A Place Among the Stars

Nightmare Situations - Vol.1: Secret Postman Syndrome

2010-06-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you're a postman.

Perhaps you're a postman and you don't even know. It's entirely possible that you’ve forgotten about it. You used to know, but you’ve hidden the truth from yourself - pushed it deep down into the recesses of your mind along with what you did to Barrack Obama with your Yo-yo last July. Basically, you’re living a lie.

You go about your daily routine, barely aware that you're posting letters the entire time. You try to have your dinner but you can't stop posting letters. There are envelopes in the gravy and the sprouts are covered in stamps. There's mashed potato in the air mail and you're the one to blame. Perhaps this wouldn't have happened if you'd not been so wreckless.

Perhaps you're a postman.

You need help.

There's nothing like an old-school safety brief to put your mind at ease

2010-05-18T10:07:00.001-07:00

Cougars (In the Well) (Note Post, Vol. 2)

2010-05-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

There are cougars in the well. You don't know how they got there. You don't want to know. You just want them gone.

There are cougars in the well.

The mayor's going crazy and the water's turning maroon.
You need to get the cougars out. They swim in circles, going nowhere, whispering Dutch obscenities like awful children. Sniggering into their handkerchiefs. Tearing up newspapers. No respect.

There are still cougars in the well.

You attempt to coax them out with promises of fine wine and loose women. No dice.

Frustration.

You watch them anxiously. Stirring their cocktails. Grimacing into the brickwork. Handing out business cards to each other.

Disgusting.

Suddenly your face is a sled and you rush to get the antivenene.

But there are still cougars in the well.

HammerFall, Dream Evil & Tribe @ Wolverhampton (Another Midlands Rocks Review)

2010-05-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

No messing around, tonight.

The evening kicks in at full force as Yorkshire Metal outfit Tribe explode onto the stage, treating us to an incredibly lengthy 30-minute epic track (a daring move for a live environment, you might say... but hear me out!). The song is characterised by a repeated riff and slightly varying choruses that blend together perfectly. The song-writing quality showcased here is truly... Oh... those were all different songs?

Ah. Let’s try that one again.

The evening begins uncertainly as Yorkshire Metal outfit Tribe amble onto the stage, treating us to a small array of similar-sounding songs from their debut album “Pray for Calm... Need the Chaos”. In the interest of being fair, the songs aren’t bad – they’re just in severe need of variation. The guys perform the tracks well and the musicianship displayed is pretty competent, but an X-factor is missing here. Resultantly, the songs seem to fuse together, making the set become a little more insipid than the band probably deserve. Don’t get me wrong, I’d recommend people check out their debut; even Iron Maiden’s own Bruce Dickinson touts them as “A great British rock band”, giving them regular airtime on his radio show and who am I to argue with Brucey? I guess this reviewer was just disappointed by the lack of variation in the songs, tonight and hopes that Tribe’s future sets will see more diversity with the creation of a second album. However, the crowd react positively enough, giving the band a warm reception, so perhaps this reviewer was alone in his Grumpy Corner of the venue.

http://www.myspace.com/tribeband

Next up, we all mess the venue with the sticky residue of metal-induced orgasms (I am, of course, talking about the beer spills on the floor...) supplied by Swedish Show-Stealers Dream Evil. These guys put on an unbelievable performance, giving the main event a seriously tough act to follow. Tearing into the crowd with new album opener “Immortal”, Dream Evil treat us to that rarest of rarities; the manlier side of Power Metal. The set features a few tracks from their latest release, “In the Night”, but whilst it’s always a good idea to introduce audiences to new material in a live environment, the crowd definitely respond more positively to the old favourites. Gig highlights, for me, are debut opener “Chasing the Dragon” and 2003’s “Made of Metal”, the latter literally sending chills down my spine. There’s only so much I can say about their performance tonight without kissing too much ass, so I’ll keep this brief. The set is nice and varied, featuring at least a track from every album. I can’t fault their performance, at all. The audience interaction is great, the musicianship is excellent and Peter Stålfors’ shaved head and beard combo makes him look like Satan (which, yes, is a positive aspect worthy of review and a great crowd-pleaser). The set finishes with Fan Favourite and Glorious Heavy Metal Anthem “In the Book of Heavy Metal”, which is the mercury icing on the Heavy Metal layer cake that Dream Evil have stuffed us with.

http://www.myspace.com/dreamevil

Finally, the lights go down and Esteemed Heavy Metallers HammerFall explode onto the stage (I mean it, this time) to “Punish and Enslave” the audience with a track from 2009’s “No Sacrifice, No Victory”, getting the set off to a great start, proceeding to storm through “Crimson Thunder” and roar through “Renegade”. Having seen HammerFall a handful of times before, I’m yet to be disappointed by their musicianship, showmanship and general musical aptitude. What makes HammerFall work so well in a live environment is that, like other iconic bands such as Iron Maiden, well renowned for their live performances, every song that they play is an anthemic sing-along. There’s no filler here, it’s all straight-up quality musicianship from the ballsy chorus of “Blood Bound” to the gentle melodies of mandatory mid-gig ballad “Between Two Worlds”. As if to compensate, HammerFall follow up said frilly ballad with ultra-macho new album single “Any Means Necessary” – a hairy mammoth of a track that, despite being relatively new, has already sunk its claws (tusks?) into the bands set and secured a place as a regular live fixture and crowd favourite. The Swedish stars continue doling out the hyper-heavy-metal-masculinity with the aptly titled “Stronger than All” before rocking our collective cock off with the musically excellent and veritable showcase of all-round excellent badassery “Riders of the Storm”, to which the audience respond with an animalistic roar of approval.

After leaving and returning to the stage in what could possibly be the shortest encore gap in history, HammerFall finish the evening with “Secrets”, “Let the Hammer Fall” and of course, the inevitable “Hearts on Fire”. I think it’s fair to say that nobody in the venue, from the band or the audience, is disappointed with the way the evening has played out.

http://www.myspace.com/hammerfall

Setlist:

1. Punish and Enslave
2. Crimson Thunder
3. Renegade
4. Hallowed Be My Name
5. Last Man Standing
6. Blood Bound
7. Heeding the Call
8. Rebel Inside
9. The Metal Age
10. Between Two Worlds
11. Any Means Necessary
12. Stronger than All
13. Riders of the Storm
----------------------------
14. Secrets
15. Let the Hammer Fall
16. Hearts on Fire

Link to review

Midlands Rocks

Photos by Sarah Payman-Shaw

Dreams Come True

2010-05-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

On the Waves (Original Composition)

2010-04-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Just noodling around in GP6

Edguy, Beholder & With One Last Breath (Midlands Rocks Review)

2010-04-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

The four fringed members of With One Last Breath finally leave the stage after a less than lukewarm reception from a slightly empty JBs in the town of Dudley. I generously start the review at this point because there is absolutely nothing constructive I could say about this band and their performance... so I’m just going to have to rant. A review of each individual song from their set would be identical. It was about halfway through the second song (a word I use loosely to describe the Frankenstein of stitched-together whiney vocals and mandatory/uninspired breakdowns) that I realised why I felt a bit nauseous – I was having severe déjà vu. I’d heard these songs before, leaking sloppily from the amps of every unintuitive Metalcore band to soil the face of music television in these recent years. However, the band and the audience came down to a pretty reasonable deal: they had nothing nice to offer us, so we had nothing nice to offer them. As they left the stage to an uncertain smattering of polite applause, I wished the lads the best with their career (honestly), but I certainly knew a roomful of people in the Black Country that wouldn’t mind never seeing the backs of them again. It was just the wrong kind of crowd.

http://www.myspace.com/withonelastbreathofficial

Next up, Beholder take the stage – and I mean really take it and make it their own. Vocalist Simon Hall and his admirable beard acquire centre stage, showcasing some fantastic frontmanship whilst his bandmates shred, blast and... bass(?) their way throughout the set, behind him, showing a considerable arrangement of musical talent between them. Hall and his crew promise us some 'Old School' Heavy Metal. Witnessing them tear through colossal songs like “Show No Mercy” and “Snake Eyes”, slowing down momentarily for the highly-emotional “Brave Shall Fall” (an ode to our soldiers overseas), we are not disappointed.

http://www.myspace.com/beholderuk

The lights finally dim and the star of the show (and doesn’t he know it) arrives and kicks our faces off with the latest album closer “Dead or Rock”, leading straight into “Speedhoven”. Both of these songs are cracked open and fleshed out considerably from their studio incarnations, seeming to pack much more of a punch in a live environment, despite Tobi dropping the microphone 3 times, once almost braining a poor woman in the front row. Next, the Edguys cover more familiar ground with 2001’s “Tears of a Mandrake”, to which the audience respond far more vocally. The first true highlight of the evening roars into the now swarming JB’s as promiscuity-promoting “Lavatory Love Machine” explodes from speakers, drenching us in red-hot metal (a lot less painful than it sounds).

“Who wants to hear some Commercial Pop Metal from Germany?” Sammet cries, generating a curiously large scream of approval from the crowd as the band barrel into “Vain Glory Opera”. Something about the performance of this track doesn’t fall quite right on the eardrums. The lack of synth and orchestration leaves the song feeling a little flat, dry and considerably less cheesy than the studio version. The song is transformed from a Europe-reminiscent synthfest into more of a hard rock/heavy metal self-tribute... Not bad, by any means, but not quite what we were hoping for.

From this point on, the setlist becomes a veritable musical orgasm as Edguy destroy the stage with 10 minute epic (and personal favourite) “The Piper Never Dies”. Tinnitus Sanctus opener “Ministry of Saints” follows, leading into an impressive (but noticeably lengthy) solo from drum dynamo Felix Bohnke. The band return to the stage after this instrumental break wielding fan favourite “Superheroes”, which also unfortunately suffers from the lack of live synth and orchestration, but still proves to be monstrously enjoyable. The band continue dolling out the Rocket Ride tracks with soppy but loveable sing-along ballad “Save Me” which really gets the crowd going, despite a disappointing lack of lighters, owing to a despicably healthy crowd of non-smokers. We had to make do with illuminated mobile phone screens.

Prior to the inevitable encore, Tobi announces the faux “last song of the evening”, promising it’ll be a real cracker. He wasn’t kidding. The band surprise us all (or maybe just me) by blasting into bonus track “Fucking with Fire”. The performance of this song is nothing short of breathtaking and as it ends, despite yearning for more, I’d have been happy to have called it a night. The lights go dark.

After a few moments of milking the crowd of their frantic screams and chants, Tobi and the other Edguys return out of the darkness to treat us to the lacklustre “Sacrifice” – a somewhat risky and disappointing way to begin an encore. However, we have to forgive them as they follow up by unleashing Hellfire Club’s speed machine “Mysteria” into the crowd. This monster of a song feeds on the collective energy of the fans, growing in size, getting faster and stronger, ultimately exploding at its climactic ending. Perfect.

Finally, we finish up with crowd-pleaser “King of Fools”; a satisfactory end to a rollercoaster ride of a gig. Plenty of ups and downs, but the important thing is that we managed to end on a high.

http://www.myspace.com/edguy

Page Link

(Photos Courtesy of Sarah Payman-Shaw)

Old(ish) W.A.S.P. review for Midlands Rocks

2010-02-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

Having not previously indulged in a great amount of W.A.S.P.’s material, I arrived at JB’s in Dudley a little uncertain of what to expect. Due to an unfortunate cancelation of Leeds’ hard rock quintet “The Glitterati”, the evening’s meal of metal was cut straight to the main course.

Cramming myself in to the packed-out venue, I find myself adrift in a sea of anticipation and W.A.S.P. shirts. After a false alarm sparked by hundreds of rabid fans cheering violently for the projection set-up, the band explodes onto the stage with an opener that has the entire audience on their knees. Standing at 6ft 4”, frontman Blackie Lawless’ stage presence is undeniable, towering over the crowd with circular buzz saws protruding from his forearms, chanting the lyrics to “On Your Knees” proves an effective way of holding the audience’s attention.

After moving seamlessly from their opening song into L.O.V.E Machine, W.A.S.P. treats us all to a helping from their latest release “Babylon”. This new number rings throughout the venue with an intro hauntingly reminiscent of their anthemic “Wild Child“, making the fans go crazy.

Barely allowing recovery time from this monster album opener, the band barrel into Babylon’s title track: “Babylon’s Burning”. Almost as mesmerising as Doug Blair’s masterful guitar skills is his guitar itself, captivating the audience as the fret board runs red with light spilled from embedded LEDs, trickling down the guitar’s neck towards the spinning circular saw fixed to its body: I sense a recurring theme, in the band’s stage show.

The venue explodes into a deafening roar as the intro to previously mentioned popular track “Wild Child” drifts from the amps and across the outstretched hands of the audience. Fists pump the air as the song’s chorus is belted out proudly by Lawless and the loyal metal choir before him; a definite high-point of the evening.

W.A.S.P. continued through the night, unleashing track after track of their particular breed of 80s glam metal, pleasuring us with “Hellion” and “Chainsaw Charlie”, the latter proving to be a real crowd-pleaser. All of a sudden, W.A.S.P.’s heavy metal speed train that has carried us throughout the evening so far makes an unexpected (but quite welcome) stop at Crimson Idol title track “The Idol”. Lawless regales the swarm of fans with the heart-wrenching tale of fictional rock star Jonathan Steel. With the audience’s collective heart still bleeding from the after-effects of Lawless’ song-mastery, Doug Blair reopens the wounds and pours a bag of salt into them as he takes centre stage to solo soulfully amidst the solemn mist creeping across the stage. The emotions are real, the mist is not.

Picking us up and brushing us off after this stern emotional beating, the band carries us on into “Take Me Up” and fan favourite “I Wanna Be Somebody” before leaving the stage empty and silent. Unwilling to let the band go without a fight, the audience initially begin to chant “Blackie! Blackie! Blackie!” before more appropriately switching to “W.A.S.P.! W.A.S.P.! W.A.S.P.!”, respecting the band’s unquestionable team effort.

Once fully satisfied with their ability to make grown men and women throw tantrums and scream for more, W.A.S.P. bursts back on stage, melting the faces in the front row with “Heaven Hung in Black” and “Blind in Texas”; an admirable dessert of an encore that complements the main course faultlessly.

Page Link

More Musics

2010-02-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

A brand new piece.

Spontaneous Poetry: Not always a bad thing

2010-01-01T16:22:00.000-08:00

Andy says:
*MOTHERFUCKING SOLO!
*Jesus is that guy too good
*He shouldn't be allowed

Lee says:
*Barnaby Jones and his Fortress of Swing

Andy says:
*The new book
*By Harold Shipman

Lee says:
*It's a poem in the making
*It's got quite a rhythm to it
*Bar-na-by Jones and his For-tress of Swing

Andy says:
*Much like a jagged dinosaur

Lee says:
*Barnaby Jones and his Fortress of Swing
*A harrowing tale one must shout and must sing
*Racing through time in a big yellow coat
*There's an owl with a meter stick perched on his boat
*Where oh where will the Swing Fortress stop?
*In front of MacDonald's and some other shop.
*Barnaby Jones steps out into the store
*With an owl underarm and potentially more
*I should stop

Andy says:
*Until you pop
*And an old man starts to glare
*As Harold removes his underwear

Lee says:
*Harold's old boxers are made out of zinc
*And sausage and mash and cotton, I think

Andy says:
*A truly bizarre state of affairs
*That leads to a sexual lust for old stairs

Lee says:
*Putting one's cock on the stairs is a task
*It's best to protect it by wearing a flask

Andy says:
*One not tried by the faint of heart
*A task no novice is likely to start

Lee says:
*You must hammer it, twist it, *clunk clank and plink*
*It's much easier to just put your knob in the sink
*But think of the germs! The plates and the mess!
*It makes us erect, we all must confess

Andy says:
*A deed that I often commit
*Even when my penis refuses to fit

Lee says:
*Some try the kettle, or pans and a pot...
*My penis was skinned - it's just far too hot

Andy says:
*Others will slam genitals in doors
*But it's not advised as the blood often pours

Lee says:
*This talk of penis is making me tire
Let's speak of magnesium, of foxes and wire

Andy says:
*Items a true fisherman aspires to own
*Even if the neighbours are likely to moan

Lee says:
*Throw them all in a box, step back and you'll see
Your legs will transform into iced raspberry tea
*A physical state that makes fishing a chore
*It's best to forget it, just go to the store

Andy says:
*But beware of the store, the shopkeeper's mad
*He still claims to be Richie Blackmore's new dad
*With a handful of nails and a mug full of noodles
*The shopkeeper's best known for killing his poodles

Lee says:
*A deed not forgotten by his wife and his kid
The poodles were raped and then punched to Madrid

Andy says:
*The Spaniards came out, ablaze with their rage
*And built the shopkeeper a really shit cage

Lee says:
*The Shopkeeper roared in a flustery splutter
"MY KNEECAPS ARE CROOKED AND COVERED IN BUTTER!"

Andy says:
*Unaware of the damage from this
*The Spaniards all celebrated, starting to kiss
*When all of a sudden from out of the sky
*Came rocker Mick Jagger, wielding beef pie

Lee says:
*The Spaniards all gathered, their mouths were agape
Mick Jagger flew lower, flaunting his cape
*The pie was delightful, all crispy and brown
But then Mick fell in it and started to drown

Andy says:
*The gravy he sank in was just far too thick
*He struggled and sank as he fondled his dick

Lee says:
*The pie was now tainted, the Spaniards did flee
The shopkeeper was left, with Mick and a tree

Andy says:
*With blood on his hands and his new found guilt
*The shopkeeper proceeded to roll up a quilt

Lee says:
*He packed it up tight and rode it back home
But his quilt was too fast and ran over a gnome

Andy says:
*He arrived in Italy, tired and worn
*Followed by Harold, a gnome-lover scorn

Lee says:
*He put on his hat and then turned into dust
Harold fell over and died from disgust
*This would not have happened, were it not for one thing
Fuck Barnaby Jones and his Fortress of Swing
**Lightning*
*THE END

Andy says:
*That was excellent as fuck

My Musics

2009-11-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

Worldlines

Empathica

Some Things Never Change

2009-11-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

A Cry for Help (Note Post, Vol.1)

2009-10-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

New carpet. When you've got new carpet, you can pretend you're a celebrity.
Lay it down and admire your handy work. Draw on yourself with chalk and act like nothing happened.
You're alone with the carpet, but that doesn't mean it has to be about sex.
Sometimes you're the only person to notice the carpet.
Everybody else just walks over it like it isn't there.
You see the carpet - you wish you didn't. It perverses things. The carpet hides the truth.
The truth is in the wooden panelling. Some say the proof is in the pudding, but this is a lie.

The proof is in the panelling

Roll up the carpet. What do you get? Nothing.
Pry up the panelling. What do you get? Everything.

You get the mayor's Sunday vest. You get as much dust as you can eat.

The proof is not in the pudding.

Balloon Men - Pt.1

2009-09-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

I sit patiently at my desk.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Sat with a book in front of me, I wait... wait for it to make its move... wait for it to make a mistake. My eyes drift listlessly to the bottom left corner of their peripheral vision, surveying the dust in the corners, watching detachedly as Hillary Clinton slinks carelessly into the room, making dirty tuba noises before clambering awkwardly into the fish tank and disappearing amongst the reeds.

*Rustle* *Rustle*

My eyes dart back to the book with the hideous immediacy of a hawk with lead feet falling on top of a newborn child. The book has not changed. A formidable opponent. This one will require the darkest depths of my cunning.

Silently, I slip out of the bedroom door, creeping down the stairs and into the kitchen. Reaching into one of the lower cupboards, I pull out six packs of Werther’s Originals and a watering can. I bring them back upstairs and arrange them enticingly at the far end of the desk and survey the book with a look of smug triumph. I know I have its balls in a vice.

All of a sudden, the book turns red and catches fire.

“AHA!” I shout in delirious victory, grabbing the book by the corner and Frisbeeing it out of the window, to avoid scorching the watering can. Almost content enough to dust my hands of the situation, I freeze, mid-hand-dusting, as I hear the book ricochet off of human skin and plop lifelessly into the pond. I crane my head around slowly and see a pink balloon float absently skywards, past the window.

Worry begins to creep coldly through my veins as I start to speculate over the cause of such abrupt balloon presence. Knowingly, I skulk to the other side of the room and rotate the dimmer switch on the wall until the bulb on the ceiling becomes no more than a dull ember. I slowly raise my head over the windowsill, already certain of what I will see.

Balloon Men.

Three of them. Four, if I were to include the one sprawled out on the floor, empty-handed, blood gushing from a book-shaped wound in his scalp. One stood by the pond, another stood near the shed and one stood half-buried in the vegetable patch up to his chest. They all hold a single, coloured balloon, left-handed, staring blankly at my bedroom window. They each wear ragged, formal suits, littered with coffee stains and bread crumbs. The one loitering around the shed turns to the pond-stander and begins to speak in loud trumpet noises, asserting its dominance as it spray-paints “Jumanji” on the fence, marking its territory. My worry is forgotten in a moment of white fury as David Attenborough sneaks out of some nearby long grass and begins to play Twister with a jaguar. The jaguar asks David to put his right foot on blue and it’s more than I can stand. The last straw.

I turn away, horrified, and slump against the wall beneath the windowsill, my mind bulging with questions. Why are they here? Why me? Who threw my book in the pond? Unhelpful questions all likely to have equally as unhelpful answers. I begin to pace the length of my room, pondering a way to rid myself of these unwanted guests. After what seems to be an eternity of pacing, I stop dead in my tracks, having walked straight into the fish tank, spilling tropical fish and Hillary Clinton all over the new carpet. I casually sweep the unlucky fish and the ex-president’s wife under the rug, when an idea hits me square in the jaw. Dazedly, I pick the idea off of the floor and jam it into my head, massaging my bruised chin. Sudden clarity begins to circulate around my brain. I know what must be done.

Exercising extreme caution, I snatch the watering can from its position as centrepiece in the tantalizing display of garden equipment and chewy, butterscotch toffee treats on my bedroom desk. I grab a side of the watering can in each hand and begin to stretch it – stretch it wide enough to fit a leg in.

Then I stretch it some more.

I stretch it far past the recommended stretching size written on the bottom of the can. The sides of the can stretch to the point of transparency as the warning siren begins to blare from the town centre. Village folk burst from their houses, ugly screams of panic shooting from their mouths and splashing all over the floor. They carry hastily packed bags under their arms, many of them wearing their children as slippers, too lazy to carry or wake them. They’re running for the emergency bunkers, used only in case of nuclear fallout, and the excessive elongation of gardening goods. I let go of the watering can... yet it continues to swell.

The walls of the bedroom begin to buckle and creak as the monstrous, green balloon continues to bulge and distend. The large double windows shatter outwards and spray the Balloon Men in the garden with confused shards of glass. They squawk in their violent brass voices and begin to tear up the Twister mat. David Attenborough shoots a sharp, accusatory look at the Balloon Man in the vegetable patch (the only one unable to seize his beloved Twister mat) and explodes in a hectic shower of snakes. The snakes swarm up the walls of my house, oblivious to the gravity urging them kindly to stay on the ground. They begin to pour in through the open window and pile into the rapidly-growing can like clowns into a tiny car – a tiny car that has been turned into a giant watering can.

What have I done?

The roof of the house bursts, sending scraps of brick and tiles sprawling out into the road and garden. Despite the weight of its new residents, the ex-watering device begins to float upward and out of the room. Instinct seizes me. I was born for this moment. As the big green balloon takes flight, I leap into the open hatch and slump down into the pile of writhing snakes. The can ascends higher into the night sky and I peer over its edge, down at the rapidly shrinking garden. The plan has not gone entirely awry, after all: I’m leaving the Balloon Men behind. A strong sigh of relief escapes me as I slouch back into the slithering carpet that fills my new abode. Where to now? Wherever the can desires...

Old College Work!

2009-08-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

The series of images that follow make up my English Language AS Creative Writing coursework. The story is a very loose re-write of the classic Fairytale "Snow White". It is written in a vaguely Sci-Fi style in a post-apocalyptic environment.

Unforseen Consequences

2009-02-04T00:07:00.000-08:00

Sat at the computer, trawling through seemingly endless quagmires of dross; reams upon reams of porn. Girl on girl, girl on horse, girl on vintage accordion, girl on antique clock nailed to a cricket bat... I've seen it all before. I'm looking for something new. Something fresh. Something exciting. Something to make me feel alive. Yet in my haste to find something new, I feel as if I may have forgotten something old... something potentially vital.

As if to smugly justify my worries, a low rumbling begins at the bottom of the staircase and starts to wind its way upwards. I hear angry noises coming from the landing – picture frames being knocked from shelves, polar bears smashing pots together and rugs being snagged by the careless motions of unhappy feet. All at once, the rumbling culminates into a furious cadence right outside my bedroom door. The door bursts off its hinges, flying across the room and stapling the cat to the wall. My father stomps into the room, seemingly unphased by the door's sudden murderous impulse to impale the cat. I look into his face and see red-hot fury swimming in his eyes. He grits his teeth and holds out the pumpkin from last October.

“YOU LEFT THE PUMPKIN OUT TOO LONG!” spit flies from his mouth in angry tendrils “LOOK!” He removes the top of the Jack-O-lantern and I begin to understand. Beneath the seemingly innocent outer crust of the pumpkin, lies something hideous in its irrelevance.

A miniature carnival winks from inside the pumpkin's head. Dozens of tiny patrons line up to buy tickets for severely under-maintenanced amusement rides whilst others attempt to win shoddy prizes from games that are most likely rigged. My eyes grow wide as dim comprehension envelopes me. I can't begin to apologise enough. How could I have been so foolish? I'd had all the time in the world to dispose of that pumpkin before something like this could've happened... but I was selfish – I'd allowed myself to become distracted by the big blue vase I'd bought last Thursday. If only I'd bought a smaller vase to admire, perhaps I'd have been spared just enough time to beat the shit out of a pumpkin. But alas, no turning back now. I've made my bed on this one, now I must lie in it.

My father slams the pumpkin onto my desk and storms out of the room, playing cards and marbles falling haphazardly from his sleeves and onto my carpet as he flails his arms in snake-like motions.
“Fuck” I mutter under my breath, eyeing the carnival cautiously. I slip from my seat and slide under the desk in a perversely fluid motion. Once sheltered beneath the wooden fortress, I wrap myself in a thin, silk cocoon to hold myself over until April – perhaps the miniature Carnies would move on.

I wait.

Time slips around me like stale water. Boredom festers on my skin like yawn-inducing fungus. I struggle my hand down towards my pocket and turn loose its contents. Three Roman coins and a figurine of the Ready Brek dragon tumble from their denim prison and onto the surrounding silk. Most unhelpful. I lose track of how long I've been under; I decide to resurface.

I tear out of my sodden silk shell and punch a hole in the wall. Peering through my newly-punched peep-hole, I spy on the neighbours as they tear up the carpet and shout at mice. Real sportsmanship. Nobody shouts at mice quite like the Williams'. I manage to tear my gaze from the carpet-ripping mice-screamers in order to focus on less ridiculous matters – the pumpkin carnival. I pivot 180 degrees on the balls of my feet and shit myself in anger. The carnival has swollen – swollen to a ludicrous size. Tiny rollercoasters twist their way around my room, entwining themselves in the bookcase and ensnaring the curtain rails. Thriving masses of tiny guests queue in long, winding lines, as they squeak and chitter in tiny voices. Fury. How dare they maim my beautiful domicile? How dare they cut and hack until it becomes a twisted, orange, vegetable circus from hell? Trousers brimming with anger-induced faeces, I begin to smash my way through the amusements, bringing an end to this preposterous occupation.

The once proud carnival sinks into roaring, judicious flames as my unwelcome guests are extinguished, their stern joy melting to terrified sludge as their world collapses around them, the putrid stench of despair and burning flesh bidding them farewell on their exit from the living world. I hop nimbly over the small charred bodies to fetch the broom. What a mess. I sweep the rotting shambles under the bed and turn my attention to the source – the origin, the conduit, the alpha & omega... the pumpkin.

I seize it firmly in my right hand, staring it in its empty, orange eyes. Without another moment's thought, I turn around and launch the pumpkin out of the window, knocking out the milkman and sending shards of glass soaring around the room, all the while wondering why I didn't pause to open the window first. Dusting my hands off, a small smirk creeps across my face. Now that little problem has been disposed of, we can get back to the matter at hand.

Sat at the computer, trawling through seemingly endless quagmires of dross...

The Git Among the Pigeons

2008-12-16T19:20:00.001-08:00

Sat on a sign on the edge of Baker Street – clearly a shit place to be. I gaze skyward and realise that I'm standing upside-down as freshly cut grass leaps unexpectedly across my field of vision. I right myself just in time to see Roy career off the rails and straight into a lamp post, like a twat. Roy makes a shit steam train, but you try telling that to a man that paid forty thousand pounds to have a cowcatcher surgically grafted to his shins. The man's living in well deserved denial. He smiles at me and begins to grind slowly through the pavement like a drill. I return his smile and watch him curiously as he disappears into the concrete. I begin to suspect that he does not have the appropriate planning permission for this. I must redirect his attention.

I don't stop to think. I barely even breathe. With the hectic speed of a dead badger hurtling to earth from atop the Eiffel Tower, I dash towards Roy, hoping against hope that I reach him in time. I trip over a tortoise and brain myself on the concrete. I'm out for the count.

I dream of Venice. I find myself floating carelessly in the canals, ploughing through gondolas as if they were made of wood. The locals scream in dismay as gondoliers leap from their sinking boats, only to land on the kitchen floor. They realise far too late in the game that they've moored their boats to the dishwasher. I grin smugly to myself as shards of broken gondola scatter wildly around the room, tearing at innocent Venetian faces and scratching the new paintwork on the cupboards. Suddenly I'm falling. Venice drops away and I'm left with a faint ringing in my ears and the smell of freshly-crushed tortoise clinging to my nostrils.

I come around and Roy's long-gone. If it weren't for the gaping chasm in the pavement and the teeth sticking out of the lamp post, it'd be as if he were never even here. I approach the freshly-drilled hole with wary steps. I peer over the edge and into the crushing darkness that Roy has left in his wake. The dark is Roy's weapon; he drags it limply behind him like a dead dog on a tattered leash, smearing the ground he covers with a long, foul stain. I stare into that cold darkness and feel it speak to my very soul. It asks me about that cold night in Brooklyn. I tell it that the subject is very personal and that is should mind its own business. The dark apologises for overstepping its boundaries.

Without further ado, I pinch my nostrils shut and cannonball into the thick dark that floods the chasm. I plummet through the vast black with the cold wind whipping at my face before crumpling in a messy heap at the bottom of the pit. My bones pierce my skin and my organs are turned to gelatinous sludge inside my body. As I lay mashed, gasping helplessly for air in the crushing black at the bottom of the pit, I think to myself how this has been a textbook example of how to ruin a perfectly good Tuesday afternoon. I remind myself not to invite Roy over to lunch for a very long time.

Stoat Gambling

2008-11-23T09:30:00.000-08:00

It wasn't until I shot a momentary glance into Frankie Marcello's gunmetal grey eyes that I realised this game had the unsettling potential to be my last if I didn't play my cards right. I remembered far too late into the game that Frankie Marcello is not a man to be fucked with. When you fuck Frankie, he fucks you twice as hard; allegedly with the barrel end of a .44, or so the stories go. I tear my eyes away from my cards and see the dimly-lit basement swim in and out of focus behind a grim haze of cigar smoke. Sat on the other side of the smokescreen, Frankie and his boys (Nico & Gino), watch me carefully. The thick Cuban smoke veil is a Godsend; it obscures the truth of my hand more than even my best poker-face could. I quell the faint wriggling in my jacket pocket and try to pull myself together.

I meet the eyes of the dull figures buried behind the smoke screen and decide it's time to bite the bullet. Shit or get off the pot; and when dealing with Frankie Marcello, it's imperative that you don't get off the pot. You shit, man. You fucking shit and then you fucking run.

I reach slowly into my jacket pocket and grab my bet by its tail. I pull the stoat out and slide it across the table. It blinks dumbly in the swirling Cuban haze but makes no attempt to run – it's been bred for the purpose of gambling. Frankie eyes my stoat carefully and sees that it is good. Pure-bred, short-tailed Eurasian Ermine. It's good quality merchandise. Nico & Gino see that I mean business. They both fold; they know better than to fuck with high-quality stoats. Frankie, however, shuffles in his seat as he reaches into a bucket under the table. He sees my stoat and raises me five of his own. Gino's cigar falls from his mouth and onto the mottled, hardwood floor as Nico stifles a small whimper. Five stoats, man. Impressive. God damn impressive. Frankie's poker face is even more impressive still but all the stoats in the world couldn't fool me. I flick my eyes up to meet Marcello's.

"These are weasels, Frank." He realises I've got his number. Piping hot rage wells in his eyes, but somehow he stays cool. The man's got power and I'll be damned if he doesn't know it. The man's got connections. He's got a .44 in his pocket and a bucket of weasels at his feet; he's on top of the world.

With blinding speed he grabs the bucket from underneath the table and launches it across the room at me. Utter pandemonium. Weasels in the air vents, stoats in the rafters. Gino runs blindly into the wall, batting the weasels from his face and knocks himself out. Nico is nowhere to be seen underneath the wriggling stoat carpet. In the midst of the weasel-induced chaos, Frankie makes a break for the fire exit. I don't hesitate. I plunge my hand deep into my stoat pocket and grab myself some ammunition. I'm gripped by a deep cold as I lock my vision onto Frankie's back – I've only got one chance. I hurl the furry projectiles towards him. My aim is true.

WHACK.

WHACK.

WHACK.

Nailed to the wall by stoats. Frankie Marcello's air of authority is lost as the steady scarlet flow trickles from his stoat-inflicted wounds, staining his best jacket. I move slowly towards him on the conveyor belt-like floor of weasels and stoats. I pull the .44 from his pocket and feel its weight in my hand. It's heavy – heavy is good. I crack his jaw with the handle of the revolver and shoot a nearby stoat in the face just for the sexual thrill. Frankie whimpers slightly as I turn back towards him. The stoats in his shoulders are boring deep. An odd pity grips me as I see his face writhing in pain. I put a bullet in his skull and shield my eyes from the mist of crimson and brain matter that ricochets off the wall behind him. The police would have heard the ruckus – they'll be here soon. I scrape myself a modest handful of stoats from the moving rodent carpet and stuff them into my jacket pocket before heading out the fire exit. Same time next week.

Planned Obsolescence

2008-11-22T17:46:00.000-08:00

It's quite natural for you to feel this way. Don't you worry your fragile head, Sir. Nobody's blaming you for such an unexpected outcome – I'm sure they can piece her back together. These things just take time; which is exactly your problem. Time. It's all around.

It surrounds us.

It chokes us.

It's in the rafters, it's 'neath the staircase. It's 'twixt the drywall and it clutters the pantry. Try as you might, you just can't scrape the time out of the drain. It coagulates in the U-bend like old blood, gushed forth from a particularly nasty haemorrhage. Time. It's taken its embarrassingly steep toll on you. Your consequential problem is that you've been obsolete for a very long time, my friend. Your services are no longer required in an age of hand-held telephones and colour televisions. Your dated skills quake and cower in the herculean shadows of self-service checkouts, they stumble dimly in the colossal footprints left in the wake of electrical sewing machines and other such technological marvels. Your antiquated equipment is unfashionable to say the very least.

For starters, your compass is rusty and it always points towards Denmark. Let's face it; you don't want to go to Denmark – you've only just gotten back. Think of the mess you left at the airport. The screaming of the children as you took the power drill to that zebra. How you ever successfully smuggled a zebra through customs to begin with is a mystery best left unplumbed. It's going to take them weeks to clean up all the apricot pulp. Rest assured, they're not going to be in any sort of hurry to let you back into the country, Squire, believe me. The Danes have rules about this sort of thing.

Let's not get started on your wardrobe. In fact, let's. Your trousers are shameful. A corduroy nightmare; they shrink and swell with the eternal shifting of the tide. This is somewhat of an unwelcome complication. You find yourself wearing clothes that just don't match. You'd like to remedy this but you can't; your trousers are far too tight. You can't take them off, no sir-ee. Don't dare to think you can, not even for a moment. Wishful thinking is a dangerous tool, a by-product of hope. You can't afford to hope, not on your budget. You just spent all that money on Danish apricots. Your reckless disregard for judicious spending has, once again, left you in the wrong trousers.

Try as you may, you cannot claw your way back to the top. The times have passed you by and you need to make way for a brighter future. But there's little need to stew in the caustic swill of your welling self-pity. Things could be unfathomably worse. There are debauched levels of archaism esoteric to the average mind. Take, for instance, the Colossus of Rhodes. The lazy lamp-holding dick couldn't even stand up properly. Not that I'd expect much more from a man whose son managed to set the entire planet on fire. What an idiot.

The Last Man/Perpetual Motion

2008-11-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

This is a work in progress and much of it is subject to change. A fair chunk of it (the ending) was also written under the weight of alcohol's heavy hand, so the last paragraph or so is in need of some serious reworking.

I hear the moan of tired gears grinding to a peculiar halt amidst the shrouds of dank, jade mist. The pounding heartbeat of the Earth deteriorates into a distant din, a soft hum… silence. The frayed veneer peels away and as the mechanism dies, the fog retreats to reveal the ancient plains of impossible motion. Primordial fields of over-grown emerald struggle their way through the thinning haze and bloom callously beneath my feet. This is the world behind our eyes. This is the space between the walls. This is where the road began.

I tread cautiously through this alien dreamscape, taking extreme precaution not to disturb the thick silence that clutters the air. I notice the squalid aroma of empyreuma clinging inexorably to my nostrils, but the timeworn wheel of the sky overhead remains unscathed by smoke. Scanning the horizon of the surrealist landscape, I notice a hulking, gothic structure, far in the distance, where the land meets the sky, seeming to pin the two together. Being the only object, other than myself, to so brazenly intrude upon the emptiness of the vast plains for miles around, the importance of the structure seems immovable. It swims in and out of focus, dancing on the edge of the earth as if it were simmering in the heat of some mid-afternoon sun.

I make my way towards the building, hoping to find refuge from the unfamiliarity that surrounds me; the construct seems to be the only thing human in this world beneath worlds. The small comfort it offers is enough to entice me towards it. I begin to close the distance between the building and I, carving my way through the vast ocean of emerald as the cosmic wheel of the sky continues to turn above me, indifferent from my growing feeling of displacement. Its apathy unsettles me. My pace quickens.

I wade noiselessly through the swamps of jade; inexplicable anxiety wells in my heart and my eyes dart frantically back and forth over the empty plains. Darkness begins to fester in the sky. Time feels broken here. It fluctuates back and forth in long, warbling arcs like a pendulum at the bottom of the ocean. It holds no surprise for me that the foundations on which our beliefs were built would be so unstable; so maddeningly unintelligible. The sky grows darker still, and I become aware of a creeping, incongruous presence. I realise that it’s my own. My pace quickens further. I begin to run.

As I dash across the rolling plains, the world around me seems to shift. The radiating humanity of the approaching construct grows cold and dies. The angles of its architecture grow incomprehensible. The colours become all wrong. I make pains to drag my eyes away from the new, sick majesty of the monolithic structure looming on the horizon and find myself gazing into the sprawling heavens above. The stars are out, but these are not my stars. Polaris has been doused. Orion has been swept away. The sky is littered with lunatic spheres of light, clung together in twisted constellations. I close my eyes against them and my steady dash quickens to a frantic sprint.

As I tear closer, the structure reveals itself to be a colossal cathedral, ludicrously overrun with coarse ivy of innumerable eternities. The roof of the building teems with sodden moss and broken gargoyles. Dead eyes, sunken deep into malformed stone heads, perched atop hideously carved perversions of the human form gape at me from the dizzying heights of the gargantuan cathedral’s slanted roof. I run blindly towards the cathedral and throw my weight against the contorted, oak doorway. The doors give begrudgingly as its prehistoric, rusted hinges shriek in silent pain. Once inside, I slam the doors shut behind me – they do not make a sound – locking it all out; the hot malevolence of the gargoyle’s vacant stare and the cold unconcern of the ancient sky. My breath rips out in short, rasping tears. I stare at the large oak slabs blocking the entrance way. The gargoyles avert their gaze and the sky takes its indifference elsewhere. They dare not touch this place. It’s all I can do to prevent myself from asking why. I dust myself off, though there is no filth to be dusted, and turn my eyes upon the interior of the cathedral.

The cathedral is not, as I had expected (hoped) abandoned. The pews are occupied. My breath is momentarily confiscated as a silent congregation fills my vision. Frozen in disturbing tableaux, they sit, transfixed, staring eternally towards the rotten pulpit with eyes that have withered to black pulp in their sockets. Their peculiar tranquillity has allowed the same creeping vines that have swamped the exterior of the cathedral to grow over them, ensnaring their withered bodies to the stiff, knotted wood of the pews and cutting ruthlessly into their gnarled flesh. I wonder who (what) in the name of God would allow such calamities to go on living; and to what avail? I stagger awkwardly up the nave, unable to keep from gawking at the peculiar cavalcade of loyal followers. I draw closer to the head of the room and a dark figure swims into view, partially obscured by some unexplainable veil. I feel the silence deepen around me and I tremble under its weight. I soon approach the pulpit and weakly raise my head to meet the eyes of the flock’s shepherd.

I find that she owns no eyes.

I find myself staring straight through her - into a shadow of pure lunacy.

Her form has been cut from reality. What remains is neither black, nor white – a resonating, God-shaped fracture in existence. I am staring behind the darkness of space. My eyes cannot relay the immense density of the information it is receiving to my mind and my head begins to throb in dull, pulsating thuds. It throbs underneath the stress of unlimited knowledge. A searing pain cracks down my skull as I feel my brain buckle and creak. My head swarms with questions that know no bounds – and she answers them.

Every

Last

One

I scream.

Countless millennia’s worth of pent-up silence is shattered in one single moment. The shards come crashing down and every eyeless, time-trodden face in the cathedral turns upon me. They stare dumbly through the darkness in their sockets, their eternity-long oration interrupted. One by one, slick, twisted grins creep across their faces. A gnarled face in the fourth row begins to bleed from its mouth as it bites down on its own tongue in a wretched effort to sport its own malignant smirk. The flow thickens and turns to a bubbling spray as the jagged blades in its rotten fissure of a maw sever its tongue into two scarlet-sputtering halves. The dead half of the tongue drops to the floor with a wet thump and lays lifeless on the cold stone, oozing thick, black bile into the pew in front.

I return my attention back towards the Piper and find myself struck rigid by her presence, unable to move. She turns her featureless face towards me and shrieks in noiseless outrage. I take a glimpse through her and into the world that lies in her pestilent shadow. My sanity snaps like a thread and reality falls away.

I sit in the Halls of Perpetual Motion, bound helplessly amongst the throngs of rotten worshippers and shattered time. She stands at the altar, bleating her sermon in harsh, frenzied, silent yelps…

And we weep for her.

This is where the road began.

I tore the leg off a pigeon

2008-11-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

I tore the leg off a pigeon. Rest assured, it wasn't planned – it's just one of those things that, try as you may, you can't prevent. Some people argue that one couldn't possibly just tear off a pigeon's leg with such accidental grace (we call these people "New Zealanders", people who believe legs are only for winter situations); such people have clearly never been in my shoes. Size 10 "Evos" a cheap, rip-off brand purchased for a pittance from T.K Maxx, more or less designed for tearing the legs off of small animals. Things haven't been quite the same ever since. The neighbours refuse to talk to me, the Queen's face is on back-to-front and my rucksack is filled with paint. Oh, I've tried to pour it away, but it just keeps on coming back in greater quantities and increasingly brighter colours – I'm not sure how much more of it I can take.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist. Some might say the bag is half-empty, though I believe the bag is half-full. Some days it's all I can think about. I'm wandering through town, trying to ignore the Himalayan Musk trickling down my back. A man in the street cries out "Sir! Excuse me, Sir! Three bananas for a pound!" but I don't hear them. My jazz shoes are on backwards and I'm walking straight into the wall. I'm flushed with embarrassment and my hands turn to jam. Jam-handed, I brush myself off and stain my best shirt with Bramble & Bramley. Paint on my trousers and jam on my chest, I'm ready to take on the world. I've got all the moves and I'm not sharing them with anybody. I tear the leg off another pigeon and my trousers fill with ham. Some people never learn.

A Sense of Purpose

2008-11-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

This blog will come to be home to any arbitrary scribblings that happen to fall from my head and into a word processor. Such scribblings are apt to fluctuate between serious and spurious, fiction and non-fiction, depending on my mood and any number of other factors.

I've recently found myself being host to a ravenous and near-insatiable hunger for reading the thoughts and feelings of others and have consequentially decided that I'd create my own blog to cater to others that may have unsuspectingly found themselves being seized by similar needs and hungers.

Liam