doom on a phone/ spot the swastika/ VALERIECHRIST

doom on a mother fucking phone! jesus! and it's not even that much like doom!
doom rpg is a fairly simple, standard rpg, that actually reminds me of the 'desktop adventures' series by lucas arts. there are lots of graphics cribbed straight from the game (and wolfenstein 3d, which it feels more like since the levels are entirely flat, although the variety of enemies is definately more doomish). it distracted me for a good eight hours. there are some fun in-jokes, but naming the levels as merely numbers is a let down.


i took this photo:


and sent it to log (he had a thing on his website about a while back about crymi signs). he responded with a really very, very interesting fact. it is that this picture

(done by log's mate chi)
up until very late in the day, had a swastika hidden in it too. i wonder if you can guess where it was going to be?

so saturday, i got to see valerie. i didn't think it was going to happen for three reasons; 1, i couldn't get anyone to come, 2, val wouldn't be on 'til gone midnight which was getting a bit late for me, and 3, it was sold out. these were countered thusly: 1, you're being wussy; 2, you're being really wussy, and 3, ring up the venue and beg. and so it came to pass that i wandered across the river and into salford at ten o'clock at night and found a literal waste land, the manchester skyline beautiful cranes adorned with faery lights. i trotted into the venue with my three pounds (spent on a copy of the new valerie e.p.) and as chloe pomes (who didn't do any poetry, and wasn't even in drag - unless drag is defined as 'something a woman would wear' instead of 'something that a woman would wear that a man would not wear, unless he was.. (swallows own head trying to define the paradox of drag)') span around in a little circle on her own, i leant against the bar and read my private eye. when suddenly, pow! jo was upon me and being very nice and valerie are great to me. my great fear is that they're being sympathetic, and actually see me as a stalking saddo, which was properly allayed that night. i met another long term val fan, marion, and we got talking - she's got a show on local radio tonight which i will listen to - as long as i could, given the volume of the music and the throat-scratching affect of talking over it. a brief walk upstairs and there was a disco party on the middle floor, and a graffitti hang out on the top floor (the building is a dis-used mill).

the first band on were smartypants, two fun girls in the blue minkies/valerie vain, thus, young people using whatever cheap things they can find to make great fun music, and top they were too. banterlicious. then dragula, the three piece "undead dance-drag troupe", did a turn. given the darkness, make-up and people in the way, i honestly couldn't tell you if they were men in drag as women, or women in drag as men, or women dressing up as if they were men in drag (sailor's costumes), i've really no clue.
the next act was completely sick. jewish, of course, my parent in my head is telling me. gideon conn and his band were completely amazing, in the slickest most polished sense, and they're going to be big. they must know it; that's why they've got backing singers (ok, there's a cause and effect thing going on here). they were great, in a completely professional way, and what could make for a more classic valerie gig and playing after an amazingly professional band (are you listening, surferrosa, with your five 'k' debut?) then dragula did another bamboozling performance ('sometimes it's hard to be a woman', in army gear) and it was time for valerie, who hadn't played together for two months.

i don't need to go into the rest. they'd obviously planned the gig quite well, with songs seguing into each other and things, but it all went to hell. i can only laugh heartily as i remember the hi-jinx and antics, with elvis throwing potentially lethal objects into the audience, culminating in a cymbal stand hitting jo's head ("sometimes you can be a little too rock and roll, elv," she managed). i think they might have got in trouble for what they did to that drumkit. i think the gideon conn band might remember them for a long time.

it must have been nearly two when i left, what with everyone running late, and i swapped media with marion - i gave her a copy of purple milk, and she gave me a copy of her mini-zine, 'the wedding conspiracy', which i read several times on the way to mother's christmas party yesterday (more about that later) and really wanted to shove it in the face of the 'reveal' reading woman, scowling at everything across the waiting room for me, and say, 'look! some people have different opinions, and here they are!' anyway, i'm very impressed by it, and her entry on a certain work based website (anonymity is important here so i shan't link it or nothing) is really very well written indeed. yay me for finding someone new to mutually back slap!

over.