Greetings Groovers,
It never ceases to amaze me just how vile Robert Mugabe is allowed to be in the eyes of the world. Where's the backbone of the UN? Why doesn't the British government send in the boys aka the SAS? Or, whilst on the subject of living in fear, why doesn't Israel send in Mossad - and be thoroughly done with it? The man is notoriously odious and needs to be disposed immediately. So why isn't he?
Does it perhaps have something to do with the simple fact that there's no oil in Zimbabwe? Plain and harrowingly simple.
Not long got back from the beautiful country that is Vietnam, which can only be described as inspiring and at the total vanguard of potential greatness - so long as the powers that be in Hanoi (continue to) allow it to be... Its population is among the most hard-working I've ever come across, its people are as equally serene as they are gentle, whilst the country's foregiveness towards America, is as breath-taking as it is regal as it is beyond reproach.
Everyone needs to go to Vietnam at least once in their lifetime - even if only to understand the true meaning of togetherness...
Tenacity, my third film with the New Zealand Film Maker/Director, Dan Parkes (www.parkesproductions.com - www.myspace.com/parkesproductions), has been sent to the Cannes Film Festival - so now it's a case of waiting!
As always, I'm writing new songs and have just finished a short story called Purley Road to the Pearly Gates.
The new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album, Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!, is as always, utterly fab and revelatory in its execution. Long may he reigneth... The new Kooks album sounds interesting from what I've thus far heard, as does Duffy's debut ('Warwick Avenue' stopped me in its tracks...). Admittedly, The Kooks trajectory may be firmly entrenched within that of a middle-class mire, but at least they don't make any bones about it (unlike a menagerie of other wanna be middle-class wankers I could name).
Current reading includes Vietnam Now by Gabriel Kolko, In Retrospect - The Tragedy and the Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara,
In The Line Of Fire - A Memoir by Pervez Musharraf and finally News Of A Kidnapping by the brilliant Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The first three I've been reading simultaneously, having started them in Vietnam. The first is eye-opeing, the second not surprising, the third nothing new yet honest (although a tad smug), whilst the latter I've just started.
What say you?
Adios...
(April 2008)
