Out of the blue from an esteemed colleague mr, Dr. 'JR' perhaps Larry Hagman or as Bob Mortimer dubbed him on Shooting Stars 'Harry Lagman', he's a heavy hitter in the world acadeim so I won't embarrass him by naming him on this a here blog madness, he also shares my love of first person shooters, must have a natter with him about Black some time. But check out his entry to my 'Bonobo Sez Stoopid things competition'.
As is with most Web goodness, TCAL has alerted to this great e-mixtape of great movie moment songs there's 14 tracks, i's great, my quibble: 'What! no Lebowski?' See good things can happen.
Day three of no proper water, balls. I feel like those news reporters in Batman when the Joker has contaminated various cosmetics that are only dangerous if mixed in specific amounts (it's where those mysterious 'terror plot' guys got the idea...in my mind). Being literally part of the great unwashed I was sucked in to wtaching too much TV today all on More4: The Daily Show, The Return of Courtney Love and Ted Bundy: Natural Porn Killer.
The More4 Web site calls the Love show "An intimate portrait of one of the mose complicated women in modern culture'!! (my italiscs!) and her mate and producer calls her the 'queen of rock and roll'. Complicated indeed at one point she says her daily Buddist chanting has the power to 'reconfiguire her DNA' , fucking hell that there chanting is powerful stuff. The dilmmaker is obviously too sacred to argue any sort of scientific logic into the chain smoking Love. Not a bad show made by Will Yapp (a Nathan Barley style name if ever there was one), Louis Theroux's director.
Next up was Ted Bundy: Natural Porn Killer was doumentary on how Bundy befriended a TV evalgist (which reminds me check out this madness found on TCAL) and blamed all his horrific murders on porn. Although the show seemed to attribute it also to EC horror comics! near 60 years later and the EC comics are still getting the Wertham treatment. Due to my jaded trash appetites I have seen far too many of these sort of Channel 4 true crime guff. They keep doing the same things including:
1. Using that 'piiiiiing' camera sound from Texas Chain Saw Massacre (expertly spoofed in the second last episode of Spaced) whenever an old scary photograph is shown.
2. They make awful black and white reconscructions (black and white because it's old?) and don't try and get any period detail right making them look like bad student movies about moirders.
I was tempted to hang on until The Charlotte Church Show, but lost the will to live and came up to 'The Batcave' to spread the misery around force my poor readership to share the pain of the mind-numbing (sorry, I mean 'thought-provoking adult entertainment' that More 4 has to offer.
To make Bonobo 'Say Stoopid Things' has it's first entry from the great Cristi local horror filmand Metallica buff who is soon to be a top DJ on Live Wire . Now must get to work on a special comics/flarn/cartoon based prize!
You never miss your water until your well runs dry. So the film studies party went and without rumbles much red wine was consumed and friend new and old got down to some serious geek talk. Things went fine when I wandered home. Myself and housemate 'M' got through most of the series of Nathan Barley ending with the immortally good 'Bad to Have a Bad Unlce....Pain, pain of a monkey' episode. After some Extras watching, I went down to the loo at like 5.3o and the whole place was under about 2 inches of water it was gushing out everywhere from under the bath or something. Fuck sake it was like something out of a Japanese horror movie remake I expected some hairy ghost lady to come out of there. Myself and 'M' managed to turn off the stopcock (insert playground joke here) and have been without water for the day which sucked, but I think it should be sorted soon.
So we have the annual 'welcoming of the new MA and PhD's evening' this Monday 4.30-6.00 wow, what a party, how many parties do you know of that last one and a half hours between 4.30-6.00? If it was 4.30 to 6.00 am you'd have a point. Mind you the hardcore amongst us normally grab the free wine and last till about 12 or 1am. The main mission is always to neck as much wine before they start to pack it away by about 5.45 for next year or something. I'm bringing my bottle opener, not this year not again don't pack our wine away. I always imagine it in the style either The Warriors or Bring it On (no you bring it) either way, lots of factions like 'The Contempories' (which in a nod to 'HH' should perhaps be called 'The Cruisers') The Feminists and of course there's pullover and shirt clad 'Heritage Mob' and the 'Reception Crew'. What gangs does Jimmny belong to? The Contemporaries and The Feminists. Bring it, bring it on...
The main aspect of these getogethers is not the crude factions I illustrate above (becuase we all get on-our department is the kindest bestest department in the whole wide wooorld) but that it's like a family wedding, with the senior lecturers as old relatives dancing to Dire Straits' 'Walk of Life' cos it's so cooool. We have this one lecturer when he sees you talking to someone you know (as is the custom when you meet...some.one.you.fucking.know) comes over and shouts 'stop taking to them!, you known them, you must mingle! here's such and such! and he marches you over to shake the hand of someone who is having a perfectly fine conversation with another new student and mutual awkwardness ensues. One year he was really vocally pleased that the department was 'so multicultural' there was Irish (me) English, Finnish, Scottish, American and em I don't recall, (but that was about it) but aren't they like the most white countries in the world, hardly 'multicultural'.
I'm wearing my tartart t-shirt this year after a professor slagged my Punisher t-shirt last year saying 'hmm two films and they still didn't get it right! hmmh!' (I resisted the urge to say "and what the fuck are you wearin'?, does your plaid shirt have no buttons or something?!")
But it all dissapates when we get drinking more, and at least I can retreat to my wee batcave safe in the knowledge that I at least know who the current PhDs are, safe in the memory that my department is the kindest bested department in the whole wide woorld...feck what drugs do they put in that wine...
So during the happenings of this post (where I spent about 13 hours in total on trains) one of the only bits of reading material I had (apart from academic books I was too munted/knackered to read) was the U2 cover of the Saturday Times article on said rock/pop/condescension combo, you may have heard of them? I think they are going to be the hot act of 2006 either that or the Rapture, you can quote me on that. The more I stared at Bonobo's insane face on this pic the more I giggled to myself looking forward to this moment, this moment where I would be having a beer after a shift and listen to Beck's Odelay and slag Bono off from the safety of my hovel. I was giggling about this to myself on the train to Liverpool.
Most people save bits of the paper to see the TV listings or perhaps the lingerie ads (so I hear) but I had to save it to scan it in to a computer so I could make Bono say 'I am a Turd' . See below many variations on the Bono pic so you too can enjoy the game of jamming Bono's maw with obscenties.
My competition if you chose to accept it is use the templates below in paint or word or whatever photoshoppy type twangs the kids are using these days to send me your best 'make bono say stoopid things pic' and I'll put them up on the blog and I'll send you a comic or some flarn or a photocopy of a flarn comic or my own drawing of some flarn. ("Flarn" ccBob Bryne)
so enjoy, and in the immortal words of Bobo 'I am a Turd'
Still recovering from the weekend! Friday split shifts at the grad bar then the Rose. Had thought of going to Marvel with the ones from work but ended up going to apirate party (arhhh) and staying up all night. Jimmny debauchry? not really ended up playing Kerplunk (it's very hard at 6.30am not only that but it looks like a sextoy-cum-bong) and Cranium, I had to draw alollipop lady with my eyes clothes and make a kebab out of clay, also not mean feat at hour. After no sleep I got on the 9.10 train to liverpool and after some train decomissioning finally got to see'D' and some old friends for his stag party. We started off at The White Star and ended up in Lloyds with many a drunken adventure in between. Mostly this was the stereotypical stag party tableau with groups of drunk guys standing on street corners deciding what to do and a few of us saying quietly in smaller groups "why can't we just get a drink somewhere? there's a pub just there! c'mon, I'm sobering up!" etc.
It was an amazing night with drinking ,pizzas, shopping trolleys and staying up until 5am or so at a hostel's pool room smoking joints and drinking cans...hooray. 'D's best man 'M' was hilarious doing 'Raul' impressions for all the ladies in Liverpool (no really every lady he met) I had to look it up on the auld ethergut and found the above clips. The trains were scarily bad though had to listen to conversations like this:
Girl of train to Leeds: "No really you have to meet Ash he's so funny, I saw him and thought he was an MP or something (!) but he wasn't and I was with my friend and we asked what he did and he said a dentist and as soon as he did she opened her mouth. He was so funny you have to meet him. He was like saying hello like sayin' "hey baby" he was so funny you have to meet Ash he was so funny" seriously, it was like that only ten times longer. How can a dentist that says "hey baby" ever be considered funny? How do 'think someone's an MP?
After my last whiny post, which attempted to distract from by jamming lots of youtube madness, things have going ok. The return of my supervisor did not entail her killing me dead and putting me in a duffle bag. Maybe because I remember that terrible Joe Pesci movie 8 Heads in a Duffle Bag (is this title a high-concept precursor to Snakes on a Plane?) that I assume those who are killed are placed in duffle bags. Acturally, looking on imdb it was Shrunken Heads that was terrible the auld 8 heads thing was medicore, although there's only .4 points between them on imdb.
Anyway, I was just worrying too much as usual about academic stuff. I was trying to do my last chapter now, but the supes had sound advice to just start at the beginning and methodically writed it all and then hit the chapters I have done and it will be like a wee surprise. As per usual my friends, new and old quell my fears and I have to belive them. Weirldy, I have to get back to sort of audiciousness crap I used to come up with at will when I did my MA because I didn't care about academic politics, check out these chapter titles for feck's sake:
If you've ever had to listen to me late at night, (or most times of the day for that matter) it's not long before I start trying to imintate Baaaadaaad or sing some sort of Adam and Joe song (although at the minute myself and HH can't stop doing old Tom Cruise from Time Trumpet "Pound for pound I'm the strongest man alive" and "I've read every book ever written".
I have previous blabbed about Buxton's Youtube exploits and Adam and Joe's comedy/comics/music connections.
So perharps I'm seeing some recent TV output through Ad&Joe glasses, but That Mitchell and Webb Look's sketch NumberWang was far too close to Adam and Joe's great Quizzlestick (check out that link, they seem to think it's a real quiz?) sketch. Speaking of which Jonathon Ross's Japanarama (great as it was) was very like Adam and Joe go Tokyo.
Charlie Brooker pointed out in Screen Burn that Buxton's Ken Korda's 'directors commentary' to The Priory was a bit too much like Rob Brydon's Directors Commentary.
Check out Buxton's post about being in Matthew Vaughn's adapatation of Neil Giaman's Stardust (co written by Jonothan Ross's missus and ghost explorer Jane Goldman!) and how he now in a film with Robert DeNiro who is a lovely pershon.
Who can forget that Hall-and-Oatesesque song, a bit like that famous madballs song :
It's late, or early, depending on your point of view, I don't know, it's always 3am with me(although I've never met any of the 3am girls*). I've just finished three grad bar/rose splitt shifts and have about 2 and half days to a serious amount of writing.
My Phd supervisor's been away for a year and arrives soon, if not now (I'm back to being the Padawan**and my Obi's coming over on a star glider of some sort), me and fellow her-supervisee HH are hoping for a few days of jet-lag before she comes gunning for us, I jest, for Me, HH is a good student, and diligent. In a bittersweet stylee I'm looking forward to it, the auld supes doesn't accept any academic shoddiness, she can with a sideways look make you admit that what you wrote isn't what you really meant or what you are actually capable of. Once during my Batman chapter I was giving out about capitalism and how the desire attached to products (and what owning them would achieve) was always just out of reach of what the products actually provided and she gave me a look that immediately made me admit that this was secondary school essay idealism. Suffice to say, she knows when you're spoofing or bluffing or padding. Many supervisors may know when their students are doing this but few these days do anything about it, she actually gives a shit in an academic world when people increasingly don't.
I'm fearful though, not of getting it done, which was my fear in the past, but of not caring about arguing with people and not entering into academic networking. I'll be the cantankerous academic who is arguing with nearly everyone and never gets a job because I don't agree with nearly anyone. Ironically, I seem to get on and agree with a lot of people, just not people who are ascending the ranks of my academic discipline. Whatta ya gonna do: grin and bear it, like when I'm pulling a Kitchen Porter face (this mostly occurs when I have to do things like somehow distribute 4 separate carrot slices between three portions of veg to 'add colour'!). Perhaps like Owen Meany I have weirdly picked up skills from various points in my life that are integral to this the main thing I have to do now.
Whatever, sorry to bum ye's all out at the weekend. Things that are good: this caught some of A Decade Under the Influence (2003) on film 4, gave some more firely guff in me gut that that all culturla production doesn't have to be guff. Maybe because I was born in the 1970s, 1976 to be precise I have nostalgia for that decade, in the style of current student I *heart* the 1980s disco nights, one has nostalglia for the decade you barely conscious, you know in a primal scene stylee.
Ok Go!'s oh no! still makes me laugh, Richard Hawley's Long Black Train is great, I only liked it because it's in V for Vendetta and it's the song that comes on Stephen Rea's alarm on the moring of November 5th and he pulls another 'ah bollix' face and says 'today's your big day...are you ready? are we ready?'. Ah well, probably true of me too, i'll have a good sleep for once and get up and get too it, and all the mooks better be ready 'cause the chief'll be there ready to bring it. Gawd help us all, am sick of mincing my words, you know, I have things top say about films and such that I find pretty unpalatable, but in my experience a lot of people have agreed with them so I should listen them (and myself) and not the pedestrrain mooks that populate the academic landscape.
P.S. this post would have been longer and more well written if my 'puter wasn't spazzing out, seriously, I type something and it doesn't appear on the screen for about a minute afterwards, this keyboard better strart complying or it'll out the fucking window. Better leave it, more soon.
*Wasn't there three of the 3am girls once? what is this the Sugababes?
**I hope I don't turn into whiny Hayden Christensen
One of my fantasy future* writing projects is a possible book called "The Last Fiefdom", documenting the insanity of bar work a la Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly . Like kitchen work, bar work is an almost mediaval system where cv's matter less than personality and the ability to do the job, likem kitchen work too barwork is run on booze, nicotine, drugs and sex. The managment process hampered by constant drunkenss and trying to get staff to keep their respective bits in their pants. Enderance matters more than aptitude. I never did bar or kitchen or bar work until I came to Norwich, now I've become something of a troubleshooter. If their a crap shift or job no one else can or won't do I'm be there with a grimace and an apron. Making a bemused expression adn biting my lip (and swearing on the inside) while being told to do something nigh impossible. The barman/kp 'brotherhood of the apron' is strong. But phd writing is ovbviously the priority, so here's some sexy Vice do's for your entertainment.
*As I'm sure any PHD has, I have losts of other writing projects daydreaming liking doing a sitcom on graduate students, I even had a tagline in my head ("Not quite staff, not quite students, not quite sane...Grads", maybe it could be Gradz to appear cool?)
Vice writes: Every house party has one knock-out-of-your-league supermonster (right) that grew up in Barcelona but is here directing videos even though she's only 21. If you go for her you will bomb. Go for the lamprey (left) next to her and at the very least people will respect you for not being shallow.
Check it out no sooner had I been ejected from the wiki world for shamless self-promotion, see below than that cool dude danger from The Community At Large (an Irish community weblog bringing you anything worth looking at which anyone can sign up to and post news and links) does a nice peice on my Lost podcast appearance:
"Lorcan McGrane Podcasts for Channel 4 Radio"
