FAME

A couple of years ago, me and a couple of friends had an occasional short-story competition around a different theme.  The theme of this one was Graham off Jeremy Kyle.

FAME

Beneath a cracked mirrorball, he glowered at the sticky bar his elbows were folded on. This again. It was always the same, they take their glasses off, rub their eyes, look down at the pitch notes, and starting with that little laugh: 'Look. Graham. You know we love you and you're the best at what you do, but...' Always the but. And that fucking little laugh again. 'We just don't see a place in the schedule for "The Graham Show"'. He'd even done the inverted commas. Smug little fuck. He'd bet good money it was him.  He'd found out and had a word. Them and their fucking golf course buddies.

He'd propped up that cunt Kyle for too long now. That wasn't talent or skill, it was just shouting cliches at imbeciles and palming them off on him in a production office so tiny he could smell their stale council house breath. He'd even written to Dr. Phil for advice. No reply. And again it had come to this, Reflex on a Monday night.

This had been their club. The best times were here, back when they’d been a team, taking on the world, before all that head-butt bullshit kicked off. Saturday nights, they owned this place. The amount of tits bursting out of pink PVC dresses he’d signed or licked on that dancefloor or in the smoking area. But not now. He’d ended up out on his own again on Saturday and barely anyone recognised him apart from that 50 year-old with 40-a-day wrinkles round her gob who'd seemed keen enough when he'd bought the champagne but started bleating about a husband and fucked off (He was dreading the next credit card bill). Oh, and some podgy bird with a wonky eye. He’d tried to sign her tit and singed her with his cigar.

Forty-eight hours later and he was here again, on the Cheeky Vimtos. Filth, but he couldn't take the scotch he loved so dearly anymore. Where was the aftercare when he got upset again?

He needed to sort it out. He'd send his demo off. That'd be good revenge. Just him and his acoustic guitar. His song, 'Life's River', about the crazy paths the events of his 52-year existence had hurled him down (Springsteen was an influence). He must remember to get those copies out of the glovebox.

Five people were dancing to 'I've Had The Time of My Life' on the revolving dancefloor, the barmaid was refilling the bottle fridges. He looked out of a window into the empty street and accurately predicted himself three weeks from now, back on the whiskey, being wrestled out the door by three bouncers in a whirlwind of ripped clothes and shattered glass, screaming over and over 'GRAHAM'S ON THE SHOW! GRAHAM'S ON THE SHOW!'

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Sutton Coldfield, August 2010

(For Trish Keenan)

Inside the mind -
To where dawn thoughts occuring
Inside the shell -
Is where the ocean's roaring

There is the strongest urge to run
Across the sand, into the deep
There is a stranger flame that burns
Across the sky, into a dream

But when you left this room
It didn't look right
And I opened my window
To look for the light
And the morning said
We were taking flight
I scattered my wishes
From a very great height

But my dreams awake, but never arise

AT THE FIRST BIRD'S SINGING

Thoughts running away
Like the rainyday bus
You've just missed

I let you down
Like last week's party balloon:
Slowly,
But it made you feel
Ever much smaller

Innocent/Naive
First birds sing
In the dark.

I wear black to bed
In case my dreams don't wake up.
I wear life
Like a lightbulb left on overnight
Sometimes...

Beyond the curtain - it's getting light
Beyond the pale - it's getting dark

Without the wherewithal to row this vessel
I'll have to hope my sorryness'll
Bring you back to love from hate
Bring you to the time that waits

Beyond the nest - the leaves are green
Beyond the thought - the leaves are read

My heart skips a beat
Everytime I realise
Drops its stick
Everytime I realise you.

___________________________________

Early hours of 8th March 2012,
Oldbury.

NYTMARES

Woke in the
Night
Sweating
Violent dreams
Of
Distressing animals
Of my second
Nature

Woke in the
Case of the
Re-opened curtains
Shedding
Light like tears
Creeping
Dreamtone
Ajar

Woke in
Alarm
Believing
Irreality
In the
Split
Of a second
In the skating
Where
We swam

The dark-bright waters
Of
Abstract crystal

____________________________

6.45am, 2/3/12
Oldbury

UNUSED BLUEBEAT ARKESTRA BIOG No.2

"ARK!" HAROLD ANGEL SINGS

Harold Angel woke up boldly and jumped out of bed.  The sun was growing stronger every day and he felt glad of it.  "They were the first unsigned band to play at both the HMV Institute and The Birmingham Ballroom!" he hummed to himself, taking off his nightcap and folding it neatly on the still-warm pillow.

The first thing Harold liked to do on mornings such as this was open his bedroom window and take in a deep breath of the fresh air.  Today was the first morning he'd felt like doing that in weeks.  As he turned the handle and pushed the slightly condensated window open, the noise of traffic grew slightly louder and the day leapt in at him like an eager child.  "Formed in 2009, they are a 7-piece with a plethora of varied influences.  They create tunes which combine strong melodies with danceable rhythms in a style that is very much their own" it seemed to say to Harold, as the sun caressed his face.

Five minutes later and Harold was stood naked in his small but ample kitchen.  The smell of toast in the toaster mingled with the smell of the fresh laundry which had been drying overnight on a clothes horse near the door.  Harold had turned the radio on and although the signal wasn't that great round here (especially, for some reason, when Harold went near the fridge) the music was audible enough to enjoy.  "Who needs absolutions with medications like these?" asked the 'rapper' over a hip-hop-esque beat.

"www.reverbnation.com/thebluebeatarkestra" thought Harold with a smile, as the toast popped up.

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Kitchen table, Oldbury, 13th January 2012

UNUSED BLUEBEAT ARKESTRA BIOG No.1

A stormy night in the forgotten backstreets filthy post-industrial Birmingham.  A lone figure, head down, his chin nuzzled into a threadbare scarf, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a flimsy old overcoat.  The pockets are filled with a debris of old receipts, tobacco from the few loose fags he keeps in there.  In the nearby gutter he spots of a ragged piece of paper.  No longer caring what anyone thinks of him, he makes no secret of bending down into the grime of the gutter to retrieve it.  Unfolding the slimy and slightly torn leaf, he finds it to be a flier for a concert held some weeks ago.  The name at the bottom of the bill catches his eye, it's slightly obscured at one end by mud and the end of the name appears to have disappeared in being ripped:  E BLUEBEAT ARKEST.

'My God' mutters the figure, wiping drips of rain from his three-week old stubble and dashing them away to his side.  He looks up from the flier and wonders whether to keep it, throw it or hold it close.  His bloodshot eyes begin to well up and the nicotine-stained fingers which hold the flier start to shake.

The rain is beginning to hammer down so hard that it's bouncing back up off the street.  Through the gloom however, he discerns another figure coming towards him on the other side of the street.  He has no idea who it is, or why they too are out in such perilous and biting weather.  He doesn't care either, circumstances have become long past that.  Clenching his fist so that the flier is scrunched up within it, he trusts that the old, weary legs still have it in them.

Splashing through the huge puddles created by litter-blocked drains, he begins to run towards this other figure.  Intensity rises within him as he sees the figure put their head down and begin a counter-charge straight at him.  He knows it's now or never.

'SEVEN!' he cries.

Something he vaguely remembers as elation fights through years of cynicism and disappointment to rise within him as he hears the reply on the wind

'TRIGONOMETRY!'

__________________