Double Clap Bernie

It's hard to demonstrate superior clapping while playing guitar. It's not until he sheds it for one of the final songs that I remember what I love about him. Let's call it lanky androgynousness. At Livid once Brisbane friends were horrified by the suggestion that his side clap at hip level with torso curving off in the opposite direction created an air of sexual ambiguity. Of course he's not gay, but he clearly understands the power of camp. He spent winter Sunday evenings sitting cross legged on the floor in his pyjamas transfixed by Ashes to Ashes on Countdown like the rest of us.

The solo songs, though, they have no beginning, no middle and no end. Some of them are catchy for sure, and in your mind you can see the movie of his recent life when he sings them. You even get the feeling that they're honest. When he sings that he just wants to wish you/her well you believe him and you think that he's a genuine guy in that Neil Finn kind of way. But there's no crescendo. No moment.

Actually, that's not true. There is a moment but it's more about his skill at cutting down the turkeys who yell out. He starts preamble about how O Brother Where Art Thou led to writing a particular song. Guys want to be Clooney, girls want their boyfriend to be Clooney, he says. Not yours? No, that's 'cos she wants you to be more like me. And then he apologises. Candy from a baby.

On the way home Ben and I listen to the Tony Delroy quiz in the taxi. There's a question something like: which state of America has the most desert? Mexico, I say. Ben says that Mexico is a country in its own right. I'm momentarily surprised, but then I remember the Bruce Springsteen song about the drug runners getting caught going over the border, realise that he's right and change my answer to Arizona.