If Music Be The Food

I was woken up this morning by my youngest boy strumming the fret-board of my acoustic guitar and loudly intoning his ABC (he only got as far as G which musically is rather apt). I'm ashamed to say there isn't much of a story behind that guitar.

It hasn't accompanied me on the road in my teens as a I travelled across America on a Dylan-esque pilgrimage of self discovery. It wasn't used as a shield to fend off piss filled beer bottles as I belted out anti-establishment tunes in some punk dive in East London. It has never been strapped to my back like a samurai sword as I rode my hog to some Hell's Angel's meet out in the back of nowhere.

I bought it in Birmingham, brought it home to Leamington Spa and that's pretty much about it.

In my teens me and my best mate, Dave, decided we were going to learn to play the guitar. Just like that we were going to acquire the skill, form a band, make world changing music and overnight improve our chances of getting laid more regularly. Or, in my case, just getting laid.

Such optimism.

I was a complete failure. My excuse has always been that I was more into my writing than anything else and it is not possible to truly commit yourself to more than one discipline; music was always going to take second place. The truth is I was just lazy. I was unrealistic. I didn't put in the time so therefore didn't get anything out of it other than 3 clumsy chords and blistered fingers. Because I wasn't instantly and instinctively playing like a rock axe-man I got demoralized and invested less and less of my time and effort. I would rather dream the dream than live it.

Dave faired slightly better. At the time I just thought he had more natural ability (he could sing pretty well too where my efforts were, at best, suited to comedy) but I can see now that that dismissal was an insult to Dave. He put in more effort, more time. He worked harder. He stuck with it despite the blisters and pushed on until his fingertips hardened. He learnt to play songs. He learnt to play and sing at the same time. For a while his guitar became an extension of himself.

And yet ultimately we both failed to do anything with the dream. We didn't join a band. We didn't even think to form our own. I bought a cheap 4 track recording device and, sure, we laid down a few tracks but mostly we messed around, ad libbed and felt we were unsung (unsinging) comedy heroes. Ultimately we did nothing with that dream too.

We both got older. Settled down. Had kids. Got sucked into the rat race. Our guitars were put down, lay still and attracted dust. In fact I have no idea if Dave even still has his guitar. I'm not sure why I even kept mine. Certainly not as a permanent accusation; I've long reconciled myself to the fact that I am not a rock god. I think mostly I keep it as a memento to those wild, crazy days of my youth when I dared to dream an impossible dream.

I'm glad I've kept it. I'm glad my boys have passive access to a musical instrument - even if they never pick it up and ask to learn how to play it properly. If nothing else it will save them wasting money buying their own when they hit their teens. And there is a slim chance - a very slim chance - that maybe, just maybe, they will find a virtuoso talent lying dormant within their genes and then that train ticket to Birmingham all those years ago will finally have been money well spent.

Blue Plaque

I want one.

I’ve decided.

I want a blue plaque erected in my honour and attached to the wall of a house I’ve lived in or a pub I’ve drunk in or an alleyway I’ve relieved myself in somewhere in my home town.

Because – maybe it’s just Leamington – but there seems to be blue plaques being put up all over the place these days, to all and sundry for a whole raft of endeavours that, at best, often strain the bounds of remarkability and noteworthiness.

Lord Isambard Moolah invented the screw top salt shaker in this garret in 1846. Sir Ivor Permanent Backache invented skiving off from work in this bedsit in 1954. Captain Smartarse created the world’s first time machine in this domicile pod in 2539. Etc. Etc.

Forget Facebook or Twitter (or whatever it is you young un’s are using these days to avoid actually speaking to each other), a blue plaque is what you need if you want people to know who you are, to notice you and – most importantly – to remember you.

‘Cos being remembered is everything. If you die and nobody remembers you, well, that’s like you never existed. You were there but you were like dark matter... just holding the bright stars in their place. But if your name is still on people’s lips, still being bandied around backstreet pubs and used as a gross insult in the playground then you have at least achieved some kind or immortality. Future generations will carry your name forth like some kind of socio-biological seed and who knows? You may yet influence the children of tomorrow in some weirdly perverse manner which will either raise humankind to the heights of enlightenment or (more likely) see it damned to the lowest circle of hell.

But the fate of the species is unimportant compared with having had a hand in bringing that fate into being.

Because it doesn’t matter whether you’re remembered for good things or bad things. Just as long as you’re remembered. Fame doesn’t give a shit about morality. Fame doesn’t differentiate between top ten hit singles or the number of people you stuff into a mass grave. History enshrines Hitler and Michael Jackson both on an equal footing (though I know who I’d trust to babysit).

So all I have to do now is decide how I’m going to get my blue plaque.

Will it be for some kind of Nobel prize winning endeavour? Novel writing? Poetry? Blogging even? It would have to be arts based because I’m completely crap at science (if you’re waiting for me to invent a time machine you’d need a time machine just to cope with the wait).

Or shall I choose the dark path? Become a plague to my fellow man? Visit upon him sores and pestilence and endless irritation?

Hmm...

Blogging it is then.

P.S. Just make sure they spell my name right.

The Crapture

Yeah. You felt it, didn’t you?

You felt the beginning of the end.

The Great Endgame has begun. Our days are numbered. Numbered, in fact, as if some great Brainiac from the past had calculated how many days our planet took to fulfil a complete orbit around our sun and then broke this incredible number up into periods and weeks and days and then assigned these days a number so that we could keep track of where we were in the big countdown to what I have been instructed to call – The Crapture.

I ain’t telling you who instructed me. Let’s just say it involved me, a mountain and some stone tablets. Or was that tablets that made me stoned? I can’t remember.

It’s not important. What is important is that The Crapture has begun and it will affect everybody. Every dirt sucking sinner. Every the-sun-shines-outta-my-ass righteous dude.

E.V.E.R.Y.B.O.D.Y.

You got that?

‘Cos I don’t recall reading a clause that says bloggers are excused so you can wipe that self satisfied smug look off your face. You’re gonna get your shit and then some just like everybody else.

So. What are the signs of The Crapture? I know you’re all wondering.

Well, they ain’t so hard to read.

I’m talking oil famine. I’m talking global economic meltdown on... er... a global scale. Hell. Maybe even galactic. I wouldn’t be buying shares in the moon right now even if I had the money.

I’m talking times when the rich and famous are given the tools to cover up their dirty deeds by buying bits of paper from lawyers that prevent the likes of you and me even talking about the bits of paper they’ve bought from their lawyers.

I’m talking about times when the people we richly employ to safeguard and maintain the infrastructure of our societies offload the maintenance back onto us under the guise of The Big Society.

Or as it is called in Be’elzebub’s Old Soul Farmer’s Almanac, The Big Shit Sandwich. ‘Cos we’ll all be taking a big bite out of that one, I can tell you.

And there ain’t nowhere to run people. There ain’t nowhere to hide.

All you can do is hope that you’re one of the righteous and not one of those scum-sucking sinners who are going to be spending an eternity roasting in the devil’s own AGA.

And how will you know which you are?

Well, people, that’s easy to divine.

The sinners, the scum, the rotting festering pusillanimous sonsofbitches who are gonna burn in hell will, during the time of The Crapture, have power over you. They will have power to lord it over you. To direct your days. To work you hard. To make you dance for the bread of life. To whup your ass when you fail your annual appraisal or mess up a pitch. To beat you with the rod of humiliation when you try and waste as much time at work as you can by going to the toilet every half hour and then pretending to be constipated when you get there. These people will hold up a wage packet above you – just out of your reach – and make you beg for it.

‘Cos it’s a foregone conclusion that the righteous are gonna find The Crapture hard to get through. But you gotta consider it a little test. A way to temper your resolve.

You gotta see it through, brothers and sisters. You gotta bear with it. ‘Cos the good times there are a-coming.

Early retirement. A decent pension. Medical breakthroughs which will not only see you live longer but will actually see you living life to the full longer.

OK.

I’m talking crap. I’m just trying to make you feel better.

There ain’t none of that shit.

All you got is the shit sandwich.

Tuck in, people, and shut your whining.

It’s called The Crapture for a reason.

Deal with it.