Sunday, December 30, 2012

Racism or legitimate concern?


Can racist generalisation ever be justified? Here is some generalisation but if this blog seems racist to you feel free to say so, please also address the questions asked here.

In Canada and the UK there have been a number of so-called honour killings, gang rapes and incidents of immigrant gangs grooming and procuring young local girls for prostitution. The Canadian and UK police forces are doing their best to solve these crimes and see that justice is done.

In the countries that these criminals come from this brutal activity seems to be commonplace and condoned by the men, women have no voice. Police and politicians are reluctant to take any action and have even been implicated in a number of cases. Where are the leaders and spokespersons vigorously condemning this behaviour? Nowhere to be seen.

In view of these facts shouldn't immigration from there be halted? I don't see how men from a culture in which women are routinely devalued can be accepted as immigrants in a country where women's rights are respected. We have a right to keep our society and our children and womenfolk safe and to keep murderers and rapists out.

This is my opinion. Bob Smith

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Musical heritage to die?


As media changes old formats become unplayable. Some brave people have taken it upon themselves to transcribe these old formats for us and publish the results on the web.

These sites with historical data and research (like digital transcriptions of cylinder and 78RPM  records) should not die with their owners. See Roger Wilmut's site http://www.rfwilmut.clara.net/index.html
for instance. Is Google or anybody interested in keeping these sites in perpetuity?

BobSmith, time traveller from the last century

Sunday, September 16, 2012

TIFF visitor escapes Canadian hellscape.

An American producer friend of a friend comments on socialist Canada:

I'm now wrapping up my final evening in Toronto - part of the socialist hellscape known as Canada. Let us pray that the United States never follows in its footsteps.

I have now spent 12 days in a place where a single payer medical system replaces our American tradition of rugged individualism. Unlike wimpy Canadians, real Americans are willing to die to maintain our freedom to not be able to afford medical care!

In this land that would make Lenin proud, the population exists under such totalitarian oppression, that it's difficult to find even a single piece of litter on the street. So conditioned by propaganda that extols the left wing virtues of clean air, water and the environment, the citizens here must endure the heavy burden of knowing that their food and water supply is safe. In the totalitarian jungle of Canada even the criminal elements fear coming out at night... Why, I have walked miles upon miles of streets in Toronto, and never once felt in danger - even at the midnight hour... Yes, this is a place where government run amok has certainly created a controlled environment where peaceful streets are successfully feigned. And this is no Potemkin Village. This totalitarian rule is universal across the city.

Of course to lure Americans into a lull of easy complacency, so that visitors like me can be duped into thinking that Canada is a hard working country with kind people, one finds the illusion of a thriving capitalistic economy. Amazingly diverse restaurants, entertainment centers, and multi-level shopping malls that seem like cities unto themselves exist here; but thank God I know better... It must be a government sanctioned deception. No socialist hellscape like this that ensures unlimited medical care for all its people can also have a healthy market-driven economy.

How do I know? Well it's only obvious. After all this is a land where numerous gay couples openly flaunt their provocative, anti-Biblical lifestyle... holding hands and walking with their arms around each other... openly mocking all the other heterosexual couples on the same street. It was so bad that the angels cried twice while I was here!... Fortunately, there may have been enough God fearing Christians from the U.S. attending the film festival to keep the precipitation limited to only two days.

Yes, tomorrow I fly back to my beloved land, where there are still those fighting to keep us from becoming the God-less hell-hole I'm now leaving. Thank the Lord that all Americans can sleep safe tonight in the absolute assurance that we are nothing like Canada!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The England I left behind in 1953

The England of Dreams.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153438/Diamond-Jubilee-Enchanting-photos-life-like-Queen-came-throne.html?ICO=most_read_module

Bob Smith, time-traveller.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Iphone4S world phone? Not according to Virgin.


I bought an unlocked iPhone4s at the Apple store in Marbella, Spain, they assured me it is a world phone and would work here in Canada. It has worked well with Vodaphone for months in Spain. Trying to get started with Virgin in Mississauga today, they asked for the IMEI number and then said it won't work, marginal at best. I'll try another carrier but what gives here? World phone or not? Have I been taken?

Saturday, April 28, 2012

oiTunes, introducing a new music genre: PRE-THUMP

If you like Cockney songs and music hall, check here:  http://londonbobby.com/lbdigiprod.htm oiTunes

In memorium, my London


By A.A. GILL
Published: April 27, 2012 N.Y. Times
You want stiff-lipped men in bowler hats and cheeky cockneys with their thumbs in their waistcoats and fish on their heads.
I’m sorry, but they’re not here anymore. No city’s exported image lags so far behind its homegrown veracity than London’s, so let’s start with what you’re not going to find. We’re all out of cheeky cockneys, pearly kings and their queens, and costermongers. You’re not going to find ’60s psychedelia and the Beatles in Carnaby Street. There aren’t any punks under 50 on the King’s Road; there are no more tweedy, mustachioed, closeted gay writers in Bloomsbury, no Harry Potter at King’s Cross. There aren’t men in white tie, smoking cigars outside Pall Mall clubs and there isn’t any fog, but you can find Sherlock Holmes’s house on Baker Street.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

N.Y. Times discovers Sony has dropped the ball.

I think the N.Y Times reads my blog. See January's "What's the Matter With Sony?"

By HIROKO TABUCHI

Sony once wowed the world with the Walkman and the Trinitron TV. But its fortunes have taken a sharp turn amid disruptive new technologies and unforeseen rivals.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Vodaphone, horrible people.

Recently Vodaphone cut off a business (with a perfect payment record) with ten lines because it was one cent short in its payment. The kicker is, the error was with Vodaphone, their invoice was one cent short of their own accounting record. So the business was without their phones all day and when finally the difference was paid with a personal credit card, one cent, they took another four hours to reconnect. Bitter complaints were met with the response, "There are other phone companies, go there." We will, we will.

Issue 169, 4th April, 2012, Page 02.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Long overdue website update

A new front page for my website. Contains photos, videos, old song lyrics, piano bars and pubs, music hall links - take a look: London Bobby

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Cruise Lines Throw Baby Out With Bathwater

Today's Globe and Mail article - "Cruise lines update old ships with new tricks" detail the efforts they are making to keep up with the times. But not all changes are improvements.

The demise of "the formerly sedate piano bar" is lamentable and I for one only cruise on ships with such a bar. There has been a sea-change in music, from melodic, interesting songs to monotonous thump-thump which the younger set like to dance to now. The cruise lines vigorously market to this younger set but the fact is repeat cruisers are people with disposable income and available time, and this tends to be the older generation and this older generation likes pre-thump music.

The same change in music is closing cafes by the score along the Mediterranean coast as music licenses are cancelled due to complaints by nearby residents. Once upon a time it was pleasant to listen to the music from afar but not now, all that can be heard is the relentless thump of the bass.

I know this makes me sound like a dinosaur but dinosaurs have rights too and one is to have access to pleasant music and not to be assailed with music volume turned up to the threshold of pain.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Beer Here or There.




Canada: Brampton Fair.
Note wire fence, warning sign, security guards, plastic cup, mandatory red plastic ID wristband (required to buy a beer!). Click on the picture for enlargement.


Spain: Manny's Tref at La Cañada Shopping centre car park. The bistro is one of my favourites. I was originally attracted because, being from Canada, it is so wicked to drink in the parking lot and there we are, amongst all the cars, in a comfortable chair with good beer in a footed glass and a tasty sausage and thinking about how apoplectic the cop would be if I did this at Square One. Don't try to use the loo in La Cañada though, it is about a half mile walk. Who designs these places? Better off to pop into Leroy Merlin (a Spanish equivalent of Home Depot) who provide this much appreciated public servicio.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009

Nothing to grumble about.

London Bobby's Last Public Performance went very well, place was packed and nobody left during the show! Wow! So maybe not the last performance after all. Have to be careful though, don't want to quit because the last performance is lousy, want to go out with a bang!

Did three hours of songs and comedy without referring to lyrics. Wow! Apparently I only need a set list.

Now I have to be careful about this blog, many more like this and will have to change the name from 'Bob's Daily Grumble' to 'Bob's Daily Brag'. A lot of the credit for the success of the evening goes to Pauline, the lovely gaffer of the Winchester Arms. The place was warm, cosy, convivial, just what a pub should be. It made it easy to entertain. Thanks, Pauline. The rest of the credit goes to my fans who showed up to support me, thank you everybody.

London Bobby, time-traveller from the previous century, bringing the good music with me.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

London Bobby -Final Public Appearance!

Well, maybe. Depends how it goes. Soon, though, the damn keyboard is getting heavy.

When London Bobby appears tomorrow, September 26 at the Winchester Arms, in Dundas, Ontario, it may well be the last kick at the cat. This pub is managed by the same folk who had the Winchester Arms in Streetsville where London Bobby appeared in the 1980's. It is a good place for a party, see http://www.winchesterarms.net/

London Bobby's Pub Night, inspired by the music hall of 1930's London, is an anarchy of songs, comedy and audience participation. The songs date from the last century but still go over well, even the young pub staff like it, to their and my surprise. Pleases me no end!

However, I will be retiring soon. My style is a bit mellow for modern ears and real pianos have all but disappeared.To all who have followed me for so many years I give my heartfelt thanks. I hope you have had as much fun out of listening as I have had performing for you. Thank you.

My name is london Bobby and I am a time-traveller from the last century.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

In this cage - wicked drinkers.

My first experience of a Toronto pub was trying to get into a bar where the girls were. A very large gentleman demurred and pointed out the wall down the middle of the pub and the sign that said, "Ladies and escorts only". On the other side of the wall was where dirty old drinking bastards like me should go. The decor was 1940 toilet (this was 1953 when I first hit Toronto) and the chairs and tables were Salvation Army basic. Several male waiters walked around with trays loaded with small glasses of unspecified draft and, unasked, slammed down two glasses for the newcomer and demanded twenty-five cents, imagine! You had to be seated to drink, you couldn't take your glass and walk over to another table if you saw a friend and you sure as Hell were not allowed to sing. These were the laws of the LCBO. By God we will make a profit selling the stuff but we sure as Hell won't let 'em enjoy it.

In 1971 they relented a bit and I persuaded the owner of a Greek restaurant to rename it "The Barmaid's Arms" and hire me to sing English Music Hall songs and get the crowd singing. He had quite a tussle with the LCBO to get the name approved with the word 'bar' in it, people might think there was booze in there.

Last Sunday I went to the Brampton Fair. Several stalls sold hotdogs and hamburgers but if I wanted a beer I had to go through this gate with security guards, into this wire enclosure and, get this, wear a red identity band on my wrist. I think the beer concession was being operated by the same people that do those private-enterprise prisons.

What depresses me is that when my friends in England, America and anywhere else in the world except Moroccco read this they won't believe it but my friends here in Ontario will just sadly shake their heads and say , "Yup, that's the way it is". I want to run into the street shouting, "Rise up! Shake off the oppressors!" and make a bonfire of red wrist-bands but it is hard to be a revolution all by myself. Come on, you lot, rise up!

My name is London Bobby. I am a time-traveller from the last century and some things haven't changed much.

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2009

Search for excellence. Success! and failure:(

I love piano bar! Good music, pleasant atmosphere, a smiling pianist/vocalist and a grand piano with seats around it, direct interaction with the customers, an inclusive civilised way to drink. I found an ad for a small Italian fish restaurant, "Piano bar on Thursdays". I went for dinner and the food and wine was great. So was the music, cool and jazzy. So why am I not going to hurry back?

Failure: Well, it wasn't a piano, it was a keyboard with rhythm machine built in and/or backing tracks. It might just as well have been a DJ. The guy may have been a great musician, but who can tell? Os it real or is it Memorex? I think he sang, there was a microphone there but there seemed to be more than one voice. Personality? Zilch. Sorry, but he never caught anyone's eye, never asked if anyone had a request, never spoke, never smiled. He disappeared on his breaks and left us with Diana Krall, Jobim and Stan Getz which is not all bad. But this is not piano bar. This is a keyboardist morphing into DJ.

Success! Where are the entertainers of today? Last night they were at Lula's Lounge in Toronto. The McFlies, a six-piece band playing acoustic instruments and packing the place solid with an enthusiastic young crowd. I had never seen a Cajon before. Its basically a wooden box and the musician sits on it and slaps the front of it, different sounds from different places. With a mic stuck in a hole in the back it's a hell of a drum set, this guy was driving the band. Individually the musicians were all extremely competent, as an ensemble they were fantastic. Tight arrangements, surprising repertoire including a Boy Gorge number and a song from Quiet Riot, "Come on feel the noise". I'll be at the next performance if I can find it.

Which brings me to today's grumble. Many bands and singles work in self-imposed anonymity. Three basic items to increase audience size and get more money, guys, the bottom line, listen, you need:

The band name displayed on or near the stage.
A guest book (or a groupy with a laptop) collecting names and email addresses.
A take-away piece with a photo, the website and contact info.

I am a time-traveller from the last century and I know.

SUNDAY, JULY 5, 2009

In search of a piano bar

This afternoon I spotted a bar with a piano keyboard on the awning. I zoomed in, the keyboard logo was everywhere, even on the server. (I hate these PC words, so soulless. This server was in fact a lovely barmaid and the logo was beautifully displayed.) "Where's the piano?" I asked. "It will be here 9PM, tonight is jam night", she replied.

So I fancied a jam and came back in the evening. The band was on a break, I was invited to play when the band came back on. An hour and a quarter later the band was still on a break so I left. Bummer.

At the Barmaids Arms I remember working four hours a night with three twenty-minute breaks. The times are a-changing. I am a time-traveller from the previous century.

FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2009

Nobody likes to be shown incompetent, especially generals

The US are going to the highest political levels to extradite a British computer geek, Gary McKinnon, who hacked his way into a number of US top-secret military computers, looking for proof of aliens. So why is the U.S. so eager to lock up the Asperger's Syndrome hacker?

The reason the US is so keen to punish McKinnon is because he made them look stupid. The fact that the US military computers were so weakly defended that a lone hacker in England could penetrate them is indefensible. Heads should roll, theirs, not his. They should formally thank McKinnon for pointing out how flimsy their security is and hire him to fix it.

Meantime, how much of that data was simultaneously being stolen by really sinister hackers, enemy intelligence operations with much more money, time, equipment and, presumably, finesse than McKinnon had at his disposal? That is the real worry and that is what the US should be concentrating on.

That's what I think. London Bobby

SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 2009

Packrat relinquishes disks

I've just thrown out eight disks of vital information, Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft's Encarta. Who needs it with Google and Wikipedia at fingertips?

But, here's the rub, what took me so long? And why couldn't I have thrown them out before I moved them from Victoria to Toronto with a lot of other useless stuff?

Retired?

Semi-retired? Am I working or not?

I have a gig tomorrow so this should be short, I have to rehearse. Yes,I have been playing but working? Not really. This is how it is.

Entertainment is a commodity like shoes or shirts. It has to be crafted and it has to be sold. The creation and updating of the show is work but it is satisfying. Selling it is hard grunt work as every successful salesman knows. There has to be market research, brochures, photography, CDs and DVDs, bios and resumes, emails and web-site updates, advertising, correspondence, negotiations, contracts, collections, telephone calls, cold calls, just a lot of frequently frustrating work.

When the sale is made, if it's shirts or shoes, the work is done. If it is a show, the work begins. I myself am the product that has to be delivered, rehearsals, travelling, equipment set-up, sound checks and finally the show itself.

My next birthday is a big one and I am going to give myself a present, I am going to semi-retire. I am going to cut out all the above sales work and I am never going to carry keyboards or speakers again even though few venues seems to have a piano or a decent sound system any more. I am still good old available Bob but I probably won't get any gigs which is a pity because I still do well, still like to work, to play, that is. I still have this thing, this package, this cocktail of music and laughter which is quite rare to find and which I have been blessed with. It is a vanishing phenomenon, most of today's performers don't smile when they sing or play.

Every successful entertainer is an illusionist, he walks on to a stage and does his thing, everybody has a good time and he makes it look so easy, so effortless, so much so in fact that bookers say, "You want all that money, you are only on for forty minutes"! My answer is, "I'm working now, negotiating with you, the show itself is free. If I am not working, why aren't I sitting beside the pool with a book and a drink?".

An adoring audience is like a lover and applause gives me a high. That is why we entertainers do all that office work, carry those speakers, lif' dat bale. The show itself is free.

I probably won't get any more Legion gigs. Apart from letting their pianos go out of tune and fall to pieces, they seem to think I am a dance band and put the audience miles away from me on the other side of a bloody great dance floor and expect me to bring all the equipment and play and sing for four hours to an inattentive audience for a pittance. Or worse still, they expect me to do that AND all the publicity and promotion and work for "the door" and CD sales. Sod it. In coffee shops the sign says: no shoes, no shirt, no service. Now I say, no piano, no fee, no performance.

On the booker's side it is a fact that putting on the evening is a lot of work and heavy responsibility for the entertainment chairman. (As everybody knows, in every club 97% of the work is done by 3% of the members.) My part of the show, entertaining, is relatively easy and fun for me. Putting bums in seats and making sure they can see and hear me is the grunt work but it is the booker's work, not mine.

Today I am playing the grand piano in my daughter's living room. My gold record is on the wall smiling down at me. There is a dog here who likes it. I am rehearsing for my gig tomorrow, a private party in Brampton. i must go, work to do.

SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 2009

Summer of discontent

I am a good entertainer and the secret of a successful performance:- keep it positive. But once off the stage I am a curmudgeon, consumed by the vicissitudes of life

I guess what I'm bitching about is getting old. I don't feel old and my eyes are good and my mind sharp. At least, I think so. I have a do list on Remember The Milk, songs to write, videos to make, CDs to sell, gigs to prepare for, songs to learn, music library to organise and video editing program to master. But what is all this arthritis rubbish about? I'm not ready for this. Another twenty years of springy steps, please.

What is twisting my tail is not that the do list isn't diminishing but that the reason for non-performance has changed. I have always achieved below potential but that was because of screwing around, goofing off, playing when I should be working. Now it is because of napping. I used to laugh at senior jokes, like a senior chooses the vice which will get him home earliest, takes all night to do once what I once used to do all night, etc. Damn, I should time-travel back to Barmaids Arms days and punch myself in the nose. Not funny, Bobby!