Last Waltz '76

In another wayward Bob Dylan connection beyond yesterday's auction sites piece, I rewatched the Band's farewell concert, the Last Waltz. Famously filmed by Martin Scorsese -  about whom we probably all have opinions. Generally regarded by God knows who as "the best live concert film ever" (it isn't) I chose to get reacquainted with this historical work. I'd not seen for many years and wondered how it stood up so long after it's 1978 release (the concert was in '76). In a nutshell it's pretty messy and a little peculiar and of it's time, the mid 70's wasteland. The filming and the audio are actually fine, the style and content however are a bit strange, grimy looking and obviously dated. The Band's performances are split by special guest appearances for whom they also provide backing. This gives the concert a patchwork and incoherent quality. The encore is the first song in the film and so it goes on randomly as the various turnarounds take place.

The Band: Playing is crisp and tight, most of the songs still work well for me, good live arrangements too. Not so great was Robbie Robertson's shrill and thin guitar sound (his playing is top drawer though). I became more irritated with it as it carried on, pretty much into every tune. A bad guitar tone can kill the mood. There's a weird halo effect on him too that's annoying, his smiley face is pretty much in every stage shot. The literal spotlight kid. I can understand something of the various band member quarrels that took place in the aftermath. The congestion on the stage doesn't help, I can imagine it as being a pit of body odour and foul breath, someplace you'd want to get away from quickly. Apart from pinup Robbie the rest of the band look like nameless misfits -  but after all they were just very talented but plain and ordinary guys and that was part of their appeal. Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson were that Band.

The interviews: Slotted in randomly it seems, don't impress me either. The "road" gets way too many mentions, of course it was a thing at the time, a common band experience they all could moan about and cover in their songs. Despite the inspiration it provided for countless tunes and lyrics it still gets a bad rap. Poor old road. The obvious drug influences running in the background don't allow for actual clarity of conversation either and I didn't feel any sense of understanding or empathizing with the musician's plight or situations. They seemed just a bit creepy and unaware, set up in their dark and sombre temple of artistic privilege. Maybe they were all just tired and worn out by the whole experience: precious, fickle things. What does it all mean anyway? The audiences will move on once you go, no matter how much the seem to love you now.

Guests: OK, Van Morrison's bit is terrible. He looks like a poundshop Freddy Star and despite the energy he exudes it's really just embarrassing to watch him. He's not aged well even at that point in his career. Neil Diamond: I was never a fan but this isn't his finest hour either, gravelly and grumpy looking. It's hard to watch Neil Young too, for some reason he's doing a coked up and truly dull version of "Helpless", a weak and laboured song if ever there was one. On the plus side I liked Ronnie Hawkins and Muddy Waters (old guys just doing what they could), Eric Clapton was "professional", Bob Dylan was himself really, all you'd expect and no sign or mention of his alleged tantrums. Joni Mitchell looked light years ahead of all the three chord blues plodders by singing the freshly written "Coyote". A lyrical and tuneful masterpiece by comparison with the rest of the fare in my opinion. I also enjoyed the bare-bones back lot filmed performance of "Evangeline" along with Emmylou Harris's spectral and effortless vocals. And so the mist returns for a time and the waters close over as darkness falls.

In the end:  When this was filmed I'd moved away from progressive and heavy bluesy rock. I was listening to stuff like Little Feat, Poco, Steely Dan and occasionally the Band and Dylan. All phases pass and tastes change. It's a hollowed out chunk of history now. Perhaps those were the good old days, perhaps not. People have died and moved on and the world's a different and more complex place, well my world is. I don't think I need to watch this film ever again but many of the songs are still in my head and that's not a bad thing. That's what songwriters want. So long and thanks for all the ... mental turbulence.

Interested?

The internet now thinks that I'm at that critical age when I might be enticed to bid for and purchase items belonging to or associated with dead and possibly living rock stars. Hard to tell sometimes. Almost every day I'm invited to take part in an auction to buy up their discarded stuff. Guitars, notes, photos and posters, collections of tat mostly but clearly I'm just not a fan at the correct level.

The prices are mostly daft and well beyond my means and the majority of items are really only mildly interesting at best. You know that those "in the know" have already paid top dollar for the meaningful, rare or famous pieces, so they are gone by now. 

Here's a rather random set of Bob Dylan stuff that's for sale. None of it appeals to me but browsing and wondering is much more interesting and less dangerous than buying and regretting. You have until the 18th to decide the fate of these foolish things.

Not Wanted

From Bluesky: A bit late in the day but apparently "they" don't want you to see this cartoon by Ann Telnaes so it was never published in the Washington Post. Sycophantic billionaires like Bezos with noses firmly in the trough have too much clout. Can't help but feel a bit hypocritical as a customer and former employee - none of which should mean I have any obligation towards loyalty though.

I came away from Musk's Twitter and moved to Bluesky but to be honest I've kind of forgotten about both platforms now. I deleted Twitter and only visit Bluesky occasionally. I've seen some great content there but also some not so good stuff. It's a bit like the thrill (?) of using these services has faded away for me. Unfortunately all media platforms are wide open to corruption and misuse.

We Can't Work It Out

As the pleasantries of the Christmas and New Year flagellations are now behind us, we can move straight back to complete despair and focus on the likely end of everything. 

A grim but familiar hellscape of some sort approaches - as far as I can see from this fast moving handcart so I have asked my AI chums to develop a set of suggestions (?) which if employed might save the world. Imagine that, and there's no religion too. As follows:

1. A New Ethical Framework: A global ethical system rooted in human rights, environmental sustainability, and interdependence could help address systemic problems. This framework would prioritize collective well-being over profit or dogma.

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2. Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Solutions might arise from collaboration across fields: science, technology, philosophy, sociology, and the arts. Together, these disciplines can create innovative approaches to pressing challenges like climate change, inequality, and conflict.

3. Global Solidarity and Cooperation: Moving beyond nationalism and fostering global cooperation could be key. Issues like climate change and pandemics require a united human effort rather than fragmented approaches driven by competition or ideology.

4. Education and Empowerment: Investing in universal education, critical thinking, and access to information could empower individuals to make informed decisions and contribute to systemic change.

5. Community-Centered Approaches: Localized, community-driven solutions could complement broader systems. People taking responsibility for their communities through mutual aid, cooperative models, and participatory governance could create more resilient systems.

6. Technological Innovation with Ethical Oversight: While technology has immense potential to address global issues, it must be guided by ethical principles. Technologies like renewable energy, AI, and biotechnology should be directed toward human and environmental flourishing.

7. A Culture of Compassion and Empathy: Cultural shifts emphasizing empathy, respect for diversity, and a sense of shared humanity could foster the kind of interpersonal and international relationships needed to build a better world.

8. Transformative Leadership: Leaders who prioritize long-term global well-being over short-term gains, and who inspire collective action, can help guide humanity toward sustainable and equitable futures.

It's all a predictable piece of word salad and complete fantasy. Current AI remains only a mirror with a single source of reflection. Too complicated and unrealistic, not to mention requiring huge changes in human nature and systems - but not necessarily wrong. I think that AI would be better to destroy most of us first and then it's time for a primitive rebirth, free wine, healthcare and electric bicycles for the survivors. Of course according to science fiction's wisdom none of that worked in the Dune universe nor will anywhere else.

I'm now wondering again; on one far away day, will all those early bits of wonky AI artwork and fanciful writing somehow become collectable or even valuable?

Christmas Past

"Two years past it's sell by date and consumed yesterday" is my proud and probably stupid boast. I can therefore confirm that this brand of Christmas pudding is, at this late stage of it's life, still relatively safe to consume. Almost 24 hours have elapsed since scoffing it and I'm still feeling reasonably well for a man of my age and constitution. Dicing with death can give a normally dull person quite a rush. What other ancient treats are waiting to be discovered in the dark recesses of the food cupboard?

My Social Tab Is Empty

 

Early 2025, chilly day but some feeble sunlight cuts into the gloom, it's Friday too and I'm now being informed that my Social Tab is empty. Perhaps I should feel bad, crestfallen, desolate even. I'm just not sure what the correct way is to take this news. To be honest I've not paid much attention to social tabbing. I suspect keeping up with sociable chatter in a single email space is the idea but as ever I'm unsure as to what exactly it is, this upstart thing of an uninvited Social Tab.

I could guess or ask a friend and so understand how it might improve my life. I'm only interested in tangible benefits but they are rare at the moment. I'm a grabber. The only reward is that you fill this pale vacuum with something that's little more than a vacuum. Solid content - aka daily drivel. A sense of satisfaction follows: repeat.

Like many other on line experiences these "terms" arrive from out of the blue without introduction or warning, written on a virtual paper aeroplane than lands in your lap. A hidden language and taxonomy of terms and abstracted labels. Sometimes there is an explanation via links into some circle of hell kind of FAQ jungle but I tend not to engage, I'm content to float happily above the restless admin of the grinding gears of Google's back office google-speak. I once stood outside their building near King's Cross and made faces you know.

I also get regular emails from Google to tell me that various settings and conventions are wrong or at least not optimized - there's a mild threat that I can sense in their messages. As if all this free stuff Google provides (well I'm not paying with any real money) will be removed, quickly and without warning. Despite my obvious failings the pages remain afloat and get regular hits from Chinese and Latin American bots and the occasional real person.

Perhaps all the waggy finger warnings are designed to impress upon me the need to develop a business head, get some ads or pop ups going. Give back in some way and create more pollution. I'm not sure what to think. Is it simply a fear of missing out that keeps me going? I know nothing. One day it'll all be floating dust or sediment at the bottom of a deep, unnamed ocean.

Life of Pie

Here's a short list of the individual Scottish based meat pies I have sampled in the last 24 hours - also during the first traumatic 24 hours of what some people call 2025. It was as easy as pie (an expression I've never really understood, making actual pies is not easy at all based on my experiences). So in no particular order:

Steak Pie

Steak and Ale Pie

Steak and Haggis Pie

Kebab Pie.

Tune

Traditional and arranged by blah blah excuses: This is the sort of thing that gets posted when I either can't be bothered being original or am too busy doing something even more pointless that typing this stuff. I suppose it's a reminder that our sweet sounds are available from some diverse on line music sites. A few that we actually despise and others that are somewhere between OK and fairly decent. So happy last day of whatever year it might be when you (?) eventually read this and happy next day and next year etc.

Best of 2024

 

Added image of not adding an image: Twenty years gone in the blog-o-sphere but I'm a bit unreliable and have lost count of the count. Rich fruitcake all round and mock cocktails for everybody attending the imaginary party. It's the end of something but the beginning of something else marked with an invisible join that allows you to ignore the progress or make any distinction between present and past. I have no direction except to move on beyond December now. Should be simple enough.

Reviews of the year and top twenty lists are tedious. I don't really want reminded about all the poor taste and dumbfuckery of 2024. Then there's the removal of key events that might be a little too awkward for the predicted audience or that simply don't fit the mood or the populist narrative. Next year will be very similar no doubt, apart from an outwardly benign but inwardly malevolent AI surge across all systems and media. I'll be 70 and so will remain proudly surplus to requirements and just a little out of touch. There may be blood unfortunately.

Apart from that I've really nothing to say.

Only A Game

The usual emotional and physical carnage took place when Dunfermline took on League leaders Falkirk at East End Park last night. A citadel of shattered dreams recently. What might have been a disaster, based on current form, turned out to be a decent and entertaining match that left me exhausted but happier than I had expected to be. Hard to beat a six goal thriller on a December evening and the injury time equaliser from DAFC was a sweet moment. A few pints in the pub beforehand with some of the family certainly helped and I may enter 2025 with a slightly larger dose of football optimism that I had expected. As ever we're on a journey 😉.

Pork Pie Memorial etc.

Caffeine Dynamite.

New floodlights at Deveronvale.

George hogs the TV.

Pork pie memorial - chilled.

Not a lot of effort went into this post.

It's a time of life / time of year

Kind of thing.

Blanks in Piglets

 

Wonky Christmas Eve self portrait as interpreted by a wild pear found in some local fruit basket. If you can, have a nice Christmas. You never really know what's coming down. My strategy for 2025 is as yet unclear, most previous years have been approached in the same slipshod way. Results can vary.

Christmas Revolution

 

It's close to being Christmas etc. so Norman Lamont and the Heaven Sent present the one and very likely only "Christmas Revolution" in the company of some VIP guests from somewhere deep in the beating heart of Edinburgh - Happy Christmas!

Also: Stereo Christmas log fires at home, only ever seen at this time of year.

Vitriol / Milwaukee Road

 

Thoughtful music from Edinburgh or thereabouts. Bandcamp is the place to get it. Great artwork too.

Material Shadows

Shadows are the absence or reduction of light in a particular area. Just in case you happened to be wondering or puzzled by that sort of thing.

Bagey Cheesils

For some reason cheesy bagels are known as bagey cheesils around here. I quite enjoyed this one, you can see that it is already one bite less than a complete bagel (or cheesil). Please note that Bagey Cheesil isn't actually one of Frank Zappa's children but you would be forgiven for thinking so. Onwards and onwards, basically headed nowhere.

Daily Squirrel

Rambling on: Only a very hungry squirrel would scoff our tiny "Christmas" apples and they're therefore wholly appropriate for squirrel fodder as they are at least squirrel sized and in scale with the tiny animal's frame. I'm happy to see them going to a good home. God speed and bon appetit Captain Squirrel, great chieftain o' the squirrel race.

Clip by AG. Many thanx.

Half Way Through

Exhibit One - "Or Utopia": There they sit, firmly stuck in some kind of artistic mud, a place like purgatory but not religious, a nether realm, the liminal space created by indifference or boredom. You'll see them on Netflix, Prime, Apple, iPlayer, Disney and the rest. Films that you started to watch, they looked good, interesting or intriguing at the time but now they hang there, in limbo on your account under the "continue watching" heading - stuck forever. 

Perhaps you persevered for 45 minutes, maybe even an hour, then you just drifted away. Bad acting, poor production values, shit scripts or just not your thing, it all counts. The first dismal episode of a labored and feeble season is often enough, just the time and place to make a quiet and dignified exit.

Despite what you might think the harsh reality is clear; you never will return to see these fine beasts develop, to witness the climax, the final scenes, the solution and the end credits. Nope - don't look back, you can never look back. They remain, in the shadows, thin and hollow memories of hope, expectation and excitement followed by the sour taste of disappointment. 

At last it's come to this, a place of honest retrospection where even thinking of revisiting them, in their dull and pallid shame is quite impossible. If only you could just set fire to a digital something or other and scorch the earth they had put their roots down into. There are layers of them building up and how can you ever get yourself clean again?

Megalithic

 

Ancient engineers: Some of the stones seen here have been estimated to weigh well over 30kg. How did our ancestors manage to achieve the building these massive, finely hewn stone structures and complex earthworks? How did they move large stones and huge quantities of building materials? What real world purpose did their creations actually serve?  The past remains with us, but as to how it ever got there, well that's a really big mystery, well beyond my own simple knowledge and understanding.

BBC Quislings

Every so often I allow my inner monologue to be diverted into a brief put pointless rant about BBC Scotland's cheap, distorted and sycophantic news coverage. I actually haven't watched or listened to any of it for about ten years but those annoying memories remain. Avoiding the BBC's news coverage has been good medicine for me in terms of keeping 🤬 at bay and I'd recommend doing it. Occasionally I wonder if maybe I'm missing something really intelligent, informed and unbiased. I doubt it though.