random thoughts before coffee

I remember when Blair got voted in, and there was this same feeling of hpe, of "things can only get better". How rock n roll he was with Noel Gallagher partying at no.10 and pretty much all of britpop behind him. The young go getter, ready to shake up years of Major/Thatcher rule. oss aside the grey man and bring in Ozzy Osbourne. We're heading for a new England.

And it almost feels the same, a change gonn' come a, hip hop and rock backed, toss aside the grey man and bring in Jay-Z. We're heading for a new America.

Except we knoe presidents don;t run countries, there's no way Bush could have coped, and unfortunately an African American puppet is still a puppet controlled by a white hand. The quest for oil and military flexing of muscles isn't going to end anytime soon, but for the average working class American, life may well improve. Of course, that's not why the world watches American politics so closely.

As my friend Pete said, it's the eqivalent of getting punched in the stomach rather than the face. 

Yabbadabbadeen!!

After a busy, packed out tour, with most of the dates sold out, we were on a high that was unstoppable. From London to Leeds we'd seen a million faces (a few thousand anyway) and we'd rocked them all. Pretty soon Bon Jovi would be quoting me in his blogs. Last night before home and we're in Aberdeen, which is a hardcore party town.

We step out on stage and there is barely anyone there. We give it our all right til the end, but fail to get the crowd moving. Im proud of us all for not giving up and giving it everything we had but at the same time, there's a clear sense of deflation that's felt right through the camp. Everyone's gutted that not many people showed, that we failed to whip the people who did show into a wild frenzy, and *big gulp* that this was a glimpse into our future. It's the last night of the first leg of the tour and this isn't how it was supposed to end. We were meant to go out on the town as heroes and destroy Aberdeen with all the goodwill in the world. But like the inflatable boy, in the inflatable school, who walked through it holding 2 giant pins, we felt like we'd let the kids down, like we'd let the team down and worst of all, like we'd let ourselves down.

We sulked back to the hotel room and after much persuading (I was the most reluctant) some of us went out to a local bar called Drummonds. It was a proper rock n roll place, a friendly atmosphere from the few people that were there and dingy, painted walls. This old guy was on stage telling a story, I wasn't sure if he was meant to be there or not, he was compelling. The chatter of the punters and the clinking of the glasses silenced itself in my head, as if my brain was telling me to listen to something important. No one was paying any attention to this guy but he was telling stories as if he were on his deathbed. He picked up an old guitar- we later found out he'd been playing it for 32 years after he sang a love song to it- and played some mean blues licks. When he sang I could of sworn it was the sound of pain and hope and isolation all hugging out their differences. I was glued to the spot and after 3 tunes there may have been some tears lost by the team- not a good look for 5 out of towners in a small bar in Aberdeen. Not that we noticed, there was no one else there as far as we were concerned. This guy was brilliant, lyrically, musically, as a story teller, he was amazing. No one in there cared, and he didn't give a shit, he had a massive smile on his face, he just loved playing. The blues guy put it all into perspective, how could we feel down that not enough people had come to our show? We got to make music together, that was the only reward we needed. He poured his heart and soul out, shared his life with us, in this tiny places where no one cared and it was beautiful. 

When he finished, he walked past us, I saluted him and he winked at me, it was the coolest thing ever.

e-mail from YouTube

GreenDayFan2007 has made a comment on MY BOULDER by THE KING BLUES:

"i hope they don't get too mainstream"

feedback from The King Blues myspace on The Great Wall Street Of China poem

11 Oct 2008 23:26

That hoodie is ridiculous

11 Oct 2008 21:57

get a haircut itch!

It's Getting Hot In Here

Today is officially the last day of the man flu. It has to be because tomorrow we're doing an instore at Banquet records in Kingston and as time has it, it now simply has to move on somewhere else. Apologies if it finds you. 

The insomnia's back with a vengeance, got to sleep at 11am. So here are some random thoughts on the environment. I may agree with some, all or none of the words below

When I was a kid it was called pollution,

Car exhaust fumes and cigarettes

Were making the air smell stuffy

Sensationalism read of kids getting asthma.

On Tomorrow's World there were simple solutions-

I remember a cup you fit over the end of your exhaust pipe that caught everything harmful but it never came out.

This was pre-Dragon's Den

'living in central London is the equivalent of smoking 7 cigarettes a day'

And sunbathing too long was giving you cancer

 

But now

it's back

and it's pissed off.

Coming this Summer

GLOBAL WARMING

and this ain't about smoking cigarettes anymore,

This is the fucking apocalypse.

Icebergs melting into the sea

And the sea gushing onto the shore and drowning everyone

And the Sun burning holes in the sky and beaming down on us like lazers...

Did you see that film The Day After Tomorrow?

Gshhhhh crashhhhh arghhh!!

They ain't fucking about anymore!

They're REALly pushing the boat out on selling this thing

It's an extremely bleak future

And I'm a little confused. In fact. I'm a lot confused I mean

The Universe is a BIG place

And these are huge giant scientific mathematical equations and problems that will mash up your *** ***** **** ******head****** **** ***** ***

Space is infinite. I can't even begin to comprehend infinite

and we don't really know all that much about it

-Let me get this straight-

I am NOT saying that global warming doesn't exist.

I don't wanna be the guy that said the Earth is flat, that's not my legacy ok!

I'm just saying it's a pretty complicated thing

And it's not about who reads The Guardian or who reads The Mail

It's about infinite galaxies and cycles and things we in fact know very little of other than predictions and guesstimates. 

It's not just cows farting and clouds parting and Sun and ice and meltdown

There's stuff beyond them clouds- we're spinning in lightyears- eternally

We cannot begin to be anymore certain of this than we can of the existence of a God.

It is a question of faith and faith alone.

But I saw The Day After Tomorrow.

And I ain't no dumb motherfucker.

If there's even the tiniest chance of some giant tidal wave crashing through my window in the middle of the city while the Sun burns up my house-

then I am LISTENING to what these green motherfuckers have to say

I'm recycling cans, walking everywhere, taking my own bags to the supermarket, wiping my arse with what feels like Desperate Dan's face

I am not taking any risks!

Cos some people walk through the world saying, I don't believe in global warming,

And they seem to purposely pollute to make some kind of a point,

All the while telling you how you shouldn't believe in it either by regurgitating these bullshit 'facts' that are made up by some company that would conveniently benefit massively from people believing global warming doesn't exist.

Don't you just hate these motherfuckers!

They don't know shit either,

That's the bottom line

Be sceptical of any 'fact' brought to you by anything to do with a company especially one with political weight

There are

-many truths in the wOrld-many cOnflicting-many similar-just many-

And we can't be sure of which one is the right one, or if it is one, or if it is only one

We can only be sure in knowing that

"All we know is that we don't know,

All we know is that we don't know nothing"

Except that it's October and it's fucking hot,

The Great Wall Street Of China

So during another sleepless night I wrote this poem called The Great Wall Street Of China. It's about the credit crunch and was originally titled Credit Crunch In Springfield (at 4am) and was an epic tale of the rise and fall of Mr Burns but it was long and self indulgent so I trimmed it right down to this and took out any Simpsons references (sorry). 

Filmed in my mum's garden it features a very inquisitive Eagle the chicken who was typing all over the word document I was trying to read. She was just trying to be helpful though, so I couldn't get angry at her. I often lose it at the chickens when they wake me up at 5am but when you find yourself half naked screaming bloody murder at a hen, you realise you're being a fool, it's an odd type of shame. Please click the link and watch the video:

click here for the video

The Great Wall Street Of China

This system that once seemed so sturdy and solid

Now seems to be wobbly and squalid.

With the city threatening to collapse,

Could this be the time for the left to rise perhaps?

Cos no one in the town hall really knows the solution,

And no one listens to the weirdo mumbling about revolution,

Cos he stinks of booze and his shoes don't match,

How could he, in a million years, help us out of this patch?

So they shout him down and sling him out on the street,

And listen to the man with the matching shoes on his feet.

He says "Though I loaned you all this money, it seems to have run out,

It should have stayed in circulation, it seems there's no doubt

That by now you know most of that money never even existed,

It was just digital figures" he says as the knife gets stuck in and twisted,

"But I need you all to get behind me and bail me out,

I need all the money you have so I can then lend it out,

And charge you interest on what you gave me, it may not seem fair,

But it's so complicated you simply wouldn't understand this monetary affair,

You just can't keep your own money, you've got to bank it trust me,

There are many reasons why but it's big words in small print just see"

In one hand he held a paper filled with tiny lines

And massive words, that no one in here could understand combined,

And in the other hand, he held The London Lite

With a headline that read of Paris Hilton's latest fight.

"OK you do the boring work" the people agreed,

"We'll give you all our money and hope you make it breed"

And with that, he left the building with their wonga in his hands

And laughed in the face of the oddly shoed man,

Who rose to his feet- still standing firmly on the left

And strapped a cardboard sign to his chest,

Pulled out a black marker and on it he wrote,

These 4 words:

I TOLD

YOU SO

.

The Man Flu

So I've caught a dose of the man flu and as I'm imprisoned to bed, I've decided to copy Jamie and start a blog. 

So yesterday we went to do a photo shoot for The Big Issue, which was weird because I sold the Big Issue for a few years- in Harrow On The Hill and Farringdon- and now we're being featured in it. Anyway, I pulled on my big scarf and made my way to Denmark Street leaving a trail of tissues Hansel and Gretal style all the way home. The problem with doing a photo shoot in Denmark Street is that all our mates are always up there no matter what day or time, trying to make us laugh while we're pulling our best 'blue steel' looks, which isn't easy with a throbbing red nose! I wore my new brown shoes with a trainer sole that apparently say 'I've come for the business meeting, but I'm staying for the party', which is, of course, exactly what I was going for.

The second I got home, I threw off all the clothes I was wearing and got into my 'ill clothes'. 'Ill clothes' consist of the worst things in your wardrobe thrown together to create a ghastly suit that makes you feel much worse about yourself than before. The purpose of this exercise I remain unsure of, but it's a tradition I won't be breaking. As my current place of residence is a drafty caravan, I went to bed in full socks, trousers, vest, hoody, jacket, scarf and dog ear hat, all of which make a fantastic 'ill clothes' suit. 

I read the entirety of 'Long Way Back' by Brendan Halpin which is realy heart warming and helped me through my insomnia, as did CD's by Mouthwash, Clint Eastwood & General Saint, Imperial Leisure, The Weakerthans and my new favourite band Devotchka. If I get to sleep before 5am tonight, it'll be the first time in 4 days.