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..

1 Comments:

Blogger eilish said...

yeah, i don't agree. the word you are looking for is misanthropic - a very popular term to toss around these days but here it doesn't really apply. ms ramone: it's quite apparent that he feels very kindly toward people, notice all the little details spilling out each time he describes someone.

6:21 PM  

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