BETAMAXNOMATES
'All she can do is dial and yell...'20041230
Astonishing Panorama of the End-Times
Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.
Jesus, some of the shit they’re showing on Sky News is a bit graphic, isn’t it? Nobody wants to see water-logged corpses when they’re having their tea. All that crying and everything. And the so-called ‘interviews’ with the survivors are even worse:
JEREMY THOMPSON: I’m here live in Phuket speaking with one woman whose family has experienced immeasurable tragedy over the past three days. Minutes ago, the bodies of her husband of thirty years and five of their seven children were recovered from the ruins of what remains of the village here. This, I understand, is a very difficult time for you and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us this quarter hour.
BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...
JEREMY THOMPSON: Tragic. You must be absolutely devastated.
BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...
JEREMY THOMPSON: [to camera] ‘Absolutely devastated’. The words of one woman here in Phuket, articulating, I’m sure, the thoughts of everyone watching this tragedy as it unfolds, live here on Sky News...
Gah. Global tragedy always brings out the worst in TV.
All the 24hr news stations go into overdrive, wheeling out every available ‘expert’, whipping up a smorgasbord of virtual simulations/recreations with snazzy graphics and sonorous theme-tunes as well as irrelevant interviews with anyone and everyone who was even remotely associated with the event in question. Tell us Moby, is terrorism good or bad? What do you have to say to the people of South East Asia, Pete Doherty? Jimmy Carr, where does this one rank on the charts of TV treats?
I'm bitter because no-one’s asked me for my take on the tragedy yet; perhaps I’ve somewhat misoverestimated my significance in the broadband of cultural commentary.
But anonymous bloggers matter too, dammit! Y’see, if I was to have been killed by some massive wave or something I think I’d like my death to be as publicised as possible.
Maybe I could fashion some kind of medic-alert bracelet I could wear that would license my corpse to be used in any and all subsequent news broadcasts or charity appeals. Exploit my demise! Forget my family’s right to grieve in private: I want my deathmask on every front page, every spare-a-thought TV promo piece, every donate-now-or-may-liberal-guilt-choke-you charity flyer!
Way I see it is mass tragedy needs a human face, and we all know that posthumous celebrity has the greatest longevity. And anyone could fill this role really: it’s personal, yet somehow anonymous at the same time, which makes the selection process entirely democratic. All the victims are automatically entered into competition; there could be regional heats, the bereaved families could nominate their lost child(ren) to go forward into the international final where the voting public elect their Death Idol to be made the media's face of the Asian Flood Disaster.
Simon Cowell presumably signs the runner-up as well, to front minor rail crashes and endorse other smaller-scale human tragedies.
Speaking of tragedies that are looking a bit pisspoor next to Sunday’s floods, this Saturday I’m off to see the Western world’s wounded metropolis, the Big Apple, New New York, double-NYC, Lyle Lanley 'verse city rappin', from Boogie all the way down ta Staten'. Word!
Of course, 9/11 was a very serious tragedy, but don’t just take it from me: read what these ‘experts’ have to say on the matter. I’m not too worried about terrorism though; that some left-wing extremists might force me to have an abortion and marry a gay guy is only a minor concern. Top of my agenda now is the threat we face from Mother Nature.
I certainly hope I don’t get any of those giant tidal waves that hit New York in that documentary I saw.
No Hell, or indeed high water, is gonna stop me splurging like a working-class lottery winner in the Big Smoke.
And before you get all self-righteous and finger-pointy with me, you should know that I already made a donation to the South East Asia Appeal: this morning I gave them some old Sexwax, a pair of rollerblades, and half a Toblerone I had left over from The Christmas*. Now I can spend as much as I want on myself, guilt-free, like a moderately successful rapper living beyond his means. Look out New York, MC Anonymous is pimpin’ it like Fabolous or one of the dudes in the background of Fat Joe videos. Word!
Jesus, some of the shit they’re showing on Sky News is a bit graphic, isn’t it? Nobody wants to see water-logged corpses when they’re having their tea. All that crying and everything. And the so-called ‘interviews’ with the survivors are even worse:
JEREMY THOMPSON: I’m here live in Phuket speaking with one woman whose family has experienced immeasurable tragedy over the past three days. Minutes ago, the bodies of her husband of thirty years and five of their seven children were recovered from the ruins of what remains of the village here. This, I understand, is a very difficult time for you and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us this quarter hour.
BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...
JEREMY THOMPSON: Tragic. You must be absolutely devastated.
BEREAVED VILLAGEWOMAN: I...
JEREMY THOMPSON: [to camera] ‘Absolutely devastated’. The words of one woman here in Phuket, articulating, I’m sure, the thoughts of everyone watching this tragedy as it unfolds, live here on Sky News...
Gah. Global tragedy always brings out the worst in TV.
All the 24hr news stations go into overdrive, wheeling out every available ‘expert’, whipping up a smorgasbord of virtual simulations/recreations with snazzy graphics and sonorous theme-tunes as well as irrelevant interviews with anyone and everyone who was even remotely associated with the event in question. Tell us Moby, is terrorism good or bad? What do you have to say to the people of South East Asia, Pete Doherty? Jimmy Carr, where does this one rank on the charts of TV treats?
I'm bitter because no-one’s asked me for my take on the tragedy yet; perhaps I’ve somewhat misoverestimated my significance in the broadband of cultural commentary.
But anonymous bloggers matter too, dammit! Y’see, if I was to have been killed by some massive wave or something I think I’d like my death to be as publicised as possible.
Maybe I could fashion some kind of medic-alert bracelet I could wear that would license my corpse to be used in any and all subsequent news broadcasts or charity appeals. Exploit my demise! Forget my family’s right to grieve in private: I want my deathmask on every front page, every spare-a-thought TV promo piece, every donate-now-or-may-liberal-guilt-choke-you charity flyer!
Way I see it is mass tragedy needs a human face, and we all know that posthumous celebrity has the greatest longevity. And anyone could fill this role really: it’s personal, yet somehow anonymous at the same time, which makes the selection process entirely democratic. All the victims are automatically entered into competition; there could be regional heats, the bereaved families could nominate their lost child(ren) to go forward into the international final where the voting public elect their Death Idol to be made the media's face of the Asian Flood Disaster.
Simon Cowell presumably signs the runner-up as well, to front minor rail crashes and endorse other smaller-scale human tragedies.
Speaking of tragedies that are looking a bit pisspoor next to Sunday’s floods, this Saturday I’m off to see the Western world’s wounded metropolis, the Big Apple, New New York, double-NYC, Lyle Lanley 'verse city rappin', from Boogie all the way down ta Staten'. Word!
Of course, 9/11 was a very serious tragedy, but don’t just take it from me: read what these ‘experts’ have to say on the matter. I’m not too worried about terrorism though; that some left-wing extremists might force me to have an abortion and marry a gay guy is only a minor concern. Top of my agenda now is the threat we face from Mother Nature.
I certainly hope I don’t get any of those giant tidal waves that hit New York in that documentary I saw.
No Hell, or indeed high water, is gonna stop me splurging like a working-class lottery winner in the Big Smoke.
And before you get all self-righteous and finger-pointy with me, you should know that I already made a donation to the South East Asia Appeal: this morning I gave them some old Sexwax, a pair of rollerblades, and half a Toblerone I had left over from The Christmas*. Now I can spend as much as I want on myself, guilt-free, like a moderately successful rapper living beyond his means. Look out New York, MC Anonymous is pimpin’ it like Fabolous or one of the dudes in the background of Fat Joe videos. Word!
* ‘Christmas’ is a registered trademark of Hallmark Family Entertainment, a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, and is used with permission.
Of course, this is all presuming I make it to the airport alive.
I was hit with the flu on Christmas Day - the gift that keeps on giving - and have been mainlining the Lemsip ever since. I’ve also developed a new technique I call ‘freebase Lemsip’, which you may want to try at home if you’re suffering with cold or flu. Basically, you crack open a couple of the Max Strength capsules and gently burn the powder inside, trying to inhale, via an empty plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, as much of the resultant gas as possible.
Don’t worry if you accidentally snort some of the flaming nodules; so long as you remember to wedge a slice of lemon between your teeth to bite down on you won’t pass out. For extra effect, try rubbing some Benylin syrup on your gums too, or keep some of that Vicks vapour stuff close to hand to rub on your face after the initial hit.
There, free, 100% FDA approved, medical advice on Day Month Year; don’t say I never give you nothing. And here, apropos of nothing, are some nice pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal:
Hmm. Jake really should do more nature programs like that tidal wave one. He's so talented - maybe something for Discovery where he spends the show naked and covered in horse ejaculate. See, I have loads of ideas! Someone in TV give me a budget and I guarantee I’ll give you a hit!
Anyway, Happy New(s) Year to you, frockbonkers.
Celebrate irresponsibly and without a thought for anyone outside of yourself. Special shouts go to Adrian, Neuro and Zoomtard and some others who had a party last night without me (imagine!) since I was busy at work.
I say busy, actually most of my time was spent playing video games, not something I usually have much interest in. However, last night, and the past few nights my job has involved playing this, and this, both of which are gratuitously violent and morally indefensible (the latter, in particular, is quite breathtakingly racist in tone) but also, I have to say, some of the best fun I’ve had in ages.
Also, one’s of you have been complaining about some of the content of this site being unavailable. This is because of these stingy cunts and their poxy 10MB bandwidth trap. This will, I promise, be rectified in time.
Come ‘05, this site is getting a major overhaul - getting ‘pimped’, if you will (TM X to the Z) - pimped truly in the MTV sense, meaning given a suitably blingin’ makeover, rather than in the Reality sense i.e. being forced to turn tricks for drug money under threat of (often sexual) violence and intimidation.
Ho ho, not that! Pimps, TV tells us, are dapper, streetwise dandies and their ‘bitches’ are, in fact, sass-talkin’, strong-willed career women (often with Hearts of Gold), striking a blow for 21st century post-feminists everywhere.
Have I reached the magic 1000 word limit yet? Yes I have, which officially makes this blog a ‘journal’, I believe. Astonishing panorama of the end-times indeed.
Violence for the people,
They always eat the hand that bleeds.
Violence for the people,
Give the kids what they need.
Kill your God,
Kill your TV.
Yes, I am 14.
20041228
It's the Annual, Once-a-Year, Winterval Holiday 'Eggstravaganza'!
Happy Christmas, crackheads, and welcome to a special seasonal edition of your favourite site that isn’t the Anti-Christmas Zone.
So, without any further adieu, or indeed Agadoo, please welcome your host for this evening, Day Month Year’s Person of ‘04, a boyband refugee turned sensitive pop-rocker and weekend access super-Dad, the man who embodies everything that 2004 stood (and fell) for, a genuine fake, the artist formerly known as Bryan McFadden: Brian McFadden!
Howsit goin’? I’m Brian McFadden and this, the autocue tells me, is the Day Month Year Christmas Special, or DDMMYY XMS SPCL ‘04.
So won’t you join me (that name again is 'Brian-with-an-i' McFadden) in celebrating this bastard season? Take a place in the Day Month Year nativity, maybe nestled between the three wise men, watching the firelight shimmering on the head of the fetus Jesus, as a smacked-out transexual in an angel outfit sings a Hi-NRG ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, and together we read a prayer to the big J.C, Jim Caviezel:
On this solemn day we come to you, tender Babe of Bethlehem.
By your birth you have hidden your divinity in order to share our frail human nature. In the light of faith, we acknowledge you as true God, made man out of love for us. You alone are the Redeemer of mankind, yo!
Before the Crib where you lie helpless, Day Month Year asks of you, let there be an end to the spread of violence in its many forms, the source of untold suffering; let there be an end to the numerous situations of unrest which risk degenerating into open conflict; let there arise a firm will to seek peaceful solutions, respectful of the legitimate aspirations of individuals and peoples.
Yes, in other words, let there be… Team America: World Police! In cinemas January 14!
Babelicious of Bethlehem, Prophet of piss, encourage attempts to promote dialogue and reconciliation, sustain the efforts to build peace, which hesitantly, yet not without hope, are being made to bring about a more tranquil present and future for so many of our brothers and sisters in the world. (I would link to a picture but photographic records are proving hard to come by. Huh.)
And I think of Africa, of the tragedy of Band Aid 20. With great apprehension I follow the situation on Iraq-o-Vision. And how can I fail to look with anxious concern, but also invincible confidence, towards that Land of which you are a son?
He who bestows the Kingdom of heaven does not take away human kingdoms. Hasten to meet him; he comes to teach us the way of truth, peace and love.
And now: a word from our sponsors.
Happy Winterval, everybody. Hearty thanks to all my new friends and to the Pope for inspiring me with his words. Day Month Year will be off the air next week, but expect one last 'eggstra-special' update before the year's end.
Oh yeah, I was bored and I made this - some kewl wallpaper for your desktop.
Happy Christmas go fuck yourself.
So, without any further adieu, or indeed Agadoo, please welcome your host for this evening, Day Month Year’s Person of ‘04, a boyband refugee turned sensitive pop-rocker and weekend access super-Dad, the man who embodies everything that 2004 stood (and fell) for, a genuine fake, the artist formerly known as Bryan McFadden: Brian McFadden!
Howsit goin’? I’m Brian McFadden and this, the autocue tells me, is the Day Month Year Christmas Special, or DDMMYY XMS SPCL ‘04.
So won’t you join me (that name again is 'Brian-with-an-i' McFadden) in celebrating this bastard season? Take a place in the Day Month Year nativity, maybe nestled between the three wise men, watching the firelight shimmering on the head of the fetus Jesus, as a smacked-out transexual in an angel outfit sings a Hi-NRG ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, and together we read a prayer to the big J.C, Jim Caviezel:
On this solemn day we come to you, tender Babe of Bethlehem.
By your birth you have hidden your divinity in order to share our frail human nature. In the light of faith, we acknowledge you as true God, made man out of love for us. You alone are the Redeemer of mankind, yo!
Before the Crib where you lie helpless, Day Month Year asks of you, let there be an end to the spread of violence in its many forms, the source of untold suffering; let there be an end to the numerous situations of unrest which risk degenerating into open conflict; let there arise a firm will to seek peaceful solutions, respectful of the legitimate aspirations of individuals and peoples.
Yes, in other words, let there be… Team America: World Police! In cinemas January 14!
Babelicious of Bethlehem, Prophet of piss, encourage attempts to promote dialogue and reconciliation, sustain the efforts to build peace, which hesitantly, yet not without hope, are being made to bring about a more tranquil present and future for so many of our brothers and sisters in the world. (I would link to a picture but photographic records are proving hard to come by. Huh.)
And I think of Africa, of the tragedy of Band Aid 20. With great apprehension I follow the situation on Iraq-o-Vision. And how can I fail to look with anxious concern, but also invincible confidence, towards that Land of which you are a son?
He who bestows the Kingdom of heaven does not take away human kingdoms. Hasten to meet him; he comes to teach us the way of truth, peace and love.
And now: a word from our sponsors.
Happy Winterval, everybody. Hearty thanks to all my new friends and to the Pope for inspiring me with his words. Day Month Year will be off the air next week, but expect one last 'eggstra-special' update before the year's end.
Oh yeah, I was bored and I made this - some kewl wallpaper for your desktop.
Happy Christmas go fuck yourself.
20041227
Error 404
This page cannot be displayed due to lack of effort. And those Scrooge-ass muthafucka's at Ripway.
Normal service etc. etc.
Normal service etc. etc.
20041218
WARNING: Day Month Year Contains Strong Typing and Scenes of a Textual Nature from the Start
And readers of a sensitive disposition can [Edit] my [Edit] up their [Edit] and [Edit] it out the other side.
So. What’s in the Day Month Year mailbag this week?
Our first complaint for one - which we can neither can confirm nor deny is from Joss Stone’s maternal grandmother. For legal reasons, we are unable to reprint the letter on this page; all we will say is that the elderly lady in question was, and I quote, ‘shizzocked and horrifizzled’ by certain comments suggesting that a dead cat be inserted into the young singer’s stomach cavity. However, given that the posters to this site state their opinions anonymously, Day Month Year can take no responsibility any specific content, no matter how objectionable.
So there. You dumb lump of bitchshit.
What else?
Craig from Humberside was correct in guessing that Al Jourgensen would, of course, rock very hard and that Ministry are the most hard rockingest band of all time. Clever Sandy from Walport also spotted that Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out of Nothing At All’ does indeed sound a lot like ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler. Martin from Guernsey is schizophrenic and his letters make very little sense and he may or may not have eaten a lightbulb.
Thanks for your comments everybody. Your names and details have been added to our Sex Offenders Register and the News of The World will burn you out of your homes.
Now, to the business at hand.
This Monday, there will be no new posts to Day Month Year. The reason? One word, my friends, one word and three syllables. Moz.
I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue. For my money, I don’t think it gets any better than when he sings ‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’ (TM Office Space, but then, you already knew that didn’t you?).
Come Monday we shall see if the old dog has any new tricks for us. And to mark the occasion, I threw together this remix of ‘First of The Gang to Die’, one of Day Month Year’s Songs of ‘04, refashioned in the manner of arch glitch Poj Masta. Safe, innit.
Fuck, it took me nearly half an hour to upload that piece of shit. If any of you cunts has got some webspace you’re not using, like, that’s just lying around the house gathering dust and taking up space under the stairs, give it the fuck here.
And since none of you bothered to suggest an artist name for me I was forced to choose from the following selection, all, for the most part, grouped around the ‘piss-poor’ end of the scale: Roxy Muzak, Poxy Joss and the Performing Abortions, Shifty Shitbox and the Crazy Town Crappy Rapper Crew (yeah, take that Shifty, ex-Crazy Town. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as kicking a man when he’s so clearly down, is there?) and... well, the picture I’m sure you can get.
Eventually I settled on the somewhat less original, and even less surprising: Anonymous. This project will go under the name of Public Art, or Anonymous Public Art; in shorthand I will probably make a point of referring to it as APA, if only to increase confusion between myself and the other APA.
Here’s a sketch of my new corporate logo:
So. What’s in the Day Month Year mailbag this week?
Our first complaint for one - which we can neither can confirm nor deny is from Joss Stone’s maternal grandmother. For legal reasons, we are unable to reprint the letter on this page; all we will say is that the elderly lady in question was, and I quote, ‘shizzocked and horrifizzled’ by certain comments suggesting that a dead cat be inserted into the young singer’s stomach cavity. However, given that the posters to this site state their opinions anonymously, Day Month Year can take no responsibility any specific content, no matter how objectionable.
So there. You dumb lump of bitchshit.
What else?
Craig from Humberside was correct in guessing that Al Jourgensen would, of course, rock very hard and that Ministry are the most hard rockingest band of all time. Clever Sandy from Walport also spotted that Air Supply’s ‘Making Love Out of Nothing At All’ does indeed sound a lot like ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler. Martin from Guernsey is schizophrenic and his letters make very little sense and he may or may not have eaten a lightbulb.
Thanks for your comments everybody. Your names and details have been added to our Sex Offenders Register and the News of The World will burn you out of your homes.
Now, to the business at hand.
This Monday, there will be no new posts to Day Month Year. The reason? One word, my friends, one word and three syllables. Moz.
I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue. For my money, I don’t think it gets any better than when he sings ‘The Last of the Famous International Playboys’ (TM Office Space, but then, you already knew that didn’t you?).
Come Monday we shall see if the old dog has any new tricks for us. And to mark the occasion, I threw together this remix of ‘First of The Gang to Die’, one of Day Month Year’s Songs of ‘04, refashioned in the manner of arch glitch Poj Masta. Safe, innit.
Fuck, it took me nearly half an hour to upload that piece of shit. If any of you cunts has got some webspace you’re not using, like, that’s just lying around the house gathering dust and taking up space under the stairs, give it the fuck here.
And since none of you bothered to suggest an artist name for me I was forced to choose from the following selection, all, for the most part, grouped around the ‘piss-poor’ end of the scale: Roxy Muzak, Poxy Joss and the Performing Abortions, Shifty Shitbox and the Crazy Town Crappy Rapper Crew (yeah, take that Shifty, ex-Crazy Town. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as kicking a man when he’s so clearly down, is there?) and... well, the picture I’m sure you can get.
Eventually I settled on the somewhat less original, and even less surprising: Anonymous. This project will go under the name of Public Art, or Anonymous Public Art; in shorthand I will probably make a point of referring to it as APA, if only to increase confusion between myself and the other APA.
Here’s a sketch of my new corporate logo:
Staying on the music tip, yesterday I earned the dubious honour of being recruited as ‘keyboards man’ in a ‘funk-rock’ band made up of three middle-aged German ex-pats. The details of how this came about are rather tedious but it’s not an entirely unwelcome prospect. Obviously I will be participating purely for irony’s sake, though this, of course, will be kept secret from my more earnest bandmates.
There’s a common belief that all German’s have horrendous taste in music. And that’s because they do. These guys strive to emulate the Toyota Corolla rock-stylings of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. What’s the first thing you think of when you think about the German taste in music: it's Scooter or it's The Hoff.
And this, I think, is perplexing mainly because Germany is responsible for some of the best music of the past fifty years: Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, Mouse On Mars, and a whole host of ground-breaking electronica performers and DJ’s that you’ve probably never heard of. Even The Scorpions weren’t that bad. (They were actually, but I'm trying to make a Point here).
This gives me hope, in that it seems to suggest German’s are capable of making good music; they just don’t know how to listen to it.
Gosh, two whole paragraphs about Germans and not a single war joke. In case your were wondering this is because I am Jewish. Yes my friends, Anonymous is a big fat Jew. Just like Woody Allen and, uh, Pauly Shore.
Now get outta here you zhlub, before I call you a Mel Gibson-sympathiser and get your kid’s school blowed up!
Mood: Moody rappinghood.
Music: Right now, it’s ‘New New York’ by Tes, a tune that shits all over the Beastie’s geriatric beats. Next week expect a barely coherent email from a smack-addled Mike D complaining about some Internet guy slagging his band and calling him a heroin addict. Who said anything about a horse, junkie-boy? Hats off to Popworld, once again.
Thanking you for your patience.
20041216
Cash Money Millionaire in All but Reality
I’ve nothing to say.
Not today, anyway. I mean, I could continue with more heart-rending tales of cat death, describing the hollowed-out corpse of Joss Stone stuffed with muck. But there’s only so much, isn’t there?
And I could tell you about my first day of Christmas shopping in town and complain about the categorically poxy state of public transport in this country.
Oh, the squalor of it all, riding the bus like a common lesbian. Because you know, if there’s one thing the stonewash brigade love more then the vadge, it’s riding them buses. ‘Lesbuses’, they should call them. Can’t move for muffdivers.
Disgraceful stuff.
Anyway, clearly I’ve nothing to say, and no interesting way of saying it. So I’ll steal someone else’s (good) idea and just give lame smart-ass answers to some stupid end-of-year questionnaire.
So, Anonymous:
1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
This.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Don’t believe in them. I believe in Carpe Diem, Latin for ‘shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out’.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Thankfully no, as I probably would have run screaming. That whole business disgusts me.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My cat died this week. Thanks for bringing it up.
5. What countries did you visit?
No foreign ones anyway. That whole business disgusts me.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Papa needs a new pair of everything.
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Today. Perhaps my blogging nadir, though there’s still time.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Bringing Siobhan Fahey back from the dead. Figuratively speaking.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Failing to do the opposite with Joss Stone.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Continued mental illness, numerous imagined injuries and slights.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Happiness. On DVD.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Brian McFadden, changing from ‘y’ to ‘i’.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Often my own. And Joss Stone’s. Bitch.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Spiritual advisors, therapy, timeshares.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
You really, really, really don’t know me, do you?
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Anything by Scissor Sisters. And they’re already so last year.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder?
Happier. Another one bites the dust.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meth.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Serving the community.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Heavily medicated.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
High. Like in a plane, going to America.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
That is so gay.
23. How many one-night stands?
Does date rape count as a one-night stand?
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Scrubs, Pimp My Ride, Belinda Carlisle on the Gordon Ramsey kitchen/swearing thing.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Anonymous.
26. What was the best book you read?
The Poisonwood Bible, Voyage to The End of The Room, Jordan’s book wot she wrote herself with her own two hands.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Learning how to trigger VST plugins in the Piano Roll via external MIDI controller. Sweet. Also Diplo, The Real Tuesday Weld, Lady Sovereign.
28. What did you want and got?
Respect. From the elderly.
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Zatoichi, Shaun of The Dead, Paris Hilton sex tape.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Exactly one year older than last year. Birthday spent happily with close friends and attractive rent-a-mate’s from Hollyoaks and Holby City.
32. What one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I wish... I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Local authority chic.
34. What kept you sane?
My unwavering conviction in the absolute foulness of human nature.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Three quarters of Interpol.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Eamon Vs. Frankee.
37. Who did you miss?
Cat. Died, remember? Also Big Baby Jesus.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
A Swedish bartender who managed to both save my life and destroy it all in one night.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
What doesn’t kill me can only make me lazy.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
‘Babycakes? You just don’t know.’
Not today, anyway. I mean, I could continue with more heart-rending tales of cat death, describing the hollowed-out corpse of Joss Stone stuffed with muck. But there’s only so much, isn’t there?
And I could tell you about my first day of Christmas shopping in town and complain about the categorically poxy state of public transport in this country.
Oh, the squalor of it all, riding the bus like a common lesbian. Because you know, if there’s one thing the stonewash brigade love more then the vadge, it’s riding them buses. ‘Lesbuses’, they should call them. Can’t move for muffdivers.
Disgraceful stuff.
Anyway, clearly I’ve nothing to say, and no interesting way of saying it. So I’ll steal someone else’s (good) idea and just give lame smart-ass answers to some stupid end-of-year questionnaire.
So, Anonymous:
1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
This.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Don’t believe in them. I believe in Carpe Diem, Latin for ‘shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out’.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Thankfully no, as I probably would have run screaming. That whole business disgusts me.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My cat died this week. Thanks for bringing it up.
5. What countries did you visit?
No foreign ones anyway. That whole business disgusts me.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Papa needs a new pair of everything.
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Today. Perhaps my blogging nadir, though there’s still time.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Bringing Siobhan Fahey back from the dead. Figuratively speaking.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Failing to do the opposite with Joss Stone.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Continued mental illness, numerous imagined injuries and slights.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Happiness. On DVD.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Brian McFadden, changing from ‘y’ to ‘i’.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Often my own. And Joss Stone’s. Bitch.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Spiritual advisors, therapy, timeshares.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
You really, really, really don’t know me, do you?
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Anything by Scissor Sisters. And they’re already so last year.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder?
Happier. Another one bites the dust.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meth.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Serving the community.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Heavily medicated.
21. How will you be spending New Years?
High. Like in a plane, going to America.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
That is so gay.
23. How many one-night stands?
Does date rape count as a one-night stand?
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Scrubs, Pimp My Ride, Belinda Carlisle on the Gordon Ramsey kitchen/swearing thing.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Anonymous.
26. What was the best book you read?
The Poisonwood Bible, Voyage to The End of The Room, Jordan’s book wot she wrote herself with her own two hands.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Learning how to trigger VST plugins in the Piano Roll via external MIDI controller. Sweet. Also Diplo, The Real Tuesday Weld, Lady Sovereign.
28. What did you want and got?
Respect. From the elderly.
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Zatoichi, Shaun of The Dead, Paris Hilton sex tape.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Exactly one year older than last year. Birthday spent happily with close friends and attractive rent-a-mate’s from Hollyoaks and Holby City.
32. What one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I wish... I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Local authority chic.
34. What kept you sane?
My unwavering conviction in the absolute foulness of human nature.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Three quarters of Interpol.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Eamon Vs. Frankee.
37. Who did you miss?
Cat. Died, remember? Also Big Baby Jesus.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
A Swedish bartender who managed to both save my life and destroy it all in one night.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
What doesn’t kill me can only make me lazy.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
‘Babycakes? You just don’t know.’
A Personal Note
Mobi was the youngest of two kittens.
He was a joy to all who knew him.
Mobi found it very easy to make friends of all ages. He was born with many of the same traits that the older kitten had, but Mobi had a twist all his own. He was smart and sensitive like his brother but he had his own sense of style. He liked doing things his own way even if that meant being different from the rest of the crowd.
Needless to say we are all shocked and saddened by his death, but very relieved that if it was to happen... that it was here with us and not in a country far away.
Mobi loved to hunt and fish with his Dad and even took up bow-hunting. Mobi also loved nature and would often take walks back to the river behind our house to watch the eagles that nested there.
Mobi was very close to his brother and for the most part they all got along (the way that kittens do). Mobi didn't like being the youngest. He always wanted to do what the older kittens were doing. I would have to remind him that they were older and that he would be able to do those things when he was older.
But his comment was always the same... ‘they will always be older than me’.
Now after Mobi's death... we celebrate his LIFE and all he meant to all of us by sending him messages attached to balloons.
Mobi, you are sadly missed by all who knew you and you will never be forgotten.
I just felt I had to share that with you all.
Of course, I didn’t actually write any of that. I took one of the parent's tributes from here and just replaced ’murdered son’ with 'dead cat'. Pretty clever, huh?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve the last bus to Hell to catch…
He was a joy to all who knew him.
Mobi found it very easy to make friends of all ages. He was born with many of the same traits that the older kitten had, but Mobi had a twist all his own. He was smart and sensitive like his brother but he had his own sense of style. He liked doing things his own way even if that meant being different from the rest of the crowd.
Needless to say we are all shocked and saddened by his death, but very relieved that if it was to happen... that it was here with us and not in a country far away.
Mobi loved to hunt and fish with his Dad and even took up bow-hunting. Mobi also loved nature and would often take walks back to the river behind our house to watch the eagles that nested there.
Mobi was very close to his brother and for the most part they all got along (the way that kittens do). Mobi didn't like being the youngest. He always wanted to do what the older kittens were doing. I would have to remind him that they were older and that he would be able to do those things when he was older.
But his comment was always the same... ‘they will always be older than me’.
Now after Mobi's death... we celebrate his LIFE and all he meant to all of us by sending him messages attached to balloons.
Mobi, you are sadly missed by all who knew you and you will never be forgotten.
I just felt I had to share that with you all.
Of course, I didn’t actually write any of that. I took one of the parent's tributes from here and just replaced ’murdered son’ with 'dead cat'. Pretty clever, huh?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve the last bus to Hell to catch…
20041214
A Pox on Joss and the Record Company Bitch that Bore Her
My cat died.
He was eight human years old. He died yesterday and was buried early this morning. He was laid to rest in the body of singer Joss Stone. We cast her rancid innards aside and cradled the cat in her rotten, stinking soul-hole.
Where her heart should have been, there was only spoiled meat. Her intestines were liquid black; her baby machinery twisted and reeking of death.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light scorch the corpse of the soulless whore.
He was eight human years old. He died yesterday and was buried early this morning. He was laid to rest in the body of singer Joss Stone. We cast her rancid innards aside and cradled the cat in her rotten, stinking soul-hole.
Where her heart should have been, there was only spoiled meat. Her intestines were liquid black; her baby machinery twisted and reeking of death.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light scorch the corpse of the soulless whore.
20041211
What would Al Jourgensen Do?
Honestly, you people.
I promised myself I wouldn't use this blog to post Crazy Stuff I Find on The Internet - it‘s the lowest form of journaling and anyone who does it should be taken out and have their typing fingers stapled together.
I promised myself I wouldn't use this blog to post Crazy Stuff I Find on The Internet - it‘s the lowest form of journaling and anyone who does it should be taken out and have their typing fingers stapled together.
But this I felt I had to post. It’s a customer complaints correspondence (from, incidentally, a company I used to work for) taken from this weeks Holy Moly mailout:
I recently purchased some water biscuits from your Glasgow store and when I got them home and tried them in the bath, they simply broke apart. Please advise, as I am very unimpressed with the level of quality of your products.
Dear Mr XXX,
Thank you for your email. I am sorry that you have been disappointed with our water biscuits.
As I am sure you appreciate, they are not meant for the bath, therefore the problem you had is no reflection of their quality.
Many thanks, XXX
Marks & Spencer, Retail Customer Service
I can't believe your email came from the "customer services" department. Where is your customer service?! I am simply trying to point out a very fundamental flaw with your product... How can you say that they are "not meant for the bath"? We can't all afford to take them abroad to expensive beaches. I make do with what I have. I would appreciate if you could reply with a sensible solution.
Thank you, XXX.
Dear Mr XXX,
Thank you for your email. We are Retail Customer Services, based in Chester Business Park.
I'm sorry that you thought our response was not a sensible one, however I have checked with our department and they have explained that we only sell the biscuits in a pack of other cheese biscuits. As XXX said, these biscuits are to be eaten and not placed in the bath.
Traditionally these biscuits are to be eaten with cheese. Maybe you could try this.
Kind regards, XXX
Chambers Retail Customer Services
20041210
Day Month Year is Typed Before a Live Studio Audience
EXCLUSIVE:
For one night only, Day Month Year is coming to you live and unedited from a public access computer room somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
Greetings from the front line of the war on mental illness.
Lessons to be learned for today’s despatch: One, don’t ever try to engage a borderline personality first thing in the morning when nursing a crippling hangover. Two, Memo to [Edited for legal reasons] Health Board, the fuck?, someone with a borderline personality disorder shouldn’t be in a house with autistic people. Three, Monopoly is the root of all evil.
These first two points are self-explanatory, that is to say, I can’t be arsed explaining them to you so you’ll just have to take them as read. The third however was made clear to me today, while playing the game with B., a co-worker, and N., an inmate… client. Client, client, client.
You haven’t been introduced to N yet. I kind of like him, but his behaviour often creeps me out.
As well as being profoundly autistic, N. has the added bonus of a paranoid schizotypal personality disorder, which, for you ignorant masses unversed in the nature of the human mind, means he basically has the positive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia - that is, delusions, hallucinations, and persistently suspicious affect - without the actual diagnosis.
Most of his time he spends in his room, scratching away at a colouring book, whisper-muttering to himself Gollum-style about murdering the staff and burning down the house. Heh. Kids.
Plus he has shifty eyes, which, any psychologist will tell you, indicates that his soul is the grip of some kind of demonic spirit, or 'inky bus'.
As a psychologist then, it was my opinion that the best course of action for N. would involve the three of us sitting quietly around a table taking turns to move objects around a board positioned in the centre.
Yes, that’s right, a good old-fashioned game of Monopoly [Edited for feeble jokery] - using a set bought for N. by his parents the previous Christmas. Memo to parents: Way to go buying a game like Monopoly for a someone who has no concept of numbers or money. Excuse me, have you met your son? Oh no, of course not: you shunted him off to a care home and the let the tax-payer foot the bill, you heartless fucks, I hope that you… [Edited for bitterness].
Yeah, anyway, it ended with the board being fucked out the window and the pieces thrown across the kitchen. And that was just me and B.
So that was about the most exciting thing that happened today. There was an ‘incident’ this Wednesday, the details of which - for legal reasons - I couldn’t possibly divulge here. How cool is that? Day Month Year has been gagged. All I can say is writing about it would have made this entry feel less like a waste of time for you and for me. I mean really, what are you doing here? [Edited for audience-baiting].
Anyway, before I go, some props is in order.
BLTC, as I believe the kids are calling it, has taken on a fascinating interactive quality. ‘Adrian’ is the nominal star, but you, the public, write the script. Today for example, only you can save our hero from getting his end in the prison shower room. Squick!
Hey, isn’t it funny how people are terrified of going to prison in case they get raped, yet are fairly oblivious to the fact they’re actually more likely to be killed? Considering the population, there’s a statistically significant chance that you will get murdered on the inside, but ask any guy what he fears most about prison and it’s bound to be getting buttfucked by a hairy Hells Angel-type in the showers.
If I was some kind of social theorising, social theory guy I’d have some kind of, y’know, theory, of the social kind, to explain this phenomenon-type thing. But I’m not, so I don’t - but it probably has something to do with this. [Edited for soapboxing].
Sincerely yours on the 'All Men Are Gay Autistics' platform,
[Edited for anonymity]
[Edited for grammer]
[Edited for spelling - the word 'grammar' apparantly]
For one night only, Day Month Year is coming to you live and unedited from a public access computer room somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
Greetings from the front line of the war on mental illness.
Lessons to be learned for today’s despatch: One, don’t ever try to engage a borderline personality first thing in the morning when nursing a crippling hangover. Two, Memo to [Edited for legal reasons] Health Board, the fuck?, someone with a borderline personality disorder shouldn’t be in a house with autistic people. Three, Monopoly is the root of all evil.
These first two points are self-explanatory, that is to say, I can’t be arsed explaining them to you so you’ll just have to take them as read. The third however was made clear to me today, while playing the game with B., a co-worker, and N., an inmate… client. Client, client, client.
You haven’t been introduced to N yet. I kind of like him, but his behaviour often creeps me out.
As well as being profoundly autistic, N. has the added bonus of a paranoid schizotypal personality disorder, which, for you ignorant masses unversed in the nature of the human mind, means he basically has the positive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia - that is, delusions, hallucinations, and persistently suspicious affect - without the actual diagnosis.
Most of his time he spends in his room, scratching away at a colouring book, whisper-muttering to himself Gollum-style about murdering the staff and burning down the house. Heh. Kids.
Plus he has shifty eyes, which, any psychologist will tell you, indicates that his soul is the grip of some kind of demonic spirit, or 'inky bus'.
As a psychologist then, it was my opinion that the best course of action for N. would involve the three of us sitting quietly around a table taking turns to move objects around a board positioned in the centre.
Yes, that’s right, a good old-fashioned game of Monopoly [Edited for feeble jokery] - using a set bought for N. by his parents the previous Christmas. Memo to parents: Way to go buying a game like Monopoly for a someone who has no concept of numbers or money. Excuse me, have you met your son? Oh no, of course not: you shunted him off to a care home and the let the tax-payer foot the bill, you heartless fucks, I hope that you… [Edited for bitterness].
Yeah, anyway, it ended with the board being fucked out the window and the pieces thrown across the kitchen. And that was just me and B.
So that was about the most exciting thing that happened today. There was an ‘incident’ this Wednesday, the details of which - for legal reasons - I couldn’t possibly divulge here. How cool is that? Day Month Year has been gagged. All I can say is writing about it would have made this entry feel less like a waste of time for you and for me. I mean really, what are you doing here? [Edited for audience-baiting].
Anyway, before I go, some props is in order.
BLTC, as I believe the kids are calling it, has taken on a fascinating interactive quality. ‘Adrian’ is the nominal star, but you, the public, write the script. Today for example, only you can save our hero from getting his end in the prison shower room. Squick!
Hey, isn’t it funny how people are terrified of going to prison in case they get raped, yet are fairly oblivious to the fact they’re actually more likely to be killed? Considering the population, there’s a statistically significant chance that you will get murdered on the inside, but ask any guy what he fears most about prison and it’s bound to be getting buttfucked by a hairy Hells Angel-type in the showers.
If I was some kind of social theorising, social theory guy I’d have some kind of, y’know, theory, of the social kind, to explain this phenomenon-type thing. But I’m not, so I don’t - but it probably has something to do with this. [Edited for soapboxing].
Sincerely yours on the 'All Men Are Gay Autistics' platform,
[Edited for anonymity]
[Edited for grammer]
[Edited for spelling - the word 'grammar' apparantly]
20041204
Don’t get Your Fallopian Tubes in a Twist
I’m off today - which explains the smell.
Ba-dum tssch! (Joke reproduced courtesy of the young Neuro’s biological progenitor, God rest his soul)
I’m resting my soul today. It took quite a hammering this week, gangbanged by a pack of charity-ravishing autistics - if you’ll forgive the needless crudity of that analogy.
Work is really taking it out of me on an intellectual and emotional level. Physically, it’s ludicrously undemanding: essentially, I’m paid to eat, sleep, watch TV, and go for the occasional walk, stuff I would do on a voluntary basis at home. The only difference is that there’s a bunch of incoherent, dribbling spastics roaming about the place.
But that’s no way to talk about my family.
Anyway, to offload some of this surplus energy I’ve been hauling around, I’ve started going to the gym (pronounced to rhyme with ‘time’ AFAIK, having never actually heard the word said out loud - much like ‘caste’ which, only yesterday, I learned has a silent ‘t’ and a long, soft ‘c’, with the end result being hard to enunciate without some spitting).
I’ve been gymming it on and off (mostly off) for the past year or so. Currently, my physique could probably be best described as lean, though hardly mean, and green only in the extremities. I’m working toward ‘buffed’, though ideally I’d be looking for ‘strapped’, I’ll settle for ‘stacked’, or indeed ‘jacked’, if not ‘bumped’, or ‘ripped’ if, and where, possible.
But that’s enough from Muscle Monthly for now.
Seriously though, muscles: what’s the deal?
They look weird and are probably very heavy. Most confusing is that, when worked to optimum size, they actually restrict movement. Powerlifters and bodybuilders complain of reduced reach in their arms and often find walking difficult due to their thigh muscles chafing together.
Funny that too much exercise might actually render you less active - constant motion tending toward a state of inertia (any physicists out there in Internetland back me up on this?) - that the more strength a muscle develops the less able it is to, you know, do stuff.
In short, it’s reasonable to extrapolate from this that all exercise is lethal and a hazard your health and should be banned.
At least this is what I plan to tell my ‘fitness consultant’ Gavin, who, judging by his suspicious paunch, may already be have heeded this warning. Gym culture is so bizarre and I would write more about it had not the great A.A. Gill done so already in Vanity Fair, in an article I read this afternoon whilst tripping on the treadmill, pumping very little of anything to the strained strains of ‘Pump It Up’.
Don't you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up! Don’t you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up!
Yes, this, my friends, is the sorry state of dance music in 2004.
Cynics will say it has always been thus: meaningless vocal samples endlessly looped over thudding, repetitive beats. And to a degree they’re perfectly correct, but it was never this bad, was it? And I happen to like a lot of repetition in music and am quite partial to the trusty 4/4 thud.
The fact is, it works. You can pick up the same rhythms repeated in turn of the century recordings of African percussive rituals and Chicago house 12inches from the early 80’s; humankind found it’s groove, the planet is dancing and throwing it’s hands in the air like it just don’t care.
It’s just that recently producers seem to be caring less than before. Electronic music in the 21st century is running dangerously low on innovation: glitch was just a blip, blip just a glitch. Electroclash was fun for about five minutes, but hearing the sounds of the future in 1984 ten years on was too much of a time-warp mindfuck to have any kind of longevity, and just showed how a scene with nowhere to go is now starting to run out of nostalgia.
If you haven’t stopped reading by this point, you’ve probably stopped paying any serious attention, so I’ll slap my face, shut my mouth and learn my place.
One thing before you go though. I thought it best to tell you that, with some reluctance on my part, I have reinstated my musical web presence. Nothing uploaded yet, simply because I can’t think of a decent artist name. If anyone’s got any ideas post them comment-wise so I can reject each one fairly.
Hey, way to plug myself there. Why, thank me.
It’s interesting (read: of interest to me, and even then only barely) how blog entries can evolve and mutate, monstrously so. I had planned on writing a bit about my first week at work. Instead, all I’ve talked about it gyms and dance music - a gay marriage made in heaven if ever there was one.
Tomorrow, I’ll start discussing the Ukrainian election scandal and end up prattling on about interior decorating and how to look ‘hot’ in ‘cool’ December fashions.
So then, a pottering, potted, potholed, potheaded history of the past five days.
Monday:
Met first client, sat on ass, watched Trisha, went for walk, pub lunch (paid for), watched Judge Judy, ex-tenant deemed to be liable for damage caused to landlady’s poolhouse.
Tuesday:
Met the three other clients, two of whom I accompany to the city day-centre, a place I could only describe as, for want of a more extreme word, a madhouse - cuckoo, crazy, twirling finger round the ear, wacko - but in a good way.
Highlight, for me, is visiting the art room, and being fascinated by the obsessively geometric drawings made by some of the clients, as well as the more, how shall we say, expressionistic work by one client in particular, showing armies of nude figures with hacked-off limbs and what looked like heavily bandaged faces with with dead animals strewn at their feet.
Memo to Mom: not one for the fridge door.
Wednesday:
Take the tards swimming.
Later, a client has seizure in Liffey Valley, vomiting on himself and collapsing to the floor, a trick I once tried (unsuccessfully) to skive off work.
Thursday:
Find out one of the clients wants to kill me, feel disturbed but also strangely appreciated.
Friday:
See Monday.
And Saturday, that’s where we came in.
It probably all sounds very boring but has actually been one of the most profoundly challenging weeks of my life. I’ve been struggling to process a lot of the, like, feelings and stuff I’ve been experiencing this week and have jotted a few notes for a minor essay on the nature of empathy and the question of pity: if any y’all has any information I could be stealing, send it this way.
Anyway, tomorrow I’m being paid double time to spend the afternoon at some function thing in a parish hall somewhere, wining and dining with the parents of our clients.
What my father, God rest his soul, might have called a ‘handy number’.
God rest your soul, everybody.
Ba-dum tssch! (Joke reproduced courtesy of the young Neuro’s biological progenitor, God rest his soul)
I’m resting my soul today. It took quite a hammering this week, gangbanged by a pack of charity-ravishing autistics - if you’ll forgive the needless crudity of that analogy.
Work is really taking it out of me on an intellectual and emotional level. Physically, it’s ludicrously undemanding: essentially, I’m paid to eat, sleep, watch TV, and go for the occasional walk, stuff I would do on a voluntary basis at home. The only difference is that there’s a bunch of incoherent, dribbling spastics roaming about the place.
But that’s no way to talk about my family.
Anyway, to offload some of this surplus energy I’ve been hauling around, I’ve started going to the gym (pronounced to rhyme with ‘time’ AFAIK, having never actually heard the word said out loud - much like ‘caste’ which, only yesterday, I learned has a silent ‘t’ and a long, soft ‘c’, with the end result being hard to enunciate without some spitting).
I’ve been gymming it on and off (mostly off) for the past year or so. Currently, my physique could probably be best described as lean, though hardly mean, and green only in the extremities. I’m working toward ‘buffed’, though ideally I’d be looking for ‘strapped’, I’ll settle for ‘stacked’, or indeed ‘jacked’, if not ‘bumped’, or ‘ripped’ if, and where, possible.
But that’s enough from Muscle Monthly for now.
Seriously though, muscles: what’s the deal?
They look weird and are probably very heavy. Most confusing is that, when worked to optimum size, they actually restrict movement. Powerlifters and bodybuilders complain of reduced reach in their arms and often find walking difficult due to their thigh muscles chafing together.
Funny that too much exercise might actually render you less active - constant motion tending toward a state of inertia (any physicists out there in Internetland back me up on this?) - that the more strength a muscle develops the less able it is to, you know, do stuff.
In short, it’s reasonable to extrapolate from this that all exercise is lethal and a hazard your health and should be banned.
At least this is what I plan to tell my ‘fitness consultant’ Gavin, who, judging by his suspicious paunch, may already be have heeded this warning. Gym culture is so bizarre and I would write more about it had not the great A.A. Gill done so already in Vanity Fair, in an article I read this afternoon whilst tripping on the treadmill, pumping very little of anything to the strained strains of ‘Pump It Up’.
Don't you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up! Don’t you know, pump it up! You got to pump it up!
Yes, this, my friends, is the sorry state of dance music in 2004.
Cynics will say it has always been thus: meaningless vocal samples endlessly looped over thudding, repetitive beats. And to a degree they’re perfectly correct, but it was never this bad, was it? And I happen to like a lot of repetition in music and am quite partial to the trusty 4/4 thud.
The fact is, it works. You can pick up the same rhythms repeated in turn of the century recordings of African percussive rituals and Chicago house 12inches from the early 80’s; humankind found it’s groove, the planet is dancing and throwing it’s hands in the air like it just don’t care.
It’s just that recently producers seem to be caring less than before. Electronic music in the 21st century is running dangerously low on innovation: glitch was just a blip, blip just a glitch. Electroclash was fun for about five minutes, but hearing the sounds of the future in 1984 ten years on was too much of a time-warp mindfuck to have any kind of longevity, and just showed how a scene with nowhere to go is now starting to run out of nostalgia.
If you haven’t stopped reading by this point, you’ve probably stopped paying any serious attention, so I’ll slap my face, shut my mouth and learn my place.
One thing before you go though. I thought it best to tell you that, with some reluctance on my part, I have reinstated my musical web presence. Nothing uploaded yet, simply because I can’t think of a decent artist name. If anyone’s got any ideas post them comment-wise so I can reject each one fairly.
Hey, way to plug myself there. Why, thank me.
It’s interesting (read: of interest to me, and even then only barely) how blog entries can evolve and mutate, monstrously so. I had planned on writing a bit about my first week at work. Instead, all I’ve talked about it gyms and dance music - a gay marriage made in heaven if ever there was one.
Tomorrow, I’ll start discussing the Ukrainian election scandal and end up prattling on about interior decorating and how to look ‘hot’ in ‘cool’ December fashions.
So then, a pottering, potted, potholed, potheaded history of the past five days.
Monday:
Met first client, sat on ass, watched Trisha, went for walk, pub lunch (paid for), watched Judge Judy, ex-tenant deemed to be liable for damage caused to landlady’s poolhouse.
Tuesday:
Met the three other clients, two of whom I accompany to the city day-centre, a place I could only describe as, for want of a more extreme word, a madhouse - cuckoo, crazy, twirling finger round the ear, wacko - but in a good way.
Highlight, for me, is visiting the art room, and being fascinated by the obsessively geometric drawings made by some of the clients, as well as the more, how shall we say, expressionistic work by one client in particular, showing armies of nude figures with hacked-off limbs and what looked like heavily bandaged faces with with dead animals strewn at their feet.
Memo to Mom: not one for the fridge door.
Wednesday:
Take the tards swimming.
Later, a client has seizure in Liffey Valley, vomiting on himself and collapsing to the floor, a trick I once tried (unsuccessfully) to skive off work.
Thursday:
Find out one of the clients wants to kill me, feel disturbed but also strangely appreciated.
Friday:
See Monday.
And Saturday, that’s where we came in.
It probably all sounds very boring but has actually been one of the most profoundly challenging weeks of my life. I’ve been struggling to process a lot of the, like, feelings and stuff I’ve been experiencing this week and have jotted a few notes for a minor essay on the nature of empathy and the question of pity: if any y’all has any information I could be stealing, send it this way.
Anyway, tomorrow I’m being paid double time to spend the afternoon at some function thing in a parish hall somewhere, wining and dining with the parents of our clients.
What my father, God rest his soul, might have called a ‘handy number’.
God rest your soul, everybody.
20041202
If I Don’t go Crazy, I’ll Lose my Mind
Words! Everywhere! Like Triffids, always underfoot.
How text heavy this blog has become. Steeped in verbiage, prose stacked high. Where are the pictures of famous pretty people? Answer: here.
Well, not here. Further down, idiot.
How text heavy this blog has become. Steeped in verbiage, prose stacked high. Where are the pictures of famous pretty people? Answer: here.
Well, not here. Further down, idiot.
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Life as a Humble Shop-Boy might have ended for our Hero ‘Anonymous’, but that won’t stop a Creatively--Bankrupt Cash-Hungry Studio from Recycling the Fun!
Presenting:
Day Month Year: The Inert Motion Picture!
Here it is, Folks! The Non-Movie Non-Event of the Year: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, and Leaning Slightly to the Left.
This Summer follow your Cut-Rate, Non-Union Woody Allen-Lite Protagonist from the Screen to the, uh, Bigger Screen, reliving some of your Favourite Day Month Year Moments, including ‘The Day the Fire Alarm Went Off by Mistake', ‘Bathroom Incident with Carol from Accounts', and ‘Company Medical Exam (Triple X-Rated!)’- as well as 27% Brand New Adventures!
It’s a Classic Story of Fear and Loathing in the Modern Workplace: Boy meets Job, Boy hates Job, Boy meets Blog!
Bringing the Hate to You this Summer are:
Presenting:
Day Month Year: The Inert Motion Picture!
Here it is, Folks! The Non-Movie Non-Event of the Year: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, and Leaning Slightly to the Left.
This Summer follow your Cut-Rate, Non-Union Woody Allen-Lite Protagonist from the Screen to the, uh, Bigger Screen, reliving some of your Favourite Day Month Year Moments, including ‘The Day the Fire Alarm Went Off by Mistake', ‘Bathroom Incident with Carol from Accounts', and ‘Company Medical Exam (Triple X-Rated!)’- as well as 27% Brand New Adventures!
It’s a Classic Story of Fear and Loathing in the Modern Workplace: Boy meets Job, Boy hates Job, Boy meets Blog!
Bringing the Hate to You this Summer are:
The Author as Himself as… ‘Anonymous’
Jared Leto as… ‘The Woman He Loved’
Token Black Guy as ‘Token Black Guy’
…and Asia Argento as… ‘Siobhan Fahey’!
Critics are calling it ‘… watchable’, ‘[not] without entertainment’, and ‘unfunny and derivative’.
‘**½’
- Steve at AsianFisting.com
‘Day Month Year… is irredeemably, inexcusably… great...’
- Adam at HentaiRapetoons.com
Day Month Year:
Coming Soon to a Video Shop/Mail-Order Catalogue near you!
Tell my Wife I Said... Hello (Turn your Radio On)
Be still my melting head.
There’s so much I want to write about right now, but I think I need some time to process the wealth of information and experience I’ve encountered in the past week.
There’s one incident I’ll try and write about now.
It happened on my first day on the job - when I was sitting alone with one of the clients, P., the jumper-gobbler, in the kitchen silently eating lunch. I was idly flicking through some of the other client’s case histories and last week’s TV Quick when I came to notice that P. had stopped eating and was staring intently at some fixed point away from the table.
I turned around in my chair to see what had caught his eye but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He stared for a full three minutes, then suddenly, wordlessly, and with an alarming alacrity, he stole across the floor to close the half-open zip on my colleague’s shoulder bag.
At the risk of sounding patronising, there was something strangely touching, as well as profoundly sad, about this incident.
P. has a number of obsessive behaviours (mostly, it must be said, of the grossly, grossly unhygienic variety) but for some reason he has this thing about zips. Zips must either be left open or be fully closed at all times, and, in whatever small way, doing this makes P.’s life a happier one - that is presuming concepts of happiness and sadness are relevant to his particular worldview.
Like most people on the autistic spectrum, P. has many distinct (though often irrational) likes and dislikes - apart from zips, his other turn-on’s include watching cartoons, eating whatever he can get his hands on (whether it comes from the fridge or the bin outside) and dancing to the music of Samantha Mumba. His speech is limited to making one-word demands for food, demands he repeats ad nauseum until either he gets what he wants or becomes distracted.
Most interesting is his weird talent for mimicking random TV and radio voiceovers; often in between periods of quiet cooing and sighing, he’ll suddenly exclaim ‘LOW FINANCE LOANS CALL CLAIMS DIRECT’, reproducing the accent and the cadence exactly.
I feel sad for P. - whether I have the right to or not, I don’t know.
With his lanky frame, tousled black hair and pasty complexion, and dressed in an own-brand hoodie and baggy jeans, you could easily mistake him for a first year Com Sci student - a gaming nerd, with zero social skills. And he could probably pass for one too, were it not that his IQ is about that of a mouse mat.
Still...
Normal service will resume... whenever I feel normal and service-like.
There’s so much I want to write about right now, but I think I need some time to process the wealth of information and experience I’ve encountered in the past week.
There’s one incident I’ll try and write about now.
It happened on my first day on the job - when I was sitting alone with one of the clients, P., the jumper-gobbler, in the kitchen silently eating lunch. I was idly flicking through some of the other client’s case histories and last week’s TV Quick when I came to notice that P. had stopped eating and was staring intently at some fixed point away from the table.
I turned around in my chair to see what had caught his eye but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He stared for a full three minutes, then suddenly, wordlessly, and with an alarming alacrity, he stole across the floor to close the half-open zip on my colleague’s shoulder bag.
At the risk of sounding patronising, there was something strangely touching, as well as profoundly sad, about this incident.
P. has a number of obsessive behaviours (mostly, it must be said, of the grossly, grossly unhygienic variety) but for some reason he has this thing about zips. Zips must either be left open or be fully closed at all times, and, in whatever small way, doing this makes P.’s life a happier one - that is presuming concepts of happiness and sadness are relevant to his particular worldview.
Like most people on the autistic spectrum, P. has many distinct (though often irrational) likes and dislikes - apart from zips, his other turn-on’s include watching cartoons, eating whatever he can get his hands on (whether it comes from the fridge or the bin outside) and dancing to the music of Samantha Mumba. His speech is limited to making one-word demands for food, demands he repeats ad nauseum until either he gets what he wants or becomes distracted.
Most interesting is his weird talent for mimicking random TV and radio voiceovers; often in between periods of quiet cooing and sighing, he’ll suddenly exclaim ‘LOW FINANCE LOANS CALL CLAIMS DIRECT’, reproducing the accent and the cadence exactly.
I feel sad for P. - whether I have the right to or not, I don’t know.
With his lanky frame, tousled black hair and pasty complexion, and dressed in an own-brand hoodie and baggy jeans, you could easily mistake him for a first year Com Sci student - a gaming nerd, with zero social skills. And he could probably pass for one too, were it not that his IQ is about that of a mouse mat.
Still...
Normal service will resume... whenever I feel normal and service-like.
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