Friday, July 08, 2005
High purr bowly
P's cat wasn't there when I went to feed her. I keep hearing vicious cat fighting screams in the middle of the night - I think the local cats who were here first bully her. She's only little. And very needy and whingey. I'm a bit worried.
London death toll has topped 50. So much being said about it that I hardly want to add anything. It is very sad. It will be sadder when it starts to get used as a stick to beat the populace with, liberties being snatched away to degrees vastly inappropriate given the actual level of threat. Such attacks are calculated to reverberate long after they occur - the fear and paranoia that follows one is part of the attack itself, using people's own reactions against themselves to hurt them for months and years afterwards. So it seems that the logical thing to do is refuse to be afraid, not be daunted. That cancels out at least a portion of the damage.
And yes, now I want to go back more than ever, and I'm not even entirely sure why. Not being there yesterday was like not being with a family member at a bad time. I don't think I would feel any less safe than I did before - these things (as a couple of sensible but drowned-out voices have piped up in the last 48 hours) can and do happen anywhere, at any time, and there's no sense in worrying about it. There is no sense. Perhaps if I'd been there yesterday I'd feel differently, although boy howdy, I developed a real plane phobia after 9/11, flinching whenever I saw one fly overhead, so there's little rationale either way.
I do hope London can absorb this impact and not go off its head. Given the brilliant level-headedness of the crowds and the walking wounded I'd think it's possible, but it's the rest of the country I'm worried about. Charles Clarke is poised to stuff ID cards back up the nation's nose, with the shrugging attitude that although they may not help significantly in the fight against terror, they Won't Do Any Harm. Get fucked, Fungus. Bush is just bouncing up and down in subverted delight that he's got a fresh reason to get bellicose and roll out some shiny new War on Terror posters. Never seen before such a crystalline contrast between the quiet dignity of citizens and the noisy indignity of politicians.
In other news, Boz is leaving Moz. Can't really blame him, I suppose, but Morrissey has always exhibited the kind of cuntishness I can admire. He's like. . .me taken to my ultimate conclusion, if I never held anything back or wondered if perhaps not or didn't try to at least suffer some fools gladly some of the time. Hee hee. It's almost like he is the way he is so that the rest of us don't have to be. But I think he's also more complicated than that, and refuses absolutely to disclose the mysteries of himself to anyone. Like, anyone at all. He is self-contained. And I'm sure he has the odd personality disorder scattered about, but he's got something of the prototype about him and seems to be content, and Right with himself. Which is to be admired, dammit. And he has written some of the most wonderful music and I am suspicious of people who have that violent spitting hatred for him.
They're grateful for their hatred, though, they enjoy it in the way you always enjoy hating people you have not a chink of uncertainty or ambiguity about the pure uncut bastardness of. I have one of those in my life and I continue to hate him although I haven't seen him in some years; I continue even in the knowledge that it would please him immensely to know that I still hate him. I just love hating him. Rarely is something so simple. I wish I could say I've ever loved someone for as long and as directly and purely as I hate this person - who I never loved, by the way, in case you were heading in that direction although we were friendly enough for some time. There's a woman I almost hate to the same degree but that's more complicated, and she certainly hates herself enough for the world which takes some of the steam out of it.
I did used to go along with the idea that hate is a horrible corrosive thing that only hurts the person doing the hating, and I suppose ultimately it's true but it's like a good drug, you know it's doing you a certain degree of damage but oooohboy it's worth it. I've had to get rid of some of it because it was choking me, but I think I'm free to dabble in casual hatred these days. I can stop any time I want. No, really. But I don't want to. I donwanna.
I hate Bush, genuinely, and I don't want to because it troubles me a lot, but he's there and I can't have any other feeling for him. I don't hate Blair. Blair at least has good intentions buried somewhere under the hopeless toadying and the Christian nonsense. Bush I just don't think cares at all for anyone except Bush and Mrs Bush and Daddy Bush and all the little Bushes. There is something genuinely sociopathic about him. I think this is why he has been mistaken for a gormless idiot (dangerous misconception, and he's gone a good long way on it) - it's not that he is stupid, he just doesn't care about word order and factual content and good oratory and even how he comes across, because his ego has transcended any need to pander to these. It's an amazing psychological triumph, really. He occupies some position of ultimate watertight security. Politicians have to be hard but he is different. His carelessness about his own presentation to the world suggests a particularly deep level of unconcern with everything that is outside himself - he does not care who lives or dies. He frightens and angers me, very much.
Actually I do succeed in feeling genuine hate for various people after the briefest of interactions, but that's usually a kind of wounded helpless hatred after I perceive someone has bashed me. That's unpleasant. But I'm not sure I can avoid it altogether. I'm very New York cabbie about that. Swear, honk, swerve, go about your day, avoid aggravating the ulcer unduly.
I spoke to the Keyboard Player yesterday, in the course of phoning to check London people were OK. We were best friends for some time and then drifted into nowhere, total silence for at least two years. Last time I saw him was at the Drummer's funeral which was 2001 or something - that was a real BBC drama with everyone realising Things Just Weren't The Same And Would Never Be Again. It was obvious that we were no longer to each other what we had been, but unlike me he was never going to get soppy about it. I do believe people have a shelf-life with each other, and just because something dissolves within two years or five or within six months it does not invalidate it; you have to concede to the natural life of any relationship or risk making a mockery of it by stretching it beyond its limit. You have to be brave and sniffle and let people vanish with grace from your life. I'm usually pretty good at this but admit to failure with KP. It's been lingering comatose and dribbling for a disgraceful age. And it's all me, too - I'm sure he never gives me a second thought.
It was nice to hear him, anyway, grumpy arse as always. He was in Bath. "I'm still moving back to London," I said.
"Why? It's a shithole."
That's the spirit.
The Drummer dropped dead with a brain tumour aged 26. Poor fucker. He was a sweetheart. At least he didn't know anything about it. If they'd found it, they would have had to tell him it was inoperable.
Come to think of it, I had to struggle not to clonk the Guitarist on his fat stupid head at the funeral party. But I wasn't alone in that, so maybe I'm not entirely eaten up with hatred.
Hmm.
Kind of envy Morrissey, or at least my idea of him. Maybe true happiness lies in being able to face, and embrace, your inner Cunt.
London death toll has topped 50. So much being said about it that I hardly want to add anything. It is very sad. It will be sadder when it starts to get used as a stick to beat the populace with, liberties being snatched away to degrees vastly inappropriate given the actual level of threat. Such attacks are calculated to reverberate long after they occur - the fear and paranoia that follows one is part of the attack itself, using people's own reactions against themselves to hurt them for months and years afterwards. So it seems that the logical thing to do is refuse to be afraid, not be daunted. That cancels out at least a portion of the damage.
And yes, now I want to go back more than ever, and I'm not even entirely sure why. Not being there yesterday was like not being with a family member at a bad time. I don't think I would feel any less safe than I did before - these things (as a couple of sensible but drowned-out voices have piped up in the last 48 hours) can and do happen anywhere, at any time, and there's no sense in worrying about it. There is no sense. Perhaps if I'd been there yesterday I'd feel differently, although boy howdy, I developed a real plane phobia after 9/11, flinching whenever I saw one fly overhead, so there's little rationale either way.
I do hope London can absorb this impact and not go off its head. Given the brilliant level-headedness of the crowds and the walking wounded I'd think it's possible, but it's the rest of the country I'm worried about. Charles Clarke is poised to stuff ID cards back up the nation's nose, with the shrugging attitude that although they may not help significantly in the fight against terror, they Won't Do Any Harm. Get fucked, Fungus. Bush is just bouncing up and down in subverted delight that he's got a fresh reason to get bellicose and roll out some shiny new War on Terror posters. Never seen before such a crystalline contrast between the quiet dignity of citizens and the noisy indignity of politicians.
In other news, Boz is leaving Moz. Can't really blame him, I suppose, but Morrissey has always exhibited the kind of cuntishness I can admire. He's like. . .me taken to my ultimate conclusion, if I never held anything back or wondered if perhaps not or didn't try to at least suffer some fools gladly some of the time. Hee hee. It's almost like he is the way he is so that the rest of us don't have to be. But I think he's also more complicated than that, and refuses absolutely to disclose the mysteries of himself to anyone. Like, anyone at all. He is self-contained. And I'm sure he has the odd personality disorder scattered about, but he's got something of the prototype about him and seems to be content, and Right with himself. Which is to be admired, dammit. And he has written some of the most wonderful music and I am suspicious of people who have that violent spitting hatred for him.
They're grateful for their hatred, though, they enjoy it in the way you always enjoy hating people you have not a chink of uncertainty or ambiguity about the pure uncut bastardness of. I have one of those in my life and I continue to hate him although I haven't seen him in some years; I continue even in the knowledge that it would please him immensely to know that I still hate him. I just love hating him. Rarely is something so simple. I wish I could say I've ever loved someone for as long and as directly and purely as I hate this person - who I never loved, by the way, in case you were heading in that direction although we were friendly enough for some time. There's a woman I almost hate to the same degree but that's more complicated, and she certainly hates herself enough for the world which takes some of the steam out of it.
I did used to go along with the idea that hate is a horrible corrosive thing that only hurts the person doing the hating, and I suppose ultimately it's true but it's like a good drug, you know it's doing you a certain degree of damage but oooohboy it's worth it. I've had to get rid of some of it because it was choking me, but I think I'm free to dabble in casual hatred these days. I can stop any time I want. No, really. But I don't want to. I donwanna.
I hate Bush, genuinely, and I don't want to because it troubles me a lot, but he's there and I can't have any other feeling for him. I don't hate Blair. Blair at least has good intentions buried somewhere under the hopeless toadying and the Christian nonsense. Bush I just don't think cares at all for anyone except Bush and Mrs Bush and Daddy Bush and all the little Bushes. There is something genuinely sociopathic about him. I think this is why he has been mistaken for a gormless idiot (dangerous misconception, and he's gone a good long way on it) - it's not that he is stupid, he just doesn't care about word order and factual content and good oratory and even how he comes across, because his ego has transcended any need to pander to these. It's an amazing psychological triumph, really. He occupies some position of ultimate watertight security. Politicians have to be hard but he is different. His carelessness about his own presentation to the world suggests a particularly deep level of unconcern with everything that is outside himself - he does not care who lives or dies. He frightens and angers me, very much.
Actually I do succeed in feeling genuine hate for various people after the briefest of interactions, but that's usually a kind of wounded helpless hatred after I perceive someone has bashed me. That's unpleasant. But I'm not sure I can avoid it altogether. I'm very New York cabbie about that. Swear, honk, swerve, go about your day, avoid aggravating the ulcer unduly.
I spoke to the Keyboard Player yesterday, in the course of phoning to check London people were OK. We were best friends for some time and then drifted into nowhere, total silence for at least two years. Last time I saw him was at the Drummer's funeral which was 2001 or something - that was a real BBC drama with everyone realising Things Just Weren't The Same And Would Never Be Again. It was obvious that we were no longer to each other what we had been, but unlike me he was never going to get soppy about it. I do believe people have a shelf-life with each other, and just because something dissolves within two years or five or within six months it does not invalidate it; you have to concede to the natural life of any relationship or risk making a mockery of it by stretching it beyond its limit. You have to be brave and sniffle and let people vanish with grace from your life. I'm usually pretty good at this but admit to failure with KP. It's been lingering comatose and dribbling for a disgraceful age. And it's all me, too - I'm sure he never gives me a second thought.
It was nice to hear him, anyway, grumpy arse as always. He was in Bath. "I'm still moving back to London," I said.
"Why? It's a shithole."
That's the spirit.
The Drummer dropped dead with a brain tumour aged 26. Poor fucker. He was a sweetheart. At least he didn't know anything about it. If they'd found it, they would have had to tell him it was inoperable.
Come to think of it, I had to struggle not to clonk the Guitarist on his fat stupid head at the funeral party. But I wasn't alone in that, so maybe I'm not entirely eaten up with hatred.
Hmm.
Kind of envy Morrissey, or at least my idea of him. Maybe true happiness lies in being able to face, and embrace, your inner Cunt.
