returning to the sanctuary after a roller coaster week which rolled but then thankfully coasted. the hospital made me feel mortal. it medleyed emotion into matters i would not normally remember. but then rehearsals went by untroubled. i got most of the chords and everyone else got the same jokes. by the hour promotions and performances audibly pinged into our iphone diaries. you could hear the ricochet around the room as new engagements entered our future. i toyed with DJing on an ipad which is loopy because it’s an ipad and you don’t need headphones. deeply offensive to real DJing, but really creative. the week concluded with a casting of actors for the short film i am directing next month. we’ve been filming, lighting and mic’ing for years but suddenly there are many people with job titles asking me what i’d like to do who clearly know more about it than me. the world of film is about relationships and talking. music is quite solitary in comparison. or at the most, small groups of people making big decisions that should really be thought about by people who know what they’re doing. and then i’m back to trifling with a drum machine. the thing that feels most on the ground after a week up in the air

are you wearing a hearing aid or metal denture plates?
have you ever had metallic fragments in your eyes?
have you ever had an injury involving bullets or shrapnel?

this line of questioning made me think it wasn’t the time to smuggle in a camera to my MRI scan. i had an MRI when i was a kid for my epilepsy but i don’t remember much of it. i also have a memory of being trapped under the cushions of an abandoned sofa with kids on top of me which was terrifying. i don’t think i’ve felt real fear for years. you get used to being in front of large crowds not knowing what you’re doing. you learn to look like you know what you’re doing and they believe it. the worst that can happen is that you walk off stage looking like you know what you’re doing. i trundled, head bolted down, into the body sized MRI tube. like a casket to it’s cremation. i was instantly back in that sofa on that estate, covered in cushions and kids. i couldn’t move, it was just me and the story i told myself. my body didn’t believe one bit of the story and my fight or flight wanted to tell it’s side.

what i thought was sinus problems might have something to do with the white patch that they just found to the bottom right of my brain. i have had a stroke. it’s healthy to reacquaint yourself with fear if you’ve lost the knack. i just need to try and look like i know what i’m doing

track 6 on the new album is ‘makers mark’. though i’ve been on a one man mission to preach the gospel of whiskey in sour form, this has nothing to do with that. the lyric for makers mark came from an early episode of game of thrones where sean bean talked about who made someones sword. in the world of the pisshead, fare dodging street artist you might call it a tag. i don’t tag but a mark of my making are words that are all in lowercase. just like all forms of minimalism it is harder and takes longer. everytime i write a sentence i have to uncapitalise the first letter that my phone assumes i want upper case. it’s a significant time sacrifice that i happily immolate. because when i do use a capital it’s like i really mean it. like when i say The D.O.T.

since a bristolian proprietor sold his banksy’d wall for six figures in miami, i notice they’ve started glazing over other prohibitively expensive patches of rendering. bringing the frames to the art. it won’t stop there. intricate gold leaf frames, explanation cards and velvet ropes to keep fingers off. it’s the natural order. classical caused a commotion. caravaggio killed people. a century from now when school groups of cheeky chinese oiks stare at this they won’t understand. they’ll be surrounded by the semi retired, the spectacled and turtleneckers. they won’t understand that most things in galleries were created by pissheads and fare dodgers who only later grew to be rich, spectacled turtleneckers

jesus saves. the rest of us need to make backups

today we are grading the video for ‘blood sweat and tears’. it’s the one with jesus in it that i’ve been talking about for months. it’ll be ready at the end of the day which means you get to see it in another 3 months. the great thing about grades are the plates of biscuits and sushi menus you can choose anything from which someone brings to you. there is also someone there on hand all the time just to make tea. this is the sort of thing edwardians had. i’m reading about harry selfridge at the moment who built my favourite department store. he was all about that. someone to give him a shave at his desk, a change of clothes in case his collars felt limp and someone to roll him a big spliff at lunchtime

this range of mountains, lofty over the park, looking like they evolved for millions of years between the council block and sunday league football pitch have always confused me. i wondered whether they were naturally occurring like the glaciated rock outcroppings all over new york’s central park. regents park does feel like central park in places. everywhere are the serious city girls in sweaty betty branded gautex. but the rocks are not schists from the Iapetus ocean during the taconic orogeny in the paleozoic era, they were designed by sir peter chalmers mitchell in 1913-14 and made out of concrete to provide a naturalistic habitat for bears and other mountain wildlife at london zoo.

track 5 on the new d.o.t album is called ‘under a ladder’. i wrote the words and sang it. i wish it had included this line…

“when you climb the ladder of success, be sure it’s leaning against the right building”

this is following me

Ra Ra Ra it’s all back to the Dogstar

stick to what you do, trust only your senses and be patient. eventually people will come round to what you are doing. if you ever need proof of this, look at ted mayhem right now. camouflage and beards are the most talked about things in fashion this season. it’s taken him over 10 years but he is finally white hot on trend. he’s having his moment. he is setting the agenda on the catwalks. while feeling happy for him, also feel reassured that if you stick to being you, your time will come

now that cher’s dead. twitter gold

it’s difficult to glean anything of value from the herd mentality. you can’t begin to evaluate our second most famous head of state without sounding a bit right wing or worse, like eric clapton. so i’ll just say that winston churchill was an awful chancellor and a terrible prime minister. it was lucky he worked wonders with wars and was a dab hand at speeches. i mean the gold standard? what fucking idiot would pitch the currency of such an overstretched, perishing empire against the price of gold? who in their right mind would think imposing sanctions on trade would protect imperial interests when all around the world was gearing up for a global free market revolution? and gandhi was not a half naked fakir, he merely wanted better for his country while being buddhism’s most canny marketer. 

all i know is that i don’t know shit. i just wish rover were still making metros