Grandma's House
Back on the theme of comedy and laughter I've been meaning to say something about 'Grandma's House', which is now three programmes into its series on BBC2. All three available on iPlayer.
TV presenter Simon Amstell plays a version of himself in Grandma's House, a new six-part comedy written by Simon and his long-term collaborator Dan Swimer.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tffgy
The series stars Simon Amstell as a TV presenter who is quitting his job to try to do something more meaningful with his life.
Each episode is set at Grandma's house, where Simon's family regularly congregate to catch up. Everything happens under the watchful eye of Grandma, who is desperate to see everything going well.
The show also stars Bafta winner Rebecca Front (The Thick Of It, Nighty Night) who plays Simon's mum, Tanya, a larger-than-life single woman who's looking for love and who dotes on her famous son . . .
It's a kind of middle class version of The Royle Family - with virtually everything taking place in the family sitting room, involving three generations of wildly different characters.
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Was Jimi Hendrix 'political'?
There was a programme on Radio 4 yesterday called 'Star Spangled Hendrix':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tg2m0
When Jimi Hendrix returned to his native America as a star, the country he knew had changed. This programme, presented by Tom Robinson to tie in with the 40th anniversary of the guitarist's death, explores the pressure Jimi was under to make an explicit political declaration.
Tom explores Hendrix's 14 months in the Screaming Eagles 101 Airborne Division that saw him parachute a total of 26 times before he was invalided out with a broken ankle.
When Hendrix first came to Britain he'd speak with friends about the need to defeat the Viet-Cong in order to prevent the whole of South-East Asia going Communist. All the standard domino-theory clap-trap he'd picked up from the American media and in his Marine Corps indoctrination. He was no sophisticated student of politics.
On the other hand, by the time he was performing with the Band of Gypsies in 1970 Hendrix was ready to come out on stage and introduce a song called Machine Gun with these words:
"HAPPY NEW YEAR FIRST OF ALL. I HOPE WE'LL HAVE A MILLION OR TWO MILLION
MORE OF THEM... IF WE CAN GET OVER THIS SUMMER, HA HA. RIGHT I'D LIKE
TO DEDICATE THIS ONE TO THE DRAGGIN' SCENE THAT'S GOIN' ON - ALL THE SOLDIERS THAT ARE FIGHTIN' IN CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE AND NEW YORK... OH YEAH, AND ALL THE SOLDIERS FIGHTIN' IN VIETNAM. LIKE TO DO A THING CALLED 'MACHINE GUN'."
MACHINE GUN
TEARING MY BODY ALL APART
EVIL MAN MAKE ME KILL YA
EVIL MAN MAKE YOU KILL ME
EVIL MAN MAKE ME KILL YOU
EVEN THOUGH WE'RE ONLY FAMILIES APART
The final words of this piece are:
YEAH THAT'S WHAT WE DON'T WANNA HEAR ANY MORE, ALRIGHT
NO BULLETS
AT LEAST HERE, HUH HUH
NO GUNS, NO BOMBS
HUH HUH
NO NOTHIN', JUST LET'S ALL LIVE AND LIVE
YOU KNOW INSTEAD OF KILLIN'
And in between those first and last words there's about 12 minutes of very 'political' guitar playing, with Hendrix giving his musical interpretation of urban and jungle warfare as only Hendrix could - clattering and screaming guitar blasting his audience with high-powered sonic bullets, and with musical rockets and bombs - expressing rage, hatred, savagery, pain, fear, terror and madness.
You can hear several versions on YouTube (and Spotify) including
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hipdlGSLYk4&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT4_yXATJNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZANxW4iFnk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NTh07MYqMA&NR=1
What Hendrix was recreating with every live performance was an incredible work of art that took the blues to a level never seen before or since - smashing through the average concert-goer's indifference and apathy and confronting his audience with what it feels like to live with death, destruction, injury, pain and misery - whether in the urban ghettos or in the horrors of VietNam. Not what you'd call pop music, then. Hendrix thankfully never made it to Nam himself, but he knew plenty of people who did. Just imagine what we'd have missed if Hendrix had died fighting the VietCong. And for what?
Wikipedia says this:
It is a lengthy, loosely defined (jam-based) protest of the Vietnam War, and perhaps a broader comment on conflict of any kind. Although a proper studio recording was never released, there are several other live recordings on album, including Jimi Hendrix: Live at Berkeley and Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight. The Band of Gypsys performance is often lauded as Hendrix's finest, and is widely considered the finest electric guitar performance in the history of recorded music.
The Band of Gypsys version of "Machine Gun" is roughly 12 minutes long. Hendrix's long guitar solos and percussive riffs combine with controlled feedback to simulate the sounds of a battlefield, such as helicopters, dropping bombs, explosions, machine guns, and the screams and cries of those wounded or grieving. The rather sparse lyrics, which differ in every performance, relate the point of view of a soldier fighting in war.
As with his version of Star Spangled Banner, Hendrix let his guitar, his imagination, his feelings and his emotions do the talking. He painted incredibly vivid pictures with sound, and left the rest to our imagination. Was it political? Isn't everything?
It was also personal, spiritual, emotional, original and sensational. You can't say fairer than that.
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Stumbling around on Spotify I noticed that Manu Chao has also recorded a track called Machine Gun, on the Radio Bemba Sound System live album, and also on Baionerena. Manu's a highly 'political' guy.
"After arriving in Madrid, Chao and other band mates from Mano Negra formed a new group, Radio Bemba Sound System (named for the communication system used in the Sierra Maestra by the Castro-and-Guevara-led rebels in the Cuban Revolution), featuring groups from diverse backgrounds, such as Mexican Tijuana No!, Brazilian Skank, and Argentinian Todos Tus Muertos. The goal was to replicate the sound of street music and bar scenes from a variety of cultures; to that end, Chao and the group spent several years travelling throughout South and Central America, recording new music as they went. The resulting music differed drastically from Mano Negra; the songs were primarily sung in Spanish with far fewer French tracks and the musical style had shifted from punk and alternative styles to the street vibe Chao was aiming for. The songs were collectively released as Clandestino in 1998, under Manu Chao's own name. Though not an instant success, the album gained a steady following in France with hits such as "Bongo Bong" and "Clandestino", and the album eventually earned the Best World Music Album award in 1999's Victoires de la Musique awards." - Wikipedia
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Which reminds me that I finally got round to watching the film made by Steven Soderbergh of Che Guevara's participation in the Cuban revolution - Che - Part 1 - A Revolutionary Life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_%28film%29
Cinematical's James Rocchi described the biopic as "expressive, innovative, striking, and exciting" as well as "bold, beautiful, bleak and brilliant". Rocchi went on to brand it "a work of art" that's "not just the story of a revolutionary" but "a revolution in and of itself". Columnist and critic Jeffrey Wells proclaimed the film "brilliant", "utterly believable", and "the most exciting and far-reaching film of the Cannes Film Festival". In further praise, Wells referred to the film as "politically vibrant and searing" while labeling it a "perfect dream movie".
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Professor David Harvey
The professor was featured on HARDTalk last week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harvey_%28social_theorist_and_geographer%29
Are we seeing the end of capitalism?
Arun Motianey, director of fixed income strategy at Roubini Global Economics, says the global economy is at risk of collapsing inward unless policy makers address the threat of inflation and exchange rate inflexibility.
For Professor David Harvey, Marxist author of The Enigma of Capital, the collapse of capitalism is inevitable. He tells Sarah Montague that capitalism is amoral, lawless, and it should be overthrown.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8662148.stm
Well done, BBC, for still making programmes like this one. How often do we get to hear the voices of the radical left? Whereas we hear the drivel of the radical right continuously.
Prof Harvey maintains that for the most part modern capitalism has nothing to do with anything productive, and simply makes money out of money. Smart financiers make money out of slightly less smart financiers, as well as out of dumb financiers and bankers - the dumbest being the Royal Bank of Scotland Group and HBoS, I reckon, since they're the ones that ended up in public ownership.
Harvey says our government has been protecting the banks at the expense of the people. There's been no productive use of the money controlled by the banks. There's been no actual investment in production or in real things.
What we need is investment in people's creative capacities and powers. Do rich people really need five mansions or more? What we need, as a society, is zero 'growth' and a significant redistribution of wealth. Through increasing the spending power of the poorer sections of society we'll become a richer society as a whole. Rich people hoard wealth. Poor people keep it in circulation.
There is currently NO political movement for real change from any of the established parties - Harvey is calling for people to think about alternatives. Utopia is simply about continuous change for the benefit of society as a whole, he says, and about creative engagement in political processes. We need diversity not homogeneity.
http://davidharvey.org/2010/05/interview-on-bbcs-hardtalk-are-we-seeing-the-end-of-capitalism/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtyZY9sKv2w
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00scbd2/HARDtalk_David_Harvey_Marxist_Academic/
http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/2010/05/david-harvey-bbc-hardtalk-interview-on.html
http://www.123webtv.com/shows/hardtalk
"Is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane?"
"Capitalism will never fall on its own. It will have to be pushed. The accumulation of capital will never cease. It will have to be stopped. The capitalist class will never willingly surrender its power. It will have to be dispossessed.” - David Harvey
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Here's another HARDtalk worth watching, on Hugo Chavez:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8732857.stm
President Chavez's socialist world vision
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez intends to inject new urgency into his socialist and anti-imperialist revolution, claiming "capitalism is destroying the world".
In a combative 60-minute interview with the BBC HARDtalk programme in the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Mr Chavez blamed Venezuela's deepening recession on the irresponsible economic policies of the United States.
He also expressed disappointment with President Barack Obama's "very negative signals" towards Latin America.
The 55-year-old Venezuelan president rarely grants extended interviews to the Western media. This one was arranged to coincide with the premiere in Caracas of a new documentary by Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone.
The film, South of the Border, portrays Latin America being transformed by Leftist radicalism.
The leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador all get walk-on parts, but it is to Mr Chavez that Stone gives the starring role.
"What's been going on in Venezuela for the last 10 years is amazing - a piece of history. The least I can do is introduce this man and this movement to the American people," said Stone, with a beaming Chavez by his side.
Whether many Venezuelans will ever see South of the Border remains unclear.
The premiere was full of Socialist party bigwigs and activists who hooted with delight as their president was seen lambasting Bush, beating off a coup attempt in 2002 and generally adopting the mantle of a 21st Century Castro.
In his HARDtalk interview, the president blamed his country's economic woes squarely on America's "rampant, irresponsible capitalism" which was taking the world "on the road to hell".
"In England and in Europe you should know this," Mr Chavez went on. "'You have more problems than we do."
He quoted a stream of economic statistics to illustrate his claim that 11 years of socialism had "begun to redress the balance between a very rich Venezuelan minority and a very poor majority."
He said unemployment had been halved, extreme poverty was down from 25% to just 5%.
"Eleven years ago I was quite gullible," the president said. "I even believed in a 'third way'. I thought it was possible to put a human face on capitalism. But I was wrong.
"The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy. There's no dictatorship here."
"Fidel has spent his whole life on his (revolution)," Chavez reflected. "Whatever life I have left I will dedicate to this peaceful democratic revolution in Venezuela."
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Here's something upbeat to end on - a blistering performance of 'Rainin In Paradise' by Manu Chao:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3oiea_manu-chao-rainin-in-paradise_music
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcxfv5_manu-chao-rainin-in-paradize_music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3272WEgFY0g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtlvykv3xjA&NR=1
Where are the British bands playing with anything like this sort of engagement, commitment and passion? Clearly they don't exist.
In Jerusalem
In Monrovia
Guinea-Bissau
today it's rainin
Welcome to paradise
today it's rainin
Welcome to paradise
http://www.metrolyrics.com/rainin-in-paradize-lyrics-manu-chao.html
Politik Kills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH8fwxA1UjE&feature=related
Check out the Politik Kills EP on Spotify, especially the remix with Linton Kwesi Johnson.
politik need votes
politik needs your mind
politik needs human beings
politik need lies
thats what my friend is an evidence politik is violence
what my friend is a evidence politik is violence
politik kills politik kills politik kills
politik kills politik kills politik kills
politik use drugs
politik use bombs
politik need torpedoes
politik needs blood
thats what my friend is an evidence politik is violence
what my friend is a evidence politik is violence
Big shout out to Brother B - the Horn of Africa.
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