i've slouched on the outskirts of London for too long, and not that i'm bored of London (which would be indicative of me being bored of life - samuel johnson, 1777 - truly, London is the womb of over 200 languages, there's no other place on earth like this, it's as if the whole world, in proportion came to congregate in London and settle for the final judgement)... but London is too generic in the middle, and you have to hunt around the east end, or fare better in the west end, but who the hell bothers with the west end these days? besides the point... i just miss travelling: mir und mein shatten... as ever, alone is best, dumping my body into a hostel - 40+ is the limit of not staying in a hostel - then again... who knows... i've been craving this weekend for as long as i can remember... well... since i've learned of the Pont des Arts... twice in Paris and i never saw it... damn it... where else? well... there's still Berlin in my mind... but first comes first... Prague... and to prove a point, i've become a reformed alcoholic... i've cut down the dosage... so i could save up for the trip... here's me going to visit my grandparents in Poland, roughly two months, sometime in late August early September... two months, that will give me enough savings... plus i have to finish the Sienkiewicz trilogy - Pan Wołodyjowski remains to be read and no one is going to read it for me... and i did buy that excellent copy of Boris Pasternak's classic: that's not going to read itself... plus circa two months without the internet... what joy... what joy looking at a page without light emanating from behind the words... and the smell... the scent of a book... and the odd cartoon flicking of the entire book to feel that bibliophilic breeze... oh the joy... it feels like a sparrow just flew into my heart and decided to pursue a perpetual spring... god knows the last time i became lost in a foreign city without any knowledge of the foreign tongue... obviously Polish will not help me, among the Czechs... i've been warned... when the Warsaw Pact tanks rode into the Czechoslovakia, the Soviets sent in Polish tanks, in 1968... mighty fine... i'll just slither in... speak my chamaleon accent to a decent British standard, perhaps sly a few Essex slang slosh for an increased authenticity... and then i'll ask the Czechs about their tourist opinions, regarding, say, Cracow... oh right... i was going to post these musings from my frequent travels on the no. 86 bus from... well N25 from oxford st. to stratford and then the N86 from stratford to romford... capital of essex... i just can't get enough of the east end sometimes... the grime of it, the calm collected inverted-claustrophiobia... hell... high noon... a guy walking around the street biting gas canister tips... bottles of whatever chemical high he was performing... probably beats sniffing glue, but who knows... and the current epidemic in london and on the outskirts... the streets are littered with them: LISS CO2 cartriges - 16g ones... i've heard they put nitrous oxide in them... but to be honest? i haven't heard anyone laughing... well, apart from myself... when i used to drink to excess.
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.i respected bukowski for a while, nay, i venerated him, but when i heard how sloppy he was while drinking, making so many mistakes, sending his shit off to the editor, i lost interest... and for all the good reasons... a one time prospect of a father in law once "reminded" me, that my father should have been a pornstar with his looks, well, he was chosen to be in the equivalence of the queen's guard under the conscription rules, back in the day, Poland circa 1980s... only the handsome made it, to be used in state functions, funerals, shooting blanks into the air... i wasn't so lucky, listen, if the Scandinavians were the first to pick up traces of Chernobyll... and that happened in April, and i was born on the 15th of May... i was bound to be affected... mutant: i don't reject god, i've seen things that would make people walk with a bow (bau)... and never look up at the night sky... i also didn't have the luck of my father: going into the army would have been best, even my parents thought that me getting a degree in chemistry was a good thing, apparently: it isn't... i had all the required characteristics of an organized man, until i left high-school... waking up for 9am learning sessions, doing 4 A-levels while everyone else did 3... and working my ass off to better my GCE... aced the history exams, i was even renowed in school at the brain-child of the subject: received a reward: worst jobs in history, by tony robinson... a midly intimidating affair being less a nerd, and more a buff... namely? well, you kind of begin feeling awkward when they're talking about nazis in school, and the history teacher points at you, and says: the nazis would have only spared, him... the rest of you: into the "filing cabinet" of the ovens of auschwitz... oh yeah: feels great man, i'm the only one left standing, good to know.

david hand
(1933) -
dave fleischer
1942 superman
cartoons..

fuck me....
baked beans,
on french toast...

Kramer vs. Kramer...

you don't get more surreal
than that...

the whole "thing"
matters...
tune town...

as the wicked event
of: avocado on toast...
who the fuck,
puts an avocado:
on toast...

a bit like dressing
up mike tyson
in a catholic school girl's
uniform...
stinks to high heaven...

so that bukowski "thing"...
yeah, classical music doesn't
really cut it for me,
it's over-played with a sense
of predictability,
if there's no górecki
or gjeilo...
and the classical music charts
are all about: score music,
music from movies...
and no vaughan williams
over elgar...
or not enough händel...
when people can't appreciate
the music per se,
and have to resort to the sort
of music: closely associated
with moving pictures?
i switch off...
i have to...
you have to move on,
namely to progressive rock,
or jazz...
for what a standard
pop song of 3 minutes can't and
will never do,
ensure you're paying attention...
at least the transition from classical
to jazz is much easier than
the transition from pop to prog.;
i once made a mix-tape for an
ex-girlfriend (5 kids in,
34... all daughters,
i made a recent comment to her,
how i have never seen a sadder face...
she didn't get it...
i hid behind giving her an
excuse of being tired from child labour...
but i was only insinuating:
5 children, and all of them girls...
not a single boy...
i guess she will never know
what it feels like: to better a man
she's given birth to,
let alone the man she's with)...

sure, sure, classical music is all fine
and dandy...
but after a while:
it becomes congesting...
you seek more, esp. in the jazz quarter...
take for example
this favourite past-time of mine...
the no. 86 night bus,
from romford to stratford...
running along the one road
that leads you past the grand
escapism of east london
without venturing as far as brick lane...

and what are you listening to?
bohren & der club of gore...
the double: midnight ratio album...
and what is clear?
to escape the current
over-powering presence of drums...
the "burden" of bass,
guitar, laying the foundation of
rhythm...
i never liked bands that didn't respect
the bass guitar,
namely? metallica...
sure, fun for a while...
but i need bass: tool-esque style...
i need to see a revision of the standards...
i have to respect a music
genre that leaves me no option
other than to immerse myself,
lose myself, concentrate...
akin to a philosophy book...
i need time,
and i have no, time,
when it comes to pop candy-floss
lyric hybrids of shit + a unicorn...

esp. as this album is intended to
take a bus trip at night...
when all the freaks come out...
and you need patience with this
album (midnight radio -
bohren & der club of gore)...

revolutionary jazz, come 1995...
i don't even think it's jazz...
but: the fact that the album
does not revel in overt drum use...
how jazz can again remind me
of classical music,
working from the base
of melody, however scarce...

i could also have taken a different route...
that mix tape i made my ex-girlfriend,
she was, mesmerized,
having listened to king crimson
at 5a.m. on oxford street
going to work...
epitaph...
lyric sample: confusion, will be my epitaph...
(verbatim)...

if i really wanted to make an orgy
of this album, i would have jumped
off at ilford,
and taken the no. 25 bus to
oxford street...
and walked,
those marble clad streets...
seemingly impetrenable edifices of
old empire Britain:
nor eye, nor mind could or can
venture into their, current state,
of a crumbling veneer.

suma summarum:
yes, i need to listen to music i have
to be patient with,
i don't need the immediacy of a pop
song's dopamine hit,
some sort of immediate gratificaiton...
i need less of a "feeling",
and more, of a mood...
music i can't easily digest,
akin to a decent medium rare steak,
whereby you get a sense
of a jaw-numbing sensation
from having to chew so much:
for so little...

nothing click-bait, muzak samples
of elevator music,
something, simple,
yet, complicated...

and why would i need a car,
when i can hop onto a double-decker
and enthral myself with
the life, below?
i don't even have to stand on
top of a mountain,
just a decent seat on a night bus
no. 86 double-decker bus...

when it comes to such scenarios...
not even 9 intimidating prostitutes
in a brothel are a match...
i've been there,
sex and sex and sex and all
that is limbo-land...
there's a reason why the english
authorities want me drugged up,
labelled a schizoid...
but a completely different story...
as i've found out,
when talking to a polack
neurologists after an MIR scan...
verbatim:

- doctor, am i mentally ill?
- if someone says, that you're mentally ill?
then they are mentally ill, themselves.

well... problem solved!

p.s. and when i sometimes listen in on
owen benjamin, talking,
with interludes of some keyboard playing...
i, i can't help myself
rememebering having watched
five easy pieces...
those sort of movies,
where the protagonist is almost
a cameo...
those movies where
jack nicholson prior to the role
as the joker...
1970s gritty picture quality,
well...
only 1950s technicolor can
only beat the 1970s grit realism.