Saturday night at the morgue
“What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here”
Shall I introduce this swan dive into the shallow end of my fractured mind by stating that I’ve just proclaimed within the madhouse of Twitter that I’m “as fucked off as perhaps I’ve ever been fucked off before” and “quite frankly I find this all rather disconcerting” or shall I admit that I followed this with a mea culpa and that whilst I post incessantly in that social media basket case I wasn’t spamming, and that writing is the only thing that keeps me remotely sane in my own mind let alone our collective insane asylum?
What other rhetorical questions shall I pose on this unseasonably cold May evening in central England, on a rock spinning through an unfathomable infinity and in a world quantum physicists state can’t physically be real?
Shall I admit that I was going to, but refrained from posting on Twitter that I have a growing love/hate relationship with social media that is bordering on unhealthy and that’s, well, unhealthy? That I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not writing, and that’s becoming very unhealthy too? That I’m seething at having self-published 15 books and I’ve sold less books than I’ve written? That I appear to be a busy and successful writer (stop laughing!) constantly churning out winning article after winning article, yet my audience (some beautiful souls aside) would fit comfortably inside a telephone booth?
How about I admit to missing my dear old Mum or feeling alone even when I’m not alone, which I am every other day and when I’m not, alone, I spend it fleetingly with a lady whose heart I splintered into a thousand pieces and, then for the rest of the day, the son she brought into our world and without whom I don’t know where the fuck I’d be any more?
Or how about some unrequited love?
That’ll cheer us all up!
Our eyes met across a pizza counter at my local supermarket some time ago but yesterday we locked eyes once more and boy do I see a mischievous glint in her gorgeous eyes! She’s probably married or happily in a couple, I’ll never know. But the latest unrequited love of my life has an infectious disposition, the sexiest of voices and a playful banter anyone would warm to, even a depressed and lost soul such as me. I’m a thousand years older than this mother of two teenagers who’s hopefully happily married and happy and content in every respect and even if love were possible, well I’d only wreak havoc in someone else’s life once more. I have a track record as long as an elephant’s penis in this respect. I’m assuming their gentleman’s bits are in proportion to their trunks but I’m not a veterinarian and neither I suspect are you.
From pizza to veterinarians. In a single paragraph. Further proof, if more evidence were needed, as to my award winning writing skills and the reason why I’m such a resounding world wide success and why my 16th and final book (scheduled for publication at the end of May) will see me spending the rest of my days flicking playing cards into a top hat on a West Indian beach smoking the greatest marijuana known to man.
I was going to riff on the Radiohead song “Creep” (as per the lyrics I appropriated for the sub-title of this article) but as easy as “I wish I was special” or “I want you to notice when I’m not around” or more especially “I want a perfect soul” I won’t. Far too easy Jack! Perhaps the White Stripes version of “I just don’t know what to do with myself” would be more appropriate? Who the fuck knows anymore? I just hope you enjoy the images from this medieval Augustinian monastery captured in the early morning sunshine of August 2022 and before, during and after the warden of the estate had told me to, and it has to be said in no uncertain terms, leave immediately, and that I was far too early to have this little piece of historic heaven all to myself.
To get us all back on track, here’s a question that truly vexes me:
I pen a lot of thoughts on Medium as to the footballing love of my life Liverpool and my question is, where are all the Liverpool fans or fellow writers on those Mighty Reds of my sporting heart? I’ve not “met” or chatted or corresponded with a single Liverpool fan as a result of my near 200 articles on the most famous football team in England and arguably in the top 5 “brands” in world soccer. I’ve deliberately used the words “brands” and “soccer” just to piss myself off. I’m in that kind of mood. But seriously, where are all the Liverpool fans? Please excuse the narcissism but my writing on the brilliantly fan inspired self nickname of “The Unbearables” is damn good, but I’ve barely received a comment worth noting on Liverpool or even the game or indeed sport as a whole save a kindly human lady and gentleman from Canada.
So what gives here?
OK, a niche topic, kind of, but aside from “nice”, “interesting”, “exciting article”, “good” or other quick fire nonsense, nothing at all. I’d say crickets, but that’s a different sport entirely Jack and I don’t recommend writing on that sport either as the response is deafening in this area too. Then again, film and cinema isn’t much better with only the occasional comment logged as to someone else’s human appreciation of the film I’ve deliberately not spoiled and only lovingly written around to entertain myself. Travel articles. Laments on life. Chapters from a book. Music and lyrically twisted images from a medieval Augustinian monastery or the oldest iron bridge on planet earth.
Genuine, human response?
Square root of fuck all.
Don’t you find it strange how all of the profiles that comment with one word anodyne compliments are full of the most verbose articles of written prose known to mankind? Or how they’re all seemingly written in the same style and fashion and some would dare say, machine like?
Here’s another question that isn’t really a question for you:
Do you want to read some other common comments in the blogging section of our collective madhouse?
“Read 50 claps”
“Done”
“Engaged”
“Your turn now”
but I find the real beauty to be “please read for 30 seconds”.
Now that one my friends, is a real hoot!
Yes it’s all done for ratios and bloody algorithms in a game no-one is ever going to win but 30 seconds? Wow! You’ve turned the egg timer over, picked your nose, taken a couple of drags from your cigarette, made a cup of coffee or made preparations to masturbate later and ding! The 30 seconds is up, you’ve pretended to read an article in a Matrix machine world you think you’ll conquer by using chatgpt to write bland uninteresting articles that secure you read ratios in a fake world of non-readers, and now you expect, with some even DEMANDING (yes, demanding), your reciprocal attention, of at least 30 seconds remember, and all for an article of writing that looks suspiciously similar to all the other articles DEMANDING you read them too. That are machine like. Short punchy numbered paragraphs. All written the same. In bland uninteresting English.
Like a machine. Copied and pasted. A copy of a copy of a copy
of a copy.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed your 30 seconds here and I hope you enjoyed the picture show.
There’s a couple of paragraphs within an article here entitled “Fish and Chips on the Riverside” with four rather delightful images of the oldest iron bridge in the world as a middle picture section too. It’s a chapter from my second book on cricket that isn’t about cricket but about life, relationships, memories and losing at cards to my son. I’m rather proud of it as I am the chapter named above but no-one is ever going to read it let alone the book that surrounds it.
And I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.
Saturday 11th May 2024
The above was written on the afternoon of 4th May 2024 and I dared not publish it. So I didn’t. Today I came up with a change of title for this article, namely:
“Blogging is Dead — And YOU are to blame”
but I didn’t and haven’t changed it.
I went to the cinema and watched the latest “Planet of the Apes” movie with the light of my life instead. There was “human hunting” again, catching runaway humans in huge nets.
I reckon we’re about 6 months away from big screen fantasy becoming high street reality, but I’m a dreamer.
And I’m not the only one.
Saturday 18th May 2024
I watched “Magnolia” by Paul Thomas Anderson again this week and boy if that film doesn’t put a pep in your step then nothing will. I was “gone” earlier than usual (the first meeting of Officer Jim and Claudia) and by the time of the raining frogs I just wanted to give the little kid a big cuddle.
“I really do have love to give. I just don’t know where to put it”
Look it’s 10pm on a Saturday night in our rock and “pale blue dot” (Carl Sagan) spinning through the darkness of outer space and I’m patiently waiting for two sporting beasts to knock seven bells of shit out of each other and in a “Kingdom” apparently in our upside down and inverted world, and so perhaps I shouldn’t have as strong an opinion as I’ve previously stated above but I do, so fuck you very much!
The Medium “brand” is being soiled by AI, copy and paste repeaters of emptiness from a hollowed out humanity losing a game they’re convinced they have the cheat code to win.
“Pyramid schemes for Pyramid dreams” has long been a mantra of my invention and one day I’ll patent and copyright it and live on that West Indian beach in the sun. I’m a dreamer, and I know you are too. But we don’t have time for such money making schemes for the blogging world is dead Jack, dead as a Monty Python parrot, the effluent is rising, I’m losing at a game I can’t win too, and I’m fucked off beyond measure as quite clearly I’ve written more books than I’m ever going to sell.
But we don’t have time now for that either, for Tyson Fury will win in 8 in the Kingdom of the Blind and where Kings are anointed, blood shed, a spectacle performed, and an Emperor placed upon a sporting throne. I’m not the passionate teenage boxing fan who routinely rose at 3 or 4am to see Mike Tyson turn other human beings into human jelly now and I find it all rather distasteful. Probably the human mortality in me speaking.
I see “Iron Mike” is fighting again.
At 57 years of age.
Against some bloke from Youtube.
The “carnival of the bizarre” (copyright pending) never leaves town now.
The Matrix sure is a strange place these days and tomorrow I’ll be watching the leaving of a King from my football club of Liverpool and I’ll be reduced to the tears of a love struck teenager. The human being who has steered my beloved football club into winning nearly everything the game has to offer is leaving, and after an 18 month period of “PlayStation Football” (copyright also pending) when the warm hearted German from Stuttgart with the most magnificent of beards watched his team of “boys” and latterly “kids”, majestically sweep all before them. Either side of this period of dominance were cup final losses and cigarette paper thin near misses from usurping their big spending and greatest rivals from the highest perch in English football. The man who achieved this and so much more also did this with grace, humility, humanity, fun, bloody minded determination and a burning fucking desire to be a winner.
I’m going to miss him, and I’ll be reduced to the tears of a love struck teenager once more.
Everything is a copy, of a copy, of a copy
of a copy.
“I figure anybody who can find peace & personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone”.
Hunter S Thompson
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Tyson Fury in 8.
See you around sometime.