Monday 14 September 2009

“Complete this well known phrase: in for a penny, in for a….

a) Pound
b) Euro
c) Yen”

Welcome to my week off and an extended peak into the world of others via the medium of GMTV.

Arrival into my holiday is at 7.15AM, which still constitutes a lie in because ordinarily at this time I would be rubbing shoulders with annoying extras.

Today I get moving early and soon I find myself glaring into a computer screen updating various areas of my online empire to mixed results. In the background plays out two episodes of Frasier which only appears to be getting better and funnier by the year.

As the hour of 9AM comes and goes I begin to brace myself for a call from work asking me various “where is this?” type questions. It turns out to be a pleasant surprise when the calls do not come in.

I have a genuinely successful morning of writing fuelled by weird teas and placebo vitamins and supplements. After yesterdays return to working on Gestures today I again make headway on the project in a vain hope of finishing off the six remaining chapters. What I write today goes a bit off schedule/plan, meandering into anecdote, but I like it and think what I am doing is good. This is an exciting return to form.

Elsewhere my week continues with me watching my phone and awaiting/expecting a call from work. Thankfully this still does not come.

After lunch and looking to take a break from the writing I look into the movies on my computer I still need to watch and I finally decide to check out The Last Time I Committed Suicide in the hope of picking up some inspiration, buzz and energy from a film about a writer.

I delight in the fact that the star of the movie is Thomas Jane as Neal Cassady. I am currently a big fan of Thomas Jane through his fantastic performance in Hung which has really gripped me lately and as Neal Cassady he makes the real man likeable in his portrayal. Elsewhere in the movie Claire Forlani pops up and I have always had the biggest crush on her and will (and have) watched her in some atrocious stuff just because I am a fan.

It is a pretty fun film albeit using strange techniques that in their experimentation come more over like television than a movie. It is a crisp and glamorous version of events probably too slick to really define the era and period but despite this it remains fun even it Jane’s off the wall Cassady persona feels slightly laboured and contrived, acting wild too hard. For me the winning performance of Neal Cassady will always be Nick Nolte in Heart Beat, a movie it seems you can no longer purchase or find for love or money.

Before the movie is over it is 3PM and I want to listen to Danny Baker’s radio show on BBC London as much as possible this week so I put my entire day on pause/hold just to listen to it.

Around 3.30PM I get yet another phonecall to my landline asking if it is the “record company.” At least this time it sounds like a sober adult on the line. Again staggered and surprised I shrug the guy off with the response “it used to be but not anymore.” Somewhere my phone number is still attached to the Gringo Records address which equally I suspect will appear as the PO Box 3904 in Clacton which now is potentially gathering mountains of dead letters.

During Danny Baker’s show I find myself scanning Facebook and I discover that The Girl has not made it into work which is pretty typical as while I am away there are less people to moan at her for her attendance and timekeeping.

From here the remainder of my Monday plays out devoid of excitement or drama. Everything is routine.

Late on my day ends with the discovery of the death of Jim Carroll. He was 60 and died of a heart attack. Yet again it is through the medium of social networking websites (this time Facebook) that I discover the news.

I remember watching the Basketball Diaries movie the night that Diana died. I got home from nightclubbing in Clacton on a Saturday night to catch a late showing of the Basketball Diaries and after falling asleep I awoke to rolling news coverage of a car crash in Paris involving Princess Diana.

Eventually I bought the book from the amazing Oxfam bookshop on Portobello Road but I never got further with any of his other written work although I did buy his CD “Pools Of Mercury” on import from Rex Records in Ipswich and chose the track “Catholic Boy” for a DJ Gram disc.