Holidaze

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

Last night I watched this movie called “River” its a time warp comedy thriller with a romantic twist – very enjoyable and I recommend watching it on the channel 4 player if you have it – having said that, I did fall asleep a few times during the film, very uncharacteristic of me, though I have been doing that a bit lately, earlier we watched 3/4 of the film Terminator Dark Fate, it was so juvenile and pointless I think it wore me out! Fuck me the script was moronic!

River

I did enjoy this, I’m tempted to watch it again just to see the parts I slept through, but really I think I got the point of it. The young Japanese girl in the lead role was very alluring, so girly and fun, she played her part very well. I don’t know much about Japanese culture apart from what I see on TV movies and books, this film showed a side which I found unusually fun and endearing.

All this got me thinking back to when we went on holiday to Kotor in Montenegro. Huh? What? Where? Well just bare with me and I’ll explain – Montenegro is a small country in former Yugoslavia, they have the most southerly fjords, (or fjord like mountains and sea inlets) Very beautiful place, but inevitably when on holiday, I get bored, all the activities you have to do, oh sure its good to go on holiday and create new memories and all that, but I always find myself looking for trouble, I don’t know why.

Anyhow, there were these cruise ships in the bay, this was just before Covid and all that, the cruise scene was buzzing, so you got a few thousand people on a boat, cruising around, all these guided tours you get, you see them come ashore and get herded onto busses or other boats, its a different holiday from mine, I’m there like wandering about with my hands in my pockets, going oh yeah, that’s nice, yeah, it is nice, etc, etc, I’m not going to sign up for a $230. Dollar trip to taste the local vino or whatever, I don’t have that kind of cash, its a different kind of holiday, these people are all inclusive, they may be wealthy, or they maybe having a once in a lifetime experience, who knows? You’d have to ask them, individually, I don’t have time for that, and anyway, they’re from the other side of the world, in Montenegro, its east meets west, its a bit like Istanbul in my mind, our hotel had a picture of Putin on the wall – there’s a lot of Russian tourists here, this was before the Ukraine war kicked off. 

So anyway, there we are in Kotor having our holiday, and you keep seeing these groups of American tourists, or Russians, or Chinese or whatever, in their own little worlds, you see them when you go to Rome, there will be someone up front with a pole with a flag on it – and they’re all following it, like they think they’ll get lost and be kidnapped and butchered, it makes me laugh, sometimes they have headsets on, so they can listen to the history lessons, they look like they are on remote controll! 

We was in the cathedral in Seville one time, they got this huge tomb for Christopher Columbus there, and this American couple were looking at it, and the woman goes its 400 years old or something, and the guy goes “I feel emotional” LOL It just made me laugh how he said it! What on earth did he mean?

I digress, so back in Montenegro we went off on this trip to see this island with an old church on it, its a tiny man made island, there’s all this stuff about how there was a fishing disaster and the people prayed to the Virgin Mary or whatever, so you’re trying to take that in and wondering if there’s going to be some nice food coming or some booze or whatever and then all these Japanese people turned up with their cameras, (they would be from the cruise ship) and they bustle into the small space, I noticed they were all about retired age, except for one pretty girl, probably aged about 30, so I thought I wonder if she’s bored with that lot? So we clamber all over this church and island, 

and I keep bumping into her, well not literally bumping into, but its a small island with about 150 people, and she’s the only good looking one there, (apart from myself of course) so I can’t help noticing her – so anyhow, I pretty much seen everything there after 1/2 hour or so, and I notice they’re herded into this room and they’re being instructed in something probably in Japanese, and I find myself stood right next to her, so I pretend to be interested in the architecture or whatever, and I look round and she’s like a foot away, staring right at me! I look back at her, cos I’m the king of the blank stare, I study her features, but it feels rude, cos she’s not smiling – she’s not frowning, she’s not in the least bit curious even, she’s not looking through me, its like she’s saying “go on, make your move or piss off” So I’m thinking what did I do? Why am I like this? I was just bored and looking, and now I have to get married, or have my fingers chopped off by some yakuza uncle of hers, I got to ship these drugs over the border, for them every Friday or something, I can’t remember, it reminds me of that time I went into an Irish pub and . . . 

2.30 AM

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

It’s Saturday night, 2am, I’m sitting up listening to music and having a late night pint, there’s a mad wind blowing outside, slashing rain, rattling the windows, there’s a ghost film on TV, but I’m not watching it really, I’m just playing some music on my headphones and typing this.

This year, I shall be 60 – I feel like I’m lying saying that, but it’s true! Once upon a time, I was much younger, I just found a video of the Damned live in 1982 on YouTube, its crazy, it reminds me how we was, fucking mental, that’s the best way to describe it – well they’re back this year, doing a tour with that original line up, same as it was all those years ago – incredible, brilliant energy, they really were very very good – the aim back then was to drink and smoke as much as humanly possible, and just have the biggest night out imaginable, we had the energy for that, we had ambition, the idea was to just smash your balls to the walls, LOL I just made that up, but that’s how I remember it – first time I saw them, we queued up outside, and some bloke built like a brick shit-house told us “Sup it up outside lad” (cos you couldn’t bring your bottle of vodka or whatever in with you) Well we got in there, and it was mayhem, Anti-Nowhere league were support band, singing “Fuck you Fuck you, Don’t you tell me what to do” Then the Damned came on and drinks and beer flew through the air as everyone just exploded throwing each other all over the place to the crazy music, on the way home we got our heads kicked in by some local nutters, missed the last train home too.

Well I’m not looking to repeat that experience, but the music still sounds pretty wild, sure I’ll be going along to get my lug holes reamed, you can’t beat it!

Nowadays, I don’t think the sort of things we were doing are normal anymore, they weren’t then either to be honest, but it was fun to go crackers, back then I remember chatting to some guy, he said oh you don’t like that do you? Those punk people are scum! Well that was a part of it, there was a lot of anger around, mum and dad thought you shouldn’t be doing any of that disgraceful behaviour, but that’s what made it so fabulous, it was therapeutic, to be seen and heard, rather than seen and not heard, which was meant to be idyllic you know back then, when England was so conservative, stuffy and boring, we weren’t really trying to overthrow the order, just get absolutely hammered drunk, get onto the stage and jump off heroically into the heaving crowd, that would be a good start! LMAO

Some Blurb

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

I created this in zBrush, and I thought that’ll do for that one, what shall I do now? Then I thought well I’ll do her some trousers and a pair of boots! A pair of rugged jeans, complete with stitching and seams and all that! That’s gonna take quite a while, but I do enjoy the challenge, I know what trousers look like, I think she should be wearing Dr Martens boots, and I know what they look like, I don’t even need a reference, its going to be fun! Or is it? It’s a bit of a nightmare half the time, but that’s life!

I have quite a bit of 3D stuff I did over the last year or so, I shall have to collect it all together and see what I have – I know a lot of people probably don’t rate it, it seems sort of peverse, perhaps its more interesting for the person doing it than it is for most viewers – for instance, I had to do quite a bit of work to get the skin texture right, aside from it being difficult to make a smile look right, she looked a bit dry skinned, so I tried adding sheen using various methods till I got what I thought looked ok – sometimes it just goes on and on, its a lot like doing a puzzle. The thing is, when you’re doing stuff in 3D, you realise how amazingly complex the world of vision is, you got to think about colour, texture, how lighting works, everything has to be created – or rather, simulated, that is a lot, believe me!

Hey, remember when Marc Bolan of T-Rex did Ride a White Swan on Tv? That was crazy, I love that! Maybe I could do something like that in 3D, but there’d be no point, cos its already been done in real life, and its never going to get better than that –  imagine all the work it would take to re-create it! Mad!

Creativity – (roots thereof)

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

I’m just posting some notes here, because I don’t know what I’m talking about, I can’t be bothered to sort it all out properly, but maybe some people do? Who knows, see below!

You know how to do something, but can you go deeper than that? Apply those tools in a different way? You need to meditate on that, because just knowing how to do something, is to repeat yourself, now you need to go back to before you learned these skills without losing those abilities.

You can turn into someone else every day of the week if you like, or you can make additions to your abilities, but can you go deeper? That is the challenge which makes most sense. 

In life, or art, (as in this case) you learn some skills – right, really complicated ones, like in 3D art, its very complicated, so you learn how to use all these tools, but what if you want to apply them in a different way? I mean not to go down the same old path, photo reality, its difficult to avoid, its what 3d art is basically for – or you can add effects, (yawn) its like cinematic, mainstream cinematic, or fantasy art, what a bore! 

Anyhow, shall resolve that later (hopefully) Ideas bubble up, and you think I’ll do that! But by the time you learned the necessary skills, you forgot the idea, it got demolished in a series of hard lessons in practicality and so on, soo you got to go back to the roots, something like that.

Anyhow again – so last night went and saw Echo & the Bunnymen, now there is a good band! I suspect the magic is in teamwork, singer Ian McCulloch said in an interview he was talented and cool even in the womb! LOL That’s a good way to think about your work! I mention this in regards to strategy and what I was haranguing myself about above.

I do music too, I done tons of it, it’s really simple and I think of most of it as just shit – but really it’s not, who cares what anyone thinks? I’m not a very sophisticated guy, I just like to bring on the dancing horses!

Spare us the Cutter!!!! 😮 (not my footage, but same gig!)

Steely Dan!

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

I once read former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones’ book, I do find him interesting, so I subscribed on my phone to receive notifications on his thoughts – of which he has many. Recently he said he doesn’t listen to punk rock anymore, and that he likes the music of Steely Dan – how interesting!

Steely dan have been on my radar lately as they are touring with The Eagles, those old bands don’t come around too often, they must be in their 70’s or 80’s now, I don’t really like either of them, so I won’t be going along, they do good music though, its an old style, the cream of an era long gone, it would be a good night out for someone interested in the best of 70’s American soft rock, I heartily recommend someone else goes!

Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I was sat round my friends house, and he liked Steely Dan, he had their song “Reelin’ in the Years playing, which I thought was just a load of shit, but I could appreciate their musical acumen, so anyhow, my friend said “Are you reeling in the years Ogden?” I probably just grunted, cos I had no idea what that meant, to this day I don’t understand what on earth they’re going on about – did they mean Reeling in, like a fishing metaphor, or Reeling as in drunkenly staggering? 

Years to me are just years, they fuck you up, change you, yet you stay the same, so maybe I’m just reeling in an out of control way? Maybe I should be Reeling them in like savouring them more, be more ordered, have more strategy, combining and manipulating the circumstances, or perhaps riding it, like some groovy surfer, oh yes, these are the best years I’ll save for later or whatever, Stowing away the time? Exactly WTF is that song about??

My friend was a very interesting character, sadly he took all the wrong drugs and died young, for all I know, he enjoyed life in ways I will never understand, I remember tons of things he said, we spent a lot of time together, he was pretty funny!

The Shangri-Las

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

I don’t know if anyone needs to hear this, or who you are, but I been listening to all this Shangri-Las stuff, then I found a very good track list on YouTube, that’s where its a list and you just play a whole load in one go, I shall share it here – I think if you click to watch on YouTube it’ll show the whole list, its Gert!

Here’s a screenshot of how it comes up on YouTube!

Screenshot

Down the Royal Rabbit hole

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

Every time, well not every time, but quite often, when I hear something I don’t know much about, I google it, and very often end up on Wikipedia, so, I just looked up Lady Jane Grey, because she was mentioned as the 9 days queen, she got executed cos they changed their mind and went with this other queen called Bloody Mary, so she was catholic, whereas Lady Jane was protestant, they’re all related to each other, but with different personalities and beliefs and so on, so we went back to catholicism and loads of people got executed, that’s partly why America got founded, cos everyone was so fed up with it, but these royals, it does you’re head in when you read about them, cos there’s so many of them, its just an example.

by Unknown artist,painting,1590

Anyhow, I’m reading this book set in the middle ages, its called Wonders Will Never Cease, by Robert Irwin, (his books are all brilliant) he really does his research, it makes it so interesting and imaginative, he mentioned this bloke Simon Sudbury, who was Bishop of London, got executed by a mob led by some guy, I forget his name, but I read more on wiki – they turned up at the bishops palace & the guard’s let them in cos they seemed like they were upset about something, the struggles of life & that, but this was like years before Jane Grey, she was 1554, peasants revolt was 1381.

Also in this book was Thomas Malory, who wrote Morte de Arthur, which was like a fantasy about the ruling classes, half the time they’re ass-hats, even if they might be chivalrous, or would like to be.  

There’s stuff about the War of the Roses, that interests me cos the last main battle was fought near here at Towton,

also Pontefract is near here, they had this massive castle that looks like something out of a Disney film, it’s amazing! Imagine seeing that in the landscape, not your average hovel is it? Unfortunately, it was demolished by Oliver Cromwell, hundreds of years after the thing with the roses, its also now hundreds of years since Cromwells time.

Also read a lot about this church reformer John Wycliffe & what he believed, it just makes you think, the philosophers among us, there’s always a few, but not as many as the nutters, there was one in Czechoslovakia at the time, I forgot his name, but if you spoke out in those days, you got killed by the nutters, that’s the way I see it, and even today, even with all our freedoms, there’s still more nutters than anything else. 

That’s why I love history, it takes you out of the present, even if you don’t really know what you’re reading, its actually more effective if you don’t, then when you come back, you feel like things are better, or worse, or at least different (or not)!

Conundrums

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

During 2023 my email blog notifications seemed to get out of hand so that I was getting about 20 + extra WP emails a day on top of the junk mail and news, that took me to about 40-60 in total daily, sometimes up to 100 a day! This was maddening, so I un-email subbed from lots of blogs as well as shopping sites and so on, getting it down to an average of about 35-45 a day, still a bit steep, considering when I first got on the net (about 25 years ago), I’d probably only receive about 5 emails a week if that!

Over xmas and new year, I didn’t get any WP notifications of new blog posts, so I thought people just weren’t posting new stuff, I was really busy so I didn’t think much of it until recently, it seemed nothing new was going on anywhere, it wasn’t until almost the middle of January before I realised something must be wrong, so I checked my settings on the WP site and found that a checkbox was marked with “Block all emails”  How did that happen? I’m sure I hadn’t done it, had someone hacked in just to do that? I don’t think so, I must have done it by mistake, or else it was a glitch. I’d been getting so many notifications I’d actually been reducing them for a while, I just don’t have enough time to do justice to all blog posters, I’m getting 40-60 emails a day now, what with everything else that comes my way – I’m glad you’re all back though I shall continue to avoid as many of you as I can!

Thought of today – the more we learn, the less we know – I was thinking ah yes, when we are born, we know everything, or we think we do, we look around and take it all in, its so overwhelming and full of everything, we take it on board and begin to work out what’s going on, and that’s when the learning begins to nibble away at what we know, or come to think we knew, this goes on throughout life, by the time your getting to the end of it, it seems that you actually know almost nothing! Good grief, logically, one ought to know lots!

# Latest dream!

I dreamt we went to this old German city for a break but when we got on the plane to go home it didn’t take off and just went careering through the streets trying to fly, then finally it started going up, but it had no power and ended up back on the ground, We were back walking in the street so I was saying I don’t fancy getting another plane home, shall we get a boat or train or something? The thing was, I couldn’t actually remember getting off the plane, perhaps it had crashed and we were already dead? How would we know? 

Let’s have a silly song!

Garp!

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

Last night I watched the film The World According to Garp.

I seen it before, and I read the book nearly 30 years ago, my art teacher lent me it or recommended it or something, maybe he thought it would be a good one for me to read, cos of where I was at in my life at the time? Who knows, but anyhow, I really enjoyed it, both the book and the film, its by John Irving, its great art I think, cos it has a whole lot of comedy and tragedy, as well as being very clever and quite bonkers, in every way its a work of genius. He’s not a writer I would say that I love, he’s not really someone you connect with in a lyrical way, bit of a smart ass to come up with all those great ideas is what I mean, he doesn’t lack in anything for having come up with the ideas you need to produce what felt like great art. 

Great art really though, what is it? Well its any painting, or poem, or book or whatever that connects with you at a point in time in your life, its got what it takes, it leaves its mark, its substantial enough that you’re still thinking about it the next day, or maybe it might even influence you enough to change or alter your path in life. This morning I woke up still thinking about how good it was, a few songs drifted into my head as I was lazily lying there, which I shall post below, cos I think they’re great too! 

Xmas 2023 already!

Posted on by Ogden Fahey

Damn it, went to get my tea, thinking it was brewing in the pot and found I hadn’t made it yet, the water was still in the kettle! Repetitive tasks eh? Don’t you find it can be impossible to remember if you actually did what you had to do a million times before? Don’t forget to crack those beers open and drink them! Have you done that yet? Well it’s xmas, so you better get on with it now!

Well it’s been another year hasn’t it gone fast? So, I got myself a new computer, nothing wrong with the old one, I just wanted something a bit better, so I thought I’d chop it in with apple, they offered me £275 or something, which I thought was fair, so I got this new one, just to find out what I’d get before going ahead, I thought pop it on eBay for £500. Someone took my arm off it about 10 mins! Wow! 

I can’t remember what happened earlier in the year, but I had some bike troubles around the time I got the computer, it took a few weeks to diagnose, but it got fixed and back ok, now the throttle cable is broke, so I just ordered a new one £50 – I’m hoping this one lasts till the new one comes, its just hanging on at the moment.

Anyhow, so I got this new computer and had to re-order my music library, the new one doesn’t say recent files, as the whole lot is now in recent files. I don’t want to forget what I bought, when that happens, I forget to listen to some songs and they disappear down the list, I had to rebuild the entire library, luckily there was a button to do that, but I had to manually sort our recent purchases, during which time I enjoyed playing some of the songs through and thinking oh yeah! That’s good! Or oh yeah, must play this one more!

ANUS X DJSUPER – HAZARD III

Actually I bought this a year or 2 ago, I just found in on the disk and thought what the hell? I bought this?? I played it and it’s pretty good, so I added it to recents! (Its like hardcore beats)

Pink Industry / Pink Military

I bought a bunch of their stuff after reading about them on Instagram, glad I found this, I think it’s really good listening!

Sheep On Drugs

Another one I probably actually got a year or 3 ago, it’s not worn out yet, so into recents it goes!]

Hante / Minuit Machine

I bought the entire back catalogue, cos it was a bargain price on BANDCAMP, can’t fault it, her recent album Morning Tsunami is real quality! I think I found her through Instagram too.

Lights AM

I found these through browsing, very good, bought 2 albums and a single, really good, you forget to play them, then when you do, you’re like wow! This is very very good!

Jessica Winter

She’s just so cool and fun, saw her supporting Pumarosa, one to watch, she’s up and coming!

Cunt Remember

Yes I can! I found this through an email link, it’s just good music! It’s rave sort of minimal jungle sort of thing! I think she’s from Brazil, or Argentina.

DJ-Kicks: Jayda G

Well this is very good, sort of funky disco dance, I’m not always in the mood, but I am when I play it!

A Strange Play 2 – Tribute To The Cure

Mentioned this recently, its covers of Cure songs, very enjoyable!

      (Hmm, Teas ready! Very tasty!)

Weyes Blood

I bought a couple of albums and went and saw her live, very good! Perfecto heart strings stuff!

fabric 91: Nina Kraviz

This came out in 91, but I only just got it recently, she’s been a round a while, so I thought what actually is the best collection? People said it was this one – you got to be in the mood though, its a bit wearisome if you’re not .

Best of Clubsonica Records 2018

Haha, this is good – minimalist dance sort of stuff, not bad, you can play it over and over, it throbs!

Pure Relaxation

Probably didn’t buy it this year, but its a good collection I mean to play more

Total 23

I held back on buying this, as it wasn’t clear how many tracks you get for your money, turned out the deal was good, so I got the download from Kompakt, the price was right! 

Operation Disco

This is a hoot! I really enjoy a bit of that funky disco! This gets me strutting!

A Change Gonn’ Come

Still don’t know where I got this, it’s got titles like “Trippin’ on cheese” and “Tupperware” – these dudes got a groovy rhythm going! (its various artists)

I got some other stuff too, there was a collection done by Juno Records, free downloads, an advent promotion, you had to get them one by one, or it was gone, I got all but 3, so I actually paid for those to complete the collection.

Look at all that lot! It’s all good, there’s very few of them I wouldn’t buy more of, if I had endless amounts of money to pay and hours to listen!

You won’t believe what just happened now – our cat keep dashing through the cat flap like the devil himself is after her, because if you open the door, they just run off, I looked through the cat flap to see if there was a cat there and a paw came through like lightning and scratched my head! I’m bleeding! Whatever next! Well, at least I know now what’s going on – its tough out there!!

Now another thing I been doing this year, I got some software called Numerology, its a simple step sequencer, you can add synths or sounds or anything, its really easy to use, so I just recorded something I did earlier, its just for fun, I wasn’t even sure how to record as so far I just play with it from time to time – this piece I shall call “Donkey” After the donkeys of the world in general, I hope you like it, lets make it number one!!

Merry Xmas! 🎅 😄