Bob "Bob Boilen" Boilen in the picture. He cares about the lyrics too!

I just can’t understand why it can be considered “illegal” though. Damn, i listen to it for free when it’s on the air, but what if i’m at work in that precise moment, but i still care to listen to it somewhen later? It’s not like i’m selling it. I just want to listen to it and i decide not only when and how – this is internet – but where too – as internet is so rare and expensive where i live. This guide, made by some guy called “Dizzie”,  it’s worth to be spread some more, expecially to my friends ;). If you like the music found through this system, support both the program by listening to it, and the musician by buying his stuff.

So, A bunch of you guys probably know what NPR is. National Public Radio, from the States.

NPR’s “All Song Considered” is one of the best music radio programs around, thanks to the marvellous guys that are responsible for it. One of the few podcasts i have subscribed, along with a CBC one and a few others from a bunch of independent radios and friends.

Now, simply check how good their production is:

—–> ALL SONGS CONSIDERED

So, here we are: You love the program, but you live where there’s no connection, or you spend hours in countless traffic jams. Want to rip one of those amazing transmissions and listen to them? Look down below. That’s how you do it. I’ve found the guide in a very well hidden deleted remote forum post in Google’s cache.

DIZZIE SAYS: “National Public Radio (NPR) is a popular radio show syndicator in the US. You can listen to lots of their shows online, but while they now do offer ‘podcasts’ and other downloadable content, many of the programs are only officially available as streaming content, with no link to download the source MP3. Well fuck that, let’s rip their shit.”

——> “You can of course, use a sound-capturing program like SoundTap (or many others) to record all sound coming out of your computer, but this will result in lossier sound quality, so instead let’s rip the original MP3 file (64 Kbps, 44 KHz) that’s streamed in NPR’s flash player.

1. Head on over to the NPR Archives and pick a program to rip. For this example we will be using:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4167689 though the method should work for other shows in much the same way.

2. Now just take the storyId number from the first URL (4167689 in our example),
and insert it after the id= field in this second URL, like so:
http://www.npr.org/templates/xanadu/xplayer.php?id=4167689&t=1 .

3. Paste the second URL into your browser, and you should get an xplayer.xml file.
(The XML file will either open in your browser or you’ll be prompted to save it).
At the top of the XML file should be a <mediaUrl> field that looks something like this:

Code:

<mediaUrl>

/npr/atc/2004/11/20041112_atc_09.mp3?primaryTopic=1039&assignedTopics=1041,1045,1047,1011&orgId=1
</mediaUrl>

4. Aha. Now we know the filepath of the source MP3 that we want to download,
but alas the URL itself isn’t listed in the XML file. But don’t worry, the root URL is just:

http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3

5. Now simply append the mediaUrl value to the end of the aforementioned URL
(stripping out all the extraneous bullshit after .mp3).

So your download URL for this show episode should be:
http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/asclive/2008/01/20080127_asclive_dwatson.mp3 .

And there you have it. You should now be able to download the original MP3s (64 Kbps, 44 KHz) of your
favourite shows to your heart’s content.

The general process is simple: get the storyId from the first URL,
paste it into the second URL, get the location of the MP3 from the XML file that the second URL points to,
and finally append the MP3 location to the third URL. Easy as 1-2-3-4 .”

Last ones i got were The Shins, Leadbelly, Wilco, Arcade Fire, Willie Nelson explaining how he used to go “song plugging” in a great interview, Neko Case, Hayden, and so on. So thanks NPR guys, again, and thanks Dizzie for the guide.

REMEMBER: Support the work of the artists you like, and down with the Majors!

Seriously, guys, good job, neat idea.

Be sure to check it out for a great laugh, and then a good cry. “Makes me sick how far we done fell”.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: Video on theLa Repubblica TV’s site, the dwarf in his last rude, organized sketch

I just hope someone was wiretapping him, to know what could be so important that he had to give the back to the German chancellor at the NATO Summit. But of course… wait, how stupid i am! It was a gag! Noone’s on the phone with him! Damn, Silvio, we never truly understand you.

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TIME MAGAZINE TOP 10 BERLUSCONI’s GAFFES

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Unfortunately there are a few favourites missing – like the one when a young woman questioned him during the TG prime time news on how he would act in order to change the current state of unavailability of jobs and proliferation of short-term contracts with basically no rights for workers – he fired back something like “why don’t you marry a rich guy like my son, you’re an handsome lady”. WTF Silvio. Don’t you get you’re being rude by saying “lady”? You meant “piece of ass” right?

Per chi invece certe cose le vive tutti i giorni, c’è una cosa più interessante da guardare, per ricordarsi come funziona oggi:

- COMIZIO DI BORGEZIO ai fascisti francesi dell’ UMP in un servizio di Canal+

Mi viene in mente quello che il nuovo assessore alla cultura di Roma arrivato con Alemanno mostrava recentemente: far passare il revisionismo come dialogo, in un sistema di accordi e strette di mano. E la cosa peggiore è che oggi il chiedere conto a Borghezio di certe dichiarazioni ci porterebbe ad assistere al suo appellarsi al diritto di libertà di parola.

I’ll write something about it in italian down below, but let me say something in english for everyone – the concert was exciting, thought-provoking and engrossing. I clapped my hands and stepped my toes in excitement and fun while listening to an arrangement done by Mr. Thompson of a song (So Ben Mi C’Ha Bon Tempo) by Orazio Vecchi, a late-rinascimental composer from Modena, unbelievable. Great concert, BRAVI. The humor was stellar (the joke about “italians, french, english and germans” was great… i couldn’t really understand if Thompson really did catch me raising a hand while asking, in the process of building up a joke, if someone in the crown could speak italian, ’cause that would have been quite a fun and unexpected answer, but it was lovely that because of this a lady near me said “buonasera” while going out at the end), the selection of songs incredibly interesting and a pleasure for my ears – i personally preferred Nelly Furtado’s mix with a choir in medieval latin, Blackleg Miner, The Fause Knight Upon The Road, I Live In Trafalgar Square, Oh Shenandoah, Cry Me a River and the rock and roll.

Judith Owen was really touching, especially for talking about her welsh father and then singing Cry Me A River. Quite full of energy was Debra Dobkin, exciting during the fast songs and – really impressive to say the least – proved to be quite versatile while embracing a variety of styles with such confidence and talent, like Thompson did with the guitar. Want to listen to some good humor and some good music? To go home thinking about some present and past styles and lyrics (could be Thompson’s own stuff and\or others’ stuff that he’ s going to sing like in this case) that you will recall in your head for years? Give him\them faith and he\them will repay you by handing over some great words and tunes.

I would really like to chat a bit with him about popular music, folk songs, songwriting, his take on singing ballads and stuff, and learn something about his music and songwriting too of course, oh well, it would be fun :D. We could even do it in colloquial medieval italian (note to self – stop making things up, Alessandro).

————

(Una versione più corta di questo articolo dovrebbe forse apparire in seguito anche su IL POPOLO DEL BLUES – Date un’occhiata al sito perchè è pieno di contenuti interessanti fatti da gente in gamba!)

—-> www.ilpopolodelblues.com/intro.html

Richard Thompson, Debra Dorkin e Judith Owen sono attualmente in tour per la Gran Bretagna con lo spettacolo “1000 Years of Popular Music”.

“The idea came from Playboy Magazine” – racconta Thompson sul suo sito – “I was asked to submit a list in late 1999 of the 10 greatest songs of the millennium. Ha! I thought, Hypocrites, they don’t mean millennium, they mean 20 years. I’ll call their bluff and do a real thousand-year selection”. E’ bastata questa premessa a farci decidere di stare a nostra volta al gioco del trio, ovvero l’essere riusciti a farne un vero spettacolo, e di raggiungere l’innevata contea di Kent per vederli calare le carte. Siamo due: Matteo Bartolini (un amico fraterno e compagno di progetti e scalate su roccia, nonchè suonatore di campane della torre campanaria di Arrone e membro della banda dello stesso paese – i pezzi di Matteo sono scritti in arancio).

“La sera del 1 Febbraio la hall del Marlowe Theatre di Canterbury è piena. Salta subito agli occhi l’età media dei presenti, almeno 45 anni. La maggioranza ha l’aria di essere ex figli dei fiori, ex giovani alternativi degli anni ’70, anzi tanti non sembrano proprio “ex”. Conoscenti che si rivedono al concerto per ricordare insieme i tempi andati, o quello che la musica della serata pùò significare per loro”. L’inizio è sorprendente. Thompson marcia fino al microfono suonando l’hurdy gurdy, la Dobkin mantiene un ritmo da marcia con un tamburo a bandoliera, mentre le voci dei tre si uniscono a metà del brano, Sumer is Ecumen In, il più antico canone conosciuto in lingua inglese. Alle spalle dei musicisti scorrono su schermo immagini di iconografie religiose cristiane di epoca medievale, che non fanno altro che aumentare la suggestione degli ascoltatori. Il viaggio nei mille anni di musica popolare è cominciato. Sul palco, un timpano, una grancassa messa in orizzontale, un rullante e due piatti di diversa misura, con il sostegno di un piano elettrico suonato alternativamente dalla Owen e dalla Dobkin, sono gli unici strumenti pronti a fondersi con la chitarra di Thompson. E tutti e tre cantano.

“The premise is that”, continua Thompson, “popular music comes in many forms, through many ages, and as older forms get superceded, sometimes the baby is thrown out with the bathwater – great ideas, tunes, rhythms styles, get left in the dust of history, so let’s have a look at what’s back there and see if it still does the trick”.

A guardare il trasporto del pubblico, per non dire il nostro, il trucco funziona. Da The Lionhearted (1190), scritta in prigione da Re Riccardo I al ritorno dalle crociate e adesso riproposta con uno stile da trobadour, a The False Knight Upon the Road, da Remember, O Thou Man (1611) di Thomas Ravenscroft a I Live In Trafalgar Square, si passa tra la musica scritta e quella di tradizione orale: un madrigale, una musica da chiesa, un’opera, una canzonetta, una hall song, un canto di lavoro, una ballata narrativa (una bellissima Oh Shenandoah). Ogni canzone è introdotta da aneddoti, spiegazioni, lettura del testo, e da continui commenti ironici sul repertorio e sul pubblico in sala, offerti, come la scaletta in programma, ad un ritmo sostenuto. E la voce di Thompson si dimostra come il miglior legno: da sempre con solidità serve soprattutto ad elevare i testi, a toccarla con i timpani è un piacere, e migliora con gli anni.

Il primo vero assaggio dell’abilità con la sua Lowden è arrivato col ritmo deciso di So Ben Mi Ca Bon Tempo di Orazio Vecchi, compositore modenese del 1550. Si, siamo a Canterbury, e stiamo battendo il piede al Marlowe su un corposo arrangiamento per chitarra di una composizione di un italiano del tardo-rinascimento – o se vogliamo, “una sorta di Fiona Apple del VI Secolo”, come specifica Thompson. “Hanno raggiunto l’apoteosi quando sono partite le note di Blackleg Miner, un canto dei minatori di Northumberland (qui degli Steeleye Span). L’esplosione di note-percussioni-voce accompagnate dalle immagini di foto d’epoca di minatori, ha fatto saltare sulle poltrone l’intero pubblico.” E stessa reazione ha provocato il rock and roll di Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee (davvero grintosa l’americana Dobkin), preceduto da Java Jive, Julie London (emozionante la calda voce della gallese Owen in Cry Me a River) e Hank Williams con Lonesome Whistle Blow.

La memoria musicale del pubblico, il piacere e il divertimento degli spettatori nel riconoscere le canzoni e, anche per i musicisti, di ricordarli nel proprio vissuto raggiungeva il suo picco nel momento dedicato agli anni ’60, evidente punto di condivisione musicale di tutte le generazioni rappresentate in quel momento, con The Beatles, e soprattutto The Kinks (“See My Friends” è uno dei pezzi su cui si regge lo spettacolo). Grande ironia viene fatta dal gruppo sulla qualità della musica degli anni ’70, con gli Abba con “Money”, a ricordare come mai i musicisti si svegliano presto tutte le mattine, e ’80. I temi dell’amore, del lavoro, della morte, del dolore, de continuavano ad essere protagonisti della proposta del trio attraverso un caleidoscopio di lingue e di stili musicali che si fondevano a quelli personali dei musicisti proprio grazie alla loro soprendente versatilità e abilità interpretativa. Eccezionale la conclusione in tre parti: Maneater di Nelly Furtado in versione rock moderno, suonata sull’immagine di una sfera da discoteca che rimanda all’originale, e che lentamente si trasforma in un coro di musica medievale da chiesa in latino, che ripete il tema del ritornello; in francese, antica perfino per il fantasma di Geoffrey Chaucer, Ja Nuls Hom Pris di Re Riccardo I The Lionheart, e infine, un’apprezzata I Wanna Hold your Hand dei Beatles, davvero immancabile se di popular music si vuol parlare.

Tutto rigorosamente tra i 3 e i 5 minuti a pezzo, ovviamente.

Per avere un particolare assaggio di che si tratta seguite questo link —-> RICHARD THOMPSON ON NPR RADIO

Un pezzo eccezionale e raro, notate il DADGAD tuning che rivela molto della sua storia musicale,  lo humor costante e se permettete, il trasporto nel cantare. — RT, She moves Through The Fair, Seattle 1990:

Article By Matteo Bartolini and Alessandro Toffoli

I think the interview we made was worth even just for what he says in the last couple of question, about his choiche for Obama and a fun question i fired before.The interview was being too based on his career as a musician, and i wanted to spice it up a bit, first because everyone knows that Mr. Clinton knows how to take a stance regarding politics (damn, even his musical production can be seen as a political statement) and then because it was interesting to provoke some different kind of talk in that moment. It was priceless, really nice person.

It’s online on the radio’s site now: WWW.RADIOSNJ.COM

It lasts a minute or so, if you want to check it out, just go to the site’s homepage and click the NARNI BLACK FESTIVAL banner, then INTERVISTA GEORGE CLINTON … it’s in (my) english.

I feel i look like a goof ( idon’t know i always feel like this in pictures and videos) and there’s a guy in the background that looks like one of the musicians but no, he’s a complete stranger and i still have to understand how it’s possible that he went aaaaaaaall the way to the fucking backstage without being stopped by noone! (we needed like 16 permits and stuff). Leonardo, a friend of mine that was attending the concert, was so drunk that basically forced his way through the backstage too just by distributing 45° alcohol shots and a few orange juices (to the people who didn’t drink), harassing one of the musicians for hugs and some fun, constantly looking for him everywhere calling the guy “buzzicotto”, that means “fatty” in a real funny, cute and vernacular way.

Hilarious.

From the news to the National Public Radio, everyone speaks of a man that channelled Woodie Guthrie’s spirit. At the same time, Bruce Springsteen, more political, is doing the same in another part of the world. And in another one, when traveling to our association’s, it’s Nora Guthrie with Giovanna Marini (that was amazing, out of control). It’s 2008. Earle, Guthrie as other musicians are still a chorus of voices that remember us (being in Italy, US, or anywhere else) to keep our eyes wandering. And somewhere else in houses everywhere, the same, as you can see in the following video (thanks J. Reamer!).

This song is his song, his songs are your songs.

When NPR Podcasts reports that “Right from the beginning, Steve Earle called out the spirit of Woody Guthrie, realizing that we need him now more than ever”, that’ because the first song is Christmas in Washington.

What does Earle think about it? We already know. From the article “Woodie Guthrie”, written by Steve Earle, in 2003 ( Thanks Steveearle.net ! ):

“ Does all this mean that the world would be a different place if Woody had dodged the genetic bullet and lived? You bet your progressive ass! Just imagine what we missed! Woody publishing his second and third books! Woody on the picket lines with Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers singin’ Deportee! I could go on forever. I have imagined hundreds of similar scenarios, but then at some point it always dawns on me how selfish I am.

Let him go. He did his bit. Besides, as much as we need him right now, I wouldn’t wish this post-9/11 world on Woody. He hated Irving Berlin’s God Bless America more than any other song in the world. He believed that it was jingoistic and exclusive, so he wrote a song of his own. It goes:

This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
To the New York island
From the redwood forest
To the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”

Christmas in Washington at first seems to sound like a call, a call for Guthrie, but suddenly you discover how the tone has been since the beginning the one of a mourning, that finally admits to “let him go” cause “he did his bit”. The feeling in my guts is clear – it’s both.

Right now, America is approaching the vote, and Bush is about to pass his role as a president after 2 mandates in a row.Who will win? Obama? McCain? In these final rush, populism is at its peak, and the line between gossip and news is blurring even more.

What’s impressive from this side of the ocean was to see how well Bush was able to organize a nice entourage for himself outside his country. Prime ministers in England, Canada, Italy, Australia, just to name a few, ready to answer every call. We kicked pro-war Berlusconi once, just to discover how sad and uneffective was the outcome of the coming center-left\left wing coalition ruled by Prodi. They even went against their own election program point after point, day after day, with no shame. The war continues no matter which government goes on top, even as just a strategic-economic matter for most of countries, of course at the expenses of the people involved.

War apart, the problem spreads with the total failure of the parties, that offers no believable candidates and no choiche, while the majority of the young voters, witnessing this situation, put even more distance between them and the politics. The point remains – the problem are not the politics, but the politicians.

Keeping a distance with both mind and body is useless, cause things will change with the politics: Earle’s right when says that you’r never going to stop a war just by listening someone else playing – you got to sing. Thoughts goes to my friend Damien, that tells me  while chillin on a february night how Jimi Hendrix used to recreate the sound of the bombs exploding in Vietnam while playing Star Spangled Banner at Woodstocks, and that he grows up listening and playing to Hendrix, then plays music and “sings” with his own projects and act for social changes. Thoughts goes to all the people i know that knows how to “sing”. A whole chorus of single voices.

I agree with his suggestions. The whole concert is a suggestion in itself: beginning with Christmas in Washington and ending it with Tom Waits’ Way Down In The Hole, sung for The Wire opening credits (5th season)? To me, it means “Let’s listen to what people before us had to say on such matters, and then let’s keep the devil way down in the hole”.

My overall feeling while listening at the podcast was high on multiple levels.It’s really nice to see how well it worked on so many different levels, musically speaking. His effort of building duettos with his wife and singer songwriter Allison Moorer, that sings solo too. Then in the final parts his collaboration with an uncredited turntablist towards new musical projects, in a creative, stylistic progression.

I know just a few things about Earle – but hey, i like the man, guys. Bravo. Take a leap to the NPR service and actually discover all the other podcasts offered, high quality live concerts from great groups from the States, Canada, England, etc…not bad at all.

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NPR NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO PODCAST http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93226876

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ps. Why was the Gillian Welch live with David Rawlings removed? Aaaaah, damn industry rules.

SHOWING AMERICA, ONE EPISODE AT THE TIME. THE WIRE, A SERIES.

Earlier last year, i stumbled across an american TV series called The Wire.

I got interested in this series because of some comments above a YouTube video and at a first glance the visuals, the script, the mood in it intrigued me. Turned out to be quite a surprise – David Simon (screenwriter, writer, journalist) and Ed Burns (homicide detective, screenwriter), the series creators, nailed one of the best scripts i’ve seen since quite a bit of time.

Watching this story in the form of a episodic, downloadable-in-files serial, i need to spend a few words on how the form worked: never interrupted by any spot, is able to stand as a compromise between your time, the time you are able to cut from a day full of tasks, and their time, a 60 minutes long episode. The Divx format is making these 60 minutes very accessible, everywhere you have a computer, a laptop or a tv with dvd player, even a last generation mobile phone, and whenever you know you’ll have 60 minutes of free time, that, let’s face it, in today’s routine, they could be scattered anywhere in a day: a train ride, a lunch-break in a park, an empty afternoon at work, a dinner. Go to the bathroom, and you’re not going to loose a bit of it – you could even be able to bring it with you – a personal intimate dimension where you have total control of the time and flow of the content is one of the keys that is shifting the preferred form of entertainment from the ol’ National Broadcast TV networks to the computers and consoles. Instead of being a one-shot concert that requires you to hold your pee if you really care about following it, the episodes creates single mini-shots more affordableand dynamic in term of times and space (and money, if you know other ways to get it besides the legal ones). Every single episode then, creates it’s own time in your daytime like a single song played on your MP3 player.

Periodically offering a portion of it, it tries continually to make you interested, and in the long term will probably succeeds, even more if everyone around you already is interested.

Following two different narrative lines, one across each episode and one that starts and ends every single episode, feeds the different levels of narration that every spectator needs for entertainment.

More and constantly works better then once and for all. In comparison with movies, it even gives continuity to the serial if the time between an episode and the other is used by spectators to produce a good amount of speculation (check the official forums to witness) – a creative and very active role (in a cognitive sense of course) for a spectator. It’s a sort of medium-specific relative to Keichiro Toyama’s construction of plots in videogames, where you deal the plot in separated pieces to let the player play with the game even on a cognitive level.

Then, let me say, to keep the flow of the new episodes, the flow of the news and the flow of metaverse on the same line, a bigger amount of spectators are discovering, in a country proud for the quality of its dubbing, the pleausure of original language with translated subtitles. A series like Lost is a global, multistratified, global practice other then a series. The Wire, to be understood, should be watched in original language, so instead of the cultural mediation would happen outside yourself, would happen as a way to know each other and make confrontation, inside yourself.

Last but not least, through repeated and dynamic experiences inducing empathy, sympathy, antipathy and pity, gives you, through a window in someone’s sitting room or tent, a relationship with characters that is characterized by being long.The long term engagement, in comparison to cinema, marks a difference that could be compared to the one between an encounter and a friendship.

Last but not least, as Orson Wells once said “I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts“. Every episode, and every series, knows how to build it’s own cliffhangers. If you like the material, then keep going, please.

To make it to the audience, a good amount of skills by the writers was surely needed, but probably what made the difference was a less then spoiled private network (it’s the HBO) that knew how to capitalize on it and so didn’t care much about the stance taken by the writers, that is fiercely cinic, satyrical and realistic.Let me point out “realistic” once again: the show is fulfilled with stories collected during both author’s career. True stories are fictionalized through different steps, and the same happens for fictional plots, that that are spawned by the authors with an evident soul of reality in them.

Unmistakably, in the States currently the TV serials are more successful and more based on quality then ever before, but we’re talking about a kind of quality that made this drama stand out on his own even in comparison to the best material on every medium to come out in a while.

Taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, the show offers insights on the american city while we cruise through the streets, bars, offices and sitting rooms with the premise of following a drug trade and the efforts of an investigation unit to catch the gangs involved in it using a wiretap-based surveillance.

Baltimore, soon introduced as “Bodymore” (click) to set the tone, is explored through the lives of many characters living in its different inner realities and soon uses the investigation as a vehicle for this exploration. Since the first scene, it evades and plays with the (stereo)typical cop-drama show formulas, focusing on the characters and “what it means for them to live committed to an institution” and to deal with its actual organization, complex politics, peculiar dynamics and ambiguous relationships. Conceived this way, it soon starts to knit a web of deeper, wider storylines that spreads in every direction, from the the peripheral housing projects to the harbor and the richer Northern region, following events involving workers’ unions, policemen\women, Baltimore Sun journalists, drug pushers, schools teachers and students, judges and lawyers, blue collar workers, white collar workers, priests, university researchers, politicians (even the mayor). Topics like the racial issues (Baltimore is a 64% afroamerican populated city, and we see a white politician trying to run for mayor and convincing an afroamerican colleague to run for the same role just to divide the vote of the afroamerican citizens), corruption, immigration, economic recession, beaurocracy, politics, the chain of command, the school system, the core dynamics of a newspaper are analyzed, criticized and showed with less words then needed, avoiding cheesy expected social commentaries.

The series seems to go always in and out of several genres, crossing them, bending them, coming in and out of them. When they’re done showing a side of the things, they start to show the other, and then mix them until there is never a single, or fixed perspective.

In America, where George W. Bush is doing what he is doing with a smile on his face, a paternalistic attitude and in the name of god – when the big managers of the falling economic empires are declaring bankrupcy while earning million of dollars at the same time – where people without money and accessibility to the services are left to struggle between themselves – are the americans really going to deal again with good versus bad again?

Are they still going to believe in untouchables, in machos, in never-failing police forces, in John Wayne like cowboys? The globally diffused fun made against  Chuck Norris says the contrary. Brokeback Mountain says they’re tired. James Gandolfini, the actor that plays Tony Soprano, leaves behind his shoulders a past character found in Tony Scott’s and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance and offers the modern ironic adventures of Tony The Wiseguy, son, father and husband, against The Nosy Shrink.

Another american was another reflection of this in his own way: when Barack Obama said that The Wire was his favourite series and Omar Little, one of the most appreciated characters of the show, his favourite character, meant to send another message coherent with the political change he’s promising in the campaign: Omar is a tough gunslinger, but contrary to the clichè, he’s gay, robs only drugdealers, has a strict moral code and sometimes acts like a Baltimore’s Robin Hood  – quite a smart political move in response to McCain, that said that his favourite TV character of all time is Maverick…Obama found his favourite in a self-made, lone, black Robin Hood that seems like an incarnation of his life and political program. Let’s speculate even more: As everyone in The Wire, no matter what happens, keeps going on with their life trying to change themselves or their surroundings, it’s no surprise that the man that is trying to reach the presidency with the political rethoric of hope choose this series to declare his audiovisual tastes.

Anyway, playing with classic plots and stressing them towards both the expected and the unexpected, David Simon choose to depict the ambiguity of the human being, and showing the moral conflicts is Simon’s biggest concern.

It’s not easy to grab in one move the whole essence of this result.

In the States, in 2008, that’s what came out from a private subscription-based network channel that later is airing entertaining, smile inspiring clichèd american mafia wiseguys in The Sopranos. All the series are, first of all, requested to deal with a good amount of clichès abused in the past. While The Sopranos works at different narrative levels too, the clichè of the macho wiseguy is very much needed  to let the trigger for the comedy factor work, and so exists in the series like a creative device and not a mere clichè: you need a villain with an accent that kills other criminals in the typical sterotype of the italian mafioso to later warp him into a life made of problems, routines and close relationships. Which family is really the hardest to deal with?  In an America where the citizens are constantly on the edge of their nerves between alarms pounding, fast routines and lack of solid state service and a scary sanitary system, every man would say “hey, daily life is more tough that the one of those guys”.

It’s not even easy to spot the boundaries between the creative efforts of the writers and the promotion built by the network on a commercial product:but again, even if you take into account that the series was shown by a private commercial network and aired for commercial reasons as an expensive visual industrial product, the writers delivered, nonetheless.

I’M ITALIAN, AND I’M WATCHING IT IN ITALY: FORTUNATELY ENOUGH, NOT IN ITALIAN THOUGH.

It’s a bit embarassing for me to search in an american series for something that i would find in ours and  that in Italy’s cinema history has always been present and actually, is part of what we’re known in the world for. I’m talking about movies of Petri, Rosi, Ferrara, Leone, Sorrentino for example. All of them exposing the black rotting substance that fills the gaps of our machine.

But it’s easy to get why: when you see that while a series like this at least offers, in a private network on a valid national scale, a noteworthy screenwriting quality and such a more realistic-oriented, critical representation of the institutions, do you still think that i would get interested in what’s showed in Italy, on the public and private networks, basically all owned by the 16 times under criminal charges Silvio Berlusconi, at the same time prime minister and owner of three Private TV channels? We’re just continuously pounded with cheesy, empty, glorifing, “tarallucci biscuits and wine” plastic shows and small-town-priests-turned-detectives and preservers of the last human values that act as moral heroes.

Italians always have their share fun looking at the others’ dirty laundry while The Wire is aired in italian in the Fox channel as a “criminal series” with a useless terrible dubbing, but when it comes to ours…that’s cosa nostra. While currently our cinema honoured that strong past for dealing with our half truths carrying on with movies like “Gomorra” , Il “Caimano” and “Il Divo”, i wonder if in this country there’s even a possibility for something like The Wire to exist (be thought, written, approved and aired) for a large scale, television based, audience that wants to be provoked.

It’s not only about the fact that such result seems to be impossible to be ever achieved on a public network, but we even have to be harassed with a skillfull idiotic promotional surrogate that would better to not even exist. Even on a private italian or non-italian network, i just can’t imagine such a Wire like level of critical approach to be produced and aired. Can you imagine a play in which a prime minister gives directions on a state television network director on who to hire, and then promising favours and protection when that director will venture in opening an enterprise?  Or one where it shows how in the new left wing party they find a strategic, tricky, forced ways to split the party’s associates for the success of a single candidate? How the government or the police elaborate strategies to create fake percentages on a national scale? Or how newspapers get their journalists and how the majority of them works, and the relationship they have with the political parties?

Or, let’s say, Rome’s mayor wiping dust off his beloved fascist memorabilia and the relationship he has with the people who gave him those items? Or the phonecalls between the police officials and the minister during the night of a three days manifestation during the G8 to plan an onslaught against the pacifists and common people sleeping in a public school? Or a minister elected performing a fellatio on the prime minister and being preferred for that?

In a TV series? In Italy?

La Squadra, aired by RAI3, what is usually considered the best achieved result. To me, “it” knows,  when to stop talking, if it ever talks, and offers no insight at all on what’s showing behind the most superficial ones. Eight seasons of politically correct porridge that takes classic arcs and feeds them as clichès, without offering deeper insights, but keeping to entertain in preceptive manners, throwing a few flat lines on commonly acknowledged topics like eutanasia and radiated uranium bullets for a “serious topic” moment (well, anyway, the writing quality will not be missed). It shows with pretentiously attitude an imaginary police station (of course, in Naples, otherwise where would it be?! Oh, Please…) as it was to be located in an imaginary italy, where above and around the police system and the policemen there’s noone. Oh, but luckily it was even officially approved by the italian Police, it is even based on a pre-made sellable international commercial format, and It is even produced by the national TV service RAI FICTION but distributed by Berlusconi’s Mediaset under the name “The Squad”.

For now, we’ll stick to this then, or to the worst, that is really even worthless to comment:

But it’s even more difficult to discuss such topics that meanwhile Berlusconi didn’t loose any time to write an anti-constitutional, law once more cut for himself boicotting the way wiretap surveillance contents can be used and published on media, with a basic condescendent reaction from the center-left wing that probably is afraid of surveillance no more no less than him. Yes, wiretap. While we all listen to his rants about being a victim of the judiciary, he’s snapping his fingers and going anticonstitutional in front of the majority of the citizens in this country that, in line with the way they grew up, looks the other way and hopes he’s going to make a better life for each one of them.Meanwhile, on Youtube we listen to the published glimpses of the wiretaps that are used against him in court for charges like corruption or association with mafia, like this small bit ahead.

This is not peculiar to Italy, but let’s say that around here it happens a little bit more then everywhere else.

Besides its effective quality as an entertainment product, The Wire went way beyond being entertaining. The decision to depict Baltimore’s life starting from a unit of cops chasing a drug trade and a stable private life is done with a remarkable attention to the screenwriting and a realistic approach that constantly drives it towards what Sergio Leone mastered in his spaghetti westerns. As Orson Wells once told Leone, “With a western movie, you can say whatever you want”.

WHAT ABOUT STEVE EARLE?

In the second season, final episode, one of his songs is playing along the visuals of the season’s finale: “I Feel Alright”.

In a series that pays more then an homage to those western movies to be actually considered part of the new western movies rise (No Country For Old Men being one example of it) there’s a song in which Steve, born in Virginia and lived young in Texas, with a classic western frontier-era image, speaks about himself in the first lines: ” I was born my papa son, a wanderin’ eye and a smoking gun“.

This image, that keep us wondering – real event and, or, methaphore? – has been under everyone’s eyes since years. After a while, to me it kept telling how his “wandering eye” self-describes how he looks around, watching what’s going on, focused and aware on a personal social and political level, and of course, at a street level too.

His “smoking gun” are his musical tools, composed of a thinking mind, a mouth that speaks what he thought, and a guitar playing – a political action that goes from refusing the Nashville music industry trying to impose itself on him ( “From Johnny Cash, I learned how an artist carries himself when the industry stops returning phone calls. And that if you have something to say and you keep on saying it loud and true, then people will listen” – Steve Earle, Men’s Journal, 2001) to the decades of calls against the war, from his childhood along his mother up to now, from singing Woodie Guthrie’s songs to making recordings like Ellis Unit One, City Of Immigrants, John Walker’s Blues or The Revolution Starts Now.

A pacifist like Earle using the world “gun” with such metaphorical meanings is like Guthrie using the world “kill” writing on his guitar “This machine kills fascists”.

When Steve Earle writes about Woodie Guthrie says “He became the living embodiment of everything a people’s revolution is supposed to be about: that working people have dignity, intelligence and value above and beyond the market’s demand for their labor”. It’s the finale of the second season, when the song bursts out. Niko, a young stevedore cries on a fence looking at the harbour from the outside, knowing that committing himself to the organized crime made him loose his dignity, family and work. He chose to be on the other side of several fences, now he cries on what he lost that was his since generations.

In different scenes spanned through the seasons, Bubs, a drug addicted homeless 40-like afroamerican man crafts his life in the streets trying to straightening it how somehow, even giving a chance to get clean by taking part in a 12-step meeting. His motivation to drop the syringe is supported by a man named Waylon, his sponsor in the meetings. He appeared since the first season, and are his words that convinced Bubs in trying to get clean meanwhile their relationship grows on trust and respect: “I pawned my bike, my pickup truck, a National Steel guitar, a stamp collection that my grandpa left me; lost a good wife, a bad girlfriend, and the respect of anyone who ever lent me money”.

My National Steel guitar. That guy is Steve Earle. The actor. It’s the first time i’ve seen him out of a CD cover.

“I ask you questions, tell you lies, criticize and sympathize – Be careful what you wish for friend, cause i’ve been in hell and now i’m back again” – (Steve Earle, “I Feel Alright”)

While his sponsorship becomes friendship, Bubs and Waylon characters are constantly playing with their actors. In those scenes a real ex-addict tells a true story with just a name and a role separating him from the reality of his words while a never addicted actor, never even knew anything about drugs, embodies for five seasons who is for the spectators the addict and so embodies “the addiction”, and that knows that the other one is not really acting, he’s telling himself through a role. In Earle’s Waylon both fictional and real sides got fused depicting effectively the pain that surrounds the addiction. But on that bench, only one man is really thinking about a difficult real addiction that finally, starting with powerful recordings and culminating with such acting, is getting more and more exorcized. From a letter sent by Steve Earle to the Tennessean editor, 1997:I am a recovering crack addict with two years, eight months and 29 days clean, thanks to the grace of God and the support of my fellow recovering addicts. Probably, the addiction now can only appear like a ghost to him, with different shapes, sitting on a bench near him, ready to be again sent away, ritually, with arguments that he wish he could tell to anyone – and he did through Waylon’s role.

Knowing his story, i can’t stop seeing Waylon speaking to Bubs like something else – Earle looking at, and speaking to, his experiences. 

I Feel Alight (1996) came after Train A’ Comin (1995), the amazing album that showed how far he wa able to kick the addiction out of himself, but that song embodied his will of reckognizing his strenght more then any other. The same act of reckognizing it is a step needed to better understand problems bigger then yourself. Walon embodies his past in front of the american audience and dramatizes a part of a self conscious, shared, personal process recalling memories of his song CCKMP.

When Steve’s character Waylon somewhere in the (not so) fictional Baltimore sits and feels alright, at the same time Niko walks, in a self crafted complex reality where he simply never will.

In an article later appeared in The New Yorker when the last season of The Wire was being shown on the cable channel, David Simon, head writer, ex-Baltimore Sun journalist and series co-creator, comments that he doesn’t like when in a movie the images are matching a song’s lyrics: “It brutalizes the visual in a way to have the lyrics dead on point” says, “Yet at the same time it can’t be totally off point. It has to glance at what you’re trying to say.”  Based on that statement, the opening credits run along a song written by Tom Waits called “Way Down In The Hole”, but each season a different band plays it.

In the fifth and last season, the one dedicated to the journalism, the main song during the opening credits is being played by Steve Earle.

A few days ago, in the legendary festival founded by Pete Seeger, the Newport Folk Festival, Steve Earle is there, ending his concert with a song: “Way Down In The Hole”.

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NPR NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO PODCAST http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93226876

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Plus, studies and a new job should keep me busy for a while.

Meanwhile, check a few nice pictures from a recent activity, some hiking through the Fiastrone “Throaths” (River Gorges) in the middle of the hot italian summer.

Nice walk, it would be amazing to swim it during the colder seasons with some scuba gear.

By the way, more updates in the future about everything.

SO….

1) HOW TO USE A GARMIN TRACK WITH GOOGLE MAPS

- With MapSource, the software that comes with a Garmin GPS (mine is a Venture HC eTrex), choose to save your tracks with a .gpx extension by downloading the tracks from your Gps to your MapSource and then following this routine: File > Save As > in the Save As Type menu select the “GPS eXchange Format, .gpx”. I suggest to “simplify” your track deleting some superfluous waypoints (let’s say, keep 150 main track points). If you don’t have MapSource, use GPSBabel to convert any file extension in a .gpx file extension.

- Download a great free software called ITNConv HERE, it’s in the “Telechargements” section

- Use the ITNCONV application to open a .gpx file previously obtained via MapSource and export it as a .kml file.

- Go to Google Maps. Creat an account if you already didn’t, and click on My Maps. Click on Create New Map and click on Import, then upload the .kml file.

- There you are, your itinerary is on Google Maps. There’s a limited number of points that the map supports, so that’s why it would be better to “simplify” your track previously with MapSource – the limit seems to be 150 points. Anyway, even if the number of points exceed the limit, the route will show up anyway, but the points will stop being showed after a certain limit (i can’t really understand what’s the limit or even if there’s a limit or not, a new uploaded track showed 196 points – is somone can clarify this to me it would be nice i don’t have time to try different tracks now).

2) HOW TO USE A GARMIN TRACK WITH GOOGLE EARTH

- Now it’s fully supported. Simply select a track on the Tracks menu in your MapSource software after downloading a track from your Garmin, then click on View > View in Goggle Earth (download the application, it’s free).You can even drag and drop the .gpx file on Google Earth. Be careful, someone experienced inaccuracies though, so double check the results.

3) HOW TO USE A GOOGLE MAP ROUTE WITH A GARMIN GPS

- Download ITNConv here if you already didn’t before (it’s free, great stuff my friends so consider a donation to the authors) [doesn't even need an installation, so move it on C:\Program Files or whatever place you like, then make a shortcut on the desktop by right clicking on the program ITNConv.exe file and choose  "Send To > Desktop (create shortcut)" ].

- Double click on the ITNConv.exe (or the shortcut you created) and open it.

- Click on the Editor icon and let it connect to Google Maps. Place your waypoints and make your track, then close the “Google Maps” window with your waypoints and export it with the preferred extension. Let’s say, .gpx if you want to open it with MapSource.

- That’s it, your track is on MapSource, upload it on the Gps. Remember that every Garmin model has a limited number of points when reading a track. Mine, a Venture HC eTrex, has 500.

ATTENTION! FOR MACINTOSH USERS!!

I have a mac too, yeah. So get a software like GPSBabel instead of ITNConv (check the supported formats too). Other choiches are available, like LoadMyTracks for example, google for more resources or check sites like THIS ONE or THIS ONE for even more resources and stuff.

Remember that .gpx means EXCHANGE format, so SHARE your trips if you want to! I am opened to sharing tracks and experiences and the web is full of sites where you can upload and download tracks. Just search for it cause it really depends on your needs (backcountry exploration, bike itineraries, running, etc).

This time, here’s a resource for Canada Topo Maps free of charge.

Remember that on his site, Dale says that there are “some *known* inaccuracies”, so keep an eye on it and if you find something, send an email back to him. At the same time, don’t take for granted what is sold in the retail sources, cd and dvd topos you can buy from big brand such as Garmin – there are known inaccuracies too (thanks for the “hands-on preview, Goaty). Anyway, never forget your compass and topo anyway, but you all know this.

They are provided by Dale Atkin on his site, here’s what they cover.

Go to Dale’s site to get them. Dame, Martin, Lyndon, i think you can find this useful if you don’t have it already :)

—-> Dale Atkin’s Site HERE: http://www.ibycus.com/ibycustopo/ THANKS DALE!

Yesternight then, was deeply buried in a substance that is formed while spilling water on old coffee stains and accumulated dust. Like smelling wet bricks and stones and recalling Rome, I smell that substance and the first thing that rushes through my mind is my table.

Point is, this revived coffee smell counterbalanced the dizziness coming during the late hours while i was listening to some music videos on youtube and surfing different pages at the same time: suddenly, i realized it was the right time to start listening to something that i was waiting to listen to since some months and i would like to present it to you all. After the first minutes, i didn’t need anymore coffee: i was completely dragged in.

I was listening to the audio documentary “I Can Almost See the Lights of Home”. It’s a sort of radio program that Sandro and Charles Hardy III made during the days of Sandro’s on-field research in Kentucky.Sandro’s book on this field trip is almost finished and so it’s a good time to talk about this.

I’ve never been there myself, but Enrico and Sandro are talking a lot about it and i feel like i almost have been there in some way. I’m planning a trip there for 2010 (time and money permitting of course), part of a trip that crossess the Smokey Mountains from the surroundings of Knoxville and goes across Tennessee up to Damascus in Virginia, where we can then turn to Lexington passing by Harlan. So hopefully one day i’ll be able to see the place – for now, let’s all dive into this bluegrass music video for now. Randy Wilson plays an amazing banjo made from a fruit cake tin and gives a great time.

Back to the subject: as the authors say, “Part ethnography, part oral history, part radio documentary, ‘I Can Almost See the Lights of Home’ is a hybrid work, an ‘essay-in-sound’ designed to be heard, not read“.

You’ll need a computer, plus an internet connection, a program called Real7ime that you can download from HERE or HERE and a pair of comfortable headphones.If you’re going to stay home one of these evenings, prefere this link over a tv show or a movie, it’s very well worth your time, trust your friend!

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OK, go for it —-> I CAN ALMOST SEE THE LIGHTS OF HOME

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Remember that you can get in contact with me if you want to know more or check the Circolo Gianni Bosio in the Links section of this blog to find the Archivio Franco Coggiola archive section.

Later,

Ale