Sunday, Sunday, Here Again

It is sunny and I am writing. It is not work.
Writing is never work.
It is typing, but more engaging.
But never work.
I like to write about anything.
Anything.
I like to pretend the keyboard is a piano.
Or sometimes a drum kit.
It's good to type like you're playing drums.

(If my typing was drumming
I'd like it to be like Seb Rochford.)

Yesterday the keyboard was hoovered.
It was full of human ballast. My ballast.
Bits I have cast off.
Minuscule body parts; hair and skin.
I fashioned them into a tiny man.
I gave him a jolt of electricity at midnight.
He is typing this.

'Tweed: An Appreciation'

Sometimes it’s just a case of seeing things with fresh eyes.

Just over a year ago, quite out of the blue, I was suddenly gripped by an overwhelming urge – or maybe compulsion is a better word – to bedeck myself in tweed. I know. I was surprised too. But these compulsions cannot be ignored; they are there for a reason. Just as your body demands carbohydrates in the winter, so too it seems it cries out for tweed...

Read more here...

Font madness

I've been very busy of late. I finished a new novel. I'm glad it is finished.

I've also been interviewing these people (check them out on 'Britain's Got Talent' next month - genuinely).

I've written some new stories for even more anthologies. And I've been writing about record labels and shoes and tweed coats and other things.

None of this explains why the font size of this here blog keeps changing. Or maybe it's my new spectacles.

Help.

Six Word Reviews: Part IV

We live in fast times. Our attention spans are short. I get sent lots of music. These three points will be addressed in Six Word Reviews.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – Old Money (album)

Mushrooms and Sun(Ra)burn on planet ^£”!&*”!

The Rank Deluxe – You Decide (album)

Thamesmead punk. Concrete. Walkways. Dog shit.

Mastodon – Crack The Sky (album)

Better than Metallica. But not Anthrax.

Dieter Schoon – Lablaza (album)

Crush this. Roll it. Smoke it.

Red Light Company - Arts & Crafts (single)

This warrants an unequivocal: fuck off.

Isis – Wavering Radiant (album)

How heavy? This heavy? This heavy?

Anthologies 2009

I have some poems and stories in a number of anthologies coming out in 2009, all of which look good and make me smile when I think about them.

Across the board, other people involved these various books include Robert Crumb, Irvine Welsh, Jarvis Cocker, Lee Rourke, Dan Fante, Chris Yates, John Savage, Harvey Pekar, Fred Voss, Paul Ewen, Andrew Stevens and, of course, The Brutalists: Tony O'Neill, Adelle Stripe and Lisa Cradduck.

Heroes one and all, basically.

Excited? Just a bit....

Please cast your eyes to the right - to 'Ben Myers books', the 2009 titles - for links to more details.

'Pointless Crap'

I'm aware that this blog has been rather bereft of late.
Or not so much bereft as filled with pointless crap.

The reasons for this are twofold: i) I have been writing a book
for the past six months so have been somewhat distracted

and ii) no-one reads it anyway, so for once in my life I don't
have to answer to deadlines or editors. I think what I'm saying is

'stay tuned' for more updates, the next installment of
'Six Word Reviews' and some pictures of watermelons.

Happy St Patrick's Day

This Is The Face Of Werner Herzog

Twitching (not Twitter)

I really enjoyed Roy Wilkinson's article on the relationship between bird watching and rock 'n' roll. Roy is a great writer, and brother of Yan and Hamilton from my favourites British Sea Power.

I'd quite like to 'get into' bird watching. From my window in darkest South London I get to see plenty of jays, magpies and parrots, but nothing else that is too exciting.

Reading List March 2009

Herzog On Hergoz edited by Paul Cronin
Naive. Super by Erland Loe
The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWha 13, and The Source Family by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian
Lady Into Fox by David Garnett (pictured)

"Fishing Is The New Fishing"

3AM have published some details about the forthcoming Caught by The River anthology.

Six Word Reviews: Part III

We live in fast times. Our attention spans are short. I get sent lots of music. These three points will be addressed in Six Word Reviews.

Marmaduke Duke - 'Kid Gloves' (single)
I invented a genre. 'Electrowibble'. Thanks.

The Coathangers - 'Scramble' (album)
Inability: still a Riot Grrl pre-requisite?

Flobots – ‘Stand Up’

“Bush sucks! What, he left already?”

Pink Mountaintops – ‘Outside Love’ (album)

Great artwork. I shan’t play it.

Papa Roach - 'Hollywood Whore' (single)
I once made their singer cry.

Rise Against – ‘Appeal To Reason’ (album)

I didn’t make their singer cry.

Party politics

Charlie Brooker just articulated everything I currently feel about party politics and the disenfranchisement of, we, 'the people' in Britain today.

The News

I've been working on a new novel. It is nearly finished. I have been working on it everyday for six months. It is 'long' and 'depressing', but hopefully readable and enlightening too. It is set in London and South Wales, but also Germany, France, Scandivania, the US, Japan, Thailand and a few others places, like Norwich and Hull. It has effected my sleep patterns. It is in my dreams. It is giving me strange haircuts.

I've also been reading about Father Yod and The Source Family. It's tempting to start a cult, but I have quite a bit on at the moment.

I've been putting unearthing CDs by 90s indie bands to put on my itunes. People like Mansun and 60Ft Dolls.

Sometimes I go running.
I eat lots of aubergines.
I want to go fishing.

I have concluded my other blog 'I, Axl: An American Dream'

That's it for now.












(aubergines)













(Father Yod plus naked hippies)