The Bongo Cats

Tony Blair…not the best way to start a wretched hangover, have we been conditioned as the spawn of the disenfranchised generations residing above us to sneer and look at these politicians with nothing but contempt? You get the flavour don’t you? Probably not! Okay. Flick back in time to three and four generations ago… People where queuing up to have their lives taken from them fighting for a freedom in which millions made the ultimate sacrifice for. Sometimes I hate myself for not voting. Other times, the very idea of participating with these people gives me heartburn. Funny thing is though; I can actually hear what he is saying at moments like these. Curtains drawn, fighting to keep the sunlight out. He is summarising the changes we have experienced since the Thatcher years. (I would have found it hilarious as a child if I knew that I would routinely try to hide from the sun). There has been a sea change in social responsibility and he is correct to highlight these changes, however I return to being the cynical bastard I am when I observe the body language and hear the endless: ‘Since 1997…everything is better than it was’ Diatribes. Progress in people friendly policies will always be made. To keep the people scrambling about for their rebates and cheques always beats the fermentation of, dare I say, Revolution. “You can’t say that man; the Beatles have already dealt with that issue”. Don’t you go start talking about Chairman Mao, boogaloo?I learned of two stalwarts from the heart of the Americas past, Omar Torrijos of Panama and Jaime Roldos of Ecuador. Both men epitomised everything our soul craves in our search for alternatives to ‘corporatocracy’. Both men fought for the right to have their countries natural resources diverted from US oil companies to their desperate masses. They defied the greed logic by refusing to be corruptible. They were steadfast in refusing huge infrastructure development because of the political servitude and endless cycle of debt it creates. Both men lit up the sky in their respective aeroplane ‘accidents’. And then the dream was extinguished. The world was a poorer place without them and their peoples knew it. They won’t be having this kind of defiance, it may encourage the other natives. Now shut up or watch your back. They will always get you if you fight the good fight, that’s why no one does it anymore. If that’s what the stakes were in the 80s, twenty years on and someone better start singing the songs. I woke this afternoon to discover a suede green hat sitting on my table, flashback to the night before and the music. There is nothing you can do that rewards your perception detector more than being lost in music. You can be off kilter for the whole night yet for two minutes you are in a space where you belong as you’re influences once and still do.