Bright Lights, Big City

Kiran gave me a copy of Jay McInerny's (possibly-)quintesstial 80s-hedonistic-decadence novel last night to read in my (semi-)sick bed. I knew only the film adaptation with Michael J. Fox in the lead role, and to be honest I don't remember too many good things. I'm also having trouble reading the protagonist's second-person dialogue in anyone's voice other than Marty McFly's.

I'm really enjoying the book though, and giggling unselfconsciously at bits like:

IT'S 6 AM, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE???

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy.

You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder.

Then again, it might not.

A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is the result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian Marching Powder.

All this really just leads me to the realisation that there have been far too few drinks lately, here at Drinks-After-Work. This is not going unnoticed by management, either. On one hand there is a certain sensible rationalisation going on; indeed, how many times can I really write the same story about going to the pub and watching some band, or a game of rugby, without boring everyone including myself. On the other, the simple, painful truth is that there just hasn't been that much going on. Look how neglected my "debauchery" channel is, for godssakes. Why? I've been tired. Sick. Sore. Busy. You name it, I've been it.

So. This has got to end. here. now. Taken under consideration; report-back expected shortly.

...

NP: Boris with Michiuo Kurihara -- Rainbow (aQuarius)

Following their recent successful collaboration with American doom-drone-druids SUNNO))), who could Japanese behemoths Boris turn to for another joint effort in channelling the ultimate in psychedelic heaviness? They'd already teamed up with Keiji Haino some years ago, but there's another underground Japanese psych-scene guitar hero who Boris NEEDED to get freaky with (as proven here), and it wasn't Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple (though that's bound to happen someday...). No, as you already know, it's Michio Kurihara, formerly of Tokyo retro psych legends White Heaven, currently in both Ghost and The Stars. He's also played a bunch with Damon and Naomi, and released his own solo album Sunset, also on Pedal. His West Coast '60s inspired guitar style is virtuosic and distinctive, and certain to spark something special with the Boris crew, as any Kurihara fan would expect .............................