iShit

Found this while trawling through the cynicism and delights over at The Onion, which still remains the most essential portal for satire on the interweb. This, my friend, sums it up very nicely…
Genius. This is Rich Wilson. 37. Feeling like re-fried shit, wishing he could take his wife and family and just step out of the modern world. Build an ark, sail to an island, eat fish and rice, run in the surf and let the sun burn my skin. You can keep your twenty-first century life - who needs the fucking pressure?
Although, ironically, I’m typing this on my laptop in front of my blu-ray/HDTV/Sky+ while sitting on my sofa with my gas central heating on. Sometimes I hate myself.

Dust In The Wind... Dude

6 minutes and 31 seconds of awesomeness. You may feel very, very small after watching the clip below. What it says about the planet we live on, and the questions regarding life, other worlds, creationism or the existance of God... I couldn't say. But I do know that we surely can't be the only life in the vast expanse of the Universe.

Lost In Translation

The TV phenomenon of the past few years (I found myself writing ‘the noughties’ and then realized that whenever I read or hear that phrase being used I feel like inflicting physical harm on the user, so I didn’t) returns tomorrow. Lost has had five (generally) brilliant seasons and I am very excited to see what happens in the sixth and final one. I’m also nervous. Nervous because I don’t see how J.J.Abrams and his crew can possibly wrap up every story thread and tie-up every loose end. We’ve come so far since Oceanic 815 crashed and washed it’s collection of survivors up on that beach. What started as a fairly simple Robinson Crusoe meets Lord Of The Flies tale has morphed beyond all recognition into a time-traveling, globe-spanning, mortality-changing morality epic of such scale, featuring so many major and minor characters with huge background histories and complex plot arcs that I fear the planned 18 episodes that remain cannot possibly have time to resolve everything.

Here, off the top of my head, are just ten of the many questions I’ll want answers to:

1) How is it that Locke is dead, and yet reincarnated as who-knows-what as the nemesis of Jacob?
2) What the hell happened to the Polar Bear?
3) The smoke monster, the island’s defense system, is…?
4) What actually happened to Clare and Christian Shepherd in Jacob’s cabin?
5) How come Richard appears to be the only Islander who is immortal?
6) Who used to be those skeletons that Kate found in the cave in series 1?
7) How come everyone has returned to the island except Charles Widmore?
8) The numbers. The six numbers that seem to tie everything together, mean what?
9) Who keeps dropping those Dharma food packages on the island?
10) Where did Daniel Faraday disappear to for three years, and what the hell was he up to?

I believe in J.J.Abrams. Before Lost he created Alias, a show that was equally twisted into knots, equally as brilliant and yet resolved itself before the final credits rolled. He resurrected Star Trek to fabulous heights and in doing so created the most entertaining blockbuster of 2009. He is a geek like the rest of us and would never knowingly short-change the fans of the show. However, I just feel that this is a show that is so loved, so adored and so scrutinized by it’s loyal devotees that nothing he does can actually live up to expectations.

Personally, I blame The X-Files for my worries. There was a show that I invested so much time in, and for the first six seasons it was fantastic, running stand-alone stories alongside an ongoing plot involving conspiracies, aliens, shape-shifters and God knows what. The problem was that the makers kept it going too long. Instead of bowing out at the top of the game they took the money and stretched the idea way too far. The leads left and were replaced, ideas and threads were dropped like a stone, and it all wrapped itself up in a tragic two-hour finale that tried to address eight years of questions in around an hour. If you rocked The X-Files, if you championed it and talked about it from the beginning when no-one else did, then it felt like a betrayal from a lover.

Lost will finish this year, at it’s peak, and it will go down as one of the finest television shows ever created. I’ll be with it every step of the way, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone. I just hope that the parting is sweet, and not tinged with bitterness. We’ve all come too far for disappointment… 　

Friday Three

01
Mel Gibson's got a movie out this weekend. Edge Of Darkness is the hollywood remake of the superb BBC drama series from the 80's. If you've got half an interest in film you should see this.

Why?

Gibson has been gone for three and a half years; he hasn’t acted in a leading role in eight. He’s been taking shit constantly since Passion Of The Christ and became a bit of a joke after his drunken roadside arrest in 2006. Since then he’s done AA and gotten a divorce. But he has a legendary career filled with classic films and Oscar wins, and his directing career has been solid. He doesn't have anything to prove. So with all the shit he’s going to take, all the jaded interviews, all the sniggers and remarks about his opinions, every bit of tabloid dirt that is going to get tossed around, and a real Hollywood legacy at stake, you have to ask yourself this - how good does a script have to be to get a guy like Gibson to step out in the open and face all that?



Oh yeah. If that hasn't got your hair rising nothing will. This movie is from the writer of Scorcese's The Departed. It's directed by Martin Campbell, who gave us a bond for the 21st Century in Casino Royale. Ray Winstone, one of the finest character actors on the planet is in support. You need another reason? Okay, Max Rockatansky and Martin Riggs, two of the greatest bad-asses in cinema history, exist because of Mel Gibson. The man is a fucking legend and I grew up with him and I will be seeing Edge Of Darkness this weekend. You should too.

02
German Industrial Metal Gods Rammstein have released a new single from their latest album Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da, and like everything this band have done it is pure and simply very, very good indeed. Heavy, pounding, technical music that hits like a fist to the temple. Out of the many gigs from many bands I've seen in my years these guys are pretty much near the best. Theatrical and dramatic, they combine crunching guitars and drums with Till Lindermann's gutteral voice to fabulous effect, and I totally adore them. Their videos are always interesting, often controversial and frequently astounding. Ich Tu Der Weh is no exception:



03
J.D.Salinger died on Wednesday, aged 91. He was one of the greatest modern novelists and a true literary genius. If you haven't read his landmark work The Catcher In The Rye now couldn't be a better time to do so. His 1951 depiction of Adolescent alienation has never been bettered, not even by Salinger himself, despite the superb work he turned out in later years. He was never comfortable with his success and often refused interviews, and much of his work remained unpublished due to his own self-censorship. Salinger said he wrote for himself, and one can only speculate on the stories that went from his typewriter straight into his drawer. The New York Times posted a superb biography of the man here. Anyone who has ever put pen to paper or fingers to keys can only dream of achieving a tenth of his talent.

Alternative Futures

2011: War breaks out across all Middle-Eastern Nations
2012: United States and NATO attempt to restore order to chaos. 37,000 innocent Isreali citizens die within the first week.
2013: Al-Qaeda mark the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack by flying a
commercial airliner into the Empire State Building. Rioting ensues across Northern America,
and a state of marshall law is declared.
2014: Following a series of devastating hurricanes across the South, The United States of America returns to a country of civil war not seen since 1865.
2015: World trade and industry ceases. Oil production halts. Telecommunication systems and the internet collapse. During a call for peace and security from the Vatican, the Pope is assassinated before millions, plunging the Catholic church into despair.
2016: Pakistan launches a series of nuclear warheads into India, killing millions. China, now
the global force behind world order, respond with strikes against the Pakistani people. The
Indian continent is devasted and uninhabitable. Water and power cease in Europe. There is a
breakdown of government and basic resources across the First World. Bodies in the street
cause widespread disease. A gathering of seventy million people in Malaysia declare
Osama Bin Laden to be the new messiah.
2017: An Alien Spacecraft lands in the Mojave Desert…

I’ll leave it to you to imagine what happens next. You find me in a somber and blackened mood, but with the exception of the last line I don’t see why the above couldn’t happen. Have you seen the news recently? We’re just a couple of decisions, another earthquake, another rebel faction away from fiction turning to fact…

Pain and Horror

This goddamn headache is getting worse. When I awoke this morning the pain was a mild, manageable throb. Annoying, but nothing to write home about. Now we’ve progressed to a full-blown whirlwind of torture, a cranium-breaking Defcon 1 that feels like small creatures have been implanted through my ears, latched tentacles to my brain and have started to squeeze. My eyeballs are being battered from the inside like those huge drums that are hit by Japanese men wearing thongs.

Or maybe I’m just grumbling. Grow a pair and quit whining like a puppy, son.

Of course, my visual pain is only enhanced by this image:

This is from the new Alexander McQueen collection, and if one image has ever conveyed the utterly mind-numbing, pretentious and biblically stupid world of fashion it must surely be this. Seriously, what the hell is that chap wearing, and why would anyone pay good money to replicate this look and basically turn themselves into a tremendous arsehole? Would you walk down your street dressed like a Victorian Spiderman? Of course you wouldn’t. Maybe that’s the whole point of fashion – it exists to remind you that whatever happens in life you’ll always feel comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt, and under no circumstances do you need to pay a grand to look like a dick.

Department of Shameless Self-Promotion

So my wife has truly put me to shame this weekend. With only 35 weeks to go until she undertakes a complex six hour medical exam which she will only pass with a score of 90% or higher she has thrown herself into revision and study in the way she does everything - total commitment. Our dining table is strewn with medical texts and muscle charts and eye-watering genital descriptions while she has written page after page of detailed notes. She’s been working for hours - good, solid grafting, and I am in no doubt that come the 29th September she will hit the pass mark and become a fully qualified Accredited Clinical Coder, a job that most of you couldn’t even fathom and even less could do. As Thomas Dolby once said, she blinded me with science.

I, on the other hand, have written nothing this weekend except for these words.

And really, it’s not for wanting. I’m just struggling with the whole process. The Lost Weekend is really, genuinely about three-quarters complete. I’ve just thrown myself over the 95,000 word mark and that is a decent novel length, maybe 350 pages in general book-sized terms. I’m not the sort who limit’s a word count - I believe that the story takes itself from beginning to end and however long that takes it how long it is, but I have written a book amount of material and really don’t need to write much more. I know where it’s going, and I’m satisfied we’ll get there…

But, Jesus Christ, the getting there is, just recently, taking some doing.

Writers talk about writing out of love for the work, and I guess that is the main reason for doing it. But most of the time I don’t love writing. I tolerate it at best, and hate it at worst, but the fact of the matter is I can’t not do it. It took me a long time to actually figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but that realisation has bought me a huge amount of frustration and virtually no reward. And no, I’m not talking about reward in a financial sense, because we all know that there is very little money in fiction, especially not for unknowns such as myself. About ten to fifteen years ago there were some huge advances being handed out for first-timers with their dog-eared manuscripts, but too many publishing houses got burnt by handing out three book deals and only receiving one novel, so editors got wise and shut their wallets. And then, of course, J.K.Rowling turned up with her teenage wizard and sucked up most of the money on the planet.

So, no money. Surely then there must be some form of accolade, some form of praise? Don’t bank on it. Most people can’t even be bothered to read what you write, let alone comment on it in a positive/negative fashion. I have two critics in my life who will always tell me the truth when it comes to what I do. The first is my Wife, who I trust absolutely to tell me exactly what she thinks. She’ll do this with every aspect of my life, and I know my fiction is no different. If she thinks it sucks, she’ll tell me, and I thank her for that because every author needs someone who bring them back down to the ground with a bump and let them know they’re just a hack. Hannah is also my ideal reader, and what I mean by that is she is the person I imagine enjoying the story while I’m writing it. If I’m describing a scene, or writing dialogue, it’s her that I hope will enjoy it. The other top critic is my Father, who is always enthusiastic for my work and will always grumble if I’m not doing it right. But pretty much everyone else who reads my stuff? I’m lucky to get a nod of recognition - most of them can’t even be bothered with it (I don’t need to name names but you damn well know who you are). Truth of the matter is that most people haven’t got the time or the inclination to read successful authors with proven track records, so what chance the amateur with dreams of success?

So what does that leave? Not a lot really, because it’s not even a profession or hobby you can share with other people. Writing is a solitary business that alienates you from friends and family for hours at a time, frequently causes headaches and stress, is often frustrating and gives you a permanent crease in your brow. I find myself ignoring the kids, not spending enough quality time with my wife, lying awake in the middle of the night with my imagined conversations running around my head. Not being able to write, just like now, and banging my head in frustration because I want to, I want to, I want to. There is absolutely nothing to recommend it.

But here I am, tapping keys on the laptop again out of some kind of wanting, I guess you would call it an obsession. And I am obsessed, because I have experienced the moments. I don’t know what you call it - muse, mojo, creative juices - but when it happens it’s like the first time you see the ocean on a car journey to the coast, or that first beer after a long day of work under the hot sun, or the first time you kiss someone you care about. If you write for long enough a moment will come. It might be at 2.45am when your back is aching and your eyes are streaming after hours hunched over your screen, but suddenly the words start to flow smoothly, your characters start to breathe independently, and as the writer you’re just along for the ride, surprised at what just happened because the work has taken on a life of it’s own…That for me is what makes it all worthwhile, and I guess that what the love of writing is all about. So now I think I’m going to rub myself up against Hannah (no need to cover your eyes, the pants are staying on), get myself some of her energy, and get back to it. Love or hate, it’s what it is, and it’s what I do.