Monday, August 14, 2006

This is the story of your life..play Captain Fantastic at least for tonght

Saturday...So aye, you know man I felt quite buzzy after posting for the first time in 'about 10 year'. I finished it off in the s/h and then went straight to catch the train through to Fife for faither's bash. Well kinda straight away...after having some kinda unpleasant shit re what claes to wear and a' that....Jeez, on reading it back the sheer pissy normality of that statement has just sickened me. How could I write that??? I mean it's a true account o' what went down at that time but I feel instead like I just expressed a similar thought to what somebody 'dippit' in the media like Edith Bowman pour example might have done from time to time. The fact I got her nimm in there has given me immense pleasure. Seriously tho' I just can't hide the type o' person I am. I'm nae great thinker (!) and that is made all too clear when I let masel go and just 'write'. Domestic stuff or 'little concerns' are what flow if anything does. Nane o' that knowledge available only to Julian Barnes is evident. To be honest I would rather have some of the knowledge known only to 'Tam' Barnes, a famous small town bigot and piss heed from back hame (the guy's nimm always confused me. I think it may have actually been 'Barn' or 'Barron' but the Fife vernacular did it nae favours and the local normalisation method with odd sounding names not a mile removed from popular ones came into effect eg Andrew Matthew became Andy 'Matthews' or 'the coalman') Ma best memory of Tam was being 'stuck' on a late night bus coming back frae Edin one night. The concept of the night bus is still revolutionary in these areas of such full-scale 'slackness in the blackness'. It was plodding through Burntisland aka 'drug/ganja island', the nearest toon tae Kinghorn where ma folks and Tam stay. I saw him oot the windae. He was absolutely blootered and kinda clumping sideways along the High Street. He saw ma bus going past, simply couldnae believe it and swooned round in the most laboured and debilitated way I've ever seen while at the same time producing quite a spectacular swift and sudden sensation of a huge mass lurching and turning tide. It spoke of disbelief, indignation, bewilderment, dismay that public transport could run though HERE at such an hour of inebriation and he had missed it...shit...it was one of the purest pieces of expression I've ever seen...beautiful in it's way... but anyway, there are times I reckonI will only feel personally complete and accepted if I can write ANYTHING that is worthy of a bogus piece of Peregrine 'Peri' Worsthorne or Beatrix/Beatrice/Beatitude Campbell (is that her nimm??..short haired, northern, farcically intellectual academic...) critical analysis. The fact that I simply cannae do that leads to some great frustration...no really... I have to accept I can only function on a certain level. I just wish I could stop wanting to be 'serious' and to 'really show you' and then getting annoyed when the way I talk and think in reality sneaks in. I thought for a long time yesterday re the malaise of levity which gets in there. What I want is nothing more than to give you many tales from the inner recesses (!!!!!) and yet next before I know it it'll be aw jaunty catch phrases and T In The Park reviews mixed wi' pages and pages of me arranging to meet ma wide network of like minded friends for legendary events and evenings of barmy activity. I struggle wi' this pish man. Ma head does not stop telling me I'm a bullshit artist. I have to 'deal'. Look folks, this is a serious request. How does 'one' come to terms wi' thersel? How do you find a way of doing? A way to get by? For the most part, thae stark warnings o' a Peter Bradshaw world pervade ma thoughts and I just don't have a clue. Answers on a postcard...well...comment would be pretty guid...maybe I could start the catchphrases and say I would 'love you long time' (AAAARGH) if you gave me a comment...catch my drift?...student bands who are sufficiently guileless/stupid/pretty enough to call themselves 'Charlie Don't Surf' and get away with it...schemie DJ's who bill themselves as 'Lazarou'...pissed badger-haired fanny's strutting/wobbling round Fountainbridge in white shirts wi' 'Bickle' on the back...anyone who dishes out ganja related humour of any kind...so many folk love a' this shit...in fact 'the opposite sex' (the most sweeping generalisation in the world comes to you with a healthy dose o' casual misogyny) seem to be particularly fond of it (!!!!!)...the thought o' this makes me ill...I know if I gave in and did something crap and obvious and shite then at least one chapter of both the Le Tigre fancy dress society and the Bonnie Greer life code olympians would kill me for a lack of flair and of course UNDERSTANDING...help...I endeavoured to put this madness to one side for as long as I could. I focussed on the other part o' ma heid. It was zoned into the simply wondrous and pure melody that is 'Major Cities' by The Headphones. There were times when I wish I was David Bazan. That is not the type o' 'ting I will say about folk but...'all empires eventually expire and when they finally do it's never pretty, so just sit back and wait for the attacks, especially in the major cities. Please hold my hand, sweetheart. Daddy's got you. Mama's out in the car and she packed your favourite blue shoes. Here they come, exploding like the sun, ringing in my ears like independence. I agree this doesn't favour me, still, bullies are to get what's coming' This did provide a bit o' succour. One thing came to mind tho' while I was walking. I saw the quirky Scottish character actor of stage and screen 'Molly' Innes yesterday. I can safely use (almost) real nimms here cause she's a celebrity. We were at school the gither. I had my version of a huge crush on her. She was bright, feisty, quirky in the bestest way ie she had her ain ways o' daein' things and had the intelligence and the 'way about her' to do them just like that. She looked 'unconventional'. I've always loved that big time. I once heard her described as having a look akin to having been run over by a truck. I'm afraid if you asked me to enter the world of Russell Brand and Jeremy Kyle and probed me on what 'I liked' then 'M'I kinda started things off...see earlier posts re my worries over 'sexism'...I love reddy browny gingery hair, I love petite but not skinny idiosyncratic girls who look as if they might just have 'lived' and who have loads to say re unimportant, 'weird' things, who are imperfect, who do not get excited by Peter Andre etc...to make masel feel mair precarious I'll tell you aboot the thrill I got from seeing Aussie comic Sarah Kendall last week. Her act sounded like it was written by the team behind 'My Family' but man she had lovely voluminous lustrous gingery hair. It was quite something. ..moving back to 'M'I before the police come to the s/h...she also seemed so distinct frae her 'neebors' ...this heightened my liking for her indubitably. Her pals were the most fearsome group of girls I'd ever come across..please bear in mind I was 12-17 at the time...To an individual they were haughty, aloof, venemous when approached with anything, angrily self contained, sneery, in the 2nd year pupil vernacular of the time they thought they were 'hot shit' and basically set the bench mark for a 'type' (I'm sorry) of behaviour I dinnae like...they were GLACIAL. To make it mair basic you felt like they were taking the piss out of you amongst themselves at ALL TIMES. I'd never seen a group of boys or girls display anything like this kind of containment and power up to that date. They didn't give a fuck for talking to mere mortals. They were in control and would have none of it. They were great at sniggering and smirking. As a silly inward youth (and probably as an even more stupid 35 year old wi' a' ma ideas shaped indelibly in thae horrible teen days) they scared the shit out of me. It went on for some time. One of ma pals once asked one o' 'them' out. She said she was washing her hair! As an overweight blubbery/blubby boy with no set image or standing I was on the chopping block. I can mind a shitload o' sarcasm. None of which made me feel any guid. Tho' I can remember being even more of an asshole than I am now. I responded in funny shouty/sulky ways to situ's like this. That just made them laugh louder and in a more arch manner. What freaked me out was that these folk weren't aggressive, daft, popular people at all, they were slightly on the fringes, a bit 'alternative', bright , clever. I hated the jock types and I felt I should be on the same side as 'M'I's group. They had other ideas. I know the thought police are gathering re the grouping together of females under the same description. Well I do that deliberately cause that's just what it seemed like at the time..and..cause I don't know where this is going! They were always together. Aye they all had individual traits but you didn't see them on their own often enough to differentiate! At the time I thought I was being grown up in my thoughts about them and I felt seeing what I thought was 'power' and 'strength' gave me an insight into what I reckoned 'female behaviour' was all about!! Of course now I know that arseholes are arseholes regardless of gender. I'd better tell you that I've edited this bit so much for stuff that might be considered 'sexist' that it probably doesn't make it any sense. Look I've ever read any Michel Houellebecq tomes if that eases things a bit. Why am I going on about this? I'm no sure. They were the first folk I thought of when I saw her. I found that disappointing. I wanted to show you where the 'persona' started I suppose. One of the first times I couldnae deal wi' things I didnae dig. Please refer to the previous post. In thae days I was intimidated by the idea of (as a former client of mine used to call my female colleagues) 'a female woman' and what that might be. I only saw mysteries I thought I could never fathom. I didnnae like feeling that way. I didn't know what to make of my thoughts in this area then and I still don't. I'll let you read into it if you can be Will-Geered. I bet you her pals would still be sneering at me if they met me. A wee while ago I did see that one of them was working in a cheese shop. That was some strange consolation, I guess...look..anyway...seeing 'Molly' was weird. I tried to get the glacial ones oot ma mind. I thought about just her. It didnae work entirely. I knew that she was brighter than 'them' and that she tended no to need to display it. I loved that. I thought she was approachable back then away frae 'them' and I knew that I'd never made a real effort to approach her. I never told her at all what I felt about her. That still felt incomplete yet par for the course. She probably knew...maybe. Maybe I didnae know who she was at all?? Me being me, the fact she was wi' her man when I saw her made me dwell on ma inner recesses for a wee while in a kneejerk motion. On this occasion, I soon got over it. Most folk would have thunk o' what might have been at this point but I kent masel better than that...aye the confidence o' geeks...another glorious contradiction. I saw this guy on the train ower to Fife. He was a real Toby Radloff but hide hissel under a bushel and a Gregory Peck?...heaven forfend...a very lost American family sat next to him. He was into top gear right away...he sensed they needed knowledge of the local public transportation system. He was the right guy. He pounced. He had the bearing and demeanour of a reptilian speeshiss from Pluto but he kent many things that might be handy in the event of a breakdown on the M74 e near Flitwick (I love the way that it appears to be pronounced Flit-ick and not Flit-wick...see also the time I heard a platform announcement at Brighton station requesting staff attend to a spillage (pronounced in the French style- spill-ajjjhhh- soft and langourous unlike the rough and ready spulliddgge o' ma Fife ken) on platform 7) and he reeled in the years in the verbal style learnt from his winning upbringing at Fettes in the days before he realised he was mair Housego than 'horny horny horny'. This boy was no wallflower. Aye admittedly he had nae social awareness. He was supplying the advice and you'd better listen...but he had balls 'bigger than Hamley's' and ground on and on. The family looked uneasy. Maybe where they came from social misfits were painfully awkward and shy. Surely they weren't supposed to seem like they had just brought down Barings Bank. I sat there thinking about how I would love to have this guys lack of self awareness. He did not thnk of how he came across. He answered the 'movement in his brain' and it sent him out onto the train with his factfinders and copy of the latest newsletter from Alumni relations. He could bore whole families into submission and never know it. I wanted to be him! Maybe...like most things (!!)...it's a class vibe...working class geeks are downtrodden, there is no doubt about it...when you look 'nordie' and have nae cash then you have to use the same corner shops and breathe the same air as thuggery itself. If you live in T-Hall and look like that guy frae Citizen Smith who always played characters called Ken then you're no going to get very far before you get a 'doin' if you don't keep your head down and deny the fact you know all about scale models of The Prawn Marie Rose...but if you're armed wi' a' that Youth Jazz Orchestra bolstering, live in Boglily Road (THE affluent street in Kirkcaldy) and are well acquainted with what a 'Notary' is then you have the spirit to grow and flourish. Who cares if you talk to human beings the same way you would talk to a llama as long as you have free reign to venture forth on yer knowledge o' types of church organs. The fact you attended 'Millfield' ensures you will always live in parts of the world where you'll meet like minded scallywags. You're fine, you lifeboat-obsessed David Starkey sound-alike you. It's even easy for geeks....UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES...background= blissful unawareness...discuss...I digress..back to Sat...I ended up in Kdy and met KB + missus. It was great to catch up. Not spoken to KB for a while. I had missed him as ever. Conversation was great. The old town wasnae looking quite so rosy. It dawned on me that most things had shut down since I left. Even the bus station rebuilding has stalled through 'financial difficulties'. If the town was ever properly alive it's a bit on the moribund side right now. The characters going about in the High Street didn't lift the vibe. I got a sense they didn't care about things closing. Maybe if the disco-tech shut down that would be cause for protest but not much else would rouse them frae the routine o' a bridie at Greggs followed by a shout at thae 'Gourangas'. I couldn't switch off frae ma mothers description o' some inhabitants of Fife as being 'basic folk'. Man, this is a proley town. You only need to be in Kdy for 1 min to know you ain't in Edin. Over here 'the festival' means the Bevvy Park Beer Festival, A special event which attracted Jakeys and metallic drongoids with full body tattoos alike. What else CAN you do here except grog?? Doing it in a novelty stylee in a big tent is a truly memorable experience. Where's the Whittards and the Wholefood palaces? Well, we've got Relzo's pet stores and TanFastic. It's even less sophisticated than G/D which is the Lumphinnans of MidLothian. The populace are happy wi' what they have, not in an ecstatic spontaneous way. They just don't know anything else to compare it to. A bit o' lustre and some vibrancy simply couldn't be found on Saturday. Awbody trudged round and round counting the times you made it past the building site which was the old Littlewoods and will soon be the new 'Denims' (I think he means Debenhams) as ma faither called it. To point oot the inevitability of the experience I did genuinely see Bottle John...maybe I should tell you who he is...or not...ok, he's a guy with a learning disability who used to live in the same street as me in the T-Hall part of town. Kdy is not a liberated pliss and he's treated in quite an offhand way by the locals who have probably seen him every day of their lives for years and years. He's not a young man now but folk still scowl and cower away frae him. He was once described to me as 'simple'. He's very high profile in T-Hall. I used to see him a lot when I lived there and I picked up a few of his wee stock phrases. When I worked wi' folk wi' learning disabilities I picked up that most clients tend to have strange non sequiturs that they repeat over and over. BJ always used to look at me and say "I ken that boy. He's ma brother". Another one was "I'm coming to your door tonight". He tended to say these things to most folk tho'. Not awbody knew how to take him. He is obsessed with buses and you often see him going back and forward down to the High Street on the buzz bus things. He has a few odd 'ways' about him. You often hear him before you see him. He has a totally manic laugh that can just erupt out of nowhere and echo round an empty bus. As the moniker suggests he has a thing for collecting those 10 p deposit glass bottles and handing them into chippys. He's almost part of the furniture in that part of the town. Seeng him made me a little tiny bit nostalgic but then the fact I knew I would see him and other faces made me think I would never really escape. It'll never change. I'll come back again. He'll be wandering around the bus station. Bill Gimmix's gut will be bulging through his Harley Davidson cut off outside the Indoor Market. The 'sweary man' will be screaming 'THEY'RE ALL FUCKING YANKEE BAMS' at a group o' petulant Rockport schemies outside Royals. Mr. High Energy and brother will have opened and closed another shit record shop. 'Big Kenny, the 'morbidly obese' serial cider drinker frae Betty's' will have gone into singleton despair and used his 33 RPM voice to kill everyone in his path. (I can see it now. Here's the next in an ongoing series of guides to local uber-legends) Will there be any escape? I have a fear of ending up here SOMEHOW. A lot of folk choose to do it. Please please please don't let it happen. Never let it happen. I dinnae want to die in the land of the Tasty Tuck...as day turned to night in the kingdom, I went to ma faither's 70th bash. I just dinnae have much to report that you couldn't deduce frae yer knowledge of me already. I didn't feel at home. Some of mother's anxieties vexed me bent. I felt as if I hadn't evolved 'correctly'. I wasn't drinking. That felt wrong. I ate fattening food. I was truly wracked with guilt afterwards. I am struggling wi the diet at the moment. Had a few bad days. Am having the worst food pangs I've ever had. I think that contributed to ma mood yesterday. I was fucking ravenous. I just couldn't eat enough food. I didn't have much that was really bad but generally ate too much. Today's been the same. I did have one bad thing. I'm struggling. I doubt if I'll lose much mair at this rate. I'm looking for signs I'm putting weight on. I think I am. From experience I know I do put on weight very quickly. I seriously have to watch. I'll settle for staying round about 15 stone if I can. Fuck. I know I want to and I know how to do it but I'm starting to think it won't be as easy as all that. No sure there's ower much left to say. Sorry for the disjointed nature o' the last twa things. No sure what I wanted to say but I knew I wanted to say them. Am feeling a little odd today. Work was shite. I don't want to be there. Putting the effort in for nae cash is galling! I really feel like taking some time off and recharging tho' I know it'll most likely end up being a negative factor for me what wi' too much time on ma hands and a' that. I'm very tired tonight. No sure I'll sleep tho'. One of those...

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Long ago it must be, I have a photograph, preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.

Aye well I told you I was going to gie ye some detritus. Sadly this is to tide me over 'til I can get a proper affair going on. I've been treading water on something new today. Got bogged down talking about 'berds'!! I was dying to tell you about a memory frae school days. I'm trying to word it so you don't think I'm the next Chubby Brown fanatic or at least, a 'man' who has developed his opinions of said folk from an 'On The Buses' revival or more pertinently, from the shop floor of Kirkcaldy Royal Mail delivery office. Ever since I became aware o' ma feelings re who I was attracted to I've had a slightly skewiff idea of ...ha...the rules of attraction!...you might just have noticed already...I know this has been caused primarily by a feeling o' terminal and hopeless unattractiveness and sexlessness (???) on ma part. The prevailing wind in the backwater I came from didn't help. Ma male peers in the 80's were hell bent on CONQUEST in whatever manner possible. Boorish behaviour appeared to be the only option open to 'one'. It took me a long long time to develop a personal sense of there being a stance I could take and a way which I could go to get away from attitudes which were intrinsically wrong to me. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that because I felt so crap aboot masel I was unable to think about approaching 'romance'/sex/ liking somebody in a respectful and mutually enjoyable way. I knew I liked girls. Unfortunately I also KNEW that they wouldn't like me. I was fat, I was horrid, I couldn't even be a bastard like most of 'them' seemed to like (sorry..but I'm trying to do a Mr. Chips/Roy Walker here) . As ma thoughts developed I knew that while I was still horrid I had a bit o' decency and I hoped that folk knew I tried to get along wi' them despite certain crappy teeny sulks, outbursts, detours etc. As ma sense o' self got stronger I started going mair skewiff. An idea o' something developed along the line of...I see all these girls I like going out with arseholes. I'm not an arsehole. Why not me?? This kinda grew and grew. It outlived logic, maturity, sense. From time to time I've brought my sense of 'injustice' up to a big big scale. I know that nobody will 'like' me and I get oddly annoyed internally at some abstract concept of 'womanhood'...there man I've said it in a relatively straightforward way...this still exists. It draws on my inability to get over teenage shit and 'move on', I guess. It's still there. At bad times I get sweeping and fatalistic and think that I don't understand 'womenkind'! . I'm not sure I've understood individual women, I can say that with certainty. I couldn't really tell you what woman or man-kind meant to me. The bad bit comes when I tend to look at behaviour I've seen from some women and apply this to a 'type of behaviour'...man I know I do it frequently ...and continue to do so. I'm not proud of it. It's a kind o' shit that goes on in ma head based on memories o' crap I've seen that I've allowed to grow into unacceptable areas of thought. Examples of this have been ma dislike o' the glacial thing I've maybe mentioned. On the other post I've been going on about a group of lasses I knew at school. Man, the individuals in the group weren't nice folk at the time...imo... no more no less...I tended to see them as a single entity. I hate aloofness. It's just a horrid thing to project. Being on the other end of it has the ability to fuck with your head as you know dispensing alofness involves a fair bit o' contrivance and intent. Members o' the group o' folk I mentioned seemed to go oot their way to gie you sarcasm and snootyness at most times. Again the internal crap came in. I saw a' this exterior stuff as being a type of behaviour. In ma heid this soon became an aspect of 'FEMALE BEHAVIOUR'. Of course the harder I looked the more I saw women being sullen and blank to me before being open and warm wi' the hipper specimens that came their way. I even made a name for women who were well dressed, cool, said the right things at all times, talked down to you because they could...OR SEEMED TO IMO...these folk were GLACIAL. As ma madness went on I found more and more examples of glaciality (??), predominantly in the indie fraternity. Somehow the hipness value of my Cud 7-inches were no quite on a par wi' that o' the flick fringed young buck wi' the Felt badge frae Southerton Gardens (very posh estate near the school I went to). I couldn't get this insanity oot ma heid. I started to believe it as fact. Women hate me. I don't know what they want. They are ALL this or that. I never felt confident around a woman. I had a' this crap going on. It was unbearable if I knew I 'liked' the lass in question. I just gave in and didnae bother to talk. I never really had any proper female friends 'til TLK. I still feel a lot o' this crap. I lapse into it frae time to time.. well often...it's no pleasant...that's the Mcluckie lowdown on 'my life as a sexist bastard'...good lord...I continue to have this thing re being 'honest' at all times. The other day I heard Reginald D. Hunter say, in context, that he didn't 'trust women'. I thought that took a great deal o' courage. He would probably face a fair bit o' 'flak' for that. I think he was probably expressing similar stuff to me tho' coming from another angle. His show was partly an exploration of his feelings of a need to be honest and the practicalities of 'true' honesty. I loved it. It got me trying to delve into ma ain feelings and fears and failure in getting on wi' you all. One thing I was thinking about and I have thought about for some time. Do any non-males read ma nonsense?? Let me know, one reason being so I can recognise you when you get pissed off at me if we should meet. I am also obsessed with not being seen to be sexist. Shit man. Are we talking about nowt but obfuscation and denial??..Aargh..maybe...god I'm trying to come to terms wi' masel. I think I've got to the letter D. There's a long way to go. Many areas for me to lose you in have yet to be explored...eek...enough of this...I need to change tack...I felt as if that was written in a 'stiff' and 'edited' manner cause I was trying to be so careful what I said. I'll try to get looser in future!! Right here are some unused bits and pieces from a while back. Here's mair stuff re ma feelings on SVQ. I wrote this in July. It was hot and I was a bit lost...ha...Well, it's the Monday vibes. The temp and general Brian Close-ness here in G/D has gone to ma brew and has made me think that my real name is in fact 'Liebling' and that I'm on a mission from the average shagging geezer's favourite actor/ 'the Bugsy Malone' guy tae chuck some chunky old geezer into a vat of gumbo before boffing Mrs. Lenny Kravitz in soft focus, 'culling' a few rooster, and heading off into thae circles of hell somewhere outside Cowdengelly and washing it all down with the stunning album from the frankly intolerable Dr. John which is of course called, 'Down On the Bayou....Again' . If that's not a long winded pishy metaffer then I don't ken what is. I do set the benchmark in something. When did I speak to yous last? Friday? Aye. Back to work on Sat. Nae...SPARROW...but plenty o' strife all related to SVQ. I tried and tried and nearly threw the works PC and masel oot the windae but managed to come up with a 'draft' of a reflective account. The big vibe with SVQ seems to be 'total negation of self'. Any individual thought is wholly unwelcome and unhelpful. All 'they' want is an endless flow of John Houseman with total adherence to the bible of 'covering your back' that is the 'Social Services Code Of Practice' and the broon shirts who police it ie The Care Commission. The care sector runs on a culture of fear, man, a psychosis built on the sense that you are being evaluated for little tiny scraps of 'bad practice' which, somewhere down the line might just turn out to be seen as you lapsing on your 'duty' of care. This is officially the most nebulous phrase in all the land. It usually acts as a device for care industry wonks to have a 'bob each way' ie they can promote all the independence and self-expression they like in their fancy pamphlets and media briefings while at the same time they're bludgeoning staff at the coal face to promote 'independence', they are secretly trying to forget that independence can be downright messy ie it might not produce results (clients winning awards or finding employment or 'behaving themselves' or not acting like 'clients') and clients might also go astray from the Rantzen-esque life path they want them to follow. Now that's where the commish 'hove into view'. It's time to make the aforementioned staff shit themselves. 'YOU NEGLECTED CLIENT X. You reply with something like 'No I didn't, I followed your guidelines and suggestions'. They hit you with the killer. They are indeed hammer hurler, hammer hurlers. " YES BUT. AT THE END OF THE DAY (bland language is a' the rage...I am a cheeky cheeky man after all. I'll be 'bearing ma buttocks' to passersby outside Night Magic before too long) YOU HAVE A 'DUTY OF CARE' WITH CLIENT X'. Well aye I mean, I do. I have a personal moral code and a fully integrated sense o' what is fair-ha ha (as well as a hatred o' fitba' and it's cliche's) but I also prioritise giving the client the space to move at his own pace, to breathe, to interact with the world outside serviceland, to be a human being. For christ sake. What I feel is that the reams and reams of, dare one say it, new laboury, paperwork that fill this sector tend to give off mixed signals re the actual day to day realities of working with PEOPLE. SVQ is a celebration of all this how to 'cover your back'/ 'protect yourself'/shit yersel culture..so there... compilation blogging?? It'll never catch on. I somehow doubt if a 'fork handles' gem will turn up in here either. Mair later, if you're still there. Aye Sunday was mair than a bit shite. All day I felt as if I wanted to tell you 'things' so badly. I could not get the words out in a state that satisfied me. I think that's the explanation for the compilation tape. I wanted to, had to, tell you something, even if it was old and shitty. I knew I was going to have a downer somehow..VACUITY. I kipped at the parents the night before after an inevitable miss the last bus disaster. Spent half an hour waiting at the version of the gates of hell that is the area immediately surrounding disco-tech land Kirkcaldy style for the night bus thing back to Edin. It didnae stop where it should have and I ended up going back to 'the old house'. I suppose it was predictable but the scene in nightclub world wasnae pretty. Something is wrong with us all man if this is what we choose to do on a Fri or Sat night...immolation by grog...the new dawn that is comedy wearing of kilts wi' nae scants underneath...rancid burger vans...DJ Alan Key (geddit???)...hopelessness real hopelessness...there were nae fisticuffs but I've seen so much of this in both Fife and Fountainbridge that tho' I still cannae really believe each new development I see, I'm starting to find wall to wall vomiting and casual brutality commonplace. Jeez man, you know I'm just another of these well adjusted guys who base their moral code and outlook on Marty DiBergi movies. These folk (Mean Streets fanatics and small town binge drinkers alike) have 'either no sense of wonder or no sense of scale'. Sometimes in that toon I know naebody is thinking a metre beyond the 'thank you for visiting the kingdom of Fife. We hope you enjoyed your stay' sign. Aye they can do what they like etc etc etc but surely this pliss-both county and club- can't be the centre of anyone's universe...I know it is tho', there's the muthafuckin' plain clear as day rub...this is how you meet yer other half in Fife, this is how yer desirability is measured, how yer normalcy count is taken. This is what happens no more no less. Underneath a' ma layers o' crap I want to get involved in life. I want to join the human race. I even want to 'just fit in'. But I can't go along with or feel comfortable with or sated by certain mores namely the route of Methy obliteration leading to shagging/fighting and other warriors of Ghengis Khan. Cue Werner...'I don't want any more of this moody brooding"...I don't want anymore of it for masel either but I'd rather sit on the sidelines and quietly scoff than 'let masel go' and be a part of a schemie version o' an early instalment in La Grande Bouffe...Anyway, I'll maybe go into mair detail on ma visit to the parentals elsewhere but I think there was something in the combo of late night madness and going back to the sights and sounds o' ma youth that led me astray...those pigeons cooing all night in the trees out the back. I'm sure you'll find the black lodge in those trees. Maybe I could find my own Annie Blackburn in Fife after all??..jeez.. there's ma tagline for geekydating.com. Anyone want to start a business??...gulls too. My folks live near the sea and the bastards circle all night. They get into your sleep. They remind you of the total multi faceted emptyness of it all man...nobody around, thae papers blowing around outside the Good News, the creaking o' the blue bus shelter which had 'Nae B'land papes frae K'horn' sprayed on it in 1983 ... add that to hearing mother freaking out in the night and getting up to check the water boiler...why does she do that?...every night I would hear her going into the cupboard to 'check' it last thing before bed...fire? heat? cold?...I recalled her obsession with pulling out all the plugs in the rooms too...TV first, pause for uncertainty and to think if it's worth it, then she pulls out the video too. The same routine. I lay on the setee. I knew mother would have the kettle left wi' virtually nothing in it so it boiled quicker in the morning. I knew that father would take 25-30 minutes over his AM ablutions. I knew I would hear mother shouting in her sleep. She did. I knew the cistern would start gurgling interminably before long. In other households the plumber would have been called but I guess ma parents enjoy sleeping with an 8-hour long Merzbow compilation within earshot. I got up and left as quick and as early as I could. I just felt wrong all day.Thae thoughts of Fife started it. You fucks. My own non-writerly brand of writer's block added to it. I began to feel somewhat 'weird'...I felt undervalued godamnit...I felt manic angry, cheated...I wasn't strong on perspective...it was all wrong...I'm skint, I'm unshaggable, I'm not exciting, I'm not worth it, I'm no to be listened to, no to be trusted, I can't even write down how I feel. It was seriously welling up. I've been done out of a life by this mind and these hands and body and face and habits and 'ways'. It wasn't like 'episodes' I've had before. It was more wholly internal. More intensely niggly than all out. I am nothing. You're all something. You all have something. What do I have? An empty page. What can I do? Who can I be? Where's my motivation? My ideas? What am I? I had to be on ma ain even tho' that never does me any good. I wanted to sleep. Instead I ate and then I forced masel to sleep before I ate any more. I knew I would wake up knackered and bloated. I did. Ma mood had bottomed out in the 'mornin'. I thought of how Jim Laker would say that word. The sound would positively lilt wi' a sense o' his beloved blue remembered hills. I guess I felt different/better/n/a...no much to report today...I'll gie you some mair back pages then I'll head..It's a Man's Life in G/D #2134...Oddly enough I am currently sitting next to a man who is looking at mucky pics on the Interweb... in a caff- it's true. You see, G/D has it's own wee microcosmos. It's 'everything goes' in the land of the fading brewery smell. I remember that scent...it was truly intoxicating-ha...when I stayed in the Fife blackness, 'that' smell was Edinburgh to me. It was so unique to the pliss...or so I thought...it seemed that one whiff was enough to get me thinking of 'strolling down the highway' of Morningside having snogged Tamsin for several hours in the Gairdens, all the time keeping my funky backpack stuck tae my shodders and with my shaggy wiggy hair tousled just right. I think I've talked aboot this before but I still recall the sense of a hidden world oot there that I got from sic a rich scent. Well, I'm no trying to make this another metaffer but well...the smell has gone!!...no, I mean it. It has. It's not there anymore. This is indeed the story of ma life, Richard...fuckeridge... the breweries have closed and I've discovered that I am officially 'Undesirable of Edinburgh' and that I have the same foibles and a' that through here tae....ok Gibberd, I know millions of you will ken this line too but..tak it away...'I think that it's brainless to assume that making changes to your window's view will give a new perspective'...aye...Would I ever go back to Fife tho'?...don't be fuckin' stupid...I mean it man... (2) One of the nippiest sounds around is the sound of the keys on a computer keyboard being tapped excessively fast. I always appear to sit near someone who can type at a million words per min. It's an eerie sound. It sounds like a sample from a Man 2 Man Meets Man Parrish record. ...Sun night saw a form of summer in the big city. It was real muggy stuff. I went doon to the semi (?) legendary Henry's Cellar Bar. KB was playing wi' The Certain Death vaudeville show. I'm never sure whether I can say that I 'like' this band or no' but they do indeed make me laugh. They're a bunch o' spunky virill pseudo-chavs frae the 'Cultural Chernobyl' that is Kirkcaldy (I use that phrase AGAIN because it's important in this context. Godamnit). They produce a rappy heavy punker good time rock sleaze assault thing. They are unreconstructed to the nth degree...or are they?? They are silly, silly, silly. Puerile (you don't know the half of it! I've no talked song titles yet). They are ultimately the ultimate good time band. Filter all this through a knowing sense of the way Fife is, an understanding of the (maybe this is me paraphrasing) absurdity of the very idea of choosing to live in Fife and knowledge of the fact that you have to get on with things and fuckin' live dude! This implies they are jest mongers. Well they arnae The Swans, I'll gie you that, but somehow thae have a bona fide affair going down whereby they do irony without the heavily prevelant 'I can jape aboot cause I'm loaded' schtick that has ruined the art of pastiche...for me... Maybe it all feels phat fresh and funky as it's no ma normal scene. I dinnae ken. Acht, I should know by now that if you dinnae intellectualise, particularly when you cannae then you get loads more oot o' life/awhong...so there...I'm dying to get to the titles...I'll talk Fife again. Their personalities are intoxicatingly Fife (has that phrase ever been used before...anywhere??) . These guys really are 'cartoony as fuck' and they love it. They come from a land where 'berds' still have 'some pair of lungs'. They appear to be able to talk re unmentionables and the aforementioned 'berds' love it. Ponder the 'politics' of that if you will. They have titles such as 'Baw Deep', 'Put A Cock In It' (that is the best title ever...there are no possible competitors...) and, allegedly, 'Cum Coming Oot Ma Cock'. They take a pride in talking aboot 'tits and ass'. They do it so naturally! They're no' really The Bloodhound Gang tho' they might like to be. Ya dig?! What I really make of this aside from a feeling of mass bewilderment and a sense that I have insufficient courage to challenge ma ain thinking, I just don't know. KB occasionally stands in on drums for them. His drumming abilities are substantial and he gies them a backbone that they just don't have frae the usual guy who's pretty chunka chunka. Along with the ever-present crunchy riffage and shouty/rappy twin-vocal assualt, they make for a big-up live act. HCB's is no really their vibe tho'. I couldnae stop thinking o' the fact that this used to be a funky jazz pliss, home to Kulu's Jazz Joint or Point or whatever it was called. As far as I know this was an ultra hip funky Mo Waxy ganja friendly club night thing that went on at HCB's a few years back. I mind reading about it in the List when I was officially known as 'insane of Kdy'. Kulu himself seemed to have local hero status. I've always hated local heroes. How dare you have access to 'privilege' cause of the circumstance of funk you fuck. In his pic, he looked like a git- voguey mock- bewilderment and sculpted facial hair. Down wi' the club scene, the classic cuts, the dopest beats. It was exhausting...to me. I mentioned him on a track 'my' band recorded. It was another attempt by me to show you how clever I am. I must stop trying to do that...anyway...so the ghosts of hipness past were abroad. They were dispelled somewhat by the guy who came on first. He was a wee blonde cherub. As they would say in cricketing circles re Jamie Dalrymple/Matthew 'Jazzy B' Fleming et al, he had 'no great natural talent' and proceeded to attempt to cover hitherto nice songs by Springsteen, Bragg et al by turning them all into the same song. He could only play in one chunky rhythm and at one tempo. He club footed his way through 2 guitars. He was an amiable guy. I think tho' that he should be dissuaded from attempting 'Growing Up' and 'A New England' in public ever again. Sorry...He was replaced by some rubbish from the big city, wi' a contrived name who probably have a lot of records by Four Non Blondes or whatever that shrieking Linda Perry band were called, . They had access to slick equipment and could 'play'. The singer chose to force her voice into contortions straight outta the world of Doro Pesch and the horror that brings. They retained something of the Sunday Afternoon jam session at The Three Ways. If you come from Kdy you will know that they had an aroma of the Rich/Rick Campbell about them. I won't explain but in a nutshell they are dull rich kids who produce mainstream music which is dressed up as 'heavy rock' and who think they are 'rad' as a result. ...that's mair than enough o' that. Watch out ET...ADMIT IT- YOU WILL NEVER EVER READ ULYSSES. I saw this wee slice of a kind o' hammy Poly student 'bon mots' on a sandwich board ootside a plush hostelry in Leith where me and the ..SPARROW...used to gan a' the time. It's a pricey place but nice and solid all the same. The board sits ootside the front door day to day and is updated regularly with wee 'funnies' and epithets' .Now, normally you would think that this is the work of some 'ents soc' version of Cyril Fletcher and or a wacky wackster who signs his slogans as 'Buster Gonads'/ 'Guy De Beers'/ 'MC Cunty Baws'/ 'Papa Lazarou' etc etc but some of the wee 'tings are rather nice and oddly poignant in a blunt (Anthony rather than 'cunt' way) yet unassuming stylee. Wish I could remember mair o' them. This one is worth minding...I think. 3 or 4 or whatever number it is- too many is yer answer .I'm in a cheap and fleabaggy Interweb outlet in G/D. It is populated exclusively by folk of Eastern European origin. A lass is sitting next to me now. From time to time , 2 dudes come and sit either side of her. One of them is extremely close to me. They talk loudly and stridently in their ain tongue. It's very offputting. It seems a pretty free deal. They can talk as freely as they like about folk and you wi' yer narrow outlook will never have a scooby what they're saying. Their 'full-on' tone makes me fear the worst. I think they're scrutinising this post. Maybe they know TLK. They'll get her on the blower, develop the finest Richard Wattis-like RP and tell her a few things she'll never forget. Maybe they're talking about how scummy G/D appears to be, maybe they're tuned into what I'm thinking?...namely...that the sound of Ian Brown singing "free from the filth and the SCOOOOOOM" is more than enough to take the wind oot o' the sails o' yer life. Maybe they're talking about the fat baldy guy next to them, maybe they're talking aboot Giles Radice MP. Whatever it is, I wish they wouldnae sit quite as close....modern life is rubbish and Double seat, double seat etc etc etc...you see I've been thinking of many things. I've been goin through a 'lean period'...what's up with ma mood? How do I measure it? Why am I so bland?????!!!! There seems to be a level of sorts that I can grind out and then that's it. It's a niggle. Sorry for the copy and paste. I'll no do it again. Hopefully I'll have some proper stuff soon. Christ, I'm 'starving'. The inevitable psychological difficulties in carrying on wi' the diet after I've reached a 'target' have struck. Please folks go oot and hae something real juicy. It'll mak me feel nourished...sorry...sorry...sorry..

Thursday, August 10, 2006

...and what a time it was, it was...a time of innocence, a time of confidences...

shit man, it's been yet another long long hiatus hernia. I was full o' intent to keep going wi' the regular postage and of course it didn't quite pan oot that way. I just minded that a coupla months ago I wrote a fair bit of a post that I ended up not using. On 'measured' reflection I'm not sure it quite cut the m-m-mustard. I still feel wrong saying that kinda thing. It seems like I'm saying that I have a 'standard' I wish to maintain. I really hope that you dig that just ain't the case. It was more that the aforementioned stuff went on and on and didn't say very much you hadn't heard before or that I hadn't said before either. That I keep coming across these kinda feelings is more or less the main reason for the lack o' regular postings...maybe. I've been trying to keep ploughing through the thickest web of despair and nonsense in the book too ie SVQ level 3- Health and Social Care (Adults). I still have nae idee (That was a typo but I'm going to keep it like that. I used to know a Dutch guy who said 'idee' instead of 'idea'. I liked both him and his penchant for inadvertently slipping back into his mother tongue a great deal. So, this one's for you, Bernie..no that he was called Bernie but you get the drift...) re what I'm doing nor do I have any notion of how it 'proves' I'm a good support worker. It might prove that I can tow a party line of sorts but why anyone should 'need' that to be proven I am clueless dear reader. Work work work has taken over a bit too. There has been a large development re TLK...I'm no sure if I want to allow masel to make as 'undeniable' a mention of her as I'm going to but it does tie in wi' the context o' the work situ. Well she's left the work...I want to tell you about every aspect of it. Let you know the way I felt when I knew I wouldn't walk in and see her there again. As I've said before that was often the only reason I had for going into the place at all. I know it's best that I don't tell you any details. I suppose I should admit at this point that the self imposed ban from writing about her has contributed to a hefty hefty degree in me not updating the blog. She was in my head all the time. I only wanted to write about her. I didn't see the point in telling you about anything else. Acht, I think I know the situ's possibly changed a bit now. Time and reflection and a' that have done the business...well sometimes. I should probably let you know that I just excised a coupla lines. Fuck man, I can't explain it. The way I feel every time I try to sum up ma feelings about her or 'situations arising'. Anyway, she's gone frae the work. We're getting on pretty well at the moment. I saw her the other day. All I'll say is that I continue to feel totally giddy when I see her. I don't think that'll ever really change. Aye in the style I'm now accustomed to from them, the org I work for have not replaced her or KS who's now on maternity leave. We're now 3 staff short. The staff team consists of me. For that I continue to be remunerated to the tune of £1034 per month. My job is a significantly different one to what it was. There is more chance of me winning the lottery-twice- than getting paid overtime. I work way over my 35 hours but I can't even claim it as TOIL because the boss is obsessed with TOIL being 'at the discretion of management' and questions EVERY TIME I have to stay late to write notes or cover support cause there's no staff. She's even went on about 'work time directives' and pish like that when I've mentioned paid overtime before going on to give a relief worker as many hours as she wants. I'm worn out by it. There is so much other shit going down that's plainly unfair...shit I sound like Student Grant there..but man, if you only kent the half o' it...I'm still looking for other jobs but I get so deflated by the thought of writing application forms and having to reflect on ma past and ma deficiencies that I usually chuck the form in the bin after a while. I keep thinking that I now owe the org something seeing as I'm progressing with the infernal SVQ and that it would 'fuck shit up' if I put ma notice in. Money is everything to this lot and they have stuff put in place to charge you if you leave having either just passed or not finished yer SVQ. I don't want to work for these characters any more. I just can't afford to fire ma notice in and fuck off 'til I find something else. It is almost untenable to keep working for them on these wages. Of course they don't know that I'm now bankrupt! It is good to feel I'm living inside ma means but I'm not sure I can do it on this amount of cash. I'm now approachin' AWBODY for £. I'm skint a week after I get paid. I'm juggling ma direct debits and getting charged by the bank. Man, I'm so rooked. I've been getting the odd offer of a shift from an agency but I've not being able to do any of them yet. I have to say that the thought of goin' back to the bum wiping type stuff I did before is no that crash hot. A lot of the shifts I did in the past were sleepovers too. They just fucked wi' ma head. I couldnae handle them. Being on yer ain for 24 hours wi' 4 highly challenging clients in the full darkness o' the Fife badlands wasnae really ma vibe. I think I was insane when I worked at that place too! That wasn't overly helpful...anyway...man, I don't think I want to work in care any longer. Anyone know a supermarket job that pays more than a fiver an hour???...One thing I should mention is the fact that I had a shave today. This seriously affects ma mood. I hate the way I look. This is increased a thousand fold when I'm clean shaven. I think I will grow a full on mofo beard ASAP. I'm thinking Daniel Kitson or David Bazan or even Josh T Pearson. Of course I bet they don't have crippling probs wi' facial dandruff!!! It's true. Any growth I have produces terrible lint which cannot be stopped by anti-dandruff shampoo or moisturiser or ANYTHING. It's fucking shit. I don't have dandruff on ma heid, I never have. Yet another o' thae 'wee jokes' which paint me out to be 'a crumpled sexless man'. But given I've currently got no hair of any kind to cover the horror, I'm working up a sweat to avoid the mirrors in the s/h. Right, here goes, simply speaking, I despise the way I look. My shorn face has something of the financial services drone about it...non-descript, unconditioned, unloveable, blank, chubby, fat, fat fat, there just ain't no funkiness in there, no character at all- it's not scuffed enough to be interesting, it's not 'anything' enough to attract you. My face has not even a semblance of adulthood or at least of a sense that I've arrived there. There is nothing much of the desirably 'real' world about it. You see fumblings and failure and misformed attempts to sculpt it...but there is none of the elegant scuffing that I love so much in others. Ma faither has loads o' these burst bloodvessaly things on his skin, primarily through grog. When I was grogging and fat I started to have them too. Now the grog and bloat period is over they've promptly gone! The only things that showed I was human have fucked off. All you get when you hae a deek is something between Harold Bishop and John 'he wuz robbed by an infarction' Smith. Maybe looking at my face tells me why I hate Duncan Fletcher so much. There's no youth, no joy, no Vernon Kay. Ma mother says I have 'dimples'. Of course, that's been a source of constant consolation to me over the years. I'm oh so clearly not a 'shagger', a 'joiner inner', a 'nubile', a 'desirable'. I know that 'you' see a 'beast' or a 'loner', a 'weird man' , a 'radgie' or a 'gadgie', somebody who could never understand yer 'dress up as an indie' world or yer 'Francois Kevorkian' remixes or yer 'love' and 'happiness' or yer 'pulling power'...but oh for the wonder and possibilities of facial hair...obscuring with a' thae minor league possibilities...I can pretend to be a Mark Eitzel or even a Steve McQueen circa that time he went 'crazy in the 70's'. If only I was able to wear dark coloured clothing at the same time then it would be ok. If you offered me a face transplant man, I would take it. I can't stand looking at this motherfucker any mair. It's failed in all the jobs that faces are supposed to do. It doesn't instil trust, desire, calm etc and it certainly doesn't make you want to stay looking at it for any period of time. I HATE THIS FUCKING FACE...and as for the internals that gan wi' it...well.. One o' the guid vibes o' the moment comes from ma current weight loss. The last time I weighed masel I was 14st 10 lb's. When I started dieting I weighed about 20 and a half stane. To get under 15 stone was something of a holy grail for me. I've now lost 5 and a half stone in about 4 and a half months o' dieting but I still feel lumpy. My body has nae 'definition'. I'm too fuckin' lazy to 'sculpt' it. I know I have lost all the weight. My gut is not there any more..but large bits at the sides still are. All the 'negative body pish' IS STILL THERE. There's no satisfaction to be had...ever!!!...fuck me... Not sure I can get much lighter in weight than this. I know I've put in a load o' effort. Until yesterday's 'treat' at celebration o' the breaking of the 15 barrier I didn't 'cheat' at all. No chips/crisps/chocolate/ and hardly any cheese since March. Definately no grog either. I did get a bit carried away at times. I'm pretty sure I know how easy it is to develop an eating disorder. That sounds so glib but I can genuinely recall a desire to make masel sick after I'd binged and feeling 'scared' to eat a proper meal. I think I probably ate around 5-700 calories a day at times. The recommended intake for a male is 2,500 I believe. I didn't take anything that had more than 3-4% fat in it. I was pretty fascist about it. I'm not sure what I need to do to get a shape that I like tho'. I think in all honesty, bearing in mind the 'image' thing I have, I won't ever find it unless wee gingery lasses suddenly start to dig my bell shaped stomach and lack of physical fitness. I have to look on this as purely a health thing. I weighed round about 20 stone for 18 months or so. That ain't guid. It's just better to be at this kinda weight. I know now that psychologically, seeing as I've broken the big barrier and reached one of ma targets it'll be hard to keep going. I've found it really hard today I can assure you. Been off the work. I took some days off for ma dad's 70th and his bash the morn. Been bored, skint. Feeling rather shit. Thinking o' the life goin' on 'oot there' and of course HER etc etc etc. This makes me want to eat lots of stodgy food. Not done too bad, I suppose. I admitted defeat a wee bit and allowed masel a bit more of the 'not too bad' stuff than I normally would. Nae big gorges. I want to keep at this weight if I can. Sometimes tho' I still feel like 'they' see me as a fat person and that hurts. I think that might just be mair o' ma ain insanity. I'm so used to the bastard now, it's hard to tell...I mentioned faither's bash there. Aye, it's in Auchtertool tomorrow night! A kickin' Saturday night indeed. For those of you who don't know where/what Auchtertool is, it's a wee hamlet somewhere between Kirkcaldy and Cowdengelly. A developed country this ain't. It's famous for having a large granny farm and a hostelry called the Kiwi Tavern. It shows the type o' family we are that we should choose to come to sic a shithole. Faither has 'simple' tastes and he'll be in his element here. I think I've spoken before re a lack of 'connection' I feel I have wi' the family. It's never far away when I'm at family bashes. My dad is a man who I've gotten used to only in the last 5 years or so. He was prone to 'doing his own thing' when I was younger and so we maybe didn't build up any great 'rapport'. I'm not sure we have that now but I have a bit of an understanding of him, I reckon. I can dig his obvious feelings of not fitting in wi' conventions or norms from outside his ain class. At least it's something we can share! I also like his quirks and peculiarities. His way of invariably pronouncing things in Fife-ese and his penchant for phrases along the lines of " You dinnae want to drink too much o' that stuff son, It'll make yer baws drop off" (he said this when he saw me drinking fresh orange juice. He thinks vodka's a far more wholesome drink) and the like. He also seems to care about me. An inkling of that wasn't always too forthcoming from him but he makes an effort now. Maybe a total understanding of our individual ways of doing isn't possible but a bit o' godamned 'respect' (this is all getting a wee bit too (Roddy) Manley for me. Next I'll be telling you about familial pissing contests and the efforts I went to to catch Apocolypse Now 'on the big screen') just might be...maybe maybe...I was going to drone on about mother. That would be too exhausting at this time! We have indeed got all the time in the world. I'll mention one more thing re family bashes...the matter of being the perennial singleton. This is another factor which points me out as a child/man misfit type. I go along there with bulging gut/nae hair/nae winning personality looking nervous and dressed 'wrong'. At the moment all ma claes are too big and I can't afford to buy decent ones that fit. The only jacket I have just destroys ma mood whenever I wear it. I feel as if I'm embracing normality and dowdiness when putting it on. It is also still way too big. I want to wear claes that are scuffed and imperfect.I don't want to look like a churchgoer or a (clothed- ha) civil servant even if the rest of ma frame and face might match. Fucking 'poverty'. The rest of you have access to credit! At least you can give the illusion of having a few bob. Credit is a wonderful thing, it really is! It means you don't have to endure some of thae litanies of pain straight from the Desmond Morris collection...read into that what you will...anyway, folk of ma age are no 'meant' to be single, let's face it. It means I'm 'weird' quite frankly. That of course is the case but...fuck it man. I don't want to be alone. Even if I've had it this way for 35 years. I don't want it any longer. I get very distracted by thoughts of the horrors I've seen going aboot wi' their 'berds' and their other halfs and a' that. I can't help thinking " what do they have that I don't?" I'm as fucking basic as that. I just seem totally immune to 'attracting' people. Maybe the answers in the fact I look at it in that way but after years and years I can't imagine a situ where 'it' would happen. You 'all' think of me as unfunky and out of tune. How do I get round that thinking?? ie MY thinking. I despise the fact that society does look at you strangely if you're on yer ain. I just wish I felt comfy being that way. I really don't. I waste time when I'm on ma ain. I can't get started. Going out places just isn't the same either cause you've naebody to share yer experiences/ feelings wi'. I'm sitting about prior to goin to the family bash and that's what I'm thinking about. How will I look? How do I look? Why do I look this way? What caused me to come across like this? How does so much get lost in translation?! (yeah, I have so much depth inside here and you just don't see it man...fuck sorry...)...I think you get the idea. Let's move on... Aye thanks to CH, I've been going to a few fringey things. I really do love being in a pliss where 'things' seem to be going on and happening. Even if being in a massive group of middle class folk causes me 'difficulties' I want to be around people godamnit. I know I have 'solitary' tendencies! I feel these have come out of a reaction to ma situ (!!...it gets worse) rather than any innate hatred of human beings (with certain exceptions at various times!!!). Ma probs come when I think of people as 'types' ie 'the middle classes', 'the funky ones', 'the indie kids' 'the Le Tigre fans' ( the most intimidating sub-species in the world. Have you ever met an LT fan who wasn't 'stylish' ???) 'intellectuals' 'church going muthafuckers' etc. The problem is that people revert to type so easily!! We all do it..masel included. Schtick and familiarity is clawing at us all the time bellowing away re how we should shroud ourselves in something to 'fit in', to 'get on'. Fuckin' hell man, this shit fucking drags me down...anyway, man, I want to be around folk. I don't want to be in the margins. I want to be where the red eye will break my back in 2 (thanks to Sooyoung for 'allowing' me to paraphrase). Frae that pov the fringe is unsurpassable. The prole-y quotient at things I've been to with one gang of scum-y exception I'll mention below consisted of me and CH. At the wonderful DK show I'll talk about, we were sitting sandwiched between 'the chattering classes', no more no less. This lass moved into the row behind us and it turned oot she knew the dude sitting next to me. They began what was possibly the least 'destinctive' or individual conversation I think I've ever heard. The way it was intoned loudly into my left ear was a bit much. Honestly man, these people had lives ..or ok presented it that way..like you read about and that you're meant to have. She had come up for the fest from an affluent part of the south...no, silly not on her own, of course she had a man... If he wasn't called Jonathan I would be absolutely shocked..she was staying in Morningside...she had just finished work at 'the theatre', it was going well..she had been to see the festival 'hot tickets' ir the 'Talk Radio' thing...she was of course called Anna...or was it Imogen?...naturally she had a voice pitched between Moss and Winslet... and their lives were all about doing things, flying here and there, meeing her and him. When the boy chipped in he sounded like Toby Stephens and it was going well for him too...what got to me the most was how flat their conversation was. They sounded warm initially and they clearly did ken each other well but it was ALL small talk. No deviations from 'the way one talks in polite society' or from the paths that 'one' naturally follows ie advancement, self expression, holidays, weddings, christenings. I'm struggling to sum what it 'meant' to me. I think it was just shocking to keep hearing how the other half maybe are. Their lives are as far removed frae mine as could be in a society like ours. They seemed to be made of cardboard and have lives that were only written post Cold Feet or This Life. There were no tones of voice present outside the ordinary, no signs of failure, no admittance of defeat or anything that made them human godamnit. For all their exaggerated warmth they were machines, man. They were grinding ever onward until they were all technical directors of the Almeida Theatre. Part of me wants this 'fulfilled' life. This 'easy' life. I just don't want to sit on the fringes-ha! and hear it battered into me how poorly equipped I am to 'get ahead'...no really...moving on again...I'll tell you aboot a coupla things I went to see the other week. I sent an email to AM and I'll let you read some of it. There will be explanatory notes afterwards...
ma fringey stuff's been pretty good so far. Faves were Reginald D. (he was great pure and simple!- brutally honest,suave, warm, awhong really...) and Wil Hodgson (I couldn't stop thinking of Bonzo when I saw him...the stories, (almost) the look, the outlook...magic stuff). Bit of contrast there, I reckon. Saw a Welsh guy called Mark Watson who was pretty good too in a nicely surreal (lower case) stylee. Stanhope?...mmm...he produced a lot o' 'thae emotions' in me. The crowd were just horrid...tables crammed with pissed up geezers bellowing along to any mentions of euphemisms for genitalia and they kept REQUESTING JOKES!!!!!> (what the f***?? now that's a breach of comedian etiquette..in my view. I couldn't get the image oot ma head of millions of students in the early 90's filling the arenas of the land to shout for more gags about the singer of Ride from thae smug Mary Whitehoose mofos in their headset mic things). There were folk there wearing his t-shirts!!! He's clearly a very bright man and he has a delivery and range o' 'words'(!) that you just don't hear too often. He also did a couple of very nasty gags which were lapped up by the f***wits. He had a lot to say about many o' the 'big' things but I didn't trust him! I think he knows what he's doing. Because o' ma lack o' cash/stereo/magazine reading I hadnae realised that he had a 'following' and was a man of the moment. I just hate being part of 'something' and having that feeling that I'm watching somebody you're 'supposed' to like or who is the best/ the most extreme/ the hippest etc etc. Shit man, I was part of an industry! It put me off big big time. I've seen that erudite yet bellicose everyman thing done a good few times before and he IS the best at it but to most folk it might have been Chubby Brown they were watching. I'll say it again. He knows what he's doin'. He went on about his audience being lonely losers playing wi' themselves etc etc. The guys in this crowd weren't losers. They were (in the US vernacular) jocks. Some of them even had girlfriends. In fact I would gather most of them 'score' on a regular basis. That just felt wrong to me!..shit.. From what I could gather the best laughs were reserved for gags about urethras etc... I didnae have a good time...hell...went to see Daniel Kitson's play thing at The Traverse last night tho'..that was great...ah..melancholy...it's a real addiction, man... That probably sums it up, I reckon. Bonzo is a guy frae Leven who I like a great deal. He's a natural raconteur and is one o' thae guys who seems to have talent in most areas...artistic, writing, the whole shebang. I wish more of you knew about him. I'm sure you know who Doug Stanhope is. Not sure I need to say much mair. Well I suppose it's getting to yon time. Before I head I'll quote again frae the AM email... talking about the blog, did you see the comment that somebody had put up on there? I was a bit suspicious that it could have been mucky spam of some kind. It seems to be a genuine if uber patronising comment but it seems that the gist of the blog is aboot this guy and his sexual conquests wi' Thai women. I skimmed it and didnae see any mucky stuff just lots of 'interweb crap' but apparently there are a number o' 'photaes' on there ...great...the land o' the interweb... aye I mean it's great to get comments and that but they're maybe no that welcome from all sources shall we say. I hope that nobody saw the link on here and went to his blog on a works PC. That really does worry me. I thought about it and I tried to remove the comment but I can't remember how to do it. I got rid of a comment once before but it's currently beyond me. I thnk I'll treat this as 'mucky spam' and eject it when I can. I'm no trying to be a moral etc etc but come on man, the fucking irony of flogging yer male fantasy pish on a blog like this is pretty thick! I'll get rid of it when I can but please mind not to link to it unless you want to see flesh and a highly questionable writing style- ha!...well that's probably about it for now. I'll try to write some stuff soon. What I might do is tidy up some old bits and pieces that I never used and let you see them. So hopefully I'll put something up soon. Suppose I'd better end in the time honoured vibe...how do I feel at the moment?...you know what man, I really dinnae ken...there are loads o' good and loads o' bad and the old shit is still in ma heid...it's 12 gold bars all over again...