Do Houses Breathe?

Do houses breathe and in breathing whisper secrets of their existence? Do houses register their ghosts? The sublime and the ridiculous? People arrive, proudly posing with their keys,their moustaches and dinky cars on the drive, and then children and then noise. The cacophony of life reaching crescendo and then fading as dereliction looms...and the house falls into disrepair, over run by little creatures and weeds. Slowly it falls into a silence which echoes across history. Is that how it happens?

In time nothing remains leaving us wondering if it hasn't been a Derren Brown illusion after all?

And, what has it all been for? Eh? Tell me that Mr J in your new Wimpy home...

Friday the 13th

I am, probably, about the least superstitious person you could meet. I did notice that today was the 13th and it was a Friday and there is another one in June. So what the hell, it's only life, and who knows what can happen? Sometimes, life meanders along, with nothing exciting happening, which is most of the time actually and then something comes at you straight out of the blue, so it becomes lively for a time and then it dies down into yet another anti-climax.

It also struck me that Friday the 13TH might be a great name for a band and there probably is one by that name out there, I don't know. It also struck me that 'Late For The Universe' might also be a great name for a musical gathering of talented performers. 'Late For The Universe', I like that it's kind of catchy, you agree?

Truth About Axasha

Okay, hands up, I do envy Axasha's wonderful knowledge of art. I can't pretend to know half as much as she does, but everytime she posts, for me, it's an education. There, thought I would be self-indulgent, and I mean it Axasha. Just wanted to say Axasha, that your knowledge is appreciated. Hopefully Janaki might take a look at the blog, and might comment, or might even decide to post.

I Want To Hear What You Have To Say

I just think this is a great little track from a great little band. 'I want To Hear What You Have To Say' by The Subways, a three piece UK busk suite.

It's generated with a smashing - furtive - little energetic uber-urch which drags the plaintive and poignant girl/boy voices out to the every edge. Rasping guitars, layered on top of the initial undulating jumbo acoustic give it that sort of pzaz schlock that all great sounds need. The rhythm is insistent and driving, but the clinching feature is that it resonates with the audience, and, in that sense it is TV Smith punky.

It has the dynamic of sweet strawberries, the axe hidden behind the double cream, the bitter-sweet appeal of an angst-ridden beast from a very dark forest, in an soulful kind of way - James Brown meets the Small Faces dubbed by The Clash. It reminds me of those dark heart lost boys days of existing only for the weekend in an idiotic sort of way...oh and, of course, its unpretentious...!

Norman Wisdom on steroids

Sergio,

Being as the blog's just thee and me at the moment, a bit of self indulgence...


Right. You’ll love this track. It’s really, really funny. A great song and a clever and visually quite Lynch-esque video.

Rammstein are East German and, unlike a lot of bands in notoriously juvenile “metal” music, Rammstein are grown-ups.

Ich Will - I Want - talk about a dark, dark, darkly comic comment on the absurdity of the media and our clambering for our 15 minutes of fame?

So, fame, celebrity, dying for your art…? Heh!

My fav’s Richard – the guy who “drops” the bank teller – but as I say, I really like Till too. A big, scary guy and onetime (almost) Olympic swimmer – he reminds me of Norman Wisdom. A humongous Norman Wisdom on steroids to be sure…

The leg brace is real btw, he’d not long been in a terrible car crash on the autobahn along with Richard (and their kids I believe! Till’s a single parent btw. What a man! >sigh<).

Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AapNrXJVjIA

Or, live at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Su-AMyiyw&mode=related&search=
Flame-throwers! Wheee!

Tell me what you think! The quality on YouTube’s muy crappy but I have this cd single if you want to borrow?
What can I say? I’m a sucker for pretty boys and power chords! :D

Can I post your comments on The Shuttered House? They were so good.

Axasha.

The here and now

Been fighting a headache that keeps threatening migraine proportions but ever quite gets there (never quite goes away either, worst luck.). In between feeling sorry for myself, I’ve been mulling over the imagery from “Last Star in the Kosmos” – forests and moonlight. Then there’s The City, which seems to encompass both, “dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight”.

So I was thinking… forests and moonlight, forests and moonlight, forests and moo…and then it struck me.

Of course! Kate Bush. Sensual World.

That wonderfully song, with Kate’s wonderfully fleshy lyrics. That beautiful video, staged like some beautiful naïve fairytale but with it’s bloody pulse banging in our ears. (Always very literary with her lyrics, our Katie even quotes Blake here! “Arrows of Desire” How could I not love it? Yay!)

Sergei, you asked me recently to name someone I thought was stylish and I couldn’t. Well then, Katie. She’s been a heroine of mine since childhood. A genuinely unique person, multi talented (singer, song-writer, musician, director, actor, dancer) and beautiful. I mean I wanted to BE her. I had the hair, the make-up, the crushed velvet (yikes!)…

This song is about sex to be sure (:D), but this song is also of the moment; of being so ALIVE in the here-and-now. Hmmm, yessss.

So for a “sensual” version of the “forest in the moonlight” tableau follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwk-YVNl5Q


And now, the flip side of the coin, may I present Alec Empire.

How to describe him? West German Techno-Punk/DJ? He’s hardcore, also multi talented, a bit of an anarchist (you should like him then Sergei!), very political (left wing) and very angry.

Check out the next YouTube link for Ride – here (for me) is Sergio’s “gargantuan and sprawling” city, with it’s urban decay and existentialist angst.

You have to watch the (very rare) video to get the full impact of Alec’s tirade (he’s so cute when he pouts!) and you HAVE to play it LOUD!

I LOVE this track.
Tell it like it is, Alec! This song keeps me here, in the moment…
[WARNING: Explicit lyrics]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv0zN6oiNdc


Axasha.

The Shuttered House

The Shuttered House by William De Gouve de Nunques is an intriguing painting with eerie overtones, which I like. In many ways it reminds me of Edward Hopper's Gas, where the road running past the petrol staion disappears into the darkness.

In the forefront of the work, the house is lit upstairs, though a slender tree partially obscures the view we have. The house is bright, though the downstairs appears to be in gloom, and the effect is brightened by the fact that the house is painted pink. To the left, however, and in contrast to this bright side, the house is in darkness, save for one solitary light, swamped by the blackness which surrounds it and obscures. We can with the help of this single light just make out the shape of the rest of the house. But it is the blackness which draws the eyes to the heart of this painting. Is the shuttered house at the front the mask we give to the world, while taking attention from the real darkness of our souls?

What I really like about this painting is what appears to be a shower of stars above the roof of the part of the house in darkness. I was trying to work out what this might be, but, to be honest I am not at all sure. It could even be a flock of seagulls???

So, a house, and do houses breath? The silent vigilance of the insomniac ediface, ever watchful, it sees the people come and go, it witnesses all the dramas of those who inhabit its inner sanctum, yet never yields their secrets. And what is the figure in the bottom left hand corner of the painting. TBC, I have to do some more thinking.

The Road To Darker Killingbeck

Asleep, I floated as if on clouds across a land I could only imagine in a dream. Then I was sitting in a huge cinema arena alone watching the movie of my life. Director, writer, cameraman, I was all of these. The story flickered past so quickly, until the old crone approached me in Byers Road, looking menacing, her clay pipe fixed firmly in her slack mouth, her body stooped, the basket of peat clinging precariously to her arched back.

I woke, sunlight running freely across the room and up onto the bed from a gap in the curtain. I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, stretched and yawned. Outside Darker Killingbeck stood waiting patiently for me, as it always had. As it had waited for me for many years. I somehow always knew I always belonged here, yet so many times faceless reptiles wearing human masks told me I was not for this place.

I see, in that instant a million shadows, rapidly disappearing faces, familiar smiles, tears and joy. People I once knew. Friends, acquaintances, lovers. People who knew the things I had done that had made me proud, and the things I had done that had made me feel wonderful, yet guilty at the same time. I wondered, what had happened to them all, how their lives had been, and then I considered all those people who confidently thought they knew me, but really hadn't a clue.

From the kitchen downstairs the smell of food rose, bacon, eggs, sausages sizzling in the pan, the dark woman dancing around her scullery as if she were the centre of an advertisement. Grouped around the table in the dining room, the men who had been playing cards the previous evening when I arrived, sat, their knives and forks poised and at the ready for their scran.
I showered lethargically, dressed and went downstairs, past the print of Dali's Madonna in Particles, taking time to study it for a few seconds before moving on.

The others grunted as I entered, the grey bearded man with the horrible green polo neck nodding.

'Did you sleep well?' I ask grey beard cheerily as I entered. 'I slept like a log I have to tell you.'

He didn't answer, but looked around at his three friends seated at each corner of the breakfast table.

'What do you mean?' he returned to me.
'I just wondered if you had slept well, I found my bed very comfortable, that's why I slept a little late.' I confessed.
'We never sleep' the man said simply as he turned back toward his friends.

Before I could say anything, the woman was gliding into the room with piping hot plates of food.
'Here we are gentlemen' She announced as she swept regally into the room and dropped the plates in front of two grinning older men.

'Where exactly are we?' I said absently. The man in the hideous green polo neck sweater dropped his fork onto his plate with a crashing metallic sound.

There was a pause as the others stared across at me.

'Darker Killingbeck. And you...' The man with the grey beard pointed across at me with his knife in a sinister fashion.

The dark haired woman arrived again with another two plates and the demeanour of the men, which had been menacing, immediately changed.

'Ah scran' Polo neck smiled and licked his lips.

The woman now turned toward me.
'Now then, new arrival what would you like?'
'Scrambled eggs, and coffee.' I said simply. Someone on the opposite table laughed quietly.
'That won't fill ye' Green polo neck scowled, his lips apart, his teeth nicotine stained and black.

I smiled politely, and noticed that after breakfast the men started to play cards again. For a while, while I worked myself through my scrambled eggs and toast, I watched them play, astounded to find that the cards they held in their hands were all blank.

Memories Are All We Ever Really Have

Below is an excerpt form something I wrote -


All we ever have are our memories, all Ronny has are his memories, all Jason has are his memories. Isn't that why ornaments are held in such reverence, photographs are so popular, camcorders and video phones necessary accessories, even the good old CCTV. To remind us, perhaps, that we were once happy. that we were once having a good time. Oh yeah...Oh
yeah
yeah
yeah

Maybe The Last Star In The Kosmos Is A Klever Forgery

A giant, shiny, metallic hare glints in the soft light as he walks toward the graduate. What the, what the, what the, what the, what
the, what the...?

A silhouette against a dark background, a dream from childhood, from the earliest moments of his being, the very moment of his existence - the midwife, the hare, the dark forest at midnight... The midwife dancing with the hare in a copse in the moonlight, the slabbering, yellow-eyed wolf watching from the shadows
.
The hare, his name is Benny-Rae. God knows how he knew, but anything here can happen today. The hare half-turns, waves, and he watches as he approaches. He is standing on the side of a hill, the wind gently blowing on his face.

He can now make out the great hare's aerodynamic head, his beautifully proportioned skull and his sleek frame...dark...dark...malevolent eyes and long carefully designed ears pointing skyward. Skyward pointing ears.

Suddenly Benny-Rae is standing beside him on an architecturally perfect bridge spanning the sprawling metropolis far below them, the existential illusion. The city - Megasurpa St Lagamorph - is gargantuan and sprawling, dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight. He can feel the wind on his face, gently pushing back his dark hair. The rising breeze playing softly on Benny-Rae's ears - twinkling light from the moon and stars dancing along his gently vibrating whiskers.

Together, in unison, they are turning and looking upward. Staring, enchanted, at the mocking cosmos folding around them and above them and wondering what it is that they can see out there, life, the essence of existence, the whirring of the universe as it goes about its business, the wire mesh of a rabbit's - or in this case - giant hare's hutch, a darkened garden beyond them situated at the bottom of a tower block, in the middle of a city?

The music stops after two minutes fifty seven seconds...

Maybe the last star in the kosmos is a forgery after all, a fake brand, a phony designer label, but then who cares?

INTERESTING FACT

In 2004, there were 159,000 professional shushers in the United States of America. That is 159,000 people with a finger placed aginst their lips going shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Just thought you might want to know that's all.

My Life As A Comic Book Superhero

I want to share something with you. I want to tell you something about the story I have been researching and writing based on interviews undertaken with Freegans. I have called it Human Conditions and given that it is nearing completion I want to share the introduction with you all.

As you know I like to think that everything I write is a work of art. So when I work, and especially with regard to factual material I think angle, tone, introduction, redundant words, style and so on. I also like to think carefully about the subject matter and how this can be mixed into the work in a symbolic fashion. When walking with my dogs over some fields about three miles from Kilmarnock a few weeks ago it occurred to me that I could use the idea of the 'global village' and use this image translated, if you like, into an extended metaphor. So, this is how I started Human Conditions -


I live in a bizarre neighbourhood. On the sunny side of the street - if we hang out with the metaphor - some individuals are so mega-rich they can afford to live in castles or multi-room mansions. The USA, alone, produces enough food to feed the world several times over and we can now travel around the globe in hours rather than weeks.

Simultaneously, on the darker side of the hood people still die unnecessarily of easily remedied ailments and/or lack of food. Every night millions go to bed starving, our cities are full of armies of the homeless and the planet we depend on for our continued existence is being poisoned to death.


None of this makes any sense to me. Maybe...I am missing something? If I am, It seems I am not alone.

The trick now is to conclude with a link pointing back to the introduction, and here it is, again from Human Conditions

Everywhere we look, existence is often a pattern of stark and crazy contradictions. On this corner greed ravages and plunders the planet, damages the lives of indiviudals and animals and calls it globalisation. The well-fed puff cigars after a multi-course lunch while their neighbours are starved out of existence. In this weird and distorted district morbid obesity waddles around with tottering famine, ostentatious, self-indulgent overspend sleeps with wretched poverty, mansions with many unused rooms mock those without shelter.

I particularly like that last part of the last sentence, the thought of mansions mocking the homeless. After the above there is a short concluding statement.

On a lighter, and happier note, I am organising a trip to Goat Fell on Arran and some actual climbing, both in May.

Today, I actually managed to run, pain free for the first time in two years, though I did not go far. Since I crashed my bike about two years ago, I have been plagued with injuries, knee, calf, and torn stomach muscles. I have had physiotherapy and have been consulting a surgeon. It has been a long, long time, but it was a joy to actually get out and move freely.

Now, at last, I can resume my football career, right where did I put my favourite Heart of Midlothian top. I will make Kris eat his words! (Rubs hands with glee)

Good guys wear...their shirt tails out.

My goodness but Sergio has been tearing up the ether lately hasn’t he? One stunning post after another - how does he do it? There must be smoke coming out of his keyboard!

I on the other hand haven’t contributed to the blog for a while, mainly because I’ve been frantically preparing for my book launch (Oooh! Get her!) for the past two weeks. [Nothing too fancy – I’m co-editor for a small collection of comedy writing by adult learners – but I’m very proud of the project.]

Well, the launch was tonight (I made my speeches wired to the moon and shaking like a leaf – several people very kindly informing me afterwards that they could see my hands shaking – even from the back! *Embarrassed groan * ) and now, victory brandy/valium shooter consumed ; ) I’m finally calm enough to express my thanks.

Thanks Sergio. You donned your photo-journalist hat, stepped into the breach and did all our PR – organising press coverage, writing an article, taking pictures and even wangling an interview on the radio for me (thanks again for that last one Serge – I think).

It's one in the morning, a little help from my other good friend, Rémy Martin :D and I’m recovered enough from my trauma to state for the record that Sergio’s a thoroughly decent guy.

Axasha.

A Rough History Of A Sort Of Darker Killingbeck Scotland

Like a basketball player, in the process of leaping toward the hoop, being transformed into Bruce Springsteen, or a businessman, the town, as the nation, experiences metamorphosis. Brickwork is used to develop the settlement into a series of delicately aligned, or, indeed, unaligned buildings, which with time decay. New structures built from concrete soon crumble with the repeated passage of the seasons, to be replaced by new forms of reinforced concrete, glass, wood and plastics in all its synthetic forms.

Architecture is a liquid, mallable form which spreads and sprawls into concentric rings designating residential, industrial and utility areas, as well as the subtle and surreal nuances of class. Private developments sit awkwardly with housing estates, parades of shops and new, wider roads, like huge arteries which speed up trafic, but make the life of nervous dogs more difficult.

The industrial hammer falls for the last time, ghosts not carpets haunt the floors of derelict factories, which eventually make way for supermarkets, which in time are bought over by bigger meganationals and left empty. The mass exodus of captains of industry marching proudly through the factory gates becomes a mere memory, the entranceway is locked after their departure. For a time an ill-conceived security guard patrols with a big, but neurotic alsation dog, then he too disappears as the weeds emerge, the windows fall out like rotten teeth. R.I.P Blackwood and Morton Kilmarnock (BMK), Glenfield and Kennedy, Massey Ferguson,The Saxone et al.

Bland, though prettily named, industrial estates spring up on the town's margins, characterless, square and sparse. Units of industry, home for fleeting businesses, who arrive and depart with wreckless haste.

And, just as the physical grows and dies, the abstract too rises and declines.
Generations of people come, leave their mark, big, small or indifferent and just as suddenly disappear, like a hooded graffiti artist spraying his tag onto a wall and vanishing into the darkness of the town's night streets.

The new generations rip up their father's books, just as their father's had their grandfathers. A ceremonial bonfire is constructed for their father's music. Elvis, as a Guy Fawkes effigy, the Beatles kindling for the flames. Later, anguished children of the rippers condemn their parents for burning the Beatles when Oasis, that well known Beatles singalike band become the currency of britpop chic.

Families look on with a collective horror, as their offspring colour their Mohican hairstyles purple and dance, ludicrously, to incomprehensible music, which represents, supposedly, two fingers to the universe. But, the boy with the purple Mohican hair pogo dancing to the Sex Pistols is transformed into a salesman, complete with suit, collar and tie and a company car thank you very much. "Must be off darling, now little Johnny, you be good for mummy, and if daddy does better this month than he did last we might be moving to one of those new Wimpy homes on an anonymous estate in Irvine".

In step with the trends of the nation, Little Johnny's mummy and daddy, former punks, and now respectable middle class aspirees are destined to divorce before their tenth wedding anniversary. Little Johnny, grown-up, will be far more daring than the members of his two hybrid families, his step and half brother and sisters, step-mother and step-father. He will smoke cannabis, and try ecstacy and get into fights more often, and will suffer from that new disease of wanderlust, backpacking his way through life with countless jobs and at thirty, unlike his parents who married in their late teens, he will still be single.

He will be a central belt child of Scotland, brought up on Mel Gibson films and a massive debate about whether or not William Wallace was a resident of Kilmarnock or Elderslie. He will witness the formation of a Scottish parliament at Holyrood, and three successive First Minsiters - Donald Dewar, O Henry McLeish and Jack McConnel -all Labour, between May1999 and November 2001. Scotland's return to a parliament for the first time since 1707 sparked the wheels of a new pride.

Arriving Home Just Before Midnight +

This is a bit freaky really. There are two senses in this, two visions, the I and the you and then they come together. I thought that part was neat. Definitely existentialist, and you can probably tell I have drank too much wine, but I must say I thought it was jolly, jolly good. Too tired to read even Byron tonight.

EL

First Quote of the New Month

I was out last night catching up with an old and good friend. When I returned home, I wrote 'Arriving Home Just After Midnight'. This morning I wrote my column for Spain and then took my dogs out. So, I have been busy. Last night my friend and I became embroiled in some heavy discussion about time, and time passing -too fast - and he is into all that Stephen Hawking stuff. Eventually we got round to art, what it is, who decides and sh1t like that. What I was reminded about, however, was a great quote from further back than even I can remember - honest - by a man called Frank Zappa and it went something like this -

The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground

Groovy we mad hamster saying or whit?

I thought you guys might be interested in these couple of exceprts from a weekly column I write for Spain called UK Confidential. The first one is from a story about a massive credit card fraud affecting 45 million TK Maxx customers.

' In January the corporation admitted there had been a breach of its security, but suggested it was only a minor glitch. So, 45 million people....that's small scale? Now, at last, the size of the fraud has been revealed.

Customers of TK Maxx were advised to go back through their receipts and credit card statements. Fraudsters often target small amounts of purchases, so that these transactions are not easily detected.

You will be happy to know that new legislation making the companies responsible for their customer's card information is on its way.

Well that's a relief... Shut, door stable is bolted has horse the but the...take these words and make up a well known phrase....clue it has a connection with the above....ooh right, let's see, mmmm tricky....'

And this from an item about the new X Factor team...yes, I know...how sad...


A number of names have been suggested to replace Louis Walsh on the judging panel including Tony Blair - yes, I kid you not, but it's more likely to be....Jermaine Jackson? Personally, for all I care, and for all this show will do for the human intellect, peace in our time and global warming, they could have given it to a sheep with mild learning difficulties. Nuf Sed?

(UK Confidential April 1st 2007)