Alcohol and working

I was with Niko-Matti, a friend of mine, at the Karibia spa last night and in the sauna we talked about drinking and hangovers. I said that I've never understood the idea of the moral hangover ("morkkis" in Finnish). If you decide to drink and get drunk, you should be able to cope with the results. I said to Niko-Matti that I've never had a moral hangover (which isn't exactly true, since I've had it at least twice). Niko-Matti said he cannot understand since he thinks you can't separate the mind from the body. If the body doesn't function well, then the mind is at pains, too.

We tested the thing afterwards. I drank four beers (well, not exactly beers, but two "lonkeros" (that's a Finnish beverage, mix of gin and grapefruit soda - that's great, you foreigners reading this should try it!) and one Bacardi Breezer and one Schweppes Zing) and was quite drunk when I got home. And I had a hangover this morning!

I was going to work well and hard and be productive, but it was harder than usually. I was a bit irritated about the headache and was tired after sleeping not so well and waking up couple of times in the middle of the night. So, it didn't work out for me very well. And I have to apologize to Niko-Matti for being so arrogant about my hangovers.

However, I continued translating Jason Starr's "Nothing Personal", which will appear next after "Fake I.D.", also translated by me, has appeared. Then I wrote two or three pages for my novel. In the scene I had to imagine what the people in the ad companies are like and what they are talking about. I think I did quite well, even though I think I have to have it checked by a friend of mine who works in one of the bigger agencies in Turku. Then I wrote parts of a forth-coming article for Pulp - about the Roy Rockwood books about Bomba, the Jungle Boy. Then I went out to get Kauto to sleep (he sleeps in the backyard, since we don't have a balcony; it's a bit tiresome at times, but then again you get to go out). When I came back, I wrote two pages of the article I've promised: the story of the Demars, the now-legendary two-man (or actually, two-boy) punk band that my kid brother was in from 1995 to 2000 (or so). It will appear in an American indie magazine. The editor of the mag was very enthusiastic about the Demars and their naive and absurd children's hardcore. I may post the article here when it's ready.

Then it's been reading e-mail. I had made a terrible mistake claiming that Alfred Hitchcock and pulp fiction don't have much in common. Asko Alanen attacked me, and rightly so, and pointed out that Hitch directed films from Woolrich and Bloch and helped put up a digest-sized magazine that employed many pulp writers from Henry Slesar to C.B. Gilford. So, apologies to all!

I was listening earlier to a NME collection of new rock'n'roll, bands like The Von Bondies and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. What a bunch of crap! Boring tunes, no sign of good melodies. Franz Ferdinand was there, to my relief, and I was surprised to hear a band called Eastern Lane to play "Fa Ce La", one of the Feelies songs out of "Crazy Rhythms". I spinned the Hives' first album after that and it was much better. Then I listened to Throbbing Gristle's classic from 1978, "20 Jazz Funk Greats", which isn't exactly what it says. Interesting pre-industrial noise, but not to everyone's taste, of course.

Now, it's time for afternoon tea.