Ruraidh (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} harmonyrocket) wrote,@ 2008-03-10 22:48:00 |
|
Mutually Assured Destruction...
"There will be a time to murder and create" -TS Eliot
It takes me a long time to write in this fucker at the best of times. For weeks I'd been feeling deeply unpleasant, so angry and frustrated that I wanted to kick something or simply give up. I'm not used to that kind of anger and fatalism. There seemed to be no way of releasing it. Guilty of overthinking. Own worst enemy.
So I went to London for a weekend and felt even worse. Then I felt better.
It's nice to be reminded that I still have a heart; that's the strange positive of having felt like a disaster area. What happens next remains to be seen (I'm oddly optimistic), but I suppose the inevitable mass murder will have to wait awhile.
Trouble is, it takes so long to write anything meaningful that I'm not really prepared to waste a few weeks' non-thoughts and bitterness, so here are some from recent times - edited with due respect to public decency. Embarrassing paragraphs diluted somewhat. The sound of sharpening knives removed from the mix.
(Also, whoever gave Glen Hansard that Oscar had malice in their hearts. This slight will not be forgotten.)
***
February/bedtime/every time is bedtime/dealt the death blow... yet again.
"This is a bitter and cruel defeat" -Hunter S. Thompson
Time for some late-night sabre rattling.
Someone once wrote of Mercury Rev that they sounded like the best of Walt Disney's theme tunes played through a vacuum cleaner.
I can relate to that. There are times, particularly going to sleep, when it feels like 100 TVs in the same room, all tuned to different stations and turned up full. Ever get that?
You get soppy romance drowned out by ultraviolence clashing with a grainy noir and it's all a mess.
***
How people seem to be growing up. On Saturday afternoon I spoke to an old friend; long time since we've spoken and the first thing mentioned was that she now has a two year-old kid. Later, I was party to a conversation about how another dear friend is considering starting a family. And just as that concluded a text message arrived to announce a third friend's engagement.
It's funny how those happy events can come across so sadly. My hair is going grey. I'm counting down the days before I voluntarily have a conversation about pensions.
All this business worries me, and it's very hard to explain without sounding like wishing unhappiness upon loved ones. It all seems like a headlong scramble to become 35, po-faced and unable to live and feel.
***
A few weeks ago, British Sea Power became the first band to enter the top ten album charts with a song referring to the Pope's fight for the Nazi cause. (I feel comfortable casting an assumption here - correct me if I'm wrong).
Come on, Allons-y let's go,
You can always just say no.
To the anti-aircraft crew,
The boys from the Hitler Youth.
Silk and cyanide,
Six weeks left alive.
Metal, skull and bone,
You think you know but you don't.
Lord, if this isn't the year of the Sea Power then surely there is no hope. There they were on Later with Jools Holland last Friday night, using every trick in the book to make people think and smile. They remind me of early, alcoholic Blur: why play songs standing still when you can play them falling off a balcony?
And while you're at it, why not invite the London Bulgarian Choir along for the ride?
Their Dublin show last month was a masterclass in bedlam, laughing in the face of such modernities as venue insurance, liability, security and common sense. An enormous-sounding band playing loudly in a dingy hole of a pub and making every note and every motion count.
***
L. Ron Hubbard had a Mellotron.
***
I think I would be a better journalist if I was not so pathologically afraid of hassling people on the telephone, if I didn't hate others so dejectedly and if I didn't keep an enemies list.
George Orwell was way better than me. Way better.
But I suppose he was better than most people, and certainly would not have struggled if asked to write two paltry news articles for a deadline off in the distant future. No. He would have adjusted his braces and hacked up some phlegm and just got on with it, really. And he wouldn't have made a hash of it, oh no.
My first copy of the Journalist arrived today, the NUJ magazine. This does not mean that I am a journalist, though the postman was convinced by my press pass the other day and in his eyes I am nothing if not a professional.
It's hard to be a professional when you hear some of the stories circulating our class regarding the very depths one is directed to sink to in pursuit of The Story. Ringing complete strangers and asking them if they are family-wreckers, for example.
There has to be some middle ground between monk and parasite. How to find it, though. How?
***
Why on earth didn't someone just sit down with me and say:
"Listen. We've been friends for a while now and I'm going to give you a leg up. I know you've got Low and it means a lot to you. And I also remember you watching yer man do 'Life on Mars' on the BBC at Glastonbury in 2000. And Dad used to play 'Let's Dance' every now and then. And you liked all of that, but you could have so much more.
"You really need to try Station to Station or "Heroes" soon. They're made for you. They have that creepy East German vibe you love. "The European canon is here". What the fuck does that mean? You'll ask that repeatedly. There's this track, 'V2 Schneider'... it will forever change how you view the bass guitar. 'TVC-15': If every song sounded like that then there'd be nothing to complain about.
"When you're crying out for more, say a week later or so, treat yourself to some of the old glam albums... It won't really matter which one first. Hunky Dory, probably. By now you'll be so far sold on the Berlin years that you'll accept anything. In time, you will want to dye your hair red and pretend you're from outer space. And if your friends love you, they will encourage you.
"Every single musical experience of your life has been stalked by David Bowie, and now it's time."
***
So there. Now that was a lot less painless than I thought it would be...
Oftentimes I close by writing quasi-funny news reports. Here's one that was actually published on a mainstream news website recently. Can I just ask: did someone get paid to write this? The dignity of labour...
Simpson struggles to pay valet
25/02/2008 - 11:15:57
Jessica Simpson was left red-faced after struggling to find enough money to pay a parking valet in Hollywood.
The star was dining with friends, including celebrity hair stylist Ken Paves, in posh eaterie Katsuya on Thursday when she was caught short of cash.
After getting into a waiting car, a grinning Simpson searched in her handbag for over two minutes, before eventually finding a pile of notes and handing them to Paves, who was driving the vehicle.
Paves handed over the money to the waiting valet, who was eventually rewarded with the crumpled wad of cash.
***
Saying doesn't make it so. Over and out.
"There will be a time to murder and create" -TS Eliot
It takes me a long time to write in this fucker at the best of times. For weeks I'd been feeling deeply unpleasant, so angry and frustrated that I wanted to kick something or simply give up. I'm not used to that kind of anger and fatalism. There seemed to be no way of releasing it. Guilty of overthinking. Own worst enemy.
So I went to London for a weekend and felt even worse. Then I felt better.
It's nice to be reminded that I still have a heart; that's the strange positive of having felt like a disaster area. What happens next remains to be seen (I'm oddly optimistic), but I suppose the inevitable mass murder will have to wait awhile.
Trouble is, it takes so long to write anything meaningful that I'm not really prepared to waste a few weeks' non-thoughts and bitterness, so here are some from recent times - edited with due respect to public decency. Embarrassing paragraphs diluted somewhat. The sound of sharpening knives removed from the mix.
(Also, whoever gave Glen Hansard that Oscar had malice in their hearts. This slight will not be forgotten.)
***
February/bedtime/every time is bedtime/dealt the death blow... yet again.
"This is a bitter and cruel defeat" -Hunter S. Thompson
Time for some late-night sabre rattling.
Someone once wrote of Mercury Rev that they sounded like the best of Walt Disney's theme tunes played through a vacuum cleaner.
I can relate to that. There are times, particularly going to sleep, when it feels like 100 TVs in the same room, all tuned to different stations and turned up full. Ever get that?
You get soppy romance drowned out by ultraviolence clashing with a grainy noir and it's all a mess.
***
How people seem to be growing up. On Saturday afternoon I spoke to an old friend; long time since we've spoken and the first thing mentioned was that she now has a two year-old kid. Later, I was party to a conversation about how another dear friend is considering starting a family. And just as that concluded a text message arrived to announce a third friend's engagement.
It's funny how those happy events can come across so sadly. My hair is going grey. I'm counting down the days before I voluntarily have a conversation about pensions.
All this business worries me, and it's very hard to explain without sounding like wishing unhappiness upon loved ones. It all seems like a headlong scramble to become 35, po-faced and unable to live and feel.
***
A few weeks ago, British Sea Power became the first band to enter the top ten album charts with a song referring to the Pope's fight for the Nazi cause. (I feel comfortable casting an assumption here - correct me if I'm wrong).
Come on, Allons-y let's go,
You can always just say no.
To the anti-aircraft crew,
The boys from the Hitler Youth.
Silk and cyanide,
Six weeks left alive.
Metal, skull and bone,
You think you know but you don't.
Lord, if this isn't the year of the Sea Power then surely there is no hope. There they were on Later with Jools Holland last Friday night, using every trick in the book to make people think and smile. They remind me of early, alcoholic Blur: why play songs standing still when you can play them falling off a balcony?
And while you're at it, why not invite the London Bulgarian Choir along for the ride?
Their Dublin show last month was a masterclass in bedlam, laughing in the face of such modernities as venue insurance, liability, security and common sense. An enormous-sounding band playing loudly in a dingy hole of a pub and making every note and every motion count.
***
L. Ron Hubbard had a Mellotron.
***
I think I would be a better journalist if I was not so pathologically afraid of hassling people on the telephone, if I didn't hate others so dejectedly and if I didn't keep an enemies list.
George Orwell was way better than me. Way better.
But I suppose he was better than most people, and certainly would not have struggled if asked to write two paltry news articles for a deadline off in the distant future. No. He would have adjusted his braces and hacked up some phlegm and just got on with it, really. And he wouldn't have made a hash of it, oh no.
My first copy of the Journalist arrived today, the NUJ magazine. This does not mean that I am a journalist, though the postman was convinced by my press pass the other day and in his eyes I am nothing if not a professional.
It's hard to be a professional when you hear some of the stories circulating our class regarding the very depths one is directed to sink to in pursuit of The Story. Ringing complete strangers and asking them if they are family-wreckers, for example.
There has to be some middle ground between monk and parasite. How to find it, though. How?
***
Why on earth didn't someone just sit down with me and say:
"Listen. We've been friends for a while now and I'm going to give you a leg up. I know you've got Low and it means a lot to you. And I also remember you watching yer man do 'Life on Mars' on the BBC at Glastonbury in 2000. And Dad used to play 'Let's Dance' every now and then. And you liked all of that, but you could have so much more.
"You really need to try Station to Station or "Heroes" soon. They're made for you. They have that creepy East German vibe you love. "The European canon is here". What the fuck does that mean? You'll ask that repeatedly. There's this track, 'V2 Schneider'... it will forever change how you view the bass guitar. 'TVC-15': If every song sounded like that then there'd be nothing to complain about.
"When you're crying out for more, say a week later or so, treat yourself to some of the old glam albums... It won't really matter which one first. Hunky Dory, probably. By now you'll be so far sold on the Berlin years that you'll accept anything. In time, you will want to dye your hair red and pretend you're from outer space. And if your friends love you, they will encourage you.
"Every single musical experience of your life has been stalked by David Bowie, and now it's time."
***
So there. Now that was a lot less painless than I thought it would be...
Oftentimes I close by writing quasi-funny news reports. Here's one that was actually published on a mainstream news website recently. Can I just ask: did someone get paid to write this? The dignity of labour...
Simpson struggles to pay valet
25/02/2008 - 11:15:57
Jessica Simpson was left red-faced after struggling to find enough money to pay a parking valet in Hollywood.
The star was dining with friends, including celebrity hair stylist Ken Paves, in posh eaterie Katsuya on Thursday when she was caught short of cash.
After getting into a waiting car, a grinning Simpson searched in her handbag for over two minutes, before eventually finding a pile of notes and handing them to Paves, who was driving the vehicle.
Paves handed over the money to the waiting valet, who was eventually rewarded with the crumpled wad of cash.
***
Saying doesn't make it so. Over and out.
