Scrappy Crap

MJ - Chapter 1 draft3

2011-02-07T00:14:00.001Z

I still couldn't shake it. That odd feeling that had been pestering me so relentlessly for the last 7 hours. Part of me wondered if she'd actually turn up to meet me, other parts of me simply wondered if "she" was actually a "she."

I suppose it's somewhat of an inherent risk of meeting people off the internet in real life; the fact that you have never actually seen this person face to face, that your entire perception of this person is based on a few thumbnail images, the odd blog entry, perhaps a video call. For all I knew, MJ wasn't the bright spark, dark-haired California-Londoner that I was led to believe she was, but could just as easily have turned out to be a 45 year-old truck driver who bulged enthusiastically at the waistline and only answered to the name "Baz".

True, we had been talking online for about a year now (quite surprisingly, actually, when you consider my apparent lack of friend-making skills and her utter coolness) and it was probably true that I likely knew more about MJ's life than I did half of my assorted friends from back home; but the fact remained that - apart from a few dashes on the keyboard, the occasional smiley face and all-too-frequent "lol" - I was in a city that I didn't know, looking for a girl that I had never met, trying to keep myself warm by drinking from a paper cup filled with a brown coloured I-don't-know-what. I-didn’t-know=what because the foreign guy who sold it to me didn’t really explain what it was, but whatever it was, it cost £3.50 and it didn’t taste of anything much at all. It was just...brown. And hot.

I had only just gotten outside the train station. I had only just arrived, but there was one thing that was becoming more and more apparent with each passing second:

This was, despite what my teenage romanticism wanted me to believe, a terrible idea. I was hours from home, with no place to stay other than MJ/Baz's flat and I was the owner of nothing more than what I wore and a rapidly diminishing bank account. I started to think to myself that I could easily just float back into my shift at the coffee house as soon as I'd finished with my escapades, found myself and returned as a refined and exceptional human being, but then the manner of my departure came back to me with an unrelenting - and very final - reality. If only the words "Fuck this! Fuck you and your shitty Coffee House!" could somehow be spun and worked into some form of compliment. Unfortunately – and, admittedly unsurprisingly - they could not.

Though, I maintain, it was kind of shitty; the place looked like it hadn't been decorated since the early 80s (probably because it hadn't been) and what was an attempt at 'rustic charm' actually turned out to be an ill-conceived excuse to avoid renovation at all costs. Lino flooring's time had been and gone, and - unfortunately for Paul and his Granular Empire - that time was almost as soon as Lino flooring’s time had come.

It didn’t seem like a long journey on the maps I had looked at before arriving here, but somehow it still took me over an hour to walk from King’s Cross Station to Regent’s Park. The combination of 7 hours on a train with no sleep, having nothing to eat on the journey (other than a day-old Chicken Pastie and two packets of orange and lime Tic-Tacs) and generally having no idea about where I was had obviously taken its toll on me. I didn’t even have the energy to play my usual “walk-in-time-with-the-music game”, nor the cohesiveness of thought to even realise that my iPod had died about ten minutes into my hour-plus-long crawl.

I walked on in silence. It wasn’t early - about 11am – but it seemed that the world of London was somewhat emptier than I had been led to believe. All these years I had imagined it to be a sprawling mass of suited people and noisy conversations, nothing but concrete stretching for miles and miles with little to no greenery anywhere to be seen. The inescapable sound of businessmen talking about stocks on their mobile phones, the echoing clap of high heels against the pavement. That was what I thought London was. Yet here I was, pretty much in the middle of the day, with nobody hustling or bustling, nobody talking about stocks, no high heels to be heard. I did not feel rushed; I did not feel like a drop of water in a rushing torrent.

In fact, I felt oddly relaxed.

True, it could have been the lack of sleep; I could have simply been delirious and lacking the energy to even feel that way. I simply wandered along the surprisingly empty streets, not even wondering what I was doing or why I was there. I was simply on autopilot, with one simple destination. I was going to Regent’s Park. I was going there to sit on a bench, to wait for someone. Someone who I had never seen in the flesh, whom I had never met.

As tired and sleep-deprived as I may have been, this was the most alive I had felt in a long time.

After an indiscriminate period of time, I finally saw what I took to be Regent’s Park. I guessed this from the sign-posts indicating that Regent’s Park was *that* way. As quickly as the relief of being close to my destination had hit me, I was stricken with absolute despair; right above the sign to Regent’s Park was a sign that read “Regent’s Park Station”. There was a station right next to Regent’s Park. I had just walked for over an hour to get here. My feet ached, almost mocking me, my head pounded with early morning tiredness. ‘You could have stayed on the train, you dick’ I told myself, ‘we could have had a five minute walk. We could have stayed warm. I hate you right now.’

What made me hate myself slightly less was the fact that a station –albeit one which had just given me one of the biggest metaphorical kicks in the balls I had ever received - meant coffee. Coffee would help. As much as I couldn’t help criticising anyone who ever made me a cup of coffee due to my time as a barista, it was always an alien feeling whenever it happened – not an altogether unpleasant feeling too, I might add. Despite the fact that he was putting cold milk into my so-called ‘latte’, the oddly tall, lispy guy who served me seemed to be having almost as soul-destroying time as I had just had in the past hour or so. As he handed me my (now probably luke warm) latte, myself and the tall lispy man shared a knowing glance, neither of us wanted to be there at that moment; he at his stall nor I, having just walked for what seemed to be an unending period of time. The world had brought us both here and we were simply there for the ride. I was also there for coffee, so we exchanged money and not pleasantries and I was soon on my way.

That is the way I like my transactions, quick and dirty, purposeful and not wasted with pretty words and fake “how are you today”s.

After leaving this station, it was only about 10 minutes before I was into Regent’s Park and had found myself a decent, if not great, bench to sit on. As was MJ’s instruction, I sent her a text message as soon as I was sat down, telling her what I was wearing and my best approximation of where the bench was.

- Hey, it’s me. I’m sat just inside the entrance closest to the station. Wearing my black trench coat, dark grey jeans, black and white shoes. You SHOULD know what my face looks like by now. HURRY UP! Cold! Q Xxx

There was little to do now but wait.

I looked down to the rapidly cooling cup of brown in my hand and as my lazy thoughts began to wander, I couldn’t help but think of myself as that very paper cup which I held in my hand. Everything that I held within myself - the depression and dissatisfaction of wasting away in that damn Coffee House, the fuming rage that burst out of me when it all got too much, the eagerness with which I set out on this ridiculous, self-serving “adventure” - it was all dissipating. As the steam would rise from the cup, these feelings would also rise from me, from that indiscreet yet secret place that they held deep in my chest. They would rise away, become nothing more than the steam in the air which we all breathe. They would just be faded memories, like a worn-out pair of jeans, a frayed photograph of a summer past. The heat would leave my chest and in the end, I would just be lukewarm and tasteless.

That’s not what I wanted.

That’s not why I was here.

Why I was here, however, remained somewhat elusive at that moment in time; Yet I remained adamant that the reason for me being here was slightly more than what I had experienced in the last few hours. Yes, this was a fresh start. This was my own story to live out whilst the heat stayed with me. My Great Perhaps.

[Chapter '2' to follow soon]

[I think]

Sing to me.

2010-12-01T00:34:00.001Z

So, going to see the amazing Frank Turner on Friday and suffice to say, I can not fucking wait.

But the only thing that gets me is that although I am looking forward to it (an immense amount), I know that when I am there I won't be able to stop myself remembering some things (or, rather, people) that will somehow dampen the mood a little bit.

Music is a strange thing. When you think about it as a concept, it is simply baffling as to how it has become one of the largest industries in human history, but I find it infinitely more astounding to think about what a main-stay of humanity it has become.

Think about it, if you will.

I can safely assume that within the last 24 hours, you have certainly listened to music. That music may have been just as background noise - on the radio, say - or it may have been as something that you deliberately sat down to listen to, but those songs will have had some sort of emotional effect on you. When we miss people, or remember times and how we felt, it is always so easy to attribute a certain song to the situation, it is almost uncanny.

Music - and I'm talking proper music here, not some jumped up "gangstarrr" who talks about bitches, hos, and riding low - is one person's way of communicating a message or an emotion to all who are willing to listen to it. I think that, in a world where we all find it hard to make sense of what's going on, where we are disillusioned with the state of the world, where our lives become more and more integrated with/overtaken by the digital world, music is the one main thing that makes us all feel like there's someone there where you are.

Someone who is feeling what you are feeling. Someone who is reacting how you want to react. Someone who understands. Someone who cares.

Say what you want about it as an industry, but Music remains one of the mosthuman aspects of life as we know it. So please, sing to me.

MJ - First part revisited.

2010-11-19T21:01:00.000Z

I still couldn't shake the odd feeling that had been pestering me for the last 7 hours. Part of me wondered if she'd actually turn up to meet me, other parts of me simply wondered if "she" was actually a "she." I suppose it's somewhat of an inherent risk of meeting people off the internet in real life; the fact that you have never actually seen this person face to face, that your entire perception of this person is based on a few thumbnail images, the odd blog entry, perhaps a video call. For all I knew, MJ wasn't the bright spark, dark-haired California-Londoner that I was led to believe she was, but could just as easily have turned out to be a 45 year-old truck driver who bulged enthusiastically at the waistline and only answered to the name "Baz".

True, we had been talking online for about a year now (quite surprisingly, actually, when you consider my apparent lack of friend-making skills and her utter coolness) and it was probably true that I likely knew more about MJ's life than I did half of my assorted friends from back home; but the fact remained that - apart from a few dashes on the keyboard, the occasional smiley face and all-too-frequent "lol" - I was in a city that I didn't know, looking for a girl that I had never met, trying to keep myself warm by drinking from a paper cup filled with a brown coloured I-don't-know-what (the foreign guy who sold it to me didn’t really explain what it was, but whatever it was, it cost £3.50 and it didn’t taste of anything much. It was just...brown. And hot.)

I had only just gotten outside the train station. I had only just arrived, but there was one thing that was becoming more apparent with each passing second:

This was a terrible idea. I was hours from home, with no place to stay other than MJ/Baz's flat abd a rapidly diminishing bank account. I started to think to myself that I could easily just float back into my shift at the coffee house as soon as I'd finished with my escapades, found myself and returned as a refined, exceptional human being, but then the manner of my departure came back to me with an unrelenting - and very final - reality. If only the words "Fuck this! Fuck you and your shitty Coffee House!" could somehow be spun and worked into some form of compliment. Unfortunately – and, admittedly unsurprisingly - they could not.

Though, I maintain, it was kind of shitty; the place looked like it hadn't been decorated since the early 80s (probably because it hadn't been) and what was an attempt at 'rustic charm' actually turned out to be an ill-conceived excuse to avoid renovation at all costs. Lino flooring's time had passed and, unfortunately for Paul and his Granular Empire, that time was almost as soon as Lino flooring had arrived.

It didn’t seem like a long journey on the maps I looked at before arriving here, but somehow it still took me over an hour to walk from King’s Cross Station to Regent’s Park. The combination of 7 hours on a train with no sleep, having nothing to eat on the journey (other than a day-old Chicken Pastie and two packets of orange and lime Tic-Tacs) and generally having no idea about where I was had obviously taken its toll on me. I didn’t even have the energy to play my usual “walk-in-time-with-the-music game”, nor the cohesiveness of thought to even realise that my iPod had died about ten minutes into my hour-plus-long crawl.

I walked on in silence. It wasn’t early - about 11am – but it seemed that the world of London was somewhat emptier than I had been led to believe. All these years I had imagined it to be a sprawling mass of suited people, concrete stretching for miles at a time, with little to no greenery in between. The sound of businessmen talking about stocks on their mobile phones, the echoing clap of high heels against the pavement, that was what I thought London was. Yet here I was, pretty much in the middle of the day, with nobody hustling or bustling, nobody talking about stocks, no high heels to be heard. I did not feel rushed; I did not feel like a drop of water in a furious torrent. In fact, I felt oddly relaxed. True, it could have been the lack of sleep, I could have been nothing more than delirious and lacking the energy to even feel that way, but I simply wandered along the surprisingly empty streets, not even wondering what I was doing or why I was here. I was simply a man on a mission, with one solitary goal. I was going to Regent’s Park, to sit on a bench, to wait for someone. That was my mission.

What made me hate myself slightly a little less was the fact that a station meant coffee. Coffee would help. As much as I couldn’t help criticising anyone who ever made me a cup of coffee due to my time as a barista, it was always an alien feeling whenever it happened – not an altogether unpleasant feeling too, I might add. Despite the fact that he was putting cold milk into my so-called ‘latte’, the oddly tall, lispy guy who served me seemed to be having almost as soul-destroying time as I had just had in the past hour or so. We shared a knowing glance, exchanged money and not pleasantries and I was soon on my way. That is the way I like my transactions, quick and dirty, purposeful and not wasted with pretty words and fake “how are you today”s.

After leaving the station, it was only about 10 minutes before I found myself a good bench to sit on. As was MJ’s instruction, I sent her a text as soon as I was sat down, telling her what I was wearing and my best approximation of where the bench was.

There was little to do now but wait.

I looked down to the rapidly cooling cup of brown in my hand and couldn’t help but think of myself as that very paper cup. Everything that I held within myself, the depression and dissatisfaction of wasting away in that damn Coffee House, the fuming rage that burst out of me when it all got too much, the eagerness with which I set out on this ridiculous, self-serving “adventure”, it was all dissipating. As the steam would rise from the cup, these feelings would also rise from me, from that indiscreet place that they held deep in my chest. They would rise away, become nothing more than the air which we all breathe. They would just be faded memories, a worn-out pair of jeans, a frayed photograph of a summer past. That’s not what I wanted. That’s not why I was here.

Why I was here, however, remained somewhat elusive at that moment in time, but I was still adamant that the reason for me being here was slightly more than what I had experienced in the previous few hours. Yes, this was a fresh start. This was my own story. My Great Perhaps.

Random thoughts #2 - football related

2010-11-19T17:08:00.000Z

So, Liverpool are seeking compensation off the FA for Steven Gerrard's injury picked up on England duty, during the week's tepid 2-1 loss to France at Wembley.

Now then. As disappointed as I'm sure Liverpool are that their star player and captain has been injured, how on Earth is it their place to seek compensation?! Steven Gerrard is - although a hypocrite and an idiot - one hell of a player and one hell of a patriot. Often in recent England matches he has been one of the only ones who has seemed to put in the effort that you'd expect to come from the pride of representing your country on the world stage. Surely, it was his choice to play with as much intensity as he did (albeit somewhat sporadically), it was his choice to go into tackles, his choice to play. I can say with almost certainty that the decision to go after the Fa for this chance injury was definitely not his choice.

Here's the thing: He could just as easily have injured himself in training with Liverpool, had he not been representing England. He could have fallen down the stairs at home. He could have tripped over a loose tree root in the woods. He could have injured himself by getting in a barfight with a DJ.

Then who would Liverpool seek compensation from? The people who built his house? The National Trust? The DJ's face? No. Steven Gerrard should be held accountable for his own actions and looking after his own well-being. Liverpool, this is a disappointingly...American reaction from you.

Random thoughts #1

2010-11-19T16:24:00.001Z

There's a reason that I haven't written any more of theMJ storyline just yet. Well, maybe a couple of reasons.

First reason being work. Gettin up ridiculously early one day, then staying ridiculously late the next day, I've been finding it hard to get any energy and/or motivation going for writing. But, a day off today is recharging the batteries, so we'll see what happens by the end of the night!

Second reason being that the story is supposed to be one of friendship, kinship, finding that one person who you can just get on with ridiculously well - and whilst I have recently found the wonderful Amy who could quite easily fall into this category - the fact that one of my oldest/best friends last night subjected me to a massive dose of cuntishness hasn't really helped me on that front. But hey, all is well.

Now we just need to find a home for that rabbit!

One night's work - MJ. #1

2010-11-15T01:10:00.000Z

I still couldn't shake the odd feeling that had been pestering me for the last 7 hours. Part of me wondered if she'd actually turn up to meet me, other parts of me simply wondered if "she" was actually a "she." I suppose it's somewhat of an inherent risk of meeting people off the internet in real life; the fact that you have never actually seen this person face to face, that your entire perception of this person is based on a few thumbnail images, the odd blog entry, perhaps a video call. For all I knew, MJ wasn't the bright spark, dark-haired California-Londoner that I was led to believe she was, but could just as easily have turned out to be a 45 year-old truck driver, bulging at the waistline, who only answered to the name "Baz".

True, we had been talking online for about a year now (quite surprisingly, actually, when you consider my apparent lack of friend-making skills and her utter coolness) and it was probably true that I likely knew more about MJ's life than I did half of my assorted friends from back home; but the fact remained that - apart from a few dashes on the keyboard, the occasional smiley face and all-too-frequent "lol" - I was in a city that I didn't know, looking for a girl that I had never met, trying to keep myself warm by drinking from a paper cup filled with a brown coloured I-don't-know-what (the foreign guy who sold it to me didn’t really explain what it was, but whatever it was, it cost £3.50 and it didn’t taste of anything much. It was just...brown. And hot.)

I had only just gotten outside the train station. I had only just arrived, but there was one thing that was becoming more apparent with each passing second:

Though, I maintain, it was kind of shitty; the place looked like it hadn't been decorated since the early 80s (probably because it hadn't been) and what was an attempt at 'rustic charm' actually turned out to be an ill-conceived excuse to avoid renovation at all costs. Lino flooring's time had passed and, unfortunately for Paul and his Granular Empire, that time was almost as soon as Lino flooring had arrived.