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ITEM: Life is pretty good, on the whole. Nothing much to complain about, and if I did complain I'd be a stone cold idiot. I'm healthy (apart from my bum knee and arthritic shoulder), I'm not poor, I'm loved, I have friends, and I have lots and lots of stuff to watch, read and listen to.
So, yeah, sorry and all that... but I'm pretty happy on the whole
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ITEM: Sometimes you get surprised by things. Actually, it happens quite a lot. That's the human capacity for assumption and comfort, I guess. Anyhow, I never thought I'd like Benidorm, an ITV sitcom of all things, but it was really very funny. The premise was a bit Duty Free for those of you that remember that far back (although you can buy it on DVD, for fuck's sake!), in that some English people go on holiday to Spain and hilarity ensues. But unlike the "Robert!", "Linda!", "Amy!" of DF, the set-ups were wider and occasionally surreal. Steve Pemberton from League Of Gentlemen looked for all the world like he'd been doing broad sitcom humour all his life, and he was well supported by an ensemble cast that also featured Martin Weedon from Nathan Barley and Johnny Vegas. You can probably still find it on UKNova or other torrent sites. And you should.
Surprise number 2 came at Urban Tiger, Northampton's premier (only) pole-dancing club. I'd never been to one before, despite having a healthy interest in naked females, so it was a surprise to find that I didn't really enjoy it. It just seemed, well, sleazy and boring. But not good sleazy. That may have been the biggest problem - Urban Tiger tries to be upmarket and without the sordidity and filth of what I imagined most skin joints to be, it was just sterile. The girls on stage looked disinterested, and were too thin for the most part. You also had to dodge those same thin girls desperate for you to pay them money for a private dance, and keep an eye out for the bouncers checking that you were behaving yourself. It was like a cross between a school trip and a Jehovah's Witness gauntlet, with added nudity of course. And I may be wrong, but I doubt that "China" and "Peaches" were these girls real names. Meh, too much to complain about, which goes against the grain, but I can honestly say that an slightly overweight girl dancing in Chicago's afterward was far more sexy than anything that Urban Tiger had to offer. Horses for courses, I suppose.
A couple of the boys I was with stayed in after we left and I saw one the next day. I asked him how long he'd stayed and he said that not long after we'd left he'd gone to the casino, where he'd won some money and bumped into an old friend. They then drove to Luton to a massage parlour where he get the works for £80.
Different worlds.
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ITEM: So they killed him. The greatest American hero, despite what William Katt would have you believe. I'm kind of a little bit upset, and disappointed, because he's a magnificent character and the Brubaker run had been awesome. I don't know where they're going with it, but I hope it's not too long. Although the thought of Frank Castle picking up the mask for a while is tantalising.
Yeah I'm a geek.
RIP.
Woohoo!
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ITEM: Music is still amazing. The new Wilco album arrived in my ears today and it's GLORIOUS. But it's by no means alone - just today I've heard great albums by Goldenboy, Autokat, LowStars, and Mr Hudson & The Library. They join some great stuff for what's looking like an amazing year already for music, with awesome albums from Cold War Kids, The Fray and Willy Mason already coming in my ears. I just need to get out and see some of these people live. I missed The Hold Steady through a mixture of circumstance and laziness, and Cold War Kids has sold out. I'm going to try and get to Midlake next month, but you know how that can be. Still, I did see The Bluetones, and they were great, even if I only went by accident. Man, I HEART aural pleasure.
Almost as much as a wank.
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ITEM: I saw some wrasslin' and it was mostly bad. Flippy, floppy Ring Of Honor crap, but with some tiny highlights. Those being, in no particular order:
Samoa Joe kicking Nigel McGuiness's face off
Samoa Joe cutting a great farewell promo
Samoa Joe making me feel like I'm in great shape
Some Japanese guys defeating enemies of wrestling and MAKING ME EXCITED
Skanky British women in the ring who I WOULD.
Colt Cabana. Period.
And that's it, pretty much everything else was crappy. Here is an exchange with Lanto Calrissian about the women's match on the card:
Me: Who's the heel here?
LC: They're both faces.
Me: That's retarded.
LC: Yeah, but that's how they're booked in Shimmer. They usually wouldn't fight each other.
Me: So why are they here?
LC: To showcase Shimmer.
Me: They're pretty crappy.
LC: In Shimmer they don't work this style.
Me: So why aren't they working Shimmer-style?
LC: This is a ROH show - they're working ROH-style.
Me: So if they're not working Shimmer-style, why can't they forget that they're both faces and one play heel?
LC: I. Don't. Know.
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ITEM: Man, I'm really geeky today.Current Mood:  chipper Current Music: Sky Blue Sky by Wilco |
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February 2007. That's such a futuristic date. Not February - we have one of those every year, after all - but 2007. Man, back in 1985, 2007 seemed, well, more than 22 years away. And what have we got to show for living in the future? No flying cars, no robots serving us food in pill form, and no culling of everyone over the age 30. Actually, that's a good thing. Unless there's a grandfather clause.
No, the future is pretty much the same as the past, because time moves so slowly. I'm sure I've written about this before, but we're all time machines in a way, just really, really slowly moving ones. But a human being can travel through time, collecting information as they go, and when they reach their destination, that information can be put to use. It's everyday life and a reason to keep your eyes and ears open I guess.
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So it's been a while. Nothing much to say about that except I've been busy. But not busy doing anything worth blogging about, and not miserable enough to blog about nothing. I've been watching football, playing football, listening to music, watching TV, reading magazines, comics, and books, and occasionally drinking myself stupid in cheesy nightclubs. Es mi vida.
I guess I sometimes wish I could be out there, in Krakow or San Jose, but I think I'd rather be here, with my stuff and my life. I've made some great new friends to replace the ones that ran off to foreign parts, and that's a good thing. Because if the guys come back, then I'll have more and more. I used to think you could have too many friends, but I think that was because I really did have too many friends.
But then I got down to two, which was really kinda one and a half, and that's certainly not too many. |
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So, yeah, I was all intending to update last Wednesday, what with it being my day off and all that, but a kitchen-sized spanner was thrown in the works. A kitchen-sized kitchen to be more precise. On Monday night I got a call to say that the new kitchen I'd been expecting to take 6 months to come was coming on Wednesday. Yeah, I know it's a bit staid to get excited about a new kitchen, but I like nice things, and the new kitchen is very nice indeed. But in between helping the kitchen fitter get things up and down stairs, locking myself out, and trying to sort out the huge mess that we'd somehow conspired to create, I never got around to doing much of anything else at all. Well, except watching some Major League Soccer, but a man's got to relax, right?
Anyway, a new kitchen. All beech doors and black worktops. Nice.
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2003 UB-313 now has an official name. Previously it had been known, unofficially, as Xena (yes, after the TV show) but, stuffily, they've ignored that and it's now called Eris. Its moon is called Disnomia. I realise that this is two entries in a row that have discussed planets but that's the way I roll.
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I've become a tiny bit attached to ending up in the Chicago Rock Cafe. It all started when I promised my friend Rachel that I'd go out with her to her usual haunts. This, strangely for an educated and sophisticated woman, included the Chicago Rock Cafe. I had a good time, probably due more to the company and the continental fighting lager than the surroundings, but an important bridge had been crossed.
Since then, I've been another couple of times, at the end of a night out with the lads from my football team. They're, politely and respectfully, townies, so we drink in town - so far I've broken my duck at The Goose On Two Streets, Balloon Bar, Bar:[me], Revolution, and made rare visits to Edwards and Lloyds. I think I'm becoming one of them. So much so that, at the end of the night, when Chicago's is mentioned as a possible destination, I find no reason not to. Indeed, I'm loving it. It's half not caring about cool, and half sociologically-derived entertainment, I guess. I can dance to cheesy songs, and watch the old and desperate try to find sexual and/or romantic union with other old and desperate people.
So, yeah, I'm out and proud. Chicago is my kind of town if all of its cafes are rock....
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There's another RIMup on the horizon, this time in Glasgow in November. It's an early birthday party for Kenny, and a logistical nightmare. I never realised how far Scotland was. It's, like, hundreds of miles away. The plan right now is to drive, collecting Mikey and picking up Lister & Bobbs in Warrington along the way. Six hours, with music and chat. I like the idea. Bobbs & Lister are in, but Mikey's dragging his heels. Do it, Mikey, do it...
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My new football team, Spinney Hill Wanderers, play their third game of the season tomorrow. We're looking for our first win. We lost our first game 9-0 (though we're pretty convinced it was only 8), and followed that up with a 6-1 reverse on the worst pitch I've ever played on in over 500 games of football. The second-half last week was much better, though, and it looks like the lads are learning and listening, at least a little. It's tough, considering we're a new team and half the side have never played adult football before, but they're a great bunch and we can have fun losing as well, I'm sure. The last time I played, 6 years ago, I was one of the lesser-talented players in a very good team. Now, as captain, they're looking to me to provide inspiration and I'm trying, but it's hard not to get frustrated at the quality around me. I guess it must be like old pros that drift down the divisions (or would be if that happened anymore in this age of millionaires not needing to play beyond 30). Add to that me not being terribly fit still and it's going to be a long, hard season...
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Not for the Villa, though, who've gotten off to a great start. A new manager, a billionaire owner, and players who look like the class acts we always knew they were. That lot across town must be sick as pigs. Okay, they're top of the Fizzy Pop league but we look like we're finally in a position to capitalise on our good fortune. It would be very Villa if we didn't, of course, but I have a good feeling about how this one's going to turn out.
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I've become a Wikipedian. It started, as it probably does with most people, when I noticed something that needed correcting on the Villa page, and has snowballed from there. I'm trying to fill in as much information as I can about non-FIFA football, as well as keep the Villa page tidy and up to date. It's fun but frustrating, especially when other people - and they're mostly anonymous so you can't even talk to them about it - change entries for spurious reasons. Still, that's Wikipedia, I guess.
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Music rocks my world: I'm From Barcelona, the new Lemonheads album (album of the year, with a bullet), Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, The Knife, Dashboard Confessional (so emo), and The Killers' new Meatloaf/Springsteen hybrid. Love itCurrent Mood: good Current Music: The Lemonheads, by The Lemonheads (Vagrant) |
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Farewell, then, Pluto.
There's only eight planets, now. Pluto lost its battle to remain amongst the elite today when a last minute compromise (which would have increased the number of planets to 12) failed, and it is now designated a "dwarf planet". I've never been to Pluto, nor do I ever imagine I will go there, but it's sad to see it go. It used to go, Mercury - Venus - Earth - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto, but now the solar system stops at Neptune. Still, the compromise would have seen a Mercury - Venus - Earth - Mars - Ceres - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto - Charon - UB313 (catchy name, but also unofficially called Xena) line-up. Now, despite that allowing for Charon (previously thought to a moon) and Pluto to become the solar system's first twin planets, it was not to be.
What does it matter? Not much, I guess, but still.
I don't like change.
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59 Varieties Of Cock
Heinz are cunts of the first order. The bought the HP sauce factory in Birmingham, which was - and still is - profitable. They ten decide to move the production of HP sauce to the continent, to another of their factories that isn't profitable, in order to make it profitable. Confused? I'm not. It's cuntery on a massive scale, and I URGE YOU to boycott all Heinz products forthwith. |
| » 160806: Levantamos Cantidades Pequeñas de Infierno de la Bobbins |
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So, um yeah, the third annual DRINK YOURSELF YOUNG FESTIVAL at Bobbins's house kinda coincided with Ring Of Honor coming to Liverpool. How could we, veterans of such crappy wrestling shows as TWC:IC and UU, turn down such an opportunity for fun? And beers.
The first year I drove up to the Wirral I had Stereo Mike and AManCalledMikey with me. Last year it was just me and Mikey. This year I made the drive alone. Is it me? I usually smell on the way home - an odd mixture of no sleep skin, beer-soaked flesh and grunting laughter sweats - but I'm fresh, fresh, fresh on the way up. I can only put it down to both of those fine men finally getting lives. Also, hating wrestling now. Ehhh.
Three hours in a car on your own is a long time. Fortunately I had great music. The new Sean Lennon album was UNDERWHELMING. Too Beatles-y, the production all flat, but if you like that kind of thing it's still a good album. Just don't expect Into The Sun part two. Clayhill are all kinds of awesome, and if the album I was listening to hadn't come out in 2003 it would be my album of the year. As it is, there's a new one out soon. The latest Lou Thesz Press comp rocked me and socked me, and I glided into the Wirral to the glorious sounds of Sufjan Stevens's latest, The Avalanche. Music fucking rocks.
Kenny and Lister were already there when I arrived. I was struck by the harshness of the house - it was vibrant and messy before - since they're trying to sell it and only Bobbins and Holz live there now. But the big, comfortable sofas and widescreen TV remained. Nice. They'd just finished watching Big Brother and were about to witness the abortion that is The Friday Night Project but I saved the day with a bootleg of Nacho Libre.
Now let me say this: bootlegging is obviously immoral and illegal. It means the film industry has less fat milk to pass through its swollen teats to its shareholders and overpaid actors. Oh, and it funds terrorism. But fuck, it's sweet. I paid £0 for this film. Actually, I paid about 17p for the disc and probably about 3p for the electric. That's 20p, roughly what the one-legged infants in the far east get paid per week to make DVDs for the milk-fat dumb fucks in Hollywood.
And!
The inferior quality of this particular bootleg meant it looked and sounded EXACTLY like a Santo film. I've seen the trailer on TV and it looks glossy and perfect. That is NOT the way to see this film. So, yeah, all Santofied and illegal, Nacho Libre fucking rocks cock. And if the 20p I paid doesn't go to an orphan in Jakarta, who cares? I hate orphans. I hate all the orphans in the world.
Kenny then decided to lift the mood by putting on the Von Erichs DVD. As depressing as the death of 5 (of 6) sons and a father is, the circumstances of those deaths and utter carniness of their lives made it a fun watch. Never depressing, maybe because time and geography means that the Von Erichs never meant much to us. I can someone from 1975 really, really crying about it, but it was a great excuse to watch some classic wrestling and carny goofiness. Gary Hart has one tooth in his head. Chris Adams spoke from beyond the grave. And Kevin Von Erich wandered round a derelict building rambling like a grampa bum to his bum grandkids. Awesome. I now want similar documentaries on the Funks, the Armstrongs and the Guerreros. Now.
Robot Chicken saw us into the early hours of Saturday morning and I gave into beer and PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION and passed away into horrible drunken slumber...
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As is the way with such things, I woke about 7 million times, looked at my 'phone and decided it was too early to get up. Last year I gave in, got up at 8 and ended up cleaning the kitchen for an hour before forcing everybody else to wake up. This year it was 10 o'clock before my full bladder finally made me emerge from beneath my veteran sleeping bag, and found Kenny & Bobbs already up. John, as is his wont, was still sleeping on the AIRBED OF DOOM~!, oblivious to everything, fidodido in the middle of the living room.
The rest of the "morning" was all Associated Dairies for a breakfast of pasties and crisps, some cky and rock music, before the boys helped me like a bunch of teenage girls to pick which t-shirt I was going to wear. Death Cab For Cutie won, because an emo boy who works in a library, and we skipped away, eager for fun. Not so young, pretty fucking dumb, and with the cum lapping at our eyeballs.
Merseyside has these things called trains that work, and everything. They take you from one place to another, for a small amount of money. Unlike London they do this above ground, and with no buskers, foreigners or stairs. Also, but obviously more on this later, they have nightbuses which also work and cost small amounts of money. For a city full of thieving colonial backwash, it's pretty cool.
Bobbs printed off a map that showed that we had to walk roughly two inches from the train station to the venue. Not that we knew where the venue was, but our tickets helpfully said WEST DERBY ROAD, so we set off for West Derby, hopeful of stopping off in a pub or two on the way. Two inches later - two gruelling, sweaty inches chock full of boarded up pubs later - we found the venue. "Fucking shithole" would be doing it too much justice. Also, ten yards past the venue, there were two pubs. One, the Olympia Hotel, resembled one of those vars you see in mexican films. Wooden floors, about three stools, and two men wearing bandoliers sitting in the corner. The other, The Derby, had windows high up on the walls, so you couldn't see inside, and this - it was decided - gave it a slight advantage.
Now the great thing about UP NORTH is that beer is cheap. And The Derby didn't let us down on that score. It also had a pool table and a chalkboard sign advertising DARTS. So we bought beer and feared that we didn't look local. Of course we didn't - our collective two tattoos (both mine) weren't visible and we'd only lost four teeth between us. Still, they weren't unfriendly, just drunk in the middle of the afternoon. Pot, kettle.
Kenny decided we would play pool but I winced, knowing that they have funny rules in pubs like this, and it was probably Winner Stays On. Pssh, he says, so I put his money in the table and he racks them up. I'm just about to break when WHAT'S GOING ON, LADS? booms from the bar. IT'S WINNER STAYS ON, he says. Bobbs, Lister and I do the right thing and slink off back to the snug, leaving Kenny to play one of Everton's original hard men (he probably used to fight at the football but had gotten too old by the time it all kicked off in the 70s, leaving him bitter and unfulfilled) to school him in the art of local pool. As it turned out, Kenny gave him a run for his money and there was only a minor dispute over the rules, at which point the man brought the pub's RULES EXPERT out of the toilet, zipping up as he came, to clarify, and I ceded territory to him. So, yeah, Kenny lost, but our joshing and pub sport bravery meant that we were okay, and were challenged to a game of doubles by the R.E. and his even more drunk friend. We lost.
By this time a few Wrestling Fans™ had come into the pub and Kenny got hungry so we left before we were made for being the same kind of people as those wearing t-shirts with sweary slogans on. John asked the barmaid if there was a chippy nearby, and she said there was one just down the road. About two fucking inches down the road, if I'm any judge.
The boys bought food and I bought Lynx Click and Opal Fruits and pissed behind a purple wheelie bin. The RE and his EMDF wandered by, embraced us and told us that the Chinese down the road was the best they'd ever been to. Bobbs posited that, this being West Derby, it was probably the only one they'd ever been to. He's a cruel man. Kenny also pointed out that we'd not gotten their myspaces...
By now it was almost 6 o'clock and time, therefore, to go to the show.
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The Olympia is an old building, with lots of history. It's also, with the exception of the two pubs I spoke of, the only building still standing in its neighborhood. It would be perfect to use as a base for an ECW-like cult promotion. One that rewarded regular attendees with fun shows and cheap prices. Unfortunately, ROH-UK is not that promotion. [OPTIMISM]Not yet, anyway.[/OPTIMISM] Of course, for me, it'll never be, and so it's time for a STATEMENT OF INTENT.
I don't much like modern wrestling and really don't care for chant-along smartness with nonsense booking. Thank you.
I have really only one major thing to say, and a few minor things. That major thing, and let's get it out of the way, is that they were charging £3 FOR A BOTTLE OF BEER. That's, like, 1p for every 1ml. Which is £5 a pint. Now that's all cool in Scandinavia or titty bars but at run-down theatres in a shitty part of Liverpool, hosting a show which DEMANDS beer to get through it, it's FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, the money we spent on beer alone could have paid for the wage bill on one of Bagga's shows. Bah.
So, yeah, the show. There was some perfectly fine wrestling. And there was some fucking awful wrestling. And, get this, I don't think some of it was supposed to be awful. Colt Cabana was amazing. Even being in the ring with Spud couldn't dim his shining light. We had to ask who the fourth man in the opener was. It took the Irish guy in front three times before I heard Matt Sydal. I don't know if I was drunk, he couldn't speak, or if Matt Sydal is so instantly forgettable that I'd forgotten who he was as soon as I was told. Jonny was pretty good, too, but like that's news.
Davey Richards fought Claudio Castignioli. By now the Irish guy was getting tired of telling us who these people were.
Then Chris Hero appeared. Fuck, CZW has deep pockets. Flying their guy over to disrupt a ROH show ON FOREIGN SHORES. The dastards. He said some things. Then Colt Cabana, who lost in the opener, beat him up. Sucks to be Chris Hero.
Oh, I forgot. I amused myself in a way that 99% of everyone ever will think is stupid and idiotic. I care, honestly. There were lots and lots of people in ROH t-shirts. This being a ROH show, that wasn't unusual. So what happens when you go up to them and ask them, "What does ROH stand for?" Pretty much they say, "Ring Of Honor," and look at you all gone out. Some of them will then go onto explain what Ring Of Honor is. Others will say, "it's why we're all here tonight." One girl will claim there is no significance to the fact that her t-shirt is red while others are black. Hey, I laughed. Inside, always inside.
Who fought next? Hang on. [INTERNET]Oh. It seems that Jimmy Rave fought Davey Richards and BJ Whitmer fought Claudio Castignioli.[/INTERNET] I suck at reviews. Toilet paper! Of course! It's fucking dumb. It's a nice joke but it gets tired. Like, after two rolls. Two thousand rolls might get funny again. But anything between 2 and 2000 is not funny. Oh, and only about 1% realised that you have to keep hold of the end of the roll for a while. I swear some 'tards didn't even pick open the seal. At some point, Bobbs & I tried to work out who played at Reading in 1994. [INTERNET]Afghan Whigs, American Music Club, Archers of Loaf, Cud, Elastica, The Lemonheads, Flaming Lips, Frank Black, Gravediggaz, Helmet, Hole, Jeff Buckley, Manic Street Preachers, Pavement, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Reverend Horton Heat, Scarce, Sebadoh, Shed Seven, Smudge, Soundgarden, Superchunk, They Might Be Giants, Tindersticks, Velocity Girl, The Wedding Present[/INTERNET]
Doug Williams and Jody Fleisch and Go Shiosaki and SUWA had a good match. If I can minorly quibble it's that Doug worked his NOAH style at times (heel) and so did Shiosaki (face), and so the heel/face dynamic which had finally been fully realised by having SNEAKY JAPANESE HEELS was blurred a little. Also, if you are one of the people who chanted YOU FUCKED UP when Jody made a small mistake on the 720, then you should kill yourselves. You are beyond hope, you wretches.
As are the people, written about at length just about everywhere, who chanted dumb things at small children. I have little to add except that drunken Kenny, in admonishing the cunts, swore just as much. Something the children next to us found amusing, I'm sure. I apologised to their single mothers.
There was an interval. Kenny & I left to go find $tew. We found him. We talked. I have no idea what we talked about.
Robbie Brookside wrestled Chad Collyer. Chad Collyer needs to call himself Chad Malenko again. John had seen this match before, on an All-Star show. It was alright. I wonder when Brookside stopped thinking that the FWA stood for For Wannabe Americans? I don't think the fans liked this. Brookside isn't a ROH guy. Spud kinda is, but they didn't like him, either. I don't pretend to understand.
By now we were quite excited. Even if the main event went an hour, we'd still be out of the building by 10.30, half an hour before our agreed walk out time. Then they drew the RAFFLE OF HONOR. Now you'll probably think I'm being facetious. I'm not. That's EXACTLY how it was announced. All the wining tickets were numbered between 60 and 75. Now either the hat needed a shake, they didn't sell many tickets, or the fix was in. Raffle of fucking Honor.
The tag title match was next, and Aries & Strong helpfully wore their names on their arses. I couldn't tell which Briscoe was which. Like it mattered. This had MOVES~! in it. But also a bit of nice wrestling. Austin Aries has Benoit arms. Also, people didn't get the WELEASE WODERICK! shout from Bobbs every time Strong was put in a hold. Idiots. I got it and I hate Monty Python. Some people won.
The main event was another All-Star special, as a sadly beardless Bryan Danielson took on Nigel McGuiness. I hate McGuiness. Moj, before he turned "heel", said something quite clever about him. I forget what. The last time I saw Nigel McGuiness he was having his face kicked in by Samoa Joe. I like Samoa Joe. He kicks people's faces in. People I don't like. This was all wacky rules. Fucking rope break this and no DQ that. About as far from Pure Wrestling as it is surely possible to get. Apparently Gabe realises this because he's done away with the title. Not that he'd admit that he gayed up, of course. No, he wants to create a Triple Crown. Good luck with that, mark.
So, yeah, Danielson won by hitting McGuiness lots, which lifted him to number one in my favorite wrestlers list. He then plunged to #432 by issuing a challenge for a re-match 6000 miles away. Douche. I could care less because the show was finished and it was only TEN O'CLOCK~! Take that, people who didn't leave until after midnight at one of their shows, or something!
If the crowd hadn't been such massive dicks I'd have probably enjoyed what was an average show. As it was, only the African in the toilet doling out perfume for a pound mae it bearable. On the way out I spoke to Jonny Stor, because I'm down with TEH BOYZ and then bumped into IBSRalphy, before jumping onto Country Boy's bonnet as he drove away. I'm sad to say that he wasn't playing Hillbilly Jim's theme in his car...
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So we're outside the venue and need to get to Liverpool. Not fancying a two-inch walk, Bobbs hails a cab. Some guy hears where we're going and asks if he can jump in with us. From that point, a man with the wonderful name of James McGuffin made four into five. Yeah, the Four Horsemen became, shit, I dunno... The Union? James came to the show and loved it. This makes him unusual but not unwelcome.
Five English punds later and we're in the heart of what a wanky TV documentary would call "Liverpool's Clubland", and there are scantily-clad girls to prove it. Everyone is going somewhere, or queueing for money, or being sick. Two guys come down the road wearing "Stevo's Stag Night" t-shirts, so of course I have to speak to them. Stevo and Mikey are over from Belfast. I presume that, at some point, there were more than two of them. Stevo told me he's been good but Mikey whips out his phone and shows me a picture of naked Stevo with a naked girl. I'm impressed. But not enough to ask for a copy of the picture.
My drunken heart wants to go where the boobs are falling out of dresses, but Bobbs insists we go to the Krazy House, Liverpool's premier indy/rock/metal club. Boobs would have been good, but the lure of chubby indie girls is too much to resist. We drag James with us, lest he fall prey to Mr McMahon's machinations.
On the way to the club, Lister is convinced that he's now drunk more beer than he has blood in his body. By my quick maths, he's still half a pint away, but he claims that he's wafer thin and therefore has half a pint less blood than everyone else. I concede.
The Krazy House is a huge warehouse-type thing. It's £4 to get in. It has three floors with different kinds of music, and two floors in-between those with pool tables and places to sit and talk. The beer is £1.75 a bottle. For fucking MGD. Therefore, the Krazy House is instantly the BEST CLUB EVER.
There are three guys there in ROH t-shirts. What kind of douche goes to a wrestling show and then goes to the BEST CLUB EVER? Sheesh. I continue my night's fun by asking them what ROH stands for...
Me: What does ROH stand for?
Him: Ring of Honor.
Me: What's that?
Him: A wrestling company.
Me: Like WWF?
Him: Yeah
Me: It doesn't sound like a wrestling company - where does the honor come in?
Him: They shake hands before the matches.
Me: Does that make it better?
Him: I think so, yes.
So, yeah, we're drinking, and even grooving a little, laughing at three guys who dressed like they were Panic! At The Disco, and just generally having a good time. Then I feel a tap on my shoulder, and a shout of "FUCKING HELL, BOON!", and turn round to find Fozz. Now Fozz is a guy that, up until a few months ago, I'd not seen in the best part of a decade. He used to live with my buddy Ricky in Northampton, while he was there for university. I saw him in May, at Ricky's band's final gig, and all was good. Now I've freaked him the fuck out by appearing, unheralded, at a club in his hometown. He buys me a drink.
The night blurred on, and at some point I got talking to a brown schoolgirl. No, not the one who said, "I want to help you Roland." Rather she was wearing a brown Japanese schoolgirl uniform, some character from anime that I had no fucking clue about. She was pretty cool, though, and drew her own comics. She gave me her myspace (see Kenny?) and flitted off, as fast as her chubby legs could carry her.
Kenny & Bobbs were off dancing, and Lister was... well, somewhere. I found James by the bar on the middle floor, and chatted for a bit. Then I saw a girl sitting on her own and dragged him over. I said to her, "Is your name Emma?" She said, "no, it's Ellen." "This is James," I said, "and J and E are the first two words of Jesus and also jesuit," which got them talking and later snogging. I rule. This is something that needs to be said: if you come out with me while I'm drunk, I will do my best to make sure you pull, mostly by bizarre introductions and the power of not caring. It's so easy to pull when you have no intention of actually doing it. Transferrance rules.
Fozz reappeared and introduced me to his girlfriend. She was blonde. That is all I can tell you. I'm sure there were other things - and maybe Bobbs, Lister & Kenny can fill in here - but it all became blurry. I know I chatted to the brown schoolgirl some more at some point, before she descended to the metal floor where I would not follow. Remember this, girls.
I stumbled outside at ten to three, texting Bobbs to let him know where I was, mindful of my birthday when I just went home and left everyone in the club. He joined me outside and I bought him a rose. Well, he wanted one. Then some girl wandered by and stole that rose, brazen as you like. So we bought another one.
Waiting for the boys, we got talking to some girls by asking them if they'd seen Lister. Obviously they didn't know who Lister was, so I tried to elaborate by describing him as the man with the two-dimnsional body, like a piece of paper turned on its end. It didn't help. Then the boys appeared and Kenny said he'd been dancing with one of the girls. She remembered but he'd clearly not made enough of an impression with his MOVES~! to seal any deal. They left.
Still buzzing, we hung around and I went up to a girl wearing a Killers t-shirt and asked her who the Killers were. She looked stunned, because what kind of indy club retard doesn't know who the Killers are but made a good fist of explaining. Kinda. The girls were from Widnes - Jenn, Stacey & Maxine - and they were getting the night bus home, so we walked with them. All they could tell me about Widnes was that it was better than Runcorn. I know that kind of town.
At some point it was decided that they would come back to Bobbs house, 5 miles in the wrong direction. I think it was Kenny's fault, but Bobbs agreed to share his booze with 3 girls from the back end of nowhere, and somehow I ended up paying for their tickets. Do NOT let me have money when I'm drunk.
On the bus on the way home the conversation somehow turned to Stacey's nipples, and whether they were brown or pink. I argued that she had red hair and thus had pink everything, but a weak argument was also made for brown. Sadly no effort was made to prove it one way or another.
We got to the Wirral and Jenn borrowed my phone to call her Dad. It was 4am. She told him that she was on the Wirral with "some boys" and surprisingly this did not go down well. At least she called... !
Somewhere along the way, Kenny picked up two scallies. One of them had been clutching an empty bottle of champagne and a wine glass so long that his hand had formed a claw. They had a hilarious story about a hedgehog, apparently. Back at Bobbs, Holz was still awake, and so 9 became 10.
Much talking, smoking and drinking ensued, and I lied to Jenn and told her that Bobbs liked Stacey. They'd disappeared upstairs, and I thought it might seal the deal, but Bobbs had no such plans, thinking that Stacey reminded him of a guy he went to school with who stank. I thought she was alright, but there's no accounting for olfactory nostalgia, I guess. At some point i was talking to Jenn. I heard Holz's voice say, "the Pringle postman has a delivery!" and turned round to find a handful of sour cream & onion Pringles being shoved in my mouth. I hate onion more than Hitler and all those guys. Some day, Holz will pay.
At about 6am, the girls decided that they had to go home. Maxine had to let the tiler in at 7, apparently. Glamorous! They were going to get a taxi, but I'd sobered up enough to pass the Bobbs test and offered to drive them home. I grabbed Bobbs to show me the way back, and turned the car towards Widnes. On the way we saw a million magpies and the world's thinnest fox. It also seemed to take FOREVER.
By the time we got back, Lister was foolishly attempting to sleep on the floor. Kenny had passed out on the sofa, as had one of the scallies, and Holz and Scally 2 were chatting like old friends in the kitchen. Foolishly, and mindful that I needed to get home, I decided to leave there and then, sure that by leaving at 8 I could make it home for 11. And I would have done if I hadn't had to stop for a sleep at Knutsford services.
I got home at 1 and then went straight to bed. 10 years ago I'd have been able to do that shit with no problem. I'm now OLD. This is not good. Still, a RIMup is special, and worth killing yourself for. The next one is pencilled in for November-ish, in Glasgow.
Who's in?
Aug. 16th, 2006 @ 09:44 am
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| » 110706: Fair Is As Fair Does |
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Zinedine Zidane is undoubtedly a talented footballer. Personally, I have little time for him. He has always been prone to fits of petulence, and has played for two of the most unpleasant clubs in the world. Oh, and he's French. Still, he's a talented footballer.
And, in a World Cup shorn of individual brilliance by stop-start officiating and win-at-all-costs tactics, he was one of the star performers. But did he deserve to win the Golden Gall?
Since its induction in 1986, the award, for the player of the tournament and voted for by journalists, has been previously awarded to Oliver Kahn (2002), Ronaldo (1998), Romario (1994), Salvatore Schillachi (1990) and Diego Maradona. Few would argue that the previous recipients were not worthy winners, save for Maradona, and only then because of the Mano de Dios incident.
Zidane, though, committed the ultimate offence on Sunday night - an assault on a fellow player - and was deservedly red-carded. Unfortunately, the vote had taken place before the incident, and no thought was given to a re-run. We had our Golden Ball winner, and he was cooling his heels in the locker room. Runner-up, and World Cup winning captain, Fabio Cannavaro could be forgiven for thinking that something was rotten in Deutchsland.
The real debate, I suppose, is over whether it should matter. Whether a moment of madness should prevent Zidane from getting an award given more for his performances over the length of his career than during the month-long World Cup campaign.
The answer, of course, is "yes." The game should be built on fair play, and Heaven knows we've seen enough teams and individuals profit from cheating over the past month. But FIFA don't seem to agree, no matter how much they claim they're committed to cleaning up the sport.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than in the award of Young Player of the Tournament to Lukas Podolski. On the surface of it, it seems a no-brainer. He scored three goals and helped the host nation to the semi-final. However, his play was full of simulation and who can forget his disgusting behaviour over the sending off of Teddy Lucic in the second round game against Sweden? Worse still, FIFA gave serious consideration to giving the award to Cristiano Ronaldo, despite the entire continent turning against him for crimes against football.
And then, of course, we have the Team of the Tournament, which featured Luis Figo (a headbutt against Holland), and Thierry Henry (simulation against Spain and Switzerland). It seems that fair play is definitely not a barrier to the acolades of the sport's governing body.
But back to Zidane. His worst crime is not making his foul count. Whatever Materazzi said - and reports vary from insulting to his mother, his sister, his mentor, and his race - it provoked Zidane into an action that would blight his career and almost certainly give Italy the upper hand in the game. Yes, by far the most shocking thing about the entire affair, is that Zidane got himself sent off for nothing. If he'd made contact with Materazzi's face, Italy may have been to ten men themselves, having used all three substitutes, and Zidane none the worse off for it. In fact, he'd have probably felt a whole lot better. Instead, he aimed for the chest, albeit it with enough force to knock a very big man off his feet. His chest.
Now that's enough to stop him from getting the Golden Ball, if nothing else.
Jul. 11th, 2006 @ 07:30 pm
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| » 090706: Endings and Beginnings |
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Dr Who finished last night, with a huge, sweeping finale to a mixed series. There weren't many bad episodes in season two, but very few outstanding ones. Still, Tennant is a great Doctor, and seeing clips of Eccleston on Dr Who Confidential just didn't seem right. The final battle wasn't with the Daleks and the Cyberman, conveniently dispatched by a McGuffin (though, realistically, how could it have been any different?), but between the Doctor and his feelings for Rose. I don't know about the Doctor, but I'm going to miss Billie Piper. She's been fantastic and it's been oddly emotional these past few weeks watching the show knowing we were seeing her final performances. Still, never say never, and that breach may be opened again down the line - say for a Christmas special or something. The new companion has already died on screen, and it'll be interesting to see how they paint themselves out of that corner.
I can't believe I just blew cool points by discussing Dr Who on my blog. I was being ironic, honest...
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I played football this morning, training with a team that I hope to play for this season. You may remember that one of 2005's New Year's Resolutions was to find a football team and start playing again. I did, but it was an abortive start, as I just couldn't break into the set-up and didn't feel I ever would. One of the problems was that they were fitter than I, but I've worked towards that this year by joining straight after the summer and hitting the gym a few times beforehand. The other problem was that they were a tight unit, who'd been together a few years. This time, it's a new team, with a small core of friends at the centre, but plenty of places up for grabs. And, once again, as I'm there near the start, it's easier to assimilate.
Anyway, only half a dozen people turned up for training this morning, so we had a six-a-side game against another team who only had a few players. I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I was just about the best player on the pitch, if not the fittest. I'd also forgotten that I'm kind of two-footed - I was always very left-footed but my old team, The Llamas, beat it out of me by playing me at right back and giving me the ball on my right. It's a good way to learn, I guess. And if I could learn, why can't professional footballers? I digress. So, yeah, hopefully I'll get myself into contention and be back playing on Sunday mornings again. Crazy, I know...
Jul. 9th, 2006 @ 07:58 pm
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| » 080706: Fucking Horse Jumping |
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I'm sure Sport Relief is a noble charity and all that jazz, but couldn't they have come up with something better than celebrity horse jumping? What with ballroom dancing and ice skating making an unwelcome return to our screens, there must be someone high up in television who is so determined to bring back the 1950s that they're forcing through all the middle-class pursuits that were popular at the time. Which means, surely, Celebrity Racism can't be far away...
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I remember when the only times you feel silent were on Armistice Day or when someone strongly connected with your football club died. Now we have silences for everybody. This reached ridiculous proportions when there was a minute's silence before the opening game of the World Cup for "everybody in the football family" who had died in the last four years which, possibly with the exception of America, is just about everyone in the world. Before that, the most ridiculous silence ever was for Holly & Jessica, the two young girls murdered in Soham. It was as if, John Lister said, they were the only two people who died that year.
The reason I mention this, of course, is that we had two minutes silence yesterday for the people who died in the 7/7 bombings. I didn't ask, but I presume this did not include the bombers themselves. Now, don't get me wrong, it's very sad that these people died, but it's not like they died for me, or anyone I know. They were murdered and, unless Tony Blair is willing to admit a link between British foreign policy and the bombings, I think that any future murder victims have a very good case to demand two minutes of their own. Assuming they can demand... from beyond the grave
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Part of me, and you're going to think very bad of me when I say this, was sad that there wasn't further carnage yesterday. You see, I'm a disasterbator. I love to see history unfolding before me. Yes, it's a callous loss of life and yadda yadda yadda, but how fantastic is it when something like 7/7 or 9/11 happens? We even make up catchy names for the events, much easier to digest them that way. I get a rush of adrenalin and never feel more excited than when something that will make the history books is occurring and I'm living through it. It's not just loss of life, but elections, sporting events, cats trapped up trees... Never am I happier than when I'm witnessing epoch-making fortune or misfortune, preferably the latter. Am I alone in this?
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Jim Davidson is bankrupt. Somewhere "Chalky" White is laughing, probably with a spastic for company. There is a god.
Jul. 8th, 2006 @ 06:22 pm
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| » 050706: Bits |
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I thought the world was ending yesterday. There was thunder, lightning, and heavy, heavy rain. The power went out across the whole of Northamptonshire, no traffic lights were working and civilisation was breaking down. I was driving home from work like a man in a disaster movie, trying to reach his family before the looting began. Awesome.
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Isn't Israel going into Palestine and holding half the country hostage until the bad guys return the kidnapped Israeli soldier just the geopolitical equivalent of keeping a class back until someone owns up to writing SOAPY TIT WANK on the board?
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North Korea tested missiles yesterday. You know, missiles - the kind of stuff we've had since World War 2. They didn't work. And we're scared of these people?
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Confession: I've never seen a World Cup final. I've only ever seen one European Championships final, in 1980. I rarely watch the FA Cup final. And don't even ask about the Carling Cup. It's weird, I'll watch two teams play a game with nothing at stake because I can appreciate the football, but if either team is someone I HATE, and there's a competition to be won, I just don't want to know. Even if one of the teams is a team I like, I won't watch them because the team I don't like might win. And I'd hate to see that. So, for me, the World Cup ended on Saturday, when the last team I cared about even slightly got knocked out. Fuck 'em all. If they play a World Cup final and nobody's watching, does it count?
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Last summer, you may recall, I made a pirate ship out of cardboard for the libraries summer reading promotion. This year, it's a motherfucking SPY-DOME~!
Jul. 5th, 2006 @ 08:40 pm
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| » 050706: On Me |
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Hypermania. A state of accelerated happiness and drive. It's what I've been putting myself into for the past couple of months, self-medicating to keep my levels very, very high, but not so high that I've become a problem to myself and those around me. It's a risky thing to do, but often it's the only way to get anything done at all. One of the things that goes waaay out of the window is introspection, which - dear bloggers - is the lifeblood of keeping a journal like this. Hence, no updates.
I've deliberately brought myself down this week because I was getting tired. And with tired comes irritability and surliness, and I quite like my life balance the way it is at the moment without throwing monkeywrenches into the works through overstimulation. So, yeah, a brief period of lucidity and correspondence. Enjoy.
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One thing that came to me in the middle of all this was a stunning moment of clarity about mental illness. I think it's a misleading term, because it implies that something is wrong with the mental capacity of the brain, when it's a purely emotional condition. It's an injury to the soul, is what it is.
Look at this way: you have a physical condition, it shows. You break your leg, you wear a cast. You have eczema, you get blotchy skin. You have an aneurysm, you get to wear a funky bandage around the skull they had to crack open. But with a mental illness, there are no battle wounds, there are no cool scars. There's nothing for anyone to sign with a hilarious message. Rather, it's all hidden away, inside the head, inside the mind, in a part of you that shouldn't, scientifically, exist.
There's no concrete evidence for the existence of the soul. It would make scientists comfortable to believe there isn't one, because they can't explain how it works. The best they can come up with is that our emotions, our personalities, our memories and our dreams - all the things that make us human, I guess - are the result of electrical impulses in the synapses of our brains. Electrical impulses. To what end? How? I don't know, and - I'd wager - neither do they.
But, whether you can come up with an explanation for exactly what it is and how it works or not, the concept of the soul is irresistible. And if you can give it shape and form, albeit corporeally, it follows that it can be damaged. And this is where I believe mental illness comes from. There have been studies on people suffering from the various conditions that constitute mental illness, and they can find no difference in the physical structure of the brain, as there would be for a mental handicap, or a physical condition resulting from an injury to the brain. Instead, the brains are functioning fine, with only a difference in the serotonin levels to mark them out as abnormal at all. Therefore, the area that is damaged appears to be hidden. The emotions do not take physical form. And it is the incorrect application of those emotions at key times that, in part, leads to mental illness.
This, of course, explains why mental illness is so taboo is our society, purely because emotions are taboo. Public displays of emotion are frowned upon, stiff upper lip and all that. Sudden and loud laughter is considered strange. Men cannot cry, and to show anger to is to be thought threatening. If we cannot be comfortable with emotions when they are working properly, it's no surprise that a condition of emotional failure (for want of a better term) is swept under the carpet.
So, yeah, I have an illness of the soul, a malfunction of the emotions, which manipulation of the serotonin levels in my brain can help, but not cure. It makes so much sense. But then I would say that.
Jul. 5th, 2006 @ 02:41 pm
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| » Interim |
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Well.
For the past twelve days my life has consisted of little more than work and football. I get up, go to work, come home, watch football, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Of course, that doesn't explain the 53 days before that, and I will fill you in in good time.
I just figured I owed you something - because I know at least one person is sick of reading about George Bush and Iran every day, and someone actually asked me, in real life, when I was going to update my journal. Yeah, wow.
Anyway, soon.
Jun. 21st, 2006 @ 04:18 pm
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| » MMVI: 103-107 (The Politics) |
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ITEM: It's time to worry. Because George Bush has an eye on his legacy. And he fucked up Iraq, he fucked up homeland security, so he's looking towards fixing Iran. He's promising to do what no other President, Republican or Democrat, would dare to do. God help us, I think he's talking a pre-emptive - possibly nuclear - strike.
Iran's a massive problem at the moment. Partly because the Old Boys Club have thrown a fit at the prospect of them having nuclear power (and possibly nuclear weapons), and partly because their leader is a whacko. But here's the thing - he's an elected whacko, not unlike some other world leader I could name. The simplest way to deal with him is to let him talk himself out of office. The Iranian people are not unlike you and I, except maybe a little more tanned and into public executions than (most of) us here in the west are. They will tire of his rhetoric, the substantial intellectual lobby or the Ayatollah himself will point out his destructive behaviour, and he'll be voted out of office. Reacting, and overreacting, to his ridiculousness gives him a legtimacy he desires and does not deserve.
Behind the Ahmadjani problem is a nuclear issue clouded by his insane ramblings. There is no doubt that any nation should be allowed to pursue a technological advance for peaceful means, yet it is a right denied to the Iranians (and, formerly, the North Koreans) by the world police in the west. If the USA, the UK and just about every other "civilised" nation in the world is allowed to develop nuclear energy capability, why is Iran any different? And I'd even go so far as to say that, for defence, they should be allowed nuclear weapons, if only to ensure that Israel does not use theirs. If I were Iran, I'd certainly want the capability to protect myself from an aggressive neighbour - to deny them this is to leave them hanging in the wind. We could, of course, assure them that we would protect them from any Israeli incursion, but history would make liars of us.
So back to Bush. Is he really going to settle the Iranian nuclear issue before he leaves office? I hope not, because it's a fearful thought. Iran is not Iraq, despite the similarity in their names. They're a proud and historically-united people. The Iraqi people, eager to be rid of Saddam Hussein, practically welcomed the aliied forces into Baghdad, with only a token resistance from a conscripted army. Getting to Tehran will not be so easy. And can we really afford to undertake another crusade, creating another wave of terrorists eager to take Jihad to the west? I guess if you're the President of the United States, safe in your bunker, with secret service guards around the clock, you can.
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ITEM: The left wing revolution continues apace in South America. Argentina had already elected the leftist Néstor Kirchner in 2003, and card-carrying Socialist Tabaré Vázquez came to power in Uruguay in 2004. But the past year has seen a new impetus sweep through the continent. First we had Hugo Chavez storming to power in Venezuela, much to the chagrin of the USA. He has used Venezuela's oil money to fund medical and social programs, using doctors from Cuba. He was followed by Evo Morales in Bolivia, whose first act was to cut his salary in half, giving the other half to teachers. Chile then elected the left-leaning Michele Bachelet, more Aneurin Bevan than Karl Marx, yet still a thumb to the eye of the west's favoured incumbent, Sebastián Piñera. Now Peru is on track to elect Ollanta Humala, a former Army Colonel and son of the leader of the ethnocacerista movement (and Communist Party member to boot). Humala is running on a renationalisation ticket, and - like Morales - will legalise coca production if elected. The Americans are very worried.
Of course, they can only issue vague denunciations of these leaders. To do anything else would be seen to be undemocratic. Instead, they carefully seed worries about the policies and statements of the leaders, with the US press enigmaticaly united against South America's red wave. It's self-interest, of course, because the media is largely controlled by corporations and moguls, and the socialist agenda pursued by 21st century Latin America is a danger to their multinational interests.
With Paraguay & Colombia in the grip of Blair/Bush-style conservatism, Brazil's Lula ever more centrist, and Ecuador's nominal President leaning towards the left, it's a fascinating struggle on a historically divided continent. Simón Bolívar sought to unite it 150 years ago - it's ironic that a man so dedicated to a free market could be usurped in his aim by the will of the people to control it.
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ITEM: Congratulations to Accrington Stanley on their return to the football league. Only it's not. The team that went out of business in 1962 is not the same team that secured promotion at Woking on Saturday. The current Accrington club was formed in 1968 at a meeting in the town library, and has worked hard to regain the status of their namesakes. That's not to take anything away from them, I think most people accept that it's the same club in spirit, and I'm happy to see them back in a football league of which they were founder members. Except that they weren't. That Accrington was a different team altogether, not even sharing the same name. They dropped out of the league after five years in 1893. At that time, Accrington Stanley were known as Stanley Villa, perhaps as a nod to the ultra-successful Aston Villa side of that time, and it wasn't until 1895 that Accrington Stanley were born. They entered the league in 1921. It's a funny thing, football history. We accept re-writes because our heart tells us it's the right thing to do. Football cannot be judged by other rules, and cannot be treated like other businesses. It's just sad that people try to.
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ITEM: And talking of football... Yesterday was an amazing day as a sometimes nervy Villa beat their local rivals, hammering a nail in their relegation coffin while they did it. 40,000 fans sang their hearts out, mostly singing songs with the word "shit" in them, and backed the team to one of the best performances of the season. We sang "We'll Meet Again" at the knuckledraggers as they slunk out of the stadium, half in tears.
That's the cleaned-up version, anyway, ignoring that they were the better side for much of the first half, and that the Villa fans were very quiet during that time. But fuck it - how many times do you get to have a day like that?
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ITEM: I've been going through some brain shit that I haven't quite got a handle on yet. Hopefully I'll sort through it in time to post before my birthday on Friday. yes, my BIRTHDAY. On FRIDAY.
Apr. 17th, 2006 @ 09:16 pm
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| » MMVI: 94-102 (Broke Dick Dog) |
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ITEM: So, yeah, I'm still really, really tired. There was a brief moment on Sunday when I thought I wasn't, but it turned out I was. Tired, like a broke dick dog. I can't ever remember not being tired. I'm sure there was a time when I wasn't. I mean, going back 8-9 years, I used to sleep when I wanted, and for most of the day. Of course, I was up all night, and maybe this is the problem. The Independent carried an article yesterday about the phenomenon of "social jet-lag", which sounds like one of those rubbish, invented illnesses that rich people get. Only I think there's some ground to it. It means that your bodyclock is out of sync. For most people, and because we've been conditioned by years and years and years of doing it, the body runs on a day-work/night-sleep cycle. We get up in time to go to work at 9, and go to bed in time to get up in time for work at 9. Trapped. Only the body isn't so easily fooled, and for many people - traditionally known as "night owls" - it just doesn't work. It will never work, no matter how hard you try.
I've always been a night owl, I suppose. Even as a child, I never had a bedtime. I went to sleep when I wanted to, often ending up with 3 or 4 hours sleep before school the next day, and catching up whenever I could. My parents never tried to "cure" me or train me, they just let me get on with it. I like to think of them as liberal, rather than negligent, though you may disagree. And then I feel into work after school, working afternoons, and sleeping from 4am until midday, and pretty much went from there. Abruptly, 7 years ago, I had to change, to an everyday pattern, and I think I've been tired since that point, that defining moment. So, yeah, I have social jet-lag, because the hours I keep don't fit in with work, family and friends. Fuck my luck.
I think it might help if I got to the gym more, because - weirdly - the tiredness isn't so bad when I'm busy, but it's the same old story there. I keep telling myself that next week will be different but next week is always the same. Ah well, maybe the sun will change things...
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ITEM: I went to see The Guillemots on Saturday, at the Soundhaus in Northampton. It's the first band I've seen there in 3 years, and I'd forgotten what a good venue for bands it is. I usually make sporadic visits to the Blast Chamber club night, bewhildered by what passes for cool amongst those people. Apparently, make-up and posing. Anyway, The Guillemots. They were pretty much awesome, even though the guitar was so low down in the mix you could barely hear it. RWard fell in love with Aristazabal, the double bass player, and the world breathed a sigh of predictable relief. They played "Made-Up Love Song #43" and 'Rista had to do the trumpet part with her mouth hole, despite the support band having a trumpet player. Weird. Oh, and the drummer was selling tickets to ticketless people outside the gig. Misty's Big Adventure played first, and they were pretty good, in a homely psychedelic way. They even did an Ivor Cutler-esque song, called "Crumpled-Up Man", the lyrics of which (that I can remember) I re-produce below...
Crumpled-Up Man, Crumpled-Up Man
You drew a picture of me and you crumpled it up
I'm a Crumpled-Up Man
Grave-Robbing Beast, Grave-Robbing Beast
You drew a picture of me as a Grave-Robbing Beast
Somone called a Priest
Paedophile Priest, Paedophile Priest
You drew a picture of me as a Paedophile Priest
Someone called the Police
Beat up the Police, Beat up the Police
You drew a picture of me as I beat up the Police
I couldn't get released
Crumpled-Up Man, Crumpled-Up Man
You drew a picture of me and you crumpled it up
I'm a Crumpled-Up Man
The audience for the show was skewed somewhat older than the usual Soundhaus crowd, and so I felt at home. I guess The Guillemots being featured in Q has it's upsides and downsides.
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ITEM: Talking of live shows and all that, I'm going to Nottingham on May 6th to see Steel Rules Die's last ever show. Weirdly, it'll be their first show I've ever seen, despite RickyRobinson, the me that went right, being the singer/guitarist. We all kind of drifted apart, I guess, and there's not a moment I don't regret that, so I'm going to start putting it right. They're playing with Send More Paramedics; Hull's finest zombiecore outfit, and my new crush. Seriously, these guys are awesome and live their gimmick like Diamond Dallas Page. So, yeah, May 6th at the Old Angel in Nottingham. I'll be the drunk one.
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ITEM: I have a huge backlog of reading and I've never loved it more. I wish I had time to read all day which, of course, is what most people think library assistants do. It's mostly awesome magazines, and awesome, awesome books, and my head is filled with a bajillion words. I suppose some of it should rub off, but, ehhhh...
Reading List: The Believer (literary magazine from the people behind McSweeney's Quarterly Concern), When Saturday Comes (I subscribe and I just ordered a swank new t-shirt), Fortean Times (I only realised I hadn't read last month's when this month's popped through my door), No Depression and Maverick (American and British new country magazines, respectively), Adbusters (bedroom warriors of the world unite), McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #18 (in the unusual, for them, format of a perfect-bound book), Shadows Fall (trashy semi-fantasy novel by Simon R Green), and Behind The Curtain: Travels In Eastern European Football (pretty much what it says on the cover).
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ITEM: In an episode which really should be called 50 Ways To Leave Your Lesbian Lover, Carla still hasn't dumped Sam. Sam's fucked up, like in the head, and Carla is worried about being dragged down by her gravity. So she wants my advice. Like I have any experience of ditching mental lesbians. Then I realise I do have experience in spades, but of making people who love you slowly hate you and leave. Job done.
Apr. 12th, 2006 @ 06:54 pm
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| » MMVI: 87-93 (TOUCH THE SKY) |
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ITEM: I wrote a while ago about hating certain names that parents are giving children these days, and the target of my scorn is as often the "traditional" names as those more unusual (and derided as faddish) ones. My absolute pet hate is Oliver. I can't understand why any parent would want to saddle a child with that name. Giving someone that name ensures a lifetime of bullying and/or wankery. Idiots. But coming up on the rails is Jack. For a while I couldn't understand why I hated it - after all, it's a good name. Then today it hit me: Jack is not a name to be given, it's a name to earned. You get a name like Jack after years of being called John; years of hard work and social drinking in small pubs. The name is a badge of honour, a badge of graft. Simply calling your child Jack cheapens the name and it cheapens you. Really, I wish people would think more about this kind of thing.
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ITEM: So, we went on strike last week. The turnout, in Northampton at least, was disappointing. Across the rest of the country, however, the strikers made an impact and made a difference. Of sorts. because on Thursday, and three months before he had to, John Prescott played his FUCK YOU card and pushed through the legislation we were striking against. Fat cunt. So we're out on strike again, between April 25th-27th. It's a one-day strike, regionalised over three days, for maximum impact. I fully expect us to come out again in May. We're serious about this, is what we're saying, and there's a groundswell of support, despite the propagandising against us in the press. At least some of those who vehemently decried us have come on side, but only because the day after Prescott pushed the legislation through, MPs voted to safeguard their own pensions in exactly the same way they deny us. Hypocritical cunts.
Anyway, it's another day's pay lost, another day when vulnerable people don't get the services they need. Like last time, if you've got any time, give us all the support you can manage, please.
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ITEM: At a loose end yesterday, I went to see Aston Villa Old Boys XI play. It was great fun, and there were some players in that side that could do a job in today's Villa side. Gordon Cowans orchestrated the midfield with the same style he used for 15 years on and off at Villa, and Mark Walters looked sharp, fast, powerful and aggressive enough to still do a job in professional football. After all, Teddy Sheringham turned 40 yesterday, and Walters is only 41. Two players who were never really stars at Villa - Mark Burke and David Norton - also looked class. It was a different world, though, I guess. Playing against a Lloyds-TSB XI is hardly Premiership-class, but it was refreshing to see a Villa side trying to play football with a smile on their face, and actually making & converting chances. I got talking to a guy there who no longer watches Villa, just the old boys and it's easy to see the attraction. I think if there were an organised league, quite a few more fans would desert the current tosh to watch them.
Taling of the latest shower, we lost 5-0 on Saturday. 5-0. Five-nil. Okay, I predicted 4-0, but four is a bad defeat whilst five is a hammering. O'Leary had the usual drivel to say, of course, all about how good Arsenal are and nothing about how bad we were. The charm offensive that I wrote about last week has failed, and even Fleet Street is turning against him, with The Sun devoting a full page to him, dubbed David O'Blarney by Stephen Howard. I just hope it's a maters of weeks (if not days) before he goes. This great club can't survive much more.
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ITEM: I'd been undecided all week over whether to go to the Reading Festival or not. I really couldn't decide whether I was up for it or not. Finally, RWard decided he'd buy tickets and if we didn't want to go we'd sell them on eBay. Ehhh. They sold out. In, like, 90 minutes. So I guess my decision was made for me. So now I might go to Summer Sundae in Leicester, to see Calexico, Jose Gonzalez and Belle & Sebastian, or maybe even the Cambridge Folk Festival, if they put on enough nu-folk and americana to make it worthwhile. This year is my last hurrah, and it would have been great to go to Reading, I guess, but fate conspires against you in funny ways. I'm still going to see way more bands than I've seen in the last five years, just by cherry-picking gigs here and there, so I'm pretty upbeat about things. I got tickets for Josh Rouse today, at Milton Keynes, and I've going to see The Guillemots on Saturday. Viking Moses e-mailed me to tell me he's playing in the UK next week, so I'm gonna go check him out in Nottingham, at The Social. And you should, too.
Other than that, I might go to The New Pornographers if I can be bothered, and The Handsome Family in Leicester. Tortoise are playing Millions Now Living Will Never Die in its entireity, and that shoudl be good, and I still need to find out where I can get tickets for Alejandro Escovedo, I guess.
Music is awesome...
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ITEM: I've started working on a stand-up routine that i'll probably never finish and almost certainly never perform. I like to be funny, but so much of me being funny is off the cuff, acidic remarks and stupid observations that I don't how you could ever work into a routine. So sitting down and actually writing jokes is hard. Maybe Stereo Mike and I better put together our "Who Don't You Do?" routine of awful impersonations? Or our post-modern deconstruction of old-time jokes routine? Ehhh, I don't even like Perrier...
Apr. 3rd, 2006 @ 09:08 pm
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| » MMVI: 81-86 (GRRRRRRRR) |
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ITEM: There's a Billy Bragg song called "World Turned Upside Down", and that's a little how life feels these days. The song is about the Diggers - the original ones, not the cool-ass revival on Haight-Ashbury - and their battle to return property to the common man from the hands of the landlords. They failed, obviously, but they've become socialist heroes for what they tried, and how they died. Battles aren't fought like that anymore. Everyone is too comfortable, but there are few who just can't believe how things are. We're scattered, disorganised, unarmed, unheard. But all of us feel like the world has been turned upside down. Blah blah blah, the rich are getting richer, the poor staying comfortable, so no-one notices the drain away from us. There are few that can see, and even fewer that care, and all it does is cause misery and anger.
The French are rioting. The government have tried to - in their words - free up the labour market, by making it easier to hire and fire. All it frees is the hands of the bosses, allows them to discard workers like yet another commodity. But, by and large, the French people aren't having a bar of it. There's a general strike tomorrow. All the unions - people in secure jobs, mind - coming out in a show of solidarity with those at risk. Can you imagine that here? Of course not. The unions were destroyed by a succession of right-wing governments (and none more right-wing than this one), and by their own stupidity. My own union still gives £8m a year to the Labour party, in spite of the betrayals and the sleaze. Unbelievable.
As I wrote last week, we go out on strike tomorrow. There's not much support amongst the general public, and no other unions have come out in support of us (which is now illegal in this country, in any case), and so we stand alone. Once again, one of the few.
I hate this upside-down world.
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ITEM: Being angry at the world is nothing new. It's a symptom of my condition, and a most unwelcome one. At my worst times, I feel like a God, but a God in whom no-one believes anymore. My power has been ebbed away by comfort, my time never to come, like synthesiser bands of the 1980s, making future music for a future that was out of date before it arrived.
Over the years I've learned to look for the symptoms, and been able to control things without too many major incidents. But there have been a few, and I know I'm always one more away from doing some permanent damage to something. So I'm careful, and have to keep things tucked away, always stepping outside myself to check that I'm not too happy, too sad, too angry, too apathetic. Too anything. I allow myself brief periods of extreme emotion, but I know that if I let myself get carried away - laugh too hard, or sink too deep - I may not come back.
They tried to teach this, back when I was sent for cognitive therapy, but they went about it all wrong. We were told to keep diaries, and identify when we were thinking bad thoughts. The advice at that point was to tell yourself that it was simply the depression talking, and thus it wasn't real at all. Foolish. It might work in a simple mind, I guess. Where they got it wrong, the mistake they made, was to attribute an outsider quality to the thoughts and feeling. That they weren't part of you, and could be treated as such. Cut out like a bruise on an apple. There's nothing outside about them. Nothing at all. The bad thoughts, the bad times, are as much a part of us as the good times. You may as well keep a diary of all the times you enjoyed yourself and tell yourself that they werent real at all.
Rather they should teach you to cope with these things. Accept that they're a part of you, until enough drugs, enough electricity, enough of your brain is cut out that they're not there anymore. When I accepted that, I learned to live. No more hiding, no more crying. No more wondering, "why me?", and cursing the cruel god that made me.
There are times, of course, when I'm very, very good at this. And times, few and far between at the moment, when I'm not so good. Mostly I just exist, with small glimpses of the me that could be. Like am empty cardboard box with a smiley face on it.
Sometimes there are polystyrene chips inside.
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ITEM: David O'Leary has been on a charm offensive in the last week, trying to cosy up to the Villa fans he has treated with contempt for the best part of three years. Someone obviously had a word, presumably Doug Ellis, because it's been a new DO'L we've seen these past few days. Doesn't make a single bit of difference, though, because he's still the same twat he ever was. Banners were unfurled at Villa park on Saturday, calling for his head. He acknowledged them, but took the position that it was a minority of the 32000 fans that were there that want him gone. That might fly if the vast majority of those same fans hadn't booed the team off at half-time and full-time, finally sick of the tripe served up every week.
The crowd was 32000, by the way, because Fulham have no fans. Away fans at Villa Park usually get the lower part of the North Stand, and some of the lower Witton Lane. But because Fulham have no fans, they got a tiny portion of the lower Witton Lane, and the usual away end was given over to Villa fans, at £10 an adult, and £1 a kid. So it was packed with families, many of whom were enjoying their first visit (ever or in a while) to Villa Park. I doubt many of them will be back, so terrible was the game. It could have been a wonderful PR exercise: new fans see the team play exciting football and beat a team who hadn't won away all season. DO'L could have gotten the fans off his back, and a week in which our fiercest rivals had been hammered twice could have been complete.
Instead what we got was a clueless manager, leading a clueless team, half of whom looked jaded and exasperated, the others trying to work out how to play in a side that has no direction, no idea, no hope. We're probably safe from relegation now, but only because the teams below us are so awful. It's been a terrible year for Birmingham football, and we're the best of the bunch. Imagine that.
There's no easy solution, of course. We've continued to sink into the mire of the perennial mid-tablers, almost to the level of a sleeping giant, like our near neighbours in Wolverhampton. It's very difficult to attract anything of note to a club in our position - managers, players, finance, fans... But that doesn't mean we give up. It doesn't mean we accept those who say, "yeah, but who could do better than DO'L?" The answer is, "who could do worse?" A new broom sweeps clean, a change is as good as a rest, and all that jazz.
It's time, surely, to try something new. Three-year cycles be damned. It's time Villa made the news for something positive for once.
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ITEM: I really, really want to write something. I mean, other than this blather, of course. I have a 'zine in my head, and need to get it down, but I'm in the trap of having a zillion different ideas about what it should be, and actually caring about that, rather than just throwing it down and sorting it out once it's there. Kind of the literary equivalent of "kill 'em all, let God sort them out." I have names, and a design, and nothing concrete to put in it. Like the Millennium Dome, I guess.
Actually, given that I have three names, let's take a vote. I'm realistic, so I understand that the winning name may receive no votes at all, but here's the choices:
MODERN WOLFMAN
NO HEROICS
KNEE JERK
Anyone? Anyone? Something -doo economics?
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ITEM: We got Sky+ last week. It's awesome. It's already changed my life in minor ways. I can pause live TV. I can rewind live TV. I'm living in the future, obviously, because how can this be? The best bit is the hard drive, and I'm stacking stuff up on there to watch at some point when I get time. Or, more likely, delete when I realise I'm never going to watch it. So far, I've got 3 hours on there, which is just 6% of the memory. A quick mental sum tells me that the HD can hold 50 HOURS of stuff. Super.
I've got The Daily Show on series link, since I only ever seem to enjoy that show when I have lots to watch, and some UFC - which I've been promising Drazic I'd try and watch for ever. So, yeah, that part of life is amazing. TV is my saviour, once again.
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ITEM: A picture by HeyJude~!
More at chewedmelon.deviantart.com
Mar. 27th, 2006 @ 08:08 pm
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| » MMVI: 76-80 (Atlas Can't Shrug) |
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ITEM: I hurt my back. I was carrying a pile of books at work on Friday and put them down on the counter and something went. The pain wasn't that bad, but I knew I'd done something. It got a bit worse as the day went on, but I soldiered on like a trooper, and made it through to the finish of work. We were quite short on Saturday, so I went in all ginger and stood around making myself partially useful. Sunday, again, there was pain but nothing too delibitating. But then Monday...
The pain on Monday morning was amazing. I've only felt worse pain three times in my life. First, when I was 8, I dropped a shot put I'd found on my finger as I was trying to roll it down a slide at the park. My finger was, like, a foot wide and it hurt. Yes, it hurt. Second, I tore the ligaments in my left knee and almost passed out as I tried to stand. I got colors around my vision and everything! Thirdly, I hurt my ankle playing football and didn't feel too bad. But then I went to the Chinese and it hurt so much I was almost sick. Then it got better.
But, man alive, did it hurt on Monday morning! I was literally brought to my knees by it, and had to roll over onto my back to stop the agony. I didn't go into work, loaded up on painkillers and spent a tentative day at home. But the funny thing is that once the painkillers wore off, the pain had gone. Like, they actually killed the pain. *shrug* But then this morning it was back again, not quite as bad, and I'm dosed up once more.
I've avoided back injury for years. Five years of wrestling, taking bump after bump on my back, and I hurt it doing something as simple as carrying a pile of books. Stupid books. There's a lesson there, I'm sure. Tea and sympathy to the usual address...
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ITEM: I'm quite liking the whole myspace thing (I'm not cool enough to call it myspazz yet, I don't think) but it's a bit random. It's like a jigsaw puzzle where you don't have all the pieces and you're not sure what it's supposed to be, and you're not even sure if you like jigsaws...
I can see its uses, and it's put me in touch with a couple of people I haven't seen in a while, but I can't help but wish it could help me find people who don't have myspace yet because, obviously, they're the ones you want to talk to. So you type in names of people you half remember, and it's all pot luck.
And there's no naked pictures.
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ITEM: Josh Rouse is playing Milton Keynes. Yeah, I know! It's at the Stables, where I didn't see the triple bill of Sufjan Stevens, Rosie Thomas, and Iron and Wine. Me so stupid. £15, though, but Josh is worth it. He's the best singer called Josh ever, I reckon. It's shaping up to be a good year, live music wise, anyhow. I've still to get tickets for Alejandro Escovedo (but will), and Reading is still very much on the agenda. I might even go and see Chairman Of The Bored next month, for no other reason than Cameron from Hollyoaks is in them. Oh, sweet hedonism.
I'm once again loving the sweet, sweet music. Thanks to various magazines, and Pandora (check it out, you'll slightly like it, at least), my CD collection is expanding at a rate faster than the universe would expand if there were anything for it to expand into (I mean, come on... speaking of which, some dude reckons that the universe is expanding and that's why time runs forward but eventually the universe will contract and time will run backward, but that we won't notice because our brains will run backward, too - and they say the bible is full of wack shit...), and I need to get it into some sort of order if I'm ever to listen to anything ever again. Ah, the sweet joy of possessing things...
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ITEM: Drazic's computer done broke. He needs cash money. So if you've ever liked any of my stories, you'll like his. Go buy his book at www.franticplanet.com. Now!
Mar. 21st, 2006 @ 06:35 pm
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| » MMVI: 75 (Strike!) |
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ITEM: We're going on strike! On Tuesday March 28th, members of UNISON will walk out in protest at the government's plans to scrap Rule 85, which allows public servants to claim their pension when their combined age and years of service reach a total of 85, but no earlier than 60 years old. This obviously sticks in the craw of a lot of people who will have to work until they drop, but the fact of the matter is that very few public servants will be able to afford to retire at 60, anyway. The average end pension for a public servant is less than £96 a week, which is weighted hugely by the fat cats bleeding the system at the top. I expect to retire with no more than £60 a week from the LGPS after (hopefully) 30 years of service. Pitiful. So we're walking out for a day, and I expect the reaction of most people will be a) they don't deserve to retire early anyway, and b) if they're dedicated public servants, why are they abandoning the people they serve? Of course, the answer to this is simple: we get the early pension as deferred pay for a working life spent earning low wages for a job which has little prestige and little in the way of career progression. We do it because we care for the public. Yes, the money that goes into my bank at the end of the month is most appreciated, but I could earn far more (and have done) doing soulless wortk elsewhere.
If you've got nothing better to do on March 28th, get along to your local library, or town or county hall, and express your support for us. We'd appreciate it!
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ITEM: We had man in the library today who may or may not have been dealing heroin. A customer quietly sidled up to the counter and told us that a man who'd just left had been doing a drug deal (in the biography section). To be honest, we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do, so we called security and related our tale. They came and took some details, and then said that they would put an undercover man in the library for the next couple of weeks. Yes, an undercover librarian. "Hey, Sandra Bullock! I've got a film for you!" Although it's more likely that they'll send a burly security man to sit in the library, trying to look inconspicuous, as teenagers walk past whispering "narc" at him.
The stupid thing is, we know who this man is. We have his name and address. But we can't tell anyone, thanks to the Data Protection Act. We can't even ring the police and tell them - they have to send us a form(!) to fill in. Crime-fighting at its best.
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ITEM: My head is very big. It's a source of constant disappointment for me. Sometimes it feels like it's three or four times as big as the head of a normal person. So imagine how big it might have gotten if I'd been injected with TGN1412. Of course, the laughable thing is that we're all supposed to feel like there's been a huge injustice done to these men. But they don't pay you between £2000 and £6000 to sit around for 6 days if there's not even the tiniest risk you might die. That's good money, second division footballer money, and if you haven't got second division footballer talents, then dying has to be a possible side-effect of what you do to earn it, be you a drug dealer, armed robber or human guinea pig.
If anything, I hope this puts paid to the myth that testing drugs meant for humans on animals is in any way useful. It flew through the tests on monkeys and dogs and yet made people swell up like Violet Beaugregard. Idiots.
Mar. 16th, 2006 @ 06:30 pm
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| » MMVI: 70-74 (Sunny Days) |
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ITEM: Another day off and the potential to waste it. My Wednesdays off are usually a mixture of eating and sleeping too much, all the while feeling I should be doing something worthwhile. So today I did something worthwhile...
One of my jobs at work is to select books for the housebound customers, and you get to know them through the kind of books they read. There are five runs a month, delivered by volunteers, but at the moment we're down to just four volunteers, so we have to pick up the slack and deliver Run 4 ourselves. Usually John (temporary access librarian) or Michael (assistant supervisor) do it, as they're all insured and what not, but neither of them could do Run 4 today. So I went in on my day off to do it. Yeah, I know. Selfless idiot.
But, hey, it made me feel good, got me out in the sunshine, and stopped me wasting another day off. I almost got trapped talking to Mrs Goffe, but managed to get away after just five minutes. She was telling me of her hard life; of brothers and sisters killed by trains, bullying dads, care homes in Wiltshire, and tough matrons in hospital. I guess they don't see many people and love to talk, and I do feel bad for not letting her talk more, but to be honest, I felt I'd topped up my karma enough for one day.
Afterwards, I went to Bedford, for no other reason than it was something to do. I hadn't been there in years, but I don't suppose it had changed much or any at all. They have a new comic shop, Close Encounters, and it's quite the find. They have an upstairs with sofas where you can (within reason, I suppose) lounge and read, and the owners were very chatty. Given that many comic book readers are, by nature, loners, I think it's a good thing that they're so friendly and it seems like a place you could hang out for a while. There's also a Subway next door. They're having a signing on April 1st with Chris Claremont, Steve Dillon, Glen Fabry, Jamie Delano and Simon Bisley. If you live anywhere near it, give it a look. It's at 59 Midland Road, at the top of the shopping precinct.
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ITEM: Two televised games in four days and Villa's season is over. The general consensus was that we played well at Blackburn, though I certainly couldn't see it, and there's not a living soul who thought that last night's capitulation to Man City was anything other than disgraceful. I don't know what the asnwer is, other than a new manager and/or lots of money. The money is just not going to happen, though, so it's imperative that Mr O'Leary be given his walking papers sometime in the next couple of months. There's potential in the sqaud, though God knows he can't seem to find it. There's no motivation apparent, and even less tactical nous - it's like he's picking 11 players and just giving them shirts. No instruction, just go out and pick up your wages. And, yes, 11 professional footballers ought to be able to motivate themselves, and be able to win games of football, but this isn't a model where everything else is equal - the oppostion are motivated and instructed by their management team and everything turns to shit. Ah well, home games against Fulham, the Albion, the Shit and Sunderland ought to see us safe from relegation. How does 16th sound?
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ITEM: I paid £8 for a magazine last week. Yes, eight English pounds. I actually wrote them an e-mail complaining about it, albeit light-hearted. The bone of contention being that the Americans pay $8 (£4.63), the Canadians $12 (£5.98), and the Europeans - the hated Europeans - €8 (£5.50). I haven't heard back.
But you know what? I finished the magazine last night, after having read it before bed for almost a week. Probably about 5 hours reading time. So, all in all, it's well worth the money. And I'll spend another £8 next week when I got to Borders again. Sucker. Anyway, this is the magazine, The Believer:
Produced by the people behind McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, it's pretty much a literary magazine, with other sluces of culture mixed in. In the issue shown above, I read about an obscure Ozarks author, the application of the Aeneid to the modern world, Nick Hornby's books of the month, questions of Walt Whitman, and so much more. I feel CULTURED~!
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ITEM: Drazic and I jumped into the slightly-odd world of MySpace this week, and have begun to pad out our friends lists. He's gone for MMA fighters, and is ever-so-excited at the thought that Chuck Liddell may have checked out his book website, and I've tried to add small bands that might appreciate my interest. It's weird, because these people become de facto friends: you can actually say that famous people have called you a pal. I've also been looking for people I know and knew, and finding very little of interest. I did find Andrea's cousin's daughter, who claims to be 21 and bi, but is actually only 15 (or maybe 16, I don't remember), and has shocked poor little Andrea with her worldliness. I also found Ricky Robinson, an old friend who I loved like a brother, and I'm pleased to see he's back playing music again. The internet has certainly changed the world - it's only 10 years ago that I met Dana for the first time, fresh from a romance carried on over phone lines and MUDs, before fleeing to Texas with her and then missing my life. You know what? I'd love to be a young(er) boy now, with all this stuff to help you along. Life would be amazing, I guess, but probably not.
Mar. 15th, 2006 @ 02:58 pm
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| » MMVI: 69 (Dude) |
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ITEM: Death Cab For Cutie was enormously underwhelming. Not so much the band, or the songs they played, because they were just fine, but more the venue and the people and everything else. I wrote last week that I quite liked The Astoria, but I'd forgotten that the previous times I'd been there I'd either been up on the balcony or down in the pit (my young shame), and not attempting to stand and listen to a great band from somewhere near the back. The views, never great anyway, are made all the worse by tall people, who just love to stand in front of small people. I hate tall people. Tall people should be herded into their own area, somewhere towards the back, where they're not in the way of anyone, letting anyone under 6ft tall enjoy the show without them. But it wasn't just the tall people, it was just about everyone. Maybe it's because DCFC are the first band I've seen in a while who've picked up that "so cool" following, but they're were an unexpected amount of wankers. I saw people in rugby shirts, for fuck's sake. Lots of people there seemed preoccupied with being cool - I actually think that they were there just to be there, because their talking through the quieter songs was bordering on offensive.
I think the biggest problem, though, was that - for me, at least - Death Cab are an intimate band. Ben sings songs about love and loneliness and small things, and those songs just don't work in a theatre with 2000 people. Shudder to think, they're playing Brixton in June - 4000! It just doesn't work. But that's what happens when your first visit in a long, long while comes after two major label albums and an appearance on The OC, I guess. So maybe I should have sold my tickets and pocketed the £150. Eh, hindsight and all that. I did buy a nice t-shirt, though...
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ITEM: Fuck me if I didn't go to Villa and see them win last week. Truth told, though, we played very, very badly, and it's a testament to the sheer crappiness of Portsmouth that we beat them. Portsmouth are a team condemned, and I don't know how they've managed to get as many points as they have this season. Lua Lua was their only half-decent player, thank God, and he was dangerous at times without really causing too much trouble. Villa's makeshift defence coped well, and Freddy Bouma looked every inch the player we thought we were buying. Time will tell, I guess. I spoke to Dave Woodhall, who edits the Villa fanzine, outside, and we discussed where apathy turns to contempt, because a lot of long-time Villa fans are finding this season - and O'Leary in particular - the final straw, coming to hate going to watch the club they love. It's certainly noticeable inside the ground, where even Portsmouth's meagre following outsang the Villa fans. We're just not moved - not by the football, by the commitment shown on the pitch, by the long-term prospects of the club, or by the manager's constant talking down of Villa and the fans. Something has to change, I'm guessing, and this summer will be an interesting one.
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ITEM: The decision has been made on the new opening hours at the library, and I don't actually have to move around that much. I do lose my every other Friday afternoon off, though, which is annoying if not earth-shattering. Other libraries have had their hours cut in half or more, without a corresponding cutting of staff - for the moment, at least - and those staff will have to fill in at other libraries, so we're going to be able to get all the little jobs done that have been going begging since we were put under staff restrictions 18 months ago. We should be able to get the summer reading promotion done well this year, but after that we fear redundancies. We've been told, off the record, that full-time staff won't be for the chop, and it'll be the part-timers that go first, but it's still a stinky situation. I just don't get why public service isn't valued anymore. If we're not getting our budgets cut, we're being outed in the right-wing press as having cushy, secure jobs with an enormous pension that we can get before anyone else. I don't mind saying that I earn £11,500 a year, and that my job is far from secure, and that my early pension is nothing more than deferred pay for the crappy wages I get now. Yes, there are senior civil servants who are raping the tax payer, but they're a tiny minority of public servants. Yet we're all lumped together. I'd quit but it's addictive. I like serving the public, I like making a difference. I just couldn't do a job now knowing that I'm making a rich man even richer and helping people be assholes to one another. Naive? Sure.
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ITEM: There's an alarming trend amongst comics readers to wait for the trade paperback collection, and comics are even being written in 4- or 6-issue arcs to better fit in those collections. As a result, monthly sales - the very comics that are being collected - are falling. I'm not entirely guiltless - I do wait for the Ultimate titles to be collected before I buy them - but I do my bit by still buying 5 or 6 comics a week. Last week I bought the latest issue of Daredevil, the first issue by a new writer after an outstanding run by Brian Michael Bendis. Ed Brubaker inherited a book that was so good that he would be lucky to even look half-decent, but he pulled it off and it's one of the best issues of any comic book I've read in a while. More importantly, the cliffhanger was amazing, and it's hard to see how it will have the same effect when it's collected into a trade paperback in six months' time. I'm itching to read the next part, and that anticipation is making me think about the story, and amping up my (admittedly already strong) love for the genre. Of course, there's the danger that the next issue may suck, and that the cliffhanger may be all King Of The Rocket Man, but it's nice to be excited about things for a while.
Four other great comics at the moment: She-Hulk, Seven Soliders Of Victory, Nextwave, and Invincible.
Mar. 9th, 2006 @ 10:32 am
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