Appholes and iGoons

I wish I could rant like this...

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Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home...

Alex Chilton died. Never got a mention in the "mainstream" media, of course.



"High Priest" was my favourite album. I had to listen on my own, my friends couldn't stand it.

And while we're riffing on Alex's memory, spare a thought for Lux Interior of The Cramps, who also passed away recently. A month ago. Maybe I should subscribe to Rolling Stone...

Food for thought...

Music is the International Language...

Forgetting the words (or your meds) need be an embarrassment no more...



Found on Some Guy's Blog, and then some. Nearly half a million hits...

If this doesn't make you smile, you're taking things far too seriously.

Apocryphal Hollywood Story About Motivation

The story goes that, some time in the seventies, when The Method was becoming de rigeur in Hollywood, a Famous Director was encountering some problems with a Famous Method Actor on the set of an action film. The scene takes place on a rooftop. The Famous Method Actor has to run from one side of the roof to the other, as fast as he can. That’s all.

He tries, and falters. This happens over and over. He just can’t get the “urgency” thing happening. He goes to his trailer, meditates, and returns. Still no good. He’s trying his best, he’s almost in tears but he just can’t run “right”. Money and daylight are burning away. Famous Director is getting the shits, big time. Tired of the mucking around, he yells “What is it, what’s the problem?”

“I just can’t find the reason for him to be doing this,” replies the Famous Method Actor across the rooftop. “I mean, what’s my motivation?”

The Famous Director sits down, lights cigarette, looks at the Famous Method Actor for a moment and says…

“I’ll tell you when you get here!”

Angel, Me and the Three Kings of Orient Noir

First, thanks to Harry for the title pun. Such things are expected and forgiven at this time of year…

Absolutely*Kate, Commander-In-Chief of Harbinger*33 (it’s coming!) has been kind enough to post a story of mine, A Room at the Star, over at the Bijou. What’s more, I’m privileged to be double-featuring with Angel Zapata, who has another Magi-oriented story on the same bill, entitled El Dia De Los Reyes {The Day of the Kings}.

Please read, enjoy and have a safe and serene Christmas, Holiday, Hanukah, Kwanza, etc.

Peace and Love.

Holidays? Humbug! It’s Christmas!

Nothing like clustering around the warm glow of your monitor to enjoy this clip a few dozen times over the Silly Season…

Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters

While Clyde McPhatter’s groundbreaking contributions as a soul and R&B vocalist have gone generally undernoticed outside of music circles, his fervent voice and passionate delivery influenced such artists as Smokey Robinson, Ben E. King (one of his heirs in the Drifters), Aaron Neville and Jackie Wilson (his successor in the Dominoes).

“He was one of the first guys I ever listened to,” Robinson said shortly after McPhatter’s death in 1972. “When he first came on the scene with Billy Ward and the Dominoes, he was The Man.”

“Anything Clyde sings is a prayer,” Aaron Neville told Goldmine’s Bruce Sylvester. “When I was growing up, I don’t care what else was going on in the world - Jim Crow, all the other stuff - you could put on Clyde McPhatter and it would all disappear.”

(© The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Inc)

Light Fantastic

I used to consider myself a fair photographer, even learned (and forgot) all the darkroom basics and did a bit of experimentation. I might even dig some out and post them. Hard to remember when I lost interest, but I’m sorry it happened and I recently dug some old rolls of film out of my fridge (that had been there for nearly thirty years!) and got into it again.

These were shot on Ilford FP4. Note the enhancement of the grain (click on the images), caused by long storage and delayed processing. The processor and I were both amazed at the density of the images and the contrast in most. At least there wasn't any fungus growing in the rolls. This film has been in and out of seven or eight fridges since about 1980.



















Now for the real deal…

National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

Andrew and his friend, a young sperm whale named Scar, were swimming together off the west coast of Dominica. The two of them became "friends" after Andrew saved Scar's life. (Photo and caption by Peter Allinson)

This is from a selection, chosen for an article in The Boston Globe, from National Geographic's International Photography Contest 2009

Be amazed...

A poem for Armistice Day

Foot Soldier I have killed with the blade, with the halberd and pike; with the flintlock, the pistol and spear. I have marched with my enemy’s head held aloft, and I’ve crawled and lain screaming in fear on battlefields bloody and flooded with waste, where humanity’s bounds were rejected; I have prayed to a God who could not give a damn, granted mercy where none was expected. I have fought in the desert, in jungles and swamps; I have died in the mountains and plains. The veldt and the forest surrender my bones, and the farmers return my remains. Under cannonade, bombard, mortar and strafe, on beaches and rivers and streets I have fought against madness as surely as shell, to advance as good reason retreats. I am digger and skirmisher, tommy and grunt, I am rifleman, dogface and pawn; I’m the first to go forward, the last to withdraw the one for whom all mothers mourn. I’ve learned some sad truths as I marched through time to the trumpet and snare drum’s rattle, but only one truth need be carved in our hearts; All soldiers die on the first day of battle. © 2006, 2009

A flash of brilliance…

I’d never heard of flash fiction before I joined an online writing group (the much-missed workshop section of East of the Web, back in 2005). I soon learned that it was the backbone of online publishing, the length and style most sought and, as a result, the hardest to do well. Whatever you believe to be the optimum length and structure, the more one reads the more obvious it becomes that it the best flash pieces rely on luring the reader in, setting up certain expectations and then reversing or twisting the result, all in a few hundred words.

Every now and then one comes along that leaves a lasting impression; you keep going back to it, admiring how well it worked. The unfortunate thing is that, with so many writers contributing to so many blogs and e-zines, even a good one can disappear from view too quickly.

Do yourself a favour and check out Extinguished by Laurita Miller, posted on her Brain Droppings blog a few weeks ago. To me, and the other thirty people who’ve left comments, it has everything: a great voice, setting, mood and a killer ending.