Jackie Leven ( 18/6/50 - 14/11/11) Spiritual Soul Warrior R.I.P

It is with great sadness that I found out that the great Jackie Leven had passed away. I feel numb and will try to explain in a bit. I knew the man had been ill,suffering from cancer but thought he'd get through it, like he had got past many other demons.
An idiosyncratic outsider with a magical voice, a poet who saw the world through his rich different eyes, he sang songs fron the heart of lifes deep experiences. If you have never heard of him his songs typically described hard drinking loners and often their lost lovers, with a rich deep resonant voice that used to soothe me, when I too was lost, like a dark chocolate laced with something bad.
His was a wild Scottish spirit redolant of a fire within. Never fashionable or cool but that did not stop him being admired by many.Born to Gypsy Blood in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland with a London Irish father and a Northumbriam mother. A loner in childhood, he led a life of an intinerent wanderer. He found his way to London by the mid 70s forming the band Doll by Doll whose records had a certain rawness but ones I still reach out too.

Doll by Doll - Main Travelled Roads

By 1982, they'd split and in 1983 he was nearly murdered by a group of strangers severely damaging his larynx and unable to play guitar or sing. He sank into a despondent place , cutting himself adrift, finding heroin and alcohol , and so perhaps it might have ended. But he reemerged stonger founding the CORE trust which helped fellow addicts. His songs have rescued me from many a dark hour, soothed me with their raw tenderness. His work took on a soulful, spritual intensity, redemptive , haunted,becomming prolific in his journey, releasing for me a series of staggering dazzling solo records, full of tragedy, but resonating with warmth that somehow I connected to. Other friends of mine, never quite got him, but that did not matter, his records became like certain books, ones to treasure. Live I was lucky to catch him twice he dislayed his honesty, mixed with humour and candour.Always a brooding intensity, you got what you got, what must of us wanted, never an encore and never fake.
Tonight on the way home from the library I'll raise a small miniature bottle of whiskey to the night air. A True original voice has been lost, but some of us will continue to remember him.Such beautiful music, burning vision. Goodnight Jackie, R.I.P


Jackie Leven- Hidden World of She

Jackie Leven- Call Mother a Lonely Field

Jackie Leven - Revenge of Memory

Jackie Levem -  I Say a little Prayer

http://www.coretrust.co.uk/

http://www.jackieleven.co.uk/

Rejected Crumb !

A lot of posts on the net on this subject already, but what the eck.
Famed Cartoonist and someone else whose work I admire, ( don't really do hero's , not enough room in my head) has had a proposed cover for the New Yorker rejected.  They commissioned him, back in 2009 to  do them a cover on the subject of 'gay marriage', so he drew them this. They subsequently rejected it but gave Mr Crumb no reason. The story would possibly have gathered no moss had it not been unearthed at the VeniceArt Biennale recently.
What possible reasons did the magazine come to this descision? It's fairly common knowledge  that Robert Crumb is  known for pushing the boundaries a bit and is not everybody's cup of tea. His work has been attached to the 'underground' and the words 'cult artist' have often been bandied about, so his appeal was never one for the mainstream, what with his repetative style and his obsession with an exaggerated sense of the female form. He has a rather twisted way of looking at certain things. Another possible reason is that the New Yorker is majorly concerned with political correctness, and they must have suddenly realised this work might upset some of their friends, nevermind the artist in question, who has stated he will never work for them again. I for one don't know how it could offend anyone who appreciates  Crumb's  work, it is  kind of to be expected, this one for instance, after all  seems to have been done in all the best possible ( Crumb) taste. If the New Yorker doesn't want it, I would be happy enough to put it up on my living room wall, where it would be lovingly appreciated , I don't suppose it will bother him too much though, he will continue to illustrate the world as he sees it and I believe it's simply too late in the day for his fixations to simply dissapear, and despite criticisms will remain, one of the most important and influential graphic artists of  contemporary America.

More on this story below

http://www.vice.com/read/the-gayest-story-ever-told-0000048-v18n11

Crumb by Crumb

Palestinian Freedom Riders and Wales Residual waste.

50 years ago the US Freedom riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom riders will be asserting their own right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Israeli Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience, this will take place on Tuesday 15th as all over the West Bank they will attempt to board buses that discriminate against them. They will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler publlic transport headed to occupied East Jerusalem.
Meanwhile 5 North Wales Councils are considering the notorious French company Veolia for their Residual Waste Treatment Project. Personally I think they should reconsider.
The Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR) which veolia has subsequently built in the West Bank serves the Jewish-only Israeli settlement. Remember that Britain has declared, through the UN Human Rights Council, that the JLR's operation is a breach by Israel of international law.
Veolia at the moment is trying to sell its LJR shares to a company called Egged, that seems to let Veolia of the hook and North Wales project in the clear.M'mm Egged is the same company that until January 2011 also operated gender-segregated lines, commonly called " mehadrin" buses, mainly running in and/or between major Haredi population centers. In these sex segregated buses women are expected to sit the in the back of the bus and wear so called modest dress. Sounds like gender discrimination to me, it is interesting how companies that violate international laws reappear in disgiuse so to speak. Welsh councils in a spirit of solidarity I feel should have nothing to do with either company. But sometimes transparency can get buried in the search of deals.
50 years apart 2 symbolic journeys, different locations but apartheid is apartheid , no matter where it rears its ugly head, so this week I  hope the world stands in solidarity with the modern freedom riders. An old tradition awakened .Who knows perhaps the future will let justice and freedom prevail .

http://palsolidarity.org/2011/11/palestinian-freedom-riders-to-ride-settler-buses-to-jerusalem/

Anthem for Doomed Youth - Wilfred Owen

POETIC PILGRIMAGE - NO MORE WAR

Occupy Cardiff

Democracy in action

Cocaine Unwrapped Trailer 13 03 2011

Lupe Fiasco - Words I Never Said ft. Skylar Grey

It's so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can't take back the words I never said
I can't take back the words I never said

I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit
just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets
How much money does it make to really make a full clip
9/11 building 7 did they really pull it
Uhh, and a bunch of other cover ups
Your childs future was the first to go with budget cuts
If you think that hurts, then, wait here comes the uppercut
The school was garbage in the first place, thats on the up and up
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the uppercrust
You get it then they move you so you never keeping up enough
If you turn on TV all you see's a bunch of "what the fucks"
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that aint Jersey Shore, homie tha's the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glen Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit
That's why I aint vote for  him, next one either
I'ma part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful
And I believe in the people.

It's so loud inside my head
With words thay I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can't take back the words I never said
I can't take back the words I never said

Now you say it aint our fault if we never heard it
But if we know better than we probably deserve it
Jihad is not a holy war, where's that in the worship?
Murdering is not Islam!
And you are not observant
And you  are not a muslim
Israel don't take my side cause look how far you've pushed them
Walk with me into the ghetto, this is where all the Kush went
Compain about the liqour store but what you drinking liqour for?
Complain about the gloom but when'd you pick a broom up?
Just listening to Pac aint gone make it stop
A rebel in your thoughts, aint gon make it halt
If you don't become an actor you'll never be a factor
Pills with million side effects
Take em when the pain felt
Wash them down with Diet soda!
Killin off your brain cells
Crooked banks around the World
Would gladly give a loan today
So if you ever miss a payment
They can take your home away!

It's so loud in my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can't take back the words I never said, never said
I can't take back the words I never said

I think all the silence is worse than all the violence
Fear is such a weak emotion that's why I despise it
We scared of almost eveything, afraid to tell the truth
So scared of what you think of me, I'm scared of even telling you
Sometimes I'm like the only person I feel safe to tell it to
I'm locked inside a cell in me, I know that there's a jail in you
Consider this your bailing out, so take a breath, inhale a few
My screams is finally getting free, my thoughts is finally yelling through

It's so loud inside my head
With words that I should have said!
As I drown in my regrets
I can't take back the words I never said

Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning (Re: Occupy)

Occupy - Roger Waters

Being treated fairly and with dignity

At the heart of human rights is the belief that everybody should be treated equally and with dignity - no matter what their circumstances.
This means that nobody should be tortured or treated in a inhuman or degrading way.
It also means that nobody has the right to 'own another person or force them to work under threat of punishment.
And it means that eveybody should have access to public services and the right to be treated fairly by those services. This applies to all public services, including the criminal justice system. For example, if you are arrested and charged tou should not be treated with prejudice and your trial should be fair.
UK law includes a range of human rights which protect you from poor treatment, and which require you to have equal and fair treatment from publc authorities.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/being-treated-fairly-and-with-dignity/

Sadly up and down this country people on incapacity benefit are being forced to take assessments that are not only impersonal, they are mechanistic and lack any kind of empathy. Many people are being injustly treated and left in distress.But this is what happens in a Tory led Britain, stigmatise a group, seek to dissimate and destroy.Basic sensitivities ignored!! The B.B.C themselves have recently been adding to the flames with blinkered sensationalist programmes on benefit cheats straight out of the Daily Mail. John Humprey's recent programme " The future state Of Benefit"  was an absolute shocker, a right wing thesis playing loosely with the facts, as if witten by some governmental department.
New tests designed to stigmatise the diadvantaged, the disabled , the mentally ill in order to save money. Taking from many who are already impoverished.
Is this the future for all, look to America and follow their flawed policies and agendas.Human dignity and fairness overiden, justice and human rights denied.
As for the cold, it's bloody freezing!!