The Curious Adventures of Lord Fuckington

I know, I know. This blog is supposedly dead. It still gets a bit of traffic though. So, in the interest of throughness I present to you a new short story I have recently completed - The Curious Adventures of Lord Fuckington. It is a tale of class subversion, perversion and amusion. Actually, I'm not sure amusion is a word. Right now I consider it too hot for mainstream publication but I could be wrong. Enjoy!

<< Clicky! Clicky! >>

{.....night of the living deadblog.....}

Lockedinabox is now officially dead! Long live Either/Or/Bored!

Right now it's still all nascent and shit, but growth shall be forthcoming!

( You bet your sweet ass it will be )

lockedinabox will stay up for the forseeable future. Enjoy it while you can though cuz someday it might just not be.

Doling out the SkitSnacks

Wow, a post on lockedinabox. How long as it been? I dunno, I haven't been paying attention. Maybe there will be more. Maybe there won't. I ain't commiting to nothing, I'm still gonna write with an editorial voice that assumes people are reading though, even if people aren't. It's just the way it has to be.


And onwards we go....


In an effort to rejuvenate this slow-coma forum; injecting 50ccs of adrenaline directly into its heart whilst also pounding its brain with a complex pharmacology of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers, quantum indeterminators, discombobulators and female growth hormone, I present to you, the Great Unwashed, untamed and uncontrollable denizens of #trivia-utopia, this amusing little thread.

This is in no way an attempt to procrastinate on writing my novel. It is, in fact, a way to make my daily RSS fiending a more productive process. It forces me to turn my morning (and it IS still morning, despite sleeping one hour and 48 minutes past when i was supposed to get up) net wanderings into some kind of narrative, to help sharpen my writerly skillset after it has spent so much time languishing in the mediocrity of Kitchen Porterdom. Also, i've never had a readymade audience to unleash shit onto quite so much as i do now. So you motherfuckers can sit there, read this, and shut the fuck up. All naysayers will have their points expunged, their ratings reduced to something more embarassing than 'fooligan' and have their names and addresses reported to homeland security and/or european equivalent.

Actually, all criticism is invited. All the better to sharpen my tongue as it lashes about your brain-stem and neo-cortex; coating them in a layer of caustic spittle that will burrow deep into your greymatter and rewire your neurones to serve my incideous purpose. Seriously, amuse me with your sardonic attacks. That which does not kill me merely makes me stronger. Unless it lowers my white bloodcell count to a ridiculously low level as a precursor to the main attack. Then i'm fucked.

Anyway, enough of this pre-scripting, introductionary shennanigans! On with the main event!

Let us begin with a visit to the US political circus. Now, to those of us outside of the United States, the american political system has become our favourite multicarpileup soap-opera. It's riveting not only because it's so completely, irrevocably fucked up, twisted and hilairous, but also because the USA weilds so much global power that as detached as we here in europe all feel from what goes on over there, we will inevitably feel the shock waves eventually ourselves. It's a great and accurate form of future-casting; We watch the ripples as they expand outwards from the mutilated corpse of an event as it is dropped from a great height into our collective ocean, see the waves building in speed and height and force, dancing around gleefully at the thought of the creeping horror, then bitch like a Christian anti-abortion group when we end up knee deep in baby foetuses. My personal favourite player in the show is Sarah Palin, dropped into events like the celebrity guest-star in a sitcom; an obvious attempt to boost ratings and interest, to tip the balance in favour of the shows creators. Unfortunately for them it is such an over-used technique that many viewers cynically see it for what it is; a cheap trick. of course, there will always be the ignorant masses who hungrily lap up such panderings like the virgin mary's breast milk. So sweet, so nutrious, so righteous. And of course, such a turn can often create debate amongst those who get paid to argue about such things, and even those that do it for the sheer enjoyment of it.

So, before i lose control of this flailing metaphor, ballooning akira-like into some giant ever-growing blob-baby that seeks to absorb us all into its mutagenic mass, I present this link:


Why Sarah's sex life matters


Providing in an amusing but extremely valid way a unique perspective on the skitsnacks that is the political-circus of those hallowed united states.

And now i must depart. To do some real work. And to have a shower. Until next time! (Which will probably be tommorrow morning)

goodmorningsun shine

why would i be up at this hour? it's insanity, i tell you! I blame the coffee, back on the french press be I, dictum of taste. Just gotta watch out for teh heart murmers. History of heart disease in the family. If i mix the coffee with olive oil i reckon i'll be okay.

Still, been far too unproductive since christmas, getting by on fumes of dearly departed all-encompassing bubbles of conjoined bliss. Just kidding myself really. Time to fix up. Look sharp. Finish what i've started. Begin what has yet to be. This town can crawl up under your skin and make a mockery of your aspirations. Who knows what sickness lurks beneath the crust. Gotta keep the motor ticking, revving against oblivion. No time to let complacency get too comfortable. Gotta be the heart of this operation, tilterwhirl freespirit, gotta keep the wonder going. Routine dulls the mind.

[ quantum psychology ]

A Cyborg Manifesto

Catherine Haraway - A Cyborg Manifesto

A reading of 'A cyborg Manifesto'

whatever happened to Innocence?

Just finished watching french film Innocence, an eerily ambiguous look at the female transition from the pre-sexual to the sexual, that makes sinister comment upon the girl/woman's role in society. I enjoyed it, very well shot, slowly paced, and as I have mentioned, extremely ambigious. The viewer definately has to do a bit of work here. My girlfriend though was hung up on a pedophilic reading and found the whole thing sick. I agree, more in its protrayal of the female's responsibility to society, but there is more to be read in this breath-taking work than the taboo representation of the sexuality of children. As the sight & sound review below makes note of: "If we have a problem with that - as many viewers will - then, the director seems to be saying, the problem is ours."

BFI | Sight & Sound | School For Scandal

Jean Baudrilard's essay on post-modernist concepts of reality : Simulacra and Simulation

[ quote ]

"The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self-confidence." - (The unbearable lightness of being, Milan Kundera)

MaX yr life...

You know, no matter how cool they make the pepsi max adverts I still won't drink the shit.

This interview between Paul McCartney and Pete Doherty is cool and all but this one between Yoko Ono and Beth Ditto (of The Gossip) is much more interesting.

Teh Flying Monkey Cult video pOdcast #00001

L∅ckedinab∅x Presents: A Dissident Video production: The premiere of Teh Flying Monkey Cult video Podcast!

The Fountains: A Cardiff Sk8 spot and Soon To Be Featured in The Great Whatever

Went out on recon for The Great Whatever today.

Speaking of John Waters....

BoingBoing linked to this interview with the Pope of Trash (William Burroughs gave him that moniker, don't you know) just the other day. And Chapter, my local arthouse, is showing This Filthy World (film version of his one man show) on the 10th and 11th of october. Check it out, if yr around Cardiff.

John Evans is a Welsh writer

john waters interviews

picked up the original hairspray today for just under £5. I reckon you could get it for £3 from the right place (like virgin) but it was sunday (most shops closed) and i wanted a movie to watch.

So anyway, to stop this little story from dragging i'll skip to the end. Enjoyed hairspray, laughed out loud in places. Found these interviews digging up stuff on the web. Aparently, he's professor of Film and Subculture at the european graduate school in switzerland. I wonder how he landed that gig?

Intro to Film Terrorism: An open discussion with John Waters
Filth 101: An open discussion with John Waters

WeAteaRt / aRt tAsTe good / ...redux...

my new research blog, wEaTeArt, is now up and running. weateart was going to be my "what's going on in cardiff that's interesting?" blog, but that never took off. In honour of this i shall also include stuff of that ilk on the blog as it comes to me.

Everything will exist in a state of flux on this blog, with updates and changes to posts being made at my whim.

I just finished the draft of a post on Jungian Personality Types and there uses to the writer/screenwriter. You might find them interesting.

Soon to go up: Notes from 'Skateboarding, Space and the City' by Iain Borden.

[poem]

I ain't got a hope today;
all died when the sound flooded in and filled my head with faulty wiring.
My eyes only half open
in this false waking. Choke down stupid little pills for a facsimile of comfort.
Takes forever to leave. Streets wailing with people like caskets constructed from nerve-endings.

[poem]

I dreamt that I dream. In this dream I dreamed i dreamt my dad and myself in a carriage on a wire were led nowhere in paticular. The radio played out a puppetshow in front of our eyes where the iraqi people had no happy ending, because, in the end, politics corrupts everything it touches.

I stole a cake from a stall as we stumbled by and shared it with no one.

I guess the dream doesn't really mean anything.

Prospects for Breakthrough Propulsion from Physics

Prospects for Breakthrough Propulsion from Physics ( *.pdf )

( Yup, its from the NASA website. Stop being such a pussy and go and read it. )

[poem]

dingle-dangle in the gentle
breeze a-blowing
spider falling
up and down
on infintisimal
thread its dancing
with its shadow
all around the yellow windows.

[poem] extracts

so off they went, their eyes ablaze
and smiling happy at the mission
skipping merrily-mentally forthly
seeking onwards, mysterious, glorious
ever searching for that thing;
mad-marvelous slack.

hearts a-tumbling slinky slinking
downwards deep into despair.
trapt and lost inside the maze of
endless-omega bureaucratic snare.

[ poem ]

This building is sick; it seeps out of the walls,an accumulation of a hundred frustrated lives spent working corridors, shuffling in hush puppies.like a naughty child bearing the weight of judging eyes. I ain't cut out for this concentration-camp existence; Walls make me panic, barriers trip me up. Sometimes can't get nothing straight; thoughts collide and make orphans of good intentions.

If I cut myself open and bleed all over your filing cabinet, can I please go home?

[gig review] Sniper

Walking along I was, just back up from a day long funk, having met a friend after work for a drink and a ‘lil business transaction. All drunk up and stopped by a favoured neighbourhood church for a spliffkin I was walking her to the train-station so she could head back homewards. Passed by Zync we did, that there place that used to be Sam’s bar way back when (year before last or something? It’s hard to keep up in Cardiff sometimes), and noises did emanate from within. A band was tuning up and sound checking. Even just with random chords and drum rolls vibrating my ear drum I was kinda intrigued. Sounded good it did. “I thinks I go check them out after I drop you off at the station,” I said. “Yeah, They sound okay,” she doth replieded. “Kinda indie rock type stuff,” I returned.

Still, my mind wasn’t quite made up. No money I had. No alcohol could be brought and consumed. T’was truly a conundrum. Outside the bar, Walking beyond the barrier that runs the length of the café quarter, or whatever it be truly called in name not thought up by council marketing-droids, back and forth I paced, still not sure in my head as to whether or not to just go home. Finally, a thought, like a nail, did plunge the murky depths of my mind. I had £5 in yonder bank account. Could I not use that chip and pin thing to purchase an alcoholic beverage? “Well,” I thought, “Only one way to find out!”

So, I did leap that barrier, in a mighty display of barrier-disregard, and into Zync I went. “£10 minimum on card transactions,” did the bar person say. “Bugger!” Did I say. “Pint of water?” I enquired, as the band began to play. Fill glass from sink with ice did he. I rolled a cigarette and went outside. Sat right by big windowless window thing that gave a perfect frame to the band onstage, ‘cept for the singer, who was doing his thing just out of my sight. Clap like a loon, did I, enthused by that fine fine music. “How you all doing outside?” Said the singer between songs. Wailed like a banshee on double-sided Mitsubishis I did. “Why don’t you come inside?” Front man enquired. “Am smoking a cigarette man, be right in.” I replied.

Stayed till the end of their set, drinking my water, first standing near the front bouncing and tapping whilst retaining my dignity. Not drunk enough to throw myself about like I normally might, and slightly stone’d so just kinda digdigdigging the way you do with music when THC be coursing through your brain. Sounded like rockin’ manic street preachers they did, slightly happy Mondays demeanor mayhap. Still, had their own thing to add to the mix, like. Perfect indie rock, it was. These be thoughts that occurred to me as I listened intently and leaned against a pillar. After a while I moved to the back of the bar to sit down. They did finish their set. I did finish my water. Felt like my funk was creeping back; music was gone. High was gone. Time I was gone too.

On my way out the singer did engage me in conversation. Nice exchange we had. Sniper, they be called. From Carmarthen they is. www.myspace.com/snipermusicwales is them. Worthy of at least ten minutes of your precious precious life, they most definitely are. Leave a message on them profile. Tell ‘em Flapperazzi sent you.

- Adamski

parkwise went the three, hands and cans all mingle mangled and merged, mighty was their purpose as the sky was shining blue but alas the wind doth blow mighty too.

So, in came bilious nimbus forms, turning the palette more monochrome casting doubts on the expedition but still they tramped on through cardiff school of, engineering shortcuts out of well aged past experience, tramped up and over and down traintrack bridgecrossings, stumblin' bumblin' by the museum and dripdripdropping in on the small man.

safeasmilk severely wounded in drive by shooting...

SafeAsMilk has become the latest victim in the silent culture wars of Cardiff.

The myopic yuppie-owner of ashotinthedark was the one who did the deed, shooting safeasmilk 15 times in the back. He left the night for dead, in a pool of its own blood, before driving off in his black BMW laughing maniacally.

The open mic night is currently recouperating in Accident and Emergency. A spokeswoman for the event made a statement early this morning;

"We are shocked and disgusted by the actions of the owner of 'a shot in the dark', but are not entirely surprised by his lack of a back bone. SafeAsMilk will return after a brief recouperation period and has sworn bloody revenge, although this may of been fuelled by his current morphine delirium. However, SafeAsMilk would like to offer its friendship to the manager, Teddy, who has been extremely helpful it getting things started."

safeasmilk is on haitus until a suitable venue can be found.

SafeAsMilk / every monday / shotinthedark (city rd) / 8pm onwards

Jokes my Father Never Told Me: a biography of Richard Pryor by his daughter

I seem to be waking up around 10 am these days, just in time to watch Quantum Leap on ITV2, to the sound of radio4 slowly fading in. I've noticed it quite alot recently, my eyes are open and I am seeing things before I can hear anything, resulting in a strange delay in the two senses, the overly english voices of the radio fading into my conciousness slowly and smoothly. It certainly is an interesting effect.

I listen to the radio alot when I'm drifting off, it gives me something other than the thoughts in my head to focus on. This is a good thing. Sometimes when all I have are my thoughts and memories they take on behomothic proportions, my brain kicks over into 6th gear, and before I realise it I'm spinning on a carosel of cognition I cannot for the life of me stop. Sometimes its good and I end up writing a poem, or making a note of something, but other times I end up scraping the bucket of my emotions and generally feeling like shit. Either way, it means sleep ain't coming soon.

When my hearing came around this morning a woman was intereviewing another woman concerning a book she had written about her father. The interview sounded interesting and as I lay there, with my faculties filtering back to the forefront of my mind, I tried to figure out who it was they were talking about. A gathered little tidbits of clues from their discussion. Black... 60s... Hendrix? Jewish heritiage... Hendrix was part cherokee, not part Jew, so he's out... How about Dylan? Dylan was white but maybe... maybe the mother of the child in question was black? The title was the big give away: The Jokes my father never told me... Jokes... black... Richard Pryor? Maybe. The interview finished and I was still none the wiser, but then all I had to do was remember the title and look it up on online.

Which is what I did. It was Richard Pryor, the woman being interviewed Rain Pryor, his daughter. I got alot of respect for Pryor's art: He gets labelled the funniest black commedian that ever lived, but that's a terrible condecending title to hold. Richard Pryor was one of the funniest commedians who ever lived FULL STOP-black, white, or aqua marine. He sure did lead a fucked up life though....

( review ) ( excerpt ) ( Richard Pryor Homepage ) ( mp3 of 'That Nigger's Crazy' over at Odeo ) ( Richard Pryor stuff on youtube )

.....I.an.I.be.blind.....

why not rastafari? ( apart from the obviously corrupting influence of christianity... )

buju banton would be oh so cool if it wasn't for the homophobia...

[ natch ]

Lynch tells it like it is

Some motivinspirational words to budding filmmakers from David Lynch

any excuse to continue my vendetta against George Lucas...

from the guardian film site...

"Frank Darabont appears to be still nursing a grudge after George Lucas allegedly vetoed his script for Indiana Jones 4. The creator of The Shawshank Redemption claims that he "wasted a year" of his life writing the fourth and final instalment of the franchise, only for the producer to reject it, reputedly against the wishes of director Steven Spielberg. "It showed me how badly things can go," Darabont told MTV.com. "I spent a year of very determined effort on something I was very excited about, working very closely with Steven Spielberg and coming up with a result that I and he thought was terrific. He wanted to direct it as his next movie and suddenly the whole thing goes down in flames because

George Lucas doesn't like the script."

The man who wrote and directed The Phantom Menace didn't like a script written by the guy who wrote and directed The Shawshank Redemption. Maybe the script didn't allow Lucas the leg room he would need to add a whole host of pointless, annoying computer generated characters. GEORGE LUCAS IS A TALENTLESS HACK. He made so much money off of Star Wars that his creative talent left his skull screaming for release. This man should never be allowed anywhere near a camera or Silicon Graphics workstation EVER AGAIN!

the soldier and the hunchback

Many moons ago, me and production-mate Tim we're in the uni library doing research for our respective dissertations. At the time that it popped into my head I was eyeballing a book called New Punk Cinema. I sketched it down a few times and smiled to myself, extremely pleased: I'd created a cool little glyph/icon type thing. It was a question mark and exclamation mark merged into one, to create a kind of spikey 'P' character. I showed it to Tim, who agreed that it looked pretty cool.

I've just finished reading Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson. Alistair Crowley appears as a character, as does James Joyce and Albert Einstein. The Protagonist is in the process of being initiated by Crowley (whom he has been condition by Crowley himself, albeit in disguise, to despise), unknown to the protagonist, into the Ordo Templi Orientis. Along the obfuscated path that our hero wanders he comes across an essay by Crowley entitled 'the soldier and the hunchback'.

I won't go into detail (you can read the essay if yr after specifics), but basically the solider is the exclamation mark, and the hunchback is the question mark. Obviously, there's alot more to it than that, Crowley sure did like to mystify, and I haven't read the essay myself. I just thought it was kinda weird that I'd drawn that little symbol over a year ago and now I find its basic componants, and the idea I kinda wanted to express, expoused by Crowley.

Then again, researching and reading into these kinds of things does tend to produce coincidances.

Here is the essay in question, if yr curious. It's a PDF file. Lemmie know if it's any good.

Kurt Vonnegut is dead

Which is something I'm sure you already know, if you are the kind of person who cares about the death of literary figures. If you don't I'm sure you couldn't care less. So it goes. Vonnegut has always been one of those writers that I have always had the intention of reading but never have. Maybe his demise will mean that I'll finally read Slaughterhouse 5.

In tribute to a writer I've never read I present Vonnegut reading an Excerpt of Slaughterhouse 5. You can either listen to it here, playing through tunefeed, which is set up to play automatically, or you can go to this salon page and download it yourself.

( via )

podcast on drum and bass

Like most forms of electronic music, drum and bass is flexible enough to incoporate other genres of electronic music such as dancehall, house and electro. It is perhaps for this reason why drum and bass has remained relevant for over 15 years. In fact, after a brief lull, there is currently a resurgence of excitement in drum and bass!

Drum and bass emerged out of the UK in the 1990s as an offshoot of the breakbeat and rave scene."

( link )
aaaaaaaaaactually, drum and bass was an offshoot of jungle, which was an offshoot of rave and hardcore. Of course, there are certainly ties to breakbeat.

Now I gotta go, cuz the Cowboy Bebop movie is on SciFi and I ain't seen it yet.

Journalists have fallen from grace

"Movie depictions of journalists have changed. Gone are Watergate’s crusaders toppling tyrannical Tricky Dick in 1976’s “All the President’s Men,” and swashbuckling foreign correspondents in the 1980s’ “The Year of Living Dangerously,” “Under Fire” and “Salvador,” starring Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte and James Woods, respectively.

Tinseltown now prefers to be critical of reporters and writers, a trend that has mushroomed during the Iraq war."

( link ) ( via )

Jane Campion to direct adaptation of Keats' life as litbiopic frenzy continues unabated

"Rarely has death seemed so cruel yet so poetic. John Keats fell in love with Fanny Brawne when he saw her walking in her garden and was inspired to produce some of the most beautiful verse and love letters ever written. By the age of 25 he was dead, the world robbed of his genius by tuberculosis. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before such ingredients caught a filmmaker's eye."

( via )

How come I can name two New Zealand filmmakers off the top of my head, but try as I might I cannot think of any filmmakers of Austrailian origin?

Nevermind, it's a rhetorical question.

C∅nsume and Die

"Many big ideas have struggled over the centuries to dominate the planet. Fascism. Communism. Democracy. Religion. But only one has achieved total supremacy. Its compulsive attractions rob its followers of reason and good sense. It has created unsustainable inequalities and threatened to tear apart the very fabric of our society. More powerful than any cause or even religion, it has reached into every corner of the globe.

It is consumerism."

- Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder and Programme Director of Forum for the Future

Anger as former-Iranian hostages sell their stories to the highest bidder

Anger as hostages sell stories to highest bidder

Of course, I heard last night on radio 4 (it helps me sleep, k?) that they had been given permission by the MOD, or someone, to sell their stories to the media. What could this possibly mean? Could this be a covert effort by the government to build up anti-Iranian sentiment in order to support some kind of something?

Just saying...

still in the abyss...

...that is my netless existence. Right now my sister is down from uni placement so I'm on her laptop leeching a neighbours wifi conection. Is typical, no? Just when I'm starting to build up traffic to this site again with regular updates the powers that be decide to cut our broadband.
*blah*

Anyway, some news.

The first safe as milk will take place on the 23rd of April. Thanks to Chas at Grassroots (and of Cardiff band Captain Paranoid and the Delusions) for help pulling the flier together. Your lightnin' freehand/photoshop skillz certainly sped up the process. Got some pretty talented people playing live acoustic stuff, plus some poetry from yours truely and this guy, some eclectic DJ sets, and open mic slots for those with the cojones to get up themselves. It promises to be a pretty cool night, with a possible afterparty for the faithful, so if yr in the cardiff area come on down and enjoy the new _smokefree enviroment.

Speaking of the smoking ban, I'm thinking about writing a lil piece on it from the aftermath perspective, as well as issuing a call to arms to the smokers of Wales. Maybe.

Also on the gonzojournalistical agenda of writing is a forthcoming article on the sociological influence of hair, complete with half-arsed academic referencing, to coincide with my drastic new cut. Long story short: It was my mother's 50th birthday and I thought it would make a neat present, and it did. Now there is pressure to keep it at this length. This remains to be seen.

Gotta run now. Sister demanding laptop back.

the sky is falling....

For some inexplicable reason, We've had our telephone and broadband cut off, meaning I ain't in a position to update quite as often as possible. Sorry guys. Regular programming will resume shortly.

no blogging today
its too nice [outside].

I'm going for a sk8.

justin.tv feeds himself onto the web

Been on the hunt for rss feeds all day, trying to be select, hunting out things that I can feed back into this blog-head-life
don't wanna be bloated with infoandshitcathoderetinaburnt images floating like ghosts across my vision.
Before I spin off into a css-fueled typographical stoner haze
I gotta tell you about this site I found over linked at Laughing Squid;;;;

"4 days ago Justin Kan started wearing a head-mounted video camera, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can tune in at justin.tv anytime and see a realtime video stream."

So Justin shoots the neverendingPOVshot (with the odd switch to a more objective angle) that is his life and streams it onto his website. Whaddamean it's boring? It's an experiment dude, don't be such a narrative snob. Its not like we've got Hollywood scriptdoctors in our heads to edit our lives down into its most gripping and visceral moments. He's doing a phone interview right now, trying to convince this guy that he came up with the idea independently, before sitting down with his friends to watch EDTV and realising that they'd be viewed as copycats. Now he's talking about sponsorship and making the technology they hacked together to pull this off available to everyone. There's a chatbox on the site. Think I might say hi.


I guess EdTv and The Truman Show had it wrong then. We'd much rather transmit ourselves live into the mediaether and bypass the traditional route completely.

( the DayIntheLifeOf... flickr photopool )
( via )

what's n∅∅?

Oh the madness. No sooner had I started messing around with my template for the relaunch do I realise that alot of the new blogger features require a template upgrade. Well, I've finally done it, which means things aren't quite the way they should be, but also means that there are a number of new features on l∅ckedinab∅x.

The first, and least obvious, is the addition of the haloscan trackback system, which will hopefully help with the integration of this blog into the rest of the blogosphere.

The other two additions are a little more obvious.

There is now a little podcast-type widget in the sidebar. Basically, I can upload mp3s onto the Tunefeed website and have them play here. This gives me the opportunity to play DJ. The playlist will change on a semi-regular basis. Right now I've got some tunes lined up from my forthcoming DJ set and I'm considering having it echo what is played at safeasmilk, so that even if people are unable to attend they can still get their musical fix. Right now its just things from the DJ sets, but hopefully soon recordings of the live performances will be available.

I am becoming increasingly concerned about my reliance on google for my online existence. First google buy blogger, then I get sick of both my hotmail and my ntlworld accounts leading me to set up a googlemail account. Now I've added a little RSS widget that feeds you links from my Google Reader shares. My only excuse is that I wanted to get back into RSS but didn't want to install any extra software on my bloated and shambolic PC. Plus, there is the joys of transparency and integration.

Why do I get the feeling that all this google-reliance is going to eventually shoot me in the foot?

In prepartion for my forthcoming night SafeAsMilk, which is to be held at a shot in the dark probably on a monday I have added songs from a playlist I am putting together for the DJ portion of the evening to my tunefeed playlist.

Its only a few tracks from it, but I hope it gives you an idea of what the sounds will be like on the night.

The Drugs league table
( Drugs assessed in order of danger )

1 Heroin

2 Cocaine

3 Barbiturates

4 Street methadone

5 Alcohol

6 Ketamine

7 Benzodiazepine

8 Amphetamines

9 Tobacco

10 Buprenorphine

11 Cannabis

12 Solvents

13 4-MTA

14 LSD

15 Methylphenidate

16 Anabolic steroids

17 GHB

18 Ecstasy

19 Alkyl nitrates

20 Khat

(link )

pleasexcusme...

in order to get the most out of _new blogger, I've had to upgrade the template, which has led to a loss of all my custom stuff. It'll be back to normal soon.

have just updated the copyright information for the site. Aparently, it hasn't been 2005 for a couple of years. Still, wasn't as bad as the time I was stuck in 1986 for over a decade...

tunage

notice music. music good. playlist will be constantly changing. gotta run to shoot now, tata!

link of the f00

I've just stumbled upon this great link to an online Guerilla Filmmaking handbook that has aparently been up for the past 13 years. Haven't had a chance to go through it, but it looks pretty fucking useful to all those that haven't suffered through film school but still wanna make films. As such I have made it my first link of the f00!

( what is foo? )

( Guide Book for Guerilla Film Makers )

P2P is killing piracy

Well, this is a whole load of obviousness.

"The music industry likes to lump P2P and hard-goods piracy together, but they're not the same thing at all -- in fact, they're dire enemies. Piracy's biggest competitor is P2P"

Why pay some prick down the market for a lousy copy of a film when you can just download that lousy copy yourself, curse the uploader, and go looking for a better copy?

Then again, this guy over at /. makes a good point concerning the situation in other, less bandwidth-soaked nations, so if yr really interested in the debate u should definately check that out.

( link )     ( via )     ( /. discussion )

filmmaking for fun, but no profit.

I'm lighting a no-budget film later this evening. But, before I get into that a little background...

A couple of weeks ago I had a film screened at grassroots, a local youth project.

The project had landed in my lap a few months previous when Carol White, the woman who runs the video department, approached me about getting involved. It was basically an orphan project, someone had come to see Carol about making something, had scripted and had it shot, then promptly disappeared before post production could begin. Carol had recently found the project and decided to edit it together and brought me in because she knew I'd turn my hand to anything and also I guess to fulfil the 'youth' aspect of the projects remit.

It was a typical story for an adolescent (or post-adolescent, I dunno how old the guy was when he started it) to come up with; poor, socially maladjusted boy seeks female companion but cannot attain one through normal social discourse and so starts following a girl about, eventually ending up in her home... I won't go into any more detail, just in case I get it up here, but there's a nice little twist at the end. I can be a touch socially maladjusted myself and could completely relate to the scenario and wish-fulfilment element... even if it did weird me out a little.

There was a voice over already written, but it was crap. Simple connect-the-dots shit. I had something much more twisted in mind involving borderline split personality order and a guide to stalking written in the style of a Victorian etiquette book. The script for the voice-over can be found here.

So, I wrote the voice over, went through a couple of drafts, and then me and Carol recorded it a bazillion times and proceeded to figure out the best way to edit it all together. I gotta admit, it was mainly Carol editing, cuz she's there everyday and I only float by when I feel like it. I was really quite impressed with the depth and texture the voice over gave to the simple narrative of the film. I mean, I thought I was being all clever and cool when I wrote it but the way it turned out was beyond my expectations. It went from a productive waste of time to something I would consider putting on my show reel.

Then came time for it to be screened, along with another film that had been recently made at grassroots. I was apprehensive. My name was up there as co-writer and co-director, which felt weird because I wasn't there at the projects inception. The film industry is full of bastards screwing people over and stealing ideas, and I didn't wanna be perceived as one of them. I'm still wet enough behind the ears to not be completely cynical. Still, I had most definitely left my own indelible mark on the film so I forced myself to get over it. I invited a bunch of people, most of whom didn't turn up. A week or so later I actually got scolded by some Australian friends for not inviting them. Like I said, I was feeling apprehensive about my involvement, so maybe I subconciously only invited my waster friends because deep down I knew they wouldn't turn up anyway. Its okay though, I'll give them a private screening.

The screening went well. I'd even managed to hold the attention of the little chav reprobates that are generally grassroots demographic. I got kudos off a few people, including Les, who runs the place. And then, these two girls came up to me...

Their names were Katie and Jen, they were making a film, and they wanted help with lighting. I immediately jumped at the chance because lighting is cool and I'm generally eager to be involved with any film, such is my obsession. I gave Katie my number, got hers, and went upon my merry way.

A week or so later I phone Katie to see what's going on. We arrange to meet up at a pub near the exterior location but I ended bumping into her at the video department at grassroots ( "Hey, don't I know you?" "Yes, your meeting me later at the black weir tavern." "Oh yeah..." ) so we go to the coffeebar to talk about the film. She gives me the script and then we mission to the location, chatting all the way.

It was a cool place to shoot. a wooded area with some interesting trees right next to the river Taff. Also right next to a main road, but as there would be limited synch sound it hopefully wouldn't be too much a problem.

What they wanted from me at that point was a list of what lights they would need. My funky cinematography book was at home so I went to the uni library to look through their copy. Katie gave me Jen's number, as she was the director, and later on that evening I gave her the list. It was pretty extensive and I couldn't help but be pleased with myself, as it was the first time I'd ever had to think about these things.

It is important to note that all the while me and Katie were talking I was stressing the universal adage of film making (especially when you have no money), Finagle's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.

Or, to put it another way: "The perversity of the universe tends towards the maximum"

So...

The next day, whilst on an ecstasy comedown, I get a couple of txts off of Jennie. She couldn't get any of the lights I'd asked for and we were being forced to use industrial floods to light the exterior, which didn't exactly lend themselves to the subtlety I thought the ethereal nature of the script required. I asked Jen if she could postpone the shoot so I could hustle up some better lights. Unfortunately, one of the main actors was buggering off on holiday shortly, so that wasn't an option. I impressed upon her how shit it would look, at how the script seemed to call for the creative use of lighting, all of which she knew, but they were all out of options. It was gonna have to be guerilla all the way.

Okay...

So then, this morning, just as I'm booting up the computer to check to see if I had any mail off of them I get a couple of txts from Katie to inform me that the main actress was being a bitch and refusing to confirm for the shoot that night. Did I know any pretty girls who would be willing to take the part at such short notice?

Of course I did. I know lots of pretty girls. And what pretty girl wouldn't want to be in a film?

The first two people my head came up with were my friend Amy Cuff and my little sister, Bethan. I'd let Beth read the script a couple of days earlier because I thought she'd like it, so I knew that would help with persuading her. I thought she'd be better for the role anyway, because she's just turned 18 and is the closest to 'innocent' (implied in the script)
as anyone else I know. Then again, I am her brother, so of course I'd think that. Who knows what she gets up to when I'm not around?

Anyway, Amy couldn't do it. Mothers day plans. So, with very little cajoling I got Bethan to agree.

So now not only am I lighting a disintegrating no-budget short, I am providing the lead actress. Craziness.

Got another post for you people later, but right now I gotta have some breakfast, get a shower, and go buy my mum a mothers day present.

The Squirrel Conspiracy goes deeper than you think...

I love squirrels. I'm not sure why, but seeing one as I walk through the park always fills me with a childish glee. I especially love the red variety that is native to this country, even if they are rarer than a 13 year old virgin in Llanrumney (I know you love it when I use Cardiff geography in my analogies, they told me) thanks to the north american grey sqiurrel. Seriously guys, its bad enough that you gotta spread yr sick, consumer/celebrity driven monoculture everywhere there's even a whiff of US-interest, but yr coulda left the squiggles alone, couldn't ya?





Yes, I call them squiggles. Like a 14 yearoldgirl who dyes her bangs, wears baby pink lipstick with black nail polish, and has a rucksac shaped like pikachu, so what? So what if I'm 24 and a guy, don't be so closed minded. Androgyny and repressed infantility is the new black. I saw it in an issue of Plan B, so it must be true.

Anyway, all this does have a point. BoingBoing have a lovely post on a pack of squirrels who jumped a dog who was barking at them. They then proceeded to disembowel and kill it.

From the BBC News website:

Passers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.
They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.
A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.

On top of this, they can also scream in ultrasonic. If this isn't enough to impress upon you then need to give squirrels the fear, respect and awe they deserve, then check this shit out: A first hand account of a squirrel attack I experienced whilst chilling in the castle grounds:

=*=

The Squirrel Conspiracy

They all thought I was mad
and wouldn't listen when I opened up
with tales of deviant woodland creatures.
They clearly thought I was off on an interplanetary trip
over the rainbow, down the yellow brick road and causing chaos in the emerald city,
sitting on the wizard of oz's lap, asking him to read me a bed-time story.
When I started telling them about the squirrel conspiracy they just chuckled
curiously and passed me another joint.

They refused to believe they were out for world domination
but that's when they strike see.

When your keeled over, laughing yourself into a slow coma, they leap out of kneelevel bushes, scurry down neck-straining trees, sitting, their thirsty eyes glistening in the sunlight
before darting-scurrying across the grass, blurring just below your field of vision
mounting your body like another oak or elm, first one, then two, then three, before rolling all over you as your grasping desperately at these blurry-furry motherfuckers who are ripping you open like there is no tomorrow.

Then your down on the ground pulse tripping-skipping frantic butterfly beats replaced by silence.
They drag you slowly out of sight to do fuck knows what with you while I watch
recoiled, up on my feet, round the roundabout and down the garden path
melting in front of cathode ray spirits and trying to forget what I've just seen
even though I can't, image burnt so hard into my retina of pyschotic tree-dwelling killers
that no amount of the simpsons can soothe the updown panic making the rounds round my nervous system.
Some things you just can't blot out.

They never believe in the squirrel conspiracy
untill it's too late.
Maybe next time they will.

=*=

If all this talk of blood thirsty land-mammals has made you somewhat nervous, then you should get yourself some squirrel webzen. Sort you right out.

like a hundred hungry fireants crawling behind your eyeballs...

I've been re-reading the one Transmetropolitan book I own. Always good for angrying up the blood. Makes you want to run naked and screaming through the centre of town on a busy Saturday afternoon emptying clip after clip into the masses of shoppers that drag their feet along the refurbished paving slabs as they sleep walk to their next poorly thought out purchasing decision. Spider Jerusalem is my new hero.

To say that Spider Jerusalem is like Hunter S. Thompson on speed... or acid, or any of those other pithy, drug-inspired similes that Rolling Stone threw about in its heighday, would, frankly, be moronic. Hunter S. Thompson was like Hunter S. Thompson on speed... or anything, really. He certainly liked, neigh, demanded his alternated states. Hell, if you could get away with it, wouldn't you too? If you had the strength of will and the resources... Then again, maybe you don't. That's OK, drugs aren't for everybody. It takes a certain amount of character not end up victimised by your own amped-up psyche when it comes to psychoactives. I don't know if I'm up to it, personally. But then, I don't know if I'm not either. Maybe if I had a decent supplier I could find out.

But adolescent drug fantasies aside, the world needs Spider Jerusalem. Someone willing to kick politicians in the teeth. Unfortunately, he only exists in the head of Warren Ellis and his legion of fans. Still, maybe Hunter S. Thompson only existed in his fans heads too. Maybe the Myth swallowed the Man. Maybe the Man swallowed the Myth with a shot of Wild Turkey and a handful of uppers.

I was gonna go visit him one day, you know, had his address written in a notebook. Was gonna get my arse over to the states, hitch and hike my way to Owl Creek, Colorado, take my very life, and my balls, in my hands and meet the fucker. Pick his brain and steal his drugs. Get him to tattoo his autograph onto the back of my neck or something equally irresponsible. Maybe crash on his sofa if I didn't piss him off too much.

Oh well, Too late for that now.

Where was I? Fuck it, I can wax hyperebolic about Spider and Transmetropolitan at another juncture. I think its time for a rambling diary entry.

I gotta admit, I've been finding it hard to get my head back into blogspace. It takes a certain, hyperactive cross-referencing mindset to really go at this thing. Least, the way I was doing it way back when. I dunno if I can do it any more. I don't know if I can be arsed. It's bad enough that I gotta re promote the motherfucker to kickstart my traffic again. All my hard work lost through apathy. *sob*

Yep, that's why I stopped. It just wasn't stoking my engine like it once did, I didn't care any more. So I stopped. But I got my degree (kinda) and now I need an exit strategy out of this stumblefuck life. I got a new passion for the beast. Its different, its more professional, more focused, more... I don't know. Who cares about figuring out what it is at this point. I got a couple of articles on the way. a few gonzo (or subjective journalism, lest it seem I'm throwing around buzzwords in an attempt to increase my hip-quotient) pieces that will draw on a variety of knowledge sources but also be deeply rooted in my own experiences and thoughts. I think I got a couple of things to say about a couple of things that might be interesting to a couple of you things. I got a couple of draft pages written longhand, screwed up on Stew's bedroom floor somewhere (Motherfucker lies in bed with the light out alot watching tv. Makes it hard to find shit, especially when he's passed out) that I need to find so I can start butchering it into shape. As soon as its done, it'll be up here.

I'm fucking spitting teeth over the fact that I can't integrate the haloscan trackback/commenting system into l∅ckedinab∅x because the template I'm using is, like, old blogger, but my account in new blogger, or something. Maybe I'm just stupid. I spent ages painting and fiddling with this fucking place and before I can get such a basic blogging tool integrated I'm gonna have to switch over to a new template and start all over again with my fiddling.

Its not really that big a deal, but I'm a lazy fuck.

and I can't help but feel like I'm repeating myself. I get that alot. My theory is that I think alot of shit into existence in my head but because I often just let it slip back into the waters of my conciousness un-recorded/created I forget all about it. As it is it eventually floats back up again to perhaps be shat out into the outside world in some way. Either that or I've damaged my brain with too many things and now cannot tell the difference between things that have never happened and things I've just thought about happening, or thought and thinking about making happen.... Or something.

Okay, maybe I was a bit hasty with that more professional/more focused crack.

Me and some friends (Stewart and Darren/Darko, mentioned previously) have started writing songs together. They do the music and I do the lyrics. Its working out quite well. We only really started last week and we've already got two songs done. Me and Darko were supposed to be open mic-ing it at a shot in the dark on sunday but the afterbirth monkeyfucks who run it never showed up. I'm thinking about muscling in and taking over. Anyway, I was willing (and even had permission) to just stand up, get everyones attention and just go for it, but Darren and the others had other, more defeatist ideas in their craniums. Still, had a nice smoke back at the house and caught some excellent documentaries on freeview, but that is for another post.

In the meantime, go read the first issue of Transmetropolitan. Isst good, ya?

The Smiler

makes nonsense, this plaything of the senses [poem]

One of the few poems I have an actual date-of-creation for. IT doesn't have a proper title and the one it does is there merely for archiving purposes.

=*=

What's this?
slowly unfolding in this static darkness,
sweet difusion, intoxicating, a cloud, like a blanket,
falling, enveloping;
makes nonsense this plaything of the senses.

Spins nebulous yarn
from ethereal thread;
a throw,
a scarf,
all the colours of the unseen
lost between the pavement cracks,
crushed underfoot in velvet sighs.

Want to hold it in my hands
like sand, but cannot;
the sensation slipping
through my fingers.
It's the closest you can get to touching.

(c) Adam Cheshire 20/02/2007

coffeecore trumpetrock [poem]

The following three poems were written during a feverishly creative time over my friends Darko/Stew/Pete's house, stoned and tweaked on Dr pepper. Its a really good enviroment, with Darko and Pete working on their surreal mini-series and Stewart thrashing away on his beloved guitar, everyone toking away with gleeful abandon. The house has recently attained a music room, what with the loss of fellow housemate Aareon to the seductive pull of the big smoke, which currently contains an ancient casio, a kick ass korg synth (borrowed), a couple of acoustics, a left handed acoustic (mine), a few fucked up french horns and some bongos. Oh yeah, and a couple of tiny lickle amps. Its beautiful man.

Its the only one of the three with a proper title.

=*=


This afternoon I got tweaked at this girls house
who I'd met the night before in a bar;
she sang songs of tequila heartache and emo rock,
lost on memories and laughing.

We play dice on the kitchen counter,
smoking goldern virginia.
shivering with the backdoor open
we listen to cake
and drink coffee.

She's going to teach me how to juggle.

© Adam Cheshire 2007

something missing [ poem ]

sat in my friends Aaeron's room after he'd packed up his stuff ready to move to london was a strange experience. Gone were the turntables, gone were the scultures, paintings, and pictures that adorned the walls. It made me feel kinda sad. I was sorry to see him go. Again, this didn't have a title yet but I had to call it something.

=*=

this room has no soul no more
bare boxed, stripped and packed
just a shell now; canvas stacked all abstract against the wallpaper
CDs stretch babel-like.

I find myself falling down a k-hole of nintendo bleeps and whitenoise
chasing the white rabbit with some malt liquor,
don't I have someplace to be?

© Adam Cheshire 2007

blinkenlighten [ poem ]

This poem doesn't really have a title yet, but I had to call it something. Ho-hum.

=*=

When will this end?
sick of standing, button pressing
blinkenlighten hypnotising
too much thinking got me sinking, need a sliff
those stinking kids have got my temple pounding,
what's the time? Shit, can't this thing go any faster?
wires have been crossed,
events set in motion.
Can't let myself get caught in the combine, that would be foolish.

Apathy is so passe,
like recycled water,
wish I had a bit of control.
This life is killing me.
I'll be dead before I'm 27 if I can't screw this head on properly.
Should try more painkillers, maybe some tai chi, run away
and live on a mountain smoking a pipe.
There has to be something more fufilling
than register fiddling.

I must of been very bad in a past life to deserve
all this neverending bullshit.

© Adam Cheshire 2007

a few things for the clickin'

Well, it wouldn't be much of a blog relaunch without a few links;

Beatnik turtle are a band that definitely remind me of something, but I ain't figured out what yet.... No wait, there's their influences right there on their website! There's a little flash radio player on there so you can check out their music. It ain't half bad; amusing, wry and bouncy. Anyway, they've produced an Indie Band Survival Guide to help you kick off that band you and your friends have been talking about forming for the past 3 years.

( via metafilter )


Also, over on google video for your intertelevisual gratification there's Swear to Tell the Truth, an excellent documentary on outlaw comic Lenny Bruce, who got in so much trouble with the police for speaking his mind you cannot help but admire him. Narrated by Robert Di Niro sounding alot less retarded than he did introducing a season of his films on Film Four recently.

I'm gonna stop now and go for a skate before my computer and the internet once again swallow up all my time like a cumhungry crackwhore on the banks of the river usk.

5af3?

After many million minutes lounging in the blogging limbo of the _realworld and sending very little out into that global repository of knowledge, gossip, porn and piracy that we all know and love it has come to my attension that things may be afoot in the vale of Glamorgan... Well, Cardiff anyway. Can't really speak for everywhere else... yet. I find myself in a unique position to begin documenting certain creative endeavours, certain activities and general flourishes of productivity. In this day. In this age. With all these DVD boxsets braying for our eyeballs. Yes, even with a galaxy of glorious distractions to keep us under we are beginning to claw our way back to the surface. Now is the time for action, innit?

To that end I am setting up a community/collective blog whose purpose it will be to profile and highlight all some of the things that are going on in Cardiff that are worthy of attention. It shall be called wEaTeArt and it shall be glorious. right now it's shit though, it's just a blank, unedited template with no posts onit what so ever. This, of course, is merely a temporary state of affairs, and as soon as I've finished fiddling with the template for l∅ckedinab∅x, done some online promotion and refreshed my memory of html and CSS I shall be turning my attention to getting WeAteaRt up off the ground. The first artist I shall be profiling will no doubt be the illimitable onelittlemushroom/Chris ab Alun, whose work I've blogged before in my own shambolic way. A couple of posts down, actually. Check out his myspace for some d'n'b to get yr feet a-shuffling. Watch them spaces, folks.

But what for l∅ckedinab∅x? Well, for now it shall remain as my personal blog where I will post links and writing for yr purusal. Eventually though I hope to resign it to the task of representing my video/filmmaking endevours. That'll probably be some time away though.

Before I go off to fiddle with the template some more I'd just like to say [ hi! ] to the 4 or so hits I still seem to be getting a day. Make yourself comfortable and put your feet up. Things are about to ^{kick off}.

the revenge of the re-run of the inexplicable anti-climax

I'm back.

Like the paint job?
_{Content and structural changes forthcoming.}
Watch This Space.
watch this space too.

free acoustic cover music for all you lovely lovely people

I've been telling my friend Chris for AAAAAAgEs that I was gonna set up a page for him and upload all his fabulously folksy/reggaesy music onto the wurld wide wib for the whole world to enjoy and have I? Hell no! I'm much more of an idea person than an action person, something that I need to remedy if I'm ever gonna live my dream of achieving my many goals. Anyways, Chris is back in the 'dam again, probably the only place he comes close to true happiness, and emailed me the other day asking if I'd rip some tracks of his and send them to him.

Before he left for the netherlands Chris was working on some fabulous acoustic covers of none acoustic music. He also gave me copies of all the stuff he'd been working on the past couple of years (even though he'd given my copies before and I'd lost them) including these covers. They really are pretty good and now I've stuck them online for chris to get at I can share them with all you fabulous people! Ain't that neat? They're up on the free file hosting site GimeHost.

Glory Box (Portishead)

Teardrops (Massive Attack)

a reworked mozart piece

I dunno how he wants these licenced so let's just say they're © Chris ab Alun 2006 (and obviously the relevant copyright holders too!) with creative commons pretentions shall we?

I should probably be hyping these up more as I said I'd act as his half-arsed promoter, but I can't even be half-arsed right now. :P

[quote]

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”--E.O Wilson

authority does not act in your best interest, but it certainly acts in your interests, whether you want it to or not. The Bastards!

Beat Poetry Good. Dissertation Bad.

I Am 25
by Gregory Corso

With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
has gone from ear to ear:
I HATE OLD POETMEN!
Especially old poetmen who retract
who consult other old poetmen
who speak their youth in whispers,
saying:--I did those then
but that was then
that was then--
O I would quiet old men
say to them:--I am your friend
what you once were, thru me
you'll be again--
Then at night in the confidence of their homes
rip out their apology-tongues
and steal their poems.

The space between what you think and what you say is filling with garbage water

grar. Dissertations are boring; constant reading, notemaking, cross-referencing, structuring... Barely any room for creativity at all. Yawn-o-Rama. Was reading up on Pull my Daisy last night before taking a little break to do a little random stream-o-conciousness, out of which I pulled the following piece. The title has just this second been thought up, well, remembered. I think I had it set as my microsuck messanger name for a while and its alot more interesting than the original title; let he without sin cast the first stone.

= * =

Outside.
Thems outside,
they scratch
they scratch
the shell, the skin
wrapped in plastic
caustic
soda slowing around your insides
fizz, pop!

These times, they are d-caying
collapsing
ice cap melting, ozone depletion
please don't mention where all the happy gone?
Just two right feet writ big in our souls
stick needles in our neighbours
for blood and oil and jesus christ
got high with Mohammad and the Buddha
you fools! I'll scratch your eyes out. Don't look at me cock-eyed
your'll lose more than your pretty face.
Cast stones not he with out sin.

Pull my Daisy / Shizzle my Nizzle

The following is a synopsis for Pull my Daisy, which Jonas Mekas called "The first truely beat film." It's copied out of Naked Lens by Jack Sargeant, which is one of the rare books on beat cinema. if Jack reads this please be aware that I'm gonna reword it before I use it in my dissertation. Honest. It's up here so I don't lose it.

God, I hate essays.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


Set in an apartment in downtown Manhattan, it opens with an establishing shot; tracking around an empty room. Kerouac’s voice begins the narration which, save for a few short breaks, runs for the length of the film: “Early morning in the universe...”. A woman, whom the narration describes as a painter and the wife of a “railroad brakeman” enters the room. The wife walks to the windows and opens the curtains, letting the light stream in, her young son Pablo enters to eat his breakfast, before rushing off to school. Shortly before they leave for school Alan and Gregory enter, carrying bottles of beer.
Alan and Gregory sit down and begin the discuss poetry, the camera roving back and forth between them, in close up a joint is passed between the two poets. Alan and Gregory begin to argue about Apollinaire, and in a long shot Alan stands up, frustrated with Alan’s argument, and this becomes emphasized by the rhythmic aggression of the narration, juxtaposing the velocity of Alan’s frenetic speech patters (“that’s right/that’s right/that’s right/that’s what I said/ that’s right/that’s right/that’s right” [punctuation Sargeant’s]) with Gregory’s sullen weariness at Alan’s continued dancing movements. At the end of the argument, in established shot-reverse-shot style, Alan states: “The Lower East Side has produced all the strange gum chewing geniuses”, to which Gregory replies, “Ah you make me – I could tell you poems that would make you weep with long hair, goodbye, goodbye…”
The scene is interrupted by the arrival of Milo, as he walks around the apartment the three poets follow him. Flute music plays on the soundtrack, switching from the (supposedly) diagetic sounds produced by Gregory’s flute playing to the extra-diagetic music of Amram’s score, the music serves to emphasize the almost child-like enthusiasm the poets have for the railway worker. Ells them that the Bishop is coming “you guys have gotta act a little better […] no flutes and no nonsense”. A shot from the window looking down into the street depicts the Bishop’s car arriving. The wife goes to welcome the Bishop and his entourage into the apartment while the three poets excitedly anticipate the Bishop’s immediate arrival.
Milo dances around the apartment, a movement which is directly constrained by the apparent stoicism of the Bishop. The Bishop and his family (mother and sister) are introduced and begin to settle down. Gregory begins questioning the Bishop about Buddhism, before rapidly sliding into ‘nonsense’ talk (“goofing […] playing around with words”), apologizing and then asking more serious questions on Buddhism.
With a burst of the jazz soundtrack, Mezz Mcgillicuddy enters the apartment, shaking hands with everybody. Peter begins to talk to the Bishop, asking him “Have you ever played baseball and seen girls with tight dresses?” and then “Is baseball holy?” while swinging an imaginary bat.
The scene fades to an exterior shot, the soundtrack becomes more melancholic, while in long shot the Bishop preaches to a congregation of, predominantly, women and children. As he delivers his sermon an American flag, held by Milo’s wife who is standing at the Bishop’s side, blows over his face (“The American flag is a recurring motif in Robert Frank’s book The Americans, where it was used to simultaneously symbolize both identity and lack of identity; belonging to a national culture and being excluded from it. For many Americans the flag also functions as a visual signifier of their own freedom. The American flag is also a ‘thematic’ of Alfred Leslie’s paintings from the early fifties; ‘abstract’ works such as Spots and Stripes Painting (1952) and Hoboken Oval (1953) are characterized via the repeated use of stripes (both vertical and horizontal) which are visually contrasted with painted areas of circular shapes.” – Sargeant, pg51, 16.). The camera tracks to a medium close-up over the faces of the street congregation, all of whom are speaking, although, crucially, there is no narration at this point in the film.
Cutting back to the apartment the film continues to track across the faces of those around the Bishop (Alan, Gregory, et al). Kerouac’s narration: “The angel of silence hath flown over all their heads”, the narration continues but begins to turn into ‘music’, no longer emphasizing ‘real’ sentences, but ‘pure’ word plays which seek to evoke the spirit of the evening. Not only is the silence of the apartment articulated by Kerouac’s narration, it is also emphasized by the shots of the tightly shut lips of all in the parment, and contrasts the extra-diagetic silence of the animated congregation of the previous exterior scene with its images of speech.
Gregory slumps drunkenly while Milo’s wife berates him for the Beats’ behavior. From the wife’s seated position the camera flows around the room, to the mirrored door of the bathroom; “The Queen of Sheba takes a bath in this bathtub every day”, then across the cooking surfaces, where Kerouac’s narration describes the cockroaches that inhabit the apartment: “cockroaches, cockroaches, coffee cockroaches, stove cockroaches, city cockroaches, spot cockroaches, melted cheese cockroaches, Chaplin cockroaches, peanut butter cockroaches – cockroach cockroach – cockroach of the eyes – cockroach, mirror, boom, bang”. The narrative rap is accomained by the jazz soundtrack, along with a quick-fire montage of images of Alan dancing with gun-fingers pointed like a child playing cowboys. Then, as the rap ends, the film resumes its track around the room. As the bookcase comes into shot the narration states “Jung, Frued, Jung, Reich” as if reading the titles from the bookcase. Returning to long-shot the Bishop states “Strange thoughts you young, uh, people have.” Gregory walks over to the Bishop and sits at his feet, simultaneously Peter walks to the table asking “Is everything holy, is alligators holy, Bishop? Is the world holy? Is the organ of man holy? [the narration continues] The Bishop says, what, holy, holy? He says, Oh my mother wants to play the organ.”
Mezz Mcgillicuddy positions a chair in-front of the pump organ so the old lady can play something “holy”. Noticeably the music the mother plays is the same as which was heard during the exterior scene depicting the street congregation. In a separate room of the apartment Gregory asks Milo, “When are we going to blow man, what are we going to do?” The soundtrack changes to jazz and the tempo increases, emphasized by the increased speed of the editing. In the bedroom McGillicuddy begins to play the French horn. A woman laying on the bed tosses and rolls away from him. While in the living room Alan has joined in the ‘confrontation’ with the Bishop asking him, in quick fire questions, punctuating the jazz rhythms, “are holy flowers holy? Is the world holy? Is glasses holy? Is time holy? Is all the white moonlight holy? Empty rooms are holy? You holy? Come on Bishop tell us. Toy holy? Byzantine holy? Is mock holy? Izzamerican flag holy? Is girl holy? Is your sister holy? What is holy? Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy? And car holy and light holy? Is holy holy?” Each question is punctuated by the cutting of the film to illustrate it, which serves as an emphasis to the quick-fire Kerouac as Alan narration. The music becomes increasingly frenetic as Milo picks up a saxophone and begins to blow. The Bishop states that he should be leaving, and Milo’s wife sees the Bishop and his family out.
Pablo ambles into the room, where he is asked by Milo if he wants to play too. Returning from his bedroom clutching a horn he joins in the impromptu session. The soundtrack becomes punctuated with random blasts of out-of-key horn, emphasizing Pablo’s playing.
Cutting to a long-shot of the table, with more relaxed music on the soundtrack, Milo picks up Pablo, the camera focuses on the action moves to capture the smoke rising from the cigarettes in the ashtray on the table. Kerouac sings: “Up you go, little smoke. Up you go little smoke. Up you go, little smoke.” Each line is higher in pitch. The smoke about which he is singing being both the actual smoke from the ashtray, but also – and more importantly – the child being lovingly carried on his father’s shoulder from the room. Mezz plays alone while, outside, the wife waves goodbye to the Bishop.
Alan announces “Wow, let’s do something we’ve never done” and suggests that they “play cowboys”. Milo – who has returned from his son’s room – begins to tell a story about a cowboy. Milo’s speech is delivered in Kerouac’s driest quasi-William Burroughs-styled tones (indeed the story could almost be a homage to William Burroughs’ blackly humoured routines). The story describes a cowboy who shoots a wino who is sitting at a Preacher’s feet (the story is a reference to Gregory’s behavior). Milo enacts the story while recounting it, finally – as the cowboy shoots the wino – Milo points his finger-gun at Gregory’s head. A close up of the finger-gun death shot to gregory’s head illustrates Gregory’s anger at being the butt of the story; “What’d you do that for? – Pow!”
Milo’s wife returns and once again berates him for his behaviour. The three poets – all sitting in line, wdged onto the sofa – appear like naughty school boys. Led by McGillicuddy the poets run from the apartment, calling for Milo to follow them “Come on down those steps. Let’s go. We’ll go somewhere, we’ll find something. Maybe we’ll play by fires in the Bowery.” Milo argues with his wife, then angrily kicks the rocking chair which rocks back and forth as he leaves the room. In a visual counterpoint to the movements of the rocking chair in the apartment, a ceiling rose in the dark entrance hall swings back and forth: “And the rose swings. She’ll get over it. [Milo appears on the stairs to be greeted by the poets] Come on, Milo. Here comes sweet Milo, beautiful Milo. [In Milo’s voice] Hello gang. Dad a dad a And they’re going dada dad a dada dad a da” the narration becomes accelertated, in an affirmation of joy. The group run out, laughing, into the night.

I should be blantantly working on my dissertation, but have taken a leeetle break to watch the new trailer for Linklater's A Scanner Darkly.

this video documentary is fucking awesome and details the history of the most famous and most used break in the world, the Amen break. This lil' 6 second drum loop, apart from being used in hiphop throughout its history, is practically the complete basis for jungle and drum and bass breaks. Facinating. Check it out and riiiide deh riddem!

*ahem*

( link )

( via - which has a mirror link on it )

New Hitler Youth
blinded by the dawn's early light
shoot ragheads in deserts.

images for bookcovers

In order to reinforce the diegesis of our film, and for the purpose of props, the photoshopping into existence of book covers is required, as well as some fictional titles of said books. As I love making shit up I quickly volunteered for the job. I'm sticking the images up here mainly to have a backup, but also to give you a little insight into our protagonists' head.

Book titles

Society and the oppression of the individual

The bureaucratic labyrinth

Too far, right?: National Socialism and the Republican party

Death of the Left: Liberalism in a homogenised society

Brave New Cool: Surveillance society and Hipster culture

possible images for bookcovers