Neil Young Is Not A Rock Star

As are the generation of leaves, so are the generations of men.
Homer, The Iliad, Book 6, Lines 145-146

You would think that a blogger could take some time off! Especially in that the last 539 posts, that amount to very near the length of an epic Russian novel, the Oracle of Ottawa thought he was due. But no, the idiots in short pants, now resident in the Prime Ministers Office, of the doomed 'Harper Government', have made the blogging fruit hang so low, that it is all but impossible for the Oracle of Ottawa to let it all merely slide by.

Neil Young

 It all got started recently when that nice Toronto boy by the name of Neil Young stood up on his back legs and let it whale on the skanky Alberta tar sands, the 'Harper Government',s favorite and pet project. It was  like watching a triple launch of Exocet sea skimming missiles in terminal lock on, hitting a great hulking cruiser or aircraft carrier of yesteryear. To the Oracle of Ottawa's eyes from where he as sitting in the last few days, it appears that all the missiles were a total hit right above the water line.  

The 'Harper Government' realized that if the Native Peoples efforts at legal fund raising are an absolute success, they could easily go to the Supreme Court of Canada, and on a good day with the right argument, could quiet well get an injunction that could shut down the tarsands until such time, that all Treaty issues were hammered out to the  Native peoples satisfaction! Imagine the carnage on the Toronto Stock Exchange, not to mention the local Canadian Tire Stores in Fort McMurray! (Also known as Newfoundland Tire and Speed).

There was of course the usual ordered wailing of the CBC of the old style vulgar media by the Prime Ministers Office to try and make old Neil look bad. But as the efforts increased in intensity, old Neil Young was looking better and better by the second. Doesn't anyone know in the Prime Ministers Office that old Neil once took on Richard Nixon in the US and totally won that one? The Oracle of Ottawa figures that if a mere rock star could shake the government of the mighty United States, the mere pale shadow of the ever increasingly doomed 'Harper Government' is all about in and done, like dinner.

No Dear Reader, Neil Young is not a rock star, he is a freakin' LEGEND!!   

Rammstein - Waiting For The Opera

Even if my pencil doesn't do justice to the model, my intention always does.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar, IV, 58

It would probably come as a great shock to most of my Dear Readers that if you asked the Oracle of Ottawa who was the greatest rock band in the world today at the time of this writing, the Oracle would have to reply instantly; Rammstein! Even though the Oracle of Ottawa is six years older than Till Lindemann, and has seen very many of the most awesome rock bands of all time in his misspent youth, including the first seven tours of Canada's greatest rock band Rush, the Oracle stands by his choice.

Till Lindemann

Rammstein was in Canada in the recent past, out on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. The Oracle of Ottawa seriously considered attending, one last big blowout in honour of his misspent youth. But alas, age and the serious misgivings of my significant other forced me to change my plans. It was a good thing too. The weather of the night of the concert was still over 85 degrees. When the Oracle saw the clips on You Tube and on the CBC of the actual blow out event he was relieved that he wasn't there. It was insanely hot and the Oracle at his advanced age would have surely wilted as a delicate flower.

The Oracle always tells anyone who will listen that Rammstein is much, much more than just a flashy rock band. Many of their works are going to be standards of German classical Leid in the centuries to come. You should see the strange looks the Oracle gets when he lets that one off in public! Although you can't even easily buy a Rammstein CD and it is impossible to get the concert DVD's in North America the Oracle strongly believes that we haven't seen nothing yet. 

What impresses the Oracle the most is the utter commitment of the members of Rammstein to their art. They will undergo any discomfort and social moral restraint to get the desired effect across. All of the members at some point have suffered personal injury in their performances that would put many of today's Rock and Roll Hall of Famers out of commission for ever. But again the Oracle of Ottawa strongly believes that there is much greater stuff to come. Like a full and serious Wagnerian style opera. The Oracle strongly believes it is in Till to bring us a stunning modern German opera in the greatest classical German tradition. The Oracle feels that the subject matter will pretain to ancient German archetype with the effects of the New World Order on the fate of the world....

Postscript: Could you imagine Geddy Lee or Mick Jagger going this far out on a limb for their art? Till can make the baddest Academy Award winning Joker look like a harmless cub scout! Now that is true art...

George Jones - Someday My Day Will Come

I'll be the one I want to be
Someday my day will come...
George Jones, Still The Same Ole Me, 1981

It was with great surprise that the Oracle of Ottawa heard of the passing of George Jones. What surprised the Oracle of Ottawa even more was that he died cared for, and in bed, and that he lived to be 81 years old. It is a hell of a long way from Saratoga, Texas to being a pillar of Western Popular Culture. Many readers are no doubt surprised that the Oracle even knows who George Jones was, but the Oracle must come clean and freely admit that between the most excellent rock concerts of my fondly misspent youth, the Oracle would always crank up the radio when a George Jones song came on in the car. And growing up in the Ottawa Valley we had one of the first FM Classic Country stations, CKCY. and everyone up the valley tuned in, and back in those days it was all Classic Country, and if you listened you were very familiar with George Jones.

George Jones strikes a wicked Hunter S. Thompson pose
and see's it all to the end.

The Oracle of Ottawa comes from a generation that can very easily remember the sound of the Grand Old Opry coming in through an AM radio on a Saturday night in the 1960's. And of course we all heard the stories of George as he became more and more famous and his life careened more and more out of control. And in recent years as more and more details availed themselves from George himself, the Oracle of Ottawa was forced to realize that Keith Richards was really just a ribald amateur compared to George Jones!

The excess was legendary. The Oracle can't help but comparing the similarities of the lives of Hunter S. Thompson and George Jones. Both were equally famous in their craft at very nearly the same time in American cultural history. One in the printed word and the other in song. One survived it all and one did not. There are some very important lessons here. The first is that is very hard to kill a Marine, and George Jones was a Marine. And the second lesson is that a man will survive most anything if he does not give up on his God(s). And the Oracle was always impressed with the Possum's deep underlying faith. So much for Fredrich Nietzsche...