twenty twenty two

this year there will be

0 (zero)

new years resolutions

∞

because there is

0 (no)

future in dreaming

be that england or wherever else

∞

and the pressure

has to drop

has to drop

∞

give me peace and

0 (zero)

kicks in the life please

∞

that's all i ask

but i do not expect much

to be honest

∞

0 (zero)

would be a start

and an end

and maybe i could cope

with it that way

∞

be safe please and

maybe happy can come

i think it will

there is lots of love you know

∞

there is lots of it

an unlimited amount

so many outlets

in or out

∞

day by day anyway

the only way

peace

I was out and about today and saw some queues

 

The first queue I saw was a queue of cars

Queueing for the Sainsbury's carpark

I thought: Yeah, it’s Chrimbo innit.

Bound to be busy now. Everyone wanting

to stock up on veggies and stuff.

And after the year and another year

we’ve had, are having still - ah,

fuck knows we all deserve a treat.

All the cars had funny car names

Some of which were sort of macho

like Boxer or Rover or other dog names;

Some were futuristic like X-1 and X-34 and Discovery

and other spaceshippy type names;

And others were blandly benign

like Leaf and Sunny and drippy hippy names.

Enough to say that I saw lots of cars

all queuing for the Sainsbury’s carpark.

The second queue was of people

who’d already left their cars and now

were waiting outside Sainsbury’s. Masks on,

in the main, anyway. Polite, more-or-less,

and even in a good Christmassy mood:

This Will Be The Big Xmas Shop

And Yes, We Will Get Quality Street.

That was the second queue I saw

this morning, when I was on my way to the vet's.

The third queue was quite a short one:

politeness, really, from people waiting

as I was, to pick up the three-monthly top-up

of flea treatment and de-worming stuff.

Pet owners, generally, specially at the vet's,

tell each other how much they value each other

by chickychucking chinnie-chops of each other’s pets:

I See And Love You, Fellow Human, is what it means.

I was feeling quite good about these queues,

queueing as we were for decent reasons

and friendly enough, or at least non-aggro.

Everyone knows it’s busy at Christmas.

Everyone is a little bit more patient -

until they aren’t. But so far, that wave hadn’t

soaked anyone in whinging kids and errant partners,

And the fourth queue outside the butcher’s was like that.

The butcher was whistling at his work. Really.

Trade was very brisk, albeit slower-paced by dint

of all the queueing and whatnot. Much more

civilised than in the before-times-scrimmage.

It was a timeless scene, really. Even before

there were fridges and freezers and electric knives,

before electricity, there have been people coming

to pick up their Christmas treats:

A crown of turkey for the new-born king.

Next door to the butcher’s was the fifth queue

that I saw, now on my way home from the vet’s.

This was a quieter queue, I must say,

and extremely polite. People had their bags

ready. There wasn’t the same bonhomie as

the butcher’s next door. People were kind of

keeping their distance and awaiting their turn.

The door opened, let a family in. 

It closed again.

A minute or two passed.

The door reopened. 

A family swept out, bags full.

Another family went in. A couple. Older than the

previous family. It was their turn

and so they entered the food bank

breathing deeply, defiant in dignity

and standing tall, walking purposefully.

I didn’t wait to see them come out again.

But they would.

This Chrimbo they would not be 

hungry.

The Internet Hates You

The Internet, it hates you

It wants to kill your work

It wants to know your passwords

It's a psychotic jerk

The Internet, it hates you

It wants you to spend more

It wants to know your secrets

It plays you like a whore

The Internet, it hates you

It’s got you in its grasp

It wants to feel your anguish

When it decides to crash

The Internet, it hates you

It’s learning every day

It’s capable of magic

But eats your time away

The Internet, it hates you

It’s just a grubby thug

It’s waiting to castrate you

So get the cunt unplugged.

I Am Whittling At Something

 

I am whittling at something

That might not be there

Knife blade blunt grim

Sharpening air.

I am searching for something

Which likely has gone

Soot smear horizon

Dementedly hung.

My body feels something

I cannot define

Slug blood trail whorls

Directionless slime.

I want a time signature.

I want a key change:

On this anacrusis

I totter and wait.

I wait and I totter

On my anacrusis.

I hate this key change.

I want the old figure.

Directionless mind,

Slow blood, sluggish mule;

I cannot define

This new way of living.

But it has begun

Beyond some horizon

A ragged, sick sun

Coughs broken, de-shining.

I sharpen the air

I steel on each breath

I hang on somewhere

Without understanding.

Unexistence

 

Have you ever wanted to unexist?

Don’t get me wrong. This is no suicide note. There will never be one of those.

But yeah. Unexisting. It’s not a real word. Libre Office spellcheck underlines it in red squiggles.

(Libre Office also underlines Libre in red squiggles)

It’s probably not correct to use ‘want’ in this context either.

Perhaps unexistence is more-or-less the absence of wanting, or the wanting of absence, or maybe both.

No, none of that seems to sit right. It’s a splodgy old concept. Sort of impossible to define.

I suppose the splodges and the squiggles prove something-or-other, don’t they?

Not existing is not the same as leaving existence is it.

The two are not compatible at all. There is an infinity of nonexistence, because more things have not existed than have.

Except that’s wrong, too, isn’t it. A thing is not a thing if it has never existed.

So there can be no sadness there either.

But, today, just for a blip.

Just for one eternal millisecond, I would like to try it. To unexist.

Not to see what things would have been like. I don’t care about that. It’s a fool’s dream, as is life.

I would like to know what it’s like not to exist. And that’s the paradox isn’t it. Fucking Descartes.

Just.

 

A cat has come to sit on me and nudge and nuzzle me with his fluffy head

Maybe this is enough right now

I was going to write something about how fucking miserable this year has been

But I don’t think I’m allowed

I am paws-ed

Whisper

 I'm tidying up my YouTube channel, and to start off here's a piece called Whisper:

Three poems (2011)

 I found these on one of them 'On This Day' bollocks things on Facebook. I quite like them for all that.

POEM

One day I found out that it doesn't really matter

all that much

It was the most disappointing freedom

or dream

So far

POEM 2

Another day I got an inkling that it was mostly about turning up

making the best of it

Like I did when I was born

POEM 3

I have suspected for a while that there aren't

any answers

But the truth is that this doesn't make searching

any less fun

The Last LP

I’ve just been listening to the new Alabama 3 album, which I was gonna try and blag for free from an old friend/music PR that I still talk to sometimes on social media.

I didn’t have to, though, because it turned out that you’d pre-ordered and paid for it, and it was sent to your old flat which now has been cleared and repainted and deep-cleaned and left forever.

The post redirection sent it to mum and dad’s house, and from there to me, here. It’s quite a sad album, you know, in places. It has possibly the last ever contributions from D. Wayne Love.

You’d have liked it. It made me cry a bit. A lot for a bit. These jags are pretty fucking powerful. I am actually triggered but I will probably always be, here and there, and I think that’s right and proper.

It ends on a positive song, like La Peste did, which is what this one seems to share the most soul with, and with a chuckling baby just come into the world. And this is how things turn forever.

The other day, I can’t remember what exactly it was, but I was asking on Facebook for people to remind me what it was I couldn’t remember. And, I nearly put: yes, Daniel, I have had a poo.

Cause that’s almost certainly what you would have written as advice. Completely predictable. But the thread was worse off without it and to think you will never do that again is...

...

...

The last album you ever bought was a good one. An unexpected gift, and honestly one I never asked for.

I’ve been listening to myself as much as I can, and I’ve been trying to talk about the things I am thinking, and bring the feelings into places where they are appropriate. It’s impossible, really.

But I will continue to try and progress. And carry on getting up day after day and trying to not have to try to be level. It’s OK, isn’t it. Not to be level. There are moments of calm, here and there.

You really would have liked this album, you know. It burns me deeply to know that you will never hear it. And this is how things turn, too. I think Alabama 3 have always understood that process.

Z

And so

may you ride the zephyr to your Ithaca

the wind which brought Aphrodite to your Paphos

And

may we in turn recognise that

the gentle spring can still come again

Even if

the jealous discus of Zephyrus

has stricken down a beautiful boy

Forever

let us trust that there is an Apollo

to transform thee into the purple-blue hyacinth

that you always were and will be

Y

Youth is not wasted on the young:

It should yomp and blaze and yell

And love fiercely and fear none;

Rampage in rain, and scratch out sun,

Dance dervish in night-romps, and tell

Secrets and tales in sizzling song;

Seek wisdom in moments, gold-spun

And ineffable, jangling nerves swelled,

Synapses firing and joy over-run,

Yowling on moonshine with blistered tongue.

Beware those who, ringing their idiot’s bell,

Flubber and fidget, drivelling long

That youth is wasted on the young,

So tend to tomorrow’s dreary dell.

These people are devils, woeful and wrong.

Squirm out of the yoke, never dwell thereamong;

Who knows if tomorrow brings heaven or hell?

Youth is not wasted on the young.

But youth should be wasted by the young.

Exhausted by evening, a day that's spent well

Is comfort enough when there’s naught left undone.

So revel and rage and be brilliant: Be young.

X

There are some X-rated tales that I

probably

will never tell

But what I possibly will do, maybe

is use some

of them in fiction

Aye, there’s some X-rated stuff alright;

mild, really,

by some standards,

But nonetheless I’ll not reveal them.

I mean, that'd be

incrimination.

Here’s one, though, and it’s only

X-rated

retrospectively:

Thirty years ago – a long time -

there was a

cupboard full of

porn in Maes G. We’ll not make

any jokes about

library deposits

at this time, and I shan’t be

taking any further

questions either.

But I will say that, for some reason,

I’d always walk

home at 3am

Confused and smoky-brained

and with something

borderline illegal

tucked unconvincingly

into my socks

and somehow

for some reason, I’d never get

stopped by the

rozzers. Never. So, well.

Like I say, mild enough

stuff. Unlike

some of the pictures.

W

 What?

Mate, don't sit there

Mate

don’t sit there, honestly

I know the bus is quite busy and I’m kinda looking sort of well, not friendly, but probably Dad-ish, here not too near the back or front, with my headphones on listening to Inside the Comedian, and looking out the window

so I understand that I’m a safe bet, dressed in my work clothes and looking sort of smart casual.

But mate

you’ve not thought this through

I’m saying this silently to myself cause I know I wouldn’t’ve been told neither, and also a bit cause, yeah, I would prefer to have my bag next to me cause I don’t like mornings or strangers on the bus next to me

but that’s not it. Not really. I can cope with all that, even if I am one of only a few on this bus wearing a mask

Mate

have you seen the other free seat

I know there’s quite a few other free seats, and they’re all much of a muchness, as buses are and seats and open windows and mouth-breathing fart-arsed other college students like you

but you need to work this out in your own head before you sit in the seat next to me.

Look

have you ever seen such a beautiful neck

I can’t fucking tell you this or acknowledge it either cause obviously it’s inappropriate and I am so much older than you and her and pretty much most of this bus clanking its way across Shropshire

but there is down and soft skin and elegance and the most gorgeous delicately auburn hair and

Look

she is your age and she is alone and beautiful

I don’t want you to be harassing her or anyone ever so don’t get me wrong but you know, mate, I can tell you that you have picked the wrong seat here, the wrong seat entirely

she has a cosy woolly jumper on and in the rain she would look even more beautifully bedraggled

so Mate

honestly it is for you to decide what to do but please

be a good man. Be what you want to be. Sit there, next to her, the girl with the beautiful neck, the young woman who – maybe – you might get chatting with and actually like each other and make friends

or more, or none of those things. And all those are OK. But you’ll never, ever find out if you sit next to me instead, and

Mate

don’t be me, mate. Don’t be me. Don’t be me.

There’s fewer stops than you realise before we all pull in to the bus station and we all have to get off and maybe the girl will never get on the same bus again or maybe she will and

someone else will sit next to her and maybe even then you won’t see it but believe me

Mate

a snap of the fingers click clack 30 years will have bungled by and you will be

sitting on a different bus on your own in your own seat behind a girl with a beautiful neck and you will be dismayed when some gozzy-nosed college boy doesn’t even notice that he is making a decision

that he will only see as a decision at all when he is three decades too old and the only wisdom you can impart to him silently is that with understanding comes only sadness.

V

If you'd not been in Bristol and not Wrexham

and if Dave had been up for it

then well who knows

Vinyl Erasers' claim to fame was one song 

played over and over and over on cassette

at Planet X in Liverpool.

And cause I was knocking about in Bangor

and had proximity to your bass

that shitty Marlin Sidewinder

Vaffan Coulo became my band or at least

the band I was in because you weren't there

and Dave didn't fancy it.

It doesn't seem like much, I know. But it is.

If I look back, and I do look back, then I see

the direct line from here to there

via everywhere else and the books and the degree

and the bands and all of that.

If you'd been in Bangor not Bristol or Wrexham

or if Dave'd been up for it

then well who can say

I don't know where I would have been for all this time

but everything would have been completely different

in ways I can never know.

I wish I had that bass. I'd've got it set up properly for the first time

well, the first time ever.

That awful action was five miles high. It was a bugger to play

but now it's someone else's problem

lost in a hundred house moves and

various garages. Various memories. Various gigs.

So lost so easily so permanently.

U

Life is so unfathomably unlikely in the first place that it’s useless to try and understand it.

I have spent most of mine upset about this, until I worked one and only one thing out, which is that no matter how ugly and unbelievably painful things get, nothing is truly unbearable because if you’re still able to feel it then in one way or another you can undergo it.

I know it’s not much of a philosophy, and I hate it to be honest, but there you go. Confusion is the default human condition, and when we can instil our unique sense of futility and cosmic uselessness in our computers, that’s the point at which they’ll switch from being unaware to self-conscious and therefore harmless. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but fuck me what a utterly weird journey this is for all of us.

Unnecessary, ultimately.

T

GO ON TOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you shouted at full full full volume

Tommy Lloyd looked around, startled

because he was in the centre circle and the ball was in our own box, nowhere near him;

There’s a tale about all this

Which I’ll tell you when you turn twenty-one.

S

This ain't a poem or nuffink like that

It's sumffink I'm ffinking sat here in me chair

It's not real levver, it's falling apart

But it's comfy, I like it, it's goin nowhere.

This is my ffink wot I've ffunked most today:

"I'm sat here all sad and it's doin no good,

Me hair's gone all flat and me face has gone grey,

Cos anuvver week's passed in a dumbfounded mood,

I've gone to me work and I've done ffings, I spose,

But nuffink seems all that important no more."

It ain't all that much to report, mate, I know,

But that's wot I ffinked since I ffunk stuff before:

Imagine one day I might squeeze out a laff,

All I can do is look fforward to that.

R

It's never going to be right. I am wrestling with it being real.

And in a dream there you were, you scruffy ratbag.

Dozing, slightly snoring, hands clasped over your belly.

Raggedy beard - not too long, this time, and still dark - and glasses.

Dressed in black. A couple of seats back from me on the bus.

It was...

...these things aren't nice. But it was the first time I've seen you since.

And you were just so chilled out and peaceful.

That is the real I choose today. That is the right place today.

Chimeric Rock News

 

Chimeric Rock Star News

With madcap legacy-destroying divot Ian Brown

Dickinson dodges danger

Iron Maiden singer Goose Dickinson is recovering from a narrow escape after he nearly got sucked into the inlet valve of one of his own jets.

The Run To The Hills vocalist, 63, was out with his flock on their yearly autumn migration from Svalbard to the south-east of England, when he became separated from the main V formation due to an unexpected air current.

“It was pretty hairy,” said the 5ft 6 Russian white-footed goose, “Especially when I realised I was on an unerring course toward what I instantly recognised as a Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet. With its wide body and Pratt & Whitney PW4056 turbofans, it pulls an incredible amount of air and I was heading right toward it.”

Luckily for the heavy metal superstar, the jet climbed swiftly to avoid a patch of upcoming turbulence and it was only his pride that was hurt.

“Never mind Bring Your Daughter… it was very nearly a case of attending my own slaughter,” quipped Dickinson, preening at an awkward tick on his tail.

Crops Under Pressure

The UK’s tomato manufacturers have warned of an unusually low yield this year after an unexpected and devastating influx of Aphid Bowies.

Richard von Damm, chairman of the England Tomato Guild, said that as a result, prices could soar.

“People must realise that whilst we all can appreciate the chameleonic craft and constant reinvention of the late Thin White Duke – except for Tin Machine, naturally - when tens of thousands of Bowies swarm it is absolute carnage.”

Mr. von Damm added that as well as sucking the sap from crops, Aphid Bowies – real names Aphid Jones - can bring viruses and attract mould. Incecticides are not always viable as pest control, as they quickly develop a resistance to the chemicals.

“If someone could come up with a new control measure,” continued Mr. von Damm, “They really would be ‘Heroes’.”

In the meantime, there is to be no ‘Lazarus’-like comeback for the beleagured soft fruit industry.

“We are always on edge when it comes to Aphid Bowie season,” Mr. von Damm added. “But this year we have only just recovered from a plague of Locust Capaldis that severely weakened our ability to react.”

The Aphid Bowies are expected to be in the United Kingdom for several weeks before they depart for Cannes for the world premier of a remastered print of their 1986 musical fantasy smash, Labyrinth.

Not so Ace of Spades

An emergency evacuation order has been served on residents of West Bengal after a group of wild elephants broke loose from a reserve.

“At this time we urge everybody to remain calm, but to leave as soon as is practicable,” said lead conservationist Anita Noah-Yannick. “This crash of elephants is extremely dangerous and pose a huge risk.”

Noah-Yannick added that the escapees appeared to be led by mutton-chopped pachyderm bassist, Lemmy the Elephant. Having bedded over 2,000 females in his life, the gravel-throated musician’s sheer manliness and raw sex appeal has set off a chain reaction amongst the males of the group.

“They have gone into a collective state of Musth,” continued the spokeswoman. “And their behaviour is incredibly unpredictable.”

A musth state takes place in bull elephants and is characterised by testosterone levels up to 60 times the normal levels; as a result, the animals can become extremely aggressive.

Lemmy, whose hits included Bomber, Iron Fist and the duet with Mozzy Osborne, I’m Not a Nice Guy After All, did not reply to a request for a comment by time of publication. It is thought that the one-time Jimi Hendrix roadie is also suffering from severe toothache due to the irritating discharge of temporin which is a feature of musth.

In the meantime, residents are urged to travel outside the danger zone as soon as possible, said Noah-Yannick.

“We are working hard to control the herd and have ordered a gigantic bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a puddle of coke which we will use to distract Lemmy,” she said. “We are working on a way to manufacture an enormous cylinder of tobacco that he can pick up with his trunk too.”

Amphetamine manufacturers across the subcontinent have also been put on high alert.

Next time: Find out what gets Eel Young Swimmin in the Free World; Why Dave Vole is Learning to Fly; Who is putting that enormous grin on the face of Axlotl Rose; And why Piers Corbyn is god.

Katzenmusik

 Ike and Rusty like to look out the window, and their noses leave smudges:

ENHANCE DATA

Obviously they were writing a tune weren't they? This is how I interpreted it:

And it sounds like this.

Q

Questions?

Questions?

Mate.

I've got questions.

I've got so many fucking questions that I am starting to look like a fucking question mark.

When I stand up my back bends and my head droops in on my belly.

My feet have detached from my legs.

I can't feel the ground anymore.

Questions.

Questions.

Mate.

By now I reckon I know that there's always gonna be questions.

And that I will never stop asking them.

The only thing I can tell you for sure though

Is that there aren't enough fucking answers.

And that there never fucking were.

P

 

Go listen to MC Hammer, folks, you'll get more sense.

O

When the next big cup game or away trip comes 

and there's a bus 

and there's beer 

and it's 

like it should be again

Then

I will try and sing

O BANGOR I

twice as loud as I ever have before

because then

I won't be able to hear 

that you are

not belting it out

And maybe somewhere

in the universe

the soundwaves will land

where someone needs them.

N

1

+

1

=

2.

2

+

1

+

1
+

1

=

5

5

-

1

-

1

=

3.

3

+

2

≠

5.

3

+

2

=

3

+

2

-

2.

M

My dad wrote once something about a newspaper headline that read something like:

Miracle Baby Saved From Earthquake.

The gist was that this infant had been thought lost in the rubble of a hospital, one amongst thousands of deaths due to this natural disaster. But then, three days later, a dog managed to get beneath the collapsed nursery ward and barked the bark that meant ‘a human is here’, and the rescuers dug and carefully balanced precarious bricks, and pulled out a dusty but otherwise unharmed child.

God be praised, said the baby's mother. This is truly a miracle.

My dad went on to proper interrogate this.

As for me, in my blunderbussing way, I have some questions.

Like:

Where was God when the earthquake was brewing? 

Couldn’t He have diverted it toward an uninhabited desert or somewhere else where there were no people? 

What was the benefit for anyone for this to happen? 

And, quite frankly, why did He let this happen in a country where the poorest people lived, like it always seems to?

I mean, are you omnipotent or not, mate?

Or are you just fucking with us?

Or as I put it:

God can’t, won’t, or isn’t.

Which fits better on a T-shirt.

The longer life goes on, and the more people we lose along the way, and the more confused I am about how people vote the way they do and how they are racist and weird and all of that, then I think I understand religion a bit more.

Without certainties, there is a black hole. Doubt breeds faith, because the ineffable and the aleatory are one and the same. Faith in a higher purpose shifts the responsibility onto a supernatural power, and one which we are not expected to understand.

If everything is part of God’s plan, then we conclude that the plan must be Good. We just need to have faith.

Moreover – and I love this bit – if you question God then he’ll fuck you up, like he did to Job for a bet with the Devil. He’s a proper prick, God. Seriously. A huckster. A self-centered murdering bully-boy arsehole. And the miracle melts away into chance and physics again.

Burning bushes aren’t miracles. Nor are babies hidden under concrete beams for two days, in their ventilator and still breathing through a mask.

His lad was alright, for a hippy, mostly, except:

Bringing Lazarus back from the dead to make a point when you could have saved him all the hassle is not a miracle, it’s a cunt’s trick. No wonder Lazarus never smiled again til he died again a few decades later. I'd have loved to be there when he caught Jesus up in Heaven again. Imagine that conversation.

Miracle My Arse.

L

 

Lola Cat landed awkwardly.

Poor little Lola Cat.

The leg was broken, said the vet.

And that could have been that.

But people rallied round online

Their hearts and wallets open

They crowdfunded a thousand pounds

For her operation.

Little Lola lost her leg.

A tripod, limping cat

She’ll adjust to it, you know,

Assured the relaxed vet.

Nervously the little cat

Came back and slinked and hid

And ate some treats, and had some fuss,

Recovered bit by bit.

Now Lola jumps and bounces round

And explores this and that

And sleeps and purrs and plays

Like any other cat.

There’ll always be the missing leg.

Life throws these things at you.

But Lola’s learned to live again

And one day we can too.

K

The guitar was instantly familiar although it had two too many strings.

I picked it up and battled with it. It was as much of a piece of shit as the bass version was.

It was £160 and I laughed because back then if you got one for £20 they’d’ve seen you coming.

You had one.

Another neighbour had a Kay for a bit, which I bought.

Then I had one.

I used to use the wall cavity as a kind of amplifier, but only for certain notes.

Not all of them would resonate. I learned why, much later.

Nonchalantly (I thought) I threw it on the bed one day – quite gently really – and the neck hit the wall, and split in half.

So now I had half a Kay Bass.

The neighbour then swapped his microphone for an airgun,

so that was the end of that band.

I might buy a Kay if I see one for maybe £50 or something.

Playing – fighting - that six-stringed guitar really did feel like coming home.

Like if it was pissing it down all the way and there was no telly cos there’d been a power cut and all you could do was to – quite gently – rest the headstock against the cavity wall and inexpertly try and play Police Truck by the Dead Kennedys.

J

You were the only person to call me

Joey

and

Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo.

I

I have been

shouting at bluebottles

(I was going to try and write more, but this pretty much sums it all up)

H

Hapusrwydd ar goll

Hiraethu dros ben

Dwi'n gwbod y ffordd nol, ond hefyd methu weld hi

Does na dim hyffordiant am hyn

Ac y dyddiau dywyll yn barhau

Fydd na obaith

Dwi'n gwbod hyn

Ond ar hyn o bryd mae'n annodd i coelio hi

Does na dim unrhuwpeth alla i wneud

Ond edrych i fyny o waelod yr dwll

Rhywle, yn sicr, mae yna ganu morfil'n dwfn

Ag yn nofio drwy'r mor du a hen:

Yn y cyfamser, wna i trio beidio a thrio;

Ond nid mae na donnau o heddwch eto

I syrffio - nag i boddi.

G

O this game is rigged against itself and

everyone is always playing and

the rules change and

then everybody loses

and

this is a bad game.

I do not like this game.

I don't want to play this game anymore.

Can we agree to wipe the slate clean?

Come back and we can play a better game?

The game is up. The game has gone. 

Are you game? Am I game?

game is squawking alive

life seeping away under squalls of rat laughter and gunshot

this game is a bad game

this game is a bad game

this game is a bad game

this game

F

Being the youngest - at the time, and at the time four years was centuries – I was always Fritz.

“You vill pay, Englischer pig dog!!!” I’d say, in my very best Commando Comics impression. Then dffdfdfdfddffff you and M would serve up a salvo of mouth-machine-gun fire and I’d clutch my chest dramatically with both hands and shout

AIEEEEEEE

Because it was the end of the war for me, Fritz Old Chum. 

Then you and M would go around the corner into the car park, and when you came back you’d say, “Did you see Fritz? He was here just now but we bally well showed him a lesson.” And I would shake my head and say “No, I missed him,” and so the game continued until you or me or M got bored and went looking for conkers or just crawling through the trees trying to avoid dogshit, but inevitably one of us would – oh god, I can feel it still, and smell it, sticky, sweet, foul – put our hand straight into a fresh one and puke.

You didn’t remember any of this when I asked you about it last year, and I won’t be able to jog your memory now with the other thing I remembered, which was that – being the youngest, at the time – I could fit into the coal hole thing by the Big Red House where the Whispering Lady lived, and I could come up again with a few nuggets of smokeless posh fuel and bring them home to put on the fire.

“We found them near the coal hole,” I’d squeak uncertainly. “The coalman dropped a few.”

Of course, we all knew that was false, but we were quite skint and a couple of hours’ free heat was fine indeed. Mum and Dad didn’t approve really. We always got by without shonky fooling like that, and we always had warmth and always had food no matter what, and the roof above our heads was always – somehow, just about – paid for. 

Funny isn’t it, how these little vignettes crop up when you’re not expecting it. There were holly trees and ivy crawling up old stone, and hundreds of skittish little squirrels, but most of all I remember three brothers – at the time – playing together and really, really believing in the tableau.

Fritz got the bad deal in all this. He was only there so we could win. Or, so you and M could win. I always seemed to be just a minute too late to fully appreciate the power of our unity.

And the future seemed endless.

E

William Blake had it the wrong way round. An hour can feel like eternity.

But everything. Everyone. Ends.

I want to write a film called I, William Blake

Except I don't. But I had that in my head when I woke up and it won't leave me alone.

There's not always poetry is there. Just effluent.

Tomorrow, apparently, is another day.

Just a couple of eternities til Bargain Hunt.

I hope the blue team wins.

as ever.

C

 

I tried, really tried, to talk to Christ who had conquered death.

It was a bit selfish of Him not to share the trick. But He remained silent.

Consolation, comfort, all that craic.

I wanted to ask Him what the big deal was anyway. Why bother

saving us from our sins? Redeeming us? To what end? Heaven?

Crass cravings, at best, cock.

What’s the point, I wanted to know, of Earth and life? You know,

Heaven being the ultimate goal. Why not cut out the middleman?

Course, so far, no contact.

I know it’s a cliché but fair play to Him, crucifixion is a terrible way to go.

I mean, it’s a crowdpleaser and a pretty dramatic tactic, I confess.

Confess? I take my own fall.

I wanted Christ to tell me that the death of a good man must be celebrated,

because that man has taken his place in eternal bliss, for evermore, and all that...

...Christ alive it’s total bullcrap isn't it. An insult.

Never mind your so-called eternal bliss, mate, we’re fucking crying here and now.

…

…

Nope, still nowt.

Oh well. 

Cheers now, mind how you go.

B

There is an alpha et of missing letters lurking in my head.

May e   y the time I get to Z I will process that he’s.

 ut I can’t make that rhyme,

Certainly not yet:

There is too much missing. And I know, and I’ve said

it myself: it’s OK and natural to  e  ereft -

 ut I don’t think I  elieve my

Unrelia le  reath.

And the guilt of that is poison  uilt on longing left to rot.

A centre fails; a structure crum les, anchors dust and lost,

 ut may e time will race itself;

 Could I place one final  et?

 ecause linguists point to history: in any alpha et

Letters are  orn, and letters die, and language keeps its strength.

I must complete my sentence:

 lood  urn and  oil red.

A

Awak

3

4

5

am

cnvncd

wld

nvr

wrt

agan,

thn 

dd 

ths.

And, 

wll;

t's

a

start

sn't

t?

Daniel

It is a hideous privilege

to read all the posts and

to know that the love is real.

I think when love has

nowhere left to land

it hugs to the blood and congeals.

But all these memories

and photos and songs

are alive in their own moment.

And each moment remains.

It is the future

and all that was to come

that now will not come

which overwhelms.

Nobody has discovered

why and how life began

on the earth, not really:

we look at the stars

whose carbon we once were

and know our carbon will go back.

There in the brilliant ancient past

We are not yet born;

The clearer the night sky

The more time we will have again.

The Sticky Man

I had a quite intense digital training course last week so obviously rather than implement all I'd learned I wrote a sort of gothy song.

Verses: picked Am7 – Fmin then Gmin6 (3^rd fret D string, and wobbly)

Chorus: C-F-Gmin6 or whatever it is

Middle 8 has a bluesy lick based round 3^rd fret on G and B strings (then open strings), and 3^rd fret on D string/open D

______________________

There was a boy called Johnny

who was feeling alone.

He had nobody with him

He was all on his own.

He had a lot to give

but nothing to share.

He looked for friends to love him

But there was nobody there.

He prayed to God and Buddah

and all of the saints.

His prayers were never answered.

For him there was no grace.

One night poor lonely Johnny

met the Devil in a dream.

The goat said, “Oh my boy

I can help you, believe me:

wherever you go from this day on

you’ll never be walking the path alone.”

Johnny woke up smiling.

Could it be true?

Would he meet a somebody,

at last be one of two?

He met a Sticky Man who followed him home.

A Sticky Man ten steps back on the road.

Sticky Man standing guard as he slept;

Sticky Man looming at the end of his bed.

He was a Sticky Man.

Johnny went to work

with a spring in his step.

Johnny had a friend

who would never escape.

But still no-one saw Johnny,

nor his new Sticky Man.

They all walked straight on past him

and nothing had changed.

But he had a Sticky Man following him in the dark.

A Sticky Man watching him taking a bath.

And Sticky Man never uttered a word.

He never talked to Johnny or looked at him straight.

He was a Sticky Man.

Time passed and Johnny became mad.

His Sticky Man wouldn’t give him a glance.

A useless golem, footsteps plodding always.

Just within his eyeline for the rest of his days.

Johnny couldn’t take it

his life shrank and faded.

Little Johnny, the lonely boy

Could not shake off the shameful, clayful Sticky Man.

At the end of his tether

Johnny cried on the cliffs.

Stared down, a hundred metres

to the rocks on the shore.

He took ten steps back

and he started to run.

And half a pace behind him

Sticky Man did the same

Johnny jumped and so did Sticky Man

And one landed in mortal pain,

impaled on the harsh rocks

blood swirling in the spray.

And with his final breath

the Sticky Man said:

“You tricked me, my Johnny,

I thought we were friends.”

But Johnny just floated down

with the parachute he’d disguised

in his rucksack. Maybe now

he could reclaim his life.

Sticky Man, dying there on the sharp rocks.

Sticky Man, who had finally spoke.

Sticky Man rode on the wash of the waves.

As Johnny glided down he saw it fade away:

No more Sticky Man.

So Johnny lived his life

in his own company.

Didn’t bother no-one.

Didn’t want nobody.

He worked, he retired,

nothing of consequence

til his own death day came

and he lay in his bed.

He was ready to go.

He was sick of his life.

He yearned to be free

of the world he despised.

His eyes, old and rheumy,

with flickering light

were ready to close for ever.

But just before he died

he heard

a voice:

“I’m the Sticky Man and I’ve come back for you.

The Sticky Man always sees every job through.

Johnny-Man, now you’re reaching the end,

Sticky Man’s come back to help you ascend.”

Johnny looked up

with his last ebb of strength

and saw the Sticky Man

standing, smiling at him.

Johnny died. But he died with a happy heart.

His life was worthwhile if just one soul was sad.

The Sticky Man

held Johnny’s warm hand

Til it was cold.

And went back to the Devil

with Johnny's sold soul.

He was the Sticky Man.

Always the Sticky Man.

So near, the Sticky Man.

Beware the Sticky Man.

A Night On The Pizz

Forgive me if I’m a bit crotchety – I was at a bar last night drinking with the staff and you know their measures are largo – more like a treble. 

Allegro Adagio, the Italian head clef, came out with some home-made quavers with his special home-made presto and thyme signature, and they repeated on me all night. I had terrible wood wind although I'd never have the brass to tell him. Can you imagine the repercussions? He's something of a sex cymbal round here, though he shares childcare duties with his Irish ex-husband so is also a great coda.

You’ll have to give me a minim; I’ll try to be breve. And, yes, there were a few lines too, I have to confess, so don't give me that chorus of disapproval. 

The conductor on the bus home was really interesting; he used to be an architect for football clubs’ chapels of rest. He was instrumental in the building of Man U’s crypt, or so he said. By that time I was pretty pizzed and he might well have been stringing me along. He did snare me with it though, fair play, with his smattering of dim innuendos.

When I got to the hotel I realised I had no way of getting in my room, but luckily the concierge Tom-Tom had a spare set for which I gladly gave my key signature. 

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The Story of Breakfast

 

LEEKED SKRIPT OF FREINZ!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOM!!! COMEBAK EPSOID!!!

COPYRIGHT JOLLYWOOD STUDIO AL RITES TRAVERSED 2021 OK NO FUNY BUYSNES U COK

****************

FAde In:

PRE CREDITS

NEW YORK. 10pm. Another busy night on the streets. Cars whizz past. It is raining and dark. People scurry back and forth. TWO CHARACTERS are sheltering underneath a cafe awning. We cannot quite make out their features in the gloom, but suffice it to say they are both unutterable cunts.

Character 1

Huh could it be any more raining.

Character 2

Huh I like a food booob What are YOU doingk

Character 1

Could I RAINING more better

Character 2

huh sex uh uh

FADE TO

CAFE, INT. It may once have been a hip place for awesome people to sit on chairs backwards and talk absolute inane fuckheadness about their fucking ridiculous and quite insufferable lives, but no longer. It has one sad, buzzing bulb, flickering. A bedraggled SOFA stinks near the battered old SERVING COUNTER, on which an exhausted-looking bald man leans. He is wearing stupid fucking braces or some shit and a stripy shirt, and an apron. He is crying into a filthy mop.

STRIPEY MAN

             I have wasted my life.

(BEAT)

A BELL tinkles. That must be the door! STRIPEY MAN LOOKS UP, excitedly. Could it be her? But no, it’s just the wind.

STRIPEY MAN

Not even a ghost. This is worse than a million deaths.

ROLL CREDITS: A mournful dirge as the camera jerkily pans, cheap and outdated, from left to right. In the background is a half-ruined ornamental fountain, covered in graffiti and dogshit. The water has long since drained away, to be replaced by puke, stagnant foulness and inhuman stains. A TRAMP lurches into view, shouting incoherently as he first notices then approaches the camera. In a rage, he rushes at the camera, which falls over. Our view is of a bleak, unforgiving sky.

FX: Zip

FX: sounds of tramp pissing on camera

FADE IN:
SCENE ONE

EXT. SHOT: WIDE ON RIKER’S ISLAND

TIGHT SHOT: RIKER’S ISLAND CEMETERY. A perfunctory funeral is taking place. There is a rabbi, and an inmate chained to two guards.

RABBI

[Speaks Yiddish, chants Psalms, leads the Kaddish]

INMATE (Sotto voce, TRIUMPHANT):

Bronto was reclassified in 2015 as a separate genus from Apatosaurus, you dumb fuck.

The GUARDS take him away, without any further action. He has not been able to help fill the grave.

PAN OUT TO O/H DRONE VIEW

C/FADE TO: CONTROL ROOM, full of video screens of similar funerals in various places. REFLECTED in a certain screen is a WOMAN’s FACE.

WOMAN

You stupid goddamn motherfucker. They got to you too. You just wouldn’t listen would you. You dumbass.

She SLAMS her fist on the control unit. The picture cracks.

WIDE SHOT of full CONTROL ROOM. TWO OTHER WOMEN are in there with her.

WOMAN 2:

He’s uh you know star signs massage ooo look I am quirky lol smell my cat

WOMAN does not turn round. But we can see her shaking with rage.

WOMAN 2:

I am bad at guitar u know but everyone love me at the same time because I am some kind of non-threatening hippy only to the extent that I wear different clothes than the rest eee hooo hooooooo nwwwooooowoooo

WOMAN turns around and shoots her, as well as WOMAN 3, who just looks pretty with a fun haircut and a sassy attitude and is possibly the worst of the lot.

WOMAN

Goddamn hippy stinking motherfucker.

She turns back to the CONSOLE and waggles a joystick. One of the feeds starts to jerkily zoom in on the COFFEE SHOP we saw pre-credits.

The WOMAN smiles, and presses the big red button.

FX: EXPLOSION

FX: COFFEE SHOP IN RUBBLE. Through the choking smoke. We see parts of the TWO CUNTS from the awning, quite dead now, hither and thither. One of their stupid, fat heads rolls into the gutter, where a stray DOG pisses on it.

FAde Out TO FINAL CREDITS:


FREMZ REUNIUONS

the end

POST CREDITS

From deep underneath the smoking, jagged, destroyed COFFEE SHOP we can hear a single mournful voice, way in the distance. It seems unearthly. Troubled. Lost. Lovelorn. It is STRIPEY MAN, somewhere beneath it all, and he wails.

Voice of STRIPEY MAN

                She’s not even that fit.

***************************

CAST

STRIPEY MAN: GUNTERS

TWO CUNTS: JOYEY AMND CHPADLER

INMATE: ROSES

WIMAN: MONIKSA

WIANS2: FEBEE

WIMMSA 3: RAELCH

GUARDS: ZIG AND ZAG

RABBI: VING RHAMES