5. Marlon Brando

I have to confess that up until a few years ago I’d never watched a Marlon Brando film. It was only until I discovered that my favourite actor, (you’ll find out who he is in a moment) based his own career upon Brando’s and, I’ve heard, would bombard his agent with calls. Brando was one of the biggest sex symbols during the 50’s, and in my opinion, one of the greatest actors. His performances in A Streetcar Named Desire and many years later in The Godfather blow me away.

4. James Stewart

I can’t say much about James Stewart, to be honest, I don’t know much. All I know is he was a fantastic actor and, my God, Christmas for me is not Christmas without watching It’s A Wonderful Life.

3. Christian Bale

I love the intensity Christian Bale brings to his roles. I really, really admire the effort and preparation he puts into his roles, and the extremes he’ll go to to portray the character convincingly.

2. Leonardo DiCaprio

No, he’s not here just because of his looks. Yes, he is lovely to look at. But what I love about this man is how well he can delve into a character. I admire the fact he’s managed to break away from the typecast “pretty boy” roles he’d accepted in the 90’s; Titanic, Romeo + Juliet, etc. If you’ve not seen Blood Diamond, I highly recommend it.

1. James Dean

James Dean, for me, is one of the greatest people to ever happen to acting. He managed to portray that side of teenage life that nobody had dared admit, let alone act. He knew what to portray and how to do it. He was a troubled man, and channelled that anger and lonliness into his acting. Unfortunately his death at 24 put an end to any hopes of James Dean starring in another masterpiece, perfecting the role he had earned. As sad as his death at such a young age was, he will be forever young, and the world will remember him for the star he was.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009.
11.06 am.

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
  She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
  Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
  Ladies and gentlement of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”

28 September, 2009.
3.20 pm

Dear Lauren,

First of all, let me ask for your forgiveness. I can never forgive myself for letting us drift apart when you moved schools. This is just something I have to let you know so I can move on or forgive myself. I don’t know which. I want to apologise on behalf of the ignorant fools who knew you who wanted to make rumours and spew disgusting comments about your death to cause even more shock amongst us. If I’m honest, you weren’t a saint, you had your flaws just like ever human being does, but nobody deserves to have such rumours spread about them. This is something so many people do, they turn people into saints in death, only praising them, never addressing their mistakes and forgetting about them until they become some sort of immortalised saint. But nobody, alive or not, deserves things to be made up about them. The thing that hurts and offends me most is that people said these things because they knew none of us can hear your voice anymore so you can’t argue back. And hell, you would!
I have dreams about you, some I remember, there’s probably many I don’t. I get told that when you dream about someone who has passed over, it’s their way of communicating with you. I’m not sure if it’s true. One of the first dreams I had about you, I was breaking down about you, ranting at a teacher that they didn’t understand what I was feeling. Then all of a sudden, you were there and laughing, hugging me and it seemed so real that when I woke up I had tears in my eyes.
In my last dream you were telling me how much you miss your mum and dad and Iain. It breaks my heart, it really does. I admire your family for remaining so strong. I know the pain I feel every day for you must be multiplied to unimaginable levels for your family. For them to be able to go on living every day without you, is admirable. The odd times I drive past your house I think about the day I spent there that’s always stuck out in my mind, even before you died. We laughed so much and we were so excited because we were going into secondary school. I tell everybody my fondest memory of you: Your oldest best friend Claire came to have dinner with us and your mum called her chair by accident. I still laugh so hard.
It just breaks my heart that I can’t change things. I have to tell you I have so many questions running through my mind every single hour of every day. Some are morbid, I admit. I wonder if the few split moments before you died if you knew what was happening. I wonder if you screamed. I wonder if it just happened so quickly you had no idea. I hope it did, I really do.
From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry I rarely talk about you to people. I have many reasons not to, but I have a million why I should. If everyone talks about you then your memory will go on. Nobody will ever forget you, but it’s so easy to feel like they will if you don’t hear them talking about you. I can’t. I find it so hard… part of me doesn’t want to burden anyone with my grief, and in these times you know there’s not many people left for me to talk to that are willing to sit and listen.
I miss you more than I could even attempt to explain. Every time I pass vaseline in the shops or see somebody using it, I think of you. It’s what reminds me of you the most. You always had a bloody big tub of vaseline in your bag. I remember you would sit in class and put it on and if I caught your eye you would just grin. God, I miss seeing that grin so much. And your laugh! Man, I can never place the little things but when I do it hurts even more.
I understand every inch of this letter is probably so cliche, so overdone, but I guess that’s what grief is. I’ve said before that the pain doesn’t get easier, it just becomes something you adjust to.
I say it all the time but I will never forget you. I had some amazing memories of you and as long as they remain in my head, I don’t have to blurt them out to everybody to feel like you’ll be remembered. I’ll see you someday, I just know it. We’ll catch up and then you’ll laugh at how much you made everyone cry. I just always wonder where you are now, what you’re doing, if you can really hear us when we talk about you or know when we think about you. Sometimes the curiosity is so strong I just want to leave and join you to see what happens. I won’t, I’ll wait for my time.
Lauren, you are an angel. When we see each other next time, I’ll bring some vaseline. I will never forget you as long as I live. Not even when I die. I love you so much. I miss you.
All my love,

Lisa

“If you never say goodbye to the best thing in your life, there are things you don’t appreciate at all.”

“We all lose friends.. we lose them in death, to distance and over time. But even though they may be lost, hope is not. The key is to keep them in your heart, and when the time is right, you can pick up the friendship right where you left off. Even the lost find their way home when you leave the light on.” - Amy Marie Walz

Sunday, 27 September, 2009.
11.29 pm.

First things first, this is not going to be a cheerful post. It’s just somewhere I can vent my feelings and my frustration. I try to hold off making posts like this but it gets to the point where I have no option but to write it down.
At this moment in time I feel like I have barely anyone in my life who is willing to acknowledge me as a friend anymore. Those of my dearest friends who have gone on to University seem to have shunned me. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. I know that people make new friends and lead new lives, I understand that. I just feel that in this day and age, with all of these social networking sites they spend so much time on, it’s not that hard to let someone know you’re still there.
I’m actually only talking about one particular person, the one I was closest to. I’ve always been warned this would happen, that I would be dropped like a hot piece of metal and then picked up again when they needed me. I’ve always shrugged it off until now, now it’s true, I wish I’d listened. I wish I’d prepared for the rejection.
Maybe I’m just over analysing because I’m so stressed out at the moment. I don’t know whether I could say I’m depressed. I’m certainly sad. I’m getting sadder by the day if I’m honest. It doesn’t help that I’m struggling to find a job and have absolutely no inspiration to write right now. The struggle to find a job is laying heavy on my shoulders. I feel like such a burden. When the phone rings during the day and I answer I feel like I’m worth nothing, being home during the day and having nothing to do. Normally I would hang out with my friends and things would change, but I can’t. They won’t give a damn about me anymore unless something bad happens to me or they need me to lean on. And I can’t shun someone the way they have done me, and so I let them come running. 
They said they would invite me to their new city for their birthday coming up, yet I’ve heard from them once. I’m starting to doubt their promise, and I’ll bet any amount of money they’ll only still invite me so they can get a present off me, and to let me know how they don’t need me and how much fun they’re having without me. You guys might think I sound like a jealous wanker, and yes, I am a little jealous, I admit, but I know this person better than I know myself, and that is what they would do. I’m jealous because they have something to get up for in the morning, they have people to be around. I’m starting to really dislike this person but I still love them with all my heart because of all the years we spent as friends and laughing together. Even though the past few months I’ve realised how nasty they can be while I’ve had to sit back and watch what they’ve done to other people and look them in the eyes like nothing has happened and they haven’t betrayed them.
Fuck this. I’m a good friend, I’m a good person if I may blow my own horn. I’m not saying “they can’t live without me, they’re not allowed to laugh without me”, but it would not kill them to take two minutes out of their alcohol consuming schedule to let me know they’re there.
I don’t like laying this on you guys. I’m sorry. I’m fed up of a lot of things, looking for a job, trying to sell the house and adapting to this life where I realise there’s only two people kind enough to ackowledge me. On top of that the anniversary of Lauren’s death is coming up next Saturday and I’m trying not to think about it, however hard it is. I still can’t comprehend she’s not here.
I have so much more to write but I can’t even put it into words anymore.

I have said it so many times over the long, painful course of this project, “the songs that would have been My Sweetheart the Drunk (as well as all the other recorded material he left behind) are the true ‘remains’ of Jeff Buckley, not the speck of dust that was pulled out of the Wolf River.” It’s these precious recordings; all unfinished, some raw, some of them too flawed to release, some of them only puzzle pieces intended for a larger mosaic. In some cases he left behind “instructions,” in some cases we could only guess what Jeff might have intended.

In his last phone conversations, Jeff was ecstatic about the upcoming sessions, he was full of confidence about the progress he’d made with his music… said he had it all down in “black and white”… that the band just had to “supply the colors”. Later that day, while waiting for his band to meet him in Memphis, he and a friend went for a drive, ending up at the marina. He went for a swim on that sunlit Souther spring evening… and slipped away from us forever.

What we’ve done with those “black and white sketches” of the songs written for My Sweetheart the Drunk is to leave them as “works in progress.” Throughout the entire process of compiling this album, my goal was to see that these works would go out as close to the way Jeff left them as possible. None of these songs were ever truly completed. Even the sonically superior multi-track studio recordings were of songs still in the very beginning stages of creation, were never allowed to “percolate” long enough to satisfy Jeff’s (and his band’s) usual creative process. On the other hand, the most recent home recordings of the songs that might have replaced those earlier sessions were such primitive recordings that they would challenge even the most avid Buckley aficionado.

I would give anything to have him here… to help him celebrate the release of the real My Sweetheart the Drunk, the album only he could make. If Jeff had lived and chosen to erase these sketches, it would have been a relatively minor loss. He could have written hundreds of songs and made dozens of albums in their place. Unfortunately, God had something else in mind for my song, and for me.

One thing for sure, my son was not an elitist. He would never have wanted his music to be known only among a small “inner circle” of friends. His favorite moments in life were when he was delivering his music to his fans, those people who were now weeping and mourning his passing all over the world… playing Grace full blast over and over because that’s all they had of him to listen to. This album, and the ones that will follow, is my gift to those fans, present and future. I believe with all my heart that my son will live among us as long as his songs are being played and sung. If I have anything to do with that, that will be for a long, long time to come.

MG.

“I don’t write my music for Sony.
I write it for the people who are screaming down the road crying to a full-blast stereo.
There is also music I’ll make that will never-ever-ever be for sale. This is my music alone, this is my true home; from which all things are born and from which all my life will spring untainted and unworried, full of my own body.”

“They will accuse me of stealing from my father. They already stand in baited judgement, waiting for my first move, waiting to dump their loads of garbage upon me. I face them like the man he never was and say “The only thing I ever stole from my father was a fleeting glimpse!!”
The only.

Now I’m not one to force my beliefs on anybody, if someone is willing to listen to me talk about them, great. I would never, ever push somebody into believing the things I do. And that is not what I intend to do with this blog. I merely want to share this experience I had tonight seeing Colin Fry live. For those of you who don’t know who Colin Fry is, he’s a psychic and a medium. If none of you believe in anything related even mildly to spirits or the spirit world, there’s probably nothing you want to read about in here. I’m not preaching my beliefs to you, simply sharing this amazing experience. I don’t want you guys to think in any way that I’m forcing this upon you. You can shrug off my beliefs, just don’t disrespect them. I’ve seen Colin live before and although hoping for a message to come through, it never did. However, the only person I had known in 2007 (when I last saw him) to be on the other side was my cousin David. Nevertheless, nothing came through. But this time, I knew someone who I was much more likely to get a message from. One of my very great friends Lauren. I’ve mentioned her before in this blog so you guys know how much I struggled to cope with her death and the circumstances surrounding it. I saw Sally Morgan in Edinburgh (another medium) and got nothing. So I went along tonight not really expecting to hear anything from Lauren, although I had said out loud to her at one point today, that if she came through tonight it would be amazing. I sat through the first half listening to people receiving messages from loved ones. I personally believe that when you die your spirit goes to the other side, whatever that is, and that you are fulfilled and are able to watch over your loved ones who are still living. Like I mentioned before, I really, really struggled to cope with Lauren’s death, but only a few weeks ago my mum gave me a book written by Colin, about dealing with grief. In it, he said he believed that if you accept that that person is no longer living and is in the spirit world, they will be able to be a happy spirit. If you don’t let them go, say you tell yourself “I’ll never, ever get over this”, it will present a negative energy, which will end with you really never being able to get over their death. And by doing that, their spirit can’t be free and can’t be happy knowing their loved ones can’t let go. So I was able to deal with my grief a lot more easily than before, and I thank Colin for that. During the second half Colin said he could feel the energy, or spirit of a woman whose birthday was either this week or the week before. Lauren’s birthday was on Friday. My heart started beating extremely hard, I was certain it was going to crack my chest! The way the live shows work is that Colin will reveal aspects of the spirit he’s chanelling so that the loved one in the audience can figure out who it is and receieve a message from them. If they think the message or person is related to them in any way, they stand up and a microphone is passed to them. There can be many people standing at once, and Colin eliminates them as he realises who the message is for. So I’m sitting nervously as Colin then goes on to say that the woman is quite young. Lauren was 17 when she died, and Colin asked if this was making sense to anybody. Nobody said anything and I quickly raised my hand, sure it was Lauren. Colin then asked me numerous questions to see if he could feel the connection between myself and the spirit. Bear in mind I can’t remember everything, nor can I write it all down, but there is no doubt in my mind now that it wasn’t Lauren. I’ll just explain to you the parts that made so much sense to me that made me certain it was her. It was definitely her. Colin asked me if it made sense her death was sudden. I said yes, it was. He asked me what the time of 7.30 in the morning meant… I told him it was the time she died. He then said that the spirit he felt wasn’t very happy. In his own words, she was “Pee-oh’d that you and two other friends didn’t get to say a proper goodbye”. Which is true. I wanted to go to the burial after her funeral, but it was for close friends and family. I hadn’t seen Lauren very much in the last year before she died, and so I didn’t go, I didn’t think it was appropriate. However many people who were a lot less close than Lauren and I had turned up, which made me angry at myself for not going. Colin then said to me, I can’t remember the exact words, but the jist of it was that a few of us (her friends) felt the funeral wasn’t a proper celebration of her life. At least that’s the simplest I can put it. Her funeral was full of religious hymns, paragraphs from the Bible read by a Minister. A few of us laughed weeks after thinking how Lauren would have been taking the mickey out of such a funeral. It wasn’t what she would have wanted. Colin also said something about me having a problem finding out the answers to some questions he’d asked me before, because I wasn’t very close to Lauren’s family. It’s not right for me to knock on their door and ask them those questions. That’s all I can remember, enough to write, but it was enough. I know Lauren’s happy. For the most part. Many people may think it’s all a pile of bull, but I know in my heart that was enough. I needed to know she was able to get through. That’s what I believe and I’m astounded. I’m actually still in shock, to be honest. I’ve needed to hear from her that she’s okay, that she’s still around. And again, I thank Colin for that. I just wanted to share this with you guys if you were willing to read it. It’s not right for me to go around and tell all my friends, either. For most of them it’s too raw. And they don’t believe in the same things I do, which is just life. Oh, I wanted to tell you guys a story Colin told us too. (I hope you’re not bored, I know I’ve nattered on for ages). But he told us he used to do private reading when he was less well known. This woman came to him with her second husband, and her daughter, who had been murdered, came through. Colin said to the mother, “I know this is your daughter, but it’s not your current husband’s daughter, is she?” and the woman said no, she’d been married before and the man next to her was her second husband. Colin said the girl he connected to then said to him, “that’s the man who killed me.” Needless to say he was shocked, and when the woman went outside for a cigarette, Colin just looked at the man opposite him. The man looked at him back and said “You know?” and Colin replied: “Oh, I know.” (For the slow ones, he knew he’d killed the daughter). The guy then leaned forward and said “Prove it.” Colin then told him he believed in natural law, and then another investigation into the girl’s death was opened at the woman’s request, and DNA evidence sent the husband to prison for 20 odd years. Sorry, just wanted to tell you guys that, it was so shocking. Anyways, I better to go to bed. Sorry this is so terribly written, it’s very rushed. I’m so exhausted, it’s been very emotional for me today! x

Well hello there boys and girls,
I said in my last post that Glasgow traffic was mad, but clearly I had never experienced driving around London. Can I say crazy? I think I can. I’m extremely sad to be home. I mean that in the nicest way possible. I spent a few days in London feeling top notch, which is rare for me because at home I’m usually struck down by a migraine or whatever. As soon as I got home last night I got ill, isn’t that strange? But enough of that. London was, in it’s simplest form, fabulous. Derren Brown was even better. It’s odd how the fact he spoke to me has easily overwhelmed seeing Bob Dylan. (I couldn’t even dream of saying that last month!)
But yes, I’ll ignore the fact I have an imprint of Derren’s shoe on my rather expensive jacket I bought in Oxford Street last year, simply because it’s his shoe. He asked us not to reveal any part of his show, to avoid spoiling it for others. And the truth is although I’m positively bursting to gloat about it, I couldn’t. His intelligence just gets the better of me. I couldn’t ruin it for you if I wanted to (which I do). It’s too clever. I will, however, say that anyone doubting his ability to put people in a trance is a stupid person. As much as I love Derren, I was skeptic when he announced he was going to come back and put us all in a trance. My skepticism didn’t stop it from working, though. I was so terrified of going up on stage that I managed to refrain from standing up although my body started to. It was the single most eerie experience I’ve had. I don’t doubt anything that man does. I’ve had a slight obsession with Derren since I was 12 years old and while attempting to cook my own dinner on night, I turned on Channel 4 and there he was, the man himself, tricking people the way he does. I became so engrossed I ended up burning my dinner. Needless to say my mother wasn’t very happy that I ruined her cooker, but I didn’t care, discovering Derren was far more fun.
I also enjoyed being an actual tourist in London. I even did the whole open top bus and taking photos of random Londoners going about their day. Yes, I was that sad. Or excited. I was banned from dressing like a tourist, though. As much as I wanted to don flip flops and white socks, my best friend declared she would not be seen with me if I dared. And I kind of needed her to help me work out the Tube. I did my fair share of celebrity spotting, rudely pointing at Patsy Kensit standing next to me in Hamley’s, wearing sunglasses. (Which I now realise that, even though I couldn’t see her eyes, she was probably scowling at me poking my friend and going ‘It’s Patsy fucking Kensit’. I resisted the urge to do my Mel B Bo’ Selecta impression. A bit too rude for Hamley’s, too.)
Asides from that it was a fun filled few days of staring at people on the Tube, trying not to get beaten up by angry Londoners who hate the Scots, and trying very hard not to steal someone’s pug dog. It’s finally made me decided that I’m going to follow in the footsteps of my family and move to England later this year. Which is just as well, when I got home I found my mum had painted my room while I was away, you know, to make it look nicer when they sell it. Just as well I changed my bloody mind, wasn’t it?! Anyway, London, watch out, I’m coming for you…

Hey guys! Man, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this thing, let alone post a proper blog. This week has been one of the most exciting but exhausting I’ve experienced in a while! I left school on Friday (well, Thursday really) which is such a relief! I’ve been desperate to leave pretty much since I started high school, but I’m going to miss everyone like hell. I wish all of you guys going off to Uni the best in your endeavours. 
I’ve got three exams to sit in the next month but I’m not going to bore you or myself by writing about them. 
Thursday night, the whole of senior year went out with the teachers for a meal and to the pubs - what a night it was! Everyone had a fantastic time and it was a great way to say goodbye to everybody. 
I left for Glasgow yesterday morning at 8 am, and got to my hotel around 12. I was absolutely knackered from driving (Glasgow traffic is mad!) and it didn’t help when the receptionist said I couldn’t check in until the room was cleaned, which would be in two hours. Argh! I spent about 5 hours wandering around Glasgow before I was able to sit down.  

Oh, how could I forget about Bob Dylan? Went to see him at the SECC and I don’t think there are any words I could possibly write down that would explain the experience. It was mind blowing. When he started playing part of me was just staring at him thinking how lucky I was to be there, and the other half thinking how I was standing in front of a legend. Absolutely insane. I really appreciate the fact that the guy is 67 years old and still agreed to tour for his fans. I think I was the youngest one there though! I just couldn’t believe I was standing in front of the guy I’ve learned all my instruments because of, guitar, piano, harmonica. It’s all because of him. (I’ll plug his new album - go buy it, it it absolutely amazing). 
So yeah, that was a pretty fantastic night. I don’t think anything will ever beat that. It sure bet Hard Rock Calling’s ass. 
Got back from Glasgow a few hours ago and was informed I have to start work TOMORROW. Argh. At least it’s a night shift so I will be able to get a lie in! 
Oh, and for you guys who are messaging me about why I deleted my twitter - I decided I have better things to do than twitter my life away. (Get it?) So no more updates on there for me, sorry!
Okay guys, I better go. My battery is running low even though I’m charging my laptop - anyone else have problems with MacBook chargers? I’ve just replaced this charger two weeks ago and it’s fucked up already. Let me know if you lot have problems like this. 

Rock & roll dudes.