And when he completed the masterpiece – the musical painting to rival all paintings; the cunts at the record label wanted to release singles off of it.

Jimi almost exploded. It was a work of fucking art. In totality. You can’t take ONE SONG out! It flows (man). It’s supposed to be played start to finish. In totality, man.

20 years later.

I was twelve. Totally immersed in u2, The Beatles and Dylan. I’d been playing guitar just under a year and was just settling down with my sister and father to watch “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in the cinema.

Plucking a snatch of popcorn to my face, my hand stopped, inches from my face.

The sound belted at me from all over.

It was loud. (Just the right loud).

It hit me like nothing else.

It was what is was but it was something else!

I got a pair of wrangler the next week.

Fuck knows where they are.

But the free Jimi Hendrix cassette single is here; and every other Hendrix I got since.

And he still blows my freakin’ mind, (man).

Maybe you are aware already of my inclination towards sitting on a fence.
(I would rather the analogy was less pefect and it were a stronger image, but to what castle or ditch or cottage, even, would I be better suited?)
And that when I move off that fence, how I flounder in doubt towards some supposed destination. I usually very quickly grasp at the fence again.
I can run back any time as it runs along, always more or less within a stride from me.

It’s not a comfortable seat. There’s no throne in it to settle into or brush lining it thick enough to lie in, or even rocking chair.
From it I can see and consider all sides, and when done with that I just scratch some words or a symbol or two on to it. Or humming some tune, view the moon or sunset – same as kings, hobos or workers, say.

Some call from either side and sometimes I’ll afford a visit (to castle, ditch or cottage, say). I can enjoy that very much but I won’t stay – or desire to for very long.
I won’t wander far either – say ditch to ditch or castle to cottage to castle or combination, as some might travel about.
I’ll just budge up a bit or move back down some…

And I’ll always welcome anyone to sit by me for as long as they wish. I realise it’s not comfortable. I can be convinced of this and take off in some direction or other, holding a friend’s hand, but it doesn’t take long for me to lose my footing.

“Let’s go back to the fence“, I’ll say.
I’ll tell them it’s what I need. They may feel that a castle or cottage, say, could be good for me.
I can’t be convinced.

They know where to find me.

Just haven’t been in the right ‘headspace’ for this – happens everyone with most things, yeah?

So there’s a festival on in Ireland this weekend. Hope it’s fun for everyone.

Not that they’re on the line up but a while ago in work I had to ‘do’ a video of Matt and Kim playing McCarren Park Pool in New York.
Impressive party music and well worth checking the whole concert.

Eh.

First here’s  a vidjo by them up for one of those award things. Well worth watching. Very well worth watching.

Second, I advise you find and watch the full concert, but here’s the finale, Yea Yeah, from it (because it’s kind of out of context to just watch this, but anyway)

Maybe see you Monday. Maybe.

Have a festive fun weekend fer yourself whatever you get up to.

[Nerd alert]

This is a quote from Noreen Beasley who wrote the lyrics:

“I am the author of the lyrics to Theme de Yoyo, a song written for a French film, hence the references to French things like camembert, Seine, Champs Elysees.
Here are the original lyrics, one word of which was changed by Fontella Bass at the time of recording.”

Your head is like a yoyo,
your neck is like the string,
Your body’s like a camembert
oozing from its skin.

Your fanny’s like two sperm whales
floating down the Seine
Your voice is like a long fart
that’s music to your brain.

Your eyes are two blind eagles
that kill what they can’t see
Your hands are like two shovels
digging in me.

And your love is like an oil-well
Dig, dig, dig, dig it,
On the Champs-Elysees.

So she claims that singer Fontella Bass changed one word in the Art Ensemble of Chicago version.
Listening now, it’s definitely probably ‘fork’ (or IS IT?!) instead of ‘fart’ (*titter*)

Here are the lyrics from Motorpsycho’s equally kick fucking arse version.

Your head is like a yoyo,
your neck is like the string,
Your body’s like a camembert
oozing from its skin.

Your fanny’s like two sperm whales
floating down the Seine
Your voice is like a long fuck
that’s music to your brain.

Your eyes are two blind eagles
that kill what they can’t see
Your hands are like two shovels
digging in me.

And your love is like an oil-well
Dig, dig, dig, dig it,
On the Champs-Elysees.

They use ‘fuck’. Yeah they do.

Ouch.

Role model*

With that in mind, I have elected to construct an utterly flawless fool proof mix of actual cool music for them.
More than likely they’ll impatiently skip each track after 20 seconds and hurl the CD into their evermore abandoned pile of Barbies, but I like to think they’ll not only give it a go, but drive my mother insane by playing it LOUD! all day and insisting on it over Spin fucking FM on drives in the car (they whine if we switch over during an ad break or the news, whereupon myself and Mum consequently sing along at them to Fleetwood Mac, Elton John or whatever music-for-old-people is playing).

I made a youtube playlist coz i is yung n cleva n shizz 2**.

*I excuse the inclusion of “kiss me, I’m drunk”, “make love and listen to Death From Above” and “motherfucker’s gonna drop the pressure” considering the girls have (highly in)appropriate dances to accompany lyrics such as “my lovely lady lumps”; “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard”; “push the button and let me know” and “bluffing with my muffin”.

**Not bloody easy them youtubes. Plus youtube vids are worse than mp3′s for consistency of volume. Also, had to substitute the live version of Heartbeats, which although great, isn’t the one on the CD. And that annoys me. Burranneeway… ~n~joy

(Discovered through RL – cheers.)

Ow! Who smashed my rubber arm?

Maybe it’s the few days’ absence, making the heart grow beyonder. Completely unrealistic. Fantastic.

But she’s a concept now. An idea. A (potential) sensation. Not the physical person I’d been getting to know and keeping on a level with.
Maybe it was the argument. Too.

The mental, emotional and physical distances with time and absence which has shifted, displaced the pragmatic reality of the relationship into the (un)Real.

Heavy shit for a change

We’d done well to avoid it, but it’s happened now for me. Maybe it can switch back.
We’d done well up to now to keep it sane, avoid the fantastic. Maybe we can do it again.

Maybe it’s just human nature.

[Life on Mars, in jars; on pills, in bars. Driving cars.
Freaking on SARS... swine flu.
Spills. Scars.
And so on...]

Does every ‘successful’ intimate human relationship need a phase of fantasy and need to descend into the mundane and resentful?

I really thought for a moment ours didn’t.

That’s fantastic itself I guess.

Clicky piccy.

In ways I wish I had’ve, but that’s a different cuntbag of a story.

: [

P.S. There’s a semi-not-so-subtle(?!) nod to Red Leeroy‘s Attic in there. Welcome back dooood.

But some days I really earn my pay. Coldpl*wretch*lay.

Cunt

Need to cleanse the pallette.

Thanks to The Little Lady for clueing me into Arthur Russell.
I’d known and owned some of his disco productions (check Loose Joints), but I wasn’t aware of his truly sublime [I use that word rarely] solo work. Yeah, you probably need to be open to his buzz, but what an ideal pallette cleanser.

(I couldn’t find ‘Lucky Cloud’ from World of Echo on the youtubes, but wow, looky lucky, I found a bona fide Arthur Russell video from the same album!)

Soon-To-Be Innocent Fun

That sets me up for a fairly mellow weekend. It’s my Great Aunt’s 90th tomorrow afternoon in Rathangan. w00p w00p! Glo-sticks and whistles at the ready.

Hope you enjoy yours kids. And if you’re having a bit more of a blast than I, here’s one of those ‘Loose Joints’ I mentioned to get you into the groove. ; ]

Naptime, and it’s not an unusual occurence at this stage – two or three girls ranging from 4 to ten years of age outside my bedroom window.

They begin at the same pitch – low enough for their young girly voices, and as they run out of breath, increase pitch and volume. They repeat this with chatting in between.

As wreck the head as it is to have so many children in the apartment block these days, with nowhere else to play but the echoey amplifying courtyard, every once in a while there’s a gem that makes it absolutely okay.

Sorry to say – out of frame is the line: “and I meen it”