A small victory

‘‘I understand the concept of synchronicity – I mean my favourite movies are always brought up in my favourite TV shows. That means I’m doing something right, right?’’

Today I ate more pasta than any human has ever eaten. It was 2 sittings of cheesy goodness and now I’m ‘fit to burst’, as they say. I watch the girl across from me nibble on salad and sip a thin soup. Lightweight.

Last night as I lay awake in bed, eyes open - my body tired, my mind racing - I thought up an entire stand-up comedy routine. It totaled about 5 minutes and it killed them, the whole room, blackened except for small red table lights and the single spot, roared.

For a moment or two I considered jumping out of bed and writing it all down. Unreal as these jokes were that I had just happened upon, they would work in real life, I knew that without any doubt.

But, laziness plus tiredness, plus warmth divided by stupidity stayed my legs and instead, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the imagined success of that fragile moment.

You can’t lose if you don’t try, I thought as I curled up to her warm back and ass. And burying my face in her neck of long brown hair I felt a little like a failure – but I was a warm, comfortable failure.

Real Gone

While still drinking coffee and reminiscing over Point Break, I am listening to this for the first time. Yeah, Johnny-come-lately strikes again – anyway it’s a good listen, totally different to what I’d expected of Tom Waits and goes well with this Autumnal and grey morning.

Aw, man...

1952 - 2009.

Human, all too human

Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.

Mercurial

Wow. Another really relevant Mercury Music Prize win! Maybe it’s kismet – some kind of planetary alignment - that so close to the anniversary of 9/11 we are now experiencing yet another world-changing event. How lucky are we to be alive right now.

‘To me, Michael Jackson’s story of his life is very similar to Jesus. This young guy who, from when he was very young, showed signs of being exceptional. Jesus went around preaching the gospel and touching people to make the blind see and making lepers better. Michael Jackson’s gone around the world and done that – he might not have literally touched someone and made them see, but apparently, I don’t know if this is true, there were kids around him that had cancer that didn’t have cancer anymore.’

‘ I don’t know if this is true...’ Really? Maybe best not repeat it in the national press then baby. (Sample album lyric by the way: ‘He's got a dead beat dad, that beats his mum real bad’)

Honestly, I don’t care if your record sounds like Definitely Maybe or What’s Going On, if you espouse that random shit in public, I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re running on a low battery. So, your name's 'Speech' and you're a rapper? I see what you did there! Dumbass.

f o n t

 
Elephant and Castle, 1991 to 1993. Graphic Design and Typography.

By the end of the course we had discovered some ‘rules’ of design... some of which still exist today. For example certain fonts are always a no-no, whereas others are always a safe bet. The paradigm of typeface avoidance was always Cooper Black (found this pic which confirms this philosophy still stands in 2009)

Close your eyes and pretend it didn’t happen.

Where have I been all these months?
Years even..?
I can see only a few feet ahead -

and now everyone tells me that
Since I’ve been away,
Mirrors no longer exist.
Souls have flown from bodies like birds
From a tree.

How many of them will I miss..?
Only a few.
You would need a bigger,
Stronger heart than
This
To care about so many others.
Lungs,
Breath,
Lips,
Arms...
The smalls of their backs and soft arches
Of their feet.

My idling thoughts continue floating
Out of reach,
Out of sight.
While my hard clay flesh
Lays slumped on the ground,
Pushing up and falling in unison
With the concrete,
With the earth,
Worms,
Spiders,
Dogs, dead bird skeletons.

Grey kindling dust is picked up on the wind.
I cover my face
To make sure it doesn’t get in my eyes,
With all the other mess.