She sends me pictures of ducks

“Make the clocks move.” – Kevin Devine

How long have you been alive? And I’m not talking years since your birth. I’m not talking years since you remember or seconds you’ve been awake. I’m talking alive. Not this bullshit about clean water and clear heads either. Alive. To be young successfully you have to exhausted all the things that make you young. To grow up. To graduate youth. You have to become bored of it all. Alive, for me at least, is fear. That mad excitement that you feel right at the back of your mouth under your tongue. That pulses in the flat of your wrists that comes up through your arms, into the mouth and explodes out of your mouth in a mad squeal. You have to be afraid to make that noise. Just a little. Afraid and pushing past it. Beating that feeling. Like being drunk on the bonnet of a moving car. Being reckless and full of risk. BOOM-fires the brain. Whiskey in hand. Bottles hitting passing cars.

But before the bible-belt get all frisky about my initial environment, that feeling also comes in moments when the blood is still at least  95% pure. Sometimes. When a boy or a girl gets it just right. When a moment comes. Clear day, rainy day, doesn’t matter. What matters is the person.  The moment. You hold your mouth close to stop it yelping out. You can hear your heart trying to bust out of the chest. Your blood sings.

 

So how long? With many you can count it on a hand, and in seconds. They think it’s sad that my life is unstable. I think it’s sad that they’ve never felt how that feels. It’s shouting. It’s war. It’s that thing that reaches down into you and pulls out everything single fucking thing that you ever wanted to be, that you could be, that she needs you to be. Things you didn’t know where in there. Things you make you alive.

Whistlin’ dixie.

“Whistlin’ dixie at the scene.” – Kevin Devine – Whistlin’ Dixie. 

Just a nation full of dumb kids. Caught whistlin’ dixie at the scene. Fuck you. She said. And she was write. Whatever excuse I can wax lyrical about being some beautiful escapism is lost of me. Or her. You. It’s lost on you. It’s hard to be compelling. For some. For others it bleeds out. In no attempt to be poetic it will come. But then there’s the local. The not so. They have to learn. Learn exactly where their talent lies. In these old streets with the rickety -brick-a-brack housing. They argue and they spit and they scream in the night it rings around these windows like a thousand crashing bells. It’s lost on me. The words don’t fit. Dixie at the scene.

Lenny.

“Can you hear us pumping on your stereo?” – Supergrass 

 

If he looks at you like that, with that strange jittery composure, it means he’s done more cocaine than you. With that figit, where the eyes don’t scream, they shout questions. The lips stay still. The eyes scream at everything. He’s done more cocaine than you. You are, too him, small fry. You are, for the next few minutes, naive. It’s not a competition. Competition is the last thing you need here. The last thing you need is to be racing to a gram.

Cocaine. Take all your money, all of it, out of the bank, sell those brickabracks you don’t need, the rare vinal, the old guitar, get it all together and throw it all in a blender. Powder your own money. If you don’t need it. Cocaine is bad. Cocaine is a money pit. Cocaine is that feeling you get just after. Cocaine is trying to stay in the moment. Cocaine is a time machine. Cocaine is a chase to stay still. Einstein – cocaine. 

 

Scarecrows and school.

“Some scarecrow from high-school that you loved and never slept with.” The Longer that I’m Out Here – Kevin Devine. 

There’s six billion of us. Maybe seven. I think I saw in the news it passed seven. Or got to seven. Seven is definitely in the pipeline. Seven or six, the facts remain that we are all different. It always fascinated me the way they say that no two snowflakes are the same. Every time it snows I my thought reaches the point were it thinks that same thought. “How can they know that?” Maybe there is some bizarre science which lends itself to infinite variables. Even then, if it is infinite variations than it is possible that a thousand the same could fall on the same field in the same day in the same minute. I heard there was a scientist who was nearly driven mad by all of this. He would collect the snow and try and examine as many flakes as he could just trying to find the two that were the same. To prove everybody wrong. It reminded me of me. Trailing the towns. Convinced that I’m not looking for a snowflake the same, but wondering if there is one out there every time it snows. 

What bothered me was, about the scientist, was what if he missed it. What if he had a flake that was the carbon copy of the one that was five or six later under the telescope, he can’t photo everyone? He must have missed something. He must have missed it. He must have missed her.    

Dreamt of smoke without fire.

“Smoke without fire.” Bright Eyes. 

I knew the devil once, yeah. I did. At least that’s what he told me he was. What he asked me to call him. You must always approach people like that with a certain wide eyed caution. Know your enemy. His clothes weren’t what you’d expect. No long coats or Halloween style madness from his coat hangers. No pointing shoes or red to speak of. No horns. Normal dress. Well, not normal, like you and me. He spoke soft. Apologetic at times. But graphic. Unreserved. Not ashamed of the things he’d done and the trouble he caused. Just a man. “Your no devil” I thought and cast his claims aside like spent shells. Just a very childish man with very loud gun that the whole world happened to hear. But then again, the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world he didn’t exist. 

What if?

“I found my fickle friend out in the alleyway.” – Kevin Devine – Just Stay. 

Sometimes I wonder, if I tried really hard, if I would be able to learn how to dodge bullets like these. If every moment gazing, or performing useless tasks with no payment or pay out, was used instead on some steady focus. The attempting of some seemingly impossible task. How far would I get? No one’s perfect. It’s a fact. But it’s also something lots of people hide behind. “No one’s perfect!” They’ll say as they drop the ball on a catch they probably should have made. No one’s 100 percent. We get that. But don’t hide behind it. It’s no excuse.

What about those times when we awake near the bottom of barrel? When the heads all messy and starts turning tricks. What if every time I woke like that I strived to make count the cloudy head and spent liver. What if every second spent asking “What if?”? Indeed. What if?

 

The narrowing of aim.

“Percy Shelly down to Marxs” Al Baker – Thank god I’m an atheist. 

It’s a little confusing. It’s a little hard sometimes. It’s up and down. Sometimes life isn’t all yellow and blue. Sometimes life is purple and that’s OK for some people. Some people like purple. Some people accept purple. For them purple is OK. That’s fine. But the ones you want to stick with. The ones you want to learn from. The ones you want to be. Are the ones who chase the colour they want. The ones who say “Fuck purple”. Don’t let your life be purple. You can stop it being purple. I’m not saying be a fucking hippy and eat shadows and piss. I’m not saying don’t get a job. I’m not saying don’t pay taxes or get a mortgage. I’m saying no one said your life had to be purple. Or some shit. You know when you have a point and you are just desperately trying to hold on to. To keep that train on track, as it picks up too much speed and starts to sway and jackknife. Before you know it. Your off the track. Lying in the land that no one wanted to build houses on because of the tracks and trains. Lying in the old horse land next to the dining cart. It helps that, when these thought trains leave the tracks, that you are on your own. You don’t want to be lying next to someone you know, let alone love, in a field in the sticks in the middle of shitsville. On your back in the dark. Confused and bleeding, noticing the lack of light pollution. This is one of those. This is me lying in a field. This is the loud loud whistling of disaster. That rattle that picks and picks to the unbelievable.  The only thing that follows the noise, when it reaches that point where it shakes you till your eyes clothes and your bones vibrate, is silence. Clean like water. The stars and silence and a night on his back in a dark field in old horse land is what follows a man who let go trying to turn his life away from purple.

 

Bark with no bite.

“And when I’m here I’m home.” – Wessex Boy – Frank Turner. 

The cigarette smoke was thick, and lonesome and twisting away into the light up and away into the night sky. It was leaving but at least it was mine. I remember girls. I remember names and faces. I remember barely holding on in my brain. As hard as I could. Praying for a shot of redemption. This is it. This is me. “Help” screams that voice that pipes up on a hangover. I don’t need help. Not really. I’m fine, thank you. I think I’ve pulled it together enough to just make sure. My leg won’t stop going. Don Delillo kept me up. Don Delillo, Whiskey, me and a blinking midnight clock. Blood. There was blood, I remember that. On the walls. I’ve been chasing rivers. I remember that too. Blood and rivers. And talk. Too much talk from people who didn’t mean it. Bark with no bite. Words with no fight. If I was king such an act wouldn’t go unpunished, I would have them lined up and I would have them shot. The words are yours, the least you can do is mean them. Davey Jones can’t save us from drowning. 

The only one you feed.

“I wouldn’t do that, I couldn’t do that to you.” – Dive dive – Mr10%

Fuck you. A happy writer was never a good one. A sober writer was only a moment of clarity. A writer who turned it all off or down isn’t a writer at all. Arrogance should be reserved exclusively for the young and those know no not better. Both qualities must be in check. Arrogance should be a flirtation of youth. Youth should be a little less than what should be expected. A sentence should be thought about or come totally naturally. It should be only a brainwave or an extension of the body. No middle ground. No compromises.  No innocent bystanders. If you can’t do that you shouldn’t be in the industry. Industry. No. Not industry. We are not turning out toasters, or toys, or chocolate or guns. We are giving you, as a present, thoughts. Thoughts dressed up in the prettiest clothing we can think of. Not for praise, or love, or dignity, or attention, or to show off exactly how pretty we made the clothes, but because we just want you to see it. To feel it. To understand it. I don’t know if I understand. The one that lives is the only one you feed.

Writing is freedom.

“Punkrock is freedom.” – Kurt Cobain. 

There, that one. That’s the one. Finally. No skin on the title. There it is. Just what I needed. It’s good to be back. Keep you posted. x