Tom Petty gone

[Burney]

Astroturfing, as I'm sure you know, is when a practitioner pretends to be "down-home," local, one of the boys, country, etc. It's often a ploy practiced by corporations or politicians. They pretend to be real Kansans but in fact they're some sh!tfvcks straight from NY's Upper East Side.

Anyway, I must admit I was a bit wrong about Springsteen. I had thought that he spent some time in high school in California. This would have been another form of astroturfing: pretending that one is from blue-collar New Jersey, while actually hanging with the cool kids out in Cali. Now it seems that his *parents relocated to Cali, while Bruce stayed in Jersey. So he is at least from Jersey, and emerged from Jersey. At the same time I do detect a degree of posing there, particularly in the aggressive claiming of the blue-collar mantle. I don't trust it, in fact it annoys me. I grew up close to there, in Maryland, so he's always represented the kind of BS one has to reckon with in one's early days. Fake bards, ad-men, people trying to appropriate whatever is authentic in one's life...

If it's lack of authenticity you're after, you probably ought to start with Bob Dylan, tbh. A nice, middle-class Jewish boy from Duluth Minnesota who basically spent his early career pretending to have been a boxcar-riding drifter poet a la Woody Guthrie. A complete fraud.

[Sir C]

If it's lack of authenticity you're after, you probably ought to start with Bob Dylan, tbh. A nice, middle-class Jewish boy from Duluth Minnesota who basically spent his early career pretending to have been a boxcar-riding drifter poet a la Woody Guthrie. A complete fraud.

Kebab, was it? Hmm?

[Burney]

Kebab, was it? Hmm?

Actually, no. I'd forgotten I'd made some Chicken tikka on Saturday. I consumed it standing up in the kitchen wrapped in a naan bread with mint and cucumber raita and a tomato and onion salad.

[Sir C]

Actually, no. I'd forgotten I'd made some Chicken tikka on Saturday. I consumed it standing up in the kitchen wrapped in a naan bread with mint and cucumber raita and a tomato and onion salad.

Funny, that. Tonight I am doing some Greek-style lamb chops with Greek salad and tzatziki, which is pretty much the same thing, isn't it?

[Burney]

Funny, that. Tonight I am doing some Greek-style lamb chops with Greek salad and tzatziki, which is pretty much the same thing, isn't it?

Basically, yes. You will emerge stinking of garlic and cumin, I trust?

[Sir C]

Basically, yes. You will emerge stinking of garlic and cumin, I trust?

Certainly. The lamb is already submerged in a marinade of garlic, lemon zest, cumin and oregano.*

*If in doubt, throw the kitchen sink at it.

[Burney]

Certainly. The lamb is already submerged in a marinade of garlic, lemon zest, cumin and oregano.*

*If in doubt, throw the kitchen sink at it.

But no salt?

[Pokster]

Actually, no. I'd forgotten I'd made some Chicken tikka on Saturday. I consumed it standing up in the kitchen wrapped in a naan bread with mint and cucumber raita and a tomato and onion salad.

why were you wrapped in a naan bread

[Burney]

why were you wrapped in a naan bread

'Cos that's how your mum likes me.

[World's End Stella]

Petty was good, not just OK. He wasn't great and only occasionally very good, but he was good.

I thought he had quite the impact on those Wilbury chaps who had a few excellent songs. And Learning to Fly is awfully foot tappable.

And he never did anything as bad as Cover Me. So there.