The Missing Tooth

Finally got to see the DVD of BATTLE ROYALE. When I got to the scene where one 14 year-old boy hacks the head off another 14 year-old boy, stuffs a hand grenade into the dead boy’s mouth, then hurls the severed head plus grenade in through a window, in an attempt to kill three other combatants, I had to hit PAUSE.
If this yarn in which 40 Japanese 9th graders are forced to fight one another to the death was the inspiration for the HUNGER GAMES, then Suzanne Collins really didn’t take the most significant material.

I have to point out that I haven’t read the book of BATTLE ROYALE, but I feel that comparing the two movies actually seems to shed light on conflicting world-views.

The American HUNGER GAMES seems at heart to be a thoughtful commentary on what could happen if the triviality of mass-media was ever to combine with a totalitarian government. The violence is realistic, understated, and presented almost regretfully. Each death is underlined as a barbaric and individual tragedy. We are begged to grieve for even the least likable of the combatants.

The Japanese BATTLE ROYALE seems to draw on a national memory of insane militarism as a backdrop to a blood-bath in which each death is as stylized and unrealistic as any computer game, and yet the movie is not without its serious side.

The HUNGER GAMES points its finger of blame outwards, at the other. “If this world becomes a reality it won’t be your fault,” the movie seems to say. “It will the fault of Hollywood, the so-called elites, and people with silly hairstyles.”

BATTLE ROYALE, on the other hand, points its gore-stained finger directly inwards. Not at fascists, not at the military, but at “us” the viewers. The scene in which three girls shoot each other to pieces with automatic weapons is, to be sure, violent pornography of the worst sort. “You could have ejected the disc,” the movie seems to say, “but you didn’t. You continued to watch. You thought it was funny, and only realized it was horrific when the movie ended. Just watch the news from Iraq or Afghanistan. This world is reality, and each of us is, in our own way, to blame.”

Ticket to ride
Mostly composed by John, but Paul played the jangly lead guitar. I often confuse this 1965 song with Day Tripper. Both songs have a classic blues structure, both feature memorable lead guitar riffs, and both appear––on the surface at least––to be about transport. In reality, neither song has anything to do with travel, but in keeping with blues tradition both songs are heavily obscured references to sex.
Why hide references to sex under metaphors so obscure that not one listener in a hundred would be able to decipher them?
Perhaps because it’s fun, perhaps because it’s poetry, but more than anything, for a song to be a hit in the England of 1965 it had to played on the radio, and it seems unlikely that a song about a prostitute’s health certificate would have got past the censors at the BBC.

Toby’s Bass.
This is 16 year old Toby with the P-Bass that belongs to his brother, Shawn. It’s a nice bass, but it’s way too old and way too valuable for Toby to feel comfortable playing it. Come to think of it, what’s his brother doing with a forty year-old bass that’s worth as much as a house? Surely his Brother didn’t steal it. If Shawn had stolen an instrument that valuable somebody would be out there looking for it.
Or perhaps there is someone out looking for it.
If only Shawn wasn’t swabbing the decks of a Navy Destroyer in the middle of the Indian Ocean he might be able to fill in some of blanks.

George was the youngest Beatle by two years; he was only fourteen when he first teamed up with John and Paul. Although he was the most accomplished guitarist in the band he was very much over shadowed by John and Paul in the early years. As time went by, though, he managed to establish himself as a composer in his own right. His most well-known songs from the Beatles era included HERE COMES THE SUN, WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS, and SOMETHING.

My favorite John Lennon songs from his time in the Beatles.
1: I Am The Walrus.
2: In My Life.
3: Revolution.
4: Nowhere Man.
5: Norwegian Wood.
6: Ticket to RIde.
7: Strawberry FIelds.
8: All You Need is Love.
9: Hard Day’s Night.
10: Help.

Questions about Paul McCartney: While I was working on this portrait I started wondering about left-handedness (as he plays bass left-handed).
Aside from guitars and basses are there any other left-handed instruments (I don’t recall seeing left-handed pianos or violins)?
Does being left-handed make it more difficult to learn an instrument?
Did Paul inspire left-handed people to start playing guitar or bass?