Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Why Does Everybody Love Roman?

Umm, I don't understand....

What's controversial about the whole Roman Polanski situation?

By that I mean, why is there any conjecture at all about whether or not he's a "good man," or whether or not he "deserves to be punished?"

According to The L.A. Times, "Directors Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Woody Allen are among dozens in the film industry to sign a petition calling for the immediate release of Polanski. Academy-Award winning film producer Harvey Weinstein, also a signatory to the petition, wrote in the UK Indpendent calling the original plea deal in Polanski's case a "miscarriage of justice."

Am I missing something? It's not being disputed that he had sex with a 13 year old, right? So.... since when's that forgivable?

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that we can admire certain positive qualities that otherwise reprehensible deadbeats might possess. But seriously, what the f*&k! And why's Marty Scorsese throwing his 2 cents in with freaks like Lynch (Blue Velvet and Lost Highway are my $hit though) and Allen? Oh, Woody Allen leaps to a pedophile's defense - what a f*&king surprise.

Polanski's life definitely hasn't been a picnic:

Tragedy overwhelmed Polanski the following year when his heavily pregnant wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered, along with four others, by killers acting on the orders of radical cult leader Charles Manson.

But I wish to Christ they'd stop talking about him like some kind of martyr.

Da Boss, And His Consiglieri

I saw this clip on tv the other day and made a mental note to post about it, firstly because it's just a great song, but also because Little Stevie Van Zandt looks so deliciously whacked out during the parts where he comes mincing up to Springsteen on stage.

Mincing. Huh. That's definitely not a characteristic you could accuse him of exhibiting during his stint on The Sopranos (incidentally, Silvio was definitely my favourite character).

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Flo Rida Tour Pics: It's A Wrap In Perth


Me and Steve Scanlon, the best sound man in the Australian music industry. Bar none. When he's at the desk at front-of-house, as a performer you know you've got nothing to worry about.

Cat Woman and Ol' Sleepy Eyes McGee, aka the fabulous Miss Jessica Mauboy and me after the show.

So the tour is over, quite an enjoyable and successful return to the stage, all told. Some general thoughts on the tour:

- There's still a healthy demand for urban music out there in Any Town, Australia, but it's now all about the marketing and finding a way to successfully target that demographic.

- A lot of people know the lyrics to the old J Wess stuff.

- Soundmen say the darndest things. Eg. "You've just gotta use a bit of grift and deception when you're dealing with these d*&kheads." - Steve Scanlon, on negotiating parking spots with security guards at sound checks.

- Teenage girls will scream any time an attractive man takes his top off on stage, no matter what else he is saying or doing (for the record, I'm not talking about myself).

- Airline staff weild the power of life and death over your luggage: don't give them $hit.

- I lost my iPod.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Celtic FC To Take On Cheatin' Viennese Next Week

Hitler was Austrian. I know it, you know it, those sneaky pricks at Rapid Vienna football club know it. They're kinda stickin' it to The Bhoys, by wearing some inflammatory red uniforms:

Rapid have confirmed they will wear the colour to commemorate the notorious 1984 European Cup-Winners' Cup tie between the sides, which saw the Hoops ordered to replay the second leg at a neutral ground.

Celtic had won the tie on aggregate but were punished by UEFA after a bottle was thrown from the Parkhead terracing and Rapid defender Rudolf Weinhofer pretended he had been struck by it.

There's only one thing to say about this, and with the above image, I think I'm sayin' it.

Rapid Vienna. Austrians. Cheaters. Nazi-sympathizers.

The mighty Hoops, of course, are a model of racial forward thinking.

Gil Heron, known as the Black Arrow for his lightning fast runs, joined in 1951.

He scored on his first-team debut in a 2-0 win over Morton.

Heron, the father of legendary musician Gil Scott-Heron, was also a hit off the field.

Celtic FC. Scots-Irish. Champions. Epitome of tolerance.

Unless you're a Proddy.

Is God Dead?

Ka-blammo, that's some serious, "SEX..........now that I've got your attention," type blog post titling right there!

A list of the most controversial magazine covers of all time. Obviously the above image ranks pretty high, but if you really wanna seem some wrongity, hard to go past the pic of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The Muhammad Ali one's pretty cool, the Andy Warhol one is blah, and the National Lampoon one will definitely elicit a response.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

New Digga Track: Attack Of The Unreleased Demos

I think it's fair to say I've been quiet lately, musically speaking that is (you can't shut me up on this blog bizzo). A little too quiet.

And lazy, as well.

See, I've been sitting on a swag of unreleased tracks that I cut a while back with one Styalz Fuego. And I've been planning on posting them, honest I have.

I just never got round to it until now. I'll try to do this with some kind of consistency now that I've got the ball rolling, but I'm not making any promises.

Download here:

Digga - All Channel Champion Produced by Styalz Fuego

Monday, September 21, 2009

Confusing Marketing: Do You Get Mad When You Just Don't Get It?

I just don't get this ad.

Is this supple, innocent, vivacious-yet-oh-so-naive young French peasant girl supposed to be this unexceptional middle aged Australian man's lover?

Is she his daughter? But no, she can't be that. She doesn't call him dad (or Papa, if you will) once. Then again, she doesn't call him dad-dy either. If you catch my drift.

And if she is this gentleman's lady friend, where might a 40 something bloke from, let's say Northern Sydney, happen upon such a Gallic beauty? And, for that matter, where exactly are they in this ad?

Maybe he pays her for her time, if you know what I mean. That works. Don't let the fact that they're familiar with one another throw you - I believe they call that a "standing arrangement."

And how in the hell does any of this compel me to give the folks at Budget Direct my money? Is it, "If I'm as prudent and wise through my life as this guy is (he does keep correcting Frenchie and her delightful mispronunciations, after all), I'll be given jail bait when I'm 50 as my just reward?"


Friday, September 18, 2009

More Cash For Private Schools: Gotta Keep That Elitist Conveyor Belt Going

I know, I know. I'm super late with this. I've been away, that's why I've been criminally neglecting the blog. But this bears repeating, coz it's complete bull$hit that people should be seriously alarmed about.

While the Government often says increased funding to non-government schools partly reflects enrolment growth, the latest figures from the federal Education Department show private school funding will far outstrip enrolment growth over the same period, which is only about 5 per cent for most of the schools.

In my view, there's no good reason for private schools to receive any more money from the government. I mean $hit, they already get waaaaay more than they should. My sister's been a teacher in the public system the last few years, and there's just straight up no cash for anything. And that's at the reasonably well-performing ones, not to mention the remote or underperforming ones. So why the f*&k should we bolster the cash reserves at these lil' fascist factories through which even the dim witted progeny of upper class captains of industry learn to expect the power and class advantage they will go on to inherit?

It just makes me so mad, in case that wasn't clear.

Flo Rida Tour Pics


Soundcheck: tedious, time consuming, and always kicks off 42 minutes later than scheduled. But the most necessary of evils.


This is what happens when your stylist gets all artsy with the camera. For the record, mine's the foot on the left.


Lipz gets up close and personal with the fans, and subsequently finds out what the barriers are for.

Gettin' a little sweaty, largely due to the 'I'm a Rapper, I ain't takin' my hood off' stylee.


Trying to act calm and cool in the moments before we hit the stage (the most incredible soul sensation Mr. Jerson Trinidad to the left of me). If you don't get nervous in that situation, you're not taking it seriously.

The Sydney crowd - "Oh, I think they like me."

So we've now killed 'em in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. Perth is the last leg of the tour, that's next Friday. Definitely have to give a shout out to Jen, our stylist. She came through with a tonne of fresh gear.

Big middle finger to the Scots flamer at Brisbane airport who 'accidentally' sent my bag to Perth after I kind of gave him $hit for making me check my carry on.

I'll have to grab a few more pics from the other guys' cameras, I didn't get that many good ones. It's been a blast, thoughts are now turning to the second J Wess single coz we gotta get the kids jumping to our new stuff the same way they're jumping to our old stuff.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Whaddaya Get When You Cross Asher Roth And David Lee?


David Lee Roth, of course. BAM! Down comes the humour hammer.

I actually only really wanted to mention that The Knicks have signed my man David Lee for another year, but I've got nothing against the young Jewish spitter so I thought I'd get creative.

Obviously David Lee Roth's chest hair is the best thing about this (I'm a bit of a Pierce Brosnan with the hirsuteness myself), although whatever the f*&k's going on with his inflected abdominal muscles is not really that cool.

Did he cameo in one of the thousand Sopranos episodes that involved famous dudes sitting in on Mob run card games?

I'm almost done packing and I'm off on tour tomorrow. Here's some more random chart action (if you're into that kind of thing), the new J Wess single's doing well on the AIR charts.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Stereotypes Exist For A Reason


I'm attributing this blog post title to my man Memphis. Although I can't remember what exactly he was referring to, I'm pretty sure he would agree it's applicable to this.

Irish adults consume the equivalent of almost 550 pints of beer every year, it was claimed today.

The article's a little light on detail, and it doesn't really offer any readily intelligible evidence to back up the excellent sensationalist quote above, but let's just go with it.

"In Ireland, there are more drunks per capita than people," Peter Griffin, Family Guy.

Berlusconi, Hard At It?

I'm really, truly impressed that despite this furor and that scandal, shady Italian media magnate and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is most concerned about this.

As part of a counterattack against his vociferous critics at home and abroad, Mr Berlusconi is suing Italian newspaper L'Unita for 2 million euros ($A3.36 million) for libel after it ran articles claiming he had erectile dysfunction and used Viagra.

As long as you don't take him seriously as a politician, this guy is f*&ing awesome.

Oh, and I'm well aware that Pepe Le Pew is French, but they are neighbouring countries and Le Pew and Berlusconi are kindred spirits.

A Chart's A Chart

So the new single Anything For You Feat. Digga & Jerson Trinidad debuted at Number 6 on the ARIA Top 50 Physical Singles Chart.

Not exactly a home run, kinda like winning Most Improved Player rather than MVP, but it's a good thing no matter how you look at it.

If you don't have your copy yet, get your iTunes on. And buy a few CD singles too, if you want. You know, just for the retro irony. Or something.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Soccer Whos?

So The Socceroos got a bit of a toweling from fellow Asian giants South Korea last night, which is a bit of a bummer coz it would seem to threaten our recent phenomenal rise in the FIFA rankings. However, we have already qualified for the world cup and coach Pim Verbeek would certainly have been experimenting with different player combinations and options.

Much more importantly, my man Scott 'S Mac' McDonald was denied his first goal for his country by genetics, physics, and teammate Patrick Kisnorbo (who's a few inches taller, and capable of leaping a few inches higher, than Scotty). If you didn't see it, both McDonald and Kisnorbo rose above the pack for the header, with the ball just skimming a couple of inches over S Mac and landing plum on Kisnorbo's forehead.

Queue elation for the burly defender, and anguish for our favourite little stocky goal sneek.

Too Busy Survivin' To Arguin' Bout Darwin.... Darlin'

It may be a little risky to assume that our physical evolution has reached it's zenith, but that's the idea being floated here.

Now, after some three billion years, the Darwinian era is over. The epoch of species competition came to an end about 10 thousand years ago when a single species, Homo sapiens, began to dominate and reorganize the planet. Since that time, cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution as the driving force of change.

The article is actually a lot more involved than my opening sentence (or the above extract) would have you believe. But they don't pay me the big bucks for my considered, measured meditations on the $hit I blog about. Currency of immediacy, bee-yatch. Boo Yowwww! The World Needs Rappers - all reactionary, all the time!

Duffle Jackets

For some people, the film Boondock Saints was a cult classic. For others, it was just stupid. Personally, I thought it was both. I'd heard rumours that a sequel was in the pipeline, but the first one came out over 10 years ago so as time has ticked by I've always been a little skeptical.

However, I always knew there was a chance that Troy Duffy (creator/writer) would get it done through sheer force of will, mainly because he got so f*&ked over financially on the first go round. He never made a cent (and continues to not make a cent) on any DVD sales, which is a travesty given that this movie, much like Office Space, was critically panned and commercially ignored until it hit the stores and got snapped up in surprising numbers.

I'll watch anything with Billy Connolly in it, I was raised on that dude's stand up routines.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

What Kinda Present Did You Get For Your Birthday?


If it wasn't a cannon, you were jibbed.

"Daugherty... granted his son's wish and built him a Civil War-era cannon not a model, the real deal. The howitzer fires and rivals anything seen at Civil War reenactments across the country. He said it took him about two weeks to build and is worth about $6,000."

Pretty great, right? Bear in mind that the dude's son was 11 years old.

Daugherty said his son is very mature and would be able to handle the responsibility of owning a piece of artillery.

That's just, well, that's just outstanding.

By the way, the pic is a USB desktop cannon that you know you want.

If MacGyver Made Headphones

They wouldn't be shiny and glamorous like the ones above, positioned delicately atop the statuesque chica up here. But they might be like this.

All you'll need is a pair of earbuds with the plug-on-a-post design, along with some basic foam earplugs, and some basic tools like a pair of scissors.

If you're really interested in doing this $hit, there's a how-to video (hit the link). But really, you should probably save up your sheckles and go grab yourself some Sennheiser noise canceling joints.