And While We're At It

The first 5-10 seconds of sound on this one is probably as stunning as the first time I heard Acid music way back in 1988. Not bad pop either. Probably the sort of thing I'd sample for Cillit Bang to convey that it cuts through any shit you either can see or conceive of.

Powerful.

Ferociously effective.

Just a thought.

K - POP

I've been pompously sniffy about pop music and especially so when I grasped just how easy  it is to package the stuff that makes the young salivate so easily.


So I really much more enjoy anything from (unclassical?) Classical and say Minimal Tech - The good stuff mind but then I would say that as I haven't really paid attention to anyone of significant pop music popularity with mandatory good looks and maudlin lyrics, for more years than I can remember.

However, I've had an enforced loss of music. Some 30 Gigs or so of quite choice and select music that went with the cab driver. To make up for this I've been swiping peoples music off mobile phones and I've had an epiphany about Korean Pop music. Yes it's often formulaic, yes it's all about pretty boy bands, or (but not and as they dont mix) girl bands that are too hot for a middle age man to gawp at for more than a second or so, but the facts remain.

About 5-10 percent of K-Pop is top notch pop. The productions are flawless, faultlessly lavish, choreographed cleverly and lastly the music is obviously Korean though frequently with often an English chorus deployed, so we (including the rest of Asia) can all join in or get the gist of the usual teen themes of love that could never spin off tangentially into gender dysphoria issues or handicapped sex because which I just cranked up the imagery deliberately for emphasis rather than any fixation with amputee sex or what not.
In any case as far as K-Pop goes, the music is kick ass in sections and this compensates for the relentless parade of pretty boy good looks and skin that I don't see many women able to match without recourse to traditional concealment techniques. I wont mention the K Chicks because they are stunning, and a charming conclusion to the topic is beyond me right now.

Here is 2PM's "Again and Again" and it's worth more than one listen because there's something heartfelt in it apart from the preternatural pretty boy band expectations it's difficult not to prematuraly conclude.

I'll go as far as to say that K-Pop has something going on right now that has the potential to go really global. I am also currently blown away by the production of Britney Spears who is clearly lacking in talent but a blindingly scary showcase for how good music can be if the best of the best in production are involved. Style over substance? Yes. But then so is moisturiser, lipstick and nail varnish even though I've written at length about cosmetics recenty and I'm not what the Germans would call part of "die brutale emanzipierte frauen" brigade.

The English Patient

Scene from The English Patient

Just in case this is intended to give the impression of some higher and more noble heart, it's not true. It's just the way I'm cut out. I don't like other's suffering and furthermore I see friendship as having umpleasant and trying obligations at times but in this instance I've nothing left to offer so here goes for something I've endured years and years.

After this, some of you might appreciate why I'm quiet at the moment. The email I received recently is intolerable given how hard I've tried to take care of someone who was once brilliant and is no more.

I wrote this after years and years of patience and kindness. It was he who taught me that no good deed goes unpunished. True but not enough for me to be silent. I did that already but as the manics said. "If you tolerate this then your children will be next".

I wouldn't read on if this too raw. I wish I could park it but I can't. So here's what I wrote a few nights ago. 

Yes, I'm guilty of going the extra mile, time and again from quite a few remote countries while pulling as many strings as I could to help. Yes, I'm guilty of over empathic feelings and yes I would hope some reciprocity might be earned. A visit lavished on me; a call, an inquiry and ear to listen to all the hours upon hours of putrid hate that you've exhausted all your sadness. I've been polite but you really haven't been anything close to the wonderful person you once were and it's your HIV that nobody believed which began the decline so let me share the Wat Phrabat Nampoo story I have. I went to with the editor of Cleo magazine a few years back - it was tough but nothing compared to the patients.

One of the more acute memories of visiting this Lop Buri Aids clinic a few years ago, where AIDS victims go to die is of one unforgettable and obscenely bitter face, contorted, hissing and twisted like some decaying-queen of indeterminate former glory, (if any at all), but it's difficult to determine when they're skeletal, wearing nappies and dribbling.The stench of decay before the onset of death is heavy in the tropical air.

Nevertheless, I spoon fed him for as long as I could while he vented his fury at me for getting something miniscule wrong. 

Maybe it was the tinned fruit the wrong way round, or the spoon held at the wrong angle or just the sheer nausea at my comparative health providing succour to his impending death.

Whatever the reason. You clearly need the anger........The last time I encountered such needy yet misdirected hatred was a (Nazi officer's) funeral in Frankfurt c. 1993

I buried him, but only because the family pleaded with me to attend.

A big mistake but not without it's repurcussions.