I AM LEAVING THIS HARBOUR, GIVING URBAN A FAREWELL

So I got a little bit excited after confirmation of the Becks/Kara Yard sale collabo. Dollar signs invaded my brain and I started upsetting my room. Some shit I will be selling...
Junk jewellery
Naughty books...and the occasional influential one
Stupid drinking games
Really long Hello Kitty twist-up crayons (awesome, trust me)
Metallic pillows
Wannabe Chanel handbags
Ugly green frilly tops
boxes of foreign cigarettes
Skanky dresses

scarves, and scarves, and scarves...
...and if I can get away with it...Just kidding. Right? AM I?!

Lots and lots more shit obviously. I'm thinking all clothes items will go for a fiver (okay, some may be 10 - sorry, this is about making some money here), 2009 mags going for 50p and shit, really cool books and shit...a couple DVDs (and shit). You know the drill. Hey! Should I sell mix CDs?!

Oh and I just got this amay-hay-zing idea as well. But it's going to involve some paint and LOTS and LOTS of vodka.

PEEL OFF THE LAYERS UNTIL YOU GET TO THE CORE

So I've been talking to Jesse. She's hilarious. Obviously it didn't take me long to get in on the retro sticker action and obsession after that, and I have been trawling the www for the last hour with this in mind. She says she's gonna give me a tour of her L.A. when I come this summer because she claims there's all these babes all over the place and I didn't see any last year.

Apart from that, I neglected my work and went out last night with Becks, her bf and some theatre actor friends. We went to this grungy hipster pub behind god's back called The Coconut (spelt 'The Cocoanut' on the sign, though). Lots of Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the sound system. It was cool. We bought the last bottle of red wine, and the minute we started unscrewin' Pinot Grigio I knew it was time to leave. Like..yuck? When they started being ridic and ringing the 'last call' bell at five minutes to 12, we decided we didn't wanna go home and the only place open in Kingston at the time was this typical rainbow gay bar. We got wild 'n' out to some Britney. I got pleasantly drunk and the crew somehow (well we know how) managed to convince me to speak to some staff and say I was reviewing the place and that we wanted to see their VIP lounge. We were escorted to this suave sort of 'Miami Vice' themed room, intact with some awesome cock-infested mags and a bed and everything. They left us there for a while. We danced around and had a flick through some mags, then left 5 minutes later with a straight-faced 'thank you' and a professional nod of the head. It was empty anyway. Gays don't do private, don't they know that? Spent the night in Kingston, woke up at 8am, snuck out, bought some Starbucks and got the bus home.

I've been thinking about having a big yard sale thingie to get rid of all my shit so I don't have to ship. I mentioned this to Becks last night and we decided to collaborate on a big selling fest of our fabulous shit...take your money for tattoos and trips to California (she might be coming too!). If you're in London, get in on it if you want. It'll be in late May sometime, we don't know where or nothing, but we want to make it a big deal, like with spiked Lemonade and face painting and sun and grass and shit. Should be good.

THIS IS A WHEN I GROW UP MOMENT

ummm...I could be wrong, but this Camilla Skovgaard wedge ankle boot madness might be the most perfect, most beautiful, most compatible motherfucking shoe I've seen in a very long time. The possibilities are flashing past me like shards of glass after a glass house explosion. I am so in love with it. It is the sum of all foot fashion problems. I don't know how much it costs but I am willing to drop serious cash on this, and I don't think I can say that so firmly about any other shoe this year. Gosh damn life is rough.

I would like to go to bed, really I would part 2.

I'D LIKE TO GRAB YOU BY THE HAND AND HANG YOU UP FROM THE HEAVENS

Now that's more like it! All Alison Mosshart had to do was pair up with Jack White, and then it would all be alright. Thank God (sorry, The Kills don't really do it for me - as in anything from them that's been over-killed all over London has taken forever to make any sort of indentation in my memory - however, this one is more than good, I admit). This is The Dead Weather and their first gig (you lucky fuckers) is at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on April 14th.

Alison Mosshart - Vocals
Jack Lawrence from The Raconteurs - Bass
Dean Fertita from Queens of the Stone Age - Guitar
Jack White - Drums

Other bands I love are in on it! Perfect.

I wanna go to bed, really I do...

MAYBE I'M A POOR GIRL, DOESN'T BOTHER ME AT ALL

YESSS!!!!!

The Selby Show at colette will be up from March 30th until May 2nd 2009.
It will include paintings, photos and written interviews with people form around the world including
los angeles, new york, mexico, london, sydney and paris.

The Selby Paris book is being produced for colette and will be released April 2009 at the opening of The Selby Paris show.
It includes watercolor paintings and photographs of all the people that were photographed in Paris for the show, many of which have not been seen on The Selby website.
This book is limited to 250 copies. The spines of each book are hand painted red white and blue. All the books are signed and numbered by The Selby.

The world premiere of The Selby's first film will also occur at this show, it is entitled Down Under Book Porn.
It will be released at a later date on The Selby Store.

The Selby Store Pop Up Shop at colette will feature clothing, artwork, books, objects and prized possessions for sale from many of the people that have appeared on The Selby website.


Paris photo shoots co-curated and produced by superstar Natacha Polaert for Nouvelle Garde LLC.

Big Thank You:

sarah and the team at colette
book designer Brian Paul Lamotte
Belvedere Vodka

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I cannot get over the bone furniture at that store!

Anyway, like I said, I OD'd on Kesh this morning and hit the pillow at 7am. One of my many daily alarms woke me up at noon to take my pill (the pill). Promptly KO'd again. Set another alarm for 3pm because I decided to check Tim the Skin Two editor today. He had just come back from San Jose, CA and was ready to get back to work. So we dug around in a box and I picked out some books and DVD's I wanted to do some reviews on. I haven't written for them the whole of March because I had to decide what my priorities were and I had a massive final year uni deadline at the end of that month, so I cut back on some of my writing gigs. I did break away for one night though to attend the Skin Two Yearbook launch for a couple hours with Mistress Ivy. And today, I stumbled across my ugly ass self on the internet from that event. I won't even elaborate on that because there is no way in hell I'm linking it. But anyway, glad to be back in the fetish swing of things. I took home like 7 books.

Tim brought me up to speed on the latest, invited me to some fetish parties, and said the San Francisco Fetish Ball stopped running this year because the couple that ran it split recently and moved to two separate boring cities in an attempt to do I don't fucking know what (Miami and Texas). So Tim and his gang might take over that yearly event. Would be cool as I hopefully should be part of the Cali massive by then and maybe we'll be working together again later down the line. He took off his baseball cap to show me his recently dyed hair and explained to me that it somehow became a tradition that every March he would dye his hair in San Francisco. And he doesn't do it anywhere else. Okay... He looks cute though.

When I came home 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' was at the reception waiting for me. Yeah, I know, you're rolling your eyes and you're all like 'hasn't that drug lit trend died and buried itself by now? Jesus, where the fuck have you been?' But yeah, I don't know where the fuck I HAVE been and now I'm trying to catch up and see what all the fucking hype was about. I like the Beats generation guys so I'm exploring alla dat shit whenever I have the fucking time to sit in bed and read, which is this weekend.

I thought I would've been at some bar tonight being pampered and stuffed silly with free stuff by its manager, but my boss informed me that that review has been moved to next week Friday, so here I am...just pestered Becks to do something tomorrow. I was looking at this...but I have no idea what it is! Anyone think it's gonna be any good? They haven't even given you a whiff of what to expect on the sound systems (or maybe that's just me being out of the loop and I should already know).

Oh yeah, this is another thing along with the drug lit trend that I have barely dabbled in; this whole East London party scene. This whole obsession with Shoreditch kinda gets on my nerves...but it seems since I work thereabouts 3 days a week, I've been feeling out the area, I mean why not, leaving the country in June, so let's have it.

Okay, nevermind. For some reason, Becks wants to make me third wheel with her boyf and hang out in Kingston because trains are shit tomorrow. I completely forgot about this whole Easter thing. I come from a catholic family and way back when, it used to be a big affair for us - church, painting eggs, chocolate, gifts from mum, the works. But one day, I just said 'Okay, I'm out' so I haven't really been behind Jesus since then, so I'm out of the loop when it comes to his parties too! God, I'm out of the loop with everything! Should I just stop now? Okay.

Listening to this today:

I'M COMIN' OVER, I'M COMIN' OVER, I'M COMIN' OVER, SO MOVE OVER

I'M 20 YEARS OLD AND I WANNA WAKE UP IMPRESSIVE TOMORROW! LET'S GO! LET'S GO!

By the way, that's Kesh (I think I am the last person to jump on her bandwagon but I am all up in her blog right now because her fierceness reaks so good! Just me, a can of coke and some kesh - kesh - sounds like a good drug)

Oh, and she didn't cry.

Did you know you could get a hangover from staying up all day and all night and then all morning? I just want to die. But I can't die today. Not today. Not April or even 2009. Bad BBBBAAADD timing. And so to bed. But just for the record, Kesh (22) is my new role model, her face is plastered on my desktop background and I've decided that today is going to be different and that by 22 my life is going to be completely fucking out there. Yes, so sure.

SHE'S FORGOTTEN HIM FOR BODIES AROUND HER BLUE SHOCK

COMPLETELY agreeing with Misha, would wear all of these mens' shoes in a heartbeat. The mummy meets disco = badass.

I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS

Hi. Trying something new.

7:30AM: Why? I roll around and open my eyes despite the question. Just to make sure I remembered it, I say out loud the new Tagalog phrase Panda taught me last night when we made up spectacularly. 'Gusto ko lagi ka masaya' = 'I want you to always be happy'. Great, I do remember. I'll get up at 7:30 no problem now.

8:25AM: Start making Wednesday moves. Boil water while I shower so that when I get out I can grab a cup of tea and take it to my room. I decide to be cheery today and wear my yellow wedge heels (who would've guessed I owned those? - I'm surprised myself when I dig them out from behind God's back). These are going to make my day special, I decide.

9:15AM: Catch the first bus out. My yoga teacher (whom I have an awkward relationship with) is standing behind me waiting to board the bus. He wears glasses on his days off, I note. It's becoming. He pretends he doesn't recognize me so I do the same, because my wedge heels are making me awesome and indifferent today.

9:35AM: Catch two trains to Liverpool Street station. The train operator on the District Line leg of the journey to Edgware Road is happy about something. He greets us cheerily on the PA, reminding us not to forget any belongings, to have a Happy Easter and to take it relatively easy on the chocolate. He says, 'Don't forget to get off the train. Or else you'll be stuck with me, all the way back to Wimbly-don.' He explains that he gave up alcohol for Lent. Everyone is smiling as they get off, including me.

10:20AM: Arrive at L. Street 30 minutes too early so pop into WHSmith and hound the magazine racks. As it seems I already have most of the latest, I struggle to choose between Surface and the latest Harper's (two completely separate reads that I don't even follow - but research has 'search' in it for a reason?). I choose US Elle. I order a tall Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks outside, and sit in the sun marking up the copy. There's a piece on this african artist called Wangechi Mutu, whom I decide I love (her new stuff, at least)

[courtesy The Saatchi Gallery]

11AM: Office. For some reason, everyone's checking in on me and being super friendly. The editor loves my shoes. There are a lot of stairs here though, and a lot of stacks on those shoes. A young muslim girl working upstairs as a case worker, chats with me for a while and we get off to a good start. She says if I need anything to let her know. The front desk woman comes in later on and gives me her extension number in case I need anything as well. I've been interning here for a month now. I do a couple hours proofreading some material due for print soon for the next issue. Some of it is my own work; a couple of book reviews. Rad.

2PM: Get so caught up in proofreading that I miss lunch at 1, and my editor shoos me away. I head to Noodle King for a plate of vegetable fried noodles. I love tofu. I love mushrooms. I take half home for dinner later. They're ridiculous.

4PM: Leave office, but my wedges tell me to get some ice cream before I go home. I buy a scoop of coffee and a scoop of tiramisu from the place next door. It tastes like a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of vanilla with chunky chocolat-y things in it. I begin to think I should've waited until I got to South Kensington and picked up some gelato from Oddono's, because nothing beats it. Lots of commuting ensues.

5:30PM: Get home. Collect my delivered Amazon copy of The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith from the front desk. Respond to emails, make lists, Facebook, start reading, catch Panda online and tell him good morning. We talk for a bit. He gets me jealous as he's meeting T-Mac for cheap sushi in L.A. today. I begin to taste rice in my mouth and consider heading to Hare and Tortoise for dinner.

8:30PM: Get lazy and pass out.

4:00AM: Up again. Eating the rest of the noodles and listening to X radio on Last.fm. Also lazily browsing WAH magazine's old blog (cool projects coming up soon...) and I'm So Sure. Panda and I have a Skype date in a bit as he's going away on a special thingie for two weeks and I won't be able to reach him. Found this on the old Wah blog and loved it:

That book Adulterers Anonymous sounds good as it's a collabo with Exene from X. I take it as a sign that I'm watching this and listening to X radio so I head over to Amazon to consider ordering a copy.

INVITATION TO RUIN

Very fitting post, as the London Burlesque Festival just ended yesterday. I was too broke for that, but luckily I stumbled upon OH MY GOD! I MISS YOU and had quite a time with some of their lovely ladies at the Hoodoo Voodoo launch party (obviously, because I can't stop referring to it). Just glad Fi, Becks and I were able to make the bloody best of it as it was a bit sparse crowd-wise due to it being the first night. Plus, who parties in Kennington?? Anyway, I'll be one of the few to do so from now on, and will probably follow the bevy around town for some of their other regular nights:

-Grind A Go Go : ragged hair, beehives, boffants, saddle shoes, motormouth mabelles, drainpipe suits, frills, squares, cardigans, whiskey a go go, tassels, Grindhouse, sexploitation, Doris Wishman, Mink Stole, John Waters, Russ Meyer, sweaters, fast pussycats, supervixens, Rosemary's baby, TV hosts, dance off's, Valley of the Dolls, Hairspray!, Sick 60's!, Psychos!

-The Birthday Party : bawdy birthday burlesque til you puke, insane decor, cakes, pin the bowtie on the chimp, pass the parcel, party games, limbo fun, birthday present for the best dressed, party frocks, cowboys and indians, dads in jumpers, bouncy castle boys, bowties, jelly...

-Get in the Ring : hoola hoopers, majorettes, cigarette girls, tiny hats, the pointiest shoes, handle bar moustaches, pinball wizards, fear and loathing, gypsies, popcorn, clowns...

OOOH They know me so well. I have a list fetish. It's all very 'brown paper packages tied up with string...' except it's tainted as fuck and I have to be a part of it. Such a shame I'll only enjoy two more months of this.

P.S. FI!!!! YOKO ONO IS PART OF IT! (this is an inside thing; she isn't really)

Not the best voice (Rammstein's pissed off love child comes to mind). But sick styling and a winning haircut. Silent-View.

I dunno...these seven women just came to me at seven this morning and said they'd guide me successfully through this crazy week (7 days) that's about to start. Here's hoping it's not just the lack of sleep. With that said, let me go to bed and see what happens when I wake up...

Speaking of which, my sister turns 14 (2 x 7) tomorrow on the 7th.

SECRET LIFE

Back on the brain after the Hoodoo Voodoo party on Thursday at South London Pacific. It's this fantastic authentic tiki bar in Kennington, and my trinidadian folks will be happy to know that we were well represented - Angostura Bitters splashing in everybody's tropical poisons along the bar, not to mention we had a Mai Tai named after us on the menu. I decided not to put up anymore pictures from that night though, because I'm ugly.

Anyway, many a day of skipping school resulted in me sitting cocooned in blankets with a fake fever watching Gilligan's Island and eating sickeningly sweet porridge made by our crazy housekeeper Christine. After I graduate and settle down in my first adult home, I'd like to start up a sick DVD collection. I swear, this show is so ingrained in my childhood, I'd buy the complete DVD series at that price.

Other childhood shows:
Bucky O'Hare
My Little Ponies
Fish Police
Space Rangers
Zelda
old school Batman (which came on on Sunday mornings, and with pancakes whipped up beforehand, my mom would join us watching it - that good
Maxi's World
Captain Planet
Power Rangers
Ghost Writer
Fraggle Rock
School House Rock
Xuxa
He-Man
Xena: Warrior Princess
Young Hercules (and Hercules)
Mr. Bean
Japan Video Topic (I remember tapping my foot waiting for our driver to pick us up from school just so I could catch this at 3pm - yeah, my obsession with Asia starts from way back, which will explain the next show...)
Aum Namah Shivaya
....I'll stop here.

I'm having a pleasant weekend with myself, just thinking back to the times when life used to be a lot less complicated; when I was too weird looking to have a boyfriend so I wasn't having mood-crippling fights with one; when money wasn't an issue and I didn't have to hustle around London with a bad cold; when adulthood was light years away and the only thing in the future that I was worrying about was going to school and getting bullied by the boy I was in love with, or wondering if Christine, the house-keeper was going to surprise us with fried bakes today or if she was in one of her bitchy moods; back when my cousin Becks was this big spectacle to me, all white and with a weird accent, who flew down from England and said she was my cousin, and taught me what 'mooning' someone was, and who manned a muddy clubhouse with me on the corner of our vast garden, then battled me in Trivial Pursuit when it got too dark, and lent me Terry Pratchett books. I'm ready to graduate, but nothing can replace that stuff...

What are you afraid of right now?:
Relationships - I've never been in one so heavy, so deep, so long, and I've fallen so hard for this guy that I'm becoming more and more afraid the closer we get. He now has the power to make and break me. If this doesn't work, then it's the end of me. I can just feel the ultimate-ness of it all. It's scary as fuck.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't broadcasted my blog to the people I know. Sometimes it's just so much easier to spill my guts to strangers. Why is that?

NECESSARY EVIL

Only now with the Stephen Sprouse intervention can I say that if I had the bills I would consider an LV bag. Otherwise, you wouldn't find me flapping my mouth about them on this blog. I'm liking the skateboard too but I hate it when designers take things like bikes, rackets and tennis balls and try to charge us a month's rent for it. Stick to your garb, please.

I'm bored to tears these days with the major monthlies, and have cut back my purchases to either seasonals like Plastique, bi-monthlies like War (because I'm trying to get in on that), and yearlies like Love; and then any other pariah after that with an attractive cover. This collaboration is one of the few things that struck me in the latest stack of mags I bought. Each mag probably only had me taking away less than a handful of items and storing them in my fashionable spank bank. Like with Love magazine, it was the Pam Hogg editorial. With April's i-D, it was the 'In the Pink' feature on people's tats (which, I think, they SO should've taken more advantage of and expanded on - P.S. Jethro's in it, and I know how crazy everyone's getting over him, namely Zana and Jen), all the seuquin-y jackets from Margiela, and the Marios Schwab jumpsuit intertwined with rope (bondage is making its mark, wait for it), not to mention all the crystal and/or skeleton-printed awesome thangs from McQueen (what are they?), and the sudden barrage of BDSM caged masks on the models.

What I haven't got over yet, which made its way across most of the mags, is that slinky fringed Jil Sander dress that can only do you right if you were on a strict regime of tea leaves and diet coke.

CUZ WE DO WHAT WE GOTTA DO REAL WELL

Yeah, haven't posted in a few. Been working or ill or both or ..limboing at a tiki bar in Kennington. That's one pic, but I have to go through the others to see which ones flatter and which do no favours before posting. Found out when I got home that after offering to review the place for weeks, my boss is like 'yeah, go ahead'. Luckily, I woke up with a pristine recall of the place and the events because I took it easy on the tropical poisons. Also, my dad did a flight here yesterday so I tried to make everyone happy by agreeing to meet him for dinner near the venue. We had some great thai food around the corner, while Becks phoned asking where I was. My dad dropped me off at the venue, which I told him I was working doing a review on, hugged, kissed, got a few bills off him, then ran to the bathroom stalls to dig out all manner of beaded necklaces, face paint, tribal gear and knifes to adorn myself in, not to mention a bright orange hula skirt. Then the girls (Becks and Fi) and I had a night of chanting and boozing and just being plain awesome, while two chicks performed jungle burlesque for us on stage.

I'm really pissed because I can't find any tickets to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's gig on the 25th, which is something I dubbed an event not to be missed before leaving London forever and ever in two months. My only other option is to buy a one day pass to the Camden Crawl. They're playing the friday. But, over 30 quid? And that doesn't account for all the boozing Becks and I will have to do just fucking waiting for Karen O to show up and spit up bottled water on us.

*sigh* They will always be on my playlists. I've come to accept that. And Karen O is possibly THE best dressed woman in New York. I don't want to argue that because it's very likely I would have to retract that statement, but she's definitely up there for me. They won't let me post it but just wanted to say, on a side note, how awesome the styling in their new video 'Zero' is. The song will have to grow on me. Think I prefer the old YYY. And one other thing, I don't know what everybody in the blogosphere's obsession is with The Kills but I actually don't care for them. They're just a retarded spin off of the YYY's. There, I said it.

One of my fav. songs from them...


Apart from The Kills, I also hate it how everyone I know is flying off to California this month. There, I said it pt. 2.