dicey

I'll start chronologically.

5. My sister got married to her high scool boyfriend last Summer and while her and me aren't close at all, I really didn't expect to be put through so much abuse by my family. 'take off your piercings this, no nail polish that, don't wear this, don't do that bla bla bla'. Sure I don't fit into the family mould but my mother and sister made me feel like I was some sort of embarassment. To top it all off, my sister had everyone around our age at one seperate table for dinner and excluded me because I refused to wear a pink dress with a big bow (seriously wtf..). Not that I liked the dress I had to wear anyway. I got to sit with people I had nothing in common with, who all had kids houses etc. Fucking sucked. And so nice, when I got up at 6am to decorate the church with flowers for her and got no time to make myself up.

The Church :






6. I then find out at the wedding that my dad had been married previously to my mother. Okay... My dad refuses to really discuss it and after badgering my mother, I find out that she 'thinks he had two kids but there's no point in making a big deal out of it' Oh yeah, no big deal at all to find this out in your twenties ! I had specific orders not to question my father about this. So I live with this secret for a few months. Coincidentaly, my half-siser gets back in touch with my dad during this time and my dad then announces to me over the phone that he had kids before my us, and I will meet one of them with her kid at Christmas... At the time I was so looking forward to anyone giving me any info on the situation that I thought meeting her asap would be a good idea...

Now imagine sitting at Christmas dinner with someone you've never seen before in your life who's calling your father 'dad' and looks exactly like him. Yeah. Then it gets even better when she tells me 'You know when I found out my dad had redone his life, I was really disapointed to find out his kids were girls !'. Was I supposed to apologize here ? Way to make your host feel great! I haven't seen her since though my dad keeps in touch with her. As for the topic of my half-brother, the subject is very taboo. Mostly because he is severely mentally ill, has been in an institute his whole life and that my dad was against having him (it was known very early on in the pregnancy that things were not going to be good for the child). Things all went downhill from there and my dad was eventually forced out of his marriage, didn't get to see the kids since etc. That's about all I know as no one seems ready to discuss anything more with me.

My sister fell out with my dad because of all this. Fair enough, I'm pissed off that I was kept out of it for so long but I don't think it's fair for her, or me, to make my dad suffer even more for things which we aren't in the position to judge.

8. Last June, I asked my landlord (young guy who always acted like we were friends and for whom I took all responsibilities, did all the paperwork for new tenants, assumed full responsibility for the place etc.) if I would be able to stay a least another year in the place I'd been renting from him for the previous two years. I wanted to know because I was going to install a giant rug, buy furniture etc. After he tells me that 'no problem, I'd love to renew your contract after the summer !', he then announces to me in the midle of the Summer (while I'm out of the country for two months) and after I've bought all the stuff, that his girlfriend and him are moving in and I've got to leave by September. Asshole.
So after a very painful move (I was too broke to pay for storage or movers so I had to move my stuff at four different people's houses in London while I found a place) we eventually found a beautiful house in Shoreditch and, despite the hefty price, things on that front are going fine and barbecues are aplenty

(I love the house)


9. My dad had some cancerous cells in his nose which he had to be operated on to remove, and, after months of debate on the subject, he might need to be operated for prostate cancer now. My dad has always been the one to cover for me when I needed it, pick me up at 3am from parties when I've missed the last trains, and generally been an awesome friend so I hope all will go well. It's scary how many people around me have had their parents develop cancer in the las year or so.

10. My grand father passed away last month and though I didn't know him that much, it's still very sad. He had not been very well for a while so it wasn't a shock, but still. The night he passed away, my grandmother called me from the US at 9am -4am US time- and I didn't pick up the phone. I'd been working the whole night through and was going to bed ; my grandparents never really call me so I knew the call was bad news and was just not in a state to deal with it. I feel really guilty about it now. I wasn't invited to the funeral, largely because there was no one to pay for a plane ticket I suspect. My grandpa was high up in the army and apparently super authoritarian and hard to deal with ; my mother (who is made of steel) really doesn't sem to care about his passing. I guess they weren't friends but that's still pretty bewildering.

11. My cat was diagnosed with Diabetes about a year ago (and he's only 5..). Giving him shots everyday was fucking awful. The vet was a fucking bitch and ripped us off of a lot of money for nothing (long story). After talking to someone on facebook and going through him having hypoglycemic seizures, we decided to change his diet and he hasn't needed a shot since ! If you're in a similar position and would like to know more please leave a comment or message me.



12. I have never discussed my relationships on here; mostly because my ex used to pay for my account, I love him dearly and I would never want to inflict on him what was inflicted upon me. Now that I pay for it, that we are very close friends and that he seems happy with his new lady, I feel okay about sharing. And, well, I need to get this out of my system.

Last fall, I broke up with someone I had been with for a while, and have been going through the worst break-up I've ever known since. I won't go into too many details - that would take far longer than this passage and it's not my purpose to drag his name in mud - but it's been absolutely horrendous. The situation was made that much more complicated by the fact that he is my Jitsu instructor, 40 and I have to see him at least twice a week. I decided to break up (although things were not going well from either side) and ended up regretting it and realizing how in love I was. The worst part was that he refused to be friends with me, stating that while I may stay friends with my exes, he never has. I would have understood that, if it wasn't for the fact that we were going to see each other twice a week anyway...
After months and months of crying, I met up with him and suggested we get back together. He didn't think it was a good idea and then later sent me an e-mail telling me he was now with one of my training partners from my club.
I think I'll always remember reading that exact sentence and the feeling that my heart had actually just shattered in a billion pieces, that someone had just put a bullet through me (forgive the clichs). Sure I expected him to eventually be with someone else but not someone from Jitsu, not someone from my own club, a friend, worst of all not someone who was my grade, who I had to fucking train with twice a week, and not someone who had previously commented on 'how cute we were together'. It's bad enough when you imagine that person with someone else but fuck, that is one of the things you fear the most after breaking up with somebody: them getting with a friend of yours. And telling me in an e-mail ?! My reaction might have been more measured if he had told me to my face.
What followed was not pretty. I've been angry/sad/upset in my life but nothing this bad. I was screaming through my tears, broke all sorts of stuff, nearly burnt his books, started completely self-destructing ; In short, I completely fucking lost it (and I'm generally described as having my shit together). Lucky for me (and my posessions), my flatmates came home and stopped me from going onto further stupidity. I don't think there was a single drop of water left in my body to cry at that point anyway. I then left for France to get away from it all. I came back and exiled myself from my club for two months which also meant not seeing my friends.

I'm back at my club now and it's very very hard. I guess he didn't expect me to come back and doesn't quite know what to do with me. The first month or so, he stopped giving me any feedback on what I was doing which made me suffer even more. Fuck, hadn't I been punished enough ? I never did anything wrong and it was a hundred times harder for me to show up then it was for him to teach me. Things have been getting slowly better but showing up every week is like being prometheus, going through that punishment again and again and yet I keep showing up, because that's how much I love Jitsu. I wish he noticed that...

The fact that I am probably more committed to it then 99% of people who have ever shown up. That despite having no natural abilities I made it to blue belt. Despite every fucking injury I still show up at every single course and training session and that really, of all people, I don't deserve to be ignored. The worst part is, if he'd accepted my friendship, I would have been able to turn the page and might have even been happy for him. I think breaking up was the right thing to do as I was unhappy on many levels but still, I wish it wasn't this hard. Not only did I lose my boyfriend (then again, that can be questioned as he refused to call me his girlfriend under various excuses ; and let me tell you how much that hurts when you're with someone for that long), I lost one of my closest friends, (And my Nintendo 64 which he pointlessly threw away along with a few other things) who was also a bit of an anchor point for me in London.

13. Shortly after we broke up, I had to deal with a greek guy who liked me far too much. I must admit he helped me out tremendously when I moved and I liked him quite a bit at first as well but quickly realized how immature he was for a 28 year-old. The worst bit was what backward thinking he had about women. He ended up hacking into my e-mail-and god knows what else- first stating that an 'enemy of mine' (is this pre-school or what..) had sent him a screen capture of a mail in which I talked about fucking this guy (after I had pointed out that him and me wasn't going to work), couldn't deal with rejection and proceeded to bombard me with messages calling me every insult in the book, saying I had used him bla bla bla. I got a message every day for nearly two weeks, as long as this entry... It's a long story, not worth my or your time though.

I've been more or less single since, for the past year. I've seen a few people but I was too emotionally exhausted to feel anything for anyone for a while which was a shame as I met some nice people. After being with someone who had just turned 40, I'm findng it pretty hard adapting to the habits of the guys I meet who are generally much younger and hence have their shit much less together. Hopefully someone will eventually manage to pull me out of this coma.

14. My left shoulder 'popped out' two or three times this year which has been less than fun. It got slowly better until the last time, a few months ago when it happened again. Oh the irony that it was from training with my ex's new girlfriend... Of course I can't blame anyone but let's just say training conditions haven't been optimum - it's not exactly easy to focus on jitsu when it's a constant reminder of what goes on off the mat.
Anyhow after, one more pointless run in with the NHS. I finally got proper medical care in France, scans, IRMs, physio, etc. I just saw a specialist who suspects bankart lesion. Because I'm only in my twenties, it's almost certain they'll have to operate as I'll otherwise have no more shoulder in 20 years, since it's now too instable not to pop out all the time and fuck up the cartillage. Oh and apparently I suffer from constitutional hyper-laxity (read super flexibility) hahaha ! *insert innuendo*. Damn I knew I should have opted for a career in porn !

1.Destruction inc.'s first record, THE DOGMAN'S TALES is finally out !! Hooorah ! Actually it's technically the second one as we recorded 'Greatest Hits !' beforehand, to which I had a much broader contribution. For this one, you can hear me on 'The Good Son', which I did in its entirety live, as well as another one I wrote called 'Appoggiatura' which is on Greatest Hits ! (You can hear that one on our myspace: Destruction inc.). I also wrote the tracks 'O'Mother' and 'Puppenhaus' (which annoyingly has been entered in itunes as Ruppenhaus..). GO BUY IT !!

Here : French Amazon
Or here : Fnac.com
Or in ITunes!

It got great reviews by the way Here are two excerpts:

This album is close to perfection, if it werent for its cover, which is a throwback from another time ROCK ONE

Destruction Incorporated sums up what rock has done best since the begining of the nineties which, is a real tour de force ! ROCK MAG



We're currently looking for management and distribution internationally, in the US or UK. Makes more sense to have the record(s) out and do shows there anyway as it's all in English so if you have any address, PLEASE pass on ! I will love you forever.

2.I came around for a concert at La Loco in Paris last July. The sound in that place was just awful, I couldn't hear myself which was pretty frightening... The run-up to the gig was stressful to say the least ; No real fuck-ups though ; ) Pictures by my father (a.k.a. a very notorious photographer !) and others below in the picture section. Here are two :





3.I graduated with an art and performance degree from the University of London last Summer !! Wooo ! I'd never mentionned it on here because I hate to be pigeonholed : there's this assumption that being a student is a full-time thing and that you're not doing anything else with your life. Untrue in my case as I had lots more exciting stuff going on.



I would have liked to do a Masters in the same area but let's face it, an art degree only gets you so far. It's the opportunities you get outside of university and the work you do that gets you to where you want to be.

4.I got a kickass job ! Last Summer I was offered to become a full-time journalist and translator for Guitar Part magazine which is, I believe one of, if not the biggest music publication in France. Funny thing is, I never applied to work there ! My guitarist has worked for them for years and I had previously helped them out but that's it (yes, I'm bragging I admit it).
That being said, it is hard work and because they're not the most organized people ever, this is journalism after all, and there are deadlines, I'm often asked to do things last minute ; but hey I'm writing and translating stuff that I'm really into, nerdy guitar stuff etc.
I worked on a database of amps, pedals and guitars for a few months so I've since become a complete know-it all geek Coil taps, spring reverbs, active pickups, skunk stripes, sawtooth waves, EL34s, DSP, sandwich guitars, phrygian modes, minor thirds and fifths... oh baby ! The best part is that I get to work from home and that they let me stay in London ! Currently looking for a job in an another UK or US guitar/music publication as well, or guitar/amp/pedal company, something like that...

Might I add that it is so sweet (and yet so hard) to work from home (or wherever I want), by yourself.

Yeah ummm... Looks nothink like that though...

5. I interviewed Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) last month which was fun. He e-mailed me some stuff we talked about later ; it's pretty surreal to look through your inbox and see e-mails from Dave Stewart ! I asked him what the key to his creativity was and he told me about how he took loads of LSD when he was younger... Hopefully our readers won't take his advice! He got totally confused at one point and was saying 'wait, is this a French magazine, I'm interviewing for ? You sound American..' (I've always been fully billingual with no accent in either language which often confuses people who don't know me)
I asked him for Gwen Stefani's number and he said he'd give it to me after the birth of her twins ! I'm so happy they published that bit tehehe!

6.I got my light blue belt last Summer !!!!! Being a blue belt in my style is a big deal because you start to be treated like soon-to-be instructor material, you get to teach more, attend 'blue belt courses' (one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life, both physically and mentally), train with instructors etc. I did the Instructor course 2 months ago where I got to teach to a full class which was brilliant. I got great feedback as well : )

7. I bumped into Tim Burton a few weeks ago in a small London pub. He was all 'oooh you're part French ? I loooove France' and then kissed my hands ; he seemed a bit pissed... My friends are all very jealous now ; )

8. I made some new friends in London... I probably shouldn't mention who they are on here for all to see. Let's just say, they all drive Harleys (or Buells, you know what I mean), and wear a lot of leather. Lovely guys actually ! They throw great parties too : ) Here's my good friend Cyran :



9. I'd been dreaming of owning a Standard US Fender Telecaster for a while now and finally got the object of my desire Last September ! Or almost since I settled for another model in the end : A Fender Telecaster thinline '72. It's a semi-hollow body, great neck, warm tones and the twang !!! Only the pickguard is an atrocity but I'll change it soon. This brings my total to 8 guitars!
My next purchase will be an amp, with tubes, probably blackheart (fantastic gear, sweet price). I can't wait...



10. I made the switch. I got a Macbook! I wish someone had told me how much better this was than PC earlier! Essentially I got it because music production software just runs better on this but wow, everything else runs better too ! I get my mbox and pro tools this weekend (thank you Shanka <3), after which I might never leave the house again ! All my compos won't be going to waste anymore, hoorah!

11. Because I think the environment is -obviously- more important than what happened with my ex, I'll pimp his (very, very good) book out, which he was writing while we were still together : The Ethics of Climate Change



I wrote a review which you can read on the following link if you're interested in the book.

Go buy it here : The Ethics of Climate Change on Amazon

12. Yey, the London tattoo convention starts in just under two weeks !

13. Currently making a myspace music for myself... I'm trying to think of a way I could change my normal profile to a music one, whilst keeping all my friends etc. Ummmm...

14. My stepmother, who is an incredibly talented sculptor, invited me to attend one of her teaching seminars : Here's what I produced (with extra work). She said it was incredibly good for a first time and that I should really keep to it. So when I have more time hopefully... In the meantime I'm translating her website.







Here's her website by the way : Sculptures Rivaux

And one of her pieces :



(It's Zimbabwean Serpentine.. Oh and I modelled for it :p)

16. Other than that, there was SOOOOOOOO much Partying this year... Fun, fun, fun!
Many related pictures below and I'll end it on that !

(the person who spotted me in there has good eyesight...)








(I'm right on the left !)










Man do I love this girl ! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3










In case you haven'st seen it, head on over to youtube and search for 'Rapist glasses' (by Jon LaJoie)




















Destruction inc.'s Drummer, Pierre from Lofofora : )








(I can assure you we aren't trying to undress each other...)