My Mix Tape

Oh man sometimes I miss making a mix tape. All those hours of my teenage years spent carefully deciding what music to fit onto the thing that would fit into the thing that would fit into my pocket. Back then we called it a walkman. Since they never made a pocket 8-track, I guess that was the oldest portable music device, even if the mp3 was designed in the 1970s.

Anyway, I got to thinking...what with all our technology, it's been ages since I made a mix tape. I asked around and a few friends got back to me with theirs. I didn't do mine though...until now.

I originally set a rule, which was that the tape in its entirety couldn't be longer than 45 minutes. Obviously, when it was my turn, this rule went out the fucking window quick smart. I recall there being 120 minute tapes. I used a couple of them - you'd only get a handful of plays out of them and then they'd get all messed up inside, like the magnetic tape fell over itself trying to escape or something.

Alright, so without further ado, here is the first 60 minutes side of my 120 minute mix tape. It's disturbing how little recent music made it on there. Enjoy.

Side One

1. Its Catching Up - NoMeansNo

First track off of Wrong, considered by many to be their seminal album, although as far as I'm concerned these guys have ruled from the beginning and continue to do so.

http://www.nomeanswhatever.com



2. Stone the Crow - Down

The glory of Phil Anselmo with a degree of soulful chill not often felt in his music. I absolutely love this song.



3. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Gil Scott Heron

Perhaps the proudest, blackest, fiercest man to come out of the whole Black Power scene; a poet, a performer and an inspiration. The word "brother" has never been pronounced with more soul than it is at the beginning of this song.



4. Monkey Trick - The Jesus Lizard

The angularity. The shrieking. The barely controlled paranoia and rage. Amazing on record, amazing live, and goddamit if that isn't one of the fattest bass sounds ever, standing out all the more because of that demented descending guitar lick.



5. Money Talks - Extrema

Money talks...about yooooooooooooooooou. These guys could be dismissed as Pantera-lite, but this song really does it for me, from the riff to the sentiment of the song, and especially that growl in the middle bit. Metal.



6. Facts of Life - King Crimson

King Crimson are, if not the best, then at least the most interesting band ever. Fact. Every time I hear their music, no matter what lineup or album, something new jumps out at me, a new understanding of their composition strikes me. Although I tend to prefer the Bruford-era material drumming-wise, this song has one of the most aggressive beat downs ever. If you aren't making your sour grape metal face, you're not listening.



7. Retrovertigo - Mr. Bungle

I could have put almost any Bungle song in here, since I love them that much. But in a way, it's the restraint and lilting beauty of this song which makes it so magical. They have never sounded more ethereal or more emotional. The brief bursts of sinister counterpoint the sweetness perfectly. Glorious.



8. Blaze of the Grail - Secret Chiefs 3

One of my all-time favourite bands, and again, I could have picked any tune. This comes from Book M, and I chose it because even though it doesn't have the Middle Eastern influence as present as their other work, the drumming, the groove and the cinematic scope of the tune not only always transport me, but provide a great bridge from the sound of the previous song to the next few. Remember, this is a mix tape, right?



9. Chameleon (Pt. 1) - Herbie Hancock

The tightness of this groove, the richness of the tones even though they're self-contained units rather than a wall of sound...funk.



10. Flashlight - Parliament Funkadelic

I think this track is a great counterpoint to the Herbie track above. For all the Head Hunters restraint, Funkadelic are always balls-to-the-wall out of control. The euphoria of the synth lead-in, the crunchy bounce of that bass line, the joy and simplicity of funk at its sweaty, pressed-against-each-other best.



11. 1997 - Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Another of my favourite bands, this song will always have a special place in my heart because it was the first one by them that I heard. The riff, the bounce, and more than anything else, the timing and progression of the middle bit make this pure audio butter, if butter was sentient, laced with PCP and wanted to kill you.



12. Panzrama - Giddy Motors

Sadly, this song wasn't on any video site for me to share it, or on any radio site. The best I could do was this Last FM link. These guys are incredible, and this song captures all of the raw insanity, hatred and filth of their writing, playing and thinking. DISEASE.

http://www.last.fm/music/Giddy+Motors/_/Panzrama

Gus Van Sant leads an expedition into the farthest reaches of his own ass

The scene this picture is taken from is three and a half minutes long and is ONLY this boy walking down the hall of his school in slow motion. Bullshit.

Yesterday was an important day. Yesterday I went to the Ritzy with some friends who were off to see the deeply anticlimactic "I Am Legend". To kill some time, I went to see "Paranoid Park" instead of sitting in the lounge area judging the people who sit around down there sipping red wine and wearing scarves indoors.

The opening shot of the film gave me hope. Hope that was snatched from me like the anal virginity of a first-time offender in an American jail. Let me begin by stating that I actually like Gus Van Sant's work. He's made some excellent films ("Drugstore Cowboy", "To Die For" and "Elephant" are all brilliant). Even when he's mediocre, he's still capable of cranking out audience-pleasing material ("Good Will Hunting"). I went to "Paranoid Park" because it looked promising. Like "Elephant", it supposedly explores the murky waters of adolescence. Unlike "Elephant", however, it is an unremitting cockfest that left me gasping for air that didn't reek of bullshit.

I have plenty of love for the avant-garde, but the problem with "Paranoid Park" is that it reproduces the conventions of arthouse cinema with none of the substance. Using non-actors in principal roles has been successfully employed in the past by directors like Peter Watkins ("Punishment Park", "The War Game") and Neil Jordan ("The Butcher Boy"), but in "Paranoid Park" the non-actors on show possess no earthy charm or raw magnetism. The actors in the film are bland American youth, expressionless and incapable of delivering lines as basic as "What did you do on Saturday?" with even the slightest conviction. The fact that van Sant got them off of Myspace just shows that the quality of the gold depends entirely on the quality and depth of the mine. In my opinion, the awfulness of the film is probably due to the fact that his "actors" gave him so little useful footage that he had to put together long segments of slow motion, meaningless drivel to tie the paper-thin plot together.

Which brings us to the plot. By the time the viewer actually finds out what the story of the film is (approximately halfway in) any desire to find out what happens to the characters has been dissolved by the acid bath of constantly abrasive sound design, repetitive slow motion (in at least four places literally repeating the same shot/dialogue) and the bludgeoning assumption by the director that shooting things out of focus or while playing with the iris automatically makes the film edgy and artistic.

Luckily, I didn't have any popcorn with me or I would have thrown it at the screen in a fit of rage. A director as talented as van Sant and a DP as talented as Christopher Doyle should surely be able to make a film that is at the very least watchable, a bench mark that they sadly fall short of with this effort.

After meeting my friends in the lobby, we went home, ate pasta and watched "Network", a movie that actually has something to say and says it well. Hopefully, when Gus van Sant crawls back out of his own ass, he will also have something worth saying to put onscreen.

This film receives no stars. Surprise, surprise.

News causes bearded man to shake with rage and sarcastic laughter

Okay, this is a really predictable and common thing to do, but I stumbled across a couple of headlines that got a reaction out of me and I wish to vent my spleen. So sue me.

First up:

Magna Carta fetches $21.3 million at Sotheby's auction
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071219/od_nm/magnacarta_odd_dc;_ylt=Am3teGnaW4mICPC0IWrOh9wSH9EA

The link will show you the offending article. My alternative headline is:

David Rubenstein strikes vital blow for irony

The guy who paid $21.3 million is a lawyer AND the founder of the Carlyle Group. He must have a second asshole because one surely wouldn't be enough to get rid of all the shit he's full of. (Important aside: Reuters, the source of the story, refers to the Carlyle Group as a private equities firm rather than a highly controversial and fundamentally evil conglomerate of greedy fucks digging their claws into all the filth that corporate globalism can produce - *cough cough*...Sorry about that.)

As for the irony of which I speak, let's get ready to peel the onion.

First off, he says he bought it to keep it in the U.S. Later on he also brainfarts the beautiful platitude that you can't "put a price on freedom". THE GUY FOUNDED THE CARLYLE GROUP. Also, since when is the U.S. the home of freedom? The Magna Carta is British and pretty much the only decent thing the Brits produced between the Bayeaux Tapestry and the Beatles. The modern equivalents are Tracey Emin's bed and Coldplay. They don't produce good stuff that often. Let the poor fuckers keep it.

Secondly, he bought the fucking thing for $21.3 million. Personally, I don't know what the price of freedom is but you sure as hell don't need $21.3 million, that's for fucking sure. Rubenstein should be hounded through the streets in only tighty-whities and beaten with sticks. Sharp ones.
Third and last, in any just society David Rubenstein would be in prison or dead, not a millionaire. When asked for his thoughts, the grand douchebag replied "it's a good day for our country". Where does this fuckpipe get off declaring himself one with a nation that given the chance would rip off his pants and fist his cherry ass? As a founder of one of the most singularly wrong institutions on the planet, as a lawyer, as a rich fuck, as a failed human, Rubenstein deserves nothing but scorn and derision. When he's buying shares in arms firms or chemical weapons firms, does he think about what's good for "our country"? When he's teaming up with Bush and Bin Laden to rape, pillage and profit from the hard-working people who wave their flags with dull eyes, does he think it's good for "our country"?

Argh. Next article...

Amsterdam to clean up "Red Light" district
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071217/od_nm/dutch_prostitution1_dc;_ylt=Avk08n.ZzU71TUyhMdWEuXwSH9EA

Okay, to begin with the quotations are in the wrong fucking place. It should read Amsterdam to "clean up" Red Light District. I will explain the reasons for the grammatical anality below.

People flock from all over the world to legally fuck hot chicks in a place where nobody will judge them. Where prices are competitive. Where diseases are rare. Where the smell of marijuana is stronger than gasoline and B.O. Where is this magical place I hear you cry? Why Amsterdam of course you silly goose. What sparked the sudden U-turn on the world's oldest profession in what some say is the world's oldest sleaze mill? Clues beneath.

The deputy mayor of Amsterdam explained that the hookers "will be replaced by chic apartments, upmarket shops, galleries and high-quality hotels and restaurants...adding that young fashion designers already plan to display their clothes in the windows of one former brothel from January."

Aaaaahh. It all becomes clear. Pricey hotels, luxury flats, arthouse wankathons - these things make more money than hookers and because they're not cash businesses they pay more taxes. Oh, and they claim it will eradicate organised crime. Here in London we have tons of hookers, not officially legalised, and the crooks run things. Then again, if you look down the map about a mile, you'll see Parliament Square, where crooks also run things. Oh relativity, you are a wonderful theory.

So why do I take issue with this article? Well, I think that replacing a nice and seedy neighbourhood where chicks can put out willingly for cash with a stack of more cookie cutter apartments, hotels and artsy bullshit is a bad move. The world has enough poncey crap like that and frankly, so does Amsterdam. When I've been to Amsterdam, I didn't walk around wishing there were more galleries. I wanted MORE windows with MORE, HOTTER chicks in them. They should take the development money and get all the ugly girls fixed. That's my vote.

Also, since when is importing all this yuppie guff a "clean up"? I think it's far cleaner when everyone knows who's fucking who and for how much. Once the suits move in, you never know where the next dick is coming from or which hole it's going into. So by way of explanation, that is why I suggested moving the inverted commas from Red Light to clean up.

One more thing. With the current global hard-on for re-branding, what the fuck are they going to call the Red Light District once they "clean up"? They can't call it the Red Light District. Too much nostalgia. I reckon they'll change the name to "Red". Short, classy, the PR writes itself.

What makes me wonder is whether the horror of the situation is that they'll be fucking with such a winning formula or that in fifty years our grandkids won't have any idea what a red light district is. I always viewed the relationship a man has with a hooker as the most honest relationship he will ever have. Everyone knows what the other one wants and how much it's worth. We are entering murky waters, my friends. Murky indeed. What's next? Are they going to invade Peckham and paint all the black people white? You heard it here first.

Well folks, that's what got my blood up today. Join me next time for a touching expose on why my wife won't give me anal.

21st Century Bullshit Man

What a crock of shit. Here I am, a relatively healthy guy in my mid-twenties, sitting around on a Monday, bored. How can I be bored? There are tons of things I need to do. Bills need to be paid, dishes need to be cleaned, carpets vacuumed, laundry washed ad nauseum in perpetuity throughout the universe. What is this weight that sits on my shoulders and stops me from doing what I know I have to do? It's fucking crippling.

My room is a fucking mess. Clothes are piled up, papers scattered around, tissues wadded up and overflowing in the bin. I almost cracked my modem in half with my foot earlier because it was buried under an old pair of boxers that I can't remember wearing.

I call myself a freelancer but really I'm a hopeless slacker. The reason I don't have a boss isn't because I'm some brave, ballsy sort that strikes out on his own, it's because I don't work well for anyone because everything they tell me to do and say feels like bullshit. I call bullshit on television and don't watch it. I call bullshit on the radio and don't listen. I call bullshit on fashion and shop at stores where you have to be a member because everything is so fucking cheap. I don't cut my hair. My beard is starting to look like something you could scour iron gates with. My wife's loving gaze is increasingly leaning towards weary tolerance rather than joyful infatuation. I can feel the walls crumbling, the ground opening up. The letterbox flaps and another raft of credit card bills come through, sandwiched between utility bills and junk mail offering me loans.

I like to think it's the state of the industry that keeps me ass-to-mouthing it (hand-to-mouth would be over-generous). I tell myself that my wit goes unappreciated, my genius unrecognised. The truth is I keep myself down because I'm pursuing a course that doesn't come naturally to me. The reason I have no motivation to be all responsible and domesticated is because I'm not a naturally domesticated guy. I live out of a fucking suitcase for crying out loud. I go to the launderette to do my laundry even though I own a washing machine. I live like a fucking hobo and secretly, when I'm not looking guilty as someone else picks up the cheque, I like it. I feel like I'm in freefall but without feeling free. It's a way of playing it safe while pretending I'm out there.

That's what I am. The 21st Century Bullshit Man. A hobo with a credit card. A bohemian with a mortgage. A rebel with a clause.

A friend of mine told me about how back in the Sixties his mother got offered a beautiful apartment by a wealthy aunt but she turned it down because she didn't want the responsibility. Everyone who found out at the time just said "right on" and went back to their oatmeal and incense. Nowadays if someone offered you property and you said no, even the fucking hippies would call you a dumbass. Oh the times they are a-changin' indeed.

That's the ache at the back of my mind. I'm going through the starving artist motions but I feel like a fraud. Then again, so many famously broke artists had rich parents or sponsors. Maybe the whole fable is a lie. Maybe I'm just riding the foamy crest of the dream and gazing into the jagged rocky mouth of reality. Whatever. The Beats rode in the back of pickup trucks and smoked grass with migrant workers. The hippies had Woodstock. The Seventies had disco. The Eighties had coke and greed. The Nineties had hip hop and nu-metal. Does anyone see a fucking trend?

Well here's my claim for the so-called Noughties. All the other decades might have their high and low points, but no decade before this one ever cornered the market on bullshit like we have. Jack Kerouac? James Frey. George Carlin? Carlos Mencia. Kool & The Gang? The Beatles? The Doors? Westlife, Boyzone, Busted. Woodstock? Facebook. Vietnam? Iraq. Watergate? Halliburton and KBR. Welcome to the Noughties, the age of Bullshit. You heard it here first. Take a big whiff.

P.S. Found this link. Whoever wrote this is totally right and I'd love to buy them a drink one day. http://www.internetisshit.org/index.html

The Asshole Footprint

When I was fifteen and both youthfully exuberant and stupid, I did a nasty bit of thing with a girl of the same age. Her name will remain nameless.

She made it quite clear that she fancied me when we would all hang out around the local Burger King during lunch break. One day I took her back to mine and we fooled around for about an hour and a half. It was fun. She had a zero point past which she wasn't willing to go and I pushed it as far as I could before the entire affair had to be considered a write-off. I made my excuses, showed her out and went to a friend's house party with a serious case of blue balls.

After that, she spread the word that she and I had a thing going on. Now, this girl was putting me in a difficult position. She was hot. Very hot. But she also aroused feelings of contempt in my buddies. Being a fifteen year old guy, I was a coward in the face of my friends' judgement. I liked her and I thought she was hot (I had eyes) but I didn't feel the vibe enough to risk outing my desire. So I let it be known that we in fact did not have a thing going on.

The girl, as is understandable, was displeased. I had made her look stupid. So she told people she dumped me. My reaction was of the Wayne's World "Stacey, get the net" variety. My lack of engagement with her feelings infuriated the girl and she became an un-fan of yours truly.

Several months later (or maybe a year - timelines are hazy due to excessive marijuana exposure) we bumped into each other. She was still very hot and I gave less of a shit about what my friends thought. We went back to my place and hooked up. While there, I hatched a cunning plan that most teenage boys have attempted at one time or another. I told her that if she gave me a blowjob I would go down on her afterwards. She went for it and it was good fun. After I popped and she went to the loo to brush her teeth, she came back and got all flirty about her end of the bargain. Being spent (and youthful and stupid) I reneged fearlessly on my word and showed her the door.

I was an asshole. In retrospect, the story is funny, but my assholery is plain for all to see.

I resolved, years later, when I had matured (read: grown a beard), that I would email her and apologise. That's when I realised that I didn't remember her surname. Oops. Well, I remembered it but I had never seen it written down. I Googled the spelling could think of and got nothing. I emailed a couple of likely cases and came up dry. Until today. Today, through a rare flash of inspiration, I used a spelling I hadn't thought of and sure enough, poof, there she was. I have no idea if my adolescent insensitivity even figures in her day-to-day life and I very much doubt it. However, as an emotional ecologist, it is my duty to reduce my asshole footprint. Wow that nicely dresses up an apology, doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm emailing her today and we'll see what happens.

P.S. - Maybe there's a way of asshole offsetting? It might work. Sha, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

What's left of the dream...

There is a sickness in the air and it fills me with dread.

I just finished watching a bunch of Ron Paul footage. Everyone's in love with the guy. He speaks the truth, he cares and he obviously would leave you alone if you were puking outside a bar. This guy wouldn't snatch the joint out of a cripple's hand and wheel him off to the cop shop. He also wouldn't hurt a fly, or at least that's what his wide-eyed, turkey-necked old guy thing makes me think. But even Ron Paul, the closest that stoners and secretly embarassed Republicans have ever had to a political messiah, even he talks about strong defense and religion. Deep underneath his polished veneer of "Message: I care" is the bitter tang of the Christ.

I'm more in favour of a return to "Constitutional values" than I am the current wholesale rape and pillage that the DeCeivers are currently elbow deep in, but even the most hardened Constitution buff has to concede that it was still drafted by a bunch of white slaveowners who knew how to talk the talk and seldom if ever walked the walk. Even Jefferson, as close to an enlightened President as America ever got, was a slaveowner and a hypocrite. Had some great lines though. And that's when the dread I mentioned at the beginning of this post hit me.

I'm sitting there, watching Ron Paul, digesting the Hawaiian pizza I had for dinner, drinking my lemon squash, nodding along in that oh-so-middle-class right on brother way, when I discover that even his measured, intelligent and most of all true words are ringing false for me. Why? He knows that if he gets elected he'll never push half that shit through Congress. That's the beauty of checks and balances. They check to see if change is coming and then they balance it out. Washington wasn't built to make changes, it was built to stop changes being made. Tiptoeing around the Constitution and the Declaration as if the guys that wrote it meant a word of it. Bullshit. He's flapping lip just like the rest of them but the worst part is he's making me believe. Him and Mike Gravel both, except at least Grandpa Mike has the sense of humour to know that the change isn't going to come from a white man in the White House, it's going to come from the people. Making me believe scares my piss cold because it holds the mirror up to all the things I really really want to change but know from bitter experience won't. Obama, Clinton, Romney, Ghoul-iani: all of them are the standard bobbing heads on the Washington Express. They flap lip, sing songs, kiss the babies and we know they're as fake as a dodo egg wrapped in a three dollar bill. The ones that are for real freak me out because I can't figure out whether they think they'll actually get listened to and make a change (in which case they're at best idealistic and at worst dangerously deluded) or if they're just blowing smoke from the opposite end to make up the numbers.

I won't go off about how much war sucks - deep down inside we all agree on that. Nobody likes taxes and nobody who was ever a teenager really frowns on pot smoking. Hell, I have it on good authority that Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, is a pretty hefty stoner himself and he's running against a guy that wants to decriminalise it. Politics makes no fucking sense and it never has. The question is whether there is the smallest chance for anyone to be for real anymore. At first glance, the answer is clearly yes. But when I listen, when I dip the toe of my mind into the murky waters of their campaign guff, I realise that the question isn't whether or not they're for real. The question is WOULD I CARE EVEN IF THEY WERE.

I'm worn out. I'm exhausted. Civil liberties, invasions, the inevitable growth of the imperial world tumour. As Tom Lehrer once said all those years ago, "we're starting to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis". I know something is rotten and so do you. I know something awful is happening and, even worse, I know that the really shitty stuff isn't even on the horizon yet. The wind is changing and I can smell the compost heap. Pick your metaphor, simile, whatever the fuck. We all know there is weirdness afoot. It's not that I don't believe anymore. I CAN'T believe anymore. Whatever idealism and political juice I had left long ago ran dry. Orwell said "If you want a vision of the future...imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." Every time I think of that quote the hair on my arms and neck stands up and I feel both proud and sick. I'm proud that someone was so talented that they could get that kind of reaction out of me just with their words. I'm sick because I know the words are true.

Democracy was and still is a dream. It's the oasis in the desert we stagger towards but only ever quench our thirst with handfuls of sand. It's a mirage and lately it hasn't even been a particularly convincing one. Just like the dying man in the desert, we're chasing after the dream, hoping it will keep us alive, using the elusive paradise as fuel to keep us going, living in hope. Over the next dune, the next one and the next one after that. The sickness in the air is the stale stench of lost hope. It fills me with dread because I know I'm not the only one feeling it. And when we crest the dune and dive headfirst towards that sparkling pool beneath the swaying palms, what's left of the dream is a handful of dust and a mouthful of grit. So Ron Paul, with your good intentions and hopes for the future, I applaud you. But not like I'd applaud someone at the start of a grand revolution. I applaud you the weary way a mourner does after the eulogy at a funeral. You're talking about how great the deceased was while alive, but no matter how eloquent your words, I know that the subject of your caring disquisition is dead. And no pretty words, great ideas or high hopes will put breath back in the lungs or colour back in the cheeks.