Boring Like A Drill.

With all the excitement of the UK general election I nearly forgot that it was merely the curtain-raiser for the real deal: Eurovision. With two weeks to the big event and only minor changes from last year, the 2010 rules for the refined but deadly art of drinkmanship that is the Eurovision Song Contest Drinking Game fare as follows.

PHASE I: THE SONGS

A. Every instance within a song:

I.A.1 The Dramatic Key Change. Whenever the singers dramatically shift up a key for the final chorus(es).

I.A.2 The Bucks Fizz. Whenever performer(s) sheds a piece of clothing – once only on every instance, whether executed by an individual or as a group. Finish your drink if the clothing loss is obviously unintentional.

B. Once per song only:

I.B.1 Is That English? Whenever someone notices that the singers have switched from their native language into English in an attempt to win more votes. Two drinks if they try to dodge the language issue by intentionally singing gibberish.

I.B.2 The Fine Cotton. Any appearance of mercenary talent flown in to represent a foreign country. Two drinks if they’re Irish.

I.B.3 Las Ketchup and the Waves. A country drags a legitimate, real-life, one-hit wonder out of obscurity in the hope that name recognition can buy them some points. This is additional to I.B.2 the Fine Cotton.

I.B.4 The Cultural Rainbow. Every time an entrant blatantly rips off last year’s winning performance. Finish your drink if last year’s winning country rips itself off.

I.B.5 The Wand’ring Minstrel. Unless it’s a solo guitar or piano, Eurovision insists on backing tapes. It’s in the rules, so don’t accuse some entrants of cheating; but take a drink if performers pretend to play a musical instrument (or simulacrum thereof) in a blatantly fake way, as part of the choreography. A second drink is permitted if a subsequent, different wave of faux-minstrely rises after the first has subsided.

I.B.6 The Greeks (formerly The TaTu). Finish your drink if the audience boos (on the telly, not in your living room.)

I.B.7 Don’t Mention The War. The German entrant sings something about everyone being happy. This is a legacy rule, as in recent years it has largely been  supplanted by…

I.B.7a Don’t Mention The Wall. The Israeli entrant sings something about everyone being happy.

I.B.8 My Lovely Horse. Any obvious indication that a country is deliberately trying to lose, to avoid budgetary/logistical/political problems of hosting the event next year.

PHASE I ADVANCED PLAYERS ONLY:

I.B.5a The Wand’ring Minstrel (supplemental). Two drinks if the instrument is an accordion.

I.B.9 The San Remo. Any occurence of visible armpits and/or pointing at nothing in particular. Two drinks for a hairy armpit.

I.B.10 The White Suit. You’ll know it when you see it; and you’ll know it again when you see it again, and again…

PHASE II: THE VOTES

II.1 The Wardrobe Change. Each time the female host changes frocks. Two drinks if the male host changes suits.

II.2 The Gimme. When Greece gives twelve points to Cyprus, and when Germany gives twelve points to Turkey.

II.3 The Old Europe. When the UK gets null points from France.

II.4 The Sympathy Vote. When anything sung in French first gets a point, and/or the last country without any points finally gets off the mark. A special toast to any country left with zero points at the end.

II.5 The “Viktor, You Very Unattractive Fellow.” Two drinks if the hosts speak in rhyme and/or pretend to flirt with each other. Finish your drink if the flirting is serious.

PHASE II INTERMEDIATE: You and your friends probably will be too unruly by this stage to catch every occurrence of these, so just try to catch what you can.

II.6 The Hurry-Up. Every time the announcer from each voting country is politely asked by the hosts to shut the fuck up (i.e. “Can we have your votes please?”). Two drinks if the announcer tries to deliver a personal message to a relative watching at home.

II.7 The Sandra Sully. Each time an announcer reads the voting results wrong. Two drinks if they get so confused they have to start over.

II.8 The Sally Field. Each time they show contestants backstage during the voting looking genuinely surprised and pleased with themselves when they get the same politically-motivated votes they get every year.

II.9 The Master of Suspense. It looks like everyone’s figured it out now, so this hasn’t happened for a few years, but just in case: each time an announcer fails to understand that the pause for suspense only works if they announce the twelve points first, then the country that has won them – not the other way around.

PHASE II ADVANCED PLAYERS ONLY:

II.10 The New Europe. When the Baltic or Balkan states all give each other twelve points, or a former Soviet republic gives Russia twelve points. Do not attempt without medical supervision.

THE WILDCARDS

W1 A person must finish their drink if they ask:
W1.a why Israel is in it;
W1.b why Italy isn’t in it; or
W1.c where the hell is Moldova?

W2 A toast to the first person who expresses dismay when they realise how long the voting is going to take.

W3 A toast to Bosnia and Herzegovina if they change the spelling of their country again from last year (last year’s spelling: ‘Bosnia&Herzegovina’).

W4 A toast to the person who gets so drunk you have to secretly call a cab and persuade them they ordered it when it arrives.

Filed under: Music, Stupidity, Television by Ben.H

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Unscheduled computer maintenance. Today’s blog post is sure to appear tomorrow.

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No updates the last few days ’cause I’ve been busy preparing for tomorrow night’s gig. Also, I’ve been gradually upgrading all of the main website to the new design, in the hope that it, too, may soon be a World Class Facility like this bucket in Melbourne:

Filed under: Music, Self-promotion, Stupidity by Ben.H

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I’d like to apologise for a fundamental error in my review of the Crumb Total Immersion day. I mistakenly referred to the composer as George Crumb throughout. George Crumb is, of course, the famous cartoonist. The composer’s name is Robert Crumb, as correctly identified by BBC Radio 3.

It’s good to see Radio 3 diligently pursuing its remit to “inform and educate the audience about music and culture”, although when you try to follow the BBC’s own link to its Radio 3 website it in fact takes to you BBC Three, a television station dedicated to programmes like Bashing Booze Birds and Britain’s Most Embarrassing Pets.

There seems to be a webmonkey at the Beeb who gets easily confused over names.

Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H

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In the early days of the internet, I used to get email every now and then from deluded fanboys who had mistaken me for a different Ben Harper. Of course, I always replied. That hasn’t happened for years, but last week I got fan mail from none other than the King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson. Apparently the afterlife now has email, but not Google.

Mr Johnson’s remarks were apposite, albeit misdirected:

Who did you have to blow to get to the level of semi-fame you have been handed? In your entire career there has not been one original moment. Your vocals and guitar playing, not to mention your lyrics, are dull, and the worst thing is your deep sense of self-importance. You seem humorless and totally self-involved. And you are just generally so AVERAGE. If it weren’t for your connections,you would be playing in a bar somewhere in the Inland Empire on a Sunday Jam night.

I know that your career was handed to you, so that’s nice for you. Since you have a soapbox on which to stand and pontificate, why not take just a minute and write something catchy? Be a pop star and a star-fucker (you already are), and stop with the fake social consciousness.

PS congratulations on those tattoos. They are about as original as your music.

Rolling over in my grave,
Robert Johnson

PS please stop playing my music. It’s embarassing.

As I said, I always reply to fan mail, regardless of whether it’s meant for me or not:

Dear Mr Johnson,

Thank you for your email. In reply to your question, I had to blow an old gypsy at the age of 12 to attain my present day success. Funnily enough, it took place at a crossroads. Ain’t that a kick in the pants? Thought you might find it amusing.

I know I got a pretty sweet deal going here so I have no intention of shitting where I eat and showing up my lack of talent by trying and failing to write something fun and tuneful. As for the fake social consciousness, well as you are aware I have next to no mojo so it’s the next best way to get laid. Sure, they’re those liberal arts student chicks who don’t shave in the right places but they’re hella uninhibited and besides when you’re almost drowning in pussy you don’t want to make waves, you get me? Same goes for the tattoos, they’re a real leg-spreader for the sheltered neurotic type that tend to hang out at my gigs.

To be honest, I have been working on some new material, its uploaded on my new website at http://www.cookylamoo.com/music/. I call it Klezska, its like a combination of klezmer, ska, and polka all wrapped up into one. I hardly need to keep typing cos I know you’re already downloading it, who can resist such an amazing blend of rockin styles. It’s pretty fucking awesome, though I say so myself.

Also, Eric Clapton and I have been talking about issuing a sort of customer loyalty/credit account card with your picture on it. You know, as a tribute. Is that cool?

You’re my idol,
Ben.Harper

Filed under: Music, Stupidity, Writing by Ben.H

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Filed under: Stupidity, The Bunker by Ben.H

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Pace Terry Wogan, Eurovision is not always a vote-for-your-neighbour contest. A total of just 43 people in Eurovision newcomer Azerbaijan voted for neighbouring country and traditional rival Armenia. How do we know? Because officials from the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry are rounding them up:

“They wanted an explanation for why I voted for Armenia. They said it was a matter of national security,” Nasirli said. “They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, ‘You have no sense of ethnic pride. How come you voted for Armenia?’ They made me write out an explanation, and then they let me go.”

Disappointing news. It makes one yearn for the simpler, more innocent days of yore, when Eurovision points were allocated on the decisions of government-appointed judges, without all this pesky voting messing things up.

Filed under: Music, Stupidity, Television by Ben.H

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Hooray! StSanders, the genius who gave the world so many excellent shreds of the world’s finest guitar heroes, has raised the stakes in a new video that’s gonna make the people sway and rock and clap their hands to the beat. Hooray!

Because YouTube kept taking them down, the complete gallery of shreds can now be found here.

Filed under: Filler By Proxy, Music, Stupidity by Ben.H

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A mere two weeks after that friendly missive from Suzanne Somers, I’ve received another email from an admirer:

X-Mailer: YahooMailWebService/0.7.289.1
From: Stave Scout
Reply-To: stavescout@yahoo.com
Subject: ORDER
To: drills2001@aol.com
Dear sir/madam

My name is stave scout and urgenly need some DRILLS to order from your company.please email with the types of DRILLS you have in stock for sale now.and the price and i will like to know what type of credit card do you accept. I will be looking forward to hear from you soon.

Thanks
Regards,
stave

Always willing to assist, I immediately sent a reply.

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your enquiry about DRILLS. I have a wide selection of reconditioned DRILLS and DRILLBITS for sale – from the most delicate surgical equipment to heavy machinery for vast construction projects (laparoscopy, shipping canals). Please inform me of what type of DRILLS you need and I’m sure I can arrange prompt delivery. I accept Mastercard.
Kind regards,
Ben.

I’ll let you know when I receive a reply. I’m sure it won’t take long.

Filed under: Stupidity by Ben.H

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This blog doesn’t get much mail, except for some crazy oboe-playing guy who writes in every six months or so to complain about a passing comment I made about a music critic several years ago. So I was quietly excited to discover that a lonely missive had dropped into my inbox today.

That thrill turned to disappointment when it turned out to be be from Web Sheriff, an apparently legitimate company that perversely tries to make their emails look like spam by putting “EXTREMELY URGENT” in the subject line and using an embarrassing, fakey old-west style sheriff’s badge as their logo. Best of all, despite the company name and logo, they’re British; and there’s nothing funnier than the British pretending to be cowboys (except for Germans pretending to be American Indians.) I guess the old company logo of Robin Hood being persecuted by Lily Allen’s dad didn’t inspire as much confidence.

Anyway, this EXTREMELY URGENT email from Deborah Sykes was a “DMCA REQUEST” to “remove Infringed Title(s) from Infringing File Location(s)” I thought the DMCA was an American law, so I’m not sure why a British company is so keen on enforcing it. I haven’t bothered to look this up because the file in question had already been taken down, so I guess their urgency wasn’t extreme enough.

You’re probably wondering what file on my website the sheriff (head office in Wiltshire, not Nottingham) was so exercised about. It was because I had briefly included a copy of that massive Van Morrison hit, “Thirty Two” – all sixty-one seconds of it – in Please Mister Please. Van’s time here has come and gone, but you can recreate the magic of the song in your own homes by strumming any old chord on an acoustic guitar and reciting over the top these deathless lyrics:

I see, you see, we’ll get a guitar,
yeah, we’ll get a guitar
and, oh, we’ll get, we’ll get three guitars,
No!, No!!, we’ll get four guitars
and we’ll get Herbie Lovelle to play drums,
and we’ll do, the
“Sha-la”, sha…
We’ll do the sha-, sha-la bit.
“Sha-la, sha-, sha-la, sha-la”, we’ll do it,
we’ll get together, uunghh, we’ll get
uunghh, ttcchh, uugnhh-uunghh-uunghh, like that,
and we’ll do the sha-la bit and then,
then, then, and we’ll get, we’ll get sixteen guitars,
and then, then we’ll play it,
and then we’ll do that one, yeah.
Let me hear ya’ do that again.
Over and over, Bert Berns song, over…
[clack, clack-clack, clack]

Filed under: Music, Stupidity by Ben.H

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