"The Chaos of Nothingness" & "Anarchy Head Trip" & "Four Wheels Good" & "Sending Noise Into Cyberspace"

- "I think it's happening again" -

Hello. Finally this writer has returned to his tiny coven in the nether of digital existence. I feel like the prodigal son, if the prodigal son had never actually left, but had just been to lazy to leave his room and inform his father that he still existed. I don't plan to leave it over a week again, too much has built up. It's hard enough to retell fragments of life in concise and entertaining ways; as you may notice, I've failed to do either. But on this occasion I'm trying to bring you to speed with the nothings important that have built up. I'm possibly going to try a more broken story styled format, see if it's easier for you to digest. Oh damned, I feel so rusty.

- V for Very Fucking Amazing Mr. Alan Moore -

So, lets skip back a week and a bit. The sun was shining and birds sang and everything was of that hazy beauty that fading memories pick up. My dad was hanging about the general area, as many of you are already informed. We had a lot of fun, chilling out, being consumer whores with no money and watching movies.

Meanwhile, Hollywood finally unveiled its new flawed action movie gem to place in the dull crown of the decaying corpse. "V for Vendetta". My father was momentarily bummed that he would have to wait to return to Florida before being able to enjoy this film, but quickly he remembered that it was a worldwide release date and hence began formulating an assault upon the local Warner "MyVue" Village "Quit Changing Sodding Name" Cinema. After two evenings slide out of his grasp due to odd screen timings, he finally settles on the Thursday as a small family escape to enormous moving picture land. Thursday evening rolls on; the three of us dive into the car and roll out in order to storm the massive concrete complex.

After 10 minutes of flying about roundabouts and tiny one way roads in a desperate attempted to find somewhere to park without needing change for pay and display machines, which none of our cheap asses have in any form, aside from my dad, who does have money, just none that is English, we run into a most bizarre and unique chance; My dad's grooviest mates are crowded outside the cinema waiting for more of my dad's grooviest mates to arrive. The three of us all do a double take to check what we've just seen: How can this group of funky individuals make their way to the cinema on the same night that my dad, who wasn't even in the country except for these two weeks, and his sons just happen to be going the same cinema to see the same film?! Now, if I detach myself from my excited astonishment, it's kinda obvious that this group would eventually flock on mass to witness this spectacle, so running into them isn't really that unbelievable, but to be honest, it's still pretty funky; life seems to enjoy throwing me a lot of circumstances like these, this is just the first time I'm documenting one; but I got to say, I love it every time it does. Makes you pay attention to how much flux there is beyond the sphere of usual perception, if only for a little while.

We drive-by wave them and they return flashes of smiles. We slide into a car park and pay the meter all we can find, hoping we've fed it enough to lasts the extent of the movie. We amble into the graffiti laden pedestrian subway; I love this place, every time I walk through it, I wish I was good enough to skate it up, it's a perfect little spot that extends 6 arms into other tight little spots. When I can drive, I can so see all my petrol money disappearing on finding spots. We walk out of the subway and out into the nightclub strip, stumbling towards the cinema at the end of the road and discussing what various critics have said on the film. You might have wondered where I get my over-analytical geeky obsessive perception of the world, and sometimes I do too; usually in between a dark day of the soul and escaping to the unexplored recesses of my skull. I don't think my dad is to blame entirely for my geek-complex, but he definitely sowed the seeds for its progression. I think this perception is wonderful by the way, but I think I'm the only one who sees it that way.

Approaching the ticket booth for this place, and we see the whole crowd queuing. All eyes make contact and there is an loud exchange of "Hey!" made by everybody present. Conversation is had; mostly focused on trying to work out why my dad is here, as opposed to being in Florida. Movie is about to begin and we all shuffle in. Trailers and adverts are shown, nothing worth mentioning, aside from:

http://www.encams.org/general/advert.asp

Enjoy the 60 second one. It made me giggle. The movie rolls.

"V for Vendetta", as a movie, is action movie junk, but it was entertaining. It's a Victorian-era styled variation on the matrix. It's fun and fast paced and feels like it has meaning underneath. It runs for long enough to not ever rush everything within it. It has characters that exist and flow and develop, even if that is a very thin development and on a few occasions doesn't even seem logical. It is also the first mainstream movie post nine eleven that comes to mind that faces the discussion of terrorism without concession, even if it is dealt in a trashy action movie form.

The credits roll and the group takes two minutes to dissect the film. The general feeling was that it was entertaining, but not on a par with the source material; a couple of them were kinda pissed that the Wachowski brothers appeared unable to handle the source material correctly, but everybody's hopes were so low from piss poor reviews that they were quite surprised. I made very few comments because I had not had the pleasure of sampling the work of Alan Moore. When that was made apparent the offer was made to lend me bits and pieces of his creations, which of course, I duly accepted. The three of us had to get back, so we bid farewell to the groovy individuals and made out way back to the car. A few days later, a copy of "Watchmen" is dropped round. After digesting that masterpiece, a copy of "V for Vendetta" is brought round in exchange.

"V for Vendetta", as a book, is just purely dumb-struck "WOW!". Alan Moore knows how to write; he knows how to carry a point, he knows how to be subtle, he knows how to take his time while maintaining interest, he knows how to add layers of themes while enriching the plot, he knows how use a beautiful opening setup to close with a satisfied feeling at the correct pace, he knows that cultural relevance make a book carry its meaning beyond the confines of the cover and how to use that effectively, he knows how to do things on a scope of significance without it losing itself in pretension, he knows how to tell a story. He knows how to write; purely, beautifully and simply. "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore and David Lloyd is so much more than the version most people will know because of the film. I should do a more substantial review, with context to the plot, but I do not want to invade for a single moment upon the storytelling, so just go pick up a copy somewhere. It's usually about ten pounds and is worth so much more.

- Emo girls and arrogant frontmen -

It is friday. After about two weeks of over hyping, finally it is the day of OK Go. I spend the day dossing about, because, heck, it's a friday and I do one and a half subjects; what else am I gonna do? Maybe draw a picture of a fresh part of my skull... nah... that came later... I just slouched, wrote another brief plot draft of "ZHAB" and listened to music, most of it being The Offspring... you can't beat signing along awfully to that band. Finally the day drags itself off into slumber and the evening begins. I stumble out of school with Little Bear and into his mum's car. The car pulls away, taking us to his home; from which we'll be hitting the road to the gig. We stop at these lights; Little Bear is talking about the kilt he'll be wearing for the end of year leaver's party. His mum is saying how this time, when the photos for the event are taken, if sensible ones are a possibility, she'd be most grateful... well actually she was telling him if they were stupid she'd fucking kill him... well something between those two extremes of parental behaviour... but closer to the killing bit. So he says, "Don't worry mum, with my photo-shopping skills, I can make anything look awesome." Now, come on, no matter who was in that car; you'd have to be a useless friend to miss a shot like that, so without any hesitation, I loudly proclaim, "Oh! So that's why your girlfriend was so impressed with your penis!"... My friend laughs... and then falls silent, looking angry and shocked. I could see in his face he was saying "Dude, my mum is gonna crucify you. It was nice knowing you." His mother turns in the seat and says, with hells fire full in her eyes, "Do you realise I'm his mother?!" This deathly silence falls over the car; even the engine stops ticking over, waiting to see if blood will be spilt on its back. I swear that moment of existence is frozen for eternity somewhere in the multitude of time; the cultures of four dimensional beings use it regularly to demonstrate how to actually physically damage time; the decaying effect that three dimensional beings has upon their environment; and how to embarrass your friends in front of their parents. The lights turn green, I lived.

Half an hour later, we've ate and are heading out the door. We say our goodbyes and while stepping out the door, his mother yells "Wanna Jumper?"... So I yell, "Yeah, in my room"... they both just look at me confused and he says "nah, I'll be ok like this." We say our goodbyes once again and slide on over to the car and get this show on the road. Sitting in the car, pulling out of the driveway; Little Bear cracks up, "That one was fast dude, took me a while to catch up for that one, you quoted that or something right?"... I think he was aware, as I'd been when I made the joke, that I'd been tactful enough on this occasion to avoid his mother's death sentence. I'm glad the joke didn't totally go to waste, and I find it amusing that it took him so long to get it, it's a rare occurrence when you're resorting to yelling cock to get a laugh 90% of the time. I'm indignant though that the first bit of sharp wit I've shown in weeks and it's presumed I'm not smart enough to pull it out of my own skull; that I must have been borrowing it from somebody else... meh, guess that's the price you pay for quoting jokes occasionally...

So, an hour on the road and we get to the venue. We step in and instantly my eyes are bombarded by the sight of a whole nest of emo girls. It's like Little Bear, T.A.R.D.I.S girl and myself have stumbled into some forlorn funeral for some friend we didn't even know very well. I was never expecting OK Go to pull the emo crowd... then again, I was never expecting to be a synth pop metal head. Clusters of them; hair covering most of faces, eyeliner covering the exposed portions of faces... whispering and pointing, trying to see which of them would look old enough to buy from the bar. Amongst this horde were the occasional emo guy and then a sparse mix of total randomers. It was going to be a weird evening.

We head for the cloakroom and drop all our junk in there. We purchase more junk from the tiny merchandise stand and then try and convince the guy in the cloakroom to let us put it with our stuff already in there. We stumble up to the stage and realise this is a tiny venue. I thought they'd have had a bigger following than this, but apparently not. This emo girl chats up Little Bear and tells me to sod off. This individual then notices T.A.R.D.I.S girl, wondering how somebody of her stature will be able to see over the crowd. T.A.R.D.I.S insists she'll be ok; the emo girl says, "you could always get on Little Bear's shoulders," but Little Bear's girlfriend just tells the emo girl not to worry about her. The emo girl just says, "well, if you aren't gonna, I'll sit on his face." Then just turns away to chat to her mate. T.A.R.D.I.S and Little Bear just stare at each other in shock and I'm just laughing at how smooth this little emo chick was. It was going to be a weird evening.

The support come out and do their set. They were the pure embodiment of mediocre. The guitarist looked like he was either really nervous or wishing he was playing black metal; those two produce similar glazed looks, hence it is difficult to know which was his mindset. Which ever was the case; that cat was too lazy to even strum his instrument. He just held a vibrator against the strings and occasionally changed chord. The contemporary battery powered couch potato culture is even infecting the sythn pop world now. In his defence though, that vibrator of his did produce an unbelievable hypnotic ambient wonderfulness. Yet I was not massively impressed by the support and it appeared the crowd were not either. I have seen worse support acts though, the dreadful "Flowing Tears" to name the guilty party. The support set finished and the hum of small clumps friends in conversation flew into the air again. Emo girls would occasionally cut a squeal of "DAMIAN!" through the air. Little Bear would occasionally turn to me and announce "DAMIAN, WE LOVE YOU!" he was very excited. It was going to be a weird evening.

OK Go finally graces the stage with their presence. The night tumbles into a blur of music, Tim's beautiful bass fiddling and Damian being the most arrogant frontman to which I have ever bore witness. They were damned funky. I had not had the pleasure of any kind of concert, aside from metal, hence I learnt something: I have way too much hair for enjoying a gig that isn't metal. At a metal concert you stand, you raise your arms in the air, you headbang and raise your hands in the generic horns; occasionally you may enter a mosh pit, in which case you do all of that amongst a flurry of elbows. However, at a pop concert, I was not aware that you bounce your entire self along with the music while trying to create a pâté from the audience around you, including yourself. The band finished their set and announced that in five minutes they wanted to meet people at the store. It was going to be a weird evening.

We stumble into the crowds thronging round the band. We slowly and surely collected signatures. I pulled my usual "My brothers a drummer" routine on Dan. He told me that I'd got to him five minutes too late, but if I came to another gig he'd save me the sticks. I asked if he was sure and he cooly replied "yeah, don't worried, I'll remember you. You're the hideous one." Little Bear calls me over and we get a very low quality picture of his gawping smile beside Tim's cheeky smile poorly hiding an overwhelmed confusion. Having retrieved our coats from the sea of people outside the cloakroom, we get pushed out of the venue into the cold night and stumble ourselves back to the car. It was a weird evening, and I loved every second of it.

- Lissener Sayz Clamptz -

So, having sat there saying "I'm going to podcast, I'm going to podcast, I'm going to fucking podcast," and then confessing I probably won't get round to it for a while, I actually went and produced one. The link should be kicking about this page somewhere, if you haven't checked it out already. The actual catalyst for this unnatural occurrence was that Lunchbox passed his driving test, so a big congratulations to him, and while I'm at it; congratulations to Little Bear and the others who passed just recently. Damned groovy for the lot of you.

So, anyway, back to the cast. After a week of editing and stuff, I got the feed working and up on iTunes and everything else. I'm officially a podcaster. Now the task at hand is to be a good podcaster. That first episode is very disjointed and I was oddly nervous, which apparently means I swear about fifty times more than usual. Plus, I still can't annunciate a word to save my soul. But scarily, it was apparently well received. People enjoy me and Lunchbox talking utter garbage. People are freaky.

The next episode, which I haven't found the time to edit down into a show yet, is different. Lunchbox, the productive wizard that is, was desperate to make sure episode two was done on the day we had assigned. I on the other hand, I'd had an awful day. So, the episode is an odd contrast of Lunchbox putting me onto topics he knows will make me talk, while I answer him in a subdued tone because I have to get up on my soapbox and share my thoughts on the topics he raises. It's different from the first, and feels like it might have some context. Regardless, I'll let whoever judge whatever once I've thrown it onto the feed. On a final note; please leave comments on the podcast blog if you feel you have something worth saying.

- Skating, how I missed thee -

A long time ago, in an existence so ancient that it may as well be in a galaxy far far away, Little Bear did amazing in his GCSEs. To celebrate this event, his mum gave him 6 handmade vouchers to Heaven. Well actually, it was Heaven in Hell. Well actually, it was Rampworks in Liverpool. But he was a big skater at the time, Rampworks is Heaven to that breed of human. To try and explain, Rampworks is a huge skatepark. It is on the outskirts of Liverpool in an enormous warehouse. It is, apparently, the biggest skatepark in the UK. It was the largest in Europe back when it was made in 1997, but I don't think that stayed as a fact for too long. It's 50,000 foot of beautiful plywood skateable loveliness.

Anyway, I raise this all because Little Bear used the first of his vouchers this wonderful easter half term holiday and I got the wonderful pleasure of an invite. It was the first time I had skated in a very long time, but after ten nervous minutes getting the feel for riding and dropping in and skating, I was vaguely back on form and loving every moment. The whole park is so spacious. There are sections that rusty newbies like myself can spend all day riding, while elsewhere there are sections that are so huge and sick that you watch these guys shread them as you sit in total awe of their unbelievable ability. It was one very superb day. I've picked up the itch to skate again. Damn, I missed riding that crazy piece of wood.

So, Little Bear passed his test the next morning; sneaky bastard told nobody that he was taking it. Surprised everybody that day. Early afternoon, he comes over my place with T.A.R.D.I.S girl and invites me to go skating the "local" spots. We drive 10 miles away to this tiny spot with two quarter pipes, a flatbank and a "fun" box. We all pile out and we skate the spot for about 15 minutes, at which point I lost interest, demanding that we go a few more miles and look for the biggest local spot. I skated this really nice spot about two years back and my memory is telling me that it is only a few more miles away. Little Bear isn't convinced, but these BMXers turn up and swamp the tiny equipment, hence Little Bear decides to listen to my insane ramblings and we fall back into the car.

Five minutes down the road and we find the mythical spot in my skull. It's an eight foot quarter pipe, eight foot S ramp, two five foot quarter pipes, one of which has a tight hip transfer, and two sweet fun boxes. LB and I jump on this tiny sweet spot and skate it for all it is worth. I feel like I have progressed slightly in two years by dropping in on the 8 foot S ramp. This local kid gets some sweet air off the little five foot quarter pipe. I follow his line and try to do a meaty lip trick on it, but don't get my back axle over the coping and, with my weight shifted all wrong, bail quite violently. Having ate the concrete, the kid yells, asking if I was still sweet. I jump up and roll onto one of the fun boxes, admitting I'm funky. The kid asks where I'm from. I tell him where I'm from. He looks confused and asks if I'm from up that way, why am I over here skating this spot when there is a huge spot much closer to home. I immediately ask him where the hell it is and he proceeds to explain how to get over to it. I decide I'll check it out with Lunchbox the next morning. Me and Little Bear skate for another five minutes and then it begins to pour with rain. We call it a day and slam ourselves back into the car, heading home.

So, next morning, I ask Lunchbox if he is willing to do a shop run. He's game and I explain that after the shop run I want to explore the forest section behind the mall. He is game for that too. So, we walk about town; I buy a couple of albums, "Hit To Death By The Future Head" by The Flaming Lips and "Gallowsbird's Bark" by The Fiery Furnaces, and a copy of "Forbidden Siren" for the PS2. Student discounts are a wonderful wonderful thing. We get back in the car and drive to the far side of town. I vaguely know where I'm going, but not really certain. I'm expecting a couple of nice quarter pipes and a fun box or two, but I'm not really certain. We pull up into this car park where I think I've spotted what it is I'm looking for, but I'm still not really certain. Me and Lunchbox stroll over this hill and I stop. It is beautiful. There is no way I can describe the beauty of this skatepark to a general audience of non skaters. It is just truly a thing of beauty. We get back in the car and head back to my place. The whole journey home I'm saying to Lunchbox, "dude, it's so beautiful," and babbling about the designer being a genius. I call up Little Bear and we head straight back out there. I know LB is sitting in the car thinking the way I did; there will be a few nice quarter pipes and a fun box or two. Me and Lunchbox and Little Bear stroll over this hill and Little Bear stops. He knows, as I knew, finally we have a local patch that is actually a heaven. Him and me just start riding the spot; Lunchbox is guarding our gear and watching everything that is going on. I'm so sketchy, unworthy of this spot. I'm in total awe of how wonderful it all it. Finally we have a skatepark.

- "One Of Them Will Be Me, Watching You Run" -

So, there you are. All caught up on my last three weeks. Hope everybody else has had a groovy time.
Have a funky Easter everybody.