Sonic Doom

I don’t, as a rule, like other people’s music.
 
This is a conclusion I have reached through a lifetime of empiric research.
 
“Other people” – certainly in Leamington Spa – invariably have poor taste, play 'up' and 'slow' tempo songs at times that are not appropriate to my mood or are white and like to think that below the surface they are Dr Dre’s main man and spiritual bro.
 
The above facts, on the whole, do not impinge on my life too much or cause me to impinge on others.
 
Except when, as happened yesterday, I was walking down the street minding my own business when the keys in my trouser pocket began to oscillate to some kind of sonic disruption that was fast approaching me from the rear.
 
To my eternal regret it was neither Matt Smith with his Doctor Who screwdriver or Keeley Hawes with a vibrator. It was in fact some teenager’s third-rate pimp mobile from the bowels of which was emanating the kind of low level bass frequency normally associated with fracking operations in Canada.
 
I felt the car’s approach long before I heard the actual music and longer before I heard the tinplate rattle of the engine. I swear the air shimmered in a sort of heat haze halo around the extremities of the vehicle. Like some kind of vibrato field had been created that would pulp anything solid that dared to cross its boundaries. Anyone with gallstones in the immediate vicinity would have found themselves instantly cured.

I cannot for the life of me tell you what musical track the guy was playing. There was nothing but a solid, constant bass rumble. The sound a black hole makes when it incessantly sucks all matter and light around it into its greedy maw. And let me tell you that this guy’s music etiquette certainly sucked like a black hole. He didn’t give a damn about anyone else. He didn’t give a damn about the asphalt powdering beneath the shadow of his passing. He didn’t give a damn about the rivets and bolts that were undoubtedly being shaken loose from the engine of the very vehicle he was enveloped within. He didn’t give a damn that even when he had driven four hundred yards down the road from me, the recycling boxes that the good people of Leamington Spa had left out for the sake of eco-conservation were still audibly vibrating from the residual shockwaves he had left behind.
 
That last is a God's honest actual fact.
 
The whole episode just made me want to sneer out loud. In fact I probably did precisely that but nobody heard me, not with the blood still pouring out of their ears.
 
Why do people do this kind of thing? Why? It is invariably men that do it which leads me to think that testosterone is a contributing factor. Are these tectonic plate shifting mega-rumbles the human male’s equivalent to birdsong and stags flexing their bruising antlers? Are women attracted by the possibility of having their DNA granulated at the quantum level by the bass line of Showaddywaddy’s “Under The Moon Of Love” played at a decibel level that can actually be heard on the moon?
 
Is that what women go for these days? Having their atoms split open by a sonic scalpel?
 
Is this both safe sex and its soundtrack?
 
I don’t know.
 
Once my eardrums had returned to their normal concave state I really wasn’t sure if I was coming or going. I only knew that the earth had moved for me and I was still not at all satisfied.

I Was A Teenage Dirtbag (Baby)

I’ve rarely used this blog as a confessional. I’ve rarely dragged skeletons screaming from my closet and paraded them for all to see.

I always assumed, you see, that you, my dear discerning reader(s) wouldn’t want to read scurrilous declarations of wrong doing and sin making.

But I was wrong. I’ve been hit by a meme. Vegemitevix wants me to name and shame 10 secret things that you don’t know about me. She wants me to fess up, unburden my soul, pour out the unwholesome desires that have racked my body in my darkest years in the wilderness before I found the light.

Now that is going to be tough because this is the third time I’ve been hit by such a meme. I’ve fessed up on two previous occasions here and here.

But even by the second time I was duplicating stuff.

And you know why? Because I was trying to keep the real skeletons out of the limelight. I was going for the easy, palatable stuff. The stuff that wouldn’t drive my burgeoning readership away in droves. I was trying to avoid the real, true blue secrets. The truth and nothing but the truth about yours, er, truly.

So. This is the third time someone has demanded that I divulge and disclose. The third time.

So OK people. I get the picture. You’re not going to leave me alone until you’ve got some dirt, are you? Until you’ve got me naked and exposed, squirming beneath your unforgiving gaze.

Well, I’m not sure I can run to 10 because, if I’m honest, I haven’t led that exciting a life. But some of these revelations may shock and disappoint. They may change the way you think of me forever. If you want to keep me up on that pedestal in your mind (and I’m aware that some of you have placed me pretty high) now would be a good time to stop reading. This is your final warning.

Still here? Geez, you guys are salacious. OK. Here goes.

1) During my late teens and twenties – in fact pretty well right up to my thirties – I would honour my best friend in all the world (Dave, if you’re reading this, I hereby apologize) by personally customizing every birthday and Christmas card I bought him with cartoons of a horrifically sexual nature. What started off as little doodles soon became works of obsessive pornography that covered the entire envelope front and back (and even inside the flap) and also the entire card itself. Entire cartoon strips of sexual depravity would slather their way across the best that Hallmark had to offer. If I was feeling particularly mischievous I would post the card to him through the post. You have to understand that Dave is a postman and has a lot of mates in the post office. Those perversely tattooed missives would have gone round like wildfire. I’m pretty sure that after a while Dave began to live in fear of his birthdays and saw Christmas as a good time of year to leave the country. Weirdly, after I got my first girlfriend at the age of 30 my need to produce these Hieronymus Bosch-like paradigms of perversity died away. I simply no longer had the time, energy or inclination. Thankfully for posterity (and for those who wish to blackmail me) I scanned every card and envelope I ever defaced into my PC. This means I can reproduce one here. Or at least a little snippet of one. If you are easily offended do not click on the picture below as this will only cause it to enlarge and you will have to look at it in all its offensive glory. Believe it or not this is the cleanest example I could find. In case you’re wondering it is meant to be a parody of the Spice Girls. Enjoy.

2) God. This is the biggie. Being a somewhat sexually frustrated and yet over libidinous teen (never a great combination) and also having a secret desire to be some kind of comedian – bizarre when I was such a wallflower – I used to amuse myself by making my own homemade albums. These would consist of me “singing” over the top of some of my favourite music into a cheap microphone and recording the lot onto C90 tape. I would ad lib sexual paeans of depravity to whatever starlet happened to take my adolescent fancy at the time. I would then make my own tape covers which greatly resembled the cards I used to send to Dave above. In fact, thinking about it, there’s a bit of a theme here, isn’t there? I still have all the tapes. In fact Dave once got a mate of his to turn some of them into MP3’s and put them onto CD for me. I even made a CD cover for that particular album too. And no. I am not going to post any of them online. EVER. Dave had a theory at the time that these outpourings of teen lust were my equivalent of a “cold shower”. Not sure about that myself but I do think that these musical travesties are possibly the most complete embodiment of teenage hormonal crassness ever produced and I may well leave them to science upon my death.

3) Not content with ad libbing the kind of toilet humour that Rik Mayall himself would have balked at, I even scripted it. I would write little plays parodying various soap operas and, armed with a BBC sound effects tape, would embroil my sisters into acting them out on a Sunday afternoon in my Nan’s garage and recording them onto C90 tape. One memorable series was about the Blake & Blake Detective Agency and would usually be, yes, you’ve guessed it, a sorry tale of sexual misdemeanour and horrendous wrong doing. And yes, I still have the tapes. And yes I made covers for them. And no you’re not getting to hear any of them. EVER. See. There is a theme here.

4) Not on your nelly. You’ve got quite enough to be going on with. And if any of you wish to end our virtual association right now, I fully understand.

Ladies and gentlemen. The confessional is over. I’m not going to hand this meme on but I do dare any of you to respond in kind. Go on. It’s cathartic. It might halve your readership but it’s good for the soul. Apparently.