New Home.

Hey there cheeky face, I have moved to drhenryhunter.com for now. Decided on a change of scenery. So if you find yourself here and wanting more you know where to find me.

New Look.

I have finally got round to changing the look of the blog. It isn't a massive change, but a change nonetheless. In the interest of getting to know you all better I have also added my email and skype to the bar at the right. Use it wisely if you wish.

How I Spend My Days Part 1.

I can't speak for all writers; I can't speak for all people, let alone the important ones, the writers. Artists of any kind are the only people I care to know about and they are not the people you get to hear about on a daily basis. The news isn't filled with stories about how between a wank and a sandwich the writer wrote his best sentence yet. There is no thought given to these unique moments because we are led to believe that people dying in war is newsworthy. I guess it is, but I find it hard to care. Someone being killed in a fight of some sort is nowhere near as surprising as the creation of something from the unique mind of a free thinking human not limited by nonsensical constraints. This is clear by the never ending fiction being fucked into your brain by the intrusive and metaphorical cock of the mainstream media.

But all this is unimportant. All this is just the beliefs of someone with no real care about the spreading of democracy; no real care for the paradoxical holy war that is being fought with our money, no real care for the status of oil rich countries I'll never visit for the various reasons my Government has imposed on us. But all this is unimportant.

So I spend my days writing; figuring out how to put it down best, hating the entire world until it makes some kind of sense and then all is right with the world, at least in my immediate surroundings. I wake up late & I drink coffee and smoke cigarettes; I eat, I masturbate, ignore my financial woes in favour of writing about whatever comes up, I shower, moisturise and go out into a world I often hate just to end up back in front of my computer because only then does my day start to make sense. You can be anything you want to be, take on anything you want to, but you have no control over it really. If I had control over it I would probably not have chosen to be a writer, I would have chosen to be a multimillionaire playboy with little or no brain function, I would while away my time between the legs of the type of girl who only sleeps with rich playboys with loads of stuff and things that impress that type of creature. I would be oblivious to everything that pains me, but also everything that pleases me. That would be the price to pay. I wouldn't know the buzz of being published on some website or in some paper, but I also wouldn't know the anguish of the story to begin with.

All this is unimportant. What you do for a living is unimportant, what you do for enjoyment is all that matters. My vague political beliefs dictate that I can never have a job working for a big, faceless corporation. It isn't even political in nature; my reasoning, because politics is nonsense that too many people think is important, but it is just nonsense created to make us feel like we are involved. But my reasons are just, I think big corporations should die and I would never be part of it. Good luck to you if that is how you make your money, but it isn't for me. Integrity is a poor man's affliction after all.

I rarely consider posting these things. This kind of rambling isn't fit for publication, but recently I have learned to care less about that. If you have something to say then you should say it. I'm working towards gaining some kind of self belief so that I won't take things too personally now that I am pitching my biggest project to date. The last thing any publishers need is me walking into their office with a bat and breaking someone's legs because they rejected my book. I don't take criticism well from strangers & I don't think I should be expected to. What I need is to be able to ignore it, but sometimes that is an impossibility. Sometimes all that we have at our disposal is the threat of very real, very violent repercussions. I learned that from the manager of a band called The Subways who I met on tour with Sucio some years ago. He told me that after a scathing review from the wanky music press he went and threatened to kick the writer's teeth in. Some may see that as an over-reaction, others may see it as completely justified. Indeed, after a series of death threats I received from an American soldier I emailed him and told him to follow me on twitter so he knew when I would be in the States, then we could have a fight. I am no hardman, I have been battered more times than I would care to remember, but if someone threatens you there is only one response; attack, jump in teeth first. More often than not the threat will be enough to put your adversary off. But keep in mind that sometimes you will catch a really bad beating.

But you have to learn how to take a beating. How much can you possibly know about yourself if you've never taken a beating?

The Long Straight Road To The Middle of Nowhere

I sat in the passenger seat of the Dodge and the boss lay out in the back finishing his beers and then slept for pretty much the entirety of the long journey. I stayed awake to keep Nathan company as it is the gentlemanly thing to do; we got to know each other, we shot the shit and traded war stories. I have no idea how long it took, but eventually we were driving on the depressingly straight roads of Saskatchewan. They say your dog could run away here and you would see it running away for 3 days. I don't doubt it because it is that flat. But it is impressive in it’s flatness, it’s true, you can see for-fucking-ever which is not conducive to a quick journey as you are just straight lining it with no change in scenery, no nothing, just fields and this fucking road. The kind of road that leaves you cursing The Romans.

Eventually we stopped for a piss break. We pulled up next to a road that shot off west for as far as the eye could see. We pissed, I forgot what country I was in and pissed at the wrong end of the truck allowing passing cars and trucks to get a glimpse of my urinating penis. Lucky them. We got back in the truck and continued along the most boring road on the face of the fucking planet, I dosed off. I felt bad when I felt myself going because it was right in the middle of Nathan talking to me; I saw him notice in my eyes that I was about to drop off. There was nothing either of us could do about it. When I woke up I had a mild panic for a few seconds when I noticed we were sitting parked beside what looked like the same road that shot off west as far as the eye could see that we pulled up to when we last stopped for a piss. I immediately thought it was some sort of Groundhog Day situation. Because that seemed like the logical thing to think. This road had looked the same for 500 miles already, it took me a few minutes to wake up properly and remember that. That part of the world is so flat and devoid of any kind of natural landmarks that it all looks the same, so even although it looked very much as if we were still stopped at the piss break, it turned out that we had driven some more and this identical turn off was the last mentioned available gas station on the sat nav. We decided not to question this machine lest we end up stranded in the middle of nowhere. I always hated that saying “the middle of nowhere” because I always found it quite disrespectful to the people who call it home. But it wasn’t until I was on this road that I fully appreciated the phrase. That really felt like the middle of nowhere. In certain parts the only real proof that humans had been there before was that there was a road, the road we were on. For miles and miles that was all there was. It was truly slap bang in the middle of nowhere.

So we decided to take this right and go looking for the town of Delilah, the sat nav claimed that this town had a gas station. We drove along the dirt road for a while.

Then we found it.

The town of Delilah was more of a street than a town. And that street was more of a sandpit than anything. It was odd. Although there were houses dotted around away from the “main street”, there were a lot of churches, much more than really needed given the population. Or what I presumed the population was. It looked like a slightly more modern western town. Wooden buildings, and one of them was actually a General Store. I volunteered to go in and ask about the gas station because I was curious and wanted a walk after so long in the truck. I wandered in and found what appeared to be a town meeting going on. I put on my best voice and asked about the gas station. A big man in dungarees looked me up and down paying close attention to my skinny black jeans, Hunter S Thompson tee, hair that no one should leave the house with and eyes like piss holes in the snow. He grunted something about how to get to the gas station and something about a card I had to get from the café beforehand in order to start the machine. I thanked them, wished them a good day and backed out, staring at them like I genuinely feared death by their hands. If their noses were tuned enough to get over the stench of old beer and cigarettes eminating from my unwashed self, they would have caught a whiff of fear.

I closed the door behind me, filled the guys in on the situation and I wandered over to the café. I opened the flimsy door of the cafe and walked in. I nearly ended up on the floor because I didn’t notice the slight step at the entrance; I regained my composure and made my way to the counter, passing odd looking locals eating eggs and bacon while giving me the stink eye. I got to the counter and there was no one manning it. I used the “I need service” cough. It worked. From the kitchen appeared a small Vietnamese woman, which was the very last thing I expected to see in a town I was already convinced to be a one family town. I had them all pegged as Johnsons. I told the little lady what I needed, but she had already made moves for the card, sensing, I guess, that I wouldn’t have been in for anything else, unless JimBob in the general store had radioed ahead. I thanked her and she just stared at me and loudly shouted “you bring back!” Again, I backed out, careful not to trip up on the step. I got back in the truck and pointed Nathan in the direction of the gas station.

As it happens Delilah didn’t have a gas station. What they had was one pump. To use this pump first one must figure out how the card machine works. Eventually we got the gas flowing and once we were topped up we still weren’t sure if we had paid for it. While Nathan tried to figure that out I took a piss behind the pump, what came out of my bladder looked and smelled a lot like pure lager. It had a head and everything. Although it had only been a matter of hours since my last drink I was glad to be taking a short break from it, it had it’s claws in me and this long drive was the only thing stopping me getting boozed up again. We decided to give up caring if we had paid for the gas or not, because it didn’t really matter. We would never be back to this place if, of course, we actually get to leave. By this point I was worrying that the locals knew we would be returning the card, so they knew where we would be. What if they kept us hostage? What if the rumours you hear on the road in Canada about small towns inviting outsiders in to impregnate their daughters in exchange for meats and other produce? Could I live as some sex slave in a place like this? Probably. Still, I worried about someone wearing my skin as a suit. I moved quickly and kept my head on a swivel. I stormed the café, gave the card back and loudly told the Vietnamese woman to “have a nice day”. She simply stared at me for a moment before saying “yes.” That was that. I bailed, we floored it and got out of that place as soon as we possibly could. I kept an eye on the rear view in case I saw an old pick up filled with angry, bored, bloodthirsty rednecks who were jealous of my hair and good looks. We got lucky this time. We built up enough distance between us and the town that I could stop worrying.

After a few more hours on this fucking road, I swear it never even curved. It felt like a straight line from Calgary to our destination town, Outlook. You wont have heard of Outlook unless you have had the misfortune of having to go there, or know someone who has been. It would have been the strangest place I’d been in a while had I not just visited Delilah. Nathan drove into the town of Outlook, the sign for which was the name of the town curved over a rainbow. Yet it didn’t seem like a very liberal town, I can imagine they are not aware what the rainbow represents to almost everyone else on the planet. We drove by various small hotels, some looked pretty nice. With each one we passed the Boss would make sure we knew the one we were staying in wasn’t even as nice as these decent but most basic looking places. It didn’t bode well.

We parked up outside the Outlook Motor Inn. I got a shiver when I stood in front of it. The general vibe, the Orwellian grey sheet metal facing, the creepy sign, the Shining-esque appearance of the Motel made me feel on edge. The inside was only a little less terrifying. We were greeted in the bar by a little Chinese man called Sun. He ran this place with his brother, who was a cunt. And his wife, a gorgeous Russian who he “met online”. We got into our rooms and chilled a while. We wouldn’t be starting work until the next day, so we relaxed on the Saturday evening. Me and the boss managed to get into the job site that evening, a primary school, and we got a look at the mess we had to fix because the big bosses trusted an Irishman to run a job site. If we know anything about the Irish it is that they make OK labourers, just don’t expect them to be able to actually run a site responsibly, and prepare to hear constantly how they built the world. We took note of what needed done the next day, the boss showed me the part of the school that he claimed was haunted and when he made a joke about it in front of the school caretaker, she simply smirked and said “I know nothing about that.” I was now really on edge.

We walked back to the Motel, went to the bar and sat down to wings and beers. The wings in Outlook were probably the best I had in Canada. They mix the buffalo sauce and the ranch dressing and cover the chicken with that mix. Spectacular.

After that there was little to do so we retired to our rooms and made a plan to maybe meet back in the bar later for more booze, nothing solid was decided since this was the first bed I had in a while, and the first tv in even longer so I wasn’t that bothered about socialising I just lay in bed watching TV for most of the evening. Eventually, in the middle of Die Hard with a Vengeance I heard the music from the bar creep through the floor and into my room. It sounded like a party so I threw on my clothes and went down to see what could pass as a Saturday night in a town called Outlook. I walked down the stairs and the music got louder, it sounded like a hell of a party, I opened the door of the bar and walked in. In total there were 5/6 people, including the Russian woman behind the bar and Nathan who was sitting on his own drinking a beer. I ordered a Kokanee and joined him. The group of 3 or 4 locals were drinking and playing pool and listening to really shitty music full blast, they seemed to enjoy it and when one song in particular came on they all lost it. They rushed over to the “dance floor”, fired up a disco ball and started dancing. I watched this tragedy for as long as I could handle before I drained what was left of my beer, said night to Nathan and went back to bed via outside for a smoke. Saturday night in Outlook was a let down, but I kind of expected it to be. Luckily the TV was good that night, and I had internet/porn access.

I awoke early on Sunday and got myself ready for work, I met the guys down stairs and we got in the truck and headed to the job. I spent the day crawling about under the school dealing with the various hilarious mistakes made by the Irish contractors. I am not cut out for such arduous work though, my bony hips were bruised for weeks following my crawling about. Once the work beneath the school was done I had some painting to do while Nathan and the boss took care of fitting drain pipes to the guttering. We worked for most of the day, breaking for lunch and the odd shot of basketball and hockey in the games hall. Once the work was done, and the night began to fall we cleaned up and escaped the school before the ghosts woke up and started fucking with us. The boss said the last time he was at the school, just as he locked up and was leaving with a worker they heard a sickening scream and bang on the window behind them. They ran back to the Motel. Luckily for us there was no scream or bang, but I can say that once or twice I got the feeling someone was behind me. That feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end and made me run back towards the boss and Nathan. I was happy to see the back of the school. We decided to blow town and not spend another night in the Outlook Motor Inn. I had seen what I needed to of the place to be happy enough to leave. I had been on their landmark “longest bridge in Canada” a truly terrifying piece of shoddy workmanship. My arms looked like brail thanks to the mosquitoes which are among the biggest I have ever seen. Like flying cats. We hit the road and didn’t look back. It was a long drive, but we were lucky enough to see the most beautiful sunset on this long straight road back to civilisation in the shape of Calgary. The kind of sunset that even I, being colourblind, could appreciate. The world around me looked like a Monet. Truly beautiful. Sadly the sunset is forever tainted because the only radio station we could pick up was playing Justin Bieber’s new album in it’s entirety. With that heinous shit filling my ears while the sun set I found myself wishing the sun would just explode and take us all with it for allowing such a celebration of mediocrity to take place. Total devastation of the earth in a violent apocalypse is the only thing that can stop Bieber et al now. We deserve everything we get. But fear not the apocalypse, if and when it happens these cretins will be wiped out also, unless the conspiracies are true and they are all moving to The Ozarks or back to their home planet with the other reptilians. I doubt there is any truth in those, because although the world is interesting, it's not that interesting. Bieber, Cowell, Cameron, Romney, Obama, Thatcher, Bill O'Reilly, the guy at your work who picks on you, your exes and your enemies, they will all perish. So fear not the apocalypse. You won't miss a thing.

We shot through the flat, post apocalyptic-esque badlands of Saskatoon. I was happy when we got to Calgary and saw the green hills that looked lots like one of my favourite places to get high, the Carrick Hills in my home town of Ayr. It felt like home. In many ways Calgary started to feel more like home than home did. Most places on this trip felt like that. It is too easy to get comfortable in your home town, which breeds the type of complacency I am often guilty of. This trip was blowing the cobwebs out, spring cleaning for the soul. On the road home to Calgary I stopped for a piss and was rudely interrupted by a cop who tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, still pissing and he said “just what the hell do you think you're doing son?” His laid back attitude said he frequently has to stop people pissing on this sign which read: “welcome to (whatever the town was called) The Home of Nickelback.”

Comfortably Drunk with Tiffany Stevenson.

“Women just aren’t as funny as men.” You may have heard such a line before if you have ever spent any time in the company of imbeciles. It isn’t true, obviously. It has never been true. Sure, there are a multitude of terrible female comics, but there are an equal number of terrible male comics. Such is the way of things. For every (unfunny Womans name here) there is a Lee Evans to balance the equilibrium.

In celebration of my appreciation of female stand up comedy I spent my Saturday night (16th March) trawling the venues being used for The Glasgow Comedy Festival with Miss Tiffany Stevenson. I have known Tiffany for a few years now, together with her partner and my comrade Paul, we have written probably the greatest action movie you have never seen. What started as an exercise in trying to prove to myself that I wasn’t afraid of the ever escalating seagull situation in Ayr became a collaboration between the three of us which resulted in a great script that one day we hope to actually release into the world.

My night nearly ended before it began as I genuinely thought I was going to piss myself as I was on the bus to Glasgow. Due to the unbridled laziness of every cunt who works for stagecoach buses you cannot use the toilet on a service you pay £10 for. You simply pay £10 to an angry & bitter old wanker behind the wheel, have him be as rude as possible and take your seat, thankful that Stagecoach exists because it is slightly better than walking 30 odd miles. I got off the bus in Glasgow and waited on a street corner to be picked up by my good friends Gus and Sarah, I was scared to move from the spot lest I simply let go of whatever muscles it is that keeps the piss in the bladder.

Once picked up we drove towards the first venue, Blackfriars in Merchant City. I rolled about in the back seat praying to all the gods that I would make it to a toilet in time, by the time we were getting close the piss felt like it was in my dick. This is not a good point to get to. Specifically if you don’t have the luxury of having a big dick.

I jumped out the car as we got close to Blackfriars and I bolted in, leaving Gus and Sarah to circle the block looking for a space to park. I ran down into the comedy club, shouting my name at the girl in charge of guestlist and ran straight towards the gents where I felt sweet, almost orgasmic relief in front of the urinal.

Near miss averted it was now time to actually begin enjoying my night. Tiffany was in Blackfriars to perform her Uncomfortably Numb show which gained glowing reviews at last years Edinburgh Festival. In the show Tiff tackles and shines a very bright light on all the nonsense force fed to women through the pages of the glossy mags which have long positioned themselves as some kind of bible to live by rather than the falsified & photoshopped tripe that they actually are. In the hour long set she sets her sights on racism, sexism, classism, the alarmingly fast spreading idiocy in the younger generations and, my personal favourite, when she talks about Paul. Accent included.

The show ended to rapturous applause and she exited stage left, Guinness in hand. By the time Gus, Sarah and myself got drinks in the upstairs bar Tiff had finished signing and chatting to fans and it was time to make our way towards the next show on Tiff’s schedule.

Downstairs at The State Bar is home to a comedy club ran by a man called Chris, who sounds Welsh but claims not to be. He was the compere for the evening, he was also the only male voice. Besides Tiffany putting on another 40 minute show, in which she tried out mostly new material, there were another two females plying their trade. First up was an Irish lady called Mary Bourke. I hadn’t heard of her before this, but I was a quick convert. Her style is quite dry, but I was in stitches as she built up momentum and I look forward to seeing her again. In between Mary and Tiff there was a local girl who was funny but her name escapes me. She was quite terrifying actually. A Glesga Girl through and through. Tiff closed out the show with a great set and, save for the 3 hipsters in the front row, everyone seemed to really enjoy their night.

As if we hadn’t had enough comedy there was one more show, the late show at The Stand. Tiff wasn’t playing there until Sunday, so we got the gins in and watched a bit of the very funny Fred MacAulay and a guy called Mark Nelson who proved to me that people from Dumfries can actually be hilarious. When he finished, to a deserved rapturous applause, my night was basically over. No more comedy to be seen except the young couple in front of me who were winching like a couple of 15 year olds, seemingly unaware of all the hundreds of people around them and oblivious to the concept of hotel rooms or back alleys. Suitably drunk we said goodbye to Tiff and headed back to Gus and Sarah’s flat to crash out.

With my horizons now broadened, and some new comics to search for on YouTube I feel I should insist you check out any of the Stand Ups I have mentioned here. But mostly Tiff, I think she is going to tour Uncomfortably Numb this year and you should really see it, be you man or woman. The show is sharp, witty and very truthful.

My only regret of the night is that I missed Katherine Ryan twice, I have a thing for funny and totally cute Canadian girls. Next time, I guess.

My point, if I have one is this;

Penis or Vagina. Funny is funny.

My Week With George Wyllie.

I have spent this week doing something that I don’t often do, and indeed try to steer well clear of, which is hard graft. I am not scared of hard work, I am simply not built for heavy lifting. Physically or mentally.

However, a job is a job and this week I got to do something amazing.

I was asked by my friend Mike to help him strip the amazing George Wyllie exhibition at The Mitchell Library. I had attended the opening night back in October 2012 when I got disastrously drunk on free wine and ended up getting my photo taken with Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister.

The exhibit; In Pursuit Of The Question Mark ran for 3 months, if you managed to see it then well done. If you didn’t, you really missed out. I have never seen anything like it, unique, quirky and hilariously Scottish. Sadly I never met George Wyllie, he died in the early part of 2012, I would have very much liked to have met him because his outlook on life and the way he conducted himself within this reality would be something that would no doubt rub off on anyone around him.

A lot of his work is made up of sculptures made of metal or rock, which doesn’t make moving it much fun, yet it was hard to notice that when you are carrying a piece because all I thought about when my muscles were being ripped to bits was how amazing the piece was. It was a good distraction because so much of the exhibition was seriously, seriously heavy. One piece, a beautiful metal eagle sat atop a big chunk of granite was so beautiful to behold, but heavy as hell and had sharp edges, one of which pierced my trousers and nearly took off a nut. I had a lucky escape.

We finished yesterday and I am not moving until I have to today, I am aching from the toes up and flicking through the lovely book I was given by George’s daughter Louise, who set up the exhibit and is now in charge of figuring out what to do with the wealth of work her father produced, some of which I would describe as awkward. Totally genius, but very awkward to lift, move or store. The book shares the title of the exhibition and it is filled with quotes by George, sketches and picture of his most famous works.

Having been given such hands on access to these magnificent pieces of art and being trusted to move them from the impressive hall in the Mitchell back into secure storage. I was also fortunate to see where he lived and worked, getting to snoop quickly around his workshop and seeing first hand what kind of life an artist can live it has had a massive effect on me. I’m not going to start welding metal together in some attempt to be more like him, it is another aspect of his art that has got my creative juices flowing. His outlook on life is what I think many people could learn from. He seemed to care very little about the more materialistic aspects of our species, which is a beautiful thing.

Chances are you have seen George Wyllie’s work. There is plenty on public show; the paper boat, the walking clock, the question marks along the Clyde coast, the big safety pin. The list is long. It was a firmly held belief of George Wyllie’s that art should be accessible to everyone. No sign of the pretension and ego which is rife in the art world, the work he produced is truly inspirational.

Be Suspicious. Those two words jumped out at me as I drunkenly looked through the merchandise at the exhibition on opening night. I bought a badge bearing those words and immediately pinned it to my jacket. Those two words are important words to me, they have been for the longest time without really knowing it. Growing up in a religious school and family, but never buying what I was being sold then growing up in a godless world being wrestled into submission by the concept of money and all the useless things it can buy, it is important to Be Suspicious. We are controlled by things that shouldn’t have any bearing on how we live our lives, but we are surrounded by beauty and art and people who possess the ability to find art in a rock, or a chunk of wood. George Wyllie possessed that ability. A lot of his work was created from things that others would throw away, or walk right by. He could find beauty in the simplest things, while people spend disgusting amounts of money on things that have no such beauty simply to impress idiots.

So I am lying in bed in a little bit of pain. But it was worth it. I didn’t expect it to have this effect on me, the exhibition amazed me both times I went to see it during it’s 3 month run but getting to touch it, break it down and move it back to the house where it was created was an honour. A legacy is important, to me it is the most important thing. The amassing of money or belongings doesn’t say anything important about you, not in any real sense. What you do, how you do it is what is truly important. How you conduct yourself. Many people don’t care about that and in many ways couldn’t care less about how they conduct themselves because they are fixated on making money caring not a jot that many souls must be destroyed for every pound, dollar or dong that is worshipped. But people like George Wyllie pop into your life every so often to remind you that there is an alternative to all that nonsense, there is a different way and it is the way that has been around a lot longer than 3D TV, iPhones, supercars, heated pools, gold door handles or expensive clothes. It takes a certain kind of mind to live in the world people like George Wyllie lived in, some people can’t comprehend it, they are so busy looking for a place to plug their phone in to notice the true beauty of the world around them. I can admit to becoming one of those people. I get distracted. We all get distracted. I wrote celebrity gossip once and I should never forget that, or be allowed to forget it. What I did was completely unacceptable and I know this. I gave up that sinister nonsense after a night of searching the deepest darkest corners of my mind surrounded by people who are very important to me. I gave it up, along with the money I was getting and I sought to better myself leading to me making the trip to North America last year. The work I did this week for Louise Wyllie has solidified what I have been trying to make sense of in my mind for a long time.

I could go on, I really could. But I will finish this with a quote by George Wyllie which I think truly captures the spirit and ethos of his work.

“It should be obvious that an adventurous voyage is most unlikely in the shallows of a bathtub, but the illusion of that possibility persists and is exemplified by art that never sails beyond the gallery.”

Nic Cage is God & The Rock is a Modern Classic.

I am often accused of being a little infatuated with the works of Nicolas Cage. Which is fine with me because I know that I am. His output is unlike anyone working in Hollywood today. Cage probably has more detractors than fans, but to those who get the madness, mania and massive output, he is a Cinema Great. If you don’t think so it’s OK. You’re only wrong, it’s no big deal because I am sure you’re right about some things. Just not this.

I could barely fit in a book all the glowing things I have to say about Nic Cage, I could, and really do want to go into intricate detail about his back catalogue but who has the time? I am still working on turning the story of my summer adventure into some kind of coherent mass of words. I have resurrected an old script, trying to write 3 short stories which make up the larger picture of possibly my favourite idea, it involves Nazis. I am also currently, until two minutes ago, working on the pilot of a detective show.

Basically, I am trying to say I have plenty to be getting on with, but last night I watched The Rock and feel like talking about it at great length.

There are a few pictures which could be argued are The Best Ever Made. But this is always reliant on opinion, or rather the ability of the person(s) speaking to make a solid case on behalf of the movie, its makers and it’s stars. I always stand by True Romance when asked that all too silly question of What is Your Favourite Movie? True Romance is a well written story with great dialogue and an incredible cast who are all on top of their game. Think about the support cast in that picture, the Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper scene is a stone cold classic piece of Hollywood Gold. Even the tiny part Brad Pitt plays is memorable. It is an easy and educated answer to a fairly redundant question.

The Rock, however, is just as good. It is a very different beast though. It isn’t as cool as True Romance because very little is, but as far as action movies go, The Rock kicked back into life the Action Thriller. Not only that but it became a blueprint for a whole new generation of film makers.

Released in 96 it did a lot for a genre that had become a little uncool after the heady heights of the 80s, a decade which seemed to be made up entirely of Action Movies, catchphrases and violence all the family could enjoy.

Like True Romance there is a Tarantino connection, he wrote True Romance and did work on the script for The Rock, albeit uncredited. Being that Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest directors of all time and a purveyor of quality dialogue since before his first own movie changed the way people looked at film making, this should only increase peoples love of The Rock.

The Rock is the story of disgruntled Marine General Francis Hummel, played by Ed Harris, who steals rockets armed with VX Gas and plans to fire them at San Francisco from his base on Alcatraz unless, of course, he is paid one hundred million, billion dollars. Classic set up. But will he pull it off?

Probably not because the Feds have an ace up their sleeve. Nic Cage plays a Chemical Weapons Expert called Stanley Goodspeed who is brought in, he thinks, to educate the Seal team, led by Michael Biehn, on how to disarm the rockets and save the day. Little does he know that he will have to actually join the seal team for the incursion. It is important to point out that Goodspeed is a man who drives a beige Volvo and eats pressure for breakfast, but he is not a field agent, and has never killed anyone.

To help the seal team and Nic Cage fight Ed Harris’s army of mercenary traitors is a man who has been in jail longer than Nelson Mandela, locked up, forgotten about and left for dead. Former SAS spy, master of escapology and a man who knows the USA’s most secret secrets from The Alien Landing at Roswell to the JFK assassination. Sean Connery, ladies and gentlemen, playing John Mason, from Glasgow. His involvement in the story is thanks to the fact that John Mason is the only man to have ever broken out of The Rock and survived.

The cinematic soup created by the people involved, established early on, gives off an aroma that can’t be argued. It smells great.

When it comes to Nic Cage, as I said earlier, some people get upset, angry and loud about how he can’t act, or makes too many movies, or something about his hair. While I can see how people don’t get it, I am here to maybe push those people in the right direction. He has taken the thing that made Die Hard a great franchise- the every man bit- and ran off in an odd direction with it. Nic Cage plays the every man with Gusto. He makes decisions that most actors couldn’t. He makes decisions that most actors don’t even know are options. His refusal to swear in The Rock, for example, makes for some of the most memorable lines in the film. I point you towards Zeus’ Butthole, Gee Whiz, Golly and What Say We Cut The Chit Chat A-hole! He could have sworn, I would imagine swearing was in the original script, but Cage knew that would be easy, opting instead to keep it clean because maybe a chemical weapons specialist has no interest in swearing. Maybe Stanley Goodspeed was brought up by loving, but strict parents who taught him well. You don’t know.

The irk which forced Ed Harris’s hand is that the American Government failed his men who were left to rot outside Baghdad after operation Desert Storm. This is another thing the movie seems to put across at times, the ineptitude of the American Military, while speaking highly of the British and their handling of situations. This, to all the youngsters, was how the so called Special Relationship used to be. Britain were in charge of the thinking and America took care of the blowing shit up. It worked. But that is all ancient history now. Thanks 9/11!

This film truly has it all; domestic terrorism, gas that melts your skin before doing such a number on you that you spasm so hard you break your own back, conspiracy theories, shadow ops, Alcatraz, obligatory car chase down that big hilly road in San Francisco, brutal kills, quality action movie dialogue, edge of the seat sequences, high quality photography, bad guys you really hate (like the guy with the big jaw) good guys you really like, believability, empathy for certain characters. It is quality from start to finish. And, as if all that isn’t enough, it has Michael Fucking Biehn in it. To those born at the right time, Biehn is a stamp of pure quality.

I better start trying to wrap this up, we all have stuff to do, but I felt compelled to gush a little, but don‘t want to spoil it. The Rock is a movie that should be taught. I studied cinema, briefly. Not once was it brought up. We watched Battleship Potemkin and took it to pieces for what felt like months, we watched Italian Neo Realism for kicks and of course we watched Citizen Kane and I had to learn to deal with the highly pretentious talking about it as if it is the only film ever made. But not once was The Rock brought up. The Rock is a modern classic. It only gets better with age. It is easy, I suppose, for people to disregard it because it is a Nic Cage action movie from the 90s featuring Sean Connery, a man who is usually so hammy he makes me crave mustard, yet it all comes together to make a not-far-from-perfect picture. This kind of thing came up at Christmas when I watched Hook, it is easy to forget that Captain Hook is one of Dustin Hoffman’s finest performances. The way the world is today, and was back then, movies are only taken seriously if it deals with super heavy subject matter. Look at what nonsense Hollywood shat out this month, the film about how a tsunami affected an American family, forgetting the story was about a Spanish family. That isn’t even the point. Making a film about it, to me, is pointless. I saw the news footage and the doc made up of home videos shot at the time. I couldn’t take anymore. I certainly couldn’t take Hollywood’s take on the matter. Although I am in no doubt that the dialogue will be totally hilarious. Movies don’t have to be super serious to be a game changer. You won’t hear about that Tsunami movie in 20 years, but people will still be watching The Rock.

If you have not watched it in a while or, for some nonsensical reason, never watched The Rock you should do yourself a favour. Sit down, switch off and bask in the full glory of it, potentially The Greatest Action/Adventure/Thriller Ever Made.