Letters, Year Three (March - June 2001)

Uncle Tony, celebrating his victory in the Cheap Sex & Sad Films competition, 05/03/2001
Apologies for winning the competition in such a crap way - as you rightly say I had no idea of the answer and merely entered for the sense of belonging. As to everyone else, I guess they are all apathetic b*st*rds. I'm curious, would you rather have had no entries?

No, of course I'm glad you entered the competition: I just think that the people who didn't enter deserve to have their noses rubbed in it. Congratulations again - the CD should be with you by now.

bob, in the boonies some where, 06/03/2001
wow this sight is pretty bogus! jk it's not bad, interesting name though........ hm............................................

Cheers, bob. I, too, consider sight to be one of the most bogus of the senses.

Lou, Still in the study, 12/03/2001
Just caught the results of the CD competition and am now wishing more than ever that I'd cheated. I don't understand why nobody tried to win the thing, maybe they believe it doesn't actually exist. The CD is duly installed on the car player with the previous two years and whilst I don't entirely share your taste in music (or what you believe is pop music) I love it to bits. Every woman who listens to England 2, Columbia 0 believes they know the guy (are we all that bad?) and even the mother-in-law enjoys prison rape but that's another very long story.

I thought about finding the line in the song, adding a minute or two and passing it to a good friend in Minneapolis so she could win the thing, but lo, I couldn't find the bloody words. Can't even succeed as a cheat. Just have to send her a copy on MD instead, or am I the only person in the Western World that actually likes the format?

Keep up the good work.

For some reason, Mini Discs seem to be incredibly popular among people with moderately responsible jobs in the computer industry: but not me. Still, glad the CD worked for you (though we must thrash out this 'what I believe is pop music' thing over a pint soon).

Suzanne Vega Fanclub, pickets diwali line, 14/03/2001
SUZE IS BACK - AND SHE'S PISSED (and why shouldn't she be?)

Because what is going on with this Willow and Tara shit anyway; I know Oz was a bit hairy, but if she now likes girls, surely Buffy has to be preferable!

Where did Bad Vampire Willow go? Can't they bring her back to life? (it worked with Angel)

P.S. What do you mean who's Willow? Have you people not been paying attention.

Suze, unfortunately, doesn't get satellite TV, which is why he's only just found out about this development. He's therefore completely unaware of the red-hot girl-on-girl action to come in the next series.

Citizen Misha Lunchbox, CEO of citizenlunchbox.com, 30/03/2001
Dear Friends of citizenlunchbox.com,

Sorry for the impersonal note, but i have several hundred people to contact today.

I thought i would let you all know that my ISP has just gone bankrupt; therefore my web site and email may be unavailable for up to three weeks, starting Friday March 30 (some of you are thinking, "so what? she never answers email anyway!" ... rest assured that the internet gods are now punishing me quite severely, perhaps on your behalf ;)

If you have links to my site, there will be no need to remove them, since my site will be back soon. If for some reason you wish to reach me, i have set up two emergency back-up addresses: misha@macbox.com (primary), and mishalunchbox@hellokitty.com (secondary). These are both web-based, which means my access to them will be VERY sporadic until we get a new ISP.

Noooooooooooooooo! This is really a bit of a pisser, as I was literally just about to present Misha with her third ever Simian Subsitute Site Of The Month award. (You could check out her previous two winners - Monkeys On The Simpsons and Index Of Famous Monkeys - but they're not there at the time of writing. Obviously.)

Anyway, when Misha gets out of ISP Hell (mid-May according to her site), I'll tell you about the rather groovy t-shirts she's now selling, featuring her simian partner-in-crime Mr Monkey. (Personally endorsed by yours truly.) Alternatively, you could email Mr Monkey himself and see if he can come to some sort of arrangement with you.

Suzanne Vega Fanclub, Planet Earth, 01/04/2001
One quick question. If you have another CD competition, will the prize feature a song called England 3 Albania 1? Or how about England 2 Finland 1. Or perhaps it might feature some of the sixties classics like England 4 West Germany 2.

P.S. One Graham Taylor, there's only one Graham Taylor. One Graham Taaaaaylor, There's only one Graham Tayloooor.

Suze complained to me towards the end of May that I'd had this letter for two months and never got around to printing it. Can't understand how it could have slipped my mind. Oh, wait a minute, yes I can.

monkey, webmonkey of himonkey.net, 06/04/2001
dear spanky,

thanks for giving me the honor of being the simian substitute site of the month. your page is charming, but, could benefit from a couple of nice recipes for snacks or beverages. i have a few great flaming drink recipes that i am no longer permitted to make indoors, if you are in need of any.

thanks again.

yours charmingly,

monkey

i'm small,
i'm terry cloth
&
i think i have a nice personality.

I don't think anyone's ever accused me of being charming before. You're lovely. Thank you.

Xander Briggs, Guildford, 13/04/2001
hi i just wanna say this is a really good site and i like wot u doin so keep it up. tar XaNdEr.

Brief and to the point: just how I like 'em. Thanks, Xan.

Rob D, sweating over a hot laptop, wine in hand, running up a large phone bill, 17/04/2001
What's all this about trying to get us to buy stuff from WH Smiths just so you can fund your DVD habit? You're such an old whore Spank.

Anyways, here I am with internet access at home and my own email address at last - having worked in telecoms I know that the maximum phone bill total is only PIC(999999.99) so I reckon I'm fairly safe.

On a more cultural level me and a friend went to see Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra at the Jazz Cafe last Saturday and I have to say they kicked ass - only problem is that Afrobeat is about protest and these guys are mainly middle class kids from New York performing to North London chattering classes; what they got to protest about?? Well worth a listen on Coldcut/Ninja Tune if y'all get a chance mind. I'm afraid 'she who must be obeyed' hated it mind.

Yes, I'm a whore, it's true. Not that anyone seems to buy anything via The Monkey Mall, mind. And given the recent revelations about what complete bastards Amazon are to work for, I'm really not sure how much longer I can keep this sponsorship deal going...

Still, thanks for the info. I'll pass on the links for Antibalas, Ninja Tune and the Jazz Cafe so people can check it out for themselves.

Gibbie, Earth, 25/04/2001
i think your web page is a total waste of time and i think you should stick a piece of dynamite up your mothers c*nt and strike the match with your arse. do you get my point???????????????

Love your sites too, Gibbie.

Mr Monkey, Up a tree, 01/05/2001
your a monkey

I know Mr Monkey. Mr Monkey is a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Mr Monkey.

Rob D, Still trapped in Oxford Circus by the Fascist Police State, 02/05/2001
Yo, Spank, interested to hear what you thought about Rod Argent/Colin Blunstone at London's premier music venue last weekend. I wasn't over keen; thought the mixing was terrible (subjective view from someone who knows f*** all about sound engineering, pity Nick wasn't there), all I could hear was the lead guitar! Also got the feeling it was just another day, just another gig for RA & CB.

BTW - checked out your Simian Substitute Site of the Month and rate it severely cute. When we going to see you chopping eggs and stirring soup by real time web-cam, eh?

Dunno, Rob, it worked for me: the sound wasn't too bad from where I was. I was quite grateful that Blunstone and Argent covered the whole gamut from the Zombies songs to their seventies solo stuff, without hammering their new material to death. The gig even survived the potentially dodgy moment where Rod Argent announced "here's a track from my album of solo classical pieces". Any band whose back catalogue allows them to finish with She's Not There and encore with God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You could be excused for sounding a little pleased with themselves, I suppose. Still, if you want to take it up with them personally, try the official web sites of Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent.

HowlerMonkey, Paraguay, 04/05/2001
Your wit is orgasmic.

I can't quite explain why, but this sort of thing unnerves me even more than the hate mail.

Amy, England, 06/05/2001
cool as a muntfish

I just hope that isn't a Spoonerism.

Steven McNeil, 12/05/2001
Hi,

I was wondering if you knew where I could get a copy of Otis Lee Crenshaw's CD. I saw him on tour recently, but he sold out of CDs before I got to the front of the queue!!! Perhaps we could do a CD trade? I've got some rare Radiohead stuff you might like (unreleased songs, next album - Amnesiac, all B-sides)?

Hope to hear from you soon.

I'd offer to do you a copy of the Melbourne CD, Steve, but my CD burner's knackered at the moment - apologies. And besides, audio piracy is a heinous crime. [barely suppressed giggle]

As you've found, trying to obtain Otis' album by legitimate means isn't easy if you can't pick it up at a gig. The sleeve suggests the following address for Otis bookings and info, so this may be a good place to start: Melanie Coupland, Talkback, 33 Percy Street, London W1P 9F6.

To be honest, the CD isn't really representative of the stuff he's doing now (eg the delightful child abuse anthem Can You Show Me On The Doll Where He Touched You). But you might like to know that Otis recorded a couple of shows in London a month or two ago for a video release, so that should hopefully be on its way soon.

Luce28, Hollyoaks Country, 14/05/2001
Hello Spank you charming young man you ...

Luce is deeply bored, thought I'd pop in and harass you for a change ...

Well, that's it really , bye!

'Kinell. You were *that* bored?

Steven Wells, SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Musos), 16/05/2001
I love the smell of burning muso in the morning. The draconian measures used by the government to curb the outbreak of foot and mouth disease should be adapted and adopted to cleanse the country of the vile plague known as the New Acoustic Movement.

FOOT AND MOUTH = Pigs with scabby lips, cows with runny noses, sheep with headaches and sore throats. Big fucking deal.

NEW ACOUSTIC MOVEMENT = Thousands of young people dressed like Wurzel Gummidge or Compo from Last Of The Summer Wine ie scabby lipped hippies in tea-cosies and shit-brown coloured corduroy trousers and NICE JUMPERS, sat down on STOOLS, singing NICE SONGS and strumming ACOUSTIC FUCKING GUITARS aka FOLK MUZAK!!!!!!!!! aka TRAMP WOCK!!!!!!!!!

Which begs the question - why hasn't every single musician who has been within two miles of Badly Drawn Boy in the last three years been SHOT and had his stinking carcass BURNT IN A HUGE FUNERAL PYRE along with that of ALL of his POSSIBLY contaminated dog-fucking muso chums, eh? EH?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!? FUCKING EH!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

C'mon, Blair, you grinning jackanape, stop pissing about and get the vets and the squaddies and the psychotic retard slaughtermen OFF the fucking farms and INTO the fucking music colleges, recording studios and rehearsal suites and music venues and clubs and shit. NOW! Before it's TOO LATE! You slag...

And it goes on like that for pages and pages, and is terrifically funny in the usual style but far too lengthy to reproduce in full here. Bad gig, was it, Swells?

Robert Heigh, 01/06/2001
I am trying to find a copy of the Otis Lee Crenshaw Live in Melbourne show and you seem to be the only droogs with any kind of reference to it on the web (!)

Would you consider, and I know this is a big consider, burning it as mp3s and sharing it somewhere, as that would seem to be the only way i can get a hold of it.

I know this is a "cheeky monkey" type request, but if you have a wishlist of items, or are looking for contributions to your (rather good and well written, flatter, flatter) site, let me know. Or tell me to f*** off, one or the other.

Yours spankingly, Rubbertoe

Crikey. That's two people who've asked me about the Otis CD in the last month. If I hadn't been so slow in posting updates to the letters page over the past few weeks, you'd know already about my suggestions for getting hold of Otis material: instead, I'll refer you to my reply of 12/05/2001 to Steven McNeil's letter elsewhere on this page. It's really not that good an album, you know: wait for the video later this year.

Seona, Sitting at a computer in a state of mild boredom, 03/06/2001
See if you spent less time elsewhere on the net you could update this place! And then I'd have something to read when I'm bored. And I really am bored...

Tsk. I have been on holiday, you know...

Actually, I've just realised that people might not know that at all. So: I've been on holiday. More details to follow in Year Of The Monkey shortly, but this is the reason why there hasn't been any new stuff for ages, and even the traditional first-of-the-month update is a few days late. Expect a compensatory burst of activity throughout June, hopefully.

Datta, Working far too late for his own good, 07/06/2001
[re: Steven Wells' letter, 16/05/2001]

Bloody hell, is he sending you unsolicited e-mail now? Do you have a music hack stalker??

Actually, it was more of a press release than anything else: I kinda glossed over the thirty or so other people he sent it to simultaneously. It's nice to feel that I'm part of Swells' own personal meeja hor entourage. (It's also nice that I now have the personal email addresses of other members of said entourage, including some very big names from the worlds of music, journalism and stand-up comedy. One day I'll work out what to do with this information...)

Talley Cross, 12/06/2001
[re: The Tempest]

Personally, I'd love to run my fingers through Ian's hairy back. :-)

Is he hairy all over?

Actually, there are a lot of us girls who LUV this man. And I THINK you know what I mean by that. ;)

Oh, I know what you mean, being a monkey and all. Doesn't mean that I understand it, though...

This actually came with a link to All About Ian, a Yahoo! Group dedicated to discussion of the life and works of the man in question, The Tempest's lead actor Ian McDiarmid. Except on the day I looked in on it, they were actually discussing me, and my perceived issues with male body hair. Which wasn't really what I was expecting, frankly.

Suzanne Vega Fanclub, Still the Piccadilly Line (but now a new stop), 18/06/2001
1) Two and a half months to get my last letter printed. This really is the 'Unpleasant Wait for Spank the Bi-monthly'. Look forward to reading this in September then!

2) How dare you compare the Hamsters to ten thousand other Blues combos; just because it rained on your Fleas.

As you well know, Suze, I was rating the Hamsters above those ten thousand other blues combos, and way above the likes of Gary Moore. (But below Wilko Johnson. Ha!)

Sarah Beresford, pickabook.co.uk, 22/06/2001
We have visited your website and like it very much.

I notice that you have an interest in earning commission from book sales on your website.

You may therefore be interested to know about our excellent affiliate programme at Pickabook...

Oh, bugger off. Presumably you didn't notice my incessant whining about how my readers are all so No Logo-ified that they can't be arsed to buy anything through my existing affiliate links? And those are links to companies that people have heard of, too.

Seona, getting later for work, 22/06/2001
Now that Popbitch has declared that monkeys are out and dogs are in, can we expect a change to Spank the Dog? And if so, how long before the RSPCA break down your door?

But haven't you heard, Seona? Popbitch is so out these days...

Carole Shields, Philadelphia, USA, 29/06/2001
Appalling lack of words in the past few months, please forgive. Will probably be seeing Old Lag when he hits NYC. Wish I could meet all of you at the Edinburgh festival. Thanks so much for your Hong Kong postcard. Will expect to see some exciting info on the site. If I can get my creative energy going again I will be writing a piece on the Coney Island Mermaid Parade this weekend. Wish you were here.

Yay! Nice to hear from you again, Carole. I must admit, when we finally met up in person for the first time in London back in March, and then I didn't get any mail from you for a couple of months, I was starting to get a wee bit paranoid. Full details of my recent travels to Hong Kong are now available, and of course Edinburgh will follow shortly: looking forward to your news on Coney Island.