ultimate fraud

Downhill Racer

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:51:00 +0100

I had the great pleasure of seeing Downhill Racer for the first time this weekend. I know- I’d never heard of it either, but it’s really quite great. It comes out on Criterion Collection next month I think, so get it then and check it out. Or, be cheap and illegal like me and download it. Why is it so great?

Well, it looks amazing. I love the look of the New Hollywood era anyway (following on from my previous gushing post on Five Easy Pieces), but this is another level of beauty. It’s a film about skiiing, and Robert Redford is a wannabe champion skier. I know it sounds like the traditional sports movie a lá Rocky, and it is to an extent, but it is a sports film in the New-Hollywood-influenced-by-European-cinema mode.

It’s all in what they don’t say rather then say!

This final scene is gripping. It really brings to your attention the narrow margins of competition and winning, sport and sportspeople.

But what am I talking about? I loved the film because late 60s Robert Redford is in it! And his wardrobe in the film is ice cold (skiing? Ice cold?!) I want this jacket now.

He looked amazing in nearly every scene. It was hard to watch the film and not be distracted by his sheepskin coat or trendy turtlenecks or how he did his hair so my own can look like it (pomade??).

Plus, I think if I try and dress like him, I’ll be certain to end up with sexy foreign women like the one he’s with in the film.

It’s the denim & denim conundrum again! It has to be that the combo only looked good in 1969.

Fashion Look Book: Key Inspirations for Autumn/Fall 09

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:34:00 +0100

Well people, autumn is well and truly here. And while I might be a little late, I’ve been looking around the stores & boutiques looking for some inspiration for to get my fashion right for the season. Topman was exciting- the new giant disco ball on the new floor upstairs really caught my eye. Too bad the clothes there were pretty boring. There was little there that caught my eye elsewheres also. Where will I find my inspiration??

Tavi’s Style Rookie blog really gave me some help- she knew more about dressing like a boy when you’re 13 then I ever did. I feel though that the discerning fashion man will have to turn back the clock to identify just what the hell we’re supposed to be wearing.

So, put on Sniffin’ the Tears “Driver’s Seat” from all the way back in 1978 and come back in time with me…

—

To me, the key inspiration I feel this season will be Bobby Dupea in “Five Easy Pieces”. I love his whole “oil driller by day, angry/frustrated alpha male by night” style. It is something I am going to channel.

It’s rugged AND fashionable.

As any Dad will tell you, the teaming of denim with denim is a tough look to pull off. But it’s more about how you wear rather then what you wear. “Make it work!”

Gorgeous fitted sweater right there. It says “I want to be comfortable, but I want to be stylish”.

Nihilist outlook on life optional.

A fun, floral western shirt keeps things interesting, as well as attracting the eye of your brother’s fiance.

I feel, finally now, like I have a direction to go in this season. I hope you will now too.

I have been raising some important issues on YouTube’s ELEVEN part serialisation of the film...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:49:00 +0100

I have been raising some important issues on YouTube’s ELEVEN part serialisation of the film “Innerspace” This part being 5 of the 11.

[YouTube]

Interesting fact: watching “Annie Hall” on Youtube in 10 parts made it a lot more bearable. But not “Manhattan”, though

Pizza Restaurant, opening soon

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:52:00 +0100

So, I’m opening a pizza place. A bit like an alcoholic opening a cocktail bar- you’re eating the profits!- but hey. Sloganwise, it’ll be something along the lines of:

“Where a 4-cheese is a regular”

It’s “We Try Harder” all over again, right? A lot of cheese on our pizzas is going to be the business plan.

Blogged Up

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:20:50 +0100

I wonder what percentage of blogposts in the world are about why the blogger hasn’t been posting as much lately? A good blog worth following I guess never does that type of post because they’re always posting… so guess what I’m doing now! September was a slow month I admit- something of a nadir period- but the tailend of the year promises to look more interesting. Maybe. I guess you could have called it a Schlep-tember?

So in that respect, the way I’m seeing things is that we’ll have a Shock-tober, then probably a Slow-vember and then a Wish-I-was-dead-cember.

Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott’s wife. Is that picture...

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:02:00 +0100

Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott’s wife. Is that picture amazing? The fact that you can’t tell if her eyes are closed makes it even more so.

(speaking of facts, as newlyweds, the Fitzergeralds were thrown out of their hotel on their wedding night for drunkeness. Thanks Wikipedia! Helping me know one fact about everything in the world, but at the same time not really knowing nothing)

via upload.wikimedia.org

Now that's magic

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:32:00 +0100

Ali Bongo is the new president of Gabon?

(the same Gabon you’ll of course know that’s tipped to become “Africa’s answer to Costa Rica”, at least touristically)

Hey- you'd be this smug too if you could play a concerto on a guitar AND on a synth

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:29:09 +0100

I think about his smug-looking chops in this video more then I should. A constant source of amusement.

—-

FRANKENSTRAT! “IT”S ALIVE”!

—-

There isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t want these hands on their body

—-

I worked out that statistically, 78% of this video is hair. Funny how that the threat of CFCs (i.e. hairspray) declined along with the popularity of Halen.

List-o-mania: FIVE ACTORS IN THE TV SHOW 'GOSSIP GIRL' WHOSE NAMES COULD EASILY BE CHARACTERS IN A WESTERN

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:13:00 +0100

1) Blake Lively

2) Leighton Meester

3) Penn Badgely

4) Chase Crawford

5) Ed Westwick

I was looking at this photo on my computer at work....

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:21:00 +0100

I was looking at this photo on my computer at work. “Hey,” someone said, looking my computer screen. “Is that you on the internet?”

What the what?! This person -a woman- looks nothing like me. At all. Well, at least not much. Or whatever.

march 11. (via Megan McIsaac.)

The Collapse of Socialism*

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:52:00 +0100

(*=No, not quite a thorough article about the demise of the particular political theory, but instead a blogpost about something else entirely but with the same kind of the importance and magnitude.)

During some research for my previous list-based post (thanks McSweeney’s! You filled up one very boring morning at work. And through inspiration, you helped fill up the internet with even more crap!), I found that there was a member of CBS’ KCAL 9 newsteam in California called non other then “Johnny Mountain”. I mean Johnny Mountain. It’s just so perfect, it’s almost…beautiful? A beautiful Mountain. I mean, I didn’t think Anchorman was a documentary…. but after learning this I could well be wrong.

BUT it gets better, for Johnny Mountain’s role in the KCAL Newsteam is to present the weather(!) It really doesn’t get more perfect. If that doesn’t further quantify my theory thyat America is just one big entire film, then I don’t know what does. He’s a premo newshound, and his bio on the KCAL website is some great reading: Most memorable interview? “I talk to myself”. First job “Interviewing Adam & Eve”. So, with his comedy and journalistic craft. there was only one person I wanted to give an interview to regarding the nitty gritty of deletion of my Facebook account (gasp!).

Johnny: So, why the big quitski?

Me: Well, I feel like I had just had enough of it, really. I had been trying to cutdown and that had sort of worked to a point, but I found myself going on there today with no real purpose, and I just decided on the spot that it’s time for it to go.

One big final cry for attention, huh?

Ha! It’s funny you say that! I can’t honestly really deny that it isn’t. I mean, who doesn’t not want to be missed? The whole Facebook thing is so sad, so there doesn’t exist a way for you to quit using it that isn’t sad. Maybe? I don’t know.

Yeah, maybe. I’m not really quite sure really what Facebook actually is, me being somewhat of an older gentleman and everything…

Older and wiser, John! Older and wiser!

Ha, definitely older, probably not so much wiser. What’s this new thing I hear about now? Twitter? I don’t know… I thought the information age would bring people together more so they could say end up saying more to each other, not less! Not just one line! A hundred letters is it? I mean, jeez! You wanna bring back CB radio-that’ll get people talking properly to each other!

I agree. I miss the days of Pen Pals.

Yeah, I know what you mean there, Rob. But let’s get back to the questions. The Facebook quit thing does really sound to me like a big cop out on your behalf.

Oh, 100% a cop out, I agree. It’s not even as though I would have to start all over again if I were to go back on there. Literally, I can go back to it anytime and be using it again as if the whole termination never happened. It’s still there, just hanging in suspended animation.

Will you go back to it?

Again, 100% cop out, Johnny! Of course I will! Maybe when I’ve got a load more friends, I’ll go back to it. When I’ve got some photos of me doing things that I know will make people green with envy, then I’ll go more or less straight back on there, post the photos and then feel pretty pleased with myself.

So if you’re going back on there, this whole exercise here is pointless, isn’t it? It sounds to me you just got sad one day because no one was talking to you?

Whoa! Getting pretty deep there, Johnny! But I concede you could be right to a degree. But there’s this whole other side I hated to it as well! Don’t make me out to be some sort of social retard!

Sorry- you’re friends with me now: that’s gotta count for something!

It does. Quitting Facebook and being interviewed by Johnny Mountain on the same day? I haven’t been this happy since I queued up at midnight to get that Harry Potter book.

There ya go! Go on with what you were saying before.

Oh, yeah: the whole other side. I had friends on there, really good friends, but then I had these people on there whose profiles I looked at quite regularly to a worrying extent. They weren’t really friends per se, but were just people I knew spuriously, casually or whatever and who now only exist to me via this bad connotation I have with them. Like, the friend who I just simply lost contact with, or the girl I maybe sort of liked briefly at one time. I would look at their profiles and wallow in regurgitated horrible emotions.

You took it way too seriously.

You’re telling me! But no more. I’m a better man now! With the time to write really long blogposts! And I can write that letter to Vice magazine about them getting to do a page about sports.

List-o-mania: FIVE TOWNS IN ENGLAND THAT COULD QUITE EASILY PASS AS NAMES OF NEWS ANCHORS IN AMERICA

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:22:00 +0100

1: Ottery St. Mary

2: Buckland Filleigh

3: Symmonds Yat

4: Chudley St. Knighton

5: Western Lullingfields

My Memories of MJ

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:37:00 +0100

The King of Pop has relinquished his crown, at least on this mortal plain anyway, I think to Lady GaGa now- who or whatever she is. A tragic loss of course, but I am pleased to say I actually met Michael as this photo shows:

Ah, good times! Looking at this picture, I know what you’re thinking; the King of Pop is stood in front of you… and you’re more concerned with shaking some other guy’s (dismembered) hand?? Well, you’ll be interested to know that “that hand” belonged to none other then the guy off of YouTube who could play the flute with his nose! I was genuinely starstruck- both by the Nose-Flute guy, and by MJ. Michael & I did talk later- I asked him if he knew of any good nose plastic surgeons, and I also made a crack about not having any spoons in his house because of Uri Geller. He didn’t get it.

It was a weird night that night- called “The Night of Kings Benefit Dinner 2008”. Let me tell you, the function room of Heathrow Terminal 3’s Holiday Inn was full to the brim with selected “Kings” from different walks of life. In this photo alone you can see the “King” of Looking Intelligent In Photos standing behind me, the “King” of Wearing Inappropriately Coloured Suits to a Formal Dinner over there to the right of the photo and of course captured here is probably biggest “King” of all- “King” of Snazzy Bowties on the left! Oh and Michael Jackson.

(…a sad loss to the world, genuinely yes. I can remember getting the Bad album on cassette for Christmas probably when I was around 4 or 5, and then dancing to it how I thought Michael Jackson did on Christmas morning)

Okay, so, I have my new project in mind- I’m going to cut...

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:58:00 +0100

Okay, so, I have my new project in mind- I’m going to cut together clips of Jack Nicholson laughing from all of his films. I mean, if you’re going to splice together someone’s laff back-cat, it may as well be Jackie Nichs. It will be interesting, funny, and kids’ll love it. It’s very meme friendly.

Only problem: I only have three of his films. Three out of 70+ films. He is laughing in the films I own, yes, but I need more of them. It look like he laughs quite a bit in the 1978 self-directed film Goin’ South. Maybe you can help? This is probably the project that’s going to make a Hollywood Moviemaker, so I could really do with a hand.

Just saw the trailer for Cold Souls, and boy let me tell you! …let me tell you how I would...

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:56:00 +0100

Just saw the trailer for Cold Souls, and boy let me tell you!

…let me tell you how I would like these quirky, existential, modern, po-mo films that seem to be released every week now erased from my mind/investigated by existential detectives/sent on a trip to India to find their father/imprisoned inside of a self-reflexive world which is actually inside of Ralph Macchio.

Getting off the the ol' Horse

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:01:00 +0100

Second day, free of Facebook! God, I totally know how Keith Richards and Jimmy Page felt in the late 70s/early 80s. I’m trying to cut back on using “the old brown” because it wasn’t doing me any favours emotionally… And I dare say I barely miss it. I’m not dying to go on there, but it’s weird not having it part of my “browsing habit”, you know? If I have a spare 5 minutes before, it would mean a quick dip into the murky paddling pool of sociability. But now… Whoa! It feels so. much. better. And also that the internet is a bit smaller.

I guess it’s comparable to when smokers give up, where they don’t miss the nicotine as such, just more then feeling of smoking and having a fag in your hand. It’s a lot like giving up smoking.

jakelodwick: Sigh…

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:17:32 +0100

jakelodwick:

Sigh…

In South Africa, I found this newspaper called… The Mail AND Guardian. W-e-i-r-d? Imagine if...

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:04:00 +0100

In South Africa, I found this newspaper called…

The Mail AND Guardian. W-e-i-r-d? Imagine if there were some sort of merger between the two most diametrically opposed forces probably ever. What a weird hybrid that would be…It would be serious “crossing-the-steams-in-Ghostbusters” black magic if happened. Would it probably would create the greatest newspaper of all time? Yes, it would; but only because it would mean Daily Hate Mail would no longer exist.

What makes it all the more better is that this “Mail and Guardian” is in South Africa, a country that is/was only known for keeping things apart! And yet there they are with the Mail and Guardian together. The end of apartheid happened, both racially and media-ally(?)

Stuck in Gear

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:07:17 +0100

The TV channel Dave is having a bad day- I just watched one repeat of an of Top Gear and then now straight afterwards they’re showing the exact same episode. Again.

Today is up there in the top twenty countdown of The Worst Days of My Life

Power & Style

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:01:00 +0100

I’m far from condoning the man, but whenever I hear his name I always laugh because to me it sounds like it could almost be “Ahma-dinner-jacket”