Sailors in Trouble

Two sailors got into a fight into San Diego. Not that unusual, but the twist is that the two were Australian sailors on HMAS Sydney. Philip Ferres and Kolis Barba were arrested last week after getting into a bar fight and beating up an American guy.

The cause? Ferres and Barba were extolling the virtues of Australian rules football, and the American was defending American football.

Beckham Does Australia

Sydney has been buzzing over the past few days - the world's most famous metrosexual David Beckham was in town, with his Los Angeles Galaxy teammates, for an exhibition match against the glamor team of the Australian A-League, Sydney FC.

Becks arrived over the weekend and was a hit. The usual thing. Seeing cancer patients (but not actually curing them). Doing some promo for his perfume. Being mobbed while out for a stroll along Darling Harbour.

Then they played the match tonight, before a crowd of over 80,000. Beckham played well - the usual ability to pass a ball sixty yards and drop it right at his team-mate's foot. Good vision, even did a professional foul when necessary.

And, in the 44th minute, following a foul a few yards out of the penalty area, Beckham struck one of his famous free kicks to beat the Sydney goalkeeper and score his first goal in Australia. The crowd loved it.

The game itself was pretty entertaining, and both teams played hard. LA, maybe looking to impress their new manager, former Dutch international and Chelsea player-manager Ruud Gullit, started off strong and dominated the early play. Former US international Clint Mathis looked pretty good in his first game in this stint with LA. But in the 19th minute, very much against the run of play, Brazilian international and the #1 player in the A-League, Juninho, scored a goal that seemed to deflate LA. Beckham's goal brought it to 3-1, and Edson Buddle scored a nice goal early in the second half to make it 3-2, but more sloppy play by LA's defense and the goalie Joe Cronin put the game out of reach. US international Landon Donovan, who also played well, scored a late consolation goal to make it 5-3.

So Sydney FC won some bragging rights for the A-League in this first exhibition between A-League and MLS teams. But it doesn't prove anything. The Galaxy, despite the presence of Beckham and Donovan, are far from the best MLS team, and their terrible defensive gaffes this game showed that. Gullit has his work cut out for him.

And Australia awaits word of whether Becks will return to Australia when his wife Victoria comes down under with the rest of the reunited Spice Girls...

Come to Australia and You Might Die

An amusing proposal for a new tourism campaign for Australia featuring various not-so-cuddly animals. Watch it here. I said watch it!

Seven Records That Changed the World?

Little Steven, aka Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and until recently, "The Sopranos" has a cool radio show that you can listen to on the web here (registration now required but free - plays great old garage rock and a lot of good new stuff that you don't here on the radio much).

Listening to an archived show, Little Steven listed his seven "records that changed the world." They are:

Heartbreak Hotel - Elvis Presley
Please Please Me - the Beatles
I Wanna Hold Your Hand - the Beatles
I Wanna Be Your Man - Rolling Stones
It's All Over Now - Rolling Stones
Mr. Tambourine Man - the Byrds
Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan

Obviously -60s-centric. Good songs all. Hard to disagree with Heartbreak Hotel and I Wanna Hold Your Hand at least. And he said these are the records that "changed the world," not necessarily "best seven".

Your assignment - ponder, discuss.

So Long to the Old Left-Hander

Former Cincinnati Reds player and long-time radio announcer Joe Nuxhall has died.

I listened to Nuxhall (and his main partner, Marty Brenneman) hundreds of times when I was a kid in Ohio. He was definitely old-school, more folksy than analytical. But he was a pleasure to listen to on those hot summer evenings and is as much a part of my memory of the great Big Red Machine teams as Rose, Morgan, Bench, and Perez.

The old left-hander has rounded third and headed for home for the last time. So long, Nuxie.

The Best Album You've Never Heard Of

Over the past few years I had come across a few glowing references to the 1960s LA group Love, specifically some critics saying how their 1968 album Forever Changes was one of the finest psychedelic records of all time.

Then earlier this week, I was nosing thru the $10 CD table at a local music/video store and saw a copy of Forever Changes. So I bought it, and when I got home I put it on.

It's been a long time since I listened to new (to me) music that floored me like this album. I can't really begin to describe it, so I'll lift the description from allmusic.com:

It wasn't a hit, but Forever Changes continues to regularly appear on critics' lists of the top ten rock albums of all time, and it had an enormously far-reaching and durable influence that went way beyond chart listings. The best fusion of folk-rock and psychedelia, it features Arthur Lee's trembling vocals, beautiful melodies, haunting orchestral arrangements, and inscrutable but poetic lyrics, all of which sound nearly as fresh and intriguing upon repeated plays. One of rock's most organic, flowing masterpieces, every song has a lingering, shimmering beauty, including the two penned by the band's other talented songwriter/guitarist/singer, Bryan MacLean.

Not a weak song on the album. In particular, "You Set the Scene," the album's seven minute closer, is just fantastic and haunting, with great and thought-provoking lyrics (sample: This is the only thing that I am sure of, And thats all that lives is gonna die. And therell always be some people here to wonder why, And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye.).

I just can't stop playing this album. And I don't usually go so ga-ga for an album like I have for this one.

Buy it, put on your headphones, and dive in. It is the best album you've never heard of.

Yes, Australia Is Serious About Quarantine

I just heard today another example of how seriously Australia takes its quarantine restrictions. Aussie cavalry defeated Turks at the Battle of Beersheba in 1917. And they had to destroy the horses they road into battle because quarantine wouldn't allow them to return to Australia.

Now, that is brutal.

Unnatural Genetic Experimentation Under Way in Australia

Mad Australian scientists are working on designing monstrous hybrids. Don't believe me? Check out the photo of the bovine arachnid, aka Spider-Cow. The Australian scientists, holed up in the bucolic cheese town of Bega south of Canberra, have created this chimera hoping to be able to "milk" the cow to gain ultra-strong webs 1000 times stronger than that produced in nature. Unfortunately, so far all they have gained from their evil efforts is really poisonous sour milk.