🖋️ LongForm
Want to reduce the noice and just focus on things with a little more meat - the this category is for you. Like so much on this site we have a ‘WIP’ as i take some out - and put some in - but safe for at least starting in 2026.
🎵 Charley’s, Paia, Maui is no more
If you know Charley’s, this is not new news.
If you don’t know Charley’s - then why should you care?
This just in from my good friend Randall Rospond … number 25 in the image below, right beside another friend Tom Conway.
Randall’s friend and Maui artist John Woodruff is the artist, the painting features many Maui Musician Regulars on stage with many of the Charley’s staff and regular patrons.
“Although this famous live music venue in Paia is no longer … the history will always stand.”
I saw numerous Willie Nelson shows, Neil Young w/ Promise of the Real, Leon Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Steven Tyler and Pat Simmons and so many more.
💬 Randall Rospond
Randall’s performances at Charley’s included opening shows for;
- St. Paul Peterson: keyboardist for “The Time” discovered by Prince
- John Kadlecik of Dark Star Orchestra & Further { Bob Weir & Phil Lesh }
- Guested w/ the Planetary Bandits { Willie Nelson’s Maui Band }
- Performed solo and with the Haiku Hillbillys for over 25 years
(Sadly the resolution of the image of the index is not good enough to always get to the ‘numbers’.)
Setting Categories Automatically On MicroBlog
It’s interesting how small things mess you up. I am putting some time into trying to make it easier to find stuff on my blog and recently discovered filters where you can “automatically set categories when text in new posts matches a filter”.
For new posts it seems to work flawlessly. The cool thing is that you can ‘Run Filter’ - which essentially means that it will go off and apply that rule to your archive. It works.
Of course if you have a lot of posts (sorry), it might take some time - but it does seem to get there. So. after a while, when I view the categories I can see the post count increasing. And - when I look at the posts through the lens of Mars Edit I can see all the new posts where the category has been applied.
All good. UNTIL. I noticed that though every thing SEEMED to be working - actually, over on the web site, the categories were not being allocated. Turns out patience is a virtue - because after several days (I kid you not) elapsed, it seemed that everything was also working on the site. All good.
( @manton - is this time delay expected behavior?)
All good until I set up the filter to
find text = ‘youtube.com/watch' and add that post to the category ‘myyoutubes’.
The wait aside, it ran like a dream. Except it didn’t. I realized that posts that definitely contained links back to YouTube were not being picked up. I ran the filter again - and waited. TWICE. Nothing changed.
This morning I discovered why.
Turns out that there is a second URL format that YouTube uses … youtu.be
I am guessing that the youtube syntax varies depending on whether you are on a computer versus iOS or something similar. Anyway, I then set up a second filter that adds the post to the same category - and … it is now working (wait aside)
BTW, the really cool thing is that I also use the plugin ‘Lite YouTube for Micro.blog by @rknightuk - so those links automatically render as embedded videos on my site. 🖇️ Say, like this one - which at time of typing still hasn’t been correctly allocated its category - but I am keeping an eye on it.
New Zealand Declares A National Emergency For The Third Time In Twelve Years
That’s how bad it is getting .. and not just in New Zealand.
Bernard Hickey reporting that New Zealand has declared a 🔗 National emergency for Gabrielle. The massive storm and floods two weeks ago where 4 people died did NOT have the same focus. In fact, it’s only been enabled twice before. Though in fairness, the Hawke’s Bay earthquake in 1931 would have resulted in it being declared a National Emergency had there been such an organization and in later years, with other earthquakes, it was the Department of Civil Defence that was called into action.
That all said, these challenges do seem to be accelerating.
An 'Unknown' Podcaster - He Sounds Boring - He Is Fascinating
🎵 Despite my initial resistance to the 500 song podcast narrated by 🔗 Andrew Hickey .. I am now moving into my third … first ‘The Monkees’, then ‘Love’, now ‘The Move’. The depth of information flying through the speakers is really quite incredible - thoroughly researched, packed with information - some of which I know - a lot I don’t.
A particular speciality of his is identifying groups that todays’ mega stars played with in the very early days. Examples like when Albert Lee played with Hendrix and Jim Morrison wishing he and The Doors were as good as Love. Or how Graeme Edge and John Bonham both played in the same band - sorry, cant recall who replaced who … and and and … fascinating - and NOT information that is on ‘the wiki’.
So - I did some prodding around to work out who Hickey is - assuming he must have been a music journalist at some point - but no. At least not that I could find. He seems to be a relatively ‘unknown’ creator who writes books and does podcasts.
Interesting that in the search, I came across this review of his podcast : Pismotality: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs that has one comment - from Andrew Hickey. He spends a little time talking about his accent and deadpan delivery … something I referenced in my first post on him, and it turns out there is a reason.
Anyway - suffice to say - if you love rock and related music genre and want to learn more - particularly about the genesis of the ‘names’ - highly recommend.
Rabbit Holes, YouTubes and Criminals
I wonder why this link is not actually on the MS site any more?
I mean, it seems like it would be important for people to know? Part of the URL reads ' host-clayton-morris-leaves-country-amid-fraud-allegations-lawsuits ‘- so you can guess what it is about if you don’t want to click through
Yahoo and many others still have similar links reporting the story.
I came across him today when a friend mentioned the YouTube channel - and after what I was being told, I felt it all seemed … shall we say odd?
Three minutes of ‘deep’ search found the info that really makes me wonder.
What’s worse is that according to my LinkedIN profile, I have one person in common with ‘Clayton’ … a person who is in a really senior person and has had many senior roles over the year. I can only hope that the connection is an old one when they might have crossed paths when ' Clayton ' was on Phaux News. But these days - you really never know do you?
Phaux News? I know right - that alone should have been a warning!
Cringely On ChatGPT
“Cole needed a letter of recommendation recently so he turned to an old family friend who, in turn, used ChatGPT to generate the letter, which he thought was remarkably good.”
🔗 … which in turn prompted Bob Cringely to write this article.. It has all the usual caveats we see in article after article, although this time talking about how ChatGPT was used to generate that letter of recommendation. In Bob’s opinion it lacked the important personal touch. All good, not wrong.
He then writes .. without irony that I can see
“Even if ChatGPT was allowed access to my old friend’s email boxes, it would only learn about his style and almost nothing about Cole, with whom he’s communicated, I think, twice.”
He doesn’t explain how someone without AI help could write a food personal recommendation for someone they have communicated with twice.
Russell Brand Sucks
I was never a fan of Russell Brand, so hard to say my opinion of him has ‘fallen’.
That was from the start, but his very misplaced prank with Ross on Andrew Sachs sealed it for me.
I also don’t spend much time thinking about Jonathan Ross - but at least he has a tiny spec of talent.
Which is why I enjoyed this short video of 🔗📼 Helen Lewis talking Russell Brand decent into conspiracies and a good analysis of how he - and others of his ilk - ‘do it’.
[April 6: 2025 - sadly - this video has been take private - BUT there is this one …
🔗📼 How Russell Brand became a conspiracy theorist Guru | Helen Lewis
🎵 Jon Lord plays Dave Brubeck
As a kid, shall we say my musical taste did not jibe with my dad’s. Nor with my mum’s for that matter - although she did understand what I was listening to - and why. Probably because of that there are artists that she introduced me to that are still part of my listening cycle - like Dave Brubeck.
She passed a while ago, but would have loved Deep Purple’s Jon Lord covering ‘UnSquare Dance’.
Is The Stream As A Design Paradigm Over?
Om asking the question as he weighs in on Ben Werdmuller’s post asking whether the ‘stream’ needs to give way to a new way of organizing?
I think no - but I understand the challenge, which is why I have been going back over my old posts and trying to get rigorous with
Categories and
Search
.. so that I can find stuff (and I recognize that it is really only me that looks to navigate the 7,000 plus posts (I know - I know)).
This is also why I am looking for ways to bulk manage my posts - so i can recategorize, without going one at a time …
AND - I am not the only one, @dave also posted this today
Would someone please make a ChatGPT product that can be pointed at specific websites, and allow intelligent queries against the contents. I’d love to explore the site I’ve been writing for 28.5 years, scripting.com. Let me know. It’s worth $ to me.
💬 Dave Winer
I have not been blogging for 28.5 years and what I have got has been - well, lets call it ‘distributed’ - but slowly bringing it all together to make more sense and a flow.
By the way - the reason I think that the stream should not go is because it works. It’s how the social world works, its how places like micro blog work - and it makes sense. You go to that person’s blog and you find the very latest thoughts right there at the top of the page.
I know that it is not only one way to organize your thinking - but if we also tag, categorize, highlight posts we want to share more and and and … anything else that you may want to use - it all helps - but no single process works because you don’t know what the person visiting your blog is looking for - so you can’t organize in anticipation.
Streams controlled by algorithms or selectively highlight just part of ‘the hose’ or offer no other way to get at the thinking - yeah - not good. But as a first port of call - I cant see a way to improve - until we all have our own person AI that can make sense of our blathering - no point in me asking - hopefully someone will listen to Dave:)
New Zealand | After Ardern
Written before Hipkins won the leadership.
“My current view is this cements the likelihood of a National-ACT victory on October 14, with no fundamental change in tax, Government spending or social policies, other than the reversal of Labour’s interest deductibility and bright-line measures, along with the truncation of Three Waters, the removal of the clean car rebate scheme and no follow-through on a levy on farm emissions.”
“From a purely political and financial view, it’s more likely to lower interest rates, increase residential land prices, increase net migration, increase nominal GDP, lower the Budget deficit, lower net debt-to-GDP, further restrict productivity growth, slow real wage growth and increase the emigration of young New Zealanders who come from renting families.”
💬 Bernard Hickey
New Zealand | Thankyou Jacinda
The meaning and tragedy of Jacinda Ardern’s time as PM
“In the end, she deserves our utmost respect and thanks. She was instinctively extraordinary with her responses and leadership after the Christchurch attacks and the arrival of Covid.”
💬 Bernard Hickey
I can only agree.
New Zealand | A MicroBlog Storm
There are a number of threads in my head around New Zealand that I need to publish. Other than ‘New Zealand’ there isn’t anything particularly that connects them, so it isn’t a single post. Nor should it be a new category, because once they are out - that will be it. So - I will write a series of separate posts that I will link together once they are published. Think ‘MicroBlog Storm’.
If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.
While wealth distribution follows a power law, the distribution of human skills generally follows a normal distribution that is symmetric about an average value. For example, intelligence, as measured by IQ tests, follows this pattern. Average IQ is 100, but nobody has an IQ of 1,000 or 10,000.
Wealth distribution is a recurring topic - this is a clean summary of why it’s a problem.
🎵 Is The Eurovision Song Contest Designed To Be An 'Equal Opportunity' Employer?
That is the only thing I can think of that created the news that caused me to write this post!
This is nothing like a PiL track. It is also nothing like a John Lydon track. That said,
“Public Image Ltd. (PiL) have been selected for the 67th annual Eurovision Song Contest airing on February 3. The band will represent Ireland with their new single ‘Hawaii.’.”
The NME and American Songwriter are both ‘kind of saying’ that;
‘kind of’ because i THINK that there is an Irish ‘run off’ in February before the final decision to compete in May(?) This article is one of many providing a little back story to the song.
The song … is a love letter to Lydon’s wife. Nora Forster, Lydon’s wife of nearly 45 years (who) was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2018.
It goes on ..
“A deeply personal track for Lydon, ‘Hawaii’ is sobering reflection of the couple’s life together. The song is punctuated by one of their most special memories, a trip they once took together. Some begin again / We’re here / You and me … Remember me / I remember you / Hawaii. Written by Lydon, “Hawaii” professes the power of love through the good and the most traumatic of times.
All good. No problem. Sorry to read about his wife’s diagnosis. The song is nice enough - though to these untrained ears a little schmaltzy - if not to say ‘derivative’ - as in ever since Elvis went to Hawaii, songwriters have been picking up their instruments and writing yet another song about Hawaii. John is no different.
But here’s the thing
1] Lydon was born in London. Yes to Irish parents (and holds an Irish passport) but he also has American citizenship and is on record as saying “I view myself as British first and foremost.”
Let me take you back to Eurovision ’81. The winner? Buck’s Fizz, with a song called ‘Making Your Mind Up’ .. maybe John should acquaint himself with a little Eurovision history and decide who he is.
2] An entire song called Hawaii - whoever thought of doing that … oh wait - to represent IRELAND - the home of some of the greatest writers and musicians in the world. Is there really not a real Irish choice?
Fun fact - Ireland is the ONLY entry ever to win the competition twice with the same singer songwriter - not only that,he wrote a third song … that also won.
3] The chintzy Hawaiian sound does a massive disservice to the real music that emerges from those islands.
Just on Maui … there are superb professional musicians that I know, including;
🔸 Randall Rospond
🔸 Tom Conway
🔸 Gail Swanson
🔸 Jamie Gallo (sorry - Facebook link)
🔸 Vince Esquire
🔸 Kanekoa
Not to mention Alana Cini, Joel Katz, Peter Kater, Chris Sendrey, John Grover and so many others I know and love - and even that list doesn’t include even more famous musical residents like
🔸 Willie Nelson
🔸 Lukas Nelson
🔸 Alice Cooper
🔸 Mick Fleetwood
🔸 Lily Meola
🔸 Steven Tyler
🔸 Kris Kristoferson (I think - he certainly used to.)
None of them … NONE .. produce music that the world associates with that Hawaiian sound. Even a ‘Ukulele band like Kanekoa play their Ukuleles less like Tiny Tim and more like well - Led Zeppelin.
Kanekoa : Going to California
Led Zeppelin : Going to California -
I don’t dislike his song - but I really hope somebody Irish with Irish music wins the chance to represent their country and that yet another piece of misappropriated Hawaiiana is stopped from taking the world by storm.
Now THIS Is A New MicroBlog App That I Would Use
Imagine if you could export all your posts on Micro Blog with associated meta data down to a csv.
Imagine that you could then
- sort, filter the posts
- add / subtract categories
- edit entries
- normalize information
- merge and purge posts
- find THE post that has the largest number of comments in the thread
- find any posts with an image included, 2 images included, 3 …
- find the posts that contain (say) ‘🎶’ so you can replace it with ‘🎵’ - in line with all your other music posts
… you know - any and all of the stuff that you might want to do with all those posts to better manage them.
Imagine that you could then upload your work back into Micro Blog - and have a blog that is now
- easier to find entries
- for you AND
- for others
- cleaner and more organized
Apparently all the hooks and data and APIs are in place to build such an export.
Once that is done - imagine moving that simple download upload into a fully fledged app.
Just need a clever person to make it so.
Any volunteers?