Exciting new developments!!(well, not that exciting really)

I had doubts long ago but am pretty confident now that no one actually reads this,nonetheless I shall continue undetered anyway. In fact I've actually gone one step further and added a brand spanking new followers tool on the left side of this silly blog. So the great hordes of humans out there regularly perusing this cornucopia of muddled thoughts and half realized ideas can click on this new tool, letting the world know they are followers. I don't like that word though, so ingeniously I renamed the currently empty list of followers : A list of people sort of interested in what I have to say. I am nothing if not modest and have absolutely no delusions of grandeur. Anyway, if you care or are even vaguely interested click on the link.

     I have decided to make a concerted effort to keep this little blog updated regularly, to continue to tweek and play around with the format in an effort to keep this interesting. Because really, in the end, my only aspiration in maintaining this blog is to create something interesting. Something weird and different. I've never seen the point in creating anything that's not interesting and weird and different. Surely that's the driving force behind all great art? Not that I'm comparing what I'm doing here in the slightest to great art. Art is not something I believe blogging will ever become. Who knows though, if goddang Damien Hirst can preserve an entire sheep in formaldehyde, and call it art, I guess anything is possible.

     In an entirely unrelated but no less interesting topic, a friend of mine gave me this incredible book to read a few hours ago. It's called Ulrich Haarburste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Cling-film, and is a collection of short stories about, yes, you guessed it, Roy Orbison wrapped in cling-film. I can already tell your as fascinated by this strange artifact as I am. There's no point in lying to yourself. It sounds amazing and completely supports my theory about creating something interesting, weird and different. Ulrich Haarburste definately knows what I'm saying.

     I also had an idea earlier for a short story. Well, to be honest it wasn't so much an idea than an image. A man and a duck walking across a very long bridge, in the middle of a very long conversation, in the middle of very thick fog. That's all I have so far. Not sure where this could go, but you have to admit, the possibilities are endless.

      Really it's not that surprising I don't have any followers yet. I guess this goes back to that whole thing of creating for ourselves. I'm going for a walk.

   

colours.

Today I stood in the center of town, next to a bank. I ate a chicken bake from Greggs and three pigeons walked around me eating the crumbs. Throughout the course of the day I also consumed far too much coffee. Way beyond the suggested daily allowance. I spent the afternoon discussing films, football and New York City with a friend. On the way home I listened to Roots Manuva's latest record and managed to outwalk the rain. I briefly contemplated the glaring lack of discipline that's been a big part of my life from a startlingly early age. I gave up on that train of thought halfway through though. haha. I thought again about the fight scene in the middle of Mean Streets. It is a breathtaking piece of filmmaking. I spent sometime thinking about a new story idea. An existential day in the life surreal drama type science fiction sort of deal. I'll put that on top of the pile in the far corner of my mind. And maybe I'll get back to it one day. See: discipline problem a few sentences back. On a sunnier note I saw a hilarious picture of two pugs last night. One was dressed up as Yoda and the other was dressed up as Darth Vader. The Vader pug looked appropriately sinister. No small feat for a pug. Them being the only breed of dog bred solely for companionship. I could go on but I won't. I'm gonna go make some beans on toast(barbecue flavour) and relax before the men's Canadian Olympic hockey team begin their campaign tonight against Norway. In the meantime you really should go check out Roots Manuva's new album Slime and Reason. The first song on it Again & Again has this incredible horn sample that will blow your mind. Or at least it blew mine. Oh and I had learned the Russian word for cheers last week but I forget it now. That's not really relevant to anything but it frustrated me nonetheless.

Where is my mind?

Get outta here February.

Hey. I'm feeling a bit batty now. Too much time spent with too much time on my hands. Goddamn digital cable has sucked up most of it. My brain and my mind seem to have dried up. I'm practically void of original thought. But then I go on facebook or twitter or whatever and realize everyone else has too.
I got loads of new music recently. A big mess of stuff. Got some early Sun Ra and Eric Dolphy. Lots of hip hop old and new. The new Charlotte Gainsbourg record. The new Hot Chip record. A bunch of stuff. I'm super excited about the impending triple album release from Joanna Newsom. I think its out in a couple of weeks. I can't even imagine how good that is going to be.
I've watched loads of films. Just rewatched Mean Streets tonight. It never loses its impact. And the soundtrack is superb. Watched the Amelia Earhart (so called)biopic the other night and had to turn it off. It was literally too awful to watch. Watched The Killing of a Chinese Bookie the other week finally. It was fantastic. Now I need to watch everything else Cassavettes made. A Woman Under The Influence is gonna be next. I also recently watched the Pixies documentary loudQUIETloud, and thought it was excellent. Refreshingly honest. I watched loads of other stuff too but right now I'm struggling to remember what. I guess thats probably to do with that whole brain and mind drying up.
I'm really enjoying the Winter Games so far. Though they are doing nothing to help my homesickness. I'm excited about the Mens hockey finally starting Tuesday night. I have really been enjoying the womens hockey too. The Canadian Womens team are incredibly talented.
I don't know what else? I'm reading a great book about the films of Steven Seagal. The center of Barrow now resembles a bombed out area of Baghdad. And it seems that absolutely no one picks up after their dog in this town. You literally have to navigate around the shit.
Keep in mind I'm writing all this nonesense in an increasing sense of uselessness,powered by a dying brain. And it is 1:30am and I am tired.
I was thinking earlier how great it would be to have a Sega Genesis(megadrive) again. And an Atari. And a Nintendo. I'm pretty sure the novelty would wear off fast but the nostalgic feeling thinking about it provokes sure is nice. It would be especially nice to play Castlevania I and II again.
Anyway, keep on keepin on. Come on Team Canada!

Cityscapes and Hellscapes.

Cityscape. Hellscape. Two distinctly powerful words that to me have always seemed related . They are interchangeable, both referring to the samething. In my head, in my imagination, these two words create such images. The burnt husks of buildings, blood red skies,night time,neon. My obsession with these two words grew from three other obsessions.
First, my obsession with a particular group of old futuristic films. Blade Runner. The Warriors. Escape from New York. Tron. Westworld. The Element of Crime. Old films from the seventies and eighties, particularly the eighties, have always fascinated me with their visions of the future. The mix of the futuristic with the retro. Showing us futures that never quite came to exist. Futures that literally paint a vision of the city and a vision of hell as the samething. The Element of Crime especially, portrays a particularly bleak vision of the future, a vision of Europe as a dead world full of garbage,delapidated buildings,never ending rain and perpetual darkness. Sparsely populated with damaged people without hope waiting around to die. Lars Von Trier films all this in saturated orange and yellow tones, creating a true nightmare world, a hellscape somewhere between dreams and reality.
Secondly, my obsession with old films about New York City. I'm talking particularly about Blast of Silence, The Naked City, and Strange Paradise, I also have to throw in The Third Man. Although this film is not set in New York City, I was equally fascinated with the environment of the city that is both this films setting and strongest character, that of post world war 2 Vienna. I love the stark black and white world these films illuminate. A mysterious romantic world. A world that has since ceased to exist, or maybe never really existed at all.
The third obsession of mine that has fueled my love of cityscapes and hellscapes is music. Specifically the music of Brian Eno on records such as On Land and Music for Airports, and Kraftwerk on records such as Computer World and Radioactivity. But also particular film soundtracks from the seventies and eighties. The soundtracks for Bladerunner, and Escape from New York especially, capture the feel I imagine these future worlds to have. All synths and space and sinister undertones. Also certain horror film soundtracks from this time. Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, and especially Zombi. Almost all of the soundtracks Goblin completed for Dario Argento fit the bill. Terrifying, atmospheric prog-rock freakouts.
I also completely forgot to mention the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. A man whose work epitomises the emotions and images I'm talking about. Films like Solaris, Stalker, Ivan's Childhood and The Mirror. All epic cinematic poems that examine loneliness, grief, war, love, and the human condition in general.
I'm not sure if any of this is making sense or not. I'm simply talking about the world the two words create in my imagination. A world where it is always night time. Burnt out cars line the streets, grafitti sprayed on every space, Japanese billboards towering over everything, eternally raining, men with five oclock shadow wearing brown overcoats and worn fedoras mingle with street gangs in matching leather, platinum white hair and wild looks in their eyes, street punk girls in torn fishnet stockings, neon hair, and elegant women with red lipstick and old vintage dresses. Drug addicts slumped in door ways, some shops boarded up, old and decrepit, others sleek silver with big neon 1950's signs over the front window, overcrowded with people, men driving rickshaws transporting people wherever, food stands on street corners, on some streets parked cars still burn, other streets lie empty, hundred year old building half demolished, or reduced to rubble by bombs dropped long ago. Some scenes are in black and white others bathed in garish oranges and yellows. The gutters overflowing with garbage. Fear and excitement fill the hearts of everyone. The air crackles with sinister energy. And over everything the warm weird emotion of synthesizers and subtle driving drum machines.
I believe if you take all the films I've mentioned: Bladerunner, The Warriors, The Element of Crime, The Naked City, Blast of Silence, Tron, Escape from New York, Stalker,etc., and the music of Brian Eno and Kraftwerk and Goblin and all the other film soundtracks I mentioned and mix them all together you will get what I'm talking about, the images and emotions the words cityscape and hellscape create in my imagination. A strange mix of warmth and fear and dreams and nightmares. A world I'd love to visit.

The Story of Tiny Norman.

Beneath the carpet, there is a tiny house. The tiny walls are yellow, and the tiny roof is green and in the middle of the tiny roof there is a tiny chimney painted red.
In this house lives a tiny man named Norman. He has a tiny white beard, and always always always wears his tiny purple hat with the tiny brim cocked just to the left side of his tiny head.
Norman is a peaceful man. A solitary man, never more contented than when sat at his tiny brown desk, in front of his tiny blue typewriter, lost deep in his giant imagination, typing away.
Norman has lived here longer than he can remember, writing his giant stories on his tiny typewriter. Stories of the smallness and vastness of things. Stories of lost worlds, and lost tribes. Stories of unfathomable colour and limitless compassion. Stories of the beauty of things.
But now Norman sits at his tiny desk, his tiny head in his tiny hands, weeping. For not two minutes ago, a swirling black grey funnel of dirt and dust reached out of the beige sky and down upon the tiny roof of his tiny house, and all the stories he had written on his tiny typewriter over the uncountable solitary years, all his stories of the beauty of things, were lifted up from their many tiny piles beside his tiny desk, up into the air, where they swirled madly for three tiny seconds, before being sucked up into his tiny red chimney and pulled out the other side high up into the swirling grey black mass.
The grey black funnel of dust and dirt swirled for a further eight tiny seconds before rising high up into the vast beige sky above and disappearing almost as fast as it had appeared.
Leaving Norman, the solitary writer with the tiny white beard, and the tiny purple hat with the tiny brim cocked just to the left side of his tiny head, sat at his tiny brown desk, in front of his tiny blue typewriter, confused and sad.
With his head still in his hands, he wept tiny sparkling tears, and a tiny sob fell from his tiny mouth.
But one solitary sob from this solitary man, was all the grey black funnel would get.
For as soon as the tiny sob was out and gone, Norman the tiny solitary writer, looked over at his tiny red chimney, looked out his tiny window at the vast beige sky above and finally looked down at his tiny blue typewriter that was his favourite thing that he owned, and placed his tiny fingers on the tiny keys.

And Norman smiled.