another parade of horribles

PROPER COMPUTING!!!

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:05:46 GMT

The ICL 1900 wasn't the first computer I ever used, although it was the first I was paid to use back in the late 70s (or was it the early 80s? It's fallen off my CV/resume forever). Back then clothing regulations stipulated that women who worked with computers had to wear high heels, truncated lab coats and nothing else, as can be seen from this picture. It was something to do with lady hormones and the negative ionic build-up. For similar reasons male computer staff had to leave the office every hour to smoke pipes and look at pornography, especially on the highly ionic nightshift.

(256K of core store memory, if I remember correctly!)

And we didn't have FTP in those days. We had lorries filled with punched cards that would be driven up to Leeds from Bristol and fed through a card reader... Get a bad tape or accidentally overwrite a file header and some poor sap would have to unpack the lorry and fed them through again. Happy days....

dragnet update

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:20:10 GMT

Checking the Austin PD Incident Reports Database for Tuesday's first incident (and thank you all so much for the concerned comments), it seems that the woman who called the cops on my wife is listed as "Arrestee" under ROAD RAGE and something else that I can't be bothered to go back in and check. WASTING POLICE TIME or BEING A SELF-IMPORTANT A-HOLE would be my guess. I thought she was just being told to stop being a big baby when we drove away.

It still grimly amuses me that a woman in her mid-forties with a fairly serious job (well, some sort of middle-management sales position at the company behind many of Austin's lousy radio stations - nothing's secret in this Facebook/LinkedIn age) would phone 911 because someone wouldn't let her cut in front at a busy road junction. I'm sure the call will end up on some Yuletime compilation of Most Stupid 911 Calls Of The Year. "Ma'am, it is not a federal offense for someone to find fault in your driving etiquette, and flashing her lights at you for endangering her, her two year old son and her unborn child in addition to everyone else on the road is not assault."

daddy's gone

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:14:34 GMT

I do like "Daddy's Gone" by Glasvegas a lot, both as a song and as a three minute encapsulation of Scottish rock music's infatuation with classic American Rock 'n' Roll since the Jesus and Mary Chain discovered it sounded even better if you put a melody behind the feedback. I do however wonder if the lyrics would work in any other accent and if what sounds truly epic and heartbreaking would come across as mawkish and over-sentimental if the singer had a more middle-class accent. If it was Chris Martin, for example, I'd be shouting abuse at the radio....

And I also wonder about my susceptibility, seeing how this song can almost reduce me to tears whereas the couple-with-a-2-year-old-daughter I know who are presently going through a divorce simply fill me with irritation and mild dismay at best. I guess in real life we expect people to suck it up and get on with their lives whether in art, be it the novel, opera or even a rock song, we give them the leeway to really wallow and let it screw up their lives as long as they do it in rich and evocative way.

Big Babies (Book X+3 of 50)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:44:32 GMT

Somewhat disappointed by Michael Bywater's Big Babies, especially after the wonderful Lost Worlds. I suspect he was trying to come up with a Grand Theory rather than just another jokey list book (which Lost Worlds was on the surface, although accumulating by the end into a Nabokovian multi-layered essay on time, loss, desire, childhood, pleasure, sensuality, memory and much, much more) and while the infantilisation of modern life is a rich topic he seems to have pitched the book askew right from the start, making it neither anecdotal fun nor a serious call to arms, settling instead for a sort of intermediate hectoring waffle that neither amuses nor informs, taking whole chapters to come out the sort of windy observation or interpretation that would have been a throwaway line in Lost Worlds. A damn shame (although I did laugh out loud several times, which is incredibly rare for me).

North Austin Idiots in Cars Day

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:57:08 GMT

My wife was driving to get me from work last night and a woman tried to cut dangerously in front of her at a junction. My wife wouldn't let her. As a result of this, the woman followed her to the car park of Randall's where she was heading, blocking her in with her car. The woman then threatened her, abusive language and all. She even managed to scratch my wife's arm while at the same time phoning 911 to claim my wife had assaulted her. Even without taking into account that my wife is over eight months pregnant and had our two-and-a-half year old son with her, this was a strange claim to make seeing how she had blocked my wife's car in. The police had taken the woman aside and were giving her a stern talking to when I arrived. She had that north Austin look of suburban entitlement. And the over-developed calves of a realtor or financial consultant. My mind turns to garish stereotypes rather than fruitless vengeance fantasies, although I was hoping the cops would tase her just, you know, to keep in practice. Actually they were nice guys -- they also gave my wife a phone number in case she wanted to file charges against the woman. Not saying you should ma'am, but....

We were discussing whether to do this or not on the way back home ten minutes later when a car veered out of nowhere and sideswiped us on the driver's side. If my wife hadn't swerved into a thankfully empty lane, who knows what would have happened. The front hubcap and rear view mirror were smashed off and a little paint chipped off but no real damage. We got what we thought was the license plate of the car as it did not bother stopping, although when the cop, a different cop this time, ran it through the database it was not listed, so he may well have had serious reasons for not sticking around to swap insurance details.

It's a good job I believe in coincidence as what are the chances of this, even in the reckless driving capital of Texas? Two 911-worthy encounters with automotive psychos, one with with road rage, the other who knows what, in less than half an hour?

I tell you, peak oil can't come soon enough...

oh that old europe...

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:06:31 GMT

Profoundly depressed by the Rasmussen daily poll that shows Obama just one point ahead of McCain. You'd think that after eight years of Republican corruption, mismanagement and downright ugliness, the Democrats could have nominated a dead octopus and still be twenty points in the lead, but it seems half the population are looking forward to another four years of Republican class war and economic catastrophe, albeit with a genial old coot at the helm.

If only Europeans got to vote for the president instead of Americans....

the horror! the horror! (78759 version)

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:01:40 GMT

Just found out that as well as the Netroots thing in Austin this weekend (which I missed) there was also a wingnut fiesta here called Defending the American Dream where horrors like Michelle Malkin, John Fund and Grover Norquist were let out of their boxes, hosed clean and allowed to cackle and hiss on stage. Something for everyone, I'd imagine. As you can see by the sponsors list the American Dream being defending here is the nightmare many ordinary folk are desperate to awake from. I suspect it ended with mobs driving the streets of North Austin chanting ""DRILL! DRILL! DRILL!" and turning on one another for showing insufficient Obama-fear on their bumperstickers.

deadly finns

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:21:45 GMT

Paavpharju are a very strange Finnish band. Here they sound like first album era Faust with Kate Bush on vocals. You can also drop the names of Arial Pink into the mix if you want.

Some of their stuff sounds a lot more straightforward. Although straightforward what, I'm not sure as listening to their current album is like hearing half a dozen off-station radios in the mist. Some times things will suddenly clear up and a lilting folk melody will come through only to be drowned out by scuzzy electronics or fade to bird song or an off-key toy piano will beat it into submission with some insidious techno riff. Curious and evocative stuff.Try Es and Nau Hau too if you like it weird and Finnish.

the last words of lee hazlewood

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:45:51 GMT

bits

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:33:54 GMT

Just over a month until Second Son's ETA, which moves us into new territory as First Son decided to make an early appearance six weeks ahead of time. Which meant I didn't get around to reading the last chapters of the Ignorant Old Man's Bumper Book of Pregnancy book I had at the time. We now move into the stage of weekly visits to the obstetrician, who looks disconcertingly like James Cramer.

+ + +

Anyone who thinks the current New Yorker cover needs to carry a big warning label stating THIS IS SATIRE really shouldn't be reading the New Yorker in the first place. Or anything else. There are crayons in the corner.

+ + +

Four rats captured in the attic and released several miles away last week. I've been using a humane trap after a nasty incident with the more malicious variety. It's funny how the first one looked really cute and pet-like but they've become more and more bug-eyed and verminous since.

+ + +

Texas spent a nation-high $17 million last year for abstinence education programs... (Profound thoughts by enoch_lite)

+ + +

I now own this.

I nearly have all the vinyl from this era I set out to collect. eBay makes collecting a little too easy. The Three Sun's Fever and Smoke, Dick Hyman's Moon Gas and The Man from O.R.G.A.N, a couple more Esquivel titles and the two Stereo Action albums by Leo Addeo and the obsession will be over. No, really.

+ + +

I didn't know until yesterday that there were (proper, official as opposed to this goody) videos to go with the George W. Bush Singers 2004 album, Songs in the Key of W. They're a mixed bunch, but this one is near perfect.

Austin skyline

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:55:43 GMT

Was coming back into Austin from some exurban excursion when I realized something: I like the new Austin skyline. I'd previously gone along with the consensus grumbling about overpriced condos, the influx of Californians, and the true spirit of the city being destroyed, but it suddenly struck me that the Austin skyline was pretty dreary before the Frost Bank Tower was built, a jumble of concrete blocks from sixties indistinguishable from the parking garages that served them. If there ever was any true glory in the architecture of downtown Austin the damage was done long before the current condo and office boom, with the few building that remained from an era of public grandeur and style having been neglected, obscured and/or uglified decades ago.

I'm not so certain about the comedy modernism of 5021 Congress Avenue, however. And maybe building like the 360 Condominiums only look good because they stand alone like unique sculptures rather than jostle for attention amongst a hundred others as in more developed cities. But right now I'm withdrawing my membership of that particular branch of the Austin Isn't Austin Anymore club.

And my reservations remain about the people who are going to be living in these expensive highrise condos though. They're not going to be doing traditional Austin jobs like manning the support desks at Dell for minimum wage, assembling microchips, lobbying for coal, oil and sundry pollutions, lawyering (ditto and worse) or tattooing "tramp stamps" on nice girls from Midland, Beaumont and Sugarland. More likely they'll be engaged in rich kid pursuits, padding out daddy's allowance by running designer ashtray stores on 2nd St or publishing crappy lifestyle magazines that advertise designer ashtray stores on 2nd St.

But that skyline at dusk, or better still (and I wish I had pictures) reflecting the July 4th fireworks, gives me a little thrill about living in Austin that was missing before.

hey kids

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:33:40 GMT

For a lunchtime laugh I've set up a blog on the Austin American Statesman's website under the guise enoch_lite, primarily to bait and annoy the rightwing clowns who have pretty much taken over the place.

I think this is the link.

That's Right, I'm Not From Texas

Go and hit "recommend" or something. I suspect only a couple of people read the blogs despite them being linked prominently on the front of the paper's website. Do it, if only to piss off Nogirlieman.

the lounge show salutes you

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:43:24 GMT

Jay Robillard is doing his Star Spangled Lounge Show special on KOOP right now, which means a lot of cheesy patriotic records for your amusement and edification. There's a "listen now" button on the page so you folks outside Austin can listen. You've missed John Wayne explaining what makes America great but there's plenty to come....

first and final warning

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:32:50 GMT

Anyone using the abominable expression "made of x" where x = "win", "fail", "lose" or something equally ungrammatical and tragic will be removed from my flist, mocked and if at all possible tracked down and humiliated in public with large dogs. Starting now. It may have been considered "cute" for a few fractions of a second amongst the easily amused but that time is now well and truly over.

Worse punishment await anyone who expects me to bold, strikethru or italic a list of books that includes the Da Vinci Code and anything containing wizards of any kind.

You have been warned, chums.

fearlessly battling strawmen of the eighties (part 1)

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:35:09 GMT

Rather late in the day to be catching up on my Afropop, but am currently listening to Kandia Kouyate's M'Bensara (2002). I've had a longtime kneejerk aversion to what was and may still be referred to as "World Music", a term that has so many despicable connotations for me that it's hard to know where to start. Self-righteous, patronizing twits would make extravagant claims for the authenticity and honesty of music made by people whose names they couldn't pronounce and whose homeland they couldn't find on a map, that was probably ripped out of context to fit on a nice, brightly colored CD to be played as a special treat between the other middle-class we're-into-real-music-you-know standards like Van Morrison and the less wacky works of Tom Waits. "So inspiring, so untouched by the crass modern world. Course, if Thatcher has her way we'll all be put in concentration camps for listening to thing like this. Another stuffed mushroom?" Ah, the 80s....

And I'm always reminded of a couple I knew in the late 80s who visited various countries in Africa and came back with a tantalizing if rather drab looking stack of vinyl. "We asked for the real music, the people's music that was recorded there for the people there, the local music, the workers' music, not the anodyne stuff that's being promoted over here." But they couldn't get through the first LP when they got back home to their hi-fi system. It was real and authentic and relevant to the people who made it but it was also badly recorded and very, very dull. It seemed very likely to me that the record shop employees in Kenya or Mali or wherever they had visited had been quick to realize they finally had the chance to shift those crappy old copies of The Local Maize Pickers Union Chorus Sing "Maize, Oh Maize, It's Great" and Other Favorites Volume 7 that weren't selling.

But I digress. The smug voice of old still niggles in the background: ah yes, proper, heartfelt music, not like that Ting Ting and Santogold nonsense young people listen to today. And there's always the fear that Peter Gabriel might put in an unwanted appearance....

teeth

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:32:10 GMT

It's good to see Matt Taibbi back on form after "the excruciating Obama-Hillary mess," which seemed to have had a debilitating effect on his writing and humor over the last couple of months. His latest piece in Rolling Stone, "Full Metal McCain" is rollicking stuff:

With his newfound opposition to his own attempts to reform immigration policy and campaign finance, McCain is perhaps the first candidate in history to stump against two bills bearing his own name.

McCain's transformation is so complete that at a recent town-hall meeting in Nashville, when asked to name an author who inspired him, the candidate — who once described televangelists of the Jerry Falwell genus as "agents of intolerance" — put none other than Joel Osteen at the top of his list. "He's inspirational," McCain said.

Standing at the meeting, I didn't write Osteen's name down in my notebook — apparently because my brain refused on some level to accept that McCain had actually said it. Of all the vile, fake, lying-ass, money-grubbing shyster scumbags on the face of this planet, there is perhaps none more loathsome than Osteen, a human haircut with plastic baseball-size teeth who has made a fortune selling the appalling only-in-America idea that terrestrial greed is actually a form of Christian devotion. "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us," Osteen once wrote. This is the revolting, snake-oil-selling dickhead that John McCain actually chose to pimp as number one on his list of inspirational authors. So much for "go, sell everything you have and give to the poor," and all that other hippie crap from the New Testament.

That's how you write bout McCain. Skip the "He's so old" jokes....

only amazon knows the real me....

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:23:03 GMT

proper shoes

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:19:20 GMT

My proper shoes are back from being repaired and I feel like an adult again. Actors often say they build a character up from the shoes and I suspect the version of me that can tolerate working in IT needs a classy pair of well-seasoned English brogues. The me in sneakers feels he ought to be running a Web 2.0 startup, working 18 hour days and feels guilty about failing to do so. The me in Cheaney Lamberts is above such feverish nonsense, is content to wallow in the mid-career doldrums in the knowledge that the blustering, ungainly over-achievement of billionaires and tradesmen half his age does not fall within the purview of a true gentleman and is quite frankly the mark of the cad, lout or rascal. I feel more capable of dealing with the mercantile world in proper shoes, or at least treating it with the bemused contempt it deserves.

All I need to do is work on the parts of me above the ankles.

laugh? i nearly passed me fags round....

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:15:04 GMT

The Jim Bowen rap.

Super. Smashing.

But this is what I was looking for, Hughie Green's "Stand Up and Be Counted".

guess i'll have to work forever

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:39:23 GMT

I really thought those old copies of Love and Rockets I'd carefully packed and brought over from England would comfort me financially in my old age, but they don't exactly seem to be very collectible. 14 mint issues (11, 14-26) going for $1.04? That would make my collection worth about $2.21. Come on, they're over twenty years old! Back in 1984 when I started buying them you wouldn't be able to pick up mint copies of World's Finest from 1960 for that sort of price. Too many collector nerds saving multiple copies in Mylar bags I guess.

Might as well read 'em again and stick 'em in the loft for another 20 years. They might be worth three dollars then, if the rats don't chew 'em up first.

A 26 part meme, obviously...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:06:30 GMT

The As on my office PC:

Achim Reichel & Machines, the Advisory Circle, Alan Parker, Alessandra Belloni, Alphataurus, Altered Images*, Amon Duul, Amon Duul II, Andre Kostelanetz and his Orcestra*, Andrew Vinter (Vintage TV and Radio Classics), Animotion*, Anne Briggs, Annexus Quam, Anthony Braxton, Antoine*, Area, Art of Noise, Arvo Part, Ash Ra Tempel, Associates, Augustus Pablo, Aztec Camera* and American Primative, Vol 1 - Raw Pre-War Gospel 1926 - 36.

Updated to include non-album tracks and other bits and pieces.

* Single tracks only by these.

And you have?

futura - 1961

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:49:53 GMT

There are bargains to be had on eBay. I picked up a VG++ copy of Bernie Green's Futura for $2.99 plus postage last week. The seller had not mentioned that it was a Stereo Action release and the photograph he used was of the inner sleeve, so I was a bit doubtful of what I was actually getting - but at $2.99 it wouldn't have mattered if it had been a reissue or missing the outer sleeve. But it was the real thing. I've seen similar copies listed at $50 dollars. Not the sort of deal that I can retire early on, but a nice surprise.

And the record is even better than I imagined. I've mentioned Futura before and got the concept slightly wrong. It was Green's imagining, in 1960, of how music would sound in 1970. He was a little optimistic - I don't seem to remember hearing many electric vibraphone quartets in the early 70s or songs like "I Love Paris" arranged for seven electric guitars and "animated tape," a sort of magnet tape and scalpel version of the melotron requiring over 700 splices for the trumpet part on a two minute track, didn't catch on. Green was somewhere between Raymond Scott and Esquivel, adding electronics to unusual arrangements, using stereo panning as part of the rhythm as well as for effect. Most of his ideas were so unusual for the time they had to be packaged as "comedy" records, but Futura was his serious album, without having to hide behind funny titles or mad artwork. I think it was also his last album, which suggests even RCA's Stereo Action division wasn't ready for innovations like the "tonalizer".

I also caught the fleshy part of my thumb in a rat trap on Saturday afternoon, which wasn't half as much fun.

other people's nostalgia

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:51:30 GMT

The Radio Kitchen is essential. The Chef doesn't update very often but there are archives you can lose yourself in if you're interested in what American radio sounded like before it became one big Clear Channel bore. The most recent posts, contained recordings taken from the radio during a road trip from Detroit to New Orleans in 1988 capture the sound of an America that's familiar but already mostly gone and the writing captures the long lost thrill of being in the middle of nowhere at 4am, turning on the radio and hearing Lighting Hopkins on the AM dial.... Lovely stuff.

our business is piling up!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:26:41 GMT

Oh yes. Seen on the back of a truck on the way into work this morning.

Don't we all? But some of us just have fancier mission statements.

or is it a coded message from emo-terrorists?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:25:56 GMT

Faces of MySpace identity theft an ode to bangs and mascara