Post Industrial

From a Distance: The world we look out on every day presents us with the same, steady and simple puzzles. We ask the same wordless questions. Where is this? What is that? Why is it so? Who are they? And so on. We pose these inner and incestuous questions to ourselves as we stare into our own immediate space and into the wider reaches of what passes for some geographical and social construct that we mindlessly inhabit; civilisation. Every part of the earth has been altered and tainted, touched by the indian sandals, military boot heels, tyre tracks, evil poison gasses and the rolling tides of plastics and pollution that flow out in all directions. The fierce and terrible byproducts and excrement from the systems that ooze tired options to give us a quality of life and scientific capability that exceeds all that ever came before. Here it is, on our doorstep and we hardly know a thing about it's deep and dark inner workings, it's thoughts or it's soft underbelly that awaits the fatal knife wound borne out of too much progress in too little time with too little consideration. Did I ever mention that I'm buying a Porsche 911 and going on a sacred pilgrimage to every drive through Macdonalds within the Arctic Circle?

Getting rid of the smell

Hofner Shorty travel guitar, purchased on eBay for £60. Surprisingly playable and complete with a powerful humbucker jet engine and solid controls. Why didn't I get one of these years ago? Easyjet charge £50 for a musical instrument case going in the hold. This thing could fit nicely in your back pocket or up the sleeve of your puffy anorak.

Krispy-Kreme doughnuts are unhealthy, delicious, irresistible and come in boxes of a dozen for £10.45. They are an unhealthy plague and will be the ruin of our civilisation if we let them. The SNP nannies should ban them along with fags and Irn-Bru. So they remain legal here in Fife but still act as fatally horrid drugs that could be made illegal as soon as I die happy from that  sweet, slow sugar and jam flavoured poisoning.

In Scotland there appears to be little or no classy or pretentious graffiti, we're proud of just writing our names with the letters in the correct order and doing basic street-wise tagging. "We were here" in other words, now we're someplace else. Quite profound really. Eat your anonymous and multifunctional heart out Mr Banksy.

Abandoned HGV trailer in the woods. How did it ever get there?

A big mouse, or a family of mice or some great and once proud other type of rodent brethren have expired in the great dark void that exists under the great dark central heating boiler. As a result the kitchen stinks and I wish the kitchen would also sink without trace. I'm lighting little tea lights that smell of orange meadows, bubblegum and strawberry shortcake in order to address this intolerable situation. I may well move onwards to some friendly Travelodge or even the refuge of the living room until nature takes it's long winded and stinking course. Double Ugh! (Ugh!).

Slam Bam, thank you for the chips Mam

A poetry slams can be fun. You can get chips, wine and endless amusement from a variety of witty, clever and mesmerising performing poets. It's not a young persons game though, a long and sharp memory is required, clear or at least interesting diction, endless creative powers and the ability to jump up on stage quickly when summoned. I was reminded of those fantasy contests between thin and creepy lead guitarists; who can be the fastest and most colourful performer, "show us your licks man!" and so on. Thrashing and straining and metaphorically punching the air, every trick in the book or on the virtual clipboard. It's not for the faint hearted, the feeble minded or anybody aligned in any way to the political right. Right? Loud Poets. Draw your own conclusions, write them down, commit them to memory and enter on the night.

This clever and quick girl won, so this is what you're up against.

Why is this true?

I've never in my life verbally rejected a haircut, they are all fine, 100%. I've never heard anyone in the barber shop argue with the hairdresser in a "no it's not, yes it is way." No blows are struck, payment refused to be made or tantrums taken. All that must happen later, much later, in the cold dark place where the folks with the bad haircuts go...for at least three days, like Jesus I suppose. Then it's ok to return to the world of the average haircut and move freely once again. All publicly taken haircuts are good then and barbers must never receive proper criticism because it never comes; unlike women's hairdressers, dentists, chefs, police officers etc. The thing is you're stuck with your own head (and stuck inside it), it probably looks dumb from any angle and the shape of the hair growing on it (bizarre in itself if you detach from it) can do little to alter your own head's tottering place in an absurd universe. For those blokes with no hair, I guess that's a better situation to be in as the eager years pass, posted missing and well out of the barber's tyranny and loop. There are of course woolly hats with their criminal like dignity, so essential in today's divided Scotland. 

Also featuring odd hair, my favourite recent movie scene, the "science oven".

Karl Ove Knausgaard

I'm finding this black hole of a book difficult to put down right now. Funny how things come in from nowhere and start to grind their way into your life and thinking. I'm suddenly finding myself lined up with random Scandinavian observation and detail and the recurring dream to heading up to the Arctic Circle. Must be Spring.

Polish Movie Poster

This one for "The Birds" doesn't hold back, I don't recall this actual scene either.

Anyway, too busy with life, travel, work and upset tummies; typical. Just a single thought from KD:

If you say I am then I must be,

If you say I'm not, I'll talk, talk, talk.

Non specific rant

A potent mixture of soup and Puddledub chicken and haggis.

Call any vegetable: So rather than spend time grappling with travel and technology I've taken time to being with some vegetables (in a fairly honest and non sexual way). Usually I turn them into a primitive soup. I admire their dirty honesty and peculiar shapes and names, how they are mostly non poisonous and how they appear year after year from the muddy, soaking and unforgiving ground. A mysterious and dark breeding ground of dishonest minerals, creepy crawlies and dead bodies. It makes little sense but thankfully it occurs regularly. The planet like some great groaning and growing machine pushes them up from under it's skin like pimples and acne and onto the chopping board. Chefs will swoon and croon about freshness and flavour and frantically slice technicolor pieces taking precise times and salted butter and cast iron pots to fuse them into abstract constructions. Then animal muscles and flesh are added in and it goes on and on via exclusive menus and reviews into eager diners bellys, or into ladles and  industrial packages and distribution systems. Sadly the sophisticated distribution that gets a lettuce from Kenya to  here in 8 hours can't quite work in reverse with food, clean water and medicine. Feeding the world from the world is an honest (thanks to labels and packaging) but corrupted industry. I imagine there would be enough vegetables in the world right now to give everybody who needs one a decent bowl of soup. I don't quite know why but despite having over forty billionaires in the UK and many more willing cheaper hands we can't manage that yet.

The teacher who gave me a good belting

Sir Alex Ferguson was happy to be regularly beaten at school by an aggressive teacher and a Lochgelly Tawse, so he says. Well so was I and I'm pretty sure that the teachers don't regret it even now and neither do I. When I was at school I was a troublesome little shit and my regular misbehaviour asked in pretty clear language for a good hammering now and again, it was that kind of world and I kind of miss it. In the end it was the only way I could express myself however clumsily but it ultimately ended in me progressing onwards to the clear light and then towards to a happy and well balanced present day. So there. That's not to say I'd want to travel back in time etc.

I did meet an ex-teacher (who belted me a few times for not reading my George Orwell on time) the other day, he was quite right in his judgement and we locked eyes and shook hands firmly on the matter. Done and dusted.

The past makes so much more sense when rendered in black and blue and white.

All mankind are like grass

The most powerful people in the world take a selfie and in so doing bring down the evil empire, marginalise a large section of occupied Crimea and then stall Twitter. Little do they care for their near end time bids on eBay or any of that that claptrap. They just want to win prizes and so become a distorted version of their true selves. In the great scheme of things who really cares? Good photo just the same. Meanwhile an alien film company from Alpha Centauri is making a sci-fi film about life on earth. Set in the present day it may well offer a lively and new perspective on the current situation of our planet. It should be out next year just in time to win an Oscar  category or two and destabilise the global political and economic systems provided that  it can get a good distribution deal.

Ongoing Volvo Anxiety

Cars: Looking out of the window and seeing my ageing Volvo with it's broken hand brake cable and moon distance miles of the clock I wondered what kind of metaphor might be hidden deep in my dysfunctional relationship with this battered machine. How might it describe it's unreliable owner and occasional, via fuel, repairs and servicing, distant benefactor.  Me there sitting in the dirty drivers seat, never anywhere else, squinting through the mist and bird shit cracked up on the screen. Fumbling with the knobs and switches like a bad and careless lover. Forcing speed when it clearly wants to maintain it's own wilful pace, happier to just plod across the desert like a worn camel or a loose cavalry horse left over from some rout or massacre. There's me in the middle, an occupant and soldier in life's petty wars. A grey ghost in a Volvo, as unfunky as a man can become complete with wooly jumper and odd socks and Steely Dan on the stereo.

There is no credible statement I can hope to make in this flak-magnet position so I cruise the roadways and potholes, as invisible as the postman or a Liberal activist. I am here, taking up some valuable space, possibly moving forward whilst all you others fly past with more important things to do. Me, alone but happy, trapped in a Zen spaceship that orbits my own head like it's own mission control had just given up and gone home and the umbilical's been finally cut. My mission, should I choose to accept it; to boldly go and get a space quite near to the deserted main door at  Tesco but avoiding puddles and not venturing into spaces allocated to the disabled or those with young families for they are highly valued consumers within our well structured but imaginary society (but are pretty sparse in numbers at 21:30 on a Saturday night I might say).

Careful with that axe JB

Today I spent a happy afternoon, diverted from eBay, feeding wild birds, life's cares and the vague weather chopping up guitar bodies. There's at least an N4, a PRS, and two SGs in this pile and half a thin line Telecaster. What do the general public see in these things? I feel so much better and this perfect recycling model means that a fire will one day be lit, toes will be warmed, snoozes snoozed, cats slowly basted and baked and some marshmallows will be lightly toasted once the sun goes down. After that it was a spot of ironing and connecting the TV up to the Internet via the dishwasher, the door bell and the earthing system that quietly trickles lots of little pieces of earth all around the house from 13 amp plug to 13 amp plug. Electricity is wonderful and we can now enjoy a full series of Jonathan Creek episodes and Grey's Anatomy as soon as I find out what the Sky PIN is. I involves at least four numbers between 0 and 9, no problem then.

Rock and Roll Over

For no particular reason  I really like guitars and everything about them, I've been around them, handling them and intrigued by them and their strangely shaped silent mystery and materials  (until wakened) for all of my life. A pathetic puzzle really and an affliction and attraction that's unlikely to go away any day soon. These two battle damaged examples are odd and provocative and not really a part of today's epic and glossy music scene at all, well not that I'm aware of what with money being tight and everything being collectible and sustainable (what an awful term we now to use to describe just about everything and so make it sound ok). But there once was a time...

Real Buzz

A real buzz is precisely what I didn't get when I heard about Standard Life's bit of contingency planning contingency plan. As a serial non-believer in the value of most contingency plans (and the effort that goes into building them, exercising them and then forgetting about them) I had to acknowledge that I could see the sense in this one...but it comes at a price and I fear it's not the only one that will be either exposed or confessed in the next few weeks. To fail to plan etc. etc. What also irritates me are the derisory scoffs and shoulder shaking giggles that the SNP indulge in when confronted with these real events. They need to toughen up a bit and stop the sniggering and face up to these difficult and potentially vote losing issues with some positive answers or at least a sober reflection on the possible consequences. The trouble is that just as we Scots love our country, whisky, lorne sausage and anything called Loch we also love our money, our pensions and the good feeling of dodging exorbitant bank and currency exchange charges and getting a bargain or a good deal. We also quite fond of The Co-op, Poundland and Gumtree. It's not about doom and gloom of course but there's a bleak financial future that's kind of hanging in the balance...even for the more visionary souls wandering free amongst us. 

Running out of ideas

So it's that flat line fun time in the middle of the week when nothing seems to fit correctly either lyrically or in your head or in your life so you wait patiently plunking on a guitar until the washing machine has gone past it's loudest and most irritating cycle and then head down to the kitchen and stir fry some real red beef with mushrooms and rice whilst enjoying a glass of even redder wine and wondering when in the hell your Sky Sports package will rise up like Lazarus and start to work for you like they promised it would some 48 hours ago via email.

Words

Death Row and Sky Sports

Green Mile: Always good to have a plan for your last meal, just in case you ever happen to end up on Death Row and you get that blank final menu card thrust into your sweaty palm. What to choose? Coming in strongly of course is the nicely cooked steak topped with mushrooms and  a fried egg or two, a classic burger and fries or a giant pastrami and salami sandwich oozing with all the trimmings and red wine with everything. Of course if it is truly your last meal on earth what about a real treat? Something that might via anaphylactic shock and allergic reaction actually kill you and you've had to avoid for all of your murdering adult life. Now you can choose your poison. Make mine a plate of scallops then; sorted.

Free Sky: Slow on the uptake as ever, BT Broadband customers get free Sky Sports apparently, how could I not know this? Well I did but couldn't be arsed to explore the options. Turns out it's relatively pain and call centre proof, no talking to robots works for me. Unadulterated streams of warm, pub free, bigoted and hopeless Scottish League One football beckons and the odd game of tartan tennis. See you later BBC Alba.

Still life with builder's rubble.

Wildlife

Close up and almost personal with sparrows and coal tits in the Scottish borders. That statement doesn't really sound right but it was made/done through double glazing and at a safe distance via digital technology and strong coffee. Also noted: the mighty River Tweed, the inspiration for salmon fishers, literature and jackets and flat caps is currently full of fast moving dirty water, maybe too much. Time will tell but to those settled peacefully on the banks I'd say "look out!"

Unfortunate attempts at things

"Time: Your life is like a room of a certain size that you fill with things. The room's measurements are in time. Based on the lives of others we can estimate and assume, all being well, how large that room might be. Of course it is only at a certain age you appreciate this and how little of the room you have left to fill but you still fill it anyway, you may even fill it with emptiness. The good thing is that there is no pressure on you, the room will wait for all things to find their way into the room only being time itself but held in the geometry of a box. The room has no doors but it does have windows, use them, there are many other time boxes out there worthy of observation." Verne Delorean.

"Poetry for the masses: It seems like a good thing until you start holding events and either a) the masses fail to turn up rendering the thing pointless or b) they do turn but just throw things and destroy the furniture." Jules Delorean.

"Economics: What this country needs is a good 5c cigar." Groucho Marx.

Unfortunate attempts at education No1.

On the rooftops

Up on the roof/scaffold today so I took these pics and a few more.

To plan for the future you must understand the past (and be able to make some kind of sense of it), so my future; making soup, building guitars from found materials and understanding (if possible) the abstract patterns of sound and the geometry they might create so as to allow the building of some creative piece to act as both a pacifier and a stimulant. Currently I'm stuck at the soup creation level.

Dundee Daily Photo.

I don't know what qualifies something as being art, I don't know what makes something street art or even just "street", a word that seemed to imply a gritty reality, or honesty and integrity to various odd ball things at onetime. Anyway I like this piece that I spotted in Dundee yesterday, next to the Globe pub, next to the university. I also liked the big fat black and blue burger and starter I had at Ketchup, also in Dundee. You might go there one day or maybe you will never go, that's about it then.

I also go my new internet specs today, that didn't end so well. They're currently dumped, dead and discarded in a bin at B&Q.