Stewart Home's Blog, page 5

Mister Trippy At Sight And Sound Greatest Film Poll

A month or three ago the BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine asked me to contribute my top ten films of all time for their 2012 critics poll. Now the BFI has published the results of their poll listing both the top 250 films and the choices of each individual critic! You can find that here. I was pleased to see that my tastes fell completely out of line with dominant critical opinion. As far as I can make out nine of the ten films I picked were unique to me. And my bottom and final choice Videodrome appears to have been nominated by only one other of the 846 critics who contributed top ten lists. When it comes to film – or anything else for that matter, but particularly music and literature – it seems my tastes are completely at variance with dominant critical opinion. That’s just one of many reasons why you know you can trust this blog to tell it how it is! And just in case you can’t be bothered to click through to the BFI site, here’s my top ten film list!

1. Beyond, The (1981 Lucio Fulci).

2. Django Kill! (1967 Giulio Questi).

3. Dolemite (1975 D’Urville Martin).

4. Liquid Sky (1982 Slava Tsukerman).

5. Masque of Red Death (1964 Roger Corman).

6. One-Armed Boxer II (1976 Jimmy Wang Yu).

7. Scorpion Thunderbolt (1988 Godfrey Ho).

8. Succubus (1967 Jess Franco).

9. Thundercrack (1975 Curt McDowell).

10. Videodrome (1983 David Cronenberg).

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Finnish Bed Hopping – A Close Encounter With High Culture

Today someone starting a conversation about the architect Alvar Alto reminded me of a funny incident that happened in Finland back in 1995. I’d done a reading in Tampere and had gone back to Helsinki to stay for one night with the writer and musician Petteri ‘Pete’ Paksuniemi. Pete insisted I have his bed and said that he’d sleep on the sofa. So I crashed out in a very comfortable bed at maybe three in the morning. Around seven Pete’s girlfriend – who was closely related to both Alvar Alto and the composer Jean Sibelius – came home and got into bed. She quickly realised I wasn’t her boyfriend and when she jumped up screaming it woke both me and Pete (who was on the sofa in the other room). Pete’s girl ran screaming from the flat and I was too tired to work out whether she’d got back into her clothes before she did so or just threw on a coat. Pete had been drunk when we got to his pad, so I guess he’d forgotten what time his girlfriend was going to get in, or maybe he just didn’t know…

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

The Chus Martinez Project

Chus Martínez is a relatively obscure Spanish guitarist who in the late-sixties and early-seventies played cheesy easy listening tunes with this band – often covers of well known hits. Given Martinez’s failure to conquer the world musical scene he can be interpreted as a symbol of heroic failure, and his name has been specially selected for a new multiple identity project in the tradition of Monty Cantsin, Karen Eliot and Luther Blissett. The Chus Martínez moniker has the advantage of being one that might belong to either a male of a female since Chus as a first name does not appear to be gender specific. In this way it is superior to any previous multiple identity we are aware of.

Chus Martínez  is a name that refers to an individual human being who can be anyone. The name is fixed, the people using it aren’t. The name Chus Martínez can be strategically adopted for a series of actions, interventions, exhibitions, texts, etc. You can use the name Chus Martínez when involved in making art, making music, or just making trouble as an activist. The purpose of many different people using the same name is to create a situation for which no one in particular is responsible and to practically examine western philosophical notions of identity, individuality, originality, value and truth.

Anyone can become Chus Martínez simply by adopting the name. When one becomes Chus Martínez one’s previous existence consists of the acts other people have undertaken using the name. When one becomes Chus Martínez one has no family, no parents, no birth. Chus Martínez was not born, s/he was materialised from social forces, constructed as a means of entering the shifting terrain that circumscribes the ‘individual’ and society. Chus Martínez is a transsexual collective phantom.

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Celebrities Suck! That’s Official!

Seeing the pictures of British Olympic gold medal winners with pop celebrities in the papers today reminded me that for some time I’d intended to post a blog about why celebrities suck. I’d had the idea of doing this long before cyclist Bradley ‘Wiggo’ Wiggins said in his post-Olympic win speech that he disliked celebrity culture. Anyway there is the papers today is Wiggo with an arm around Paul Weller in a Shoreditch nightclub, alongside speculation that Weller inspired Wiggo’s sideburns.

Paul Weller is a paradigmatic example of a celebrity who sucks. Back in the mid-seventies one of my mates had older brothers who were close friends of Weller – which is how I became acquainted with this particularly poxy poseur in his pre-fame days. In the spring of 1977 when the first single by Weller’s old band The Jam had just entered the bottom of the top thirty, I happened to be heading to the West End with my mate Mick Carver and we ran into Mick’s older brothers who were with Paul Weller. Mick stopped to have a conversation with his brothers, so Weller who already knew me told me how great it was to get in the pop charts. Weller said to me: “I’m famous now, do you want my autograph?” I told him to fuck off and I haven’t spoken to him since – and why would I want to when he’s a complete twat and has made so many terrible records over the years…

And let’s forget this nonsense about Weller being the Modfather coz he ain’t worth a light compared to someone like Jesse Hector of The Hammersmith Gorillas and various other bands. Hector even hails from Kilburn – as does Wiggo – and sported by far and away the greatest mod sideburns of all time! While Hector made some great records he ain’t a celebrity like Paul Weller, and that’s why the press isn’t speculating that Jesse Hector inspired Wiggo’s sideburns…

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

10 Most Popular Comment Topics On This Blog & Why They Bore Me

No matter what the original topic of my posts, sooner or later those commenting on them get back to the same old things they always want to talk about. Here are 10 topics I rarely dissect, examine, rehash or argue over but that spammers just can’t leave alone:

1. Penis enlargement. When you’re a swinging big dick like me you just don’t need penis enlargement, and nor do any of my readers about half of whom don’t have cocks anyway because they’re female.

2. How to monetise your blog. If those offering these services were able to monetise their own blogs they’d be doing that rather than trying to scam me out of dosh by offering to teach me how to become an “internet millionaire”. This always brings to mind that old saying: “Those that can do. Those that can’t teach.”

3. Girls tutus. Sorry but I’m not thinking of taking up ballet any time soon – and even if I might look ‘cute’ in a tutu I very much doubt they’re being sold in my size.

4. Zune versus iPod. If I’d wanted a Zune I’d have bought one and wouldn’t be using the iPod that I didn’t buy but was given.

5. Free porn sites. When Argos started selling glass kettles I’m told they used the strap-line ‘watch your water boil’ in their catalogue but dropped this sales pitch when they found it didn’t work. Now not even free porn sites can get viewers – but let’s not bother to discuss that.

6. Viagra. Chances are this is actually fake Viagra but either way I don’t need a pill to give me an erection – all I need to do to get a hard-on is look in a mirror!

7. SEO. I need search engine optimisation like a hole in the head! If this site becomes any more popular I’m gonna have to pay for a more expensive hosting service!

8. Discounted medicine. You may be sick but I’m not!

9. Replica watches. There’s a clock on my mobile phone and they will be clocks on the phones all my reader have too.

10. Add Facebook friends/Twitter followers. I’ve got more online friends than I can deal with already, and since I’m against any and all forms of leadership I certainly don’t want followers.

I also, of course, get plenty of spam comments about topics ranging from laser measuring equipment to top quality wielding, and from diets to low cost bondsmen in the USA – not to mention cut price designers and cheap farmland for sale in Canada, and special offers on designer clothes and private investigators offering forensic services. And I don’t want to discuss any of these things either!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Forget The Olympics, Play 3-Sided Football in South London this Saturday!

This Saturday (4 August 2012) there will be a three-sided football tournament at Fordham Park between Deptford and New Cross in south-east London. The games are scheduled to run from 11am to roughly 4pm. You can turn up as an individual and join a team there or bring a whole 5-a-side team with you. Or just go as a spectator. There is plenty of information about 3-sided football online and I’ve also blogged about it here. The game is played with three teams and three goals making it more strategic than two -sided football-  if you want to know more check it out elsewhere by using a search engine or going to Wikipedia. Beneath is the information I was emailed by the organiser of Saturday’s tournament:

Based on response so far we are expecting between four and six teams and the plan is to play four games in either a round robin or a knockout – depending on team numbers.

It is our hope to play with five-a-side – though we will more than likely need to be flexible with the numbers. As well as specific teams there are also a number of individuals and pairs indicating they would like to come along – so I’m sure that either these guys will join teams who have arrived one or two players short – or they may form up into particular teams on the day.

1. If we have between 16 and 24 players we will organise these into four teams, playing:

A : B : C

A : B : D

A : C : D

B : C : D

The league table will place the team with the highest number of goals scored against them at the bottom and the least at the top.

Teams will draw counters from a bag at commencement and the counters will allocate A, B, C or D to the respective teams.

2. If we have between 24 and 36 players we will organise these into six teams, playing:

A : B : C

D : E : F

L1 : L2 : L3 (three teams with lowest number of goals scored against during first round)

H1 : H2 : H3 (three teams with highest number of goals scored against during first round)

The league table will again place the team with the highest number of goals scored against them at the bottom and the least at the top.

3. If for whatever reason we only get a turn out of 12 to 15 players we will still have an exhibition match (and hope others might be stimulated to join in through seeing the play in action)

Game duration is going to be three fifteen minute thirds (rotations) with five mins between each rotation. Total tournament time thus four hours unless we play with six teams and have two games running in parallel – in which case two hours.

There is further information of the Deptford Three Sided Football Club website which you can find here. 3-sided football isn’t an Olympic sport and that’s yet another reason, as if one was needed, not to take Olympics seriously!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Forget The Sport, London 2012 Is Actually A Psychogeographical Activity!

Warned in advance of travel chaos during the 2012 Olympics due to overcrowding on the transport system, local people have been doing everything they can to avoid central London. Some of my acquaintances were actually told by their employers that during the games they should find accommodation within walking distance of their jobs to ensure they clocked in on time – since it wasn’t going to be feasible for them to commute across London. Many decided they didn’t want to put up with such bullshit and took holidays to get out of London during the Olympics. As a result despite detours, Zil lanes and closed roads, it is actually much easier to get around the city than is usually the case.

This morning I decided to check out parts of central London that I hadn’t been to since the Olympics started to see if they were as empty as the places I more usually hang out in. I got on a bicycle and rode through the West End and Mayfair to Hyde Park, then through the greenery to Kensington Gore. Despite the water being used for some Olympic events even the edge of the Serpentine wasn’t very busy – although I guess it was relatively early when I rode past.

I was going to have a wander around Kensington on foot but the cycle stands where I’d usually lock my bike had tape around them and a police message saying they were out of use during the Olympics. The racks in question are in front of a building being used by the USA Olympic team but I don’t see why that means you shouldn’t chain up a bike there. There were a couple of cycles in the stands that looked like they’d been there since before the Olympics started as they were covered with police tape – and they undermined the messages saying that any push bikes left in the racks during the games would be taken away.

Kensington Gore had been transformed into a sinister quarter  with the addition of temporary barriers down both sides of the road by the Albert Hall and the closure of some pedestrian crossings. Hit by waves of nausea as I approached the USA Olympic team base, I decided to head back through Hyde Park. By this time parts of that great green lung were getting busy as coaches drew up along Park Lane and off-loaded 50 or more Olympic tourists at a time. However, once I was heading along Hill Street in Mayfair I found that road extremely quiet.

I decided to go north along Davies Street so that I could check out Oxford Street. I found Davies Street blocked off part way up, so I had to detour through Hanover Square, half of which was also closed to all traffic. Oxford Street looked a lot quieter than you’d expect and was easy to cycle along – it had become an empty quarter. The traffic, mostly buses and coaches, got rather jammed up between Tottenham Court Road and Southampton Row – but eased out further down on Clerkenwell Road. The streets everywhere were much emptier than I’d expected – and a deserted metropolis in the middle of a summer weekday is a real treat!

It seems to me the point of the Olympics is to block off streets and empty large parts of London while jamming huge crowds into relatively small areas. The effect is to defamiliarise a city many locals know very well. The Olympics are therefore in practice a classically psychogeographical exercise and one that enables us to draw up new emotional maps of the London! So let’s forget the sport and dream up a new world!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

London Disappears & Is Replaced By A Fake Olympic Image Of Itself!

Even before the opening ceremony for the Olympics central London was strangely deserted. There were less people most places I went and a lot less traffic. Every now and then I’d run up against barriers to hold back crowds that were supposedly going to materialise to watch the Olympic flame procession – but I was pleasantly surprised by how few people appeared to be interested in this, although the media and Olympic organisers claim this non-event attracted huge crowds.

Now when I go into corner shops – such as newsagents – the owners complain that the Olympics has ruined their business. The endless warnings to locals to get away from London to avoid the total disruption of their lives, added to the fact that the roads are  carved up with Stalinist Zil lanes reserved exclusively for official traffic, have had the effect of transforming much of the British capital into a ghost town. Not even the city’s notoriously right-wing black cab drivers (many are ex-cops) seem to like the London Games because they’ve been banned from driving in the Zil lanes.

While the cops have cracked down on protesters – for example by  kettling and arresting those attending a regular pr0-cycling Critical Mass rally – and the Olympics itself is pumped up with corporate and nationalistic bullshit, having less cars running around the city is fabulous. The air is cleaner and the streets are safer! So why not make this upside to the Olympics permanent – by banning cars and black cabs from London forever?

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

2012 Olympics Are Crap Says US Expert

Dr Al Ackerman, a noted expert on the many pleasurable ways it is possible to manipulate Chinese anal love beads, says the London 2012 Olympics are crap. Dr Ackerman’s criticisms focus on the fact that instead of concentrating on real sports like topless tennis, nude mud wrestling and bedroom athletics, the organisers have turned the event into a fashion parade. “The original Olympic spirit was naked as nature intended,” Dr Ackerman opines by Skype from his Baltimore home, “I could spend all day watching nude gymnastics but what’s the point if the performers are wearing post-modern designer leotards? The ancient Greeks stripped off for all their sporting activities and we should do the same. I’m not impressed with the cultural Olympiad either – rather than theatre in the round it should feature theatre in the buff!”

Dr Ackerman, known to friends as Blaster thanks to the pungent odour of his farts, also criticised the choice of sponsors for London 2012. “McDonald’s meals might give you indigestion but the flatulence produced by a Big Mac is a damp squib compared to the effect of a really good burrito. If you’re gonna sit on your ass watching sports on TV you should definitely be eating tacos rather than burgers.” Blaster insists.

Ackerman explains that: “The miasma that gradually builds up  from your burrito farts will get you high, but don’t forget to keep the windows and door closed. Once I’m really out of it on that tangy taco stink I like to slip a pillow case over my head. Have a pillow slip to hand with a single slit cut into it for your third eye, coz if you’re watching fit athletes with super strong legs – Venus Williams for example -  you may have a mystic experience. But that ain’t gonna happen if you’re chomping on Big Macs. Rather than accepting sponsorship from the likes of McDonald’s, the Olympic organisers should have sought out backing from burrito merchants. Likewise Coca-Cola as a 2012 backer is a joke! Why they didn’t approach a company that made a decent drink like Four Roses bourbon or Thunderbird wine?”

So there you have it – the London Olympics are crap! That’s official!

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!

Humour Shortage Devastates Blogosphere!

The blogosphere has been hit by a humour shortage following an influx of blogs secretly funded by major corporations to boost the poor public images of companies such as Wal-Mart. Comments on social media are also becoming increasingly dry as a result of PR driven astroturfing campaigns and spam comments designed to boost the search engine rankings of commercial websites. Research indicates that the blogosphere is now 67% less humorous than it was 5 years ago and the situation is getting worse.

Mister Trippy can confirm that this blog has been inundated with astroturf and spam comments in recent weeks.

Supplies of jokes, one-liners and humorous ripostes are running low as UK based blogs attempt to ward off the cavalcade of corporate crap brought together under the aegis of the London 2012 Olympics. This week London bloggers appealed to independent media producers and the public for help.

Avant-garde pornographer and blogger Stewart Home told one of his other 665 schizophrenic multiple personalities: “The wet weather has meant we are running out of jokes. Traditionally London has an over production of humorous blogs but the continuous rain we’ve suffered over the previous three months has prevented many local bloggers from getting into the kind of social situations that might be mined for their humour.”

“It is sunny now and I’m enjoying seeing lots of people (and especially thrity-something women AKA MILF) in skimpy outfits – but the hot weather has only been with us for a couple of days and is not expected to last into the weekend.”

“The lack of opportunity to flirt and engage in other types of social banter has been a huge drain on my ability to generate fresh jokes and I am are hoping people from outside London will help me make up the shortfall by leaving witty comments on my blogs; as well as by sending me examples of their home porn.”

“Donations of jokes, one-liners and humorous ripostes are gratefully appreciated and can left as comments below this post. Women aged 21 and over can contact me through the web mail form on my site to arrange ways in which I might view their home porn.”

According to new figures released this week, Mister Trippy has seen a 52 per cent increase in the number of jokes he cracks over the past five years. A large number of the these gags are sexual in nature and require social interaction to inspire them.

Tessie Talk (another of Mister Trippy’s multiple personalities) added: “Humour is the only sane response to an insane capitalist world – without it even more people would be cracking up..”

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!