A Work In Progress

Have you ever wanted to create something timeless on paper, only to find that this may be harder, more time consuming or simply beyond your capabilities as a person? I think to a certain extent most people have, although I might be wrong. In any case, something everyone will do from a very young age is read, no matter what it is, in the western world it's just a fact that you'll sooner be a fluent reader before your too old, everyone remembers their first books, it's just another thing that stays with you throughout your life. Chip has a ball, Chip likes Mary, Mary likes Chip and so on and so forth until they become the short stories that we all came to adore.
Now, if you will, fast forward your life from the early days in the classroom to present day life. You are probably around my age or older, eighteen, nineteen, whatever, you've now read thousands, nay, millions of letter, words, texts, books, poetry and anything else that encompasses the written word, it's needles to say that you're somewhat familiar with the workings of the English language, presuming you're out of that stage where you drop letters that aren't necessarily needed to create the correct pronunciation for a word or "TXT language" as it's known on the 'streets', but for arguments sake I'm just going to guess that you are. Anyway, you've got the language you call your own down to a fine tuned point.
By now, you've probably written a lot yourself, but who has read all that you have ever written? A handful of teachers, bound only by a universal grading program? Maybe your parents when you were younger, humoring your new found skills? Or perhaps a handful of people on the Internet, possibly that you don't even know. Think again of all those books you've read, but really think, include every text, not just one's of fiction or fact but everything. Needless to say, it's a phenomenal feat, but personally, do you know one author? One solitary person who has ever had the pleasure to say that they have contributed something of note to the world of literature? If you do you are a luckier man than I.

Because of these somewhat pessimistic thoughts I've decided to turn this into a positive and write something I can be proud of. Not just something that I can post on a meaningless blog on the Internet or show my parents but instead, just something to let me be humble in the knowledge that I at least gave it a go. And at the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about? I can't imagine Howard Lovecraft just sat down one day without any practice and wrote some of the worlds most inspired horror stories or when John Tolkien came to writing the Lord Of The Rings books he hadn't sat down years before and devised his stories piece by piece, little by little.
Having said this, I think I should mention that I'm not claiming that whatever I do end up spewing out will be anywhere near the level of genius that either of these authors have displayed, but it'll be my attempt at novel writing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not entering into this with nothing, I've been conducting a small bit of research to help me along my merry way. I'd heard of an organization in the past that devised something called "national novel writing month" and that they have an active website, with advice about writing your first novel, everything from help with ideas and opinions right down to how many words I should be aiming for so that I don't send myself cynically insane. According to the website, if you dig deep enough, 50,000 words is an average for a first go. Why not, hey? 50,000 words, that's only about 200 pages. I can do that.

As well as this I've got some rough story ideas floating around the page, I don;t mind sharing these since first off they're pretty lame and second off they are almost bound to change by the time I actually get into this thing.

To start with, we have the general plot (I'm told this is something that I should have before anything I write can be considered a novel), so here goes;

Story

The story is about a lonely car salesman and a sadistic bookstore owner who are friends of convenience. Three years ago both of them were the prime witnesses in a murder connected to the city's biggest organised crime syndicate and have been moved together in a relocation program by the government. It starts in a large city, close to where present day London is situated, somewhere in an undisclosed future.
The earth is now set several miles below sea level due to the after effects of global warming finally taking hold on the environment. In a last ditch attempt to save humanity from certain doom the worlds superpowers joined together into a single communist government and began to encase the worlds most wealthy city's in huge, watertight dome's so they would not be destroyed by the rising oceans. Due to this a large portion of the worlds population was wiped out, anybody not fortunate enough to already be living in these city's or wealthy enough to afford a place in one of the overcrowded slums were drowned, left to starve on boats or killed by pirates.
A continual war wages under the waves between the government forces and democratic rebels, promising a better life under the water.
When the two main characters find out they they are possibly part of a government conspiracy with just as many pros as con's they're forced to choose a side to fight for.

Characters

So far, I ain't got much in the way of character ideas. I've got the two main characters down to perfection and ideas for the leaders of the government and the rebels, but that's it. Anyway, here goes;

Name: Seth Ryan
Occupation: Car dealer
Character traits: Intent on the surface, but aggressive underneath.
Short bio: This guy puts you in mind of a rabid dog. He has almond-shaped black eyes. His thick, scruffy, coffee-colored hair is neck-length and is worn in an unkempt style. He's got a small mustache. He is very short and has a graceful build. His skin is nut-brown. He has a low forehead. His wardrobe is plain, with lots of gray and brown tones.

Name: Elroy grimes
Occupation: Bookstore owner
Character traits: Antisocial and humble.
Short bio: This gentleman reminds you of a raging river. He has beady brown eyes that are like two bronze coins. His fine, straight, sand-colored hair is worn in a style that reminds you of a pile of leaves. He has a broad-shouldered build. His skin is pale. He has large hands. His wardrobe is plain and severe, with a lot of green.

More ideas and characters pretty soon, but that's what I've got so far, so it's not gold, but for a first try I don't think it's too awful. Feel free to comment etc.

And just in case you can't envision the city, I'll help you with some Bioshock artwork, which is where I got a lot of inspiration for the idea in the first place*



*The original idea was to have the city's raised above the ocean on huge floating platforms, but my brother told me that this would simply make the story "unbelievable", which I found rather ironic.

Books Of Blood: The Coming Of Tan

Jedi Mind Tricks - Books of Blood.

I love rap when it makes you think and addresses issues other than shooting people, taking drugs, making money and scoring girls.

Unfortunately, this song doesn't actually have a video and I'm not even sure if the picture* used in this video comes of from anything connected to the band, but it's still an awesome song.



"We are all books of blood, for once we are open, we are red"

If you think that's not bad I recommend checking out more 'Jedi Mind Tricks', a couple of good album's to look out for are 'Violent by Design' and 'Legacy of Blood' although I recommend all of thier stuff, especially the older work.

Here's an example of something from way back when, probably one of my favorite songs as well;



*If you were wondering the picture is an ashtray engraved with the iconic free masons emblem, the ashtray is full of shotgun shells and is rested on an open bible. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

Underground Vs. Mainstream

Underground music is cool until it's popularized by the sort of people that wear purple American Apparel hoodies and those neon shades that Kanye West wore that time.
These bands usually make a couple of chart bothering singles then the same kids that brought them into power decide that they don't like 'their flavor' anymore and move onto the next cool band to ruin.

While all this is happening bands that were created with the soul purpose of making it big (not mentioning any names here), they stay on top to a certain degree for most of their professional career, sometimes shadowed by the newest obscure R&B or commercial house track that Kiss FM decide is what people should be listening to that week/day/hour, until eventually the bass player dies in a horrific rock climbing/sky diving/extreme yachting accident and the band decide that he was so much of a creative force that they can't go on anymore and disband.

After this they're left with noting other than their millions and millions of useless pounds they've amounted and are left in the rain clutching a handful of soggy broken marriage vows after that super model wife decides that she preferred that guy who won Big Brother after all. At the end of the day, he's more sensitive and wears crocks.

The big bands will keep a few die hard fans that will hug their favorite album to the grave and everyone else will move on loving whatever replaces them.

The same doesn't occur for your underground scene, since when an underground band gets kicked from the charts they manage to keep face, if not for their niche fan base then for their mums who can't bare to see their beloved sons and daughters go to waste after all those guitar lessons that were payed for, largely on granddads inheritance. So instead they slip back into their skinny jeans and sleeveless Blondie t-shirts and tour the country with their radical new album, complete with what they laughingly call 'a new sound'. Because of this many of their hardcore fans absolutely hate the new album since it's all new and scary, most of them are still recovering from the shell shock of their hero's falling from grace, this all just becomes too much. Many of these hardcore fans will often move on to start their own bands to prove that there are kids who can still 'keep it real' without the help of the media but sooner or later follow exactly the same path as their down trodden predecessors.

And thus the cycle continues.

Photoshop

Check it out, yo! Some recent stuff. I totally ripped the arm design of some clothing companies "summer range" booklet that they quite ironically slipped through my door, on the wettest day of the year so far.

I sketched up the arm, beefed it up a bit, more contours and thicker fore-arm and added the tattoo's. Admittedly I only actually drew the Black Flag logo on the wrist, the rest were pretty much all Google jobs and some stuff I had lying around in my junk picture folder.

It's pretty sloppy, but it took me the best part of an hour, so who cares. Also my tattoo positioning was mega rushed, hence the clutter, but like I said, whatever.

I might turn this into a stencil if I can ever be bothered, might look cool on a t-shirt!

It 'could' just be coincidence

The word "coincidence" is thrown around a lot more today than people seem to realize.

A poor understanding of probability leads many people to put forward supernatural explanation for events that are far more common than they think.

This video attempts to prove that by showing how probability theory is sufficient to explain even the most seemingly remarkable and unexplainable "coincidences". I think it does it rather well.

Everyone should make room for logic like this.



If anyone is interested, here is a link to the narrators channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup

A lot of his videos are popular misconception and logic breakdowns (from an atheists point of view, scores points with me)

Wide Awake

Sometimes, I wish that I had more knowledge of how actions while awake impacted my sleep patterns. This is a question that I have been pondering for some times now, having a somewhat scattered past of irregular sleep patterns over the past three or four years.

I have an irritating tenancy to stay awake for much longer than is considered healthy for a person of my age, sitting up in my room or in the living room long into the early morning hours, reading or watching those obscure documentaries that are aired on the 'Sci-Fi' and 'National Geographic' channels at such times. I often wonder how many people are really interested in "The great mysteries of the unknown" at 4 o'clock in the morning, the viewing figures must be through the roof.
I have tried going to sleep earlier at at set times each night to make sure I at least get a certain number of hours sleep but no matter how many times I try and correct the problem, I seem to slip right back into my old habits after no longer than a week or so.

Lately though, I've being trying a lot harder to correct my sleep patterns. You see, every couple of months it seems, I start to have very vivid and detailed dreams, and in some cases, nightmares. Unlike what I would call my 'normal' every day dreams, which are nowhere near as vivid or memorable I might add, these seem to last days, sometimes weeks at a time, only to find myself waking up every morning in the same curled up position as the night before.
The subject matter and setting every night seems to differ widely as well, whereas other people with very much the same problem commonly have blocks or 'series' of similar dreams running over a consensus of night's or weeks mine always seem detached from one another and to show no consistency what so ever.
I could just as easily be roaming the streets of some war torn city as be laying in a hammock on a huge open field.

In a way I find this very distressing. Not only do these dreams deter me from a pleasant nights sleep but they often slowly turn bitter, making the sudden transaction from dream to nightmare. This is indeed the one and only similarity that they all show in common with one another.
Of course these dreams could be caused by a million different things that I'm perhaps doing wrong in my waking life, without the faintest idea. And in that, there lies something very unsettling for me.

Two weeks and four days. I hope this passes soon.

Bias Film Reviews (2)

What I've been watching this week

The Machinist (15+)

Before actually watching this film for myself I'd only heard very sparse and vague reviews of it, usually by word of mouth or just by noticing a small piece of writing on a website and the like, but despite that I decided that it sounded interesting enough to check out. The story of 'The Machinist' is one man's account of his association with chronic insomnia and how he believes he has become part of an intricate conspiracy against him, the film follows the character through a web of bizarre events and mishaps that have started occurring around his usually quite quiet life. Having said this the story is very much one of speculation and is, in my opinion, one that can differ from person to person, depending on how you viewed the film and what your take on it is.

In any case I thought the film was brilliant from start to end, having went into it with next to no expectations, except probably the hope of some snappy acting on Christian Bale's part and some 'arty' camera work by director Brad Anderson, I've came out of it feeling strangely fulfilled, like this film has almost been some sort of cinematic breakthrough (even though it came out 5 years ago), of course in reality, it probably wasn't all that good but it's been so long since I watched a film that I enjoyed this much. I admire the way that the film can keep establishing new plot points, without it ever feeling tedious or 'strung out' and the way that as the story progresses you feel more and more as if the ending can never justify some of the things that have taken place, but man, does it! Supported along the way of course by some beautiful directing on Anderson's part and a truly stunning performance by Bale throughout, this film really does keep you thinking right up until the end, with a nice juicy plot twist to catch you of guard, just when you think you've got it all figured out.

I think in hindsight, this is probably one of the better films that I've seen this year, without a doubt. I really enjoyed every second of it in some way or another, for me this was just a neat package of everything I like to see in a film composed into something quite brilliant. Of course, I know this isn't every one's views as I'm aware of quite a few people who really hated 'The Machinist' and I guess I can see why in some ways, sure it's over pretentious and Christian Bale is pretty much just waving his anorexic cock in your face for several hours, but to be honest I don't care what you think, I loved it and I'd recommend it to everyone and their mothers!

9/10