Richard Galbraith

Japan, I was there, on the ground for 15 days, and there would have been a time, in the not so distant past, where I would have attempted to delve deep and go a little Gonzo with my write up about the vacation. There was a time when I would have thought I could have probably done it justice too, but the story of this country is too rich, too deep, and too long for a little blog post that I've been pondering for the last month since I got back. I did it for Hong Kong a few years ago, and time spent in New York, Acapulco, San Francisco, Cairo, Berlin, Marrakech, and a host of other places over the years have all produced a bit of that commentary, but Japan is something different. I'll just stream a few thoughts and provide a few pictures for now.

In Japan you have a country that's at polar opposites with itself. It's a contradiction in terms, it's a perplexed child that's stuck in a panicked worry that if she goes out for ice-cream, something catastrophic will happen to the beautiful doll house she has spent so much time and effort putting together. It's a country wide with opportunity yet almost completely impenetrable to the outside world. It's for these reasons I think I enjoyed my time in Japan more than anywhere I've previously visited on earth. I felt a certain affinity with the throb of their collective.

I arrived in Tokyo slightly bleary eyed and lighting up a cigarette, one of the first things I noticed was 'No smoking on this sidewalk' embezzled on the ground. Ignoring this like any good westerner, I proceeded to cross roads when the red man was showing, drop my cigarette butts on the ground and look up and around whilst walking, not really paying any attention to who was coming the other way, expecting them to move. A typical tourist, a member of an individualist society, a western slob, I recognised a city scape and treated thusly, the same as any other city I'd visited across the globe.

This place, with over 30 million people in its greater metropolitan area is almost unimaginable in scale, it's the cultural and economic capital of the third largest economy in the world, but upon first inspection, it's just like any other city you'll visit. It's with time that the true nature of Japan begins to solidify before you, and no, it's not tentacle rape and weird subjugating game shows, it's a race of people that at their root, know better than anywhere else I've visited on the planet, how to get things done.

The collectivist nature of Japan, steeped so heavily in tradition, a feudal past, stoic and strong, based on honour and respect is at first unnoticeable, it's invisible to the western eye exactly because it's so very different. And this, in my own humble opinion is where it all begins. There's a tradition, an old nation, an ageing generation that exists and massively outnumbers the youth, their dictation is the otherwise overwhelming presence that goes unseen, but that, after time on the mainland, I began to slowly figure out. My untrained eye, my western eye at first saw the bars, saw the Starbucks, saw the Macdonalds and restaurants and H&M's and fashion districts and strip clubs and so on and so on. The Neon City that's there, in front of you, the vast sea of light that builds and builds and throbs and from the 55th floor of Mori Tower in the district of Roppongi seems to go on forever. It's the front, it's the facade of such a nation that to the vast majority of the people that I know seems to be 'one crazy place', but it's not what I consider Japan to be having been there. It's exactly the opposite, it's the collectivist nature, the stoicism that really represents Japan. It's what pulled them from utter devastation after the WWII but also unfortunately, what got them there in the first place.

At approximately 08:15 on August 6th 1945, the temperature of Hiroshima rose instantly from a balmy 20oc to as hot as the centre of the sun, 60,000 people perished in under 60 seconds as the the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' was dropped on the city. A warring nation that had been in conflict with itself and with other nations as far as its history dates gripped in fear, stood proud and refused surrender in the face of the unparalleled devastation. Nagasaki was hit next, which prompted the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allied Nations and so ended the Second World War. The intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities by the Allies saw a nation turned to dust. Faced with this, with a new found humility yet retaining their powerful resolution, the people of Japan built and built, industry at first, then technology, then services, and within 30 years they were the second largest economy in the world, following the USA closely. A completely renewed nation, 30 years to build a country, to modernise, house and put to work roughly 120 million people.

So, understanding and appreciating this modernisation, and the resolve that produced it, I believe is fundamental to understanding the cultural climate of Japan. Now a nation in divide. There is a generation who has built a country from almost nothing, you have cities older than those in Europe, yet they are block based like new American cities, that look so 80's in their scope and architecture it's almost uncanny, they exist in their modern form, they were re-built from dust in the last 70 years, peaking 30 years ago and look thusly. They're cities as they should be built, without the western 'infection' of individualism, they're neat, without litter, well maintained, and with such low levels of crime and homelessness, you wonder just what the hell is going on. And then there is the fun, their rich culture of fun, of booze, of partying, of letting lose, of an affluent, rich, fun seeking youth who adopt western culture and place upon it their own imitable Japanese twist. There's an inventiveness and richness that surpasses anything the hipsters of Shoreditch or Brooklyn could ever hope for. And it's at a continual loggerheads with itself, the older generation who hate it, who re-built their nation who are intrinsically racist, but also so proud that it rarely shows, and a youth that wants to absorb you and everything you come from and mean to them, the West.

The nation needs change, it's GDP is dropping alongside there their ageing population, which outweighs any other nation on earth. The 'demographic time bomb' is apparent and getting worse, they have virtually no immigration, and because of this, Old Japan needs to reach toward New Japan before such a beautiful nation simply grows itself into nothing. By 2055 at current estimations, 40% of the population is expected to be over 65, and that is worrying.

I talked to a lot of people whilst I was there, I experienced a lot of incredible sights and sounds, I meditated alone in a buddhist temple at an elevated position on a mountain on Miyajima Island, smelling incense whilst listening to the world and trying to forget the idea of self. I ran amok with the youth of Shibuya and Shinjuku late into the night, downing ChuHai and absorbing their thoughts and joys and troubles. I stood at ground zero, Hiroshima, where 60,000 lives were instantly vaporised and reflected on the tragedy of war. I did too many awesome things and engaged with too many amazing people to ever do it justice, and by some way of conclusion, I'll say this. Japan is as rich in heart as it is in money, its people were always distinguished, and polite and as classy as I could have imagined and hoped for, the culture, the art, the architecture, the nightlife, the food, the drink, the religion, all impressed me more than I could have imagined, but it is at odds with itself. A society and civilisation that requires change, which only the outnumbered youth can try to enact, and I'm not sure how much they want it or believe they need it. As seemingly perfect as it is, and as hard as I am finding it to define the downside to their way of life, it does exist, and it'll creep up on them and the world faster than we might think. I'll be back again, to explore all of this further, there's a strong part of me that knows that is necessary, when that might be I'm unsure, but expect me Japan, and thank you for the time you gave me already.

Full size images are available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricgalbraith/

Some video I took whilst out there is below:

So, I've been a little disappointed in myself. I have over the last six months, become incredibly distracted, removing myself from my daily writing routines, and instead getting myself into all sorts of emotional trouble. This however, is not necessarily a bad thing

A while ago, a very close friend to me said that I needed to take a break and stop pushing myself so much, and that; 'if you're going to tell stories, you need to have them to tell'. Which I took on board, and I guess, have been pursuing ever since.

The second novel, which I blogged about almost a year ago now (madness, where has the last 12 months gone?) has since then, taken on a completely new life, and whilst worryingly difficult in terms of the science that I have had to figure out behind the world I'm writing about, I am very happy with where it is going. The lack of progress has been upsetting in parts, but I told myself, it will happen when it's ready, and now it is ready. I have rendered a lot of the structure that I was confused about, and have decided to enter in short, 1000-1500 word, hallucinogenic / dream like stories of the different characters at different points, in first person. This is my first time writing in first person, and I'm finding it completely amazing, I love it, especially with the dream like sequences that I'm putting down

Anyway, I wanted to share one, it's when the lead protagonist Push Burrows meets his future wife for the first time, and is largely based on a date that I had with a beautiful girl who is now a very dear friend. I wanted to demonstrate how life really is the fuel for writing, and even in science fiction, you need to live to be able to tell the story.

And if you care to read it, please listen to this at the same time:

I wake and my heart pounds. I’m stood outside the British Film Institute on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. I am on annual leave from Contrent Hotaru, and the madness that is Africa at this point in time. I am holidaying and experiencing the history of this vast city. The air is thin and carries a slight scent of the sea, transported in-land by the river. People bustle all around me, forward steps through their own time and place. My fingers rub my thumbs, looking for a moment of tactile feedback, of sense, of touch as I stand numb amongst the throng, taking it in, taking them all in.

I am about to meet my future wife for the first time.

I move, nervously stepping into the midst, into the crowd, across the pavement, under the bridge, up to the entrance, eyes floating all around, sunk in the sockets of their heads, the people all chatting, all talking, all embracing their night, their evening, their company. Inhaling their smoke, gulping their drink, swimming in their smiles, the teeth reflecting light orange and gold from the burning winter lamps scattered around the entrance.

I prepare myself for her arrival. Walking inside, the restaurant to my right, the bar to my left, I enter into the crowd, I can feel their electricity, I can feel the micro changes in air density, the cells on my body thump with their presence. The hot, moist environment of the bar, the beer tainted air, the gurgling laughter, the tilted heads, the night sky outside, the orange across the water, the tiny specks of white car lights reflected a thousand times in the glass walls of the building.

The hub of people, deep against the bar, pushing myself into them, into the matted layers of fleshes and cottons and leathers, my throat swells. The crisp money in my hand, the lean on the mahogany bar, the smooth wooden surface splashed with flecks of foam and liquid.

I take the drinks outside, minute clouds of smoke released from the lungs all around enter my own, making my brain twitch, receptors fire at the hint of nicotine and as I sit the wine in front of me ignites my adrenaline.

She is not far now, walking along the bank of the river, dodging in and out of the people, thinking quietly a million things all at once, absorbing the centuries of architectural beauty lining London’s great artery and smiling.

I’m looking for her, as my blood rushes and fingers crack and pupils dilate, sipping, patiently, ambivalent about my reason for being there, intensely curious about the immediate future. No plans, no environmentally determined fate, no prophecy, no next steps lurking ready to entrap, no solid purpose, just unknown future.

The noise feels immense. Surrounding laughter and screeching and talking and shouting and tiny little whispers and huge echoing roars from all corners, none of them talking to me.

A plane existence, without longevity, without time, just a moment, then I look up and see her hair, and notice her skin flowing toward me, floating in the rippled air full of heat and waves and impulses and energy and the wind.

Our eyes meet and I rise in an instant, forgetting all. Forgetting the uncomfortable throb of existence, forgetting the powerful quake of thought, forgetting the rising undulating power consciousness, forgetting the wild aura of life and sound and light around me. Displacing my heart and the primordial reactions of my inner brain, uprooting the all-powerful, irresistible charge of my genitals, nullifying the trauma of everything that I have to absorb and understand in every single moment. Just her.

Just a step, and a smile, and a scent, and an embrace and I swell, and my heart abounds and my brain flashes and my nerves erupt in the magnificent warmth of her vigour as the life around me glows and cascades and fingers my soul with stunning hands.

She pulls me back revealing herself. Her delicate features, her smile; wide and deep, pushing rosy cheeks high and forward on their bones, raising her square glasses which illuminate astonishing blue eyes, piercing through their horizontal crescent on her beaming face. Long, thick, curling hair flows and falls down and around her shoulders, its faint tint of strawberry blonde glowing and resonating with the life around it and the waves of thrilling consciousness emitted by her skull.

Reverberating stillness, a moment, her and I, in a room, resounds with deep tones rippling our souls.

I am utterly confused and enraptured, simultaneously. Enraged and engorged. The chatter and life and suffering and grief and joy and happiness and constructions and conversations break back in. The physical and emotional potential of what has just taken place instantly changes me, I am no longer who I was a moment before. I am different, and forever will be. I but I don’t yet understand the ramifications of then, I cannot dictate to myself any form of what will become, I cannot tell any story of what might happen next, I cannot see passed what is there, because I am no longer what I thought I was.

My fibers shake and my blood grows hotter. I take her to the table I had chosen for us and as we sit our hands brush lightly. Patterns scatter before me, troubling winds slowly gather and blow in my thought, my future has changed, because of her, and we begin to talk.

I long to hear her thoughts, each and every breath, I hang on each word as the emotion pours and flows from her mouth like a gushing torrent of thought. I watch her mouth moving and her teeth hitting each other, the nature of her face, each element interacting, as my breathing quickens and slows in time with her rhythmic chants.

I ask her questions, endless questions, to maintain her flow to keep those deep eyes that house so much rich emotion and kindness and sadness and joy and empathy working, to experience the haphazard, interloping pangs of neck arching laugher and gulps of wine and puffs of cigarettes.

We begin to move around the city at night, brushing skin with each other and the people all around us. In motion with the things, the manipulated elements, reconstructed into the vast city on all sides, deep within its sparkling heart rising into the sky, a luminous and pulsating and frightening jungle of steel and concrete and glass and iron.

We find another bar, and then another, and then another, before settling in a place devoid of people but full of ugly waves of indeterminate music and we sit. Her face is before me, backlit with reds jumping from the floor, awash with all the intricacies of life. She is in love but her heart is broken. All that she is. Her words and smiles and laugher continue to flow, and I try to absorb it. All her conflict, all her passion, the complete, never ending wonderful, beautiful turmoil from which she cannot escape, from which she is the thankful slave.

Without need for sound, without need for words, I lean in, across the table, and our lips meet and my body grows hard and tense and lustful. I bring a hand around the back of her neck and into her hair, massaging her skull as our mouths open and our tongues touch and her fluid and being runs into my mouth and I taste her.

We skim across the city at night, jumping in and out of bars, bright, powerful cocktails fuzz our senses and fuel our connection. She pours, stories and tales of joy and sorrow. Her hand slowly reaches into mine, delicate fingers run along my palm and excite my being.

I smile as the city begins to close and we make it to the lift of my apartment block. The bright florescent neon tubes light her skin differently, a vivid white, an alabaster scene in which she smiles and nuzzles her face into the base of my neck where it reaches my collarbone, and I feel safe, and I hope she feels safe, and I swear I’ll never let her go.

Just over three years ago, whilst writing the first version of Concrete Operational, I wrote a post about love, it’s here, and I’ve put the extract below:

“Arh, now, there's a subject, if not THE subject. To end, to beat, to change all other subjects, topics, themes. I'm finding writing about it almost as difficult and pleasurable as the actual experience. Through the fire so to speak.

Love. It's intrinsic to human nature, yet, not everyone has experienced it, it's completely natural but can be the hardest thing to achieve and maintain in the world. It's a rampant hell-bent fucker that takes everything about you, grips with mighty fists and lifts you to its gigantic and unrelenting face, laughing at you with teeth the size of Cadillacs refusing to let go. Not, at least, until it has had its wicked way with you, tipped you over the edge, pulled you back, fingering your soul with penetrating stumps. It can take you to the greatest of heights of pleasure and kill your spirit for untold amounts of time. To write about it, especially given my experience with it, is no easy feat.

The chapter that I'm currently heavily into is where the love interest of the lead protagonist / anti-hero is introduced. Which way to introduce her was the question, how will my protagonist actually fall in love? It can after all, be sparked by anything. I'm sure you'd be hard pushed to think of a reason or action that hasn't previously caused someone to fall in love. But I took the closest thing to me, what has made me love before, and what, no doubt, will be a reason for falling in love again, in some distant future. Without giving to much away; I believe all men have a beast inside, some show that beast more than others, a woman can quell that beast. Her beauty, her heart, her spirit, smile, laugh, face, enduring memory...it all can help. So I took that route, and the chapter is coming on amazingly and more importantly, it fits, it all makes sense, which is a great feeling. There's still plenty to go, I'll give you a snippet soon, but it's not nearly done yet, so for the time being I'll leave you just to comment with your own thoughts on writing about love.”

Now, it’s funny, the more things change the more things stay the same. I’ve been through a considerable amount on the love side of things since this post was written. Judging by the time this was posted, I suspect that I was probably in love with, at most, three women at this point. One deeply, the other two I would have simply been trying to convince myself I was in love with – there’s a terrible side to me that gets continual enjoyment from being tortured (isn’t that what love is all about?).

Anyway, I believe in what I wrote originally up there, and in spite of the large amount of experience I’ve ‘gained’ or been fortunate enough to have experience over the last 3 years, I’m fairly sure I’m still none the wiser about the whole thing, I’m also fairly sure however, that this is good. I didn't actually express much on actually writing about love in the above piece though.

I’m not entirely sure how to ‘decode’ this one, how are you supposed to write about love? When it came to Concrete Operational I was penning my own experiences about my own unrequited love that I had for many years, about my own experience of reciprocated love that was an utterly wonderful time to have gone through. Putting them down on paper in some sort of cathartic purge to try and understand them better. Can writing about love only come from experience? Can only truly believable love between characters come from the life of an actual human being, a real story?

Obviously, the love I’ve mentioned above is the romantic love between a man and a woman. What about all the other types of love that exist in the world, the love of a good sandwich? The love of a father for his child? The love of winning? The love of power? All this just boils down to elements of human emotion, synapses firing atoms between neural pathways, chemical imbalances in the mind, genetics, environment, free will, determined paths.

There really can’t be any easy way to ‘properly’ write about love. I mean, there’s endless tropes, old stories, fables, tales, which provide us with instances that people have heard before, and that people enjoy. But in making something hard hitting, enough drop that emotional nuke on the reader and really get them sucked in, can you use those tropes? Where does that come from? I guess the answer to that is that every person is different. Some will believe, or want to believe wholly in a trope-esque type of love, ‘I’ll destroy the city before my love is lost!’ etc, some will scorn at it. I’ve had a lot of friends recently say to me ‘you should read, ‘One Day’ a book by David Nicolls. Their reasons being not entirely clear to me, but I think it’s because they believe it’s probably quite similar to the way I live my love life…always hoping for that romantic end, I guess. Now despite buying it as a gift for several people, I’ve not actually got round to reading it myself. I’ll give it a go someday, it’s currently at the bottom of a big pile, and I’d say this is because, from what I’ve heard about the novel, it does seem to hit a little close to home. My love life is enough of an ongoing battlefield without having to complicate my head even more by reading about a very ‘real’ love story.

With this however, I admittedly contradict myself. When writing about love, it has to be real, from experience, for the reader to get sucked in, but I wouldn’t immediately choose to read a story that was overtly presented so, because it would probably hit too close to home, upsetting me. I’m really not sure what side to be on (story of my life).

I’m currently rendering reasons why my lead characters in my second manuscript would fight for survival in the face of abject terror and unrelenting horror, their raison d’être when all else is lost. The lead protagonist, Push Burrows needs to live in order to one day see his daughter live in a time and place without never ending fear and pain, it’s his love for her that keeps him going. I don’t have a daughter, this makes things very complicated. Learning about quantum chromodynamics and other such things is relatively easy in comparison to this battle. A friend who recently read some of the early manuscript said that I need to know more about my characters for it to be believable, I understand this, I need to know more about Push, I need to build a deeper story behind why he loves his daughter so, I can’t simply rely on the obvious.

So, I’d guess, in some sort of conclusion to this spurge of brain custard, writing about love is a healthy mix of experience, tropes and delving very, very deep into the psyche of a character, of their past, of their nature and nurtured up-bringing. Flesh brings realism, going deep brings realism, pain and joy bring realism, scars bring realism, reading and understanding brings realism. There are a million different types of love, for a million different reasons, each unique, each powerful and wracking and amazing and terrible to the individual, to the character, writing this, putting it down, experiencing this and allowing others to experience it is the beauty of writing, but how to do it? I’m not quite there yet, I’ll keep walking that road, and maybe one day I’ll look back and there might be a few answers.

In the mean time? I'd suggest going out and experiencing as much and every different type of love and passion connected with it wherever you can, with whomever you can, no matter how much it might hurt you. I'd recommend this to anyone regardless of whether or not they want to write about it, it's life, peaks and troughs, highs and lows, it's what makes us feel alive.

Of course, don't hurt others, but you're in meant to be in charge of your own head, that space is a canvass, it's a jotting pad, a fleshy pink moleskine to write and learn and hate and smile and quiver and pant, try it all. I am, I think (hope) one day it'll all work out.

There's a couple of things that I'd like out of life. One would be a cottage with a peat fire by a loch in the highlands. Another would be two black Scottish Terriers called Phobos and Deimos. Another would probably be a book contract and a barrel of single malt scotch. But there's another list as well, slightly higher-reaching which includes things like being President of the World, perhaps? First man on Mars? That'd be good.

But then again, I want to be a celt barbarian immortal, a mad time traveling scientist, an invincible alien fighting commando, a drug fueled cultural commentator, a grid gaming adducted hacker, a cigar smoking space traveling duck, an SR-71 flying robot-android child, a Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport - Number 5, an off-world martian spy, acybernetic organism that absolutely will not stop until you are dead, a chirpy fat shower curtain salesman, an Italian American martial arts obsessed kid, an apocalypse surviving road warrior, a Semi driving chinese fighting unlikely hero, a trench coat wearing truant, an out of place space captain fighting for her life, a cigar smoking chronic gambling uncle, a white haired android losing moments like tears in the rain, a ballsy avian befriending all American fighter pilot, a murdered super-human cyborg cop, a wrongly convicted reluctant TV show star, a quiet war vet pushed just a bit too far, a luna based shape shifter in an old city, an Italian American in Russia fighting against all odds, a straight jawed archaeologist with a short friend, a cop at christmas, a hat wearing dry white toast lover, a black man in upper class LA, a little Doc that likes to shine, a scruffy lookin' space smuggler, a crime fighting tortured millionaire son to murdered parents, a crotch-tastic kidnapper, a street singing leisure loving prankster, a bad scientist that comes good, a tri-named problem solving post death demon, a confused long necked alien and definitely, most of all, an intrepid explorer that'll never, ever, ever, say die.

(If you guess all of these, you get a prize.)

So, I've needed to blog for a while, and I've thought of a few different things I want to get out at the moment, but one thing that I just want to think about and have a bit of a 'stream of consciousness' on, is the retirement of Sasha Grey from the adult film industry.

Why? I ask myself. And it's a peculiar question with a multifaceted answer. I'm a human, humans look at other humans having sex, it's the oldest game in the book, and it's a multi-billion dollar industry globally, Sasha Grey is an award winning actress, starlet, pornstar, whatever you want to call it inside that industry. She came to my particular attention a few years ago when one of my favourite bloggers, Susanna Breslin, hosted an American Apparel advert (NSFW) which featured SG basically nude apart from the AA thigh-high-stockings, oh and some now rather infamous pubic hair. The advert was undoubtedly a massive success, got featured all over the net with different takes on it from various parties, some feminists loving it, 'she owns her own sex,' whilst others not really getting along with it, and other similar AA adverts, at all. I thought it was pretty awesome and went about looking into, excuse the pun, SG a bit more.

Obviously there's all the porn, but SG particularly fascinated me because she was / is seemingly so strong of mind and of will and spirit. I quickly found this video of SG on the Tyra Banks show (which actually takes a lot of watching because of all the anti-porn messages) and then I watched the SG response video and how the show created an illusion, and her own opinion was dumbed down, which as she says, is just how these things work. Essentially after seeing these videos, I thought SG was a bit of an enigma, she's a highly sexualised female with brains and creativity, and the more interviews I read and saw, the more enigmatic I thought she was.

Then I read this Rolling Stone piece, highlighting that she was being made a cover girl under the heading "Dirtiest Girl In The World," which brought to my attention her on going aspirations to become an indie film actress, and her first foray into this arena with; 'The Girlfriend Experience'. I've still not seen the film itself, but it's about a high-end Manhattan call girl and her ongoing relationship with her boyfriend, which again, I thought was pretty fascinating. Not having been in the position before where my girlfriend was a high-end call girl, I liked the concept, and the film itself seemed to get a decent amount of praise. It reminded me of this article which I'd seen mentioning how Tilda Swinton 'keeps two lovers,' a young lad and an old fella and, my initial reactions on how I would feel if I had to 'share' a partner or significant other, something that at the time I hadn't really explored. It's still a concept that interests me, though one that I don't think I'm entirely settled on yet, or quite ready to share on the internet, email me if you want to talk more on this.

So, anyway, there's this female, Sasha Grey, she's winning awards all over the place, she's smart, sharp, knows what she's doing and successfully making the transition from the adult film industry into indie 'art' film. And on a base level, I have to explore my own feelings about this. Again I ask myself, why? She gets paid to get fucked, and then because she's good at it, and willing to push boundaries, she gains recognition, this recognition is built upon to further her career in the path that she, in the long term, wants to explore further, and I'm jealous? Perhaps.

I'm a writer, I love it, I go on about my novel and Operation Concrete all the time, on here and in real life. I'm putting together my second novel at the moment which I've talked about before as well. But it's hard, trying to become any good at something, let alone gaining recognition for it. So, I have my job in social media, which I love doing, the whole marketing side of my life is awesome, and it does help me with the novel writing things, no doubt about it. All in all, I have a pretty good time of things I'd say, but there was that niggle. So, skip a bit of time, until very recently and the launch of SG's first book, NEÜ SEX; "Four years in the making, NEÜ SEX, includes my visual mosaic through photography, my sexual philosophy, and observations". Released by Vice, again, I felt what I can only describe as chagrin.

There's that thing in life, as far as I see it, that if you want people to pay attention, you either have to do something extraordinary, or have a legacy. Now, SG has both of these things, two more than most people, and rightly so. Was my chagrin coming from the fact that she got there by having sex? And being good at it? Perhaps.

And, then came the announcement on Facebook of her retirement from porn, and well, it seemed to fully bridge that gap, and has prompted this blog post. She's clearly going to walk forward now, doing exactly what she want's, and the fact that she's done 126 porn films? I'm not sure, we'll have to see how that one plays out. The pro/anti porn arguments are an ongoing raging battle between moral fortitude and feminist expression and filthy abandonment and horror and pleasure and pain and degradation and empowerment and all those other things. I'm not one to comment on those things really, I just wanted to explore a little, this person, what she has done, and how I've felt about it over a number of years.

Right now? She's just as fascinating as ever, I'll buy her book, I'd like to think one day she'll buy one of mine. We'll see how all that goes. All I know, is that the chagrin has definitely gone.

So, it's been a long time since I've written a short story, but I recently wrote and as it turns out, it was exactly what I needed to get me back into the swing of things for revisions to the second novel, which is coming along much quicker now than it has done in some time.

With the story, I took a piece of writing I did last year, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times on here, and turned it into a narrative about my favourite of all subjects, free will and choice. It’s quite a simple good vs evil type setup with gothic undertones in the style of something like The Turn of the Screw. What I like about the way this story evolved through the edits, is that, at least I think, it’s unclear who the evil one is, it's your choice to make really.

If you do read it, I’d love to know your thoughts and feedback in the comments section or email me at: ricgalbraith [at] gmail [dot] com

The Choice

There were forces at work that day. Mechanisms of the universe were aligning quietly causing deep vibrations that she felt in the pit of her stomach, that made her feel uneasy and out of place.

He watched her from the window breeze through the gardens of the house. Her effortless beauty, ethereal and majestic, amongst the others, their group, all of them, so close, so dependent on each other and so good. He’d chosen her for her individuality, he needed a catalyst, he needed his muse and she was perfect. Jet-black hair amongst a sea of blonde locks, she was naturally opposed, she stood out. She’d always had problems truly fitting in, she had to try harder than the rest, no matter how good her skills were, she always had to be that little bit stronger, that little bit better, that little bit cleaner and more serene than the others, just so they would accept her.

He continued to watch and wait for his trap to be sprung. The instrument that would bring her to him, to release her from the protective crowd, to carry her to the room that he had constructed for this one purpose, to try and make her his own and to free her.

She paused and looked up and away from her friends, curling her toes on the soft grass and staring at the window, she felt a presence. A quake released inside her that they all felt when they knew something had to be done, when someone needed their help. But this time it was different, it was stronger.

“I’m going inside,” she said quietly to the rest of them, “there’s someone in there.”

“We’ll be moving on soon, we’re almost done here,” one replied, as the others nodded.

She turned and ran shouting back at them, “don’t worry, I won’t be long.” Her thin pale thighs carrying her through a light jog, her feet hitting the cobbled stones of the path up to the giant door as she thudded gently against it and helped it open with her shoulder.

She could feel his presence, inside the grand old house, its ornaments and dust having collected for decades, cold stone wrapped around collections of antiques from an array of ages. Stepping lightly she tiptoed up the stairs, her delicate hands running along the smooth ebony banister, the rug underneath her feet course and worn.

Reaching the landing she could hear his heart beating, the powerful, deep, rhythmic pounding of his life force ringing throughout her, forcing itself upon her, shaking her bones as she peered and looked for the room.

“Here, child,” His deep voice rang through the corridors and around her head and into her ears. She saw an opening with a long shadow cast across the floor, an apparition, a dreadful appearance, a dark horrible body.

“I’m here to help you,” she said, walking into the room, “I’m going to try and make you better.”

“You’re a little confused child, you see, I am the one who is here to help you.” The deep tones of his thick and steep voice rumbled over her as his large, strong presence revealed itself in the small candle lit room.

“What are you?” Her eyes wide, looking the man up and down, dressed in a black suit, broad shoulders leading to a trunk like neck and up to a wide, strong, dark face, as if hammered out of brass.

“Well, some have called me a liberator.” He smiled, rows of polished teeth shining and reflecting around the small room, walls of books surrounding them. Her toes curled again, this time on the soft wooden floor. “Don’t worry child, you can show your emotion here, I won’t think any less of you, you can cry.”

She paused and thought, taking in the man, the thing before her. "I can't cry," she said finally, turning away and looking out the small stain glass window, lined with lead and revealing her friends playing and dancing in the gardens below as a light patch of rain began to fall over them.

“I know you can’t, this is why you’re here.” He replied, walking across the room, floorboards creaking under his weight, his heavy, growling breath falling over her from behind. The soft orange glow of the room jumped as he placed his toughened hands down over her fragile shoulders. “It’s them you see, they stop you from crying, they stop you from doing a lot of things.” He brought his mouth down to her ear and gently shifted her hair away from it. “Until now, have you ever even tried to cry?”

The hair on her neck stood as the warm air of his breath crept around her lobes and down her spine. "Well, I don't think so, especially not around them,” she tapped on the window lightly. “Why would I want to cry? Why would anyone want to cry? It doesn’t seem to be very fair that you would have to,” she stood still, waiting for his answer, trying to understand what he wanted.

"Fair!" he roared, turning her from the window and arching toward her, eyes pulsating, hands gripping tighter and tighter. "It is not fair that some should be happier than others, it is not fair that some should have it easier than others, it is not fair that you should be able to live whilst I have to merely exist.” He pulled back, raising high above her, his wide chest climbing up and down with deep breaths, her small, fragile face taut with emotion. “You are unscarred…” He paused gathering himself. “…And we must all have scars, even ones like you, and I will help that. I show you how you can acquire them, I’ll let you see that we must all weep sometime.” He brought his hand up to her face its large plate wrapping around her jaw, its fingers crawling around her cheek. “Yes, they’ve protected you, but you’ve had to capitulate as well. You’ve had to become one of them, and they have pulled a cloak over your eyes, to stop you seeing what you can truly have. This is why I brought you here, to see if you can change, to see if you have the will to change, to see if you can open yourself to something better.”

“Something better?” She was concerned, his presence, his power was unsettling her in a way she had never felt before. “What is better than what I am now? With them I am complete.” He turned her again, back to the window and brought the candle in close, it’s deep orange highlighting her reflection in the red of the glass, her white face floating there in front of her, beautiful, serene and beginning to morph.

He smiled, bringing his head down inline with hers and to her side. "You are better, and you deserve all that is available to us, you deserve more than just one side of this eternal argument, and for this you have to believe. You have to know one truth and let there be no doubt, you need to believe that you can have more. That your force, your will, your being can acquire and keep and hold." He turned her again and knelt down, their eyes aligned; he brought both of his hands around her fragile face.

“You can break away. You just have to know, you have to understand and realise that they don't matter, they don't count, they don’t have control over you. Know that when you feel hurt because of them, when you question your intentions and actions and beliefs, you need to pull away, you need to act alone, you need to help yourself.” She felt a small wave of emotion lap at her feet and she bit her lip. “You need to do things to break away from them, to become yourself, to make sure they don’t get to you. You need to ignore and block them out when they treat you badly or when they try to get you to do things you might not want or accept, when they try and force their will on you. Do this and you are going to find you can act freely from them, because you are beginning to accept yourself, you are beginning to accept responsibility.” He stood and turned away from her, a dot, a supple young body starting to melt with passion. "That's what I do," he began again moving over to a bookshelf, his steps rattling the little room. "I continually remind myself that I am the one who must bear the responsibility of my actions. This sometimes brings sadness, but also brings great joy, the likes of which you have never experienced before. There is often a struggle to do something like that though, to be able to do something like that and really believe in it and know that what it represents. You must realise that, not just sometimes, but all of the time, there is more than just them. There is more than what they want for you, there are others outside of them that have the capacity to love you.”

Her breathing sharpened as she stepped forward, toward him and asked, "do you love me?"

He smiled and turned, pulling his suit jacket tight around his canon ball like shoulders and straightening his posture. "You know," he went quiet, his voice long and baritone and smooth. "I create things that remind me, that stand out and make me remember what I truly need to, and you know what they say?"

"No?" She stood still, expectant, eager, hungry, frightened, a few feet away from him, his hulk, complete in front of her.

"They remind me that I am most important of all, and that I must be the one responsible for minding the right way.” His eyes widened, huge white orbs. “You know, the hardest step into anything is the beginning. Know that you might fail, that you might stumble or trip or fall and when you do it'll hurt. It'll hurt like nothing has ever hurt before, but you have to push back and keep on trying. It's trying which counts and the more you try the further you can get from them, and the happier you will be". He looked down and stood back, into a deep shadow cast by a tall bookshelf behind him, his appearance disappearing, leaving just the thick waves of his voice reverberating around the room.

"And…" said the shadow. "We only get one chance at this, those are the rules, so you need to embrace everything you can with all your will and being. There is a world outside of them. There is something called freedom, and it will bring you joy beyond comparison."

She gulped and panted as sensation and fear ran through her. Waiting, stood staring at the darkness there in the little room, the wind and rain now thrashing themselves against the little window, she began to forget about those outside, she hung on his every word.

"Listen closely now," he smiled. "There is capacity in yourself for tremendous good and fortitude and solidarity and all those other big things that are pushed onto you. Know these things, but also know that taking time to understand that you will be loved outside of them is most important of all. Knowing you have choice, understanding you can be free, will bring the love that you require." He came in close again as the waves of emotion and life that ran through and over her swarmed and crashed. Fingers trembling, heart pounding, eyes erupting as the moment surged. Thunder rang out around them and the room shook with electricity as the hairs on the back of her neck stood and she trembled wide eyes.

"I know there's a fire in your belly, there's a vitriol and anger that you can use, and you must use it, in any way you can to break free of them.” He grabbed her hands again. “You must know for certain when you realise that you are a sentient ball of energy vibrating in unison with the universe, that you own your being. That you have the freedom and will to cause the shifts in the universe around you, without them, without their permission, without their warrant, without their help, because anything else is just a waste...they, those who try to control you, are just a waste. You are one, and you are free."

She bolted forward and fell into his chest embracing him with a cry and began to weep as the rain and wind and light stood still, and in that moment she knew, she understood, she didn’t need them. She didn’t need their safety, she didn't need their praise or approval or endorsement any more, there was something else, there was freedom and choice. He had shown her, he had told her, he had found something in her that she never knew existed and had released it and all its energy and power. The room grew dark as they embraced the euphoria and swathe of pleasure and rapture that pounded them.

He slowly pulled away from her, placing a gigantic protective hand over her skull, and said, “today is your first day, you have choice now, but use it carefully, I will be watching.”

Richard Galbraith

So, here's a thing. A bit of an insight into what I was like when I was a student, just how great a journalist I really was...Back then, as well as being a student of journalism, I was the music editor of The University of Licoln's 'Bullet Magazine'. I traveled up and down the country interviewing anyone I could get my hands on skipping classes and causing mischief, I did alright, I even won an award, but the first BIG interview I bagged was with Steve-O, infamous from Jackass.

Now, back in 2004, Jackass was at it's peak really, especially across the UK where it had recently hit down...Youtube was just around the corner and millions of teens across the country were going out with their newly video enabled camera phones filming themselves jumping off buildings and setting themselves on fire. I bagged an interview with one of the lead stars in Steve-O and after the fact, thought the night was so surreal and bizarre, that I needed to write up more than just a 1000 word feature.

This turned into the 9000 word short story below, which actually does include the interview, but is more about me trying to be Hunter S Thompson at the age of 20 and not doing very well...It is however, very funny reading back through it. I've not done any editing from the original file that I found today apart from a couple of full stops here and there, which were apparently my kryptonite back then (still are today). Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Richard Galbraith - Fear and Loathing in Nottingham…And Justice for all - 03/06/2004

In mid February I traveled to Nottingham for an ominous assignment with the potential to turn nasty at any point. A state of caution had to be maintained at all times as I was interviewing “Steve-o” possibly one of the most infamous stars of the series of Jackass programs whilst on their 'Don't try this at home tour. A sort of terrible roaming circus of violence and abuse.

Getting into the venue was easy, my friend and I were on the guest list. After a quick bag search an angry bouncer pushed us into the club. Packed with freaks, geeks, dope fiends and losers every possible subculture of the newly born 21st century had a representative here to see this nightmarish spectacle of self-abuse and loathing. Stuck in a momentary batch of confusion in the middle of all of this was a six feet seven Goliath that is my very good friend who shall remain only known as Bevski and the twisted powder white booze hound that is myself.

We rushed quickly to the bar where we were robbed over £3 for a warm flat beer, I decided to try and get the ball rolling by finding my contact at the venue. After a lot of bad noise I was finally pushed on the merchandising guy, “Hi, my names Richard Galbraith, I’ve organised an interview with Steve-o through Work Hard PR, and his American agent Chris Holly,” I stated, he said he would go and check it out for me moments later he came back with a brute of a man. He was obviously some sort of security, he ordered us to follow him, beginning to feel very intimidated I started to sweat heavily and to think our gig was up before it had even began. We were taken through what seemed to be some sort of youth night at the back end of the club, escorted like the bad boys through a fire exit I was sure he was taking us outside for summary execution.

This was not the case, he talked to some management person and came back to us only to say to check after the show, as there may not be any time for my interview. Fairly disappointed at this juncture in our night we decided to go through to the main stage area and wait for the show to begin.

An angry youthful looking band confidently walked onto the stage to a wave of abuse. As they began to play it became clear they were some sort of mongrel heavy metal band trying to mix a series of genres and failing at the same time.

I sent Bevski to buy some more beer, unfortunately the crowd’s mood was turning uglier by the second. The band had not helped by giving the audience as much abuse as they got. Constantly telling us all to fuck off, the trendier and hip contingent of losers here, which were obviously unused to such abuse off a band, had started to get violent and were throwing everything they could get their hands on at the stage. Bevski’s return though had settled my mood slightly, and then finally Steve-o and his band of freaks had landed on the stage to indulge the crowd in their form of entertainment.

One of his first tricks was the so-called tequila challenge. This required three members on stage, each starting off by sniffing a few grams of salt, then by trying to down an entire 50cl bottle of Jose Cuervo followed by squeezing half a lime into each eye, which, must be kept open at all times. Minutes into the show a young lady collapses next to me, a pile of innocent flesh at my feet I was slightly confused as to what to do, Bevski was laughing so hysterically I knew it would be pointless to talk to him about the situation. Soon after the incident however a short man of average build who seemed to be walking through the crowd aimlessly picked the young lady up put her over his shoulder and carried on walking.

And so the show carried on, Steve-o had stapled his scrotum to his thigh, set his head on fire with absinthe, eaten a small portion of a smashed light bulb and generally abused his body to an extraordinary extent. Not only had he done this to himself however, active crowd participation was encourage. Ladies were asked to throw items of underwear onto the stage, which were then stapled to Steve-o’s body, and the young males that were either brain dead or so completely overcome by excitement, were invited on stage and told to punch themselves in the face, the deal being that the first one to bleed got backstage access after the show to ‘hang out’ with the gang.

A boy whose face was ugly to the point of being offensive, even before the event, had won by seemingly splitting his nose open. As blood poured from his face he was brought to the front of the stage, arms raised like a triumphant boxer trying to smile in front of a twisted crowd. Was he still so excited about getting backstage with this special breed of celebrity? A difficult question to answer, at this point especially, as my mind set had moved on to worrying about my interview rather than the show of self-harm.

As the exhibition drew to a close Bevski and myself wondered around trying to find someone of importance, after being dejected by several more vicious looking security men we were about to give up. Walking down some stairs feeling particularly full of self-pity I said to Bevski “Lets wait until the bulk of the crowd has moved, no room to think in this gang of misfits.”

Bevski agreed and around fifteen minutes later we were back up by the main stage, and a spot of luck. Previously in the show Steve-o had been promoting his latest home video by showing clips of it on a large screen, I had watched and a man who was on the video and was seemingly Steve-o’s manager was now stood before us. After trying to call his attention away from trying to convince girls to come backstage I gently grabbed his arm and explained the situation. After dropping a few names he yelled “Sure thing”, and we followed him backstage.

A quick march around the security and down a narrow and particularly steep set of wooden stairs and we were backstage. Wondering exactly what to do I barged passed a group of stupefied looking girls into the main dressing room. A group of cameramen, a few other stars of the Jackass series, a strong smell of marijuana and more confused looking girls greeted me, but no Steve-o. After questioning some random heads I found out that he was signing autographs up stairs, despair struck me. After a lot of ugliness upstairs and finally getting to the dirty pit called backstage my interview was back out front. Fuck it I thought, there was only one cause of action to be taken, drink as much alcohol in the shortest time possible and ride any wave that we might be able to fall onto. I’d simply had enough of chasing and was more than prepared to let fate guide me at this point.

After a brief chat with the band that had opened the show earlier on in the evening, who happened to be an incredibly nice bunch of Welshmen, we decided to buy 40 cans of premium strength beer between the six of us. I caught the attention of a man whose sole purpose seemed to be supplying everybody with alcohol and generally keeping people happy. Probably a very good idea as both rooms has the potential to turn into a cloud of violence at any second.

I was chatting to a fairly attractive young lady when the man returned, I quickly left her, my priorities were now bound by one purpose, getting drunk. The young lady already seemed to be there however, as I was turning around opening my first beer she fell down the narrow, steep set of stairs that we had come down to get backstage, she must have fallen on her head because she seemed to be unharmed and was quickly back on her feet. Her sole concern seemed to be that she had lost some part of a cannabis smoking mechanism and not the fact that all around groups of people were in hysterics directing their laughter at her.

I moved back into the other room, and began chatting with a cameraman. “How’s your night been?” I quizzed.

“Full of shit…" He replied. "I’m ill dude.”

This was apparent just to look at him, his face was pale and his eyes were half closed as if at any point he could drop out of consciousness in a wave of virus induced fever. I gave up with general chitchat and stood in the corner observing the crowd whilst Bevski chatted music and politics with the Welshmen. I failed to see the young man who had earlier split his nose open onstage for the chance of meeting his hero’s after the gig, I felt sorry for the guy for a second until I fully realised what he had done. That being he had stood onstage and repeatedly punched himself in the face until it bled, after which I really could not feel anything for the kid. He was probably in his parent’s car on the way home now a hopeless mess. I could see it; “but dad I did this so I could get backstage!”

“You’re never going to one of these S&M parties again!”

“Dad its not S&M, please can’t I stay?”

“No we’re going home, and you better not tell your mum you did that to yourself, I’m so disappointed.”

No time for that now though, my sight must be set on getting this interview, and after five beers my confidence was beginning to build. Suddenly Steve-o was there, cleaning the blood of his face he sat down and began generally chatting, I calmly walked over and asked for my interview. I was turned down at this juncture due to him wanting to relax and not get hassled for a bit, reasonable enough I thought, there was still potential so I was not totally unhinged.

Things were now starting to get rowdy, Ryan Dunn, one of the other Jackass stars and a professional BMX rider, had taken it upon himself to start knocking out groupies with a choke hold of some form. He stopped the flow of blood to the brain by wrapping his arms around their neck, forearm pressing against one jugular bicep against the other, this temporarily knocked a person unconscious. I was not yet prepared to indulge in this act so I continued to stand, observing, trying to get a grasp on the mood. One of intimidation and apprehension on behalf of the people who had managed to get backstage, and on the other hand the vibe of overwhelming confidence coming from the ‘stars’ of the show. A mixture that seemed to fit accordingly to the situation and what was taking place.

Things all of a sudden took a turn for the worse, there was a homosexual stood over his friend or lover, it was hard to decided which, who had just been knocked out by Ryan.

“You’ve fucking killed him” this extraordinarily skinny and camp looking man shouting to a crowd of bikers and extreme sports fanatics. I continued to drink my beer as the person on the floor now began to have convulsions. His gay partner was getting seriously angry, it was apparent that something had to be done.

“You’ve fucking killed him,” he kept repeating, when the person in question was clearly not dead, a twisted wreck on the floor, but not dead.

“I don’t care who the fuck you all are I’m calling the fucking police”. This instantly got a reaction from everyone; one of the security men broke out of formation quickly picked up the wafer thin man and began to carry him out. His friend had woken up now and was slightly confused but giggling nonetheless, until that is, he realised the situation in hand and how badly his friend had reacted to him being unconscious and fitting on the floor.

He quickly stood up, apologised grabbed his coat and left after his friend. The mood in the small room had changed, a slight hint of fear had crept over everyone, not only from the violent reaction of the gay and his boyfriend fitting on the floor, but at the prospect he would call the police.

There was however no time to worry about such trivial matters, I’m perfectly legal, no drugs on me sir, search all you like. Another beer down and I was lucky to regain my place in the room, as when I returned there was an ex-playboy model showing off her breasts and letting Steve-o lick them and suck them for the camera, all in full view of her husband. The situation again had the potential to turn ugly, the husband was a chisel faced bald man of medium height and build but looked defined in his shoulders and could clearly hurt someone if he so intended. He realised however it was all in the name of fun, I’m sure he was expecting something along these lines to happen, having come back stage with these ‘neo-rockstars’ and so he let the groping continue.

After a short period it seemed time for everyone to leave, the lady had left with her wonderful breasts and mean faced husband and the thrill of being backstage was beginning to wear thin. Again, fear crept over myself at the prospect of losing my interview, I quickly rushed towards Steve-o but was caught just before I got to him by his manager Mike. “Dude, can I get my interview now?” I asked.

“We’re going to the hotel now” he turned to ask Steve-o if I was permitted to come back to the hotel to do it there. “Steve can this guy come back and ask you some questions?”, Steve-o must have heard me name drop his Chris Holly and replied “If he mentioned Chris then sure.”

Chris was my contact in America that I had arranged the interview with, apparently quite a close friend of Steve-o as well as his American agent, Steve-o himself trusted Chris’ judgement and if Chris had said I would get an interview then in his eyes I was.

Everybody began to filter out of the backstage area up the stairs and out back to a parking lot. I began to worry intensely after I realised there was no space on the tour bus for Bevski and I to get a lift back to the hotel. I quickly shouted to Mike “What’s the name of the hotel, we’ll get a taxi.”

“The Nottingham Plaza Hotel or something, I’m sure the taxi guys will know, just ask for that, and we’ll meet you there.”

“No problems,” I replied as they crammed a few more girls into the bus and drove off.

Initially getting backstage was a real bonus to the evening even though the prospect of my interview dwindled as I continued to drink, now I was going back to the hotel with them, this required some mental preparation. The adrenaline was quickly clearing my brain and I began to think straight, a set plan had to be made and carried out with military precision to get from the back entrance of the club, to a five star hotel in central Nottingham.

We both had large bags full of beer so manoeuvring would be restricted. I needed money, and after a brief trip to the cash machine that task was completed, now for a taxi. Lucky for us there was a cab rank a mere 30 seconds from where I had picked up the money I jumped in the front saying, “we need to get to the plaza hotel stat! Do you know where it is?”

The taxi driver took us straight there, reaching the hotel only moments after the tour bus had. I raced to the door of the hotel seeing the crew inside through the large glass walling. The door was locked, it was after all getting close to 2am by this time, a small black man came to open it for me wearing a full butlers uniform. I knew immediately this place was high class and I began to sweat again. The first wave of adrenaline was beginning to wear off as we walked through into the hotels lobby, Steve-o was no where to be seen but I gone past the point of caring, all I wanted was some more drink.

After an introductory chat to a few more of the crew, some camera guys and sound techs, we were moving on to someone’s room. No problem I thought, get up there and carry on putting back the beer, we’ve got enough to last a good hour at least, by that time I should have my interview complete.

The elevator trip was tense, Bevski and myself were seemingly on quite a large endorphin rush having been invited back to ‘chill at the hotel’ with some of our idols. The others though looked wrecked and starved of oxygen in the small compartment, the nervous sound of loose change rattling in people pockets filled the air and everyone immediately rushed off once we hit our floor.

We all piled into a small room, probably an executive suit deigned for single night stays by businessmen. It was in surprisingly good order, and it turned out to be the room of the ill camera guy I had spoken to previously. He wanted an early night so was trying to get everyone out of his room but with little luck. Mike had set up an iMac on the dressing table and was beginning to watch some recordings made during the day. “This shit’s really cool,” he said as he started to become excited.

The video showed Ryan Dunn performing the chokehold move on Steve-o at different points during the day. Initially when he had just woken up, then whilst he was on the phone doing an interview with Radio One, right the way through the day. The last time he did it do him it looked particularly disturbing, he had had the blood cut off to his brain six times during the day and on the sixth it looked, for a short period, as if he was permanently brain damaged. His walking had become uncoordinated and clumsy with an inept look in his eyes that seemed to portray an intense difficulty in controlling basic motor skills. Everyone in the room seemed to retort with bad vibes, Mike said something like, “I think we should go back down stairs and get a drink.”

So we did, another slightly awkward elevator trip that brought us back down to the lobby where we ordered some drinks from the small porter gentleman who had opened the front door for me. Everyone was sat around on large leather chairs, in the middle of us of all was an elongated leather foot rest broken in places by a shined stainless steel plate obviously for resting drinks on.

The man soon returned with our drinks, Bevski had a double vodka and I had a double Pernod with water and plenty of ice. The butler type man pushed a small tray under my nose with a receipt on it, it was ludicrously expensive but I had no time to argue, we needed drink, so after an initial biting remark to Bevski I put the appropriate money on the tray and handed it back and said keep them coming. “Sorry sir?” I heard, the last thing in the world I wanted to hear at this point, I didn’t want any trouble I was in no mind set for it, I could only hope Bevski was prepared for this potentially fatal milestone in our evening.

“Sorry sir, but you have to be a resident to buy a drink, we don’t accept cash as it is after regular hours.”

“Damn it man, I am a resident, why didn’t you tell me?” He passed me the tray with the receipt on it again, after close inspection it did have a section on the bottom requesting you put your room number and signature. This was the fatal milestone, as I was not a resident, but he didn’t know this and as far as he was concerned I was with the Americans so burn him and the hotel I thought. We’ll be out of here in a few hours, long gone and Steve-o’s people will be back out on the road, a little bit of straight fraud never hurt, it should work. What I hadn’t realised however is that virtually all hotels, start at room 100. I put room number 69, the first pseudonym that came into my head and handed him back the receipt. “Thank you sir,” he said as he disappeared through a door, which seemed to lead to a bar area. I began to relax and drink my Pernod.

He quickly re-appeared however, stating that the hotel didn’t have a room 69. This was it I thought the gig was up, we’d be ejected, tossed out onto the street left to fend for ourselves. I could see Bevski and I in Nottingham city centre at 3am with two bags full of beer and no-where to go. Well, fate had dealt his cards and we would just have to cope with the consequences. As I really began to despair Mike interjected, he must have spotted my face quickly loosing what colour it actually had left. “What seems to be the problem here?”

“Apparently you have to be a resident to buy a drink, if I give you the cash can we get them on your room?”

“Sure, no problem there dude, here let me sign that.”

Mike quickly signed the receipt and sent the butler away. He disappeared as he had before and I began to question where Steve-o was. “He’s up in his room with some lady friends,” Mike replied. Fair enough I thought, he’s out here doing the rock star thing. I knew if I was him I’d rather be in my room humping with fresh young groupies than down stairs with a group of freaks binge drinking and getting hassled by a rather unprofessional student of journalism. Bevski and I chatted generally within ourselves for a short period making sure that the Pernod and Vodka kept flowing, trying to make conversation with the others was much too difficult. There was a culture gap between the English bums and the American bums that seemed to halt even the lowest form of conversation.

I asked Ryan Dunn how he was, all I got was a short and to the point reply, “I’m fine” he said with a smile, well I’m sure he was sat there with his bottle of Jack Daniel’s and bucket of ice. Maybe this new ‘celebdom’ these people had found had gone to their heads I thought. From being relatively well known inside a small sector of a vast industry and sub culture within our society that is extreme sports they were now world-renowned mad men, and it is the mad men that last. No one remembers the quiet one out of a band, or the polite politician, the consumers want for terrible and vicious characters is never ending. Few people would know who the other members of Black Sabbath were, but everyone will know who Ozzy Osbourne is. The relentless alcoholic mad man that seemingly knew no boundaries. Now these young men were the pretenders to the throne, they where to be the next mad men these ‘neo-rockstars’ and it looked like they knew it.

No problem there though, I tried to talk a little more, asking about his tattoos, nothing really came of it, showing me various parts of his inked body I decided I would show him mine. A straight strategically placed tattoo on my lower back simply reading ‘beer’ in capital gothic letters, Ryan seemed pleasantly surprised and asked over one of the camera men.

“Hey Demitri come over here and check this out”. Demitri was, as far as I could tell, the lead cameraman and a very nice guy too. Possibly the only member of the crew more than willing to join in small talk he was eager to see what Ryan had for him as he jumped over the central leather footrest with his camera.

Turning it on he began to film my back from various angles with questions being floated from all around. It became apparent that the key to opening these guys up was something a little over board, extravagance and eccentricity were a pre-requisite for them and having the word Beer permanently engraved on my back seemed to do the trick. So suddenly a break though I thought. People were asking all sorts of questions now, “has your mom seen that?” “How long have you had it done now?” Answering as I went a long I thought I should keep the ball rolling, all gates must remain open after this juncture so however long we were permitted to stay at least we would be able to make conversation. I asked Ryan to perform the chokehold maneuver on myself, he was more than willing and Demitri kept the camera rolling.

The experience itself was a very strange one, as Ryan wrapped his arms around my neck my adrenaline glands started to work in overdrive as my fight or flight response began to kick in. Luckily the alcohol in my blood quickly reduced what could have been a large and violent reaction to a small rise in heart rate. Demitri said something like “what do you have written across your back?!” As I began to go unconscious “beer” I said as my vision began to disappear.

I woke up on the marble floor after what felt like a very long time, fortunately it transpired that I had only been unconscious for a matter of three seconds, so no real damage could be done I thought. Everyone was in hysterics as I picked myself up off the floor with the camera being forced in my face, Demitri began to ask me “what did you see dude?” I thought for a second and said “lots of lights, thousands of bulbs all glowing in unison and each distinctive”. Suddenly, a large and offensive man who had been sitting at the opposite end of the room was now stood about two feet away, he turned Demitri round saying something like “That’s not funny, this is funny” and he grabbed the glasses off my face.

Normally this would incite an extreme reaction from myself as without my glasses I can see very little of what is going on, I quickly realised though the man was a giant and could easily cause me some serious injury if I reacted to him in such a way. After the momentary spark of thought concerning how to react I realised the man had my glasses in his mouth, he was eating them and shouting about how funny this act was. I immediately pounced and trying desperately to grab them back, the fact that his girlfriend and everyone around didn’t find what he was doing at all funny unquestionably helped my situation and I quickly retrieved them. Slightly twisted and with bite marks on the lenses I sat back down and ordered more Pernod.

After the terrible incident with going unconscious and the man eating my glasses I was beginning to tire. The adrenaline was again wearing off and as a result my body was going into some sort of distress mode, realising that danger is no longer present all non-vital systems closing down and preparing for rest. I had no time for rest though, I had an assignment to complete, and it was now apparent that Bevski and myself were welcome guests for the night, after my exploits with the choke hold trick and showing my tattoo. I ordered the small butler to bring me a bottle of coke a double vodka, two table spoons of ground coffee and a tall glass, which he did without hesitation. Whilst I was mixing it all together in order to produce my own form of energy drink one of the groupies Steve-o had been spending his time with had come down and was sitting on the edge of her seat looking down at the floor with an air of nervousness. Everyone began to laugh at her except for Bevski and myself who were, at that time, not in on the joke. She quickly left and I began to scrape the brown foam, which was the result of mixing the coke and coffee granules, off the top of my energy drink and put it in an empty glass.

Demitri came over with a digital camera and said “dude, because we found your tattoo so sweet you get to have a look at this”. Immediately it became apparent why everyone was sniggering at the young groupie when she came to sit down and why, when she realised everyone was laughing at her, she must have left so promptly. The picture displayed on the small LCD screen was of Steve-o and the girl locked in a position, two bodies becoming one, yet whilst the girl had a face of passion, Steve-o’s face was simply of pleasure. With possibly the largest grin I’ve ever seen spread across his face it looked on the small screen as if his head was slightly warped and misshapen. I immediately burst into laughter and told Demitri he had to show Bevski, he also went into hysterics.

We soon calmed and I realised I had had my energy drink sat in front of me for about five minutes now, it had to be drunk. This concoction is a potent mixture that tastes as if it has been brewed in hells mouth. A tall glass with a double vodka, two table spoons of ground coffee and the best part of a bottle of coke it is a pick-me-up that weak contenders usually cannot cope with. I began to down the drink and instantly knew I couldn’t make the entire glass, which is vital to this drink as drinking it in two parts only makes the experience twic e as horrific. I had to put the glass back down and as I did I realised the coffee was not going to mix well with the Pernod. I began to have stomach convulsions, the need to vomit came over me very quickly and I recognised I had no time to reach any toilets, but after years of experience with such situations it was not a problem. I calmly lit a cigarette and sat back with a smile on my face as my eyes began to water, I couldn’t possibly show such a sign of weakness in front of these madmen and vomiting on the floor was out of the question. The cigarette calmed my stomach however and after a few moments I began to recover.

I sipped on the small bit of Pernod and water I had left and contemplated drinking the second half of my energy drink. At this moment however Steve-o came walking down the stairs that lead into our lobby area. Looking slightly detached from what exactly was going on the stark reality of what was about to happen hit me. Finally after waiting for the entire night for my interview it was soon to take place, now however I was a twisted drunken mess. I could barely talk, and even if I could keep down my energy drink it would be at least 20 minutes before the coffee began to perk me up at all. I was incoherent, blurry eyed and I couldn’t read my own questions I had written out earlier that day on the train into Nottingham, I was a terrible mess, but there is no time in this business for the weak, no matter how I felt I had to get the job done. Why was I here? To entertain myself or to complete my assignment? To complete my assignment of course, get in, get the job done, get the fuck out, only things were no longer that simple.

I wrestled with myself trying to sit up straight and look as composed as I possibly could, but nothing could help me now I’d crossed that fine line, beyond the point of no return. Now it was clear there was nothing to be lost. So whilst Steve-o chatted with other members of the crew I tried to finish off what was left of my energy drink. This time however the drink fully disagree with me, as the thick brown foam floating on top hit the back of my throat the gagging reflex immediately kicked in, my stomach convulsions were far clear of the point of control and so I vomited the entire drink back into the glass. I wiped my mouth, looked up and realised I had filled the glass back with such precision it was hard to believe it had previously been drunk apart from a slightly off smell.

I was feeling a lot better yet I knew this was a momentary high that would soon be lost. The brutal truth was apparent, now instead of having a small amount of caffeine in my stomach that had the possibility of waking me ever so slightly I had none at all, and I had an upset stomach that had the potential of turning aggressive at any given moment. Luck had given me some extra time however; Steve-o was in conversation with the crew all around and seemed happy enough. I was took it upon myself to go to the toilet and freshen up as best I could. I had been many times during the night and they were dapper, perfect temperature and humidity controlled no doubt by an elaborate air-conditioning system. No terrible smell of urine with cheap Formica tops in this establishment, only the aroma of lemon with black marbled sides. Small slightly warmed hand towels were neatly piled in a pyramid formation beside each sink that had scent’s and soap beside it, a perfect place to gather ones self try to regain some grasp on the situation.

After perhaps five minutes I re-emerged slightly better off but still in no state of mind to interview a man who was on such an enormous ego trip it engulfed the room. Steve-o himself is only really a slight man, a defined face with a square jaw and high cheekbones that could give him a somewhat handsome look if he wasn’t so gaunt with it. Of average height his build was perhaps a little skinny all over. Yet having been in front of over 1500 people, all screaming and shouting for his praise and at his command wincing in horror at his stunts he projected an air of extreme confidence. This combined with having been followed back to a five star hotel by beautiful young women who’s sole purpose of being there was to have sex with him and then finally coming down stairs to have high powered stimulants pushed on him and generally being the centre of attention had pushed his ego into some sort of ludicrous mode. This was going to be no easy interview in the first place, now however; I was in a proverbial world of shit having uncontrollable fits of sickness. As I sat back down in my chair I was beginning to get the fear, shivers were racing up my spine as I had short bursts of more adrenaline. Steve-o had moved and was sat directly opposite myself now so I thought I would politely interrupt to try and get this ball rolling. “Dude, can I get this interview now?”

“Yeah, okay,” he replies, “lets get started.”

“That’s great, I’ll just get my questions and stuff together.”

I quickly pulled out my questions, ran a few through my head trying to mentally prepare myself and figure out my scribbled handwriting at the same time. Demitri came over at this point. “Dude look at what this guys been drinking,” as he pointed to my energy drink “What is it?”

“It’s my own form of energy drink, vodka, coke and two heaped table spoons of ground coffee. Normally it has crisps of some sort crunched up in it as well, then it contains all major food groups, alcohol, sugar, caffeine and protein, it tastes like Satan’s own piss,” everyone began to laugh. I was happy with the way our introductory chat was going, I thought best start things as soon as possible and get the ball rolling so to speak and just hope it doesn’t roll off. “That’s cool dude, I think I might try and make a stunt out of that one, would you mind? I think I’d call it the ground coffee challenge.”

“That would be seriously cool.”

“See, I like to respect intellectual property, so I would consider the new ground coffee challenge to be your intellectual property, do you kind of mind if I take that ball and run with it?”

“Hell no dude, I’d be honoured to say the least,” at this point a guy who had been sitting in the background all night had started to move closer. Realising with some sort of predatory skill that Steve-o was no longer in conversation with his crew and friends so therefore must be open to random discussion.

“Hey Steve-o, I’ve been practicing my clown skills” he said and began to balance three mobile phones on top of one another length ways on his chin. The skill was undoubtedly acquired with hours of practice and deserved some praise; Steve-o grabbed everyone’s attention and the young man began to balance all sorts of things on his chin and fingers. At one point he had five mobile phones balanced on his chin whilst he juggled another three. All the while however my mental state was deteriorating at a gradual rate. I must get this interview started before it is too late. “Hey dude, can we get this thing started now?” I asked politely.

“Sure, so what’s your first question?”

The initial questions did not go down very well at all. I knew I had to start off with some so called ‘run of the mill’ questions in order to get information that the regular reader would want to hear. “What was your worst injury?” I asked.

“Dude you know, if you’re going to be asking me all these generic questions then we can just finish this interview now, seriously, I’m sick of these bullshit generic questions.”

“I’m sorry dude, I thought I…” what I was trying to explain was that I needed to ask the questions that the people wanted to know, Steve-o however had obviously heard them so many times he was disgruntled to say the least when people began asking him them. Fine, if he was on Radio One he would answer them, but to a lowly, very drunk student journalist he obviously was not prepared to co-operate. This was where the ego became apparent, maybe the drugs had taken over I thought. No matter, I could not stop. “I would ask some normal questions to start with that the people want to know about.”

He wasn’t prepared to listen though, “no way am I carrying on with this unless the questions get better and fast.”

“Well you have been likened to stunt masters such as Evil Kenevil and Harry Houdini, what do you personally think of this?” I hit him with what I thought was my finest question, at least I would get one good answer.

“That’s better dude. See Evil Kenevil only ever did one trick, and to his credit, like anyone else, the actual content of your art is irrelevant unless you take the action of bringing your art to the people, whatever that art is. Evil Kenevil has more accomplishments to praise in the actual promotion category than the content of his stunts and once again to his credit he made fully packed arenas. The original stunt was him with a ten-dollar bet to jump over a car in the street. It doesn’t matter that he only had one trick though, what matters is that he did such a great job of promoting it. He is kind of one-dimensional, see the thing is with his one trick is that he was doing these arena jumps on the heaviest Harley Davidson motorcycle so no disrespect, he is an American legend. The person who I do have as an idol is Houdini, he had so many stunts. Houdini was much more multi dimensional than Kenevil. If I seriously had a goal, it would to be compared, strictly in the realm of idiots, to Houdini.”

I recoiled with despair I was an incoherent wreck running out of ‘good’ questions fast and here was a guy that just hours before was stapling his scrotum to his thigh and was now giving articulate answers to myself. I tried not to talk and just carry on with questions I thought he would react well to. “Would you put yourself in a barrel and roll off Niagara Falls?”

“Im working on a ‘crash capsule’, which is going to be devoted to doing the bump over Niagara Falls. See it’s going to be very hard to go over Nigeria falls because I simply cannot get permission”. We now began to talk in with more fluency, he seemed to understand that I had realised I had annoyed him and was trying my hardest to keep the interview on its feet with as original questions as I could think of or read.

”I heard that you don’t like people copying yourself because you want all the lime light?”

”There is a blurry line between recognising imitation as a form of flattery and compared to recognising imitation as a type of threat. And you know I really don’t care one way or another, I like to think of it as often imitated never duplicated. I take a lot of pride in what I do. When it comes down to it though, say Tony Hawk (Professional skateboarder), he is not responsible every time some kid falls off a skateboard, and Im a professional and Im not going to be held responsible for anything bad that happens. I’ve created my own field and I’m a professional at it.”

“That was another thing that I was going to ask, in that, I read that you enjoy doing what you do so much because it gives people a laugh, do you think you’ve invented a new genre of comedy?"

“You see, most people don’t enjoy their day, a lot of people don’t want to be in their marriage, a lot of people are dying, hate their jobs, if they can just watch a half hour of me doing dumb stuff, even if its for that half hour, its taking them away from their bad day, then thats great.”

“Yeah, but are you actually trying to invent a new genre of comedy?"

”Its not even necessarily comedy that I do dude, what I do is entertain, its rock and roll man and no one’s going to stop it!”

Things were going quite well on the interviewing front; I had finally established some sort of rapport with him even if it was small. However, as I searched for my next question I realised he had taken out a small cellophane bag with a white powder in it, which had to be cocaine. Steve-o begins laughing and carefully pouring it out onto one of the stainless steel bits of plating on the footrest in the middle of us all. Once a small pile is in front of him he begins chopping it up into small lines with a credit card and asks over Demitri. “Hey dude, come over here and film this” he shouts with a tone of excitement. Once Demitri is over with the camera set up Steve-o simply says “Welcome to Nottingham” and snorts a number of lines.

As Steve-o ingested more stimulants I on the other hand was beginning to fall into an alcohol induced sleep. I had no hope, my brain was closing down on all fronts, complete loss of speech and temporary paralysis had taken over, it was clear to see I was in a bad way. Drinking so much Pernod was obviously not a wise idea, luckily however Steve-o had come to my rescue. “Here dude, give me your questions and I’ll just read through them.”

He grabbed my piece of paper with my scribbled questions and began to look for the ones that pleased him most; unfortunately he had seen one that made him particularly irritable. “Where do you get the nerve to ask me if this is making me a rich man?” he questioned me with an angry tone.

“Seriously? Where do you get the balls to ask such a question, you were going to ask me that weren’t you?”

I had no choice but to reply, however incoherent I may sound, “look, sorry, I’m just a student, I didnt realise you’d be so offended”. His manner changed immediately, he seemed to be having irrational mood swings which I simply put down to the drugs and tried not to get offended “yeah okay,” he said.

“Just you’ll have to remember that one for the future, but seriously dude, you have to be more sober the next time you interview someone, ill read though these and just talk.”

“That’s perfectly acceptable,” I replied.

“Funniest stunt? That’s a new one, I’ve never been asked that before, I really like that question. But Im really not all that much about comedy dude, its more shock value, shock value, even as a clown I wasn’t making people laugh, it was more getting people to be entertained and show that by clapping. But to be honest I don’t care if they laugh or drop their jaw, to me shock value is the same as comedy, and that distraction from the days problems, whether they laugh or are shocked as long as they are distracted from all these problems thats what counts. But funniest stunt, gauging from people’s reactions when they see the footage it was when I was in Mexico locked out of my room. So I decided to go down to reception totally naked and really drunk. Low impact, no danger, but simply made people laugh, a naked dude in a hotel, simple. It’s a good question though, what is funny? There’s a difference between what’s funny and what’s shocking.”

This mood swing had seemed to take a turn for the better as Demitri interjected “yeah but your shocking stuff is funny, if it was anyone else then it probably wouldn’t have been.”

“I guess, see, if I wasn’t very very happy to be doing this then it would be just me hurting myself, and me hurting myself is simply tragic and depressing unless Im happy and having fun. Now,” as he moved onto the next question I was sat opposite him with my head in my hands virtually asleep, the drugs Steve-o had taken however were working their wicked way on his body and giving him an air of happiness as his speech began to increase in speed.

“Am I without pain? Well no, Im just the same as everyone else but I just want attention more that’s all it is. The pain that I go through is insignificant compared with the pain people cause their souls when they’re doing something they don’t like, you know? At the end of the day, what ever I do to my body is nothing when I get free money and naked chicks, and making people happy and don’t forget living for ever” he says as he breaks into laughter.

“Do I think the crowds will ever dry up? Well why do you think Im so busy trying to get my own T.V show dude?” He was now talking at me whilst I sat with slightly twisted and uncomfortable across from him. “I know eventually touring on my own the crowds will dry up, but if we keep Tremaine (Jeff Tremaine, Jackass The Movie director) and I get my own T.V show we can keep these fires burning.”

I tended to agree but I could not motivate myself to answer. Steve-o had endured enough of talking to an asleep interviewer and trying to decipher my illegible handwriting, he turned away saying the interview was over and began talking back with his crew at the other end of the table. The discussion moved onto one of politics and the war in Iraq, no sense was really made by anybody as even the most sober person at the table had drank a fair amount. I continued with my position of rest, head in hands snoozing lightly, I could hear people talking about me, “is that guy okay?” “Has he drank to much?” I couldn't possibly answer such questions but thankfully Bevski had come to my defense, answering each quickly and with an appropriate answer, “he’s fine, I think he hasn’t actually drank enough and has fallen asleep as a result,” he explained. Everybody must have been delusional by this point as no one queried what Bevski had said or my state again during the remainder of the night.

After brief respite I sat back up and began talking and listening, everyone was voicing their irrational views on the war and George W Bush. The basic opinion was one of discontentment with how the election had turned out and how democracy had brought them this so called leader that was fighting a war that was unjustified. I largely disagreed with what everybody was saying but was in no position to argue any points, my priorities had shifted to ensuring shelter for the remainder of the time we had before we were due to catch our trains. It was around 4am and everybody was starting to drift up to their rooms. I stood up and kindly thanked Steve-o for his patience and asked for a photo, which he was more than happy to have taken, grabbing my crotch and patting my back the photo was taken and he began his way to the lift with the others.

Now we were in a predicament, I had organised a place to stay in Nottingham but it was outside of the city centre and out of the question at this point. We agreed the best policy was to catch the elevator to the top floor and rest in the corridor for the remaining time until our trains were due. As we stepped out of the elevator we were hit by a surprise, on our immediate left a conference room had been left open, we quickly moved in. After turning on the lights and scanning the room it became apparent we had hit the jackpot. There were bowls of fresh fruit still lying around, a 42-inch television, bottled water, kettles, tea and coffee, comfy chairs. Everything we needed for a short period of recuperation. I shut the doors, turned on the television and we both began to feast on the fruit.

Conversation w as little, we were both physically as well as mentally exhausted, I personally had been without sleep, apart from almost going down during the interview, quite some time, Bevski had similar problems. Soon enough however it was time to stop watching the Motor-cross and begin to move to the train station. I had recorded almost four hours of conversation and it needed to be listened to in order to corroborate my twisted memories. As we left I picked up the largest pineapple I could find in the bowl saying to Bevski, “I think I’ll make a pineapple punch when I get home, lots of rum," - “a good call,” Bevski replied.

We caught the elevator to the ground floor and asked the morning bellboy to open the front door for us. What he must have though when two 19 year olds smelling of booze and walking with difficulty would have been doing leaving at about five thirty am from a five star hotel in central Nottingham god can only know. I was slightly paranoid and was wondering whether he would detain us and call the police, however, he asked us no questions and let us on our way.

On the way to the station I picked up a newspaper and a soft drink. Bevski and I were talking about the night in more detail now but were both keen to see what had been recorded. Upon reaching the station we shook hands congratulated ourselves on a job well done and parted our ways to our respective destinations. A very surreal night with typically savage icons of the cruel 21st century.

So, in a slight change of voice, I've had a bit of brainsplosion about advertising and marketing after coming across a fairly recent Fast Company article. Personally, I think of the digital landscape today as being completely pervasive; you probably do too. Your friends, family and colleagues might all agree that it’s second nature; something that is no longer a one off or ad-hoc experience, but one that is present in all aspects of our lives. It encroaches on every part of what we do, from the television we watch – “Tweet us your comments!” – to the things that we buy – “Join our Facebook Page for special offers!” But there’s hole, a gap of people that don’t realise this and some of them rest inside an industry that often prides itself as being at the forefront of creativity and technology. The fact that this hole exists at all is not only surprising, but a little bewildering: would you imagine that these people are advertising creatives?

The article highlights the state of the industry, and is causing a great deal of discussion. They jump right in at the start with an unsurprisingly anonymous quote from an advertising agency creative who says; “I feel like I’m standing here and there are a thousand baseballs dropping from the sky and I don’t know which ones to catch,” in regard to how he feels about digital and what to do with it. And he’s not alone, half a dozen or so creatives, planners and strategists are all quoted saying how terrified they are of digital and the impact is it having on their industry. One that was a very elite and walled arena, and basically hasn’t changed much since the 60’s until recent years, and is now being turned on its head; a complete shift is takingplace. The creative’s in question are gathered together for a ‘lesson in digital’ by the world leading Hyper Island, a school based in Sweden renowned for producing the most coveted digital talent in the ad industry. The instructor at one point informs his class of 40 year olds with and average of 10 years tenure, “you guys have to change your DNA, and you’re going to have tough decisions.”

But when did the change come in, why have so many seemingly miss the boat? How can the ‘creative industry’ of advertising be playing catch up with a world that they should be leading? And what’s the end game? Well while there’s no one

real answer, there’s plenty of theories. It’s absolutely clear now that digital technology has shifted the old model of advertising. You’ve heard the phrase, ‘be careful what you wish for – you just might get it?’ well, digital seems to have delivered on the wishes of advertisers, and now they’re trying to understand how best to utilise the technology. Today a specific message can be customised and delivered to a specific user, not simply direct to their home, but direct to wherever they are. Obviously mass advertising on television etc. is still taking place, but now the idea is shifting from spend millions on a ‘all encompassing’ campaign to a world where you can take a message directly to the person you want to wherever they are. Digital is like reaching into the living room of a TV audience and posting up a specific advert for each member of the family with exactly what they want on it, with the added facility that if they click a button they can buy it as well, without moving. A dream come true seemingly? Who wouldn’t want to shift budgets to digital?

Well, it’s not quite a simple as just shifting money away from one medium to another. The situation is complex, and will get more complex yet, before everyone fully understands how to utilise and engage with the technologies in the most effective and efficient way. Consumer attention, as if it wasn’t fragmented enough, is increasingly split. It is now vital for any marketer, advertiser and promoter to understand the ‘economy of attention’ as they bid for the precious seconds that a consumer is prepared to spend on one distraction. Their time is spread over multiple formats and forms, from mobile device applications to web based tools, social networks, video, IM, and more – so deciding where to focus advertising funds is a difficult task. Fragmented budgets necessitate the need for evolution and change within the old structures of traditional advertising. Brad Jakeman, Chief Creative Officer of the global gaming company, Activision, is on the money in saying: “The irony is that while there have never been more ways to reach consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with consumers.”

So, the reality is that no one’s even close to solving that ‘end game’ question of “where is it all going to end?” Alongside the ever expanding variety of channels through which you can push a message, there is the significant challenge in that it’s no longer just a question of ‘push’. What was once a controlled one way message is now a dialogue with millions; user influence can match and even trump that of the advertising agencies that used to control what, where, when and how you spent your hard earned cash, without you ever even realising it. It’s a transparent market, putting the power back into the hands of the consumer; from Yelp to Groupons, it’s everywhere and those in the know are engaging with this. Early adopters are working with digital and helping it to evolve, rather than trying to exploit it; and it’s working.

So the DNA of the advertising industry is going through a revolution. The Fast Company quotes that the average tenure of a chief marketing officer in the US today is 22 months; those that don’t get it are in and out. People are still trying to figure out how to get it to work at all, let alone getting it all to work together.

Even once you’ve acknowledged the change in consumer behaviour, the evolution in technology, assimilated this into a corporate environment, and uniting it with the message from the CMO; there is still the concept of measurement to be tackled.

Old formulas that dictate strict ROI measurement to the client are gone. Digital measurements, campaign targets, quantified success, are all being laid down by the big guns from Microsoft to Google and not agencies themselves; the trackingis clearer, more precise and more accountable, and it’s dragging the agencies kicking and screaming into the future of measurement. And then, once you have all the ‘traditional’ digital measurements such as clicks, bounce rates and unique users, there’s the question of measuring the worth of a conversation. Word of mouth has always been seen as a considerably powerful way of pushing purchase decisions. Previously one friend telling another friend in the pub to buy the latest computer game was unmeasuremable and untrackable. Now, these conversations are online, trackable, measureable, and quantifiable. But how much is it worth spending to get one friend to recommend a game to another, and is instigating that conversation ethically sound? The reality is, there are lots of different ways of looking at this at the moment, there’s no set standard across the industry. Agencies who know what they are doing are figuring out their own way, agencies that don’t are missing the

measurement side of things all together. Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, when asked what the ROI of social media was, famously answered, “What’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?” And whilst it might be funny that TBWA\Chiat\Day chief creative officer Rob Schwartz, who attended the Hyper Island course mentioned earlier, said that; “The room had a Twitter feed, but 70% of the room didn’t know what Twitter was”. It’s a very real situation that a very big industry is trying to dealing with.

So with all the changes and questions, is there any one singular way to answer them all? One thing that particularly stood out from the article was a quote by Edward Boches, who for years was the Chief Creative Officer of Mullen, a US based advertising agency. “We brought people in from the outside to lead digitally, but they always tried to change us into a pure digital play”. For me, this really highlights the problem that agencies across the board are facing today; that there is no direct solution. Of course, there are agencies that focus on particular niche categories and maybe are all encompassing digital, or purely digital advertising, or purely digital advertising B2B; you get the picture. But as much as I believe digital is pervasive and integral to any campaign, it’s not the end game. Any good craftsman uses a range of tools to get the most out of his supplies. That’s exactly our aim: above the line, below the line, online and offline.

Coming full circle, with every answer sought, there seems to be more questions raised about the industry and the state it’s in today. So to conclude, with a quote from the article itself, author Danielle Sacks says, “The death of mass marketing means the end of lazy marketing.” In the long term this is true – lazy marketing will continue in the short term, but those that don’t evolve will eventually die. It ensures that those at the front will be pushing the boundaries as we move into the future together, trying to get the best understanding of what it is we can really do to the full potential of the media and channels offered to us. I'd like to think with my work I keep trying are proud to be right there in the middle of it all, keen and thirsty as always.

So, come March I’ll have been running this particular blog for three years. In that time I’ve used it twice as a sort of mechanism to consolidate what I’ve achieved in the year gone by, and what my goals are in the year to come. Now, looking back at both 2008 and 2009, it’s clear the state of mind I was in at the time. I imagine myself sat there typing away with a wide smile, chin out, shoulders back, chest ruffled, fervent and relentless, proud at the year gone by and keen for the year to come. Long lists of goals and wants and needs that, looking back on them, weren’t all too far from what was actually achieved.

And now, well, here’s the weird thing, looking back on 2010, it’s not so much about a list of achievements, a physical list of actions taken and their successful results. It’s more a list of people, a list of experience, a list of emotions and sentiments and passions. There’s a retrospective needed somewhere on the white knuckle, bare faced, scratching, clawing, bursting, jumping, heaving, bludgeoning, unsettling, terrifying, ecstatic, rampant moments of life, of real, real, real life that have taken place this year. But I can’t do it.

2010 was too much of a personal year to go into detail on a public forum such as this. If I regurgitated the last 12 months, and if my opinion mattered an iota to anyone, I’d imagine I’d offend and upset a lot of people, others might smile lovely smiles, some would want to seek revenge I’m sure, few would probably accept my version of events.

So, what to say? The culmination of 12 months and I still feel the best thing I wrote in 2010 is completely relevant to how I’ve felt and how I’ve been over the last 12 months. It’s below, I hope you enjoy it...

I don't care what anybody tells you…anybody. If they tell you, you can't do something because you're hurt, or they tell you, you’ll never be good enough to do something, you remember something…Anything, I don't care what it is, you can do it…if you believe in it enough, and I honestly believe this, if you honestly and passionately believe in it, you can do it.

They told me I couldn't write, I'll tell you, I've written so much over the last ten years wouldn't believe…and not only that, I do it for a living, and I have a novel. There's nothing you can't do if you believe in it enough.

And when you get fed-up with life, do yourself a favour, take a piece of paper, and on one side begin to write all the good things about life that you can think of, and begin with your parents and brothers and sisters and friends…and move onto all the things you have…bicycles, sunglasses…Then you turn that piece of paper over and you write about the bad things you don't like, like Johnny down the street who’s a pain, or whatever…and you're going to find the good outnumber the bad by so much, that you don't even have to pay attention to the bad, because you have so much good in your life.

That's what I do, every time I feel downhearted, or kind of hurt. There's always a struggle to do something like that, to be able to do something like that and really believe in it and know that what it represents and that the things you've written there are real and that sometimes, when you like them, they really like you back, but you can believe it, trust me.

You know, little pieces of paper all over, in my bedroom, in my bag, in old books and things I’ll look through from time to time, anywhere I can sneak it in, you know what they have written on them? 'Today is going to be the best day of your life, smile' - sometimes you have to help yourself do that. If you have trouble, you want to do a certain thing or be a certain thing or have the right temperament to achieve a certain thing, I’ll tell you right now, just start. The hardest step into anything is the beginning. Know that you might fail, that you might stumble or trip or fall when you do it'll hurt, it'll hurt like nothing has ever hurt before, but you have to push back, and pull yourself up and keep on trying.

Write more little notes to yourself to remind you, write things that that say 'today will be good,' or 'I'm going to smile at people today' or whatever, it'll help...because I'll tell you now, you're only going to be here one time, one time in this life as we know it, so, get the most out of it, embrace everything you can with all your will and soul, and don't be let down too much by yourself or those around you if you or they are at fault, just remember you're from a long line of lovers and warriors, and that you can succeed and help others do so.

There's capacity in this world and in yourself for tremendous good and fortitude and solidarity and all those other things that the big men think and say, know these things, but taking a second to understand that you can love and will be loved is most important of all.

Appreciate love is fragile, and that sometimes caution whilst an enemy, is a necessary virtue, and that modesty can make the man, but don't use these as an excuse not to do what you want or love who you want to. Believe you can with everything you have, that you will achieve your goals, that you will love and will receive love in return, and you will.

But hold onto that love, because I know there's a fire in your belly, there's a vitriol and anger that can get the better of you and all of us from time to time. You must take that and use it and always make the conscious decision to create rather than to destroy. Give, with your heart and know, know for certain that when you stand up and look in the mirror in the morning, when you see a reflection of yourself in a puddle there, when you are alone in a room and you know that the floor boards creaking underfoot is because of you, when you have any moment where you realise that you are a sentient ball of energy in this big wide universe, you are happy and that's because you have created and given and made someone smile, because anything else is just a waste…

And in 2011? Well, just the simple things really. Finish the second novel, do another project, love, be loved, respect, be respected, smile, look after my brothers in arms, dance, fight the good fight, don’t give in.

Richard Galbraith

The contents of this post are heavily influenced by Crippled Black Phoenix and Evel Knievel