Category: Every Day Life

I’m In Love With Today

I’ll have rage on the rocks with a bitter twisted lemon

Peanuts in a bowl, to kill the hunger in my soul

There. That’s better. First one down the hatch. Now I’m starting to get the feeling that’s it’s not going to be such a bad day after all.

Put something on the jukebox, something tribal, incoherent, no sad songs, or weary ballads.

Won’t you join me in a vodka tsunami?

Let’s put the world to rights. Problems solved in a flash

over liquid lunch and liquid dinner

Let’s bring water to this desert

Let’s bring foliage sweet and green

Because this day is turning out to be a great day

Oh, look, there’s an oasis

Oh no, it’s just a mirage

Of time lost

And people wasted

Or is the other way round?

It’s a lovely day today, don’t you think?

Come on, it’s your round, make it a double, or a pint.

Something to soak up this dried up emptied out hallowed out I’m-spitting-feathers sponge

Nothing left to say

Nothing left to do

But celebrate

Because I don’t know about you…but quite frankly

I’m so in love with today right now.

I can see the bottom of the glass

And I don’t want to see the end of anything

So keep ’em topped up

‘cos it’s a wonderful day

Have I mentioned this? Oh, I have?

My memory’s not too good lately

God know why.

It’s a mystery.

Well, I’ll say it again

I’m in love with today

But I’m going to hate tomorrow.

-Sue Young

Quote Of The Week

For all the cold noses and warm hearts, the snowed in, the breadless, milkless hordes of Britons fighting the Beast, here is my quote of the week.

‘The English never yield, and though driven back and thrown into confusion, they always return to the fight, thirsting for vengeance as long as they have a breath of life.’

-Giovanni Mocenigo, Venetian Ambassodor in France 1588.

P.S We definately need to get the Scottish and Welsh in there as well! I’m not sure we can avenge snow, but we’ll have a damn good try. The Grit King cometh.

The Scarcity Principle and ‘The Greatest Showman’

This month I’m mostly going to the cinema.

I’m not a film buff. It’s not my idea of an ideal night out. I don’t have the attention span. I can’t sit still for two hours. Actually, I can, but that’s the problem, extreme self consciousness will make me sit completely still for two hours and therein lies the problem. It’s physically and emotionally taxing to sit completely still for two hours. Also, to compound things, I never understand the plot (unless it’s fantasy, sci-fi, or rom com).

This month, I’m mostly going the cinema for two reasons, it’s cheap seat night on Monday in January and I’ve had the flu for almost three weeks, since Christmas, three relapses all in all, and there’s nothing like a moderate dose of the flu to make you feel depressed and claustrophobic. I started to feel better one day, had a bit more energy, ran around like an idiot, playing catch up on laundry and chores, returned to my cardio exercises and completely burned myself out. I returned into the welcoming arms of the flu and then, just this week, when I thought I was out of the woods, got a brand new cold on top of it all. Colds are easy though, can handle colds.

All my friends think I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth and I sort of have. By the middle of this bleak cold January, no surprises there(when is January in Britain ever warm and balmy)? I badly needed some fun, but stationary fun, where I could just sit, weakened, through viruses, in a mostly empty, but warm, dark cinema, passively watching, through the mild delirium of a benign and almost friendly cold.

I just had to get out of myself. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a hotbed of contagion by then, but we’re always playing Virus Russian Roulette in the winter. Fortunately, people like to ‘spread out’ seat wise, in cinemas. It’s not like the old days, when I was a kid, when we were packed in like sardines, soft drink cans rolling down the aisles and cigarette smoke fogging the screen and filling our lungs. Hey, perhaps that’s why I’m so weakened in the lung area.

I went to the cinema last week to see ‘The Greatest Showman‘ starring Hugh Jackman but it was sold out! No more seats left. I’m not sure if this has happened to other people but I’ve never experienced it before. Went to a second option, a Plan B, which happened to be The Commuter. An action/thriller/mystery/crime, which is not good for my attention span, and certainly not good for plot line understanding. ‘What just happened?’ I asked when the movie ended (I actually did say that) and ‘Where were all the gnomes?’ (I didn’t say that. Thought it though)

‘The Greatest Showman’ being sold out was a bit like the psychological situation of seeing a tin of soup in a supermarket and there’s only one left but there are several other kinds of another soup and you think, ‘What’s so special about that one?’

Maybe it’s popular because it’s good, tasty, delicious. Not so keen on popular people, but popular soup…now that’s a different matter.

What have I learned? Well, I’ve learned a new appreciation of cinema. It’s quite exciting I suppose, sitting in the dark for two hours. So I sat there with my carton of popcorn and watched the movie. Screen 4, or wherever it was. The Commuter had a decent turnout (probably down to the cheap seats on a Monday in January) but I couldn’t stop thinking about the scarcity principle. What was so good about ‘The Greatest Showman’ that it was sold out? That’s the theatre I needed to be in but as Groucho Marx said, ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.’ I wasn’t accepted as a member of Screen 2, where ‘The Greatest Showman’ was playing.

It must be good.

 

PENPALS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Does anyone remember pen pals? If you’re over forty you may. Pen pals (for those of you under the age of 40) are people who would write to each other, with actual pens, biro or fountain. We had to buy proper bonded writng paper from proper shops in those days because there were no pound shops. We would put a stamp on the envelope, in the top right hand corner, and then we would post it, into a red pillar box, and perhaps, wait two, maybe three weeks for an answer. We didn’t have computers then. I know, unthinkable, but we were in the ancient times.

Pen pals saved me from certain destruction. They helped me to deal with teenage angst. There was nothing quite like waiting for that fat juicy envelope to land on the mat on a Saturday morning. It always seemed to be a Saturday morning when it landed. Thank you God. I think my pen pals probably stopped me from committing suicide or from going crazy. Either way, I think psychologists have a lot to learn from them, not from fat envelopes landing on the mat…but from pen pals.

Between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, I had an amazing pen pal, who I will call Alice, because her name begins with the same letter, and sounds very similar. She was nineteen when I was fourteen, and taught me much. We were both heavily into Barry Manilow. I still think he’s the most underrated singer/songwriter of all time. That will never change for me. People can only ever offer up the titles Copacabana, Mandy,  Could It Magic and Bermuda Triangle, and if they really think they know it all, they add, I Made It Through The Rain, but Barry has written and recorded hundreds of songs. It’s so surprising to me, when people can only ever think of three or four songs when referring to him.

Alice would write regularly and sometimes the content of the letters would border on the erotic. She was as innocent as I. We fantasized, as frustrated teenagers do. We let off steam in our letters. In the end, it probably had nothing to do with Barry. He was just the conduit. She would cover entire outer envelopes, and leave no white bits, with scribblings, like ‘I Wanna Do It With You Barry.’ and other double entendre which related to his song titles. Interestingly enough, now I think of it, he did have a lot of song titles that could be interpreted as double entrendre. To exacerbate the issue, she would write provocative messages to the postman, on the outside of the envelope, like, ‘Whip It Out Postie!’ and other salubrious invitations, which titillated both my fourteen year old self and particularly my forty year old mother, who was also a Barry fan.

But oh, the joy, the joy of her letters. She kept me going when all else failed. She was the buoy in my turbulent sea. It was all innocent fun, in our time of innocence.

I copied her antics and wrote ‘Whip It Out Postie!’ on my envelopes too. She was a bad influence. Of course, it got out among the postmen. ‘Oh, these sad, sexually frustrated teenagers, in love with Barry Manilow, what are we going to do?’ Well, thankfully, they didn’t do anything, except blush.

But, well, the crux of the matter is…pen pals, a dying art? A died art, a dead art? Are pen pals dead?

I had several pen pals after that, over the years, but what I realised was, male pen pals brought their own troubles. Many of them wanted a relationship, they weren’t writing for writing sake, for pen pal sake. Lines were blurred, communications obscured. It was less complicated writing to female pen pals and more fun. I think modern social media has cleared that up. Things are more cut and dried now. There’s no elusiveness, no ambiguity, no doubt as to people’s motivations and there’s certainly no time. You might be waiting for a letter for weeks back in the day. Nowadays, on social media, if people don’t get back to you in twenty four hours, you write them off. They’re history.

There’s no time to think any more, no time to chew the cud. It’s now or never.

I will say though, I have experienced a different ambience on line.  It’s not so much about male and female any more. It’s just about people getting on. I’m probably being naive here, but I’m finding there is less predatory action in some environs, obviously more, in others. It’s all about environment. I have been pleasantly surprised at how males and females can get on in modern social media without gender coming into it. Oh, I think I mean sex.

Still, I think old school Pen pals would make a refreshing change. I might just look up these guys.

Old Fashioned Pen Pal 

The James Dean Of Punk – Kirk Brandon

Tonight, I went to see Kirk Brandon in concert with Sam Sansbury (cello) AKoustik Live 2017 at Thornton Little Theatre. Kirk Brandon was lead singer and songwriter with eighties band Spear Of Destiny and Theatre Of Hate and, later, toured with the super group, Dead Men Walking, a group always in transit, always evolving, and has in the past included Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols and Mike Peters from The Alarm, among others.

I got it in my head the other day, that Kirk Brandon is the James Dean of Punk. That’s just my opinion. I can’t call him the Godfather of Punk because that’s Iggy Pop and I can’t call him the Father of punk, because apparently that’s John Lydon. Some people say Malcom McClaren is the Father of punk, but if they do, they are seriously deluded. Actually, I have no idea who the Father of punk is.

I approached Kirk Brandon after the concert and presented him with the first page of a new blank book, announcing him as the James Dean of Punk and he laughed hard and said “Really?” and I said ‘Seriously.’ He signed his signature under the declaration and then I left without saying goodbye or thank you, or in fact, without saying anything, or even looking at him, which I regret, simply because it was rude.  In comparison, he was very sweet and friendly and open. I find it difficult to talk to strangers, but I can exchange papers with them. Those environments when the singer or band hangs backstage with the fans are stressful, false, uncomfortable and unnatural. I suppose it’s just the nature of the beast.

Kirk Brandon is always up for signing autographs, is not precious in the least and doesn’t mind if people take hundreds of photo’s/videos during the gigs. He is also a very talented singer/songwriter into the bargain and is now, literally in my book, the James Dean Of Punk Rock.

kirk brandon james dean

Wall To Wall Punks

Last Thursday started the long weekend of the Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool.

It was four days of the best and worst of punk rock music and all it entailed, mohican haircuts, rainbow and (these days) pastel hair colours, studs, tartan, bondage trousers, leather jackets, firm hold hairspray (actually, hairspray is a misnomer, soap, sugar and water and lemon curd are the only things that will make that mohican stand up straight and for a decent time. Maybe glue for the more hard core. Regardless, they all contribute to the The Viagra of the Hair World).

I was there myself, for as long as I could hold out, with a smidgen of blue hair, just to observe and take in the ambience, draped with enough chains and studs to weigh me down to the nearest pub or free live event.

I was never one to go around in a ‘pack’ of punks and could never understand why such an movement, geared to individualism and uniqueness, went around in tribal groups, like a bunch of sheep, all dressed the same, in identical leather jackets. I never had a friend who dressed like me, to help breed the hypocrisy of the uniform and the pack mentality. You’re either an individual or you’re not. You either go it alone or you don’t. As a lone punk, you become a paradox and a truth. As a teenage female punk walking down the street, alone, I would get heaps more abuse than say, a gang of gelled up juveniles with blonde mohawks doing the same thing. No friends to back you up you see, to snarl for you, as it were. The lone sheep is always going to be subject to violence and attack, whether they are a punk, or a hippie, or a metal head, or someone who is dressed in polyester jersey and unfashionable flares, or maybe even just a nice cardie.

Nothing changes. Last weekend, I hung out, around the punk festival, but not at the punk festival, with people who think punk is a) what Clint Eastwood would deem a criminal element b) a snotty nosed whipper-snapper, who needs to get some military training ASAP or c) a piece of wood gone rotten at one end.

To explain, I was, for at least one of those days, with mum and dad. Mum looks upon the whole spectacle quaintly and serenely, enjoys the vibrant tresses, ripped fishnets, Doc Martens and dangerous looking wristbands, says punk people make her happy. When dad heard he was going to be around when the event was in progress, he groaned in resignation, ‘Oh no, I’m 73, I’m too old for this. It’ll be wall to wall punks.’ I like that expression, ‘wall to wall punks’. And that’s what he said when I met and embraced him at the train station, in his suit, tie pin and cufflinks. He said to me, ‘It’s wall to wall punks and I think I’m the only person within three hundred yards wearing a tie.’

‘Now that’s punk.’ I said.

I never went around in a group of punks, a ‘group’ meaning more than one, but like the Greta Garbo of the Johnny Rotten world, I felt isolated at times, alienated. As we congregated, in the square by The Cedar Tavern pub, I thought, we may share the same conical stud belt and crazy colour pigments in our hair, but that’s where the similarity ends. I liked to watch them, as one may like to watch herds of multi coloured wildebeest thundering across the Serengeti that is the Winter Gardens. But I’m a wildebeest too, who has been separated from the herd. I thought I might appreciate, admire these music fans and even get some tips for future dressing, I thought I would enjoy the whole thing from a distance. I thought, punk never died, it just got more pastel.

But then, I changed my mind, the weekend happened…four days…and it was like the best holiday ever. I never got near the Winter Gardens and the actual festival, but it didn’t matter. There was another festival, going on, on the outside, and, on the inside of my mind.

It was all a lesson in social communication. I felt like I belonged. I thought, if I can feel authentic once, I can feel authentic again. I know I can be authentic. Next year, I might actually get a ticket, be a bit rebellious.

I would be happy if I could be punk every day, to dress punk every day and to somehow live it, perhaps with like-minded people. Theatre. Punk. Writing. Music. If I could just incorporate these four things into my life, every day of my life, for the rest of my life, I think I would be happy.

I think everyone has three or four things that will make them happy, if they were pumped in, at the right measure, balanced, varied, those three or four things, interests, hobbies, loves, passions. We all have them. I don’t think it’s just one thing any more. I used to think it was. For me, it was writing, but then, I had the punk passion and the acting passion and I realised it’s usually a combination of a few things and that combination is like a flower arrangement.
It’s the flower arrangement in the vase of the window sill of your life. And then, once we’ve sorted out that part of our lives, we might find the space, energy and incentive to actually do what we were meant to do.

Burger Break Between The Blues

I went to the Jazz and Blues Weekend Festival in Blackpool last weekend held at The Winter Gardens. It was a free event, all for charity and jam packed full of very talented singers, songwriters and musicians. I’m not a jazz fan, I’m more into the blues, and never understood why they heap the two together.  I don’t see the connection, they’re not the least bit alike. Still, I can appreciate and enjoy most kinds of music. My husband, who is not into music per se, and has chronic pain issues, sometimes needs to read to distract from that pain. He sat and read a book on inventions and science for the whole time and got some funny looks from po faced ‘serious’ jazz fans. How can you sit and read while these ‘cool’ musicians do a jazz version of ‘Tainted Love?  It just looked odd to them I suppose. If they had the back story, I’m sure they would have understood.

I’d been listening for jazz for maybe two hours, when I realised I was in need of a bit of fresh air from the seriousness of it all. MACDONALDS, a perfect antidote. I just needed a bit of meat to counteract a Sunday morning hangover, which, unusually, this day, went on until 5 p.m. Ordered two no frills burgers, but was scandalised by the size of the dill pickle, which was about the size of a half penny and you have to be old and British to know what a half penny is. It would make you cry if you were a fan of dill pickle and saw the size of it.

So, burger break and then back to the blues festival and then I realised I had to get back home for role playing at seven. You know, like Dungeons and Dragons, but much better than that, as we’ve moved on from the 80’s stuff, honest, well, some of us have. I wanted to stay at the festival, hadn’t realised how good it was going to be and hadn’t realised it was on until 10p.m.

I had just had my senses assailed by the amazing Mickey Van Gelder and Pat Clarke. Pat Clarke. Oh, what that man can’t do with a harmonica! I wanted to stay so bad, harmonicas aside. However, I knew I had to honour my prior commitments. So, we were watching the wonderful  Lauren Dalrymple, and, embarressingly, had to walk out in the middle of her set, which was at the more intimate Baronial Hall on the Sunday evening.  I thought to myself, if role playing is cancelled, I’ll head straight back into town and hopefully, catch the finale!

We went home and discovered that roleplaying had indeed been cancelled. I got changed, headed back into town and managed to catch the awesome blues finale in the Spanish ballroom. Nick Unlimited were like a heavy bluesy Status Quo, with a bit of Manfred Mann and The Kinks thrown in.

There were kids running around, dancing like crazy, a really full on family atmosphere. I preferred that in some ways to the serious Soul Jazz going on in the other hall, with not a sound, a movement, or a muscle twitch going on. Both atmospheres had their attractions though.

A lot of the musicians, the cream of the festivals crop, went on to a local live jazz/blues/rock nightclub for the after show party. This is when you see passions burst forth with some really good performances. What fascinates me most about these kind of musicians, is the way they flit from instrument to instrument when they are jamming. They sashay from lead guitar, to bass, to keyboard, to percussion. It seems a bit slutty, but you can’t deny their versatility. It’s admirable. The musicians never seem to get drunk, or tired, or want to go home. These guys are really into the music, they feel it, love it and live it.

Blackpool Jazz and Blues Festival 2017 proudly raised funds for Trinity Hospice. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sugar Mummy

Last night, I had a dream about Victoria Beckham. She was sitting on a stool at her breakfast bar, in her kitchen. (No idea if she has one of these in real life). She was in her scruff, un-straightened hair, baggy black t-shirt, the lot.  Although she still looked nice. Vicky would look good dragged through a hedge backwards, wearing a bin bag. She wasn’t with David though, which upset me. She was with some bruiser.

Later on, still in my dream, I was in some nightclub thingy and she’s scrubbed up and walked in there with him.  They began to have a tiff and it turned into a mega argument and I was tiptoeing around them.  When people are having an argument in public, we pretend it’s not happening, suddenly, we become deaf, dumb and blind.

So, anyway, I left the nightclub thingy, as unobtrusively as possible, secretly bemoaning the fact that Vicky had split from David and was now with some sexist, gold-digging thug.

And then I woke up.

Space Invasion

Ever wondered why that person sat next to you on that empty bus? Yes, me too. It’s one of my pet hates. I’m pretty sure it’s one of yours. Space invasion. Why do they do it? Are they predators? I would surmise so, in some way. Do they have a need to control you? Yes, unfortunately, I think so.  Are they sad? Yes. Are we being horrible by thinking they’re sad? Perhaps. Do they just want company? Yes. Are they lonely? Yes, no…I don’t know. All these questions are making me loco.

In a recent post, I talked about agoraphobia, briefly, and how I managed to get out on my own after three years of, well…not getting out on my own. I once did a seven year stint, but that’s another story, for another time.

I now go out for approximately two hours, all on my own, on weekend afternoons, to my local town centre…and I’m loving it! After the self imposed prison, there is freedom! And it’s sweet, so sweet.

I’m blessed enough to live less than two minutes walk away from a beach. I love the sea, so it should be easy. I’ve been keeping it up for about two months now, every Saturday, but something happened a couple of Saturday’s ago that almost stopped me getting back in the saddle.

My agoraphobia never felt like a waste, until lately. I’m starting to think, I’m almost fifty and I’ve let it rule me with an iron rod, all these years. I don’t want to carry that particular monkey on my back anymore. I’m sick and tired of it. I’m cheesed off, browned off, fed up.

For me, it’s a hereditary thing, both my parents suffer from it, particularly my dad, but he’d rather die than admit it. I’ve just outed him. Sorry dad. He’ll never read this anyway and I’m not saying anything bad about him and what I’m saying is the truth. Perhaps he never thought it was a problem. When I was sixteen, I knew I had a problem and I got the courage to talk to my dad about it after my mum had gone to bed. It was a nice, relaxed, cosy atmosphere, just us two, late at night, both reading. When I revealed my fears, he told me that I was just trying to make myself seem ‘special’.

After that, I never spoke about it again, until now.  If this is ‘special’, I don’t want it.

I could have done without ‘special’ for my whole life.

Of course, when I met my husband, it all rubbed off on him and contaminated him. He had to deal with the fall out, which was considerable. I realise now that my father had to deal with his own agoraphobia and just couldn’t admit it, to himself, or to anyone else. And he certainly couldn’t admit that I had it too. He probably never will, and that’s okay. If he’s happy with that, then that’s fine. In fact, he has said that he’s very happy with hardly ever going out, but I’m not happy with it anymore. I don’t want to be crippled by it anymore. So, in my eyes, it’s not happening. Agoraphobia? What’s that? It’s not something in my experience. It’s something other people have. If you don’t admit it, it doesn’t exist. Right? Well, it does…but…now it’s a conscious effort. It’s psychological warfare. And I’m kitted out.

I was out at the beach recently, one innocuous Saturday afternoon, writing miscellaneous stuff and enjoying my freedom after several years and perhaps feeling a bit raw and vulnerable, but dealing with it, and there were plenty of empty seats, for miles around, yet, a couple came to sit on my bench.

I thought, okay, it’s a free country. You’ve got the WHOLE beach (with very many empty benches) and yet, you come and sit by me. But it didn’t end there. I was writing at the time, in my little pad, just writing crap, for comfort, and minding my own business and this very weird…don’t mean to be judgemental, but these guys were weird, or at least acting weird…there was an undertone that I didn’t like.  Things like this just don’t happen on a sunny Saturday afternoon here. It was odd. Perverts are quite low on the ground here. Sweeping statement, I know, I can’t say that for sure but the Fylde coast (apart from tourists) has a good amount of retired or semi retired people, or at least people who are healthily interested in their own lives and their dogs. There’s a lot of dog lovers here. It’s a great place to have a dog, but people here are still interested in other people…to a point…perhaps not beyond that point. It’s a bit like Florida. Another sweeping statement.

Well, anyway, this guy was wearing a band type t-shirt, I don’t know, I didn’t pay too much attention, but he was the same age as me, roundabout, perhaps a bit older, and obviously thought himself as a ‘Peter Pan’,  and the blonde woman with him, well, she had sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see her eyes. Ah, cowardly lion territory. That’s not playing the game, man.

After about a minute, of the man grinning, smiling and staring fixedly at me and throwing a few little comments in her direction, alarm bells began to ring. The lady in the couple positioned herself bodily, adjacent to me, and was staring, like I was an animal in a zoo.

Both of them were staring, unashamedly and fixedly, and I thought, what is your problem? Shall I sell you some tickets maybe? I continued writing and I admit, I was a bit impish in the end, because I decided to write, look at them and then write…to make them paranoid, like I was writing about them. Well, it would work for me. Then I thought, you know what, I’m getting a really sleazy vibe from you guys. I should stop trying to be clever. This is back firing. I’m outta here. The goods are not for sale. This stall is closed. Go swing somewhere else.

So I got up and walked on. Years ago, I would have thought, I don’t have the right to walk on, to walk away, or, I don’t have a right to stand my ground, or some such idiotic thinking. My instincts are starting to serve me well. I have at least gained some sense of self preservation after all these years. It felt so good to walk away. (I’m sure they were nice people really. Perhaps, it’s my problem for being so sensitive and paranoid)!

So I walked down the pier, found a very pleasing alternative position and never looked back. I spent a beautiful hour writing by the sea. However, I have become a bit paranoid since then and a bit apprehensive. Being in a more isolated part of the beach is a double edged sword. It may be nice to be alone but it can also make you vulnerable to predators. I have started to snarl at people when they come too close. Elvis lip. Maybe I snarl too much. How awful that I’ve become so defensive. But defensiveness can be the best form of attack.

Before that couple approached me, I remember thinking, how awful that we have become so unapproachable, through fear. I don’t know about you, but I am becoming less tolerable of predators as I get older. I’m relieved that I can call them out quicker, that I’m better at nipping it in the bud. That’s priceless, because they used to walk all over me.

The thing is, whatever happens, remember , there are people and forces who will try to STOP you progressing in your life journey. Isn’t it strange that they turn up at the most inopportune moments, when you are getting somewhere? You will find that they turn up at your most vulnerable moment.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Walk on.