SG / editorial note

*sigh* for ages and ages, back in the States, there was a slogan made into a series of horrendous TV adverts; said slogan was 'Reading is FUNdamental'. *rolls eyes* i mean, in my head, it would've been way more OK if there weren't that terribly obvious emphasis on the 'fun' bit, prolly akin to being slammed over the head with a sledgehammer, but nobody consulted me and if they had, i'm sure they wouldn't have listened anyway. yup, here we go again: iz stawree of mah lief, akshually.

i'm talking about a coupla mails waiting in my Inbox to which i woke up this – rather, yesterday evening. they basically asked me WTF's going on over in the R-hand column? to that, i can only make a very poor joke or something, paraphrasing that hideous slogan. as well, it's no coincidence that both mails come from across the Atlantic. i won't shame those who sent (by ID-ing them) cause we know them by their screen-names and at times, we all love them, mostly cause much of what they've authored have been mass-mailed, and not just once, but quite a few times. and no, they're not members of FreeA3, at least not by the screen-names they used in their mails, the same as they use on their own sites.

the amazing thing to me is the fact they're both semi-well known pols, people whose sites i used to read on a daily basis but places i visit infrequently now, in order to protect my stress levels (thus saving money on drugs and booze). and i'm pleased to say they're totally not petty; they're aware i only read their stuff very rarely and they're cool with that. and i'm rather proud they've followed me over from my old site to here (via FreeA3), thanks to me turning them on to the band. *preens a bit*

anyway, as far as IDing people, i don't play that game; i don't identify anyone to shame them, unless there've been specific circumstances that warrant humiliation and if there haven't been, i always ask permission first. i didn't even bother with these two, knowing i'd get a coupla resounding 'NO!'s and i don't blame 'em, actually. but the good thing is since they totally missed my end-note, at least they actually mailed to ask.

back to IDing to chide or reproach, i mean, i'll try to malign total hypocrites or those who've had the temerity to attempt to harm me in any which way, but even then, i'll draw the line once i've decided i've wasted enough time on them. getting back to that slogan... *cough* a-hem! it was a bit of my reply to those who mailed: '...your "(non)reading is mental"... yes, i already know it's teh suck but c'mon! y'all are well-known to be intelligent...' (i wrote). 'Well, aren'tcha?'

the thing of it is, in their return replies, being American, they totally got it without any further explanation on my part and praise Jebus for that. i believe i recall once or twice asking those of the more stupid variety to split and quit reading here cause AFAIC, they don't deserve me and i'd rather have quality as opposed to quantity. in my way of thinking, if just one person reads me and actually attempts to understand (and yeah i know i can be difficult to follow and for that, i'm truly sorry), then my work here is done for the nonce and i'm actually approaching happy (always temporarily, but still).

as well, if one's understanding requires a shitload of questioning mails going back and forth between s/he and me, then so be it; i'm always open to any queries if whomever needs clarification on any point i've tried to make or even if whichever of my posts in their entirety need illumination. this is mostly due to my writing style (let's call it) which, as i've stated before, being afflicted by that which i term Bulwer-Lytton disease totally doesn't help.

i'm no role model – LOL, far from it – but y'all should've seen me in any class, whether at Uni or any other school in the States. i'd usually be one of the very few (if not the only one) whose hand would shoot up when the professor would ask if there were any questions. whether or not my satisfied curiousity and copious note-taking led to my high GPA (always between 3,5 and the perfect 4) and constant inclusion on the Dean's List every semester are a couple of the very few things about myself i never bothered to examine.

wait – 'examine' – and here i'm on the old ADD train: that's a word that can't help but bring to mind something i had framed and hanging in place of pride (the bathroom) in my last two or three NYC flats; i know i took it quite a ways too far and way too literally – as is my wont – but it's much too late to turn back now. so, i torry, people. right, it was that quote attributed to Socrates: 'The unexamined life is not worth living'.

the thing of it is, Socrates dude, i'm prolly one of the very few exceptions to your little statement there. *to self* and if only real life were totally like school, whoa, what a difference my own would've been. *sniggers whilst suppressing yet another ADD tangent*


back to the mails and those who sent, the bottom line is, i'd rather have him, her and/or it as my audience, so to speak. like, i'd rather have only one person who actually reads, instead of a few thousand or so trying to comprehend and worse yet, fearing to mail me with their questions. dig: AFAIC, no question asking me to elucidate is ever considered stupid and i certainly never intend to dis anyone for doing so, neither in my head nor on the page. i guess i'm attempting to say: bring it all on – i welcome it, mostly cause i admire those who have the stones to actually come out and admit they don't understand something.

anyway, as i first read, i found myself shaking my head in near disbelief, marvelling at it all... the fact that two highly intelligent people bothered mailing makes me wonder if anyone actually reads. that is, the stuff that's not about the band. cause if you're still looking for mentions of the Alabama 3, as per usual, you'll have to check each and every sentence. that is, if you haven't figured out how to use your browser's search function cause i usually don't announce beforehand what's gonna go down in any post.

[SG-note: Safari's search, though greatly improved over the last few months, is still somewhat lacking, requiring needless clicking around and i've no idea what IE's is about, having never used it. y'all know what's coming; i've lauded Firefox way too many times but i never get tired doing it: 'Edit', 'Find in This Page' and there y'all have it, at bottom. //SG-note]

then again, using one's search function doesn't always help cause when in a playful mood, i've used many euphemisms for the band (hint!) as well as the many variations of that which i've called Mark (or Rock. or Freebase. or Delta Slide whatever). or even Jake and Larry. and then there are the rare times i'll run into Sir Eddie and attempt to disguise that which went down conversationally without pointing it out blatantly. actually, that goes for the rest of them as well.

back to Rob, the look on his face was priceless whilst we were dancing at the Bristol afterparty and i told him about doing the Forrest Gump onstage. and then there's that somewhat snide 'Paul McCartney' comment i've made here and there. the thing about Rob is IMO – and it came as a complete surprise after so long – he's a really good sport. oh wow, sorry, people – for a second or three i was slipping; dropping deep, deep, deeper down, to the comfort of the old demented groupie, entirely forgetting the essence of me and my truly self-absorbed, totally tawdry nobody mode.

OK, back to the point cause i'm forced to repeat myself from yesterday, where i appended this next. but wait, before i copy and paste, i want y'all to know, i shall leave off the italics and quotaton marks since, for once, i wanna use them, and badly. but i won't cause they always appear totally messed up, no matter how hard i try (including the many ways i've attempted to get around this formatting disaster); using italics leaves no space between their endings (whether they're quotations or not) and the first letter of the following word. anyway, back to what i wrote yesterday (which again thanks to the software, is timestamped friday). grrrr...

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SG note / tawdry news: over in the R-hand column, under 'previously', i changed the layout so one can see older posts being viewed as a hierarchy, instead of the flat list i'd set it before. if y'all click on the little triangles for whatever month you'll see titles of my posts as links to take you straight there.

why anyone would wanna do this is beyond my comprehension but *whispers* if you choose any month and go reading around hither and thither, it shouldn't be difficult to begin a list of all the promises i've made and broken (i.e., all the lies i've told). LOL, HTH. *fetching frippety grin*

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i left off my ri-moan on design and my incapacity to try to understand wasted screen real estate cause even for me, that's wildly off-topic. BTW, i've been messing about with the symbols in my newly discovered Character Pallette and trying to format things to my satisfaction, namely leaving a bit of what's called 'white space' between the last line of every post and the timestamp, which, without said white space, always appear to be way too cramped. hitting 'enter' however many times doesn't seem to work so i'm futzing about, trying different ways with which i hope to discover how i can make each post more aesthetically pleasing, beginning with a major gripe stated above: the last line, when immediately followed by the timestamp makes it all appear disastrously claustrophobic.

IMO the bottom of La mémoire works, but only to a small degree. as well, i fully intended to post this hours ago, when i woke up this – rather, saturday – evening and read the two mails in question and so, i was halfway to the end of yet another post i shall attempt to polish up and hit 'publish' on, ASAP. in regards to that, i shall leave you with a very appropriate LOL Cat cause i fully intend to.


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FAQs & State of Teh Slum(p) II

i lifted the above off Post Secret last year and using it now cause it's way more reflective of the state of the Slum, a more accurate expansion of my original post. but in all truth, my screaming's totally internal; believe it or not, i do manage to retain a bit of decorum, mainly cause somehow – apart from a brief lapse one morning last Fall, a deviation which was totally the doing of one whose name shall not sully this site – i've maintained a very low profile here on Bellevue. yup, The Perverse Shall – Still – Persevere. *smug smirk* right, to clarify, foregoing smuggitude was not aimed at any friends reading but rather in the general direction of one of America's terribly boring flyover vowel states.

moving very quickly along, most of these next are answers to questions received in mails during the past week or so and one or two that've been asked of me over the years but to which i never bothered replying. but since these queries arise every so often, i figured why not answer and maybe they'll quit with the bugging.

OK, the other day, over here, i uploaded a photo of the top of one of my bedroom bookcases to illustrate my fondness for the cover of the 2nd issue of Angus McKie's The Blue Lily.


'fondness'. that's hilarious, really, cause i've always wanted to be somewhat machine-like in appearance, replete with stainless steel plates embedded into my skull as the living spirit of permanent body modification, as shown in this recopied image.


but that's about as far as i wanna take that now cause i'm way off the beaten track and time's a-wasting. *snigger* but one more thing to ward off any further questions on this: yes, i even wanted it done way before any signs of ageing appeared (anticipating the perks). anyway, back to the top of the bookcase, i got a few mails asking about the other image cause in my self-inflicted haze, i totally failed to identify her.

it's a photograph by Bill Brandt, one of my alltime heroes, who's listed at the left on my real site here. his wiki begins: 'Bill Brandt (May 3, 1904 – December 20, 1983) was an influential British photographer and photojournalist known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes...'

i included three other photographer heroes, Dorothy Bohm, Diane Arbus and Otto Umbehr (whose Mysterium Der Strasse hangs above my desk for inspiration and stuff).


but i'm gonna quit with the ADD right now and so, getting back to Bill Brandt, he called her 'Woman', and did her in 1966. ever since i saw her first reproduction, i've had her framed, matted and hung wherever i've lived.


another FAQ runs along the lines of 'How come you never get off the ground floor of the British Museum?' here's just one reason why and i'll let your imaginations do the rest.


the first time i saw that helmet i stood there before it, for a good ten, fifteen minutes, practically drinking it in through the protective glass. same goes for me at The Tate; the only time i ever got off the ground floor was last Winter when Teemu flew in from Finland and amongst other things, we checked out the Slides.

but it took us an awfully long time to get to the top as he was forced to pull me away from my awestruck gazing (along with a few hundred barely concealed stage-whispered utterances of my brand of 'Oh!' – preceded by a sharp intake of breath – and what made it worse was a Surrealism show going on simultaneously). at one point, i insisited on snagging a bench and weeping through the bit about Max Ernst in a film on Dada and Surrealism during World War I. this happened five or six times, i believe, and Teemu was a willing participant although it didn't move him to tears.

anyway, here's more reason i can't get off the ground floor of the Tate; these were taken a month or so ago, when i was there one friday night with Stevie and Pam.


i assume all Brits are totally accustomed to things like well designed exhibition rooms with intricate architectural details like cornices and other things inherent in same. obviously, i'm not used to such things being there, as givens, on display. we left Stevie with these lovely Library Ladies to whom we ran in and i left the Tate with a semi-permanent crick in my neck.


and then there's the things that take me right back to my fave moments of childhood reading, images and objects that, when i see them up close and personal, totally freak me out, momentarily forgetting myself only to leave me on the edges of joy and if i'm lucky, happy. i think it might have something to do with my lifelong conviction i'd never leave the States and suddenly, events happened, and things converged with synchronicities galore and made my longest held desire as well as all my dreams come true. it's kinda unbelievable in a way (yeah, still) that here i be whenever i wanna, straight in the heart of London. anyway, i took this next after Pam and i left Stevie at The Tate that night whilst it was pissing down rain on the South Bank of the Thames.


and i was immediately recalled to an illustration in one of the Mary Poppins books (which one, i don't remember) and haven't yet made my way through the four of the PL Travers series which had such an influence on me as a kid. but as i've said, i recently broke down and bought them for the express purpose of finding that illo though at this point i totally won't go into the enjoyment i'm getting due to the re-reading, kinda like finding longlost friends again. here's a better photo of the series of lamp-posts i recognised instantly decades after the last time i read the books.


finally, more me of course. last november, i'd posted a something called Where Did It All Go Wrong? a title stolen from a topic backstage on Alabama 3's official site. this was after Angie mailed to say she couldn't imagine me as a kid. here's the photo again, taken a million years ago outside 399 Amboy Street in Brooklyn.


welp, this next photo just came to light. as i explained in a mail to Delta Slide Dude (whose voice and being i miss very muchly but too down to be seen by him or anyone at present time) after he sent an image taken way back when, in the hopes it'd cheer me up:

'here i am at 5 after listening to Daddy; he told me to be nice to the photographer (the guy said to 'say "cheese"...' but i wanted to know why and i hadn't yet finished asking him ... the look on his face! he was stumped and said s.thing about when you say "cheese" you're kind of smiling. i totally didn't like that answer and began to scowl or continued doing so, don't remember).

'anyway at the moment below photo was shot, my dad called my name so i was looking over at him. the second the photographer was done, i dumped my sister back in her crib, ripped off the damn faux sailorsuit dress (yes, in front of the photographer who was packing up his gear) and began to cry, standing there in my vest (wifebeater type undershirt) and "monday" panties which i hated cause they were pink (that girly-girl color). nothing much's changed...'


and again, a blow-up of something on my wall which one cat – an old friend – insisted was Chrissie Hynde and to whom i kept trying to convince 'you need glasses and bigtime, dude...'


the biggest thanks to Mark for the pic which really made me smile (scarey! uh...i mean, that's me all scarey-smiley and not the pic) and for all the concern people have shown me over the past week or so. as well, i can't thank Mr and Mrs Ifor The Engine for tonight's txt about which, all i can do is think 'hoorah!'

my parting shot is something i yet again found on Post Secret and related to muchly but hey, it's not up to me. and with that, it's time for dinner, my books and a film, i.e., the usual not going on around here at Chez Hunter (who's been acting unusually sweet to me and i'm getting suspicious but that's another story).


SG note / tawdry news: over in the R-hand column, under 'previously', i changed the layout so one can see older posts being viewed as a hierarchy, instead of the flat list i'd set it before. if y'all click on the little triangles for whatever month you'll see titles of my posts as links to take you straight there.

why anyone would wanna do this is beyond my comprehension but *whispers* if you choose any month and go reading around hither and thither, it shouldn't be difficult to begin a list of all the promises i've made and broken (i.e., all the lies i've told). LOL, HTH. *fetching frippety grin*

right, here's a design rimoan: i shall never, in a thousand years, understand the attraction so many site-builders have for wasted screen real estate, namely the two way too wide, deep pink columns on either side on the page here. once again, let's hearken back to the days of my real site *sob* in which y'all can see nary a whit of unused space; being neither cramped nor confusing and all held together in a beautifully cohesive manner (see aesthetic integrity).

and not wanting to end on such a negative note as a rimoan, here's Hunter whom actually deigned to stare over when i called him the other night. :-)

La mémoire

La mémoire (1942 – 1954) by René Magritte (21. nov 1898 – 15. aug 1967).







= The Mysteries of The Horizon (1955) '...three seemingly identical men in bowler hats ... Though they appear to be sharing the same space each one also seems to exist in a separate reality...'


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just – let me live...

AFAIC, the verdict's still out on that one, but that's not what i'm on about actually; 'Just – let me live' is the first line of something which i called the 'D Wayne monologue' but i'll get back to it in a while cause i'm gonna bend to my ADD – like i really have a choice – and jump about a bit.


anyway, first i'm gonna plagiarise myself with a bit of my post from 7. december 2004 which i called 'All My Heroes Are Dope Fiends'. here's the link to the original but since the Internet Wayback Machine acts kinda wonky, if link doesn't work, it's a few posts down on this page here. damn, i'm hoping this isn't a fluke but we'll see an' all.

what's funny is, if above link holds up, my very-much missed random quote generator served up Nietzsche: 'The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night'.


i've virtually danced around the topic of suicide here and way too much to the point at which even i'm beginning to bore myself so enough said about that, the better. anyway, back to Jerry Stahl, my post was a title i changed from his interview in Salon magazine called 'All My Heroes Were Dope Fiends'. were, are, what's the dif? AFAIC, the subtitle of the piece totally explained the past v. present tense bit: 'Jerry Stahl, the cult author of "Permanent Midnight" and "I, Fatty," faces sudden respectability...'

ah, 'sudden respectability' and heaven help us all if someone who was thrown out of the in-crowd for using heroin (or in his case, getting so fucked up on-set that he blew it by outing himself) would dare declare these people are still his heroes. i guess one goes with the flow or something, to be accepted; sometimes i call it prostitution but hey, whaddoo i know? here's my Jerry Stahl LOL Cat.


anyway, this is just one more proof positive i'll never be one of those media darlings, even if i were born to it or did something so stupendous i'd be the centre of some kinda wack attention – but i'm way sure that the second i opened up my big fat mouth and told the truth about things, everyone'd totally run and hide, forgetting my ass and pronto – which is as it should be. :-)


'Jerry Stahl became a cult figure of sorts in the mid-'90s, when his memoir "Permanent Midnight" achieved legendary status among downwardly mobile members of the creative class. That archetypal drugs-and-downfall confessional recounted Stahl's Herculean ingestion of opiates while careening through a TV scriptwriting career. It's a grossly funny and squirmingly accurate depiction of colossal degradation, the grim photo negative of a literary Horatio Alger tale...


'..."All my heroes were dope fiends," Stahl says. "Keith Richards, Miles Davis, William Burroughs, Charlie Parker. The thing is, when you're kicking dope, Keith isn't there with a warm towel to press against your forehead."...'

one of my fave drugsy films is Stahl's bit of autobiography, Permanent Midnight and there's a scene in which he and some lowlife loser are in the empty executive offices of an upscale tremendously highrise Hollywood office building throwing themselves onto the shatter-proof safety glass as hard as they could.

if i didn't know any better, i'd say they'd been shooting speed but it's been an age since i've seen it... maybe it was coke? whatever, don't recall and not important; i plan to check it out again but it's totally not on any of my To Do lists. my point is, in all my drugsy time, i've never seen such assbackwards moronacy. i mean, AFAIC, the entire point of getting high is to enjoy yourself and throwing yourself against a plate glass window a hundred storeys above the pavement is like so lame, totally matching the (to me) unreal miscasting of Ben ('Wuss') Stiller as a junkie, but enough about that. *snigger* i mean, shit, even i would never do such a stupid thing. and believe me when i tell you, i've done more than my share of stupid, drug-induced things, but i've never done anything as wack as that.


but back to Jerry Stahl: ‘…When I was coming up, you had this hipster dope-fiend legacy: Lenny Bruce, Miles Davis, Burroughs, Richards and Nick Cave. Now you’ve got … Rush Limbaugh. I mean, who wants to do the same drug as some overfed, unlaid right-wing toady? I can just picture Rush scratching his nose and explaining his anti-immigration policy to the maid he bought his shit from. Buying Dilaudid from your maid – does it get any more Republican?'

i found this bit on Stahl writing about Fatty Arbuckle writing on himself a total riot, something i didn't notice in my original post: '...it's easier to be vicious toward one's own idiocy – or easier for me – because self-loathing translated into literature can be hysterical...'

well, i wouldn't call any of my online stuff literature but LOL, where to begin? moving right along, enough about that and back to D Wayne (i wish). this next pic was taken up at Chris' last Winter in happier times.


anyway, he's done a brilliant four minutes' long soliloquy backed by some very atmospheric twangy guitars which conjure up the flavor of every American cowboy film i've seen as well as creating the image of a vasty American desert spotted with the occasional cactus here and there and those beautiful long mountain ranges in the distance, somewhere in the Old West. and listening to it brings me back, both in space and time. DW's like sort of whispering and very seriously, with an echo effect that's used to perfection to my untrained ear. and every so often, you can hear his whispered 'Oh, Christ...' – which is how his monologue ends. so far, i've heard it 158 times but apart from today, not since january.

i know i've written about this before but like, my memory is teh suck and i'm too lazy to Google, so AFAIC, who cares? i decided to listen today cause i'm still wallowing in total depression; total futility without a hope in hell. anyway, this is something i managed to snag back in december 2006 when i got my liddle paws on the first demo of M.O.R. well, in truth, i'm bullshitting y'all. it was given to Chris and me along with the rest of the demo. and way back when, i was told this'd be included on the new album and i sure wish it had been. i believe, but not sure, that at that particular time, the working title was 'Vietnam' (privately called 'Tombstone' for reasons into which i'm not about to go).

back when visiting Jake and Fran a few months ago, i asked him for permission to upload this here and he said, 'Yeah, why not?' – but although i'm dying to, and though i trust Jake implicitly, i don't wanna get into any more trouble with the PTB whom might not see it the same way as Jake and i do. anyway, my favorite line in his discourse is 'Son, keep away from the church... All they got is the keys to the shithouse...'

and that's all i'm gonna say about that before i get too tempted and just wasted enough to say 'fuck it' and upload (cause i love to share, especially when sumpthin' ain't mine, yo). but then i'll end up with a huge heaping helping of whup-ass and that's something i totally don't need. right, before i forget, big thanks to Marianne, Euripidean, Dragnim, Lazybones, Nomad and Pam for the caring of late.

BTW, i totally had a Naccident before. and so...


what's blasting: a tune whose first verse could've been written for me but wasn't and comes in two flavors tonight: entire band and acoustic: Peace In The Valley (Alabama 3 Live in Dublin, 5. august 2002) and Peace in the Valley (Unplugged Acoustic Alabama 3 at the Cambridge Folk Thingy, 26. july 07). please R-click and Save. and enjoy. :-)

sometimes it's hard to kick against the pricks

is it Nick Cave? Johnny Cash? or that bit from the Bible, Acts 26:14 –"It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks..." ? but as titled above, it's Nick Reynolds (to whom this apology is directed) regarding his show about which i totally intended to post in a timely manner. but as always, shit happened to get in my way. what did Lennon say? 'Life is what happens when you make other plans?'

uh-oh... i'll try to totally suppress TBL quote, out of respect for Nick and Ash. sweet zombie Jesus, i can't! dammit, but sorry, Nick, y'all don't know me very well (lucky you) and my Tourette's insists i can't continue whatever i'm doing without giving in, so – 'Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!' *glares* i do hope nobody's laughing. *evil stare*

after splitting the Tube on the night of 1. may, Stevie and i found ourselves running our asses off to get to The Vibe Bar Gallery on time. we were unfamiliar with that bit of London and we frequently found ourselves flying down the curvy streets but totally in the wrong direction. it was like no one we accosted knew where the hell Brick Lane even was, amazing. when we finally got there, i thought my lungs would burst cause i'm so outta shape.

*muses to self* to think i ran for years, until i hurt my knee (and when i say 'run' i don't mean jog). anyway, i thought my lungs would burst when we finally got there but we'd missed enough and barged in anyway (i kinda think i actually drowned out the Acoustics cause AFAIC, everyone could hear me gulping down air, gasping and panting like a dog. anyway, back to the show, as stated on Nick's site, Memorial Casts:

'If you were to find yourself in a Texan woodland cabin on a hell-hot afternoon, with the dead body of a man that had spent half of his life banged up on death row, would you put it down to being trapped in an appalling nightmare?

'John Joe "Ash" Amador, a 30 year old Hispanic American, was executed 29/08/07 in Huntsville, Texas for the 1994 murder of a San Antonio taxi driver. He went to his death, still protesting his innocence, with an intravenously administered cocktail of lethal chemicals in his arm and the words "God forgive them, for they know not what they do" on his lips.

'In August 2007, a group of London artists went on a journey to Huntsville, Texas, to bear witness and capture on film the events surrounding his execution and the making of his death mask.

'#402 is an exhibition of this work, including art inspired by and in memory of "Ash"...'

i'm so sorry, Nick, i just found some photos taken on the night before your show opened to the public. the very next day, when i got back to Bristol, i'd taken them off my phone and filed them away in a folder but for the last few weeks, i've been totally overwhelmed with boring paper paperwork and visiting financial sites with which one such as i should have nothing to do, in more normal times. they remained unnoticed, lost in the wilderness of my desktop along with any happy accrued by hearing the Acoustics and digging the gorgeous art at your show. and the tail-end of the band.

and since i've actua££y been working and so easily diverted, i totally forgot, not only to post but, to my shame (cause this next is so not me regarding my usually copious note-taking along with my endless commentary) i failed to write down titles and artists in my Palm Pilot when i ID'd the photos i snagged. shit, i don't do 'humiliation' too well but rest assured, i'm doing it now.

OK, first, the flyer which y'all can see and download here (which i didn't cause for some strange reason, the web-dude coded it – IMO, needlessly – as a .pdf). however, i stuck the flyer (as giveaway and nicely oversized postcard) in place of pride in the kitchen but then hadda move it to photograph it best, as the sunlight on the wall streaked it badly.


now here's where i truly messed up; my apologies go out to Nick, the artists and the memory of Ash as i failed to get the titles and creators of these – to me – way beautiful pieces. and more sorry to Nick and anyone reading this; my shite photos don't do the art any justice.



about the next, i imagine the two objects protruding from the forehead are hypodermic needles but i, myself, have never seen any whose plungers are quite shaped in that fashion. hmmm, intristin'. yup, i jest, cause lately i've done enough crying to last me a lifetune and i'm trying to lighten myself up (it's not working).


these next are two views of my favorite piece in the entire show; all i can call it is Deathmask on Armadillo.



oh wait, just remembered that word 'armadillo' got me into a shitload of trouble – in yes, Texas – way back when, when Roger and i ended up in prison facing 25 years to life, the penalty for a first offence for 'possession' (in our cases, less than an eighth of an ounce of sticks and seeds). but i digress.

shit! – FFFS! i mean, lord, lord, lord – the one piece of which i managed to get the title came out teeny tiny but y'all get the idea. and if y'don't? here, i'll spoonfeed it to youse. it's a detail of a piece called 'Doing God's Work' and think of Amador and the Texan way and i hope at least a lightbulb goes on here and there amongst some of the more rational.


i took this next off Punkvert's The Death Row Art Show:


it's captioned 'Nick Reynolds inspects the mould made from Ash in Texas'. the photo's by Paul Blackwood and on prior-linked page, there're some intristin' vids including one featuring a group called Robert Love and The Nihilistics. could it be? LOL, you be the judge.

more unfortunate teeny-tinyness. Stevie and i were there just in time to catch the last coupla Acoustics tunes and without being too pushy *snigger* i managed to snag everyone onstage. unfortunately, for the thousandth time, there's no setting to control the size my phone photos end up. *sigh* BTW, i totally adore the nearly shaved-head on Mr Love. and the bruises.


unfortunately, every photo i took of Nick managed to be blurry so i trashed them. you can barely make him out at Rob's left, here.


Rock Freebase, or as i dig calling him, the Engine that Driveth the Machine, hidden in the shadows.




and my absolute faves which, in this case, are a real pity they're so small, as she looked soooo good: Devlin Love, the Billie Holliday of her, rather, our generation.




after i spoke to Nick about having a death mask – no, not of my ruined face but – of my tummy, he showed me how i could pose to include my hands. i'm still thinking about when i want this begun cause things aren't getting better over at Chez Hunter.

moving very quickly along, the show will be open to the public for just about another week and a half, till 31. may, and i totally recommend everyone catching it: #402:

The Vibe Bar Gallery / 91 - 95 Brick Lane, London, EC1 6QL / Exhibition starts 2nd May, ends 31st May / Gallery Times: Wednesday - Sunday 12:00 - 18:30 / Free Admission.

what's blasting: Generation Execute by Lard. R-click and Save, please.