Worrying Sniffles in the Light of Bob

Gotta cold and feeling kinda stuffed up at the moment. Dunno where the cold has come from. Used to be that I could go for years without feeling anything wrong. Those days seem to have gone. Now things come along and for one or two days I can be a little under the I don't know what apart from the fact that I'm not quite there. Not quite 100%, firing on all cylinders. Age, what else can it be? Taking a coupla stumbles as life goes on. Another indication that no one lives forever, including moi. Snuffy nose, blocked up head, sore throat, dry as a bone when I wake up, those are the kinda symptoms I am having to live with more and more. Just happens to be the last thing I need at the moment what with my Bob shows just around the corner...

Coupla days further down the road now from the above para and I've got the first of the Bob shows under my belt - Camden Roundhouse and I gotta say I enjoyed it in ways I didn't necessarily expect. He's a mad man is Bob, riding the keyboard in way that belongs to a different century, riding the keyboard in a wah wah state of bliss... The times when he hit the swish button of ecstasy (Like a Rolling Stone, check it out) were the times when he was at his most surreal and most compelling. And as usual he is still the ultimate shape shifter.

Got there early and queued a long time so as to be at the front but halfway through the show I had to bail out and get a beer 'coz I was feeling whoozy from my bolt from the blue little cold as described above. Made the tactical decision to rereat to the sidelines and it worked - downed a cold pint of Old Speckled Hen and took in Bob from a distance whilst getting myself back together. Needed to do that or else I might have suffered the ignominy of keeling over, except I wouldn't have keeled of course because everyone was so tightly packed together. Good decision ain't no doubt about that as it allowed me to take in the Roundhouse surroundings which were pillared and all rather woody above. When you're near the front you have the advantage of a good sight of Bob and the boys but ya can feel like a bhuoy bobbing up and down on the waves of the sea, with not much of a clue as to what is going on behind you.

Great show - great, great, great. Reviews have been mixed from what I have read so far but whaddha those Mogg Pandys know about it anyway???? So concerned with what is coming up over their shoulders that they just don't know the inbetween resonance that comes to showtime...in other words, the power of Bob when it comes to his numbers. Cardiff tomorrow, first listen of his new CD Together Through Life tonite. When life is good even the drizzle outside Barking Tescos on a Monday morning can be shadow permeated, wildly beautiful, and no I ain't mad.

In the Raw

This is written on the hoof, in the raw, at the moment so to speak. Not much gonna be going on in the way of editing. Bit like the new Bob Dylan album Together Through Life, due out Mon and written by all accounts on the hop, between tours, on the road, as ever on the Never Ever... Already me dosh is burnin' a hole in me pocket, just can't wait to get my hands on the CD come Mon, no downloads for me, when it comes to that I'm a Mogg Pandy of the old school I'm afraid. Gonna be seeing Bob on Sun as well, and Tue again for that matter. Sun is the big one, Camden Roundhouse in London Town, massive demand for tix but somehow the gods were smilin' on me and I managed to nab one after approx 1.40 mins of web hell a coupla weeks ago. Wasn't really hell, wasnae expecting anything less if I speak the god's honest. Always knew it was gonna be a helluva scrum. Tue is Cardiff. Back down to Wales, an' it will be the 5th time I've seen Bob there an' I dunno what to expect from that - could be one of his best could be one of his worst. Yeah, I've seen it all at the CIA. Da thing is Cardiff crowds usually tend to be well boozed up by the time Bob hits the stage an' if you're in the wrong part of the mob things can get decidedly tricky. Plus point of all this is if Bob is "singing his song" then the Welsh all merge as one into a Sing Song Dragon an' that can be kinda wonnerful.

Dream Scent

Going through a phase of sleep with dreams that I can't remember. Nuthin' fancy about that, nuthin' outta the ordinary. Dreams are all about feeling, it's the feeling of dreams that is important. Content comes and goes, most of it clearly related to what goes on when awake. Behind the pictures, the funky clouds and spooky voices, it is the scent of a dream which lingers. For days the scent of dreams can remain the same...before it changes. Just so happens that at the moment there is no scent at all, or at least no scent that I'm aware of. Just a sense of descending into grey when I hit the sack and drift away, vaguely aware of a ticking clock that I can't quite bring fully into view. It will change though, it always does.

From the Realm of 'Oody Thinka

'Oody Thinka goes when 'e sees an old lady crossing the road -

BAGGY BOO BAGGY BOO
BAGGY WAGGY BAGGY BOO!

Preservation and the Quest for Light

Late night, so called fag end of the day. This is the time when I usually hit the hay. All energy used up, thoughts churning rather than running through my head at this stage, making me feel it would be better to crash, then wake up fresh and be ready to go again, ready to spin the wheel on the eternal quest for the source of inner sunshine. It used to be the case many years ago that the night time was the right time to get what seemed like the important things done. The time when things would come alive and those early hours were the only place to be. Not so anymore, those days have long since disappeared, into the fog of personal history, half remembered sometimes like broken pieces of wood drifting onto shore. Now I simply try to conserve whatever I have which, quite frankly, isn't that much anyway; but whatever it is I know I'm gonna need it when I try once more to step back into the light.

WORRY WORDS

KEEP THINKING
ABOUT WRITING SOMETHING
BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE
...FACE IN THE MIRROR IS A CAUSE OF FRIGHT.
THE BLANK LOOK I HAVE
AS I STARE AT THE PAGE
OR AT THE COMPUTER SCREEN
IS ALL TOO FAMILIAR.

Understanding

It can creep up on you...the uncomfortable feeling that it is all going down the tubes.

Just write something, just write anything. What is it that I want to say? Is it just the need to justify my life? Make some explanation as to how things have got to where they have, in the hope that it is understandable? Well, of course it is understandable, in an incredibly complicated but boring kind of way.

"Let the years roll by, face the consequences if you can, but for god's be careful with that axe in your genes."

47 today.