Hands

I have taken to writing 'Yes' on my left hand and 'No' on my right. You'd be surprised how much time it saves.

Watching a Millionaire Pogo

Me and David J went to see Juliette Lewis at Birmingham Acadamy 2
(Which is, in reality, a room at the top of the Acadamy. I can only assume 3 and 4 are the ladies and gents toilets)
For those that you that don't know Juliette Lewis (And I don't mean biblically) She is an actress who has starred in such films as Natual Born Killers, Husbands and Wives, From Dusk Till Dawn, Cape Fear, Old School and Starsky and Hutch, to name but a few. She's always been something of a wild child and has always been in my 'Celebrity Shaglist'. Her other, newer occupation is fronting a punk-rock band called The Licks.
As ever, critics have cocked a snoop at a Hollywood star attempting to break into music. No one cares about Keanu 'Balsa Boy' Reeves and his band and Bruce Willis, well, as a blues singer he's a bloody good actor.
I digress. The point is that it's not easy trying to convince the baying, paying legions of tighter purse strings that you are '4 real'. Juliette has had her problems in that area.
She's also a woman. (I'll crawl back to this point later)
Anyway, David J and I went along for the hell of it. We are both fans of her face and we were interested to see if she could pull of the whole 'rock star' thing.
Proceedings were kicked off nicely with a charged set from a band called Big Bang. They rattled out intense rock shanties that went down well and made me have that familiar, money-sapping head-thought: 'I'll have to get their album'
David and I bobbed along, charged by a few bevvies (One of which, a Guinness, was free on the condition that it 'May make you sick' according to the bar chap. D.J decided not to drink it as it was badly poured and smelt like old socks. Not everything free is good)
So, The Licks came on. Juliette had blonde hair. I couldn't see the rest of her body because everyone else seemed to be taller than me, including a lot of the girls.
She has energy and a passion that is undeniable. While it may not have been my cup of tea (Every song sounded the same) It was a bit of fun. Contrary to what I have read in the - *Shudder*- NME, Miss Lewis has a decent voice and it suits the racket rather well.
She didn't dive in the crowd or anything because she had 'shitty shoes' (Not literally). I had washed and manicured my hands especially.
David J said that at Leeds she jumped right into the crowd before adding that, if it did happen, he was going to “get a grope”. She didn't. Bah.
I also learned how women get shit everyday just for being women with dreams of becoming something more than pin-up fodder for toothless builders and peanut brained ogre-men. A bunch of knuckle dragging fuck-farts felt compelled to remind Juliette that not only was she "In Birmingham now" over and over but she should get her tits out. One chucklehead shouted that she was "Shit in Cape Fear."
Fair enough, but he then went onto shout "DeNiro" over and over. What did he expect? DeNiro to come on and do a screaming guitar solo? Perhaps he wanted to fuck DeNiro. Either way, they were disappointed and left pretty early into the set, possibly to honk at passing women in their beaten up cars.
It was pretty good. Good to see my good friend again and catch up. We saw Juliette Lewis in the flesh and our curious young minds were sated.
Conclusion: While she may not be in the greatest punk band in the world (That's still Husker Du, folks) She is pretty good and crazy beautiful...and I don't mean that in a laddish kind of way. I'd just like to feed her grapes and make her sandwiches. Stuff like that.

In other news, I’ve been writing items for various creative endeavours. One of which is a film I want to pitch to MM Entertainment (The people making future Cannes award winning film ‘Death Rides the Nine’) It’s something different and isn’t about being grim or about reaping anything. I’ll put it up for your perusal should you wish to waste a bit of time reading my wordy piffle (Not how I’m going to pitch it) Those that read and gave feedback on ‘Bent Soul’ helped me greatly.
Hoping to get my tickets for the great Sigur Ros this weekend. I've got a barrage of bands to see over the coming months. It's good to be active and it's always good to have something to look forward to.

Hope you fine people out there are well and good.

C-Bizzle.

Springs In My Step

Feeling a little BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! today.

Make of that what you will.

"Whatever happens on tour, stays on tour..."

Hey kids!
How the devil are you all?
I just came back from a mad one in Southampton. Frolicals were had and drink, well, there's always drink isn't there? Sometimes it's themed on characters from Lord Of The Rings, sometimes it's not even out of a glass.

Perhaps 'Propaganda' should be changed to 'Christopher Bate's Tales From The Indie Bar (Sometimes he does a bit of writing)' Perhaps not.

Anyway, Nick and I took a road trip to Eastleigh to see my cousin Adam and his delightful American girlfriend, Victoria (I don't know why I felt compelled to mention her nationality) We went to a cool bar called The Avondale House where I drank my bodywieght in high-energy drinks mixed with Vodka. This gave me the boost to shimmy and shake at Lennons, a small indie bar that plays great music.
Based on my tee-shirt (FACT: Pirates hate Ninjas) we asked a group of random people which side they would be on. A lot of people opted to be ninjas. I'd be a pirate. You call fall into being a pirate. You just have to grow a beard and say 'ARRG!' occassionally. A ninja takes effort and patience. I don't have much of either. I can grow a beard and become a salty sea dog. I just need to know how to use a cutlass.
How hard could that be?
We decided that it would make a great film. Ninjas! Pirates! A smackdown for the ages! We had it cast and everything. (If you have any thoughts on the matter then feel free to throw down your ideas in the comments section.) It was all of blurred tapestry of music and booze. I'm not sure why but a group of girls decided they wanted to lick my stomach and one chap wanted a dance off.
The second day involved some shopping (New jeans as I'd managed to scuff up the pair I was wearing) and some sight seeing around Southampton. Adam and his lady went to see something called a 'football match'. I've heard many things about this game. Sometimes people get upset about it.

We then met some of Adam's friends. Strangely, in a 'It's a small world' moment, Adam's housemate is someone I used to chat to on the View Askew/Kevin Smith Message board. It was like a geeks reunion.

HIM: "Fielding Melish?"

ME: "Skeeball Pete?!"

We refrained from using smilies.
(For extra 'Chris is a nerd' points the name Fielding Melish comes from the name of Woody Allen's character in Bananas. You can stop reading now.)

We met some more of his friends, including another American girl (Again, I have no idea why I felt compelled to mention that) and had a curry. I don't normally do spicy food (It plays havoc with my stomach and it costs loads) but it was nice.
I met Adam's friend Paul who runs the official Sigur Ros Website. We then moved onto The Hobbit and had plenty of Gollums, Frodos and Gandalfs (They don't do an Aragorn for some reason. You'd think they would) They have a killer juke box there which I loaded with quality tracks (Interpol, The Cure, Jeff Buckley)

It was a good soundtrack to the merriment. We then shifted along to Lennons again where I was hit by massive fatigue (Meaning I was tired and not assaulted by a pissed off wrestler) It soon perked up when they played the right songs.
A couple of girls approached me and my brother and asked if we wanted to join them. Being nice, friendly types we obliged and followed them. They lead us over to a table of guys. They all looked as confused as us. We nodded awkward hellos.
"So, how do you know the, uh, girls?"
"We don't they just lead us over here."
I learnt a vital lesson. Women are both confusing and powerful. Anyway, that's all I can remember. It was that kind of fun.

I'm off to eat crackers and play pictionary with Tom.

Pics (From Top):

A pint of Gollum
A Pint of Gandalf
Me in The Avondale Toilets.

Bye-Bye

I'm off for a rock and roll weekend in glorious Southampton. See you all soon.

Strangest thing I've seen this week (So far)...

...A horse trying to board the bus I ride to work each day. I'm not making this up.

Random Gibberish

Firstly, I was asked (Or rather tagged) by She Of The Handbag. She asked me what was in my bag/wallet. The blogs I've seen in the past have put up pics but, since I can't do that because I'm at work, I decided to share the contents of both my wallet AND my bag as some sort of meagre compensation. (Can you feel the excitement? Can you?)

WALLET:

• 1 cash card
• 3 credit cards (Eep!)
• 1 donor card
• 1 ticket for the London Underground dated 27/3/05 (I think this was from my trip to see Stephanie)
• Train ticket. Return from Birmingham to Cradley Heath dated 12/8/2004
• 2 cinema ticket stubs (Dodgeball for some reason)
• Distillers ticket dated 15/3/2004
• Dio ticket 12/8/2004
• Ash ticket (NOT my choice) 31/5/2004
• 2 unused tickets to see Seafood (They cancelled THREE times!)

BAG

• Creative Zen MP3 player
• Wallet
• Phone
• Old battered passport for ID purposes (It still have to use it more than I should)
• 2 razors (Left over from V)
• 3 Bic biros
• 1 cartridge pen
• 2 notebooks
• 1 can of deodrant (Addiction from the Pound Shop, no less)
• 3 cartons of apple juice (89p from Asda!)
• Beanie hat (Grey)
• Woody Allen-A Biography (John Baxter)
• Birthday card for my Dad (His birthday was yesterday)
• 1 compact mirror (Brought by a work colleague in order to aid my increasing vanity. I used to use CD's to check myself)

That's it. Hardly thrilling but I'm sure it gives you some insight into the wild, wild ride that is the life of Christopher Bate.

Although coming back to work is painful I have been cheered up with CD recommendations to check out and news that Boards Of Canada have a new album coming out in early October. Sweet!

Can't wait until Friday. Southampton Weekender. A trip to The Hobbit will do nicely.

A couple of pints of Gandalf always goes down smooth.

Sorry if you didn't enjoy this post. You can't always knock 'em out the park.

Word.

Christopher Bate LIVE!

I have been relaxing after a weekend of festival madness. I have to admit I have been a little restless. I've flittered from reading, writing, watching MTV2, napping and playing PS2 but something was missing. I missed the festival vibes and the live music. I decided to put on an intimate little show for a few friends. A lot of you probably don't know that I'm a bit of a guitar hero. I know how to rock a crowd or at least move them to massive indifference. At first I started with a few gentle numbers. "Her Elbow Made Me Think of Tennis" kicked things off and after a ripple of pity worship I went into popular songs: "My Dog Isn't Your Dog (Yours is a Cat, Genius)", "Poke in the Eye", protest song "Everything is a bit shit", "Hats" and "Please Don't Throw Your Frisbee at me".

The crowd seemed pleased with the first half so I decided to treat them with some hot electric jams for the second and final half.


Cries of 'Judas!' were heard as I whipped through punk songs like "Snot City", "Eat the Bee Gees", "Crabs (I Got 'Em)", "I wasn't a huge fan of the movie 'Save The Last Dance'". I think I was a bit too much for them because they decided to leave. It didn't help that I started strangling members of the audience.


Next week I'll be supporting The Rolling Stones I just know it.

Festival Frolicals

I'm both tired and wired as I write this so please bare with me. I'm in one of those post-festival stupors where I'm in between tired and restless, I'm sun burned and feeling a little flat. Isn't it funny how you look forward to going home for a good shower and decent food but when you're back, showered and shaved, you wish you were stuck in a messy field with your nearest and dearest, eating rancid, over priced grub whilst watching a band? My ploy to kidnap Franz Ferdinand failed. I caught Maroon 5 in a big net but I decided to throw them back. So how was my fest? Pretty awesome.
I did have reservations about the line-up but if I scratched the surface and found many a hidden treasure. The Frames were an awesome band that blew me away (Not literally) and got me making a 'To Buy' list. El Presidente were great as were Tom Vek, Franz Ferdinand, Presidents Of The United States and The Polyphonic Spree ruled. They were awesome fun. I want to join their cult.
I'll play bongos.
I missed Josh Rouse thanks to a shedule mess up. I caught the very end when he left the stage early because of a broken string. I got to the front and was feeling pretty pleased until a girl who looked like Corinna's doppleganger told me he'd just finished. I was gutted because I'd gone off on my own to see him. She gave me an satsuma to ease the blow. After having a chat with a very nice bunch of people (And Corinna's clone) I went off to see The Prodigy. They made me realise that a) I've grown up since 1996 and b)
They haven't.
I used to be such a huge fan of their electro rock racket but, due to their lack of output and poor, uninspired albums, I gave up on KERRAZZY Keith and his merry men. I went to see the end of the Scissor Sisters. They were jazzy.
I saw a bunch of other people but my festival-wracked mind is a little blurry.

Oh, and I also got on T.V. Well, my voice did. Tom and I saw a news crew interviewing a bunch of festival goers. She was giving them lines to say! Literally making up the news. I stood by the camera man and started putting the reporter off with silly voices. The producer told me to fuck off. She had a point. Cheers to everyone that came for a great weekend.

It would have been a laugh even if the line-up was rubbish. We amassed a cool collection of memories and moments that will amuse (and shame us) for years to come. Thanks to the people I met along the way. Strangers, old friends and new friends.
I'm off to drink a well deserved brew. I'm going to dedicate it to you. The Steve and Jon will have more stories and pictures of the festival. I managed to take a few before my phone died.

C

Cocked, Locked and What Was The Other Thing Again?

Hey there guys, gals and Geezers!

I'm almost packed and ready to go to V 2005.

Boxers and socks. Check.
Shirts (Stripey stripey long sleeves and 'Ninjas Hate Pirates Tee) Check
Cleaning stuff. Checkity check.
Money. Check.
Alcohol. Check.
Notebook. Check.

This means there will be no posts from me until the 21st. Until then, be well and be lucky.

I will be back with stories.


Love,

Chris 'Happy Camper' Bate

How Are We Lookin'?

Commitments away from work robbed us of having 'Moustache Friday' this week, we decided to have a different kind of Wednesday. It involved glasses and moustaches (Natch). Dom (Pictured below) won the ongoing 'Comedy' award from Blair for his genius effort.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Out of the funk. Clouds passed over. Clearer skies. I can't begin to explain why I get down sometimes as there is no rhyme or reason for it as my life has so much cool stuff in it.
It's because of these things that I decided to write an upbeat post of things that have made me smile and things I'm looking forward to.

Why don't you do the same?


Yay!:

• Having my body parts plastered on not only The Steve's blog, but also Graces'. My Mom would be so very proud.
• The nice review of 'Bent Soul' by Stephanie.
• The kind, useful emails I got regarding the aforementioned script. Cheers for those who spotted the typos I'd missed. All useful.
• The nice comments in the downer post. I know it's going to sound cheesy and stuff but it means a lot. It's always nice to know there are decent, caring people out there on the net. (A place usually used for bitching at people and swapping pictures of topless celebrities)
• V Festival. Going to check out: Robert Plant, Tom Vek, The Perishers, Josh Rouse, I am Kloot and many other unsung heroes. Oasis can bugger off.
• Cool new opportunities have presented themselves and given me the chance to be creative on a completely different level. I won't yak on about this just yet because I have a habit of jinxing things. It could be very cool if it all works out.
• Another trip to see my cousins in Southampton. That means drinks at The Hobbitt bar (The best theme bar ever. No, scratch that, the best bar EVER.) and dances at Lennons (They play Jurassic 5 and The Postal Service. Kings!)
• The other blogs. Keep me sane through the downer and dull days. The people to the right (Or down below if Blogger fucks up) are some of the coolest people I have never met. You know who you are. Keep it up. Blogging is the new rock and roll, I'm sure.
• Wine. Wine is always fine.
• Cool housemates (Yes, that's you Steve) who put up with my silly shit for longer than I would wish upon anybody. Well, to be honest, Steve and I trade silliness. It's like a currency. Sadly, we can't pay the rent that way.

I'm running out of steam (And my lunch time) but I thought I'd throw down a positive post before things go back to talk of giant crabs and bent souls.

I hope you are all having a good day. You deserve it.

Chris

: )

Blog suspended due to black clouds overhead. Slight chance of rain. It happens. Shit does.

Tagged.

Tagged by mystery tsatsuma. I've never done this before so I thought I'd give it a shot. There is not much else to do since I've been confined to bed with flu.

1) What brand of toothpaste do you use?

Baking Soda. It takes horrible but it's supposed to keep your teeth nice and white and shiney.

2) What is your very favorite, best ever, can't read enough times book?


'The Woody Allen Companion' I'm always reading it. I think the man is a genius and I like to know what makes great writers tick. Non-fiction is way better than fiction. The truth is always stranger at the end of the day..


3) Name your worst teacher ever. Why was he/she so bad?


Mr Platford. He was a complete nazi. He was a music teacher but he covered lots of sport lessons. He was a wanker in both. He used to bully and taught the weaker kids (Myself included) and he actively encouraged the tougher kids to do the same. When we used to play dodge ball he used to make sure every shot hurt. He laughed his arse off when one of his favourite kids hit me in the stomach with a well aimed tennis ball.
He wasn't laughing so hard when I had the chance to bowl in a game of 'Rounders'. He stood there, taunting me to give him 'my best shot'. I closed my eyes and bowled. The ball hit him right between the legs. I've never seen a grown man drop to his knees quicker than that fucker did. As he writhed on the grass, cursing me like a teacher shouldn't, I remember saying 'Maybe I should have bowled underarm, sir'


4) Ready for a clear Briton bias? What is your favorite Beatles song? (if you don't fancy them substitute your favorite Rolling Stones song.)

'Across The Universe' Beatles. God Bless you, George.


5) Ever had a manicure? Enjoy it?

Never. I've thought about it. I think I may need one sometime soon.

you knew there had to be rules:
1) Leave me a comment saying interview me please.
2) I will respond by asking you five questions. ( not the same as you see here.)
3) You will update your blog/site with the interview questions.
4) You will include this explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

If you fancy this...let me know. A lot of you have probably already done it. I will try to ask odd, perhaps even kinky, questions.

Strange Bedfellows...

Satan and The Grim Reaper.

Death Rides The Nine is festival bound. Better start packing my bags.

Common or garden word whore..

BENT SOUL

A surreal tall tale about a young man (Ryan) who wakes up one morning to find that his soul is, well, crooked after years of being a cowardly yes man. He sets about to fix things with the help of his unhelpful friend Kyle. This proves more difficult than either of them thought. I mean, how do you go about fixing a soul? Script contains midgets, puppet daughters and a woman called Midriff Jones.


If you fancy reading this 96 page waffle then fling your email address my way or whack something down in the comments section. It's too large for a blog and I have no idea how to host it (As some of you may already know, I'm not really clued up when it comes to computers) It's been sent on to a few sites so there may be a link posted up at some point.

I can't guarentee it will be worth your trouble but if you have a mild admiration for me and this blog then you're likely to get a few chuckles from it.

Q & A with Ellie

It's a window.
It's a cat.
It's a fire place (Don't touch!)
It's a rug.
It's the cat again.
It's a DVD (Please! Don't touch that!)
It's the T.V
It's still the cat.
It's a teddy.
It's a door.
It's the sky.
It's a Tweenie.
It's some kind of puppet thing.

What's that?

I'm your Uncle, Ellie.

Happy 26 and a half,The Steve!

How does it feel to be half a year older?
To commemorate the occassion here is a blurred picture taken in the mirror of the Civic toilets.

Ready For V

The Steve decided to test the tent we will be cramming into for V 2005 (And maybe Leeds if we can win those tickets off ebay) We'll be a lot less cleaner at the festival and we won't smell as fresh but, hey, when in Rome...roll in shit.

The V line-up is admittedly a bit poo and very mainstream but I made a promise to Tom that I would stay for the whole weekend this year.
I'm looking forward to seeing the smaller bands: The Perishers (YGWIN got me into them, bless her), Tom Vek, Josh Rouse, Thirteen Senses etc. Most of the fun of a festival is the people. After the gigs finish it's always good to walk around and hang around with random people. Last year at Reading David J and I convinced a bunch of people that there was a 'Lesbian Fun Tent'. We got quite an eager, guillible following. We also joined an accoustic comedy group and sang all manner of silly shanties. I can't wait for 3 days of fun, filth and frolicals.

Girlfriend Wanted.

No maniacs need apply. Must be flexible.

When I am a Rich Man...

When I become better off than I am now I am going to buy some things that I have always dreamed about. H once brought himself a nice top hat after coming into some money and I would like to use my money to finally get what I want.

A giant crab.

It has to be at least the size of a car with claws the size of children. I'm not sure if such a crab exsists but I will hire a team of top explorers to go and seek it out, capture it and bring it to my solid gold uber-cottage.

I will call him Crab C. Nesbitt. He will be my transport.

Picture this in your squishy thought boxes:

An oridnary day at Westfield 2: Super Big Edition (Still living with The Steve. I'm paying him)

-I'm going to the shops, everyone. Do you want anything?
-Razzle.
-Beer.
-Coconuts!
-Etc!
-Okay, I'll be back in a minute.
-It's a long trek, Bucky. Are you going to take the limo or the monster truck?
-It's okay I'LL TAKE THE CRAB!

THE CRAB! I'll ride the big bastard crab to the shops! I'll sit on his back on a big, comfy chair. It can carry the shopping in it's claws!
I'd avoid pesky traffic by STEPPING OVER IT! I'd laugh as I did it. Rich, mad people can laugh as much as they want.

-I've earned this crab, now back off!

I'd have to fix it's legs so it moved forwards, not sideways. A constant sideways motion is both pointless and annoying. I'd probably get sick but then I'd be so rich I'd pay someone to be sick for me.

I can't wait.

The Return Of Raffles

Raffles returned yesterday after weeks of not having heard anything from our shabby feline friend. No calls, texts, letters or emails--Nothing. I didn't push him as he seemed a little stressed and he's not much of a talker. We heard from a friend of a friend that Raffles used to be a folk singer. Wether he went back on tour with his old band or simply spend a few weeks chasing birds, we'll never know.
Raffles never seems happy. He always seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders (Do cats have shoulders?). This could be for many reasons. He's a furry ball of mystery for sure. A bitter sweet bundle of misery. Perhaps he's just trying to be cool and interesting like those faddish, flash-in-the-pan bands do when they're on the cover of NME. He's better than that. I've told him so. He just meeows. He knows.
"Opinions are like arseholes" He said "Everyone's got one". He then went back to eat the food that H had put out for him. He's so wise. I could learn a lot from him and I intend to.
Next time he comes over he says he's going to teach me how to talk to women. In return, I'm going to buy him a bow tie. Fair trade.

Look at him, if you've ever wondered if a cat could pout then here is photographic proof.

To Christopher D Bate, with love

Ten Tonne Tuesday

I hate Tuesdays. For me, they are the new Mondays. They draaaaag!
The time has been passed by coming up with ringtone ideas ('The Crazy Tramp' being the one that caused the most amusement) and jotting down various ideas for a new script. I'm hoping that this will be the second film with MME but, knowing my habit of writing too many things at once, will probably end up in Lap-top limbo.

Nothing terribly exciting to report of late (Unless you want to read another 'I Love Me' post) so this post is pointless. If you want to get an idea of what I did over the weekend, check out Mrs Coogans Blog (The 'Scream Overplay' post).

Yes, I know it's lazy but it does contain a picture of The Steve and I, should that float your boat.

Hope you all are well and dandy,

Christopher Hey-Hey.