I was in the kitchen a little while ago preparing dinner, roast chicken a la Omneo, when Modest Mouse’s song ‘Parting of the Sensory‘ came on, courtesy of shuffle mode. I like Modest Mouse, they have a ‘raw’ sound, I think it’s the lead singers voice that does it, some like it, some despise it, some think they’ve sold out and become more ‘radio friendly’, quite frankly I couldn’t give a fuck. I like them.

As I was busy pounding garlic, chilli and lime juice in the pestle I reflected on the lyrics. There’s so much talk about ‘Carbon’ and ‘Carbon Footprints’ these days it’s no wonder most peoples eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the word carbon. For myself, as soon as I hear someone mention carbon I hit my internal ‘snooze button’ This ensures that my brain goes to sleep for 15 minutes before prompting me to wake up and re-join the conversation, during this time I display a look of blank affirmation, I may nod a few times and occasionally I will repeat some of what is being said with a sound of either surprise of disgust.

When I’m aware that the speaker has finished I will announce, “Who gives a fuck? The Earth has to go through a cycle of birth and re-birth, it’s karma man. We’re just pawns in the game of life, stop thinking you have some higher purpose, our purpose is to live and die and if we’re lucky we might have time to throw in a spot of loving”

Usually by that point people realise I have no interest in saving the planet, the end? Bring it on! Won’t be a minute too soon if you ask me.

Anyway, back to Modest Mouse’s lyrics, as I stood there pulverizing the ingredients for my dinner I thought about my own demise, or more exactly, I thought about millions of years after my demise, when my own carcass had become a bundle of carbon, lying dormant under layers and layers of rock and what have you. Suppose I turn into a diamond? How cool would that be? Actually, even if I only end up as a chunk of coal, ready to fuel some futuristic retro furnace, it would still be a pretty cool legacy to have, either I keep someone warm or I become a trinket that people lust after. Both have their pluses and minuses but right now I’m not too fussy, after all, it’s only carbon *snooze*

OK, so you don’t know the song I was talking about? Here are the lyrics, the song can be found on the album ‘We were dead before the ship even sank‘

Parting of the Sensory Lyrics
There’s no work in walking in to fuel the talk
I would grab my shoes and then away I’d walk
Through all the stubborn beauty I start at the dawn
Until the sun had fully stopped
Never walking away from
Just a way to pull apart
Dehydrate back into minerals
A life long walk to the same exact spot

Carbon’s anniversary
The parting of the sensory
Old old mystery
The parting of the sensory

Who the hell made you the boss?
We placed our chips in all the right spots
But still lost
Any shithead who had ever walked
Could take the ship and do a much finer job
This fit like clothes made out of wasps
Aw, fuck it I guess I lost

The parting of the sensory
Carbon’s anniversary
Just part it again if you please
Carbon’s anniversary

Who the hell made you the boss
If you say what to do I know what not to stop
If you were the ship then who would ever get on
The weather changed it for the worse
And came down on us like it had been rehearsed
And like we hope, but change will surely come
And be awful for most but really good for some
I took a trip to the exact same spot
We pulled the trigger, but we forgot to cock
And every single shot

Aw, fuck it I guess we lost

Some day you will die and
Somehow some thing’s going to steal your carbon

Some day you will die and
Somehow some thing’s going to steal your carbon

Well some day you will die somehow and
Some thing’s going to steal your carbon

Some day you will die and
Someone’s or some thing’s will steal your carbon

Some day something will die and
Somehow you’ll figure out how
Often you will die somehow and
Something going to steal your carbon

Well some day you will die somehow and
Some thing’s going to steal your carbon.

well, that’s it over for another year. Christmas… it comes around at the same time every year and yet it never ceases to amaze me how many people scrabble around in the first few weeks of December in a panic as if somehow it was all some new event that had only just been introduced.

This year I spent the day with friends. I ate far, far too much and washed it down with fine wines; no seriously, they were fine wines, Withnail would have been proud of me! It also gave me a glimpse into the life of a TV watcher as my friends are fairly normal and have a TV (I do not) Man alive, what a load of shite they showed on Christmas day! I guess TV Schedulers figure no one has any appetite for TV after gorging senselss on food and alcohol but come on, is that any excuse for the BBC to show ‘Speed’ as their evening movie?? It made me wonder why people bother buying HD plasma TV’s I mean who wants to watch re-runs of old crap in HD? Most of them weren’t any good in LD!!

Now, whereas films and TV shows soon fade, Rock n Roll will never die and that was beautifully summed up in AC/DC’s closing track on their superb album, Back in Black. If you haven’t listened to Rock n Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution, where have you been hiding?? Here are the lyrics but of course, without the music they’re a bit like a bowl of Ying waiting to be placed with a bowl of Yang.

Rock ‘N’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution

(A. Young / M. Young / B. Johnson)

Hey there all you middle men
Throw away your fancy clothes
And while you’re out sittin’ on a fence
So get off your arse and come down here
Cause rock ‘n’ roll ain’t no riddle man
To me it makes good good sense
Good sense yeah let’s go

Heavy decibels bells are playing on my guitar
We got vibrations comin’ up from the floor
We’re just listenin’ to the rock
That’s givin’ too much noise
Are you deaf you wanna hear some more
We’re just talking about the future
Forget about the past
It’ll always be with us
It’s never gonna die
Never gonna die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t gonna die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll it will survive
Yes it will

I took a look inside your bedroom door
You looked so good lyin’ on your bed
Well I asked you if you wanted any rhythm and love
You said you wanna rock ‘n’ roll instead
We’re just talking about the future
Forget about the past
It’ll always be with us
It’s never gonna die
Never gonna die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t gonna die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll is just rock ‘n’ roll

Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t gonna die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ rolling will survive
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll will never die
Rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock ‘n’ roll
Rock ‘n’ roll

Is just rock ‘n’ roll

Tonight I did something I haven’t done for a while… I played a CD! Yes, that’s right, you read correctly, I came home and decided that rather than open up iTunes and play one of the 18,000+ tracks I have there, I’d forsake them and pull out a real, live, CD… a shiny circular disc from the collection on the wall… amassed in ye olden dayes when shiny silver CD was a superior format (OK, so it still is but MP3 is easier and smaller to store!)

I like playing CD’s although I don’t play them that often, it’s so lazy to play MP3′s, I know that when all I have to do is open iTunes and click play on a play list, I can settle down and do nothing for hours whereas with a CD I know I have a 72 minutes maximum before I have to get up and find another CD to replace the previous one and somehow, when I play CD’s, I feel compelled to ensure that whatever I play follows on suitably from the previous CD… heaven forbid I would choose to voluntarily follow Pearl Jam with the Ozric Tentacles, even though I love both bands! I just feel CD’s deserve more thought than simply ‘shuffle’ on iTunes… so fuck me sideways if I’m wrong! (No, that wasn’t really an option, just a turn of phrase!)

So I hear you ask, what CD did I select from the 350+ albums on the wall? It was The Kings of Leon’s Aha Shake Heartbreak… bloody lovely…and only £9.99 at HMV

Well, as I continue my quest for world domination I figured I’d dip my toes in the murky waters of auction sites. There are many people making lots of money from ebay, Smokey McPot, my soon to be ex-colleague, has a steady trade selling bits n pieces and I often think to myself that I could probably rake in a few sheckles if I got my arse in gear and sold the junk lying around the house that I no longer use but I’m a lazy sonofabitch and don’t have that much worth selling so that road is kinda closed to me. Then there are those ‘power sellers’ who sell ‘brand new, fell off the back of a lorry guv’ items and have swollen PayPal accounts. I’m just no where near any lorries with loose doors, so that’s out for me as well.

So where then, gentle reader, does a lazy guy with nothing to sell go when he wants to make his fortune on ebay? The answer is, he opens up the one and only

www.soopastore.com

of course! What? you’ve never heard of it before? Well, that’s no surprise as it only opened it’s virtual doors in the very early hours of Sunday morning, probably while you were out getting drunk

So far the two departments open for business are the UK based MP3 Soopa Store and the US based Gardening Soopa Store but new departments will be opening up very soon, so make sure you check it out and more importantly…check out!!

There’s not much to be said, yet I have so much to say… do you ever get moments like that? You have so much to say and yet you have nothing to share with anyone, not even yourself?!

It’s complicated at times, nothing in particular, just ‘being’ is complicated, even if you’re nothing to anyone else, not even yourself, you still somehow have to manage being who you are, in spite of all the contradictions that the ‘self’ brings with it.

Today I discovered that someone I thought liked me doesn’t, it was weird… all along I thought, “Hmmm why does she like me?!” I was flattered that she did like me but deep down I wondered, “Why?” then today, or is it yesterday? Whichever, she emailed me to say she didn’t like me in the way she had led me to believe and she doubted she could ever like me in a way that I would want… I wondered why she chose to write to me at all… I mean, who writes to tell someone they don’t like someone?! it’s not like I had professed un-dying love and admiration for her (Kinda strange for me!) All that had happened is that I had told her, before she embarked on a round the world trip, is that I would like to go on a date with her when she returned, assuming we were both single at the time…she had agreed, but now feels she has to tell me that she doubts she will ever feel anything for me, hence she no longer wants to go on a date with with me… You know, there was a time I would really have cared but now… now I strive to make this a blog topic.. I mean I like her, obviously, why else would I have wanted to go on a date with her but really… the whole idea was to go on a date or two and see what happened, suddenly she’s decided that she can’t even face that idea… it’s not about me… it’s about something else but she seems to feel that by pushing me away it solves whatever the problem is… there was a time I would rebel and tell her, “**** don’t be such a stupid girl, just go with the flow” but now I can’t be arsed… if she wants to push me away so be it, baby can get put in the corner, in fact baby likes the fucking corner, baby loves the frickin corner, baby was born for the god-damn corner…baby hates Patrick Swayze tho