Unexpected kind of day:

I got a call at half nine asking me if I wanted to work.

So I spent the day doing data entry and telemarketing at a Marketing firm in Kentish town.

It was actually kind of cool, once I got over the kittens I was having about having to call strangers and tell them that reps were coming in to pitch some kind of credit card. At least I didn't have to sell anything or get anyone to sign up to something.

The people were cool. They invited me to a Hat Party tomorrow. I'll explain later.

I got a call from the Cafe where I had the job interview tomorrow.

I didn't get the job. I'm a little let down, but not broken. I'll find a cool job somewhere. Now I have a better idea of how to do it.

I still had fun at the job interview.

The Cat Empire was brilliant. I'll write more about it when I get a chance.

Over and out.

J

Post Interview:

It's about half three, post the interview.

I think it went okay, but I won't freak out if I don't get it. I'll just apply the strategy I used this time to all the other jobs I can find.

Anyways (I have to do this quickly):

I got there at about five to 12. One applicant was already there, and two more arrived soon after I did.

Two female academics and a male photographer.

One of the academics had just finished her MA and was starting a career in Puppetry. She was pretty, in that Well Educated Crooked Teeth English Girl way (why do I find crooked teeth so attractive?). The other academic had a mohawk and was cultural studies, focussing on gender studies and sexuality. I don't remember much about the photographer.

Anyways, the interview itself was actually done as a group, since the Owner wanted to see how we would react to each other as a group. He asked questions, got us to talk, gave us a minute deadline and the like. It was pretty interesting.

Apparently, out of the stack of applications they had received that week we four were the four that got through. Furthermore, from the first contact we had made we had surrepticiously vetted and tested, subtly pushed through hoops.

I'm flattered that I got through. I don't know if I will get to the next stage (a day of them seeing how I work), but I hope that I do.

Even if I do get the job, I will probably have to find a second job to make ends meet. But that's okay.

Afterwards I wandered through Covent Garden and found some neato little bookshops. One selling books about Advertising, Art and Graphic Design, and another one selling hundreds of books of Copyright Free Images including, but not limited to, woodcarvings, ornaments, all kinds of stuff.

I like Covent Garden.

Anyways, I've gotta go.

I'm going to see the Cat Empire tonight, with a view to reviewing them for FasterLouder and I need to get my Grooving Shoes on.

Over and Out.

J

Another note:

I forgot to mention that after I left the cafe just before nine, I figured I would wander down to Leicester Square and try to catch a movie.

I got waylaid, however, just outside the Close Covent Garden Station talking to an American Girl.

She was an Au Pair from Chicago. Studying Journalism. Her dream was to write for Rolling Stone (I didn't have the heart to tell her what I thought of Rolling Stone as it stands now... I might look at it to see if it is any good lately, but I'm not holding my breath).

She told me that she got to writing because she used to be something of a Groupie, and just started writing about her experiences and the music made by the musicians she was associating with. She also takes photos.

Interesting.

File under American Randoms.

Short Version of a Long Story

Short version:

Tomorrow I have a job interview at the Cafe whence I dropped my Resume.

After dropping my resume to the manager, I chilled out downstairs, separate from the discussion group that was going on, sipped coffee (which was actually pretty damn good) and chatted to a couple of public servants that were hanging around.

The coffee actually caused me to stay awake even longer than I usually do. But I got up before the usually time and I've had no caffeine today, so I should be able to get to sleep easier.

I took up the time by reading the Michael Moorcock book that I bought the other week. It's all the Elric Stories. I have various theories about Elric that I will expound at length, possibly in the coming days.

Anyways, back to the cafe:

For all the people who are afraid that I might be sinking permanently into a pit of Latex, Whips and questionable hairy people in masks, I just want to state that I am interested in the job since my experience in Brisbane gives me a slight advantage over the rest of the possible applicants, and the cafe also runs as a shop, which means that if I work there for a while I will have actual retail experience that I will probably be able to parlay into a job at a straighter kind of shindig.

Besides, it is in Covent Garden, the Caff itself is the opposite of seedy, there are lots of media and arty people located nearby and it looks like it could be fun.

Fingers crossed.

In any case, I have to go, since I have a load of Laundry to pull out of the washer.

Over and out,

J

Finally

I have just finished tweaking my CV and writing the Cover letter. I even photocopied my old reference from Cafe Scene.

Yay.

Now all I have to do is drop it over there.

Goddammit!

I was planning to dash off a cover letter for my resume to submit to the Cafe where I want to get a job (http://www.coffeecakeandkink.com/) , but despite all my best attempts and all my usual strategies (pen and paper, random word association) I finally typed up something on the laptop at about 8PM and I am still not happy with it.

That's not everything I did today. Nope. I washed some clothes and towels, I bought soap and facewash and as of 8 PM I have taken 3 more tablets (today I decided to take them every three instead of every four hours, due to my stupid sleeping patterns. Stupid stupid stupid... always put the phone out of arms reach, that way you won't wake up at 2 PM wondering why if you put it to your left, it is now lost down the right hand side of the bed stupid stupid stupid).

Where was I?

Anyways, I'm going to get a good night's sleep, the tomorrow I will look at the cover letter, tweak it or fix it or rewrite it from scratch but I'm still going to take it down to the net caff and print it, then take it over to Endell Street along with my specially tweaked CV.

Yep. That's what I'm going to do.

I reckon that writing the cover letter was so hard for me because a) I don't usually find myself needing to write cover letters and b) it is really hard to explain why I find the place interesting without sounding like a sycophant or a weirdo.

Both of which I am, but that isn't something that you usually put on your CV.

Anyways, that's all I have for today.

Over and out.

J

My name is Jason, and I'm a Blogaholic.

Most interesting thing today:

I'm in the usual net cafe, and my mouse is Squeaking.

Really.

I watched a movie called the Newsboys, with Christian Bale looking pretty young. Not Empire of the Sun young, but younger than he does now.

I just checked IMDB, and it says that it was made in 1992.

The Parotid Gland thing is even better today. Though I still have another couple of days worth of antibiotics to go. I tried the lemon-sucking thing, and I'm really not sure whether I was doing it right, or whether the lemon was right or what. Mostly I just succeeded in pulling faces involuntarily.

The other night I asked the girl I was talking to whether my clothes mark me as hideously unfashionable and/or a tourist.

She told me that the former was true. But it was my ACCENT that marked me as a tourist.

Hmm. At least people have been picking me as an Australian rather than a South Afrikan.

Other note:

My landlady SMS'd me to tell me that connecting the phone in the flat would cost £70 and require each of us to get a PIN number, so as not to run up a huge bill and then just run.

I'm sure that there are old BT phone plugs in the walls, and I'm also sure that the BT site said that if there used to be a connection at your address, you can have the connection reconnected for free, probably dependant on what type of deal you take.

If I can work out a way that the land line can be connected for less than £70 (I nearly typed 70 quid), that would be great.

I'm trying to figure out how to pursue the subject with my Landlady and not be a nag. Or I'll just have to Pony up the Cash.

A Nag or a Pony. Can Horses use Phones?

I just want a land-line so that I can do phone interviews. I'll figure it out.

***

Off the Warren Ellis site I'm finding some pretty funny blogs and stuff. Strangely some of it makes me want to experiment with web layouts and stuff.

Mutate mutate mutate.

Mutate or stagnate.

Speaking of Mutants, I'm thinking of seeing the Fantastic Four movie sometime. Like tonight.

Julian MacMahon has moved up in the world.

Fifteen minutes then they kick me out of here. Just in time for me to be able to eat again (I took a tablet at six).

Blog Blog Blog.

Over and Out.

J

It's Saturday again...

And I'm deciding whether to drag my ass to the Marlborough Head or just stay at home and read.

Immediate news: it looks like the Parotid Gland (I looked up the spelling on Google) is starting to get better as the Antibiotics kick in. I even had a boy-scout sandwich before without the tomato sauce triggering extreme pain. The Doc at Whipps cross recommended that from time to time I should suck a lemon. Fortunately, before I could reply in a manner I felt appropriate to such an instruction, he explained that it would help flush the gland.

Should be fine by Monday.

Last night was interesting. The Hardcore show itself was pretty dull. I got there about 8ish, walked down to the Stage area and encountered a semi-melodic emo-core kind of outfit. With Beards. Try as I could, I couldn't stomach more than thirty seconds at a time of this particular outfit, so I retreated to the bar, wondering if I had made a mistake coming out.

Back in the bar I ran into a couple of the Hardcore kids I met a few months back. Turns out that two or three of them are actually in a band which played later. I tried really hard to like them, but they were just making boring, by the book heavy hardcore and their momentum and energy was undermined by timing mistakes.

Speaking of timing mistakes, the Headliners, The Seventh Cross (swedish style metalcore from Birmingham) didn't impress me much either, even though they were the band I had pretty much come out to see. Although their CD also suffers from timing mistakes (the kind which Uruk Hai were always guilty of), what really undermined them were was the singers voice, which was the wrong kind of painful scream. No light, no shade, no variation, just a harsh screech sitting way too high in the mix and destroying any merits the rest of the band had going for them.

And the guy was wearing big shorts. Dude, it is not 1998 anymore. Get with the programme. Besides, there are very few situations that a grown man should be wearing shorts. This was not one of them.

After the show I ran into a girl that I had met after the Alec Empire Show a month or two back. This girl, despite being really not my type, had plenty of stories about Alec Empire, Atari Teenage Riot and other things, so I spent the next few hours kicking around Camden, then Leicester Square then Trafalgar Square with her. It was something different, and I felt like the company.

Besides which, she claims to be involved with the local music industry and media, so she would be a contact worth keeping. When I ran into her I she was talking to a promotional flyer chap who was talking about putting together some kind of festival thing. Life has taught me to treat everything with a grain of salt, but it has also taught me that not everything that sounds like a lie is.

I'll reserve judgement.

At about five or six in the morning I took the 55 home instead of the #8. It was a different route that took me all through Hackney and Old Street and the like, before depositing me at a bus station in Leyton. It should have gone all the way to Leytonstone, I'm not sure what the story was there... but at least I could catch the W14 (?) to Leytonstone soon after.

The bus took me to the wrong side of the Leytonstone Station, not a long walk from my flat. I didn't feel that in my condition (infected Perotid... yeah, I know) it would be wise to pull an All-Dayer, so I took another anti-biotic tablet, read some Transmetropolitan and went to bed.

Monday I'll be fully recovered. Fun and games then.

Over and Out.

J

Finished!

Har!

I finally finished the new Harry Potter book.

It is pretty good, although I must confess I would have liked it better if I had not been stupid enough to accidently read a spoiler that some schmuck had posted on the net.

I'm still taking my antibiotics. the right side of my face is still swollen, but it is less painful.

The hardest thing is timing eating etc around taking one tablet every four hours.

Most people who know me know that my stomach is nearly never empty because I am pretty much grazing and nibbling the whole time.

So I keep having to remind myself: no eating for an hour until I take the tablet, and no eating for an hour after that.

To my advantage, I've found that if I time it around, say going to the net cafe, I don't eat even if I forget that I'm not meant to.

Ditto if I am engrossed in my Harry Potter book. Which I just finished...

Maybe I'll go to the library and get Glamorama tomorrow.

Or maybe I'll just read one of the books that is lying around the flat right now.

Tonight I'm going to go see some bands, so that doesn't really matter. I've taken a table to take at ten, and one at two, if I am still awake.

Other stuff:

Last night I schlepped over to Highbury and Islington to go see Beecher. Getting there wasn't too hard for me, it was just a matter of taking the Overground from Bank Station.

It seems, however, that a large segment of the audience weren't so lucky. I was talking to various people in the know, and the Audience was about one third to half what it should have been, pre-sold and freebie tickets added together. People were either unable to get to the show because of Tube Station Closures, or they were just scared and punked out.

In my experience of Londoners, I say it was the former.

Still, Beecher were fucking great. Noisy, rocking and swaggering good fun.

However, if getting to the gig was easy, getting home required some more lateral thinking. I wound up taking a bus to Archway (Northern Line), riding South to Tottenham Court Road and then East on the Central line, getting back home around half twelve.

Not having had a chance to watch the news or read much about local events from any credible source in the last 24 hours, I have no idea what the state of play is.

I saw a Board for the Evening Standard saying 'Bomeber Shot Dead on Tube', but I have no idea what that is really in relation to.

The shop that the board was in front of has a habit of leaving the boards out the front of the shop for a week or more.

I'll see if I can grab a newspaper on the tube.

Speaking of which, it is about time for me to head out.

More news as it comes.

Over and out.

J

And here we go again...

Yep, somebody has been blowing stuff up again in London.

Of course, the carnage isn't as much as before, so I'm calling Copy-Cats.

And naturally, all the Londoners are all saying:

'Terror on the Tube? That is SO TWO WEEKS AGO, darling.'

I only found out about the bombings because Gus woke me up today with the news.

But besides that, here is my other news:

For the second time in my life, it seems like the Spit Glands on the right side of my face are all swollen up and painful.

It started yesterday with one sore lump on either side of the inside of my mouth, and today it is all the way up to a visibly swollen gland (visible because my sideburns provide a kind of contour mapping).

So I jumped on the 257, schlepped down to the Whipps Cross University Hospital Walk-in Clinic and read my Harry Potter book until I could see a Nurse. The Nurse tooks some examinations before getting the doctor, who confirmed what I already knew (infected Perotid (sp?) Gland, here's a script for some Anti-biotics).

The Nurse also told me to see a Dentist and gave me a flyer for an NHS GP in my area.

When I first moved in to Leytonstone, I meant to sign up for the Clinic across the road, but it closed soon after and now looks to be on the way to being a Crack House. Still, the wildflowers growing out from between the abandonned paving stones nice in a much-needed colourful kind of way.

An observation: I think it must be Mating Season for cats in London, because everytime I am taking a walk in Leytonstone lately I keep seeing cats around. More than I have seen around before, anyway.

Anyways, I am going home to take some antibiotics.

Over and Out.

J

Better Day

Yeah, I had a better day.

I dragged my ass out of bed, grabbed the copy of the Gazoonga Attack CD I burned yesterday and tubed it to Oxford street trying to find the Paul Frank shop so that I could pass the cd to the Classic Punk loving girl that I met on Saturday.

After an hour searching I realised that I was going about it totally the wrong way, I should have started from the Holborn end and workd back, but I eventually found the shop. The girl wasn't there, she must have gon home by then. Never mind, I'll give it to her another time.

Wandered around some more. Bought another trade paperback of Transmetropolitan at Forbidden Planet, stopped in at Coffee Cake and Kink for a coke and asked one of the staff if they were still hiring. Chatted for a bit, we seemed to be on the same wavelength and it turned out that he was the manager of the shop. So I'll drop a resume there tomorrow.

After that I went to Borders to buy a couple of magazines and just for fun talked to a couple of the staff at the Mac shop about Wacom Graphics tablets. (the Tescos near my flat now sells really cheap, really small graphics tablets... figure that out).

Anyways, I played around with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. Interesting, it would take some getting used to but would probably improve workflow once the teething is over.

Of course, I don't even have Photoshop over here, but that is by the by.

And now I'm running out of time.

Over and out.

J

Hmm.

I've had a slightly frustrating two days.

But the good thing is I'm frustrated enough to do things that need to be done, even if it wasn't the things I thought I would be doing.

In the last two days I have, in roughly chronological order:

Washed most of my clothes and towels.

Bought more dental floss, razors, vitamin E and other stuff that I was running short on.

Hung all my clothes out to dry, soon to be ironed.

Travelled to Stratford to pay my rent and return a bunch of library books to the Stratford Library.

(While I was there I found a copy of Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis on the shelf, and I was tempted to borrow it, but I am currently chugging throught the Harry Potter... I wonder what it says about me that after I read a Harry Potter book the next book I will read will be by the Author of American Psycho)

Gone to the Leytonstone Library on the way home and, since I had my Lease in my satchel, signed up for membership there. Despite a short argument over whether my Lease Agreement was valid (it looks sketchy but it is a legal document and legal proof of address) I now have access to not only the Leytonstone Library, but all the Libraries in Waltham Forest... Slowly I am building an Empire of Borrowing Rights across London... Bwa Ha HA HA HA!

While I was checking out a book by the 19th/20th Century writer/artist/designer and socialist William Morris I got into a chat with the Librarian at the counter who saw my Bauhaus badge and wanted to know what they sounded like. That spiralled into a discussion of Punk, post-punk and glam before taking a left turn into the history of Graphic and Industrial Design in the early 20th Century (ie the Bauhaus School) and all of that.

I also finally bought a little USB Flash Drive sos that I can move data from one machine to my laptop without having to take my laptop to the Mac Shop (which, let's face it, I might as well do anyway).

But it does mean that I have my CV on the Flash Drive and I don't have to Faff about with downloading it from my Hotmail Account every time (my previous way of keeping an accessible record of my CV here in London).

Checking my mail I discovered that my Ex Hilary's new band, a goth-metal outfit call Adastreia, are going to be one of about fifteen unsigned bands to be on the next Terrorizer Magazine Fear Candy CD.

I ran a search, followed a link and found another MP3 of one of their songs. Not bad.

It is also notable that it is the first time that I have ever hear anything that Hilary has played on the Keyboard (with the exception of when I saw her play with Kevorkian back in Brisbane back in early 2003, but I don't remember anything about that, I wasn't paying attention then).

That's right, in the whole nine months we were going out, she never once played piano in front of me.

Anyways, I'm going to go home, read more Harry Potter and do some ironing.

Over and out.

And the beat goes on:

The Napalm Death show yesterday was an interesting ride.

After the post I went to Tescos and bought as much food as I could with £10.

The cash machine at Lloyds spat out my card... for some reason my Commonwealth Bank card doesn't let me withdraw cash on a Sunday... I seem to have enough money in there but I will be checking and rechecking the account online to make sure that there is nothing fishy going on... nothing more fishy than a computerised network which takes two days to transmit transactions across the world, that is.

Anyways, I carried the food (including two 2 litre cartons of Orange Juice, because it is still bloody hot!) back to the flat and hie'd back to the tube to ride to Mornington Crescent.

Notes from the Napalm Show:

Besides Napalm Death, who were arguably incredible, best band were Insomnium, a melodic Gothy-Death band from Finland. Stirling chaps, as well. The Title of Worst Band was fought for by at least three bands, but for my money 25 Ta Life, a hardcore band from New York, win my prize of being the most obnoxious and the most unrelentingly crap.

Also notable: I got to meet Barney Greenway (lead singer of Napalm Death), who is bigger than he looks in photos and also speaks more quietly than you would expect. He was nice enough to listen to me for a couple of minutes, even though I was part of what seemed to be a endless stream of well-wishers and photo takers. A genuinely good guy.

And: the cloak room girl was really cute. Slim with long hair and glasses. She was doing coursework for her Acting/Performing Arts course at the counter, and laughed when I told her that I once got rejected for a role as a Latino. (for anyone who hasn't seen me recently, I guess that I am looking pretty damn pale these days)

Anyways, her shift ended and she disappeared before I could chat her up some more. Nevermind, I might be back at the Koko some time else and talk to her then.

By the by, the venue for the show, The Koko (formerly the Camden Palace) was brilliant: it was fucking huge, something like six stories tall with layers and layers of galleries and theatre boxes. It was like an opera house or something, all painted blood red. It seemed like one of those venues that only exist in movies.

But back to the story: after something like six or seven mostly mediocre support bands, Napalm took to the stage and played for about an hour, give or take. And it was one of the heaviest things I have ever heard. Even though there was only one guitarist on stage, it was heavier than most two guitar bands I've seen. Seriously intense.

And then it was over. We all spilled out of the heavily airconditioned venue into the warm night air and down to the tube, in time to catch the last Northern line but not the last Central Line.

Woo. Night bus for me.

Not much to report about today, except that I read another two chapters of Harry Potter, and my phone, which I set to go off at 9 and lay beside be on the bed, has since disappeared. I'll get Masao to call it when he gets home.

Otherwise, over and out.

J

Here it is:

I'm going to have to do this pretty quickly, because I am on a tight schedule today.

Recap, yesterday I took the Tube Train to Oxford Circus in order to buy some tickets from Stargreen.

Since I didn't feel like schlepping all the way back to Leytonstone, I went wandering instead. Heading West, leaving Oxford Street in search of stuff I hadn't seen before.

Here are some interesting things I found:

Cavendish Square: Beautiful buildings all round (except one horrible postwar office block). An abandonned sleeping bag, perfectly laid out on the grass, prompting me to thing that if I was homeless, I wouldn't let my sleeping bag get out of arms reach.

Wandering around the surrounding streets I found that every building seemed to be populated by medical practises, prompting me to think that if the other day I was in the Design and Media district, today I was in the Medical Specialist district.

Then I found a 'Talking Book' store. On display was a Kabbalah talking book, prompting me to wonder whether it was like the trendy celebrity Kabballah books, ie the CD is all in Hebrew, but all you have to do is run your finger over the disc and you are imparted with ancient wisdom. The shop assistant thought that was funny.

Next: Christopher's Place, a backsteet cobblestone thing with some cool looking cafes etc (I think that was it, I didn't actually saw what Christopher's place was on the tape).

Also: a small park called Manchester Square, with a spiky fence on all sides, the gate locked. In the centre of Machester Square a couple were setting up a picnic. I'm wondering whether they jumped the fence or what.

More wandering: The top of Baker Street. I've been to Baker Street Station before, but I've only seen the inside. Baker Street Station is actually one of the Stations where a train was blown up.

In any case, the top of Baker Street is all Modernist office blocks with no soul, making me wonder if this was actually the Baker Street of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of if there was another Baker street somewhere.

Wander wander wander: 1215: I find Baker Street Station, which is on Marlebone Road (?!), next to Madame Tassaud's Wax Museum (which has a massive queue around the block.

1222: Turning off Marlebone Road, I find a Baker Street that looks more like the Baker Street I'm looking for. A rugby-playing-looking twat with frosted tips is arguing with a Traffic Warden over a ticket for his Turquoise BMW Z4. Twat. Schadenfreude is fun.

I find the Future Publishing office (metal hammer office!), buy a copy of the new Harry Potter book at WH Smith, find 221b Baker Street (Sherlock Holmes museum).

Look at Regents Park, wander through, chat to Brazilian Girl who is reading the new Harry Potter (Brazilian girls are a little more friendly that London Girls, but most people are). Wander back to civilization:

And then I discover that I had been recording with the pause button on (D'oh!). Hasty recounting of stuff between last entry and then.

1315: I find the Royal Academy of Music! Jolly Good, What?

Wander on Marlebone Road/ Queen Ann Street and I find Daunt Books (#34/35). Great bookshop, nice feel. One of the cashiers is really skinny in a strangly attractive way (as opposed to bony starved way).

Hallan and Weymouth Street: More great buildings.

At this point the streets are more deserted, so I stow the dictaphone so as not to attract muggers. Wander North. Find myself on Tottenham Court Road, and I follow it in the Away From Soho direction.

Take the Tube to Camden. Look for Drainpipe jeans and I am told by some kid that Old Levis etc can be found on Ebay. Has it come to this?

I wander down the Camden High Street to find a venue for the Napalm Death show today. Then I take the Tube back to Oxford Circus to buy a ticket (the incongruity is not lost on me).

After buying the ticket I spy an attractive girl with elaborately coloured hair and a colourful bag.

I get talking to her and she gives me a quick tour to the shop in Soho where she works where I can find the bags that she had. We talk about Punk Rock and books and art and Stuff. Then she has to go to dinner. The last thing she says is 'By the way, my name is Kitt. Now you can write about me in your Journal.'

Interesting comment. I hadn't mentioned a journal. I don't think. Maybe she just had me pegged as a writing type.

I cruise around and find Forbidden Planet, the comic shop. Then I find the Odeon cinema and decide to return in an hour to catch the evening showing of a Korean Animated movie called Sky Blue: 2142.

Tube to Tottenham Court Road, post the previous entry then Tube to Holborn. Brisk walk back to the cinema and catch the movie. Not Bad.

Tube back to Leytonstone. It might just be sleep deprivation, but I feel strangely wired. That and my luck is holding out: on Essex side the a passenger has thrown himself under the tube, so trains are suspended between Hainult and Leytonstone. I only have to get to Leytonstone.

Get off the tube and stop for a kebab. First proper meal I've had all day.

Back to the flat and collapse into bed.

Wake up at six.

Today: not much so far. Behind schedule, but I guess I can afford to miss a crap grind band or two, just so long as I catch Napalm. Talked to Australia. Nice.

My Dad told me that he reads the Blog now, whcih means that My mother will soon as well.

So much for all the Smoking Crack with Strippers and Hookers stories I was planning : )

Anyways, like I said I am totally running late, and I still need to buy food while the Tescos is open (as I have said, the slack bastards close at four on a Sunday).

Over and out.

Wandering

I spent the day wandering around London. On foot.

Usually I spend my saturdays sleeping. And usually Sundays too.

At this point I decline to state how much more time I spend sleeping, on that grounds that I don't want to incriminate my sonambulist ass.

I get up when I have to, I make calls to the agencies and the like, but I do sleep a little too much.

But today I got up early. Was it because I consciously wanted to explore London? Did I want to break my bad sleeping patterns (hell yeah, but that wasn't it). Did I have a Job Opportunity?

Maybe, yeah and no.

The truth is that I really really want to see EveryTimeIDie, and i read on the Stargreen last night that it was down to the last two tickets, and the Shop was due to open at 1015 in the morning. (they actually opened earlier, because the heat inside the stargreen office is brutal and the needed an excuse to keep the door open)

anyways, with something like an hour and a half sleep, I hauled my slack ass out of bed, into the shower and down to the Tube Station, just ahead of Masao who was on his way to a shift at his restaurant.

I got to Stargreen to find it already open, I snaffled the ticket and was left deciding what to do with the rest of the day... I vaguely felt like going to Camden, and I also felt like exploring off Oxford Street again, this time the other direction.

So I started with the latter. And I found lots of cool stuff. Forethought had told me to put my new dictaphone into the pocket of my rather inappropriate leather Jacket, so everytime I saw something cool, I made a note of it.

Since I am pressed for time here, i won't transcribe the tape, or even put in a blow by blow account. I'll save that for tomorrow or Monday. (I'm also not at Haiff's Net Cafe, I'm on Tottenham Court Road, my Caff away from home when it comes to posting and blogging).

But I found some really cool stuff. And I saw some really cool stuff, and hopefully, with the tape as a guide, I might be able to find some of these places again.

And I have the new Harry Potter Book.

Yay.

Anyways, more tomorrow.

Over and Out.

Har Har Har:

Not much to report.

Since I finished the Motorcycle diaries, I went to Borders and bought a couple of books from the £1.50 table of classics. Alice in Wonderland, 1001 Nights and The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Plus two Transmetropolitan Trade Paperbacks and a copy of Elric by Michael Moorcock.

I started reading the Brothers Grimm book on the tube yesterday as I went to buy a bunch of tickets. I read the Transmetro Trade on Wednesday night.

http://www.transmetropolitan.com/gimme.html

The Transmetro was interesting reading for me. First of all, it really drove home how much Warren Ellis (the writer of Transmetro) based the protagonist on Hunter S Thompson. I hadn't gleaned the sheer depth of that from my previous non-sequential reading of the title.

Secondly, it reminded me that I should really get off my ass and do more work to build a career (or at least a respectable hobby) as a journalist. To that end I bought a small dictaphone recorder with a widget that you can plug into a land-line to record interviews by phone.

I'm thinking of asking the land-lady about getting the land-line reconnected in the flat. It would probably work out much cheaper/easier than trying to do phone interviews in the dodgy little hole-in-the-wall international call kiosks they have here on Leytonstone High Road.

Caution is telling me not to commit to something that I might not be able ot keep up.

Caution is telling me not to overstretch myself.

Caution is telling me to take it easy.

I'm tired of Caution.

The internet cafe is just about to shut, so I have to wind this up.

Over and Out.

Finally!

I finally finished The Motorcycle Diaries.

Which means that I have to get myself a new Tube Train Book to read.

So after I type this I'm going to head to Charing Cross Road to raid the bookshops for something the right size (ie able to fit in my pocket).

And I might buy some concert tickets. If I can catch Stargreen. Which I probably won't, slacker that I am.

More stories:

Monday night I went to see Mastodon.

Mastodon Kicked arse. Raging Speedhorn Kicked Arse. Even Winnebago Deal Kicked arse. Impressive, since they had only half the members of Mastodon and one third the members of Speedhorn.

I could rave on continuously about how good Mastodon are, and why, but seriously, if you have the album you already know this.

But this gig was especially memorable for a couple of incidents:

the main one was this: during some of the rougher moments of the Mastodon pit, a green eyed girl took some kind of attachment to me, apparently with the approval of a Relationship Unspecified Male companion.

First she would grab my hand to use me as some kind of an anchor when the human waves ebbed and flowed. And squeeze. Hard. Then said male companion said something to her and cheerfully admonished me: 'Look after her'.

At some point she put my arms around her so that they crossed over her stomach. This lasted a song or two, and male companion came back, thanked me for looking after her and they exited the pit away from the stage.

I know that it is pretty pathetic that I am so starved of human contact that a couple of minutes of having my arms around a stranger in a moshpit will have such an effect on me, but it does, and it did.

On the tube home I was musing over what their story was, whether they were some kind of Poly-amorous couple who like to cruise mosh-pits for semi-muscular males of average height and possessing the requisite lancelot-complex to always want to protect girls from brutish pit-thugs. Or maybe they were just two friends, and the girl was slightly drunk and given to close definitions of personal space. Maybe she just thought I was cute (stranger things have happened, just not often around here).

Whatever it was, having my arms around this girl was a feeling that I miss. Holding someone has the power to make me feel, even if only on a visceral level, like I matter in a way that I don't always feel.

And it has been a while since I felt like that. The times in the past 12 months when I've had my arms around something soft and warm have been too few and too far between.

Jeez. What an Emo Post.

I need a new book.

Rock and Roll.

And one last thing:

While I was wandering back to my Flat after going to Tescos to buy food:

I ran into a couple of the South Afrikans that I had shared a house with. Aparently they have all moved out of the house in Walthamstow, but that isn't the interesting thing.

The interesting thing is this: they all seem to have gotten pretty fat.

And I didn't. Choke on that, Fuxors!

Friday Night Shenanigans Post-Mortem

Hey there,

Last night was a weird ride. I returned to the flat to find that Masao, and a Japanese, French and Czech students had finished their meal and were watching The Man With the Golden Gun, a very ordinary Bond Movie starring the very ordinary Roger Moore.

Then they announce that they are on their way to a party somewhere where someone will be DJing, and invite me along. I care less about DJing, but I haven't been to a Party in Dogs Years, and I really would like to meet some new people, or at least break out of the groove that I've been in.

So we all take the tube to Tottenham Court Road, where I spot a girl wearing a Betty Blue style shirt.

'Hey, I like that shirt' says I.
the girl looks at me, as if to say, Huh? Who the fuck are you? This time it annoys me.

'Oh, that's right, I forgot for a moment: We're in London and we can't talk to Strangers.'
The girl pauses:
'Is your name Jason?' I think that I detect an Australian Accent.
'Yeah, how did you know that?'
'I'm from Brisbane, my name is Hanna. You wouldn't recognise me.'

I don't recognise her. I want to get to the bottom of the conundrum, but the Students are about to jump on a bus, and since they are my link to said party, I break off and follow them.

The bus ride takes us to Stoke Newington, which as far as I know is in the Borough of Hackney.

The nice part of Hackney. Or Nicer. I'm not sure. Sometime I'd like to explore Hackney, but I have it on Authority that it would be good to exercise Strength in Numbers.

Anyways, I'm looking out the window of the bus the whole time. We pass Kings Cross, where one of the bombs went off. People have left a bundles of flowers. The there are still police and ambulances. There is a media tent on the otherside of the street. Some of the Streets are blocked off.

I remember the Chinese Curse: May you live in Interesting Times.

Anyways, the bus keeps winding North.

We get to our stop, wander up to the pub, and find that Denis' (the French Guy) friend has finished DJing and is chilling with friends while the staff wipe the tables and shut up the bar. Denis is from France, where shutting a bar at 11 is considered bizarre behaviour, or worse, English.

Still, the DJ is an Irish lady who spins sets of Hip Hop and sets of Soul (old Soul, nice!) and she used to teach at Masao's English College. She is good people, and there are a few cool people hanging around.

The after party party seems to be going on at a Latin Club down the street. The Five of us wander down, look through the windows, but being short of cash and feeling tired, we decided to pass.

(If I had more than £5 in my pocket at that time, I would have goin in, but I had neglected to stop at an ATM).

So we chill at a bus-stop until a bus comes carrying people back to Tottenham Court Road. I see some punks with dreads and some stuff, and I make a mental note to Check Out Stoke-Newington at a later date.

The Bus takes us down past Angel and Islington, and I recognise the drag that I explored a week or so before (see previous blogs about exploring stuff).

Back to Soho. Everybody else goes home, but I prefer to kick around a bit longer, see what I can see.

I argue with the bloke that insists that everyone who calls themselves fans of Metal and Hardcore should patronise clubs like ROCK and the like. I don't agree with his Crusade, nor with his assertion that it is down to me personally to support Rock and Metal clubs. He irritates me with his unbending adherence to a position that doesn't interest me.

I argue with him until he sees four or five tall blokes with the same haircut who possibly are in the same band (possibly Towers of London, but I can't be sure), and decides that they are worth more attention than me. He is probably right, and I as turn to go he is leading down the street to some place or other.

Tottenham Court Road to Leicester Square: get a slice of pizza from the Pizza Hut. Wander towards the Tower Records direction. See the tall bloke from Norway or Sweden doing his club rep thing. The Square is actually pretty empty compared to most Fridays.

A Transexual with huge implants looks and me and proclaims 'Oh My Gawed! somethign something etc' I couldn't make out the rest, but I don't think she approved of my style of dress. Disturbing coming from someone in Gold Lame (that's La-may, but the straight reading could apply).

In a random direction mood, I turn left and follow the cool buildings until I find myself on the edge of a huge park, overlooked by various Historical Military commanders (Duke of Wellington and one or two slightly more foppish looking Naval leaders).

I find the Institute of Contempory Art or something, and hear a good nature arguement between an Irishman and an English girl about the huge Union Jacks that line the street that borders the park.

I walk the length of the street and back, looking at the antique fire-engines.

I wander some more, and find myself back in Leicester Square. London has a weird way of Folding Space back on itself.

On a side note, sometimes I remember seeing something and I wonder if I could still find that place, or that thing. Sometimes I realise that said thing was there a decade ago, so it probably isn't now. Then again, this being london, shops can move around, pubs can change hands, but the basic structure stays the same.

Sometimes I also have to sit down and wonder whether the thing that I remember was really there the way I remember seeing it, or whether I just dreamed it. These things can twist my head.

Back to the story:

In Leicester Square I get talking to some Spanish Students in London for the summer. Picking one girl as a Left-wing political type I show her my copy of The Motorcycle Diaries, and she is impressed. She speaks pretty good English. The others speak English in the range of Patchy to None-at-All. My Spanish is purely for entertainment Value, so I can't judge.

I wind up hanging with them for a couple of hours. The most amusing incident of the night: while I'm sitting with these kids an English guy tries to give me a pile of change, which the Spanish Girl accepts.

Am I dressed to badly that people think I'm Homeless?

Surely my near new converse would indicate that I'm not.

Still the Spanish Kids are happy, because now they can buy some pizza.

After hanging for a few hours, I wander back to Tottenham Court Road and take the Night Bus, chasing it down the street, and being temporarily transfixed by that beautiful face on a girl at the bus-stop.

It is already light when I get home. I do some reading and go to bed.

Today I had still more weird dreams, one involving running through peoples houses and another about fighting an oversized Spider/Praying Mantis creature with a book.

Tonight? No plans. Watch TV and Fry up a steak. Try to find my phone, which I lost soon after waking up.

Over and out.

Another short one:

Another short one:

I used my hour reading other stuff, and it is closing in on closing time, so this will be a short and sweet (hopefully) entry.

I'm felling better today.

The tube is running again on the lines where stuff didn't blow up, my mother called this morning to make sure that I'm okay, it's all good.

Not only that, all those weird insect bites seem to be gone.

I actually slept way too late today, so I'm going to stay up all night and all day tomorrow to get my sleep pattern back into whack.

(yeah, like that ever works when I mean it to)

Other news: my drawing is feeling better in the last few days.

I've made contact with some metal trio in Essex who need a singer. Could be fun.

I'm feeling better and I'm hoping no-one was freaked out by my rolling spiel yesterday.

Out of time.

J

Two important things:

First of all, may arms and legs appear to be covered with flea bites. Which is disturbing.

Secondly, some clowns have been setting on bombs on crowded tube trains here in London.

Which sucks. I really don't like bombings on people.

My ideal kind of terrorism is the cultural kind, the type that shocks and disturbs people without having to have anyone carried to a hospital on a table.

If it turns out that this was the work of Suicide Bombers I will be especially annoyed.

Annoyed because a) Suicide Bombing is the hardest to guard against, pushing everyone into an upswards spiral of paranoia and b) it is the ultimate waste of life: seriously, I can't think of one good thing that a Suicide bombing achieves. The whatever political goals that might have been championed have been washed away by a bloodbath. And retaliation is inevitable, leading to stupid tit-for-tat bullshit.

Where I come from Martyrs and Murderers aren't the same thing. Where I come from Holy men don't carry guns.

On a lighter note, I'm finding and refinding some great online comics.

Nothing Nice to say in particular (www.nothingnice.com) is good to see back up.

I never thought that I would see it again, since I remember it ending about two years ago, the creator seeming to sink deeper and deeper into a state of clinical depression, so much so that I actually e-mailed him and told him that I was a big fan and I hoped he wasn't going to do anything stupid.

This was soon after my friend Clayton died (suicide or prescription medication overdose unclear).

If Clayton had just died, then I was still at UQ, trying to keep it together as a BA student again, behind in my readings, falling asleep when I tried to read my texts, not making enough time to go to the library, not making time to write my assignments and the like.

I sometimes wonder how much of my under-achieving comes down to my depression. Being down all the time makes it hard to get anything done, and when I do actually feel better, it seems like such a waste to actually spend this up-mood time doing something as mundane as study etc.

I'm sure that there is some deep glitch in there that if I could find it and fix it I'd be much better for it. Some malfunction in the sense of Reward and Satisfaction that seems to elude me when I actually do something that could be construed as constructive. Some conditioning I received in High School that taught me that working hard on something was a waste of time, you won't get what you want. Or a subtle chemical imbalance that stops me from feeling happy when I finish something. Not as happy as I should.

I remember in being in grade 12, finishing my exams and thinking to myself, 'I should be feeling great, I should be celebrating', but instead feeling empty and burned out. Or maybe that was the year after Grade 12.

Either way, I wanted to do something fun, I had time to do something I had been putting off, but it was too late to see a movie, I was too tense and tired to sleep and all I could feel was a coiling anger at something I couldn't name.

Hmm.

Speaking of Anger, every now and again I feel like tracking down my grade five teacher, the one that told me off about my handwriting until made me cry in front of the class, and punching him square in the nose. Then track down my grade 4 teacher, the one who had me writing lines every lunch hour for a week because I couldn't finish the fifty line he had served me with in one lunch hour. The one who accused me of stopping in the middle of writing them.

I'm sure I can think of other teachers who raise my bile, but those are the two that always spring to mind.

It does worry me that I carry so much anger over stuff that happened twenty years ago. I'm not angry at the boys that bullied me, even though it's more likely that they did more damage. I've sat down and talked to some of them.

No, the anger I carry is at the Authority figures that blocked me, misguided me, lied to me, made me miserable.

Anger is annoying. Ultimately there really isn't much positive use for anger, at least not my kind. The best thing you can do with it is go into some kind of Buddhist Let The Bad Karma Go Rise Above kind of thing.

And let's face it, that's just not as much fun as breaking something, or even just seething until you can feel the rage in the pit of your stomach burning a hole through your abdominal wall.

Nope, all that Anger really does is fill me full of tension and spite, until the sense of power fades away and simmers down to a sense of sadness at not being able to change the thing that made you angry in the first place.

I would love to track down the Maths Teacher I had in grade 12, the one who's dog attacked me, and scream at him about what a pathetic excuse for a teacher he is. And the Maths teacher I had before that in Grade 11, and before that in Grade 10, and before that in Grade 9, and I think I had the same teacher in Grade 8, so it would just be more screaming.

I would like to tell my IT teacher in grade 11 and 12 that not only were his classes unhelpful to my aspirations, they left a student who had previously been mad on Computer Technology and programming who dreamed of a career in the Games Industry so traumatised that I didn't want to touch a computer again for two years after school.

The same teacher was able to, in part at least, facilitate my youngest brother Angus' ascension to his current career. Maybe in the seven years between me and Gus the Fucker got it right.

But the thing that really makes me angry is this:

I left school over ten years ago. I'm no longer at the mercy of the soul-crushing teachers I had in the past.

Sure, I've had to deal with a string of bad relationships, a rough home-life, dealing with psychos on a near daily basis for 27 years, people never really understanding what I'm about and feeling like a square peg in a round hole whereever I go, but that's might just be background noise.

In truth the only thing that really holds me back now is me.

More fun tomorrow.

J

Be careful what you wish for:

Because you might just get the Olympics.

Still, I'm sure that it will be good for the East End and all that.

I just remember going to Sydney two years before the Olympics and finding all kinds of crazy stuff, and then going back after 2000 Olympics and it was all sanitised, but somehow still not clean.

It doesn't really bother me, because the odds of me being in London in 2012 are slim to none.

And I'm sure that it might actually be the only thing that could save Essex and East London from the absolute slumhood that it is sliding into.

I'm just a natural cynic when it comes to Crap like the Olympics. The millions spent on fifteen or so days of people running in circles, jumping over poles, swimming really fast and all the other stuff just doesn't fill me with the same excitement that everyone else seems to feel.

I remember about six months back... I in Covent Garden job hunting or sightseeing or both. Out the front of some Al Fresco dining area there was a Film Crew shooting a musical number for the promotion of the Games Bid. Something like waitresses, serving coffee, suddenly passed by a runner carrying the Olympic Torch are stirred into action and are transferred into astoundingly flexible dancers waving ribbons in twirls.

I actually liked watching them film the ad. I liked watching the dancers. I even liked watching the Diva lip-syncing to the backing tape.

Because that is the kind of stuff I dig. Random things. Arty things. Dancers and twirls and sometimes even Divas.

Once you take something artistic and make it a Sport (Artistic Gymnastics, for instance), all the Art seems to be sucked out of it, and you are left with a passionless and mechanical performance.

And that is what sport is to me sometimes. Dull Mechanical actions. No art, no style.

I'm rambling.
.
.
.
.
I love the Advertising here in England. There seems to be a freer attitude. A disregard for the conservative nature of Advertising in Australia.

I like to entertain the idea that the reason I dropped out of Graphic Design was that my ideas were considered too weird by my Teachers and my peers. But I know that it really had more to do with my laziness and general despondency. How much that was a product of my miserable homelife at the time is a matter for speculation.

No matter.

Even if I had finished, the time was wrong for me.

I'm learning things, reading things, seeing things which I should have seen, read and learnt years ago. But for whatever reason they weren't available to me and I wasn't ready to see them.

Jeez my wrist hurts.

I'm running out of time.

Over and out.

Oh Dear God!

Catching up on Laundry and clawing my way back to health.

Though the stinking fucker I've mentioned before I sitting right next to me again.

Jesus, Man. Recent invention: SOAP!

I've spent so long trying not to puke because of this blokes stench I've run out of time.

Over and out.
.
.
.
(two minutes later)

I got 30 minutes more on the clock.

And I can't think of anything to say.

D'oh.

I'm signing off.

J

Whoo-ha!

It's Monday night in the East End.

It's been raining today.

I'm still sick. The chills have stopped. I'm hoping my sinuses don't get infected like they did last year.

I should have signed on to a Doctor in this area by now, but I'm lazy and the clinic across the road closed soon after I moved to my flat. Thanks, Red Ken, Tony Blair or whoever's responsibility that was.

In any case, I'm getting better.

I'm still reading disturbing stuff about the Boston Hardcore scene. On the message boards, in addition to the usual macho bullshit, people seem to be reacting by calling people on all sides of the argument fags:

'The FSU hit some guy in a Finch shirt for mouthing off? Fags!'
'Fuckin' thugs oughtta come to Detroit/Houstin/Conneticut/North Pole, we'll show those fags!'

And so on. Seriously, one message board had more 'fags' than a tobacconist.

The homopobia of the modern hardcore scene really irritates me.

Anyways, I am so out of time.

Over and out.

Blurg!

I'm feeling pretty sick.

The head cold I have is lingering on, making me feel generally crappy.

And, disappointingly, the Bleeding Through/Zao show that I went to last night didn't help.

I don't know what the major difference was, whether it was because of a Metal support instead of a Hardcore support (100 Demons) but the Testosterone levels were three times that of the Sunday gig, and the crowd was ridiculously macho and violent.

As well as the usual kind of bruises, I took a kick to the nose, and soon after something hit me hard just behind the right ear. Hard enough for me to feel stars and still have a bruise and some minor swelling now. Fuckers.

The jerkoff that jumped off the railing beside the stage and landed on me on Sunday did the same thing again, this time I was out of the way, though. And then there was the knucklehead that kept headwalking.

Is this what hardcore is becoming? An open forum for sociopathic behaviour?

Seriously, gigs like the one last Sunday are the ones that make me want to stay involved, to keep going to shows and seeing bands. Gigs like the one last night make me question that position.

Today I've just been watching Live 8 on one channel, the tennis on another and whatever movie was on 5. Before it was War of the Worlds (old version), right now I think it is Ben Hur.

Question: do I go to Tescos and buy more orange juice, or go straight home?

Geez, turning into Everything/Nothing Territory here.

After the show I went to Leicester Square and caught a late session of The War Worlds (new version). I thought is was pretty good, but it was marred by two things: firstly, my seat was right near the back. I should have gone for something closer to the screen, secondly the row behind me was taken up by a bunch or fuckers who wouldn't shut the fuck up.

Outnumbered and hoping that they would just shut up, I rode it out. But it was irritating.

The movie itself wasn't bad.

Joel from the Amity Affliction has been posting more of his work:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/im_the_devil/

His talent drives me mad with envy.

Even if his style is partially a rip off of Jake Bannon on one side and old Sisters of Mercy Covers.

I'm out of time, I'm going home.

J