straight to hell

Went to see the ever awesome 65daysofstatic last week at The Thekla. The Boy and I arrived a bit late, and so missed the first half of support band Let's Talk Tactics' set; though we did get to hear it blaring out from the bowels of the good ship Thekla as we queued. That was enough to convince us that we didn't need to see the second half of their set, and that our time would be better spent getting drunk on the top deck.

65daysofstatic were great, though. They tend to get categorized as a post-rock band, largely due to the clean guitar sound, absence of vocals, and melodies that are equal parts intricate and soaring; but where they triumph is in taking the drawn out and slow build up of post-rock, and replace it all with pounding pounding techno music. Or, failing that, just more guitars. Behold!

Suffice to say, a good time was had by all - apart from the girl whose nose got broken by some towering thug who really loved 65days, and managed to inflict his love on everyone within a two metre radius by the most physical means possible. Jerk.

The next day I went to Silverstone with like-minded nerds, to watch cars go round and round and round and round as part of the World Series by Renault. We got to watch a variety of single seater and road car races, got deafened by a couple of Renault F1 demonstrations, marveled at the fact that so many French cars and drivers got around the track without breaking down/going on strike, were astonished by the fact that 1992 F1 world champion Nigel "Isle of Man Iron Man" Mansell could still fit into a car, and got to wander down the pit lane taking pictures of cars in various states of undress.

Mmmm... engineering porn...

Some of the cars even looked good with their clothes on.

But most of the photos I took ended up being of an empty patch of tarmac, with the blurred rear quarter of a racing car disappearing off the left hand side.

So, downtime's been mostly pretty fine. And work time?

Urgh.

I've only got four weeks left at grown-up work, and I've pretty much checked out already. Over the past month or so I've been slowly eking out my lunch break, starting it a little bit earlier, finishing a little bit later... I'm now at the point where my lunch break takes up about half the day, with the remaining half made up of various impromptu tea breaks. I spent almost all of Friday last week reading through the spEak You're bRanes archive, where a pleasing selection of the most alarmist/right-wing/me fail English that's unpossible/ill-informed comments from the "Have Your Say" section of the BBC website are ridiculed by venomously sarcastic individuals, who similarly seem to think that their opinion matters (though I'm sure that the irony is not wasted on them). It is now my most favouritest thing in the world.

Meanwhile, I found what may now rank amongst my least favouritest things in the world (along with spiders, country music, and the taste of earwax) in the staff dining room at the Big Gay Department Store the week before last.

For those of you not gangsta enough to decipher the above title, it's called "The Street Bible". It reads like a bible that's been re-interpreted and re-written by a forty year old with a tenuous grasp on urban culture, in a vain attempt to make it appeal to young people. Because that's exactly what it is. If I may read from Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1:

First off, nothing. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it all off and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! -Genesis 1:1

Jeeping fuck. After a while, God speaks to Moses and explains that he's his main man, but he can't come into heaven 'cos of what he done, but he's still his main man, and he needs to go out onto the mountain and lay the Big 10 down for his people.

I don't mind religion, I really don't. It's not for me, but if that's what you're into then go for it. But The Street Bible? Seriously?! Isn't it a bit... well... patronising?

Also, I think it misses the point somewhat. If the objective really is to make the Bible more appealing to youth culture, then just changing the language isn't enough. I think there are far more fundamental problems to be overcome.

The main one being that it's a book, and books aren't cool. It's got to be either a Hollywood Blockbuster, or a first person shooter. Possibly both.

Assuming that we go for a movie (we can always sell the game rights later as part of a massive merchandising deal), we can then set about dealing with the other problems with the Bible. These being, broadly speaking, everything else about it. It's a bit too old-fashioned, kids these days aren't going to want to identify with a bearded sandal-wearing hippy... the whole thing needs sexing up a bit.

So, Vin Diesel will play Jesus. He trundles into Bethlehem in a beat-up old Honda Civic Coupe, and no-one takes him seriously until tha Wise Krew (Chuck D, Xzibit and Antonio Fargas) roll up and bestow him with gifts of alloy wheels, body kit and undercar neon. He then hooks up with Moses (who will be played by Megan Fox, thus providing the all important love interest), and they go on to a series of adventures where they fight crime, preach love, heal lepers with their fists and blow shit up, all through the medium of extreme sports and street racing. The whole thing should run like a series of nu-metal music videos stitched together with some superfluous dialogue.

In the end, the fascist baddies that hate freedom have nail Vin Diesel to a cross because he's just too extreme. He'll stay there baking in the desert sun just long enough for a lingering shot of steam rising from his rippling torso, before snapping the cross over his spine like it was twig. He reveals that he is in fact from outer space, incinerates all the baddies with blinding shafts of white light coming from his eyes and mouth, grabs Moses and beams back to his home planet.

That's kind of the bare bones of it, anyway. It kind of feels right, but I can't help but think that it should have Adam Sandler in it somehow.