** Top Secret **

Its Hitler's birthday today and im sure he is partying in hellfire. Here is a photo taken at a top secret location near Wolfenbuttel, Germany, when the furher met with Agent Zyceus, an alien who had crash landed in 1943.

Morning Light Lights the Brain Dew

Ive often heard that night time can inspire a batch of good thoughts or ideas, but in my experience the same can be said of the morning. More so even. Especially on beautiful sunny mornings (because dark, rain filled ones can do the opposite and fuel a glut of misery).
Wales is currently experiencing a run of fabulous weather, (we are not merely a rival to Rome and Athens but beating them) and this morning at 5.45am just as you could see the rising light of the sun, it was so peaceful that I felt shrouded in serenity. It wasn't utterly peaceful of course because the dawn chorus of the feathered kind was in full swing, featuring an assortment of different birds, but I find birdsong adds to the peace.
And if I close my eyes on mornings such as this I feel as if I could be anywhere. I feel 'chains' lifting, making me believe I could take myself off to wherever I wished just by thinking it.


Mind valium: the view on my doorstep

Its hard to explain but it doesn't matter where I am in the world, if the sun happens to infiltrate the dawn I feel as though my spirit has clicked into the nature of Life. It all falls into one big happy jigsaw and I don't feel as if im in a certain place, I feel only Life. And I know all this sounds like ive had a particular type of mushroom for breakfast but I assure you dear reader, ive only had bacon.
And the sense of peace is incredible, especially as I live out in the wild countryside, which only amplifies the calm. I have never underestimated the power of the sun and nature since allowing a glorious morning to sweep me away in its tranquil spell.

Music: The Magnificent BeLIEve

Horror writer Stephen King says that he loves Metallica, AC/DC, Anthrax, etc but he never cared for Black Sabbath. And Im the same. Confession time: I am a massive lifelong fan of heavy metal but I have never owned a Sabbath or Led Zep record. Doubt ive even picked one up in a record store. Sure ive heard the music, and like some of it (tho not a big fan), but my metal collection that I started nearly thirty years ago (!?!) has been just dandy without Physical Graffiti and Master of Reality among its ranks. And I had to Google both bands to find those album titles. A lot of folks buy albums simply to join the same miserable queue. They fall into the trap of thinking they must like a band because everyone else does. This is the only way I can understand how the God awful Beatles were so popular. People just liked them because others did. Why? Humans are herders.

Looks fun!

The mind tricks people into believing the music is good. Of course someone will try telling me that they actually like a certain popular band but I take it as a huge pinch of salt because of the Trick. Afterall the mind is for the most part a mystery. Its easy for it to have you believing you feel the sound when you most likely do not.
And it probably happens in my beloved metal scene the most come to think about it. There are a lot of theatrics and imagery involved with certain bands, Slipknot for example, and I have no doubt that some fans are only attracted because its the current 'in' trend.
Naturally im not saying every fan of Led Zeppelin or The Beatles *puke* has been conned by their whimsical minds but I am saying a lot have. And its not exclusive to music.

As Soon As The Gods Go

Allow me to throw some names out into the blogosphere; Clint Eastwood. Gene Hackman. Jack Nicholson. Harrison Ford. Robert De Niro. Al Pacino. Morgan Freeman. (Sadly, apart from Dame Helen Mirren, the British and Irish giants have already left us.)
Only two of the above Hollywood legends are under 70 (Ford and De Niro). It got me thinking, who the hell is going to replace these guys, true heavyweights of cinema, when they finally get a casting call from the Great Director in the sky? Who has the chutzpah to fill these iconic loafers? Nobody immediately springs to my mind. Well a few names do but I cringe at the idea.

An icon of our times

Let us see; Brad Pitt. Johhny Depp. Jason Statham. Orlando Bloom. Leonardo DiCaprio. Rhys Ifans. Erm...that will do for now because its making me depressed. Don't get me wrong, I like these guys (mind you Pitt has made some stinkers recently), but do they really possess the magic of the old timers? Really, really? I have grave doubts. Of those mentioned I would pick Johnny and Leo to reach the vertigo inducing heights of legendom (not a word? It should be), while the others simmer on a much lower heat.
In fact DiCaprio has impressed me no end since my initial misgivings in the more-fashion-show-than-film Titanic. Movies like The Departed, Gangs Of New York, and the earlier Basketball Diaries about poet Jim Carrol showed me that. He's a fine actor. Ditto Depp but the rest seem very...shall I say flimsy.
I had high hopes for Brad Pitt but the older he gets, the more (for me) he seems to lose a little stardust. And the Brits I mention are great (I love Statham films) but are they great enough? In my opinion no.
When the likes of Eastwood and De Niro leaves us, Hollywood will become a much poorer place, and judging by most of the films it churns out these days, that will be the End of it.

Sober? Pass Me The Noose

I dont trust sober people; their world is too bland and without kick or bite. No comfort there at all, no spark to generate any action in words. No spunk. Id hate to live in their world of no escape and bullshit paper living. I love drinkers and the drinking world, where honest sons of bitches stay. A sober chump always has something to hide. Thats why he cant get drunk, in case the secret slips out. Never ever trust a non drunkard. It will be your downfall.

Almost Lost To The Other Side

Having witnessed the terrible effects murder has on people, I have always believed that the gallows was the only answer to those who kill. But there was a time when even my hardline belief in execution was tested.
The year was 1998 and on February 2 of that year, Karla Faye Tucker was to die by lethal injection in Texas for the 1984 murders of two people. And die she did. The British media picked up this story and for the most part was extremely sympathetic to the woman who had used a pick axe to snuff out the life of one of the victims. I remember the newspapers, from tabloid to broadsheets, filling their pages with pictures of the pretty Karla Faye and commentating how draconian having a death penalty in 1998 was.
Sky News covered it all, from interviews with people who had worked on death row and doctors explaining how lethal injection worked right through to the countdown of the execution itself. Being the ghoul that I happily admit to being, I was naturally glued to the station. In fact I recorded it all on video.


Karla Faye almost turned the author

And while I admit to being morbid, I will also admit that the British coverage, together with the murderesses pretty looks, almost swayed me into becoming an opponent of the death penalty. I had already heard my beloved heavy metal bands sing anti execution songs but whilst these had little to no effect, Karla Faye Tucker's looming fate almost certainly did.
Her change to Christianity and attempts to make life better for others in hopeless situations suckered me in for a while. Of course my gut felt it was merely being conned by a conniving, heartless killer, but for a few hours I did feel my heart going out to this doomed, young lady. Everyones opinions are challenged at some point in their lives, this is the nature of Life, and watching the constant live coverage from Texas, I struggled between thinking which punishment was 'right' to me. Death versus Life Without Parole.
Without doubt a true Life sentence (as opposed to the petty Life sentences we have in Britain) is the more harsh. of the two. Afterall a killer sent to prison for LIFE when he/she is say 25 years old, could face another 60 or 70 years locked in a 16ft by 12ft cell. Yes, they would have things like radios and books but the days of visiting pubs, travelling the world, etc would be gone forever. And this appealed to me, or to be more accurate it appealed to my more sadistic side.
I shudder to think how damaging 60 years in a single cell would be both spiritually and mentally, and surely this is what murderers deserved? To rot in mind and body, be forgotten about in some dank, fetid cell. This is what a pick axe killer should go through, I remember thinking. And the more damage I imagined getting heaped upon the prisoner, the more I began to think against the death penalty. Death is too quick, a human being who has comitted that foulest of crimes needed more.
Karla Faye Tucker, a wicked murderess a million miles from me in the Lone Star State had nearly turned me into another 'fan'. (She had hundreds of supporters in the UK).
Then, as if a switch had been flicked on inside my brain, my friends devastated face (her husband had been stabbed to death) appeared in my mind's eye and I came crashing back to my senses. I imagined rows, countless rows of coffins, all filled with the bodies of murder victims and my heart almost burst from my chest in utter grief and despair. I actually cried, not only for my friend who had lost her loving husband but for strangers the world over who had lost loved ones to evil, remorseless fiends.
No longer did I care about murderers spending 60 long years in cages and going slowly insane. It wasn't enough, they still had Life even if it was in chains. The victims had nothing save their graves and the families were left with an unfillable space for as long as they lived. There are visiting rooms and telephones in jail, the cemetery don't have them unfortunately.
50, 60, 70 years do not, cannot, equal the nothingness, the complete loss that victims of violent crime are left with. Both the dead and those left behind. There are no Christmasses, birthdays or letters for those lives who have been cruelly taken by a vicious thug, way before their time.
And so I was led back to my senses by thinking of the pain innocents have endured. (I know not everyone murdered has been innocent but im speaking for those who were.) The punishment for death will always be death in my eyes. I could not allow myself to give a proven killer another chance; it would be like a slap in the faces of thousands upon thousands of victims. And I don't have that wickedness.

Andy 'Creepy' Pandy

In the photo above is Andy Pandy and Looby Loo who together with Teddy starred in a childrens television programme in Britain from 1950 to 1970. And I absolutely loved it! (I was born in 1971 but the show was repeated often due to its popularity.) My mother was fond of telling everyone how I would go into a wild tantrum when it was time for Andy to say goodbye and return to his hamper for the day. (The three dolls lived in a picnic basket). And she used to say that she wished video recorders had been invented in the 1970's so that the programmes could be taped to avoid my stroppy behaviour.
However looking at that photo now as I approach the grand old age of 40, im fairly shocked at how sinister Andy Pandy is looking up there. Had he been rummaging around the old Hammer House of Horror prop cabinet? His eyes are black and soulless like those of Halloween's Michael Myers or a Great White shark, that suicidal smile. And the less said about Looby Loo the better. If Insanity was a doll it would look like Loo.
They both look as if they are hiding knives, ready to kill you once the lights go out. It might not have been a tantrum I was having as a child afterall, I was more likely attempting to flee from the room before Andy could get me!

Check out the theme (itself pretty chilling):

Offensive? Or No?

First off, allow me to apologise for this quick blog. Its been a slow day. Bless you!



The above is a screen grab from a Huckleberry Finn game that was avilable on some game consoles a few years ago. Look at the cartoon of Huck's slave pal, Jim, on the bottom left corner. Edgy depiction or not? It reminds me of the derogatory cartoon sketches made of black guys in certain lunatic groups. Or maybe its just the harmless fact that the whole point of a caricature is to emphasise what stands out the most.

A Real Mona

Mona Lisa before Da Vinci got his mitts on her. It has been revealed by artrick.dotcom that the woman in the famous 16th century portrait was in fact a cousin of the great painter, inventor, clever dick, but was cruelly deformed from birth. Living up to his genius, Da Vinci set about creating a 'different' version of his fathers brother's daughter in what would eventually become the model for the Photoshop we all know and love today.
A true immortal amongst men.