Dead Beat

irish writers centre

2009-01-29T15:27:00.000-05:00

What Bothers George Bush

2009-01-14T21:33:00.002-05:00

Right to the end old G.B. never lets old D.B. down. Listen to this one from Larry King Live:

KING: Don't you want to be liked?
G. BUSH: Kind of. You really want to be liked on the day that really matters, when you are running for president, election day. See in 2004, I really wanted to be liked a lot that November, where I got over 50 percent of the vote, the first president to have done so since 1988.
KING: That's liked?
G. BUSH: That's what matters. That is the one poll that counts. The rest of the stuff is just -- you can make a poll say anything you want. And it's just -- it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is knowing that I made decisions based upon principles and that I would not sell my soul in order to chase popularity.

Repeat for D.B. G.B.

"What bothers me is knowing that I made decisions based upon principles and that I would not sell my soul in order to chase popularity."

Got ya.

Harold Pinter

2008-12-28T00:11:00.000-05:00

"And so I say to you, tender the dead as you would yourself be tendered, now, in what you would describe as your life."

2008-12-27T23:31:00.000-05:00

Death - Harold Pinter 1930-2008

2008-12-27T23:26:00.002-05:00

'Death'.

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?

How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby

2008-12-25T22:17:00.001-05:00

D. B. had the checks, the convertible - bright blue. He was hurrying down the chimney.

This is the truth - he told his children the sad news of the great one's passing and just as he paused and watched their reaction, his CD player (on random) began to play Santa Baby.

Eartha D.B. is stuck in the chimney forever. Thank you.

Apollo 8 Christmas

2008-12-23T00:34:00.001-05:00

40 years ago and forever old!

Nick Cave God is in the house

2008-12-19T22:44:00.001-05:00

God is...

God Is In the House - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

2008-12-19T22:19:00.001-05:00

We've laid the cables and the wires
We've split the wood and stoked the fires
We've lit our town so there is no
Place for crime to hide
Our little church is painted white
And in the safety of the night
We all go quiet as a mouse
For the word is out
God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
No cause for worry now
God is in the house

Moral sneaks in the White House
Computer geeks in the school house
Drug freaks in the crack house
We don't have that stuff here
We have a tiny little Force
But we need them of course
For the kittens in the trees
And at night we are on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
For God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
And no one's left in doubt
God is in the house

Homos roaming the streets in packs
Queer bashers with tyre-jacks
Lesbian counter-attacks
That stuff is for the big cities
Our town is very pretty
We have a pretty little square
We have a woman for a mayor
Our policy is firm but fair
Now that God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house

Any day now
He'll come out
God is in the house
Well-meaning little therapists
Goose-stepping twelve-stepping
Tetotalitarianists
The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed
We got no time for that stuff here
Zero crime and no fear
We've bred all our kittens white
So you can see them in the night
And at night we're on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
Since the word got out
From the North down to the South
For no-one's left in doubt
There's no fear about
If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
Hallelujah
God is in the house
God is in the house
Oh I wish He would come out
God is in the house

The Everly Brothers

2008-12-19T14:36:00.001-05:00

Most Americans

2008-12-18T23:12:00.000-05:00

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Torture

2008-12-18T23:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Abu-Ghraib-Prison-Photos11jun04.htm

The Torture Report

2008-12-18T23:05:00.002-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/opinion/18thu1.html?hp

Cardinal Avery Dulles dies at 90

2008-12-13T00:32:00.002-05:00

Cardinal Avery Dulles, who grew up in a famous American family (Dulles Airport is named for his father), converted to Catholicism while at Harvard, and went on to become the most honored Catholic theologian in U.S. history, died today at age 90.

Avery Dulles, the scion of a wealthy and prominent Presbyterian family, arrived at Harvard in 1936 as an agnostic, but found God in the buds of a tree by the banks of the Charles River one rainy February afternoon two years later.

"How could it be . . . that this delicate tree sprang up and developed and that all the enormous complexity of its cellular operations combined together to make it grow erectly and bring forth leaves and blossoms?" he asked himself. And the answer, he later wrote, was "Him who moved the stars, and made the lilacs bloom."

Dulles, a brilliant student passionate about learning, found himself ravenously consuming the new works of French Catholic theologians, and one day he marched into a Catholic bookstore and asked, "How do I get into your church?"

He had never even met a priest, but he decided to become one, figuring, "I guess I wanted to go the whole way."

Today, Dulles, whose great-grandfather, great-uncle, and father (John Foster Dulles) all served as US secretaries of state, and whose grandfather was a distinguished Presbyterian theologian, is now the most prominent Catholic theologian in America.

His accomplishments are many - 21 books, more than 650 articles, and a long career teaching thousands of students, for the last 13 years at Fordham University in New York, where he is still a professor at age 83.

And in February, he became the first American Jesuit and the first American theologian to be named a cardinal.

Last week, Dulles visited Boston to receive an award at a fund-raising dinner for the New England Jesuits. In an interview with the Globe at the Jesuits' humble provincial headquarters in the South End, Dulles talked about his journey to faith and his career since:

Q. What drew you to Catholicism?

A. Perhaps it was the studies of the Reformation period. We had to read Luther and Calvin and the decrees of the Council and Trent and all those sorts of things, and I just found myself resonating with the Catholic positions in all those controversies, and also feeling that the culture of Europe was destroyed or ruptured by the Reformation in a way that was unfortunate. And then I discovered the Catholic Church as it existed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it was a very vital, vibrant thing. St. Paul's parish there - the liturgy was very well performed, and Sunday evening they were having benediction, they were all singing the hymns of Thomas Aquinas in Latin, and I said, `This is the church for me.'

Q. Your journey to Catholicism strikes me as having been more intellectual than spiritual.

A. I think that's probably true. I hope there was some spiritual aspect to it, but I've never had any great taste for what's called spirituality. I think it deals so much with emotions and feelings. I don't have many emotions or feelings. I tend to have ideas. I was interested in Catholicism ideally, intellectually. I was convinced that it was true. I was interested in truth.

Q. How has your life changed since you've become a cardinal?

A. I get more invitations to lectures and things like that. I try to get out of them when I can, but I'm on the road a good bit. And then some things you have to get dressed up for.

Q. What is the appropriate role of dissent in the church?

A. Dissent should be rare, respectful and reluctant. One's first reaction as a Catholic is to agree with the official teaching of the church.

Q. Can you imagine married priests, or female priests, in the church?

A. Married priests is a much easier question. We have married priests. In the early centuries many of the priests and bishops were married, and Eastern Rite Catholics have a married clergy, and we have a number of converts from Protestantism who are married priests who function as priests and enjoy their family life. So that's possible. The question of women is a doctrinal issue. I think the weight of scripture and tradition is decisively against it. In the early '70s I was not sure the question had been decided, I was kind of open. But after 1976, Paul VI answered the question pretty thoroughly. That pretty much settled my mind on the point.

Q. You have said one of the roles is to critique the culture. What is your critique of American culture?

A. Our technology is so advanced, we sometimes get the feeling that we can reconstruct everything, and we define power, so we have a hard time accepting anything that we cannot change. So we want to reconstruct the church, we want to rewrite all the dogmas of the church. We feel that we can replace everything by our own power, and according to our own preference. Our notion of freedom needs to be critiqued. We don't have a moral freedom to do what is wrong. We're under a higher law.

Then we want instant satisfaction. Part of the American culture is to produce as much as possible and consume as much as possible, so we consume an inordinate amount of the world's resources. Our consumption should be governed by need, and needs to be restrained more than it is. We need to take greater care of the needs of the poor who are left out of the capitalist process.

Dulles had taught at Fordham since 1988, but had been associated with the university for more than half a century; the university's president, the Rev. Joseph M. McShane, today issued the following statement:
"A man of prodigious intellect and great holiness, Cardinal Dulles devoted his entire life to the task of advancing the dialogue between faith and reason. In the process, he enriched both the Church and the Academy with his wisdom and his warmth. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that he was the first American theologian to be named to the College of Cardinals.”

The Raising of Pandemonium

2008-12-08T22:28:00.000-05:00

Paradise Lost, Milton, Book I: the raising of Pandemonium:

There stood a Hill not far whose griesly top
Belch'd fire and rowling smoak; the rest entire
Shon with a glossie scurff, undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic Ore,
The work of Sulphur. Thither wing'd with speed
A numerous Brigad hasten'd. As when bands
Of Pioners with Spade and Pickaxe arm'd
Forerun the Royal Camp, to trench a Field,
Or cast a Rampart. Mammon led them on,
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From heav'n, for ev'n in heav'n his looks & thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold,
Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd
In vision beatific: by him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands
Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth
For Treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound
And dig'd out ribs of Gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell...

The Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium, from `Paradise Lost', Book 1

2008-12-08T22:15:00.001-05:00

John Martin 1789-1854

That's Me! That's Me! - A Writing Guide

2008-12-04T21:20:00.001-05:00

In 1958 you wrote "Pandemonium". What does pandemonium mean? What was the concept of this?

The concept, "pandemonium" was a word first used by John Milton in a very long English poem called "Paradise Lost". Pandemonium comes from the Greek "pan", meaning all and "demonium", meaning the demons. The idea of pandemonium is that in recognizing something - for example, recognizing a face or a character on a page - we have a little demon for each feature, for each part of the picture. And when the demons see themselves in the picture they shout, That's me! That's me! and then a higher level demon listens to these other demons and decides who shouts the loudest. If you are reading a character, a letter in a word, if the higher level demon hears the "A" demon shout the loudest, then he knows it is an "A". The idea is that we have separate neural nets, say, representing the demons, and what they shout, their output, is the amount of themselves that they see, that they perceive in what they are looking at.

So it's a network of neural networks at the end.

Yes, in the long run neural networks will have to be built up of pieces that are neural networks. But they still have to work together. Then the whole system does not have simple purposes or goals but very complex ones, just like people. In that sense the neural network is very different from the network of computers which we are talking about now because here it is a social thing. In our society not every piece, not every computer wants the same thing. They want to communicate but not because there is a single purpose; they want to communicate because everybody wants to do something different. In the neural network, in the good neural networks, they are all contributing to the same end.

Oliver Selridge: From Cybernetics to Neural Networks

2008-12-04T21:10:00.002-05:00

Question 1: What are neural networks?

Answer: A neural network is a model of the way real nerves, real sensors like eyes and ears and brains, work. It tries to imitate so that it will work in the same way and do the same things.

Question 2: E' possibile costruire macchine, computer e altre apparecchiature con le reti neurali?

Answer: It is possible. We believe that our thinking works in a way like that and we want to find out how real brains work, and also to build machines to do some of the same things that our brains, our minds do.

Question 3: But these machines are not programmable. Will they learn by themselves?

Answer: One hopes so. They do learn by themselves, by their own experiences but not as much as people do. They are still very simple. The kinds of tasks that these machines can now do are low-level tasks. As science improves, as the engineers and scientists, the people at SMAU, work them and practice with them they get better, but they are still very far from real people.

Question 4: Can you compare the ability of neural networks with the ability of animals or children?

Answer: It is not an age so much. The neural network in the machine keeps trying, but an intelligent child stops trying after a while and gets bored. Our machines do not get bored yet, which is a sign that they are very elementary indeed. There are tasks which they can do for us. They will keep track of the right way to do a very easy task. But as yet they do not have much sense of purpose of their own beyond what they are given by the people who build them.

Question 5: That is interesting because they have to understand from the environment. How can they understand from the environment?

Answer: That is a very interesting point. It is not that they understand so much, it is that they work with the environment to get something done, to perceive something, to have the right effect. But they do not really understand what the environment is or how it works. So neural networks today do not make a model of the environment in the way that you and I make a model of the environment, instead they merely play with what they can do until it works.

Question 6: And can you compare the goals of cybernetics and the goals of neural networks?

Answer: The goals of neural networks are much more cybernetic than present day computers. Our computers are nearly all programmed, that is, they are told exactly what to do. Neural networks are not told exactly what to do. The study of cybernetics started out with Professor Norbert Wiener at MIT, who was my adviser, studying how gets to a particular place. The word cybernetics comes from the Greek word for the steersman on a boat, who moved the tiller or the rudder to get the boat where he wanted to go. The steersman is performing the goal, the seeking of the goal, the going where he wants to. At a very low level neural networks move their connections and rewire themselves so that the machine will do what it is programmed to want to do. In computers the programs are written so the machine will do what the designer wants them to do. So the machines in computers do not want. Neural networks are beginning to want, to care, to have purpose.

Demons and Pandemonium - The Stuff of Writing

2008-12-04T08:47:00.005-05:00

D.B. notes that Oliver Selfridge sadly died in a fall at age 82. Selfridge was a pioneer in early computer science and artificial intelligence. And as D.B. fans know, every writer worth his or her salt needs to understand the complex processes of intelligence. How else to improve the creative processes.

Selfridge himself understood the connection between literature and intelligent processes. Selfridge envisioned the mind as a collection of tiny demons (this idea of the demon came to him after reading Paradise Lost!), each of whom responds to a name -- or something close to it -- being called out by other demons. When one thinks it is being called, it begins to yell out to other demons. The more certain it is that it is being called, the louder it yells, until some other demon thinks it is being called in turn. And so on. Selfridge called this pandemonium.

He used this idea to explain and model the way perceptual systems recognize stuff. For example, the letter R has one vertical line, a "belly" on the upper right, and a "leg" on the lower right. When "feature demons" whose names are "vertical," "belly," and "leg" (and others with names like "one," "upper right," and "lower right") hear their names being called, they begin to to call to the "cognitive demons." The cognitive demons named B and D, for example, may each prick up their ears, since they are "sensitized" to such calls as are given out by the vertical and belly demons. K may be listening, because it is listening for the calls of the vertical and leg demons. But only the R demon recognizes the calls of all three. So while B, D, and K may be calling out to the "decision demon," it will be R who calls the loudest.

As Doctor C. George Boeree says, "This may seem rather silly, but pandemonium provides a very good model for much of what goes on in the mind. The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, for example: You are trying to think of the name of that actress in Moulin Rouge. Her name starts with an N, you are certain. Nancy, Nadene, Norah, Natalie... damn. You could say the N demon is yelling, and several names are responding. Nicole! That's it: Nicole Kidman. "

How about the poets amongst us seeking out a rhyme or a particular work, metaphor even - think of the connections.

Odetta - Take This Hammer

2008-12-03T20:52:00.001-05:00

So Odetta has taken the hammer and brought it back to Leadbelly.

Explaining the Unexplainable - Kiyoshi Ito

2008-11-24T11:11:00.001-05:00

Dead Beat notes that Kiyoshi Ito, a mathematician whose innovative models of random motion are used today in fields as diverse as finance and biology, died Nov. 17 at a hospital in Kyoto, Japan. He was 93.

Ito is known for his contributions to probability theory, the study of randomness. His work, starting in the 1940s, built on the earlier breakthroughs of Albert Einstein and Norbert Wiener. Mr. His mathematical framework for describing the evolution of random phenomena came to be known as the Ito Calculus.

“People all over realized that what Ito had done explained things that were unexplainable before.”

Forty Shades of Green

2008-10-31T22:11:00.002-04:00

Dead Beat notes that the U2 Tower in Dublin has been shelved because of the economic downturn. The €200 million design by architect Norman Foster was to house the rock band's egg-shaped ego...sorry...recording studio at its peak. Dublin Docklands Authority has confirmed it was suspending the project for a year because of the current uncertainty in the property and financial markets. DAA insisted it was committed to the 120m high development. 'The objective is to see this landmark project completed', the DAA said in a statement. Bono looked through his rose tinted shades and saw a forty shades of green.

Joe the Writer

2008-10-16T22:04:00.003-04:00

Dead Beat has been following the Elections with care. John McCain feels he needs Joe the Plumber (Joe Sixpack's younger cousin) to win and Stephen Harper has no need whatsoever for Joe the Writer. Joe from Winnipeg might have something to say about this. Anyway, one down, one to go. The Harp is back looking none the wiser. McCain has had his chips.

Jazzlife

2008-10-14T22:02:00.001-04:00

William Claxton

Can You Feel Your Life? William Claxton 1928-2008

2008-10-14T21:54:00.003-04:00

Dead Beat notes that William Claxton has gone to take pictures of all the jazz greats who lived before him.

D.B. is in awe of your photos, W.C. May your Brownie capture the stars.

White Cube

2008-10-09T23:48:00.001-04:00

Bet you didn't know this:

Damien Hirst’s wide-ranging practice – installations, sculpture, painting and drawing – has sought to challenge the boundaries between art, science and popular culture. His energy and inventiveness, and his consistently visceral, visually arresting work, has made him a leading artist of his generation. Hirst explores the uncertainty at the core of human experience; love, life, death, loyalty and betrayal through unexpected and unconventional media. Best known for the ‘Natural History’ works, which present animals in vitrines suspended in formaldehyde such as the iconic The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991) and Mother and Child Divided (1993), his works recast fundamental questions concerning the meaning of life and the fragility of biological existence. For Hirst, the vitrine functions as both window and barrier, seducing the viewer into the work visually while providing a minimalist geometry to frame, contain and objectify his subject. In many of the sculptures of the 1990s, such as The Acquired Inability to Escape (1991) and The Asthmatic Escaped (1992) a human presence was implied through the inclusion of relic-like objects: clothes, cigarettes, ashtrays, tables and chairs. That implied human presence became explicit in Ways of Seeing (2000), a vitrine sculpture with a figure of a laboratory technician seated at a desk looking through a microscope. The more celebratory work Hymn (2000), a polychrome bronze sculpture, reveals the anatomical musculature and internal organs of the human body on a monumental scale. Hirst is equally renowned for his paintings. These include his ‘Butterfly Paintings’, tableaux of actual butterflies suspended in paint, or in Amazing Revelations (2003), for instance, he arranged thousands of butterfly wings in a mandala-like pattern. His ‘Spin’ series are made with a machine that centrifugally disperses the paint steadily poured onto a shaped canvas surface, while his ‘Spot’ series have a rigorous grid of uniform sized dots. Recently, he has explored photo-realism in the ‘Fact’ paintings.

Banksy becomes a pet shop boy in New York - News, Art & Architecture - The Independent

2008-10-09T23:47:00.000-04:00

Dead Beat and D (for Democracy) Hirst recommend this article

Banksy becomes a pet shop boy in New York - News, Art & Architecture - The Independent

Message Alert

2008-10-09T23:43:00.001-04:00

So Dead Beat gets a call:

Jimmie Rodgers - Blue Yodel No 1 (T For Texas)

2008-09-22T15:59:00.001-04:00

Dead Beat feels in the yodelling humour. It's as simple as that.

Art and Democracy

2008-09-16T11:38:00.007-04:00

So Damien, the great democrat, has auctioned off his new work for US$125 million in his first session at Sotheby's on Monday with more to come. Sotheby's said Monday's total of $127 million smashed the $20 million record for a single artist set in 1993 for 88 works by Pablo Picasso. Hirst, who believed his auction to be a more democratic way to sell art, was of course overjoyed for all those who care for art: "I love art, and this proves I'm not alone and the future looks great for everyone."

My old buddy Charles Thompson the Stuckist understands this better than most: "Sometime in the future people will be laughing their heads off at all this. Actually, quite a lot of people are right now. One of them is Damien Hirst, on his way to the bank."

No Right To Expect

2008-09-14T21:59:00.001-04:00

"David was, of course, a great figure in American letters," Gary Kates, dean of Pomona College, said in a statement. "We knew when we hired him what an accomplished writer he was, but what we had no right to expect was what a brilliant teacher he would turn out to be ... that's what was so unusual about David, and that's what marks the extent of our loss."

David Foster Wallace 1962-2008

2008-09-14T21:48:00.002-04:00

Dead Beat is a brief eight months younger and a lot less the wiser.

Miss you already.

Tom Waits Dublin 2008

2008-08-15T23:41:00.001-04:00

Need Dead Beat say more?

The Last Gig was Smoking - You Can't Steal Culture

2008-08-08T22:11:00.005-04:00

"So I'm talking to you Stooge as the Igg told me to."

"Yeah, my Gibson, heartbreaking."

"Go on."

""Her last gig was smoking. Igg was going off and the Montreal people were pumped up."

"Then they stole it."

"They tried to steal the show. Thing is D.B. You can't steal the show from the Igg and the Gib. Can't be done."

Listen up you thieves of culture. It can't be done. The Gib's the Gib.

It's A Callous World - Dead Beat and Iggy Pop Talk About the Weird Stuff

2008-08-08T22:03:00.004-04:00

"Pops, talk to me. They stole your gear."

"Montreal D.B. You know how it goes."

"But all the same. To steal the gear of The Igg."

"Talk to my man, Stooge, Mike Watt, they took his Gibson."

"It's a callous world Pops."

"Isn't that what I have been trying to tell you?"

"So all the weird stuff?"

"Yeah, all that. All that to tell you it is a callous world. Don't you work the same way D. B.?"

"You know how it goes."

Iggy and the Other Stuff

2008-08-05T22:06:00.003-04:00

So Iggy's on the blower. "Hey Dead Beat, you still alive?"

"What's up Pop? You dead?"

"Wounded."

"'member the good old days?"

"Self-mutilation?"

"Yeah, fun stuff. What you been doing?"

"Keeping alive."

"So tell me about thre music demons."

"It's really boring hear this, because most people don't get it. But the very simple, carefully cut architecture of the songwriting is what makes it possible to really relax to the point where your little angels and demons come out, and things get nutty. I know the set list backwards and forward. If I wanna change that, I internalize that. Then, you're free for the other stuff."

Igg, my man, that's how I write, don't you know it?

I Haven't Practised Regularly in Decades

2008-06-24T23:34:00.003-04:00

Dead Beat already loves it: An Italian architect said he is poised to start construction on a new skyscraper in Dubai that will be "the world's first building in motion," an 80-storey tower with revolving floors that give it an ever-shifting shape. The spinning floors, hung like rings around an immobile cement core, would offer residents a constantly changing view of the Persian Gulf and the city's futuristic skyline. A few penthouse villas would spin on command using a voice-activated computer. The motion of the rest of the building would be choreographed in patterns that could be altered over time.

Speaking at a news conference in New York on Tuesday, the building's designer, David Fisher, declared that his tower will revolutionize the way skyscrapers are made - a claim that might strike some as excessively bold. Fisher acknowledges that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn't practised architecture regularly in decades.

Way to go, Fisher, D.B. shouts

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits

2008-06-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits

The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV

2008-06-23T23:40:00.002-04:00

Take it away George:

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.
I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.
They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.
Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.
then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for
that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same
words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.
There are some people that are not into all the words.
There are some that would have you not use certain words.
There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7
of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.
399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous
to be seperated from a group that large. All of you over here,you 7,
Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?
"That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions,
and words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly
sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here,
man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a
snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist
snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits,
Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just
One." That's true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does
not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list,
but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not
completely insensetive to people's feelings. I can understand why
some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and
MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on
there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.
I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend
with. And those Ks, those are agressive sounds. They just jump out at
you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."
It's like an assualt on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and 2 of the
other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go
together of course. A little accedental humor there. The reason that
Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were
certain ladies that said "Those are the 2 I am not going to say. I
don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such
stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinckle now."
And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more
accedental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think
it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very
imprortant word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to
hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay,
Sherrif, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."
So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.
I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any
circumstanses. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even
clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed,
and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget tHose 7. They're out.
But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words.
Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock
CROWED 3 times" "Hey, tha cock CROWED 3 times. ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in
the bible. ha ha ha ha. There are some 2-way words, like it is okay for
Kirk Youdi to say "Roberto Clametti has 2 balls on him.", but he can't
say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding
them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other 2-way word that
goes with that one is Prik. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You
can prik your finger but don't finger your prik. No,no.

Sneakers and Cheeseburgers

2008-06-23T23:26:00.001-04:00

So I'm shooting the breeze with George Carlin on mass suicide and ecological disaster.

"I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago," he said. "Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers. And I don't think it's fixable."

Dead Beat sighs, knows the truth of it.

Damn you George Carlin - May 12 1937- June 22 2008

2008-06-23T23:17:00.003-04:00

Dead Beat and George Carlin had a thing going on. And now George has gone on spoiled it by dying. Well damn you George Carlin.

George, in case you young folks have forgotten, practically invented modern stand-up comedy. You know, the stand-up comic as a social commentator, rebel and truth-teller.

He talked about the injustice of Muhammad Ali's banishment from boxing for avoiding the draft — a man whose job was beating people up losing his livelihood because he wouldn't kill people: "He said, 'No, that's where I draw the line. I'll beat 'em up, but I don't want to kill 'em.' And the government said, 'Well, if you won't kill people, we won't let you beat 'em up.'"

George, go to Heaven, kill them up there.

Revelations in the Literary World

2008-06-21T23:18:00.003-04:00

"A clampdown on corruption in professional tennis is to be announced on the opening day of Wimbledon, in the wake of revelations that match-fixing and illegal betting are rife.
Investigations ordered by tennis authorities have shown that at least 45 matches played in recent years are under suspicion, as are a number of players, including some of the top international professionals...

...Organised crime poses a serious threat to a cash-rich sport, which attracts hundreds of millions in bets each year. Tennis is considered particularly vulnerable because results can be changed by just one player."

Dead Beat has known it all along. The literary world is a fix. Just one player is approached, writes a series of bad lines and hey presto...!!!

Poor image, woeful metaphor, incredible characters, and the winning prize goes to....

The Business of Writing - Hell's Angels and The Mafia Connection

2008-06-20T22:17:00.002-04:00

It's all about the writing, right?

The estate of Godfather author Mario Puzo has launched a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures, claiming the studio owes it royalties from a video game based on Puzo's now-iconic mafia characters.
In court filings this week, the author's son, Anthony Puzo, claims the studio and Electronic Arts created a video game that prominently draws on his father's book and characters, made famous by the subsequent highly acclaimed films. He is seeking at least $1 million US in damages.
In 1992, Mario Puzo and Paramount reached a settlement after the author accused the studio of not meeting its royalties obligations. He died in 1999 and left his estate to his children.
According to the younger Puzo, the 1992 agreement promised the author a "significant share" of revenue from any product that incorporated elements of the saga. A spokeswoman for the studio declined to comment on the lawsuit. In 1969, when Mario Puzo published his novel The Godfather, he was a relatively unknown writer. Paramount approached him to adapt his book to film and ultimately signed him to pen the screenplays of 1972's The Godfather, 1974's The Godfather: Part II and 1990's The Godfather: Part III.

The Business of Writing

2008-06-20T22:12:00.003-04:00

Is Jack turning in his grave or is he rubbing his hands with glee and saying, "Yeah, another few literary non-sellers I can publish."

An autobiography of Julie Couillard, the woman at the heart of a scandal involving former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier, will be published this fall. The autobiography, to be published in French and English, was announced Friday by both Les Editions de l'Homme, Quebec's largest publishing house, and English Canada's McClelland & Stewart. "Her book will recount a unique life from her modest beginnings in a working-class neighbourhood of Montreal to her spectacular emergence on the national scene last May," McClelland & Stewart said in its release about the autobiography. No terms of the book deal were disclosed.

Bernier resigned as foreign affairs minister in May only hours before Couillard described in a television interview how he had left classified briefing documents for a NATO summit at her Montreal home. The two had recently ended their relationship. It was then revealed that Couillard had been involved with three men who had ties to the Hells Angels, going back to the 1990s. McLelland & Stewart said Couillard would chronicle her life from childhood experiences, through the tragic death of her companion in 1990s biker gang wars, to her meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush while at Bernier's side. "Julie Couillard will reveal the details of a life marked by both tragedy and exhilaration," the release said.

The Shabbiness Grows - Leonard Cohen Looks Down from Mt. Baldy

2008-05-22T09:33:00.002-04:00

D.B. "So Leonard, great show."
L.C. "Thank you."
D.B. ""You sounded great."
L.C. "It's a gift."
D.B. "Anyway Leonard, what is it you are really trying to tell us?"
L.C. "Just to get serious about this thing, you know. One has to be compassionate. It's true that people are up against things, economically and emotionally. The obstacles are great and the suffering is great and people have got to make a living. It's easy to look down from the summit you've reached, or even the summit I've reached, and talk about the responsibilities of the artist, but most people are just trying to get their foot in the door and make a living. So we've got to temper anything we say with that. On the other hand, you've got to be serious about what you do. And you've got to understand the price you pay for frivolity or just for greed--it's a very high price, especially if you're involved in this sacred material, which is about the human heart and human desire and human tragedy. If there isn't some element of seriousness in the training of the artist or in the atmosphere that surrounds the enterprise, then this shabbiness grows and eventually overwhelms it. I think that's what we're in now. It's hard to be serious about so many things. [Look at the whole emphasis] on the charts, if you're a songwriter. Over the years, I saw that arise, where people were now longer interested in the song."
D.B. "We're still interested in your songs."
L.C. (tipping his fedora) "You're too kind."

Leonard Cohen Set List - Fredericton May 2008

2008-05-21T21:28:00.003-04:00

So Lenny gives D.B. a call - "What's so special about Mr. D? Don't I deserve a set list also?"
"Didn't realise you were the touchy one. Thought that was the domain of Mr. D."

SET LIST:
Dance Me To The End Of Love
The Future
Ain't No Cure For Love
Bird On The Wire
Everybody Knows
In My Secret Life
Who By FireAnthem
(intermission)
Tower Of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
Boogie Street
Hallelujah
Democracy
I'm Your Man
Take This Waltz

(encores)Heart With No Companion
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Closing Time

Bob Dylan Set List - Saint John New Brunswick 2008

2008-05-21T14:33:00.001-04:00

For those who care:

Saint John, New Brunswick Harbour Station May 19, 2008

1. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
2. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
3. The Levee's Gonna Break
4. Desolation Row
5. Watching The River Flow
6. Nettie Moore
7. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
8. High Water (For Charlie Patton)
9. Spirit On The Water
10. Highway 61 Revisited
11. Visions Of Johanna
12. Things Have Changed
13. When The Deal Goes Down
14. Summer Days
15. Ballad Of A Thin Man

(encore)16. Thunder On The Mountain
17. Like A Rolling Stone

Sightings of Bobo

2008-05-21T08:41:00.001-04:00

And then there's Dead Beat who will swear he passed him on the street twice!

SAINT JOHN - With many businesses closed for Victoria Day, it might seem like Bob Dylan picked a heck of a day to come to town.
But it's likely that the prolific, chameleon-like folk-rock pioneer, who performed at Harbour Station on Monday night, wasn't even affected by the holiday. In the city's uptown on Monday afternoon, no one could answer affirmatively to the query, "Have you seen Bob?"
Evans McGee, who was strumming away on an acoustic guitar at a table at Reggie's, had a guess as to how Dylan, creator of such iconic songs as Blowin' in the Wind and The Times They are a-Changin', would be spending his afternoon in town.
"I'd be in my hotel room, practising," he said. "That's what I do before a show."
But after 45 years of playing concerts, would a musician still feel the need to practise every day?
"I'd probably have spent a lot of my life practising," McGee said.
Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, harbours a well-known love of pseudonyms. Staff at the Delta Brunswick hotel or the Saint John Hilton in Market Square said no one had checked in under the names "Zimmerman" or "Wilbury" (the latter stemming from the Traveling Wilburys, the supergroup Dylan shared with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne).
Adam Donnelly, who was having a smoke break on King Street, had a different approach. "Try the bars," he said. "That's what Dylan in the old days would be doing right about now."
Indeed, a tip to try Vito's Dining Room and Lounge proved not to be too far off the mark.
"I know they're taking out from here," said Denise Loiser of Vito's. The staff of the restaurant, which often gets takeout requests from Harbour Station, was expecting an order to come in around 10 p.m, after the show was over.
"You could pretend to be the delivery girl," suggested Tara Warner, from behind the bar.
As concert-goers trickled into the parking lot of Harbour Station, one fan said he'd been the closest to a sighting of anyone that afternoon.
"We were coming out of a restaurant, and we saw his bus," said Lesly Duppassé, who drove in from Clare, N.S., to see Dylan for the 12th time. "His bodyguard was coming out of the bus, and they were loading luggage in outside the Delta.
"I think he was making funny faces at us through the window," he added. "I couldn't see him through the tinted windows, but I had a feeling he was in there going, like, 'Nyeah, nyeah.' "
The famously elusive Dylan remained so even within Harbour Station. A quartet of teenagers hoping to hear the sound check were promptly discovered by the venue staff. "They kicked us out," said a boy in a baseball cap as he and his friends made for the exit. "The one guard said, 'God loves a trier.' "
Venue staff by the buses weren't sure what Dylan had done during his afternoon in Saint John. After playing an estimated 2,000 concerts since 1988, it's likely that Dylan's desire to see the sights in each town might be somewhat diminished.
But Tom Davis, who came from Philadelphia to catch the show, said he would have been surprised if Dylan had risked venturing out around town. "He's like Michael Jackson. He can't just mingle around," he said.
Davis hadn't seen Dylan either. In fact, he said, he's never met the singer, despite having seen him play about 20 times since the mid-1980s.
"I don't know what I'd say to him - except maybe, 'Keep playing these great shows,' " Davis said.
"I mean, what else can you say?"

Lennie and Robert

2008-05-21T07:46:00.002-04:00

It began with Leonard Cohen on Sunday and ended with Bob Dylan the following Monday - D.B. is still grinning ear to ear.

Leonard Cohen Fredericon - Just A Kid With A Crazy Dream

2008-05-15T11:05:00.001-04:00

Leonard Cohen Fredericton 05.11.2008 - Hallelujah

2008-05-15T10:46:00.001-04:00

Dead Beat died and went to Heaven.

RetroBites: Leonard Cohen

2008-05-12T00:28:00.001-04:00

Dead Beat is curling up and dying. More on this later.

Eddy Arnold (1918-2008): A Tribute

2008-05-08T21:22:00.001-04:00

This Lonesome Cattle Call - Eddy Arnold R.I.P.

2008-05-08T21:20:00.001-04:00

The cattle call is a little lonesomer tonight. Dead Beat too. His writing owes a lot to Mr. Arnold and to others of his kind.

The Magic of Writing

2008-05-01T00:02:00.002-04:00

D B is going through a D B moment. David Blaine. So Chris Angel walks on water and David Blaine forgets to breath.

Meanwhile DB is coming up for air.

The Independent | News | UK and Worldwide News | Newspaper

2008-04-25T22:08:00.000-04:00

The Independent News UK and Worldwide News Newspaper

The Haunting of D.B.

2008-04-15T22:18:00.005-04:00

Townes has come back to haunt Dead Beat. You may have noticed.

This from Wiki:

Born in Fort Worth, Texas to an oil-wealthy family, he traveled during his youth around Texas and Colorado. He was the third-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt, a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas. Van Zandt County in east Texas was named after his family in 1848.
Van Zandt was being groomed for Texas governorship, but he dropped out of college in the 1960s after being inspired by singer-songwriters and deciding to pursue a singing career. He was very intelligent and was diagnosed manic-depressive in his early twenties. He was treated with insulin shock therapy, which erased much of his long-term memory. His lack of memory and his mental condition contributed to both the passion and sense of isolation evident in his songs.

This from Dead Beat: "Pancho and Lefty" will not just haunt you. It will dig up your grave and lie down next to your bones.

Townes Was A Ghost

2008-04-15T07:25:00.001-04:00

He was going into the DTs in the hospital. They took him out of the hospital so he could drink. They had to do it. He wouldn't have even had a chance if they had left him in there. They didn't know he was going away. They had tried to dry him out years before and it almost done him in. They were warned never to try and dry him out again or let him go without booze. That sounds strange but you can really take addiction that far. Townes was a ghost. Even when he was young he was a ghost. A beauty

Leonard Cohen Interview, 1994 (Part 1)

2008-04-07T21:00:00.001-04:00

Talk to me, Leonard. One last time.

Leonard Cohen to Play Seven Sisters Falls Community Club

2008-04-07T20:50:00.003-04:00

So Dead Beat gets in line for his ticket to Lenny. The man himself surprised just about everyone in Canada by playing an intimate gig in Fredericton. Dead Beat of course knows better. If D.B. had not recently moved from the small village of Seven Sisters Falls on the Whitemouth river in Manitoba, the man would have been playing the Seven Sisters Falls Community Club. Nevertheless, as a mark of respect, Ol' D.B. got in line and nabbed himself a few tickets.

Can We Change Our Minds?

2008-04-03T22:31:00.002-04:00

Stick With The Devil You Know

2008-04-03T22:25:00.002-04:00

One we were trying to get rid of; one who will succeed him; and one who knows better.

We are a gullible lot, the Irish. Stick with the devil you know.

A Tan Puck Goat - English Translation

2008-04-02T22:18:00.002-04:00

For Mad Bertie, a translation:

1] As I set out with me pike in hand

To oldd Dromore to join a meithil (work gang),

Who should I meet but a tan puck goat

And he's roaring mad.

Chorus]Aill-il-lu puill-il-iu - Aill-il-lu it's the mad puck goat.

Aill-il-lu puill-il-iu - Aill-il-lu it's the mad puck goat.

2] He chased me over bush and weed

And thru the bog the running proceeded,'

Til he caught his horns in a clump of gorse

And on his back I jumped unheeded.

3] There was ne'er a rock with no passage through

Which he did not jump, and me like Eddie Macken.

But when he leaped clean down Faill Breach

I felt like a load of old wet sacking.

4] When the sergeant stood in Rochestown

With a force of guards to apprehend us

The goat he tore his trousers down

And made rags of his breeches and new suspenders

5] In Dingle the following afternoon

The parish priest came to call us to order.

And he swore from the pulpit each Sunday in June

T'was the devil on the back of his old grandfather.

Ailliliu ta an puc ar buile

2008-04-02T22:07:00.005-04:00

Well gosh darn it, but that Bakin Rapscallion has to get in on the act. Not alone does he have the gall to leave a comment on The Friendship of Poetry, but he asks me, "What song(s) will you be posting for the out-going Bertie Ahern?"

Dirges, my friend, and if not, patriotic fight songs with mad ferocious goats:

Ag gabháil dom sior chun Droichead Uí Mhóradha

Píce im dhóid 's mé ag dul i meithil

Cé casfaí orm i gcuma ceoidh

[gach duine] Ach pocán crón is é ar buile...

[curfá]Ailliliú, puilliliú, ailliliú tá an puc ar buile!

Ailliliú, puilliliú, ailliliú tá an puc ar buile!

[aonréad 2]Do ritheamar trasna trí ruillógach,

Is do ghluais an comhrac ar fud na muinge,

Is treascairt do bhfuair sé sna turtóga[g.d.]

Chuas ina ainneoin ina dhrom le fuinneamh...
[curfá]

[aonréad 3]

Níor fhág sé carraig go raibh scót ann

Ná gur rith le fórsa chun mé a mhilleadh,

S'Ansan sea do cháith sé an léim ba mhó.[g.d.]

Le fána mhór na Faille Bríce...

[curfá]

[aonréad 4]Bhí garda mór i mBaile an Róistigh

Is bhailigh fórsa chun sinn a chlipeadh

Do bhuail sé rop dá adhairc sa tóin ann[g.d.]

S'dá bhríste nua do dhein sé giobail...
[curfá]

[aonréad 5]

I nDaingean Uí Chúis le haghaidh an tráthnóna

Bhí an sagart paróiste amach 'nár gcoinnibh

Is é dúirt gurbh é an diabhal ba Dhóigh leis[g.d.]

A ghaibh an treo ar phocán buile...
[curfá]

The Friendship of Poetry

2008-04-02T10:22:00.001-04:00

Brave - by Terrence Young

We were looking at the moon, a full one it seemed, though there
was some discussion about that, about which day precisely and for

how long, until it was decided it was okay to say the moon was
full as long as we knew we might be mistaken, a compromise

which satisfied everybody and allowed us to return to our quiet
lunar observations while a CD of Latin music played through the

outside speakers, each of the songs full, too, of swooping, senseless
lyrics that probably wouldn’t have made us want to cry if we’d known

what they were saying, but we didn’t, content, as we were with the
moon, to act on empirical facts alone—what looked full, what

sounded sad. The sea battered Mexico’s volcanic coast like a
ruminant horned beast that refused to give up the fight. Across the

bay, a flag we originally thought the size of a soccer field hung in
the moonlit air, not fluttering as flags are said to do in a breeze, but

coiling and uncoiling the way a snake might if it were flattened out
to the thickness of silk and suspended from a pole. These three

things—the rising moon, the waves, the undulations of the flag—
didn’t bring to mind anything so grand as Arnold’s “ebb and flow

of human misery,” but aligned seaward as we all were on our chaiselounges—
my son, my daughter, my wife and I—our legs extended,

backs upright, heads tilted to the sky, I couldn’t help thinking—maybe
it was the Spanish refrain, I don’t know, some hint of a hopeless cause

like love or war about to begin—that the four of us were courageous,
though not in the way heroes are said to be courageous, those people

who snatch small children from debris in the middle of swollen rivers,
but brave as my mother used the term on those occasions when another

pet sank beneath the soil of our back garden, or when on a morning
of rain and gloom I walked out the front door to school, lunch kit in

hand, the drawstrings of my hood pulled tight around my face, another
pointless day with the substitute teacher. “You’re a brave boy,” she’d

say, and I believed her, as I believed my family was brave simply for
sitting there on that tropical evening, like passengers on an ocean liner

who had left behind a country on the brink of ruin only to discover there
was no safe port left in the world, no haven that would take them in.

Speaking of Song

2008-04-02T10:05:00.003-04:00

Well Dead Beat said his goodbyes to Patricia and Terrence Young over wine and song. And speaking of song:

Ruin and Beauty - by Patricia Young

It's so quiet now the children have decided to stop
being born. We raise our cups in an empty room.
In this light, the curtains are transparent as gauze.
Through the open window we hear nothing--
no airplane, lawn mower, no siren
speeding its white pain through the city's traffic.
There is no traffic. What remains is all that remains.

The brick school at the five points crosswalk
is drenched in morning glory.
Its white flowers are trumpets
festooning this coastal town.
Will the eventual forest rise up
and remember our footsteps? Already
seedlings erupt through cement,
crabgrass heaves through cracked marble,
already wolves come down from the hills
to forage among us. We are like them now,
just another species looking to the stars
and howling extinction.

They say the body accepts any kind of sorrow,
that our ancestors lay down on their stomachs
in school hallways, as children they lay down
like matches waiting for a nuclear fire.

It wasn't supposed to end like this:
all ruin and beauty, vines waterfalling down
a century's architecture; it wasn't supposed to end
so quietly, without fanfare or fuss,
a man and woman collecting rain in old coffee tins. Darling,
the wars have been forgotten.
These days our quarrels are only with ourselves.
Tonight you sit on the edge of the bed loosening your shoes.
The act is soundless, without future
weight. Should we name this failure?
Should we wake to the regret at the end of time
doing what people have always done
and say it was not enough?

Nick Drake - Day is Done

2008-03-27T02:22:00.001-04:00

D. B. is drawn to death and decay. Nick D. fits the mood.

Sitting In The Bar and Talking Nonsense

2008-03-18T01:10:00.002-04:00

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made his first intervention in the US presidential election yesterday as he firmly dismissed criticism of Hillary Clinton. "I think they're wrong," he said directly.

"And for this reason, President Clinton and the first lady came to Ireland three times during their presidency. She came on two other occasions, to a women's conference and she came on another occasion, as well. All of the groups that used to go over, apart from St Patrick's Day, she made the point. She gave enormous heart and encouragement to the groups. She was as much involved as the president to extending St Patrick's Day into that night and bringing huge numbers of people into it."

But Mr Ahern said Mr Obama accepted her Northern Ireland credentials. "I mean, so in fairness and I have to say in my conversations this morning, that was totally acknowledged by Senator Obama," he said. "So I mean, I'm not going to get into the politics of this, but I think for anyone to try to question the Clintons' huge support and start trying to nitpick and saying, 'But she wasn't sitting down at the negotiation table'. Sure we know she wasn't sitting down at the negotiation table, but I mean I think it would be very unfair for anybody to take that away from her," Mr Ahern also met with US President George W Bush at the White House, where the pair discussed the issue of the illegal Irish immigrants.

Mr Ahern said there was no chance of a "amnesty" deal to allow 20,000 of the undocumented Irish stay in America. He said it was possible to develop an agreement involving a visa-exchange for young people from Ireland and the USA to work in the other country. "The concept of an amnesty, wiping the sheet clean is just, it's not on. People shouldn't be trying to give an impression that something that isn't on, might be on. It's no good saying that. I've talked to all the people involved in it."

Mr Ahern said anybody saying the illegal immigrants would be able to avail of an amnesty was just "sitting in the bar and talking nonsense".

D.B. Banned from Manhattan Pub on St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-06T09:17:00.003-05:00

It was bound to happen. Fellow County Cavan man Shaun Clancy has banned D.B. from Foley's Pub and Restaurant, just off Fifth Avenue opposite the Empire State Building.

Why you may ask - depressing, an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil, the answers.

D.B. is outraged - Depressing? An Englishman? And all that coming from an "Irishman" who spells his name S.H.A.U.N.

"Danny Boy, D.B. Danny Boy. It's depressing. It's not usually sung in Ireland for St. Patrick's Day. And its lyrics were written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil."

Ahh, got you now Mr. Clancy. Quite right too. Sling the braggard out, bar him from ever returning. Him and his gal Molly Malone. Well known fishmonger that she was.

Ronnie Drew - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

2008-02-28T23:44:00.001-05:00

Ah that old Con Houlihan has made Dead Beat all meloncholy.

ballad of ronnie drew

2008-02-28T23:38:00.001-05:00

Poets Are Born Not Paid

2008-02-28T21:33:00.003-05:00

So I ask Houlihan about Paddy Kav. Dead Beat is starved for the stories, you see.

"I was lucky," he tells me. " I discovered Patrick Kavanagh at an early age, first in The Irish Press -- and later in magazines. Here was real poetry -- and it was about the world that I knew. In later life he used to say that he should have remained in Monaghan rather than come to Dublin. He would have made a fortune in smuggling during the war years -- or so he said. Of course he wouldn't -- some people are born not to make fortunes.

He came to Dublin because he wished to meet people with whom he could converse. Back in Monaghan he had plenty of neighbours who could talk all day and night -- but not about poetry.
Dublin attracted him as London had attracted Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith -- it was an intellectual capital -- kind of. It wasn't the heartland of mental and spiritual ferment that Kavanagh had visualised -- in many ways it was a petty town. Times were bad: most people were poorly paid -- and worked at jobs they deemed beneath them. There was much bitterness, born out of frustration. Kavanagh encountered back biting and front biting. In his own words, "The standing army of Irish poets was never less than five hundred." Alas -- many of them weren't poets at all. "Poets are born, not made" is an old saying. It could be rewritten as "Poets are born, not paid."

Mary Had A Little Mule

2008-02-28T21:32:00.000-05:00

Houlihan goes on: Of course as children we loved those poems, even though we knew they were only nonsense verses. Here is my favourite.
"Mary had a little mule, one day he followed her to school.
"The teacher like a fool, went up behind the mule
"And hit it with a rule. There wasn't any school."

All Children Love Poetry

2008-02-28T21:23:00.003-05:00

Dead Beat was wandering through the back streets of Dublin when who should he meet but his old croony Con Houlihan.

"Con," Dead Beat begins, "what's the state of Irish poetry these days. I get a bit lost being far removed in the wilds of New Brunswick."

"Thing is Dead Beat," C.H. confides, "You're an adult. Adults are best sent to New Brunswick. All children love poetry; not all grown-ups do. Somehow it gets lost on the way -- William Wordsworth explained why. It might be more correct to say that children love rhyme. Without it they would hardly be so enthralled.
We will take an example.
"Halt, halt" the robber cried
"And hand me out your riches".
"I can't, I can't" the man replied
"For I'm holding up my britches."
If you took out "britches" and put in "pants" it wouldn't be funny at all. Rhyme creates the magic.

Hudson and Horace Get Oscar Hunger

2008-02-23T17:34:00.003-05:00

Hudson and Horace are back. It's that time of year they tell me. Oscar night approaching.

"Didn't the writers give up on that?" I ask.

Hudson shakes his head. "No, Dad. They came back for that."

"No principles!"

"You ought to know, D.B."

"Hudson! I have never, NEVER, do you hear me, prostituted my writing for fame."

"Couldn't if you tried, you mean."

"Damn you, dog, it's outside and twenty below for you tonight. I'll show you couldn't if I tried. Now out you get. OUT, I say. HUDSON... HUDSON..."

"Couldn't if you tried."

Dead Beat Hangs Out With Ginsberg and Neal Cassady

2008-02-22T21:26:00.001-05:00

Cassady is easy to find. Dead Beat is a little more illusive. Check out behind the bookshelves.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

2008-02-20T12:01:00.003-05:00

Dead Beat is devestated. He woke up this morning to learn that he may have lost the gift of the gab. The authenticity of the Blarney Stone has apparantly been questioned by Mark Samuel, an archaeologist and architectural historian, and Kate Hamlyn in a new book. The authors say the present stone only came into use in 1888 for health and safety reasons. Up until then, visitors wishing to kiss the stone had to be dangled from the castle by two people holding their ankles. Dead Beat will have you know that he too was dangled upside down by two people holding his ankles without the slightest health concern, not even when they let his ankles go.

Meanwhile marketing manager John Fogarty is having none of this: Mr Fogarty said that the stone is a piece of the Scone Stone, the pillow stone said to have been used by the biblical Jacob. The part of the stone that came to Blarney was given to an Irish king, Cormac MacCarthy, by Scotland's Robert the Bruce.

Cormac MacCarthy! That well known recluse. That pre-Oprah days wouldn't say a word to anyone. Well then it must be true. The stone must be a fake. And all that Mr Fogarthy, marketing manager of the Blarney Stone, says is ...well...just... blarney.

Life in the Ashram

2008-02-08T11:34:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat remembers his time well hanging out with John and Paul and George (Ringo had already gone home for his egg and chips) in the ashram in Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dressed in my best Eastern robe and sporting my best drooping moustache we sat cross-legged and wore garlands of flowers. We levitated for sure. Higher and higher.

Anyway, the Maharashi, levitated his body right out of this world this week, but his spirit soars on.

By the way, listen to Ol D.B.'s backing vocals on Sexie Sadie - never earned a cent from it - those old misers.

Bertie - The Completion is not the End

2008-02-01T00:31:00.000-05:00

So Dead Beat has been diligent in taking his class of Double Speak 101.

"So Patrick Bart. When you said what you said, did you say what you thought you might have said?"

"Good point Dead Beat. I just took it up wrong. If it sounded any way complicated yesterday, I was just trying to make it clear. I understood from my own advisers that Revenue couldn't resolve this issue until the tribunal was over. That's what I took up from my own advisers.
And when I said that in public last week, they contacted me and said I was wrong in that. They said that it's when Revenue come to complete it. I thought completion meant 'the end'. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding."

"No misunderstanding, there is no end to this. We have all got that clear."

If I Did Say What I said, I Didn't Say It

2008-01-31T07:13:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat as you know has a passing interest in the use of language. Whenever he needs any help at all you know who he turns to - the great wordsmith himself - that's right Patrick Bartholomew, director of CelticTigerLand.

So at a loss for words yesterday, he enrols in DoubleSpeak 101.

"So P.B. do you have a tax bill arising from the , ah, 'dig-outs'?"

"Now Dead Beat, The position taken by the Revenue is that they can't finalise it until Mahon's work is finished. I mean, that's fine by me. I have no difficulty with that, I have no difficulty with the Revenue position."

"Got you, P.B. Now what did you really mean to say?"

"It is not correct -- if I said so I wasn't correct. I can't recall if I did say it. But I did not say, or if I did say it, I didn't mean to say it, that these issues could not be dealt with until the end of the Mahon Tribunal."

"Got you again. Or maybe I haven't got you, but if I have, I am sure I have you all wrong if that is correct at all."

The Spiritually Bankrupt and The Utterly Tedious

2008-01-21T13:39:00.000-05:00

The Stuckists of course are committed not just to painting but to writing also. A few things they have to say:

"There is popular writing known as the blockbuster or airport novel but this is considered trash by the critics. Then there is the writing by pseudo-intellectuals which is very popular with the critics but considered even worse trash by us.

Contemporary writing is cowardly and unchallenging because squalor is tedious not remarkable. If you find yourself in a rubbish bin the only interesting narrative is how to climb out, not how ill you can make yourself by ingesting it.

The writer can only write what he knows about him/her self. To develop as a writer you must develop as a person.

In any period that the writer lives he/she has to say the wrong thing to get it right.

One of the worst things a writer can do is conceive of themselves as a writer whilst writing. The best writing is written by human beings. Besides what kind of an idiot would want to be anything other than a human being? (This is especially true of poetry and poets).

The main advantage of contemporary literature over current established visual art is that it attracts less media attention and is therefore easier to ignore.

On inspection there would appear to be fewer problems with contemporary writing than with contemporary visual arts, but both have the problem of being spiritually bankrupt. (Except poetry, which on the whole has the problem of being utterly tedious).

Last Chance Saloon - The Husband Will do As He's Told

2008-01-14T10:59:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat is in mourning.

According to the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), more than 1,000 rural pubs have closed in the last four years. VFI president Paul Stevenson called on publicans to introduce a range of changes, such as providing ethnic food to attract immigrants and turning their premises into internet cafes during the daytime. "I think the day of standing behind your counter expecting customers to come in is finished. The pub is now in the hospitality industry. We have to realise that and move on." He also said that traditional pubs should look into making their function rooms available for dance classes, choir practice and even school homework clubs. It was also in their interest to provide a better range of wines for women because "the female will choose the pub to go to, and the husband will do as he's told."

What's that Mrs. Dead Beat?.... Why yes of course...

Get Stuck In

2008-01-07T15:14:00.000-05:00

So Dead Beat is still stuck on Stuckism. Over Christmas he's been reading the Stuckist manifesto for light reading. Charles Thompson even popped in to say "You’re welcome."

Got an hour or two to spare, finished all those Best Novels of the Year, wondering what to read next... Get stuck in.

AuthorHouse - Tell Us About Your Book

2007-12-27T23:03:00.000-05:00

Tell Us About Your Book

What type of book do you want to publish?

-- Choose One -- Romance Mystery/Thriller Sci-Fi/Fantasy Adventure Children's Book Religious/Inspirational Historical Poetry Health/Mind/Body Religious/Inspirational Self-Help/How-To Biography/Memoir Art/Photography Sports/Recreation Hobby/General Interest Business/Personal Finance History Travel Other Non-Fiction Other Fiction
I am ready to publish:

-- Choose One -- Now 1 - 3 months 4 - 6 months 6+ months I do not have a work to publish yet.
In addition to publishing with AuthorHouse, which of the following have you published? (check all that apply)

Magazine Articles
Newspaper Articles
Other Books

How many titles have you published?

How was your book(s) published? (check all that apply)
Self-Published
Vanity Press
Traditionally-Published
University Press
Other

How many copies have you sold of your most successful book? 100 to 500 501 to 2,000 2,001 to 5,000 5,001 to 10,000 10,000 +

Tell Us About You
Which is the most important reason you want to publish your book?
-- Choose One -- I have something to say that can help people I want to earn extra income I make my living by writing I really enjoy it I have a title that is out-of-print and want to re-publish I have a story that needs to be told I want to support my business I want to support my ministry Other

What is your current occupation or career field?
-- Choose One -- Author/Writer/Poet Business Owner/Self-Employed Clergy/Religious Counseling Engineering/Architechture Finance/Insurance/Real Estate Health Care/Medicine/Science Law Enforcement/Fire Fighting Legal Management Manufacturing/Agriculture Office/Administrative Work Retired Sales Speaker/Consultant Student Teacher/Professor Trade/Construction Work

What question can we answer that would be most helpful to you?

-- Choose One -- How does the publishing process at AuthorHouse work? How do I market my book once it is published? Do you provide editing and proofreading assistance? Can you publish my book in 30 days? Can you create illustrations for my book? Other

Request Your Free Publishing Guide

USA & CanadaInternational
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AuthorHouse

2007-12-27T23:00:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat has discovered AuthorHouse. It is a tonic - listen: Your Search for a Poetry Publisher is Over.
Since 1997, AuthorHouse has helped more poets reach their publishing goals than any other company in the world. Publishing your poetry book with AuthorHouse means you'll have all the services and support you need to publish, promote and sell your poetry book.
Publish!Choosing AuthorHouse to be your poetry book publisher means you retain all rights, control decisions regarding the design, distribution, promotion, royalty amount and sales of your book
Promote!No other book publisher offers you more services to help you promote your book in newspapers, book stores and on the internet.
Sell!When your book is finished, it’s available for order at more than 25,000 retail outlets worldwide, on the Internet at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and through the AuthorHouse online publishing company book store.
To learn more, request a free copy of our Publishing Guide by completing the form on this page. Let us help you get your poetry in print today. Get started now!

Dead Beat is over the moon. He is requesting and completing - stay with me...

A Fully Developed Sense of Humor

2007-12-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

End of the year - and everyone is counting up the best of the year. Best Book, Best Film, Best Concert, Best Album, Best Absentee Underwear... Best Who Cares?

Dead Beat is Stuck in Stuckism. Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst, Billy Childish - Ow, they all exclaim. I'm not a Medway Poet. I did not sleep in Tracy's tent (well what the heck, who did sleep - nudge nudge!) Fact is everyone slept. Hirst should be dropped in formaldehyde and exhibited. Emin should be poured over a Christmas Pudding and lit. And as for Billy Childish... let's just expel him from college and admit the Brit Pack is lack-ing. When Kylie Minogue name checks you in her ...album title...it's time to knit yourself out of a relationship...

One purl, one plain, one purl, one plain.

Drink To Your Heart's Desiring

2007-12-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

Ceremonies for Christmas
Robert Herrick (1648)

Come, bring with a noise,

My merry, merry boys,

The Christmas log to the firing,

While my good dame, she

Bids ye all be free,

And drink to your heart’s desiring.

With the last year’s brand

Light the new block, and

For good success in his spending,

On your psalteries play,

That sweet luck may

Come while the log is a-teending.

Drink now the strong beer,

Cut the white loaf here,

The while the meat is a-shredding;

For the rare mince-pie,

And the plums stand by,

To fill the paste that’s a kneading.

The Word He Won't Use

2007-12-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

Ireland's latest literary..eh..sensation..yeah that's the word... it turns out has a lesser well known Daddy - Patrick Bartholomew who is the Managing Director of the increasingly aging CelticTigerLand. Who would have guessed?

Honest Bert that he is dons his anorak and crocodile tears and wants you to listen: "One of Bertie Ahern's dig-out pals handed him IR£16,500 in cash as he was having a quiet midweek pint in their local pub. Mr Carew told the tribunal yesterday about Mr Ahern's second dig-out, describing the sum as "a few pound".

Mr Carew described how he went to the safe at his pub and produced the folder of cash for Mr Ahern which he said had been gathered in different amounts over a week. "I said to him, 'Bert, the boys and myself want you to have this, a few pound towards a house',"

Mr Carew told the tribunal. He (Mr Ahern) said 'No,' I won't use the word he used and I said to him, 'the boys won't take it back, no feckin' way'," Mr Carew added.

Mr Ahern, he said, put the folder full of cash on the seat beside him and covered it with his coat.

"I said it to Bert a few times that he should get a feckin' house, and he said that he was in the process of saving for it. We decided to throw in a few quid each."

Mr Ahern offered to repay the money on numerous occasions. "He said something like, 'Dermot, I must fix up that few quid with you', but I told him I didn't want it."

Good Old Honest Bert. A few quid. We'll fix it up.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Other Great Fatalities

2007-12-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

It's got to annoy you:

"LONDON (AFP) - A hand-written book of stories by J.K. Rowling -- the British author's first since the blockbuster Harry Potter series -- sold for 1.95 million pounds (2.71 million euros, 3.97 million dollars) at auction Thursday.

Auctioneers Sotheby's had thought "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" would fetch up to 50,000 pounds, but amid frantic bidding between a handful of buyers in London, it eventually sold for around 40 times that amount.

"The price achieved today stands as the highest price ever achieved at auction for a modern literary manuscript, an auction record for a work by J.K. Rowling, and an auction record for a children's book," a Sotheby's spokeswoman said in a statement...."

Dead Beat keels over, gasps out his last literary breath, but oh wait...

"...Rowling, 42, watched the auction on the Web from her home in Edinburgh, Scotland, and said she was ecstatic. "This will mean so much to children in desperate need of help," she said in a statement. "It means Christmas has come early to me."

Meanwhile the world of books dies page by page...

Oh and by the way who bought it... that other great literary inspiration... Amazon.Com

Yeah hey, the world is saved.

It's My Death Not Yours

2007-12-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

James, your wish is my command.

The Natural Burial Ground of Literature

So your book has died a natural death. You have considered embalming but feel it is environmentally unsound. Let Dead Beat recommend an eco-cemetery. In this natural burial ground the body of your work returns to nature in a biodegradeable fashion. A memorial tree is planted above the grave. The decomposition of the body provides the nutrients the tree needs to survive.
This then is the secret to great writing: writing which participates in the natural cycle of life. Watch it live, guide it to its death, and encourage its decomposition.
Write on fellow Dead Beaters. There is nothing to fear from death.
Posted by Dead Beat at 10:37 PM
Labels: Death

1 comments:
James said...
Hi Gerard - I love this photo - I remember taking it two years ago at Usk Castle Chase natural burial ground - we would appreciate a credit for your use of the photo and a link to our website www.nativewoodland.co.uk. ThanksJames Leedamjames@nativewoodland.co.uk

Best Comment Ever

2007-12-07T22:03:00.001-05:00

Biggest Little Dead Beat said...
Mmmmmmm... Pie

Fascinated By Your Blog- Haven't A Clue What You Are Talking About

2007-12-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

Dear Dead Beat:I am fascinated by your blog. I haven't a clue what you are talking about most of the time. Actually, I don't know at all what you are talking about any of the time. Maybe it is a language problem, or maybe it is a class discrepancy, a cultural dissimilarity, or just intellectual poverty on my part, but I do love Leonard Cohen. So, I come back to Dead Beat again and again always hoping there will be a breakthrough for me. Well, not today, but Leonard was lovely as usual. Where are you?

janala said...
Thank you so much for this wonderful visit with Leonard Cohen. Sorry to say, I've only discovered him lately, thanks to the DVD "I'm your man." But now I listen to him all the time, and slowly making my way though the Book of Mercies, day by day, each page a kind of prayer.I am very glad to know that he is a happy man now. (in his own way of course)Thank you again for letting me feel as if I were there too, being welcomed in his little house. He seems to be just the way I have imagined him.

Rodrigo said...
Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Se você quiser linkar meu blog no seu eu ficaria agradecido, até mais e sucesso. (If you speak English can see the version in English of the Camiseta Personalizada. If he will be possible add my blog in your blogroll I thankful, bye friend).

Kelly Joyce Neff said...
Graham Irving took pupils to the Alps, beginning with George, Guy Bullock and Eddie Marsh, because his climbing partner had died.Have you read George's book 'Boswell the Biographer'? (1912) It's wonderful, as is his MS 'Geoffrey'- various climbing articles and the Expedition books go without saying.

Dead Beat Meets The Lemon Drop Kid

2007-12-06T21:48:00.000-05:00

Let me take you back to the 23rd of the 1st 1949 when I find myself at the race track and who should I bump into, well settle back and listen as I tell you how I met The Lemon Drop Kid

Cider in your Ear

2007-12-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

Early on, the great D.R. took Dead Beat aside, gave him these words of advice:

“One of these days. D. B., in your travels, a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider.”

"I hear you, Damon," Dead Beat might have replied if he didn't have cider in his ears at the time.

Dancing Dan's Christmas

2007-12-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat learned just about everything he knows from Damon Runyon (and maybe even a little more...) So seeing as it is Christmas almost, how better to start the season than the opening to Dancing Dan's Christmas. Word to the wise. Get your hands on everything D.R. ever wrote, read and then re-read.

"NOW one time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening before Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein's little speakeasy in West Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot Tom and Jerrys with him. This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true. But anybody will tell you that there is nothing that brings out the true holiday spirit like hot Tom and Jerry, and I hear that since Tom and Jerry goes out of style in the United States, the holiday spirit is never quite the same. The reason hot Tom and Jerry goes out of style is because it is necessary to use rum and one thing and another in making Tom and Jerry, and naturally when rum becomes illegal in this country Tom and Jerry is also against the law, because rum is something that is very hard to get around town these days. For a while some people try making Tom and Jerry without putting rum in it, but somehow it never has the same old holiday spirit, so nearly everybody finally gives up in disgust, and this is not suprising, as making Tom and Jerry is by no means child's play. In fact, it takes quite an expert to make good Tom and Jerry, and in the days when it is not illegal a good hot Tom and Jerry maker commands good wages and many friends. Now of course Good Time Charley and I are not using rum in the Tom and Jerry we are making, as we do not wish to do anything illegal. What we are using is rye whisky that Good Time Charley gets on a doctor's prescription from a drug store, as we are personally drinking this hot Tom and Jerry and naturally we are not foolish enough to use any of Good Time Charley's own rye in it. The prescription for the rye whisky comes from old Doc Moggs, who prescribes it for Good Time Charley's rheumatism in case Charley happens to get rheumatism, as Doc Moggs says there is nothing better for rheumatism than rye whisky, especially if it is made up in a hot Tom and Jerry. In fact, old Doc Moggs comes around and has a few seidels of hot Tom and Jerry with us for his own rheumatism...

Do Not Know - A New Technical Term

2007-12-05T07:56:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat has an interest in American foreign policy. You knew that. Now take heed:

The starkly different view of Iran's nuclear program that emerged from U.S. spy agencies this week was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information. Drawing lessons from the intelligence debacle over supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Director of National Intelligence required agencies to consult more sources and to say to a larger intelligence community audience precisely what they know and how they know it -- and to acknowledge, to a degree previously unheard of, what they do not know.
" 'Do not know' is a new technical term for an NIE."

"It's not getting it wrong, it's that [the intelligence] collection may have been insufficient," said Laipson, now president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a defense think tank. "It takes years to know the truth."

Writers. DNK.

It takes years to know the truth.

Put Your Hook Into the Atlantic Ocean

2007-12-05T07:15:00.000-05:00

Claire Keegan. Irish writer. Richard Ford's pick for book of the year. It doesn't get any better than that.

Anyway D.B. remembers Claire swanning around Waterstones in Dublin when D.B. and C.K. were both included in the Phoenix Book of Irish Short Stories AllThoseYearsAgo.

"I grew up on a farm, the youngest of six children. Three boys and three girls on a mixed farm. We had tillage and cattle and horses and sheep and pigs and fowl. I was raised on fowl money when I was young."

Well the world moved on, the earth tried to shift on its axis. Listen to this. Words of advice from Ms. Keegan.

"If you're a writer you write. If you're a fisherman, you put your hook into the Atlantic Ocean."

That Great Canyon in the Sky

2007-12-03T21:33:00.000-05:00

Dead Beat has moments when he thinks he may well be Evel Kneivel. In fact he knows he is. I did not die this week. I simply put my respiratory system on hold.

Evel, you brought me through a doubtful filled childhood.

T.G.

You have ridden over that Great Canyon In The Sky

Literature - It's Just Rock'N'Roll

2007-11-29T11:55:00.001-05:00

It has been a while since The Man With the Goatee and Dead Beat shared accommodation, but every once and a while they like to chew the fat.

"Say what you been thinking about T.C.?"

"I've thought about the domination of the literary arts by theory over the past 25 years -- which I detest -- and it's as if you have to be a critic to mediate between the author and the reader and that's utter crap. Literature can be great in all ways, but it's just entertainment like rock'n'roll or a film. It is entertainment. If it doesn't capture you on that level, as entertainment, movement of plot, then it doesn't work. Nothing else will come out of it. The beauty of the language, the characterisation, the structure, all that's irrelevant if you're not getting the reader on that level -- moving a story. If that's friendly to readers, I cop to it."

"Didn't we have this conversation before, T.C.?"

"A million times, D.B.."

"Didn't I always agree with you. T.C.?"

"Doesn't everyone forget, D.B.?"

"Joyce forgot towards the end, T.C."

"Maybe we should have let him room with us, D.B."

"I thought he was the one in the corner singing to himself while writing dirty letters to his girlfriend, T.C. and never changed his socks."

"Wasn't that you, D.B.?"

"It's like you say, T.C. Doesn't everyone forget?"

Rolling Podcast: Richard Ford Reunites with John Cheever

2007-11-19T23:01:00.000-05:00

So Dead Beat is on a roll with podcasts. Listen to this:

Richard Ford Reads John Cheever’s Reunion