Guitar Lessons!

Left to right, Greg Reske on drums, Bill Welsh on guitar and Scott Mills on bass of Mr. Hyde.

You want to take lessons but are having a hard time committing the money that everyone is asking for on a weekly basis. What to do? How about Group Lessons?

With a Group Lesson you are still getting instruction and at the same time saving money. But you are also getting an added benefit- playing, learning and networking with other people, that share a similar interest. If you are interested please contact me- the schedule is below and each lesson will be limited to 4 people.

Sunday 4:00-4:45 Beginner Cost is $15.00 *see below
Sunday 5:00-5:45 Intermediate Cost is $15.00 *see below
Sunday 6:00-6:45 Advanced Cost is $15.00 *see below

Beginner classes will cover Open Chords, Melody’s, Songs of Yesterday and Today- think strumming around the campfire

Intermediate classes will cover Barre Chords, Memorizing the Chord and Note Names, Octaves, Songs of Yesterday and Today, Scales and Theory- geared toward musicians wanting to play out.

Advanced Classes will cover a lot scales and how to visualize them on the fretboard, playing thru chord changes, will also work on improvising. Geared toward working musicians that want to break out of a rut, and or improve dramatically.

Classes will start January 3, 2010

Call Bill today at 248-798-1180 248-798-1180 to sign up.

so i’m laying on my bed…
listening to the rain pour and die
just to pour again
actually wishing for an insomnia attack
yes i actually call them that
it’s just like asthma
you never really know when it’s gonna hit
i wish it would hit now
i feel like being so creative
but my eye’s are giving me a deadline of about an hour
so here are some thoughts for the early sunday morning:

obscure thoughts are the best kind of thoughts
because you can say them out loud, and still
no one will know what you’re thinking about

i’m having way too many jekyll and hyde fights with myself lately.
it feels so much easier to slip away
but i can’t find it in me to let go completely

rain streaming down my window
my cat’s purring
my dog’s snoring
i could listen to these all at once forever
and die happy

insomnia has a tendency to become a choice rather than an illness
at least for me
at least for now

clarity is a rarity
and i can’t find it after i sleep
i only reach it when i’m awake

and now i say goodnight moon
goodnight stars
goodnight love
wherever you are
falling asleep to the brilliance that is Chaplin
hoping that tomorrow will keep me relaxed

smile
though your heart is breaking
smile
even though it’s aching
when there are clouds in the sky
you’ll get by
if you smile
through your tears and sorrow
smile
and maybe tomorrow
the sun will shine through
for you
if you just
smile

Well, if you’re back, Sean, I suppose I should post more then once every 10 days or so. So your NANO novel involved transexual dragons? Interesting. I’ll have to read it one of these days.

I’m agreed about Christmas. Everyone acts like perfect, Norman Rockwell people for a few days, then goes back to screaming at each other for the rest of the year. And of course, Christmas and birthdays are the only time people are supposed to give gifts to each other, or even be nice to each other[1].

There isn’t any real honesty in it. It’s all a facade. Which is why I thought this song from the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde musical would be appropriate.

[1] “And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.” – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Warning: this is the non-thinking, gut reaction part of me. I’m frustrated and hurt. I want “Subject B” to like me. He doesn’t.

What more can I say? I’m diappointed.  I just wanted to let you know my life isn’t bubble-wrapped. This is where correct thinking (Mr. Hyde) meets real life (Dr. Jekyll), and just like in the book, the conflict isn’t for a pansy. Dr. Jekyll brutally murdered my dreams of happiness, and now Mr. Hyde must deal with the fall out.

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” I Cor. 10:13

It’s a good thing that God’s plan remains bigger than my limited understanding. I will hope in God.

You know me – I’m a crusader for the truth. I aim in this blog for absolute accuracy 54% of the time – that’s more than half. So when I discover that I have inadvertantly made a mistake it upsets me. Not a huge amount, admittedly, but a bit. Enough to write this entry, put it that way.

See, I was questioned on my sources for the entry ‘Joseph Manton’s Huge Bottom’ (http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/joseph-mantons-huge-bottom/) in which I recounted the tale of how the gunsmith Joseph Manton encountered a highwayman while crossing Hounslow Heath. To briefly recount, Manton damned the highwayman for his insolence, as Manton’s own firm of gunsmiths had manufactured the highwayman’s gun. The highwayman, slick as you like, complimented Manton for his craftsmanship but complained that the gun was a rip-off. Therefore, he robbed Manton of precisely the price of the pistol and no more. A couple of days ago, I found this comment on the entry:

Tom, just out of curiosity – where did you get this story from? I haven’t seen it in any of my books where Joe Manton is mentioned.

“No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just have a look in my own library and… well, God be damned.” I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d read that tale. I eventually tracked it down to one of those “Did You Know?” kind of books. You know, the ones that don’t have a bibliography. Anyway, they must have got it from somewhere, but damned if I can find it. So, for now, let’s say this one is apocryphal. Unless anyone knows any better.

Actually, I should have been more careful – I’ve dismissed other “facts” with less evidence. For instance, there’s a tale that gets forwarded to me in my capacity as a chap known to be a fan of London and steam-powered things. This tale goes that the people of East London were appalled by the sight of the first steam locomotive of the London and Greenwich Railway. The solution devised by the Board of Directors was to build a new locomotive that was shaped like a ship, because there are lots of those in East London anyway. I have not, however, found any mention of this in books about the London and Greenwich Railway. Even the ones with a full stocklist. It seems rather unlikely, and in any case, this would do nothing to disguise the train’s load, nor would it reduce the greater nuisances of noise and sparks. The closest I’ve been able to find was mention of a ship used by Arctic explorer John Franklin called the Erebus, which was converted to steam power using parts from a locomotive of the London and Greenwich Railway. So you see, I do have some integrity.

EDIT: A previous version of this entry was even worse.

Bastante intenso este fin de semana.
Empezó con un evento al que fui invitado por Octavio Gomez Milián, habitual en la escena bohemia aragonesa. Se trataba de la presentación de la colección de poesía “Resurrección” con una combinación de lecturas poéticas, actuaciones musicales y proyecciones.
La verdad es que no fue una propuesta corriente, mas bien insólita, y ese fue su gran atractivo.
La “party” fue en el Mar de Dios zaragozano. Tras la bienvenida a los asistentes y el recordatorio de lo que estábamos a punto de vivir, intervino el redactor jefe de Comuniter para analizar la situación actual de la escena y sus más inmediatos proyectos.
La música empezó a sonar de la mano de Alex, líder de Mr Hyde que se marcó varias canciones acompañado de su guitarra y de Luis “Nuboso” Cebrián (memorable “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, una de mis favoritas de “Achtung Baby”) con buena respuesta por parte del público.
Luego siguieron unas lecturas realizadas por Geraldine Hill de Radio Zaragoza que recordó que es una de las mejores voces de esta tierra por su cadencia y dicción. La música siguió (ahora casi estoy hablando de memoria, muy mala la mía) con, de nuevo, Luis Cebrián junto a su última propuesta: Luisiana. Junto a Ana Muñoz intentaron recrear algunas de las canciones de su flamante repertorio, muy marcado en las letras por la poesía. De hecho, uno de los textos que cantan es de Octavio Gomez Milián. Lo de “intentaron” no es un gratuito puesto que algunos problemas técnicos evitaron escuchar la pura voz de Ana en todo su esplendor pero, afortunadamente, al final fueron solventados.
Llegó el turno del grupo anfitrión de la velada: Experimentos In Da Notte. Su sonoridad atmosférica y lisérgica vino como anillo al dedo a la caracterización de la sala. Muy buen arranque con el ya clásico “Esperando A Bebeto” …
Algunas de las proyecciones que pudieron verse en el Festival Noche Sin Techo de Ateca también fueron degustadas por los asistentes. Ya en la recta final, dos platos fuertes: Tunguska Experience y Volador. Los segundos, más conocidos, estuvieron representados por Antílope y Draco –Anazul también estaba por ahí- y firmaron un buen final de fiesta. Antes, varios músicos de distintas formaciones oscenses tomaron el escenario de Mar de Dios con una propuesta nada convencional, acorde con la línea artística de la presentación.
Al final, rollo “Give Peace A Chance” o “We Are The World”, todos reunidos para agradecer la fidelidad de los seguidores de la colección. Y luego siguió una sesión de disc-jockeys que en otra ocasión comentaremos.
Desde aquí la gratitud –que también le di en persona- a Octavio por abrir nuestras miras a todo el arte … sin perjuicios! Thanks man!

BLOG COLECCIÓN RESURRECCIÓN – EDITORIAL COMUNITER

The impossible happened. For months, I successfully turned myself into a character I came to know as Mr. Hyde many many times. There were no noticeable side effects of this potion… until now. Today I woke up, greeted the new day and then realized that I quite literally was not myself. Looking down, I realized that the arm I saw was not my own. At first, I failed to realize the significance of this. Then, it hit me.

I went to bed as myself, Dr. Henry Jekyll. When I woke up to the new day, I was in the body of Mr. Edward Hyde. There was no need for me to swallow the potion. I already was what for months I had had to drink a potion to be. The change was automatic and this immediately made me panic.

“At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde” (Stevenson 92).

Tá, eu tive uma ligeira compulsão e terminei…

Mr. Hyde – The Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter/Mago/Ninja/ epic multiclass a lot…

Mr. Hyde e o crâneo do Demi-Lich

Vários motivos para sorrir… =D

I take a potion. I concocted it; I drank it; now I’m addicted. It is like my own little drug. I created my own drug by combining a few other ones. One minute I am myself, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the next, I am Mr. Hyde.

“The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness” (Stevenson 84).

It is not unlike this (4:35):

“‘He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him’” (Stevenson 9-10).

I would say that that quote about describes Mr. Hyde as well as Gregory Goyle. All excepting the “extraordinary man” part on Goyle. That does not apply to him. Is it possible that J.K. Rowling stole her idea for Polyjuice Potion from my story and me?

We enjoyed our dinner. The conversations had were flitty and delightful. We skimmed over countless topics and picked a bone or two before moving onto the next one. I had not realized just how much we had all drifted away since I became preoccupied with something else until the party tonight. But, that’s not all.

A friend of mine (possibly the dearest of all) by the name of Utterson has become increasingly concerned with my welfare recently. He has reason to be alarmed, I know, but I could not help but feel anger rushing to my temples. I am quite sure I hid my frustration and anger successfully, but even so, it may have been detected. Utterson is a sharp man and I have always respected him. He interrogated me on a sore subject: my “friend” Mr. Hyde. I could not tell him the truth, so this is what I said:

“My good Utterson, this is very good of you; this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you in. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive-ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn’t what you fancy; it is not so bad as that; and just to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I want to add one little word, Utterson, that I’m sure you’ll take in good part: this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep” (Stevenson 26).

I was touched by his concern, truly I was, and he did not appear taken aback in the least, which I was pleased to see. I was determined to put my foot down – in a nice way – and I believe that I did just that. Someday I will tell him about Mr. Hyde.

A francesa TGV, empresa de trens de alta velocidade, buscou uma forma mais animada de falar com seu público, basicamente constituído por jovens. Para isso, lançaram várias formas de entretenimento a bordo, até um “trem festa” noturno chamado iDNiGHT.

Pois bem, eles contrataram a agência Nogoodindustry, para criar a campanha para promover a iDTGV. A sacada é mostrar os personagens em 3D em ambientes do trem. São pequenas animações, com situações diferentes e engraçadas e que segundo informações, estão fazendo muito sucesso na França. A produção é do Mr Hyde.

Ah, the mad scientist.  Where would horror be without Dr. Frankenstein, Jekyll, Sardonicus, and the countless other souls who pushed the bounds of science into God’s domain, only to perish for their efforts?  Of course, there aren’t any real mad scientists out there… are there?

Well, Tesla’s neighbors might have argued.  Besides his somewhat fanciful claims that he could split the Earth with a few well timed explosions, his experiments in broadcast power resulted in massive Tesla coils, hundreds of feet tall, that drew down lightning on the land around them.  Of course, then he told his backer that he was planning on offering electricity to the world for free.  Yeah, guess how quickly those checks stopped being signed.

And, of course, one could easily list Oppenheimer and the other men behind the Manhattan Project as mad scientists, albeit rather more successful ones.  Oppenheimer even had the necessary flair for the dramatic.  “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds,” anyone?

Even the fictional mad scientists aren’t necessarily that out there, in the long run.  Dr. Jekyll’s mysterious salts and ethers that warped the physical form and drove men mad?  Well, what would you say cocaine and other exotic drugs are?  It seems the good doctor accidentally may have created one of the first designer drugs.  And even Baron Doctor Victor von Frankenstein, who raised the dead, seems to have had a real-life counterpart.

But, of course, there aren’t any real mad scientists around today.  Tesla and the like… they were from an era when science was expanding so rapidly that anything seemed possible.  These days, we’ve got a better grasp on things.

And then you hear about DARPA, and their efforts to make cyborg insects, and maybe it’s not so far-fetched after all.  The mad scientists just have the government signing their checks now.

Mad science.  Is it really a bad thing?  Is there a boundary beyond which man wasn’t meant to explore?  That’s one of the hardest questions, and one that’s inspired an entire field of study (scientific ethics).  Some people have very strong opinions that scientists go too far, too fast – people like Mary Shelley and Michael Crichton.  Other people think that science isn’t going far enough fast enough, that it’s being held back unfairly by people’s fears.  What’s the answer?  Really, it’s rather hard to find one.  The only answer everybody seems to agree on is that if something goes wrong, you can blame the scientists.

Is it any wonder that some of them go a little mad?

Speaking of returning unholy, cobbled together bits of the dead and buried to animate mockeries of life, take a look at http://darklylit.wordpress.com, or search for DarklyLit on iTunes and take a listen.  It’s a new podcast I’m working on, where I’ll be doing free readings of public domain dark fiction, and discussing it on alternate weeks.  I’ve got the permission of Nox Arcana to use their music on the podcast (go listen to them now – www.noxarcana.com – they’re great), and I hope to help bring some of the classics back to the public eye.  This week, I pretty well just introduce the podcast.  If you’d rather wait until I’m in the thick of things, then tune in next week for my reading of The Tell-Tale Heart.

Just in time for Halloween.

I haven’t even started planning what I’m going to do for Halloween.  I still have a wig and costume (pirate) from last year that cost me a whopping $140 and after attending 2 very boring parties, I swore never to spend that much on a costume again.

I did come in 4th place, though and I won a ugly green mug, that I hide in the back of my cupboard because I can’t stand looking at it.

I’m saving it as a Christmas gift for someone I don’t really like.

Hopefully they never read this blog.

If your in the mood to do some Christmas shopping and are looking for some best seller books then  do your shopping on Amazon Best Sellers List.

Hoy llueve en todo el mundo. No ha parado de llover, de garuar,de haber tormentas tropicales y de hielo. Hay monzones, huracanes, tornados, trombas marinas y de agua dulce.

Las tormentas parecen haberse apoderado de la tierra en su decadente plenitud. LLueve. Pasaron meses y te llueve dentro. Tu gran constancia y tu habilidad sobrenatural para esclavizarte te han llevado lejos y ahora tienes todo las cadenas con las que soñabas tiempo atrás.  El trabajo, la carrera, la nena y la nenita. El Dios que creias que te miraba de a ratos, ahora te mira fuertemente a tus ojos tristes y tu quieres dar vuelta la mirada pero eso no se puede. Nada se escapa del ojo que todo lo ve.

Todos te decian que este personaje nuevo no iba a durar mucho, pero tu si que sabes ir en contra de todos y para probar su error fuiste hasta las ultimas consecuencias. “Tomemonos tiempo para sanar”-dijiste pero te avalanzaste hacia el nuevo juego como un niño en Navidad.

Creo que es eso. Es tu niño atrapado que sufre y sufre dentro del carro porque su madre no lo viene a auxiliar. Es el niño atrapado porque su madre recoge otros niños perdidos pero no mira a los ojos tristes de su propio hijo. Es el niño atrapado que no sabe como es que lo abrazen sin mentir. Es la madre atrapada que no sabe como es dar LUZ.

Pero ya el tiempo pasó, limpiate el barro que te dejó el tsunami y ponte de pie, que ya no eres un niño y ya no estás atrapado en ningún auto con trabas automáticas. Las trabas ahora son sólo tuyas. Las cadenas y los acuerdos los compraste tu.

Llueve en todo el Planeta, y si pudiese saberlo, se que llovería en cualquier otro mundo con atmósfera. Llueve porque te diste cuenta que dejaste libre algo bello y te encadenaste a la mentira.Y ahora ves la vida de los otros pasar, aferrado a una vocación que te aterra y sacando otra vez del closet, a tu adorado Mr Hyde.

Otra vez el ciclo comienza de nuevo. Inevitable como mojarse con la lluvia. No hay paraguas tan perfectos que te pongan a salvo de tu propia lluvia. Llueve, y te das cuenta que hay un sueño que has perdido, y que nunca, nunca mas, has de poder recuperar. No hay historia más triste que esa.

1LIVE
Donnerstag, 22. Oktober 2009
23 Uhr

Londons Straßen liegen in Dunkelheit und Nebel: Willkommener Schutz für den gewissenlosen und grausamen Mann, der Kinder und Frauen quält, Männer betrügt und mordet. Mr. Hyde heißt das Monster. Und immer wieder führen seine Spuren zum Haus des angesehenen Arztes Dr. Jekyll.

Dessen Freunde sind schon seit längerem alarmiert: Der Arzt experimentiert mit alchimistischen Formeln und hat den Rahmen der “Heilkunde” längst verlassen. Niemand weiß, was genau er sucht. Bis die Verbindung zum Mörder Hyde auch die Polizei auf den Plan ruft.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) verbrannte den ersten Entwurf zu dieser Erzählung, nachdem seine Frau sich über fehlende “Moral” beklagt hatte. Die Endfassung wurde zum größten Publikumserfolg des Autors und wurde mehrfach verfilmt und als Musical aufgeführt.

©WDR

1LiVE
Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2009
23 Uhr

Londons Straßen liegen in Dunkelheit und Nebel: Willkommener Schutz für den gewissenlosen und grausamen Mann, der Kinder und Frauen quält, Männer betrügt und mordet. Mr. Hyde heißt das Monster. Und immer wieder führen seine Spuren zum Haus des angesehenen Arztes Dr. Jekyll.

Dessen Freunde sind schon seit längerem alarmiert: Der Arzt experimentiert mit alchimistischen Formeln und hat den Rahmen der “Heilkunde” längst verlassen. Niemand weiß, was genau er sucht. Bis die Verbindung zum Mörder Hyde auch die Polizei auf den Plan ruft.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) verbrannte den ersten Entwurf zu dieser Erzählung, nachdem seine Frau sich über fehlende “Moral” beklagt hatte. Die Endfassung wurde zum größten Publikumserfolg des Autors und wurde mehrfach verfilmt und als Musical aufgeführt.

Teil 2: Donnerstag, 22. Oktober 2009, 23 Uhr

Welcome to part 2 of Scaretober, MUAHAHAHAHAHA! This week the boys trade opinions over Marvel Zombies, as in the entire concept (including the Army of Darkness Spin-off), can you survive? There will be blood, and heads will roll, and <insert cliche’ horror tagline> as they also discuss the Horror Genre in books and film, as well as the rise of the Zombie genre. Plus,  Alex hints at a possible European invasion, Sam and Mike discuss their favorite manga (a potential episode?????), and all your usual rants, jokes, and culturally incorrect jabberings! It’s everything you enjoy about the Mild Mannered podcast, plus ZOMBIES! Listen Now!

BUT WAIT! Don’t miss the special MONSTERPIECE Comic Book Theatre straight from Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. II, WARNING: NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART!!!

One of my favourite works of Victorian fiction – possibly my favourite, in fact – is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It’s a story that everyone knows. Jekyll invents this potion, drinks it, becomes Mr Hyde and generally makes a nuisance of himself. Jekyll tops himself at the end.

Except it’s not quite like that in the book. In the book, Jekyll turning into Hyde is actually a twist at the end. The reader, in theory, has no idea that Hyde and Jekyll are the same man until, a few pages from the end, Hyde meets with Jekyll’s friend Dr Lanyon and transforms in front of him. Until that point, Hyde is this awful man who appears to be blackmailing Jekyll into doing his bidding. It must be the most spoilered ending in history – if people know one thing about the story, it’s that Hyde is Jekyll.

In a documentary broadcast a couple of years ago, the author Ian Rankin identified Jekyll’s house. He suggests that it was, in fact, based on the pioneering surgeon Joseph Hunter’s house in Leicester Square.

Site of Joseph Hunter's house (front)

The house was a typical property such as might be owned by a well-to-do London gent. However, Hunter also owned the house behind, which backed on to what is now Charing Cross Road, but then was a much narrower, more crowded street. Between the two he built his dissecting rooms, receiving corpses through the rear property. Rankin’s argument was that this house represented the double life of Jekyll – respectable Jekyll uses the front door, vile Hyde uses the back.

In the book, Stevenson isn’t hugely specific about where the house is. It is described as having been purchased “from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon” and located on “some square.” The street where Mr Hyde is first sighted, and the property into which he enters, is simply described as “a by street in a busy corner of London.” Hyde’s address is given in no greater detail than “in Soho.”

Rear entrance.

Soho’s borders are a little uncertain, and before the Tube was there to tell us which part of London we were in, they were even more so. One could, I suppose, call Leicester Square part of Soho. Rankin’s theory would seem to make sense, but at the same time I don’t think Stevenson really intended his fog-bound version of the West End to be too specific.

Whether you go with Rankin’s suggestion or not, the West End is a pretty appropriate setting for the story. For as long as the West End has been there, it’s led a dual existence. For the most part, it’s been a wealthy place, but with little sinful pockets dotted around. Soho, Covent Garden and Haymarket have traditionally been the worst fleshpots of the West End, although the latter two are now rather upmarket for that sort of thing. Jekyll is a single gent, and it’s not too unreasonable to assume that “the ghost of some old sin” that Mr Utterson believes to be the reason for Hyde’s “blackmail” may have come from trips into the back streets of Soho.

Of course, there are lots of interpretations of what Hyde represents. The story is one of a number of Victorian tales that use Gothic supernatural elements to darkly hint that actually, maybe Victorian England wasn’t all crinoline and Sunday prayers. Dracula and The Picture of Dorian Gray are two others that spring to mind. Of course, if you really  want to see the seamy side of Victorian society in the late 19th century, you can do little better than the anonymously-written and eye-blisteringly pornographic My Secret Life, a supposedly autobiographical account of a gentleman’s sexual adventures in Victorian England. It’s disputed as to what extent the work is genuine autobiography, but fiction or reality, it does at least show that actually, sex wasn’t invented some time around 1963.

Basically, what I’m saying is that what underground texts like My Secret Life could say explicitly, mainstream authors could only hint at. A lot of critics have suggested that Hyde represents repressed sexuality, or even repressed homosexuality – there are no women in Jekyll’s social circle. Ian Rankin even goes so far as to suggest that Sir Danvers Carew’s fatal meeting with Hyde reads like “a pick-up gone horribly wrong,” representing the fears of the by-necessity-closeted gay community of the day.

One can also read the potion as a representation of addiction. Jekyll initially requires the potion to turn into Hyde, but then requires it to stop himself from being Hyde. In other words, at first he takes the drug to feel good, then he needs it just to feel normal.

I should probably end this entry soon, as it’s past my bedtime and I’m not making much sense any more. So anyway, in conclusion, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde = messed-up Victorians.

By Michael MacLeod

ROLLING Stone Ronnie Wood says alcohol splits his personality like Jekyll and Hyde.

The wrinkly rocker has “accepted the fact it is never going to go away,” but says he still struggles with a “lack of self-esteem” when it comes to putting down the bottle.

The 62 year-old granddad guitarist opened up about his struggle with booze in a weekend interview.

And he says sticking with his 21 year-old Russian girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova makes him feel like “a permanent teenager.”

The Stones stalwart shrugged off reports he was trying to win back his ex-wife Jo after dumping her last year.

Neighbours claimed Wood and Ivanova had a blazing row last weekend which ended with her threatening suicide.

Wood admitted there had been “harsh words” between himself and Ivanova at their mansion in Belsize, Surrey, but denied reports the pair were splitting.

He said: “There were a few harsh words that night between me and Kat but the point about Belsize is it’s like an echo chamber.

“You raise your voice and the neighbours hear everything.

“If we have another argument, this time we’ll have it in the middle of a field.”

He met the girl 42 year his junior in 2008 after a shock separation from his wife Jo, who is currently starring in BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing show.

Wood insists the pair have “moved on.”

He said: “I’m a permanent teenager. The older I get, the younger I get.

“Me and Kat, it’s been this great adventure and I’m having fun.

“It’s a new life for me, I’m in a different place to where I was 30 years ago. Jo and me, we just moved on.

“She’s gone her way, I’ve gone mine.”

But he admits he is struggling to move on from alcohol.

He said: “I tried to have a drink but I can’t find a balance.

“When I do, Mr Hyde comes out, and the older I get, the worse I get.

“I suppose once you accept the fact it’s never going to go away then it’s easier to live with.

“But a lack of self-esteem, that’s always been my biggest problem. Always putting myself down.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Victorian London is the scene of one of the most horrific tales of the nineteenth century, one which explores the dual nature of man. By suggestion from wolfemann, we go back to the beginning and trace the history of the two fellows. Tell me your two sides on Twitter @HalloweenHaunt, on Facebook, and HalloweenHaunt.wordpress.com.

More on the book and history of Jekyll/Hyde on Wikipedia.com.

An intellectual essay by Vladimir Nabokov.

Read the whole book.

Music:

“Awkward Meeting” and “Interloper” by Kevin McLeod are available at Incompetech.com.

A bit of “Psy Dreaming” by Combat Caveman (from GarageBand.com)

“The Mad Scientist” by David Chochoi (from Soundclick.com)

Zum Abschluss des Tages hier nun ein weiterer Bad Taste Bear namens „Mr. Hyde“  aus meinem „Bad Taste Bears“-Sortiment, diesen und viele weitere Artikel findet man zu äußerst günstigen Preisen im NILUKA Shop unter www.niluka-shop.de