I've Been Away - Part Two

Seasoned watchers of this blog know better than most that the current barrage of hyper-posting currently peppering these pages will not last and once I'm all punned out for another seven weeks - or I've reached another particular site meter landmark* - I'll disappear sooner than you can say: "The Magic Numbers have done what? Come the revolution, those bastards are getting lined up against a wall; before Donald Trump but after David Baddiel."

So, before I disappear once again into that ether otherwise known as the Brooklyn summer smog, and by way of an apology to all those emails I haven't replied to, and to those comrades and friends who I haven't kept in proper touch with, here is a list of things I've been doing/raving over/ranting about in the last few months:

As the previous post on the blog indicates, I've been elsewhere on the internet seeking to publicise the Socialist Standard. People can sniff, sneer, hum and haw all they want about MySpace, and my attempts at seeking to raise the profile of the SPGB and its politics on a website better known for shitty bands that never deserve a record deal and the unwelcome attentions of sexual predators, but 30,000 hits to the profile page in a couple of months is nothing to be ashamed of, and where else on the internet would you have this bloke, this social drinker, this gobshite man of god, and the loud one from Letter to Brezhnev sitting side by side on your friends page? It beats dishing out leaflets in the pissing rain outside a tube station to disinterested and ungrateful wage slaves any day of the week.

In the last few months I've seen him speaking with this bloke as part of a Scottish Literary Event in New York, where I also saw this woman speak but, sadly, she wasn't as well received as she been the last time I saw her speak when she was one of the headline speakers at the Edinburgh May Day event last year in the Meadows, where she was brilliantly funny. I think many in the audience at the Chelsea branch of Barnes and Noble in Manhattan were befuddled and confused by her jokes. I know how she feels. Why should it be my problem that people in New York don't get the subtle nuances of my impersonations of Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper? Also saw these two blokes** speak on the same platform at a University Auditorium in Manhattan about why it is that the left - any left - is still so marginalised in the United States. I remember making copious notes during the meeting, and I meant to write the meeting up as a blog, dedicating it to this blogster who always speaks so highly of the first bloke, but inertia had me in its grips and I never got round to writing the post.

Being a creature of habit, I've attended the usual political demos that SPGBers are known to haunt, but this time it's Union Square in New York rather than Trafalgar Square in London. After attending a few of the events these last few months to do the paper sales, pass out the leaflets and get into arguments with Trotskyists about Krondstadt, I decided to pay homage to Simon and Garfunkel by changing the 'about me' on my blog to 'The Only Living SPGBer in New York'.*** However, no bugger seems to get the musical reference. Again, I could and should have written at length about the similarities and differences about flogging your political guts at demos in New York and London which one attends so that you can encounter the weekend anarchists and get your photo taken by the police, but I think I was washing my hair the week I should have blogged. Shame that, but if you ever bump into me on the street, march me into the nearest bar, buy me a vodka and red bull and insist that I tell you the anecdote about the cross-dressing folk music journalist that I encountered at the recent Peace and Justice march. It's not actually that witty or entertaining a story but I do like the taste of Vodka and Red Bull.

According to the musical lie detector better known as iTunes, I am currently obsessing over the usual misanthropes; these crunchy guitars; and these preppy types. Kara and myself stumbled across the last group on a recent episode of New York Noise. New York Noise is a weekly alternative music show that we always make a point of tivo'ing. On average - what with the art school graduation cartoons masquerading as music videos and yet another piss poor lead vocal from this week''s Williamsburg hipsters that make up the bulk of videos on there - it usually takes us only about four minutes to watch an hour long show. It was a pleasant surprise, therefore, to watch an episode that lasted longer than it takes to boil the kettle. I also love the raspy vocals mixed in with the retro sound of this group and, despite my best efforts to not be sucked into this week's musical saviours type hype - especially when "this week" was about six months, and they are now bracketed in the "Whatever the fuck did we ever see in them?" category amongst failed musicians music journalists - I have to admit to a wee liking for these Fred Perry wearing chavs. Whilst I'm in a confessional/can't be arsed to post links to them type mode, I'll also put my hands up to liking Hard-Fi, the Rakes and Maximo Park but you'll never get the words: "I actually quite like the Futureheads . . ." dropping from my lips, and Kenicke continue to remain to be the only decent band ever to escape from Sunderland. (Anyone who dares to mention the Toy Dolls in the comments box will be hunted down and dealt with.)

Recently joined the NYC branch of this lot. At the time of writing, I've done little more than pay the dues, wear their pin on my green jacket and promise myself that I will learn the words to this song.**** In keeping with the tone of this post, I'm being overly frivilous and I shouldn't be. They are doing good stuff here and here, and anyone who thinks that today they amount to nothing more than a few old songs, Mr Block cartoons and a potential dissertation topic for grad students hoping for a career in labour studies, should be put straight that they are as necessary today as they have ever been. Check out the newsletter of the NYC Branch, to discover a tradition still relevant, still fighting and intent on breaking out of the political ghetto.

I continue to break at least two previously blogged about new year resolutions, by not getting back into that old twentieth century pastime of reading books. Kara is reading books at a rate of one every other week whilst I have to shamefully confess that I've only actually read one book - this one - so far this calender year. Of course, I've dipped into hundreds but it's not the same as the satisfaction of reading a book from cover to cover. I'm currently reading this book, and it's my intention to read this book after that. You guessed it; the book I'm currently reading is one that Kara has already read. She read it as part of her preparation for the New York Teaching Fellowship that she was selected for recently. I'm extremely proud of her, as it's a big deal to be selected and she deserved it. It is further confirmation that she is smarter than me, but it balances itself out in the end by the fact that I'm cuter.

Currently in love with this film. It's fair to say that it I consider it to be one of the best films I've seen in recent years. A really funny and smart movie, with a sweetness to it that comes from actors actually having a chemistry that wasn't drafted and bullet pointed by their two publicists. Honorable mention should also be given to this not so recent movie that I only saw a few weeks ago,and I'm looking forward to seeing this film, this one and this one on DVD in the coming weeks.

A blog post that is little more than a glorified Amazon wish list wouldn't be complete without mention of the fact that I've recently feel in love with this HBO Show. It is now my ambition in life to run into this bloke, so that I can ask him with a straight face: "Aren't you Drama's brother in real life?" They say you lose consciousness after the first punch, so I hope he catches me cleanly.

This post is dedicated to Will Rubbish. He will know why. I'm sorry, Will - I couldn't help myself.

* Forty thousand visits to the blog, since you ask.

** Sorry, not that David Harvey - this one.

***This is only strictly true six months of the year. Hello Jim.;-)

****As featured on the classic SPGB compilation album, 'The Secret Melody of the Class Struggle',which was only ever bootlegged marketed at Glastonbury and Marxism in 2003. I should post the tracklisting for the CD as it's better than any of the political CDs that the baby trots of the Workers Power and SPEW were putting out at the same time.