L'appel du vide.

joey. 23. liverpool.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Although Miley Cyrus wore a T-shirt I designed. I guess life's not so bad in perspective.

[tank-boy-blog1]

My blogging was always tied to my state of mind, an outlet (if only briefly) for whatever it was that ailed me. Though the content erratic and self serving it filled some small void in my life that was necessary within those moments.

To scroll through my dashboard is to see the same faces cycle by as ever and it is a comfort that time has not weathered stillness upon here yet. My initial approach was a deliberate one, exclusionary in its ways, avoiding the reblogging and pat-on-the-back liking of content so needed to brood friendships; this was not the platform for me so teetering was I on the cusp of panic attacks below my façade.

A year on and I feel.. something akin to loss, Lypophrenia prevalent as ever.

[tank-boy-blog1]

My sole creative output for the year so far.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Tidying my shelves led to the unearthing of old family albums from which these slides most captured my interest, there's something about holding them up the light that brings life to the layers, depth amidst the translucence. The clarity hasn't waned in the half century passed; so near at hand yet so unobtainable. Young faces glowing in that Kodak moment at the thrill of it all.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Spent the afternoon sorting through vast folders of every scrap of paper I have ever come across and methodically squirrelled away (and by that I mean I designated a shelf for "paper and paper related accessories" about 8 years ago and its contents have now grown to such a disproportionate tower that even my lazy self felt inclined to tame it).

I've been particularly amused by a 3 year letter writing affair I had with a boy I met at Butlins in 2002. Apparently we bonded over a love of Nintendo and there are even several risqué talks about videos off of Fat-Pie.com, I guess my tastes haven't really developed as much in the last decade as I had thought...

[tank-boy-blog1]

I took this photograph in the March of 1998.

If a conversation ever lulls and you are once again forced to dig into that in-built repertoire of stock questions that we all possess, just to keep the flow going of course, then I might find myself faced with that time worn quizzing of "what are you scared of, you know, got any phobias?". I smile and shake my head, not spiders nor heights way heavily on my thoughts. (That natural born fear of our own fleeting mortality doesn't count, everyone fears death; instead it is a place-holder to balance other worries off of.)

Do not listen to me or believe my coy half smirking dismissal  at the possibility of being shaken though. For I do know one such terror, this.. this animatronic dragon; he who resides in a misted cavern in the depths of Disneyland, Paris. Who bucks and roars and puts the fear of god in a little boy who knew not that the world bore such tempestuous demons. Such fear of scale laden robots was further driven home a year later in "England's Scariest Haunted House" which had a 10' T-Rex head come bursting through the trees snapping away as you tried to cross a swaying rope bridge in yet another fogged lair.

I believe I have been conditioned, for upon entering the dinosaur exhibit in Vienna at the age of fifteen I was once again brought to tears by the braying head bobbing of a grazing Diplodocus. A mere pea brained herbivore!

It has been 8 years since last I crossed paths with any robotic lizard in the wild but still I  have that sickening swell in my stomach upon entering any unexplored museum and what horrors could lie ahead

[tank-boy-blog1]

After recent acquisitions finally proved too much for a single shoebox to handle I was left wondering how I could store my games in a room that has absolutely no more space for anything (currently operating on a one-in, one-out system on all possessions, much to my chagrin).

The 1" border encircling the trim of my wallpaper has thus proved to be a life saver.

[tank-boy-blog1]

I've started down the dangerous route of wanting to buy not only every Game Boy game ever released but also all of the Japanese variants. I mean, just compare these two titles, if it wasn't for my clouded nostalgia of owning my PAL copies for somewhere in the region of 18 years then I would think the art work on them was awfully drab in comparison to the colourful Japanese cartridges, they don't even have to suffer the horrible silver borders that were a requirement of every Western artwork.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Trying to find room to put up more Tank Girl posters.

[tank-boy-blog1]

The year is 1987 and it's 2:30am at a 7-11 near Disney World, Florida.

The format reminds me of Slacker, a little home baked slice of life captured for posterity. Stopped drastically short as the camera cuts; sealing off these ghosts of a lost culture, twenty seven years into the past.

[tank-boy-blog1]

After brushing off the idea of a Kindle for years I've done a full turn within a month of having one and now feel ready to dispose of the majority of my bookshelf clutter.

It feels so pointless to have numerous novels that I'm only going to give the once through at some distant future point cluttering up my room when I can manage a digital library via Calibre for cheaper and a negligible amount of space. Although with this potential void I fear that my expensive taste in coffee table photo books may rear its head and I'll be left desperately stuffing empty shelves with Koji Onaka's latest offerings and all the Harajuku street-style glossy tomes I can get my hands on.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Greg Martin passed away today.

He wasn't a household name, or even known to video game fans, but don't let that diminish his legacy. For this was a man who illustrated the box art of many famous games of the '80s and '90s, someone who had access to all of the biggest licensed characters of the time!

If you look back on the covers of old games they all conjure up a sense of nostalgia, of a period in time, even if they're titles you're unfamiliar with. This is likely because they were all drawn by the same man; his art style has become synonymous with that era.

He was an artist in a time when people judged a game by its cover - you couldn't watch videos of it in action or see  the graphics beyond the minuscule images on the back of the box. You put your faith in the game solely on the artwork, everything else was second fiddle.

[tank-boy-blog1]

Forgotten how much fun the Game Boy Micro is.

I have every title ever released on the original Game Boy compiled within one cartridge - on a console the size of a credit card. It staggers me to think that this isn't even a recent happening.. I've had this for nearly 8 years now. We've been living in the future for so long!

[tank-boy-blog1]

As much as I hate clichés...

first selfie of the year.

I love you all.

[tank-boy-blog1]

I've never thought much of January. An altogether boring month encompassing the worst of English weather, the shortest of days the return to normality in the world as we sweep away the remains of fevered Christmas euphoria and Boxing Day sales. This year however a commonly shared thought sprung to mind - Wouldn't it be nice to wipe the slate clean; a new year, a new start. Yet my cynicism soon put such wondering to rest; to pin such hopes on an arbitrary change in the calendar seems insalubrious to me.

The last year has been a blur, an altogether uneventful period in which I achieved nothing more than surviving. Further and further away seem my dreams, not just in a monetary sense but physically also. I feel weaker than ever before, my resolve is crushed as I continue through the motions of monotony that now make up my life. "Break the circle, break free" the voice of yesterday cries from within, but he is lackadaisical. There shall be no change today.

I failed to blog last year, I'll try again though. This year is going to be my first step towards growing up, its been a long time coming.

[tank-boy-blog1]

The ever fluctuating path of life has its unpredictable ups and downs certainly, but there is always one inevitability of which you can count on.

"The End."

Sombre, isn't it? Such a sense of finality, that I expect did not weigh quite so heavily on my uncle's mind as he left his house today than it does now. Off to work, the same routine that's taken place for the best part of 50 years, only to be involved in a series of events which led to being hit by a car going twice the speed limit in a quiet suburban street; struck down ten steps from his front door, from his family. Left in the road by a coward, a man who will no doubt be scanning the local paper come morning to see if he has committed a deadly sin.

It was his 70th birthday the weekend but last, not a man for commotion he took the celebrations in stride, embarrassed by the whimsy of an extended family gathering - I hope there is not need to see such faces again soon.

My mother sombre in our unlit parlour, wailing at what may yet come to her brother, my father, in the kitchen; undoubtedly thinking of the loss of his own brother in a house fire not so long ago.

And I, an angry young man, for all that I am, for all that I think I am... I am not a comfort to these folks, unable to connect. I sit in my room and I seethe and I write.

[tank-boy-blog1]

With the 10th anniversary of Elliot Smith's death weighing in it has only just hit me how much I miss Blamonet (an online community set up in 2003 to talk about Elliot Smith/Conor Oberst that unfortunately closed at the beginning of this year), it's the only place in which I've had a regular presence for nigh on a decade where everyone remained as anonymous as when I first encountered them. Sitting here, in the early hours of the morning sifting through an archived copy of its BBS feels so depressing. Is it weird to associate good memories with writing on a message board? Maybe it's just the place in time it takes you back to...