maybe you've been spammed about it already, but CDbaby who sell my CDs and organise digital distribution are doing a promotion with a new download site called amiestreet.com where you can download tracks from one of my albums. Presumably my most recent album will be added too at some stage. The tracks start off free and go up to $0.98 the more people download them. You get $5 free to spend (on any artist!) when you sign up via this link.

It is legit. I signed up myself. All you have to do is provide a username and password and then start downloading. I found a bunch of albums that I'd wanted for ages for about a dollar each. It helps if you have obscure taste as they don't have much mainstream stuff, and if you do want something they've got hopefully the price is still very low...

random phone pics

londonpreppy has written a funny post about Gay Times (the magazine). Once upon a time it used to be kind of middle-brow and not all about fashion and pop music and holidays and hunks. I've not looked at a copy for years but last time I did it was pretty much the same as Attitude which I don't think ever set out to be anything but shallow. I think it's a bit rich though dissing Gay Times for perpetuating such stereotypes when you have blog that is mostly about fashion, clubbing, gym and is peppered with a million generic bare torso pics (like a photostudy of a bargain bin full of naked barbies and action men in the charity shop)

did you see the "life after humans" programme on TV last night? (I didn't but I got my fancy, bargain-priced PVR to record it for me.) There's a damning review of it in the Guardian today - the programme that is, not my PVR.

Even without having seen it, it does provoke some interesting questions, such as why are there books and programmes about this now, and what does it say about our commitment to save the planet or our resignation that we're all going to hell in a handbasket? I do like the idea of living in a post-apocalyptic world where civilisation is taken over by nature (with certain conditions of course) but being a human myself I would not exist in that scenario, which kind of begs the question asked by some of the commenters of that article: is any existence meaningful without humans there to perceive it? I'm sure a lot of animals are conscious but I don't imagine any of them have intellect or are able to ponder the meaning or beauty of anything.

Personally, and this is probably coming from a Christian perspective, I think that people are the only meaningful thing in existence. If everything existed without us then it would be no different from a completely theoretical universe that exists only in a computer programme. With noone and nothing there to appreciate or experience it, then the difference between existing and not existing is moot. It reminds me of Richard Dawkins saying that one day human life will die out and it will be a shame that so much civilisation and art will be lost, but if there aren't any people why does it matter? there won't be anyone around to care (and if human life is just a random accident with no inherent meaning or value (as he would argue) then nothing really matters anyway if we exist or not - but that's a whole other can or worms). Do you know what, this is the kind of thing I spend a lot of time thinking about. Maybe I should write a book about it....

I've just been reading a blog called londonpreppy and I can hardly believe it's not a creative writing project. It even says at the top "Is it all fact, is it fiction, who the fuck knows". It reads so much like a book by Bret Easton Ellis* (from what I remember) e.g. American Psycho etc (though that's not one I ever read or ever plan to). Here's an example of the kind of cynical and detailed observation about people, taken from the blog:

"This is a song from the Muppet Show, as performed by a little frog called Robin, who (wikipedia tells me) posed as Kermit’s nephew in later episodes. I don’t really care for children’s shows and neither do I have an interest in talking about what I used to watch when I was six like many English boys in their late 20s like to do in a faux-ironic way trying to find things in common with new acquaintances. In fact it really irritates me.... I like this song so much that I’m willing to claim that it’s the best song ever performed by a lifeless puppet – even though I do have a soft spot for Love At First Sight by Kylie Minogue as well. Robin tells us that “all sorts of funny thoughts run round my head”, his step “isn’t really anywhere, it’s somewhere else instead” and “I’m not at the bottom, I’m not at the top, so this is the step where I always stop”. I don’t know what existential angst is because I’m stupid, but if I were to make a video about it, I’d use this as the soundtrack.

Do you see what I mean? or maybe it's just that sort of cynical world-weary (and very gay) stream-of-consciousness blablabla thing that I used to be into when I was about 18...

*if you visit that blog you might notice that he has a Bret Easton Ellis tattoo and presumably has read and internalised a lot of those books. It seems he even has his own Wikipedia page. I guess I'm a bit late to the party, probably because I don't live in London and am not part of that whole metrosexual scene (thank goodness)

I haven't felt like blogging for a while as you may have noticed. In fact I'm surprised if anyone does actually notice, it's been that long. I've had a few weeks of feeling terrible and even though I'm not depressed about anything, in fact my outlook is characteristically upbeat, it has left me feeling very numb and introspective in the way that post-viral depression often does. If I didn't know myself better I'd be worried but seeing as even having a cold makes me feel blue for days afterwards I guess it's par for the course....