Gaseous Clay

Jeff Morgan, one half of Bo Molasses' management duo called me up today, to superficially shoot the shit, tell me about some merchandising deal that's in the offing and find out how the songwriting is coming along for the next album.

"Really well," I lied.

Jeff was pleased things were going so well. He couldn't wait to hear the demos. So I embellished my lie. Said I actually had two albums worth of finished material in the bag.

"Fan-fucking-tastic!" Jeff said, nearly creaming his corduroys.

I say Corduroys. Jeff might, of course, not have been wearing his corduroy troousers when he called me on the electric telephone, but as they are his habitual trouser of choice, along with white t-shirts and v-necked jerseys, I've used creative licence and imagined he was wearing them.

By the way, the other half of Bo Molasses' management duo is 'Champagne' Charlie Maslen, so called because he has a penchant for...well, I think you can guess.

'Champagne' Charlie suffers from verbal diarrhoea. Gets so worked up about stuff, he literally foams at the mouth. Speaks really up close in yer face too, which is off putting ‘cos he’s got squiffy eyes. Never can tell whether he’s looking at me, or two different objects about five feet either side of my head.

Anyway, back to the here and today...

Jeff reminded me there's alot riding on the next album.
A lot of expectation at the record company too. They
want it to finally break the band into the mainstream,
take us high up in to the stratosphere of
international musical achievement.

A multi-platinum selling affair on both sides of the Atlantic. Grammy awards, Britpop awards, mega sell-out arena tours. Wealth and fame the likes of which haven't been seen since Tuesday.

I reminded Jeff in turn, it was Bo Molasses he was talking about. An essentially unknown, albeit great garage blues outfit with a small but loyal fan base. Worldwide success, riches and fame weren't written in our destiny. Carrying on for a few more years until the various band members got tired of being in a band and being poor and split up, was.

"Fuck that," Jeff said. I should look on the bright side.

He then went into a boringly lengthy motivational monologue, which I zoned out of after a while, staring through my

transparent kitchen window (well, they are, aren't they?) dead ahead at a thick bush on the far side of my garden that seemed to be keeping guard over the exposed roots of the tree by the back wall - a tree that he could have sworn was whispering the word ‘wish’ at me over and over in a remarkably soothing way.

After Jeff went away and with limited food supplies in the house,
I was forced out. The hunter gatherer off to Sainsbury's.

On the way back to the house, an ugly ginger bird waiting at the bus stop
near the offie smiled at me. I hurried on by and then...it happened.

I spied Mimi for the first time simce our split a year and a half ago, a sight that stopped me dead in my tracks.

She was standing looking in the pet shop window, all tall and willowy in her skin tight jeans, knee length brown leather boots and heavy fake fur coat. My stomach whirled, my heartbeat quickened, my right eyebrow arched like Roger Moore's.

My God, she looked stunning, so beautiful it almost hurt my peep holes. In fact, for a few moments I couldn't quite believe it was her, just over there, checking out the puppies and the rabbits and the hamsters.

But it was.

Oh, thank you sweet Lord, I muttered under my breath. How many times had I fantasised about bumping into her again like this, you know, just casually in the street - a perfectly happy coincidence, the ideal opportunity to meet up again, you know, both of us alone. I'd go over and say hello, be perfectly charming, winningly so, totally unrecognisable from the desperate wreck she left crying on my kitchen floor, begging her not to leave.

I wouldn't even mention the past. No, I'd be magnanimous about it. She was right! We were never meant for each other. I'd thank her for her foresight in the matter. I'd demonstrate I'd matured. My eyes would sparkle with inner peace and harmony.

And after a brief chat, I'd say well, it was truly lovely to see her again but I must be off. I'd give her a friendly kiss on the cheek and leave her in the street staring after me, wondering why the fuck she ever left me for a total arsehole like Milo, and, you know, wondering whether to buy the little labrador puppy or the big white rabbit with the long floppy ears.

Then I spotted Milo, the slimy fucker, crossing the pavement towards her. He slipped his arms round her waist and rested his head on her shoulder, as she laughed and pointed to the puppy in the window wrestling with his own tail.

And how many times had I dreamt about meeting him again? Yeah, meeting him again and exacting my revenge by smashing his handsome-girlfriend-stealing-stupid-fucking-face in, Kung-Fu fists a-flailing with deadly accuracy?

But I’ve never had a proper physical fight in my life, not even as a kid. I’m just not the violent type, so my dreams morphed into nightmares and as I flew at him, Milo would always step forward and catch me with a swift kick to the abdomen or a deft chop to the back of the neck, felling me like a tree.

And I’d come to on the floor, see I’d wet myself and be so humiliated I’d burst into tears, such was the total physiological hold the man had over me.

With Milo now on the scene, I kept my head down, praying they wouldn’t spot me and wooshed by, ducking swiftly down a side street.

Once back in the safe, warm environs of my flat though, I
came over all weird and tired.

Jesus Christ. I'm still hung up on Mimi.

I popped on the box, rolled a spliff and poured
myself a large soothing whisky to calm down and
fell asleep on the sofa with the stress if it all.

I had this incredible dream. I found myself in a tiny lift
in a scuzzy building somewhere, pressing the button
to go to the top floor.

Everything was fine at first. The lift ascended normally,
but around the fourth or fifth floor it picked up speed,
getting faster and faster.

And it just kept on rising, higher and higher.

Before I knew it, I’d gone way past the top floor,
yet the lift was still rocketing skywards with
increasing velocity.

A loud bang above my head.

The lift shuddered violently and tilted to one side,
throwing me against the wall, but still it kept on climbing.
I panicked, pressing every button in sight, trying to stop it,
but it was no use.

There was another bang. The lift tilted over even further.

Fuck. I braced myself against the walls with my feet
and hands.

An almighty crashing sound. Even though
I couldn’t see a thing from inside, I knew the lift had
burst through the top of the building. It arced high.
I was left hanging in mid-air.

Then I was in freefall, stuck inside this bleeding
lift as it hurtled back down to earth, nothing I
could do to save myself.

I waited an eternity for the inevitable impact with
terra firma. Began screaming out for help,
banging on the walls,but of course no one could
hear me.

A split second before I hit the ground, I jerked
myself awake in a pool of acute panic and sweat,
each sinew of my being gripped by overwhelming fear. 

A dream indicative of a preoccupation with failure, perhaps?

River of river

Sweet Thames, run softly ‘til I end my song.

I don’t know why, but I have a spiritual affinity with the river Thames. Whenever I’m feeling down or confused (or just plain stoned), I mince along to its banks, usually in Battersea Park, stop and stare down into its murky waters.

I find it centres me, brings me peace. Just thought you'd like to know.

Anyway, all that nonsense with Tom's van yesterday reminded
me of thetime in a car park somewhere in the north east
I celebrated the one and only time my vintage Spitfire started
first time by cheering and raising my hands in the air,
only to knock the gear stick into reverse and shoot
back into the car behind.

That car behind didn't have its handbrake on. 'Twas a classic
case of the domino effect.

My last vision, (as I burned rubber out of the car park) was
of the car I'd bumped into rolling menacingly towards some
nearby houses.

Bling tone

Do I have a problem separating fact from fiction? Yes. Do I care? No.

Something rather interesting happened to me today.

Tom had to deliver some tiles to a famous actor (whose name I shall keep secret, just to piss you off). This actor fellow is a favourite of mine. Made lots of great films on the 60’s and 70’s.

He has a house way out in the middle of nowhere, Kent. Tom called me up, asked if I wanted to tag along, maybe meet the guy. We could stop off on the way back for lunch at this great pub he knows.

Yeah, great.

I prepared for the journey with a potent bong and set off for Tom's workshop.

Only, when I got there, the bugger had been called out for a biz meeting with some other people and had left a note begging me to please make the delivery for him.

I had nothing else to do, and there was still the chance of meeting the actor bloke, so I thought, fuck it, why not?

I jumped in the delivery van looking forward to a little country road trip. After all, I hadn’t left the city for weeks.

Despite being wildly stoned, I found the famous actor’s place with some ease.

Big house he's got, on top of a hill, a long winding lane leading up to it from the main road. The lane petered out into a dirt track maybe two hundred yards past the end of the house on the slope down the other side of the hill.

On either side of this dirt track lurked two deep dry ditches full of mean boulders and tall weeds.
Outside the house, I parked up, got out and wandered round the back of the van to open up.
As I did so, the fucking thing began rolling forward. I'd forgotten to apply the handbrake.

Luckily there was nothing ahead, just two hundred yards of open lane before the dirt track and the ditches.

I jogged alongside the van, opening the driver’s door on the run.

Mighty tricky thing to do, actually - more so when yer minds bathing in the soothing effects of hi-octane marijuana.

But before I could jump in, the van picked up speed and began rolling so fast, I couldn't keep up, let alone get inside and put the brake on.

Eventually the fucker rolled away from me and I just stood in the middle of the road, head in hands watching it go, waiting for the inevitable crash down in to either of the huge drops on either side.

How would I explain any van trashing disaster to Tom? He’d never forgive me.

The van’s front left wheel struck a large stone in the road and veered off sharply to the left.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit…

The pavement had long since ended, but there was still a high curb, the only thing twixt the van, a long drop and an inevitable business vehicle wrecking incident below in the ditch.

Miraculously, with about twenty yards to spare, the van hit the curb, front tyres squealing as it rode up and over to a metal scraping on concrete stop.

I held my breath, hardly able to believe my good fortune, but there the van remained, wedged on the curb rocking to and fro like a see-saw.

I ran down to inspect the damage, foolishly climbing down into the ditch trying to pushing the van up off the curb, back on to terra firma, but it was just too heavy. Also, with the van balancing on a knife-edge, full of heavy tiles, rocking back and forth, there was danger the fucker would tip over and bring me to a horrible squishy end in the ditch.

Nope, there was nothing for it but to go back, knock on the famous actor’s door, explain the situ and seek help. He apparently did all his own stunts on his classic films. He'd be up for a spot of excitement.

The actor answered the door himself, which was quite cool, except he wore a blue blazer, and a yellow silk cravat.

I explained what had happened.

"We get a lot of stolen cars abandoned down this road,” he said, shaking his head. “But I've never heard of anything like this."

He peered out from his front doorstep along the road to my forlorn vehicle and back to me, by now suffering from post-shock nervous giggles.

Being now an elderly thesp, he poor git didn't look physically up to walking down to the van, let alone helping me shift the bastard off a concrete curb six feet above a dry ditch, nor did he seem keen.

He told me there was a farmer who lived about a mile down the dirt road who had a tractor. He might be able to help.

I set off in search of this tractor farmer fuck and sure enough, found him at his farm. He had a very big tractor and a thick rope, plus an impressively ruddy complexion and a nose like a strawberry.

He was willing to haul the van to safety, pouring one hundred weight of scorn and dry disdain on my idiotic London behaviour in his broad Kentish accent as he did so.

A wince-inducing scraping of metal sound accompanied his efforts, but amazingly a cursory check revealed no serious damage done to the van and I was able to deliver the tiles to the famous actor geezer and return the van to Tom’s workshop in one piece.

What are the fucking chances of that?

Coffee cup bits

I found myself at a party last summer, woefully stoned (no surprise
there, I hear you sigh). It was after the band played a gig
in London. One of those parties you're never
quite sure how you came to be there, but you're there all
the same.

I knew no one, and no one seemed to know me. I just
wandered around in a dope daze, observing the absurdity of
people.

Anyway, I happened upon a gaggle of awfully, awfully nice
young Trustafarian girls standing, chatting in a circle
with some bleach blonde Aussie dude. 

“Well, Sarah and I were in the Dominican Republic last year,” one
of the babes said. “We had lunch on this boat thingy going up
a river.You know the same river they used for that film Full
Metal Jacket?”

“Apocalypse Now,” corrected the bleach blonde Aussie dude.

“No. I’m sure they said it was Full Metal Jacket.” 

“Well, they were wrong. Apocalypse Now.” 

The bleach blonde Australian dude took a swig of his beer. What
an arrogant twat, I did surmise.

“Well, anyway,” the girl said, picking up her thread. “We had
to wait a bit for a table and then, when one was free, instead of
clearing everything away for us, the waiter just swept the crumbs
off the table into the river, wiped the knives, forks and the
plates off on his dirty apron and put them back down on
the table for us. Disgusting.”

The bleach blonde Aussie dude chipped in again.

“Well, I’ve heard ingesting a few germs now and
then is actually quite good for you. Helps keep
the old defence mechanism on its toes. Modern life
is so sterile these days, most of us are hardly ever exposed to
the real germ world, are we? The human immune system is
going to pack up and go on holiday if we’re not bloody careful.” 

He took a final mighty swig from his beer can, crushed it in his right
hand and held it out at arm’s length, for observation. 

Oh a twat he was, but I was fascinated. Couldn't keep my eyes off.

Then this jolly enthusiastic gingery-haired English girl piped up
in a cut glass accent.

“Yah, I just can’t see what all this fuss
about hygiene is either. I mean, for gawd sake, I use
the same cloth to clean my bits as I do my coffee cups.” 

Images of her doing the washing up, stopping occasionally
to scrub her own gingery private parts with the cloth hit
me, like a frying pan in the face. 

Instant and uncontrollable laughter, lager burst out of my
mouth, out of my nose right over people. 

Turns out I was the only person there with no idea she
worked at a horse stables and the ‘bits’ she was referring to
were in fact of the equestrian kind. 

The jolly enthusiastic gingery-haired girl looked around at me
nonplussed as I fell to my knees, stomach muscles gripped
with mirth.

She asked if someone could please explain what
was so funny. 

The bleach blonde Aussie casually spelt it out for her.

“Oh, please. How immature.”

That's me!

Apologetic sprouts

I went down to my local music shop today for some guitar strings. On the shop noticeboard I saw this message scrawled across a sheet of paper in angry biro.

Git-arist Wanted URGENTLY!!

Git-arist urgently needed to complete new post-punk band. Ability not important. Looks not important but you must be annoyingly ‘in yer fuckin’ face’ anytime of the day or night. Audition Friday 7pm St, Joseph’s Primary School Hall.

Beached Wales

Monday's are normally a dull affair, so I wrote a poem to cheer us up.

Kite Poem

This morning was windy

So I got out my kite and wandered off to the beach

But the wind wasn’t there

It had no time to spare

For a poor lonely person like me

And just then a girl came running along

Crying “Mind that hole, sweet Zac”

But I didn’t hear and just disappeared

And found myself stuck down the hole

It's Monday.

Cravat buffoon-ery

Sugarcane, Bo Molasses’ bass player came round last night. I was still edgy over the Zosia/Tallulah meltdown.

Sugarcane suggested an eve at The Fox to calm the nerves.

We smoked a few bongs before departure and bumped into Weird Bob out in the hall. He tagged along.

The Fox was stuffed to the rafters by the time we arrived. Standing room only. In my stoned condition, it felt intensely claustrophobic, so many human beings and noise in one space.

Weird Bob made an immediate b-line for the bogs to avoid getting the first round in. So with great difficulty, Sugarcane and I pushed on through to the bar area and I ordered three beers.

The overhead TV monitor behind the bar was showing a compilation of the English football team’s greatest howlers, including Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle’s penalty misses against Germany in the semi-final of Italia 90, Gareth Southgate’s woeful penalty miss against the Germans in the semi-final of Euro 96, David Batty’s against Argentina in the 98 World Cup, Beckham and Vassell’s horrendous fluffs against Portugal in Euro 2004 and Lampard, Gerrard and Carragher fucking it al up also against Portugal in the 2006 World Cup.

Alan, The Fox’s white haired Scottish manager stood under the optics chuckling to himself.

“Och, I shouldnae laugh,” he said to no one in particular.

Pints pulled, Alan asked me for nine
pounds ninety please.

I stared blankly down at the old wallet,
unable to work out how many
coins or notes I’d need. 

Ended up uncertainly handing over two
twenty quid notes, a tenner and about
three quid in shrapnel. 

Alan took my cash, spread it on the bar, picked out
what was required, stuffed it in the till and returned the
rest with my change. 

Replenishing my wallet with the money was more complex
than I could possibly imagine. So was pocketing the
fucking thing.

Nevertheless, I gathered the three pints in both hands
and wobbled back through the double swinging doors
to The Fox’sfake indoor beer garden/conservatory
area where Sugarcane and Weird Bob had
found a safe spot over by an artificial
tree in the corner.

Weird Bob stood immediately under the branches of the tree,
his face hidden amongst the low hanging leaves. 

“Cheers lads,” he said, taking his glass from me and raising it.
“Eyes down for a full fucking mackerel.”

He knocked back his pint in one, let out an exaggerated ahhhhhhh and smacked his teeth together.

“Same again people?”

He borrowed a tenner off me and strolled to the bar to get the next round in.

Lots more exuberant drinking was done, the alcohol conspiring
with the weed to shatter my brain into delightfully discordant fragments.

Some bloke Weird Bob knew came over for a chat.

We watched as he stood before us, announcing he was embarking on a one-man game of charades using only his eyes.

"Gents,” he cried theatrically. “See if you can guess who, or what I am.”

Weird Bob's chum stood stock still in front of us, alternately staring
wildly and revolving his eyes.

It was quite sinister, even more so when, clearly disappointed that we didn’t seem to be getting his mime, he startled us all by barking out that his self-imposed ‘eyes only’ rule no longer applied.

He picked up two bottle tops from the floor and roaring like a beast, flew them through the air; adding highly realistic propeller plane engine sounds and machine gun aka-ka-ka-kas, before throwing the bottle tops down and roaring loudly, beating his chest.

Some bloke on the far side of the room called out, guessing he was King Kong.

Weird Bob's mate ceased what he was doing, turned and bowed.

As most of the people in the place were now staring at us and paranoia had gripped me in its evil, evil claws, I suggested we shimmy back to mine pronto.

No one agreed with me.

Back at mine, after closing time, Sugarcane took my weed and fixed the biggest spliff he could muster; a ‘Fulham Fourskin’, so-called because it was invented at his old gaff in Fulham and requirered four rizla skins to build it.

The rest of the night passed pleasantly in a spectacular dope haze.