Slang and the Pigeons
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in
elbrendano's LiveJournal:
| Sunday, March 11th, 2007 | | 12:36 pm |
Twenty-five days.
...without a cigarette that is. I never thought I could do it, but there you go. Now I just hope I can stay off the things for good. I'm not completely out of the woods, mind. I'm using a nicotine inhaler, so there's still nicotine in my system, but I've been using it less and less. They say you're supposed to use between 6 and 12 cartridges a day, but I've been getting by with five at most. I do get cravings, but the inhaler keeps them at bay. On one particular night I lost the inhaler in the pub, but got by fine that night and most of the next morning. Then, around 11 o'clock, coffee break time, I started feeling pangs that you wouldn't believe. Like hunger, but worse. Fortunately there was a chemist just around the corner, so I topped up without any trouble. Speaking of hunger, I'm eating more - I actually have an appetite again. Fortunately I go to the gym every other day so I'll hopefully be able to keep any unwanted weight gain at bay. And the benefits are most readily felt in the gym - I have loads more energy, though I sweated copiously the first few times after giving up cigarettes - must have been getting all the muck out of my system. It's amazing how supportive people have been. Non-smokers and smokers alike. As I said before, it's the prison break syndrome - you're making your bid for freedom and the other inmates are cheering you on. Believe me - I was a moderate to heavy smoker for just over thirty years. If I can do it, anyone can. Hey, at least it gives me something to write about. | | Thursday, March 1st, 2007 | | 2:48 pm |
With appy polly loggies to the divine Ms. Weinhaus...
(To the tune of REHAB by Amy Winehouse.) They told us we could stay with Rahab
We said, "No, no, no."
They said "you gotta spy, give it a try,
Just go, go, go"
She used to be a pro
But that was before we took Jericho
And now we've put her in the Bible
So you'll know, know, know.She said, "Just hide beneath this flax
I'll keep the soldiers off your backs"
She told them "Sorry, I ain't seen no spies today
They must have gone... that-a-way..." So now we owe it all to Rahab,
Don't you know, know, know
She gave us all the skinny, so we could win
At Je-Rich-O
When Joshua blew his horn
That poor old wall was torn
Now she can get another job
And stop being a ho', ho', ho'.(Joshua 2:1-27) | | Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 | | 5:00 pm |
Mega thrill-power alert:
 2000AD - the comic that brought us Judge Dredd, Sláine, DR and Quinch, Nemesis the Warlock, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, Ace Garp, Halo Jones, Zenith and many other masterpieces of sequential art and storytelling, the comic that introduced an unsuspecting world to the talents of Pat Mills, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons, Peter Milligan, Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, Massimo Belardinelli, Ian Gibson, Andy Diggle, Carlos Ezquerra, Alans Moore and Grant, Kevin O'Neill, Garth Ennis, Simon Bisley, and way too many more to mention, turns 30 today. More hyper-scrotnig info at BBC News.  (Sigh.) It feels like only yesterday that fifteen-year-old me sat down, put on the radio, sipped a cup of coffee, and flipped through the pages of this most zarjaz piece of literary/pictorial wonderment. Before long I was a fully-paid-up Squaxx Dek Thargo. My mind has been irrevocably warped ever since, and I thank Tharg The Mighty himself for it. Splundig Vur Thrigg! | | Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 | | 11:59 am |
With apologies to Messrs. Lennon, Palin and Cleese.
I bought me a bird
It cost five and two -
Norwegian Blue
She sat on her perch
And didn't stir
Shame about her
I prodded this parrot, and thought she might shuffle at least;
But she didn't move and I knew then that she was deceased
Went back to the shop
With parrot and cage
Half in a rage
They said it was "stunned -
After a squawk"
(Strange kind of talk)
I took out the bird
Bashed its blue head
- of course it was dead
Dead! Bleeding demised!
Bereft of life! Never to rise!
They didn''t agree and they said she just pined for the fjords
Then I pointed out that her feet had been nailed to the boards
Poor Polly's no more
Her plumage so fine
Has ceased to shine
They sold me a dud
Dead of the flu -
Norwegian Blue... | | Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | | 12:07 pm |
Trash the ash.
I smoked my first cigarette when I was twelve. I'd pinched it from one of my parents. They both smoked, though they both gave up a few years later. I bought my first packet of cigarettes when I was fourteen: ten Carroll's. Sooner or later I settled on Major as my brand of choice - it was a guy thing. Major were the hard man's cigarette. Deceptively mild tasting but strong as fuck. I got a weekend job in a local hotel (okay it was this place) when I was fifteen. We used to raid the night porter's stash for cigarettes and puff away on our breaks. An older guy in school taught me how to blow smoke rings. Before we discovered the pub, cigarettes were the social lubricant. That was how you bonded with your friends at break time. There were two types of people in the world: smokers and non-smokers. There was nothing wrong with non-smokers, of course. They just had less in common with us. They were, quite frankly, missing out on one of the great pleasures of life. Cigarettes went well with everything. They took away that bloated feeling after a heavy meal. They were the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee. Once we got a little older, we realised that cigarettes were also custom made for the pub. You'd take out your packet and leave it out next to your drink. In the same way that people bought rounds of drinks in turn, we also adopted the practise of "flashing the ash" - offering your cigs around to the general company, in the hope that everyone else would do the same when it came their turn. Cigarettes went with beer, and they went with hash as well. Break up the ciggy, crumble in some hash, roll it all up in some papers and Pink Floyd or The Mighty Diamonds or The Cure would sound better. Cigarettes went with sex as well as drugs. The shared cigarette after lovemaking was the utmost in intimacy, an act of mutual trust. I gave them up for the better part of a year when I was in college. No cold turkey, no particular strategy, no patches or vile-tasting gum: I simply had no money and couldn't afford to smoke. After a couple of weeks, I began to feel the benefits. I'd been running and exercising and found I could get more out of it. I enjoyed food more. I enjoyed spending time with my (non-smoking) girlfriend more. I could sing better. I had more energy. Then one day, before an exam, a friend offered me a cigarette. I was pretty nervous so I accepted. Before I knew it, I was back to my usual ration of ten to fifteen a day, as if the past year had never happened. And that's been pretty much it ever since. I developed a preference for rolling my own; roll-ups weren't as full of chemicals and crap. I always thought it was funny when I'd produce the tobacco and papers in company with other smokers and they would offer me their "ready-mades", pitying me, as if rolling your own was a sign of poverty or embarrassingly plebeian. "Here, have a real cigarette," they would say, as though something made in a factory and dosed up with chemicals was more "real" than something you made yourself out of the raw materials. There's a curious inverted snobbery about the smoker of "rollies"; take it from one who knows. I've always tried to maintain a reasonable level of fitness. Cycling, yoga, swimming, doing light weights. Whenever I went for a chest x-ray, my doctor would always tell me I had a good chest for a smoker. Two years ago they banned smoking in pubs where I live. I didn't mind. It even introduced a new social dimension. We'd head out in twos or threes for a puff. We'd gravitate towards pubs that provided outdoor smoking areas with decent heat and shelter. Besides, the pubs were tidier now and didn't smell so bad. And then I woke up one day and realised that cigarettes were running my life. What was once one of life's pleasures had become a compulsion. Fuck it: an addiction as surely as the needle, the bottle or the little glass vial full of white rocks. Something that was ruining my health and compromising my will. Something that could make me cough so hard my guts would wrench, and then light up again straight afterward. Reg is one of my smoke buddies. We work in the same place, and we meet up every Friday for a few pints of the black stuff. We go out in tandem for ciggies. Well, we used to. Last autumn Reg got himself a nicotine inhaler and managed to wean himself off the cigarettes slowly but surely. And he hasn't gone near tobacco since. His life is demonstrably better. His wife has to find something else to nag him about. He doesn't feel guilty about nipping out for a cig when he should be playing with his kids. Today is Ash Wednesday. I'm not particularly religious, but it's also National Non Smoking Day in this part of the world. I've said to Reg, as I've said to other friends trying to give up smoking, that I feel exactly the same way as the guys in the prison yard feel when they see someone making a break for the perimeter, trying to scale the fence even though guard dogs are nipping at their heels and heavy blokes in uniforms are taking potshots at them. I'm cheering them on. I'm hoping they make it. And today, like Steve McQueen, Papillon, The Count Ov Minty Crusto, the fellas in Down By Law and all the rest of them, I'm making my bid for freedom. I cannot tell a lie: I smoked two cigarettes this morning. Before I'd had anything to eat or even a cup of tea. I coughed myself silly. Then I threw out the rest of the fucking things. When break time comes around, I'm going down the street to the chemist and buying myself an inhaler. That's it. So maybe this sparsely-updated LJ page of mine finally has a purpose after all: a chance to chronicle my escape from the nicotine prison. So be it. Earlier I mentioned the older guy in school who taught me how to blow smoke rings. His name was Liam and he had the same last name as me. Everyone assumed we were related, though we weren't. He was a decent guy, and a very talented musician and actor. Liam died of cancer before he was thirty. This post, and this desperate attempt to climb over the prison wall, is dedicated to him. Current Mood: determinedCurrent Music: Butterfly McQueen by the Boo Radleys | | Monday, January 29th, 2007 | | 10:24 am |
| | Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 | | 5:07 pm |
| | Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 | | 9:42 am |
Have you seen the music meme, the music meme, the music meme...
Found this around and about the place - can't remember where again, so if I've filched it from you let us know so I can give credit where due. I'm going to follow the letter of the law here and pick ten BANDS and not solo artists. Solo artists, after all, usually turn out to be singer-songwriters. Q: What's the difference between a singer-songwriter and a puppy?
A. Eventually, the puppy grows up and stops whining. Pick ten bands and answer questions about them afterwards.1. Mouse and the Traps2. The Beatles3. The Radiators (from Space)4. The Grateful Dead5. Weather Report6. The Arcade Fire7. Yes8. Wire9. Something Happens!10. AswadWhat was the first song you ever heard by 6?Wake Up. What is your favorite album of 8?154. Tellingly, none of the so-called "post-punk" (show)bands of today have gone anywhere near creating music this good, though of course they drop the fucking name whenever possible. What is your favourite lyric that 5 has sung?Weather Report's stuff is entirely instrumental, but Manhattan Transfer put lyrics to their tune Birdland, and that is a wonderful thing. How many times have you seen 4 live?Only once, but it was three nights in a row. They played for three hours each night, and the only song they repeated was the encore: Not Fade Away (natch). What's your favorite song of 7?Starship Trooper. What is a good memory you have considering the music of 10?Going to see them live in 1982 - it was during rag week, so that makes it almost exactly (ulp) 24 years ago. Is there a song of 3 that makes you sad?Yes, Song of the Faithful Departed. Christy Moore covered it too, and singer Phil Chevron did it live a few times after he joined the Pogues. What is your favourite lyric that 2 has sung?In My Life. Simple, beautiful, and everyone can identify with it. The music isn't too bad either. What is your favorite song by 9?Parachute. How did you get in to 3?Didn't like their first album, TV Tube Heart, but I went to see them live (even longer ago than Aswad) and thought they were great. The singer looked a lot like Bowie. Well, a bit like Bowie. What was the first song you heard by 1?A Public Execution off of the Nuggets compilation - the one that sounds like Bob. What is your favourite song by 4?Uncle John's Band. NOT Truckin'. What is a good memory you have concerning 2?Way too many to mention. But I had my first slow dance to Let It Be... Is there a song of 8 that makes you sad?There's something oddly melancholic about Map Ref. 41° N. 93° W., but I don't know why. If I did, the band's music wouldn't be anywhere near as good, or as interesting. What is your favourite album of 5?Night Passage. What is your favourite lyric that 3 has sung?Walking Home Alone Again. What is your favourite song of 6?Rebellion (Lies). | | Friday, April 22nd, 2005 | | 12:40 pm |
I've seen this music meme in a few places, most recently here, so I thought I'd give it a shot. | | 11:58 am |
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