Archive for May, 2009

  • 14 May

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    Eurovision! (Part 2)

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    Okay, so yesterday I covered the As to half-Is on this year’s contestants. Let’s continue, shall we?

    ISRAEL. Note to Israel — a random English sentence thrown in here and there doesn’t really aid comprehension. Just fyi.

    LATVIA.

    Kaz: Why have sub-titles? why not sing it in English to begin with?
    J: Because using English could spoil the song, although that’s not a consideration with this one. Latvia produces good sprats though.
    K: Yeah, Riga Sprats. They rock.

    LITHUANIA. Wow, pretentious, forgettable and emo. The European hat-trick.

    MALTA. Forget it.

    MOLDOVA. You have the name of your country in your song title? Despite that, it’s surprisingly good, although J wonders what all those men do on all those open, grazing pastures that stretch to the horizon.

    MONTENEGRO. The dude in sunglasses reminded me of a manager I once had. Hilarious for me. Otherwise, forgettable.

    NETHERLANDS. Oh. My. God. Bing and Bong, your next series theme song awaits. And, dudes, if you look that confused in the clip, imagine how we feel.

    NORWAY. Oh, there was such sappy cuteness here I almost got diabetes on the spot. Little Dinosaur is now officially in love. Also, I didn’t realise that Norway is a haven for out-of-condition Cossacks.

    POLAND. Pa. Thet. Ic.

    PORTUGAL. I was being a bit nationalistic about Portugal, considering my heritage ‘n’all and found out that the band used only traditional Portuguese instruments in their song. In this way, they showed how the country bored audiences through the centuries.

    ROMANIA. J awards douze points for the shoes alone. Austin Powers’ fembots! And horses! And a Jamiroquai fanboi! Will the excitement never end?

    RUSSIA. Wouldn’t have been been out of place in a galactic singing competition … as the Klingon entry. Russia seems to be vying with France for the most smug “what, don’t you understand our language?” vibe.

    SERBIA. There’s a stereotype of a black 70s pimp hiding in there somewhere, I swear! Also, I’m reliably informed — in between gales of laughter — that the song title roughly means “small vagina” in Polish.

    SLOVAKIA.     Forgettable, concussed goldfish mode, but points for an interesting use of a picture frame.

    SLOVENIA. Frames? Did someone say frames?

    SPAIN. Julio Iglesias grows boobs. Otherwise, naive.

    SWEDEN. It’s okay when you can actually hear her voice, but the smugness quotient is alarmingly high. Damn socialists!

    SWITZERLAND. I love Switzerland. They’re always awful, but not so bad that you actually remember them from year to year. (Unlike Austria.) For 2009, they’re only two decades out of date. Keep trying, guys. You’ll reach the 21st century soon. Er, you know Nirvana is now passé, don’t you?

    TURKEY. Cool, but how do these jeans stay on? J says there’s no soul in this year’s entry. Well, at least the costumes weren’t expensive.

    UKRAINE. Love their work! Chocolate grunge! You may wonder why they’re singing about Valentines in May but I award points for Svetlana’s hair alone.

    UNITED KINGDOM. Like Austria, who manages to embarrass at almost every Eurovision, the UK manages to bore. Nothing to see here, move along.

    So there you have it. A rundown on all the 42 entries. Favourites?

    J: In no particular order: Finland, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Armenia, Bulgaria.
    Me: Armenia, followed by Ukraine, Estonia, and Azerbaijan. No clear fifth place.

    Why not have a go yourself, by going to the Preview Videos page at Eurovision TV. Break out the popcorn, popcorn-shooters and streamers, and have yourself some fun.

    And remember, commenting means you’re in the running to win a copy of A Pirate’s Passion, now available from Total-E-Bound.

  • 13 May

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    Eurovision! (Part 1)

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    Ah, it’s that time of year again. Eurovision. I love Eurovision, although it’s a mostly unknown concept here in south-east Asia, prompting us to instead tune in to the Eurovision website to satisfy our hankering for all things kitsch and bobbing.

    Part of the immense fun of Eurovision is, frankly, throwing popcorn at the screen at various acts and both The Wast and Little Dinosaur joined us for a little time (before their night curfew) to check out the Preview Videos, which are all flavours of awesome. Especially the bad ones! There are 42 participants in this year’s competition, which is spread across 3 days, with the finals being held on Sunday. At first, I thought I’d only comment on some of the entries but that’s a bit unfair so I’m going to give you our rundown on all 2009 entries. Yes, lucky you! First 21 today; next 21 tomorrow.

    My thanks to J for being able to roughly translate a frightening number of non-English entries. Who knew the Slavic roots were so widespread? Horny little devils.

    [And please bear in mind that Eurovision is famous for being kidded, so take everything with a pinch of fun, okay?]

    Warning: some nasty language ahead!

    ALBANIA. Nice looking place. Channelling ABBA imperfectly.

    ANDORRA. Anonymous, girlie pop.

    ARMENIA. Oh, outstanding, with a charming video … once it gets started.

    AZERBAIJAN. J’s favourite. Azerbaijan does Arnold Vosloo, with a belt buckle that’s pure Wolowitz.

    BELARUS. Who says the 70s are dead? Plus, those cuffs could double as rice scoops.

    BELGIUM. Forget it.

    BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA. J tells me the lyrics are socially profound. I’m more obsessed with wondering if she’s wearing underpants.

    BULGARIA. Medieval hacking meets bittersweet love story. There’s enough material in the clip alone for an LoTR (Lord of the Rings) type trilogy. With horses.

    CROATIA. Guess who has Photoshop?

    CYPRUS. Firefly? Man, it had better be the series. Sadly, no. Creepy Twilight vibe though. With horses.

    CZECH REPUBLIC. The Austria of 2009. Well done!

    DENMARK. Forgettable. Oh, and emo.

    ESTONIA. Different. Classy. Don’t think she should’ve played the violin though. It was good but interrupted the flow. Loved the background.

    FINLAND. Social commentary meets bitumen with a dash of rigor mortis. Full points for the non-blinking eyes, but the angel inclusion needed a barf bag. No horses, though, so that’s a plus.

    FRANCE. The country’s aware that Edith Piaf’s dead, right? But I do love the “what, don’t you understand French? Then fuck you!” vibe that consistently runs through France’s Eurovision entries. And they’re surprised they never win.

    FYR MACEDONIA. Ah, the 80s. Big hair. Big bass guitar riffs. Vocals with emotion choked in the throat. But hold on …?

    GERMANY. Did Merkel pay for this Kiss Kiss USA effort?

    GREECE. Pleasant. Forgettable. Cute … but not in profile.

    HUNGARY. Right Said Fred, reincarnated into a very uncomfortable-looking future that sounds like a cross between the Bee Gees and Earth, Wind & Fire.

    ICELAND. We are so poor now, I can’t even afford a decent song.

    IRELAND. Oh lord, I want to forget! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaassssseeeeee!

    Come back tomorrow for the rest and J and my picks. Oh, and comment if you want to be in the draw for a copy of A Pirate’s Passion.

  • 12 May

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    Pirate competition

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    I’ve been cracking my skull trying to come up with a competition to give away a copy of my latest release, “A Pirate’s Passion“. I know I have readers out there :: voice echoing in an empty sound chamber :: but I also know most of you like reading more than you like commenting. What to do?

    Okay, to take into consideration all the lurkers out there, how’s this? From now till the end of this month, anyone who comments on a blog from today onwards goes into the draw for a copy of Pirate. You can go to my website to read the entire first chapter of this, and all my other, releases. And you can also download a PDF sampler that has all the first chapters collected in one convenient place for you.

    And I’ll also make the posts a mix of the politics and the trivia. That way you can remark on an innocuous blog and not have the FBI take down your name and IP details for possible future surveillance, although I kinda think they’re doing that for all writers already. Your time starts … now. Happy commenting!

  • 08 May

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    Southern perspective: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

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    I originally started by calling this a review, and I’ll still classify this under Reviews, but it isn’t really. As we all know, reviewers always bring their baggage to everything they’re reviewing, so rather than just let you guess where I’m coming from, I’m stripping off all that crap and letting you know straight off.

    There is so much already written about the movie, both the original and the re-make with Keanu Reeves, that I won’t belabour the issues here. Essentially, it boils down to Original – Good, Remake – Bad. And that’s fine with me.

    (However, as a parent, can I just say that both characters — Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, and Jaden Smith as Jacob — riled the hell out of me? A supposed parent casually handing over a child to someone else when the government come for her? Leaving a child alone in a car while she goes looking for the alien in a crowded public transport hub? Letting the child leave the car to go to the toilet in McDonalds by himself? It was as if there was Some Big Point to be made regarding human relationships but, until we got to that part of the script, it was really irrelevant how the step-mother and step-son interacted, or even where they were. All in all, this part of the movie was very badly handled.)

    But, moving right along, it occurs to me that this movie could only have been made by a First World power. Think about it. We have a less-developed civilisation. A more advanced civilisation comes along and says that the primitives have trashed the place. They’re going to instill their version of justice, but the primitives are not to know how. It’s enough just to know that the advanced civilisation is, um, advanced. The advanced civilisation starts a “surge” of metal locusts. Then they seem to change their mind and leave, removing the only way that the primitives have of, say, sustaining their health care system and general infrastructure. You’re on your own. Go on, impress us. And if anything else happens, it’s Your Fault. Even though we didn’t tell you how to do it better. (And what was with the James Hong character? How did a so-called “assignment” like that make any kind of sense?) Even though we didn’t exactly explain what we were doing to you in the first place. Even though we’re supposedly sooooo advanced. We’ll just do what we want to do, leave when we want to leave, deliberately leave you in a state of abject poverty, and then expect you to develop a fully functioning Western democracy oops, I mean fully functioning environmentally sensitive civilisation for your entire planet.

    Yeah right. The movie was made in 2008, which means it was thought up in the middle of Bush’s neocon regime. And it got me thinking. You’d think that there are no two populations further apart than a military neocon think-tank, and a bunch of liberal film-makers in Hollywood, right? And yet the movie seems to exemplify every hare-brained scheme the United States has indulged in in recent years, from Somalia to Iraq to Afghanistan, to (now) Pakistan. Why is that? Was the director/screenwriter a mate of Wolfowitz? Were there military advisors involved? Or is there some common thread in the American psyche? I’m open to suggestions here.

    ON A LIGHTER NOTE: Maria Zannini has a gift voucher for “A Pirate’s Passion” up for grabs at her site. All you have to do is comment here sometime before Saturday (9 May) noon, US Central time. (Thanks Maria!) I’ll have something up for Pirate myself next week. Ah, it’s nice to have friends.

  • 05 May

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    A word or two on pirates

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    The Western world seems to be on a bit of a downer regarding pirates at the moment. Considering I currently have a pirate book out, this is of particular interest to me. So, if I may, I’d like to ponder two worlds.

    FICTION

    In the galactic Republic, pirate cartels roam the vast space between star systems. Hated by the despotic human-led Republic, they make their money through plunder and ransom. The aristocratic class of the Republic, the gentry, especially despise the cartels, being their favourite prey. Both sides hold the other in utter contempt.

    Gilthen Ahn is a pirate captain of the Darck Banks cartel. He is a pirate because he was born to pirates and he could not abide the cruelty of the Republic. While some of his crew are in it purely for the money, more than half his crew are there out of necessity, having left behind worlds of crushing exploitation in order to seek something better. Smolich, for example (a young pirate gofer), escaped his small community and is working in the cartel to earn money (which he sends back to his family) and to eventually ascend to a position of authority. He hopes to then persuade Gil to take the cartel back to his home system and kill the people responsible for murdering members of his family and enslaving the rest of his community. Whether he succeeds or not remains to be seen. Usourne is an apparent orphan who was a child prostitute at a space port before she found protection, and the beginning of healing, as part of Wonn’s crew.

    That’s part of the serious background to — what I hope — is an otherwise engaging and enjoyable story. It is fiction, after all.

    REALITY

    After a sea-facing national government collapsed in 1991, the fishermen of the nation started seeing ship after ship dump barrels into the sea. After a tsunami in 2005, hundreds of barrels washed up on shore, where they caused birth defects and radiation sickness in the inhabitants. The barrels, the fishermen found out, contained nuclear waste and came from European ships. At the same time, along other parts of the coast, trawler after trawler — in clear contravention of sovereign rights — started fishing off this nation, severely depleting seafood stocks (including tuna, shrimp and lobster), destroying livelihoods and starving the nation’s inhabitants.

    The fishermen, unable to stop either the dumping or overfishing via legal means, formed a “Volunteer Coastguard” to stop the ships. And so the pirates of Somalia were born.

    As Johann Hari also put it:

    Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about “evil.” If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause – our crimes – before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.

    And did you know that the American Founding Fathers paid pirates to protect America’s seas while the fledgling country still lacked a navy? But again, we’re talking about global North versus global South here, and it’s not hard to see who wins in that particular spat. “Our” pirates (“patriot pirates”, if you will) are okay (including the British Navy throughout history), but “yours” aren’t, even if they’re 16 or 19 year old young men, driven to desperation and ransom after watching their families starve and die of sickness. Rather than deal with the issue, a proud sniper kills three of them (as one commentator at a conservative blog put it: “One pirate, one bullet Now that’s keeping an eye on the taxpayers money. economy you can appreciate.” Nyuk nyuk) while Obama’s administration draws up plans to invade Somalia.

    For non-mainstream perspectives on a little of what the West has wrought in Somalia, see Jeremy Scahill and Johann Hari’s article in its entirety. You thought I was joking about the Somalia invasion? Scahill again and Bloomberg.

    Iraq. Af-Pak. (It’s not Afghanistan anymore, it’s Afghanistan-Pakistan, or Af-Pak as it’s now known. Keep up, will you?) Somalia. Seems no matter what I try to write, reality always trumps me. Sad, isn’t it?

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