Kerosene Oyster Hell

I DID IT!!!

2006-11-29T07:38:00.000-08:00

The last month has seen me going slowly insane trying to complete this year's NaNoWriMo, the first time I've attempted it.

Basically, the idea is to write a novel in 30 days (well, 50,000 words, but that was good enough for the Great cocking Gatsby, so what the fuck?) .

And today I crossed the 50,000 line (I've still got a couple of chapters to flesh out, and the novel itself is actually bollocks right now and will need either substantial editing or possibly burning) and I'm reet chuffed.

But I really don't feel like writing right now.

I'm fucking knackered. I'm going to go and play some games.

Excuses

2006-10-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

I was trying to come up with an excuse for not having updated this bugger in so long, then I found this collection of ready-mades!

We want MORE DOGS ON THE PITCH. And less football players.

2006-06-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to avoid the World Cup. (Curse you, Freeview, for denying us our live Big Brother feed on the weekend the damn thing starts!) As I write this, there's apparently a match on, so the streets are lovely and deserted. Wasn't even a queue at the cashpoint. Sheena's loving the emptiness of the local parkland. It's great. For the first time in weeks, I've managed to leave the house without being collared by someone who expects me to actually give a shit about how well "we" may or may not do. Newsflash- I'M NOT FUCKING PLAYING. And neither, I'm fairly sure, are you, strange drunk man in the park. I can't really see you having made the team.

Look, it's like this. If you're gonna insist on taking the credit for something someone else did as a representative of your country, it should be all-encompassing. And I mean all-encompassing (which, I guess, is why I said it in the first place). Next time someone expects me to be impressed because "we" are doing well, I think I'll respond "well, congratulations for that... but I believe I still owe you a kick in the bollocks for invading Iraq". Look at it this way- at least with the government you can claim to have had a say in the selection process.

Anyway, in my atempts to avoid the football, I've been downloading tons of stuff from eMusic. And I've rediscovered the wonderful album "Teenage Snuff Film" by Rowland S Howard. And it's really rather ace. I've also been listening to a lot of 60s girl bands- The Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, and all manner of people I'd never previously heard of who appear on the album "Music For Pussycats", strangely selected by industrial Nazi and Satanist Boyd Rice.

And in a wonderful piece of synchronicity, Mr Howard covers The Shangri-Las' "He Cried", though he does a little bit of gender reassignment. And it's when sung in his wonderfully sneering voice that the true nastiness of the song is revealed.

I mean, part of the appeal of the genre has always been the sinister aspect, the constant threat of fiery motorcycle-related death, or suicide, or being shipped off to Vietnam... but this is just mean.

The narrator doesn't dump her boyfriend for any better reason than that another boy has "caught my eye". Caught her eye! Not some hard-to-resist fumbling after the school dance, or a gradual blossoming of friendship into something more- it's not like he even bought her a fucking pint! He was probably just wearing a funny hat or something! No wonder "he cried". I imagine he used a certain amount of harsh language as well.

And it gets worse! I don't know where she lives, but it's far enough away from Kansas City that some other dude has to get a train there. And, in the song about said vehicle, she makes it clear that she's done nothing to hint that when he gets there she's gonna drop the "dumped" bomb on him- she's not even planning to do it slowly and tactfully. She'll be back "in the time it takes to break a heart"!!! If I was the guy she's singing to, I think I'd be feeling a little insecure myself.

And don't even get me started on the "support our boys" stuff.

Of course, when Ronnie Spector sings on her new album about her ex-husband's cell/hell (depending on which verse) being filled with pictures saying how well she's doing, it's slightly different, as the ex-husband in question is Phil Spector, who quite frankly deserves it.

But as I said, it's the nasty undercurrents that really make it for me. Even the really nice songs sound like they should be used ironically in a Rob Zombie movie to add some counterpoint to scenes of hideous carnage. Or maybe that's just me...

Anyway, I'm going to go and try to find a shop that still has cold beer. These football fans are so selfish. Those of us who need cold beer EVERY DAY, and have loyally supported the brewers no matter what the season, have to put up with shortages caused by fairweather drinkers. They should run some sort of loyalty system, they really should.

Just who are these fucks anyway? And why do I care?

2006-05-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

Okay. Once a week from now on. Even if I have nothing to say weekly, instead of once every few months.

This summer sees me once more descend into a kind of vampiric half-life as Big Brother comes back on. I managed to avoid this for years, but when last year's run turned (with the help of the magnificently-breasted Craig Coates) into the back-story for the best true crime documentary I have yet to see, I got sucked in. And this year's no exception. My days are split between sitting in front of the telly, walking the dog and arguing on message boards and at work about whether Sezer's a misogynistic fuckstick (he is), whether it's a good thing that posh guy who hated transsexuals and people slagging off the royal family left (it was) and whether Bonnie got a raw deal (she did).

It's weird- for the next few weeks I'll no doubt be obsessed with these morons, but it's a fleeting kind of obsession- this time last week I was fighting back tears as I watched Bonnie getting her largely-undeserved marching orders. Today she was interviewed on telly and my first thought was "I'm sure I've seen her somewhere before, but I can't quite place it". Probably the best way to be remembered, though- being forgotten by the public has gotta be better than being remembered for being the hairdressing world's answer to Ed Gein (Craig, last year).

I'm unreasonably excited about the prospect that Sezer might be out this week, though as soon as he goes I'll have no idea who the object of my disgust ever actually was. Come autumn I'll be thinking "whoah, what happened to summer? I must have done TONS of drugs, I can't remember a thing!" And then I'll realise I didn't, and I'll no doubt feel a strange sense of loss. Although at least this way I miss the fucking World Cup.

And hey. It's working as kind of an anti-drug for World of Warcraft.

NEW PUPPY!!! NEW PUPPY!!!

2006-02-13T00:16:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am aware that I promised to update this bugger more often once I got broadband.

However, getting broadband coincided with my life being eaten by the magnificently addictive World Of Warcrack.

And then by something infinitely less sad:

This is my NEW PUPPY!!! Her name's Sheena (as in "...Is A Punk Rocker") and so far she hasn't eaten any of my comics. Part lab, part collie, part puli, all ROCK.

See, I really wasn't planning on getting a puppy. Then a friend of mine phoned me from the vet's and said "they've got this lovely little puppy here that needs a home, and they thought of you" (which was quite flattering in itself, really). Out of politeness I agreed to go and at least meet the little monster- of course, from that point I was doomed. They came out with this tiny little ultra-cute thing and I actually found it physically impossible to say anything other than "yeah, fuck it. I'll pick her up on Tuesday".

She's been here for a month now and I still haven't regretted it for a second.

BUT the most important thing, obviously, is to settle the eternal argument over who'd win a fight between a swan and a badger.

Even Bob's Animal Fights wasn't coming up with an answer.

IN THE BLUE CORNER...

Known on the circuit as "The Arm Breaker", for its much-vaunted ability to- no shit!- break people's arms, according to the Daily Star (and ABSOLUTELY NOBODY ELSE) regularly eaten by asylum seekers, ladies and gentlemen- THE SWAN.

IN THE RED CORNER...

Needing no introduction from me, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the one known as Stripy Death... THE BADGER.

It was quite a hotly-debated question in certain circles. (Well, more of a triangle, really- there were only three of us). Eventually I asked the boyfriend-in-law, who's an ornithologist, and- you would have thought- would have had a vested interest in the one with the feathers. His considered opinion? "Badger. Anywhere except on open water, and even then, well..."

So there you have it. Badgers are harder than swans. Science says so.

(9x9 answers coming later today).

MERRY FUCKING X-MEN!!!

2005-12-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

Just to point out... despite what Geldof may say, there WILL be snow in Africa this Christmastime. Do you remember Hemingway's classic novel "The lack of snow on Kilimanjaro"? No. Of course you fucking don't. Who'd win in a fight? Bob or Ernie?

You KNOW it's true.

Anyhoo, tis Christmas. And time to listen to the Ramones.

It just IS.

And I promise to update this fucker more often now I have broadband and it isn't such a chore. Well, when I get my life back from World Of Warcraft, anyway.

My point, really is...

...erm...

...non-existent.

Um.

Merry Christmas, motherfuckers, anyway.

And so, like The Beatles, it appears The Two Ronnies are also dying in the wrong order

2005-10-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

Ronnie Barker has died.

I don't care what any of you fucks think, Porridge was damn funny.

This is the Happy Horse

2005-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Due to the alarming rise in humans partaking of ketamine, the black metal-enhancing drug which rightfully belongs to horses, the equine kingdom has decided to wreak its boozy revenge.

Cor blimey

2005-09-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I updated this 'ere bugger. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy doing all manner of things, travelling the world, saving kittens from trees, fightimng the evil mchinations of Dr Bastardo, but actually I just haven't got around to it. Too busy trying to start my people's army with which I shall smash the state. Actually that's a lie too. I've just not bothered.

But here I am!

So what have I been doing? Well, I've been watching zombie movies and playing Urban Dead an awful lot, in preparation for the arrival of bird flu when I needs to get me some rice, beans and ammunition and take to the hills.

More later. I've got a rant about the disgraceful emergency response in New Orleans somewhere, as well as a picture of a horse drinking beer.

GRR.

2005-07-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

(Apologies for just cutting'n'pasting this from my post on Barbelith, but I didn't really feel like typing it all again.)

God could do with pissing off about now.

I was just on my way home from the pub, went to the cashpoint, the guy begging by the cashpoint said "hey, you were friends with *****, right?"

***** was a 15-year-old kid who used to beg outside my house a couple of years ago. We used to let him use our shower and stuff, and (had it not been for "landlord problems") would have let him stay with us long-term. Then he started getting into smack, hanging out with the dodgy Stokey smackheads, but nobody who was in a position to could send him back to his mum's, cos she was a crazy fucking junkie herself. Then he got off smack again. Then he vanished for a bit, his picture was up all round the place, but actually he'd gone to stay with another guy (I found out later) to get away from his mad smackhead mother. Last I saw of him.

Apparently he moved to Manchester, using again. Got himself sorted, got himself clean, and died in a motorbike accident about six months ago. He'd have been about seventeen now. I always wondered what had happened to him, and hoped it was something nice. But it wasn't. And it wasn't even self-inflicted.

Fuck you, God. He was a nice kid. Fuck you.

There are no depths, really.

2005-07-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

Check out this fucker.

Note there's an email address where you can tell him just what you think of him.

And we're going down the pub.

2005-07-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jim Bliss for finding this little gem.

Kind of sums up my attitude, really. God I love this city sometimes.

Holy fuck.

2005-07-07T04:21:00.000-07:00

Well, let's face it, everyone's expected this for a long time.

Mobile networks are down, and I'm cursing my chronic inability to bother taking down people's landline numbers. I've managed to contact MOST people I know in London, and they're fine. I can get text messages but not reply to them.

Believe it or not, I was at the dentist's when all this kicked off- lying back on a chair, half my face dead, and with a drill buzzing away, when the receptionist runs in and says "someone's blown up a bus in Liverpool Street". It's difiicult to exclaim "FUCKING HELL!!!" under those circumstances, but instinctively I tried.

Most of the London Barbelith crowd have posted to say they're okay, and everyone I could actually get in touch with...

I'm guessing nobody will be reading this today, what with there being far more important shit to check on, but if you are/ when you do, and I haven't been in touch, let me know you're okay, yeah? (As long as I know you, obviously).

Fucking Olympics.

2005-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Damn you, France. Couldn't you have tried just a little bit harder?

Now I have to watch them destroy Lea Valley. Fuckers.

Words alone cannot express how angry I am about this, and I don't think html can handle gestures. Not the kind I'm making, anyway.

At the moment, my dream of one day moving to Iceland is now starting to seem a lot more like a plan of action than a dream. Or if I'm still living in London, I intend to take an extended holiday while the thing's going on, and visit all the losing cities. Moscow, New York, Madrid, Paris... sounds nice.

Grr.

I was gonna write a nice post today, all about how cool Nine Inch Nails and Saul Williams were last night (which was- VERY COOL INDEED). But I'm all grumpy now.

Fuckers.

Happy happy joy joy

2005-06-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Turns out the sim card was waterproof!
So I've got all the numbers back!
Email addresses are still gone, though.

And the thing that had been irrationally bugging me last night turns out to have all been in my own head, too. (Don't ask, cos I ain't tellin').

AND... and and and and and...

I finally got the Jesu album. And fuck me if it isn't absolutely glorious. Imagine Cop by Swans, with all the brutality intact, but the ugliness replaced by beauty. Sounds like what the early Swans albums would have sounded like if they'd been recorded by late-period Swans, or, more accurately, probably, what I was hoping Godflesh would sound like had they carried on in the direction they were going with Pure. It's everything I'd expected it to be from what I'd read, and much, much more.

Oh, and the last Monster Magnet album. Which rocks. In space.

In which Stoatie, like a shit Doctor Who, or possibly that guy from Slaughterhouse Five, inexplicably finds himself transported back to the C20th

2005-06-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

So "No Man Is An Island", no?

Well, Mr Donne, try explaining that to me just one more time. And make it good.

This week's been fucked. I should have known something was up when the microwave died. But no, true perturbation only set in when I opened Thunderbird only to find that I had no account on it anymore. All my emails and address book, gone. (And never called me "mother", unsurprisingly). Possibly retrievable, but I'm buggered if I know how.

Then Barbelith goes down for a week. Not such a big deal, really, but, as will be related later, it's kind of complicated things.

Because (and this is the good bit)- in a spectacular moment of Joey Deacon-esque shoe-losing, I went to the launderette yesterday morning. As I watched the water rise and the stuff start spinning, I reached to my pocket to get my phone so I could see what time it was (and therefore when to come back)- and you've guessed the next bit already, haven't you?

So... I've lost all my phone numbers. And email addresses. And can't contact people on Barbelith (some of whom I was attempting to get in touch with this weekend) to ask them, for obvious reasons.

It's like living in the twentieth century, I tells ya.

Sooo... if I know you, I've lost your details. If you could email me them again (at my new, emergency address, stoatie235 at hotmail dot com, then it would be right handy.

Anyone who's on Barbelith who I know in real life, expect inquiring PMs as soon as the board comes back. Currently I'm waiting for an itemised phone bill I asked for to turn up so I can see if I recognise any of the numbers I've called from my landline.

My major panic's over, though- my mum's sick and, though I know her number, she's staying at her brother's place, the number for which I don't. But I managed to get in touch with my sister, who assures me everything's okay, so that's one thing sorted, anyway.

What is it with me and phones? There's a whole T S Eliot "fear death by water" thing going on, I swear- a couple of years ago I killed my phone by leaving it in my pocket when I took off my trousers to go to bed, drunkenly throwing them on the floor, where the VERY TIP of one leg found its way into Biscuits' (RIP) water bowl. By morning, osmosis had ensured that the kecks were drenched and the phone was fucked.

Then I drop the phone which replaced that one down the toilet at Jack The Bodiless's Hallowe'en party...

...then I chuck this one in for a quick Wash'n'Wear.

Tin cans and bits of string. It's the only solution I can see.

God, I'm so English.,..

2005-06-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

I talk about the weather and EVERYTHING.
Actually, I'll talk briefly about the weather, cos there's not a great deal to say other than it's hot and humid here in Stokey, which is why I'm up so early, waiting for the launderette to open. Apparently it's all gone a bit underwater at Glastonbury- the big floods of 97 amd 98 were one (well, two) of the reasons I stopped going- the others being that I'm getting a bit old for that kind of thing, I don't really do many drugs anymore, and I have no idea what kind of music young people listen to these days. Actually, those are all lies. It's cos you can't bunk the fence any more.

Barbelith's currently down, which is far stranger than it should be. Not sure what that says about my life, but it can't be good.

I'm currently ploughing through Season 3 of Millennium- it's a real shame it's "the season that never should have happened", cos there are a few crackers in there (the best so far being "Collateral Damage", which goes back to the whole Season Two conspiracy vibe, and has James Marsters as a Gulf War veteran holding Peter's daughter hostage).

In case you haven't seen this, it's currently the funniest thing in the world, as far as I'm concerned. It's the filthiest episode of Rainbow I ever did see, and it rules.

UNCOVERED- the reason drugs were never a big part of the Norwegian black metal scene

2005-05-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

File under "Don't Try This At Home". And cross-reference it with "Don't Try This Anywhere Else". Like that regrettable incident years back with the Blue Stratos, or getting hospitalised by friendly fire (half a brick to the back of the head) during a riot, I did this so you don't have to.

So... what did I do that was so fucking stupid?

Get yourself a beer and I'll tell you.

By various means (largely exacerbated by the infectious enthusisam of Barbelith's Rizla) I've somehow ended up with an unhealthy interest in Norwegian black metal. You know- the guys who paint themselves to look like pandas and burn churches. Kind of like Satan's own Furries Of Rock. A large part of this is to do with the gap between humour and seriousness- these are people who, as kids, listened to Venom, and Slayer, and Black Sabbath... and believed every word.
Anyway...
I was idly (and very drunkenly) wondering, as you do, what black metal would sound like to someone incapacitated by an enormous dose of ketamine. So, I did an enormous dose of ketamine, and wapped on Mayhem's classis "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas". A few seconds later, I realised this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. It sounded horrible. And not in a good way. Of course, being hugely dosed up on animal tranquilisers, I then found myself unable to reach the button on the stereo, despite it being a mere foot or so away from my hand. I remember being launched into the psychedelic stratosphere with the thought "oh bugger. I've got to listen to the whole album". It was like that bit in Empire Strikes Back when Luke's been hung up by the feet in the Wampa's cave and is trying to reach his lightsabre. Except, try as I might, the Force just wasn't gonna play ball. Possibly the K had lowered my midichlorian count... I'm not a doctor, let alone a space doctor, so how could I tell?
For forty-five minutes that seemed like an eternity, I lay there. Imagine a black metal version of Hodgson's "The House On The Borderland". Except it wasn't the universe I was watching come to a fiery cataclysmic end, it was my brain.
I remember being just about rational enough to recognise "Freezing Moon" and therefore have a vaguely comforting idea that this was, after all, just a combination of drugs, music and stupidity, then I was gone again.
At some point later, I finally lost consciousness. Of course, it being about six in the evening, I came to at about four am with a terrible headache, and a chronic inability to go back to sleep.

Don't do it, kids. It's a great album, but it's just not suited to those types of drugs. I'm not particularly sure I am, either...

Meet the gang cos the Pope is here... (that's Pope Benedict from the A Team, I believe)

2005-04-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

Check it out!

THE POPE, BENEDICT XVI

MELVYN HAYES

And apparently Melvyn Hayes was voted The Water Rats' KING RAT 2005!!!

I smell a conspiracy... is James Clavell the new Dan Brown?

Look, I have two problems with this whole Pope thing. Firstly, while I don't really have anything AGAINST Scandinavian indie-pop, why do the Cardigans get to decide who it is?

And secondly, I was robbed. But then, that's me... always the bridesmaid...

RIP...

2005-04-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

Promise. This'll be the last post about a dead grandparent. Cos as of today, I have none left.

Yeah, all that "life sucks" bullshit might sound cool when you're a kid, but really it's death that's the fucker. Unfortunately, suffering ALSO sucks... it's a hard one to balance, really. I don't think he was very happy towards the end; it was gonna happen sooner or later- he was 93 and REALLY not well, and it seems to have been quick.

Wouldn't it be nice if that wasn't all you had to look forward to, though?

OKAY.

I promise the next post will be happier. Maybe even have a picture of some kittens or something, you never know. Or a monkey. Everyone loves monkeys.

Now I ain't no Catholic...

2005-04-04T11:08:00.000-07:00

...and I've never really had a great deal of time for either the Church or the Pope.
But there's been something quite unpleasant about the news coverage leading up to his death. Maybe I'm just getting squeamish in my old age, maybe it's because my last remaining grandparent doesn't seem to be doing so well right now, but I've found the constant blow-by-blow accounts of an old man dying slowly somewhat... voyeuristic? depressing? icky?

And much as I've slagged the old bugger off, I can't find it in me to take pleasure in this befalling ANYONE.

Congratulations, Pope. You've made me even more shit-scared of death than ever before. Nice one. Have a funny hat.

Another sad rock'n'roll demise...

2005-04-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

The truth about "MIchael Jackson"

2005-03-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

Cast your minds back.
About fifteen years or so.
Little Mikey Jackson, famed around the world, great dancer, good at hitting them high notes, all that malarkey. Remember all the palaver about his desire to buy the bones of the "Elephant Man", Joseph Merrick? (Yes, Joseph... hate to say it, but Lynch was WRONG on that one, mmkay?) Soon after that... all hell and the legal system broke loose.

So. What really happened?

Well, I'll tell 'ee.

Little Mikey, all unsuspecting, though, okay, a bit weird, bought the bones. And with his countless millions (I've never understood that phrase- surely the very concept of "millions" involves, or at least implies, just a leetle bit of counting?) he set about bringing the tragic Joseph back to life. (Not sure if Joseph had a choice in this... to be honest, it seems like his life was actually fairly horrible, so I'm not sure if he'd really have been up for another go. Maybe therein lay the seeds of the terrible events that were to occur...)
Of course, as ALWAYS happens, this bizarre experiment had unforeseen consequences.

Embittered by his rejection from Victorian society,

Joseph Merrick,
with the help of his evil monkey "Bubbles",
imprisoned

Little Mikey Jackson

in the basement, while they went off dishing out the Werthers Originals to children, and all that kind of sick shit.

So this post is a plea. We need a posse. A big fuck off posse to SAVE little Mikey from the evil Joseph Merrick and his monkey henchman before it's too late.

You MUST help us.
Or the terrorists have won.

Happy Easter

2005-03-27T06:43:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know the crucifixion was Good Friday, but as I'm already taking liberties by having a cuddly frog instead of Jesus we can let it pass just this once.

Back again...

2005-03-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

Yeah, 'sbeen a while...

What a packed week THAT was.
Had my first reiki treatment on Wednesday, having found out that a friend is a licensed practiciioner and thought "well, why the fuck not?" Not really knowing what to expect, I was more than pleasantly surprised. It was pretty fucking intense, to be honest, and left me feeling like I'd smoked an awful lot of really nice grass. It's still a bit early to see what positive effect it's having, but I definitely feel different since that.

Friday night was Edward Ka-Spel at the Drones Club, and, true to form, he was absolutely brilliant, by the end of the gig having been joined by the rest of the Pink Dots and doing a bunch of Pink Dots songs; so it was kind of like seeing both. Absolutely brilliant, and top marks to Freq for making it possible. And I finally got to hear Mr K-S doing "Prisoners Of War", which I missed when I saw him solo before.

So, by yesterday morning (having got in at 4:30am) I wasn't really up for going on the Troops Out demo. But I got a call from Magic Mutley, just back from Nepal, and the twin pressures of "well, if he can make ith with jet-lag, I shouldn't let a hangover put me off" and "well, I haven't seen him in six months, so it'd be kind of cool" got me out of the house. In the event, it was great- I'd been expecting a much lower turnout, "Troops Out" seeming a far more divisive proposition than "Not Invading In The First Place" had been, but it was massive. And the weather was gorgeous, and myself, Mutley and Gecko met up with Alex, Flyboy and Nina (this "keeping to screen names where possible" politeness thing is making this read very oddly, I know).
Not having my traditional Jolly Roger banner to fly (having sent it off with poor Biscuits), it was cool to see a bunch of people dressed as pirates, with a banner reading "Piracy Is Arrr Duty" and an accordion (complete with punk sea shanties). Unfortunately, it was only a while after we'd lost them that I remembered I could take pictures with my phone. I DID manage to get a snap of this banner, though:

Then off to the pub, thence to meet Brian Blessed Brigade for his birthday drinkies, where we were joined by gingerbop. And we drank booze and stuff. And Gecko told us a VERY disturbing story involving the Krankies, for which I shall seek his permission to post. But, believe me, it'll haunt you.

Then home, having come to the conclusion that lovely though my veggie biker boots may be, they WEREN'T made for walking. But that's just what they did. And my feet were really sore, sore enough that I toyed with the idea of not going to the Slimelight to see the Pink Dots (I know, Drones Club had only been the night before, but it's not like they come to the UK very often), an idea I thankfully dropped. Cos they were wicked. A really quite full-on "Black Zone" kicked off a set covering a pretty wide range of their big'n'eclectic career. Nils van Horn's traditional "running around the audience blowing his sax- the end of which lights up with each note- is particularly well-suited to the Slimelight, where half the people getting their faces lit up are desperately trying to maintain their doomy "cool", and the other half are really fucked and love it.

But boy, did my feet hurt by the time I got to bed.

Hunter S Thompson brings me back to Necronomicon territory

2005-02-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hunter S Thompson is dead. Shot himself.

Today was gonna be one of my "not drinking" days to tell my alcohol counsellor about, with a flush of lame pride. But Hunter's dead. So fuck that.

I'm on my way to being shitfaced now.

Raise a glass to the Doctor, or come right out with it and tell God that you have no fucking soul.

Deaf Con One

2005-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

Woke up today unable to hear through my left ear. At all.
Went to the doctor's... they got someone to see me pretty fast, which was cool. Apparently I have some kind of infection. Or a burst eardrum. They don't know. All being well, I should have my full hearing restored within the week, with the drops they've given me. Unless it's a burst eardrum. They don't know.

But fuck, is this weird. Crossing roads is dangerous. Conversations with more than one other person have become a logistical nightmare.
It's really fucked.
Maybe it's God's revenge on me for ordering a bunch of black metal stuff from Amazon just before I went to sleep?

AAARRRGGGHHH. This is the most annoying thing in the world ever. Especially seeing as how I've already decided that at some point this weekend I'm gonna spend whatever it takes to see Rammstein. If I can't hear them, it'll DEFINITELY detract from the experience.

Argh.

Better stuff, though... thanks to Jack the Bodiless, I saw Pop Will Eat Itself last Monday. And yes, I had to leave before the end to go to fucking work, but boy, were they ace. Made me feel like I was 17 all over again. It was one of those gigs where it could so easily have been piss-poor and embarrassing... but it wasn't.

My current favourite things? The new Battlestar Galactica TV series which, against all the odds, is one of the most intelligent pieces of skiffy to grace the box in many a year (and which, while it's now finished on our TV, I'm still working my way through thanks to a friend's downloadiness... I have no telly, you see), and the album "Leviathan" by Mastodon. Fuck, it's good. For a death metal concept album about Moby Dick, it's WAY less laughable than it should be. For similar reasons to Galactica, it's blown me away.

Of course, I'm sure it'd sound better if I could hear it through both ears.

In the meantime, feel free to hoot your trap off.

It's well weapon.

The Arch-Drude of Wessex., And Magneto off the X-Men.

2005-01-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

Cool fucking week.
First of all, the ROCK. The sheer unadulterated balls-out rockingness that is the latest incarnation of Julian Cope. At the Festival Hall, no less.
Whoah. I've never seen the guy play a bad gig, and this was no exception. Imagine, if you will, putting the MC5 in a car with Black Sabbath, turning the radio up REALLY LOUD then driving the fucker into Monster Magnet's swimming pool. That's how ROCK!!! (with a capital \m/) Copey is now. Truly fucking spectacular. And he was, to put it mildly, monged off his tits. (As was I, by some strange coincidence). Awesome. Full-on metal versions of old Teardrops numbers and everything. Truly the Arch-Drude is back.

Also this week, the smut! The filth! The total lechery that Sir Ian McKellen brought to the role of Widow Twankey in Aladdin at the Old Vic. And oh, his frocks! Fuck Gandalf. Fuck Magneto. I've seen McKellen's Twankey, and it's impressive. (See. He's got me doing it now.) Funniest thing was that mono, being American an' all, has never seen a pantomime, or even encountered the concept. (The ticket was her Christmas present, y'see). And she loved it. And was bemused by it. There were, like, about three children in the audience, but everyone was totally getting into the "he's behind you", "oh yes it is/no it isn't" thing. And by Christ was it smutty.

Barbelith's Baz Auckland and his girlfriend have been staying this week, which has also been very nice (although the fact that my next-door neighbour also had two Canadians staying makes me suspect I've unwittingly helped some kind of invasion), and it was one of my best friends' birthdays yesterday, so I'm currently doing a large amount of being hungover.

But yeah. Cool stuff. And that.

Testing...

2005-01-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

Testing Flickr.

Goodnight, little one

2005-01-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've been putting this off for months.
I just buried Biscuits' ashes this morning, and we planted a nice tree for her- some kind of evergreen conifery thing. There should be plenty of light, and she's next to a flat gravestone so I can sit and have a beer and a spliff when I visit her.
I think she'd have liked it.
Only thing is, I thought this was supposed to make me feel better. We'll see.

And in other cheerful news, this week's recommendation for resting in peace is
Will Eisner.

Don we now our gay apparel, gabba gabba hey gabba gabba hey hey

2004-12-25T23:03:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, kids. Ho ho ho and all that.
Just had a lovely Christmas in the style which I am starting to consider "traditional"- as usual for the last eight or nine years, I have the full-on Christmas experience, lots of food, booze and pressies, but without any of my family being present.
Not sure if I buy this whole "friends are the new family" bollocks but, and no disrespect to my family, who I love dearly (well, the few of them who are still alive, anyway), but I know which I';d rather spend Christmas with.
'Twas wicked indeed. Tons and tons of food, cooked by mono and friends, a fair bit of drinking (but the weird part about that I'll get round to in a minute) and watching pretty much the entire series of Bagpuss.
And lilly and TangoMango gave me a book called "Pirates, Ghosts and Coastal Lore"- a collection of short stories about North Carolina's Outer Banks. It looks awesome. Truly, they know how to choose presents!

Strangely, the last couple of years have seen me drinking much LESS at Christmas than the rest of the year... not sure why this is, though I could be glib and say "well, it's a holiday, innit?" I think I probably drank the least of anyone today, and didn't even TOUCH any dope (despite being offered some delicious-looking hash cookies).
Weird.

Current festive recommendations- "A Space Ghost Christmas" (cartoon), the Millennium Christmas episode "Midnight of the Century" and, of course, the Ramones' "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)".

Oh, and Bagpuss. Don't EVER forget Bagpuss.

And all the midgets sing...

2004-12-16T00:17:00.000-08:00

Ding dong, the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch?
What, that blind Nazi?
Yeah, that's the fucker.

Well, Blunkett's resigned, anyway. And not a minute too soon.
It kind of makes me ashamed of this country, though, that we'll get rid of him over a scandal like this, but didn't seem to have a problem with him being a kneejerk authoritarian fuckstick. But, you know, it's that whole gift horse/mouth thing, so I won't dwell on it too much.

What else?
Oh yeah, went to Iceland last week. There'll be pictures as soon as Joda gets round to copying me them. But for the meantime I'll just say... fuck England. I wanna live in the middle of cocking nowhere surrounded by ice and ponies. And elves and stuff.

The world is a wound in the body of Christ...

2004-11-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Sadly (gotta watch it, or this blog'll just turn into a necronomicon, and I really have no idea of the html for "bound in human skin") the past weekend has seen the world lose two of the greatest eccentrics in modern music. First, Ol' Dirty Bastard, possibly the craziest of the (already fairly bonkers) Wu-Tang Clan, and certainly one of the most entertaining. A great rapper, a great voice... a great loss.
The this morning I heard the even sadder news that John Balance of Coil had also left us.
Both were fantastic talents; both were far too young for this shit.
Other than that, I guess they have only two things in common. Firstly, I loved them both. Secondly, they're both fucking dead.

You know, everyone should just STOP FUCKING DYING. At least for a while. Let the rest of us catch up. It's only fair.

Today's been soundtracked by Coil's "Astral Disaster". 'Sfunny... it's never sounded quite this melancholy before.

I'll leave the last words to Mr Balance.

Do not lose sight of the sea.
Do not lose sight of the sea.

Morning has(n't) broken (yet)

2004-11-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

Bugger. I knew I shouldn't have given in so easily to temptaion and gone to sleep early in the evening yesterday. Now it's six in the morning, I've been awake for an hour and a half, and I have to keep quiet so as not to awaken the neighbours.

Oh well, I'm off work for three weeks now, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

AND... 48 hours without a beer? Fuck that! As of 2pm yesterday I hadn't touched alcohol in a week. A fucking week. And boy, was it weird.
I "celebrated" coming to the end of this self-imposed ordeal with a couple of pints, but a combination of not having eaten, reduced tolerance and guilt just left me feeling a bit queasy and rather depressed. Hence the going to bed so early.

As Spiritualized put it:
I was really almost there, you know
Cos I only had twelve steps to go

Hmm, holiday, what shall I do with you? Preferably something cheap, obviously.
First up, I need to get my hair done. The wonderful Lilly Nowhere did it for me last week for a fantabulous Halloween party in Southmapton at Jack the Bodiless's house (wherein I dressed as Shaun of the Dead, and had the delight of witnessing many marvels, including Jack himself as Hellboy, Anna as Sweetey Todd, Fly Boy as Jesse Custer, and all manner of mad shit), and it worked a treat, but the only problem is I now have a far too sensible haircut. (Trying to convince my alcohol counsellor that this was fancy dress, and there wasn't some deep-seated psychological reason for the cut was an uphill task, I can tell you. From the look on her face she may as well have been rubbing her chin and invoking Jimmy Hill). So I'm figuring I'll bleach it (or rather, ask Lilly if she'll bleach it for me. I'd be dangerous with bleach).

Other news? Sadly, Rob Heaton of New Model Army has died at the awfully young age of 43 of a brain tumour. NMA have long been one of my favourite bands, and have got me through many a bad patch with an arm-wavy "hoy!" of rightoeus indignation. Very sad news.

Jesus. It's still dark. Very dark. Oh well, it's good practice for Reykjavik, I suppose, where I'm going in December (gotta get some mad Christmas presents while I'm there. No-one does Christmas quite as mad as Iceland).

Counting down the days (two) to Nick Cave at the Brixton Academy- so far the reviews have been awesome. Bring it on!

Fuck

2004-11-03T04:43:00.000-08:00

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

And so it begins...

2004-11-03T00:38:00.000-08:00

Just posting this to wish the USA the best of luck... I hope you have a fair election, I hope voices are heard, and I hope that monkey-faced fucker gets kicked out his murderous ass.

That is all.

Running out of relatives

2004-10-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

My granddad also died today. I just found out.

Today was a bit shit, really.

John Peel is dead

2004-10-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

There's not really a lot to say. Other than "shit".

A Small Victory

2004-10-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

I figure if anything deserves a blog entry, it's this...

I just spent an entire day without drinking a single millilitre of alcohol.

That may not sound like that much of an achievement, but it's the first time I've managed it in nearly a year, and last time I had the shakes something awful. his is the reason why once a week I go and st in a chair and talk about booze for an hour. The things I've learnt from counselling so far-
1)- I have problems expressing emotions.
2)- I miss my dog.
3)- I'd really raher my dad was sill alive.
4)- I drink too much.
Well, whoop-de-fuckin'-doo. Actually that's a little harsh- they're not supposed to teach me stuff, but listen to what I say. Or don't say. Or whatever. And I've got to admit, the ritual aspect of it- the regulated, once-a-week routineness of it all- does help me get a lot more of a handle on tings than would otherwise be possible. I can break time up into hand week-sized chunks so I can tell how much I've been drinking and actually have something to measure it against.
So yeah... I'll no doubt have a beer in the morning after work, but still, I'm feeling pretty good about this one tiny achievement.

Anyway, why the fuck are you reading this bollocks when the Godlike William Gibson's come out of blogging retirement?

Fucking literary genii. Always have to go one better than the rest of us, don't they?

I just saw my favourite band by mistake

2004-10-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Whoah. So this friend of mine, right, calls me a few days ago to say he has a spare ticket for Primal Scream and Spiritualized at Brixton, and was I interested?

You bet your ass I was. Fuck, I didn't even know they were playing. And what a double-header!

So yeah. Turns out it was a Palestine benefit (even better- it's for a good cause and all that) and at the last minute they'd added to the bill...

...NICK FUCKING CAVE!!! Literally a minute or less after we got in, Mr Cave comes on with a stripped-down Bad Seeds (Ellis, Sclavunos and Casey) and sits down at a grand piano and plays a fucking killer set!

Man, there'll be a full review on Freq just as soon as I can get my head round the fact that it actually happened!

After that, Spiritualized and the Primals were merely excellent. But what a night!

Pointless reasons to live

2004-10-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

So here I am, sitting at work, bored shitless and wondering what to do, when it hits me- "Aha! Haven't updated that blog in a while!" Well, largely it's been because I haven't felt like it... I still miss Biscuits like fuck, especially when I get home fromm work in the mornings, or get out of bed (if I'm not working) and start wondering "what exactly is first thing in the morning FOR now?", but, y'know, life goes on.

Tonight's news is a mixture of the dull (too dull to repeat) and the depressing (the decapitation of Ken Bigley), livened only by the wonderful headline in one of the tabloids (I forget which)- "Is it a dog? Is it a pig? Debbie does Dobbin!" which is comedy gold, and the fact that Kerry appears to have done better than Bush again in tonight's debate. (I only caught a couple of minutes, so it's hard to say).

So I've been filling my time with... well, with buying stuff. Gradually the money I had aside to fix my car is dwindling as the shops keep tempting me with wondrous STUFF. Records, comics... and PC games. Rome: Total War is finally out, and every bit as good as I'd been hoping.

Music-wise, it really doesn't get much better than this. The new Nick Cave is the best thing he's done in years- totally fucking awesome, a fantastic way to come back after losing Blixa. What else? Ah. Smile. Brian Wilson's legendary "lost" Beach Boys album, finally out in all its feelgood harmonic glory. God, I love this album. Probably the nicest piece of music I own (except maybe the music from Bagpuss).
The new Marianne Faithfull, "After The Poison", with music mostly written by PJ Harvey and the Bad Seeds (the Bad Seeds tracks being the best, obviously, cos they're not from Yeovil) is also gorgeous, as is Tom Waits' "Real Gone", which sounds most of all like Bone Machine, which was the first TW I ever really got into, so it's kind of cool. Shame the seventy quid (SEVENTY QUID!!!) tickets for his show sold out within nanoseconds, though.

Seeing as how it's Brian Blessed's birthday, feel I should share
this with you. 67, don't you know.

Happy Brian Blessed's birthday, one and all.

Proper interesting stuff to follow. Hang on in there. I'm just getting back on the bike.

The God of Sleep has made His house

2004-09-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

Apologies in advance for the maudlin and depressing tone of this post.

I'm not going to go into the details... maybe later, if anyone actually WANTS to read them.

My dog, Biscuits, the best dog in the world and my best friend on the face of the whole fucking planet died at about 1:30 AM on Thursday. She took sick suddenly on Wednesday... by about midnight I was looking for emergency vets; the nearest was in fucking Hendon. Cue panicked phoning of people with cars, trying to find cab places that would take dogs, let alone sick dogs that were bleeding profusely. Eventually I decided to let her stay calm and sleep... she was due to see the vet in the morning anyway, and she would have just freaked out if we'd got her in a car.

I woke up twenty minutes later to find her dead. (If we'd tried to get her to Hendon, we'd still not even have been halfway, so that's kind of a blessing). She looked comfortable, calm- one tooth showing, the way she usually slept. I don't think she felt anything. I fucking hope not, anyway.

I lay with my arms around her until the morning, sleeping very little and feeling her grow colder and colder. Even then I didn't want to leave her, and refused to until there were people around.

This is incoherent and stuff, I know. I couldn't have posted this two days ago. I was having problems actually TELLING people what had happened. It hurts like fuck. I miss her so much.

She's being cremated wrapped in a pirate flag, and the ashes buried in the local cemetery (her favourite place). I've been trying to move house without going into it (tricky at the best of times... however I have wonderful friends)- I went back into my old bedroom (where she died) to pick up some CDs on Thursday afternoon- that was one of the worst ideas I've ever had.

Sorry. Rambling. I'm currently sat in my nice new flat, and can't help getting horribly upset by all the things that I liked about it purely because Biscuits would like them.

I get up in the morning... usually the first thing is "take Biscuits for a walk". Now I'm waking up and thinking "what the fuck am I supposed to do now?"

My music recommendation for right now is Current 93's "Sleep Has His House". I want to play it while I bury her ashes.

Ahh... whoever said grief made for good writing was full of shit.

Brighter now...

2004-08-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

Feeling a lot better after that little rant. Phew.

Well, I finally managed to rearrange my training day, and it was incredibly dull. However, we get paid for them, and I just kept thinking to myself about how Half-Life 2's coming out soon, and how those pesky top-end graphics cards don't just buy themselves, y'know...

Went to Carnesky's Ghost Train on Saturday night... if you've not heard of it, imagine a ghost train using proper old-fashioned Victorian stage magic (smoke and mirrors, all that) instead of rubber bats and funny teeth, with live performers as all the "exhibits", loosely based on the concept of exile and Eastern Europe. Not particularly frightening, but pretty fucking mental all the same. And the final illusion really was quite splendid (I won't tell you what it is, because that'd spoil it). All in a very burlesque style (or Burless-Q, as I have now decided it shall be pronounced) and all for a fiver. It lasts about ten minutes and is on for another month or so. I recommend it.

Other than that, I've been going for the final push on Manhunt- I think I'm near the end, and I want to finish it. Even if only because the Daily Mail would rather I didn't play it at all.

Currently I'm mourning the end of Seaguy (for now... at least I hope so) but really enjoying Joss "Buffy" Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men. Okay, so he's basically turned Kitty into Willow and Beast into Xander, but there was never that big a difference anyway. Three issues in, I think I can safely say it's very good. Not enjoying it quite as much as Morrison's New X-Men, but it's not far off, and anyhoo YMMV.

Argh. Well, I guess this is what blogs are for.

2004-07-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

No point reading this, really... I'm just being pissed off about stuff and needing to vent.

Hokay. The company I work for's been bought by another one. Fine. The new company wants us to go in once a fortnight (on our week off) for a whole day for training. Fuck it. We get paid for it, fuck it, I'll do it.

I'm scheduled for Thursdays. Thursdays I go for alcohol counselling. Therefore I can't do Thursdays. Straightforward enough, yeah?

So... I phone their guy in charge of training. Repeatedly. Every two fucking hours, having been told by our PR manager that he's always a reasonable man.

Every two hours, I leave my mobile number. "He'll be back in a minute... I'll get him to call you". "It's just, kind of... I'm on nights this week, as I guess he must know, so the sooner the better"...

FINALLY "Oh, he's just gone for lunch". WAS HE AT HIS DESK AT ALL? DID YOU GIVE HIM THE MESSAGE? Oh, of course that's a yes.

Look, it's awkward enough me trying to figure out how to tell a new employer that I have a drink problem (hence not being able to do Thursdays).

"He could call you back this afternoon..." LOOK! HAVE YOU LISTENED TO A FUCKING WORD I'VE SAID would have been a good thing to say. But I didn't. I just said "well, I'm going to bed very soon, because I have to work tonight. I work on the night shift you know. You know."

What nobody in positions of power at my current work seems to understand is that I don't go to the counselling sessions for a laugh. In fact, I hate having to go. I just know that they're good for me, and I'm trying to sort my fucking life out, and a job's just a fucking job, and it took me SIX FUCKING MONTHS to get a place on the counselling thingummy (it's Hackney... I guess there's a lot of demand). Telling me "not to worry about it" is quite possibly the most crass, stupid and downright insensitive thing I've heard since, at age 14, I phoned a friend to tell him I wouldn't be able to play Dungeons and fucking Dragons that Wednesday because my dad had just died and his funeral was that afternoon. His response: "Couldn't you make an excuse?"

Fuck 'em. Fuck the fucking lot of 'em. I'm trying my fucking hardest to sort my shit out, and... oh, fuck it. No point rambling on. I'll probably delete this post with hindsight anyway. It just kind of saved me yelling it all down the phone at somebody.

But really... if it came to a decision between my job and my sanity/relationships... I know which'd win. And it wouldn't even be a close one.

Lip Up, Fatty!!!

2004-07-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm almost sorry to write this, cos it appears I was on 23 posts. But ditching this and starting a new blog every 23 posts seems a bit much just for numerical integrity, so I'll carry on. 666'll turn up sooner or later...

Yay! I finally got out of the house! And went away and stuff! I've just come back from Bug Jam (yes, another VW festival), and am sunburnt to fuck and absolutely exhausted but happy (in fact, after a weekend of fun like that I'm not even pissed off that Coil are playing WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW and I can't afford it- something I would usually greet with an overwhelming sense of despair. Or at the very least dismay). That was exactly what I needed- a few days away with some friends, some beer and some grass. A good time was had by all. And for the most part it was bloody nice weather, too. And Bad Manners played and were excellent. There was much lipping up of Fatty.

This is a short post, because I'm knackered. There was gonna be some stuff about Spiderman and The Sweeney, but I can't be arsed. If I can remember it later (and still think it's funny) I'll post it.

Tired yet happy

2004-07-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

That was a stroke of luck. Well, almost a disaster!

Finished work for the week this morning (yay)! Went to the pub. Spent far too long in the pub, considering I was supposed to be going home and sleeping. Got home around 6:30, and got a call from a mate asking if I was still going to Skinny Puppy tonight. "But surely it's tomorrow?" I responded. But no. It was tonight, and had he phoned ten minutes later I could well have been asleep.

And FUCKING HELL, were they good or what? Whoah. "Worlock", "Tin Omen", "VX Gas Attack"... all rocked totally. Ogre is da MAN!!!

Tired now.

Oh bugger...

2004-07-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

...seems I may also have been paying twice as much council tax as I should have been... looks like they just sent me and my flatmate individual bills for the whole lot. Which means the last few months have seen me pay arrears for twice as many people as I should. Which is (as many as I could afford to) +2. And I can't get it back from them... 'tis their dosh, after all... just means my flatmate now owes me an extra couple of grand of imaginary money which I'll never see.
Fuck.
If I knew that was gonna happen, I'd have given the difference to the landlord... either way I'd lose out, but he'd phone me up less...
ARGH.
Oh well, read in the paper last night that people are now selling peyote legally on the mushroom stalls in Camden... that makes me HAPPY, DAMMIT!!! Maybe now I'll finally meet my Spirit Badger...

Aw shit...

2004-07-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

Got up this evening at 10 to go to work... what do I find ON MY FUCKING BEDSIDE TABLE... my sodding passport.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

It's been a while...

2004-07-10T04:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah, haven't updated for a while. Largely because, having resigned myself to staying in for the last few days of my holiday (what with every attempt I've made to escape the city having been doomed to failure), I then discovered my computer had decided to fuck up.

However... it seems to be working better now (and even when it wasn't, I could still play Vice City for some reason, so I did. A lot) so here I am.

Hmm... just waiting for the rain to ease off so I can go into Camden and get myself a ticket for Skinny Puppy... also to see if I can find the new KMFDM album anywhere. I saw them the other night, and they were wicked, despite me not having heard any of their stuff for at least ten years. Although they were not quite as good as the support, Panic DHH, Digital Hardcore's new sonic monster. (I can't go into too much detail as I'm reviewing it for Freq, who would be kind of pissed-off if I wasted all my good lines here. Suffice it to say, they rocked. With fists of STEEL!!!)

Ah, torrential downpours... hopefully the streets of Camden will be less full of wankers, tossers and The Young. (On the downside, the pubs'll probably be full, which might suck somewhat).

Still getting hassled by plaintive calls from the landlord... but seeing as how I gave Hackney Council THIRTEEN HUNDRED FUCKING QUID yesterday to stop them taking me to court, I'm skint (just had to borrow the money for the Skinny Puppy ticket, but hey, I'm not missing that for anything...)

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1989...

2004-07-01T03:14:00.000-07:00

The last few days have seen me feeling fifteen years younger... or at least, listening to my favourite bands from when I was fifteen years younger. Who'd have thunk it? New albums from Ministry, Skinny Puppy and The Cure... and they're all excellent!

The Ministry album in particular (Houses of the Mole) is currently proving very therapeutic- I've been really depressed recently (coming off anti-depressants'll do that for ya, funnily enough), but it's helping me turn that into righteous RAGE!!! Which is much more fun.

Turns out my mum was more fucked up by the car accident than she'd been letting on... I should have known she'd downplay it, but I guess it's probably in my DNA to always assume that my mother speaks the literal truth. (Well, yeah, "cuts and bruises" was the literal truth, I guess, but now she's saying stuff like "well, I'm still having problems walking"...) Trying to organise to go and see her when she gets home (she's currently staying at her brother's place while she recovers) but feeling it'll be difficult to convince her not to actually DO anything and let me look after her...

Watched a great DVD last night which I've been wanting to see since it was on TV a few years ago and I missed it. "Wisconsin Death Trip" is basically a documentary about a whole bunch of weird shit (murders, suicides, murder/suicides, hauntings, insanity, bizarrely obsessive acts of vandalism etc) which plagued a town in Wisconsin in the 1890s. Very understated, but very affecting, and moving in parts- the tale of the once-famous opera singer reduced to living on cattle feed with only her son and "the voices" for company- was especially sad.

Also watched a shit one- well, it was my own fault, I bought it for a couple of quid in a sale purely BECAUSE it'd be shit- "Texas Chainsaw Massacre- The Next Generation" (well, you just know from the title, don't you...) other than the fact that a couple of scenes are direct carbon copies of TCM, I'd be hard pressed to imagine anyone involved in this ever having watched the original classic. Not as funny as I'd expected, either... some bits were laugh-out-loud BAD, of course, but overall it was actually a fairly depressing watch. However, YMMV.

On a brighter note, I had my long-delayed (and long-dreaded) meeting with my landlord last night- and it wasn't so bad (well, apart from the bits where he kept reminding me that I'm also legally liable for my flatmate's £3,600 rent arrears, but I already knew that)- I spent about twenty minutes trying to leave while he gave me a very sincere talk about how myself and the wife should be looking at buying a place rather than renting one, how he'd much rather we didn't move out at all, and how, despite aforementioned flatmate debts, I was one of his favourite tenants. Probably bullshit, but nice to hear nonetheless.

Well, looks like somebody may have...

2004-06-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

...rid me of these turbulent patriots, I mean. Apparently the Portuguese are the nation to whom I'll be raising a glass this afternoon.

Blah blah blah hungover again blah blah blah stressed-out at home... I was planning to go to Amsterdam next week, but that could all go tits-up if (as has happened so far) I can't find my bastarding passport. Oh, and my landlord's just remembered that I'm legally liable for my flatmate's debts (two and a half grand and counting). Happy days.

Oh well.

Finally got round to watching "Ichi The Killer" last night- on the strength of the three movies of his I've seen ("Audition", "The Happiness of the Katakuris" and now this) Takashi Miike is an evil genius. And it's payday today, so... methinks getting the DVD drive on my PC to work again may not have been such a hot idea.

Also found this site of anti-war Flash games which is well worth a look.

Musically... well, on the recommendation of many others, and in spite of an awful single, I bought the new Morrissey album... and it's not bad. There's a couple of REAL stinkers on there, but a couple (like "First of the Gang to Die") where the lyrics actually sound like they were written by Morrissey. Yeah, the Morrissey you remember.

On a totally different note, the Pink Grease album "This Is For Real" is finally out... and boy, does it rock. Yeah, it's stupid, yeah, it's cheesy, but BOY, DOES IT ROCK. Absolutely fucking glam-tastic. (Check out the singles "Fever" and "The Pink G.R.E.A.S.E." if you want- but the album seems to be in some sort of special offer- I picked it up for eight quid on the day of release).

And I'm in the process of rediscovering (after losing the CD for a couple of months) the first Firewater album, "Get Off The Cross, We Need The Wood For The Fire". The more I listen to this band, the more I become convinced they're the best band ever. Imagine Tom Waits and Foetus hooking up to play klezmer drinking songs. Then double it.

NOT being at work sucks (really)

2004-06-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is lazy.

This is REALLY fucking lazy.

Actually, no, more "apathetic" in a "lost the will to live" kind of way.

This entry is basically the same as the rant I just posted on Barbelith. I feel the need to keep some sort of momentum going, having started a blog after meaning to for so long, but right now am finding it hard to work up the enthusiasm to do anything. So (if, indeed, anyone at all is reading this, and for many reasons it may be good if no fucker is) if you've already read the following then apologies for boring you with it twice.

Here we go:

The world's gone topsy-turvy. Here I was, looking forward to having THREE- count 'em, THREE- weeks off in a row. It's what I've been living for for the past couple of months.

And now here it is, and it sucks.

Basically, I had it all set up as some sort of Holy Grail in my head- I'd have the house to myself, I'd be able to get some kick-ass writing done, myself and mono'd go see my mum (well, that bit's still happening, but Mum's just been in a nasty car accident- she's okay and stuff, thank fuck, but it probably won't be the jubilatory affair I was looking forward to)...

Then my flatmate loses her job. And is told by the landlord that when me and mono move out, he's kicking EVERYONE out (to be fair, flatmate DOES owe him about 2 grand, and mono and I are the only tenants who DO pay their rent and stuff, so I can kind of see his point)... yes, she's one of my best friends in the world, and YES, it does suck, and yes, I'll do my best to help her... but if she's just gonna get shitfaced and WORRY about stuff and then yell at me whenever I try to offer advice, then what the fuck can I do?

But my house is now not only NOT EMPTY, it's a fucking miserable place to be. I'm actually wishing I was at work right now, and that's NEVER a good thing. I even ended up getting snarky at mono this afternoon WHILE she was in the process of lending me money. (For which I have duly apologised, but it still sucks.)

First day of the holidays and it sucks.

And the one thing that was cool- I get to spend more time with my little dog. As of half an hour ago, some cunt has started to let off fireworks over the street. Therefore little dog is absolutely terrified.

I think I need to fuck off and go camping somewhere even I've never heard of for a few days (with the dog, of course). Or I WILL go mad.

Oh well... my mobile got cut off this morning. Which, believe it or not, is a GOOD thing... I'm actually dreading the day (next week) when I can get reconnected, cos I fucking hate it when the bastard rings...

Grr. Sorry. Just had to vent, or I'd start feeling the need to go kill a bunch of people in a shopping centre.

Seaguy (SPOILER ALERT!!!)

2004-06-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

I was gonna actually post some stuff about my current situation (cos believe me, either it deserves a rant or I need to vent. Definitely one of the two) but it'll have to wait.

BECAUSE...

I just decided to cheer myself up by going to the shops to buy Seaguy (Vertigo comics, Grant Morrison/Cameron Stewart) issue 2.

And it made me cry like a fucking baby girl on the bus in front of tons of people.

Chubby da fuckin' Choona, man... if there was ever a character in comics I would have thought I could never care about, 'twas he. But within three pages of the first issue, I came to realise he rocked a snow leopard's ass.

I never thought I'd hear (or read) myself say (or type) this... but I'm wishing for a good ol'-fashioned comix-style resurrection.

Just an update. And nowt else, really

2004-06-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

Suddenly occurred to me that this hasn't been updated in several days (I'm still waiting to get photos from the VW thing before I post just how much fun I had, so that'll have to come later)...

My home situation has become MAD. And I mean MADDER THAN EVER.

Basically, my landlord (who I told yesterday that myself and my wife were moving out) only trusts ME. Not my flatmates. So when Bagpuss moves out... all his friends get evicted. Not entirely unpredictable, but a headfuck nonetheless. Didn't go down well with the flatmates, basically. Arse.

Having said that, this morning rocked, cos I figured out how to get my DVD drive working again, and watched the last three episodes of "The Kingdom". Which now means I will actually appreciate the DVDRs of the second series that I was sent by one of the Barbelith posse a week ago (you have no idea how frustrating it is having stuff that you CAN'T GET but not being able to watch the stuff that you ACTUALLY OWN BUT CAN'T PLAY AND NEED TO SEE FIRST... actually, you probably do. But hey, this was in parentheses, so you're free to ignore it).

Basically, this is a stopgap post so I don't forget I'm actually doing this.

In case you ain't seen this yet, this is quite funny.

Will nobody rid me of these turbulent patriots?

2004-06-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm fucked now.
I've had a wicked weekend at the VW festival, which I shall detail later. And I've had a fairly fun evening since.
But apparently there's been some sort of sporting event on today. Which (through some kind of logic I don't get) means the streets are packed with wankers with England flags painted on their faces and stuff. Shouting. Telling them to fuck off doesn't seem to go down too well either.
And I think I left my tobacco in the pub.
Arse.

I shall explain all later. For now I shall just drink beer and listen to Firewater. For they make all things better.

I never thought grocery shopping could be such fun...

2004-06-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

After alcohol counselling today I embarked upon a mission of groceries. (Well, okay, I had a couple of beers and played Unreal II for a while, but, y'know...)

For about fifteen quid I've now outfitted myself with all manner of "cookable at campsite" foods to the extent that I'll probably have plenty left to eat at work next week.

And lots of crisps.

And a new tent (although that didn't fall within the fifteen quid, funnily enough).

And a couple of hours in the pub.

I'm now busily recording my favourite albums so they can be played on tape (far less battery-consuming than CD, and far less "totally above my head" than minidiscs or any of this newfangled malarkey). Which means that right now, I'm totally grooving on the last Bobby Conn album, "The Homeland". I'd forgotten just how wicked it was... if you've never heard Bobby Conn, I recommend you sort it out now. Glamfuckingtastic. (And in a good way).

Ah, there's something about buying groceries for a holiday that is just SO much less tedious than buying them normally...

Ah, the heat is in tents (...I'll get me coat)

2004-06-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

Bugger! Two days to go before I go camping, and I can't find my bastarding tent! I'm pretty sure I lent it to someone, but I have no idea who. Arse. Now I'll have to buy a new one, cutting severely into my drink'n'drugs money for the weekend. Oh well.

Just got emailed this flash game by my friend Merrick. The game's not too wonderful, but the concept is sheer genius. Give it a go.

Hey! I just checked the "preview" screen and I've got links sorted! Finally!

Now, what to do today? There's a Throbbing Gristle article to finish writing, various bits of paperwork to do (proving ID and stuff for bank accounts and all that malarkey), a landlord to go and see (we haven't told HIM we're moving out yet... it's a couple of months away, I know, but I want him to help us find somewhere).

But the SUN is SHINING! Oh yes. It's nice out again, and it's been such a rare occurrence recently it seems a shame to miss it.

What shall I do?

Probably play computer games and get drunk again, I'm guessing. But it'd be nice to be outside...

What a lovely day!

2004-06-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

It is indeed a gorgeous day. I woke up early(ish) cos of this whole Transit of Venus thing (which I was thinking of watching from this place near Bond Street that's got all the viewing equipment set up and everything), but have since decided that it's far too hot to sit on a bus all the way there. I went into Camden yesterday (about 25 minutes) and by the time I got there there was literally sweat dripping off me in huge gouts. (Sorry, am I oversharing?)

And I'm off work for a week! And this weeked is VWoodstock, a Woodstock-themed VW Beetle festival, so if the weather holds out, it should rock quite substantially.

Currently I'm really into the Franz Ferdinand album- I don't listen to music radio or watch TV, so all I knew about them was that no fucker would shut up about them. I eventually borrowed a copy off a friend at work, and it's awesome. (I get the feeling I'll probably get sick of it at some stage, though). Kind of like Magazine, although (not sure if it's the guy's accent or lyrics) there's a definite Half Man Half Biscuit vibe to a couple of the tracks (especially the bit about Terry Wogan in "Dark of the Matinee").

That, Tom Waits and (of course) the entire Firewater back catalogue are the sounds currently rocking Planet Stoat.

Reading-wise, I've just started David Peace's "GB84"... it's the Miner's Strike written as a noir crime novel, much in the style of his Red Riding Quartet (which dealt largely with the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper). I thoroughly recommend him- although, like Iain Sinclair, you do have to put the effort in. Very rewarding, however.

And of course, "SeaGuy", the new Grant Morrison/Cameron Stewart comic. The art's lovely, the story's one of the best things Morrison's done in years (and that's saying something, considering how much I loved "The Filth"... laugh-out-loud funny, but with a kind of wistful sadness... reminds me of the first time I read deMatteis' "Moonshadow", although MUCH less sickly and cloying), and I'm already on my second copy, having lost the first. Total re-read value, and I can't fucking wait for issue #2. Apparently it's planned as three 3-issue miniseries, so if you're at all interested, don't wait for the trade, BUY THE COMICS so the second and third will have more chance of seeing the light of day.

And it has carnivorous balloon animals.

I just hope he kept the receipt...

2004-06-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

Whoah, that was funny. We just had a meeting with the MD of the company that's just bought us out. During the meeting, a stray cat managed to get in through the window thus distracting everyone, and then one of my colleagues reacted badly to his medication and passed out through a floor-mounted fan. He was okay, but as you can imagine, it threw Mr New-MD-Robert-Kilroy-Silk lookalike completely off his stride.

The poor guy. I bet he's wondeing what he's just bought. I hope to Christ he kept his receipt.

More later (ie when I'm not at work and supposed to be, like, doing stuff.)

Oh, I think the bomb may have finally dropped at home... fuck it. It's done now, and for the best of all concerned, I think.

What a nice day

2004-05-30T18:12:00.000-07:00

That was indeed a very nice day. All sunny and stuff, and I've just got home from toasting a friend's birthday. This afternoon a bunch of us went out in celebration to make droney music under the railway arches on Hackney Marshes (good acoustics, y'see...). Guitars, a theremin, a couple of harmonicas, a cymbal, a weird droney squeezeboxy type thing, some form of horn, some Tibetan singing bowls and a small electric fan. It was cool.

Other than that I've been playing Vietcong- a pretty good game all told. Well, if you like Vietnam movies, that is.

And I got a Rudimentary Peni CD for about a fiver today as well. All in all, a good day. Tomorrow, however, I go back to work. Which sucks. But hey. It (almost) pays the bills!

Still waiting for the bomb to drop...

2004-05-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

...hmm... everything seems okay so far!

But I would say that.

I've been SHOPPING.

I've brought financial ruin down on my head, but I don't care! Because I have the new :wumpscut: album, "Bone Peeler" (which so far sounds exactly the same as all the old :wumpscut: albums, but with different tunes. Not necessarily a bad thing.), "How I Loved Her", the one Angels of Light album I'd been missing, the first two issues of Mark Millar's "Chosen", and the "Orbiter" and "The Witching Hour" trades. (Am I just overly sensitive and far too in love with the idea of space travel, or is it normal for "Orbiter" to make you cry?)

And, at the grand old age of 32, I have just bought my first Ramones T-shirt. Honestly, I only got my first Motorhead one a few years ago... what have I been doing with my life? How did I so spectacularly manage not to mis-spend my youth?

Ah well. Off out to meet friends for a nice evening of fags'n'booze. Possibly followed by going to see a band, if I can still walk/be arsed.

Good stuff happens too, though!

2004-05-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

I've been all of a mither worrying about the whole flatmate issue when I should really be basking in JOY! Yes, JOY!!!

For today I got my dog back!

She's been staying at my ex-girlfriend's house for the last week, which is ace, cos the ex has a wonderful garden and spoils Biscuits (the dog) like fuck! But... I've been missing my little dog. I keep wandering into my room drunk and talking to NO-ONE! NO-ONE!!! when I think I'm talking to the dog.

But yes!!!

Biscy is home, and all is right with the world!!!

That, and the fact I managed to buy "Bone Machine" and "Big Time" by Tom Waits, "I See Good Spirits And I See Bad Spirits" by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult AND "Junkyard" by the Birthday Party (one of the greatest albums ever recorded and, if I ever happen to write a Booker-prize winning novel, the home of "She's Hit", which would DEFINITELY be one of my Desert Island Discs...) for under thirty quid.

And little Biscy's home. Sometimes the shit that happens is good shit.

Light the blue touchpaper then retire...

2004-05-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hah. Just read yesterday's drunken entry. It was actually true. Though it seems (I hope to Christ) that the reality wasn't so bad.

BASICALLY, myself and my wife just told my flatmate (who is my best friend in the world other than my dog; but who is alos a manic depressive, is constantly suicidal, and is VERY paranoid) that we're moving out without her.

She seemed to take it quite well (but she's on Valium at the moment so...) but she did just come into my room in tears and say "we DO have to talk about this..." Of course we do. And we will.

There's no way I'm not gonna feel shit about this... even though I know it's exactly the right thing to do.

This probably seems like no big deal to anyone who reads this (if anyone was) but to me it feels like I just shot a puppy. Even though I knew it would have done some REALLY BAD STUFF otherwise.

I think we're still friends. I hope so.

God, ain't that typical?

2004-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

I have so much shit to worry and talk about right now, that I'm too drunk to actually articulate it.

Hmm.

By this time tomorrow, my relationship with my best friend will have been tested to the limit. And I hope it makes it.

Full explanation later.

Happier though- finally got round to buying "DOA" by Throbbing Gristle on CD today... always good.

And alcohol counselling was good too... what myself and my wife intend to do tomorrow is apparently a bloody good idea (and so say most of my friends... will explain later why I couldn't actually say what it is! NOT as sinister as it sounds, I swear)

I'm drunk now. I should probably say no more.

What a strange week it's been...

2004-05-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

...just culture-wise. I mean, on Monday I went to see the Burroughs/Waits/Wilson thing "The Black Rider". Truly amazing- the set was very German Expressionist- kind of made the whole thing feel like watching a musical "Cabinet of Dr Caligari". The cast were excellent (although Marianne Faithfull was a bit clunky on occasion, bless her) and now I've seen the show I can actually understand the album a lot better. Burroughs' script is fantastic- he somehow manages to wedge in a diatribe about Ernest Hemingway selling out into this German folk tale. There're also some nice (though totally expected, what with it being Uncle Bill) parallels between the magic bullets (given at a cost by the Devil) and addiction- all the more apposite when you remember how the story ends- Wilhelm inadvertently shoots dead his new wife.

Then last night, as mentioned, the mighty Guitar Wolf- and I don't think I've had so much basic down-to-earth inyerface FUN at a gig in a very long time.

Then this evening it was The Valkyrie. Also excellent- the modern staging seemed to work a bit better here than it did with The Rhinegold, and managed not to detract from the epic nature of the story. Brunnhilde singing as a huge projection of her face on a screen was really quite impressive- she had the most intense expression imaginable throughout, and seemed not to blink for minutes on end.

I'm thinking I should go to see something totally different again tomorrow- but I have alcohol counselling in the afternoon, then probably comic shopping. I have to check out just what Joss Whedon's done with the X-Men (hopefully out by now!)

And for the first time in ages I've done an entire day without booze! I'm quite proud of that; but VERY thirsty.

Hello you

2004-05-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

So. I've decided to start one of these blog thingies that all the hip kids seem to love. Who can tell how it'll turn out? Not me, that's for sure. I just thought it'd be nice to have somewhere to unleash the random stuff that goes through my head without getting punched for it.

I'm currently in the throes of a vicious hangover (the results of going to see the truly awesome Guitar Wolf last night) and am trying desperately to stay awake because I'm going to see the ENO perform Die Walkure in half an hour. Then I have to stay awake for five hours- I've been really looking forward to this so I don't want to miss any.

Ah, man, Guitar Wolf absolutely ruled. Like some crazy Japanese Ramones from space!!! Previously all I knew about them was the film Wild Zero, in which they fight zombies. That, and that my wife absolutely loves them (and was totally gutted that she missed the gig last night).

2004-05-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

Also just testing. And looking gimpy.

Keroseneoysterhellgo!!!

2004-05-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

Just testing, really. More to follow.