25 May 2017

I’d made the mistake of assuming we were all alike



I had to get a haircut
Goddamn
I grew up around these people and
They are still the same
Amazed by everything

Smalltalk will not get you beyond the £13 I intend to pay for this shit

The woman behind the counter offered coffee/tea/juice
I saw some optics on the far wall, glasses on a shelf and 
Bottles of gin, vodka, JD
She didn’t offer those
What a bitch

You sit there and stare at your own face
Eyes darting round the room to avoid taking
Too much of yourself in
While outside a drunk couple stagger past the open door
     ‘…do I really look that bad?’ she slurs
He mumbles something back
And she seems more at ease with her appearance

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or there’s a
Convention in town but at that exact same moment
Across the street a young black girl fell out
Of the door of the off licence
Promptly sprang up off her knees and walked away
The sun shone hard
The evening breeze taking some of the edge off

I take issue with the necessity of it all
Having to call this guy to cut your hair
To fix the bad wiring in the walls
The gearbox on the car
Brake pads, oil, all that shit

2 days previous
I’d called another one
Chris
And there he was in the kitchen
Sideways across the floor and tools all over the place
Talking away as they all do
But this one
Told me about bands he’d seen
The Ramones at Brixton
The Damned and the Pistols, Black Flag and Crass
He told me of
His friend's little art punk band who played gigs for food banks
So instead of tickets the audience had to bring
Bags of food to get in

A swear to god he was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise
Shitty week

I feel a bite on the back of my neck where the clippers catch the skin
It snaps me back in and I realise the guy has been talking this whole time
I have no idea about what

I don’t dislike him
Or them
Or you
I just continue making the mistake of assuming we’re all alike.






18 May 2017

Chris Cornell May 17th 2017


Love leads to loss. There is no escaping it. The more closely you hold someone, something, the more pain is felt once it departs. We are instinctual in our love for family, mothers, fathers, brothers, children. But as individuals we create new connections with those beyond our reach - the artists.
We grow with them and they in turn form part of who we become. Imprinting their words, voices, feelings into us and injecting part of their soul into our own. Often this adds weight to how we view the world, ourselves and each other. But it is a weight we are happy to carry. There is meaning and beauty in the depths of the darkness they share.

And vicariously we jump and kick and scream and fight with them, through them, because our lives dictate we cannot fight, we cannot scream. The art allows you to become more of yourself. Your dna is engrained with it and so it turns to a devotion of sorts but one that gives just as much as it takes. And when they are departed it feels as though part of you has also, they are an old friend only you knew, who understood you more than anyone. And the hurt remains as music, as a voice. And you are left with the question of how to turn that back into the beauty of how it all began. 
Maybe I’m being overly dramatic - and all today I’ve felt the need to lessen the importance of all this. They are just songs, and singers of songs. But I can’t play the songs today. I can’t listen to the music yet and hear a voice that meant so much, that won’t sound ever again. Tomorrow I’ll try, I’ll dig out a selection of records and link them one by one as a screaming tribute. But for now, today, there's silence.