Philandery in the Big Apple.

Normally I don’t post tabloid links but the title of this New York Post article is too funny. Note #1: When you are a famous athlete and are married, don’t get photographed with other women, it will cost you at least a diamond necklace. I hope Alex Rodriguez learned his lesson.

More about Ballads of the Book.

I normally like a lot of music released on Chemikal Underground but this seems slightly pretentious like that Air album Air Baricco. However, I will still give it a listen just to check it out.

Chemikal Underground Records are proud to announce the release … of Ballads Of the Book, an elaborately ambitious project featuring some of Scotland’s best writers and musicians.

The brainchild of Idlewild’s Roddy Woomble, Ballads Of The Book began as a simple idea to bring together the literary talents of Scotland’s writing community with a diverse range of new and established recording artists.  Following Idlewild’s work with Edwin Morgan on their Remote Part album, Roddy wanted to explore the possibilities of more artistic collaborations with various writers providing original lyrics for recording artists to interpret in whichever way they saw fit.  Having enlisted the enthusiastic support of the Scottish Arts Council and with Chemikal Underground onboard, it wasn’t long before the nascent idea and fledgling list of interested parties flourished into a brilliantly realised collection of songs: as musically eclectic as they were elegantly poetic.

From the literary world, the list of those involved reads like a who’s who of the great and the good in Scottish literature.  The giants of Edwin Morgan and Alasdair Gray rub shoulders with cutting edge, contemporary writers like Ali Smith, A L Kennedy, Louise Welsh and Ian Rankin.  Esteemed poets like Robin Robertson, Bill Duncan and Rody Gorman feature alongside successful writers and novelists like Michel Faber, Alan Bissett, Laura Hird, Rodge Glass, Hal Duncan and John Burnside. From the musical world there is a rich collection of both established artists and upcoming, even unsigned acts.  Idlewild, James Yorkston, Norman Blake, Sons And Daughters, Karine Polwart, King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts and The Trashcan Sinatras contribute tracks alongside Chemikal Underground acts Aereogramme and De Rosa.  There are rare appearances from both Vashti Bunyan and The Incredible String Band’s Mike Heron as well as solo performances from Emma Pollock and Malcolm Middleton.  First time incarnations also feature for ex-Arab Strap frontman Aidan Moffat (Aidan Moffat And The Best Ofs) and ex-Delgado Alun Woodward (Lord Cut-Glass) in addition to the (as-yet) unsigned talents of Strike The Colours and Foxface.

The album cover is an original, specially commissioned artwork by Alasdair Gray and the genesis of the project is the subject of a film documentary due to be broadcast by Scottish Television around the release.  Live performances in support of the album are scheduled for Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival in January of next year, with additional launch events, acoustic performances and talks by the writers and musicians planned around the release also.

In short, Ballads Of The Book is an extraordinarily ambitious and original piece of work: simplistic in its origins and imaginatively executed, it’s hard to imagine an album with more impeccable credentials.

The Gettysburg address is too long.

From ComingAnarchy:

This is a fairly informative and interesting video. The Civil War in 4 minutes.

I suppose politics had to come to this.

Belgian political candidates offer some unusual promises to get elected.

Trippy.

Ailidh phoned me at work at about half four. It’s funny I don’t even speak to her any more, she’s a fucking wee cow. Better than everybody, ken? Doesn’t speak to her mates or anything like that. Anyway, we got in at the time and she phones me up asked me what I’m doing tonight. I was only going to sit in and watch the telly as usual, wondering where everybody else was. So she said, come round to Rab’s house and that, get some trips, ken? So I said I’d go round about six. I was about an hour late and I was knocking on the door and that, and nobody answered. And I thought, oh fucking brilliant they’re away out without me and that, they’ll be away up the town having a laugh. So I walk back round the road, ’cause I thought they were away out, and I phoned. Turns out they had still been there. They were that out of it, they couldn’t even get to the door.So I went back round. Everybody was fleeing as usual and I got handed my half. And I thought I’d just take it, ken? I’m working the next day, I better not go too far. But two hours later, nothing was happening. so I thought , fuck it. And I took the rest, which I’d been warned about already. Everyone was jumping about the front room as usual, and we were sitting giggling, having a laugh and then Cheg came and took us to the pub in his car. We told Cheg he should be our anchor, that was a fucking laugh. He kept telling us to calm down, as though he was our mum and dad and that, ’cause we were acting like weeans and giggling and looking at the table and dropping our drinks all over the place.

We made it back his car, jumped in, and he took us back round to the house. Then he decided to pack it in and go home. So Malcolm and I get back in the house and suddenly someone’s going on about Rab and how he’s he’s no fucking there and that, and he’s away outside and he looks like he’s in pain or something like that. He had to go and pick up some more stuff ’cause they’d used all this stuff for Glastonbury the next week. And somebody said he apparently took something when he was there, so he’s writhing about in pain outside. So Malcom and I walked out and he’s was walking along the edge of road on the grass and that with his fucking stomach held in his hands and he’s screaming and that. And then we lost him. He disappeared into the park and we didn’t know where he was. So Malc and I were walking about and then we found him. But we decided we should stay back a bit, ken? In case he got a fright. So we followed him up into this park, as though that wasn’t going to scare him anyway!! And when we did find him, he was there doubled up in pain, fucking screaming his eyes out, going on about how his stomach was knotted and he shouldn’t have taken it, and it was a stupid thing to do. So he’s sitting there on the hill and that with Malc and I on either side and all we can do is sit and giggle and look at the grass and take the piss out of him.

So we get him up on his feet and we start walking him about and he says he’s alright. And we walk up to the garage and he’s going on about his stomach. Then he starts shouting about how we should get away from him and that, in case something happens, in case he fucking dies or something. So he says he thought it was that bad, that’s what was going to happen and he didn’t want us to be involved. He always looked out for everyone else, ken? So we take him to the garage and he wants a bottle of Irn Bru and he’s fuckin’ downing this bottle of Irn Bru, talking about his fucking stomach and everyhting and how he’s taken this thing and he has to get it out of his system and talking about how it’s all in his bile, and he’s desperately trying to make himself sick and he’s screaming all the fucking time as well. And Malc and I are still laughing – we don’t know what he’s up to. He could have taken anything, I wouldn’t know.

Nobody’s sure yet about what he took. Fuckin’, he could have injected something, he could have swallowed something, nobody knows. But he just stood there with his dirty fucking face, it’s all black and dirty and brown, ken? He’s halfway down his bottle of Irn Bru and he’s being sick all over the fucking place. And a car went by, slowing down the road but he’s just screaming all the time about how it was all in his fucking bile and how he wants to be sick. He keeps fucking screaming… then he threw up. So we walked him back to the house and he made us swear we wouldn’t tell anybody. So he goes back to the house and he fucking tells everybody. He locked himself in his room and started eating a bag of sugar or something like that, while everyone else was talking about what a dick he was. I ended up at the park that night. Sitting eating Pringles with Paula and watching the wildlife. And the next day when I went to work I was still out of my face. I was pacing about on the stairs talking to myself and writing things and he walked in and stressed the point about making sure that no one would find out.

All Our Actions Are Constantly Repeated.

I’ve become somewhat lazy when it comes to posting on this blog. Several reasons can be attributed to this fact. I recently had my wisdom teeth removed, and that provides a certain amount of distraction from everything else. Furthermore, it is now the unofficial summer, and there is certainly a greater variety of other things to do than in the colder months.

The impending job (and associated real life) in September is somewhat terrifying. The idea of commuting, business suits, and clients is, on some level, like a winding stretch of highway in the cliffs. (see here) It is something you have to do in order to navigate the road of life, but it is fraught with many dangers and many chances for catastrophe. Nonetheless, it has to be done.

However, in this last summer, I hope to, primarily, enjoy myself and relax as much as possible (while still taking summer school unfortunately.) It would be nice to connect to people one last time or reconnect with them before the pace of everyday life traps everyone in routines, plans, and little spontaneity.

On a separate note, sometimes a video can say things better than any words.

More Marauder irritation.

1 more thing to add to the irritation associated with the University I’m attending this summer: They  screwed up the email address they had on file for me, and thus, neglected to inform me about important class information or the fact I had to set up another email address to get access to certain things..

Vive La France!

I wouldn’t generally say that I’m a conservative individual in most cases, but I am glad that Nicolas Sarkozy won the French election. France has been a laggard in economic growth and wealth in Western Europe for many years because of the overdeveloped welfare state they have pursued.  Hopefully, this change in direction will help them realize that 35-hour work weeks, expansive welfare, and a culture of entitlement are not congruent with the emerging market-state structure of the globe.

Political Lesson #1

1) Never associate yourself with anything remotely related to Scientology.

See this clip from The Colbert Report for reason why.