A Complete Explanation Of Everything

As excited by an Irish band as I've been in a while...

The track: "Ukraine" by The Minutes is available for downlanding from a nefarious source undoubtedly...

Here!

It's probably symptomatic of just how little loving and how little interest I've been displaying recently in the real live opposite sex that I've started to entertain certain thoughts about that fairy in the Bank Of Ireland advert.

You don't know the one? Sure ya do... Or if you come from foreign climes...

Here she is...

"A quick overdraft"

Ah, when she starts talking about her first overdraft, I'm mixed up... I half want to sweep her off her feet and half want to dash her brains out for encouraging another infantile generation to base jump off the debt mountain at a ridiculously early age without even a napkin for an emergency chute.

She's cute but she's reprehensible...

That's probably why I fancy the ears offa her...

Wilco @ Vicar Street, 15/11/07

I'm not a terribly big fan of Vicar Street as a venue, suffice to say my concerns were met in relation to the crapness of the facilties in general and even the egress of patrons at the end of the gig was horrific. However, one thing they do well is the sound.

I wasn't really looking forward to this gig with the standard excitement that should greet a Wilco show and this was due to a number of factors, such that I drove 406.5 miles around Ireland in three days, no picnic and have been hard at work all week. Throw in a 30 minute plus wait for Dublin Bus and then the journey into town and the 10 pints the night before and you get the picture...

But, we ambled into Vicar St just in time to see Jeff with hat & band in tow take the stage. And from the kick off, the band were in irrepressible form. Despite his well reported difficulties in communicating with fans down through the years, particularly the "sanctimonious pricks" as he pointed out during the gig, there was a warm loving connection here and combine that with the last night of their European tour proper, it was a nigh on perfect atmosphere.

Prompted by the heckle to: "Puke for me Jeff", a stark reference to the scene on the: "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart", making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot dvd and subsequent documenting of the relationship break up with the then drummer and more importantly significant musical other, Jay Bennett (this turbulence leading to a bout of on camera nausea from Jeff), the new band - and they are very much a new band, new keyboards, new guitar player, only Stirratt on bass and Tweedy himself surviving from the Summerteeth record kicked off.

And they kicked off with a little morceau from Summerteeth, the reflective and wistful, "Via Chicago". But as ever, given a new band, it was an innovated version with the addition of some post rock / almost prog rock breakdowns. As Tweedy noted on that excellent dvd, Wilco write these songs (with Jeff as the principal musical force) and as such feel like it's up to them, how they construct, deconstruct them... It's something that the audience are fully supportive of aswell, as it gave the new guitar player Nels Cline, an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his explosive / destructive chops to their best effect.

Standout tunes from the night included (and these were all on my personal wish setlist): "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", "Misunderstood", "Impossible Germany", "A Shot in The Arm" and the closer... "Outtasite / Outtamind"...

Which brings us neatly to where I came in to the Wilco experience, lounging on the couch at approximately 3am watching Alternative Nation or something on late night MTV Europe and the video for "Outtasite / Outtamind".... It's one of those easy rockers that makes for a good gig and however cerebral Wilco have tried to become in their various incarnations over the last decade or so, it takes us back to the root of what is good about rock'n'roll...

A 2 hour show, playing the hits, what more can you ask for...

Not much more but I can't shake the feeling that "Sky Blue Sky" has a very last record feel to it...

Into the Wild, Directed by Sean Penn (2007)

There will be a million and one posts devoted to this movie. They'll mention the excellent book by Jon Krakauer. An excellent book, that weaves the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless with the author's own experience and misadventure in climbing mountains. They might focus on the really tragic denouement of the story of the young scholar turned leather tramp, McCandless himself. The pain and suffering of his family.

More than a few will talk about the stunning naievete (some will term it, contempt) that the young man displayed versus the harsh wilderness, and his belief that with but a few meagre provisions he could make a life on the land.

But I bet only a very few, will quote this section of Henry David Thoreau's book, Walden Or Life in the Woods, which he had underlined.

“No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that these consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, - that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the fact most astounding and most real are somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of the morning or evening. It is a little stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”

Go see it in the cinema while you can...

My work, my past-times... Take me to alot of financial websites, and alot of advice is doled out to those who fear... With legitmate cause some, about the future, etc.

Today, I encountered a post entitled: "Give something up"...

And while there's a certain rationale behind this, the first objects or luxuries he / she suggested were of course, are old friends... Alcohol & Nicotine.

Now I'm sorry.

Life does not imbue with the get up and go attitude it is supposed to.

Literally, I can face a day, 2 days... Three even... Without either.

But an entire week? I think not.

My job literally does drive me to drink and it would drive you there too.

You would not believe what I have to do next week. And why do I have to do it? Because, in certain ways, I'm the only fecker with the bollocks to do it, I don't mind the challenge either in certain ways.

But if I felt like, saving €10 per day right now, would translate into better financial freedom at a time in my life when I can barely get out of bed, never mind get it up... Then, I'd have to say, what is the shagging point...

With all this pressure right now, if I can't come home and crack a fucking beer, I'd rather be dead.

And I wouldn't mind a cigarette either...

Holy shit. Over on Casey's latest venture, he's fucking disabled comments! Ha! That is rich. Apparently, his new sugardaddy / business partner, Damien "Looper" Lupo, can't handle the heat.

He came out like 2 days ago and called all of Casey's, let's just say, constructive criticisers, big fat loosers... (sic)... Then had the temerity, to attack people attacking him, saying he'd never attacked anyone, it doesn't get richer or more insane than that.

Some people can handle blogging drunk, others simply can't.

Pump Up The Volume (1990) / Untamed Heart (1993)

So yeah, years and years ago, I was romantically linked with this girl Jill (no jack other than the whiskey involved) and she recommended: "Pump The Volume" and I'd never seen it. It has taken me donkey's years to get around to it. But yeah, gave it the spin tonight.

And it's alright. But only just. It's the sort of narcissitic, navel gazing shit, that has very few moments. Slater is fine in it, it comes on like a pre-pubescent and much shitter version of "Heathers".

Not much more to say on that score, I'll probably leave the dvd on a street corner later, much like Jill left me.

Next up, "Untamed Heart". Now, this is a movie I have watched before and I still really kinda like it. Ok, I lie, it's ultra schmaltzy but I've always been in love with Caroline (Marisa Tomei), a sassy yet vulnerable waitress, with amazing eyes and a sweet sensibility. Forget Slater in this one, Tomei steals the show and I'll never forget her in this, "My Cousin Vinny" may not as well have ever happened. "In the Bedroom" probably a decade later probably reprises an even more unlucky in love Caroline but what can you do.

This movie does not pull its punches, or rather it's schmaltz. But I challenge there to be a dry eye in the house at the inevitable, not very American ending. Or to paraphrase the character, Caroline...

I don't make sense, this movie doesn't make sense. Together, we make sense.

Just quite why Jillian didn't see it that way, we'll never know...

Interesting idea on overcompensating, your last five wikipedia searches pretty much sum you up in a nutshell. So here goes:

- The movie: "Control"
- "Scrabble"
- "Sepia"
- "Schadenfreude"
- "Pedant"

I was looking for confirmation really just of the last three... I also fixed up an article on Mikael Silvestre last week that was being vandalised.

Does wikipedia define you?