Planet Steve

 Monday 8th May 2017

Five sessions sorted – all the handouts, load of college stuff keyed in. Just found out at teatime that tomorrow evening’s class is to be ‘observed’. It’s only my second week with this group so I’ll never remember all the names. Took me eleven hours to get through all the work. Was good to get the grass cut again. Enjoyed The Richie Allen Show – even though I don’t believe everything on there it’s always thought-provoking. Listened to some Einsturzende Neubauten this evening. Won’t be back on the desktop till Thursday lunchtime. Still drinking the lemon water. Hope I’ve got some clean clothes for tomorrow. 11.07 pm.

Tuesday 9th May 2017

The guy who observed my evening class said if he wasn’t working as an observer he’d like to join in. Don’t suppose I’ll get a better endorsement than that. His only criticism was that although stating exactly which weeks the topics and activities for individual learning objectives /outcomes would be covered, I didn’t give an initial overview of this evening’s session. I could argue that I did – I linked a request for ways to develop a regular writing routine to the journaling intro quotes and mentioned the prose A2Z and collaborative poems to finish off – but I’ll take it as a compliment; I never like to reveal too much detail in advance anyway. Does a magician tell you what to expect? Does a comedian give an overview of punch lines before launching into his routine? The second hour, after he left, was more relaxed.

On the bus home one of the locals invited me to his 25th wedding anniversary. I told him it clashes with Jenni’s birthday. He said bring her along too. I don’t even know his name. I doubt he knows mine. I’m already in bed now, having been home less than half an hour. Lydia Lunch looks menacing and Julia Eff is giving me the finger. My ears are ringing and the pen is scratchy. Enough. 

10.20 pm.

Wednesday 10th May 2017

Two very enjoyable workshops. Letters to treasured objects and Tritina poem at Saint Cuthbert’s Hospice this morning, then First Times, Kennnings and Furniture Game at Cambian Appletree this afternoon. Felt tired throughout due to waking way too early this morning, but rested on the bus to Gateshead. Had some ravioli on toast at Jen’s place. She gave me some black dye and salt to return my charcoal ‘goth’ jacket to black. Last time I tried to dye something black (a red shirt) it came out burgundy. Road closure in Consett meant the 45 from Newcastle didn’t intercept the 16 to Moorside outside Derwentside College so I had to sit in Wetherspoons for nearly an hour waiting for the next one out of the bus station. Could have walked but bag handles would have fucked my hands for tomorrow. Read a couple of Roald Dahl stories. Good at building suspense but pay-off wasn’t worth the investment of trawling so many pages. Won’t be long before light goes out. 10.27 pm.

Thursday 11th May 2017

Great characterisation session at Breathing Space in Whitton Gilbert for Colour your Life this morning. Then a little wander about the village before bus to Consett. Got the food supplies then back to base. Weather too nice to ignore, so I went out on the mountain bike down the river. The 27-speed isn’t the machine for getting over natural obstacles, despite the name ‘Rockhopper Comp’. Knees soon cursing my attempts. Did a few hill climbs then back home. Crashed out on the couch for an hour, having forgotten to put hot water on, then a bath. Lush ham salad with scrambled egg for tea around seven. Stayed downstairs watching Channel Four News. Checked out some book stuff online then watched a documentary about Hungerford Massacre. Fell asleep before the end. Gonna have a big catch-up day tomorrow. If the weather is good I might get out on the longboard for an hour. 10.27 pm.

Friday 12th May 2017

Morning Pages: Canny little ride on the 27-speed yesterday afternoon. I tried to do a bit of trials on the rocks near Shotley Bridge but the bike is a bit cumbersome and I’ve lost the confidence I had on my Zoo Pitbull over a decade ago. No bash-ring on the current chainset either, so didn’t want to wreck the big ring by clouting it off a rock. Maybe if I could ride on some pallets on an industrial estate it might help me to manoeuvre a bit better.

   My left wrist feels a bit clunky this morning - don’t want to risk a repeat of the strain I got from the lawnmower last month. Maybe the best way to get my little sporty kicks is to coast around Blackhill and Consett Park on the longboard for an hour once or twice a week and just use the bike on smooth terrain as a mode of transport.

   Just going to stay downstairs and do copy-ups on the journal this morning. I might edit some ‘2016’ or ‘Anomalies’ this evening. Was chuffed to write a couple more vignettes yesterday for the Breathing Space workshop. Things going well there. Was good that Laura from Colour your Life at Leisureworks dropped in when we were going full throttle with the Lucian Maximus group character sketch.

   Jenni went to York yesterday to see Shane Coyczan and a bunch of other great poets. Hope she had a good time.

   I want to read a bit about how inflation works. I don’t understand it and have never been able to get my head around the need for prices to rise and fall. Money is there to compensate for expenditure of physical and mental energy and an alternative to bartering. Natural resources are there regardless of money. You can’t eat a two pound coin. You can’t eat a gold bar. Gold is used in electronics – and medicine, apparently – but primarily in jewellery. And you can’t eat jewellery. Diamonds are valuable because they’re rare. Siamese twins are rare too but do we use them as bartering chips?

   Money is an idea. Why are people homeless and starving? Don’t say there’s no money. If war broke out tomorrow arms sales would sky rocket. Corbyn’s manifesto – fairytales, according to the Daily Mail and other right wing rags. ‘Who’s gonna pay for it? We’d have to borrow billions.’ From whom? The fucking banks, of course! And all they need do is type numbers into a computer. The physical money doesn’t exist and never did. The monetary system is just that – a system.

   I want to know how inflation works. I want to understand this economic bullshit to see why we’re all slaves to it. I want to know who came up with it and who really benefits from it.

   Cars can lose up to a quarter of their value the moment they are driven off the garage forecourt. Why? Mountains of butter. Why? Wonky carrots thrown in the trash. Why? Billions spent on weapons so horrendous that people pray they’ll never be used. Google ‘depleted uranium birth defects’ and be prepared for stomach churning horrendous images. Warheads packed with the stuff. Why? What a fucked up world we live in. Why? No wonder some people don’t want to engage with all the rules and rituals and lifelong traditions.

   Fuck tradition! Fuck the system! The system stinks.

   Do I have an alternative? No.

   Do I benefit from the system? Definitely.

   This is why I try not to publicly spout about politics. I’m not qualified to fix it. Wouldn’t want the job of fixing it. I get annoyed and outraged by social injustice, but am just as selfish as countless others. Do I want to go out and do dirty mind-numbing work rather than employment related to my chosen field of interest? Hell, no! Thirteen years of the former put me in a psychiatric unit, diagnosed as bi-polar and robbed me of my high functioning short term memory.

   I’m selfish. I want my own thing. Greedy. I want all the time in the world. I want the energy and ability – the balance and agility – of a twenty-something, but as few responsibilities as possible.

   A big kid getting bigger by the year. I need to watch my food intake and news intake. I need to chill out and enjoy a pause in the action. I need to take stock and recognize the satisfaction gained from personal creativity. Acknowledge the contributions of others.

   Today is Friday. I don’t have to be anywhere.

   I’m taking it easy. 9.00 am.

Love having Fridays at home. Not even setting foot over the doorstep. On my android tablet a lot today. Read a story by Thomas Morris online. Read poems by Chris Raetschus and Keith Parker – both signed pamphlets arrived from Red Squirrel Press this morning. Been reading stuff on the upcoming election. Watched news after cyber attack affecting NHS and others. Listened to music by The Mission, Toyah, The Jesus and Mary Chain whilst copying up stray journal entries from the last couple of months. Hate having gaps in the big journal. Been trying to eat healthy but succumbed to crisps and dark chocolate. Still having the salad main meals and drinking lemon-infused tap water at home. Three jugs per lemon. Five lemons for 50p. Not bad. Might read a bit more stuff in bed. Haven’t had the desktop computer on today. Chuffed. 10.30 pm.

Saturday 13th May 2017

Morning Pages: Almost got sucked into a big Facebook thread. I’m sick of all these people asking where the money is going to come from. Where does it always come from? Government borrowing from banks that create money out of thin air and charge astronomical interest without creating the money required to pay the interest so it becomes a perpetual debt-making system. If no-one was in debt, the bigwigs would have no pulling power.

   I appreciate there needs to be some sort of system because some humans, myself included, are innately lazy and would just sit eating and drinking and watching crap on TV if there wasn’t a motivation to get out the house. But that doesn’t mean those incapable of buying into the system, for whatever reason, should starve to death or be vilified as scroungers.

   I worked in a blue collar environment for over a decade. Most of the time I couldn’t give a toss if colleagues went on a go-slow or hid in the toilet and smoked tabs. I was only capable of doing so much and if the rest of it didn’t get done, so be it. So long as I thought about my tasks and kept busy I didn’t care if it all turned to shit. No resentment. I fully understand not wanting to flog yourself to death. But some people are slaves without ever realising it. I’ve never understood being proud of toiling for a pittance to make someone else rich, and I never will.

   The system is one of hierarchy and is designed to keep the majority ignorant and running around as minions for the rich and powerful. These rich and powerful ones – they piss and shit just like the rest of us. And in twenty, thirty, forty – or however many years down the line – they’re all going to die, just like the rest of us. They can’t take their wealth with them. Just look at the pyramids: opened up for the first time and all the opulence still there, along with boxes of vacant skin and bones in bandages. No-one can prove irrefutably what happens to the human spirit after death. Are these power-mad greedy bastards more scared of their own demise than the rest of us?

   Rule the world and keep the little people in their place. Why? Fear, arrogance or perverse sadistic pleasure in pressing a boot down on someone’s face?

   Of course, there are some ultra-rich individuals who do wonderfully community-spirited things with their wealth. But a certain shower of cunts has no such altruistic desire. And a socialist like Corbyn is anathema to their sense of superiority and entitlement. Have your fucking billions. I don’t care how rich you are. Just don’t use your position to persecute those who weren’t so lucky to get a slice of the pie. Coz a lot of it is luck – whether that is being born into the right family, being in the right place at the right time or meeting the right people. I’ve known lots of people who’ve worked their socks off, week in-week out, and are still poor as church mice. Don’t be under the illusion that all wealth and success is down to hard work because probably, in a lot of cases, it fucking isn’t.

   I’m lucky. I’m lying in bed on a Saturday morning, scribbling naivety that I’m probably too chicken-shit to share on Facebook, while some poor sod is either waking up in rags in a stinking alley somewhere or putting in an extra crippling shift at the furnace to put food on the family table.

   I could have posted all this on a number of social media threads this morning, but chose to rant into a personal notebook instead. If you’re reading this I must have decided to share it in my little self-indulgent blog post – edited, of course.

   The weekend is here. Today will be another work day for me. Typing up. Preliminary planning for next week’s writing workshops. Maybe even getting a rare session on my own book.

   Before long there may be students giving me works in progress requiring comments, and my so-called creativity will go to the back of the queue again. But so what? There’s always the summer.

   Oh well, porridge time now. 8.55 am.

Went out for food and paper this afternoon. Surprised to see an Alice Hoffman hardback in Poundland. Didn’t buy it. Too much to read already. Been watching clips of Rollins Band from 2001. And some great Martyn Ashton videos: amazing positive mental attitude from the paralyzed biketrial legend – still getting to ride downhill courses on a modified mountain bike. I had a good tuna salad for tea then some pineapple. Checked out a bald Joan Jett in the Rocky Horror Show. 11.38 pm.

Sunday 14th May 2017

Up early. Bath. Made a new morning pages notebook. Keyed in student papers. Listened to The Richie Allen show. Then off to Jen’s place. Twanged my left ankle outside Tesco. Jenni made me a nice tea with steak pie, baked potato, steamed broccoli and mushrooms. Watched Auf Wiedersehen Pet and a load of dodgy game show disasters. 10.12 pm.