Random Cuts - Number 60

After the ‘gunfighter ballad’ Dylan-style of number 59, I’ve got the taste for another - and this is, in fact, one of Bob’s favourites, one he played on his radio show in September 2006.

This is Marty Robbins (nee Martin Robinson) who was one of the most popular and successful American country and western singers of his era (late ’40s to late ’70s). For most of his nearly four decade career, Robbins was rarely far from the country music charts. Several of his songs also became pop hits.

He hit a golden seam with two albums in the late 50’s, the first being ‘Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs‘ and the second being imaginatively entitled ‘More Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs‘.

From the first of these albums comes the song featured here, which was the first ever country song to be awarded a Grammy, and it was also a no 1 hit on the pop charts (in fact the very first US no 1 of 1960).

This is Marty Robbins - El Paso

This song practically contains a script for an edition of Laramie or the Virginian

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl.
Night-time would find me in Rosa’s cantina;
Music would play and Felina would whirl.

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,
Wicked and evil while casting a spell.
My love was deep for this Mexican maiden;
I was in love but in vain, I could tell.

One night a wild young cowboy came in,
Wild as the West Texas wind.
Dashing and daring,
A drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina,
The girl that I loved.

So in anger I

Challenged his right for the love of this maiden.
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore.
My challenge was answered in less than a heart-beat;
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.

Just for a moment I stood there in silence,
Shocked by the FOUL EVIL deed I had done.
Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there;
I had but one chance and that was to run.

Out through the back door of Rosa’s I ran,
Out where the horses were tied.
I caught a good one.
It looked like it could run.
Up on its back
And away I did ride,

Just as fast as I

Could from the West Texas town of El Paso
Out to the bad-lands of New Mexico.

Back in El Paso my life would be worthless.
Everything’s gone in life; nothing is left.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden
My love is stronger than my fear of death.

I saddled up and away I did go,
Riding alone in the dark.
Maybe tomorrow
A bullet may find me.
Tonight nothing’s worse than this
Pain in my heart.

And at last here I

Am on the hill overlooking El Paso;
I can see Rosa’s cantina below.
My love is strong and it pushes me onward.
Down off the hill to Felina I go.

Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys;
Off to my left ride a dozen or more.
Shouting and shooting I can’t let them catch me.
I have to make it to Rosa’s back door.

Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel
A deep burning pain in my side.
Though I am trying
To stay in the saddle,
I’m getting weary,
Unable to ride.

But my love for

Felina is strong and I rise where I’ve fallen,
Though I am weary I can’t stop to rest.
I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle.
I feel the bullet go deep in my chest.

From out of nowhere Felina has found me,
Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side.
Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for,
One little kiss and Felina, good-bye.

Bristol Rovers 1-5 West Bromwich Albion

Rovers gave it their best shot - the final score very cruelly does not reflect the relative play of the 2 teams - Rovers played the best football throughout - WBA’s power and finishing being the significant difference.

But well done, Rovers.

And good luck to WBA in the semi-final.

More Botophucket

Something that Robert said made me review my need to use photobucket at all - I find that I’ve still got quite a lot of storage space available to me on wordpress, and this is just an experiment to remind myself how to upload images directly on to wordpress

Life Imitates Art

Douglas draws my attention to this piece of film from South Africa, which rather mirrors part of the Neil Young lyric from ‘Last Trip To Tulsa’ -

Cardiff join Barnsley and Portsmouth

I’m not a betting man myself, but I’ll need to find out from my pal George tomorrow what odds you could have got on Friday on the above three plus the Rovers making up the semi-final quartet.

And the bit of the Aberdeen - Celtic game that I saw consisted mainly of the Dandies pishing all over a pretty hopeless-looking Celtic team.  The end-of-season Celtic dance was, all of a sudden, racing up to wee Gordon, until the ref somehow added on the traditional extra time (or Sellick time as it’s known).

C’mon Rovers !!

Vagaries

I came back last night from Bristol.

Amongst the things I missed some or all of yesterday were

(a) Hurrah for Barnsley

(b) Hurrah for Portsmouth

(c) The two big bastards knocked out of the FA Cup on the same day. Hurrah and thrice Hurrah

(d) The Embra urine-quaffers won a game!! Hurrah

(e) Against England - hurrah, hurrah

(f) Even by the standards of rugby, it was an utterly deplorable game

(g) It was the worst game in the history of rugby

(h) Who cares? We won. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

(i) England got absolutely horsed at the cricket

(j) Hurrah for Queen of the South

(k) Everybody’s excited about the Rovers game today - if Rovers and Cardiff could both somehow win today then it would be the greatest FA Cup semi-final line-up of my lifetime.

Rant about to begin - sensitive viewers, switch off here…….

On the Saturday morning 1 March, just before we set off for Bristol, I very excitedly ordered a piece of hi-fi equipment on the Interweb computer thingie - it was a record player that ‘one-touch’ converts LPs to CDs - although I can achieve that result by hooking up equipment in the house to the pc, it’s a right bloody hassle and consequently I don’t do it very often. This piece of equipment holds out the promise of easily converting my 1000 LPs and 300 45’s.

The advert said, as these adverts do, “Allow 14 days for delivery” - usually that means that it’ll arrive in about 3 months.

I figured that there was no danger of it being delivered while we were away for the week.

Wrong.

I had two cards through the door (one on 4 March, one on 6 March) and a message on the answerphone on 7 March all from TNT, saying that they had tried to deliver my equipment unsuccessfully. The answerphone message said that since I hadn’t responded to the cards, they were now going to return the package to the supplier.

I phoned TNT immediately last night and again this morning.

No answer.

I do not assume from that that they have gone out of business, gone into receivership, ceased trading, done a moonlight or otherwise given up the old delivery game.

Why the fuck, then, have they assumed that because I didn’t respond to 2 cards within 3 days, that I don’t want an expensive piece of equipment that I’ve already paid for?

I rather think that if I was them, I’d assume in the first instance that the customer was on holiday.

I’m now going to be ensnared in a bureaucratic nightmare of phone-calls to the supplier to explain that I do in fact want the equipment that I’ve paid for, but that I’d been foolish enough to be away from home for a week, and that it’s now been returned to them undelivered.

OK, I promise that after this posting I’ll stop moaning, but meantime add TNT to the same bucket of expletives deleted as photobucket.

The Bristol Rovers game today is of course a sell-out, and although I cannot be there in person, I will be there in spirit willing the Rovers on to the semi-final. Yesterday, by contrast, the game I attended had a final score of -

Winscombe Under 10s 1-4 Nailsea Under 10s

Action photograph (courtesy (meantime) of photobucket) follows -

Photofucket

At the same time as I posted the undernoted post about Photobucket, I e-mailed them and expressed my ‘disappointment’ at the turn of events in restrained, but harsh, words -

This morning I received this e-mail

The recent email from Photobucket titled ‘You are incorrectly linking from Photobucket’ was sent to you in error. There is no further action required by you. We greatly apologize for this inconvenience.

Rest assured that all of the links to your images and videos continue to work. Keeping your media safe and secure, and providing reliable hosting of your photos, images and videos is our primary concern. We thank you for your patience in this matter and your continued support.

Your Photobucket Support Team

WHAAAAT????

The original email was sent in error !!! I’ve to rest assured that all the images will continue to work !!! Providing reliable hosting is their major concern !!!

While it is some consolation, at least temporarily, to be assured that the images will continue to work, it is very alarming to be threatened with the loss of the whole lot in this way, apparently ‘in error’. I hardly think this can be described as ‘reliable hosting’. I will be investigating alternatives to Photobucket as soon as I have time. I have no confidence in them now, though in the short term at least I will perforce have to continue using their ‘facilities’.

If you are looking for image storage sites, I strongly do not recommend Photobucket.

(Photo) Bucket of Shit

From the time I started blogging, over 2 years ago, I have used Photobucket as the host site for pictures that are displayed here. They offered an excellent free service and I was more than happy to take advantage of it.

In January this year, for a variety of reasons, but mainly in the hope of providing the optimum viewing experience for visitors, I upgraded my free photobucket account to a paid subscription account. My reward for this has been (a) photobucket has started censoring my images - if they don’t like it then they delete it and (b) much more seriously, on my return home tonight from being down south I find that I have the following e-mail, which potentially has disastrous and ruinous consequences for this blog -

It has been brought to our attention that you are incorrectly linking content from your Photobucket account around the Web. We would kindly request that you please begin making the appropriate changes to your links as quickly as possible as to avoid any future disruptions to your service. You are incorrectly linking to the Photobucket servers instead of the ‘i’ for some (or all) of your links off-site.

You will need to go in and manually change all of your links to reflect the ‘i’ instead of the Photobucket servers. Please see the examples below.

Incorrectly linked files look like this:
http://photobucket.com/albums/aa123/username/filename.jpg

An example of a correctly linked file should look like this (notice the ‘i’):
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/aa123/username/filename.jpg

Note: You should copy the Direct Link code from your Photobucket album in order to resolve the issue.

On March 24th, 2008 at 12pm ET, Photobucket will begin disabling all incorrect links. Please begin correcting your links as quickly as possible as to avoid any disruptions to your service. Even if your links are disabled after the March 24th deadline, as soon as you fix them, your files will display as intended again. Please feel free to contact us at mislinking@photobucket.com if you have any questions or concerns. Your promptness and assistance with this matter is greatly appreciated!

I have some 2000 images affected by this edict. It would take me weeks to do what they ask, but in any event, I link to the images in the only way available to me in Photobucket’s own system. I CANNOT alter the method, because the alternative doesn’t work.

It has taken them 2 years to tell me that I am linking incorrectly.

I will be urgently re-assessing whether I can save the situation, but at present it looks like come 24th March we will be in meltdown.

On the off-chance that this is all a misunderstanding that can be sorted out, I won’t start calling Photobucket a bunch of cunts just yet………………..

I’m upset.