The most amazing slide blues player you’ve ever heard

Derek Trucks

How to make a recording, circa 1930

Duke Ellington and the boys have literally cut a new disc!

Was Michael Jackson’s memorial the tackiest thing ever or what?

OK, no… ..wait. Let me rewind from that headline. Sort of. I mean, it WAS the tackiest thing ever, no mistake. BUT, it was also exactly what everyone expected. In a funny way it was touching. I didn’t even mind Al Sharpton’s speech, it was actually very secular–he didn’t even use the word God. And his assurance to the children that Daddy wasn’t as strange as the media monster he created, was the right thing to say from the right man to say it.

Usher can fuck off. Leaning on the gold coffin with aviator shades on. Really? Is that where we are now? Is that what we do when someone famous goes the way of all flesh? Parading the children Michael Jackson worked so hard to keep away from the cameras less than a week after he’s gone? Well.. ..maybe that’s just the jaded old cynic in me. Maybe the children actually wanted to part of the proceedings? Maybe there was an agreement with a major paparazzi outfit to leave them alone on the proviso they gave them tomorrow’s front page? It’s not a tactic beneath the Royal family, so maybe it actually works. Who knows?

What’s not in doubt is, the hand on heart truth (and I say this as a lifelong Prince fan) that when Michael Jackson did what Michael Jackson did, he was untouchable. Flawless. And if there’s one thing Americans do better than any other nation, it’s show respect for people who have earned it. It is the single most endearing thing about them–even when they go too far.

Driving back from my friend’s house tonight, having watched the proceedings with him, it occurred to me that I probably don’t explain myself very well sometimes, despite trying. I was prompted, then, to underline that the whole “atheism agenda thing”, which has underpinned much of this blog for the past months, isn’t motivated by hate–it’s driven by the same dissatisfaction with ordinariness everyone feels. I just happen to enjoy taking it out on the keyboard once in a while.

However, the Michael Jackson memorial also reminded me that there is a whole world of wonderful people, who just happen to have a blind spot when it comes to beliefs. Yes, he admitted, on camera, that he shares his bed with boys who stayed at his house. Yes, he turned white and had half his head removed. Yes, the whole thing of shouting, “Woh!!” in a dry ice miasma got tired 15 years ago. Yes, the ballads are sickeningly obvious schmaltz. But first and foremost he was a man who got shit done. He raised the bar. He was Michael fucking Jackson.

So, by way of an apology to anyone who simply tried to communicate with me, only to be met by up-front challenges to the things they hold closest, here’s a line in the sand. On one side, the beliefs of believers. On the other, what we know and can prove. But the line is drawn. There will be no more direct challenges to those beliefs on this blog–only a more focused attempt to blog weekly on what we can all agree needs discussing, as and when the news agenda comes around.

The back archive of posts on this logical fallacy and that biblical contradiction aren’t going anywhere. Nor are the borderline NSFW babe pics which bring in so many Google page rankings each week–hey, I’m a clicks whore, shut the fuck up!

Simply put, there is no God and the bible is confused hotchpotch of evil shit and beautifully crafted, timeless folklore you’d have to be pretty stupid not to “get” something from. Now let’s move on to something rather less obvious, shall we?

Michael Jackson. 750 Million Albums Worldwide. 1958 – 2009

Preposterously good

Anthony Jackson, Michael Petrucciani, Steve Gadd

This is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on the internet

This guy has taken sound samples from various musicians and performers on YouTube and mashed them together into new music.

Track 7, ‘Just a Lady’, should be a number one hit single.

http://thru-you.com