Monday, August 31, 2009

Goofy is a dog, Gonzo is a pervert, and Pacman is a hockey puck...

What is often good for me when I'm about to get all philisophical about some of the goings on in the world, is when someone cuts to the chase, and manages to make my day at the same time.

I'd been thinking about typing a few paragraphs about the three quite major pieces of music news that have broken over the past 48 hours (MJ beng officially a homicide case, DJ AM overdosing and dying, and Oasis breaking up) when my good friend Spikey inadvertantly edited down what would have been 1000 words or so with the following well chosen 21:

"They were keeping MJ high so they could continue to steal from him, DJ AM was a crackhead, and fuck Oasis..."

I didn't know Spikey in the early 90's, but I'm assuming we share the same nonchant for Oasis because we both had the following on the phonograph around the time Wonderwall was released:



DID YOU KNOW?
- One of the greatest cultural icons of the 1980's would have been known to all of us as Puck Man, had a wise Namco employee not pointed out the 'P' on arcade machines would probably be altered by vandals...

Anyway. Have a play. I've filled it up with coins so it'll run all day. Just use your arrow keys see...

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Blue tongues, long necks and brown spots (rhymes with riraffe).

I've just found out that if you are putting brackets around part of a sentence, you put your fullstop OUTSIDE the bracket. ( Unless the WHOLE sentence is surrounded by said brackets.) I've developed sudden punctuation amnesia, and have no idea what I've been doing hitherto. The future does look bright though.

In other news (and adding colour to what was a seriously below average day for me today), I've found a man who's friend doesn't believe he can collect 1,000,000 different drawings of Giraffes by 2011.

I'm off to sharpen my crayons...

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Blacknificent things my friends have sent me in the past week...

Fresh from my email inbox, and forwarded to you, esteemed Itchy Quill imbiber...

First up is Bad Meaning Good, which first appeared on the BBC back in 1987 and has gone on to become a seminal document of the fledgling London Hip Hop scene. For those who've pondered, "What came first, the Ali G or the Westwood?" It was most definitely your boy, Westwood...



This is from the same YouTube user, 'Skratchworx', and let me tell you, a lot of his muffins and biscuits are right up my alley... here follows an hour long documentary made by Channel 4 in 1988 charting the club scene, from Hip Hop, through House, Acid and the wider dance scene.



And the following two, tongue firmly in cheek, and probably NSFW...

This video below contains some explicit cartoon scenes, flashing lights and is FOR OVER 18's ONLY. It's quite a slow feed so be patient and wait for it to load. You probably wont find another feed, as it keeps getting banned everywhere it's posted. Obiviously one persons hilarious is another persons obscene...



Directed by Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric) in association with Warp Records and Warp Films. Music by Flying Lotus. Co Directed/ Animation by Devin Flynn. Co Directed/ Edited by Eric Fensler.

I was already diggin' this tune. Then I saw the bum-DJing and I now declare Lazer certified genius'...



Hey thanks Eru... Hey thanks Dan...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A handy list for lovers of movies and music...

A while ago I left a request via my status update on Facebook for friends to post their thoughts on the best music films they had ever seen.

What was a spur of the moment idea on my part ended up bearing quite a diverse and interesting selection of fruits. If I'd have made up the list on my own, a number of films wouldn't be here, and the list would be nowhere near as diverse (read: I think U2 suck balls, but Rattle and Hum gets a look in).

Clicking on the titles will take you to each films IMDB listing. I would've posted the torrents up, but such activity is of course illegal. Besides, some of you wouldn't even know where to ye-arrrr matey start...


Locked down in the pocket Funk music, Wattstax style...

BTW (that's the closest I get to SMS abbreviations, LOL) somehow 'music films' seemed to get lost in translation, and aside from High Fidelity we ended up with a list of 'music documentaries'. Semantics really, but I thought I'd point that out in case you feel like a huge hole was left by not including The Sound of Music or Fame or whatever. On that note feel free to add to the list via the comments thingamee.

YOUNG AT HEART

DIG

CONTROL

JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN

VELVET GOLDMINE

THE FILTH AND THE FURY

THE CLASH: WESTWAY TO THE WORLD

RATTLE AND HUM

PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE

END OF THE CENTURY

PUNK ATTITUDE

STANDIN IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN

NEW YORK DOLL

WHAT UP FATLIP?

WATTSTAX

SOME KIND OF MONSTER

BLOCK PARTY

HIGH FIDELITY

BIRD

SCRATCH

BIGGIE AND TUPAC

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON

GIMME SHELTER

RAY

RHCP: FUNKY MONKS

QUADROPHENIA

24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB

ALMOST FAMOUS

YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW

RESPECT YOURSELF: THE STAX RECORDS STORY

GLOBAL METAL

METAL: A HEADBANGERS JOURNEY

Special mention for being quality gear, but not quite being 'documentary films':

'Pump up the Volume: The History of House Music' TV Series

'Dancing In the Streets' TV Series

Friday, August 14, 2009

How much for a one way ticket please?

Here's a wee taste of London's annual Notting Hill Carnival...








Not to be beaten, New Zealand's biggest city Auckland also has its yearly street parade in August, 'Boobs on Bikes'...






Hmmm. Now I'll be the first to admit the music, food and general style and fashion of the Caribbean particularly floats my boat. But that bias aside, it truly disturbs me that the best New Zealand's largest and most multicultural city can muster up for its yearly sojourn is a few Westie strippers riding bareback on the trinkets of the Methamphetamine industry.

That's not a judgement call on my part. Bakers, bankers, lawyers, strippers, journalists, teachers and tilers... there's good eggs and bad eggs throughout all walks of life, and quite frankly that's where any moral panic ends with me. I quite like motorbikes, and as for boobs, well a large part of my brain activity is devoted to them on a regular basis.

It's the event itself I struggle to deal with.

I've been to Carnival in Notting Hill London, I've been to Festival in St Kilda Melbourne, and I've been to Carnival in Cuba Street, Wellington. All involved celebrations of cultural and generational diversity, and inspiring amounts of creativity, unity and love.

Perhaps I've got it all wrong, and these cities need to follow Auckland's example and change the focus of their events. Maybe there is merit in raising the lunch-hour spirits of partition staring, internet-porn addled, tie-wearing office workers worldwide...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Give the people what they want. And deep fry it.

GO. START NOW.

I've been toying with the idea of kicking this thing off for a while now, but my biggest hurdle has been writing the first post. What's my angle going to be? Will people read it? Is the orange wallpaper conducive to sticking around for a while, perhaps even returning? Should I be travelling right up my own rectum, and the rectum of a few close others and discuss obscure Jamaican recording artists and Italian film directors? Or should I post pictures of Megan Fox and Scarlett Johansson and describe in detail my proposed involvement in some kind of human sandwich?

Too much thinking & not enough doing. Honestly it's the story of my life.

Here we are, and I'm stoked to have kicked this off. I hope you enjoy my angle on life, and I'd like nothing more than for you to contribute where you can. Right now I'm assuming I know about 5% of how to operate this thing, so expect a bit of tweaking in the future as I get more of a handle on things. I'm expecting good food, good music and good cinema to be a running theme... though who knows where this'll go.

For starters, I'll leave you with this culinary breakthrough: around a week ago news broke that an American by the name of Ron Davis had "cracked the code." Now, before all you glass barbecue toting conspiracy theorists get a wee 9/11 stiffy, the code in question is in fact a culinary one...

The story goes that years ago Davis, an amatuer yet avid home chef like myself, was challenged by his wife to try and unravel one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world of food (and commerce): what exactly are KFC's eleven herbs and spices?

In his quest Douglas gained some satisfaction in his new found hobby by 'unlocking' recipes from other chains, though the Colonel's spice rack remained chaste: until recently...

What comes as no surprise to me, is that three of the ingredients are salt, or variants thereof. We've got run of the mill (no pun intended) salt, garlic powder, which, despite its title is indeed a salt, and third product called 'Accent.'

For those of you wondering what the Accent, the eleventh of the 'herbs' and 'spices' is, it is in fact the crack-cocaine of the salt family, Monosodium Glutamate.

Actually, in saying that I continue to proliferate the uninformed paranoia that often surrounds MSG. There's actually very little scientific evidence to back up claims that it is an across the board nasty, and like with all salts this author would recommend moderation. Upon investigating how MSG got such a bad rep, it would appear it all began in the USA with 'Chinese Restaraunt Syndrome' paranoia in the late 1960s. Considering the harmonious cosmipolitan society America was at this time, it's fairly easy to see how our yellow friends were so quickly implicated...

Anyway, back to the recipe. I've tested it (and tested it again) and really is the genuine article. I recommend you buy some of that pre-packed coleslaw from the supermarket, who seemed to have cracked that recipe years ago, and work on cracking the potato and gravy code. Anybody who's got the skinny on how to make the latter just like the Colonel, please drop me a line. We can unify and fry.

How can this not be a revolution? Have you ever met anybody who doesn't like fried chicken?