delhi cheese

so anyway, like the buddha i saw a dead body in the street and realised i had to die. nah, i'm lying obv., i already knew i had to die, and was already pissed off about it, and i haven't become any more enamoured of the idea since. but seeing that man in the gutter made me sad. to die without anyone to care for your remains, without anyone to think enough of you to cart you away, that seemed sad. i feel that way about myself. someone will care, but out of obligation. is that what it comes down to, that i have people who will feel obliged and he didn't?

every picture i see of my niece l, she looks terrified, horrified. i notice it more in her than i did in my own children, but i remember that naughtyman had a look of absolute horror, on the rare occasions he opened his eyes the first few weeks of his life. he was a quiet infant but he has come out of his shell. he will yell at people in the street, what's your name? and hello x, where x is the name of the person if he knows it. he does not push himself forward but he is not shy. and he loves to dance. he loves the shitmat song that quotes thomas the tank engine. he loves thomas, the toy trains and the show but more so something abstract. i'm not sure what that is. he is not the sort to talk much about what he feels. i guess he lacks language for it.

but whenever we are listening to music in the car, he asks for the thomas song. he jigs like he's on a hot plate to the breakcore bits and bounces to the thomas bit, where shitmat cuts thomas together with that informer song. i am making a tape as i write this, one side of mostly mellow dance music, the other mellow rock. i'm listening to blumenwiese neben autobahn, which is at the more idm end of Ulrich Schnauss' range (his shoegazer stuff is pretty good, if you think a techno Slowdive cover band is a good idea, and if not, why not?). so i was listening to who is it by Bjork, and what a good fucking song that is. i am going to see bjork next month. she is playing at the big day out and i'm going with m. i haven't been to a gig for, well, years, and i worship bjork. i've changed my mind about her newest album. it's not up there with vespertine for me (but what is?) but more listens bring out the nuance, and bjork excels at nuance. Schnauss has given way to the Wolfgang Press, see my wife, which is typically demented Press. i once saw them support the Pixies at Brighton Top Rank. me and n, a leftist skinhead (a weird concept but more common than you might suppose--after all, many skinheads were into ska and jamaican culture, including agricultural products, iykwim), were the only people dancing, and we were well into it. i'm pretty sure that the band appreciated our efforts, because after a couple of songs, the whole fucking crowd had gone off, and even though they were mostly indie kids into the rock end of it, they were going mental for the Press' leftfield funk. the Pixies, i have to tell you, took off. i have never known a band be so electric, and burn a place up like they did. forget the shit you have been to watch, they were -- and i'm told still are -- the best live band ever.

now the Press has passed, and i am listening to Broken Social Scene's lover's spit. it's the version from beehives, acoustic and lovely. unfortunately, naughtyman is shouting and screaming because his computer game has ended and he wants someone to load him a fresh one. still, i will love listening to it in the car on dark, lonely nights, coming back from the supermarket.

how can this world be bad when we have such beautiful things? i see the parrots flash past, and can see why people have believed a god made this world for them. i do not know why we evolved an aesthetic sense. taste, smell, touch, yes, they're useful, even discrimination of sounds, but the appreciation of beauty doesn't seem to have any purpose but to make life seem glorious.

sometimes i feel angry that we have to fight. we could just be friends. we are all just trying to get by. but you don't like the music i like and i don't like the books you read, and we can't agree on food to eat, places to go, things to do. we could live and let live, but we are so afraid that left alone, our own several planets, we will spin out of orbit, and die with no one to care what becomes of our remains.

but listen, surely you like tomboy by bettie serveert? you have to, surely? it's naughtyman's song, because it feels optimistic to me, and because it says that you can turn around a harsh word, own it and rise above it all. and i do believe, despite everything, that we can be better than we are. i try not to. i try to have as little faith in you as you do in yourself, but i see you smiling and you are beautiful when the child shines out of the grown face, and i cannot hate you.

i am listening to se laest by sigur ros. it rounds out the tape. it is like a lullaby, but also a symphony. if you can like that, i can kiss you. if i can kiss you, we can be friends forever. i'm simple like that.

on that subject, i have been picturing me and father luke, sitting out on the deck (in this picture, i have a deck; in real life, we would probably be walking or maybe just sitting by the creek at Karawatha, something like that). we have ice jingling in the glass, me a vodka and tonic, the padre a lime and soda or something like that. we are stiff and manly. i can imagine don there too. we will prove that we can be different but still love each other. i'm not afraid of that word, btw. and while we are socialising, tom would come and play the guitar for us. we'd have a few bowls of puff -- in this picture the padre will not stand on pride but will realise that this is a day off from his life, and he can still be sober tomorrow -- and we will talk shit until we have no more shit to talk. hey, if we're talking shit, we'd better have zero along. i have a sneaking feeling he and i would make firm friends. don't feel left out if i haven't mentioned you -- i am just riffing, not picking favourites. there is not a single person who reads this blog regularly who would not be a good person to meet and spend an evening spewing shit with. well, maybe not gunt, unless he was under a good behaviour bond.

the tape is finished. that's all i have to say for now. mrs zen has turned on eastenders. sublime to ridiculous, innit.

posted by Dr Zen @ 7:07 pm