Roll up, roll up... ... and don't forget to say CHEESE. Mike is writing to Dogwood

Dog is in the details... Roger Roundy has an exhibition on in San Francisco that I am going to drag Jess to. I really like what he does with dogs and girls. That last sentence should give the google perverts something to get their teats into. Mike is writing to Minor Threat

Blowjobs and a zombie movie? I got a letter from Homechoice this morning informing me that they're upgrading my 1Mb line to 2Mb free of charge and at no extra cost per month to me for as long as I stay with them. They also mention that I can further upgrade to a 4Mb line any time I like. This is like your girlfriend offering to join you in the shower with her sister and the option of throwing in a couple of novice nuns later on if you still have the energy. All without being made to promise to go clothes shopping in Camden first. In comparative terms BT is the dog that wants to hump your leg and then bite you for not playing with all six nipples. Mike is writing to Sonic Youth

Talk is cheap... We saw Henry Rollins on his current spoken word tour last night. I hate seeing bands at the Hammersmith Apollo but it was a great venue for ranting about politics, hitting fans upside the head with bottles and the despair of masturbating in hotel rooms at the age of (almost) 44. Henry is older, wiser and funnier than ever. But as with every time I see him he manages to crush something inside you too. Last night it was talking about the death of the mother of one of his friends (although he managed to get a gag about Pussy Whip for the lactose intolerant in there as well) and the last time he saw Johnny Ramone just a few days before he died. He's been doing USO gigs in Afghanistan and Iraq and making movies with Steve Coogan and albums with William Shatner (his impression of Shatner in the studio is spot on and hilarious). Of course, to many punk fans he's the ultimate sell-out for daring to be successful and because he continues to try his hand at anything, but he's one of the few people I know who is still an unapologetic blowhard that can back up the attitude with both words and action. I'd rather see Henry make more bad TV and then wax lyrical about it on stage than watch some shambling drug addict trying to remember the words to a song he last sung in 1982. I spoke to Henry back in June last year after he released the 30 Seconds Over DC and Trouble Funk CDs on his new label, but the thing has been sat on my hard drive since Dog Tower was put on indefinite hiatus so I figure it's better seeing the light of day here rather than leaving it to rot next to the porn directory: Mike: You never seem to stop. Do you get back to Washington DC often? Does it still feel like home? Henry Rollins: I always do shows in DC and when I can, I arrange a day off so I can walk around. Now and then, usually in the later part of the year, if I get a chance, I go there for a few days. At this point, I don't know what home is as I move around a lot but the familiarity of some parts of the place are great to be around. Mike: You decided to set up the label District Line rather than release these CDs directly on your label 2-13-61. Any particular reason for that? Henry: Sure. I just wanted to do a cool, small label that was very targeted in its scope and do a good thing for the town I come from, the bands represented, and also, most importantly to fill in some gaps in music history. Mike: Ian MacKaye suggested the label name. Was that the extent of his involvement ? Henry: That's about the extent. He does offer encouragement that's well used. Mike: Skip Groff says in the new liner notes on :30 Over DC that "many of the bands were one shots, some went on to other bands, some went to jail and did not pass Go". Have you had any feedback from some of the individuals from the bands involved? Do you know what happened to any of them? Henry: The record is just getting out there so I have not heard back from anyone in any of the bands besides Howard Wuelfing of the Nurses who keeps in touch now and then. I just sent him a copy yesterday. Mike: The CDs are available through your website but are they being distributed anywhere else? Henry: Sure. We're in stores and all that. I really like the internet sales thing as we can stay close with our audience and give them great prices and service because we're in control. Mike: Can we expect regular releases from District Line or is it more a case of waiting for something special to come along? You mention that you hope to release two more projects soon. What will they be? Henry: The label is more a service. We will wait for cool things to come along and we will pursue cool stuff as we come up with ideas. I have two projects waiting for greenlight from the artists involved. As soon as I get a yes or a no from them, I will start preparing these for release and look forward for the next ones. Mike: You make sure that a percentage of the money that the CD brings in goes to worthy causes. Any idea how much money you have raised for these causes so far through 2-13-61? Henry: We do this with a lot of the CDs on 213. We will be doing it with District Line but I have not picked out where to send the funds as yet. When I find ones I want to contribute to and check them out and make sure everything is on the level, I will release the money. It won't be much I don't think. For the sake of the bands and the causes, I hope I am wrong about that. On other releases on the label we have sent large amounts of money to the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Hollygrove Children's Services Center in Los Angeles. Mike: You say that the "primary interest is the only thing that counts: the music". Are you in any way worried about file sharing or are you just happy that people have access to the music? Henry: Not a lot I can do about file sharing. I just hope that people will want to help the label and want their own copy of the record and to contribute something back. Past that, it's up to the individual and I'm sure not going to be out there policing the internet. Mike: I've been listening to the CDs for over a week now and am constantly smiling at music that I wouldn't have found without you re-releasing them. Does it annoy you that so much good music is 'lost' and was that the driving force behind District Line? Henry: Like I said before, the label is about filling in the gaps in music history. The fact that we supplied you with music you are digging that you might never have been exposed to otherwise... I have to say, mission accomplished. Mike: What about new music coming out of Washington DC? Anything you've been following? Henry: I think El Guapo and Q and Not U are extraordinary. I am an Evens fan as well. Mike: You mentioned the first broadcast of your radio show. Is that on Indie 103.1 or somewhere else? Henry: Indie 103.1. The show is called Harmony in My Head and it's on Mondays 7-9 pm west coast time. Mike: I recently saw Richard Kern's THE RIGHT SIDE OF MY BRAIN which you appeared in back in 1984. What kind of an experience was that and do you still have an interest in underground cinema? Henry: That was mid-August 1984. It was fun and took only a couple of hours. I definitely have time for underground anything. Mike: USO shows in Kuwait and Iraq. Is there anything you can tell us about that? Henry: Just got back and it was an eye opener. One of the bases I was on got shelled while I was there but it was no big deal as it apparently happens all that time at that base. It occurred to me that US forces will be in Iraq for a very long time and it's going to be constant casualties until we leave. It was the hottest place I have ever been besides Tunisia. Since talking to Henry I found the :30 Under DC forum which is full of info on Skip Groff and the CD discussed above. Henry is also hosting his own Film Corner over on IFC. Mike is writing to The Butthole Surfers

It's a crime... No one should have to get up at 7am on a Saturday. Especially when you only went to bed at 4. But you can't leave the cute Russian girl shivering on the step outside can you? And how is Jess going to fit her 15 episodes of Buffy into the day if she doesn't start early? Mike is writing to Spike nailing the Buffster up against a wall

The Golden Gate Mystery... MR. MIKE SIZEMORE , who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the computer. I stood upon the spiral staircase holding the slip of paper that had been slipped under our door sometime in the night. I began reading the unsteady hand. "Good day, Mr. Sizemore. In San Francisco there is a museum called..." "Well, Jess, what do you make of it?" Sizemore was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation. "How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head." "I have, at least, a well-cleaned, Alienware laptop screen in front of me," said he. "But, tell me, Jess, what do you make of our visitor's letter? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this cryptic souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it." "I think," said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, "that this person who for some unknowable reason signs himself only as -C- is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed, since those in that particular profession, such as my own grandfather, are well known for their bad indecipherable handwriting." "Good!" said Sizemore. "Excellent!" "I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a British subject despite the mention here of the New World." "Why so?" "Because this paper is damp from the London fog, and obviously ripped from that most British of circulars, The Evening Standard." "Perfectly sound!" said Sizemore. "And then again, there is the mention further down of a "reasonable priced cup of coffee" available on completion of the task hinted at within. I should guess that no self respecting American would use simply the term 'coffee' when they have the phrase 'double shot, half decaf, skinny latte' at their disposal". "Really, Jess, you excel yourself," said Sizemore, pushing back his chair and raising the volume on the Bobby Conn album that was currently attacking my ears. "I am bound to say that in all the blog entries in which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. I find your deduction most stimulating! I confess, my dear girl, that I am very much in your debt." He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my blogging and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his own website. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the letter from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he kicked the cat clean across the room, and, carrying the letter to the CSI: London mini-lab and kitchen-bar he looked over it again with a convex lens while buttering toast. "Interesting, though elementary," said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the crumpled couch, munching toast and scattering crumbs over the hardwood floors. "There are certainly one or two clues contained within the letter that give us the basis for several deductions." "Has anything escaped me?" I asked. "I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?" "I am afraid, my dear Jess, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, sexually." I eyed the cut of his jib. "You may be right." "Regard the letter anew. You did well to observe the doctorly handwriting but I would advance it to be the hand of a man simply unaccustomed to regular penmanship. In short, someone who prefers the keyboard to the quill. A modern writer!" I was quite taken aback. An elderly doctor, if deemed dangerous was easily dispatched with a single poke of a well aimed umbrella. "My dear fellow! A writer!" Writers, however, were mostly evil and had more lives than a bag of cats. He continued, "And what's more I would say that he was not British at all, but a pure bred American!" I was astounded. "Sizemore, I'm astounded. How did you come to such a conclusion? The fog, man. The Standard!" "Fog, yes Jess, but not good old fashioned London fog. This paper has been exposed to the damp weather of San Francisco Bay. See here in the corner, soaked into the paper itself. Glitter! And there's no glitter in this joy-forsaken city. You'd have to travel to the west coast of America for that kind of disregard for sobriety." "So the bounder hails from San Francisco!" "Alas no. I believe he was just visiting the Golden Gate. On vacation from Georgia!" "You don't mean..." My words trailed off miserably. Sizemore's deduction could actually only mean one thing. "Yes Jess. The paper does resemble that used by the noble Standard but is of a type much too thin to run safely through the capital's presses. This paper was manufactured in Atlanta. Home of the notorious Casey Childer! The Moriarty of Creative Commons-licensed prose! And what's more he has secreted a package for us in San Francisco!" I sat down, utterly defeated. "No time for rest, Jess," he announced as he pulled on his Black Flag t-shirt and fearstalker. I knew what was coming. "The game's afoot!" Mike is writing with apologies to Arthur Conan Doyle, Casey Childers and of course the long suffering Jess. Casey is indeed in San Francisco and he did let me know (via email) that he has hidden something for me in a public place. I couldn't reveal the exact details of his email in case someone beat me to the package, hence the Sherlock Holmes mash up. For the record Jess is much more stimulating than Dr Watson.

Bloggies... A quick plug of things I am mentioning over on The Londonist: Sci Fi London Festival London station art London's lost gizmos I forget to say that The Londonist is up for a Bloggie, namely Best British or Irish blog (Gothamist is up for Weblog of the year). Which reminds me that World Changing (another pie that Rohit has his finger in) and the SEA EAT blog along with Gothamist are up for Best Non-Weblog Content of a Weblog Site. Dare I mention that EAT SEA is also facing off against Bookslut for Best Topical Weblog? Oh, and it's also up for Best New Weblog and Weblog of the Year. Phew. Go and vote. I promise you Bush won't win a damn thing this time. Mike is still writing to Frank Zappa

Algomantra 2005 is a go... I first ran into Rohit Gupta during THE GREAT MAHAKALI WRITE-A-THALON back in May last year. It was an inspired piece of madness that in retrospect was a lot of fun. During the actual weekend I was chewing glass, hallucinating and cursing his name. I'm kind of dreading the event's sequel in a couple of months but at least I knew that it was only once a year. But simply repeating stuff isn't good enough for Rohit. At the tail-end of last year he invited me over to The Global TranceWriting Festival 2005 which is like last year's event but with special features. Before I could get my head around that I found myself a part of something called Algomantra: AlgoMantra is an open source festival. This means that you can download the document which tells you how to hold it in your neighbourhood or city or country, anywhere in the world. Without spending any money, or needing any sponsors, you can hold this festival with your own flavor. What happens in this festival? On a Friday night at 7PM (date to be announced) all the participants of the festival, anywhere on the globe, take a vow of silence for 58 hours, that is till Sunday night 9PM. During these 58 hours, they play three games.... You can read a whole lot more about the thing here. And Rohit certainly knows how to apply the pressure: Besides, with Visible Monsters' Mike Sizemore on your side, you can be sure it's the coolest gig happening on the freakin' planet. So we've been talking this over a little and I've had time to come up with some ideas. I'm especially excited about the Yatra side of things as it will give me the chance to put some of the ideas that Paul Auster explored in City of Glass into practice. Some of this I'll be doing solo and other parts require assistance so I'll be finally using all the dirt that I've dished up on people so that they aid me in some of this adventure. Others will want to get involved anyway simply because what the hell else are you going to do with your time? I'll update more details as they appear or occur to me but now the cat has clawed out of the bag I'm sure it'll be clawing its way onto a few other sites between now and the opening vow of silence. And won't that be a blast? I'll be spending the first 58 hours with a notepad around my neck like Holly Hunter in THE PIANO or mumbling incoherently like Harvey Keitel in BAD LIEUTENANT. Note: He doesn't just live to talk me into pure madness, although it seems like that sometimes. Aside from all the above (and a fistful of short stories and non fiction columns and a graphic novel) Rohit was off helping people with the SEA EAT blog and for a while there it seemed that if there was a link on Boing Boing or anywhere else that pointed to a Tsunami resource then Rohit's name was attached. He's one of the good guys. Mike is writing to Frank Zappa

The best radio show you've ever heard in your life... While America was doing its best to keep Frank off the air the BBC gave him his own radio show: The Frank Zappa Radio One Star Special from 1980 1982. Now available via two handy little Bit Torrent files: One and Two. If you're in the UK you've already paid for this with your licence fee so it's not even stealing. The rest of the world? I doubt the Beeb is going to hunt you down. Two hours of fun. Here's a transcript of the show: Froese was a really cool guy. The only thing that he did that was wrong was he stopped composing for 25 years because people gave him a bad time. If people wouldn't have given him a bad time, he could have been writing for 25 more years and there would be 25 more years worth of stuff like that for the people who like that kind of stuff. But most people don't, so this is "Jesus Just Left Chicago" by ZZ Top.... Happy listening. Mike is writing to the above

Rock n Roll Ruckus in the Crossfire... I find this equally hilarious and depressing: Frank Zappa on CNN's Crossfire in 1986 Nothing really changes. The idea of banning a Prince video seems quaint now and the uproar over Van Halen's Hot for Teacher video is amusing but these fuckers live a long time and their ideas never really go away. We need more Zappas. Isn't it interesting that everything he says about a fascist theocracy under Reagan applies to Bush just as well? Damn that Central Scrutinizer... Mike is writing to The Life Aquatic soundtrack

Too cheap to buy me a goat? I'll take two camels... I love stumbling through Google, David Blunkett style:. Fahim had gone Bakra Mandi to buy a sacrificial goat to sacrifise at the religious event of Eidul Azha but later decided to jointly sacrifice a cow. The reason for this change of heart is the high price being charged for sacrificial goats... Via The Pakistan Daily Times Mike is writing to Devo

Things that go arrgghhhh in the night... I've never wanted to go to Thailand. I wasn't enough of a knob (hard to believe I know) and would look ridiculous with dreadlocks. That whole gap year trek through jungles bollocks just never appealed. Nip over to Flickr and find the photos of me in the middle of a Mexican jungle if you really want to see someone out of his element. Of course, now that the tourists are probably going to be very cautious in going back I really want to go. I haven't changed my mind about the types of people who go (wankers the lot of you) but Thailand never offered me ghosts before. Via the BBC: ...apparitions which have been reported include a foreign woman, whose screams echo through the night from the wreckage of a hotel that was particularly badly hit. A security guard on the site has already left his job because he could not bear it anymore. In Khao Lak, a local family say their telephone constantly rings through the day and night. When answered, the voices of friends and relatives cry out to be rescued from the flames of the crematorium. I hope the Pang brothers are taking note. It also sounds like a good place to watch an exorcism and bag some free takeaway: ...white robed monks from the Pu Ta Gong sect chanted prayers and offered sacrifices of food to the spirits. Special offerings of pizza were included for foreign 'spirits', and paper clothes and money were burned to help in the passage to the after world. I just don't know if I could sit on a plane with all those Leonardo DiCaprio BEACH types... Mike is writing to Bobby Conn

Note to self... I find the window in THE GRUDGE to be the one of the most aesthetically pleasing things I've seen in a while: Must find somewhere to use that design... Mike is writing to Big Black

Fledermuse Im Bauch... Part of the fun in meeting new people is that occasionally those people have friends and family that you also get introduced to and it's always pleasing to find that they too share a similar outlook on things. Case in point. Just before Christmas I met Suzanne for the first time after quite a bit of virtual backscratching and cross-link-pollination. She was as much fun in the real world as she was out of it plus I also got to meet her brother, Thomas, and we immediately hit it off. Thomas makes films back in Switzerland and just sent me the link to his FLEDERMUSE IM BAUCH and now I can share it with you guys. It's a fun take on vampires and has some great shadowplay gags: If you stop by his website you can grab a copy of the DVD. What else are you going to spend your money on? WIMBLEDON? PS Duncan - did you happen to see a Routemaster pass by recently? I stumbled upon the story in the South African Star (damn, I read a lot of online papers) and posted it over on The Londonist. I just got an email from the guys involved and it looks like I'll be buying them that drink sometime in the next couple of weeks... Mike is writing to Big Black

Deja Vu... You know when you have a really bad headache but you want to listen to Guitar Wolf anyway... Jess dragged me to the top of The Monument today. Every time I climb those 311 steps it feels like 311 x 100. That's right. 31100. Here's a panorama of just some of the crap on our doorstep. Stuff that caught my eye today besides filthy rooftops and bemused pigeons were the trailers for Tim Burton's CORPSE BRIDE and Crispin Hellion Glover's WHAT IS IT? Burton seems to be going backwards but that has to be better than the last few things he's been attached to. Glover is just a madman who has always been wasted in other people's movies so it's exciting to see him wander off down Alejandro Jodorowsky lane. Last night I spoke to Alan who was on his way to Hawaii, but should be back in San Francisco in time for us to hook up. He's in the process of renting his new island home (my furniture is on the water as we speak) and he told me get online and have a peek at the place: He is now forever linked in my mind with MAGNUM P.I. No Londonist stuff today (yet) but yesterday I had something to say about feminism and Peter Stringfellow... Mike is writing to Guitar Wolf

Just your friendly neighbourhood lawsuit... Stan Lee just fucked Marvel in the ass. Did Bush get shot yet? Fuck. I am having a . s . l . o . w . day. An assassination would really fill a gap right about now. What I really want to do this afternoon is settle down with some kick arse Japanese animation but that will have to wait for this evening: Elsewhere I get to flaunt my geek credentials even when plugging more highbrow events. Mike is writing to Consolidated

London calling... The second part of His Dark Materials managed to be just as inspired and moving as the first despite one of my favourite characters (and his heroic death) being completely removed. I was curious as to whether they'd try to recap the action from part one and was wondering how they'd pull off the "Previously on Buffy The Vampire Slayer..." in a stage setting . Well they did it exactly like that. A quick montage of the key sequences from the night before to bring everyone back up to speed and then they were off and running. There were a couple of misfires but they had more to do with the source material than the production as I do think that Pullman got a little overstretched with The Amber Spyglass by adding the Gallivespians (staged last night with the use of tiny marionettes) and the Mulefa (knowingly removed form the stageplay - probably from fear of the thing descending into Starlight Express). If the upcoming movies capture the interplay between Lyra and Pan half as well as this production has then I'll be more than happy. And for the record the ending was gut wrenching in a way that signaled that all involved had got it just right. Our next trip to the 'theatre' will be to see Henry Rollins at the end of the month. Now if we could get him and an armoured bear on the same stage... Moving on... It looks like I'll be blogging over on Londonist (part of the Gothamist city network) which I'm very happy about. It'll take a little while for me to get the login details sorted out so in the meantime Rob will be posting my entries for me Sorted. To kick things off I wrote a little something about Judy Dench and somehow managed to get an arse from Hollyoaks in the same entry. I am still waiting for a certain something else to launch but the issues with the website domain still haven't been sorted which is a tad frustrating. And now I'm all depressed after reading about this little guy: Connor was a US Marine mascot, a puppy found in Iraq and looked after by a soldier named Sara who managed to raise a heap of money to get him vaccinated and shipped to the States so he would avoid the puppy cull that the US Army is currently undertaking. Yes that's right. Bush and co are not happy with merely killing women and children so are going for as many puppies and kittens as they can get through before heading out to Iran. Connor, despite Sara's best efforts, was hunted down and killed just twelve hours before he was due to be put on a plane. She has a livejournal. The entry in which she speaks of Connor's death is here but recently she has turned her attention to all the idiots complaining that her grief is misplaced: For those who think that trying to get an animal home or the noble work of www.militarymascots.org is a frivolous or even useless venture, I ask you to think about your life. Take the most important thing you have right now, and destroy it. No, have it ripped from you. Let it be taken from the place of security you tried to create for it. Let strangers take it away under cover of darkness, give it a Final Injection. Let them put it in a plastic bag, and throw it in a burn pit before you even know what happened so you don't even get to say goodbye. Her current entry is here. Isn't it time someone just shot Bush in the face? I hear he's in Washington tomorrow... Mike is writing to Nick Cave

His Dark Materials... If you haven't already read Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman then go buy them now (In America they are usually mishelved in the fantasy elves and dwarves wankery section and the first book has the simpler title 'The Golden Compass'). You won't be sorry. Every time I meet someone who has read the books I urge them to listen to the unabridged audio versions of the trilogy as well. Narrated by Pullman himself and featuring a full cast of very talented voice actors they are unfuckable with. The death of one character in The Subtle Knife reduced me to a tearful mess and I haven't heard an audio production to date that has topped this one. Up until last night I had figured that the audio version was going to be the best realisation of the story of Lyra that we could expect until New Line brings the movie version out. If done properly the three movies should destroy that Lord of the Rings crap and no matter how pleasing the upcoming Narnia movies look this is the trilogy to get excited about (Christmas 2006 for the first part). So I sat down in the National Theatre last night in truth expecting to be underwhelmed, but I was completely and utterly won over. The production isn't perfect and I think squeezing three novels into two plays is a mistake but fucking hell that was a fun night. We saw witches declare war on The Church, armoured bears tear each other apart, secret arctic experiments carried out on kidnapped children and a managerie of daemons come alive on stage as zeppelins and balloons flew overhead. This evening we go back for the second part but it will be hard to top the spectacle of last night. In the last twelve months we saw a lot of great technically dazzling theatre and after the success of Japanese troupes (Hamlet and The Elephant Vanishes) it was fantastic to see such a very British production go all out for success. Everything hinges on the performance of Lyra but Elaine Symons makes the whole thing look effortless. It's her interaction with the puppets that initially pulls you into her world and holds you there happily for the next three hours plus. The audience was a nice mix of adults and children, some rows were entirely filled with uniformed kids and their crumpled teachers but as soon as the lights dimmed and the live musicians began to set the scene we were all captivated. The set designers seemed to use every trick in the book and invent a few new ones along the way to bring to life the different worlds and help keep the action moving at a sometimes breakneck pace. The story was abridged slightly but on the whole a lot that I thought would have been impossible to achieve live on stage was not only included but performed with gutso. A huge cheer erupted during the intermission as Serafina Pekkala descended from the Arctic sky but it was nothing compared to the audiences reaction to the play's cliffhanging finale. It used every inch of the stage space to cut to each significant character in turn as the tension built perfectly to the point of anguish as you realise that you've come to the end. The only thing that I can attempt to criticise is the decision not to stage all three books separately. Given an extra three hours some of the major sequences wouldn't have seemed quite so rushed and there would have been less need for exposition. Still, His Dark Materials is a remarkable accomplishment. There are already ugly rumours surrounding how the religious elements of the upcoming movie versions will be unpalateable for an American audience, but if New Line attempts to cut around them it'll end in disaster. That said, I couldn't help thinking as I watched one character call about for the destruction of The Church that this play would never be produced in the States. If you think God-botherers get annoyed over Harry Potter wait until you see them choke on their communion wafers over gay angels, a concentration camp style afterlife, a fascist Church filled with perverts and murderers and a senile God who desperately needs putting out of his misery... Mike is writing to Bob Mould

Northern Lights... We are off to see Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials tonight and tomorrow night at the National Theatre. Be interesting to see how they pull off all that fantasy stuff on stage. I tidied up the page a little. Simpler. Let me know if anything has stopped working (dude, I can't download the ass eels anymore!) . Mike is writing to Japanese robot rock

Irack Iran Iruin... The American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed that US commandos are operating inside Iran selecting sites for future air strikes (full story) I am slowly coming around to the idea that the real reason for American stupidity comes not from a hardon for oil but for an overwhelming need for more Tom Clancy style video games. Mike is writing to Alanis Morissette

Peter Cushing would agree with me... I have finally ditched Musicmatch which although bloatware for a while still seemed to be the best MP3 jukebox around. I'm now using Media Monkey which pisses all over Musicmatch. In fact it pulls the same shit that Leggylass did on that elephant thing in Return of The King and then pisses all over it. Note: If you pause the DVD at the right moment you can see tiny Elven PETA protestors on a hillside. I had a shock today when I watched the latest episode of Enterprise. It didn't suck all the way through. There was maybe twenty minutes in there that was actual pretty good. Of course I had to skip forward through anything to do with the actual crew and wait until Bill Cobbs reappeared. I have a feeling though that it was just a minor fluctuation and the powers that be will be back to churning out the usual drivel next week. Other things today however were just as bad as expected. I avoided Van Helsing when it came out as the trailer alone was like taking a mouthful of bloody phlegm in the face from an ebola victim. I wandered around in denial that it existed for months but I finally succumbed today and watched the fucking thing. If Hugh Jackman signs on for a sequel I will have to stab him in his tiny Australian heart. (Disclosure: I am a fully paid up PETA member. I'd happily see you and your children die if it saved a chicken) Mike is writing to The White Stripes

Oops... I'd hate to be on livejournal right now. Our data center (Internap) lost all its power, including redundant backup power, for some unknown reason... Bedtime... Mike is writing to Flash Gordon DVDs

Does this look real? Today has mostly been waiting for email to come in. I have several projects up in the air at the moment and have been slow to start anything new. Fridays are bad days for me to fire something up as it usually gets choked once the weekend kicks in. Saying that, I am expecting at least one thing I am involved in to go live today/tomorrow but until a couple of domain-name issues have been resolved I am sworn to secrecy. Looks like that will be a weekend thing. Saturday and Sunday is serious Jess time. Plans to make and a fair deal of plotting... You know what happens after too much exposure to Wes Anderson movies? Hydrogen Psychosis: The Crazy Eye! Mike is writing to a little country & western

Critical Bill has nothing on me... My current favourite text editor (Notetab) has started opening itself up at 3am, ready and waiting for me like a Victorian whore dosed with gin. I have this new routine which began sometime in the first week of January. I awake with Jess before seven and as soon as she is out of the door at 7.30 I either get up and pour coffee into my disbelieving body or crash back into dreamland only to get up an hour later and pour coffee into my disbelieving body. Either way I'm sat at the keyboard by nine. The PC tends to be awake all night but, unlike me, never flags. The little bastard is always ready to be bashed at no matter how many strange things it has been downloading while I (sort of) slept. The day actually spins away quite quickly with the writing, the email, the reading and the occasional bout of arguments conversation with the neighbours. Lunchtimes are spent with Jess (in person or over the phone) and by the time she's back home I need a break from one kind of screen and collapse in front of another while we watch a DVD and cook or just hang out. None of that is set in stone of course and I have PLENTY of free time to meet up with friends, annoy people over the phone, go shopping or just enjoy walking around London with a camera in hand and an eye open for traffic accidents. By midnight or perhaps 1am we are back in bed. The problem (although I'm not sure it is one) is that I am never tired. I have a notebook under the pillows and a head full of crap that needs to be written down. Jess has learned to drift off despite me mumbling to myself like Renfield with a mouthful of bugs but she will occasionally turn to me and tell me things that she has no recollection of the next morning (last night it was pancakes). 2am and I'm sat back at the PC with fresh coffee which is fine because the other side of the world is awake and there is always more email to play with and the notebook to dump into the PC and before I know it WHAM. 5am. Sometimes I stand on the balcony and watch the sun hit the buildings at Canary Wharf or watch the Gherkin start to shimmer. Sometimes I catch the news on BBC24 and sit on the couch until I hear the alarm-clock go off. Other times I slip back into bed and doze for a while until it's time to repeat the whole thing over again. Crazy right? But not a single second of it is boring. I know that I need to cut back on the coffee and get some real rest but I've never been a big sleeper. More than four hours and I'm wasted and at the moment I'm happy with two or less but I do still manage to stay in bed for most of the weekend so it's not like I never sleep. Just less than you do. Mike is writing to The Clash

Doc has the brain bunny ghosts again... And the sad thing is that he has no hands to pick them up with. Mike is writing to the same old crap

Busy day... A new editor in L.A. to woo and an interview to pull together plus I've been asked to script a six page comic book (on a subject very close to my heart) as well as a couple of things that I am under strict orders not to even hint at... Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. Mike is writing to the horrible crappy Garden State soundtrack

Oh look... Apple have released some tupperware. I hate to think of all the nerd sperm that is currently sloshing around over that picture... Mike is writing to: Buffy

Visible Monsters... For all your Alan Moore naked Japanese blogging robotic ass eel incestuous suicidal television needs: and we are open 24/7 Mike is writing to: The Dead Kennedys

I can dress it up but I can't bring it to life... Miguel kindly sent me the articles that he has been writing for Showreel and my day immediately had to be rearranged to make room for rewatching some of the movies that he has been writing about. His views on how composers use their music to lift film onto a different level are insightful and more importantly make you want to rewatch films that you have already seen a million times just to listen out for the examples that he lists. He also mentions a few films I've ignored that I now feel I have to see just to listen to the music... Mike is writing to: Spree

Suzanne...

takes a mean photograph.

Mike is writing to: The Blues Brothers soundtrack

San Francisco...

Just booked the flights so we'll be in San Francisco from the 8th of February and back here on the 18th.

Anyone out there who wants to hook up drop me a line. Looks like we'll be staying at the same awesome place we stayed last time but I'm not sure we'll be online as much this time out... Got to go see who's playing while we're there. Seeing Greenlight the Bombers again would be good... Mike is writing to: the The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack

Overheard on the street earlier this evening... I bet if this country got hit by a toosoonarmy that they wouldn't send us any money! Ahh my fellow Londoners, molting bodyhair and McDonalds containers as they waddled to the pub to lift more cheap lager to their semen-salted-chapped lips. Seems like my queue to start looking for flights again... Mike is writing to: the Bottle Rocket soundtrack

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou... I just saw the new Wes Anderson movie and although I can see why some people are saying it's not quite as good as The Royal Tenenbaums I think it's a great addition to Anderson's work so far. Maybe people are mistaking Bill Murray's skill as an actor for an easy performance. The part of Zissou was written specifically for Murray so it's not surprising that he nails it like he does and again we are treated to a wonderful ensemble cast. I'd forgotten how funny Jeff Goldblum could be and Willem Defoe is laugh out loud funny. It's the first Anderson film not co-written with Owen Wilson so maybe there is something missing but it's not enough of a gap to stop The Life Aquatic being far far better than anything else currently en route to the cinema. If you weren't already planning to see this after seeing the trailer then let me add that the film features not one but two shoot outs with pirates: Klaus : Jesus! These pirates are monsters! Steve: Well yeah, but remember I shot one of their guys in the neck last week and killed him so... I think we're ok too. It opens here on February the 18th. Mike is writing to: Bikini Kill

Move over GTA... Jimmy Palmiotti on the upcoming Punisher game: The kills are extremely, excessively, excessively violent. I'm a big video game player, but Punisher is the most violent game I've ever seen. Guys get their faces peeled off, and you actually see skull flying at some point. As far as the kills, we have piranhas, wood chippers, boat engines, rats, and there's so many guns. Even if Frank's running with a gun and it's out of bullets, he'll throw it at the bad guy, and as the guy goes to catch it, he'll pull out knife and stab him in the head... The full interview with Palmiotti and Ennis is here. (via Warren) Mike is writing to: Jess hitting some guy in the head with a bat

Keeping me occupied this week... Mike is writing to: Bobby Conn

Finally, a saint I can get behind...

Magnus 3 Originally uploaded by sizemore.

St Magnus: The only saint who comes complete with horned helmet and battleaxe. Mike is writing to: Iron Maiden

It turns out that Travis Bickle was an optimist... Someday a real rain will come and wipe this scum off the streets Or alternatively a tsunami will kill some 140,000 people and leave just enough scum behind to rape the survivors... "A teenager who escaped death but was left orphaned and homeless by the Asian tsunami met yet one more agony: gang rape, one of several cases of child abuse being investigated in the disaster zone... (full story)" Via Warren. Mike is writing to: Underground USA

And Torrents for all... So for Freon and anyone else looking for Suprnova alternatives: Torrentreactor: this covers all the bases. Btefnet: The best place for up to date TV (well American stuff at least). Uknova: For British only TV and they have some great old stuff here. And if you really miss Suprnova then this mirror still seems to be active: Bi-torrent. That should keep you smiling until eXeem is launched. Oh and if you really want to watch new stuff that you can't find elsewhere then make with the clicky at Japan-tv. Mike is writing to: Goblin

Ahh to be young... I'm always behind with stuff like this so it could be old but I've only just seen the Prodigy video with all the little kids smashing the fuck out of things: It reminded me of JG Ballard. Mike is writing to: nothing of note

HULK SMASH!

Just me hanging out on top of a pink tank. Mike is writing to: Buffy

On a lighter note... It has been pointed out to me that my favourite movie of 2004 is only released in March 2005. I am so ahead of the curve. The trailer for Melinda and Melinda is now online. Will Ferrell playing Woody Allen. Who'd have thunk it.... Mike is writing to: Frankenixon

2005: Same shit, different date I know a few people (optimists/idiots) who voiced the hope that Bush and Co. would actually mellow in their second term. Yeah, and Peter Sutcliffe would have settled down and started a family once he got all that rape out of his system: The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts... (full story) Are they waiting for the evidence to turn up? Is it in the same Lost Property box as the WMDs and election paper trails? Is some poor bastard going to be dragged from his cell in the year 2015 to be told that they finally found the evidence needed to convict him? If only the rest of the world turned on this kind of logic... Yeah I know it doesn't look like I'm qualified to operate on you but I'm sure the papers will turn up eventually... so in the meantime let me just get a hold of that big red wet thing with this sharp pointy thing... Mike is writing to: The Dresden Dolls

2004 stroke 2005 So that was 2004... I was out of the country for the first couple of months so it got off to the best start possible. Things have been rather unsettled from March onwards. A new apartment (I don't like calling it a flat - it has two floors so it's anything but flat), a new area of London to explore, new friends, new schedules... new new new. By the time we got settled we had decided to move on so I'm guessing that a large part of this year will be given up to making that happen. Bring some more money in and then get the fuck out. Where exactly has still to be settled. Too many options but we'll narrow it down. February should see us back in San Francisco so that's the short term travel fix out of the way but we really don't want to see next year's fireworks exploding over London... I haven't mentioned the Tsunami much on here and I see little point now. We found it easy enough to donate some money without reading through the blogosphere for help and I'm sure you guys have done the same. And the stupid rock keeps spinning. Iraq is still a fucking mess - I never thought I'd get used to seeing decapitations but those messy heads and Allah Akbar backing singers became part of my daily news feeds. Still seen worse over on the PETA website. Blair is still a cunt and we have little choice but to let him have another go... another good reason for being out of the country come November. The best thing I read this year was probably I am Legend. It was the best thing I read last year too. To be honest it's always the best thing I read. That and Watership Down. My favourite movie was probably Melinda and Melinda (well half of it anyway) and then there was just an awesome list of Asian film that just slapped me silly. Hell, even the Dawn of the Dead remake was good and I enjoyed the Salem's Lot remake too. So there! All the crap I suffered was via Bit Torrent so thankfully didn't cost me a penny. I still think I am owed some compensation for even being exposed to Resident Evil 2 and Aliens vs Predator. A horrible year for comics. I even got bored of Frank Castle shooting people in the testicles. Televison? Lost: stupid but good stupid. House: Formulaic but very watchable. CSI: terrible but not as terrible as Enterprise. Battlestar Galactica: the dog's bollocks. That and Deadwood restored my faith in the small screen. Most of that was also via Bit Torrent. Terrestrial TV? I have no fucking idea. Curb Your Enthusiasm rules me. The only game I've played is GTA San Andreas. I'm told it is horribly violent and vast. So far though I'm happy to simply play on the BMX (bunny-hops!) or just drive into the hills with a sniper rifle while listening to Faith No More. What else then... Jess and I want to get married. That's a big deal right? I'm not sure how we'll go about this. It'll either be very traditional and therefore dull and taxing or surprisingly stupid even for us. I'm hoping for stupidity. Mike is writing to: Buffy

Tare Panda
Originally uploaded by sizemore.