Night Time In The Big City

Rising Cost Of My Life Around MMU

2009-05-13T17:05:00.003+01:00

The current pay offer for Higher Education staff for this year is 0.3%, this is an insulting offer and will be seriously damaging to many low paid workers in this time of economic recession.

Below I have noted some price increases that have hit me since the last instalment of the previous Higher Education pay deal.

Salad for lunch from Marriot Cafe : was £2.00, now £2.20 = +10%
Can of pop from newsagent : was 55p, now 60p = +9%
Bottle of Erdinger Dunkel in Sandbar (drunk after work) : was £3.00, now £3.50 = +17%
FirstDay bus ticket : was £3.70, now £4.00 = +8%
Evening Cornerhouse cinema ticket : was £5.50, now £7.00 = +27%

This isn't intended as anything other than an anecdotal measure, but going off these items my daily costs incurred around MMU have risen by over 14% on average.

Of course, a lot of these costs seem superfluous compared to the increases in our fuel bills and everyday baskets of shopping but what I hope this highlights is that in our everyday lives we are experiencing increases in the costs of living that I believe need to be addressed in our pay agreement. The employers' offer of 0.3% this year is very disappointing and damaging. UNISON and the joint trade unions were right to reject the offer of 0.3%, in real terms this amounts to a significant pay cut for some of the lowest paid workers in the public sector.

The private sector screwed up, low paid workers in the public sector should not be paying for it.

Dumpling Monday #1

2009-04-15T09:42:00.007+01:00

[7 animals died for our dining pleasure. (Mince was used, so maybe more).]

Introduction
Me and my comrade Tony Jones love dim sum and boy! do we love dumplings. I have been particularly interested in making dumplings ever since seeing the film Dumplings by Fruit Chan. The atmosphere of the film really got under my skin and made me want to cook dumplings. In a similar way the novel In The Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami sent me wild for miso. People get chopped up Ryu's novel, and aborted babies are chopped into the youth-giving dumplings of Fruit's film. We're going for pork and prawn this time though:

Pork and Prawn Dumplings
i - With Chive and Garlic
ii - With Coriander, Ginger, Spring Onion and Garlic

We got the recipes off the back of the special Dumpling Flour we bought down China Town, otherwise our process was guess-work. If you know better than us, please pass on your tips!

We don't know, by the way, what is special about Dumpling Flour. We could've used ordinary flour which is cheaper, but given that we were in China Town it seemed like a reasonable idea to pick up the Dumpling Flour. The question is... can a man use Dumpling Flour for any other purpose than making dumplings? It's quite nice to have prescriptivist ingredients sometimes and we'll be sure this flour is never used outside the context of dumplings.

Pastry
- flour and water (with a grinding of salt mixed in the water for taste)

We used a ratio of 16:5 flour to water; mixing just a spoonful of the water at a time. Don't rush it, mix the dough until it is doughy.

We chucked flour down on a worktop and kneaded the dough. Newton's law suggests the dough kneads us as much as we knead the dough, which is nice to know. We stretched and pulled at it and finally rolled it into a sausage shape, wrapped it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge to settle.

Fillings
Pork and prawn mix : we used king prawns, decapitating them and cutting their prawn socks off as we went along. Also we removed prawn poo as we chopped them up. We assume it was poo, it was brown and something stunk, if it wasn't poo.. something was.

We made up two different bowls to create fillings:

i - We chopped some chives up in bawdy and rough manner. To this we pressed and added a clove of garlic.

ii - We took a knife to some coriander and monstered it. We added grated ginger and chopped spring onion. Finally we added a couple of pressed cloves of garlic.

We then mixed each with the pork and prawn, adding a splash of sesame oil as we squeezed the meat. We covered and put both fillings in the fridge with the pastry.

Who Put The Dump In Dumpling?
We rolled out small balls of pastry until as thin as we could handle with our clumsy hands. We inserted a dollop of our filling and sealed up the pastry around it - adopting the Cornish Pasty stylee. And we steamed our little dumplings for 10 minutes.

Sauce
Meanwhile we knocked up some sauce to use with the dumplings. We chopped a couple of spring onions and a handful of coriander. In a bowl, we poured soy sauce and added several teaspoons of chilli oil. You have sauce.

And we had Dumplings.

Conclusion

Excellent dumplings! Far better than we could imagine a first attempt coming out. Whilst it is true that the pastry was thicker than you expect in a Dim Sum restaurant, it is hard to imagine being able to roll it and handle it any thinner.

We will be returning to dumplings in the future, but for now WE put the DUMP in DUMPlings! Or maybe it was the prawns.

Macbeth, Royal Exchange

2009-04-04T20:50:00.006+01:00

I went to see the Royal Exchange production of Macbeth on 30/03/09. Ack, Macbeth!

The problem, really, is that any production of Macbeth has SO much to live up to. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest Shakespeare plays, and I guess that makes it one of the GREATEST PLAYS IN THE WORLD.. EVER!!!

It certainly blew the door off the bunker of my teenage world the first time I read it. A play of remarkable depths, of such darkness and energy. A story of untamed ambition and desires, of rape, greed, lust, murder; of the self-sought degradation of the human soul for the sake of power over others. But we know about the greatness of Macbeth!

This production was uneven. Some aspects were really good, such as the three weird sisters actually being the victims of brutal and visceral war crimes right at the beginning of the play and coming back to haunt the characters and us throughout. They appear in the guise of contemporary but violated young girls. They dance to Girls Aloud, Pink and Katy Perry for coins! I love Katy Perry!
In another scene Macduff's little son is brutally drowned in a kitchen sink whilst the Ting Tings blurts out of the radio. All incidents are filmed, and the footage of the murder of the son and mother is communicated to Macduff via video message to a mobile phone.

And we arrive at a problem. The drastic 'new life' the director seeks to inject into the play doesn't really seem of a psychologically deep enough consideration. I'm not a conservative about these things – it may be valid to say the reason we are still going to Macbeth is because it stands up as it is after all this time, we don't need a director saying bluntly 'this is like Kosovo!!! and they're filming it, it's like NOW!!!', but if done well I don't mind interventions. And as I say some were very promising in this production. Ultimately though it ends with Malcolm rehearsing his inauguration speech.. as he dresses and looks just like Barak Obama. GET IT? the director is shouting at us, 'DID YOU GET THAT BIT?!' ...yeah, it's like that thing Shakespeare wrote isn't it, you know.. Macbeth?

Power corrupts, desire for power makes you mad. Macbeth is one of the deepest and greatest plays there's ever been.. I just wish this production didn't resort to a director POINTING AT THINGS.

The final note, whilst the three little girl/weird sister were pretty awesome, the character of Lady Macbeth was diminished into a role which was neither here nor there, which is itself a damning and major failure of this production.

All the fine things - CATCH UP

2009-01-25T21:13:00.006Z

As I intend resuming this blog I thought I'd catch you up on some of the things that I've been doing whilst not updating. Not a complete list, just what springs to mind :

Right back on July 27th, I saw Tom Waits play at the Playhouse in Edinburgh. The gig was the most expensive ticket I've ever paid for and, even though it was a delight to get to see someone who so rarely plays gigs, there was perhaps too high an expectation. But ultimately it is that Tom is an actor that provides the biggest obstacle. It means that you can really only enjoy the show as a SHOW, and not quite ever get on the inside of any of the material the same way as you can when you're not in the same room as the actor (ie when listening to Tom's amazing albums, without having him in front of you reminding you that he's acting). On its own terms however it was surely brilliant; it just left me a little empty after having been to such heartfelt gigs as Mavis Staples, Bruce Springsteen and Public Enemy earlier in the year.

October 29th, I saw Dr John playing in Blackburn following the release of his latest record The City That Care Forgot. It was nothing on seeing him the year before in Holmfirth, and I feel the Lower 911 (his backing band) sometimes produce too stodgy a sound. However there were some truly great moments, especially the gospel finale. The venue was full of Blackburn locals though, which resulted in it being one of the strangest concerts I've been to!

5th November, I saw a production of Antigone at the Royal Exchange. It was far from perfect, for example Dionysus appeared to dance in a slow eastern martial-artsy kind of way, restraint and controlled : ie Dionysus was VERY Apollonian! But overall it was enjoyable and worthwhile. Surprisingly the school kids in the theatre seemed to go wild for it!

17th November I saw Kayne West on his Glow in the Dark tour at the M.E.N. Arena. There was some unfulfilled bluster, and it would've been nice seeing him sharing the stage with his musicains rather than them playing from the pit; but Kayne is brilliant. It all ended in a truly awesome extended version of Love Lockdown off Kayne's new offbeat album 808 & Heartbreak. An album that I don't think anybody could've ever seen coming... and a very interesting and heartfelt conceptual record from a heartbroken iconoclast.

2008, Liverpool was the European 'Capital of Culture'. It was mostly pretty embarrassing sadly. I paid my last visit of the year on November 30th to visit the Le Corbusier exhibition in the crypt of the great modernist Catholic Cathedral (one of my favourite buildings in the world). Unfortunately they'd managed to make the fascinating Le Corbusier seem somewhat dull, largely due to over egging his paintings etc, which are really no match for his urban visions and architecture, which the exhibition was shockingly light on.

18th January 2009, Last Sunday I saw Richard Thompson at the Lowry in Salford. He was performing his 1000 years of popular song material, dating back to the 1100s and coming right up to Nelly Furtado's fantastic disco-stomp Maneater. There was a good ole song about people who scab on striking workers, The Blackleg Miner. Here performed by Steeleye Span : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pnRgBan7c - Thompson did an awesome version of this 19th century folk song from the north-east, really capturing the anger and distate for those who cross pickets. One of the two women he had backing him was a bit theatrical and distracting, and I'dve loved some additional folk songs where a village beheads a child because they suspect it is possessed by the demon spirit of a neighbouring village etc, but conceptually a great event nonetheless.

Last Friday I went to see a dark comedy about Burma at the Contact Theatre. It was like having Burma's Wikipedia entry read out in your face by Giles Brandreth. It really didn't work for me.

I'll leave you with another song from Richard Thompson's 1000 year-old canon; here performed by four old people in a lobby of somewhere or other : JAVA JIVE

Tell Tale Signs, Bob Dylan

2008-09-30T20:20:00.003+01:00

Hear the whole 2 disc version for free here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95047293

Unmatched, unmatchable. If we needed a reminder of the genius of Bob Dylan, other than the hundreds of shows, the radio shows and the legacy - here lies 2008's reminder that we still live in the time of an extraordinary talent and man.

Collecting together out-takes, alternative versions and a few live bootlegs, this documents some of the stuff we haven't heard from Bob over the last 20 years.

Contained within this exceptional collection is an unheard song left out of 1997's Time Out Of Mind. This is one of the greatest songs I've ever heard. Red River Shore - A man living in the ghost of a past love; it rips to the core in the way that only Bob can.

I'm off to listen more, weep, and feel the joy of having a reason to live.

Joan Baez, Turn Me Around

2008-09-28T18:13:00.002+01:00

I am very excited to be going seeing Joan Baez this Wednesday, here's a clip of her singing the song that Mavis Staples so recently blew me away with...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX6gsXCgZlg&NR=1

On Turning 26

2008-09-27T13:03:00.002+01:00

I used to be blind to the woman in a suit,
Now she drives me wild,
Whit-woo, whit-woo
Woop woop.

President Bush Doing Jokes

2008-09-24T21:41:00.000+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dii3mzMQ3SQ

Angel

2008-09-11T18:19:00.007+01:00

dir. Francois Ozon 2007

It was dreadful, good and ok. In some parts intentionally dreadful and in some parts unintentionally good. What a confusing mess of a film Francois Ozon. I liked it and I didn't like it, but one thing I know is that there was a potentially really great film somewhere in there.

I'm guessing one of the ideas here is : can you make a schlock period drama that has to bow to genre conventions and still convey some kind of insight into the human condition / reveal something to us in a cinematic-artistic manner. There are parts of this film when it looks like bad made-for-tv melodrama and they tended to make me squirm in my seat. But I quite enjoyed that. It was very deliberate, but the fact that the film seems to then be a 'serious' melodrama elsewhere means that it doesn't come over as being 'too knowing'.

One of the biggest thematic moments seems to be when Angel is introduced to a woman who is a devoted fan of her writing and who bows and shows her love on first sight. Angel and the viewer are left feeling this is strange, of course, and then this woman's brother appears and is the first person to be rude to Angel and to criticise her taste etc. Angel naturally falls in love with this man on first sight. Later the sister becomes Angel's maid so she can get into her brother... who becomes her husband. I hate talking about plots like this! Anyway, really Angel is someone unable to accept reality and lives entirely by her own fiction, and so she does not see her husband as the cheating boozer, but being of grand romantic virtue. It's only after he comes back from the war (that Angel refuses to confront as she's a Peter Pan figure, young and unreal) minus one of his legs, comes home after boozing with scum and his mistress, rapes Angel, leaves for good but returns because his mistress has a man friend, Angel welcomes him as if he's gallant and returning to foreverness and beyond in her arms, then he hangs himself... that the truth outs and Angel has to accept that he was not the man, not the 'eternal love' that she had written him as in her own mind. And this sends her nuts, and she is on her deathbed and says to the sister, 'the only person who has ever loved me... is you.' Gives her a peck on the head, dies.

Take a breath. It's actually pretty good stuff about the fiction we all create around ourselves and how we don't always see others in any kind of true light. It is also pretty good on showing us that strange force of *attraction* - the woman who shows her devotion and eternal unquestioning love is looked at as though pitiable, the man who is cruel to her is seen as alluring. When it comes to love, sex and attraction... we often don't see things as they are but how we want them to be; but in the end there is one truth that frames all our fictions: death.

The biggest fault is that it is simply too long. Condensed down I think I could've really enjoyed it and recommended it. It just went on and on, carried a bit too much baggage.

The biggest plus of the film is Romola Garai's lead performance as fantastist novelist Angel. Though Angel is very obnoxious and outrageously uninterested in the world as it is... I ended up wanting to love her. It is a great performance, but I suppose it has to be coupled with her beauty onscreen. Her eyes have utterly beguiled me today.

Leonard Cohen

2008-07-20T13:05:00.002+01:00

This week I was lucky enough to see Leonard Cohen at Edinburgh Castle and at the O2 Arena in London.

I have no words.

Other than;

Thank you, Leonard.

& Truth & Beauty live.

NX540

2008-07-09T21:28:00.016+01:00

The NX540 is an inter-city bus route, Manchester to London, London to Manchester. Calling at a couple of places along the way. What follows is about a trip I made early on Sunday morning two weeks ago, heading from Manchester to London.

There's something about travelling long distance by bus; all my train journeys melt into a haze of memory, but bus journeys tend to be experiences I'll always remember. The majority of the time the memories are distinct and terrible, the experiences themselves seeming to be a never ending nightmare. I remember the nightbuses I've travelled on in painful real-time.

So many people on so many buses; cokeheads using the toilet to do coke, pissheads drinking cheap special brew from a carrier bag of tinnies mid-route from Belfast, the old mill-towners onboard amazed by the ordinary sights that pass by, speaking with a ratio of 95% croak and wheeze, 4% sandwich, 1% audible voice. The appalling six hour journey with a cockney hockey team - and their opinions on everything.

As the bus pulled along Baker Street one time the Mill-Towners behind me had the delightful exchange;
'Oooooo Baker Street'
'Isn't this where Sherlock Holmes lived?'
'Well, supposedly.'

I remember one time my lover and I passed a note to someone we thought looked like he might have a spark in his eyes. We corresponded with the stranger for awhile after.

What an ordeal it is compared to the train... yet... you know me, I can not help but to romanticise about such experiences. I tend to travel by train now I work and don't have much free time. £11 or so, 2hr 15mins.. pretty impressive compared to over 5 hours on a bus. But two weekends ago the rail network wasn't working on Sunday, so I travelled by the NX540 once more...

I boarded the bus with a terrible hangover and just four hours sleep. I hoped to just snooze my way to the big smoke. But as soon as we pulled out I realised it was going to be a potentially dreadful journey; behind me a man sat sideways (back to window) talking to his mate sat in the same manner but on the opposite side of the coach. And wow could they not leave a moment silent. They spoke very loudly to each other, exchanging nothing but gruellingly banal chit-chat. At one point I asked them to pipe down, the result of which was that they just switched the language they were speaking to one I did not understand.

They went on and on all the way to Stoke-on-Trent. As there were no empty seats I had a plan that if someone came to sit on the one next to me I'd turn round and suggest the two lads sit together and let the person have their own seat. Pulling into such a hell-hole really sent me under. As the slagheaps passed me by my head pounded and I felt like crying, such was my discomfort. The bus pulled in to let other people on. I was sinking... I sank my face down into my hands...

...as I looked up I saw her walking towards me, directly towards me, past several other seats next to strangers and straight to me. I forgot about ever having any kind of plot or scheme, and she sat besides me.

Green velour tracksuit top and bottoms, golden curls, red lips; just as pretty as that old pretty picture they all speak of. Green velor tracksuit! Mind blowing.

I don't recall ever hearing those annoying loud voices again. The following four hours... they're like some kind of lovely heroin dream. Not long after setting off she kind of angled her legs towards me, just subtly, and I thought, hmm there's a risk of contact here - but this is the NX540, my legs are pretty much locked in position due to the lack of leg-room and so I decided not to try and avoid it as my legs were technically just about in my half.

And as we both grew sleepy, the impossible moment, the dream, the green velour angel gently came to let her thigh rest against mine. We drifted from dream to dream. She came to move and I thought, yes, yes this was just a divine mistake... but as she turned to angle herself the other way she rested her buttock on my thigh! My head spun as she slept. And this went on for many hours.

By the time we drew near to the north west of the big smoke her head was resting upon my shoulder. It just happened that way.

And we pulled into Victoria coach station, everyone readied themselves to leave. I knew we'd part without ever speaking. But just as she got up to leave... as she got up to leave!... she leaned over to me, our eyes meeting for the first time... and she kissed me gently on the cheek, turned and walked away.

The Angel in the Green Velour Tracksuit, who touched me so deeply. It may be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. Who was she? She was an Angel. You think Angels have wings? NO!, they have Green Velour! You think the Angels flew to earth and revealed themselves? No, Angels were always abstractions of earthly people. There's no magic up there... the only magic is right here, right here on earth, on the NX540, in a shit-hole like Stoke-on-Trent, in the smoke of the big city; Beauty is human, Beauty is man-made. The sacred is human. Everything worth living for is in you and in the Other; is in the society we've built, is in our shared dream. Our shared dream!

This Angel and I, we knew of truth and beauty and we BECAME it; for just a few hours on this earth we shared Truth and Beauty. Had we spoken, had we made our encounter banal; two people met on a bus and introduced themselves to each other. We shared more than that. What is art? What is religion? Those hours of amazing grace, of truth and beauty, shared on the NX540 between an Angel in green velour, and me... the humble butcher's son.

That night, I cried myself to sleep, weeping tears of happiness, tears of faith...

Drawn Blank Series, Bob Dylan

2008-07-06T10:15:00.012+01:00

Exhibition at the Halycon Gallery, Mayfair, London til July 29th.

Before going to see Bob Dylan's paintings I had in mind that he hasn't gone out of his way to be considered a visual artist, it was just something he had done over the years for sake of it. This being the case I entered and didn't consider the art world for the whole time I viewed the paintings. I had no interest in trying to place Dylan in any kind of category; and that is ultimately why I enjoyed viewing these paintings more than I've enjoyed any exhibition since the Chapmans' retrospective in Liverpool.

Many of the pictures originate from Dylan's sketches from the road. These originals have been blown up and Dylan has treated them with colour - often in series to bring out certain things or affect the image differently somehow.
Another title for the series may have been I WAS There, because far from the Todd Haynes post-modern treatment of the mystique which considers the Dylan p.o.v. to be ultimately unattainable, we are here looking *through* Dylan's p.o.v. And what really comes shining through in this exhibition is what I think the film I'm Not There really misses; he is a transitory man, never still for long, but he is just a man within that moment. Anyone who has been to one of his concerts and been moved can tell you he's right there at that moment.
There's a humble humanity about these pictures. But most of all is Bob's sheer enthusiasm. It calls to mind the clip in Martin Scorsese's film No Direction Home (a far more apt title) where Dylan is stood outside a shop that offers multiple services in 1960s England and he is caught up just firing off as many hilarious combinations of the services and words as he can - he's almost falling over, such is his delight in his play with words. This exhibition is a great reminder about Bob Dylan - you can stroke your beard as much as you want to, he's just out there to delight himself in whatever way he can. And it so happens that he delighted me...

Enthusiasm and clear delight in treating each image, so far so good - and enjoyable to see. But the thing that really hooked me was his paintings of women.
His wild enthusiasm is a delight! I smiled so much looking at his pictures of women. He loves them. He's really really taken by them. We knew that from the songs... 'I need something strong to distract my mind, I'm gonna look at you until my eyes turn blind' - testify Bob.

I don't care to try and tell you where these paintings stand in terms of the art world; because you simply can't break the tie between Author and Text, and there's no need... you are invited to check out some of the sketches Bob Dylan has knocked up whilst on the road, consider them for what they are and don't project theory on to them. Living by that rule I find it hard to see anyone not enjoying looking at them.

But for me this was great. It reconfirmed something about Bob Dylan - whose art changed me and my whole life - he refuses to be bored, he refuses to be made banal, he refuses to live without colour; he brings drastic washes of vibrant colour. The effect on me of these paintings? Inspirational on their own terms.

Lou Reed's Berlin

2008-06-30T19:59:00.006+01:00

Dir. Julian Schnabel (2007)

Lou Reed recorded the album Berlin in 1973.
It was a commercial failure.
Over the next 33 years, he never performed the album live.

For five nights in December 2006 at St. Ann's Warehouse Brooklyn,
Lou Reed performed his masterwork about love's dark sisters;
jealousy, rage and loss.

-Julian Schnabel

Last night I attended the film Premier of Lou Reed's Berlin. Last night I saw one of the most awesome things I've ever seen. It took place at the Curzon cinema down in Mayfair and featured a Q&A session with Lou Reed after the screening.

I first discovered Berlin in 2001. I went to so many parties where people were playing the glorious popular cult classic Transformer. I went and looked for other Lou Reed albums; I found Berlin in the bargain bin. Whenever I asked people if they'd ever heard it I was met by absolute unfamiliarity, they hadn't heard it, they hadn't even had OF it. I plugged and plugged it to people and on my old blog... because of one thing I am convinced: Berlin is one of the true masterpieces of the 20th Century. Now, thanks to time passing and Lou revisiting it, it's being recognised more.

The art form of popular music, and of the album in particular, has rarely reached the remarkable depths Berlin reaches. It is a sequential narrative of the destruction of a relationship, of love turning bad. It is one of the darkest journeys documented by popular art. Agony, abuse, screaming children, suicide... and we are left on a tonic note that burns our throats as we drink it, 'I'm gonna stop wasting my time / Somebody else would have broken both of her arms.' Berlin stands with the great Picassos, Chaplins and Dylans - the masterworks of the 20th Century.

And so, all this time on and finally people are starting to more widely understand the significance and greatness of Berlin. Now we have been gifted a film that will stand as a great document to Lou Reed's greatest work.

One of the first notable things is that the quality of the film is stunning, digital finally achieving what it ought to. The sound quality was exceptional. And Schnabel's visuals and directing managed to compliment the performances extraordinarily well. Many of the images are projected on to the set behind the musicians, but we also have other layers of film that melt in over the top, and sometimes the performers melting back in over the top of those images. It all works, and adds to the texture of the performances. It is also filmed without any recognition of the audience being 'out there', and really manages to stay existing in a cinematic world. Great achievement.

The album affects me greatly as it is - but this was a new experience for me; to be sat in a cinema shivering all over with goosebumps for the entire duration of the performance. It appears that finally the cinema has managed to contain some of the special intensity that only music can achieve. In terms of artistic experience, this is undoubtedly the greatest live performance film I've seen.

There is one big flaw: They've added three encore songs AFTER Berlin concludes, I hope this is just because it would otherwise be deemed 'too short' for theatrical release and will be fixed into extras on the DVD. Three awesome performances, including the filthy as f*ck Rock Minuet (see below), but NO... you can't add them to end! But, judging it on what it is, Berlin - just freakin' sensational.

OK - the Q&A session. Following such an exhilarating experience came one of the most excruciating things I've ever had to sit through. The problem was not the unhelpful, bad tempered Lou Reed - you wouldn't want him to be otherwise - it was that the man chosen to ask the questions was Paul f*cking Morley. Morley conducted a car crash of an interview and asked a small handful of censored questions from the audience.

The only moments of interest were Lou telling someone who tried to interrupt a couple of times to 'Shut the f*ck up. Or get the f*ck out of here. Just shut the f*ck up, or why don't some people throw that guy the f*ck out of here?' - The man, with an absurd haircut, left at that moment.

But Morley seemed utterly incapable of saying anything that was not thackingly mundane. As the banalities and everyday questions kept coming I had a real urge to leap on stage and lunge at Paul Morley. When he mounts the stage he does so weighted down by his outrageous ego, then he's there in the spotlight... and nothing. Nothing. He's a complete void of charisma and he doesn't even have anything to say. Worst of all was that he was repeating his banal questions after they'd already been answered previously! And if Lou Reed did try and make a reference that wasn't an everyday banality Paul Morley would sit and stare at him silently for a few seconds then ask another banal question, completely failing to follow Lou Reed down a single interesting alleyway. If I'd been somebody else I'd have broken both his arms.

An amazing film. An amazing album. Lou Reed's performance is for real, he's no has-been. Paul Morley, a never-was-been.

Rock Minuet by Lou Reed

2008-06-30T19:26:00.004+01:00

Feast your eyes on Lou Reed being a filthy f*cker;

Rock Minuet by Lou Reed

The man is astounding.
& here are the words;

Paralyzed by hatred and a piss ugly soul
if he murdered his father, he thought he'd become whole
While listening at night to an old radio
where they danced to the rock minuet

In the gay bars in the back of the bar
he consummated hatred on a cold sawdust floor
While the jukebox played backbeats, he sniffed coke off a jar
while they danced to a rock minuet

School was a waste, he was meant for the street
but school was the only way, the army could be beat
The two whores sucked his nipples 'til he came on their feet
as they danced to the rock minuet

He dreamt that his father was sunk to his knees
his leather belt tied so tight that it was hard to breathe
And the studs from his jacket were as cold as a breeze
as he danced to a rock minuet

He pictured the bedroom where he heard the first cry
his mother on all fours, ah, with his father behind
And her yell hurt so much, he had wished he'd gone blind
and rocked to a rock minuet

In the back of the warehouse were a couple of guys
they had tied someone up and sewn up their eyes
And he got so excited he came on his thighs
when they danced to the rock minuet

On Avenue B, someone cruised him one night
he took him in an alley and then pulled a knife
And thought of his father, as he cut his windpipe
and finally danced to the rock minuet

In the curse of the alley, the thrill of the street
on the bitter cold docks where the outlaws all meet
In euphoria drug in euphoria heat
you could dance to the rock minuet

In the thrill of the needle and anonymous sex
you could dance to the rock minuet

So when you dance hard, slow dancing
when you dance hard, slow dancing
When you dance hard, slow dancing
when you dance to the rock minuet

Adventures in Babysitting

2008-06-19T23:05:00.002+01:00

'How could a righteous babe like you be lonely?'
'That's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.'
'Yeah?'
'Wanna go to bed?'

Harlold + Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

2008-06-17T09:25:00.010+01:00

Dir Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg (2008)

Last night I just might have seen The Film of 2008. On Saturday me and my comrade Tony Jones bought the DVD of Harold + Kumar Get The Munchies, it was awesome. We didn't realise at the time that it so happens the sequel is at the cinema right NOW. Go and see it already!

I've been on a journey recently; I began to feel slightly fatigued with the 'deep' and 'artistic' cinema I was watching, and disillusioned with the stream of recent shite that's been hitting the arthouse. Watching The Savages and seeing it roundly praised by blowhards... hmm, I could've laid my head on the rail and had old steam train Bill come roll on over my neck a time or two. So, I got to thinking about the kind of films that seemed magical to me as a child. And more than the nice fantastical films soon grown out of, it was films like Porkies that really stuck with me. Watching them as a child was so exciting; outrageously funny, getting to see rude things and feeling excited about the prospect of being a teenager, having friends, drinking, getting stoned and up to mischief.

As a grow-ed man, I left Harlold + Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay with that same kind of childhood glee and enthusiasm, wanting badly to go on a wild road trip across America.

This film has many elements of the great teen comedies of my youth. It has the hilarious cameo of a world leader (George W Bush, who the boys smoke dope with), red necks (with a twist), corrupt and very racist cops, the Ku Klux Klan... a cameo by a minor celebrity crazed on mushrooms branding whores at a whorehouse with a monographed branding iron. And Guantanamo bay, where inmates have to eat Cock Meat Sandwiches. Oh, and a child cyclops and a giant living bag of weed that gets fisted. & so much more! AWESOME movie.

I spoke recently about blowhards trying to link everything to 9/11 - well this film deals with America post-9/11 far more than any chinstroker could. It all starts when Kumar smuggles a BONG onto an aeroplane...

Hilarious film, hits everything you could want it to. And ya know... sometimes the lowbrow is worth more than the highbrow. You could make a long aching meditation on how mixed up and racist America is, and viewers could discuss it round a dinner table, or laugh your balls off in the face of the racists, toke up and go on an awesome roadtrip, get laid and have a riot along the way. The lead characters from minority groups are normal everyday Americans, the racists are freakin' insane, crazy and violent - it's a premise I can ride with.

I can't wait til I'm a teenager, I'm gonna have so much freakin' fun and make good friends who stick by me, no matter how many Cock Meat Sandwiches we have to eat along the way. Road Triiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!!!

Masked and Anonymous

2008-06-15T20:23:00.004+01:00

An old lover: You gave it all away didn't you Jack?
Jack Fate: Yeah I gave it all away. Gave it to sons of bitches either too unwilling or too unable to accept it.

The Revenger's Tragedy

2008-06-10T14:07:00.008+01:00

09/06/08, Royal Exchange.

Went to see The Revenger's Tragedy at the Royal Exchange last night. It has received generally bad reviews. I really enjoyed it.

GO READ ABOUT IT

"A vivid and often violent portrayal of lust and ambition." Quite an odd production, slightly mad. I mean, actually mad. But fun for it. With some bizarre contemporary dance interludes, two men dancing with a corpse, two actual NAKED old people having sex in a shower, people dressed as court jesters dancing around stabbing people, fallen women, a woman who was a VIRGIN, men motivated by madness and rationality at once, an old order dying by the incestuous dagger... it was entertaining enough for my £4 theatre ticket!

A couple of STINK moments - post-modern additions, such as a jester coming on stage and the director running out going, 'no, no.. your part has been cut', 'what??', 'its been cut, see?' [she shows a clipboard to the audience], 'I can't believe this, I've spent twenty minutes putting this costume on!!' - It was lazy, and unfunny. 'F**king Genius!!' as a tedious student may say. He could've at least got his PART out and she cut it with a dagger while we all sat watching it bleed on to the stage. That'd be something.

Secondly, the lead character and his brother were adjusting a corpse and a soundman was making creaking noises to coincide with the movements. After they stopped adjusting the body the soundman did an extra big creak. The two characters on stage look up at the soundman and go, 'Alright! Leave it out.' Lazy, not executed in a funny way. The JOKE in this case would have been that the *body* creaks after they stopped adjusting it and the characters get the willies - executed well it would be amusing and wouldn't have taken the audience out of the onstage world, that they'd otherwise worked hard to create. PoMo seems like such a lazy route to go for a little laugh. Get bent PoMo!

Some AWESOME things: lots of stabbings and some grizzly executions. A Duke having his tongue cut off (and slapped down centre stage, blood oozing out of it). And perhaps the best throat-slitting I've ever seen.

Apparently some critics deem this bad taste 'in the current climate'. Speaking of internet beheadings, BEHEAD THAT CRITIC! Or at least cut his chin off so he has nothing to stroke! Even more lazy than the PoMo jokes are critics who constantly strain themselves to try and make the current art world subject to obvious global real world events. How many times per episode is the term 9/11 used on an arts show like Newsnight Review?

'Such-a-body has just released a sculpture that reinterprets the famous classical bust of Socrates'
'I feel this really responds to the world as it is post-9/11.'
'Yes I think this is really an expression of our post-9/11 anxiety.'
'I just think, yeah 9/11.'

Make some effort! And by that I mean get some freakin' IDEAS already. You lazy beardo-chin-strokers! The world POST 9/11 is the same as PRE 9/11 in all but the media and the superficial post-modernists who are quite titillated by the scale of the spectacle and take *that* as being somehow meaningful in itself. It isn't. YOU isn't.

Anyway, as I was saying... I was quite taken by The Duchess's 3rd son, Juniour Brother. Nice trainers, white shiny hi-tops. Well dressed. Juniour Brother, hmm, I even like the name. Met a bloody end though.

Mill Towns on Sunny Days

2008-06-08T18:22:00.010+01:00

Ah, what a lovely day. I headed back to the Mill Towns, to Oldham. Had a lovely little bit of banter with a gaunt and toothless corpse:

'That's a f*cking girl's bag!'
'No it's not, it's my MUM's bag.'
'F*cking f*ggot!'

I'm not sure if it was girls he hated, me he hated, or just the bag.

On the train into Manchester Victoria four other Mill Towners were on their way to meet friends at the Crown and Anchour by the Oyster Bar. As the train pulled into the city URBIS popped into view and one of the Mill Towners exclaimed loudly;

'F*ck me! Look at that bloody ski slope! When'd they build a bloody ski slope?'

The train pulled into Victora Station which is conjoined with the M.E.N. Arena and as we arrived metres away from the doors to said venue one of the Mill Towners asked;

'Is that M.. E.. N.. Arena somewhere near here?'
'NOOoooh,' pipes up a lady Mill Towner, 'No, it's nowhere near here, you're miles out.'

Cafe Marriot

2008-06-03T11:00:00.005+01:00

Dear Proprietor,

I have sketched the flow of traffic in your shop whenever it is busy:

As I’m sure any rational person would agree – the layout of your shop is nuts! No it not nuts; it crazzzzzzy!!

Yours,
Stu Kimble

RIP Bo Diddley

2008-06-02T20:09:00.005+01:00

Bo Diddley died today, aged 79. RIP Bo Diddley, may he rest in a square coffin. Another great man has gone.
Thank you Bo Diddley

One of the most awesome performances I've ever seen.. CLICK RIGHT HERE, a remarkable man with a remarkable guitar.

HEY BO DIDDLEY, HEYYY BO DIDDLEY, awesome signature tune.

On TV 1
On TV 2

Introduced by James Brown, another great man gone. Near the end of the song Bo Diddley does some high kicks to the beat of the drum... puts Van Morrison in the Last Waltz to shame!

Bo Diddley... he was a MAN.

EXPLORE BO DIDDLEY.

Me... another one of these great icons passes away; it is the twilight of my idols.

I'm so grateful the world had Bo Diddley.

I'm going to burn some hell-money for you Bo, you ought to have a swell afterlife. You brought me JOY in this life; you brought millions of people JOY. Bo Diddley, a man with a square guitar, he played it like he meant it, and he meant it like he played it... Bo Diddley.

Girls Aloud

2008-06-02T13:37:00.012+01:00

01/06/08, M.E.N. Arena.

A facebooker was trying to get rid of a spare ticket to see Girls Aloud - I thought hmm, why not? I had no other plans, and I guessed it would be an entertaining show.
One of the disco chicks in Detroit Rock City gives the rockers/stoners a really good little sermon on how she doesn't care about the idea of disco against rock or any of that kind of nonsense, she just likes good songs no matter what genre they are in. Testify sister, testicle! I feel her... I'm with her; and to an extent I'm with Girls Aloud - they are entertaining, fun, have some pretty good pop songs. They descended to the stage on strings wearing silver capes, a flash of fire engulfed them and the first song kicked in.

It was quite a funny feeling to walk into the M.E.N. Arena and be struck by how *small* it is! It just so happens that the concert I went to four days before was five times bigger. This perhaps diminished some of the spectacle of the M.E.N. show, and really hammered home just how amazing Bruce Springsteen is for making everyone connect in such a massive venue as Old Trafford whilst also being engaged in genuine performance of art. Of course, Girls Aloud never set out to be anything more than just performance, and on the terms of performance it was pretty good. Lots of dance routines, costumes and fireworks.

There's one key to the show though: It'd be rubbish if the girls weren't sexy. There's nothing mesmerising about the show, it isn't like Cirque Du Soleil, or like Kiss. It is a spectacle that operates by pulling different strings. It's all about those bottoms that sexy girls have. And clothes they squeeze them into, obviously. Lots of amazing flashy dresses. Sparkle-sparkle. I've never seen so much Alfie since Saturday night down Deansgate.
The key audience seems to be girls who want to be 'glamorous' and gays who want to be 'fabulous'. And that's what a lot of straight men don't understand about girls like this... they aren't dressing up to have you perve on their breasts, that's just a by-product of the image sold to them. The image is what matters to them, not the fact that it happens to be sexually provocative to men. It's full-on consumer identity politics and they are fully consumed by it. Which is hot. As Paris Hilton would say.

Halfway through the gig a big walkway lowers down from the ceiling to give the girls access to a sub-stage in the middle of the arena. Standing just metres from this walkway, I had quite a moment with Nicola Roberts. She stopped and looked right into my eyes; such an odd expression riding across her face. I didn't know what to do, I guess she would expect me to scream and wave, but instead I just stood there smiling into her eyes and she did the same back. I quite like the thought that the WEIRD one from Girls Aloud probably thought I was a weirdo; neither a little girl or a parent nor a screaming homosexual. I find her somewhat beguiling. I only wish I'd mouthed this to her, 'I find you somewhat beguiling.'

Song highlights: Push It, a cover of Salt-N-Pepa. Walk This Way, a Run DMC cover. The usual big singles were all enjoyable.
Fling is a notable song, a terrible influence on all the little girls (dressed like grown-up late-at-night girls);

//Chorus:
It's just a fling baby, fling baby
Nothing more than a fling baby, fling baby
Just a bit of ding-a-ling baby, bling baby
Don't want relationships so swing baby, swing baby! //

Who's that hottie over there?
Big bad boy with big bad hair
I can feel instinctively
He'll be riding up on me

Who's that with that big fat dame?
Come give me love, come keep me sane
But don't be getting soft on me
Just give me something casually

So come closer to me
Cuz I wanna feel the heat
You're fine and that's okay
That's all that you need to be

Chorus... then,

Who's that hottie in the dark?
Body like a work of art
Feel your eyes undressing me
Strip me of my modesty

Hey you with that sexy smile
Come give me loving kinky style
But don't be talking love and things
Cuz baby I aint listening ...&c

...well, I guess you could call them Feminists. They certainly have lovely bottoms enough to be Feminists!

Detroit Rock City

2008-05-31T13:59:00.006+01:00

Me and my comrade Tony Jones watched Detroit Rock City last night. It was nice to see my good friend James Mansfield in his first leading role;
In the film James has a very religious mother who burns the boys' prized tickets to go and see Kiss in concert - because Kiss are evil, she preaches. Thus begins teenage hi-jinx on the road to see Kiss whatever-it-takes. It has everything a teenage boy needs in order to enjoy a film : the nerds beat up the jocks, pick up the jocks' dissillusioned disco girlfriend. James loses his virginity in a confessional booth with the girl he's been too shy to hit on all term - ah James! And so on, until they get to see Kiss! The Fun-Factor is high, you'd have to wear Fun-block not to enjoy it.

Take us home James...

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

2008-05-29T11:09:00.004+01:00

28/05/08, Old Trafford

"Is there anybody alive out there??" The Boss asked as he walked up to the microphone in front of 50,000 last night. He made them alive.

Setlist:
No Surrender
Radio Nowhere
Night
Lonesome Day
The Promised Land
Magic
Trapped
Adam Raised a Cain
Darlington County
It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Because the Night
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
Mary's Place
I'll Work for Your Love
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
Growin' Up
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Born to Run
Rosalita
Dancing in the Dark
American Land

FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!

Of many great highlights, The Rising was my moment of the night. I Freakin' Love Goosebumps!

Public Enemy

2008-05-27T11:44:00.004+01:00

26/05/08 - Manchester Academy 1

Two things made me anxious about going to this gig:
a) it was a legacy gig, performing an album from the past - would that make it no more than a nod in the direction of former glory?
b) Flavor Flav has become a bit wayward, not done himself justice in recent years.

a) & b) got blown right out of the water. Public Enemy were AWESOME last night. A speeding locomotion train - wild but firmly on tracks leading directly to their destination, Rebels Without A Pause!

Chuck D spoke in between songs with his simple eloquence and absolute authority, without a hint of preaching or machismo - he's simply a man who knows what time it is and knows he knows what time it is and knows that because he knows the time when plenty of people out there don't know the time he has an OBLIGATION, a RESPONSIBILITY to tell people what time it really is.

They performed the entire It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back album as though it was something they'd written just yesterday and just couldn't wait to share with people. Flavor Flav has an amazing connection with the audience, and he and Chuck D just bounce off each other with searing energy - 'My partner Chuck D gonna tell ya all a story, tell em Chuck!'

During a song Chuck D saw someone wearing a clock in the audience and pointed at them. The man threw his clock up on stage and Chuck D put it on. When Flavor Flav noticed this he almost fell right over - he was blown away. At the end of the song Flavor Flav told us that it was the first time in twenty years he's seen his partner Chuck D wearing a clock. Chuck D told us he used to wear a clock but took it off years ago when everything went crazy and they briefly lost what time it was. So we witnessed a great and momentous moment last night, Chuck D wore a clock along with Flavor Flav - it felt like a genuine and real moment. A great symbolic moment.

When they reached the end of the album tracks Chuck D announced that they wouldn't be leaving us yet - and they ripped on til after the curfew. Then Chuck D handed over to Flavor Flav to pull the whole audience together and leave them with a message of Peace and Togetherness equals Power, and we must use this power to resist War, and we must use this power to fight Racism.

For another fifteen minutes after the curfew and as many people filed out of the venue Flavor Flav remained on stage talking to the audience - he spotted a little child and his mother and asked the child up on to the stage. He hugged the kid and told everyone that this is who we have got to go out there and fight for - it starts with us right now, we fight for the kids, don't leave it too late. And he took off his tshirt and put it on the little boy - who looked like he was in the middle of a moment that would change the direction of his whole life. It was real, genuine and moving.

Public Enemy took hip hop to places it had never been before and has never been since. True pioneers, innovators, and probably right at the top of the league for connecting with their audiences. But what it is that truly makes Public Enemy Great is that they are vital, they are necessary. You hear it in everything they do... they do it because it is NECESSARY. And that passion, that commitment and raw energy will always cut through the shitfest of sound and smoke that is out there and take people that little bit higher, give people that vital inspiration to keep them going. But the message is clear: you've got to fight. You've got to stand up and fight and be counted and you've got to be politically smart and committed. Fail to do so and some people somewhere will be enslaved, and one of these days it's gonna be you too.

I've said for years that music provides all I need that religion does for some people. I'm careful about who I go and see, what I listen to - this is my greatest passion and the main reason I am able to live... Public Enemy, like Mavis Staples, like Kris Kristofferson, have just topped up my well of inspiration til it's overflowing. For some music is no more than entertainment, for me it is my whole spiritual being, it is my soul. Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Soul Brothers.

As Flav told us to remember, we are ALL brothers and sisters.