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I've just come back from a long weekend in my home village, and my best intentions of writing the next few parts of OHOP went by the board very early on. I'm not sure why I couldn't write in my mother's house - a little guilt perhaps for the mother character in the serial, or possibly just another case of me compartmentalising my life... I write in Hampshire, I don't in Wales. Ii did manage to sketch out the story to the 'season finale' however, and read a sizeable chunk of 'Strunk and White'.
I went home to attend the local agricultural show, always a good way to catch up with mother's family, but found that a 'Festival of the Tides' had been organised for the day before. The organisers were a couple of chaps in a folk duo who I used to jam with in one of the village pubs, so found myself thrust onto the stage and an Ovation stuck in my hands to 'fill in for a bit while the next band gets ready'... my hands aren't as clever as once they were but managed to get through three songs ('Have You Ever Seen the Rain?','That's All It Took' and 'Bright Blue Rose'.
My old friends have a rather loose idea of what 'I don't drink' means, so I managed to get falling down drunk over the course of the day, but not before I was up on stage again performing the material on which my musical reputation is founded... half a dozen 'rugby songs' - all filthy, and to my shame self-penned. It's been ten years since I last played them in public, and I was glad to get home without being lynched. I'm waiting (read dreading) them turning up on YouTube.
After that the agricultural show was a bit of an anticlimax, but I got through the day without falling off the wagon, so that's me good until Christmas. I also acquired at some point in the weekend a sun tan, which is rather remarkable.
Comments
Sounds Like You Had a Very Good Time
That's great. The writing can wait.
I'm glad the sun shone up b'there,
'cos we didn't get much down b'yer!
Angharad
Angharad
Sounds As If
You had fun, don't feel guilty about it. Heck, you just might have some fodder for some chapters of your story from the vacation.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Of Course
You will inform us when you make your U-tube debut right?
Of course
but only if it's me singing CCR or Gram Parsons, and not 'Mortuary Song' or 'Peggy the one legged wh**e'
Gram Parsons
I love the Grievous Angel duet with Emmylou Harris. Also really like the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo album (the content of which is largely attributed to Parsons). The cut of "I Am A Pilgrim" is particularly moving.
I'm not sure what to trust about him...
...if anything. He seems to have "borrowed" his most famous song, Hickory Wind, from a blind woman named Sylvia Sammons, and Sylvia had the advantage of growing up in South Carolina, whilst Gram was born and grew up in Florida. We note that the song is not called "Palmetto Wind." If he actually wrote it, he's lying about his childhood memories, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that he lied about where he found the song.
He was, after all, a junkie, and the song is stylistically very different to the rest of his repertoire, and what seems to be the real story is widely reported on the Web, especially a fairly thorough examination of the issue on Folklink, a well-respected source.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
The Weekend
Sounds like a story in its own right. You could consider publishing your rugby songs here :-)
Joanne
largely unrepeatable
Of all my rugby songs possibly only 'she used to be my father' could be presented here :)
There's a kernel of a story in the weekend however. My guilt about getting truly drunk for the first time in over two years is largely because the first beer was a toast to an absent friend. I'd known Alan for most of my life, he was only two years older than me, and his death last year was a terrible blow. He died of liver disease brought on by excessive drinking, but I was with him drink for drink throughout our twenties, as were most of us there on Saturday. We gradually dried out, but Al kept on at the same rate and it killed him.
I have many fond memories of him - we had a very similar sense of humour, though his was a tad drier - but the most significant memory is of something that happened when we were Cub Scouts. I remember him one evening mincing up and down in an exaggerated feminine manner to hilarity all around, but I was thinking 'everyone would just hit me if I acted like that'. When the crossdressing, and awareness of my sexuality began in my teens, it was one of the signposts from my childhood that showed that this was no new arrival, but something that had been an undercurrent my whole life.
I never told Al about it, we were not as close after I came out, and I always wondered if his own sexuality bothered him - he was married briefly but to an extent the whole relationship seemed to be going through the motions. I've lost quite a few friends over the years, all victims of one dangerous pursuit or another (drink, drugs, fast cars, sex etc.) but Alan's just hurt a little more.