BETAMAXNOMATES

OOTAY HERE

2008-11-15T07:02:00.002Z

And over here.

Probably won't have this together until next year but I'll keep sporadic updates here.

Toodle pip.

LIGHTS IN THE SKY

2008-09-23T14:12:00.002+01:00

The end of the world as we know it and I feel... alright, I suppose, can't complain, been worse, been better, my leg hurts a bit since you ask etc.

THE GENIUS THAT IS CASSETTEBOY

2008-09-15T15:39:00.001+01:00

Viddy this.

I'VE NOT BEEN WELL

2008-08-24T10:15:00.005+01:00

I saw a dog with my Dad's face this week. Not like a dog with my Dad's bloody face hanging from its jaws or something. That would be disgusting. Just a dog that seemed to have my Dad's face on it instead of a dog's face. Obviously, I was happy to see my Dad but a bit surprised to see him in his new canine form. It has been a while since I've seen my Dad by that's definitely not how I remember him. Also, I wasn't really sure as to how I should interact with him. Like most people - guys especially, I think - there's a certain protocol involved when greeting your Dad. Handshakes are a bit formal and hugs can be awkward and uncomfortable. Now that my Dad appeared to be a dog I was confused as to how to approach him. Should I try to shake his paw? Give him a good-natured pat on the head, playfully ruffle his fur a bit? Do I whistle? What if - God forbid - he starts humping my leg or tries to bite me? Thankfully, by the time I had run all these various scenarios through my mind the dog had vanished back, presumably, to his other dog family. I'm going to resist posting that well-known picture of the dog with the human face now as every time I see it I get strangely angry, like this is some interloper, new on the scene, greasily vying for my affections. 'You're not my real Dad', my inner teen drama queen screams, slamming the bedroom door and diving onto the bed to scribble furiously in a diary, Lloyd Cole crooning all the time in the background. Maybe I'll soften my views eventually, and grow to regard that picture of the dog with the human face as a kindly uncle type of figure. Maybe I'll even come to love him as a father. Maybe my family will disown me for good.

Anyway, I saw that Batman film the other day. All due respect to the people who made it and everything, but it's a bit shit really. Better than Batman Begins, yes, but nowhere near as good as Batman and Batman Returns. I've noticed it seems to have become the received opinion that Burton's Batman was a load of crap, blighted by Nicholsan's wildly over-the-top performance and an intractably naff score from Prince. Can't really argue with that last point but - and maybe childhood nostalgia is colouring my views here (I am, after all, seeing my Dad's face on dogs) but for all their flaws - and there are many - Burton's movies have a sense of the fantastic, a charm, and a wealth of visual imagination sorely lacking from Nolan's. The Dark Knight is a bloated, overlong, overly-serious chore of a movie. It's not fun. It's not entertaining. It's boring and it's gloomy and it's far too fucking long. Did I mention that already? Two and a half hours! What movie needs to be two and a half hours? And even at that (wildly indulgent) length a lot of the plot feels rushed. The movies best character (Harvey Dent) is pushed to the sidelines to make way for Ledger's ADHD twitch-fest. To be fair, it's not entirely the fault of Ledger's performance (which is OK) but the lack of any attempt at character development on the part of the screenwriters. I realise that this was intentional, ostensibly to make the Joker seem more frightening, but I feel this was a mistake and actually has the opposite effect, reducing the Joker to a cackling one-note cipher who pops up every now and then and does something wacky to derail the narrative. It's hard to be frightened by (or indeed in vaguely interested in) a character you know next to nothing about and whose presence seems only to fulfil the heavy-handed theme of capital-d 'Duality' that runs through the movie like a particularly philosophical stick of rock. Elsewhere, Bale - a shallow actor who seems to be hailed as some kind of method genius purely by virtue of his yo-yo dieting - is good as the (shallow) Bruce Wayne but utterly unconvincing as Batman, again effecting the laughable tough-guy voice that made Batman Begins so unintentionally hilarious. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine potter about with little to do, except for the former being called upon to explain away the most ludicrous deux ex machina Bat-gadget in the final act. Maggie Gyllenhaal's in it for about five minutes. She is, at least, better than Katie Holmes.
It's not an awful film by any stretch. Just a messy, unsatisfying and generally unenjoyable one. As I said, the best arc - the Dent/Two Face story isn't given enough focus and Dent's transformation (though skilfully delineated by Eckhart) seems to happen within the space of a day and is over before it ever gets a chance to begin. If they'd dumped the Joker storyline - which, thinking about it, they could have done quite easily ever since... well, you know - and just focused on Two Face I reckon we would have had an infinitely superior film. And if they brought back Michael Keaton (or even Val Kilmer who was surprisingly good in an otherwise dreadful film) and committed to making a film that had a distinct 'look', a 'feel', a certain visual identity, instead of just looking like an episode of CSI: New York then maybe we'd be sucking diesel. As my Dad would say. My Dad the dog.
Oh, what the hell.

IN PRAISE OF METRONOMY

2008-08-19T12:16:00.002+01:00

I may soon simply replace this blog with a link to YouTube.com but until that happens lets enjoy the following: three very good videos and songs from this chap.

CHOCOLATE SALTY CORPSE

2008-08-11T04:07:00.003+01:00

Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008. :-(

EFFLUVIA

2008-08-01T03:18:00.002+01:00

I dreamed that I lost my job to Peter Kay last night. I came into work and my boss (who appeared to have had some kind of stroke - half her face was paralysed and she sounded like Kathleen Turner on qualudes) told me to 'get my desk' (not clear out, actually get) as I had been replaced. As I went to collect my desk I passed by my classroom and saw Peter Kay inside, dressed in a shiny suit, entertaining my class of kids with his shallow brand of observational humour. 'Not Kay!', I groaned, turning to my boss. 'Anyone but him! Coogan? Brydon? Walliams even?' She ignored me and handed me my desk (which was significantly smaller and lighter than I would have imagined) and escorted me off the premises, oblivious to my streams of hot, angry tears.
I woke up screaming and have decided never to go to sleep ever again.

ALGERIA TOUCHSHRIEK

2008-07-31T11:28:00.002+01:00

Another week, another disappointing musical offering. This track was inspired by - and indeed is dedicated to - British actress Samantha Janus. She was very good in Game On.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:

RAPIDSHARE:
http://rapidshare.com/files/133786167/BETAMAXNOMATES_-_Samantha_Janus.mp3.html

MEGAUPLOAD:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q7Q7UE1K

ZSHARE:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/162930079b079433/

SLAVE YOUR BEETLE BRAIN

2008-07-31T06:17:00.003+01:00

Some brief movie reviews:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Not bad, this. Overlong though, and, on the whole, rather aimless - like a lot of Judd Apatow-related movies there's plenty of scenes that could easily have been trimmed down or perhaps excised completely. Russell Brand is good, as is Veronica Mars and that one from That 70's Show is suitably adorable. Still, it's somewhat telling that the interviews Brand and Bell did to promote the film are a million times funnier than the film itself.

The Lookout
Also, sadly, on the average side. My somewhat unhealthy obsession with Joseph Gordon-Levitt led me track this one down. It has some interesting ideas and is generally well acted but the wheels well and truly come off towards the end. The pretty lady who used to be in Home And Away - seemingly an integral character to the story - disappears without explanation and the conditions of Levitt's 'neurological impairment' seem to change every ten minutes.

In Bruges
This is great. Go see this now. Sharply written, brilliantly performed (even by Farrell), with a story that never goes exactly where you expect it to. The trailer - and indeed the entire marketing campaign - seem contrived to make it look like the worst movie in the history of filmed entertainment (and indeed, encouraged me to avoid the thing for the short amount of time it was on show here) but it is, by my reckoning, an early contender for the best movie of 2008 so far.

The Ruins
Like this, only not as scary.

INTELLIGENCE FAILURE

2008-07-29T04:13:00.002+01:00

I hate making decisions. Always have. There's a Mexican restaurant around the corner from me that advertises '80 Different Types Of Menu!' It is my idea of hell.

Here's a good band. They're called (obviously) Fleet Foxes. Maybe I'm late to the party on this, maybe these guys are already huge but I just heard of them this weekend. They're sort of like Simon & Garfunkel meets Band Of Horses. I've actually come around a bit to Simon & Garfunkel; I still maintain that 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' is one of the most horrible songs ever recorded (as is most of the album) but some of their earlier stuff is great. Anyway, below is a live Fleet Foxes performance. The song is 'Mykonos' and it's sort of two quite good songs smushed together to make one rather amazing song.

Finally, Generation Kill. Iraq etc. By the guys who done The Wire. Great stuff altogether.

KERFUFFLE AT THE BUFFET

2008-07-24T15:18:00.003+01:00

Interesting.

Useful.

Funny.

Unbelievably fucking cool.

HAPPY MARINE DAY EVERYONE!

2008-07-21T06:24:00.003+01:00

Marine Day? What's that then? Why, it's a spurious holiday of course, of which there are many in Japan. Marine Day (literally 'Umi no Hi' or 'Ocean Day') was established in 1995 to give thanks to the sea or celebrate the gifts of the sea or something. Back in May we had Greenery Day (thanks trees) and Children's Day. In September we have Respect-The-Aged Day and then - my favourite - Health And Fitness Day, supposedly set up to commemorate the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. Later in the year there's Culture Day and Praise Labour Day where you celebrate working by, well, not working. Spurious holidays (full list here) are great because you get the day off but you don't have to buy gifts or cards for anyone or any of that nonsense. That's why I'm drawing up a list of ideas for more spurious holidays to be instated over the coming months.

Firstly, Moon Day (the third Monday - eh? - in August) to celebrate the moon, the nice reflections it makes on the sea at night, it's control over the tides and ladyfolks menstrual cycles (as is my understanding), and its shimmery understated niceness in general. Not like that overrated ball of gas, the Sun. Besides that already has its own day - every bloody week. Secondly, Bacon Day (last Wednesday in April) paying tribute to bacon in its many delicious forms. Eating bacon on this day is compulsory and should be accompanied by a sombre ceremony or ritual of some kind, possible involving chants. Similarly, Say No To Wheat Day (first Thursday in June) is not so much about not eating wheat (though that obviously forms a large part of it) but about publicly rejecting wheat, chiding it even - stopping at the deli to tut in disapproval, shunning the baker when you see him on the street, and ridding oneself of all wheat-based products. Ever seen a man say goodbye to a baguette? I have and it still gives me nightmares today. Finally, Live Your Day Like It's A Sitcom Day (first Friday of July) involves, well, living your life as if it were a sitcom. This entails hatching hare-brained schemes with your buddies, going on a first date (with disastrous results), and just generally mooching around coffee houses discuss the minutiae of everyday life in a light-hearted and amusing fashion.
That's all I can think of right now. I'm off to celebrate the gifts of the sea the only way I know how.

TERRAPLANE BLUES

2008-07-20T16:24:00.003+01:00

PROXENETE MY BRETE

2008-07-20T08:50:00.006+01:00

I don't often use this blog for whoring. Bit pointless really since only about three people read it and they only ever seem interested in discount pharmaceuticals and imitation designer watches. But I thought I'd bang this up here anyway. It's a collection of seven short songs I did for the Tokyo Laptop Battle this week. Some of it's rejigging of older stuff. Some of it's new. Some of it borders on 'sort of alright'; some of it really is shockingly poor, even by my own lax standards. Anyway, it'll be twenty three minutes of your life you'll never get back but - be honest - you would have wasted them anyway.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:

RAPIDSHARE:
http://www.rapidshare.com/files/130873808/BETAMAXNOMATES_-_Epic_Fail.zip.html

MEGAUPLOAD:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7ZAEQ4MQ

ZSHARE:
http://www.zshare.net/download/15596753d97fb8a0/

ALL YOUR GRUBBY LITTLE DREAMS COME TRUE

2008-07-10T14:59:00.002+01:00

This is a collection of photos of Japanese people asleep in public. It's something you see here quite a lot. Sleeping on buses and trains isn't so unusual - and something I do regularly (see also: cinemas, nightclubs, funerals etc.) but I'm always amused by the street sleepers. People, generally salarymen (and occasionally women), in their suits, just sprawled on the pavement. Bit like that Radiohead video. It's hard to imagine this kind of sleep being particularly restful or relaxing but it's sometimes surprising how comfortable some of the street sleepers look. All tuckered out, just curled up on the pavement in their office wear, their Louis Vuitton man-bag their pillow. It's touching really. Particularly when I touch them it is.
Here's a site that - well, the URL sums it up fairly well. A bit alarming initially if you're using a Mac but it's a very clever idea. Selection is a bit limited so far and does, for some reason, contain the godawful Vernon God Little. Really terrible book that - can't even remember if I finished it. I've been reading a lot of George Orwell recently and can conclude that he is 'rather good'. This one and this one are particularly illuminating reads.
Mike Sacks takes photos of TV. You can see them here. The caption 'Ice-T's Friend' is my favourite.
Peter Callesen is an artist who makes pieces out of regular A4 printer paper. They are amazing.
And Mark Jenkins is a guy who does what would I hesitate to call 'guerilla art', mainly because anyone that uses a term like 'guerialla art' out loud in actual conversation immediately forfeits their right to be taken seriously as a human being. However his 'street installations' are quite cool. A bit like Banksy only without the lazy sloganeering and 'subversive' posturing. This Charlie Brooker article sums up my thoughts on Banksy rather neatly. There's a sense of playfulness and a keen eye for the absurd that sets Jenkins's work apart, I think. Plus it ties in rather well with the thing about street sleepers at the start. Almost like I planned it. Which I didn't.

Satan!

THIS SONG HAS BEEN STUCK IN MY HEAD ALL DAY

2008-06-27T12:17:00.004+01:00

Now it can be stuck in yours.

The video has a midget in a tuxedo, a couple of trannys, and Peter Hook looking like a tit. What more, really, could you want?

THE WORLDS LOCAL BANK NOW OWNS YOUR HOUSE

2008-06-27T11:49:00.002+01:00

A few minor points of distraction:

A website cataloging entrances to Hell found around the UK.
A hilarious collection of absurd 'celebrity' press releases and PR puff pieces.
And, quite possibly the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, The 'Twat-O-Tron' - a random comment generator derived from some of the worst invective found on the BBC 'Have Your Say' mini-site. Priceless stuff.

Your correspondent - is a businesswoman with a lot of balls.

WHAT'S ALL THIS THEN?

2008-06-19T14:15:00.001+01:00

CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, EUGENE

2008-06-16T13:29:00.004+01:00

Roaches are right scary bastards. Just look at them. There was one in the shower this morning when I went in, just scurrying across the tiles. I'm not ashamed to say that I screamed like a little girl. In a little dress. With little saddle shoes. Little pigtails. I'm not one to be overly perturbed by insects and that but fucked if roaches don't scare the living shit out of me. Their (perhaps somewhat exaggerated) indestructibility is a part of it. That, and the fact that once they find your house they don't leave and they bring all their crusty little mates round too. You load up on traps, sprays and powders until the whole thing escalates into some kind of nightmarish, Burroughs-ian arms race, with you velcro-ing yourself to the ceiling, wrapped in plastic and breathing through a straw. And that's when you have to get 'people in'.
Getting people in is a funny old game in Japan. Since locking your front door is impolite the people tend to just come in of their own accord. It's not unusual to find the postman - often a man of about ninety in a comical uniform - standing, confused and vaguely embarressed, in the living room, eager to thrust a package at any passing paleface and be on his way. The cops wandered in one day too - a pair of them, both in their seventies at least. Very polite they were, asked to see my passport, chatted for a bit then buggered off. All in all, a pleasant, albeit unexpected and on some level probably a bit invasive, experience. They have guns here too so the politeness is undercut with a degree of menace. Also, there is the nagging worry they might suddenly have some flashback of the 1940's and start shooting at the potted plants. Though, thinking about it, that would probably freak the roaches out some. Swings and roundabouts. Apples and pears.

I'm unashamedly excited about Indiana Jones, which is released here this weekend. Despite some less than glowing reviews the thought of Harrison Ford in the hat, the requisite snakes, rats, monkeys, and historically accurate sexism gives me a great degree of trouser pleasure. Not much else to recommend cinematically - I've not seen Gone Baby Gone, though I've heard it's quite good, as is - apparently - In Bruges. The Onion Movie was pretty rubbishy and The Mist straddled a fine line between stupid and clever before deciding to plant its flag firmly in the former. Good ending though. Musically, I've got quite into Tim Buckley. His voice is a bit overbearing at times but he does have a sort of 'mythic' air about him that is undeniably fascinating. A lot of people don't like him because apparently he was a bit of a wanker who abandoned his son (that'd be Jeff Buckley) but in terms of appreciating an artist I tend to put 'mad parenting skillz' somewhere between 'keeping it real' and the ability to 'hold it down'. Elsewhere, the new Sigur Ros album is exactly the same as every other Sigur Ros album. It's all well and good but you do occasionally get the sense that you may have heard this elaborately orchestrated, unintelligibly histrionic wailing noise somewhere before.
That's all for now. I'll leave with a bit of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. Worth the four minutes and twenty-two seconds just to hear Fry's mangling of the word 'dirty' and Hugh swearing at the end.

OBLIGATORY YOUTUBE CLIP

2008-06-09T15:53:00.001+01:00

THESE THINGS I HAVE LEARNED

2008-06-09T14:39:00.003+01:00

So.
It's been just over a year since I left home to come and live in Tokyo, to fully immerse myself in Japanese culture and to gain a deeper understanding of the Japanese way of life.

This is what I have learned so far:

Japanese people are small.

I, at least in most obvious respects, am not.

This is a source of infinite amusement.

It is generally understood that I play basketball. I'm a regular Montel Jordan. A real Harley Globetrotter.

That is all.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

2008-01-06T11:12:00.001Z

Overheard in Londis on New Years Day:

Girl 1: I got a text from someone wishing me Happy New Year. I don't know who sent it.

Girl 2: Tell them to fuck off.

God, I miss Ireland :-(

IN EVERY DREAM HOME A HEARTACHE

2007-10-28T12:54:00.000Z

Japanese Girl: Where you come from?

Me: I'm from Ireland.

Japanese Girl: Iceland?

Me: No, Ireland.

Japanese Girl: Ah! I know Ireland! I like Ireland music!

Me: Yeah?

Japanese Girl: My favourite Ireland singer is Sting.

Me: Er...

Japanese Girl: I like Sting very much.

HEY RAINMAKER, COME AWAY FROM THAT MAN

2007-10-08T13:49:00.000+01:00

Hello. It's been quite a while since I updated this thing so I thought I'd 'fill you in', bring you 'up to speed', give you 'the 411' (no idea what that one means) on all things me and me-related. I'm still here - here being Tokyo - and this is good news. Things were looking a bit 'hairy' there for a bit: due to an unfortunate series of events, I - quite remarkably - managed to lose not one, but two jobs in the space of a single weekend, consequently finding myself unemployed for almost a month, teetering perilously on the brink of poverty, and quite seriously considering 'jacking the whole thing in'. Happily, things have resolved themselves rather nicely in the past three weeks and I currently find myself gainfully employed as an elementary school teacher (American for 'primary school') in a snooty private school for diplomat's kids and six year old girls who complain about their mothers having to take 'the Benz' this morning because the Porsche was 'in the shop' (This is not actually a lie). It's good fun and I like my students, though they still have a bit to learn about the whole student-teacher dynamic. 'You're so lazy', they whine. 'All you do is boss us around and then sit there doing nothing!' Ha! Kids! This is largely true though. Since I have no formal training in teaching per se (and by per se, I mean at all. None. Whatsoever) I have to rely on any techniques or tricks I may have learned from my own teachers. Mostly though this just involves me strutting around in a tweed jacket, jabbing my finger in the air, and tossing out phrases like 'knuckle down', 'buck up your ideas', 'pull up your socks' (often interpreted hilariously literally) and so forth. 'I'll come down on you like a tonne of bricks' - that's a good one. 'I'll have your guts for garters' - there's another. What the hell does that even mean anyway? What are garters? For some reason I seem to think they're some kind of clothing or clothing accessory, though it's proximity to the word 'garment' may be throwing me. Are they like britches or braces or something? I could look it up, I suppose, but I'm just too... well, y'know.
I'm not really that lazy though; I've just never been able to master that odd skill of 'looking busy'. Some people have it down to a fine art - indeed, many have managed to forge entire careers predicated solely on their ability to always appear occupied with Something Terribly Important. It's usually fairly apparent when I'm doing fuck all, which is, admittedly, most of the time. Still, I think that, on balance, the kids rather like me. I am adorable after all. Like a giant cuddly teddy bear. Although a teddy bear doesn't quite accurately reflect my physicality - I'm more like a Stretch Armstrong that hasn't shrunk back to its original shape. Vaguely horrifying, in other words, and not in the least bit cuddly. Or adorable actually. I'm not really sure what I was going with that. One of the Japanese kids has nicknamed me 'Two Metre', which works both as term of endearment, a handy statement of anatomical fact, and an easily pronouncable alternative to my actual name which unfortunately contains the letters 'l', 'r', and an 'f' sound, none of which particularly lend themselves to the Japanese tongue. I've also considered legally changing my name to 'Basketball' just to speed up the whole introduction process. And if anyone asks, yes, I am the tallest man in Ireland and I have a letter framed in gold from the president (Bono) attesting to that fact.

Hey, I've just discovered that when I type the phrase 'love hotel' into my phone it immediately converts it to a small picture of a hotel with a red love heart inside, an illustration that - I would have thought - surely misses the point. In case you're not familiar, a love hotel is basically a small hotel where you rent a room (or 'fuckbox', as I like to call them) for a couple of hours purely for the purposes of intimate congress. Typical exchange thusly: 'Hey, this party sucks. Wanna go get a fuckbox?' 'Erm, no thanks' etc.) For some reason it reminds me of the signs on the train denoting the 'priority seats' for the elderly and disabled, where pregnant women are represented with a large love heart growing inside their bellies. Since I don't watch TV (just downloaded episodes of Dexter, Pushing Daisies, and the American version of The Office - which is brilliant, by the way, in case you haven't seen it), my only experience of Japanese broadcast media is on trains and in the occasional bar. The ads are always entertaining, being, as they are, either completely incomprehensible (like this one - my current favourite - for Daijob, a recruitment agency) or of the laughably transparent buy-this-shit-and-you-will-have-sex-with-this-woman variety (pretty much everything else, especially this recent McDonalds campaign for this fucking disgusting shrimp burger thing). In conclusion, stay clear of pregnant women (they attract bears), excitable cowboys, and burgers containing seafood. Also, women that are 'on the rag' during the month of October are likely to be werewolves and are thus best avoided. I saw this in a movie once and believe it to be true.

Oh hey, before I go, did anyone hear about this album by Radiohead that was released this month? I can officially report that it is 'quite good'. I might go as far to say that it's very good indeed, even brilliant in parts - the 'lights gone out' section of 'Bodysnatchers' is enough to reaffirm your belief in Radiohead as a 'rock band' and, indeed, the whole idea of a 'rock band' itself as something meaningful, worthwhile, and, above all, Important. I fell out of love with Radiohead badly after the disappointment of Hail To The Thief and Thom's dreary solo album but this album has, in many ways, won me back. It's not perfect: 'House Of Cards' is forgettable, and 'Nude' - despite its almost mythic status - has always struck me as a distinctly average tune. Still, 'All I Need', '15 Step', 'Arpeggi' and especially 'The Reckoner' are probably some of the best songs they've ever recorded. And that bit in 'Bodysnatchers' really is amazing. This is all getting a bit music-journo-ey so I'll stop here. I hadn't intended to write much about this album but I really have been listening to it a lot - pretty much of all of last week. Actually on three separate occasions last week someone on the train asked me to lower the volume of my iPod as I was listening to In Rainbows. One does struggle to keep one's patience with the gooks sometimes and all their silly rules, but in this instance I have to concede that I was guilty of not only listening too loud but also singing along at several points. It really is a very good album. Steal it today if you have not already done so.
Finally, I should mention that - due to tax reasons - I shall be returning to Ireland for a short while this Christmas. While it's purely a formality - crossing a few 'i's here, dotting some 't's there - I am looking forward to going back to the 'ould sod', downing a 'pint of the black stuff', and engaging in all manner of stereotypic and culturally inauthentic behaviours. It's also a good chance to introduce everyone to my new wife. Yes, I got married. Funny story. Well, not so much funny as it is deeply troubling. I'll tell you about it another time. Suffice to say, we're staying together No Matter What People Say. Slán go foill!

UPDATE:
My wife sadly passed away earlier this evening. She died after a chopstick inexplicably became lodged in her nasal cavity, piercing her brain. I'd like to say she died instantly but it took me almost an hour to finish her off in the bath. Obviously, I'd appreciate that you respect my privacy during this difficult time.

PARKLIFE

2007-07-04T09:04:00.001+01:00

I like parks. I think they're cool. Maybe it's because there wasn't really any parks near to where I lived when I was younger (just a forest: rubbish) but whenever I visit a big city I find myself invariably drawn to check out the parks. Or maybe it's some kind of primitive nature calling-type thing to seek out greenery or water or whatever. I don't know - I mean, what am I, a psychologist? (The answer is yes... not really. Though that is what it says on my visa). Anyway, parks are great and I like going to them even if I'm not exactly sure why. Tokyo's got quite a few scattered about (actually a lot more that I initially expected, considering the scarcity of land). The best is Yoyogi Koen in Harajuku, which is the place to go on a Sunday afternoon. I know this because someone important told me it was 'the place to go on a Sunday'. But also because I actually went there the past three Sundays and found this to be true. Every Sunday all manner of artists, musicians, dancers, amateur-dramatics types, and general nutbags descend on the park to 'do their thing' seemingly as much for themselves as for any audience they may attract. I think that's what I like most about it: the performers are there not for profit or self-promotion (although obviously that is a factor) but mainly for the sheer enjoyment of it, or - as is often the case - because they simply can't perform anywhere else. So, last Sunday I shot a few videos in an attempt to capture the spirit and milieu of Yoyogi Koen in an impressionistic multimedia collage I like to call 'Postcards From The Veg'.

First up, is a group of Japanese Elvis impersonators. At least they're billed as Elvis impersonators though they look and act more like John Travolta's gang in Grease (Ha! Look at me, trying to act like I don't remember what they were called). There's about six or seven of them altogether and they spend the afternoon strutting around, combing their hair, and 'jiving' to various 50's hits. They are, in short, absolutely hilarious.

Next, it's a guy balancing two crystal balls on his head. In print, that doesn't sound very impressive but watch the movie - it's cool. And he kept them there for ages. And that bottle he's carrying? He went and got that from a vending machine - with the balls still on his head. Amazing. Sure, they fell off eventually and he was kicked half to death by an angry mob but for a brief moment in time this guy was the coolest person on the planet.

Now this guy. He dances to U2 songs outside Harajuku Station every Sunday. Unlike the other performers, this guy does seem like he might actually be a bit... well, crazy. It's certainly a sight to behold, seeing a grown man gyrating suggestively to 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. It's possible he knows what the song's lyrics are about but it still reminded me of Alan Partridge's hilarious 'you wake up in the morning, you've got to read all the Sunday papers, the kids are running round, you've got to mow the lawn, wash the car, and you think 'Sunday, bloody Sunday!' interpretation (unfortunately YouTube doesn't have that clip, but it does have this one which is also very funny). Anyway, here's the guy shaking his (admittedly quite successful) moneymaker to 'City Of Blinding Lights'.

Another attraction at Yoyogi is the huge number of amateur local bands that play around the perimeter of the park. Mostly tribute bands, hopelessly naff J-poppers, or dire punk/pop metal combos, the standard is generally pretty low but every one of them gives it 100%. And sometimes they give it more than 100%. Like 400%. Or more again, like the guy below. Despite looking a bit like an Asian Rivers Cuomo, this dude seems to be channeling the hedonistic, destructive energy of Iggy Pop and Pete Townshend (though he did stop short of smashing his guitar - that pink Strat replica can't have been cheap). So possessed was he by the Power Of Rawk, he even knocked his glasses off and - sight bedamned! - continued playing. On his back, no less. The really hilarious thing is he did this for every song - later jumping off the amp, wrapping the microphone cord around his head, and attempting to climb onto the bassist's shoulders. Brilliant stuff.

Finally, a short clip of, quite possibly, the gayest band on earth. Yes, even gayer than these guys and these guys put together. It's the somewhat unfortunately named Loovee, comprising inter alia a comedy afro-wearing bass player and a female backup singer in a French maids outfit. So gay they make the Scissor Sisters look like Motorhead. Viddy this.

SHAMEFUL PLUG

2007-06-15T10:10:00.000+01:00

New dubstep mix is online. That is all.

A RAINY DAY IN TOKYO

2007-06-15T08:57:00.000+01:00

Today, that is. Just pissing down all day. The weather forecast here is scarily accurate. At least the one on the TV is. They show another Coke-sponsored one on the trains that makes very little sense and grades the temperature on a scale of 'refreshingness'. There's another weird (and constantly replayed) ad where a dog appears to take out a mortgage. Initially his owners are bemused but eventually they (and the estate agent/broker person) collapse into laughter and all live happily ever after. Whether they're now the dog's tenants or what, I don't know. I mean, that hardly seems like a sustainable living arrangement, does it? The ad ends with a close-up of the dog - with some CGI assistance - appearing to wink at the camera suggesting He Knows Something We Don't. Like maybe how the whole thing's a scam and his owners are landed with a dud property. Or maybe there's a follow-up ad that posits some kind of nightmarish Pacific Heights-type scenario where the innocent couple become prisoners in their own home, terrorised by this malevolent dog tycoon. This is all speculation, of course: when you don't speak the language (at least not with any degree of fluency) you kind of have to make up your own stories.

I am getting a bit better at speaking Japanese though. Still, problems arise (as Tre from The Apprentice pointed out a few weeks ago when he had to sell stuff in France) as soon as people start speaking back to you. And Japanese people do tend to talk a lot. And talk very quickly. Most of the time you just have to smile and nod or occasionally say 'hai'. The odd time people approach me in the street and just smile and say 'basketball' or 'velly tall' which is actually quite endearing. Beats being called a lanky streak of piss anyway. I've had my picture taken a few times too, once with a group of Japanese schoolgirls in Harajuku where I probably look like some kind of appalling sex tourist. Anyway, before I go here's a short video (no embedding allowed) shot from the POV of the conveyor belt in a Tokyo sushi restaurant. Really clever, really simple idea - a fascinating comment on the sport of people-watching. The sushi bars here are cool places to hang out at night, as are the noodle joints though, I have to say, the constant slurping is actually really off-putting. I know it's polite and everything but Jesus. It reminds of when I was kid and there was a neighbour of mine who was plagued by various asthmatic and adenoidal problems. I remember one day being in his house and listening to him eat: the monstrous gasping and gurgling noises he used to make still make me shudder in disgust today. Absolutely ghastly. After that I told my parents I never wanted to play with him ever again.
He's dead now.

SOME USEFUL JAPANESE PHRASES

2007-06-10T05:15:00.000+01:00

Sumimasen - I'm sorry/Excuse me

Wakarimasen - I don't understand

Gaijin - Foreigner/Barbarian rape-machine

Watashi wa Amerika-jin ja arimasen - I am not an American

Hai - I understand (not 'Hello')

Domo - (Depending on the context) Hello/Goodbye/Yes/No/OK/Please/Thank you/Here/There/Maybe/Wait/A little/Not so much etc.

Fukin - Dish cloth

Dozu - (see 'Domo')

Realistically, this is as large a vocabulary as you'll ever need.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF EARTH

2007-06-03T11:50:00.000+01:00

I think I'm allergic to Japan. Seriously, have not stopped sneezing since I got here. It's rude to blow your nose in public so most of the time I just have to walk around with mucus streaming down my face and my mouth hanging open, struggling to breathe. I wonder if this makes me appear either extremely polite or just severely mentally handicapped. I'd be happy with either really.

So yeah, anyway, Tokyo etc. It's alright, I suppose. Here's the view from my bedroom window:

Only joking. That's the view from Starbuck's window in Shibuya centre. You might remember it featured prominently in a scene from that uproarious culture-clash comedy Lost In Translation? You know the one where Scarlett Johannson is just sort of sitting there, silently watching the world go by? No, not that one. Or that one. No, the other one. The other one again. Never mind. (Dig #1 there. I've written about how much I hated Lost In Translation before but I expect I'll be giving it a more thorough and sustained kicking - the level of abuse it, quite frankly, deserves - over the coming year). Anyway, Shibuya's about ten minutes from my house; the actual view from my bedroom window is of my next-door neighbour's wall. Apart from the lack of any natural light and the neck-strainingly low ceiling (requiring me to backwards crab walk Exorcist-style to and from the bathroom) my accommodation's OK. There is a 24-hour Sushi Bar on my doorstep. Which is nice. I've yet to meet any of my housemates though I'm sure they exist (I've seen their shoes. In my mind I'm already friends with the girl who wears the graffitied Vans and we go out for tea and browse second-hand shops for kitsch celebrity collectibles).
Speaking of celebrities, the whole movie stars shilling for yen is totally true. Cameron Diaz is selling phones, Brad Pitt advertises - I think - watches (the ad is pretty confusing) and Avril Lavigne appears to be the most famous person on the planet. I haven't really seen any Japanese TV yet, except for bits of the news I saw at the airport. To say it was a bit hard to follow is an understatement. The editing appears to be almost completely random, jump-cutting between scenes of armed gangs fighting in the street, some government official eating a hamburger, and a bunch of ostriches. At the end of each item the newsreader chuckles to himself then suddenly deadpans and begins the next item. Also the weather report appears to be presented by a twelve year old girl who bounces around giggling manically and pointing to graphics that look more like Pokemon characters than meteorological phenomena.

Apart from all that though - and a whole lot of other stuff I didn't mention - Japan's not that different from the rest of the world. It's going to take a lot of getting used to, for sure - simply trying to buy a bath towel this morning became a baffling six-hour ordeal involving numerous train journeys around the city and a brief sojourn in a police station (where the cop on duty gave me a bottle of sake and told me how much he loved U2. Seriously). And, as no doubt tedious as this will be for everyone to read, this blog is probably where I'll be recounting most of my madcap adventures, since nobody here speak-a de Enga-rish-ah. Either that or I'll become some sort of raving drunk, eating bits of dead fish off the street and singing Irish rebel songs to terrified salarymen. Or maybe the Yakuza will eat me alive. Life's full of surprises.
Here's the warning from under the seat of a Japanese toilet:

I JUST BOUGHT THIRTY-TWO CADBURY'S CREME EGGS AT TESCO FOR €4.88

2007-05-03T00:07:00.000+01:00

Everyone else is stupid except me.

UPDATE:
The eggs are gone. I ate them. Most of them. The rest I pelted at my scumbag neighbour's house.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS CRIME

2007-04-22T22:29:00.000+01:00

New song: 'The Weather Up There' (ho ho).
You can listen to it on 'The Myspace' or download it from here (RapidShare annoyingly). Though it's really quite cheesy - even by my standards - I'm pleased with how it turned out overall.
Proper update etc. etc.

ALSO RATHER GOOD

2007-04-20T17:38:00.000+01:00

This.

Which is this guy and this guy and some other guys performing at a 'Battle Of The Bands' event type thing last night in Dublin. A 'Battle Of The Bands' they subsequently went on to win. Of course, this means they've now become 'too popular' for me to like anymore so this is probably the last you'll hear of them on this blog. Still, they really were very good. Not exactly what you would call my usual 'bag' - no synthesisers, no drum machines, no androgynous frontperson barking robotic (possibly German-accented) commands into a vocoder - but a superb thirty minutes of music nonetheless. What little we heard of their competition on the night adhered so slavishly to the Today FM-playlisted 'modern rock' archetype that it may as well have had the Harvey Norman guy yelling about plasma screens in between songs. Liam sounds like he makes music because making music is what he likes to do. I look forward to hearing what he/they do next, if only so I can mutter darkly about how they've 'sold out' and are no longer '4REAL'. In summation, a splendid evenings entertainment. Well done everybody.
Proper update next week.

RATHER GOOD

2007-03-25T21:56:00.000+01:00

What? It is.

THE WAY OF THE BROOM

2007-03-25T20:29:00.000+01:00

Ah, that's better. I don't want to jinx it or anything but the sidebar appears to be fixed. For now. It as, at least, actually on the side now, as opposed to being stuck down the bottom. Which is nice. Now, let's forget our troubles with a nice cool glass of antiseptic mouthwash...

* Photo taken from Betamax's aborted Listerine promo, rejected by advertisers as being 'too intense'.

SOME GREAT REWARD

2007-03-23T21:01:00.000Z

Well. What an exciting week it's been. I bought a desk! Me! A desk! I bought a desk for my room! And then - and this is where it gets really crazy - I brought it back to the shop! The very next day! Just brought it right back! Told them I didn't like it and would they mind awfully taking it back and returning my money thank you very much! How mad is that? One day I'm buying a desk, and the next I'm, well... not. I suppose it's not that mad really. The desk didn't fit the room. Or rather it didn't fit in the room. Too big. Ooh er, that's she said last night. Your mother, that is - your mother the slag. Where was I? Yes. Desk. Sent it back. After a sweaty afternoon of ass - and subsequently - dis-sembly (which, if I were a columnist for a Sunday broadsheet lifestyle magazine, I could no doubt spin into a hilarious commentary on the state of flatpack suburban living etc.) I decided I am destined to be deskless. No desk for me. Say no to desk (indeed I did, though not out loud as that would be faintly ridiculous. Ever seen a man say goodbye to a desk? No. Of course not. Don't be silly).
I thought I needed a desk though. I suppose I do. It would certainly act as a kind of ornamental incentive to get out of bed. Still, I think between the dresser, the wardrobe, and my fake TV I have enough furniture for the time being. Have I mentioned my fake TV before? Yeah, I have a fake TV. That's just the kind of 'wacky', 'random' sort of guy I am. The kind of guy (idiot) that has a 40-odd-inch imitation LCD TV of the sort used to furnish model homes and the like. Here it is.

To convey a proper sense of scale I've put one of my shoes next to it. Bear in mind though that, as I'm unusually tall, my shoes are (probably) about three times the size of yours so try and think of the shoe as being about the length of your forearm and you should get some idea of the size of this thing. It really is very big. And surprisingly heavy, considering it's a hollow plastic shell. The story of how I came to own a fake TV is fairly boring so I won't recount it here. Suffice to say, it seemed like a terribly good idea at the time. Now though I'm at a loss as to what to do with the thing. I suppose I could take pictures of myself smashing it with a hammer, setting it on fire, or just generally doing it a grave physical disservice but, alas, it's been done. At this juncture, I should point out that this entry was typed (lovingly) on a Mac.
So that's that. The desk story. As an opening gambit it's fairly weak, I'll admit. Try this for size. I saw Ronan Keating today. Which was rather exciting. He was outside Brown Thomas with his alarmingly skinny wife and they were both wearing sunglasses despite the fact that it was raining. He was laughing very loudly, jumping around a bit, and generally trying to draw as much attention to himself as possible while his alarmingly skinny wife was on the phone. Then they both went inside. I was about three feet away. And that's the Ronan Keating story. Makes that little ditty about the desk seem positively electrifying by comparison really.

I suppose I could talk a bit about music now. What do we all think of the new Arcade Fire then? *looks around, nervously trying to gauge the mood of the room* It's a bit... isn't it? A bit... y'know? I mean, I liked it, don't get me wrong - but I kind of hated it too? Like there were bits I really loved and then bits I really hated. A lot. I'm not sure which bits there were more of though. Like, I think it's brilliant. But it's rubbish really. Although to tell you the truth, I haven't listened to it yet. I mean, I've heard it but I haven't, y'know, listened to it. Yet. But I've read all the reviews, which is half the work really. In fact, having read all those reviews I feel no real need to actually hear the album ever again. I quite like the new Low album though. It's surprisingly excellent at times. I never really 'got' Low - until they completely changed their sound and basically became a different (and altogether better) band. I think I prefer The Great Destroyer overall but this - as well as the new LCD Soundsystem and Amon Tobin albums - is shaping up to be one of my favourites of the year thus far.
Filmwise, I haven't seen anything recently. The last movie I can remember watching from start to finish was some made-for-TV abomination with Roz from Frasier in it. There comes a point in your life - I discovered - where you have to ask yourself a very important question, a question that - prior to this point, this point in your life where you ask yourself the question - you may not have ever considered. Considered the question, that is. Basically, do you want to see a movie where Roz from Frasier gets raped? Is that something you want to see? Is that an image you want joining all the other visual unpleasantness you've archived in that bruised and battered psyche of yours? Roz getting raped. You know it's going to happen from the trailer you saw half an hour before the film so you have plenty of time to ponder this particular proposition. Roz getting raped. It's either something you want to see or something you don't. End of. Simple as. Too many cooks. So yeah, I watched the film from beginning to end. In my weakened mental state I (regrettably) decided that seeing Roz get raped was something I wanted to experience, something I wanted to be privy to, something I wanted seared on my brain, something I want to see when I close my eyes at night, something I want to think of every fucking time I see her tossing off another acerbic one-liner on the early morning Frasier repeats. I really do disgust myself sometimes. I gave up ninety minutes of my life to this - ninety minutes which could have been better spent watching one and a half episodes of The Wire on DVD. Anyone else watch The Wire by the way? I just finished watching season one and have already bought the next two boxsets, such is my devotion/financial irresponsibility.
Oh speaking of which, I quit my job yesterday. Sort of a spur of the moment thing. Decided I didn't want to do it anymore. Reckon I'll go to Japan in the summer, get a job there. Seems like the right thing to do. Anyway, I'm going to stop typing (lovingly) now as my housemate has just returned home to (no doubt) engage in some humourless Germanic sex with her boyfriend in the room next door and I want to get a listen. Not for any weird sexual reason or anything, just to record the audio and sample the various grunts and groans to use as a rhythm track in a Kraftwerkian 'Tour De France'-style conceptual music piece. Really. No, not really - that would be horrific beyond words. Let's wash that image/sound out of heads and watch Bill Bailey's rather funny Kraftwerk pastiche (below). See you in the funny pages (or alternatively, look out for my ad in I'm Poor! magazine). Toodles.

BIG WILLIE-ISMS (PART 2)

2007-03-08T23:44:00.000Z

Some (vaguely) musically-themed Tubular delights now.
This is good. It's a song by the Junior Boys set to a clip from Bande à Part, a French film from olden days.

This is Tricky and PJ Harvey performing 'Broken Homes' together on Late Night With David Letterman from a few years back. It's as weird as it sounds. PJ is bewitching as ever. Tricky growls a bit and stares at his shoes. Meanwhile the gospel choir elevates the song to an almost religious level of intensity. Like most of Tricky's best work, it always sounds just on the verge of falling apart but somehow it all holds together. I don't have many people I consider 'heroes' but Tricky is a hero of mine for sure. I mean, he's clearly mad, and it's unlikely that he even remembers how to write a decent tune anymore, but I'll still listen to anything he puts out (even those worthless demo's on his MySpace page. Speaking of which...).

Here's the new Nine Inch Nails video. This is getting quite exciting. Trent is wearing a scarf! There's a topless woman!! There's some gay guys having gay sex!!! And some other stuff!!!! The song's a bit weak, but pay attention to the video as I believe it's heavily 'symbolic' and in no way just a rip off of Sliver.

Poncey French cinema, crazed people singing about broken homes, a chilling vision of a dystopian futurescape set to mild industrial rock... hey, what we need now is some Biff!

DIRTY LITTLE PIES

2007-02-15T19:17:00.000Z

Oh, and happy (belated) Valentine's Day, everybody!

Love is nice.

CRYING IN YOUR FACE

2007-02-15T18:15:00.000Z

Time for an update, I reckon. I realise it's February and everything but happy new year everyone. And look how far we've come. *takes stock* This blog, for instance, has been 'on the go' (in one form or another) for three years now. I mean, it's not as good as it used to be, of course. But it's still here and that has to (presumably) count for something. Not a whole lot has changed though really. I'm not any taller (not even a little bit). I'm not a baller. I don't have a girl that looks good - but if I did I would call her. That was a rather convoluted interpolation of the chorus from Skee-Lo's 'I Wish', which is playing on iTunes as I type this. As I type these letters. These letters that you're reading. Right now. In real time. (It sounded cleverer in my head). *stock taking finished, goes to watch last ten minutes of Date My Slag Of A Mum* Blonde mother wins, as usual. It's like bloody Nuremberg all over again.
Anyway, enough about that. My brand spanking new Apple iBookPowerMac Pro (Extreme) thingy arrived this week. Hurrah! I've not really figured out how to work it yet but it is certainly nice to look at. I brought it with me to Starbucks today, simply so I could sit with my half-fat frappuccino, peering at the screen over my pretentious art-school glasses while all around me bathed in the reflected glory of my incandescent cool and the lighty-uppy apple that comes on at the back. You may scoff at me now but I sleep well knowing that I'm not just another money-greedy finger-puppet of 'The Man'. I'm thinking different(ly). Because I'm an 'individual', and I'm into 'fun stuff' like movies, music, podcasts and the like, not bloody spreadsheets, databases and pie-charts. Durr, PC's are for saddos! Just you wait and see how much fun I'm going to be having. It's now my appointed duty to badmouth at Microsoft at every opportunity. Boo, evil corporation! Making money! Stepping on the little guy. Boo-urns! Not like Apple, of course, which is more like a pastoral cottage industry presided over by a humble and benevolent leader, and where every member of the extended Apple family is special and where nothing ever goes wrong.

Time for some padding. Here's some brief and somewhat less than informative movie reviews:

Notes On A Scandal
This is good. Go see this. It has good actors (Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett) and a good story based on a good book that I read a few years ago. Which is good. On the downside, it does have a score composed by Phillip Glass. Which is absolutely fucking awful and almost ruins the whole fucking film but doesn't quite because the rest of it is so good, thanks be to Christ.

The Last King Of Scotland
This has some very good acting in it. Rest of film=a bit ropey.

Dreamgirls
Pictorial review.

Hot Fuzz
This isn't out yet, but I expect it'll be quite good. Three and a half thumbs up.

A Scanner Darkly
This is out on DVD, or 'video' as we used to say. Looks great but is, regrettably, rubbish.

So there you go. That should save you some time. Feel free to take my opinions and express them as your own, should you feel the need. Music now, and this is something I know you're going to like. Someone who's been away for a bit but is back and - do I dare say it, do I dare mouth that hideous cliché - even better than ever! Can you guess who it is yet? I'll give you a clue. It's a woman (sort of). And she's not your average, run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter, assembly-line, manufactured pop moppet. She's an individual (y'know, like me). Have you got it yet? No? I'll tell you: it's Joss Stone! Joss Stone is back! And she's got a new song. Hurrah! Here's the video.

Wasn't that great? Isn't her new image daring? How much loving does she need? Look at her giggling with the coloured man at the start. And has she done something to her hair? Why is she all wet? Never mind that she's about as convincingly sexy as a piece of MDF. Or that her Black & Decker power sander vocal and the flatpack ETA rhythm track (which sounds like a lame big-beat remake of 'Groove Is In The Heart') sound like they're designed primarily to serve as background music in a B&Q ad - the soundtrack to a Sunday pilgrimage to the temple of home improvement. I've written about Joss Stone before - however tangentially. On balance, there's few celebrities I actively hate (most I just vaguely dislike or am indifferent to) but I really fucking hate Joss Stone. I'm not even sure why exactly: I've only heard a few of her songs, seen her interviewed maybe twice - relatively speaking, my exposure to her has been pretty minimal, compared to, say, someone like Lily Allen (who is everywhere, and who I also hate). Maybe it's Joss Stone's face. She is alarmingly chipmunk-like. Or her voice, which has all the soul of a rawlplug. It's woeful, godawful crap, her music, and it's made even worse by the fact that - like Allen's album - it's packaged as being a genuine alternative to commercial mass-produced pop trash. Girls Aloud have infinitely more integrity than Joss Stone (who also, incidentally, got her big break from a tacky talent show). And just in case you're in some doubt as to just how much of an obnoxious no-talent assclown she is, here's a clip of her presenting an award to some Coldplay-looking guy I've never heard of from an awards show I thought'd been scrapped years ago.

Finally, Nine Inch Nails have a new album coming out soon. Hurrah! It is, however, being described as a 'concept' album, which means it may well be a load of old toss. Still, they have actually put a fair amount of thought/money into developing the whole 'concept' thing, as this series of viral websites attests. I'm unashamedly excited by/about this, something that proves (a) that I'm a sucker for marketing (as if that wasn't already abundantly clear) and (b) despite all outward appearances of maturity and/or normalcy I'm basically still a fourteen-year old geek who hates his parents. *goes to watch 'Groove Is In The Heart' video again. Asks, of no one in particular: 'Is this the greatest song of all time?' Rings Samaritans (speed dial '2'). Asks them*

BLANK-A-DOODLE-DOO

2007-02-01T22:31:00.000Z

Oh dear. My laptop is broken. My keyboard is broken. And now my phone is broken. Technologically speaking, my life is falling apart. Actually most areas of my life seem in a state of disrepair, but that's not 'for here'.
Anyway, this has been posted on a number of blogs already but I'll stick it here for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. It's Italian ice skater Valentina Marchei dancing to 'Pull Shapes' by The Pipettes.

Amazing, if only for the fact that anything performed on ice (skating, hockey, walking without falling over) is immediatly impressive to me. I went ice skating once and it was possibly the most terrifying experience of my life. I just sort of assumed I naturally knew how to skate but - apparantly - I don't. So I spent the afternoon falling over mostly, often in front of children (who can, somehow, skate with preternatural grace). Still, an amazing video. Also, 'dance with me, pretty boy, tonight'. Is there a better opening line in the history of song? Is there? Well, yes. Of course there is. I could name a dozen (seven of which were written by Morrissey) but as opening lines go, it is certainly 'up there'.
Here's some Mitchell and Webb...

... something from Adam Buxton...

... and an old Big Train sketch (narrated by Chris Morris). This is quite possibly THE FUNNIEST VIDEO OF ALL TIME!!!!!!111ONE!!!ELEVEN!!1 *

* Not really. But very good all the same.

KER-PLUNK

2006-11-24T22:09:00.000Z

Hey, remember mashups? Bootlegs? Bastard pop etc.? I'm sure you do, however vaguely. They were the 'future of music' there a couple of years ago - back in the heady summer of 2001, when Napster seemed like the greatest thing since twin-pot yoghurt and the first Shrek movie ruled the box office, teaching us the importance of 'being yourself' (and how monstrously ugly people deserve monstrously ugly partners). Anyway, bootlegs were 'all the rage' back then, even 'burning up' the 'pop charts' (courtesy of the Sugababes, back when they gave a shit). Like everything though, mashups fell out of favour, got boring, stale, predictable etc. I don't want to blame it all on 9/11, but that certainly didn't help. They didn't really go away though - on the contrary, there are arguably more mashups being produced today than there were five years ago. Most suck mightily, but every now and then one comes along that restores your faith in the D.I.Y. digital music 'revolution'/life itself. This is Marvin Gaye singing over Massive Attack. Download it here. You can thank me in goals.

CAN'T BE BOTHE(RED)

2006-11-23T23:38:00.000Z

See what I did there? I'm feeling a bit bo(red) at the moment. Hence the spot of redecoration. It's not completely finished yet: the byline is centred for some reason, when I actually want it on the left - also, there's not a lot of space between the byline and subsequent blog item titles. Which is unfortunate. Oh well. What the hell am I talking about? I don't know. Look at this. Fun-nee. But also quite racist. Kind of like the video I posted below. Which wasn't particularly funny at all. I thought maybe I could draw some kind of connection between Richards' hateful rantings and someone like Borat introducing a black politician as a 'chocolate face'. I couldn't really. Essentially what I was doing was constructing what's known as a 'false analogy', wherein the two things compared are actually more different than they are alike. Talking out of my arse basically, and just an excuse to have a cheap shot at Gervais et al. And I actually quite enjoyed Borat. Well, bits of it. As with Ali G, some of the sketches worked, and some of them fell a bit flat. Enjoyable then, but hardly the comedy of the year. That title, I believe, goes to Little Miss Sunshine, a film I was fully prepared to hate (honestly, I was certain I was going to loathe this movie, expecting it to be yet another dysfunctional family roadtrip dramedy - an indie version of RV, a film that still gives me vivid, horrifying nightmares) but actually ended up loving, perhaps even insanely so. Definitely up there with Brick and The Departed as one of the best films I've seen this year.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. Today I decided to engage in that most indulgent of 'common man's' pleasures: 'pulling' a 'sickie' from work. Sure, my absence - even for one day - from my massively important job may result in some of the most vulnerable members of our society going uncared for - unfed maybe, unwashed, possibly not even receiving their life-sustaining medication etc. but I'm choosing not to focus on that right now (Twenty-Something Bloke In Shirking Responsibilities Shocker!). In fairness, I am actually quite sick. Though not as sick as I made out on the phone - pretending I was deaf in one ear and could see people behind the wallpaper. Certainly not as sick as my new housemate: she eats out of the bin. Yes, she does. Eats food. Out of the bin. I'll pause now to let you savour that image. A girl eating out of a bin. Get a good mental picture there. An otherwise well-educated and respectable young woman crouched over a filthy bin, her chin dripping with that mysterious liquid known only as 'garbage water', hastily shovelling handfuls of rancid vegetable peelings down her eager gullet. Because that's what she does. Oh, yes. She's a bin-eater. A trashmuncher. A refuse bag gastronomer. OK, so that isn't exactly true. More accurately, what she does (or what I observed her doing today at least) is take food that was in the bin out of the bin, clean it off and then eat it. Basically, I threw out a bag of oranges yesterday because I thought they looked a bit 'off' (and I'm sure that they were. I don't just go around throwing out food, you know. Though there is a certain giddy thrill to be had from tossing a load of perfectly good food into the bin, I'll admit. It makes me feel, I dunno, like I'm the one in charge. Like I don't need food really. I can eat it if I want, or maybe I'll just fuck it in the bin: 'food is not my master' and so on. Like a bulimic but without having to clean the loo afterwards). Still, it was an eye-opener. Eye-wateringly so. Evidently one man's waste is another man's table-for-one at the bin-side bistro. The swing-top cafeteria. The... well, you get the picture.
Seriously though, what the hell am I talking about? This has to have been the most pointless entry ever. I'll stop writing now and go listen to the new Hanne Hukkelberg album. Anyone else heard of her? I forget where she's from, somewhere foreign, and she sounds a bit like Stina Nordenstam in some ways but not in others. She does a really good cover of 'Break My Body' by The Pixies, which, like most (if not all) Pixies songs, is a pretty hard song to cover and to cover well. You can download it here. That's all for this evening. Peace out.

STEAK DINNER ALL OVER YOUR FACE

2006-11-20T16:00:00.000Z

Watch this:

I suppose this is the natural, albeit thoroughly unpleasant, conclusion to 'ironic' racism: actual racist racism. Is this Michael Richards' pathetic idea of 'pushing the envelope' - calling a black man a 'nigger' to his face? Or is he just a bigoted fuckhead? What if this had been filmed as part of an episode of Extras or Curb Your Enthusiasm, and included the obligatory 'squirmy' reaction shots - would that make it acceptable? Comedy 'genius' maybe? Maybe Richards was attempting, however cack-handedly, some kind of 'social satire' on the insidious nature of racism and how we're all a bit racist really and how he's just articulating what we're all secretly thinking. Is he, like Borat, using racist language in order to make a point about racism itself? But does the fact that he's a washed-up sitcom refugee make one less inclined to embrace his 'comedy' (if, indeed, that's what it is) than if it had come from someone 'edgier' like Gervais or Baron-Cohen? Do any of these questions matter? What do you think?

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO KEEPIN' IT FRESH?

2006-11-16T12:12:00.000Z

And other questions.

This amused me a great deal - it's by the same guy who sends Christmas letters to Christopher Walken and designs SVU-themed Valentines cards.
Here's a video of David Lynch doing... uh... doing... I have no idea what he's doing. Ostensibly he's promoting his new movie. In the middle of the street. With a cow.
And is this real? Anybody heard about it before? Anybody tried it? The 'About' page reads like a synopsis of a straight-to-DVD Fear Dot Com style 'cyber-thriller' starring Craig Sheffer.
Finally, Paul Kaye is back on TV doing his 'Strutter' character. It's not very good sadly, so here's some Dennis Pennis instead.

That is all.

TITS DON'T LIE

2006-11-10T21:09:00.000Z

So, my first post in, like, ages. I’ve been busy. Out, about. Doing things, going places, meeting people - ‘let me buy you a drink’ here, ‘ooh, I love this song’ there, ‘help, I can’t feel my face’ sort of thing. Who has the time to blog these days? TV’s Zach Braff does, and he‘s a famous actor/unlikely sex symbol and stuff. Apparently I look a bit like Zach Braff. Someone told me so. Last night someone (random stranger) told me that I looked like Matthew Fox, the doctor from Lost. This is interesting, mainly because Zach Braff and Matthew Fox look absolutely nothing alike. And that I look nothing like either of them. Then again, according to this website I look like Andie MacDowell. Which is depressing on a level I never knew existed. Admittedly, the girl who compared me favourably with Matthew Fox was, at the time, merrily in the ‘Don’t See A Great Night Wasted’ stage of intoxication. She also tried to steal my glasses. And insisted that I was the tallest man in Ireland. I’m not, as it happens. I checked and it’s this guy - a man that's so tall his legs can’t support his frame and he has to use a wheelchair. Which brings him down to normal size. Which, in turn, calls in to question his standing - so to speak - as Ireland’s tallest man. I think I still win on a technicality. Also, in that picture he appears to be wearing some sort of joke shop-bought disguise - no doubt to avoid the inevitable groupies, grope-ies and 'how's-the-weather-up-there' merchants. I feel his pain - though obviously I can, y'know, walk and stuff.
But back to Braff. How sucky does his new movie look? Answer (in case you were wondering): ‘very’. I quite liked Garden State. It wasn’t perfect but as actor-turned-director vanity projects about twenty-something’s in existential crisis go it was refreshingly not-shit: well scripted and well acted by all involved, Peter Sarsgaard in particular. (The soundtrack, on the other hand - though loved by many - was beyond awful. Yes. Yes, it was. Moving on...). That’s why The Last Kiss looks so disappointing. Fametracker recently ran a feature speculating on what Braff’s future projects might have in store and it makes for hilarious yet depressingly convincing reading. I like him on Scrubs, and his blog is always enjoyable but he does push the whole ‘I’m not J.D. in real life: I introduced your girlfriend to The Shins’ thing a little too hard at times. There’s a picture of Braff there with moustachioed man of the moment (no, not that one, the other one): Borat. It’s a cute picture and one which is probably enough to cause indie chicks the world over to collectively cream their polka-dot panties. Speaking of the polka-dot bedecked, horn rimmed specs sporting brigade, they were out in force at The Pipettes gig last month. I like The Pipettes a lot and I think their album is one of the best I’ve heard this year but - for reasons outlined here - I do question their ‘artistic credibility’ somewhat (as appalling 'rockist' and 'post-post-modern' as that might sound). At worst, the band and their songs are just a cynical marketing exercise reinforcing the phallocentric male-dominated blah blah First Year Sociology blah. At best, they're neo-feminist icons of empowerment blah blah something Barbara Ellen wrote in The Observer mag blah. The way I see it, The Pipettes are what would step out of the door, bathed in dry ice, if the Sugababes went on Stars In Their Eyes as The Ronettes. (That's a good thing, by the way).

Anyway, is it raineen? I hadden’t nodissed. (My Andie MacDowell impression there... sheesh, tough crowd). No, it hasn’t been raining (much) but it has, I have noticed, been extremely fucking cold here. I was in France last week (and briefly, Barcelona) enjoying 20+ degree temperatures only to return to the frozen dogshit dildo I call home and contract flu symptoms literally within minutes of stepping off the plane. Fucking weather. And the Lemsip's no use, whatever way you cut it (halfway down the page for instructions). It’s possible though that my cold has more to do with the fact that, in the previous week, I consumed (probably) twice my own body weight in dairy produce, a food group to which I am, apparently, severely allergic - at least according to my doctor, a shady practitioner of the junk science we call 'Western medicine'. You know that hospitals kill more people than they save, right? And that AIDS was something invented by a Polish doctor in 1957? It's amazing what you can learn off the Internets. Like this thing, which identified the author of nearly all my recent blog entries as female. That might help to explain why this is the second mammary-themed item title in a row: some hopelessly misguided attempt to ‘butch up’ my blog. The colour scheme has to go anyway - pink's been my least favourite so far. Also I'm now living with two women (the sitcom possibilities of this are inescapable. One guy: two girls - one of whom is German! East German! This thing writes itself!).

Finally, here's some new(ish) albums we should buy. First, Food And Liquor by Lupe Fiasco. Leaving all the 'conscious MC', ‘intelligent hip-hop’ foofarah aside, Fiasco’s made a quality album with some suitably ‘tight’ rhymes and indubitably ‘sick’ beats. Even the 'rap's-just-people-talking'-crowd will find something to love here (note: 'crossover appeal'). Squarepusher has a new album out too: I downloaded it months ago when it leaked but only got around to listening to it recently. Musically there's no surprises here - it's your typical 'pusher - but what is surprising is the general level of consistency on display. Pretty much every track here's a keeper - the obvious standouts being 'Hello Meow' and the utterly demented 'The Modern Bass Guitar', the epitome of Music Your Parents Just Wouldn't Understand. Check out Fujiya And Miyagi as well, a bunch of Krautrock revivalists from Brighton with a Japanese name and a bizarre fixation with Asian culture. Trust me, they’re a lot better than that pissweak description makes them sound.
Finally finally, speaking as the tallest (and therefore) greatest man in Ireland I feel it behoves me to engage in some flagrant self-promotion. I finally got around to properly updating the BETAMAXNOMATES MySpace Abomination with words and colours and links and stuff. And today I finished a new mix - Betamax Bootymix #2 - which you can download here. Tracklisting follows ‘after the jump’. Peace out.

Susanna And The Magical Orchestra - Enjoy The Silence
Dead Disco - The Treatment (Metronomy Remix)
Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (Richard X Remix)
Paula Abdul - Straight Up
Zombie Nation - Black Toys
Luke Vibert - Ce Porte (Remix)
Lo-Fi-FNK - Change Channel (Jitset Remix)
Beyonce - Ring The Alarm (Acapella)
Teki Latex - Disco Dance With You (Spank Rock Remix) feat. Amanda Blank
Teki Latex - Disco Dance With You (Para One Remix)
Les Rhythms Digitales - Disco To Disco
Simian Mobile Disco - Tits And Acid
Rob Base And DJ EZ Rock - It Takes Two
Bryan Ferry - Let's Stick Together
MSTRKRFT - Work On You
Nelly Furtado - No Hay Igual (Acapella)
Soulwax - Another Excuse (DFA Remix)
Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation (Extended Dance Mix)
Ascii Disco - Dirty! Filthy!
Duran Duran - All She Wants Is
The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight (Ben Liebrand DMC Remix)
Para One - Dundun-dun (MSTRKRFT Remix)
Nelly Furtado - Promiscious Girl (Acapella) feat. Timbaland
Shampoo - Trouble
CSS - Superafim
Coldplay - Trouble
Metronomy - Trick Or Treatz (South Central Remix)
ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man
Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man (Acapella)
We Are Wolves - Vosotros, Monstruos
Shinobu - T-T-T-Trepanning

CAPITAL KNOCKERS

2006-09-21T19:15:00.000+01:00

Something I nicked off Dissensus today: a selection of obscure Wikipedia entries to bring the LOLz, including:

And this is possibly the most hilarious piece of 'journalism' I've ever read. (Warning: This piece does contain a picture of Nikki from Big Brother literally wearing a belt for a skirt). Moving on, here's a video of Mos Def being arrested for performing his track 'Katrina Klap' outside the VMA's in New York earlier this month:

This is 'songwriting genius' (his words) Luke Haines' new video for his Richard X-produced 'Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop'. Funny, pretentious, confusing, and just a little creepy - basically everything a decent pop video should be:

And finally, from Adam Buxton's YouTube collection, a message from those who couldn't be here this evening:

Normal service will resume next week.

STILL STANDING

2006-09-11T15:41:00.000+01:00

For the 'day that's in it':

* Unfortunately this clip omits the punchline of the first joke but essentially what Lee proposes is that the shared human experience of laughing at inappropriate bodily functions be used as a mechanism for achieving world peace.

HELLO JOHN

2006-09-07T22:28:00.000+01:00

Oh, what an exhausting few days it's been. Too exhausted to go into details really - you'd surely be exhausted just by reading them. Suffice to say I've had it up to here - that is, a very high place - with my part-time job pretending to be an estate agent. 'And over here we have the door with durable moulded hand-grip knob to allow ease of access to and from the room. And here we have the bed - fully furnished - situated just above carpet level, And you'll notice, of course, the rear window just behind you, complete with fitted, matching curtains and a scenic view of next-door's boiler'. And don't even mention the ghoulish parade of wastrels, out-patients, and just-plain-freaks that we've had come through our door looking to rent the place. Truly terrifying.
So, anyway, in liue of a proper update with, y'know, words and stuff, I figure I'll just stick up a few videos I took at Electric Picnic over the weekend. Heaven knows, one can never have enough choppy, low-resolution, shakey-cam shots of the backs of peoples heads. First up, DJ Shadow - actually the first act we got around to seeing, despite him being on Saturday evening (the festival itself having started on Friday). Here he is performing with Lateef and some too-tight-leather-jacket-wearing guy who really wishes he was Richard Ashcroft.

Next, it's a bunch of old blokes playing those songs you like - 'I Don't Like Mondays', that song from the Heineken ad etc.

And here's a short blurry one of the (always excellent) Basement Jaxx, taken not by me but by the girl sitting on my shoulders at the time. Listen closely for the sound of my spine slowly collapsing on itself.

Finally, the highlight of the festival IMO WTF OMG!!!1LEVEN: The Pet Shop Boys. Seriously, they totally pwned. Check it:

I also uploaded a couple of videos from the Daft Punk gig I went to a while back. You can watch them here. They're slightly longer but poxy quality. And some medium pimpin' before I go: new mix is online - Electromicide #1. Still haven't sorted out the podcasting thing yet so here's the tracklisting - it's a big 'un (insert 'that's what she said last night', 'as an actress said to a bishop', 'yer ma' etc. where appropriate):

The Come On's - I Feel Love (Michael Ivin's Flaming Lips Remix)
Daft Punk - Alive (Album Version)
The Futureheads - Skip To The End (Digitalism Remix)
Matias Aguayo - Are You Really Lost?
Pet Shop Boys - Minimal (Tiga's M-I-N-I-M-A-L Remix)
The Knife - We Share Our Mother's Health (Trentemoller Remix)
Daft Punk - Prime Time Of You Life (Para One Remix)
MSTRKRFT - She's Good For Business
Cut Copy - Going Nowhere (Sebastian Remix)
Kid606 - T.Y.T.R.
Services - Element Of Danger (ATOC Remix)
M.I.A. - URAQT (Acapella)
Spank Rock - Top Billin' From Far Left
Diplo - Egg Foo Remix
Spank Rock - Chilly Will
Deejay Punk Roc - Busted Speaker
Plastic Little - The Jump Off (Acapella)
The Egyptian Lover - Egypt Egypt
Justin Timberlake - SexyBack
Spank Rock - Sweet Talk (Kalbata Remix)
Cassius - Toop Toop (Olivier Koletski Remix)
CSS - Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above (Diplo Remix)
The Come On's - I Feel Love (Michael Ivin's Flaming Lips Remix)
Daft Punk - Alive

ACHES ON A BRAIN

2006-08-23T23:41:00.000+01:00

Mangos! I like 'em. A lot. Hence the picture. (And let's just get that 'ooh, what a lovely pair!' gag out of the way now, shall we? I know you were thinking it. You sicken even me.) Now where was I? Oh yes, mangos. They're great! Can't get enough of them. You can't keep me away from them. Just try! You could say I'm obsessed. You might even say I love mangos. That I'm in love with mangos. That I mash them up into a lumpen gloop and spread them on my genitals for kicks! No, wait: scratch that last one. In the past week or so though I have been eating mango nearly every day. At every sitting. Because they go with anything! Mango and chips. Mango sandwiches. Mango with pasta. Versatile! (Though not waffly so). Why scarf crisps and chocolate when you can just as easily snack on a slice of delicious mango? After a run, what better way to cool down than by cracking a mango over your head and letting the sweet, sweet juice run down your sweaty brow, staining your shirt a satisfying shade of orange. On an unrelated note, I can never go back to the gym. But then who needs exercise? Mangos count as one of your five daily recommended servings of fruit and veg! That's why I ate five mangos today - and nothing else. I've never felt better!

Once the mango-fuelled sugar rush wears off though - and I'm coming down hard in the corner - I'll probably come to see that, on reflection, it's been a fairly shitty couple of days. Among other things, our search to find a new housemate took a disappointing turn today. It really seemed like everything was sorted: we'd found someone to move in - an impossibly glamorous, irrepressibly exuberant, yoga-loving American vegan named Wendy - who was all set to sign the lease when - seemingly out of nowhere - her on-again-off-again-on-again Irish builder boyfriend decided that they should move in together. I was quite taken aback at how upset I was: I'd known the girl for all of twenty minutes and now I'm walking around the house in a daze, pausing to look wistfully at the ironing folded on the counter top and sighing, 'That's not how Wendy would have done it'. And I had really warmed to the idea of welcoming someone from another culture into my (metaphoric) bosom. I'd even taken down my seasoned 'No Blood For Oil' banner. So it was sad to watch her go, all too tempting to clutch at her elbow just as she walked out to plead, 'Don't go, Wendy, stay with us! We're your family now! Don't move in with that knob jockey. He's all wrong for you!' And he was. To be fair, I only met him for, like, all of three seconds. But it was enough to know that I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him (admittedly that wouldn't be very far, since he was a big guy and I've only been eating mangos so give me a break). Still, you ever meet someone you just knew was thick? Not because their trousers were on backwards or because they'd just bought a timeshare - just by looking at their face. Whatever physiognomy or countenance that somehow, some way, just seemed to say, 'I haven't a fucking clue'. That was what this guys face said to me. I AM A FOOL. And fool he was. None foolier that he. A colossal fool. A towering monument to fooliness, an indomitable affront to common sense, dwarfing gumption and all sound judgement for miles around. If he were a temperature, he'd be moderate-to-fool. If he were a rapper, he'd be Foolio. If he were a movie, he'd be Fool Hand Luke (or, alternately, Fool Runnings). In short, fool. Say it with me: fool. Feels good, doesn't it? And all this I gleaned just from looking at him. I imagine if I were to actually study human psychology my insights would be so incisive as to possibly rupture the morphogenetic fabric of civilisation as we know it.

Oh wait, I did study psychology. Forgot about that. My life now, as it stands, is - for another year anyway - without direction. What's worrying is that this isn't especially worrying to me. I seem, for the most part, happy to drift, wander, amble, mosey, saunter, sashay... er, let's go back to 'drift'. I had half-planned to spend the next two years training to be an actor though it now looks like this will 99% definitely not be happening - give or take a percent. The reasons? This and that. 'Financial concerns'-this; 'inability to convincingly portray human emotion'-that. I'm not disappointed though. As I discovered - somewhat embarrassingly - during the application interview, I really hadn't got a clue what the course was actually about and ended up enthusiastically agreeing with the interviewer when he suggested that maybe this wasn't the avenue for me - 'ho ho, spot on there, mate, saved me a right lot of bother you did, I'll show myself out'. Still, this does mean another year of enduring the dreaded 'So, what are you doing with yourself?' question from acquaintances, relatives, and general well-wishers. Let's see, what do I usually say? 'Well, I'm working now at the moment but what I plan to do is...' - at this point my brain pretty much shuts down and the resultant conversation consists mostly of soundbytes from academic pamphlets and maybe some vague-sounding self-empowerment slogans I might have heard on Dr. Phil - '... so there's that. And I play keyboards, y'know...' - I might drift into some creative delusional bullshit here about being an 'artist at heart', maybe throw in some nonsense about how the internet has revolutionised the ways and means of artistic expression or something - '... yeah, I'll make you a CD. But, y'know, I'm only [insert age here], I'm in no hurry...' - honestly, if it were possible my brain would actually be self-digesting, THIS CONVERSATION IS KILLING ME etc. etc. Stop gap, stop dead, dead-end. DEAD.
And on that note, I think I'll leave you: this entry has rambled on quite enough. Lots of capitals. And pictures of ugly people - apologies for that. And for the title: it sucks. But then - sorry nerds - so does the movie.
Yours, 'effectuating creative suicide'.

WASTING YOUR TIME AND MINE

2006-08-18T14:18:00.000+01:00

CHAIRMAN OF THE BORED

2006-08-15T13:56:00.000+01:00

I never realised what a Scouse knacker Steven Gerrard is. I suppose the fact that he actually plays for, y'know, Liverpool should have been a clue. But when I heard him speak today - on some washing powder ad - I was quite taken aback by his accent. I remember reading an interview with him in Esquire or something - he was on the cover with Walliams and that Franz Ferdinand dude - supposedly representing some 21st century vanguard of British cool. He seemed like a thoroughly decent - albeit interminably boring - chap so it was a bit of a surprise to hear him talking like some Harry Enfield caricature. Anyway, why am I talking about Steven Gerrard? Because I'm totally fucking bored, that's why. I'm in work - alone - with nothing to do except eat Rice Krispie buns and abuse my company's broadband connection. Can you believe there's a site that reviews Rice Krispie buns? Mind-boggling, utterly so. At least Veronica Mars is on soon. I've updated the [BETAMAXNOMATES] MySpace Abomination; musically I think I've hit a bit of a wall, a creative block, what our continental neighbours might call an impasse. I'm not likely to accomplish much of anything today - at least not until six o' clock when I might be called upon to do some actual, y'know, 'work'. I think we're going to see Nacho Libre tonight. I'm not optimistic: the trailer looks painfully unfunny and was I the only one who thought Napoleon Dynamite was a complete crock of shit? Apparently so. Laterzzz...

UPDATE:

Still bored. I'd give Nacho Libre two stars. Negative stars.

UNTILTED

2006-08-07T17:31:00.001+01:00

'Hey, I gotta movie for ya, fatty: A Fridge In The Mist!'

GET ME AWAY FROM HERE, I'M DYING

2006-07-30T22:01:00.000+01:00

Obligatory update time. Don't get too excited though, I'm strictly going through the motions here. Phoning it in. There's an overwhelming sense of 'will this do?' about this one, all right. Which is to say: hello! Apologies for the lack of writing and stuff but I've been blah blah made-up excuse. Just couldn't find the time; not a minute to myself. Actually, that was certainly true of today (not the rest of the week though, that was mostly spent playing GTA and watching Veronica Mars. But I digress...) Today my penance was to make awkward small talk with a bunch of strangers I invited into my house. No, I haven't started rounding up Jehovah's Witnesses and forcing them to act out my tortured existentialist playlets. Not yet anyway. No, I'm afraid I'm looking for a new housemate. The old one got engaged to his girlfriend last month so he's bought a place with her and they've moved in together in a sickening display of smug suburban middle-class heterosexist contentedness. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Anyway, today we had four 'hopefuls' come over to (separately) audition for the once-in-a-lifetime role of 'Idiot Housemate #2'; we decided to assess them according to the criteria set by reality TV - which is, of course, all we know - namely: the degree to which the potential housemate could be said to be 'in [my] face', their 'up-for-it'-ness, their willingness to 'tell it like it is', their professed intolerance for/celebration of 'bitching', 'backstabbing', and 'bullshit', and the extent to which they admitted to being 'a bit mad', 'well zany', or 'just a right ol' nutter really'. Extra points were awarded for sexual deviance, alarming racism, extreme campness, and 'idiosyncratic' uses of the English language. No real contenders so far - a couple of computer geeks, some foreigners (ding ding ding! Racism! One of them asked me if I was Polish) and a ridiculous D4 stereotype - complete with Ugg boots and rugby shirt with upturned collar - who seemed especially reluctant to leave the house - not so much that she liked the place, more that she had never been this far from the Shelbourne. Don't call us, we'll call you.
Not much else to be saying. Superman is mediocre at best: I mean, it has its good points (Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey) and its bad (everything else). Probably not such a good idea to cast - as the all-powerful saviour of mankind - some Gap model-looking guy who you could happily smack around in real life with no serious consequences. And speaking of WTF, the website Playground Law has been made into a TV show, following in the footsteps of other such web-to screen successes as... uh, MySpace... and, I dunno, MILF Hunter. In theory this could (should?) have been really hilarious; in practice it was yet another Friday night laugh drought from the Nuremberg comedy war criminals that brought you Balls Of Steel and 8 Out Of Ten Pitiful Panel-Show Whores. As self-regarding as it sounds, Channel 4, as far as I can ascertain, now exists for the sole purpose of pissing. Me. The Fuck. Off. I mean, with the exception of Peep Show, have they produced anything of any worth in the past ten years? I remember when I was a kid (no really I do! Not all of us were raped, you know) when Friday night on Channel 4 was a LOLlercoaster of Father Ted, Frasier, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Friends (when it was good), and - later - BrassEye. Y'know, 'comedy' programs - with actual 'jokes'. There just are no words for... this. (I lie, there's a few...).
Anyway, before I go I may as well engage in some medium pimpin'. My latest mix is now online - titled, with crashing inevitability, the 'Betamax Bootymix' (#1, as there will be further instalments). You can download it directly here or from the link on the sidebar. I'm also working it setting up a podcast (projected title: the 'homogenizedcheesepodcast' - somebody stop me! No seriously, stop me: I'll end with a job in marketing if I'm not careful). Podcasts seem to be 'all the rage' these days, 'everybody's talking about them', so I'm told, but I'm still not entirely clear how to, y'know, 'do' them. I know it has something to do with RSS or something but I couldn't get the hang of it right away so I gave up. Until I figure it out then, here's the mp3 tracklist:

'Wicked Party' (from 'Peep Show')
Nightmares On Wax - Les Nuits
Bruce Springsteen - Missing
Cut Copy - Saturdays (Headman Remix)
LCD Soundsystem - Too Much Love
Martinez - Shadowboxing (Trentemoller Remix)
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Ursula 1000 - Urgent/Anxious feat. Cristina
50 Cent - Outta Control feat. Mobb Deep (Acapella)
Elastica - Connection
White Rose Movement - Girls In The Back
Andy Freer - Super Galaxo
Hot Chip - (Just Like We) Breakdown (DFA Remix)
Madonna - Get Together
Daft Punk - One More Time
'Most People Are Out Right Now' (from 'Peep Show')

INDEFINITE LEAVE TO REMAIN

2006-07-24T21:49:00.000+01:00

homogenizedcheeseproduct has been put on hiatus for retooling.

Heh heh, 'tool'. Nah, I just can't be bothered updating tonight: I'll write something proper tomorrow. Promise.

PROBABLY MORE LIKE WHORING AROUND

2006-07-04T21:21:00.000+01:00

Yeah, so remember all that stuff I said about posting more, writing about things, you know, 'serious' entries eschewing your typical 'I'm soooo random - MONKEY RAPE! - LoL' shibboleth.... Yeah, well it turns out that was a lie. Sorry about that. But, on the bright side, it did give me an excuse to use the word 'shibboleth'. And what a great word it is - sounds like a gnarled stick a Russian woman might beat a goat with. Anyway, what to talk about? What to give to you - the discerning reader - that you haven't already read on someone else's MySpaz a thousand times already? I know: movie reviews! And then maybe some music recommendations! Perfect.

An unusual, and understandably uncelebrated, aspect of my job involves me going to see very bad movies on a semi-regular basis. In the past month alone I've taken in Curious George (confusing), Over The Hedge ('is it just me or this film very, VERY LOUD?'), RV (unspeakable - honestly, words fail to describe the sheer awfulness of this one), and, just yesterday, The Lake House. Now, I don't know if you've been contemplating seeing this - maybe you're one of the few that've been waiting in breathless anticipation for that old Reeves-Bullock chemistry to ignite the screen once more, I don't know - but I implore you to avoid it like the pox. Realistically, I didn't actually expect The Lake House to be any good - still, that didn't stop me leaving the cinema utterly baffled as to how a film of such towering, colassal suckitude ever made it into production. With a lot of bad movies you can kind of see that, perhaps - on paper - there was a kernel of a good idea there that, over time, got buried in a landslide of shoddy scripting, hamfisted direction, Robin Williams, and sixty gallons of liquid faeces (if you've seen RV, you'll understand... oh, how you'll understand...). But with The Lake House it's hard to see where, or when, at any point this seemed like a good idea: Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves fall in love but - whoops! - turns out they're living two years apart. In what (parallel) universe does that sound like a good movie? Hey, maybe that's the point. Maybe this is a movie posted from another dimension across some temporal roadblock and crammed into our cinematic mailslot by ghostly figures from another time (namely, 1994). If that's the case, mark this one 'return to sender'. Zing! With a dry cool wit like that I could be... urgh, Alex Zane probably.
A slightly better movie out at the moment is 36. Not much to say about this one really. It's French but is, unusually, unencumbered by any lengthy scenes of joyless mechanical sex filmed through venetian blinds. Obviously Gerard Deperdjeeiu is in it (as is that other guy, Daniel Autieouil, who's in everthing) but it's more like an extended episode of The Shield - only with funny accents. Which is cool. And it's got the chick from Hot Shots. Which is also cool. And the obligitary heavy-handed 'symbolic' ending. Which is not so cool, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. (Now, if I really was Alex Zane I'd probably flap my hands about and in my best 'ho-ho ironic' voice make some lazy crack about homeless people or Big Issue sellers there but I'm better than that, goddamnit. Though the fact that I even considered it in the first place doesn't exactly help my case).

Anyway, crashing on, you may have noticed that I've embedded one of those new-fangled music guage/counter thingys on the sidebar (that's presuming it is on the side: I coded this site by hand and haven't tested it in any other browsers yet so there's a good chance it may be upside-down and somewhere towards the left. Either way, it's stupid and annoying and painfully slow to refresh itself (I mean it keeps telling me that my 'most listened to' artist is The Diableros but they're, like, sooo last week, I hardly listen to them at all now). What I have been listening to rather a lot is Ride - a bunch of shoegaze also-ran's whose lead singer now plays guitar for Oasis: go figure - and their album Nowhere, a hazy slice of British psychedelia perfectly encapsulating that heady summer of 1991. Of course I was too young to be listening to Ride at the time - back then, the extent of my musical knowledge was that all cows ate grass, Prince had two of his ribs removed so he could suck his own willy, and that multi-ethnic techno-popsters 2 Unlimited died in a plane crash last week - at least according to my best friend's neighbour's girlfriend's mentally subnormal cousin Brian.
Further, I suggest you 'celebrate' the 'entire catalogue' (TM Office Space) of Soft Cell (so much more than 'Tainted Love'), the new Hot Chip album, and the mighty Gil Scott-Heron. And I quite like the new Christina Aguilera song though I've seen the making-the-video special so many times I feel like I fucking directed the thing. It's possible I did, in between my time being Alex Zane. And speaking of him, why not gorge yourself on a selection of vintage Popworld clips on YouTube (this being my personal favourite) before Cap'n Zane(y) and the dead-eyed, learned-English-from-phonetics Female Presenter came along and cocked it all up.

REFUNCT

2006-06-18T23:53:00.000+01:00

Hmm. S'pose I should write something then.
Hello everyone, I'm back again. Even though I (twice!) swore that I wouldn't, I'm back on the wagon. Or off it, whichever way you look at it. Either way it's gonna end up with me booze-bloated, bleary-eyed and tearful - shirtfront streaked with vomit - sheepishly promising 'never to let this happen again'. Again. I should probably apologise in advance as I suspect this blog isn't going to be very good - [BETAMAXNOMATES] was pretty rubbish frankly, but then that barely had ten entries overall. My plan is to update this one more frequently - I'm stressing quantity over quality here - and with an emphasis on more abstract topics rather than 'stuff that happened to me today retold in stock "ironic" fashion'. (Quotes within quotes there: we're off to a flying start). Basically, I'm not convinced my day-to-day life is all that interesting, whatever amount of cod-surrealist accoutrements I might throw in post-hoc. Like when anyone asks me, 'Any news?' (or the infinitely more irksome, 'Any craic?'), I'm always stumped as what to say. 'Umm, tried out that auto-erotic asphyxiation thing there yesterday. Wasn't for me.' Or, 'Craic? Loads! Had me one of those Dairylea Lunchables, yeah, but I didn't make it up like the cow said on the box, I put Nutella on them 'cos I'm mad, me!'
So maybe my ambitions (if you could describe them as such - I've always subscribed to the idea of aiming - not low - but obscure, that way no one will actually understand if you've succeeded or not) are more, shall we say, 'journalistic' this time around. I'm going to try, I suppose, to write about stuff, rather than just chronicling my life with Family Guy references. Stuff I like, stuff I don't (lots of that *LoLLerCAUST!!!!1*) and whatever in between - Big Brother probably. Anyway, enough 'pre', more 'amble'. This is my first of (hopefully) many entries on homogenizedcheeseproduct, presupposing that I don't suddenly spiral into catatonic depression and decide that nothing in my life has meaning... not *sniff* even... blogging. But what are the odds of that happening? Again?
Also, for those that are interested, the [BETAMAXNOMATES] MySpace Abomination has been updated, with four new songs added. I'll eventually get around to redesigning that page but I must say it's a somewhat damning indictment of artisitc democracy that the corporate default design is actually the least aesthetically obnoxious - in fact compared to most peoples 'efforts' (and I don't even have to provide links here - the word 'MySpace' itself suggests nightmarish flashes of purples and greens, oversized text flying at the screen like a crazed fever dream, disorienting rollovers, a garishly-patterned, poorly-coded debasement of civilisation as we know it *HUGZ*) - Tom's understated blue and white is almost... quite nice actually. Not at all an inspiration for this site. Still, in the end doesn't it all just come down to homogenized cheese?
The answer, of course, is 'no'.

DEFUNCT

2006-04-16T23:13:00.000+01:00

This page has been deactivated due to lack of effort: there will be no more [BETAMAXNOMATES]. I'd like to say it's been fun... it hasn't. I will see you in far off places. Beta out.

MY NEW TOY

2006-02-02T00:14:00.000Z

(Burberry-clad Betamax not pictured)

NOT THE SHARPEST BULB IN THE SHED

2006-01-25T15:14:00.000Z

Don't you just love these lazy Sundays? Loafing around in your pyjamas, having your breakfast in the middle of the day, half-watching the not-quite-as-bad-as-you-expected-but-benefits-greatly-from-lowered-expectations DVD of Dune that came free with the paper. What's that? Wednesday, you say? Oh well, since my hiatus began in earnest last week I've ceased to observe any strict demarcations between days or weeks: time, nutrition, and general personal hygiene are more elastic concepts now. Actually most of my time has been spent looking for a car. It's true what they say about used car salesmen, you know. Nicest people in the world. I've made so many new friends this week: Ken, Barry, Des, Terry, even their names resound with a rich baritone of trustworthiness and reliability. They get a rep as being shady sorts - shysters, 'wheeler dealers', and what have you. You just have to be firm with them is all: stride confidently across the yard, assume the alpha stance and let them know who's boss: 'Oi, Ken/Barry/Des/Terry, I'm looking for a motor, yeah? I'm a man of deeds, not words. Don't underestimate me because you will be making a fatal error. I don't like liars. I don't like cheats. I don't like bullshitters. I don't like schmoozers and I don't like arse-lickers. Time is money, my friend, and you are bankrupt'. Then just walk away - WALK AWAY - and ignore anything they may shout after you. Works a treat I've found. Except I forgot to ask them anything about cars.
Anyway, I think I'll spend the remains of the day exploring my new found love for Ableton (not to be confused with Appleton). Blogger apparently has a 'scheduled outage' at 4PM PST, something I initially misread as 'scheduled outrage' (I have no idea what PST is - though I assume it refers to 'women's problems'). Listen to the Okkervil River album and EP today, if you get a chance. It's really rather good and Arcade Fire-ish, merging, as it does, the vaguely hysterical vocal histrionics of Xiu Xiu and CYHSY with the shimmering pop sensibilities (TM the NME) of Wolf Parade and the like. Also, check out K-Fed's MySpace profile and listen to a sample from 'Popo Zao', his laughably bad debut single, an obnoxious combination of faux-Latino vocal inflections and Fisher Price crunk production values. Don't bother with Match Point though: not even the combined gorgeousness factor of Scar-Jo-Meyers is enough to save this turkey, which, at 124mins, is at least two hours too long. Betamax out.

I'LL NEVER BE ANYBODY'S HERO NOW

2006-01-09T20:29:00.000Z

Googly-eyed French 'foolosopher' and author Jean Paul Sartre once wrote that hell is other people (Source: Seventeen.com) and I'm starting to think he might have been right. Living with people is a bitch. Previous to my moving out I would have never considered myself as being particularly loud or obnoxious; now, apparently, I 'close doors forcefully' and make odd honking noises when I sleep. It doesn't help that one of my housemates - to whom my room is adjacent - appears to be some kind of weird reclusive noise terrorist only leaving his room every other morning to accost me as I get out of the shower and complain about my clamorous cutlery-clinking the night before. 'Blah blah blah, coming home drunk, blah blah, singing Cyndi Lauper, blah blah blah, up early tomorrow for a funeral, blah blah, final year exams, blah'... it almost makes me yearn for custody weekends spent at the fetid crack den I used to call home.
Oh well. Haven't updated in a while as I have been quite busy. That's all going to change next week though when I cash in the assload of annual leave I've earned over the year and bunk off work for a month. I'll be sure to drop you a postcard... from my couch! Ostensibly this sabbatical is to give me a chance to Sort Some Things Out (namely what it is I propose to do with my life and whatnot) though I know in my blackest heart of hearts I'll just waste it (the spectre of this article looms uncomfortably large). So expect lots of pointless updates and pontificating on Celebrity Big Brother over the coming weeks (Preston to win, Pete to walk, and Barrymore to break down horribly before our eager, bloodthirsty eyes. Yay!). I've already got into the swing of doing nothing - the only potentially useful part of today for example was spent in bed eating Terry's All Gold and watching Black Books. Which, actually, reminds of another reason why I hate my housemate: this is a guy who went to a Dylan Moran show and thought the support act - walking artery blockage Karl Spain - was funnier. I mean, I'm someone who's pretty tolerant of other people's taste, no matter how different from my own (NOTE: Anyone who knows me will know that this is patently untrue and that I hold most people's tastes in utter contempt) but that's just wrong. That's like saying Wings were better than The Beatles, that Godfather 3 was the best of the trilogy - there's diversity of opinion and there's plain bad thinking. Ugh, even writing about it is making me angry - maybe there's some of those All Gold's left somewhere. *scrabbles under bed for any remaining morsels of discarded confectionary*
That's quite enough for this evening I reckon. I'm going to get back to watching the rest of this movie which, so far, I've fallen asleep during three times. I'm guessing it could be good - werewolves, Freudian subtext, Angela freakin' Lansbury - but it hasn't grabbed my attention yet, though admittedly putting it on while drunk at three in the morning doesn't help it any. Anyway, I've set up a MySpace page for my posting some of my mixes since SectionZ doesn't allow streaming. I don't get why everyone's so jazzed about MySpace though: it's swarming with pop-ups and, like Friendster, is plagued by Filipino spambots with far too many asterisks, backslashs and exclamation marks in their names begging you to add them to your profile. I hate the internet. Betamax out.

MP3
> Francois's Private Hell

MIX
> Betamix #1 (MySpace appears to be broken. It's on SectionZ now)

COCK IT

2005-12-23T03:28:00.000Z

:-(

Here she is, Amelie or Amarillo or something. I don't like the headband and her mouth looks a bit on the wonky side in that shot but I'll give her a chance.

MP3
> Cheeky Vimto
> Up Cubic

HIGH-VISIBILITY IMBECILITY

2005-12-22T20:50:00.000Z

What, with posterity, will be seen as great about 2005:

Arrested Development - So that's what TV3 is for!

Jamie Lidell - Like Jamiroquai only, y'know, not shit.

Danger Mouse

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Robert Downey Jr.! And Val Kilmer! Together at last! In a movie! That's actually in cinemas!

Geoff Dyer

'Hung Up' - 'I hate this song!' 'No, wait, I love this song!' 'No. No, I hate this song.' 'Actually no. No, I love this song.'

Mysterious Skin

The Electric Picnic - At last an Irish music festival that isn't blighted by the rotating roster of rot that is MundyFramesCasey.

'Don't Cha?' - Yes. Yes, I do.

The Descent

NIN!!!!!!!!!!11111

And what won't:

'My Humps', Batman Begins, Lunar Park, the return of Family Guy, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, James cunting Blunt, Daniel Powter, Akon, Esquire magazine, Keira Knightley, Joss Stone, Human After All, Chris Evans back on TV, Chris Morris back on TV, Chris Martin, Live8, Pope's funeral, Mossgate, Liam Lawlor underage transsexual Communist prostitute death ruse, Extras, Channel 4, Jude Law, Uggs, charity wristbands, Craig and Anthony, Dundrum 'Town Centre', 3 Mobile ads, Brew 39, (Beverage) with Lime!, Julie Burchill, Little Britain, 'Amarillo', Sienna Miller, boho-chic, Kaiser Chiefs, Eugene Levy, MTV comedy (MTV in general actually), Orlando Bloom, Brian and Glenda, Ed Byrne, Karl 'Im fat: that's the joke' Spain, Spain the country, fake porn like Hollyoaks: Let Loose, clicking fingers for poverty, Robbie Williams apparently apeing Morrissey, Hector, Eric Prydz and Uniting Nations, Capital magazine, Dara O' Briain's 'Irish-pubs-are-great-you-can-buy-alcohol-in-them-please-drink-responsibly' radio ads, iPod Nano, Lindsay Lohan Nano, skinny Peter Jackson, October's Vanity Fair with Paris Hilton on the cover and a special pull-out supplement on watches FFS, Kathryn Flett, Charlotte Church's continued vodka-and-snakebite-fuelled descent into pikey poptart oblivion, one (made-up) word: Diddy, X&Y, Napoleon Dynamite, The Life Aquatic, Christina Ricci in Cursed (why?), Teri Hatcher, Terri Schiavo, terrorist-chic, Franz fucking Ferdinand, Green Day somehow becoming the world's most popular band, My Chemical Romance (or Early Learning Centre Pumpkins), Jonathan Ross, Joey, Maxwell and Saskia, Carol Thatcher, Richard Whiteley dying, Eamonn Holmes doing serious news now (Eamonn Holmes!), Bershka/Bertoni/BT2/Bollocks, Bestie deathwatch, Ian Brown, Dan Brown, Nirvana/Jeff Buckley/2Pac still releasing albums, voting (pointless), voting in Iraq (even worse), Fool Around With My Girfriend/Fran Cosgrave/Heavy Machinery, Celebrity Wrestling, Celebrity anything, Jessica Biel, Judge Judy ('The cases... are REAL! The rulings... are FINAL! The people... are IDIOTS! The judge... is CRAZY!' Why is this shit still on?), those fucking Meteor ads, Stringfellows protesters, War Of The Worlds, Tom and Katie, Katie Melua brutalising 'Just Like Heaven', The Magic Numbers, Ross Noble, Red WKD, Eleanor Rigby (book, not the song), 'Ugly' (the new Sugababes song, but also ugly people and things in general), the Internet, people ranting etc.

This list is, of course, incomplete and subject to revision. Any suggestions post them comment-wise.

THE KING OF CARROT FLOWERS

2005-12-19T11:45:00.000Z

Tis' the season. As hack features writers and panel show wankers remind us constantly it's That Time Of The Year Again: the photocopying of buttocks, the copping off with 'Carol from Accounts' (it's always 'Carol from Accounts'), the drunken dressing down of the boss, yes, it's the 'dreaded' office party.
I had my office party last week - except that I don't work in an office, I work in a house, which may lead you to expect maybe a 'house party' and all the wacky PG-13-rated hi-jinks that entails. Not so. Our office party followed a more traditional route wherein everyone got together for a meal then went for a few drinks and on to a club. Except that we did it in fancy dress. And except that I was violently ill after the meal and couldn't drink for the night. Seriously, going to a nightclub sober: is there anything more chilling to the human soul? Maybe. Maybe if you were sober, sick, six foot seven, and dressed like this. On a normal day I'm a kind of human flypaper for dipsos, pillheads and the generally insane; on Friday night I became an almost messianic figure for the mentally unbalanced. If this sounds like it might have been fun on some kitsch, ironic, 'oh, isn't it all so ridiculous' kind of way, I assure you it wasn't.
The highpoint of the evening for me however, unlike poor Stigmund here, was the obligatory Kris Kindle... probably because I'm such an emotionally stunted materialist I can only connect with things and not people. Just thought I'd slip that in there... anyway, moving on. The person I bought for never showed up so their gift (a novelty alarm clock, ho ho hum) ended up trampled on the floor of a pub somewhere while I walked away with - and I don't think I'm overstating this in the least - quite possibly THE BEST PRESENT IN THE WHOLE WORLD EVER. A wise man in olden times (Jesus, or maybe Shakespeare) once said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Darn tootin'! Have you seen the infomercial? That motherfucker goes through a can! And it writes upside down! And, using only a short length of twine, some baking soda, and a blasting cap, makes a pretty nifty home-made explosive. I've no idea how to use a fountain pen and, if I'm being honest, I'm not particularly interested in using this to write with; really I just want to stab it into as many objects of varying size, strength and texture as I can to truly test the meaning of the phrase 'virtually indestructible'.
Before I go, if you haven't heard this album yet, check it out; for the time being anyway, you can download it for free here. Not sure if it's quite the masterpiece some people have claimed it is, but it is rather good - which is probably the best we can expect from a singer who desribes his group as 'not so much a band, more a concept'. Betamax out.

DEAFENINGLY, INDEFINITELY

2005-12-13T23:52:00.000Z

Read this.
More or less sums up the sorry state of television comedy today. How a show like this can get cancelled whilst wincingly unfunny and insulting dross like this is commissioned is beyond me. Out sheer morbid curiosity I watched 5 minutes of Space Cadets this evening and was duly appalled by the utter shoddiness of it all. As a 'social experiment' it is thoroughly without worth and as a comic reality show it's an unmitigated disaster - though probably the presence of 'Lad TV' dinosaur Johnny Vaughan, followed by the Topshop comedy stylings of Alex Zane(y) on E4, should have given some indication as to the kind of mean-spirited bilge that was to come. I just fail to see the point of it all: a couple of stooges are conned into thinking they've been shot into space - cue the 'Big Reveal' - then the same contestants are actually flown to NASA to experience zero gravity for real. I mean, why bother with the show at all? So for a few weeks we can snicker at these cretins prance about a disused military base in Surrey and congratulate ourselves for never being so gullible as to be taken in by a cheap obnoxious hoax masquerading as entertainment, sounding the death knell for a channel already blighted by fetid Jimmy Carr-fronted rot and puerile reality cack?
One small step for man, one fucking clangourous debacle for mankind. TV off.

GEMMA'S ON THE GAME

2005-12-12T19:57:00.000Z

And so the stage is set for my tastefully low-key return to the ignominious business of blogwriting: my already tired and disappointing follow-up to the acclaimed Ddmmyy. I'm not sure exactly why I'm bothering with this, though an excess of free time and a newly-acquired internet connection seem likely motivational factors. And I don't know entirely what this blog will come to consist of - put your money on some tired and disappointing retreads of old ground - or what I want to achieve with it. Inevitably I will try and do something different, something novel, with this one and inevitably I will fail. Inevitably then I will throw a big-girl hissy fit disguised as artistic transfiguration or 'necessary catharsis' and inevitably, ultimately, nobody will care.
Which is to say, hello, and welcome to [BETAMAXNOMATES]. If you're reading this you are probably already acquainted with me in what only the deeply deluded could still refer to as 'The Real World', so an introduction seems redundant. I live and work in Maynooth, which is a rapidly expanding industrial estate just a short distance from Dublin. My spare time is spent making music, watching daytime TV and generally hastening my complete withdrawal from public life. I collect unrealistic ambitions and broken dreams: I have an unvarnished homemade trophy cabinet half-full of them now.
This has got off to a bad start. Dies ist der Anfang vom Ende.

MP3
> King Dinner

EAT FOOTBALL DRINK BETAMAXNOMATES

2005-12-09T17:05:00.000Z

...

THIS IS TEH END

2005-05-25T22:31:00.000+01:00

Hello, and welcome to the last ever Ddmmyy.
(I'll pause a moment just to savour that subsonic tsunami of indifference). Anyway, as I was saying, this is the last entry I'm going to post to this journal. Ever the optimist, I'll imagine that some of you, somewhere, are asking why, how come, what gives? Well I'll tell you: I'm bored. Very, very, very bored. Bored of blogs and blogging and everything that entails. I'm just not interested in writing a blog anymore, and, increasingly, I'm less interested in reading them. If I could be pretentious for just a moment, the 'blog form' as is no longer holds any interest for me. As far as I'm concerned it's a dead art (considering its relative recency it's practically fucking stillborn). I'm sick of blogs. I've had my fill of tedious unidimensional rants, of cynical dilettantes straining to shock, and of narcissistic pseudo-surrealist me-so-crazee shit whimsy passing for humour. And I'm sick of the slang vernacular, the posting etiquette, the whole fucking bullshit practice of blogging - the backslapping, the shout-outs, the comment-box circle-jerking. And the irony - don't get me started on the irony! - the ferric parentheses enclosing every utterance - 'IT'S OK I'M BEING IRONIC LOLZ' - the useless, toothless sarcasm, the constant, constant recycling of pop-culture references, jokes relentlessly rehashed and reheated until any humour is evaporated and a barely readable greyish sludge is all that remains. Enough. No more. No mas.
Of course, perceptive readers peering just beyond the literal will probably have figured out that I'm actually bemoaning the state of this blog as much as (in fact, more than) anyone else's. To be blunt, I really fucking hate this blog and everything about it, so I'm not going to write it anymore. So there. I am however working on something else web-based that should be up some time over the summer; until then, all communication will be via ddmmyy.sectionz.com.
Anyway my friends, this, as they say, is it. I wish I could say it's been fun. It hasn't.

Thank you, goodnight, and God bless.
Fergal.

Anonymous.
Not your friend anymore.

SKIDMARKS

2005-04-19T17:45:00.000+01:00

A slight return. I’m feeling very apathetic towards this blog at the moment. It’s as if my creative marrowblood has been sapped by some lurching backstreet anemone and now I’m left squatting pale-cheeked and febrile willing the computer to write me a life story. Know what I mean? Plenty’s been going on: I’ve just lost interest in communicating anything via this web journal. There’s a couple of new(ish) projects in the proverbial works that have been occupying most of my time lately. Announcements etc. to follow, in the proverbial fullness of time.
Before I go, some links have been added right-sidedly. The bilous Twenty Major is probably familiar to many of you but for additional laughs direct your webglug toward the Dashboard Heroine and Jamie4U, as well as Graham Linehan’s Why That’s Delightful! Also, the Gravenhurst journal: if you haven’t heard Flashlight Seasons yet, or watched Dead Man’s Shoes in which one of the tracks is featured, then you really haven’t learned anything at all, have you?

Anon. - Easy like a Sunday morning WHORE.

2005-03-31T21:14:00.000+01:00

CONFIDENT INCOMPETENTS

2005-03-23T22:00:00.000Z

Dinner alone tonight. A tray of Uncle Ben’s Sweet and Sour Chicken with boiled rice and a big glass of Lidl merlot. I had an uncle named Ben, you know. He raped me when I was a child. Only joking, I didn’t really have an uncle Ben, though I stand by my accusation. It did happen.
Work is surreal as ever. Yesterday, for example, one of our autistic clients spent the better part of the evening wandering around the garden barefoot singing the chorus of The Human League’s biggest hit as ‘don’t you worry, baby, don’t you worry, whoa-oh-oh-oh’. Charming though this scene was it’s a gross distortion of the song’s message: that’s not what its about, I screamed, but no matter how hard I slapped, he steadfastly refused to acknowledge the note of rueful desperation at the core of this synthpop classic. Someone asked me what my ten favourite songs were today. I’ve never really thought about this as my tastes are notoriously fickle. Last month I couldn’t get enough of M.I.A., DJ Rupture, and LCD Soundsystem; now I hate each of them with a passion usually reserved for over-zealous right-to-lifers who fight to keep a cabbage on a ventilator. I’ll frequently proclaim something to be ‘the best thing ever’ only to tire of it after a few listens, much like I tired of that personal theme song I commissioned Weird Al Yankovic to write and perform for me every time I entered a room - fun at first, but steadily less entertaining over time (rhyming ‘anonymous’ with ‘hippopotamus’? Weak). Anyway here’s a list of ten of my favourite songs (oh, how terribly web diarist of me - I’ll be googling my name next), in no particular order and with no criteria for selection except that I really like them:

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren feat. Elizabeth Fraser
David Bowie - Subterraneans
Aphex Twin - Yellow Calx
Madonna - True Blue
Interpol - Leif Erikson
Tricky - Black Steel
Depeche Mode - It’s No Good
Sugababes - Overload
The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

So there you are; post your own in the comments section, share and share alike, like. Anyway, we’ve killed some time, had some second-hand laughs and maybe even learned a little something (for me it was how to spell ‘ventilator’), but now its time to get personal. I’m a big man (6’ 9” at last count) but I can be terribly small, and petty like a motherfucker. A couple of ‘likely lads’, who shall remain nameless, decided to ‘have a go’ recently, accusing yours truly of ‘berating celebrities’. Berating celebrities. What, pray tell, should one be doing with them? Celebrating them, their achievements, their right to exist and to keep the general public aware of their existence? Affording them the privacy they’ve flaunted to get where they are today? To tolerate celebrities is to endorse them and I don’t (unless they’re Siobhan Fahey, Trent Reznor or the Ronseal man). No sir, I say fuck that. Fuck that good and true.
Like I said, at 6’ 10”, I’m a big man: perhaps I shouldn’t be rising to this. But I’ve also been charged with apparently ‘passing off cynicism as religion’. An intriguing allegation, I’m sure you’ll agree, but one which holds about as much water as one of the other leading brands that isn’t Huggies Pull-ups. No, I’m afraid what I do is far, far worse: I’ve passed off cynicism as art, which is much more serious. Religion is inherently cynical, everybody knows that (so self-evident a fact is it that I feel no need to offer any kind of justification for stating such). Art however should transcend the contempt religion wallows in. That’s its whole point. Art doesn’t care how often you pray to it. Art doesn’t ask anything of you because, frankly, art isn’t bothered. Art offers no forgiveness, no salvation, no hope - only itself, the art object, in all its potential and its peril. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself: this is the kind of aesthetic theory wank I should reserve for .yymmdD. Now I have to go drag my 6’ 11” frame away from the monitor to hang up my thinking cap and don my tin-foil pork-pie of smug self-satisfaction.
Goodnight everyone, God bless, and hold ya moufs. I am 7’ tall.

Carbon-based Idiocy

2005-03-20T14:27:00.000Z

Quote of the day, from some captionless talking head on the The Fabulous Life of The Olsen Twins: ‘The girls are very spiritual. With them, it’s what you see is what you get’.
Well if what I see is two coked-up, duck-faced anorexics who dress like they ramraided the bins outside Chloe Sevigny's house then I think we need a re-definition of ‘spiritual’ for a post-thinking society. Y'see, this is why I shouldn’t watch T4 on Sunday morning: as much as I welcome the comforting inanity it brings, the occasional moment of sheer, inexcusable stupidity will pierce through my stupor and put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I’m also still mildly hungover from last night where I was bizarrely invited (and even more bizarrely, actually attended) a party for my sister's boyfriend and his family. Now, I don’t delude myself into thinking I’m some kind of ‘man of the people’ - a homme lu peuple, if you will. I realise that I am a man only of a very specific people, people more or less identical to me in every single way - anything else and I'm left hopelessly confused. So you could say a bar full of working class suedeheads wearing Fred Perry shirts with upturned collars and Argos jewellery was not exactly my typical social milieu. Added to this was the problem that all of them, without exception, were so very, very small. In my socks I'm 6' 8" and I always feel vaguely guilty around small people, as if I over-indulged at the chromosonal buffet leaving them wanting. Someone I had known from school last night observed that I was 'still tall', height, it would seem, being a difficult thing to maintain over time, what with that pesky gravity and everything.

Anyway, I refused to acknowledge St. Plastic’s Day this year, the day when everyone is little bit Irish/inebriated and secular saints chase asylum seeking snakes from our shores. Instead I stayed in and subjected myself to rewatching Lost In Translation, a tedious and ultimately superficial film with all the profundity and emotional resonance of a Nescafe ad. I didn’t care much for this movie when I saw it first and (remarkably) have an even lower opinion of it now. Bill Murray is a good comic actor but in recent years it seems to have become compulsory to hail him as some kind of god-like genius. Esquire recently raved about Murray's ‘unique and singular screen presence’, another way of saying that he basically plays the same character in every movie he’s in - now with added pathos. Still, enough people loved this movie to propel it to the top of nearly all critic’s top-tens and secure an Oscar for Sofia Coppola. One of these kind of films comes along every year - a poseur lifestyle accessory that wears its quirks on its sleeve and earns immediate classic status by the combined strength of a hipster director, a name star OMGWTF ‘subverting’ their image and a soundtrack cobbled together from Drowned In Sound’s end-of-year list and a MVC Hits of The 80’s compilation. Last year it was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in 2002 Donnie Darko. Although we would doubtless disagree over Eternal Sunshine, the estimable Zoomtard (or Estimable Zoomtard as he shall henceforth be known) already gave a funny and perceptive critique of this years Oscars so I’m not going to bother. Anyway, I only actually saw two or three of the films nominated in most categories; suffice to say that my three favourite films of last year (this, this, and this) received no nominations.
Very little else rattling around upstairs compelling me to type any further. The Fametracker forums closed this week much to my sadness and disappointment. Websites close down all the time but, until now, none of them had really been important. I posted there regularly and the forums were one of the very few (along with Dissensus) where I held the opinions of the other posters in any kind of esteem. I’ll genuinely miss those forums. Something else that finished this week, but that I won't especially miss, was Nathan Barley, a show that could be generously described as an almost complete disaster. Excepting some brief moments of comic brilliance, the series as a whole was poorly-directed, plotless, and populated by by inconsistent and underwritten characters. I’m not sure where Morris will go from here, possibly retreating further into the surreal and ‘difficult’ territory he explored in My Wrongs. This is the third failed TV series Brooker has been behind; maybe it’s time he went back to satirising the insulting garbage that passes for TV entertainment instead of adding to it.

I've just read over what I've written already and decided that I sound like a cunt. If I read this on somebody else's site I'd probably be vomiting with derision. So I'm going to stop here and see if I can manufacture myself a new personality for next week. Good day, and God bless.

Bother'd

2005-03-16T18:04:00.000Z

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the bees are getting up to whatever filthy business they get up to in this weather - in short, today is a good day.

Today is a day for rolled-up shirtsleeves, Saint Etienne, and beers at lunchtime. Today is like hearing ‘Crash’ by The Primitives playing in a shop and remembering how much you loved that song, singing along even though you've forgotten the words (but joining in with gusto on the 'na-na-nah' bits) and before you even know it you're dancing, twirling your arms around, knocking bottles and cans from the shelves, singing and spinning like a crazed human carousel. But you don't care: the sun is out and it's a fucking beautiful day. It's a day not to lose your temper with the Spanish student who sat next to you on the bus and spent the whole journey cackling into her mobile phone and who spilt some of her disgusting Yop on your designer jeans and didn't even apologise. Forget her: she's young, dumb, and full of... well, musn't judge. Look at the daffodils. You couldn't possibly sneer at the idiots with their rubber bracelets today - the charity wristband they bought second-hand off eBay to match their rainbow vinyl Gola shoulder bag and their Thundercats baby tee. Fuck them, life's too short. Today is a day to smile at the Oxfam street workers (don't give them any money though, or even a minute of your time: the weather's not that fucking good). Put down those entertaining MGA products and go make some fucking hay, bitches.
I'm feeling happy today - it probably shows - and I hope you are too. If you're not just reassure yourself that I'm being 'ironic' and that really I'm as miserable as you. Or whatever. Bother'd. Peace.

Normal service will resume once the ultimate futility of human existence again becomes apparent. In the meantime...

Second Next Best to Deadly

2005-03-13T22:14:00.000Z

So it seems with all this recent voting hype and pre-election hoopla I forgot to vote. Oops.
I shouldn’t be so blasé about this. Its an insult to my great-great-something-or-others who died in some war in olden days. And to the feminists, who had to threaten to blow up the Grand National before the King would allow them to vote. And its not like I’ve got an excuse for not voting: I spent the day skulking around toy shops with this guy. I bought myself a Crash Test Dummy, a childhood favourite of mine, a toy that subtly educates children in the horrific, albeit apparently instantly repairable, consequences of road traffic accidents. Together with Carmageddon, my automotive awareness was skewed from an early age.
As regards the election though, I can console myself that at least a grassroots independent type got in and not government stooge Aine Brady. Brady: the Fianna Fail child, aunt to the eminently yawnsome David Kitt, a Lions Club luminary and (probable) Rod Stewart fan. You can be sure that if she ever got into power her first move would have been to anoint the sacred Rod and to ban Actimel because of, like, some weird aversion she has to bacteria or something. She would deny the Immunitas-starved their liquid culture fix and the radioactive womb-like force-field it provides of a morning.

Anyway, this is my first update in a while. Quite a while, in fact. Indeed, my absence has been so protracted some of you may have even come to suspect that I’ve been engaging in covert blogging activities elsewhere (and you’d be right, but more of that when the time comes). The lack of updates has a lot to do with business in the Real Life department - this week I’ve spent mostly having conversations with Gardai who seem to speak in the language of football commentators or characters from Morrissey songs, straight-facedly saying things like, ‘He’s knows our Achilles Heel and he goes for the jugular’. Yet my reticence also reflects on my changing attitudes to what this journal is or should be. The original principles of artistic distance and public anonymity and unanswerable opinion got muddled somewhere along the line and it became a question of entertainment rather than art. Neuro writes rather eloquently on the subject of ‘blog identity’ here and (perhaps unwittingly) reminded me how audience should never be considered in the construction of art: art is what it is whether it is experienced by anyone or not. Eventually the artist must remove him/herself from the equation for the distance to be complete and for the work to become an ‘art object’ in the truest sense. Yup, still keepin' it real.

At this juncture, I should let you know that every syllable of this journal entry you read contributes 50c to Comic Relief. Think, for reading that preceding paragraph alone, you’ve raised enough money to build an average African family their very own rocketship with enough unobtainium to travel twice round the galaxy. Give yourself a pat on the back! After all, that’s what Comic Relief is all about really, isn’t it? Fatuous self-congratulation? And why let the facts speak for themselves when Britain’s brightest young comedy stars, Lenny Henry and Ben Elton, do such a very good job instead? Funny to see the Little Britain lads lowering themselves to this, but not exactly surprising - what are Walliams and Lucas if not the Smith and Jones of the noughties? They are well and truly the Establishment now and were heading that way long before they invited Sir Elton onto the set last Friday to exchange some witless single-entendres with Dafydd. The BBC should consider changing it from ‘Comic Relief’ to ‘Comic Mercy’ and repackage the show as a kind of entertainment hospice, where once-good-now-bad comedy comes to be put out of its misery.

But then charity has to be degrading, doesn’t it? Doing the decent thing has to involve dressing as a medieval wench and being pelted with piss-drenched sponges, or having your public hair dyed red and shaved in the shape of Stephen Fry’s nose. Newsreaders and politicians have to appear as adult babies and dance in a chorus line of leather sex dwarves as the smug hosts scurry about in the background hoovering up whatever errant scraps of dignity might have hit the floor.
It’s fitting then that this years Comic Relief also featured the televisual exhumation of Chris Evans, ‘fresh’ from hosting The Brits (something else that feels part of a bygone era), reuniting him with his TFI whipping boy (and recently one of Evans’s most outspoken critics) Will Whateverhisnameis. Will hasn’t aged a day; Chris, on the other hand, is drying out in every sense of the word. His always horrible ginger hair has faded now to a grey-streaked orange furze and his haggard face, still forced into that familiar expression of manic exuberance, has the haunted look of man living on borrowed time. What the fuck Chris Evans is doing on television in 2005 is beyond me. These are the kind of thankless bingo-caller gigs that should be going to the Vernon Carrs and Jimmy Kayes of this world. Obviously someone in programming feels Chris ‘Tired and Emotional’ Evans deserves another round of second chances. And in a coincidence made in PR heaven this month also sees Evans’s barely legal cockwasher and no-hit wonder Billie Piper making her acting debut opposite Crazy Christopher Ecclestone in the new Doctor Who. What’s next, Buffalo G resurfacing in Hitch-Hikers Guide? Well, there is that two-headed monster...

Anyway, no time to tell you about my brief and rather fruitless expedition out to the newly unveiled Dundrum Town Centre with Neuro earlier in the week. There’s not a whole lot you can say about the Dundrum Centre - in fact the place itself seems to eschew any kind of considered discourse, trading only in exotic single word temptations: Bershka... Furla... Bertoni... Tesco. The whole thing is a monument to effortful cool. You could probably drop an Aborigine or a Amazonian tribesman into the Dundrum Centre and return in an hour to find them in a pair of distressed Converse Allstars, some rust-tinted Diesel bootcuts and a wide-collared shirt and lilac diamond-pattern tank top combo from Monsoon For Men - a model of suburban idiot chic. Still for all its pretensions towards designer mall status the Dundrum Centre is really about as classy as dolly troll Kerry McFadden - it's Liffey Valley with a bad dye job. And there’s even less to it than meets the eye: the upper and lower storeys comprise the considerably more chav-centric Champion, Lifestyle and Lacoste to keep the council fashionistas happy.
Keeping things townie, there’s an ad on TV for Damien Dempsey as I type this. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing Dempsey’s ‘music’ I suggest you get yourself experienced. It’s difficult to describe but you could imagine it as a kind of uneasy mixture of Billy Bragg and Dustin the Turkey. It’s certainly unique but, my God, it sounds fucking awful. Yet I still can’t completely dismiss Dempsey, simply because he comes so highly praised, most notably by Morrissey and Brian Eno - the former the greatest lyricist of all time, the latter the greatest musician. Dilemma.
Anyway, I think if this journal entry were an album it would be the new one from Daft Punk: long-awaited, overcooked and disappointing, a tired recycling of old ideas, dulled and blunted through repetition. Goodnight everyone, and God bless.

Came on Eileen

2005-02-24T23:16:00.000Z

What, as Marvin Gaye famously asked, is going on?
Actually, the ‘is’ was conjoined with the ‘what’ and the ‘g’ at the end of ‘going’ casually omitted, but for the sake I’ve clarity I’ve cleaned up Gaye’s diction and consequently avoided paying royalties. Something is certainly going down though. Strongly-worded letters pouring through the door, people in suits calling to ask me questions: either those children have talked or it’s election time again.

This morning I had a visit from our town’s mayor, a woman who’s been mayor for as long as I can remember and looks not so much like she was born but rather evolved from a compost heap. There’s a curiously ‘mulchy’ air about her, like she crawled out from beneath layers of compressed garden waste, and slathered herself in a business suit and sensible specs. Anyway, she was round hassling for votes for one of her candidates. Now, I like talking politics, even though I know next to nothing about anything, and don’t tend to be exactly welcoming of any challenge to my hard-crusted prejudices and assumptions - any questioning of my own beliefs generally elicits only a terse ‘mind your own business’, ‘I’m entitled to a private life’, ‘I’d like to terminate this discussion’, or else hysterical threats of legal action.
I complained to her about the recent proliferation of election posters and overall she was reasonably sympathetic to my concerns, though she hesitated on committing to a motion excluding ugly candidates from running. I’m particularly perturbed by an enormous Fine Gael poster recently erected on my route to work, which I now have to pass by every other day. There’s something palpably unsettling about walking under the gaze of a giant-size Enda Kenny, as he squints with his weird featureless Fig Roll head, flanked by Scully and his suspiciously spongiform square pantaloons. Kenny’s face looks one of those police photo-fits: all the pieces are in the right place but it still looks like no one you’ve ever seen in your life. And I’m not saying that Darren Scully is some kind of asexual ocean-dweller - but let’s just say that if he was found to be co-habiting with a big pink starfish I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.

I don’t ‘get’ Enda Kenny - he may as well be holographic for all the personal charm and charisma he possesses. But I suppose anything’s preferable to the current leader, Bertie, a man who I understand is made almost entirely from liquorice. There’s always Pat Rabbitte, I suppose - a man with a cartoon name and an alleged wit - but we all know what happens to Labour when they get into power: the supposed revolutionary’s inner policeman is unleashed and they go riding around on Spice Girls bombing every country ending in ‘stan’ or containing the Countdown-unfriendly ‘x’, ‘z’, or ‘q’. And while the diplomacy of the baseball bat may work a treat north of the border if our nation is to achieve any kind of credibility in the world we have to keep the Shinners as far away from power as possible.
So, as per usual I’ll be giving (read: wasting) my vote on the very beardy Greens and any other number of unelectable left-wing lunatics. Let’s see more T.D’s in tweed suits and tofu footwear. I want to see our nations leader ride into parliament on a motorised scooter fuelled by recycled avocado rind. And lots more single-issue independents looking to ban paedophilia, arm the homeless, and award ambulance driver privileges to single fathers/national heroes.

Speaking of stupid people doing stupid things, you may by now be aware of the newly launched Freedom from Pornography campaign. That’s right everybody! Put down those Hentai rapetoons, you’re free to go! No longer will you be oppressed by those underage cum-guzzling sluts of the Ukraine! At last our nation is free from the sticky grip of the despotic porn lords that have enslaved us for so long!
The Freedom from Pornography team’s argument, if you could call it that, is that pornography, in our society, has become too ‘pervasive’. What they mean here is that pornography has become more accessible, as it should be: anyone who wants porn and pays for it is entitled to it - as far as I’m concerned that’s their right. People are free from pornography - it’s in shops if you want it, and is readily available online if you seek it out. What people have less freedom from - and what this bint-headed retro-feminist talkshop only pay lip-service to - is the pervasiveness of pornographic iconography in mainstream advertising and the cynical appropriation of pornographic imagery to associate sex with everything from cars to shampoo to Shane Ritchie. And that’s just plain wrong, bitches.

One final grievance: I was dismayed to hear yesterday that Smarties are to change the shape of their box, abandoning their trusty tubular design in favour of a ‘funky’ new hexagonal model. Normally there’s nothing that excites me more than corporate rebranding but this just smacks of desperation. According to the press release, the new tube will be an obnoxious luminous orange in colour and made from the same ultra-light fibre glass material used in the undercarriages of snowboards; it also comes equipped with image capture/MMS technology and the facility to download idiotic mobile ringtones direct to your Smarties box and play Java-based games on the lid, all for six yoyo’s.
Far from this we were raised, I can tell you. In my day we were happy to eat carbolic soap out of an old toilet roll insert. Backwards. In the snow. With no shoes, and only the radiation from a Sega GameGear to keep us warm. These were the days before child abuse was even invented. And our mother, Kirstie Alley, wouldn’t have had it any other way; she’d turn in her grave now if only she weren’t still alive. Things were different back then: there was a war on, Bill Gates Vs. The National Council of Churches. Gates, you may remember, was tried in a plastic box in Geneva and sentenced to orbit the moon. Still, we didn’t complain, complaining not being decriminalised until the end of the years starting with 1.

I have to go now, my planet needs me.

Anonymous -- Passing up a free ticket to Snoop to wage War on Error.

Things is Changed

2005-02-17T17:48:00.000Z

Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !

Hello, friends. You may well have noticed that things is indeed changed round here. Yes, the titles are supposed to be that size. And yes, you will see that I have added a number of links to the sidebar, a selection of Ddmmyy. approved blogarts for your perusal. Don't see your name there? That's 'cos you fucking suck and I'd sooner slurp squirrel shit than read your pissblogcockbollocks. Also, please make note of the title's changing from 'ddmmyy' to 'Ddmmyy.' (the full stop is very, very important, though I couldn't possibly tell you why); henceforth the site will no longer be referred to here as 'Day Month Year'.

Comments, queries and criticisms are welcome, though not expressly encouraged.

Normal service will resume... why, some time next week, I imagine.

Pop will Eat Itself

2005-02-16T01:50:00.000Z

And the shit will smell like this.
No more updates for a while as Real Life briefly takes over.

Anonymous -- Get your croutons on!

Heart the Size of Salford

2005-02-14T12:06:00.000Z

Love is a funny old game, one of two halves, but not played on a field.
Love is saying thank you in goals.
Love is St. Valentine’s Day, an amnesty for stalkers to post love-threats anonymously.
Love is a WMD.
Love is scrubbing the blood from the bathtub.
Love is what’s left behind after.
Love is six Lidl beers and The Smiths.
Love is devious, truculent and unreliable.
Love is a many-splendoured Morrisseyean joke.
Love is a fizz-fucking, cock-obvious compote of over-egged bull cannelloni.
Love is a musical greeting card.
Love is a child with flies in his eyes.
Love is the smell of wet towels.
Love is emotional blackmail.
Love is not hitting the face.
Love is taking advantage.
Love is uraqt.
Love is bigger than Jesus.
Love is the hazelnut ones nobody likes that get left in the box.
Love is bad freeform poetry.
Love is natural and love is real, but not for the likes of you and me etc.
Love is directed by Richard Curtis.
Love is just something people say.
Love is Clive Owen in Closer when he says that a heart looks like a fist wrapped in blood.
Love is a word that doesn't rhyme well.
Love is blind, and love is deaf.
Love is dumb.
Love is lobotomised.
Love is gr8.
Love is two naked eight-year olds that are married.
Love is refusing to accept that we all die alone.
Love is gay.
Love is selfish and unpatriotic.
Love is want.
Love is wadded cash between greased tits.
Love is a useless noun and a wanky verb.
Love is a breath through the neck of a corpse.
Love is being lied to until your heart rejects truth.
Love is a four-letter word.

Anonymous -- Croutons are off.

Teepee yo Mama!

2005-02-11T01:19:00.000Z

To whom it may concern,
Some musical confections for your delectation:

Dew

Dracula Biscuits

Care

Anonymous -- You get your croutons. I'll get mine.

Got Croutons?

2005-02-08T22:32:00.000Z

More shocking blog neglect.

Social services’ll be called in next; things’ll really grim up if the journal gets taken into care. The blue template will have to go for a start, replaced by a coat of local authority green, and some bland landscapes. Updates will be daily and the style strictly regimented: it’ll be like Anne Frank, only with more swearing.

To be honest (rather than 'Frank'), there’s no real reason why I haven’t been posting. Essentially for the past week, my life, such as it is, has been rather boring and unblogworthy. Without realising I seem to have become some kind of slow, stuttering dullard, working profusely, falling asleep at meetings, suffering through reruns of The Bill on UK Gold, and putting odd colours in my hair. I also think I pulled something doing an ill-advised Michael Jackson impersonation on Saturday which has limited my movement somewhat and may mean I can never have children. That’s OK though, I’d only neglect them anyway - them and my misguided slag of a wife. I’m joking of course. I’d never neglect my kids: I’d be too busy beating the living shit out of them for that.

I have been thinking a bit about the future though - and domestic abuse definitely features. Mainly I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with myself next year. My contract with my current job runs out at the end of September at which point I had planned on returning to college but to do what I do not know. I’ve also come to realise that I enjoy bowling a lot and am actually sort of good at it. I’m not sure it’s a viable career, though the idea of living as a minor character from The Big Lebowski is appealing.
Still, I hear there might be a vacancy coming up...

So the Pope is dying. Thanks be to God.
I’m not having a go at the Pope here, I’m just saying I hope he dies. Like, I don’t mean to be insensitive, it’s just I think he deserves to rot. There’s going to be a lot of empty proselytising over the next couple of weeks when, just like with Reagan last year, people will come to confuse the deceased Pontiff with Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I thought long and hard about this but it really is hard to find anything positive to say about such as thoroughgoing scumbag as John Paul II. From carpet-bombing Cambodia after the supposed end of the Vietnam War, introducing AIDS to San Francisco in the 80’s, and more or less inventing S Club 7, the litany of charges against the Pope is as extensive as it is incriminating.

At this stage it’s probably too late to have the Pontiff face a show trial in Poland - plus the Jackson trial has the February sweeps sewn right up. No, a clumsy, spluttering death in a hospital somewhere with only some opera singers on commission and the Vatican’s vast private army there to see him out is the only end befitting a man of the Pope’s colossal evil. There’s a place in Hell for this monster, between Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, and there he can moulder, keeping a seat warm for Crazed Racist Mel Gibson and a space at the head of the table for this man:

Oh, how I hate U2. For most of the idiot population of Ireland this is tantamount to treason. Regardless of what we think of their music or Bono’s role as celebrity beggar for Africa, we as a people are supposed to rally around U2 and their lead singer's arena-sized ego, and let ourselves be whipped into some kind of nationalistic fever any time Bono and the boys deign to set foot on these shores to fill a stadium with their insufferably earnest corporate-rock anthems. Look, their up-tempo numbers sound like songs to be played over sportscasts; their ballads are written to accompany slo-mo shots of shattered villages and the kind of cynical televised ransom notes that pass for charity infomercials Channel 4 shows before midday. My God, U2 are soundtracking the fucking news! All they’re missing is an instrumental interlude mid-tune allowing Bono to ream off some Googled statistics about poverty and urge the rest of us non-millionaire rock stars to give everything we can to the Third World.

U2 make me ashamed to be Irish and Bono makes me ashamed to give money to charity. I blame Bono for the way I scowl at those blue-plastic-jacket-clad crusty’s collecting for Concern: ‘Minute for Concern?’ ‘Why, yes, I have lots of concerns. Now push off will you, I’ve to see a man about some scatter cushions’. Charlie Brooker, TV critic and co-writer of the upcoming Nathan Barley, got himself into some trouble before the U.S election for calling for the assassination of George W. Bush, but I’ll echo his sentiments here: Mark David Chapman, where are you now when we need you?

Normal service will resume as soon as other people stop stealing my signature sign-off. I don't care how funny you are with it, that’s my thing! My thing that I say! You can’t say that! Screw you guys, I’m going home! Oh. I am home. Well, I’m going out to the shed with a gallon of rubbing alcohol and a short length of hose. See you in the funny pages - if not the obituaries.

Anonymous -- Got croutons, have you? Well, we’ll see about that.

Pimp my Child

2005-01-31T19:28:00.000Z

So, this is my idea for a show where… ah, forget it.
While we’re on the subject of TV though, can we talk about this? I’m completely behind Sue on this and really hope she does manage to give up the habit. And when she does I hope she gets hit by a fucking bus and that I never have to look at her greasy-ass face or listen to her estuary whine ever again.
Jesus, when did ads get so... patronising? I mean, look at this Dove Campaign for Real Beauty thing. Fit or fat? Grey or gorgeous? Who cares, bottom line is these women are too unattractive to be on television. If I want to admire femininity in its natural form I can easily cruise the checkouts, call centres and clap clinics the length and breadth of this fair land, but when I'm plugged into my televisual entertainment apparatus I only want to see properly good-looking people, OK?

Anyway, I've (obviously) nothing of any particular import to impart to you this evening so I'll keep it short, and indeed, relatively sweet. Hey, Day Month Year - now with added sugar. Oh, ain't sunshine pretty, ain't flowers stupid? Except when they're angry - then they are funny. If you want something serious and intelligent to read, read this (Estimated Reading Time: 9mins; Actual Reading Time: Almost three hours for me, spread out over six days). I'm a little slow it seems.
I'll see you, after class

Desperate Housebounds

2005-01-28T23:54:00.000Z

This is my idea for a new TV comedy-cum-soap-opera: a satiric look at the (surprisingly active) sex lives of a group of care-in-the-community patients. Think of it as a cross between Sex and The City and a St. Vincent de Paul advert. Premieres this spring exclusively on Day Month Year. Viewers are advised that this program contains strong language, violence and scenes of cripple-on-crinkly sex from the start. Heather Locklear stars.

Today's Grievance: You just can't get a decent Appletini in this town.

That's right folks, Appletini's, the tipple beloved by J.D. from Scrubs and, uh, Har Mar Superstar. Vodka, Apple Tiechenne and Midori all shook up in a shakey-uppy thing and served in a poncey triangulated receptacle (see above), and garnished with a slice of apple. Pure class in a glass.

In other news, Anonymous dies! His hair. (Also Johnny Carson dyes! Of emphysema.)
Yes, this morning I coloured my hair a positively Reznorian shade of black. 'Reznorian' really is a word I should use more often. That viscose mesh top you're wearing is very Reznorian. Oh, and the elevator boots too. The man could probably launch his own fashion empire: he certainly has the time, considering he hasn't released any, you know, music in the past six years. Why not cash in completely with the obligatory signature fragrance, 'Scent of Trent', a vaguely grimy musk with a not-too-subtle hint of Deep Mental Anguish.
Sigh. I used to worship Trent Reznor. Now I only worship Jesus, and the sweet, sweet Methadone she brings me of a Sunday morning.

This entry fulfils my contractual obligation to post something here every week.

Mood: Slutty. 40% slutty anyway, according those analytic mavens over at the tawdry virtual meatmarket that is OkCupid. I've been on this thing for a week (view my Lying Profile of Lies here) and so far all the system has thrown up for me are a bunch of Swedish death metal heads and some creepy-looking computer geeks.
Still, compared to males my age I'm apparently less old-fashioned, more adventurous, more independent, and less loving. Hell, I'd date me. I'd probably end up marrying myself too and living miserably ever after on the Wisteria Lane of the mind. Come armageddon, come.

Music: DDMMYY Soundsystem - Mc Solaar Totally Rocked my Back Sitting-Room, Bitches.

EDIT: From the first line: 'cum-soap'? I'm very, very sorry.

Flaming Squarepants

2005-01-21T20:53:00.000Z

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love that Big Gay Sponge.
I love this idea that Spongebob cound be a ‘bad role model’ and a ‘negative influence’ on children. Personally I think that if your kids are modelling themselves on a cartoon sponge then there are probably greater issues there to be worried about.

Anyway, dedicated readers of this journal may notice that this is my first communiqué in over a week. The more critical amongst you will no doubt also have detected a marked decrease in the quality of the journal overall since, oh, late October last year.
I know, I know, it’s all gone to shit but then that was always the plan from the beginning. It’s kind of a bastard approximation of Metzger’s ‘auto-destructive’ principle of aesthetics which you can read about here. Whenever I get around to completing my blogging manifesto, outlining the underlying philosophies of public anonymity and orphaned art, I’ll publish it here and, all going to plan, this journal will internally self-combust and vanish forever into the ether(net). Or maybe it will break apart and the bits will just float in the great online limbo, ghosts of former life, random nodes of information eternally passing through.
My name is Anonymous and I’m a walking Situationist prank. Gotcha! Like that grotesque gnome-man Noel Edmonds, and I know the funny like it showed up on my doorstep the day of my birthday claiming to be my biological father.

Hmm, bullshit level higher than usual today. Time for a short rant about the medical profession.
Anyone who knows me is probably aware of my pathological mistrust of Western medicine - the Great Satan. After all, it couldn’t save Superman; what hope do we have? I simply refuse to take any remedy that hasn’t been drawn from ground-up weeds or crushed flower petals. Anything else, as far as I’m concerned, is dehumanising and against nature.
Alternative medicine has its critics too though, like the famously dead John Diamond who expired in a hospital bed in 2001, pumped full of anti-b’s and hooked up to every bip-bleeping apparatus going, all the while his sexpot wife Nigella was off banging the patron saint of BritArt and noted taste-vacuum Charles Saatchi.
How d’ya like them apples, Diamond?!

Anyway, for various reasons I have had many dealings with medical types over the past two weeks. Mostly A+E staff who, I will say, are truly great people and if this world were just, would be earning more than the Pope and Tony Hawk put together. No, my grievance is with the people at the top of the chain - dickhead consultants rolling like swine in shit-tainted kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, happy to prescribe anything to anyone if it will secure another four-day-weekend conference/golf tournament in the Caribbean.
I had the misfortune of having to attend (as a patient) one of these earlier in the week, paying him nearly a weeks worth of my wages for a session, only to be asked to leave after ten minutes. Feeling uncharacteristically bolshy that day I insisted on staying in his office for forty minutes until I felt I had gotten something approaching value for money. And yeah, you can bet his secretary got an earful. Sure, I know it’s not really her fault, but she’s complicit in this. Eichmann was only following orders too Gwen, you over made-up, tumours-for-brains phone-jockey.

Consultants are bad people. But not as bad as people in cafes who ask if the coffee is Fair Trade. I’m sure there are lower forms of life than these, but they’re probably stewing away in petri dishes in a laboratory somewhere. I hate these people: coffee-shop-fascists flashing their grubby liberal middle-class values around like a thrift-shop pashmina or an Aldi bag-for-life.
Seriously, who gives a shit? Coffee could come from fucking Greenland for all I care. I don’t know much about ‘fair trade’ or ‘world politics’ except what I gets from t’internet and Hitchens’ monthly aneurysms in Vanity Fair but it would seem to me what these loser countries need is more ground-level investment rather than one-way ‘fair’ trade which just continues the West’s great tradition of raping Third World resources.
And besides, coffee tastes so much better when it’s sweetened with the blood of the unpaid workers. Here’s to getting a decent cappuccino at under a fiver and at untold human cost. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Anyway, on a lighter note: suicide and child abuse.
A very long conversation on suicide with some colleagues last night threw up some interesting points, amongst all the usual half-chewed carrots and digestive fluids. Someone I knew as a child committed suicide this Christmas and one of the questions raised was whether increased media coverage and general openness in discussing suicide implicitly condones or endorses the act as an acceptable life-choice?
I’m not sure it does. Take child abuse (well, obviously don’t take it if you actually are a child. Tell a grown-up - preferably one who works at the News of the World). A couple of years ago, and especially during the early 90’s when churches were being shut down and priests interred to labour camps, you couldn’t move for media coverage; at the time it seemed child abuse was on everybody’s lips (must... resist... joke).

And increased media visibility in this instance had the exact opposite effect.
Public opinion was whipped into a frenzy, something we saw again last week in Cork: the tabloid-fuelled paedo-panic, the subsequent shameless grief-binge, and the almost begrudging acknowledgement that the person arrested for this crime wasn’t some monstrous, mac-clad Uncle Charlie figure but a guy who (it appears) made a horrible mistake, and one that will have consequences for him and his family for years to come.
In the case of suicide, increased visibility has produced a less clearly defined public opinion. Previously suicides would be reported as ‘accidental deaths’ or not reported at all, and funeral services, if there were any, were brief and dispassionate. I heard that the boy who lived on my road had killed himself from a neighbour I met in the frozen foods aisle in Tesco.

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to get at here. I do think it’s better that something as devastating and bewildering as suicide is being discussed.
‘Raising awareness’ is an embarrassingly PC non-phrase used to excuse campaigns and policies that shine a floodlight on an issue without offering anything in the way of suggestion or solution. But maybe awareness is what needs to be raised here; when the Big Question of suicide is brought out in the open maybe it can drag out some of those dark, ugly thoughts that might bring a potential suicide to consider death a life-choice - that is, the ultimate life-choice, choosing death - in the first place, generating dialogue - and income for armchair psychotherapists such as myself.
Just some food for thought, undercooked and sloppily prepared as it is.
Peace out.

This entry is dedicated to all of the dead kids around the world. And to the memory of John Diamond and Christopher Reeve. And McLusky. And William Shatner, just because.

Mood: Reflective.

Music: Gone a bit folky this evening. Normally I have an allergic reaction to acoustic singer-songwriter stuff but this is in a different class. ‘Haunting’ is an adjective bandied about a lot by lazy muso-hacks slobbering over Damien Rice, the Argos Leonard Cohen. But for Gravenhurst it’s entirely apropos: ‘The Diver’ and the instrumental ‘East of The City’ in particular.

Quiet is the new loud. Quite.

Wank Art

2005-01-13T01:31:00.000Z

Art Wank

2005-01-10T23:24:00.000Z

Yeah, and I were bored this morning so I done some paintings.

After Lautrec. 2005. Acrylics on canvas. h355 x w254 mm.

Living Cat. 2005. Acrylics on canvas. h355 x w254 mm.

Untitled (To the Citizens of the Republic of NYC). 2005. Acrylics on canvas. h254 x w355 mm.

Martin Who? Scorcese What?

2005-01-10T22:32:00.000Z

Hola! From a vertiginous voodoo love-shack at the top of a very tall tree overlooking Kamikaze Park: This... is The News

(Joke to Serious Ratio - 1:3)

Got back there on Saturday evening after yet another delay, the result of some of the bizarre weather-related happenings in this country over the past week - tornadoes, blackouts, rapid desertification in Tipperary, Leitrim underwater etc.
This second delay necessitated a mammoth seven hour (!) stopover in Shannon airport, a butt-numbingly boring experience enlivened only by the sudden arrival into the same holding area of a planeload of US troops. I certainly cut a lonely figure sitting there, lazily flipping through last month’s Esquire with one hand and holding a homemade No Blood For Oil poster in the other.

If I could be serious for a moment though, it was actually quite a sobering spectacle to see so many of them rush immediately to the pay-phones to call home. Many were crying. Others spent the time standing huddled in small groups or sitting alone and simply staring into space. There was no macho backslapping or frat-boy bonhomie. These men were afraid.

Anyway, there’s not really a whole lot I could write about New York that hasn’t been said before.
Basically, I think it’s great city - not necessarily my favourite holiday, but without doubt my favourite destination. I can’t wait to get back there - so much so that I am looking into doing postgrad study (like, in pretty much anything) at Columbia or NYU. Without wanting to go over the top, I’ll say I felt at home in the city; even strolling through supposedly ‘bad’ neighbourhoods such as Washington Heights and Clinton (formerly Hell’s Kitchen) after dark, with thugged-out FUBU-uniformed hustlers on the street corners and prostitutes calling from the alleyways, I felt safer than I would in Dublin at any time of the day.

I understand now why Woody Allen has made a career of writing love letters to New York - though not why he married his step-daughter - and why so many artists, musicians and film-makers are so enamoured of its charms.
It really is something more than a city, as evidenced by the global outpouring of grief post-9/11. By contrast, Europe just doesn’t register in the American news media. The entire continent could implode and the fact would only get a brief mention after a half-hour report on the latest Ashlee Simpson debacle. Hence, my only contact with the news last week came from watching The Daily Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, two shows that terrestrial TV over here really needs to get a hold of, instead of peddling us vapid, overhyped airspace-waste like Joey or Desperate Housewives.

I did visit Ground Zero (incidentally the name of a website I used to have pre-2001) and was struck by just how low-key it is. (Unfortunately, in some ways) there’s no tacky merchandise, no guided tours speaking in hushed tones about the nation’s tragedy, no sentimental memorials. Just a couple of plaques showing a history of the site and a list of those who died.
Ground Zero is just there, people pass by it every day, and a brash designer discount store is right across the road. I’m not usually the type to be taken aback by things but aback I was taken by this. It impressed me greatly, dare I say, it moved me. Moved me into the store over the street to exercise my hard-earned Freedom and stick it to the terrorists by spending $100 on a scarf!
In your face, democracy-haterz! It is a very nice scarf.

Anyway, my trip to the most famous city in the world had me meeting only one real-life celebrity. Two if you count the day I thought I spotted Chloe Sevigny (on closer inspection it was just a pile of old rags). Who I did meet was Billie Joe Armstrong, dreamboat lead singer of SoCal beat combo Green Day!
Don't believe me? Just look at the evidence*!

Billie and me at the WTC Site.

Billie and me at the Lewis Carroll monument in Central Park.

Billie and me at a pornography store buying pornography on West 52nd and Broadway.

Convinced? Well, don’t be so sure. Truth be told those are just elaborate mock-ups, created using a sophisticated image-handling tool called
MS Paint.
But I bet I had you fooled!

* Apologies for the low quality of these pictures and the general low quality of the ‘joke’ overall.

I did really meet Billie Joe Armstrong though.
It was in a funky boutique in the East Village where I was the only customer. I had been browsing for about five minutes when suddenly cameras arrived and I was asked by a smiley lady in a business suit to sign a waiver licensing my image to appear on MTV. Well hell, you don’t need to ask me twice when instant TV fame and fortune is handed to me on a plate (well, a clipboard)!
As it happens, all that was required of me was that I browse discreetly in the background while some glorified microphone stand threw out some head-spinningly inane questions to Billie.
Sample:

‘So, like, at the shows do you, like, you know, uh, feel that the crowd are, like, uh, really feeling it and stuff, like they’re into it, you know, and, uh, you’re, like, you’re feeling that and, like, you’re reacting to, uh, what they’re, like, feeling and stuff?’

Unsurprisingly, these ‘questions’ had to be interpreted for Billie by a svengali manager type with a fake-sounding English accent and a silly goatee (I am not making this up), who encouraged Billie to ‘freestyle’ more and to ‘riff’ on certain suggested ideas and themes.
The whole thing lasted about ten minutes and was very embarrassing for all concerned, particularly me as I had to stand around pretending to be interested in some over-priced Clash memorabilia and ignoring the idiocy going on in front of me. Billie’s very small and boyish looking in person, with a perpetually worried look on his face and I think I have a newfound respect for the kind of nonsense celebrities have to endure to maintain fame.

Speaking of which, what’s this? In my absence it seems Morrissey the Great has taken to attending premieres. Good for him, I say, though I’m not sure I approve of the tie, or the somewhat unsightly Getty Images facial tattoo he’s sporting.

WARNING: In-blog movie review to follow. Interest level falling... falling…

Saw The Aviator last night.
It’s sort of alright, I suppose. DiCaprio tries hard, squinting and frowning a lot, but just doesn’t convince as an adult performer. The movie is carried by its starry supporting cast, in particular Saint Blanchett and John C. ‘The Man’ Reilly. But for fucks sake, does Jude Law have to be in every movie? He’s becoming some kind of Zelig character, popping up all over the place, stinking up the screen with his medium talent and plastic-pretty features.

I’m not a fan of biopics in general, and there’s nothing especially remarkable about The Aviator, except perhaps that it’s directed by Martin Scorcese, an old master who hasn’t made a decent film in ten years (fifteen, if you exclude Casino, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did). Still he’s afforded ‘legend’ status regardless, just like Oliver Stone, director of U-Turn, Heaven and Earth, and now Alexander the Wrote-Off.
And no less than three people I overheard last night credited Scorcese with directing the Godfather trilogy. The world is a scary, scary place.

Consider normal service offically resumed for another 365.
Hola!

Back in Traction

2005-01-08T23:55:00.000Z

Sidewalk! Gun crime! Hamburger! Warhol!
Guess what, America: We Y You.

(End of message)

Grounded

2005-01-01T20:25:00.000Z

This could only happen to me. Me, and 599 other people.
From the above article (link probably time-sensitive):

‘Dozens of families were clearing up storm debris tonight after a ‘mini-tornado’ damaged around 100 houses in the Irish Republic…. There were 80mph winds at Dublin Airport which caused two parked planes to collide…. The nose of one aircraft suddenly struck the body of the adjacent aircraft under its wing area.
Passengers had been due to embark on one plane and depart for New York via Shannon. Up to 600 transatlantic passengers were being accommodated in hotels overnight while Aer Lingus arranged alternative aircraft tomorrow’.

The real story is that the pilot of one of the planes was high on crack and was having sex with one of the cabin-boys at the time. Pass it on.

Normal service… is just so last year.

Astonishing Panorama of the End-Times

2004-12-30T17:12:00.000Z

Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.
Jesus, some of the shit they’re showing on Sky News is a bit graphic, isn’t it? Nobody wants to see water-logged corpses when they’re having their tea. All that crying and everything. And the so-called ‘interviews’ with the survivors are even worse:

JEREMY THOMPSON: I’m here live in Phuket speaking with one woman whose family has experienced immeasurable tragedy over the past three days. Minutes ago, the bodies of her husband of thirty years and five of their seven children were recovered from the ruins of what remains of the village here. This, I understand, is a very difficult time for you and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us this quarter hour.

BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...

JEREMY THOMPSON: Tragic. You must be absolutely devastated.

BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...

JEREMY THOMPSON: [to camera] ‘Absolutely devastated’. The words of one woman here in Phuket, articulating, I’m sure, the thoughts of everyone watching this tragedy as it unfolds, live here on Sky News...

Gah. Global tragedy always brings out the worst in TV.
All the 24hr news stations go into overdrive, wheeling out every available ‘expert’, whipping up a smorgasbord of virtual simulations/recreations with snazzy graphics and sonorous theme-tunes as well as irrelevant interviews with anyone and everyone who was even remotely associated with the event in question. Tell us Moby, is terrorism good or bad? What do you have to say to the people of South East Asia, Pete Doherty? Jimmy Carr, where does this one rank on the charts of TV treats?

I'm bitter because no-one’s asked me for my take on the tragedy yet; perhaps I’ve somewhat misoverestimated my significance in the broadband of cultural commentary.
But anonymous bloggers matter too, dammit! Y’see, if I was to have been killed by some massive wave or something I think I’d like my death to be as publicised as possible.
Maybe I could fashion some kind of medic-alert bracelet I could wear that would license my corpse to be used in any and all subsequent news broadcasts or charity appeals. Exploit my demise! Forget my family’s right to grieve in private: I want my deathmask on every front page, every spare-a-thought TV promo piece, every donate-now-or-may-liberal-guilt-choke-you charity flyer!

Way I see it is mass tragedy needs a human face, and we all know that posthumous celebrity has the greatest longevity. And anyone could fill this role really: it’s personal, yet somehow anonymous at the same time, which makes the selection process entirely democratic. All the victims are automatically entered into competition; there could be regional heats, the bereaved families could nominate their lost child(ren) to go forward into the international final where the voting public elect their Death Idol to be made the media's face of the Asian Flood Disaster.
Simon Cowell presumably signs the runner-up as well, to front minor rail crashes and endorse other smaller-scale human tragedies.

Speaking of tragedies that are looking a bit pisspoor next to Sunday’s floods, this Saturday I’m off to see the Western world’s wounded metropolis, the Big Apple, New New York, double-NYC, Lyle Lanley 'verse city rappin', from Boogie all the way down ta Staten'. Word!
Of course, 9/11 was a very serious tragedy, but don’t just take it from me: read what these ‘experts’ have to say on the matter. I’m not too worried about terrorism though; that some left-wing extremists might force me to have an abortion and marry a gay guy is only a minor concern. Top of my agenda now is the threat we face from Mother Nature.
I certainly hope I don’t get any of those giant tidal waves that hit New York in that documentary I saw.

No Hell, or indeed high water, is gonna stop me splurging like a working-class lottery winner in the Big Smoke.
And before you get all self-righteous and finger-pointy with me, you should know that I already made a donation to the South East Asia Appeal: this morning I gave them some old Sexwax, a pair of rollerblades, and half a Toblerone I had left over from The Christmas*. Now I can spend as much as I want on myself, guilt-free, like a moderately successful rapper living beyond his means. Look out New York, MC Anonymous is pimpin’ it like Fabolous or one of the dudes in the background of Fat Joe videos. Word!

* ‘Christmas’ is a registered trademark of Hallmark Family Entertainment, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, and is used with permission.

Of course, this is all presuming I make it to the airport alive.
I was hit with the flu on Christmas Day - the gift that keeps on giving - and have been mainlining the Lemsip ever since. I’ve also developed a new technique I call ‘freebase Lemsip’, which you may want to try at home if you’re suffering with cold or flu. Basically, you crack open a couple of the Max Strength capsules and gently burn the powder inside, trying to inhale, via an empty plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, as much of the resultant gas as possible.
Don’t worry if you accidentally snort some of the flaming nodules; so long as you remember to wedge a slice of lemon between your teeth to bite down on you won’t pass out. For extra effect, try rubbing some Benylin syrup on your gums too, or keep some of that Vicks vapour stuff close to hand to rub on your face after the initial hit.

There, free, 100% FDA approved, medical advice on Day Month Year; don’t say I never give you nothing. And here, apropos of nothing, are some nice pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal:

Hmm. Jake really should do more nature programs like that tidal wave one. He's so talented - maybe something for Discovery where he spends the show naked and covered in horse ejaculate. See, I have loads of ideas! Someone in TV give me a budget and I guarantee I’ll give you a hit!

Anyway, Happy New(s) Year to you, frockbonkers.
Celebrate irresponsibly and without a thought for anyone outside of yourself. Special shouts go to Adrian, Neuro and Zoomtard and some others who had a party last night without me (imagine!) since I was busy at work.
I say busy, actually most of my time was spent playing video games, not something I usually have much interest in. However, last night, and the past few nights my job has involved playing this, and this, both of which are gratuitously violent and morally indefensible (the latter, in particular, is quite breathtakingly racist in tone) but also, I have to say, some of the best fun I’ve had in ages.

Also, one’s of you have been complaining about some of the content of this site being unavailable. This is because of these stingy cunts and their poxy 10MB bandwidth trap. This will, I promise, be rectified in time.
Come ‘05, this site is getting a major overhaul - getting ‘pimped’, if you will (TM X to the Z) - pimped truly in the MTV sense, meaning given a suitably blingin’ makeover, rather than in the Reality sense i.e. being forced to turn tricks for drug money under threat of (often sexual) violence and intimidation.
Ho ho, not that! Pimps, TV tells us, are dapper, streetwise dandies and their ‘bitches’ are, in fact, sass-talkin’, strong-willed career women (often with Hearts of Gold), striking a blow for 21st century post-feminists everywhere.

Have I reached the magic 1000 word limit yet? Yes I have, which officially makes this blog a ‘journal’, I believe. Astonishing panorama of the end-times indeed.

Violence for the people,
They always eat the hand that bleeds.
Violence for the people,
Give the kids what they need.
Kill your God,
Kill your TV.

Yes, I am 14.

It's the Annual, Once-a-Year, Winterval Holiday 'Eggstravaganza'!

2004-12-28T17:40:00.000Z

Happy Christmas, crackheads, and welcome to a special seasonal edition of your favourite site that isn’t the Anti-Christmas Zone.

So, without any further adieu, or indeed Agadoo, please welcome your host for this evening, Day Month Year’s Person of ‘04, a boyband refugee turned sensitive pop-rocker and weekend access super-Dad, the man who embodies everything that 2004 stood (and fell) for, a genuine fake, the artist formerly known as Bryan McFadden: Brian McFadden!

Howsit goin’? I’m Brian McFadden and this, the autocue tells me, is the Day Month Year Christmas Special, or DDMMYY XMS SPCL ‘04.
So won’t you join me (that name again is 'Brian-with-an-i' McFadden) in celebrating this bastard season? Take a place in the Day Month Year nativity, maybe nestled between the three wise men, watching the firelight shimmering on the head of the fetus Jesus, as a smacked-out transexual in an angel outfit sings a Hi-NRG ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, and together we read a prayer to the big J.C, Jim Caviezel:

On this solemn day we come to you, tender Babe of Bethlehem.
By your birth you have hidden your divinity in order to share our frail human nature. In the light of faith, we acknowledge you as true God, made man out of love for us. You alone are the Redeemer of mankind, yo!
Before the Crib where you lie helpless, Day Month Year asks of you, let there be an end to the spread of violence in its many forms, the source of untold suffering; let there be an end to the numerous situations of unrest which risk degenerating into open conflict; let there arise a firm will to seek peaceful solutions, respectful of the legitimate aspirations of individuals and peoples.
Yes, in other words, let there be… Team America: World Police! In cinemas January 14!

Babelicious of Bethlehem, Prophet of piss, encourage attempts to promote dialogue and reconciliation, sustain the efforts to build peace, which hesitantly, yet not without hope, are being made to bring about a more tranquil present and future for so many of our brothers and sisters in the world. (I would link to a picture but photographic records are proving hard to come by. Huh.)
And I think of Africa, of the tragedy of Band Aid 20. With great apprehension I follow the situation on Iraq-o-Vision. And how can I fail to look with anxious concern, but also invincible confidence, towards that Land of which you are a son?
He who bestows the Kingdom of heaven does not take away human kingdoms. Hasten to meet him; he comes to teach us the way of truth, peace and love.

And now: a word from our sponsors.
Happy Winterval, everybody. Hearty thanks to all my new friends and to the Pope for inspiring me with his words. Day Month Year will be off the air next week, but expect one last 'eggstra-special' update before the year's end.
Oh yeah, I was bored and I made this - some kewl wallpaper for your desktop.

Happy Christmas go fuck yourself.

Error 404

2004-12-27T09:17:00.000Z

This page cannot be displayed due to lack of effort. And those Scrooge-ass muthafucka's at Ripway.

Normal service etc. etc.

WARNING: Day Month Year Contains Strong Typing and Scenes of a Textual Nature from the Start

2004-12-18T23:49:00.000Z

And readers of a sensitive disposition can [Edit] my [Edit] up their [Edit] and [Edit] it out the other side.

So. What’s in the Day Month Year mailbag this week?
Our first complaint for one - which we can neither can confirm nor deny is from Joss Stone’s maternal grandmother. For legal reasons, we are unable to reprint the letter on this page; all we will say is that the elderly lady in question was, and I quote, ‘shizzocked and horrifizzled’ by certain comments suggesting that a dead cat be inserted into the young singer’s stomach cavity. However, given that the posters to this site state their opinions anonymously, Day Month Year can take no responsibility any specific content, no matter how objectionable.
So there. You dumb lump of bitchshit.

What else?
Craig from Humberside was correct in guessing that Al Jourgensen would, of course, rock very hard and that Ministry are the most hard rockingest band of all time. Clever Sandy from Walport also spotted that Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out of Nothing At All’ does indeed sound a lot like ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler. Martin from Guernsey is schizophrenic and his letters make very little sense and he may or may not have eaten a lightbulb.
Thanks for your comments everybody. Your names and details have been added to our Sex Offenders Register and the News of The World will burn you out of your homes.

Now, to the business at hand.
This Monday, there will be no new posts to Day Month Year. The reason? One word, my friends, one word and three syllables. Moz.

I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue. For my money, I don’t think it gets any better than when he sings ‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’ (TM Office Space, but then, you already knew that didn’t you?).
Come Monday we shall see if the old dog has any new tricks for us. And to mark the occasion, I threw together this remix of ‘First of The Gang to Die’, one of Day Month Year’s Songs of ‘04, refashioned in the manner of arch glitch Poj Masta. Safe, innit.
Fuck, it took me nearly half an hour to upload that piece of shit. If any of you cunts has got some webspace you’re not using, like, that’s just lying around the house gathering dust and taking up space under the stairs, give it the fuck here.

And since none of you bothered to suggest an artist name for me I was forced to choose from the following selection, all, for the most part, grouped around the ‘piss-poor’ end of the scale: Roxy Muzak, Poxy Joss and the Performing Abortions, Shifty Shitbox and the Crazy Town Crappy Rapper Crew (yeah, take that Shifty, ex-Crazy Town. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as kicking a man when he’s so clearly down, is there?) and... well, the picture I’m sure you can get.
Eventually I settled on the somewhat less original, and even less surprising: Anonymous. This project will go under the name of Public Art, or Anonymous Public Art; in shorthand I will probably make a point of referring to it as APA, if only to increase confusion between myself and the other APA.
Here’s a sketch of my new corporate logo:

Staying on the music tip, yesterday I earned the dubious honour of being recruited as ‘keyboards man’ in a ‘funk-rock’ band made up of three middle-aged German ex-pats. The details of how this came about are rather tedious but it’s not an entirely unwelcome prospect. Obviously I will be participating purely for irony’s sake, though this, of course, will be kept secret from my more earnest bandmates.
There’s a common belief that all German’s have horrendous taste in music. And that’s because they do. These guys strive to emulate the Toyota Corolla rock-stylings of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. What’s the first thing you think of when you think about the German taste in music: it's Scooter or it's The Hoff.

And this, I think, is perplexing mainly because Germany is responsible for some of the best music of the past fifty years: Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, Mouse On Mars, and a whole host of ground-breaking electronica performers and DJ’s that you’ve probably never heard of. Even The Scorpions weren’t that bad. (They were actually, but I'm trying to make a Point here).
This gives me hope, in that it seems to suggest German’s are capable of making good music; they just don’t know how to listen to it.

Gosh, two whole paragraphs about Germans and not a single war joke. In case your were wondering this is because I am Jewish. Yes my friends, Anonymous is a big fat Jew. Just like Woody Allen and, uh, Pauly Shore.
Now get outta here you zhlub, before I call you a Mel Gibson-sympathiser and get your kid’s school blowed up!

Mood: Moody rappinghood.

Music: Right now, it’s ‘New New York’ by Tes, a tune that shits all over the Beastie’s geriatric beats. Next week expect a barely coherent email from a smack-addled Mike D complaining about some Internet guy slagging his band and calling him a heroin addict. Who said anything about a horse, junkie-boy? Hats off to Popworld, once again.

Thanking you for your patience.

Cash Money Millionaire in All but Reality

2004-12-16T22:57:00.000Z

I’ve nothing to say.
Not today, anyway. I mean, I could continue with more heart-rending tales of cat death, describing the hollowed-out corpse of Joss Stone stuffed with muck. But there’s only so much, isn’t there?
And I could tell you about my first day of Christmas shopping in town and complain about the categorically poxy state of public transport in this country.
Oh, the squalor of it all, riding the bus like a common lesbian. Because you know, if there’s one thing the stonewash brigade love more then the vadge, it’s riding them buses. ‘Lesbuses’, they should call them. Can’t move for muffdivers.
Disgraceful stuff.

Anyway, clearly I’ve nothing to say, and no interesting way of saying it. So I’ll steal someone else’s (good) idea and just give lame smart-ass answers to some stupid end-of-year questionnaire.
So, Anonymous:

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
This.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Don’t believe in them. I believe in Carpe Diem, Latin for ‘shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out’.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Thankfully no, as I probably would have run screaming. That whole business disgusts me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My cat died this week. Thanks for bringing it up.

5. What countries did you visit?
No foreign ones anyway. That whole business disgusts me.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Papa needs a new pair of everything.

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Today. Perhaps my blogging nadir, though there’s still time.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Bringing Siobhan Fahey back from the dead. Figuratively speaking.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Failing to do the opposite with Joss Stone.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Continued mental illness, numerous imagined injuries and slights.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Happiness. On DVD.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Brian McFadden, changing from ‘y’ to ‘i’.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Often my own. And Joss Stone’s. Bitch.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Spiritual advisors, therapy, timeshares.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
You really, really, really don’t know me, do you?

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Anything by Scissor Sisters. And they’re already so last year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder?
Happier. Another one bites the dust.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meth.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Serving the community.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Heavily medicated.

21. How will you be spending New Years?
High. Like in a plane, going to America.

22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
That is so gay.

23. How many one-night stands?
Does date rape count as a one-night stand?

24. What was your favourite TV program?
Scrubs, Pimp My Ride, Belinda Carlisle on the Gordon Ramsey kitchen/swearing thing.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Anonymous.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Poisonwood Bible, Voyage to The End of The Room, Jordan’s book wot she wrote herself with her own two hands.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Learning how to trigger VST plugins in the Piano Roll via external MIDI controller. Sweet. Also Diplo, The Real Tuesday Weld, Lady Sovereign.

28. What did you want and got?
Respect. From the elderly.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Zatoichi, Shaun of The Dead, Paris Hilton sex tape.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Exactly one year older than last year. Birthday spent happily with close friends and attractive rent-a-mate’s from Hollyoaks and Holby City.

32. What one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I wish... I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Local authority chic.

34. What kept you sane?
My unwavering conviction in the absolute foulness of human nature.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Three quarters of Interpol.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Eamon Vs. Frankee.

37. Who did you miss?
Cat. Died, remember? Also Big Baby Jesus.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
A Swedish bartender who managed to both save my life and destroy it all in one night.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
What doesn’t kill me can only make me lazy.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
‘Babycakes? You just don’t know.’

A Personal Note

2004-12-16T01:38:00.000Z

Mobi was the youngest of two kittens.

He was a joy to all who knew him.
Mobi found it very easy to make friends of all ages. He was born with many of the same traits that the older kitten had, but Mobi had a twist all his own. He was smart and sensitive like his brother but he had his own sense of style. He liked doing things his own way even if that meant being different from the rest of the crowd.
Needless to say we are all shocked and saddened by his death, but very relieved that if it was to happen... that it was here with us and not in a country far away.

Mobi loved to hunt and fish with his Dad and even took up bow-hunting. Mobi also loved nature and would often take walks back to the river behind our house to watch the eagles that nested there.
Mobi was very close to his brother and for the most part they all got along (the way that kittens do). Mobi didn't like being the youngest. He always wanted to do what the older kittens were doing. I would have to remind him that they were older and that he would be able to do those things when he was older.
But his comment was always the same... ‘they will always be older than me’.

Now after Mobi's death... we celebrate his LIFE and all he meant to all of us by sending him messages attached to balloons.

Mobi, you are sadly missed by all who knew you and you will never be forgotten.

I just felt I had to share that with you all.
Of course, I didn’t actually write any of that. I took one of the parent's tributes from here and just replaced ’murdered son’ with 'dead cat'. Pretty clever, huh?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve the last bus to Hell to catch…

A Pox on Joss and the Record Company Bitch that Bore Her

2004-12-14T23:31:00.000Z

My cat died.
He was eight human years old. He died yesterday and was buried early this morning. He was laid to rest in the body of singer Joss Stone. We cast her rancid innards aside and cradled the cat in her rotten, stinking soul-hole.
Where her heart should have been, there was only spoiled meat. Her intestines were liquid black; her baby machinery twisted and reeking of death.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light scorch the corpse of the soulless whore.

What would Al Jourgensen Do?

2004-12-11T11:24:00.000Z

Honestly, you people.
I promised myself I wouldn't use this blog to post Crazy Stuff I Find on The Internet - it‘s the lowest form of journaling and anyone who does it should be taken out and have their typing fingers stapled together.

But this I felt I had to post. It’s a customer complaints correspondence (from, incidentally, a company I used to work for) taken from this weeks Holy Moly mailout:

I recently purchased some water biscuits from your Glasgow store and when I got them home and tried them in the bath, they simply broke apart. Please advise, as I am very unimpressed with the level of quality of your products.

Dear Mr XXX,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry that you have been disappointed with our water biscuits.
As I am sure you appreciate, they are not meant for the bath, therefore the problem you had is no reflection of their quality.
Many thanks, XXX
Marks & Spencer, Retail Customer Service

I can't believe your email came from the "customer services" department. Where is your customer service?! I am simply trying to point out a very fundamental flaw with your product... How can you say that they are "not meant for the bath"? We can't all afford to take them abroad to expensive beaches. I make do with what I have. I would appreciate if you could reply with a sensible solution.
Thank you, XXX.

Dear Mr XXX,
Thank you for your email. We are Retail Customer Services, based in Chester Business Park.
I'm sorry that you thought our response was not a sensible one, however I have checked with our department and they have explained that we only sell the biscuits in a pack of other cheese biscuits. As XXX said, these biscuits are to be eaten and not placed in the bath.
Traditionally these biscuits are to be eaten with cheese. Maybe you could try this.
Kind regards, XXX
Chambers Retail Customer Services

Day Month Year is Typed Before a Live Studio Audience

2004-12-10T01:29:00.000Z

EXCLUSIVE:
For one night only, Day Month Year is coming to you live and unedited from a public access computer room somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

Greetings from the front line of the war on mental illness.
Lessons to be learned for today’s despatch: One, don’t ever try to engage a borderline personality first thing in the morning when nursing a crippling hangover. Two, Memo to [Edited for legal reasons] Health Board, the fuck?, someone with a borderline personality disorder shouldn’t be in a house with autistic people. Three, Monopoly is the root of all evil.
These first two points are self-explanatory, that is to say, I can’t be arsed explaining them to you so you’ll just have to take them as read. The third however was made clear to me today, while playing the game with B., a co-worker, and N., an inmate… client. Client, client, client.

You haven’t been introduced to N yet. I kind of like him, but his behaviour often creeps me out.
As well as being profoundly autistic, N. has the added bonus of a paranoid schizotypal personality disorder, which, for you ignorant masses unversed in the nature of the human mind, means he basically has the positive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia - that is, delusions, hallucinations, and persistently suspicious affect - without the actual diagnosis.
Most of his time he spends in his room, scratching away at a colouring book, whisper-muttering to himself Gollum-style about murdering the staff and burning down the house. Heh. Kids.
Plus he has shifty eyes, which, any psychologist will tell you, indicates that his soul is the grip of some kind of demonic spirit, or 'inky bus'.

As a psychologist then, it was my opinion that the best course of action for N. would involve the three of us sitting quietly around a table taking turns to move objects around a board positioned in the centre.
Yes, that’s right, a good old-fashioned game of Monopoly [Edited for feeble jokery] - using a set bought for N. by his parents the previous Christmas. Memo to parents: Way to go buying a game like Monopoly for a someone who has no concept of numbers or money. Excuse me, have you met your son? Oh no, of course not: you shunted him off to a care home and the let the tax-payer foot the bill, you heartless fucks, I hope that you… [Edited for bitterness].

Yeah, anyway, it ended with the board being fucked out the window and the pieces thrown across the kitchen. And that was just me and B.
So that was about the most exciting thing that happened today. There was an ‘incident’ this Wednesday, the details of which - for legal reasons - I couldn’t possibly divulge here. How cool is that? Day Month Year has been gagged. All I can say is writing about it would have made this entry feel less like a waste of time for you and for me. I mean really, what are you doing here? [Edited for audience-baiting].

Anyway, before I go, some props is in order.
BLTC, as I believe the kids are calling it, has taken on a fascinating interactive quality. ‘Adrian’ is the nominal star, but you, the public, write the script. Today for example, only you can save our hero from getting his end in the prison shower room. Squick!
Hey, isn’t it funny how people are terrified of going to prison in case they get raped, yet are fairly oblivious to the fact they’re actually more likely to be killed? Considering the population, there’s a statistically significant chance that you will get murdered on the inside, but ask any guy what he fears most about prison and it’s bound to be getting buttfucked by a hairy Hells Angel-type in the showers.

If I was some kind of social theorising, social theory guy I’d have some kind of, y’know, theory, of the social kind, to explain this phenomenon-type thing. But I’m not, so I don’t - but it probably has something to do with this. [Edited for soapboxing].

Sincerely yours on the 'All Men Are Gay Autistics' platform,
[Edited for anonymity]

[Edited for grammer]

[Edited for spelling - the word 'grammar' apparantly]

Don’t get Your Fallopian Tubes in a Twist

2004-12-04T21:18:00.000Z

I’m off today - which explains the smell.
Ba-dum tssch! (Joke reproduced courtesy of the young Neuro’s biological progenitor, God rest his soul)

I’m resting my soul today. It took quite a hammering this week, gangbanged by a pack of charity-ravishing autistics - if you’ll forgive the needless crudity of that analogy.
Work is really taking it out of me on an intellectual and emotional level. Physically, it’s ludicrously undemanding: essentially, I’m paid to eat, sleep, watch TV, and go for the occasional walk, stuff I would do on a voluntary basis at home. The only difference is that there’s a bunch of incoherent, dribbling spastics roaming about the place.
But that’s no way to talk about my family.

Anyway, to offload some of this surplus energy I’ve been hauling around, I’ve started going to the gym (pronounced to rhyme with ‘time’ AFAIK, having never actually heard the word said out loud - much like ‘caste’ which, only yesterday, I learned has a silent ‘t’ and a long, soft ‘c’, with the end result being hard to enunciate without some spitting).
I’ve been gymming it on and off (mostly off) for the past year or so. Currently, my physique could probably be best described as lean, though hardly mean, and green only in the extremities. I’m working toward ‘buffed’, though ideally I’d be looking for ‘strapped’, I’ll settle for ‘stacked’, or indeed ‘jacked’, if not ‘bumped’, or ‘ripped’ if, and where, possible.
But that’s enough from Muscle Monthly for now.

Seriously though, muscles: what’s the deal?
They look weird and are probably very heavy. Most confusing is that, when worked to optimum size, they actually restrict movement. Powerlifters and bodybuilders complain of reduced reach in their arms and often find walking difficult due to their thigh muscles chafing together.
Funny that too much exercise might actually render you less active - constant motion tending toward a state of inertia (any physicists out there in Internetland back me up on this?) - that the more strength a muscle develops the less able it is to, you know, do stuff.

In short, it’s reasonable to extrapolate from this that all exercise is lethal and a hazard your health and should be banned.
At least this is what I plan to tell my ‘fitness consultant’ Gavin, who, judging by his suspicious paunch, may already be have heeded this warning. Gym culture is so bizarre and I would write more about it had not the great A.A. Gill done so already in Vanity Fair, in an article I read this afternoon whilst tripping on the treadmill, pumping very little of anything to the strained strains of ‘Pump It Up’.

Don't you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up! Don’t you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up!

Yes, this, my friends, is the sorry state of dance music in 2004.
Cynics will say it has always been thus: meaningless vocal samples endlessly looped over thudding, repetitive beats. And to a degree they’re perfectly correct, but it was never this bad, was it? And I happen to like a lot of repetition in music and am quite partial to the trusty 4/4 thud.
The fact is, it works. You can pick up the same rhythms repeated in turn of the century recordings of African percussive rituals and Chicago house 12inches from the early 80’s; humankind found it’s groove, the planet is dancing and throwing it’s hands in the air like it just don’t care.

It’s just that recently producers seem to be caring less than before. Electronic music in the 21st century is running dangerously low on innovation: glitch was just a blip, blip just a glitch. Electroclash was fun for about five minutes, but hearing the sounds of the future in 1984 ten years on was too much of a time-warp mindfuck to have any kind of longevity, and just showed how a scene with nowhere to go is now starting to run out of nostalgia.

If you haven’t stopped reading by this point, you’ve probably stopped paying any serious attention, so I’ll slap my face, shut my mouth and learn my place.
One thing before you go though. I thought it best to tell you that, with some reluctance on my part, I have reinstated my musical web presence. Nothing uploaded yet, simply because I can’t think of a decent artist name. If anyone’s got any ideas post them comment-wise so I can reject each one fairly.

Hey, way to plug myself there. Why, thank me.
It’s interesting (read: of interest to me, and even then only barely) how blog entries can evolve and mutate, monstrously so. I had planned on writing a bit about my first week at work. Instead, all I’ve talked about it gyms and dance music - a gay marriage made in heaven if ever there was one.
Tomorrow, I’ll start discussing the Ukrainian election scandal and end up prattling on about interior decorating and how to look ‘hot’ in ‘cool’ December fashions.
So then, a pottering, potted, potholed, potheaded history of the past five days.

Monday:
Met first client, sat on ass, watched Trisha, went for walk, pub lunch (paid for), watched Judge Judy, ex-tenant deemed to be liable for damage caused to landlady’s poolhouse.

Tuesday:
Met the three other clients, two of whom I accompany to the city day-centre, a place I could only describe as, for want of a more extreme word, a madhouse - cuckoo, crazy, twirling finger round the ear, wacko - but in a good way.
Highlight, for me, is visiting the art room, and being fascinated by the obsessively geometric drawings made by some of the clients, as well as the more, how shall we say, expressionistic work by one client in particular, showing armies of nude figures with hacked-off limbs and what looked like heavily bandaged faces with with dead animals strewn at their feet.
Memo to Mom: not one for the fridge door.

Wednesday:
Take the tards swimming.
Later, a client has seizure in Liffey Valley, vomiting on himself and collapsing to the floor, a trick I once tried (unsuccessfully) to skive off work.

Thursday:
Find out one of the clients wants to kill me, feel disturbed but also strangely appreciated.

Friday:
See Monday.

And Saturday, that’s where we came in.
It probably all sounds very boring but has actually been one of the most profoundly challenging weeks of my life. I’ve been struggling to process a lot of the, like, feelings and stuff I’ve been experiencing this week and have jotted a few notes for a minor essay on the nature of empathy and the question of pity: if any y’all has any information I could be stealing, send it this way.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m being paid double time to spend the afternoon at some function thing in a parish hall somewhere, wining and dining with the parents of our clients.
What my father, God rest his soul, might have called a ‘handy number’.

God rest your soul, everybody.

If I Don’t go Crazy, I’ll Lose my Mind

2004-12-02T23:33:00.000Z

Words! Everywhere! Like Triffids, always underfoot.
How text heavy this blog has become. Steeped in verbiage, prose stacked high. Where are the pictures of famous pretty people? Answer: here.
Well, not here. Further down, idiot.

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Life as a Humble Shop-Boy might have ended for our Hero ‘Anonymous’, but that won’t stop a Creatively--Bankrupt Cash-Hungry Studio from Recycling the Fun!
Presenting:

Day Month Year: The Inert Motion Picture!

Here it is, Folks! The Non-Movie Non-Event of the Year: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, and Leaning Slightly to the Left.
This Summer follow your Cut-Rate, Non-Union Woody Allen-Lite Protagonist from the Screen to the, uh, Bigger Screen, reliving some of your Favourite Day Month Year Moments, including ‘The Day the Fire Alarm Went Off by Mistake', ‘Bathroom Incident with Carol from Accounts', and ‘Company Medical Exam (Triple X-Rated!)’- as well as 27% Brand New Adventures!
It’s a Classic Story of Fear and Loathing in the Modern Workplace: Boy meets Job, Boy hates Job, Boy meets Blog!
Bringing the Hate to You this Summer are:

The Author as Himself as… ‘Anonymous’

Jared Leto as… ‘The Woman He Loved’

Token Black Guy as ‘Token Black Guy’

…and Asia Argento as… ‘Siobhan Fahey’!

Critics are calling it ‘… watchable’, ‘[not] without entertainment’, and ‘unfunny and derivative’.

‘**½’
- Steve at AsianFisting.com

‘Day Month Year… is irredeemably, inexcusably… great...’
- Adam at HentaiRapetoons.com

Day Month Year:
Coming Soon to a Video Shop/Mail-Order Catalogue near you!

Tell my Wife I Said... Hello (Turn your Radio On)

2004-12-02T20:31:00.000Z

Be still my melting head.
There’s so much I want to write about right now, but I think I need some time to process the wealth of information and experience I’ve encountered in the past week.

There’s one incident I’ll try and write about now.
It happened on my first day on the job - when I was sitting alone with one of the clients, P., the jumper-gobbler, in the kitchen silently eating lunch. I was idly flicking through some of the other client’s case histories and last week’s TV Quick when I came to notice that P. had stopped eating and was staring intently at some fixed point away from the table.
I turned around in my chair to see what had caught his eye but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He stared for a full three minutes, then suddenly, wordlessly, and with an alarming alacrity, he stole across the floor to close the half-open zip on my colleague’s shoulder bag.

At the risk of sounding patronising, there was something strangely touching, as well as profoundly sad, about this incident.
P. has a number of obsessive behaviours (mostly, it must be said, of the grossly, grossly unhygienic variety) but for some reason he has this thing about zips. Zips must either be left open or be fully closed at all times, and, in whatever small way, doing this makes P.’s life a happier one - that is presuming concepts of happiness and sadness are relevant to his particular worldview.

Like most people on the autistic spectrum, P. has many distinct (though often irrational) likes and dislikes - apart from zips, his other turn-on’s include watching cartoons, eating whatever he can get his hands on (whether it comes from the fridge or the bin outside) and dancing to the music of Samantha Mumba. His speech is limited to making one-word demands for food, demands he repeats ad nauseum until either he gets what he wants or becomes distracted.
Most interesting is his weird talent for mimicking random TV and radio voiceovers; often in between periods of quiet cooing and sighing, he’ll suddenly exclaim ‘LOW FINANCE LOANS CALL CLAIMS DIRECT’, reproducing the accent and the cadence exactly.

I feel sad for P. - whether I have the right to or not, I don’t know.
With his lanky frame, tousled black hair and pasty complexion, and dressed in an own-brand hoodie and baggy jeans, you could easily mistake him for a first year Com Sci student - a gaming nerd, with zero social skills. And he could probably pass for one too, were it not that his IQ is about that of a mouse mat.
Still...

Normal service will resume... whenever I feel normal and service-like.

Sick

2004-11-28T21:10:00.000Z

Also tired. But not sickandtired. Sick... and tired.
It’s my stomach, where I’m sick to, and, presumably, from: seasick, still docked. A lot of it’s nerves, I think, about tomorrow, compounded by a lack of sleep. Yet, instead of ‘resting up’ this weekend, most of my time was spent ‘out’, and indeed, ‘about’
Hold fast to the edge of your seat, folks: accounts of kerr-razy khurch-going and violent spazzbiting to come!

READER WARNING:
Having just read over the following journal entry I’ve decided that content-wise it’s really quite sub-par, and I’m sure the critical cognoscenti would be in agreement. I tell you this only to (possibly) save you some moments of your life’s time: if you can, right now, think of any constructive or worthwhile alternatives to reading this blog I suggest that you do those instead.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll pull a Neuro and just delete the whole bollocking lot.

This morning was spent at a service in church - except that the church was a school, and the service was basically brunch with some singing and stuff.
Everything about this ‘church’ is so alien to my childhood memories of sporadic masses: seeing the neighbours tarted up, the forced bonhomie outside the church, before everyone was ushered inside to sit, awkward and bored, mumbling along with some tedious stretch of scripture, after which the priest would recite some leaden anecdote about an inspirational GAA hero living life to the full despite a tumour as big as the Ritz.
The only consolation back then would have been that The Parents, lapsed-Catholics and functioning alcoholics, hepped up on the Holy Spirit, might buy you a comic or some teeth-rotting penny sweet bonanza bag in the shop across the road. All silver-foil linings to a wasted youth.

This service however was great - warm, relaxed, and above, all fun. (Also vibrant, ambient, dynamic, and perhaps even a bit European, what with the cheese and everything).
Actually the weird thing was meeting people who knew about my life via this blog.
In many ways it never really occurred to me that people who read this journal would take from it information that could later be presented to me in real time. This is most unsettling and I found myself asking, quite ridiculously, how it was that they came to know these things about me.
Because I wrote about them, obviously, but this would seem to, in some way, to contravene the strict principle of ‘artistic distance’ - a phrase, by the way, cribbed from Nietzsche’s ‘Big Gay Science’ - that I set out to enforce.

This was intended initially to be simply a record of things I find amusing and/or interesting. And by amusing I mean laughable, and by interesting I mean contemptible. This is not me, nor is it about me. It’s not even by me. You are here. I am not.

Yours, taking it all way too serious,
Anonymous Not-Anonymous AKA ‘Anonymous’

So... enough about me. Let’s talk about me.
Yesterday, I met with an old college buddy, C.K., now one of my new colleagues, albeit on a part-time basis. She’s a remarkable woman, and I say ‘woman’ with purpose: she’s one of the oldest people I know, 30 years at last count. Still alive though, and going strong, God bless her. Great though she is, I can’t help but resent her for planting so many bad things in my impressionable mind.
Take the following:

‘You’ll recognise P. [one of the clients] - he’s the one whose jumper’s are all chewed [she demonstrated this by enthusiastically gnawing on the lapel of her jacket]. He doesn’t talk much and mostly keeps to himself. Watch him, though, if he’s chewing - if he’s getting ready to attack, he’ll started chewing his jumper’.

You can probably imagine at which part my mind broke glass and pressed the Emergency Stop button. Getting ready to attack?! Baby Jesus be buggered, this isn’t what I signed up for, was it?

As the honey-voiced, fajita-eating lady off the telly says: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, if ah’m still alaaaaaaaaahhhve’.

End of Days 2: Endier of Days

2004-11-27T22:42:00.000Z

R.I.P.
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky.

No card. No party. No tunnel of hands for me to run through, cheering. Not even a Cartier timepiece. Poxy cheap bastard employers. Inexcusable really, when your consider my five, long hard weeks of loyal and unwavering service.
But do I care? No - not in the least. Hand on heart. Or where my heart used to be before I cut it out with a spoon. Why a spoon? Because I wanted it to hurt more.

But, I’m not going to bitch about work tonight though - been there, done that, sold the T-shirts. Workbitch finishes here. At least until Monday.
Now, it’s time for a moment’s reflection. Today I 'arr bin mostly thinking about life, God and the universe, and other such trivial matters. God made the universe, apparantly - and not a bad job he made of it either. Though I still have some other worlds to see. It’s not like I’ve found religion or anything - or that religion’s found me - but I suppose you could say I’m nosing around a bit, poking about in some odd corners of my brainstem, rooting out some Big Questions, dusting 'em off, holding them up to the light.
So to speak.

My starting point is this book - you may have heard of it - the ‘Holy Bible’ it’s called, written by, well, lots of different people, though, disappointingly, none are Martin Amis or Kurt Vonnegut. Unless they are working pseudonymously or behind a veil of anonymity but, really, what kind of a pretentious fucktard would do that?

I started reading - well, flicking though it - this evening on the bus back from town, occasionally pausing to rest the book on my lap and smile serenely at my fellow passengers (on the bus of life) until someone stabbed me repeatedly and I died later in hospital. My legacy is as a statistic, a footnote in the chronicles of society’s continuing collapse. You must never forget the name ‘Anonymous’.
Stranger still, tomorrow I shall forsake the gaudy charm of T4’s Sunday morning crap-o-rama, to go to church. This means missing Popworld, which is quite a big deal for me. Best music show on the telly IMHOFWIWYMMV. My love for the snark - the pop, the bitch - burns with the passion of a thousand Christs.

Anyway, enough Big Talk. I need sleep. I think this is a kind of existensial hangover I’m experiencing here - no doubt a result of Friday night’s lengthy vodka-fuelled conversation with Neuro, a debate that culminated in the two of us strolling round Celbridge at 3 in the morning, swigging M&S champagne (pronounced ‘sham-pagnee’) straight from the bottle, pimpin’ it like a provincial P. Diddy and Jennifer Lopez.
You can read her hilarious (to me, anyway) account of the evening here.

Yours correspondingly, looking forward to the dd’s in the mm ahead.

Mood: Holier than thou, mo’fucker!

Music: Holy, holy music... well, Destiny's Child.