I guess that title won't make a lot of sense to anybody under 40-odd. When I was about six, my ma gave me her old record player and stack of old 45's - of which that was one of them. Good record - Ricky Valance I believe. According to Wiki: "Tell Laura I Love Her" is the tragic story of a teenage boy named Tommy who is desperately in love with a girl named Laura (no shit!). Although they are only teenagers, he wants to marry her, so he enters a racing car championship, planning to use the prize money to buy Laura a wedding ring if he wins. The last verse tells the mysterious story of how the boy's car overturned and burst into flames - no-one knows why - and the boy was killed, his last words being "Tell Laura I love her.,,".
Which has got sod all to do with Laura getting the bullet in the head on X-Factor last week (yeah, I'm a bit behind with my blogs but I'll catch up). I was devastated and swore never to watch the show ever again. The only hope now is that Alexandra will take it. If she goes, then I'm out of here and I mean it this time because it means the future of pop is in the hands of kids with mobiles on contracts paid for by parents. Seriously - Laura was a big deal and now the dream is over. There's a lesson in here somewhere. Just when you think you've got the top of the big monkey bars in sight, there's always some petty fucker making a powerplay to wrestle them from your grip.
Let's get up to date then. Serious lack of blogging because - gasp - have been working hard. Had to take a couple of days out to take stock of the ever increasing work-load that I'd created for myself but I think that's under control now. First thing to do is to reconfigure the sidebar here. I have a better idea of what to do with Too Hot For Dogs now - you'll like it. It involves parting with no cash - after all... that's what the internet is best at right.
I also spent some time in a big box of paper sorting through some stuff. In amongst a million good ideas I've not done anything with yet, I found twenty hand written pages of The Black Wood which I've now jigsawed into the bits I'd already typed up, and it's looking good.
My buddy Kahn called me up tonight. When he told me a few months back that he had done his first stand-up comedy gig, I'll admit I was a little on the jealous side but figured he would move on with his life. Damn it all to hell if the guy isn't on a roll and doing gig after gig - well... six or seven anyway. To be honest here, I never really give my friends much credit when it's due for doing cool shit, but this is awesome. I'm both incredibly chuffed and jealous at the same time. If you've come to the story late - this is one of the things I always wanted to do with my life but somehow never got round to it. Now that somebody close to me has actually done it, I feel propelled to give it a crack of the whip. Damn.
Anyway, I'll get some dates off him and post them here somewhere. I have no idea if he's any good or not. I hope so and I think so but you should go anyway because it's the right thing to do.
As a soundtrack to the last couple of weeks, slipping under the radar of most due to overkill from AC/DC, GnR and Nickelback, the new Hinder album (Take It To The Limit) has kicked my ass from here to Mars and back again. If you're digging the new Nickelback album, don't walk ignorantly by just because that's what you were sold by the press. Good as Dark Horse is, it's not even close to this slice of pie. If you're struggling to find other great new stuff - and because I told Kahn all of this and I know he'll have forgotten what I said - also check out ShineDown and Daughtry - all handily hooked up to some good stuff courtesy of YouTube. Oh - and because this is where we came in, here's Laura to sing us out.
Sigh. Fuck it. Here's another - and in case you think I've lost it completely, here's a untamed classic. In fact, I think I shall make that my theme tune.
Done.
