Craig Stone's Blog, page 6
February 21, 2014
February 20, 2014
February 19, 2014
February 18, 2014
February 17, 2014
January 3, 2014
Review of The Executioner’s Song
I’ve been reading this book for about 24 years. I can no longer take it back to the library I loaned it out from, because the library has become a cinema. That cinema was knocked down 5 years ago and made into a Blockbuster Video. Last year that Blockbuster Video was knocked down and made into a Starbucks. So, I’ve just left the book on the shelf in Starbucks. If Starbucks ever release a coffee that takes 26 years to drink, this could well yet become the perfect book.
Is this book good? Well, in parts. Is it intelligent? In parts. Is it beautiful? In parts. Does the author occasionally throw in the best metaphor I’ve ever read? In places, yes. But, the problem is, the book is so massive and long, the stars are lost to the galaxy. The moments of greatness that are in this book, are too far apart for it to have the great impact its reputation claims it will have on the reader.
There is brilliance, yes. But there are also chapters that go on and on where agents are talking film rights and, well, these parts made me want to put my head into the arse of a horse. I am sure they were factual, but they did nothing for the pace of the book.
I feel like the author was unsure whether to write a book or a newspaper article, and landed nowhere.
A good book, yes. One of the great books of all time? Not in my opinion.
964/1003 stars.
December 20, 2013
Artists, be strong. The world is trying to change you.
I am a writer. World, stop trying to change me. Please.
I don’t need to change. I am the living embodiment of change because this is who I am and what I want to be. I make enough money from writing to cover my bills. Sure, I could do what you want world. I could make you feel better about failing your own dreams by taking a job in an office or a popular franchise. But, why would I? Sure, world, I’ve been saving for eight weeks for a new pair of trainers. Sure, there’s no chance of me getting a Playstation 4. But, you know what world? Waiting is good. Waiting is important. Waiting has value. World, I know you don’t understand. I know you are confused. I know you’ve grown to measure success by the size of a bank balance. But, world, you are wrong. True success is what’s achieved by following dreams. You won’t find it on a payslip or at a free staff Christmas party, because success is a feeling. Failure is everything else. Failure is looking back on your life and wondering why you spent so long chasing money you can’t spend when you’re dead. Failure is a person still wondering at the end of their life what they’ll do with it once it begins. Failure is dying with a head full of questions and not a smile because you found your own answer.
World, we only get one shot at this life. So, please stop asking me and other writers/artists the following because you all sound the same and it’s boring:
You got any work yet?
How’s the job hunting?
You’re still young enough to have a career.
I’ve left the newspaper on the side. It’s got some decent jobs in it.
The bloke from Securitas might need someone.
What are you going to do, really though?
Have you thought about joining the army?
Artists – writers, poets, musicians, actors, street performers, lion tamers etc:
Ignore the world. The people who doubt art are often artless. They are experts in other fields, but in the field of art they have a moving mouth but a silent heart. They are bland and grey and dull. They shoot down anything original with carefully harvested piles of bitterness. So, please world – next time you ask a writer or an artist of any kind if they’ve found a real job yet, stop and think before you do. You big silly arrogant drone. Ask yourself what’s so great about your career and life that you think you’re in a position to offer advice. If you think you love your career, that’s great. But remember, it’s not over yet. Wait until you get old and realise the job you love doesn’t love you back. Maybe then, in your old age, once the system has spat you out, you’ll pick up that old battered guitar and learn how to play Stairway to Heaven again. You should encourage artists. You should embrace artists. You should buy their books and share their music, and you should encourage others to do the same.
World, ask yourself if your job really fills your heart with peace, because only if it does, can you ask an artist if they’ve found a real job yet. Remember: if how you live doesn’t fill your heart with peace, you also don’t have a real job. And if you are questioning artists whilst unhappy in your own job, then you are simply working for the system. Trained and brained.
This is you, if that’s what you do: Wake. Coffee. Work. Coffee. Recruit. Work. Sleep. Repeat.
Sounds rubbish to me.
Here is food for thought: artists are the people who have the real jobs. Most writers don’t make much money. We don’t wear suits and own shares. But if you look really closely, you might just realise it’s most of the other jobs that chip away at the will to live.
And meanwhile, it’s the artist, who dances.
December 18, 2013
I once had a cat like Ronnie Biggs…
I had a mental cat once. Pissed over the bed and forced me to clean up after it. Threw up in my fridge for a laugh. Attacked children. Ate the heads off all of my Barbie dolls. Drank heavily and knocked me about when it felt lonely or like I was going to leave. Got a tattoo with the words “HATE LOVE’ spiked into its forehead when travelling through Asia on the back of a car it built by sticking together the bodies of forty dead mice.
I was going to call my cat Bastard. Instead, I called it Legend. I called it Legend sarcastically.
Ronnie Biggs spent 30 years skint wandering around Brazil begging for alcohol; like a massively shit George Best.
But he was mostly like my mental cat, was Ronnie.
They were both far greater bastards than they will ever be true legends.
So, what do you think?
Was Ronnie Biggs a legend, or a bell-end?
October 29, 2013
Lou Reed RIP
Elvis Presley was a replica doll with jet black hair, he clutched a plastic guitar, and when a music producer picked him up, his head wobbled because it was attached by a spring; Lou Reed walked on the wild side, with a lighter in his hand, setting fire to the world because he refused to take it seriously. If The Beatles and Bowie were puppets of pop, Lou Reed held the strings and moved the puppets closer together, to make them kiss, to elicit complaints from parents and encourage tears from the eyes of blinking children. His poetry will forever resonate.
The ‘musicians’ of today fight for approval by removing clothes to boost the bank balances of the already rich.
Lou Reed didn’t care what people thought, and if he could, he would have rolled up and smoked Miley Cyrus.
Saying sorry
Reblogged from Matt Hill, writer:
Writers’ loved ones are the world’s most patient people -- after taxi drivers in the arrivals lounge, anyway. They really deserve so much better than the crap they get served by writers in full-blown writing mode, word-wangling somewhere up their own W-hole.
Here’s a customisable letter of apology the average writer can use to start building bridges with their nearest and dearest.
enjoying this from Matt Hill...
