I am at home(?) or my mental comfort zone suggests as much. By my Father's chair, to my right, in the corner of the (living?) room I notice what I think is a spillage on the glossy laminate floor. Tackling it with kitchen towel I realise that the (ceramic?) hot water bottle lying on the floor nearby is, when I lift it, cracked and broken and a gloopy, red wine-ish coloured liquid – a surprising amount as I cradle the seal in my hand – is pouring from the neck. My Mother is cross – I'm assuming she's assuming my father (who is not present) has stood on the hot water bottle by accident. My little brother and I are on mopping up duties, trying to stem the tide/damage of the liquid with kitchen towel. I notice, after some frantic rubbing, that the glossy surface of the laminate flooring is slowly peeling away to reveal the pale, untreated timber surface below. This is worrying, the gloss coming away in large flakes. Suddenly it's as if the flooring has turned into strange, elongated (representations) of classic funk and soul lps – the covers themselves are in bold reds and blues, the band names set in artistic fonts, the groups lounge, stylishly dressed in the inset photographs – and there's now a team of us who have been commandeered by a Sly Stone-esque figure to marshal us, to organise us so that we might click this failing (record) floor back into place. It seems to be two panels of flooring exactly side by side, then a single offset panel, then an other two aligned and so on. Someone (me?) shouts, “the funk of America is moving!” and immediately after I question whether this exclamation could be deemed to be a little offensive, if not racist (though Sly does not visibly react, suggesting it is not). The floor appears to move in coordinated waves and someone (who is definitely not me) drawls that it (or is it Sly's instructions?), “rolls over you like a carpet”, a stoned and puzzling observation if I ever heard one-
I am at my friend Ess EmmSeeKay's house, late of a (Friday?) night. It's around 11pm and we are deciding what to watch on television. I manage to persuade him to put on (my DVD copy of) Fearless Vampire Killers. He's not that fussed and we watch the first few minutes together - quite different in terms of content (similar-ish) and picture quality (poor) to what I remember - before he says he's taking his dog for a walk. I realise it's pointless to sit and view my DVD alone at his house, and ask if he's at all bothered if I take it way to watch at home, thinking I could just set off with him on his walk. He says that's fine and I vividly recall being impressed that his DVD player ejects the disc in the standard flat tray only to angle it up to the left side, exposing the edge and making it very easy to lift out. There's some confusion, to Ess's amusement, as I clumsily negotiate my way around the ground floor of his huge house - the rooms seem to interconnect for ease of circulation - and I accidentally disturb his son, Dee, in his room-
I am in a shared office/Studio space with several other people. The desk layout seems uncomfortably crammed and just a little jumbled, as if they've been shuffled around or deliberately reconfigured to maximise inconvenience and unsettle us. It feels like I'm supposed to sit somewhere over to the left, but I decide to take a rather awkward spot on the right of the space. I recall the sense that some object (the edge of a drawing board, perhaps?) is uncomfortably close to my head when I am sitting, hovering in my field of sensation. Still, the reason I chose to sit here is quite clear as there's some guy - more or less heard and not seen, vague like everyone else present - who is kicking up a considerable fuss about the layout. An older lady, similarly less defined, is sitting there absorbing (and presumably exhausted by) his ire-
Next I am sitting with a work colleague - it feels almost like a variation of the office space, right down to the simple crisp white desks, etc. - but we're talking about grabbing a quick pint. It's 4:00pm and I seem in a rush to head off. I change my mind as Kevin Costner comes over to join us. I recall he started work recently. (Could I manage just the one beer by 4:30?) We ask him what he thinks the fussy guy's problem is. Kevin says it's (something along the lines of), "my life is shit so I'm gonna make your day as shit as mine." We're both impressed/amused at this concise assessment and my colleague offers him a drink too. With a knowing wink in my direction Kevin cooly says he'll get them and stands up. All I can think is how my time will pass and how I will pace my drinks-
I am in a huge arena witnessing a Kickboxer-esque (is it a sequel?) event. Jean Claude Van Damme is there. He is visible only from a great distance and never facially recognisable - I simply know it is him participating. He wears black combat pants and nothing else, his body toned and in suitably '80's shape. His opponent is a great hulk of a man - 3-4 times a normal person's size?! - with long straggly hair and a black wrestler-type spandex suit. Again, I never see his face, my view restricted (mostly) to shots of JVCD misjudging brutal two-footed kicks and slithering harmlessly across the broad, rough skin of his monstrous opponent's back. At certain moments it looks to me as if this giant is carrying the prone body of a woman, clutching her in his right hand, securing her torso under his arm. Is JVCD trying to rescue her? In the middle of the arena there stands a 2-3 level tall scaffold structure, presumably to add more excitement to the contest, that has several access ladders up to and between the timber platforms. At one point JVCD takes on two other (normal sized) combatants, knocking one (and himself) to the floor. Both lie there, huffing and puffing, regaining their senses after the blow. Finally he is challenged by two men wearing Imperial Stormtrooper suits (but no helmets)-
Record Store Day (or a few days after, as I'm hoping to snap up leftovers?). I am at Monorail Records – at least I am served by the staff member Dee from there – and I go up to the counter, intent on asking about whatever titles they have remaining. Dee immediately goes to a drawer/storage unit at his back and asks me if I want the Big Brother & The Holding Company, producing a shrink wrapped, slender card packed CD. I say, 'yep!' and in a flash I am parting with 15 pounds – it has a bold £15 (HMV-style) sticker price tag in the top right corner of the cover, which itself is an orange and jet black, vague swirl, likely a photo of the band that has been pushed to maximum contrast. I am instantly annoyed at both Dee and myself, reckoning that he just wanted rid of overstock, targeting my good nature, and at my own amiable manner, my too-eager-to-please purchase. I leave and I am still annoyed. Did I even get a receipt?
I am wandering about forlornly, roughly trying to calculate the time elapsed since my purchase. It is about half an hour later, I guess, and I am still fretting about the receipt (or lack of) and planning to take the CD back, thinking about how I will phrase/open the conversation. (Do I reach Mono?)*
I am somewhere and go to the bathroom, walking through a very long room with expertly crafted porcelain sinks and fittings all topped with a neat timber trimming, framing and finish. I turn a corner and come to the end of this (somewhat bemusing) toilet area. Beyond some inset sinks there is a final urinal “hole” set into the floor, a companion shower/washing tray next to it, on the right. Looking into this hole in the floor I can see that beyond it, where you pee, the water is sky blue, so fresh looking and swirling (a little on the mesmerising side). I feel I have no choice but to hunker down to urinate. I do so, worried that this is the ladies bathroom. A guy steps into the area on my left – I am partly screened by a timber upright between us – startling me. I turn and ask him if this young, besuited gent knows if this is the ladies. He says that no, he doesn't think so and I finish peeing. When I stand up I notice that the shock of his arrival distracted me so much, meaning that I have a great, damp streak of piss from my inside left trouser knee that fans out down to my ankle, soaking the strange black and silvery woven fabric of my trousers. On the right leg, at the trousers over my ankle bone, it is much the same, only less sodden and more sporadic. I worry about how visible – very! - this will be-
I am walking with my friend Vee Dee and two other people. In fact, I seem to be lagging behind them, distracted by my returning the CD, and they are constantly a corner's turn ahead of me. At one point I lose them, the shadows cast by their legs the only clue as to the direction they've taken. It sounds like they are discussing the selection process of some architects? I am worried that the packaging of the CD will get damaged in my shoulder bag, the cover marked or creased by other items. I search for it, panicking. The price tag – now appearing as a long, descriptive sticker strip – flashes through my mind, easing my concerns. The CD is not there! No, I remind myself it is in a green plastic shopping basket(?) I am carrying in my left hand. It sits safely on the bottom, packed under some neatly folded clothes-
I finally catch up on Vee Dee. He is now only 'plus one', the man that was with them having gone off. The woman who he is with is, to my disappointment, not the broad Caribbean lady with a shock of afro hair I thought her to be. Approaching from the back she appears to be a slightly sullen, overweight white woman with too much makeup and a limp bob for a haircut-
*(At this point?) I am in a cafe of sorts, seated with two(?) other people. I am constantly singing (in a low voice) the final refrain from (ex-Mansun singer) Paul Draper's solo song 'Friends Make The Worst Enemies', the “close... keep your enemies in close... 'cos your friends can hurt you most” lyric. I have in front of me a sheet of paper, perhaps it's an envelope(?) that has a black and white photograph of a microphone stand printed on it. I have a thick black pen and I am drawing, quite accurately, a young Paul Draper singing into this mic. I start by sketching the mouth and head and my mind sort of better composes the two to match, an auto-correction of sorts, and I continue drawing him from there-
I have a strange white blob, about half the size of a pea, perched on the tip of my finger. It is pasty pale and has a consistency akin to cooked pasta. Has it been in my mouth – did I taste it? It seems to be, ever so slightly, shifting and contorting, gently buckling and folding in on itself. There is a huge piece of almond-shaped, treated and stained wood and I carefully transfer the blob with gentle brushes – it must have some sticky, adhesive quality – from the tip of my left pinkie finger and into a suitable split in the surface of the timber (which is covered in such rends, scars and openings, presumably for effect). Once I am sure the blob is settled I-
It is the next day (?). I am peering into the piece of wood and can see, via a sizeable split, that it is in fact hollow and that the small blob has grown and is roaming inside it in a fearsome tangle. It now resembles a mass of pasta more than ever, tumbling from side to side restlessly-
The next I see the blob it has been removed from the wood and is dead, attacked and hacked into two pieces (using a spade?) by Kay Emm's boss. (It seems all of her work are there and we might be inside, or near, her office.) Gee (her boss) is shoveling each half into separate black binbags, explaining that the mass had killed someone and that-
I am in Margate, staying at a sort of hotel/squat that is part inspired and part overlorded by Peter Doherty of The Libertines. (I see him shambling about a couple of times, a woozy but imposing figure with his tousled urchin hair and obligatory stained vest.) Somewhat unusually the entire structure is lying over on its side at 90 degrees to normal! ...although it does not seem to affect/impede anything whatsoever – for instance all the WC's, etc. are the correct way up. I keep marvelling at the fact that the local council allow it to stay open at all, especially given how busy and bustling it is. I am sharing a “room” on the building's large flat “roof”. It is very basic and more of a semi-open construct than an actual room. Everything seems to be painted in a magnolia to yellow colour, with dated 70's-ish timber trims-
There is some sort of football tournament taking place and I need to register – contestants, and there are 50-100 of them, each sport a deep red vest top with a bold black number on it – when I get talking to a huge friendly black guy who is sitting on a bench (on the roof). He has, in proportion to his body, a smallish head with a short beard and cascading, tatty dreadlocks. His body looks to get much broader as it nears the ground, his legs like great thick trunks. He offers me a draw on a fat joint and, even though I'm hesitant and much more keen to enrol, I accept. On my second draw I somehow inhale a mouthful weed and tobacco (or so it should be, but as I can picture/taste this mix it comprises green fragments and a fine, white, soft grit). I dare not swallow as I fully expect the effects of the drug will be disastrous on my 'lightweight' constitution, rendering me completely incapable. The big guy stands up. At this point I notice that he seems to be missing the lower half of his left leg, the trouser tucked and flapping(?)-
I am on my own looking for somewhere to spit the soggy mix, knowing I'm swooshing it about inside my mouth and slowly, bit by grit, I can see and sense I am swallowing it off. The tournament is now underway – I am aware I have a ball but not a vest – and countless folk are running about in a throng, kicking/handling their own footballs. I try to avoid it, to find somewhere secluded to be sick. I go near a wire fence but shy away when two competitors bustle in. I go to a small lavatory construct, but am put off by the two guys in there who are mop-slopping the short urinal trough formed in the red tile floor. Eventually I find a small stair and kneel, wretching and being sick in the corner under-
Feels like my Grandpa's house/location in Netherlee, Glasgow. I am there, although the actual dwelling I am in is definitely not the same – just an overall familiarity to the environment. My little brother and I are in bed together – we are young, sharing the same double bed such as we did when required (to stay over) as children. My brother is under the sheets which are kicked down on my side. Feels like early morning light. The bed faces a long rectangular window that overlooks the neighbouring house's slated roof. There are two SVP pipe outlets that stand about a metre high, and they emerge from a surrounding lead flashing. Four kids, all younger than us – their ages ranging from about 2-10 years old – are playing there. There's a boy of around 7, with close cropped ginger hair and a round-ish head, who is the most active, dodging and yelping between the pipes while the others look on, giggling. This scene seems to play over. The young toddler – I know his name is Shaun – hugs the SVP on the right hand side. He then, quite suddenly, drops off the edge of the roof. This is a stunning moment and seems to bring a vivid rush of parental warnings as to the dangers of playing there to the fore. I am quite sure Shaun is dead, dreading it, after falling 2 (or 3?) storeys. There is a huddle of concerned folk around him as he lies static on a slab path in the garden. He is, in fact, alive, and he moves, seemingly unharmed-
I finish up a meal and put my plate into a huge sink. It is very tall from the floor, with a timber trim to the worktop, being about the size of (if not bigger than) a bath. It is quite angular, built with a buttress for pipework in the middle of the wall side. There are several dishes and some cutlery sitting in it already. I feel that I am (staying) at my friend Jay Gee's but cannot ascertain if it is the same house as above-
I am outside and lingering in a large, green field area. Trees over to my left with a well-worn narrow path running across. I am waiting (for my brothers or for Jay Gee?) to continue on a walk with them (to?). I see my little brother, with a rucksack on his back, cross the path. I don't make a move-
