End Of Year Progress Roundup

Another quiet year on the blog, and this time I don't even have the excuse of moving house, changing jobs, or having to keep grinding out content for Geek Syndicate. So what have I been doing?

The short and entirely unsatisfying answer is "not a lot".  My new work/living combination doesn't afford me quite the same amount of unclaimed time as I once enjoyed. Much of what spare time I've been able to claw back from domesticity/capitalism has gone into starting a book version of IDFC, something I assumed would be relatively painless until I remembered I hate everything I've ever written approximately six months after I write it. I'm almost done with the first three essays, with thirty more stretching out ahead of me in various stages of NOPE.

There's been a little progress on the painting front, at least. I do mean little, as well, but I've accelerated over the last few months, which is encouraging. My 'Nid army is now at around 4500 points, with these two lads rounding off a third Warrior Brood (as always, I've deliberately painted them in the same absurdly simple colour scheme I've been employing since my mid teens).

(Also pictured: a piece of battlefield detritus I painted during a D&D session, just to give my hands something to do).

I've also been chipping away at my Black Reach Orks, last seen here back in August. Since then, two more Boyz have dropped off the end of the assembly line.

The assembly line itself has moved on fractionally as well, with every Boy below precisely one step closer to completion than they were four months ago.

There is one exception, as the particularly attentive may observe - the lad at the front left has a head that's nothing more than undercoated. This is due to a savage, unpredented and deeply upsetting betrayal, in which two of my family members conspired against me. First, my cat knocked the miniature to the floor from where it sat on our kitchen table, whereupon my dog swallowed the head whole.

Which reminds me: we have a dog now. Here he is:

JUST LOOK AT HIM HE'S AWFUL. Except more canine-related excuses in the future, because this lad CANNOT BE TAMED. He makes Zoltran Hound of Dracula look like Lassie on general anesthetic. It's like living with a chaos god hiding inside a smelly rug. As with essentially every dog since the beginning of the domestication process, it's a good fucking job he's cute.

ANYWAY. Next up on my list of things to do is another No Apologies... post, this time on a song which a) I have no strong specific connection to and b) everyboday already knows their position on, so you won't want to miss that. Afterwards, maybe I'll do a bit more work towards finishing my critical tour of Mike Carey's Lucifer, given I have at least two more other Carey/Gross collaborations to bore you about. The next essay in the book is calling me too, though, so who can say?

Right. then Happy New Year for those as recognise it, and I'll be back with more musings in 2023.

D CDs #472: Things George Michael Has Gotta Have

Faith just isn't for me. I simply don't care what George Michael thinks about sex, or how George Michael wishes he were having more sex, or how getting more sex as George Michael can get complicated by the fact that George Michael is George Michael.  It's not Michael specifically; I'd put myself as a 9.8 at least on the horny/revenge scale of "Why make art"; horny songs just don't do it for me. It sounds like a cheap shot under the circumstances, but nevertheless, it all feels a little too much like listening to someone masturbating.

Michael's debut album isn't exclusively about sex, though after being bludgeoned by Michael's libido for fifteen solid minutes via "Father Figure" and "I Want Your Sex", it's hard to think about much else. There's a sense of vulnerability here which at least seasons the horndog panting. Which makes sense, given Michael a) had just torpedoed a band that had sold thirty million albums and - via a China tour - changed the international political landscape, and b) was trying to challenge Prince and Michael Jackson on territory they didn't so much own, as had sculpted from the planet's bedrock through sheer force of will. You can see why he'd be nervous - there must have been times while recording the album where Michael was wondering whether unseating Hu Yaobang would have been the easier job.

So it's not fair to call Faith one-note, though comparisons to Prince and Jackson do rather underline the album's lack of range. It's probably not helped by the fact Michael just completely, perfectly nails what he's aiming for on the opening track. "Faith" is glorious, as tight and bouncy a package as Michael's denim-sprayed arse in the accompanying video. A rollocking stab of lust and nervousness, set to a rhythm like the heartbeat of God. The vid even sees Michael sport a jacket emblazoned with the word "REVENGE" on the back, as though the guy gets what art should be after all. It's also the shortest song on the album by a minute and change.

Once you've heard it, though, do you really need the icky metaphors of "Father Figure", or the knackered randiness of "Hard Day", or, the fear Michael's own success is cock-blocking him in "Kissing A Fool", or etc. etc. Given Michael's later coming out of the closet, we can at least retrospectively cast "I Want Your Sex" as an attempt to literally sing the praises of gay sex, but even so - dude, it's nine minutes long.

The album works best when it moves into different themes. "Hand To Mouth", a pulsing condemnation of the failures of the American dream built around a skeletal, looping keyboard riff and Spanish guitar, offers a breather from the heavy breathing. "Monkey" is a superior example of 80s Gabriel-tinted synth-funk, a desperate plea to a a friend to kick the drugs, and huge fun both as written and when you doggedly insist on taking the lyrics literally. 

Neither are fit to buff "Faith"'s leather jacket, of course. Nothing else here is. Faith both proved Michael could write and sing with the best of them, and that there was no guarantee he necessarily would. So I says, anyway. What do I know? The album and its many singles did absolutely ludicrous numbers, and netted Michael critical acclaim and multiple awards. All the cold water I can muster thirty-five years later isn't going to make a difference to what caught fire here. Michael's Faith had paid off.

Six tentacles.

Lighthouse

 

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