Fade Into You

I find it very difficult to think of someone more attractive than Hope Sandoval in this Mazzy Star video. Her body, her hair, her looks - she just screams sixties sex appeal. There is a beautiful mystery about her and the way she sings. The song is her at her best too, slow and melodic with her voice sounding sweet and childlike.

When I first searched for this video on YouTube somebody had slapped an "Adult Content" warning on it. I can see why in a funny kinda way its like musical pornography the way she sings it is just... HOT!!!

Imagine

I was just searching on the Internet, the way you do, trying to think of something trivial to blog about when I came upon this picture. Apparently, it was taken on a Beach in Durban, South Africa in 1989 at the height of South Africa's expulsion from the rest of the world due to its separatist laws.

The picture made me smile, not because I condone racism, but because it is in the past and all those troubles are behind us... or so I thought. It turns out that the United Nations holds a World Conference against Racism in Durban every year and it usually deteriorates into an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-terrorism frenzy.

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

Sometimes, very occasionally, do you ever feel fucking ashamed to be a human being?

A Thousand Kisses Deep

You came to me this morning and you handled me like meat
You would have to be a man to know how good that feels, how sweet
My mirrored twin, my next of kin, I'd know you in my sleep
And who but you would take me in a thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened like a Lilly to the heat
You see I'm just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love his secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep

I know you had to lie to me, I know you had to cheat
To pose all hot and high behind the veils of pure deceit
Our perfect poor aristocrat so elegant and cheap
I'm old but I'm still into that a thousand kisses deep

I'm good at love, I'm good at hate it's in between I freeze
I've been working out but it's too late, it's been too late for years
But you look good, you really do, they love you on the street
If I could move I'd kneel for you a thousand kisses deep

The Autumn moved across your lips, I got something in my eye
A light that doesn't need to live and doesn't need to die
A riddle in the book of love obscure and obsolete
'til witnessed here in time and blood a thousand kisses deep

And I'm still working with the wine still dancing cheek to cheek
The band is playing Old Lang Syne but the heart will not retreat
I jammed with Dizz, I sang with Ray, I never had their sweep
But once or twice they let me play a thousand kisses deep

I loved you when you opened like a Lilly to the heat
You see I'm just another snowman, standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love his secondhand physique
With all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep

But you don't need to hear me now and every word I speak
Counts against me anyhow, a thousand kisses deep

Friendships

I have a few close friends. I put these friends first and they have my loyalty, honour and sacrifice. I drop things I am doing if they ever need help. I am not put out by their requests for help, in fact, it makes me happy that they turn to me for that help.

Personally, I am a pretty self-contained person. I usually keep problems to myself and try to solve them myself. However, I am pretty sure that my friends would do the same for me, as I would do for them. On the few occasions I have needed help, my friends have rallied round and proven their friendship. Once or twice some friends have surprised me with the lengths they would go to in the name of friendship.

In this day and age where murder and serious crime seem to be an every day occurrence, we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. We very rarely trust "non-friends". Is this any surprise?

Lately, however, I find that I am asking myself what is true friendship? Will I only find it in the real world, or will I find it in places like Facebook, Myspace, Bebo?

I have many "online" friends and recently I have been surprised by the depth of the friendships developed there. This has crept up on me unawares too. I enjoy chatting with people in cyberspace and I will admit that I have wondered where people are if I do not chat with them for a while. I worry about them, I hope for them, I share dreams with them.

The cynic in me asks; are they really who they say they are? Do they really want to chat and socialise with me or is there simply nothing on the TV. Who really gives a fuck? Do any of us really know each other from a once a week chat in cyberspace?

I understand the human race to be a social, outgoing collection of people. Sadly, because of the fears of life in the modern world we have retreated into our own little worlds. We are scared of what can happen if we befriend the wrong people in this world. So we don't befriend easily any more, and when we do we keep at arms length.

What Cyberspace has given us back is a feeling of security. We are safe to make friends within the security or our homes using social networking. We can give people our IM/Chat/Email addresses and if they turn out to be bad people it is easy to block them. Remove them from our lives with one simple click of the mouse. Maybe, just maybe, we are starting to find it safe to make friends again through social networking.

Now isn't that a scary thought?

The Price Of Experience

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street?
No, it is bought with the price of all a man has,
His house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none can come to buy,
And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

It is an easy thing to triumph in the summer's sun
And in the vintage and to sing on the waggon loaded with corn.
It is an easy thing to talk of prudence to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the homeless wanderer,
To listen to the hungry raven's cry in the wintry season
When the red blood is filled with wine and with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door,
the ox in the slaughterhouse moan;
To see a god on every wind and a blessing on every blast;
To hear sounds of love in the thunder-storm that destroys our enemy's house;
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field,
and the sickness that cuts off his children,
While our olive and vine sing and laugh round our door,
and our children bring fruits and flowers.

Then the groan and the dolour are quite forgotten,
And the slave grinding at the mill,
And the captive in chains,
And the poor in the prison,
And the soldier in the field
When the shattered bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

What We've Got Here Is A Failure To Communicate!

The world has had some great actors over the years. These actors have made great films and become huge superstars. Occasionally an actor comes along who surpasses all that and becomes like a favourite uncle you only ever see once or twice a year. To me, Paul Newman was such a person.

I never met him except in films like; Butch Cassidy, Cool Hand Luke and who can forget his portrayal of Fast Eddie Felson. He was, in a similar way to people like James Dean, an anti-hero. He brought a wry impertinence to the roles he played and people liked his anti-authoritarian spirit.

Despite typical movie-matinee idol looks he wanted more challenging roles, anti-hero roles that ensured his career spanned the generations it did. While most stars played the clean-cut he played convicts, outlaws, con-men and pool hall hustlers. He played them all with the charm and wit that made him a huge hit all over the world.

Like many great actors before him, he found it hard to win an Oscar. Despite roles that went down in history like; The Hustler, for example, where he upstaged the likes of Jackie Gleason and George C Scott. It was many years later while reprising the role in The Color of Money that he did finally win that much sort after award.

As is typical, however, he had made much better films around that time like; Absence of Malice and The Verdict. In the latter, he played an alcoholic lawyer (another anti-hero) who tries a case of medical malpractice despite being offered the chance to settle out of court against a giant law firm.

Paul Newman alone, the underdog, fighting the fight against all odds. This was a role he returned to many times. Even if ultimately he lost the fight, as with Cool Hand Luke, his total refusal to back down even slightly ensured he was always the winner with the audience.

I shall always remember him in the role of Luke in the 1967 classic. When finally caught by the prison warden he mocks him by shouting; "What we've got here is a failure to communicate!" That, of course, was something my favourite uncle could never be accused of. In film roles and in real life his style and charisma always shone through.

He will be sorely missed!

Calypso

I recently heard an interview with the late John Denver. I am not really a big fan which is probably why i didn't know he wrote a song about one of my all-time heroes Jacques Cousteau. He even got to go and spend time on the great man's ship; The Calypso, while writing the song.



In case you have never heard of him; Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French underwater explorer and filmmaker who studied the oceans and all the life in them. During my childhood I must have watched his documentaries hundreds of times and they always filled me with a feeling of wonderment at the oceans of the world.

When he died in 1997, shortly after his 87th birthday, he left behind a legacy of more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.

Personally, he always had a way of making everything he showed to me from the depths of the oceans so interesting. Although, in reality, he was a sophisticated man (he developed the aqualung) he had a simple way of sharing scientific concepts which appealed to the academic and ordinary people alike. He filled me with an interest for the sea and the life within it.



To sail on a dream on a crystal clear ocean
to ride on the crest of a wild raging storm
To work in the service of life and the living
In search of the answers to questions unknown
To be part of the movement and part of the growing
Part of beginning to understand

Aye, calypso, the places you've been to
The things that you've shown us
The stories you tell
Aye, calypso, I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well

Like the dolphin who guides you
You bring us beside you
To light up the darkness and show us the way
For though we are strangers in your silent world
To live on the land we must learn from the sea
To be true as the tide
And free as the wind-swell
Joyful and loving in letting it be

Aye, calypso, the places you've been to
The things that you've shown us
The stories you tell
Aye, calypso, I sing to your spirit
The men who have served you
So long and so well

It appears from the John Denver song, and from musical works from artists such as Vangelis (who was heavily involved with Cousteau in the 1990s), Jean Michel Jarre and Blue Öyster Cult that I am not alone in holding the man in such high esteem.

The phrase; "They broke the mold when they made him", is very heavily over-used, but they certainly don't make people like Jacques Cousteau anymore!

Late Night Thoughts

My story is not long, my plot is not intense.
It was so hard to write through my own self-defense.

Said you didn't want my blood, I replied I had none left.
Still hoped you would not see how you had left me bereft.

You never did like to get the letters that I sent.
You never even understood anything in them that I meant.

You read them once again, the ones you didn't burn.
Press them to your lips, your wonderful concern.

You walk into my room, you sit there at my desk.
You start the letter to the one who is coming next.

I'm Not Rappaport

Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis in I'm Not Rappaport

I watched an old film tonight with Walter Matthau and Ossie Davis. The film focuses on Nat (Matthau), a cantankerous Jew, and Midge Carter (Davis), a feisty African-American, who spend their days sitting on a bench in Central Park. They both mask the realities of aging by sharing the tall tales that Nat spins. The film deals with the difficulties of dealing with adult children who think they know what's best for their aging parents.

The film includes one of the funniest dialogues I have ever heard and is typical of the film as a whole...

Nat: Hey, Rappaport! I haven't seen you in ages. How have you been?
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, what happened to you? You used to be a short fat guy, and now you're a tall skinny guy.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard, and now you're an old guy with a mustache.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: Rappaport, how has this happened? You used to be a cowardly little white guy, and now you're a big imposing black guy.
Midge: I'm not Rappaport.
Nat: And Rappaport, you changed your name, too!

It's a shame they don't make them like that any more!

This Is Just A Rebel Song

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor sure has upset a few people in her time. With her outspoken views on child abuse and poverty. Her infamous appearance on Saturday Night Live. Singing of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church live on American TV. Calling Pope John Paul II; "evil", and ripping up his photo saying; "fight the real enemy" on NBC didn't do her any favours either.

Did she expect anything other than what she got? Was she trying to emulate the Beatles having her records destroyed and radio stations refusing to play her songs? Even up until today, NBC still refuses to rebroadcast the sequence.

Foolish, naive act of an innocent rebel with the right motives our just a ridicules publicity stunt? Who knows.

I do, however, get the feeling there is a really nice person in there somewhere. One capable of chilling performances like this...