I got your number. I steal your thunder. I got your mother's maiden name tattoo'd on my arm.

We go from surgical scars in the last post, to scars of an altogether more ice-cream kind.
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(Thought I'd forgotten about the whole ice-cream/black dog thing didn't you? I had not. I just felt like neglecting it.)
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Had that done today, this evening. It's my 2nd tattoo, the previous one I had done about three years ago.






Course it's brand new so I can only show it to you wrapped up in clingfilm with its leaking, bloody edges. But I'm so fucking happy with how it turned out. I'd had this image in my mind for years, it's just perfect. I hope it heals this black.

The tattooist (at Into You in Farringdon) "Mr. X" was a real gent, obviously dedicated to his craft and happy to perform it. They played Apocalyptica and Clutch too, which helped the two hours pass smoothly.

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I guess within the tattoo community they cling to its Eastern spiritual properties, its ancient mysticism, but I for one can't get over seeing swastikas inked on people. In both places I've been worked on I've seen them prominantly on folk. It just doesn't sit well with me. It might be good to want to reclaim an emblem back from its sinister misuse, but I can't see it ever happening.

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'But Darth Vader used to be such a sweet name. My uncle was called Darth Vader and there was that singer we all liked called Darth Vader too. It's a good old fashioned name.'

'No. Honey, seriously. Everyone's calling their kids Han or Wedge now. You can't go calling a kid Darth Vader anymore.'

'Han is such a common name. This whole Alderaan business has gotten out of hand, I won't let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch. I like Darth Vader as a name. You know it means 'Lover of Horses'? What's so bad about a lover of horses, hmmm?'

'Can't we call him Porkins? That's a heroic name isn't it?'


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Enough.

So 2006 is over. I should really wrap up my retrospectives.

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Albums I can't really do a list for. I bought and heard so few actual 2006 releases, there'd be no point me trying to arrange the ones I liked into a list of five, as there are probably only four to begin with and two of them were film scores. I've bought predominantly older records from artists I already enjoy, and if any of them put something out this year, I'll probably not buy it until Fopp marks it down years from now.


Except 10,000 Days by Tool. 10,000 Days more than qualifies for my album of the year. It is one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's well within my top ten, and perhaps when I next revise my top five with any honesty, it'll be there too. I thought I was at (what a friend eloquently called) a musical impasse. That nothing new was going to capture my imagination the same way albums of my recent/distant youth did. I haven't 'lived' a record in years. Like so many others now I just absorb them into my shuffle. My musical hive. Even before the pod, I wasn't giving over weeks to the one record anymore. Something we all did when we were younger. I've lived 10,000 Days. I've put it on and played it all again and again since May and its power hasn't diminished. It's complex, epic, mesmeric and at times a bit, well, scary. It seems impenetrable at first. There's a lot of ambience, only half the album is 'song' per se, the rest is mood and interlude. And the songs themselves are strange. Time signatures that seem to alter two or three times a track. Thunderous anthemic riffs that flash in for a few bars and vanish for good, never repeated. Another metal band could take anyone of these riffs and make a four-minute stadium filler, but Tool seem to casually discard them and continue in more puzzling directions. It's nothing new if you know the band. It can even be called a formula in a peculiar way. But it's done to a breath-taking precision here. I was dumbstruck to see the band nail these songs twice this year (Download and again in Wembley a month or so ago.) I can barely hum segments of the album the structure is so obscure, and yet these guys don't miss a beat. The bassist probably can't even be killed unless by magic. Absolutely incredible.

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As for gigs, Download was a real blast this year. My praises go out to Metallica who played Master of Puppets in its entirety and after about 25 years of shows seem harder and faster and tighter and more fluid than just about everybody (and anything else that 'hard' 'fast' 'tight' and 'fluid' might suggest.) The reformed/re-fronted Alice In Chains exploded and it was clear to everyone they deserved more time on stage and higher billing. Clutch, Alexisonfire, Avenged Sevenfold, Trivium, motherfuckin' Down and the mighty, batshit, bloated Guns n' Roses all make the list. I had ice-cream time.

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This year has, at a surprise to me, been quite enjoyable. I got over something, perhaps understanding my place in things, perhaps a drug-inspired levity and reached out to friends of old and reminisced and not felt suffocatingly bitter about then or now. No disrespect to my current, sober, married companions, but I have missed talking about old times with people.

'Hey remember that time we saw Constantine and had Pizza afterwards?'

'I thought it was Wagamamas.'

'Was it? I thought it was pizza. Good times anyway.'

'I don't even like food.'

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I was also Best Man this year, and although I will grumble until the Apes take over about being denied my speech, it was still an honour unlike anything bestowed on me before and a proud moment. I will have to marry just so I can get the groom to make a fucking speech for me. It'll be the only thing anyone says out loud at the reception. No parents. No me. Just the best man. It says on the programme you're speaking for twenty minutes. Too late. I've printed it. Get writing.

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I lost a job and got eventually got one I really enjoy with a desk I can call my own and some responsibilty and cash to go with it. And I've started to move away from considering myself a depressive and instead trying to get on with things.

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I found some mojo, in a bottle, remember?

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So yeah, the online dating thing was little more than one anecdote no more interesting than the date itself and a celebration of how awkward the monsterwork/Girl equation is. 20 year old goth girls telling me they find my profile attractive? Let me blab and shit all over that mistake, my dear and send you running. And NYE was my in my bed with my iPod on. I was dead fucking lazy too. Things I claim to do with my time - Five a Side, my Comic - I did hardly anything about.

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But so fucking what? It was a good year. Decent. It was 'The Rocketeer'. Not Raiders of the Lost Ark, sure. But not Tomb Raider either.

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Anyway. This is the year Chinese Democracy comes out. Mark my words. This is it.