Sinister: i'm positively cynical

[duke of harringay]

Tag wrote:
lots of lovely things.

and david wrote things that went wooosh and made me smile and laugh and
maybe want to cry just a little.

and then the duke wraps his fingers round a mug of earl grey and is
driven to witter on with a load of shite, made up on the spot because
that's the whole fun of it, and that's, if you get the drift, POP.

i was mad at the Melody Maker for their Richey thing, and i wrote stuff
of my own about him because i felt there was a lot that had been swept
under the carpet, or had been never stated publicly.  i get mad at the
media for telling us just what they want us to hear and i get mad at
people who swallow it.  i get mad at people who just blindly consume and
who give nothing back. i get mad at myself.

a while back someone in the chat room basically implied i was talking
shite when i said, as an aside, that the manics got their name at least
in part from the Jasmine Minks.  i got mad at that person because,
well... it doesn't matter maybe.  i just doubted my own memory, and i
hate that more.  But Jim Shepherd just reminded me of the same thing,
that they told HIM that too, and...  I feel better. sort of.   i also
feel madder at myself for letting others with less imagination and
spirit than me walk around like they are big shots, when they are in
fact losers with no insight and a soul that if scratched would bleed
thin air.

which has what to do with Belle & Sebastian?  Everything and nothing.
Obsession.

Go figure.

there will come a day when people will go into chat rooms and tell
someone like me that belle and sebastian were named after a kids tv
cartoon, and i don't know what i'm talking about because this person
will have all the LPs filed neatly in order, will have all the imports
and his treasured copy of Tigermilk (£1000 quid in the auction, what's
it to you, mate?) safely on display.  He'll think he knows it all
because he read it in the music press and a nice journalist told him so.

which is fair enough.

maybe we can get our collective shit together and make, as tag suggests,
a magazine of the international pop underground (taking a cue from K
there...), and maybe we can tell some kind of truth about the story of
belle & Sebastian, and maybe someone will care.  i dunno.  This is more
than being about a pop group though, it's about the way in which we lead
lives, and i'm making no apologies for saying, yeah David, there's 400
people on this list, but how many do you think would share some kind of
wish and desire and have the energy to actually DO something with the
love they profess?  Aside from just idly chit chat and look forward to
the next release?

i'm being cynical, i just can't help it because i've been in this kind
of deal for so long.  i'm impressed Tag still has the drive...  i
impress myself sometimes with the fact that i actually do things too.
hey! i did start a fanzine (many...), i did start a club, i did write a
million words that no-one read.

i still DO.  i'm not expecting your applause, i'm just saying that there
are those who do, and those who don't.  it's just about being obsessive
enough to transcend your admirations.  blind adulation did no-one any
favours... i guess Stuart maybe found that out when he came back from
London having failed to find Lawrence, and realising he didn't NEED his
blessing, he just needed to put into practice the things he'd got from
listening to Felt.  i think that's true here.  None of us need Stuart's
or anyone's blessing to go do something inspired by what Belle &
Sebastian mean to us, we just need to add our own bit to the story.

i despair at those who won't take risks.

Tag said he was listening to McCarthy, so i've just put on I Am A
Wallet, and yes it is exciting, magical Pop.  It does as B&S do, it
makes me impatient to create something fragile and magical and yet
brutally strong.  But this is an individual thing, it's non-collective,
it relies on nothing aside from me and my imaginaction.

i don't know what i've just written, i don't know if it adds to what Tag
and David wrote or if it just says the same in more words.  i have no
interest in that.  i just have interest in what i'm making out of life,
what other poets are making of it, and i don't mean writing poems
either.  You either get it or you don't, and that's life, that's my
notion of Pop.  Right and wrong, good and bad.

do the right thing, kids.

keep the faith,

the duke

--
Tangents On-Line http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/
PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK
tangent at lineone.net



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