Sinister: i was feeling like a loser

[ian]

you said, 'hey, you've still got me'.

i cried, and then laughed hysterically.  it wasn't the reaction you wanted.

friday night:

its a tired night, after a hard day.  i wish this computer was private, and
i could tell you everything that is in my head.  there's a lot there,
waiting to tumble out, and i'm scared that its all going to come falling out
when i'm not expecting it.  somewhere its too late to pull it all back.

this e-mail will be random.  again.


i was going to start my post like this:

dear sinister,

why oh why oh why has a perfectly marvellous month's sinister reading been
spoiled by the absolute absence of my favourite entertainment?
i refer, of course, to the knob gag.
i used to tune into sinister every day, secure in the knowledge that, at
some point, somebody would say something rude about willies.  for weeks now,
there has been nothing.  even the (usually reliable) mr. ken chu appears to
be resting on his laurels.  there was also an unacceptable absence of random
swear-words in his most recent effort.  this really isn't the sort of thing
i've come to expect from your ---



but i'm glad i didn't start my post like that.  that is silly.  and you
probably wouldn't like it.  i wouldn't send you that sort of crap.



some of the following is true:


a long, long time ago, i wrote a letter to belinda carlisle.  i felt she'd
misled me.  after several years, and an absolute fortune in taxi fares, it
had become abundantly apparent that there is not, actually, a place on earth
called Heaven.
she didn't reply for a while.  i thought she was ignoring me, like luke
perry did when i sent him all those plaster-casts of my knob (see... its not
hard..) but it turns out she was just saving herself up.  here's the reply.

'dear ian,

i'm terribly sorry to have heard of your troubles.  it is, i have to admit,
perfectly true that there is not a place on earth called heaven (unpleasant
clubs in london aside).  the song i wrote was originally differently titled.
after a very pleasant weekend on the south coast i composed a song called
'HOVE is a place on earth'.  however, the record company decided it wasn't
attention-grabbing enough and they changed my lyrics.

this may seem like a terrible abuse, and constriction of artistic freedom,
but it happens all the time.  norman cook's song 'fatboy slim is cooking in
devon' was radically re-worked by the company, who felt that a ditty
detailing the joy of culinary pursuits to be indulged in in the town of
paignton was somehow a little un-sexy.
similarly, you may remember a band called daisy chainsaw from many years
ago, who hit the charts with the oddly entitled 'love your money'.  i can
confirm that a 'k' was left out of the third word by an industry who felt
that the world wasn't ready for upbeat pop songs about bestiality.

i hope the enclosed gift makes up for some of the trouble you have been to'.

with the letter, there's a book called 'great myths of rock and roll'.  the
first page is interesting - 'how yoko ono broke up the beatles'... i may
share it with you later.


anyway... other things.  i was going to talk about the new album, but i see
that's been covered.  you don't need another mail extolling the virtues of
'stay loose' or detailing the horrors of 'roy walker' (please, stop him
singing on albums... bring back isobel.  all is forgiven.  except 'family
tree' - i'm with the duke of harringay on that one).
let's just say that its a lovely surprise to find myself saying that i
really, really like it.  most of it.  its unfortunate that two of the worst
tracks are used as openers.  untraditional, too.  usually, you entice people
in with the good stuff and then sock 'em with the crap once they're softened
up.  trust belle and sebastian to do it differently.

that was a lot of not talking about the album, wasn't it?


oh, i wish my head was in a better place.  i wanted this to be witty, and to
make sense.  but it probably never will.  some of you might be disappointed
if i started making sense.
some of you, i suppose, would be thoroughly relieved.


a while ago, vanilla flavoured david talked about middle kids.  i'm proud to
join this group of sinisterines.  i vote we talk about each other as much as
the oldies do, look, like this..

'a post by dimitra DAISY.  isn't that SOMETHING?  i thought she'd left the
LIST'

yeah, that'd be great.  we could make badges 'i'm a middle kid.  love me, or
fuck off' something along those lines.  waddya think?

or...should we stop gazing at our navels and embrace the present?  your
decision..

blue fluff...always blue fluff...

actually, there might be something to be said for vanishing into your own
navel.  it'd be very safe there.


i asked you all to talk about wind-up nuns.  you didn't.  its a shame.
there's lost potential there.



rask did a lovely long e-mail where he said:

when I'm asked what kind of women I like I maintain that I like "girls that
drop cups in cafes".  It's the feeling that they are slightly inept at their
jobs, my friend suggested. That perhaps they are inept because they do
something else,

perhaps, though, they're just inept.  i find it much easier to love
something that isn't quite right, someone that's a little imperfect, shy,
difficult - than someone who is superslick.  i think that's why a lot of us
are here, isn't it?  once upon a time, b&s spoke up for that sort of person,
more than anyone else.  the smiths may have been witty and cruel, and
clever, but they didn't drop cups in cafes.  by contrast, its easy to
imagine isobel stooping down and picking up the pieces of china.
sometimes, i think that's what we've lost.  'lord anthony' might have been
the last gasp... the b&s sound is still there on the album, but the
fragility was beautiful too.



saturday morning:

things often feel better in the morning, although nothing has changed,
except the sun.

i think the point i was trying to make above is that belle and sebastian
took that awkwardness and celebrated it.  turned it into something almost
heroic.  these days they're still heroic, just not heroically awkward any
more.

ken talked about steven hewitt porn.
try www.carsmilewithoutyou.co.uk

and www.isthatacarsmileinyourpocketorareyoujustpleasedto
no, that's rubbish.  let's have a COMPETITION!  who can come up with the
best title for such a page?  i've got the photos, if you need 'em *

lawrence talked about an article detailing b&s references in the bible, and
thinking we wouldn't be interested.  actually, speaking purely for myself,
that's exactly the sort of b&s-anorak thing i'd enjoy reading.  put it down
to being a librarian.  speaking of which, where IS archel playforth these
days?

so..with that in mind - i won't be plugging friends of the heroes here
again, but i think some of you may enjoy the b&s issue.  here's a link to a
typically anoraky piece by johan - a who's who of the songs, which made me
giggle:

http://www.friendsoftheheroes.co.uk/archive/issue51.html#2

like i said, i won't be doing that again, but that article is the sort of
thing that cries out to be read by B&S saddos err...that is devotees.. like
ourselves.  anyway, just this once, i think its acceptable to link to a b&s
article on a b&s list.


i wanted to tell you about other things, but i can't remember what they
were, so with that in mind, i'll just finish with an article from the book
i'm now reading


great rock n roll myths #1 - yoko ono broke up the beatles.


it was a rainy night in the late 60s, a little while before the split
happened for real.  john and yoko were relaxing in bed, as they rather
enjoyed doing.  paul was composing a ditty downstairs ("'tum tum te tum' or
'tum te tum ta'?").  george was meditating with ravi 0shankar in the bath
tub.  ringo was eating wagon wheels and playing with his train set.

it had been a hard day in practice.  none of them were really on speaking
terms, and yoko's presence hadn't helped.  it wasn't that they resented her
creative input, it was that she kept pinching things from the studio.
the beatles, ahead of their time, were very into recycling.  they had saved
up all their milk bottles, and put them in a pile by the door, ready to take
to presto the next morning.  yoko, being an anarchist-troublemaker, decided
they would look better for her art installation.

after a day or so of tensions over the disappearing items, the beatles had
refused to practice any more and had gone their separate ways.  yoko,
meanwhile had continued to work on her art.  her new piece 'mother's milk'
would be a feature at a posh new york gallery, as soon as she'd finished it.
it would feature 100 bottles, many of them smashed, some of them containing
unpleasant substances.  the critics would either love it, or dismiss it,
depending on who they were being paid by.

it was paul who discovered the consequences of yoko's crime.  john and yoko
were singing to each other about paper bags.  george was sitting in the sink
with the buddha.  ringo was eating bananas and stroking his beard when,
suddenly, a scream echoed around the house...

'oh no, i don't BELIEVE it.  YOKO ONO BROKE UP THE BOTTLES!'

and it stuck.

to this day, everyone blames yoko.  including paul, who never quite got over
the environmental consequences of her actions.



next, chapter #2.  marianne faithfull and her ma's bar.




well, don't you live and learn, eh?

probably not.

i'm too old to be spouting such shit, but still i spout it.
i'm a middle kid, love me or fuck off.

i don't really mean that.
its just a slogan.


i'll go back to my melted toblerone


xx
ian

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