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2008/02/24 10:10 - satyr days child

After a week spent poisoning myself to the point of where I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d died, I spent this last week posionless. (The high point of which was talking Plato with Sean Burke over Port on a sunny saturday morning, but...)

And I rather...it’s not a matter of liking it; it’s a matter of needing it. Sobriety.
Las night I dreamt I was a human hummingbird trapped in a lift shaft, fluttering up and down to the point of fear and exhaustion, fighting with various other human hummingbirds.
And then just as I was aboAut to fall, a door opened and somehow there was a train in a station waiting to go. At which point I awoke. (It would have been better if I’d gotten on the train but....still feels good).

This time last week ...well, this time last week I was just going to bed. But shortly after I dreamt of a murder of crows feeding on a grass verge and among them was a white crow. An albino crow.
What does that mean?

Anyway. Saturday yesterday was spent buying bowties and then finishing ‘Like the sun feeds off flowers’ at Charlotte Grieg’s and John Williams’ studio. Jonny Bruce came by and added some luscious, Milesy, Gil Evans brass. It was a good day other than I seem to have metaphormed into Tim Robbins.

Here’s to more.

(Oh, I watched TV this week, too. Was blown away all over again by Brel in a BBC4 documentary. His ultimate talent was to be in and of every moment so completely. Then an Edywn Collins documentary which was moving in another way but more to the point, deeply interesting....’is there anything you miss from your previous life’? Edwyn: ‘No’).

I leave you with excerpts from lyrics books –

2008 and 1998, in that order.

‘Right? Left? There is only the underworld’!
‘Gods get lonely’
‘In Hospital at home’
‘The small faeces’
‘It is only artificial if it goes against ones inner conviction’
‘Woke up running’
1998
‘Come and lick the ink from my fingers’
‘Prison changed him’
‘Receding dreams’
‘If you want to see me cry Light another cigarette, blow the smoke into my eyes’
‘How to be a boy’
‘When I die I’ll be thinking of you’

2008/02/11 17:08 - A country girl for an old man

I’m enjoying my retirement from music.
On Saturday I spent the day recording with Charlotte Grieg, two of the musicians in her band and...It was very nice. A sunny day too, with little to focus on other than doing the song. (‘Like the sun feeds off Flowers’ – from the forthcoming EP, ‘Bees Dream of Flowers and your summers meadow breath’).
Christ, it’s been so long since I sat sober playing guitar and singing with other musicians. I forgot that it’s a feeling unlike anything else. For a few hours I considered us being a kinda ‘Cheap suit serenaders’ type band...I’ve had the urge to be part of something musical wherein I wasn’t the focus, for a few years...maybe since getting into Gil Evans all those years ago...

Once my preliminary parts were done I went for a stroll through Victoria Park. I spent major days of my childhood there, with the Lido and all. My Nan would take me to the shops on Saturday Morning to buy Humbrol paints for my model planes....I was swamped by the most delicious nostalgia as I strolled through the single mums, teens and toddlers....

It was one of those days. In the canton charity shops – which I’ve never frequented – I came across a clutch of very early Hemingway editions. For 50p each. Of such things, Saturday’s are made.

Ahhh....this week I don’t have to go to the Valleys. And this weather is exquisite. Even the seagulls that I’m watching now seem slightly doped up by the salty warm air.
I feel like an Al Pacino character in a early to mid seventies movie...at one with his neighbourhood, opening Tuna for his cat in a dim kitchen, well meaning but un adored...
I got my plane tickets yesterday, for my Easter collaboration with the Valencian group, ‘Punxsutawney Phil’. Once again I’m grateful for this opportunity to be invited by fellow musicians, particularly those of the Mediterranean flavour.

To me these guys sound like an eloquent fusion of Miles and Joy Division....I can’t await to sing with ‘em..
I had my radio series for BBC Wales commissioned this week too.
I am the hardest working man in showbiz...

Am enjoying the new series of ‘Curb your enthusiasm’ although it got off to a slow start...I’m in love with Cheryl David in the same way I was in love with Peg from Married with children...
On the hung-over Sunday of my birthday I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘Mo Country for old men’.#
What’s fine about Depp’s voice is that it’s not bland. The soundtrack is a treat, like a lost Deram era Bowie album...
And so now, to light air and Polish Vodka...

2008/01/31 17:56 -

Monday, January 28, 2008

My friend is gone.
Current mood: melancholy
Category: Pets and Animals

The little critter you see in the main profile Photo is - or was - Tramp.

Tramp was a fellow Anna and I met when we met each other, in 1998.

He was in Chelsea but eventually he came with us to the countryside.

He was our first 'pet'. He was cheeky, cool and needy all at the same time.

He was a witness to a great chapter within the mythology of our shared lives and maybe we were the same to him.

He didn't always get on with our other crit's...he hated Sweep...chasing and bullying her until she shat herself in the corner behind the DVD tower.

But he licked the heads of Cassie and Sweet pea whilst they slumbered. Was wary of Billy and disdainful of tweebs. He drooled and rolled beneath my drunken tickly fingers, making paws like 'Tickle me belly 'till I faint...'

When Bowie's 'Heathen' came out, in 2002 Anna used to Marvel at Tramp. 'Look, he's like Bowie..look at those cheekbones'...

He was cool. A sloane ranger cat who fucked his stuff among the gardens of Shropshire..who moved like Nureyev among the country bumpkins who became his brothers...

Yesterday he was eating cheese and doing his stuff...and now he's gone.

We knew he had a tumour and that he was born in 1990, for fuck's sake. But still.

He died in his sleep. When Anna found him he was as he was as when she left him at lunchtime. But he had a snarl. As if bigging up to death when it came... he lost this time, of course. As we all will.

But he was gone. Is gone.

And someday we'll be next, right?

I've already been told that he went as good as its possible to go.

But you know what?

How about we don't go, for a change?

How about if we skip the death, loss and pain bit ?

..yeh, I know the alternatives...I've gone through that particular hoop.

I know, as Stockhausen said 'You can't say 'Yes' 'till you say 'No'...

But how about another realm?

Where this shit doesn't apply?

Fuck you.

I've put up a reading of one of my favourite and most appropriate Ted Hughes' poems...

...it's on the front page profile...

So Long, My love.

20:23 - 7 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

edie1964

I'm really sorry to hear this, Anthony....it probably doesn't help right now (maybe not ever) but I know exactly how you must be feeling.

Posted by edie1964 on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 9:14 PM
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Bard of Ely

Very sorry to read this news, Anthony! I can understand how you must be feeling having lost cat friends too and there is no easy way of getting over it I know! :(

I'll go and read the Ted Hughes poem.

Posted by Bard of Ely on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 9:23 PM
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sweetness

I'm so so sorry. I'm sure you'll miss him for the rest of your life. When I enter my parents house, I still look for Micky lying on the carpet in the sun...

I like your idea of staying though.
xxx

Posted by sweetness on Monday, January 28, 2008 at 10:08 PM
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foolilu

It sounds like you guys had some nice times. If there WAS a God you'd have to question his rationale for creating the shitty concept off loss then labouring the point every opportunity he got. Hope you're back to your tummy-tickling ways, soon, Anthony... The other crits will be wondering what they've done wrong.

Posted by foolilu on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 12:40 AM
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Vicki

I'm so sorry to hear about this. We lost our baby girl Minnie on 16th. She was only 4 and her kidneys suddenly failed on her. I can honestly say it has been the most heartbreaking time of our lives. They are truly special and leave such a hole when they leave but, despite all the days of tears and despair - they are so worth it. xx

Posted by Vicki on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 2:08 PM
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Anthony Reynolds

Thanks, all for the empathy, Sympathy and kindness.

It felt very odd this morning, to walk in a world that he was no longer in.

Most wrong.

One foot in front of the other, breathe in and out.

Everything I see today has been somewhere terrible and come back less, so it seems.

Posted by Anthony Reynolds on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 4:40 PM
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Anthony Reynolds

Have taken the picture of him out now. It was upsetting me.

Posted by Anthony Reynolds on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 4:47 PM
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2008/01/24 20:54 - A dream

The Chivas takes hold....and behind closed eyes I see, hear, smell and feel a lamp - lit room. Piano, books in their cases, records and children's things. My Children. And there in the doorway, my best friend A beautiful girl in a worn and once expensive dress. Somewhere dinner is cooking, the radio is on and there sound of traffic.

I open my eyes and Tweebs trots up and considers my chest.
I take a sip of Chivas.

...the floor is wooden and varnished, the place warm and scented.

Who buys Roses for themselves.

I am haunted by Piano rooms.

...reading Plexus' 'book of Morrissey interviews I think 'I wish someone, sometime would ask him about the music, the recordings, the ....flutes'.

My birthday again soon. I shall be 15 again at this rate.

2008/01/20 15:43 - weary, Lord..

As you know, I don’t believe this planet is out natrual habitat. I think our bodies are spacesuits. Everytime I wince in agony at not being able to reach the back of a PC in the sweating dark, every time I pass dribbling urine soaked bum beneath a kebab spattered cashpoint, when I read about Flesh eating Pneumonia raping San Fransico, when I consider the boundries of love and intimacy and their relation to hurt and awfulness...You get the picture. You know by now.
I have a new regime going on which periodically means I have to get up ...before I go to bed. And travel, and curb my indulgence. This is good for me and my spacesuit. After a most festive festive period I had to, last Tuesday be up at 5 am and on a train into the valley’s by 7. I couldn’t find my alarm clock so set my phone, which rang with the buzz of single parents I vaguely know throughout the night. Eventually I passed out at midnight. When i came too, I felt reasonably refreshed and thought..’May as well get up now’. It was 1am. Ha.Ha.Ha. Ha. Ha.
Cue Michael Palin voices : ‘Ehhh, ah used to get up before ah went to bed...ah’d eat posion if ah were lucky’ etc etc..

Anyway. I eventually come to in the valley I’m due in. Suited up etc, like a normal person. I like this role. The train there takes an hour. The rain there is torrential, messianic, bladerunner, bible black and starless. As I step onto the station I actually laugh out loud. To myself. I’m always by myself. The environment is so against what I want and what I am and think , it’s black comedy. It’s very cold, I’m exhausted and it’s ...the Taff rages and gushes like an angry wound and the rain just pours and pours. But what really gets me as I walk into the town to the bus station is that it feels like midnight. The way the streetlights hit the wet bustop and the general atmosphere...it’s like the middle of the night.
But I feel strong, and in my soaked cashmere coat, calvin Klien driving gloves (?) and general soakedness I laugh, feeling stronger than these cruel elements.
Two days later I come to and can’t move. My body is telling me what to do, not the other way round...
Being ill when you live with just a lovely long hair sucks.
Been getting into (listening) to music again...marvelling at Amy Winehouse’s ‘Love is a losing game’. Just everything about this is perfect, the arrangement, lyrics, production, singing, I can’t stop singing it...it’s in my blood...
For reasons of work i’ve also had to get broadband installed and purchase a new PC..(I felt guilty about retiring my old Frankenstein’s monster of a PC).
This comes with TV and landline, and as I anticipated, I’m drinking and dialling by Thursday...now I can make an ass of myself without getting out of bed...
On top of all this, I have another big project to be getting on with and I also made (with Jon gower) a pilot for my proposed BBC Wales series. The theme is ‘Wales at night’ so we interviewed a Moth expert – DR Norman OBE just outside of Ebbw Vale, and the astronomical society of USK.
Interesting stuff but I was so utterly tired i Had to make efforts to be in the moment

I also enjoyed being the guest on BBC Adam Walton’s show last Sunday....the whole evening was strange and surreal, the BBC studio being in a location of great sentimental importance for me. Indeed, the person abecause of this came into the studio with me. Rather weird.

I also did probably the most nhilistic interview ever with France’s Magic magazine. This meant a new photo session – very kindly done by Mr John Williams.
Unfortunately the photos reveal the worst side of me. Corpulent, decedant, corrupt and self sinning.
I’m so tired. Did I not once lead a life of easeful solitude?
Please send bundles of cash. I don’t believe in the dignity iof labour...or even this realm.

(above) John Williams

2008/01/16 13:54 - test
test

test

2008/01/02 12:06 - Last christmas...

.........so I went from watching Bladerunner (Twice) to going there for a bit...the 5 disc box set that came out early this month blew my mind on time...but why nothing in the extras about the soundtrack?
And why, if the bladerunner world is so overcrowded does the 'chickenhead' character live in a huge empty apartment block? (in Dick's book the world is hardly populated)...anyway....Ridley Rocks...although I was neither impressed with 'Alien' (Like the Muppetmovie) or Black Hawk down' (No emotional focus).

Following some rather intense revision for a Beethoven exam I was flying up to London (on a train) with a clutch of magazines, a bottle of piniot niot and some nibbles.
An empty carrige, almost...bliss...

I'm staying with old chum Doug in Gipsy hill and he don't half make me laugh...(pictured in Robe)...I listen to the LBC radio station on the train from Victoria...sheit...am I missing living in london?

I'm here principally to remix some outtakes from british Ballads, do some business and. have. Fun.

I'm mixing with Anthony Whiting from Transcargo in Acton. (pictured) We work principally on the original version of 'Just so you know', by vashti (Bunyan). plus some other offcuts. 'Now it begins' and 'Girls with glasses'. Its good to be back in a studio again. When the mood takes me i do some Pavarotti impressions and fulfill my P-funk vocoder fantasies....

On the second day I get the last minute news from Rhodri Marsden that it's cool for me to drop by the Hackney pub where he'll be quaffing with Green G (Scritti) later on. I have at this point been nibbling the Vodka and tonics (first time ever for this aprticular cocktail) and I suddenly become a silly, nervy, giddy, fan boy.
I am a nerd with the best of them, and Green made my record of 2006 and...hung with Miles Davis for lord's sake!

Anyhoo, I'm bidding the other Anthony bye bye in the lovely chilly air when I realise Iv'e left my phone in the studio!
I'm amazed at how naked and lost I feel without my lovely Nokia..shit! My hands keep grabbing at something that's not there...

I stumble into glittery Acton town, visisons of swastikas in my head, plans for everyone...its dark and I find a internet cafe. I mail a few Hackney chums and then bumble onto the overland...

I'm struck by the most intense nostalgia. This is the train I got to and fro into richmond every day when recording the 'To Stars' album and we lived in Dalston...I feel vaguely tearful but the carrige is crowded and I throw myself into a Charlie Parker book stopping only to defend a homeless beggar type against some old geezer...

Then I'm in the freezing and corrupt ridley road air of Dalston's market - a place that contributed toward my becoming a vegetarian. I ask about the pub I'm headed for ..no one has heard of it...I've probably got it wrong...Again. I pass our (first) flat on dalston lane and once again feel speared by things long gone, summers long sinced passed... the local pub and offie we used to frequent at all hous are now closed down...'everything must change' by Nina simone drifts through my sad head...

...goddam having lost my phone as Ive no idea where I am...up and down I puff in my Cashmere...

...needless to say i finally find it and yes, I did get the name wrong.

Green seems very open and friendly but I decide to follow my new Vodka and tonic phase and get in a few trebles while I chat with the genial Rhodri.

Then Julian (B.Ballads producer) shows up - one of the few to respond to my panic e-mails -with some lovely chums. So, I spend the evening talking to everyone except Mr G - including his producer/engineer who is a sublime scottish chap...

Soon everyone is leaving and I'm kinda forced into saying hello..whodathunk I'd be such a gfanboy at this decrepit age? Green insists that I shake hands twice with him as my first is so feeble...we talk a bit about the pronounciation of 'Warhol' and Abadere and I give him a copy of british ballads...I'm invited back the next evening (I'm supposed to meet Will foster and bryan mills tomorrow) and I could bring them...yes, sounds like a plan...little do I know then that I won't be sleeping tonight and tomorrow night will be a write off...

Green has Pop star hair, by the way. Does this mean its genetic?

What follows is a night of pure fun and games that you'll have to wait for my Biography to read about...

Next day, unwashed and slightly dazed I make my way through the london christmas crowds, i feel like I know a mystical secret and I'm shagged but happy...

.........recovery time in Gipsy Hill...back to cardiff..another night out...Chritmas eve in the Vulcan (pictured). 5 white men dancing....smoking in the pouring rain... the feeling that a night here hasn't changed since the 20's...

To and fro between the sensual world and mouths full of seedcake...

Currently reading :
Bit of a Blur: The Autobiography
By Alex James
Release date: By 01 April, 2008

2008/01/02 12:06 - Monsoon soon

is what it feels like.

Some summer.

Waking to rain. Pollen at night.
Sugar levels fucked. diabetic?
No energy.
Awaking so early.
Exhausted.

A new commitment to cardiff. To visit my ma at least monthly. Ma sick.

our beautiful baby, Cassie, Anna's favourite cat, is diagnosed with both Aids and cancer.
Yellow eyes.
Mewling.

The train ride back from Wales so beautiful. Sat opposite a quietly murmering cockney blind couple, me sprawled over the seat beside me, my legs in the aisle.
Two well behaved children sat opposite playing chess. I go from my book 'Songwriters on songwriting' and my pentax 35 mm. the weather and landscape working in HArmony. So green and Blue.
A booze and nicotine sozzled evening the night before, with Len and Carlos having purged me of the jumping chromosone's booze thirst.

Days of pure solitude in my newly arranged studio.
begin work on the Colin Wilson musical project.
begin my Walker brother's Biography in my newly converted study-outside. What was the garage. A whole other world in there.

Then exhaustion comes. permenantly knackered.
Worn out by 9am.

A new arrival in the family.
Cally. A new thoroughbred, gentle and pretty, replacing the fierce beauty and scary power of Eurydice who has gone it seems, to a happy home.

music comes. John Howard's sublime 'Technicolour biography'. Sounding so sad and sweet strained through a bottle of burgundy and a hamper of Bombay mix.

'Dukes of the stratosphear'. relistening. Wonderful dark cartoons.

The money runs out. The guitar shrivels to a burnt baloon in my fingers.

I turn one of the radio's on. I turn off.

I trawl the 234 satellite channels. My belly pops the poppers on my nice new chords.

We turn to the window, looking for a ship to arrive over the fields.
Play cards and light up a cigar.

2008/01/02 12:06 - A death in the family

This time last week we lost our beloved 'Sweep'.
The oldest of our four cats. She was 19 (Human) years old.
To anyone reading this who considers animals a 'lesser' presence, fuck you.
I gague my emotional ties to others by how we relate to one another regardless of 'species' or 'race' or whatever.
I was closer to this beautiful being than I'll ever be to the majority of 'people' I encounter weekly.
We buried her on the day she died, in the garden. We planted a cherry tree.
A piece; 'Eulogy for a familiar' will appear in 'Writings' soon.

Yesterday we took in a new cat, again Black, again female. 3 years old with perfect luminous eyes.
And it rains and it rains and it rains.

2008/01/02 12:06 - London kills me....

Or is it the drugs. yes indeed. Have had some of the best and worst times of my life on drugs.
Location is a big part of it.
When I hit that 'wall' ie 'The fear', I just have to get home. Wherever I am.
I call to mind Hunter's quote:

'I always knew that if i could just get back to Owl farm, I'd be alright'.
Trouble is, fear hit me, after 17 hours of uninterrupted imbibing, while I sat in chums Russel square flat around 9am saturday morning.
200 miles or more from here.
Beside me is a naked hippy with a condom on..'chris', who we let in because he had a bag of skunk. We met chris in the street. Chris was 'in bits' and was supposed to spend the day with his children...alas, Chris was in no kind of 'Dad' role as he sat drooling between me and the unconscous Julian. Along the way, george has put a tape of 'World at war' on..and I must flee this life, NOW...
(I taped the conversation at this point. Anyone want to hearit)?
Sadly this means getting the 9-20 to manchester which is full of kids going to a football match. There is not even enough room to sit in the AISLES..
What is 'The fear'? It's fear without Rage or anger, that's what it is. Utter vunerability.Loss of skin.

So. After sweating myself into panic I get off the train at luton and cab endlessley around in the provincial morning air, nose bleeding, temp rising..yet, after an hour of hell, locate and book into a travel lodge, trying very hard not to appear as fucked as I am...

But all this is another story, worthy of more space.
Grist for the mill. Nothing wasted on a writer.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was terrible....

The evening started sublimely enough..a meeting with the old manager label at the Philips record label..RE my Walker bros book..David Shrimpton, a true gentlemen...many fine tales...he actually attended a Sinatra recording session..wowser...
And then that golden part of the evening, the warming up..Julian again, Paul cook, my favourite ever drummer and a man who can go from discussing the fecundity of buttocks to the illusion of meaning in a sentance or two...and george, ex of Jack...which was nice..like seeing an old lover..
but I'm getting back to that agin; The fear.
Well. I made it home, via quiet trains and half a cheese pasty bought in Birminghasm new street.
To be at peace with the sunset and our new baby cat, 'Sweet pea'.
To be a daddy, a Cowboy, home on the farm once more....

2008/01/02 12:06 - This Filly hunts/Ferry Jnr strikes back/fear of Lightspeed

My life lived on trains. And Cornwall is not near to anywhere.
but what a journey, what a country. Oh England my etc
A brief stop at colin's to record him for our record.
Good and perfect.
Then I made the mistake of staying on the train because it went to cardiff. I wont be visiting there again unless dutry calls. Which it may. Visisted my nan who is halfway through her hundreth year. I don't like hospitals.
Then here, then london, super briefly.
plans and dreaming, into Action as Howard used to say.
Busy. Busy dreaming awake.

Read 'Castles of sound' a good if average biog of gil Evans.
http://gilevans.free.fr/
Took me back to his 'individusilism' album and I am currently obsessed by 'Barbara's story' and 'LA Tango'. Such strange,submarine knowing, titanic places.
Have just started reading 'The Pig who sang to the moon'.
Aha. The question is; not what are you eating but whom?
And these pro fox hunting riots crack me up.
the ehad of the hunt somewhere said; 'Obviously I'm against all forms of violence'.
Oh the irony.

Now I have to get cranked up and go to my Study. I'll play 'Star people' and write.
Away I go.

2008/01/02 12:06 - Testament of..

A sweet clear melancholy feeling following recent binging and travels.
I am opening a bottle of winer and not finishing, ignoring my cigarbox.
Seems winter is here already. Decidely autumnal today and the need for a walk. There is a track near Cally's field that has such a special atmosphere and indeed, I was told the other day that it is an ancient track, which explains it.

I am circling around the coming work; I have started the Colin Wilson project but the label I'm recording it for are being obtuse and intermittent. I need then to be less casual and yet I'll continue unabated anyway. Part of the block is that I want Fiona and Paul to contribute but that's difficult to arrange without finances being in place and this depends on the label being less ambivilent.
May have a chance to record 'British Ballads' at last for a tiny English label, which I'm happy enough about. I don't want to work with an indie and bankrupt them, I don't need to see any more grown men cry.
the criterion edition of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy arrived yesterday. I've so far only watched the documentary-which was fascinating as I've rarely seen any footage of Cocteau outside of him Acting...Tonight I'll try and get Anna to watch 'Orphee' with me, it wouldn't be right to watch it alone. Having cocteau in my life purifies it in some way and it's a cool, light pleasure.

Also received and saw a fine documentary on John Fante, via Giovanna di lello. you can order a copy via the author:

gdlscriba@tin.it

That's the second Fante Doc I've seen in a month. I hope he doesn't become too well known...His work is mine alone...

Am spending maybe too much time converting the choice cuts of my mammoth VHS collection to DVD via my new DVD burner. What a toy. I'm wary of such mindless fun, one reason i don't play video games...

2008/01/02 12:06 -

My last Grandmother died on Monday.
She would have been 101 come our next birthday-we share the 4th of February...or did.
It's my mum's birthday today and the first, ever, without her mum.

My fourth funeral this year will be next Tuesday.

My nan's house-Margaret's-remains unchanged since the 60's but this will change now.
I stayed there may a time, my nan and I were closest in the mid 80's, I recall.
Amazing to be able to talk to someone who lived through it-the war, the early 1900's etc.
yet of course, she didn't see it that way. it was no more or less than ordinary for her.
The space in the line between me and Mr D shortens.
Inexorable and...

I saw my first ever ghost yesterday.
We were at the farm where we keep our horse, cally-pictured.
Cally was tethered to the bar just outside the stable while we mixed food for her.
I was talking about someone else on the farm. An older lady, rough round the ages, but still with a certain sex appeal.
I was telling anna about why I thought this...looked out of the barn arch and saw our Cally nuzzling another horse, beside her on the bar.
'Shit' I thought..'Someone has heard me talking about so and so's 'Wide load'..and all it's appeal'...
I stopped the subject, watched anna mix Garlic into the food mix and listened to Cows-they never sound happy.
We went out to feed Cally-it was a violet lukewarm dusk-and there was no sign of any other anything.
'What happened to the other horse'? I asked...
And you can guess the rest, as bryan Ferry once drawled.
There WAS no other horse, as it were.
I described the horse-chocolate coloured, smaller than cally, youngish. A horse matching that description exactly; 'Coffeebean' had been shot on the farm a couple of years earlier.(Its leg had been broken. Apparently they do not recover).
Anna showed me the grave. A few feet from the bar.
My first ghost! I was quietly elated.#

music wise I am in Love with Deep Dish's 'Flashdance' and (late I know)-Mousse T's 'Is it 'cos I'm cool'.
The former in particular is sublimely wonderful.
Just.awesome.
I'm downloading it now via soulseek.(Why call it that!..like why call it 'demon' mail?)...
I'd love to be able to converse in this kind of musical vocabulary but alone, it...falls short and clumsy...
I need a Slovakian DJ collaborater, indeed...

reading wise, I'm fucked off by the Robert saabag book I tracked down; 'Too tough to die'.
After 'Snowblind' and 'Smokescreen'-both classics-I expected another. This book about US MArshalls reads like it were written alone to pay off spinal reconstruction. it;s ,, dull...ull...

So, am trawling through Barry Miles' 'In the sixties', which is flat but filling, like porridge.
Italian friends visit tomorrow, which is all good.

Although..beyond all this, some part of me longs to sing again...

2008/01/02 12:06 - Meatwad make the money, see....

As I said, I am being nerdy and converting my VHS collection to DVD. I caight myself today and thought' Why'?.
Whatever. Being so impressionable, adrift and loose, whatever I'm taping at any time will set off a 'phase'.
I've been burning my Lennon collection today, mostly his 70's Chat Show appearances with Yoko-Dick Cavett, David frost, Mike Douglas, Tom Synder.
Boy, were those shows heady...they truly put the 'chat' into 'chat show'. Very hard to think of a comparison today....
I am touched, ever still by the relationship between John And Yoko. There's something...an almost visible bond...something visceral and gentle between them, making their surface differences irrelevent-culture, nationality, class etc
So I'm drawn to the music again...I'm getting to prefer Yoko's contributions to their albums-not that I have to make a choice. I found 'Mrs lennon' yesterday on vinyl-A song I REALLY want for about 2 years..in 'Pink and Grey' a good record shop in Chester. But it was a Japanese import 7" without sleeve and too pricey. If I had a jukebox i'd buy it for sure...but...

So, this evening, after spending the day as best I can, I am listening to 'Dead Man turn me on', a CD of Beatles out takes and looking at 'Summer of 1980'-one of my favourite books, photography wise, ever-a book I have bought 5 times as I have to give copies away...and reading 'the complete Playboy interviews'...

http://www.absoluteelsewhere.net/

Am enjoying my collaboration with www.Shugmonkey.com....wrote a lonnnggg ballad for our project and recorded it quick- 'Ballad of Mickey and me'...SHug (Nic) will totally re arrange it..what a treat...

Have been close to a blissful mood of late..last 10 days, since the wonderful visit of Michaela and Gianluca...using my days up well...
i have started eating breakfast...it's good...
Making the gym almost every day...finally found a way of really starting the wrting of the Walker bros biography...takes a while to start but then I don't want to stop..
Balance and perspective! that's the key to a good life...#
And lot's of presents...
Am stil addicted to Aquateen Hunger force..

http://adultswim.toonzone.net/aqua.html

just bought myself the inflatable figures of..

Thanks to my brother Michael for introducing me..
What a wonderful show...funny as fuck..and I AM master shake...
The Sopranos is as triumphant as ever. I think we're just used to it now...
if it started tomorrow everyone would be blown away again...

I have lost my favourite pyjamas though...

And Cassie, our cancer and aids stricken cat..is bone thin..an abcess drained last friday...

I need a rest from Death...

2008/01/02 12:06 - Goodbye Cassie

Our Darling Cassius died today at 10;19am in Anna's arms.
He was infected with F.I.V. ('Feline Aids') and had cancer.
He was 5.

We got him from a private rescue place, Christmas 2002. Oddly, he chose me out of the scores of cats there, by climbing up to my shoulders.
But once settled, he became Anna's familiar, totally. He would perch on the windowsill minutes before her arrival home and would sleep across her face almost every night. He was quite indifferent to anyone else but Anna. A true bond existed between them.
I have the grave dug and we will bury him soon.
And so we all move one step closer in the queue to the Exit door.

2008/01/02 12:06 - The moon will never lie

Awoke an hour...nah...that be a lie.
Awoke about three hours, pre-dawn and got up two hours before sunrise...(which is at 8;22 approx)...
there was the day to the left, and there was the night in front and fading...moving to the right...the sickle moon and Morning Star. What a duo.
Spent early hours embroiled in domesticity...and then a song fell out of me;
'Box office posion'. kinda a funny one ala 'drunk in Space', but still...felt good after recent enforced drought.
listening to dear old Tom Dolby. 'One of our submarines is missing' and 'Blimp to Budapest' current heavy rotation.
he reminds me of a more expensive Momus...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/
Whose recent gripes I have enjoyed muchly..(Hip-
hip-hip-hippapoto-moanus)
Sadly my last meeting with nick was ...a dissapointment...)

Enjoying the sen penn Biog.
I looked through my expanisve library and came up with 'Sweet and lowdown' which we hadn't seen since it came out...what a charming, sepia, minor key treat..more moving than we remembered...

So I saw the day begin and end. it's official.

2008/01/02 12:06 - leavlessness

........drifting around...if I was considerably less portly I'd consider the post of a ghost...

Beautiful weather, walking as if through thin water....memories of my first Autumn-in 1988...brilliant blue broadwalk...Penarth....Roath Sky....the sun lived at the bottom of my Street...Now, today, waiting for dusk.....not darkness.....moving between my Study...my studio....walking through the garden to reach my Study, I feel like I am moving through Outer Space....At night, it gets very cold...I fight the urge to bring Cassie in...to the warm...He is of course buried...and this is one 'perk' of taking your sick Pet to the Vet...you know when it's dead, for sure....having let cassie Die here we...wondered if he may still be alive, perhaps...we lay him in the sun for a while...next to the hole...but that warmed him up and...

The other cats, especially billy are weird...Mourning, perhaps...I feel as if they may be blaming me for the dissapearance of their brother...This is my fourth day without a drink...am going a week...the first in years...feel listless and neutral...pistoless and un natrual...The surreal atmosphere compounded by a dreamlike visit to the dentist where I was attacked as I lay in the chair....I felt as I were in a dream...such a strange...Cannot find any books that hold my attention...Gave up on Capote's 'Answered prayers'..('More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered' Spoke Mother Theresa)...My have a go at 'groovy Bob'...
The air is grey and neither hot nor cold...Music seems like a distant country and I cannot recall how I ever wrote something like a song....

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