Trying Hard to Wake Up Again

 I ran into Bill Nighy, or at the worst, a very bloody good look alike, even down to the hair and eyes, and mannerisms, on one of my regular local walks as the first main "lock-down" was relaxed. It was a lovely sunny warm Sunday morning. 

I did a "double-take" as I know I'm not 100% reliable on look-alikes, but I was utterly convinced, and still think that it WAS Muriel Gray in the pub in Holmfirth that time..........

I wished him a "Good morning" and he stopped, looked at me, smiled, and said "Hello". 

That was it, and I knew all was ok in the world after all. It just felt a bit seriously shit at the time.

In the mean-time, I am trying to write, and draw, and concentrate on the camera, and my dog.....and well, I'm making a fist of things as usual. Here's my imaginary girlfriend's video from April. Filmed in Kyiv seemingly, must have been before Putin went nuts.


(Aiming for normal service, but bear with.)

Playing W Video

Just Because

It's been a slog working through my poems to be honest, and there's still a good way to go. Thank you to the 3 or 4 people who have been bothered to stick with me on the journey, stay strong my friends, new material will appear when I clear my head of the past.......

In the meantime, here's a random one. February this year, still snow on the tops.... and I'm posting this mid-heatwave......

Under 4 minutes, so waste a few of them with me.

Late edit. I went from reviewing this on YT to watching some of my other crap on there, and got a bit mental.

I thought I was more balanced than perhaps I am, but self-medication isn't really the way forward sometimes is it?

Anyway, here's another with ultra low views, that all 3 or 3 of you might help boost....




Dire Straits are/were such a "Marmite" band, but I grew through the hate, and just appreciate the finesse, and craft. Haters gotta hate after all, as they've nothing else to contribute.

I may well add more, but that's it for now. Oh, damn, I'm back already. I have just realised (from the date the previous video was posted, just after I moved here...) that I have now rented this house for 5, FIVE, V, cinq, pet, funf, cinco, viisi, quinque......years.

Knock me down with a feather.........

This isn't it, but it snowed this year in April......this is last Decemeber, it seemed appropriate though...





Happy July!

Feeling Reflective

Fool.

Feeling reflective and feeling a fool,

The two things go nicely together,

Feeling slightly lonely and used,

I guess.

With her, is a foolish reflection too.

Between Lives, Seeing as.....

Seeing as how that is how it feels.

 

Dreamdancing.

The dream of the dance,

With white tiled toilets the size

Unbelievable, of the Albert Hall,

The deja-vu, your dress,

Your fathers signet ring,

Tuxedo ? How Americaine,

And your split skull smiling mother.

Maybe you'd smile as goddamn f*ing much,

If you rattled as you walked,

Or danced on designer drugged clouds,

With Archangel Valium and the Tremazipan Seraphim.

Dreaming did not dilute the senses,

Idiocy, fallacy, total hypocrisy,

The scent of garlic on your breath and clothes,

The stink of piss in the car park,

And the unmistakable stench of Janus.

In step we walk into St Pancras,

Or is it the dance floor,

Dinner of shellfish and langoustine,

With real champagne,

Real glasses,

Really embarrassing.

The memory of her blasted hypocritic's lecture,

On my lifestyle, your future,

My potential, my wasted three years,

My euphoric smoker bows to her depressants,

And duly the thread snaps.

You and I boarding different trains.

And Mrs Goody Flip-top head,

Waves me goodbye, from impossible,

Bar, cave, station toilets, and platform,

As she believes shes doing

The right thing.

Treaclebrain.

Sometimes the thoughts

Transmitted from uncertain sections of the brain,

Take a disproportionate time

To reach the nerves intended,

As if they're rebounding,

Or being held back,

Then being released, by another force,

Or traveling through either

A damaged track

Or

Treacle.

Sometimes truly lovely,

Sometimes truly, disorienting.

After the event,

Simply a cause for concern,

No drug residue

If no drug intent or present.

A many year hang over ?

Or a subject

For further study ?

 

Extract From A Lucid Dream.

Two lush living hedgerows stand,

Twelve feet apart, or thereabouts,

You and I move with hand in hand,

Though in a dream I have no doubts.

Our daughter, that we haven't had,

Walks between us along the grass,

Though I can't see her eyes aren't sad,

I know they smile like shiny brass.

I pick her up and on my shoulders,

We stroll between these neatest rows,

I loose your hand to help me hold her,

And fail to notice your pace now slows.

Carry on this sunny walking,

In a dreaming that I once had,

You've fallen behind as I'm stalking,

And I know I should feel so sad.

As the years roll by I know you're gone,

Leaving me to walk almost all alone,

But my daughter seems forever young,

What I see next near cuts my bone.

Up ahead you stand and smile,

We catch you up, as if you'd never gone,

We walk once more in double file,

I feel like, and raise my voice in song.

Two intensely living hedgerows green,

Twelve feet apart or thereabouts,

Still today, I don't know what it means,

But even in this dream I had no doubts.

Games With No Rules.

Friend or lover, who's to say ?

Who knows best but you and me ?

I'm pissed off with being free,

Need someone to fight with me.

The place that we came to then

Was hot and dusty and all the buildings were white,

The dogs lay in heated gutters,

The sprinklers sprinkled in the gardens.

My insecurity screwed up my haze,

I got lost in your arguments,

Got sucked in the spiral of laziness,

And made love with words of jealousy.

Held hands as we drove to a river beach,

And I felt like it was all so new,

It was all so old and alive,

We swam with the fools gold of short-time.

The day lasted longer than my brain,

I swam in the dark, insane,

I'm sure the fish must have felt the same,

And the fat French man woke up and went home.

Friends, we sat together,

We opened and closed a chapter in our life,

So short are our times together,

I dreamt about you as his wife.

I'm pissed off with living so far from you,

Want more than this game we're in,

And so I do sod all about it,

Except plant more crowded seeds of regret.

To flourish in the melanchol dusty gardens,

Behind my eyes where I sit back,

And laugh and cry and swim,

And make love to you in my mind's bed.

 

Happy Slippers.


Quickly cutting, the hazed, overhot,
Staggered horridly to the wood-covered door,
Flung open the horrid, wooden, hinged flap,
Into May, late balmy over-calm night,
Fell in brown slippers forward and drew breath.

Hideously contrasted by refreshment,
Drunken not, but inebriated on clear air,
Smooth, too warm perhaps, maybe, could be, humid.
Liquidly, ten-thirty, sweetly, lungs filled,
Compares ridiculously with smokey fire-heated comfort,
Reminds someone of something long ignored.

Happy slippers, heels trodden, into evening grass,
Transport the spirit to the ludicrous dream,
Heralded the storm, or rumoured the summer,
Nights of last, but thirsty, unsure perceptions,
Quickly forgot, to the host tin coffin.
Inexplicably perched, on exposed meadow-like hillside,
Now irrelevant, as desire seeks out tin-womb return.

 

Green. (2)

Not quite stagnated, quite,

Green, but the green of decay,

Scented by mould.

A broken hand-glass,

A shattered illusion,

Splinters of nothingness,

Bloody fur, on scum.

 

False hope.

Stop for your own sake,

Take a quick gap and take

A second to really soak in

All the depths of this scary thing.

Gap analysis.

Take that walk and turn around,

Roundabout love under stars of Wales.

And boarding the ship

We must part, for now.

You seized my eyes

Dragged my voice and dowsed my love,

To the ground of your floor.

Lying berserk and lost,

I felt your face in this darkness,

And tasted your mind.

Anger and repressed longing,

Dreams of free love, tense hang-ups,

And this squalid carry-on.

You held my hand and my tongue,

opening your barriers for insane moments,

Of crazy emotion induced love.

And this dark carpet beneath,

Holds its own counsel, and guards

Against the return of forgotten reservations.

Forget-me-not, astrewn abandoned and out of season,

Blows rag-tag across the 2am wet lane,

And my muscles remember that peculiar night.

Dead Bulb

There are lights coming up the hill,

Far too fast for some odd reason,

To this small town tight lane.

Your lights are too fast, and too bright,

No sense but bags of reason,

Makes me consider the dead bulb

In my emotional tail-light.

I am so trying with the whole night/timed-exposure/stars thing, but it's bloody hard to get it right. You can mess around with the aperture, fine, the shutter-speed, fine, the ISO level, yes, I get that, but actually manually focusing on a distant point, in the dark, when you're long-sighted...is tricky, believe me, it is. Add to that the minus 8 or whatever it was the other night......Sheesh, I'm glad these came out at all......

Life really sucks right now, but hey, my usual caveat applies, so I'll leave that one to you dear reader. What would you do? Keep sodding on...yes, that's all you can do at time, just keep sodding on.

Why does my brain kick off at midnight, and then refuse to stop until it's time to actually wake up and go get ready for the day ahead???? Bugger.

Zombie......

Here's a timed exposure of the snow the other night.......

 

I loved it so much I messed around with it, and some others, and a couple of video clips.......

Addiction fighting, and trying to understand where I'm at......Welcome to the end of 2017. I will raise a glass, and share, and shed a tear to the whole thing.

Happy December. x

Numan

At the tender age of 12 my peers tempted me away from the safe environments I was used to, and into the insane world of train-spotting......

No, really.

Bear with me.


Insecure skinny white spotty geeks unite, before, or as well as going all Dungeons and Dragons, or other far worse forms of self abuse.....

I once had whole photo-albums of diesel engines, stations, etc...... But while I don't now, sort of wish I'd held onto them for posterity.

Anyway, stretching the apron strings is all part of growing up. Away from home, away from your home town, exposed to illicit things, beer, tobacco, hash, speed, mindless vandalism, influential stories from your senior influences, lies, violence, whisky, bitter stories from old men who chose to return to trains in their dotage...... It soon becomes less and less about categorising and collating, and ticking off which engines you've actually seen, and more and more about rebellion and self discovery.

Someone should make a film. Maybe Mr Welsh....

Back on topic. On a red hot summer's day in 1979 at the end of platform 9 of York Station an older fellah had a radio on, while brandishing a camera, notepad, binoculars, and a pack of sandwiches and cigarettes.....on this radio played "You Can Ring My Bell" "Bright Eyes" "Pop Muzik" "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" and so on and so forth.... what a bloody good year to really start to listen to music! (I had already, but really this was pretty influential!)

"Are Friends Electric?" played, about four times, as we waited, and watched the trains come and go, drink coffee, Coke, and cough our way through the mildest cigs going...Silk Cut, Kim, More Menthol......and it stuck with me. I thought it was so utterly different from what I thought I liked.

In the immediate weeks after it inspired me to order a cassette from Woods Music Shop, on Wood Street, in Wakefield, my second chosen album..... My first being in 1976 when I bought "Mud's Greatest Hits" with a Christmas voucher for "Boots" (The Chemist...) (My first single was Monty Python's "I Like Chinese", also from Wood's, probably at the same time, but I was so bloody naive, I didn't even know there were such things as record shops that a 12 year old boy could go into and learn all this stuff.........

To cut a long story short, I bought everything in time that Tubeway Army and Gary Numan put out, until Strange Charm. I have no idea what happened after that, as I got side-tracked, and a bit bored. In hindsight I think I was actually on a tight budget and fell in love with a thousand and one other bands, from all the classic Doors/Joy Division/Bowie/Pink Floyd/Led Zep/Stones/Jam/etc etc onwards.....

Music shops became mecca, and my enthusiasm cost me, and benefitted me too no doubt. But I ended up ignoring my initial idol. I hardly listened to his stuff, except on very rarer occasions, and then the records got scratched, lost, left in someone else's house, or whatever when I moved.....

Thank Goodness for the internet!

The other tracks on YT are the obvious ones, until you start mining down to the nitty gritty.....when you can find all sorts of gubbins......

Got to go and listen to Savage, the new album ASAP...... not enough leaks as yet.....

Music

I'm 99% sure I've posted this before, but which version? I can't be bothered to go and look, as even though it's not an overtly political post, it is the eve of the General Election, and it just seems tiomely, so forgive me.....

Turn it up!

Definitely not of my creation, it's just one of my "Liked Videos" on YouTube, and I've just posted the acoustic version on FB...This is the full blown version though, and is well worth the volume.....

IAMX- "Think of England"

In the grip of a winter came love and greed
Insane with faith, I took the driving front seat
In the lowlight comfort of Berlin streets
The calm from emptiness duetted with my body heat

I was alone at the front line
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire

In the twilight hours of nervous rest
I bought the peace before believing the threats
In a foreign field, I cut all regrets
But the boys in stories just repeat themselves in a fucked up mess

I was alone for the first time
The message I was told was to triumph at
The joy of a lifetime

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire

I just can't think of England
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture
(Ah)
Can't see the picture

(Lyrics by Chris Corner)

Very Random Scream

It's been a while since I posted anything but my own crap, so here's a cracking bit of Johnny Cash to break up the madness.

I did try to reduce the size of the embedded video, by changing height & width in the code, but it just ignored me, so I gave up.....It's up to you whether or not you just listen to it, or watch and listen.....

Shucks, after watching that one three times in a row, I let YT do it's automatic "next track" thing, and of course "Hurt" came up.. Then the tears started, and I thought, I've already "liked" it, on YT, and probably commented before too, so commented again just to be sure...(!) and then thought I'd post it here too...

Don't waste time reading the comments, or you'll just get mad at the idiots who can't listen to something for itself, without getting all tribal, and judgmental about nothing whatsoever, because that's what our commercially centric world is making us.

And this is me being happy..... Sheesh........

Say What You Want About Jacko...

Both of these bring tears to my eyes. I'm sure there are better covers if you look hard enough, but the strength of Michael Jackson's lyric writing shines through. Pity I never really "got" him at the time, well, I did, and it just wasn't speaking to me.

Ignore The Video

Just listen to the song. Simple as that.



Now have to try to find what on earth Jhelisa is doing these days, a voice like that shouldn't be cooped up....

Pedantry....(UK)

Given the amount of chatter on the air-waves and other media with the UK election approaching at a rate of knots....There seem to be more and more opportunities for mangling of the English language.

Time for pedants to get extremely warm around the neck region...

My own current gripes are not so many or varied, but do irk increasingly as time goes on.

vis-à-vis

 (vē′zə-vē′)

prep.

1. Face to face with; opposite to.

2. Compared with.

3. In relation to.

adv.

Face to face.

n. pl. vis-à-vis (-vēz′, -vē′)

1. One that is face to face with or opposite to another.

2. A date or an escort, as at a party.

3. One that has the same functions and characteristics as another; a counterpart.

 

I nearly scream at the radio at times, that what you really meant to say was "Viz". You are hardly ever "comparing" or relating to, but usually...oh no, you're right. It means that too....

 

 
viz. is used to introduce a list or series. It differs from i.e. in that what follows normally expands upon what has already been said, rather than merely restating it in other words; and from e.g. in that completeness or near-completeness is suggested, rather than a small selection of examples. (From "Wiktionary"

Ironic? Didn't meant to be, it's been a long few days....

Or did I?

Visage-a-visage, can hardly lead anywhere else....

I was an instant fan when "Fade to grey" hit the TV in the 1980s, but became even more or during a family holiday to France (& Switzerland, & Italy, & Germany albeit briefly on the last two counts, just to get the stickers to say we'd been...!) when I bought a cassette of theirs, which turned out to be a Euro-ri-off with tracks from various sources stitched together in "homage" to The Anvil..Still, it played well enough on my cheapo imitation Walkman.....

Then Ultravox, then Gary Numan, then Depeche Mode etc etc Oh, and Flock of Seagulls, "I Ran" was my favourite for a few years.... Treat yourself, but turn it up, and imagine your favourite not at all related distant cousin, who's two or three years younger than you, and in thrall to your every (slightly more mature) view on the world....and foxy with it....Who then emigrates to Canada, so you never actually see her again........

 

 

I dallied with Jean Michel Jarre too, but we'll keep that quiet for now I think.....Those home-made speakers of my Uncle Richard's were simply awesome though....Not quite ear-bleeding, but not far off.

Ha.

Life.

 

(Clearly not one of mine, so don't think it is...)(Does that count as adequate copyright dissociation??)

 

 

 

 

 

One More "Learning Curve" Vid....

I can't specifically credit the soundtrack, but it's definitely Aphex Twin, just which track??? 

All I tend to do on random videos, well, any that I want a backing to, is to check out the video length, then try to match it up to a track-length in several different music folders....Sometimes the closest to it wins! Simple, yet effective, just not necessarily to everyone's taste.




Note to self: Update your CV.

Learning Curve(s)

September

Kings Of Leon

Just turn it up and, no that's it. Just turn it up.

September

As I say in the YT preamble, this is one of those songs that I have (hopefully) grown up with. In spite of the potential copyright issue I decided to clamp a load of clips together, of course it didn't take many seeing as how it's only a minute and a half long, and use them as a setting for the experience.

UK Autumn? Bring it on.

Moby Moment. "The Great Escape"

I was going to write a long piece on copyright, on the music industry and the artists' side of the equation, all of which have been on my mind lately for one reason or another, but until I have a tad more inspiration will have to shelve it for now.

I do not like "stealing" music, via torrents, or unregistered Russian websites, or anything, and do not sell anything on if I find myself compromised by doing so, ever, but if my CDs/DVDs are unplayable, or whatever, or my old LPs and cassettes are just too darned difficult to copy (VERY laboriously) on to my PC and hence music player for personal digestion, I think to myself "I already own this, albeit in a different format, so why not?" Then I read an odd licensing thing that you sometimes see when downloading something, and think that I'm fine with that....I know the artist(s) has/have already been part of the process, and hence (hopefully) got paid, so why not?

Enough, I'm not going to write that essay now.




Ironic that YT or Google deleted my previous video, which I've only just noticed when reading back though....... So have tried again.... (Edited 21st July 2018)

Some of the thoughts were sparked off by YouTube deleting a couple of my videos that featured "copyright" music that someone called "Johnny M" had objected to. Hey Johnny, was anyone fooled into thinking I worked with The Eurthymics or Lou Reed because I'd used them as a soundtrack to walking a pack of beagles through some woods?? No? I didn't think so. Was anyone deprived of any money because I used the tracks? No? I didn't think so.

Was anyone for the remotest second lead to believe that any of the artists I'd picked (because the tracks seemed to fit, and because I LIKED them) endorsed any aspect of the videos I'd posted? No, I really don't think so.

Did I claim anything other than "Fair use" of the tracks at any point? NO.

When artists make zillions of shekels out of a track, and it's been played millions of times "in public" then some of the reasoning for Johnny M to complain about my homemade "Entertainment" videos seems a little bit picky to me. Sorry, but I'm a bit cross.

Hidden messages?

Keep them.

YouTube would die if every single "Copyright" video was deleted, and that's a simple inarguable fact.

Oh, and I was going to go off on one about "The Emperor's New Clothes" and the Daft Punk album, but then that got me thinking about previous "Emperor's New Clothes" albums, like everything by Moby and, in a circular way that made me go look for the one track that always hit me the most. This is a live version of it, but the studio version is sublime.


Got to get a grip.

Dire

After all therse years, I can't help but hear Paul Sutherland's view on Dire Straits. They were associated with the "M&S types".

Still, can't take anything away from much that they've done. My own personal hate is their most successful "Money For Nothing" which to this day I loath with a passion. While it admittedly was technically superb and all that, it was like they'd suddenly turned into a parody version of themselves. This is a reminder of their better tracks, as they had many many....

The Cure

What more can one say?

I have pictures from forever, and a lot of recent, and not-so, that I wanted to post. Some will find their way here, and some won't.

If you're not able to listen properly to music you haven't heard before, then play this twice, or three times, and empty your mind and just let the words flow through you....... I'm not saying you'll suddenly become a Cure fan, you weren't were you? But g'wan, try.

More posts coming, when I get my head back to this planet....

Baked.

Stormy

I have been a whole month since posting anything, which is fine, as real life has been too full to find the time. Still, there are still an awful lot of pictures and stuff to come, whether you want them or not......

Again I delete many paragraphs before posting. Keep it simple..and inoffensive.

 Mwah!