under

currently Tazmania, pretty here, Hobart sort of Newcastle with palm trees... tour is moving gradually around Australia and thereabouts... lots of waiting for traffic lights in the cities...

GIP GIP GIP

today i suffered through Reagan's '81 inaugural speech that was broadcast on NPR... i thought that it was admirable that someone was going to make note of the irony of hearing Ron's words from then in todays economic climate... for example he says:
" But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is..." well he doesn't end with "to continue this long trend IS MY FUCKING PLAN OF ACTION!" rather he says he's not for it, that too much government involvement is a bad bad thing etc etc... do i have to comment here about why i think this is ironic? sure the US unemployment rate was a hi 7.5% at the beginning of '81 but who believes that its only 10% today? raise hands...
and who believes that Ron was the corporate poster boy and sure, he was happy to stop 'government involvement' by handing the key to the country to wall street... in the rest of the speech in fact the phrase 'decreasing government involvement' for me became a sort of code for 'total selling out' stopping regulatory commissions dead etc... wasnt it Reagan who even put the cabash on how long TV commercials were allowed to be... simply put the deregulation of the advertising industry... i found this passage: In 1984, ACT (Action for Children's Television, a child advocacy group) responded to the proliferation of program length commercials by filing a complaint to the FCC. However, according to the FCC, "marketplace forces can better determine commercial levels than our own rules"
etc etc
so even before the speech droned on to its god-fearing conclusion i realized that we probably weren't gonna hear any bright summation after all, and lo it turned out that the speech was just a homage to 'stirring words' on some 'stirring words' show that found its way onto NPR and rather than pointing up the absolutely crazy irony of the words we listened to some Reagan biographer carry on about what a great president Ron was... the final irony was to hear this guy say what a great and inspiring speaker Ronnie was.. as they say he was listening to a different piece of bla bla than the one i heard

time, heat

alas i have neglected here lately... facebook is easy and stupidly engrossing so that... the Uk jaunt was good fun, there i sso much good will towards us there that it makes the whole thing all the more... also the family came so there wasnt the usual separation anxiety... now brief hiatus twixt gigs... not much to report... along with various fan contingents i too am anxiously awaiting news of the impending record release... meanwhile i am working pretty regularly on material for whatever the next one is after 'panic'
its hot as all here... what if it keeps getting hotter? what if Al Gore is not a nut? etc
have you seen the thing about the huge island of garbage the size of Texas or bigger than the whole US depending on where you look; 'the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.
"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option, It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues." says Chris Parry who works with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco'
cover with dirt plant trees etc

new site up

http://www.blondie.net/blog/ the site is finally upgraded!!!!

THE HAPPY EASTER MONSTER!

this guy was found hidden on a shelf in CVS... some sort of deformed peep...

A Great Day In Hip Hop part 3 of 3

! i was just looking at stuff about this event and found this... it was awesome to be a part of!

album cover

the new BLONDIE album cover art is being done by Dutch (Amsterdam) artist Chris Berens

he just had his first show in NYC... we have known about him for only a year or so, great stuff,
more soon...

new record

ok we are getting closer to the next record... all the mixes are done... we have a couple of very cool guest artistes, we are pushing for a 15-16 track record... there are three, maybe four cover songs... theres one track in French and Two in Spanish... as for the English language remaining tracks most of the lyrics are by Debbie... i must say i am knocked out by the lyrics alone... i think that this record will help people understand that one can write rock lyrics that go further into the realm of poetry and literature, that just dont make simple statements... i think all the blondie records are different and have their own character... this one has been in the works for over a year and the long period since the last record has certainly pushed it into its own space... yes it sounds like blondie no question... yes its a rock record... yes there are a bunch of different styles explored... beyond that i dont have more right now... i am close to saying its a little on the dark side but that may just be my own interpretation... so far we have only played things for very few people... when people hear it then we will get more of a consensus on what they think it is... we will release more details in a while the release is supposed to be in the spring... i will let you know

"winters gun" shoots us all

i have been neglecting some of these posting duties due to ennui and using the time i have to keep active on the upcoming record project

pretty soon i am hoping to release some concrete data re the next record, till then you will have to live in some suspense

thus far i have only heard i guess four of the tracks mixed... ok what i do have is tracks are being mixed by Mark Needham in LA, produced by our now old pal Jeff Saltzman one of the most patient individuals in the whole of something...

i am still working on new music... the world of digital recording is unlimited and i can do hours and hours experimenting with sounds etc etc

but yes winter is a drag ('winters gun' is the title of an old friends latest recording, i love it, had been playing it constantly for several months when i first got it)

and there is little to do outside of a limited circle sooo i was pleased to find the crazy service offered by Xtranormal.com ... there one can waste time making little cartoon creatures say weird shit to each other, the results however are pretty hi end... so for part and full time computer geeks like myself its an amusing winter pastime... some results are on my youtube site: esxp on youtube thats about it... still not set up to send autographs, should be in the UK this year etc etc

happy new year by the way

future of latenight

sooo XTRANORMAL.com is and even better time wasting device than video games