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The TWELFTH NIGHT 'VOICES IN THE NIGHT' Double CD is now available on Cyclops Records. The album of previously unreleased material, includes 3 of the earliest Twelfth Night tracks written and performed with 'Electra', in that brief, but glittering period when she was their lyricist/vocalist. If you like the words 'PROG' and 'ROCK' in the same sentence, you'll like this. So, GO get it NOW! [SLEEVE NOTES] [Hey, don't you guys owe me a Royalty cheque???!!!!]

AUGUST 2008 - - California Dreaming

Sun 17 August 2008 - MGCK Music MODERN LOVE

'Hills' vs 'Anna Karenina'

- oh boy, here comes a long one...

I'm troubled... I'm perturbed... Watching 'Hills' last night on MTV - The 'Lauren Looks Back' episode:

I don't have to fully explain or reveal my motives. My life is not a reality TV show. I just happened to be watching 'Hills'. A purely accidental, remote-surfing, lunar-landing, kinda thing... And, yet, I'll admit, while watching it, I developed a soft-spot for ' LC' who began the series at 18 and is now perhaps 20-21... I like her now. I don't know why. She's got 'something'... but what she's ALSO got is lousy taste in predictably good-looking, predictably-moneyed young men. She hooks up at odd moments with anyone handsome, driving a Cadillac Escalade, BMW or Porsche, and calls it 'LOVE'!! Then weeps her eyes out when the very same dude is caught red-handed, always in some trendy public setting, ON CAMERA, kissing his 'ex' or some straggler (always a friend or roommate of hers!): embarrassing her VERY VERY VERY publicly! (Globally, actually)

'Lauren' suffers the consequences of H.U.D. ('hooking-up' disappointment) more times than you've had hot dinners. She reminds me of a female Prometheus', chained to the rock, with the eagle eating her liver every day. Difference is, Prometheus was chained. This girl has a driver's license, money and wheels. Her miseries are self-generated, repetitive and unrelenting. Let's face it; she's unlucky in love and if she keeps this up, she'll be UNLUCKY IN LIFE!!! So...trying to get practical and 'knuckle down' Lauren starts talking to and taking the advice of her Teen Vogue mentor - a steely-faced, wrinkle-defeating, 40-something, stony-serious career bitch, who (if you were smart!) you'd rather take a bullet in the face than emulate. Through this shining human cipher, Lauren tries to focus on a compelling and oh so promising career in fashion. But clearly, her hormones won't let her make such wise modern, practical, clued-in choices, cause she f*cks that up too.

Now come the troubling comparisons: Right before I turned to 'HILLS', I'd been watching PART 1 of the 1967 Russian film version of Tolstoy's epic novel 'ANNA KARENINA'. In that great novel (and film) Tolstoy explores and describes in bitter, throbbing, impossibly aching detail - the pinnacle of obsessed Love + Passion as pure Tragedy. - Already familiar with the story and living it once or twice in my own life, I've got to say, give me the tragic life destroying LOVE AND PASSION any time over the casual mealy-mouthed, passive-fanny'd, 'hooking-up' disappointments.

There's 2 phrases a man has to utter before I'll give him the time of day: -

1) "Anything for you my dear."

2) "I would die for you."

That last phrase being the most important. Without that, you've got nothing to build a relationship on.

At least ANNA KARENINA and COUNT VRONSKY are IN love and screaming '"I WOULD DIE FOR YOU!" and have eyes for absolutely NO ONE else. They want THIS Love object and THIS love object alone - for eternity. Unfortunately, eternity doesn't last that long and the collapse of the passion and loss of the love kill Anna in the end... but my oh my.. what an end. Beats wondering if Jason or Spencer or Tony or BRODY! were still 'thinking' about you (these guys don't 'think') or had 'moved on' or 'gone back' to Veronica or Charlene or Jessica... and did Heidi sleep with him???? It's worse than the desperate, embarrassing, 'singleton' mishaps of Bridget Jones and Sex & The CIty - because, so far... 'Hills' doesn't have a happy or passionate ending! (it doesn't have a happy or passionate MIDDLE!) There seems to be NO POINT to the torture and no reward in sight!!!!

Which created my dilemma last night: I sat, remote in hand, glued to an hour of HILLS sex-desperation and thought, 'So why do they do it?!?!' and came to the conclusion: 'Modern' women have lost something profound. They've lost their feminine wiles. Their organic occultic power to manipulate and control men. It seems they have absolutely NO power to command respect or 'love'.

In the Tolstoy story, a Russian Princess describes love as 'an antediluvian concept'. I'm guessing its not that love is out-dated or out-moded; in a consumer society, we're trained to value the 'veneer' above all else. It's difficult for a girl raised in a filament-thin veneer-loving culture to recognise when she's being had, even if it's over and over again. (Well.. maybe she's just stupid.) OK.. he's got a hot car, nice abs and a condo in Laguna. His parents have a 35,000 sq foot monster up on the hill... So what are you gonna do? My advice: Go old-fashioned. Play hard to get. NO HOOKING-UP! (Men STILL only really want what they can't have.) Marry the paper-thin, Escalade-driving, boring-eyed, handsome moneyed dude, have a kid or two, to secure the alimony and wait for Count Vronsky to come along!

Really and oh so really... nothing really changes.

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Sat 9 August 2008 - MGCK Music PURE AIR

Yesterday was the significant MONEY NUMBERED lucky day 08/08/08. Some people were in Beijing watching the opening of the Olympics (questionable politically) and other, more enlightened beings were here in San Francisco @ The Grand Ballroom watching The National AIR GUITAR Finals! The best AIR in America!! I was one of those lucky and enlightened beings. And it was a HOOT! When I get the video sorted out, I'll post it here. Actually, this clip was the most 'perfect' clip, even if I can't remember this guy's name or city of origin. But for me, he captures the organic, 'no guts no glory' Spirit of 'Air-ness'.

[actually - He calls himself 'STRYKER' and he's from Denver or Detroit????. 'Hot LIxx Hoolihan' won, but I wasn't that impressed with his early performance]

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Wed 6 August 2008 - MGCK Music Battle of Opinions on YouTube

That Gay Pride video I posted to YouTube really created a sh*tstorm of opinions going back and forth. Particularly between a dude called GLOBAL GRINGO and a woman called LISA. Some of the interchange is just plain ugly and other parts are just plain FUNNY.

Lisa's best comment to date: ""You dare to call ME a moron when you can't spell "ridiculous", don't know that Africa is a continent, can't look up letters in your own congressional archive, and ignore cited scientific studies in favor of your own prejudicial statements. Really? You argue the same ignorant points over and over (I was going to say like a man, but I guess it's like a STUPID MAN). I actually RAISE my children. I discuss issues with them that I want them to learn about. It's called PARENTING. You should try it. ""

Go LISA!!! It's just great stuff. You can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EipeElt9jVY

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Tonight - they can't ALL be sunny sun sets.

The mood shifts as the marine layer sets in along the Northern California coast.

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Fri 1 August 2008 - MGCK Music Total Eclipse of the Sun!

from Novosibirsk (where else?)

Art is the most beautiful of all lies.
Claude Debussy
more Famous Quotes

I was listening to "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" this morning. Claude Debussy ROCKS!!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST... we say farewell to the setting sun - last night of July and only hours before the TOTAL ECLIPSE of this same sun, on 1 August - which will be visible on another continent much further North and West of here.

I desperately want to sail on one of these cargo ships that depart San Francisco Bay every evening under the Golden Gate Bridge and head out across the vast Pacific - escorted in the fading light by flocks of pelicans

Debussy said, '"Art is the most beautiful of all lies", but in truth, I think Nature is better.

[photos © EC Smith, 'Land's End' in Lincoln Park, San Francisco, 31 July 08]

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And as with every new month... I'll be retiring an 'old' month.. Probably JULY 2005 - Weird Attractors.....

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If you're looking for LAST MONTH's heavens and hells - go to: Jul-Jun-May-Apr 08 -california dreaming

Still smokin'!!!!

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BE THERE...... or BE SOMEWHERE ELSE! If you don't know how.. take lessons

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SPACE: The FINAL FRONTIER! Always an eyeful: The Universe Today

Sites worth a visit and support are: http://www.adbusters.org and Be an 'Antipreneur' - anti-corporate - self-motivated activist: http://adbusters.org/metas/politico/antipreneur/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk

as always www.clearchannelsucks.net

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