This is what happened on Monday 14th of June 2010:
Check it, I’m on holiday for three fucking weeks! Hah!, this in itself is pretty awesome, given that the last place I worked at made a real fuss over giving me two days off together- let alone more than two weeks of concurrent holidays. The twats. So aye, there must be something good going on at Hobbycraft. Either that or they wanted a break from my tragic banter.
Anyway: day one of three weeks off:
Fell asleep during some horrific film with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, later on the following morning the wife informed me that it had been good. I’m not interested, the bit I saw put me to sleep, so it must have been gash. Woke up at about 2 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I fired up stairs to the pink room and did a bit of writing, mostly a couple of reviews of CD’s but I find that really hard work so I don’t know why I bother It’s better to be writing something rather than nothing I suppose. Well, didn’t really get much headway on them- other than saying JJ Bull’s debut cd is “okay” in about 1500 words and in a few sentences getting it firmly across that the new Melvin’s CD “The Bride Screamed Murder” is just the usual, the thing is the usual for the Melvins is a pretty high mark. Love it.
I’d filled in a few hours then in the A.M, about four-ish it was letting in the daylight and the birds in the garden were kicking up a hell of a racket. Nice and tidy. They say it’s a dawn chorus, but it’s more like a ragged verse with everybody coming in at the wrong time and on different tunings. Which is fun….I had no idea Birds were such fans of the avant-garde.
Usually, if I’m at work (not every day like, I’m not a machine, I’m a valid person) I leave the house at around eight and walk to drudgery. My son usually starts waking up around seven-ish, making bizarre yelping and baby gibbering noises. He’s getting around the duh-da-du stuff at the moment, with the occasional shriek if he feels like it- and of course every day has it’s fair share of beetroot red screaming sessions which pass as quickly as they are upon him- he’s a stormy sea the wee McMonster- Like Diane Abbot he could be described as a loose cannon and a firebrand. So I usually get up and feed him, one weetabix and some milk. He likes that. Most of the weetabix ends up on his face, the floor, on me or in his hair. He does eat a bit of it, but it’s hard work. I’ve even found myself hitting up all the clichés you say you’re never going to do- the train noise, the plane noise, the cruise missile noise, the Dave Mustaine and the whole of Megadeth are coming over the hill noise: complete with complex widdly diddly lead guitar solos…maybe that last one’s just me. What the hell, my brains wired up funny- I may as well pass that on to the next generation…
Anyway about half five I checked in on him, after popping outside for an amber leaf roll up, he’s usually asleep- but he was lying across his wee crib entirely sideways and stared up at me quite happily. Usually eye contact is enough to get him screaming to be picked up, but he just stared me out for a while, then went back to examining his hands and cooing gently. He’s a bit weird. He’s got this hard penetrating stare, which funilly enough is 100% Trantor (my wife), it’s really strange how these little traits get passed on. So aye, I got a dose of the baby evils- a bit like what the fuck are you doing, why are you nae over there asleep you mungo..
So he really woke up about seven, but I was unusually prepped and ready for him. The wife mumbled to me as I went into the bedroom to pick him out of his cot:
“Dont let me sleep later than half eight. Doctors appointment”
So by then radio four was burbling pleasantly in the background and the wee man was changed and lying on his back on his changing mat bashing the hell out of the laptop screen as I checked my e-mail and sorted out my e-bay listing for the first of my home studio stuff to go under the knife. I’m ditching a lot of stuff, it just disnae get used too much nowadays- it’s wierd but it seems that the gear is preventing me from getting much writing done. I have no idea whatsoever why I started collecting mic’s and stuff- probably through dissatisfaction with local music studios. I was allways amazed that local studios with all that STUFF sounded so shit compared to my cheap home set up. This escalated and now I have a tonne of dust gathering crap. The guitars are staying, the mics too- but the desk, the two 8-tracks and various useless shite are getting binned pronto.
Maybe I’ll be able to get some new songs put down into my ring-binder of tunes. Who knows, they tend to come thick and fast, last year about twenty pretty much arrived fully formed- the rest, as they say was simply a process of turd polishing and diminishing enthusiasm and lacklustre delivery.
Where was I ?
Aye, Lindsey went off to the Doctors, and I was crashed with McMonster on the couch. She was due at 10, so in theory I had to manage two half hour naps, some blasts on the baby walker and a feed if she was late coming back what with a mini-food shop to contend with after the physician.
Anyhow I was fucked by then. I went to bed, and tucked the wee horror into the bed beside me. Next thing i Know its 12 o’clock and Lindseys back. We’ve both slept right through. That counts as childminding right?
Unusual.
While I was asleep the hard copy CD of the Melvins “The Bride Screamed Murder” had arrived from Play.com. Nowadays I rip cd’s to lossless wav. files for me I-Pod. I dont buy much music, so I go for the biggest, most accurate file format. Wav. files are huge, but they sound fucking great.
Stuck the cd on the stereo, then Megadeth: 2009: Endgame. Rules.
Later on we both take the kid for a walk up onto Great Northern road, and hit Poundstretcher then home. We dinnae buy anything, cause we’re nae minks. Poundstretcher was a mess, they need to kick the staff up the arse. It’s not merchandised at all- just a mess. They had about 50% of the aisles blocked, which is shite on a stick if you are a buggy pusher which I was.
Thats about it, then it was baby watch. I did some recording- trying to overdub vocals on the accoustic versions of the tunes I’m working on, realised how much I hate recording- but got a lot done, not that they should be too noticeable on the finished mix- I call them under-dubs, just to add a bit of headphone pleasure. Going to finish the rest the morn hopefully. Then a rest, and back to writing before the 8-tracks go on e-bay.
I made the pilgrimage to Iceland for wine, got I.D’d for it- which was fun. Then bathed and fed monster. He was cranky and it took three or four attempts to get him down. Lindsey sorted it in the end. More recording, ears started to hurt so called it a day and fired downstairs to laugh at Aberdeen-Music and type this, and to play Megadeth Endgame four times nice and quiet on the stereo..
I have also started teaching McKenzie the ancient rural scottish martial art of TEET-BO, he’s only little so he’s only doing the basic moves, it’s by far more interesting and more vital than the English version known as PEEHK-AH-BOO. I’ll elaborate mair the morn…………………….
that’s it.
See You Later You Bunch Of Cunts.
=
SYLYBOC.
SEAGULLS CIRCLE MY CORPSE 