Walt Disney: the story of menstruation

See? I wasn't kidding.

All the musicians who passed on to the great concert in the sky in 2012

It's a scary list. Whitney Houston, Dave Brubeck, Davy Jones, Andy Williams, Etta James, Dory Previn, Donna Summer, Robin Gibb, Bert Weedon, and even the man who made the Marshall amp, to name but a few. Suddenly an entire generation of our greatest musical artists starts slipping away.

As a childhood fan of Hollywood movies and an avid admirer of their screen gods and goddesses, I remember how bereft it left me to see stars of the calibre of Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles, Greta Garbo, Mae West and Cary Grant pass away. Marilyn Monroe's death still reverberates today. These people embodied US-centric Western popular culture for generations and have rarely (if ever) been equalled.

Running in tandem and blossoming later in the 1950s and 60s — both artistically and commercially — an era of musicians created the soundtrack to our lives. We're now at the point where these post-war artists are tipping over the death ledge in serious numbers.

The authors of the peak of western culture are disappearing and, with very few exceptions of whom hardly any reach the mainstream, are not being replaced by fresh generations of writers and performers capable of exploring our inner world, or examining where we are — politically and emotionally — in the cosmos. The soundtrack to our civilisation's demise is the scream of time being killed and the ker-ching of tills.

The Guardian's list of musicians who died in 2012.

Charles Shaar Murray's The Guitar Geek Dossier available on Amazon as an eBook for less than the price of a pint.

2B Or Not 2B, that is the pencil: poem but not Shakespeare

Here's a short poem I wrote.

2B Or Not 2B

2B or not 2B
That is the pencil
Whether it is
Nobblier in the line to
Scuff the springs and marrows
Of outmoded pictorial representation,
Or to take snaps upon the digital?
To sketch up the dawn of a rosy hue
Or to take lines of sea and rubble
And by Photoshopping them, amend them?
To scumble the surface no more
But open a window on the world.
Depths and planes,
Impasto and light.
What The Fuck!

(written May 2009)

DREAM SELLER: I'm in this scary short film made in St Ives

I'm in this mesmerising and disturbing short film made in St Ives by my friend Paul Healy. Receiving Paul's cheery little movie, Dream Seller, on the day the Mayans said the world would end, is most appropriate as it speaks of the End of Things.

Paul has captured a powerful atmosphere and imbued it with tons of meaning. It's staring the Grim Reaper in the face for our generation, as well as anticipating the decline and death of our version of civilisation now that capitalist production is moving out of Europe and into Asia and Africa, and capitalism is mutating into a form that doesn't need us (as I've been banging on about for some time).

Dream Seller was shot in one of St Ives's few remaining fish-net cellars ("seller" — geddit?), now earmarked for development, with various poets and artists who are to be found in this artists' colony. So as well as being a fascinating exploration of our fears in the face of The End, it's also a groovy holiday movie of my mates.

It was a pretty scary place. I did remark to Paul as he led me down into the dank and gloom, alone and defenceless (him, that is, not me, heh!), that it had the feel of somewhere where a sex-crime had been carried out.

The worst thing that happened, though, was that I left my make-up bag down there and had to send the boys round to get it back.

A sweet memento of my time in St Ives.

AAAARGH! PRESS LAUNCHES WITH TWO TITLES

Aaargh! Press, a new Brit alternative small press, is celebrating its birth with a party in London next month to mark the publication of its first titles, Reaching for my Gnu by Anna Chen (Kindle eBook and paperback) and The Guitar Geek Dossier by Charles Shaar Murray (Kindle eBook only for now).

Reaching for my Gnu, a collection of poems by British-Chinese poet and performer Anna Chen is available as a paperback for £9.99 and as a Kindle e-book for £1.99.

'Brilliant and dangerous ... one wild-ride roller-coaster that soars to altitudes of unfettered wit and then plunges with a startling and implacably knowing anger' MICK FARREN

'Superb' GREG PALAST

'Charming, witty and sophisticated' SUNDAY TIMES

The Guitar Geek Dossier, an author's-choice collection of columns from Guitarist by legendary music journalist Charles Shaar Murray is available as a Kindle eBook for £1.99.

'The Johnny Cash of rock journalism' PHIL CAMPBELL, MOTORHEAD

'The rock critic’s rock critic' Q MAGAZINE

'Front-line cultural warrior' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Charles is author of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix And Post-war Pop and Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century (both Canongate). His first novel, The Hellhound Sample, was published by Headpress in 2011.

The details of the launch party, which will be something to remember, will be posted here and on the official Aaaaargh! Press website very soon.

MY ASIAN PLANET calls Anna Chen "a bit of a Chinese firecracker" and says of the book, "It's saucy, devilish and delightful!"

Occupied Friern Barnet Library cabaret: Save the library in court on Monday

Had a lovely time tonight at the Occupied Friern Barnet Library. Thanks to Phoenix, Barbara Gordon, Poppy, Angel MC, all the acts and everyone who packed out the place, proving how wonderful a community hub can be.

I hadn't realised that the library is the last public space in Friern Barnet, so the philistine decision to sell it off to Capita is entirely political and nothing to do with the needs of the human beings who live there. All the books were donated by the public because the council had emptied the shelves and dumped the books lord knows where.

The campaigners are being dragged into court by Barnet Council, who want to evict them, on Monday morning at Barnet County Court, St Marys Court, Regent's Park Rd, London, Greater London N3 1BQ. So I hope there will be a crowd of supporters letting the authorities know how badly needed the library is.

Indymedia report here