Those were different times, they were....
When I was a much younger version of me, I attended a private school called Plumfield. I need to preface the story by telling you this was no ordinary private school. No, you were probably thinking of some idyllic pastoral setting, horseback riding and lessons in grammar and how to talk politely at society parties, but you'd be so very wrong in your thinking!
In reality the school seemed to mostly function as a repository for several class fulls of wayward and heavily damaged kids, divorce refugees and the just plain doomed. I saw more drugs there in my first few months there than I did the remaining 5 years of public school which followed my experience at "The Academy".
Of course I fit in quite well-I was pretty fucked then-I could barely stay in one universe at a time in those days. Ritalin and hyperactivity meant I spent most of my days lost in some foggy notion of what it meant to be a real person. I knew I existed but had no rational sense of self yet. My unconsciousness was hijacked while I spent the bulk of my time spinning my wheels or writing crazed poetry about the men's faces that appeared on my textured bedroom walls as I came down every night...and spoke back to me.
I wouldn't say that Plumfield was a horrible school but its quite telling that by the time I was back in public school at 14 I could barely do basic math and even simple division was outside my comprehension. It would take a further 4 years to get some semblance of proper learning environment. I used to question if my struggles with poor writing over the years could be partially attributed to that period of time but rarely focus on that stuff these days.
While I was there I met quite a few kids that you could just tell were already on their way out as they walked in the door. Lots of teenage drug use and a few spectacular cases of abuse. I was there personally because of the fights I was getting into in public school. I was a target, a bully's dream. I never fought back and became terrified of what would happen to the other person when and if I did.
While Plumfield gave me a buffer from that it also exposed me to some of the seedier sides of life long before I should have been. I am going to start writing about some of these sides over the coming months in an effort to reconcile some of those days with who I am now-and then consign them to the bins of history. IN any case its going to be funny, hair-raising and tragic all at the same time. Tune in tomorrow...
Bauhaus was always an unknown quantity, never the sum of its parts and somehow out of time and place. There's not much point in comparing this band to the band that recorded the last studio album-musical life has lead them all through so much terrain it was bound to produce a work that bears little resemblance to anything else that came before it.
If anything, I hear snatches of all the music the members have collectively produced SINCE they split. The slinky, eliptical guitar lines of Tones On Tail merge with the psychedelic atmospherics and pop tones of Love & Rockets. These sounds bubble up underneath Peter's Soaring, shouted and singed vocal lines. They still clearly have "it".
Although the album boasts some great tunes, not everything here translates into solid songwriting. That may be as much about the speed with which it was recorded(18 days) as it is the chemistry in its current configuration. There are rough moments where instead the overlapping of expressions creates something far more intriguing.
It sounds as though there was an incident during the recording of the album which nixed them ever working together again, nor are they touring to support the album. Perhaps this final release by Bauhaus is what we have for a cap on their legacy? I guess it could have been a lot worse...
The songs themselves are very different stylistically. Moving from glam-rock stompers to evocative black dirges to delicate reverential odes. There is something here for nearly everyone in their variously attuned fan base. They decided to include "The Dog's a Vapour" for some reason, though its more like a curio, having been recorded almost a decade earlier around the time of the 1998 "Resurrection Tour".
Peter Murphy's vocals have patinaed well with age, growing rough around the edges of those high notes but the urgency of his voice remains. One thing is evident at first listen-how much their playing has evolved. Strange then that they decided to hastily record the album's 9 remaining tracks. For those with access to Itunes, there are an additional 2 tracks but these are merely live video versions of "Bela Lagosis Dead" and "Dark Entries" recorded during their 2005 Coachella Festival appearance.
As albums go, this doesn't hold together as much as I would have hoped. Of course its creation leaves little mystery as to why. Perhaps with so many strong personalities trying to co-exist, like a star going supernova, it was inevitable that the conflagration that followed consumed the band. What we are left with is not so much the void of the remains but the white heat of the afterglow from a distance. Bauhaus...Return in Black...Go Away White.
Track Listing
"Too Much 21st Century" – 3:53
"Adrenalin" – 5:39
"Undone" – 4:46
"International Bulletproof Talent" – 4:02
"Endless Summer of the Damned" – 4:44
"Saved" – 6:27
"Mirror Remains" – 4:58
"Black Stone Heart" – 4:32
"The Dog's a Vapour" – 6:49
"Zikir" – 3:04
-Pat Fish/Jazz Butcher
The week and the weekend have all blurred. Everything is happening all at once-good and bad. The choice is mine to see the bad things as potential lessons and the good, lessons on perhaps what to do again in the future. Goodness, I am playing a lot of Jazz Butcher records lately. Thanks Mike!
"Give me mounds of water and hills of air...You and I, we'll dive headlong into joy and despair."
I was out with a friend today taking some photographs(I was the subject not the lens man today) and basically posed. Not something I was thinking about much, but I gave it a go. Hopefully I will get to see the photos fairly soon. I was a little art starved, not having taken any photos of myself or anything else in almost two weeks-which is pretty long for me.
I decided to rip off a few shots and see what if anything I could come up with. I got in a few self-portraits and some nice floral images. I'm exploring the limitations of Blogger and photo usage to see if I can make this a photo blog as well as stuff about Art and Life. My engines are revving with ideas. time to put the rubber to the road!
The job search continues to be interesting and vexing. but that's neither here nor there, considering the state of things. I feel pretty good, at least on most days I know I am smiling about something. And that's a nice thing to understand about what this year means-transition is not necessarily always good, but neither does it all have to suck. I mean, sure, I could probably stamp my feet and wring my hands and woe-is-me, but it would not achieve very much.And as much as I think I have fought the good fight with the perpetually 'developing' relationship that instead developed into a lot of heartache and eventual friendship, there comes a time where its better to just move on and consign the lessons to growth rather than looking back in anger. I have learned something very important about myself this past year-that being angry about stuff in the past has a lot to do with not expressing on whatever level....and the real healing has come from manifesting what has really been bothering me. Not that I see it as blame, more so as a means to recognize that I DON'T HAVE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS. Only my own...
Also, I think despite everything I am finally learning how to relax. Sometimes its work, and I think I am getting better about doing that work now. The situation with getting my credit card balance paid, dealing with my Ex(He's now dealing with prostate cancer though its observational at this point) and just generally trying to recreate my path post-relationship has been pretty illuminating and, if I am honest, still a little sad. However I am okay with that. It means there is still plenty of work to do. Living so far away from "home" has also shown me I need to get on the ball if I am ever going to come back. But I won't be angry about it anymore-that's my responsibility to overcome. As always listening to lots of music...where so many of life's most difficult answers lay...
If you can't tell your sister
If you can't tell a priest
'Coz it's so deep you don't think you can
Speak about it to anyone....
Can you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart
To let go of these feelings
Like a bell to a Southerly wind.
I Love Everyone.
For the last 20 years my mother has been dealing(or more specifically, NOT dealing with) a very serious case of OCD/Depression oriented Hoarding. For years I struggled with trying to be supportive of her, despite her refusal to deal with problems that seemed plainly obvious to everyone else. Like many horders, her abuse has been systematic and subtle over a very long period of time, making it difficult to see how things developed on a very gradual basis-and made it possible for her to blame others for those problems. This slowly evolving facet has been one of the principal issues that has made it near or impossible to deal with her. You can't suggest what to do, you can't do things for her without her getting angry-but neither will she ask for help-even when its clear she needs it When she DOES ask for help its not really help, but an opportunity to "do it the way she wants something done". You can't even do NICE things for her-because even that reminds her that people care about her despite what an impossible person she has come to be.
IN fact, for the better part of the last 10+ years, we've barely spoken of anything substantial. Our rare phone calls consist of me listening to her go on and on and on about problems she has either caused herself through neglect(another key control point for horders) without so much as letting me get a word in edgewise. Even when my life was falling apart in 2005 it was more important that I listen to her talk for hours at a stretch about tiny minutia in the lives of people she barely knew than to really LISTEN to me. Her inability to see her own problems, yet project her own insecurities and issues on to others and their problems has made this illness all the more difficult to stand by and watch. I could write a novel length case history about her and barely scratch the surface.
When I was 25 years old, I decided I had really had enough. I was experiencing major depression over not being able to help her. I felt like I had tried everything within my power to help her, offer help or give her the ability to help herself-that I was run down. I was so run down emotionally in fact, I was beginning to suffer from stress related high blood pressure. I finally consented to seeing a therapist with my at-the-time partner. After years of dealing with my own depression, I had finally gotten to being sick and tired of being sick and tired. I needed help-and wanted help. It was well and truly time to give up my own ghosts.
Her hording/depression has essentially splintered our family and destroyed any semblance of connection and closeness we once shared. Our former family home is so full of junk, trash, boxes of brand new unused items, random Ebay purchases, (rotting) bulk food, impulse buys, stuff she has dragged in off the street and every other manner of accumulated goods that there is no room to safely walk through the house. Some of these items are worth tens of thousands of dollars-beautiful rare Eames furniture that sits unopend and unused side by side with worthless dollar store thrift goods and bric-a-brac. So much stuff in fact that every surface is covered to the point where "accidents" are now threatening her very safety and the house itself.
IN 2007 there was a fire in the kitchen. When she told me of the blaze, I was immediately concerned. Then, as she began to tell her story, it dawned on me that this was no accident of any stripe, but caused by her stove top and counter area being so cluttered with other items that a box she was forced to set down on top of the stove's burners actually bumped one of the knobs on the stove into the 'on' position without her even noticing. Several minutes later the carboard box and its contents ignited and began to burn. The fire destroyed the counter tops, damaged walls, the overhead lights, cabinets and lots of personal "stuff" which covered the counters in the first place. If she had not been home at the time to hear the fire alarm go off, the house (including two dogs she owns with her partner of 30+ years) and all of her precious 'things' would have certainly been consumed by fire in just a few minutes. Family pictures including the only existing footage of my father playing with us as children-which I have never been allowed to see-along with everything else from our childhood would have been lost forever simply because she won't get help.
Then there are the animals. Two dogs that are not potty trained who shit and piss all over the house have left the house permanently reeking of urine and feces. 30-50+ Large parrots my mother has kept in tiny travel cages for 20+ years now pace endlessly back and forth on the their worn perches, untrimmed nails curl under their feet in cages devoid of anything other than a food and water dish plus the odd/old wooden toy. One of the saddest things you will ever see is a beautiful bird reduced to psychosis through boredom, its feathers and skin picked and chewed to the point of being raw and infected. For years my mother has used them as a reason to NOT take care of others things, to NOT go on vacation, to not leave the house where anyone could DO anything with 'her stuff'. When this fact is pointed out to her, she will claim that its her business-yet for years we were expected to help her feed and clean up after them in conditions that would have had child protective services at our door in a heartbeat if we had but realized the dangerously unsanitary conditions we lived in.
When we were kids, the house was not always clean, but it wasn't the disaster area it has become. I love my mother-the same way you love an addict. You know they are unhappy-and they do their best to keep things within their envelope of control and addiction despite how clearly unhappy it makes them and everyone else. For years I was in pain because I couldn't stop her. Finally when I was 32 years old I called her, begging her to listen to me, that I wanted her to get help. Even telling her through sobbing and tears of love-that I would do anything to help her "sort things out" and that I was very concerned for her. She remained unmoved and cold. Her response that I should "fuck off and mind my own business" was beyond hurtful then and still hurts to think about now. But it did one very critical thing for me...it broke the spell. It changed my mind that I could help her get help-and by help I mean REAL help, not helping her with meaningless tasks which did nothing to contribute to a solution. I have not stopped loving her, but I have stopped trying to be a part of her life in a meaningful way because, I think deep down, her things have become more important to her than anything else-even my love. It certainly bears out in the way she leads her life, treats us and treats her partner. Think of every intervention tactic you can think of, every act of kindness you can think of...my mother has had them all and every financial chance to succeed as well but CHOOSES not to utilize them or accept them. Instead of seeking positive purposes she nearly always focuses on selfish acts of personal interest and hegemony.
So this mother's day, instead of wishing her a happy mother's day, I wish instead for her to seek help. All I want for her is to be happier than she seems, to find some sort of purpose in life. She claimed often when we were kids that she would have been able to do "a lot more if I didn't have kids" and how much she loathed doing laundry, cooking for us all and that we were ungrateful for how hard she worked. But we weren't ungrateful-she was unable to accept the love and appreciation we so often showed her. Blaming a teenager for being self absorbed is like spitting in the wind-all children and teens tend to be focused on "me" before they go out into the real world. If that was the worst she could say about us as kids she doesn't understand what's its like to have kids who were really problematic. None of her children were ever serious fuck ups. Sure, we had troubled times, but we were not strung out on drugs, in and out of jail or worse. Now her children are gone-old enough to do our own laundry, our own cooking and cleaning. She filled that hidden space with stuff, even though she can "do whatever she wants" now. She made her choice and now all I can do is politely step out of the way and leave history to its fade out sequence.
Well, I figured It was time to start a blog somewhere now that I am off of IAM/BME for what is seemingly a permanent basis and obviously not keeping a diary any other place of note. Also, this will enable me to post comments and perhaps pictures, moving the place where I communicate most effectively with the outside world. Life is in flux....and I want to dive into the swirling haze and reconfigure my path. This blog will hopefully be part of that new design.
