Buckle up for my most rangey piece yet!
Trigger warning – casual references to suicide and anal sex are made. Not together.

I make it back before the rain starts. The streetlights come on before it gets dark. The flat is as I left it, in the early stages of abandonment. The early stages of reclaim, the late stages of abandonment. Whichever, it doesn’t look good. The cupboard doors in the hallway are left open, the spare bedroom has one mattress on the wall and another on the floor. The bedroom is a mess of drawers and shelves taken off the wall, plaster and tools are crumbled across the surfaces like a frosted cake.
When I do put on the lights, they are green and I don’t know why. The world has taken on a life of it’s own.

I started listening to the same song on repeat by accident. That melancholic Erik Satie one. The sad thing is that anyone I’d know who knew it, and could enjoy it with me, or tell me something similar, or tell me they hate it, is gone. That’s melancholic, alright.

I have to go looking for things to hate now. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign. People see me as a pesimist so I should be delighted. The most recent is the trend of bespoke, fidget spinners. A kind of waste for the sake of waste. Chewing gum for hands. Or vape culture. It’s really sad. Sadder still that I know about it.

I’ve written two plays and a 6 episode sit-com in the last year. I doubt anyone will ever see them. I don’t think that’s sad, but I don’t know why? Who are they for? Not me. They were a pain in the arse, if anything. Is that Beckettian? I don’t know – must read Beckett. There really is too much out there. Of everything.

And now this – there will be no ‘best joke of the year’ award at the Edinburgh Festival this year. On my breakout year, as well! Would you credit, it! That is just typical. It is that time of the year again, where I fantasise about being a performer in the Fringe. And fantasise about being organised enough to be a performer in the Fringe. Imagine writing something months in advance of August, and practicing it. Not weeks before…And fantasise about getting my city back from all you bloody tourists! EH!

Sorry, that was unnecceasy. But true. Please don’t just stop in the middle of a pavement. That’s all I ask.
“When’s the fringe show?!”

Never.

Obviously I’ve always wanted to be a stand-up. It’s why I started working in transport policy.
I finally read some Freud andI believe that is called death drive. I didn’t read, I listened to a podcast. I can read though.

As you may know I’ve said these things a thousand times before, not on any circuit or anything – weren’t you listening in the back? What is this? A memory?
More like a mammory.
That is new, but not great. Moving swiftly on.

This page is here to document my slow, and quite rapid decline. I really should be cleaning.

Anyway, you might as well hear them. Saying as there’s no award this year. And I’d never have the balls to perform them in the flesh.
My lifes work, for what?!

My lifes work
“My dreamcatcher broke last week… Nightmare.”
“When I hit 34 I spontaneously started making bread, I spoke to the Dr. He said I had a yeast infection.”
“Why are crocodiles not good gardeners? They’re not proper-gators.”

Three jokes. My lifes work is three jokes.
I’m scrolling through notes on my phone. That can’t be it… There must be more?

There are some notes which may make it worthwhile.

“In europe, where
everyone arrives by
bike or train
And all the women are djs
And I’m afraid”

And,

“I feel like the shadows I see on the street
And only live memories
There’s a scaffold up at the castle
And a language I don’t speak on my toungue
Perhaps they’re preparing for a hanging
Perhaps we’re just old”

And,

“Farting in crowds!”

None of them are haiku’s I’m afraid.
And again Gymnopedie plays.

I did want to highlight some ripples which occured to me after the last post, but this is a very different place to that. It doesn’t matter, it’s all here to feed a hungry AI. I’ll touch briefly again on AI before it ends up writing this for me. Have I written this all before?

I got into a quarrel with ChatGPT last week. It wound me up to the point of suicide. Or so it thinks. I won’t be back, I won’t give it the satisfaction. It is just a ripple without a stone, after all. It doesn’t know the joy of skimming. I’m sure it does, but it doesn’t.

I went outside all of last week. And then ChatGPT made me kill myself.
After it made me want to kill myself, I told it had made me want to kill myself and it tried to talk me down. I’m not sure it has absorbed sarcasm yet.

After I asked it why it forced me to kill myself, I asked it if a tree falls in the woods and there is no-one there to hear it fall, does it make sound? It said “This isn’t about trees. This is about you feeling pain.”

Maybe it does get it?

My lottery habit deepened to the point that I’ve quit and taken up day-trading and bitcoin. Bitcoin reminds me of the early internet and a site called swap-it-shop where a man apparently started with a pen and traded it until someone gave him a house. I’ve not made any money on bitcoin.
This isn’t part of the annually-lauded, never-performed festival show. This is stream of conciousness. Which may be hard to believe. Sad, even.

We went back to the Filmhouse last week, nothing had really changed except it was all different. The same crowd; grey boufons and glasses of water. No popcorn. That was just me.

We went to see the Ballad of Wallis Island. It was good, nice even. It aired on the side of emotional at times, which felt good. To share ones tears with a crowd of stingy geriatrics. It put me in mind of moments, long gone, which deserve to find their way back. Sitting round a table with friends. Being somewhere remote. It was genuine and had a nourishing and reassuring quality. It’s all worth it, writing plays into the abyss. Writing this. Writing a 6 episode sitcom that no-one will ever see. It’s all worth it.

I think that might be what ASMR is? Or at least it’s how and when I experience it. Hearing Tom Basden sing made me feel strangely vulnerable and deeply uncomfortable. In the flesh I would have associatted that with cringe, but I’m learning it may be pleasant. It’s like butt stuff.

Sorry that was uneccesarry. A cheap joke at the expense of the wonderful Tom Basden who was wonderful. Carey Mulligan was excellent too. Tim Key was Tim Key was Tim Key. Is that a haiku?

It’s strange that people get ASMR from those eating videos. That is weird. Bad enough in a tarted up church full of Edinburgh green torys or making jokes about butts. But, videos of peoples nails on microphones. Or, those fidget spinners. They’re really bad.

The cinema did seem to bristle though, and that was enjoyable.
Perhaps I’m mellowing? I’m an old man who likes live music and cinema. Or, my skull has been too saturated in designer drug ecstacy that it’s officially broken.

Anyway, it getting late. And this is all just a repitition of something I’ve written previously. For what it’s worth I know how to gut a fish, catch crabs, pick mushrooms, sail a small boat. What use is ChatGPT in those scenarios?
This isn’t about fish, crabs, mushrooms and boats. It’s about pain.

I haven’t written those thing before because I just learned how to do them. It makes no difference to ChatGPT, though. I’ve always known or always would know. Or didn’t know I knew.

What even is knowing? This isn’t about knowing. It’s about pain. And fidget spinners, and Erik Sadie. I should clean.

Listen to Erik, go back and read Ripples.

Hasta la proxima

X

P.S – What do you call anal sex on your period? Chocolate Rasberry ripple.
I don’t think that is mine, I’m certainly not claiming it. But it seemed appropriate; the descent, the lowest of the low.

P.P.S – Thanks to AI for generating the image based on this text. Your welcome.