May | 2020 | exacticablog

Nonsense!

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Simon Woods

I was never much good in relationships, I mean sexual ones of course – who’s interested in any other sort? It just seemed to me, when it all began, I mean as a youth, the object was to lay down the rules, take control and be a man. I was always a bit of a weed, no fault of my own, I just wasn’t all that manly. First things first, what you must do is go out there and beat another man down, beat on his ass, as they say.

You might think thats a bit homo-erotic perhaps, but thats just the way it is. Straddle that Brocken and defeated foe and unleash that primal manly roar of victory! To be an ultimate real man and lay down the law, you must beat your equal or even your superior down into a bloody pulp then stand over his battered beaten corpse and declare to the womenfolk looking on, I am a man! Then and only then, you may take out your “other weapon”, and do all that sexy stuff which women love so much, they’ll be queuing up to do it cos its so exciting – or at least thats how it seemed to be.

And yet, I recall being such a wimp back then, sneaking about in the shadows, being invisible and useless. But then by chance I got my girl, how much fun it was to play these games, and I’m thinking yes, I get it, that must be such fun for you, but for me its just stupid and silly, can’t we just move on from all that to something more comfortable and civilised? Well, you can, but then you won’t experience the ultimate manfully manly maness’s of homo-erotic fiction that passes for acceptable bullshit among a certain class of male female conjugal rights.

Well I’m no barbarian, but of course, if someone mistakes me for a barbaric manly man, I’m not going to confess to being an utter weed am I? This is great, I got the best girl, and she doesn’t even know she’s talking to someone who is actually half way a pooftah! Or maybe she does know, and just likes doing weird experimental stuff, but who cares?

Well so much for barbarism, its pretty easy to cheat the ferryman or whatever, but seriously, cheating the ferryman is jolly good fun, but its nowhere near so funny as knocking ten bells of shit out of him, sinking his boat and not even bothering to cross over, since they’re all coming to you anyhow! 😀

Excellent!

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Simon Woods

This is so good! Friday night live from London – Marc Almond in the studio – so entertaining!

American Honey

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Simon Woods

This was a good film I saw on TV a while ago, its not really just like the trailer, which makes it look like a Bonnie & Clyde thing, which it is in a way, but not at all really, its one of those you have to see to get it. One of the things I liked most about it was it captured something about youths and growing up, at that stage where its all out there for you, just waiting for you to discover it, but then you soon begin to find out about the details, and the real nature of what you’re up against.

There’s views of the real America, unlike the Hollywood version, where they go to housing estates filming the characters working, larking about, and all this stuff that happens, you have to see it – but they also go to some really stunning places and have experiences they’ll remember forever kind of things. Its a real good one to watch, cos weeks or a month or 2 later, you might think what was that bit where . . . and there was this . . . and then . . .

That’s how it was for me, cos I was watching something on TV tonight, and it reminded me of American Honey – and how good that film was, something about it. I hate Bonnie and Clyde BTW, so its really not like that!

I looked the film up after I saw it and it turned out that the cast weren’t actors, the director just went out spotting kids for the roles in car parks and beaches and stuff – the group seems to gel together really well, there’s parts where they’re all singing their favourite pop songs together, its quite touching.

Here’s Mark Kermode doing a review of the film better than I can do 🙂

Messages

Posted on May 26, 2020 by Simon Woods

I’m on a bit of a downer and probably shouldn’t be typing – I had a couple of drinks, the cat brought a bat into the house, yes a bat, she caught it in the garden, its spring, and she’s top of the food chain round here. The bat has been mauled rather badly, but its survived over 24 hours in a box, so its going to a bat friendly person tomorrow if it lives. It seems strange to think about things, when there’s an injured bat in a box upstairs. Its been eating some cat food if there’s some irony in that perhaps?

[updated with photos!]

Look at that cute thing hanging upside down! (Thats not batshit – its cat food!)

Tiny – but plucky! His wing is a wreck, but hopefully it can be healed.

I watched some stuff on TV, then I popped onto instagram and heard this:

Mariana and the Diamonds – Gold

Sort of quite like the sound of it, Colorado? Is that like Kempston? I used to live there, off my tits smoking cannabis, we had this place with 6 or 8 windows, on a curved wall overlooking the river, it was wonderful, strange times, there was this hole in the ozone causing this incredibly hot weather, it was like they fucked the weather up, so WTF? Were we meant to care, or just get blasted?

REM – Orange Crush

REM were in the charts around that time with this sort of thing, so looking at google, it must have been late 80s, I lost perhaps between 2 years and a decade around then – god, I sound like Keith Richards! Nearly everyone wound up dead, or fled the scene, hard drugs you know, I just drifted around thinking WTF Now? People floated in and out of my life like it was some surreal story book, and REM in the background, what brought it on? How in the living fuck did that come to make sense? And now – look at us now, its a global pandemic, its not just some minority group of losers, its everyone! Its happened to all of us, and its worse! Far worse! How is this going to effect our consciousness – will they even allow us to feel it.

OMD Joan of Arc

OMD Maid of Orleans

Yah, been playing a bit of OMD, they had a live thing during the lockdown, weird music, from a different time. Did people care more in the 80s? Had we all gone surreal by the 90s? Thatcherism + Reganism were a big mistake perhaps? A bit like everything else since then?

OMD Messages

Or maybe OMD were just bonkers? Is that it? Could be!

The pop videos I posted all got messed up, so I just embedded them, don’t know what happened there!

Flash Fiction!

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Simon Woods

I watched the final Star Wars film tonight, not bad at all really – yesterday I re-watched the previous one, just to remind me what was meant to be going on in that Star Wars universe. Its all bollocks of course – but what an impact the series has had on cinema – or cinematic culture, for what its worth? Not much perhaps, or maybe it really IS important? I don’t know, does anyone?

The way I see it, the original Star Wars film is the pinnacle of trashy time wasting bullshit, but its flawless in its perfection! Perfect crap! Well, its all harmless, you’d have to be a bit of a grinch (or whatever) to complain, and yet people do! Some people don’t even like McDonalds and Coke! Well we all know the arguments, perhaps one day we’ll all realise how right those people were – but for now, in these last days of the old order, lets just enjoy it before its gone – or not?

Maybe one day, in a better world, we’ll look back on the horror that was – and think about how glad we are to have evolved beyond those times when heroic suicide missions were the stuff of entertaining fantasy fiction. Could that happen? Where are we as a species? Are we meant to think that after watching the 9th Star Wars film over a spread of what? 40+ years?

Next up – Flash Gordon!!

Jibber Jabber

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Simon Woods

Well we’ve been on this lockdown now for what? 7 weeks? At least! And what have I done? Well, Ive eaten a lot of chocolate I can tell you that! Its easing off a little now, so I went out for a motorbike ride, its pretty, but in a sad and sombre way – every village you go through there’s kids drawings of rainbows & NHS support posters, all the little shops have queues outside, socially distanced spacing, its like driving through a weird post apocalypse movie scene. Of course lockdown might have been less long and severe if the country hadn’t been run by a bunch of lunatics, letting it come to this in the first place, and where do we go next? How much more of it?

Yesterday I was thinking about Lizzie Siddall, why was that I ask myself? Well, I forgot, but I looked her up for some reason, something on TV or whatever prompted me, she was the girl in the painting of Ophelia, it was something to do with that.

Anyhow, she was from a fairly working class background, and met up with painter Rossetti, had an affair with him and eventually they got married, but supposedly Rossetti’s sisters didn’t like her much, cos they were more classy, knew what spoons to use at dinner and so on, so the whole thing didn’t work out that well, or it did, but Rossetti liked to shaft other women, being a bit of a rogue and all that – anyhow, she died of a laudanum overdose, and Rossetti put a book of his unpublished poems in the coffin with her, then years later had her dug up to retrieve and publish the poems, but the public didn’t like them so much, perhaps because of the morbid connotations. Anyhow, Siddall had support from art bigwig John Ruskin, he liked her poems and pictures, which is quite interesting, cos Ruskin himself was also an interesting Victorian character, always opinionated and a bit odd in this day and age perhaps, but there you go.

Following links from that info + more about Rossetti’s life (which was interesting too) I read about John William Pollidori, who was Rossetti’s uncle, he used to hang out with Byron & Shelly and was at the famous mansion at Lake Geneva, out of which came the book Frankenstien, (Mary Shelly) and his own book “The Vampyre” (first ever published book in that genre). Ken Russel made a bonkers film about it!

I got the film Maleficent to watch, I bought it before lockdown, but haven’t watched it yet cos it seems frivolous to sit and watch when the older generation are all locked up in this dreadful situation, now its easing off a little, I might finally watch it. I watched Star Wars the other night, not bad, not good, just trash! LOL Enjoyable I guess, bit silly, bit pointless. Its all based on War really isn’t it? Hardly progressive, but when did Disney ever care about anything? They tell it like it is, shit, with good bits, there’s a piece of brain missing in Disneys ethos non?

This morning, they were playing some reggae song and it reminded me of this phrase that goes “Its a long long way” – similar vibe, so wondering what song it was I was thinking about. So I googled the lyrics, and I don’t know if its this song or not, cos clearly its not reggae, but it may have been this one by OMD. Once I hear an OMD song, I can’t think outside of the OMD box, cos its so distinctive.

– anyhow, its not a bad song or owt, and I got informed about the actress Louise Brooks by it, so I googled her, and it seems that she was quite an interesting character – That guy out of OMD is quite good at finding heroines to write songs about (RE Joan of Arc) I found this quote about Louise Brooks
“…the eminent Herr Pabst described it to me over a cocktail in the Bristol Bar, Berlin. ‘Louise,’ said Herr Pabst, ‘has a European soul. You can’t get away from it. When she described Hollywood to me—I have never been there—I cry out against the absurd fate that ever put her there at all. She belongs to Europe and to Europeans. She has been a sensational hit in her German pictures. I do not have her play silly little cuties. She plays real women, and plays them marvelously.'”^[69]
Well, what does he mean by that? You may ask? There’s something weird about that – Hitler banned the film because he didn’t like her, or that sort of woman I suspect, you don’t want to mess with right wingers, not if you’ve got a brain worth using!

Here’s a nice picture of Louise Brooks I like 🙂

Couple of good films to watch!

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Simon Woods

I seen this one before,its called Stranger By the Lake

Its about these gay guys who hang out at a lake, but there’s a murderer on the loose! its ever such a good film, I saw it on TV a couple of times, I’d be tempted to buy it for my collection if its cheap enough, cos its so enjoyable. Unexpectedly really, cos I’m not so much into watching gay guys lolling about, but this movie just has it all – really good!

It reminds me of La Piscine

Which is also about people lolling about and getting murdered, cant go far wrong with that one either, but I think maybe the Stranger by the Lake does more with less? Though I couldn’t say one was better than the other.

Anyhow, I wasn’t going to mention La Piscine, but had to cos it came into my head, and its good too.

So, for my other of the “Couple of Good films” is this one, its called Everlasting Love

Ok, its another gay one, and this time, its one I haven’t actually seen, so I might be wasting time saying its good – thing is, I saw an advert for this years ago, must have been around the time it came out, and I thought “I’m going to see that one” Something about people doing naughty things in the woods really appeals to me! LOL Yeah, I’m that guy!

Anyhow, I saw the trailer, but I never got round to seeing it, then I forgot the title, and couldn’t find the link – then a few years ago I went scouring the net to find the title, but never did, but then today, I was on the film web site and just scrolled through the LGTB+FYI+WTF section, and soon enough, it came up! SO, I still wanna see it! As it happens, it says in the review that its in the vein of Stranger By The Lake – if its anything like as good, I’ll be happy!

Normal people

Posted on May 21, 2020 by Simon Woods

Everyone here has been watching this TV drama called Normal People, it’s from a book, anyhow, because everyone is at home bored, they been contacting old boyfriends & girlfriends, (according to the radio), cos the show is about young love & how you don’t know what they might have been going through back then & now your thinking oh, maybe that wasn’t what I thought it was? It could apply to anyone really couldn’t it, cos you never do know.

I’m just a skeleton with flesh & skin & stuff that does things, I have got freewill, but it only goes so far.

I been working on the motorbike & I’m absolutely bloody nackered! I’m getting a bit old to be ripping half a big old motorbike apart just to replace some part that’s due to be done instead of just taking it to a shop. I used to enjoy a pint after a day like this, but this time it was more like a resuscitation I needed.

Anyway, why are women so clueless? Why is it always up to men to come leaping through the bedroom window singing hallelujah, I love you so much? That shit never happens to me the other way round, believe me, if it did I’d soon send her packing! Or maybe I’d just say, oh, what took you so long?

We’re not conscious of much when we’re younger, and when we’re older, we’re still not conscious of much either, or in the middle part for that matter, it’s hopeless, we know how to get from A to B, and that’s about it. Why are people so dumb? Correction, why is everyone so dumb? Is that god’s inner plan? Look at all them dumb bastards down there, messing everything up! Ha ha ha, but how do we know God finds it funny? What seems amusing to us feeble brained humans, might just be some bullshit God doesn’t pay any attention to, like the primitive behavior of an ape, it’s funny at the zoo, mocking the animals, but do we know something they don’t, or is it in fact, the other way around! Aha! I rest my case!

Painful truths:

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Simon Woods

I have always been a labour voter, not necessarily from family tradition, but something I picked up from family friends and so on growing up. I was raised in an area that was pretty much Conservative, though sometimes the left got a hand in, such as during the Blair years, but that was moderate compared to most of left wing history. So anyhow, now I live in the north, a traditional Labour held area, and has been since forever – but no more – I live in Barnsley, where giant industry used to mean people voted labour, simply because they had clout as long as they belonged to a union and voted labour, but that has all changed here, nowadays everyone works in small firms, same as they did in the area I came from, and because of that, there is little to no union influence or power. Not to mention the global economy has sent manufacturing overseas. I still believe in Left wing politics, simply because I don’t like greedy unfettered capitalism, which is where Conservative right wing views always head.

Anyhow, so today when on a shopping trip, I decided to wear a mask, just to try to demonstrate my willingness not to spread the Covid germs, but 99% of the people queuing outside the shops were without masks, some even looked at me as if I was being feeble – the mask is there for your protection, more so than my own, but there you go, being an idiot!

So anyhow, as we set off in the car I saw a bumper sticker that read “Be Brave! Be Bold! Be Brexit!” Well, that just says it all – you know that while we still have a labour MP here, they are only still holding the seat because the right wing vote was split by their own side, the Brexit party and the conservatives cheated themselves out of winning – if they had been one right wing united party, they’d have easily won here. The thing is, these people are not die hard leftists after all, they never believed in socialism or understood the true meaning, they voted for whatever seemed best for them at the time, and now they think Brexit is a solution. These are the sort of people who are used to the idea that if you hit something hard enough, you’ll succeed – hence the Brave Bold Brexit strategy! What to do when faced with a global viral pandemic? Hit it Hard! Get the hammer, and give it a bang! Square pegs, round holes? Bigger Hammer!

It’s confusing for me, cos I always thought people who voted to the left, were nicer than people who voted to the right, but now I’m thinking, most people have no loyalty – or else its because the times have changed, so much so that no one believes in anything anymore, its just everyman for himself? Really, I don’t think things are that bad, people think Brexit might make things better, and if it doesn’t, the left shall return. People are tired of seeing homeless folk on the streets, and under funded this and that, or else they just want to feel like their opinions matter, that they have some control over things. Well lets see how it all goes?

Motorhead!

Stuff

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Simon Woods

Poet Simon Armitage was just on the radio picking his face Bowie song, Moonage Daydream, but this is my fav from the same album.

David Bowie soul love

Don’t often hear that one! 🙂

I wonder if anyone out there is at all frustrated? I mean about things, ya know, just things lately? I’m typing this on my phone at work, I done all there is to do in under an hour, there’s just nothing to do here, now I just have to wait around.

So I was thinking are we going to be back to work now after the prime minister’s speech on Monday, or was it Tuesday? Anyhow, I guess the PM is just some arsehole no one listens to anymore, I just spoke to my boss & she says no, nothing has changed, still just one day a week.

What we need is something to do!

Monty Python Mountaineering.