Idea IS the format

Yup, #VHSMovieClub is BACK.  This time our venue will be SCOOTERWORKS from around 6PM on the evening of MONDAY JANUARY 25th, bringing you the mother of all creature double-features.

First up we have the original CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954).  This will be followed by the main event – John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982).

Why this particular line-up?  The reason is my cousin, Max Biles, who passed away on the morning of our first #VHSMovieClub get-together, and would have loved this shit.  I’ll elaborate a little on the night, if I’m feeling it.  If not, we’ll just kick back, raise a glass, and watch two of his favourite movies.

For anybody wondering about the venue, you can find it here:

And it looks like this:

It’s not costing anything to hire, so the only thing you’ll need any money for is the bar. Which is probably for the best, in that many of us won’t have seen a pay cheque for the best part of six weeks.

Try and ping @VHSMovieClub or @ewebber on Twitter if you want to come along, just so we can keep a sense of where we are with numbers. Shouldn’t be an issue though – if last time was anything to go by, we do quality, not quantity.

See you there X

UPDATE 07/01/10: I just created a Twtvite.

A is for AFK – I seem to get some of my best work done when I’m not staring at a screen.  I guess I’m more of a pencil person.

B is for BREAKFAST – The most important meal of the day.  And a chance to get ahead on all the fruit and fibre of which my diet seems to be otherwise totally devoid.  Take my word for it, breakfast is going to be BIG in 2010.  And fibrous.  And, well, rather boring.

C is for CRUNK – My version of Lent, involving a break from all the crap drugs.  You know the ones;  booze; coke; sugar; television.  I’m not damning them outright, they just aren’t my cup of green tea.  Last year I managed 37 days.  As of right now I’m four down and counting.

D is for @danlight – Twitter’s become an outlet through which I waste time and energy trying to validate inconsequential aspects of my life in the eyes of people who likely couldn’t give a shit.  Which would be fine, except that that’s what my blog’s for. Going to try and mix it up a bit on Twitter.

E is for ELECTION – Some of my favourite blog posts (by me, that is) were written about the 2008 US presidential election campaign.  Hopefully I can find some time to conjure a bit of commentary on the ‘compassionate conservative’ clusterfuck we can look forward to in the run-up to May 6th.  Without having to break my leg in two places in the process.

F is for FAMILY – It’s the easiest thing in the world to cite work/writing/whatever-you-fancy as a reason for being an absent or inadequate husband/father/son.  Even worse, you might actually try to convince yourself that it’s more difficult, or more important. It’s not.

G is for graze.com – One of my oldest friends, Tommy P, is one of the founders of graze.com.  Honestly, I didn’t see them surviving the downturn, but they seem to be doing just that.  What’s more, I met a few of the guys behind the business, and they’re an impressive bunch.  Expect good things in 2010.

H is for HELIOPOLIS – James Scudamore, another very old friend  – try 30-odd years – published his second novel, Heliopolis, exactly one year ago.  It ha since received considerable critical acclaim, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize.  I still haven’t read it.  (In fairness, it’s not like I read any other novels in 2009.)  This is lame as fuck.  I will read Heliopolis in 2010.

I is for INSHRIACH – The hard-working highland estate owned and managed by our pal Walter.  Just back from spending a truly magnificent few days seeing in the new year, and set to get back up there for one family holiday, three stag weekends and one music festival over the next six months.  Oh, and I want to try and shoot a film there (see L).  Project Inshriach goes from strength to strength.

J is for JUICE – Just don’t drink enough of it.  Cranberry is best, for the kidney win.

K is for kickstarter.com – a clever little site, recognising the amplified power of Internet crowdsourcing as the basis for funding a range of worthwhile endeavours.  Hope to try it out with something, quite possibly…

L is for LOCH GHOON – …a film I’m going to make.  So far I’ve failed spectacularly in almost everything I’ve set out to do.  Fortunately, for as long as I’m only playing with my time or money, that doesn’t really matter.  Expect more spectacular failures in 2010.

M is for MAX – My cousin, who passed away in 2009.  I’m going to honour his memory in the year to come, in a number of ways.  (See L, N and V.)

N is for NORTH DORSET RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB – Max was their Club Captain.  Going to make sure I get a long to a game or two, starting with the home game against joint-leaders of the Southern Counties League, Frome, on January 30th.  Let me know if you fancy it.

O is for ORGANISED – Not very.  Just a bit.  I’m talking a to-do list on a Monday morning, is all.  Meaning that O is also for Optimistic.

P is for PSYCHOTHERAPY – The new vocation Ems has chosen for herself, following almost a decade in corporate public relations.  Her foundation year starts right here, and four years down the line…

Q is for QUALIFICATIONS – …enabling her to practice Psychotherapy in a professional capacity.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about what could come out in the wash along the way, but it feels great that she’s pursuing a vocation that has the potential to play to her real strengths.

R is for RESOLVE – Emma has it.  Once she commits herself to something, she gets the job done.  I’ve always been more of a butterfly, but I don’t beat myself up over it – it has its own advantages.  Between us we both seem to get stuff done.  I guess R is also for Rapport.

S is for SLINGERS SIZZLE – Very keen to see where this ends up, after generating such a huge buzz back in early December.  So I guess S is also for Sizemore and Sleepydog.

T is for TOMMY P – He’s getting married in May.  I figure that gets him his own entry, especially being that I’m best man.  Soon as I’m done with this list, I need to make a start on that speech.

U is for UNSUBSCRIBE – Meaning I don’t care how many of my friends took quizzes this week.  Or what kind of dried fruit you are.  Or what kind of dried fruit I am.

V is for #VHSMovieClub – and the 365 VHS videos I’m going to watch in 2010.  Follow @VHSMovieClub to keep pace, and for details of our occasional outings, the first of which is the Max Biles Memorial #VHSMovieClub taking place at The Scooterworks on January 25th

W is for WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR – The subject of the most grown-up thing I’ve ever attempted.  Watch this space.

X is for EXERCISE – kind of.  Because I’m going to start taking regular exercise. Kind of.  It starts with getting back on a climbing wall.  Reckon my leg is back where it needs to be, and I can probably squeeze a spare evening out of the week, especially during Crunk.  Probably Thursdays at The Castle in Green Lanes, if anybody fancies it.

Y is for WHY NOT? – It’s a much better question than ‘Why?’  For someone who’s supposed to be creative, I think my mind is sometimes far too closed to the more challenging ideas of the people around me.  Need to fix that.

Z is for ZZZ – Every aspect of my life seems to be improved off the back of a good night’s sleep.  It’s effortless, enjoyable, and a great way to experience the extraordinary imaginative energy and latent creativity of the human mind.   Speaking of which, I fancy a kip.  See you in 2011.

This my cousin, Max.

He passed away ten days ago, very suddenly, as a result of a heart defect. It was pretty much his only serious defect, but turns out it was as serious as defects come.

The coroner described it as an ‘enlarged heart’. His heart was too big. For anyone lucky enough to have known Max, that’s always going to have more than a little poetry to it.

I don’t want this post to turn into a eulogy.  I already wrote one of those.  It was written to be spoken at the funeral, not read online, and for me it was very much in the moment, but a few people have asked me to make it available so here it is.

The bottom line is that it was a great honour to be asked to pay tribute to Max, and to do so in a church packed to the absolute rafters has left an indelible mark.

It’s also worth mentioning that Facebook has really come into its own through the course of the last week or so, allowing everybody who was ever close to Max to express a shared sense of his loss, and to better understand what it means to each of us.  Pooling grief is a fundamental part of the process of overcoming it, and Facebook has made that possible in a way that it wouldn’t have been otherwise.

I want this post to look forward though, not backwards.  To mark the end of a long and remarkable weekend spent grieving Max’s loss, but also to register the beginning of a new phase, that of his legacy.

First up is to announce that we’ll be holding our second ever #VHSMovieClub somewhere in London some time in January, at which we’ll be screening one of Max’s favourite movies – John Carpenter’s The Thing.

There’s a long and unlikely story about how I managed to get hold of a copy the day we heard that he’d passed, which also happened to be the day of our first ever #VHSMovieClub.  Catch me on the night if you want to hear it.  In the mean time, watch this space for details of where and when.

I’m hoping to use the occasion to launch a project, one that feels right, one that feels like it HAS to happen.

Max had a screenplay he was working on for a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon.  His sister Briony has offered to send me the latest draft.  I’m thinking I’ve mixed it with more than enough indie film-making talent in the last year or two to try and take it forward.  Fuck knows where, but right now I’m feeling seriously hungry to find out.  I’m guessing we might have a few problems getting the rights to produce an official remake (of which there happens to be one already in pre-production) but I know enough about movies to know that you can pay homage to a film without buying the rights to do so.

With that in mind, and, given that my old friend Walter is (a) a university pal of Briony’s, (b) the unpretentious laird of a hard-working 200-acre Scottish estate and (c) pretty much the most resourceful fixer of things you could ever hope to meet, he was the first person I called.  A few minutes later I sat down at my laptop and registered www.LochGhoon.com.

Walter and I have worked on a couple of projects before now, to good effect.  We’ve been looking for the excuse we need to turn something around at Inshriach, a £50k indie with a 3-week schedule as wildly optimistic as the budget.

I don’t know how we’ll finance it, but I’ve got a couple of ideas.  I can tell you this – beyond anything I have to give away to make it happen, anything above and beyond goes to CRY, the charity nominated in Max’s memory.

So, picture the scene…

A handsome young man winds his way down a highland path, the weight of his knapsack barely registering on a pair of impossibly broad shoulders.

He is a monster hunter, making his way by foot to Loch Ness, in search of the ultimate proof of the existence of Scotland’s most fabled creature.  He will not arrive today though, and must find a warm meal and a bed for the night,

Suddenly, out of the darkness, a signpost, promising the close proximity of civilisation – or something like it.

The name of the place?  Loch Ghoon.

And his name?

His name is Max.