Ink Sweat and Tears

Charles over at inksweatandtears.com has again very kindly published a piece of my work.

Check it out HERE.

Everything has changed/Absolutely nothing's changed

So I’m starting a new job next week and I have that new boy anxiousness.

The work isn’t rocket science, so I know I can do it, but still, new people and a new environment make me a little uncomfortable as I’m a creature of habit. Also when you think that you spend half of your week at work – the same amount of time you’re at home (or wherever else you may be doing the things you actually enjoy in life) it kind of makes you wonder how much you become your job, or how much your chosen work affects your identity.

Keats said ‘A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence, because he has no identity - he is continually informing and filling some other body.’

Now I don’t call myself a ‘poet’ but if you replace that word with ‘artist’ you can see what he means. So maybe it’s even more difficult for someone who willingly embraces differing personas to feel anything but unsettled when having to introduce ‘himself’ to new people. Especially those to whom a good first impression is so important.

This counts even more for those who have been in the same job for maybe 4-5 years. It must inform part of your personality without you even realising until you stop and consider it for a moment.

‘I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity?’ Saroyan.

Again if you think of ‘madness’ in this context as artistic or creative expression of some kind, you can see what I mean. It’s a tough balance – and at this point - even at my age and with all my experiences, I don’t know if it ever ends.

Quote of the day

“my father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.” Tallulah Bankhead.

Genius (literally)

Grigory Perelman, the maths genius who said no to $1m... Perelman cracks a century-old conundrum, refuses the reward, and barricades himself in his flat... Read more

Historical Kitten

 

So, about 6 years back I did a telephone interview with Kitten Natividad that I was trying to get into Bizarre magazine. Suffice to say they didn't use it but I just came across the interview itself and thought I may as wellpost it up here. There is a bit of 'blue' language - just in case I have any younger viewers...

Films like ‘Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens’ and ‘Up!’ were like nothing else released at that time, with the extreme humour and cartoon-like dialogue. Were they received with some confusion? Oh no! People loved them baby, no one had EVER seen films dedicated to big titties like those before! They were freaked out but they loved them!

Do you don’t think there’s enough humour in adult films at these days? No way, it was all Russ, he was a genius! That’s why he's still here! That’s why I’M still here! Kicking butt! My fans are keeping it cult! Kitten interview at MySpace.

I need to be Columbo

Because if I was - while keeping one eye out for the STP/PJ double as reported below - I would have seen that these dudes are also playing that very same week. DAMN.

Countdown to 1996 Begins

Add these guys...


To these guys...


and it makes this coming June the best month of 2010.

O

To lexicographers it's just the 15th letter of the English alphabet. To designers it's a perfect shape for treatment: a world, a ball, a ring, a sun, a moon, a clock, a compass, a face. It's not even just a letter; it's a number, too – if zero counts as a number. It's a solid sphere or an empty circle... Read more

Amazing

I can almost guarantee I'm the only one who finds THIS SITE funny.

in my heeeeead!

Your favourite song comes on the radio. You hum the tune; the lyrics remind you of someone you know. Is your brain processing the words and music separately or as one? It's a hotly debated question that may finally have an answer.

People with aphasia, who can't speak, can still hum a tune, suggesting music and lyrics are processed separately. Yet brain scans show that music and language activate the same areas, which might mean the brain treats them as one signal. Read more

On a more positive note

 

I got some free wheels yesterday (cheers Jake) 

and this book came in the post, and will be on my person at all times.

Forgotten films PT2:

‘Pointy birds – a pointy pointy, anoint my head, anointy nointy.’

Hey – everyone remember when Steve Martin was funny? No me either – well ok, with the exception of this and maybe the one with Michael Caine where they’re hustlin’.ALTHOUGH - Man With 2 Brains does have a girl flash her boobs then sing Duke of Earl. And that was sampled for a Cypress Hill tune – so...

Forgotten films Pt1:

Not many people will have seen or maybe even remember this movie. It’s now 27 years old and I remember seeing it when I was around 14 and it being something that really blew my mind and actually with hindsight, made me ask a lot of the questions I still do today. It’s kind of hokey in places but the basic premise and way the film is handled is pretty amazing, and a few ropey effects aside it would still stand up today – at least story-wise.

I am genuinely surprised that in these days of lazy Hollywood remakes, no one has taken it onboard to fuck this up with a new version. I’d like to see it remastered maybe with some up to date CG replacing the 1980’s effects – but that aside it is a really good watch. One of Walken’s best of that era in my opinion, along with the Dead Zone. You can go find the trailer youself. What am I, your dad?

We Are Skateboarders

Best Movie Soundtracks: Pt5

 

'DOW DA-DA DA-DOOOOOW' Etc...

Best movie soundtracks: Pt4

Miles Davis pretty much improvised the body of the score with Barney Wilen on tenor sax, René Urtreger on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and drums by Ken Clarke. I recommend the reissued CD over the vinyl as you get a lot of outtakes. (This is what Eddie Izzard refers to as ‘sexychoons’.)

Clin-Ton

AVC:Who do you think will carry on the torch of funk?
GC: There’re no young bands. Most of us have been around a while, but most of the hip-hop and rappers have bands now that are really pretty funky. Eminem, even though we’ve known him for years, when he was 14 or 15, Mystikal - he was getting ready to be the shit. Then you got some funky groups like Chili Peppers.

 Though they’re like some R&B acts: When you get a few hits, you end up on the pop side of it. They could easily flip it. They have that kind of mentality. Then you’ve got a lot of metal-punk bands that’re really, really funky. Tool and groups like that. That’s some funky shit. They be playing with time and like jazz, but it’s straight off the punk-rock scene.

Quote of the day:

...I think that things are poetic when they don't have a boundary. Without rules. My life is poetic. It is better to live in a world of poetic meaning rather than hardcore reality.
Mark Gonzales.

Nothing is true

''Nothing is true until it makes you laugh, but you don’t really understand it until it makes you cry.''

So with that in mind, thanks again Pixar. I mean seriously. This is an instant favourite and an instant classic. No surprise there.

This dude

 

Frisbee inventor dies at 90 Walter Frederick Morrison, from Utah, got the idea for the Pluto Platter after tossing cake tins on the beach

Buckethead

I met this bloke...

Wow. I’ve been writing this blog for like 2 years and haven’t posted any Pete and Dud entries. What a moron. Considering the reason I started channelzero prose was to share all of my influences, and background on how my tiny brain came to be in the state it is today – I should’ve done this waaaay before now.

I can’t emphasise enough, how big a part of my youth these 2 were. Sitting in my room with my friend Craig and knowing every album verbatim. They’re like one of the foundations of my mentality. Maybe I discovered them at a key moment of imprint vulnerability or something... It’s this more respectable incarnation above that most people will know them. But this is the real genius:

 

Amber Benson Rocks

I may actually put that on a T-shirt: 'Amber Benson Rocks'. It'll be a good way to filter out all the uncool people.

Anyone that comes up and says 'Hey nice shirt!' would automatically be in the cool club. In the meantime, go and read her blog. I have no idea why it's taken me this long to link up to her page. She writes a bunch of cool stuff and 'has her fingers in a lot of pies', as they say. On top of all that - she's Amber Benson.

MONDO

Check out the Mondo BLOG. Random horror movie bits and other cool things. www.mondotees.com

Definitive Jux

I once got a very short email from DJ Big Wiz. Not name dropping I swear, it’s just that when someone you respect takes the time to write and say thanks to you - a kind of no one (in my case, for a review of an Aesop Rock gig) it confirms the feeling you had for that person was the right one. And it means you know you’re on the right team. With that in mind, this from EL-P @ definitivejux.net:

People keep asking me what's up with JUX. There's been some talk, there have been some rumors. Some half true, some way off. Reports of our demise have been mildly exaggerated. Here's what it really all boils down to.

This year, a decade after starting DEF JUX and after overseeing the releases of some incredible albums including the forthcoming release of my dear late and great friend Camu Tao's brilliant "KING OF HEARTS" LP, I'm stepping away from my duties as artistic director for the label to concentrate on what I love most: being a producer and an artist full time. This is something I've been contemplating for a few years now, and can't think of a better time or, with the eventual release of Camu's record, a more poetic way to transition into a new direction... READ MORE

So it seems the current incarnation of Definitve Jux as a record label is about to put on ‘hiatus’.

Jux had a lot of haters over the years and personally I have no idea why. Even if their music and the many artists they signed weren’t your particular brand of vodka – you couldn’t front on the sincerity and ambition inherent in the Def Jux family.

Now I’m sure a whole bunch of articles about this are going to be shat out online and in the music press by ‘professional journalists’. So instead of documenting a chronological nostalgia trip of the last 10 years (starting at Rawkus and ending in a totally surreal public debate between Cage and Vaste Aire for example) I thought I’d just show my respects the old fashioned (and lazy) way – by posting some good old music video highlights from what was/is undoubtedly one of, if not the most relevant and influential independent record label since Sub-Pop.

Now there are too many clips to post here, so it’s just a selection – and the Risky Business vid is tagged on because A: I have love for Murs, and B: It may be the cheapest video I’ve ever seen!

1922-2010

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as "A People's History of the United States," inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.

"He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect."

Suicide Girls Must Die

I’m not sure if you know about the Suicide Girls (of course you do, you’re not a fucking retard). 

But this is released on March 12th.

If you don't have a willy, you're not allowed in.

Title references an old Robert Anton Wilson bit about the vatican being a Patriarchal organisation. Aaaanyway...

Pope Benedict XVI has condemned British equality legislation for running contrary to "natural law" as he confirmed his first visit to the UK later this year.

In a letter addressed to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, the pope criticised UK legislation for creating "limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs".

It is thought his comments relate to laws that came in last year preventing adoption agencies from discriminating against gay couples and also Harriet Harman's equality bill, currently going through parliament.

In his letter the pope said: "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

Oh by the way, did you know that in 2005 former President Bush decided to give the Pope immunity in any legal cases involving child abuse by priests in the United States? Hahhaa haha ha ha hahaaa!

That tickles me. Here’s another: In 2005, the Pope listed several ways to combat the spread of HIV, including chastity, fidelity in marriage and anti-poverty efforts; he also rejected the use of condoms. Um, What? Oh you can explain – I apologise, go ahead...

In March 2009, the Pope stated: "I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money, necessary though it is. If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help, the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it.’’
Oh, ok cool – no, wait... that’s... what?

 

Pinnacle.

You start the day with
January faces
That are ended before the day starts
Cracked glass
The criminal Chinese
The Government taking your pay
Being bailed out by a parent when
You are one
Yourself
Is this a new low
Or a new high
?

Irony

A born-again Christian who believes abortion is a sin failed yesterday to convince a judge that he need not stand trial for murder after he admitted shooting dead an abortion doctor. Scott Roeder, 51, told the court in Wichita, Kansas, that on 30 May 2009, the day before he shot George Tiller, he had bought a .22-calibre gun and bullets and then practised target shooting with his brother.
The fact Roeder was the killer, with a single shot to the head, was not in doubt, but the confession was an attempted defence that he felt forced to act to save the lives of unborn children. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, and yesterday was the first time in US legal history that an anti-abortionist was allowed to present the jury with his justification for murder.

Tiller had long been a target for anti-abortionists as he was one of few doctors prepared to ¬perform legal abortions after 21 weeks of gestation. In 1986 his clinic was bombed and in 1993 he was shot in both arms, but he carried on working.

''But I'll tell you this. Where's this idea that childbirth is a miracle came from. Ha, I missed that fucking meeting, okay? It's a miracle, childbirth is a miracle. No it's not. No more than a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. It's a chemical reaction, that's all it fucking is. If, you you wanna know what a miracle is. Raisin' a kid that doesn't talk in a movie theatre. Okay, there, there, there’s a goddamn miracle. It's not a miracle if every nine months any yin yang in the world can drop a litter of these mewling cabbages on our planet. And just in case you haven't seen the single mom statistics lately - the miracle is spreading like wildfire. Hallelujah! Trailer parks and council flats all over the world just filling up with little miracles. Thunk, thunk, thunk, like frogs laying eggs. Thunk, ‘look at all my little miracles’, thunk, ‘filling up my trailer like a sardine can’. Thunk. ‘You know what would be a real miracle, if I could remember your daddy's name, aargh’, thunk.''