Racist Humour - 'I'm not a racist but...'

In Australia we have five free-to-air TV channels. Three commercial and two government run stations, which are arguably more cutting edge and interesting.

This debate started from the Gruen Transfer (ABC), a weekly comedy show about advertising and the media. Each week they organise for two advertisers to try and sell the un-sellable (vacation in Iraq, invading NZ etc). This week was about weight discrimination.The first of the two competitors created an ad about how fat people eat more and therefore help our economy in tough times as 'super consumers'... this second ad was banned from TV but was allowed on the net. During broadcast there is normally a brief 20 second discussion on each ad... The Gruen Transfer decided this ad deserved greater debate and have given it a full 15 minutes. Here's a link to an interesting debate about racist humour: http://www.antiprejudicead.net/

Here's their great: 'Invade New Zealand' ad from last year

On music fatigue

Of late I have been thinking about the absence of visible, physical CDs and music on display in people's houses. About 10 years ago it was a natural thing to check out people's CD collections when visiting friend's homes, similar to reading the titles of novels chosen for display in living room bookshelves. Those darker, more 100% Hits orientated pleasures were hidden at the bottom of the pile, leaving room for collections of Massive Attack, Radiohead or whatever else was doing the rounds. Funny thing is, CD collections have become a relic, they also stop somewhere around 2002-2004, somewhere around The White Stripes and The Strokes... the CD collections have stopped in time... Peter Panned into oblivion as file sharing, hard drives and broadband connections rolled into town.

I have no problem with music in digital format, who would? Once you have ascertained your personal moral stance on stealing music becomes conveniently fast to obtain, zero obligation, easy to carry, easy to store and pretty much free (be honest). What I do have an issue with is the volume of music that is available, the result of the hundreds of blogs and online magazines combined with the multitude of (illegal?) torrent sites.

My iPod became my personal CD collection, I filled it with albums I thought should be there. I thumbed over them on a daily basis looking for something amongst the 4500 odd songs that would fit my mood at that exact moment. This is the feeling I am trying to describe... a sort of music fatigue, the realisation that I had everything at my fingertips but still couldn't feel settled. I have recently taken to whittling. Not in that awesome 'knife and wood' way... but more in the way that my (merely) 30 gig iPod was choked with songs I had added over three years ago but never touched. I started to knock off the albums that had never been listened to, all those 'best new music', 'best of year' and 'hot tip' recommendations that had been forwarded through blogs and various friends. I managed to cull a good 20 gigs of music, leaving just a raw bones, classic, essential... five and a half days worth of music.

For a while, in 2005, I returned to a fantastic $10 walkman I'd picked up at a cash convertors. I loved that little fellow, partly for retro chic, partly because the pressure of having to make sure I was maximising my listening benefit (from the 4500 choices available) had been removed. Unfortunately my tape deck failed, as did the walkman itself... 90 minute tapes (with listening options on two sides) had given way to 72 minute CDs (with skip button), then onto mini discs (storing up to four albums) and finally the mighty iPods (now up to 120 gigs).

I love me my music collection, the parts I listen to are fantastic, the other 60% are on standby. I have settled on the idea that fewer choices are better. I've turned my musical filters towards the warm home fires of the known, rather than the new. It is hard work getting comfortable with new friends, harder still trying to generate meaning and purpose for each of the new albums that cross my desk(top).

Byron Bay Blues & Roots - April 2009

Mud and boots - the two most used words of our trip up north for the annual Byron Bay Blues & Roots festival, a five day exploration of blues, soul, funk, reggae, hip hop, pop, rock and folk. The rain had been coming done well before we arrived and carried on until our last day up the coast. Despite the weather we still managed to clock in regular beach action, 26 odd bands and a good 35 hours of live music.

The five days of music start blurring together after a while. For every fantastic band we caught there were two or three we were missing. For every great headliner there were equally impressive acts holding fort at the smaller stages dotted around the fields. I have a feeling that acts like Ben Harper, Michael Franti, John Butler et al are really there to provide enough commercial appeal to fund the other hundreds of smaller acts ripping it up during the week. It's the well curated nature of the festival that gives it its charm - there are no bad acts and often the greatest joy comes from straying from the familiar to check out the unknown, but fantastic, groups doing their thing.

Some bands fell flat - Ben Harper being the key one. As the main drawcard for the festival there were high expectations for his funk-reggae, folkie, bluesy soul tearing music. However this time he was touring his Relentless 7 band - an almost Skynyrd inspired bar band - a far cry from the funk jam seasons of the Innocent Criminals. Michael Franti also came up short, but only in comparison to the efforts of other bands at the festival, in his own right he is great, but lacked the energy of previous shows. The crowds kept us away from most of the other headliners, with the weather being what it was it just wasn't worth the effort to try and see them.

The Blind Boys of Alabama (left) and Kasey Chambers & Shame Nicholson (right) were two early winners. The Blind Boys have been around for some 60 years, belting out gospel/soul tunes around the world. They have seen a recent revival with interest from Ben Harper and Tom Waits coupled with a Grammy or two. Their sound is deep and powerful. The fact that they are blind shouldn't really come into it but somehow it added weight to the tragedy of their words and music - as though they have lived the hardship they were singing. Kasey Chambers on the other hand arrived with good spirits, family and a bagful of rollicking country tunes. Chambers has been a mainstay at the festival for years (playing 9 out of the 20 festivals), and was happy to get stuck into her father Bill (on the left of the photo), her husband Shane (on the right) and brother Nash (handling the sound). There is a time and a place for feel good country music sets - and this was one of them.

The Indigenous Tent was another winner. Contemporary Indigenous music makes progress in fits and starts. Even though there is a constant flow of fantastic of artists coming through it takes the efforts of people like Yothu Yindi, the Warumpi Band, Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter and, more recently, Geoffrey Gurrumal Yunipingu to bring mainstream attention to what is going on. This festival was a chance to drop by the Indigenous Tent and chill. Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter gave a relaxed family performance, talking about their love, their thoughts on the earth and basically how to get along. Touching and engaging. Gurrumal, as part of the Saltwater Band, made an appearance as well.

The Bamboos from Melbourne rip up classy deep funk (left) and mud (right)

C.W. Stoneking bought his 1920s New Orleans talking blues/funeral jazz thing. Not everyone's cup of tea. C.W. hails from Victoria, and immediately catches the ears with his odd American/outback Australian accent - telling fantastic stories of his daring escapes from cannibals in Africa, voodoo curses in New Orleans and the time he was tried before an animal court for punching a talking lion in the mouth. I can't get enough of this guy, his stories are as creative as they come, a real treasure for Australian music. Seasick Steve followed in a similar vein - hobo slide blues. Seasick Steve has a highlight of last year's festival and this year he returned with a hero's welcome. Seasick plays a range of modified junk guitars through a battered amp, in between his barn storming slide blues he told stories of his times living in chicken coups and behind florists.

   

Another highlight was the Drive-By Truckers from Alabama, USA. The guys played four times over the course of the five day festival, twice as themselves and twice supporting organ legend Booker T. Their sound was straight up Southern Rock. This was their first trip to Australia and they took the opportunity to dig deep into their eight album back catalogue. As a band they seemed genuinely happy to be there - closing off the festival, tucked away on a third level stage, playing to a tiny 200 people collection of soaked punters.

 

And that was that - another year, another Blues Fest. The weather finally broke the morning we packed to leave, bringing clean blue skies, warm seas and the greenest of green fields.

 

Byron Bay Blues & Roots Festival 2009 (what we managed to catch):

DAY ONE: Blind Boys of Alabama, Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson, Michael Franti, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. DAY TWO: Ayo, Dan Auerbach, Fishbone, Tim Finn, Saltwater Band. DAY THREE: C.W. Stoneking, Seasick Steve, Archie Roach, Watussi, Tinariwen, Ben Harper and the Relentless 7. DAY FOUR: Tim Finn, Son Venemo, Drive-By Truckers, The Bamboos. DAY FIVE: Matt Divett Band, Xavier Rudd, Missy Higgins, Special Beat, Easy Star All-Stars, Drive-By Truckers.

Irfan Yusuf - Australian Muslims not a Monolith

This article is a response to yesterday's boiled frustration from Paul Sheehan. Like yesterday's article this is a straight forward opinion piece talking about fear and the misguided assumption that there exists a single Muslim community in Australia.

"Yet, for some reason, Australian Muslims are treated as some kind of monolith. We hear pundits and self-serving religious leaders speak of a mythical entity called the "Muslim community". The idea that Muslims define themselves primarily by their religion sounds ridiculous when one considers that membership of the Lebanese Moslems Association is limited to adult males eligible for Lebanese citizenship. Yet what happens at this Lakemba mosque is somehow a reflection of 300,000-odd Australians who feel inclined to tick the "Muslim" box on their census forms."

(Link)

Paul Sheehan - Islamophobia is a fabrication

Paul Sheehan, in today's Sydney Morning Herald, put together a piece arguing whether the Muslim community have the right to claim they are hard done by in Sydney. Are shootings, gang rapes, drug trading and inadequate leadership enough to give Islam a bad name? The bulk of Sheehan's article is a shopping list of very public crimes and controversies that have taken place over the last five years and the piece is more exasperation than journalism. Sheehan is suggesting that yes there are issues, however the Islamic community should not adopt a victim mentality, or feel hard done by, given the aforementioned  list of real evidence to suggest that maybe its a case of smoke/fire. Unfortunately Sheehan doesn't suggest any solutions for the issues of unifying cultural identity, tainting of public perception and protecting the image of the majority of Muslims who are not involved in the culture of violence. These leaves the article sounding like a frustrated rant.

"Given the abundant evidence of violent cause and fearful effect, involving a small percentage of antagonists, the general charge of Islamophobia is an ideological fabrication." (Article)

On Where The Wild Things Are

Spike Jones has finally soundtracked my childhood to giant puppets and the Arcade Fire. Took your sweet time, that's all I can say. Did I mention that James Gandolfini and Forest Whitaker are in it? And that Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Brad Cox (Deerhunter) are behind the film score?

For One Night Only

The Waratahs will sleep well tonight knowing that for at least the next 17 hours they will ride the top of the table. Nice one. Hubris has a mean return, but this doesn't happen often so soak it up. Next weekend the Stormers, followed by real trouble with the Bulls, then a romp with the Force. All three are home games. Then a bye, then NZ, and two Sth Africa matches. Painful end to the season.

On Waratahs 27 vs Blues 22

The reason why I haven't written about the last two games is not because we lost but because we were ordinary and I didn't feel like it. I'll admit bias.

This season has never felt stable, there was still that air of apprehension, of pending loss.The Waratahs won their first three games (Hurricanes, Chiefs and Highlanders) with stodgy play, narrowly beat a lively Reds team, were ploughed through by the Brumbies and then beaten again by an under-strength Crusaders. Tonight was the night - the turning point for the season - if we lost this it confirmed the Waratah's downward slide, if we won we lived to fight another day. Tonight we didn't lose. We won. If you put aside the last 10 minutes of the game it was fairly decent.

Things I learnt tonight:

• Kurtley Beale shouldn't be in the team. Daniel Halangahu was exactly what we needed at No. 10. Sorry Kurtley - bench time for you. It's not that I blame Beale for the losses in the last few weeks, plus the ordinary play prior to that, its just that kicking penalties should be a given, not a bonus. Getting the ball into touch is kinda important and it's useful not to aimlessly give away possession.
• The Waratahs play better when ball is kicked less. Luke Burgess cut through the base of the Blues scrum time and time again. He had a killer game. Running the ball gained more ground than all of last fortnights' box kicks combined.
• Burgess is better than Sheehan. Sheehan is slow. Burgess runs around the scrum good like.
• Palu can be forgiven for getting two yellow cards in three weeks, even if both cards were given for exactly the same offence. The team still has no one to replace Palu.
• The Waratahs live by their forward pack.
• Just when we fix one problem (Beale's kicking) another returns (Polota-Nau's lineouts).

In a way I feel bad for Beale, he is only 20 and did have the weight of the team on him. When the Tahs played the Reds he was beaten by Cooper and tonight he was clearly surpassed by Halangahu. Given no one is touching Gits... it suddenly looks like he has a long way to go before securing a stable place in any team... Super 14 or otherwise.

On Religious Value Propositions

I can't decide which I enjoy more - open and honest discussions on theology and philosophy, or smart arse web humour. This one is a relic from Dinosaur comics.