Girl and gulls on beach near Port Campbell on the Great Ocean Drive
A quick shot taken with my 70-300 mm Sigma lens and my Maxxum 5D SLR in 2008 when we visited the Melbourne area with Aussie friends. It captured a mood but the sharpness suffers from distance and subsequent cropping. We stayed overnight in Port Campbell before returning to Melbourne.
At the Brampton Folk Club‘s monthly concert Ray Whitmore and I opened for Dave Gunning, who played a Tribute to John Allan Cameron concert and featured several of his own songs. Dave played with Cameron some time ago and is a wonderful, complete and authentic artist. His feelings for his material and his audience come shining through as genuine. At times he was visibly moved on stage.
His mastery of the DADGAD and open G tunings made me promise myself to experiment with them; they add a depth and a poignancy to his songs. His own compositions are the opposite of repetitive; they are varied, creative musically and range from extremely moving to downright laugh-out-loud funny.
Our little 6-song show was enjoyed by the audience and it was fun to perform with Ray, who played 6- and 12-string guitars, banjo and harmonica during the performance. It was wonderful to have friends and family there in support. My two grandsons had never seen me perform like this on a stage (with the great sound mixing of the Folk Club’s “CEO,” Glenn MacFarlane); theirs and my childrens’ presence was a real thrill for me.
Gunning has won many awards, including Song of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards for his song, co-written with George Canyon, called These Hands. This song is a semifinalist for the International Songwriting Competition 2013. The winner will be announced at the end of this month.
I was blown away last night. Check him out. You might be, too…
Earth First! Newswire
To murder several runners using bombs at a sporting event is terrorism.
To murder 175 children using military drones is U.S. policy.
We should accept neither. We should fight against both.
List of children killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen:
The Temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel
Ramses II had a good ride as Pharaoh from 1279 BC until 1213 BC. He lorded it over Egypt during the early 19th Dynasty round about the middle of the New Kingdom, centred in Thebes (now Luxor). Evidence proliferates: huge colossi built in his honour and the magnificent temples to him and his favourite queen, Nefertare, at Abu Simbel. Building monuments to Himself was doubtless his greatest achievement.
Colossus of Rameses II near Memphis
Ramses thought so much of himself that he had his masons obliterate the cartouches of his predecessors at Karnak by engraving his exaggeratedly bold cartouche on top.
Percy Bysse Shelley’s poem, Ozymamdias, was inspired by a large bust of Ramses II in the British Museum.
Leg of Rameses II at Abu Simbel close up, the 19th century graffiti betraying the lack of European respect for ancient sculpture
Temple of Nefertare shows the Queen almost as large as Rameses II
Compare the relative size of the female to the male in the last two photos. The fact that Queen Nefertare was shown in the same scale as the Pharaoh was a very rare occurrence, showing the enormous love and respect Rameses had for her.
By the way, the intense blue sky in these photos was created by using a good polarizing filter on my old Konica-Minolta Maxxum 5D.
Still Think Climate Change Is “No Sweat?”
I’m going out on a limb here and assuming that:
Now, I recommend you read this.
Can’t think of a more evil way to promote hatred of visible minorities.
Didn’t the Royal Bank of Canada do their homework on this one?
To bring in foreign, temporary workers when it causes significant job losses for Canadians is AGAINST Canadian law. If permitted to happen, this would boil down to be the product of totally amoral corporate greed on the part of RBC and IGATE and blind, laissez-faire capitalism on the part of our so-called political leadership.
As someone who has a permanent interest in how things go for genuine, visible minority, new Canadians and their descendants this is my worst nightmare. It must be stopped by the Harper government. There still appears to be time.
As for the Royal Bank, huge lineups for years in our local mall branch showed me decades ago the lack of respect they have for their customers. No wonder they lost their number one spot. Canadians should flock to other banks and thus punish Royal for even thinking about this criminally insane nonsense.
The final, and magical, scene of Good Morning, Vietnam (released in 1987) included Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World. That’s when I realized it is one of the best “prayers” in existence. As Arlo Guthrie said in his crazy song, I Don’t Want A Pickle,
I learnt it right away.
Here is the lead sheet I use when playing it. Can’t remember where I found the chords – I have played it for a long while. The good thing is that this sheet is written in the key of F major – the same one Satchmo used in this wonderful arrangement. – so you can play along with the video. It’ll be pretty close, if not right on. I’ve included the chords tablature for the ones I use in the song at the bottom. It is number 235 in my personal, haphazard songbook – which holds songs I haven’t/hadn’t completely memorized. Hope you get as much enjoyment out of this song as I do. If this helped you, please let me know.
What A Wonderful World
