What would Uncle Phil say?

This is what happens when someone takes your life's work and makes it about 100 times better. I bet Isaac Asimov didn't feel that way when he watched I Robot.

Pearl and the Beard - Will Smith Medley from Goddamn Cobras Collective on Vimeo.

Simple pleasures........

Ah, the joys of serenely beautiful childhood animation

Twisted Opinions

I'm sure we have all been saddened and shocked by the untimely death of Stephen Gately from Boyzone. For those who don't know the full details, the gay pop star (I make a point of mentioning his sexuality here as it is of huge importance in the context of the story) died unexpectedly in the night during his holiday in Majorca. He was a young man, and by all accounts was fit and healthy. Postmortem reports suggest that he was killed by an undiagnosed heart condition that was apparently prevalent in his family. You may think that the story ends on this tragic note, or at least should do. However, certain additional circumstances surrounding his death have provided a flimsy excuse for some in the public eye to level unfounded sweeping statements and accusations against all homosexual people. Apparently Stephen had gone on a long drinking session the day before his death, and had also smoked some cannabis, if you can believe that. But the most unsavoury detail for some is that Stephen and his husband met with a gay Bulgarian backpacker on the night of his death and took him home with them, for whatever private reasons they had.

The comments that have been made about gay people from the back of this revelation stretch from the laughable to the downright abhorrent. Jan Moir's now infamous article in The Daily Mail, written as a clear attempt to enflame the already prevalent prejudices of the paper's readership, has been the most publicised. Her statement that "healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again" clearly shows her own ignorance, as in fact 12 or so cases of death in this matter are reported every week. However, it is another piece that I want to draw your attention to. This comes from a press release, no less, from the Christian organisation Christian Voice, where its director, Stephen Green, vocalises his own opinions on the singer's death.

To be honest, the Christian Voice piece makes Jan Moir look like a spokesperson for Stonewall. Mr Green talks about how the incident "speaks volumes about the lack of true feelings homosexual men can have for each other", and that "such activities are routine in the homosexual world". Apparently, "in the sordid homosexual world it in mainstream for pairs of gays or lesbians to invite others into their corruption and even to be involved in orgies". I for one can't wait for the day that "Western society will wake up to the fact that the supposed equality [...] between heterosexual and homosexual activity is null and void". And which of us doesn't hope that "he was praying in repentance when he died, praying for God to forgive him his sins by the merits of the blood of Jesus Christ, asking for release from his tortured mind and fellowship with the God who alone has the power to forgive and restore"? You can read the full extraordinary statement at http://tinyurl.com/ykaxeqh.

I am someone who has been agnostic for most of his life, although recently I have spent some time trying to get to grips with Christianity. I still would not quite fully call myself a Christian, but I have at least done some 'research' into the religion. I have been to Church, I have partially studied the Bible, and I have even been to the odd prayer meeting or two. I can honestly say that I have never met any Christians who share Mr. Green's perverted and twisted view. As the old axiom states, a few rotten apples are giving the rest of the bunch a bad name. Most Christians I know base their lives on trying to live by certain principles such as love, honour and respect for each other and for Jesus. I find it remarkable that Mr. Green is willing to destroy the reputation of literally millions of people with his biased remarks and uneducated viewpoints. I'm sure Mr. Green has his followers who completely agree with every corrupted, self-serving word he says, but then so does Nick Griffin. Even Satan had an angel or two.

I write this post mainly because of a recent conversation with a gay friend of mine who had read Mr. Green's statement, which led him to divulge that he "hates Christians, who are all like this". I can only hope that the majority of people realise that this is not true. Most Christians are free-thinking, intelligent and fair people, who would never condone such comments. Hopefully, the Christian Voice organisation removes Mr. Green and his abominable followers post-haste, although I doubt it after a quick look at their website, which seems to be against homosexuality in the police force, against building mosques, and against Jerry Springer: The Musical. These people give Christianity, and indeed humanity, a bad name, and deserve nothing less than absolute contempt.

Do estate agents go to Heaven?

So, recently I have been scammed out of £1100 by a dodgy estate agent. I won't bore you with the details - suffice it to say that when I went to pick up the keys, they'd buggered well and truly off, with my and a lot of other people's cash. The police, true to form as ever, were less than useless, with one sergeant that I spoke to at the local station actually visibly getting angry that I suggested that it was a case of fraud, and so something they deal with, rather than a civil matter. I have all the bank details of accounts that I paid in to, but no one will either tell me any information about the holder, or take on the issue themselves. It really is no wonder why so many people turn to crime - the chances of getting caught seem to be minimal.

The worst part is, now I am constantly calling my own sense of judgement, which before I thought was pretty good, into question.

Lyrics - It's Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since you made a sound,

since you laid me down, since you turned my world around.

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time since you came around

made my heartbeat pound with your hair all flowing down.

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time since I made you smile,

since I drove you wild, O Lord it's been a while.

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time since my blood ran cold

with a lust for life and a fear of growing old.

It's been a long time.

Oh, it's been a long time.

I've had a hard time trying to change my moods

to get up from abuse and kid myself that you lose.

I've had a hard time.

I've had a hard time trying to pick myself up,

trying to not give up and forget my bad luck.

I've had a hard time.

I've had a hard time trying to not feel cold

when the cold wind blows and it chills you to the bone.

I've had a hard time.

I've had a hard time trying to replace you

with the birds and the booze, right now anything will do.

I've had a hard time.

Oh, I've had a hard time.

Retirement

I went to my father's retirement dinner tonight. It was a good night, full of joy and laughter. I felt both proud and humbled at watching the man who brought me up gain his just rewards from his workmates. For 34 years he worked at the same company. I've never seen him cry before, and I didn't see him do so tonight, but he came as close as I can ever remember. It was a truly odd feeling, to have complete strangers come up to you and tell you how your dad is 'the nicest guy in the world', how 'he'll be sorely missed'. I tried to look at him, for perhaps the first time, as a person - not as my father, but as how somebody on the street would look at him. A regular guy, gaunt in the face, grey hair, slim and fragile. The way the people there ran over his past work at the company - 34 years of service, summed up in a 30 minute speech - somehow saddened me. To think of all the moments that had occurred in that 34 years! Every thought he must have had, every day he went into work, every palpitating second. I think he enjoyed his work, but who is really ever to know? Did he ever stare blankly at his computer screen and dream of something better? Did he ever silently curse his wife and children for forcing him into a life that he would not have chosen for himself? Did he ever yearn for something better? Of course he would never say such things, but the thought lingers on. I know that things were different in his day, that you found a job and stuck with it no matter what, and so in a way he never knew any better, but what of him now? He'll have, at best, 25 years left. 25 years to fulfill all the dreams he never even came close to touching. Some of them must be gone forever. Who knows what he wanted when he was my age? At some point he must have been young, red of flesh and tan of cheek, and it upsets me to think of all the avenues that are now closed to him, forever. Is this what life is about? Is this the ultimate extent that our gentle dreams must reach? Perhaps it is not the end of the world. He's lived a good life, and perhaps, in some small wearied way, that is enough.

"The Day The Whole World Went Away" [Trent Reznor]

Lately, it seems to me that everything is becoming totally fucked up, for everyone I know. Everybody I know is losing their jobs, or having their relationships ripped apart, or are losing their houses. It seems so bizarre to me. In the wider sense, the credit crunch is royally screwing everyone on the planet, but it also seems that the little fragments of people's lives that I know are breaking apart, and the control over their own lives is being stolen from them. I have yet to meet a single person who has had good things happen to them this year. What's going on? Have the planets become unhinged in some grotesque cosmic ballet? Is God pissed at each and every one of us? Is this The Rapture? Can I hear the clip clip clop of the cloven hooves of the Four Horsemen cascading increasingly towards my door? In my own life, my dog has died, my cousin's wife has left him and has taken his kids with her, my step uncle has a sudden heart condition, my friends are separating from their girlfriends of considerable years, and other events too cataclysmic to mention. I often catch myself wondering 'what happened here? Where did everything go wrong?'

But perhaps, in some bizarre way, it's a good thing. The new-world great depression, the like not seen since 1939, is some sort of leveler. Everybody is in the shit, and yet everybody is in the same boat. The other day, when I was feeling pretty depressed, I was walking around Soho, and an old tramp asked me for my last cigarette. I gave it to him, hoping that it would somehow give him more pleasure than it would ever give me, and he started laughing. He looked up at me, and through his whisky-soaked toothless grin he hissed 'we're all the same now, eh?' And he was right! There must be some strange sense of togetherness that comes from all of this, there must be something pure and good that evolves from such feelings of misery, surely? There has to be! Maybe it is some other way of realigning the world, of centering the too-frequently-askew axes of the population. Maybe SOMETHING can come out of this?

It makes me think of other people, mortals in forgotten realms and distant souls in far away continents. It makes me think. In the dark cloisters of the night, I have started to dream about real people. Not people I know or recognise, but entities that strike you with the sense that they are forged from such smashing reality as to make the mind baulk as to its own absurd nature, that you are meeting them in the ether for the first time, through eyes which they could not possibly have seen. I can remember them clearly, and can later recount the smallest physiognomical detail with ease, yet I become so transfixed by them that the world behind them resembles only a blur, as empty as a glacier. They leave me with the impression that I would like to know them for a while, and that in some, far-off place that I will never visit, there are people that know me, and in some unfathomable way will recognise my eyes, the gait of my walk, the shape of my hands. I picture meeting them, on paving slabs drenched with memories in some future netherworld, our eyes flashing over each other's bodies in that invasive way that strangers' eyes meet, until a perfect decibel of recognition, clashing like a tubular bell, pierces us to the heart, to the very heart, and all that's needed is a smile, or a nod, or even just a gentle wave through a crowded metropolis on a wet afternoon which smashes against the defences of the world, for us each to know that the other is thinking the same thing, that the sacred moment is there, that the stumbling forward ache of humanity has not been in vain, because somehow there will always be days like today, and the entire world will have been worth it in the end.