Jason Phillips's Blog, page 5

I, William Blake

I don’t often write anything without myself being very present in the piece. I. Me. Who?

Shelley (I think) made a case for the Author to be invisible, if he can truly disappear from the work, then this is a sign of true art. I (me again, hi) think this could also be the case for sanity. If we can disappear from our own narrative, and look out into he world and see it for what it is, with, as Blake put it, the doors of perception cleansed, it may well be the end of neuroses.

Bukowski, and all of my favourite authors, they all seemed to be trapped in a kind of living hell. And the more I devour their, immediate, egocentric, hilarious and twisted writings the more I (or i?) am attracted to the hellish worlds they inhabit. It’s putting the me at the centre of everything, that makes the art so beautiful and relatable, but appears to be the cause of their suffering. I just finished one of Buk’s stunning books of poetry, ‘You Get So Alone at Times it Just Makes Sense’. He can’t escape himself. The entire book is written in lower case. Except the for one word ‘I’. Is this what Gonzo is? Is this beat poetry. Separating the self from the everything else. Why am I so attracted to this. It could be a sign I inhabit this psychological limbo of pain and separateness myself.

All these writers, and many of our most loved musicians and artists, end up alcoholics, womanisers or blowing their brains out. Do we need to go this far into the darkness to create something with the power and beauty of bukowski? Do we need to live in this despair in order to mine the diamonds of beautiful prose?

Maybe we need to be journeymen and all go to the darkside, but the ultimate goal has to be to transcend that hell, to, ultimately, transcend the I?

But is art art without our very own perception, our unique angle? How then, can we remove the I, surely this is the end of art. And, the end of insanity? Is art crystallised insanity? Preserving, holding on to, what was. Isn’t the very essence of sanity letting go?

What if after journeying through the dark land of limbo, alone, clutching our dark crystallised pain, for years, we then meet the Great Corblynau, disguised as a beggar or simple tradesman. And this is the test. If we are willing to hand it over, we can go. We not only leave this bitter land, we leave ourselves. We are gone from the pain. When we meet the Corblynae, in unsuspecting guise, we hand him the dark crystal. And then he takes the crystal and drags our body into his fiery ice lake, drags it to the bottom and lets it turn to dust. And we are set free.

Our soul drifts, with its new lightness, to the realm of nothingness. This is Enlightenment. This is becoming everything and nothing. This is letting go . Of the pain. Of the I. There is nothing to be done.

Maybe I love Buk so much because I recognise his journey. His pain. I wonder, though, did he let it all go at the crucial moment. Or is he burning in the pits of self flagellation, clutching his dark crystal of me-ness for ever more.

 

Filed under: life, talking bollocks

BUSHCRAFT (part 3 of 3) – Befriending the Darkness

I was used to roughing it in Europe, where the summers were baking, in my £9 asda tent, or sleeping in Albergues, squats and hostels. But in Wales in November with no tent, and no knowledge or experience of bushcraft, other than the hours I had spent watching Ray Mears from under my duvet, I was a little nervous.

I crossed many fields, the grass getting damper as the sun sank, wetting my trousers up to my knees. The glue Kris had applied to my old boots yesterday had started to crack and my socks were soaking through to my feet.

I come across a basher in the woods someone had made from slanted corrugated sheets which looked like a pretty damn good place to crash. Clouds were coming in, my guide had gone, the gloominess began to hang heavy. I noted on the map the basher in case I had to run back for cover, and ploughed through huge puddles on farm tracks due East. The sun sank suddenly at not even 5pm.

The threat of rain hung heavy, quickening my pace. Darkness quickly enveloped me. How far was I from home? Can’t have been more than eight miles. Should I battle on. Or should I stay in the woods and the fields and settle down for the night? I lost myself on the map, again. After a few hours of being lost in endless woods and then a huge empty golf course, I stood on a busy road. I could see a footpath sign and a stile, but there was never a gap in the traffic. It sped passed me at monstrous speeds like metal death machines forcing me to go north. I crossed at a roundabout and slung myself down a lane heading east, followed some footpath signs through some fields and ended up on a large run down farm. There were animals, rusty tractors, dirty hay and mud. Everything was falling apart. It stunk of medieval shit and failure. There were lorries parked next to the dilapidated barns, I could here voices.

“Are you looking for the footpath?” asked a couple of eyes from the dark beneath a truck.

“Yeh. Please.”

He slid out. Bowed legged, he rose up, coming up to my nipples. His head was round, like a gobstopper, his brow furrowed, above his lug holes he had managed to hold on to three hairs each side. He wiped his brow with a stinking rag that just mixed the filth with his sweat.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“Hey?”

“Yeh, the council kept moving it, there was flooding, and now I don’t know where it is.”

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“No but I’ve been working here a long time. We always find lost hikers. Bern? Bernie?!”

“Hello?” Bernie shuffled out of a barn also rubbing a dirty rag in his hands. He was egg shaped in blue overalls with a young friendly simple face, and a lovely beard. I thought I could nest in that beard for the night, no probs. They pointed me off into a field, told me to cross the following field and then out of the gate and follow the road right. From there it was either keep going to Dinas Powys or try and find the way across the mountains.

“Err, what about those two fucking huge bulls?” I asked.

“Ohhh they’re fine, don’t worry about those,” said the beard.

“They won’t charge at me?”

“Soft as shit,” said the little guy.

“They’ll come up to you, for sure. But when they do just stroke their nose.”

The one huge bull flung his front legs in the air and straddled the others shoulders, his schlong dangling into his friend’s face.

“Sixty niner!” laughed the Egg in the overalls.

“About to be a threesome!” I said climbing over the gate.

I minced along the edge of the field saying fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck under my breath. The men had gone, and the bulls had stopped and were facing me, just looking directly at me. I reached a gate and cartwheeled over into the next field heart beating in my ears. The long grass drenched my trousers up to my crotch and I finally found a way out onto a pitch dark narrow road. Cars were flying in both directions. This was not meant for pedestrians. Especially in the dark. If I walked I was risking getting clunked by a vehicle and dragged up the road, If I stayed I had no shelter. I could always go back passed the sixty-nining bulls and get my head down in a barn at the freaky shitty farm.

I followed the road for a few minutes, cars skimming my left love handle, pushing myself into the thorny bushes every time one passed. I crossed and looked around for some where to get my head down. I was failing. It was still early but the heavy darkness made it impossible to see even a few feet in front. I lost my bottle and texted my ex:

Come save me. Pick me up and I’ll take you out for some food tonight?

My battery was about to go. I turned the phone off, put my dim cheap torch on and marched down the road continuing to dive in the hedge when ever a vehicle roared by. I spotted a left turning onto a long dark lane. I checked the map, if I was correct, at the top of this lane there was another footpath, in the right direction of home. Up hill, winding up and up. One car flew down, I pushed my shoulder into the bushes. I turned the phone on, my ex said she was busy, she couldn’t. I asked again, saying I was stuck and alone. I just couldn’t imagine staying out here right now.

Sorry just had a haircut and now going out to a movie with a friend. You cant just expect me to drop plans.

I was on a pitch black lane with no where to sleep, I was soaking wet and getting very cold, what the fuck was I doing. I started imagining that actually she wasn’t going out with her friend at all. I imagined her on a date with a smooth bastard in a big car, laughing, having a great time. Finally moving on, on the night that I passed through our Tinkinswood memory. I had lost her now, for real, and I was about to sleep in a fucking bush while she had the time of her life with her new man, kissing and laughing and playing with each other’s genitals in a big cosy bed. I was utterly alone in the night. I had lost all. Something was telling me this was surely it. I had made my bed, now I just had to lay in it. If I could find it. I was losing my marbles. I passed some houses and spotted a sign and a stile. I hopped over and trod over snapping branches in an eerie wood. Distant dogs barked at the smell of my fear.

The woods opened up and I was in a field, making out dim silhouettes of trees and bushes. At the end of the second field there were a small thick patch of woods and I climbed though a thorny gap and found a small clearing. I thought I’ll come back here if there’s nothing better by the end of the next field. I walked up and the city came to life in the distance, street lights and fireworks, a good few hours walk, impossible to make it in the thick black of this November night. I could make out six or so dim blobs up ahead. I wasn’t sure if they were animals or bails of hay. I clapped and they all seemed to run two steps and then stop and look back at me. I quickly got back down to the clearing I found in the last field, and stood wondering if it was any good as a camp, I had no idea. I tied the tarp up between two trees to hide me from view and protect from wind. I collected some big stones from the field next to me, and made a fire pit. I set out my sleeping gear on the edge of the tarp, that folded onto the muddy thorny floor.

An almighty turd had been brewing for the last few hours, I could no longer ignore him, he was trying to nudge his way out. I was a city boy, not really accustomed to defecating in the wild. I had no toilet paper and no idea what to do. I was walking around the adjoining field trying to work out how to shit. Then it poked out again, it was coming, whether I liked it or not. I flung my trousers and pants down squatted and a huge shit pushed its way out in one clean go. The full white moon peeked from the clouds and the world seemed so much clearer. I stood up. It was the crispest cleanest break off of a shit I had ever had. Thank the lord! I didn’t even wipe, or need to, not that I had anything to wipe with, but it was perfect, one of the most perfect. Do Bears shit in the woods? Bare Jason does, yes. I went back to my camp feeling elated and alive and ready to take on this survival challenge.

I collected wood and kindling, all of it damp with the night air. I was dreading the rain coming in. I tried to light the fire with the small fire kit Randy had left me. Failed. Five, six times. Then I realised my phoned had gone from that little pocket in my jeans where it always lived. I headed back to the field and went in search of it. Ten minutes later I located the big beautiful perfect turd, glistening in the pure full moon light. And sure enough, one foot away lay my phone in the wet grass.

Three hours I spent at the fire pit. Managing to text Randy for fire building tips on my minuscule bit of battery, in between turning it off. Three hours, the fire would not light. I was exasperated. My feet were so wet and cold at this point I decided to give up and get changed and into bed. My phone had died. I put all of my dry clothes on, including my long johns and jim jams, and massaged my wrinkled white feet to life. My toes looked like ten soggy monkey nuts. I put two pairs of socks on, got into the sleeping bag, into the bivvy bag and onto my roll matt. I stuck my dim torch into my bobble hat, pulled out my kindle, as in the book, not the wood, and opened up Knut Hamsen’s ‘Hunger’. It was quiet all around. I wondered if animals would come up to me in the night, to investigate the strange new lump. I read the first chapter. So brilliantly written. I had a long way to go. But one day I would write good. I could get there. I just had to keep doing it. An owl twit twooed from the thick nothingness of the wild. I felt utterly alone, but somehow safe and sound. There were no people out here at the perimeter. Just me and the moon and the sleeping animals. I was fine, happy even. The kindle slapped me on the nose. And I pulled the bedding over my head. I was gone.

 

I opened my eyes. I was half naked. I had been too hot in the night and had been pulling off clothes. The phone gave a millisecond of power, enough to see the time, I had slept eight hours straight, something I cannot achieve at home in comfort, in my own bed, ever. I peeked out of the hood of my bivvy, I lay in the thick of a grey silent mist. The bare trees around me poked up like old twisted rheumatoid ridden black fingers. What looked like a python peered down at me from a branch, which was actually one of my soggy socks I had draped there.

I packed up, tidied up, left no trace. I stayed in my jim jams and long johns and squeezed on the wet boots. Dim greens and browns slowly crystallized onto the grey world and birds began to twitter. I headed up the misty mountain.

 

I found the path and followed it up hill and down dale. My jim jams were those chugger trousers, Russian style, with the crotch that hangs down. The crotch was picking up all the morning dew of the quiet enchanting fields I crossed. Up forests, down muddy banks, through empty farms and along babbling rivers. Hours without seeing a single person. And then there stood another hefty bull. These fucking bulls. It just stood there staring at me, just ten feet away. Loads of cows stood behind him, he was protecting them from me. I clapped and roared. The cows all scarpered, but not the bull. I was ready to dive back over the gate head first into the pile of watery manure if he charged at me.

I took two steps forward, he backed off. He turned around and came back slowly at me, he didn’t want to lose face in front of his ladies. He snorted steam and snot and lowered his head and stared at me below fierce eyebrows. Randy had told me not to look into the eyes of an animal, as that was fighting talk! I shuffled up the edge of the field, eyeing up the barbed wire fence for places to launch myself over if he came at me. He never took his eyes off me all the way up, until I crossed the next stile. His ladies must of been impressed. He probably got his end away with all of them, thanks to me.

Hours passed and I finally hit a road, managed to suss where I was on the map, and decided to leave the footpath and head straight up a road which seemed to join the outskirts of Cardiff, near Ninian Park stadium. It was about 9am when I hit the road and people going to work where gawking at me from inside their warm cars. Capital FM, Rod Stewart, C&A suit, routine… what the fuck is that that just came out of the bushes.

I went into asda and all the staff stopped stacking shelves and looked at me, one of them spoke on his radio. I found the caf and ordered a cuppa tea. I sat in the warm, hugging my tea and devouring more Hamsen on my kindle.

A few tables were occupied. Next to me a family of four sat on a small round table. Two chubby parents with tiny eyes, like dead flies in their specs, and two identical but smaller kids. In between their elbows were plates with the remnants of breakfast, and in their hands each of them clutched a smart phone. They were all scrolling and tapping away. The top edge of their phones all forming a square above the centre of the table.

They never said a word. Just swipe, tap, scroll. Then the mum with her tiny mouth asked the gerbil of a son to her left,

“What was that lego set you wanted?”

“Where?” he raised his eyes from his screen.

“Tut, Never mind where! Just what set was it??”

“Um…”

She had lost all patience instantly,

“GOD! Never mind! Forget it!” she snapped

They all went back to their phones.

I walked though the city coming to a stop outside an old friend’s house, who had died a few years ago. I stood outside a while, remembering when the house was full of life, full of stories and madness. Full of the lost and the wild people of the city, now it just seemed cold and empty.

I finally got home by midday, threw my boots in the bin and sunk into a boiling hot bath.

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Randy phoned for a debrief. He was relieved to hear from me. After my battery had died, he was worried, and was contemplating coming back to follow my steps if he had not heard anything soon.

We decided to go out again soon, this time with just fire building skills being the mission – build ten fires in various ways, so I was never in danger again. Also his hammock had arrived and he was keen to take it out for a test run. We talked of our journey, and things to improve and things we were happy with.

Then he brought up PMA again. And asked whether I could see how it had helped us on the way. I couldn’t help thinking of Tony Robbins with his massive freaky head and huge fake Amercian smile, telling me Posidive Adidood was the answer to everything. Absolutely terrifying. I stopped him. “Can we change this PMA shit? It’s really bothering me.”

 

We agreed upon ‘Comfort From Knowledge’. Because the so-called positive state of mind comes from knowing, knowing we can survive if a situation presents itself, because we have the knowledge and experience of dealing with it, or trusting ourselves to use our knowledge to improvise a solution. It’s not simply thinking positive, what does that even mean? We needed to learn to survive not just wish it into existence.

So knowledge is where it’s at. And the next trip is planned.

Comfort From Knowledge.

CFK.

It’s got a ring to it.

Filed under: in the wild, life

Bushcraft (part 2 of 3)

Bushcraft masterclass with Randy Mears in the wild

My kitchen still stunk so bad from the fire you could taste it. I threw the black pan in the bin. I cooked up a hearty breakfast to set me up for the day. I had a grass-fed steak in the fridge I had bought off my new dealer at Riverside Market. The date was up, I thought if I cooked it up I could put in my sack til tonight, and share the feast with Randy in the wild. I fried it, put it on a bed of spinach in a tub. Smothered it in grass fed butter and himalayan salt. And finished it up with a generous chunk of double barrel raw cheese. I clunked the tub shut and packed it into my rucksack along with all my survival kit. I bought all the bits I was missing at the local Cotswald Outdoor store and then headed up to the studio.

Kris welcomed me as usual with a huge grin and a cup of tea. I explained what I was up to over the next few days, and he offered to take me to my starting point in St Athan for 4 o’clock. We got down to mixing some tracks.

My ex-lady then text saying she had had a premonition last night that I had died.

 

I felt travel sick on the way to St Athan, as Kris talked and talked and I turned paler and paler. We finally got there, I hadn’t realised how far it was. I was relieved to get my feet on terra firma, the horizon slowly stopped wobbling and my stomach settled.

One of my earliest memories was at St Athan’s Air show, I was spinning around imitating a plane, playing in the summer heat, and when the giddiness stopped, much like my travel sickness just had, I looked around and couldn’t find my family. I was lost. The place was rammed full of laughing evil strangers and I was alone. I ran around in a blind panic as the sound seemed to be sucked from my world. Just the cackling of the strangers, mocking me, remained. Planes drew silent smokey rings across the clear skies, the weight of my loneliness closed in on me, like the first time you step into a dark hallucinogenic trip. I ran around screaming, no noise came from my mouth. Somehow my Auntie appeared from the blur, scooped me up into her tattooed rugby playing arms, wiped away my tears and the sound and colour returned to my world.

 

Gogo pulled up and my guide, Randy, stepped out and flung a huge 70 litre rucksack onto his broken back. I bought a sausage and some nuts from the shop and we headed off on our adventure. We were here to teach me some bushcraft skills, enjoy ourselves, and to test Randy’s dodgy back, as this was his first escapade into the wild since breaking his back seven years ago.

 

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We headed down a small lane, and Randy instructed us to collect some dry firewood that was piled up on the side of the road. I noticed a weird looking telegraph pole next to us.

“How the fuck has that pole got a bush growing on the top of it I wonder? How weird.”

“If you look, the ivy has been cut off all the way up, to the box near the top, they probably needed access to that,” said my guide.

“So they give the lampost a haircut?”

“Yep I guess so.”

“So you are going to have an answer for everything?” we laughed, “This could get a bit irritating, Woolly Mears,’ referring to his woolly main and our survival guru Ray Mears.

‘Ahaa. Well, you asked.’ he replied

I told him of the ladies in work naming me Bear Jason after Bear Grills. He laughed. I said it’s the lamest name ever. But I guess I have to own it. What if I spelled it Bare though. Bare like the kids are using as slang theses day, think it means extreme in their use of it. Yeah I’ll be Bare Jason. “Still shit,” he said.

We hopped into a field following a public pathway sign. Half way down a tiny granny’s forehead poked over the hedge.

“Watch the crops! That is not a public right of way!” she squeaked.

“The sign seemed to point this way,” Randy replied.

“It’s a private field! With crops!'”

“We are walking along the edge,” I said.

“There’s no way out that way, the right of way is along this road. You are walking on crops!”

“The sign must have been turned by someone as it clearly pointed this way,” said Randy.

“It’s a crop field!” she reiterated.

She stood there shaking her tiny head. As we walked on, peering though a larger gap, I noticed her tiny dog at the end of her lead, it had a tiny head like it’s owner, and it was shaking it in disapproval at us too.

 

We could see the sea ahead. Skirting round the edge of the crop field we got to a gate and hopped over. A huge power station sat on the horizon. It looked surreal, like it had been lifted out of a comic book. To the side of it’s chimney rose a chalky moon and the sea gently wept all around it. It seemed like we had arrived in a dystopian future of ugly factories, lamposts with haircuts and people with their heads cloned onto their pets.

“Get a photo of that factory mate,” I said, “That is stunning. So weird!”

Randy started whacking all his pockets like he was being attacked by a swarm of invisible wasps. “Fuck, my phone!” He legged it back along the way we had come and I followed slowly at a distance, after ten minutes he located the massive device sat in the grass. We headed through a marshy field and hit a huge stony beach. The serene cold night wrapped its purple tentacles around us.

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It was near impossible to walk on the beach, the huge pebbles sent our ankles snapping in all directions, so we took a small pathway alongside the power station.

It winded around the ever sprawling factory to our left, with a never ending plethora of septic tanks, industrial buildings, monster machines, slag heaps and chimneys. To the right the sea spread out in a shimmering silence with a couple of boats gently bobbing in the distance, their lights twinkling. We were on the Coastal Path, of course, I just realised. We were, after all, the only country in the world with a walking path all the way around its entire coast! An unknown gem. Yes tourists, you keep visiting London and Ireland and Scotland. We’ll keep this gem for ourselves. We may not have Guinness, or The Queen or bagpipes, but this is The Mystical Land of Song. And the universe was born from sound. And we are not advertising what we got, no gimmicks. If you want to see this beauty, you have to discover it for yourself.

 

“BASTARD!” shouted Randy, my hairy guide.

He had skidded on a rather hefty dog turd. He busted an impressive rendition of the dog shit dance (© Vanilla Ice circa 1990) under the brightening moon. Eventually the power station gave up and the swamps now offered distant gloomy freaky houses, barely visible among the dark woods. After a few hours of coastal silent walking, we slid down a steep embankment into an ancient stone circle. In the centre stood a beautiful tall standing stone, an obelisk of sorts. A passage way had eroded in the cliffs leaving them circular towers of stone capped with grass, and the gap between them brought in the moon and the gentle waves. This looked like a place of ancient ceremonies, and a perfect place to take a break.

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I was impressed with how much distance we were covering. We weren’t cold due to the pace, and the moon lit the way. We continued up along cliff edges and through a few caravan parks. People sat in their caravans in their night wear. A couple in their slippers watching telly. A worried lady smoking at her door. A lonesome man in a dirty shirt eating greedily by a dim light.

We could spot Barry Island way ahead of us, with its shiny big wheel. Randy took us off the path, down though a heavy wooded area, and found what he said was a good spot. He set up a wind shield to stop the cold sea air from reaching us and got the fire going. My phone vibrated, a message from Kris:

Hey bud, great to see you today, just to let you know I just found your steak in the studio. Hope you don’t starve to death. See you soon. X

I had been looking forward to my steak supper all day! And there it was sat in a VEGETARIANS HOUSE! I wept. I told Randy, he said, “Awwww diddums, if it’s so bad go home.” Wow, how considerate! Hardcore bushcraft, no time for crying, I thought. But couldn’t stop thinking of my steak all night.

I apologised to the vegetarian for leaving such an offensive morsel in his studio… And told him to bin it.

 

Randy built a fire pit with some of the large pebbles from the beach. Within minutes it was roaring, I should have taken more notice how he had done it, as I was supposed to be learning. A passenger jet flew directly over our heads, kissing the top of the trees we were under. We were just outside Cardiff International Airport, the runway just ahead. We tucked into our sleeping bags and bivvy bags in the open forest air. Every half hour huge jets flew over us and shook the ground, it was exhilarating, and for some reason amazing.

I had been planning on going to Canada with my good friend this very night, flying from Cardiff Airport, but plans had fallen through. I just realised as I lay there that she was probably in the very jet I was looking at blinking and gaining height up into the winking starry blanket of this November night.

I could hear some weird sounds in the woods around us. I thought it’s half term and we are pretty close to Barry, I wouldn’t be surprised if some kids were camping, or some people were out and about. I heard voices, and then a group of cyclists, slipped into the woods just ahead and headed up the muddy banks and away into the darkness without spotting us.

I could hear footsteps all around me. Like there were a group of people, or cenobites, slowly creeping in on us. Creeping. Closer and closer. I was sat upright and as awake as a hunted rabbit, eyes darting with every sound. Randy looked pretty chilled out, nothing was bothering him, he offered me a puff on a reefer and I thought you know what, Im gunna pass on that. We heard drunk people letting off fireworks and whoooping maniacally in the distance. The bright moon licked through the branches above, the waves whispered down the way and the jumbo jets twinkled and roared over head. The fire crackled and I slowly slumped into the dream world, with Randy’s axe firmly tucked between my legs.

The steak was alive, it was on a pillow in the studio, and Kris was feeding it bits of grass and stroking it. It was purring and Kris was blinking his watery loving eyes upon him, smiling like Mother Theresa.

 

Morning has broken, and so has my back

I woke up to birds twittering and Randy snoring. The fire had gone out, just a pit of white ash, I was feverishly cold, especially my extremities. When I say extremities I mean my love handles. They were like bags of ice hanging off my back and making my sleeping bag like a mortuary corpse drawer. I quickly got dressed and headed down to the beach. I sat on a rock and looked out at the mass expanse of soft sea framed by white cliffs. Huge rolls of mist tumbled out towards the horizon. A boat tugged from behind a cliff and slowly passed all the way along. The red sun slid above a misty layer on the sea and the morning broke. I felt so at peace. I had slept well, despite being pretty scared. I thought I was going to be up all night, terrified, watching Randy have a peaceful slumber, but as it turned out, I had had a pretty amazing night’s sleep.

I took in the strange vast cold epic morning. This beat waking up in a tiny room, with tiny windows, looking out to some dirty roofs, and a chimney bellowing rancid oil, the rumble of buses down below shaking my dirty windows.

This is how we are meant to wake up.  In nature with the birds as our alarm clock. I breathed in the nature. Breathed in Life.

Randy appeared out of the bush, rubbing his eyes. In no time we had packed up and destroyed the camp: Leave No Trace, one my favourite rules of bushcraft. We had met Ray Mears together just last week and now we were out living it. We were in the wild, and nothing felt better. We were pretty quiet. No words were needed.

We left the coast line and decided to head North to an ancient burial chamber, Tinkinswood. A cafe offered putrid pissy tea and we emptied our bowels and let the sun warm us for half hour. This trip had two directives, one, for me to learn some of Randy’s bushcraft knowledge and two, to test Randy’s broken back and see how he got on (after seven years out of the game.) I kept trying to swap my 24 litre rucksack with his 70, but he refused. It wasn’t the pack but the sleeping that had completely screwed him up, he kept reassuring me, and he was unsure if his spine would endure another night on the ground. He said he had a hammock arriving in the post today, which would solve the problem, but it weren’t getting delivered to Tinkinswood.

The plan was to set up camp near Tinkinswood and then finish the rest of the walk into Cardiff in the morning. After our tea we cut through a wood and hopped through a fence and followed a train track for a while, then jumping over a gate followed a stream up north.

Randy was full of survival wisdom, talking of all his achievements before his life altering injury. His training, his orienteering teachings, his previous life, and telling me how he could outdo any search party if it came to it. Every time we looked at the map we would disagree about where we were at, and then he always turned out to be right. I know I was here to learn from him, but couldn’t the fucker just be wrong once! We stocked up on some goodies at a garage, cut through a housing estate and arrived at the ruins of an ancient church. We sat in the sun and he wrapped up another one. I was tempted, but with the possibility of my guide leaving me tonight, I thought better of it. The adverse psychological effects I suffered from that White Widow in Amsterdam in 2001 have never left me. Every puff I took since has ruptured echoes of insanity through my very soul. I politely declined. Randy gave me a quick lesson in orienteering, and for the first time, after decades of travel,  I understood it. He let me choose our route and we headed off. After twenty minutes we met a dead end. He got us back on track, his experience saving us over and over. I was a nubie, a total amateur to survival.

We passed though a field with a big dirty horse. I was like “let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Randy, I knew was a bit of a Doolittle, with a house full of animals. He walked straight up to the horse. I skirted around the edge of the field. Fuck messing with that big muscly bastard, I thought. I looked back, Randy stood peacefully, head bowed offering his hand, as the Queen may offer her hand to be kissed, quite limp, but elegant. The horse at first looked a little twitchy. Then tentatively shuffled forward, it’s grey mane sparkling in the bright cold morning. It brought it’s head in cautiously, and then planted a gentle kiss on the hand of HRH Mears. At the moment of the kiss their silhouette broke the sun rays behind them and imprinted a stunning picture on my memory.

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Many hours of walking through dewy fields and then, all of a sudden, there it was. The tomb. 6000 years old. Fifty dismembered skeletons had been found here. The stone covering the top of the tomb is the largest in Wales. A bizarre and frightening teleportation to ancient times. I had been here years previous, at the start of my relationship, with my ex. We had recently split up and I slipped into a melancholy reverie. We hung around in a daze for a while, re-entering the tomb again and enjoying the spooky atmosphere.

Randy arranged to be picked up at Culverhouse Cross, an hour or so walk, his back simply couldn’t withstand another night. It was seven years ago now, that he had kyaked down that snowy mountain into a tree, seven years of pain. The first night in the wild, was proving too painful, he needed the hammock. We would have to restart this mission again. The very reality of being alone out here hit me. I considered going home.

We reached a road and my trusty guide asked me to find us on the map. I couldn’t. I looked and looked and almost fifteen minutes of brain strain I pulled a blank. He took the map and showed me the spot within a few seconds. Bastard! I needed more time to learn, to suck Randy dry, like a parasite, of his plethora of knowledge and experience. I hadn’t learned much on this trip, other than he was always right. Time was up, I should have asked more, probed more, got involved in the fire and camp building last night.

“Always remember PMA,” he offered as parting advice.

I hated that expression.

“I prefer NMA,” I said, “worst case scenario, prepare for the worst.”

He tutted. He didn’t look impressed.

“PMA can save your life in a survival situation,” he said, “Ok, Good luck Bear Jason.”

He passed me his chocolate bar, gripped my hand to shake it, and looked genuinely worried.

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I waved him goodbye up a long road. I hopped over the stile to begin my own mission and stuffed the entire chocolate bar into my gob. The clouds were gathering in sinister darkening clumps. I was alone, I had no tent, and no clue.

 

 

To be continued, tomorrow…

 

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Filed under: in the wild, life, my shit

Bushcraft (part 1 of 3)

Burnt to a crisp on Halloween

‘What you up to the rest of the week, J?’ asked Mish.

‘Off on a bushcraft mission, 3 days in the wild’

‘What in November?’ asked Kaz

‘Yeah, bit nervous, but should be fun.’

‘you like that Bear Grills off the tele, innit, aha’ said Mish.

‘Bear Jason’ said Kaz

‘Yeh. Bear Jason, thats it.’ said Mish

‘Aww, I prefer Ray Mears! Jay Mears?’

‘Bear! You’re mad. I can think of better things to do with my days off.’ said Kaz

‘Ok then, but remember when the zombie apocolypse comes, you will need me. So be nice to me. Jason Mears?’ I said

‘Have fun Bear Jason’

‘Thats such a shit name.’

‘Ahaha. bye Bear! See you saturday if you make it!’

‘Thanks, see you then. I hope!’

Bye Bear Jason they shouted after me, waving, as I left the Market.

It was halloween, I thought of dressing up as a pumpkin. ie drawing evil eyes and a jagged grin on my gut and running around the streets naked. But thought better of it. Instead I got myself a copy of Hellraiser. My mate William was coming over for tea, so I cooked up some grass-fed West Walian lamb and made a banging Vindaloo with organic coconut milk, organic locally grown leeks and spices.

Will turned up and necked the curry and loved it. He spent two hours ranting at me about how his investment portfolio is making him a killing, and checking the portfolio on his phone every time I tried to speak. I finally managed to get  word in and tell him about my upcoming bushcraft mission.

” If i saw you asleep in a bush with a ray mears guide book i’d kick the shit out of you, ya sad bastard.” he said.

I walked him to Cardiff Central Station, putting out my bins on the way out. Drunk people in shit costumes stumbled around the cold dark streets. The zombie apocalypse, I needed to get my survival skills up, and that’s what tomorrow was all about.

I got back to the flat and decided to boil down the bones from the lamb I had cooked, to make a stock. I had never made a stock before, or even a curry, so this was all new to me. I commented to my flat mate how much I was loving cooking lately. She smiled saying this was her me-time day, and she was off to bed, early night with a book.

I put the big bone in a pan and filled the pan up with water and put it to simmer and then went into my room and rigged up Hellraiser on my fat new system. Big screen and bassy as hell soundsystem right in front of my fat sofa with the orange blanky, King Prawn. Bring it on. Randy calling…

“Ok let’s double check you are packed and ready for tomorrow.”

“I’m pretty nervous. I’m cold in my flat at night, can’t quite imagine being out there for 2 nights.” I said, watching the moon rise above the rooftops and the cold press it’s spikey fingers onto my window.

“Don’t be nervous. I got everything we need to make a fire, and to keep us safe. We just need to check you got the basics.”

We decided to meet at 4pm at St Athans. This would give me the morning to purchase the essential gear I was missing. And to get to the studio and do my weekly mixing session with Kris, which may be cut short this week, as I knew we had to get going before dark. And it had been getting dark around 5ish of late.

Hellraiser was freaky as hell, a guy made of just giblets hiding in the attic. Growing back his muscles and organs and skin by ingesting balding men who had been brought back to the house by the freak’s lover. He looked like some fucked up burns victim slowly coming back to normality with each new human he ate. Leaving the remains behind like a chicken carcass. What a waste, that could make a hell of a stock.

I’d slipped off half way through the mad film, and the cenobites appeared around me, they were stood there, along with the members of Clusterbleep, surrounding me, just looking at me. I was asking Pinhead what he wanted. Pestis was slapping a basball bat into the cup of his hand. Butterball was licking his lips and the Chatterer was well Chattering. Suddenly a screeching alarm ripped me out of my reverie, tossing the king prawn away from me. I bounced off the sofa to my feet.

I ran out of my room, the corridor was thick with smoke. I was expecting The Engineer to come flying atme out of the smoke. The alarm was whirring at a piercing volume. I ran into the kitchen, black smoke filled the room. My stock! It was glowing orange through the glass lid of the pan, smoke was piling out of the sides.

I ripped the pan off the stove and ran to the sink, pouring water into the burnt dry black bone remnants. As soon as the cold water hit the pan an almighty puff of smoke flew out with a fierce sizzle, setting the bigger alarms – for the entire apartment block off. I silenced the kitchen alarm by pushing a small button on it, but the building alarm was 5 times as loud and piercing, I knew all thirteen flats would now be escaping onto the main street in their pyjamas, to the amusement of the drunken trick or treaters outside.

Helena was up out of bed, looking bemused, dressed, and choking. She helped me open all the windows, but the flat was absolutely packed with thick smoke.

My neighbour Brian popped in and as he entered the flat must have took a gulp of the lamb bone smoke and immediately started retching. I was still running around trying to find other ways to ventilate the place.

“How are you not choking?'” He spluttered

“Im not breathing” I said, not knowing quite what I meant.

He ran out into the corridor bent over choking and puking up nothing but hot smoke.

I followed him downstairs to try to silence the alarm

The new lady from number 3 was in her dressing gown talking to my flat mate, Helena on her door step.

“Sorry, it was me, I fucked up!” I said scurrying past.

“You were only just saying how much you been enjoying cooking!” Said Helena

“Ah yeh um! Yep.”

“Just drifted off after a 14 hours shift up the hospital, got to be back in the morning,” said number 3, her eyebrows knitted, arms folded.

‘Sorry, I fucked up. Nice to meet you.’ I said squeezing past to get to the alarm control on the bottom floor.

‘Plank!’ she said as I walked off.

Bri was at the control box with his arms folded.

“Fucksake bro,” he said, “You really fucked up here. No ones got the code. Its been changed, this is going to be going all night.”

The fire brigade turned up. Four of them came into my flat and checked it over. I asked them to disable the alarm. They said they weren’t allowed anymore. Its the new protocol, it was up to our landlords to do that. I told them they were only contactable during office hours, he shrugged. They left.

The alarm was screeching like hell and the tenants were walking about in various states of disarray.

“Happy Halloween,” I joked to some of them collected on the bottom floor.

“Was just about to relax and now we’ve got this til the morning.” said one.

“No one on the emergency contact has the code,” another.

“An engineer is coming within the hour, he doesn’t have the code either, tho” said someone holding their hand over a phone.

“Well done mate,” said Bri and barged past me and slammed the door behind him.

Back in the kitchen and with that cocky wanker, Hind Sight, I worked out if I had simply lifted the pan and put it onto the outside windowsill, the main alarm probably wouldn’t have sounded, and the stink and smoke probably wouldn’t have coated my flat. Cheers Hind. Twat.

I contacted the Fire Station, telling them that they needed to send someone back to disable the alarm, as if there was a fire right now, nobody would leave their flats, as the alarm had been left constantly ringing. He said that I would have to phone my landlord.

I explained there was no one available til after 9am, and eleven hours of this was likely to drive my neighbours to lynch me.

He apologised. The neighbour from flat one was in my door way, he was grinning.

“Are you ok? What happened?” He had slept through the madness and just come up to investigate.

“There was a fire in a pan, and my flat was full of smoke. I nearly killed us all,” I said.

He laughed and said “Fucking hell, well everyone’s ok though yeah?”

“Yeah, the fire brigade have been and gone, now we are trying to silence the fuckin alarm! I’m so sorry man.”

“No probs,” he said, “as long as everyone’s alright!”

“Thanks man, the rest of the block fucking hate me right now.”

“No worries, could have been a lot worse. See you in a bit.”

I headed back to the control panel. The ringing was sending me nuts. All night? I was sure to be killed, on halloween, by a raging mob of angry neighbours. I pressed a few buttons. It beeped and said Enter Code_

I stood there looking at the bastard. A guy appeared at the front door I let him in and Bri walked in the other door. An engineer. Not the Engineer, from Hellraiser, thankfully. He took the thing apart, located a chunky battery and simply pulled one tiny lead off the battery. My brain slowly ruffled back to normal size as the ring echoed into a thick silence. You are a fuckin genius I said. Bri left without saying anything to me. I said sorry again after him, he wasn’t having it. I went back to my black flat. The smell was sharp and painful, it hit you in the back of the throat, like trying to snort broken glass soaked in acid. Burnt lamb marrow coated my walls. I got under my blanket and finished up Hellraiser.

Tomorrow was the big expedition to the countryside, to the Wild!  No tents allowed. I was already regretting it

check back tomorrow to see how it went…

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Filed under: in the wild, my shit

Burnt to a crisp on Halloween

‘What you up to the rest of the week, J?’ asked Mish.

‘Off on a bushcraft mission, 3 days in the wild’

‘What in November?’ asked Kaz

‘Yeah, bit nervous, but should be fun.’

‘you like that Bear Grills off the tele, innit, aha’ said Mish.

‘Bear Jason’ said Kaz

‘Yeh. Bear Jason, thats it.’ said Mish

‘Aww, I prefer Ray Mears! Jay Mears?’

‘Bear! You’re mad. I can think of better things to do with my days off.’ said Kaz

‘Ok then, but remember when the zombie apocolypse comes, you will need me. So be nice to me. Jason Mears?’ I said

‘Have fun Bear Jason’

‘Thats such a shit name.’

‘Ahaha. bye Bear! See you saturday if you make it!’

‘Thanks, see you then. I hope!’

Bye Bear Jason they shouted after me, waving, as I left the Market.

It was halloween, I thought of dressing up as a pumpkin. ie drawing evil eyes and a jagged grin on my gut and running around the streets naked. But thought better of it. Instead I got myself a copy of Hellraiser. My mate William was coming over for tea, so I cooked up some grass-fed West Walian lamb and made a banging Vindaloo with organic coconut milk, organic locally grown leeks and spices.

Will turned up and necked the curry and loved it. He spent two hours ranting at me about how his investment portfolio is making him a killing, and checking the portfolio on his phone every time I tried to speak. I finally managed to get  word in and tell him about my upcoming bushcraft mission.

” If i saw you asleep in a bush with a ray mears guide book i’d kick the shit out of you, ya sad bastard.” he said.

I walked him to Cardiff Central Station, putting out my bins on the way out. Drunk people in shit costumes stumbled around the cold dark streets. The zombie apocalypse, I needed to get my survival skills up, and that’s what tomorrow was all about.

I got back to the flat and decided to boil down the bones from the lamb I had cooked, to make a stock. I had never made a stock before, or even a curry, so this was all new to me. I commented to my flat mate how much I was loving cooking lately. She smiled saying this was her me-time day, and she was off to bed, early night with a book.

I put the big bone in a pan and filled the pan up with water and put it to simmer and then went into my room and rigged up Hellraiser on my fat new system. Big screen and bassy as hell soundsystem right in front of my fat sofa with the orange blanky, King Prawn. Bring it on. Randy calling…

“Ok let’s double check you are packed and ready for tomorrow.”

“I’m pretty nervous. I’m cold in my flat at night, can’t quite imagine being out there for 2 nights.” I said, watching the moon rise above the rooftops and the cold press it’s spikey fingers onto my window.

“Don’t be nervous. I got everything we need to make a fire, and to keep us safe. We just need to check you got the basics.”

We decided to meet at 4pm at St Athans. This would give me the morning to purchase the essential gear I was missing. And to get to the studio and do my weekly mixing session with Kris, which may be cut short this week, as I knew we had to get going before dark. And it had been getting dark around 5ish of late.

Hellraiser was freaky as hell, a guy made of just giblets hiding in the attic. Growing back his muscles and organs and skin by ingesting balding men who had been brought back to the house by the freak’s lover. He looked like some fucked up burns victim slowly coming back to normality with each new human he ate. Leaving the remains behind like a chicken carcass. What a waste, that could make a hell of a stock.

I’d slipped off half way through the mad film, and the cenobites appeared around me, they were stood there, along with the members of Clusterbleep, surrounding me, just looking at me. I was asking Pinhead what he wanted. Pestis was slapping a basball bat into the cup of his hand. Butterball was licking his lips and the Chatterer was well Chattering. Suddenly a screeching alarm ripped me out of my reverie, tossing the king prawn away from me. I bounced off the sofa to my feet.

I ran out of my room, the corridor was thick with smoke. I was expecting The Engineer to come flying atme out of the smoke. The alarm was whirring at a piercing volume. I ran into the kitchen, black smoke filled the room. My stock! It was glowing orange through the glass lid of the pan, smoke was piling out of the sides.

I ripped the pan off the stove and ran to the sink, pouring water into the burnt dry black bone remnants. As soon as the cold water hit the pan an almighty puff of smoke flew out with a fierce sizzle, setting the bigger alarms – for the entire apartment block off. I silenced the kitchen alarm by pushing a small button on it, but the building alarm was 5 times as loud and piercing, I knew all thirteen flats would now be escaping onto the main street in their pyjamas, to the amusement of the drunken trick or treaters outside.

Helena was up out of bed, looking bemused, dressed, and choking. She helped me open all the windows, but the flat was absolutely packed with thick smoke.

My neighbour Brian popped in and as he entered the flat must have took a gulp of the lamb bone smoke and immediately started retching. I was still running around trying to find other ways to ventilate the place.

“How are you not choking?'” He spluttered

“Im not breathing” I said, not knowing quite what I meant.

He ran out into the corridor bent over choking and puking up nothing but hot smoke.

I followed him downstairs to try to silence the alarm

The new lady from number 3 was in her dressing gown talking to my flat mate, Helena on her door step.

“Sorry, it was me, I fucked up!” I said scurrying past.

“You were only just saying how much you been enjoying cooking!” Said Helena

“Ah yeh um! Yep.”

“Just drifted off after a 14 hours shift up the hospital, got to be back in the morning,” said number 3, her eyebrows knitted, arms folded.

‘Sorry, I fucked up. Nice to meet you.’ I said squeezing past to get to the alarm control on the bottom floor.

‘Plank!’ she said as I walked off.

Bri was at the control box with his arms folded.

“Fucksake bro,” he said, “You really fucked up here. No ones got the code. Its been changed, this is going to be going all night.”

The fire brigade turned up. Four of them came into my flat and checked it over. I asked them to disable the alarm. They said they weren’t allowed anymore. Its the new protocol, it was up to our landlords to do that. I told them they were only contactable during office hours, he shrugged. They left.

The alarm was screeching like hell and the tenants were walking about in various states of disarray.

“Happy Halloween,” I joked to some of them collected on the bottom floor.

“Was just about to relax and now we’ve got this til the morning.” said one.

“No one on the emergency contact has the code,” another.

“An engineer is coming within the hour, he doesn’t have the code either, tho” said someone holding their hand over a phone.

“Well done mate,” said Bri and barged past me and slammed the door behind him.

Back in the kitchen and with that cocky wanker, Hind Sight, I worked out if I had simply lifted the pan and put it onto the outside windowsill, the main alarm probably wouldn’t have sounded, and the stink and smoke probably wouldn’t have coated my flat. Cheers Hind. Twat.

I contacted the Fire Station, telling them that they needed to send someone back to disable the alarm, as if there was a fire right now, nobody would leave their flats, as the alarm had been left constantly ringing. He said that I would have to phone my landlord.

I explained there was no one available til after 9am, and eleven hours of this was likely to drive my neighbours to lynch me.

He apologised. The neighbour from flat one was in my door way, he was grinning.

“Are you ok? What happened?” He had slept through the madness and just come up to investigate.

“There was a fire in a pan, and my flat was full of smoke. I nearly killed us all,” I said.

He laughed and said “Fucking hell, well everyone’s ok though yeah?”

“Yeah, the fire brigade have been and gone, now we are trying to silence the fuckin alarm! I’m so sorry man.”

“No probs,” he said, “as long as everyone’s alright!”

“Thanks man, the rest of the block fucking hate me right now.”

“No worries, could have been a lot worse. See you in a bit.”

I headed back to the control panel. The ringing was sending me nuts. All night? I was sure to be killed, on halloween, by a raging mob of angry neighbours. I pressed a few buttons. It beeped and said Enter Code_

I stood there looking at the bastard. A guy appeared at the front door I let him in and Bri walked in the other door. An engineer. Not the Engineer, from Hellraiser, thankfully. He took the thing apart, located a chunky battery and simply pulled one tiny lead off the battery. My brain slowly ruffled back to normal size as the ring echoed into a thick silence. You are a fuckin genius I said. Bri left without saying anything to me. I said sorry again after him, he wasn’t having it. I went back to my black flat. The smell was sharp and painful, it hit you in the back of the throat, like trying to snort broken glass soaked in acid. Burnt lamb marrow coated my walls. I got under my blanket and finished up Hellraiser.

Tomorrow was the big expedition to the countryside, to the Wild!  No tents allowed. I was already regretting it

check back tomorrow to see how it went…

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Filed under: in the wild, my shit

joshua v takam – load of cobblers

Any idea what that means? Well, its cockney rhyming slang. – Cobbler’s Awls? Balls.

But why not say Bollocks. Go on say it out loud. Nice and Loud. I just did.  
Forget who’s in the room, just do it. and don’t explain yourself:

Bollocks.

Ahhhh, feels good that.

(not actually a swear word see Virgin court case 1977)

I went to the cobblers yesterday, I asked the woman to google the saying A Load Of Old Cobblers and there we have it. 
Shortly afterwards my good old buddy Norman turned up at my stall . All smooth for a while, I was making him a coffee.  He turned to my friend on the next stall, Olive, asking if she would have made him a coffee. She cheekily said no, and Norm turned to her with venom and called her a ‘little fuckin slag’.

I confiscated his cuppa and told him to apologise. I said I’m fucking serious. He said this is how you Cliff a girl. This is what you do. She will love me forever now. I don’t give a fuck I said, this is no way to talk to someone I know and like. He said you lost your Rawness. I said I’m rawer than you, you big pussy. Im red fuckin’ raw, and i don’t need to pick on young girls. Now apologise. He wouldn’t. He bought himself a coffee and came back and was silent. I could see the rage building up inside him.

I locked up the shop as I had to go and meet my lodgers for the boxing tonight. He started telling me I had chosen her over him, and that I wasn’t loyal, unlike him. He raised his arms in the air and made himself as big as he could and began to spit about how Loyal he was, and how could I possibly treat him that way. And who was I to pass judgement. I said I can judge whatever I please. And that it wasn’t even the first time i had seen him do this type of thing.

He said you can’t be trusted. You change sides to impress the girl. He was following me down the isle shouting behind me and spitting about how loyal he is to friends. He was asking passersby to confirm how loyal he was. He was saying You know me innit. And high fiving his fans. I turned around and said I don’t give a fuck. FUCK OFF. Everyone in the market was looking at us. And some guy was filming us. He wouldn’t stop following me. So I punched him in the chest and told him to fuck off.
 You gonna have to hit me harder than that he said.
 LEAVE ME ALONE I shouted at the top of my lungs. 
He finally stopped following me. I was shaking as I left the market and headed back to my flat.

But I felt ok. I stand by my judgement of him. Fuck that shit. I’m not being associated, being a friend of, or OKing that fucking bullshit behaviour from any fucker. I refused to make him a coffee because of the way he spoke to a girl I know. He then accused me of Disloyalty. You want me to back you up? Then act with some dignity.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I had to let in my tenants. So it was a good job i shook off the shrieking maniac. I was stood outside McDonalds, on the phone to Jake, and he was saying I’m here too, I can’t see you. I then noticed the lanky Londoner, with greased back hair and satellite lug-holes, he was peering right over me, ‘Down Here’ I exclaimed, he slowly lowered his head. Yeh, Short and Hairy I repeated. I shook hands with him and his dad and led them into the flat and showed them about and left them with a key.

His dad was a wiry short guy with a wrinkly bespectacled rat face, and a tiny smile with a fag stuck in it. He wore a round beer belly which his BHS grey jumper gathered upon. A yellowing vest perfectly outlined the tremendous bulge below the bhs ruffle.

I said they were very lucky to get a room next to the stadium at such short notice. I told them I had had a few enquiries, all of which looked a bit mental, possibly Millwall fans for today’s game, one a group of four boys who in their profile pic were all clenching steins of lager and snarling. 
I was glad I had held out and waited, a father and son. What could possibly go wrong?

I was on the floor in my room as I had put my bed in the other room for my guests. Sleeping bag on the floor for the night. I finished up my Art of Voluntary Poverty book. A classic, not that my poverty was voluntary, i was just shit at adulting. But i could pretend, alright? I laid down for a while, i put on my new Hans Zimmer’s Masterclass. I drifted off to Hans talking bollocks, subject hopping and name dropping and telling NOTHiNG of his craft.

I woke up feeling pretty lonely. I had no one to go to the boxing with (maybe cause I’m a judgemental prick?) but I fancied a look. I wrapped up in my waterproof and scarf. 
I headed over to my mate Kev’s burger van that I had been helping renovate during the last week. It was looking good. He made me a cheeseburger and we had a chat. He had accidentally driven it with the serving hatch open and, if it wasn’t for a passing man with his dog, frantically waving, he may have clunked a lamp post and totalled it. He then got to the location, and reversed the fucker into a bollard and took the back lights out. He was there with a couple of freaky looking staff who looked like he had found on a street corner, smoking rollies, and dripping sweat from their eye bags into the sizzling meat.

I was walking to the main Gate to try and find a ticket. One girl said gimme a piggy back for a tenner. I said I’ll do it for free, hop on. I put my arms out and lowered my self, bending my knees. She didn’t look impressed, her mates were laughing. She put her bright red taloned podgy finger in my messy dirty hair, looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Babe, I’d Love to Shit in Your Nest.’ The girls were laughing. ‘Worra a fackin mess!’ she shouted.

We laughed, I walked on. One of her mates latched onto my arm and said I love your teeth. Yours are better I said, they were pearly and perfect set off by a slight pursed pair of beautiful pink lips. We walked together laughing, calling ourselves the Colgate Kids. Weird sexy girl from Bridgend, with legs right up to her neck. We turned round and realised we had lost her friends. She was panicking so I walked her back and joined her back with them. I wish I had spent more time with them, but I was stopped by a tout and bartered for a ticket, for the big match.

£20 was my budget and I wanted the best seat I could get. He had a £60 seat and wouldn’t go lower than 25. I hung around, managing to finally get a £100 ticket for £25 and I was in. On the floor not too far away from the ring. The crowd were lively. I found my row and took a seat, there were a good few empty seats in my row and I sat down and took in the atmosphere.

The stadium was rammed. I heard a kerfuffle behind me and everyone had stopped watching the warm up boxing and were know watching two drunk Punjabi guys smashing the fuck out of each other in the row behind me. Several hairy security guards got them in head locks and dragged them out.

The couple in front of me were arguing. I asked you a Question you cunt! Screamed a large cartoon of a woman, pushing her blinking vacant head into the guy’s face. Even more vacant, he either was thinking nothing at all or was just stumped for an answer to her question. The guy wandered off, I don’t think he knew where to. She then swung her pastey corn beef like leg into the air, right over the back of her seat and planted it right next to me. Then leant over gripping onto me, and easing the rest of her heavy load into me and spilling her pint over me. She then said excuse me, and shuffled past and down the row. Where as her row was empty, she now had to pass several people. Maybe she just wanted to flash her bits to the gaggle of hairy Punjabi men, or maybe she was just plain stupefied from pouring cider into her hole all day. At the end of my isle a long girl with a beer belly and bare feet was arched over looking a bit ill, her head right between her legs. Her puke covered hair hung long and lank. From with in it, a line of dribble stretched down and collected on the cracked screen of the illuminated iphone she was clutching. She looked like a cross between The Ring and that weird long thing, Alice the Goon, from Popeye. The large angry girl spun the Ring girl around by her leg, she didn’t budge aside from swinging around like a turnstile, the big lady squeezed herself free.

Anthony Joshua made his big entrance and the crowd were pumped up. Everyone stood up onto their foldable chairs, fist pumping the air. A fat Punjabi guy’s chair flipped closed with a snap, and his legs were jammed tight together in the gap behind. He was yelping and his mates were trying to pull him out. Then another snap, another chubby person a few rows in front had stood too far back on the seat causing it to flip closed and sending them to the floor, trapping their legs between the closed seat and its back too. And snap! Another. It was like the mole game as you spotted all the rounder people suddenly sinking and then yelping and panicking. Next to me the The Ring girl with the iphone had been joined by another identical Ring girl and somehow both of them were balancing stood up on the foldable chairs, completely out of their minds on alcohol, i think, without shoes, and dribbling over themselves. There was nothing going on. In an absolute mess. Anything could have happened to them. I asked if they were ok, one of them turned to me, with blank eyes, and looked up as if I had suddenly appeared, she looked so sad and lost. Hmmmmmmmm? She said. I turned back to the action and Snap! The 1st Ring girl was trapped in her seat gap. Hardly making a noise she put her hands in the air to cheer, she was completely devoid of any sense at all.

The big cider swigging lady came back and ignored her row, tears were flowing down her face, as she squeezed past me again and tried to jump over her seat back into her row. She got stuck this time, just straddled over the seats, slumped, crying, spilling cider down her cleavage.

COME ON JOSHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAA bellowed her gargantuan friend. Her boyfriend had returned also, he still looked lost. He turned around and looked beyond me into the stadium stands, tapped the girl with the foghorn voice, pointed and said look, that’s all people up there.  His Mrs was still straddled wiping her tears away. A big Punjabi guy with a healthy beard, who stood next to me, help push her into her own row. 
The genius who had just noticed the other people in the stadium then turned to his sobbing girl and said, Babe, we are stood on the rugby pitch. This guy was really having some breakthroughs here.

Ding Ding round1!
 Very slow start. I thought the opponent looked tiny, and that this wasn’t going to last long.  From the stands up and around us bellowed that modern chant,  the Welsh have adopted:

Doooooon’t Take me Home


PLEASE don’t take me home!


I just don’t wanna go ta work,


I wanna stay here,


And drink loads of beer, 


Please don’t, please don’t take me home!


(repeat 153 times)

I feel like a cunt in laughing at these people, coming over all holier than thou, but there genuinely didn’t seem like a collective brain cell in the entire stadium, expect mine of course, I’m amazing, (twat) maybe being sober made me think I was better than everyone else, but jesus, seriously. What was that series, ‘Nathan Barley’ possibly? Charlie Brooker’s RISE OF THE IDIOTS? But this was another level, this was Rise of the Pond life. Zombies, who’s rally cry was DONT TAKE ME BACK TO MY LIFE LET ME DRiNK MYSELF INTO A STUPOUR AND GET TRAPPED IN A CHAIR DRIBBLING INTO MY OWN TITS.

Ding ding. Round 2. 3 4 5 6/ boring. The most entertaining thing was the Punjabi guy next to me who had now taken to screaming abuse at Joshua. ‘Embarrassing!’ ‘Fookin Hit Him you Pussy hole!’ ‘Come on you tit’ ‘Fookin knock him out ya fooker’ ‘ya mams embarrassed go home ya fookin pussy!’

Joshua had looked strong, but then Takam started bouncing back. The beer bellied Ring girl was still trapped in her seat and whooping at nothing. She caught a glimpse of some punches on the big screen and mumbled, ‘oooh, I really don’t like it.’ She had spunked a hundred quid on a ticket before working out she didn’t actually like boxing.

Takam wasn’t tiring, he was up for it. He started attacking and giving Joshua a bit of jip. He seemed stronger and his packed frame flung out tight strong punches, now finding the much larger Joshua and planting a fair few. I was sure he could nail Joshua, or at least go the full 12 rounds. No real big punches were coming. Into the tenth round and Takam was looking good. Joshua then let forth a flurry of his best punches in a row and the ref got Takam in a head lock and called off the fight. Over. The crowd booed. Takam had his hands in the air as if to say what the fuck! People were not happy. Joshua even looked a bit embarrassed. In the after fight speeches, Josh actually got a boo. Not strictly Joshuas fault, the ref should have got a slap for ruining Takam’s chances, but if he had won, that would have killed all these sell out stadium shows Joshua was attracting.

Takam said I respect Joshua, he is the world champion, and I respect the referees decision, but I want a rematch.

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I got back to the pad, and stripped off and laid on the floor listening to Hans Zimmer further confuse himself. People talking about their craft- it’s an odd one, I’m not sure they are the best person to ask. It’s like they don’t quite know how they do what they do. Geniuses in execution, for sure, but trying to put it into words? How do you distill decades of work and experimenting into an hour chat. These masterclasses I had managed to nick off the internet were very expensive. I was so glad I didn’t pay for a mumbling mess of ideas from a confused old man in a chair. I wondered if he were to be secretly filmed hard at work, in the zone, would this be of more value as a masterclass?

I thought back to that experiment in some art class I had heard about. The class was divided into two groups, one told they would be marked on quantity and the other quality, at the end of the term. One group studied and studied and tried to learn and compose the ultimate piece to submit. The other just kept churning it out, aiming for the most they could possibly finish in order to get their grades. 
At the end, the quantity group also produced the better quality work.

Should we study the process and engage our pre-frontal cortex in the how and why? Or should we just get on with it. Get the work done.

I was drifting off into reverie when I heard, what sounded like, someone dragging a body up the stairs. 
I chucked my clothes on and went to investigate. The father with the belly was stood in the front door filming something on the stairs. It was his own son Jake, draped over the top step absolutely paralytic. He was smiling but his body wasn’t working, occasionally squealing in what seemed to be a numbed happiness. His dad was saying, wait till your mum sees this and sniggering like a rat. He dragged his large son into the flat almost standing him up but he fell back down, his legs in the air and then rolled around on the passage floor. 
He crawled into his room and jumped upon the bed. Then rolled off it. Smashing the table over. Wooop woooop! he bellowed. He looked deranged, happy and was completely out of control. I thought about the window. He wouldn’t would he? In this state, maybe. A four storey drop and a lump of cockney bollock for the road sweepers to peel off the pavement. 
The dad and son then decided to box each other. Dad looking upright, the son doing rolly pollys and shouting and falling and hitting his head repeatedly. I put a pint of water next to him and said see you in the morning.

I went back to my room, thinking fuck this. Never again! 
I was just dozing off when their door slammed open and Jake came tumbling into the passage. He went into the kitchen slammed load of doors open and was mumbling to himself. He then tried to get in my room, luckily i had fitted a new lock the night before. And then he fell into the bathroom where I could hear him retching into the toilet. It went quiet for a minute and I went in the kitchen to see what the fuck they had done. He had pulled out my eggs and some other things, opened all the doors, and got some chilli sauce out. Like he was planning to cook. I packed it all back away. There was more screaming, and whooping. They were having the night of their lives. 
I lay back in my sleeping bag just hoping it would stop.

It slowly quietened down. I went to the toilet. Sat down. My arse got drenched in these idiot’s piss. I cleaned myself off and back to my sleeping bag. I picked up The Boswell Diaries off my shelf and snoozed off to the diary of a man 350 years ago drifting about in London.

Then i heard a voice. ‘Jaaaake.’ Whispering and a tap. Knock knock. ‘JAKE!’ Then spoken ‘FUCKSAKE’. Dad began banging and kicking the shit out of the door trying to wake his now comatosed son. It weren’t happening. He was locked out for the night. I got dressed and luckily managed to locate a spare key to their room. At this point the Dad was shouting his head off, ‘Wake up you little cunt!’ Kicking the door in. I went and opened the door and spotted a snoring Jake, thank fuck.

I said goodnight. Turned off all the lights and went to bed. The clocks went back, which now meant I would have to endure another hour of this. But all was quiet in the dead of night. I drifted off into a deep sleep.

I woke at 6am and began to write this shit.

What a load of ol’ cobblers

Filed under: life, my shit

joshua v takam

What a load of old cobblers. Any idea what that means? Well, its cockney rhyming slang. – Cobbler’s Awls? Balls.

But why not say Bollocks. Go on say it out loud. Nice and Loud. I just did.  
Forget who’s in the room, just do it. and don’t explain yourself:

Bollocks.

Ahhhh, feels good that.

(not actually a swear word see Virgin court case 1977)

I went to the cobblers yesterday, I asked the woman to google the saying A Load Of Old Cobblers and there we have it. 
Shortly afterwards my good old buddy Norman turned up at my stall . All smooth for a while, I was making him a coffee.  He turned to my friend on the next stall, Olive, asking if she would have made him a coffee. She cheekily said no, and Norm turned to her with venom and called her a ‘little fuckin slag’.

I confiscated his cuppa and told him to apologise. I said I’m fucking serious. He said this is how you Cliff a girl. This is what you do. She will love me forever now. I don’t give a fuck I said, this is no way to talk to someone I know and like. He said you lost your Rawness. I said I’m rawer than you, you big pussy. Im red fuckin’ raw, and i don’t need to pick on young girls. Now apologise. He wouldn’t. He bought himself a coffee and came back and was silent. I could see the rage building up inside him.

I locked up the shop as I had to go and meet my lodgers for the boxing tonight. He started telling me I had chosen her over him, and that I wasn’t loyal, unlike him. He raised his arms in the air and made himself as big as he could and began to spit about how Loyal he was, and how could I possibly treat him that way. And who was I to pass judgement. I said I can judge whatever I please. And that it wasn’t even the first time i had seen him do this type of thing.

He said you can’t be trusted. You change sides to impress the girl. He was following me down the isle shouting behind me and spitting about how loyal he is to friends. He was asking passersby to confirm how loyal he was. He was saying You know me innit. And high fiving his fans. I turned around and said I don’t give a fuck. FUCK OFF. Everyone in the market was looking at us. And some guy was filming us. He wouldn’t stop following me. So I punched him in the chest and told him to fuck off.
 You gonna have to hit me harder than that he said.
 LEAVE ME ALONE I shouted at the top of my lungs. 
He finally stopped following me. I was shaking as I left the market and headed back to my flat.

But I felt ok. I stand by my judgement of him. Fuck that shit. I’m not being associated, being a friend of, or OKing that fucking bullshit behaviour from any fucker. I refused to make him a coffee because of the way he spoke to a girl I know. He then accused me of Disloyalty. You want me to back you up? Then act with some dignity. Base as fuck.

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I had to let in my tenants. So it was a good job i shook off the shrieking maniac. I was stood outside McDonalds, on the phone to Jake, and he was saying I’m here too, I can’t see you. I then noticed the lanky Londoner, with greased back hair and satellite lug-holes, he was peering right over me, ‘Down Here’ I exclaimed, he slowly lowered his head. Yeh, Short and Hairy I repeated. I shook hands with him and his dad and led them into the flat and showed them about and left them with a key.

His dad was a wiry short guy with a wrinkly bespectacled rat face, and a winking  tiny smile with a fag stuck in it. He wore a round beer belly which his BHS grey jumper gathered upon. A yellowing vest perfectly outlined the tremendous bulge below the bhs ruffle, as if he merely had given it a lick of magnolia paint.

I said they were very lucky to get a room next to the stadium at such short notice. I told them I had had a few enquiries, all of which looked a bit mental, possibly Millwall fans for today’s game, one a group of four boys who in their profile pic were all clenching steins of lager and snarling. 
I was glad I had held out and waited, a father and son. What could possibly go wrong?

I was on the floor in my room as I had put my bed in the other room for my guests. Sleeping bag on the floor for the night. I finished up my Art of Voluntary Poverty book. A classic, not that my poverty was voluntary, i was just shit at adulting. But i could pretend, alright? I laid down for a while, i put on my new Hans Zimmer’s Masterclass. I drifted off to Hans talking bollocks, subject hopping and name dropping and telling NOTHiNG of his craft. Boring Weird German dude, stuck right up his own arse I thought.

I woke up feeling pretty lonely. I had no one to go to the boxing with (maybe cause I’m a judgemental prick?) but I fancied a look. I wrapped up in my waterproof and scarf. 
I headed over to my mate Kev’s burger van that I had been helping renovate during the last week. It was looking good. He made me a cheeseburger and we had a chat. He had accidentally driven it with the serving hatch open and, if it wasn’t for a passing man with his dog, frantically waving, he may have clunked a lamp post and totalled it. He then got to the location, and reversed the fucker into a bollard and took the back lights out. He was there with a couple of freaky looking staff who looked like he had found on a street corner, smoking rollies, and dripping sweat from their eye bags into the sizzling meat.

I was walking to the main Gate to try and find a ticket. One girl said gimme a piggy back for a tenner. I said I’ll do it for free, hop on. I put my arms out and lowered my self, bending my knees. She didn’t look impressed, her mates were laughing. She put her bright red taloned podgy finger in my messy dirty hair, looked deep into my eyes and said, Babe, I’d Love to Shit in Your Nest. The girls were laughing. Worra a fackin mess she shouted.

We laughed, I walked on. One of her mates latched onto my arm and said I love your teeth. Yours are better I said, they were pearly and perfect set off by a slight pursed pair of beautiful pink lips. She was beautiful, we walked together laughing about our teeth, calling ourselves the Colgate Kids. 
She said she liked me, and loved my hair and teeth. Weird girl, super attractive and legs right up to her neck. From Bridgend, we walked arm in arm laughing our heads off, and turned round and realised we had lost her friends. She was panicking so I walked her back and joined her back with them. I wish I had spent more time with her, but I was stopped by a tout and bartered for a ticket, for the big match.

£20 was my budget and I wanted the best seat I could get. He had a £60 seat and wouldn’t go lower than 25. I hung around, managing to finally get a £100 ticket for £25 and I was in. On the floor not too far away from the ring. The crowd were lively. I found my row and took a seat, there were a good few empty seats in my row and I sat down and took in the atmosphere.

The stadium was rammed. I heard a kerfuffle behind me and everyone had stopped watching the warm up boxing and were know watching two drunk Punjabi guys smashing the fuck out of each other in the row behind me. Several hairy security guards got them in head locks and dragged them out.

The couple in front of me were arguing. I asked you a Question you cunt! Screamed a large cartoon of a woman, pushing her blinking vacant head into the guy’s face. Even more vacant, he either was thinking nothing at all or was just stumped for an answer to her question. The guy wandered off, I don’t think he knew where to. She then swung her pastey corn beef like leg into the air, right over the back of her seat and planted it right next to me. Then leant over gripping onto me, and easing the rest of her heavy load into me and spilling her pint over me. She then said excuse me, and shuffled past and down the row. Where as her row was empty, she now had to pass several people. Maybe she just wanted to flash her bits to the gaggle of hairy Punjabi men, or maybe she was just plain stupefied from pouring cider into her hole all day. At the end of my isle a long girl with a beer belly and bare feet was arched over looking a bit ill, her head right between her legs. Her puke covered hair hung long and lank. From with in it, a line of dribble stretched down and collected on the cracked screen of the illuminated iphone she was clutching. She looked like a cross between The Ring and that weird long thing, Alice the Goon, from Popeye. The large angry girl spun The Ring girl around by her leg, she didn’t budge aside from swinging around like a turnstile, the big lady squeezed herself free.

Anthony Joshua made his big entrance and the crowd were pumped up. Everyone stood on their foldable chairs fist pumping the air. A fat punjabi guy’s chair flipped closed with a snap, and his legs were jammed tight together in the gap behind. He was yelping and his mates were trying to pull him out. Then another snap, another chubby person a few rows in front had stood too far back on the seat causing it to flip closed and sending them to the floor, trapping their legs between the closed seat and its back too. And snap! Another. It was like the mole game as you spotted all the rounder people suddenly sinking and then yelping and panicking. Next to me the The Ring girl with the iphone had been joined by another identical girl and somehow both of them were balancing stood up on the foldable chairs, completely out of their minds on alcohol, without shoes, and dribbling over themselves. There was nothing going on. In an absolute mess. Zombified. Anything could have happened to them. I asked if they were ok, one of them turned to me, with blank eyes, and looked up as if I had suddenly appeared, she looked so sad and lost. Hmmmmmmmm? She said and burped. I turned back to the action and Snap! The 1st Ring girl was trapped in her seat gap. Hardly making a noise she put her hands in the air to cheer, she was completely devoid of any sense at all. Her friend hadn’t even noticed and was trying to whoop along with everyone else.

The cider swigger lady came back and ignored her row, tears were flowing down her face, as she squeezed past me again and tried to jump over her seat back into her row. She got stuck this time, just straddled over the seats, slumped, crying spilling cider down her cleavage.

COME ON JOSHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAA bellowed her gargantuan friend. Her boyfriend had returned also, he still looked lost too. Zombie like, he turned around and looked beyond me into the stadium stands, tapped the girl with the foghorn voice and said look, that’s all people up there. I think he had just worked out he was in a stadium. His Mrs was still straddled wiping her tears away, one of big Punjabi guys with a big beard, next to me, help push her into her own row. 
The genius who had just noticed the other people, then turned to his sobbing girl and said, Babe, we are stood on the rugby pitch. This guy was really having some breakthroughs here.

Ding Ding round1!
 Very slow start. I thought the opponent looked tiny, and that this wasn’t going to last long. Boring first round. From the stands up and around us bellowed that modern chant, you hear at every sport gathering in the world now. Not sure it’s a Welsh one, but the welsh have certainly adopted it:

Doooooon’t Take me Home


PLEASE don’t take me home!


I just don’t wanna go ta work,


I wanna stay here,


And drink loads of beer, 


Please don’t, please don’t take me home!


(repeat 153 times)

I feel like a cunt in laughing at these people, coming over all holier than thou, but there genuinely didn’t seem like a collective brain cell in the entire stadium, expect mine of course, I’m amazing, (twat) maybe being sober made me think I was better than everyone else, but jesus, seriously, what a fuckin dull bunch of idiots. What was that series, ‘Nathan Barley’ possibly, Charlie Brooker’s RISE OF THE IDIOTS, this was another level, this was Rise of the Pond life.  I mean it was halloween, had we risen the LIVING DEAD? Zombies who’s rally cry was DONT TAKE ME BACK TO MY LIFE LET ME DRiNK MYSELF INTO A STUPOUR AND GET TRAPPED IN A CHAIR DRIBBLING INTO MY OWN TITS.

Ding ding. Round2. 3 4 5 6/ boring. The most entertaining thing was the punjabi guy next to me who had now taken to screaming abuse at Joshua. ‘Embarrassing!’ ‘Fookin Hit Him you Pussy hole!’ ‘Come on you tit’ ‘Fookin knock him out ya fooker’ ‘ya mams embarrassed go home ya fookin pussy!’

Joshua had looked strong, but then Takam started bouncing back. The beer bellied Ring girl was still trapped in her seat and whooping at nothing. She caught a glimpse of some punches on the big screen and said to her friend who didn’t know where she was, ‘oooh, I really don’t like it.’ She had spunked a hundred quid on a ticket before working out she didn’t actually like boxing.

Takam wasn’t tiring, he was up for it. He started attacking and giving Joshua a bit of jip. He seemed stronger and his packed frame flung out tight strong punches, now finding the much larger Joshua and planting a fair few. I was sure he could nail Joshua, who was know looking slower – with no real big punches coming. Into the tenth round and Takam was really coming back now. Joshua then let forth a flurry of his best punches in a row and the ref got Takam in a head lock and called off the fight. Over. The crowd booed. What the hell. Takam had loads left in him, there was simply no way that this fight should be stopped. Takam had his hands in the air as if to say what the fuck! People were not happy. Joshua even looked a bit embarrassed. In the after fight speeches, Josh actually got a boo. Not strictly Joshuas fault, the ref should have got a slap for ruining Takam’s chances, but if he had won, that would have killed all these sell out stadium shows Joshua was attracting.

Takam said I respect Joshua, he is the world champion, and I respect the referees decision, but I want a rematch.

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I got back to the pad, and stripped off and laid on the floor listening to Hans Zimmer further confuse himself. People talking about their craft- it’s an odd one, I’m not sure they are the best person to ask. It’s like they don’t quite know how they do what they do. Geniuses in execution, for sure, but trying to put it into words? It’s like they don’t know. How do you distill decades of work and experimenting into an hour chat. These masterclasses I had managed to nick off the internet were very expensive. I was so glad I didn’t pay for a mumbling mess of ideas from a confused old man in a chair. I wondered if he were to be secretly filmed hard at work, in the zone, would this be of more value as a masterclass?

I thought back to that experiment in some art class I had heard about. The class was divided into two groups, one told they would be marked on quantity and the other quality, at the end of the term. One group studied and studied and tried to learn and compose the ultimate piece to submit. The other just kept churning it out, aiming for the most they could possibly finish in order to get their grades. 
At the end, the quantity group also produced the better quality work.

Should we study the process and engage our pre-frontal cortex in the how and why? Or should we just get on with it. Get the work done.

And if these Masters wanted to impart their wisdom upon us, surely just seeing them at work, behind the scenes would be the best way? Or just ignoring them, and Getting to Work in our own unique way.

I was drifting off into the dream world, when I heard, what sounded like, someone dragging a body up the stairs. 
I chucked my clothes on and went to investigate. The father with the belly was stood in the front door way filming something on the stairs. It was his own son Jake, draped over the top step absolutely paralytic. He was smiling but his body wasn’t working, occasionally squealing in what seemed to be a numbed happiness. His dad was saying, wait till your mum finds out and laughing a squeaky rat like snigger. He dragged his large son into the flat almost standing him up but he fell back down, his legs in the air and then rolling around on the passage floor. 
He then crawled into his room and jumped upon the bed. Then rolled off it. Smashing the table over. Wooop woooop! he bellowed. He looked deranged, happy and was completely out of control. I thought about the window. He wouldn’t would he? In this state, maybe. A four storey drop and a lump of cockney bollock for the road sweepers to peel off the pavement. 
The dad and son then decided to box each other. Dad looking upright, the son doing rolly pollys and shouting and falling and hitting his head repeatedly. I put a pint of water next to him and said see you in the morning.

I went back to my room, thinking fuck this. Never again! 
I was just dozing off when their door slammed open and Jake came tumbling into the passage. He went into the kitchen slammed load of doors open and was mumbling to himself. He then tried to get in my room, luckily i had fitted a new lock the night before!! And then he fell into the bathroom where I could hear him retching into the toilet. They seemed to leave the flat and then change their mind.  Laughing and then Whooping more. 
This was a nightmare. It went quiet for a minute and I went in the kitchen to see what the fuck they had done. He had pulled out my eggs and some other things, opened all the doors, I packed it all back away. 
BANG! More falling. Then quiet. Then Screaming. More Whooping. As if they were having the night of their lives. 
I lay there just hoping it would stop.

It seemed to slowly quieten down. I went to the toilet. Sat down. My lovely guest had covered the seat in piss. My arse was drenched in these idiot’s piss. I cleaned myself off and back to my sleeping bag. I picked up The Boswell Diaries off my shelf and snoozed off to the diary of a man 350 years ago drifting about in London.

Then ‘Jaaaake,’ whispering and a tap. Knock knock. ‘JAKE!’ Then spoken … ‘FUCKSAKE’. He started banging and kicking the shit out of the door trying to wake his now comatosed son. It weren’t happening. He was locked out for the night. I got dressed and luckily managed to locate a spare key to their room. At this point the Dad was shouting his head off, ‘Wake up you little cunt!’ Kicking the door in. I went and opened the door and spotted a snoring Jake, thank fuck.

I said goodnight. Turned off all the lights and went to bed. The clocks went back, which now meant I would have to endure another hour of these cunts. But all was quiet in the dead of night. I drifted off into a deep sleep.

I woke at 6am and began to write this shit.

Filed under: life, my shit

Eyes to the Skies.

I woke up and decided to stay at home for the day. Inspired by that Kafka quote my good friend Matt keeps sharing with me:

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

― Franz Kafka

I never truly understood it. Being more of a doer. I struggle to find the wisdom in it. I made a pile of vinyl in my new ‘listening room’. Kind of like a living room, but set up to be sonically divine. Acoustically bliss. With my Yamaha H80ms and my old technics 1200s. My 303 / 808 copy. A few other gadgets. And some fat sofas. Not so much for creating, but playing and listening. I made the room up about 30 seconds after my last flat mate left for Russia. I was counting down the minutes til I could get in there. After months, or years even, being cooped up in a tiny room at the back of the flat, I was slowing going insane. Surrounded by all the shit I had collected over my lifetime. It was a mess. You couldn’t move in there. Or think.

My old room has became a bedroom with a small creative set up in the corner. I can breathe again. Around the time of me getting the extra space I also read a book by Marie Kondo ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’. Never in my life could I clean. I’m known for it. A messy dirty lazy bastard. My mother would refuse to drink from my cups when she visited. She’d roll up her sleeves and start mopping with a stern face, never once cracking a smile when visiting me. Also whenever my ex turned up she would poke her head into the room and say “Are you OK Jase?” Seriously worried after my mental health.

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Marie Kondo

All this changed recently. I got Marie’s book on MP3 and laid in my new living room one night and let the book speak to me in my sleep all night. The next day I started it again. And began to put her KonMari system into practice. In no time over 3/4 of my belongings had gone. I had emptied my parent’s attic too of the shit I was storing there. And I had a big ceremonial fire with my dad that sent the past into the ether. (while prising my school books out of a sobbing mam’s arms)

The flames licked the sky as my dad poked it and threw more of the shit on. He seemed to relish in the burning of the past, he wanted me to move on. To realise what he thought i was capable of, and move forward. His trainer top had been cut off to let the recently operated on and extremely swollen foot poke out and breath. “Feet in the Gutter, Eye to the Skies” he would say to me.

[image error]

In the Marie Kondo system you begin with things around the house that don’t mean much, and you ruthlessly discard. The only rule for keeping things in your space is if they bring you joy. You work from the least to the most sentimental by category. I flew through most of the decluttering with a sinister and deranged aplomb. Then came my books. Then my photos. Then the journals. Then letters and gifts. Now the vinyl.

The photos were ok. I kept about 100 out of about 500. Put them in the date order and stored them in a sturdy nice white box on the shelf. My bookshelf was a tough one. Id been building up my library for a few years. I was pretty good at giving away books I had finished reading, so there were only a small amount of them, as I loved to pass on the knowledge that excited me. But I must have had close to 300 unread books. I worked quickly. Piling them into definitely want to read / not bothered / keep for sentimental reasons. I ended up with a huge pile of books to go. If I had taken my time I think I could have sold them one by one on ebay or something and maybe made some ok money. But I was getting obsessed with getting space in the flat. So I called my bookdealer mate Colin of Bear Island books in Cardiff Smelly Market. He came over for a cup of tea and selected 50 or 60 books and gave me £50. The rest I donated to the local Heart Foundation Charity. Which hurt a little. But I was left with about maybe 50 books in total. out of these 50 I started to see if I could get some of them on my recently purchased kindle and give away the book itself.

Old letters and gifts had me in stitches. So many letters calling me a cunt from ex-girlfriends. Some of which i had absolutely no recollection of. Diane from Northampton? Who are you! And what the hell did i do to you? Alcohol has a lot to answer for.

The journals were so hard. I just dipped into a few at random. Then put every single one of them into storage boxes on my old book shelf.

The vinyl is now where I am at. And this is pretty much it. After that my belongings will consist of just things that bring me joy. I think. I will have to go through it all again just to double check that. I would also like to update some of my old stuff, like my bed and cooker and things but im not sure im staying where im at yet. So holding out on that and keeping the old. I plan to take my time with the vinyl.

[image error]

Yesterday I pulled out all of the 80s disco and electro. I had found a box of it in the corridor of my friends flat. She told me to take it as it has been sat there for years. I went through it all yesterday. Spent the entire day playing every record. Most of it was Maximum CHEEESe. And I was often loving the covers / band shots more than the music itself. I photographed some of my favourite bands from the covers and then plugged in my Zoom and sampled every single beat, noise or loop I enjoyed. I then put them all in a tub to be sold. Thats about 40 records done.

[image error]

I streamlined my collection years back taking it down from about 5000 to about 700. That was a hell of a mission. Now im looking at the remaining 700. Can i stream line it futher ot  make it full of just the records I love. Or maybe I should sample the lot into my zoom and digitize everything. And then sell the lot, including the decks. We’ll see. I’ve got the best part of this winter to look at this. In the age of streaming and the cloud the amount of space this historical collection takes up seems mad. By the time next year rolls around I should know where I am with it all. I might just do some kick ass vinyl mixes and then flog it on. Im not sure. Im so attached to it. It has some hold on me I struggle to understand.

But as my friend and old Dj mate, Wez G, put it, after recently selling his massive house music collection:

“Why are we holding to this music from 25 years ago. In the vain egotistical hope that we’ll reconvene all the people that used to love and dance to this music and show them how good we are again? Why bother? Move on. Get in the moment. Stop trying to relive your youth. Get free.”

[image error]

“FEET in THE GUTTER – EYES TO THE SKIES” – Raymond Phillips

If you are interested in a copy of my cheesy 80s sample pack, i can send you a copy when its edited. Email me here: [image error]

[image error]

 

Filed under: life, my shit

Feet in the Gutter, Eyes to the Skies.

I woke up and decided to stay at home for the day. Inspired by that Kafka quote my good friend Matt keeps sharing with me:

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

― Franz Kafka

I never truly understood it. Being more of a doer. I struggle to find the wisdom in it. I made a pile of vinyl in my new ‘listening room’. Kind of like a living room, but set up to be sonically divine. Acoustically bliss. With my Yamaha H80ms and my old technics 1200s. My 303 / 808 copy. A few other gadgets. And some fat sofas. Not so much for creating, but playing and listening. I made the room up about 30 seconds after my last flat mate left for Russia. I was counting down the minutes til I could get in there. After months, or years even, being cooped up in a tiny room at the back of the flat, I was slowing going insane. Surrounded by all the shit I had collected over my lifetime. It was a mess. You couldn’t move in there. Or think.

My old room has became a bedroom with a small creative set up in the corner. I can breathe again. Around the time of me getting the extra space I also read a book by Marie Kondo ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up’. Never in my life could I clean. I’m known for it. A messy dirty lazy bastard. My mother would refuse to drink from my cups when she visited. She’d roll up her sleeves and start mopping with a stern face, never once cracking a smile when visiting me. Also whenever my ex turned up she would poke her head into the room and say “Are you OK Jase?” Seriously worried after my mental health.

[image error]

Marie Kondo

All this changed recently. I got Marie’s book on MP3 and laid in my new living room one night and let the book speak to me in my sleep all night. The next day I started it again. And began to put her KonMari system into practice. In no time over 3/4 of my belongings had gone. I had emptied my parent’s attic too of the shit I was storing there. And I had a big ceremonial fire with my dad that sent the past into the ether. (while prising my school books out of a sobbing mam’s arms)

The flames licked the sky as my dad poked it and threw more of the shit on. He seemed to relish in the burning of the past, he wanted me to move on. To realise what he thought i was capable of, and move forward. His trainer top had been cut off to let the recently operated on and extremely swollen foot poke out and breath. “Feet in the Gutter, Eye to the Skies” he would say to me.

[image error]

In the Marie Kondo system you begin with things around the house that don’t mean much, and you ruthlessly discard. The only rule for keeping things in your space is if they bring you joy. You work from the least to the most sentimental by category. I flew through most of the decluttering with a sinister and deranged aplomb. Then came my books. Then my photos. Then the journals. Then letters and gifts. Now the vinyl.

The photos were ok. I kept about 100 out of about 500. Put them in the date order and stored them in a sturdy nice white box on the shelf. My bookshelf was a tough one. Id been building up my library for a few years. I was pretty good at giving away books I had finished reading, so there were only a small amount of them, as I loved to pass on the knowledge that excited me. But I must have had close to 300 unread books. I worked quickly. Piling them into definitely want to read / not bothered / keep for sentimental reasons. I ended up with a huge pile of books to go. If I had taken my time I think I could have sold them one by one on ebay or something and maybe made some ok money. But I was getting obsessed with getting space in the flat. So I called my bookdealer mate Colin of Bear Island books in Cardiff Smelly Market. He came over for a cup of tea and selected 50 or 60 books and gave me £50. The rest I donated to the local Heart Foundation Charity. Which hurt a little. But I was left with about maybe 50 books in total. out of these 50 I started to see if I could get some of them on my recently purchased kindle and give away the book itself.

Old letters and gifts had me in stitches. So many letters calling me a cunt from ex-girlfriends. Some of which i had absolutely no recollection of. Diane from Northampton? Who are you! And what the hell did i do to you? Alcohol has a lot to answer for.

The journals were so hard. I just dipped into a few at random. Then put every single one of them into storage boxes on my old book shelf.

The vinyl is now where I am at. And this is pretty much it. After that my belongings will consist of just things that bring me joy. I think. I will have to go through it all again just to double check that. I would also like to update some of my old stuff, like my bed and cooker and things but im not sure im staying where im at yet. So holding out on that and keeping the old. I plan to take my time with the vinyl.

[image error]

Yesterday I pulled out all of the 80s disco and electro. I had found a box of it in the corridor of my friends flat. She told me to take it as it has been sat there for years. I went through it all yesterday. Spent the entire day playing every record. Most of it was Maximum CHEEESe. And I was often loving the covers / band shots more than the music itself. I photographed some of my favourite bands from the covers and then plugged in my Zoom and sampled every single beat, noise or loop I enjoyed. I then put them all in a tub to be sold. Thats about 40 records done.

[image error]

I streamlined my collection years back taking it down from about 5000 to about 700. That was a hell of a mission. Now im looking at the remaining 700. Can i stream line it futher ot  make it full of just the records I love. Or maybe I should sample the lot into my zoom and digitize everything. And then sell the lot, including the decks. We’ll see. I’ve got the best part of this winter to look at this. In the age of streaming and the cloud the amount of space this historical collection takes up seems mad. By the time next year rolls around I should know where I am with it all. I might just do some kick ass vinyl mixes and then flog it on. Im not sure. Im so attached to it. It has some hold on me I struggle to understand.

But as my friend and old Dj mate, Wez G, put it, after recently selling his massive house music collection:

“Why are we holding to this music from 25 years ago. In the vain egotistical hope that we’ll reconvene all the people that used to love and dance to this music and show them how good we are again? Why bother? Move on. Get in the moment. Stop trying to relive your youth. Get free.”

[image error]

“FEET in THE GUTTER – EYES TO THE SKIES” – Raymond Phillips

If you are interested in a copy of my cheesy 80s sample pack, i can send you a copy when its edited. Email me here: [image error]

[image error]

 

Filed under: life, my shit

#metoo

#metoo.



1.working as a glass collector in brooklyn heights in newport aged 17. the boss asked me to go in his office. i got there and he asked could he watch me. he started touching his groin. watch me what i asked. you know he said.. i scarpered out of there forfeiting my wage packet and job and possible chance of playing whigfield on the state of the art soundsystem.



2. i was taking a leak in a friends bathroom during a house party. i heard the bathroom door slam behind me, i squeezed my piss in and done up my trousers. a large drunk woman launched at me and stuck her toungue in my mouth and i had to wrestle her off before legging it out and hiding amongst the people outside.

3. a mate once jumped in the air and slapped me in the chops with his huge dong. much to the entertainment of everyone around.



4. i once woke to a woman having sex with me. i had had no previous sexual contact with her, a friend of a friend.

 

Filed under: life