Sunday 31 May 2009

Dream: after the success of going to football and seeing Millwall at Wembley, Dad and I now find ourselves back at Ipswich Town watching them play. Obviously things are now very different compared to back when we were season ticket holders there back in the late eighties. And the change does not necessarily appear for the better. The stand now seems to resemble something of an overgrown corporate box. It’s more comfortable but soulless and lifeless with it. To my left there is a stall selling current release records situated underneath a television that is not turned on. There is the new Empire Of The Sun seven inch and I want it, which distracts me from the game. To my right Dad is far more into this game than he was the play off final last Sunday. In the first half Ipswich score a goal against identified opponents and the we get an amazing view of the goal so I am able to vividly recall them countering on the break through the middle of the pitch/field and as a player storms up the right wing/flank the striker passes it off, beating the offside train and the winger storms inside the box and fire the ball into the roof of centre of the goal. It is an amazing goal. At halftime the score is 1-0 and Dad begins talking to a couple of young ladies sat in front of us. He then begins/proceeds to tell them facts about me that he has got from Facebook (ie how I used to work with a lesbian). It is embarrassing and I try to get him to stop as he is obviously trying to set me up with one of them. As I shrink back in my seat (and hopefully the distance) suddenly it becomes apparent that the ladies are biting on these facts and I have a chance.

Sadly at this point I awaken.

The time is 6.45 although it feels as if I have been asleep forever. Last night was another early night for a Saturday night.

The day opens as I unwrap the Lynch documentary that I got from Caiman the other day and after a few repeated attempts at getting my DVD player to work eventually I am into watching a documentary about David Lynch making Inland Empire. It is a tough film to watch, not well executed, linear or particularly coherent. And sadly not in the cool and cooky Lynch manner. It’s pedestrian and expects a lot from the viewer to sit through the entire thing.

Partway through as my mind wanders I find myself checking out where the world is at with Facebook. It would appear my verging on racist comment about Britain’s Got Talent briefly upset someone I worked with two years ago, which kind of makes it irrelevant/redundant now that she is no longer a character/participant in my life. And this is before that pointless hooray for everything PC dance troupe called Diversity beat the hapless Susan Boyle. Jesus, people pleasing dance troupes are such a sarcastic Simpsons joke. It would appear my seal approval comment/status about Planes, Trains And Automobiles proved a much more popular piece of commentary.

It is with morbid interest that I end up looking at my American friend’s photos from her family’s visit last week (or something). Looking at these pictures depresses me no end. Yet again I can’t help but wonder what was the basis of my rejection by my American friend. As ever it borders on obsession and then disgust as the gormless boyfriend and gormless boss pop up in the photos as being introduced to the parents. Why them and not me? What do they possess that I don’t? I guess it is some kind of cuddly lobotomised state that means my American friend can mold and mould them like plasticine into something she can present to her family in order to raise her own currency/value and exhibit to her family (and the world) just how well adjusted and what a success her life is without revealing how it is built on sand. Maybe. No thumbsucking crybaby from Catford though, I guess he and I have more in common than I had realised.

I return to the Lynch documentary and force myself to sail it out but it is high on quirkiness and low on actual content/information. David Lynch however does come over as a really fine gent.

Breakfast this morning is sausages. Little ones covered in honey and mustard dressing and then wrapped in roasted red pepper deli tortilla wraps. It feels tasty and excessive.

The day has not even reached 9AM yet. The time is 8.50 and I am still stuck in the 8AM wonder hour. Outside the sun is blazing and it is going to be another beautiful day. I have not checked my face yet but late last night it was very red and close to sunburnt. If it is the same today I will be feeling self-conscious. Now I remember why I stay out of the sun.

In front of me is a cup of tea in a green Goofy Disney cup/mug. Mum gave these to me when I moved into my flat (Bohemian Grove) here in 2001. It is just one of a million loving gestures my parents have foisted upon me over the years. Inside the mug was a green tea bag and a peppermint tea bag. I’m not sure if the combination works but hopefully the flavour of the peppermint will serve to compliment the apparent healing powers of the green tea. Against the grain I have also added milk. When I do this at work people think I am so weird but it really gives the brew some kind of cushion, makes it go down easy. It helps both ways.

My old friend Glenn now living in Australia attempted to hit me on Facebook chat earlier. The last time we spoke he told me how his mum was dying of cancer and how she was about the lose her second leg and realistically how her time is numbered. She is here in Essex and yet he remains in Australia. I’m not sure of the actual logistics but that does not sound good. He has three boys and was struggling to get them over to the UK to see his mum before the inevitable as, in his words, “she wants to see them more than me.” This morning I avoid his chat, you can understand why.

With the world my oyster and the day still young I watch the third episode of The Century Of The Self by Adam Curtis.

As the morning wastes away god bless the schedulers on Film4 for showing Small Time Crooks at 11AM. In many ways there is no better way to spend a summer day than watching a Woody Allen movie:

“Did you get your end of the money?”
“The money for what? Oh yeah, I got the money I sold some stuff.”
“What did you sell?
“A rented car.”

The skies of New York in his movies are always sunny and with a ragtime jazz soundtrack who could/would want anything different?

“You know you are working with a genius, right? We’re all smart but he wears glasses.”

For some reason it doesn’t feel like there is any work tomorrow, it feels like I am on school holiday and there is nothing lingering/hovering of me in the future.

Today writing is finally flowing although unfortunately this tends to result in a lot of stuff being started but little getting completed.

When I get to the olds for Sunday lunch at 3PM ITV2 (or whatever) is again showing Holiday On The Buses. With this we indulge in our immature comedic tastebuds and laugh at Blakey and Olive while celebrating Stan and Jack’s conquests. This particular movie in this series is also notable for Wilfrid Brambell’s turn at playing a randy Irish man chasing Stan’s mum. That must have been a truly painful role for him now knowing what made the real Wilfrid Brambell tick off the back of that amazing drama The Curse Of Steptoe.

The last time I saw this movie I believe was just before Christmas at the end of the day Christmas shopping in Greenwich with Mindy. Who could have foretold that that would be the last time I see her (her choice). Sadness accrues.

Once the movie is gone and the parents take the dog out for a walk I settle down to read the Luke Haines book “Bad Vibes”. It is all things and more. Haines truly has a great turn with words and his sharp, bitchy wit combined with keen self-depreciation strikes the perfect balance in order to make him come over as a likeable person despite his snide flaws. It reminds me a bit of that John Niven book “Kill Yr Friends” that I read on the play journeys to and from Berlin last summer after seeing his truly startling good reading at Latitude. All in all I struggle to put “Bad Vibes” down as it addresses what blinkered hindsight glasses now deem my “good days”, those times I appear to spend my days attempting to rediscover these days, albeit most definitely not through the music of The Auteurs or Britpop acts because those were the enemy (despite the fact that briefly a few years ago I became the accountant for a number of mentioned has-beens in this book, people also trying to rediscover and recapture those days these days). With each expertly executed snipe I find myself becoming more and more nostalgic for the nineties and music in general, even Gringo Records manages to strike a chord with some examples of music industry hijinks detailed in this book.

I remain at the parents for the Simpsons but eventually I head home to a depressing Sunday evening home alone.

Tonight Sunday evening TV is represented by Night At The Museum (again!) and Coach Carter. I need a girlfriend.