THE PEN IS MORE PORTABLE THAN THE SWORD
Interviews I Never Took Part In...
Over at Serpent's Tail - one of my favourite publishers at work in the world today - there's a great interview with John Dufresne who has new book out called I Don't Like Where This Is Going, which has the best designed cover I've seen in months. It looks like this:
I'll be cracking the spine on that later this evening.
Anyway, I thought the questions were so good, I found myself reading his answers and then thinking about my own responses to the same questions. What better way to fill in a day when you haven't posted for a while...
Who was the first fictional character you fell in love with?
Aside from Anne in The Famous Five (does she count?) that has to be Emil from Emil and the Detectives. Probably because of his sense of right, wrong, justice and perseverance. Qualities that crop up time and again in all of my literary heroes as the years have ticked by.
You’re throwing a dinner party for fictional characters. Who do you invite?
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Edgar Donahue and Mountain, Russ Tobin, The Saint, Charlie Parker and The Woman In Black. I'm sure we could all learn something at such a gathering.
Are there any books that still haunt your dreams, even years after reading them?
Clive Barker's Imajica. When I'd finished it, I knew I would never write fantasy as grand or sweeping as that and immediately put the idea of doing so out of my head. Forever.
Is there a book you wish you’d been the one to write?
Imajica for the reasons given above. Clive Barker has been tarred with the horror and fantasy brush forever now but for me, Imajica is high literature but there's only way to find out if the words I speak are true.
Where do you write, and how do you feel about your workspace?
I like to write outside which is quite 'expansive' and is never the same surroundings from moment to moment. I feel privileged to have 'outside' as an office, but I do also have the dining room table which has no distractions where I tend to do any work that needs tending to on the MacBook.
What is the most beautiful book you own?
William Blake: The Divine Comedy (Taschen). It reminds me what can be achieved when you ignore your surroundings and set your mind free. Everything is wonderful about it, from the paper it's printed on to the ribbon down the spine. I probably look at it every day to give myself a reality check.
Which author, living or dead, would you most like to spar with in a Slam-style literary death match?
Raymond Carver. Could be fun in the extreme - or not.
And which author would you grant immortality so their books never stopped coming?
John Connolly. He is my JK Rowling. On the first day of a new Charlie Parker hitting the shelves, I'm queueing at midnight for it - the next day or two are then abandoned along with everybody being notified of my intentions not to answer the phone or indeed, do anything else.
Who’s your biggest non-literary artistic inspiration?
Kiss took up a lot of my time when I was younger, they're a hard influence to shake off - not that I want to. In '77, they were The Infallible Gods... and then they fell. Hard. There's a valuable lesson right there.
You’re the coach of one of the teams in Monty Python’s Philosophers’ Football Match. Who’s your star striker?
Alan Watts:
“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”
What fuel do you use to sustain yourself when you’re writing?
Tea, coffee, cigarettes (which is how I came to enjoy writing outside). I try to eat properly these days to make up for it. I don't write in silence. Music is always in the background and doesn't disturb me at all. I know some people can't concentrate but it's an important fuel for me.
Tolstoy famously wrote standing up, and Cormac McCarthy writes all his novels on an old Olivetti typewriter. Do you have any unconventional writing habits?
I handwrite almost everything with a Waterman or when I'm on the road, I write on my iPhone to keep the number of things I have to carry around with me to the absolute minimum. I also like writing by candlelight but four years on, I still haven't finished the particular book I was writing by candlelight, so perhaps I should abandon that.
An English composer once said that a live orchestra generally gives a 40% accurate rendition of the symphony he hoped to write. How do the novels you actually write measure up to the ones imagined in your head?
I would like to think it was a better percentage than that. I have this conversation with writer friends far too often. The thing that finds its way to the page is never what's in your head - get used to it or get used to being disappointed in yourself.
*This question feels like a cheat being as very few people have read my novels yet but just rolling with the spirit of it.
If money were no object and you suddenly lost the desire to write, what would you do with your time?
Travel - though I would struggle with not writing about it. I guess writing is how I like to take photographs.
What would be your menu for the last meal of your life?
There used to be a cafe in Whitstable called Olivia's where they made a toasted sandwich filled with bacon, brie and pear chutney. It was the best sandwich I've ever had anywhere on the face of the planet. Not much of a meal granted, but it would make my last moments worthwhile.
*See below. I took a picture of it - that's how good it was.
If you had to spend the rest of your days in just one place, where would it be?
Again, all responsibilities aside, Keystone in Colorado but only when it's not in season for the skiing fraternity. During those months, I would head for Florence or Copenhagen.
The Last Supper...
The Chant Of The Lizard King
How many stories have you told yourself today? Told yourself the one about how you're not good enough yet? That's a good one - maybe it's your favourite because it's the one you tell yourself as soon as you wake up. How about the one where the script is a line or two your folks threw out at you one day. That's also a good one - one of my personal favourites if I'm honest. We've all got them. You might not think you do, but you do. Let's not forget the off-kilter ones either - the ones in which all the messages to yourself are positive, crazy huge fist in the air positive and yet, every time you shoot your arrow, somebody moves the bar.
Stories are all we consist of. There is nothing else. Some are true, some are false but it doesn't really matter because you will believe them all anyway. Think about it. The tribe you've chosen to belong to - and yes you belong to a tribe, it may be a religious tribe, a political tribe, a musical tribe, sports tribe, dieting tribe, shopkeeper tribe... and you can probably hoist the flag on multiple tribes you belong to without even knowing it - is a group story.
Point of this piece? I've begun to look for the space between the cracks - for the silence in which I'm not telling myself anything at all - because I'm quite liking the idea of telling myself a whole library of different stories. Not in a 'turn your life upside down' kind of way, but I'm certainly smacking my hand down on the reset button and today, that consists of listening to The Doors at a volume that suggests I should call the police on myself.
If you do something with conviction for long enough, you don't even have to convince yourself of the reality of your situation. The lie will simply take over... and that's a good thing. Fake it 'til you make it but you had best make sure when you start the lie that it's a good one and worth spending all of the minutes of your life chasing.
Notes On Being A Lion
As ever, I got up this morning with the lark. A very particular lark in fact who doesn't like to get up quite as early as the other birds. He finds around 8.30 perfectly acceptable and that's fine with me. This lark knows the big picture.
Today is Saturday. In the nineties when I was living in a house with some of my band mates (which now seems like a life somebody else used to lead on my behalf) Saturday used to begin with a bag of chocolate donuts, a never-ending stream of coffee, cigarettes a-go-go and all of us sitting around the coffee table trying to figure out what we needed to do next to get The Gods on our side.
Such offerings were obviously of no use to The Gods - maybe they were expecting a blood sacrifice just like in the good old days.
Anyway, while I was out with Hector this morning looking for Hobbits, my mind was wandering like it does and I came up with a list of things I should work on today it looked like this:
1. Grow a different kind of beard. I don't have a beard that people with beards would call a beard but neither do I have a blank face. In recent months, I've toyed with a 'style' I don't think has a name. Chris Cornell favours it and so do I - I think it's because it's easy, but that said, one wrong move with the razor and you're looking at erasing your whole face to put it right. Actually, I kind of like this - scrap that. I'll roll with it.
While I'm feeling happy with my face, a guy comes out of the woods with a lead and a collar. He asks if I've seen a dog running away - and I think, if you're going to carry the lead and the collar, the dog will run away. People can be so dumb.
This puts me off my stride and the list of things I was going to work on evaporates. The guy with the non-dog came along at the right time. Maybe The Gods just needed a few years to accept the fact that a bag of chocolate donuts is equal - if not superior to - a blood sacrifice, because this is a well-timed intervention. I don't need a list of things to work on today at all. I don't need a list of things to work on any day.
Does that lion I so often reference construct a checklist of very important items in order to validate his role as a lion? No. He doesn't. He simply is but I'm pleased this lion also took a few moments to care of his facial hair before facing the day.
If I wasn't so busy thinking of ways to be clever, I'm sure I could be quite smart
The Glass Book Of The Dream Eaters
There you have it. After much drama, Ace Frehley has left Kiss - you might need to revisit the words from yesterday to recap at this point - but he is gone. He is unmasked, out in the world all by himself and nobody recognises him without the make-up on. The people who love him are waiting to see what he does next but they're going to have to wait for him to write and deliver the songs that will appear on his new album. It might take a while - months or years even - by which time most of the people who love him will have forgotten they loved him quite as much as they think and when they finally spin that record, it won't sound a whole lot like the thing they expected but they'll give it some props anyway... because it's Ace and that's what you do.
Meanwhile, Kiss will press along and pretend that Ace still had a hand in the making of The Elder before settling into a new groove which will include disrobing themselves of all the thing we loved them for. More members will leave. The new Kiss looks nothing like the old Kiss but if we all wait long enough, over the next few years they will bitch about each other, fleetingly become friends again, bitch some more until eventually, anybody who could remember the good old days will be too old to care and nobody can remember what they were fighting about in the first place.
Occasionally, we will look at the new Kiss and smile. Occasionally, we will look at the new Ace and smile. Mostly though, we will wish everybody could have just gotten along because when it was great, it was the best ever - but we will also forget that people get older and people will always change.
Some people did not notice any of this because by the time they were old enough to appreciate such things, they were listening to Soundgarden.
My big small person disappeared off the radar today as she went on a trip to see Rihanna. I got a message a little while ago saying that she only sang for an hour and twenty minutes which was closely followed by another message saying all she could think of while watching Rihanna was how much better Panic At The Disco were going to be later in the year.
Which says it all perhaps.
Meanwhile, it was the last night of The Skool Dance Show for my not so big small person. I picked her up when it was over and she shared her wisdom of the events of the day with me. That would be both the events of the 'Kiss' debacle detailed above and the Dance Show. She talks so fast these days, I can't keep up and it should scare me but it always ends with:
– What's for dinner?
Once again, it's good to see that some things are a constant on The Spinning Ball.
Anyway, over the last few weeks - maybe months - every time I find myself in a bookstore, I find there's on book in particular that won't leave me alone. It's called The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov) and it happens to have a good cover too - so I picked it up. Translated Russian fiction which is a satire of 1930s Stalinist Moscow is not normally my bag but being as it mostly features The Devil and his associate - a talking cat - I figured I'd make an exception. Some things really do need to be in your life - particularly when they include such lines as:
"The most amazing combinations can result if you shuffle the pack enough.”
I'll report back sometime in the future, but to balance the equation, I also picked up a copy of You Can Do It, Charlie Brown which was published around the same time and in its own way, is probably just as smart.
It's odd how you can say as much in one small square that uses about six words as you can in 100,000 don't you think?
We didn't see Cerberus today either. That makes two days on the run - and it wasn't raining. I hope he's not dead.
In between all of this, I did some work. Proper work... pen and paper work. And then I sat in the garden with a coffee and concluded that if by the end of the year, the English speaking Western world is being led around the garden by Trump and Johnson, I would go all Hunter S Thompson on them because such a thing is far too good an opportunity to miss.
A Day At The Races
Today began the same as every other day around here. I opened my eyes and found I was still alive and for this I was thankful. Not so thankful that I headed out into the garden, got down on my knees and wept buckets of salt water for granting me another day on The Ball Of Dirt, but I was thankful enough that I made it downstairs and filled the kettle in honour of the day that lay in front of me.
That's how we should begin each day isn't it? With a glint in the eye for what the next 24 hours might bring and a heart full of fire to bring It to The Table of the Gods.
"Hey Bearded Ancient Ones! Come check out what I've got cooking in my pot for you today!"
I might try that out tomorrow. Today, a mug of tea raised in their general direction was about all I could come up with.
I strapped Hector up for the morning walk and together we went out to see whether or not The Gods were still at work in the world because yesterday, it looked like they had abandoned their post in favour of a Party on the Patio.
It was raining when we left the house, which is a really British way to begin a story, but it was tipping it down. Neither of us wanted to go out much but that's what we do - every morning. No excuses, no reticence. We get ready and we go and today, I had a headful of work to figure out along the way:
I've got a magazine to start wrapping up, a book to finish writing, a hunt for an agent and/or a publisher to conduct and a thousand other little things all dangling from little pieces of string from the ceiling. I know, I know - I can see your heart bleeding all over the floor from here, but you know - these things mean as much as to me as your own thousand plus collection of things hanging from the ceiling do to you. That's the way the Ball Of Dirt spins.
We walk past the dogs behind the gate that like to fight each other when we go past. It's peculiar behaviour but it happens every morning and every morning, we stop, look at each other, look at the fighting dogs and carry on with our walk. I consider it's a microcosm of the world in general. There's always a couple of dogs being noisy at each other somewhere. A favourite saying of mine drifts past the back of my eyes like one of those banners towed through the sky on the back of an a glider:
When you listen to the world, it doesn't have to shout at you.
A few feet on from the fight of the day, there's a fork in the road. One way goes downhill, the other goes up. Hector always chooses the road that goes up, probably out of habit now but on the few times I've tired to tempt him down the easier path, he stops half way down and, deciding we've made a wrong turn, backtracks until we are going up the hill. There's likely something in this too but the rain is bouncing off my face and I can't figure out exactly what that might be. Probably something to do with taking the high road and being able to cruise along the low road when the hard work is over. That's usually how the world talks to us. It only has a certain amount of metaphors to play with - if you push it any harder than that, it tends to get confused and that's when things start getting really fucked up.
Anyway, we pressed along and because it was raining, there was no sign of his buddy who sits behind the gate at the top of the hill, no sign of the dog a few houses along who thinks he's his buddy but isn't really because he looks like Cerberus and not even a single cat loitering in a garden to sneak up on. That's right, when the rain is being evacuated from the sky, there are very few constants you can rely on. Where are all your friends now? Inside, looking out of the window, dry as a bone and dunking biscuits, that's where.
Almost an hour later, we arrive back home. He gets dried first. Two towels. Then I dry myself. One towel. That's all you need when you've been hit by the rain. A towel. It doesn't need to be the end of the world. Doesn't mean you need to stay inside and wait for it to pass. All you need is a towel.
There's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.
I hang the towels up to dry (in the house - only a fool would hang them outside in the rain) and remember that I'm supposed to be in New York in three weeks. Three weeks today in fact. I have booked no hotel yet and no flight. I should probably do something about that.
A man who doesn't book his flight and hotel isn't going anywhere.
I like that one. It won't go down in the annals of history but it's mine and that's what I bring to the Table of the Gods today. Something for The Gods themselves to consider while they're stoking the coals on the barbecue and waiting for the sausages to cook.
My eldest daughter calls me up just before lunch. I forget she is old enough to do grown up things now. Scary. She doesn't know how to vote in the European stay or go argument - I don't know why she is asking me but I tell her what I do know:
Back in the early 1980s, Ace Frehley decided to leave Kiss. He might have thought he had enough collateral to make a really good go of it by himself and he did leave. This was something of a blow to Kiss but with or without him, they were still Kiss. Turns out that Ace didn't have enough to make it on his own but Kiss were never the same from that point onwards either. Nobody won and nobody lost because both sides said they had won even when both sides had lost. If both sides had won, they would simply say the other side was lying.
Such is the way The Gods like to make The Ball Of Dirt spin. Distraction tactics. The longer we are kept occupied with concerns about rain, politics and dogs with heads that are too big for their body, the longer they get to sit in the garden and sink a few more Desperados.
Which is actually not a bad way to conduct your life at all.
The Reading List
Finished this earlier in the week. Great French noir from back when French noir was king… picked up at Hatchards at St Pancras train station who have a healthy stock of titles from Pushkin Vertigo and is a very nice bookstore indeed.
Dragonfly
Further pushing the envelope on this weeks String Theory post, I also started work on a book I've been tossing about like a salad for over a year. God only knows how long it will take me to finish it but work has begun. It's called Dragonfly and is a bona fide stab at seeing if I have the mental stamina to take it all the way to 80,000 words without skipping a beat in the plot.
There will be crime and there will be detection - if I do my job right, we might not be able to tell which is which. There may also be supernature. In all likelihood, we shall not speak of this book title again for quite some time but I may feel the need to use this place as a confessional if things get rough along the way.
Being one who hand-writes, I decided I should instigate a new notebook for said project, so I put together a nice blank hardback with full dust-jacket to make it Very Real to write in. A hulking great 500 page thing that looks a little like this:
Now all I have to do is fill in all the pages with some words. It can't get much simpler than that.
Sometimes I think I have too many unfinished books on the plate but today is not one of those days. Today is a day in which I say YES! Let's write all of these books. Let's see just how far I can push myself...
I am in writing mode and that's good enough for now, though I still haven't fixed my Waterman (if you missed that news, I dropped it nib first on the floor which rendered it officially dead) and have begun 'The Work' using a Parker ballpoint - which is not as horrendous as I thought it would be. Not the same by any stretch of the imagination but no... not bloody awful either.
In some other news around here - if you're subscribed to blog posts by emails here, you'll probably have missed me posting up a few of my favourite interviews with tattoo artists - what's there right now is not all of them by any means - I'm backtracking through the back issues and plucking them out once a week... and behind the scenes on that front also, I'm toying with a much larger project that's totally screwing with my head on how to deliver it. If I can't blow it up out of all proportion, I think I would rather kill it stone dead with a hammer. Time will be the judge of that little monster.
That's all I got. Go do something amazing... like tell your kids it's OK to have seemingly dumb ideas about the things they want to do with their lives when they grow up... or take the dog for a midnight walk - which is exactly what I'm going to do, even if he doesn't want to.
That will teach him a good lesson about waking me up early.
String Theory
Finally - The Other Piece Of Work is complete. Two major projects down within a few weeks of each other is a good place to be in any world - and this week I've also wrapped up two magazines which (bar some admin kicking about) leaves me with that valuable old resource called Room To Breathe.
Not wanting to stop the roll I appear to be on (even if that roll is only visible to myself) and with The Two Big Things sitting in publishing limbo, I figured this might be a good time to do something visible... and being as these things like to hang out in pairs these days, there will be two of them:
The first will be completed by the end of May and is a short novel called The Man Who Lived Again which will be released digitally as a 'kindle single' - not sure what they call them over at iBooks when there's no suitable marketing psuedo-rhyme available, but it will be available there too. Along the same lines of The Eternity Ring in its length and pacing, the tagline for it is 'What If Everyone You Had Ever Loved Was Waiting For You Somewhere Else', which is as much as I'm going give you right now but a cover is in the pipeline and I'll post it as soon as it's finished.
The second will be completed when I run out of things to say on the subject and is my old unfinished friend (because I threw the first draft away and started again), Raised On Radio, which will be available both digitally and as a softback through Bad Hare. It's kind of a follow up to Black Dye White Noise but probably has more in common with Nick Hornby's 31 Songs. There's a possibility I may also put out a limited edition hardback of it but I'll cross that bridge later. Nice idea though.
It's good to be busy - there's still a lot of notebooks kicking around here and I have no idea what may come next. One thing at a time.
That's all I got today. Maybe that's enough.
Be A Fucking Lion
Yesterday (which was Tuesday, in case I don't get around to posting this when I intend to) I headed out to see Chris Cornell at the RHA. Simply wonderful - I should review the show properly but to dissect it into words would be to cheapen it for myself, so I'm not going to. If you cared that much, you should have been there. You missed a treat:
I've decided that when I grow up, I want to be Chris Cornell.
These pics come from the hand of Christie Goodwin who you can find here: christiegoodwin.com - nice work in the extreme.
With the fire of Cornell at my heels, Wednesday kind of came and went in a blur of catching up what I missed doing because I was there. By Thursday (which is today - or at least it is at the moment) I felt inspired to do something which came loosely under the banner of 'useful'...
So I adopted a lion. I have not abandoned the bears but I figured, if you have a bear, what possible difference could a lion make. If you're in the mood to make a difference to the world - and you can even for a measly £2.50 a month - run your face over to Born Free and chip in.
Make a difference. What else have you done today?
Finally, this - from the immortal Robert Crumb:
Je Suis Alfred E. Neuman
That Other Piece Of Important Work I've been talking about? I'm getting there. I printed it off today to start bringing it to a close and it's looking good. I don't think I've written anything better than this in my life so again, don't expect this anytime soon because I'm going hunting: Hunting for the best home I can find for it.
This is a good place to say a big thanks to those who sampled the proof copies I made available a year or so ago - things have changed within hugely and it's all the better for it. I'm talking of course, about The Family Of Noise.
So, being as the two things I've been burning up grey matter over during the last few months are going to be in agency/publishing limbo for a little while, as soon as I nail down the last full stop at the end of The Family Of Noise, I shall turn my eyes towards releasing another book of short stories.
As luck would have it, I began to collate that collection quite some time ago, but I won't pre-empt anything with a date. That will also be ready when it's ready.
I can't remember where I found this but take a look at this fine rejection letter (not to me) from the annals of time.
Dear Lord, how I would love to send something similar out when it came to the day job but somehow, I don't think many would get the joke.
I miss MAD magazine - and I'm not talking about the shadow-type thing it's become in the last twenty years either. Here's some Don Martin gold from the early eighties - right before it began to run out of steam:
Maybe you had to be there - but I don't think so.
Finally, here's an addition to the Places I'd Like To Sit And Write One Day series. I'm seeing a recurring theme of isolation, trees and water developing:
Checking In
The Really Important Thing I've been working on recently is now complete. I may be saying this more for my benefit than yours, so sorry about that if you expected anything more. This means it's time to move on to The Other Really Important Thing That Was Waiting In The Wings and finish that as well - pretty smartish. That will make two major things wrapped up and should release my head from the purgatory state it's been in for far too long.
When will things be available to read? When they are ready. Thank you for your patience if you happened to be rapping your fingers.
Hector got a haircut this week. Here he is on the decking that's seen better days. Note to self: do something about that some day...
Also on the photographic front, I should begin making plans to head out to Switzerland soon and pay a visit to this town and train station they named after me:
...that's what I told the kids anyway. I guess they won't believe me when I tell them such things for much longer.
The Minimalism Of Minimalism
I figured I’d best write the next instalment of my series on minimalism - and then I stopped… what am I? A fucking babysitter for people who can’t control their own impulses? A nu-age internet guru dishing out handy tips for people too busy to figure out how to live a life that's worth something?
No. That’s not what I built this place for and I have things to do, so:
Get rid of your shit: If you didn’t own it already, how much would you pay to have it in your life? There’s your answer to most of your problems.
Traveling light: If you want to take all your stuff around the world with you like a soon to be evicted hermit crab, knock yourself out. What the hell do I care. See you by the pool sucker.
Soul Ache: If you care more about inanimate objects than you do about people, your soul has gone the same way as Elvis - straight out of the stage door in search of a burger with fries. Don’t forget the cheese while you're looking for it.
My Advice: Once you stop worrying what others think about you, you’ll realise how little they do.
I don't think I left anything out.
Taken from The Unwritten. An even better graphic novel series than Sandman.
Ham Meet Rye. Rye, Meet Ham
There's nothing quite like a great literary tattoo to start the week with a bang. This Bukowski comes from the hand of a friend of a friend - Lea Nahon who you can find here in all her unfettered glory.
Lea is one of my personal top ten favourite artists in the world - proper feature type thing of many words coming your way in the next issue (#264) of the mag if you're looking for more. People can be quite vocal about Bukowski's right to be called 'literary', but you don't see many Thomas Hardy tattoos around, so I rest my case.
Out here in Lonely-Land, I'm just coming up to the end of a final draft of The Really Important Thing I've been working on these last few weeks. I'm pretty excited about it. It's some of the best work I've done - and I don't say that lightly. I'm my own harshest critic every single day of the week - and this is standing its ground on all fronts. I'll post updates when it gets where I think it's going and then... we wait.
It Just Doesn't Add Up
My small person has to sit her exams next summer. I sympathise a little but the sentence I hear more than any other on the subject is "But you don't understand how much harder it is than when you where in school." Given that I failed my maths exam at school and then flunked out on it the next four times I took it (making a grand total of five and totally proves I can add up), I've decided to share her pain.
She's struggling with maths too, so today I went out and bought one of those course syllabus text books to help out. And I don't understand any of it. Not even a little bit.
Then I thought: what if I taught myself GCSE maths from this very book and sat the exam at the same time - obviously not in the same room, she would die of embarrassment. I've already been warned in no uncertain terms over any inclination I might have about putting a band together. Anyway, I'm going to do it. How hard can it be if thousands of 16 year old kids can pass it with flying colours?
Very hard is the answer but there's only one way to find out for sure.
On the positive side, as a friend of mine in his forties who quit his job to go to university to learn how to be cameraman once said: "If I knew how little work everybody did, I would have just changed my work hours around, done two courses and still finished it in a year."
I've been toying around with a thing from the past today. Last weekend (or maybe it was the weekend before), I re-homed around 100 books. There are more books here already lined up which has left a nice hole in my psyche and the list of Things I Am In Charge Of.
Maybe there's room for a little something I once loved (but failed miserably to tend to properly) to come back in - and when I say 'a little something', I mean... small:
There's something about taking a Bonsai and looking after it properly that I find most attractive. The fact that I have never actually looked after one beyond round five months is another matter - and as much as a bad workman will blame his tools, what did I expect from a tree that cost £10 from the local DIY store? For the record, this one here is from a reputable dealer and is in good health to begin with. I think I'll find that might help a lot.
Finally - for I have things to do and was just killing time while my brain absorbed coffee here - if you're in the market for a new read and have chewed up/spat out everything I pointed at last week, you could do worse than hunt this down:
Personally speaking, I am not allowing myself to make this purchase until I have conquered a couple more shelves on the bookcase.
Which brings us to an interesting point if anybody was following my posts on minimalism:
Strictly speaking, I don't need any of these things but the math book is transient and useful, the tree is beautiful and the book looks like it will rock like a mother. Those things are very much allowed and need no justification at all.
If I am true to form, I will abandon the first, kill the second, devour the third and balance will be restored within a month.
Cars Hiss By My Window. Honest They do...
Over at The Flood Gallery, this Doors poster by Adam Pobiak has just gone up for sale and my plastic card is itching already. There are four variants in different limited runs and prices - hit the Flood link for the main page, you'll have to do your own detective work...
Meanwhile, in other services to popular culture, over at my buddy Brian Ewing's store, we have this slice of Iggy Pop action - also available in multiple variants. Same rules apply as above (so below):
Finally, being as we're on the subject of music, Zakk Wylde launched his own line of guitars this week - I believe his store is now officially open right here.
If nothing else, one of these in your house will make you want to learn to play pretty damn fast.
Thus ends the End Of Week Round Up Of Things To Get Rid Of Your Money On Pretty Fast.
Now, back to writing stuff...
A Word On Record Store Day
This coming Saturday (April 16th) is Record Store Day. For all intents and purposes, if you own a deck, you should be out supporting your local indie and helping them stay open in harsh times. The record stores themselves would be more than happy if you bought anything at all but it would be much cooler if you got yourself something good, don't you think?
Not that I'm an expert - though in reality, I beg to differ - if you need a hand, in no particular order here's some killer releases you should make an effort to get your hands on:
1: The Doors • Live at the Aquarius: The First Performance
A triple album no less! In a limited quantity of 5000, this Record Store Day version features the Doors' first night of a two night stand at the Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
2: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts • Sinner
Originally released in 2006, Sinner contains the original fourteen tracks, (on 150gram clear vinyl), includes a download card with the full album plus bonus enhanced footage including videos for A.C.D.C. and Androgynous as well as a pdf of lyrics (yeah, they should really stop doing this right - if you want to give us lyrics, put them on the freaking inside sleeve). Limited to 4000 copies. Great album regardless of the nonsense bagged up with it.
3: Cheap Trick • At Budokan
Back in April 1978, Cheap Trick capitalized on their wild popularity in Japan by performing and recording two shows at the Nippon Budokan located in the center of Tokyo in front of 12,000 screaming fans. In February 1979, the legendary 10-track Cheap Trick at Budokan was released and the album peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 becoming the band’s best-selling album with over 3 million copies sold. This 'Complete Concert’ edition features all of the 19 songs featured during those historical shows spread over two LPs. Simply awesome. Don't like Cheap Trick? You know nothing about rock n roll my friend. Limited to 5000 copies - dig it.
4: Chris Cornell • Euphoria Mourning
First released in September 1999 under the title ‘Euphoria Morning’ (with the missing ‘u’), this was Cornell’s first solo album and his only album released between the split of Soundgarden and the formation of Audioslave. In Cornell’s own words “The title of the record has been restored to its original spelling, which was changed before release after I listened to some bad advice.”
Featured on the album is first single, ‘Can’t Change Me’, which was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the 2000 GRAMMY Awards. ‘Flutter Girl’ was reportedly an outtake from Soundgarden’s 1994 album, Superunknown, while Cornell revealed later on during a 2007 solo tour that ‘Wave Goodbye’ was written as a tribute to Jeff Buckley, who drowned in Memphis in 1997.
One of my favourite albums of all time. Trust me on this.
5: Zakk Wylde • Book Of Shadows II
As fierce and diverse as his work in BLS and as large as his accomplishments as lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne have been, Book of Shadows II offers an even richer look into the spirit and psyche of one of the most beloved pillars of the hard rock community. Book Of Shadows II was just released this week - and if you think you know exactly what to expect based on that write-up, think again. Available at all the usual digital places if you're curious but on vinyl, this is rock at its best. Again... trust me on this.
Footnote: this means going to find a record store and not heading to the local supermarket because they have figured out there could be money in selling vinyl. Do the right thing.
•••
Interestingly, I was wondering why there wasn't also an indie bookstore day - but then I went to look and found that there is. They have a site here and I've never been quite so disappointed by anything in my life. Is that really it?
I guess it's OK if you want to buy books about cats, tea towels or a colouring book.. because GOD KNOWS THAT'S JUST WHAT WE NEED IN OUR BOOK STORES right?
Why hasn't somebody curated fifty books from around the world - classics and modern - and gotten some designers on the case? There are dozens of things the publishing world could have collectively pulled together to make it great but all I see is not very much at all to do with reading.
Just promotional crap.
Are we still seriously sitting around wondering why there are less indie bookstores left in the world than there are Bengal Tigers?
•••
Meanwhile, work still continues on Something Important which Needs To Be Done Soon - it's important to me anyway - so expect sporadic updates at best. I'll clue you in just as soon as I know more.