Saturday 18 April 2009


Saturday 18 April 2009

This morning I awaken in the best frame of mind I think positive. Inside my belly is some kind of aching sensation akin to excitement. When I get up and stagger around I feel light headed as if stoned. Suddenly this is a great place to be.

There is no obvious reason or cause for these measures. I have not got laid or found love so why does it feel like something headed that way?

I look out the window and that shitty black Fiesta is still parked in my space but even that cannot bring me down, I live in the knowledge/realisation that it won’t be sat there forever and even if it is that gives me cart blanche/licence to kick the shit out of it.

My arrival time today is just after 6AM. It is the weekend and yet still I am unable to lie in and relax. Why would I though when I am feeling this way?

Before heading out on my weekly shopping run I catch up on a few things and watch an episode of the Thick Of It before catching up on this weeks Newswipe (after flicking through the DVD of the 1987 and 1988 Survivor Series events that I bought online out of boredom a couple of Fridays ago).

Eventually I head out and do the Asda run. Outside it is a beautiful beautiful day the sun is out but there is a freshness with it, a subtle breeze that doesn’t detract. It makes me think of fun Saturdays spent in London in such a climate. Unfortunately the shitty shitty train service that currently runs at the weekends this year has put pay to any such notions of heading up to London on Saturdays unless it is really really necessary or special. All the fucking money that we pay for tickets to ride on those trains and keep them running and the cunting things can’t pull their shit together enough to run every day of the week.

Asda however is somewhat more fruitful. As I arrive just past 9AM the car park is sparse and I get manage to get the perfect parking space but not before nearly running over a G20 protestor displaying arrogance and attitude. Well, I don’t he was an actual protestor; more had the look of one.

Today Asda is heaven and this is the retail experience from the gods. Perhaps again/once more this is something of an overstatement/exaggeration but it does work as one of those days where all my favourite foods are on promotion/offer and in theory my closing bill should be smaller than usual or my shopping bags more full than usual of goodies. I opt for the latter and now look forward to a week of chocolate Weetos Meteors cereal, Chinese chicken wings and fizzy caffeine drinks. The store even has the Joe Strummer documentary DVD for £4 that I couldn’t find in Fopp last night. High times at the supermarket.

Today is also Record Store Day a day to celebrate independent record shops by buying vinyl and seeing a bunch of instore sets. It has now been years since Colchester has had an independent record shop and even longer since it had a DECENT independent record shop. The only place to buy records really now is the HMV and the CD shelves/sections now appear to have been pushed to borders of the store in preference to DVDs and video games. In London Rough Trade appears to be flying the flag highest but I can’t get up to London today and as a result cannot get entered into the raffle for the Sonic Youth/Beck split seven inch amongst other things.

Music in tangible formats feels doomed these days. I spoke to a friend recently who runs a record label (Front And Follow) and he said how his distributor says no one under 25 buys MP3s. At the same time the main people buying CDs these days appears to be our parents buying pop releases from supermarkets followed by indie fans in anorak trainspotter form and tight bargain hunters shopping in Fopp. Neither of these demographics generally tends to buy MP3s, the former doesn’t really know or understand what MP3s are and the latter know about filesharing, torrents and Mediafire downloads. Music is fucked but it is impossible to have any sympathy for those parties suffering after years of greed and mediocrity on their part.

On an indie/punk rock note my morning in earnest begins with listening to “The Living End” by Husker Du. I found this record in Fopp this week for a fiver and over the years since release it has reached some kind of legendary status as the sound of a band self destructing on record, burning alive on the record of their final gig. And it does not disappoint. The set opens with “New Day Rising” a song I always wanted to cover by My Shit had we ever reached fruition.

Late morning I head to the olds with view to popping into town to buy Wii games before driving them to Stansted for their holiday in Seville. As I leave my flat I find myself confronted with a “hello” from my neighbour downstairs. She appears to be just standing in our garden area but upon closer inspection she is actually walking her tortoise. She seems keen to talk as the tortoise isn’t really going anywhere. She points out and comments that the car parked in my space is in fact the nurse, my neighbour next door. I half consider removing the note but shrug my shoulders and go “fuck it.”

As ever my neighbour is friendly and she sounds bored and financially struggling. Likewise I am cool but not overly coherent – I wonder if she and I should hang out. She speaks to me for longer than usual meaning I won’t have time to head into town before going to Stansted. Oh well.

When I finally get the olds they have already dropped the dog off at/with their neighbour the squaddie. I am dubious about this guy looking after Bobby, memories still loom large of our holiday to Florida in 1993 when we allowed a friend of the family to look after Snowy and when we picked him up two weeks later he was returned to us literally damaged, a changed dog no longer with any affection now replaced by a snappy temperament.

Before driving to Stansted I catch up on Saturday Night Live watching the latest episode hosted by Zac Efron. This episode slays not least for the High School Musical dig. I have to stop the episode during Weekend Update with Seth Meyers (surefire competition for Jon Stewart) featuring Angie Tempura from the Bitch Pleeze blog (fictional). It kills and I immediately purchase the www.bitchpleeze.co.uk domain address in some kind of tribute.

This afternoon’s drive to Stansted Airport is a relative breeze compared to last time I drove there. On the way my old man tells me about his latest exploits with their property management agents, a local established shyster with his thumb in as many pies as as many arses who royally knows how to exploit their situation through a combination of business savvy and knowledge of legal loopholes and knots. I keep telling the old man to get legal advice but that costs money and any money they might save on their inflated (exploited) service charges will be nullified by legal bills. This is the way of the modern world and I fear for my parents for getting too wrapped up in it.

Driving to the airport we listen to Radio 2 only to discover that the station has nixed the 1PM to 2PM Saturday hour in preference to some crappy retro chart show hosted by that hack Dale Winton. I will never forget listening to some Vic Reeves show on the comedy hour while awkwardly hanging out around Zoe’s place the morning after just before Christmas. I think it was at this point I decided to head home and do a lame walk of shame. In other words I chickened out and it was to the soundtrack of the Saturday Radio Two comedy hour.

We arrive at the airport fairly swiftly but as ever we do not appear to have any idea where to go in order to just drop them off. After several wrong turns at several roundabouts eventually we find ourselves on the winning road almost outside the airport (with a huge clunk of terrorist stopping concrete barrier between us). When I drop the olds off dad actually offers me petrol money. I joke and say “yes” at first and then he actually puts his hand in his pocket. I should be ashamed. I wave them off hoping I see them again (the plane doesn’t get blown out of the sky) and excited about a free house for the week ahead.

When I get back to my parents place it is suddenly cold and quiet. Without the dog around there is not much energy to the flat. I peruse the cupboards and find a fridge stocked full of microwave beefburgers and soon I am nuking one before resuming watching the Zac Efron Saturday Night Live which ends with the sight of Dave Pajo hugging Fred Armisen during the closing credits (I later discover that Pajo is now playing guitar live with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

With the afternoon a wasting I head into town to do some chores. It begins with moving some money from bank to bank, an act that is swift and merciless. From there I finally get some Gap combats, hoping they fit. Obviously I don’t try them on in the fitting room of the shop – men don’t do that! From here I then head to HMV where I find some real gems in their sales box that I do not buy before buying bookends from WH Smiths for my collapsing DVD piles and ending up in Game spending/using my notorious gift voucher. I buy a couple of games I have little interest in playing just to use the card up.

As I walk back to my parent’s apartment complex I see their neighbours walking Bobby in the distance. He then sees me and begins to wait for me but they drag him off, away from me. It is the saddest sight, a true Sophie’s Choice moment. I wonder what goes through a dog’s head, I wonder how it works, I wonder what Bobby was thinking at that moment he saw me.

Back inside the apartment it is to the information that Millwall are losing 4-1 at Bristol Rovers. This is a fucking joke. I fall asleep on the sofa depressed and exhausted from an early start and rough day. When I awaken just before 7PM the game has ended 4-2 and with it recent optimism.

Tonight I crack open the new Guitar Hero game (World Tour). My early impressions are that it is a really fanny set of songs on the game and I truly refuse to play Coldplay or “Livin’ On A Prayer”. I feel it is even a compromise to play “Some Might Say” by Oasis but it actually turns out to be a fun song to play. Sadly songs such as “Feel The Pain” by Dinosaur Jr and “Mountain Song” by Jane’s Addiction feel kind of impotent on this game failing to really hook in the process. I’m too lazy to get the cheat/hack off the internet to unlock all the songs, instead I want to doggedly unlock and earn all the songs in the old fashioned way. The early hit of this game is “Freak On A Leash” by Korn.

Time flies by when you are rocking out on Guitar Hero. It should be a guilty pleasure but as so many people now subscribe to it it fortunately lacks the stigma of the classic air guitarist. My gut instinct is that this latest version of the game leaves a little to be desired. Maybe I’ll unlock some real gems during the next play.

As I lock up and head home I think I hear the hoodlum kids outside call Bobby’s name. I briefly go out for a look to see if he is being taken for a walk but I can’t see him. As I get in the elevator down to the car park something bumps into the back of my legs and it is Bobby saying “hello.” It is a beautiful moment straight of an obese Disney movie. I say “hello” as he wags his tail before he runs off and it becomes apparent that the squaddie dude looking after the dog is letting him run around off his lead/leash. I can’t fucking believe, you can certainly tell that it isn’t his dog through this lack of care/consideration. I begin chatting to the guy trying to insert a “what the fuck are you doing” insinuation into the conversation. As Bobby begins to run off out of distance a car comes along and the squaddie has to go running off after the dog. I just shrug pissed off watching as the squaddie tells the car to slow down because there is a dog running around on the road. Perhaps he shouldn’t be let so loose where cars are going to regularly pass.

When I finally get back to Bohemian Grove it is late and I head straight to bed to witness and fall asleep to another Saturday night of average TV. I need a girlfriend.

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