a failed search for inspiration

It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. I’ve really got no energy to write blogs that much, and nothing particularly exciting write about, but I feel a sense of duty which demands that I put some effort in. Nothing particularly gripping comes to my mind right now, so I will regale some retrospective rubbish to fill up some time and space. It seems that increasingly now, many of my friends have become slightly confounded by my music taste, and I am often questioned about how I got into all these strange and wonderful bands.
So, having been raised on a diet of bands like Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, T.Rex and copious amounts of Pink Floyd, I have always had an affinity for hard rock. I remember seeing in my childhood a few of those retrospective type documentaries on the punk movement that one occasionally finds on the TV and it always interested me a bit. I remember finding my Dad’s original ‘Anarchy in the UK’ 7” (now one of my most prized possessions) when I was about 10 and recognising the name and wishing I could work the record player, to little avail. But I can’t say that I ever really got into punk until my early teens, so fast forward a few years.
It is summer 2003, and I have just celebrated twelve years of existence. I am watching television, my chubby, youthful face parked around 10 inches from a boring, mind rotting stream of daytime TV. One advert in particular strikes me; it is an advert for the Extreme Sports Channel’s ‘Skate to Hell: the Extreme Skate Rock Collection’ CD. I had been skateboarding (well, trying to skate) for around a year at this point and was really interested in the history and culture of the sport, so I became intent on obtaining this CD. After a few weeks of hounding and whining at my parents about it, my darling mummy finally bought me a copy, perhaps because she loved me and wanted me to be happy, but probably just to shut me up. Needless to say I was ecstatic and proceeded to put it on, destroying one of my mum’s prized Bruce Springsteen albums in the process (at the time I hated Springsteen and was actually quite pleased with the way it snapped as I rammed it out of the disc drive, but since then that album has become one of my favourites). I immediately fell in love. That album became one of my favourite albums and remains so to this day; in fact, I’m listening to it right now. As some may know, skateboarding and punk rock (particularly the California scene the early hardcore movement) went hand in hand in the late 70’s and early 80’s and many punk bands were fronted by or almost entirely made up of skateboarders. Accordingly, the majority of the bands on the Skate Rock collection were punk bands, such as Black Flag, Slaughter and the Dogs, Bad Religion, Drunk Injuns, Gang Green, The Stooges, Rancid, Dead Kennedys and The Faction, to name but a few. At the time I was totally unaware that any of these bands fell under the banner of ‘punk’ and I was only marginally aware of what punk rock actually was. But I adored the speed and the energy of the bands on the CD, as well as the general attitude and grittiness of their sound. This was also the album which got me into Drum n Bass and hip hop, as it featured tracks by the Prodigy and Public Enemy.
When I went back so school after the summer holidays, my best friend Shane, who is probably the funniest and most generous person I’ve ever met, told me about this awesome album that he had been given over the summer. This was ‘Jubilee’ by The Sex Pistols and I loved it. We listened to it religiously on the field and on the bus. That Christmas I got ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and The Clash’s singles collection and the Clash soon became my favourite band and they remain one of my all time favourites. I also got the soundtrack to the Jackass movie, and this also featured various punk bands such as The Ramones, Misfits, The Rezillos, Smut Peddlers, and Black Flag. These four albums between them formed the mainstay of my musical diet at the time, alongside bands like Green Day, Bullet for my Valentine and My Chemical Romance (I feel that at this point it’s important to mention that this was pre-‘American Idiot’ and that MCR’s ‘3 Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ is still an awesome album).
Somewhere toward the end of 2004 my sister introduced me to her friend Rachel, with whom she had started a band, and who was really into The Distillers, another awesome band. They told me to come to a gig at our school, at which Rachel’s boy friend Matt’s band was playing. Matt’s band was called Die a Hero, and they were awesome. I was blown away by Matt’s hair, which was masterfully crafted in to a HUGE mohican, it was epic. I started hanging around with Matt, Rachel and their friends more over the next year or so, and they introduced me to a ridiculous amount of ridiculously good bands. They are some of the nicest, coolest people ever and some of the most awesome friends ever. From Matt and Tom in particular, I contracted what my best friend Martin once described as an “obsession” with music. Over the course of a few years I believe I have borrowed almost the entirety of Matt’s extensive and quite impressive CD collection, which is epic, so many thanks to him for that.
So yeah, that’s pretty much the story of how I got into punk rock, all very retrospective and that. I’m tired, hung over and hungry, time for pasta and to see the lady.

'You sir, are a follower of the Abrahamic faith, and thus you are a cunt.'

What the fuck kind of insult is 'Jew'? you know the kind of 'insult' like 'yeh, ya fuckin ju!' that is usualy hurled around by a certain group of people (dead eyes, sports wear, drooling mouth), ie. chavs.
I am not Jewish and I have no problem with the Jewish faith, in fact, i quite admire it. Compared to christianity, or pretty much anyone for that matter, Judaeism has a far less 'prestigious' history of hate, oppression, murder and such. However, i was recently refered to as being semitic by a person of similar description to persons described above. I'm not entirely sure what he hoped to acheive by calling me this. Did he think i would cry? collapse into a tearful heap, crying to the heavens 'nooooo, Moses help me, its not true! Why, Joshua, whyyyyyy?' No. All this thick peice of maggot shit succeeded in doing was proving that he/it is in fact a worthless, ignorant twat with racist and neo-nazi tendencies, whos only purpose on this planet is to remind us all of the importance of protected sex and making us all wish his dad had spurted him into a tissue a long time ago.
I was merely walking down the street, and to be met with a hail of hate-crime related vulgarity always strikes me as a bit of a shock, but also a bit of light entertainment. Here's what gets me about this kind of insult: you never hear it applied to any other religion. You never hear anyone shout "Oi! ya fakin Buddhist!" or "Yeh blud, your fuckin Greek Orthodox, innit. Blup!"
I once tried to apply this concept to a new religion, but it did not end well. It was at a house party, the kind that you tend to get in Hemel which is full of chavs and drug addicts. One of my friends had attempted to steal my beers as a joke.
So naturally I told him to "fuck off, you fuckin Christian!" At this point, everyone in the room, most of whom had previously been doing ketamine of the counter and discussing the complexities of 'knifin' people (what you do is ram it in their ribs or their leg and twist the blade, producing maximum pain and nerve damage while allowing for easy withdrawal of you 'shank', apparently), suddenly turn into a militant group of christian fundamentalists. I'm greeted by a chorus of "wot blad?" "yeh? im a fuckin cafflic, innit" "dont take the Holy Lords name in vain, ya fackin greebo!" I sharply made my departure.
I think what we're all forgetting here is that Jesus was a Jew. Oh yeh, that's right gangsta, Jesus was a fackin' 'orrible hebrew. Oh Yeh, and the bible? Half of that was written by Jews, gasp! In fact Christianity, Islam and even Rastafarianism come from Judaism. Fact. So why the fuck is it in any way acceptably to use Jew as an insult? You dont go around shouting 'nigger' or 'paki' at people, so why 'Jew'? Its not clever, or funny or 'gangsta'. All it proves is that you are a pig ignorant, racist dipshit.
Rant over, good day.

a question of sexuality?

so, having the spent the majority of my evenings over the last 3 months or so in rooms full of very attractive young ladys in tight skirts and high heels, listening to music about 'lovin all night long' and such, I've decided that i far prefer bieng in a room full of sweaty, angry, hairy tattooed men who are trying to beat each other up while listening to loud and fast music which makes you want to kill people. i now find myself wondering if thats not just a little bit gay.

A devilish concoction

I have recently found the best way to ruin a perfectly good night.
What you need is around 100 or so people who are having a fun night, myself, Adam Keene, Gerry Flyne, copious amounts of free punch and an ipod. proceed to watch afformentioned people dance wildly around the room, chanting to some sngs that noone else has ever heard, and observe the party fall apart. it was a very good night. thank you to Ellis.

Also, thank you Lucy Hurst, for buying me the best album ever!

that is all.

Hoorah! Charlie has joined the blogging bandwagon.

In retrospect i fear this may have been a bad decision, as one of two thing are likely to happen:
Firstly (and most likely), blogging will become yet another pointless waste of time. It will become wildly addictive like facebook, smoking and Farmville, and serve only as a distraction from doing anything remotely constructive with my time. I'll probably lead ultimately to my failure at University, and a completley pointless debt situation from which i will have taken nothing but hangovers, some meaningless peices of paper and some disjointed ramblings on the internet.
Secondly, i will lose any interest in blogging and this will become yet another idle peice of information clogging up my computer.

But i digress.

So, where to go from here?

Time now is 11.18pm and i have just finished some work on the most stupid play i have ever read ('Endgame' by Samuel Beckett). I am in the company of a very lovely and lusty young lady, Emma Takle, who should technically feature in my bibliography as a verbal source. It has become clear that she is far better at this than me, and she looks very pretty lying on my bed (even if she does have a funny accent).

thats about it for now i guess, more next time.

Soundtrack for today has been:
-Jimmy Ruffin
-Martha Reeves
-the Four Tops
-The Velvettes
-Jr. walke and the All Stars
-Bruce Springsteen
-The Adolescents
-The Bronx