Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time. Still not quite back in the rotuine yet of putting bits out, or to put it another way, I’m inbetween projects at the moment but I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been tinkering with little poems, stories and anecdotes which I’ve been sticking up on the Substack Notes section. So for this month, I’ve taken two of those bits, plus one older poem and played about with sticking some sound underneath.
#1 - On Lockdown
#2 - On Laughter
#3 - The Unlicensed Diver
I’ll stick the words to each one below, so scrowll down if you want to read.
If you can, please subsribe and or recommend this to a friend. It’s slowly growing and Lager Time will be 3 years in old October; imagaine that! Let’s keep it moving on, large-up to all the supporters and subscribers.
Keep it Larger, wherever you are
Peas and taters
Paul
If you’re able to, these are ways you can support my work
BUY-ME-A-LAGER
THE SUBURBAN BOOK
My 1st book collection of stories and poems
Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy
2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray
https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy
ON LOCKDOWN
I pounded a lot of pavement in those first few months, little else to do. Everywhere I went I could smell weed. It was blazing. Hot. There was something eerie about a sky without planes, it was a different colour blue, a blue I’d not seen before. Maybe that’s what it’s meant to look like?
The quiet was everywhere. Quiet like those occasions when we get heavy snow, as if the white stuff sound-proofs the sky. Once or twice a day, these massive Chinook helicopters would come bounding over Plumstead, sometimes two or three at a time, probably heading to the barracks at Woolwich; I was curious to know. I walked down there one day, hoping I’d see one land, propellers blowing out the leaves from the trees, as some top Military-brass steps off, to be greeted by secret service agents holding briefcases. No joy, mate. Just a few dog-walkers and me.
Despite the boyhood excitement, of seeing those magnificent machines quick-march-overhead, it didn’t help with the overall feeling of paranoia that was engulfing me. That feeling of not being in control, or not being told what’s really happening, if anything was happening, at all beyond this forced boredom.
A few Thursdays I’d be out running, forgetting about the planned community-chorus of pots and pans; it was some noise, mate. Running through the flats over by East Wickam Open Space and suddenly everyone’s out on balconies, or outside front doors, banging away, like a class of unsupervised primary school children let loose on the music-room. I ran through, quickly, head-down, embarrassed for gatecrashing the sentiment. Couldn’t help feeling it was all some mass-gaslighting exercise, though. Maybe we all needed something positive to grip on too? Hope was a flapping Goldfish in my sweaty-palm. Lord knows the news weren’t doing it. Switched off from that. Too much data. Somewhere in those number-fountains was a truth, but it was too overwhelming to sift through all the bluster.
One night, I woke up swearing I could hear gun-shots and explosions, loads of police sirens and a small chopper whirling around. Is it happening, I thought? It must be happening? What it was, I’d no idea, but I immediately thought about those chinook helicopters. Maybe it was all building up to this. Whatever this was. Martial Law? A Government coup? Turns out the Old bill raided a traveller site in Abbey Wood and things got a bit tasty; my wife didn’t even hear it, she was fast asleep.
And someone later told me, those Chinook helicopters, were just dropping off post most days to the barracks. Whatever. They were small moments in the drudge of it all.
ON LAUGHTER
All the kids around me were cracking-up, I wasn’t laughing; sat on the school-hall floor, whilst some theatre-troop were prancing around at the front, entertaining us kids, in a rare treat. Well, it was meant to be a treat. I don’t remember what the show was about, there’s a vague memory of some slapstick style routine. What I do remember, though, was the thoughts going through my mind, that so many of these kids seemed infected with something, causing them to go nuts, like those insects you see on wildlife documentaries, all bent-up with some parasite that’s got inside its brain. I didn’t get it.
Even at that young age, despite at times being a judgy little prick, I didn’t have any pretensions that all humour must tickle me first, before anyone else gets to laugh, but this? Some of those kids probably did find it funny, fair enough. I’d hazard I guess, though, that at least some of them were laughing, because others were laughing, which can, itself be funny, depending on who’s around and who’s laughing; my brother has a laugh, that makes me laugh, even if I don’t know what he;s laughing about. Some were perhaps laughing, because maybe they thought that’s what you’re meant to do, even if they didn’t get it. The worst one, though, the most human one, was that some were laughing, maybe, to demonstrate to the other kids, that they understood what was going on. That one, bothered me the most; probably because later in life I’d realise, there were times when I’d do that same thing. Horrible. Either that, or I was just missing something in all that jovial melee.
Of course, I had no proof for any of this, and felt frustrated that I wasn’t enjoying it like everyone else seemed to be. I couldn’t deny what was true to me, though. I thought it was weak, whatever it was, not good enough, I was insulted; little critic that I was. I had the feeling that it could, and needed it be a lot better. I was a reluctant rouge-state in a sea of complaint nations, doing the super-states bidding. Or some new weapons-technology had swept the whole world, and I was still fighting with wooden sticks and slingshots, wondering what the fuss was all about.
Many years later, in my mid-twenties, I won a competition, the prize being a year’s membership to a monthly comedy night at the Lyric Hammersmith theatre. Saw a whole bunch of comedians there, some good, some not so. Like with most stand-up, I enjoy it watching it but it rarely ever makes me laugh out loud. Most of the laughs I get, is when I think about something I’ve previously seen, or talk about it afterwards. The best I usually do, during a performance, is a raised head and a one shot sound, like a ‘ha.’
So there were are, packed audience, watching some half-arsed comedian and everyone around me is infected again, doing the bent-up-ant act. My position hadn’t changed from the school assembly hall, my arse, via my soul, was hurting. There was some bald middle-aged guy in my row, that kept turning to his group, he’d turn left, then turn right, every time the comedian got to some sort of punch, in fact, even during the set up. He’d let out his louder than loud laugh. Why did he have to turn, and was his laugh really that loud? Would he laugh that loud on his own?
I’d witness similar scenes, in what seemed to be as performative, over-exaggerated reactions, at poetry nights and battle rap events. It’s as if these people were doing it for themselves, and their own little groups, checking-in to make sure each one was on the same page. I heard it in the laughs, in the clicks of fingers, in the whoops and hollers, in the tears. Yet, I was always that same kid, sat trying to get on board with this thing presented to me, but it was way out of reach, or I didn’t understand it, or it just weren’t very good. Maybe I’m just too judgy, too absent, or just a a miserable prick. Probably all of the above.
The Unlicensed Diver
I remember getting that irritating itch back
at school, so difficult to locate and scratch
from playground spats to classroom analysis
often left with the thought:
there’s more to this than what’s being said
just never quite knew what it was
some other texture and taste I weren’t
getting from that simple food I was
instructed to swallow
got older and felt the same about the
news and everyday views I’d
hear out and about, at the
pubs, the shops, the taxis, the
gym, the office and
in the home
felt stupid when I aired mine
unformed and messy, like a
piece of homework produced
on the bus. I’d produce my two
P’s worth and instantly feel out
my depth, like I took a bath,
shut my eyes and woke-up
fighting a storm in the
North Atlantic. Embarrassed
I’d retreat inside my
own mess and curse
my curiosity.
Give it a day or two and the feeling
resumed, didn’t know what to do
so I took to diving, with
no licence
just a bunch of erratic thoughts and a
thirst for something more
I’ve unearthed a few things that
muddied the waters of what I’m
led to believe, so I regularly return to
the depths to resume my search
not quite knowing what
I’m looking for
each time I come up for air, I
find the land more divided
spliced-up and taking sides
status seekers and self-publicists
political mules nudged into reactions
nudged into action, armed with their
half-truths, cherry-picked data grenades
firing at will, desperate to catch a
dart from the opposing side so they
can spin it out the stratosphere
sealing off access routes to alternative
views, dogmatic with diminishing returns
seen the distance between them turn from
stream to river, with the banks
threatening to burst
I’m back at school again: still itching
still scratching, still searching,
still diving, with no idea what
it is I seek. I just know it’s
not this.
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