Amelia pics

Draft due in 23 days and it's slow going... just received a few of the possible shots for the jacket-cover though. We did a bunch of shots and then decided to try some with Amelia. She was cooperative for the most part but not exactly an angel...

Bombs Balls and Bullshit Biology

So just in case you thought the world has never been worse, and that for the first time in history we finally have the full capability and propensity to terrorize eachother into post-apocalyptic paramilitarized cults of religious zealotry and commercialized zombiism, Scotland's SECRET UNDERGROUND BUNKER is here to tell you that compared to the media of the cold war, Fox news is mother fucking goose. Check out this winning headline entitled, creatively, HOLOCAUST encased in a giant mushroom cloud:















Welcome to the 60s kids, a time before Madonna, before MMORPGs, before smoking pot was only for the cool kids. And it wasn't all daisies and folk music, no back in the day everyone was genuinely fearing for their lives as the possibility of nuclear attack loomed large. Much more terrifying than that, however, was the fact that every leading authority figure from here to Hiroshima (got the short straw there, huh guys) claimed that the best method of avoiding skin melting radiation and lung ravaging fallout was to crawl underneath pieces of wooden furniture, chair, desk, table, what have you, and put your hands over your head. This was a very bizarre exhibit but also heartening in a way- things have always been insane, and at least nowadays the government has stepped up the transparency of their idiot advice by telling us to use duct tape and plastic to cover our windows when the biobomb strikes instead of hiding under wood.

Scotland's Secret Underground Bunker was built under an unassuming farm house (though I assume SOMETHING was assumed based on all the thousands of tons of concrete steel and supplies being carted in an out of town whose former largest traffic source was a double row of sheep crossing the road). Housing full medical, living, radio station, radar, and communication facilities, this place was meant to keep the leaders of Scotland safe and give them a base in the event of nuclear attack. And then in 40 years they turned it into a tourist attraction complete with retro action mannequins:


here's one sexy lass who looks like she's been hitting the bottle a little hard since news of nuclear apocalypse













Here's me and dashingly handsome General Plasticock.















For some reason museums here really enjoy letting little kids dress up in clothing which smells like your grandmother's knickers drawer, and at the risk of getting lice I communicated some key military information to the zombie hunters aboveground in this authentic army helmet.







And me and Midge the sassy secretary directing some very important top secret calls:
















Then, if that wasn't enough fun for the whole family for our entire trip, we visited the St. Andrews golf museum, which also had fun costumes. Here' me dressed as a dapper golfer circa 1810:
















They had thrilling exhibits on the history of golf, the history of holes, the history of clubs, and (steel yourself folks) the history of ballmaking:










Then we went to the aquarium. At the aquarium, which, as I mentioned before, I will refer to as Aqua Alcatraz, they ran out of exhibit thrills after the dead crab and this giant fucking lobster thing, (which I'm pretty sure is just what a supermarket lobster looks like if you feed it butter instead of eating it with butter). Never ones to give up at AA, instead of throwing in the towel they decided to display whatever the hell else they could get their hands on, on no matter how irrelevant and anti-educational. Examples include: a chocolate display, an assortment of alien shaped erasers, and this neon orange dinosaur vehicle. "Dinosaur is an animal!" says McMoron the assistant curator.















and finally, here is me caught between flipping you the bird and giving you a peace sign as my brother Sam collapses on the bed in a blissful ambien-induced stupor. I'm having a claustrophobic time here but we're finally at the Edinburgh fringe where we will be in the same place for more than 2 days, which i'm really looking forward to. Keep me posted, take care, eat your veggies, and remember that even when the world seems at its darkest to be thankful that we're not back in the days when we thought duck and cover would save us. Now, at least, we know we're totally screwed.


much love
xo
H

Picture Post

If you are like me you have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to- see there now I've probably already lost you. I always hated information in school which was presented in massive block paragraphs of tiny text with nothing fun to supplement so here, in no particular order, are some pics to illustrate some updates:

Here are creepy fish from the B&B we're staying at.












And here is me with my very first check. I am experiencing something between a brain freeze and a mindfuck at the prospect of being paid to diddle around on my computer.













Here is me and my mom and Amelia the monkey hanging out in the kitchen before we left for the trip. I am annoyed about the fact that they don't want to let me bring the big suitcase. My mother is annoyed that she is going on tour at all. Amelia is pondering the complexities of quantum physics. Or about to poop.











And here is me at the psychadelic fiberoptics museum which I insisted we visit. This is an exhibit on... glowy stuff. In bunches.


Anyways I'm sitting in a coffeeshop and procrastinating another chapter so I should get moving. Leave me a note! xo H

music and mini picture post

Did a great gig tonight on a ferry. The crowd was eerily boisterous, like we were not only playing their favorite song but also curing their favorite fatal disease in the meantime and in perfect modulating harmonies.









This is me trying to look cool with a big twisty piece of metal coming out of my face.














And here is a picture of me fucking up a bass line really badly and cringing. "God I hope that wasn't as loud as it sounds" I think. The perfect time to snap a picture.



















Mom and Sam are watching a documentary on the Galapagos while I try to write, or rather, try to try to write, because clearly now I'm not writing the book I'm writing the blog and I blame that on you. Whoever you are.

This is Sam, totally unable to be silent for even 3 fucking seconds, crafting a musical instrument out of water glasses arranged by pitch based on their volume