The mailbox brought this today, and I was looking forward to it as I traipsed off for coffee with the Cancer Ward Coffee Clatch. Too bad, it sounds as though Eric has lost a good part of his game, that part that made his fame and fortune back in the days of Mayall, the Yardbirds, Powerhouse, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes. There’s some really nice stuff here, but it sounds to me like a record I will want to hear when I tire of tasty rips, even ripped-off rips like Strange Brew/Cross Cus Saw) which I don’t see happening any time soon. Perhaps sadly, I insist on retaining an endearment for good bits of music from a past that goes well back into the ’50s, and through the wonder of recorded music, stretches back several additional decades. Yup, this is a bit of a deck-chair-with-umbrella-drinks set, reminding me a little of some earlier Clapton kick-backs (There’s One In Every Crowd?). On the other hand, I was listening to KPLU’s All Blues the other night and Kessler played Sista Monica Parker’s Never Say Never: I liked it enough that I went to CDBaby and bought the download version of Soul, Blues and Ballads (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sistamonicaparker12). Good stuff, no Tin Pan Alley here, strong vocals, great accompaniment, great tunes. Eric, go find some fire.

So while we’re at it, I feel compelled to comment on Stephen Harper’s latest tart comment about how Canadians just aren’t training for the right jobs. It’s absolutely amazing how quickly a free market ideologue will abandon the notion of a free market when the market doesn’t do what he thinks it should, meaning that it doesn’t pay off quickly enough or deeply enough for his prime constituency and needs to be nudged. It’s funny how, in Stephen’s mind, associations of businesses (cartels) are just fine, but associations of working folks are an impediment to economic progress. He decries that there are many jobs going begging when unemployment is altogether too stubbornly high, but fails to mention that employers are loathe to pay decent wages or ensure decent working conditions. Yes there is fabulous money to be made in the tar sands operations, but the costs of living in proximity are also staggering and there are few, if any, real living communities where a family, for instance, would choose to locate and raise children. So on top of all the other downsides to the Fort Mac shuffle is the squadrons of aircraft ferrying working folks back and forth to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island so they can spend some time in a civilized (?) environment while they’re on hiatus. Do we need to mention the gambit of bringing in low-cost foreign workers to do an end run around labour legislation?

And another old sock is the subject of last night’s Rant on The Mercer Report (http://rickmercer.com/Rick-s-Rant/Blog/March-2013/The-Action-Plan-is-Advertising-the-Action-Plan.aspx) along with the ongoing airing/printing of partisan advertising by the current Liberal régime in Victoria. Worth a read as it really is one of those things that makes me want to rub my eyes and shake my head.