terminator, tin machine and twin peaks

hi there

yes, it is another post of stuff i have found that may be of interest to some. as just about everything is now boxed, you may or may not be pleased to learn that this is likely to be the last such post of this nature for quite a while. to that end, thanks for bearing with me, those of you who have had no interest in discoveries, and nice one to all who have spotted something of interest, even if only in passing.

right, on we go then, and in this age of e-readers, or the kids simply not reading, here's something that might confuse younger members of the internet establishment even more than the idea of paying for music and getting it on a disc. behold, a bookmark. but not an ordinary bookmark.

yes, that is a Terminator bookmark. specifically, a T2 3D bookmark, released to celebrate the 3D show thingie that they had on where they make the movies and that in America. someone going there kindly got me it as a gift, but i do not recall who. i suspect Gillian, but it may have been Mum & Dad, or indeed even quite possibly the sensational Harlo gang. whoever it was, cheers.

the image you see of Arnie is one of them hologram things. when you tilt it, it changes into one of those metal terminators; i think maybe they call it the exoskeleton or something. very smart.

at the great risk of sounding ungrateful, the only problem with Terminator 2 is that in no way is it a proper Terminator film. there were nice smoke and mirror effects which dazzled a few people, but at heart the plot, premise and conclusion were all out of whack with what the point of the films is. Terminator 3 is a far better, true sequel to the original classic.

i appreciate the above is very much against the norm and accepted view of such things, as indeed is my unbridled love for the band featured next. yep, tin machine time.

these are the two apparently rare "in a tin" singles from the Tin Machine II album. things that not too many people bought, and thus missed out on some top quality music. I cannot imagine that these were all that rare if stock made it as far as HMV Middlesbrough, but over time perhaps people have thrown them out or something.

i don't remember these being more than a couple of pounds each. which was a bargain, considering this was 1991 and just look at the quality of the printing on the disc below.

not sure if you can make out the tracklisting there, but in short that's the you belong in rock n' roll cd. the "extended" mix features a good deal more of Tony Sales going "dadingdading" on his bass, and indeed a few more pretty "daddadalilaldaliah" things off of Reeves Gabrels and his guitar. as far as i am aware, and i have the "standard edition" CD single of this too somewhere, this tin version was the only one to feature their pretty good cover of Shakin' All Over.

as for a broader look at the inner workings of the boxes, or tins if you like, here you go.

the fold out thingie with picture came with you belong in rock n roll, with you getting a free sponge with baby universal. nice one boys. the pictures are nowt special, or are they? they are basically head shots (as, yes, i know, you worked out all by yourself) of the images of the boys from the inner of the Tin Machine II album, but as you cannot get that album any more, perhaps they are a bit rare. not long after this Hunt (the one with the hat) bleached his hair, and Reeves (the one on the end who is not David Bowie) has done all sorts of exotic things to his hair ever since he started hanging around with The Cure.

here is a look at the back, or if you like bottom, of the tins.

the three extra tracks on the baby universal one are from a Radio One session. i think that Mark Radcliffe may have hosted it. not sure, i have it all on tape here somewhere - features class interviews and the humour of Hunt. and the vocals of Hunt, of course, on Stateside.

this was all from a time when Radio One was decent, very decent in fact, and downright essential. i am led to believe it went quite bad in the late 90s. for some reason, from what i am told, they decided to place great emphasis on being the station of twats. out went everything decent, in came twats hosting twat conversations about twat "musicians" and music made by twats for twats. quite sad to hear that; it seems as bad as when MTV decided to just basically stop showing music videos in favour of shows featuring pregnant 16 year olds shouting at each other.

onwards, then, to something that has caused great excitement and interest when i have mentioned it in passing to one or two. if you were to ask is there such a thing as a board game based on the magnificence of Twin Peaks, the answer is most assuredly that yes there is,

it looks amazing, doesn't it? actually this thing is a bit of a headache and something of a dilemma to me. the game itself is utter, utter crap - bad to the point that it's all but impossible to actually play it to any sort of conclusion. however, it has Twin Peaks in big letters on the front (and sides as you will see below), so that automatically makes it, as point of fact, excellent, and all the stuff inside it is related to Twin Peaks, making it even more excellent.

the only really plausible way to explain the crapness of the game itself is that human evolution and development has obviously stagnated somewhere in the last 20 years and we, as people, have not developed our minds and brains enough as such as yet to be able to meet the demands of the game.

yes, i agree, that "corner" image i took there is quite stylish.

i will do my best to explain the game without spoilers. actually, i can't explain the game and it probably has spoilers.

i think you are supposed to work out who killed Laura Palmer. to do this you go around the board in a very Dale Cooper way. it is something to do with collecting wedges, and possibly donuts, until something (a circle, maybe) is formed out of all those wedges. or something like that.

the main problem would be that these clues and wedges are overloaded with red herrings. there are lots of characters, but if i recall it is only possible for one or two of them to turn out to be the killer.

a lot of people complained that the Twin Peaks TV series was too confusing. this i have always found strange, as it is the clearest, most linear thing David Lynch has done, beyond that time Mel Brooks hired him to do The Elephant Man, at the least. any accusation that states this game is too confusing, or indeed the personification of confusion, would be spot on, really.

but look! it has loads of Twin Peaks references, and an FBI Agent's Handbook, by Special Agent Dale Cooper himself!

i was partially tempted to read the book again, thinking it to be a good idea. but then i remembered that thing from Blackadder II where Nursie says that good ideas can make your feet fall off so i decided not to read it again.

here you go, then, with a look at the donut things (brown circles), the "wedges", the clue cards and the pretty conventional pieces that you theoretically use to sort of move around the board and progress with the game.

am i likely to ever try and play the game again? maybe. if for some reason i find myself in the presence of three fellow Twin Peaks enthusiasts and they get all eager about it, why not. i might even warn them that it is not as good a thing as it may seem.

thanks for reading!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10th December 2002

hi there

wow, 4 or 5 days since i last posted here. sorry about that, really busy sorting out stuff and having a life of boxes and, indeed, properties. but more on that sooner or later.

in the mean time, yes it is another find. i found an old calendar today - perhaps i, or indeed we, am or are a hoarder or hoarders. it's gone now, but not before this picture.

10th December 2002. for the benefit of those searching for such things on google, this was when we saw the Manic Street Preachers on their Forever Delayed tour, or as they called it their "greatest hits shenanigans". that they were supported by Ian Brown meant that we flew over mostly just for this, to be honest - seeing two of our favourites was too good a thing to miss.

for the most part i am just uploading all the pics i found here - yes, these are the negatives i spoke of before, which a specialist Mr Negative Mender kindly put on to CD for me. i may well take more, but for now here's some pics with comments.

a big thanks again, since here seems appropriate, to my dear friend, Mr Norman Bastard, and his amazing better half, Andrea, for not only letting us stay with them but also for fetching us after the gig.

first then, my (considerably) better half at Stockton train station, waiting the for the train (as one does at train stations) to take us to the promised land of Newcastle.

i cannot think of any reason why one would really want to see a look of me, but if for some reason you do, here i am at the very same train station, waiting for the very same train.

a lovely train ride up, it was. we met some other Manics fans on the train and had a good chat. Manics fans are a breed apart, really - we tend to argue or "discuss in a heated way" everything related to the band and beyond, but my word do we tend to come together as and when we can, be it in need or for fun.

on to a whole load of gig pics, then, which feature mostly the back of people's heads and some looks at the artists doing their thing.

please bear in mind that this was all long before anyone glued or welded a camera to a mobile phone. it was also at a time when Apple just did some sort of specialist computer for designers. a thing called an iPod existed, but few had seen one in 2002 - i think the only one i had seen was a sort of prototype one that Bowie raved about. they didn't even have a colour display then, let alone a camera.

digital cameras were also very much in their infancy at this time - they were expensive and took really bad pictures.

these pics, then, were taken with one of those disposable film camera things, one that i smuggled in with no problems and didn't get it taken off of me. Mr James Dean Bradfield did look in my direction with a p!ssed off look, something i will remember forever.

with only a few exceptions, here then are the pics with as little added by me as possible.

erm, sorry if for the most part all you can make out is the back of people's heads and the faces of the show security. here's a lovely bunch of faces, though.

that's my (considerably) better half with some of the amazing Manics fans i mentioned. how amazing? when they found out how far we had come for the gig, they all helped us get closer to the front, without us asking or suggesting it! all the fans were brilliant, they made the gig all the better.

and a quick comment here as the lad in the middle there looks like a prototype Franny. it cannot be the Franny, as Franny was probably an embryo or similar at that stage.

on with the pics!

yes, these last few have indeed been of Ian Brown. i was too busy watching him for the first time ever to worry about how the pics came out, sorry, but i hope one or two seem decent.

well, there you have it. i suspect general readers will have scrolled through this with a lack of interest, but for those who searched for this i hope you either saw yourself, or saw something that you remembered!

if you for some reason want to comment, click on the title of this post (i think) and it takes you to some sort of comments section. probably.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barbs - letter delivered

hello there

my apologies to enthusiasts of the concept in this particular post for the delay in some rather spectacular news. well, maybe not as spectacular as it could be, but rather impressive all the same.

behold, for the United States Postal System (or whatever USPS stands for, although i will wager a shiny coin that the US bit is right) have delivered the celebratory thank you letter to Barbs. 10 days ago, as point of fact.

is it just me, or are they particularly proud of delivering it? i mean, just observe all the ticks and the bright, bold way they state delivered. it is always good to see that at least some postal services around the world take pride in what they do.

i must say this registered mail business is worth every penny, seeing as it allows one to see things like this on their computer. what a shame that Royal Mail in the UK do not have a "reciprocol" tracking thing with the rest of the world. that's why the likes of amazon (well, only amazon now) don't send parcels with tracking stuff on overseas; Royal Mail is having none of it. a pity, it would cut down on theft.

will Barbs respond? well, i give it 30 days, really. why? not telling. it would be asking quite a lot of the post office here to deliver mail in such a timeframe, but you never know.

all i can do, i guess, is hope that Barbs appreciated the gesture and accepted the thanks.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

relics

hi there

i suspect, and indeed you may feel like you know, that this blog is running into the world of the dull and banal. yet again, you see, this post is about stuff / sh!t i have found in boxes that certainly interests me and i am presuming to assume might be of passing interest to one or two enthusiasts of the web. sorry, really. interesting things may one day return here.

here we go, then, with a few random items found on my travels through boxes of late. starting with something amazing, to borrow one of the song titles, and speaking for myself alone, just in case you disagree with the class ways of the band.

yes, as well as the infamous t-shirts (search away if you like, i think they are in a blogpost called "keepers" or similar), i did indeed keep my Tin Machine concert ticket. and kept it well, since it's in that frame.

i do wonder if keeping hold of stuff like this makes me a "bad" hoarder. i'd like to think not, but maybe. i tend to keep things that have either a practical or sentimental value, but would accept the sentimental value i have for some things seems extensive if not extravagant.

anyway, out there in the world are many people who never got to see Bowie, since it seems he will not take to the stage again. it would be disrespectful to them, and to my own memories, if i was just casual about seeing one of the greatest artists of all time.

as for a band i never got to see (no way was i old enough for the Licenced To Ill tour) and indeed a song which featured here recently......

some of you may recall in a post about tapes / cassette singles / cassingles that i did where i mentioned the tape of Intergalactic was a better deal that the CD single. just in case you think this was in some way dishonest or incorrect, have a look at the tracklisting.

two tracks, the album version of the song and whatever Hail Sagan is or was.

whatever folly there is with regards to this CD single, never let it be forgotten just how amazing the video for Intergalactic was and indeed remains to this day. i have been known to stop conversations and dinner parties to watch it, but that story, well, another time another place.

and here's two random items, which i will take guesses at the origins or purpose of.

i think the key ring stems from my time working in the wonders of a video store. the key itself might be the key to my first car, the street machine, the pretender to the throne of the king of the road, a Ford Escort. yes, a cream one.

that one got written off when some dickhead old fart decided that as he had a BMW (or possibly Merc) he did not need to stop at Stop Signs (see twats of the road for how it works here) and thus twatted right into me. everyone - me and his passengers that is - was injured to various degrees, the prick driving was of course fine.

which leads us to the old joke - what's the difference between a BMW/Merc and a hedgehog? on a hedgehog the pricks are on the outside.

anyway, as for the Che necklace/pendant, i suspect a gift from my sister. i was quite a student of Che, and people used to buy me stuff with him on at a time when it was not so easy to buy. now of course this famous image of him is plastered everywhere. i do wonder if the majority of people displaying images of him know exactly who he was, but not my concern i guess.

ah, since we are at the weekend of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, i found another of them tape things that i got to listen to in the car or on planes.

quite good, that one is. looks in working order, which may interest a few friends of mine who are more fanatical about all things Doctor Who than i am. as in i really like the series, but i wouldn't consider myself a collector of stuff related to it, so no doubt i will find a proper home for it.

lastly, i found some negatives for some pictures i was looking for, but not the pictures. i thought that scanners and that today were supposed to be clever and could convert the negatives into pictures for you.

no they cannot, it seems.

i have recently dropped the negatives off at a professional to see if they can produce images from them. oddly, not the above negatives though, as they were not the pictures i wanted, but as i had twatted about with them on the scanner i thought i would use that here.

when the proper picture mender has done his thing i shall no doubt share the developed images here. Manics fans might quite like what they see when that day dawns, probably next week.

righty-ho, back to boxes for me, then. watch me find the pictures that i sought but only found the negatives for just now. hey ho, why have one when you can have two.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!