As South Africans prepare to vote in our April 2009 election it is time to steer away from all this negativity, this overwhelming perpetual obsession and media over-saturation with stories of crime and corruption. Let us not get distracted now and pay a little more attention to the real issues that affects our society. Food, housing, water, electricity, health services and most important of all education. Let us elect those leaders who are sensitive to our needs, listening to our people and hold them accountable through strengthening our democracy and our democratic institutions. Let us firmly and unanimously reject all those academics and experts and analysts and advisors who keep on informing  us that our future as a nation is controlled by “the market” and that we are in fact governed by “foreign investors”.  Because if that is the case - what is the point of having elections and a democracy at all ?

Let us listen to the great spirit of Fela when he reminded us again that our destiny is in our own hands.

That phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust ???

Yeah I know : the Clash said it way back in 1979 in the good old days when a bunch of heroin shooting brats calling the queen on her “fascist regime” could still make it to number one on the UK charts.

But I beg to disagree.

A little tribute to true subgenius.

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952, in Dumbarton, Scotland) is a Scottish-American musician and artist. He is perhaps best known as a founding member and the principal songwriter of the new wave band Talking Heads, who were active between 1974 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo projects on record, and worked in a variety of media, including film, photography, opera, and internet-based projects. His achievements have been recognized by Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe awards. He currently lives in New York City. David is a SubGenii.

link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Byrne_%28musician%29

Something nice and laid back to start the weekend. Manu Chao.

I just watched a wonderful little movie with one of those beautiful moments that tends to get stuck in your memories for ever. The movie called Stranger than fiction is about a dull and socially invisible tax collection man who realizes that he is the main character in a modern tragedy and that the author of the book is planning to “kill” him in the ending. The foreknowledge of his inevitable and imminent death spurs him into waking up to life and starting to live his dreams, the biggest one being to learn the guitar and to play a quaintly romantic pop sang called Whole Wide World. The lyrics go something like this.

When I was a young boy
My mama said to me
There’s only one girl in the world for you
And she probably lives in TahitiI’d go the whole wide world
I’d go the whole wide world
Just to find her

Or maybe she’s in the Bahamas
Where the Carribean sea is blue
Weeping in a tropical moonlit night
Because nobody’s told her ’bout you

I’d go the whole wide world
I’d go the whole wide world
Just to find her
I’d go the whole wide world
I’d go the whole wide world
Find out where they hide her

Why am I hanging around in the rain out here
Trying to pick up a girl
Why are my eyes filling up with these lonely tears
When there’re girls all over the world

Is she lying on a tropical beach somewhere
Underneath the tropical sun
Pining away in a heatwave there
Hoping that I won’t be long

I should be lying on that sun-soaked beach with her
Caressing her warm brown skin
And then in a year or maybe not quite
We’ll be sharing the same next of kin

I’d go the whole wide world
I’d go the whole wide world
Just to find her
I’d go the whole wide world
I’d go the whole wide world
Find out where they hide her

Artist: WRECKLESS ERIC

Just two chords in there: E and A. If you also feel like a frustrated revenue collector and you want to start living for a change get up from your couch, go buy yourself a guitar and try Acoustic Guitar Lesson for a little bit of guidance.

Here is a slightly more colorful version of the same song by the Monkees: