think that Christopher Pyne was never accused of rudeness would be to not think at all. But just in case Mr Pyne really was living in a bubble until this week, let me make it perfectly clear:
Christopher Pyne, I accuse you of rudeness.
He went on to say,
"I don’t think I was ever ill-mannered and rude,"which can only leave one with the impression that he really hasn't quite got the hang of this "thinking" lark.
I know better than to ask Mr Pyne if he doesn't think behaviour like this is rude:
 |
| Christopher Pyne being not rude |
15 February, 2014
What Stupid Buzzfeed Quiz Are You?
Question 1:
You’re invited to the
hottest new year’s eve party in town. What do you do?
1: Say, ‘What, again?’
2: Spend $2000 on clothes and hair to make sure you look your best.
3: Panic that you’re not going to know anyone there and that you’ll
make a fool of yourself.
4: Brag about it to all your friends.
5: Figure the invite was sent to the wrong person and throw it away.
6: Go on a starvation diet before the big night.
7: You don’t like crowds so you spend the night watching TV.
8: Go and become the life of the party.
9: Stop and think: ‘A new year’s eve party in February?’
Question 2:
The best things in life
are…
1: Free
2: Me
3: On TV
4: Bees
5: Really expensive, duh!
6: Overrated
7: Different for everyone
8: Ultimately disappointing
9: All around me
Question 3:
Your bestie tells you
they’ve started seeing someone and you’re all like…
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
Question 4:
An acquaintance mentions
to you that David Bowie’s 80s output is really quite underrated. What do you
do?
1: Say, ‘OMG! That’s so true.’
2: Ask, ‘Who’s David Bowie?’
3: Accept the premise but point out that although it’s underrated,
that doesn’t mean it’s particularly good.
4: Nod politely and make a mental note never to speak to them again.
5: Give them a card for a free hearing test.
6: Argue about it all night.
7: Shrug and say you don’t care either way.
8: Ignore them but post a nasty Facebook status about it later.
9: Punch them in the face.
Question 5:
If you were a cat, you
would be…
1: A cute fluffy kitten.
2: Inhabiting your person’s lap at all times distracting them from
everything.
3: Asleep most of the day.
4: Only home at meal times.
5: Grumpy cat.
6: What do you mean if? I AM a cat!
7: A tiger! Grr!
8: Mrs Slocombe’s pussy.
9: I’m not a cat. Why would I be a cat? That’s silly.
Question 6:
Your crush sends you
flowers. How do you react?
1: Take a photo of them and make it your new profile picture.
2: Thank them but ask that next time they don’t send them to you at work
in the panel beating shop.
3: Wonder how they knew since you’ve never had the nerve to speak to
them.
4: Cut off all contact. This is all going too fast. You need your
space.
5: You eat them.
6: There’s gonna be sex tonight!
7: You’re deeply offended at this clichéd, consumerist and patriarchal
display of so-called romance.
8: As above, but you secretly melt inside.
9: My crush?? Seriously?
What am I, twelve?
Question 7:
Somebody famous starts
following you back on Twitter. What do you do next?
1: Brag about it on Facebook.
2: Send them a .@reply thanking them, making sure all your followers
see it.
3: Send a DM thanking them and expressing what a big fan you are.
4: Nothing. I’m cool.
5: Meh, no biggie. They probably follow everyone back automatically.
6: Ask them for an RT to promote your school fete.
7: Enact the next phase of your stalking plan.
8: Suddenly remember you have a Twitter account.
9: Suddenly remember you don’t have a Twitter account.
Question 8:
Pick one:
1: Lemonade
2: Chocolate feature wall
3: Purple
4: Mint
5: Origami
6: Jogging around a lake at 5:30pm
7: Hair
8: Lurex
9: 1873
Question 9:
You see a friend post a
link to a Buzzfeed list. What do you do?
1: Click it, read it, close it. Simples!
2: Click it and read it. Maybe click through a few more links, then
close it.
3: Click it, then keep clicking through the other links and lists.
You don’t have a problem. You could close it any time you want. It’s not
hurting anyone and you enjoy it, so what’s the problem? Anyway, you’re not my
mother so shut up!
4: Ignore it. They’re all stupid.
5: Block them. You don’t need that shit in your life.
6: Highly unlikely – you only use the internet for updating your
conspiracy website.
7: None of my friends would dare.
8: You vaguely remember this happening once and you have no idea
where the next two years went.
9: Friend? Hmmm… Interesting concept.
Now tally your result. Give yourself points according to the option
number you chose: Option 1 = 1 point, Option 2 = 2 points, etc…
1-9 Points:
You are
What Jelly-Belly Flavour Are
You?
10-18 Points:
You are
You are
What 50s American Car Are
You?
19-27 Points:
You are
What Chaser Boy Are You?
What Chaser Boy Are You?
28-36 Points:
You are
What Punctuation Mark Are
You?
37- 45 Points:
You are
What Is Your Spirit Vegetable?
46-54 Points:
You are
What Forgotten Happy Days
Character Are You?
55-63 Points:
You are
What Huffington Post
Section Are You?
64-72 Points:
You are
What Hair Product Are You?
73-81 Points:
You are
What 70s Underground
Movement Are You?
82-90 Points:
You are
Possibly innumerate.
You might also like...
 |
| What Twitter Bio Are You? |
 |
| The 10 Best Gigs Of 2013 |
 |
| Everybody Takes A Tumble |
04 February, 2014
50
Look, I bow to no-one in my love of The Beatles but I really don’t give a shit about the impending fiftieth anniversary of the American mass market discovering them. To quote a later icon of British music, America is not the world. I get that 1964 was year-zero for The Beatles as far as a lot of people are concerned, but as far as the actual Beatles are concerned, it was anywhere between two and seven years earlier, depending on where you’re counting from. I mean, for me it was 1986 because that was when I began seriously listening to them, but nobody is ever going to celebrate that anniversary because it’s all about me.
Honestly, I’m glad I was born after Beatlemania because the hype would have pissed me off and it would have made it a lot harder to like them. Discovering them twenty years later allowed me to listen to the music on its own merits.
There is actually an important cultural anniversary connected with The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, but it’s tangential to The Beatles and will probably be ignored amongst all the hype. It was possibly the first time millions of people had a shared experience of an historic event through live television in a way that became the norm from the first moon landing to September 11th. I could be wrong about that, there may be earlier examples and I’d be interested to hear about them. I considered the Kennedy assassination, but while that was covered live once the story broke, television wasn’t ubiquitous enough for everyone to switch over immediately. People were at work. I’m not saying things had changed three months later, but Sunday evening was a good time for a shared experience through a relatively new medium.
Anyway, that might be a bit too thinky to get a mention during the anniversary specials. Good luck to those looking forward to them. Some of them might tell me that I just don’t get it and they would be right. I know that a lot of people who saw the original Ed Sullivan appearance consider themselves to be The Original Fans. I also know there are still a few thousand ageing rockers from Liverpool and Hamburg who would say, “Oh really? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
There is actually an important cultural anniversary connected with The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, but it’s tangential to The Beatles and will probably be ignored amongst all the hype. It was possibly the first time millions of people had a shared experience of an historic event through live television in a way that became the norm from the first moon landing to September 11th. I could be wrong about that, there may be earlier examples and I’d be interested to hear about them. I considered the Kennedy assassination, but while that was covered live once the story broke, television wasn’t ubiquitous enough for everyone to switch over immediately. People were at work. I’m not saying things had changed three months later, but Sunday evening was a good time for a shared experience through a relatively new medium.
Anyway, that might be a bit too thinky to get a mention during the anniversary specials. Good luck to those looking forward to them. Some of them might tell me that I just don’t get it and they would be right. I know that a lot of people who saw the original Ed Sullivan appearance consider themselves to be The Original Fans. I also know there are still a few thousand ageing rockers from Liverpool and Hamburg who would say, “Oh really? Why don’t you tell me about it?”
28 January, 2014
The Grammy Awards - a (delayed) live ’blog
Let's be honest: awards nights are just an irrelevant circle-jerk and music awards shows are doubly so. The Grammy Awards perhaps have the advantage over plethora of other music awards shows if only because they're the original irrelevant circle-jerk. Having said that, with so few opportunities to present musical performances to a mass television audience these days, perhaps they're a little less pointless than they used to be.
This is actually the first time I've even been moved enough to watch the Grammy Awards since 2006. Since I couldn't watch them live, it's a bit pointless to live tweet so here, in real time but delayed, are my thoughts and observations.
(By the way, I am aware of the irony of writing about something I consider to be mostly pointless and irrelevant, but it's all about the bitching, innit?)
0:25 They're listing performances and collaborations from previous shows "That make history." No pressure, then.
2:20 Live from Beyonce's dressing room?
3:47 This is where I begin to wonder if there will be any female performers wearing pants. I have skipped forward and confirmed that there are.
4:40 I'm getting dizzy. One can only wonder about Beyonce, but at least neither of us is epileptic.
5:15 Hey, how come Jay-Z gets to wear clothes?
5:45 Can't a woman even sing a song without her husband coming in shouting over it?
6:30 I have no idea what that song was about.
7:10 Wonder if LL Cool J is going to apologise for Accidental Racist.
8:45 Isn't it a bit sad to have to remind the crowd of your hits?
9:00 Um, What?? Taylor Swift made is okay for young women to write about what happened to them and how they're dealing with it? I'm hearing generations of writers from Joni Mitchell to Ani Di Franco saying, "Oh PLEASE!"
9:30 The word 'daft' just sounds wrong in an American accent.
10:00 "Four young men from Liverpool." Whoever could he mean? Barbara looks great.
11:45 First awkward scripted joke of the evening.
13:10 Ed Sheerin is still a new artist?
13:30 The grab they played of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis sounded pretty good.
13:50 First speech beginning with, "Whooo!" I bet it won't be the last. Things look pretty chaotic in the audience.
14:50 "We made this album without a record company..." and immediately the 'get off' music begins. Hmm...
15:30 I've heard a lot of good things about Lorde but this is the first time I've heard her music.
17:30 It would have been better if they had live backing singers. It would seem less pre-recorded. I'm sure she's probably singing live but it feels less like it when there are voices coming out of nowhere.
19:40 Apart from the invisible backing singers, that was really good. Extra points for letting the musical performance stand on its own without feeling the need to wow people with a production number. Bonus points for wearing clothes.
21:20 Hunter Hayes. Apparently this is a brand new song.
24:20 Hmm, nice sentiment but not particularly different. Bit of a motivational talk set to MOR music. Sorry.
24:50 "Music is a universal language." Everybody drink!
25:30 A category for collaborations. That makes sense. I like that.
27:30 Good thing Get Lucky was a collaboration with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers so the robots had someone to speak for them.
28:00 Steve Coogan: "What an honour it is to be in the same room and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney." Yes, it is, and I strongly suspect that's the draw for many of the other guests. Goes and ruins it by talking about reuniting two of the Beatles, but recovers by using it to diss the Jonas Brothers. Macca does self-deprecating finger-point. Drink!
29:00 Katy Perry. Oh shit, they're playing the tape at the wrong speed.
29:30 Okay, if this were Eurovision, we'd be laughing our arses off at this point.
32:15 Somewhere in here, there's a decent song but both the arrangement and performance are trying too hard to make it epic.
33:40 Shout out for Phil Ramone. Nice touch and thoroughly merited.
35:15 Robin Thicke is the one Miley Cyrus was rubbing her arse against, isn't he?
35:30 Oh dear, it's a medley. I hate medleys. If a song is worth singing, it's worth singing all of.
38:00 They're doing it well though. Robin Thicke's voice fits in nicely. He's so much better when he's just singing the song though. There's no need for the melisma.
39:00 Going straight into another performance after Chicago. It seems like they think the actual awards are secondary. They're right.
39:40 Valve lights. Nice. There's something not right about the most Serthern American sounding voice so far coming out of someone from Queensland.
43:00 Nice guitar duet. I'm not a fan of Keith Urban but the boy can play.
43:30 O hai social media reporter! You know we don't need tv to tell us what's on the internet?
48:00 John Legend. Standard romantic song but a lovely simple performance.
51:00 Best Rock Song: Cut Me Some Slack. Look, I love Paul McCartney like a favourite uncle and I love Dave Grohl just for looking as happy as a man with his life ought to be, but this is bullshit. Both the Grammys and the Oscars have a long standing habit of awarding people instead of quality. It's clear that this award was simply for being Paul McCartney and the remains of Nirvana, who never won a Grammy in their day but probably would have if the academy had their time over. Aside from that, Cut Me Some Slack is a dog of a song. It wasn't even the best song on Sound City. It probably also didn't hurt that they premiered the song at the 12 12 12 concert for Sandy relief but that doesn't stop Cut Me Some Sack being a riff in search of a song.
[Aside: The concert in aid of a hurricane striking New York had Paul McCartney, three quarters of Nirvana, Roger Waters, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and a dozen or so other A-listers, all introduced by a whole bunch of movie and tv stars. The Concert for the Philippines had Linkin Park (who organised it), The Offspring and Bad Religion. Think about that for a moment. And I'm not bagging the latter three bands. More power to them.]
Kudos to Krist Novoselic for breaking into the Grohl/McCartney mutual appreciation society and mentioning that for Nirvana's part, fellow nominees Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones were just as important.
54:30 Taylor Swift. Was thinking this was a bit brave being the second piano ballad in a row, but they've gone the power ballad formula on this one with the fully rocking third verse, then going quiet again. Not my bag, but nicely done.
58:00 If they ever remake The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bruno Mars could totally star in it
1:01:00 Pink is the latest victim of the great American skirt shortage of 14.
1:01:45 Seriously though, Pink's performance was amazing but it just leaves me wondering, 'Why?' The song became a soundtrack to her acrobatics, which were brilliant in their own right, but only took away from the music.
1:02:30 Oh good, she's found one.
1:04:30 That became an epic in the style of Jim Steinman. It's just a pity I've forgotten how it started because I was looking at what an amazing acrobat Pink is - and she undoubtedly is.
1:05:00 It's over an hour into the show and we're only up to the fourth award.
1:08:15 Black Sabbath: "The Beatles didn't really become The Beatles until they found Ringo." Yep. That's the truth.
1:09:30 Why have they buried his vocal in the mix?
1:10:30 Seems to be a special All-Starr band here. There's Steve Lukather on 12-string and that looks like Don Was on bass...
1:12:30 Peace and Love, Ringo!
1:13:00 Jamie Foxx, you can't do a Liverpool accent. Not even close.
1:14:00 Oh, how dare you ad lib!
1:17:00 Nice acknowledgement of Def Jam.
1:18:30 This is getting a bit Eurovision again - stylistically if not musically.
1:20:30 Jay-Z seems to be into this, but I can't help wondering if he's thinking, "Yeah, did it."
1:21:00 Jazzmaster/Jaguar tremolo yet doesn't appear to be a Fender. I've never seen this before. Has Jazzmaster-looking pickups but likely twin coil. Interesting...
1:23:10 Full points for energy.
1:26:30 That was... interesting.
1:28:20 Wouldn't it have been great if Ennio Morricone had played something. With anyone.
1:29:30 "Changed history forever." Um, that's redundant.
1:30:30 Queenie Eye. Awesome! This walks all over Cut Me Some Slack.
1:33:20 Yoko Dancing to Paul. Beautiful.
1:34:30 One of the saddest things about John and George no longer being with us (apart from John and George no longer being with us, obviously) is that it means Paul and Ringo can't just play together the way they regularly did throughout the 80s and 90s without idiots in the media screaming "surviving Beatles reunion." It makes it so much harder for them.
1:35:00 They didn't even include Best Producer in the telecast? Would they leave out Best Director from the Oscars?
1:38:45 The Lifetime Achievement Award (or, the 'We really should have given you this years ago' award) is being given to The Beatles this year?? I bet they're glad they've finally made it. What was it Stella McCartney said?
The Isley Brothers and Kraftwerk - ditto.
1:41:30 Nice recovery on Highwayman. Now you know it's live. Well done.
1:43:30 Sean Lennon caught in a bit of ironic dancing.
1:55:00 Daft Punk. Brilliant!
1:59:00 Great duet from Sarah Bareilles and Carole King. Interestingly, it follows similar motivational themes to several previous songs tonight, but this is the first one that has really convinced me.
2:04:30 Metallica the greatest example of a band staying true to themselves? Yeah, um, nah.
2:07:00 Kirk Hammet in a Lou Reed t-shirt. Nice.
2:09:15 Lang Lang is going off! This is pretty good.
2:09:45 Oh, they're still doing the Duggada-duggada-CHUNK! bit. Oh well.
2:11:45 Steven Tyler: "Paul, you ought to cover that song." Cute.
2:15:00 Grammy Camp? Egads!
2:16:00 Trombone Shorty. Cool!
2:20:30 Wow!
2:23:00 Okay that was brilliant. I get the feeling there might be a 50th anniversary commemoration of that performance too. Never mind universal languages, let's talk about music as an agent of change!
2:25:00 A music educator award? Excellent idea.
2:43:00 Cutting off the closing act was ridiculous. So they were running over time, so what? Of course that's going to happen in a 3-hour live broadcast. Is this rock and roll or what? It left a sour taste at the end of what was an excellent show.
Yes, I started off snarky, but it won me over. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Grammy Awards were great. Not a completely irrelevant circle-jerk after all. They got it right. And I'm glad Blurred Lines didn't win anything.
One last observation: I spotted in the credits a "Most pit coordinator." That's a contradiction in terms, friends!
I might even watch next year.
Goodnight!
This is actually the first time I've even been moved enough to watch the Grammy Awards since 2006. Since I couldn't watch them live, it's a bit pointless to live tweet so here, in real time but delayed, are my thoughts and observations.
(By the way, I am aware of the irony of writing about something I consider to be mostly pointless and irrelevant, but it's all about the bitching, innit?)
0:25 They're listing performances and collaborations from previous shows "That make history." No pressure, then.
2:20 Live from Beyonce's dressing room?
3:47 This is where I begin to wonder if there will be any female performers wearing pants. I have skipped forward and confirmed that there are.
5:15 Hey, how come Jay-Z gets to wear clothes?
5:45 Can't a woman even sing a song without her husband coming in shouting over it?
6:30 I have no idea what that song was about.
7:10 Wonder if LL Cool J is going to apologise for Accidental Racist.
8:45 Isn't it a bit sad to have to remind the crowd of your hits?
9:00 Um, What?? Taylor Swift made is okay for young women to write about what happened to them and how they're dealing with it? I'm hearing generations of writers from Joni Mitchell to Ani Di Franco saying, "Oh PLEASE!"
9:30 The word 'daft' just sounds wrong in an American accent.
10:00 "Four young men from Liverpool." Whoever could he mean? Barbara looks great.
11:45 First awkward scripted joke of the evening.
13:10 Ed Sheerin is still a new artist?
13:30 The grab they played of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis sounded pretty good.
13:50 First speech beginning with, "Whooo!" I bet it won't be the last. Things look pretty chaotic in the audience.
14:50 "We made this album without a record company..." and immediately the 'get off' music begins. Hmm...
15:30 I've heard a lot of good things about Lorde but this is the first time I've heard her music.
17:30 It would have been better if they had live backing singers. It would seem less pre-recorded. I'm sure she's probably singing live but it feels less like it when there are voices coming out of nowhere.
19:40 Apart from the invisible backing singers, that was really good. Extra points for letting the musical performance stand on its own without feeling the need to wow people with a production number. Bonus points for wearing clothes.
21:20 Hunter Hayes. Apparently this is a brand new song.
24:20 Hmm, nice sentiment but not particularly different. Bit of a motivational talk set to MOR music. Sorry.
24:50 "Music is a universal language." Everybody drink!
25:30 A category for collaborations. That makes sense. I like that.
27:30 Good thing Get Lucky was a collaboration with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers so the robots had someone to speak for them.
28:00 Steve Coogan: "What an honour it is to be in the same room and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney." Yes, it is, and I strongly suspect that's the draw for many of the other guests. Goes and ruins it by talking about reuniting two of the Beatles, but recovers by using it to diss the Jonas Brothers. Macca does self-deprecating finger-point. Drink!
29:00 Katy Perry. Oh shit, they're playing the tape at the wrong speed.
29:30 Okay, if this were Eurovision, we'd be laughing our arses off at this point.
32:15 Somewhere in here, there's a decent song but both the arrangement and performance are trying too hard to make it epic.
35:15 Robin Thicke is the one Miley Cyrus was rubbing her arse against, isn't he?
35:30 Oh dear, it's a medley. I hate medleys. If a song is worth singing, it's worth singing all of.
38:00 They're doing it well though. Robin Thicke's voice fits in nicely. He's so much better when he's just singing the song though. There's no need for the melisma.
39:00 Going straight into another performance after Chicago. It seems like they think the actual awards are secondary. They're right.
39:40 Valve lights. Nice. There's something not right about the most Serthern American sounding voice so far coming out of someone from Queensland.
43:00 Nice guitar duet. I'm not a fan of Keith Urban but the boy can play.
43:30 O hai social media reporter! You know we don't need tv to tell us what's on the internet?
48:00 John Legend. Standard romantic song but a lovely simple performance.
51:00 Best Rock Song: Cut Me Some Slack. Look, I love Paul McCartney like a favourite uncle and I love Dave Grohl just for looking as happy as a man with his life ought to be, but this is bullshit. Both the Grammys and the Oscars have a long standing habit of awarding people instead of quality. It's clear that this award was simply for being Paul McCartney and the remains of Nirvana, who never won a Grammy in their day but probably would have if the academy had their time over. Aside from that, Cut Me Some Slack is a dog of a song. It wasn't even the best song on Sound City. It probably also didn't hurt that they premiered the song at the 12 12 12 concert for Sandy relief but that doesn't stop Cut Me Some Sack being a riff in search of a song.
[Aside: The concert in aid of a hurricane striking New York had Paul McCartney, three quarters of Nirvana, Roger Waters, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and a dozen or so other A-listers, all introduced by a whole bunch of movie and tv stars. The Concert for the Philippines had Linkin Park (who organised it), The Offspring and Bad Religion. Think about that for a moment. And I'm not bagging the latter three bands. More power to them.]
Kudos to Krist Novoselic for breaking into the Grohl/McCartney mutual appreciation society and mentioning that for Nirvana's part, fellow nominees Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones were just as important.
54:30 Taylor Swift. Was thinking this was a bit brave being the second piano ballad in a row, but they've gone the power ballad formula on this one with the fully rocking third verse, then going quiet again. Not my bag, but nicely done.
58:00 If they ever remake The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bruno Mars could totally star in it
1:01:00 Pink is the latest victim of the great American skirt shortage of 14.
1:02:30 Oh good, she's found one.
1:05:00 It's over an hour into the show and we're only up to the fourth award.
1:08:15 Black Sabbath: "The Beatles didn't really become The Beatles until they found Ringo." Yep. That's the truth.
1:09:30 Why have they buried his vocal in the mix?
1:10:30 Seems to be a special All-Starr band here. There's Steve Lukather on 12-string and that looks like Don Was on bass...
1:12:30 Peace and Love, Ringo!
1:13:00 Jamie Foxx, you can't do a Liverpool accent. Not even close.
1:14:00 Oh, how dare you ad lib!
1:17:00 Nice acknowledgement of Def Jam.
1:18:30 This is getting a bit Eurovision again - stylistically if not musically.
1:20:30 Jay-Z seems to be into this, but I can't help wondering if he's thinking, "Yeah, did it."
1:21:00 Jazzmaster/Jaguar tremolo yet doesn't appear to be a Fender. I've never seen this before. Has Jazzmaster-looking pickups but likely twin coil. Interesting...
1:26:30 That was... interesting.
1:28:20 Wouldn't it have been great if Ennio Morricone had played something. With anyone.
1:29:30 "Changed history forever." Um, that's redundant.
1:30:30 Queenie Eye. Awesome! This walks all over Cut Me Some Slack.
1:33:20 Yoko Dancing to Paul. Beautiful.
1:34:30 One of the saddest things about John and George no longer being with us (apart from John and George no longer being with us, obviously) is that it means Paul and Ringo can't just play together the way they regularly did throughout the 80s and 90s without idiots in the media screaming "surviving Beatles reunion." It makes it so much harder for them.
1:35:00 They didn't even include Best Producer in the telecast? Would they leave out Best Director from the Oscars?
1:38:45 The Lifetime Achievement Award (or, the 'We really should have given you this years ago' award) is being given to The Beatles this year?? I bet they're glad they've finally made it. What was it Stella McCartney said?
The Isley Brothers and Kraftwerk - ditto.
1:41:30 Nice recovery on Highwayman. Now you know it's live. Well done.
1:43:30 Sean Lennon caught in a bit of ironic dancing.
1:55:00 Daft Punk. Brilliant!
1:59:00 Great duet from Sarah Bareilles and Carole King. Interestingly, it follows similar motivational themes to several previous songs tonight, but this is the first one that has really convinced me.
2:04:30 Metallica the greatest example of a band staying true to themselves? Yeah, um, nah.
2:07:00 Kirk Hammet in a Lou Reed t-shirt. Nice.
2:09:15 Lang Lang is going off! This is pretty good.
2:09:45 Oh, they're still doing the Duggada-duggada-CHUNK! bit. Oh well.
2:11:45 Steven Tyler: "Paul, you ought to cover that song." Cute.
2:15:00 Grammy Camp? Egads!
2:16:00 Trombone Shorty. Cool!
2:20:30 Wow!
2:23:00 Okay that was brilliant. I get the feeling there might be a 50th anniversary commemoration of that performance too. Never mind universal languages, let's talk about music as an agent of change!
2:25:00 A music educator award? Excellent idea.
2:43:00 Cutting off the closing act was ridiculous. So they were running over time, so what? Of course that's going to happen in a 3-hour live broadcast. Is this rock and roll or what? It left a sour taste at the end of what was an excellent show.
Yes, I started off snarky, but it won me over. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Grammy Awards were great. Not a completely irrelevant circle-jerk after all. They got it right. And I'm glad Blurred Lines didn't win anything.
One last observation: I spotted in the credits a "Most pit coordinator." That's a contradiction in terms, friends!
I might even watch next year.
Goodnight!
23 January, 2014
Bill’s all-purpose, do-it-yourself government inquiry
There are hundreds, if not thousands or scandals, crises and stuff-ups worthy of a government inquiry. The problem is that these inquiries are long, expensive and inevitably become politicised in one way or another.
Here’s a quick and easy way to streamline the process:
Simply round up anyone who has ever spoken on the crisis, scandal or stuff-up and uttered the words,
If they are not directly responsible, they are probably culpable in some way.
Just treat the matter like it was primary school:
“Bobby, did you steal Jennifer’s pencil?”
- Look Miss, we’re all sorry Jennifer’s pencil is missing, but now is not the time to play the blame game or indulge in some kind of witch hunt. What needs to happen now is that we all need to pull together to help Jennifer write again and ensure others’ pencils don’t go missing in the future.
“Bobby, DETENTION!”
Simples!
Here’s a quick and easy way to streamline the process:
Simply round up anyone who has ever spoken on the crisis, scandal or stuff-up and uttered the words,
“Now is not the time to play the blame game.”It’s probably their fault.
If they are not directly responsible, they are probably culpable in some way.
Just treat the matter like it was primary school:
“Bobby, did you steal Jennifer’s pencil?”
- Look Miss, we’re all sorry Jennifer’s pencil is missing, but now is not the time to play the blame game or indulge in some kind of witch hunt. What needs to happen now is that we all need to pull together to help Jennifer write again and ensure others’ pencils don’t go missing in the future.
“Bobby, DETENTION!”
Simples!
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