Blow that talk of class warfare up your philistine ass ... sorry, arse ...

(Above: bad photo by Dorothy).

The church of popular culture is a broad one. It's big, wide, long, deep, sometimes high, often low.

You can at various times find within it pond favourites like Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Patty Griffin, Regina Spektor. Head down into the basement and you might find Alice Cooper or Norman Bates, so let's not go there.

Head out to the desperately titled Allphones Arena last night and you could yourself, with the pond and a mega, almost sell-out crowd of thousands, in the church of Springsteen.

Whatever you do, don't try to go by rail if you live in the west. The relevant train was running forty minutes late before the pond headed back to the car. Thanks big Bazza, you can't even do a Mussolini and get the trains running on time.

And whatever you do, don't expect anything but anthemic stadium rock, with a nod to Jersey and 125th street and Motown, and with poor acoustics that made the piano sound like someone had deliberately put every key off-key.

Springsteen is a shameless entertainer of the touchy feely kind. He dragged a young boy up on stage to torture, he danced with a woman who required a little hefting to make it to the stage, he danced with a woman who couldn't dance at all, he sculled a beer, he implored the crowd to get off its asses, correction arses, he did a number of walks, and one bit of extended pit surfing.

He also played music, with a generous 16 piece band plus singer ... and it was a generous serve. Tickets were dear, but you got 3 hours and 10 of rock music (some pedants say 3 and 7).

They care about the Boss in Jersey. You can find the set list already posted here in a report at New Jersey.com. The show opened with We Take Care of Our Own and Wrecking Ball, and Springsteen finished it off with Rosalita.

Throughout Springsteen maintained an infectious energy and enthusiasm. Sure he does it professionally but that's what you expect of professionals.

The crowd lapped it up, and why not. What's wrong with a good time?

The pond was surprised by the younger demographic. There were old farts, but there were many who were young. There was also more than a whiff of boganism. After all the stadium is deep in the west of Sydney, and there were plenty of check shirts and right next to the pond sat a Harley-Davidson jacket. Or at least a man on the wrong side of forty wearing one.

It's the turf where Tony Abbott claims he's the new messiah. As if he'll take care of those not his own.

The pond was there partly because of this, scribbled with condescension by George Brandis:

Exciting interest in cultural policy in the Gillard government is a task of almost Sisyphean hopelessness. The Treasurer's idea of high culture is Bruce Springsteen. Among the rest of the hatchet-faced ex-trade union officials and dodgy union lawyers, indifference is as good as it gets. Better that than hostility - for many the default position. Crean is surrounded by colleagues to whom the arts sector has the whiff of dangerous elitism - yet another set of enemies in the class war. (Our Philistine Treasurer and the art of shelving culture, behind the paywall because Brandis still needs to be hidden).

Typical Brandis.

He always sounds like he's just bitten a couple of lemons, or swallowed a tablespoon of alum that's puckered his mouth into a twisted, screwed pillar of hate and bile. Or perhaps he just stuffs his mouth full of prunes, and munches on them slowly.

The thing is, Brandis will never deliver three hours of joy and entertainment to a crowd. Just dull posturing from a dull-minded former lawyer, always ready to toss off insults like "Philistine" along with all the other cantish hate speech.

Now it has to be acknowledged that the Boss treats his hair, but why not, he's an entertainer. He remains incredibly fit for someone born in 1949, and he puts out to a crowd not ashamed to be caught in the church of popular culture.

So fuck you George Brandis, though on second thoughts, maybe a simpering thank you is required.

If enjoying Bruce Springsteen is philistinism, you can take your high culture and your pose of giving a fuck about the western suburbs, a bit like Barry O'Farrell pretending to make the trains of western Sydney run on time, and shove it up your ass. Sorry, arse.

Now get out and dance a little, you tired, out of touch abusive, lemon and alum-laden, prunish old fart. Get out into the west of Sydney and see how it feels. Tell your prattish crew to get rid of their lycra and their middle class obsessions ...

Phew after that, it's almost time for a nap.

The pond felt exhausted just watching Springsteen go about his business, and has barely had time this morning to go looking for nonsense. But of course you can find silliness straight away if you know where to look:

Defecit? Is that some fatal combination of deficit and defecate?

Now the pond is always full of typos - damn you NZ subbies, damn you to hell - but then the pond isn't demanding money with menaces as part of the reading experience.

I'm afraid "defecit" quite put the pond off reading Pearson, who was in any case - having pompously prattled on about the pontiff in recent times - returning to his familiar, threadbare theme, the ALP leadership, and once again strenuously demanding an election now, or at least soon, or pretty please, quite soon. Or perhaps another leadership challenge ...

Well at least he's had to shut up about Simon Crean as the alternative leader (remember back in July 2011, when the pond wrote about Christopher Pearson claiming that Crean was the obvious choice?)

The thing is, week in, week out, the pages of The Australian are full of prognostications and predictions and bleatings, and most of them are talking out of their ass. Sorry, arse.

And yet none of them ever go back and look at their vomit, like any decent dog would do after taking a quick course of cleansing grass.

If you must read Pearson, you can go to ALP leadership defecit remains fatally intact, though you'll have to avoid the paywall of course, because Pearson is locked away so sensible folk can have a day of peace and even bliss.

But a warning - you will be confronted with this:

The attention defecit disorder is still there.

Yes it wasn't just the splash. Inside on the actual story, The Australian's defecit remains fatally intact.

In fact there seemed to be an air of gloom about the rag. Despite their (and Fairfax's) best efforts, the ALP had gone and done the wrong thing.

What was left but to mutter dire imprecations, make thunderous pronouncements, shake collective fists at the impious heavens, stroke beards, and cast once more through the chicken livers and the entrails. Look at this line up (click to enlarge):

And look at this moth-eaten, woe-begotten front page:

The ALP's warned, it's the wrong way, go back?

Is that the best they've got? They've been saying that since the alienated independents - alienated by that lycra-cladded, fitness obsessed professional lout and philistine Tony Abbott - aligned themselves with Labor to form a minority government.

Well if Brandis can fling philistine about, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

That said, if you had to pick a favourite goose for the day, surely it would have to be that pious goose, Dennis "the tie and suit" Shanahan sagely advising that the PM must drop the words that divide, and announcing that the gender and class wars must be set aside if Julia Gillard is to govern in the national interest.

Actually, tie and suit man, saying that a taste for Bruce Springsteen is philistinism is the real gender and class war, and you're speaking, like George Brandis, out of your ass. Sorry, arse.

There's more to life than riding ten thousand dollar bikes or going on half marathons. Try shearing a hundred sheep, then let's talk about the class war.

Despite Shanahan's efforts, there was one that was better, and it deserves all the acclaim it gets:

Now that's intriguing. Finally a mea culpa from the dingbats at The Australian and the Murdochians, who must have the most unreliable and wretched representatives of all?

Nope:

As usual, it's all the Fault of Fairfax, or possibly the ABC, and not a mention of how Nick Leys and his colleagues are once again blowing it out of their sorry asses. Sorry, arses.

You can read it here, if you like, remembering to evade the paywall, but why bother. Unless you require the comfort of predictability on the weekend ...

Oh and there was one other lizard Oz story that caught the eye, and what do you know, it's an exclusive.

It seems the NBN is under dire threat:

What? Suddenly they want the NBN rollout to succeed?

Suddenly the Indonesians pose a crucial, key threat, and might deliver a big setback?

Instead of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull?

You know, the Tony Abbott who instructed big Mal to destroy the NBN ...

Why the Indonesians are just rank amateurs.

The real experts at setting back the rollout of the NBN are the Murdochians and Tony Abbott.

Enough already. You can read that story here if you care to evade the paywall, but the pond has had enough of these sorry asses, sorry arses, and their attention defecit disorders.

It's time to put on some Springsteen, and get up off the pond's sorry, way after midnight arriving home, sorry Saturday arse ... and dance ...

(Below: bad photo by Dorothy. Excuse? Good cameras were banned).