Today I wished people would stop using the word ‘Punk’ and maybe try and invent some new way of categorising things. I thought maybe I should perhaps insist on everything either being Pop or non-Pop, regardless of how it sounds, you know, because, well, just because. Because Pop is personal, like Life, or how politics is personal, and because saying that, for example, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s magnificent ‘Our Time’ is for me a great Pop moment, as indeed is The Clientele’s ‘Emptily Through Holloway’ would confuse as many people as it would upset. And because really, it doesn’t matter, because ‘Punk’ is irrelevant. Then I think I should ditch the whole Pop angle too, and make something else up. Start calling all these great important moments something like, uh, ‘Imperial’. I just wrote that because it’s a word on a collage that hangs on the wall in front of my monitor, not with any reference to a Primal Scream single, or anything else for that matter. The word’s original context, as far as the collage is concerned, was a sleeve from an old 78 in fact, which is neither there nor here, nor anywhere.

We need new language. The old one is getting tired. Just like me.

Today I finished reading the ‘Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket’ and was left feeling decidedly disappointed due to a decided lack of focus. Hopefully it’s only a temporary glitch and a stop gap measure to bide time before the next instalment of the Series of Unfortunate Events which is due October.

Today I bought a copy of ‘Dazed and Confused’ magazine for a photo of the ‘alife’ studio in NYC. This is what I’d like my attic to look like. If only I knew how to build shelving and worktops and so forth… hmmmm. My woodworking/construction skills are rudimentary at best.

Michael Jackson is in town, apparently. Playing a concert at the football ground owned by his mate Uri Gellar (or so the word goes) around the corner, or so they say. I can hear sounds of music coming through the attic window but I don’t know if it’s Mr Jackson or not. The sound of a car alarm much nearer is making it very hard to make anything out. And is making it very hard for me to concentrate. Oh for the joys of the quiet countryside…


posted by duke harringay at 5:48 PM

This mornings’ mail brought a message that said someone has a crush on me. This sort of thing doesn’t happen everyday you know. Or any day, come to that. Except today. And what I’m meant to do now is go to a web page and stick in the email address of who I think sent the crush message in the first place and the web page will tell me if I’m right. I’ve stuck in a bunch of addresses from my address book but so far all I’ve had as a response is ‘so and so hasn’t crushed you (yet!)’. Which, on the whole, is something of a relief. Not that I don’t love the majority of my address book dearly you understand, it’s just… well, you know.

In fact, I’m fairly certain the whole thing is just a marketing ploy. And what a jolly wheeze it probably is too. Imagine the meeting when they dreamt it up: ‘lets send email to loads of geeky guys in attics and basements telling them someone has a crush on them! They’ll all go to our web page and see loads of ads and we’ll all get very rich and feel superior and all that kinda stuff…’ Well ha ha, my FilterGate is ON.

What was I saying about geeky guys in attics?

It all kind of reminds me of once when I was sixteen or seventeen when one evening my Mom told me that a girl had phoned. The previous week. I was gutted. This was the only time a girl ever phoned me, and I never found out who it was. It obviously wasn’t too important or she’d have phoned back. Either that or it was someone who, like me, had spent months getting up the courage to make the call in the first place, and then could never recover that courage again. Alternatively of course it was a prank call delivered by someone with a penchant for giving geeky boys in attics’ false hopes. Which is by far the most plausible answer.


posted by duke harringay at 8:24 PM

So this is England.

My legs are far from brittle these days, but it feels like they could snap at any time. My head is far from soaked in alcohol, but it feels just as foggy as it once was in the depths of mid winter evenings of years past when the clouds hung close around the eaves and the emptied whisky bottles clattered in the grate. No fires in those times, just the Friday bottle of Jack Daniels resting within the black metal and some sweet sad sound on the stereo.

So visiting those feelings, strangely, naturally inescapably and unfathomably in June. Walking the afternoon streets of Bristol in weak fragmented sunlight and feeling detached from the world completely, as though I were vaporous shroud flitting through the moment before ascending to the sky to disperse into the blue. If only.

Feeling the pull of the world too much, perhaps, and being eternally disappointed as so many things fail to pull themselves up to any kind of interesting level. Despondent looking at the multitude of discarded gum blotches that pockmark the sidewalk, hopelessly let down by the lateness of trains and nauseated by the sometimes vague but often overpowering stench of stale cigarettes and the piss that seems to fester everywhere I go. So this is England.

Now pulling in the corners once more and softening the blows, deep down within the jade of the false imaginary glade, hearing a guitar reverberating echo drip like silver mercury drops of moisture kissing my lips. Just so. If only.

If only there was only nothing else but the magic. If only the aches, the aches which hurt so magnificently, the aches which pain me so acutely deliciously; if only these aches were more tangible, had some kind of handle to grab a hold of and pull until something might give and shower me with meaning; and all the what-ifs came out sparkling of platinum beads threaded through jet black hair. If only the rain would hold off for a day, would stop falling on my drooping head and would stop reminding me of 1985 and how that summer fell into historical depths of despair the colour of silver grey Nike jackets.


posted by duke harringay at 7:20 PM