OpEd is going offline for a while. The editorial team are traveling the world to find new experiences and, hopefully, new writers. Sign-up for the mailing list above and your inbox will be adorned with the next issue around November 2008. In the meantime, dally over his month’s offerings of poetry, prose, politics and streams of thought, all offering the make believe and the all too real.

Vincent Van Gogh was Dutch and a painter. This is not much of a surprise, the Dutch are good at supplying the bright world with gloomy painters. His early works were very much in the vain of the heavy-set and serious low-landers that must have dominate his opinion of art in the mid-nineteenth century. But later, after a dally with the French, he took those same themes and applied liberal dashes of multi-colored expressionism to produce the instantly recognizable and completely uninspiring poster prints that adorn the world’s waiting rooms. It is one of life’s paradoxes that whilst waiting to have a tooth extracted or nervously deliberating the outcome of a biopsy, we should be forced the stare at the artwork of a man who cut off his own ear and soon after shot himself – to death!

What is amazing about Van G. is his output. He was only painting for about 14 years and managed to produce some 900 paintings, a few thousand drawings and enough correspondence over a limited number of friends to probably bore them all senseless. He was the 19th century equivalent of a micro-blogger:

10:35 – Feeling depressed
10:37 – Cut off ear
10:39 – Ouch

During his short tenure as an artist that nobody would buy, he dallied with many styles and a few women. More successful in the former than the latter but it’s the dallying that is his weakness. They say “it takes one to know one” and although my credentials as an art critic are somewhat dubious, my bona-fides as a dallier (read: hack) of styles are rock solid. I never felt that he settled into a style long enough to really master it, he was influenced by (read: stole) styles and compositions from other painters. His paintings are iconic and instantly recognizable and, quite frankly, not as good as their multi-million dollar price tag would suggest. This, unfortunately becomes painfully obvious on one particular wall of the gallery where V.G.’s work hangs next to those of his friends and contemporaries. In comparison, poor Vincent pales; the works of Gauguin, for example, showing more depth in style, technique and intent. And therein lies the real thrust of this article: is great really great or is great just the familiar and famous?

The V.G. museum, even 90 minutes before closing on a Sunday afternoon, was packed with tourists. People from all over the world had come to see these great works in their natural habitat. There was a palpable sense of a combined expectation of seeing the genuine article, million of dollars of oil paint and canvas, for real. A true wonder of the world. Respectful barging to get closer to Sunflowers, baited breath and then it was over. Shuffle on to the next but not so famous work.

The popular saturation of any piece of art is surely it’s demise. Sunflowers, for example, looks no better in the canvas than it does on the print being sold by the hawkers outside the museum. At least, that’s the perception. Of course, the original is better but our collective conscience of what that particular painting actually looks like is based on the exposure we’ve had of it in waiting rooms and office lobbies across the world. The reproduction is the painting. So, when we gaze upon the original, our brain makes a cerebral connection to the stored image we’ve been gazing at our whole life and throws that up on the ocular screen instead. This same effect happens in other areas of our life. For example, going to see your favorite rock band in a large venue cannot reproduce the intimacy of the sonic experience that a small club or the record can. This disappointment and manic justification of the ticket price leads us to just replay the famous and favorite songs in our head whilst we watch the performers mime to our inner recording. This is why listening to a band’s new material in a large venue is painful and boring – we have no reference point of the familiar.

In the case of V.G., I, and I suspect a number of my fellow tourists, left the museum and instantly forgot what we saw. The original work just wasn’t good enough, or better than, the image that is nicely filed away in my cranial indexing system. And, just because it is in my cranial indexing system doesn’t mean it’s good either. I also have re-runs of That 70’s Show and the collected works of the progressive rock band Marilion filed away there too. Neither make me proud.

At 3.30pm, after the third round of cocktails, one of them goes, “Crap, we forgot the opposite to bacterial”

“Don’t worry.” says a second, “we’ll just throw ‘anti’ on the beginning a call it good. Another Martini anyone?”

Then there are the ‘anti’ words that refuse to have their prefix lopped off as a cheap way to discover their antonyms. Antithetical is one of them. We can only deduce that the supreme lexicographers created that word on purpose one Tuesday morning:

“Look here, we have a whole bunch of people who, despite their god being the same just and virtuous god as the fellow down the road, insist on laying waste to their neighbors anyway. Personally, I don’t care what they do to each other but what I do care about is that they don’t have a word for it.”

Later that afternoon, they decide to broaden the meaning but it can never shake the contradiction of religion. Later still, long after the supreme lexicographers had gone home for the night, those cheeky writers decide to have some fun and make it a rhetorical device of speech and literature. And then, much much later, so late that even the writers have packed it in and gone to bed, man lands on the moon proudly wielding the antithetical: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

So, that’s where we’re at right now. A collection of essays born of writers from around the world exploring antithesis through its religion, social conscience, humor and absurdity. A trivial collection of great importance.

Next issue: dally

The minutes for the meeting were being taken by the secretary but she could not not keep up. Being a deaf secretary without the ability to lip read or sign would normally have been a barrier to employment but the national headquarters of Deaf Fingers had to fill a government mandated quota of disabled people in the workplace so she got the job anyway. She worked slowly but she was conscientious and wanted to accurately capture the proceedings of the whole meeting. Knowing she was behind, and in an effort to catch up, she looked directly at the chairperson and asked “What?”

At this point it would have been prudent for someone to stand up and wildly gesticulate for everyone to shut up. However, this was a special meeting of Deaf Fingers. It was their annual convention for quadriplegic members who could neither sign (obviously) or read lips. Normally we are told people become stronger by their disabilities but in this case it was a distinct disadvantage.

And so, the What?’s escalated in both intensity and volume and soon the hysteric confusion had disturbed the group of narcoleptics next door who had just nodded off to sleep whist discussing Oprah’s book of the month. The group called themselves One Word at a Time and they met weekly to swap ideas and thoughts on the current book they had assigned themselves to read. I say current with a caveat. Despite meeting every week for the past two years, they had not yet made it half way through their only book, “A Million Little Pieces”. This book, a memoir, was about overcoming adversity and emerging the other side a new person. For this group the key story point of emergence was what kept them struggling on, hoping to emerge, at the least, from the back end of chapter 5.

It wasn’t rare for the whole group to nod off during a meeting. Within five minutes of starting, one or two members would let their chins drop and grab a power nap. Ever since childhood they had been told that it was dangerous to wake a narcoleptic and so paranoid were they of this adage that all reading and discussion had to stop and in silence they would sit until everyone was awake again. Of course, the quiet was relaxing and soon they would all be asleep, books open on their laps, pages unturned. Tonight however, the noise from the adjoining room woke many of them with a start but otherwise with no ill effects worse than a slightly elevated heart rate. The realization they had, for their entire lives, been fed a crock of shit concerning the dangers and adversities of their disability made the whole book rather pointless.

Ironically, Deaf Fingers did One Word at a Time a huge favor by being raucous that night. James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” also turned out to be a crock of shit. His adversity was fabricated and once Oprah impaled him on live television for making her look like a ass, his memoir instantly turned into a novel, poorly written with no character or plot development to speak of. At their current rate of knots it would have taken them another two years to complete the book only then to find they had immersed themselves in someone’s imagined not actual adversity. Let me tell you, one cannot imagine the trials and pains of what it’s like to be a narcoleptic at a book club meeting – it is something that can only be lived. They took a unanimous vote to abandon the book and immediately started their second, “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the local chapter of Blind Luck, a group of visually impaired mountain climbers, was enjoying, or at least attempting to enjoy, a fascinating slide show presented by their president Reg. Although blind since birth, Reg was a prestigious climber and his latest expedition to the Austrian Alps made for a riveting story. Unfortunately, no matter how much they turned down the lights or how close they shuffled into the large projection screen, none of them could actually see his photographs well enough to gain a sense of the enormity of either the mountain or Reg’s blind bravery. Thinking about it, that’s probably just as well. If they could have seen anything then it would have been slide after slide of blue skies and a detailed examination of the inside of the camera case. Not a mountain in sight (if you’ll excuse the pun). Sensitivity and good manners prevailed and the audience emitted a suitable amount of “oooos” and “ahhhhs” at the beauty of imagined landscape as Reg recounted his grand adventures punctuated by many slides of sky. Reg isn’t stupid. He knows that sometimes even normal sighted people put the slides upside-down in the projector and so, from time to time, he would ask his audience if the image was of the correct orientation. Not wishing to be rude, but without the foggiest clue, they would reply to the affirmative and the show would continue. Occasionally though, and probably just for the hell of it, someone would say no and there would be a temporary halt in the proceedings as Reg fumbled to right the image.

Miraculously, nobody from the group has ever died attempting to scale the rocky sheer drops of the world’s mountains. This is quite an impressive track record considering a mantra of the group is to attempt these ascents unaided. However, as with most organizations this one also has dark secrets. Unbeknownst to everyone, members included, in the ten years of its existence, none of its members have actually ever climbed a mountain, physical or metaphorical. Ten years ago, as part of the annual “Discover Your Disabilities” open day, Reg had scaled the climbing wall at the local gym. So impressed was he of what a blind man could do if only he turned his mind to it, he started Blind Luck. Word spread and every blind person in the town was soon showing up even if it was mainly for the free tea and biscuits. It was a success, but the fear of the free refreshments and the social interaction disappearing led to an ever increasing exaggeration of the truth. Before long, members were jetting off to the Alps, the Cascades and the Rockies. I believe one intrepid explorer even attempted Mt. Everest – all without leaving their living room. It never occurred to anyone that the ascension of the highest peak in the world might take more than a week. People were just happy that one of their own managed to ‘give it go’ without missing a meeting and with photos in hand. In a way, even if the truth had been discovered they would not have believed it, the reassuring whir of the fan and the click of the projector’s carousel was all they needed of a Wednesday night, that and the free biscuits.

Down in the basement of the community center is the janitor’s room. Amir Ahmed is the caretaker and he tries his best to cheer up the small, gray box room with a few artifacts from his native Iran. He left there a year ago after his wife died whilst being flogged for being in public with a man who was not Amir. It was clear that Amir was next to be disciplined for letting his wife out so, fearing for his life, he packed just one small bag and found passage here. After nine months the government had finished reviewing his case for asylum and he was released from the airport detention center to begin his new life. He is a quiet man, keeps himself to himself. He is also a good and virtuous man. He rolls out his prayer mat five times a day to offer himself to Mecca whilst playing the call to prayer quietly on a cheap tape recorder he found in the basement.

He is treated with suspicion by the patrons of the center, especially tonight, a Wednesday. The members of Deaf Fingers constantly complain to Amir’s boss that the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, is disturbing their meeting and Amir’s boss, desperate to keep funding for the center, agrees and has now confiscated the tape recorder. One Word At A Time complain that he doesn’t pay attention when they ask him to do something, they say his mind is elsewhere and the members of Blind Luck say he looks like he’s a terrorist and probably lives in a garden shed with his three wives and thirteen children.

He believes in his new home, believes he has opportunities. He takes English classes at the weekends, is saving what little he can to start a business. He knows he’ll never get a license to practice medicine again despite his diplomas from the best teaching hospitals in Iran but that’s not stopping him working towards something he never had at home, the chance to challenge intolerance. In the meantime, the blind mountaineers have spilt tea all over the floor again and Amir must go clean it up. He grabs a damp cloth and heads into their room ready to marvel at how much blue sky there is in the world.

This is the first official issue of Op-Ed and, in that same chaotic nature, it seems to have intentionally chose for itself the word “Minutiae”. Our team of internationally based writers have set themselves to the task of illustrating their world through those small everyday details that coalesce and conspire to make our world. So, as you cozy up to your computer ready to enjoy the riches of those bits and bytes of progress spare a thought for us all - the human minutiae. “I am because we are.”

Next issue: licentious

Ronald’s obvious delight with my years of service rarely comes to mind these days. Until, that is, last weekend. Whilst enjoying my first Starbucks beverage in 11 months, I caught myself staring at the brown cardboard sleeve that was selflessly protecting my hand from the effects of thermal conduction induced by the innermost scalding beverage. Its small and perfect details amazed me: from the little brown furrows to the pantone corporate color scheme delicately adjusted for use on less color absorbent recycled material. Even the glue holding the thing together garnered my attention as I imagined the chemical scientist at Dow Corning wrestling with the ageless adhesion paradox of strong but supple. And then, quite unexpectedly, into my head popped a vision in plastic I had not seen in 18 years: those little golden arches injection molded into the thousands and thousands of semi-synthetic polymerized stir-sticks I had once, by hand, so proudly counted. How could so many small things, items of such little consequence provide the financial backbone of such giant conglomerates? Did my java jacketed cafè lattès and the branding of the seemingly innocent stir-sticks build global capitalistic empires?

At this point I must declare a conflict of interest. As mentioned, I am a former employee of a certain fast food chain but I must also declare my interests in the Green Goddess. My home, although currently many miles away, is Seattle, WA - also the home of this great lattè empire. I have walked by, but never entered, Starbucks No.1 on many occasions. When I am home I proudly and devoutly avoid all of their outlets but when I travel and finally tire of the spit-sized espressos, I run to the goddess, supplicate myself beneath her now covered breasts and suckle my 16oz of pure columbian caffeine.

Ray Kroc and Howard Schultz are the two protagonists (some may say antagonists) of the story about to unfold. Kroc was born in 1902 and spent his formative years driving the length of the US selling anything that people would buy. In 1954 he visited a restaurant in Los Angeles owned by the McDonald brothers. With one beady eye on a potential new business venture and one squarely on selling more of his multi-mix shake machines into their seven other locations, he proposed a business partnership. They agreed and within four years McDonalds Corp. proudly served its 100 millionth hamburger. In 1961, after a much protracted negotiation, the brothers sold out to Kroc for $2.7 million ($21 million by today’s rates) – an amount Kroc thought was extortionate. Had they continued with their original deal of 0.5% of total revenues, their estate would be banking over $100 million a year today. The new agreement allowed them to keep their original restaurant but without the original name. They renamed their first McDonalds ‘The Big M’ but by the end of the year it had been intentionally forced out of business by Kroc when he opened a new McDonalds just one block north. Expansion was aggressive and rapid and the highways, byways and shopping malls of the world would now and forever glow with gold.

Howard Schultz was just two when Ray Kroc made his deal with the McDonald boys. And just like Kroc he didn’t actually invent the brand he is now synonymous with. Starbucks was founded by three friends in Seattle in 1971 not to sell beverages but to sell high quality beans and coffee roasting equipment. When a young Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982, he tried unsuccessfully to convince the owners to add espresso drinks to the product line. They declined so he left to start his own business. By 1984 they had reconsidered and bought a small chain of coffee houses from the Bay Area called Peets. The potential success of this type of business was now obvious to the friends but the brand they should concentrate on was not. In 1987, in what may have been the most misguided business move since, well, the McDonalds brothers sold out to Ray Kroc, the three founders of Starbucks sold the Starbucks name and company to Schultz to concentrate on Peets. Peets is still in business and in 2006 had a respectable market cap of $393 million. However, that same year, Starbucks was worth a cool $28 billion.

The secret of success in both operations could well be the system. The McDonald boys had conjured up a style of serving they called the ‘Speedee Service System’. This space age, Jetsons inspired process dispensed with china plates, metal cutlery and the need to wait for your hamburger, replacing it with the clean, efficient paper and plastic instant gratification we know and vilify today. They even coined a new noun (of sorts): ‘fast food’.

By the time Howard Schultz came up with his system, the game had changed. Cleanliness and repeatability were a given, not even to be contemplated. If the customer noticed the system then the system was broken. The new challenge was how to get those caffeine addicts their drink, not just quickly, but absolutely anywhere they may crave it. Unlike hamburgers, coffee isn’t just for mealtimes, it’s for all the time. In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, America’s under-appreciation of espresso based coffee and therefore its unrefined palette meant there was no taste loyalty. Nobody argued the coffee equivalent of ‘Does the Big Mac taste better than the Double Whopper?’ because nobody was prepared to appreciate any difference in a staple. Coffee was coffee wherever it came from. Schultz had to solve a basic problem of how to make a luxury item out of a staple. How do you reinvent something that everybody thinks they know yet never thinks about. His answer was to de-emphasize the product and re-emphasize the location. Our physiological addiction to caffeine would ensure we would crave the product, so Schultz built on that by ensuring we would also become psychologically addicted to the smell of roasting beans, the hues of green and mocha and that cozy feeling of your living room on every street corner. He developed the ‘Synergistic Rollout Program’, a system that, instead of building custom retail spaces, could quickly and efficiently absorb retail spaces already in existence. McDonalds requires space for parking, space for the drive through, space for the kitchen, expensive grills, filters, vats and freezers. Starbucks requires an espresso machine, a counter and a half dozen comfy chairs. During the 1990’s Starbucks was opening a new store every workday in the US and today opens seven new stores every workday worldwide. And, unlike the fate that befell the original McDonalds, Starbucks is quite happy to open a new store just a block away from an existing one.

So are Kroc and Schultz cut from the same cloth? At first bite/sip it would appear so. They both owned or own major sports franchises (Seattle Supersonics and San Diego Padres), they both decided their first international stores would be in British Columbia, Canada and then Tokyo, Japan (1971 and 1996) and they both understood the power of brand association and the wealth of corporate imperialism. Kroc once famously and disturbingly said: “We have found out… that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists… We will make conformists out of them… The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.” Eerily, after a dispute with newly unionized Starbucks employees Schultz channeled the late Ray Kroc by saying: “If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn’t need a union.”

However, I believe there’s a fundamental difference between the two behemoths. McDonalds is America whereas Starbucks is American. There’s nothing wrong with being American in another country, it’s the jingoistic nature of McDonalds being America in another country that understandably offends. Most countries have an vibrant cafe culture so the locals can choose where to buy their daily fix and Schultz’s aggressive ‘Synergistic Rollout Program’ defines the use of existing space so giving the beauty of old cities at a least fighting chance of not being completely usurped by the giant glowing green sign-age. Starbucks would love you to think of them as global. McDonalds, despite local variations in menu (Royale with Cheese anyone?), leaves no global citizen in any doubt that America and McDonalds are first cousins. McDonalds’ business practices also mirror America’s ambivalent views on well documented concerns such environmental sustainability, animal welfare and even human welfare. Conversely, Starbucks builds its reputation on organic, fair-trade and ecologically sound business practices but not because they choose to but because their customers demand it.

Starbucks may have to think carefully though if they are to avoid McDonalds pitfalls. Menu diversity remains an issue. Just how many variants on the humble coffee bean can there be or, more importantly, how many can the public stand or understand? Of the thirty or so items emblazoned on the menu board, it is becoming increasingly tricky to actually find the coffee. Perhaps the global coffee palette has not been as well developed as the allure of Starbucks promised. The great irony of their introduction of quality coffee to the unwashed masses is that they may very well turn them away from it again in the pursuit of the mighty profit margins inherent in those ‘premium’ beverages. Once double whipped cream, mocha and flavored sticky syrups are lovingly added to your espresso it doesn’t taste like coffee anymore and, from the health perspective, you might as well have just enjoyed a quarter-pounder with cheese. Interestingly the two corporations appear to be switching places. In the search for more lucrative locations Starbucks are starting to purpose build their stores, echoing the McDonalds expansions from earlier years. McDonalds are experimenting with healthier options such as salads and, unashamedly, the McCafe. They have also seen the success of Schulz’s ‘Synergistic Rollout Program’ and can be seen in the smallest and unlikeliest of locations.

Both the hambuger and the cafè lattè are now firmly ensconced in our cultures and although there are no 99 cent lattè wars yet, it can only be a matter of time before the coffee producers of the world endanger their livelihoods and environments to meet the price the retailers demand to pay. Our own ethics should be the standard these companies measure themselves against, not the reverse. And so, back to my stir-sticks and java jackets. Practicalities aside, these minutiae of the massive machine serve to remind us that we, ourselves, balance the good and evil of those global corporations. Like those accouterments, we are small but we are vitally important to the success of their business.

Welcome to this, the first and somewhat skinny edition of Op-Ed. Op-Ed is published monthly and features writers from around the world putting forward their views on their world from within the constraints of the monthly word. Different month, different word, different views. This first issue deals with Elitism and is a greatest hits compilation of a few previously written articles surrounding music and the elitism that surrounds, well, writing about music. As Marilyn Manson once said:

Music critics get their records for free so their opinion doesn’t usually matter.

These pieces were written with another less-than-noble cause in mind: to win a competition. Nothing brings out elitism more than trying to better than one’s fellows in order to win a prize that’s probably of little significance anyway. At the risk of overdoing the quotes, I’ll leave you with this very music-centric truism from Jason Freid’s keynote speech at the music festival SXSW from 2006:

You don’t need to outdo the competition, It’s expensive and defensive. Underdo your competition. We need more simplicity and clarity.

The Wild, The Innocent and E Street Shuffle is the greatest of lost albums not because of universal appeal or timeless themes but because of it’s foreshadowing of the perfect sultry storm; the pressure born of its inception, creation and execution makes you know you’re in for a big one. A couple of the tracks, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) and 4th July Asbury Park (Sandy), are still staples of Springsteen’s modern evangelistic traveling medicine show. It’s not those songs that are the album’s greatest achievement but their placement between songs of angst, confusion and celebration surrounded by arrangements that only the most brazen of kids would attempt. It’s not the Jersey boardwalk itself that creates the storm but the combination of the endless summer, disenfranchised youth and the desire to be somewhere else but not knowing where that place of salvation might be. Nowhere does that frustration surface more than in the arrangements of the seven songs that sit in large chunks of acetate, four and three a side, on this record.

The opening of side one, a discordant brass band resolving in almost harmony as sparks fly on E-Street matches perfectly the closing chord of the closing song as tuba and accordion hit a similar lone major chord - Nebraska’s our next stop. It’s the classic American road trip that leaves the familiar, heads out through manic congas, resonating tuba, chaotic shouting, Rachmaninoff inspired piano, a key clicking full-stopped Hammond and ends with the loneliness of a barren acoustic guitar and the prospect of hope in the badlands of Nebraska.

Side two returns to familiar territory, 57th Street, and Johnny’s back from his road trip. But the mood has changed, gone is the jubilation from before, replaced by a more somber desperation. Escape rather than exploration is the overtone. Perhaps the record company can offer the salvation or maybe escape is across the river in the Mecca of New York, New York. In either case Wild Billy, Diamond Jackie and Puerto Rican Jane will be back for Born To Run. Different names but the faces remain the same.

In the meantime, forget all you know (or thought you knew) about Springsteen. Put aside the Red, White and Blue, grab a pair of headphones and sit out on your balcony or rooftop on a summer’s night (perhaps the 4th of July), close your eyes and open your mind. Things will never be the same again - on so many levels.

Firstly, it’s not your fault, there’s nothing you could have done. Ever since the mass mergers of the 1970s when small labels were swallowed by mid-size labels and, in turn, were digested by behemoth conglomerates, your ability to discern quality from crap has been severely hampered. How could you be expected to be objective if an artist is on the TV, their song is backing a new hit movie, your favorite magazine is running a glossy interview and the album cover is on billboards all over town? How can they not be good? They’re everywhere. Surely so many different forms of media can’t be wrong at once. (It is respectfully suggested the reader researches the holdings of companies such as Time Warner, Bertlesmann, and Viacom). You can’t be blamed for taking what you’re given, you’re busy, I know.

Secondly, if you love someone, let them go. It’s OK for rock’n'roll to go. Other music forms have died yet they live on in the hearts of their family and friends. A large number of very well meaning people still love baroque music, gypsy jazz and Appalachian yodeling and carry it close by every day. They are content with listening to old, wonderful recordings and going to the occasional revivalist recital - you should be too. The good news is that you can see still see live music without reigniting those feelings of loss and abandonment from the death of your old friend. There are plenty of exciting new bands around who are doing absolutely nothing new or inspirational and will happily take your money to provide you with that comforting and safe feeling of nostalgia.

Thirdly, you are bound to feel a sense of anger (mainly directed at me). It’s natural and often-as-not the messenger bears the brunt of this. My skin is thick, go ahead, I can take it. Of course I’m full of crap and of course the last Modest Mouse record was a tour-de-force of popular music. And I know Radiohead are the finest band to surface in the last decade and that Death Cab For Cutie have put the indie scene back on the musical map. I know all of this. Think of them as white blood cells zooming round the immune system of popular music, fighting the infection where they can and taking out a few healthy cells out in the process. Trouble is, those white blood cells share the same DNA as their host, they’re essentially the same, they’re derivative and when the sequencing says it’s time for the hearing to go and the eyesight to fade, there’s nothing these brave little cells can do about it.

Now what you need is a shaman, a witch doctor and practitioner of mysterious medicine. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Mr Jack White. When Jack shakes that Valco Airline shaman stick the forces of nature sit up and listen. The man channels his ancient forebears, Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson, into a frenzied collision of salvation and healing. Not since the dark days of Paint It Black and Sympathy For The Devil has bad been so good. The essence of creativity is to deftly and with due reverence take what came before, agitate and add a pinch of mojo, a shake of something indescribable and a few drops of the essence of life. The White Stripes are not the best band on the planet and The Raconteurs are nothing more than a fine facsimile of good times but Jack White, Jack White is the Hoochy Koochy man, the snake charmer and possibly the savior of the moribund art form we call rock’n'roll.

So revel in these last days. Let Gnarls Barkley, Jack Johnson and Nickleback [links intentionally omitted] take you where you want to go (remember to add a tablespoon of Jack White per listen). But heed this well, when old man rock finally departs this mortal coil ask yourself if you were the best friend a genre could have or did you just stand by and watch your best buddy gently expire. By then it will be too late so remember you’ll want your last conversation to be one not of warmth, safety and reconciliation but one of passion, confusion, danger and frenzy. Anything else just ain’t rock’n'roll.