Day 164

Aka Friday 14 July 2017

The new Drug Strategy and the 2017 update to the Drug Misuse and Dependence: UK guidelines on clinical management (aka the Orange Book) were published today. Given that I’d been involved with both (in a minor role) when I worked at the Department of Health it felt a little weird to finally see them out in the wild and it hear the media’s comments. When the Strategy was discussed, and criticised, on The Wright Stuff I was very tempted to call in and defend it (or at least my friends who had worked on it)., but thought best not too, in case a said something I shouldn’t.

Away from serious stuff I brought the new Moon Diagrams album, Lifetime Of Love, and the vinyl version of 20th anniversary Catskills compilation, which has a special secret track on it, arrived:

I also read Dark Days: The Casting:

...which like Dark Days: The Forge, doesn’t feel like a complete story, rather it feels like a chapter from a longer story (which you can argue is its purpose, to get you to buy the rest of the mini-series, but in the past they used to try to include a complete story along with the plot points/elements leading into future issues) or as I’ve said before it’s mostly crust and little pie filling. Worse, it also doesn’t feel like much happens and what little does happen is pretty similar to what happens in The Forge. I’m left unsure whether l should continue buying the individual issues or if I should just follow what happens via its wiki page and articles on Bleeding Cool.

Day 163

Aka Thursday 13 July.

As I travelled into town for New Comic Book Day I finished PaulaMejia’s Psychocandy biography, a thoroughly enjoyable discussion of a great album, which describes the circumstances that produced the album and its impact. And in the last line (of the main text) she perfectly sums up what makes Psychocandy (and the Jesus and Mary Chain) special “…it’s undeniable that something embedded in Psychocandy’s skittering tunes wraps its arms around our waists and seduces us, right before driving a stake through our hearts”

It was a light New Comic Book Day today, but with some great gems:

Quick review of Kill Or Be Killed #10 – great as ever, this issue has less action, but lots of story development and emotion, you can feel the stomach churningness of Dylan’s life going out of control (and jokes, like the Zodiac Killer line):

Kaijumax, Season 3 #1 – two thumbs up, lots of focus (and development) on the Creature From Devils Creek. When I first saw him in the previous seasons he had seemed to be very much a background character who is out of his depth, but looking back it’s clear that this was a misreading and he’s defo not a cookie cutter background player (I also really liked how his mother appears to me Christian, but, at the end of her scene, turns out to be a Satanist). Plus, there’s also the great use of slang (my lizzer!) and an evil volcano!!!

I also got the new John Higgs book, Watling Street book:

  

Which, if it’s half as good as John’s previous books, will be great. I also brought the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Aufheben and Revelation albums, trading up from mp3 to cd.

Day 162

I had my follow-up dentist appointment this morning to have an inlay fitted, which meant the rest of the morning and afternoon was written off, mostly because the anaesthetic lasted for six hours and by the time it had worn off I was starving and too hungry to do anything 😊

Except to listen to the new Miranda Lee Richards LP, Existential Beast (a great psyche folk rock album) and Crooklyn Clan’s Shoot Tha Pump mix (laid back hip hop, perfect for a summers day) and watched The Odessa File (a nice little thriller/revenge flick), The Holcroft Covenant (an odd film about Nazi money and a new Reich) and the remake of Prom Night.

Prom Night is a bad remake which feels like it needs to go through script editing again, e.g. the police discover that the killer has hidden a body in the ceiling air vent, although the ceiling is 10 feet high and there are no ladders around to help you hide the body and near the end the heroine discovers her dead boyfriend in her bed, but although his throat has been cut there is no blood in the bed. 

I know it’s just a slasher flick, but when you can’t get basic stuff right, it takes you out of the film and they are easy things to fix, e.g. the heroine climbs into bed, feels the dampness of the blood and then discovers that her boyfriend is dead, rather than her climbing into bed, taking to her boyfriend, who doesn’t respond, which prompts her to throw the covers off to discover that his throat has been cut. 

Days 160 and 161

So, I’m still feeling unwell, basically I feel (pretty much consistently) nauseous and ‘under the weather’ and to varying degrees tired/insomnia, run down, unsteady/dizzy/faint (especially when outside), anxious/nervous, dread, shakes and hot flushes/cheeks and forehead. Basically, on a good day I can go out anywhere where I’m doing a task, e.g. doing the weekly food shop, going to the bank or dentist, but not just going out for fun, e.g. down the pub.

Since I’ve started taking betahistine again things have gotten a little better, but I’m not back to normal. So, I’m going to give it another week to see if things improve and then go back to my GP and try to sort it out.

I did listen to Little Barrie’s Death Express album, which is a great rock ‘n’ roll/R&B album and just right for the sunny day’s we’ve been having lately. 

I also re-watched Inside Man, a great little heist movie, with a nice twist at the end, and The Mummy (the Brendan Fraser version), which is really good. It’s tongue-in-cheek and funny, but also scary and frightening, like Bob Hope’s The Cat and Canary or The Ghost Breakers or Abbott& Costello meet Frankenstein or the Mummy .

Days 158 and 159

Aka Saturday 8 July and Sunday 9 July aka a very lazy weekend.

I tried my prochlorperazine prescription again to see if anything had changed and it would have a positive effect, but no, like before it just made me feel worse. Kinda like being drunk, but without any of the nice effects of being drunk.

I watched a few films on Netflix, but they were pretty much just meh. So meh, that I can’t remember what they were, except for Here Alone. 

Here Alone is obviously very low budget, but it does make the most of it. It has a very small cast (effectively just three people) and one location (the woods) and does a great job of showing the consequences of an apocalyptic effect on a family. It also packs in more emotion than an entire season of The Walking Dead.

I also spent a load of time backing up my hard drive, which was dull but necessary and at least I’ll have everything if the hard drive goes down.

Also, this was the 20^th anniversary week of Primal Scream’s Vanishing Point album being released. 

Vanishing Point is probably my favourite Primal Scream album and is the album that got me into the band. I can still remember being in my student flat, listening to Mary-Anne Hobbs Breezeblock show and hearing Kowalski for the first time (with that heavy, heavy bassline) and being blown away.

The album is really eclectic, with rock ‘n’ roll, house, dub, ambient and more sounds in the mix and was really complimented by the B-sides and remixes. And this article does a better job than I could of explaining how good the album is:

https://www.smwltn.com/articles/20yat-33-primal-scream-vanishing-point/

I also read Batgirl #12, Mother Panic #8 and Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #9. Batgirl is a great little done-in-one-issue superhero story involving a teleporter murder, ghosts and swimming pools.

Mother Panic and Cave Carson are both in the middle of multi-issue storylines and are developing/continuing those storylines, setting up dominoes to be toppled in later issues and building momentum. Cave Carson also has a nice little discussion on the nature of reality.  

Day 157

Still feeling unwell/unsettled (after I retried the betahistine yesterday, I still felt unwell, so have stopped it again), but did manage to pop into town today to do my weekly food shop and to pick up the new Little Barrie album, Death Express.

  

As I was feeling unwell, I spent most of the rest of the day watching season one of Castlevania and a couple of and Rick and Morty episodes on Netflix, Robert Newman’s From Caliban To The Taliban and Manic Cop:

Castlevania – is based on the old computer games and is written by Warren Ellis. In a nutshell Dracula is taking revenge on the “people of Wallachia”, who burnt his at the stake and in response “the disgraced demon hunter Trevor Belmont takes up arms against Dracula's forces, aided by the magician Sypha Belnades and Dracula's son Alucard”. I really enjoyed season one, lots of action and lots of Warren’s patented one-liners, but at only four episodes it flies by too quickly.

Rick and Morty – when I first started watching Rick and Morty I thought it would be like The Simpsons, where each episode is self-contained and when the nest episode starts everything has been reset back to normal. But, on each re-watching I see more interconnectedness between the episodes, which makes for a better viewing experience.   

From Caliban To The Taliban – watching this and Resistance Is Fertile is a little weird given how long ago they were recorded, but they’re still fun to watch. And good reminders that those power need to be challenged and we should be questioning everything. I would highly recommend both these shows.

Manic Cop – is a nice little b-movie about a coop back from the dead, who is dispensing his own form of justice. From the packaging, I had expected the film to be very gory and in the ‘80’s slasher mould, but it isn’t, it’s pretty restrained in gory terms (I think there’s more blood and murders in the first 15 minutes of John Wick 2 than Manic Cop) and it feels more like a supernatural version of The Equaliser (the TV show not the movie).

Day 156

Aka Thursday 6 July 2017.

Still feeling unwell and panicy-attacky when I go out, so I started taking my betahistine prescription again. Maybe how I was feeling before wasn’t due to the betahistine, but was due to something else and it just coincided with when I was taking my prescription. We’ll see in a few days’ time.

But it’s given me time to read:

The Amazing Adventures Of Phoenix Jones – I finished Jon Ronson’s story/reportage of real life superheroes (who operate in the US). Jon Ronson is really good at revealing people’s humanity/emotional core and describing odd/bizarre situations without making fun of people, which would be very easy with real life superheroes (although he does poke gentle fun at himself).

Giant Days #28 – Giant Day’s is probably my favourite comic currently being published (defo in my top five).  

John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Whitney Cogar and Jim Campbell are at the top of their game, producing issue after issue of delightful stories, with lots of heart, pathos, fun and jokes:

This issue is mostly set late at night and the art does an excellent job of showing the woozyish feeling of being awake, but overly tired:

In summary, Giant Days is very highly recommended.

Rock Candy Mountain #4 – is probably my favourite comic currently being published (defo in my top five) and this is the conclusion of the first story arc. Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer have produced a great story that, like Giant Days, packs in fun, jokes, one-liners, heart and pathos:

After Jackson fights an entire prison (!!!!!), this arc ends with our heroes left shaken and separated, setting us up nicely for the next arc, I think my favourite part of this issue is the ad for the next issue, as excellent as this issue was issue 5 looks like it’s going to be action and emotion packed:

Like Giant Days, Rock Candy Mountain is very highly recommended.

Jupiter’s Legacy 2 #5 – is the “series climax of epic superhero saga”, but given that the first issue was published in April 2013, it’s a bit hard to remember what happened in previous issues and who everyone is. I’m sure it’ll read fine when read as one collection, but as a single issue it felt weak and empty. While there’s plenty of one liners setting out the “epicness” of the story, it feels like a five-page epilogue/coda, which had been stretched out into a whole issue. Also, some of the art feels a bit rushed and unfinished and a part of me was left feeling like “I waited months and months and paid good money for very few roses” (roses is a reference to nineties, when artist would explain way delays as they were "growing roses", which takes time).

Snotgirl #6 – Bryan Lee O’Malley, Leslie Hung and Rachael Cohen have created an enjoyable and relatable story about fashion bloggers, which (I think) at its heart is about difference between how we feel inside and how we present ourselves to the outside world. This issue is the start of a new arc and is a good jumping on point, as the story sums up where we have been, lays seeds for future stories/mystery and has plenty of jokes/one-liners. I also really the transition between Lottie waking up and ready to go out (the “god…damn” transition), so simple, but full of meaning and character.

Batman/The Shadow #3 – does a good job of explaining the motivations of the characters and setting up the big conclusion/boss-battle ending, while dropping little titbits, e.g. The Batman is an (unknowing) apprentice of The Shadow, which nod toward the real world history of the characters and how The Shadow is a forerunner of The Batman. 

Redline #5 – this concludes the story and although the story is set in the future on Mars, it does feel like one of the great noir stories, like Chinatown or The Big Sleep (or any Raymond Chandler story) or The Maltese Falcon, where just because the hero solves the mystery, it doesn’t mean that he gets a happy ending. I particularly like the sequence where Coyle solves the mystery, is shocked by it and resolves to do something about, even though it most likely will leave him worse off.

I also watched some more Hawaii 5-O (which is making me nostalgic for Lost, in part because it features actors who were in Lost, e.g. Daniel Dae Kim and Jorge Garcia, and the landscape, every time they go into the jungle I expect them to bump into Jack, Locke, Kate and the others!), an old Robert Newman set (Resistance is Fertile) and, because I’ve been reading the Psychocandy biography, Upside Down: The Creation Records Story, a great documentary about Creation Records. If you were young or young at heart during the eighties and nineties Creation Records made your life better (or gave you a target to vent at!), by championing and promoting bands and music (and a lifestyle/attitude) that would have been ignored by the mainstream record companies. They showed that if you had faith in people/bands with an artistic version, they would produce work that mattered and they gave a voice to lots of people who, normally, wouldn’t have had one.