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Tangerine Dream “Stratosfear”

 

I’m used to waking up in strange places. Numerous ominous demises have been averted by the wispy hairs on my chinny-chin chin and it seems as though each time I open my reluctant eyes they report back one distressing scene or another… apart from the Turkish harem, that was actually quite quaint and left me feeling all exfoliated. Keeper being the lovable also-ran that I am, I’ve rolled with it and placed my gonads on the chopping board on many occasions just because I like the danger. That’s right, even watching Bill Pullman being nailed to a throne of torment by his testicles hasn’t warded me away from pitting myself against insurmountable odds. I believe sucker for punishment is the correct term.

I’m just so darned curious, got to have a peek round the next corner as I prefer to know my enemy rather than fumbling blindly like a biker in The Blue Oyster’s red room. This is certainly a location not previously made known to me as I’ve never felt so hopelessly alone as I do right now. Comfort in numbers they say; it’s high time I rejoin the masses and cease this snowballing slump I have found myself rutted within. Just a little bit of harmless turbulence is all, no need for auto-pilot and yes, the fish was cooked right. I believe I have suffered what is known as a wobble and I am actually somewhat partial to the word wobble. Even mouthing its very name is wobbly. I say bring your very best wobbles and I’ll raise your wobbles with my wibbles.

My evening with lifelong associate, The Lecherous Bandit, has apparently left vague scarring to my sanity. He’s only gone and opened the jar of angry bees hasn’t he? Damn you to hell Bandit! I distinctly remember telling you to stay away from my honey pot. Enough of the small talk let’s get down to beeswax shall we? Where…oh where…am I? Ordinarily my peepers would have long since retrieved any intelligence and I’d be halfway through a flask of badger fat with Percy Shrives from the old corn mill by now but not today. I really don’t possess the faintest clue as to my surroundings.

Check your fingers Keeper…eight…NO…ten! All present and correct. Wiggle toes around…nothing heinous afoot and everything appears in working order. I appear none different to the gentleman who inhabited these very same garments yesterday and slept in them last night. That lovable dork…Keeper of The Crimson Quill, better known as Fumbler of The Burgundy Foolishness in some parts. You see, it’s fairly transparent that I have absolutely no idea of my current coordinates. I have been putting off a text message for two days purely because it’s presents so much challenge. First I would have to unlock the phone, then slide the screen, and press a load of screen buttons in the correct sequence. Fuck that, I’ll thumb these knobs instead.

I’ve devolved, dropped to an earlier stage in my development and become slightly less upstanding in the process. I can’t keep this shit up as I don’t wish to wake one late-afternoon gurning for a fix of bananas and swinging from vines. There’s a reason I was placed here on Earth, I just know there is. There has to be. Does the free world benefit from my existence, from my incessant lyrical whining or often vulgar humor? Yes, I now believe it does. The pennies are dropping all round, I have new-found clarity on where I am right now, and where I plan to be in a year’s time.

I’m surrounded by like-minded Grueheads who share their love of the macabre through a variety of mediums, each movement we make is within the burliest Trojan, a timber war-horse more than capable of rolling into skirmish with scant procrastination and wrecking shit for fun but with no intention of doing so. The juncture I find myself at presently is a refreshing one, to be surrounded by love is all I could ever wish for, and it’s in abundance all around me. Rather than reclining into the deepest shadows as I have done for the past three days straight, I should be embracing them as this here is the shared rental of a true family.

I’ve hidden from everything this weekend, cowered away and slept almost incessantly as a result of the exhaustion I have encouraged. Sleep has become a royal pain in my butt; catching me off-guard like a Golden Girl at a comedy roast, and recently I’ve been under for twelve hours a time, waking for breakfast at 7pm and feeling utterly bamboozled. What have I learned? Not a goddamn thing, currently I’m perched in my icy cavern staving off frostbite and planning to give rest a miss today as I can catch up a little tomorrow. It’s enough to make me recall Switch from The Matrix, you know, the peroxide chick full of unfulfilled promise. “Not like this” were her final words as Cypher decided to use her USB port to plug in his iPhone. I echo her sentiment.

One thing which has become transparent is that I’m nothing without you guys. Should my intravenous drip be disconnected, then I’m left gasping like little Lisa from Airplane. I miss you so much when I’m gone, posting incognito doesn’t allow me to be a part of anything, and it just ensures I remain in limbo. That’s exactly what my mind wants, to segregate me while it pummels any remaining belief and leaves me the hollow shell I’ve begun to resemble. However, there’s necromancy inside this here Crimson Quill and it regularly singes my digits as I scribe. Inexplicable sorcery binds me to it and it to me. Whether higher or lower forces, I can’t quite discern but something is clearly driving me on. It provides the ultimate buzz being part of something unique and unrehearsed and that’s where I am right now as I wade back into these glorious crimson waters. I’m home.

I may not yet have sussed out how the fuck I got to where I am now but I know a place we have likely all found ourselves in and damage limitation becomes the order of the day in such a scenario. I’m assured that we’ve all drunk to excess and woken in alien bed quarters at some point; with no inkling as to how we arrived there or who undressed us. Ordinarily, the realization sets in once we glance to our side and spot our equally stupefied opposite number passed out naked beside us and it then becomes a frantic dash for the nearest available exit before they become aware of our coordinates. However, when the person in question is your own mother, it becomes a far more terrifying proposition. Cue drum roll.

Did You Just See My Junk Mom?

 

There is one particular memory which has haunted me for many years and, even now, leaves me befuddled. It’s of no real relevance now anyhoots but that doesn’t stop the surge of icy dread which courses around my ventricles as I recall the incident. My mother had seen my junk on occasions too numerous to inventorize, she’d washed it and powdered it, watched it grow from a nub to a chub but I’d managed to keep it under wraps since beginning my voyage into adolescence.

As I recall this was around the time of my first recorded erection so I would imagine I must’ve been round ten-years-old. There was overhanging brow, just meat and vegetables but they were beginning to change significantly. I’d just begun involuntarily sporting stiffies, often in the least convenient locales (school lecture, swimming pool, soccer practise…), and many thoughts were running through my young head at the time. Each day I woke awaken only to find that my member was already stirring and ordinarily this was no great cause for concern but, this one day, it was very much an issue.

It started like any other school day as I came to typically dazed and confused. I was wearing cotton pajamas and they had a tendency to gape at the most inappropriate times, thus compromising my penile privacy. As my eyes flickered open, I discerned my mother packing away clothes in my dresser, and partaking in the usual mom duties. This particular morning I really didn’t relish getting up for school. It was evidently a stunning morning as denoted by the beam of garish light flooding through my black-out blinds, and I should have been full of the joys of summer but instead I felt cheated.

My dream had been rudely interrupted by my mother’s entrance and it had been rather an erotic fable which likely would have hinted at what I should be doing with these wasted erections. Each boner passed like a bus in the night and my balls were beginning to resemble dormant brains as I hadn’t the vaguest idea of the power I was wielding at this point. Thanks to mom and her daily chores it appeared that another one was about to go a begging but my despondency was about to be replaced with abject horror. It wasn’t until she had proceeded to vacate my room that I regained the dominant stake in my consciousness and commenced my morning stretch.

As I went rigid I discovered that hadn’t been a stretch for one part of the anatomy. Percival Winkledrake, esteemed poet and play-write, had been caught by the curtain as he took his bow from my dream world. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that my mom may have just bagged herself a birds-eye view of my rubble. My erection had forced through the pointless opening at the front of my jammies and was standing akin to a swollen rooster as it soaked in any illumination pouring through my drapes.

If my mom had caught an eyeful of my junk then it would have no doubt been as a result of this penal spot-light. Rumbled by rays; it’s no small wonder I wish to exist largely in the shadows. I’d definitely carried my roused rod over from my wet dream and it had clearly present the whole time, tanning up and drinking in its daily vitamins. As I hurriedly shoveled in my Cheerios that morning I could muster scant eye-contact and, to this very day, it has remained unspoken. I believe it to be better that way as there are some things mother and son should never have to discuss and whether or not she caught a glimpse of my maypole at full stretch definitely classifies. Perhaps I shall never know.

While still none the wiser, sometimes too much wisdom can be a negative thing. Right now I’m far more concerned with ascertaining my rite of passage. How did I actually get here? Well, maybe if I trace mankind’s steps back to the start of our conception I can make some sense of it but fuck that for a game of tiddlywinks. I’m no Hawking, kudos to the fella as he rocks like asteroids but I haven’t the time to invest into learning the key to the universe, so I focus on me as it seems the best way. How has my passage been? Have I been a good person? Have I hurt others? Yes and no on both counts.

Whatever has manifested throughout my growth I cannot change now and, even if I could, I’m not sure I’d take the opportunity. I’ve reached a state of relative comfort, clearly offset by a hurting inside over failing my wife and son so heinously a few months ago. It’s that contradiction which holds me back and it places the self-doubt strategically in the hands of any malignant receptors as it reclines to watch me implode. I’m done imploding now, I really couldn’t give a snow leopard’s shit about how I got to where I am now. It’s where I’m set that’s vital.

Sayonara Limbo

 

Thanks for the memories it’s truly been swell
I’ve greatly enjoyed hanging out
I once passed through heaven and stopped off at hell
so it’s been the best option no doubt

 

The smile on my face I regret to be false
look close and you’ll see it’s contorted
The thing is with limbo it’s par for the course
nothing new or exciting reported

 

There’s nothing more boring than boredom you see
and limbo’s no hive of activity
I’d give anything for a little debris
to encourage some faint productivity

 

It’s truly been great but it’s time I vacate
these seeds have already been sown
I bid you farewell don’t much care for this fate
as I’d rather not perish alone

 

I’m aware misery relishes company
and learned that a long time ago
but solo is not the best way to feel glee
I regret to inform you of so

 

Find a new bag of dicks to put up with your tricks
I assure you of full compo mentis
now I really must go need to wiggle these hips
as I’m catching the last train to Memphis