Stop.

If they are in your way

Slow

Turn

Stop

If they’re blocking your flow

Change

Soften

Yield

If they will not submit

Dance

Adapt

Improvise

Or

Just walk in the goddamn road.

Everything spins into today.

Daydreams fight their way into me and I fight

Back

I’m a wall

A tank

A stray dog unleashed

Protecting no one  

Only fighting to keep what is

Mine

The little sanity left

From the overspill of years gone by

When the rain fell like it

Falls

Today, and I sit alone staring out of windows

As the grey sky

Grey city

Grey heartbeats

Turn toward death and menace

And wishes try to slide under the carpet

Under the floorboards

Through my misted eyes in an attempt to make me

Succumb to the other reality

The non local, non event

A rise in adrenaline and car crash of mind

Body

And soul

I am a prisoner with nothing to lose

No escape necessary

Simply drowning in idiocy and hatred

Pessimism and naive fantasy combining

Like knives in my back

And it all spins into today

Same as last year

Same as the last 20 years

In and out

Back to front and a hundred miles to heaven

The grey city envelopes me

Suffocates in some kind of childish game

The words fail as always

The faces blank, voices are background radiation

At best

And the only sense to be made from it 

All 

Remains light years away.

It’s really not as easy as it seems.

A board drops with a loud CLACK

Legs push and push then stand

Lean

Carve

Roll around corners

It glides through

On and on...

But that is not what I see.

I see broken paving stones

Uneven curbs

Small plant life creeping from

Between cracks

Soft tar

Rough pebble dash concrete

Jagged drain covers

Wet from the morning rain

Dog shit

Pigeon shit

Spilt coffee and last nights vomit

I see a chasm of bodies

Columns of legs closing in

Arms out dangling steaming

Hot coffees

Eyes away

Or down on phones

Unaware

And then Broken glass 

Dogs

Feral children...

I see around corners

I see the ground immediate, and the

Road ahead

All at once

I lighten my body and

Lower my centre of gravity

Within a split second

Buildings pass at high speed but

I turn right angles before

You

Can blink

And stop on the spot as though

Glued to the street

All this to get from point A

To point B.

20 years in, and it is still so

Much

Fun.

Viewage

Tonight:

Tomorrow:

Customer service

Because I'm petty, and bored...

From: buying@*******.com
To: *********@hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:06:41 +0100
Subject: Your ****order has been posted.

Dear *******

Your order for "Toy Story 3: Double Play has been posted by the ****** Seller ****UK.
Please allow 3-4 days delivery.  Please check the following order information:

On 21 Jul 2011, at 09:17, ********@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hello
I was not aware when ordering, that this item was used and may need to return it if the condition is not satisfactory. Can you please let me know the procedure should I need to do so. 

Kind regards

********

From: ********@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:45:17 +0100
Subject: Re: Your ******* order has been posted.
To: ***********@hotmail.com

It’s really very clear on the ****.com website when things are sold used or sold new. I am a private trader using the ****.com ******* facility to sell on my used products. This product was really clearly indicated as “Used – Very Good” under the condition column. In future, I suggest you pay closer attention to what you are buying to save situations such as this. I have refunded and cancelled the order. Luckily, I have managed to stop the parcel being posted (although that’s a wasted jiffy bag).

Thanks.

*******.

Sent from my iPhone

Dear *****

Thank you for reply and for refunding the item. I’m not quite sure where your frustration stems from, however I’d suggest you re-read some of your email replies prior to sending out, to try and limit the hostile tone contained therein.

Firstly I clearly stated that I – myself – did not notice the item was used until after the fact, and thereby claimed the oversight as my own.

Nor did I ask you to refund the dvd. I asked for details of the procedure in case I felt a return was necessary. The fact you have kept the item has inconvenienced me greatly, as it was to be a gift for a small child whom now may go without a birthday present due to your inability to read plainly worded emails.

Lastly, I truly and deeply regret your loss of a jiffy bag. If you can spare a moment out of your busy schedule of posting dvds and not reading people’s correspondence properly, I would be more than happy (possibly even joyously so) to send you a brand new jiffy bag for all of the trouble I have caused by requesting you press some buttons on your computer keyboard.

Peace love and understanding,

Mr ***** Esq. BA, PhD, MD.

Broken Bells

I had to do the 'who's this playing?' thing, for the first time in years, in Selectadisc - sorry - Sister Ray the other day. It was these guys. Not this track, but this video has Christina Hendricks in it so, yeah...

J Lee

After reading the Jason Lee interview at ABD I thought I'd post the clip that I've watched a million times and that everyone who skates already owns... so really what's the point. But here you go:

Riot quote of the week

Thought I'd let all the hoo-haa die down before bothering with any mention of the local mischief...

'Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.' Karl Popper

Show

30 Davies Street London W1K 4NB www.gimpelfils.com Corinne Day THE FACE 1 September - 1 October 2011 Private View: Thursday 1 September, 6-8 pm For further information please contact alice@gimpelfils.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 2488  Gallery hours:  Mon - Fri 10am - 5.30pm, Sat 11am - 4pm Follow us on Facebook

A conversation started by a link to Rolling Stone...

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rza-discusses-his-role-producing-watch-the-throne-20110801

Honestly, I’m just over Kanye and all them – if Hov wants to come with a grimy analog hip hop album then I’m there – otherwise it’s all equivalent to Em doing a record with frickin’ Rhi-Rhi as far as I’m concerned. Wasted talent.

Ha!

I put 95-2005 Hov over pretty much all other mc’s as far as the perfect mix of lyrics, flow, wit, consistency, punchlines, beat selection, beef, ‘swag’ *ahem* and all that, which makes this ‘I’ve still got it’ old man routine all the more painful as a Jigga fan from back in the day. Seriously, remember our debates/arguments about whether he was any good aside from reasonable doubt? It’s painful for me to watch.

Right. And when ‘on to the next one’ drops you’re like – again – why aren’t you doing WHOLE ALBUMS of this? Same with Em for me – where even on ‘without me’ (which I dislike) lyrically and the way he flows is still the shit, but I cannot get past the music. Wasted.

All those cats need to: make your mark/money/move on. You’re not Led Zeppelin or the Beatles or Radiohead where you can change record to record and maintain any semblance of integrity – so stop trying.

Or even the soulful shit on ‘American Gangster’... Hov and Beans over a Just Blaze / Isley Brother’s loop? Yes please.  This skinny jeans / electro beats soul sample with me shouting ‘swag' for four minutes is a waste of everything. 

Yeah Em needs to stop too, sadly some of his flow on ‘relapse’ is the best he’s ever had, but the beats and the content? Horrid.  Do that Scarface shit, of, ‘every five years I drop an  album, same producers, same vibe, same ethos.  Maybe the odd club track’...I think it’s called ‘doing me’.  fuck all this ‘I’m still twenty’ shit.

Dudes are killing rap.  Them and the blog rappers. Fuck it, whatever, it’s over.  Life goes on.

It’s true – funnily enough it parallels skateboarding like that – it goes in cycles of getting too big/overexposed and the only thing it can do to prevent imploding completely is to go underground again and recoup.

Like I don’t give a flying fig that P-Rod is in the new Nike TV commercial along with some surfers/bmxers etc – all glossy and shit. Same with the Adidas one – all ‘faces’ and hype. Pah – there IS no scene anymore – there is no music industry anymore!

It’s all mass marketed - homogenised bullshit. And still, at the end of the day there’ll always be some dude skating a waxed curb somewhere by himself, and having a blast - and dudes in a basement making fat beats that will never see the light of day, bar on a mix CD.

So yeah – whatever.

MS

Yellow circus left the stakes a broken ropes world's useless mug
The ties that bind, ha ha
I can be bad poet
Street poet
Shit poet
Kind poet too

Subway
Almost 4AM
Halloween night
Had enough to drink to make my own party
All my fellow writers in half costume, half asleep
Half silly, gone to seed

I don't mark my time with dates, holidays, faded wisdom, locked karma holders
Convenient

I am made by my times
I am a creation of now
Shaken with the cracks and crevices
I'm not giving up easy
I will not fold
I don't have much
But what I have is gold

I saw your face...

I sing in platinum
I dress in brass
I eat in zinc
Let it pass

Compare a toast
I like that
I understand courage
I still roll with the shout of a character I was married to today
I try to see outside myself
I understand the eyes
Excuse all the highs
Sorry
I am sorry
Ha ha

I like you, love you, every coast of you.
I've seen your eddies and tides and hurricanes and cyclones.
Low ebb tide and high, full moon.
Up close and distant.
I read you.
Look, the sky, the sea, the ocean, the sun, the moon.
Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue blue, blue, blue, blue, blue.
Naked and blue.

Breathing with you. Touch. Change. Shift. Allow air. Window open. Drift. Drift away. Into now.

I want Whitman proud. Patti Lee proud. My brothers proud. My sisters proud. I want me. I want it all. I want sensational. Irresistible.

This is my time and I am thrilled to be alive.
Living. Blessed. I understand.


REM. Blue.

Survival techniques

Today the inside of my brain looks like this...

Wow, guilt.

When you are attacked so frequently,

Softly and over time,

You remain hardened without any effort

At all.

Everything is practicality winning out.

Utilitarianism,

For want of a better term.

Fear for

Another.

Defence and survivalism

And so on.

When your head is at 45 degrees

For most of the day,

Eyes open most of the

Night,

Your walls are at least chest high.

Jacket zipped -

Buttons fastened -

Laces tucked within your shoes to avoid any

Snags.

Pretence will do where

Otherwise an air of alienation would envelope

You.

And so an arms length becomes the

Normal unit of measure.

And so on.

When you live

Through these minor fluctuations of realism,

Never quite gaining a foothold on

Solid ground,

Always being the lost puzzle piece,

Everything is suspect.

Second guesses lead to a third and to the

Nth degree.

And so this leads me

To yesterday,

In the middle of a playground sandpit

Walking away from a young girl

Who was just trying to be friendly.

My auto response button stuck down.

Before even feeling the sand shift

Under my feet,

I am away.

Maybe she was normal,

Maybe she was a freak.

Though if she wasn’t she didn’t give me the

Secret handshake we freaks like to exchange

Under tables in small Parisian cafes.

And either way

She’d probably watched people walk away from her

All her short

Life.

Who knew?

Again and as usual

All of this had to be brought to my attention

After the fact.

(For someone so interested in human behaviour

I seem to be remarkably

Insensitive to other peoples feelings...)

I took it all away with me and forgot about it

Until this morning, when I kind of felt what she

Did,

Or must have.

And it was nothing.

Neither sadness nor rejection but

The normality of it all.

Oh look -

They’re leaving me alone

Sitting here in the playground with

My sandals off and little

Red painted toenails

Peeking up from beneath the sand.

No surprise at all.

And my stomach hurt for a moment

And all those other things

Inside and out

Cumulus rain clouds

Pins and needles

The survival

Pretence and

Alienation

Minor tricks of the moronic

Trickling down the back of your neck

They all

Gained a little perspective.

Tangled

Even if it did have musical numbers, I liked it...

A photograph

of Jake by Mark J. Which I liked - so posted up. Why not eh. Though what are those 3 lights in the sky about? Are they just street lights - or the Summer Triangle? Coincidence or some subtle Illuminati code? You decide, I don't care either way. From the Alley.

Hail Mary Mallon

If you have to ask, you'll never know.

Eames

About a hundred years ago while Lu and I were in San Francisco, in one of the last bars where you could still smoke, we were sitting up on a dark balcony listening to the DJ play a really good set of classic hip hop while a projection played on one of the wall. The projection was a series of looped films by Charles and Ray Eames. Most people usually recognise their Eames 'Lounger' chair more than anything else they did - and they did a lot. These guys were polymaths - and pretty much borderline geniuses in my eyes.This is one such film - a deceptively simple idea elegantly executed. Take the time to YouTube some more and read up on them as the work is really inspiring.

Pfanti Hero

Chris Pfanner from dlxsf on Vimeo.

C. R. Stecyk III

Luxuria, C. R. Stecyk III from MOCA on Vimeo.

Natas animation

Natas Skateboard Projection Paris from Blue Collar Distro on Vimeo.

Imagine a plucked, white skinned turkey that won’t shut the fuck up, and you’ll be halfway there.

Suffering is a state of mind

If indeed you have a mind

The ability to speak does

Not

Make you right minded

Or left in a field of daisies

Dreaming

And yet – HARK - this

Noise

Fills the air

Hanging there

Like a wet towel stinking and

Raw

A damp taste on your

Buds

And you are left

Craving ice and mountain air

And you are left wanting to

Hike the north face

Granite hard and clear as day

Left open mouthed

Eyes raised to the rolling flurries

That keep you upright on

Your spikes

But instead we hang beneath cars

Sucking giant tail pipes

Suck up the grey motherfucker

This is what we do

Accept it

And you are right

Craving acceptance and credibility

And you are left alone

With no one to face

Granite hard and black as night

Open mouthed

Eyes raised

Upright on your spikes

And by the way

Turkey

Chicken

Duck

Pig or warthog

They’re all the same

Gobble, snort, rut, fuck, die.

Quote of the day

“I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck.” Crowley.