very early simple minds live in sydney. imagine being at this gig, it would have been amazing.

more simple minds when they were at the top of their game, with mel gaynor and derek forbes driving the rhythm engine, very powerful. i do love this period, it's like a collaboration of guys all sounding better than individuals, it everyone doing their thing,  knowing when not to play, knowing when to exit, and jim singing at his best. you can here it.

through the wire people kept telling me this was the 'go to' translation of homers 'the odyssy' which i had read when a young man and really loved. it's one of those books that influences your life without really knowing it, a fantastic rich story and one which beckons a re read every few years. old captain mission never got around to that re read until now, this literally fell into my lap. and wow! it is indeed an excellent translation, it reads beautifully and flows with such frictionless it really is like drinking a book.
her introduction goes into some detail about the culture and history around the book, it looks at the characters, motivations and relationships blending the more mythological with the human events. 
after reading julian jaynme's 'origin of consciousness in the the bicameral mind' i always think of the events that take place in the odyssy in relation to jaymes's theory.
his idea is consciousness is relatively new to humans, and evolved from a metaphorical language. he suggests before consciousness humans had a two part structure to their mind. (two chambered)   
instead of an internal voice they heard an external one, an auditory hallucination that directs their actions. these voices were credited as gods.

you can fill in the gaps yourself.

it's another stinking hot morning at mission control as i wander around sipping my coffee. these days i am down to one cup each morning with a drop of milk. i don't eat anything until around 1500 or 1700 if i can. obviously taking medication i need something to accompany my morning meds so i occasionally have yogurt.

i water the front garden, it's threatening rain but you never know what it will do and my plants are thirsty. it's already sweltering and it's only 0930.  

 

simple minds live somewhere sometime one million eyes can see, i would like to take a look into the book of brilliant things.

i couldn't sleep a wink last night, no really, i was awake at 3am watching the last episode of fargo which was brilliant and every-time i attempted to sleep my shoulder would ache with a sharp stabbing pain on my nerve. it sent out a shock-wave of excruciating synaptic messages that prevented me from sleeping and at 9am i had training which i pursued with a half-hearted attempt until my trainer gave me some exercises to assist work out the nerve damage temporarily. 

the pain returned a few hours later as i drove to work and remained all day. i may have to take some serious drugs as i am uncertain how long i can tolerate it. these days it seems i am far to many drugs, not the sexy ones either.

i spent the day in a lazy way, kicking around at home, i picked up a book and had a look and started to read a tale of ancient greece. the house was silent, but you could hear my heart beat, (boom boom boom) the sun was shining, and the water dragons smiling. hours seemed to pass and i'd fallen into dream, and when i awoke things were not what they seemed. the hour was getting late, and i should not hesitate, so i splashed my face and drove not very far, straight to north avoca.

what was on my mind, you may well ask me just ask away, for on tonights bill was a certain steve kilbey, he would be playing all his hits, and misses, and there was his missus on the merch so i said hello and picked up a new t- shirt and she ushered me right in where i could here this din, it was the soundcheck and kilbey upon the stage, like a rock star and jester, he got the balance right, played a spontaneous captain mission song and then we went along, backstage don't forget, for a quick jazz cigarette. 

a lovely little place, complete with photocopier and bar fridge, we had a lovely chat and soon that was that, steve needed to prepare and after a little smoke, i left him to meditate and outside the crowd was getting large and a buzz was in the air, i wandered down to sit, front row and found myself my spot and then steve came on and played and told his ironic tale, about the rise and fall and rise, he made us laugh and cheer and the audience was thrilled.

the stars and moon came out, and i went to say goodbye, it was lovely to see familiar faces and to meet some new. ryissa and george were there and a girl whose name escaped, but she played me her song and we spoke and it was very good. she smiled and took my number which was the icing on the cake. and as we said goodbye we made a special date.

 i've almost finished this great little book, it focuses upon simple minds before they made it big, from poor beginnings right up to new gold dream although it does go slightly further. australia plays a big part in simple minds history, a country that got right behind them and gave them the confidence and support they needed to crack the big time. icehouse helped.

i'd always loved them, that sort of weird european electro trash, with equally weird lyrics but  then along came new gold dream, and wow! 

my ex wife was a huge fan so in our early days that's all we listened to, 'new gold dream' and 'sparkle in the rain.' it was the soundtrack to everything we did. i recall driving down the southern coast of spain, summer sun, small little villages, lazy afternoons, the power of youth and foolishness fuelling us with simple minds turned up loud. her fave was 'white hot day' while i loved 'book of brilliant things.'

we could never really understand how they developed that sound, it's so distinctive and unique. i was always enamoured by charlies guitar, it certainly never sounded like a normal guitar, and that drumming! then there's the incredible derrick forbes, possibly the only actual trained musician in the band. he played an incredible bass and was half of the rhythm machine, the other being mel gaynor on drums. then there was frontman jim kerr, who was a very strange front man, very effeminate and graceful. 

the book describes him as a reclusive, bookish, director type. along with charlie they drove simple minds forwards. there's a lot of technical information on how they got certain sounds and  steve hillage certainly added to their overall production sounds and styles. the band seem to keep everything in house, it's built on trust i guess, managers, lighting, engineers, it's like a small family of people who just heard them as a small pre record company band and believed in them, stuck it out and were there for the pay off. it's a good book, i like the writing style and information, it avoids the bitchy items and sticks to the love. 

for the last few weeks i have been on a stranglers kick, not sure why suddenly i started listening to them again, it had been at least 20 years. when i was a young punk on dope i loved the stranglers, that bass and keyboards, the way they shifted around, hugh's snarling vocals, that intimidating presence, the way they would play a fast paced brutal high energy song and then yield to some kind of weird melodic beauty. the stranglers were and still are a great band.

i discovered a fantastic clip of them playing an acoustic set, it really is sublime. the line up had changed but the energy was the same. i love the way they are so unpredictable and experimental, playing pub rock to waltz's to flamenco based tunes. two down now, jet black and dave greenfield,  but jj is still pounding away at the base. a great band from london, but don't mess with them.

it's so humid my skin feels like it's covered in a thick viscous layer of slime nothing can stick to. i probably need to find a mental equivalent but at the moment it's early morning with the sun just peeking over the horizon and i'm already wondering how i can keep it cool. i like the sun but this is just uv light and water, the atmosphere feels dense and ugly. at some point it will break, the storm will make a dramatic entry, maybe this evening. usually when it storms i have to turn off everything, hide under the bed as lightning freaks me, i'm traumatised by it. 

i do some very early morning gardening, my garden is getting tricky, lots of dead stuff hanging around up high. i have five plants to rehouse in the front garden, it's endless and i can see why some people like apartments but there is something to be said for being responsible for a small bit of australia, it really makes you appreciate the native population and their culture.

by around 0900 it's far to hot to do anything so i pick up  'elysium fire' and finish the final leg. it's a far more complex story than 'the prefect' but this time more procedural, and the tension between some of the characters begins to show, with a good resolution.  i can understand why people say it's not as good at 'the prefect' but i think i will wait until 'machine vendetta' before i judge it as that may give it some perspective, after all aurua makes an appearance in 'elysium' and it could be interesting to see where reynolds takes her in the conclusion to the trilogy, after all when you think about it, in the scheme of things she's good good intentions but we are left wondering how she will cope in her war against 'the clockmaker.' as far as strange characters and alien go, the clockmaker is a great example of how far reynolds can push the science fiction, it's wonderful stuff and edge of the seat reading.

a few things i need to do today are see my brazilian man, and pick up some medication, i may do that early as i feel when the rain breaks it's going to be wild.

it really is time to get rid off the un.

any self respecting country would leave it.
it's the most dystopian body on earth. 

i get home late, around midnight and i am in bed by one. by two i am asleep. by five am i am awake and getting ready. have to take the car in for a service, which i do but find myself with several hours to kill. i train it into the city, hunt down a few books and then meet a couple of friends at wynard for a drink. i head back on the train, pick the car up at one pm, and then drive to work for two. i finish at eleven and i'm back home at midnight. i feel a bit like that song, 'another planet' by the only ones.

 

i finish reading aurora rising (the prefect) and it really is quite an incredible story, the ending is perfect, everything you want answers to are answered in the final few pages, all the missing pieces come together, masterful. aliester reynolds is my fave sci fi writer, he nails it when h's in the revelation space universe, complex and imaginative, everything seems to make sense despite the incredible time spans. there is no faster than light travel in his worlds so travel between points takes time, and in that time a lot can happen. human society is split into the demarchists whom follow a technological democracy where  all collective decisions are made via a centralised computer which every citizen can vote upon every issue. it's the enlightened democracy of the glitterband a sort of ring of habitats and planets where every community can function in any way it wishes, so for example if you wanted to join a community that practiced slavery, there would be one. the slaves of course are consenting. the conjoiners are a group of humans that incorporate technology into their bodies and can interact with technologies with their minds and there's the ultras who share a collective hive mind. there's also genetically modified animals and humans, specifically pigs who play incredible roles in reynolds stories. there's elephants and dolphins to in his blue remembered earth series. 
the aliens in the books are interesting and mysterious.
the pattern jugglers are liquid, and live in an ocean and if you would swim in their seas you would exit the water a different being than the one that went in, they change minds, infiltrate the very neural network and can rearrange by placing networks from beings they have experienced previously or swap consciousness of multiple beings. sometimes after multiple swims they even absorb the body and the individual is never seen again. 
the inhibitors are a vast machine intelligence left over from the dawn war to stop any civilisation advancing beyond certain geographical boundaries, there's the shadows and the shrouders who live in sections of space sealed from normal space time. there's a few others but very rarely do humans involve themselves with them, but when they do it's usually for a good reason although the inhibitors are best stayed clear off. anyway's i'm starting 'elysium fields' the second in the series and hopefully by the time i am finished the third book will be out and i can get straight into it. 

the water dragon turns up this afternoon demanding strawberries, it eats three huge ones, just scoffs the lot. i'm amazed at how brazen he is. i don't wanna tame him as he can eat all the mosquitoes that seem to be hanging around this summer, possibly all the rain means an over abundance of eggs. normally they don't bother me but jesus they are seriously sucking my blood faster than any ex wife i know. i walk outside and they attack me. it's nuts. fortunately i drink a lot of tonic water so i'm unlikely to get malaria.

and sadness, actually i'm very sad as jake left today. normally we cope with it well and we are cool and philosophical but this time was tough, it hit me hard. i think its because we are more like close friends these days, and connect so well. anyways as i write, he's in the air. 

at dawn, sun not even peeking over the horizon i drive down to the beach for a surf, it's packed. people everywhere and it's not even 5am. this is australia, it's a lifestyle place, if you live near the beach you may as well use it, i go to bed early just to get up early. the day always starts with a surf, it's communion, something between me and the universe. i love it. the waves are not good, choppy and ominous, a big black sky beginning to threaten a downpour, it's slightly surreal. 

i text jake to see if he's up, he is. i'm really missing him as he leaves tomorrow. i was hoping i may see him but we are outta time, it makes me sad. it makes him sad. still we are lucky, we manage to see one another at least twice a year. i dunno though, those trips to london are not easy, they take a huge toll upon me, and i'm not sure how long i can carry on. it would be different in business class, but after 30 hours in the cheap seats it's hard to bounce back.

i treat myself to a coconut latte, these days i very rarely buy coffee out, i prefer to make it at home, grind up the beans and brew my own. the blend is 'lulu's' which is roasted on the coast and about 10 mins away from me. it's the best coffee on earth.

the cicadas are out now, making a racket, it's really loud but i can tune out, the rain don't fall, solar flares burn the clouds up and penetrate the atmosphere. you can feel the ultra violet. i head home, i want to treat my floors with eucalyptus this morning, it really makes a huge difference to wooden floors. smells great as well.

my water dragon makes an appearance, he comes right up to me and lets me know he wants breakfast. i think this is the spawn of the old dragon, although it's hard to tell, there is a distinctly new colouration to this one. he's very tame though and really enjoys the strawberry and grape i offer him. 

i look out into the garden, the weird south american plants are all flowering, massive exotic flowers that reach up high. they are intricate structures, big bromeliads and palms. sometimes it feels like eden, peaceful, the weird dragons, the colourful birds that pass through, even the fish in my pond are happy and chatty, it's tranquil and safe. then you remember the world outside. it's like a jungle sometimes...don't push me cos i'm close to the edge.

 someone sends me some mongolian pop music, it goes on a bit but i like it.

the band is called hu or as they like to be known Hu Band. they have a few tunes but this is epic and the one i play most. young guys, making a racket with their instruments. transcending cultures, finding a groove and making it beautiful albeit a bit heavy but you know, it's in context and sounds good. i like it.

anyways, that's going on in the background, as i run around chemists, doctors, specialists and attempt to get something for the weird cough i have. they end up giving me reflex pills. anyways right now i will try anything.

suddenly it's 1500 and i find myself reading 'aurora rising' yet again, this is the 3rd time. i read it when it first came out under the title 'the prefect' and when reynolds published a second novel in the series he changed the name and i read it again. exactly the same novel but the second read was even better than the first, there's so much going on, i picked up details that i missed and sub plots that i had never understood became clear. this third time is a absolute pleasure as the whole magnificence of reynolds writing and this story really blooms in my mind, i'll have to re read the sequel again, 'elysium fire' where everything comes together but apparently early next year a third and final book called, 'machine vendetta' which i can't wait for. 

the series is known amongst fans as the 'prefect dreyfus emergencies' after the main protagonist tom dreyfus. the stories take place on the glitter band worlds when it was fully functional and a safe habitat for millions of humans. if you have read the revelation space sequence you will appreciate how this fits in, it's really choreographically the first set of books written before the revelation space novels. this is the glitterband, on yellowstone, before the melding plague. reynolds fills each page with ideas, concepts and his characters are amazing, especially a hyper-pig who is also a prefect working alongside tom. it's pointless me going into plot because it's complex and you really need to read it with no knowledge going in, other than these novels take place in an already established universe known as revelation space, and these stories are precursors to that when humanity was in it's heyday.

oh and the hu would make a great soundtrack to the books, totally alien and threatening, with a sombre growing menace that gets closer and closer with every page.

it's a strange old life when you are half dead and laying down with a life support machine keeping your heart beating. a strange array of screens and monitors display technicalities of the heart but all you feel is life, slipping away.
the heart, a blob of muscle acting like a pump, an electrical impulse reaching out into the cosmos, finding my son. we are connected. 
that's all that matters.

a few months later we are together again. i'm surfing, laughing, eating exotic salads, driving through strange coastal villages and cleaning up the debris that is mission control. jake manages to clear away two rooms so i can see the floor and actually walk across it. i'm still looking at a very messy dining table and kitchen but that can come later. right now i am happy to be alive, breathing and sharing with jake. he's a smart guy with a very big heart. i'm hoping he packs in the glam life now and just comes home, but it's something i can't expect him to do, after all he has a dream job travelling around the world, the high class lifestyle, the best of all, the famous, the money, the parties but deep down i know he will return. if not soon, then within a couple of years. he knows what i know.

i drive home from work late, the whole new years thing is kinda lost, a strange random day where time is at some sort of imaginary nexus based upon the roman colander whereas i am a lunar calendar guy. however i respect those romans and what they left us, aqueducts, walls,  fresco's and some spiffy architecture. everywhere i travel i see signs of their empire, except here in australia. 

my heart is affected by my lungs, it's obviously the vaccine, as it's spike protein sets it's controls to the heart of the sun. me. i am lucky i took the detox and the alternative treatments to minimise the effect but none the less, i took a bullet. my cough returns, we really need to fix that. i have just over a month before the electro shock treatment, maybe that will put an end to it all. i gotta write a will. that really is a priority. 

i munch down a new years hash cake, a small one just to celebrate the occasion. ha! not really, i just love em. 

i can't sleep, the night before i had taken a melatonin. it's prescribed by my heart specialist, slow release. completely different from the stuff you buy in health shops, this is the real deal. wow! i fell into the best sleep i have had in months but tonight without one i can't switch off. 

the morning greets me with a grin. it's the first day of the new year and i feel worn out already, exhausted and in need of a few days away somewhere hot and beachy, somewhere where i can drink coconut drinks and eat fresh fruit while girls in bikinis rub stuff into my body to make all the aches and age related pains vanish. maybe if they rub it in deep i will vanish, like a vanishing man. 

what's this year going to be like people ask me.

it's going to be nuts, even crazier than the last year. baton down yer hatches, stock up on protein pills and coconuts. charge up your psi power and plug into the cosmos because this year is going to be a wild ride into man made chaos. if aliens are going to land, 2024 is the year. let's hope they can pull us out of the vortex we are being sucked into.

this year i will be doing some work with an entity known as hekate, it appears she has entered my world and is awaiting some sort of invocation. the process may take about 7 months but i have everything i need, it really is a matter of commitment.

the best tv show this year is actually a few years old, and i had already read the books. it's called 'the expanse' and it's a science fiction 6 series story although there are 10  novels.

the story is at a basic level first contact but it's obviously much more, as each series has its own theme that pushes the story forwards. it's political as fuck, gritty and humane. again the characters have great story arcs, their inter personal relationships are complex and humorous and as the series progresses you can see each member of the crew has a history they are attempting to escape but just keeps catching up with them. there is one storyline that needed to continue, it just seemed to vanish but it only makes an appearance in the last season. however the books continue much further.

research tells me that the show was axed suddenly and prematurely which  makes season 6 seem rushed and without the time to draw the conclusion out satisfactory, but it's nonetheless still good and the resolution excellent.

reading this year has been slim pickings, i started a lot of books i had to finish but regretted starting. my pile of books to give away / sell down the market is growing larger, and i'm feeling a general disappointment in the quality and type of story telling i seem to enjoy and then along came, steve's new book.

it's a novella, and it's a companion piece to the album although can be read independently.
i guess the book kinda pieces the album together in a way that gives it a linear structure and assessable coherency as a concept album. 
i guess the first thing that hooked me was the style, it's written as a fast paced kinetic adventure / mystery but you can hear steve's voice reading it. you can follow his flow, pick up on the nuances and humour, the way characters reflect reality, the pace, the timing and the little deviations he makes. it's a rock and roll novel, sex, drugs and gigs, interpersonal relationships, and writers block. 

a famous respected but fading rock star eros zeta addicted to a drug that is getting him nowhere creatively, a relationship that just reenforces the drug habit and a lack of inspiration, eros hears about the strange device known as the hypnogogue that offers to pull great art from artists while they dream, a device that is part spiritual, part machine, part organic, part technological, part extra dimensional, possibly alien or maybe a mixture of all. 
this is the science fiction element which resonates with me, i love sci fi and it's very rare to find a novel that can capture science fiction well and in an authentic way, true to what the ethos of science fiction is and should be.
this managed to do that. it took two days to read but at a slow loving pace, i really soaked up the atmospheres and the descriptions. it's not convoluted or high brow, just a great story, well written with a poetic layer that steve excels at in all his art.
book of the year by a mile! 

genuinely, i have not read anything this year as good.

my only criticism is it should have been longer, i didn't want it to end.

as i strive for peace and love it's very difficult not to be at war with my shadow side, a cynical, part angry, part disappointed, part fatalistic jaded man who cannot understand the way the zombies have taken over the world. i always said, aim for the head. 

anyway here i am if you want me zombie horde but i will go down fighting you all until i can't and then i will transition to a new level of existence where i will be free of you all. the zombie hordes of ignorance, fear and hate. those whose ideology has taken over their brain parts and now seeks others to consume. ideologies of extreme hate, irrational and inverted. they are everywhere. 

a few thousand years ago a jewish guy was born, he was an odd ball who didn't fit in. he didn't like the way people put materialism before spirit, he didn't like memes that infected the zombies of his age, he didn't like exploitation and he went of to learn from the holy druids for a few years, he studied kabbalah (as evidenced within the lords prayer) he then returned to his people to lead them towards love. as usual the authorities determined he should be executed. but you can't kill a good idea and love is a pretty dam perfect one. 

love your enemies.

a statement that is possibly the most powerful i've ever heard. off course it don't mean you can't kill them, it means much more than that. 

so in this terrible year of suffering, (arn't they all) on this xmas season, i love my enemy. the islama- fascists, the weird jew haters and hypocritical left wingers and the so called greens who all aligned themselves with the extreme right wing fascists, the real ones. i hope your turkey of ideology gets well roasted until it's burnt to a crisp and you choke on it. and while you choke, i will watch with love.

merry xmas 

i seem to be going through a stranglers revival, i really liked that band and now i can't stop listening to them. they were probably the most interesting punk band in the sense that they did change their direction many times, and challenge their audience to the point of loosing them and then gaining a new one. they were loud, brash, sexist, menacing, un-apologetically following their own star until hugh cornwall discovered heroin and wrote 'golden brown' a song that was top of the pops globally. 
with a record label expecting a follow up hit they released a 14 minite waltz sung in french. that was the stranglers, sticking it to the man all the way. they imploded due to internal friction and regrouped without hugh. sad but they still pushed forwards and made some great songs. 
to see them live was a joy, everyone wearing black and sneering, part goth part punk, a strange hybrid that worked for me.

possibly the most obtuse stranglers album is, 'the men in black'  but i personally really liked the two albums 'feline' and 'la folie.' the strange energy of these two albums, slow and strangely electronic, not pop songs or rock, something different.

the band had a keyboard player called dave greenfield, he was amazing and accomplished, slightly autistic. it would not be unusual to hear him playing harpsichord, mellatron, hammond or baby grand. they guy was a wizard on the keyboard. one of my fave songs is the kick ass cover of 'walk on by' which has the delivery of a man who is really feeling it. not love in it's classic post romance incarnation but love as an angry bitter energy. 

it really is a great song, dionne warwick's version pales into insignificance after this version. i am pretty sure i still have the single somewhere.

'just go for a stroll in the trees...' 

and then cue dave greenfield banging away and that power bass from old jj. it's so rare a cover outclasses the original. but listen good.

i guess the stranglers are quintessentially a london band but jj was a frenchman, and he plays base unlike anyone else, always pumping along relentlessly. brilliant.

dave and the drummer jet black are dead now but the band still carries onward, not quite the same but still interesting. ever changing yet keeping that distinctive sound.

as far as lyrics, go check out 'genetix' from the album the raven or 'no more heroes anymore.'

a band singing about genetic modification and gene splicing in one song and leon trotsky, sancho panza in another. 

not my fave band but a worthy band, 'the stranglers.'

 

its weird watching some show where they are explaining the pop band 'wham' has a number one hit in the uk with that irritating song, 'last christmas.'
i knew those guys and girls from wham, it's so weird that they ever made it so big, but george was pretty ambitious and driven. i must admit i loathe their music. 

while they were on the ascent i was playing lou reed and bowie covers in a band called the blue meanines with a bunch of south london misfits. we were no pop stars, we were the opposite, sort of arrogant, ugly, unruly, not a club band but a garage one. we did have one musician who played guitar and guided us through our follies. i am still very good friends with tez. and we had one talented  musician who played keyboards. he's gone on to do amazing things. the rest were more pirate than players. martin von donaldson looked like ziggy but played like keef, mano our intrepid spanish base player who liked the jazz cigarettes. tez was like a sage, he had experience and wisdom, we all looked up to him, even me with my weird outta whack singing, and cavorting. there was no way were were pop star material like those wham boys, but we had a certain mystique and appeal to the more avant garde, a soul and depth. no songs about xmas and broken hearts, just crack baby crack i just want your sex, we were all sneer and spite.

anyways, my memories of wham are fading, i was good friends with both of them especially shirley whom went on to marry martin kemp from that god awful spandu ballet, but when i knew her she was a punk.

yeah, last christmas i gave you my heart.

yesterday threatened rain all day, today delivers as mission control battens down the hatches,  and prepares for deluge. i manage to put some indoor plants outside for a soaking, not all but some, i can rotate tomorrow. it's grey and the constant sound of rainfall drives me nuts like a slow torture. my garden however is in ecstacy as the ferns and flowering bromeliads, the wilting tiger grass and towering black bamboo all dance with the joy only rainfall can bring. it's glorious to watch from inside.

and inside i watch a few episodes of 'the expanse' and strangely discover there are two series which i didn't even know existed. it's becoming a very interesting story, an amalgamation of the book series,  and i am really enjoying the styling and production values. the whole thing works well as there is a nice attention to detail plus a creative effect which lays just over the surface, like to strange hybrid languages factions converse in,  the three dimensional characters and the black humour. everyone is awkward and no one really seems to know what they are doing. it's good.