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80s Youth Movies: Stand By Me

Yesterday I was watching Stand By Me, one of the best youth movies from the 80s, for about the nth time and I remembered how kind of brilliant (if immature- the film does centre around a bunch of twelve year olds after all) the cusses and retorts in this movie were.

• "Suck my fat one, you cheap dime store hood."
• "Piss up a rope!"
• "Did your mother ever have any kids that lived?"
• Teddy: You morphadite!
  Gordy: Don't call me any of your mother's pet names.
   
• Gordy: Shut up.
  ALL: I don't shut up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up!
  Gordy: And then your mother comes around and she licks it up.
   
• "I'm gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck."
   
• "Let him do his own fighting!"
  "Sure, you only outweigh him by five hundred pounds, fat ass!"
• Vince: I bet you $1000 they find him before that.
  Other Guy: I bet you $2000 they don't!
  Ace: Would you two just shut the fuck up? If either of you assholes had $2000, I'd kill you both.
   
• "I'll only be young once."
  "Yeah, but you'll be stupid for the rest of your life."

Then of course there are the poignant lines, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?".

And River Phoenix, in general.

I love River Phoenix's character in this movie (Chris Chambers), for saying things like, "It's like God gave you somethings man, all those stories that you can make up...And He said, "This is what we got for you kid, try not to lose it." Kids lose everything unless there's someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it then maybe I should."

And that beautiful song by Ben E. King, in the video of which, River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton are so cute:

In short. Watch this movie, okay. Just go and watch it, even if you've watched it some time before.

Think Big

She's got that BIG hair...

After Hannah's brilliant review of HAIR the Musical, and having received my reviewer's copy of Chris-Tia Donaldson's Thank God I'm Natural ahead of its UK release (which I may or may not review eventually because, you know, I'm a little bit lazy oh and yeah I have exams I'm not really keen on failing lol), I've tripped into a kind of obsession with big, wild beautiful hair. Fuck relaxers.
I know all the non-black people will be like, "Uh, relaxer what...?" and I will probably explain that when (if) I put up the book review but right now I'm going to do something that I don't usually do (except for with Camera Chic, which you should click on now!! if you haven't seen it already) and just picture spam you guys here. Because words can't (completely) convey my love of the big, big hair...

(love Jeremy Scott!!)

 (Judith Hill, amazing singer for Michael Jackson)

 (Zezi Ifore)

(Juno Temple)

(EN VOGUE!! Remember this girl band from the 90s?)

 (Bilen).

(I love what she's wearing)

(Kate Somers + Lily Cole)

(Hollie Edwin)

(Darcy's Botanicals girl)

(VJ)

(just cos he's hot)

(just cos Miss Hollis is awesome, even if her hair is not so big here)

Interview: Meet Shandrea Lewdram - Those Girls are WILD

“We're not riding off of other people's fans and popularity by doing reposts, we're pushing out original content and asking our viewers to care about what we have to say or what we think is funny.”

“I want young girls to redefine what it means to be "WILD" and for them to feel like it's cool to truly be yourself”

“Two infinity and beyond!”

Shandrea Lewdram is made up of the sharp Toronto girls, performer Andrea Lewis and writer Shannon Boodram. Those girls are on it. They are deeply amusing, inspirational, WILD. Hence the name of their fabulous blog Those Girls Are Wild (“No, it’s not a porn site I swear”- something I say on a regular basis as I am always recommending their blog to people).

They are a pair of genuine best friends, “we started out in a crew of 40+ girls in grade 9 (called the bad gyals) then we downsized to 5 girls in grade 11 (called Legalidies), then after high school it became just me and Andrea (Those Wild gyals!)”, they put fantastically funny skits on youtube and they discuss everything from fake accents and whether or not kids should be sentenced as adults, to relationship advice and more in their "Topic of the Week" segment.

Interview: Andrea Lewis, True Entertainer

"I love to sing, it does something for my soul"

Since she was scouted in a mall at a young age, this truly talented performer has starred in a whole host of films and television shows from Down in the Delta, directed by Maya Angelou, to Nickelodeon's first musical, Spectacular (and you can now catch  her show, Degrassi: The Next Generation at 12:30 on Saturdays, BBC2.) She participates in all manner of charity events, such as World AIDS Day, YWCA and UNICEF campaigns and now she is coming out with an album, press play below to fall in love with her wonderful voice:

Interview: Shannon Teresa Boodram, Writer/Photographer/TV Presenter...the list goes on

“I love the art of storytelling, I love that people see themselves a little more clearly with everything that I do: be that through my writing, videos or photography.”

Here is the full list (just to make you feel truly lazy):  Shannon Teresa Boodram is a freelance writer and a freelance photographer and the proprietor of an online network for inspirational women and a youth worker and a tv presenter and the editor of a book and a kick ass go-getter.

This woman  is changing the way young people are educated about sex and was recently debating the sex education issue on a Canadian news channel.

Never afraid to voice her opinion, she will call you out (hilariously as well) when you're doing something stupid, and even call herself out too if needs be...

Interview: Kate Le Vann, Novelist

"I would like young women to be more interested in feminism, to stop hating women for being, say, thin, which seems to happen too much."

"The internet and twitter and all of these things that are supposed to be killing publishing are just ways of reading more, aren't they?"

Hilariously self-deprecating and absolutely brilliant, Kate Le Vann is the internationally published British author of such poignant novels as Two Friends, One Summer and Tessa In Love. She tells us about everything from writing young adult fiction and how she single-handedly brought down Julie Burchill’s infamous Modern Review, to bearcrows, stalker comedies and the best places in San Francisco.

Her latest novel, The Worst of Me, injects some much needed realism into the YA literature scene, “I think this novel is a bit different from the others because I always have lovely perfect boy heroes and the hero in this is a bit of a wrong'un, but still fanciable and sexy. And when you fall in love in your teens (or whenever) the chances are he's not going to be perfect and mature and clever and say the right things all the time and do the right things. So maybe Jonah is a bit more realistic? Not that you can't meet the love of your life at 16, but it does quite often go wrong.”

Right now she is enjoying San Francisco, as her husband is doing a fellowship at Stanford University, and she is taking the opportunity to research another setting for her next book, “there are a lot of things here that inspire me here.”

Hey guys, remember this blog/zine?

WARNING: EXAMS KILL (YOUR SOCIAL LIFE AND ALL CHANCES OF HAPPINESS, LET ALONE YOUR TIME TO BLOG).

Which is the reason why this blog has been so bare lately. More important things to do / too lazy to put up the FIVE interviews I've had ready and waiting for about the past two weeks. Sorry.
But that's all changing now.
Next, Kate Le Vann (Novelist), then Shandrea Lewdram (the comedic duo, "Those Girls Are Wild"), then individual interviews with the two Shandrea Lewdram components: writer Shannon T Boodram and actress Andrea Lewis, and then fashion designer + actress Anita Dominique Moore.

Plus, an interview with star of E4's Misfits, Antonia Thomas (!!) in the works.

...Can you tell I like doing interviews with awesome people a little more than coming up with original content? Though there'll be some of that eventually too...

After Hours

After dark is an amazing time. It's bewitching and exhilirating, but unfortunately it can be terrible and scary as hell, because we all know bad shit goes down at night. Reclaim The Night is an organisation that fights to take back the night from rapists and murderers and the rest because it's not right that we should be afraid of the dark. Find out more about their work, how to join one of their marches and other ways to get involved here: http://www.reclaimthenight.org/.

I love the night time. I find it so inspiring and I love to write (bad) poetry and short stories at night. But I do all of that inside, when I'd love to be sitting in a park writing by moonlight because I'm just too afraid. It is definitely time we take back the night.

(The following story should be read at night):

After Hours

Comme c’est curieux... How inaccurate is the phrase the dead of night? When here we are at that time exact to the nanosecond and yet so alive, alive.

This is night fall. When the sky sighs into purple then slips on black, the stars come out to play. Tonighttime we are letting our strikingly beautiful, horrifying imagination run away with you. We believe anything is possible and we are not scared when it all happens.

This is the witching hour. So named because it would stretch infinitely if the sun didn’t wake, shooing it away like the shopkeeper will come morning time to the homeless people sprawled on his doorstep. And we call this magic because we don’t have the words to say what else. Then the hour waits till light wanders off to start again, bewitching all still present with a temporary perpetual darkness.

There sits a girl, just metres away, on a bench. Her wild curls glow in the moonlight. She sings, wondering if her off-note could carry all the way across the world and back, then she stops abruptly. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to her. Hopefully. Our peace is slit by drunken cackling in the distance. It dissipates into a cold silence. So quiet she can hear you breathing. Shh quiet. Hold your breath and you might be able to hear her whisper.

“Would you like to know something? Of course. Here is a secret only a few fearless people know: there are stars in this city. But you have to go to the darkest, dirtiest places to see them. That’s where they’ll shine right through it all. Wink at you. Hold your glance. Stare you down. Not intimidating, but calm and comforting. You are watched.”

And we are, locked in by her fierce eyes, watching her watch us. She’s a clever one. She knows we’re here. She knows that everyone is a ghost at this time. She knows that this city will swallow you up and let you lie in the warmth of its body.

This city will swallow you up and the acid in its gut will burn you to crumbles.

Are you ready? Come on, Let’s go.

Feel like writing something? Enter the writing competition now!

Or spend the night in London/New York City with our list of AMAZING books and films that pull you into the heart of their cities.

[Images in this post are from: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/09/60-beautiful-examples-of-night-photography-2/ and http://bibliographic.net/les/2005/11/vics-good-for-seeing-stars-at-night.html]

Free (Music) Friday

So… you know how it goes. Free Music Friday ends up happening weeks later than when it was supposed to and on any day other than an actual Friday. And then I give you more than one free (legal) download, just to make up for it. So here it is- a single and whole freaking album, enjoy:


1. Johnny Flynn

Johnny Flynn is a folk musician who writes songs just like poetry, has toured with theatre troupes performing Shakespeare and is all too attached to flannel shirts. His music is wonderful, his voice will break your heart and mend it back together. My sister says that I’m blinded by his looks and in fact his (beautiful) music sounds like he’s banging pots and pans together. I see where she’s coming from, but I still love his songs.



From his new album, Been Listening, he’s released the single Kentucky Pill as a free download and I sincerely advise you get it from his myspace now.


2. Simon Curtis

Through interviewing Shannon and Andrea of Those Girls Are Wild, the best blog on the entire internet, I found out about Simon Curtis (who starred with Andrea Lewis of TGAW in the Nickelodeon film, Spectacular). The boy robot makes AWESOME electropop and for some crazy reason he is giving a whole album of his musical goodness away for free!!!





Get 8Bit Heart from his website now.


Click here for the previous free and legal downloads of (great) music.