Emily Rotter....

The Tale of Where My Creative Juices Have Been Flowing (Not this way, obviously)

2010-04-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

I've spent most of my life not being a "girly" girl; when I was a kid i spent my free time climbing trees and being inseparable from something called "sloppy tracksuit". As a teenager i was ill-fitted for the slow dancing etiquette of school discos, no matter how hard i tried. Leaving school and moving to London, most of my new friends were boys - I enjoy the lack of drama associated with the male psyche. I don't exactly cover myself with baggy clothes and shave my hair off but it's just that i think more like a boy. And i'm pretty fucking proud of that. It makes me me and all that shit.

So i pretty much want to remove my mind for fear of it being so sadly retarded ever again, because of late i've been devoting certain sections of my day (morning, late at night) to writing romantic emails. CRINGE . In the morning, i wake up alone, eat my breakfast, then get on the bus and spend the 45minute journey composing the PERFECT wake up message (jeez, writing this i sound lamer than a spinster with a Brides subscription). After hours of communication via any means possible, i lie down alone in bed and compose the PERFECT goodnight message. To compound this utter insanity i secretly keep a watch on my phone, stomach knotted, in hope of an equally romantic reply. Oh yeah, and there's usually fucking six hours of time difference separating the recipient and i.

I've got no idea where this bullshit came from.. i blame it on my few feminine pleasures - trashy tv, rom-coms and Jane Austin. Most girls who watched that infamous Pride and Prejudice tv series back in the nineties harbour a secret (or not so secret) longing for that kind of romance. An unrequited love, separated by land/sea, documented in letters.

"Oh Fanny, i do declare my heart feels as though it will explode every time he walks into the room". etc etc...

But i guess i started writing this jiz because i thought i should. I was shed

ding skin, starting afresh and having my eyes opened to unknown feelings. No more closed off, boyish emotions! i thought. Open yourself to it! Say the stuff i've been too embarrassed to even feel! For a while my words were written from behind my right hand - eyes squinting through and giggles stifled. I was still aware of how ridiculous it all was.

But somewhere down the line i began to enjoy how vunerable my words made me - bearing every last piece of my soul. I also lived for how my words seemed to affect the recipient; over those months i discovered just how easy it is to alter someone through type. And i thrived of his responses, the words - "forever", "heart", "aches", "complete" = they shook me to my very core and took me to a fantasy land so far removed from the daily reali

ties of tour.

He told me how he loved to wake up to my emails; so when my fingers found it harder to flow out sentences onto the keyboard, i worked harder to write.

What would we do without our messages? Hell, our relationship was built of excessive declarations of love each day. Without these we were just every other couple. No Austin, no adversity, just a relationship with an "i love you" at the end of a phone call. And this is how i convinced him to love me. He asked me to pour out my heart daily and

i did. I opened the floodgates but now the water was gone and i was catching raindrops to fill it again.

Then one day came the words.

But the words that mean i can stop with the old words.

I think i'd forgotten that boys aren't as caught up in "the dream" as girls. Wait, i wasn't even supposed to be caught up in the dream. He'd got bored of my daily updates on life etc, they were boring and hard to pay attention to until the end.

My beautifully crafted romantic emails? My little pieces of info abo

ut my day? Boring? FML. And worse than that, why the hell wasn't i happy not to have to write them anymore? I was only doing it because he was romantic and i was trying to be everything he wanted. Oh. God. How embarrassing. I'd tricked my mind into being gushy and now i fucking liked i

Anyway, i guess my point is that boys don't really like love letters, or cutsie in-depth analysies of your day. They want you to get naked on video chat. Love letters/emails are purely for the girls' pleasure, so maybe write them and don't send them. I have the advantage that the package i sent him had a love letter in it but it got returned so i can take it out and burn it to save my embarrassment.

So, chill out, don't prise your heart open with a screwdriver just incase, like me, you can't shut it again.

2010-01-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

I would guess the point of tears it the best time for anyone to write.

The point where my heart, already divided into two, splits into three.

The point where turbulence in the air coordinates with turbulence in my mind.

Where the empty seat next to me signifies more than i can comprehend at this moment.

This point, where my dreams come crashing, face first, reality.

The reality that not all can ever be perfect. Faults exist in every dream, it only takes time before they become apparent. To take these unabashed words or to take utter disinterest? The hands that comfort do little more than grate and stop my words. The words of apology do little to appease this unchartered feeling.

But I can't remember the last time the first section of my heart heard these words. I don't think it ever did.

These words are confused and marred by wet eyes, but somewhere they ask a question...

What to choose?

I've already made the decision. And it's easy. I'm not sure tears on an aeroplane can dissuade me from this feeling; the emotion, the anger, its all conducive to something which could be good (great?).

Do I want to stagnate and still be left weeping on a cold bathroom floor? Or to live,to feel, to... exist?

I don't want this everyday. I never want this again.

To cry is to be weak, and weakness blows. But perhaps it takes this once to throw the dreams right back to earth and ground them.

Reality sucks, especially when you're still on holiday. But the touch of a hand on a leg takes that reality back to something i can live with.

Assertations of feelings towards me that i don't agree with take me deeper, darker, further into the worse side of this situation.

My emotions here never ran so high, so low, so insane in such a short time.

Twenty minutes ago i was praying this plane would take me down and end this pain. Now i can't wait to be free when we land.

I feel like my heart is waking, with every stifled tear that leaves my body, i am someone.

I exist.

I am.

I live.

Every sense is awakened.

Is this sadistic?

Is this natural?

Keep me in this hideous limbo forever. Floating above the earth and all my worries.

Abuse me, pour drinks over my lap in false moods.

I am alive.

I'm yours tonight..

2009-12-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

To my father, who has somehow found my blog. I don't think you want to read this...

I've been putting it off for a while.

I didn't even really need to do it.

I can try them on and find one that fits eventually, right?

Alas I've been on tour and sleeping in them frequently for the last few months, mostly due to sheer laziness. As a result I've got permanent red lines on my chest and every one of my bras is running on minimal elasticity. If I'm going to buy bra's en masse I want to know that I'm buying the right size.

So I did it...

I took the plunge and set aside an afternoon to get my tits measured. In Plymouth. God knows why... there was logic for that, I'm sure.

And I was probably working on the assumption that all the old ladies in M&S up and down the country are equally un-scary. So I guess this is where my plan starts to unravel... oh, that and the fact that my chosen day was, in fact, the first bank holiday Monday after Christmas.

Yeah, I know, don't laugh.

Marks was a seething mass of panicked middle-aged women; brassieres flying over display racks and landing on the huddles of confused-looking husbands on the other side. Winding through these wild creatures, I found the fitting rooms.

CLOSED FOR SALES.

Great, fucking great. I'd come all the way to Plymouth (kindly referred to by me as the "armpit of the earth") and I can't even have my chest fondled by some nice old lady.

In a moment of sheer industriousness I took myself to Debenhams, whose undercrackers department I have patronised before.

Walking down into the basement of my concrete playground I became aware of what I was dealing with...

Pink. Everywhere. Florals. Everywhere. Lace. Everywhere. This was a SEXY underwear dept. Not like, Ann Summers' saucy, but a step up (or down?) from M&S.

What the hell am I doing? I thought.

The only person who's seen my naked tits in years is.... well, let's not get into that.

The entrance to the room-of-impending-doom revealed that my measurer would be one of a group of young girls. I truly was about to get my knockers out for a whore. Ushered into a small, dingy cubicle, I was told to strip down to my bra and stood, shaking with nerves, in wait for the whore's next move.

A set of lurid pink acrylic nails wound their way around the edge of the curtain (my safety net).

A screech warned me of this walking STD's imminent intrusion.

The talons felt their way around my ribs; stretching and inspecting the black fabric of my bra. With the skill of Ron Jeremy, the hag had flicked apart my clasp, revealing my bare, flaccid chest. A ragged tape measure found its way around my tits, and - as suddenly as this dark chapter had begun - I was left; cold, topless and alone, in my barren cage.

My whore returned with a bra (black, grim) and told me to put it on.

(A minute of awkward fumbling begins on my part)

"Perfect! Does it feel comfy?"

Yes you whore, it fucking does. I feel violated, embarrassed, and naked. But, jeez, my tits are chilling about four inches further towards the heavens.

"You've gone up in size. Isn't that great?! You're a 34D".

With that, her prematurely wrinkled mouth cracking to a hideous smile, she turned, and left.

The tour is over but they just keep coming...

2009-12-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

10d13h30m

2009-12-27T15:19:00.000-08:00

"And we just want sleep.

But this night is hell.

I'm sick and sunk and I blame myself because I make things hard

and you're just trying to help.

I got no gas.

I'm winding out my gears.

This is one more day on the verge of tears.

And now my head hurts. ( Head hurts)

And my health is a joke.

Now I got to stop because the headphones broke."

It's stupid because I get to choose the soundtrack to this moment. I could have had the radio on. Then I'd let the fates and playlists decide how this should feel. But i'm delving into my own collection.

It's not like i'm limited to my mixtapes from way back when.

I have literally thousands of songs at my disposal. Some of them are even good.

I could make this moment comic. I could make this moment uplifting... euphoric.

WHATEVER.

I'm living life in the minor key. I want to hate this moment, right? I fucking must be into this not being good. Great, sappy lyrics written by a man who should know better. I should know better.

Well, I'm taking this moment to emo-town. It's a one way ticket and there's no going back.

Bring on the acoustic.

Bring on the violins.

Bring on the "intelligent" rhymes.

I should have listened to hip hop.

We travel in groups of more than one.

2009-12-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

"If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored.

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."

Gin, Gin, Gin.

2009-12-24T13:14:00.000-08:00

There were tears on the way home.

Slept until 4pm.

2009-12-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

Flying over Mexico.

Guadalajara.

Onstage.

America (again)..

2009-12-10T15:37:00.000-08:00

Jeez, another journey around America. And Europe.

I've been on tour for months.

I can't really put into words what it is to be away for so long.

Living this pseudo-normal lifestyle.

I can't live without my lanyard and day sheet.

I can't function in normal life.

But, here I am... at home, slowly adjusting.

Until! Back on tour in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

It's so easy to swing back into daily routine at home, but it jars like it's wrong.

Well, no more of my tangled words.

Here we go...

Me vs. ?

2009-11-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

I always have trouble writing about touring.It's hard to explain. When it comes to telling people what you got up to... you realise you didn't do anything. And that's the worst part. I think people expect you to come back with long-winded cultural anecdotes.

I never have any.

This tour with Muse has been strange. Stuck on the outskirts of Shitsville, Europe, in a permanent grey haze. There is nothing to see around here. Just a mass of car spaces and flood lights. I wake up every morning to the same view of rain soaked roads and asphalt. I long to see the sun.

I'm sleeping more than I've ever slept, sweating in my bunk and waiting for something to happen.

I've run out of film for my cameras but I have no desire to take pictures of anything.

My favourite part of the day is wandering around the stadium as the Horrors come onstage. It's usually early but filling up a fifteen thousand capacity stadium takes time. I can see their eager faces pouring in. I do a lap of the arena, head out through the foyer, past the drink stalls, and up into the seating areas. The sound of voices is taken over by the sound of the PA. My mind is taken over by the sweaty congested air up here. It's dark and dis

orientating. I can't sit down, so I just stand and take in the scene. Looking back at me are the LCD displays of a hundred cameras. People need the digital enhancement of a crappy camera to watch a show nowadays. I want to knock the cameras out of their hands and tell them to pay attention. Watch! This is it. Right now. It won't happen the same ever again.

The stage is covered in towers that reach 40ft into the air, at the foot of them are the Horrors. They look tiny. In an hour, Muse will be on that same stage, raised up into the air on 15ft stands, the crowd watching their every move.

For now I am content to watch an apprehensive crowd begin to enjoy this strange group infront of them. At the end of the songs hands are clappi

ng in the dim light. It's a surreal view.

I get bored standing for too long in one place, so I take a different staircase back down to the foyer. A teenager is crying on the bottom step and being comforted by her pimply friends and a security guard. I can't see if she's hurt from here. People are still going to their seats, and she's blocking my only way out. I try not to show my agitation, but her friends look at me awkwardly. I take my chance when some trucker-hatted douche fumbles with his ticket and burst through the melee.

It's cold down here, and it's started raining outside so the

room hall smells like wet dog fur. I'm wearing clean clothes and I'm not in the frame of mind to be soaked by someone who has managed to keep their clean clothes dry. I map out a path through the distorted faces which will meet with the least resistance, which goes to plan until

BAM

some dick with a rucksack on his front knocks into me. He's carrying some putrid, sticky drink in a giant paper cup and its liquid slips and slides aro

und as we hit. It's taunting me in slow motion, threatening to cover me. Our eyes meet as some of the gunk escapes onto my tights. He gives me a look without a hint of apology and moves on. I walk into the arena and feel it seeping into my shoe. It's not much but I'm wearing my last clean pair of tights.

The room has changed since I was last here. I can't see the sound desk, infact, I can't see much except for the silhouettes of the audience against the stage. I fumble forward into the darkness and am aware of a girl being dragged towards me. People part and I follow suit, training my eyes to the point of interest in a typically english way. She's got blood pouring down her face. It's fucked up. I can't understand why she's bleeding. She's out for the count before the show's even started.

As the set draws to a close, I head towards the dressing room. Something knocks into my head. It feels squishy. It comes into view on my right hand side. I see it's a hot dog.

A foot long hot dog. This meaty monstrosity is attached to a girl's hand. She weaves through the audience infront with it held high in the air, and I see it thwack into at least five peoples heads within the next ten seconds. Five dripping, waxy, infested heads. I hope she's giving it to someone she doesn't like.

Out by the dressing room, there are two more people being treated by medics. It looks like they've fainted. And this isn't bad. The other night people decided they didn't like their seats, so a hundreds moved to the standing area. By half seven the room was swelling and heaving and spitting people out of its seams. No more smiling faces, just confused eyes and dangling legs.

I find myself increasingly staring at my laptop screen, I know I should be living and doing but I'm withdrawing. The keys are falling off my laptop and I'm not taking the hint. Stop typing. Stop clicking. Stop updating my status with inane observations. Stop checking the screen for a message. Stop listening to shitty music. My head is swollen with ideas that may never happen, it's been aching for days.

I would never think I would long for small venues and idiots asking questions about shirts. But here I am, counting down the hours. Just wait though, I'll be moaning about them in the near future. I'm english right? I'm always going to moan about stuff.

(i apologise for the rambling nature of this. i can't bear to read it through again.)

Holloway Pt. 1

2009-09-04T15:50:00.001-07:00

I was standing in the right place when the bus arrived.

Right smack bang in the centre of the rear doors.

Camden is a mass of confused tourists and angry locals, all trying to make their way somewhere. I’m first on and I get the only seat free – one right at the back and dead centre.

As the barrel scraping motley crew of passengers get on, most swipe their oyster card. There is about a seventy five percent chance I will hear the fateful double beep in response. No one really cares, no one really reacts with a change of faicial expression. A frantic, thirty-something woman gets…WRONG ANSWER…. and tries again…WRONG ANSWER. this sequence repeats about ten times - to mine and everybody’s annoyance - at which point she takes her place amongst the fare-dodging rodents.

All is well.

Are we ready to embark home?

The air becomes sharp with intake of breath as we fail to move. Begrudgingly, the doors shut and we are off.

Amused by a newspaper, I pass all of five minutes before I am forced to lift me gaze toward the madding crowd.

I am on a throne.

I am on the highest row of seats and I can see directly down the aisle.

I survey my constituents… all eyes on… me? Why the fuck is everyone facing my way? Those who are standing look angry, their wide eyes look at me as if to say, “I saw you. You smug fuck. You stood ten centimetres to my left and THAT was the spot. You don’t deserve that seat. I do”.

Whatever, freaks. You are shoved together like ammonia-soaked battery hens. They’re all freaks. From the woman who scratches large white flakes from her head for the whole journey… to the idiot tourists with open rucksacks. Just waiting, waiting, waiting to feel violated.

This bus is fucking slow.

There are reams of cyclists plodding breathily up the never ending hill – we are trapped.

The guy in front of me is abnormally short and abnormally nervous. He has small, rectangular glasses and a large amount of wax in his dark hair. He screams GEEK and at first I pity what must surely be a lonely and loveless existence. Then he sprays something perfume-like onto his neck….my face…. and continues to check his hair is in its place. A date? A date for this loveless limp? He checks his watch. A date.

I end my pity and stare forward again.

The girl to my right is the most annoying person to have ever existed. She has two bags, both plastic, each containing sod all. Like every other fucker on this bus she has a repeating pattern of actions designed specifically for irritation. The two bags are causing her great distress. She treats them like overindulged children, constantly checking on their welfare. Every ten seconds she moves the bags from their current position. Sometimes they move a few inches around her feet, every so often they are placed safely in her lap. Her sinewy figure, lifeless long hair, scrunchie, and chewed-up nails all point to a flashing neon sign, hanging wonkily above her seat… SMACKHEAD. I pray she will get off soon. But I would put money on her getting off at the same stop as me.

My peripheral vision and suddenly alert hearing picks up another maniac.

I have opened a floodgate and I am not strong enough to push it shut.

The teenager next to me is texting. She finishes. She puts the phone back into her pointlessly minute bag (I have a hatred of small bags) and looks out of the window.

One…

Two…

The phone is back out. Time to call someone. Cue one minute conversation at top volume (Oh, Emily, this is not top volume, take this while you can). Phone back in bag.

One…

Two…

Another number dialled. This time answered. The voice comes loud from the other end of the line. My neighbour barks down the phone. I can’t understand a fucking word. A bark becomes a shout.

I am an unwilling participant in an unknown conversation.

My ears aren’t bleeding but I wish they were because the flow might muffle this sound.

How did I end up on a bus with the bunch of freaks?

Is everyone on drugs?

That’s it. I’m dead. I’m stuck in a death trap with a couple of hundred drug-mad maniacs. The ones hyped up on amphetamines will rip me apart and the doped up will lazily feed on my limbs, picking my fingernails from their teeth with their fingernails.

Is it getting hot in here?

I glance forward and suddenly it seems I am the star attraction. I’m paranoid. I’m the only sane one on this thing.

The massive coffee I drank half an hour ago is starting to kick in. I am feeling fidgety and I take it out by picking a small scab on my right cheek. My failsafe fidget killer.

The sun is beating into the bus and I know that I am far too hot. It’s not a day for black clothing. In fact, it’s not a day for a thick leather jacket. Or a furry hat. I look like a total mental case. I want to take my hat off but I only really wore it because my hair was too unwashed to go on show. It can only be worse by now. Not just greasy, but sweaty and flat. All eyes on me?

I don’t know who I want to take my hat off for more – me or the mass. Well, what about the jacket? Is there really any need? I’m pretty much home. I know that because the smack-bag next to me is reaching almost ecstatic bag movement.

If I take the jacket off, I’m admitting defeat.

I’m a fucking idiot.

I know it.

But do they really know it?

Maybe I should explain that it was raining earlier. How the hell is everyone else appropriately dressed? Do they just get up every morning and hope for the fucking best? Oh, it’s August so at some point today this minidress will be appropriate. Well, fuck them - optimists.

My embarrassment has again turned to my old friend disgust. Balance is restored. We cross Holloway Road and hit a red light just before my stop. On the pavement outside, an old man shuffles along in a blazer and Panama hat. And nothing else. Oh, except for socks and sandles.

No one bats an eyelid. He’s just another empty oyster card on the bendy bus that I call home.

Holloway.

TBC (when my hands regain the will to live)

Moments where I wish I had my camera...

2009-08-11T05:53:00.001-07:00

Fuck, this hasn't been updated for ages.I'm stagnating somewhat at the moment and i can't quite bring myself to write about computer games and bad records when they're not accompanied by something at least vaguely interesting.

I've been scanning through the backlog of negatives that need to be done over the past through days...

which gets me thinking about those moments when i wish i had a camera.

or when i wish i could use my camera.

I'm used to going on tour with the horrors, so i can take pictures anywhere, anytime.

the boys are used to me with at least one camera attached to me permanently.

i get one out and no one poses or asks why or feels exploited.

Last month i went away to do merch with the Misfits.

my first tour with a band who aren't my friends.

plus, they look like absolute fear onstage and are actual grown-ups.

turns out they look quite normal when not in stage gear, and are not fear in person at all.

plus they have proper New Jersey accents, which always reminds me of cartoon pigeons in films.

i also sort of formed a two-person international book club with Dez Cardena.

i was reading A Fan's Notes and he took an interest, so i gave him the book when i'd finished it and he's sending me some books from the states.

utterly pointless.

utterly enjoyable.

But, back to the point of my tale...

the band left the venue in Manchester in full make-up and costume.

i got to the shitty premier inn hotel about half an hour later to find the band waiting at the front desk, seated neatly in a line, surrounded by their HUGE crew.

it was 1am, not the time you'd expect a hotel lobby to be busy.

but thankfully that night Take That had played in town.

cue thousands upon thousands of horny thirty year old women who threw their knickers at them the first time round and aren't ashamed to do it again.

cue forty or so inebriated women milling around the lobby and the adjoining bar.

each one equally confused by the middle aged men in full make up and stud covered leather jackets.

from outside i could see straight through the glass doors to the front desk, each member of the band perfectly framed by the poorly dressed women surrounding them.

Shit.

The other day i saw a seagull eating a pigeon.

totally wish i had my camera then.

went back with my camera and the pigeon and seagull were long gone.

Where am i?

2009-06-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

Sitting in a stinking corner of some dingy English venue, illuminated by a solitary desklight.

I can't leave the booth, and i forgot to bring my book down, so i'm forced to write.

Way back in America i tried drawing to alleviate the boredom, but i couldn't think what to draw and ended up doing doodles that sent me insane.

I've been writing and re-writing about the states since about midway through the trip, and i still can't think of anything to say that summarises that place.

I can't even remember what i did out there.

Only that i bought a lot of cameras and leafed through a million tshirts.

I took a ton of photos but i never felt like i was capturing the moment.

I hated being aware of the fact that i'd never live those moments again.

I tried out different cameras and different words but none of them seemed to fit.

Everyday was a miniature adventure that contained the same things.

(am pausing... there are a bunch of louts buying tshirts)

Thrift store.

Lunch.

Shower.

Alcohol.

Bar.

Bed?

What a way to see America, and we did see it;

through the bus window and in insane taxi rides to the parts of town with thrift stores.

Every morning i'd wake up to a different landscape, and more often that not a different timezone.

There are precious few moments to yourself on tour, excluding sleep, and a few of us learnt to get up early and sit in relative calm until the sweaty heat kicked in.

I'd try and listen to music, the same music i'd listen to in the uk but somehow different because i was finally in the place where the music was from. (yeah i listen to a lot of america music..)

I kind of get why so much music about rebelling and saying au revoir to your hometown comes from the states.

Fuck.

Albuquerque.

High crystal meth usage.

Lots of chainstores.

Nothing else.

I can't even begin to imagine growing up there. I wonder if anyone does.

I hope that everyone lives nearby, in some sort of green oasis that is nothing like the hot concrete of Albuquerque.

My main memory of that horrid place was walking back from the record store and realising we had come from street number seven thousand and something, to three thousand and something. What an incredible distance by english standards.

(i'm fed up of fat girls asking what size i think they'd wear)

The best thing about Albuquerque (apart from the three metal shirts i bought) was the fact that whenever anyone asked what i actually thought of America, i could use Albuquerque as a my low point. And then say everything else was great by comparison.

This was mainly useful in the more southern parts, when i was in awe of the states but not as in love as i was by the end.

And i was, completely, i guess i still am.

I've had a couple of weeks in england and i'm done.

I've been here for 23 years, i think it's time to try something new.

I love being on tour, being at home is so mundane, i enjoyed mundane for a while, but i'm ready to do something.

And the only way to be on tour at the moment, it seems, is to sell tshirts. Which, as far as i can tell, seems to involve getting paid five times as much as waitressing to hang out and have fun, then sell stuff for a few hours whilst listening to great music and sipping on free alcohol.

Life is sweet.

(reading back on this whole bit of writing and have no idea if there was any point to it whatsoever. oh god. oh well)

You can't beat that...

2009-01-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

feeling when you find a disposable camera with half the shots used that you didn't even know you had.

Secret crowds rise up and gather...

2009-01-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

The three places i spend most of my time.

more adventures behind the lens of an idiot.

2009-01-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

Somehow every shot i take looks like an emo album cover.

I blame the square proportions of the film.

Seriously.

T'wasn't me.

Fuck, the need for money and possibly a job is overwhelming.

I'm going to drive across wild america and visit every hick joint around sometime in the summer. As far as i can tell one requires money to fly there in the first place. Lame.

Feeling a late lamentation for the astoria. I went to my first London gig there when i was 16.

I believe that was for TBS. Sadly enough.

Anyway, i walked past it the other day and felt unnecessarily sad for all of the memories which the walls hold.

It boggles my mind to think of who's played there over the years. And it makes me wish i'd taken some better shots when I was wandering around the empty corridors when the horrors played there.

Was there a time when rhetoric was not enough?

2009-01-21T13:24:00.001-08:00

A couple of portraits from the moors.

Fuck, literally half of my pictures are from the moor.

Seriously, go there. IT.WILL.TAKE.YOUR.BREATH.AWAY.

We're emblematic of the unknown

2009-01-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not even sure how to explain this image.

I had an urge to cover mark in paint.

I guess it's because i see him making an effort to look good everyday. You know, washing, blow-drying, straightening, dressing etc.

I wanted to take all of that away. Every bit of security.

It's weird because i've known him for years but i found little I could recognise about him when his features were taken away.

He's almost become an illustration.

I wanted to do this with more boys but the whole thing was a little sexual so I probably won't.

And now i've written that I defo can't.

People will know I'm a perve.

if a man could muster the guts to move a few thousand miles...

2009-01-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

I got a camera for christmas, a diana f+.

it's along the same lines as a holga but as far as i can tell it's a little harder to use.

anyway, here's some of my first pictures from it.

am getting a black and white roll developed on monday so i'll put the others up then.

so i'm reading a new book at the moment.

i ended up reading the last one (on post-war japanese music) for ages because i couldn't get my head around the names. it was good, but not an easy read.

so i headed to the bookshop and veered away from my usual path of factual books.

and from my usual path of embarrassing books.

so i'm reading 'the rum diary' by Hunter S. Thompson.

and it's amazing.

i started it about five days ago and i'm kind of sad that i'm nearly finished.

i'm not really sure how to describe it but it has a great description of some sweaty on-the-beach sex.

most commonly used word in the book: rum.

sweet.

for once i'm at ease with recommending it.

because for once i'm sure that the author isn't a half-wit music journalist from new york.

i was a little unwilling to read the book because i can't watch the whole of fear and loathing.. because it annoys me. i'm not a fan or acid/mushrooms/etc in real life and to have to watch it on the tv seems only to make it worse.

having said that, i've never read the book. maybe i should.

maybe.

anyway, this was a banal blog entry.

apologies for that.

go read a book and forget about it.

2009-01-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

i wish i had a knife.

not a big one.

maybe one a couple of inches in length that flicks out from an ivory casing.

i only need it to be long enough to put through someone's hand and affix it to the armrest of the seat next to me.

i find myself fantasizing about my lightning fast reactions when the delinquent parallel to me decides to rummage in my bag.

it'd be so fast.

his hand would be there and before the sound of my knife opening had even passed his ears it would be in his palm.

hopefully i'd miss the delicate bones and plunge through easily into the grey plastic on the other side.

pretty soon velvety blood would flow out in evil juxtaposition against the muted tones of his pallid flesh.

i'd love to see the arrogance drain from his expression.

he wouldn't expect such a strong reaction from me.

i've got my headphones on but the volume is low so i can hear him and his lump of a girlfriend talking.

they keep looking at me and saying retarded stuff about the book i'm reading.

inside i'm divided by the desire to applaud his ability to read five words in large capitals and the need to sink lower into my seat.

his movements are so animated and using my peripheral vision i can see that this is his clandestine attempt at impressing his 'bird'.

his right hand flits between her left breast and his (no doubt tiny) groin.

i'm also pretty sure he's high.

he has a large lucozade sports bottle, one of the ones designed to clip into bikes, and that undoubtedly came free with an item of similarly depressing sportswear.

i feel a twinge of regret as i am too ashamed to tend to my tamagotchi, and it's gentle bleeps are informing me that it's lunchtime.

not only this but my bag (in which my pet is contained) is to the left of me, and therefore closest to the ape. as previously mentioned i fear he is after my bag and i dread to think of the abuse he will reign on little tama.

his arrogance is what makes me so angry; every piece of his body language sends out a threatening signal.

i'm not joking he actually just made a shooting gesture with his hands.

it may or may not have been directed at a passing toddler.

i can hear the words 'emo' and 'goth' flitting through the stagnant air. though the latter has all but disappeared since i got this notebook out.

if only they knew i'm listening to ambient experimental college rock circa D.C. 1994.

fuck.

i hate the fact that due to this dufus my heart rate has been at twice its normal rate for the past two hours. i wonder how fast his stoney heart would race if i plunged a blade into his hand?

however, i don't have said weapon, but i do have (hopefully) more active brain cells.

i've subtly hooked my bag strap over my arm and hidden my ipod touch near the window.

i've also been told i have sharp elbows.

more photos coming imminently.

How to be an optimist...

2009-01-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

On boxing day we went for a walk on the beach.

It'd never been so busy down there and the lanes were rammed with grockles who couldn't reverse.

The sun was shining in my eyes and the dirt on my windscreen stopped me from seeing anything so we drove blind most of the way.

I always forget how amazing the seaside is in the winter.

The waves kick off spray and crash against the rocks like mad because of the offshore wind.

The sand flew around my legs and got into my eyes.

I got caught up running onto rocks and waiting for the waves to break against them.

Sometimes the water flows all around the chosen rock and you are briefly stranded.

Up on the hillside the crowds thin down so for a while it was just the three of us and a field of brocolli.

My mum and i talked about how no one could think about their problems up there because it is just so breathtaking. I agreed with her but i read in the local newspaper that two people killed themselves near there a few days later.

Whenever i come home from london i either go to the beach or the moors. The wind blows through you and it feels like everything you were worried about in life went with it.

Not that i ever worry about stuff.

Just stupid shit like whether i'm going to stand on a dead body when i'm surfing or how to make my chin appear smaller.

You know, not big things.

But even my chin-related worries can be banished by the south devon wind.

omg i found the deadest fox ever today up the hill from our village.

It was so mangled by the passing tractors that i initially thought it was a rabbit.

But it's red fur gave it away.

I'm not joking when i say that its paws were flattened to about two millimeters thick and it's skull was about two centimeters (the skull, by the by, was still a bit furry and about ten meters up the road).

A bit further along i found a dead robin.

It looked fine though, like it had just fallen out of the sky.

CRIMBO DEAD ANIMAL COUNT:

1 x fox

1 x robin red breast

2 x toad

I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean.

2009-01-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

some film fuck ups.

old cameras do this sometimes. mine does it a lot.

i'm going to save these in a special file and think of a reason why they're good.

Hoods on peregrine.

2009-01-01T16:13:00.001-08:00

2008-12-25T16:25:00.000-08:00

it's christmas day and i'm sitting in the passenger seat of my mums bmw. the strokes are playing on radio one which is not very festive. but the interior of the car is deep red so i feel like i'm sitting inside a cranberry. gross but seasonal.

i did the same thing last year but the year before i went in with my mum. when i wrote 'in' i realised i never said why i am spending one of the most important days of the year in a car.

first off, i'm stationary, and the car is too.

second, we (the car and i) are sitting on lower warbury road in torquay.

we're looking out through the houses across the tree-lined bay. the view is spoilt slightly (massively?) by a grotesque tower block someone thought would blend in with the victorian seaside villas.

Torquay is a shithole.

it's tourists are brain-dead apes in kappa and its residents seem to fare no better.

i think my maternal grandparents came here for their honeymoon back when this was deemed a half-decent place to holiday.

i guess that's why my grandparents moved to nearby Kingswear around the time i was born.

(for most of us, the term 'English Riviera' shoots horror into our minds, but not for the older generation.)

they lived in the same house by the woods for years, and for a while my granddad was mayor.

a couple of years ago they sold the house to downsize and my granddad just managed to move his life in before he went into hospital and never came out.

(fuck scouting for girls is playing)

and that's why i'm sitting in the car writing on my knee.

my grandmother moved into a home because my granddad couldn't look after her.

she never moved into their new house but her stuff is still there. it's not arranged how it was at their old house.

it's more practical.

it's wierd cos it's the same items but there's nothing the same. it feels different.

so i came to visit my grandmother properly the christmas after he died. it had only been a few months since i'd seen her but she didn't know me. since then i've sat patiently in the car, filling my mind with useless shit and thinking about everything but how horrid my mum must feel in the building behind me.

but i never look behind me. it's depressing.

ps the new Death Cab album rules.

You've got all the friends you need, bad tattoos and worse IDs.

2008-12-24T15:50:00.000-08:00

I don't have any pictures to post.

This is partly because i'm stone broke (£5.27p) til roughly the sixth day of 2009.

But mainly because i couldn't transport my bulky negative scanner on the 11.06am from london paddington to totnes.

I didn't bring a camera either, but luckily i left my old zenit 11 (we were born the same year) on my shelf here. But the light meter's broken, and i left mine in london, so i'm just gonna guess and hope that i don't screw up the film.

Fuck, bruce springsteen is on the radio singing some christmas song (santa claus is coming?). I hate that man's voice. i find this annoying because i'm pretty certain he writes good songs but i just can't get past his forced croak of a vocal style.

Apparently it's the last song before it's officially christmas, i hope that christmas day ends in a better way. if it had to end with a song then i guess it should come from my top christmas pop songs list; which goes something like this:

1. Wham - last christmas

2. Mariah Carey - all i want for christmas

i haven't got any further. but at least two people have agreed with me on the list so far.

Back to the cameras/lack of photos being put up.

Actually fuck it i'll put up one i scanned before i left that doesn't fit anywhere. Actually i might put up two. who knows.

what's most annoying about being here/without my camera stuff/without my scanner is that i seem to get the most ideas when i can't do anything.

i have to write it all down, so i'm using the book i normally use to write down blog stuff in (i can't write on a computer, the words don't flow) to draw shit.

At the moment this seems to be clowns and smileys.

There is a reason for this but i'm not going to try and explain myself i'll just hope i still like the idea when i get the chance to shoot it.

it feels like a really emo idea, maybe some shit emo band will want to use my picture as a cover and then i can realise my dream of just all round having the worst taste in everything.

Mark's uncle died yesterday, i feel somewhat helpless because i'm in devon and he's in london and trains aren't running and i can't tell him how to make it better. my only ideas about death come from beloved chickens being eaten and cats being given the lethal injection for no particular crime.

i could avoid making the call i promised him at midnight by writing, but i should go and make unhelpful comments instead.

Look forward to seeing what shit photography i produce from this trip.

So drop me a line with a hook and some raw bleeding bait

2008-12-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

ebay

2008-11-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Finally decided to change my oh-so-embarassing username i've had since i was 16.
Woop woop, i thought.
I'll change it to emilyrotter, but oh no. Some dimwit already has the name?
Seriously?
It's not a real name.
Is someone buying quality music with my name?
Ebay is good for one thing and one thing only.
Finding rare vinyl versions of emo albums.
They love the 7"s.
But i guess 15 yr olds don't own record players, so they don't like to waste cash on gatefolds to often.
I really want a copy of white drugs (the bronx) on 12", the cover is totally cool and the music is better. Doesn't exist. WTF.

I hate internet cafes.

2008-10-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

I'm watching mark play the new Star Wars game. I've got crappy music on so he's got my headphones plugged into the television. This means he speaks really fucking loudly every so often but spends most of his time in silence interspersed with grunts of joy. It also means that whenever i get up to change the record i can scare him by tapping him. I think i will never get bored of this.
I'm also still obsessed with the book i just read. And having finished it i feel like my best friend's just started ignoring my calls.
By nature i am not very deep, so i rely on books and music and very occasionally art to make me think about stuff more. Anyway, Chuck has an interesting theory on love, and it makes me think...
"there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occured. The person is real, and the feelings are real - but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."

This book is better than emo.
You see, i always thought i won.
Because out of that experience i realised what love wasn't supposed to be.
Drama is exciting. But no one wants to be excited all the time. The most retarded thing about the whole saga was that the un-named didn't want to be with me properly because he was sure i would cheat. This alone doesn't sound retarted but is when you take into account the fact that he was very much in a relationship with someone else.
I've never cheated (this doesn't count my fat, disabled boyfriend when i was 16), i don't like it and no one wins. This idea that i was unable to be faithful has been brought up by someone else. He was also wrong and also of the opinion that he was too good for me. Another hugely untrue 'fact'.
Back to the person who shaped my idea of love. Another reason i won is that out of that came mark, and we would never have come about if it weren't for the other guy. On top of that, i would have made the best girlfriend, and i think i've proved that i can stay faithful. He hasn't.
I love books, they make me think of stuff that would never have occured to me.

We are nowhere and it's now.

2008-10-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure i have bad taste.
In pretty much everything.
Except maybe clothes, but that's only because in that respect i look like everyone else, and i buy my clothes from the same shops in London as everyone else does.
I'm at ease with my questionable taste. But it poses problems.
For instance, if someone asks me to recommend a game, i feel bad doing it.
Because the chances are, they'll shell out forty quid and hate what i chose.
Same goes for music. Obviously. I mean, i fucking love a lot of the same music my peers do. You know, punk, post-punk, new-wave, no-wave, rocknroll, all that. But i spend most of my time listening to people from Shitsville, USA. singing about girls and screwing over/getting screwed over by best friends.
I'm thinking about this because i've spent the last two days reading a book that i can't put down. I'm so fucking inspired by it that i'm writing this in a notebook because i don't have the internet yet. I feel retarded writing in a notebook for two reasons; a) it's been a while since i've used a pen for anything more than jotting down times and places, so i pretty much can't spell or write, and b) it feels like a diary, and i am not a teenager anymore. I suppose i could add another reason, which is that i'm doing so whilst listening to Jimmy Eat World, which makes me so emo i don't even want to think about it. This, though, is made slightly better by the fact that it's a record (slightly cooler) and also the album 'Futures', which although infinitely less angsty than 'BLeed American', is definitely about drugs. Which is way more grown up than girls. Right?
Back to the book.
I've just finished it and i feel slightly empty. What i expected was to be a story of the author's travels across America visiting famous rocknroll death sites turned out to be more about his sinical views on life, lov and music culture. When i read a book, i fold the bottom corners of the pages up when i like a bit of the writing especially. And at the end i've folded up a record number.
Not that i talk about books much with my friends (it's usually music and whoever we hate most at that point in time), but despite how much i loved this book, i'm never going to recommend it. Even the author admits that most book enthusiasts slate his style of writing.
On one of my folded pages is this:
"Art and love are the same thing: it's the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you. It's understanding the unreasonable."
This sounds pseudo-intelligent, but don't be fooled. These few sentences were preceeded by how he can relate every romantic encounter to a member of kiss. But i guess this sort of shows why i like this book (scrap that, i love it), i know it's not the most intellectual red but it reacts with my memories and even though the author is a sinical thirty year old from New Yord i fucking agree with him. Everything he rambles on about that has shit all to do with the book i can relate to.
Even though i've never experienced it.
In that respect i'm painfully aware that this book is one big TBS record.
I get it.
It pulls at my mind and my heart, and for that reason no one else will agree.

I'm listening to TBS right now, but i'm thinking about Jimmy Eat World. 'Bleed American' used to be my favourite album. I'm not sure it is anymore, and if asked i would lie and say something inspired like Tuxedo Moon, but i'm sure it's something embarassing.
Anyway, whatever comes nd goes i'm still positive that every situation i encounter can be described by a song on it.
I guess everyone has an album like that.
I guess most peoples are something far more credible.
I also guess that the people i experience most of these situations with would be offended by the fact that i can always relate them to the words of a monobrowed overweight ugly from Arizona. There's one song on that album that i can't listen to anymore because it will only ever remind me of one time in my life. Which is dumb because i only ever wanted the situation to be like the song, whereas in reality it was the other way round.
I've bought two more books, but i don't want to read them til i've got the other one out of my head.
Which could be a while.
It's called Killing Yourself To Live.
And it's by Chuck Klosterman.
And i'm 85% sure it's the best book i've ever read.

Isolation continued...

2008-09-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

Aberdeen and Dartmoor.
Two of the most oppressive, depressing and inspiring places I have yet to visit.

Death (what a motherfucker)....

2008-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

My ritualistic obsession with making my loved ones act out my morbid fantasies is neverending.
Death is funny sometimes. At least there can be humour.
Fuck, lastfm keeps on bringing up the most depressing songs.

I hate this everything looks too small.

Thinking about isolation...

2008-09-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

These are some old pictures but they started me on the idea of isolation and its different forms.
I guess everyone feels it sometimes.
Sometimes you can find it in the most unlikely places.
Like love's twisted twin.
Anyway, these were the start of it.

message in a bottle...

2008-09-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

fuck. i'm drunk and alone in my bedroom watching bad rock on david letterman and i check my myspace inbox to see if i've got any mail (i never do).

sent a couple of the pictures from the Astoria TBS gig to their myspace account and actually got a reply back, saying:

"These are awesome thanks!

tbs"

sick.
i feel like a giddy teen getting a standard mail out from a New Kids On The Block fan club.

I might have a bath to cool down.

Taking Back Sunday

2008-09-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Guilty pleasures never seem to go away.

Mine is Taking Back Sunday.

First gig in London I ever went to was one of theirs at the Astoria, and the last gig I shall ever see at the Astoria was them also.

Let down by the fact that my last remaining teen crush had a visible boxer short line halfway down his leg. Not cool. Wear small pants for christ's sake. It's only 45mins of your life.

Slightly depressing to be pretty much the oldest person there by five years.

Anyway, here's the pictures from it. When I was a teenager I really wanted to be a live music photographer but then everyone went digital except me so I stopped, luckily I still seem to have the knack.

Offset.

2008-09-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

Good day. No rain. Ran out of film before the day of rain.

Our time was spent not watching bands and not believing that that boring band playing were Wire.

Best thing ever = crap fairground rides.
Two pounds for the biggest slice of joy I have ever ingested. The g-force ruined my neck beyond belief but it was worth it.
Best thing about the waltzer was the tattoo-ed teenager undulating across the boards.

Scream if you want to go faster.
My voice is spent.

First Posts First..

2008-09-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

Have absolutely no clue what to write here...
I guess this thing will just be full up with shots I've taken of my life and various projects I'm working on.
Yeah, so take a look at whatever I put up here.
Fuck knows, I hate most of it the minute it's done.
Whatever.

Over and out.