Society’s glue bag smothers – 23rd August 1994

August 23, 1994January 4, 2024 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The alarm goes off every three minutes, this morning we listen to it for an hour. Broni eventually getting out after a quick roll around and as she spreads the curtains open I simultaneously hide my head under the pillow to block out the light and go back in search of the Sandman. I play in my dreams for a half-hour or so til I stir to the smell of coffee, I sit up in bed and watch Broni get dressed. Soon she’s whirlwinded off for her last day before a week off and I sip my coffee and read another chapter of Burroughs. I don’t have half a clue as to what’s going on in the book but it’s strangely addictive. Each paragraph or sentence provides vivid imagery for the mind to play with and the story kind of develops in a series of snapshots. Unusual.

I’m disappointed this morning that the sun isn’t shining and as I write, now afternoon, it’s only just starting to peek through the clouds. With plenty to do, I ride on up to the post office, over the small park that is surrounded by busy roads, to be honest, this park offers no peace from the bustle and taking a picnic there would be ludicrous.

Next, down to the bank to deposit more money and I dodge in and out of the traffic, jumping on and off the pavement to avoid parked cars, needless to say, I make it down into town as quick as any of the cars.

The slight drizzle obscures my sight through my glasses but it’s neither cold nor really that wet. Back across Poole Park, now empty of tourists, the place looks tragic, reliant on sunshine for business, England’s tragedy (or maybe saving grace).

Back home Broni rings to tell me that our tickets are ready for collection at the travel agent. Back in town. Without complaint I, this time, just walk back through the park. A few more people now as the rain moves on, but no one out on the boats yet. I imagine rolling out into the middle of water and just floating, free. Read a book, read it aloud so the sky can hear.

On Sunday when Broni, Rob and myself came through the park we saw in the distance some kites in the sky, except one didn’t have the normal kite shape and from where we were stood it looked to me like someone had ripped a hole in the sky and the more I looked at it the more real it seemed. I was expecting time travellers to fall through the rip and bring us news of the future, but shit, it probably wouldn’t be great news would it? Or maybe they would tell us of a new life, a separate existence where things are good in people did coexist happily. I guess that theory is just a bit harder to imagine. See how poisoned our minds are by today’s bullshit. I can see it and I hope everyone else can but I think I probably credit people with too much intelligence. Still, the people I have time for are those that can see it (should I make time for the others?).

So I picked up the tickets and read a few magazines and pondered whether it was worth buying a huge box of chocolates, opting not to in the end when realising what other things you can buy for the same price. Our groceries for a week cost less than the box, but hell they also cost less than a bottle of good wine!

Back across the park, now warmer and brighter and therefore busier. I rode over the other side of the lake yesterday looking for good shots with the video and beautiful though the park is, from that angle the park is dwarfed by the high-rise blocks of the hospital and the nursing home and a million other buildings towering over the trees. Of course, on that side where most of the people gather you’re looking the other way, over the railway line and out into the harbour. And today as I walk over I suck back and choke on leaded octane sputtering out from some tourists car. Can’t someone come up with a better way to travel? And then try to sell it to the English public, hah! And back home the trains still roll by.

Hope is such a desperate emotion to cling to. But I wonder if there is any hope for the future. Not for my future, I have clear ideas about my future. For the future of the world? How long before God puts an end to the insanity rife in mankind? Armageddon is promised by most religions – can you say you will survive the cleansing?

Are you good at heart? Do you believe in yourself? Why do I ask?

Two men kidnap a 15-year-old female German student, drive her at knifepoint to an industrial estate where they both rape her, knife to the throat. You know the story, we’ve all heard it. It makes me hate. It makes me hate being a man, male, macho. I want to reject my sex. I want to cut the dicks of every one of those scumfuck rapists and molesters, tear out their burning eyes and wrench out their perverted thoughts, suck out their chemical imbalance, and I don’t want to see them in jail – I want them dead.

I want women to rule the world, no woman thinks with a dick. It seems like no hope for the future, will the rapists, the robbers, the killers, the connivers rule the world? I think they already do, the rule of fear, born in the 20th century. Armageddon seems appropriate.

What strength we need now, to show our children a better way. We all think we know best and sometimes you should listen to that advice your enemy might be giving you. They may have a point. What strength then to shoulder criticism. What insight to point our way towards the light. We can do it. We know we can, we’ve been programmed to forget how. Mickey Mouse told you to forget, Coca-Cola too. Now is the time to remember.

The Hope Conspiracy

If hope was a bottled tonic
It would be made illegal
“Got any hope, mate?”
Someone would be making a tidy sum
Selling it on street corners
To consumers ready to buy
In need of that fix to get high
And soon people would be stealing
Off each other, smashing piggy banks
For every last cent
Just to get some hope
Killing each other in the queue
Lining up for another fix of hope
Hope – sinister
Hope – deadly
Hope – death

My time held dreams were full of you – 22nd August 1994

August 22, 1994January 4, 2024 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

For some reason, on Friday we felt in celebratory mood and blew the expense. I tailed it down to the bottle shop and picked us up a bottle of Seaview sparkling wine and a bottle of Wolf Blass Chardonnay, a beautiful tasting dry white wine, oak and butterscotch flavour with no bite at all and anyone who says wine has got to have a bite should try this stuff.

We ate and drank and because of our usual rush we polished off the Seaview before 7 o’clock so ran up to the shop and picked up a couple of videos to watch, content we were on a pleasant night in. So we proceeded to finish off the Wolf Blass during the first movie which I don’t recall its name or even what it was about but in my dim memory, I do remember it being good, entertainment-wise.

I made us a smoke while Broni talked to David on the phone, how she managed to be coherent she has no idea! She was very drunk and was also sick soon after getting off the phone, but she convinced me she was okay and we had a smoke and sat down to watch the next film, which I do remember was Jacob’s Ladder. Unfortunately, we had to cut short as Broni sicked up all the lovely food we’d eaten into her clean white dress!

I put her to bed and watched some more of the movie but was worried some that my little girl might stop breathing in her sleep, smoking paranoia, so jumped in bed beside her and put my hand on her chest so’s I could feel her breathing. In my paranoia, I lay awake for an hour or so, my mind racing at the size of my situation, and the immense task ahead in the following 12 weeks or so. These thoughts hit me at odd moments, surprisingly not too often, I don’t seem to be too worried at all. In fact, I think it will be when I get there things might take on a different outlook. Like for the first three or four months, things will still be new and vital and fresh but then your normal humdrum existence routine might take over and it’s then I’ll start thinking about home and my friends (while I’m here I’ve been calling Oz home!) Anyway, too fucking late by then, hey!?

Saturday day time slips us by with us just buying some shorts to wear in Rhodes. Fuck, I can’t believe we’re going there. I couldn’t have foreseen such great adventure a couple of years ago that’s for sure. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been on a holiday of this sort (to Rhodes). I’ve only ever been out of this country for about a week before, back in 1989 I think it was when the band went on tour into Holland and Belgium. Still, that’s the madness of the age, reckon?

Gradually people started turning up at the house for our planned Indian meal out, so it was, all the record fair crew turned up, Simon, Rich, Baz, Gaz, Mark, Roger and Adelaide and soon after Rob too. Excellent – everyone as expected, it really fills me that these people, who some I don’t really know that well, make the effort to come and see me before I leave, I should say ‘we’ and ‘us’ there because they come to see Broni too. In fact, I must apologise to her now if she may feel left out of this diary in my writings, we’re really a unit and where I may write ‘I’ and ‘me’, you can be fairly certain I mean ‘us’ and ‘we’. Do you feel how bloody brilliant she makes me feel, do you recognise that feeling? No amount of petty squabbles dim my love for her.

Well, Gaz and particularly Baz were on rocking hot form tonight and had us choking on our food while we ate, with their jokes and comedy routines. Every little thing you said was turned into a joke of some sort, we laughed til our sides were aching. And time passed us so quickly again that we only had time for one drink in the pub before we had to make our way back and we all crammed into the front room and continued with the jokes and coffees until the early hours, listening to Django Reinhardt much to Baz’s dismay! Very relaxing and therapeutic.

All the guys had gone except Rob who woke us up with breakfast and then fed, we walked down through the park to watch people lazying away their Sundays walking dogs, flying kites and taking in the sun. There’s been some powerboat racing around the harbour and also out on the sea over to the Isle of Wight. We fed up again in the Jolly Sailor, ambling slowly back to the park where we endangered ourselves with more fun by hiring out a row boat and rode ourselves into the night. No, not really. We rowed over to the other side to catch the cygnets and then back around everywhere, like Rob says, covering every inch of water.

Sunday is a fun day on our agenda, me and Broni feel like we’re on permanent holiday. Rob leaves us to go and practice with Fatty. They’re writing some songs together which sound good from what Rob’s told me. I’ve also told Rob not to get involved in any gossip Fatty might indulge in, didn’t explain that very well but the idea is that Rob doesn’t get emotionally involved in any bullshit between me and Fatty. I told Rob that it’s not my problem, which I truly believe, and as far as I’m concerned if he wanted to be friends now that’s no problem with me but apparently Fatty still has some bee in his bonnet that I can’t be forgiven for and some of the things I have heard are plain ridiculous. If I told you it all you’d think it was real school playground stuff. All I need to say is that the guy’s not very forgiving (for whatever it is I’ve done cos I still don’t know!)

Me and Broni laxed out the rest of the night, oh, actually we went up to the movies and saw The Mask which was great entertainment, with excellent animation and reasonable story too.

Ah, Monday morning, just me and Django and my imagination, life’s soooooo good!

How do you hide from something you have found? – 14th June 1994

June 14, 1994January 3, 2024 ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Ah, Sweet summer days are here upon us. And I have the summer madness.

Broni said she was reminded of Australia when she woke up this morning to bright beaming sunshine. She even managed to raise her slender elegance out of bed before I left for work. And by some conniving I’ve managed to get the driving job for the two weeks our driver is off – so this morning I loaded up quickly and by 9 o’clock (Now) I’m sat in the hotness of the morning by the tempting waters of the River Stour, hardly a soul around to disturb my pleasure.

The heat is rising off the land in this long wide valley and the sky melts from grey to blue the higher you go, and then to yellow the nearer the sun. Birds are chattering away their demented messages and butterflies flutter to and fro, a sundance.

Briefly, let me tell you the past few days. At last, a quietish weekend with a short night out to see some of Kerry’s friends at the Avon Causeway to celebrate someone’s birthday (This was Friday). I couldn’t cope with the smoke and incessant chatter – I could not hear a fucking thing anyone was saying. Soon bored (me anyway) we came home.

Saturday I can’t recall at this moment. Let me tell you, my quiet has been erased here by some farmer type teaching his dog to fetch. This he is doing by throwing a dead duck into the river and the dog eagerly jumping in and returning with it. Kinda yuck but strangely normal. Now they’re going, rippling waters the only sign left they’ve been here.

Ah! Saturday me and Broni walked through the park and watched big fish jump and crash in the murky waters. And fluffy cygnets eating bugs while mom and pop hissed at any passers-by. Mad youngsters jump off roofs into bushes, trampoline style their support (and a reminder of my youth – not long gone).

I went to the bone cruncher yesterday for the first time – an odd experience but hopefully worthwhile at the end of this treatment.

Now I must go – one last look around – life can’t get much better than this – once more in the pursuit of happiness. Bye bye.