Drawing, painting and sculpting. Writing poetry and fiction. Thinking. Walking. Dancing. I just love to draw and I always have a pencil in my hand. I've been painting since 2001, learning as I go because I've never really done it before, and have done extensive mural painting for various Birmingham pubs and clubs, in particular Eddies. The sculpture is more of a teaching thing now than the creating of new work - I find it impossible to sell sculpture and as the work can't be easily stored away in a folder it gets in the way and pisses me off. I've been involved with a massive vampire novel for the past three years or so now - I've had nothing published since the 90's, and never a substantial story, and I'm aiming to fix that. Thinking - don't we all love it? I love a good walk, and a good moor or fores serve me well. And I love clubbing, dancing to some good old tunes. A real good way to let off steam. Think I've put all my interests in the "About Me" box and I can't be arsed to change it round now.
Ronnie Barker and Lee Majors of course!
Well, on the one hand I like pretty much everything but on the other, the specific thang that floats my boat is Rock. Mostly 70's rock - Hawkwind, Deep Purple, the BOC, and all the more obvious groups. And Southern Rock too - rock with plenty of blues in it, and a bit of boogie-woogie - Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, early AC/DC, Free, all that kinda shit. And old blues stuff too, where a woeful guy puts badly rhymed words together to tell us how bad his life is - wonderful! I also still have a soft spot for 80's Metal and Thrash too. I think Tool are an incredible band, and Rob Zombie's first solo album is great party music.
Bladerunner. Alien. The Matrix (but only the first film). The Colour Purple. Excalibur. The Bride of Frankenstein. Errm... most of what Laurel and Hardy did. Man this is tough - even a great film, like, say, 2001, gets boring if you watch it too much, and you get fed up of it. I miss that time of my life when EVERY film was the best one ever, when I was excited to go to the Movies and thrilled to talk about it for hours afterward. Those were the good old days. I guess I still love the movies I loved in the 80's, all that sci fi, fantasy and Pythonesque comedy, but few movies move me nowadays. When did I become a cynical, impatient old fart?
TV - the best thing on TV are the adverts, and they are also the worst. Their money-making potential leads to the wittiest, cleverest and most profound messages and concepts being created, but their ultimate disingenuousness is sickening. If TV has one saving grace it is cartoons. The Simpsons and Family Guy are ace but I'd just as happily watch Tom and Jerry. Every time Tom is in pain and howls in agony I just eat the carpet. In recent years a couple of programmes have stood out for me, programmes that did not flounder too badly within the episodic confines of TV - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Babylon 5.
ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY...it's difficult to find a good book nowadays, don't ya think? I've always loved Stephen King, but for the past few years now, whenever I pick up a new one I know pretty much what to expect, and read it because it is comfortable, but its never WOW! WHAT A STORY! anymore. Some of the great Sci Fi writers have stories full of fantastic insights and inventions - but they are nearly always cold, flat-charactered books. So thesedays I pick up books randomly and hope they are ok. Most are poor, some good. I remember with fondness the books I read as a child - like the Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff and Ian Fleming, which gave me a life-time love of Tarzan and James Bond and burned into my mind the concept of the Hero. I read a lot of autobiographies too. If anyone has read a good book lately, please let me know! But I guess, going back to my original thought, Mr King's The Stand is my favourite book of "all time". Oh yes - how the Zarking Fardwarks could I forget - Douglas Adams too - yeh, Hitch Hiker's has always been important to me.
Well it has to be my Mom for putting up with me, and the whole Bevan clan. She can be bloody annoying, but what a trooper. Most of my other heroes are fictional, even the King Arthur that I have come to understand has the inescapable spin of mystery and glamour around him, and fiction, alas, is not real. Who else? Tom Baker, Bill Hicks, Douglas Adams, Len Glaze (my Grandad), Colin Wilson.