on saturdays (the quietness of)

alone in room1004, you just met with a light-bulb-changing security guard who, in response to your comment that it's very quiet in here today, replied:

yes... you'd almost wish something happened

he spoke slowly and quietly, and placed the kind of strange emphasis on the words something happened, predicated with an unsettlingly significant pause, that he leaves you in no doubt that given any kind of disturbance he would draw arms and fire without hesitation

if he had arms, of course

(you wonder briefly if he carries a can of mace)

you're glad when he leaves, doubly glad you can bolt the door from the inside

you glance up at the CCTV camera over your right shoulder and utter a brief prayer in its direction that before you leave today, nothing happens

on veisalgia (causes, symptoms, cures)

three of you on rounds again

then three bottles of wine

and gin and tonics with lime

your hands are shaking now and you feel like there's a small woodpecker perched on the tip of your right ear, attacking your skull

you usen't get hangovers

maybe you're getting old

(to the swan penfold, this needs a cure)

on last night's friends (etc)

you're spending too much

but you're having fun

you feel energised

in a tired way

you're dipping your toe back in the creative pond, and you like how it feels

you're back talking about things you're passionate about

you may even act on it this time

three of you, on rounds in the stag's head, a few smokes and an intelligent conversation after pushing eleven hours in room1004

higgins, ginsberg, thompson?

ginsberg, thompson, higgins?

thompson, ginsberg, higgins?

you don't want higgins in the middle or thompson at the beginning

it just won't scan

but you listen to the arguments, it's inneressin

it turns you on

it's a choice between a coherent, chronological show, or an emotional kick in the head

you're leaning towards the emotional element, because that's what drives your heart

but there's a pragmatic little fucker driving your head, and he's going for coherency

you don't like how much influence that guy has some times

you can't decide who has the final call on such things, and that's an important question moving forward

if you don't answer it, you may drown in that creative pond

(you wouldn't be the first)

but it was all going so well, last night

you were on the brink of drunkenness, that blissful state when you can still function like a rational being but feel like gravity has been turned down from 9.8 to around 1.67

on the dark side of, of course

you were, as ever, mildly conscious of the fact that all of this might seem silly tomorrow

but for now, this is real

they are of course real, genuine friends

it's just that three of you on rounds tend to express that a little more than you would, say, drinking coffee

but fuck it, you mean this

you're not some drunken schmuck pouring his heart out to a taxi man, believing you've really connected with him and thanking him with every ounce of sincerity your soul can muster for getting you home safely, tipping him excessively

not tonight anyway

tonight, you're yourself, with your friends, and you mean it

but tonight, when you get in the taxi, it all sort of goes horribly wrong

not that anything really happens, it's just that you're on a high and what you're forced to listen to sends you crashing and makes you angry

maybe you're over-sensitive

it starts out with you and the guy that didn't stay in town with his girlfriend cracking jokes about the psychic tarrot reading on the radio

is there someone in your life that needs help?

you're a business man are you? are you thinking of expanding?

all very insightful

the dj working with this visionary was irritating but, so far, nothing too offensive

then comes the one o'clock news

and much hilarity, it seems

the three stories were as follows

risk of riots in russia

armpits are sexy

man transplanted with woman's kidney turns gay

the stories were ridiculed in turn, with russians being "drunk outta der boxes", a brief discussion on women's bodily fluids (culminating in the dj sniffing loudly at the female newsreader's armpits) and a homophobic joke about whether gay men piss sitting down

everyone in the studio, including the producer and newscaster giggled throughout

at this point i asked the taxi driver what station we were listening to

he said 98fm, and something along the lines of tom o'breanagain, 10-1 monday to thursday

my friend turned to me

blog-a-tronic?

abso-fuckin-lutely...

the dj was clearly a prick, but that's to be expected on dublin radio stations

what got me was the lack of respect shown to, a) the stories themselves, though some didn't deserve it, b) the concept of News in general, and more specifically the stories that weren't reported, and c) the listenership, though perhaps they deserve it for tuning in to this bile

what sort of a mind...?

matters deteriorated further when it emerged that the show was to be played out with a performance by the worst dublin-based acoutic singer-songwriter wank you've ever heard

this is weighty statement, when you consider that you've heard enough wank these last few years to tip the balance of constituent parts in the atlantic ocean, where the output to be aimed in that direction

indeed, much of it seems to be

you get out of the taxi and light a cigarette

you didn't tip

your mood has been ruined and now you're starting to feel drunk

you getting to thinking about tomorrow's post

blog-a-troinic

you realise that maybe you won't get to sleep for a while, because any post that matters a shit to you, you thought it through in bed the night before

it's part of that clinical, pragmatic, perfectionist streak you don't like

you think back over the night

did you really hear that?

was it really that bad?

you think then of your friends, and though it makes you feel better at the time, the cold wind and change of ambient mood makes those earlier feelings that tomorrow that will all seem daft come back in augmented form

so you focus on the post

will you remember it?

how much faith do you have in your grey matter?

it's flooded right now, and all these high thoughts might slosh out over the sides

you think maybe you'll write some of this down when you get home

you stop behind a bush to stub out a half-smoked cigarette and light another, just out of sight of your parent's bedroom window

you get to pacing up and down, thinking things through

it's fucking cold

how much will you remember?

you think of that burger you had in ricks, on noticing (for the second time in two weeks) that the poster from casablanca was gone from the wall

you decide that casablanca is your favourite film, that the maltese falcon is both superb and important for its genre-defining qualities, and ultimately come to the conclusion that your favourite bogart movie is still key largo

this seems important at the time

you start to wish your laptop wasn't on a chair under your girlfriend's desk

this could have been so much better

turning to pace back, you see an old man coming

it reminds you of a post you were supposed to write the other day but didn't

mainly because you couldn't think of a title that would work with the "on" format

that little fucker in your head, calling the shots

it was a post about walking towards town and turning on your heel to watch two brand-new black ferrari f430s being transported on an open-backed truck

as you turned you got to facing an old man standing in the doorway of the findlater pub, smoking

from the bar the sound of pulp's common people could be heard

it just got you to thinking is all

different lives etc.

you wanted to call the post something along the lines of on the centre of the universe, but at would clearly have made more sense

so you canned it

back behind the bush you light another last extra final cigarette as the old man passes you by

the image unsettles you and you start to pace again

you're trying hard to write this thing in your head, remember, remember, remember

you get to wondering about the psychological implications of when you use you

if you post this, you realise how relatively exposed you'll be

stubbing out the cigarette, you realise you paced a little further than you intended to, and wonder if you paced in to your home's line of vision

you rummage in your pocket for chewing gum and keys, surprised at the amount of change you find

you should have tipped

you almost catch the old man by the time you reach the end of your street

he's drunk too, walking ahead of you in the same zig-zag fashion that you are

you hope both similie and metaphor end there

you don't like the thought of his mishapen destination

maybe you're being unfair

you stumble to avoid standing on a snail and steady yourself on the wall of the mcK's, the most perfectly heartbroken home on your street

2am and the gates are open, the car's not there

the shame of it all

deep breaths at your doorstep and fumbling for the keys that you for some reason put back in your pocket, you scatter the foil of a dozen packs of cigarettes

it takes a moment to gather them, and yourself

composure regained, in bed, you're grateful that you had the presence of mind to buy a bottle of water

you're writing notes and realising you've forgotten most of it, that this could have been so much better

if you'd written it now, you would have been honest

as it is, you'll write it tomorrow from scrambled notes, with that guy in your head back in full control and worrying about presentation, sentence length, coherency

you need to decide who's gonna call the shots

for everyone's sake

especially

yours

on the american way of death

i've had death on my mind these last few days

not in a morbid sense, if that's possible

i read an extract of Jessica Mitford's article, the american way of death, reproduced in John Pilger's new collection of investigative journalism

sweet mother of god

aside from the base greed and crass status-seeking that you'd expect from elements of american society, the most disturbing part of the piece talks about what goes on behind the satin curtained reposing rooms in funeral parlours

specifically, the embalming process

i won't get in to the finer details, you can probably find the article on-line and you should buy Pilger's book anyway

suffice to say, the description of embalming sounds like a passage from Melmoth the Wanderer

i couldn't help thinking, i don't want this

not that i'm particularly attached to my body, and i sorta half look forward to (or am certainly curious about) what'll happen when i leave it

it's a project i'm working on daily

but while i'm not hung up on the sanctity of the body, be it breathing or not, there's something about the day to day of morticians that is bizarre, gruesome and unsettling in a sense reminiscent of gothic fiction

reading the article, my mind strayed (in the context of what i was reading) to friends and relatives that have passed away, which i found upsetting

reprehensively, i also meditated on elderly relatives, and what was waiting on the bodies i routinely embrace

but that's the sort of thing that'll unhinge you at three in the morning, so i got back to my own bag of bones

so, what's the plan?

based on what i read in the article, it seems embalming is not a legal requirement (anywhere), so i'll leave very clear instructions (when the time is right) that under no circumstances am i to be sent to the butchers to be drained, chopped, chipped and made up like a mannequin

(on the other hand, the embalming process absolutely guarantees you won't be buried alive, which has worried me at times and was apparently, i've read somewhere, one of the motivations to invent the process in medieval times)

as to form of burial, that's been on my mind too

rotting in the ground doesn't appeal to me

i spontaneously developed claustrophobia on a 14hr bus journey from sibenik to dubrovnik last summer, the result of shot nerves and whiskey-induced panic attacks

so coffins in general are out, psychologically speaking

so too are long bus journeys and serbian border checks

cremation, i'm not convinced of

it just seems a bit previous to condemn yourself to flames automatically

let's not be negative, there's better things that can happen after the pennies are placed

despite my crippling fear of drowning (or any kind of suffocation), i'm nonetheless drawn to the viking warrior send off, which involves more water than i'm generally comfortable with

floated out to sea on a funeral pyre, and if you're a viking in hollywood, one of your soldiers will light the pyre with a flaming arrow, fired from the shore while your comrades raise swords (or axes) and pay tribute in song before a spot of plundering in your honour

it's still flames, but there's something natural about the viking funeral, regardless of the possibility that my knowledge of it is completely askew

it seems sort of... elemental

fire, water, wind and earth (assuming that soil in some way makes up the vessel)

is earth actually an element?

or was that just a convenient plot fabrication of the god-awful Captain Planet cartoon that i watched religiously in the late 80s during the early days of misguided global-warning hysteria?

i'd google it if i'd the inclination

but all this thought of death seems now to have sapped my enthusiasm

and so this post will suffer a premature death too

on being back blogging (maybe)

well... yes, and here we go again (HST)

maybe

the impetus to blog died a horrible death some weeks ago

it drowned

in alcohol

(that night)

but we had fun

this was supposed to be an ongoing thing, the shame, the shame

fuck sony

so, do we fire it up again?

being back in room1004 these last few days makes it seem like we might

there's been a lot of things these last few weeks that went unsaid, goddarnit

that said, who reads this anyway?

you could post a suicide note and it more than likely wouldn't alert the world to save your ass

methinks

but today's one o'clock tv news on rte deserves mention, regardless of the probable futility of doing so

the leading headline ran as follows:

two irishmen rescued after their boat capsised off the coast of bermuda say they're happy to be alive

(shit, who'd a thunk it?)

the report, which filled in the details, continued

carmel towey, the mother of one of the victims, has been giving her reaction to the dramatic rescue...

i'm very happy they've been rescued

were you worried about them?

well being a mother i suppose i was

fascinating

and worthy of its slot as the main headline

and, in other news

Dicky C has suffered his 64th heart attack, one for each year he's poisoned the planet with his existence

that duplicitous bitch is rumoured to be taking his place

one of the last great white whales is being eased out of his induced coma by doctors in Israel who received a memo from the Dark Lord explaining that his work wasn't complete and he would prefer if we could keep the big A up here for a while

politicians in england confirmed that they don't want a human leader with human problems leading their party and so forced him in to an embarrassing resignation that the human, all too human voters didn't want

the non-human cambell looks good for an upgrade

oh, and lest we forget, turkey is fucked

(never mind, it's far away, they wear funny clothes in the eastern bit and besides, the chickens don't have passports, they'll never get in to europe)

iranians + nuclear power = ...

but hey... two irish guys didn't die...

anyone ever read Orientalism?

hell, it's worth starting up the blog again just to give kudos to the guardian for the headline on their website that reads:

Sharon shows signs of brain activity

finally

and yes i know the middle east is hanging in the balance and he's undoubtedly the best person to lead it in to a new era of hope, even though he's an evil fuck with blood on his hands, but we've got to be pragmatic

well, that's a whole other blog

so maybe

maybe yes