Pretending anyone gives a fuck: there is a very good reason as to why these news items have become less and less frequent with all the legroom between. I’m going to open the next paragraph with said reason, but let it be known, I am a touch embarrassed over what it is.Fitness! Oh my God, I can’t believe it, I am actually admitting this out-loud. I have these terrible day nightmares where I am running to work and a bus hits me and then I die. Can you imagine? In some newspaper it might say “Jared Woods, a runner, was killed by a bus this morning”. A runner? A RUNNER!? Will this one tiny aspect of my daily quest for greatness serve to summarise my entire life existence? Would all my countless projects dilute into irrelevance as a direct result of my untimely demise just because I went for a jog?? Imagine the horror!
But the truth is the truth: I (quite a long time ago) decided it was time to go to the gym. My reasons for joining were ones of vanity, but my reasons for staying were ones of euphoria. And the fact is, I am no longer happy unless I spend a fairly decent amount of designated week time towards helping my body look better naked, which is something the books recommend anyway. However, this approach of actually improving myself has come with the cost I fear most: less time.
As a result, projects have been brutally slaughtered and a strict enforcement of priorities has been implemented. As always, one of the first things to go would be these news items, because I don’t care. What this does mean though, is that I’ve worked on quite a few ventures which have gone undocumented, and I guess this has now hit boiling point because here I am, demanding this very news item receives a slot in my schedule somehow. So be warned, there is a big list of Jareds following, but if you have any interest in how this recession has affected my creative routine, they are scattered in amongst the following entries:
This Is Your Brain On Drugs
Rightfully so, this became the highest priority, and after four years in the making, I am beaming to announce that it’s complete. Written, designed, illustrated, formatted, print-ready to order. The only thing that’s missing ... is you.That’s right. You. Simply put, I need your money. It sucks, because I hate asking for stuff (and I never have), but it simply won’t exist otherwise. But when considering it's pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever done, I reckon it's worthy of the funding, which is probably why it has already done very well. I mean, I wrote a book! Do you know how long this takes? I’m super proud of it anyway.
So please, for the love of God, check it out. I get interviewed by a hot girl and everything.
Juice Nothing
These blogs will always be a permanant priority. However, due to the aforementioned full-fucking-length novel, it has been pretty difficult to keep my head above the water on this front, but I managed (oh-so-fucking-barely). Last month's piece was late, and I’m not sure there will even be one for this month, but the way I see it is this: I wrote a book, so it’s fine. Did I mention I wrote a book?Here are three articles you may have missed:
The 15 Greatest Smiths Lyrics Ever
The epitome of a throwaway piece, the history of this article comes from a short story I was writing. I intended to release said story in April, but as the end of the month approached, I realised I could either shove out a rushed pile of spaghetti, or I could quickly crap something else out and grant myself an extra month to perfect my craft. This Smiths blog, ladies and gentlemen, was that crap, taking about an hour to complete and the perfect example of style over substance. That said, it truly was a list I have always wanted to cover, and I’m still fond of it, oh-ho-oh.
Worst To Best: Stanley Kubrick
My fourth Worst to Best so far, and perhaps the landmark where I got sick of it all, idk. It’s a difficult concept to approach because my initial intention is to always stay true to myself, but when the fanboys on Reddit tell me how shit I am, I start to doubt my own opinions. Why did I put Lolita so high, again? Anyways, the point stands that it’s still a decent post, and at least I have proof that I’ve seen every Kubrick now, which makes me better than most people, I reckon.
10 Musicians Who Sold Their Soul To The Devil
This was launched right now! The idea itself has been knocking around for a few years, originally I wanted to submit it to Bizarre magazine, but then they shut down and my emotions mourned, unable to face the topic for decades. But, finally, it is here, and may I say that in a year of short stories and Best to Worsts, this is the only proper researched piece of writing I've managed in 2015. I hope you read it, because I think it's up there.
Ok, once the dust on this book thing settles a bit, hopefully I can push out another post before the customary best artwork of/worst artwork of/best albums of/Dear 2015 jazz comes out, but no promises.
The Goat's Nest
Much like the Juice Nothing blog posts, my short stories are treated as a constant priority: if it’s their turn, they will get their time.That said, they have had way more than their fair share of attention in 2015. This Is Your Brain On Drugs aside, two completely unrelated short stories exposed themselves, which is unusual for any year. They were:
The Kübler-Ross Model
The idea for this short story actually hit me directly after The Triangular Theory of Love was released, as the sorta sequel. I even first mentioned way back in December 2012, here, just in case you were wondering how long this rubbish has been knocking around my brain. I even attempted to write it back then too, but completely scrapped the whole plan and still have no idea where those notes are.
Regardless, it took a few different angles to penetrate it, I penetrated it, and I am glad it’s out—perhaps not as my most immediately enjoyable story, but definitely a large one which boasts very thorough concepts (imo). It feels like a proper story, if you know what I mean. It’s also because of projects like this that I don’t have a girlfriend right now.
Raining Teeth
On a long distance plane ride to India, this one was written, and I am still not 100% sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it really flowed so naturally out of me, was a blast to write, and I think it has quite a few good ideas packed into a nice short space of time, as one very important piece to a much bigger story (isn’t everything?). On the other hand, I feel like I failed on some of the subtexts and it isn’t as linear as I would have preferred, in hindsight. Still, I love the characters, and at least I’m writing something, what are you up to?
As always, I know what my next short story will be, and I’m particularly excited about this one. The only thing I’ll reveal for now is that it will be aimed at a younger audience. Ooooh.
Coming Down Happy
The tragedy of CDH is that nothing (literally, NO-THING) has been nor will be released from the outlet this year. I tried various approaches, but the whole "time" thing again. Here is an elaboration on what I just said:Sex is Disgusting
As yet another high priority, work for this EP has never fully ceased, and I have definitely hit some sorta wind at the moment, finally enjoying the process, and eager to work on it everyday. I’d say 6 of the 8 songs are 90% - 95% complete (excluding vocal recordings), but even with that kind of progress, it simply is not going to see the light of day in 2015. Hopefully it won’t be too far off that, but at very least you know I am not going to rush something shit out. Although it might still be shit, I’m not sure.
Music Video
This quickly became a low priority in the scramble. Pity, because it’s 100% shot and maybe like 65% edited, but how important is something like this? Not. However, as per everything else, once the book is out the way and we have more breathing room, it shall resurface and shouldn’t take too long after that. I guess I might as well tell you that it’s for the song The Best Stitches I’ve Ever Had.
If you remember, I also promised another new huge section on the Coming Down Happy website this year, but this got the hierarchy shit mauled out of it, and will have to chill. Don’t hold your sleep, because this is about as low as a priority can go (even if it’s pretty cool).
Hey, did I ever mention the spoken word album I was planning? No? Ok, don’t worry about that either then.
Band
Fuck, has it really been so long since I’ve addressed this? Obviously the band was hiiigh priority, but then Milz left London and the whole thing fell apart. There is no band anymore, and allow me to be the first to say GODFUCKINGDAMNIT ALL TO HELL THIS IS WHY I DON’T JOIN BANDS ANYMORE. This was a really special one too! :'(Aaaanyway, I did find another guy, we jammed, we didn’t sound like Sonic Youth, so I quit.
There is another thing in the extremely recent pipeline as I type this, but until I squeeze the book out and get laid, I really shouldn’t be wasting too much energy.
Painting
This fell immediately into the depths of low priority, but fortunately only moments before the plummet, two new pieces solidified, and I quite like them both. They were:Teletubbies Picasso
Ammr Khalifa
There probably won’t be anymore this year, but in January I have furious intentions of running full force back into these for a while. SO LOOK FORWARD TO THAT THEN.
The Funpowder Plot
Literally nothing. Based on what I’ve heard (I haven’t heard anything) and what I have planned (I haven’t got anything planned), I doubt we'll receive anything from this collective until 2016.However, it should get much better from there. Personally, I have three (or four) ideas I would love to see next year, which include the ever elusive CDH video, a pilot for a friendly series, and something more cartoony like that Valentine’s Day thing.
The main issue is how impossible it has become to even get hold of these fuckers right now, but at least the Freewheelin’ Troubadour will be back from India in January, so I can probably rope him into something or other.
One final high priority is that a lot of my energy has gone into sorting my citizenship out, which obviously dominated a lot of time. This is fairly important, but I am getting there, and once it’s done I’ll travel the world and forget about all of you.
Which kinda relates to how much I have already been traveling this year. I was in India at the beginning of the year, and then skipped onward to Croatia a month or so ago, plus I’ll be visiting Spain in two weeks, so all in all, this hasn’t been the most creative year for reasons of inner-peace. It’s called Life people, you should try it out sometime.
ENOUGH.
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