Monday, May 30, 2005

Shopping Alternatives

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Alternative shopping

The fact that you and I realise that shopping sucks matters not a toss, for many others it has become the most important human activity in the Western World. A new and vibrant religion full of rich experiences, triumphs, tragedies, exercises of faith and the heavenly reward of purchasing those perfect items and taking them home. No other worldly pursuit should get in the way of an enlightening shopping trip and the magic feelings of belonging, and wellbeing it produces. The small matters of greed, exploitation, tasteless consumerism and debt are of course of little significance. To think too long and hard on these dour matters is a sin in itself.

So bored as I am with my pathetic attempts to shop every few days in the paved and tarmac wonderland that is the local retail park, I have come up with a viable alternative to the regular mundane and dull shopping experience. The first big change is that you park your car in a bay that relates to the amount of money you wish to spend. £5, £10, £20, £50, £100 and so on. The bays are all signed in blocks with the appropriate amounts on display. This denotes how much cash you must spend, or get close to. You park up, grab a cart or basket and as your mood dictates in a random and carefree manner collect anything and everything from the shelves. There is no stress or concern about finding the correct item, just collect what you will as long as it adds up to the amount on the parking bay. This process alone will revive the lost art of mental arithmetic and increase the nation’s IQ by a few %.

Take your stuff to the checkout and pay for it, happily chat to the checkout person and hump all the shopping into bags or whatever. Return to your car with your stuff and await the arrival of the next person from the store*, in your parking area and (wait for it) swap shopping. If all has gone well they will have spent the same amount as you so you’ve lost no money, (you may lose or gain a little over time but that’s part of the fun).

Thank them kindly for their efforts and put the swapped shopping into your car and drive home feeling smug and perhaps a little uneasy. When you get home you can unpack at your leisure and enjoy the shock, awe and surprise of seeing the fantastic items you now own. You can wonder at and admire them and then by thinking creatively merge them into your needs for the day. The possibilities are endless as are the subsequent likely arguments, recriminations, laughs and discussions you and your partner will have. Then think of all the surprise meals, food and drink combinations, CDs and books, clothing, washing and sanitary products you now have. Instead of being in a domestic rut you will have a new line of groceries and products to share and admire, all of which you may enjoy as will the other lucky shopper who took your choices home.

So no need for lists, concentration, the pain of omitting things, buying the wrong size pack, forgetting what you were in the shop for in the first place etc. Shopping has now become an exercise of pure faith and you can be there, living slap bang back on the edge – a new religion is born and a super new way of life for you.

*This could be tough if it’s raining but then rain is not so bad and we’re all a bit over preoccupied with the weather anyway.

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Thinking time

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Thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking.

Today I saw a yacht that was stuck on a sandbank out on the Forth. Stranded and peculiar it looked as it argued with the elements for the restoration of a floating equilibrium. A RIB full of good advice circled the stricken vessel unable to help whilst the crew presumably cracked open a few beers and watched the weather develop.

Houses and homes, moving, coming going. Mentally boxing and unboxing our possessions and imagining what effort it would take to reposition them in a new location. Fun really. Perhaps it's bad for all those creative juices to remain in the same place too long.

Mrs CBQ makes a mean, colourful, nourishing and tasty (and not at all crippling) curry. I realise once again that if you actually cook with proper ingredients and don’t just go for quick fix meals from Tesco your digestive system really does appreciate the difference. Makes me wonder what does go into those Eastern buffets and that Indian Cuisine within the “all you can scoff for £7.99” range. Ali and I are glowing with health today.

Grandchildren, small and wriggly like incredible electric eels sprung from an unfamiliar universe, so frantic and full of life, struggling to crawl and roll over, struggling with spoons and bottles, grunting and giggling towards a full vocabulary - but effortlessly burping, spitting out food and filling their nappies. My two grandsons are the best and it’s always a special day when they visit.

Up a stage: Football for ten-year olds, kick and run and watch as the passing game slowly develops. Still there are those selfish but talented heroes who know best and ignore the shouts and just play on and somehow score all the goals. Teams are great and teams work and produce results, but those individual flashes and charges make for the best spectacle and vivid memories. Whatever, Joseph put in a nice assist today that resulted in a good goal and I was proud of him.

Reading the paper, the Scotland on Sunday, wondering who really reads the editorials, what draws you in and keeps you there and by the end have they won you over? Often I don’t have a strong opinion on the subject, I want to but it just fails to engage me as I stop short of feeling anything. The French ready to vote, TV soaps in some plot climax, Big Brother again, Franz Ferdinand to write Dylanesque ballads, dreary old Jack M in Malawi upsetting charities, the Kirk stuttering and the problems of Scottish Conservatism. I’ll read it anyway.

Malawi and all the charity bandwagon jumping that is going on worries me. Wee Jack so out of his depth, promising pennies in a bucket as if he could right the twin wrongs of 100 years of British colonialism and corrupt African politics. Poor misguided loser, Scotland needs his attention a lot more than he thinks. So by all means write off the debt, sort the trade, ship in the aid and change may come in Africa, but Wee Jack needs to get a grip of his own lap-dog job (if he has one).

Friday, May 27, 2005

Back to normal life again

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www.angelfire.com/music2/wordswaitingformusic/blog/

Spent a few minutes trying to grab a warm radiator pipe with my toes. Concentrated on each toe in turn, trying to grasp the pipe. Not easy, toes appear stubborn and disconnected. Towel falls down many times.

Reading more about Schrödinger’s cat and all that physics stuff again, revisiting reference points in a lazy but anxious way.

Played three songs at OOTB last night, some with 25-year gaps between - which is odd. You couldn’t easily pick the oldest song if you didn’t know.

Still not happy about Episode 3 of Star Wars. Anakin’s descent is too quick, too sanitised. I wonder what real despot’s descents appear like. Obi-Wan doesn’t work for me either and R2D2 is far too articulated, gadgety and “funny”, but I like the fact that it’s all over, we have a closure and I’d watch it again.

In an industrial accident at a local shipyard oversprays 150 cars. Cost to put right £80,000 – goof of the month or what? (My car included!)

Got three CDs – two wont play, what are the chances of that?

Bought some salad tonight in a bid to eat a healthy meal. Truly bad experience. Is super market salad all yesterdays’ crap repacked and sold on? I bloody think so. Yuk, I won’t make that mistake again.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival – 20th August to 26th. Out of the Bedroom have booked a venue, Friend’s of the Earth’s Lamb’s House (dating back to the 1600s) in Leith. Expect a mix of local singer/songwriters, bands and musicians, as well as an open mike that we hope will attract all sorts of original music. (Lot of apostrophes in that paragraph).

South Queensferry Arts Festival. Starting around 9th September. Expect Norman Lamont, Tom Mackay and Impossible Songs all to be featured – we have a little project in mind.

I think it is good to dislike and distrust monkeys.

Stopped by the traffic police in Edinburgh at 00:45 the other night, driving back from ED Rush at the Roxy, reason I was stopped? “Driving towards Fife!” said the officer. Hmmmm…

My daughter would like a cuddly R2D2 (ignore my comments above), can’t find such a thing on E-Bay, any ideas?

If anybody has bought anything from www.alpha-electronics.org/vaio.html I’d like to hear how you got on. This site is the subject of much discussion and speculation in my office.

Worried about tonight’s broadcast on http://www.extremeindieradio.com/ . We should be featured but the last time I checked the site had been closed down. (I checked a few mins ago - looking better).

Monday, May 23, 2005

Judas

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www.angelfire.com/music2/wordswaitingformusic/blog/

Judas

We all tend to think we know better than the next man and how, given a certain mix of circumstances we would behave. Generally we credit ourselves with trying to do the right thing and think we would under most circumstances, or is that all rather a wishful and naive piece of thinking?

Judas thoughts were bubbles full of nothing when he took his last long walk out of town. He had stepped over a number of lines and now stared into the bleak vacuum of unconscious purpose. Now there was no courage in him left to look back with and only the minimalistic stream courage required to go forward blindly. He had few friends to begin with and now there are none to accompany him on this dry, lonely walk. He does not know about me though, I am looking at him now; I am the last friend of Judas.

I don’t understand what he was doing, I wasn’t there, I was busy, busy somewhere else in space, but it’s all a bit vague to me, this continual stream of existence I experience. Gets a bit patchy in places. At times I’m looking down on everything and it all seems crystal clear, then it just hazes over for no reason and my senses grow dull.

Inside his head things were spinning around, for Judas a spiral dive was underway. First it was the words, then the actions, then the focused accusations, then the silence of his loneliness. He could smell himself, the animal fear he exuded, the anxious cloud of sweat and nerves, the uncontrollable quivering before the kill, he was a shell of a man. He thought of the destiny he now had, the choices, how sure he had been at the time and yet how little he had thought anything through. And now alone he could only reflect on his exhausted role as God’s little glove puppet in this amateur theatre.

Some said the Devil had got to him, some said a dark angel or the angel of death, some said that he was bad before and he’d returned to the form he knew best. The eager fountain of original sin springs up from all hearts at some time or other. Judas knew what had happened, his scripted part in history was set up for him and he had simply moved himself into position and allowed wave after wave of events and actions to wash over him. His predestined path was carved long before now and even if he had fallen or turned and ran, some substitute would understudy his starry eyed role and deliver all the lines just as well. He may even have been the substitute, how could he ever know?

His fuse was lit the day he was born and burned and fizzed across the desert paths, over hillsides carpeted by exaggerated multitudes, at the tired camp fires and with those tedious fisherman and pimps whom he hated so. Now it had burned down, exploded and exhausted his life had no further purpose or meaning as that mass movement of destruction had begun. They want to change the world. They are determined and blind.

Judas liked the feel of money, he liked where it got him, he liked the women and the wine, the feasting and travelling, using it, but not giving it to the ignorant to waste or just handover to another taxman. A bag of silver was not a bad days work, or so it had seemed at the time. It had been a complex series of events that had led to this but through it all he had felt that heavy finger on his back. Prodding him along in the maze of moments and opportunities that flashed by until the time was right and the money was in his hand.

He looked at it again, money, metal lumps, rough cut and so hard but sensual to touch and stroke. The perfect prize for every bounty hunter, money dripping from sweaty hand to dry hand and gathered together in a leather pouch.

While the trial of Jesus took place Judas went out and got himself nicely drunk. He drank quickly and quietly and allowed the wine to seek out and suppress the feelings that were tearing at his insides. He drank and splattered, he spoke to strangers, he gambled a little, and he spoke to himself and tried to marshal an encyclopaedia of loose thought. First he laughed at himself and then as the emotional spectrum turned he wept, primarily for himself and Jesus and with a sudden sense of future foreboding for his family whom he had left far behind. Finally he sobbed and wept for nothing, for no good reason, it seemed only like a tearful celebration of his short life and a measure of where he now stood on the celestial countdown of his cursed path. God had predestined this and who was he now to shrink back from the inevitable consequences? The thundercloud was slowly appearing over the horizon, rolling and gaining speed whilst in another part of the city a centurion buckled his belt and prepared for his duties.

What was this Potter’s field place anyway? An incoherent, ranting Judas buys it with the last of his money, sprawled on the floor in a winery. All done for no reason other than to comply with a red set of messages running across his brain like stampeding buffalo. A bargain is struck and the seller returns to his proper business, fed up with arguing and cursing beside a punchy drunk. Then they said that the entire city is talking about Jesus, how could that be true? People are far more concerned with their own survival, health and profits; another dead donkey on the highway is of no consequence. The hysterical mob that would whoop and scream at a mouse dangled on a thread before them represent little of actual real opinion. Real opinions are never properly expressed and can only ever be a figment of the historian’s imagination.

But for Judas all his thoughts are pressing down now, becoming firm as the blurred vision clears. There is no win strategy here, there is no recovery position, and this has to be the end. His concept of himself has clouded to allow him to become some wraith like creature; no face, no feeling, no guilt and no memory of himself, but the whole of the universe will remember the monster he must be painted as. He looks down at the belt of his tunic and allows himself the smile of a man who suddenly has a personal peace about his strange and unique place in the swamp of mis-recorded history. What more can anybody do?

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The Silver Ring

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This lyric was inspired by a news story that told of how the US Government is being sued for using taxpayer’s money to fund a programme of sexual abstinence for teenagers. The programme is backed by various Christian fundamentalist groups and is known as the “Silver Ring Thing”. In exchange for $15 the participants receive an inscribed silver ring and are encouraged to sign a contract “before God” vowing to remain virgins until marriage. Hmmm…

The Silver Ring.

You’re all so young and impressionable,
A blank canvases needs some bright colour
A price you’ll pay for our manipulation
As we condemn you to some real frustration.

Wear your ring, it shows that you care,
All about the right things and life’s quality out there
Just don’t get ideas above your rank and station
You can’t be trusted in this situation.


The boys are cute and the girls are hot
Don’t let the big world make you something you’re not
We map your life; you can’t just do what you please
We need to keep you safe and free from disease.

Wear your ring, it shows that you care,
About salvation and you’ll never despair
Just don’t ask questions and don’t enter debate
These are the end times and it’s getting late.


Wear your ring; wear your ring with pride,
And cover up the things you feel inside.
Wear your ring; wear your ring with pride,
And cover up the things you feel inside.


Don’t say his name, forget that she exists,
There’s prayer and guidance by the telephone list,
She may be foxy and he may be strong,
But you must wait till true love comes along.

You’re all so young and impressionable,
A blank canvases needs some bright colour
The price you’ll pay for divine intervention
You’re set apart for some fine frustration.

Wear your ring; wear your ring with pride,
And cover up the things you feel inside.
Wear your ring; wear your ring with pride,
And cover up the things you feel inside.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Magdalene

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www.angelfire.com/music2/wordswaitingformusic/blog/

Magdalene.

When you start your career as a prostitute what expectations do you have? Notoriety, an unsteady income, losing your looks, some one to say they will look after you and then take your money, times of disease and addiction coupled with physical and mental abuse? What kind of world did you really want to live in and how and when did things go so badly wrong for you? A prostitute may be reviled and despised by most respectable people but yet fulfils a vital function and always whatever you think probably always will. It has been said that having sex with a prostitute is like holding a cats front paws and dancing with it. It just doesn’t look right and the cat isn’t enjoying it no matter how much you kid yourself it is. Mary, where did you go wrong, what did he say to you and why has your voice not been heard properly? There is a place for everybody in the cruel world that we have now built and not quite given back to God.

Mary, do you perhaps hope that some day the Son of God will pick you up, save you at some street corner and have a conversation with you, take you by the hand, maybe in the market place or into some friendly household?

All kinds of abuse happened in Biblical times, most is not noted or catalogued and as there is nothing new under the sun: you can be sure it was all as horrible and insidious as it is today. Abuse breeds abuse, lack of self-esteem and shame rot the inner person and peel away the personality until a sad ghost is all that’s left and a need to kick back. Sexual abuse is just plain awful. Mary was abused, Mary had seen and done it all, been to the brink and back and was numb again. When she first saw Jesus she saw just another John, a client. A power broker working amongst the destitute of the city, he would use her, toss some coins her way and then move on to his next engagement or visit, that was the pattern. It had happened many times with priests, centurions and the raggle taggle travellers and traders that passed through the city. So who touched who first? Who said the first words? Where did the pulsing charge first slip from that then exploded their relationship and forged this misunderstood team? As the stones dropped from their clenched fists she followed him to another destruction.

Mary never really loved until now, Jesus loved too easily. A pile of guilt met a mountain of desperation and a black hole of need enveloped them. Crazy people do normal things sometimes and then want to do them some more and in front of a big crowd.

Mary is unhappy; she sits beside him at supper dipping bread in cheap wine and handling cups and baskets of bread. She is restless, she finds it hard to concentrate, she finds it hard to think. She wants to leap over that huge wall of panic and fear that stands between her and all her tomorrows. She wants to give herself to him and feel his body envelope her. She sulks thinking of how she knows only his touch in all the wrong places and his forlorn and puzzled, glazed look of rejection. She wants words, words for her, addressed to her, his attention on her, not shared with these disciple dolts that don’t know how to conduct themselves around a meal table. They bicker and squabble and get in the way with their petty intrigues and debates about ways and means and methods. He just tells them stories and throws more challenges and conflicts at them and they bite every time. But she just wants him now, to herself, his voice, and his choice, to be with her. Let the edges of the room and the world melt away.

Tonight she will sleep alone in some cold corner and in the morning the great and good will resume their dutiful spitting, pointing and scoffing.

For now she can lean into his whisper, try to make a joke, try to hold his gaze for a few seconds before he sweeps it away, that will almost do. Try to touch that electricity that she knows he senses but pulls away to defiantly deny. Being the only woman in a room of men she sits cross legged under scrutiny and feels the other’s disapproval and unsaid questions as her single presence lowers the tone for them. They cannot be free while she hovers in the company of the doves and hawks that circle still. At any time a mob of the intelligentsia, enlightened and fervent scroll readers may return to cast the only stones they know to silence these heretics.

Mary stands out in the rain. She looks up into the clouds that pour on the soil and transform it to running black mud. There is no ray or shaft of light to split this weeping sky as the thunderstorms spill across the land.

The rain stops, days pass, graves roll themselves open and crack their bones to make the prophets sit up and look, dead men may walk someday as Mary guards more wishful thoughts. Gardeners turn their backs like strangers and mourners pull away from faces cracked by guilt and grief. Jews and Gypsies argue about blame and restitution and then allow the wine to help them forget. Romans have better things to do and march and govern and exploit with a benign tyranny that poisons men but writes down their history.

Mary walks by a river, he is dead and those disciples are scattered, life is worse than ever and she knows in her heart she will return to her old ways. Trees hang over the water and shade her from the day’s heat, though no sweet tree or timber scaffold can shelter her now from the bigger hot pain of spending eternity so vaguely documented and misunderstood. She clutches her shawl tight to her breast and throws an end of it over her shoulder and then holding herself tightly scuttles away back towards the city and into a mess of obscurity that will be pondered over, written of and tantalisingly fantasised about in fiction as long as Bibles are black. Too few images will now sum up too complex a life for any real belief to ever follow.

There is no seed and bloodline; there is no leadership team and great male/female mission, no frustrated passion and final mystic consummation. No long trek to the Himalayas or the dry Sierra Nevada of Spain. No boats ashore in the Mediterranean, stumbling onto the rocks looking for refuge and shelter. They will not criss cross Europe in secret and shine bright from within, fuelled by their hidden knowledge; nothing will be founded by them. Only more of a myth and fairytale that catches fire and burns like a candle held below a map, destroying the route and instructions even as it lights them. The end when it finally comes is very ordinary and lacklustre and frustrates historians, theologians and pilgrims alike. The footsteps cannot be followed, as they were never dug deep enough to leave a mark of any kind, even on the softest of sand.

The trajectory of a calculated stone thrown at a distance, curved skyward and falling in a hit or miss, random course that bright eagle eyes could somehow mistake. The rocks that crush a sinner, that pulverise the adulteress, their weight and bulk and frenzied anger are a far more blunt but effective instrument. The crowd calls any name it likes, congratulates itself and feels safe now that the wicked one is gone. A job well done.

In her vigorous anonymity a young woman was stoned to death outside the city wall the other day, but it really should have been some one else. A case of mistaken identity or a curse working its way through some fractured family history? The people didn’t know or care, one stranger is much the same as another, and life is cheap around her, as any Roman citizen will tell you. Execution in whatever form it takes is our main global sport and pastime. So if we get it wrong or if we make a mistake now and then well, that’s just part of the game. Nothing in this universe is perfect.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Words Waiting for Music

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www.mp3tunes.com/impossiblesongs

www.angelfire.com/music2/wordswaitingformusic/blog/

Please take a moment to check out the above link. It takes you to Ali's "Words Waiting for Music" blog which has just been started up. In due time this will be a gold mine for songwriters seeking lyrics and inspiration, already there are a few fresh new sets of lyrics on the page. There are also loads of useful links and odd bits and pieces all about impossible songs and our friends and projects.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Lazarus

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People say that Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, Jesus, the only man with the power over death woke up Lazarus with a word and he walked alive from his tomb, his soiled grave clothes dragging behind him and hanging loose. To Jesus physical death was a curse. A curse to be wept over, fought against, wrestled with and overcome. In some mighty misunderstood battle of the heart and mind against the greatest odds in heaven and hell Jesus fought an ongoing battle against death, the one curse of fallen man. Lazarus walked away from his own untimely death and the grave that bore his name. He was reunited with his friends and family, they embraced the animated corpse that was Lazarus and they rejoiced together in a confused, shocked and unbelieving dance as they choked on inexplicable and unexpected emotions at the sight of their dead friend back with them. What did he tell them of the experience? Did they make him sit down? Drink some water or eat something? What were his first words? Did he smell funny? They must been have drunk with that crazy feeling of seeing the impossible and unbelievable suddenly happening, probably they quaked and trembled at the enormity of it. Then again did they think perhaps a terrible mistake had been made? We buried him alive and only Jesus was astute enough to check on him. He made sure and now we are so glad that he bothered to, but how now can we explain our conduct to Lazarus? Will he be mad when he realizes what we did? How will he be once he gets over the shock and hears the full lurid story?

Lazarus walks from the pages of history powered by his dead breath and silent heart. A wraith and spectre or a rotting corpse fighting against rigour mortis and paralysis? A man who’d been asleep for days, comatosed and stiff and cold then reanimated by some lightning flash or whisper from Jesus. A finger touch or a Frankenstein moment but always devoid of science or medicine. Roman administrators puzzled over a death certificate returned or a scroll rewritten to show a scratched and revived name. Poor Lazarus, famous and irrelevant, haunting the gospels with his zombie walk and trailing after his saviour his new mind alive and pulsating with a thousand guilty and murky thoughts. "Why put me through this? Why turn my life into a Bible story for children to yawn through in their disbelief and apathy, for preachers to push a thousand shaky illustrations on, for evangelists to exaggerate and misunderstand? My name is Lazarus, not likely to turn up in the top ten of children’s names like Jack or Paul or Robbie, infamous for the deathly pale complexion you all imagine me with, or better no face or flesh at all just a walking shroud. "

His woman has no name. How will she hold him now? How will it be to come together and make love on some rough and strawy bed? Eye to eye, body bathed and clean now but still a strange repugnance grips her, at his touch her flesh creeps and prays for some distance. White elbows and scaly knees, see all those parts now and cower from their look and touch, fingernails and wrinkles. "How old was I when I died?" His mouth moves and a death rattle echoes as he steals a fragile kiss and she turns away from that counterfeit breath. She had been making other plans and now cold flesh is all she has and the prospect of non-widowed adultery or fornication. Stoned for loving the dead, the cruel paradox of living by the concrete rule fuses the chemical that charges the brain and her soul is stifled. She could cook a meal, bake some break or light a lamp, just be busy, remaining busy to avoid so stagnant a conversation that leads only to the blinding light of more unanswered questions. "I don’t want my dead man back, some things are just not meant to be and all this double standard only serves to deepen and spread around the common sense of misery."

Lazarus sinned. When he died he gave up his ghost, he lay down and allowed the hands of local women to truss him up and drain him down. Lovers and mothers wept and kept a safe distance from the Jewish death scene with it’s unclean boundaries and Mosaic rituals. Designed and schemed since Exodus to keep the bacteria in its place and clear of the rest of the tribe. At his funeral they chanted, prayed, wept and sacrificed doves, goat-kids and lambs. Burning and smoking animal flesh spit roasted to pay for the sins of the man who had now passed onto the next world. White and red meat dripping hot fat for the priests to feast upon once the mourners backs were turned and the procession was in the hills. They were rolling and chipping stones to seal and cover the grave. A funeral day away from work, fishing or planting or building, a day burying a brother under a desert hill and waiting for the shade to come around as the sun fell from the blue sky.

Jesus was on other business that day and things had not gone to the disciples’ plan, the schedule of visits and meetings, speaking and teaching was too tight and transport and communications were too basic. Five miles could be like five thousand if you ended the day on the wrong side of the mountain or at a different city gate from your friends and other unplanned delays were always happening. Just suppose you snapped a sandal strap. Occupying soldiers would stop and search or just be awkward and lord it over the peasants. Send them on some stupid errand and prove who’s boss, exercise a little muscle with these dim Palestinians who don’t even know a dead body when they see it and when they do they think it could be alive and talking.

Lazarus sinned again. He blacked out and fell into the abyss, drinking in the alcoholic and intoxicating narcotic that is the opportunity to die, just to get away from it all. Say goodbye to that family, those friends, that Jesus freak who is hanging around. He had to make the break and lie down flat and still, arms crossed, feet together then only to roll from the stone table and into necromantic ecstasy. Then as a bandage was wrapped tight around his eyes he secretly delighted as the sunlight was cut and the eternal black bathed him once more. He made his peace and a deal with God. Then along came that upstart son and unpicked the master plan and pushed back into a world of pain and fear and responsibility. So many things to answer for and piles of flaky, stupid expectations to live up to. He has life but he has a life no more. A walking exhibit and curiosity to inflame the priests and their stubborn unbelief. A bogey man to scare the ignorant peasants and the poor, to be watched over by the family as a fragile relic and to become the butt of a hundred Roman barrack room jokes as the news spread. It’s life Jesus, but I don’t know if I want it on these terms.

Lazarus goes back to his tomb, his second home, he revisits the scene of a crime where he was victim and victor and now is immortal as any saint or hero but still uncomfortable with it. We do not love you Lazarus, you are a distant man with an odd name, you didn’t die but died for us shortly thereafter, or did you? What act were you spared for? Perhaps a forefather of some genius, prophet or great man? Did you simply brush the wing of a butterfly and stop it’s random progress for a moment, that second time around. For what great purpose did you live or die for, the simple act of standing up and walking against all odds? Blinking and awake again from a cancerous sleep and tied down rest, you were never meant to be remembered this way; you were never meant to be remembered.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Confushion - shock rock mock horror

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Ignore the title, just trying to get your attention for the following:

The Edinburgh Sound Collective and Fraser Drummond's "Confushion" are well worth a look and a listen if you like real live, growing and grown-up music - http://soundcollective.blogspot.com - there is always a gig or something going on so check them out.

Had a great evening hearing Confushion, featuring the considerable talents of Fraser, John and Chris at the somewhat underused venue that is the North Edinburgh Arts Centre. The playing was top-class, full of improvised gems, jamming and well worked out songs, even a few covers were thrown in. If I say "Midnight Rider v Paddy McGinty's Goat" - well you simply can't get a broader spectrum than that.

Nice also to meet Karen who also hails from the Kingdom of Fife and as for Fraser's garden - that's worth a whole blog in itself.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Out of the top of my head...

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Two men, an accountant and a baby

The truth of young love’s strangest dreams
The touch and tell of how it seems
These lives are blown to smithereens
And then fall back.

She snaked a pass to find dry land
She walked across some Northern sand
In the distance played Franz Ferdinand
And kicked a football.

I see you in my crashing sleep
Too numb to run, too slow to creep
The infant love you just can’t keep
Here’s to you alone.

Someday things all will be put to right
We’ll stand together, shoulder tight
The smiles will shine, not so contrite
Champagne will flow.

The lottery of life’s controls
The chances break these mortal souls
The lucky eight ball’s contents rolls
And turns up indecision.

I love the wise way you cause havoc
The stress and strain of family traffic
It’s having all or having none of it
To run the world your way.

Here comes the last change, for sure, maybe
I thought I’d experienced all, in my way
Two men, an accountant and a baby
I’ll earn your respect.

From this we’ll all earn some respect.

www.mp3tunes.com/impossiblesongs

Having free time & being happy

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

www.mp3tunes.com/impossiblesongs

Thoughts between 0935 and 1004 today.

Being happy and having some free time to yourself.
I like to see geese flying in the shape of a vee.
A screen of trees growing that will eventually block out the view.
What about the two minute rule?
Anxious hospital patients and visitors looking for a space on the parking lot.
Thinking about buying a cup of coffee and a fudge donut.
Planning a difficult phone call.
Listening to Ventura Highway on the radio.
Bad pieces of rhyming poetry.
Remembering things that happened on holiday.
Struggling to fill a piece of paper with text.
Thinking about living in a hot, dry country with white walls, cold tiles and blue skies.
Swimming pool reflections.
Genuine Scottish Tablet, made from a traditional recipe.
What files are really worth backing up?
The vagueness of cloud design and mists and their characteristics and why people complain about the weather as if it was some kind of new, strange, unexpected phenomenon.
The noise of a passing car, tappets rattling, exhausts chug.
Wishing some things were different and worrying about the future.
Back to the two minute rule.
How do you clear your mind and live for the moment? Not easy if you feel you carry baggage, responsibility and hope.
Poor people stay poor because they spend their money on crap. People want to buy things that make them feel good. Price is not always an issue.
She says sell them hope.
Drum sounds.
Bass sounds.
Planning a new CD.
Thinking about the possibilities of digital radio.
Think about the amount of rubbish we accumulate inside our cars.
Thinking about far away traffic jams and incidents.
Why have hats always been so popular when most of them are quite ridiculous and what do they do to your hair?
People worrying about rain.
Two minutes again.
Litter.
People who always agree with you.
Living a completely different life from everyone else (you think) but not being like Billy Liar.
Imagining a black and white cat crossed the road, seen from the corner of your eye.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Good Link I Think

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Apart from the two above - a good link for our musical material (at 88 cents a track) is:

www.mp3tunes.com/impossiblesongs

Currently three out of our four (or is it five?) CDs are there to download:

"scapes" 2003, "social enterprise" 2004 and "(wip)" 2005.

"heartburst" should be there anytime now - just waiting on the programmers, so we are told.

There's also the usual odd bits of blurb and writings, so please help our stats and counters, get us up in the ratings, feed our children and get John a nice new set of tyres and a front shock for his Mazda 323 - Download us today!

You will not be sorry and neither will we.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

It wasn't like heaven...

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com


It wasn’t the way I’d expected it to be at all; firstly there was no white light, no great shock to my system, no spiral path. I was suddenly but gently in another room, well the space felt room sized but my senses were dull and my perception/radar whatever was picking up less visual information than before, before, when I was alive. In a peaceful incoming wave, carried like a stray piece of seaweed or driftwood the thought lapped into my mind and spun slowly on some purposeless current. “When I was alive, that was then, now I’m alive but not living as I was. I have died and this is life after..” The thought drifted on, I felt no panic, no need to grasp it back, no need to explore much of anything inside me, the grey haze of where I am now was slowly beckoning.

The grey fog did seem to surround everything and was sucked into all my stuttering senses. Sounds and smells were unclear, as if a hat or an opaque cover was pulled down over my eyes. I thought I was standing but I could have been staggering, I could have been lying down. I sensed arms, hands, fingers, legs but they were dumb oddly slow-witted as if they had things, functions to relearn. The grey was moving now, steamily evaporating like a monsoon shower struck by the break through of the sun and steaming back to the heavens to be reborn in some other shower later in the hot and sticky afternoon.

So the vapour trailed away, time not mattering much and my thoughts were still muddy. I wanted to question myself, feel myself, rewind in some way the recent events and put together a picture so that understanding was available. I was like my memory and familiar automatic functions hadn’t stopped, just become unavailable and dormant. My mind was a library of unopened, unread books, cataloguing experiences, ideas and events, lists and inventories of my time and passions and desires. These all now had closed with the dull thud of a finished book and it appeared would remain archived and remote for the time being or perhaps forever. Am escaping though suggested that really, right now they were of no consequence, their time had passed and they were unremarkable. That my life was stored and “unremarkable” didn’t trouble me in the least. That I was here now and found myself unbreakable was much more significant. The lack of panic, fear, pain and any rush of excitement, things I had assumed accompanied death and the stepping into the afterlife was now a mild maladjusted surprise. A bit like loosing a very pleasant Christmas present unexpectedly from unpromising wrapping and an unlikely source. Triggered by the Christmas thought I briefly pictured the Biblical descriptions of Heaven and Hell. The process of queuing, awaiting the judgement call, the angels praising, the truth being revealed, Hell and all it’s promised terrors opening up for me as I fell through the crust of the earth whilst the great and good travelled on some silver escalator high above, happy and oblivious of my fate.

The grey stayed featureless but was now less grey, bluer, warmer and accommodating though I could not pierce the membrane of unknowing that floated in and around me. My awareness grew gradually, some senses seemed to be returning, others sharpening, others dying and I found these states shifted even as I tried to concentrate on each one. Hearing was sharp, then dull as the white noise of heaven receded, sight clear as I focused on a pinprick of light catching my eye from the edge of a gaseous cloud, feelings pained then cocooned by a corset of nerveless ness. My consciousness took an abrupt turn back to earthly life when I suddenly realised I was reading. It was a sign, but not written, not pasted or posted up. It seemed to be inside my head but still in my field of external vision. It said “Ministry of Divine Works, Matters and Happenings: Newcomers and relative beginners required for career development, project work and satisfying outcomes. (Please do not apply if you have already been refused a position – second helpings of mercy are not available).”

I was aware of smaller print (?) below the main notice, try as I might I could not read it, it remained a mysterious and off putting blur. Anyway who or what was behind this notice anyway and how exactly had it become implanted in my brain? As I thought that thought the ridiculous idea that I should even begin to understand what was going on dawned on me. Here I am dead, passed away, on the other side and I expect normal rules and conventions to apply. At this point another “sign” materialised: “Debt collectors and accountants, sin and good deed consultants, criminal experts and perversion actuaries – we need you at the Ministry of Redemptive Management”. There was more blurred small print draining away at the dog end of this even more confusing advert. I found it even less attractive than the first as I began to conclude that there were significant imperfections in built in this perfect afterlife. I was apparently a continuation of some vast public sector bureaucracy, determined to mine and manage heaven or wherever I was in a structured way. The final add did it for me:
“Get your own back, square the score, settle your account with a rewarding position at the Ministry of Divine Intervention, no previous experience needed. Candidates must possess drive and determination, statistical skills and the ability to exert a strong one-sided influence over group work, no team players please!

A new life was now calling me from the Ministry of Divine Intervention. I had to find the application form. *

*Application forms in heaven are hard to find. There is general rule that if you can’t find or obtain by whatever means the form you need then you were never really meant for the job you wanted. It all smacks of a higher kind of total predestination. The forms themselves, when found, are quite easy to complete. Always in block capitals and often with plain yes/no tick boxes.

For a moment I thought I could hear Christian rock music, or was it country music drifting by in the distance? It rose and fell on some tired, laconic breeze. I looked around hoping to see the source and just as I was about to stop looking he appeared. He was a goat, well a man with a goat’s head, a white goat head and a beard. He was grinning and lighting a thin cigar or cigarillo. He puffed blue smoke from a corner of his goat mouth and with his woolly hands pulled the cigar from his mouth and spoke. “I can get you that form boy, but it will cost you dear, I need you for some of my chance happenings, are you in?”

I spoke out loud for the first time since I’d died “How difficult can it be?” As I breathed in after talking I tasted salt on the air from my breath. “How difficult can it be?” I repeated…..to be continued.

Acoustica 2 of 05

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Acoustica 2 was last night (19th) at the Backpackers, Queensferry Street Edinburgh.

A mixed but supportive crowd saw Dangerous George, Julie King, Andy Patterson and Iona Marshall. A really good night of original music and songs.

Many OOTB stars, has-beens, about to bees and Klingons attended - and a car collided with a bus right outside the venue during Andy P's set - but he played on like a true pro.

More details, photo galleries etc. and details of how you (or your talented friend) could play an acoustica night are at www.outofthebedroom.co.uk

Monday, April 11, 2005

The UK general erection

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Bored with the election already? What’s your manifesto?

Well according to Les Impossibles:

Firstly as we are on an island (in the UK) let’s invest in shipbuilding and build some ships again.

And planes and roads and tall buildings.

Sort out pensions.

Allow euthanasia.

(These two are somewhat interlinked).

Fire all the Health Service Administrators that add no value and give doctors a bollocking for not doing what nurses know they need to do (i.e. washing their hands, wearing white coats, stop talking pish to patients etc). Also pay cleaning staff enough to motivate them.

Let’s also start a quick and dirty space programme featuring a floating launch pad that can be towed/propelled to wherever the clear weather is for launches. Yahoo!

We’ll also build a proper interstellar space ship, or at least work towards it.

Have a programme to develop time-travel.

Stop wasting time on stupid ideas like wind and wave farms and actually make nuclear power safe instead.

All children ages 7 and over will be given complimentary Meccano sets.

Start building proper cars again: Deloreans, MG Magnettes, Ford Cortinas and MGBs but with modern technology.

Have sensible policies on smoking, alcohol and drugs that treat people as freethinking adults.

Stop children’s TV presenters from throwing gunge about and shouting (nobody, not even little kids finds this amusing). Try teaching the kids something and stop patronising!

Introduce a maximum wage for footballers.

Ban speed bumps, Subaru’s and Mitsubishi Evos.

Give kids a decent school dinner for £1.00.

Build affordable housing that looks good.

Demolish crap 90’s housing “estates”.

Cable up the country for the Internet, TV and whatever else.

I could go on but I'm bored already.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Little Spurt of Interest and....

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Little spurt of interest.

She thanked me kindly for
The one she’d had before
The tale that I could tell
It serves her very well
Red sails into the sunset sail
And nature’s mother’s ways prevail
As I sway from optimist to pessimist
Love goes before and can’t resist
She wants her rest but I insist
And plug between the haze and mist
Our little spurt of interest.
That fragile spurt of interest.

In the future landfill sites prove useful, as they are found to be a source of alchemistic materials.

(Sometime in 2525)

Friends of the earth unite
We think we have the answer, right?
The world’s economies now in balance
Place in our grasp a new reliance
On seagull shit, black bags and compost
This paradise has not been lost on us.
There’s gold in them there cosmic mines
They buried there, the years behind,
The dust of ages settles thick,
Coke cans and isotopes can mix
With papers, plastics and cigarette butts
Materials your clean future’s lost
And now there’s gold in them there tips
In landfill, wheelie bins and skips,
Come Captain Kirk and charge your phaser,
Your flux-capacitor and Bic razor,
Our generation’s done no real damage,
We rest in peace despite the carnage.
The crown jewels upon your kings
Are from our crap and discarded things.
Spin in your cardboard graves Green Parties
Rotate amid tree roots and in despair,
Our shit still turns up everywhere.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Heaven is...

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

The Pope has gone to Heaven. Many good people believe in Heaven and expect it to be great, a reward, a rest and a perfect place to be with the Lord.

Those that don't make the grade however get Hell, no more no less.

So how does that work? I'm happy in Heaven but my kids, my partner, the people next door, my parents, all my favourite movie and rock stars - none of them made it. No cats or dogs either, but hey, they say it's a perfect place in Heaven. Everybody is happy, singing praises to God and we all have new bodies.

But maybe I'm not so happy, despite my new body, I'm me, I remember (or am I brainwashed by God, is that what he wants?) those I loved who didn't make it. Despite all the singing and green grass and shining lights, how can I be happy? So many I loved didn't make it. How can God be happy? It's like having a banquet in your house when the family next door is starving - you can't enjoy that.

So Heaven, a dream? Not much more or a whole lot more? I don't claim to know but whatever it is, it's not what Churches teach, I'm sure of that.

Monday, March 28, 2005

The slackers guide to undermining authority

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com



The slackers guide to undermining authority.

She was thirty when she wore her first high heels,
Early morning station platform knowing how it feels,
Just knowing, just knowing, knowing is the best,
You can file your experiences down with all the rest.

Red is the colour and the flame is burning on,
Get back to the week before but her navigation’s gone,
She was a singer, that was the band,
She says the music kept her soul in their command.

It’s early morning and she’s sore in her high heels,
Somewhere a young boy wakes not sure last night was real,
But it’s a graveyard shift that tends to make you six foot tall,
But he can’t explain, he can’t see past this bedroom wall.

This is the slackers guide to undermining authority,
I wrote the book on it in nineteen eighty-three.
Don’t put your dead mail packages in my love tray anymore.
You wear me out, you burn me out, I’m back for more.

The fundamentalists have made a basic big mistake,
They thought the plan they had had everything it takes,
Your heaven’s sounding nice but where are all your friends?
Your happiness in there is nothing but pretence.

My money worries are something I never share,
It’s my bank manager, whose back’s bent in despair,
I gave all his money to the lady in high heels,
She drives a white van handing out her meals on wheels.

I follow signposts and I follow GPS,
I find that following things tends to make less of a mess,
But just when you think you’ve landed at your destination,
Click clack, her high heels walking back towards the station.

Click clack, high heels are walking back towards the station.
Click clack, high heels taking me to my destination.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

The Crispycats visited

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

http://crispycat-recordings.blogspot.com

Friday night and a holiday weekend: wine & pasta & bread & mucho conversation with Mr and Mrs CBQ (link above - please try) here at Inchgarvie. Cats, the reckless rock n' roll past, OOTB, football and families all figured - jolly fine and very late night.

Slight hangover on Saturday but a mix of Easter eggs, leftovers, coffee and Mario-Kart with Joe and Olivia restored me to (almost) full health again.

Enjoying Falkirk's finest songstress Jill Hepburn's altogether too short CD "Groovy enough for two" try jilljahepburn@yahoo.com for a copy

Ali was inspired to roam the web, signed us up for Ebay, Amazon and some other stuff.

Read the Glasgow Herald - see "Scribbles" - somewhere in the archive.

Also visited one beautiful grandchild (Elijah) with Easter eggs, bunny etc. He'd had a good long sleep, unlike me.

Doctor Who wasn't so bad, try to avoid the hype and crap and see it as something in it's own right. The football, well, no surprises there.

Olivia (inspired by CBQ's praise for her poetry) wrote some more:

Dad

Dad is brave, dad takes a shave,
Dad is thin (?), dad likes to win,
Dad takes the rubbish out to the bin,
Dad has a cat, dad has a garden full of bats,
Dad likes to wear big hats,
I am his daughter,
And I'm even odder.


Wednesday, March 23, 2005

One night at acoustica

www.impossiblesongs.com

http://fairytalemanagement.blogspot.com

Great night of OOTB performer performances at the world famous Backpackers in Queenferry Street, Edinburgh.

Neil Pennycook, Lindsay Sugden, Big Jim and the Victorians.

www.outofthebedroom.co.uk

A very mixed up audience of fans, supporters, OOTB regulars, backpackers and members of the general public enjoyed the cheap drink, cowboy town atmosphere and relentless good humour of the venue. I think we shall return.