reciting faithful chorus

this is certainly a rather momentous occasion for me.

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...

in the ever so changeable month of September, in the year of somebody's Lord, two thousand and twelve, a book of poetry was published.

a book that features the work of 100 poets, chosen by Saul Williams.

and in this book, on page 127, is a piece of poetry written by my good self.

.............


it is still strange and slightly dizzying to consider this, that my words are actually appearing in an actual, proper published book

a book that is available on Amazon, and at the time of writing only has one copy in stock (so it appears that people are definitely buying it)

a book that is published by MTV books, via Simon & Schuster (pretty big time if you ask me)

a book that was headed up by Saul Williams, a man that is an absolute inspiration to me in terms of his words and his music, and perhaps this is what makes me feel proudest of all.


Saul had made his intentions clear, via the big bad world wide web, that he was going to create a literary mixtape, that anybody's voice could be a part of, he would take submitted poetry to craft one long collaborative poem, so I picked through the handful of poems of my own that have stuck in my mind as being something like my favourites and then had to give careful consideration to what would be the one sole poem I would submit, I chose The Whiskey Trail

it is a poem that dates a while back, it is a poem that I once performed at an open mic night in Chingford if my memory serves me correctly, and it is a poem that I can still pretty much remember word for word if really pushed to do so, and if it stuck in my own mind, why should it not stick, or at least lodge itself temporarily in the minds of others....

I could not possibly comment on the creative process of selecting a fraction of poems from those that had come pouring in for the consideration of Saul Williams, I know that he was certainly not alone in this Herculean task, but I do know that at some point, for some reason, my words were chosen by a man that I have a lot of respect and love for.

and I am certainly in good company, 99 others, Saul himself included have contributed to a New Testament of New Voices, and it will be read the world over.

I know that the Internet can reach far and wide, that my blog has been to countries that I have never even set foot in, but to be published in a book that will be read the world over is just such a massive milestone for myself, because it is a book... a solid physical piece of created art that can be held and cherished and will sit in people's homes... I love the fact that I have been published in a book, cos I'm old skool like that.

from my bedroom at mum's house in Enfield, to a small bar on a Thursday night in Chingford, to the world....

my Whiskey Trail has taken me places I never believed it would, thank you Saul.



.

Am I destroying the music industry?

within a matter of hours I have sourced around two and a half hours worth of music from blogs and then set about creating a cohesive playlist for burning onto CD (if only my girlfriend's car still had a CD player instead of the current tape deck and slim choice of Phil Collins, Chris De Burgh and Disney cassettes).

It is an 80 minute masterpiece that runs the gauntlet of folktronica, unexpected cover versions, codeine hip-hop, bootlegs and a smattering of other down-tempo hybrid genres.

and I did not pay a penny for any of it.

this is the strength of the music blog, with it's ability to expose multitudes of people to brand new talent through tidbits and tasters offered up free of charge.

and in this strange no-mans-land that the music industry has found itself in, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell if this is the right thing to do or not

for all of the success of iTunes, it seems to me that we are still living in the shadow of napster, and the uncertain value of music to many people

ham-fistedly stealing whole albums and back catalogues via torrents still seems wrong to me, and in my old fashioned way, I would much rather pay for a physical product if I feel the music is worth it, yet releases and remixes by smaller artists seem to be worthless

there seems to be a number of reasons for this, firstly may be my placing in the music business as an occasional critic and journalist, unwilling to offer up my opinion on music unless it has been provided to me gratis, and as an unpaid journalist, so should it be... if they want the exposure provided by me, then the music should be my pay-off and my reward.

secondly is the uncertainty of the musical landscape, where some artists and labels have seen the changing tides and decided to swim with the current, providing music for free if it means that artists and songs reach the right blogs and the right people, before crossing over into the paying mainstream, yet how can we be certain which free mp3s have been co-erced and given the blessing by the sanctioned provider, and how many blogs are just towing the line that music is free and effectively stealing from the creator.

and so it is that I seem willing to exchange currency for the upcoming Muse album, a major label release from an already established band, and yet paying for the wares of far smaller artists seems to be somewhat unjustified, as if their art is worth less.

the music business is still clearly in a state of flux, as almighty majors now suffer and new ways and mean of reaching an audience and turning a profit are still being tried and tested in the wake of file-sharing.

so am I getting my own personal views on paying for music the wrong way round?

am I destroying the music industry?

Time capsule

my holiday read was Skagboys by Irvine Welsh, the wholly unnecessary prequel to Trainspotting which is likely to be soon coming on my ever-expanding, never-ending reading list

and since my girlfriend has left me home alone to go and see a deity's feet I decide to indulge myself with a glass of whisky and coke, central heating on and candles lit as winter draws ever nearer and play Danny Boyle's Trainspotting on the projector

and it takes me back, it is a sign of it's times, of course the music is pivotal to the movie and the soundtrack pinpoints a specific musical and cultural movement that was the halcyon days of 'cool britannia'

but further than than, with passing time and retrospect, I can see Trainspotting as a time capsule, preserving the past for future generations, showing them what once was

smoking in pubs and clubs is a strange one, it seems to be reserved for fiction, even when I see old photos of nights out and friends with fags in hands or mouths, it seems bizarre to me, it seems prehistoric.. do you remember when a night out meant coming home stinking of cigarettes, even if you didn't smoke? when jeans worn the previous evening in a pub needed to go straight in the wash in order to cleanse them of that nicotine stank?

and do you remember when trafalger square was more famous for it's hordes of pigeons than it was for nelson's column? the carpet of grey birds that spread across the landmark sight, the keen business men selling feed and always that one person that would have pigeons resting upon his person as everyone watched and took photos... that too is gone, consigned to the history books and mere memories

but the one thing that truly stood out for me, the one thing above all others that rang the bell of nostalgia as I sat in my cosy home in the future, in the year 2012, watching the 1996 film set in the late 1980s, was the fact that Renton and Spud were chased down after chorring from a John Menzies store

and I think of the John Menzies in Waltham Cross, and how I used to use up pads of lined A4 paper from John Menzies, and how easily it has been surpassed in my mind by the usurping W.H.Smiths

and sometimes it is strange to think of how things were, how they use to be, and how part of growing, and living, and choosing life means that we leave these things behind us



.

filling in the gaps

some days are a long time coming

there isn't much to mark today out from many other days, I suppose it is my third day in a row off work, I suppose I did shave my facial hair into a rather natty looking handlebar moustache on Saturday, neither, or perhaps both of these have impacted on a welcome, brief spat of creativity

coming up in the next few days is the second anniversary of my home, and tho a number of decorative duties have still alluded me, it has spurred me on to fill in a few gaps off the back of the good feeling that visited me this afternoon


I'd had an idea or two gestating, and they returned to me as I cycled home, as I made my lunch I jotted down the first line, and then the next, and the ideas kept flowing, I moved not the garden after my sandwich was no more and probed at my recent recall for that other idea, and it spilled forth as I tap-tapped at the screen of my gizmo

theses were to be a couple of tracks that I hope to work on soon, so I quickly opened up garageband, improvised a couple of string parts that may need editing, and felt content

I relaxed with a beer in a sunny patch of grass with my bean bag, I tapped away again, this time briefer than the others, and then wondered if it really needed expanding on, as I reclined in the garden, surrounded by the chaotic plantlife that nature has wreaked havoc with this year, I noticed that a butternut squash or two seems to be growing, after I had given up hope on it in the never ending battle against the slugs and snails

with enough day still ahead of me after sinking my pint, I then took myself indoors, with birthday celebrations imminent and a geek room that is gathering pace, I decided something should be done to bring the decoration nearer to completion

it must be a year now since I asked my girlfriend to contribute a few pictures or photos to be framed on the stairs, and bar a single postcard of Krishna she hasn't, and since it has probably been a year since I last added a few myself, I decided to dig out the frames and expand the gallery further up the stairs to help us see in a second year together

a little further up the stairs I intend to hang the art my dad created of our house, not long after we moved in, and also the Jack Nicholson/Joker print I bought in Camden before we even bought the house, and the flyers of various gigs and club nights we have frequented that I have been collecting

it will probably take a while, you can't always force these ideas, but at least I have had today to help fill in the gaps

Bam! Ka-pow! Pop!

so it has been nearly three weeks since i saw The Dark Knight Rises, and to be honest, it is nearly all that i think about all of the time

perhaps that sounds a little sad, but it was certainly a well crafted movie that really upped the stakes in terms of what is expected of films, superhero movies and trilogies in general

thankfully, there are wonderful things in this digital age that can borrow from pop-culture, mash it up and spit back out something smart and spot on

such as The Dark Knight Rises synopsis summed up pretty neatly to the tune of Carly Rae Jepson's uberhit, Call Me Maybe

i beg of you, i plead of you, if you have not seen the movie yet, please hold out and do not watch this vid!

you have been warned

*MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS*

save me

#firstworldproblems

one of my favourite twitter hashtags, detailing the hardships in life that many of us have to deal with in developed counties

my own contributions have included jabbing non-touchscreen devices in confusion and the glare from sunshine making it difficult to read my gizmo in the garden

and now I have a new pet peeve to add to this list, for today I am suffering a great loss...

today I lost the preferences I had been building up on Zite

for those that do not know of Zite, it is like a magical oracle that gathers suitable reading material from all over the interwebnets, basing it's selection on tags that you approve, websites that you favour or block, and simply choosing whether you like or disliked an article you have just read.

in its early days it may throw up plenty of crap that you have no real interest in, and it is your prerogative to exclaim your disdain in such useless information, but given time it will adapt to your tastes and very rarely throw up a dud, ever

mine almost always displayed plenty of comic and superhero news, a smattering of music and film, with a side portion of interior design.

so of course I would want this tailor made reading experience to also be present on my sinister phone

I'll just download the app, sign into my profile and the magic will now also be in my pocket all of the time.

except it seems that I have never actually activated a saved profile, and in my haste to sign up and register my perfect fit Zite, I seem to have deleted all that I once held dear

and now I am back where I started months ago, mercilessly dipping in and out of articles in order to express my likes and dislikes and to block anything vaguely political or too America focused.

while there are clearly bigger issues facing the world right now, this is my own personal current crisis and my latest first world problem.

was it worth the weight?

i may or may not have mentioned previously that I have had to frustratingly wait to see The Dark Knight Rises (ok, that is a downright lie, I know I've mentioned it)

and I know that I have previously mentioned what the weight of expectation can do, and how crushing it can be.

(and I think my brother wood appreciate the use of a homophone in the post title)

and since I shared my opinions on Batman Begins to quite a good response, I guess I should take a critical look at The Dark Knight Rises too.

*WARNING PEOPLE -I dare say there may be a few spoilers ahead*

the first thing that struck me about the movie was Bane's voice.

I hated it.

some bizarre autotuned English aristocratic accent that instantly got my back up, I found it incredibly jarring, more-so than Bale's overly gravelly Batman tones on Dark Knight.

I wanted to get up and run away, I didn't know if I could really cope with it.

the Bane I have always imagined was probably greatest informed by the BBC Knightfall radio play, or possibly by my own imagination, and his origin going back to the fictional Santa Prisca in Latin America

Tom Hardy certainly looked imposing, but the voice was preposterous.

of course I didn't turn and flee from the IMAX, even if I hated every moment of the film I would have still sat there and just bitched about how retarded the whole thing was afterwards.

and it was the next scene that really brought the film into focus for me, Bruce Wayne hasn't been living his life as a billionaire playboy in the eight year gap between films, he has been living as a recluse.

And nor is this just a ploy to allow his night time activities to go unnoticed by Wayne's peers and colleagues, Batman has not been seen for eight years either.

I believed that the intervening years would be filled with outlawed heroics as the Dark Knight fought to stay ahead of the cops that would be hunting him down, I believed Batman would still be lurking in the shadows, that there were stories to be told that filled the gaps, that a rogues gallery would have developed over the time that we have not been a witness to.

But this was not the case.

and that was when I realised that this Batman truly belongs to Christopher Nolan, in my opinion piece on Batman Begins I noted the flaws, the inconsistencies that I wished to have seem carried forward from the comics.

but these Batman myths have been raided and then almost wholly disregarded to build a completely new world and a completely new legend.

'my' Batman would not have disappeared for eight years, 'my' Batman would not have given up so easily, but this is Nolan's Batman, and this is Nolan's Bane, funny voice included.

and Nolan's Batman certainly deserves high regard, as the trilogy ties together well and presents a complete story.

The weakness that took Batman to breaking point in Knightfall, the mass breakout of Arkham that had already been pilfered and incorporated into Batman Begins, is instead substituted for eight years of losing his edge, losing everything he had become.

The legend of Rās al Ghūl comes full circle, as do his wishes for the fate of Gotham that I felt was not fully delivered on in Batman Begins, in a far more epic and far more disastrous fashion.

sure the film wasn't perfect, but what film is? even the regarded pinnacle of the trilogy, The Dark Knight, has a number of stumbling points that can be easily exposed if analysed.

but the fact that Nolan made a concluding chapter that didn't let me down is admirable, that he made a film that for the most part sidelines Batman himself in favour of building the story around other supporting characters is a brave move indeed, certainly something that has been many times before in comic book stories, but rarely in a big screen effort that so much is riding on.

and despite initial misgivings and the expectations that I had tried not to give into, when the final credits rolled I had been blown away by what I had seen, an epic final chapter that definitely delivered, a well-rounded world of intriguing characters that borrowed from the comics that I know and love, but refused to treat them as a definitive scripture.

these were the things that went through my mind after just the first viewing, I may revisit my opinions when I inevitably revisit the film, and I may shed light on some spoiler-shaped gripes I have, but I can honestly look back on this trilogy and say I enjoyed it.

well done Christopher Nolan.