The Holidays provided a useful opportunity to do three things:
1) Complete new draft of script.
2) Play with the guitar I bought on eBay.
3) Live in complete denial about what I’m letting myself in for.

I mean – blagging to the press that you’re going to bomb Bagdad is one thing. Actually finding the camels, elephants, smart bombs, bullets and people who’re willing to die while wearing matching camo outfits is something else. So, I’m compiling a list of things I’ll need to buy / borrow / get / steal / do…
1) Need car – any convertible will do. Preferably something looking battered or cheap that an out of work actor could afford.
2) Need to buy video camera to shoot movie.
3) Need to learn how to use it.
4) Need a lot of extras.
5) Need to make some t-shirts to get a buzz going: “I invested in a Hollywood movie – all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”
6) Need better idea for t-shirt logo.
7) Need Fed-ex or UPS outfit.
8) Need a pineapple costume.
9) Need a purple dinosaur costume.
10) Need a cute girl who’ll wear underwear in a film.
11) Need a cheesy office location for a seedy Hollywood agent (and girl in underwear).
12) Need 1 pair red satin shorts, 1 gag, 1 pair handcuffs. (the kind that a girl in underwear might have).
13) Need a new Range Rover for a day.
14) Need a bunch of people in swim-wear for a day…kind of like the girl in her underwear.
15) Need some free press.
16) Need forty empty or used Starbucks cups.
17) Need a beret with a red star on it.
18) Need a loudhailer – doesn’t have to work.
19) Need to blag an outdoor restaurant patio for an afternoon.
20) Need some Roman helmets and togas.
21) Need a spear with some fake movie blood on it and a paramedic uniform.
22) Need a girl who’ll pretend she’s in a porno movie – doesn’t need to get naked.
23) Need a partially deflated balloon.
24) Need a man-dressed-as-a-Tampon outfit.
25) Need to get a favor from the guy who wrote “Act Naturally.” My guess is he’s dead so I’ll have to blag his publisher.

Don’t feel embarrassed about offering to help me with any of the above. I’ll let you know how the search is going.

I couldn’t sleep.

It was the middle of the night so I got on the web. CNN.com was too depressing – full of stories of death and mutilation – so I started surfing, eventually winding up on eBay. Another flash of inspiration hit me. In the script there’s a scene where all of Moe’s acting pals are armed with video cameras. When we eventually shoot this scene I’m going to need maybe 20 or 30 video cameras of various ages – I’m going to be on a budget and I’ll need cheap ones – doesn’t matter if they don’t work. Within minutes I’d bid on 10 cameras – all costing less than 2 bucks a piece.

“I’m a frigging genius,” I thought, “Ten cameras for less than $15!”.

Now I’ll confess that this was the first time I’d ever actually bid for anything on eBay – call me old school but I’d always given the place a wide birth. Suddenly I felt I could dress the entire movie on the cheap through the web. This was going to be a cakewalk. That’s when I saw that small print about the shipping costs. These lo-cost cams all came with battery packs and chargers and those suckers are heavy. Most people were estimating around $20 for shipping. Help! My bargain basement approach to propping the movie had just leapt by over 1,000%.

First lesson of home-financed movies learned. Have patience. Read the small print. Humbled and dispirited I did what any grown man would do at four in the morning while dressed in his PJs and surfing on the web.

I bought a guitar.

POSTSCRIPT. It seems I was outbid on nearly all of the cameras. I did however get a winning bid in on one camera for less than $9 including postage. It should arrive any day now.

It’s been 15 long months since I wrote that first missive and obviously things didn’t work out quite as I’d hoped.

But maybe it’s all part of a bigger plan that I am only just beginning to apreciate. Chasing Fate indeed.

After I’d posted that first optimistic blog we all threw ourselves into the process of getting a large production underway. First came the fun dinners as the producers and the writers and myself all became friends and we all tried to establish what made each other tick. They were enamoured of my video career and seemed obsessed by Britney’s ‘Oops’ video – I loved them for their enthusiasm and their determination to get this movie made with me at the helm. We started taking meetings at the Film Company and soon we were meeting casting directors and establishing what kind of movie we were making. It seemed that our budget would be about 15 million bucks and, in my quietest moments, I was full of awe that at last I was going to be making a real movie. “Don’t screw this one up!” I thought.

With a casting director in place the casting process began and as the pale Los Angeles winter crept upon us we spent hours and hours meeting every attractive and interesting and vaguely available young actor and actress in town. It was a fascinating process. Some were enormously talented, some were amazingly beautiful, some were obviously desperate, others were just plain ordinary. But as the months passed by I became more confidant and truly felt that we were all getting somewhere.

Meanwhile the project’s announcement had hit the papers. Amazingly I found myself and a certain enormously succesful entertainment person who was involved mentioned in the same headline in a Reuters report. “This is bloody marvellous!” I thought.

As we worked away I continued making videos. On one occasion, in order to remain available for casting in LA, I persuaded a six piece band from the UK (along with their managers and their label folk) against their wishes and at their expense to fly to LA so I could shoot them here rather leave town for a week and miss some meetings. I got permission to take a long-planned fortnight’s holiday in Australia and the casting sessions were adjusted to let me go. As I sat on the cusp of 2004 and cycled along a windy beach Down-Under I was very excited about what the New Year had in store for me. Even so, having been disappointed before, I told those around me that the back-slapping was very premature and they should keep their much-apreciated congratulatory messages on hold till the movie’s release party.

By the end of January we had our cast and my lawyer was spending hours hashing out my contract. A particularly tough point was the fact that he and my agent wanted me to get a Development Fee for all the hours I was spending working on the film. A compromise was reached and a sum agreed. I started turning work down to make myself available for the movie which was going to happen at any moment.

Then the Film Company bailed.

For a number of reasons, none of which were entirely clear but mostly I think to do with dollars, they announced didn’t want to make the film. The day after word came through that they had walked their lawyer rang me up demanding to know why I hadn’t signed my contract! I did the honest thing and suggested he should speak to his superiors. On reflection I should have kept my mouth shut and signed – I would have picked up that pesky Development Fee that had caused my lawyer so much grief.

My energetic producer was full of enthusiasm, “We’ll take it elsewhere,” he confidently predicted. But as the months drew on it seemed that no-one wanted to make a 15 million dollar movie and the cast we’d picked were too costly for a 5 million dollar version and didn’t justify the investment in a 30 million dollar one.

As the fallout became more noticable on the Hollywood Geiger Counter the script well dried up. The amazing head of steam I’d felt I was being propelled along by at the end of 2003 had evaporated and the press clippings waiting to be filed announcing our casting choices and possible start dates taunted me like old lovers who’d moved on to newer pastures. The be-suited gentleman in whose hands I had trusted my career and who’d so happily wined and dined me as we felt we were on the brink of such a major breakthrough now confessed that I was such a nice and talented guy that he thought someone else should look after my career. Let’s just translate that piece of amazing double speak into other words shall we? “You’re so brilliant, I’m firing you!”

Plainly it was the last gasp of my involvement with Chasing Fate and all I had was some memories of some fine free meals and a bunch of unrecouped Beverly Hills style parking receipts for all those hours spent in casting. For all our months of work neither myself, my manager or my lawyer had received a penny.

Next.

One Friday afternoon I was putting together a reel for someone and I found myself watching a clip from 2gether – perhaps the best script and only decent film I’ve directed. I giggled as I watched the guys do their stuff and suddenly it dawned on me. Kevin Farley was born to play Moe Jones – the lead of a script called CALLBACK – a low budge comedy I’d written with my pal Jordan a few years back.

A new plan of world domination quickly hatched in my fertile brain cell and this time I’m going public with it. To hell with Hollywood! I’m going to make another movie even if they don’t want me to. Kevin has agreed to play the lead and I’ve agreed to break the first law of film-making and I’m going to spend my own money making the movie if I have to. Moe Jones, the part Kevin will play, is a lovable but desperate actor in Hollywood, a very talented and decent fellow, who can’t get a gig. He decides he’ll do whatever it takes to get the part of the bad guy in the next Die Hard movie. It took a week for me to realise that perhaps Moe’s story, one that I’d started writing years ago, is eerily familiar to me. Hmm.

As I recall many film productions are made under the banner of a new incorporated company so that the finances of the production can be more easily handled. If this is the case I will call the company that makes Callback ‘Nice and Talented Guy’ inc.

There I’ve said it. I’m going to make the damn movie. Better get to work and produce something now otherwise I’ll look like a real wanker!

Dear Joe Record Guy (or Girl),
A disturbing new trend is making its way into the music video business and I want to vent about it. But first, for those of you not in the biz, a little bit of back story.

When people like myself are asked to come up with an idea for a music video (we call it a concept or a treatment) the label sends us a copy of the song to listen to. This is one of the many honours and blessings of our business – we get to hear a hot new song weeks before anyone else. It’s a privilege that I treat with great respect.

As we all know in the last few years MP3, Napster, iPod and other extraordinary new words have come into our lexicon and these new bon-mots haunt the nightmares of record execs everywhere. The execs are justly nervous that the music they produce, and make a living by, is making its way around the world for free. Obviously Joe Record Guy looks at someone like me as a possible deviant who will dump his hot new track onto the web weeks before it’s available to the public, thereby neutralizing its carefully structured release plans or just simply screwing up potential sales.

Fair comment.

In order to stop me from doing this Joe Record Guy has come up with a brilliant new gag. He sends me a copy of the tune but he dips the sound to 0 db (that’s no sound at all) over and over and over again during the song. He seems to love doing it at the moments when the lyrics might provide some clue as to what the song is about or when the music really takes off. I got a hot new song a couple of days ago and they dipped the sound TWELVE times in four minutes. Try listening to your favourite song and get someone else to dip the audio for you at TWELVE random times during the tune and I guarantee you’ll want to hit them. In fact I’d go so far as to say don’t try this at home at all – especially if there’s a loaded firearm in the vicinity.

The reason JRG sends me the song to listen to is so that I’d be inspired. Believe me, Joe Record Guy, this isn’t inspiring – IT’S INCREDIBLY ANNOYING! And there are alternatives. Here are some of the other methods I’ve come across from other labels to make sure I won’t rip off your precious sounds…

1) Put a threatening spoken message at the beginning of the track which says something along the lines of, “This music belongs to us. If you put it on the web we’ll track you down and make you squeal like a pig.”

2) Send out a CD with an individually encoded watermark with my name on it. If I dupe it or download it every copy will have my name running through just like that actor who allowed his DVDs to be pirated. You won’t have to track me down – you can just come straight over and make me squeal like a very fat pig.

3) Send me a really bad cassette copy that no-one will want a copy of. Luckily I still have a cassette player.

4) Make me sign a disclaimer and return the CD after I’ve written the concept. The lawyers really like this one because they get to charge for coming up with the disclaimer. It’s a drag for me though because I don’t get to keep the free CD which is what normally happens even if I lose the treatment-writing contest. Bummer.

5) Don’t give me a copy of the song. Make me go to a studio and listen to it there. The added bonus with this approach is that I get to meet some really miserable assistant studio engineer who’s had to come in early just so he can watch me under my headphones staring at my lap-top waiting for inspiration to strike.

6) Don’t let me hear the song at all. Incredibly this has happened to me a couple of times recently. They tell me it will be uptempo and give me 48 hours to write. In one instance the song hadn’t even been recorded.

Dear Joe Record Guy – these six options all work. The sound dipping version DOESN’T.

What the sound-dipping thing does though is tell me that us video directors have really slipped off the edge of the respect map. After all these years of writing countless concepts for free and taking it like a man on set and in edit suites you’re now telling me that I can’t be trusted? I’m the guy who sees your artists undressed, taking drugs, getting drunk, having affairs, bitching and whining about you and yours and I keep it to myself and I don’t talk to the press.

And I can’t be trusted with four minutes of music?

Dear Joe Record Guy, this is my business too. I love music, I’ve missed births, deaths and marriages because of music.Believe me you can trust me with your four minutes of music. The worst that can happen is that I’ll play it to someone else and encourage them to buy it! End of Vent.

I’ve been deluged with people wanting to know the results of my geography quiz (scroll down to Geography – 17th April). To back-track for a second I took it upon myself to travel the high-ways and by-ways of this land asking the simple question: “In which country would you find Mount Everest?” The purpose of my poll to was to obtain data to support or disprove my much-discussed and over-simplified cod-political theory that U.S. Foreign Policy is in a shambles because most Americans know nothing about the world beyond the borders of our country. I assumed that if there was one Geographical item Americans would know about then Everest (the world’s tallest mountain) would be it.

Wrong.

22% of the people I asked replied: “I don’t know.” When I suggested they might like to hazard a guess they couldn’t even think of the name of another country. These people need to return to school immediately.

Astonishingly 22% of the people I asked believe that Mount Everest is in the USA! It appears that if it’s big it must be American. These people need to be given a good clout over the head with a large atlas (that’s a book full of maps by the way) and sent to the back of the class to join those people who can’t name any other countries. On conclusion of their studies we’ll see if they should be allowed to vote ever again.

20% got the answer right: Nepal. These people should report to Washington straight away and replace all politicians in charge of foreign policy.

One person said: “It’s in Nepal, though that’s not a country.” Another said it’s in Tibet which also technically correct as the summit ridge is on the Nepalese-Tibetan border. Another person said China which, depending on your feelings about Chinese politics, is a vaguely correct answer too. These people should do revision after school on Friday and can then apply for any remaining jobs in Washington.

5% thought that Everest was in India (someone else thought Burma) which is close and they’ll be forgiven – but they’ll have to do extra home-work first.

5% of those polled believe Africa is a country. Another 5% believe South America is a country. These people need to take a special needs class along with the person who believes Washington is a country (!) and will also be getting the Atlas treatment listed above.

One person thought Everest was in Switzerland. Well it has mountains so I guess their lateral thinking is good. This person can go work at the UN in the Five-fishes world hunger program.

One grip I worked with looked at me and said “Who gives a $#@%.” Took a drag out of his cigarette and walked off. If I didn’t espouse global peace and understanding between nations and I didn’t give money to the Brady Center to Control Gun Violence I’d have this man shot.

Conclusion: Theory proved. If more Americans knew where Mount Everest was we wouldn’t be in Iraq. It’s obvious isn’t it?

By the way the Nepalese for Everest is: Sagarmatha and the Tibetan: Chomolungma. For more info on this fine piece of rock history go to http://www.mnteverest.net/history.html
Useful reading: “What Every American Should Know About The Rest Of The World” by M.L. Rossi

(Spoiler alert – if you’re under 18 or offended by very naughty words please don’t read this diary entry).

On a recent visit to Ireland I found myself laughing at the breakfast table. An article in the Sunday Tribune (apparently Europe’s best designed weekly newspaper) caught my eye. It’s headline was: “Fucking villagers vote against name change.”

The article continued: ‘Residents of an Austrian village called Fucking have voted against changing the name. The 150 or so people who live in the village debated the issue after road signs kept being stolen – many by British tourists. A spokesman said: “Everyone here knows what it means in English, but for us Fucking is Fucking – and it’s going to stay Fucking – even though the signs keep getting stolen.”‘

The article concluded with this useful final sentence for people interested in Austrian cartography: ‘Similar votes on a name change have recently taken place in Austrian towns Wank Am See and Petting, as well as in Vomitville and Windpassing.’

Of course you’d NEVER find an article like this in the Sunday paper here. And if you were offended by this you certainly don’t want to hear what the Irish think of George W. Bush and his mob. Note to self: get a subscription to the Sunday Tribune right away.

I don’t smoke and I’ve always been annoyed by those who do. Most die-heard smokers will tell you that seconhand smoke is not really harmful. Oh yeah?

Check out this little article I recently found in Time. “The health risks posed by secondhand smoke are well documented but…what is sure to fire up the tobacco lobby was a small study out of Helena Montana. When the city passed an ordinance banning indoor smoking in 2002, Helena’s only heart hospital recorded a 40% drop in the number of heart attacks. What’s more, when a court order lifted the ban half a year later, the heart-attack rate bounced right back.”

Um…for those of you who don’t know Brits call cigarettes fags.

Apparently Saturday June 12th will be World Naked Bike Ride day. The crazy folk who are planning this have a web-site (www.worldnakedbikeride.org) to give us full details of their upcoming plans. (Beware – home page features not very sexy meat and two veg. shot).

Can someone tell me why, if they plan to ride naked, they are selling T-shirts?

I got an e-mail from a mag in England the other day asking me to select a joyous piece of music that others should hear that might not appear on the usual top 100 album albums list. There was a deadline and I picked three memorable singles at random…

KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE – QUEEN
Every Tuesday night was OGWT Night and we would crowd into the Student’s Union (about five hundred of us) to watch one TV and listen to Bob Harris whisper his way through the off-chart sounds that would formulate my future musical tastes. One night over a dusty animated cartoon (Felix the Cat?) he played this short, frenetic, intense guitar anthem. Brian May’s crazy home-made axe, the many layered Mercurys, and them pounding Taylor drums did what the funny looking pills did for my drug-taking friends and raised my blood pressure and sent my pulse racing. Next morning I was on the bus to Woolies to relieve myself of an evening’s drinking money so I could get this 7″ slab of black dynamite.

And now thirty years later I ask myself why was it so special? And I realise I haven’t got the faintest clue what Freddie was on about. Something about a “Belladonic haze” more stuff about “tea on silver trays.” I would just yell out the words I knew and mumble the rest: “Keep yourself alive, keep yourself alive, something, something, something, honey, keep yourself alive.” In retrospect it wasn’t so much what it was about as what it wasn’t about. Paul Rodgers, my other adolescent hero, would sing about what he was getting plenty of and I wasn’t getting any of: girls or rather women (even better) and lots of gratuitous sex. Freddie and his lot had sprinted right past that and were already onto some higher plane and looking into some exciting future (with their first single!) that would lead them ultimately to Radio Ga-Ga and Flash. Heck this was even better than Zeppelin who were still lost in their mouldy netherworld with echoes of Tolkein and Aleister Crowley.

But best of all was that guitar. All those layers and all those fingers and a solo I could sing to even if I couldn’t play it yet. And then to discover that Brian May was an Astrophysics graduate and had built his guitar from a fire-place! Wow. How bloody cool was that? All I needed was an old fireplace and a saw and I too could be a guitar hero. And if I could plug myself into the mains I could have a haircut like him as well.

It was clever, it was complex, it was mysterious and confusing, and I couldn’t work out the words, and I couldn’t figure out how it all fit together, and I had to keep playing it over and over to see if I could unlock its secrets. A bit like my first girlfriend really. And at the end as the song faded Freddie told me, most importantly, the words I desperately needed to hear as I struggled through those frightening and bewildering times: “You will survive, you will survive!”

F*** OFF – WAYNE COUNTY AND THE ELECTRIC CHAIRS
After eight long years in prison (I mean boarding school) they let me out of the home and I slowly emerged from my shell a frightened middle class kid who underneath it all wanted to be Jimmy Page but somehow was pretending that a future in the building trade was really where it was at. Then punk happened and, though I was already balding and couldn’t grow the right kind of mohican, I flowered and one day purchased this 7 inch slice of delicious sleaze. I would happily sit on the tube and look at the poor office-locked bastards looking down their noses at me with my earring and my Lewis Leathers leather jacket and sing to myself: “”you say you’re hot s**t so I’ve heard – well you ain’t nuthin’ but a cold turd!”

HAPPY TALKING – CAPTAIN SENSIBLE.
Basically I should hate this song and everything it stands for but…When I first moved to London I worked as a motorcycle messenger at Stiff in a prehistoric era that pre-dated cell phones. I would call into the office in Westbourne Park from somewhere in the West End to ask if there was something else for me to do before I would ride out back to the office. Quite regularly the phone would be answered by The Captain (the bass player of the Damned of course) who, thinking my surname was the worst punk affectation he’d ever heard of, would scream: “DICK? DICK? DICK? F*** OFF…” down the phone at me before hanging up. Of course further calls would result in yet more insults and profanities. Strangely I never hit it off with the Captain. However when he left the label and went to A&M and this single came out and I couldn’t get enough of the damn thing…I even bought a copy which I still own. And that keyboard solo still makes me smile. Go figure.

In which country is Mount Everest?

A clue – it’s not in Europe…

This simple question might provide us with an insight as to why it is that the USA has such a problem understanding foreign policy issues. Yesterday I was stuck in the morning commute on the way to my latest starring performance in a motion picture. I was headed towards a sleazy office in Van Nuys and I was quite excited. Before you assume that I was about to appear in a porno (with a name like Dick you’d think I’d be a shoe-in wouldn’t you?) I must admit that my role was that of a hotel manager called Monty Freedman and there were no buxom lovelies with knee pads scheduled for my appearance on set.

I digress. So I’m in the car and listening to Mark & Brian who are two popular morning drive-time radio hosts who specialize in schoolboy phone stunts and sycophantic interviews with has-been actors. Recently they have been running some kind of competition in which two listeners are bombarded with general knowledge questions and the winner receives the ultimate accolade – a chance to do it all over again the following day. After every morning’s competition the likely lads ask each other left-over questions and of course we, the stuck-in-traffic listening public, can’t help but pit ourselves against the combined brains-trust of Mark, Brian and their lesser paid co-hosts. Which brings us to Question Five.

Question 5: In which country is Mount Everest?

There was a moment of silence and then one of our super panel chirped up: “Austria.”

Austria? They had to be joking right? I nearly drove off the freeway when someone else said: “Switzerland.” The final genius of the airwaves pitched in: “Peru.” No-one in the studio seemed even remotely aware how ludicrous this was. Nobody was close – not even the right continent!

If five vaguely intelligent Americans don’t know where Mount Everest is how can I be surprised that most Europeans feel that the biggest threat to world peace is…the United States?

I shall be conducting a thorough but admittedly un-scientific poll of everyone I meet over the next week or two to see how many people get this simple Geog. 101 question right. I shall report back with the results of my survey. Until then I’ll give you another clue – it’s in Asia.

Dear friends, a message of hope.

They say everything comes in threes. Cut back to yesterday afternoon:

1) 2.30pm…I was driving in my car to pick up my newly repaired Alessis Quadraverb (don’t ask) when the radio chirped up with the news that for the first time since 1935 Kodak would no longer be listed as being on the Nasdac 500 – or some other financial top 10 list – because it was felt that its performance was no longer a reflection of the current business and financial marketplace. My translation: Everyone’s buying digital cameras and the K-people are fighting a losing analogue battle against the digital tide.

2) 3.25pm…Back home with my newly repaired and cuddly Qudraverb the e-mail kicked up with two messages. The first was that 4 people I knew who worked as video commisioners and had at various times given me jobs that put serious amounts of cash in my bank account had got the boot. The second was from a dear friend in London, who’d just been let go from Virgin U.K. – I told him to go and drink some beers and destroy all his Mike Oldfield albums. By the time my message arrived it appeared he’d already beaten Ommadawn into a pulp and was using Tubular Bells II as a beer-mat.

3) 530pm…The morning’s post arrived as it always does at my house late in the afternoon (Go Postal!) and with it my Daily Variety with the headline: EMI faces music – label cuts 1,500 jobs.

Do you feel like me that we’re at a huge crossroads in our industry? I think it’s safe to say that the business to which I’ve dedicated 40% of my life is in the worst state it’s been in since I walked excitedly through the front door of Stiff Records in September 1977. It’s monstrously depressing and I can hear fear in the voices of everyone I speak to. It’s even possible that things could get worse before it gets better. What should we do?

Perhaps there’s nothing we can do…except believe. When I started my motorcycle messenger gig at Stiff all those years ago I got paid fourteen pounds a week. The hire-purchase repayments on the bright red Suzuki I needed to do the gig were seven pounds a week. The other seven quid went on rent and food. I was deliriously happy. But after a month with the company I realised that the place was a financial mess. Every week it seemed we would go under and would never re-surface. But quickly I realised that my paltry wage was paltry because I wasn’t being paid to worry about bankruptcy or the tax man or Ian Dury’s album sales. So I quit worrying and things got better and I worked there for five years.

Moral: Dear friends, we’ve come this far and we can continue if we believe. Most of us are not paid enough to worry about the solutions to our ailing biz. We do great work, we just need to keep believing.

For myself I know if it comes down to it I can go back to being a motorcycle messenger or a cab driver as I once was. It’ll be a kick in the balls but I’ll certainly have some wicked stories to tell: “The airport? Of course Madam, which terminal? Would you like to hear a story about Slash & Kenny G?” Last week someone told me to check out a hilarious web site called True Porn Clerk Stories and the quote that made my day was: “The Zen lesson of my job is this: just because I do not want to be a video clerk doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be the best possible video clerk I can be.”

O.K. everybody back to work. We can get through this.

P.S. Tubular Bells II is a really, really crappy album. It doesn’t even deserve to be a beer mat. And I should know – I bought a copy.

AND HERE’S A REPLY TO MY POST FROM MY OLD PAL PHIL BARNES…

All I know is I treasure every moment I’m able to earn a buck in the music industry (or associated to it). Since I bought my much beloved MP3 player (some 5 years ago) my love for music has been nhanced ten fold – and I listen to more than I ever did. I have bought more music in the past 5 years than ever before. There is more music available out there (if you look) than ever before – and some of it is really fantastic (both from old gits and young kids). With any luck, one day, the record industry will figure out how to make money out of those facts. In the mean time we have to watch them stumble through all their piracy paranoia whilst they embark on their usual periodic culling spree. It has been proved time and time again that the music industry listens to the money men (to their detriment) from time to time – then realises it’s made a mistake and listens to their heart and soul. New exciting labels will (hopefully) be born out this mad multicorporate take-over. On-line sales are growing – new artists are learing how best to get their music to a wider audience. The music industry (as ever) will be the last to respond.

If we stay youthful in our approach to the new industry (because the digital music indusrty is a new industry) then, with any luck, we’ll not get hacked down during the cull! Music and visuals now go hand in hand – however you end up listening or watching it (TV, iPod, PDA, DAB, Internet, DVD, 3G whatever…). Onward and upward… personally, I can’t wait for the next revolution. I just hope it doesn’t revolve around gangs, bling and slappin’ yer bitch up. My daughter deserves an intelligent and rebellious voice. There’s one out there… somewhere.

I’ve just read that Iron Maiden, who released their first album somewhere back around the time that dinosaurs still walked the earth, are still making money. Before going straight to the bottom line let’s just examine the scant facts as we know them.

1) Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer, only sings with the band part time – he’s more often found in the pilot’s seat of executive jets shuttling other rich people around Europe.

2) I can’t remember the last time I heard an Iron Maiden track on the radio.

3) I’ve seen a bit of a part of their most recent video on Headbanger’s Ball.

4) I think they had a new album out last year – I was sent the single and some artwork and asked to write on a video which I didn’t  get. (See #3)

5) They’re not exactly getting the column inches like Metallica still do or The Darkness have been recently.

6) They have an inflatable mascot called Eddie.

Um – that’s as much as I know. So I would have concluded that in the fiscal year ended 31st December 2003 they might have pulled in about half a million.

Which only goes to show what a dickhead I am. Apparently last year they came 9th in the top ten rock earners in the UK pulling in a staggering 17.9 million pounds. That’s over $32 million! That’s quite a part-time job old Bruce has going for him…

Turn on your Righteous Anger Indicator: this is going to be a rant. A political one.

I have heard recently that GWB is considered the president with the worst environmental record in US history. That’s quite an indictment don’t you think?

The other day I read an article entitled ‘THE ALASKA CHAINSAW MASSACRE” by Osha Gray Davidson (Feb. 5th Rolling Stone) in which he describes the way that in 2002 the US economy paid $35 million to build roads into a unique and priceless piece of Alaskan wilderness so that the timber industry (friends and supporters of you know who) could harvest $1.2 million worth of lumber.

Do we need timber this badly? Apparently not. Davidson writes: “Tree farms in the lower forty-eight provide plenty of wood to meet the country’s needs, and a worldwide glut of timber has been forcing prices down for years. Today there are only 200 timber-related jobs left in southeast Alaska.”

It appears that these trees our governement is so happily helping to cut down to ship to Asia and turn into mulch aren’t just any old trees either – many of them are Sitka Spruce trees that are at least 600 years old. That means, as Davidson so eloquently puts it, these trees were “already 100 years old when Columbus set out to find a new route to India.”

Let’s face it this one piece of environmental insanity is just a pimple on the bottom of our incessant industrial greed. Why are we doing this to ourselves and more importantly to a world that Bush’s twin daughters and you and yours will have to live in? I don’t have kids. By the time all this insanity comes home to roost – and there are too many people and pollutants and not enough food & water to go around – I’ll be pushing up daisies. Assuming that the environment will support them of course.

I think we all need to think about what we have in this enormous and bountiful world that we live in. Davidson makes this very crucial observation about our forefathers and how we’ve changed the face of America & the world in the last 200 years: “From the moment they set foot here, European settlers mistook ‘vast’ for ‘infinite’ and ‘abundant’ for ‘inexhaustible.'”

We’re getting to the point where infinite and inexhaustible are perhaps no longer applicable to the world in which we live. In the months to come and as the election approaches please make sure this is an issue we all discuss.

(P.S. Please feel free to track down that article and tell me I’m wrong. It would make my day to find out that everything’s hunk dory out in the woods.)

(P.P.S. It’s not just about the woods either. Try tracking down CRIMES AGAINST NATURE by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 12/11/03 edition of Rolling Stone.)

(P.P.P.S. About eighteen months ago our dear leader agreed to repeal a decision made by the Clinton government that would make the Big 5 Detroit Auto makers produce cars that were vastly more fuel efficient. I think the goal was to produce cars that would average 25 mpg. The Big 5 said they couldn’t do it in the time alloted. Being an oilman GWB said OK and scrapped the law. I’ve just discovered this piece of trivia in the Harper’s Index column of an old edition of Funny Times: The maximum number of miles a 1912 Ford Model T could go on a gallon of gas in 1912 was 35 miles. Such is progress that the maximum number of miles that Ford’s most fuel efficient 2003 car can drive on a gallon of gas is 36 miles!

Progress eh?)

Christmas 2003

Once upon a time I went to Australia for two and a half days to shoot a video for a friend of Boy George. For such a short trip it turned out to be quite an adventure involving many acres of burnt countryside, ten tubes of toothpaste, a super 8 camera and a strange story of adultery. I’ll give you the details on another occasion but I’d always felt the need to return for another, more detailed, look to the country that they always joked was different from yogurt. (Yogurt’s a live culture).

 DAY ONE

Land at breakfast time in Sydney looking forward to seeing my old friend Ed who’ll be meeting me at the gate. I should have known better he is still across town having breakfast. Later we find ourselves upon a boat of the Captain Cook Tour Line cruising Sydney’s amazing harbour. In an eerie re-run of a long distant Christmas holiday in which we’d stationed ourselves happily in the front of a sleigh on a cold Colorado night happy with our exclusive seats only to realize we were facing the arses of two exceptionally flatulent horses we now grab two rows of seats on the top deck at the back of the ferry and subsequently realize we will be down-wind of the boat’s exhaust system for the next two hours. In my highly jet-lagged state I strap on the iPod and listen to a Trevor Rabin era Yes album. The day ends with a Monorail trip back to our hotel after dinner. Ed’s upset that I’m not eager join him on an expedition to search for extra-mural activities involving willing Australian babes. I remind him that a) I haven’t been to bed for about 44 hours and that b) in the 30 years we’ve been going on holiday together neither one of us has ever scored.

DAY TWO

We drive to the Blue Mountains outside Sydney. I’ve got my Bike Friday with me and I hope to achieve two ambitions this trip 1) to complete my 2,000th mile on the bike in one calendar year and 2) to see a kangaroo in the wild. After 11 measly miles of cycling I climb back in the car: there’s an unpleasant head wind, it’s unbearably hot and I’m still jet-lagged. We have a distant view of Sydney from a lookout and notice how the suburbs snake out from the city following the lines of the arterial roads. No kangaroos.

DAY THREE

Ed and I are godfathers to two wonderful sisters: Hannah and Zoe. We go to meet them and Eddie & Sheila (their Mum and Dad) at the airport and then race for the Ferry to Manly Island. Eddie is very manly and body-surfs while I fall asleep on the sand listening to Stevie Wonder.

DAY FOUR

Today’s big event is climbing up on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sadly none of us are BASE jumpers or rock climbers looking for front page news so we pay $150 Australian and, like extras from an old version of Star Trek, suit up in cheesy-looking grey boiler suits and undergo a 40 minute safety tutorial before we are allowed out on the hallowed structure. By the time we’ve climbed to the top our calves are hurting and our noses are roasted by the sun but Gavin, our genial guide, has furnished us with all kinds of wonderfully useless trivia. For example the British built bridge came with a 6 month guarantee and is now well past its planned 70 year life-span but they’re hopeful they can string out its usefulness for another 300 or 400 years.

 DAY FIVE

(Christmas Day) A flight to Melbourne and a drive down the Mornington Peninsula towards Portsea where we meet up with another eight of our friends and spend the afternoon on the beach which, I’ve always been told, is what all Aussies do on Christmas Day. For dinner we are treated to a sumptuous BBQed turkey and I get a rockin yellow Kangaroo keychain for a Christmas present.

 DAY SIX

I bike 42 miles and discover the Pig & Whistle, a gorgeous English style pub, situated high upon a hill near Arthur’s Seat that offers a stunning view of the Southern end of the Peninsula. All 14 of us descend upon the place in the evening for dinner and I order the kangaroo. It doesn’t taste like chicken.

 DAY SEVEN

My hotel is situated close to Sorrento beach and claims that is has freshly renovated rooms. While this statement was clearly accurate around the time that Nixon was President it (or the paintwork in my room) needs some updating. The bathroom and the communal showers are down the hall, my room is opposite the games room in which three year old children can be found at all hours of the day pounding on the piano. I’d venture to say that neither Van Cliburn nor Elton John need lose any sleep tonight. Around the back of the hotel there are very friendly and rather large black birds with white stripes on them, no kangaroos. I ride to Rye Ocean beach. Glorious views and very windy.

DAY EIGHT

I’ve finished my book about a German POW who escapes from a lead mine and takes three years to walk across Siberia and eventually to Germany. I’m now reading Bobke II by OLN’s hysterical biking correspondent Bob Roll. Though he says Whoa! rather too much he has a way with similes that is captivating. My two favourites are: “as nervous as a balloon in a pin factory”, and “spastic as a Devo guitar solo.” Ed, Steven, Ian and I take our bikes by ferry across the mouth of the bay and cover 29 glorious miles on the other peninsula that protects Melbourne’s southern approaches. There are no kangaroos there either.

 DAY NINE

If I can cover 36 miles today I will achieve my 2,000-miles-on-a-bike-in-a-year ambition. If you’re a real biker my goal is pretty lame let’s face it the TdF guys do that in three weeks (AND they have two days off!) but for me it will be a major achievement. I’ve decided to head for the settlement of Cape Schenck. There’s an impressive scale to the typeface on the map which suggests that it’s a big enough place for me to be able to purchase food and water there. It’s very hot today and I know that I will run out of water if I have to do the full ride with no support and  this peninsula, as I’ve discovered, isn’t exactly groaning with 7-11s and convenience stores so finding supplies will be crucial. As I set out I realize it’s especially windy today and every road in this land seems to have a head-wind. I hate head-winds. I pedal on.

I reach the point on the map, a road junction, designated as Cape Schenk. Bad news, it has only one building and it’s not a shop. Good news, it has a sign which says “Beware Kangaroos for next 7km.” Right on! Now we’re talking! I decide that rather than turning right and cycling down to the cape itself I’ll go straight on towards Flinders and look for kangaroos.

2km down the road I find a second sign which insists drivers slow down and suggests that the ‘roos appear mostly between dusk and dawn. It’s broad daylight but I’m feeling optimistic and I press on. Apart from incessant head-winds, flesh-melting sun and seven out of ten of the worlds most deadly species Australia is also notable for its wicked fly population. After much pedaling I’ve discovered that at any speed above 12 mph the flies can’t keep up with me so I’m working hard on all the hills but the wind goes out of my sails when one of my ambitions is sadly realized in a form I’d not dreamt of. There in front of me is a host of teeming flies the like of which I’ve never seen in my life before and underneath it a dead and partly decomposed kangaroo. Ugh. Apart from looking very dead the kangaroo looks rather small. A quarter of a mile later another one. Also dead. Also very smelly. I’m at the top of a particularly steep hill and I know that if I pedal down it I’ll only have to come back up so I turn around and head for Cape Schenck’s lighthouse. I’m out of fluids so I’m happy to discover a tiny wooden shed selling sausage rolls, steak and kidney pies and bottled water at the usurous rates expected in a State Park. But the flies! The flies taunt me and terrorize me. As I try and eat my lukewarm steak and kidney pie they climb under my sunglasses and inside my helmet, they tickle my arms and crawl across the back of my neck. I’m feeling like that dead kangaroo on the road to Flinders. I climb upon the bike and pedal out of there fast as I can while the sauce from the steak and kidney pie dribbles on my cycling shorts and makes it look like I’ve shat myself.

On the way home I finally clock that 2,000th mile and it’s a desperate anti-climax. What now? I guess I have to try and ride more next year. Bob Roll’s 7th bicycling commandment is: One year vow to cover more miles on your bike than in your car. Hmmm.

 DAY TEN

The grown ups go and see Lost In Translation. As I’ve already seen it (and I’m probably not a grown-up) I join the younger members of our party and go see Lord Of The Rings part 3 instead. I’m reminded that Tolkein’s book was the inspiration for one great Zeppelin tune (Ramble On) and about twenty truly awful 70’s rock bands (Shadowfax, Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf etc.). I fall asleep – seen one battle against the forces of evil and you’ve seen ’em all.

 DAY ELEVEN

Ed, Steve and Ian play golf. I follow them around the course reading Amy Gray’s Spy Girl which, despite its encouraging title, inspiring cover blurb and hip Catch Me If You Can style jacket design, has no intrigue in it whatsoever (she does most of her PI work using Google!) and is really a long whine about the endless stream of unsuccessful dates and one night stands she has with a number of very tall men. At the 17th hole (Par 4, 345 yards) Ed spots a rather fat lizard crossing the Tee. I go and study it closer just in case. Sadly it does not have a pouch or large hind legs or answer to the name of Joey.

 DAY TWELVE

Back in Melbourne I end my day in front of the TV and watch Australia A lose to Zimbabwe by 9 runs. During a break in play there is a TV commercial in which a kangaroo plays a significant, if momentary, part. It’s an animated kangaroo.

 DAY THIRTEEN

Fly from Melbourne to Sydney on Qantas. The Qantas terminal has a row of their planes parked outside and they all have kangaroos on their tails. In Sydney I make my connection for LA. As the jumbo staggers into the sky I look over my shoulder and the last thing I see is the top of Sydney Harbour Bridge with the two flagpoles and the Australia and New South Wales flags flapping in the breeze on top. When we passed under those flags last week Gavin told us to make a wish and he smiled and added: “Just remember I’ve been working on this bridge for four bloody years!”

I made my wish but I didn’t see a kangaroo and I can only conclude that Gavin will still be working on the bridge for the forseeable future.

Back in the mists of time as I would sit in my tiny London bedsit with the latest copy of Melody Maker I would always dream of going on the road…you know a real rock n’ roll road trip complete with middle of the night truck-stop excursions, strange vehicular adventures, cross country driving marathons, all access backstage-pass laminates, endless guitar solos on a huge stage, nightmarish storms, weird gigs, foreign borders to pass through and guiltless, yet exciting, dalliances with eager and attractive members of the opposite gender.
I’m delighted to report that over the years all of the above wishes have been granted to me but as they say be careful what you wish for. Of course in my perfect dream the world tour I was on was my own and the band I was hanging out with were my band and the groupies pounding the side of the bus were hoping to shag ME but as we know the fates have a weird way of messing with your dreams don’t they?

I can reveal that I’ve found myself perusing the late-night roadside shopping possibilities with Staind; I’ve had a strange vehicular adventure with Lene Lovich; I’ve driven wildly across the country pursuing Peter Himmelman; I’ve collected laminates for Oasis and Ozzy, Guns N’ Roses and The Corrs; I’ve soloed endlessly on stage with Billy Ray Cyrus’s band at soundcheck (oh the shame!), endured a twister (Billy Ray again), shot a gig in broad daylight at midnight with Toto north of the arctic circle, smuggled something through a border with Madness and even, on a dark and soggy night in Oklahoma, gone home with an eager young female – sadly she wasn’t attractive and it wasn’t very exciting but after selling T-shirts for six weeks on a tour with non-stop rain earning a measly $25 a night I was getting desperate and depressed – and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it!

Which brings me to my recent adventures with the very talented and enormously decent Jason Mraz. Before we go any further a brief disclaimer: though there were shopping opportunities in the truck stops and long drives through the night there was a noticeable lack of sex anywhere – not in my bunk anyhow. OK, I admit it, there were some guitar solos but none over 16 bars and while we’re talking plank spanking the one Jason plays on Absolutely Zero (a bullet straight into the top three of my fave songs of the year chart) is bloody gorgeous.

And so to the guilt.

I was hanging with Mraz to shoot a live DVD which we all hope will be available sometime in the New Year. The plan was to do one show with the mobile truck and the multi-camera thing and then yours truly would dispense with the luxuries and, armed only with a spare pair of sox, a mini DV cam, a box of tapes and a pile of release forms, I would become invisible and document what it’s like to be the hottest man on the charts with a Z in his name as he traversed the Midwest and beguiled thousands with his whimsical wordplay, magical melodies and extraordinary voice. In advance we discussed how I would wake him up on the day of the gig, shoot him in his P-Js and follow him through all the exciting stuff that rockstars get to do on the road, i.e. talk to journalists on cell phones, sign autographs, have their picture taken endlessly with sycophantic well-wishers (that’s you and me everybody), do stupid radio station idents (OK one of them was funny), answer numerous questions about chickens and psychics, soundcheck and try and remember the words to the
second verse of Sweet Child O’ Mine.

Throughout it all Jason was quite the gent, never held back, was always honest, very often funny and even lost his temper a few times. He was real. (I hope I’m not ruining for you all out there in Amazon.com land). He even made me really jealous a) because there were a lot of adoring babes who were obviously just besotted by him but more importantly because b) he’s a great musician and how dare he be THAT good a guitarist and songwriter after only 5 years. (Note to self: If I get my hands on a pair of pliers and Mraz is in the vicinity nobble a few fingers and then maybe I can catch up again…but what good would that do? – I’d only turn him into the new Django).

Anyway, imagine my despair when Bill, Jason’s manager, forwarded an extract of Jason’s web diary to me. JM confided he was locked in the bathroom away from the glare of the camera (that’ll be me) writing his diary : “I don’t need the room for any other reason than to sit and think, to meditate…on the other side of the door awaits thousands of ears and possibly millions of eyes.” He concludes, “I wish this bathroom could remain locked all night.”

And here’s the rub. This is what life on the road can be really like. While you’re locked in bedsit land it seems like such a dream – the riches and the babes, the guitar solos and the priceless magical laminates (real value – about a buck!) – but the guys on stage become isolated in their travelling world, nervous of those who attach themselves for a few days and always dreaming – despite the monstrous buzz of those two hours a night – of being in their own bed for a few nights and getting some different, clean clothes to wear. The road is surely a mystical place but there really is no There there. To really be on the road you must always be moving someplace else as if you’re searching for an end to a rainbow that remains constantly elusive. I’ve now been on so many tour buses that even their plush seats and tinted windows can’t disguise the feeling that it’s a kind of comfortable rolling prison with an annoyingly small moving toilet that protocol says you can’t take a dump in.

And so now I’m home and sleeping in my own bed editing Jason’s footage while he and the band and his crew still plough up and down the freeways plying their wares and doing what they love. I’ve felt guilty about disturbing Jason but I’m fighting that guilt because I think we’ve captured some of his magic for you to share and because I was doing my job. Perhaps if I’d done it better he might not have noticed me but it’s that observant and vulnerable quality about him that makes his music so intriguing. It’s now my dream that by the time the DVD is done Jason will be out of the bathroom and you and he both will think it was worth it.

It was a sunny morning in August as I sat down outside a small coffee shop on Fairfax and met the producers of a script called Chasing Fate.

All meetings follow a similar pattern. You shake hands and exchange small talk about what you’ve been up to and then eventually you talk about their script. What you have to say and how you say it is undoubtedly crucial. They’ve been working on the damn thing for months, they know the characters inside out, they know what they want to hear and you have no way of seeing inside their heads to see if you’re flying on the wings of genius or crashing and burning like a stricken fighter plane in some grainy History Channel War In The Pacific documentary. Like the pilot in that old film you take your life in your hands and propel yourself along the deck of the aircraft carrier and see if you’re flying yet. They nod as you wax lyrical about what you love and what you would like to change in their script. “Am I flying? Am I dying?” you wonder.

Just a few weeks previously I’d gone to meet a bunch of people over at Disney about a teen action movie. I felt the meeting was going great – my preparation was paying off until, on the spur of the moment, I suggested a minor approach as to how I felt you could (not should but could) take the look of the movie. They all jumped upon this idea. “Elaborate!” they asked and I did, feeling that they were truly enthusiastic about my radical idea, and their heads continued to nod and then slowly and imperceptibly their smiles slipped from their faces. I saw I had just written myself into the long list of also-rans: I was not going to get the gig. Nothing could make the last five minutes rewind. I’d crashed and I’d burnt and there were other pilots waiting to sacrifice themselves like I did knowing that just one of us would land safely at the other end.

So, as we sat in the sun and watched the traffic rumble along Fairfax Ave., I was honest. I asked the producers what they wanted to hear. They said they wanted the truth and so I strapped on my flying helmet, yelled, “Chocs Away!” and hurtled blindly into the sky. I gave it to them straight, I talked about things I wanted to change, ideas I had, cracked daft jokes and showed them a book I’d once bought about Screwball Comedies and looked for the tell-tale signs of an imminent prang.

Eventually I was out of breath and out of ideas and they shook my hand and wished me well promising me they’d be in touch. Yeah, right. Everyone says that. I walked to my car and went to start work on someone else’s script.

Well it seems that when I turned left everyone else turned right. Everytime the tracer shells came my way they either fell short or I dodged them. They tell me I’m their guy. I’ve landed safely and, looking back over my shoulder, I can see the burning wreckage of all the other pilots who didn’t make it.