There are few things more abhorrent in our little isolated bubble of privilege and excess as advertising industry. But they have money and I want some. So, here are a couple pitches.

Pitch number one. We do a photo series inspired by the corpse piles from the photographs of the liberation of Dachau using only the best and most vacuous of today's super models. Because, let's face it if those girls weren't murdered by racist Nazi fucks, they would have been fabulous. I mean, just look at those figures. Ribs and sex appeal. Curves are for the fat girl catalogues.
We can pay homage to those fabulous but forgotten by recreating those images as a photo shot for Manolo Blahnik. Picture the bodies of models like Kate, Agyness, Giselle, etc. Their emaciated but perfectly groomed bodies cast upon each other, limbs akimbo, like a pile of human kindling, wearing only the finest examples of fall season oh eight. We can do a Spielberg and have it shot on grainy black and white stock except for the shoes are full super saturated colour. Gorgeous. Maybe a nice tag line like 'they died so that Manolo might live' or 'I'd rather die than leave my Blahniks'. I don't know; I am open to suggestions.

Pitch number two. This one is pretty versatile. It'll sell anything. And sex sells anything, so I hear. You flip through any kind of magazine and you have pre-pubescent girls pouting their lips and arching their backs to sell anything from clothes to bacon. It always confuses me why the seconds-long exposure of a grown woman's areola is taboo but it is okay to have a 17 year-old pop star grind her spangled clad groin against a pole for three minutes. But, rules are rules and, by god, I know if you want to flog some crap you can't be breaking rules. So, my original idea of having a 29 second close up of the coitus of two white heterosexual and married couple followed by one second black back-grounded logo shot and a deep-voiced reading of the company's tag line. But, imagine how the cases of Budweiser would fly off the shelves after the unwashed masses got a load of fuck fuck fuck then bam - "Budweiser. King of Beers" read by the guy who does the "ready to rumble" spiel. So, yes that one is out. Instead we get all Hitchcock on the people. I'm talking visual allegory baby! We film a tight shot of the business ends of pigs humping like the mad mammals they are, cleaned up and sparkling pink, mind you. 28 seconds of that. 1 second of a zoom out to reveal it's pigs rather than people and so we can say to the censors 'it's just nature, man, taking its course', then before the blood rushes away from the viewers' genitals – "Budweiser. King of Beers".

Please make checks payable to, wickedtomocktheafflicted marketing consultancy.

I learned a new word at work the other day. Monetize. Then I realized that I already had a word to describe that action. Whoring.

I promise I practice every day but cynicism doesn't come naturally to me. This is obvious when I watch a video like this and it thrills me with its possibilities and its hopefulness.

Let it be true.

Mana Mana

With their mother, two beautiful children, brother and sister, dressed in their school uniforms, were sat beside me on the tube. They made it the best commute I ever had when they broke into this song.


The girl doing the 'do do do'. The boy doing the 'mana mana' part.

Then on the commute home I had the thought, "wouldn't it be nice to ride the bus home and not have to smell businessmen's farts."

I went to see Seasick Steve last night. He's one of the few living blues players I can stomach, never mind enjoy. He absolves the sins of SRV.

It's been a long time since I've been to a show that wasn't in the back room of a bar. I forgot you should never show up early. It's a lot of waiting and doing nothing. It was even worse because it was at the Royal Albert hall. Great venue, but not for this kind of music. No drinking? It's the blues, goddamnit. Plus, it looked like many seats went to corporations who filled the seats with suited cultural philistines.

However I was glad I caught the opening act, Amy LaVere. Think bluesy-honkeytonk Mazzy Star.

Now removed from musicians and arty-fartys, I tend to find new music in a random and uncontextual manner. This is good because I listen to the music rather than the hype. A consequence is I have no idea how popular a musician is or their demographic of listeners. I sometimes think I found a little treasure of all my own only to find out he's been on the tele. Oh well, nevermind.

Fail out 2008 (in pictures)

I don't have your money; it's in his golden parachute and hers.

Looks like I picked the wrong day to fund my 401k pension scheme.

It's raining suits, hallelujah.

In my ongoing sociological investigations of this island's native inhabitants, I attended what is known in the local dialect as a banger race. See figure 1 for an example.


Figure 1: A video demonstrating the subgenre of banger races called caravan racing.

It was a pleasurable experience and my inner 10 year smiled with glee as transmission fluid and tire rubber flew into my face. Above the simple pleasure of crashing metal and speeding vehicles, I loved watching the woman counting the laps, waving the flags and directing the race. As the leading cars sped past her she would point and signal their position: first, second, third etc. She did it with flicks and twists of the wrist as eloquent as a belly dancer's. Every movement she made as she juggled the thousand tasks of her position was done with a grace that seemed out of place amongst the raw growling power of the cars zipping past.

Shhh! Pay attention. Brother Holden is going to preach some truth.

--copied from "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger--

Somebody'd written "Fuck you" on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them--all cockeyed, naturally--what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it.

…

I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another "Fuck you" on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or
something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible.

…

Then, all of a sudden, you'd never guess what I saw on the wall. Another "Fuck you." It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones.
That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuck you." I'm positive, in fact.


Amen.

At work, I was chatting with a Yorkshire man that pronounced project as in 'the software project' like the Wu-tang, PRO-ject. If he had said sword and pronounced the 'W', I would have been the happiest man in the IT department.

This pleases my soul in many ways. It is just pure, unadulterated joy. See two other humans enjoying the pleasure of living. Every detail is amusing: the two kids, their kitchen in the background and the one on the right's little belly folds and half shirt. Watch it and not grin and you are dead on the inside.



P.S. Their 'Volere' is worth the price of admission as well. It includes fake mustaches and a dancing mom in the background.

We drove past the Cernas Abbas Giant.



We stood in front of the tourist information board reading about the history of this chalk figure. A man and his toddling daughter stood beside us. He pointed out the giant on the opposite hill and the little girl cheered, "I see him".
He pointed again and said, "Do you see his big--"
S_ and I turned expectantly.
"--stick", he continued.

Waiting for S_ at Waterloo, I overheard a no-neck American fratboy cum businessman tell his British colleagues, "Cheers, dude". His awkward attempt at assimilation was simultaneously obnoxious and endearing.

I had thought that the didgeridoo was invented for hippies to annoy others at parties. Then I heard a professional perform a song about a dingo chasing an emu.

The instrument's music/anti-musical sound moved me beyond any piece of avant-garde piano banging.

I never fathomed that a tube of bark that usually rests in the corner of a co-op beside unused guitars and cobwebbed dream catchers could simultaneously produce the depth and complexity of sound I experienced. The song itself communicated a simple narrative of dog versus bird. Amazing.

Here's something close but still not sufficient.

I worry about a lot of things. I worry how I will handle fame and wealth. This might seem arrogant or presumptuous, but I also worry about zombie attack and have contingency plans for that eventuality as well. Most of all, I worry whether I am a good man.

Recently I attended a wedding for two of the good'uns, beautiful people in every sense. I also had a birthday around the same time. Both events made me take notice of the people with whom I have surrounded myself and call friends.

If a man's friends are any mark to the quality of his soul, then I can worry a little less about whether I am a good person. Cheers to you all.

Amen.

Shh. Just look. A thousand words isn't enough to tell this photo's story.

Here's how I resigned from my job.

I just listened to a world service interview with Canon Andrew White. He is the definition of a righteous man. It heartens my heathen heart to know there are men like that in a world like this.

The liars' league of London published the short story of some guy you may or may not have heard of