Friday: Started my work placement this week and I fucking hate it. The parts were I get to type letters and take messages from people over the phone I don't mind because I get to feel like I'm actually doing something important but the other stuff they've got me doing makes me feel like I'm back in school (it doesn't that whenever I give something I worked on to my boss he always says "That's very good James, well done!") like designing posters, putting stamps on leaflets and today they had me putting labels on company Christmas cards. Also they've been giving me some stuff to do without really explaining how I do it before hand, like giving me the notes to a meeting and telling me to write it up in full without giving me a copy of the agenda and when I designed a poster wrong I was told that I had to make it look more like the company image, they explained what company image was to me (which they didn't have to anyway) but didn't tell me how I make stuff look like the company image. When I went to get my travel expenses and I raised my grievances with Sue, she managed to arrange one thing, that I can leave early each day because the times I leave now I have to wait around Aylesford station twenty minutes for a train. Came home, ate, showered then got the bus to Chatham, walked to the Command House because I heard that all the kids who can't get in the Manor go there now, passed by the part of the green near the Command House, saw some faces I recognised from the Manor but no one I actually know. Went in the Command House, got ID'd for fucking fruit juice, then walked outside taking my drink off the premises, saw a poster saying there was going to be an Urban Fox night in the cellar venue part so I thought I'd come back for that, took one more stroll through the kids hanging around to see if anyone I knew was there, left my empty plastic cup full of ice on a traffic crossing then walked back to the Tap. Chris, Zak, Ollie and everyone else was there, hung out with them until they decided to go to the Manor so I fucked off back to the Command House. Walked into the cellar and saw Manny straight away, gave him shit for not playing Slayer on his internet radio show the night before like I asked so he promised to do it next week, had a chat with him for a while then bought a book by a bunch of local writers telling stories about places they've travelled to, the guy who sold it to me asked if I wrote, I said not that well and he mentioned they were looking for people to submit reviews for a book coming out on Urban Fox about local music, I later found out that guy was Dave Wise who's written loads of books for Urban Fox (not that I've read any of his stuff). Manny went off to do the sound for the performers, first up was this comedian who sang funny songs (did a great one about people from the Isle of Sheppey being inbred), next was some twat in a blue flamenco shirt and silk trousers singing horrible Folk/Indie stuff with stolen Beatles lyrics, then was a middle-aged man doing Country covers and what sounded like some original songs, I thought he was great but everyone else was talking louder than he could play, next was a ginger guy with a middle class accent who I wanted to hate but played some great Blues stuff he was later joined by a guy with a hurdy-gurdy who then went on to play by himself for five minutes until the hurdy-gurdy started to make dying sounds, then came on a guy who described himself as a "Punk Poet" and read his horrible poetry, he kind of came across as Rik Mayall's character in The Young Ones, but with a beard, then came on a couple of Indie goons, who I guess may be in a local band, I lasted half of a song and decided I'd had enough. Walked through the kids on the green near the Command House to see if anyone I knew was there, still no one, it struck me that it wasn't a new Manor like I thought it was going to be (it would be cool if they're was a place the Medway Rock community could get together in a non-pretentious way (like the way the Tap has gone)), but more like a new Vines, which is even worse. Got in line for the Tap, Phil from college came up to me and convinced me to push in further up the line, e walked in front of these guys and one said "hey, they pushed in" but followed it up with "never mind, that guy's bigger than me" I'm guessing that was aimed at me seeing as how pencil thin Phil is. Walked around the Tap, bumped into Liam as he was taking Zoey to the door and pointed me in the direction Steve was. Sat with Steve and had him ranting at me until up came this really fit seventeen year old who promised she was nearly eighteen who Steve proceed to chat up and managed to snog. Hung around for a couple of hours, went to the kebab shop were me and Liam got something to eat, got Steve then started to walk up to the Taxi bay, along the way some guy was asking people for a tenner to buy a traffic cone, Steve insisted it should be free and tried to take it off the guy, but was way too fucking drunk. We then ran into Chris and Zak as they came back from the Manor, then Steve tried to steal a traffic cone someone stuck on a statue, during which we came across James Broadie, then we started to walk past the billboards near the train station (looking back on it we took a long fucking time to just get a few yards) and Steve started to tear down the posters on the billboards, so for a laugh me and Liam joined in, then some Chavs came up and yelled "Oi are you lot decorators" to which Steve started ranting "IN OUR SPARE TIMEAS A PART TIME FUCKING JOBWE DO IT FOR FUN!" They took offence to it, one of them came up to us as we were getting in a cab and told Steve to watch his mouth "or I'll get in this cab and smash you head in you little cunt" Which set Steve off ranting on the Taxi journey home at one point Steve said "I'll rape that guy, I'll bring it to that motherfucker like I'm Ike and he's Tina" which I had to admit was good. Got off at Steve's place, Liam went inside with him for a smoke and to try and calm him down and I started walking home.
Saturday: Holy fuck, a load of stuff came through the post; Errander CD, Dead Sea Fucking Scrolls and Hangover Heartattack split 7", the Brain Dead 7", Toxic Avenger IV on DVD and books by Mark Thomas and Saul Williams. Went to Chatham got my shopping, came home, listened to music, watched the extras on the DVD (seeing as the film was still fresh in my mind from watching it on the Horror channel earlier in the week), ate, showered then left the house for a bus to Chatham. Walked into the Tap, felt a tapping on my back, it was Manny, there to do the sound for the bands. Found a quite place and read Paradise Lost for a while, walked into the pool room to see if the bands were ready to play, had a chat with Chris from Sounds Perfect, found out the show wasn't going to start for another forty five minutes so I went back to my book for a while then came back to the pool room.
We Are Carnivores: Chris described them as a kind of mix between Refused and Shellac. They were good but their songs felt a bit formulaic at times (Screamy bit, chuggy bit, disjointed bit, really disjointed bit).
The Mockingbird Nightmare: Now these really impressed me, had a distinct Dischord Post-Hardcore vibe going on, really got into their performance and didn't just stand there (although their second guitarist couldn't move very well as he had a dislocated knee). Bought their demo for a quid, also got the We Are Carnivores demo, gave a pound to a guy sitting next to the girls, the singer came over and said if I wanted their demo it was a pound, I said I knew and I just gave a pound to the guy sitting there and the singer said he didn't know that guy. There was a brief moment of panic between us until the guy I gave the pound to gave it to the girl who was actually selling the demo.
Left the Tap to get a potion of chips in pita at the Kebab shop, ran into Aaron the Punk DJ from the Manor with a guy in a Misfits shirt on who asked "You're name's Ollis isn't it? Your Mum taught me at Sherwin Knight" they asked why I hadn't DJed at the Manor in a while and I gave my standard reply "because I played weird stuff that no one liked" got my food then headed up to the taxi bay.
Another thing, I posted this on a couple of Straight Edge forum (one on MySpace, one on Suicide Girls)
Straight Edge kids for the legalization of drugs
An idea that I've been kicking around my head for a while that I'd thought of sharing with you. For me Straight Edge is about personal choice, I choose to abstain from drugs and alcohol, none (bar one) of my friends are Edge and it doesn't affect my relationship with them except that I don't participate when joints and drinks are being passed around so the idea of legalising all drugs for recreational use doesn't bother me as much as I have no interest in them myself (also I think it would help reduce prison overpopulation by releasing people who shouldn't really be there and create more room for real criminals (I mean people done for just possessing drugs, I equate people who sell stuff like Crack and Heroin to alcohol and tobacco companies because I just see them as profiting off other people's misery)) and it's their business what they put in their bodies. I've been listening to Jello Biafra's spoken word albums lately and one thing he touched on in Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police is Harm Reduction a European solution to treating people on Class A drugs by putting them on proscription so they don't have to rob and kill people to pay drug dealers high prices and offering help to people who want to quit. The end result of Harm Reduction in the areas where it was tried out crime rates and HIV rates lowering (less needle sharing) which seems better than just throwing people in prison where their drug problems would just be more likely to get worse.
The general response from the people on the MySpace forum said "it depends on what drugs you legalise", the first reply on the Suicide Girls forum was from a girl who came across as quite Hardline and said that the government should "bring back prohibition" but every reply after that were people telling her she was wrong, that prohibition never worked and thought legalising all drugs it was a great idea, one girl even had the same opinion I have about Stoners being cool, mellow people to hang out with. From this I deduce that Straight Edge kids on MySpace are somewhat uptight but Straight Edge kids into alternative porn are way more open minded.
Saturday: Holy fuck, a load of stuff came through the post; Errander CD, Dead Sea Fucking Scrolls and Hangover Heartattack split 7", the Brain Dead 7", Toxic Avenger IV on DVD and books by Mark Thomas and Saul Williams. Went to Chatham got my shopping, came home, listened to music, watched the extras on the DVD (seeing as the film was still fresh in my mind from watching it on the Horror channel earlier in the week), ate, showered then left the house for a bus to Chatham. Walked into the Tap, felt a tapping on my back, it was Manny, there to do the sound for the bands. Found a quite place and read Paradise Lost for a while, walked into the pool room to see if the bands were ready to play, had a chat with Chris from Sounds Perfect, found out the show wasn't going to start for another forty five minutes so I went back to my book for a while then came back to the pool room.
We Are Carnivores: Chris described them as a kind of mix between Refused and Shellac. They were good but their songs felt a bit formulaic at times (Screamy bit, chuggy bit, disjointed bit, really disjointed bit).
The Mockingbird Nightmare: Now these really impressed me, had a distinct Dischord Post-Hardcore vibe going on, really got into their performance and didn't just stand there (although their second guitarist couldn't move very well as he had a dislocated knee). Bought their demo for a quid, also got the We Are Carnivores demo, gave a pound to a guy sitting next to the girls, the singer came over and said if I wanted their demo it was a pound, I said I knew and I just gave a pound to the guy sitting there and the singer said he didn't know that guy. There was a brief moment of panic between us until the guy I gave the pound to gave it to the girl who was actually selling the demo.
Left the Tap to get a potion of chips in pita at the Kebab shop, ran into Aaron the Punk DJ from the Manor with a guy in a Misfits shirt on who asked "You're name's Ollis isn't it? Your Mum taught me at Sherwin Knight" they asked why I hadn't DJed at the Manor in a while and I gave my standard reply "because I played weird stuff that no one liked" got my food then headed up to the taxi bay.
Another thing, I posted this on a couple of Straight Edge forum (one on MySpace, one on Suicide Girls)
Straight Edge kids for the legalization of drugs
An idea that I've been kicking around my head for a while that I'd thought of sharing with you. For me Straight Edge is about personal choice, I choose to abstain from drugs and alcohol, none (bar one) of my friends are Edge and it doesn't affect my relationship with them except that I don't participate when joints and drinks are being passed around so the idea of legalising all drugs for recreational use doesn't bother me as much as I have no interest in them myself (also I think it would help reduce prison overpopulation by releasing people who shouldn't really be there and create more room for real criminals (I mean people done for just possessing drugs, I equate people who sell stuff like Crack and Heroin to alcohol and tobacco companies because I just see them as profiting off other people's misery)) and it's their business what they put in their bodies. I've been listening to Jello Biafra's spoken word albums lately and one thing he touched on in Beyond The Valley Of The Gift Police is Harm Reduction a European solution to treating people on Class A drugs by putting them on proscription so they don't have to rob and kill people to pay drug dealers high prices and offering help to people who want to quit. The end result of Harm Reduction in the areas where it was tried out crime rates and HIV rates lowering (less needle sharing) which seems better than just throwing people in prison where their drug problems would just be more likely to get worse.
The general response from the people on the MySpace forum said "it depends on what drugs you legalise", the first reply on the Suicide Girls forum was from a girl who came across as quite Hardline and said that the government should "bring back prohibition" but every reply after that were people telling her she was wrong, that prohibition never worked and thought legalising all drugs it was a great idea, one girl even had the same opinion I have about Stoners being cool, mellow people to hang out with. From this I deduce that Straight Edge kids on MySpace are somewhat uptight but Straight Edge kids into alternative porn are way more open minded.