Liver Damage

Fell off the wagon Saturday night. Proper post tomorrow.

A hiatus

Alcohol and I have been fast friends through thick and thin, thus the title of this blog. And yes, I have tried to always be drinking when I post which probably explains the quality of the content and the number of typos (now corrected, I think). But lately, alcohol has been giving me a headache. After, like two fucking beers. So instead of fighting and making a mess of our long and beautiful relationship, we're having a break from one another. I'm going to try to stay on the wagon for a month. See if my liver thanks me. That means the 13th of August (been dry for four days now). Then, I dunno, maybe alcohol and I will paint the town red or something.

Andy Kehoe

Andy Kehoe is a Californian artist who specialises in brilliantly executed paintings reminiscent of childhood dreams and nightmares, juxtaposing at times grim subject matter with a kind of whimsy that elevates them far above the work of many of his contemporaries. But don't take my word for it, take a look at his site, it's worth the price of admission for his hilarious biography alone.

The Mercy Seat

Does it count as blogging if you just embed a Youtube video?



No? Oh well, fuck it then.

Eight Facts About Gin

1. Gin is flavoured with juniper berries
2. Gin was once sold in pharmacies as a cure for kidney ailments
3. Gin is a thing of sublime magnificence
4. In 1740 gin production in England was four times that of beer
5. Gin was an invention of the wonderful Dutch people
6. It's consumption is also responsible for the term "Dutch Courage"
7. Mother's Ruin!
8. Gin makes you smarter and more attractive

Nemesis the Warlock

At thirteen years of age my exposure to comics was pretty much limited to GI Joe, Conan and The Punisher. All of which, if my undergraduate Sociology serves me well, are symbols of the triumph of Capatalist individuality and reaffirmations of the dominant social paradigm. Actually some of that was probably just shit I made up.

Anyway, it was with only this limited exposure to comics as a storytelling medium that I came upon a coverless copy of 2000 AD Monthly featuring Nemesis the Warlock amongst a stack of magazines in my eighth grade art class. It was something of a revelation to me.

Nemesis is a creation of Pat Mills, who set up 2000AD and had a large part to play in the creation of it's most famous offspring, Judge Dredd. But Nemsis is a different, I would say much better thing altogether. Part left wing reaction to Thatcherite Britain, part mediation on obsession and vengeance, and (a very big) part good old eighties-style science fiction, from an era when the Brits were doing some wonderfully dark and pessimistic things with the genre. The villain of the piece is named after Tomas de Torquemada the Spanish Inquisator, and is a vicious dictator who keeps the entire human race in check through a very literal form of xenophobia. The themes in this thing are universal and sadly still very relevant. Of course I didn't realise any of this at the time, but I fucking loved it, and still do. You would too, if you read it. I don't like to overstate things, but the world would be a better place if we were all reading Nemesis the Warlock.

Diane Arbus

Today's distraction from work: the photography of Diane Arbus. She took pictures of society's fringe-dwellers long before it was deemed cool, or even socially acceptable, to do so. Inkeeping with that picture/thousand words thing, here:





That's four thousand, right there.

There's also a film inspired by her life. It's got Nicole Kidman, who's frequently crap, but you never know. She was good in The Hours...

The Junky's Christmas / Farewell, My Faithful Friend

It was with a heavy heart that I recently jetisonned my VCR, a boon companion to me through eleven years of soaring highs and harrowing lows. And some mediocres. After a prolonged struggle, it had finally died, a blessing in the end. With a shiny new set top box/recorder taking care of all our copyright infringement needs, a replacement was not especially required. So along with it went my ageing collection of videos. Nothing especially distinguished, just a bunch of B movies and stuff recorded off TV. That is, aside from The Junky's Christmas.

The Junky's Christmas is a quarter hour of stop-motion animated pleasure, narrated by William S Burroughs and based on one of his short stories. I recorded it on a whim many moons ago and it slowly became a tradition in the variety of houses in which I lived, to always watch it on Christmas. Something about it's bleak black-and-white narrative of a junky desperately trying to score on Christmas Eve just screams yuletide cheer. It does, in fairness have a fairly happy ending. Hope that doesn't spoil it for you.

Anyway, in an attempt to alleviate my grief over having so cruelly cast as ide the beloved tape I turned to another, more recent, love of my life: Youtube. And lo, there it was:



Will there ever be anything as Christmassy as Bill Burroughs mumbling his way through a two thousand word short story?

Answer: no.

Old Cigarette ad

"Softened with fresh air", I gotta get me some of them Salem Cigraettes.