When the film finished, there was silence. No one was sure if that was an amazing cinematic experience that will substitue 2001 on film schools or if it was just a big prank.

I think I loved it, although I’m not sure. The Tree of Life is the story of a 50 year old man who questions if all the traumas of his childhood were significant enough compared to the immensity of the Universe. Love is all that matters, anything else is redundant. Or at least that’s what I understood.

Terrence Malick will show you the Big Band, Dinosaurs, first steps of a baby, summers of your childhood, everything that matters to anyone and will ask you, does it really matter? Look at the universe, it’s fucking humongous, do you really think that that summer when you were 8 would be important when the universe collapses?

One thing it’s for certain though, it’s the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen.

It was certainly a challenge to work with the 30 seconds format – hats off to the masters out there – but I think it has definitely play to my advantage because it makes it so fast-paced that it becomes incredibly silly.

I’ve certainly had a lot of fun playing around with the toys, food, making noise and returning to my childhood with a good enough justification; although, recording the audio was definitely my favourite bit.

Thanks Innocent drinks for organizing this!

It might not seem like much right now, but when you’re a little kid, understand that your parents used to be young and non-parents was quite a revelation. Seeing it was incredibly mind-blowing.

So what will happen with the coming-soon generation of kids whose parents not only have documented their every-weekend but also announced the moment they became parents?

Do you remember when you were a kid and you saw pictures of the younger versions of your parents? Now think that not only would you be able to look at hundreds of those pictures, but also read what they enjoyed, what they were worried about, what they hated…

Our children will know us better than any other children ever. They will be able to see how pictures of getting shit-face every Saturday in Candem quickly became pictures of the latest sale in Ikea, delicious dinner parties and Summer BBQs with beers being replaced by Wine and the latest Waitrose delicatessen.

Will our children be more emotionally stable? Will it be more easy for them to understand our concerns seeing how we were young and wild as well?

Only time will tell, in the meantime, just think that your Facebook will be used against you the moment you try to explain how getting drunk is a horrible thing to your children; while pictures of you, completely shit-face, having the time of your life, and a comment that says “best night ever” judgmentally look you in the face.

That is all.

The Hero your tummy deserves

When was the last time you played cops and robbers with your toys? Sorry, I meant to say, when was the last time you played Cops and Robbers with your toys… publicly?

Don’t worry, it’s ok.

It happens to the best of us.

But fear not my friend and ally of introverted yet somehow exuberant activities. The good guys and gals from Innocent Drinks – yes the ubber fruity and ubber healthy drinks – have decided to run a competition where not only will be OK to publicly play with toys, but also financially rewarded.

I know, right?

I guess you’ve seen this ad on TV recently?

Well, the competition couldn’t be easier, you just need have to film a 30 seconds sequel and upload it to YouTube by 17th April.

I managed to get my hands on an incredibly sweet props-kit so I will be playing working on this project the following days.

Innocent Movies filmkit

Talk to the good guys and gals from Kino London to get one

For more info go here

In December 2010, my girlfriend and I were invited to a wedding in Senegal. Hopefully, one day, I’ll finish the damn thing.

Whenever humans face something inexplicably tragic, we tend to justify it creating impossible explanations and out of this world creatures to prove that humans aren’t inherently evil.

Written accounts say that when the habitants of a small village in Germany back in the 17th century, found the corpses of children in the outskirts of their homes, wolves was the only natural explanation as it was their most feared enemy back then.

Obviously, when signs of the children been raped as well as murdered without the distinctive marks a wolf would leave them came to be the main conversation, the villagers started questioning what was going on.

One day, they found it was one of them, raping and murdering children.

But that was impossible, it couldn’t be one of them, he was a monster they said, obviously part wolf part human, but a monster, not a member of the community. Not the son of a father and a mother.

A monster.

Ironically, now in this day and age, “everyone” loves a werewolf who is trying to shag a self-conscious and insecure teenage girl who needs to pay a visit to Ann Summers before her vagina explodes.

Greek mythology, the bible, dragons… the list goes on and on.

Everything that is wrong with us, is justified by supernatural beings, we are not evil, monsters are evil, not us. Rapists, killers, Josef Fritzl, power-ballads songwriters… they are all monsters.

But in the last century something happened, America started to create its own mythology, but contrary to that of the old continent, the supernatural creatures are the good guys.

Even though the Greeks had heroes in their mythology, they always fought supernatural villains.

With the birth of the comic book superheroes, we now have put our dreams and hopes in something good that it’s protecting us, superman, spiderman, batman… they all fight robbers or killers (hopefully one day someone will make a comic book about Batman beating the shit out of power-ballads’ songwriters)

We as a race have matured, we no longer justify the evil in our society by saying; is a monster, is the hand of Satan, it was God’s will.

But we accept that we’re  a bunch of bastards, and looking up to the fantasy of a good man who can fly gives us comfort.

Like the end of 2001, we will be born again in the stars. We look to the future with optimism.

If we look at America today, we see it as a decaying empire that designed the blueprint for the modern world. Greedy wars, christian fundamentalism or the heart of the markets, the only and true power behind our law system.

But there’s much more to America.

Americans have learnt to look past the old traditions, the monsters of our ancestors and have created a new mythology of supernatural good things.

And this brings me to the reason for this post.

Hotel St. George – Little children’s bones.

This video, with their dogs with capes, wizards and robots, their use of fantasy and mythology on the modern landscape, portraying the alienation of youth as a good thing, proves how much America has matured. The world is not a place full of monsters lurking in the shadows to take our children, but a place where good things happen at 3 am, with beers, with friends, where a wizard and a robot are as real as the werewolf who took our children away.

This video proves that we all live in America, and that’s a good thing.

From the website:

The Creators Project is a new network dedicated to the celebration of creativity and culture across media, and around the world.

From movie directors to musicians, installation artists and designers, you can find all sorts of interesting people to be jealous about.

Pick one, I did.

United Visual Artists are living proof of how regardless of what you do, if you do it with passion, someone will pay for it.

Started by a group of freelancers doing similar things who decided they were better off joining forces to create something new, U.V.A. have manage to create a team of “architects and designers” who will end up working with Massive Attack, U2, the Chemical Brothers or transforming a landscape with projectors or LED lighting.

You know when you’re at work hating your life, feeling like your last chance to do something worth telling anyone is about to abandon you? And your friends are equally miserable but each one on a different job? And that all your promises and dreams of working together in perfect harmony doing something you would truly enjoy have been shattered due to the sheer lack of interest in anything past nine o’clock?

Well, read  here how a group of people from different backgrounds had the balls to do what you and your friends aren’t willing to do.

Come on! read it and cry you waste of space, you lazy fuck, you king of procrastination-land.

Yes you, the one who types right now these very same words, who should be doing something productive on a Sunday instead of just typing words telling you off for not typing enough.

You disgust me.

Rage Against the Machine Live at Finsbury Park

After the notorious Christmas Campaign to get Killing in the Name of to number one in the UK, an equally mischievous and wholeheartedly driven concert was in order.

Rage Against the Machine delivered.

For those without the enough patience to read a few paragraphs I would only say this; it was fucking epic. Let me rub it in the faces of everyone who couldn’t get the tickets, you missed one of the most significant concerts since Sauron lost the Ring.

There, you can go away now or keep on reading to find out what exactly happened on June the 6th 2010 at Finsbury Park.

I’ve never been to a Rage Against the Machine gig before, I quite like them, listen to them enthusiastically when the pub’s DJ blasted them on the speakers and never changed channel should I find them on TV.

I was a mild listener of their music. Not worthy of their presence according to some but, regardless, I bought the single Killing in the Name of like three times and pressed F5 the day the tickets were available online like a maniac about to win a supply of Marmite for life.

What surprised me was the amount of humour swirling in the air.

The concert started with an animated Simon Cowell introducing the event. Apart from a few chuckles it managed to remind everyone why 40.000 people were standing on a field listening to live music.

Rage Against the Machine could have made the night a celebration of their music, demonstrating why the UK used them to get them to Number one last Christmas. But instead of behaving like divas the band proved they’re not just a bunch dudes who happen to not work at an office. They made sure it was clear the reason why we were all there was because of the people.

During the concert there was a great mood all around, with just a few awkwardly long pauses between songs, apparently to help people get out of the packed crowd.

The sound was brilliant, and the band has as much merit as the sound engineers for that. Rarely you can listen to live rock music without only hearing the feedback from the bass.

At the serious moment of the night, Zack de la Rocha reminded everyone what was happening at Gaza and asked the US Government to fight against the Israelis, to which he laughed and corrected himself saying the Israeli Government.

I lol’d.

After that, they introduced the two organizers of the Facebook campaign to the stage and handed a big check (someone right behind me shouted “I like big Checks”, which made me lol). All the profits received from the sales of ‘Killing in the Name of’ during that Christmas week were donated to Shelter, the charity supported by the organizers of the Facebook campaign.

The band was touched by how people in the UK joined forces for something charitable and funnily mischievous at the same time.

Tom Morello said: “It never felt so good to fuck the system” or something similar. Don’t quote me on that.

That’s why I’m not a journalist, if you want proper reporting buy a newspaper.

Rage Against the Machine Live at Finsbury Park (screens)

As everyone expected, the highlight of the night was playing “Killing in the Name of” which was the encore on its totality.

After the concert was done, the giant screens became the main focus of attention again and started displaying news headlines regarding the whole Christmas Number One ordeal with the song by the X-Factor contestant in the background.

Quotes such as: “It will never happen” “The Climb will be number one” “Rage are just shouting instead of singing, they’re horrible” followed by the number of sales by “The Climb“, a scratching sound stopping the song, and the sales by “Killing in the Name of“

The famous bass intro started.

Everyone went mental.

Crowd at Rage Against the Machine Rage-Factor

What I think was the most significant moment of the gig was the fact that the band has emotionally given the song to the Brits. Never again playing Killing in the Name of in the UK will have other meaning than people joining together and fucking something established by comically huge amounts of money.

And that’s a good thing Motherfucker.

It was a fun night, the piece got quite a few laughs and people seemed to enjoyed it. The staff at the Cross Kings was extremely helpful and friendly, so a big thank you to them.

I generally enjoy this type of events, you get to see different type of films on a big screen, instead of your computer, and mingle around people struggling through the same ordeals as you.

Sometimes you discover talent, and sometimes you see films selected for the wrong occasion. More than 10 minutes of colours and sounds could be part of an incredible art installation, but in between drinks, and live music it seems to be a bit out-of-place.

Still, people are very respectful of each others work, and we all know we’re no Paul Thomas Anderson, so the good vibe is always present.

When we all introduce or talk about the piece we just screened, being humble, saying thanks and understanding that people have just sat through your 10 minutes of nonsense helps to keep the night going and make a good lasting impression.

What its appalling is when not only your piece hasn’t work with the audience, but you actually are so arrogant that you tell the audience off for not “getting it”, for not understanding how your mix of random 20 minutes of scenes is a critique of commercial cinema and human nature.

And whoever says that he does art for himself is a liar.

Have you ever heard of that proverb about a tree falling on the mountains where no one can hear it? Art is the same, if you do art, it will only work once someone sees it, once there’s an emotional connection, when what you’ve created manages to get a reaction from someone else.

No one does art for himself.

But why trying to badly express with words what the Monty Python have already perfectly filmed?

I always feared them, always closing the browser before my eyeballs retained enough information so even the bright colours and hypnotic patterns wouldn’t reach my brain; thinking that just by looking at the website, my computer could burn and my bank account support the family of some hidden gang leader from a remote part of the unknown world.

But I wouldn’t be writing this post should I’ve not championed my fear and faced with bravery my nemesis.

I bought a voucher on MyCityDeal.

Blame it on ‘midweek crisis‘ if you want, but we have all reached a moment where if a little window chat flashing at the bottom of the screen becomes the highlight of the week, your brain really is prepared to accept anything; running for mayor, learn to play the violin, give away all your clothes, buy a voucher from an always feared and loathed website… anything as long as you get a bit of conversation to help you forget how terribly pointless you are.

So I receive the message: “click on the link, buy the voucher and we can both go” she said knowing full well of my emotional vulnerability.

It was a voucher to go to a place known as “Supperclub” a restaurant that is not a restaurant, but neither it is a bar, nor a pub or the Large Hadron Collider.

It’s the sort of place someone from Shoreditch would introduce you to, saying something like: “it is an experience” while rolling its eyes (people from Shoreditch don’t have any defined gender, they are mutants from the future that will bring peace on earth once we accept that our sense of fashion is insulting the overlords of the universe)

You go there, lay back on some furniture from A Clockwork Orange and eat while uber humans perform exotic petulant routines for your amusement.

Thanks to the voucher, the whole “experience” cost £17 instead of £70. I can now believe and trust in some of those colour proyecting webs.

A few hours before going to the place, I decided to check on the internet some reviews about this “Supperclub”.

If the whole experience was already terrifyingly exciting for me, it was about to get Super Saiyan.

Dozens of people left terrible reviews of the place, complaining about anything “Supperclub” related. From the food to the staff to the actual type of customers.

Well, I thought, I’m not really paying for this. If it is that bad, I will just run away.

We walked there (I live in the area) and I was proudly wearing my Star Wars t-shirt as my emotional shield.

Many people compare it to the one in Amsterdam (the original one apparently) and they said it is not as good by a mile; that it lacks European etiquette or something, I’m definitely not an expert on the subject. Never been to any other supperclub so I can’t compare.

A very friendly black man with a green beard, wearing blue trousers met us at the entrance, took our jackets, and showed us around the place. There’s a bar all red, some stairs to go to a cage on the outside that hangs above some tube tracks for the smokers to socialize and then the doors to the white area, where the sofa/beds are together with the DJ.

The cage thing was full of girls smoking, which proves my theory that smoking has become a girly thing. Don’t know many blokes who smoke now to be honest (apart from old farts) They were smoking, and I was there holding my friend’s glass wearing my Star Wars t-shirt.

Once they take you to your table, they ask you whether you eat meat or if you lie to yourself to prove you’re better than the rest.

I’ve tried many times, but it is a herculean effort for me, so I ordered meat.

There’s no menu, that’s the only choice. You will be served whatever the chef feels like cooking that night. I wonder if they allow the cook to work with any serious type of mental depression. It would be great if one day people are served shit on a white squared plate, with a slice of lemon and touch of ice.

Between courses, someone will perform something in the middle of the room while a maniac takes 500 pictures per second of the performer’s ass. After that, the lights change, so instead of being and all purple room, you’re sitting now in Avatar where everything is blue and very tall skinny people with feline qualities walk around you far enough to avoid your hand touching them.

At some point, we left.

I am clearly not the target audience for the place, but contrary to the opinion of the more opinionated and restaurant savvy people of London, I did have a good time.

Mind you it only cost me £17 and a Star Wars t-shirt.