[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sFqfbrsZbw&w=700] "The birds are outbursts of raw, maternal energy." Slavoj Žižek from his upcoming film, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, an investigation into what psychoanalysis can tell us about film (I just like what he says about Mitch). More clips here.

Zizek rocks. Here's him on why Love is Evil (which is pretty darned brilliant).

And here's a Q&A he did in The Guardian:

Slavoj Zizek, 59, was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities in London and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's institute of sociology. He has written more than 30 books on subjects as diverse as Hitchcock, Lenin and 9/11, and also presented the TV series The Pervert's Guide To Cinema.

When were you happiest? A few times when I looked forward to a happy moment or remembered it - never when it was happening.

What is your greatest fear? To awaken after death - that's why I want to be burned immediately.

What is your earliest memory? My mother naked. Disgusting.

Which living person do you most admire, and why? Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the twice-deposed president of Haiti. He is a model of what can be done for the people even in a desperate situation.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Indifference to the plights of others.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Their sleazy readiness to offer me help when I don't need or want it.

What was your most embarrassing moment? Standing naked in front of a woman before making love.

Aside from a property, what's the most expensive thing you've bought? The new German edition of the collected works of Hegel.

What is your most treasured possession? See the previous answer.

What makes you depressed? Seeing stupid people happy.

What do you most dislike about your appearance? That it makes me appear the way I really am.

What is your most unappealing habit? The ridiculously excessive tics of my hands while I talk.

What would be your fancy dress costume of choice? A mask of myself on my face, so people would think I am not myself but someone pretending to be me.

What is your guiltiest pleasure? Watching embarrassingly pathetic movies such as The Sound Of Music.

What do you owe your parents? Nothing, I hope. I didn't spend a minute bemoaning their death.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why? To my sons, for not being a good enough father.

What does love feel like? Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.

What or who is the love of your life? Philosophy. I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

What is your favourite smell? Nature in decay, like rotten trees.

Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it? All the time. When I really love someone, I can only show it by making aggressive and bad-taste remarks.

Which living person do you most despise, and why? Medical doctors who assist torturers.

What is the worst job you've done? Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.

What has been your biggest disappointment? What Alain Badiou calls the 'obscure disaster' of the 20th century: the catastrophic failure of communism.

If you could edit your past, what would you change? My birth. I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born - but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it.

If you could go back in time, where would you go? To Germany in the early 19th century, to follow a university course by Hegel.

How do you relax? Listening again and again to Wagner.

How often do you have sex? It depends what one means by sex. If it's the usual masturbation with a living partner, I try not to have it at all.

What is the closest you've come to death? When I had a mild heart attack. I started to hate my body: it refused to do its duty to serve me blindly.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life? To avoid senility.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? The chapters where I develop what I think is a good interpretation of Hegel.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you? That life is a stupid, meaningless thing that has nothing to teach you.

Tell us a secret. Communism will win.

Cast your mind back. Back. Little bit further. Good. Elizabethan England. Henry VIII and his split from the church in Rome wasn't all that long ago. Catholics v Protestants in fanatical ideological struggles (you would be passionate too if your immortal soul was on the line), and the Catholics had definitely got the shitty end of the stick. They had been fiercely persecuted under Elizabeth I, though not without provocation, as a series of plots and attacks - among them the war with Spain - sought to oust her and bring Catholicism back to Britain. The declaration that Catholic Mass was illegal though, predates the Spanish Armada.

When she died in 1603, English Catholics hoped that her successor, James I, would be more forgiving. His mum, after all, was Catholic. They were wrong though (it's more complicated than that, obviously, but read this to find out more), and a group of 13 men came together under the leadership of Robert Catesby to do something about it. Their plan? Blow up the House of Lords. They'd get James I, a whole bunch of MPs who hated them, maybe even the Prince of Wales too for good measure.

Does this ring any bells? It should. Religion polarising people to such an extent that a fanatical, disaffected group comes together to make a stand - violence their final recourse. It could be modern-day London, Washington, you name it. Then they were conspirators, today they'd be terrorists. But it's hard not to have some sympathy for their cause.

The conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to pulverise the House of Lords, and stored them in a cellar just under the building. Guy Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives. But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack, including some people who even fought for more rights for Catholics. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th (though this may have been a fake).

The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators. At midnight on 4 November, 1605, they stormed the cellars and caught Fawkes. Most of the conspirators fled London, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing battle Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

The Gunpowder Plot struck a very profound chord for the people of England. In fact, even today, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year, on what is called "the State Opening of Parliament". Prior to the Opening, and according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster. Nowadays, the Queen and Parliament still observe this tradition. On the very night that the plot was foiled, bonfires were set alight to celebrate the safety of the King. The thwarting of the event was for years commemorated with church services, bell ringing and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire - hence today's Guy Fawkes Night.

Are we partying in support of Fawkes' execution or honoring his attempt to do away with the government? Perhaps it doesn't really matter any more - politics have always been best sanitised by masquerading as a celebration.

In Lewes, fireworks night is a bit darker than at other paces. Bonfire societies parade down the streets in costumes, lighting fireworks, burning crosses and effigies as they go, all under the "no popery" standard. The event's roots commemorate the burning of 17 Protestant martyrs by Catholics in the 16th century. Now, as well as the Pope and Guy Fawkes, you'll see tableux and effigies of modern day baddies being burnt - George Bush, Saddam, even John Prescott. It's an annual day of misrule, the costumes were originally to stop participants being recognised. Of course, while it's not exactly politically correct, it's hugely popular. If it does get shut down, it'll probably because so many people go that Lewes can't cope, not because we don't want to see Iranian presidents being chucked on bonfires.

Now watch this, it's worth it:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIF63jhRQcw]

Sir John Betjeman was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack". He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. Starting his career as a journalist, he ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate to date and a much-loved figure on British television. Originally the name was Betjemann, but the family knocked off the last 'n' during the First World War to make it sound less Teutonic. It wasn't until the Fifties that his work really started getting noticed. When his Collected Poems came out in 1958 they made publishing history - they have since sold over two and a quarter million copies It's interesting that, at a time when people were getting stuck into free-form jazz and blank verse, Betjeman stuck to his traditional guns. And while outwardly his satiric, wry verse might have seemed light, there was a great depth and elegance to his poetry. He died in 1984 and was buried in St Enedoc Church, Trebetherick, North Cornwall. It is a magical place. One of the nicest ways to approach it is by getting the ferry from Padstow to Rock, then walking up along the bay and over the hills - beautiful. There are some recordings of him reading his poems here. Below are a couple of lines and then two wonderful poems: How to get on in society, and Meditation on the A30.

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.

I don't think I am any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough. / It isn't fit for humans now.

How To Get On In Society Phone for the fish knives, Norman As cook is a little unnerved; You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet? The frills round the cutlets can wait Till the girl has replenished the cruets And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear, But the vestibule's comfy for tea And Howard is riding on horseback So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries And do use the couch for your feet; I know that I wanted to ask you- Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear? I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones; Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

Meditation on the A30 by John Betjeman A man on his own in a car Is revenging himself on his wife; He open the throttle and bubbles with dottle and puffs at his pitiful life

She's losing her looks very fast, she loses her temper all day; that lorry won't let me get past, this Mini is blocking my way.

"Why can't you step on it and shift her! I can't go on crawling like this! At breakfast she said that she wished I was dead- Thank heavens we don't have to kiss.

"I'd like a nice blonde on my knee And one who won't argue or nag. Who dares to come hooting at me? I only give way to a Jag.

"You're barmy or plastered, I'll pass you, you bastard- I will overtake you. I will!" As he clenches his pipe, his moment is ripe And the corner's accepting its kill.

Aristotle. In short: the man. The brainy man. Greek philosopher, student of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great, and one of Western thought's most important figures. His writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy - morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics - and yet only a third of them survived. He covered physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. His understanding of physical sciences lasted until Isaac Newton's apple dropped, and we still talk about his philosophy today. There's an excellent Wikipedia on him here, but below are some of my favourite sayings of his.

Love is one soul in two bodies.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

All men by nature desire knowledge. All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

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[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

Strangely that's something I still miss: your slow, measured stride. Even now I'd try to copy it in case of crisis -

that thoughtful lope towards fire or flood. Of course you were panicking like the rest of us but someone has to take the adult role.

I practise and practise - the steady hand, the cool head, the firm, what's-the-problem-here stroll to the edge of the abyss. - Connie Bensley, from The Spectator, 25 September 2010

They had a wee challenge - submit a haiku about the object to your left. Some of my favourite entries follow. No picture. Unrelated. My aunt once told me slow and steady wins the race she died in a fire

Harry Potter books, Numbers five, six, and seven. I'm 20 years old.

Smelly, smelly cat ...the FUCK are they feeding you? It is not your fault.

Steel coffee cup you are also a french press Fuck starbucks coffee

wristwatch to my left why you lying on table must have put you there

pillow is ugly purple colour i do not like this pillow very much i have a vagina woo

A leather jacket it protects my skin from cold the chaps, not so much

I have a ruler I use it to draw straight lines And measure my cock

i actually know how to write a haiku you all are fucktards.

Me and my guitar I play you so horribly Please co-operate.

Great War shrapnel shell Now you give light as my lamp It's a funny old world.

Haiku's can be easy sometimes they don't make much sense Refrigerator

oh left leg of mine you move me half way everywhere dont you ever break

tits or gtfo

I've been surrounded by blue and white china my whole life. Mum is a massive fan - the kitchen has always been packed with jugs, tureens, plates, dishes, and more, sometimes chipped but always loved. Thinking on it, it has been a massive influence on me, the idea that something utilitarian (a plate) can also have aesthetic value. This was drilled into me at an early age when I used to have to eat my food to see which Peter Rabbit plate I had. Then there's The Dining Room Shop - Mum's shop - which has always had gorgeous stuff - some really quite rare and beautiful (I've always liked the old Wedgwood, personally, especially the quite plain Jacobean (?) stuff). Nowadays it's a sort of collective term for knock-offs - usually transfers - of various other patterns. But Willow Pattern is named after an original Chinese design, first engraved by Thomas Minton in 1780. He was then followed by Royal Worcester, Spode, Adams, Wedgwood, the whole gang (Burgess and Leigh's modern Willow has been in continuous production since 1922).

There's a story behind the original pattern, and it's quite beautiful. Look at the plate first. It might look like a single image, but there's a whole narrative happening inside it.

Once upon a time, there was a very grand Mandarin (that's his palace under the big tree) who had a stunning daughter, Koong-se. She was so beautiful that he had knew he could do very well out of marrying her to the right person.

He also had a secretary, Chang. A personable young man who, while doing the Mandarin's acccounts, full head over heels with Koong-se, and she with him. It was proper love too. Not an infatuation but an all-consuming need. When he found out, the Mandarin was livid. How could this lowly secretary ever dream he was suitable for his daughter? Something had to be done.

Poor Chang was banished, and a huge fence was build around the gardens of the Mandarin's palace - you can see it at the bottom of the dish - so that Chang could not get in, and Koong-se was trapped inside, a bird in a gilded cage.

One day she was standing at the water's edge when she saw something in the water - a shell, with tiny little sails on it. She picked it out of the water and found inside a poem, and bead that she had given her lover. Chang was outside, and he still loved her.

But then - terrible news - the Mandarin came in to tell her that he had found a suitable match. Ta-jin, a powerful warrior Duke. Not only that, but he was on his way to meet his betrothed, with loads of jewels for her (that's him on the boat on the left hand side, making his way to the palace).

Chang had a plan though. Disguised as a servant, he snuck in to that night's banquet, and up to Koong-se's room. They kissed and decided to make a break for it. The Mandarin and Ta-Jin had drunk themselves into a stupor, and the two lovers quietly crept out. But just as they were leaving, the Mandarin woke up and tore after them (that's him chasing them over the bridge - she's holding jewels and I think the Mandarin has a whip).

They just managed to escape, and hid with a maid who the Magistrate had already fired for conspiring with the lovers. Koong-se had given the casket of jewels to Chang, so the Mandarin, who was also a magistrate, swore that he would use the jewels as a pretext to execute Chang as a thief when he caught him.

One night the Mandarin's spies reported that a man was hiding in a house by the river (on the plate it's just behind the boat) and the Mandarin's guards raided the house. But Chang had jumped into the ragging torrent and Koong-se thought that he had drowned.

Some days later the guards returned to search the house again. While Koong-se's maid talked to them, Chang came by boat to the window and took Koong-se away to safety.

They settled on a distant island, and over the years Chang became famous for his writings. This was to prove his undoing. The Mandarin heard about him and sent guards to destroy him. Chang was put to the sword and Koong-se set fire to the house while she was still inside.

The two birds on that plate? The gods, touched by their love, immortalised them as two beautiful doves.

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There's another story to the plate - a secret Shaolin legend.The Shaolin Monastery is burned by the Imperial troops of the Manchu rulers, called invaders by Chinese nationalist and later communist factions. Souls of the dead monks take a boat to the isle of the Blest. On the bridge are three Buddha awaiting the dead souls: Sakyamuni, the Buddha of the Past; Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future; and, Amitabha, the Ruler of the Western Paradise. Beyond them is the City of Willows – Buddhist Heaven. The doves are the monks' souls on the journey from human to immortal life.

[I might get Mum to check this ;) - oh, and with all fables and legends, there's always another version, so apologies if this isn't the one you know]

Via YMFY

I shouldn't even feel the need to say it, but: Clint Eastwood is the sort of man we should aspire to emulate. Courteous, unflappable, no-BS, self-contained but not self-centred. And check the CV - Clinton "Clint" Eastwood (born May 31, 1930) is a film actor, director, producer and composer. He has received five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, two Cannes Film Festival awards, and five People's Choice Awards — including one for Favorite All-Time Motion Picture Star.

In real life, he has come through a few scrapes without using stuntmen - in 1951, while on army leave, Eastwood rode in a Douglas AD bomber that ran out of fuel and crashed in the ocean near Point Reyes. After escaping from the sinking fuselage, he and the pilot swam three miles to the shore.

Although sympathetic towards her bid for the presidency, Eastwood expressed disappointment with Hillary Clinton for engaging in a duck-hunting photo op, saying, "I was thinking: 'The poor duck, what the hell did she do that for?' I don't go for hunting. I just don't like killing creatures. Unless they're trying to kill me. Then that would be fine."

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.

They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning.

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice. Clint Eastwood

I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

In school, I could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.

We boil at different degrees.

and Clint can sing too:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVM6Q4YwAA]

“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?” W.E.B. Dubois, The Soul of Black Folk (1903)

I came across the above while reading the comments to THIS fantastic article in prospect. Dr W.E.B. DuBois was a contemporary of my great-great-grandmother (Mattie Lawrence, one of the first Fisk Jubilee Singers) and, as well as graduating from both Fisk and Harvard, wrote some incredible, prophetic treatises on civil rights for black Americans, was an activist, sociologist, journalist and much more. The Wikipedia piece on him goes into loads of detail and is well worth reading.

He had a mammoth falling-out with Marcus Garvey. As far as I can make out, the ideological disagreement was over DuBois believing that African Americans could live equally with white people. DuBois said blacks have a "Double-Conscious" mind in which they have to know when to act "white" and when to act "black". Garvey took issue with the idea that anyone should have to assimilate or "fit-in" in the first place.

It wasn't that gentlemanly a disagreement. DuBois, fearing Garvey would undermine is efforts towards black rights, said: “Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor.” Garvey suspected DuBois was prejudiced against him because he was a Caribbean native with darker skin. DuBois once described Marcus Garvey as "a little, fat black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head." Garvey, in return, called DuBois “purely and simply a white man's nigger" and "a little Dutch, a little French, a little Negro … a mulatto … a monstrosity.”

Unsurprisingly, they didn't talk much afterwards.

It's astonishing, writing this in London, watching people of all races walking around in the street outside - and making up the small team I work and play with here - that the fathers of civil rights, lionised by poets and politicians alike, should talk about one another that way. Astonishing and a little sad. Perhaps it was just symptomatic of the times, and their language is out of context in my modern, politically-corrected lexicon. Most conversations I have about civil rights and race are exactly that - conversations. I wouldn't be able to do that had it not been for the likes of Garvey and DuBois. Given the scale of the fight for equality before them, and the - to my mind at least - utterly unimaginable unfairness of daily life and the basic rights they were fighting for, the fire and passion, the sardonic anger of that first quote, are more than understandable.

And, as promised, some words from W.E.B. DuBois (1868 - 1963):

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.

If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

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RIP

Warren Ellis's cat died (on my birthday), so he wrote this: Our three cats were basically rescues: we bought them to get them out of a shitty garden centre that was storing them on cold dirty concrete with an upturned rabbit run over them and no food that we could see. The smallest of the three ended up being rushed to the vet the next day, who told us that if we’d waited another 24 hours he’d be dead. I was writing a character who was small and crap, at the time, and so this small crap cat got his name: Anton.

Anton lived a little over sixteen more years. Today, while everyone else was out, I got the vets to come and see him, and they told me that it was sudden kidney failure and he was beyond treatment. So I sat with him, and thanked him, and told him we love him and that he was a good boy while they carefully gave him the injection, and as I stroked him he gave me that half-lidded look that meant it was good, and then he was asleep. And I’ve just finished burying him in the back garden.

And I’m getting these notes down now because first he was my friend who travelled around the house in the palm of my hand, and then he was my daughter’s best friend for very many years, and because he came out into the back garden with me three evenings ago (he was a housecat who didn’t go outside) and stood at the edge of the path, facing the garden, and gave five or six loud shouts into the twilight, as if to say “I was here. Know me. I was here.”

And he was, and it was good. And he deserves for someone to know he was here.

And now comes the hardest part, of waiting for everyone to come home and telling them. But my little man is asleep in the garden now, next to my late father’s poppies, and so with that, and this note, I have taken care of him as best I can.

The songs of my life

When I was thrown out of home Lonely Teardrops, Jackie Wilson (1958) We moved to Michigan when I was nine, but when we still lived in Arkansas, all I heard was gospel. My brothers and I had a gospel quartet and that was the only music people listened to. But I was already gravitating towards songs by Sam Cooke, and then one day I put on a Jackie Wilson record and, baby, I was thrown right out of the house. When I was allowed back in my mum said: 'You really like that stuff?' And I just went 'er... er...' 'Well, if you really like it,' she said, 'go ahead and do it.' I took her advice, and I guess I did the right thing.

When I first began to sing Cupid, Sam Cooke (1961) I must have been about 14 when I was working on a lathe in a woodwork class at school. The machines were all going, and I was singing to myself, but I knew nobody could hear me. Then I turned the lathe off and continued to sing without thinking about it. The whole class was looking at me. Somebody said, 'That kid can sing!' I hadn't even considered the idea of singing at that point. All we heard in the house was Mahalia Jackson, and besides, I had a squeaky little voice, like a rat or a mouse. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

When I found my voice Live At The Apollo, James Brown (1963) I would copy all these great singers, like James Brown and Sam Cooke. Willie Mitchell [producer and songwriter at Memphis's Hi Records] told me: 'You've got to be your own man, Al.' And I replied: 'But how am I supposed to sound?' He told me to just figure it out. Next thing I know I'm in the studio, and the sight of that red light popping on scared me to death. And before I knew it I was singing 'I'm so tired of being alone', and that's Al right there. From then my attitude was: let Otis be Otis and James be James. I'm not going to emulate them any more.

When we went into battle with Stax Records Hot Buttered Soul, Isaac Hayes (1969) Ann Peebles lived down the hall from me in Memphis and if people said she sounded like me on 'I Can't Stand the Rain', I took it as a compliment. We were on Hi Records and we had one enemy: Stax. We got real competitive. When I heard Isaac Hayes sing 'One Woman', I wished he would take those damn chains he wore and hang himself with them. Otis [Redding] would sing 'I've been loving you too long' and before you know it I would sing 'I'm still in love with you'. Everyone was pitching against each other: it brought out the best in all of us.

When I returned to secular music You've Got The Love I Need, Al Green (2008) When I was ordained as a pastor I walked away from secular music for seven, eight years. It took me that time to learn that God is love. He is? Yeah! If you're singing about love, you're singing about compassion. 'You've Got the Love I Need' is about the family unit. The message is, 'I don't need anyone else, baby, I just need you. Let's do the best for the kids. It's going to be all right.' These are good songs; sanctified songs. God told me, 'I gave you the music, Al. Sing the music I gave you - all the music.' So I did.

Strange and possibly true

1 In 1975 Jackie Wilson had a heart attack on the Dick Clark TV show, leaving him in a vegetative state until his death in 1984. One of the only artists to visit him regularly during those eight years was Green. 2 Interpreting the death of an old friend as a message from God, Green was ordained as a pastor at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis in 1976. He preaches there to this day. 3 After falling from a stage in Cincinatti in 1979 and taking it as another sign from God, Green gave up secular music for eight years. 4 He played a minister in Beverly Hills Cop III 5 Green's music is a favourite of hip, violent films and TV shows, featuring on Pulp Fiction, The Sopranos (twice) and The Wire

Don't let the reverend business scare you. I'm a nice Reverend Al Green. I'm pretty down to earth.

The best thing about being a reverend is the chance to get down to the nitty gritty on what love is. Love is care, compassion, concern – I'm infatuated with being concerned about you. If you let that grow it will get to be everlasting love. From there you get to God is love.

When I was a boy I wondered why they sang so mournful in church. The teacher told me: "Mr Green, if we were singing to try to get your attention, we'd sing it the way you want it sung. But we're not trying to reach you. We're trying to reach a little higher."

My daddy drank liquor. He would always leave me in the truck when he went to the liquor joint. He'd come out sloppy drunk and say: "Don't tell your mama." I'd be sitting in the back laughing. I didn't have to tell her. All he had to do was try to get out the truck.

I was born again in 1973, when I was just getting started in music. I looked up at the sky saying: "What are you doing? I just had a song on the radio and now you gonna give me religion?" They were saying from upstairs: "Al, we want to save your life." I thought: "Oh yeah, maybe I should at least help."

I was hooked up on jet planes, good times, fast women. Everything of mine was fast.

You can't compare a congregation to a crowd at a concert. A concert crowd does what they want. A congregation's got rules and regulations.

I'm not trying to fool anybody. I'm a Christian, but I've lived a life that's full. I've been married a couple of times, been up and been down, been right and been wrong. These are the things you go through in this life.

Life is more than snapping your fingers and having on a fine suit. Life is about devotion. It's about family, it's about the kids, it's about school. It's about going on a picnic with the boys.

As featured in The Guardian

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[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

This came out of some FOI research. It's genius.

Some British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh Gods & Goddesses: Amaethon (Welsh) - God of Agriculture, Master of Magic

Arawn (Welsh) - God of the Hunt and the Underworld

Arianrhod (Welsh) - Star and Sky Goddess, Goddess of Beauty, Full Moon and Magical Spells

Badb (Irish) - Goddess of War, Death and Rebirth

Caillech (Scottish, Irish, Welsh) - Goddess of Weather, Earth, Sky, Seasons, Moon and Sun

Cliodna (Irish, Scottish) - Goddess of Beauty and of Other Realms

Creide (Irish, Scottish) - Goddess of Women and Fairies

The Green Man (Welsh) - God of the Woodlands, of Life Energy and Fertility

Morgan LeFay (Welsh) - Goddess of Death, Fate, the Sea and of Curses

Oghma (Scottish, Irish) - God of Communication and Writing, and of Poets

Rhiannon (Welsh) - Goddess of Birds, Horses, Enchantments, Fertility and the Underworld

Skatha (Welsh) - Goddess of the Underworld, Darkness, Magic, Prophecy and Martial Arts

I've done various types of kung-fu and general scrapping on and off for most of my life. Never to any level of real expertise - enthusiastic amateur probably sums it up best, as it's my lack of control over my gangly limbs and pointy elbows that is genuinely dangerous - but always with genuine interest in provenance as well as technique. For anyone who's ever been even half interested in it, there are certain characters we all hold dear: Jackie Chan is the don, genuinely tough and a serious badass but with genius comic timing; as well as being a big ol' hairy bear, Chuck Norris is hard as nails and not someone to mess with (originally Korean-taught, he invented his own system, Chun Kuk Do); and (one, two skip a few) Bruce Lee is the progenitor of it all - he brought it to the silver screen in the West, but he was also a tireless innovator of martial arts.

We're told the Chinese didn't want Westerners to learn their martial arts, that Bruce Lee - who learnt his own Wing Chun from the legendary Ip Man - was challenged by a shady cabal of Kung Fu masters in a fight to the death over the matter, and that he won, winning for us the right to open the doors and teach whoever he wanted.

At least that's what I always thought.

I stumbled across this amazing article today, originally printed in "Official Karate" in 1980, which is food for thought and then some. Not just about the circumstances surrounding the fight, but also about general perceptions of internal/external martial arts. I've put a few highlights below, but thoroughly recommend you read the whole thing (click HERE to do so) and get it in context.

What you're about to read is a fascinating alternative to that Hollywood legend. A clash between Bruce Lee's aggressive new style and Wong Jack-Man's traditional Chinese methods (below). But, crucially, not necessarily the version from the movie.

"Considering the skill of the opponents and the complete absence of referees, rules, and safety equipment, it was one hell of a fight that took place that day in December.

It may have been the most savagely elegant exhibition of unarmed combat of the century. Yet, at a time when top fighters tend to display their skills only in huge closed-circuited arenas, this battle was fought in virtual secrecy behind locked doors. And at a time when millions of dollars can ride on the outcome of a championship fight, these champions of another sort competed not for money, but for more personal and passionate reasons.

The time was late winter, 1964; the setting was a small Kung Fu school in Oakland, California. Poised at the center of the room, with approximately 140 pounds packed tightly on his 5'7" frame, was the operator of the school, a 24-year old martial artist of Chinese ancestry but American birth who, within a few years, would skyrocket to international attention as a combination fighter/film star. A few years after that, at age 32, he would die under mysterious circumstances. His name, of course, was Bruce Lee.

Also poised in the center of the room was another martial artist. Taller but lighter, with his 135 pounds stretched thinly over 5'10", this fighter was also of Chinese descent. Born in Hong Kong and reared in the south of mainland China, he had only recently arrived in San Francisco's teeming Chinatown, just across the bay from Oakland. Though over the next 15 years he would become widely known in martial arts circles and would train some of America's top martial artists, he would retain a near disdain for publicity and the commercialization of his art, and consequently would remain unknown to the general public. His name: Wong Jack Man (below).

...From the few available firsthand accounts and other evidence, it is possible to piece together a reasonably reliable picture that reveals two overriding truths. First, considering the skill of the opponents and the complete absence of referees, rules, and safety equipment, it was one hell of a fight that took place that day in December. And second, Bruce Lee, who was soon to rival Mao Tse Tung as the world's most famous Chinese personality, was dramatically affected by the fight, perhaps fatally so.

Linda Lee, in her book Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, initially dismisses the fight as follows:

"The two came out, bowed formally and then began to fight. Wong adopted a classic stance whereas Bruce, who at the time was still using his Wing Chun style, produced a series of straight punches. Within a minute, Wong's men were trying to stop the fight as Bruce began to warm to his task. James Lee warned them to let the fight continue. A minute later, with Bruce continuing the attack in earnest, Wong began to backpedal as fast as he could. For an instant, indeed, the scrap threatened to degenerate into a farce as Wong actually turned and ran. But Bruce pounced on him like a springing leopard and brought him to the floor where he began pounding him into a state of demoralization."

"Is that enough?" shouted Bruce. "That's enough!" pleaded Wong in desperation.

So the entire matter was just another quick triumph for the man who frequently boasted he could whip any man in the world. Or was it?

That the fight with Wong was the reason Lee quit, and then later repudiated the Wing Chun style, was confirmed by Lee himself in an interview with Black Belt. "I'd gotten into a fight in San Francisco (a reference, no doubt, to the Bay Area rather than the city) with a Kung-Fu cat, and after a brief encounter the son-of-a-bitch started to run. I chased him and, like a fool, kept punching him behind his head and back. Soon my fists began to swell from hitting his hard head. Right then I realized Wing Chun was not too practical and began to alter my way of fighting."

For those who have difficulty believing that a quick if clumsy victory over a worthy opponent was sufficient reason for Lee to abandon a fighting style that had seen him through dozens of vicious street fights as a youth in Hong Kong, where his family had moved shortly after his birth in San Francisco, a more substantial reason for Lee to change styles can be found in the account of the fight given by Wong Jack Man.

According to Wong, the battle began with him bowing and offering his hand to Lee in the traditional manner of opening a match. Lee, he say, responded by pretending to extend a friendly hand only to suddenly transform the hand into a four-pronged spear aimed at Wong's eyes.

"That opening move," says Wong, "set the tone for Lee'�s fight." Wing Chun has but three sets, the solo exercises which contain the full body of technique of any style, and one of those sets is devoted to deadly jabbing and gouging attacks directed primarily at the eyes and throat. "It was those techniques," say Wong, "which Lee used most."

There were flurries of straight punches and repeated kicks at his groin, adds Wong, but mostly, relentlessly, there were those darting deadly finger tips trying to poke out his eyes or puncture his throat. And what he say he anticipated as serious but sportsmanly comparison of skill suddenly became an exercise in defending his life.

Wong says that before the fight began Lee remarked, in reference to a mutual acquaintance who had helped instigate the match, "You've been killed by your friend." Shortly after the bout commenced, he adds, he realized Lee's words had been said in earnest.

"He really wanted to kill me," says Wong.

In contrast to Lee's three Wing Chun sets, Wong, as the grand master of the Northern Shaolin style, knew dozens. But most of what he used against Lee, says Wong, was defensive. Wong says he parried Lee's kicks with his legs while using his hand and arms to protect his head and torso, only occasionally delivering a stinging blow to Lee's head or body.

He fought defensively, explains Wong, in part because of Lee's relentless aggressive strategy, and in part because he feared the consequences of responding in kind to Lee's attempt to kill him. In pre-revolutionary China, fights to the finish were often allowed by law, but Wong knew that in modern-day America, a crippling or killing blow, while winning a victory, might also win him a jail sentence.

That, says Wong, is why he failed to deliver a devastating right-hand blow on any of the three occasions he had Lee's head locked under his left arm. Instead, he says, he released his opponent each time, only to have an even more enraged Bruce Lee press on with his furious attack.

"He would never say he lost until you killed him," says Wong. And despite his concern with the legal consequences, Wong says that killing Lee is something he began to consider. "I remember thinking, 'If he injures me, if he really hurts me, I'll have to kill him."

But according to Wong, before that need arose, the fight had ended, due more to what Linda Lee described as Lee's "unusually winded" condition than to a decisive blow by either opponent. "It had lasted," says Wong, "at least 20 minutes, maybe 25."

Though William Chen's recollections of the fight are more vague than the other two accounts, they are more in alignment with Wong's than Lee's. On the question of duration, for example, Chen, like Wong, remembers the fight continuing for "20 or 25 minutes." Also, he cannot recall either man being knocked down. "Certainly," he says, "Wong was not brought to the floor and pounded into a 'state of demoralization.'"

Regarding Wong's claim that three times he had Lee's head locked under his arm, Chen says he can neither confirm or deny it. He remembers the fighters joining on several occasions, but he could not see very clearly what was happening at those moments.

Chen describes the outcome of the battle as "a tie." He adds, however, that whereas an enraged Bruce Lee had charged Wong "like a mad bull," obviously intent upon doing him serious injury. Wong had displayed extraordinary restraint by never employing what were perhaps his most dangerous weapons - his devastating kicks.

A principal difference between northern and southern Chinese fighting styles is that the northern styles give much more emphasis to kicking, and Northern Shaolin had armed Wong with kicks of blinding speeds and crushing power. But before the fight, recalls Chen, "Sifu Wong said he would not use his kicks; he thought they were too dangerous." And despite the dangerous developments that followed that pledge, Chen adds that Wong "kept his word." Though Chen's recollections exhaust the firsthand accounts, there are further fragments of evidence to indicate how the fight ended.

Ming Lum, who was then a San Francisco martial arts promoter, says he did not attend the fight because he was a friend of both Lee and Wong, and feared that a battle between them would end in serious injury, maybe even death. "Who," he asks, "would have stopped them?" But Lum did see Wong the very next day at the Jackson Cafe, where the young grand master earned his living as a waiter (he had, in fact, worked a full shift at the busy Chinatown restaurant the previous day before fighting Lee). And Lum says the only evidence he saw of the fight was a scratch above one eye, a scratch Wong says was inflicted when Lee went for his eyes as he extended his arm for the opening handshake.

"Some people say Bruce Lee beat up Jack Man bad," note Lum. "But if he had, the man would not have been to work the next day." By Lum's assessment, the fact that neither man suffered serious injury in a no-holds-barred battle indicates that both were "very, very good."

Both men were no doubt, very, very, good. But Wong, after the fight, felt compelled to assert, boldly and publicly, that he was the better of the two. He did so, he says, only because Lee violated their agreement to not discuss the fight.

According to Wong, immediately following the match Lee had asked that neither man discuss it. Discussion would lead to more argument over who had won, a matter which could never be resolved as there had been no judges. Wong said he agreed.

But within a couple of weeks, he says, Lee violated the agreement by claiming in an interview that he had defeated an unnamed challenger. Though Lee had not identified Wong as the loser, Wong says it was obvious to all of Chinatown that Lee was speaking of Wong. It had already become common knowledge within the Chinese community that the two had fought.

In response to Lee's interview, Wong wrote a detailed description of the fight which concluded with an open invitation to Lee to meet him for a public bout if Lee was not satisfied with Wong's account. Wong's version of the fight, along with the challenge, was run as the top story on the front page of San Francisco's Chinese language Chinese Pacific Weekly. But Bruce Lee, despite his reputation for responding with fists of fury to the slightest provocation, remained silent."

Please read the whole thing here: http://www.lakungfu.com/sifujackmanwong.html , it's worth it.

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.

Leonardo da Vinci

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" "Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

Ernest Hemingway. Photo by Karsh Yousuf

Captain MorganPreening Pirate or Bloodthirsty Buccaneer? Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum

He may appear a bit of a fop on the bottle, but the real Captain Morgan was cut from a rougher swath of cloth. Captain Henry Morgan (1635-1688) was a Welsh privateer who won English knighthood and historical renown for his daring (and quite bloodthirsty) attacks on Spanish colonies and shipping.

He was also a notorious drunkard. While pirating, and during his stint as the Deputy Governor of Jamaica, he drank rum by the gallon and was a dedicated habitue of the rough-and-tumble taverns of whatever port he might find himself in. He eventually drank himself into his grave.

Why It Worked: Pirates enjoy the same privileged status in the popular consciousness as ninjas, mafioso and gunslingers. At once flamboyant, murderous and disdainful of authority, the pirate was the ultimate rebel. And what red-blooded drunkard hasn’t yearned to sail the high seas in search of rum, wenches, and adventure?

Evolution: In the initial 1950s adverts, the Captain appeared unarmed and with his hat respectfully doffed (he was often found in the company of high-society types), but the homicidal gleam in his eye was unmistakable. No doubt fantasizing about running the gang of snobs through with his cutlass and making off with their wives and wallets.

They started “spicing” the rum in the 1980s and the icon became rather spicy himself. He shed his social graces, put his hat back on, and began brandishing his sword in a menacing fashion.

The present, more cartoonish incarnation of the Captain was drawn by fantasy and sci-fi artist Don Maitz, and while there is still fire in the Captain’s eyes, it seems more the leer of a sexual predator than the bloodthirsty gleam of a proper pirate.

Dark Secret: Though the label insinuates otherwise, the rum has no historical connection to its namesake. The Captain Morgan Rum Company came into existence in  1943 and didn’t start using Morgan’s image until the early 1950s. The “original” spiced version was introduced in 1983.

Claim to Fame: Killed legendary drunkard and actor Oliver Reed. Reed had a heart attack after downing three bottles of Captain Morgan’s Jamaican Rum (along with beer and other liquors) and whipping five Royal Navy sailors at arm wrestling in a pub on the island of Malta.

From MODERN DRUNKARD magazine. Read the rest of the article (click here) and find out the story behind the striding man on Johnnie Walker bottles, the Bacardi bat, Wild Turkey's turkey, the Guinness Toucan, the Jägermeister stag and more.

On a cool, clear night (typical to Southern California) Warren G travels through his neighborhood, searching for women with whom he might initiate sexual intercourse. He has chosen to engage in this pursuit alone. Nate Dogg, having just arrived in the east side of Long Beach, seeks Warren. On his way to find Warren, Nate passes a car full of women who are excited to see him. Regardless, he insists to the women that there is no cause for excitement.

Warren makes a left turn at 21st Street and Lewis Ave, in the East Hill/Salt Lake neighborhood, where he sees a group of young men enjoying a game of dice together. He parks his car and greets them. He is excited to find people to play with, but to his chagrin, he discovers they intend to relieve him of his material possessions. Once the hopeful robbers reveal their firearms, Warren realizes he is in a less than favorable predicament.

Meanwhile, Nate passes the women, as they are low on his list of priorities. His primary concern is locating Warren. After curtly casting away the strumpets (whose interest in Nate was such that they crashed their automobile), he serendipitously stumbles upon his friend, Warren G, being held up by the young miscreants.

Warren, unaware that Nate is surreptitiously observing the scene unfold, is in disbelief that he is being robbed. The perpetrators have taken jewelry and a Rolex Watch from Warren, who is so incredulous that he asks what else the robbers intend to steal. This is most likely a rhetorical question.

Observing these unfortunate proceedings, Nate realizes that he may have to use his firearm to deliver his friend from harm.

The tension crescendos as the robbers point their guns to Warren's head. Warren senses the gravity of his situation. He cannot believe the events unfolding could happen in his own neighborhood. As he imagines himself making a fantastical escape, he catches a glimpse of his friend, Nate.

Nate has seventeen cartridges (sixteen residing in the pistol's magazine, with a solitary round placed in the chamber and ready to be fired) to expend on the group of robbers. Afterward, he generously shares the credit for neutralizing the situation with Warren, though it is clear that Nate did all of the difficult work. Putting congratulations aside, Nate quickly reminds himself that he has committed multiple homicides to save Warren before letting his friend know that there are females nearby if he wishes to fornicate with them.

Warren recalls that it was the promise of copulation that coaxed him away from his previous activities, and is thankful that Nate knows a way to satisfy these urges. Nate quickly finds the women who earlier crashed their car on Nate's account. He remarks to one that he is fond of her physical appeal. The woman, impressed by Nate's singing ability, asks that he and Warren allow her and her friends to share transportation. Soon, both friends are driving with automobiles full of women to the East Side Motel, presumably to consummate their flirtation in an orgy.

The third verse is more expository, with Warren and Nate explaining their G Funk musical style. Warren displays his bravado by daring anyone to approach the style. There follows a brief discussion of the genre's musicological features, with special care taken to point out that in said milieu the rhythm is not in fact the rhythm, as one might assume, but actually the bass. Similarly the bass serves a purpose closer to that which the treble would in more traditional musical forms. Nate displays his bravado by claiming that individuals with equivalent knowledge could not even attempt to approach his level of lyrical mastery. Nate goes on to note that if any third party smokes as he does, they would find themselves in a state of intoxication almost daily (from Nate's other works, it can be inferred that the substance referenced is marijuana). Nate concludes his delineation of the night by issuing a threat to "busters," suggesting that he and Warren will further "regulate" any potential incidents in the future (presumably by engaging their antagonists with small arms fire).

Regulate (song) - Wikipedia

(via Day of the Dreamers)