DREAM: 6th March 2012 Birthday

(Don't remember)

DAY: 7th March 2012

On the way to work, walking to the Arsenal tube and can feel a pain in my right foot. Maybe due to me running drunk and frantically down the Holloway Road last night after 3. Worried I would get attacked by the solitary hooded inner city apparition across the road. Thought of a special compulsory hoody the government could invent were the perpetrator's face would be printed on the back and top of the garment so CCTV footage could identify them more effectively. Give my weeping family some solace at least. But how far would this governmental intrusion go? How long will our civil liberties be at stake? An Anti- Extra Marital Affair device, when the husband is in bed with another woman his wedding ring would project images and pre-recorded phrases his mother used to say, thus preventing him from maintaining an erection. "Beans or peas Tom?" " You can play your Gameboy after you finish your homework," "I love you Tom."Scary times.
On tube to Holborn. See an old woman with a walking stick reading an Ian Rankin thriller.
Mid 50's man gets on at Kings Cross sporting a red outdoor hill walkers coat with grey shock white hair and moustache. Looks like in a past life he hosted a children's science programme for ITV.
I began to think is there another person like me on this train doing exactly what I am doing? And if so, what are they writing about me? How many words do the eskimo's have for 'bald'?
Read snatches of a woman's paper to my left. A young man was picked randomly by a gang and was stabbed to death.
Hear an older man loudly flirt with a laughing younger woman. She is wearing a fur coat that looks like the top half of a gorilla suit.
Spanish woman meets my eyes. Skeptical of my writing.
See a poster for The Devil Inside. The advertisement states this is "The film the Vatican don't want you to see". This is untrue. The vatican don't want you to see any film. Or even be able to see.
"Will this Budget target re-election or the recovery?"
Spanish woman throws me another inquisitive glance.
"The road to economic recovery isn't a road. It's a flight path." Heathrow airports selflessly tossed two cents.
Announcer informs me I have reached Queensway and my soul emits a little whine.
Walk past an incredibly tall man with his extremely small girlfriend. From an aerial view their relationship would look suspect.
Talk to a fellow employee about being hungover. I told him that I don't appear to have a headache but if you were to throw a pen at me I would react two minutes later. We speak about going out in the West End, about the legions of tourists and drunks clogging up the pubs and footpaths, how you can't relax and enjoy your friends company. I told him about one night when a man bumped into me, I turned to face him due to a natural reaction, he took this as a taunt and puffed out his chest, I sheepishly turned away and awaited his knife in my spine, walking away I stopped to see if he was gone, when I turned he turned and again took this as a taunt. My co-worker enquired whether he was a big man. I told him these measurements don't matter to me, I barely have a shadow and can hardly take an insult never mind a punch. How I would be desperately trying to choke myself with my own tongue before my assailant could reach me. He laughed.
A waiter comes into the office and worriedly asks me why a manager was ringing him at 8 am. Was he in trouble? Did I have any answers? I told him they were ringing him at such an early hour because they wanted to make him ugly by stealing his beauty sleep. His reaction gave me the impression that this was a valid assessment.
Talk to a waitress about her new living arrangements in a hostel. She doesn't like it. I ask her does she feel safe there? She tells me that she is a big girl and can handle herself. Even when your asleep? I ask. She laughs and says nothing like that happens. I told her I begged to differ and that I could show her reams of footage on the internet. She shuddered and tried to change the topic. She says she is moving out next week so things will be better. So you have a new place? I ask. She says "Kind of". I instantly get an image of her hugging a piece of a roof.
Another waitress enters the office. I ask her about her day. She is from Poland and is here studying to be an actor. I ask her to recite something for me and she breaks into some Shakespeare A Midsummer Nights Dream. Helena:
O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent

To set against me for your merriment.

If you were civil and knew courtesy,

You would not do me thus much injury.

Can you not hate me, as I know you do,

But you must join in souls to mock me too?

If you were men, as men you are in show,

You would not use a gentle lady so

This reminds me of my conversation with Hugo the last night about how life is a multi-media mish mash.
Another waitress enters to pick up her money bag. She asks me in an accusatory tone " What do you do here all day?" I decided to indulge her and told her I spend my time giving my teeth individual names.
I went downstairs and told Hugo about the Shakespeare moment. I began to think more about the beauty sleep idea. If I got the phone number of Katy Perry or Cheryl Cole I could ring them night and day at obscene hours, they would become tired, irritable, sleep weary, agressive, then I would hide their Vitamin B12 sandwiches, destroy their nervous systems, they lose their looks, lads mags lose interest, they leave us alone. Bliss.

DREAM: 16th January

I was watching some Questions and Answers type panel show and the topic of discussion was aliens and the supernatural. Two people were adamant in the existence of both while Chris Morris was giving glib surreal answers which seemed to heighten the absurdity of the occasion.

DAY: 17th January

Desperately Seeking Putin - idea for sitcom.
See a paint splattered inverted Impressionist builder holding a bread roll of cholesterol and a tabloid paper like a sick tongue lolling from his armpit in Tesco. Splashed on the front page is a picture of Kim Kardashian in a low cut top, it's almost like the picture was taken from space. It's that tasteful. Attention is their oxygen. Take that away and they die. What will she leave behind? Donate her breasts to Michelin.
On the tube to work. Pretty girl in the distance is weaving her hands through her hair. From the corner of my eye it looks like wheelchair bound Tai Chi or Capoeira. Or just fighting off metaphysical bees.
See a poster for hair removal. 39 quid. Mother Nature and Time is my hair remover and its free. I win. For now.
Man beside me is smiling incessantly. Unsettling. His smile seems otherworldly, like St. Peter at the Gates of Insanity is waving his knob around, coaxing him in.
Girl to my left is wearing a fur hat. Looks like she is either falling down the arse of a tiger or pushing her head out for air. Fur hair.
Man still smiling. Maybe he's happy. Maybe he's on his way to the hospital to embrace his new born son. Maybe I am just projecting my own cynicism?
Man reading the jobs section in the Law Gazette. Picture of a jockey in a speeding chariot. The chariot has spinning Pimp My Ride wheels with rims. The title of the picture says " Crims on Rims."
Man with folded arms and nosy eyes, watches every movement of this Gazette reading man. So do I but from a purely sociological perspective. M'Lord.
"Judicial Diversity group fails to meet"
Bump my head on the way out of the train. Like a character from The Remains of the Day trapped in an Akon video.
See a unfashionable girl read a fashionable magazine as the train pulls away.
Joke with a fellow employee about how the hot dog meat is most probably extracted from the elbow of ducks.
Talked to a really friendly girl from Kent. We share our stories and journeys, how we managed to find ourselves here in this room, at this point in time. She used to work as a managerial assistant in a trendy bar where she availed of the copious free flowing alcohol. She quoted George Best. We talked about Bukowski and how he paints a picture of alcoholism that seems almost noble, a coping mechanism to take the edge off the absurdity of people and the world. I mention I'm a vegetarian and that I'm not a vegan. I don't lick stones to survive.
We talk about yoga. I tell her how I deal with people that give me grief over it. I tell them I'm not doing yoga for spiritual purposes, I purely do it so I can live long enough to attend their funeral. How I will interrupt the weeping widow during her speech and ask the congregation " Does anyone fancy anything from Tesco?" Thereupon I will return with a shopping bag of Choc Ices and sporting a sombrero. In the foyer, I will then do a voluntary interpretative dance about his illness which will climax in a headstand in the shape of a cigarette as a tribute and warning to the remaining few. Maybe this is what goes through all the fitness fanatics heads? A long life is the greatest revenge. Especially if that life was purposefully boring and uneventful.      
 
 


   

DREAM: 10th January 2012

Scored the winner for Arsenal.

DAY: 11th January 2012

In the shower singing Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd followed by a selective stroll through Scott Walker's back catalogue. I sound better in the shower. It adds ten years to my voice.
In the midst of meditation and I keep getting interrupted by outside sounds. Two bickering rubbish collectors arguing over the right of way on a one way street. They sound like the Chuckle Brothers debating the best way to pass an ice cream maker through a window. I think of a concerned neighbour at her wits end, finally calling the police due to the repeated domestic disturbances at the home of the Brothers.
The lorry starts to turn and emits a beep and an quaint English voice repeats on a loop "Keep Clear, Vehicle Turning." I try to refocus my mind.
Hear building works in the distance, sounds like someone chopping a carrot into a microphone. BBC Sound Effects Volume 8 perhaps. Or a giant Jamie Martyr Oliver making a sugar free salad for some disenfranchised teens. Drenching London with his overbite spit. This is then followed by a noise that sounds like a manic elderly man testing his wooden cane on a footpath. Maybe it is all just a big tape recorder blaring out sound effects and all the property developers are really in the Cayman islands tanning themselves beside the pool, ill gotten cocktail in hand, lounging around like free ranged veal, while female transition year students rub their bellies and weep beside them, devastated with the fresh knowledge that they can never go home now.
Try again to focus my mind.
My stomach makes a noise that sounds like a man falling down a well. Dalai Lama wept.
Watched a video about the Jarawa tribe from the Andaman islands in India. A tribe that has shunned contact with the outside world but that all changed in the 70's when a highway was built through their forest. The video depicts members of the tribe dancing for tourists in exchange for food. One girl, completely naked except for a bag of grain, childlike, rocks uncomfortably on her feet, embarrassed and exposed like Eve. The police are supposed to protect them but they accept bribes and act as tour guides for the "human safari". The tribe is under threat from outside diseases and also there has been reports of sexual exploitation of the tribes women. Sick to my stomach.
Walk to Tesco. See a sleep weary zombie father bumbling forward while his son follows behind. The boy is eating a pink sprinkled donut. He takes a bite, grimaces and screams "I don't like this."
See a ready made pot of food called " All Day Breakfast Pasta."
Buying tomatoes, fake ham, pasta shells.
At the counter and need to open my jacket to fish out money from the inner pocket. Unbuttoning my coat on command it crosses my mind: how many times has a Tesco retail cashier been flashed? Or how many times has someone pulled out strange objects from his pockets in the search for coins like some pornographic magician.
Leaving Tesco I stopped to write outside the Arsenal football stadium. A bird flies toward me at head level. Think about leaving it to the last second and then try to header it.
I wait for my parallel housed neighbour to walk home first. It's not anti-social to evade people you don't like. That's just logic. She routinely stands outside her front door, night and day, cigarette in hand, staring into our living room window, secret smile drooping off her Loose Women face. She's like some freelance Neighbourhood Watch cottage industry of gossip. The kind of person that if you were involved in a car crash would only join you to the hospital so she could have something to say at her hairdresser.   
Listen to The Electrician by the Walker Brothers before I head off to work. It's like they plant a throat lozenge in your brain, smash it and all the healing liquidy goo transports you to Heaven were you are then breastfed by Jesus.
Walk to the tube. See a mother push her baby in a pram. Her facial expression seems to convey confusion; almost like she hasn't fully worked out what the little breathing thing in the pram is.
On the Piccadilly line and see two teenage girls sporting big headphones like earmuffs and they seem to be dressed in pyjamas. They exchange stories about a boy who was "slapped."
Young trendy adult boy with red skinny corduroy jeans and Eraserhead haircut gets on. His face reads like a man who has just lost the code to the American Apparel after party.
See an ad for a type of Night Nurse medicine called Rescue Night. The blurb reads " Rescue Night can help switch off those repetitive, unwanted thoughts so you can enjoy peace of mind."What's next? A nice fuzzy, warm instant cuppa - prozac with extra croutons of serotonin.
See posters for the film Shame all over the tube. Deservedly so. Heartbreaking film. One that rattles around the system for days after viewing. Fassbender is a legend in the making.
See an old Chinese man asleep, head lolling lower and lower. From a distance it looks like he is sulking.
Catch my reflection in the window. My fringe looks like a solitary badgers paw.
Get the Holborn train to Queensway and the stench of urine in the air is now circulating through my own tubes.  
An elderly couple get on and the wife takes the seat beside me while her husband decides to defiantly stand. I ask her does he want my chair when suddenly the train takes off and she falls into my lap. I felt like a Japanese businessman with sensory weighing scales for hands. We laughed about it and I moved one seat over to allow the husband to sit down and to also put a further hole into his dam of futile perennial protest.
A businessman gets on and basically sits on my arm. Somewhere Hugh Hefner's inner right ear is burning.
A pretty middle aged woman wearing a black beret and holding a bulging bouquet of flowers is intrigued by my writing. We make eye contact and her eyes drop like hot scones.
Even if strangers demand to see what I'm writing they won't be able to make head nor toe of it. I even tried to read something I wrote the other day and it was incomprehensible. It looked like hailstones. Dyslexic braille.
Old builder to my right doesn't know were to park his eyes, woman trying to sleep with her hands in the prayer position, bald businessman doing a crossword, businessman who sat on my arm is messing about with a game on his iphone. The game is of a man in an office. Perhaps he is the computer character and this is just a 3D version of his office diary. He could have virtual sex with his secretary. Marriages might last longer if this technology existed.
On the crammed silent human eyeless dull lift with fellow hound dog's body commuters wearing Buster Keaton masks of conveyor belt numbness. A Judi Dench- like voice tells us to keep clear of the doors.
Walk to work. Meet a fellow employee on the escalator. He asks me "You going?."  I say "No I'm coming." I asked is he going? He says no, he just came early. We laugh at how we both came early. I am 25 years of age.
I am counting 1p's from the greasy leather money bags belonging to the waiters. The insides of the bag seem to be coming apart. Little strings like Jewish ringlets hang from the penny pieces. I instantly thought of Daniel Goncalves.
Catch my reflection in a life sized mirror. I look like a strange child in my dull, ugly uniform. Was talking to my sister Eleanor last Sunday about our pay structure and how we don't get paid until after the next month. How are you supposed to survive? Just let yourself eat your own insides. So I am basically on involuntary hunger strike and I don't want to wear my uniform. Accidentally like a Bobby Sands Martyr.
 A girl at work I have never seen before says "Hello John." Unsettling.
I inform my fellow money counting colleague that I will be doing a breathing technique to pass the time. Just so he doesn't look over and think I am strange. I don't want to put my finger on my nostril because of all the greasy coins I have been sorting out. We talk about spots. I told him I don't want any facial blemishes, especially before marriage. Then when I tie the knot I'll immediately let myself go. No sentimental hygiene. Not even wash my face. Cycle with my mouth open.
Decided to use a pen on my nostril. Free will.
We spoke about relationships and how you can never be friends with ex-lovers. It just never works. It feels like your talking to an aunt. Too forced and no room for spontaneity. "Never go back to a lit firework" my co-worker says.
We talk about land and borders, my father's dreams of businessmen pulling cabbages out of the field, the full moon and it's affects on people and on A & E records, how a waitress was attacked and robbed last night on her way home, about McDonald's and how it all came from humble origins, American dream bollocks, Walt Disney and the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi's and nuclear energy propaganda for kids, L.A oranges and hatred, Irish history, nationalism and fanaticism, selective history and memory.
Running for the Picadilly line home.
See a girl in the distance ambling around in strange high heels. I do a double take just to make sure it isn't my overworked mind skipping.
A young man and woman share drunken stories. Cuts, kisses, quiz nights, bruises, drinks, kebabs, shags.
A self contained pretty young woman with a Mia Farrow haircut sits rigidly upright. Her confidence could be an act. Maybe shes 4 minutes from bursting out in tears. Who knows. She watches a couple go at it with reckless abandonment in the corner.
See a New Age woman wearing some green beaded jumper. Has a degree in finger paint, worships Saturn and murders crows with a boot on her fist. Probably.
See a bald future self of me. Looks like Moby with protein.
Now the young man and woman are talking about school romances. 
On the tube cabin door the word RETCH is crudely written with a marker.
Watch Breakfast on Pluto and think how us Irish speak riddles and surrealism but it's never reflected in our film, music, television.  
The moon casts its glare and acts as my bedrooms nightlight.

DREAM: 18th November 2011

(Don't remember)

DAY: 19th November 2011

Phone alarm goes off at 8.45 am. No bark from the punchbag dog of mourning. Must be off weekends.
Expecting the plumber at 9.
Andrew is here and I fall back to sleep.
Plumber is two hours late and finally texts to say he won't be here until tomorrow.
Watching a BBC morning cookery show aimed at young adult men. The plainclothes chef with tousled bed hair makes a pie. Looks good. Then breaks pieces of salmon into it. Ruined. Andrew tells me the chef lives around here.
Watching BBC News. Colonel Gaddafi's son has been found and arrested. Which is code for 'mutilated in a town square.'
During meditation I can hear Football Focus wafting through the air and it invades my consciousness. Something comforting about listening to people waffle on about football; all the hand-me- down cliches and mind numbingly wooden punditry. A place were you'll never hear the words: terminal, inoperable, famine, war torn, cleansing, multiple stab wounds or sectioned. I will pass away full of uncertainties, all I will know is the buses and trains will still be running and that Arsenal will be playing week in week out.
The advertisements for toilet roll are like the advertisements for joining the army: they say everything but the word 'shit.'
I could listen to the Twin Peaks theme tune all day everyday.
I speak to Milly, my old housemate from Montreal. He is a music maker, producer, chef, photographer and God knows what else. He is a walking cottage industry of talent. He tells me he has just been signed by a German record label. I knew it would only be a matter of time.
The Dog of Infinite Sadness barks next door and I am filled with a sense of reassurance. Now if I could only have this sense of reassurance between the hours of 12-6pm that would be just swell.
Moved chewing gum from phone pocket to the newly established, chewing gum pocket.
Walked past the leather sex fetish shop down Holloway Road. Wondered what it would be like to walk in and ask for a kite. Or true love.
Man on motorised wheelchair goes passed me. The expression on his face gave me the notion that he was going through his own unique, personalised ghost train.
Man cycles past me whilst pushing an office chair.
In Tesco and see a young man with headphones in, holding a bottle of vodka and dancing. How do I sign up to be his friend?
I haven't washed my face. Yet.
A blond girl is having a really loud, obnoxious conversation on her phone beside the herbal tea. She just really wants her friend Johnny "to just like chill the fuck out."
A really sincere woman, rocking on her heels, is selling Big Issues with a picture of Gary Barlow's face on the front. People walk pass her like she's selling piranha's.

DREAM: 17th November 2011

1
I am watching an episode of X Factor were one of the contestants was a 12 year old boy. He was being bullied by the other finalists throughout the entire competition. They would tease him and tickle his feet while he slept. Depressed, he devised a plan of action. On the night of the big show he went to bed, covered himself with the blankets and did not stir. The other contestants came into his room jeering, shaking his bed covers and tickling his jutting feet. The boy did not move. They left laughing, thinking they had broken him, that he would resign from the competition or that if he did perform it would go horribly wrong and the British public would destroy him. When it was the boys turn to perform a concerned Dermot O' Leary made his way to the dressing room. Dermot was delicate and respected the boys fragile feelings. And so did the three cameramen, numerous lighting and sound technicians, editors, producers, assistants, 4 runners, 10 million viewers and the other tens of millions streaming it over the internet. Dermot gingerly approached the bed, looking for signs of life.  Suddenly the boy threw the covers off and sprang from the bed, dressed in a glorious tuxedo with his luscious youthful hair perfectly gelled. A phoenix from the flames, a James Brown from the grave, a butterfly from its sleeping bag. And in the boys triumphant hands were a pair of fake legs. A clever antidote to subterranean tickling. The boy had exposed the bullying and gained the attention and sympathy of the whole world. It was an incredible moment. The boy had been plotting his revenge for weeks. Even faking the death and cremation of his 93 year old grandmother. Who says are generation lacks determination and focus?  

2
I see an early 70's Banana's era Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in a vast, hilly field. Keaton asks him to drive a strange car that seems to lack an engine. Woody inspects the vehicle. It looks like a hollowed out, childlike cartoon stick drawing of a car. He is pacing up and down nervously, his usual self. Finally he gets into the driving seat and the car miraculously takes off. He is flying over the hills as if he is in a dune buggy, soaring into the air and coming down with a thump. He takes a sharp turn and hits a stump and goes flying out of the empty windscreen. Diane comes rushing over to see if he is still alive. Woody finds his glasses and mumbles "I think I finally managed to work out the knot in my back". She laughed. Next the pair were at a party on a rooftop and were talking to a pretty girl. Woody was smitten and was trying eagerly to impress her. They looked down into the street and saw a man carrying a squid and crying on it. The girls asked what was he doing? Woody said the teardrops make the squid feel like it is under water and that fish make perfect pets for people with emotional problems. Fair enough.

DAY: 18th November 2011

Awoken again at 8 am by the Substitute for Grief dog. How long can his little heart take all this displacement?
Every time I hear a hair dryer I feel irrational.
My cousin Andrew asks me do I want to go into town with him and look around. He is going to supervise a voice over session at a studio. I don't have enough time to do yoga or have a shower or eat breakfast because you are only supposed to do yoga on an empty stomach. Very first moral dilemma of the day.
We walk to Drayton Park station and I check my oyster card balance. I have enough credit for the journey. Andrew shouts and tells me the train is nearly leaving the station. I frantically run down the wet steps expecting any minute to slip, hallucinating liquidised steaks for eternity. I just about make it into the train and the doors shut. Its like a scene out of a romantic film. Except I'm not running after a girl. Just a sense of personal duty. So a romantic film about a priest.
We got the the tube to Oxford Circus. I was writing in my notebook and failed to see a pregnant woman needing to sit down. The girl beside me got up and offered her seat. I can't spin plates that are hidden.
Sat beside Andrew. Saw an advertisement for hair loss. We spoke about how its just nature and not a gypsy curse. I knew this but needed to hear it out loud. We discussed whether black man care about being bald as much as white and would they ever get a hair transplant?
Two people wearing sunglasses. Neurosis or laziness?
We get out at Oxford Circus and we let a long white haired man with a white beard take our seats. He looks like a shell shocked Richard Branson.
We walked to a trendy cafe in Soho were Andrew bought me a latte and a mushroom sandwich. I pissed all over my moral dilemma.
We spoke about creative ideas and finding the right people to work with in order to complete them. I told him that George Martin quote about John Lennon, about how Lennon could come up with all these incredible and complex ideas but he couldn't change a light bulb. We talked about how one person needed to be the soaring, adventurous kite and the other member needed to be grounded, disciplined and holding the string.
The song Palaces of Montezuma by Nick Cave's Grinderman poured out of the speakers with hypnotic purpose. Incredible lyrics. "The spinal column of JFK wrapped in Marilyn Monroe's negligee I give to you."
We walk to the voice over studio on Great Putney street. We see a crowd of smiley, giddy employees standing outside a building as the fire engines approach.
Everybody here carries a take away cup of coffee. It likes a test or an initiation to join a trendy gang. Next test: laugh at a tramp or drive by pollination.
See a bunch of trendy people standing outside a rustic art gallery. I would love to get paid to work in a place like that. Spend the whole day lounging around and acting like I'm a work of art. If I sold myself would I get a commission?
I see two homeless men in the distance. Here is my chance. I bottled it. I will never play the synthesiser again.
Walk to Oxford Circus tube. See a Hare Krishna talking to a man. With my baldness I could be a Hare Krishna or be in the BNP. Whichever has the best pension plan.
I descend the steps and take a chewing gum out of my coat pocket. The same pocket as my phone. Am I chewing radiation?
On the escalator. See all the posters advertising comedians. One says " A real crowd pleaser. Gives the public what they want." I prefer the Dylan quote "I gave them what they didn't know they wanted yet."
Lenny Henry doing Shakespeare? Judith Dench doing a colonoscopy.
I see an old Irishman. Every time I see one I always think it's the writer John Healy. I would say hello but he'd probably punch me.
I get the Victoria line to Green Park which will bring me to Arsenal station.
I see a middle aged, short woman carry a bouquet of flowers. For some reason I am taken with a notion that she bought them for herself. I then started thinking about an idea for a film were the protagonist suffers from amnesia. He buys himself lavish romantic gifts and forgets and then tries to piece together who is his secret admirer. Basically Memento but directed by Mel Brooks.
More advertisements for the Kindle electronic book thing. 89 quid. I could join a library for a year and supplement this by buying the books they don't have from secondhand shops and still have money to spare.
See a headline in a man's paper. 'Sepp Blatter involved in race row.'
To my left a group of Russian women are shouting.
An elderly Japanese man sits opposite me. He is wearing a suit that has clashing lines and shapes.
"Reads like real paper," such a selling point.
See a poster calling Lee Evans the Elvis of comedy. I love Elvis but wasn't he an obsolete, washed up novelty act after about 20 years? I don't love Lee Evans.
I leave the Arsenal station and feel like taking a day off. But a day off from what?
A middle aged man wearing trendy Tom Ford sunglasses walks past me. He swaggers and has the air of a powerful Hollywood executive. He is carrying a bag of croissants. Bread for ducks. Croissants for swans.
Back in the house and listening to a terrible indie band. How do these people get signed? They always have stupid names that incorporate kitsch pop culture and violence. Names like Hannibal Spector or An Eye Elated. I wanted to start a band in Montreal called the Existentacles but my friend thought it was a stupid name. I also wanted to start a dark performance poetry band called Howling at the Moan but no.
Sarah from Montreal messages me on gmail chat and tells me about all the recent riots at McGill college. Tear gas. Professors roughed up. Great news. She leaves on an errand and my connection plays up. I say my goodbyes and log out.
Trying to think of ways of making money out of nothing. Alchemists tried to make gold out of materials. 25 year old man in 2011 use the internet to cover up the fact that they have nothing and then still wonder why they don't have any gold.
Philosophers. Yeats. They were rich so they didn't need to work. They could potter around and ponder all the big questions. Aldous Huxley takes mescaline and spends four hours contemplating the wonder of his trousers and a pot of flowers. Try and get time off work at McDonald's or ask the Social Welfare department for a 'Metaphysical Allowance' and see what happens.
Walking to Health Food shop off Holloway road. Old frail women, by law, should not be allowed to walk large, muscular guard dogs. And you shouldn't be allowed to get a tattoo on your face unless you have a note from your therapist.
Walk back to the house. Man shouting on his hands free phone. It may be a convenient, easy way of life for him but for everybody else it is disruptive and irritating. Like Catholicism.
My friend Kevin tells me that his girlfriend asked would he be interested in having a threesome. She said it would be ok with her but that he cannot have intercourse with the other woman. I asked could that be called a proper threesome? He said he wouldn't complain. We joked about if he did want to complain who would he complain too? His local councilor? Anne Robinson on Watchdog? Jimmy Salville? We both laughed and high five'd, thanking God we were men and would never die or get diseases or male pattern baldness.
I walk to the Film Shop on Liverpool Street and return dvd's. I walk past an empty cafe and see David Cameron giving a speech on the tv with subtitles underneath.
I overtake a slow elderly man. I feel bad and slow down incase he feels obsolete or my agility depressed him.
I nearly stand on a tiny dog as I leave Tesco.
I cross the street after having spent a good 20 minutes getting to and buying my shopping in Tesco. I walk home and meet the crawling elderly man. It's all ahead of us like a wheelbarrow. 



      

 

DREAM: 15th November 2011

1
I was at a comedy gig with my older sister Eleanor and one of her friends. The gig took place in a dark, cavernous room packed to the gills with drunk punters eagerly awaiting the next act. The long haired, buck toothed MC took to the stage and after a few mediocre social observations bellowed out the name of the next performer through the dodgy wired microphone. The room reverberated with the sound of thunderous manic clapping and a man to my left made his way through the baying crowd. It was Graham Linehan, the co-creator, writer of Father Ted and now the I.T Crowd. While he was still in touching distance my sister blurted out "Oh I know him, he really likes the Phantom Menace" almost like in a trance-like state. I turned away, cringed and begged every God, pleading that he didn't hear her ridiculous statement. Graham stood on the stage and composed himself at the mouth of the microphone, awaiting the clapping to die down. He then launched straight into it "So I just received a really strange heckle on my way up here. Some girl claims I really love the Phantom Menace."The whole room erupted into fits of torrential laughter. I scanned the room and verified the exit points. I was then talking to Eleanor about my social life and how most of the time I feel like I am in the wrong conversation in the wrong room in the wrong house on the wrong street in the wrong town in the wrong country etc I then thought of all the hippy New Age places I used to go to and how I didn't fit in there either. Graham was now sitting on the floor and was reading out a list of puns. Not very good. He then asks the audience "Ever hear of the poem Kubla Khan?" This was greeted by a sporadic murmur. He then moved onto discussing owls. I could see a pile of books littered at his feet. Allen Ginsberg's Howl and other poems and a book entitled Bastid. I then started thinking about Warren Beatty's Bonnie and Clyde. Two drifters, drifters that weren't necessarily master criminals or even evil, almost just bored people, deluded myth makers in search of something unknown.


2
I was standing in the blue and white cracked veranda of the old Dromore West primary school in Sligo. I never attended the school but it was my playground all through my youth. It was demolished and rebuilt two or three years ago. I walked through the old poorly lined basketball court with the netless, red rusted headboards. I continued to walk and came upon Paul McCartney talking to a large crowd of people. He was talking about the importance of eggs and how he has made millions because of them. He then moved onto the topic of vegetarianism and his reasons for his dedication to the cause. His reasons involved tinfoil. I grabbed the nearest football and took leave of the crowd and made my way through the unkempt tufts of grass they called a football pitch. I started a round of keepy uppy's, an exercise I would use to whittle away the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years a decade ago. I was standing alone in the rugged field, to my left magnificient, towering birch trees, to my right wide open space. I turned around and could see the pretty, colourful girl from Earthsong, the hippy festival I used to go to every summer, walking towards me. I kicked the ball over to her and smiled. We spoke and threw the ball back and forth. Her shyness makes her seem cold or disinterested at times. I used to fall for her skillful misdirection and get depressed. I don't speak and continue to toss the ball. I notice her shake her inner battles from her face and movements. I told her I was happy to be back in Europe.

DAY 16th November 2011:

I overhear a news bulletin on the radio. A man convicted for kidnapping a 10 year old boy in a place called Alburry. I went to school with an Alburry. Maybe he was conceived there.
During meditation someone's car alarm is going off outside. Why do we need annoying noises to remind us of things? Do we need to be annoyed in order to be coaxed back into being human? But I suppose if everything sounded pleasant what would happen? Smoke alarms that play lullabies. Alarm still going. Don't they know who I think I am? I'm trying to transcend. Those fat black gay protestant bastards!
Still meditating. Thinking about the article I read in the Guardian this morning. The one about the MRI scan on the woman having an orgasm. They had a video were they showed all the different parts of the brain being stimulated. They said this research could help with defeating depression and pain. Are thoughts like blood, when you think of something does it flow to a particular chamber, if I think of a Mars bar ten times does it have an effect? Is it the same with phobias and fears? Is the brain soft and malleable and thoughts the craftsman's tools and hands?
Thought came to me during yoga about library books that could emit a poisonous gas if you return them late. Car alarm has stopped.
Sitting on a bench and drinking a black coffee in Highbury Fields. Thinking about my next course of action regarding jobs. Should I shave? I hate shaving. I always look like I'm 12. Also coupled with my Sinead O' Connor shaved head I'd look like a thumb. Man wearing beige shorts walks past. Distressing. If I don't shave will the employers hold that against me? Does it seem like I'm lazy? I feel mixed up. The futility of looking for a job is colliding with the guilt of not having a job coupled with the dwindling money in my quicksand pockets. Am I living off the crumbs of a daydream? Doing a lap of honour with a trophy I made at home before the match.
Two men in their early 30's walk by in leather jackets. Neither speak or show any connection. Nobody ever gets stab during the day do they? Who would rescue me? A woman with her baby in a pram eating chopped pieces of buttered toast, a man rubbing specks of a sandwich off his wrist, pram after pram after pram. I don't have any identification on me either.
I see a bald man in the distance with his daughter playing the most insulting game of tennis I have ever seen.
No love went into this coffee. Tastes like the bottom of an aquarium.
Beckett was stabbed at night. George Harrison at night. Pope John Paul. No, he was shot. At night?
Craggy bald man walks aimlessly past the bench. Probably told his nagging wife he was going out to buy lampshades. My guess is that he tests sandwich toasters for a living. I'm filled with jealousy.
I see a man walk bolt upright shouting due to his hands free phone. Its like he needs to hear his own voice to prove he exists and get alibi's. He walks like he is being instructed by an anonymous voice and that if he moves an unnecessary muscle he will be shot.
Surrounded by dogs. Pitbulls. Pidgeon dances around my feet.
Walking. I see a woman sitting on a bench wearing a bicycle helmet. No kamikaze monkeys doing stretches in the tree dangling above her head. Neurosis or laziness?
Back in the house. The oven alarm starts beeping. I approach, it switches off. I turn to leave it makes one last beep. OHM.
Walking down passed the Highbury and Islington tube station. I see a 20-25 year old man blatantly throw a tissue on the ground. He inspects my face for judgment and storms off.
Walk past a shop window displaying a butter dish in the shape of the Buddha.
I turn right at the Pizza Hut and I'm walking behind a girl in a short skirt. She sheepishly turns around to look at me. I cross the road and walk on the opposite side to show her my intentions are true and honourable. If in the future we become man and wife I will marry her in a different church. In a separate time zone. Over skype. Blindfolded. How our children will laugh and take strength from our romance in later life.
I see a pretty blonde girl dressed in winter wear as I prepare to cross the road. I crane my neck to the right to see the oncoming cars as my facial hair gets caught in my red and black scarf. I emit a short, sharp whine as she walks behind me. Tonight I am on fire. Daddy Cool Ladykiller.
See a sign in a window of a hair dressers asking for models. Someday I will walk in.
See a clump of hair on the ground outside MacDonald's. Who can morally afford to do this?
White limo drives by. My guess is that the rapper Akon is in the back getting his feet washed. Or Louis Walsh wearing nothing but a face cloth.
Walk past those really annoying young charity people on the street. If only I could hand glide at will.
Back in the house. The next door neighbour's dog barks at different intervals throughout the day. The father of the house died of a massive heart attack two weeks ago. The dog belongs to one of his two mourning gay sons.
I received a text from my mother telling me that she's in Hungry with my father. My father went over to get his 71 year old teeth done. I tell her that I just watched a great film called Beginners with my cousin Andrew and that I am heading to Tesco to get soup.
I walk to Tesco and see one of those home shopping delivery vans parked outside the door. Neurosis or laziness?
I wait in a lengthy queue with my tomato soup and garlic bread. I see one woman near the top of the line wearing a bicycle helmet and another man to my right. Neurosis or laziness?
I walk home and see another home shopping delivery van. I am the last of the famous international playboys.
Balding man struggles with three dogs that look identically the same, same breed, build, colour, age.
I receive another text off my mother. My father states that he has bionic teeth so the turkey this Christmas will be a piece of piss. Teeth-wise. Also she tells me that he had a dream of brussel sprouts growing outside his bedroom window. I asked her how does he charge the bionic teeth? By grinding at night like the rest of the family? Also that I am not really sure where Carl Jung stood on brussel sprouts. She tells me don't worry, he won't actually have any teeth to grind. Sweet dreams.