Fri afternoon, nearly 2pm. Bright day, bright sunlight, fast moving clouds across a blue sky. Feelin' tired. Woke up early this mornin' an' I don't know why. Didn't get to bed till gone 12 but even so just after 5 I was lying there in the darkness wide awake. Wasn't long before I was poddin' it. Clicking through the trax I had put down on my latest playlist - Easies IV. Yeah, you've guessed it, the 4th volume of my easy listenin' playlist collection. A collection which has the potential to go on and on and on. Did that for 40 mins or so an' they just lay there in the early mornin' for another 20 before I got up. Mental excitement, that is what it is, must be...or something like that.
Tiredness I'm feelin' may have something to do with the fact it has been a pretty stressful week at work, at Wisdom Books. Met with the landlords yesterday with regard to the boiler, a subject that has been covered in the previous post Boiler Blues from earlier in Feb. Anyway the situation now is, I hope, a little more positive, possibly, although it depends on quite a few things falling in our favour. Basically the bottom line is that I am now thinking about takin' up the landlords originally horrific sounding quote of £14,000 and the reason is that they said yesterday they would be prepared to offer payment terms on the figure, in other words they would let us pay it all back gradually, over time, and hopefully a long, long time. On top of that there was also the possibility offered of tying in the boiler work with an extension of the lease. As it stands the current lease is due to expire Sept 2009. All this is positive. At least it is better than the guns at dawn scenario it appeared to be not so long ago. When I felt certain we were all headin' for a big confrontation with lawyers and all that shit, all the grief.
If we can get a reasonable indication as to what the rent is going to be when this lease lapses then it might swing things in the right direction as far the boiler is concerned. As long the proposed new rent is affordable. So I guess it is cross ya fingers time. Well, cross ya fingers if you're me; apart from a very small number of other people it is of no concern to any other living soul of course. Who's gonna really give a shit about worries like this if you ain't the person mullin' over them? And that's OK, don't get me wrong. I have hardly wasted much energy in my life worrying about other peoples' problems have I?
Anyway, here's hoping it all works out boom tinker. You see if we knew we were gonna stay for another 5 years minimum after the expiration of the current lease in a coupla years time it would put a whole new complexion on forking out 14 grand for the new heating system. Point is that at least then we would be gettin' a good few years use out of it. Far better that than just forking out all the dosh an' then having to leave the leave gaff in just over 2 years anyway. That would be the sucker punch. The killer tom-a-toe. Well, so, anyway, it was Maria the landlord's daughter who came round to talk it through with us and by the end of our talk I was cautiously optimistic we were both coming from the same direction as to what was gonna best for the future.
Fact of the matter is that we both know it will be better, much better, if it is the landlord himself who comes in and does the work involved in putting in a new boiler and heating system. If we don't use him and go for one of the other quotes, get someone in from outside, we know there is going to be the constant pressure of worrying over whether the work they do will come up to the standards required by the landlord in order for him not to turn round and say when it is all done that the work does not comply with the terms of the lease. Then we might find ourselves in deep fuckin' shit. So, in terms of the boiler and the blues that go with it, the best case scenario is this -
Landlord comes back with an attractive figure as to what the rent might be when current lease expires in 2009.
We also have the option to sub-let a part of the building if it looks like things are going to be tight as far as the new rent figure is concerned.
We go ahead and let the landlord carry out the boiler and heating works for the agreed 14 grand. We pay up front whatever amount they need to buy materials. We pay for the rest of the materials upon completion. Then we pay for his time and labour over a period of time in the future. Stretching the payments out for us so that they don't feel too painful.
If we can get to this point in the whole dirty doggin' deal we will have done well. Not only that, the fact that the landlord lives next door means that he can have keys to the building and come in and do the work whenever he wants. He can take the whole boogerin' summer over it, gettin' it right, that is nay problem for us as far as we are concerned. I'm sure they will be happy with this situation. Easy, easy, working an' livin' in style. No pressure from mouthy, uppity tenants sayin' do this do that or else we aint gonna pay no rent. No nuthin' like that.
Hope, hopes , hopes. I'm blind of course to the indisputable law that problems come along no matter which way the land lies. By that I mean I'm buying into the illusion that if this current issue over the boiler is resolved to every one's satisfaction then everything else will be just fine. Well actually life don't work like that. You get over one set of hurdles only to see them replaced by another bunch of problems that you then think are powerful enough to knock you over and leave you prone in the middle of the fuckin' road as if ya ticker just went pop. You know you just can't win in this game of life but addictions to the picture of a happy ending are just too strong to give up.
That is definitely my problem. All I want is to get this out of the way because I'm convinced that it will be the end of all problems once it is resolved. Then we can all sail off into the red sunset. All I'm doing by having that kind of fantasy picture is escaping from the process, or not paying attention to the process of working things through, of being open and working through the pain. The fact is things have to be worked through slowly and thoroughly if you are ever going to stand any chance of them not repeating themselves in such a way as to cause you grief.
Story of my life I guess. Do a similar kind of thing when it comes to feeding my addiction to music an' going out and buying CDs, wasting all my money. All that hard earned dosh. Always in the back of my head is the hopeless thought that this is going to be the end of the matter; as long as I'm allowed to buy this final CD that will be the missing piece in the jigsaw. The missing piece I have been searching for all these years to make the picture complete. Don't work like, it just don't work like that! But still I can't give up on the illusion that it will.
Just got to get it into my nut that it is a deluded state of mind, conjuring new enemies, new things to fret about. Just got to train my self to relate to such things in a different way. Still after all these years my overriding desire when problems appear is to move hell and high water just to get rid of them. Clean them away, wipe 'em clean. That in my mind is the solution. But it aint like that, just aint like that. Better to learn to live with them, to live and love them for what they are. Lessons of life, chinks of experience, stuff to watch as it passes and not be frightened. Problem for me in that regard however is that I'm a lifelong coward and I always want push things away that I don't feel comfortable with, either in a mental way or a physical way.
Thought about something the other day which happened in what is now the dim and distant way beyond. When I was in my early 20s living in Cardiff. After Uni, back in the early 80's this is. Thatcher's Britain. Fresh out of college and had never thought once whilst I was there about what kind of career I was gonna pursue when it was over. Then when it was over there I was with a degree but no job and no chance of getting one because I simply didn't have a clue about what it was that I wanted to do. Anyway I went to college in Swansea a nice enough coastal town on the coast in South Wales. When my course was over I drifted back up to Cardiff and ended up renting a place in Grangetown, a run down part of the city close to the docks. Corporation Road. On the edges of Tiger Bay. Shared a corner house with some ex-college students one of whom I was terrified of when he got drunk and turned psychotic which was fairly often.
Think I digress, or well not really digress just givin' ya some background information which ya may or may be interested in hearing about. So there I am in Cardiff livin' the life back in '84. Livin' the sinful life, lots of dope smoking that's for sure...an' shit like that. One day I was walkin' down Corporation Road and I remember it was a grey, cold and cloudy day, the kind of day which Cardiff seemed to specialise in back then. A tall bearded guy walked past me on the pavement and spat in my face! Couldn't believe it! Thing was I didn't chase after him or anything like that, in fact I think I just stood there and wiped the spit from my face before carrying on my way, going to wherever I was going. Probably into to town to hang round a record shop or something useful like that.
Thinking about it now (and I don't know why it came along back into my mind after all this time, but I think it might have had something to do with the stress I have been feeling recently over the boiler at work). Anyway the point that I found depressing when I remembered it the other day is that this guy who passed me and spat in my face must have seen me coming a good few yards away, and he must have thought to himself that I was the kind of guy who he would be able to spit in the face and not get much in the way of come back. And of course he was absolutely right! I didn't even say anything to him, let alone try to confront in any kind of physical way and sock him in the face for doing such a damn disgusting fuckin' thing. He must have thought he could get away with it, otherwise if he knew there might have been serious consequences from messing with a guy like me he would never have fuckin' done it but as it was he knew he was going to be able to do it and not get too much in the way of comeback.
It depressed me to see it in those terms. What did it say about me? In fact what does say it still say about me because how much of my essential nature will have changed since then? Very little I suspect. At the time I think I put it down to to the fact that this guy must have clearly been in some kind of mental pain to go and spit in a stranger's face, but now maybe after all these years I see it a little differently. Back then I just focused on him and what I perceived to be some kind of mental turmoil on his part. I was incapable of taking on board the fact that in whatever way I also had a part to play in the situation and the part was one of a victim and a coward.
A victim of a spit in the face and a coward to bear the disgrace of not standing up and doing anything about it. I didn't have the guts to make it known to this guy that what he had done was just plain wrong; completely and utterly unacceptable and that I for one would not tolerate that kind of behaviour. No, I didn't manage to do any of that and well, hell, I guess the episode was a snapshot of the way I have handled other similar kind of things such as that over the course of my years livin' on this planet. Depressing, that was how I found it when I went through things the other day. Even when I'm dead it won't end, this cowardly kind of behaviour. It only change into something else that for all intents and purposes will be completely unrecognisable but unfortunately just as true.
Yeah, fact of the matter was that as far as this guy was concerned I looked the kind of person too chicken to react to him and his action of spitting in my face. What kind of lesson is that? For me and for him? If I had tried to hit him maybe it would have knocked some sense into him but at the time that option was simply out of the question for the simple reason I was scared he would have hit me back. The guy was too big and looked just a little too crazy for me to try take on in any kind of physical way. So the whole thing just passed like that. It is more the fact that his feeling, his gut feeling, when he saw me coming was that he could get away with it and nothing that I did ended up showing him that he was wrong. That probably meant that he would have picked on another another sucker like me at a later date...with no kind of hint that it would lead to any kind of unfortunate consequences for him. Well, maybe the next guy that he met on his path through this world was a little but braver than this one and was able to administer to him a damn good kicking. Memories eh, what are we to do with them?
Weather has clouded over now, nearly 4pm. Want to go out but as a favour for my neighbour I said I would wait in with the key to his house to give to his brother who is due to arrive anytime soon. Yeah, when Tim called last night I was only too happy to help. Ain't much I do in my life to help others so any chance I get I take it as long as I think it is in the realms of possibility to carry out. Still, all the same, it would be good if Tim's brother gets back soon as I have stuff to do.
Originally I had wanted to go into town and pick up a coupla CDs from the HMV Meg in Oxford St. Got my eyes on a couple of Japanese import reissues of mid-70s Doobie Brothers classics, namely Captain and Me and Stampede. A couple of weeks ago I bought a copy of What Were Once Vices are Now Habits in the same series. They are all available for the extremely reasonable price of £10 each which, believe me is a bargain. They are simply beautiful CD editions with fully restored artwork and of course re-mastered sound, the attention to detail is impressive and if the intention is to bring back memories of what it was like to buy the vinyl editions when they came out in the '70s then there is no doubt that they have succeeded gloriously.
Of course nearly all the liner notes are in Japanese but that don't matter. The music is classic Doobies right from bang in the middle of their golden days. When I get my hands on these two that will be it as far as the Doobies are concerned. I will have enough of their stuff to put a pretty decent playlist of together which will go by the name of the Dooberator. Great group the Doobies, much derided by critics and all those who think they have exclusive rights on all that is cool. In fact they were not really that fashionable when they were at the height of their success as far as the UK is concerned so now they are almost completely forgotten.
Sat now, cloudy but bright. Absolutely slashed it down last night when I had to go over to Heathrow at 9pm to meet Tamdin at Terminal One coming back from Malaga. Not good driving in the poundin' rain when you feel like you have to hurry. Accident time. Anyway by the time I had picked her up and got back on the M25 eastbound to Woodford it had more or less cleared up. Neverthless didn't get home till just before midnight and by that point I have to tell ya I was feelin' absolutely shattered. All caught up with me. Didn't take long for me to lay my head upon the pillow and crash into a deep sleep. Got up this morning at 8.30 which is kind of late for me I guess but I feel better for it. Way to go. Back to the action and I'm lovin' it.
Think I'll quickly whizz into town tomorrow and pick up those CDs I was taking about in the paragraph above. Yeah, the 2 Doobies plus I think it might be good to get that JJ Cale anthology which was on special offer in HMV the other week. £8.99 for a double which is hard to beat. Hope it is still there. Also think I might pick up a couple more cheap ones by The Boss. Got my eye on Tunnel of Love and maybe even Human Touch or Lucky Town, all of those are usually available at around a Fiver these days. Then finally I might take a deep breath and get the Eagles' Greatest Hits on double CD which has also been around at well under a tenner in good ole HMV. Yeah I know the Eagles are not cool in any way , shape or form (bit like the Doobies only a lot, lot richer) but I have to admit to liking a good number of the their songs and they sound great when stuck in the Easies playlists. So there ya go, that's my plan fro tomorrow.
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