This Is This

Did this last night. Kind of a Dennis Wilson/Beach Boys feel to it, but if that floats your boat, then hear here.

One more thing and then I’ll leave the whole loyalty card thing.

On Saturday I bought some food from the supermarket and the woman asked me if I had a loyalty card.

“No I don’t,” I said. Which is normal enough, except more Stupid Things crept in when I added, “I’m sorry.”

And I think she understood, too, because she said, “It’s OK. You don’t have to apologise.”

She sounded really reassuring, too, and I wondered if maybe we were having a moment. Or maybe I was just having a moment, like I do before I say Stupid Things. Or do Stupid Things, like trying to use my watch as an bronchodilator.

Sometimes, even at 2am, I have to hand it to myself.

You know when shows run out of good ideas, they have episodes where they run clips from previous shows from when it was still funny? I hate that.

I’ve had asthma ever since I was a kid, so I’ve always had one of those blue inhalers close to hand. If you laid every inhaler I’ve ever used over the lasy 25 years from end to end, it would take your breath away. I always have one by my bedside so I can have a shot or two and breathe and sleep soundly. Ventolin, Sabutamol sprays - whatever you call it, the Glaxo corporation have made a fortune out of me. In short, I am a user. There, I said it.

And I’ve wasted a lot of plastic. I also think that Glaxo should build their own inhaler factories to save some money. And then put them in the middle of densely populated areas, polluting the air and creating breathing difficulties for the local community who have to buy inhalers. Always thinking.

Last night I took off my watch when I went to sleep, which I don’t normally do, and put it on my bedside table. It was also unusual that I put my inhaler on the window ledge, which I can’t reach from my bed. But neither of those acts are half as stupid as what happened next.

When I woke up short of breath in the middle of the night, I picked up my watch, shook it, held it to my lips and breathed in. Yes. I was trying to inhale time. I actually did it twice, because the first time it didn’t feel right. I can not believe how stupid I can be sometimes.

Morning, by the way.

Next week: talking to omlettes.

I wanted to pay e-homage to the world’s greatest banjo player, Earl Scruggs.

There aren’t many people still alive who have not only have changed the face of how people play their chosen instrument but the music associated with it. The guitar heroes burned out, sax players passed away in seedy hotels and pianists are long gone. To tell the truth, there haven’t been may new instruments in the last 50 years, at least not ones with which you would associate with a virtuoso.

So all hail Earl Scruggs, whose fingerpicking style changed the face of bluegrass and country, and he’s still touring. I DARE you to listen to his recordings with Lester Flatt and not crack a smile.

Anyway, I looked him up on google and here was the description:

Earl Scruggs
Earl Scruggs official webstie features a merchandise page with CD’s, cassettes, t-shirts and other memoribilia; concert dates, news and a message board.www.earlscruggs.com/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

It’s the word webstie that gets me. I picture this weathered southern gent proudly talking about his “webstie”.

“Mary Jane! That dang webstie’s gone down agin! Folks say it ain’t readin’ good with Winders XP. Get me that thar celluly telephone - I’m gonna tell my ISP about their lack of hospitality.”

By the way - I mean no disrespect to the fine people of the deep south. I lived in New Orleans myself, for a time, and I have family in Texas.

I go making choices on my way.
Quiet little voices seem to say:
“It’s all right now
it was all right then.”
They breathe as if to speak and then
they fade away but a trace remains behind.

Simple contemplation, then I’m fine.
You can have your life but you can’t have mine.
And I don’t pretend to comprehend
the memory of you now and then.
It fades away but a trace remains behind.

Days go by and emptiness takes shape.
Form a line and mend me when I break.
And I’ll go back to songs and such,
cause to have it all would be too much.
It fades away, gets left behind,
it bends and breaks but a trace remains behind.

To what extent is happiness a lifestyle choice and or just something you are? Gay men and women often say they didn’t choose their sexuality, it’s just the way they are. So how much does our disposition control us rather than the other way around? It’s the same with jobs. Ask a musician or a monk and they will say they didn’t embark on a career path so much as it chose them.

Likewise people of a melancholy disposition. It’s important they (we) acknowledge it as a “disposition” so that they (I) can avoid reverting to type. It doesn’t mean that you have to behave that way. You can’t avoid something if you don’t know it’s there.

That’s probably where long term relationships test us most, because they make us look at ourselves. Sometimes what we find isn’t pretty but they always have a point.

I have the attention span of an American five year old, but I can switch off and concentrate really hard if I want to. That’s because I know how bad I can be, so I know what to work on. People who find it hard to motivate themselves are sometimes good at meeting deadlines. People who have drinking problems can be really good at not drinking.

Understand your weaknesses and you’ll be better at overcoming it than people who have never had to compensate. Know the pitfalls and you’ll steer a better course.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
Philip K. Dick

Having finally made Lord of the Rings, I am quietly confident that other cool books will be committed to the big screen

On The Road - With Willem Dafoe as Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassidy) and John Cusack as Sal Paradise
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Richard Gere and Haley Joel Osment - come on, tell me how this wouldn’t be a hit. Kids of the 60’s owning studios? Hollywood’s love affair with Buddhism (Kundun, Little Buddha, I Heart Huckabees)
Confederacy of Dunces - John Goodman as Ignatius J. Reilly

I’ve become aware that I’ve been taking the piss. Posts have been a little negative and cynical of late, so here are some reasons to be cheerful:

1. Elliot bought the Martin 000-15 and changed his name to Jude.
2. The two events are unrelated. He changed his name for charity.
3. Easter is coming and that means a long weekend.
4. The world is your oyster. Unless you are an oyster, in which case you wouldn’t be very inspired. Maybe they think the world is their limpet.

I went to a conference the other day where the future of broadcasting was unveiled to me. With a straight face, the media giant I was meeting told me the future lay in:

AMBIENT NEWS

This is where the consumer is so immersed in facts and events that they are not even aware that they are being informed. They predict that we will get to the stage very soon that so many people are consuming the media (presumably piped through from them at a price) that we won’t even realise we are being an audience. People won’t go to the news the way they used to. They won’t sit down with a paper or wait for the TV bulletin, because they will already know, because the latest headlines will be printed on the back of their supermarket receipt. Or they will catch the latest football scores on the ATM window while they wait for their cash.

I think this is a shame. Imagine if everyone finds out everything at the same time.

“Hey guess what?!?!”
“Yeah, I just heard.”
“Fifteen times, wasn’t it?”
“It’s sixteen now.”
(pause)”Yeah, I just got that, too.”
“What about the -”
“-them too.”
“Right.”
“And the markets are down-”
“-1500 points. Which means the-”
“-price of-”
“-crude is going to hit a-”
“-ten year high.”
“Now here’s Jim with the weather.”

Shame.

Modes of transport I have taken:

Catamaran, dingy, hovercraft, ferry, lifeboat, lilo, rubber ring, inner tube, skidoo, skis, sled, cable car, chair lift, ice skates, roller skates, skateboard, tricycle, bicycle, space hopper, pogo stick, stilts, deathslide pully, horse, donkey, elephant, horse and buggy, car, go cart, lawnmower, motorcycle, truck, bus, swim fins, surfboard, train, tube, fenicular, esclator, travelator, jetski, waterskis, planes (from 747 jets to two-seater single propellor planes), pedalo, rowing boat, canoe, kayak, tractor.

To be honest, I look at that list and I honestly think about what I haven’t done.
Human nature sucks.

Couldn’t sleep last night, so I wrote this. I’ve never tried children’s fiction, or much fiction of any kind, so I thought I could use the challenge.

Spinning the World

It was a pretty ordinary morning, but not so ordinary that you would notice how ordinary it was. The wind was blowing, but not too much, the sun was just high enough in the sky for that time in the middle of the morning and somewhere off in the distance a lawnmower was buzzing away before its gardener went for his Sunday lunch. All in all, it was an average start to a Spring day with clear skies and the hope of more good weather to come.

But things were about to get better, because today was the day that Miles’s dad had promised to take him to the beach. They spend most of Saturday sorting out which buckets and spades and toys they would take along with everything else they had to carry on the bus to the seaside. Miles was so excited that he barely slept the night before.

He woke up early in the morning and bounced on to his dad’s bed. “Wake up! Wake up!” he said, “We’re going to miss the bus!” CLANG!

“Steady on,” said his dad, removing the bucket from his son’s foot, “we’ve got to have a good breakfast first. It’s more than an hour’s bus ride to the beach.”

Miles thought about this and nodded in agreement, then said, “How long’s an hour?”

“It’s two episodes of Power Rangers, or nearly a whole rubgy match.”

This didn’t make any sense to Miles, who thought that two Power Rangers was much shorter than a boring rugby match. He made a face and asked for pancakes.

With breakfast out of the way, he reached for his bucket and asked if his dad had everything and they set off for the bus stop. His dad bought the tickets and Miles told the driver they were going to the beach.

They sat down near the front and Miles looked out the window as the bus started to move. They drove past some of his friends’ houses and his old school and rolled off into the countryside. On the way to the beach they saw some geese pecking for seeds in a farmer’s field. His dad said the birds were returning from the warm countries where they had spent the winter and that they always stopped in the same spot on the way back because they can eat and have a rest while they make their way home.

After fifteen minutes, Miles said, “Daddy, you know the bus is moving and taking us places.”

“That’s right, it’s taking us to the beach.”

“Well, let’s pretend instead the bus is standing still but the wheels are moving and bringing places to us.”

“You mean we’re making things come closer instead of the bus driving towards them?”

“Yep -” said Miles, happily, “every time the driver turns the wheel, the planet Earth moves and makes everything go in that direction. Let’s imagine we’re spinning the world.”

“All right,” said his dad, going along with it, “Watch out planet Earth! We’re on the move!”

Miles liked this idea. When the bus went round the next bend, he said: “Let’s bring that road over to us!” and sure enough they did.

“Hey tree!,” said his dad to a willow up ahead, “Come over here, we want to take a closer look,” and it moved towards them, branches, roots and all.

Miles was thrilled. He thought it was amazing that the bus driver could bring anything he wanted towards them without Miles or any of the other passengers actually having to go anywhere. As long as there were roads between them and where they wanted to visit, the driver only had to spin the wheels and the places would come up to meet the them.

Miles was having so much fun he almost forgot they were going. It was only when he noticed his bucket by his feet that he remembered, and when he looked down he saw the seaside coming towards them as the bus moved the beach closer to where they were not actually moving.

“Hey look Daddy!” he said, “We spun the world so much that we brought the beach to us!”

“Looks like it,” said his Dad.

Once they were on the beach, Miles thought that if the bus had brought the sea was where they were, then they must have puched their house away from them. He asked his dad if this was something he should worry about.

“Of course not,” said his Dad, “we’ve just got to make sure we bring our house back to us when we get back in the bus and that will put the beach back where it belongs.”

“By the seaside?” asked Miles

“Exactly,” said his Dad.

But Miles wasn’t so sure. What if they forgot to spin the world back? What if instead of moving the world with the bus, they just drove back normally and the beach stayed in the wrong place forever.

He started worrying about the geese on their way back home not being able to find their field now that the bus had moved it bringing him and his dad them to the beach.

And maybe the astronauts on their way back to Earth would land in the field instead of splashing down into the sea like they were supposed to.

Miles began to feel very sorry for having moved places around like they did. He worried he was going to get in trouble, so he didn’t say anything to his dad and built a few sandcastles to get his mind of things, but it was no use. And since he thought he had spun the world for a whole hour, and judging that an hour was almost as long as a boring rugby match, he thought he had spun the world more than he should have.

He thought of the cold places he had made hotter and the hot places he made colder, and how somewhere polar bears were sweating away in the heat while camels shivered in the snow and how the sun would set in a different place when night fell and all because of his day at the beach.

Maybe he had spun the world so much that he couldn’t figure out how to put it back again. He sat quietly as he ate the picnic his dad had brought for them, but he didn’t feel like eating. He didn’t even enjoy the ice-cream his dad got because he kept thinking of the hot and sticky polar bears.

“Dad - can we go home now?” he said in a small voice.

“OK,” said his dad, looking at his watch.

“Can we get a bus back to our house?” said Miles.

“OK,” said his dad, puzzled as that was the only way home from the beach.

“And can we make the world go back the way it was by bringing it to us the opposite way?” said Miles

“OK,” said his dad, as he started packing up their stuff.

The whole journey back, Miles imagined again that the bus was spinning the world with its wheels, but this time instead of moving their home away from them, they were bringing it back to where it was that morning.

Little by little, the bus brought the places back to where they belonged. As the beach moved away behind them and the countryside rolled by, Miles started to feel better, especially when he saw the geese in the fields go by his window. The bus brought the town closer, and soon he could see his friends’ houses and his old school in front of them.

“Nearly there,” he said to his dad, “no more spinning.”

“No more spinning” said his dad.

A few minutes later they were home, and Miles knew the world was back the way it was before they left for the beach, and now the geese and the astronauts and the camels would all be safe and warm. And the polar bears would be safe and cold, just like they were meant to be.

He sat on the couch to watch Power Rangers while his dad made dinner and Miles promised himself that next time he went anywhere, he would go there himself instead of bringing the place to him. He made his dad promise to.

And the next time they went to the beach, they left the world as it was and moved the bus instead of the world, which stayed as it always did and always would, ready for Miles to explore it whenever he wanted.

My mobile phone went on the blink this morning, so I called my network provider. After going through the phone menu, they put me on hold. The music? Hall and Oats “Out of Touch”.

See other workplace related musak post here.

Commuters on trains
Scan playlists on their i-pods.
Techno rosaries.

When I was working for National Public Radio station on the campus of the University of New Orleans. My address, and I shit you not, was:

CJ
WWNO
UNO
NO
LA
USA

And letters would get to me too.

Wireless electricity. Now that’s clever.
Carry on.

The practice of giving kids first names that sound like last names stops. Now.
Carlton, Taylor, Cassidy, Morgan, Wilson, Madison - from now I’m putting the word “Mister” or “Missus” in front of your name just to annoy you and amuse me. And when that wears thin, I’m going to start adressing you by your ACTUAL last name. Johnson. Peters. Collins. Stevenson. And when you say to me, “Actually, it’s Fletcher…” I’ll say “-whatever,” and carry on talking.

People researching their family history in 160 years time will be going: “Right, all the way back to the turn of the century. now… Great great great uncle. Oh shit. ‘Wilmslow, Mackensie” Is that M. Wilmslow or W. Mackenzie. What were they thinking?”

And kids named after cities - Pheonix, Brooklyn, London, Vegas, Portland - that ends, too. What are you, are fucking airport? Unless you are a professional pool player, you have no excuse being named after a place. I’m going to laugh at you Cooper and Wilson here will join in too.

Been busy this week recording and writing more songs. In an effort to get a bit of folk levity, I put up a cover of John Martyn’s May You Never on my Soundclick page as a rough demo and upated some of the song descriptions. Spent more time in the studio this week recording a full version of Time Away. Elliot’s got an incredible accordion, which we’re going to make sound good with the magic of multitracking and cutting and pasting the takes, and he’s importing a Martin 000-15. That’s pronounced “OOOOOOOOH FIFTEEN….” All mahogony with a rosewood fretboard parlour - click here for guitar porn.

I went to get some pictures copied for a gift that Wife is putting together for her parents’ anniversary. As I dropped the photos in, the woman made small talk. Small talk’s great, except I’m terrible at it. I wish I could do, it but I always revert to the male thing of:

10 Find out if everything is OK
20 Ask “Is everything OK?”
30 Get answer
40 Variables include no, yes
50 If answer = no then go to 70
60 If answer = yes then go to 90
70 Fix it
80 Go to 20
90 Say “Good”
100 End

So she spoke about the weather while I filled my name on the receipts and confirmed that it might rain, although they said it would brighten up by the weekend, and quietly wonder how long it this thread of conversation is going to last. “It’ll be about an hour,” she says.

“Oh, God,” I think, and them I realise she’s talking about the pictures.

I come back in an hour, armed with small talk topics ranging from PIN Numbers to people who squeeze the toothpaste in the middle of the tube (especially on the Hammersmith and City line). I am primed. I can do trivia, I think. I can chew the fat. I offer the breeze a customary blindfold and cigarette and put the whistle to my lips.

“Here you go,” she says, “is it for an anniversary?”

Immediately disarmed, and not prepared to talk about myself, I feel a little uncomfortable. I don’t like it when photo shop people discuss your prints with you. It’s just too personal. You know the kind of comments: “That’s gotta hurt.” Or “Moving house?” Or “Cold that day, was it?”

“Anniversary, yes,” I say. Confidence boosted slightly, I go on. “They are celebrating their 40th anniversary the same week they become grandparents.” Beat that. Continuity, interest, flow, sentimentality.

“Hey wow,” she says, “how ironic.”

Setback. “Um…. no.” I think. I am desperate to ask her what is ironic is about a happy coincidence. It’s not even ironic in the loosest Alanis Morissette sense of the word, where ironic seems to mean “a pisser”. “Rain on your wedding day”? That’s not ironic, that’s just shit. Winning an election on the pledge of anarchy, gangsta rap being the salvation of rich kids living in the suburbs, the set of Waterworld burning down. That’s irony. A birth the same week as an anniversary ain’t.

I am an uncle!!!

Nephew was born in the early hours of this morning and everyone’s doing just great.
I need to learn that coin behind the ear thing. A relative of mine said that her uncle used to come round to their house with a bowl full of coins, and whatever the kids could keep as many coins as they could grab with one hand. Or I could tell them stories about the time I was in an emergency landing and stranding in the Mojave desert, or the day I interviewed Tony Blair (both true by the way). That’s what we do, uncles.

——
I saw a documentary about Mark Hamill on E last night. The channel, that is, not the drug. I didn’t sit there whacked out of my gourd on MDMA trying to follow the plot of Luke Skywalker playing the part of a Navy officer’s son trying to make a name for himself in Tinseltown. (…turns to agent: “You’re not my father!”)

It’s crazy how a young hopeful ordinary guy became the idol of tens of millions of kids worldwide. Good on him for keeping his head on his shoulders. I think it helped that he was a huge comic books fan, so he knew that superheroes were fun. Rock stars and football players these days rarely keep their feet as firmly on the ground, it seems.

I know some things get said about the media influencing the behaviour of impressionable minds, but I’m not so sure. I’ve listened to my share of angry music, but I’ve never felt the need to get caught stealing, send a monkey to heaven, fight for my right to party, kill my television, get off my own or anyone else’s cloud, shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die, do a scaramouche or a fandango or bring my daughter to the slaughter.

But I have taken a summer holiday, some lasting as long as a week or two. This blogger has been in possession of mistletoe and wine during the festive period, as have millions of others.

Is Cliff Richard the Peter Pan of Pop or an influential Evil Lord of Darkness? At this stage, we just don’t know. Is it only a matter of time before he bids us to carry out some hideous act? Sure, it starts with Devil Woman, but where does it end? Dead goats? Oh God, what’s the next single? Living Hell? (Shot) From a Distance? Satan’s Day?

Is his recent knighthood a recognition of his charity work or has the establishment to fallen pray to his subliminal messages. He has even shunned his real name, Harry Webb (as in “…of lies.”)

Finished: Book I was reading.

Gave: Gift and cards to Wife for being the world’s greatest mother.

Missed: My own mother. And Match of the Day (again!)

Made: Hammerbead rubber men with kids and Mother’s Day cards for above.

Planted: Pansies, Lobelia, Sunflowers, Courgettes, Tomatoes, Peppers, Pansies, Magnolia, Aster, Petunia, Celene - with the kids.

Sat: 45 mins sustained mediation in three sessions with varied results. Temptation to check whether the countdown timer was workng on my mobile was almost overpowering. Realising more and more that my life is ruled by a series of beeps and wav files.

Watched: Everton lose to Blackburn. Thank God Liverpool are playing like dogs at the moment.

Visited: Mother-in-law and father in law. He usually invites me to park in the tightest of spaces whenever I go there. It’s a mind game. “No, no, no. Pull her in here. Miles of room.” I always hesitate, which weakens my position. Wife argues against my ability and I hold my nerve, because to turn down the challenge would be a double cop out. (”What’s the matter?” “Wife wanted me to park over the road. She knows what I’m like.”) She usually gets out as I mount the curb for the second time. To make it worse, father in law usually offers to get the car out of the tight space when we come to leave. “No, I’m OK,” I always say, followed by everyone who knows what I’m like encouraging him to get the car out for me and point it in the direction I wish to travel. Sometimes, when we turn up on a surprise visit, he greets us at the door and always asks “Where are you parked?” I point over to the car halfway down the street in the generous parking bays and he squints and looks over my shoulder down the road like he’s working out what timezone that falls under. But he’s great and I love him like family.

Wrote: Letter to children’s short story competition (about which more later)

Ate: Three doughnuts, spaghetti, pizza, chips, rolo chocolate puddings, biscuits while driving, stilton, peanut butter toast, crisps and miscellaneous.

Invented: The brie, cranberry and grape tortilla wrap, henceforth known as “El Franco”. I am currently devising a “Croque Se�or”, due to soft launch in Q4 2005, pending resources.

Drove: To nearest big town for wife’s scrapbooking ambitions and nearly into in-laws daffodils.

Got a job: Doing some market research to talk about credit cards one night this week. Easy money. Ka, and indeed, ching.

Donated: Money to Comic Relief for daughter’s obstacle course race at school.

Went: To the dentist.

Why has the word “attitude” been twisted these days, to mean “a little bit snotty” or confrontational. Attitude used to mean “nature” or disposition”, not “shirtiness”.

But attitude is everything these days, and people are obsessed with it. “Nice attitude…” - it doesn’t mean anything. They hope you get your attitude adjusted.

People are always trying to figure out what your attitude is before they interpret what you are saying. Friends want to know what makes other friends tick. Bosses want to whether their employees think the glass is half empty or half full. Personally I think they are using too big a glass, but that’s just me.

Does attitute really matter? I think so, because I believe that you are what you think. Not literally, otherwise I’d be a X-Wing fighter pilot DJ pornstar philanthropist centre-forward for Everton with a seat on the United Nations Security Council , so it’s only true to an extent.

Driving along in the snow at the weekend I was talking to Wife about how I wanted to see the film Sideways. There aren’t many films these days made out people over 40. Hannah and Her Sisters, Throw Momma from the Train, On Golden Pond, Cocoon, Witches of Eastwick Thelma and Louise, Something’s Got to Give. And in most of these, the theme is “I am over 40 and this is my story”. The age factor, because it’s unusual, is a part of the story.

We started talking about Something’s Got to Give and how both liked the film. The snow got worse and I put on my foglights and turned up the radio to get a traffic or weather report. The first channel I flick to, first goddamn channel, plays the opening big band blast of the Johnny Mercer tune of the same name and Ella Fitzgerald kicks in “When an irresistible force such as you…”

I’m not sure if other people’s coincidences seem important two days after the event, but I enjoyed it.

Incidentally, the lyrics to this are beautiful. I mean:

So en guarde,
who knows what the fates have in store,
from their vast mysterious sky?

You have to take your hat off to the man.