The Advent Jukebox, Day 8...I'll Be Home For Christmas.

ATuneADayKeepsTheTrumpyness
AwayVille


It may not be anything remotely similar to the Bing Crosby version.

Or, truth be told, anything much at all.

But longtime reader Don F. asked for it, so here goes...

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The Advent Jukebox, Day 7....Let It Snow.

AllYourWhiteStuff
IsNotOftenOursVille


Two reasons....

First, because longtime reader BY asked for it.

Second, because we are currently riding the pineapple, hard, which means we won't have any of the white stuff in Lotusland for awhile.

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Image At Top Of Post...The Flying Squirrel kitten's first snowfall a couple of Decembers ago. 


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The Keef Report: Sometimes A Block Is Just A Block...

...And Sometimes It Could Be Much More.

Last week I noted that the good Mr. Baldrey blocked me from reading the mutterings from his Twittmachine feed, this despite the fact that I have never, ever attempted to become one of his many 'most-exaulted importance validating' followers.

Which led to all kinds of commiseration from numerous other denizens of the Bloggodome (i.e. the inquisitive amateurs) who have suffered the same fate.

And even one very special double-secret probational badge of honour.

All of which has me wondering...

Will the Keef do the same thing to Lotuslandian proMedia Club members who dare to criticize, even gently, his take on things?

Like.

Say.

This...

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There is a Club?... As the late Ian Reid once pointed out, there sure as heckfire is.


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Advent Jukebox, Day 6...Christmastime In The Mountains.

AllIsCalm
AllIsNotSoBrightVille


This is a Will Oldham/Palace Songs(ish) arrangement of a tune that may or may not have been written by bandmate Roy Black.

I first heard the thing buried in a Hansard/Irglova/Frames live version of Star-Star awhile back, sung by Joe Doyle...Then, more recently, I came across it as a home recording from Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray...If you want to know why the latter folks are my new musical favourites check out...This.

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Advent Jukebox, Day 5.....The River.

KnowItDon'tSnowHere
StaysPrettyGreenVille


The last day of class the kids come to school with me and we do a song or two and hand out candy canes and stuff.

We've been doing it, in some form or another, for a long time now.

In fact, the first time Bigger E. was four.

And littler e. has been doing it since she was a baby.

This year, on Friday, we did 'Blue Christmas'.

In years past we often did Joni Mitchell's 'River' with E. on vocals and the littler e. on the keys.

In more recent years, when E. was on the other side of the continent taking classes of her own, I even tried it myself once...

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Advent Jukebox, Day 4...Starry Starry Night.

LookSkyward
AngelsVille


I've always felt that there was something strangely baroque that peeks out of the spare arrangement of this fine little tune by Mr. Mclean.

But is it a Christmas tune?

I dunno.

But it's winter to me...

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Requests coming!...Thanks for the suggestions.


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Advent Jukebox, Day 3....Fairytale Of New York.

WellSoCould
AnyoneVille


Has there ever been a better example of how important it is to be able to separate the artist from their art than the life and times of the good Mr. MacGowan?

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Bigger E. makes this one.

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This Day In Clarkland....Having Their Cake And Eating Their Base Too.

ThroughAReformatoryGlass
DarkishlyVille


I was wondering what their strate(r)gy will be.

Specifically.

How, exactly, will the Wizards of Clarklandia keep their whackadoodle fringe in line while they simultaneously cozy up to, and attempt to bask in the glow of, the reflected heat of the Justinerator?

Looks like this week has given us a preview of how it is going to go down, which is to simultaneously do things like...

Embrace the upstream emmissions-free, uber-clean pipedream of the Sparkle Pony pantheon on carbon tax parade while you trash any and all calls for moderate Senate reform.

Or some such thing.



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The Advent Jukebox, Day 2.....Star Star.

CanYouHelpMeTo
SeeVille


While it has not yet quite reached the status of that huge can of Capra corn, one of my favourite movies to watch during the holiday season these days is 'Once'.

For all kinds of reasons, of which there are too many to go into here.

Anyway....

I understand why the song 'Star Star', which was penned by Mr. Hansard without Ms. Irglova some years before the Swell Season formed, is not in the movie.

Still, I wish it was in the movie anyway for all kinds of reasons purely musical but also for the history it has with the pair.

Here's my own version with a little Hansardesque lyrical/melodic ad-libbing of my (almost) own at the end

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Image at the top is of a Star Man seen above the skies of Point Arena California a few July 4th's ago...

The Advent Jukebox Is Back!

25SongsIn25Days

HopefullyVille


I got thinking about this year's passel of Christmas(ish) cover songs a day early while on the way to work yesterday morning.

And at that time it really was like I was walking/bike riding through a winter wonderland somewhere deep in the rest of Canada.

Of course, by this morning everything was back to normal, weather wise at least, here in Lotusland.

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The Keef Report...No Mas.

AllFollowersAreNot
EqualVille


Been really, really, really end-of-term, paper-revision-deadline busy.

Which means I haven't been keeping up on on all things #bcpoli.

But last night a reader sent me a note about some kind of dust-up on the Twittmachine between various proMedia club members backed with the comments of a few citizen cultists that actually pay attention.

So, in the interest of responsible blogging, before weighing in on the matter (which seems to have started with this), I thought I should head on over to the Keef's feed to get the good Mr. Baldrey's take on the matter.

And...

Well...

Fearless journalism, indeed.


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Did somebody say 'cults'....Ya, actually....Somebody once did.



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Does Ms. Clark Have Another Justin Problem?

FiveConditionsInTatters
PayToPlayVille


The preamble, from the (here's hoping) newly invigorated MoCo:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called for a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic for B.C.'s North Coast.

Trudeau outlined the directive in a mandate letter to Canada's transport minister, Marc Garneau, on Friday. In it, he asked Garneau to formalize the agreement with three other ministries: fisheries, natural resources and environment...

{snippety doo-dah}

..."This ban ends the dangerous Northern Gateway pipeline proposal," said Karen Mahon, from ForestEthics, an environmental group that advocates for the protection of B.C.'s coast. "Without tankers, crude oil has no place to go, that means no pipelines, no oil trains moving tarsands to the northern B.C. coast."...


Now.

Why is this a potential 'second Justin' problem for the Clarklandians, etcetera?

Well...

First there is the potential of riling up that most debased wing of their base into 'independent' action.

But this?

Well, this hits the cronies with the mostest  right in their faux free market breadbaskets.

Gosh.

The next thing you know, the Justinies will start asking for real environmental assessments for megaprojects and actual true open bids for transit infrastructure.

Whatever will the cronies do then?


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And what will the local puffed-up punditry have to say about this latest abject failure of Ms. Clark's completely made-up Sparkle Pony dreams?....Hmmmm....Let's see....Have they blamed Dave Stupich for anything recently?


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My Tunebox.

AllTheSongsThatFit
UnderAWarblyVoicedSkyVille


Here are the tunes at the top rotation at the moment...

New Tune!....Aside... The Weakerthans are gone now...And somehow I think this tune is a great one to remember them by...It's got everything in terms of the lost and longing, going both forwards and backwards...And how can you not dig a line like 'In love with love and lousy poetry' anyway?...




Tupelo Honey... Is this my favourite Van Morrison tune?...Of course not....And I know, for sure, that it is not one of his...But, still, there is something about it that goes beyond where the melodically similar 'Crazy Love' gets to...And then there's the fact that Ronnie Montrose (yes, Ronnie Freaking Montrose!) played guitar and contributed a backing vocal to the San Francisco studio version...




CrashOnTheLevee... E's there doing the hard stuff...Actually pretty proud of my acoustical guitar bashing here...





Pocahontas...It's Neil, of course, re-worked  a little into a kinda/sorta anti-Harper protest tune.






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All the Jukebox Tunes we have up at the moment can be found (and downloaded if you want)....Here.
And, don't forget....This December's super special 'Advent Juke' is only six three two weeks away!


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This Day In Clarkland...Fisking The Local Media Herd On It's Response To The 'Triple Delete' Strategy.

ThereIsA
ClubVille


Tom Fletcher and The Keef recently tied themselves into pretzels in the public prints writing puff pieces wrapped in faux outrage paper packaging designed to mollify a pretend fed-up electorate.

Merv Adey takes them to task and gets right to the heart of the matter that neither Mr. Fletcher nor Mr. Baldrey would even think of touching, let alone writing about:


Tom Fletcher and Keith Baldrey, and others, have been around as leading members of the Press Gallery in BC since before the fall of Glen Clark. I point that out because I recall how relentless the pursuit of Glen Clark was by media over the casino/deck scandal.

Each of them released columns about the “Triple-delete” scandal this week, which were full of logical failures and a more general failure to identify the problem for Christy Clark’s government...

{snippety doo dah}

...What the “Triple-delete” scandal has exposed is an effort among the political arm of Clark’s civil service to avoid accountability for themselves and for Clark herself pre-emptively. To argue that FOI laws should not expose the inner workings of government when the buck stops with the politicians (always at some future date) is nonsense. We have FOI laws precisely so that we might know how the government works in our interest because we pay for it. In part, we have FOI laws to ensure that the government is considering evidence in its decision making, and what that evidence has been.

And what’s been exposed is a rational, pre-emptive, far reaching, intentional, breach of FOI law. And for that, the buck stops with Christy Clark. The buck stops today, not in May 2017...


Nuff said?


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And I know I've been away from the Bloggodome for awhile working double-time on my day job...But Loukidelis?....Really???!!!...One can only wonder....When the good Mr. Loukidelis' report comes down and some non pol-type folks (i.e. the Rubes) get really upset, will the Wizards call in Mr. Plant to explain to them how nothing could have possibly been done wrong because...Well...Procedure!


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This Day In Clarkland...Will There Be A Justin Problem?

AllTheWorld'sTheSeine
FromHerDormRoomVille


So.

Pretty soon, I reckon, Ron and all the Obvious ones will be telling us how our fine Premier is doing a boffo job over in Paris.

Because.

Sorbonne!

And/or this...

...(At the end of November) arguably the most significant climate negotiations the world has ever seen will begin in Paris — and Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau plans on being there with a gaggle of premiers in tow, a show of Canadian representation unimaginable in previous years.

The COP21 UN-led climate summit is organized around one seemingly impossible outcome: a binding international climate agreement to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said she has been planning on attending the negotiations for several months. “I’ve already booked my ticket,” she said in a statement e-mailed to DeSmog Canada, adding she’s “delighted” Justin Trudeau will be in attendance...


After all, there is no such thing as upstream LNG emissions and, besides, obviously it is Carol James who is responsible for any and all greenhouse gas emissions in this province (not to mention IPP gouging) because of that plane trip she took that the Club members hated back in the day.

Right?

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But here's the thing...

While the herdish members of the Club that Vaughn built will very likely do their jobs and change the channel for Ms. Clark as the lead-up to the big event in Paris builds, one can only wonder ifall of the ensuing cozying up to Mr. Trudeau just might make the beast that is the base of her party whose bile has been pumped so many times in the past by all the usual suspects, start to see blue all over again.

And if that happens, do Marky Mark, the Third Man, and the Wizards of Wave-Everything-Away Place already have a spike/spin/smear strate(r)gy in place to kill off any such uprising, tout de suite?

Just asking.


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