Friday, December 27, 2013

Beyond the Fringe


Nice piece of holiday viewing for those do-nothing days: Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Dorothea

 Dorothea is so prodigiously coquettish that the pleasure of being admired prevails with her over the pride of the freedman, and, though she is free, she walks shoeless.
Charles Baudelaire


Friday, November 15, 2013

Lisa says...

A couple of years ago, this was a very different blog. It featured video clips of yours truly, covering songs on an electric bouzouki. (That would be a Celtic style bouzouki , rather than the original Greek style.) A friend of mine dared me to start up the blog and share the clips with people.  At first most of the "audience" were friends of hers, friends of mine, and sundry interested parties.

This went on for eight or nine months, but eventually it ended up getting a little bit out of hand. Stats were showing that people in far-flung parts of the world were viewing these silly, in-joke clips of me playing the bouzouki. Some of the tunes were becoming quite popular.  One in particular was averaging a couple of hundred hits a week, mostly from the same location.

It was flattering for a while, but it kind of freaked me out. (I speak as someone who once played in a band that released four singles - they sold, between them, a couple of thousand copies.  That's about as much fame as I want, thank you very much.)

What had started as a bit of fun was beginning to feel like a job - a job I was doing gratis for complete strangers. Eventually the workload became too much and I packed it in, figuring I'd proven to my friend that yes, I actually COULD get away with playing bouzouki and (worse) singing online.  She forgave me.

The blog became a dormant thing. Then earlier this year my friend passed away. Somehow I got the itch to start blogging again. So here's the new bouzoukibeat blog - no videos (yet), no old posts or public bouzouki abuse (ever), but just another blog full of random stuff found around and about on teh internetz.  I've tried blogging in fits and starts elsewhere but some stray sentiment, and a sense of loyalty to my dear departed friend, impels me to do it here.  Even though I haven't touched a bouzouki in months...

Full disclosure: I own two cheap (but dearly beloved) celtic bouzoukis. Also two mandolins and eight guitars. The guitars take up most of my time, when I'm not working or otherwise mucking around. Some of my music is posted up at my SoundCloud site. My Twitter feed is here and my Tumblr is here.

And what you have in front of you, dearest reader, is a former bouzouki blog that now has very little bouzouki-related content.  But loads of other silliness shall find itself a home here, I hope - the better to enliven your online canter through celebrity microblogs, annoying pop-up ads and pictures of cute little kitty-cats.

ANY-hoo...

The bouzoukibeat blog is dedicated to the memory of my late friend, Ms. Lisa-Marie Maher aka Little Lisa, with much love. <3