urban cowboy

Last Updated:
Aug 28, 2007

Send Message
Instant Message
Email to a Friend
Subscribe

Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 28
Sign: Aries

City: wood green, lun-dun
Country: UK

Signup Date: 03/23/06

Blog Archive
Older     Newer ]


Friday, May 18, 2007

i'm really quite off

Hello all,

 

in 3 hours and 14 minutes a car arrives to take me away.
me and the man known as matthew are actually going. actually, really, within a very short time.

we've packed, we've considered unpacking and re-packing, we've phoned nearly everyone we should've, we've attempted to mentally prepare ourselves…
it doesn't all feel quite 'complete' but yet, out of our hands, it's happening.

i remember when i first wrote about the trip; a countdown clock said 280 days. 280 solid days beating a steady powerful drum. now the seconds have become mighty, and tick tock with an adrenalin heartbeat.

it's too much to write in depth now. i will be writing with pen and paper over the course of the next 4 weeks and will transfer the words to the world wide webernet when i get back.
in the meantime, we will be trying to get ourselves to internet cafés while we are away and - while it will be as sporadic as a laptop in a desert - you may be able to follow some of our movements
here:

www.bigfattrip.blogspot.com

until next time,
agape to you all

jonathan

 

Jonathan Monkhouse
www.intotheneonsun.blogspot.com

 

5:10 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday, July 28, 2006

i'm moving on
Current mood: frustrated

we all know myspace is shit, so while i'll keep my webpage here my blog has moved.

myspace is nice for meeting people, there are lots here, but far too many errors happen and it runs far far too slowly. so my blog has moved to a better place.

into the neon sun

 

Currently listening :
The Who: The Ultimate Collection
By The Who
Release date: 11 June, 2002

12:42 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, July 27, 2006

i'm off out
Current mood: rejuvenated

yikes oh crikey!

i'm only bloomin' going to china. CHINA!?

here's why: my pal matthew is a bit of a traveler. not the type that parks their house in a cinema car park so they can thieve pick 'n mix to live on, but the type that gets a craving every now and again to throw some stuff in a bag and see where his wind takes him. off he goes into the sunset to seek out the hidden parts of the world that most people have never even heard of. it's been pretty safe and risk free so far. most of the world is. all you need is an england football shirt and a credit card and most of the world is your clam.

not all of it though. for a while he's wanted to do the trans-siberian railway. the trans-siberian railway is exactly what it says on the steel-wheeled tin. and more. it's the world's longest railway line. it literally stretches half way around the world. literally. if you travel the entire length you'll go from moscow, through the entire breadth of russia and siberia, to vladivostok on the coast of the japanese sea. its a long way. and you'll see some of the most desolate, untouched and beautiful parts of this planet we live on. the trip of a lifetime many people have said, but not in that overused "i larged it in i-beef-ah" way. trundling throught the dust. edging slowly forward into ground level infinity. the abyss, unterraformed. abandoning the modern world except for the ancient green locomotive steaming you ever away from the crutches of day-to-day life. powerless in a desert more untouched than mars. "he would tell me of the great train that ran across half the world.. he held me enthralled then, and today, a life-time later, the spell still holds. he told me the train's history, it's beginnings.. how a tzar had said 'let the railway be built!' and it was.. for me, nothing was ever the same again.. i became possessed by love of a horizon and a train which would take me there.." * to the world at its most basic form. the bleached-bone beauty of the earth's crust. raw. majestic. bigger than anything you have seen. prehistoric ground-zero. world's end and world's beginning. humanity existing and co-existing leaving not so much as a scar on fellow inhabitants or a crease on mother earth.

... so i thought i'd go too. y'know, i might as well.

at the moment we plan to fly to moscow, have a look around, then hop on a train to irkutsk in siberia where we'll take the trans-mongolian branch down to the mongol capital; ulan bator, timing it so we see the colours and energy of the naadam festival, then on to beijing. if you travel constantly it takes a week to cover that distance. we're gonna stretch it out to a month.

and so begins the planning of a lifetime. i think it'll take a great deal of thought to get from one side of the world to another without leaving the ground or using expedia.

it will give food for my blog for the next few months. i will call my journey "out of the neon sun - the losing of the urban cowboy"

read it here.

* lesley blanch journey ino the mind's eye

Currently listening :
Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike
By Gogol Bordello
Release date: 09 August, 2005

2:22 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Saturday, July 22, 2006

i'm coming up, so you better get this party started
Current mood: cynical

it's very convenient isn't it? whenever you witness a story you always manage to follow the main character. you start watching a film, reading a book, hearing a tale and somehow, quickly, your focus is on the main character or characters. there's two things i always always think when this happens. firstly i think who is this person? why did fate pick them to experience the following events? why is it that particular people are chosen? the chances of this level of life changing events happening to a particular person are miniscule; but in a movie or a book someone might have one after another after another. think of wendy.. in the space of a few weeks or so, a flying boy came into her bedroom, she discovered fairies existed, she learned to fly, she travelled to a distant land with her brothers, she experienced pirates first-hand, was kidnapped, rescued and i would probably guess, lost her virginity to a 50 year old teenager dressed as robin hood.

what did she do to deserve these experiences? what led her to that point? we don't know much about the years before peter turned up, but i can't imagine she did anything that extraordinary.

 

the second thing i think is how very convenient. what a stroke of luck it is that whenever you watch a movie you bump into the main character. you always happen to come across the main event and are able to foIlow the most interesting part of the world for that period. how different the story might've been if we had momentarily found wendy's next door neighbour jeanette more interesting in the minutes before the flying boy turned up with his pet fairy. might we have ended up following an attractive young woman struggling through puberty and parental-divorce before becoming the first successful female wallpaper importer? by that time we might have forgotten that childhood dream where the next door neighbour's kids soared off into the moonlight.

 

i call it the Jimmy Olsen Effect. for those of you who don't know, jimmy olsen is an employee at the daily planet where superman works. he leads a pretty eventful life, he's quite successful as a professional photographer and occasionally has his work printed on the front page of a widely-read newspaper. he's had first hand contact with a demi-god and been inches from death on a number of occasions. all this before he reached 25. he'd probably make a good main character for a story except that usually at the end of a day he goes home and watches TV instead of donning a red and blue lycra suit and popping up into orbit for a good listen..

it's all very well following the exploits of Wendy, Clarke, Buffy, Ann Darrow, Bugsy Malone, Neo, Jane Eyre.. it's just.. sometimes i'd like to hear the story of the forgotten people.

-that biplane pilot who was thrown out of the air by a 200 foot gorilla; did he parachute out and survive?

-how did that 22 year old straight-A student get to the point where he was an unnamed vampire goon?

-how did the other boys at the orphanage feel when oliver, the kid with the irritating singing voice, got scooped up by a rich family and they didn't?

-that ugly henchman of Dr. No, shot without a second thought by secret agent Bond.... he had a family; now what the fuck are they gonna do? i doubt villainous henchmen get much life insurance.

 

spare a thought for the forgotten many. donate to their cause if you will. just £2 per week can feed a computer-generated crowd at a gladiatorial arena for infinite time. send a cheque or postal order to me and i'll sort it out for you.

 

tee hee, fools. (did i dictate that out loud?)

Currently listening :
The Datsuns
By The Datsuns
Release date: 04 March, 2003

6:10 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, July 20, 2006

i'm worried about you
Current mood: silly

today i had a bottle of drink. it had a lid with one of those popping things that pop when you open it the first time.

it said "reject if depressed"

poor thing.

Currently listening :
Corinne Bailey Rae
By Corinne Bailey Rae
Release date: 20 June, 2006

2:03 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, July 13, 2006

i'm super, thanks for asking
Current mood: thoughtful

here is another short extract from the book i'm trying to write. the working title at the moment is "Chic"

"

The first thing I ever stole was a cat. I learnt soon after that it was better to take things that a) you really want b) do not decompose.

 

It happened when I was fourteen. I remember it because we had recently come back from a family holiday on a farm in France. While I was out playing on the farm I had seen the local dog chase down and kill a rabbit, ripping it apart in front of me and then chewing on the greasy entrails. I guess it had something to do with my decision to take the cat, but even in hindsight I couldnt tell you the reasoning.

 

On the way home from school one afternoon soon after I saw a cat get hit by a car. It was on the path in front of me so I barked like a dog at it. It looked at me quizzically as if to say: What do you mean, bark? Youre clearly not a dog. A spark of a moment later it darted out onto the street like a tortoiseshell rocket. It went between the wheels of one car with the skill of a ninja, into the oncoming lane where the bumper of a Mazda popped its head. The body cart-wheeled for second landing belly up where another Mazdas tyre did a full length, neck to tail. My fourteen year old eyes widened and glazed over immediately. My stomach turned over and leapt with joy. My sphincter released a burst of gas.

"

i'm going to birmingham tomorrow to see troubadour's house. before that i'm off to waterloo iMax to see the third installment of the superman trilogy. yes third. geeks know what i mean.

Currently listening :
Far
By Tina Dico
Release date: 18 May, 2004

3:13 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

i'm stumped
Current mood: chipper

here's an experiment. i have nothing to write about today, but haven't posted anything in a couple of days so am going to try and put together a half-interesting blog.

i could tell you about a couple of things of recent times. firstly, i had a lovely date on saturday with a very attractive young lady who made me laugh. i can't remember many details of the evening as i drank wine. (i'm not a big drinker generally). not a level of drunk that meant i fell over a lot, but enough to make much of the evening quite fuzzy. some things i remember: we talked for the entire evening without any awkward pauses / we ate in a restaurant that i probably wouldn't choose as a 1st date type place, i couldn't find the more expensive, classier, romanticer place i was hoping to take her to / she is a superb kisser, really very good / the evening went far too quickly / the ice-cream cafe near leicester square doesn't stay open late enough / it's kind of difficult to learn much about someone in the space of one short evening / i'd like to meet her again... we shall see.

the second thing is that on sunday i had a lovely lovely evening with my friends Jonny, Louise and Ruth. we played pictionary and got dominoes to deliver pizza to us in the park, then realised we were all freezing our various types of genetalia off and went back to listen to Louise's songs. Louise is brilliant and you should go here to prove it: http://www.myspace.com/louisegolbey

turdly, my housemate matt came back from berlin. He has been out there for 6 weeks covering the world cup with a well known broadcasting company. Its good to have him back though a little strange. hes been away for six whole weeks. thats a long time. he has had a bizarre few weeks by all accounts. for example, on sunday night he partied with Gary Linekar, Alan Hanson, Noel Gallagher, Clive Owen and (fuck off, no really) Spike Lee! (he took photos)

oh, the circles i inhabit! (by proxy)

okay. bedtime.

Currently listening :
Uncreation
By Benedictum
Release date: 14 March, 2006

1:29 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Saturday, July 08, 2006

i'm home
Current mood: giggly

M,

awesome

x

Currently listening :
The Who: The Ultimate Collection
By The Who
Release date: 11 June, 2002

6:04 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday, July 07, 2006

i'm neither
Current mood: angry

there's more of a genetic difference between men and women than there are between blacks and whites.

in that case, shouldn't all racists be gay? (think about it)

and in that case, they should understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of unjust predjudice and shut the fuck up.

maybe they could spend the saved time working out their 'coming out to the other nazis' speech.

i also hate fucking drunk football fans who harrass my friend when she's on the tube. so your team lost, who gives a shit, leave my friends alone. you scared the shit out of her you fucking assmunchers.

i'm sorry to anyone else who i may have offended.

Currently listening :
Things to Make and Do
By Moloko
Release date: 11 February, 2003

12:43 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thursday, July 06, 2006

i'm updating you
Current mood: relaxed

so a while ago (june 24th) i told you about saying yes. i thought i'd let you know how its going:

awesome.

its changed slightly, its not quite as simple as saying 'yes' to everything. its made my whole attitude to stuff better. i've taken risks that i would never have taken, i've spent time with people i might not have done, i've done some other stuff which has been really rather super, there is something that involves a beautiful young lady...

things are shiny.

something for you to remember: you can't always change the stuff you have to do, but you can always change your attitude to it.

ooh, and i found my mutha-funking keys.

Currently listening :
Transatlanticism
By Death Cab for Cutie
Release date: 07 October, 2003

10:24 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

i'm not american, so i don't care
Current mood: content

happy 4th of july everybody.

i had a jolly nice evening last night with my two best buddies. Jonny and Chris. by the banks of the river thames way out west in richmond; we talked into the night, drank sugary drinks and commented frequently on the beauty of the sunset. (well actually Jonny commented frequently on the sunset cos he's a big old homo like that.)

its good to be back. long live the Three Kings!

Righteous Velocity, Minim and The Funk back in the lycra, kicking some serious mediocre arse.

get in.

AND it only took me 35 minutes to ride home from richmond to wood green. weeeeeee!!!!!

Currently listening :
Silent Alarm
By Bloc Party
Release date: 22 March, 2005

2:33 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Monday, July 03, 2006

i'm on a big old downer
Current mood: impressed

i did a musical.

it was the last night, last.. er.. night, so now i've got a head full of anti-climax. anti-climax-head is poo. to all those By Jeeves lot out there, cheers for an excellant few months. especially nice to meet: Peter, Gus, Richard, Richard & Jamie. i hope you guys enjoyed being part of our happy little group, we certainly enjoyed having you round to play.

Andrew, you were designed by god for that part. Andy, you on stage is one of my favourite things in the world. Jonny, i love your tummy, but you're a thief, give me back my card! Gus, you are my hero and my mambo. Peter, there are things i don't need to hear, but thankyou for telling me anyway. Jamie, we never had a conversation, but you seem super! Tall Richard, you taught me that no matter how tough you can build something, it can always be broken; a valuable life-lesson. Short Richard, we miss you, hope paid work is also fun. Rachel, ah, delectable Rachel. mmm. Sarah, you nearly made me shit myself laughing. Helen, next time we meet, i'll try not to injur you. its only because i'm shy & i get destructive. Louise, lets totally release an album. we could call it "The Snax of Golb & Funk."

Ruth, -e-baby, you worked wonders with a distinctly average script. Mark, thankyou for writing those nice things, one day i'll get to read them myself - Jonny take heed - i also love working with you. Gemma, you're wonderful, you know. Miriam, good luck in Brum, don't disappear forever. The Band, kicks ass.

it was all good. except of course; the list of Courtyard health hazards. jesus,... that place?!?!

Currently listening :
By Jeeves (1996 London Revival Cast)
By Andrew Lloyd Webber
Release date: 18 March, 1997

3:52 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Sunday, July 02, 2006

i'm up far too early
Current mood: dorky

night buses suck.

i waitied for an hour and ten minutes for the N41 this morning trying to get home after a night out. when i got home, it was daytime. rubbish.

otherwise a lovely night, thank you to everyone involved.

Currently listening :
Secret History
By The Divine Comedy
Release date: 29 February, 2000

3:01 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Saturday, July 01, 2006

i'm ill
Current mood: sick

what's worse than finding a maggot in your apple?

finding half a maggot.

what's worse than finding half a maggot in your apple?

gang-rape.

Currently listening :
Have a Ball
By Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Release date: 27 May, 1997

5:35 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday, June 30, 2006

i'm a big fat lemon
Current mood: pissed off

i've only gone and lost my keys. i suck.

i'm brilliant at not losing stuff. i've never lost anything except my debit card, and that was only 'cos my little sheister of a cousin hid it while we were in australia. bugger bugger bugger.

bugger.

so if anyone finds a set of keys with a yellow ID tag and a black microchip tag on it, please let me know. i'll give you a reward. like a cuddle or something.

 

Currently listening :
Your Favorite Music
By Clem Snide
Release date: 20 March, 2001

8:54 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment


About  |  FAQ  |  Terms  |  Privacy  |  Safety Tips  |  Contact MySpace  |  Promote!  |  Advertise  |  MySpace Shop

©2003-2008 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.