Freakcity

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Scott’s blog

Musings on a world I am no longer sure about

Journalling through time

Thursday August 31st, 2006 at 20:16pm

Back home to the humdrum mediocrity that coats my currently uninteresting life and all I want is to be away from here. Away from this city and away from this job. I know I’ll settle back into it in a few days but frankly I don’t really want to have to. But until I have a concrete idea of what I can do there’s not much point. In two years the majority of my debts will be gone and then I’ll be freer than I am now. I either choose to leave London and buy a place somewhere new or I choose to stay in London and buy a place somewhere old. Glastonbury leaves my head swimming, gives the world a harsh metallic taste. I always bite off more than I can chew when I go there, it’s marvellous. I think that I’d like this to be an annual pilgrimage. I could happily just spend 5 days a year sat outside a coffee shop watching the world going past. Such an intriguing mix of hippies, new age pilgrims, hoaxters, tricksters and workshy fools there. All drawn inexplicably by the power of the tor and the echoes of the weight of the water that once was. I’m sure that Kings Lynn could be as gorgeous if it smelt less of fish and you shot all the locals. “Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you a story” comes the cry from the workshy types that hang around the centre. And they get their pint. And more. Is it a bad life? Surely it’s no worse or better than the bards of old? We were sung to by John, a bloke who Dom recognised from the bar a couple of nights before. He was just starting out...singing for his supper. Talent there, needed honing, would have loved to talk to him about music but didn’t. Simply let myself be a tourist and let him be the bard. Curious. A mix of traits lay within him, the trait that wants to see himself as in control, the trait that wants to see himself as better than everyone around him, so common in the young, the trait that makes him feel like he’s getting one over on the rest of us by singing for his supper, and yet still he needed affirmation, opened to our applause in a way that he’ll soon forget. We encountered a drunk old fool claiming to know the secrets to the universe. He plainly wasn’t going to speak to anyone with any kind of intelligence, asking obvious leading questions and hoping he could awe his audience into buying him drink. We encountered a digeridoo player. Painfully shy. Hidden behind his own hair. Broken by years of insecurity and the lifestyle choices that come with it. Set free by the sounds coming from his dig, able to lose himself in the notes as they floated over the tor. Not needing applause, wanting simply to be left in his own world, he hid in a corner of the broken tower and played us into the sunset. So much power. So many people drawn to it. The people who access it and use it, they are the invisible ones. They do not make themselves known. To them, I am but a clumsy child in what I do. They barely register me. Then there are those that know there’s power and hope to use it one day. They need followers, they need people to believe. This makes them stronger and surer of themselves, but they can be brought down by a single voice of dissent, such is the nature of things. I linger somewhere in there, but unlike many of them I recognise my own shortfallings and attempt to change, to adapt, to better myself. And then, at the bottom. There are the conmen. They will sell you a polished cut crystal and tell you a nice story. They see it as industry. They have no clue. I could so easily hide amongst them, wrap myself in a shroud of mystery and make an honest living preying on the hopes and dreams of others. Telling myself that it’s their stupidity and not my problem that parts them from their money, whilst secretly knowing deep down that I should be giving, not selling. Yes, I could fit myself in there. I could write. I could create a following, find people with faith, convince myself of my own prowess and be caught out ultimately by real life. I could fit myself in there. I could<

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