Lost In Language City

Stone Cold, Cold Classic.

2012-01-21T00:47:00.000-08:00

A few years ago a book popped up on the Guardian Best Reads list called "Fifty Grand". Written by a Northern Irish writer called Adrian McKinty, it's about a Cuban police woman determined to get to the US and find the man that killed her father. It sounded great in the review. I devoured it in a day and immediately sort out his earlier work. I'd found one of those special writers that you tell people about in the pub, and when you see that person again they have brought up everything they've written too. His prose is tough, his ear for dialogue is pitch perfect and the books have more twists and turns than a Blackpool big dipper.

Mckinty's new novel "The Cold, Cold Ground", doesn't disappoint, in fact it's probably his best to date. Set in 1981 in Carrickfergus at the height of "the troubles" we follow D.S. Sean Duffy as he tries to hunt down a serial killer whose motives seem to be sexual rather than political - the victims are all gay men with segments of music scores inserted into their person. A Catholic in a predominantly Protestants area, Duffy is an outsider who will stop at nothing to bring peace and find the killer. It's a shocking story that moves at breakneck speed about a time and place that most writers have ignored.

Mckinty is a rare presence in the crime genre, he writes with a wit, lyricism and intelligence that the majority of British and Irish crime writers lack - he reminds me more of Daniel Woodrell than Ian Rankin. His heroes are canny scrappers on the edge of their worlds, trying to right the wrongs they have been confronted with. And like Ellroy and Peace he has a purpose other than to entertain ( although he does that fantastically) he uses history to tell his truth about political corruption, the abuse of women and children or just the plain wrongness of society.
So get on amazon , order the "The Cold, Cold Ground" and then get down the pub and tell everyone about your secret, cause I suspect he won't be a secret for very much longer.

2011-11-17T07:52:00.001-08:00

Blimey. Has it really been over a year since I've blogged? I assure you that it's not down to indolence but work load that I've not written anything for your perusal. Along with becoming a father I've been busy writing film scripts and treatments, ya know. I'm also completing the final module for my MA: a non fiction book about the rather fascinating and colorful history of Sexology.
You can read all about it on my new blog here:

All Grown Up - The Lost Science of Sexology

In between projects I've also written a few short stories. Encouraged by my good friend, the masterly short short story writer, Alan Beard and reassured of the form's validity by Stuart Evers's "Ten Stories About Smoking" and Wells Towers' "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned", I've decided to post a story that I wrote at the end of last year. I have to point out that it was written before I knew my wife was pregnant....
I hope you like it.

“A Sweet Tooth.” By Ryan Davis

Grandpa died a few weeks ago.I sat alone with him surround by the white curtains on the ward and felt hishand go limp as the morphine padded something unbearable inside.

He’dleft my older brother Pete his arm chair. My mom got his books and records andhe’d left me a small amount of money, which would come in handy for me andShell, for Barny’s clothes and food. Don’t get me wrong, I love Barney so much,but I swear his tantrums are getting worse- he spat at me the other day andtold me to leave the house. Shell’s become like some zombie slave for him - twentyfour seven. The trip to give Pete the chair was a legitimate opportunity to getout the house and away from it all for a while.

Peteused to live down the road in a similar terrace to us. After writing a flyfishing game app in his bedroom that went on to sell over a hundred thousand,what he called “Unit’s”, Pete wrote a few more and sold the company.

“Itwasn’t for a lot, he said “only a couple of million- I could have held out formore but I’m not greedy.”

“Youcould be in the Bahamas now, you idiot!” I said then laughed, hoping he thoughtI was joking.

NowPete had moved to some confectionary of a cottage in the Cotswolds that seemedto be woven together by roses and whipped cream, with Annie and her Swedish-blonde hair, her long, brown body, a dog called Thompson, no kid - not yet- andan unlimited amount of time to think of what he wanted to do next with his moneyand life.

Ihave to say, it was an enviable position. My own attempt to set up an onlinebooze store last year failed. After a conversation I had with him about theletters from the bank I thought Pete would come forward and offer a helping handbut they seemed to stay firmly in his pockets. He had lent me money to get myteeth fixed last year and I was still paying him back, so maybe that was why.Anyway, it was back to network support and getting as many late shifts as Icould.

To leave the lights of thecity and disappear into black motorway that ran through the country side waslike opening the door from a steam room and feeling the cool tiles on yourfeet. For a while the road was clear but a car crash near Gloucester meant Iwas stuck in traffic for three hours and by the time I came to turn off I wassick of the drive time DJ, thirsty and bursting for a pee.

Annie opened the doorlooking all “city girl gone country”, decked out in Hunters and a blue andwhite stripy shirt.

“Hello.” She said looking the chair up and down.

“Granddad’s chair?” I said.

“Oh…” she squinted, she was looking at the warn yellowfabric, thinning on the arms.

“”Well.I’vegot nowhere to put it. Can’t you put it in the garage?”

“Yeah…sure.”

Idumped the chair in the musty garage and walked back over the icy tarmac to the kitchen aching to pee. I apologised againfor being late, explained about the crash and being stuck in the car for hours.Annie nodded harassed, and began looking for her handbag.

“ Pete’s out night fishing and I’m off to the villageAGM. I’m in a bit of a rush?” she said slipping on her coat.

Anniehad never liked me. I don’t know why. Maybe my lack of ambition? My lack of money? My fondest for a good time? My past failures?

“Lady of the Manor these days!” I said. I Iiked to jokearound with her.

Shepursed her lips, flashed a sour smile.

“I’mreally, really late, Dan.” She pulleda pink bottle out of her bag, crossed herself with its sherbet-y perfume and slid it back in. The sweet smell filled the house,but it didn’t suit her at all. If Shell wore it, it would smell good. It wasmore suited to Shell.

Shelocked up, slipped into her car and drove off beeping the horn.

Desperatenow, I pissed in the empty bird bath on his expansive front lawn and started thedrive back. The image of Pete chipping out the iron –hard block of yellow ice,wondering how it got there rolled over and over in my mind and I took myself bysurprise every time I sniggered loudly as I drove back down the dark motorway.

At twelve o’clock, apart from the small Nigerianwoman with a lisp who was on the Check-out I was the only other person in theservice station.

Igot a table by the giant window. There I was, reflected in the glass, a ghostof puffy eyes and thinning hair amongst the smudges made by toddler’s stickyfingers and their gluey mouths. I sipped my coffee and listened to the buzz ofthe overhead air con and crackle of the fountain. It felt joyful hearing thosesimple sounds; white noise, so undemanding and so far from Barny’s squeals andneeds.

Then that peace was broken by the sound of a heavydiesel engine. A rusting, powder-blue transit van pulled up in the car park.The side door slid opened and a rucksack was thrown out followed by a girl. Shewas in her early twenties with white and pink striped hair that reminded me of CoconutIce sweets. She wore faded black jeans, clunky, black un -laced boots and awhite vest that was tight over her small breasts. Her plump arms were coveredin a rainbow of tattoos.

Asthe van drove off the girl spat on its back door then ran after it, her breathvisible in the cold night air, banging her fist on the side. She was just aboutto reach the driver’s window when it gained momentum and slipped away, out onto the light studded motorway. She yelled something at the empty road like itwas a person, grabbed her bags and made her way in to the restaurant.

Eventhough it was just me and the counter girl, she placed her bags down in frontof the coffee machine with a flourish and a loud huff worthy of a largeraudience. She plunged her hands into herpockets, routed around then pulled out the pockets themselves.

Empty.

Then,she knelt down and began scramblingthrough her bag throwing out its contents as she went: a multi-coloured Indianscarf, a grey towel, many white vest tops, batches of black rolled up socks, a box of Tampax, small white pants and then two blocks of Dairy Milk chocolate - a party sizeand a regular sized one. The regular sized bar left the bag with such a forcethat it slid across the white tiles and landed at my feet.

Ididn’t say anything for a moment, guessing she would notice. She sat on her nowempty bag, head in hands, surrounded by what looked to be her whole life.

“Do you need some change for the machine?”

She lifted her head.

“Huh?”

Icould see her face clearly now: a small high nose, full lips that fell into an austerepout and big, blue teary eyes.

“No. I’ve got some money somewhere I just can’t seem tofind it...” She said and put her head back down.

Itook a sip, wincing over the last dregs of the thick, syrupy coffee. My teethwhere squeaking. After the fifteen fillings my dentist told me to stay clear ofsugary drinks and snacks but I needed to stay awake and a coffee with threesugars was the only thing I was allowed to use these days to keep me going.

“Ican buy you one, until you find it…your money I mean.”

She didn’t move for a moment, for effect or for real, whoknows? Then she sat bolt upright.

“Ok. Great. Why not? Yeah I’ll will have one. It’s coldout there.”

She begangathering her things and pushing them back in her bag. I picked up thechocolate bar placed it on the table then went and brought the coffees.

When I got back she was in the chair adjacentmine with the bigger bar of Dairy Milk torn open and a triangle of chunksbroken off.

“Thank you so much.” she said.

I smiled and handed her the cup.

“What a fuckin’ nightmare!” she said and began sippingfrom the top of the streaming cup.

“You lost your lift?”

“Lost my lift… lost my boyfriend.” She snapped off chunkand began chewing on it.

“And now you’re left here.”

“Now I’m here. Thanks again for the coffee.” she lookedat me with an inquisitive frown.

“You’renot one of these men who hang around places like this, waiting for girls likeme are you?”

Isat back in my chair. One of those men?

“No.”I said shaking my head, smiling gently, so that I didn’t look like I was overcompensating. Then I gave her a “Like, duh,” look. I tore open three sachets ofsugar at once and tipped them in to my cup. For some reason I couldn’t say Iwas going home to my wife and baby boy.

“I’vejust got back from a conference about a new app I’m developing. I’m here tofreshen up.”

Iput the spoon in and stirred

“Freshenup. OK…” .The girl raised her eyes at the stack of empty sachets of sugar “That’sfreshening up, eh …”

Sheheld her hand to her mouth and laughed.

Herhair was greasy. She had a shiny red spot on her forehead, but other than thather skin was without a blemish, almost liquid. She was good looking, but Ididn’t find her attractive until that moment she was opposite me and began tospeak. I could smell the chocolate onher breath, see the tackiness of it sticking her tongue to the roof of her mouthand something flipped inside me.

“Fairenough.” she said.

“Moreto the point, do I have to worry about you?”

“That’sup to you.” She said raising a thick mousy eyebrow.

“You’vebeen dumped?”

“Ipissed in his beer tonight.” She sniggered looking around the room.

“Really?I pissed in my brothers’ bird bath.” Ismiled.

“Nice…”she said coolly with a co-conspiratorsnod. “He was bringing girls on stage and singing to them…can you believe that?”

Her left arm was taken up mostly by a large red heart tattooin an elaborate green frame. In the middle was written “Robin 4 Jocelyn 4 ever”.At the top of her arm, above a TB jab scar was the name of a local band Irecognised - it looked like it had been composed with a compass and an inkcartridge.

“Don’t say you’re a fan of The Creators.”

She looked at her shoulder.

“Yeah. Robin, the lead singer is my, was, my boyfriend.He did that for me.” She ran her thumb over it.

“But aren’t they, like, a skinhead band?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged and took another chuck of chocolate.

The Creators had been going since the eighties and their gigswere known to be hateful affairs. BNPsupporters pushing each other around to racist chants. Gay bashing lyrics andsongs of hate. Robin must have been at least twenty years older than her.

“Ok…” I said, loading the word with as much disapprovalas I could muster.

“No, well, it’s just good music you know. I don’t reallylisten to the lyrics…If you want to know, we argue a lot. It’s part of ourrelationship. We’re what you call, fiery”

Shewas getting a little defensive now.

“No, no… “ I said “I just wondered about the tattoo ,that’s all.”

“I don’t agree with what he sings. He says he doesn’t reallymean it these days anyway. Most of it is for the crowd. Rob says he wouldn’t have an audience if hesang about peace and harmony. He’d be out of a job.”

Back when we were teenagers my brother was beaten up by Creatorsfans. He’d gone night fishing and a loadof pissed up skinheads threw him in the canal. He said he remembered theirt-shirts and their heads shining yellowin the street lamp as he looked up from the water.

Talking about Robin was getting her upset. I wanted tosay, well, why doesn’t he just join another band? Change direction if he’s notthat bothered?

Butwhat I said was,

“Howcould you love someone so angry and attention seeking?”

She staredat me like I was an idiot.

“Look, I’m not a racist.” she said glancing over hershoulder at the car park “we’ve been together five years. It’s got nothing todo with that. Anyway…this is the last time he does this. The. Last. Time. I’vehad enough…”

Shetook another chunk of chocolate. We talked some more.

Shetold me Robin was her first and only boyfriend. He’d never been violent withher, never seen him be violent with anyone. Looked after his mom too. They wanted to start a family next year. She went silent for a while as she chewed onthe last block of chocolate, nodding, as if willing what she’d just said intolife. Then she looked blankly at her coffee and told me her friend lived theother side of town. She would have to call her if she wanted to get backtonight. I said town was on the way and I would drop her back if she wanted. Shesmiled then leant over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips were warm and soft. The chocolate onher breath and the smoke and shampoo smell of her hair was like the perfumefrom a bouquet of wild flowers. I felt my face flush with heat. It was afeeling that I thought I’d left behind a long time ago.

Iknocked back my coffee and looked at the time.

Itold the girl I just needed to use the toilet and then we could go.

As I stood at the urinal I had this shiver inmy chest, like something amazing would happen. That something I never knew existedwould be in the taste of her tongue. A sweet danger, laden with something freshthat I never thought I’d want or that I’d need. Something that would lift me upbeyond this world, that would make things better. I peed as quickly as possible and washed my hands trying to avoid my reflection as much as I could.

WhenI came out her seat was empty. I walked over to the table and through thewindow I saw the blue van grind away, puffing balls of black smoke in its wake.

Onthe table she’d left the smaller bar of chocolate. I put it in my pocket,cleared the cups and made my way to my car.

Sadcountry ballads played from the radio and the sugar and caffeine comedown hadhit. A sugar crash. I was feeling tired and my vision started to blur a little.My thoughts were drifting back to the service station and the girl and I feltan ache in my stomach. I looked down at the chocolate bar, laying across thepassenger’s seat then up at the large, illuminated blue sign - only sixteenmiles till home.

I flicked on the air con. Turned the dial upto” Maximum” in the blue section and let it blast my eyes.

Itwasn’t cold enough, so I wound down all the windows. A frozen wind mobbed thecar howling out the sound of the radio, clawing at my face and my hair.

Ilooked back down at the chocolate bar and picked it up. I felt itsinconsiderable weight in my hand, then leant over and put it in the glovecompartment. I turned back to the road, pushed my foot on the acceleratorand watched the speedo rise.

If I stayed like this I knew I could justabout make it back home to my family.

Who is Harry Nilsson and Winter's Bone

2010-09-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

Harry Nilsson ? Who he? He sang "Everybody's Talkin' ", you know, from "Midnight Cowboy". You may have heard him sing a song that most people think Mariah Carey wrote called "Without You." Well here comes the shocker - he wrote it ( Correction alert! Badfinger wrote it! Soz.)along with loads of other wonderful and sometimes wobbly- weird songs. If you want to know more about this seriously underrated songwriter you can watch the new documentary that is coming to all good cinemas soon called "Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?"

Also it's great to see one of the film's I'd mentioned in a previous blog , "Winter's Bone" getting great reviews, and , hold ya breath, a UK release Can't wait to see it.

Twitteringtons

2010-09-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

Hello people,
I'm on Twitter. You can now read the scraps of mental ephemera that whirl through my mind everyday by clicking on this ,for mind seepage
Back soon!

Marrige,Rome, Tindal Street Fiction Group, Life.

2010-08-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Things have been a little hectic over the last few months, to say the least.

It was my birthday in June as well as my sisters, and my moms -this means lots of food, lots of drink , hazy mornings and irrgular bowel movements. I actually forgot about my birthday because of what was happening in July...I got married to my girlfriend of eleven years. We headed out to Rome and then Florence for the honey moon- Caravaggio, sweltering heat, The Ascension of Christ, Duomo's, headless statues, red wine, pasta, veal, suckling pig, St Peters, Ennio Morricone played out in The Vatican, stories of Frank Sinatra drinking dry a hotel, The Trevi fountain, Keats' death bed and death mask, and did I say there was a heat wave?

Rome is a huge, open aired museum full of Japanese and Americans , roaming round in packs taking pictures of everything and anythig - people moan about this aspect of the city. Thankfully I do have the knack of blocking the crowds out. It's like being at the theatre - you don't worry that the auditorium is full when you're engrossed in the play. Ancient Rome gave the world a lot of significant components for the way we live our lives today - the place has, and will always be busy.

Although, it seems amazing that the empire lasted as long as it did with the amount of rumpy pumpy, murder and mastication that went on. Death was around every corner of those dark, sticky streets, over run with soldiers, politicians, and prostitutes living for honour and glory. The levels of decadence were hilariously high. After feasting on larks tongues and donkey gullets, your average Roman would drink till he was sick, insult his best friend and either end up dead or victorious and friendless. I particularly loved Nero's marble bath in The Vatican museum- a shiny, purple, marble basin the size of a swimming pool raised six feet off the ground that could have fitted at least twenty other bathers in there. One suspects that getting clean wasn't always the modus operandi...

And on that note...I joined the Tindal Street Ficion Group.

Tindal was set up around twenty years ago by Alan Mahar , the writer and head of the wonderful Tindal Street Press , as a place for writers in Birmingham to read out and discuss their work. Over the years it has seen some great writers pass though its doors ,such as Catherine O' Flynn, Clare Morrall, Gaynor Arnold and the short story writer Alan Beard. Alan and Gaynor are still members and the current crop of writers is pretty shiny and wonderful too. It's great to be surrounded by people who are concerned about the craft of writing , as much as it is having a drink with them down the pub after. I've learnt loads already.

So, after a couple of turbulent and life changing months it's back to work.

"27" is being sent out to agents as you read this and I sit everyday clicking my inbox at ten minute intervals hoping for a reply. The rest of the time is spent polishing the book, jotting down ideas for the next one and hoping that one of these ideas will stick....

Re- post to celebrate the 110th birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

2010-06-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Did I ever tell you about the time I flew a plane? No? Well this is what happened...

“Ok, you have control”
I look at my hands. My knuckles are white. I can hardly breathe because of the heavy, hot air in the cabin. I’m gripping the control stick of the plane. The plane which I am now flying. By myself.
In front of me is the black control unit; a collection of dials, false horizons, tickers with numbers slowly rotating, pinhead sized red and green lights flashing.
They are telling me nothing. The slice of the propeller and buzz of the engine have faded away.
I look up, over the top of the control panel and out the window. Hard blue. Not a cloud insight, type of blue. The sun, large and bare, rumbling with heat. A line of sweat rolls down my forehead I want my right hand to let go of the control, to wipe it away. But it just won’t let me. I can’t see the horizon. Just the sky and the nose of the plane.
Then I saw it.
“Ken!” I bark into my head set.
I steal a quick glance to my left. Ken’s head is between his legs. Wasn’t that the crash position?
“Ken.There’s a screw coming loose on the cover of the engine. It looks like its going to shoot out its socket any minute!”
Visions of the bonnet flying off with a large tearing noise, then fire and smoke barbecuing us to a crisp, as we plummet, spiralling from the sky, gripped my mind.
He came up red faced, staring at the pen in his hand , that had rolled underneath his seat.
“Oh, that? Yes, I noticed that with the previous client. Nothing to worry about there. Perfectly safe. But I do think you should be worried about the altitude. We are gaining. We’ll be on Mars if you don’t concentrate. Remember what I said. The four finger rule! Now push the control in, slightly, and bring the nose down.”
Yes, that was it. If you place four fingers on to of the control panel the line of the horizon should fall on your index finger..
Pressing the column in, the plane slowly straightened out. I was so tense I had been pulling back on the stick and I didn’t even know it. I could now see my point of reference, the luminous green of Clee hills.
This was my first flying lesson. I wanted it to take me out of my comfort zone. And it did. It certainly did.

I was a little lost for a while. The band I was in was on a break, (our singer was having a baby). Also, my previously unshakable faith in the power of music was being questioned. I felt stuck and a little scared of what was going to happen next. I just seemed to be at home most of the time reading lots of books and trying not to think about what had happened. Then I stumbled across a French writer called Antoine de Saint-Exupéry . I suppose Saint-Exupéry mostly recognised as the author of the children’s classic “The Little Prince”. But it was the books he had written about his time as a pilot in the 1930 that mesmerised me. Tales of adventure and descriptive passages about the act of flying opened a door to a different world that appeared in places bright and weightless, compared to the black and lumbering days I was enduring.
He depicted sublime places in the sky, man in, and against nature. He seemed to be away from, but also very much in, the world. I realised what I needed was to be very much part of the world again. There was, however the small problem of my fear of flying. But Saint-Exupéry was my man and I wanted to experience the beauty and the exaltation that he wrote of. This was the only way to do it. It was time to face my fear.

Over the phone the receptionist at the test centre told me that there was room in the back for a passenger. I'd forgot my Dad’s birthday the last year. The Christmas before that I promise to take him Go-carting, but, ill ness stuck and the idea was forgotten. This would be a great opportunity to get back in the good books. They need the weight to balance the plane apparently… I wouldn’t tell him that bit.

The “Flight Centre” is situated in a small hamlet near Kinver, Worcestershire, called Halfpenny Green. I imagined a large aircraft hanger, dotted with battle scarred spitfires and twinkling private planes. A mixture of veterans and the ridiculously rich, taking their “Birds” to Challis for Lunch then back to Blighty. Halfpenny Green, chocks away chaps….
It is, in reality, in a business park The big strip of tarmac strapped to the side of it goes by the name of Wolverhampton Airport (“It should be called Noddy Holder airport.”said a friend, half joking) .

HQ was a prefab that dated back to the 1940’s. It sat, off white and squat under the Micro lights and private rust buckets that rumbled up, into the blue above us.

My instructor, Ken, was about sixty. He had bad breath, creamy white hair and a certain stillness that was of the odd rather than , calming variety . Ex –public school rang from his very soul. He wore square, tinted glasses, (the type that darkened in the sun) behind which sat his large, blue, watery eyes. There was something else about him, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He lead us into a tiny wood panelled room, and took me through the basics of flight with the aid of an old, red, wooden plane. I would hazard a guess that it had been made about twenty years before Ken had. And like Ken ,looked a little rickety and worn at the edges. He pointed at the wings, pushed the brass stick in the cockpit, lifted the whole thing and turned it around in the air. This was all said and done in a sort of, calm but hurried way with sentences that ran into each other. He had said it a million times. And he lost me. I didn’t absorb one single word. Plus, there was something still bugging me about him I couldn’t put my finger on.
Ken placed the aircraft down on the table in front of us and smiled.
“Ok. Got that? Would you like me to go over any thing? ”
“No. That’s great.”
“Right. Just going to check for clearance and we should be good to go.”
Ken left. My dad poked me in the ribs and whispered.
“Did you see his eye?”
“Yes , that’s-“
“He’s left eye. He’s got a bloody glass eye!”
Ah yes, that’s what it was. They wouldn’t let a test pilot up there teaching pupils with a glass eye? They couldn’t, surly? I’m sure he flew like a dream . I was just worried that if any thing was hurtling at full wack on our left , Old Ken would be non the wiser. Before I could change my mind he was back with clearance and we started the walk to the plane.
Previous to the lesson I had read “Wind, Sea, Sand and Stars” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. A poet of the skies, flying was a spiritual experience for him. Coming from the first generation of flyers, an era when the technology was still relatively new, engines consistently used to break down. When this happened you were pretty much a goner. He tells of his comrades flying out over the Sahara or the Alps and never coming back. Being lost to the skies. It seems that the experience couldn’t be anything but spiritual. Death rode on your wings every day. And that sense of perspective elevated one from the squabbling masses below. Surviving the flight alone had to electrify the senses – a truly existential existence.
In an early part of the book he talks about his first mail flight to Africa (He was like a cool postman, with a death wish). He knew about the notorious flash storms and cloud banks that peppered the route. Cloud banks that concealed within them savage mountain ranges, and storms that could suck off your wings and spit you to the ground. Worried, he consulted a friend who was an old hand to the route. He told him,
“Sometimes the storms, the fog and the snow will get you down. But think of all those who have been through it before you…They did it, so can you”
Ken went through the starting procedure, talking to himself as he went. Clunking buttons, setting dials, turning whatever was in front of him. All the time I kept looking at he’s eye. Did it move then? It was hard to see behind those glasses.
The door of the cockpit closed. Head sets on. We trundled down the run way, using foot peddles to steer the plane. Ken manoeuvred us in to place and completed a final check with flight control. He powered the engine. Suddenly, the propellers flamed up. The cockpit was now like a mobile sauna. The plane started to buzz and we pelted down the runway. Then, in seconds, I sensed the weight of the earth drop beneath us. .A field, became fields, that became a tawny and green patch work, ever increasing in size. The sky was now around us, everything below became smaller. Easier to see as a whole. Ken pointed east.
“That’s Wolverhampton, over there!”
It struck me how rural a country Britain still is. Wolverhampton looked like a concrete island in an ocean of fields. As he tipped to the left and banked to the right Ken pointed to the right
“R.A F. Cosford over there.” As we flew nearer we heard ghostly, American voices invading our headsets. It was coming from the pilots in the chunky fighter planes which roared and spun above us as they flew back to base. Ironbridge was just about visible. Though, more striking was the silvery thread of the River Severn which flashed and twisted beneath it, coiling off in to the landscape.
I had relaxed. There were no goblins, running around my stomach. I was just enjoying the ride. Ken levelled the plane out.
“Ryan, if you would like to place both of your hands on the stick”
I did it automatically.
“Ok. You have control.”
And that was it. Ten minutes before, I had never flown a plane. Let a lone been in one as small as this, and now I was in control of it. And of our destiny. This was a flying lesson. I had almost forgotten that .
After the loose screw incident, I managed to keep a straight course toward the Clee Hills and its mysterious satellite tower. Then Ken suggested that I try and manoeuvre the plane round the hill. Time to steer the damm thing. This was done by turning the stick to the direction you want to go , and when the plane was on course, turn it back to level out the flight path. My arms were still taught with anxiety. I gripped the stick and turned it slowly to the left. Then I froze. I didn’t want to turn it back. I felt that if I did I would flip the plane. It felt so precarious. And, it is, bobbing around up there with no safety net. Ken grabbed my right arm and gently pulled it down.
“You’ve got to loosen up a bit!” he said flustered. Then quietly,
“You know, on a good day, all you need to steer a plane is your index finger. Like this.Ok. Try again”

Although I did not use my finger, with a nervous laughter from my dad in the back and some encouragement from Ken, I managed to get round the hill.
“Well, that seemed quite easy for you. What about a proper turn?” Ken ask, laconically.
By a “proper turn” he meant a 360 degree circle. You have to bank it at 35 degrees and lock the position by pulling back on the stick at the same time. Whilst doing this, you have to keep an eye on the false horizon. Make sure you’re not going to too far over the 35 degree limit. Listen to Ken guiding you through, try and block out the questions to Ken streaming out the mouth of a increasingly uncomfortable Dad in the back. And also ignore the official babble of “Tango, Foxtrot, Papa’s” cracking in your ears from the flight control.
I wiped my hands, in turn, on my jeans, placed them on the stick and squeezed
“When ever you’re ready” said Ken.
Imagine being on the worlds tallest, flimsiest roller coaster in the world, hurtling round a bend at 160mph. But in this case you’re in control.
The skies were completely devoid of cloud . I wanted some to mask the view of the unforgiving land below. My Dad still wouldn't stop talking. He was nervous. and I didn't blame him. Ken kept on with the “That’s good, Keep in the hold” I just didn't want to flip the thing and end my days compressed and burnt to a crisp in a field, just out side Wolverhampton.
The plane flowed smoothly in an almost perfect arc. Then- Boom. The left wing flipped up. The stick slipped through my hands, my heart filled my throat. Ken grabbed his controls.
“Turbulence” said Ken. “You get it over hilly areas. The thermals collect in the valley and spiral up. You’ll just have to deal with them. Tricky bastards. That was just one of the many factors up here to knock you off your course. You just have to deal with them.”
So I dealt with them. Turbulence stuck at least three more times and each time I took control. I won’t say I wasn’t frightened, it was just different. I knew what to expect and just put in place the procedure that I was told. It was all I could do. And, I pulled it off pretty well. Ken seemed pleased too.
“YES! Well done!” his voice cracked distorted and lively in my ears.
Somewhere in me a valve loosened and pressure streamed out. I had steered my way through a hazard that real pilots dealt with every day. Then he asked,
“Do you want to do it again?”
I did. I did it again and went on flying to various points on the landscape for the rest of the lesson.
It was hot, uncomfortable, and for me, bowl looseningly frightening at times. But it was also a thrilling, special experience. It’s easy to take these things for granted. When we are squashed into economy, thoughts of deep veined thrombosis , kids squealing and having to eat plastic food. This isn’t flying at all. This is being ferried from A to B in the quickest time possible. It is a shared experience and you do not control it.
The main feeling I got from flying in a three man plane was a huge sense of possibility. It offers hope and a feeling of freedom that you could fly off anywhere in the world when ever you wanted (“We could fly to see the Pyramids !” I believe I said at one point). You are in control of guiding the plane to your destination.
I agree with Exupery, that,
“The machine (the plane) does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them”
It gives one a sense of perspective. A distance to view what is happening down there, to you and everyone else, literally and most importantly, mentally. It offered me a place to break away from the world for awhile. It was n’t like back in Exupery’s day, safety wise, but to me, it was just as scary. It plunged me into my problems and I came out alive and blinking the other side, exhilarated, ready to fly again.

The End...

2010-05-28T06:53:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I blogged. That's because I've been putting the finishing touches to my debut novel "27". And what a journey it's been. I got lost a few times along the way. I was hit by huge tides of self doubt and thrown onto some uninhabitable and barren shores that I had to find my way off as quickly as I could.

But it's done now and the sensation on completing it , like many things in this song of a life that we all sing , was not the one expected.

You envisage a fire works display of wonder and awe enveloping your mind when you type the words "The End". But I didn't even get a sparkler.

Now, don't get me wrong, when I thought up the ending of the novel ( something that had eluded me for months) and knew how the whole story would tie up- one Saturday morning, early and hungover, I crawled to my laptop and wrote the final scene - that's when I felt godlike. That's when the belief that I was capable of writing the greatest novel that a man could write filled me to bursting. That's when I became light headed and shivered as if receiving a message from a higher plain. But that feeling, like anything worth experiencing, go's , and goes really quickly. It is then that you realise the real work is just about to start. It's time to go back and fill those gaps , strengthen those sentences and flesh out the characters. This process took the longest and was the most work-man like, the most pains taking ,the most laborious but... it was also the most rewarding. This is no knee trembler around the back of the bike sheds feeling, or a hit of cheap whiz, this is like standing on the brow of the yacht that you have be building, sweating over , and blowing your savings on for the last three years. The thing that drew you to it when you were tired and thought you had nothing left in you. You realise, when it's completed that you have to let it go, let it sail off without you, and ,this is where it gets scary, hope to God that it floats.

Sweet Harmony

2010-03-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

Watching Bon Iver do an A cappella version of For Emma (forever) on the brilliant La Blogotheque site recently, got me thinking about the human voice and that the most elevating and transcendent sounds in the world happen when a group of humans wail in various forms of harmony.
I searched Youtube and found a few life affirming examples.

OK, this one below isn't 100% a cappella but I had to put it on just for the guy who is leading them...the spirit has truly taken him.

So anyways, like, er, you hearda this guy Richard Price?

2010-03-01T03:42:00.000-08:00

In the seventies Richard Price was considered the poster boy for new, hip American writing. With his rapid -fire New Yoike dialogue Price was seen as the obvious heir to Hubert Selby Jr's crown as writer of New York's working classes . His first book, "The Wanderers" was a loud and youthful rap about teenage gang life in 1960's South Bronx. It exhibited for the first time his swift photographic eye, his pitch perfect ear for dialogue and his ability to drag you along by the scruff of the neck and show you the dark corners of a hectic city in a different light.

His next three books (Bloodbrothers, Ladies' man, The Breaks) again all drew on aspects of his own life but never really lived up to the street-fast prose and the one- inch -literary punch of "The Wanderers".

So he changed tack.

He started to write screenplays. Even though it wasn't his best work he brought the quick tongue of the chancer and the cynicism of the duped to Scorsese's - "The Colour of Money" and Pacino's " Sea of Love". It seems that the exercise worked and he came back with the novel "Clockers" a story about lower level drug pushers in North Jersey. The style was filmy - quick , in and out , no-messing and showed everyone (as well as, one suspects, Price himself ) that he was back on form. The book was filmed by Spike Lee and it set Price off in a new direction- crime. But as with all great writers his crime books aren't just about the vile act, they are about the people involved in it. "Samaritan" and "Lush Life" (possibly his masterpiece), both set in his beloved New York, show how communities or a big city can alter a person for good or for bad. The words Zola and Naturalism have been banded around and it is justified. But one could also draw parallels to Dickens and Saul Bellow in they way he uses a city as a character and Dostoevsky for his psychological insight . Crime is but the mirror to reflect the society that his characters are altered by. Price's influence has most recently been seen on TV in "The Wire" where cop talk, street talk, morally compromised policemen and sympathetic criminals abound. David Simon was such a fan he asked Price to write a few episodes.

Price has certainly influenced my idea of what crime fiction is and how a crime can be used as a powerful literary device . His books reveal how people in jeopardy can be easily seduced by a life of crime and how quickly it can change a person for the worst. More importantly he shows us how close that criminal world is to all our lives.

Winter's Bone - The Movie

2010-02-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

I'm a great admirer of the American writer Daniel Woodrell and his books about rednecks and criminals in the Ozark mountains. His best book by far and my personal fav is Winter's Bone. It's the story of Ree Dolly, a tough teenager who has to find her missing father, a crystal meth cook, before her family house is repossessed. The language is gnarly poetry and old testament in that American tradition of Faulkner and Cormac McCarty. The characters are vivid and menacing (Uncle Teardrop, is a particularly scary creation) and Ree herself is a perfectly drawn amalgamation of teenage fury and headstrong responsibility. It holds you firmly, like an evangelical preacher's gaze and makes you listen till the sermons through.
I read recently that it has been made into a film , and that the girl playing Ree, ( Jennifer Lawrence) has been getting rave reviews and the film itself won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film festival last month.
Let's hope that the filmakers win a decent distribution deal over here and we actually get to see it . These US Indies tend to vanish somewhere over the Atlantic before hitting out screens... And hopefully it's as good as they say, so that more people buy the books and appreciate this underrated writer of poetic and gripping modern fiction. Winter's Bone is a great place to start and if you feel like you want more, then go back to Tomato Red, Give Us a Kiss and Woe To Live On ( which was also made in to a great film called Ride With The Devil, hence the different title on Amazon)
Come on, what you waiting for?

Dans Paris

2010-02-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

First of all, I have to say that you can now leave comments on all of my posts now, even if you aren't a fellow Blogger. Thank you Fiona!

Over Christmas BBC 4 showed a film called "Dans Paris" I caught it on the I-Player in January and I was really bowled over by it

It's the story of a love lorn photographer who has split up with his girlfriend and comes back to his Parisian family apartment to live with his dad and brother. It's clearly a homage to the Nouvelle Vague and it works brilliantly-owing a huge dept to films like "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", with hints of Truffaut's playfullness and Godard's surrealism. It is unashamedly and wonderfully French. All the characters smoke, they discuss their sexual and romantic problems with fierce clarity and fervor and they aren't afraid to dance around to dark indie tunes like their lives depend on it.

We Brits could never make a film that is this serious, that has moments of slapstick and has the main characters sing to their ex on the phone ( one of the most moving parts of the film actually) . I think it would be a pretty embarrassing thing if we did. Like the French trying to make a comedy...

It appealed to the teenage francophile in me, the one that watched a Channel Four season of New Wave films one summer in the nineties. The film looks like it was made by someone who, like me was captivated by the freedom and exuberance of those movies, something that just wasn't around in films back then or even now. You can't imagine Godard being asked what his demographic was or if he thought a Chinese granny who lived in London , who then moved to Wigan , would like Weekend? They showed you that you can dream, be pretentious , silly and serious all at once -break rules , anything to get your story across. And smoke alot. Naked.

Watch it. Free your mind, and your derriere will follow.

Has anybody here seen my old friend...genius?

2010-01-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

If I could sing, (I can kinda get by, in an indie white boy way, but...) and sing well ,I always thought I would want to be able to sing like Marvin Gaye. He had a voice that rippled, roared and purred with emotion. It was an instrument of pure expression that floors me every time I hear it.

Scanning YouTube for live footage of him recently I came across this clip of Marvin playing piano in a empty auditorium in the late seventies for a Belgian documentary about his days living and working in Europe.

What strikes you instantly is the ease with which he can perform. The crew roll in a piano and Marvin can't wait to play it, riffing on jazzy trills and bluesy chords. Someone slides on a chair and Marv is away, starting with a bluesy version of "Come get to this " soft on the verse and driving it home on the refrain with a gravely croon that is leaking want and desire - crying out for his lover to fulfill his need. Then seamlessly, the mood changes, the chords switch from major to embellished minors, and we are lowered gently into a softer plea, Marvin , still not satisfied, yearns for his distant lover.

After many broken relationships, alimony, problems with the record company and a crippling heroin habit, Marvin was broke. He also owed the tax man a fair bit too and the only way he could claw his way back was to go to Europe and tour. What we are seeing is a broken man. His eyes closed , the voice true and the embodiment of Marvin's soul flows out.

Then it became clear - Marvin is singing this for himself. Quite literally , in the footage, actually.

We are watching a man who's life has crashed down around his ears. But. What he still does possess, and what no one can take away is his genius. At this point it was all he had. You could say that he was lucky - to have a voice, a talent to express all of those strained emotions and manipulate them so that, in some way, they became manageable .

To be an outstanding singer it seems that you need a couple of things - the first is to have a good set of lungs. Second- make sure those vocal cords are gilded in gold. Third- great ears- know ya notes and maybe part of that is having good taste, too. This is all the obvious stuff. But , if you want to be the best, -like Piaf, Gaye, Cobain, Buckley, Etta James, the list is endless, you can't just have a good voice, make sure you have a dreadful personal life- an absent father usually and overbearing mother who thinks that you are the best thing to happen to the world since, her. And preferably be an only child. These ingredients, when mixed together, help create someone that looks like they have all the confidence in the world , but at their centre is a quivering mass of indecision and neuroses, burning and fuelling that need to be understood and loved.

I realised, frankly , that the misery is available to everyone, but you have to start with those essentials (the right set vocal chords etc) and I'll never have them. You could say, that the greater the misery, the greater the need for the the singer to want people to like them, honing their voice to perfection . It's not God given, its evolution. This was Marvin's way of surviving, although not for much longer...he was shot dead by his alcoholic , cross dressing Dad a few years later.
What a voice though...

Happy New Year Amigos!

2010-01-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

Hello!
Sorry, its been a while. I apologise to those of you who have been e-mailing to see if I'm still alive. Well, just about, after the Bacchanalia that was Christmas and New Years 2009. I'm drinking nothing but Evian and eating only fruit from now until...well probably next week, but you have to at least start the year with good intentions.
2009 was a funny old year and one that I probably won't forget too quickly. A few horrible things happened that I've written about in previous posts, but also one large and very significant thing-
I wrote a novel. A messy, first time , dyslexic, crime-y, rock and roll ramble of a novel, that made my head hurt. And that has since changed into a well ordered , crime-y, rock and roll story of doomed youth and thwarted ambition, that was, I realise now, my baptism of fire into the world of novel writing. It was a thrilling, frustrating , enlightening, scary and rewarding experience and one that I want to encounter again, sooner rather than later with a new group of characters and a new set of questions. Although , I suppose I do have to finish this one first...

Ooh, and what terrible weather we're having...thought I better mention that. Here's a nice poem about it by Robert Frost , called "Dust of Snow".

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Jon Eydmann- one of the good guys...

2009-09-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I found out on Wednesday that a good friend of mine (and former manager of my band) Jon Eydmann, died whilst on holiday in Italy with his girlfriend and her son. Jon managed my band Adventure Club for two productive years and helped steer us through the murky and treacherous waters of the record industry.

I was introduced to Jon through a music publisher friend Jonny Kyte (Kyto). We'd been sending him down demo's of our album and he reckoned it was time to move forward and get the songs released on a proper label - but only if we had a manager. Well, six months down the line we were still manager-less, then , one rainy November day I got a call from Kyto.

"I've sent your stuff to this manager I know. I think it he may like it."

At this point after several failed attempts to click with or secure a trusty manager, I was a little jaded about the whole thing.

"Oh, right,OK...Has he managed any one before?" I said.

"Remember Suede?"

"He managed Suede?"

"Yep"

"Er, OK...send away."

The next day I'm staring at my computer at work, thinking about what the hell I am doing with my life trying to release an album. It was ridiculous. Everyone we'd sent it to , apart from Kyto, just didn't get us, we were destined to be another band that never got a deal... and then my phone buzzes on my desk.

"Hi it's Jon Eydmann. Kyto sent me your album? I think its really, really great. When you playing next?"

"We don't really have a band at the moment, it's just me the singer and a drum machine."

"Like The Pet Shop Boys?" he said dead pan.

"Erm, no.More like Erasure..."

"That's alright then. " he said and chuckled.

After that gig we spoke on the phone nearly every day for about two years. Apart from reassuring us again and again that we were actually good, and we would eventually get a deal, he was full of great stories about the industry and the crazy things that pop stars get up to.

Jon's management style reflected his personality - calm , considered and patient. Everyone who had worked with him , or the many bands he'd helped along the way, I'm sure would agree that he was a rare thing in the industry- a nice bloke who actually liked music. He helped a lot of people achieve or get closer to their dreams and that is a quality which is rare and should be applauded.
Cheers Jon. You will be missed.

Oh Happy- 4

2009-08-29T02:51:00.000-07:00

Black Books- Dylan Moran being tremendously witty. Always brings a smile to my boat race.

Oh, Happy-3

2009-08-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's dumb, but it's also hilarious- Ricky Bobby just won't listen.

Oh, Happy-2

2009-08-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

I love this song and this is a rare clip of it being played live and being played well!
John Cale- Paris 1919.

Oh, Happy Day.

2009-08-09T02:28:00.000-07:00

In the next couple of weeks , while redrafting "27" , I'll be posting up clips , web sites and music, that alter my mood for the better. This is as much for my own sanity as your enjoyment, dear reader.
When I'm sick of looking at my own words I go to FFFFound! and view the eclectic collection of bizarre and beautiful images they have. Enjoy.

Thanks, Old Sport!

2009-07-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

I watched the sports results the other day. Big deal huh? It is if you've never seen them in your life.

On that particular day I was barely watching the news, it was just a wash of pictures and sound- names and events that lead to horrendous outcomes. This is what happens when you have ingested too many toxic ideas. They infect your mind and turn it into one big seething single minded organism . This organism is too greedy to let any other information in - it wants you for it s self.

The voices of the newscasters , the rhythm of their speech and the downwardly inflected words had a slow , deep, swing. Concerned, authoritative, and seemingly without bias. All the tools needed to bring you stories of tragedy and ramped up pandemic paranoia. Gradually the plangent sway left my ears. Now they were full off chirpy high tones , quick and reassuring. the name of the football clubs , players with Russia, Brazilian , and Spanish names. Tennis players from Sweden and the Czech Republic, all sounded curlicued and complex, flat constants and accented vowels all running into each other.
Like a surreal poetry- musical and diverting, I was in the room again. It had some how acted as a kind of aural antibiotic.
Saturday afternoons maybe spent a aittle differently from now on.

Feelin' just like Dylan...Thomas that is.

2009-06-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Got my first paid job as a writer last week. I'm scripting four information films for the Department of Health at Birmingham Uni. They're having a drive on recruiting people to some of the less well known areas of the National Health Service. Fancy becoming an O.D.P anyone?

I worked from recordings of people that have roles in each of the departments and tried to construct the ideal candidate for the ad. Listening to The Mental Health nurses, the Learning Disability nurses, they all do amazing jobs helping people coming to terms with their mental and physical problems. Hearing what they do on a daily basis made me feel like a selfish good for nothing waste of enzymes.

It got me thinking about other writers who were in similar situations and made me wonder how they felt. Dylan Thomas and Laurie Lee both worked for the Ministry of Information during the war, scripting films on getting people to join the home guard or becoming balloon operators.

Both contributing to the war effort, fighting the biggest most horrendous problems of their day the only way they could. If I were Dylan or Laurie , that's how I would justify my role...because that's how I'm justifying my role.

Let's think about it. Working in a hospital these days would seem to most people as good as jumping into a dustbin and licking the inside clean. The largest threat to the world is a trillionth of a millimetre in size and lurks on every surface that you can touch. Swine flu, MRSA, Avian flu... according to "those in the know" these are considered the new threats to humanity.
If this is true or not the jobs are there and need to be filled. So, it seems like we'll have to look back to those bad old days of the war and take a piece of their advice..."Keep Calm and Carry on".

Twister

2009-06-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

There is something that writers, writers creating a novel, that is, can do that scientists have been trying to achieve for years. Lean closer and I'll tell you...ready?

When a writer starts out on an idea for a novel, gets down the bare bones, the frame work , the scaffold of words, and throws them down on a page in some semblance of order, they inadvertently create , or you could say summon, a tornado

"Eh? What bollocks. "I hear you shout.

Nah, hear me out - that twister you brought into the world sucks in every bit of emotion , tiny passing thought, big ,sticky, tenacious thoughts, quirks of personality , random observations, perversion... anything in its path, up into a strange , chaotic blur of matter.

And it's not just confined to the page. It follows you- standing at the bus stop it will appear whipping up a frenzy down the road. At work gurgling and big in front of Jane from accounts desk. It flies around , following your every move sucking up what it can from your immediate surroundings.

It's bloody scary, not to say exhausting dancing about the mouth of one of those things every day, holding back from being slurped into oblivion. Over a matter of time maybe a year, maybe two, it starts to shrink , then one unquantifiable day, it vanishes. And what your left with is a mesh of broken words, and ideas picked up from the places you've been. Sentences strewn, dazed ,lolling across the page, needing urgently to be rearranged and tended to.

The tornado I created has left me now . I no longer fear oblivion and the unknown. Now the hard work starts . Now I'm cleaning up and trying to make some sense of the mess.

Conkershoes and Sandy.

2009-05-18T03:39:00.001-07:00

I try and rest from writing the novel on Sundays , writing anything really. But I found myself supping on one of those weird Sunday afternoon cocktails of existential bleakness washed down with a guilt and anxiety mixer. I couldn't justify not writing ( nothing on telly on a Sunday afternoon is there.)

So I wrote the first instalment in a collection of children's stories about a couple of characters I've had bouncing around my head for a while, called Conkershoes and Sandy. Conkershoes is Billy Conks who has been dumped at his eccentric Grandma's big house by the sea for the summer. With no other kids to play with and rubbish weather he starts reading the books on pirates and explorers that fill the shelves of his bed room. Eventually the rain clears, he looks to the bay and spy's a small pirate ship bobbing in the surf. From it jumps a boy who makes his way up the beach and knocks on Conkershoe's window. Dressed like a pirate; the boy has an eye patch, a hat with three points and a cutlass hanging from his belt. He introduces himself as Sandy and he has made it his job to pick up messages in bottles that people have thrown into the ocean for help. Then he invites Conkershoes to come with him on his magic ship and join him in his next adventure.

Having never written a kids story before it was a task I started with a little trepidation. What 's the tone of the piece going top be? Do I have to impart some kind of message to the kids? How weird can I get? These questions acted like some sticky coagulant seizing my arm up, I was unable to put pen to paper.
I thought back to my favorite kids shows and realized that logic and and causality seemed very slight considerations where the Clangers were involved. I needed to get on with the story and just let things happen. Leave reality at the door and let the subconscious take over. Gradually I felt my arm loosened and as soon as the nib touched the paper it didn't leave it for at least an hour. When it did I'd finish the story.
It was a joy to leave the murky underworld of drugs and violence for a while. it was like a holiday. In my head I'd been stuck in Birmingham in the winter of 1999 for the last year. That isn't a good place for anyone to be in for that period of time.
So, if the credit crunch it biting down big time on ya soul and you can't afford a holiday, grab a pen, some paper and take a trip into your subconscious. Its cheap, the journey is pretty short and the destination is constantly changing so you won't ever get bored. Bon Voyage!

Earthquake!

2009-05-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

Most people know of the book "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. It's that book , you know , huge , thick thing, everyone was talking about 'cause the author was mouthing off about Oprah Winfrey using it as her book club choice . The Hoo hah surrounding it brought him riches and baubles aplenty and plonked "The Corrections " in line as another contender for the "Great American Novel".

Well ,he wrote a couple of novels before that; "The Twenty Seventh City" and "Strong Motion".
Strong Motion is a particular favour of mine. For a few reasons-

I had written the first three chapters of my novel and come to a grinding holt. I couldn't see where the hell the story was going. Which meant that I didn't know my lead character enough. So I pushed the keyboard away and banged my head on the desk in frustration. This had happened before whilst forming the idea for the book, the cold steel door came slamming down in front of my inspiration, so I turned to my book case. I wanted to hear a voice that I could recognise, that would say "See, it can be done like this. Look and its good!" But non of them coo-ed that warm reassurance into my shell-like. So...I brought a load of books from Amazon on the cheap , new-ish authors and titles , classics and crime fiction ( a genre I'd never read).

When I started reading "Strong Motion" I almost gave a sigh of relief. In his story about a Seismologist and a Radio ham discovering an ecological cover up, Franzen had showed me that you can have great characters , psychological insight, good dialogue, experimentation (one chapter begins being narrated by a raccoon) and have a cracking plot.

What made it work was Franzen's confidence as a writer. I believed nearly every word (its not a master piece by any standards) and admired his ambition. It does ramble in places and I 'm sure he meant it to, but despite these little glitches I finished it with a smile on my face and experienced the feeling that great art can inspire when it touches you; you are not always alone.

Time out of Mind.

2009-04-28T05:17:00.001-07:00

Having a gander at the posts I've put up here over the last week, I realised just how many howlers there were boring away into the body of the text.
Since becoming a member of the National Academy of Writing in 2008, and keeping to a daily writing regime the silly mistakes (as my school teachers used to call them) have been occurring less and less. Dyslexia is like an accent. You can suppress it as much as you like , but sometimes it will just pop up and reveal the real you. They only way forward is to keep focused and practice, practice , practice.

It used to be something I was uncomfortable about. And I won't lie, I ain't too jolly about it now . But dyslexia , has given me a few gifts that I would never had received if I hadn't been so close to it as an adolescent. I think my mind works a little differently because of it.
When looking at a page of words your non dyslexic approaches the piece head on , word after word lining up to make a cohesive sentence. Well, for me I would hop and skip down a page, picking up the words that made sense, jump backwards and link them up to the words I didn't understand. Then and only then did the earlier, incomprehensible sentences become significant.

Now when I delve into stories and plots I harvest ideas, shuffle them, throw them in the air and watch as they fall. Before they hit the ground I grab them and make sure they land in the right place.
Dyslexia has made me look at the order of things and forced me to manipulate that order so it would make sense to me. That can only be beneficial, I should think, for any writer.
So heres to booter spolling then.

Only the good die young...

2009-04-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

Not really. This week has seen the loss of two great and , I think under appreciated British genius's . The writer J.G. Ballard ,78 and Cinematographer /Director Jack Cardiff ,94.
Both had their own unique vision and showed us the world as they saw it- but what different visions they were.
Cardiff gave the films of Powell and Pressburger (most importantly Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes,) a look all of their own. Strong colour and light flooded each frame, suppling those movies with a luminous , hyper real texture that is rarely seen in other films of that period. The themes of the stories may have been dark and tragic but they never looked it. Ballard had a hyper-real way of looking at the world too. Unlike Cardiff , there was little room for light and colour in his grey and terrifying near futures. A vision equally valid.
Both their world veiws are essential and forever preserved in the great pieces of art that they left in their wake.
R.I.P Chaps.

Ok. You have control.

2009-04-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

Did I ever tell you about the time I flew a plane? No? Well this is what happened...

“Ok, you have control”
I look at my hands. My knuckles are white. I can hardly breathe because of the heavy, hot air in the cabin. I’m gripping the control stick of the plane. The plane which I am now flying. By myself.
In front of me is the black control unit; a collection of dials, false horizons, tickers with numbers slowly rotating, pinhead sized red and green lights flashing.
They are telling me nothing. The slice of the propeller and buzz of the engine have faded away.
I look up, over the top of the control panel and out the window. Hard blue. Not a cloud insight, type of blue. The sun, large and bare, rumbling with heat. A line of sweat rolls down my forehead I want my right hand to let go of the control, to wipe it away. But it just won’t let me. I can’t see the horizon.Just the sky and the nose of the plane.
Then I saw it.
“Ken!” I bark into my head set.
I steal a quick glance to my left. Ken’s head is between his legs. Wasn’t that the crash position?
“Ken.There’s a screw coming loose on the cover of the engine. It looks like its going to shoot out its socket any minute!”
Visions of the bonnet flying off with a large tearing noise, then fire and smoke barbecuing us to a crisp, as we plummet, spiralling from the sky, gripped my mind.
He came up red faced, staring at the pen in his hand , that had rolled underneath his seat.
“Oh, that? Yes, I noticed that with the previous client. Nothing to worry about there. Perfectly safe. But I do think you should be worried about the altitude. We are gaining. We’ll be on Mars if you don’t concentrate. Remember what I said. The four finger rule! Now push the control in, slightly, and bring the nose down.”
Yes, that was it. If you place four fingers on to of the control panel the line of the horizon should fall on your index finger..
Pressing the column in, the plane slowly straightened out. I was so tense I had been pulling back on the stick and I didn’t even know it. I could now see my point of reference, the luminous green of Clee hills.
This was my first flying lesson. I wanted it to take me out of my comfort zone. And it did. It certainly did.

I was a little lost for a while. The band I was in was on a break, (our singer was having a baby) Also my previously unshakable faith in the power of music was being questioned. I felt stuck and a little scared of what was going to happen next. I just seemed to be at home most of the time reading lots of books and trying not to think about what had happened. Then I stumbled across a French writer called Antoine de St Expurey . I suppose he is mostly recognised as the author of the children’s classic “The Little Prince”. But it was the books he had written about his time as a pilot in the 1930 that mesmerised me. Tales of adventure, and descriptive passages about the act of flying opened a door to a different world that appeared in places bright and weightless, compared to the black and lumbering days I was enduring.
He depicted sublime places in the sky, man in, and against nature. He seemed to be away from, but also very much in, the world. I realised what I needed was to be very much part of the world again. There was, however the small problem of my fear of flying. But, St Expurey was my man and I wanted to experience the beauty and the exaltation that he wrote of. This was the only way to do it. It was time to face my fear.

Over the phone the receptionist at the test centre told me that there was room in the back for a passenger. I d forgot my Dad’s birthday the last year. The Christmas before that I promise to take him Go-carting, but, ill ness stuck and the idea was forgotten. This would be a great opportunity to get back in the good books. They need the weight to balance the plane apparently… I wouldn’t tell him that bit.

The “Flight Centre” is situated in a small hamlet near Kinver, Worcestershire, called Halfpenny Green. I imagined a large aircraft hanger, dotted with battle scarred spitfires and twinkling private planes. A mixture of veterans and the ridiculously rich, taking their “Birds” to Challis for Lunch then back to Blighty. Halfpenny Green, chocks away chaps….
It is, in reality, in a business park The big strip of tarmac strapped to the side of it goes by the name of Wolverhampton Airport (“It should be called Noddy Holder airport.”said a friend, half joking) .

HQ was a prefab that dated back to the 1940’s. It sat, off white and squat under the Micro lights and private rust buckets that rumbled up, into the blue above us.
We filled out forms that stated, that if we were to die, we wouldn’t sue them. The tiny waiting room had pictures on the wall of Super aircrafts, one of the wheels alone would find it hard to fit on this runway.
My instructor, Ken, was about sixty. He had bad breath, creamy white hair and a certain stillness that was of the odd rather than , calming variety . Ex –public school rang from his very soul. He wore square, tinted glasses, (the type that darkened in the sun) behind which sat his large, blue, watery eyes. There was something else about him, something that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He lead us into a tiny wood panelled room, and took me through the basics of flight with the aid of an old, red, wooden plane. I would hazard a guess that it had been made about twenty years before Ken had. And like Ken looked a little rickety and worn at the edges. He pointed at the wings, pushed the brass stick in the cockpit, lifted the whole thing and turned it around in the air. This was all said and done in a sort of, calm but hurried way with sentences that ran into each other. He had said it a million times. And he lost me. I didn’t absorb one single word. Plus, there was something still bugging me about him I couldn’t put my finger on.
Ken placed the aircraft down on the table in front of us and smiled.
“Ok. Got that? Would you like me to go over any thing? ”
“No. That’s great.”
“Right. Just going to check for clearance and we should be good to go”.
Ken left. My dad poked me in the ribs and whispered.
“Did you see his eye?”
“Yes , that’s-“
“He’s left eye. He’s got a bloody glass eye!”
Ah yes, that’s what it was. They wouldn’t let a test pilot up there teaching pupils with a glass eye? They couldn’t, surly? I’m sure he flew like a dream . I was just worried that if any thing was hurtling at full wack on our left , Old Ken would be non the wiser. Before I could change my mind he was back with clearance and we started the walk to the plane.
Previous to the lesson I had read “Wind, Sea, Sand and Stars” by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. A poet of the skies, flying was a spiritual experience for him. Coming from the first generation of flyers, an era when the technology was still relatively new, engines consistently used to break down. When this happened you were pretty much a goner. He tells of his comrades flying out over the Sahara or the Alps and never coming back. Being lost to the skies. It seems that the experience couldn’t be anything but spiritual. Death rode on your wings every day. And that sense of perspective elevated one from the squabbling masses below. Surviving the flight alone had to electrify the senses – a truly existential existence.
In an early part of the book he talks about his first mail flight to Africa (He was like a cool postman, with a death wish). He knew about the notorious flash storms and cloud banks that peppered the route. Cloud banks that concealed within them savage mountain ranges, and storms that could suck off your wings and spit you to the ground. Worried, he consulted a friend who was an old hand to the route. He told him,
“Sometimes the storms, the fog and the snow will get you down. But think of all those who have been through it before you…They did it, so can you”
Ken went through the starting procedure, talking to himself as he went. Clunking buttons, setting dials, turning whatever was in front of him. All the time I kept looking at he’s eye. Did it move then? It was hard to see behind those glasses.
The door of the cockpit closed. Head sets on. We trundled down the run way, using foot peddles to steer the plane. Ken manoeuvred us in to place and completed a final check with flight control. He powered the engine. Suddenly, the propellers flamed up. The cockpit was now like a mobile sauna. The plane started to buzz and we pelted down the runway. Then, in seconds, I sensed the weight of the earth drop beneath us. .A field, became fields, that became a tawny and green patch work, ever increasing in size. The sky was now around us, everything below became smaller. Easier to see as a whole. Ken pointed east.
“That’s Wolverhampton, over there!”
It struck me how rural a country Britain still is. Wolverhampton looked like a concrete island in an ocean of fields. As he tipped to the left and banked to the right Ken pointed to the right
“R.A F. Cosford over there.” As we flew nearer we heard ghostly, American voices invading our headsets. It was coming from the pilots in the chunky fighter planes which roared and spun above us as they flew back to base. Ironbridge was just about visible. Though, more striking was the silvery thread of the River Severn which flashed and twisted beneath it, coiling off in to the landscape.
I had relaxed. There were no goblins, running around my stomach. I was just enjoying the ride. Ken levelled the plane out.
“Ryan, if you would like to place both of your hands on the stick”
I did it automatically.
“Ok. You have control.”
And that was it. Ten minutes before, I had never flown a plane. Let a lone been in one as small as this, and now I was in control of it. And of our destiny. This was a flying lesson. I had almost forgotten that .
After the loose screw incident, I managed to keep a straight course toward the Clee Hills and its mysterious satellite tower. Then Ken suggested that I try and manoeuvre the plane round the hill. Time to steer the damm thing. This was a done by turning the stick to the direction you want to go , and when the plane was on course, turn it back to level out the flight path. My arms were still taught with anxiety. I gripped the stick and turned it slowly to the left. Then I froze. I didn’t want to turn it back. I felt that if I did I would flip the plane. It felt so precarious. And, it is, bobbing around up there with no safety net. Ken grabbed my right arm and gently pulled it down.
“You’ve got to loosen up a bit!” he said flustered. Then quietly,
“You know, on a good day, all you need to steer a plane is your index finger. Like this.Ok. Try again”

Although I did not use my finger, with a nervous laughter from my dad in the back and some encouragement from Ken, I managed to get round the hill.
“Well, that seemed quite easy for you. What about a proper turn?” Ken ask, laconically.
By a “proper turn” he meant a 360 degree circle. You have to bank it at 35 degrees and lock the position by pulling back on the stick at the same time. Whilst doing this, you have to keep an eye on the false horizon. Make sure you’re not going to too far over the 35 degree limit. Listen to Ken guiding you through, try and block out the questions to Ken streaming out the mouth of a increasingly uncomfortable Dad in the back. And also ignore the official babble of “Tango, Foxtrot, Papa’s” cracking in your ears from the flight control.
I wiped my hands, in turn, on my jeans, placed them on the stick and squeezed
“When ever you’re ready” said Ken.
Imagine being on the worlds tallest, flimsiest roller coaster in the world, hurtling round a bend at 160mph. But in this case you’re in control.
The skies where completely devoid of cloud . I wanted some to mask the view of the unforgiving land below. My Dad still wouldn't stop talking. He was nervous. and I didn't blame him. Ken kept on with the “That’s good, Keep in the hold” I just didn't want to flip the thing and end my days compressed and burnt to a crisp in a field, just out side Wolverhampton.
The plane flowed smoothly in an almost perfect arc. Then- Boom. The left wing flipped up. The stick slipped through my hands, my heart filled my throat. Ken grabbed his controls.
“Turbulence” said Ken. “You get it over hilly areas. The thermals collect in the valley and spiral up. You’ll just have to deal with them. Tricky bastards. That was just one of the many factors up here to knock you off your course. You just have to deal with them.”
So I dealt with them. Turbulence stuck at least three more times and each time I took control. I won’t say I wasn’t frightened, it was just different. I knew what to expect and just put in place the procedure that I was told. It was all I could do. And, I pulled it off pretty well. Ken seemed pleased too.
“YES! Well done!” his voice cracked distorted and lively in my ears.
Somewhere in me a valve loosened and pressure streamed out. I had steered my way through a hazard that real pilots dealt with every day. Then he asked,
“Do you want to do it again?”
I did. I did it again and went on flying to various points on the landscape for the rest of the lesson.
It was hot, uncomfortable, and for me, bowl looseningly frightening at times. But it was also a thrilling, special experience. It’s easy to take these things for granted. When we are squashed into economy, thoughts of deep veined thrombosis , kids squealing and having to eat plastic food. This isn’t flying at all. This is being ferried from A to B in the quickest time possible. It is a shared experience and you do not control it.
The main feeling I got from flying in a three man plane was a huge sense of possibility. It offers hope and a feeling of freedom that you could fly off anywhere in the world when ever you wanted (“We could fly to see the Pyramids !” I believe I said at one point). You are in control of guiding the plane to your destination.
I agree with Exupery, that,
“The machine (the plane) does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them”
It gives one a sense of perspective. A distance to view what is happening down there, to you and everyone else, literally and most importantly, mentally. It offered me a place to break away from the world for awhile. It was n’t like back in Exupery’s day, safety wise, but to me, it was just as scary. It plunged me into my problems and I came out alive and blinking the other side, exhilarated, ready to fly again.

Welcome to Language City.

2009-04-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

"What is this weirdly titled blog all about, eh Ry?"
Hum, that's the same question I'm asking ,myself as I write. Well, Language City is a great tune by a great band called Wolf Parade from their last album, "At Mount Zoomer" But that isn't enough, I know.

I've got to say I haven't really studied the lyric sheet and sat down and analysed and poured over every last word the chap wrote. For one, I know from experience that a lot of these type of lyrics don't really mean anything. Nothing wrong with that at all in my book. Bob Dylan did pretty well out of it and Stephen Malkamus to a certain extent, still does. Brian Eno has a theory I heartily agree with , that "the rock lyric", can't and shouldn't be poetry. They shouldn't try to be. He can say this cause he knows , well for one thing your average rock singer is not a poet. He would be a poet , if he wrote poetry. Lyrics have to take into account more than how they look on a page and how they sound coming from someones mouth. The most important thing for "the rock lyric" is that they fit with the meter of the song, and work with the melody. Or as I like to say, fit well in the singers mouth. One lyric in the aforementioned song that stuck in me cranium ( and fitted well into the singers mouth ) was
"Language City don't mean a thing to me."
I thought "Why?"
Was he being ironic. Most likely, Wolf Parade like messing around with twisted images and odd phrases. Or, was he taking some Wittgenstein-like stance that words ultimately mean nothing in the end. Maybe. They are white middle class Canadians after all. Then I realised I didn't care for any of these arguments- it was the phrase I loved.
I was just fascinated by the idea of a "Language City". A place made of words and phrases, slang and swearing, propaganda and polemic It set off a succession of images in my head. I wondered , were the more affluent areas in the city populated by a clutch of Henry James sentences layered into sleek white three stories? Were the houses in the red light district framed by de Sade and had walls built from porno mags speak? Was it as obvious as that? Was it a case that certain words and phrases, like "Electioneering ", "Fiscal Policy" and "Three way leather romp", would be used to build the Houses of Parliament?
"Language City" is a rich image, I concluded. A place that I could get lost in, over whelmed by. A place to experience hate , love and every other feeling under the sun. But mostly it was a place that would constantly change and a place I would have to stay in a lot longer if wanted to finish my novel and make it a good one.
It made me realise that a Language city , all be it my version , did mean a lot, to me.
If you give a shit about this, or have heard the song, know if the phrase was knicked from somewhere else, let me know.

I'll be posting stuff about "things and shit", as the Americans say, as I write my book. So there.
Speak soon Chilum'.