In Fading Scrawls

"Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh; shadows of the evening steal across the sky."

New Year again. I haven't been able to get that girl out of my head. I saw her yesterday with Paul, my stepbrother. I was on my way to work, hurrying to the station. I didn't realise it was her walking in front of me until Paul turned the corner and she started shouting at him, words I didn't catch. Curses, accusations, apologies. Paul's eyes flickered to me. No shame there. For a moment I was almost jealous.

"Y'alright, Mike. You got a quid, mate?" he said. He was bigger than I remembered, faster, a species of desperation in his face.

I shrugged. All I had was a five pound note, and I needed it to get to work.

"A cigarette?" he asked, already beginning to turn away.

"Sorry about New Years," Sue said, Sue shouted, Sue slurred. "I don't even remember it."

She laughed. I saw them silhouetted against this miserable suburban backdrop, against a million flashbacks. I remembered being at university, sitting on a bench in the middle of Cambridge with a homeless guy who shared my name. He'd asked me for change. All I had was a pound, so I gave it to him. He cried, said I didn't have to do that. We sat on the bench and he pointed at the church.

"You don't know what they've done to me," he said, over and over.

"It shouldn't be like this," I said, to the ground between my feet.

That other Michael, he laughed at me. He stood up and lurched out of my life. I doubt he'll ever find his way out of my memory.

I wondered if Paul had been in prison yet. He was bailed until after Christmas. If he'd been in, if he was off the brown, that would explain the weight gain. I patted my pockets and came up with a pack of cigarettes. I gave him one and we went our separate ways.

At New Year Sue was sitting in my stepdad's chair. I was cross-legged on the floor at her feet. She was admiring my tattoos and showing me hers, a life story in fading scrawls on her skin. Shame and perhaps a little pride in her face. Everything about her said she'd been to hell, yet here she was, either climbing out of the pit or too fucked up to realise that there comes a point when the room no longer has any exits.

She babbled about the needles and the Indian ink, about the people who had written their names in her flesh. She saw my reaction and rolled down her sleeves.

"No," I said. "Tell me."

One of those kids they lock in cupboards. The ones they hit and abuse. The ones forever dragged into the orbit of those who prey on the weak. Cigarette burns and track-marks and those awful tattoos, teeth with more black and yellow than white, dead hair and a pale face aged before its time.

Strange dreams since then. I dreamed I had gone back in time and re-entered my body at the age of thirteen. I knew everything I know now. I was excited. I was on a bus, watching the scenery go by, realising I could do it all again. We pulled into the car park of an unfamiliar building, and as I watched the kids spilling out the doors, scattering across grey concrete, I thought: I've made a terrible mistake

I dreamed of rabbits that could fly. I was running from somebody, and I hid in this field full of rabbits. They were fucking. I turned away. When I turned back, they had sprouted wings and were leaving the ground. I laughed, but I was terrified.

Last night I woke up in the dark, midway through a sentence. "...on Wednesday night," I said to the empty room, and in the moments before I realised who and where I was, I panicked because I couldn't remember the last time I cried.

You can never run fast or far enough.

The Great Whale Conspiracy

"They say he didn't have an enemy. His was a greatness to behold. He was the last surviving progeny, the last one on this side of the world."

I knew as early as midnight on January 1st that 2006 was going to be a strange year. I was standing in the living room with my family and some street people that had somehow found their way into our private gathering. We were singing Auld Lang Syne, and I was somewhat relieved to find myself holding hands with the only two people in the house that knew every word. It meant I could get away with mouthing random nonsense without my lack of New Year's spirit being questioned. The flipside to this blessing was that one of the hand-holders was a woman named Sue, whose arms were covered with tattoos applied by drunken amateurs using rusty needles and thread dipped in Indian ink. Sue had staggered into the kitchen screaming for cider earlier that evening, and although we had seen her as an amusing curiosity for a while, it was clear to me that many members of my family had since crossed the line between mirth and fear...

Yes, I remember it clearly now. That was the moment when I realised that - like Wally The Whale - we were headed into unusual waters.

Most people were tickled by the presence of a baby whale in the River Thames. I was not. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have seen enough and done enough to know that marine life straying from its natural habitat is almost always an ominous occurence; a prelude to times of darkness; a harbinger. Wally's foray into the capital brought the city to a screeching halt. Grey-suited Commuters lined up with wide-eyed children along the banks of the Thames, pointing and laughing at the whale as it struggled in the shallows. The media dropped its hoodie-wearing folk devils, its tales of child molesters and lenient sentencing, and its hounding of a bald Swedish man named Sven, rushing to cover the front pages with pictures designed to make people say things like: "Awwww...wook at da widdle whaaaale."

Indeed. For a few short days, the nation was gripped by Wally Fever, and when political forces unknown loomed large over the crippled Liberal Democrats, nobody paid it much attention.

In a sense, this story started last year, when Michael Howard led the Conservatives to what a lot of people saw as a victory in The Most Boring General Election Since Time Began. They didn't win, of course, but their minor resurgence was enough that Howard could vacate his position with his head held high. What followed was a well-publicised leadership battle won by the comparatively young and hip David Cameron, whose sweeping changes have been met with raised eyebrows and muted approval amongst his contemporaries and the mainstream press. With Tony Blair and New Labour now caught in a web of unfulfilled promises and growing dissatisfaction, Cameron's increasingly dynamic Tories are beginning to look rather attractive to those people who never really wanted to vote for Labour in the first place. In fact, a recent poll put the two main parties on a par in terms of popularity.

Still, everybody knows that polls don't accurately predict election results, just as everybody knows that the trend since '97 has been of disillusioned Labour voters getting behind the Lib Dems rather than the Tories. Of course, the fact that portly Charles Kennedy recently stepped down as Lib Dem leader after the shocking revelation that he likes a drink or two won't have done much to hold onto those voters. Neither, for that matter, will yesterday's revelations about Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten, thrown to the wolves following an affair with a rent boy. The 'third party' has fallen on hard times, and the timing couldn't be better for David Cameron.

In beaching himself so close to the houses of parliament in the hours before his death, could it be that Wally The Whale was trying to tell us something? Leah Garces, of the foolishly-named Whalewatch, seemed to think so.

"It was almost as if he was an ambassador or martyr for his species," she said, and I found myself shaking my head at the television. Wally had clearly left his own kind behind in order to deliver his message, and we - animal loving fools that we are - had ignored him.

Wally is dead now, and it was only after his demise, as I sat contemplating the idea of Prime Minister Cameron, that the final twist in this sorry tale was revealed. The whale that had struggled so valiantly in unusual waters was, in fact, a girl.

"Wally has no willy," giggled The Sun.

We are doomed.

The Other Shoe

"I’m on fire, and now I think I'm ready to bust a move. Check it out, I’m rocking steady to the beat in my head. It goes oh, oh, oh, oh."

These extremes are going to be the end of me. Boredom to despair to crazed excitement to horrified anticipation. All this since I last posted. Still, the arrival of an interview date has put paid to despair for the forseeable future, and now that I can finally see a horizon, everything seems that little bit easier. Witness the boy sitting calmly at his keyboard, sipping hot chocolate and multi-tasking, smiling all the while. It seemed unthinkable a week ago.

So, I've given my notice at Blockbuster, and I'll be out of that hellhole on February 8th. The 9th is my interview date. If all goes well (and right now I'm not even considering any other possibility), I intend to fly one-way to California on the 23rd. It'll be a month of waiting for the other shoe to drop, I'm sure, but anything's better than the waiting we've been going through since last June.

Relief, happiness, mild hysteria. Expect Notes From A Darkened Room to regain its sense of humour in the next few days.

Coffins Placed On Pedestals

"Time on your side that will never end; the most beautiful thing you can ever spend. But you work in a shirt with your nametag on it, drifting apart..."

I've been dwelling on that thing I said the other night about writing being a painful process. Not an entirely true statement. It's painful at the moment, but that's mainly because it's all I can do just to sit down and actually type something without it wanting to be some stream-of-consciousness rant at crimes that have no perpetrators. In two weeks time, it'll have been five months since I saw Jenn. She was going to come this month, but we canned the idea because we believed I'd either be there or verging on it and we simply don't have the money for these constant Transatlantic trips. I know at my sensible, logical core (and I am, in the end, an almost insanely rational person) that confirmation of my interview date will be very, very soon. If there were issues with the application, we'd be aware of them by now. So it's a matter of sitting here and waiting for the letter. It will come, probably in the next few days.

But I get to thinking five months, and I get to thinking I have to go to work tomorrow, and I get to looking around a room I haven't tidied since the last time she was here, frowning at my reflection in a dust-coated mirror and trying not to let my gaze fall on any little memories. It's always Jenn's hairclip that gets me, this little black plastic thing that's been attached to the headboard of my bed for nearly a year now, removed in a moment of passion and then forgotten about. It's the first thing I see when I wake up, a memento of times past and times to come. I'd like to think that when I leave this room, when all the posters are down and the things I value packed away, when I turn around to take one last look at this weird little existence, I'll remember to put it in my pocket and take it home.

It's a conscious effort to turn things around like that, to invest them with some kind of future meaning instead of wistful nostalgia. If writing is painful right now, then I need to be looking forward to a point when it won't be, when I'll have time and space and a life empty of these petty crises. Not back, never back...there lies the alcohol and the bitterness and a heart just itching to suck up all the hate and scream it back at the world.

No future there but four walls and a slow fade.

These are the clamouring hands of the addictive personality, the urgent whispers of the bottle and all those heroes with coffins placed on pedestals because they had the balls to really burn out. There's my Messiah Complex right there, my ambition, to give it all back in vitriol, go down in the biggest and brightest ball of flames, leave them in stunned silence. Never die.

Yeah, and one of these days I guess we'll all drown in cliché. You don't choose the things that call out to you, only how you reply. I know that so long as I'm alone there are going to be times when it's really hard for me to hang onto sobriety. I also know that no matter what happens I'm going to spend the rest of my life glancing back over my shoulder at that particular demon. In the end, I still feel lucky. There are people out there with urges far worse than the occasional lapse into Doomed Artist posturing, and very few of them have a beautiful wife and another chance waiting patiently for a piece of paper that says it's okay.

The Great Bag Search Of '06

"For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled."

One of the things my employers occasionally get a bee in their bonnet about is making sure we do bag searches on all the staff at the end of the night. Generally, we don't but say we did. Tonight, however, we were early finishing and needed to kill some time, so we decided to go ahead and check everyone's bags. When it came to my turn, I opened up my rucksack without even thinking about what was inside.

Whoops.

I could have explained that the pills were prescribed for the stomach upset that's been troubling me lately, and I could have noted that the bottle of Jack was unopened and intended for personal use later on. I could have, yes. But the look of horror on the face of the girl who was bag-searching me was more than I could resist.

"Well, slitting your wrists looks like it really hurts," I said.

Another New Look

"Loneliness don't come around here, I've boarded up all the doors "

It really was time for a redesign, if only to disassociate what's here now from what was here before. It's a muted colour-scheme, for sure, so if anybody's having issues reading, let me know. I've always found the red a little garish, and I like these colours. That said, the issue first and foremost in my mind is that everyone can read it. Any problem on that score, drop me an e-mail.

The Stars And The Sacrifices

"And maybe I think, maybe I don't, maybe I will, maybe I won't find my way tonight."

Depressing e-mails and depressing conversations are the order of the day at the moment. Tough times, I guess. I've had worse, but this last month or so has been a definite low. I'm done whoring myself for Blockbuster, and it's getting worse than useless to pretend I have any kind of long-term investment in it. For a while there, I managed to fool myself into thinking that I could do it, that I could aim for a step up into Human Resources and then start thinking about a career. Finding Jenn knocked me so far out of my orbit that I even considered a life without writing. I mean, I got the girl, so why spend the rest of my life fucking around with the dragon? In some ways, it just didn't seem worth it anymore.

Writing isn't something that comes naturally and easily to me. In fact, a lot of the time it's a painful process. I need that release sometimes, but I don't need to go and get it published. That part is just vanity and validation, and over the past year or so, I've found myself wanting that less and less. In the end, I think most writers do what they do for that one particular reader, and maybe the fact that I've found that reader means I'm less driven towards ambition than I once was.

I wonder, lying in bed as it gets light, listening to my parents getting ready for work, if this is how it happens, if this is the thing I raged against as I left my teens. I had so much anger then, so much desire to be the brightest star in the sky, to prove some point I couldn't even begin to define. Now I'd be happy just to be in the right place with the right person. Fuck the stars and the sacrifices. I'm tired of it.

How I got here was thinking about the Visa thing, thinking about the future. This adult planning I've always hated so much. How I got here was thinking about just turning on the writer thing and making some fucking money. I'm out of patience with the shit jobs and the struggling, with forever waiting in line when I know damn well I don't have to. I could have stuck with jobs I had when I was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. I could have written a fuck-book for the desperate housewives and made a little money. The opportunities were there, and I passed them up because of some mealy-mouthed gibberish about art and dreams.

The days I wish I hadn't are never as bad as the days I wake up knowing it's not too late.

This isn't a pity-post, by the way. I expect no sympathy. A little empathy from certain quarters, maybe, but nothing more. These are just the things I'm dwelling on right now. There's a big fat fucking future up ahead, and I feel like I need to start shaping it before the decision is taken out of my hands.

A Softer World

"I don't ask for much. Truth be told, I'd settle for a life less frightening."

For bittersweet, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking webcomics, go here.

2005 - Part 2

"I saw a movie, I saw the saddest film, where everyone got killed, and the crowd went wild."

Movies
2005 was as good a year for films as we've had in a while. Part of that is, I'm sure, my own return to a position of knowledge after a few years away. Working for the Home Entertainment people has put me in a position to catch pretty much every DVD release I want to see, meaning I have a far greater knowledge of what's going on and a much longer list of flicks I'd like to see. That said, I think there was an improvement. One of the reasons I drifted away from cinema in the first place was the sheer number of awful, pointless, soul-destroying films being released, and I can honestly say from the point of view of somebody returning to the scene that the balance of crap/good has shifted slightly and the fat, lazy blockbusters of recent years have...well...improved. You still won't find any on the list below, but suffice to say there were a couple of event movies I actually quite enjoyed.

I wish I could have written more about the year that was, but time has once again gotten away from me. Here are five favourite flicks from 2005 (No time for fresh reviews, so I'm afraid it's quick thoughts for two of the films and reviews I wrote last year for the other three). I have now cleared my desk of all projects save for THE NOVEL, so I'll be back later in the week with some more topical scribblings. Until then, enjoy...

1. The Assassination Of Richard Nixon: I've been waiting for this one for a while. Anybody that knows me at all well will be aware that I have something of a fascination with politics in America in the late sixties and early seventies. In addition to that, I'm of the opinion that Sean Penn may well be the most misunderstood and underrated actor of his generation. I'm not sure what I expected from this film, but I know I expected it to be good.

So...is it about politics in America in the late sixties and early seventies? A little, but not really. There is certainly a sociopolitical theme, but to be honest, the film could have been set in the present day and still had the same resonance. More than anything else, it's a character study. The story is seen entirely through the eyes of the protagonist, Sam Bicke, and as such, it becomes a tale of the American Dream as he perceives it through an essentially decent nature and an anger at what he sees as the dishonesty and greed of the 'bullies' that run things, personified in this case by the president, Richard Nixon.

Beautifully directed by co-writer Niels Muller, and with a wonderfully subtle script that contains some excellent dialogue and a couple of scenes that say what it takes some helmers an entire ninety minutes to even hint at, The Assassination Of Richard Nixon is a lesson in the art of strong, concise filmmaking. Even without the great casting and the incredible central performance, this would have been a powerful and interesting film.

But it's the actors that bring the thing to life, in this case Don Cheadle as Bicke's only real friend, Bonny, Naomi Watts as his estranged wife, Marie, and Jack Thompson as Sam's boss. While they are, when you get right down to it, essentially playing the straight roles that so accentuate Bicke's emotional descent, it is the strong character performances from all three (and particulaly Cheadle) that let Penn off the leash and enable him to do what he does best.

Sam Bicke should not be a strong and sympathetic character. On the surface, he is a naive, weak, and stupid man whose ideals - while noble - have no basis in the day-to-day reality going on around him. This is certainly true in the sad and occasionally darkly comic first third of the film, where the character of Bicke is introduced as a manchild struggling to come to terms with the fact that his life is falling apart. There is a beautiful scene early on where Bicke, having seen the plight of the Black Panthers on television, goes to his local office and offers his support, telling the bemused leader that they should change their name to the zebras and double their membership (by including whites). Somehow, even here, you feel sympathy for Bicke. While he is portrayed as something of a fool, he is so earnest and sincere in his manner that you cannot help but feel both amused and somehow sorry for this sad little man so unable to fit in.

But then, as his marriage falls apart and it becomes clear that he will be unable to hold onto his job, as he becomes increasingly obsessed with obtaining a loan from the government to fund a business venture with Bonny (an idea he pitches to the bank in another scene that combines black humour, pathos, and a certain voyeuristic embarrassment to devastating effect), we begin to see the darker side of Bicke's American Dream.

Penn is stunning in the role of Bicke. I was sure that Christian Bale as Trevor Reznick in The Machinist would be the performance of the year. But as The Assassination Of Richard Nixon draws to a conclusion that might seem obvious, and Bicke's anguish, anger, and genuine confusion at what's happening to him set him on a downward spiral towards the denouement that gives the film its title, the worm - as far as the audience is concerned - begins to turn.

The closest comparison I can draw is with Holden Caulfield in Salinger's Catcher In The Rye. An easy character to dislike in the early stages of that story, Caulfield eventually draws our sympathy, our empathy, and a genuine sense of grief at his alienation and loneliness. Bicke is a similar everyman figure, and what makes the ending of this film so difficult to watch is that you know where he's headed. The blithe pragmatism of the other characters that seemed so right at the outset becomes unbearable, and the closer the film comes to closing out its promise, the more genuine and troubling a protagonist Bicke becomes...

I don't want to give away the ending, but I will draw a comparion with another classic piece of literature, that being Orwell's 1984. When the tale of Sam Bicke is told, you'll find yourself looking back to find some kind of redemption, something you missed. That the script recognises this and turns in on itself, showing you what you yourself felt when first introduced to this strange yet unremarkable man, is the final touch. The very last shot will break your heart.

Well directed, beautifully written, and with a showing from Penn that would see him showered with awards in a sane world, this is a film that you absolutely need to see.

2. The Machinist: In which Christian Bale doesn't sleep and is scarifyingly thin. The tale of Trevor Reznick is dark, claustrophobic, but ultimately redeeming, with symbolism aplenty and a masterful turn from an actor who deserves every plaudit he received for this and his franchise-reviving turn as The Dark Knight. Watch The Machinist, then watch Batman Begins, then watch The Machinist again. It'll fuck your head right up.

3. Oldboy: Oh, hey, did somebody call for an incredibly fucked up Korean vengeance flick with all the trimmings? You got it.

Note: If you fear subtitles, run away now.

So this guy, Oh Dae-Su, gets drunk one night and winds up at the police station. Upon his release, he's snatched off the street and locked up for fifteen years for no readily apparent reason. While inside, he writes his life story, whips himself into fantastic shape, and ponders why someone would do this to him.

One day, out of the blue, he is released, given clothes, money, and a cellphone, and told he has five days to discover the reason for his imprisonment. When the time runs out, somebody he loves will die. As Dae-Su's path of vengeance brings him closer to solving this riddle, the secrets of his childhood are revealed, along with the identity of a nemesis who is only just getting started...

Well, shit, I don't know quite where to begin. Hardcore Asian cinema has a whole different set of rules, traditions, and motives to your common American or European fare, and if you haven't been exposed to them on a slightly more watered-down level (Like John Woo or Takashi Shimizu) then this will fuck you up. I guarantee it. You'll be like, "Wha? Fu? Oh, Christ, that's GROSS!" And that'll just be the bit when some guy loses most of his teeth to a claw hammer...

But I urge you to strap in and give this film a try, if only because I thought it was fucking great and have come here purely to recommend it to you. Chan-wook Park's direction is, at times, utterly sublime (though at others just plain confusing), and Min-sik's performance as the borderline insane Dae-su (he refers to himself as 'The Monster') is both deeply disturbing and blackly hilarious. There's quite a lot about Oldboy that will leave you scratching your head right up to the final scenes and possibly beyond. It's a bizarre story, to say the least, with heavy references to hypnotism, incest, and - of course - violence. But it's a story that will drag you in and have you gritting your teeth as Park drags you from soft-focus flashbacks to the brutal, gritty present-day, never once letting on at how the thing will turn out until he finally delivers the knockout blow that I, for one, wasn't expecting at all. Powerful stuff.

A little more on that violence, if I may. This is not the stylised choreography of more conventional films. If you don't have a strong stomach, there is stuff here that will probably freak you out. I'm a gorehound of some standing, and have watched quite comfortably many people getting their internal organs ripped out or limbs hacksawed off or whatever. But there is one scene in Oldboy that had me watching from between my fingers and almost moaning in horror. I won't tell you what it is, but believe me, that takes some doing. There is, however, a positive point to be made. The violence in this film is very, very real. In fact, there is one lengthy fight scene where Dae-su takes on a gang of cronies in a corridor. It is, for me, one of the best scenes of its type I've ever seen, for the simple fact that a) it's a clumsy brawl with people falling over and throwing shit at each other and yelling, exactly like a real fight, and b) it portrays Dae-su not as a peerless superman, but as an almost subhuman monster out for vengeance and fighting for his life. It's one guy taking on about ten, and it's utterly convincing. I don't think I've ever seen that done before.

Anyway, this is by no means a perfect film, and it can be hard going. But if I guarantee you anything, it's that Oldboy will stay with you for quite a while after the credits roll.

4. Stander: South Africa in the late seventies and early eighties was not a happy place to be, especially if you were black. Andre Stander was not, but when his role as a captain in the police force led to him shooting an unarmed black protester during a riot, he began to question himself, his colleagues, and the system he was a tool of. Refusing to take part in riot duty following the shooting, Stander found himself left to desk-duty, his promising career on hold. Frustrated and alone in Johannesburg when a riot took the vast majority of the police officers out of the city, Stander committed an opportunistic bank robbery in order to prove his point that, in South Africa, a white man could get away with anything. He subsequently became one of the most famous criminals in South African history...

I guess I should take this opportunity to apologise to Mr. Tom Jane. While I stand by comments here and elsewhere regarding The Punisher and the excruciating Dreamcatcher, I find myself having to retract my opinion that Jane couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. The most riveting thing in a movie that has quite a lot going for it is his outstanding performance in the central role. Jane brings charisma, presence, and a real feeling of soul to the enigmatic Stander, sculpting a fascinating anti-hero and carrying the story on his shoulders without appearing to break a sweat. It really is a towering performace from the man, and I find myself wondering just how he managed to be so shit in so many of his other films.

Stander is a heist movie with a political heart, and while those politics aren't subtle, the audience never feels preached to. Where the intellectual side of things does rear its head, it's almost always in the interests of strengthening the characters or driving the plot forward. In that sense, Stander is pretty much flab-free. Considering the era and the weighty issues involved, it's a fine thing to find the point shown and not told. The philosophy never gets in the way of the criminal fun had by the three men who came to be known as The Stander Gang, nor the confusion and integrity of Andre himself. It merely lurks in the background, content to occasionally remind us that it's there through dialogue or Stander's struggle with the demons he inherited when he shot an unarmed man.

It's nicely directed, too. The movie has a grainy, washed-out look that captures both the time and the place with a minimum of fuss, and where director Bronwen Hughes (Forces Of Nature, believe it or not) chooses to turn on the style, it's unobtrusive and far more likely to draw a smile than a snarl. The beauty in this approach is that it really brings the focus onto Jane (and to a lesser extent his co-stars). My only complaint in this department (and about the whole movie) is that some of the earlier scenes feel rushed. Where some of the background is compressed, a sense of confusion is created that never really abates until the antics of The Stander gang become the focus of the film and everything slows down.

But that's a minor quibble, to be honest. I didn't have much in the way of expectations when I sat down to watch this film, and finding myself exposed to a flick that's entertaining, engaging, and finds itself on the receiving end of a Michael-flavoured recommendation was a very pleasant surprise. Fuck Ocean's Twelve. If you want to rent a film that has character, style, meaning, and all the cooler-than-thou set-pieces you'll ever need, give Stander a try. If nothing else, you'll at least get to see young Master Jane prove me very, very wrong.

5. Ong-Bak: Cool as fuck martial arts flick with a flimsy excuse for a plot unleashing the mighty Tony Jaa on an unsuspecting world. This is the perfect antidote for anybody getting just a wee bit tired of beautifully shot wire-work, with Jaa, as graceful as he is brutal, doing all his own stunts, my personal favourite being kicking a goon in the head while his legs are on fire. If you have any kind of inclination toward this kind of action, you need to get hold of a copy of Ong-Bak immediately. It'll rock your world.

Scope This

"My middle finger won't go down, how do I wave? And this is how I'm supposed to teach kids to behave?"

I appreciate that this isn't supposed to be funny, but that didn't stop me from falling against a bus shelter in Bedford a couple of weeks back, almost breathless with hysteria.

Anyhoo, to balance the karmic scales, you can find SCOPE's website here, and the homepage for the Time To Get Equal campaign that spawned this poster here. Go donate. Not only will you be doing something positive, but you'll also be encouraging them to make more unintentionally hilarious posters. It's win-win, kids.

First Of The Year

"She was a junkie for the printed word. Luckily for me, I manufactured her drug of choice."

Thought I'd interrupt my year in review by letting you know I have a new story, Drafts, up at Clean Sheets. I hereby dedicate it to everybody who thinks I'm not writing.

2005 - Part 1

"Congratulations to you, with sad regrets. I'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin."

I deliberately skipped Christmas and New Year here in The Darkened Room. There was nothing malicious in the act, I'm just a little bored by it all. There isn't much room in my heart for religion, tradition, and all the twee trappings of the holiday season. Personally, I like to think that my various friends, family members, and acquaintances are aware that I wish them well all the fucking time, not just when the occasion demands.

I don't get it. I probably never will.

But enough of all that. It's a shiny new year, and that means promises and expectations and maybe even prophecies from this little corner of the world. Before all that, though, it means taking a little look back at 2005 and going "Whoa, that was kind of awesome." Let's kick off with music.

Memorable Music
1. Blinking Lights And Other Revelations - Eels: A sprawling double album of jaw-dropping quality, Blinking Lights was, in my humble opinion, easily the year's strongest release. As ever, head Eel Mark Everett's lyrical candour, combined with the band's couldn't-give-a-fuck approach to genre, produced compelling results. Almost every song here is a gem, and taking the biographical trip through both discs is a raw and surprisingly emotional experience. An essential album from an essential band who were, once again, criminally ignored in favour of the usual talentless darlings of the alterna-pop scene. Download: Trouble With Dreams, Suicide Life, Last Time We Spoke, Old Shit/New Shit.

2. Mezmerize - System Of A Down: I've had a lot of arguments with metal fans about this record, mainly because a vast majority of those I've spoken to seem to take issue with the fact that System are so obvious and so accessible. If a record isn't impenetrable and heavy as fuck, the argument seems to go, then it isn't really metal. It's just a bunch of pop sell-outs who aren't a patch on Faith No More. Well, the Faith No More thing is another argument for another time, but I find System Of A Down's pop sensibilities both wonderfully subversive and strangely charming. After all, this is full on chunky riffage with some serious screaming and shouting and a downright frightening rhythm section. The genius of Serj Tankian and crew is that they can combine such an unholy racket with melodies and harmonies that'd make Pharell Williams go "Damn, that's catchy," and sledgehammer-subtle lyrics about politics and pop culture that are both cutting and affective. Mezmerize, unlike its follow up, is short, sharp, and very, very good. Download: B.Y.O.B., Cigaro, Violent Pornography, Lost In Hollywood.

3. Employment - Kaiser Chiefs: Several people I know just read this and gasped. My hatred of trendy bands, especially trendy British bands, ordinarily knows no bounds. The Chiefs, however, have won me over. In fact, I was hooked from the first time I heard Everyday I Love You Less And Less, and I bought the album the same day. I wasn't disappointed. There's nothing particularly deep and meaningful here, unless you're the kind of fucker who thinks Morrissey is intelligent and insightful, but that's not really the point. What The Kaiser Chiefs do better than anybody right now is to fire off short, smart pop songs that sound British without resorting to the kind of cliches that make our music scene so insufferably shite. In the current climate, that's an achievement in itself. That they pull it off with such style is what makes Employment such an astonishing debut. Download: Everyday I Love You Less And Less, I Predict A Riot, Born To Be A Dancer.

4. With Teeth - Nine Inch Nails: No, Trent Reznor hasn't changed all that much since Pretty Hate Machine, and this is a record that's unlikely to win over the doubters. It is, however, a far stronger, tighter, and more coherent album than The Fragile, and a welcome return to form for a man whose lyrical and musical prowess is often taken for granted. Singles The Hand That Feeds and the magnificent Only make for a great sampler of NIN's blend of irresistible rhythm, haunting melody, and industrial noise, and while With Teeth never wanders far from this template, you feel it doesn't really need to. Trent Reznor is probably never going to change, and based on this, that's a very good thing. Download: The Hand That Feeds, Every Day Is Exactly The Same, Only, Right Where It Belongs.

5. Crimson - Alkaline Trio: This made nobody's best of lists this year, and that's fine. I'm horribly biased when it comes to the Trio, and this took a while to worm its way into my affections. On first listen, it sounds overproduced and inconsistent, with bassist and co-vocalist Dan Adriano stepping up far more than is healthy for a band that relies so much on the self-destructive charisma and biting lyrics of frontman Matt Skiba. After a few listens, though, the larger pattern becomes apparent. Crimson is overproduced, but it also shows a maturity and coherency that's been absent from previous albums. The stuttering rhythms and layered piano of opener Time To Waste are a testament to that, and while there is plenty of old school AT here (most notably on Mercy Me and Back To Hell), tracks like Sadie and particularly Burn showcase a rather more accomplished rhythm section in the form of Adriano and drummer Derek Grant than had previously been apparent, hinting at a new direction for a sound that was in danger of becoming stale. A transitional record for the Trio, but an excellent listen nonetheless, especially if you're a fan. Download: Time To Waste, Burn, Dethbed, Sadie.

I'll be back later or tomorrow to do movies.