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2007/01/07 15:33 - 2007....AGAIN

The Holidays – and they were Holidays for me, of both mind and body – Seem far off now. A lifetime away. Yet even holidays are work for me. I have to make an effort not to write, not to make plans and to let up on my main vice – Imposing my will on reality.
And I did a good job of doing nothing this Christmas. Now, as ever, I feel scared by the prospect of going back to work, of making dreams a reality. The Piano beckons and some part of me groans and moans.
A few projects in the offing; some production work maybe, a few collaborations in France and Italy but nothing signed and sealed. The Bowie repetition album is out and getting good press, apparently. www.midfinger.net

My first album, with the band Jack, ‘Pioneer Soundtracks’ is re-released in March.

www.spinneyrecords.co.uk/index.php?page=artists

This is pre empted by my first ever-solo release under my own full name, an EP called ‘Ponies’.
www.chaffinchrecords.com/

Following both these is my first ever debut album, ‘British ballads’.
But these are (almost) ready to go…I need new work now.
I’d like to try and make a documentary actually, a film of Cardiff. It’s just a bud of an idea at present but something I will peruse. How on earth one goes about such a process – funding, staffing etc I have no idea, but I want to explore a new medium.
Meanwhile, the Walker Biography floats in Limbo, awaiting distant decisions and processes to click and whirr in sympathy.
Somewhere amidst all this I sit with my beefy Moustache, chilled wine to hand and belly and jowls blobbing. Conversely I seem to have suffered some damage to my taste buds. Food just aint tasting of much lately. And one of my favourite wines last night tasted almost neutral. (I’m off Scotch for a bit). No doubt this is a symptom of something horrifying. Maybe it’s the cat’s eye drops I’ve been pouring into my ear this last week? I was prescribed with ear medicine for the infected ear I’ve had since before Christmas.
In my post bender fug I’ve been flopping about the mansion in non-matching slippers puffing on my pipe and pouring said liquid into my aching ear canal every time I find myself down sideways. And then I noticed there was another Potion next to the bed. ‘Two’ I thought? But…on closer inspection I had indeed been administering Stuff for the cats Gloopy eyes. Oh well. We’re all ashes and dust ultimately, no?
Having finished Alan Bennett’s ‘Untold stories’ and Miles’ mediocre Bukowski biography am now happily in the thick of Michael Palin’s diaries. Palin is one of those rare chaps who are decent, bright and yet not at all dull. A true and rare breed.
I know that one of the reasons I’m enjoying this book (apart from the excellent almost incidental details – Sharing a hotel in 72 with Bowie etc) is because a very small part of me IS Michael Palin. But he’s rather drenched and bunged down by the more dominant and self destructive, nihilistic aspects of myself. Mostly. Individuation –That’s what we need.
Alright. Off to watch ‘the complete ripping Yarns’ now and shall try not to worry about working to find work.

2007/01/01 17:36 - TIME OF THE SEASON

December Monday 18 London

I’m a man on a mission and my mission possible has brought me to Church Street, Stoke Newington. It is not even noon and I’ve been up since before dawn, a textbook 2hr train journey already behind me. My first communiqué is with Bryan Mills via text, a hilarious and surreal exchange that is lively and doomed: Bryan is touring with SteelEye Span and is out of the city. Whatever, I have appointments and as such am too excited to properly browse the Church Street bookshops. You see, I love to get loaded in daylight. I like to get high while the world works. ‘We will dream/While they work/We will sleep/While they hurt…’ And getting munted on this freezing grey Monday is just exactly what I have planned.
By 1pm I’m ensconced in The Coach and Horses, at the arse end of Kingsland road.
The barmaid is young and beautiful, the Scotch warm and peaty and the dregs of the Dennis Hopper Biography I’m finishing apt.
I pause and look out onto the hideous Hackney high street. The pub is near empty but out there the human sewer is running its filthy course, a river of scum coagulating upon itself, 69ing its own fetid tail. And yet, I have arrived at the umber gates of tipsy and all is good. God is a sleepy Umpire, somewhere Keith Richards is coughing and the girls are young and the ponies run.
Weirdly, one of the 4 people in this pub is a man I met at a wedding this last summer.
What are the odds? Not that titchy actually, as he lives minutes away. Before you know it, said chap is regaling me graphically with tales of his recent colonoscophy…in eerie sympathy the Chivas snakes down my throat.
And then suddenly, out of the Blue my man Ringo is beside me. Ringo is one of my favourite persons in the world right now…we hug and chug…and here the memory lapses begin…
The next few hours are a fiesta of scotch, broken cigars, music, bars, a flat and enough snorting to shame a Viagra’d Bull stallion. I am, as they say, ‘Letting off steam’.
After numerous diversions and 5 hours later, Ringo and I end up...well actually, this was the plan…we stumble into the 12 bar. Simon Breed is playing…a chap who had records out in the early 90’s as ‘Breed’…http://www.simonbreed.com/
Matthew and I really dug his ‘Violent sentimental’ album back then…however, although Simon and I chat enthusiastically, I am now in full orbit, neither here nor there and to paraphrase Hemingway: ‘Anthony was by now very drunk and beginning to talk a hell of a lot of sense’. We shake hands enthusiastically and I talk high power nonsense to anyone who’ll listen and many who won’t. Note: I’m never high enough to want to get up and sing myself mind you.
I return to Ringo’s via a 2-week bus ride and after some Limewire Djing by his beautiful girlfriend and further indulgences, by 4am I retire to a sofa bed in a dead room. An unhinged door falls on me smashing glass into my hand. I look at the blood utterly objectively before popping a heavy-duty downer.
After 10minutes of poking my eyes I realise I have already removed my contact lenses.
I arrange myself on the sofa bed and pass out fully clothed.
When I come to about 4hrs later, my hand is caked with blood, my throat is swollen almost shut and my nostrils are packed shut with heavy foul algae. But at least I don’t feel sick…because when I do start puking, I don’t stop. And I have a busy day of waiting ahead.

Tuesday December 19

Ringo is still out cold and I am in a stranger in a strange house. I cannot even make myself a cup of tea. It’s a shared house and god forbid I should upset the balance…it’s freezing cold and I can’t even get dressed as I am already. My left eye is throbbing from the pokings I’d administered before bedtime…further, I feel as if I’m wearing a hat although for once I’m not…in fact I lost my hat last night. (A generic beanie). Although miraculously, nothing else. (Dignity doesn’t count). Even my vintage Halston scarf is still with me. In fact, I’m wearing it now as I glug down a cracked cup of council pop.
I blow my poor nose free of blood and slime and pop some flu capsules.
Alas, I have unfinished business in London and I must await Ringo’s rise. Normally I’d be in a hackney cab by now, outrunning my hangover back to the countryside but…dash it, I have to hang on. I check my phone’s call register as the grey day cracks and crackles around me. I see that in the last 18 hours I have chatted with Dot Allison, a girl called a girl called Eddy, Rhodri Thomas, Fiona Brice, Julian Simmons….the list goes on. What do all these splendid peoples have in common? Mainly that I recall nothing of our conversation. However, among the various messages on my phone…most end with ‘and I hope you’re OK’…whatever that means…
I need to get out. I can’t relax in this cold strange house. But of course, I don’t have a key and I can hardly leave the door open while I go walkabout. Such dilemmas are super taxing in my present unwell condition. I try to rouse Ringo but he’s not having any of it…I take my chances and wander out anyway. Jesus, Clapton is horrible.
http://www.stormpages.com/upperclapton/
Mooching through the concrete and bus fumes, I buy chips in Pitta and eat the green chilli whole – Bingo! I can breathe again.
Walking these foul grey east London streets I realise I can never live in London again…not unless I get rich…. I string out my walk as long as possible…then make my way back to the house…miraclosuly, the door is answered…
Eventually, 4 tense and headachy hours later business has been sorted and I’m enroute to my country abode.
As I slumber cross-country I remember all those I was supposed to meet (Green Gartside, George, Paul F – The chap whose house I’d arranged to stay at for God’s sake… but didn’t. There’s just no way I could stay another day in London. I have nowhere to truly…relax… and cannot afford a hotel this time round. On the train I get a call from the hugely likeable Rhodri Thomas inviting me to the Mini Scritti gig that night but I’m halfway home now. Being comfortable where you are is a talent, no doubt. Like sleeping and good looks. I qualify in very few of these departments and only then increasingly rarely and with the help of Diazepam.

Wednesday 20th

By Noon I feel healthy again. (Apart from a fucked left Jaw). My Pyjamas are freshly laundered and my Moustache is twirling at 300mph.
Thus I spend the entire day alone, getting stoned in my studio; painting with acrylics while Hopper’s ‘Last Movie’ plays on the 6 TVS dotted around the house.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067327/
And yet even in this highly wired state two things remain constant: The utter obtuseness of Dennis’ Movie and the complete crapness of my Paintings.
www.anthonyreynolds.net/pages/artwork.htm
Checking my E-mails, I see I am invited to an ‘artists gathering’ at Cardiff’s Vulcan pub tonight. Hmm. I am under 3 hours away by train. I am due to go to Cardiff tomorrow…yet it’s a shame to waste the buzz I’ve got going now…I check timetables and the like…its possible except my current wardrobe – I’m back in Denim and Tash – is still wet. ‘Fuck it’ I seriously think ‘I’ll go in my Pyjamas’. I’ve been painting all day in my Chinese silkiest…would anyone seriously notice or be offended…? Luckily I take a serious hold of myself at the bottom of the stairs and wrestle myself into bed. Eventually its tomorrow.

Thursday 21

I come round with a mellow hangover. The kind that’s perfect for eating stale kettle chips to while watching ‘The Rockford Files’. I luck onto a classic episode: Guest stars Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick. Produced by (Sopranos) David Chase. I could spend all day vegging but I’m due in Cardiff tonight.
Eventually I’m on my way…I feel good except bits of my teeth keep falling off…For the cosy train trip I decide to stick to Kronenburg and Coke for the duration as I don’t want to turn up to Leonard’s raving…
we get stuck in Cwmbran and I’m appalled as ever by the scum rising around me. Tea and coffee is ‘on the house’ due to the delay and my fellow passengers can’t get over their ‘Good fortune’. ‘Not bad es ett’ chirps a welsh fool behind me… ‘cant argue with a free cuppa es et’…Fucking fools…and I notice I’ve failed to charge my minidisc battery…no George Jones for me…
I get into Cardiff well after dark and spend the evening at Len’s, splendid new flat, smoking and watching a Gram Parsons Doc’...(I’m not a fan)…then its sofa time again although I’m only half dressed this time…

Friday

A walk through splott in the fog is actually quite painless…and what heavy fog it is…Purifying my insides.
www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites/streetsofcardiff/pages/stories_splott.shtml

I’m too hungover as a matter of course to be bashed or walloped by the heavy ugly nostalgia that usually grieves me on such walks through this, the landscape of my childhood…in fact, my subtle exhaustion is a comfort blanket between me and the world…feels painless for a change.
I come to my parent’s house…nice and warm and for once even quiet amidst the pea souper…
By 3 I’m back on the Chivas (One of my Christmas presents along with a beautiful Cherrywood Pipe)…me and Ma watch ‘being Mick’ and its only slightly less amusing than when I first saw it on TV.
www.culturecourt.com/M/LR/BeingMick.htm

This evening I’m at the classic Vulcan pub…a place where my Irish ancestors came every night for decades…(They lived on the street – Dyffryn - that was once here)…

www.cardiffpubs.co.uk/Pub.php?Pub=Vulcan

This is my first visit and Its atmosphere is Shocking… almost overpowering…incredible…beautiful ugly…soulful filthy…hardcore authentic…like something out of the centaury before last…on exiting one expects Pirate of the Caribbean style Pirate ships awaiting…
I meet with the Writer John Williams (Who also works for Serpents tail…they may do the Walker Book)… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Williams_(author)
and with the Poet Christopher Brooke.
www.geraldengland.co.uk/revs/bs273.htm

The evening soon ascends (For me anyway) into a giddy only slightly sloppy buzz…a very old friend (and Christopher’s other half), Meins, shows up…meanwhile I play darts with a lady who could be anywhere between 30 and 70…and I really do feel as If I’ve gone outside of time…true, this is as much to do with the happy poisons running through my veins as it is with the pub…but all the same, I’m free again…I’m even free enough to take up Chris’ and Meins kind offer of walking back to theirs in Adamsdown for a few more glasses…

Saturday

My head wakes up first. I’m in my brother’s old bedroom and its sometime until my body awakes…I feel Like ‘The Thing’ from the neck down…and there’s that ‘Hat wearing’ sensation again. Plus my Jaw is killing me and my back molars are all crumbly.

Many chapters of Alan Bennett’s wonderful ‘Untold stories’, Numerous cappuccinos and headache tablets later I’m almost human again…I’m at Leonard’s that evening, and the white Russians and biffters are flowing freely…Len’s legendary cousin is in attendance with some rather rough chums…at times, in such unfamiliar company I often feel like Prince Charles on a Borstal visit…but all is good. I’ve been a hermit this year and it feels righteous to be out in a world again…in the company of men and all that…
The evening suddenly tails off however and after a quick one at the Vulcan (That place is addictive – its so not like any other pub)…I’m in for an early night.
As I drift off a strange and powerful thought comes to me : For the first time in 15 years, I think I could live in Cardiff again.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Another train journey back home to my house of love and animals…beyond that, I ponder not.

Seasons. Life is seasonal. And we can fight or go with those seasons…this is our only choice, the extent of our free will. So I’m going with them…dressing for winter…in this the summertime of our Love…

2006/12/11 15:21 - FILMS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE TV

I’m swimming in the fresh warm spring waters of John cassavettes films at the moment.
(With a big thankyou to David Love of Chaffinch records).

I knew nothing of this guy a month ago and now I’ve been exposed to a whole universe.
A whole big body of work and characters, aesthetics and spirit that was unknown to me previously.

This makes me think: How many other cassavettes are there out there awaiting my discovery?

Cassavettes made some of the…’weird’ is not the right word, that would be misleading.

His films are... staggeringly untypical.

I was watching a harrowing scene in ‘A woman under the influence’ last night – much aggressive hubaloo between an exhausted father, his panicking kids and their crazy mother/his wife… and it occurred to me that in say, any modern day rom- com such a scene would, perversely be made to appear cute. Even in something like ‘Kramer VS Kramer’ such domestic horror would seem ‘Safe’ somehow. But in cassavettes’ film it seemed as it would in real life: Horrific and humorous. It takes some alchemy to pull this off.

The night before we watched ‘Opening night’ and I’d never had an experience like it.
I wasn’t sure what I was watching, or whom. Were they actors or…(Confused by the fact that many of the cast are related in real life)… This film of lives within a play dismantled most of the apparatus engaged when watching ‘A movie’. The experience seemed very real and alive to me. I felt like I was in the theatre for much of it.

And yet – I couldn’t say I LIKE these movies. They are not ‘favourites’ (Like Caan's slither),that I’d like to watch again and again or with friends or whatever. They have an intangible effect upon me…weird. Their effect goes…deeper than mere like or dislike somehow.

And this work is heartening to someone like me. Cassavettes worked outside of the mainstream and yet his work was real, had resonance and was a universe unto itself.

This is what I’d hope one could say about my humble smattering of work.

Cassavettes also had to work to work, which is something I’ve had to do in this last few years.
It’s empowering to know I’m not alone. (In this regard anyways).

What’s odd again is that on some levels I was aware of cassavettes and his world, to a degree.
Years ago I used to watch TV on a B&W Portable (as err, immortalized on my ‘Neu York’ song, ‘Dear Melvyn’).
One of my fave things was twirling the UHF dial and finding late night weird programmes that I hadn’t noticed in the TV guide.
I’ve retained an enduring image from the sole episode of ‘Johnny Staccato’ I saw around this time. The guy was intense…otherworldly and he lingered in the fourth draw down of the filing cabinet in the fifth floor of my mind. Not lingered, but flapped out, catching my minds eye on various trips to and fro.
And I just found out that this guy was Cassavettes. He acted too...

I also remember reading about Ben Gazzarra via Bukowski…(I remember little of 'Their' film, however...

This leads me to another point. How much of your future is within your present?
Do you already know your next love?
What spooks me is that during the times I’ve been single, I’ve often thought..’Well, Gee…I’m sure to be involved with someone again. I wonder what they’re doing right now and who and where they are…’?
Often I have known them, other times not. Then again I haven’t been much single in my life.
Not enough anyway.

http://people.bu.edu/rcarney/cassavetes/

2006/12/02 11:44 - These days

I've Just uploaded an outake from my 2004 'Neu York' album for you.

I'd forgotten all about this song until recently when I was cataloguing my tapes and mini discs etc On hearing it again i thought 'What on earth is this...what's it all about'? And I came up with the following:

I got the title from a kerouac story in a Playboy anthology. But other than that, the song has nothing to do with kerouac or the story. (Im not actually a huge Kerouac or Ginsberg reader. My preference from that gang of souls is for Burroughs. But anyway).

The music game from an old mucker of mine in Paris called Gilles. He records as 'Toog'.

http://toog.blogspot.com/

Thinking of Gilles now, whom I haven't seen in years -amazingly I haven't been to Paris since 2003. I used to go about 5 times a year for years - Anyway, Thinking of him now I picture a aspidistra in human form.

Gilles and I first collaborated on a song in 2000, I think. I sang a song he'd written about a massive recent storm in Paris. We recorded the vocal in his flat and as we did so - A storm started up. Which you can hear on the recording! I took this as a good omen but for whatever reason it was never released. Perhaps it was only a demo. I dont recall.

We next wrote a song together in 2002, when I was commisioned to write for Vashti Bunyan. This time Gilles sent me a cd with music on and I put words and sang to it at Julian's Din studio. 'An exile at home' it was called. Vashti didnt go for it and it remains unreleased. (Vashti did record another of my songs, a really beautiful version with full strings, produced by Simon Raymonde. It remains unreleased. This is another story. With a nice ending. More of which later).

So. Third time lucky, I thought and asked Gilles to send me some music for the 'neu york' album I was recording in 2003. I liked it and went to work.

Sadly, I only have a analogue recording studio (I say sadly-I love it but its not very compatible as everyone else records on their Laptops.) Thus all I could do was overdub to Gilles CD. The end result was too lo-fi I thought. Plus I couldnt sing the chorus properly within this set up, so the song was dropped from the album.

But what is good blonde about? I dont know. Something to do..based on an image of the type of actresses you'd see in Buck rogers, the TV series. Only on drugs. maybe. I cant remember. perhaps it was about having an affair with an android.I dunno. Silver is sexy but...

Do i 'prefer blondes'? Well. I know I didn't when I was younger. I dunno why. I preffered dark haired girls, so I thought. Yet when I look back, the last 3 girls in my life have all been redheads. This certainly isnt a conscious decision on my part. Who chooses? Yet as I get older my tatses change...and thats another story too.

of course my fave blondes are boys : Warhol, Bowie, Sylvian.

But the blonde in the picture is Doroty stratten. Who seemed to feel her own blondeness was akin to the Elephant man's disfigurements at times.

Gilles is dirty blonde. I was blonde in 1987. When I think of Hiroshima, i think of everything going blonde.

Writing songs makes me feel good.

I've just finished two :

'Live on' :

'Live on/Though your heart is sick its strong/While theres drink and light and song/while there's time the horses run/On and on/So Live on'

which is disco Aznavour.

Then there's an iggypop stomper:

'Bourbon state of mind'...

"I aint no lollipop but boy Im licked/ Where theres a bottle theres a genie/get me out of this/ I need a BOURBON STATE OF MIND!!!"

Smoke chunnels from out the farfisfa. And I feel individuated.

I like this air too. For now. Wintertime!

and ..I am ready to tour again. I want a rocking band and I want to play electric guitar loud again.

So next year.

Where does music go when I lose it?

it feels so good to feel it.

Currently reading :
Kafka on the Shore Vol 1 of 2 (in traditional Chinese)
By Haruki Murakami
Release date: By 2003

2006/11/22 16:16 -

As I pass the point of my mid-30’s (well, next year I do and ‘next year’ is only a few months away)…I look into my reflection within the rainshod window, raise a glass and tell myself ‘You’re the oldest we’ve ever been, m’boy’. But is this true? In many ways I feel younger than I did at 21. Someone told me once that we’re born a certain age and that when that age coincides with our physical age, ‘everything comes together’.
I’ve always secretly suspected that I’ll be more comfortable as an oldster.
I was watching an interview with William Burroughs last night:

www.rolandcollection.com/home.aspx#D1279

And that’s my idea of a proper ol’ old geezer. (It’s hard to be convinced by Burroughs as a young man. He was born ancient). Well dressed, well spoken, but seemingly always just the right side of pissed and apt to go off into song...’(William did ‘falling in Love again’ beautifully).
But I’ve made some recent observations of my own…maturity.
Say I go into a supermarket or shop and I’m looking for something in particular. I’ll scan the place and on finding the item I’m looking for, will make a noise of muted satisfaction in my throat. A sort of ‘Hmmph’ that means; Yes. There it is’. I’m still aware of this phenomena but won’t be for long, doubtless and so we attain the series of tics and grunts that mark us into old age…
Another ‘phenomena’ is that people I know appear in books…my times are becoming history…or should I say OUR time are becoming history…and weirder still, (To me), places I’ve known appear are appearing in poems.
Before I go further, a diversion. I have an affliction. When I get into a group, they break up soon after. Writers die a month after I’ve discovered them. Or, more usually I discover only dead writers (maths is against me in this regard). I love poetry but rarely connect with new poetry, not that I go searching it (or anything) out. But Bryan Mills gave me a copy of Roddy Lumsden’s poetry a year or two ago and it tilted me slightly.
It also made me a bit ashamed at my own efforts in this regard… I just assumed that no one this good would go to all the bother of getting a book out…(Oh how cynical I’ve become –another tic). But good, real, fine and this is the key word – Necessary - poetry is still being written and published today. And I got one such book yesterday its called “and the concept of zero”and is by Christopher Brooke.

Now, what’s weird is that…well…I get a fair number of Demos etc sent to me…and the odd poem…but few resonate or transcend. But this book does. I know the author very very vaguely but this is a book that exists independently of this association. This is a book I want to read whatever, that alters the psychological level of the world for the better, weather you know this work exists or not. It strikes a chord in me (e7). And…much of the poems deal with that old bogeyman of mine – Cardiff. I don’t know why this seems odd to me, why should it? Yet in some subtle way it fucks with the self-mythology I’ve created for myself in this life, thus far.
I did a piece on the ‘Neu York’ album called ‘I sit with the smokers’. This book reads to me, like a real proper actualisation of a notion I only touched on in that track…of naming the bland horror found in ones unsympathetic environment and somehow coming to…peace is the wrong word…more like state of grace within it. Redemption. Yes, this is a book of redemption songs.

Its well timed too, ‘cos I was trying to read poetry this last weekend and nothing was connecting with me; e.e. Cummings, Heaney, Hughes, all were just bouncing off. But this Brooke chap books really hits the strings…and that’s good too, to connect with something written now and of now…Christopher Brooke is a correct name for a poet too.
‘and the concept of zero’ reminds me of all the best things about Larkin, Carver, Bukowski and…some folk music. You can buy it here: http://www.cinnamonpress.com/

‘Smoky Jim’ has reappeared in my life, glad to say. All hail Smoky. Now if you’ll excuse me…the stub of a cigar…a heavy glass…a good book…and a bowl of nuts…all are calling.

2006/11/13 12:04 - MEMOIRS OF THE HEARTBREAK KID
Another fiercely intense weekend with the dead. I occasionally slip outside of lateral time these days. My development arrested. Looking down on earth. But then 'now' was never as impressive to me as it seems to be to others. (I was considering the boggling enigma of Bono the other day. 'If bobo is supposed to be cool' I mused, 'then what the fuck is Miles Davis...?'

And of course, the common civilian's argument came screaming back : 'Dead'.

As if that mattered. Well, not to me, anyhoo because my relation to most is not based upon weather they are alive at the same time as me...

Still. I do age. I have the old man's habit of singing the wrong words to popular songs of the hit parade. Currently its The Killers.

As I shuffle through the twilight you can hear me croon :

'Don't you wanna come with me/Dont you wanna rub my bones/dont you wanna feel my bones/doo doo/dah dah dee'

I tried watching two films I couldn't get on with previously: Bogdanovich's bloodless sequel to the mighty 'The last Picture show' : The dry and dreary 'Texasville' (I still wandered away half way through).
And 'The King of Marvin gardens'. (The roles should have been reversed - Jack Nhicolson playing the other brother).

Speaking of Jack, I finally received the finished edition fo 'Pioneer soundtracks reduxe'. I'm very happy with it. Its the best looking album I've been associated with. And my tracklisting works well, I think. Smartm choices. Yeah. Its bloody aduacious that at this point in my hargh-oogh-erghh arooga - 'career', I have my first double album out. Ha! Whoda thunk it. A double concept album already. Whoo. Sheesh.

Reading wise, just finished Andrew yule's biography of Peter Bogdanovich. Suprisingly good if a little incomplete...but this is down to the arc of PB's life rather than the biographer...

Bogdanovich intruiges me. His lack of guile in his career seems to have harmed him and I'm fascinated as to how gifted pro's - and just people - deal with bad luck. What is bad luck? What causes it? Is it something our heart has secretly wished for? Is destiny in our blood and Do we invite bad luck if we swim against our inner tide...

(Speaking of the biography I wrote. (canyon sized sigh) - Carlton passed on it Friday. This leaves 3 publishers, none looking too likely. So I considered taking it back to H.Skelter. Alas, the editor there , who is very ill (Which is why I had to take it elswhere in the first place), had a recent relapse.

So I'm now faced with the possibilty of two years work remaining unpublished. This thought makes my head swim and my steady hands reach for the Bourbon Jug. And lately, I've discovered a new state of intoxication - after slowly drinking for a few hours I feel beatific!

Go figure...

So. Between the Jim Beam Black and the box of crackers, I turn to the piano today. And also the MP3s that sublime french soundsmith Readymade FC has sent me. I loved writing lyrics for 'a girl called Eddy' recently and now Jean- paul wants me to write some for him. This is fun.

Beyond everything as well - America is whispering to me once more. Maybe Florida in january? Where I can flip burgers ala Tony Montana in Scarface?

'Take me back to dolphin country...hey, was I missed'?

Currently reading :
The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980
By Peter Bogdanovich
Release date: By 01 September, 1985

2006/10/30 12:13 - pop music

Aww...fuck...What a great band :
http://www.myspace.com/canseidesersexy

csshurts.com

I've only heard/seen the video for 'Lets make Love and listen to death from above' but its perfect ! I'm scared to listen to anything else in case it spoils it for me...

What a lovely little number. In the video they remind me of Blondie/talking heads only sexy. (Alas I could never relate to Debbie Harry's beauty Sexually)...

...and dig the bass player.

I'd like to have simutaneous lives and be a bass player/Nanny/Nurse/Policeman/Drug dealer...its a fantasy of mine...

And whats more, they're playing a gig near me, on

on November 12th! Gosh. maybe I'll go. I hate live music as a rule but I reckon I might enjoy this...they seem like a band and exotic too, to boot.

and you know what? If I do go, It'll be the first gig of this type that I attend where I'm old...

Like I give a fuck...

other tunes rocking my world this week : Jake thackrays 'Black Swan' and Scritti's 'Brushed with oil...'a kirsty McColl one where she sings 'They don't know about us...' and Marti's 'September in the rain'...Another luvelly number. Listen :

http://www.myspace.com/martimusic

I have written a kind of new version of 'Morning light'...(it was on the funny first Jacques album - and Imagine Johnny Cash singing that)....A sad cafe sad Piano ballad called 'On the other side of rain'...even scared me..

How come I like stuff like 'lets make love' but cant write it?

My seasonal 3 week scotch experiment has ended. Back to sipping wine now. My favourite dinner at present is a lovely bottle of Bordeaux with a Super Pot noodle..(NOT Pot noodle) -.and a dollop of processed cheese. ..soy sauce..

Ahh..I love this time of year. Scarves and cashmere...the rosy cheeks of women...a nice warm muff on a hot winters night...(its clothing - a giant furry glove -an old english handwarmer, pervs) hot water bottles and gout treatment...hot chocolate and ice cream...pelicans on the mainshaft and pigeons on the minor...these drugs..

and best of all billy coming in at dusk smelling of bonfires...

Something else to report but can't remember right now...

remind me..to remind myself...

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