An Interlude With Bobzilla

Today while have a wander round the Tyne Bridge and High Level Bridge with Scott we dropped into Arch 16 and we were well impressed by the latest avian based artwork on display. You can see it here on my Instagram feed , I also had to use the loo and was very impressed with the repurposed vinyl single display on the wall (see here).

We had a cafe latte and the guy serving us told us this was all his work and he goes under the name Bobzilla, and apart from being a talented artist (you can see more by visiting his "I Am Bobzilla" site) , he makes a great cup of coffee and is remarkably engaging to talk too. Among other things he is also a DJ and had some excellent sounds playing while we were these. It was so pleasant we had another coffee before departing back across the High Level Bridge to Newcastle.

So you get art , cake , coffee , tea , good sounds and good vibes, a thoroughly excellent half an hour, worth visiting for a coll and chilled atmosphere in which to eat cake and drink coffee.

So it's the day before April Fool's day but it has been a most excellent final day of March , chatting with Bobzilla and enjoying his art and sounds, so continuing with the art theme I've included my slideshow of the Armageddon themes paintings of the North East's greatest artist John Martin. I've just found that the book of his work I have is going for up to £200 on Amazon, like my Handy Wah! compilation on the last post but one.

Anyway hope you have a wonderful week.

Let Forever Be

Finally finished "How To Stop Time" an easy / hard read but with an upbeat ending so happy about that, and now I've started on "The Fouteenth Letter" by Claire Evans. It doesn't look like the sort of thing that I normally read but has started very well and I shall inform you how it progresses. I have started other books and films that have an explosive start and then you spend ages waithing for something to happen and nothing ever does. YOu do need something to keep your attention, and the Matt Haig book certainly does that.

I don't know if it's me or my computer or my ISP but everything seems to be getting much slower, possibly due to the number of adverts, and the number of security bits that then they try to bypass. I don't want to stay logged in to most sites, especially not Paypal or Facebook, and I don't want Firefox or Chrome to remember my passwords either.

I've just listed some more CDs on Discogs as I need to make some more space and I do have digital copies of most of my CDs. I've just list a lot of Paul Weller if he's your thing. On the one hand it's difficult getting rid of stuff but you have to think if you are not going to play them again then someone else may have them.

It's the same with books and DVDs, if you are not going to use then make room, space is good.

The stuff I don't think will sell quickly are dropped in to Charity shops, mainly the Westgate Ark shop round the corner from me.

So another day like many other days, skies are grey ,but yesterday I sorted a couple of major work things, then came home and watched an episode of Gotham and Black Sails before retiring to bed. Bruce Wayne's car is getting more and more Batmobile like every week.

I have some web updates to do for Bob Armstrong and Woodlands Plants and at Art exhibition Ivelina Goverdovskaya: "Work in Progress" at Arch 16 to attend tonight so not a lazy day today.

For some reason (maybe talking about art) the excellent Michel Gondry video for The Chemical Brothers "Let Forever Be" came to mind, so I'll sign off with that.

PAINT DRAW WRITE

Last night I went to the opening of PAINT DRAW WRITE an exhibition and event  which the first solo one by by friend Nicola bringing together elements of words, poetry , art and photography with live readings by people including a poet I met and chatted to Richard , and the excellent Arch 16 Cafe.

This is the intro written by Nicola to gove you and idea, but the exhibition is running til the 20th June so there is plenty of time for you to vist:

"Paint Draw Write....is an exhibition of pictures and poems celebrating the way in which people express their innermost selves via the creative arts."

 I loved being able to walk round enjoying the images and spending time reading the words on the wall and will no doubt drop in again to take in the experience once more.

It also brought a lot of people together to see something new, I was talking to a skateboarder when I got there and found out that they have skateboard themed gathering.s

The Arch 16 space is airy and open and ideal for this sort of exhibition, there is space to show images and I did take a quick instagram video which is here. 

I was decided to write a Haiku for this to keep in the spirit of the event:

Paint, Write, Draw, Enjoy

Create, Share and Experience

You Know It Makes Sense 

Nicola worked with my friend Craig who we say farewell to today (my tribute is here  and here is a post which touched on one of his great exhibition which he colloboarated with Nicola on), and this os just one example of his insrirational legacy., and I am looking forward to many more.

While there I was talking with Richard about the brilliant new Janelle Monae album, and the song "Make Me Feel" which reminds me so much of Prince's "Kiss" so that is the song I will use for this post because thais whole thing made me feel great. I've also included the Dirty Computer Emotion Picture a 45 minute video to accompany the album, well worth taking your time to watch.


 

My First Mobike

Well today I completed 340K steps for February, with three days to spare. This is just before the really cold weather sets in, so I am very pleased with that.

Today for the first time I used a Mobike. I kept wondering where I was going to use so went from St. Andrews Church round The Grainger Market and parked up on Clayton street. I was berated for not wearing a helmet but given they are a jump on jump off type of thing you don't carry a helmet around with you so I am not sure what the solution is bar being extra careful like I as as a teenager. These are not racing bikes, they have baskets on and are meat for going short distances. I found it difficulat as my legs were too long for the back and when I got off I realised that I could have ajusted the seat. I'll know that for next time.

One of my problems is that if I'm going to go by baike then I will potentially not do the number of steps that I need to do , but that is something that I will deal with in the coming weeks. They will be great for nipping across the Tyne Bridges to places like Arch 16.

So what to play on thsi Sunday night, the obvious one for me is "My White Bicycle" by Tomorrow refering to the Dutch in the sixties who stole bikes and painted the white for people to use for free.

According to drummer John 'Twink' Alder (Pink Fairies), the song was inspired by the Dutch Provos, an anarchist group in Amsterdam which instituted a community bicycle program: "they had white bicycles in Amsterdam and they used to leave them around the town. And if you were going somewhere and you needed to use a bike, you'd just take the bike and you'd go somewhere and just leave it. Whoever needed the bikes would take them and leave them when they were done." The band also featured Steve Howe later of Yes and Keith West who had a hit with "Excerpt From A Teenage Opera". I'm not sure about John 'Junior' Wood.

The free is a good concept but the stealing is not , but if we all used bikes or walked instead of using cars the world would be a much better place.