1990s: time for the guru

1. Tony Basil – Hey Mickey
   One of my earliest memories is my mother calling me inside because this song was playing on Countdown. Did you know that the song didn't become a hit until the filmclip was made three years after the song was recorded? True story.
2. Paula Abdul – Opposites Attract
   This song killed my innocence; I remember thinking that even though it was crap people would like because of the novelty of the video. And I was right.
3. SSQ – Synthicide
   Just a great track. SSQ was the former stage name of Stacey Q, who had a big hit with 'Two of Hearts.'
4. The Waitresses – I Know What Boys Like
   As a kid, I thought this song was by the same band who did the cover of the Beatles' 'Money' (The Flying Lizards). I was wrong, but I still think it's one of the best songs ever.
5. Cliff Richard & The Young Ones – Living Doll
   There were so many jokes I never understood in The Young Ones. I watched the entire run again recently and now I do (I think).
6. Starship – Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
   "Them say we carazy/ What do they know?" This line used to make me laugh me arse off as a stoned teenager. Me and some friends stole a compilation album, 1987 Right On Track, from my mum's album collection. We used to place this track and 'Boom Boom Boom Let's Go Back To My Room' by Paul Lekakis. We also made up a camp dance to 'Need You Tonight' by INXS.
7. INXS – Need You Tonight
   See above.
8. Berlin – Take My Breath Away
   Visions of a post-apocalyptic world have always freaked me out a little. I saw this clip not long after I saw The Day After. The song seemed very forlorn and the message of longing love was lost in all the bleak imagery; I thought it was about nuclear war.
   In an interesting aside, around the same period I was in a vox pop on a children's current affairs program called Kids Only! and asked what i thought about nuclear weapons. It was hosted by Glenn Ridge. No shit. The show I saw this song was Off The Record, also hosted by Glenn Ridge (on BTV6 in Victoria, back in the days when there was only two TV channels!). My mum used to tape the show and watch the episodes ad nauseum. I feel it's partly responsible for my depth of knowledge of 80s music.
   
9. Q Lazzarus – Goodbye Horses
   This track always seems mysterious to me. Apparently "Q Lazzarus" is a woman. A repeat viewing of Silence of the Lambs not so long ago showed me it was waaaay more homophobic than I remembered
10. Dungeon Family – Trans DF Express
    This song really got me into all the Aquemini/Rico Wade crew, especially Outkast and Cee-lo. At the time of its release, I couldn't believe it wasn't #1 everywhere.
11. Juicy – Notorious B.I.G
    I only started listening to the NBIG since I saw a doco on battle raps, and saw a clip of him at 16, battle-rapping on a street corner. This song rules.
12. A Flock Of Seagulls – I Ran
    I wish I could say that I've always liked this song, but it wasn't until I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that I really got into it.
    In a way, I'm hanging out for the US to invade Iran so we can play this song at protests.
    
13. Mi-Sex – Computer Games
    Early 1980s synth-pop from New Zealand at its finest.
14. Iron Maiden – Run To The Hills
    The archival clips in this video completely trivialise what is an amazingly deep song about the evils of colonisation. The humor of the clip totally contradicts the lyrics. What a gip. I always felt betrayed by this. Kind of the same as 'Physical' by Olivia Newton-John. Why did they opt for comedy in such a hot track?
15. Cibo Matto – Sugar Water
    The obligitory Michel Gondry video.
16. Plastic Bertrand – Ca Plane Pour Moi
    Remember when the played this song on Countdown Revolution and we used to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh? Me too.
    

turn off google personalised search

It seems like a lot of people aren't aware that Google gathers your search history and uses it as the basis for targetting ads. A similar analysis is done with the emails your write and receive with a Gmail account. This data history has been used in several court cases as evidence.

While I'm all for capturing murderers, this same information can be used by unscrupulous agencies (you know, like Google) to profile dissenters. And frankly, I cringe to think of some of the things I looked up before I knew this information was being kept (porn, okay? I was looking up porn. Stop hassling me).

Click here for instructions on disabling Google Personalised Search.

[UPDATE: The link seems to have been broken. Try here.]

snitches get stitches

Can you believe this mother-fucking shit?

For the link-lazy, the corporate media has decided to help the cops by publishing photos of those "most wanted" in relation to alleged crimes such as breaking things and hurting policemen during the G20 protests. Notice that, although there is a clear implication of guilt, it is unclear whether they are witnesses or suspects.

I have nothing but hate for Operation Salver, the squad formed to hunt down G20 protestors. "Salver", by the way, comes from a Spanish word that means "make safe" or "to save". It's also a tray for serving food to royalty.

Someone pointed out recently that in Europe (specifically Greece and Holland), there is a direct relationship between actions undertaken against state violence and the institutions created to deal with the aftermath, i.e. the crackdown.

In Greece, he reckons, there would be thousands out on the streets, doing something about this bullshit. But Australia is not Greece. We haven't had the recent history of dictatorship over the wider population that necessitated these structures, but we have had the extreme repression of the minority.

[That is to say, from my observation of what happened at G20, the form of actions from Europe seems to have been imitated without the same content.]

It's interesting that when you look at organisation amongst Australian aboriginals, you see institutions that have helped people cope with 219 years of hardcore violence. The response in relation to the bashing death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island points to the weaknesses in organisation amongst libertarians in Melbourne generally. On Palm Island you had a guy who, by all reports, was a bastard. Still, the community defended its own. Do you think cops will bash anyone else to death on Palm Island?

The differences between the two groups are obvious, and there are dangers in homogenising all aboriginal experiences, but I think anarchists could do worse than cherrypick the best aspects of aboriginal organisation and implement it.

As I said elsewhere, the lack of coordination amongst groups was an obvious problem before G20. I don't think anyone would've predicted this level of crap, but now it has happened I wonder how it will change things in the future.

Wow, look at me. I'm so down with the blacks. But seriously, this shit will not stand.

And remember the rules:

1. Shut the fuck up.
   Give a "no comment" interview, even if you haven't done anything. Just give your name and address. No matter how hard the cops ride you, even if they bash you. Over 90% of convictions are made on testimony, and cops are adept at tricking you into saying things that make you look guilty. It's your right to have a lawyer with you before you give a statement. And please morons, there is no such thing as "off the record" when it comes to cops.
   
2. Stick up for your mates.
   Who else is going to stick up for you? If you have a mate in trouble, you help them out. It's that simple.
   
3. There is nothing lower than a scab.
   A scab betrays their class, their humanity and abandons their right to live safely in a civilised society. A close relative of the despised snitch, the scab lives in the boss's pocket and is often seen scurrying about, trying to hide their shame. They are to be shot on sight.

Get familiar with your rights if you suspect you're going to be arrested.


Keeping with the hip-hop tangent, the following story is reproduced from the latest Popbitch newsletter.

Rap legend Slick Rick spent his 41st birthday, January 14th, incarcerated in a Florida immigration detention centre. Back in the 80s Rick was in the charts with Doug E Fresh with The Show but now Rick’s fighting deportation to Britain, his birthplace, from where his family emigrated in 1975.

Rick aka Richard Walters’s career collapsed in the 1990s when he shot his pregnant cousin and her boyfriend in an argument where Walters alleged they were trying to extort money. He served five years and 12 days in jail then saw his comeback album, featuring a who’s who of hip-hop inc Nas, Snoop Dogg, Outkast and Wu-Tang Clan, bomb.

In June 2002, after performing on a Caribbean cruise ship, Rick was arrested in Florida for “deporting himself” and “illegally re-entering the country”. A new 9/11 inspired-law allowed all felons with five years jail time not born in USA to be deported. Walters spent 17 months in jail before being released then was re-incarcerated last year, when the Department of Homeland Security took up the case again. Two months ago a US district court judge ruled that he should not be deported but Rick remains in the detention centre with no official release date.

The US government must think terrorism issues are now so minor that it wants to spend so much time and energy on the security threat posed by an aging black rapper.

Fuck the global poor. Next time I'm at a protest, I'll be doing it for Slick Rick.

eating mcs and spitting out the chains

I figured I might just be a web 2.0 ho seeing that I've been to busy to do or write anything exciting.

After this week I'm going to get around to doing that series of podcasts I've been promising for ages. Stay tuned.

Below are some vids with MF Doom, my equal favourite MC at the moment (along with Cee-lo). The last vid (the google video one) is a Madvillain clip.

friends

Once more, YouTube delivers.

party in your eyeball

This is a photo taken on New Year's Eve. Did I have a good time? I'll let you draw your own conclusions from two facts: I called my brother at 5am and talked more bullshit than I have ever in my life (well, in one sitting anyway. It involved a lot of demands for people to "federate", worker's self-management being a panacea for everything and trash talkin' the popo –– granted, not technically bullshit but, well, you had to be there).

My friend to the left came up with my favourite quotable for 2006 and just in the nick of time too: "Party in your eyeball?" It sounds heaps better in a Japanese accent. The reference was to her administering menthol eyedrops at opportune moments. For the record, she was also being as Japanese as she could in that photo.

I haven't posted for a while because I've been on holidays and haven't really much to report, but will get onto it soon.