Well, I really wasn't gonna brag about the whole Alabama 3 thing cos I know Russ cries but since he brought it up....
Just to set the scene, I'm sat in a very small pub in Drury Street, Glasgow (o'henrys in case anyone knows it) Some guys come in like rock stars and sit down opposite. A very pained 90 minutes follows for me as I know I know them from somewhere.........
Eventually I think they might just be alabama 3 but i'm not sure. What followed was a very, very stupid 4 minutes during which I went up and simpered and said ' excuse me, can I ask you a reeeeeeeally strange question?, are you alabama 3? ' (gush, simper)
Turns out they were, they enquired after my gig plans and when I explained my precarious financial state I was put on the guest list. Ace!
The highlights of the meeting were:
1. the man with a voice that is so low he should be covered in Magma
2. I got to shake hands with and be in awe of 3 of the band members
3. When they were leaving the lead singer called me pet.
4. I got to act all cool as they went past saying 'see you tonight'
How was the gig? I'll give a full report tomorrow as its late now but in the words of the wonderful Christopher Eccleston....
FANTASTIC!
Tuesday, May 24
Sunday, May 22
I know its only TV...
Mes Amis
Fantastic... If Christopher Ecclestone says that one more time, I'm going to take my TV and throw it out the window. Really. I mean, I'm loving the new series of Doctor Who. Its cheesy, cheerful and so at ease with itself that its easy to sit back and enjoy the ride (except maybe for the inexplicably awkward first episode). And its from the bloke who wrote Dark Season; when I was young, it was one of my fave TV shows featuring power crazed (and possibly lesbian) Nazies searching for ancient computer systems underneath small British schools.
This week's episode, with the Doctor and Rose (the actually surprisingly watchable Ms Piper who would be attractive were it not for her oddly unnatural eyebrows which I'm sure are some alien life form that's attached itself to her head while she wasn't looking) stuck in war-torn London and facing zombie-like creatures wearing gasmasks and crying for their mummy was absolutely... um... fantastic! Richard Wilson's cameo was nicely creepy (although I almost expected him to cry, "I don't believe it!" when all the zombies sat up in the hospital beds) and as for this new companion, Captain Jack... well, let's leave judgement for a few episodes and see if he can try and stop being the most irritating prat in the whole time/space contimuum. Why Rose swoons all over him is anyone's guess. His American accent as so unconvincing one has to wonder whether its the British revenge for Keanu Reeve's Jonathan Harker in Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. He makes Peri (Nicola Bryant, who - accompanied by her hypnotic breasts - travelled in the TARDIS with Colin Baker's mentally unstable and ill-fated sixth Doctor) sound like she was a native. But so far for every wrong turn the new show has taken, its made at least three right ones so hopefully Captain Jack will develop some kind of character as time goes by and maybe even start to sound like the American he supposedly is.
Pity Poor Edgar... Edgar Styles is the most unfortunate character in the history of TV... played by the chubby and permanently sweating Louis Lombardi (Who has only ever played one role - the fat, sweaty nervous guy - but does it spectactularly well) has - in the span of one day - had his mother commit suicide but still managed to save a good percentage of the American continent from nuclear meltdown, tracked down several terrorist suspects and generally saved the asses of everyone in CTU more times than anyone can count. And yet, this being the world of 24, no one has actually bothered to stop and say thankyou. No, instead, when he asks for clarification on a task all anyone can do is question whether he's able to do his job. Well, don't worry Edgar, we're rooting for you... Almost as much as we're rooting for mad Jack Bauer who wouldn't be able to spell constitution if he was given a dictionary and all the letters in the wrong order. Jack's so ludicrously crazy its no wonder CTU gives him carte blanche to do whatever he likes; I wouldn't argue with him.
Speaking of Crazy... Nip/Tuck gets more luidcrous (and somehow more compelling) with every episode. Let's catch you up to speed, shall we? Sean and Christian are plastic surgeons. Sean was married with a wife, daughter and son. But then his son went and slept with his life coach, who had also been treating Sean's wife. This also ended up revealing that Christian was Sean's son's real father so Sean went loopy, threw his wife out and started sleeping with a porn star (and her "real doll") who had previously been sleeping with Christian (before she went loopy and tried to cut off his dick). Meanwhile, it transpires that the life coach (played by the gorgeous Famke Jansen) has been sleeping with her own son while she's been sleeping Sean's son. Oh, yes, and there's a guy on the loose who's been slashing people's faces and Sean has been fixing them even though the slasher has threatened to kill him.
Right, take a breath. Because tonight's finale went even more loony tunes on us poor viewers. Famke, it transpies, is a man. Or she was. You see, she'd been in love with Alec Baldwin - who was playing a famous doctor now turned Botanist - while she was a man. But he couldn't love a man so he finally gave her the operation so he could love him/her but then realised he couldn't get the image of Famke as a man out his mind even though she was now a rather good looking lady. So she went loony and nipped off with their adopted son to start sleeping with him. And then she became a life coach. Honestly, if the production values weren't so high and the actors so good, this could be a daytime soap. But the fact that everyone in the show takes it so seriously helps. The scripts are actually really smart and despite its dramatic trappings you have to suspect this is really just a very black comedy where none of the characters are in on the joke. It needs a third season and I will be watching. Yes, its glossy and ludicrous and about as belieavable as Vin Diesel playing a top soldier assigned to look after children (wait a minute...) but it is still one of the best and most intelligently mindless drama series on the box. If you haven't been watching, then shame on you, my friends...
Anyway, mes amis, there's more on t'telly tonight so..
Au Revoir
Russel
Fantastic... If Christopher Ecclestone says that one more time, I'm going to take my TV and throw it out the window. Really. I mean, I'm loving the new series of Doctor Who. Its cheesy, cheerful and so at ease with itself that its easy to sit back and enjoy the ride (except maybe for the inexplicably awkward first episode). And its from the bloke who wrote Dark Season; when I was young, it was one of my fave TV shows featuring power crazed (and possibly lesbian) Nazies searching for ancient computer systems underneath small British schools.
This week's episode, with the Doctor and Rose (the actually surprisingly watchable Ms Piper who would be attractive were it not for her oddly unnatural eyebrows which I'm sure are some alien life form that's attached itself to her head while she wasn't looking) stuck in war-torn London and facing zombie-like creatures wearing gasmasks and crying for their mummy was absolutely... um... fantastic! Richard Wilson's cameo was nicely creepy (although I almost expected him to cry, "I don't believe it!" when all the zombies sat up in the hospital beds) and as for this new companion, Captain Jack... well, let's leave judgement for a few episodes and see if he can try and stop being the most irritating prat in the whole time/space contimuum. Why Rose swoons all over him is anyone's guess. His American accent as so unconvincing one has to wonder whether its the British revenge for Keanu Reeve's Jonathan Harker in Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. He makes Peri (Nicola Bryant, who - accompanied by her hypnotic breasts - travelled in the TARDIS with Colin Baker's mentally unstable and ill-fated sixth Doctor) sound like she was a native. But so far for every wrong turn the new show has taken, its made at least three right ones so hopefully Captain Jack will develop some kind of character as time goes by and maybe even start to sound like the American he supposedly is.
Pity Poor Edgar... Edgar Styles is the most unfortunate character in the history of TV... played by the chubby and permanently sweating Louis Lombardi (Who has only ever played one role - the fat, sweaty nervous guy - but does it spectactularly well) has - in the span of one day - had his mother commit suicide but still managed to save a good percentage of the American continent from nuclear meltdown, tracked down several terrorist suspects and generally saved the asses of everyone in CTU more times than anyone can count. And yet, this being the world of 24, no one has actually bothered to stop and say thankyou. No, instead, when he asks for clarification on a task all anyone can do is question whether he's able to do his job. Well, don't worry Edgar, we're rooting for you... Almost as much as we're rooting for mad Jack Bauer who wouldn't be able to spell constitution if he was given a dictionary and all the letters in the wrong order. Jack's so ludicrously crazy its no wonder CTU gives him carte blanche to do whatever he likes; I wouldn't argue with him.
Speaking of Crazy... Nip/Tuck gets more luidcrous (and somehow more compelling) with every episode. Let's catch you up to speed, shall we? Sean and Christian are plastic surgeons. Sean was married with a wife, daughter and son. But then his son went and slept with his life coach, who had also been treating Sean's wife. This also ended up revealing that Christian was Sean's son's real father so Sean went loopy, threw his wife out and started sleeping with a porn star (and her "real doll") who had previously been sleeping with Christian (before she went loopy and tried to cut off his dick). Meanwhile, it transpires that the life coach (played by the gorgeous Famke Jansen) has been sleeping with her own son while she's been sleeping Sean's son. Oh, yes, and there's a guy on the loose who's been slashing people's faces and Sean has been fixing them even though the slasher has threatened to kill him.
Right, take a breath. Because tonight's finale went even more loony tunes on us poor viewers. Famke, it transpies, is a man. Or she was. You see, she'd been in love with Alec Baldwin - who was playing a famous doctor now turned Botanist - while she was a man. But he couldn't love a man so he finally gave her the operation so he could love him/her but then realised he couldn't get the image of Famke as a man out his mind even though she was now a rather good looking lady. So she went loony and nipped off with their adopted son to start sleeping with him. And then she became a life coach. Honestly, if the production values weren't so high and the actors so good, this could be a daytime soap. But the fact that everyone in the show takes it so seriously helps. The scripts are actually really smart and despite its dramatic trappings you have to suspect this is really just a very black comedy where none of the characters are in on the joke. It needs a third season and I will be watching. Yes, its glossy and ludicrous and about as belieavable as Vin Diesel playing a top soldier assigned to look after children (wait a minute...) but it is still one of the best and most intelligently mindless drama series on the box. If you haven't been watching, then shame on you, my friends...
Anyway, mes amis, there's more on t'telly tonight so..
Au Revoir
Russel
Saturday, May 21
Feel the farce...
Mes Amis
Jammy person... Well, Beccy went to see the grand Alabama 3 this evening... I'm almost upset, but I came back home to a few messages where I could hear music in the background and the woman herself screaming so I guess she had a good time.. maybe she'll tell us all about it one day...
The Syph Strike Back... So I caved... I went to see Ep III... Well, some of my friends wanted to and I guess I wasn't dead set against it, just a little apprehensive... I mean, after all Ep I and II were, frankly, shite (except ep II had Yoda playing the pinball to Christopher Lee's lightsaber flipper). And a good seventy percent of Ep III is shite, too.
But strangely, the stuff that works is brilliant. The lightsaber fights are brilliantly choreographed, the ship battles are the stuff that sci-fi geek wet dreams are made of and then there's the thrill of seeing that suit for the first time (which is then promptly ruined by the worst piece of slapstick drama ever committed to culluloid - I hope that paycheck was worth that one, elongated word, Mr Earl Jones). Really, when it comes to action and spectacle Star Wars ep III kicks everyone's ass from here to eternity. And once more Yoda gets to do a pinball impression - not once but twice which made me smile a lot. Oh, and the Emperor is so over the top pantomime evil that you just can't help but love him.
But then Lucas tries to write a script and it all falls apart. If you thought the Anakin/Padme nonsense was bad enough in Ep II then you still aren't prepared for the levels of cringeinducing dialogue mixed with the "I'd rather be anywhere but here" delivery by the lovely Natalie Portman. In fact, Lucas even manages to make Ms Portman look dowdy and rotund by dressing her in the the most ugly nightwear ever worn by any woman on celluloid. Anakin doesn't look depressed because of his nightmares, its because he wakes up and sees this frump in lime green.
But Ms Portman's poor wardrobe and even poorer delivery doesn't hold a candle to Hayden "I know there's a camera pointing at me, that's why I'm raising my eyebrow to indicate how evil I am" Christiansen. In this story we should be witnessing Anakin's struggle between the dark and the light, but instead it looks like he decides in one second to switch over to the dark side (Look, this isn't exactly a major spoiler so don't moan at me that I told you about it). Really, this role requires a little bit of acting to get that struggle across and deepen the tragedy, but when the actor doesn't sound like he believes one word he's saying ("The Jedi have betrayed us..." he says, sounding like he'd really rather have a cheese sandwich than fight for the side he believes to be in the right) then the whole character arc is lost.
On the plus side, Ewan McGregor's beginning to remember how to act and is almost passable as a young Guinness (almost, I say, but not quite).
The problem with this film is that every time it starts to get good, it ruins its own momentum with some stupid decision. Whether its Vader's final transformation destroyed by the most misjudged line in cinema history or the best lightsaber fight ever ruined by an ending that came straight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (you'll know it when you see it; and even that still could have been good if the actor playing Anakin had any kind of chops at all).
Basically, there's a lot of promise here (the fact that the script seems to portray the jedi as far more self involved than their hype would have you believe and all of the stuff whereby the Emperor gains control) ruined by poor delivery and the fact that you're really enjoying the film until almost anyone opens their mouth to speak.
Even Samuel L Jackson and his big, purple saber can't save this (in fact Sam's sadly part of the reason this film is so poor; I've never seen such an unnafecting fate for a character in my life). But the worst thing is it could have been so good. And there is a lot to love. Really; the action is amazing. But sadly the action's no good without interest and with so many cardboard characters and so many actors unable to breathe life into this poor excuse for a script, Ep III is hardly the return to form so many people believe. Although for the geeks, its great to see stuff like the final duel between Obi Wan and Anakin and hear that music swelling in a cinema once more...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now
Au Revoir
Russe;
Jammy person... Well, Beccy went to see the grand Alabama 3 this evening... I'm almost upset, but I came back home to a few messages where I could hear music in the background and the woman herself screaming so I guess she had a good time.. maybe she'll tell us all about it one day...
The Syph Strike Back... So I caved... I went to see Ep III... Well, some of my friends wanted to and I guess I wasn't dead set against it, just a little apprehensive... I mean, after all Ep I and II were, frankly, shite (except ep II had Yoda playing the pinball to Christopher Lee's lightsaber flipper). And a good seventy percent of Ep III is shite, too.
But strangely, the stuff that works is brilliant. The lightsaber fights are brilliantly choreographed, the ship battles are the stuff that sci-fi geek wet dreams are made of and then there's the thrill of seeing that suit for the first time (which is then promptly ruined by the worst piece of slapstick drama ever committed to culluloid - I hope that paycheck was worth that one, elongated word, Mr Earl Jones). Really, when it comes to action and spectacle Star Wars ep III kicks everyone's ass from here to eternity. And once more Yoda gets to do a pinball impression - not once but twice which made me smile a lot. Oh, and the Emperor is so over the top pantomime evil that you just can't help but love him.
But then Lucas tries to write a script and it all falls apart. If you thought the Anakin/Padme nonsense was bad enough in Ep II then you still aren't prepared for the levels of cringeinducing dialogue mixed with the "I'd rather be anywhere but here" delivery by the lovely Natalie Portman. In fact, Lucas even manages to make Ms Portman look dowdy and rotund by dressing her in the the most ugly nightwear ever worn by any woman on celluloid. Anakin doesn't look depressed because of his nightmares, its because he wakes up and sees this frump in lime green.
But Ms Portman's poor wardrobe and even poorer delivery doesn't hold a candle to Hayden "I know there's a camera pointing at me, that's why I'm raising my eyebrow to indicate how evil I am" Christiansen. In this story we should be witnessing Anakin's struggle between the dark and the light, but instead it looks like he decides in one second to switch over to the dark side (Look, this isn't exactly a major spoiler so don't moan at me that I told you about it). Really, this role requires a little bit of acting to get that struggle across and deepen the tragedy, but when the actor doesn't sound like he believes one word he's saying ("The Jedi have betrayed us..." he says, sounding like he'd really rather have a cheese sandwich than fight for the side he believes to be in the right) then the whole character arc is lost.
On the plus side, Ewan McGregor's beginning to remember how to act and is almost passable as a young Guinness (almost, I say, but not quite).
The problem with this film is that every time it starts to get good, it ruins its own momentum with some stupid decision. Whether its Vader's final transformation destroyed by the most misjudged line in cinema history or the best lightsaber fight ever ruined by an ending that came straight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (you'll know it when you see it; and even that still could have been good if the actor playing Anakin had any kind of chops at all).
Basically, there's a lot of promise here (the fact that the script seems to portray the jedi as far more self involved than their hype would have you believe and all of the stuff whereby the Emperor gains control) ruined by poor delivery and the fact that you're really enjoying the film until almost anyone opens their mouth to speak.
Even Samuel L Jackson and his big, purple saber can't save this (in fact Sam's sadly part of the reason this film is so poor; I've never seen such an unnafecting fate for a character in my life). But the worst thing is it could have been so good. And there is a lot to love. Really; the action is amazing. But sadly the action's no good without interest and with so many cardboard characters and so many actors unable to breathe life into this poor excuse for a script, Ep III is hardly the return to form so many people believe. Although for the geeks, its great to see stuff like the final duel between Obi Wan and Anakin and hear that music swelling in a cinema once more...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now
Au Revoir
Russe;
Thursday, May 19
Memories are made of this...
Mes Amis
I am the carpet man and I can lay... Fucking carpet people - two days on the trot they've said "we'll be there at x hours to do an estimate" and two days of no shows and no real explanations except a brusque apology when I phone and an insistence that if I handed over my keys they could get in when it was convenient to them... Um, no...
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be... I was back home at my parent's place the other week. I went a rooting through the cupboards of all my old stuff and found my very first rejection letter from Virgin Publishing back when they were doing the Doctor Who: New Adventures series of novels. And what a great letter it was, saying some nice things about the effort I'd put in but saying that ultimately they couldn't do anything since they just lost the licence to do the novels. But better yet was the fact that I reworked the novel without the Who elements and sent it to them when they did the Virgin Worlds series of SF novels - I got back a big checklist of all that I did wrong... bear in mind I was about sixteen at the time... and my worst crime was being unoriginal, that is some elements may have been space opera stuff that everyone had seen before. But my characters were good and my prose was good enough for a published novel... it was the nicest letter I ever got as a rejection... I also found the shredded front of another manuscript I'd sent off on which the person to whom the letter had gone had scribbled, "Sorry, but as you can see my kids got a hold of it. They didn't like it, either". I'm still amazed that didn't stop me writing forever...
Speaking of literary people... Sarah Weinman's excellent blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind is always worth checking out... but I'm in absolute awe of the letter she got from a guy claiming to be a literary agent (just for the record, my agent actually knows what she's doing!).
How not to apply for work...So I found a job I fancy... Really, really fancy... Working as a writer on a gaming magazine... And I sent in my application which included a small article I'd worked my ass off on to get right for them... except I attached an unfinished draft copy to the email... so I tried to send off the proper one (with a wee note) later that night when I realised my mistake... except fucking AOL decided it wasn't going to send anything and disconnected me twelve times midway through sending the bastard thing... The more technology can do the less it wants to do for you...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now.
Au Revoir
Russel
I am the carpet man and I can lay... Fucking carpet people - two days on the trot they've said "we'll be there at x hours to do an estimate" and two days of no shows and no real explanations except a brusque apology when I phone and an insistence that if I handed over my keys they could get in when it was convenient to them... Um, no...
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be... I was back home at my parent's place the other week. I went a rooting through the cupboards of all my old stuff and found my very first rejection letter from Virgin Publishing back when they were doing the Doctor Who: New Adventures series of novels. And what a great letter it was, saying some nice things about the effort I'd put in but saying that ultimately they couldn't do anything since they just lost the licence to do the novels. But better yet was the fact that I reworked the novel without the Who elements and sent it to them when they did the Virgin Worlds series of SF novels - I got back a big checklist of all that I did wrong... bear in mind I was about sixteen at the time... and my worst crime was being unoriginal, that is some elements may have been space opera stuff that everyone had seen before. But my characters were good and my prose was good enough for a published novel... it was the nicest letter I ever got as a rejection... I also found the shredded front of another manuscript I'd sent off on which the person to whom the letter had gone had scribbled, "Sorry, but as you can see my kids got a hold of it. They didn't like it, either". I'm still amazed that didn't stop me writing forever...
Speaking of literary people... Sarah Weinman's excellent blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind is always worth checking out... but I'm in absolute awe of the letter she got from a guy claiming to be a literary agent (just for the record, my agent actually knows what she's doing!).
How not to apply for work...So I found a job I fancy... Really, really fancy... Working as a writer on a gaming magazine... And I sent in my application which included a small article I'd worked my ass off on to get right for them... except I attached an unfinished draft copy to the email... so I tried to send off the proper one (with a wee note) later that night when I realised my mistake... except fucking AOL decided it wasn't going to send anything and disconnected me twelve times midway through sending the bastard thing... The more technology can do the less it wants to do for you...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now.
Au Revoir
Russel
Tuesday, May 17
Unlucky for some
Mes Amis
Let me whore myself... The new issue of crimescenescotland is online now featuring new fiction, reviews and a whole lot more. Number 13 may be unlucky for some but its a treat for our readers!
Au revoir
Russel
Let me whore myself... The new issue of crimescenescotland is online now featuring new fiction, reviews and a whole lot more. Number 13 may be unlucky for some but its a treat for our readers!
Au revoir
Russel
Wednesday, May 11
"My My, so many guns, so little brains..."
Mes Amis
Just what Hammett would have wanted... Y'know, I'm sure he'd have been pleased with this (thank the Lord it ain't real...)... after all, Jim Carey is Bogey's natural succesor...
I don't know about art... But I know someone has to be making a monkey of the art world...
Speaking of which... I guess there's been a precedent set for this kind of thing before... Sly Stallone is a man of many, many talents... Its just a pity they're not acting, directing or painting.
Cheerleaders again... Following our earlier tale of the Texas officials who can't quite believe some Cheerleaders are engaging in lewd movements out there on the field, the ever reliable Onion asks ordinary people for their opinons...
Stupid Cupid... Ahhh, the Onion, source of all the news that's fit to print... And so, I think we'll turn to them for a little romance to end our little tour of the web today...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now
Au Revoir
Russel
Just what Hammett would have wanted... Y'know, I'm sure he'd have been pleased with this (thank the Lord it ain't real...)... after all, Jim Carey is Bogey's natural succesor...
I don't know about art... But I know someone has to be making a monkey of the art world...
Speaking of which... I guess there's been a precedent set for this kind of thing before... Sly Stallone is a man of many, many talents... Its just a pity they're not acting, directing or painting.
Cheerleaders again... Following our earlier tale of the Texas officials who can't quite believe some Cheerleaders are engaging in lewd movements out there on the field, the ever reliable Onion asks ordinary people for their opinons...
Stupid Cupid... Ahhh, the Onion, source of all the news that's fit to print... And so, I think we'll turn to them for a little romance to end our little tour of the web today...
Anyway, mes amis, that's all for now
Au Revoir
Russel
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