A little unbearable at times

gaoldman @ 2007-03-05T00:20:00

2007-03-05T00:20:27Z

I have to go.

Thank you.

[Yes, finished. Utterly unengaged and unengaging means it's time to admit defeat and leave before ... well, probably about 20 weeks ago.

If you want the role, have at it. Just please don't hop on the old English dude shagging another old English dude train 'cos I might die real dead deaths of dying. Virtually.]

Bend the world to suit you. Suits you, sir.

2007-01-11T19:55:16Z

My AIM is off. The list is gone, and it was sparse to begin with.

Please leave your screen names here. Comments are screened in case they're sekrit.

My icon implies sensitive introspection. I was actually watching a dog eat a discarded diaper. Shhh.

Not everything beautiful is pretty.

2007-01-09T17:06:34Z

I caught a glimpse of the English as seen through the eyes of Americans. Public broadcasting would have you believe that England was frozen in time, at least 30 years ago, trapped in surreal, unfinished skits or trapped among the hems of flowered dresses and wide eyed asides to the camera. The movies would have you believe that we're best as steely villains, bumbling henchmen or tottering along the blue screened cliffs of swords and/or sorcery. I seldom know how to behave with Americans that have never been abroad. I steer my intonation unnaturally, translate on the fly, let slip a few phrases that will not be understood, to draw around me the cloak of incongruity. A line I delivered in a film nobody's seen in response to the eternal question, "You're not from around here, are you?" was "Is it that obvious?" But every Englishman that's ever crossed the Atlantic knows very well that it is, and lays it on thick to make sure. I waver. I feel transparent, and I lay off. Then I feel traitorous, and do it again. I must seem unstable. Er, more unstable.

The truth is, I prefer being English at home, even though there's no delineation, nothing special about it. I enjoy relaxing into the well-documented traditions that suit me, and stretching further into the Englishness unknown by those who've never been here. It's difficult to articulate this kind of pride without erring into chest-thumping nationalism, especially in the face of so much love-it-or-leave-it radiating from our beloved, bratty allies in world policing. But it remains. I don't feel at home anywhere else. I don't feel fully perceived or understood, appreciated, or even acknowledged. The things that formed me, the experiences and references that inform my sense of humour, my ideals and my peculiar sense of simultaneous hope and despair, those are things that can't be explained in the bites of time you get before something else comes slamming into the periphery.

I wish I could have told you everything, shown you those little things that propelled me to crack that joke you didn't understand, let you taste the sweets I loved as a kid, make you a fresh cup of tea that doesn't taste of twigs, show you the difference between cloudy and gloomy. So you know. So you know me. So that next time, you'd have that flash of recognition that I miss, to the point of aching. I wish I could've shown you what means home to me. So that we could've conjured it anywhere.

Cancel my appointments, Darcy.

2007-01-03T14:48:54Z

There are a few sounds that I will never prise from my psyche, for better or for worse. The sound of my family singing all together in the pub the first New Year's Eve they let me come along. The bellyaching crunch of my car being hit from behind before I'd passed my driving test. The last call for boarding on my first trip to America. Or today, the sound of the heavy ceramic urn meant to hold the door open, scraping against the tile as it merrily fucked off to the corner of the corridor, followed swiftly by the sound of the door slamming shut.

It's a pissing, cold day and I got locked out of my flat with no shoes on, and wearing a stupid skinny fit t-shirt, surprisingly thin jeans for being so bloody overpriced, and my hair on backwards. I had to walk down the wet road in my sock feet all the way to the management office, who informed me that they are no longer managing the property, but the office down the road has taken it over and oh, sir, let me just get them on the phone for you. 20 minutes later, I am met by a giggling Mr. Samir who deigns to give me a ride back to the flat and wait while I open the door. Also, my pet demonspawn is hereby disowned for having brought in the chewed remains of a small creature of some description which I had to take out and toss into the wheelie bin outside, which is why I got locked out in the first place.

I'm still fighting off the remains of my last winter illness. By this time next week, I may be dead.

I'm going to phone Kathy Burke so she can make fun of me until I feel better.

gaoldman @ 2007-01-01T06:53:00

2007-01-01T06:52:09Z

I never did like wagons.

Happy gnu ears, caballeros.

Double header

2006-11-28T08:55:24Z

I can't bear this silence. I keep forgetting to do things, like eat and sleep normally and it's just writing and passing out and waking up with increasingly more interesting patterns on my face. I've talked to three people today and they've all told me they're varying shades of miserable as well. Wandering about, unable to focus on anything, get things done, finish a meal cobbled together out of things that only require heating. Bursting into tears over nothing significant, with this nebulous desperation, frustration and craving for something undefinable. I don't know what I want, but I fucking need it. Everything seems so grey today. The sun was out but it didn't seem to mean it. It was just an errand, a celestial tick box on the to-do list after Be Fiery, and I remembered this relentlessly paced song someone played for me once and he paced while it went on, and I couldn't bear the pressure of that motion and this song and those words, the only ones I could make out "and I am the sun" and I had to leave the room. I think I just about understand it now and I wish I could find it to apologise for opposing neuroses at the time of our last meeting.

How telling, all of this, the projection of empty obligation fulfillment and disinterest where once there was fiery purpose onto the life giver that could take us all out in a burst, or over the course of years. It's not a leap to imagine why one would fall into worship. And we're back to the Self again. I think my ego has an ego of its own.

But it's not for no reason that this feeling sits in my chest with its feet on my belly. I just can't even bear to say it. It seems like sacrilege.

I want to chastise everyone, turn it all outward instead of in, but it wouldn't work. I'd start laughing halfway through and have to be carried to the car and given a glass of water because that's what you do in England when you're not near enough to a kettle for an emergency.

I keep bothering the living mess out of my inordinately quiet children with ridiculous questions about what they're thinking and what that doll, sorry, action figure is from and why and what's his history and who are these other people and why do they have such enormous necks, until they get frustrated and show me the door which I've seen slammed a few times for exactly the opposite reason to this one. Then I have to find something else to do and it's usually work that nags me toward it, so of course I hover around the pile of pages until I realise it's high time to address that dire need to make something smell like cloves. I'm writing about Siamese twins. Not just conjoined twins, but real Siamese ones, and I probably shouldn't be, as that's really been taken care of. But I'm compelled to thread this needle through my off time and my OFF time, the illusion of responsibility. And there are warm gingerbread men. Don't taste them yet, let's just have this moment when you thought I was a great dad for a little while longer.

You shouldn't whisper these things where people can hear them. Holy Moses, my stream of consciousness needs parting.

I'm growing that bewildering mustache again. And the pharoh takes a tumble.

gaoldman @ 2006-11-13T03:50:00

2006-11-13T03:50:51Z

HA. You complete and utter bastards. I'm telling the Queen.

See if YOU get knighted.

Detour.

2006-11-06T10:32:06Z

Wasn't enough, never enough. It was too soon. It was too late. Hum a few bars and I'll fake it.

If I put my hand up, I can blot out the sun, but not the light. This is a common side effect of delusions of grandeur. 3rd degree burns and retinal damage.

I quit drinking. I quit smoking. I quit fighting it. Next I'll quit thinking about it. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, I can't lift my fucking head until the scent of her dissipates.

Ok. Maybe not tomorrow either.

Wake up hands shirred throat raw remembering screaming for someone to do something and the stun of the bolt from the blue that the blackouts are not borne out of unclean living never again stirring inside hornets whirring around my heart like satellites that mar the surface when they hit only just registering the prickled heat biting through the face of composure i swear it isn't me it's just the pull of the tides but I'm quiet as a monk all except for the mandible bone clickclickclick. Hollow there.

miserable joy

2006-10-14T08:54:15Z

This is a time of infinite possibilities, of twisted roads to every uncharted point you never knew you wanted to visit. It's not a merry time, an easy time, a quiet time. It's hissing and bucking like a firehose and you just know it's trying to fuck up your ability to quell the burn in your belly. And you can taste failure on the backs of your teeth, failure to hide from your own disappointments and fears. You can plead with every coil for it to turn out, but it's moot, so you stay quiet instead. Aware even chewing your lip is too obvious, you light up a cigarette since you can't lighten up yourself. Pronounce words in the dark, like what's the point with no question mark. Flat. What's the point. Glare at the stabs of light that managed to penetrate the shades, make dramatic gutteral noises expressing just how done you are with the whole mess. Get it all blown away by a burnt, dry little breakfast on a shuddering tray behind which a beaming, beautiful face looks at once proud and apprehensive, and hopeful that daddy'll like it and be happy. And then you are. You fucking well are. And burnt toast never tasted so good.

A moment of genius flattens you. An exchange by someone whose been on earth for less time than many of your shoes tells you that being unsure of what's going to happen next is the greatest gift that life has to offer because he likes not turning the page before he's finished it and spoiling all of the unwrapping of words. And this is like not turning the page. And there are all of these ribbons of words and times and things and places and days and suddenly everything distorts in front of the tears in your eyes and you can't imagine feeling wretched today.

There is no injustice anyone can visit upon you that is more serious or devastating than the ones you can visit upon yourself by simply not standing up. Everything's distorted when you're looking at it from the floor.

Unto the stone.

2006-09-20T12:52:51Z

We were talking about honesty of motive in writing about something true. FiFi doesn't like to start sentences with "I". I offered the idea of something about oneself that started and ended with the word "you." It's deceptive, she said.

"It's a nice trick to play if you know it's a trick. Word play. You're elbowing yourself then, seeing if anyone else gets the joke. I have to do that or I can't think straight. Talk crooked, think straight," I told her.
"That's a terrific ideology to have. Talk crooked, think straight."
"It works for me. It's better than drinking myself into a fury. I don't handle it well. I can't disconnect any more, but I can't bear the connections as they are. So the only choice is to reconnect. Rewire."
"I'm good at disconnecting. It's what I do best. It's almost as if I'm content to sit still so I don't stumble over anything that'll hurt. And it's SO strange. I spend so much time warning people about me, when in the end, they don't give a shit."
"It's deflection, isn't it?"
She considered it. "It might be."
"It's kind of a rough habit to have. The warning label. It's almost as if you're giving yourself permission to be a shit. I do it. So when I fuck them up, I can say I told you so."
"Yeah. that's exactly it. It is. So I don't have to make excuses. Because You Knew."
"I know that song by heart."

Even people that have been very attentive to me in relationships don't tell me when I've overlooked something or made them feel badly. They think that it'll spare me. But it makes me feel, as my reformed vegetarian friend said, "like you're not needed. Because those people will never explain to you why they won't ask anything of you." It allows you a lack of liability. And you can't very well explain to most people why you NEED them to hold you liable because of that lofty ideal that you'll do more than what is required of you.

If I hurt someone, I need them to tell me. And they fucking don't. So how do I respond? Warning the next poor fucker. There's that license to fuck up we discussed.

The thing is that pain is surmountable. It's ok if someone hurts you. It won't kill you. It won't make you wither. As long as they know, and understand, and try to make it better next time. I end up screaming, please, just please... call me on my shit. It's too easy to walk over people when they make excuses for me. I can't respect it, or abide it. I know very well that I require some reverence. Some irrefutable respect. But not a doormat. I'm not pretending to wear the good guy badge or the black hat. I'm just saying I want to be both adored and held accountable by someone I love.

Anyone sure of themselves can require respect and can handle being told they're being shitty when they are. It's only an error when it's an anomaly, when it's not the norm. When you can accept that you can, and will, fuck up, you can accept that it doesn't define you unless you AND yours allow it to perpetuate. Then they might just get the attack to give them that "passion" they need, oh you stoic saint, you martyr. It's just impatience, then. You want to feel? Feel this.

I guess some people mistake drama for passion. The idea that you need to hurt to feel anything. But when you re-align your view, you can see the passion in something smaller, simpler. That half an hour extra you stay up just to talk crap even though you need to get to sleep to make an appointment. Or the random phone call to tell someone about something beautiful you saw. That's passion, undistilled, purity of purpose. That's real, and within reach every day. I want you to know me, I want you to share this with me, I want you to feel what I feel right now.

Right now, I'm feeling the comedy genius of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Proof!

2006-08-30T08:59:49Z

Do not let this man around your charges. It will only end in disaster.

Soon there'll be nothing left of me.

2006-08-28T08:31:00Z

Embroiled in an ideological cage match, the discussion of social barbarism and societal ills had more of an impact on me than I'd have let her know at the time, I'm sure. It's made a vortex in my gut which has managed to swallow every capability to be careful, caring, mindful. My bootheels seem to be grinding all the little flowers and I didn't even realise I'd strayed into the garden.

Of course, on the way I met with beauty and tried to decipher these ancient languages by speaking them into her skin. Two days, angelic chorus rattling my composure and shaking away years of dust until I could get a full breath. I wanted to be lost there, never move away without a mind to return, slipping just out of sight long enough to create the fondness of absence. I didn't want to go, but a letter from my agent that we'd finally secured a meeting I've been wanting for months wrote my ticket for me. When she left, she was resplendent, benevolent, eyes wet but not as steely as I'd anticipated. I had a flutter of hope, then a roil of hopelessness when they iced over as she slipped through the gate. I tasted metal all the way home, chain smoked and drank to chase it away. I knew there was a mistake made. Just wasn't sure which of several was the killing blow.

Panic ensues.

The flight is a blur, a tangle of grunted surface interaction and fitful sleep. Raise my head and tip back the mask to see the very superhero film I'd have paid not to see at that moment, pull the mask back down and reach a well-trained hand to my inside jacket pocket to pluck out the pills I'd tried not to take to flatten the line as much as possible. Dry swallow. And again. And again. Nothing, at last.

The meeting crawls, but the news is good. I can't believe I got this job. The drive to the hotel room is cinematic, palm trees and sunshine betraying my dour mood and blowing that little black cloud to vapour. Maybe none of it was a mistake, not a bit of it. No, I'm certain of it. I must have been imagining things, caution turning to paranoia. I'm smiling when I check in, whistling when I get changed, humming when I climb into the taxi. I meet up with this mad geisha of a girl and we tromp around overgrown graves looking for our silent film star. We find her, take rubbings, laugh a lot and suddenly stop, wondering if she'd appreciate it or not, two curious ghouls laughing over her coffin. We decide that we would, and so would she. A bite to eat, an invitation to meet her and some friends at her show that night. Fond adieu.

I keep my mouth shut tight the whole way back, afraid to waste a word before I can tell her everything, tell her she must see this sky before it bruises up, take fucking shots on the camera phone I've never used for anything but calls before. I'm overtired, elated, more than a little wired on obnoxiously strong coffee. I can hardly dial on that vintage hotel phone, still out of breath, but I finally get it done.

A torrent. I can hardly form words, a siren in the back of my mind and I can't focus on anything. She's livid and I can't make out why. And I can hardly keep down this rising bile and my throat is burning and I think she's asked me a question. I take the pause and what comes out of my mouth, I still can't get hold of. Furious lines striking like black mambas, every old wound opening up to feed the rage. Fuck you for not understanding, for icing over on me, for stepping on my back to get over the fence of losing that ungrateful little motherfucker and fuck you for those sighs, those lies, those jabs of divine light, and fuck me for falling for it. I can't hear her over the pulse thudding in my ears and then there's this wiry hum. It takes me several seconds to work out that it's a dial tone and I can't smash the phone down hard enough, but I keep trying.

I'm peeling myself off the bed to get that fucking phone alarm to stop wailing at me. A glance in one of too many mirrors makes me shiver and I make my way to the shower. I can't remember the last time I took such care to get myself together, but I stepped out razor sharp and went to that show, and backstage afterwards. King for a night, she never let me down for a second. Scent, sight and sound. And now there's silence lulling me to sleep.

So I'm in LA.

Outsource

2006-08-12T16:45:30Z

I'm a liability lately. I've been complaining about absolutely everything to anyone who strays into the path of conversation with me. And it's not letting up any time soon, I can tell you.

I think my last rant had something to do with Denial of Madness. It runs rampant through the entertainment world and it's one of the most annoying aspects of it all. You pretty much have to be mad to be an entertainer and that goes for any level. There's an element required to get up and perform in front of people whether it's 3 or 3 million, and that element is found deep within a great stinking vat of madness. You can't have the element without going into the vat and fishing it out and when you emerge, guess what? You stink of madness, friend. And like meets like, you'll be surrounded by other people reeking of mental illness and they will expect you to throw your pretty head back and laugh about your insanity, embrace it, celebrate it. But if you deny it, or you're worried about what the "general public" thinks of you, or you try very hard to force your bizarre and mildly intolerable behaviour into the mould of "normal", you will fail and you will look about fifteen times as mad and the gently mad among us will edge away from you and talk shit about you just out of earshot. DoM is unforgivable and is only surmountable by suddenly admitting it and NOT checking yourself into a rehab centre. No, rehab is for substance abuse and should not be used to mark a chapter heading which reads "Now, I'm a lunatic."

The history of Hollywood is ripe with prime lunacy, everyone knows it. From Theda Bara to Marlon Brando to Johnny Depp, the mentally infirm have frolicked those rolling hills trailing nuts and not one of them ever uttered such ridiculous statements as, "I'm just a guy." or "I'm pretty down to earth." and if they'd dared, they'd have to turn in their integrity card and never get invited to shoot guns in the desert again.

Madness is not the same as zany, or wacky, or even crazy. Those terms are too scattershot for my people. They imply wild, loud behaviour and lots of waving arms, throwing oneself onto coffins of people they scarcely knew or assaulting chat show hosts who are trying their level best not to scream and run. This is the hallmark of someone frustrated and probably not as drunk as you think they are, and pinballing their way among the truly mad, who are rather quiet in the corner, muttering amongst themselves and wondering when the bad boy du jour is going to have a near death experience and cry all the way to the comeback list, Colin.

Now, put the prescription card down and come and have a nice cup of tea. There. Did you know I once played a crippled Southern midget with a cane?

Blocking, character study and other devices.

2006-07-28T07:13:58Z

Shudder into new scenery, the first two gestures: open right hand and a tight-fisted left.

Everything closely guarded and regarded and taken at face value. Hope for beauty and sincerity, do not expect it. Right.

I'm a South Londoner, and it makes a difference. It instills in me the burning need to say something even if it would be best not to. It coaxed me to consume enough alcohol to cost me health and how to draw enough strength to stop before I followed my father to the grave. It made me use fist fighting as a metaphor more often than could be considered normal. It's steeped me in slang and heritage and the mystery of history and by all means, tea. I can nosh with the posh, but I know where my home is. Where the heart is, where the art is... We don't know how to be fake. We're good at lying, though, so we tend to move into the charge of either Art and Crime. Sometimes -no, often- both. Same thing. I wasn't always comfortable there but I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't always going to be comfortable.

Notes. We were unkind to each other most of the time. You just noticed when it was already over. Speaking very generally, I find that women are spiritually, emotionally, and often physically stronger than men. Acting doesn't exorcise your demons, it just shakes them up a little. I have taken classic over flash every time and always will. I collapsed on the train tracks between the Royal Shakespeare and the set of Sid and Nancy and it set the scene for a great deal of what was to come.

We'll see how this goes, then.