X marks the spot

I don't do politics and I hope I never will, but if there's one thing that will get me to the polling station to put a cross in the Labour box, it's this proposed campaign poster. Read the full story here.

One day, all advertising will be this honest.

A short Easter posting

How interesting. A day without the internet - nothing no access to mail or sites.  It's amazing how much stuff you can get done when you're not plugged into the globe. I actually tried it voluntarily this past Saturday to see what would happen - and yes, I did get lots done, but then again, there were some things that I didn't do because they demanded I be online. Try it for yourself one day - it's very liberating - which seems a strange thing to say about the very tool that liberates us.

Went to Rhiannon's Easter Play at school this morning - a traditional crucifixion affair in which J.C. dies and is resurrected in less than 20 seconds. I managed to hold my tongue - as is only correct - but forgot how many great hymns there are for kids to sing. Today featured one of my favourites - Lord of the Dance. At least I think that's what it's called. It has a great line in it - not quite so good as the Coheed and Cambria one from yesterday, but "It's hard to dance with the devil on your back" is a fantastic lyric in any genre. I'm surprised it's never been used. There must be a thousand bands who could use it as a subliminal heroin reference.

Is this what it was really about? Probably not, but I reckon I could get the most controversial story in the history of the world out of it. If Noah wasn't familiar with peyote, I'll eat my mushroom hat.

Anyway, my favourite line from this morning was "That's it. He's dead. Let's bury him." Nothing like building a bit of suspense huh…

Currently listening to: Whitesnake - Saints & Sinners. (What a great back catalogue).

Juggernaut

Just been checking out the new Coheed & Cambria track Here We Are Juggernaut on YouTube. Apart from the obvious greatness I was expecting, there's an killer lyric in there:

"No, this is not your playground

It's my home"

I love that - there's not many lyricists I stand in awe of (owing to my own superior skills in this trade - don't test me!) but Claudio Sanchez destroys. It's even better in the context of the song. I think I've figured out why I'm drawn to C&C; so much. They're the first band in 20 years of hunting that successfully combine beautiful and ugly, intelligence and stupidity, power and tenderness into a single punch. There's plenty of other bands that skirt my needs - Porcupine Tree are a good example but they're not emotive enough for me. When Claudio lets fly about a runaway bicycle or a dog, he means every word to the point where you forget about it being a bicycle and a dog. It becomes about sitting inside a man's heart and his desire to tell you a story.

Enamoured. Still.

There's not a whole lot to blog about right now - way too much 'proper' work going on to be having too much fun, but Eleanor has started looking to buy a house. As we all know, looking for a house is always loads of fun for all involved - stay tuned for tales of horror...

White Trash

Oh blog, how I have missed thee.

I'm getting somewhere. Finally - and it sits well. I've never wanted to be called a horror author because is seems cheap - and I hadn't actually written any horror. I don't really want to be known as a fantasy author either because it makes you sound like a cock - even though my two main men (Gaiman and Barker) are mostly known as this, I would never file them there. I'm not sure what I'd file them under, but then I don't feel a need to file...

Anyway, I got asked (yeah, asked) to write a short story about monsters for an anthology. Sure, I figured - why not and then before the week was out, I had a great main character, two shorts nearly finished, a hook on which to hang the hat of a bunch of other shorts that had no direction and a very nice nucleus for Carnival of Souls. At which point, it now feels like I've been avoiding destiny. It's very comfortable, it's very "me" and if I'm honest, I find it one hell of a load easier than some of the other arenas I've been battling in.

I should have seen it coming.  I can't hide the fact that I love Kiss. I can't hide my love of wrestling either, it's embedded in my DNA. To complete the circle and unify the unholy trinity, I need to stand up and be counted on this front as well. I freaking love horror when it's done well (or extremely badly for that matter).

That's my big revelation for the week. It feels weird. It's like I've been swimming for weeks on end and somebody just pointed out that I can stop now because I'm at the shore. I guess the job in hand is to make it "not cheap" for myself. Over the years there have been very few who have been able to rise above the tag with any dignity. Being as I'm going it alone for the foreseeable future,  that's probably up to me.

In a round up of other events this week that are worth a blog, Ellie came home with a copy of Bust-A-Rhyme in which she had gotten one of her poems published and Rhiannon became a Sixer at Brownies and got more badges than I have superglue to fix them on with. Good work small people!

Future events to look forward to include Eleanor's first exhibition of her paintings. I'll post a link and a map here as soon as I know where it is just in case some of you happen  to be around.  I also got word today that Kahn is playing at the Goat Tavern in Green Park on Friday night. Go. Pay. Cheer.

For the more observant of you, if you're reading this at the native blogger site, you'll see that Google have finally made tabs available (just beneath the header image). Watch out for massive expansion of this space over the next couple of weeks.

This week I read: The Last Child (John Hart), Blood Brothers (Jack Kerley) and made some serious inroads with The Owl Killers.

Today, I launched the ZodiacLung Mobile Application (available on the right hand side there somewhere) and laughed my ass off at this

In which Mr Smith puts his money where his podcast is.

Spent this afternoon setting up the "studio" (or the spare room as it's more commonly known) setting up a podcasting arrangement to begin work on Carnival of Souls.

I thought I would share my finding here should you be thinking of doing the same.

1. Because I spent so long in a band, the sound of my own recorded voice does not phase me. I was quite surprised that I recognised this voice after so long. It's odd. It's like listening to somebody you know really well but can't quite place the face. If you’re not used to your own voice, do lots of testing for days and weeks on end. If you’re not comfortable with your voice, do you really expect me to be?

2. I've had all the windows and doors open in the house all day long and now I have a bit of a 'sniffy nose' as Rhiannon would put it. This doesn't sound great when it intersperses every other paragraph. Thus; note to self, in future, podcast in a warm but well ventilated area - so yeah, it's kind of like using gloss paint.

3. Don't use paper to read from. It rustles. Make the text that you're going to read as large as possible without having to scroll every two minutes. This is far preferable if you can use a different machine than the one you're using to record on. I know most people don't have more than one machine at hand, but borrow one. It gives the whole process just that little bit more grease.

4. How long should your podcast be? Who knows. Try downloading something you really like and then see how long it takes before you get bored of it. That's as good a rule of thumb as any. If you're the sort of person who thinks 24 moves too slowly, maybe podcasting isn't for you.

5. Turn your phones off.  All of them.

6. Either do all the distracting items in your life before you start or just leave them until tomorrow... or the next day. All of these things crossed my mind while I was testing it out: have a shave, have a shower, make a cup of tea, how does this podcasting thing work, must call my mother, I need to finish that web page I started this morning... the list just goes on. Get as much of it out of your system as you can. If you're like me, you'll just find them distracting and wander off to do them.  Oh, and don't stay online. Fatal.

I think these are good rules of thumb to follow. I'm also quite mindful that throwing your podcast on the internet and expecting people to be interested off the bat is the equivalent of standing naked near a beehive. Stupid and you will get stung.

Bad Hare

Always wise to upload some files before you announce that you have. Which I have now - even though it's still not finished. Move along the bus please...

isorry, ironman and iwolfboy

So much for promises. Apologies. I would love to blog everyday but this weekend just ran away with me.

The good news is that I've got stacks done, lined up twice as much as that in the pipeline, finished revamping the Zodiac site (for now), re-worked Eleanor's site a little and after seeing the new covers for the re-releases of Clive Barker's classics, decided to start a new book design business in the shape of Bad Hare - look but don't touch. Not yet - there's still stuff to do there this week, don't know why I didn't think of it before though.

In a moment of madness, I have decided to enter a small competition next year. I'm going to do an Ironman Challenge. If you're grimacing right now, that's what I'm still doing. It amounts to a 2.4 mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112 mile (180.25 km) bike ride and a marathon (26 miles 385 yards/ 42.195 km) run, raced in that order and without a break.

I'm reliably informed that: Ironman events have a strict time limit of 17 hours to complete the race. The Ironman race starts at 7am. The mandatory swim cut off for the 2.4 mile swim is 2 hours 20 minutes. The bike cut off time is 5.30pm. All finishers must complete their marathon by midnight.

I think I can get myself kicked up the arse enough in 12 months to do this. I'm not too worried about the swimming and the bike, it's the marathon that's freaking me out. Anyway, I'm on the lookout for a worthy charity to raise some money for. Maybe I'll split the pot over a few of them. Not sure yet, but I'm not doing it for less than £100,000... and yeah, I hear ya knocking Mr Johnson!

Facebook pages and other means of indie PR and money raising tactics to be launched shortly - giving me time to think about whether I'm cut out for it or maybe just one of the events would be a better place to start... my intentions are good.

In the meantime, get ready for the launch of 31 very short chapters of I,Wolfboy as I attempt to publish a whole novella via twitter every single day in May. You can start to follow now if you want @iwolfboy on twitter but nothing will happen before 1st May and nothing will happen after the 31st. The challenge is not to actually to complete it, (though that's hard enough as not a single character will be wasted), the challenge is to make it bloody interesting.

See what happens when I'm left by myself for more than a few minutes...

Uh oh...

No blog post for a week? Been working.... hard! Something for the weekend later though... promise.

The Wall, The Door and The Glass Ceiling

The Wall
I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Pink Floyd but I see with crystal clear 20/20 vision that their importance in the world is valid and that this story about EMI being brought to account over slicing and dicing their albums is a worthy victory - not only for the band but for artists all over the world in any field. Pink Floyd are an album band and need to be kept that way. A body of work is a body of work. Take That -for want of a better example - can carve their catalogue up all day long and it would probably do them more favours than damage them. It’s good that the industry may finally begin to realise that not all artists are created equal.

I’ve thought about this long and hard this morning. If you’re doing your thing with the song writing genie, maybe it would be helpful to decide which camp you fall into. The ‘mistake’ (which it wasn’t, but it was a ‘decision’) that I made was to always think in terms of albums. It would never have occurred to me to release track after track without an album to back it up. Maybe you fall into this camp? Maybe you’re overlooking hitting the world with small pockets of brilliance while you’re waiting for your planet to explode. It’s worth a thought. Until a few weeks back, I was not big on the short story genre, but I see now (and this rather enforces it), that short stories are very mobile and very effective. The chances of somebody reading a short online are far greater than a whole novel. In every case I can think of, shorts can be used to pimp your uber-projects with great success. Whatever you’re doing in the arts, the concept of single vs album is a good one to chew on over the weekend.

The Door 
I was walking back from the coffee house this morning with two cups of coffee balanced on top of each other, when the back door of a car that was parked at the side of the road suddenly opened as somebody tried to get out. Being the highly observant man that I am, I walked straight into the fucking thing and only managed to prevent the very sharp corner at the top from going into my face by catching the rest of the car on my testicles... and I didn’t spill a drop.

The Glass Ceiling
For the longest time I had no idea what a glass ceiling was but the world has taught me well since those days. I have recently joined a group of authors online - they are mostly good people doing the right thing for the greater good - and the idiots are easily spotted. Truth be told, idiot hunting is a good sport. Anyway, a thread turned up this week in which I discovered two things.

The first is that sometimes the glass ceiling is actually concrete with a high gloss finish so that you think it’s glass. When you find people whining and moaning about not having a publishing deal/record deal, most times, it’s for a reason. That reason being that your stuff is not very good - or at best, not marketable from a commercial perspective in the current environment. This is all food for thought that I’m putting on the table simply because I’m currently drilling through all of my projects and taking this point of view. It’s worth thinking about - whatever it is you’re doing. Which is where the whole concept of doing things for yourself comes into play. It’s hard work, but thoroughly convinced that it’s the future for any ‘artist’ so long as you’re able and capable of driving the car 24/7/365.

The second is this - and I shall repost it here in its original glory so that you may rummage in the wisdom for yourself. This is in response to me asking what was really happening at the coal face of getting a book published but whatever industry you’re trying to make it in, I’m sure you can research these figures for yourself and hear what I’m saying loud and clear:

“A not-bad idea is to remember that, roughly speaking, an advance represents the publisher’s best guess at what that book will earn for its author, if all goes more-or-less according to plan. A typical advance from a big house for a literary novel by an unknown was £8000, say, and since the recession advances are down 30%-50%, so £4-5,500?. I’ve heard of considerably less, too. When you think that books are sold to booksellers at 40%-60% discount, that doesn’t leave an awful lot of cash for production, distribution, sales, marketing, editing, publicity, overheads...”

I’m still doing the maths on this one but it’s a big arrow pointing towards everything we know about relentlessly self marketing yourself to be true.

Shit. Now my head hurts as well as my crotch.

Currently listening to: Blackboard Jungle - I Like It A Lot - One of the great lost albums of the Seattle vs The World battle in the early 90s. Great band. For my money, up there with the other classics of the era (Rock City Angels, Bang Tango..) for sure. Hunt it down.

Damn

I just smashed the handle off my Kiss mug... disaster!

itunes, iwrite and idesign

My poor MacBook. It’s been so reliable for so many years, I never really took the time to look at how she was faring under the bonnet. You can but begin to imagine if I tell you that when I looked at my tunes folder, there was 57 days, 6 hours and 14 minutes of continuous music available to me. Over 88GB in all. Whilst this is great for me, it’s probably not so good for her.

So I spent a little while moving it all onto an external hard drive and hooking it up that way. After an (undisclosed) amount of time, MacBook now seems a lot happier - though her happiness might also have something to do with me banishing Quark XPress from her system. It’s a sad parting of the ways with Quark after so long in good service but I can’t honestly remember the last time I used it for anything constructive.

The beauty of this is it’s now merged with the tunes that were already on there as back-up files. A quick saunter through reveals such gems hanging around (in the ‘B’ column) as:
Bang Gang - The Young and The Restless
Black Label Society - Give Yourself to Me
BulletBoys - Hang On St. Christopher

It’s gonna be a good day on the cliff face with such excellent company - and I shall hold my breath and wait for Mr Johnson to let me know I can probably throw away another 87GB and not miss anything of value (though I reckon there’s plenty of stuff here that he would like... anybody for Poison demos pre-Cat Dragged In? Bloody awful).

Off at a tangent, I mailed a spec pitch in to Rolling Stone early last week. I’m not sure what to make of that brand anymore. It was a good pitch. Without giving away all my eggs in a basket, it was current, far enough away to schedule in properly and of interest to the rock world at large. With direct access to the band and more exclusives photos of them than I have of my children, I would have thought it was no-brainer. If somebody had mailed me this pitch, I would have bitten off their arm as it basically requires no work from the editorial team.

The part of me that wants to write for Rolling Stone magazine (as opposed to Rolling Stone website) is the part of me that wants to say I write for the same magazine that Hunter S. Thompson, Cameron Crowe and Lester Bangs wrote for but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Ten days later, still no reply.

Looking at the big picture, it’s not the same magazine in any way, shape or form. It’s not even in the same ballpark. I picked up the latest copy at the weekend. The new format may have saved them a stack of cash but when I put it up against the last issues of Zero/Burn that we did, it sucks. The production values are not even close, it looks and feels like a cheap weekend supplement trading on past glories. Which I guess is all it is now (and maybe why they’re still going and we’re not).

Sadly, in the big scheme of pop-culture, saying I write for Rolling Stone carries a lot more weight than saying I thought Rolling Stone was so over-rated that I started my own magazine which kicked its ass from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

Come back Creem. We miss you.

Anyway, all is not lost. My head may have to rule over my head on this one, but I have two (big steel) balls that say “Fuck it. SPIN is an awesome magazine. I’ll go there instead.” Updates on this as something may happen.

Finally, I was looking at the entire (and I mean it) range of cover designs for the Sherlock Holmes books last week and I don’t think I would be lying if I said that 95% of them are dreadful no matter what the year of release is - and occasionally (surprisingly) some of the UK covers have been as bad as the US. Totally and utterly awful - but no, not quite as awful as the Poison demos. I thought I would redesign the whole series myself, so I  started. Here’s a preview of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Only part way through but still... whoopin' ass?

Is this a good way to spend your life? Putting others to shame just because you can.

Hmm. See Gene Simmons post from Sunday about showing people where they will be buried.

Currently listening to: everything on the face of the planet - and to prove a point from my blog of a few weeks back, I happened to get Aerosmith’s Livin’ On The Edge and Kings and Queens next to each other this morning. Ain’t not nothing like the same band. Not ever never.

10 Minutes, a very Big House and trusting The Doctor

That’s all it will take. Honest. That is assuming you can type and click with a reasonable speed.

Over at WeBook - where I have the first page of Turn The Lamp Down Low up for grabs (around 280 words) - I’m four ratings away from getting the damn thing in front of an agent. I’ve worked out the ratings algorithm (twice) and have figured out that I’ll go through to the next round easily, but I need just four more people to rate the damn thing, preferably favourably!

If you have these ten minutes to spare, whip on across to www.webook.com and join up. After you’ve done your thing, you don’t need to do anything else and you can opt out of receiving anything else from them. Shoot, you can even opt in to receive an email from them telling you when I get through to the next round if you so wish.

The only fly in the ointment is that they will show you lots of book intros - some good, some bloody awful. You can’t choose what you look at apart from the genre. If you choose Action/Crime - Turn The Lamp Down Low will turn up sooner or later.

I guess I shouldn’t ask really, but I’m getting really bored of waiting. Things to do, people to see... blah, blah. Patience is not my best quality.

Having said that, there’s some interesting stuff on there. You might find something/someone you want to follow. I’m currently badgering them to make it more of an open source thing - or at least make it so that authors can feed their blog in there. It’s all a bit faceless at the moment.

Last week - Wednesday maybe - there was a documentary on TV called Country House Rescue and the first one under the microscope was Plas Teg. This is what’s known as “the whole point” - or at least a large part of it.

I might post some extracts from Almost Human about it tomorrow but I used to go to this house weekly when it was a wreck - trees growing through the floor, badgers living on stairs... I fell in love with it as a kid and never fell out of love. Ever.

I made a promise to myself that one day - when things were ‘better’ (ie: the bank account was a different colour) I would buy it and take good care of it. Well, that’s never gonna happen in a million years but who knows. A couple of books under the belt and a movie script later.. that’s what dreaming is about. Setting the bar so unfeasibly high that you know you’ve made it when you can actually afford your dream. In cash.

Anyway, check it out here. She’s beautiful and begging for a proper horror movie to be made in her.

Lastly, the initial Doctor Who trailers (one and two) have hit the ground. Nice. There's also a series preview here. Despite holding reservations about the new Face, the series itself has got a good buzz about it. It looks as though it will be totally different in its delivery... up to and including having to buy a new sofa big enough for both kids and adults to hide behind.

Bring it. Now.

Currently watching: Hung (Try it - it’s brilliant.)
Currently listening to: Dirty Americans: Strange Generation

Kiss of Life/Kiss if Death

This is from an interview yesterday with Gene Simmons in the Daily Mirror:

"We had the attitude that we were in a gladiatorial arena and we made sure we won. We'd politely shake hands with anyone we played with, and then show them a spot in the back yard where they would be buried."

This is why my life is like it is. This is why sometimes, things don't make sense. This is why the highs are all the way up there... and the lows are something once catalogued by Dante Alighieri. That's all the wisdom I have today.

Celebrity Hoo Ha

Sandwich - a small town a few miles from where I live. Nothing happens here. Ever.

The humble sandwich was apparently “invented” somewhere around these parts but that’s about all... oh, and a whale got washed up on the beach a couple of years back.

However, today, the town is heaving with just about everybody who lives here. I can’t quite figure out what’s going on. Appears to be two things:
1) They are making a Walkers Crisps advert and Gary Lineker is walking around dressed as a sandwich.
2) There is some promo movie being made for “Ham Sandwich Week” - this is hear-say. I need to check my facts on that but Formula 1 guy Jensen Button is kicking about along with Cheryl Cole, Pamela Anderson and Marco Pierre White.

Rumour has it that Pam is serving pints in the New Inn - it did occur to me to check this out but changed my mind as I’ve met her before (with Tommy on some Crue jaunt way back). Cheryl is probably too sad to speak at the moment but I wouldn’t have minded 10 minutes with Marco. I’d really like him to come round and see if he can get our Rayburn going properly. That sounds like the sort of thing he would be good at.

Currently listening to: Conny Bloom - Psychonaut
Currently watching: my weight

Kiss ReMasked!

Yes it's true. I have been sulking over missing out on Kiss in "favour" of staying at home with the girls making a Tabby McTat costume for World Book Day and cooking shepherds pie.

Lynne very "kindly" mailed me through some great pics of what I missed and I shall respond by mailing her back some pics of Rhiannon in her Tabby McTat costume. It's awesome. Perhaps not quite as awesome as getting spattered with "the blood" during God of Thunder but awesome in a different way.

Luckily, I have time and bravado on my side. There is still the summer tour to jump on and I'm determined to go check out the tour in France. Let's face it, has anybody actually been to a UK arena worth its salt lately?

Sigh... the one thing I will say with a smile on my face is that:
a) I saw them when it was important
b) I've seen them over 15 times
c) Nothing will ever be better than Paul Stanley calling me while I was sitting in my car.

Leave me alone. It makes me feel better.

Later today, the framework for our next graphic short story gets whizzed over to Charlotte. This will be a surprise to her if she reads this before I actually mail her. (er, hi Charlie - expect some 'stuff' in the mail' later tonight).

With that firmly in the past, it's time to get REALLY excited about the new Coheed and Cambria album. Stay tuned for something just a little bit special coming your way - from here - on that very subject.

Anyway - for the rest of you who couldn't make it, could care less or are also crying in the afterglow - here's some pix from last night's show. General consensus of opinion was that it rocked hard! I gotta say though - Mr Stanley's stage wig is looking a little worse for wear. Kinda looks like the "hair" that got stuck onto the dolls they released in the 70s. If that was the intention, job done, but somehow I don't think it was...

Hey - with more than 30 years in the Kiss hole and way over £2000 spent on them in that time, I can say what I like.

Waiting for an Alibi

Started work on my story pitch to the Alibi Channel today. I'm going to have to take on Agatha Christie's method of stealth repetition soon if I'm going to keep up with all the things I want to be involved in. The story is called Backsliding Fearlessly and will feature the ever so-slightly damaged Inspector Kang. I'm looking forward to doing this one - if it ever makes it all the way, you'll love it. It's seriously messed up.
Still haven't decided on a name for my little "acoustic project" yet but I've fallen in love with maybe the oddest song that I want to include. It's one of those songs that I should have heard a million times but only came across when I was instructed to fill Rhiannons ipod with various versions of it. Song in question? Taylor Swift's Love Story. Strip it back to nothing but a guitar and it's up there with anything the Goo Goo Dolls have done. Great song. Do I wish I had written it?
Yep. Didn't sell millions of copies for no reason at all.
That's about all I have to volunteer to the world today - more later maybe...

Dark Light

Intriguing. Yesterdays post invited two very different responses - both of which surprised me and put a smile on my face. The first was a whole bunch of (sadly) like minded people also saying, in a loud voice of togetherness “YES! We too have dark, bleak unholy days and know not where they come from.” The second batch was a raft of people saying they would help me out with my KISS vs KIDS dilemma if only they lived closer. This was most heart warming as I know each and every single one of you actually meant it.

Curiously, the Dark People are all members of the Circle of Fear. All good guys and gals busting their chops 25 hours day to do their own thing, their own way. Not just tossing it about like a salad, but constantly trying to move forward, creating and looking to add something new to the world. None of us do it for money (though we’d like to), we do it because it’s there and nobody else is doing it but as Roger said yesterday, it gets tiring having life punch you in the face as soon as you think you’ve turned a corner.

Conversely, the Light People are all of a certain type as well. They are people I have known for a long time and despite what they may think of themselves, all appear to be centred and grounded individuals. They probably don’t think of themselves as strong and independent but they are - oh, they are. Sadly, I will probably never tell them this to their face nor how much I admire them for simply being able to live normally without crucifying themselves on the alter of “what if”, so their only chance of knowing that this is what I really think, is to happen by here on this very day.

Which makes me think that the only way to get out of here alive is to accept the world. Stop fighting and ease into the passenger seat over what you think is important and change the focus completely, but I couldn’t do it - and members of both parties would punch me in the mouth if I did. I guess some souls are born shark and some turtle.

Which isn’t a smite on anybody but a very slick link to this. Regardless of whether your name is Charlie Cairoli or Pierrot. Charlie was the best the world has ever seen. Shame on you if you live in the UK, are over 30 and don’t know what I’m talking about.

Lost my train of thought now... where was I? Oh yeah... check this out:

Currently listening to: W.A.S.P. Babylon
Currently reading: damning weather reports
Currently watching: nothing. Have caught up with the world.

Kiss This

Hmm. Kiss announced a secret show this morning at the Islington Academy. It's going to be a killer - and I have a ticket set aside. I should be bouncing off the walls but I can't figure out how on earth I'm going to make it work as that's one of my nights with Rhiannon and Ellie. We should be going swimming and doing homework... I've run out of people to even think of helping out. It's turned into some horrible John Hughes movie plot whereby I take them with me and leave them in the car with a packet of crisps and a coke each and dive out between songs to make sure they are still there. There is no doubt in my mind that were this to happen and high jinx prevailed, that they would be saved by Paul and Gene just before things get completely out of hand and we would all drive off into the Islington sunset to Shout It Out Loud playing on the stereo.

I wonder if the sun ever sets in Islington.

Talking of secret things, I have begun to secretly put a set-list together with a teeny-tiny eye on maybe starting to play again. Nothing huge, half a dozen songs at most. I can't handle the heartache of anything more serious than that at the moment but the intent is there. I'm not sure if it ever really went away. Maybe I buried it under 100 blankets.

Not the greatest of days today. Despite a Percy Jackson size attempt to stay King of the World, I have to admit, I'm pretty down on in it today. I know it's bad because I have made Eleanor sad and not even the thought of a Kiss show is cheering me up.

I don't want to go to that shitty dark place again. It's taken such a long time to get out of it. Normal fall-back position of smoking as many cigarettes as possible has disappeared - not quite sure what to hang on to.

Does anybody else have days as bleak as this?

Not in the mood for writing anymore today so have switched mind to a different channel - thinking of a name for my non-existent band and toying with whether or not to include This Is How A Heart Breaks (Rob Thomas) in my set list.

Grrrr.

Suckerpunch

Tuesday? Is it really five days since I posted? I guess it must be and therefore this will more than likely be a long one made up of a few days notes. Hope you find something that puts a smile on your face:

I flicked the TV on last night just to have something to sit in front of while we ate and became instantly addicted to the women's downhill skiing and skeleton at the Vancouver Olympics. What awesome sports - I thought the propensity to become disgustingly injured at ju-jitsu was high but man, these takes the biscuit. Brutal. Thoroughly brutal... and tomorrow evening sees the start of the cross-country skiing. The superbly edited trailers make it look like a Bond movie, thus it is only correct that I give it some attention.

As usual, when my attention is diverted by something else, I had a great idea for a short story. Maybe I'll even finish it off this week. I have also been pointed in the direction of this years Bridport Competition and the competition being run by the Alibi channel for new talent - hopefully, I will become bored with this new winter sports fascination and be able to get back to normality, though in all honesty, it is possible to write while watching sports which is not the case with Supernatural, 24, Lost etc...

I'm hitting them out of the ballpark this week with finding great stuff to do instead of watch TV (although judging by my recent skiing addiction, this is now plainly a lie). First we had BigElf - now I have stumbled upon a fantastic book, The Learners by Chip Kidd, that each and every single one of you must read without doubting me for a second. Chip Kidd is the only man who can save the USA from bad book cover design. To see great examples of this, jump onto any of the big writers sites and see what nonsense they choose to dress their books in. From Dan Brown to Stephen King and Michael Crichton, without fail the US editions of all of their books (without exception) are dire in the extreme.

Anyway, The Learners is basically about a kid who gets a job as a graphic designer and then life kicks in... it's incredible - and I don't think you need to be a graphic designer to appreciate it. It's about nothing at all and everything, all at the same time. Not unlike Catcher in the Rye. Give it a whirl.

This afternoon I took Rhiannon and Ellie to see Percy Jackson - and I saw Percy Jackson kick Harry Potter from one end of the street to the other. This is probably not correct if you are to stack up valid critical reasons but it had a minotaur, a centaur, a hydra, Uma Thurman as Medusa, some other beasts and a plot we could follow. Sometimes, this is all you need.

Every now and again here, I feel it is my moral duty to point people in the direction of movies you may not know are happening because you have better things to do with your life. Being as it's going to be a long one anyway, take some time to check out this Robin Hood trailer - Crowe and Ridley Scott look like they've done a Gladiator number on it.

Hmm. Maybe it won't be so long as I thought - there is more but I'll drop that in tomorrow. To wrap up for today, you can look at this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y73D9KvWgNY]

Cheat The Gallows

Look. I have become a style icon. My facial hair is now being copied all over the world and yesterday was displayed with much fashion sense at the Olympics.

So I did what any "break the mould" fashion guru would do and shaved it all off - and it was only with the last slice of the razor that I remembered I was supposed to be growing it to kick Dan Brown's ass. Luckily, my new facial hair style will be with us much sooner than my Dan Brown ass-kicking book.

This year, I promised myself that I would push as hard as I could on making myself heard across the globe - which is a dumb thing to say given the nature of the net but I know what I mean. Anyway, I now have a new place to flaunt my heels over at emcBlue - which, although it sounds like a porn site, is actually one of the best up and coming entertainment sites I've seen in a long time.

Based in my spiritual home of New York, these guys work hard at what they do and were without a Big Rock Voice so here I come... codpiece on fire. First article goes up later today (probably late this evening) on an exclusive basis, so there will be no re-posting here but I will be linking to it from a push button type of thing over there on the right. Will let you know where to pick up the feed too if that's what you need.

The column is called Black Dye, White Noise (sic) and will include some tasty musical treats, plenty of fear and loathing and enable you to arm yourselves with weapons of musical destruction to amaze and terrify your friends with - unless I change my mind, in which case it will become something different.

Yesterday, I also discovered a band I should have been kissing the feet of many years ago. Sometimes, these thing just pass you by for no good reason. I'll let you all check them out on your own time - they're called BigElf and they rock like acid-damaged scarecrows. Sometimes they sound like Coheed ripping it up with Monster Magnet but in my more imaginative moments, I think they sound like Lenny Kravitz fronting Chainsaw Kittens.

Love them. Love them hard.

Currently listening to: BigElf - Cheat the Gallows
Currently reading: The Owl Killers (it's huge - it really is!)
Currently watching: LOST (love it), Supernatural (loving it more), 24 (large amounts of loving potential)
Currently very intiruged by: a box set seen in the supermarket called Harper's Island. Anybody know if it's worth a damn?

PS: Feast thy eyes upon the money:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Hg6djSmXo]