mother's day and new york

Once on Mother's Day me and my sister (or was it just me?) sang Mama by the Spice Girls to my mum. Nowadays though I think the Kanye West one would fit much nicer. In fact another nod to my sister, we went to see Kanye West together just after his mum had died he did this song stripped back, spotlight on him and there was no one left without tears in their eyes. I've been listening to a lot of early Kanye recently. Like remember how he was always so political? & yet people were surprised when he said all that stuff about black people in New Orleans. & that people don't know that his whole jaw has been reconstructed & is made of wire, when like his whole first album was about that is kind of weird to me. He's also an amazing artist, he dresses impeccably & shit I mean, sometimes his lyrics are just insane. Anywho, back to mum. Happy Mother's Day!

I'm off to New York for my 21st Birthday tomorrow, because you know, it seems fitting to be in America when I turn their legal drinking age. It's gonna be a different holiday than I expected but I really can't wait to explore & we're staying in Brooklyn so hopefully I can just pretend I live there for 10 days. I'm not timing any posts because I figure you guys are used to me disappearing & sticking up some half hearted shit seems against the point. I might be a-tumbling though since we're meant to have wifi... So yes, I'll come back with lots of photos & stories & hopefully some perspective (too much to ask? definitely).

See ya!

Just a quick before work post to say, have you seen Solange's (baby Bayonce Knowles) new video? The clothes are perfect, the settings perfect, the songs pretty perfect & man can she dance. A nice picker upper for your Friday morning. Here's what she said about filming the video:

"When Melina and I decided to film 'Losing You' in South Africa, we really didn't have a real film concept in place. It was sort of a grab a camera and let's go moment. I knew I wanted to capture a couple things: the vibe of our friendship and all of the crazy escapades we've gotten ourselves into all over the world, and the abstract and elegant Le Sape Society (Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance) formed in the Congo which was documented by Caniele Tamagni in his Gentleman of Bacongo book. We called Daniele to guide us, and some of my friends from New York came down to Cape Town and we all had a very damn good time."

Can't wait for the album!

"Hello Daddy, hello Mum,

I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb.

Hello world I'm your wild girl,

I'm your ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb."

Sorry I couldn't resist a bit of Runaways. I actually finally got round to watching the film a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't sure about it. I think it was good if you didn't know about the band before, but having discovered them a couple of years back & read Cherie Currie's Neon Angel I think it was a pretty glossy portrayal. 

Anywho... I never really understood Esprit as a shop. It used to be limited to the rest of Europe & then one appeared in Cabot Circus in Bristol. It's always empty & I don't really know anyone who shops there, but they can afford to hire Gisele & Erin Wasson? I always thought it must be drug money. Turns out they're actually part of the La Redoute family so I guess the money's spread about. However, I'll go anywhere for a good print & when looking up for a cover up before I went to France in August I spotted this in the sale. Silk & cotton? Perfect. Not sure about the mandarin collar which makes it harder to wear, but the cherries are worth it!

PLUS I know in my hearts on hearts it's cheesy & bad but FUCK Kreayshawn's new album is awesome. Listening to this song on repeat, getting sideways looks whilst singing along to lyrics about burning/stabbing/shooting stuff. Anyway, listen. Promise it'll never leave your head. In the best of ways.

New t-shirt from my boy now he's back from his travels. I know that Courtney Love will always be questionable when it comes to the Riot Grrrrl movement & parenthood, but I will always love Hole. They're one of the last bands I really loved like a teenager if you know what I mean. I don't get that so much with music nowadays. Like Drake & Frank Ocean I'll listen to on repeat for weeks but I'll never be their fangirl. & plus when I was going mental at the Guardian (that sounds like a top piece of journalism for like Vice or someone, or a really middle class punk band) I locked myself in the stock cupboard & organised lovely clothes whilst soothing myself with Hole on Youtube. Bad times with good music.

Sorry guys (again) I've become a rollercoaster blogger, all on & off. But I've also developed a nocturnal tendency that isn't great for taking photos. So here's one of the lovliest songs in existence accompanied with some naked Natalie Portman. Fun, fun.

Something really exciting & highly unexpected has happened. Anyway, I don't wanna jinx it right now so here's M.I.A's always epic new video. (yeah totally seamless) By the way, what the fuck is she doing with Madonna? Pretending to be a cheerleader? I love how into it Nicki Minaj is & how blank she plays it... The finger guns into middle finger thing on the highly mental Super Bowl has amused me greatly. Oh & you should all watch this. And this. Yes. I have been on youtube.

Rihanna I fucking love you. This video is amazing. & yes it's appropriating culture that doesn't belong to it, & glossing over shit like mad as well as lifting style from Corinne Day; but it's beautiful! The male model guy she's with is beautiful, the clothes she wears are beautiful & the portrayal of love turned to passion turned to hate is fucking beautiful too. Highlights are when she storms off & has to hook her skirt down, lighting 20 cigarettes at once, the Trainspotting drugs sequence, the fake tattooing & her vomiting up ribbons.

Plus I'm in Belfast so it's vaguely appropriate having been filmed on uhr... the same island. I'm here visiting the half of my family I didn't see last weekend. I am a little fam'd out, but at least I won't have to do it for a while afterwards. Anything amazing in Belfast I should do?

We found Dove in a 
soapless place.

Photos from my computer to convey my mixed up head. Sorry for no posts but I've been working like a real person (almost) four days a week.

1. Gillian Zinser is lovely. 2. Lulu DK puts my lame collages to shame. 3. Amber Rose because... you know she's beautiful & Kanye West obviously still isn't over her. 4. Kanye & Jay-Z from THE BEST ALBUM SO FAR THIS YEAR aka Watch the Throne. 5. Couldn't find a nice enough image for "teal" that wasn't a dress from Topshop, have to do with stationary. 6. From tumblr I'm guessing. 7. Yes yes they are a feral underclass, you are the secretary for justice, JUSTICE, as in giving people second chances no matter what they've done & treating them with the respect they deserve. 8. Many of the e-mails I have been getting from job applications or work experience applications I half heartedly filled out, not really knowing whether I wanted to do them or not... 9. Fighting the want to buy a load of fake nails & decorate them beautifully like this girl, or at least go to this exhibition. 10. This blog is so beautiful I could get lost there for days. 11. One of my favorite Beyonce songs & just feels sort of appropriate.

That's all.

Uhr yeah. So someone sent me a link to this video & the song wouldn't leave my head, but more than that were the girls in the video. More specifically, Lil Debbie. So I got my google on & discovered the White Girl Mob & I'm pretty much in awe of them, if that's the right word. Nah, probably not. Basically they just seem like a load of normal, very American, nicely tattooed girls. I'm not totally on board with Kreayshawn's music, but this song... I can't not sing the chorus. & who else would get away with the line, "I've got the swag, it's pumping out my ovaries"? Seriously watch this video. & then look at pretty pictures of Lil Debbie or visit Kreayshawn or V Nasty's blogs. Picture source.

Sweet.

Today I had my last exam. It went pretty horrifically but that's besides the point, I am now officially out of education forever. I have no uni lined up, this is not a gap year, I am now officially a real human being in the real world who has to act accordingly. Now, I've been looking forward to this - as well as being completely fucking scared by it - since basically the moment I went to Manchester's Open Day & discovered the one uni course I maybe, on an off chance wanted to do, didn't exist anymore. Taken as a sign from the universe or whatever I thought fuck it, what's the point in going to uni to do something I don't need to just because I can't think of anything better. I know, I know, you meet loads of people there, it's not about learning blah blah. But I have amazing friends & I intend, in the course of the rest of my life to go on meeting amazing people. I don't know why I need debts, deadlines & 3 years of my life to do that. Uni is great for a lot of people but just not me. I feel homicidal every time I find myself on a campus.

So for now I intend to postpone the huge looming question, "What the fuck do I do now?" At least until September. So I have 3 weeks at home to finish books about Mexican drug cartels, turn my sisters old room into a craft room & listen to the Specials. Then it's off to Berlin & summer holidays until August. Then there's just August... So my internal school-alised clock can begin to panic, but instead of it being about going back to school/college it'll be about what to do with the rest of my life.

Sorted.

I'm getting on a train at 4 O'Clock to go & see Bright Eyes at the Royal Albert Hall. It's nice because I had completely forgotten about the whole idea until Jesus reminded me we had to book our trains. You see, we bought tickets way back in December/January as a joint Christmas & Birthday present to each other & because it's here, tonight, sandwiched between my exams, I sort of hadn't let myself think about it at all. & then yesterday I realised he's released two albums that I haven't even listened to yet, meaning he's probably not going to be going much of my two favorite albums. If he doesn't sing Lua though, I'll be well disappointed & both my present to Jesus & from him won't be very good. Oh well, feels exciting to be going to the Albert Hall. It's like proper music! Here's At The Bottom of Everything with my favorite lyrics to shout along too on I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Poster source (he has had some amazing posters) & image source. (*edit: my normal music player doesn't work anymore! If anyone could help me out with some HTML that lets me imbed single tracks from a link it would be much appreciated. Comment or e-mail me, neonpeg@gmail.com. Cheers!)

We must talk in every telephone
Get eaten off the web
We must rip out all the epilogues in the books that we have read
And in the face of every criminal
Strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, we must stare, we must stare.

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell
Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell
And in the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream
We must sing, we must sing, we must sing.

We must blend into the choir
Sing as static with the whole
We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul
And in this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run.

We must hang up in the belfry
Where the bats and moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And in the caverns of tomorrow
With just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge.

I'm happy just because
I found out I am really no one.


Enjoy!

Timed post because even though my day will be dedicated to the person these songs are for, I couldn't leave my little corner of the blogosphere with nothing. Here is my 3 year anniversary mixtape for the sid to my nancy, the clyde to my bonnie, (in fact he's probably more like the sid to my bonnie with less heroin & guns. Anyway...) the artist to my French girl, the peanut to my bambi. I am talking smitten nonsense I know. But anyway here's my attempt at a love mixtape through punk, an ode to the be-tatted one in my life, but also to you guys for being rather awesome & lovely too. Personalized mixtape made here.

I hope you like it!

So the day finally arrived & after running some errands I went into Rise, an independent, because I still feel guilty about fueling Alex Turner's demise into a drug addled Chung bubble. I was actually pretty disappointed. *SHOCK* I mean, Arctic Monkeys have never been huge on album artwork, it all kind of went downhill since the first album (as you can see by the disc gif I made, I think I might be getting addicted to gifs) & when I got it home & dug out the other three I realized just how similar it is to Humbug, down to the weird eerie desert photo in the center. But this review by the ever lovely Alexis Petridis pretty much says everything that needs to be said, with better references. I still can't listen to Don't Sit Down 'Cause I Moved Your Chair though... I skip it every time. PLUS there will be 2 reviews of it in the next issue of SWEAT, one by George my Arctic Monkeys virgin friend & the *hardcore fan* that is me. What do you think? Are you gonna buy it? It's almost worth it for the awesome photo of Max Helders (my now favorite Monkey) in skates & a helmet. Or do you not care at all?

In other news I'm extremely excited! They have managed to produce antimatter for about 16 minutes! Plus Paul Dirac was mentioned in the guardian, which if nothing else, is awesome news for those with his equation that predicted antimatter tattooed on their arms. *ahem* It basically means they can look at it a lot closer, get a wider range of data & try & get some averages about it's behavior & where the fuck all the antimatter from the beginning of the world went. My money's on a parallel universe! You can read the article here.

Also feel the need to re alliterate - having spent so many posts on this blog explaining my varying states of depression - that I am extremely happy at the moment. This weekend has been lovely. It was Max's birthday & because me & Jesus are cheapskates & basically the same person, we spent £2.50 on the joint present of a cactus, then spent the whole night worrying it was a shit present. Max loved it, so did Cat even though she got stung (is that the right word?) by it almost immediately, opps! We, The People was good & I fell into bed, avoiding after parties like the plague & in fact fell asleep on the phone. Oh well. Now I need to do some physics revision & figure out if it's possible to set up a projector onto my bedroom wall... err... I'll explain on Thursday. This was a longer post than I intended it to be.

Sorry!

I may be extremely hungover, but I have enough clarity to understand how amazing these photos are (source). I kind of adore Kanye West, even though I feel like I shouldn't. Anyway everything is lovely, isn't it? It's been sunny for a couple of days & Max liked his birthday Cactus from last night (also he liked his party, hence the headache) even though I was having second thoughts & thinking of buying this instead when I saw it at work. The "Knowledge Retailer" selling drug books? Mind fuck or what. Going to see The Streets tonight, well excited. Two festivals in Bristol on one weekend? Maybe we are just the best city ever... Or maybe that's just the sound of summer becoming official. Also this week shall be awesome, I will have it no other way. Off to drink some orange juice as par Amber's holy hangover cure advice.

Peace.