Yesterday I spent heaps of money because I'm going to be broke soon. This may sound like a foolish thing to do but there is a certain logic behind it; when I see that my funds are dwindling I realize that if I don't splash out and spend it on some good stuff soon it's just going to disolve anyway (although at a slower rate) and I won't have anything to show for that money. So I went into town and got some good post christmas sales deals on new adidas from Size? (the question mark is part of the name - it's like they're already asking you your size before you go in the door! How novel!!!) and also I got a shirt and jacket from Uniqlo and a lavender t-shirt, mint green undies, and day-glo purple socks from American Apparel.Then I went around to a friends who lives with her investment banker brother in a top floor studio apartment in Shoreditch where you can climb onto the roof and have an amazing view. It was quite impressive and had a collection of "trendy" decor stuff but none of it matched very well or was placed with much thought or love. That is boring. Lots more stuff happened as well but the most important thing was we went to see Dan Deacon and just stood in a queue for over an hour then got fed up and went back to drink at the apartment and share our favourite clips on youtube. Which seems to be how all parties end these days. Maybe it's just the ones I go to. I always show the same bullshit to people as well.
My favourite one at the moment is this; Lost Highway by Bon Jovi. I like that he's shameless enough to give it the same name as one of the greatest country songs ever, and that it closely resembles the songwriting of one David Brent. Just so we're clear I don't actually like it - I think it's horrible cliche bullshit.
Last night at London Bridge station I happened across the girl who's undies I stole. This was a very strange coincidence - the night before that was the first time we had met, and I never just "bump into" people I know here (unless it's at gigs and stuff - but that's not really the same). Anyway I shouldn't really have said don't know what I'm gonna do next time I see her because what I did was entirely predictable; I didn't bring it up and hoped she didn't know anything about it. She's a really nice girl. "Ebony" as they say in the adult entertainment section, with a beautiful wide gap-toothed smile and a very charming Kiwi boyfriend who despite having met only the once I feel a fierce loyalty to that prevents me from flirting with her too much. Sigh. My solitude continues I guess, unless of course we meet again by chance in the next little while. This would constitute some sort of sign from Abraxas, and courage and honour dictates that I'd have to act on it. Perhaps.
I was supposed to be going to Berlin for New Years but now it looks as if I will not be going anywhere due to minor cashflow issues and a lack of planning on the part of my peers. I have two options so far. One that has very little to do with me or any close friends that sounds like a lot of fun, and one involving a small group of closer friends that sounds like sitting around a tiny sweaty flat listening to Elliot Smith and drinking Kronenburg. So I can either be a bored out of my mind good friend or a selfish bastard having a good time and warding off the guilts with whiskey and shiraz for the evening but feeling like a right shit the next day most likely.
Also there is another part to the undies story. This morning I emptied my satchel on the floor and found a womans slip(? I never know the names of the bits of ladies undies) in it. I know I didn't take it (I wasn't that drunk) so I can only assume someone was playing what I guess they thought at the time was a very funny joke on me. It's not a funny joke, it's a stink one that has the potential to make me look like a total perv and destroy fledgling relationships and networking opportunities.
I don't really know how it happened but I unintentionally stole a girls underwear last night. I went to some kind of impromptu party after boxing day drinks and was quite intoxicated, having a bit of a dance etc. and I think someone threw them onto my shoulder, then I may have pocketed them. Have no idea why. I guess it probably seemed funny to me at the time, but this morning when I woke up on the floor of my friends house and remembered that I'd taken them from the party I was completely mortified. I'm trying to get Petra to take the blame and give them back, but she's not into it and reckons she's gonna chuck them. I'm so embarrassed. Don't know what I'm gonna do next time I see her.
Last night was the christmas "party" at the place I have been working. I'm no longer working there though, but got invited to the party anyway. Was a bit of a long evening, started off drinking at the local pub around five, then went to a mexican restaurant where we played Wii and ate deep-fried calamari in the traditional manner. Also I got three people to drink shots of hot sauce and had a great game of christmas cracker frog jumping into peoples beer. Then we went to the bowling lanes where I decided to only drink the finest house red for the rest of the evening. I had an amazing beginning to my game - X, X, 0X, 7/,6/ (that means I knocked down every pin in my first five turns in case you aren't familiar with bowling scores). Unfortunately I started attracting way too much attention for this which made me nervous and the booze started kicking in around the same time so the rest of my game was a bit screwy. Still came first in my team though, but I didn't beat the boss-man, which is what I was aiming for. Then we did karaoke, but I didn't sing much as I couldn't get hold of the book. Did Common People and then discovered that I couldn't find my jacket and spent the rest of the night looking for it, stressing about the fact I couldn't find it and didn't find it until they kicked us all out and it was underneath a cushion on a couch that someone had been sitting on all night. Then I had to walk for about half an hour to a bus stop, wait another half hour for a bus and do the big trip home which takes about an hour and I kept falling asleep then waking up and stressing out that I had gone past my stop. It was impossible to tell because all the windows were totally steamed over, but I somehow managed to get it right and got off at the right place for another twenty minute walk in the coldest cold I've experienced in London so far. I had been to Kathmandu earlier in the day to pick up some things to keep warm (this says a lot about how cold it is cause I hate all that outdoor bs), so I put on my polyprop gloves plus over the top of them fingerless thermal gloves with detachable mitten bits that were very much attached, plus one of those tube scarf things which I wore as a hat and wrapped a scarf very tightly around my face. I also walked most of the way home with my hands on my face in order to keep my face warm as the scarf alone wasn't really cutting it. It's 11:15am here now and the grass in the back lawn is still covered in frost. That should give you an idea of how cold it's getting. I'm so hungover and I've got lots of stuff I need to get sorted, the most important being updating my showreel and getting my next job. Can't really be bothered though, my brain is throbbing and my hands are shaking and I'm hating myself for not being able to cope with the mean hangovers as well as I could until very recently. I'm getting too old. Also my boss told me that he thought that my showreel was "pants" last night, which was interesting as he gave me the job anyway and has been very pleased with my work. Look this is from an email he sent to my agent which my agent forwarded to me - "put simply, he's excellent we are very happy indeed". Pants showreel though (actually this is true as I was in such a rush to leave Auckland and get a girlfriend that between making that Voom video, organizing the Pony Unique gig at Space, and making my portfolio, I ran out of time and ended up devoting a grand total of about two hours to making my showreel). I don't really know how I'm gonna update it as I don't have my own editing/animation software here at the flat.
Public displays of affection anger me more now then they ever have before. The reason why is probably no mystery, but it does concern me just how much rage I feel when I'm on a tube platform or something and some young couple has a kiss a few metres away. I get incredibly tense and hot all over, clench my fists, and feel like smashing things to bits. I saw an old business guy on the tube the other day who was clearly in the middle of some kind of breakdown. His fists were little balls and his arms were bent, he was hunched over and kind of talking to himself (no words were coming out, but his mouth was moving), he kind of looked like he was on the verge of crying, and every now and then he'd lose control and hit the door hard and really quickly. Like a one-inch-punch. I felt a great deal of sympathy for him; that's me in a few years if I don't get out of this dry spell I reckon. Chances of that happening are pretty slim though considering my new pessimistic attitude towards romance. Reading Schopenhauer and Nietzsche isn't helping much either.
I've just finished my two week contract doing TV bits that ended up being four weeks. Pretty sweet money coming in soon which I'm looking forward to as I've been living poor for a while now. Gonna buy a lot of clothes and hopefully a new bass amp cause the one I've got here sounds really tinny. The band has got about 4 new songs partially recorded that sound really great, but it's taking ages to finish them off because the way we're doing everything is so convoluted and we've all been either too busy or tired to make much happen in the last couple of months. I heard that there's a new Pink Blitz track coming out, and I really want to get Pony Unique happening so we can compete for the christmas #1.
About a month ago I was around at a friends house watching TV at four in the morning after a bit of drinking, and there was a show on about the history of british animation. It was a pretty cool show - lot's of the older "postman pat" style stop motion stuff covered, but the one thing that really stuck out was this - The Snowman, based on the book by Raymond Briggs.
It's only half an hour long and was made for tv in the early 80's, but as far as I recall it was never shown in New Zealand - if it was I certainly didn't see it. A few weeks ago I found it on DVD for £4. I've watched it right through about 4 times and have watched it a bunch more times where I just skip to the walking in the air bit, then skip to the end where he's melted. You can actually watch the whole thing on youtube, but it's a shame to do so as the real thing is so beautifully drawn and textured which doesn't come through at all on lossy old youtube.
Bevel and Emboss rulez. Sometimes. I was going to write a proper blog either about why we all need to get over Lady Di (most over-rated person since the Baldy Man according to Dylan, but I don't think anyone even remembers him), or about an intense dream I had about hunting a stag then poking out my eyes from remorse. But I couldn't be bothered so I just mucked around and listened to Hacienda Classics all day.
I'm so into making a font. What a way to spend your day when they don't give you any work to do (this is pretty unusual considering I'm freelancing through an agency so they are paying through the nose for my services). Chillax. I am totally sick of Frankie Say Relax style t-shirts, especially the anti-war ones. The Bush-Bashing-Bandwagon left town about three years ago babies, it's a shame cause he's still a nightmare, but I've somehow gotten over caring. And your DROP BEATS NOT BOMBS t-shirt isn't blowing anyones mind.
This is the new version of that font from yesterday, except at the moment it's not really a font, just a bunch of shapes floating around in illustrator. I need to figure out how to turn it into a typeface, plus I'm going to make a few variants on each character. It's called Schopenhauer because I've been reading a bit about him and his thoughts on romance recently and it was mostly pretty negative and dark, and I suppose I wanted the typeface to look quite stern and and pessimistic so it seemed appropriate.
Today I've done very little. I'm waiting for the sound guy to do his job you see... so I started making a typeface. This is only supposed to be the foundation of it, I'm gonna go over it and make it all curvey and hand-drawn and bung when I get back from lunch, which I'm 2 hours late for now.
Last night at a party a guy used the most surreal line ever on a girl I was hanging out with. As they were dancing he leaned in and whispered in her ear "When you're pregnant you're gonna be so fat... so f**king fat." Not surprisingly it didn't get him very far.
The party was at a bar that I've been to more than any other bar since I've been here as they have a pretty healthy crew of New Zealand acts performing there and we've played there twice as well. It's a really nice space but there's something pretty dodgy going on... a couple of weeks ago they shut the bar, and now when you go there you have to bring your own beverages and pay whatever it costs for the gig as well as a £5 corkage. Also there seems to be a different attitude towards smoking every night. The law here is pretty much the same as in New Zealand, but a couple of times recently they've allowed people to smoke in the basement, and last night after about 1am people were smoking in the main bar as well, which is highly illegal and I'm sure it's only a matter of time till they get busted or go out of business. Which will be a shame because it is a great space and the owner and staff are rads.
It is grey and raining today. There are big security-barred windows in my office in Shepherds Bush with a view of a two lane roundabout. It's bleak. Here's a poem. O Swallow, Swallow by Alfred Lord Tennyson
O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North.
O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.
Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?
O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made.
O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.
O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.
Don't go reading to much into why I like this, I'm not relating to the entire sentiment of it, and if I was she'd probably just tell the swallow to get lost anyway. The bit I really like is "bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North". In New Zealand it's still kind of appropriate but you need to swap North and South around. It's to do with proximity to the equator you see... Anyway, I like a little old-timey unbridled romantic optimism every now and then, it's not the sort of thing I'm exposed to frequently - most of what I read, watch, and listen to is fairly cynical. I still like Bukowski more than Tennyson though so I should really keep it to myself.
The other night I had a dream that I was at a bar/party with some friends and Jason Donovan turned up. He was wasted but seemed like a nice enough guy, in that way that famous people are sometimes... they're quite friendly to you but you can tell that they don't really care - they just don't want you going and telling everyone that you met them and they were an ass. Anyway it's probably because over here he's quite a ubiqutous figure... he was on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! last year, and this year he hammed it up for a series of Iceland commercials as they sponsored the show. He also has an autobiography out, a live dvd and I'm guessing there's a new album or greatest hits thing out somewhere although I haven't come across it. Last week he was singing on some charity telethon thing, where everyone in the audience "spontaneously" got out of their chairs to clap and sway along with him. On my way to work every day I pass two posters advertising the book and one advertising the dvd. He's everywhere. It's really odd, I don't think I'd heard anything about him since I was about 10 years old. Anyway based on Iceland ads and the video for Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds I'm convinced he's a rad and I wouldn't hold it against him for being a bit of a phoney if I met him in real life.
This is the video in case you haven't seen it:
Jeremy Clarkson has a huge boner for Keira Knightly and keeps bringing it up on Top Gear. It's really revolting not only because he's so old, has pubes for hair, and is an obnoxious, arogant, unfunny twat that the general public seem to adore all the more for it, but also because she's a skeleton. I don't really like Top Gear, but one of my "flatmates" does so I end up watching it every week (they play the same episode about four times during the week after it's initial screening so I have plenty of opportunities). Every episode he manages to slip in at least one little love message to Keira about how much he wants to bang her. "The interior of the Mercedes GL500 is so luxurious, I'd rather be in it then Keira Knightley", "Driving a Ferrari in London is like going out with Keira Knightly for a date, taking her back to your place for coffee, then discovering that you're impotent" etc. (these aren't actually quotes, but it's always along these lines). Every time he does it I feel like throwing up. I'm about to get my snag on sorry, but it's gross to talk that way in general, and picking one woman that's about forty years younger then you and is the current poster-girl for anorexia to always go on about is disturbing. If he has to be a dirty old man maybe he should talk about women a few years older and spread it out between them - not to be any more of a gentleman, just so that I can hold down my dinner. Actually if Keira's been watching it may explain why she can't. Judging by that joke I guess the Clarkson wit may be rubbing off on me. Yuck.
I'm trying to use an image as the heading on this page but I can't figure it out. Wish I'd paid more attention in the one html class I bothered showing up to at uni...
Last night I went to a party and there was a girl who was quite rude to me. She had spray-tanned skin, brittle peroxide blond hair with black roots, too much mascara and was wearing an ugly blue dress that clashed with her orange complexion. As if I would even be interested. Plus she was at the lamest party in the world, lowlights of which included "Mr Brightside" twice in half an hour, a big gay Bohemian Rhapsody circle jerk, and the twat dj lip syncing to Bon Jovi. Maybe I shouldn't hold it against her as I was there as well - but I wouldn't have been if I'd known, and I got the impression she was a regular. At least I had some good friends with me to keep me entertained, and as we all felt the same way about the evening we got to have a good moan about it on the way back to their flat.
I really want to go to see a film. I haven't been once since arriving in London, and it's doing my head in a bit. It costs £9 to go here though and I don't live anywhere near a cinema.
In lieu of that, here's my youtube highlights for the week:
Last night I left a bar at 11:45. I got on the Hammersmith and City Line at Goldhawk Road, and transferred to the Jubilee line at Baker Street to arrive at London Bridge at 12:25, missing my last train to Forest Hill. So I went to find a bus which didn't come till 1:15am, and I had to make a transfer at Elephant & Castle. I got home at about 2:20am. This city is bullshit and Dan Kerr should have just let me crash at his or at least given me a lift to a closer tube station. Whatevs. I would have been able to leave earlier if he hadn't taken so long meeting us anyway.
I am currently working for a digital tv provider. I do promo graphics, menu screens and other stuff as they see fit. The office is based in Shepherds Bush, which is kind of ironic as when I moved here Shepherds Bush was the one place I decided I definitely would not move to / hang out in as it's full of travelling New Zealanders, Australians, and South Africans. I had enough of that back home, ta very much. I'm quite lucky to have a job as I've been here since August and did not apply myself to looking for work at all. My friend Ben works at ESPN and he got me a few days of work there when I first arrived which was great, and then I spent the next three months moping around obsessing over a girl that broke my heart. It's not much fun being rejected, especially when it's coming from someone who you've already established a kind of closeness with only for them to completely shut down on you and refuse to talk about it. I eventually got over it enough to update my online CV to include the fact that I'd done a little work in this country, and as soon as I did that I started getting phone calls offering me work. Thank god.
I was reading something the other day about the Machiavelli cycle, which is supposed to be about the ways societies change over time -
It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline. In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune.
I think it can be extended to apply to a lot of things. I know my life tends to work in these cycles, and I guess I've been in the disorder/ruin stages since around June this year so I'm looking forward to my magnificent return to form. I've swapped listening to Townes Van Zandt and Leonard Cohen for Jay-Z and The Game, which is usually a good sign. I think there's something strange about the fact that the music I consider to be of more real value makes me want to throw myself in front of a train, while misogynistic, morally bankrupt music made by people I have absolutley nothing in common with and who I find repellent as human beings gives me so much get up and go.
I've got a digital camera here with me, and I'll start putting pictures up soon I hope. Unfortunatley it's gone flat, and I've lost the adaptor plug for the charger. I went into an electrical store (a big chain one) and asked them to help me. They were useless. The guy who served me looked at it for about 20 seconds before deciding he couldn't help and suggesting I go to "an electrical store". I didn't reply, just gave him a look which meant "I thought I was in an electrical store", prompting him to add "you know, a proper electrical store". I was really pissed off but also quite admired him. It takes balls to be that useless. Anyway if I get the camera sorted you can look forward to some incredible images of grey skies, terraced housing and foxes. Yowsers.
Welcome to Naivete Scene. That's a pretentious name, I know (or as Janice Dickenson spelt it on IAC,GMOOH! the other night "pretenchish". Ha ha ha. I shouldn't mock though as I'm bound to fill this thing with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors). Anyway, "Naivete Scene" doesn't mean much really, I was going to call it "Illegible Bachelor" but someone else has only gone and taken it already. If you're interested that blog seems to be mostly about playing some kind of pirate themed computer game, and the name's not super appropriate. Anyway I've mostly started this as it seems I'll be able to post higher res images on here than I can on facebook or myspace, and ringo and photobucket are too annoying. Also I'm copying Gina Lash and am going to use this to whinge to nobody. Watch out bitches.
Then I went around to a friends who lives with her investment banker brother in a top floor studio apartment in Shoreditch where you can climb onto the roof and have an amazing view. It was quite impressive and had a collection of "trendy" decor stuff but none of it matched very well or was placed with much thought or love. That is boring. Lots more stuff happened as well but the most important thing was we went to see Dan Deacon and just stood in a queue for over an hour then got fed up and went back to drink at the apartment and share our favourite clips on youtube. Which seems to be how all parties end these days. Maybe it's just the ones I go to. I always show the same bullshit to people as well.
