Before he became a romantic novelist, Chuck Palahniuk worked at Freightliner for 13 years, fitting front axles to big trucks, then writing manuals telling people how to do the same. For a while, too, he tried his hand at journalism. Both ‘closed him down’. A casual visit to a ‘group awareness’ seminar conducted by the Landmark Forum, an organisation that uses ideas based on controversial ‘est’ therapy, was, he says, his ‘big epiphany moment’.

‘I was 26 when I did the seminar, convinced the world was out to burn me at every turn. If it wasn’t for that seminar, I wouldn’t be a writer. They taught me to see how closed down I was, to face my fears.’

+ Chuck Palahniuk interviewed in the Guardian by Sean O’Hagan. When’s the Chuck Palahniuk movie? His is an awesome success story for the tarnished creatives of the world.

+ Once again, just to remind everyone, Deepmix Moscow Radio is my favorite internet radio station. These Moscowittes generally play lots of electro-based progressive and progressive, and quite often I hear them playing some hot dubby house, and heavier deep house. Lot’s of dj sets, between long mixes from their incredible archives. 90+% of the time this is what I’ve been listening to for the past 3 or 4 years.

+ The Deh Cho and other aboriginal groups in the MacKenzie Valley are refusing to back down on their position that Imperial Oil compensate them generously for piping oil through their valley. Both Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and Natural Resources Minister John Efford seem keen to keep Imperial Oil happy. Imperial Oil is not happy to give Mackenzie Valley aboriginals 40 million in propert taxes a year. -don’t be pricks, give them the fucking money.