Under The Table Tennis

A few years ago, I was at the Laneway Festival in Sydney and a friend demanded that we go to one of the stages and catch a guy named Tim Fite. Before I try to describe the show, check out his most well-known song "Big Mistake", the film clip for which he illustrated himself:



But I hadn't seen this or anything else before I walked into the packed room to see him play. What resulted was one of the most bizarre yet perfect shows I have ever seen (which still stands now). During the first song, his off-sider "Sexy Leroy" walked around the whole crowd with a rope and pulling it tighter and tighter so that everyone was squashed to the front of the stage. It definitely beat the age-old and awkward cliche of the frontman saying "There's lots of room down here in the front to dance. Why don't you all move forward?"

Osama and the 1960s

Once news broke that the US had found and killed Osama bin Laden there was widespread rejoicing in many parts of the world, particularly in America and even more especially in New York. All of this is completely understandable, but the point kept getting raised in conversations I had with different people was that it seemed odd for so much celebration over someone's death. And I remember similar conversations coming up when Saddam Hussein was executed.

With these thoughts going through my head, I wasn't really surprised when some Facebook friends posted a Martin Luther King quote as their status update. The full quote read:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."