louisfranck

New Year Song

lfranck@btinternet.com — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:44:45 GMT

Originally published at Louis Franck. Please leave any comments there.

Here is a little gift I wrote to keep you warm during the winter months.
To download it, click on the small arrow to the right.

Christianity

lfranck@btinternet.com — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:44:00 GMT

Originally published at Louis Franck. Please leave any comments there.

The problem I have with Christianity is that I have never met a priest who is Jesus Christ. In the bible I read about saints, God, the Holy Spirit, but I have never met a priest that behaves like them. Recently I was at a Russian Orthodox Christening, and the priest lectured everyone present for about an hour on what bad Christians they were because they came to the church without a cross hanging around their neck, because they didn’t come everyday to pray, because they were proud and knew nothing about Christianity and christenings. He ranted about how a christening wasn’t a show, but a serious choice in ones life and how the godmother and godfather were supposed to be the spiritual guides of this infant and how we live in degenerate times etc… I was exhausted listening to him and kept remembering that in the bible it was clearly written ” my father’s house has many doors and everyone is welcome”. The priest checked everyone’s knowledge of the bible chastising their lack thereof and I sat there in the back fuming, thinking whether I should leave or pray. I decided to Pray. I felt the priest’s attitude was anti Christian, embarrassing and so common that if I removed his frock he could be confused with a truck driver. At some point he looked towards me and asked if I was sick. I didn’t reply because I was sick. Sick of his mannerisms, sick of his arrogance, sick of him and his overbearing faith. At the end of the ceremony he apologised and I found that even more pathetic. Having humiliated everyone, he humiliated himself. After leaving the church I thought about where this man came from. He probably had a criminal background and fell in priesthood as a way to vent his anger at the world and attempt to redeem his self loathing. The event made me think about how religion shapes a culture and how the orthodox religion in it’s Russian form, is often used erroneously as a medium of pagan mysticism, violence and obedience. I mean really, some priests don’t seem to understand anything at all about the words of Christ and his message which is fundamentally about loving thy brethren and compassion for all.

Unemployment Recruits

lfranck@btinternet.com — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:49:52 GMT

The city of London is hemorrhaging. Like a giant whale, the guts and blood of the financial sector are spilling down the drains of Fleet street. People have never made so much money for so little and never have lost so many jobs so quickly (aside for wartime). Everyone is hurting and everyone has come to the realization that we are one big co-dependent family now. Spaceship earth is all we’ve got and we better get along . The future will be ruled by debate or war. War is becoming increasingly industrialized (read P.W. Singer on the matter) so I prefer discussion as a means to resolve conflict. Global suffering is also rising and the divide between rich and poor nations is becoming desperate. There is a limit to how much people can take. We will have to join hands or break them. Then we have the end of the oil era which has already started. Its too big to fathom and digest in one gulp. Our entire economic model, cities and infrastructure is based on cheap energy enabling goods and people to move easily and quickly over vast distances. The huge suburbs that have cropped up around the world are particularly vulnerable to the end of oil. They have no crop fields to sustain them, no community that creates goods locally, they don’t even have the classic structure of river, hill and woods. Suburbs are unsustainable without cars and transportation servicing them at all levels (food, water, electricity, etc...). Where will all these people relocate when their jobs and property are gone? How can one sustain a city the size of New York when most of its food is imported from other states or countries thousands of miles from the United States? With less and less farmers in the world and an abandoned country side, what will the modern farm do when there are no more industrial fertilizers, pesticides and petrol to run their extensive machinery? The small shock rippling across the world is nothing next to the seismic wave that is upon us. We need to wake up now, gently, before the alarm bell shocks us out of our slumber. Meanwhile oil nations are playing a risky game of chess. Time is not necessarily on their side. The faster industrialized nations wean themselves out of their dependency on oil, the more oil producing nations have to loose. What will they do when the chips come down? However you look at it, the conflict will be so big, the tensions so vast that it is impossible for the changes coming ahead to be peaceful.

Rufus Wainright

lfranck@btinternet.com — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:05:16 GMT

Some people have been asking what was the cover song I performed with Dima during Moloko Music Fest.
The song was: "Dinner at Eight" by Rufus Wainwright.

Nepalese Swing

lfranck@btinternet.com — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:48:14 GMT