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Rating: Requiem
Take your list. Imaginary/real/incomplete as it may be. Take it on the A. Delete. Reflect. You don't know them, but some metaphysical, unreal bond, with a menacing and, why not, in its way languid and sensual profile, ties you to them.
Stories of employees. Sometimes not even of those. Of people who live with much but need little. Your stupid coupé will never be able to give you the same emotion as her smiling, the sun's reflection, blinding yet so intense and powerful, illuminating the often dull blue of her eyes, the nothingness around you, only the constant ebb and flow of an untamed wave, the enveloping warmth of unspoiled sand, her smiling at you and unable to stop doing so. It is not just gratification. Something indefinable, yet so often so well defined by others, in a different way, that this escape seems convenient to us. Cowards even in the sweetest hour. Your destiny.
Cowards because? Unwanted children of progress? Invaders of nightclubs? You don't have the rhythm. And it will certainly be useless to wallow in self-pity on late summer evenings, it will be in vain to uncork, to toast somberly to the fates of your dead projects, buried at their inception. A serious lack, you are placed beyond the magical/economic/love circle that dominates and rules over the posed fragility of your seeming to be alive. Don't involve me. This is the rule. I will never be one of you.
You are honestly petty, filthy, a mirror of a society in decline, willing to elevate you, and I repeat, to elevate you, to slaves. The thing seems to have a positive effect among the miasmas of mechanized monotony. You have created yourself as others have created you.
I no longer remember that image. It intrigued me, even though it was not granted to me, and on the other side of the temple even you showed a certain astonishment. I didn't expect it to enchant you. You are not able, cowards, to do so! I don't remember it, and it is terribly frustrating.
You know, once I was like you. I rushed out to catch the tram (always the tram), arrived late, felt sorry for it, found comfort/further reasons for despair in the little rituals that make you men. Even if it repulses me to define you so. I recall the smell of milk left to burn on the fire, of cigarette butts I had forgotten to discard in the morning, of life slowly moving on the same track. I remember I could communicate. A great achievement, that one.
Can someone like me regret the domestic hell from which he comes? He cannot. It was offered to me as a promotion. It was a difficult time, it seemed that the world had designated me as the next victim, with the taste and sneer that executioners find in every situation, in films as in earthly/otherworldly courts. We went out, among ourselves. We slowly and irritatingly rowed our way to a derelict harbor, though with a considerable pension, and we weren't unhappy. It was written in the genetic heritage of all of us that we would retrace the footsteps of our father, and his father before him, with similar features but with dignity underfoot. On the other hand, our grandparents did not possess the marvelous technological machinery that allows everything to everyone. Now you can talk to Sydney whenever you want! Unfortunately, I don't know anyone in Sydney. Oh well, I'll buy it anyway.
After all, I'm not doing badly. I judge you and terrify you, in the name of our decades-long friendship, in the name of personal hatred for normality. How many times have you offered me shelter when it rained and only the least reliable fantasies spoke of returning home? How many times a gift, how many a wink, how many a handshake, how many a proof of our unstable union?
Higher duties awaited me. I certainly couldn't stay with you and rot with you in another nursing home with a disturbing name, get buried next to you, maybe along with a deck of cards, a flower, something to remember our old age spent peacefully together. This I hate about you. You are static. You already know, I told you. You will never be able to equal me. It was written somewhere, perhaps in your hospital cribs, that I would win.
I beg you, for the last time.
Tell me about her.
Tracklist and Lyrics
03 The First Big Weekend (04:52)
So that was the first big weekend of the summer...
Starts Thursday as usual with the canteen quiz and again no-one wins the big cash prize.
Later I do my sound Bloke routine by approaching Gina's new boyfriend to say that he shouldn't feel that there's any animosity between us and then I even go and make peace with her Shouldn't have bothered.
Then on Friday night we went through to the Arches...
There was only one car going so some of us had to get the train. We got through quite late. Then we went to a pub to take the gear.
There was no problems getting in - we saw some others waiting down the front of the queue so we skipped in.
It was a good night - everyone was nutted and I ended up dancing with some blonde girl.
I thought she had been quite pretty until last night when Matthew informed me that she had, in fact, been a pig.
When the club finished we wandered the streets for a while until we got to this 24-hour cafe.
I didn't like the look of it so we left and got a taxi back to Morag's flat.
I couldn't sleep so I sat about drinking someone else's strawberry tonic wine and tried to keep everyone else up.
Then at ten o'clock in the morning we went downstairs to buy some drink. We had intended to watch the football in the afternoon but we'd passed out by then and slept right through it, awaking to find that England had won two-nil.
Then we went to get the train home and had a few in the Station bar.
We had some stuff left from the previous night's supplies so when we got home we decided to go down to John's indie disco.
Same story as Friday - lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc. etc.
I couldn't sleep again so went to the park to look at the toon, taking a detour through the playpark.
To get in we had to climb over a ten foot steel fence, which resulted in severe bruising of our hands, legs and groins, but we had a good laugh on the stuff, especially the tube-slide, which probably doubles up as a urinal for drunk teens.
Then we walked through the woods to have a look at the toon. Big disappointment, but the mist on the lake was cool.
Sunday afternoon we go up to John's with a lot of beer in time to watch the Simpsons - it was a really good episode about love always ending in tragedy except, of course, for Marge and Homer. It was quite moving at the end and to tell you the truth my eyes were a bit damp.
Then we watched these young girls in swimsuits have a water fight in the street.
We went up to the pub about ten.
It was busy for a Sunday night, lots of people we know, including my first ever girlfriend who I still find very attractive, quite frankly, but I didn't really speak to her
She's probably still a bitch, anyway.
Her friend Gillian was there, I had a chat with her, she was still quite pleasant.
At the same time I watched Malcolm make some terrible attempt to try and chat up a girl we know called Jo. He made some remark about her skirt that was barely there the previous night or something.
I couldn't sleep again that night, thanks to some seriously disturbing nightmares...Matthew says I should cut down on the cheese.
"Went out for the weekend, it lasted for ever, high with our friends it's officially summer".
I got some sleep eventually on Monday afternoon.
It was a beautiful day, and later that evening Malcolm introduced me to the power of Merrydown - ⌦㔲㬰1.79 a litre, 8.2% - mmmm.....
Judith and Laura came round later and we sat in my back garden and drank.
Then Matthew came round and we went up the town.
It's officially summer.
08 (Afternoon) Soaps (03:54)
Sit by me silently and brush my beard. No mess to mop up from the bed today. Will we sit next door and watch the soaps? We've nothing to do and we've nothing to say. Oh, when you go... Recently, we've been somewhat volatile, and last night it starts with that Joan Osbourne song. I hate it anyway, but you made it worse. I know why you laughed and you should know you were wrong. Oh, when you go... Bird number one taught me I shouldn't trust, that's why I find unfounded doubts abound. But number two proved that with none, we've nothing. And now I'm only happy when you're not around. Oh, when you go...
09 Rocket, Take Your Turn (05:40)
Have a look in the fridge and see what he's got. Get in the bath and I'll tell you the lot. We're grown men, we should be respectable. But to fuck with that, lets make a spectacle. Keep climbing, you'll see everything. Twice round the block, it's ok say anything. We hide in toilets, we hide in a corner. But it's not over yet, so someone please warn her. I could try anything when I feel like this. With part-time friends that I could never miss. Spill the gossip, you know it's always topical. From where we sit tonight the city's tropical. Works begun, the taxi's late. I should feel like a hippy but all I feel is hate. Let them say what they want, they could never make it stick. 'Cause everyone takes a turn at being a dick.
12 The Shy Retirer (04:02)
another bloated disco, another sniff of romance i'll forget
we promised to ourselves before we came out we'd do something we regret
these people are your friends
this cunted circus never ends
i won't remember anything you say
i lost my social skills a while ago but no i feel them coming back
my eyes were rolling when we met and now they are preparing for attack
i want to fall in love tonight and form the perfect unbreakable bond
you can be my teenage jenny agutter, swimming naked in a pond
you know i'm always moanin'
but you jumpstart my seratonin
but how d'you know you've ever really loved?
but when i feel like this, i know it doesn't matter
when i eat when i'm not hungy i'm sure i feel my face get fatter
then i thin out every weekend and i think that she might want me
but i always slip off my own 'cause...
i let those feelings haunt me, they control me, but tonight i'm letting go
you're more then just a photo album, you're more than what some people let you know
and if we ever make it home, i'll tell you all the things that shaped me thus;
something forged in a phonebox but lost in a restaurant we've got so much to discuss
here, have you tried the blue ones?
i hear he's got some new ones
sleep is not an option tonight
look at us just stand and stare
look at them just pose and pout
and we'll all be standing here
until the pigs chuck us out
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By PlumSweater
How is it that a tear falls to the rhythm of music?
All while I listen to the soundtrack of friendship, perhaps the truest, certainly the most unhealthy, yet still mine.
