squirt (title): pompoms scream (body) - to bypass the 502 Error Gateway...
second shift at Craven Cottage, the Fulham stadium...
well **** me...
i was in luck! Tony, this ex-military supervisor
asked me straight up: you want to do pitch-side?
do i?! the first shift i did was walking around
the park outside the venue, meeting & greeting incoming
fans... but to be allocated a more responsible role?!
you cannot believe how refreshing work has become:
you cannot believe how refreshing tiredness from
work has also become...
i don't know how it happened, but...
ARBEIT MACHT FREI is... ringing high and loud...
perhaps that slogan over a concentration camp
was always a bad joke...
i can't imagine that the Germans thought all the Hebrews
were lazy, not diligent workers...
even my grandfather remembers Hebrews in Poland
selling matchsticks and getting rich,
after all, what was that pre-war saying the Hebrews
had when putting down Polacks?
ah... wasze ulice, nasze kamienice...
your streets, our tenements...
maybe the Germans thought that a lot of Hebrews were
studying in the Yeshiva? nothing practical for society,
or that all Hebrews were somehow rabbis...
whatever it was... well a slogan above the entrance
to a concentration camp: where in a concentration
camp you'd perform a parody of work,
e.g. move one sack of rocks from one end of the camp
to another, to later move it back...
it's not like concentration camps were... munition factories...
a German bad joke...
but if, like me, you spent your 20s and early 30s
working in patches... the odd week on a construction site
doing some roofing, the odd month...
but mostly concentrating on writing...
and now this, steward at a football match...
some rigour re-imbued, some strategy,
some responsibility... i can't press the matter further...
sure, i'm not a football player, i'm not a film actor,
i'm not even the head safety officer in the ground...
i only put on some identifying clothes...
an accreditation badge and a uniform...
what did i get? people asking me questions as to where
to go, if they were sat in the correct seat...
for a man to feel useless, to be without authority:
that's horrible, writing poo'ems would never give me
that...
a compliment from a supervisor when i pointed
out that a woman was drinking wine in view
of a football pitch: which is illegal...
'nicely spotted'... after he approached her and asked
her to finish her wine from view of the pitch...
at the end of the match three boys came up to me
and asked me whether they could
pinch a piece of the pitch...
i let them... how their faces illuminated the place:
it was so dear to them: i couldn't just not let them
(mind you, they only pinched a piece of the astro-turf
lining the actual grass pitch, they didn't hear
that they were pinching fake grass...
let me leave them happy, after all...
i was providing a service)...
prior to leaving for Putney Bridge from Newbury Park
(first getting two buses there,
oh, i'd say a good decent 2 hour trip,
i've started to fall in love with commuting)...
one quick hot dog, with a Turkish toppish
of squeezed onions, parsley,
white wine vinegar, salt, sugar, gochugaru chilli flakes
& some sumac - well... squeezing the onions
releases their juices, making them less bitter:
actually sweet...
i only came back to Romford on the 86 bus
having arrived by train from Stratford
to Goodmayes - it's still zone 4...
all buses are zones one to four... Romford being
in zone six (if using a train or the tube)...
a two piece chicken meal with fries & a coca cola
zero... gulped down at approx. 12:20...
then... the most glorious cigarette to add smokiness
to the digestion...
starting work, proper, in your mid-30s...
while your 20s were spent unravelling a psychotic breakdown,
borderline schizophrenia:
that wouldn't fly, my supposed "schizophrenia"
dissolved when the element of bilingualism came in...
why should i only "hear voices" in English...
when i didn't hear them in ******?
the illness made no sense...
it didn't tap into my bilingualism...
why?! i read up a lot on this topic,
from Julian Jaynes, Jung, Richard Bentall,
R. D. Laing... no mention of schizophrenia coming up
against bilingualism...
misdiagnosis?!
i was never going to be merely a ******* victim...
now i see the bigger picture, music always helps...
the overseer - glass + unbreakable soundtrack,
James Howard's theme...
sure, the bonus of being pitch-side was also being
able to watch the match...
making new friends... well... colleagues...
i talked with Danny about our interests...
his was crypto-currency mine was music & cycling...
he used to cycle: until he hit a tree...
blah blah... time flies when you're talking...
oh such a little role of heroism on my part...
just minding people...
all this life truly requires is these little roles of heroism,
of responsibility...
i was at university, dated... i worked as a sub-contracting
roofer on construction sites...
i'm sorry to say this...
no relationship with a woman comes close...
to the amount of satisfaction received from
having a role that's more than a mere job you get paid for...
being responsible for the safety of others is...
probably somewhere in the hierarchy of where
the status of teacher is placed...
yet not with the current affairs of pedagogy:
of indoctrinating younglings into ideology:
whatever it's called these days...
intersectional *******, anti-racism, critical race theory...
teach them ******* English: the language,
teach them geography, chemistry, history,
don't turn them into spineless zombies
where they resort to a "rebellion" of succumbing
to football fanaticism...
me & Danny concluded: he "supports" Arsenal,
i "support" West Ham... but, "support": not really...
i just love the sport itself... i wouldn't be found a mile away
from the nearest crowd of avid club chanters...
my god, how refreshing to be in a position of authority,
even if it involves being at the bottom
of the hierarchy, being merely a pawn...
i can pull it off though... a welcoming yet intimidating look...
6ft2, 98kg... two jackets clad...
arms folded in front of me, arms folded at my back...
calm, collected... smiling... observant...
perhaps relationships with women were great...
they filled that void i was fed by literature prior
to my engagement with the opposite ***...
did i leave these relationships disillusioned?
of course!
would i ever return to them? my heart is a stone...
mein herz ist ein kleinstein...
it has stopped bothering me, it bothers me less & less...
i'm not built for love, for romance,
that's why i don't want to write about it,
or even think about it...
i imagine that should a scenario present itself...
i'd be loved: but i wouldn't be able to love...
i'd merely... insinuate... i'd be on the receiving end
whilst doing the utmost minimal to
reciprocate... i'd be a cold-hearted *******...
oh... the mushy-colt aged 21 is long gone...
thank god...
could i love again? intimacy i can get with
a ******* in a brothel and not think twice
that a girl outside the profession of prostitution might
not give me an *******: again: is there something
wrong with me? why can a ******* give me
an ******* while some random girl picked up
in a bar, can't?!
i prefer talking to strangers than i ever preffered
talking to established friends...
it's not high-school anymore... there's no more
high-school banter... come to think of it...
the formality and the clear lines one cannot trespass
when conversing with strangers / colleagues...
come to think of it:
i'd tend to tell strangers more than the people
i was friends with... taboos enter the dynamics of friendships...
you can't tell of your innermost woes to friends,
after all... with friends you're supposed
to have a good time! no?
**** that... with strangers, with my shadow...
i burned down the bridges of my friendships a long time ago...
now i walk in the realm of Hades...
and i'm all the happier for it...
there were four major attachments in my life...
i lost one in the past year: my grandfather...
under circumstances that are, to be frank... rather horrid...
and... now that over a year has passed...
i feel... no... not relieved... i feel: RE-LEASED...
from some sort of heartbreak *******...
it's coming up to a quarter to 3am...
i have a shift this Sunday at the Wembley Stadiun
for the women's FA final,
my supervisor told me as i left Craven Cottage
that there was a good chance i'd get a chance to work
indoors... **** yes...
plenty of children to burn my eyes out:
not mine, not mine, thank god for that...
i don't need to be a father to them...
what a release from some bogus obligation that
in life you have to procreate...
hell... others can do that for me... i can just stand watch
and observe how...
this be the verse, Philip Larkin...
little chance of failure, or disappointment...
the Pontius Pilate approach...
it's a quarter to 3am and i just finished my shift,
my feet are somewhat sore, somewhat chilly,
who would have thought
that standing in one place, or two places
could be so exhausting: i'd rather walk a length of
a marathon than stand on duty...
the air outside looks like... a glass of water
with someone having splashed a dollop of milk into it...
it's so... murky, so... ambivalent...
so literally foggy...
no, not me... i was once the great romantic...
after being injected with the three musceteers,
with Stendhal's the scarlet & black...
i'm the one now saying:
work is better than an intimate relationship with
a woman... moi?! pour putain de l'intention
(is that, for ****'s sake?)
i'm trying to word with with spite...
i'my trying, i'm trying... no... no good...
on the way back some girls eyeing me up...
i try to think of the guys not being eyed up...
invisible creatures...
i hope i'm not much to look at either...
but can a woman do more for me than work?
i don't think so...
i'm such a fan of this hierarchic dynamic,
a work ethic, professionalism...
i don't think i could give myself up, on a whim...
my life can leave traces of fulfillment i generate myself:
this writing... well... it's obviously not Tolstoy...
just a product of these times...
i'll settle for that...
i'll also settle for being merely any overseer in a football
stadium than a rock-star, or actor:
never mind being a heart-surgeon...
but me, the once great romantic...
reduced to a function that mere guarantees him
a pawn status... the microcosm of overseeing
a football match: it is merely a microcosm...
in the grand scheme of things:
a newly found focus... returning with gladness to:
i am small... i'm a unit...
i am insignificant... writing creatively can rob you
of this perspective... infuse you with a sickly
megalomania...
it's best to return, to reality, to people...
away from the high-brow insecurities of an ivory
tower... it's so... refreshing...
after all, no Hamlet here, no Auld Lang Syne...
no... and all the better for it...
maybe it was a bad joke that the Germans posted on
the entrance of concentration camps:
it was... if concentration camps became
munition factories... but sieving sand:
in order to sieve more sand... to perform
Sisyphus tasks... while also exterminating the potential
workers? why not think of it as essentially failing:
when the essentiality of existence was lost?
but... translated, outside of the context
of a concentration camp? arbeit macht freit?
work set's you free... i can forget about my shortcomings...
my shortcomings are replaced with responsibilities...
i can forget about elaborating this tongue to my idiosyncrasy
and focus on formal communication...
i can live parallel lives...
i can have two lives...
as i have a prowess to wield of two tongues...
i can also... wield two lives....
and i don't even need to have a wife, to have children...
i can pass off being some loner since,
i hold a relationship with myself that grounds me
differently to others: others who are exposed
to their solitude, those who do not write,
who do not add form to their being,
who refuse to experience themselves with depth...
who switch off after their swift rather than switch on...
oh, these people are apparent... chamaleon me...
i turn into a right extrovert when a situation imposes itself
on me... yet writing is not a clear aspect of extroversion...
writing is an introvert's project...
yet how these two (aspects) are consolidated has
become... rather: a revelation to me...
i never put it into practice, mind you...
now that i have...
should all the final connections of significance die
and i'll be left alone...
just give me a "lesser" creature to bother me...
perhaps a dog... but more likely a cat...
i like the cats' take on placebo solipsism...
père corbeau...
me, disavowing the chance of romance with a woman
over a desire to fulfill the role of steward,
sure, while i do my idiot writing on the side...
"idiot": it's never going to reach Fifty Shades of Grey
traction... then again:
i don't think i'll ever write something that exhausts me,
disappoints me... i'll just write what's made available...
what i want... come whoever may wish to come...
and a nice filter to boot... this will never be spoken
in either audio or a video format...
why bother unwanted attention,
made all the more accessible via audio or video?
what's it called? camaraderie? a select number of people
don't want something being spoilt,
by the intrusion of a greater number of people?
a loss of familiarity?
it's life... a phase of transition...
we're only taking a few people with us...
within the framework of memory, of a shared experience...
it's very much unlike a football match...
a football match consists of 11 players...
either side of the opposing teams...
the staff involved with the teams...
the stewards at the venue... blah blah blah...
very much unlike writing...
walk the moon - shut up & dance with me....
that sort of colt is not coming back....
even all those regretfully looking girls coming out of
clubs in Romford, stumbling, obviously not being
able to handle their drink...
oh, that guy is not coming back...
once upon a time taking a ******* a date to
the Tate Modern for an Edward Hopper exhibition,
then to the cinema to see a movie, Troy,
then some sushi... sending her off on the train
with my then friend messaging me
she said she felt butterflies in her stomach...
said "friend" later, years later, sending her a phallus-"selfie"...
ah.. RE-AH-LI-TY everyone's worse nightmare...
any psychotic's bread-and-butter...
so engrossed in it it would be impossible
to simply vacate it, leave it...
come the marriage with death... only then...
servus! neugefundenmann!
oh... hallo mich!
