Carry On

Life is about baggage.

It's a 2-crude term for experience and texture.
Some have carry-on only and some are heavy Samsonite.

(This reminds me of the only decent line of Schwarzeneggar's movie Eraser - "You're luggage!". He'd just killed an alligator. Or as they call them in the US - gators - giving him the sort of treatment that would presumably need Gator-aid).

So as you mature you will acquire more baggage.
But worse, you may even inherit, or choose to adopt, someone else's baggage.
And that may not be your bag.

So as you wander through life making yourself nice to have around, think it over.
And maybe take a tip from a journeyman....

Travel light.

New Things

Number 2
Prep: Desire a plasma globe for 20 years
Fallout: Mental damage from not having a plasma globe for 20 years
Solution: Buy plasma globe today
Results: I own a plasma globe and can now control the entire street with my brainwaves alone as well as getting it to dance along in time with my Chris De Burgh renditions.
Assessment: Belated pass.

The Great John Williams

New Things

Number 1:
Removing my car radio and fitting an AUX cable.
Prep - 2 hours on the internet getting tips, parts from ebay price £10.
Fallout - one minor electric shock; a couple of abrasions; taking 2 hours to do a 10 minute job.
Secret: A bit of improv to get the job done.
Results - Can now listen to Adam and Joe podcasts in the car.
Assessment - Pass.

Here I Go Again

It's a funny thing.
I find myself occasionally putting pen to paper over the years.
Most of the scribbles are on scraps of paper that become hills of paper.
And while anyone can express opinion, who cares?
Particularly in the blogosphere, who cares?
There is a danger here of course:
Vanity.
Surely it can't just be that. Vanity?
As Al Pacino said in the final line of Keanu Reeves's second greatest film: "Vanity - my favourite sin."
I hope that it isn't any of these things but I have to say one thing...........
If I'm putting something together ...I do like titles.

Titles come quick.

I spent 15 minutes writing yesterday's blog but when it came to publishing I needed a title.
I have found myself at this point a number of times in the past few years and the juncture never exceeds 3 seconds.
It's something of a disappointment because I really love thinking of titles.
But I suppose that, in some cases at least, 3 seconds of pleasure has sustained entire marriages.

I suppose that sometimes there is a beauty in the instant obviousness of what appears out of necessity.
I hope so.
So for one night only, let me explain.

Enemy Mine was a movie.

And for reasons I can't articulate it made a huge impact on me in the 80s.
And it made more of a hero of Louis Gossett Jr for me than did An Officer and a Gentleman.

You couldn't see his face.
His black face.
It was covered in green scales demonstrating the greatest beauty of science fiction.
Of Equality.
Fraternity.
And equivalence for all.
(In all of entertainment, this is surely done definitively in television rather than movies but nevertheless ...)

I think I need to watch it again.

I hope it is half as good as I remember.

Because I just caught a whiff of Back To The Future 2 and that was a pile of ......
(character numbers exceeded)

Enemy Mine

There is a possibility that I may have freed up a bit of time.
Quitting two full-time jobs in the last 18 months and putting aside a part-time job or two should have led me to this Nirvana.
But instead of breathing in and hearing the beating wings of a butterfly, I've inherited violence.
And it is directed at a singular entity.

It is directed at a heartless canvas.

It is directed at a calendar concertina - an expanse of opportunity suppressed by a squeezebox of happenstance.
It sits to my left.
And (because I've never got on with diaries), it is my 2011 year planner. A set of boxes. Boxes of delights.
But I eye its boxes with malevolent energy.

I treat this otherwise sub £1-01 item with a disdain I would otherwise reserve for Jeremy Kyle, Russell Brand, Adolf Hitler or Michael McIntyre. Although its crimes are less severe.

Perhaps if it was coloured with a daisy sunset yellow rather than a haemoglobin red I might feel more charitable.
Nevertheless.
An empty canvas is a thing to be destroyed. Or at the very least, replaced, subverted.
Ask any Van Gogh.
Attacked.
Like a 14-year-old paintballer.
Like an Amazon gift wrapper.
Like Rambo.
Too much?
Well sorry, I ain't apologisin'.

It's an overgrown piece of A4 that deserves to be assassinated like that frigid Army Private whose image became every shooter's paper practice target. Have you never heard of tearing up the place?

And why Rambo? Because of the great line in his final movie:
"You got guns?"
"(No)"
" You're not changing anything"
Grunting. Macco. Bravado?
No.
Just a brilliant line of drama lost in an action film.

Treat your diary like a weary soldier squares off with his enemies.
And let me know how you get on.

Flighty Pigeons

I am resolving to have a few new firsts from now on.
I was going to set the target at one a day but I'm not looking to kill myself so I think one per week would be perfectly adequate.
The minor hurdles that I have jumped today would barely qualify even by my own watered-down rules.
But for one thing.
I got my first bird at my bird table today.
He was a chubby fellow.
Or she.
But she munched on my windblown mealworms that had fallen to ground and then, as I willed and egged her on, she presented herself to my table.
I watched hoping that she would realise that the glass (uPVC) separating her from my vantage point would prevent me from being any threat.

I hoped she would nibble on my lardy cake.
She was a fat bird.
I suspect she had eaten at the table of many other men.
I can live with that. I understand enough about the harshness of life to let that pass. But after she had pecked at another of the under-hydrated mealworms, she was off and away. I thought perhaps to gather more friends to the bounty that she had unearthed. But no.
It is two hours later and, although in a weakened state, I would like to believe that this still may be true. But as I say, I understand the harshness of life.
I shall continue to lay out my bounty.

Maybe in time it will be her taste of paradise.

Or maybe he was a bloke after all.

Ash Wednesday

It's Lent again, greatest of all the bank holidays. It reminds us of course of the day Jesus invited his flock to smoke him a kipper and said he would be back for breakfast.

Once again, I have decided to give up .... muesli.
(Hoping to make it 20 years in a row).

We can nego

Infinityness