Beach, Soup

Einstein on the beach
Drinking soup, contemplating
The nature of time

Rum, Sodomy & The Lash by The Pogues

Who would have thought that a rowdy collection of shambolic Irish folk songs sung by someone that looked like a salutary warning against the perils of alcohol and not brushing your teeth, would be a hit in the middle of the fashion conscious 80s?

This album features a mix of original numbers written by Shane McGowan, traditional songs and a couple of covers to round out the set. Musically, the band is as tight as you could wish for with fiddles, French horns, plaintive uilleann pipes, banjos, tin whistles, accordions and drums combining with considerable energy. Producer Elvis Costello captures the feel of a live performance in a Kilburn pub without ever feeling over-produced.

Frontman Shane McGowan’s voice is something of an acquired taste, but the emotions are heartfelt bringing considerable resonance to songs of life at the bottom of the scrap heap, but there are moments of joy and romance here too, even if they are generally fuelled with a generous slug of whiskey.

The highlight for me was the final song which was a cover of “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle which is a heartbreaking tale of a wounded Australian veteran returning from the First World War and finding out that there are worse things than dying.

Marty Supreme

Sports biopics usually follow some predictable beats. We focus on a talented outsider battling in the minor leagues, then getting a big break, suffering a setback or two, and finally winning the trophy and/or the girl. This film is … different.

It starts with Marty, a skinny shoe store clerk, carrying on a risky affair with a married woman called Rachel in the stockroom. The opening credits show sperm artfully fertilising an ovum that morphs into a ping-pong ball. OK, wasn’t expecting that. From there things get stranger. Marty robs the store to fund a trip to the world championships in London where he defrauds the organising committee by staying in the Ritz on expenses, where he starts yet another affair with an actress married to a wealthy pen magnate.

After losing in the final he returns to New York for an extended subplot involving collapsing bathtubs, gangsters, angry farmers and a missing dog. Wait, what? There’s also something about novelty orange ping pong balls and a hustle in a bowling alley to make money to pay off a fine, a stolen necklace (that turns out to be worthless) and bribing a policeman to ignore a case of having sex in the middle of Central Park. Or something. Oh, and the Harlem Globetrotters are somehow involved.

Timothy Chalomet is great in the title role, playing against type as a skinny, intense hustler with glasses, bad skin and a weasly moustache. The character of Marty is supposedly loosely based on the real life Marty Reisman who was still winning table tennis tournaments in his 60s. Whether he got up to half of the exploits in this movie is never really explained.

I’m pretty sure I stayed awake through the two and half hour run time, but there were plenty of moments where the plot takes yet another screeching handbrake turn away from the expected ping pong pic that made me feel I’d missed something.

Lotus blossom, Glisten

Floating serenely
Lotus blossom glistening
On silent waters

Yeezus by Kanye West

I tried, I really did. This sounded interesting on paper - experimental electronica with input from Daft Punk should be just my thing and releasing it on an unlabelled cd with a clear case is a nice touch. However it was less than a minute before the first “bitch” and “hoe” which was an immediate nope from me.

Fuck that guy.

Cook Out, Deer

To cook a whole deer
We are going to need a
Bigger barbecue

Natty Dread by Bob Marley & The Wailers

The 70s in the UK were a pretty rubbish time on the whole but at least we had Top of the Pops with a huge variety of different music beamed into our living rooms once a week. We had glam, disco, country, punk, and countless one hit novelty wonders, but something that always stood out for me was reggae. There was no way that a geeky, middle-class white kid from the home counties would otherwise have connected with the music of Bob Marley and his songs of growing up in poverty in Trenchtown.

I might not have understood some of the lyrics, but I always got the sentiment and those heavy dub beats are a universal language that speaks to us all. This was a transitional album, with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer having left the band and the I–Threes (Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths) now providing backing vocals to lively up the sound.

This is a gorgeous, timeless album and as good an introduction to reggae as you are likely to find.