Thursday, September 04, 2003



(Pic via Inkslinger, who's saved me the trouble of editing down my own personal favourite panel from 'Damn Fine Hostile Takeover (Part 1)'.)

I am slightly humbled by the amount of attention that Jenny is getting online at present. Almost all of it positive, which is nice. The only negative thing I've seen so far refers to her being too 'politically correct' - given the name of this blog, and my feelings about that expression, I'm oddly flattered by that, too...

Top five tunes on this pleasingly sunny Thursday:

Fam-Lay - 'Rock N Roll'
!!! - 'Me & Guiliani Down By The Schoolyard'
Justin Timberlake - 'Last Night'
Chicks On Speed w/ Peaches - 'Guitar Anthem'
Outkast - Hey Ya

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Big Sunny D quoted my favourite moment from Adaptation recently, and I've been meaning to invoke it here too, just because it says so much about how I've felt about life and art for the past few years.

Charlie Kaufman: Sir, what if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens? Where people don’t change, they don’t have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world.

Robert McKee: The real world?

Charlie Kaufman: Yes, sir.

Robert McKee: The real fucking world. First of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crises, you’ll bore your audience to tears. Secondly, nothing happens in the world?… Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There’s genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every fucking day someone somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else! People find love! People loose it! For Christ’s sake, a child watches a mother beaten to death on the steps of a church! Somebody goes hungry! Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman! If you can’t find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don’t know crap about life! And why the fuck are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don’t have any use for it! I don’t have any bloody use for it!


The current entry at Big Sunny D is also worth reading, if only as a cautionary tale of why music festivals with the Red Hot JESUSCHRISTJUSTFUCKINGDIEALREADY Peppers at the top of the bill are never a good idea...

Monday, September 01, 2003

Fame Academy drinking game, stage one:

If the judges or other students refer to Peter's style as "unique", or some other word that means "weird and I don't like it, but since I know nothing about this 'indie' stuff I cannot tell good from bad and so will be polite" - drink.

If massive clues about Alex's sexuality are dropped - 'Tainted Love' because gay love, do you see? - drink.

If Carolynne remains painfully oblivious to the fact that Alex is in love with her, making comments like "we're such great pals!" or "she's like my little sister!" - drink.

If James is a smug, smarmy bastard - drink.

If Barry resembles the 'entertainment' from Phoenix Nights - drink until the pain in your head subsides.
I'm feeling guilty but glad: an excellent article about Jenny Everywhere is now online. This piece was to have included me wittering away, but a combination of work being bastardly busy and me being an incompetent and lazy buffoon has meant that instead you get Steven and Nelson being very eloquent and, in the latter case, flattering.

Jenny Everywhere exists in multiple dimensions simultaneously, allowing her to appear in limitless adventures without contradiction. "Her powers are really just a McGuffin; quite a few people have penned stories that don't have her using them overtly," explains Wintle. "Many of her characteristics have changed since, and will probably change as time goes on. Anyone can use her for any medium in any way they like, so long as they don't claim ownership over her."

Much better (and apologies to Tony Walsh if you're by any chance reading this - I spent far too long worrying about what I was going to write in answer to your questions and worrying about how late I was... typical).