not so manic now

i do worry, you know.

what a terrible mess i've made of my life.

it wasn't a deliberate ploy to not tell my family about going to budapest.

it's the kind of thing that's hard to explain, and it's why i want to run off and become a monk because i'm sick of having to battle with my subconcious. it's hard to avoid giving that kind of information out, and yet it's not something i've made a concious decision to hide - i just got to this week, and realised i'd managed to let the fact remain hidden. obviously this is something i've done naturally and now that i've finally woken up to the fact it looks like i have been hiding it deliberately. which left me in the situation - do i tell the folks, and face the wrath, or keep shtum, and live with the fact that a tacit lie makes me a bad person? i was advised different ways by different people. so i told shell (mother). she gave a short laugh, but left the actual bollocking to tim. i forgot to remind her to forward on the post or asked if she'd recieved her birthday present. tim's valid criticisms will make up for any implications unsaid by shell. i know them (the criticisms) already, i've made them myself. but i booked this trip ages ago, assuming i'd have a job by now (see previous posts on discovering how quite how incapable i am). the carrington's boys say to give them a shout in a week or two for some work for the christmas, which i will be very grateful for.

it's not like i could have ever cancelled the flight, thanks to fucking easy jet, which is why i'm going. that's not the point anyway; i'm going because i thought i'd have a job now. does that mean i should not go if i don't have a job? maybe, but life's more complicated than that. i've already paid for the flights a long time ago, and it's only a bloody weekend. and i can't leave laurence in the lurch - or did i set this whole situation up so that i wouldn't have an escape route?

it's not that important. it's just a stupid situation that should have never arisen. i don't trust myself anymore.

i'm just so worried about everything all the time.

anyway, i need to pack.

i'd like to especially wish ed, jez, and pete good look recording the demo. still a lot of luck and stuff needed for this, but it's a good thing we're onto here.

she will be sorely missed.

coping?

what's the difference between coping and not coping? a couple of days ago, i dreampt i had a nervous breakdown in a baker's (it didn't look like this), ripping into loaves and kicking the counter, until one of the baker's said 'there, there', and i collapsed in tears. coping could be simply not being able to deal with one's workload, but what about the emotional effects - it just builds up until you have to crack, not that breaking down gets any of the work done. staying in brighton was supposed to be me asserting my independance, and instead, it's proved i'm absolutely fucking incapable.

so we're quitting this house in january, and, not having a job, it seems staying down here after then is quite unneccesary. in fact, looking for a reason to stay do here is unnecessary, and why do i have to wait until january? i don't even have a christmas temp job lined up. if by some miracle i manage to secure some work this week, i have to ask myself; do i even want to be in brighton?, which is really to ask, where would i like to be? it would be terrible to jump ship to a different part of the country, only to carry on in exactly the same way. which is possibly the most frustrating part when i look back over the last five months - i didn't move because i realised i needed to change my way of life, not my geography. the problem is me. i knew this when i finished uni, but i don't seem to be able to even start freeing myself.

as always, i've gone off on a rant and then realised i'm missing the point. the reason i stayed in brighton in the first place was to be with friends (as well as an assertation of independance). now it seems that i don't know that many people here any more. thom never came and laurence is leaving. the dream of rebessica is forgotten - yes, being in a band was part of the brighton mission too.

so plans?
plan a) manchester.
there's a good chance i could get some christmas work in carrington's again. then i could work temporarily in dimitri's (says dimitri). beyond the short term, however, i can't see myself staying in manc that long. sure, i could do kelly's for a couple of years. but what's the point? but what's the point of doing anything at all? i don't know why i keep flitting between nihilism and somethingism. it really irks me how i have to keep working things out from first principles. i really want to teach myself the pointlessness of life.

plan b) newcastle. i have friends there. but suddenly that's not so important anymore - i can't continue to plan my life around what my friends are doing. i have to do something for me. however, being there would be good me. newcastle is as good as or better than anywhere else. why be anywhere else? newcastle is the good. make me an offer, andy.

plan b1) germany. this was briefly disgust with imogen lovely. i don't know what on earth i would do in germany, other than be able to get around europe easily, and be a hausmensch for imogen, which would be a dream come true for anyone, surely. but for the time i can entertain the fantasy.

plan c) london. I hate london, but it's difficult to ignore. while it has friends, it has the whole job thing going on. the decision between newcastle and london may come down to the whole job thing.

more ideas as they come.

by the way - whatever happened to terris?

we take pudding very seriously

here's documentry evidence of a couple of recent puddings:

mars bar cakes.
a recipe demonstrated by laurence.




















custard fondue
i'll take the credit for this: why pour custard onto cake, when you can dip the cake in the custard?







you may think that's a bit indulgent, but we had such a good dinner last night that we really deserved pudding, you see. that makes me think. from an early age, i've been led to believe that you have to 'deserve' pudding, for instance, by eating your vegtables, and i can remember refusing it once when i knew i'd been bad. i was a tremendously fussy eater as a brat.

"you can't prove i'm saddam hussein!"

when people deny that a court has jurisdiction, one is always left in an interesting predicament. or not, because just because someone doesn't like what's happening to them, doesn't mean it's not. so when saddam says:

"I don't answer this so-called court, with all due respect, and I reserve my constitutional right as the president of the country of Iraq. I don't acknowledge either the entity that authorises you, nor the aggression, because everything based on falsehood is falsehood."

he clearly hasn't read the little prince; one is only president as long as one's objects agree.
he actually got me quite worried when he refused to name himself;

"You know me, You are an Iraqi and you know that I don't get tired."

while the court still has jurisdiction, what happens if the defendant refuses to answer to their own name? but the name isn't the important bit - they only have to prove that he is the same person that commited the crimes he is accused of.

this became irrelevant later in the day's events, when Taha Yassin Ramadan got all the philosophy out of the way for us:

"I repeat what President Saddam Hussein said."

all quotes from bbc.

a wierd and as far as i'm aware overlooked thing in alan moore's watchmen is the oompahloompahs. ozymandias has these oompahloompahs, right? three interchangable guys he saved in vietnam, who live in his secluded mansion and do all butler-type jobs. for all intents, they're oompahloompahs. why does he kill them just before the other watchmen arrive for the denouement? what's all that about? i've never been able to figure it out. we see him sacricfice a quarter of a million people to save the world, a 'heroic' act, but why then simply poison his three servents? sadism? necessity? answers on a post card please.

by the way, whilst wkikpedia is good, sometimes it's best to leave stuff to the experts. so here they are: sequential tart's continuity pages.

last night, after stuffing myself with good curry, i went to turds, as per, and got stummin'. i didn't have much of an idea before i went about what i wanted to play - i fancied getting 'jameson's bones', an old orange pants band number, out of retirement, and maybe play something off dovedale joints, which you can download, in it's entirity, in the side bar. in the end, i decided to do 'name in vain' on the ukelyale (a triple first: first public performance, first performance of the song on a uke, and first performance in a foreign key). then i played 'if...' by the divine comedy on the guitar. for round two, i played edmond, then opened the floor for requests. i played a few bars of smoke on the water and fucked it up (i don't understand how), attempted and failed at enjoy the silence (the guitar hadn't been tuned right after edmond), aborted and debuted disposable friends, which i didn't plan on doing at all. 'ramshackle' doesn't cover quite how tawdry my performances were. people said i was good (while conceding that having a setlist is a good idea) but it just doesn't sit with my experiance of the night. it was an incredible four drink night, thanks to the introduction of drinks vouchers for performers. i got home, and the place was alive; emile, julie's brother had arrived, and the kitchen was rocking to booze, cards, and speedy punk music. we watched some of emile's hilarious home movies, played a potch of mario, then i went to bed while, deep in the night, someone was out defacing brighton's most important natural resources: it's motoring adverts.

the above image is a link to laurence's site where some photos are, and it is also a hotlink of one of those photos. there's not enough credit given/bandwidth stolen on the internet.

so what an interesting weekend. friday night was excellent and i'm still not sure if we really stayed up to five o'clock or not. while waiting around waterloo, i found a small looking, but large acting pizzeria/trattoria/bar, and with an hour to kill before meeting time, i sat down with my book and had a not great pizza. i think it was the water coming out of the fresh tomatoes that ruined it. i was sitting outside to escape the smoke and noise, next to a patio heater (and how i longed for my global warming tape). after a fashion, the waiters come out and set about trying to turn it on. i told him i didn't want it on, and explained that this was because of the environmental effects (it wasn't even cold). he seemed confused, because he moved the heater to the other side of the patio and started fiddling with it over there (where there already was one). i left, and didn't tip. a few minutes later, i was back there with pete and ed, as in all fairness, it does seem like the only place anywhere near waterloo, which appears to be in the middle of bleaksville, like the set of the running man. ed and i proved we where were real men putting our knives and glasses down on the table in fornt of us. when jez arrived, we started writing down set lists for our new band which isn't called psychic monkey, honest. pete effectively joined there and then, and officially joined later, before a decidedly erotic wrestling match with his sister lizzie - while sitting on her back, every time he said "have i won yet? if you promise you won't kick me, i'll get up", so she kicked him, which only prolonged the physical contact lizzie craves (i didn't say this, it was freud). so thanks to her and dave for putting me up.

i didn't get too drunk and i slept well and woke up feeling refreshed, and then watched the muppets and headed out to forum 3 to 'network'. upon leaving islington tube, i was recognised by a friend of kate 'built' palmer, called marie, who i spent the next few hours enjoying the company of, before we went our seperate ways at the station again. waiting for ed to call, i got a halloumi, spinach and mushroom crepe from a dodgy stand, then went off to find a pub. i walked straight past two before going into the american themed 'lil red' bar. comfortable, quiet, playing lovely acoustic music (the man didn't know, but said it might be the arcade fire) and i ordered half a pint and crikey! captain beefheart and his/the magic band were on the tv! i asked the man if he could put it through the speakers, but he said no, the volume's broken, it's just for visuals. so i just watched, which was a pleasure too. then i sat down for two hours and waited for ed to call again, during which time i finished 'the three stigmata of palmer eldritch' and wanted to cry. even though most of the book wasn't that good, quite weakly plotted, just the fear at the end of not knowing quite when the drug experiance has ended, and whose trip is it anyway, and does it project you as a phantasm into the future or is it completely illusory, was wonderful/terrifying. so then i went home. i realised i couldn't really afford another night/day in london and set off to victoria, where i got a message from ed saved when i was on the underground (obviously). it's amazing how much we've come to rely on mobiles and i'm quite sick of it.

yesterday was spent entirely in the kitchen, with haggis, and cards.

what is it about the revered that makes them spout rubbish about euthanasia in public? even dr. johnathon sachs, who is among the most sensible, progressive and right thinking person in the media, feels the need to tell people (okay, i read this on totally jewish dot com) that euthansia is bad, and like the bishop of oxford writing in the independant, has nothing to his argument other than a belief in a god, which is the adult equivelent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'i'm not listening' over again. guys; it's your god. it can tell you to do whatever you want it to tell you to do, so don't use it as an argument for absolutism; and don't try and use this motivation to affect the lives of people who aren't your flock.

just been thinking about the song, 'pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile' (if you don't remember it, ask your parents), and i noticed the song doesn't ask you to throw away your troubles, it actually seems to say take them with you every where you go. i suggest an alternative lyric: 'give all your sins to a goat and slaughter it'.

the new ephel duath album isn't out today after all, but in two weeks.

did you know the bbc has an ethics sub-site?

i've had some crazy dreams recently, but the wierdest has to be that david wrench's new album was released on vinyl with an extra three records for about 70 quid, and i remember handling it but not buying it.

i've written a new song: 'whatever happened to the kikey yids?' (for which i sincerely apologise):

oh, whatever happened to jew...

yom kippur's almost over,
the day went by so fast,
the only thing to look forward to,
the pass(over)..

it's yom kippur, and i'm fasting. i've often postulated that a day of fasting is a jew's excuse to have two really massive meals, one before and one after. so last night, after walking around co-op vowing to destroy myself, i bought a few very simple ingredients (i.e. ready meals) and absolutely stuffed myself on bolognase and couldron's new mushroom bake, until eating itself was a chore. i do not recommend the mushroom bake. it is a stiff grey goo that never heats through to the core. hmm. i'm probably just not cooking it enough..

brian froud has announced dark crystal 2. this fills me with a mix of joy and cynicism. the dark crystal doesn't intstantly strike me as the kind of film that was ever intended to be expanded upon an further. i can only imagine them shoehorning in a bunch of stuff that was somehow not mentioned the first time round; the conception of the dark crystal was so complete that i imagine they'll find it difficult to expand upon it further, and the plot leaves something to be desired at first glance. however, i'm surprised they're doing dc2 at all; dc is nowhere near as popular as labyrinth, whose sequal turned into mirrormask. it's niche, and i think that's a healthy audience to try to sell to. i think they're doing this because they want to, there's certainly no pressure for them to do it. so i now i'm very much looking forward to it. but it's still years away.

i did a song in an hour last night. it shows. it's my indiest song ever - somehow, my fingers just fell into that old gallagher pentatonic.. here it is, disposabe friends. i wanted to write a really sad, moving song about losing contact with old friends, but somehow this abortion captures the feeling better. but it signals a new era of recording for me - midi drums.

this made me laugh: barely.

ah, brooker.

Look at the way mobile phones are marketed — apparently, when you buy one, you’re buying something that will “express who you are”, something others will judge you by. If that’s true, society might as well drown itself in a bucket and have done with it.

i love thee.

and how can r. kelly still be in the public eye? lets compare him with someone else who rode the peado-coaster and survived: micheal jackson. jacko was accused of peadophilia and settled out of court. that's tantamount to accepting guilt. then another slew of accusations came through, and he was aquitted of every one, while a crazy woman released doves for every cry of 'not guilty' (i'd have loved to know what she would have done if he was found guilty of anything, maybe she had a couple of vials of anthrax hidden in her clothes). r kelly on the other hand has been charged not only 21 counts relating to the production of peadophilia, of which 14 are still outstanding; he was then charged with possession of child pornography, 12 counts, but the charges were dropped because the evidence was collected illegally. it's like the 'have you ever been caught sheep shagging?' playground catch 22; 'nearly, but the evidence was obtained illegally so i escaped capture on a formality.' fascinating.

in a shock buck to the trend, beautiful agony has a full body orgasm on it's site:
.
anybody fancy getting a subscription and mailing it to me?

so it looks like 'psychic monkey' might be setting up in the drydock...

banshees and brighton and R bloody KELLY

so there's this old irish folk tale of the banshee - not a specific story (as far as i'm aware) but the general myth told to children and men in pubs - if you hear the banshee screaming your name, soon you will die. something made me think about this in a new light today - banshees are always women. you know, those things with tits and hair and difficult personalties. anyway, all myths have a basis in fact, don't they? so how could we interpret this as an exclusively irish phenomenon? well, i have a theory. it doesn't make it uniquely irish as far as i know, but think about this; a woman screaming your name means you will soon die. lets think about the common folk in the middle ages. i don't think that's a superstition. when do women scream people's names? not very often actually. one everyday, bandied-about, as yet-untested theory is during sex (jess nicols did actually say my name once or twice during intimate play, which may or may not have been deliberate). so what happens if mrs. o'connor screams 'ooh, paddy murphy!' during sex with her husband? it means mr. o'connor will soon be knocking at mr. murphy's door, and he'll probably want to at least kill paddy. so there we have it.

wikipedia has a slightly better article on banshees. it puts me right on a few inconsistancies for sure, but if i recognised that i'd have to delete what i've just spent a whole grandaddy album writing.

incidentally, did anyone notice a recursive cliche in that piece? it is the commonly held presupposition of 'no smoke without fire'. it backs itself up. everything recieved must have some truth to it, because otherwise it wouldn't be bandied about. but why is that last sentance itself true? well, y'know, no smoke without fire. and so the cycle continues.


what made me think of people shouting the wrong name during sex? r kelly. the man is a genius. you need to go to his website. do you see (and hear) the mp3 player at the bottom right of the site? you need to scroll that to track 15, and listen to part one of his urbane infidelity saga, 'trapped in the closet'. alledgedly, videos exist for all five parts so far, but i've not been able to be bothered to find them all (yet). this is actually the very funniest thing i've seen since ray cooney died.
after you have listened to the first five parts of that (i.e. all that's there), check out kelly performing part 6 live on the mtv awards (mov) and look at his face. and his arms. 'live' is an exaggeration; he is miming, but at least he's appearing live, and he sure is 'lively' so i guess that counts. i was laughing like a child at this, on my knees in front of the computer (my back's hurting today).


what's wrong with brighton? i'll tell you what's wrong with bloody brighton. you go into 'suga qube' bar (which doesn't sell any kind of bitter). you need the loo, so you go in. it's tiny. they've put a mirror above the sink , surrounded by dressing room style light bulbs. opposite this is another, full length mirror. this area has a kind of crazy twist in the ceiling, it comes in slanted in every axis towards the sink. i go to the crapper. there is another mirror in there. there's also another sink. coloured lights. i unload. there's no toilet paper. what's more, there's not even any soap at that sink, now that i have to thouroughly clean my left hand. that's whats wrong with brighton. all fur coat and no knickers (as my mum used to say).

edit: while investigating the banshee's fairy roots, i came across this folk metal group, tuatha de danann. flutes, guitars, the odd retro lead synth. they sing in english and have titles like 'dance of the little ones' and 'brazuzan - taller than a hill' they're like the irish sepultura.
which is ironic, because they're also brazilian.

this is important.

disney own the muppets. that's ok. i can deal with that. but they are on the verge of quite literally murdering them.

they plan to hold auditions to find people to perform the muppets all over the place. do you see? i never realised before, but the muppets are only 'real' because you can't meet them, like real celebrities. if this goes through, they'll be everywhere, and that means they'll stop being real; imagine if you saw bob dylan playing in every bar, and it was as real as the real bob dylan? bob dylan would stop being real. he'd be dead.

this is going too far, and it's down to people like you and me to save the muppets.

i found this at tough pigs.

the untied kingdom (or manchester untied)

well, i've got the colours 'right' again, so comments are legible now. now to learn some proper html/php and so to the next big update (apparently, i didn't get the spannerworks job because there was no proof i could do html so i think this is important).

everyone seems very keen to have a part in the kid b project (i'd like to think there's absolutely no chance that the final album will be called that). i might tentatively stretch to a tracklisting:

1. Everything In Its Right Place: bishop fuckers?
2. Kid A: nes advantage
3. National Anthem:?
4. How To Disappear Completely: dandy o'howitzer
5. Treefingers: radio feisar
6. Optimistic: hanson?
7. In Limbo: ?
8. Idioteque: rebessica?
9. Morning Bell: grilly (i bagsed it first)
10. Motion Picture Soundtrack: the gallow slutt collective

there are a lot of question marks here. motion picture soundtrack has got to be recorded as a singalong in a big echoey room with as many instruments and singers as possible, at least everyone who appears on the record. in limbo is surely the most difficult song. any takers? what can we put girls girls girls and dude where's my car down for?

other music that i forgot to write about the other day:
garden have put their new album online to stream.
you should email andy and ask him for a copy of 'silver bullet' his new understated work, 'silver bullet'.


i went to the job centre the other day, to explain myself (as you do). however, it turns out they'd closed my claim because i'd not been in. i'd been working three days too long, which meant i'd have to do a 'rapid reclaim'. it's a tenuous definition of 'rapid'; although the forms themselves were surprsingly light, they couldn't fit me in for two weeks.




speaking of covers by the way, does anyone want to form a functions/party/covers band and play in the french alps over the skiing season for 450 quid a week per person? this is a genuine request.

jumping through loopholes

why is a shepherd's pie like weatherproof paper?

'cause it's lamb innit.
========================
man walks into a bat, and says "ow!", 'cause it's a vampire bat.

here's a page of pictures i took recently. unfortuantely, due to unforseen circumstances (hitting the delete button carelessly), some of the better ones are lost forever. but never mind.

lots of music news..

the gallow slutt collective is to produce a cover album of kid a, surely a fantastic idea? if anyone would like to join the collective and contribute a track, they'd be most welcome. so far we've not got much. some of the tracks will be very tricky. maybe we could just stick hanson's version of optimistic down..
speaking of which..
a tantalising glimpse of the new radiohead album:

"so now we have..
lots of loose ends.
or starts.
two weeks sketching things.
chipping away at structures.
making polyphonic sweeps.
mountains of words.
the blackboard is filling up."

the blog is at dead air space.

on the earache side, ephel duath's 'pain necessary to know' is out on the 17th, but the berzerker's 'world of lies' has been pushed back january to make room for promotion, which is a better idea than letting it get swamped by other releases, and vide versa, from a marketing point of view.

the locust are playing here (brighton) in early december.


i have songs, and riffs. i need to use them and am restless from not doing so. this requires a working amp (my amp finally gone fuck). buying an amp requires a job. this what actors call 'finding my motivation'. i do plan on recording the uke version of purple milk this week. but then i'd like some percussion instruments for that, which puts me back to square one. i just printed out 15 copies of my cv at university, but didn't proof read it, because i assumed i'd do that before i emailed it all over brighton. oops. or maybe i printed out the wrong one. i'm finding out now.

i've never actually used this amp on a recording (except the secret track on 'try the view change button', fact fans), but i really want to start. it would make my recordings sound more like real ones.

i'm off to carry on writing the song that had the working title of 'kefranski song' but now might be called 'disposable friends' or then again, soemthing else entirely.

g