Lacking direction

I feel a little pulled apart today.

I need to look for work but I’m not sure where.

I want to move up to Sheffield but my financial ties are here. I’m staying with dad in this town but I’m not sure if he will kick me out soon. I have a house standing empty in another town but that might get repossessed.

Where do I focus my efforts?

I don’t know.

Perhaps the Citizen’s Advice Bureau will show me the way tomorrow. My greatest fear is that they won’t and I will walk away feeling more hopeless than ever.

I don’t know what to do.

Maybe I should wait until after I’ve seen them, but my girlfriend keeps asking me what I’m doing to move closer to her.

I have no real answer to give her as I don’t even know myself. What do I say?

I want to hide from everything.

More fear

Dad said he’s still trying to find someone to rent a room in the house, which means I’d have to go. Hope I can sort my situation out before he does. Just need a little more time. Don’t want to be homeless.

He wasn’t saying it particularly diplomatically, I think he was showing off in front of his new girlfriend. It’s nice to be used to boost other people’s self esteem.

Think he needs food as well.

Feeling a bit unwanted, but then again I wasn’t planning on staying this long. I shall have to make a list of things I want to cover with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to make sure I don’t miss anything.

I just want to be near my girlfriend, they can take everything else.

I just want to be free.

Tension

I’m going to see the Citizen’s Advice Bureau on Thursday. It’s all coming to a head. I can no longer think about the future until I see them and they can give me advice. I don’t know what to say other than “it’s all a horrible mess, help me.”

I don’t know how to get the bills and paperwork etc from the house to show them the details, I’m going to see if dad can drive me over there tomorrow. Who knows.

I’m so scared and am beginning to feel a constant tightness in my head, almost like a great pressure is building up.

I hope my girlfriend still loves me. I’m going to see her at the weekend. I was thinking that if the house does get repossessed and somehow I walk away from this free to make a decision (of sorts) I might apply to that residential college and get free education and board for a year while my head settles.

Or perhaps I’ll be left in a dark hole filled with nothing but fear and regret.

I hope this tension goes away. It’d be nice to have counselling just to talk through all this with somebody.

I hope my brain doesn’t just shut down.

Pills, pills and more pills

I finally went to see the doctor the other day. They had to make me a “temporary” patient or something because I haven’t got enough ID to register properly. I was registered here in 2008 so they had my computer records from back then. I’ve been putting off going to the doctors since I’ve been virtually “of no fixed address” since December. How do you know which doctor to see when you don’t know where you live?

Anyway, I asked for a short course of sedatives but he wasn’t too keen. I explained I was worried about having another breakdown so he’s given me some anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

So, after Seroxat, Citalopram and Mirtazapine I’m now on (drum-roll please) Fluoxetine. Urgh. I said I didn’t like anti-depressants because they tend to make you worse before they make you better, and I haven’t got the time to experience that right now. But he assured me these were ok so I’m giving them a go.

The sleeping pills are Zolpidem, which sounds like the ruler of an alien planet. Eek!! They seem to work so I’m not lying in bed for hours now. They kick me off to sleep within about 30-45 minutes or so, which is nice.

Gawd knows how things will work out.

RS back up and Saturday morning

Looks like we’ve finally been allowed access to the new look Rolling Stone Magazine website in Blighty, although with restricted access. I can’t seem to get the historic reviews and stuff which I assume is part of the new subscription service, ah well.

I’m having posh coffee from a cafetiere, listing to The Bends (which I haven’t done for ages, generally I’ve passed through Radiohead now, awww) and wondering whether to have some breakfast.

I might just go for a walk early, dunno.

Shall ring me girlfriend in work soon, she works mornings on Saturdays, I do miss her loads.

I’m writing lots of new songs but I don’t know why. I’m having difficulty keeping track of them all. It all comes in phases I suppose, I’ll be back writing stories soon.

Rolling Stone Magazine website

Well I was wondering why the Rolling Stone Magazine website didn’t seem to be working anymore….

[from Wikipedia] “Recently it was announced that the Rolling Stone website would adopt the view by subscription model, charging for content.”

….I guess that’s another link to delete off my Favourites, sigh.

It was a very good site and the archive reviews gave a fascinating insight into the history of rock journalism, but I ain’t paying.

Well, maybe once I can afford it, lol.

They were very nice to provide such great content for free for so long.

Me sad now.

How will this end?

No more money.

It’s all gone.

Went to the CAB today and they’ve given me an appointment for next week.

I’m wondering if I’ve got grounds for a legal case if it’s proven that the housing association blocked the sale of my house.

All this would have been sorted by now if they’d just been honourable.

Got an appointment tomorrow at the doctors, shall ask for some Diazepam to calm me down. Don’t want to touch the booze again.

Not sure if the estate agent is still interested after they’ve probably found my bank account empty. All DD’s are cancelled, no money even for the mortgage.

Sigh.

I want this to end, even if it’s with repossession. I’m sick of living in a limbo world.

Headache.

I miss my girlfriend, need a cuddle off her.

Another day....

....another estate agent.

I’m putting the house back on the market with a better known agent…. no cowboys this time, me hopes.

Got tired of listening to him after a while though, although he seemed nice enough. That empty optimism falls on deaf ears nowadays.

They seem to have the right idea about how to sell it and are taking into account the problems I’ve had previously.

I’m a little more cynical and tired about it all this time though.

Gawd knows, anybody got a crystal ball to see if I’m wasting my time?

Fuck em.

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

So what do you do with a band that breaks up before it gets a chance to record it’s debut album? Who’s frontman has such an artistic change of heart before he realises he has a successful music career that the rest of the band decide to bugger off? Who’s early punky demo tapes are collected together post-break-up to form a seminal LP masterpiece?

I dunno, listen and enjoy them I guess :o)

The career of The Modern Lovers aka Jonathan Richman & The Modern lovers aka Jonathan Richman could be seen as one lacking in direction due to an ego-maniac of a frontman, but Jonathan Richman is a wide-eyed, childlike, gentle-giant sort who’s voice makes him sound like a cool indie rocker but who’s heart yearns for softer acoustic melodies and a peaceful existence.

The excitement of youth may have caused him to make an initial wrong step, but luckily for us that wrong step just happened to be amazing. The not-a-debut-album debut album is a fantastic Velvet Underground/The Stooges flavoured new-wave/punk classic and I’m loving the live album that I’ve found on Spotify too.

I’m not sure if I’ll get into Jonathan Richman’s Spanish styled acoustic "solo" stuff (was there ever really a band?), but I’m becoming more and more fascinated by the man: a bundle of contradictions who nobody seems to be able to define.

Here are some nice interviews with him that really reveal the sort of warm person he is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJG4bQxVIHM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7mHg0H6sy8

A few music clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDJShMk-r88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJUY3q3xaWY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFU98mEem4

Very inspiring stuff :o)

"Watchmen" movie - first thoughts

There comes a time in many people’s lives when a sense of confusion about the nature of things overwhelms them. This might strike during childhood, teenage years, early adulthood, middle ages or beyond. It derives from that fundamental fear that in a vast, seemingly limitless universe what is the meaning and point to our lives, and why should we carry on through struggle and strife?

One point of view could be that in relation to the cosmos our lives are a pure accident. We are alive because our planet is this size, is this close to the sun and has gases around it that make it habitable. What we do with our lives, good or bad, has no real meaning. All plants and creatures are on this planet purely to serve their own regeneration, everything is about surviving to reproduce…. be it tree, flower, weed, ant, cat, dog or human, we simply are here to exist. There is no grand scheme or design to it all which will be revealed after we are gone.

The character of Dr Manhattan in Watchmen is grappling with this very point himself and, now gifted with superhuman ability, has become emotionally, morally and physically detached from humanity and Earth by the coldly logical answer. He sees misery and suffering and the prospect of more to come but cannot understand why either state really matters. On a long enough timeline everything becomes dust, why is it so important how it got there?

Watchmen has three main functions. The first is as a domestic drama involving masked heroes, vigilantes if you will, who’s glory days have come and gone. The second is as a fairly standard good versus evil popcorn pot-boiler, replete with cool gadgets and an impressive villain’s lair in which to stage a grand finale and showdown. The third is to pose that key philosophical question about he meaning of existence.

It’s worth watching on all three counts and is brave indeed for daring to provide food for thought for it’s viewers and risk a drop in ticket sales.

Unfortunately however, and I wish I didn’t have to say this, but the level of horrific violence displayed throughout does well to stop the viewer from truly empathising with it’s main protagonists... good or bad. This point may very well keep it from becoming a true classic. Then again, maybe the level of violence is, in itself, part of the philosophising that is at the heart of Watchmen.

"Humbug" - Arctic Monkeys

Eeee, something approaching a proper review from me at last....

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Who would have guessed that the gothic-tinged “Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But” from the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album would light the way for their eventual artistic embodiment. It was a song that stood out amidst a collection of urban breast-beaters and hinted at an already keen sense of moving-on…. after all, whilst we’re guessing what’ll be the next single from their recent album they’re already firing off demos of their next dozen.

Humbug is an album for lovers of a good old croon. Down go the frenzied twin guitar riffs and up go the atmospherics. Alex Turner spends much of the album with the microphone in his hand rather than a white Stratocaster and smoothly draws the listener into a world of basement bars and velvet lounges. Had the album closed with a cover of “My Way” then not many punters would be left feeling short-changed.

The corrosive scent of unrequited dance-floor lust and domestic violence that flavoured their first two albums becomes a sour mist of seedy encounters with black-market poison merchants and dominating sex fiends. The band has flung aside their modesty and embraced a more primal side….. surely not the actions of a bunch of meek indie chancers?

Humbug won’t hot your heels on the way to work, but it’ll make a good accompaniment to a rainy night on the sofa with a glass of scotch.

You said it, Frankie.