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Frog’n’Dog Make Sweet Music Together

When I turned thirty-two years old I believed that life had passed me by.  That most of my dreams were destined to remain unfulfilled, and that I had to somehow find a way to carry on regardless.  One of those dreams was a dream shared by millions of people who sing, dance and scream on this glorious ball of mud and molten lava which we call home.  And that dream is called rock and roll.

The biggest obstacle in the way of my dream was the fact that when I sing I sound like a hippopotamus giving birth on the banks of the Zambezi river, when I play the few chords on the guitar which I know the neighbourhood dogs start jumping from their balconies and when I break dance I, well, erm, break stuff.  The only thing which ever gave me any hope was my love for words.

A few months ago I had an invitation to meet a singer who had just started recording a rock album with his band here in Poland.    All I knew was that he was looking for help to make an English album.  I was curious, but also apprehensive as I really didn’t have any idea what I was letting myself in for.  However the fire, the dream, the sheer minute possibility that it could happen was enough motivation to kick me up the arse and get me to meet him.  We ate, drank, talked, drank, talked and listened to his album.  Within thirty seconds of listening to the first song I had a big smile on my face.  After the third track I recall whispering to my fiancée one simple word, ‘fuck yes!’

frogndogThe band go by the name of ‘Frog’n’Dog’, which incidentally is the apt nicknames of the singer and the guitarist.  They are currently putting the finishing touches to their debut Polish album.  As far as the plan goes, in the summer they will record the English album, which they will release this coming autumn.  In the meantime they are starting to play gigs here in Poland before they set out to conquer Europe.

This is the beginning of a journey which I am absolutely delighted to be joining them on.  Never in my dreams did I ever expect that I would ever work with such a group of fantastic musicians on a project with amazing potential.  2013 in the chinese calendar is the year of ‘Frog’n’Dog’.  Don’t just take my word for it, check them out.

Like Frog’n’Dog on Facebook 

Why not listen to a fragment in polish?

Mariusz, Me, Janek, Marcin and Maciek.

Crystal Balls

Recently, I finally got to see the band I’ve been writing for play live.  If their debut gig was anything to go by I am very optimistic about the future.  It also gave me a chance to meet the rest of the band and learn of their plans. Regarding the album I have been working on, the bad news is that it won’t be recorded until summer.  The good news is that it looks as if I will have three more songs to write.  They plan to launch the album in autumn, so we have quite a wait ahead of us.

In the meantime I am beavering away on my next novel.  I am probably 40% done.  Editing is a lonely, thankless task which I am particularly slow and not particularly meticulous at.  I can’t wait to finish this part.  Next I shall pass it on to a very good friend of mine who worked on ‘Existence Is Futile’ and ‘The Story of Albert Ross’ with me.  Then and only then, after his hyphen-addicted eagle eyes have given the text the once over will I decide what I will do with it.

Thankfully distractions are never hard to come by, and I have had plenty lately.  I recently received an awesome review from K.S Marsden, author of ‘The Shadow Rises’.  I did something I seldom feel compelled to do and wrote a review of a book entitled ‘The Birdman Cycle’ by Thomas Rose-Masters.  Additionally, I have seen the first illustrations for my book of ‘new-age’ fairy tales, and am very impressed.  And finally I have been helping a certain Senor Elbuho move into his brand new internest.  He still has a few things to unpack, but as soon as he is ready I am sure he will post something on Facebook.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted to introduce you to Alejandro Jorge Pedro Maria Elbúho, a humble Menorcan owl, who has wisely devoted his life to hunting adventures.  I know what you are thinking, it rhymes with hot da duck.

We met Alejandro in Menorca where we holidayed last summer.  The moment we saw him on a market stall we were immediately dazzled by his awesomeness.  The first thing was how handsome he looked, hanging from a peg and swaying in the breeze.  We were immediately struck by a wave of inspiration.  The inspiration came from ‘Up In The Air’ literally.  The hollywood film of course.  One of the subplots involves George Clooney travelling around America with a cardboard cutout of his sister and her husband, taking the honeymoon snaps they could never afford.  With that in mind we decided that for the remainder of our holiday we would take pictures of Alejandro everywhere we went.  We were quite unsure why, and most certainly concerned that we had both perhaps lost our minds.  Simply put, we had a vague idea that we would use the photos for some kind of travel blog.

After experimenting with different blogging sites we settled on a layout on posterous.  Where for sometime we quite regularly added pictures along with short explanations of Alejandro’s story in ‘Owlglish’.  We also created a Facebook group for him.  Initially we wanted to see if the power of the internet would turn Alejandro into a celebrity.  However for reasons we could never figure, it didn’t.  As our complete failure came home us, we slowly lost interest in the project and stopped updating his blog.  We simply left him hanging on the coat rack of failure, waiting for a better day.

Recently we have decided to reactivate his blog.  And to publicise him too.  As we feel he is just too damned awesome to be forgotten.  We still have a stockpile of photos from Menorca and a few other places and it seems a shame to waste them.  So Alejandro is back and as he would say ‘ready for big adventure’.

Alejandro Jorge Pedro Maria Elbúho’s travel blog on Posterous

Alejandro Jorge Pedro Maria Elbúho’s fanpage on Facebook

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Today will go down in my own personal history as notable for two reasons.  Firstly, because today I failed my driving test.  And secondly because today is the day that I launch the next phase of my plan to take over the world, albeit by public transport.  I hope that this day will be as memorable as the day I met a man who claimed that he was Jesus, at Cheshunt railway station, as either its special, or a sign of madness.

A quick glance at your browser will confirm that you are visiting my new home in cyberspace, scottandrews.co.uk. Take a look around, feel free to let me know your thoughts on the new design and layout by clicking on one of the comment bubbles.  Not only have I launched the new site today, but I have also launched a new official Facebook page.  I know what some of you will be thinking:  Do these changes have a point? Or are these the actions of a man on one hell of an ego trip?  The truth is quite probably a little of both.

The reason for this reinvention is the fact that I am now involved in a number of different projects and I needed to redesign the blog to accommodate all of my future masterpieces.  As wonderful as the ‘Existence Is Futile’ Facebook page is, I don’t want to spam the likers with information which doesn’t relate to the book.  That’s why I have started an author page.

At this point I cannot say too much about my new projects.  As each of them progresses I will be able to provide more and more details on them.  For now I can say that I am engaged in editing my next novel.  Presently, I do not have an agreement to publish it with anyone, so it still is a while away.  I can tell you that I have written lyrics for an album for a rock band.  Currently, they haven’t yet been recorded.  I have appeared in a podcast with someone much more famous than me.  At the moment I have no idea when it will be released.  I have started developing a film with a Polish director.  And in the coming weeks I expect to begin work on revising a collection of modern fairy tales in co-operation with a Danish illustrator, aswell as reactivating a humourous travel blog of sorts.

As I hope you can see from the list above, I am entering a very busy period of my life.  It’s for exactly this reason that I will be cutting back on blog posts.  Instead I will be blogging a kind of working journal regarding all the different baskets I currently have eggs in.  Additionally, I will be maintaining the ‘Existence Is Futile’ page aswell as updating the new official page when relevant.  And finally, yes, the ego has landed 😛

Vertigo Vertigoing Vertigone

Have you ever noticed how the truly arrogant souls amongst us do not suffer from vertigo?  It’s a miracle of science, or perhaps the omnipotent omnipresent deity that nobody who isn’t mental has ever met.  I’m quite amazed that they can see anything but darkness, considering their heads are so far up their own arses that they can taste yesterdays dinner.

You may be wondering what’s got my goat.  Nothing.  I don’t have a goat.  What I do have is a chip on my shoulder.  But then I’ve always been a messy eater.  Truly I am angry.  I hardly notice the difference anymore because I feel exactly the same way every single day.  I am angry at what our world has become, about what people have become and most of all I am angry about the way in which we admire others.

To borrow a phrase from another writer, we are the Pepsi generation.  The generation of brands before bands, of product before integrity, we have fully embraced the concept of manyana to match the death of human ambition.  And yet still we raise people up on pedestals and worship at their feet.  All the while we are waiting for them to fall. When they do, we cause a stampede as we run over their bodies, each footfall carefully aimed and we tear at their carcasses without every stopping to ask ourselves what the fuck are we doing?  Never once do we ask ourselves why we need heroes?  Deep down we know that by proving that our heroes are fallible, we somehow excuse our own shortcomings.  That if someone more intelligent, attractive and/or richer than you can’t resist stumbling down the local park and performing sex acts on homeless vagrants how could anyone expect you to?  If some middle-aged actor can’t turn down a big mac, how could you?  If some talented musician ends their own life because they were unhappy, how unhappy must you be with your lot in life.

We embrace weakness.  We celebrate it.  It comforts us, and wraps us in a warm blanket of our own shortcomings, where we can lay immobile without ever feeling the compulsion to try.  We have become obsessed with protecting our children from failure.  Failure has become a dirty word, one which we all do our level best to avoid.  And we are all well aware of what the best strategy is,  after all, how could anyone fail at anything, if they never ever try…