Lead singer Mr Saurus for the later band Sauruxet.

Non-Finns!

Finland is a country of heavy metal. This much you probably knew.

Now, when one is a country of heavy metal, that means one must also have heavy metal bands for children. One of these was a concept band where the musicians are dressed up as dinosaurs with leather jackets and long hair.

That band got into a fight with the record company over who owned the rights to the concept, so the band split. Which means there are two children’s heavy metal dinosaur concept bands in Finland, both wildly successful.

We heard them play yesterday, and they did indeed rock.

The only question is, in a country of five million people, are two children’s heavy metal dinosaur concept bands enough?

SON OF MAN

An autobiographical Jesus novel by Mike Pohjola

 ”It’s Stand By Me meets The Life of Brian.”

I grew up in a religious family where everyone was sure I would one day be something great. I agreed.

I’m five years old when I decide to climb a tree with my best friend. It had just stopped raining and the forest is slippery, but my friend is very persuasive. He climbs first and I follow. Then maybe twenty feet up my rubber boot slips on the branch, and I fall. There are rocks down below, and my head will hit them any moment and I will die. Then at five feet above ground, I stop. I’m hanging upside down in mid-air. I look up, and see that the bootstrap on my rubber boot is caught in a branch. I climb down gently.

I walk back home with my friend, and he tells me the branches have scarred my face. My mother is horrified as she cleans the wounds. ”Your guardian angel saved your life,” she says.

That’s right, I think. God told my guardian angel to save my life. But why? He doesn’t save everyone’s life. Why am I special? What plan does God have in store for me?

Five or six years later, after carefully examining the Bible with a child-like furor, I realize that it’s possible – maybe not probable, but possible – that I’m the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. I’m proud that I’ve figured out God’s plan, but I also fear His punishment. What if He didn’t want me to know yet? I decide not to tell anyone, but try to be as good a Jesus as possible. I can’t smoke or drink or swear or disobey my parents or go around kissing girls. What kind of Jesus would I be?

The novel follows Julius, my alter ego, as he grows up in the shadow of his own Messianity. In the B plot we follow the Reverend Farfors who first baptizes little Julius as a young priest, and then goes on to become a sort of Pontius Pilate character later on.

The book follows Julius’ life from birth to until his about twenty-four. Despite all the Jesus stuff, he manages to experience many of the things that unite all those who grew up in the 80s and 90s. He plays Dungeons&Dragons, he loses his religion, he has several girlfriends, goes to demonstrations, he listens to metal music, he envies his friend’s Commodore-64, watches 9/11 on tv, makes graffiti, falls in love and fights with his parents. [SPOILERS OMITTED.]

The book ends with [SPOILERS OMITTED].

Publisher: Gummerus, 2011.
Language: Finnish, translations upcoming
Pages: about 500
Reference books: The Buddha of Suburbia, The Catcher in the Rye

While waiting for more information, come Like the book on Facebook! http://facebook.com/ihmisenpoika I’ll be adding pictures, the latest news and other fun stuff.

I guess it’s time to come clean. But check them out first — they’re pretty nice.

UFOs over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where according to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the creation of the world started:

And a few months later the same UFOs were seen in London over the BBC building.

What were these white shining things, these unidentified flying objects? No, they weren’t spaceships. No, they weren’t swamp gas, either.

Yes, that’s right. Now you’re getting it.

They were angels.

Son of Man is a novel about a young man growing up in the 80s thinking he might be the Second Coming of Christ. And lots of semi-miraculous things do happen that might make you think maybe he is.

Most of the book takes place in Finland, but he also visits Jerusalem in the turn of the millennium. That’s why we made a video showing angels over Jerusalem.

Many people figured that one out, but London left them wondering. Honestly, I thought that one would’ve been easier! It’s a reference to Conspiracy For Good, the project we did over there almost exactly a year ago. That’s when I shot the video with my cell phone. CFG has nothing to do with the Son of Man directly, but the experience it gave me in making graffiti came useful when writing one of the chapters.

We’re going through the last round of edits for Son of Man, and it will be published in Finnish this September. Expect translations to follow soon…

Here’s the cover.

Either that or the really were UFOs…

The film rights have already been optioned in Hollywood. If you represent a non-Finnish publishing house, get in touch with me or my agent, get the rights, and beat the crowd! Otherwise, enjoy the cover and Easter!

The media festival South By Southwest (SXSW) gives out awards every year for interactive works, and Conspiracy For Good has been nominated in the mobile category. Cool! SXSW takes place in Austin, TX, March 11.-20., and the award gala will be March 15th.

The last time The Company P won an International Interactive Emmy was a few years ago with Sanningen om Marika at MIPTV in Emmy. That award was for Best Interactive Tv Service. Now we’re nominated for the same award again. The name is no the Interactive Digital Emmy, though, and the category Digital Fiction. The lightning-winged Emmy goddess might end up in our hands on April 4th in Cannes.

Exciting!

PS. If you missed Conspiracy For Good, here’s a great video that explains the whole giant of an experience in a few minutes.

Do Larp has manuscripts an blueprints for several recent larps, Think Larp has academic articles on larp, and Talk Larp has various rants and essays on larp. That’s the one I’ve contributed to.

Many people are confused by what a heavy metal musical exactly is. Will it only have songs  or is there a story or what? In form and function it’s much like West Side Story or Producers — a stage play where the story is sometimes told through songs instead of dialogue. In style it will be quite different, combining period action with the classics of heavy metal. The show will mostly feature known songs like Paranoid, Carry On, or Hunting High And Low. There will also be one of our own songs (lyrics by me, music by our band leader Joona Lukala), and one brand new song by Lordi, Devil’s Crashing the Party. So in traditional terms, “the book” is by me, and the lyrics are by Dio and whoever. But yes, there’s one hell of a story there!

If you’re in the UK, I recommend listening to BBC Radio 3′s program Music Matters, and their report on Turku and Tallinn, the European Capitals of Culture. They interview me about 1827, and play some of our songs.

Also, for Finns, Ajankohtainen kakkonen is going to do a big piece on Turku this week, and will feature both the musical and yours truly. (Also check out VR’s paper Matkaan, January issue.)

Rock on!

Lordi with two of our burned ladies, and the single release of Devil's Crashing the Party.