Annnnnnnnnd... I'm Back

Lately, life has seemed like one big Escher painting. Every time I take a step up, it leads down. And vice-versa. Or something. I basically closed off all social and anti-social media for the past few weeks to catch up on work and OMFUG.

I am also sorta going back to school. Coursera offers college courses for free. It's part of the MOOC (aka Massive Open Online Course) concept, you take the same course as you would at a University, complete with tests and a grade. However, you do not get college credits (since colleges are in the business of selling credits). Instead, you get knowledge, and the satisfaction of learning something new. These courses can attract thousands of students from all across the world.

There are classes in all disciplines. I am currently enrolled in two: Intro to Psychology (from the University of Toronto) and History Of Rock (from the University of Rochester). I never took Psych back in school, and am firing up those old synapses for sure. There is potentially a significant amount of time you can invest in these courses... the Psych course is 8 15 minute lectures a week... but each lectures also has additional video's and reading- which can be upwards of an additional hour per lecture. Fascinating stuff- and as an added bonus, the Prof referenced this!

The History Of Rock course is more of a fun exercise for me, most of what is broached I already know (although some of the pre-1955 history (ie country and blues influences) were new to me (for example Bob Wills and Jimmie Rodgers were artists I was sorely lacking in).

It's actually more fun to email and post in the forums (and correct the Professor on some stuff!)

And, work has been pretty intense as well. The good thing is I am doing well. The bad news is, I'm getting fat from sitting on my ass.

Anyway... wanted to mention that I saw...

TURBONEGRO !!!- Yeah, the perfect combination of metal, punk and feigned (well, maybe feigned) homosexuality!!!!! From Norway with love; Happy Tom, Euroboy and the rest of 'em rocked NYC. They have a new singer- The Duke Of Nothing (replacing Hank From Hell)- He's fatter, but just as disagreeable. The amazing thing to me was the amount of out of towners (it was there only East Coast show) that attended. They had these denim jackets (the Turbonegro Navy) that looked like biker jackets. And sailor hats. Punk rock!
Plenty of old stuff, plenty off their new album (including their new love song "You Give Me Worms"). And, as my entire band was there (well, my old band) we were hoping that Turbonegro would call us up to do "I Got Erection", which we used to play live. It didn't happen.
Nonetheless, good times.

The Breaks

This represents the longest gap I have had since I started this blog int he late 1940's (or something). One thing piles on top of another, and pretty soon yer under a mountain. Assorted weirdness has happened in the interim some good, alot bad and some just plain bizarre. I hope to spin some tales of some of this ...  in the meantime, I think this song sums things up rather efficiently...

When I Grow Up...

I wanna be Dave Grohl.

Fucker gets to play with everyone from Led Zep to Lee Ving. Here's the Foo Fighters dressing up as Rush circa 1978 (last nite at the rock n roll hof)- dig the white robes:




and Keith (aka Johnny Bob Goldstein) Morris and the other guys (Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Bill Stevenson and the Descendents' Steven Edgerton) restoring my preferred era of Black Flag launched their tour:



and of course the Ozzy led Black Sabbath just released their first song in 35 years:




the 1970's are back muthafuckas!

It's Springtime & Maggie Is Dead

As much as you mofo's in the UK are celebrating The Grand Dame's demise, it means jack shit to me. Guess what- in the Olympics of asshole rulers of the free world (1980-2013 division), she doesn't even win the bronze.

Here in the States alone we've had Reagan and Dubya. You're guyz have had Blair. Maggie ain't squeezin' into that triad.

So she invaded an island full of Penguins? Hell, at least she didn't go toe to toe with the Russkies or an entire religion!

Besides, think of all the great songs that you woulda missed out on!!!!!!

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

Wandering around the Interwebs last nite and I went to archive.org , which is the coolest site in the universe for public domain stuff and an example of the cyber-world being all grok-riffic.

So, I spent 90 minutes with the BBC broadcast of Orwell's 1984 (not to be confused with Van Halen's 1984)

This version is extremely low budget (geez- it was made in 1954) and probably the closest thing to a literal tranlation of the source as we'll ever get.You can see it embedded below- or at this link.



This version starred Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence and almost 60 years from it's original broadcast (and almost 30 years from it's reference point, it's scary how much of the book and language has turned into common parlance. The main difference these days is that we go willingly into the Gov't and Media's  "newspeak", rather than having it forced upon us

Thought-crime's indeed.

Here's an appropriate band reference: