Category Archives: Greenygrey history

Stranger Things Eddie Munson Fans

Stranger Things‘s Eddie Munson is apparently creating a big online interest in 1980s metal, with his favourite song Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Metallica were one of my favourite bands too, and I included them as one of my biggest poetry inspirations at the start of my first poetry collection.

Moreover, Eddie Munson fandom says he shares my 1965/66 birth time, dysfunctional childhood, height and hair colour! I can’t say I’ve watched any of it, and don’t get into series like that anymore. I’d probably watch it as a film, as I’ve watched many such movies such as Brightburn, The Endless and Freaks recently. Werewolf of Oz cites similar fiction I’d watched before starting writing, while XaW Files of course was inspired by X-Files.

1980s and early ’90s Metal music and lyrics provided the major soundtrack and framework for my early poetry and fantasy writing, while my late 1980s memoir cited Guns N’ Roses in the title, and had many recollections of heavy metal music and magazines I carried; while generally trying to travel light!

Hard to think it was 40 years ago, and to new fans must seem like the early 1940s did to me then.
The 1960s birth of rock seemed ancient to me, while the 1950s birth of rock n’ roll in black and white had next to no cultural relevance. 1940s music seemed just for movies and barely existed!!

My books on Amazon are free to read on Prime:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marc-Latham/e/B004SP40J0

Eco-Tuesday Interview

Thanks to Willow Croft for arranging and conducting an eco interview with me. Great to reminisce about environment, travelling and writing with someone I feel is on the same wavelength on those topics; and dredge up some memories of writers and creations that influenced me, from somewhere in my memory!

Free Werewolf Wizard of Oz Fantasy Poetry Prose Ebook

Free to download in July for 10th anniversary: a book with an eco message showing the nice side of wolves to counter the historic demonising, with a Wizard of Oz fantasy theme mixed with the factual forced migration of British children around the Commonwealth for a century, which had recently been told in the book/film Oranges and Sunshine.

Book summary blurb on Smashwords:

Rebel without a cause, werewolf without claws, Grey travels across all regions of Oz (Australia) in a comedy-fantasy parody of the Wizard of Oz.
It is not witches that hunt the protagonist for a ruby slipper, but monotheists desperate to get their hands on an emerald cork hat. There’s no scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion searching for brain, heart and courage; instead, we have Elle McPherson, Angry Anderson and Bon Scott inspired characters needing a body, mind and spirit confidence boost.
Will Grey and the intrepid travellers elude their pursuers and reach their destination? This book provides amazing action and surreal comedy in poetry and prose before reaching a cohesive and thrilling ending.

Smashwords explained: The ebooks on Smashwords can be read online using online readers, or they can be downloaded to other reading devices such as the iPhone, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, or to other ereading devices.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/325567

Ukraine War, Black Sabbath and Animal Farm

Animal Farm has inspired me to leave the HUMANITY collective + join pigs: HAMUNITY is way forward for me…
Only Fans sigh ‘Oh well’ (Orwell)!

I hope to find some peaceful porcine, unlike Black Sabbath’s War Pigs (which I had listened to a few times recently, but not remembered it as an influence when I posted on Facebook this morning, in a Beyond Humanity kind of subliminal messages coincidence; and not really having read any Orwell lately!):

Halloween Special Poet Scary Philosophy

The above is the only colourful background Facebook post since the last time. So for Halloween I thought I’d provide a little explanation to the use of metaphor in the partly autobiographical poem.

The first three sections refer to my age of 56, and being about two-thirds of the average age; and basement floor about my ‘position in society’, despite being a PhD graduate.

Crow cluttered claw was just chucked in for a Halloween feel, and I liked the alliteration. I was thinking of finishing with a simple line that smoothly ended the poem, but then thought I’d punk it up with the above; note how ‘shut window’ is open to interpretation: was the window shut after the spitting or was it already shut?

Halloween COP26

Today, for Halloween; or to counter the way the greenYgrey has been misinterpreted with the passing of time; and COP26 starting tomorrow, I wrote this:

The greenYgrey was created as a nice friendly Scooby Doo-inspired veggie werewolf; to show wolves’ good side, and not the negative propagated by fairy-tales etc; and that’s the way it’ll always be.

Sixteen years later, I’ve become much older and colder; probably what I should be, as a rational middle-aged PhD graduate.

In some ways it’s as a result of the way I’ve seen humanity going, but in others it’s that I reached the end of my philosophical quest, and found that whatever humanity does will be negative. While I grew up thinking it was the negative side to humanity that caused all the problems, I realised that the positive can be worse: destroying the planet with more humans, development, transport, presents etc.

The real horror of Halloween is all the products sold… but don’t let that stop you having a good time… as it probably won’t make much difference in the world picture, compared to some of the biggest populations not signing up to green initiatives etc.

Epilogue

Thinking about it afterwards, I thought that gave another explanation to the ‘Beyond Humanity’ sub-title: that it’s beyond humanity to stop destroying the planet, without completely changing our thinking (and what it means to be human?) and uniting a divided world!

kirkstallhenge delivers: sunrise in cloudless sky

A weather and forecast conjunction alignment provided a cloudless sky for the first Kirkstallhenge unveiling, as the last post in the mistYmuse 20/21 encores.

The sunrise was a bit more northern than I thought, rising behind the second building, but that provided a nice shot as our planet span around a bit more, positioning our view of the sun between the buildings.

You’ve been a great crowd, and I’m sure the ancestors would be proud.

Heilung headliner award winner

Last year was the twelfth prestigious (partly parodygious self-parody; putting myself on a par with a big event, but with real events, and really the gig of the year for me) gYg rock n’ roll hall of fame, with the Descended from Odin festival; part of the York Viking Festival; providing the venue. There’s a great review on Ostara Metal that I agree with pretty much totally!

The first cases of covid-19 in the UK had recently been found in York, but were thought to have been contained and quarantined successfully, so it was a bit of a weird atmosphere. The general message at the time was that it was similar to the flu, and young people creating a herd immunity was a good thing.

I’d had a nasty flu in January, so thought maybe I’d had covid-19 before it got publicised in the UK, but recently took an antibodies test for UK Biobank, and tested negative, so I don’t think I’ve had covid-19 now, although a negative antibodies test doesn’t guarantee you haven’t had it. I’ve been much healthier this winter while avoiding (Beyond!) humanity!

Here’s a few photos I took (I hadn’t seen the request not to take photos mentioned in the Ostara review!). The first ones (reddish) are Nytt Land; then (purplish) Saor, then (greyish) Heilung:

I also took a video of Nytt Land:

The gYg rock n’ roll hall of fame now looks like this:

  • 2009: Lynyrd Skynyrd
  • 2010: Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row
  • 2011: Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Steel Panther
  • 2012: W.A.S.P.
  • 2013: Alice in Chains, Ghost and Walking Papers
  • 2014: The Pretty Reckless, Heaven’s Basement and Nothing More
  • 2015: Motley Crue, Alice Cooper and The One Hundred
  • 2016: Black Sabbath, Rammstein, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, The Wildhearts, Halestorm, The Temperance Movement, Kadavar, the Gutterdammerung band and movie, The Electric Wizard, Rival Sons, Sixx A.M., The Amorettes, The Men That Will Be Blamed For Nothing, Avatar, Monster Truck, Whiskey Myers, Grand Magus, Scorpion Child, Inglorious, Royal Republic, Santa Cruz, Deftones, Strange Bones, Graveyard, Tremonti and Gojira.
  • 2017: Guns N’ Roses, The Kills and Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown
  • 2018: Rose Tattoo and Girlschool
  •  2019: The Cult and Piston
  • 2020: Heilung, Nytt Land, Týr, Saor, Seidrblot, Gaahls WYRD, Winterfylleth, Wyrdstæf and Jo Quail.

The greenYgrey world always had a pagan theme, and ended in Scandinavia, land of Odin.

SUNNY DISPOSITION clouds

Sometimes I hear people described as always having had a ‘sunny disposition’; did that mean they were ignorant or uncaring? I could have a ‘sunny disposition’ all the time if I avoided any thoughts of reality. Unfortunately, I can see the negatives in even the closest and most personal elements of ‘my world’; seemingly unlike those who criticise us the most, ignoring their own failings and blaming them all on us! Now, I think I should have taken any white male privilege I had when I had the chance. But in reality, my mind keeps on being ‘greenYgrey’!

Clouds Obscuring Clear Sunny Happiness

Humanity = my species / out of control overcrowding planet
Whites = my race / mostly meat-eating environment destroyers
Britain = my country / cold, cloudy with continuous class system

Then there’s all the problems on the social/personal level, with daily tragedy dished up by the media, and people you know if you’re in large social circles.

Then there’s life, knowing we’ve got a limited amount of time, but not knowing for sure where our world came from or what’s beyond our universe.

Accepting humanity and the world are always going to be full of flaws and deteriorating in our lifetimes is a big step in freeing your mind from continuously running it uphill to try and get it over a non-existent peak… in fact you’re just helping it go faster downhill (creating more overpopulation, environmental destruction, species extinction etc).

For more misery, there’s books full on Amazon. Not that I’m completely miserable, just the usual mix!

poetic snow green arctic

Sunshine snow,
candyfloss glow,
crepuscular confetti grotto…
12 mins v 12 hrs media…
see brainstorm repeat as head hit pillow.

If I ever had white privilege,
I ignored it to inspire greener global village,
but 15 years of gYg-esture they want to pillage!

On Monday, sun view set to return
to Svalbard’s Arctic Circle Longyearbyen…

(time and date)

Meeting muse merging

“We would then have to reimagine the mind as some sort of complex electromagnetic algorithm normally coupled to the brain but also capable of detaching from this base.”
Light at the End of the Tunnel Near Death Experiences MSN article.
With the gYgPOP world(s) in mind; or mind in them!
And sun and Nicola Tesla’s quote; ‘If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.’