A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage by Joe Jackson (Public Affairs 1999)

I'm listening to an album called Look Sharp, by a guy called Joe Jackson. Despite the fact that he has the same name as me, and even looks a bit like me, I'm trying to pretend that I've never heard of him, and that I'm hearing this music for the first time.

So how does it strike me?

It positively reeks of the year 1978, although it wasn't released until the beginning of '79. It sounds like it was made in just a few days, and I laugh as I'm reminded that most of the time it's actually in mono.

As for the style of the music: There is no style. The late '70s vintage, and the general rawness of the sound, place it more or less in the New Wave. But a genre-spotter could find bits of jazz, reggae, latin, '60s pop, R&B, punk, funk, and even disco. There are echoes of the Beatles, Steely Dan, and Graham Parker. What I hear, I think, is a guy with eclectic tastes, who, by sticking mostly to just guitar, bass, and drums, and by keeping everything almost obsessively simple, has created the illusion of a style - and a style that would have been very much in sync with its time. He's also created the illusion of being a bratty rocker with a few snappy tunes. In fact, as his choice of chords and his jazzy piano-playing suggest, he's a much more accomplished musician.

I hear a voice that is a bit strained, and has a limited range, but is quite distinctive. I hear some good tunes and some awkward, childish lyrics, although they at least demonstrate, here and there, the saving grace of humor. And I definitely hear the cynical worldview of a man in his early twenties. At twenty-three or twenty-four it seems very clever to say that the world is just a bag of woe. By the time you get to, say, forty, you've seen some woe, and it's not so funny anymore.

Along with the cynicism I hear a lot of irony, which is not the same thing. Irony is a legitimate device, a way of being funny and serious at the same time, a subtle way of making a point. But irony should be handled with care. All too often, it's used as a defense. We use it to hide the fact that we don't have the courage of our convictions, the nerve to say what we really think or how we really feel. If irony hardens into habit, we become stiff, restricted, emotionally constipated. I like to think that hasn't happened.

All in all, I like Look Sharp. It makes me smile more than it makes me cringe. But it surprises me, in retrospect, that more people didn't see through the illusions - illusions that I wasn't going to be able to keep up for more than another album or two. Once the fuss died down, and I was no longer the flavor of the month, I would have two choices, neither of them easy. I would either have to turn Look Sharp into a formula and crank it out indefinitely, becoming a cartoon character in the process; or do some growing up in public.

Bloody Confused! by Chuck Culpepper (Broadway Books 2008)

On Saturday, December 9, 2006, on the south coast of England, not far from the English Channel, at Fratton Park, in the fourteenth minute, Kanu chased the ball nearing midfield with his back to the Everton goal. Everton's Simon Davies chased the ball from the other direction. Davies slid towards Kanu. They converged. As they headed towards opposite sides of each other from where they'd started, both touched the ball, and the ball popped upward, hard to tell just how. It floated lazily over to the right and descended towards Portsmouth's Matthew Taylor, forty-five yards from Everton's goal. Before it could hit the ground, Taylor struck it with his left foot and sent it back upward. I thought he'd struck it casually, almost goofily. I thought he'd struck it in one of those see-what-happens modes. It flew high and flew toward me as I sat in the fifth row behind my fellow American Tim Howard, manning the Everton goal. It sailed to its pinnacle and then gravity beckoned. Here it came, just beginning its descent toward Fratton Park soil, still two-thirds of the way air borne, when there came an instant that would have to rate as one of the best instants you can know upon the earth.

The 2009/2010 FA Cup Trivia Question of the Day . . .

. . . that was nice.

Ordinarily, I don't have anything against Spurs - yep, even with Redknapp in the high chair - but Portsmouth getting to the final plays out nicely as football done hollywood style. And hopefully Danny Dyer - as played by Jamie O'Hara - will be back for the final where plucky Pompey will get drogaba'd by Chelski.

One question, though: what's with Kevin-Prince Boateng having a tattoo of Viz Comic's Cockney Wanker on his shoulder?

Did he not get over Redknapp selling him to Portsmouth? With that penalty, maybe now he's over it.

Vittumainen with a bell

Swedes have always been my favourite Scandinavians for some inexplicable reason but a bit more of this from the Finns* and I might have to revise my opinion:

“It's not just Premier League footballers who have become world-renowned – some supporters have an international reputation too. During the Finnish TV coverage of the Bristol City v Portsmouth FA Cup replay on Tuesday night, commentator Tuomas Virkkunen referred to the notorious John Portsmouth FC Westwood, in English, as ‘the cunt with the bell’, then explained that he wouldn't translate the term into Finnish since some people might find it ‘offensive’.” [From the When Saturday Comes website.]

What would cause the greater pain . . . stuck next to that tube local character for 94 minutes or sitting in front of those wankers salt of the earth Sheffield Wednesday supporters who used to play the same few bars from The Escape To Victory theme over and over and over and over again for 92 minutes on their brass instruments? Given that choice, I'd sooner sit in the cubby hole in Conway Hall on a Saturday afternoon listening to the ICC drone about decadence.

*According to wiki the Finns may or may not qualify as Scandinavians. It is open to debate. For the purposes of this post, they do qualify.