George Carlin. 1937-2008

 god dammit…

Seriously what’s going on? I didn’t even post up Stan Winston’s passing on here, as I thought it would be one too many… Is 2008 the Chinese year of ‘every cool person dying’ or something? Like me, Carlin was a huge Robert Anton Wilson fan,

NK

If anyone else did a method out of a curb cut, it would look ridiculous

Didn't it rain...

 

Sunny outside so I thought I'd post this up. I hope that when I'm an old lady, and I get a horse drawn carriage to the train station, I can sling an electric guitar over my shoulder and sing some super-bad gospel... Sister Rosetta kicks ass.

'because I'm C Brown - class clown'

Bo Diddley

I'm not going to be Obituary boy and post every time someone I like dies - but - if it wasn't for Bo Diddley, alongside Little Richard and Chuck Berry - you wouldn't be listening to 80% of the music you have on your I-Pod right now. So recognise.   Dec 30, 1928 – Jun 2, 2008

Get Orf My Land!

How can you tell if you’re not welcome somehwere? Hint: If you’re in a helicopter and dudes are trying to warn you off with a BOW AND ARROW, it’s safe to assume that:

A. They don’t want you there, and
B: They have no idea what the fuck a helicopter is.
Ergo –
C: Want to be left alone.

Unfortunately, I get the feeling this won’t be the case. And now these tribesmen who have up until now lead pretty normal lives in the middle of the rainforest – will be praying to whichever god they believe in, to protect them from the ‘flying metal demon’ that haunts their dreams.
Score yet another point for whitey!

R.I.P Camu Tao

Just posted at definitive Jux:

Today, at around 2pm, our dear friend, family member and musical collaborator Tero “CAMU TAO” Smith passed away in his home town of Columbus, Ohio. Tero had been quietly fighting for his life for the last year and a half after being diagnosed with lung cancer.

To those who knew Tero, he was an almost uncategorizable force of nature. Wild, hilarious, proud, loving, tough, outspoken, spontaneous and brilliant. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he dripped creativity, leaving inspiration and awe in the hearts and minds of anyone who was fortunate enough to see him work.

Art pt5

There’s not a great deal about Paul Laffoley that I could communicate to you in a way that would make any sense, except that he is a 68 year old artist / architect. Really, I couldn’t explain it any more deeply right now.
I’m lucky enough to own a rare book of his called The Phenomenology of Revelation, which documents his work pretty concisely.

Billy Childish

 Click the title for a link to a good Podcast featuring Billy Childish. 

If you don't know who Billy is, then just click the link anyway, listen and learn something for gods sake...

From the LA downhill to Capitol Hill

And speaking of radical, the top pic is a of Corey Webster - sorry - Josh Brolin from un upcoming George W Bush biopic from Oliver Stone. The other pic is Corey - sorry - Josh in 'maybe the best skateboard movie ever', Thrashin'. Funny how things change... well... not really funny but - oh whatever. I'm off to buy a bowling pin for my dining table.

Hot + Hot = radical!

This pic was in a few newspapers but as far as I'm concerned should have been front page. It's not from Close Encounters, but is the volcanic explosion in Chile. Volcanic ash rising up and as far as I understand, being hit by lighting from a massvie passing storm. I'm sure there's a scientific term for this (which I will look up shortly) but for now we'll go with my brothers succinct description of 'the coolest photo ever...'

Sweet 16 / 2

Sweet 16

Got this book for my birthday - highly recommend it.

You don't have this

...and most who have seen it would say you don't want it either.

Back in the 70's we invented these things called 'VCR's' that played 'tapes'. 

This is truly awful - actually, it's surreal. Though there are some good bits...

Coffee, Donuts and noodles (oh my)

It's amazing what you can get if you just ask...

Albert Hofmann: 1906 - 2008

Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, who accidentally ingested some 

and then found out what it was really for, died today.

Saturday Sun day

 

Had a nice little skate at South Bank, despite the Dutch festival.

Art pt4

Spatial Concept `Waiting' by Lucio Fontana, 1960.

You know that scene in Ferris Bueller where Cameron has a proper 'moment' while staring into that Seurat painting? That happened to me the first time I stood in front of this. This is one of my (and Lu's) favourite ever pieces of art and you can see it in the Tate Modern.

'87 - that was my favourite shit, god...

May not have been '87, but close enough. I have lost nearly all my old copies of R.A.D, but remember this advert like it was yesterday. By the way, the other end of that blue ledge that Jonah is skating, is where I got closest in my life to actually dying. From www.whenwewasrad.co.uk.

10.05 a.m - Where I'm at

Listening to: NIN, 21 Ghosts III.
Looking at: Battersea power station on the horizon, across the river Thames.
Drinking: free coffee.
Reading Rilke:

If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place.

Art pt3

So I thought adding Giger would be the blog equivalent of having a Reservoir Dogs poster on your bedroom wall, right? Seminal, one-of-a-kind etc but too obvious? Meh.

Book Launch last night

Book launch at the Cornell Spaceship Gallery last night, went well - though you’ll have to take my word for it because like the goober I am, I forgot my camera.

However I thought I’d post anyway just to say well done to my lovely wife for organising the whole thing. As usual it was months of hard work ending with a very successful event.

Click the title to link to the Smashed Landscape page and visit the gallery if you’re in the area.

Spoken Word night

10.30p.m. Just got back from a reading at Moonbows in Brockley. Went pretty well. The next Open Mic night there is actually on my birthday - Tues May 6th at 8pm. So if any of you fancy coming down to hear some poems and buy me a drink, then do so.

Also I've been thinking about death quite a bit recently, and though Jake and me were discussing the down side of constantly posting YouTube clips on our blogs, seeing as he loaned me all his Iron and Wine CD's, I had to put this on here as it's one of the most beautiful songs about death that I know. Night night:

Chuck Heston

You can take my guns now.

40 wpm

Trying to switch the TV off is a challenge. I just zone out and stare every night - so thought 'd go the other way and try to read 3 books at once.

It's not going well.

Comic book movies suck

O.k. not all of them suck - but most. They're never as good as the source material. There's a new Punisher film coming out which again, will poop all over the comics. The Punisher was sick, and apart from X-Men, was the only comic series I collected EVERYTHING from beginning to end.

Anyway, while organising I pulled these out, They're the No1 of the 4 issue limited series, and No1 of the War Zone series (which they've decided to name the new film after) The War Zone cover is rad as it's die-cut.

Star Wars toys that never came to be

Nuff Said.

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him.

The three laws of prediction:

1. When a scientist states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

"These are simple words, but in them exists a very singular hope: science can do anything that strong and able minds ask it to, and that a faith in science doesn’t remove one from a sense of wonder."

Arthur C Clarke, 1917 – 2008

Best Movie Soundtracks PT2:

O.k. this isn’t actually a soundtrack, but, I consider it a soundtrack album in that - like the new Nine Inch Nails instrumental album Ghosts the sounds go hand-in-hand with landscapes, both actual and mental/visual landscapes.
‘When’ does contain vocals but most are sparse and infrequent.

And even though the first track is - without any hint of irony - called ‘I wrote this song for the girl Paris Hilton’ like Trouble Man, it’s an excellent record for riding the train or sitting in the back of a car with your headphones on.
Click the title for the website(note: this site is NEVER updated so don’t expect any recent news.

Art pt2

Second in the list of artists I want to big up on here, is Derek Hess. A lot of people will have seen this work on T-shirts or record covers for bands like Clutch and others, and not know who the artist is, so check out the website. The piece above is ‘Burned Out’ and is one of three that I have at home.