Saturday, 24 January 2009
Friday, 23 January 2009
Interior Monologue...
Do you ever get tired of it?
You know, that persistent Film Noir voice-over that runs through your head from daybreak to lights out? Another kind of drone, the sort that turns every event, no matter how prosaic or dull, into a portentously bleak existential scene straight out of Simenon or Chandler, if only in one's imagination. So sitting, for instance, on the john - it would be a john, obviously, not a bog because to be properly noirish you need to be in Chandlerville, LA; there's not quite the same ring to sitting on a lavatory or loo in suburban England, is there? - you'll hear it starting up.
Cue RKO transmitter on the north pole morse coding away to the Universe. Cue dramatic chords. Roll opening credits:
Farewell my not-so-lovely...
Maigret Takes a Dump...
Or better still...
The Long Goodbye
Maybe that's where that Arnott chap got the inspiration for The Long Firm?
Some days, you'd just like to turn it off. But you can't. (Well, you could - but only if you think you're ready for the real Big Sleep...)
Still, as they always say - 'better out than in'. Another movement in the symphony of life; another day, another post...
You know, that persistent Film Noir voice-over that runs through your head from daybreak to lights out? Another kind of drone, the sort that turns every event, no matter how prosaic or dull, into a portentously bleak existential scene straight out of Simenon or Chandler, if only in one's imagination. So sitting, for instance, on the john - it would be a john, obviously, not a bog because to be properly noirish you need to be in Chandlerville, LA; there's not quite the same ring to sitting on a lavatory or loo in suburban England, is there? - you'll hear it starting up.
Cue RKO transmitter on the north pole morse coding away to the Universe. Cue dramatic chords. Roll opening credits:
Farewell my not-so-lovely...
Maigret Takes a Dump...
Or better still...
The Long Goodbye
Maybe that's where that Arnott chap got the inspiration for The Long Firm?
Some days, you'd just like to turn it off. But you can't. (Well, you could - but only if you think you're ready for the real Big Sleep...)
Still, as they always say - 'better out than in'. Another movement in the symphony of life; another day, another post...
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Droning...
The bus slows into electric blue light, gently strobing. Two police cars are parked up behind an ambulance, their whirling lamps scattering neon lighthouse sweeps into the pre-dawn gloom. We slowly process past the scene of the accident, as remote and numb as mourners behind smoked glass in a funeral limousine. There's a body splayed out across the curb, one bearded cheek sucked tight to the tarmac like a squared-off cartoon face pulled inexorably toward some U-shaped, subterranean magnet made by Acme. Police and paramedics kneel close by in calm attendance as the bus edges slowly past the open rear doors of the ambulance. 'There but for the grace... ' you think, instinctively acknowledging your own good fortune in not being outside, not being cruciformed out there in the road - not being him. Then suddenly in this blinking blue fridge door light, the daily rattle into work and all its chilly rigours has been transformed into a breeze, your bus into a sanctuary; warm and secure as a comfort blanket to a spooked child. Nothing like proximity to another's misfortune, pain or suffering to focus the mind, you think. 'It's an ill wind...' this unbidden, callous train persists. After all, look on the bright side. You might get a post out of this...
We pick up speed, the accident recedes as we hurtle through the January dark, almost back on track after this unwelcome, unscheduled interuption. Our journey starts to regain some of the digitised announcer's serenity. She intones the stages of our journey in the soothing, measured syllables of her pre-programmed m-peg mantra. Cyber woman. Computer world. You thought you'd left all that behind. "Relax..." she almost purrs with astonishing warmth and conviction given that it's only whatever clever voice simulation algorithim they've used that brings life to the perfuntorily keyed-in strings of binary code, "...everything's OK." And maybe she's right. Perhaps it's not quite so bad being here, not lying there; being safe and warm, not damaged and cold. Maybe this drone thing isn't going to be so bad. There are, surely, worse things in life to be than a drone, after all? A late drone, for one thing. Or a voice without a body announcing the stops on the bus. Or a cyberman.
But you've killed him off, that cyber you; the shimmering pixelated avatar is dead. Or if not dead, at least not you. Not any more. You're here, a fortunate, cosseted drone on his way to work. He's lying splayed out somewhere in his cyberworld, as cold and rigid as the bearded meatspace stiff you left behind a bus ride ago. Soon you'll be scuttling off the bus and into an ecologically lit office, with a water cooler and personalised workspaces cleaned by elegant women with covered heads, just like all the other drones. The morning will pass and the day will lighten. Your heart will be heavy for a while, as it always is after a bereavement - that's what's happened to you, after all; you have been bereaved, in a way, haven't you? Or been the cause of the bereavement which must surely bring some traumas of its own? But you'll survive. You'll live to drone another day. So relax, you're back in the land of the living, even though it might feel for a while like some kind of living death. You're back where you belong, where you should always have been; droning with the drones in the land of the drone. And it isn't so bad, is it? If you're honest. It's not been such a bad start to the week, really; just the two fatalities.
Feed
We pick up speed, the accident recedes as we hurtle through the January dark, almost back on track after this unwelcome, unscheduled interuption. Our journey starts to regain some of the digitised announcer's serenity. She intones the stages of our journey in the soothing, measured syllables of her pre-programmed m-peg mantra. Cyber woman. Computer world. You thought you'd left all that behind. "Relax..." she almost purrs with astonishing warmth and conviction given that it's only whatever clever voice simulation algorithim they've used that brings life to the perfuntorily keyed-in strings of binary code, "...everything's OK." And maybe she's right. Perhaps it's not quite so bad being here, not lying there; being safe and warm, not damaged and cold. Maybe this drone thing isn't going to be so bad. There are, surely, worse things in life to be than a drone, after all? A late drone, for one thing. Or a voice without a body announcing the stops on the bus. Or a cyberman.
But you've killed him off, that cyber you; the shimmering pixelated avatar is dead. Or if not dead, at least not you. Not any more. You're here, a fortunate, cosseted drone on his way to work. He's lying splayed out somewhere in his cyberworld, as cold and rigid as the bearded meatspace stiff you left behind a bus ride ago. Soon you'll be scuttling off the bus and into an ecologically lit office, with a water cooler and personalised workspaces cleaned by elegant women with covered heads, just like all the other drones. The morning will pass and the day will lighten. Your heart will be heavy for a while, as it always is after a bereavement - that's what's happened to you, after all; you have been bereaved, in a way, haven't you? Or been the cause of the bereavement which must surely bring some traumas of its own? But you'll survive. You'll live to drone another day. So relax, you're back in the land of the living, even though it might feel for a while like some kind of living death. You're back where you belong, where you should always have been; droning with the drones in the land of the drone. And it isn't so bad, is it? If you're honest. It's not been such a bad start to the week, really; just the two fatalities.
Feed
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Books I've Read in 2009...
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
Synopsis: Jap girls in synthesis; Greggy* young, scatty, aspiring novelist (Sumire) falls for older, went-white-haired-overnight-from-youthful-Ferris-wheel-in-Switzerland-shock-incident, greggy older woman with own wine importing business (Miu) whilst being simultaneously lusted after (Sumire, that is...although...) by the male (non-greggy) school teacher narrator until Sumire's sudden flip-flops/silk pyjama-clad, Greek island disappearance sparks a frenzied bout of bleak existentialism and youthful supermarket stapler theft by the son of the narrator's (non-greggy) soon-to-be-former squeeze.
Best bits: "If I were some good-for-nothing lesbian, would you still be my friend?"
"Whether you're a good-for-nothing lebian or not doesn't matter. Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin without 'Mack the Knife'. That's what my life would be without you."
"I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet, lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep"
Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill.
*note to aspiring authors: chances of publication are inestimably enhanced by introduction of at least one (preferably more) lesbian character(s).
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
Synopsis: Jap girls in synthesis; Greggy* young, scatty, aspiring novelist (Sumire) falls for older, went-white-haired-overnight-from-youthful-Ferris-wheel-in-Switzerland-shock-incident, greggy older woman with own wine importing business (Miu) whilst being simultaneously lusted after (Sumire, that is...although...) by the male (non-greggy) school teacher narrator until Sumire's sudden flip-flops/silk pyjama-clad, Greek island disappearance sparks a frenzied bout of bleak existentialism and youthful supermarket stapler theft by the son of the narrator's (non-greggy) soon-to-be-former squeeze.
Best bits: "If I were some good-for-nothing lesbian, would you still be my friend?"
"Whether you're a good-for-nothing lebian or not doesn't matter. Imagine The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin without 'Mack the Knife'. That's what my life would be without you."
"I closed my eyes and listened carefully for the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the Earth, gravity their only tie to the planet, lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep"
Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill.
*note to aspiring authors: chances of publication are inestimably enhanced by introduction of at least one (preferably more) lesbian character(s).
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
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Erotica
Thursday, 15 January 2009
She's Falling in Love With Me...
49.3% of all British workers have had sex with a fellow employee. Of those, 97.8% have done so with someone more senior than them within the organisation. 87.5% of that 97.8% were female. Contrast those figures with these: in a recent anonymous survey of 2,000 office workers, 12.7% said they had never taken home with them office stationery belonging to the company they work for. Of that 12.7%, a further 9.3% had made private telephone calls, but had *never* made private photocopies whilst at work, whilst a staggering 81.3% said they *had* taken photocopies of their privates, but *never* tried to telephone their privates to someone. Of all those surveyed, 73.7% said they were lying...
Confused? You won't be...
She's Falling in Love With Me MP3
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
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Confused? You won't be...
She's Falling in Love With Me MP3
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
Books I've Read in 2009...
Hotel World by Ali Smith.
Synopsis: Talented, young, 'greggy' swimmer and (how ironic is this?) diving champion Sara Wilby climbs into a dumb waiter for a five pound bet with a fellow employee in the hotel in which she works as a chambermaid only to plummet to her death. The narratives of a soon-to-be-ill hotel receptionist, a homeless, a cynical hack, Sara's sister Claire and a host of ghosts and ghoulies converge on the shaft down which she fell in this compassionate and wise mediatation on love, loss and the transience of existence.
What the blurb would say if it had been written by Bob: "Transcendant stuff! Smith hurdles the limitations of linear temporality with glee and gusto! Bonny lass!!"
Best bits: "She is walking on carpet that sinks like gracious mud..."
...and:
A surprise appearance by the ghost of Dusty Springfield who "soars, sure and broken, definite and tentative.." as an ASBO-bound household blare out her rendition of 'The look of love' at full volume first thing in the morning.
That Distance Apart poems by Jackie Kay.
Oh-so-slender volume of (presumably) autobiographical verse by 'greggy', black Scot. The emotional agonies of adoption rendered from all sides of the process.
Best bit:
The Visit
I thought I'd hid everything
that there wasnae wan giveaway sign
Left
I put the Marx Engels Lenin (no Trotsky)
in the airing cupboard - she'll no be
checking out the towels surely!
All the copies of the Daily Worker
I shoved under the sofa
the dove of peace I took down from the loo
A poster of Paul Robeson
saying give him his passport
I took down from the kitchen
I left a bust of Burns
my detective stories
and the complete works of Shelley
She comes at 11.30 exactly
I pour her coffee
from my new Hungarian set
And foolishly pray she willnae
ask its origins - honestly!
This baby is going to my head
She crosses her legs on the sofa
I fancy I hear the Daily Workers
rustle underneath her
Well she says, you have an interesting home
she sees my eyebrows rise
It's different she qualifies.
Hell and I've spent all morning
trying to look ordinary
- a lovely home for the baby
She buttons her coat all smiles
I'm thinking
I'm on the home run
But just as we get to the last post
her eye catches at the same time as mine
a red ribbon with twenty world peace badges
Clear as a hammer and sickle
on the wall
Oh she says are you against nuclear weapons?
To Hell with this. Baby or no baby.
Yes I says. Yes yes yes.
I'd like this baby to live in a nuclear free environment
Oh her eyes light up
I'm all for peace myself she says
and sits down for another cup of coffee
Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
Synopsis: Talented, young, 'greggy' swimmer and (how ironic is this?) diving champion Sara Wilby climbs into a dumb waiter for a five pound bet with a fellow employee in the hotel in which she works as a chambermaid only to plummet to her death. The narratives of a soon-to-be-ill hotel receptionist, a homeless, a cynical hack, Sara's sister Claire and a host of ghosts and ghoulies converge on the shaft down which she fell in this compassionate and wise mediatation on love, loss and the transience of existence.
What the blurb would say if it had been written by Bob: "Transcendant stuff! Smith hurdles the limitations of linear temporality with glee and gusto! Bonny lass!!"
Best bits: "She is walking on carpet that sinks like gracious mud..."
...and:
A surprise appearance by the ghost of Dusty Springfield who "soars, sure and broken, definite and tentative.." as an ASBO-bound household blare out her rendition of 'The look of love' at full volume first thing in the morning.
That Distance Apart poems by Jackie Kay.
Oh-so-slender volume of (presumably) autobiographical verse by 'greggy', black Scot. The emotional agonies of adoption rendered from all sides of the process.
Best bit:
The Visit
I thought I'd hid everything
that there wasnae wan giveaway sign
Left
I put the Marx Engels Lenin (no Trotsky)
in the airing cupboard - she'll no be
checking out the towels surely!
All the copies of the Daily Worker
I shoved under the sofa
the dove of peace I took down from the loo
A poster of Paul Robeson
saying give him his passport
I took down from the kitchen
I left a bust of Burns
my detective stories
and the complete works of Shelley
She comes at 11.30 exactly
I pour her coffee
from my new Hungarian set
And foolishly pray she willnae
ask its origins - honestly!
This baby is going to my head
She crosses her legs on the sofa
I fancy I hear the Daily Workers
rustle underneath her
Well she says, you have an interesting home
she sees my eyebrows rise
It's different she qualifies.
Hell and I've spent all morning
trying to look ordinary
- a lovely home for the baby
She buttons her coat all smiles
I'm thinking
I'm on the home run
But just as we get to the last post
her eye catches at the same time as mine
a red ribbon with twenty world peace badges
Clear as a hammer and sickle
on the wall
Oh she says are you against nuclear weapons?
To Hell with this. Baby or no baby.
Yes I says. Yes yes yes.
I'd like this baby to live in a nuclear free environment
Oh her eyes light up
I'm all for peace myself she says
and sits down for another cup of coffee
Works in progress: The Atmospheric Railway by Shena MacKay, Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Tramp Smash...
Through the spirit haze, the fug of dry ice, a straw haired siren emerges, blinking in the rhythm of the dancefloor strobe. On a platform of shiny patent red she totters, a ripped up Union flag casually wrapped about her preserving the scantest dignity, a jaunty leapardskin pillbox perilously poised above her temple. The bruise-black mouth the other end of an ebony cigarette holder smoulders: "Clivedon, wasn't it? Or St. Tropez? Long drinks on the verandah after easeful, sex-disturbed canasta. Noel boring anyone who'd listen with his latest dreary outrage. Or is one so easily forgotten?"
People are always mistaking me for Ferry. Or James May. Must be the Newcy brown...
Tramp Smash
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
People are always mistaking me for Ferry. Or James May. Must be the Newcy brown...
Tramp Smash
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
Monday, 12 January 2009
Granny Vision Vamp...
A few years ago, I saw a rather striking woman in her seventies striding out of Barclays Bank in Richmond. Clumpy knee-high boots, opaques, little black mini skirt, one of those red sixties-style cardies worn over a black polo neck, and a long full ponytail of black and silver-greying hair tumbling out from a jaunty leather puff cap. (I can't remember what *she* was wearing...)
Granny Vision Vamp
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
Granny Vision Vamp
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
Saturday, 10 January 2009
New Song on SwipeCore...
As I mentioned previously, I've decided to post up all my music for free on our sister (brother?) site, SwipeCore. The first LP is already up there as two gapless MP3s so you can here it as I originally intended as two uninterupted 'sides' of music. The follow up, Bedroom Burlesque was always conceived as being a collection of themed but distinct songs, so I've decided to post them up individually and provide a bit of background material as to their conception and making on these pages. I'll be putting a song up every few days so, if nothing else, it wlll give me something post...
Joining the Cyber Circus
This was always intended to be the first song of a collection that I knew from the get go would be aimed at the 'MySpace Generation' of online community users. The words 'community' and 'generation' imply a sense of togetherness and camaraderie and, while there's no denying that such things exist in abundance in cyberworld, it's been my personal experience that whatever nebulous aggregations there are out there, they do little more than mask or temporarily divert us from an abiding sense of loneliness and isolation. Many of the songs, in more or less obtuse ways, deal with that strange contradiction, but this is probably the most direct and I felt it was the only place to start the album.
I wanted to update the theme of generational divide so beautifully conveyed in 'She's Leaving Home'. The conceit expressed in this song, I suppose, is that one no longer needs to physically leave home in order to 'leave home'. The idea of 'running away to join the circus' always carried with it the implication of a rejection of certain restrictive and oppressive values - usually either small town or family ones. In this song, there's another world, no more than a door slam and a finger click away into which one can escape from them and - to use a Bowie phrase that's always stuck with me - discover one's own morality. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Really, they just want to see your ass. But as long as you're aware of that, I suppose it doesn't do any harm - keeps us off the streets and all that... And in these times of economic downturn and credit crunch etc... cash in hand, no questions asked darlin'...
As a further tribute to the song's Beatley origins, I was trying to ape George's Beatles for Sale era Gretsch shimmers on the old Epiphone Emperor - with, as you'll hear, very little success...
Hope you enjoy it...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
Joining the Cyber Circus
This was always intended to be the first song of a collection that I knew from the get go would be aimed at the 'MySpace Generation' of online community users. The words 'community' and 'generation' imply a sense of togetherness and camaraderie and, while there's no denying that such things exist in abundance in cyberworld, it's been my personal experience that whatever nebulous aggregations there are out there, they do little more than mask or temporarily divert us from an abiding sense of loneliness and isolation. Many of the songs, in more or less obtuse ways, deal with that strange contradiction, but this is probably the most direct and I felt it was the only place to start the album.
I wanted to update the theme of generational divide so beautifully conveyed in 'She's Leaving Home'. The conceit expressed in this song, I suppose, is that one no longer needs to physically leave home in order to 'leave home'. The idea of 'running away to join the circus' always carried with it the implication of a rejection of certain restrictive and oppressive values - usually either small town or family ones. In this song, there's another world, no more than a door slam and a finger click away into which one can escape from them and - to use a Bowie phrase that's always stuck with me - discover one's own morality. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Really, they just want to see your ass. But as long as you're aware of that, I suppose it doesn't do any harm - keeps us off the streets and all that... And in these times of economic downturn and credit crunch etc... cash in hand, no questions asked darlin'...
As a further tribute to the song's Beatley origins, I was trying to ape George's Beatles for Sale era Gretsch shimmers on the old Epiphone Emperor - with, as you'll hear, very little success...
Hope you enjoy it...
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
Friday, 9 January 2009
Books I've Read in 2009...
Stone Me: the Wit & Wisdom of Keith Richards.
Synopsis: Compendium of humourous/sagacious quotes from the Walking Laboratory himself. Likes his HP sauce, does Keef. Oh, and heroin...
Best bit: the bit where he drives off with a guitar given to him by a fan to autograph. "Buy another one!" He tells the grizzling afficianado when they finally catch up with his limo to ask for it back.
Disobedience by Jane Hamilton*.
Synopsis: Henry, a young chap in his late twenties looks back on his teenage email surveilance of his piano playing mother's love affair with a Ukrainian violinist.
Best bit: Elvira/Elvirnon - Henry's 'greggy'** American Civil War re-enactor sister.
Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith.
Synopsis: Inverness-set re-telling of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Imogen and Robin are "Greggy" modern day equivalents of Ianthe and Iphis (it says here). Lots of gender confusion and a fine anti-globalisation polemic centring on the obscenities of water profiteering and female disempowerment (or your own randomly selected choice of right on buzzwords)
Best bit:
Hi. This is Anthea. Don't leave a message on this phone because I'm actually trying not to use my mobile any longer since the production of mobiles involves slave labour on a huge scale and also since mobiles get in the way of us living fully and properly, on a real level, with people and are just another
way to sell us short. Come and see me instead and we'll talk properly. Thanks.
Oh and a nice Cilla Black gag.
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
*Begun in 2008.
**See Girl Meets Boy.
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Podcasts
Erotica
Synopsis: Compendium of humourous/sagacious quotes from the Walking Laboratory himself. Likes his HP sauce, does Keef. Oh, and heroin...
Best bit: the bit where he drives off with a guitar given to him by a fan to autograph. "Buy another one!" He tells the grizzling afficianado when they finally catch up with his limo to ask for it back.
Disobedience by Jane Hamilton*.
Synopsis: Henry, a young chap in his late twenties looks back on his teenage email surveilance of his piano playing mother's love affair with a Ukrainian violinist.
Best bit: Elvira/Elvirnon - Henry's 'greggy'** American Civil War re-enactor sister.
Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith.
Synopsis: Inverness-set re-telling of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Imogen and Robin are "Greggy" modern day equivalents of Ianthe and Iphis (it says here). Lots of gender confusion and a fine anti-globalisation polemic centring on the obscenities of water profiteering and female disempowerment (or your own randomly selected choice of right on buzzwords)
Best bit:
Hi. This is Anthea. Don't leave a message on this phone because I'm actually trying not to use my mobile any longer since the production of mobiles involves slave labour on a huge scale and also since mobiles get in the way of us living fully and properly, on a real level, with people and are just another
way to sell us short. Come and see me instead and we'll talk properly. Thanks.
Oh and a nice Cilla Black gag.
L.U.V. on y'all,
Bob
*Begun in 2008.
**See Girl Meets Boy.
Listen to/Download all of Bob's music *absolutely* *free*...
Subscribe to Faith, Hope and Charity Shop...
Podcasts
Erotica
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