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Bookazine Book Review: Sea Stories and Fairy Tales
by Lang Reid
This week’s author begins his description of his book
with the admonition, “The first thing the reader should know is the
difference between a sea story and a fairy tale. The only variation is
fairy tales start with ‘Once upon a time’, a sea story starts, ‘Now
this ain’t no shit!’
 I
think we all have got a soft spot for those courageous captains of the
sea, even if they have a wooden leg, a hook and a parrot. Author Jon J.
Justice, in his book Sea Stories and Fairy Tales, has a different slant on
sea captain stories. “Once these stories get started they can go on
forever and most always settle on crazy captains, not that all of them are
nuts. But the ones you hear stories about usually could use some mental
help.” He continues in the frontispiece, “If you think Captain Quig of
the Cain Mutiny was strange, and the Captain in Mr. Roberts a malcontent,
compared to Bugsy those two were schoolboys.”
He then launches into the sea story of Bugsy, the first
of fifty three salty tales. The first, of course, begins with “Now, this
ain’t no shit!” and is the first sea story about Captain Bugsy
attacking another sea captain while tied up at Chittagong in Pakistan. It
becomes obvious from the outset that Bugsy is indeed quite mad, and the
story ends with “Now you be the judge! Did this guy have all his oars in
the water?”
For the naval chronicler, some of the yarns may be
apocryphal, but for the landlubbers such as myself they were all
archetypal bar room yarns. The kind of spell binding tale that goes down
well with several yards of ale and of the genre that can often be heard in
our local Shenanigans.
Author Justice (and it is hard not to write ‘does
justice to’) is a yarn spinner, the type who has a tale for every
subject - being something of a ‘been it, done it, had one and already
trashed the T shirt’ sort of guy. It is written in an unabashed bar room
vernacular, with many references to sex and sexual activity, something the
seafarers have to put on hold, rather than in the hold, on their voyages.
That many of the stories revolve around this basic need is then very
understandable.
The edition of this book which came my way was direct
from the writer, and I presume publisher, himself. It is not a book you
will find in the local bookshops, not even Bookazine. Cost? No idea, as it
did not have it printed on it. Where do you get one? Not much more of an
idea, but you can try contacting the author through his website
www.jonjustice.com and go from there. If you’re an old salt yourself, or
enjoy the carousing tales of the mariners, then you will enjoy the book
and perhaps even have met some of the characters. Even the slightly
deranged Bugsy. Enjoyable escapism that does raise a titter or a smile.
280 pages, so there’s plenty of reading too. Sorry, no ISBN number!
Movie Review: Windtalkers
By Poppy
Yet another war movie. We seem inundated with them at
the moment.
In this movie, as is the case in a number of John Woo
films, the hub is the bond that develops between two men from different
worlds: U.S. Marine Sergeant Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage); and Private Ben
Yahzee (Adam Beach), one of the Navajo tribesmen recruited to use their
language as secret military code in radio communications.
During WW II, the U.S. used the Navajo language to
design a code that the Japanese couldn’t break. Windtalkers supposes
that the Japanese figured this out, and decided to capture Navajo soldiers
for their use. So, anticipating the Japanese strategy, the U.S. military
assigns a marine to guard each Navajo soldier. Should capture seem
imminent, that guard is instructed to kill his ward, rather than let him
fall into enemy hands. (I’m not sure I like this theme of human beings
of a different race being so easily expendable.)
 Some
scenes you may have to stretch your imagination to believe, for example
when a lone Nicholas Cage seemingly kills hundreds of Japanese at times
with his Tommy Gun and sidearm.
“Windtalkers” rightly and justly portrays the
horrors of the Pacific battles. John Woo thoroughly convinces us of this
point with excellent, if not disturbing scenes of mankind at it’s worst.
Directed by John Woo
Cast:
Nicolas Cage ... Sergeant Joe Enders
Adam Beach ... Private Ben Yahzee
Christian Slater ... Sergeant Peter ‘Ox’ Anderson
Peter Stormare ... Sergeant Eric ‘Gunny’ Hjelmstad
Noah Emmerich ... Corporal Charles ‘Chick’ Rogers
Mark Ruffalo
Brian Van Holt
Martin Henderson (I)
Roger Willie ... Private Charles Whitehorse
Frances O’Connor (II) ... Nurse Rita Swelton
James D. Dever .... Raider Lieutenant Colonel
Robert Leighton (X) ... Core Marine
Jonathan Barton ... Corp Marine
Kevin Cooney (I) ... Ear Doctor
Mott’s CD review:
Larry Wallis – Death In The Guitarfternoon
by Mott the Dog
***** 5 Stars Rating
Larry Wallis is Rock ‘n’ Roll. Quite simply put he
is the hard rock equivalent of Hank Marvin, along with Jeff Beck (when the
mood takes him), the guv’nor of axe slingers. Like a top mercenary Lazza
has slung his weapon in many places, including ‘Blodwyn Pig’, ‘U.F.O.’,
and ‘Wayne Kramer’. He was the original and easily the greatest
guitarist with ‘Motorhead’ (listen to their debut album ‘On
Parole’, it literally crushes skulls), was a ‘Deviant’, a ‘Shagrat’,
with Steve Peregrin Took, and of course one of the Pink Fairies, despite
their name, Britain’s favorite Biker Band.
 Fifteen years we have waited for a new Lazza release
(not since the last true Fairies album in 1987, the fabulous ‘Kill’em
and Eat’em’, have we heard the guitar groove). If you like guitar
driven power trio, low down, dirty, sleazy rawk and roll, with snarled
vicious vocals, guitar licks that kick you straight in the head, guitar
solos that make you realize why guitars are called axes, a bass guitarist
that drives every song into your brain (every bass player should be called
‘Big George’), a drummer who has never heard the word subtle,
you have a sense of humour and like a good time, then this is the album
for you.
Don’t expect anything politically correct, you
aren’t goner get it. ‘Meatman’ will have all the do-gooders
reaching for pen and paper writing to Dear Hillary to be signed
‘Outraged of Tooting’. No overdubs, no keyboards, no nonsense, just
good ole Rock ‘n’ Roll Party music. This is the sort of thing Rock
‘n’ Roll was invented for.
In the early seventies Lazza used to concentrate on
short sharp shocks of songs like ‘City Kids’ or ‘Seeing
Double’. The marvellous hook choruses are still there, but with a
new maturity. Some of the songs are allowed to develop into masterworks of
the electric guitar. This is perhaps best shown in ‘I’m A Police
Car’, a song first released by Larry Wallis in 1977 in the midst of
punk rock as a single on the newly formed Stiff Label.
Larry Wallis was one of the star attractions on the ‘Stiff
Live Stiffs’ tour that toured Britain including ‘Reckless Eric’,
‘Elvis Costello’, ‘Dave Edmunds’, ‘Nick Lowe’ and ‘Ian Dury
& the Blockheads’. Oh for a time machine!
On ‘Death In The Guitarfternoon’ in 2002,
Larry has gone back and completely refined the song, gloriously stretching
it out to a full seven minutes, forty-four seconds. Same song, same riff,
just brought screaming up to date. The Pink Fairies, Hawkwind, and Mott
the Hoople were probably the only established bands that still had street
credibility when punk rock arrived on the scene, and that attitude still
holds true with Larry Wallis today. You don’t even have to hear the
songs to know this is a potentially great album, just look at the song
titles and the cartoon artwork.
‘How Do You Creep’ is a wonderful rant against
old Fairy ‘Twink’, who has made a career of re-playing one song time
and time again. ‘Dead Man Riding’ is a guitar instrumental
workout reflecting ghost riders, and ‘Mrs Hippy Burning’ will
have them jumpin’ in the aisles at Tahitian Queens Rock ‘n’ Roll
Happy Hour on Fridays or any other day.
I shall leave you with Lazza’s final words on the
album cover, “This is my band, who can dish it out, gobble it up, and
deep fry the cook for good measure. These men are not normal.”
Another album please soon.
For more information about this amazing musician please
look up his website at www.pinkfairies.co.uk
Musicians
Larry (Lazza) Wallis – Guitar & Vocals
Big George Webley – Bass axe and Prowl-Car growling
Wayne Casserly – Drums and Extreme Body Art
Track Listing
1. Are We Having Fun Yet?
2. Crying All Night
3. Dead Man Riding
4. Downtown Jury
5. El Diablo’s Hangin’ Ten
6. Where The Freaks Hang Out
7. Don’t Mess With Dimitri
8. Meatman
9. Mrs Hippy Burning
10. I’m A Police Car
11. How Do You Creep?
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