Friday, 25 December 2009
If you ever feel entirely contented with everything, look harder because no one is ever totally alright.
Even if you've got all the things you can think of under control, there is someone out there fucking with your life, and it's more than likely that they're doing it purely for their own benefit.
You may not ever be able to speak to them, or even know who they are, but these people are more in charge of your life than you are.
Fight them. If you're not angry about something in the world, you're dead inside.
When your blood starts to boil use the heat to light a fire under yourself.
Take no shit and fuck 'em if they care.
Even if you've got all the things you can think of under control, there is someone out there fucking with your life, and it's more than likely that they're doing it purely for their own benefit.
You may not ever be able to speak to them, or even know who they are, but these people are more in charge of your life than you are.
Fight them. If you're not angry about something in the world, you're dead inside.
When your blood starts to boil use the heat to light a fire under yourself.
Take no shit and fuck 'em if they care.
This is not the time to speak in abstractions.
I think my time in Southsea is about up, I've been there five years, and speaking purely about the town as a whole (and not my friends, whom I love) if there was genuinely anything magnetic and alluring enough to make me want to stay, I think I'd know where to go for it, and where to find it.
Sure, things are taking form and shape; new friendships, my two bands, and there's always going to be places like The Wedge and The One Eyed Dog which I know I will miss no matter when I leave, purely because of how they fit in with the person I want to be, but the core is this, that in order to become this person, I think my time is up.
I want to see the world, I want to get a job I don't hate, and at the same time I love being able to bump into people I know on random walks round town, and this tight little community I am part of, I want to be somewhere where not everyone knows everything about each other, and maybe even where no one knows me.
I have been offered a job in Crawley, where I'm from originally, and it sounds like something I'd like to do. It's for the local council, working alongside different cultures, and at the same time I would be assisting them in the town, so too would I be finding out more about their own lifestyles and beliefs and everything, and it all sounds precisely what I want to do. I'll be able to put my degree to use in a second role too, filming and editing various videos, which is also something I actually enjoy, as well as proving quite financially rewarding.
Doing this, it would be most sensible to move back to Crawley, and live with my parents, graciously rent free for a few months. Saving up all, and I mean all the money I make, would mean I would most likely be four figures up from my current financial state, and this in turn would allow for some travelling, and then, who knows where, maybe back to Southsea, maybe to Brighton, I don't honestly know.
So what I am trying and I believe failing to say is that to everyone in Southsea who reads this (and I know at least a few do), if I end up moving on soon, I don't want you to think that you aren't important to me, and I don't want you to think it was an easy decision to make. Working on the assumption that I leave, I will be coming back very often I promise. It's just there is too much I want, too much I need, and I don't see any of it where we are right now.
I think my time in Southsea is about up, I've been there five years, and speaking purely about the town as a whole (and not my friends, whom I love) if there was genuinely anything magnetic and alluring enough to make me want to stay, I think I'd know where to go for it, and where to find it.
Sure, things are taking form and shape; new friendships, my two bands, and there's always going to be places like The Wedge and The One Eyed Dog which I know I will miss no matter when I leave, purely because of how they fit in with the person I want to be, but the core is this, that in order to become this person, I think my time is up.
I want to see the world, I want to get a job I don't hate, and at the same time I love being able to bump into people I know on random walks round town, and this tight little community I am part of, I want to be somewhere where not everyone knows everything about each other, and maybe even where no one knows me.
I have been offered a job in Crawley, where I'm from originally, and it sounds like something I'd like to do. It's for the local council, working alongside different cultures, and at the same time I would be assisting them in the town, so too would I be finding out more about their own lifestyles and beliefs and everything, and it all sounds precisely what I want to do. I'll be able to put my degree to use in a second role too, filming and editing various videos, which is also something I actually enjoy, as well as proving quite financially rewarding.
Doing this, it would be most sensible to move back to Crawley, and live with my parents, graciously rent free for a few months. Saving up all, and I mean all the money I make, would mean I would most likely be four figures up from my current financial state, and this in turn would allow for some travelling, and then, who knows where, maybe back to Southsea, maybe to Brighton, I don't honestly know.
So what I am trying and I believe failing to say is that to everyone in Southsea who reads this (and I know at least a few do), if I end up moving on soon, I don't want you to think that you aren't important to me, and I don't want you to think it was an easy decision to make. Working on the assumption that I leave, I will be coming back very often I promise. It's just there is too much I want, too much I need, and I don't see any of it where we are right now.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
My 2009 part two
Picking up where I left off....
I've got a house now, too, just like real grown ups do. It's rented, I admit, but it's the sort of space I'd be happy to own and live in perhaps, if I lived alone or even more, could just truly make it mine. One room could be a recording studio/practice space (theres that money issue again), one bedroom could be a guest room, or just a place to relax in, and in the garden I'd have friends over in the summer, and we'd have barbeques and talk and joke and laugh. My bedroom would stay more or less the same, I think, with all the little things that have a story behind them on display, aching to be talked about. The house on the whole would be tidy and clean, the decorations on the walls would have character, but also taste.
As it is though, I don't think I'll be staying here when the contract expires. My housemates, let it be said, are starting to change and get more pro-active, which in the last few weeks has been both a surprise and a relief, but I've got this nagging feeling they'll soon fall back into their old routine of laziness, messiness, and perpetually being high, sometimes too much so to pay the bills and rent, both in terms of effort and having spent their money on fucking drugs. All the contracts are in my name, so constantly recieving threatening letters from various companies and authorities, which should really be addressed to them, is not something I am very happy with. I need to have things under my control when it comes to situations like this, and when I was living on my own, I didn't have to worry about that sort of thing because I was the only person concerned and so I knew where the cash was coming from, and going to.
I get all the hippie stoner bullshit too, about how it fights the system, man, and it should be decriminalised to further society, but fuck, they're the worst examples to support that argument. If they're anything to go by, it would only produce apathy, selfishness, and a lack of ambition in mass amounts. There is no glamour or rebellion in lying on a couch playing Grand Theft Auto, too stoned to be trusted to understand, remember or even hold a conversation about why I might have to go to court for tax evasion and it's their fault. And if they try to get me to smoke one more fucking time, I'll lose my shit completely. I've never smoked, not even a single cigarette. I hate smoking. I battled with my dad for years to get him to stop (and this year he did, which made me happier than he knows), and they know that, so how fucking low are you stooping when you literally tell someone, your friend and housemate nonetheless "Before the year is out, I'm going to get you smoking."
So I don't think I'll be staying here when the contract expires, unless they move out. I might ask them to, but then I'm stuck with the hassle of finding two new housemates, putting two new names on contracts etc, and I can't be bothered, this whole thing is constantly tiring me as it is and besides, I think I'm at the point where I'd quite like a change of scenery anyway, even in just a minimal amount. This might mean a different house, this might mean a different town. I've got an escape plan to Brighton all set up in my head, but I need time, money (that bastard) and the confidence to start over somewhere. And I need to be sure that this confidence is not in fact ill considered abandon in a smiling mask.
It might sound a bit weird, or obvious, but in this first post-university year, people have been a big part of my life. They usually are, for everyone I suppose, but this year I feel they've had more of an impact and mattered more than in previous years, with new wonderful people arriving, and old, wonderful people leaving. Just as my story is undergoing a twist, the cast has all changed as well.
There was just the one death in my family this year; an elderly family friend, natural causes. I guess most of the people you sort of expect to go have gone already; grandparents, their friends whom you see as a child, and the like. All but my mother's mother have gone, and I am dreading that phone call, I'll fucking break down and pound the earth when that day comes, and I am terrified that it's soon. This is my biggest fear. I never got to see my other three grandparents, and I need to say so much to her, to ask her so much and to tell her just that one short phrase that says it all. She is not ill, but she is old, and there are no exceptions to how this works.
The funeral for Kaye was perfect though, in that way only funerals can be. I kept composed throughout, shook and struggled a little when Sid kissed her coffin goodbye, now a widower, and then cried alone for a few minutes that night when I got back to Portsmouth.
Others have left me this year, moving away, going travelling and so on. I miss them too, and every time I see them, man, it's just the best. There are a few people who have stayed around, but changed and become distant, and I'm learning to live with that still as there is a unique kind of sadness attached to that sort of disintegration, but every now and then our wavelengths overlap and we get on like nothing was ever any different.
I've had a lot of people enter my life this year though too, almost certainly more incomings than outgoings, and most, if not all of them, have ended up brightening it up a little. I've got myself in a few bands finally, one which allows me to have fun playing the sort of music I love to listen to, and another which is the most pleasingly accurate expression of how I think and feel that I've ever found musically since I started playing guitar over a decade ago. I love both my bands, we're just getting started but the thoughts of what we're going to do, what we're aiming and trying for, and how feasible it is that it will happen, have got me genuinely excited, which is a rarity.
It might sound strange, but I think I keep my friends closer than I keep my family. You see, in my eyes, in my experience, family are almost bound to you, they're so close and inextricably bound to you that there's almost a sense they're sometimes acting out of obligation or foresight in the ways that they treat you. You're stuck with them for life, just as they are stuck with you, and whilst I do love my family dearly, sincerely, there is still that occasional feeling of sheer tolerance sometimes, and of being bound, lovingly, but bound nonetheless.
See, friends, they can ditch you whenever they want. If you act up, get out of line, then there's really, ultimately, nothing to keep them anchored to you if they want to float on. This is why I am truly amazed by friendships, as opposed to familial relationships. For all the times this year I know I've been an embarassment, a terrible person, or just acted in a way my friends didn't deserve, there's been a core who have never failed to give me another go and have always come back for me, and I sometimes feel they see me as being someone better than I even see myself being. I don't deserve my friends sometimes, I don't deserve people like them, who would sit with me through the nights when loneliness may well have been the end of me, or who have thought nothing of answering their phone at some ungodly hour, or who have steadied my hand when I was out of control and steering myself wildly off course into the darkness. Thanks guys, I regret that I don't say it ever and perhaps come across as distant at times, but you've been the world to me this year and I could never express that in a way equal to how much I've felt it.
However, so many of my old closest friends, whom I shared so much with, are gone now that while I feel more secure in myself than I used to, I still feel a little left behind as well, and as I mentioned, this has sparked a wanderlust in me. Doubly, so many people I know are starting to get it together and settle down with someone they love, that I often feel a little left out in that respect too. It seems that as soon as I look for that other kind of relationship with a girl, more than just friendship, then they leave through coincidence and no fault of my own. Just divergent courses in life, wrong place, wrong time and so on, but fucking hell, when four or five of these random coincidences mount up, I'd like to think I can be understood for feeling like I'm jinxed or fucking cursed. These routine disappearances of love from my life are getting too much to handle. I now find myself resisting new intimacy, assuming that this too will soon be gone, they will leave like all the rest, and I know that this is no way to live.
I feel the need to confess that in my mind there is a recurring, precise sight; I am in a house, photographs and keepsakes of lives both seperate and conjoined cover the walls, as if the home was made of our very selves, and there are two children, two girls (Katherine Rose and Alice, whose middle name I don't know but I think is Natalie) and I am married, to someone who, typically, is no longer in my life, and equally as typically, never knew quite how I felt about her, and they are ours. This girl, I want her back in my life quite badly, and I want to tell her that I love her, because I never did, and though I don't expect anything good to come of it and in fact think it would probably be the final thing I ever say to her, I want her to feel the same way and start us on the path to making this sight something real.
My house and my wife and my girls in my head used to scare me when I first began to dream it, but right now, it has grown into a comfort, a some-when ideal. Wishful, futile, thinking.
There we have it though. I've got a life mapped out all the same, and that wasn't there this time last year. It kinda looks like, I want to live in Brighton, with a family, and I think the fact I haven't really got anything further in depth than those two massive yet vague goals is due both to the fact that I know this is a pipe dream that won't all fall into place in the forthcoming year or so, but also the fact that I don't really want much more than that, when I think about it.
I think I've been so busy trying to stay young that I've mostly forgotten that I'm getting older. I know 22 may not seem like much to some, in the grand scheme of things, but in my mind, I am growing older, more distant from my youth and there's nothing I can do to turn back time. This is my life that I am living right now, not some game, and I keep forgetting and forsaking that. If I come across as angry or 'bleak', as the years buzzword seems to have been, it's only because I've realised that life is wasting away second by second and I'm frustrated and wanting more all of a sudden, while not really being in a position to achieve it due to forces beyond my control right now. The decisions that I make from now on will matter, and this is something I must never forget again.
I've got a house now, too, just like real grown ups do. It's rented, I admit, but it's the sort of space I'd be happy to own and live in perhaps, if I lived alone or even more, could just truly make it mine. One room could be a recording studio/practice space (theres that money issue again), one bedroom could be a guest room, or just a place to relax in, and in the garden I'd have friends over in the summer, and we'd have barbeques and talk and joke and laugh. My bedroom would stay more or less the same, I think, with all the little things that have a story behind them on display, aching to be talked about. The house on the whole would be tidy and clean, the decorations on the walls would have character, but also taste.
As it is though, I don't think I'll be staying here when the contract expires. My housemates, let it be said, are starting to change and get more pro-active, which in the last few weeks has been both a surprise and a relief, but I've got this nagging feeling they'll soon fall back into their old routine of laziness, messiness, and perpetually being high, sometimes too much so to pay the bills and rent, both in terms of effort and having spent their money on fucking drugs. All the contracts are in my name, so constantly recieving threatening letters from various companies and authorities, which should really be addressed to them, is not something I am very happy with. I need to have things under my control when it comes to situations like this, and when I was living on my own, I didn't have to worry about that sort of thing because I was the only person concerned and so I knew where the cash was coming from, and going to.
I get all the hippie stoner bullshit too, about how it fights the system, man, and it should be decriminalised to further society, but fuck, they're the worst examples to support that argument. If they're anything to go by, it would only produce apathy, selfishness, and a lack of ambition in mass amounts. There is no glamour or rebellion in lying on a couch playing Grand Theft Auto, too stoned to be trusted to understand, remember or even hold a conversation about why I might have to go to court for tax evasion and it's their fault. And if they try to get me to smoke one more fucking time, I'll lose my shit completely. I've never smoked, not even a single cigarette. I hate smoking. I battled with my dad for years to get him to stop (and this year he did, which made me happier than he knows), and they know that, so how fucking low are you stooping when you literally tell someone, your friend and housemate nonetheless "Before the year is out, I'm going to get you smoking."
So I don't think I'll be staying here when the contract expires, unless they move out. I might ask them to, but then I'm stuck with the hassle of finding two new housemates, putting two new names on contracts etc, and I can't be bothered, this whole thing is constantly tiring me as it is and besides, I think I'm at the point where I'd quite like a change of scenery anyway, even in just a minimal amount. This might mean a different house, this might mean a different town. I've got an escape plan to Brighton all set up in my head, but I need time, money (that bastard) and the confidence to start over somewhere. And I need to be sure that this confidence is not in fact ill considered abandon in a smiling mask.
It might sound a bit weird, or obvious, but in this first post-university year, people have been a big part of my life. They usually are, for everyone I suppose, but this year I feel they've had more of an impact and mattered more than in previous years, with new wonderful people arriving, and old, wonderful people leaving. Just as my story is undergoing a twist, the cast has all changed as well.
There was just the one death in my family this year; an elderly family friend, natural causes. I guess most of the people you sort of expect to go have gone already; grandparents, their friends whom you see as a child, and the like. All but my mother's mother have gone, and I am dreading that phone call, I'll fucking break down and pound the earth when that day comes, and I am terrified that it's soon. This is my biggest fear. I never got to see my other three grandparents, and I need to say so much to her, to ask her so much and to tell her just that one short phrase that says it all. She is not ill, but she is old, and there are no exceptions to how this works.
The funeral for Kaye was perfect though, in that way only funerals can be. I kept composed throughout, shook and struggled a little when Sid kissed her coffin goodbye, now a widower, and then cried alone for a few minutes that night when I got back to Portsmouth.
Others have left me this year, moving away, going travelling and so on. I miss them too, and every time I see them, man, it's just the best. There are a few people who have stayed around, but changed and become distant, and I'm learning to live with that still as there is a unique kind of sadness attached to that sort of disintegration, but every now and then our wavelengths overlap and we get on like nothing was ever any different.
I've had a lot of people enter my life this year though too, almost certainly more incomings than outgoings, and most, if not all of them, have ended up brightening it up a little. I've got myself in a few bands finally, one which allows me to have fun playing the sort of music I love to listen to, and another which is the most pleasingly accurate expression of how I think and feel that I've ever found musically since I started playing guitar over a decade ago. I love both my bands, we're just getting started but the thoughts of what we're going to do, what we're aiming and trying for, and how feasible it is that it will happen, have got me genuinely excited, which is a rarity.
It might sound strange, but I think I keep my friends closer than I keep my family. You see, in my eyes, in my experience, family are almost bound to you, they're so close and inextricably bound to you that there's almost a sense they're sometimes acting out of obligation or foresight in the ways that they treat you. You're stuck with them for life, just as they are stuck with you, and whilst I do love my family dearly, sincerely, there is still that occasional feeling of sheer tolerance sometimes, and of being bound, lovingly, but bound nonetheless.
See, friends, they can ditch you whenever they want. If you act up, get out of line, then there's really, ultimately, nothing to keep them anchored to you if they want to float on. This is why I am truly amazed by friendships, as opposed to familial relationships. For all the times this year I know I've been an embarassment, a terrible person, or just acted in a way my friends didn't deserve, there's been a core who have never failed to give me another go and have always come back for me, and I sometimes feel they see me as being someone better than I even see myself being. I don't deserve my friends sometimes, I don't deserve people like them, who would sit with me through the nights when loneliness may well have been the end of me, or who have thought nothing of answering their phone at some ungodly hour, or who have steadied my hand when I was out of control and steering myself wildly off course into the darkness. Thanks guys, I regret that I don't say it ever and perhaps come across as distant at times, but you've been the world to me this year and I could never express that in a way equal to how much I've felt it.
However, so many of my old closest friends, whom I shared so much with, are gone now that while I feel more secure in myself than I used to, I still feel a little left behind as well, and as I mentioned, this has sparked a wanderlust in me. Doubly, so many people I know are starting to get it together and settle down with someone they love, that I often feel a little left out in that respect too. It seems that as soon as I look for that other kind of relationship with a girl, more than just friendship, then they leave through coincidence and no fault of my own. Just divergent courses in life, wrong place, wrong time and so on, but fucking hell, when four or five of these random coincidences mount up, I'd like to think I can be understood for feeling like I'm jinxed or fucking cursed. These routine disappearances of love from my life are getting too much to handle. I now find myself resisting new intimacy, assuming that this too will soon be gone, they will leave like all the rest, and I know that this is no way to live.
I feel the need to confess that in my mind there is a recurring, precise sight; I am in a house, photographs and keepsakes of lives both seperate and conjoined cover the walls, as if the home was made of our very selves, and there are two children, two girls (Katherine Rose and Alice, whose middle name I don't know but I think is Natalie) and I am married, to someone who, typically, is no longer in my life, and equally as typically, never knew quite how I felt about her, and they are ours. This girl, I want her back in my life quite badly, and I want to tell her that I love her, because I never did, and though I don't expect anything good to come of it and in fact think it would probably be the final thing I ever say to her, I want her to feel the same way and start us on the path to making this sight something real.
My house and my wife and my girls in my head used to scare me when I first began to dream it, but right now, it has grown into a comfort, a some-when ideal. Wishful, futile, thinking.
There we have it though. I've got a life mapped out all the same, and that wasn't there this time last year. It kinda looks like, I want to live in Brighton, with a family, and I think the fact I haven't really got anything further in depth than those two massive yet vague goals is due both to the fact that I know this is a pipe dream that won't all fall into place in the forthcoming year or so, but also the fact that I don't really want much more than that, when I think about it.
I think I've been so busy trying to stay young that I've mostly forgotten that I'm getting older. I know 22 may not seem like much to some, in the grand scheme of things, but in my mind, I am growing older, more distant from my youth and there's nothing I can do to turn back time. This is my life that I am living right now, not some game, and I keep forgetting and forsaking that. If I come across as angry or 'bleak', as the years buzzword seems to have been, it's only because I've realised that life is wasting away second by second and I'm frustrated and wanting more all of a sudden, while not really being in a position to achieve it due to forces beyond my control right now. The decisions that I make from now on will matter, and this is something I must never forget again.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
My 2009 part one
I think I grew up this year, in the sense that I feel I've stopped being a child in my mind and finally decided to shoulder the responsibilities of adulthood. I'm in two minds over how I feel about this; on the one hand it's sort of nice to feel like I'm actually part of the real world here and there, but on the other, fuck me, there's a lot of things it takes out of you. There's a certain feeling of finality about it which I don't really like, and I keep pushing away the question "Is this is?" which keeps looming at me inside my head.
I mean, I still live a fairly 'young' lifestyle a lot of the time; I go to gigs, I'm perhaps more into music now than I've ever been, and if you're reading this then I'm sure you know that I have a tendency to go out and get drunk, a lot.
But this last point has been fucking with me, for a long time now. Going out six nights a week is hammering me, I can feel it. I'm always tired, there's not a day in memory when some part of me didn't hurt, and financially it's doing me in as well. I actually feel pretty sure I'm not too far from the point of where, if I'm not careful, I incur some sort of major damage to my body, if I haven't already. I mean, I've already got quite a few minor scars from where I've done something stupid while drunk and it's gone wrong, and I've just recently realised that this should probably serve as some sort of wake up call. On a related note, having to go to A&E to get your fucking skull x-rayed, after taking the sort of sucker punch and fall which costs you two teeth and a mobile phone, but next week you read in a local paper has cost a man his life during a random assault and fluke fall in a club, really ought to inspire you to make the most of life, rather than pissing it all away. I've spent so much of this year busy burning the candle at both ends that I've never really stopped to think about the fact that my flame could go out as a resuly. I've come to understand that I truly like being alive. It's useful for doing cool stuff. I also like the idea of being able to remember it. There are photographs of me that are redundant, that don't conjure up memories, because though my body turned up, I simply was not there. That's horrific. So, if the 'days of my youth' are coming to an end, I'd like to be able to recall them when I want something to look back on.
(As I write this, I'm in a pub, and I've not had a drink for 11 days. I've had an unusual feeling growing in me the whole time, something unfamiliar. I think it might be pride.)
I've got a full time job, just like real grown ups do, and I hate it, just like real grown ups do. I think that if you don't hate your job then you're either one of the minority lucky enough to be doing something they like, or you're a little bit dead inside. I feel like I am letting myself down day after day just by turning up and agreeing to submit to a thankless task which I feel no connection to whatsoever. There is something intrinsically wrong about spending more time doing one thing you hate than doing any one of the multitude of things you remotely enjoy. My life for about five months consisted of me waking up, going to work, coming home, having a meal, and going to sleep again. This was me, on a loop. The hours have reduced since, but I still hate it. Still, it comes down to the matter of money. I want to go travelling round the world to various places in the next few years, starting with Kiev in the spring, and then hopefully somewhere else in the autumn, and so on, every two seasons, somewhere new, but it's being able to afford it which is the problem. If I could quit my job tomorrow, I would, but essentially it pays the bills and rent and I need that money. I wish I didn't, and I do wish I worked practically anywhere else, but right now I feel I have to choose safety over impulsiveness, even though it goes against everything I believe in and aspire to be. Almost all my heroes and role models never gave a fuck for work, and just did what they wanted, and this is the lifestyle I aspire to lead, but I don't know, maybe they were just braver, or had more integrity than me. It's thoughts like these that I fucking hate, that's the real issue here. I am currently spending most of my time doing something which makes me feel like a fucking failure and disappointment to myself.
I am a letdown to my own potential.
I mean, I still live a fairly 'young' lifestyle a lot of the time; I go to gigs, I'm perhaps more into music now than I've ever been, and if you're reading this then I'm sure you know that I have a tendency to go out and get drunk, a lot.
But this last point has been fucking with me, for a long time now. Going out six nights a week is hammering me, I can feel it. I'm always tired, there's not a day in memory when some part of me didn't hurt, and financially it's doing me in as well. I actually feel pretty sure I'm not too far from the point of where, if I'm not careful, I incur some sort of major damage to my body, if I haven't already. I mean, I've already got quite a few minor scars from where I've done something stupid while drunk and it's gone wrong, and I've just recently realised that this should probably serve as some sort of wake up call. On a related note, having to go to A&E to get your fucking skull x-rayed, after taking the sort of sucker punch and fall which costs you two teeth and a mobile phone, but next week you read in a local paper has cost a man his life during a random assault and fluke fall in a club, really ought to inspire you to make the most of life, rather than pissing it all away. I've spent so much of this year busy burning the candle at both ends that I've never really stopped to think about the fact that my flame could go out as a resuly. I've come to understand that I truly like being alive. It's useful for doing cool stuff. I also like the idea of being able to remember it. There are photographs of me that are redundant, that don't conjure up memories, because though my body turned up, I simply was not there. That's horrific. So, if the 'days of my youth' are coming to an end, I'd like to be able to recall them when I want something to look back on.
(As I write this, I'm in a pub, and I've not had a drink for 11 days. I've had an unusual feeling growing in me the whole time, something unfamiliar. I think it might be pride.)
I've got a full time job, just like real grown ups do, and I hate it, just like real grown ups do. I think that if you don't hate your job then you're either one of the minority lucky enough to be doing something they like, or you're a little bit dead inside. I feel like I am letting myself down day after day just by turning up and agreeing to submit to a thankless task which I feel no connection to whatsoever. There is something intrinsically wrong about spending more time doing one thing you hate than doing any one of the multitude of things you remotely enjoy. My life for about five months consisted of me waking up, going to work, coming home, having a meal, and going to sleep again. This was me, on a loop. The hours have reduced since, but I still hate it. Still, it comes down to the matter of money. I want to go travelling round the world to various places in the next few years, starting with Kiev in the spring, and then hopefully somewhere else in the autumn, and so on, every two seasons, somewhere new, but it's being able to afford it which is the problem. If I could quit my job tomorrow, I would, but essentially it pays the bills and rent and I need that money. I wish I didn't, and I do wish I worked practically anywhere else, but right now I feel I have to choose safety over impulsiveness, even though it goes against everything I believe in and aspire to be. Almost all my heroes and role models never gave a fuck for work, and just did what they wanted, and this is the lifestyle I aspire to lead, but I don't know, maybe they were just braver, or had more integrity than me. It's thoughts like these that I fucking hate, that's the real issue here. I am currently spending most of my time doing something which makes me feel like a fucking failure and disappointment to myself.
I am a letdown to my own potential.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
So you want a healthy local scene? Go to shows, spend your money to pay the bands, cheer their songs, talk to the people there.
Help create your own surroundings, if you do nothing then you'll get nothing back in return, and certainly what you deserve.
Don't be so lazy and closed-minded that you'll get so stoned you lose interest and only support 'the music you love' because your friends have told you to come or risk being ostracised.
Likewise, don't feel so afraid to go somewhere on your own and see a band, because once you're there, it's going to be easy enough to make friends anyway. Such is our nature.
Stop talking the talk which makes you look cool and fit in to the scene you chose to boost your attractiveness to the opposite sex.
Start giving a shit and helping out the people who are in this for life and who make this their everything.
Help create your own surroundings, if you do nothing then you'll get nothing back in return, and certainly what you deserve.
Don't be so lazy and closed-minded that you'll get so stoned you lose interest and only support 'the music you love' because your friends have told you to come or risk being ostracised.
Likewise, don't feel so afraid to go somewhere on your own and see a band, because once you're there, it's going to be easy enough to make friends anyway. Such is our nature.
Stop talking the talk which makes you look cool and fit in to the scene you chose to boost your attractiveness to the opposite sex.
Start giving a shit and helping out the people who are in this for life and who make this their everything.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Theres such a big emphasis on loving this town, that sometimes I think people forget to pause and question whether they really should; what makes them so special; what exactly is that amazing about this little community. Community as interpreted by and large round here means nothing to me, the forced commonality of our main street and the surrounding venues is a feeble excuse for money making and hypocrisy, the end result of outside influences and that perenial desire to not only belong, but to belong at the top of the strata. What ever makes you look cooler, what ever makes you more attractive, whatever makes you more fuckable, 'go for it'. Just be aware that some people are doing this because it has bound itself to their spine, to their mind, to their very essence, and so when you have gone, moved on to the next fad, we will still be here, and we will be glad you have gone.
You do not make this town,
This town makes you.
And I'm not sure where the blame lies,
But this all feels fucking doomed.
You do not make this town,
This town makes you.
And I'm not sure where the blame lies,
But this all feels fucking doomed.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
What a learning experience this weekend has been.
Some bridges don't burn, but fall apart all by themselves anyway, decaying over time. And it's a shame, but it's probably inevitable. Oh well, this is life I suppose; and in a sense I'm glad. In a bittersweet sort of way, I am glad, because to my mind this life is all about growth and progression, and what can be seen to be more progressive than the loss of the old, and the re-emphasising of the new, and the prospects of the future?
This is not to say that I don't miss what once was there, the web we wove together managed to catch the best of times, and I will press snapshots into the scrapbook in my head, but I simply don't think things are ever going to be the same again. But maybe that's ok.
and on a different note
Everyone seems to be wailing about the winter coming in. I, on the other hand, welcome it, for now it feels like the world is finally in touch with me. It is cold, and it is grey, and it is bleak, and I feel at home here. This taken on it's own no doubt seems morbid, and perhaps it is, but personally, I genuinely do feel at home in the wintertime, and so right now I am starting to feel a lot better about everything than I have done for the past few months.
There is nothing I like more during this season, than going for a walk, often to the beach and the cobalt sea which arrives in these months. Here, putting on my favourite songs, having the world cradle and envelope me. Feeling my face turns cold though the rest of me is wrapped up and warm, as the dim sky lies draped like a grey blanket overhead. Letting every breath irrigates my lungs with the taste and smell of the very air itself. And all this, accompanied by vast, dark, velvet sounds, providing the perfect score to such a rich and overpowering time, as I open up my senses to the world, find that connection, and rediscover the home I have within myself.
Some bridges don't burn, but fall apart all by themselves anyway, decaying over time. And it's a shame, but it's probably inevitable. Oh well, this is life I suppose; and in a sense I'm glad. In a bittersweet sort of way, I am glad, because to my mind this life is all about growth and progression, and what can be seen to be more progressive than the loss of the old, and the re-emphasising of the new, and the prospects of the future?
This is not to say that I don't miss what once was there, the web we wove together managed to catch the best of times, and I will press snapshots into the scrapbook in my head, but I simply don't think things are ever going to be the same again. But maybe that's ok.
and on a different note
Everyone seems to be wailing about the winter coming in. I, on the other hand, welcome it, for now it feels like the world is finally in touch with me. It is cold, and it is grey, and it is bleak, and I feel at home here. This taken on it's own no doubt seems morbid, and perhaps it is, but personally, I genuinely do feel at home in the wintertime, and so right now I am starting to feel a lot better about everything than I have done for the past few months.
There is nothing I like more during this season, than going for a walk, often to the beach and the cobalt sea which arrives in these months. Here, putting on my favourite songs, having the world cradle and envelope me. Feeling my face turns cold though the rest of me is wrapped up and warm, as the dim sky lies draped like a grey blanket overhead. Letting every breath irrigates my lungs with the taste and smell of the very air itself. And all this, accompanied by vast, dark, velvet sounds, providing the perfect score to such a rich and overpowering time, as I open up my senses to the world, find that connection, and rediscover the home I have within myself.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Is this city really worth fighting for? After giving so much of myself to just stay here, did I really ever stop to think why?
Keep taking.
I'll keep giving.
And one day, I'll take something back, and it will be something worth the fight, and worth holding on to.
That's how it's supposed to work, right?
Keep taking.
I'll keep giving.
And one day, I'll take something back, and it will be something worth the fight, and worth holding on to.
That's how it's supposed to work, right?
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Monday, 10 August 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
I'm not cut out for you fucking people, I go and stick my neck out for the first time in months and get a knife drawn across my jugular vein.
Thanks for bleeding me dry once again, guys. I'm now running on empty, so cheers. I'll let you know when I'm topped up again, maybe make a group announcement, so you can make plans together to cut me back open, yeah?
..... At 1.07am on a worknight I'm too tired for this shit, and none of you would probably give a fuck if I kept on screaming anyway, so good night and sleep tight, you ignorant terrible people.
Thanks for bleeding me dry once again, guys. I'm now running on empty, so cheers. I'll let you know when I'm topped up again, maybe make a group announcement, so you can make plans together to cut me back open, yeah?
..... At 1.07am on a worknight I'm too tired for this shit, and none of you would probably give a fuck if I kept on screaming anyway, so good night and sleep tight, you ignorant terrible people.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
I've been trying to get to sleep but it feels like theres this twitch in my skull thats not letting me, and after setting myself to finding out what's causing it, I've decided it feels like theres just a bunch of jabbering and energy I need to expel. So here goes, an account of precisely why I love Doctor Who so very much, and subsequently get odd looks from my friends at times, which is about as brief as it is clear. Ie. Not enough. But we begin:
The Doctor: Nigh on immortal due to his ability to regenerate, and able to travel through time and space. The potential for what he can see or where he can go is endless, and due to his regenerative capabilities, he is able to go on indefinitely, recovering from whatever challenges temporarily overcome him. Basically, he can be seen as an embodiment of the aspirations of man: complete power over that which is unknown to us, and the freedom and lack of fear such power affords.
However, (noticeably found in the recent revival of the series) there exists a theme of loss, searching and, subsequently, powerlessness. Countless moments, most presciently under David Tennant's tenure as the character, have shown the Doctor to be utterly alone despite having the universe at his disposal, and emotionally devastated from the simple fact he cannot truly share his own entire life with anyone. Anyone and everyone he could ever love will die, while he carrys on, and on, and it becomes implicit that as much as The Doctor's companion's are awed by the sights he can show them, he too is just as enamoured with the fact he has someone there with him, and that he can make them happy. Even as he draws joy from these times, he lives with the burden of knowing that they will, in one way or the other, leave him alone again in the end. And isn't that what most of us do in our lives? Try to find someone who we can make happy, because it makes us happy (or vice versa), and make it through our existance with them? To focus not on the end we all face, but to fill the time we have with experiences and adventure and, ultimately, having someone to relate it all to. Whether in the heartbreaking exile of Rose, or the cruel, spiteful semi-suicide of fellow timelord The Master, there are moments of true loss dotted throughout Tennant's series': moments when The Doctor's facade of amiability and ambivalence cannot be maintained and his inner need to just feel that someone can care for him for once bursts through the surface.
No matter how much we see of his composed outer self, we know there is a deep need for a real relationship of any kind nestled in The Doctor's two immortal hearts (symbolism, perhaps?), and so there is always a lingering sense that his endless voyaging across time and space is as much a quest for this as it is for anything else. His never ending search across all that is, was and will be may well be ultimately be motivated purely by a wish and a belief that, for everything out there, one person cannot possibly be totally alone.
To have such a rich discussion of the human condition encapsulated in one vaguely ridiculous science fiction character blows my mind, but it is this humanising of the timelord which makes him such a profoundly affecting character for me. Certain episodes of this 'kids programme' have touched me more than almost anything ever, and while it would be amiss to ignore the incredible performances of the cast involved, the very nature of this character, so complete yet so empty, is innately powerful, and I truly find it hard to comprehend how someone, once made aware that it is so much more than 'aliens and time travel', would not at least be able to appreciate and be excited that, in an all too rare occurance, primetime mainstream, genuinely successful television is discussing what it means to be alive. It's borderline philosophical debate, and it's being broadcast into our homes on BBC One on Saturday teatimes under the equally as valid guise of pure entertainment. In my eyes, thats not just masterful programme making: thats an all too rare realisation and utilisation of the potential of television as a medium. Doctor Who, is to me, the summation and pinnacle of what mass popular media can, and perhaps every now and again, should do. Challenge. Entertain. Enrapture. Inspire.
Nerd much?
The Doctor: Nigh on immortal due to his ability to regenerate, and able to travel through time and space. The potential for what he can see or where he can go is endless, and due to his regenerative capabilities, he is able to go on indefinitely, recovering from whatever challenges temporarily overcome him. Basically, he can be seen as an embodiment of the aspirations of man: complete power over that which is unknown to us, and the freedom and lack of fear such power affords.
However, (noticeably found in the recent revival of the series) there exists a theme of loss, searching and, subsequently, powerlessness. Countless moments, most presciently under David Tennant's tenure as the character, have shown the Doctor to be utterly alone despite having the universe at his disposal, and emotionally devastated from the simple fact he cannot truly share his own entire life with anyone. Anyone and everyone he could ever love will die, while he carrys on, and on, and it becomes implicit that as much as The Doctor's companion's are awed by the sights he can show them, he too is just as enamoured with the fact he has someone there with him, and that he can make them happy. Even as he draws joy from these times, he lives with the burden of knowing that they will, in one way or the other, leave him alone again in the end. And isn't that what most of us do in our lives? Try to find someone who we can make happy, because it makes us happy (or vice versa), and make it through our existance with them? To focus not on the end we all face, but to fill the time we have with experiences and adventure and, ultimately, having someone to relate it all to. Whether in the heartbreaking exile of Rose, or the cruel, spiteful semi-suicide of fellow timelord The Master, there are moments of true loss dotted throughout Tennant's series': moments when The Doctor's facade of amiability and ambivalence cannot be maintained and his inner need to just feel that someone can care for him for once bursts through the surface.
No matter how much we see of his composed outer self, we know there is a deep need for a real relationship of any kind nestled in The Doctor's two immortal hearts (symbolism, perhaps?), and so there is always a lingering sense that his endless voyaging across time and space is as much a quest for this as it is for anything else. His never ending search across all that is, was and will be may well be ultimately be motivated purely by a wish and a belief that, for everything out there, one person cannot possibly be totally alone.
To have such a rich discussion of the human condition encapsulated in one vaguely ridiculous science fiction character blows my mind, but it is this humanising of the timelord which makes him such a profoundly affecting character for me. Certain episodes of this 'kids programme' have touched me more than almost anything ever, and while it would be amiss to ignore the incredible performances of the cast involved, the very nature of this character, so complete yet so empty, is innately powerful, and I truly find it hard to comprehend how someone, once made aware that it is so much more than 'aliens and time travel', would not at least be able to appreciate and be excited that, in an all too rare occurance, primetime mainstream, genuinely successful television is discussing what it means to be alive. It's borderline philosophical debate, and it's being broadcast into our homes on BBC One on Saturday teatimes under the equally as valid guise of pure entertainment. In my eyes, thats not just masterful programme making: thats an all too rare realisation and utilisation of the potential of television as a medium. Doctor Who, is to me, the summation and pinnacle of what mass popular media can, and perhaps every now and again, should do. Challenge. Entertain. Enrapture. Inspire.
Nerd much?
Monday, 20 July 2009
I still intend to make a tit out of myself talking about Doctor Who, The Mars Volta and so on, be without fear, but right now I wish to provide a continuation of the post-before-last, which concerned, essentially, this burgeoning sense of disenchantment and wanderlust I am feeling lately.
I'm doing something about it.
Not on the grand scale I talked about, not yet, but today, my first free day in what feels like ages, was spent vagranting by myself around Brighton, a place that has always been somewhat of a reliable escape to me ever since I was a child.
As a friend mentioned to me once, there is a funny thrill that comes from being in a new place, and being able to almost re-invent yourself. I am always conscious of the image I seem to have inadvertently created for myself here at home: It feels like it is one of just being monochrome, only into what people may think of as gleefully phillistinic: heavy music, stupid films, drinking, just generally being a dick.
However, this is not all of me. It is a character I feel certain friends expect me to play, and when it becomes those friends who you find yourself socialising with the most, the character becomes the actor. This is an exaggeration, of course, but perhaps that's needed to emphasise this; so as to better emphasise my overall point.
Walking into a record shop or art gallery or book store and asking for the folk section, or the surrealist paintings, or the philosophy shelf (shit, reading any book at all can get you looked at funny in certain circles) turned out to be unusually liberating today. Chatting to the people in the shops, asking for recommendations and discussing just how magical certain records can be, recommendations and records that would have been unbroachable down our towns misguidedly beloved main street, was, to be honest, far more enjoyable than a mere functional conversation should have been. Turns out, talking to strangers is actually a very fulfilling experience.
Days like today are the sort of thing I'm looking for, and I've decided this is not due to a desire for escapism, but for freedom, and self-contentment. It's who I want to be in the open air, because it's who I am inside my head, and just as I want to be this person, I want this person to be informed and shaped by more than just one social circle, or town, or country or culture. The prospect of drawing from differing diverse sources to create my own perspective on the world is one which has me completely. It excites me, it scares me, it fascinates me and overall, it puts ticks in every single box on the 'do you feel alive?' checklist.
You know what? It's not even hard to externalise this internal attitude, because it's just that; an attitude, one of just liking what you like, doing what you want, and not really giving a shit if anyone says you can't. There's a lot of wonderful stuff out there, and I'm talking about everything here, from music, to film to just, y'know, LIFE, and you'd be a fool to feel as if you weren't allowed to experience whatever of it you liked.
I'm always half-convinced of some sort of providence, by the way. I tend to find that when I've got something on my mind, the answers, somewhat beautifully, can be found in the coincidences of the world. Well check this out: of all the trains in the county, and out of all the people on the train today, the one I chose to take, found me sat opposite an elderly couple from New Zealand. They were going round the world together after finally retiring, 35 years after marrying, and then working, day in, day out. They'd waited their whole lives together to do this, and now they were out seeing the world, just with each other and a suitcase, not giving a fuck for whatever you can imagine life was inevitably throwing at them in their old age. And throughout the journey, there were smiles on their faces and glistening in their eyes.
I couldn't add anything to that situation which would make that any more beautiful. Everyday life can be the most profound thing.
Anyway, back to earth now, here's what I actually got in Brighton, partly because I know people can be nosy, but also because I know exactly how one friend in particular who reads this will react to one or two things, and that makes me smile.
Books:
1x David Sedaris- When You Are Engulfed In Flames
1x Stephen Fry- In America
1x Chuck Palahniuk- Snuff
1x Henry Rollins- Smile, You're Travelling.
(Do you have any idea how hard it is to find his books? Fuck!)
CDs
1x Magnolia Electric Co- Josephine
1x William E Whitmore- Hymns For The Hopeless
1x Bill Callaghan- Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
1x Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest
and my ultimate prize of the day:
Neutral Milk Hotel- In The Aeroplane Over The Sea on 12 inch vinyl.
Yes, I have started buying vinyl. No, I don't have a record player yet. Yes, I am financially doomed now.
I'm doing something about it.
Not on the grand scale I talked about, not yet, but today, my first free day in what feels like ages, was spent vagranting by myself around Brighton, a place that has always been somewhat of a reliable escape to me ever since I was a child.
As a friend mentioned to me once, there is a funny thrill that comes from being in a new place, and being able to almost re-invent yourself. I am always conscious of the image I seem to have inadvertently created for myself here at home: It feels like it is one of just being monochrome, only into what people may think of as gleefully phillistinic: heavy music, stupid films, drinking, just generally being a dick.
However, this is not all of me. It is a character I feel certain friends expect me to play, and when it becomes those friends who you find yourself socialising with the most, the character becomes the actor. This is an exaggeration, of course, but perhaps that's needed to emphasise this; so as to better emphasise my overall point.
Walking into a record shop or art gallery or book store and asking for the folk section, or the surrealist paintings, or the philosophy shelf (shit, reading any book at all can get you looked at funny in certain circles) turned out to be unusually liberating today. Chatting to the people in the shops, asking for recommendations and discussing just how magical certain records can be, recommendations and records that would have been unbroachable down our towns misguidedly beloved main street, was, to be honest, far more enjoyable than a mere functional conversation should have been. Turns out, talking to strangers is actually a very fulfilling experience.
Days like today are the sort of thing I'm looking for, and I've decided this is not due to a desire for escapism, but for freedom, and self-contentment. It's who I want to be in the open air, because it's who I am inside my head, and just as I want to be this person, I want this person to be informed and shaped by more than just one social circle, or town, or country or culture. The prospect of drawing from differing diverse sources to create my own perspective on the world is one which has me completely. It excites me, it scares me, it fascinates me and overall, it puts ticks in every single box on the 'do you feel alive?' checklist.
You know what? It's not even hard to externalise this internal attitude, because it's just that; an attitude, one of just liking what you like, doing what you want, and not really giving a shit if anyone says you can't. There's a lot of wonderful stuff out there, and I'm talking about everything here, from music, to film to just, y'know, LIFE, and you'd be a fool to feel as if you weren't allowed to experience whatever of it you liked.
I'm always half-convinced of some sort of providence, by the way. I tend to find that when I've got something on my mind, the answers, somewhat beautifully, can be found in the coincidences of the world. Well check this out: of all the trains in the county, and out of all the people on the train today, the one I chose to take, found me sat opposite an elderly couple from New Zealand. They were going round the world together after finally retiring, 35 years after marrying, and then working, day in, day out. They'd waited their whole lives together to do this, and now they were out seeing the world, just with each other and a suitcase, not giving a fuck for whatever you can imagine life was inevitably throwing at them in their old age. And throughout the journey, there were smiles on their faces and glistening in their eyes.
I couldn't add anything to that situation which would make that any more beautiful. Everyday life can be the most profound thing.
Anyway, back to earth now, here's what I actually got in Brighton, partly because I know people can be nosy, but also because I know exactly how one friend in particular who reads this will react to one or two things, and that makes me smile.
Books:
1x David Sedaris- When You Are Engulfed In Flames
1x Stephen Fry- In America
1x Chuck Palahniuk- Snuff
1x Henry Rollins- Smile, You're Travelling.
(Do you have any idea how hard it is to find his books? Fuck!)
CDs
1x Magnolia Electric Co- Josephine
1x William E Whitmore- Hymns For The Hopeless
1x Bill Callaghan- Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
1x Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest
and my ultimate prize of the day:
Neutral Milk Hotel- In The Aeroplane Over The Sea on 12 inch vinyl.
Yes, I have started buying vinyl. No, I don't have a record player yet. Yes, I am financially doomed now.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
Post number 100, don't you know? A momentous number... which I intend to commemorate and flesh out with more pseud0-philosophical rambling, in the form of some kind of overly intimate self-evaluation.
So no change there then.
Basically, right, my thing is the media and the arts. Film, television, books, pictures, music, even this here series of tubes we know as the internet, I honestly don't feel I could be without them.*
And I have noticed a common thread linking the sort of stories and songs and texts and everything I take into my heart and fall in love with, as opposed to just watching, reading, seeing or hearing.
This thread, as far as I can tell, is, thematically, the exploration of the potential for fulfillment and equilibrium, coming in the form of metaphore, surrealism, or other abstract vessels.
Or in normal English, I like it when stuff which seems weird on the surface is actually taking on what it means to be alive and striving for something, and is using its weirdness to do that.
It's 12:30pm and I'm too tired for any more depth here, but the next few posts I do are probably going to cover this in more depth, and will most likely be about why I love Doctor Who and The Mars Volta. (That's both a promise and a warning, by the way. Stick with me though, you've made it through the first 100 installments of my odd meanderings and for that I thank you.)
*Don't judge me. I accept that there are far larger problems in the world, but while I try to do my tiny bit to fix them, they don't affect me directly, I do not feel their impact impeding my day to day life, and the same is probably true for you. I mean, if you're reading this, then you're 'privileged' enough to have access to a computer or the internet, you know?
So no change there then.
Basically, right, my thing is the media and the arts. Film, television, books, pictures, music, even this here series of tubes we know as the internet, I honestly don't feel I could be without them.*
And I have noticed a common thread linking the sort of stories and songs and texts and everything I take into my heart and fall in love with, as opposed to just watching, reading, seeing or hearing.
This thread, as far as I can tell, is, thematically, the exploration of the potential for fulfillment and equilibrium, coming in the form of metaphore, surrealism, or other abstract vessels.
Or in normal English, I like it when stuff which seems weird on the surface is actually taking on what it means to be alive and striving for something, and is using its weirdness to do that.
It's 12:30pm and I'm too tired for any more depth here, but the next few posts I do are probably going to cover this in more depth, and will most likely be about why I love Doctor Who and The Mars Volta. (That's both a promise and a warning, by the way. Stick with me though, you've made it through the first 100 installments of my odd meanderings and for that I thank you.)
*Don't judge me. I accept that there are far larger problems in the world, but while I try to do my tiny bit to fix them, they don't affect me directly, I do not feel their impact impeding my day to day life, and the same is probably true for you. I mean, if you're reading this, then you're 'privileged' enough to have access to a computer or the internet, you know?
Sunday, 12 July 2009
You know what sounds good right now?
Jacking it all in down here and moving on. Taking my old job back and actually making use of my £10,000 piece of paper. Disappearing from this dead scene and starting again.
I'm not even being pessimistic or over dramatic. Here's some plain facts:
I'm throwing money at rent and bills, never quite making it above the line and getting out of debt but always getting just close enough to think 'one more month and I'll be there'. It's just not happening, and no matter what I try or how much I tighten the strings, this seems like it's not going to stop happening. Financially, it makes sense to leave.
My best friends are moving on and just really going for it, but I'm stuck feeling this ugly confusing mix of jealousy and joy and rejection when I think about them. I'm so happy for them, I really am, they're chasing dreams and visibly making them work, dotted around the world right now, but I'm not, and I find myself asking why can't they just stay and simply keep me company? Do I mean that little to them? I know this isn't the case but still, it feels like it sometimes. Is it selfish to ask where their time for me has gone? Theres not even a hint of anyone here who I think could be my little anchor either, and I'm increasingly aware that might be what I need, perhaps now more than I have for a while. Socially, I get the feeling now is the time to get gone.
And I'm reminded that, yeah, in some respects I ought to be grateful to be alive and able to have these opportunities that I only end up backing away from. But it's not enough for me to just be happy to be alive, whats the point of living if you're just drifting along? Fuck, if you ask me that's not living at all. Look at my last two posts here, so full of drive and where's it gone? Crushed up and swallowed by a routine I hate, and subdued by what I've been convincing myself are 'needs' rather than 'options'. I need to put promise into action. And as much as right now it feels like it would be giving in, I get the feeling that if I go, then down the line I'll see that it's not, and that it will simply be regrouping.
I don't want to do my job anymore. I don't really want to do any job. But funds have to come from somewhere, and, to quote a song, 'dreams cost money, but money costs dreams'. I do have dreams though, I've got ambitions. (Side note: I would quite like someone to share and fulfill them with, NOW.)
I want to go from coast to coast across America, with a few clothes and a guitar, not sure how to get places, but knowing that I will.
I want to educate children as to how important it is that they care, because they are about to become the ones who either save or doom this poor ailing planet.
I want to take in the deep south, to go where the blues was born, and visit places enshrouded in so much music that the air itself must feel heavy with ghosts of songs.
I want to play music in front of people, and have even just one stranger come up to me and say they liked it.
I want to go to Auschwitz and cry more than I've ever cried before or ever could again, willing forth six million tears and just praying that they come.
I want to feel ok about being alive as part of this disappointing, horrible human race.
I want to go to Iceland, and just sit on a glacier, looking out to a cold dark sea and finding completion in the solitude, with the sounds of the country's ice and earth and air playing in my ears.
I want to openly, unashamedly, be with someone I love, and who loves me, and make it last.
I want to get on a dusty bus or rusting old train somewhere in Northern Africa, or Eastern Europe, or Asia, and stick out like a sore thumb, amidst music and chatter and people and culture, going somewhere just because it's the journey, and not the destination that I care about.
I want to go to Japan, and become a tiny atom in all the neon and the noise. I want to be an alien, surrounded by the surreal and just utterly lost, so I can blow my mind, or find my way, or both.
And through all this, I want to stop every now and then wherever I am, and savour the air of the next breath I take, until I am fit to burst with the understanding of how beautifully impossibly defiant it is that I am alive on this earth.
I'm ready to see the big wide world now, and I know this because I've lost almost all faith in this little tiny one I'm living in at the moment. So if it means I have to lose a few things to gain so much more, I'm sorry, I really am so sorry, but I think that's what I might have to do.
Jacking it all in down here and moving on. Taking my old job back and actually making use of my £10,000 piece of paper. Disappearing from this dead scene and starting again.
I'm not even being pessimistic or over dramatic. Here's some plain facts:
I'm throwing money at rent and bills, never quite making it above the line and getting out of debt but always getting just close enough to think 'one more month and I'll be there'. It's just not happening, and no matter what I try or how much I tighten the strings, this seems like it's not going to stop happening. Financially, it makes sense to leave.
My best friends are moving on and just really going for it, but I'm stuck feeling this ugly confusing mix of jealousy and joy and rejection when I think about them. I'm so happy for them, I really am, they're chasing dreams and visibly making them work, dotted around the world right now, but I'm not, and I find myself asking why can't they just stay and simply keep me company? Do I mean that little to them? I know this isn't the case but still, it feels like it sometimes. Is it selfish to ask where their time for me has gone? Theres not even a hint of anyone here who I think could be my little anchor either, and I'm increasingly aware that might be what I need, perhaps now more than I have for a while. Socially, I get the feeling now is the time to get gone.
And I'm reminded that, yeah, in some respects I ought to be grateful to be alive and able to have these opportunities that I only end up backing away from. But it's not enough for me to just be happy to be alive, whats the point of living if you're just drifting along? Fuck, if you ask me that's not living at all. Look at my last two posts here, so full of drive and where's it gone? Crushed up and swallowed by a routine I hate, and subdued by what I've been convincing myself are 'needs' rather than 'options'. I need to put promise into action. And as much as right now it feels like it would be giving in, I get the feeling that if I go, then down the line I'll see that it's not, and that it will simply be regrouping.
I don't want to do my job anymore. I don't really want to do any job. But funds have to come from somewhere, and, to quote a song, 'dreams cost money, but money costs dreams'. I do have dreams though, I've got ambitions. (Side note: I would quite like someone to share and fulfill them with, NOW.)
I want to go from coast to coast across America, with a few clothes and a guitar, not sure how to get places, but knowing that I will.
I want to educate children as to how important it is that they care, because they are about to become the ones who either save or doom this poor ailing planet.
I want to take in the deep south, to go where the blues was born, and visit places enshrouded in so much music that the air itself must feel heavy with ghosts of songs.
I want to play music in front of people, and have even just one stranger come up to me and say they liked it.
I want to go to Auschwitz and cry more than I've ever cried before or ever could again, willing forth six million tears and just praying that they come.
I want to feel ok about being alive as part of this disappointing, horrible human race.
I want to go to Iceland, and just sit on a glacier, looking out to a cold dark sea and finding completion in the solitude, with the sounds of the country's ice and earth and air playing in my ears.
I want to openly, unashamedly, be with someone I love, and who loves me, and make it last.
I want to get on a dusty bus or rusting old train somewhere in Northern Africa, or Eastern Europe, or Asia, and stick out like a sore thumb, amidst music and chatter and people and culture, going somewhere just because it's the journey, and not the destination that I care about.
I want to go to Japan, and become a tiny atom in all the neon and the noise. I want to be an alien, surrounded by the surreal and just utterly lost, so I can blow my mind, or find my way, or both.
And through all this, I want to stop every now and then wherever I am, and savour the air of the next breath I take, until I am fit to burst with the understanding of how beautifully impossibly defiant it is that I am alive on this earth.
I'm ready to see the big wide world now, and I know this because I've lost almost all faith in this little tiny one I'm living in at the moment. So if it means I have to lose a few things to gain so much more, I'm sorry, I really am so sorry, but I think that's what I might have to do.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
"Arousing, inspiring, comforting- music is capable of stimulating both passion and compassion, speaking to our very core and taking us to the heights or depths of emotion."
So reads the first sentence on the back of the book I'm currently reading; it's a set of case studies concerning peoples experiences with music in conjuction with brain abnormalities/unusualisms... I'm not sure if thats a word but you know what I mean, right? Anyway, reading it got me thinking, one of the things I'm most grateful for in the world is music, especially at the moment.
Now, permit me to take a detour. I promise it'll all make sense in the end.
I'll admit, I'm a little shaken when I think about it. I do think I got off really incredibly lightly on Saturday night, especially considering how much scope for further damage there is in that kind of situation.
A few weeks ago in a local bar, someone took one hit, like I did, but fell differently, hitting their head differently to how I must have hit mine, and they died. They fucking died. And that sort of thing, how you're hit, how you fall, what you catch on the way... thats ultimately random.
Similarly, the guitarist from one of my favourite bands was in a coma for a few days last year, due to a head injury. But when he came out of it, according to all sources, he'd written an album in his sleep, and it's one of the most transcendental, moving, epic pieces of music I think I've ever heard, given the context. Laugh if you like (because the band is Mastodon, the album is Crack The Skye, and the genre is metal, and obviously metal is just angry noise.... *sigh*) but it's nigh on life affirming.
The first time I picked up a guitar after Saturday night, one of the songs from this album was the song I played, not consciously, just cos I wanted to play the song, and it was incredible. It felt like playing for the first time, and moreover, I swear I felt something of what the song was carrying: a re-establishing of life, a denial to giving in. It's almost indescribable, but I'm pretty sure that I was doing something more than just playing guitar for that one song.
And then last night, I had the sheer joy of seeing a band with my brother and dad, and singing along with my family. That felt ace too, being back out in Portsmouth at night, and not only that, but being back 'home': a crowd of people there to take in musicians combining to create something which is both ridiculously complex, (scientifically speaking, it's unbelievable how a group of musicians interacts live, producing variations of sounds & timbres and pitches and rhythms on their various instruments and combining them, and it's also ridiculous how the listener then interprets and digests the sounds, then reacting as they do) but at it's heart, just a fucking good time. Especially with my family, especially after Saturday, this was euphoric.
And now, literally right now, I'm listening to the new album by Alexisonfire, with the Best Voice In The World (aka Dallas Green) leading the way, and it's making me want to drop to my knees and sing along as loud as I can. So I might. Seriously, this is amazing. Urgent and vital and loving and just FUCK YEAH.
I think I got a bit off topic there, or possibly even went to in depth because my overall point is this: isn't music a life saver sometimes?
So reads the first sentence on the back of the book I'm currently reading; it's a set of case studies concerning peoples experiences with music in conjuction with brain abnormalities/unusualisms... I'm not sure if thats a word but you know what I mean, right? Anyway, reading it got me thinking, one of the things I'm most grateful for in the world is music, especially at the moment.
Now, permit me to take a detour. I promise it'll all make sense in the end.
I'll admit, I'm a little shaken when I think about it. I do think I got off really incredibly lightly on Saturday night, especially considering how much scope for further damage there is in that kind of situation.
A few weeks ago in a local bar, someone took one hit, like I did, but fell differently, hitting their head differently to how I must have hit mine, and they died. They fucking died. And that sort of thing, how you're hit, how you fall, what you catch on the way... thats ultimately random.
Similarly, the guitarist from one of my favourite bands was in a coma for a few days last year, due to a head injury. But when he came out of it, according to all sources, he'd written an album in his sleep, and it's one of the most transcendental, moving, epic pieces of music I think I've ever heard, given the context. Laugh if you like (because the band is Mastodon, the album is Crack The Skye, and the genre is metal, and obviously metal is just angry noise.... *sigh*) but it's nigh on life affirming.
The first time I picked up a guitar after Saturday night, one of the songs from this album was the song I played, not consciously, just cos I wanted to play the song, and it was incredible. It felt like playing for the first time, and moreover, I swear I felt something of what the song was carrying: a re-establishing of life, a denial to giving in. It's almost indescribable, but I'm pretty sure that I was doing something more than just playing guitar for that one song.
And then last night, I had the sheer joy of seeing a band with my brother and dad, and singing along with my family. That felt ace too, being back out in Portsmouth at night, and not only that, but being back 'home': a crowd of people there to take in musicians combining to create something which is both ridiculously complex, (scientifically speaking, it's unbelievable how a group of musicians interacts live, producing variations of sounds & timbres and pitches and rhythms on their various instruments and combining them, and it's also ridiculous how the listener then interprets and digests the sounds, then reacting as they do) but at it's heart, just a fucking good time. Especially with my family, especially after Saturday, this was euphoric.
And now, literally right now, I'm listening to the new album by Alexisonfire, with the Best Voice In The World (aka Dallas Green) leading the way, and it's making me want to drop to my knees and sing along as loud as I can. So I might. Seriously, this is amazing. Urgent and vital and loving and just FUCK YEAH.
I think I got a bit off topic there, or possibly even went to in depth because my overall point is this: isn't music a life saver sometimes?
Sunday, 14 June 2009
It's quite possibly retarded that it's taken something like this to sort me out, but I think I've found what I was looking for, or at least been reminded to get back on with that search. What I felt fleetingly for the first few times in memory, on a few occasions last year, has come back and it's ridiculous that it's taken this to get me back towards being in the state of mind I want to be in.
What I have right now:
The perennial taste of blood in my mouth.
A cut lip.
A black eye.
A grazed shoulder.
A grazed elbow.
A borderline immobile wrist.
One and a half missing teeth.
No phone.
The repeating phrase in my head 'It could have been so much worse'
What I don't have right now:
A girlfriend.
A job which I don't want to walk out on every day I am there.
A steady living situation.
The feeling that I am going anywhere in life.
What I am going to do next?
Change.
*If any of this seems a little garbled or hard to read; I've got a head injury, so fuck you ;) *
What I have right now:
The perennial taste of blood in my mouth.
A cut lip.
A black eye.
A grazed shoulder.
A grazed elbow.
A borderline immobile wrist.
One and a half missing teeth.
No phone.
The repeating phrase in my head 'It could have been so much worse'
What I don't have right now:
A girlfriend.
A job which I don't want to walk out on every day I am there.
A steady living situation.
The feeling that I am going anywhere in life.
What I am going to do next?
Change.
*If any of this seems a little garbled or hard to read; I've got a head injury, so fuck you ;) *
Monday, 1 June 2009
So fuck you.
Fuck you for making me think I could be stable and happy and start getting what I want for the first time in a good few years. Thats not too much to ask, is it?
Fuck you for making me think I'm being selfish when I just want comfort.
Fuck you for painting this picture of yourself being so innocent when whispers draw you as a demon off the canvas, fuck you for making me so angry I can't even make a turn of phrase like the one I just used into a decent lyric or song.
Fuck you for not being the arms I want to hold me or the mouth I want to kiss me.
Fuck you for changing everything I knew about you and everything that I fell in love with. Fuck you for taking so long about it too, at least shift so fast I don't feel it burn me down day after day.
Fuck you for living your life and showing me how you're living your dreams, succeeding while I'm joining the living dead. And fuck you for your condescending advice, we can't all have the right friends, we can't all have these opportunities.
Fuck you for being happy without me.
I think I miss you so very very much.
Fuck you for making me think I could be stable and happy and start getting what I want for the first time in a good few years. Thats not too much to ask, is it?
Fuck you for making me think I'm being selfish when I just want comfort.
Fuck you for painting this picture of yourself being so innocent when whispers draw you as a demon off the canvas, fuck you for making me so angry I can't even make a turn of phrase like the one I just used into a decent lyric or song.
Fuck you for not being the arms I want to hold me or the mouth I want to kiss me.
Fuck you for changing everything I knew about you and everything that I fell in love with. Fuck you for taking so long about it too, at least shift so fast I don't feel it burn me down day after day.
Fuck you for living your life and showing me how you're living your dreams, succeeding while I'm joining the living dead. And fuck you for your condescending advice, we can't all have the right friends, we can't all have these opportunities.
Fuck you for being happy without me.
I think I miss you so very very much.
Saturday, 23 May 2009
So everyones happy, people are getting married, people are seeing the world and my friends have left without me.
And everyone's ambitious and people are making wishes and they're coming true for you and you and you're revelling in riches.
But I'm empty and I'm angry and I'm alone and I am ugly. I feel nothing except nothingness and I'm afraid I feel it daily.
There is no city that could contain this, no town that could tame this, no house or home that I could know that could attempt to assuage this.
This is a lack of love. This is detachment. This is having a black hole at your core.
This is the future being taken out of your hands.
There is nothing worth trying for, anymore.
Where can you escape when what you hate is inside you?
And everyone's ambitious and people are making wishes and they're coming true for you and you and you're revelling in riches.
But I'm empty and I'm angry and I'm alone and I am ugly. I feel nothing except nothingness and I'm afraid I feel it daily.
There is no city that could contain this, no town that could tame this, no house or home that I could know that could attempt to assuage this.
This is a lack of love. This is detachment. This is having a black hole at your core.
This is the future being taken out of your hands.
There is nothing worth trying for, anymore.
Where can you escape when what you hate is inside you?
Saturday, 18 April 2009
This town has a funny, beautiful way of bringing me something to love right when I can only see things that make me sad or angry.
So I'm going to enter into smoky underground worlds, and take a girl I love along with me. So I'm going to make friends with strange, wonderful people. So I'm going to drink when I want to, and not drink when I don't want to. So I'm going to sing loud and play songs for nothing other than the love of doing it all.
So I'm going to stay right here and live my life how I want, because it's mine to live.
Sometimes I might need reminding of that, but motherfucker, I've been reminded and I'm not going to forget for a long time now.
Yes.
So I'm going to enter into smoky underground worlds, and take a girl I love along with me. So I'm going to make friends with strange, wonderful people. So I'm going to drink when I want to, and not drink when I don't want to. So I'm going to sing loud and play songs for nothing other than the love of doing it all.
So I'm going to stay right here and live my life how I want, because it's mine to live.
Sometimes I might need reminding of that, but motherfucker, I've been reminded and I'm not going to forget for a long time now.
Yes.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Still having a shit time of it. Everyone's announcing they're going to be dropping like flies, which is worse than just going because it means I get to think about it for a few months. I gave up a lot just to be here, and now the reasons for me throwing away a life are letting me know it might not have been worth it.
However, things like a few key records coming out soon are keeping me going. A couple of bands should be putting out some serious shit in the next few months, I think I'm going to sink inside them as soon as I can and avoid living for as long as possible. Converge, Manchester Orchestra, Brand New. Right now, Crack The Skye by Mastodon is all over my life, I could exist inside this album and be fine, so I think I will for a while.
Been thinking a lot these past few days. I don't know if I believe in fate, but I believe we are all doomed in varying ways, and I'm starting to think I've found the course that's set out for me, no matter how hard I try to steer the other way. It's not too bad if it goes how I think it could; rather a waste of time, money, and emotion.
I'm rather obviously alone at the moment. No one seems to care too much. They're mostly wrapped up in enjoying the things I wish I had.
I walked home today and wished that everything I saw on the way home would burst into vapour and die.
However, things like a few key records coming out soon are keeping me going. A couple of bands should be putting out some serious shit in the next few months, I think I'm going to sink inside them as soon as I can and avoid living for as long as possible. Converge, Manchester Orchestra, Brand New. Right now, Crack The Skye by Mastodon is all over my life, I could exist inside this album and be fine, so I think I will for a while.
Been thinking a lot these past few days. I don't know if I believe in fate, but I believe we are all doomed in varying ways, and I'm starting to think I've found the course that's set out for me, no matter how hard I try to steer the other way. It's not too bad if it goes how I think it could; rather a waste of time, money, and emotion.
I'm rather obviously alone at the moment. No one seems to care too much. They're mostly wrapped up in enjoying the things I wish I had.
I walked home today and wished that everything I saw on the way home would burst into vapour and die.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
It has come to my attention that I have a problem/problems to deal with at the moment, and that I'm not dealing with it very well. Friday became Saturday became Sunday became Monday became Tuesday, and this week five days became one blur I'll never get back. This is nothing new. And this is what is a pain.
Empires have been built on excess. Name me one empire in all of history, that did not fall apart.
Empires have been built on excess. Name me one empire in all of history, that did not fall apart.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
This is a stream of subconsciousness:
This is the one thing I have which keeps me from feeling as old as I really am, and I'll be damned if I let you take it from me in one night. But does she even know how much she's torn you apart and left you scrambling to re-join the pieces? No, but this whole thing is testament to how she hit my life like a fucking hurricane, and how I'm still stuck on her, even now. Months have passed and I'm still here, talking about her like she's God when she doesn't even really know that she's anything to me, let alone everything.
Sounds like you need help. Tell me about it. I know it's not right, how I think and project sometimes. Certain films are meant to be cautionary tales, not semi-documentaries, and certain songs are meant to be melodrama, not biography.
Like them, their words and songs. Too right. And this is where the irony sleeps, that a band we both seperately lived through in our fragile headstrong youths is bringing us together in our fragile heartbroken adulthoods, just a few years too late. I know that every word we sing together will cut through me like a knife, and while I know my little sister will be there to hold me together, (and I thank something or someone every day that I've found her and she'll be there to hold my hand when I need her to) I still know that I'll be torn to shreds come the night.
Look at this, another tribute to how much you've gutted me, and how much I want you to step in and be my lungs that breathe and my heart that beats, even now.
I shouldn't be allowed out the house, people ruin me.
This is the one thing I have which keeps me from feeling as old as I really am, and I'll be damned if I let you take it from me in one night. But does she even know how much she's torn you apart and left you scrambling to re-join the pieces? No, but this whole thing is testament to how she hit my life like a fucking hurricane, and how I'm still stuck on her, even now. Months have passed and I'm still here, talking about her like she's God when she doesn't even really know that she's anything to me, let alone everything.
Sounds like you need help. Tell me about it. I know it's not right, how I think and project sometimes. Certain films are meant to be cautionary tales, not semi-documentaries, and certain songs are meant to be melodrama, not biography.
Like them, their words and songs. Too right. And this is where the irony sleeps, that a band we both seperately lived through in our fragile headstrong youths is bringing us together in our fragile heartbroken adulthoods, just a few years too late. I know that every word we sing together will cut through me like a knife, and while I know my little sister will be there to hold me together, (and I thank something or someone every day that I've found her and she'll be there to hold my hand when I need her to) I still know that I'll be torn to shreds come the night.
Look at this, another tribute to how much you've gutted me, and how much I want you to step in and be my lungs that breathe and my heart that beats, even now.
I shouldn't be allowed out the house, people ruin me.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
More songs that make me think of things and stuff.
Journey- Any Way You Want It.
Not the obvious choice perhaps, given the recent, and justified, revival of that one about a small town girl (which by the way, is possibly how every epic song should be written, structurally.) But this is just as good. There's no specific memory attached to it, more a recurring sense of 'everything is really good in life' which might be spurred on by my listening to this song at a really upbeat point that I just can't remember anymore.
More likely however, is that the simple fact that this song is always guaranteed to make me smile, and has the rare capacity to turn my mood around as soon as it starts, if I'm feeling crappy. I can't be unhappy while listening to Any Way You Want It.
On a somewhat related note, there is a huge sense of irony attached to liking all these 80's radio rock bands. Fuck that horrible shit, and fuck you if you use music to score hipster points. I love Journey, for real, and this song is damn near perfect in my eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFjKFDvyJ80
Funeral For A Friend- Into Oblivion.
Not one of my favoured bands, but this story is too good not to tell.
Last summer, she graduated and was moving back home, and so decided to get all of our friends together to bid a fond, extremely drunken farewell to her house she'd been living in. Cue a raucous, decadent party, which inevitably ended with bodies everywhere and ensured everyone saw the next morning in feeling like they had been hit by a train.
However, we must get home, and so we all get in the car, and begin the drive back.
As we got onto the motorway, this song began to play, and as I sat in the back trying to guess what she was thinking, about ends and beginnings, all the while knowing that she didn't know what I was thinking about my own personal closures and starts that I foresaw at the time, everything was simply cinematic.
The world literally passing by, with my friends safe together in our little bubble watching it all fly past, it felt like a physical journey towards growing up. Of course, nothing came of it in the end, but that's irrelevant here.
Imagine the awe of hearing this song (pay attention to the lyrics) as a sense of hope, tinged with fear and sadness, washes over your fragile, aching body as you the world begins to pass you by and a vast blue sky is draped over you on a sunny summer day. Imagine making plans on how your life will be from now on, with this ringing in your ears. Ignore how it fell apart for me, and just try to place yourself in that moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDL9QG4h3g
Not the obvious choice perhaps, given the recent, and justified, revival of that one about a small town girl (which by the way, is possibly how every epic song should be written, structurally.) But this is just as good. There's no specific memory attached to it, more a recurring sense of 'everything is really good in life' which might be spurred on by my listening to this song at a really upbeat point that I just can't remember anymore.
More likely however, is that the simple fact that this song is always guaranteed to make me smile, and has the rare capacity to turn my mood around as soon as it starts, if I'm feeling crappy. I can't be unhappy while listening to Any Way You Want It.
On a somewhat related note, there is a huge sense of irony attached to liking all these 80's radio rock bands. Fuck that horrible shit, and fuck you if you use music to score hipster points. I love Journey, for real, and this song is damn near perfect in my eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFjKFDvyJ80
Funeral For A Friend- Into Oblivion.
Not one of my favoured bands, but this story is too good not to tell.
Last summer, she graduated and was moving back home, and so decided to get all of our friends together to bid a fond, extremely drunken farewell to her house she'd been living in. Cue a raucous, decadent party, which inevitably ended with bodies everywhere and ensured everyone saw the next morning in feeling like they had been hit by a train.
However, we must get home, and so we all get in the car, and begin the drive back.
As we got onto the motorway, this song began to play, and as I sat in the back trying to guess what she was thinking, about ends and beginnings, all the while knowing that she didn't know what I was thinking about my own personal closures and starts that I foresaw at the time, everything was simply cinematic.
The world literally passing by, with my friends safe together in our little bubble watching it all fly past, it felt like a physical journey towards growing up. Of course, nothing came of it in the end, but that's irrelevant here.
Imagine the awe of hearing this song (pay attention to the lyrics) as a sense of hope, tinged with fear and sadness, washes over your fragile, aching body as you the world begins to pass you by and a vast blue sky is draped over you on a sunny summer day. Imagine making plans on how your life will be from now on, with this ringing in your ears. Ignore how it fell apart for me, and just try to place yourself in that moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDL9QG4h3g
Friday, 13 February 2009
Most of what appears here is intangible.
I like to divide things in a binary fashion. Either things are one thing or they are the other, there can be no middle ground. Everything. Has to be. Something. Or I can't cope. (I do fully understand that life is simply not this easy, hence the name of this very place. There are colours, and they illustrate and enrich and play havoc with how I want things to be, but ultimately I think it's for the best.)
And so most of what appears here is intangible. Discussion of feelings, emotions. Things that cannot be seen nor touched.
I mention all this, because I am about to talk about some things that are fairly tangible, and, to be honest, wanted to try and provide a little clarification to myself if no one else. (There is a spiral of irony here, when this is taken in context. And everything is always about context. That is indisputable.) I want to simply talk about things that cross over into the material world, away from myself, and have a feel and a colour.
Music is pretty much all I 'do'. So obviously, seeing bands is very much a pastime of mine. To date, I've seen almost everyone I want to see, which is obviously pretty cool, but there remain a few names on 'the list' who I have yet to tick off.
I really want to see a few specific bands this year. Firstly, Glassjaw. The most emotive voice in music, coupled with explosive, thundering songs full of passion and heart. The fact they are constantly beset by chronic illness and near break ups only makes this even more of a must-see, whilst I can. Now tour, and play somewhere awesome.
Possibly get Circa Survive to support. This is music that sounds like a glimpse of the future,
being retold to the present via a man reluctant to relay the things he has seen. I saw them once, for half an hour, and it was in a horrible venue, with awful sound, and I need to see them somewhere tight and intimate, and lose myself in their sound.
Narrows are meant to be playing Europe at some point this year, but with the band being literally split over the Atlantic ocean, with half living in the U.K. and the other in the U.S., it may never happen. I really hope it does, it might be the nearest I ever get to seeing Botch, one of my favourite bands ever, whos frontman is now heading Narrows. Actually, I'd just love Botch to reform, even just for a one off proper goodbye. That would be one of the best things ever.
On that note, Sikth, Cursed and Refused need to get back together too. The opportunity to see any one of these bands just one last time would make my year, and for the latter two, just a one off final farewell/fuck you we were amazing would probably be the most anticipated, couldn't-possibly-go-wrong shows ever. I miss them all so much, genuinely.
Are GY!BE still around? I don't think they are, and this is not good.
Finally, as much as I love The Mars Volta, I would pay a stupid amount of money to see At The Drive-In get back together just the once, and if they were performing Relationship Of Command in one of those Don't Look Back style shows, where the band does the album in order and it's entirety, I would spend as much as I could to ensure I was there.
I would trade you a hundred Kurt Cobains, thousands of Marc Bolans, and infinite Jim Morrisons for just one show by any of the bands I mentioned here.
The above is all largely irrelevant, maybe even pointless, but at least it's not someone bitching about Valentines Day.
I like to divide things in a binary fashion. Either things are one thing or they are the other, there can be no middle ground. Everything. Has to be. Something. Or I can't cope. (I do fully understand that life is simply not this easy, hence the name of this very place. There are colours, and they illustrate and enrich and play havoc with how I want things to be, but ultimately I think it's for the best.)
And so most of what appears here is intangible. Discussion of feelings, emotions. Things that cannot be seen nor touched.
I mention all this, because I am about to talk about some things that are fairly tangible, and, to be honest, wanted to try and provide a little clarification to myself if no one else. (There is a spiral of irony here, when this is taken in context. And everything is always about context. That is indisputable.) I want to simply talk about things that cross over into the material world, away from myself, and have a feel and a colour.
Music is pretty much all I 'do'. So obviously, seeing bands is very much a pastime of mine. To date, I've seen almost everyone I want to see, which is obviously pretty cool, but there remain a few names on 'the list' who I have yet to tick off.
I really want to see a few specific bands this year. Firstly, Glassjaw. The most emotive voice in music, coupled with explosive, thundering songs full of passion and heart. The fact they are constantly beset by chronic illness and near break ups only makes this even more of a must-see, whilst I can. Now tour, and play somewhere awesome.
Possibly get Circa Survive to support. This is music that sounds like a glimpse of the future,
being retold to the present via a man reluctant to relay the things he has seen. I saw them once, for half an hour, and it was in a horrible venue, with awful sound, and I need to see them somewhere tight and intimate, and lose myself in their sound.
Narrows are meant to be playing Europe at some point this year, but with the band being literally split over the Atlantic ocean, with half living in the U.K. and the other in the U.S., it may never happen. I really hope it does, it might be the nearest I ever get to seeing Botch, one of my favourite bands ever, whos frontman is now heading Narrows. Actually, I'd just love Botch to reform, even just for a one off proper goodbye. That would be one of the best things ever.
On that note, Sikth, Cursed and Refused need to get back together too. The opportunity to see any one of these bands just one last time would make my year, and for the latter two, just a one off final farewell/fuck you we were amazing would probably be the most anticipated, couldn't-possibly-go-wrong shows ever. I miss them all so much, genuinely.
Are GY!BE still around? I don't think they are, and this is not good.
Finally, as much as I love The Mars Volta, I would pay a stupid amount of money to see At The Drive-In get back together just the once, and if they were performing Relationship Of Command in one of those Don't Look Back style shows, where the band does the album in order and it's entirety, I would spend as much as I could to ensure I was there.
I would trade you a hundred Kurt Cobains, thousands of Marc Bolans, and infinite Jim Morrisons for just one show by any of the bands I mentioned here.
The above is all largely irrelevant, maybe even pointless, but at least it's not someone bitching about Valentines Day.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
The following list is comprised of things it is essential that you do not actively dislike if we are truly to be friends.
Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The Clash.
Metal.
Horror films.
Doctor Who.
The Gaslight Anthem.
Pizza.
Christian Bale.
Me, obviously.
More may be added to this when I think of them, this is just a starter.
Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The Clash.
Metal.
Horror films.
Doctor Who.
The Gaslight Anthem.
Pizza.
Christian Bale.
Me, obviously.
More may be added to this when I think of them, this is just a starter.
Friday, 23 January 2009
So I don't know if you'd need to add a few numbers at the front of this to make it work, or even if they're genuine, but in case anyone feels inclined to say hi to some people whom I truly wish was dead (and there are surprisngly few people I would say that about. Despite how I normally may lead you to think, I don't take that sort of karma lightly....) here are what I am informed are a few key numbers for the Westborough Church, of Louis Theroux and 'God hates Fags' infamy:
(785) 273-0325 - Fred W. Phelps Sr., cell phone
(785) 272-4135 - Fred Phelps, Jr.
(785) 273-0529 - Benjamin Phelps
(785) 273-0277 & (785) 273-1080 - Shirley Roper
785) 272-8559 - Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 232-2485 - Fax for Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 233-4162 - Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 233-0766 - Fax for Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 969-9017 - Steve Drain
These will all most likely be in the relevant phone books stateside, so feel free to say hello to them all, or even pass them on to people who might also want to have a nice chat if they felt so inclined.
(785) 273-0325 - Fred W. Phelps Sr., cell phone
(785) 272-4135 - Fred Phelps, Jr.
(785) 273-0529 - Benjamin Phelps
(785) 273-0277 & (785) 273-1080 - Shirley Roper
785) 272-8559 - Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 232-2485 - Fax for Charles Hockenbarger
(785) 233-4162 - Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 233-0766 - Fax for Phelps Family Law Office
(785) 969-9017 - Steve Drain
These will all most likely be in the relevant phone books stateside, so feel free to say hello to them all, or even pass them on to people who might also want to have a nice chat if they felt so inclined.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
I think I'm going to give painting a shot. I used to draw a lot when I was younger, and I kind of feel the need to be visual again, in a more overt way (as opposed to being visual via creation of imagery using words). I don't know what's going to come out of me, but I'm excited to find out. I'm feeling shades of grey with streaks of crimson. Fuck off, amateur psychology.
Also, I want to buy a plant or two or three for my room. I don't really give a shit about animals, but just having a little bit of something natural around for me to try to not kill would probably produce some sort of sense of achievement every day, no matter what other crappy things happened to me since I woke up.
Don't let this painting and plant shit confuse you though, I'm still well metal, ok?
Good.
/stupid post.
Also, I want to buy a plant or two or three for my room. I don't really give a shit about animals, but just having a little bit of something natural around for me to try to not kill would probably produce some sort of sense of achievement every day, no matter what other crappy things happened to me since I woke up.
Don't let this painting and plant shit confuse you though, I'm still well metal, ok?
Good.
/stupid post.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Walking about this morning, in that brief window of time where your mind is still pulsing to the rhythms of the subconscious even though you are to all extents and purposes, awake, a thought crossed my mind. Well, it didn't so much cross it, as get halfway and remain stuck there for the rest of the day. The thought was this:
We look for the same things from music as we do from those we love.
(No doubt this comparison can be made between love and any other form of art, but for me, it has always been music)
Dramatic excitement at the same time as reassuring calm, a source of comfort doubling as a way to further the self. Familiarity, newness, validation, a constant source of wonder. At its finest, the eliciting of a sense of gratitude just for being alive.
There is no conclusive point I wish to make here, it's simply a thought I wish you to consider.
We look for the same things from music as we do from those we love.
(No doubt this comparison can be made between love and any other form of art, but for me, it has always been music)
Dramatic excitement at the same time as reassuring calm, a source of comfort doubling as a way to further the self. Familiarity, newness, validation, a constant source of wonder. At its finest, the eliciting of a sense of gratitude just for being alive.
There is no conclusive point I wish to make here, it's simply a thought I wish you to consider.
Music is my medicine (part two).
So a few posts ago I did a little compendium of some songs and what they mean to me, and I found it quite enjoyable, and promised/warned that I would do it again. Well, here it is:
Foo Fighters- Everlong.
I imagine a lot of people have a special attachment to this song, but that's understandable: it's probably one of the most enduringly brilliant, heart-wrenching songs of the past 15 years or so. My Everlong moment (and I think everyone has one, whether they know it or not) came in Hyde Park in 2006, as the band themselves played the song to close what had been a long afternoon of music. Over the course of the day, the large party of six or seven that I had begun the show with split up, until I was on my own.
I found myself at the barrier for the close of the show, and as the soft strums of this song began, there was the expected surge within the crowd... which brought forth the most beautiful girl besides me, pushed to the fore by the movement. Underneath the emerald green lasers which scored the night sky, she and I sang every word together, sharing the occasional 'isn't-this-amazing-so-amazing' glance and smile.
I never saw her again after that one song, or even got her name, but for those five minutes of my life, I don't think I couldn't have been any happier. Just finding and watching the video now, 4.07 still puts me right back there.
"And I wonder, when I sing along with you... if everything could ever feel this real forever? if anything could ever be this good again?"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8zvOrvgI_Co
Misery Signals- The Year Summer Ended In June.
'Regular readers' may have picked up on a theme here this summer, of agonising decisions and torn heartstrings. Not to be indelicate towards the other parties, but it was essentially a few months of hell. Then I heard this, and the season had a sound.
(The song itself is actually about the death of some friends of the band, so I feel a little bad for appropriating it for my own ends, but I intend it as a compliment)
I'm in no mood to be enigmatic right now, it's not in the spirit of things, so these are the parts that really chained this song to my heart in the heat of the high season, and what they meant to me.
"This time was our summer. It was something no one could take from us." (A year of waiting could have ended in those months, graduation had filled me with a sense of bravado and daring, and I felt like the world was mine for the taking.)
"Hope that tonight things are fine. As I lay awake, the light cuts the southern sky."
(For all the separation, I never hoped you were regretting your choice. We were in different countries, but under the same stars, and that thought made me feel like you were still near somehow.)
"Waiting to see and be with you again. Wishing the best for you my lost friend. Man I swear I'd give the whole thing up for you."
(I'm still waiting, I suppose, and I still wish you the best, but I send my wishes in envelopes sealed with jealousy and regret. I would have given up so much for you, and you don't even know, but that is not your fault.)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CqRkYBTCv3Y
Foo Fighters- Everlong.
I imagine a lot of people have a special attachment to this song, but that's understandable: it's probably one of the most enduringly brilliant, heart-wrenching songs of the past 15 years or so. My Everlong moment (and I think everyone has one, whether they know it or not) came in Hyde Park in 2006, as the band themselves played the song to close what had been a long afternoon of music. Over the course of the day, the large party of six or seven that I had begun the show with split up, until I was on my own.
I found myself at the barrier for the close of the show, and as the soft strums of this song began, there was the expected surge within the crowd... which brought forth the most beautiful girl besides me, pushed to the fore by the movement. Underneath the emerald green lasers which scored the night sky, she and I sang every word together, sharing the occasional 'isn't-this-amazing-so-amazing' glance and smile.
I never saw her again after that one song, or even got her name, but for those five minutes of my life, I don't think I couldn't have been any happier. Just finding and watching the video now, 4.07 still puts me right back there.
"And I wonder, when I sing along with you... if everything could ever feel this real forever? if anything could ever be this good again?"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8zvOrvgI_Co
Misery Signals- The Year Summer Ended In June.
'Regular readers' may have picked up on a theme here this summer, of agonising decisions and torn heartstrings. Not to be indelicate towards the other parties, but it was essentially a few months of hell. Then I heard this, and the season had a sound.
(The song itself is actually about the death of some friends of the band, so I feel a little bad for appropriating it for my own ends, but I intend it as a compliment)
I'm in no mood to be enigmatic right now, it's not in the spirit of things, so these are the parts that really chained this song to my heart in the heat of the high season, and what they meant to me.
"This time was our summer. It was something no one could take from us." (A year of waiting could have ended in those months, graduation had filled me with a sense of bravado and daring, and I felt like the world was mine for the taking.)
"Hope that tonight things are fine. As I lay awake, the light cuts the southern sky."
(For all the separation, I never hoped you were regretting your choice. We were in different countries, but under the same stars, and that thought made me feel like you were still near somehow.)
"Waiting to see and be with you again. Wishing the best for you my lost friend. Man I swear I'd give the whole thing up for you."
(I'm still waiting, I suppose, and I still wish you the best, but I send my wishes in envelopes sealed with jealousy and regret. I would have given up so much for you, and you don't even know, but that is not your fault.)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CqRkYBTCv3Y
Thursday, 15 January 2009
If I'm being pessimistic about it;
I've got nothing to go on for. No future. No drive. No motivation.
All my best friends are shaping to leave, move on, make their lives without me, and expecting me to feel great about it.
Ten thousand pounds worth of debt for an education that can't even get me a job answering phones, let alone a job it was designed to help me get.
I don't think it's going to work out with her, and it's neither of our faults.
Faith has been lost in everything.
New Years saw me sat alone on a beach with rocks in my pockets and tears in my eyes.
I've got nothing to go on for. No future. No drive. No motivation.
All my best friends are shaping to leave, move on, make their lives without me, and expecting me to feel great about it.
Ten thousand pounds worth of debt for an education that can't even get me a job answering phones, let alone a job it was designed to help me get.
I don't think it's going to work out with her, and it's neither of our faults.
Faith has been lost in everything.
New Years saw me sat alone on a beach with rocks in my pockets and tears in my eyes.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
I like to imagine everyone leaves some kind of vapour trail throughout their lives. Like if you open the exposure on a camera for a long time and aim it at a single person, walking across the shot, their movements would be caught, and they would seem one long blur of motion? Well imagine birth as the opening of the shutter, and death as it's closing. And all that we do in between as being our vapour trail. Except it's not just all that we physically do, it's all we emotionally do too, to ourselves and each other. I like to imagine that they're all coloured, and the lives we lead affect the brightness of our trails.
Wouldn't the city be a more magical place if we walked it's streets leaving a bright and vibrant trail where ever we went, and if we wanted to, we could trace a persons steps to see how they've lived, how they've loved, the mistakes they've made, and hopefully how they made up for them?
Wouldn't the city be a more magical place if we walked it's streets leaving a bright and vibrant trail where ever we went, and if we wanted to, we could trace a persons steps to see how they've lived, how they've loved, the mistakes they've made, and hopefully how they made up for them?
A montage of lives. The camera keeps cutting.
-someone crunched up on the floor, pounding it with their fists as tears stream down their face, past their mouth as it silently howls.
-someone in a darkened room, sat in their chair looking at old photos despite how it breaks their heart with every snapshot of times that have grown better with age, yet more painful with every second thats passed between the click of the shutter, and the cold, lonely present.
-someone shuffling under sheets, asleep but not at rest: alone and missing their lover, trying to ignore the fact they're not coming back.
-someone shuffling under sheets as their body connects with another, having forgotten how they are never coming back to a restless sleeper who at that moment is asleep, but not at rest.
All this soundtracked by heartbreak, and its child, recovery.
-someone crunched up on the floor, pounding it with their fists as tears stream down their face, past their mouth as it silently howls.
-someone in a darkened room, sat in their chair looking at old photos despite how it breaks their heart with every snapshot of times that have grown better with age, yet more painful with every second thats passed between the click of the shutter, and the cold, lonely present.
-someone shuffling under sheets, asleep but not at rest: alone and missing their lover, trying to ignore the fact they're not coming back.
-someone shuffling under sheets as their body connects with another, having forgotten how they are never coming back to a restless sleeper who at that moment is asleep, but not at rest.
All this soundtracked by heartbreak, and its child, recovery.
Monday, 5 January 2009
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