Really...?

And now, a segment stolen from Weekend Update. Really...?

Really, Craig Thompson? You paid for escort services on your work credit card? Really? You didn’t think that this would leave a trail? You call a brothel called Bad Girls from your hotel room and then tell investigators that someone else used your credit card and forged your signature. Really? But then you didn’t report the alleged fraud to the authorities. Really? And really? You expected your work to cover the cost? I have big enough troubles claiming expenses on a pack of AA batteries, and this guy is spending $2500 on prostitutes. Really.

And, really, NSW ALP? You gave preselection to someone who was an obvious liability and had a history of escorts being paid for on his work MasterCard. Really? Did you think nobody would remember you slipped him $100k so he'd avoid bankrupcy in the lead up to the election? Really? Do you like being in opposition, or do you just prefer the ‘Russian Roulette’ approach to government? I mean, really.

While we’re on the subject, Really, Prime Minister? You have ‘full confidence’ in Craig Thompson and think he’s doing a 'great job'? The last person who had that said about him while being a monumental screw up was Michael Browne, the head of FEMA in the US, and under his administration, the city of New Orleans was destroyed. Heck of a job, Brownie. Really. Were it up to me, I’d eject him from the cabinet, the party and the parliament for just been a total ’tard. Really.

But, at the end of the day, Really, Craig Thompson? If you want to pay for a prostitute, you can always use your own credit card, because in Victoria and NSW – guess what? It’s legal. If you did that, this isn’t news – it’s just gossip. But maybe you don’t want your family to see it on a credit card statement; good thing you used your work credit card, because now we’ve all seen it. Really. While nurses are working long shifts and actively fighting for better pay and conditions, you’re using their union dues to have your junk worked on by a girl named ‘Bubbles’. Really.

And Craig? You know that there are these things called ATMs now. Really. They dispense cash and you can pay for goods and services with it. And I cannot imagine there’s a working girl in the world that doesn’t take cash. The only hooker I know that doesn’t is LJ Hooker, and I think they would in a pinch if you asked them nice enough. Because, really. You’re not getting re-elected no matter what. If you get forced out of the parliament because of this, there’ll be a by-election, the ALP will lose the seat, lose their majority in the lower house, the caretaker PM will call a double dissolution election and then the coalition will win government in a landslide that will blow your mind more than whichever ‘Bad Girl’ did back when you were with the HSU. Then this country will be lead by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Really.

I mean Really. Huh. Yeah. Wow.

Auditorium – ‘Be Brave’

A few years ago I was out wandering the streets looking at nothing in particular with a friend of mine. We happened upon a record store – because that’s what we do, we happen upon them – and he (of more senior age than I) recommended that I buy Forever Changes, the apparently classic album by Love. I did. I’d never heard of them, I wasn’t one to just leap head-first, willy-nilly into these kind of things, but the price was right and I really haven’t looked back since. Just one of those random things.
Speaking of random, I got an email from a publicist looking to spread the good word on Auditorium, a one-man outfit who was being touted as a ‘musical genius’. It was random, in that publicists usually don’t contact me. But there you go. There was a link to a music video, which I eventually was able to play once I found an internet connection that was open to playing clips from You Tube (ie, not work) and upon listening to the music (in this case, the single ‘The Enforcer’), I thought, yes. I like this. It reminds me of Love.
See? Synergy. One thing leads to another and it’s all connected and the circle of life and everything.
Auditorium is the stage name of one Spencer Berger, a Los Angeles troubadour (and how often do you hear that word used as a modern-day descriptor?) cut from the same cloth as Tim Buckley, Ralph McTell, Steve Poltz and the like. Sung and performed with a unique kind of ethereal earnestness, Auditorium’s self-styled melodies and harmonies are nothing if not earnest and resonate with lyrics that don’t stray too far from the journeyman-singer-songwriter-balladeer playbook.
I would sincerely hope that this, or any future efforts that Mr Berger puts out gets a solid, proper, professional mixing job done on it, as it seems Auditorium is aptly named as on occasion Be Brave sounds like it was recorded inside an empty football arena. More solid production values would have made this admirable effort shine.
You know what? I’m impressed with the fact that he went out and did this. Steven Soderbergh won a Best Director Oscar in 2001 for Traffic, and in accepting his trophy said that he wished everyone watching would go out and do something creative every day. That’s what’s been done here. While major labels are falling over themselves trying to sign the next teenage sex gimmick to fill the void when Lady Gaga self-destructs, there are actual musicians, passionate ones at that, who are out there, toiling in the fields of performance and doing what they can to get their voice heard. Spencer Berger is doing just that, which is more than me, and I think he deserves all the credit in the world.