My life is complete. I’ve talked a lot on this site about Spicks & Specks – one of the greatest TV shows ever – but now I’ve been to a live studio recording of it. It get’s better as well because I actually saw two episodes filmed, AND I got a question card to run off with after all of it! WOO!

I was suprised at how long the session lasted. Considering the final cut is a half hour show, I would have imagined no more than 45 minutes of actual recording for each episode, to then have a third of that banished to the cutting room floor. However the shows lasted for what seemed like over an hour each. In the end it was a 6-10pm gig, which suprised the hell out of me.

Anyway the entire experience was hilarious from go to whoa. The guests in the two shows included Daryl Cotton, Ella Hooper, Dave O’Neill, Arj Barker, Murray from the Wiggles (what the hell’s his sirname?), Kate Cebrano and two comics that I can’t remember the name of. Usually the show is taped and has a month or two to go through the edit/review stage before broadcast, but apparently as a tie in the the comedy festival, these shows are being cut and edited this week. The first goes to air next Wednesday, with the second (and arguably better of the two) the week after. Listen out for loud, appreciative laughs – that’ll be me

Anyway I had a great time. The only possible negative aspect to the whole thing is that now that I’ve seen the shows, the next few weeks are going to be pretty boring. Oh well – I’m still bloody glad I went along. Thanks Tegan!

Pete

Of the three people that had commented on that last post (as of 9pm Monday), all of them mentioned the kiwispoon guide I knocked together as a bit of a joke in 2002. Considering it seemed to tickle so many people’s fancies, I decided to have a geez myself to reminisce on the good ol’ days. Look what I found – evidence of caveman mops on prehistoric Pete’s. Fascinating stuff.

2002….

….Compared to 2006:

It’s still stupidly long, and I still have hundreds of people telling me to cut it, but quite interestingly it’s much, much curlier since school! Maybe it was the African air of 2004.

Pete

If you are a seasoned reader of this blog, congratulations, you are part of a small but incredibly intelligent and sexy group of superpeople. Due to the inherent gift you clearly posess – that of the incredible comprehension skills required to understand half of what I spout here – you will be aware of a few things you may not otherwise have learnt about. Why kiwispoons are one of the greatest inventions of all time, how to correctly identify reggae music and what Becky smells like are but three things that linger around these pages for you exceptional people to frolic in. One thing that doesn’t feature however is how to produce your very own blues song. Until now.

Everyone knows that blues music is the greatest export of the Mississippi delta (apart from recently waterlogged bits and pieces), and interestingly enough, that’s about all there is to the genre. Pick up a guitar, strum some sad sounding chords and sing about oppression, broken hearts, cotton picking or catching a train to nowhere – pretty simple, huh? HOWEVER for those blues artists out there that can’t play guitar, can’t sing or just can’t be arsed getting up from that bloody computer, desktopblues comes to the rescue. Click on coloured blocks to play guitar progressions, sing a line of generic bluesey vocals, or mix the two. You can even turn a riff on and jam away with that looping. It’s so easy to do that I recorded a button bashing minute of greatness, and it appears as a new track in grannytunes. Go on – start it playing (LJists can click here), then sit back and get ready to pay homage to one of the greatest and most influential blues musicians of our time!

Or, make one yourself and oust me.

Pete

I must admit to having previously felt less than excited – sceptical even – about Melbourne hosting the Commonwealth Games this year. I can recall in 1993 when Sydney was announced as the 2000 Olympic Games host city and the euphoria that infected everyone in the country. Conversely, I can’t remember the day in 1999 when Melbourne was announced as hosting the commgames, and when I can remember hearing about it, the general feeling was ‘oh, that’s nice’.

It’s not that the city couldn’t handle the size of the games – after all we are considered (inflate head here) the ‘sporting capital of the world’, but rather that the games are just……… not so poignant anymore? Firstly, the British Empire may have been something in the ‘old days’ but now, well it may be about a quarter of the world, but… well I’ll let you decide. Secondly, and stemming from the first point, there is a noticeable lack of depth in competition. For the last 15 years Australia has absolutely dominated the medal tally (If Ian Thorpe were a country, he would have come 16th in Manchester), and although there are some noteworthy moments in the history of the games, it has always seemed to me like the retarded younger brother of the Olympics, never quite making the spotlight, and never quite having the level of competition of the Oly’s without the big players China, Russia or the US.

This is where grumpy Pete finishes and wooyay Pete starts. I have to admit, being the hopeless sports addict that quality or not, I’ve been watching the games closely on TV over the last week, and LOVED it all. The coverage is great (we have free foxtel at the moment) and the competition has been tighter than I was expecting. I also made the short trip into the CBD on Sunday to catch some live jazz as part of the cultural festival running simultaneously with the games. Although that turned pear shaped and we ended up boozing at the Belgian Beer cafe with proper jazz instead, the excursion was mind opening, and I started to feel that this may actually be a great thing for the city.

However, I officially became a commgames convert when I was dragged along (or actually rather happily went along) to the Squash with Tom last night. I didn’t even know it was possible to play doubles squash, but for $25, I couldn’t go wrong, even if it was just to say I’d been to the games while they were in my home town. After the session ended at the slightly too gentile time of 8:30, Tom and I decided to check out the rather tarted up city, and boy does she tart up. The crown flamey towers were going berserk as we passed under them, the fish on the river were amazing and the lit and coloured tops of buildings around south eastern part of the CBD should become a permanent touch. The atmosphere was electric, and apart from high to ridiculous beer prices, the evening was great fun. It’s just a real pity it took me until the 3rd last day to realise that the games were a good idea afterall. Oh well, maybe in another 80 years?

Pete

Lateline, for those outside of Australia is the weeknightly latenight news/current affair program of the national broadcaster, the ABC. In my opinion the show demonstrates an even handed, intelligent approach to journalism that the commercial networks fail to acheive, and coupled with its usually fascinating, high profile (and highly relevant) guest interviews, the show is probably my favourite news program on TV. I’m sure this has something to do with the fact that it is also the major news bulletin I watch the least (10:30pm is a tad late to be feeling particularly newsy), but another reason it tickles my fancy is that every now and again the producers manage to find a guest that blows my perception of reality so totally out the window that a little bit of late night, government funded television suddenly becomes 25 minutes of blink-free, absorb-every-bit-of-information television.

I’ve actually previously blogged about how impressed I’ve been with the show, specifically when a Russian climate expert came on to refute the supposed “global warming” we hear about so often. Anyway tonight’s program showcased an interview with former US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson. He quit the post when Powell did early last year, and has since become a vocal critic of the Bush administration, particularly about the leadup and course of the Iraq war, which of course he was involved heavily with. Basically his viewpoint is that it was, and continues to be an utter farce, and that the war is likely to surpass Vietnam as far as national embarrassments are concerned. In the interview, he tipped that the armed forces would take decades to overcome the deflated morale sustained over the last 3 years, and that regime change within the US (as in HUGE democrat win in 2008) was a foregone conclusion. Although I’m not so sure about the last point, due to my bitter disappointment in the American people’s voting habits the fact remains that Wilkerson proved to me so many things that I thought were a lost cause. There ARE people within (or just out of) the powerplayers of the US government that DO see the truth in the current situation. There ARE people that see where the American presence in Iraq is heading. There ARE people that seem to remember back past 9/11 in American politics, both domestically and internationally. There ARE people who actually care about the US foreign image.

Although all of these revelations made the interview incredibly interesting for me, the icing on the cake was Wilkerson’s closing statements. He recited how his mother had rung him last year and pleaded him not to become a democrat supporter (as his insubordination must have appeared), which he was shocked and horrified to hear even suggested. As far as he was concerned, it was not his political leanings that had changed, but rather those of the US administration. According to him, the republican party’s policies had run so far right of the moderate stance that the party held 10 years ago that it could no longer even be called neoconservative, but rather ‘neojacobinist’ – clearly a reference to the Jacobin party and it’s revolutionary, extremely radical right wing agenda. This was the first time I could recall hearing the term used, and THAT coinage is in my mind what made the interview a winner. He ended by slamming former colleagues and current cabinet members fairly indubitably such as the more eagle like (metaphorically speaking, of course) Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice.

Although I do believe that Bush’s administration has handled foreign diplomacy well in places, it was so reassuring to see a respected politician breaking rank and finally questioning the righteousness of current American policy. If only there were several hundred thousand Lawrence Wilkerson’s in the United states, the world might not be in such a pickle currently.

Pete

Ahh St Pat’s day – the one day that the 1/4 Irish in me (Paternal grandmother was born and lived in county Mayo) can revel in the wonder that it is.

Now – time for beeeeer.

Pete

As I was sipping a coffee yesterday opposite the girl I have just committed to traveling around the world with, I realised how few people knew about our plans, and more to the point how I hadn’t so much as hinted at these plans on this blog. So, it is with a due sense of decorum that I present to you, dear reader:

JUSTINE AND PETE’S MAGICAL ROMP AROUND THE WORLD!
No innuendo intended. Only available from 10am. One per customer.

Let me start from the beginning. On the first day of university for the year, I bumped into (or spied from afar) someone I thought I recognised as being Justine from school. Technically we didn’t go to school together, but rather she attended the ‘other’ campus of Wesley, out in the sticks. After not having seen Justine for some time, I wasn’t 100% sure it was actually her, but later that evening messaged J, out of intrigue. It ended up indeed being her, having that day started an Arts course at the university after completing a year of another course at RMIT in the city.

We decided it’d be nice to catch up for coffee the next day. Aswell as a lot of other stuff, I learnt that Justine was planning to travel to South America at the end of the year, and was just so looking for a travelling companion. After another couple of coffee’s over the next week, we headed to the travel agent together to ask a couple of questions. Now, only another week later, flights have been tentatively booked and a deposit has been paid. Justine and I leave for South America on the 26th (?) of November. Although I am extremely excited to be travelling again, and to a continent that was next on my hitlist anyway, the speed of which the whole thing has come together has suprised me no end – I’m often an impulsive sort of person, but this is a new record. I’m also going to struggle to afford the bloody trip – especially if we go for the whole summer, but I don’t suppose it’ll do any good worrying about finances, especially not now. I just have to get out there and make some bloody money.

Don’t think this is me having second thoughts – if I were, I wouldn’t have committed. It’s just that I’ve managed to suprise myself, and that doesn’t happen too often. If I didn’t know better I’d put it down to Justine’s bad influence.

Pete

The deal is you open your music library, chuck it on random and type the first 10 songs that play. Then you add ‘in my pants’ to the songname. Blame Jess.

Black Sabbath – The Wizard in my Pants
The Refugee All Stars – Bull to the Weak in my Pants
Sinatra – Come Fly with me in my Pants
Grinspoon – Hideaway in my Pants
Ben Harper – Picture of Jesus in my Pants
QOTSA – Hangin’ Tree in my Pants
Peter Tosh – Legalise It in my Pants
Editors – Blood in my Pants
Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining in my Pants
Brothers Johnson – Strawberry Letter in my Pants

Little bit worried about ‘blood in my pants’, but was otherwise fairly impressed. Especially for a library where 2/3 of the 6000 tracks are total rubbish.

Anyway, at this point I’m meant to ‘tag’ people. I can’t be arsed, so if you want to do it – go nuts. I’d love to see everyone’s combos, so leave a comment here.

Pete

Anyone who can claim to actually knowing me will be aware of my eclectic taste in music. I listen to almost anything and interestingly enough enjoy most of what I hear. I do have some groundrules though – I very rarely, if ever listen to commercial radio (I’m a J baby through and through) for example, although I’m willing to give anything a go regardless. Anyway, in this plethora of random crap, there is one staple that has stuck with me through thick and thin, and which I associate most closely with – Reggae in all its glory.

Before I go on I must make sure you all understand what reggae is. For many, the genre is only really known about through the work of Bob Marley, and even then only a couple of songs, belted out over the campfire or at a pub. Although he was undeniably the most influential musician in the field (and infact almost single handedly introduced Island music to the world at large) he by no means owns the genre. Reggae in its current(ish) form started in the early 1960′s from a fusing of differing musical styles, including R&B, Jazz and Blues from the US and the Calypso music of Africa (and the Caribbean). Most reggae is recognisable by it’s heavy drum & bass (although doesn’t neccessarily have to consist of either), and smooth, flowing rhythms. Sub-Genre’s include Dancehall, Ragga, Dub and the more popular, traditional Roots.

The particular sub-genre I’m talking about today is dub. Dub is a barebones form of reggae, heavy on the Drum and Bass, where a previously released song is cut back to little more than the bass line, played (usually without lyrics) repetitively with massive reverb and echo effects and mixed with sound samples from far reaching sources. For some, unknown reason it has become my favourite form of reggae recently, and I have decided to share some with you tonight.

If you care to crank up grannytunes, the first track is a dubbified version of an old Beatsquad song called Hospital, with the second a copy of the original. If you happen to be interested, listen to both versions and compare/contrast. You may find yourself trapped in the same bottomless pit I fell into years ago. “I need a hospital, coz I have fallen and broken my heart in two” Out of context that sounds emo. Anyway lack of sleep is getting to me, and I’m sure I’m not making any sense. Just listen to the music, and everything will be alright.

Oh it also pays to have a subwoofer for songs like this. Mmmmm tinnitus.

[EDIT 22/06 - Tracks no longer available here. Try looking at the artist pages.]

Pete

I’ve developed a little bit of a guilty pleasure over the last few weeks. I’ve been watching the (relatively) new show ‘Prison Break’ on TV. Usually I watch very little apart from Spicks and Specks – truly the greatest show ever invented – but for this I seem to have made an exception. Prison Break is unique because it has me intrigued, although not enough to have me download the episodes, so I’m watching them as they air which has actually turned out to be quite enjoyable.

One thing I worry about, especially after watching tonight’s episode (Episode 7 for those Americans out there so far infront of us lowly antipodeans) is the reality issue. The show was so promising – the idea and premise was great; the cinematography (is it still cinematography with TV?) is up there with the best I’ve seen as far as American syndicated TV shows are concerned; and the actors, although perhaps a little too pretty to be cons have been cast extremely well. Oh just to clarify that last point, I am aware that Michael and Lincoln are innocent (or purposely incarcerated), and therefore shouldn’t be expected to be typically ‘criminal’ looking, and infact you could argue that there isn’t a typical criminal look, but I believe otherwise.

I digress – my point is the series showed so much promise, until you look a little deeper. Everything is happening just a tad too coincidentally. The black crim who saw (and beat up) Michael as he was saving the hot doctor was shot minutes later by the crack team that had surrounded the prison. EVERY vent (including ones leading to the roof) that Michael comes to just happens to be loose or easy to pop off. The security in the prison’s caraspace is completely absent. The list goes on and on – a state governer would not get away (legally or politically) with bringing the army in to sort out a prison riot, just because his little girl is in there. Etc etc etc. One or two gripping coincidences make a show suprising and more fun. However, when the show is based on them the plausibility that is so neccessary for success goes straight out the window.

Oh well – believable or not, I’m sure I’ll be watching next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, although I have a sneaking suspicion that this show won’t be returning for a second season. There is, afterall only so much that you can bash out of a prison break storyline. Unless the producers decide to film after the guys are living the high life in Mexico. That’d be fun.

Pete