Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
Welcome to Lager Time: stories, poems, beats, bars and a bit of banter.
Been a funny old week. Queen Elizabeth passed away yesterday, took my wife and I by surprise, when we found out in the afternoon. Was genuinely a bit shocked. Regardless of my views on the Royals, it feels monumental, and like a great shift has just occurred.
And after what feels like months with no rain; we now have lots of it. I like the rain, well, I like hearing it. I often fall asleep at night time to different rain soundtracks on YouTube. Got a running joke with my mate Dean that I’m going to do a DJ set on Boiler Room, with all these different rain tracks.
The rain seems to evoke this heavy feeing of melancholy that I quite like. When I was a kid, we had a little porch out back, and I’d sat on the back-step eating biscuits, whenever it rained, lost in my own thoughts. Now, I love a having a good look out the window just watching it lash down. I’m starting to think (after all these years) that maybe it’s not that healthy, as I get absorbed in these elaborate reveries, eating my weight in crisps and biscuits. Simple, essential things like talking, suddenly become quite difficult, especially for my wife.
I’ve included a few short poems that feature rain this week. I’d planned on starting a small series of short stories, got the first two lined up but decided to search for one of these rain poems and as ever, found a file, with a load of stuff in there. I’ve fished out a few of them and stuck them up, instead.
Couple of little updates:
LIVE-STREAM / PODCAST
After listening to Niall O’Sullivan’s Rusty Nail Podcast (well worth checking out) where he’s started doing a regular feature length podcast episode, where he reads out some of pieces he’s put on his Substack page that month, I’ve been inspired to do something similar. I’m still keen on doing a live-stream but I want to treat those like I would a normal gig. So for me that means committing things to memory, and also practising the music. I’m not there yet but a little podcast to get me on my way? Sounds good, mate. You won’t see me reading bits of paper. I wanted to do it this Sunday but I just found out my in-laws are coming to visit. Alas. Maybe next week, stay tuned
TOAST IN THE MACHINE
On Monday, I did the first mixdown of this EP I’ve been working on, over the last year or so. It’s called Toast In The Machine. It will be my second self-produced music EP and hopefully a big improvement on the first one I did, RAW 64’S OF BOREDOM, which I didn’t mix or anything.
I like to think my production skills have come-on a bit since then, though still quite basic. I’ve worked pretty hard on it though and it’s sounding ok. I’m currently waiting to hear some feedback from my brother on the mix, he’s an actual producer. I can bang out beat loops all day long, mate and I can arrange and sequence but mixing and mastering? I’m very much a novice; but as lazy as I am, I’m enjoying the learning the process. It’s 5 tracks and is like, electronic rap I guess? Something like Ghostpoet, or The Streets maybe? Anyway, I’m just sorting the distribution side of things and I’m hoping it will be out by next month for streaming on all the usual suspects.
BIG IN KAZAKHSTAN
So I got this random email a couple of weeks ago, which I just assumed was spam but turns out, there’s a degree of legitimacy to it. Essentially it’s trying to get me to subscribe to some analytics software, which has access to lots of data from Apple, about podcasts that use their service, to which Lager Time is one.
It turns out Lager Time is ranked number 58 (according to the email) in the category of Personal Journals, in Kazakhstan. Ignoring the fictional character Borat, I genuinely don’t know much about Kazakhstan. I have a feeling my dad may have went there briefly in the 80’s, it looks massive on the map but I now I feel inclined to do a bit of reading. So if anyone is actually listening in Kazakhstan, and wants to educate me, large up.
In fact, if anyone, anywhere, is actually listening, nice one. Last time I logged into the analytic bit on Apple my numbers were seemingly so low that it didn’t produce any data at all. Either way, it made me and my wife smile, until I told her we were relocating there immediately to cash in on my new found fame.
So that’s it for now, as ever, if you like what I’m doing, let me know, if you don’t let me know. Subscribe and share if you can.
Have a banging weekend
Paul
GLOOM IN BLOOM
Outside my window I
Can see 7 shades of
Green soaking
up the rain.
Up above, Boeings go back
and forth in regular 1
minute intervals
Adding 2 too 3
Shades of man made gloom.
Wearing the sky
like a don
A Wood pigeon perches
In the balding
Apple tree
Sporting 4
Making it
The Undisputed
World Heavyweight
Champion
Of Grey
And
Horley
Rose-Tinted-Pram-Cover
I’ve got this memory, at least I think it’s a memory, that on occasion comes back to me, when it rains and I’m sitting still. I’m in that navy-blue pram, being pushed by mum, down the Balcombe Road, probably on the way back from the Post-Office, where mum used to collect the child-benefit, every Tuesday. There’s a transparent plastic cover above my head, attached to the pram, protecting me from the rain-drops, which are making delicate patterns on the plastic and gentle pitta-patta rhythms. Up above I can see wet-green-leaves hanging off those big trees that lined the street. I’m warm, tucked up underneath some sort of blanket that may have been knitted by my mum or by my Nana. I feel the motion in the wheels and occasionally hear the sound of the springs built into the frame. It evokes this melancholic feeling I’m very fond of and often find myself craving to be bathed in it, though it’s just occurred to me, that whenever I do think back to it, I’ve never considered whether or not mum was getting wet.
Shrug Shoulders, Drop Head and Carry On
I’ve got a blower fulla’ apps
to watch, listen, play and learn
I’ve got a shelf fulla books
a telly with untold channels and a
load of DVD’s, a pair of legs, working lungs
a bunch of green spaces and a world-
famous winding river just down the road
ask me what I wonna do though and I’ll
flood my brain with all the above, quickly
overload, until it’s all too much, so I
shrug my shoulders and resort to
default, which aint much, rap
some old bars I wrote, pretend
to DJ, stuff food down my
throat, I wonna do it all, mate
but don’t know, where
I’m supposed to
start.
FIRST DAYS IN PORTO
felt like a foreign exchange
kid, missing his family
though grateful for the roof his
hosts would’ve provided, just
not wanting to seem ungrateful, so
chooses to keep schtum
it was a similar case with me
cooped up in a small apartment
whilst it lashed down outside
Porto style. I lacked the means to
provide the accommodation, or much
else for that matter, like a traveller lacking
a driving licence, so takes the train, there’s
no-way that traveller bowls up to the driver to
dictate the journey and destination, so I stayed
passive and largely did what I was told, counting
down the days till my family and mates arrived
wondering at any point, if I’d get asked how I
was doing and whether I was a prick for even
thinking that, certainly felt like one.
Campfire
I’m sat around a festival campfire
hand subtly in my pocket
finger caressing a detonator
which if pressed, would cause
a water cannon to pump gallons
onto the flames, knock the guitar
out that pricks hand and drench the
rest of these condescending, smug, elitist
hypocrites, sending them swimming
in a sea of expensive tents and elaborate
camping gear, meanwhile, I’ll kick over
the vegan food stand and
go and get a donna kebab
then probably feel bad, terrible for kicking over
the vegan food stand and tell myself that was
unnecessary, I’d made my point with the water, I’d
try and work out some form of apology and
a way to atone
or I just suck this scene up, bid
these pricks good night and
hope they don’t keep
me awake with their
vacuous platitudes, us
and them analogies
said in inoffensive
accents, rounded off
with a diabolical
sing-song
I hope not, I
really do
He who dares
It’s possibly the most heroic thing I’ve ever done. Was on my way to work, early as usual, looking forward to getting stuck into that scrambled-egg-on-toast once I got to Greyhound Lane, my chariot was the 118, the Morden to Brixton express, all in all a decent bus but a little temperamental when it came to sticking to the timetable
I roll up Crown Lane, get round the corner and into the bus station and see the 118, indicators on
and with a couple of people boarding. I gave it toes and got to the bus, got my hands on the glass, imploring the driver to open the doors but he was having none of it, mate, geezer drove the bus off, wanker
I flipped round to check the digital display to see when the next bus was
27 minutes
not only would that mean I’d not have time to eat my scrambled-egg-on-toast, I’d be late into work. I’m rarely late and I pride myself on my punctuality. I was furious I don’t like sudden changes of plans, it’s like it opens the gate on a rouge sewage pipe and starts pumping shit into a reservoir destined for drinking taps. My brain was flooded with a squillion, useless thoughts, as I stood there, probably frowning, looking back and forth at the board, whilst the bus sat in the morning Morden high street traffic, not knowing what to do.
It then occurred to me, that the next stop was a short walk away, at the other end of the high street and round the corner, in front of Morden-Hall-Park. there was a normally a bunch of rowdy school kids who got on there, disturbing my peace, in which I like to read, on a daily basis. There was a fair amount of traffic going through the high street
If I’m quick, I might, might just make it to the next stop I also might not make it and look like a dickhead in front of those kids
Somewhere in the midst of all that nut-faff going on in my head, my legs must’ve made an executive decision and declared martial law, because suddenly, I was flying down the high street, ducking in and out of morning commuters and local crack-heads, racing towards the traffic lights by Sainsburys. I overtook the bus whilst it was sat behind a que of other buses and cars, got to the end, where Sainsburys is, knowing I know I had to cross the road, which could lose me time, I needed light and for once, my lightbulb worked and I actually had a good idea, in real-time
I clocked the bus was a few vehicles back, so I pushed the button the traffic c light, hoping that it would go red when the 118 rolled up and give me a much needed window, to get over the other side of Morden Hall Road and make it to the next stop
I pressed the button, keeping that next stop mind, jumped the lights, double time, racing across the other side of the bus station to that carpet shop with a permanent closing-down sale and dashed to the next set of lights. I quickly tuned my head back to see the 118 roll up to a red light and stop, with no bod trying to cross the road, I could almost hear the driver tutting, mug. It worked!
I dashed across Morden Hall Road, invoking a horn from some prick in a people-carrier, got to the other side, looked back to see the 118 swinging round the roundabout and straighten up, whilst kicking the dust, like an angry Bull about to charge.
I thought about that driver and thought fuck you, mate. Then I thought about that scrambled egg on toast, spied a small group of rude boys up ahead, school bags swinging, I leaned in, then imagined I was Linford Christie, eyes bulging out his head and gave it everything I had, bug-eyes fixed on the bus stop ahead.
I could hear the 118’s engine creep up behind me and the all the morning traffic fling past. The bus overtook me then slowed down to a stop ,opened the doors and the school kids started to pile on. I was closing in, just as the last few were climbing abord, just got the glimpse of an unnecessarily-oversized football bag disappear into the door, as I made it, just as the driver, was pressing the close button. Breathless, I whipped out my oyster, swiped it ave that I mumbled to the driver, thinking I was some kind of league 2 MgGuiver. Dickhead didn’t even look at me. Fuck him. I bowled upstairs and my usual seat was still empty. wiped the sweat off my brow, pulled the book out of my bag and basked in that major feeling of a minor victory.
Reign, rain and Kazakhstan