Blog of Funk

Baishakhi Mela, Brick Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:09:00 +0000

This was a fun event, and a great way to spend a few hours on a warm spring day in east London.

Two Cups of Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I sometimes find myself going calmly along a path of apparent insanity, as if it is the most conventional, well-ordered and sensible route to fine achievement that I could possibly have chosen. This morning, I awoke in a good mood, still rested from my lengthy April break, engendered by several warm days of London summer sun, buoyed up with the unassailable feeling that everything is going extremely well.

I slept deeply after being beautifully pampered as a result of going early to bed, having avoided evening television, which these days I find disturbing. My simple rule of thumb: any programme with either politicians or Bruce Willis, switch off. I do not want lies, explosions or Hollywood blood clogging my mental arteries.

I'm feeling quite fit and well, despite occasional bouts of sneezing brought on by early season hay fever (why is this not called "pollen fever"? - I see no fields of hay in inner London...) I have some sorting out to do with various business affairs, and I have some inroads to make, all of which are fairly unproblematic and of course now I am thankful for the great efforts I have made previously, since getting up frightfully early, travelling the world, explaining my particular creative take on internet media, and giving people good advice on podcasting seems to be paying off. I am enjoying my interactions with my friends and colleagues, who all seem to be talented, friendly and capable.

My underlying concerns are not too disturbing either, self-appointed tasks consisting of communicating the inner changes that I experienced in the mountains to the people in this and other cities who actually need to know. It's the age-old clash between urban and rural, as expressed via a boy from Croydon. And all this as a preamble to explain, no, to demonstrate my apparent sanity and level-headedness and to go some way towards proving to you, dear reader, that I don't generally do apparently insane things, like make two cups of tea at once, even though there is only me here.

Now it's totally clear to me how this came about. First, the initial cup of tea, made by GGF in a morning rush, was lukewarm and rather weak - unsatisfactory. Please note: this situation is often reversed, and we wait upon one other in a fair and balanced way, frequently attaining high standards both culinary and domestic. Since I love her, and she loves me, thus I have great compassion - particularly today, as she is I know still dazed from the excellent play we enjoyed before crashing out, stunned and exhausted by the sublime physical expression of the love we share. So, a model of tact, I said nothing, and merely waited until she was well into the clothes-donning part of her leaving sequence.

Then I went into the kitchen, and prepared my own cup of tea. Except that I calmly made TWO CUPS, as if compensating for the bad first cup. Making one cup immediately after the other, I can understand, but two at once? Then I get a hot cup and a going-on-lukewarm-again second cup. Actually, I rescued this outcome by using one of the ceramic lids which turn our cups and mugs into mini-teapots, and so, I'm drinking it now, and it's not too bad. But why did I make two cups at once? What was I thinking? I just found myself doing it, and went along with it, as if it were the most natural, normal thing in the world! For whom exactly am I making the second cup? Me! Me, and then me. Right. Right.

Now this may not seem all that insane to you, but I am convinced that this is how it begins - small actions, apparently insane, cropping up in the day-to-day melange of decisions and actions and consequences we call life, bizarre, counter-productive, non-sequiturs going unquestioned and unchecked. The brain, the regulating organ which is expected to keep us on track goes into a kind of "what the heck" mode, and the next thing you know, you're driving on the wrong side of the road with an oil-powered high-velocity wall of steel and glass moving towards you at a combined speed of 200 miles per hour, you're stepping off the very high balcony and whistling a jaunty tune as you cash in your kinetic energy and plummet fifteen floors into concrete, you're balancing the mains-powered music machine on the edge of your bubble bath...

Right now, I can live with the second cup of tea, enjoy it, feel good about myself. But what if this happens after some inconsolable badness has happened to me, when I am haggard and sleep-deprived after a mind-numbing credit-crunch of an argument with some deadbeat bigot, after the best bet I ever placed comes stumbling in last on broken legs and is shot dead at the finish, and I'm reeling like a tanked-up homeless piss-smelling drunkard looking for smack to take the edge off the brew? What then?

This is the fabric of the world - we are trapped beneath the warm duvet of stultifying convention and scared to be without it. Like Reggie Perrin, who faked his own death to escape, after ordering ravioli followed by ravioli followed by ravioli until he was sick, what we need is not more of what we like, but the freedom not to care about what we know to be valueless.

I Feel Fine

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 04 May 2008 09:58:00 +0000

No really, I do. Fascists are taking over the world and we're all doomed to starve, trapped inside a polluted, depleted ecosphere, but I do feel absolutely fine. Nothing can shake my fabulously good mood, because I know how to handle the situation:

Go with the flow

The flow is towards the sea, and so upon my small boat, I am carried down towards that great inevitable ocean, containing all things. The flow is to the peaks, and so upon my miraculous hang-glider, warm air currents float me upwards until I rest upon the smooth, breast-like surface of the welcoming mountain top, from where I may view the entire visible universe. Oh yes, the forces are no stranger to me, and I shall not resist them.

But I can do better than that. Witnessing the oncoming rise of the right in Britain, in this newly conservative world I now inhabit I've decided to anticipate this more punitive, curmudgeonly, old-fashioned, archaic, and fundamentally anti-celebratory culture by initiating a new regime of financial penalties for activities that are deemed to be herewith unacceptable.

As from today, there shall be non-appealable, mandatory, on-the-spot fines for:

Public Nose-Picking - this habit is revolting, and people simply seem to have developed a complete lack of respect for public decency;

The Playing of Loud Popular Music on Mobile Phones - opera will of course be exempt;

The Wearing of Informal Clothing - outside of working class areas, and in all shopping centres and places of public assembly;

The Making, Watching or Participating in So-Called "Reality" Television Shows - these set an entirely bad example to our young people and so will be replaced by coverage of Ascot, Badminton and other pre-eminent equestrian events;

Frog Hunting - this torrid stain on ~~our nation~~ France must be stamped out!

Sirens - police, ambulance, fire - all banned, to be replaced with the music of string quartets

The Hammer Falls

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:47:00 +0000

As newshounds trumpet the worst Labour election results in 40 years, and Londoners contemplate the ghastly spectre of a TV personality with a history of public idiocy and insults taking control of the capital, the left in Britain is reeling.

The journalists' tendency is to believe completely in the success of the dumbing down of the past twenty years, but the UK population is more far savvy than the media and politicians give us credit for being. We remember, we assess, we are sensible and cynical, and we are not fooled by newspapers or television to the extent that their acolytes believe we are. We come to our own conclusions, and so we have.

No longer can these results be blamed on anti-Blair feeling, I read somewhere. Oh yes they can - do they really think we are such idiots? The current administration "stood shoulder to shoulder" with that particular conscientious Christian soldier while 200,000 innocents were cut down and slaughtered for the Democratic West's oil greed, the carnage continues daily, and we have not forgotten. Politicians decry the lack of respect our armed forces personnel are given, but fail to mention the dishonourable war they sent them to fight. Among decent people the guilt lingers, and since decent working people vote Labour, Labour will suffer for that until they sincerely revisit their morality.

We know that the change of face does not mean a change of heart. We know that these proto-socialists have done too little to bring about the changes we voted them in to effect - the system of government itself partially, badly reformed, insufficient attention given to ecology, a decade of glib assurances about the economy now turning sour, food prices rising, and now the very poorest suffering with the removal of the 10p tax bracket. Neither did people like the shoe-in of Brown for Blair - even though that is the way things are done in this country, we feel that we want a say in who runs our country. Dour Brown does not cut it - he's just not likeable enough on a human level, and people cannot relate to him, even as they did to Butcher Blair.

Politicians ultimately think only of themselves and retaining power. We all know that by now, Labour are thoroughly corrupted and will have to go.

The terrible truth is that the right, gathered hungrily in the corner, and now edged by real fascists - the ultra-right in their shiny new PR suits, glossing up their policies like the French Front National - are preparing to take the country, and they know that barring accidents, the slide back to them is gathering pace and will probably be achieved within two years.

Having betrayed their core vote, the British left is now in disarray, and like Italy, France and Germany, will soon cease to be electable. A new generation, oblivious to the penury and destruction of Conservatism (witness the USA's last eight years) will vote Cameron, that rich, pretty boy, pretending to give a fuck, into office; and the rich and privileged, the bigots and the bullies, the oppressors of the weak, marginalised and voiceless, will be back in power.

Which gives me 24 months to get the hell out of here!

Lemon Meringue Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:05:00 +0000

I don't want any mizness
I just want a little bit of business
No champagne, just fizzness
And a witchy-wizard kind of whizzness

Open a bottle, screwtop
Shake it out lovely fruitypop
Nice big boots, no flip-flop
Deep breath, count down, make it stop

Back In Blighty Day

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:36:00 +0000

Today is Back In Blighty Day, in the Grand Calendar of All Things.

Our carefully booked flight was supposed to deliver us at 10pm on Saturday, but the BA jet coming to get us broke down on the way and had to land in Venice, stranding about 50 people in Cyprus. We were stuck in 5 star accommodation in Lemesos (Limmasol) overnight and caught a flight leaving at 5am and arriving at 8.30am UK time. Turns out that had we arrived as intended, we'd have walked right into some heavy violence, at just about the time there was a stabbing and shooting on the Holloway Road. My neighbours and local shopkeeper told us all about it - most of the lower stretch of Holloway Road was blue-lined and Bobby-shut as we tried to go and re-stock with provisions upon our happy, hungry return. We went a different route. I feel strangely to be so relaxed about absolutely everything and it makes me realise what stress I am forced to accept in order to live in snobbish, status-obsessed, vain, anxious modern London.

I didn't miss internet at all while I was away, nor news, nor family, nor friends. I missed making music and playing backgammon, so I bought a cheap Chinese acoustic six-string guitar which GGF has decided is now hers and regularly uses to learn chords, and a backgammon set, which we played regularly and competitively and which we left at the villa for all to play and enjoy. We read a lot, walked, conversed, swum, ate good food, and, in our cheap, economical hire car, we explored the island with it's fabulous east-meets-west natural abundance, its arid heat and its strange schismic, subliminal violence, its generous, charming, honest, greedy, careless, philosophical, ex-colonial inhabitants.

I really appreciated the difference in thinking time that this brief interlude afforded me, time for deep thinking which just doesn't occur when the cylinders are firing keeping everyone else happy. Perspective has been achieved and I have had some realisations and revelations, including one spectacular moment high in the Troodos mountains in the centre of Cyprus. There arose a spontaneous moment of truth such as only comes when you are unprepared and mistakenly believing you are doing something else, in which all was revealed to me. And when I say all, I mean all.

Better still - due to the wonders of technology and the nature of fate, I made a video as this enlightenment actually happened. Now as you, dear reader, may or may not know, this is not the place for that kind of rich metaphysical experience - I run a personal podcast for that over at deekdeekster.com - and soon I shall post it up there, but not right now as I am still putting things in order.

Since I got back four-ish hours ago, aside from opening a stack of snail mail, I've checked over 1500 emails (not spam), filtered the same number of emails (spam / unwanted), deleted a couple of dozen spammy Twitter users who have decided to follow me in the past three and a half weeks, and now I'm uploading around 200MB of photographs to Flickr. I also received a most marvellous present in the post which I am totally enjoying - the new Unio and Petitio album, entitled Cheers fanx ta - which if you've a mind for sheer anarchic fun and audio beauty, I urge you to purchase.

Food is ready - time to eat!

Water and Junk

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:19:00 +0000

What ho, brethren. Still here in sunny Cyprus and experiencing water shortages and land development frenzy as the locals attempt to build as many concrete houses and sell as many plots of land as they possibly can before the VAT deadline - which is July 1st. Cyprus joined Euroland January 1st 2008 and VAT is an EU requirement on land sales, but they sensibly negotiated a six month respite to avoid stalling the relatively buoyant economy. So, the Euro currency is in but the laws are delayed, and just as well when building and development are 20% of GDP.

What none of the local headlines are saying is the effect that this huge splurge of urban expansion and fast-track modernity is having on the local ecosystem. Cyprus hasn't had rain for many months and even hospitals are suffering water rationing. It was of course not a real hospital which found its taps running dry, but merely a clinic in the old Limassol hospital, housing (among several other things) a drug rehabilitation centre. This scandalous situation took many days to remedy. Meanwhile people living in districts high up in the hills and mountains are not recieving even their ration of water.

We've coped pretty well due to the fact we're living in a luxury villa with tanks on the roof (most new houses have these, along with efficient twin solar panels) and so on the days when drinking water is out, we're still able to shower and wash up, and we drink from the litre bottles of water we stash when the drinking water is running, which is around 50% of the time. But we also have a swimming pool, which aside from the appalling loss of life it wreaked upon the insect life when we pulled off the covers (they seem to have got the message now, for I'm just fishing out the dumbest of shield bugs, small spiders, and the odd millipede now - or maybe we killed most of them on days one and two!) takes up gallons and gallons of the precious stuff.

Still, all around where we're staying, the building continues. Yesterday I was woken at 7am by the sound of an earth moving truck, and a medium to large caterpillar bulldozer, which proceeded to spoil my early morning appreciation of the wonderful bird life by removing a good proportion of the local shrubbery and creating a moon landscape between us and the building site we've adjusted to already. I became disconsolate, depressed. I come away from London to relax and find myself thinking deep thoughts about humanity and greed and brutality and lack of knowledge and respect for nature. As I top up and chlorinate the pool.

The rest of the countryside round about is agricultural; orange and lemon groves, olives and artichokes, and the scent is so intoxicating we wind down the windows of the little efficient Nissan Sunny we've rented and breathe it down into our city-tarnished lungs to keep it there forever.

But look closer and you'll see junk everywhere - this is a working environment and farmers are the least sentimental about nature you'll ever meet - not just empty agrochemical containers and spent shotgun cartridges, but abandoned fridges, food wrappers, coca-cola cans, dumped vehicles and the whole appalling detritus of modern living tipped without care into any available gully. Every roadside is littered with cigarette packets and lighters and metal and more food packaging; and every beach, even the protected ones where turtles nest, has a high tide mark of multi-coloured plastic which makes me wonder whether there is any concept of nature guardianship operating here, and feel embarassed to be a part of the culture which is creating a rubbish tip from this paradise.

Cyprus Hots Up

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:08:00 +0000

I have ten minutes left in this internet cafe so this is going to be a case of speed blogging.

After a week, I cracked - in a nice way, like a mature cheese - and bought a guitar. I could sense my fingertips becoming soft. After a month of playing for hours a day, they were hot-coffee-cup-pick-up hardened and I didn't want to lose that. So I found one of two music shops and bought a cheap Chinese steel-string acoustic, a capo and a set of strings.

Now Cypriot detente is a fact, looking forward to visiting the north of the island in a couple of days, for a couple of nights. Also it's now hot enough to justify taking the cover off the pool and adding some chlorine to make it nice and baby safe.

Oh the sunsets the fruit the birds and the British... but actually it's a lot of fun, my first real proper holiday in over two years, and just in time for my precious insanity...

Polis

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:59:00 +0000

-------------------------------------------------

The Real Cyprus

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:39:00 +0000

I've come to Polis, the Greek north of the island to get away from the
plastic which is strewn everywhere around Paphos. It's been a
delightful and successful journey. I'm amusing myself by observing the
clash of old and new, rich and richer, functional and decrepit. And
moblogging, as I drink thick coffee and wait for my grilled
mediterranean fish, silver bream.

--
Sent from Google Mail for mobile | mobile.google.com

http://funk.co.uk/funkblog.html

The Beauty Of Potato

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:03:00 +0000

Potato is a handsome creature
A tasty skin is his best feature
And when invited to your feast
You will agree he's quite a beast

He'll kiss you with his crusty lips
He'll lay across your stomach, hips
Lumpy, fluffy, straight or wavy
Mashed he'll soak up all your gravy

Potato is a lovely lad
As a foodstuff not half bad
Baked, boiled, chipped and fried
He feels great when he's inside.

Celebrating The Bendy Nature Of Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Cheese is bendy
Cheese is my friendy
If you have a need
I can lendy

Cheese is bendy
Do not be offendy
There is only cheese
Others are pretendy

Cheese is bendy
On that you may dependy
Put a stamp upon it
In the post sendy

Cheese is bendy
Cheese is trendy
If you have a hungry belly
Cheese is plendy

Cheese is bendy
Cheese club attendy
Meet other bendy people
That is the endy.

(Blog of Funk Post #777)

Insufficient Profanity

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 20:59:00 +0000

It's Easter Sunday, the day the Christians stole from the Pagan Goddess of the Dawn, Ostara, and latterly, Oestre, to replace our Spring Equinox festival. Like a loaf of bread, he is risen, like an egg, he is consumed.

Taking a few days off from my intense (but welcome) songwriting project, has thrown me into a state of quiet reflection and I have been hearing the resonance of various truths emanating from the depths like a sunken ship's bell sounded by the Spring tide swell. I recognise this metallic calling as a sound of clarity heard previously from time to time, and just now ringing all the louder in the relative silence.

I am not doing the work I need to do. I am condemning my best to the books of forgetting. It is not enough to have the ideas - they must be realised. Like Charles Ives, I know totally and without question that I would rather do a job which left me completely free to operate culturally in my "spare" time in the manner of my own choosing than compromise the work I must do.

The fact that I posit this as an imperative shows the urgency that I am experiencing. I know that I must move forward with some speed and determination this year and from that will emerge the real and still somewhat hidden purpose of my work to date.

I feel like the last kid in the sweetshop as it's about to close, still clutching my fiver and with my eyes fastened on the top shelf where all the big chocolates live. I can't yet tell which one I'm going to get but I sure as dammmit know I'm not leaving without at least one of them.

In the middle of this lies the knowledge that I've been far too polite recently - I'm in danger of losing my rude and healthy punk; I've been far too serious about all the wrong things - I'm in danger of losing my sense of hummous. I'm going to have to move things around, including my arse. I need to go out and dance my celebration. I need to swear a lot until the words mean nothing and can't stop smiling.

Dead Rabbi On A Stick Day

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:46:00 +0000

It's Good Friday, and what's good about it is that I slept for nine and a half hours last night. Went to bed with a classic stress headache, woke up with the end of one, but felt good about being on strike.

Yes, I'm on strike. At the end of yesterday's Rise and Shine we walked out in sympathy with our ASLEF brothers and sisters. I think it was the realisation of a militant tendency in myself which I have been encouraging over the past few months, knowing that it is the path to my own particular brand of enlightenment.

I'm sure that once the management meet our demands we'll be back to finish off the final week of the show - it's been a blast. But it is nice to have a three day weekend in praise of the dead rabbi, Jesus, and his unfortunate death by torture 2,000 years ago.

Now listen to the song we wrote yesterday, co-written and sung by the indomitable Danny "Peruvian Socialist Chocolate Hat" Brittain and his left wing army of reds.

Funkpod Thirty Two

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:09:00 +0000

Managed to squeeze out a podcast. Wonders will never cease.

Credit to justpedalhard for the photo of Range Road 32, Calgary, Alberta.

Rise and Shine: Breakfast with Perspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:56:00 +0000

After fourteen days, over three weeks and forty two hours of early morning songwriting, producing the Rise and Shine breakfast show, my fingertips are guitar-hardened and my daily routine is established. At this point I feel the need to distill my thoughts like a fine London gin.

How To Rise and Shine

Begin the day before. I have to get to bed before midnight, 11pm better, 10:30pm even better. Some days, starting the show, there has been just me and my audio-visual shadow, but most days, there is an expectant waiting audience of real people, and it doesn't matter whether there is one person, ten, fifteen or fifty. These kind, interested people have turned up for the show, and they matter A LOT. In fact, I like them, which helps - it feels very much like having friends over every morning. I'm making their breakfast - I don't want to burn the toast. If I'm sleep deprived and carry too much tiredness into the day, I will struggle, make mistakes, and underperform - and when people are witnessing my blunders first thing, I care far more about them, and determined not to be making them. I have not found a more effective pressure to lie down and sleep at a reasonable hour in many years.

Awake at least one and a half hours before starting the broadcast. That way, all the computers will be set up, I will have had breakfast, I will be well dressed, and I will have meditated. A couple of times I have found myself meditating at 6:45 which does not work quite so well for the meditation, but actually does very well for the show as I feel very centred and grounded at the outset.

Collaborating is crucial, as I suspected it would be and intended it to be, both for reasons of writing and show production. Songs really spring from the imagination and flights of fancy which spark from the news and it's often easier doing this with other people around. Finishing up is another matter - sometimes the brutality of the edit feels harsh! But we are grown ups, and we can handle it by now... Our viewers and listeners have written some of the best lines, and provided audio, speech and music, as well as suggesting great news items.

Be decisive early on. Only having three hours means that on bad news days, or days where several stories vie for subject-spot, I really need to know what subject is going to frame the song by 7:20am if the song is going to be finished to any good standard.

Give myself a break after the show. If I don't do this, I make less of a good show the next day, and it means my other work decisions are coloured by a background level of mental tiredness - which so far, thankfully, I have not experienced.

Use whatever energy is there on the day. Thankfully the rules of Rise and Shine mean that the writer(s) have the final say in story selection, style, and treatment. I would not have been able to write anything March 7th otherwise, a day I was on my own with the audience, feverish and emotional, and yet, this turned out as one of my personal favourites, something I am proud of having written because it is so unusual and poignant.

Keep the project in the semi-public eye. This stage of the project is quite deliberately restricted listening and viewing. I like that my friends in various social networks are enjoying what I am doing, and that the great general, unwashed and entertainment-hungry public are not. It means I can iron out kinks, play with the form, try things which might bomb (nothing has yet) and maintain the discipline necessary to keep the show on the road technically and organisationally without compromising the future of the show. It also means I can push people to donate to the good cause, Busk Aid, either by direct donation or else by taking part in our sponsorship auction.

Maintain realistic expectations, set achievable goals - without these, nothing can happen. So if in the early part of the song, the dreaming up of the scenario, the summoning of the muses present a hugely attractive but completely time-draining project outside the boundaries of the three alloted hours (see #4), it gets rapidly dumped. Note to self: I could and should apply this philosophy more to my life in general.

Food. Eating ahead of the show, during the show and after the show is crucial - it's demanding work! I have to plan ahead and get stuff in. Thankfully, Danny my regular co-writer often provides milky coffee and croissants to make up for his persistent lateness...

Broadcast by every means possible. I've been using a veritable breakfast table of technologies to make this work. Amazingly, so far, it has completely worked - in fact, it has improved. I now record the final parts of the show on video, using both Mogulus which although takes some getting used to is pretty reliable and has professional tools built in and a handy (though censored) chat room; for live video I also use Qik which is (over WiFi) amazingly good quality - all the more so considering that this is emanating from a Nokia N95. I use Skype (riseandshinetv), Twitter (deekdeekster), email, FTP. I'm using a Mac Mini and Brian Greene's server (thanks Brian!) to deliver a rock-steady Shoutcast audio stream which in some ways brings the listener closer to the musical heart of the show, especially in the second stage when we are arranging the song and trying out verses and choruses. It's also convenient for people who want to hear the outcome at work... there is still a lot to be said for providing audio-only access.

Support is a good thing, and we need more of it! Having only three hours (see #4) on the writing task focuses the mind admirably, but this show also requires a technical structure that needs managing - just like tv and radio - which distracts. The more support I have, the show will be generally of a much higher standard, since I am not continually bearing sole responsibility for everything, including presenting, songwriting, blogging, moving microphones, cameras and computers around, and generally interacting with the audience. It also means, I can answer the call of nature. I would like to achieve more of this before the project ends, just to see how high I can push the standards within the limits.

Ten more writing days to go...

Eleventh Hour Comedy

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:04:00 +0000

I keep on thinking about where I really want to live.

In the last six months, I've done more to facilitate moving than I have ever done, and yet, events made it more and more difficult to get out of London. It has its big hairy capitalist paws upon my hide, and as the economic tide starts to turn I found myself heading out at the wrong time, in the wrong boat, heading towards the wrong shore.

Now that I've adjusted to staying longer, I am beginning to recall my original vision for an alternative place to live. Where I was planning to move wasn't where I was destined to live. This makes me wonder why I was prepared to travel a path which didn't take me to where I know I want to be.

Aside from doing the work, there's doing the work... somehow, in the middle of this burst of songwriting, living alone, I found myself returning to normal. Which means, my version of normal - passionate, idiosyncratic, focused and dedicated. So if I can bring all that to bear upon work, then why not work?

Next: comedy.

On The Marriage of Johann and Anitale

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:14:00 +0000

This is the face of a man whose bachelor days are over. Johann and Anitale are getting married RIGHT NOW, as I type. It's possibly the final image of his unmarried status. Girls - you missed out. Anitale is also cute and groovy. Boys - you missed out. By the time you read this, they will be married.

I met these lovely people via Seesmic since Johann is lead developer for the site. When I went to Paris a month ago I got to hang out with them, and really enjoyed their company.

Meanwhile, some explanation of my temporary absence in these parts. I've written or co-written nine songs in the past two weeks by dint of waking at 5.30am and writing for three hours every morning, exposed to public gaze. The first week's tunes are all on sale, and the free podcast is doing just fine.

My favourite two songs of the project so far are Three Feet Off Gabriola and The Other Side, both of which rather selfishly I wrote on my own - except that I got plenty of input from the "audience" during the sessions. I'm going to have to find a replacement for that word, which combines the concept of audience with collaborator. Hmmmm....

I am currently feverish, though sadly not with anticipation - I just have a cold virus. Now I am going to attempt breakfast.

Water on the Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:34:00 +0000

Songwriting is having a dramatic effect on my psychology but that's probably because of the lack of sleep. Today I woke at 5.30am, half an hour before the alarm.

Check out the song and the article which inspired it.

When I've had some sleep, I might even come back and explain why I'm attempting this madness - aside from the reasons aforegiven.

My BuskAid Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:08:00 +0000

Kicked off our breakfast show, Rise and Shine, and I'm on a slightly exhausted high but I'm pleased with our first effort which is here.

"Doctor, doctor, gimme little pill
Need a fix for me to chill
Medicine for my mental ill
Get depressed about the bill..."

It was really a lot of fun writing with Dan Brittain aka Tiventi Benson. Check back later for the produced version.

Rise and Shine

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:21:00 +0000

Do you remember this? I'm kicking off something new next week which is the combination of blogging and songwriting: writing music in response to news.

I wanted to extend the writing discipline back into music, whilst venturing into new personal territory - live radio. I've done stacks of audio production and also event production, but traditional form radio I've only for a short period way back when I was the early morning DJ in a pirate station in the west country.

That delightful station called itself NBS (No Bull Shit) and the FM transmitter traveled each weekend around various covert houses on the tops of Bristol hills. Every few weekends we'd take care of the station and the crew from Friday night to Monday morning. The rave DJs would leave around 5am and I'd be up at 8am, turn on the transmitter and fill in the gaping hole in their schedule with cheap vinyl I purchased from the second hand and charity shops on the Gloucester Road. I entertained people all the way to Bath.

So I do have radio form - albeit achingly-hip form, not standard-industry-sweat-your-way-up-the-greasy-pole form - and of course, I have quite a bit of podcast form by now, so we'll certainly be putting out a podcast alongside the livestream. Nonetheless, being live for three hours every morning, and showing the warts-and-all process of making a song should be an interesting and scary enough challenge to break through the tupperware barrier of people's breakfast cereal containers.

This show comes with a few caveats, the main one being I'm not promising to write songs that you're going to like! Although I may do. We'll see. Expect glitches. I'm going out on a limb. But I am enlisting the help of other writers, and I'm intending to collaborate wherever possible. In fact, I'm going to need as much help as I can get.

But the best thing about the next month is going to be that we're raising money for BuskAid, a South Africa-based charity that teaches township kids to play music. I was inspired by the remarkable Rosemary Nalden - one of those TV documentaries which had me inexplicably in tears at the beauty of what was being achieved. So I hope you'll turn up and take part.

The breakfast show will be live from 7am to 10am GMT, Monday to Friday.

Everything Is Recorded

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:27:00 +0000

My use of social media Seesmic is altering the way I dream. There is a reason for my becoming involved in this nascent community, aside from the fact that I find such early-stage communities fascinating. I seem to have connected with a group of likeminded people whom I wouldn't have minded meeting in any situation, it's as simple as that.

March 30th is, we are told, the lifting of the alpha-veil, the grand opening of the gates, and the moment which this sometimes cliquey and self-defensive bunch is in some measure dreading, and recently there have been self-reflective discussions about whether this will spell the inevitable downward spiral, YouTube style, for the site.
Maybe, maybe, and only time will tell whether the policies of community care (I love that, it sounds like we are all deranged) which have borne fruit so far will work as Seesmic is scaled up. There is always noise in any system; success depends on the ration of noise to conversation, as much as it does on the level(s) of discourse available. One of the delightful things about Seesmic for me is that I can simultaneously be deeply serious and childishly playful, which is exactly how my mind works.

If Seesmic plunges inexorably downmarket, it will not fail, though it will become a very different kind of social event. Given that users can re-create smaller Seesmic spaces within the system, which suit the conversations that they want to have, this might benefit many people, especially those shy ones who lack the courage to leap into the sometimes hurly-burly of the ever-increasing speed of the pubic timeline and speak from the heart, those sensitive intellectuals who wish to carefully tease out a subtle idea, or just folks who articulate clumsily and don't want to be derided for their pains.

Attractive though the unified single space is, using Twitter as an example, since when did anyone try to use that highly populated public timeline as a resting place? It would be like trying to recline on an avalanche, a total impossibility. To keep the junk levels down, it would seem that some elementary tools are required, including the ability to create private groups, separate timelines, and to block individuals who insist on saying "Hitler" whenever they show up before the garden is opened up to a million happy picnickers.

Meanwhile, the dream. I dreamed I was on the phone to a certain well-known podcaster... and oh, the air turned blue. What I don't say in this Seesmic is that I walked about for the first few minutes of today in the mistaken belief that it had actually happened. So, perhaps everything IS recorded, and perhaps Seesmic is indeed real life.

The Bog's Dollocks

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:42:00 +0000

"I'm a web 0.9 person." I winced on the phone a couple of days back, as I found myself explaining my internet origins in the days of clockwork and digestive biscuit-powered computers to a young person for whom the internet has always been there, just a given, like beer and bad wallpaper.

I used to surf for pleasure, just get online, nervously blotting out the phone bill from my curious mind, and see what I could find. Anarchy, science, culture, arcane knowledge and the rich tapestry of human weirdness available for the first time came blinking through a 14.4 modem via in strangulated bursts of red data.

By 2am, bleary-eyed and with a hand promising early RSI from so... much... mouse... clicking... I'd end up at NASA, trying to find the cool pictures, or on some arty news group which ran on a Pentium 386 in someone's cupboard in Bristol.

Has anyone ever stopped to measure the effect this sudden global openness has had upon our once-compartmentalised cultures? I mean, aside from making it easier for perverts and terrorists to operate, giving lonely home-bound people a massive lease of life, and me a significant part of my income? The extent to which we have over the last 15 years or so truly and utterly changed our perspectives is a remarkable revolution which we seem to have already forgotten.

These days though, very rarely do I find that "must return" site, the dangerous time-suck that makes me miss appointments and lie guiltily about my reasons for being late, like a shameful addict. Stumble Upon is supposed to take me back to those heady days of frontier exploration, but it doesn't. It's just another guide to the sprawling mall which the internet has become, albeit a quasi human-constructed one. Directories ain't what they used to be. Del.icio.us is cool, if you can be bothered to use it. And although I write this blog with a rhythm that just won't stop, I've practically abandoned all but a handful of blogs and podcasts, in order to catch up on books, films, radio, and television.

Still, some internet things are still sparkling, wonderful and true, and made in Britain. Such as the Peevish Slang dictionary. At last, a decent online resource, telling it as it truly is.

Welcome, Peevish, to my internet life, and congratulations on a job well done. Internet friends from other lands now have a very cool place to understand the meaning of the words I use all too frequently, and with which I permutate, obfuscate, and navigate my torrid life, and I have a nice, easy to read website to study and enjoy, and possibly submit the occasional suggestion.

Tits Out For Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:40:00 +0000

The enterprising Wing Tai company, a leading retailer, has been stocking a line of cosmetics including "Virtuous vanilla" lip balm and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream, featuring a picture of Christ flanked by two adoring women.BBC

Singapore's Christians seem to have misplaced one of the key messages of their middle-eastern import, Jesus Christ, son of God, who let's not forget, scandalised decent, law-abiding, clean-living, Roman-resisting Jews everywhere by hanging out with the lowest of the low, prostitutes, tax collectors, the sick, the grieving, the abandoned and the destitute, and preaching a doctrine of tolerance and forgiveness, with a spectacular "live and let live" death thrown in to top it all off.

This is not new, of course, and neither are contradictions within Christianity or any other religion. But there is something about people in groups which operates on a completely different level. At a certain point, individual rationality and compassion give way to the workings of the pack, and this goes for capitalists and Christians alike.

Greatly stimulated by this news, on hearing a voice inside my head, I have now commissioned my own brand of miracle cosmetics, toiletries, sex toys and everyday household items, regular usage as per instructions guaranteeing your place in heaven, or your money back. Jesus, being good, wise and having a cracking sense of humour will laugh, especially at the artful irony of the cash/bliss juxtaposition.

A Palindromic Date: 8.2.8

noreply@blogger.com (Deek Deekster) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:46:00 +0000

Everywhere in the civilised world today, with the exception of the numerically impoverished land of the Untidy Stains of Americant, today is an excellent thing - it's a palindromic date, madam.

I've always loved the symmetry of these dates, being born on one.