Apollo 11

The perfect moon
Was huge above the sea
The surf was easy
Even on the reef
We were the lucky three
Who slid in our canoe
Through the flowers on the water
And tried to read the signals in the sky

We travelled with our necklaces of shell
The moon was waning
Through the nights and days
And how we dreamed of home!
But we couldn’t find the island
Where you trade the shells for feathers
We fainted in the sun’s reflected blaze

With cracking lips
I turned to tell my friends
The time had come for all of us to die
“She’s out a whole degree”
I told them as I floated
Checking readouts at my shoulder
“Re-enter at this angle and we’ll fry”

The go for override came up from earth
We took control
And we flew her with our hands
And how we dreamed of home!
We saw the South Pacific
As we fought to get her zeroed
Before the heat shield started hitting air

We came home in a roaring purple flame
And gave the mission
Back to the machines
We were the lucky three
The parachutes deployed
We were rocking like a cradle
As we drifted down in silence to the sea
Lyrics by CLIVE JAMES
Music by PETE ATKIN

Put to the Test

Gordie is 54% HeteroHow heterosexual are you? Try out any Twitter name and get the real picture. Are we really the words we use? (Thanks to Stockholm Pride for this.)

Daddy

Right now I feel like a small boy that wants his daddy. That's been happening a lot lately.

You know what that means...

That means that if I go back far enough into my life, there must have been a time when I wanted him and trusted him, and loved him, and felt loved by him.

Or something.

The clouds overhead are getting darker all of a sudden, and I think it's about to start raining.

Wasteful and Useless

Okay, so this is how these things seem to work.

I decided I needed a bit of lie in this morning, as I was up for work at 5:30 yesterday morning. And I set the alarm for 8:10 and then ignored it. Got up at eleven.

Made a cup of coffee, and for no reason at all (other than it was Saturday, and I wasn't properly awake) started playing old mp3's I'd recorded off radio programmes.

I recorded this song on April 11th, 2006, and I don't remember ever listening to it. Until today.

Don't let me put you off. If you're doing battle with a cruel and vengeful God, keep battling. But today, I like this.


If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be, we're all okay
And not to worry
'Cause worry is wasteful and useless
In times like these

I won't be made useless
Won't be idle with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

Poverty stole your golden shoes
But it didn't steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn't ever after

We'll fight, not out of spite
For someone must stand up for what's right
'Cause where there's a man who has no voice
There ours shall go singing

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

In the end only kindness matters
In the end only kindness matters

I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray
I will get down on my knees, and I will pray

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken

My hands are small I know
But they're not yours, they are my own
But they're not yours, they are my own
and I am never broken
We are never broken

We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's eyes
We are God's hands
JEWEL KIRCHNER

Deacon Blues

Steely Dan was a great band, and a strong influence on my cynical youth. I imagine some people will see the title to this post and think of Deacon Blue, the Scottish pop band. I would have sneered at such people back then.

There were two guys who wrote the songs, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and a bunch of really good musicians around them, most of seemed to be in the Doobie Brothers as well. They wrote very clever lyrics, and tunes with jazz chords in them: Sixths! Ninths! WTF?!?!

This isn't one of their clever lyrics; it just got stuck in my head the other day, when I free associated from "bright red Georgia clay" to "Alabama the crimson tide". I always assumed the crimson tide was a big muddy river, but it's actually something to do with photosynthetic pigments in algae.

I like the chorus. The narrator is obviously a bit of a loser, and his dream is to be a saxophone player, and a bit of a drunk. High hopes, eh? Even in his dreams, he's going to be a loser! But he wants to be a renownded loser, with a famous name. Good luck to ya, buddy.

This is the day of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers, wild gamblers
That's all in the past

You call me a fool
You say it's a crazy scheme
This one's for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I'll make it this time
I'm ready to cross that fine line

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
I'll rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

This is the night of the expanding man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be
STEELY DAN

The Lilac Paper

I went to my stationery drawer to find some good paper for a letter to the bank.

I found a sheaf of pale lilac paper I once bought to print my wedding invitations on. I didn't realise I still had any of that left.

Every other time I've found that lilac paper, I've felt a deep pain in my chest. This morning, I just smiled, a little bit surprised.

It was a lovely wedding; pity about the marriage that followed.

It's Raining Today

[Rain in the night...
I awake to the sound of it at my window.
The air is cool and clear.
And by ten o'clock, the sun is shining again.
I love the summer when it's like this.]

It's raining today
and I'm just about to forget
The train window girl
That wonderful day we met
She smiles through the smoke
From my cigarette
It's raining today.

But once ...
There was summer and you
And dark little rooms
And sleep in late afternoons
Those moments descend
On my window-pane.

I've hung around here too long

Listenin' to the old landlady's

Hard-luck stories

You out of me

Me out of you

We go like lovers

To replace

The empty space

Repeat our dreams to someone new.

It's raining today
And I watch the cellophane streets
No hang-ups for me
Cause hang-ups need company
The street corner girl's
A cold, trembling leaf
It's raining today
It's raining today
SCOTT WALKER

Summer Rain

"I remember to this day
The bright red Georgia clay
How it stuck to the tires
After the summer rain."

I slept well, and woke to my alarm at 6:20 to find a gentle rain falling over the village. It's nice and cool in my bedroom now, where a week ago it was very humid. I pulled on a polo shirt to keep the breeze off my shoulders. I made a cup of coffee, and went looking for pants. (Priorities, I has 'em.)

Three hours later, the rain has stopped, and so has the noisy woodpecker in my neighbour's garden. The sun is shining, and there are voluptuous clouds over Torbay, like Magritte used to paint. I'd say the wind is coming from the West.

Georgia must have a similar geology to where I live. The earth around here is very red - the Devonian layer, if you're into geology. And now I'm thinking of another song:

"They call Alabama
the Crimson Tide:
call me Deacon Blues"

Hey Mister DJ

I deejayed for a friend's birthday party on Friday night. I had a lot of fun. Fortunately, so did everybody else.

It was one of those big family - and - friends gatherings, where the ages go from seven to seventy, and I managed to keep everyone dancing and happy for six hours, give or take a few glitches. It was a very hot night and my fingers got very slippery; several times I cut to the next next record two minutes early. But it wasn't hard work. And there were good looking women being uninhibited, and that wasn't hard work, either.

At midnight, we went out onto the village green, and launched wish lanterns into the night sky. I hadn't seen wish lanterns before. They're like Barbie doll sized hot air balloons, with a lump of solid paraffin where the basket would be. You have to pat them and pamper then for a bit, until they heat up properly, then they suddently become very buoyant and rise up into the sky. It was a good birthday. We were all very happy.

Endings and Beginnings

A man in a yellow fluorescent waistcoat came knocking at my front door. He wanted me to move my car. It was Tuesday, the hottest day of the year, and they had come to lay fresh tarmac on the road that goes from the lower well up towards Waterford.

Yesterday it was even hotter. I drove my car along that fresh tarmac, with the windows down and a light fresh tarmac smell rising from the carriageway. The hedgerows were full of elderflower and wild garlic, and I was pleased the roadmenders had managed to do their work without tearing up any greenery. My village still feels timeless and medieval, even when the road swishes smoothly under my tyres, instead of thunk a thunk thunking like I was on a horse and cart.

It's almost two months since my birthday, and I've hardly posted on my blog at all. I want you all to know that that I've been all right. I haven't been hiding, I haven't been depressed; I've just had way too much work to do. This is a good thing, except when it makes me tired. I am learning to go to bed early.

I am happy - I think - and I will try to get back into the blogging habit in July. I deserve some work life balance. Since May, everything has been endings and beginnings, and I'm doing many, many things for the first time. Got to earn a living. Would rather earn a living that had some integrity. And live long. My learning curve is long, but I trust that it bends toward happiness.

To the friends out there I've been neglecting: I love you and care for you as much as ever I did. Thank you for being someone who brings out the best in me. Your friendship makes me happy.

It's raining today. I like it.

HaHaHaHaHa

From today's Daily Telegraph.

(click on the image to see the whole thing)

Nostalgia (Turned Inside Out)

Saturday morning:

lie-in, coffee, radio

Chill DAB has been kind enough to remind me how weird my life used to feel.

I've never heard of this band, but if you listen to Chill on teh interwebs, their site is clever enough to tell you the band name and track name of what's playing. The Cat Empire is a band from Melbourne, which is the Australian town where the crazy artists come from.

Cool band name, too. I might have to listen to more of them.

I had nine lives
but I lost all of them
And I've been searching in the night
And I've been searching in the rain
I tried to find them
but they disappeared
they walked away they dressed in black
they left my side and all I say
is that I wasted time
when I looked for them
for now I know that things gone past
are never to be found again
I had nine lives
but lost all of them.

I had a plan
but never finished it
and I've been searching for the thought
and I've been searching in a haze
I try all days
to remember it
but now the blueprint in my mind has gone
my mind forgot the colour of direction
and my eyes they see the hands
that could have built
that could have constructed
the empire in my mind
the empire
I'll never find
I had a plan
but that was where it ended.
THE CAT EMPIRE

What Are You Like?

What are you like?
You've had a right life
And taken a long ride
But oh what a cost

And all of your life
Staring at white lines
Reading the road signs
And oh what a loss

I bought this album about three or four years ago, and I've only played it twice. It's Richard Hawley's 'Coles Corner'. I know it was very well reviewed, and I must have wanted it, because I paid full price for it, but it didn't make any impact on me.

Then, this morning, I wanted some gentle waking up music, and put it in the CD. I ignored it happily for twenty minutes, then track six made me stop and listen.

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Playing your guitar

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Staying out till dawn
Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

It seems to say something about where I was in my teenage years, and where I'm at now. When you're growing up, songs seem to describe your life perfectly - you go "Oh my god! this is me! This is me!" But nowadays, I pick and choose what I take.

"Born under a bad sign" doesn't describe me. It never did. But "What are you like?" is a question I ask myself often. I've lived an odd life, and I feel like I'm a late starter. Was it because I read too many road signs? It could be.

Of course, when I was a teenager, I knew everything, and I knew I was going to be brilliant. I didn't, and I wasn't. But I still might.

Now you're laying in the afterglow
And there's something that she wants to know
Are you going be the one to say
You belong to me, you belong to me

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Sleeping late in the afternoon
Playing your guitar

Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign
You've had a right life
Born under a bad sign

Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Born under a bad sign
Born under a bad sign

Can't Buy A Thrill

I put iTunes on random play, and it served up Steely Dan. This is a wonderful album. I'm wriggling in my chair to the splintered piano playing at the start of 'Fire In The Hole'.

I decline
To walk the line
They tell me that I'm lazy

Worldly wise
I realize
That everybody's crazy

A woman's voice reminds me
To serve and not to speak:
Am I myself?
Or just another freak?

Mittwoch

Wednesday in German is Mittwoch, which means 'midweek'. I rather like that. It means the weekend's coming. Plus, I have a cool guitar-playing friend who works a shift as a bartender on Wednesday evenings, so I like to go and hang out with him.

This week, my work schedule was shot to hell by 4:00 p.m. on Monday, so I cancelled a trip to London, and gave my conference pass (I was due to be on a conference for two days) to a friend. She called me last night to tell me what a great conference it was, and how much she appreciated it.

I stopped work at 9:00 p.m. and went to the pub. I got half way through a glass of wine, and came home and went straight to bed.

It Wasn't What I Thought

In the end, I decided it was OK for me not to write until I felt ready. In the meantime, I listened to my body and I took its advice.

My friend’s trial gave me a pain in the stomach, a griping in my guts, but it wasn't what I thought. I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. I'm talking about:

Thoughts
Emotions
Sensations

Did you know there are as many neurological transmitters in the human abdomen as there are in the human head? I found this out from Michael Gershon's 'The Second Brain'. Your head doesn't run the whole show. Your belly is responsible for an awful lot of what you are, and your gut instinct really is just that.

The last few weeks I've been letting my belly unravel and settle itself down, and when I say that it wasn't what I thought, I mean that I’ve learned a lot about how what goes on in my head hasn't really been the main event.

When I was young, and a lot less powerful than I am today, I kept myself safe. I held myself still. I was trying my best to learn how to be a man, in a setting where there was deception, cruelty, guilt and shame. I held on to my integrity. I stored my true self myself somewhere in my belly, along with all the things I knew and could not express, couldn't talk to, everything I didn't have permission to talk about. And I stored all the decodes, the passwords for unlocking it all.

My goodness: it has taken me some time to be able to unlock it. The time has come.

Shining Greatly

This morning I asked the I Ching for advice.

This is what it told me:

This is a time of gain, profit and expansion. Have a place to go. Enter the stream of life with a purpose, or embark on a significant enterprise. The source above has descended, and its Tao is shining greatly.

God, revising for his exams in the garden by William Blake

(Also available in paperback)

Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
WILLIAM BLAKE

Writing is Difficult

Writing is a bitch...

I've been on the road for a week, doing various kinds of things to earn a living. And I've had fun, and done well. I've been meeting people, talking, discussing problems, analysing businesses, and offering advice.

Now I have to write a bunch of reports, and though I know I can, and I want to, I hate it. It feels like it's going to be a struggle.

When I was six years old, I discovered I could write, and it was the most magical, powerful, and wonderful thing ever. I took to it like a duck to water, and by the age of eight I had my picture in the papers.

Writing, before the stars were torn down

When I was thirteen, I can remember being at home, sitting at my desk, and staring at the wall, and looking at the pen in my hands, and thinking I was sick and tired of being popular and successful.

A lot of things happened when I was thirteeen. Bad things, mostly. Regular readers of Hot Vimto may remember The House on Sandygate Lane. That was where we went to live when I was thirtteen. That's the great, hot, dry solid lump of a story that I set out to share with you last summer, and it's still stuck in my belly, making me vomit, and worse.

I'm going to hand over my voice to Sia now. Bless her, she's messed up and twisted, but she writes great songs. I sing along with her, and I dream that one day she will rescue from a dark, twisted sexual relationship with Amanda Palmer, and we will be free to love and cherish one another.

Until that day comes, we are siamese twins, conjoined at the groin and the liver.

Healing is difficult
Often results in psychosomatic
I admit to enjoying drugs
They get rid of tension, boredom and static.

Hate those adverse side-effects
Forcing the people who love me to scatter
Excuse me for being such a hypocrite
The way I see it really doesn't matter.

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?

To tell you the truth
I can't believe I love you so much
So much in fact that I don't know
Whether to weep or wind my watch
I have a sick sense of humour
It amazes me how points it scores
I'm addicted to vice
My best friends are pushers,
My boyfriends are whores.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Waking up next to you
Your morning breath
Reminds me of Lucy
The flies in the front room
Buzz round my head
And try to seduce me

If I contract illness
The last thing I want
Is to pass it to others
Fucking leaves guilt pangs
When I start forgetting
The names of my lovers

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?
written and perfomed by
SIA FURLER

Laughter and Love

Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill"
GK Chesterton