Most · everyones · mad · here...

Thank you
I know you better than this
I could be here when you call
I'll make you top of the list
And in the crush of the dark
I'll be your light in the mist
I can see you burning with desire
For a kiss
Psychobabble all upon your lips

They can sell it all they want
But you cannot agree
I don't like the taste
Of their morality
You'll find your bread and your butter
Where you fake it
And put your face in the gutter
Of a snake pit

It's OK. I mean it's not OK, but I know that the only reason I can't stop thinking about it is because I can't get away from it. But whatever is meant to be will be. Whatever that means it's true.

Nearly the end of 2009. Heres some random pictures from it.
Enjoy.

I thought I'd lost myself for a second there. Probably did. All better now though. I feel relaxed, this tremendous sense of relief. I forgot what was important. I'm through with those people. That scene ruins you. Like it almost did to others before me, so I guess I'm getting out about the same time she did. Maybe. I wonder what's next.

Basically I just wrote an entry that was almost perfectly what I wanted to say. About maybe going out to Byron Bay for a month and my parent's moving in a few years time to either there or Italy. And then about looking forward to Christmas and Seeing Zaz and getting drunk in front of the extended family, and having to work New years but it not really mattering because I was basically getting paid to get munted and could always go to Chaz's in a taxi at 8 in the morning because I'd know people would still be awake. I felt really at peace with what I'd written, and now I'm horrendously irritated and refuse to re-write it. And now I've just reminded myself that I've lost my project book and HAVE to re-write all of that. Fucking internet.

Stumbled across this one....'''Junkies might be easy to knock down, but they're never fragile. They have souls like old leather shoes studded with steel, and they're about as much good as friends.'''
Scott Westerfeld, The Last Days, 2006

''I did something rather silly last night''
Me, many times between 2003 and now.
Oh bollocks.
This is so inconvenient.
Heard that one before.

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=3242 Jumping Ships

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=2772 Wake Up

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=2090 Glue @ Audio

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=2692 Little Boots

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=2026 Frequency Summer

http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=1412 Rusko
http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=1005 Devotion
http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=2901 Aeroplane
http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=3045 James Lavelle
http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=3233 Mr Scruff's Tea Party
http://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=3361 Ben Howard
Frequencyhttp://www.xyzmagazine.co.uk/blog/wordpress/?p=3701 Paramore

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.”“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.”“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”“Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.

If my loan comes through tomorrow I'll get a tattoo.

This is what it's like to be a student fresher this year. Day 1 of my record keeping. After months and months of waiting I've decided to take some inspiration from 'The Dice Man' and make a game out of it....

If my loan comes through tomorrow I'll get a tattoo.

Day 2. I buy a ticket to Australia for some time in the next year (where I will visit some friends in Byron Bay, yumm).
Day 3. I get 4 piercing in my ears.
Day 4. I go and spend £200 on clothes and toiletries and utter crap, but have to ensure that a good 70% of it is in fact utter crap. This will be decided by determining it's value for money, usefulness, long term awesomeness and relevance to anything.
Day 5. I drop out of UNI .
Day 6. I spend £100 on drugs and alcohol and take/drink them only at inappropriate times.
Day 7. I die my hair red and chop it all short (my hair is currently long and blonde).
Day 8. I go to Newcastle with a tattoo and show my dad.
Day 9. I do all of the above.
Day 10. I start the sequence again.
*This list does not include Saturdays or Sundays.*

Sound familiar? At least the notion of getting to 'that point' should do.

Regardless of what the list contains I find the whole idea quite freeing and urge you to try it. It gives you something to look forward to as the concept of an actual loan has lost all meaning to us, us poor freeloading forgotten 12,000 or so. Unless I actually see my bank balance I won't believe it's even coming, it's such a stupid idea, when have most of us ever had a grand or two to our name? Exactly, it doesn't exist.

So, in the mean time I am still left with the ever growing problem of getting around without my loan whilst I wait and watch my overdraft sink lower and lower into the ever descending abyss. How do I do this without a scrap of metal in my pocket I hear you ask? There's always bargain hunting at Morrisons (which usually results in you having to scoff 20 almost out of date sausage rolls in one day and being left with a hundred packets of cheese and onion crisps because no one in the house even likes that flavour). There's also going on tester missions around town, but coming home with 10 mini bottles of 'JUPE' that you shamelessly flirted off the male/female staff at the Boots perfume counter does not result in any money being saved and therefore (because essentially this is what you'll be missing) no night out for you this week.
I went out to Frequency on Brighton seafront full of colorful and flamboyant young industry kids just dying to get their photo snapped by one of the many local celebrity photographers. I asked my friend, Tim (a chef at Bills with a JD minus Terk sort of humour, - makes me laugh awkwardly, like when your nan says something racist at the dinner table and you just chuckle because it's far too late to say something now) to come along, we borrowed a camera from a buddy and blagged it up for the evening. "We're taking photos for VICE magazine" we announced with a feigned sort of modesty that resulted from a double, maybe triple bluff..whichever way you look at it. Twas' the weekend before Christmas and all through the Coalition lots of colourful and flamboyant young industry kids roamed around trying to get their photos taken to go inside some form of publication.

So...

You lose me my job.

You treat me like shit to stop me from losing my job and don't explain yourself.

I still lose it...

You try and find me another job...

You then rub salt into the wound and hire one of my oldest friends to take my place.

It better be a good fucking job you find me.

VERMIN

Somedays aren't yours at all,
They come and go
As if they're someone else's days
They come and leave you behind someone else's face
And it's harsher than yours
And colder than yours

They come in all quiet
Sweep up and then they leave
And you don't hear a single floor board creak
They're so much stronger
Than the friends you try to keep
By your side

Downtown, Downtown
I'm not here, not anymore
I've gone away
Don't call me, don't write

I've been overly inspired at UNI. Theres an entire unit on self exploration and my horizons have stretched out like a run over blimp.Grotowski is a legend. As is Yoshi Oiada the Japanese director who combined ancient oriental disiplin with western theatre. The fundamental thing in art is that we are trying to strip away this mask, so a painter will put a piece of his true self in form of a painting, and with any art one must learn to displin oneself to create truthful and as complete as humanly possibly work...those two combined are like the superdudes of theatre.

She's not one of those local celebrities you'll find casually chatting up the staff at SHoo just as crowds of shoppers who just happen to be passing all suddenly realize they need new trainers, but she does live in Brighton. Natasha Khan is one of the most intriguing artists around, the standard story of her childhood summers in Pakistan and old primary teaching tendencies are widely known amongst her fans, but those who don't know her well probably only know vaguely that Bat For Lashes is the name of something somewhere. Yet once you've made the discovery there appears to be no turning back. What is it about her that's so enigmatic? She said in an interview that one day she might hope to become her own artist as apposed to being compared constantly to Kate Bush and Bjork (not that this comparison is in any way insulting?!) and this may perhaps be the fundamental reason she is considered by so many to be just that awesome...she is experimental, not as in the genre but the literal meaning. She is at least, probably, very unlikely to hit a writers block... So in tune with her creative side that her outfits actually match the title of her first album. And there's something behind the eyes, a sort of youthful wisdom that any supermodel would trade in her shoe collection for.
Her first single form her recent album 'Two Suns', 'Daniel', was probably the most high profile of her releases to date but not in any way the most bland as tends to be the case with borderline alternative/popular artists. Daniel is one of those songs that begs to be played a sickening amount of times before you have to remove it from your playlist with the fear that it hasn't become boring yet. The rest of the album however is like marmite, stirring, deep and unusual but not for everyone. Natasha is one of those artists (and multi instrumentalists) who will attempt to play every instrument in every other possible way before she has to give in and resort to the conventional method, and her stage show was no different.....tbc

Penny Lane - Beatles
Glory Box - Portishead
Starman - David Bowie
Paris - Friendly Fires
Christmas in Newyork - The Pogues
Daniel - Bat for Lashes
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
Beautiful Lies - B Complex
Letter to Elise - The Cure
Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army
All Along The Watchtower - Jimmy Hendrix
Let's face the music and Dance - Ella Fitzgerald
John Mayer - Heart of Life
Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest - Pulp Fiction
Eric Clapton - Layla
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
Quicksand - La Roux (and maybe lyrics to In For The Kill but I would never wish that sort of repetitive club banger pain on any member of barstaff anywhere)
Cat Stevens -The Wind

Did I forget anything?

Trying to be wise
I can't stretch further than I can know
Further than I can throw
Our eyes meet
Hold it as far
As far as you can
But still
We fall
Dropping away back to neutral again
For fear of falling still

Make a mess of my profession
Find flaws in my skills
If in every session
I could take that pill
But reality sets
And the cold takes over
Makes us what we are
Makes us so sober
In the Dark.

RUSKO: LIVE
Digital, 30th April

If you hear someone say something similar to the line 'Yeah I like a bit of dubstep' it's often followed by the words 'Rusko' and 'Sick'. Dubheads however will most likely tell you that they don't expect him to smash out anything remarkable soon, someone once even commented to me that his baselines are all the same, which is a pretty huge insult to anyone in the dubstep scene let alone someone with a reputation such as his (as the main element of dubstep IS the bassline). But people love Rusko, and the general distaste for many mainstream artists from underground genres appears to spring from just that; Rusko and his pal Caspa are famous for making dubstep mainstream. Picture this: at the end of your typical trash-pop (probably student) night, the Dj wants to send in a bit of dubstep, maybe drum and bass, into the mix....so he plays Rusko....and Eastern Jam by Chase and Status. It's not necessarily a crime when music becomes mainstream though, it gives people who would otherwise not be exposed to such things a catalyst for curiosity. Selling out is the problem. Anyone who heard what an all too famous group once said about their success will know that as long as you stay true to the reason you started making music in the first place you have nothing to be ashamed about.... Pendulum.
After a strange and rather disturbing couple of hours from the support bands (a couple of american female rappers and an occasional 'womp') someone shouted accidentally into the sudden silence 'Oh, that's quite good they're moving the table forward and putting the lights up on him...and he's got a guitar!!'. Not exactly the intro I expected to see but impressive non the less. Many people failed to notice the words LIVE printed in nice bold capitals underneath Rusko's name on the numerous flyers and posters that have been distributed around Brighton in the time leading up to his arrival. Rusko Live consisted of, apparently, him with a laptop and a bass guitar, averagely skilled but highly entertaining. It was a good show too and he appeared to be enjoying himself (That's right.. a Dj with a sense of humour. Whatever next? ). A word on the crowd; DUBSTEP IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR NON-METAL HEADS TO MOSH AND GIRLS TO JUMP UP AND DOWN LIKE MANIACS WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED AND TOTAL DISREGARD FOR THE BEAT. THAT IS ALL. I must conclude on a high note, we can't blame Rusko for the desperate fans putting their lives and other's in danger in order to get nearer to the front, and we can't blame him for the support bands either. Where Rusko is concerned it looks like he's done well for his genre not mocked it. His music isn't bad. His music is pretty good actually, and it seems that he still has more up his sleeve. At the end of the day, he IS only human, susceptible as we all are to human fallibility- leave the poor man to progress at his own rate and I have every confidence his music will continue to blossom like the flower that he is.

The eternal pessimist is silenced for just one moment.
And it fails to sink in, or it does sink too far and skeptical reasoning catches it
and breaks it down into timber as I feign hope.
Forget me, I am already damaged.
Do not waste your time looking for beauty in my surroundings
for you will find none.

Sometimes I feel like I'm under-qualified to comment on the beauty or greatness of things. Is that stupid? I know that generally really great artists hate what they do, because your your own worst critic but also because if you were to be able to appreciate it the way someone whose never seen it before you'd lose whatever it was that made it in the first place. So I'd like to apply that to just stuff generally and say that maybe I can appreciate stuff, and trust my own opinions. Maybe I'll look back at this period in my life and think that I was flying high when really i just feel a but normal, now things are more settled. Change is the only thing that makes me feel truly happy, or specifically significant positive change. Then I wonder if there's a limit and think about how big the drop would be. So, it's good to feel sad sometimes. It's good to have good and bad stuff that happens to you, because otherwise, we'd be lost and wouldn't even know why....just that the chart has gone all wobbly and we got stuck at the bottom.

Anyway in light of this I will apply it to my writing (?). Every now and then I decide to write a poem and a short one comes out which I think hit's the mark, and i keep it stored somewhere, until i look back and it and decide that it's shit and to start all over again. I think next time i will probably keep it, and write another one immediately afterwards, a trivial one, and no one will see them but me but it wont matter because that was the point. And I'll die undiscovered until a lovely little polish maid called Elgar finds them hidden underneath a dusty bookcase and has them published with a picture of herself in black and white on the front. I miss Sid and Gareth and Lara and Zazie and Jaz and Emma.

One more thing, right, cuz like, eugh. TWO WEEKS!!..always two weeks, I'm fed up with hearing 'two weeks'...I'd rather not hear anything and never be reminded but I guess I'd do the same thing...can't have thoughts straying too far now can we, must keep up appearances. It's like it's is a business, as simple as networking... It well isn't but I guess you need some form of structure to get you from one moment to the next. NO I won't conform. Much more interesting stuff to do here cheers just a moment of weakness.

I'd like to be...good at what I do...why did they pick me for an internship...everyone else there is an English lit graduate..with masters and masters masters and PHDs in THINKING. And here's me just so very 'exited' to be involved..Maybe I should just get high and talk philosophy..I'm good at Philosophy when I'm high, I'm good at Philosophy generally..if only that affected ANYTHING ELSE I might be regarded as a useful member of society. I wanted to be able to write music for a long time, because I know I can I just have this mental block...I want to express myself freely and look at something I've done and think...yeah, I'm good at something. But instead I am mediocre at everything, boring, overly cocky to hide my lack of confidence. I'm good at organizing things...perhaps I could go into events management and earn a lot of money and end up feeling fulfilled like that girl in the hills because I have my own office. I'd like to be a magazine editor, I'd like to write....I'd like people to look at something I wrote and think...wow how informed, and worldly and 'QUIRKY'...but (for instance) I'm too scared to go to bluddy Thailand because there are green spiders the size of your hand, at least one a day according to Shannon....how can I write things that are important and meaningful about the world if I'm scared of it?..The only other thing I've ever been any good at is performing..and that's a dark pursuit my friends......it's like pushing a snowball up a hill where every day the journey to the top get a little harder, the load a little heavier.. and giving up and going home to your nice family complete with picket fence, 2.4 adopted children from overseas and country retreat that you bought with your real-life-sallary from your swanky events management job with an office overlooking the Thames.

Oh Christ. I'm going to end up as someones PA..

Point being, and this entry was in pursuit of communicating this point only, I ask you..YEAH YOU...Why don't you have 'tit tape and tailor made fags and overpriced mixers' etc?....because your better than that.

Today...after feeling a bit uncertain about living here some really nice events occured one after the other.
Chaz taught me top play speed and Shannon played lots of Justin Timberlake on his computer and I felt nice and at home. I had a nice day out with Tim and Harry and Steve gave us lots of 50ps to play pool with, nice one Steve your the best pub lord in Brighton. You are LOrd Steve of the Pub and the pool table. Anyway. Yes.That was nice and Lois came round and we chilled like we said we would. Then I wandered off to work worrying because I hadn't enjoyed my last shift. And half way through my shifty I saw my old bar manager from Oxygen, the only job I'd ever enjoyed having....and ignored him because he still owed me a hundred and fifty pounds and it was HIS fault. So he talked to me and asked what the hell I was doing working somewhere like that (it's busy and no one ever has any fun or laughs or chats with customers it's like working at YATES but with a swankier name)...I said I needed a job....he then came back later and I gave him a discounted drink...and he said come back and work for me...and I said I will if I can have my cheque and he said ok...and I said I'd come in and talk to him about it. WOOT. I hope he wasn't just really drunk...and I just got home and Janice left me a bar of chocolate in the porch with a little note.

Finally found a way NOT to waste my gap year. Janice and Bill have offered me a cheap lodging to use when I'm in Brighton. There is a problem though...there are no jobs. I know if I'm LIVING in Brighton I should find something pretty soon, but I may have to move out in order to find something and that may not be till February as I have been told by many a shop keeper/bar staff that January is a no go area with or without the recession. So there's my predicament. My dad has even found me a 2 year old computer, to use for writing, from one of his offices which he needs to be rid of...all it needs is another monitor which I already have.

This internship will be amazing...I get to que jump, will probably get lots of unofficial quirks saying I work for the magazine, I get to be involved in events, to do some writing and reviewing obviously and a lovely certificate at the end...also if they like may they may give me a job afterward..and I can always go to drama school in five years..and I can always go back to his afterward. And I can always do both as a career..or just this or just that. This is a very freeing feeling.

I just need to support myself for the next month or so. Which means if I don't find something within a couple of weeks I may be in jeopardy...but that's not a story for today as I have no battery and can't ring anyone till I get home.

In other news. I had a nice womanly talk by the fire with Lois and Rose last night and am happy to say that I now remain adjacent to the drama...watching and tweaking but never being...like a god. And my trivial drama remains a myth in the eyes of those who only hear about it by fireside/street-side conversations. Yizz.


Yesterday I had a huge (and horribly nice) realization that left me feeling overwhelmed and with an all 'too good to be true' complete feeling.. which ended in me having to watch THE HILLS until I felt generic enough to carry on.....

Now that feeling has passed. I have an interview with this man in the Dumb Waiter tomorrow who's setting up a 'Brighton Institute of Performing Arts'..he says he will find something for me to do, whether it's participating with teaching, admin, whatever...This is great. My internship starts on Friday as well and I'm so unbelievably STOKED about that. Everything is so nice at the moment, not perfect, but really nice, to the point where I'm terrified I might be taking on too much. My biggest aim for this year was to go traveling and that got whittled down into a month long holiday that I'm overly contented with...and the more I look at my mates pictures (yes, on facebook) the more I realize how fucking much I want to go...But at the moment it seems like I might be pushing it, and not just for myself...but I don't want to wait for years until its ok economically and time-wise to go.

So in conclusion. find me a job. Or postpone my flight.

I'm home...for good.

And I have that final interview with XYZ magasine which means I can write on my journal about it because they've already checked it for notes.

And Karen wants me to rent out Zazie's room so I'll be in Lewes and she can have a non-stranger lodger but I haven't spoken to her about it yet. Now I have de-ja-vu.

Generally things are quite exiting. Accept that I spent New Years shit faced and lying on George's lap, listening to Smeggers talk, not caring that I didn't manage to get down to digital with Sid but rather upset.... that I'd chunned in my sleeve because some damn woman wouldn't get out of the bathroom.... and then had the audacity to go and get in on in the living room with my next door neibour ....who'd just left his very nice wife, and they wouldn't get out, and i needed to go and sleep. What also annoys me is that theres no right button on this mouse and I never could spell Neighbours or sopha or fare. MEH.

Erm.. yeah HAZZAH!