Monday, November 20, 2006

Of Mike and Ilk

I woke up this morning, found a comment on my blog
I woke up this morning, found a comment on my blog


I had hoped that my post about the Dead C would spark a lively debate about avant-garde music, so I was delighted that someone had posted a comment; delighted until I read that comment. Here it is:

http://insolentprick.blogspot.com/
Great article on 3rd generation welfare.
now this is a person who actually thinks about the welfare of the nation.
how about you?
MikeNZ


How about me? A question I so often ask myself, but we will let that pass. How about 3rd generation welfare? Is that like 3rd generation warfare or 3rd generation cellphones? It is, whatever it is, somewhat besides the point. I was talking about music, not welfare.

So then I read on and find that MikeNZ had commented on some of my other posts. He is one of those random commentators who roam the blogs leaving their traces all over the place. They are the blogging equivalent of taggers. After my bit about Frank Ellis and Antony Flew, MikeNZ made this comment:


Maxim have it about right I think.
More of mum and dad less of steve and helen.
as for intelligent design, you see what you want to see or don't is my observation.
MikeNZ


He is at least closer to the point this time, if not quite there yet. I was a bit unsure about Steve; I thought for one moment he might be one half of Adam and Steve, the mythical gay couple who are always invoked by fundies in discussion. "As for intelligent design, you see what you want to see or don't is my observation" is a sentence which deserves many hours of parsing.

Then I found the thoughts of MikeNZ on my post about Maxim's new website:

I wonder what the world would look like if the maxims of this world let you and your ilk have free rein.
Oh yeah anything goes as long as you like it!
What was I thinking, silly billy.
MikeNZ



Now I must correct MikeNZ here. I do not have an ilk. However, Sir Iain Moncreiffe of That Ilk had one. He used to be plain Sir Iain Moncrieffe of Easter Moncreiffe until he became clan chief. I don't like to be a pedant but... no, in fact, pedantry gives me immense pleasure, so I shall enjoy telling MikeNZ that "of that ilk" means a place name identical to the family name: the designation means that Sir Iain was Sir Iain Moncreiffe of Moncreiffe. Sir Iain was also Albany Herald of Arms at the Lyon Court. He used to swim wearing a deerstalker.

What MikeNZ means by my ilk quickly becomes apparent in his comment on my posting about Hell Pizza:

Being happily married I don't need a condom as the safest sex is with spouses who are faithful to each other.
But then that's a worldview i don't expect you get is it?


Not at all, MikeNZ; I understand completely. That's my ilk: adulterers and fornicators. You've got me bang to rights, guv. I run with a pretty fast crowd: art historians, aestheticians, even electro-acoustic musicians. Still, my gang were shocked that you should advocate threesomes; but if you want to have sex with spouses, that is your thing. Follow your bliss.

Of course if the likes of Maxim let my ilk and I have free rein, then anything goes as long as we like it. Soon everyone will be into free love, free jazz and even (now that Milton Friedman is dead) free lunch. Of course, Mike, there is one sin we will not tolerate and that is free syntax, so you had better watch your language.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Clearly your pedantry has restricted your capacity for lateral thought, Paul. What's the link between avant-garde Flying Nun bands and the 3rd generation welfare? Firstly, no one in a Flying Nun band has ever had a proper job, avant-garde or not, and almost all of them has depended on the nanny-state to foster their bizarre and anti-social behaviour through the DPB, and, under the Helengrad (or is that Helen-garde) regime, the despicable artists benefit. The latter not only assists, but actually encourages these disgusting, long-haired, sweater-wearing miscreants to make horrible noise, rather than nice songs that everyone wants to listen to, like those nice lads from the Feelers. The more records they don't sell, the longer they can stay on the dole, so the state is fostering this kind of activity.

Secondly, there is no secondly. It all ended up in the firstly. But we can solve the whole problem through these simple nine steps:
1. Every band must have a name with an immediately obvious meaning, that doesn't reference anything morbid.
2. No artist benefits entitlements to drummers sleeping in the living rooms of lead singers.
3. Bands not allowed to tour the indie circuit in the US while stablemates are still stuck in Sandringham.
4. All musicians to attend music school. Failure to do so will result in KA bartab being cancelled.
5. All record collections to be regularly audited by More FM programmers, to check palliability of influences.
6. Random alcohol and drug checks of electro-acoustic musicians.
7. No drone artists permitted to perform in same venue as impressionable teens.
8. I can't be bothered doing the last two.
9. See 8.

Now, if we can just get in a swipe at Grey Lynn and some academic (we don't like academics), you'll see how a television performance of an obscure experimental band from Dunedin is completely relevant to some right-wing moralising about incredibly complex issues of poverty and dependency in New Zealand.

stephen said...

Apropos of free jazz, is it possible we have crossed paths at Vitamin S? I must buy you a drink down at the Wine Cellar some time.

Anonymous said...

Love your work

Anonymous said...

Paul..

When you get around to it, could you please kick off a thread on the aptly entitled Hollow Men. This would be a good place to discuss the role of the Exclusive Brethren and other fundies in building the National Party pariamentary representation we have today.

It would also be interesting to contrast what they thought they had in their champion Don Brash with what they actually got!!

rob said...

Great to see you have a blog! And are advocating a sin tax. It will be a lot more profitable than GST- as long as plaguarism is defined as sinful!
Since you more-or-less took out the maxims... (not that they will go away) there's been an almost alarming silence from that front. I work alarmingly near, and sometimes stroll through the school, but their devilish work is always well-hidden.
Anyway- heartfelt thanks for that- and, again: great blog!

Anonymous said...

However in the book called "The Hollow Men", it was good to see that Bruce (the great plagiarist) was there for Don Brash when his advice was needed.

As I recall, Bruce was teaching how to link conservative moral policy with more votes.

He learned this from his days at Maxim - how to link the "think" from donors to Maxim, to increased funding by donors.

I think we should take a vote - does everyone agree that Bruce should be included as a hollow man in the Hollow Men.

It is also good that the media is emphasising that Bruce is director of Maxim. Maxim should be correcting the media but they are on something of a roll at the present.

Anonymous said...

I am astounded to see the Dead C on Youtube, what a pleasure. Closest I got was seeing the (one man version of) Gate at the Cave on Fanshaw St in about 1993 or 1994 (I saw Trash down there at about the same time, it was a long time ago now).

A missed Alastair Galbraith on Nat Radio but caught the end of Roger Shephard at the weekend, Crystallator by Dimmer is so good I had to dig out my 45 of it (to be a bit pedantic I thought it was on SubPop, but there you go).

A friend & I drove down to New Plymouth, Palmerston North & Wellington to see the Peter Jeffries/Alastair Galbraith/Sandra Bell show that toured those three towns (sounds like a trip to hell doesn't it) and that was fantastic. Esp talking to Alastair at the bar in Palmy when he said how amazed he was that some guys were down from Auckland the night before, he hadn't realised we had follwed them further...

If you ever see it, I can't recommend more highly the CD compilation Xpressway Pile-Up (I missed the tape version) what magic.

Paul said...

Pablo, I shall write about the Dead C on the comments to that posting. I am glad you enjoyed the Youtube.