VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

Last night, my first real meal in six days after retching sickness. A six buck takeaway of soy-steamed chicken in noodle soup. And a can of Guinness.

My, it was good.

And now, to another matter entirely ...

I didn't catch the original UK version of "Life On Mars", but I've managed to catch the first 2 episodes of the US edition and so far I like what I'm seeing. What can you say about Harvey Keitel that hasn't already been said? The man's a fucking legend. And Gretchen Moll is practically unrecognisable from the last role I saw her in as Betty Page. Anyway, the theme song has been rabbiting around my head all day, so I thought I may as well plonk it down here ...



From 1973, David Bowie "Life On Mars"

VIRTUAL LAY DOWN AND DIE FRIDAY

I’m in a murderous mood.

I will not go into details, but it’s a filthy, foul, hateful, horrible murderous mood, and if anyone so much as looks at me askance today, I will slit their fucking throats and shit down their fucking necks.

Understand?

Now, as the scummy, low-life, gutter-sucking thrush buckets at Universal Music Group don’t allow embedding of their fucking material, go here to see Richard Kern’s clip for Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch’s “Death Valley ‘69”. That's where my head's at right now.

In a similar vein, what I wouldn’t give to see Siouxsie Sioux beat the crap out of shiny-faced, pump-titted scrags like Spears, et al with a nail-studded baseball bat …

I’d pay good money for it. Fucking lots of money.



From 1983, Siouxsie & The Banshees “Helter Skelter”

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

From Dikipedia …

"The only thing Sarah Palin seems to enjoy more than having children is giving those children ridiculous names and inadequate sex education …

… On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain performed perhaps the greatest political mindfuck in American history by announcing that he had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. Palin celebrated by ovulating."

Now ... WATCH ME SEGUE! ...

From ovulating to the chilly twilight of barren, menopausal misery, Filmthreat have compiled their Frigid 50 for 2008, “The 50 Coldest People in Hollywood” … Curiously, neither Tom Cruise or Lindsay Lohan make the cut, which must surely mean their careers are no longer just cold, they’ve decomposed altogether and have now become one with the ether …

Coming in at No. 13 this year is …

“Scarlett Johansson - Funny how quickly that Next Big Thing title slips away, isn’t it? Not to worry, Woody Allen never tires of his young ingénues. Just ask Mia Farrow.”

Awww, poor Scarlett.

I must confess I’ve never really paid much attention to Ms. Johansson’s acting abilities. Although I do seem to recall her arse featured quite prominently in the opening credits of some movie a while back … What was that called? “Virgin Suicides”? … Whatever …



Yeah, that one. Meh.

I think it would be quite a good idea if all movies in future opened with a close-up of Scarlett Johansson’s arse. Might be just the ticket to give a much-needed lift to all these dark and depressing “small” films that blight the cinematic landscape so, with their vanishing-point narratives of doom and wretched angst, stuffed with spotty teenagers or those horridly inconvenient wobbly folk with their unsightly disabilities; fat slapper mums in fluffless fluffy slippers with upper arms that look like punched pudding dough and drugged-out deadbeat dads forever hauling slabs of XXXX from the ute to the dunny fridge who like to piss on the family dog at night for giggles.

It’s just what movies need these days, I reckon. More arse.

Yet topping (so to speak) the Frigid 50 list at No.1 is “our” Heath Ledger, the man whose face I’d like to put on a t-shirt accompanied by the slogan “Best Sleeping Pills Ever” …

“Develop the posthumous ability to go back in time and read some pharmacology textbooks that might’ve clued you in to the fact that mixing OxyContin, hydrocodone, Valium, temazepam, Xanax and doxylamine wasn’t a wise move. Hell, go ahead and lend them to River Phoenix while you’re at it.”

Run, River, run!!

And with that, a smoother segue into song you will never find. On this blog, at least …



From 1995, Suddenly Tammy “River Run”

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

Talk about a filthy frame of mind …

I’m holding the elevator door open for a couple of guys who are only a few steps away. Polite thing to do, I reckon. They get to the elevator and stand outside the door, peering in, as if in awe that it is open. So I say …

“Either get in or feel free to loiter, but I’m going and I’m going now”.

So in they get. In a somewhat sheepish fashion, shall we say.

Yes, I know.

And while I’m at it, if this thing actually happened (which I very much doubt), it’s just a damn shame they didn’t pull the trigger and blow his ugly fucking face off. Wearing a hairstyle like that in public should be a criminal offence punishable by death anyway. What a silly little cockhead.

Anyhow, this clip is from an age when women with “attitude” (Hello Granma Madge, Pink, et al) didn’t have to throw themselves about in front of a camera like so many Z-grade porn-zombies in order to get a little attention …

Yummy.



From 1987, Siouxsie & The Banshees “The Passenger”

VIRTUAL ECSTACY FRIDAY

I'm currently feeling way too good about things to blog anything even remotely coherent ...



From 1968, The Staple Singers, “Reach Out, Touch A Hand”

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

I was planning on posting a colossal dummy spit about what a thoroughly crappy decade this has been so far …

Maybe next week. Depending on what happens next Wednesday, maybe not.

In the meantime, this song popped up on my IPod yesterday as I was walking home from work. This is the live version …



From ?, Cassandra Wilson, “Harvest Moon”

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world …

Crisis? What crisis?**

It doesn’t take much more than that to get a sense of perspective about all this crap people are forever whining about, their sense of entitlement to things that many would regard as manna from heaven. Listening to these millionaire, middle-aged men in thousand dollar identikit suits flap on and on and on interminably about how everything’s thoroughly fucked but none of it was their fault but can we please have a few gazillion dollars to get us over this rough patch …

What a load of crap.

Just jump, you silly fuckers.

Leave us in peace to enjoy some of the simpler pleasures in life.

For example …



From 1973, The Staple Singers “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)”

**Photographs by Toaf's Missus, Vasco Pyjama

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

Look, we’re all screwed, okay? And given the way people are talking you’d think we were heading to a fate as supporting players in a fiction by Cormac McCarthy set in the 9th circle of hell. But, until that time comes …

Fuck it. Let’s dance …



From 2001, Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Live at Carhaix, France

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

I've recently come into possession of an iPod Shuffle, one of those tiny little player things no bigger than a thumb-joint. I won it in a competition at work, and it's the first such gizmo of its sort I've owned. I’m not really big on gadgets. Mostly, they break down and just piss you off or they sit around in drawers and cupboards for years gathering dust until you need to pack them into a box when you move.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I loaded this gadget with a bunch of cd's and tracks from home and I've been listening to it on my way to and from work.

So far, I've got 227 songs on it and it's only half-full. I've seen cockroaches bigger than this bloody gadget. How do they do that? But I'm convinced. It's a good gadget. And, as I didn't have to pay for it, that makes it even better.

Also, I think it may come in very handy when I'm up the pub trying to have a quiet drink. Strangers may think twice about striking up a conversation about some fucking game or other if they see I'm otherwise plugged in ...

"Who do you think's going to win the big game?"

"What game? Is there a game on? What of? Chess?"

One of the albums I loaded was "La Llorona" by Lhasa De Sela, and this live clip is a stunning version of one of the most beautiful tracks from it ...



From 2006 (?), Lhasa De Sela, “De Cara a la Pared” (Live)

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

I first became aware of the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt when some of his works were used for the soundtrack of the 1996 Canadian adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night" (an excellent film).

I was trying to track down a decent clip for Pärt's "Requiem for Benjamin Britten", but no luck. Instead, this is an interesting visual interpretation of a shorter piece, and quite well done ...

Clip by Cesar Harada

VIRTUAL PANADOL FOR A FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Thank God it's Friday, so ...

... I've always loved this song in all its incarnations whether it be by Linda Ronstadt, Mike Nesmith (who wrote it) or The Lemonheads.

Here's another version, and a fine one it is, too ...



From (?), Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet “Different Drum”

VIRTUAL PANADOL FOR A FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Wow.



From 1997 (?), Emmylou Harris and Robert Duvall “I Love To Tell The Story”