About Town.

 ‘About Town’.

Cycling around town during the Corona ‘semi-lockdown’ is like a dream. 

A lot of the Cafés are doing their best to accommodate people with ‘take away’ coffee, snacks, and such, but there remains a problem when it comes to the bladder -as the Cafes cannot offer toilet facilities, and Belgium isn’t really well known for its public toilets, but I must admit living in Antwerp gives the extra advantage of being able (as a man) to legally pee against the wall of the Cathedral in one of those enclosed by a wall, ‘old-school’, pee gutters that used to be all over town (in the old days' Women never used to pee I imagine).

Cycling over the main pedestrian shopping street you see people collecting ordered items from shops (the minority) but also people just staring at closed shops like consumer junkies in ‘Cold Turkey’- or pigeons expecting to be fed, listening to the regional accents many come from out of town just to walk through the closed shopping area which seems a strange pass-time. 

It makes me think of disaster films, where you see people walking around in a daze after some aliens have been defeated by Tom Cruise. 

A daze, that is the right word, we are in a new sort of reality and haven’t had enough time yet to adapt fully to the situation. We need to get out of the house now and again to stay sane, but don’t always have the inspiration as to what to do or where to go. Antwerp- luckily- has lots of parks, yet still, we (or some of us) feel the ‘pull’ toward the center of town, only to realize that a town center has become just a place where you can ‘consume’ ‘eat drink and have some retail therapy’, take the essence of that away and it turns into a ‘concrete theme park’ of how life used to be. 

A town with no ‘hustle and bustle’ is sad, like turning up to a party only to find there is no music, dancing or alcohol. 

There is a feeling of ‘what are we supposed to do?’. For many people, weekend entertainment has become ‘going shopping’ (mostly stuff we don’t really need). So I cycled, all over town, the same thing, except in areas where the small vegetable stores are still open offering at least some form of normality. 

The Coronavirus is forcing us to ‘reset’ to think about how we fill our free time. The bicycle lanes are pretty full with all the different forms of two-wheel transport there are nowadays, not just bicycles (electric or leg-power) but also Scooters the ones you see with people on them imitating meerkats-using not one muscle and probably going fastest. Young people earning extra cash delivering food in the huge bags strapped to them, some of the bags are ‘United Nations’ blue and make me instantly think of aid workers delivering food to people stuck in their war-torn bunkers. 

Pedestrians, lots of people out ‘for a walk’, walking briskly through town getting the kilometers on the clock to stay fit, people taking photos for posterity in case we ever forget 2020. 

Then there was me, on my bicycle cycling around trying to work out some new routine in case we comedians ever get back on stage. I stopped for a coffee at my favorite Irish bar ‘An-Sibhin’, had a ‘take-away’ coffee and a short socially distanced chat with the landlord, it helped. 

The virus comes and goes, governments and ‘self-important’ politicians tell us what to do and how to do it, we comply, but the only thing that can really get us through this is human contact, despite everything we Humans, we Sapiens are ‘survivalists’ we will find a way to defeat the virus and we will adjust, shake ourselves down and ‘get on with it’.  

But we do need public toilets.

 

Lockdown Dagboek.

 Lockdown Diary. 

7:00  De wekker loopt af, ik sta op, ‘vroeg begonnen is half gewonnen’ nooit vergeten. 

7:30 Gedoucht en al aan de koffie, mijn eerste gedachte ‘Waarom ben ik om 7:00 uur opgestaan in godsnaam’. 

8:00 Samen met mijn derde tas koffie beluister ik het nieuws op de radio, ik besef dat ik alle nieuws over Corona kotsbeu ben, idem Trump - Brexit - en de meningen van iedereen die geïnterviewd wil worden ’s morgens op de radio na het nieuws van 8:00 uur. 

8:30  Ik plan mijn dag en merk dat ik weinig plannen heb, ik denk dat ik veel ga lezen vandaag. 

9:00 Mijn plan is aangevuld, ik ga wandelen en nu onmiddellijk, als ik het Coronavirus wil overleven als oudere man moet ik fit blijven, in beweging blijven, ik schrijf ‘it’s harder to hit a moving target’ op een papiertje en pin het tegen mijn prikbord. 

10:00 De wandeling viel tegen, het regende, ik besefte dat één van mijn wandelschoenen lekt. Het oorverdovende geluid van de Antwerpse ring stoorde ook, (note to self) ik zou -zelfs zonder Corona- een mondmasker moeten dragen als ik geen vuile Antwerpse lucht in mijn longen wil.

10:30 Ik worstel met de beslissing om nieuwe wandelschoenen online of in de winkel te kopen. Ik wacht met de finale beslissing, tenslotte ooit stopt het met regenen en dan zijn mijn huidige schoenen goed genoeg. 

11:00 Ik ga een uur lezen, De Knack van vorig week ligt er nog onaangeroerd, ik focus (see what I did there? ) daarop het komende uur. 

12:00 Een aantal interessante artikels uit De Knack hebben mij doen nadenken en mijn standpunten herzien. Ik ga mezelf aan ‘zelfkritiek’ onderwerpen (zodra ik tijd heb).

12:30 Lunch. Ik moet kiezen, ga ik voor een heel gezonde lunch met voedsel die mijn weerstand opbouwt en mij voorziet van al het nodige om sterk te blijven of geef ik toe aan ‘goesting’ - als inwijkeling verkies ik om mijn wil om ‘in te burgeren’ te tonen, ik ga voor ‘goesting’. 

13:30 Het is lang geleden dat ik gemediteerd heb, om een namiddag vol studie en zelfkritiek in te zetten, begin ik daarmee. 

14:45 Blijkbaar is mediteren ook goed tegen slapeloosheid, ik ben nu goed uitgerust in alle geval. 

15:00 Mails gecheckt - niets, social media gecheckt - niets en de brievenbus is ook leeg. Eindelijk kan ik nu relaxen en aan mijn -zelf opgelegde- studie ‘kortverhalen schrijven’ beginnen.

15:10 Eerst een tas thee maken, groene thee, het hoort erbij vind ik. 

16:00 De eerste opdracht van mijn ‘online cursus’ schrijven is om een ‘autobiografische fictieve’ verhaal te schrijven van niet minder dan 700 en niet meer dan 1000 woorden. Ik dacht een tegenstelling gemerkt te hebben in ‘autobiografisch’ en ‘fictief’ maar ik vergis me - een verhaal schrijven over iemand die mijn karaktertrekken heeft bedoelen ze. Hier moet ik eventjes over nadenken, ik denk dat schrijven beter ’s morgens vroeg zal lukken. 

16:30 Ik moet dringend naar de winkel, verschillende ingrediënten voor het avondmaal ontbreken, merk ik. 

17:30 Totaal gestresseerd kom ik terug van de winkel, teveel mensen, teveel mensen met maskers onder hun neus, teveel mensen die het concept van geduldig aanschuiven niet snappen en de kamillethee was op. Ik beeld mij in dat het zo moet geweest zijn vroeger in het oostblok (zonder maskers dan).

18:00 Ik begin aan het avondeten, het wordt een groenten en gebakken rijst schotel uit het boek van Jamie Oliver. Ik heb niet alle kruiden die vereist zijn, maar ik improviseer. 

19:00 Ik maak een lijst van kruiden die ik morgen moet halen in de winkel, terwijl ik water drink, veel water, het eten was lekker maar pikant. 

19:30 ik ga mijn eten laten zakken terwijl ik één aflevering kijk van de IJslandse serie ‘Trapped’ op Netflix. 

00:30 De laatste twee afleveringen kijk ik straks na het 7:00 uur Journaal.  

Re-set Sunday.

 Diary,15th of November, 2020.

It’s Sunday again, these weeks of waiting, staying indoors, and trying to find ways to encourage creativity, fly past, whereas the plans I had to fill the gaps that have opened- up due to lack of employment- remain in the ‘planning’ stage. The ‘never to be done’ tray of my idler brain. 

The lack of planning leads me to panic because of days and weeks racing by without anything to be shown for it, had to be taken on, head-on. These past three days I have tried to plan a schedule and keep to it. 

The morning would be spent ‘out and about’, the afternoon divided between writing, reading, and my podcast. The evening was left for the idle consumption of Netflix ‘Scandinavian-crime’ series or other such time fillers.

This planning has worked and made me feel more contented this weekend. 

The morning plan today was to visit ‘The British Shop’ called Stone Manor, not far from Brussels. The drive would only be about forty minutes on a traffic-free Sunday morning, it sounded a ‘fun’ thing to do. 

I’m not the usual ‘ex-pat’ Brit, there isn’t a lot I ‘miss’ from the UK, except the ‘banter’ between friends where most British humor finds its roots, and banter can’t be found on the shelves of food stores. Going to the British store was a huge step for me, the self-indulgence of driving all that way to buy food that I didn’t miss, for prices I could really do without, seems a strange way to spend a rainy autumn Sunday, but I convinced myself I might find some inspiration there. 

I don’t really ‘get’ the whole ‘ex-pat’ thing, why do we white immigrants get to call ourselves anything other than an immigrant? I chose- voluntarily- to live in Belgium, so why would I cling on to reminders of the place where I was born? I mean, the UK is only a short flight or drive away, and it’s not as if Belgium is a totally ‘otherworldly’ culture. Yet we cling, we cling on to reminders of our past, our identity. 

Wherever we came from, we immigrants, no matter how happy we are to live in our new adopted country, struggle with the feeling of not totally belonging, never totally being part of our surroundings, there is always that piece of us that isn’t ‘from here’, we are doomed to live in a sort of cultural purgatory.  

I love living where I live, there are tens of shops representing every corner of the globe, I can be on holiday just by going shopping on a Saturday morning. 

Eastern European bread, Turkish vegetable and fruit store, tea from Sri Lanka, there are no limits to the different foods and spices available. 

Yet there I was this morning, in a British shop near Brussels, a very busy shop, at first I was very distant and cynical, but after a few minutes I felt like an over-excited child, packing my shopping trolley with Scones, Crumpets, British cheeses like Stilton and Red Leicester, Marmalade, Linda McCartneys vegetarian pies and even Marmite the vilest of spreads ever (but I love it). Suddenly I was once again an Englishman, swept back to my youth, memories came flooding back of having (homemade) scones at my Grandmother's house or having Marmalade on toast before setting off for school. 

For the next few days (I’m greedy) my kitchen cupboards will be my cultural reference point, maybe the food will help me define who I actually am. 

I probably could never fit back into the UK after all these years just as I will never feel 100% at home here. It is not a case of being ‘torn’ between two cultures or identities, immigrant or ‘ex-pat’ is my identity and reference point. 

Destined never to feel really settled or at home wherever I am, there is always the nagging doubt, or the temptation to pull up sticks and move back to where I came from. When anybody asks what Nationality I have I usually say ‘British/Belgian now, especially today, this evening … Belgium plays England at football, I’m hoping it’s a draw or that ‘my team’ win, whichever team that is. 

House of Lard.

 House of Lard.

 

The American elections are a thing of the past and the judicial outcome is a thing of the future, Biden won but Trump wants to have another go, and this time through the courts. At the moment Trumps only evidence seems to be ‘There was Fraud because I say so’. 

I take it for granted that ‘sleepy Joe’ Biden will be the next President and Donald- the ‘stable genius’-Trump will be resigned to a reality show or a mental health care facility for the next four years, maybe he can try again then, by that time he might have become an adult. 

So there he goes, the first ‘Celebrity Culture President’, like it or not, this election got the biggest electoral turn-out in the history of U.S. elections, so if you are living in a country where there is a huge divide between the populace and politics, get yourselves a celebrity as candidate, and bridge that gap. 

Looking at both Candidates I can’t help thinking that a lot of people must have been voting for what in their mind ‘the least of all evils’ was. By that I mean that a lot of votes maybe weren’t ‘for’ a candidate, but ‘against’ the other candidate. 

How many voters voted Biden because their main aim was to rid America of Trump and his (choose any combination) racism/misogyny/arrogance/hate speeches and of course his hair? 

There might also be people-the ones that Hillary called the ‘Deplorable’- who are just tired of ‘politics as usual’ tired of the same old crony politics that keeps the poor basically poor and the rich very very rich. There could be people who voted for Trump because they like the turmoil he creates in a system they hate. 

Then there are of course a few nut jobs that think God sent Trump to rid America of ‘heathens’, these people are clinically insane and should, on that alone, lose their voting rights (relax God, its just a joke).

Personally I’m glad Trump lost, but Biden isn’t the guy who will revolutionise American politics and get rid of the inequalities that leave millions of American citizens living in poverty, its Monday tomorrow , just see how Wall Street reacts, they’re probably happy that Trump is gone so they can get back to ripping off the poor of the world and supporting the further rape of the planet without losing friends on the international monetary scene because of Trump. 

So there it was, world leaders were in suspense and held their breath, I was hoping that some of them would have held their breath a little longer… like Putin, Erdogan, the guy from Brazil and a few other members of the ‘nutty world leader elite’. 

I bet Boris Johnson for example will be re-assessing his approach to the Brexit negotiations now his main sponsor of ‘amazing trade deals’ won’t be around. In the U.K., politicians are always talking of the ‘special relationship’ between the U.K. and the US, the ‘special’ thing being that the UK cares about the ‘relationship’ but the U.S. doesn’t really give a sh**, the U.K. is just some place where they can maybe dump some bad meat, and get their planes refuelled on the way to some far off war zone. 

So now the U.S. elections are over, we can get back to fighting that other virus, Corona/Covid 19, but not for long, because the second series of ‘Brexit’ will be airing soon and you don’t want to miss any episode of that. 

Scrapped. A short Story.

 Another one of those days, one of those days without a goal or the capacity to create one. 

He asks himself what to do. 

‘It can’t just be like this, the emptiness, the total lack of passion or creativity’. ‘There must surely be yet more to come, I read and study about the self, about creativity and finding my own ‘uniqueness’ and yet all I want to do is sleep, watch films - the dumber the better.’

He feels tired and unloved. 

The frustration builds. 

‘After all, the last 30 years I have had a career, maybe not the best in my chosen field but I certainly didn’t go unnoticed’. ‘How can it be that this is what is left, no calls, no new projects, not even an old friend or colleague calling for a chat, nothing, was it all just fake? Am I really that unpopular among my peers?’ ‘Or is it just a case of me no longer being relevant, it was just work, just business that I misinterpreted for friendship.’

Then the self hate. 

He despises the person he had to become, to be who he wanted to be. 

‘Well, look at me now, the confidence I once had all gone, the way I used to treat people when I was near the top of the pile now coming around to haunt me.’  ‘I let my success fool me into thinking I was untouchable, that I had everything under control, I was aloof with the adrenaline of adoration some gave.’ ‘ I’m now feeling how it is to be on the receiving end of the wall of silence, of being ignored, silenced.’ ‘All that is left is the emptiness, the endless days of no meaning, one day much the same as the next.’ 

The rebelliousness grows.

He convinces himself he still has the buzz, the creativity, the will. 

‘Ok! If that is how it is to be, then so be it, I started once, I can start again, maybe a small change of direction, maybe focus on one of the other branches in this business.’ ‘Maybe that’s the problem, maybe I was too focussed on just one side of the whole scene, I should explore what other talents I have, focus, all I need is Focus, if they think I’m finished let them think, their surprise will be all the more rewarding.’ ‘FOCUS, discipline, talent  and hard work, it worked before, there is no reason it won’t work again.’

He sits back, thinking of the plan. 

If only he had the energy, the self belief, to actually believe what he thought. 

‘Why am I trying to convince myself to do more?’ ‘I don’t need to prove myself, I can just sit here, relax, find new hobbies, live off the earnings I have made, become someone new, even at this late stage.’ ‘Or I should just give myself time to think, time is important, it is limited - although none of us really know how long we will be allotted’. ‘Tomorrow, when this is all over, today wasn’t a good day to think about new plans, tomorrow I’ll think of how I can re-stake my claim, how I can be more than just this, tomorrow.’ ‘Knowing that there will be a tomorrow is luxury after all, it should be revered.’

He relaxes, leans back. 

The nurse removes the needle, says ‘see you next month’, he smiles. 

Boredom helps.

Following all the social distancing rules so as not to get infected with Corona is one thing, staying sane is another. 

I know one thing, for me, social media isn’t doing it.

‘They’ say that social media is a good way of staying in touch with loved ones etc, is it? Whatever happened to giving them a call? Do we need social media to stay in contact? Not really, it’s a myth. We don’t need social media to stay in touch we have phones, zoom calls, or Skype. It’s just a ploy to get us to scroll up and down FB, Twitter, and Instagram and the likes, the longer they keep us hooked to their screen the better it is for the data fishing algorithms. They milk us for data like farmers' milk cows.

I recently asked myself -in all honesty- to write down what benefit or good I get from being on Twitter for example. First I tried to kid myself that I get news updates and get to read the views of people I respect etc, all nonsense, of course, I can follow those people and news media on their websites, I don’t really need to be on Twitter for that. 90% of the time on Twitter is just spent scrolling through the tweets of others who are trying to be funny, critical or hateful, getting into an argument on Twitter never changes anyone’s point of view, it just increases the frustration and hate. 

It is a shit pool that takes over your day if you aren’t careful.

So why be ‘on it’? Well, it started out as a good way to have some sort of ‘advertisement’ as an artist, all my colleagues are on it at some level, so it’s a feeling of wanting to be part of it, to be recognized, appreciated or popular. It is basically an electronic ego trip. Does it do anything to improve my life? No. 

I post something on Twitter and sometimes get a few likes or retweets and that gives a short sharp dopamine hit, but that’s it basically. How many of the 17.000 followers I have on Twitter do I actually know? About 20 at most. 

 The last few weeks I spend less and less time on Twitter, how does that feel? Well, it feels like I’m not missing anything. The time I used to spend scrolling through Twitter I now spend having long reads and staring through the window sunk in thought, getting to know myself, and what I really think again. Because if there is one thing that social media is good at then it's stopping deep thought about problems, ideas, creativity, and what about good old daydreaming. Social media stops us getting ‘sunk in thought’ or daydreaming (the source of most creativity) it demands an immediate reaction, it needs us to click the meaningless thumbs up, it’s an internal competition of likes, friends and followers that takes away meaningful reactions. 

The dilemma is, that we are all hooked on this drip-feed of bullshit, or most of us. If you are not on social media then you cease to exist, especially as an artist who is never on the old TV, or at least that is the feeling we are given. So what to do? Use it for what it’s worth, be on it but not ‘of’ it. Use it to put stuff out there, but don’t be addicted or under the impression that it will improve your life. Social media is there to be used, don’t let it use you. This being said I will now post this little old text to my FB and blog page, turn off the laptop and go outside for a long walk, you know the old 3D real world. 

If you want to give your life more content, you probably will have to sort that out yourself, without social media, trust yourself, use it when you think you can then turn it off. 

Now, where are my walking shoes? 

 

'Others'

Good afternoon, although I don’t know you, may I wish you and your family a safe and healthy voyage through this pandemic? Stay safe. 

How many people do we see during an average day? Lots and lots, of course, most of them we don’t know personally, so they might as well be shadows, or robots that pass us by on the street. We don’t pay any attention to most people, unless they look weird/scary/peculiar or get in our way, block a parking space, ask for money, annoy us in any way. 

We are aware of all the people around us, and that we are just part of the ‘human herd’, but we ignore most people because we can’t handle more people than our family and friend groups (our bubbles as they say since Covid19), according to specialists on the subject it seems that we can handle roughly 100 to 150 people in different levels of familiarity. 

We all know people from the pub, from work, from football matches, neighbors, people we see every day but have not much contact with. To say we ‘know’ them is an exaggeration, we don’t know much about them usually, they aren’t in the ‘inner circle’. But we’ll say ‘hi’ if we see them in the street. 

Today was my turn to do the ‘big shop’ that means go to the local supermarket and get provisions in, the stuff we all need, not the day to day things but the bulkier stuff that’s not easily perishable. I was up for it, list- check, bags- check but one thing I did forget was to set my alarm clock last night so instead of getting to the store at around 9 when it is relatively quiet I didn’t get there until 11 am, a busy time of day and a fatal mistake because I had also forgotten something else- my patience and zen-like peacefulness. It started in the car park, somebody in a tractor like jeep taking up two parking spaces was my first irk. That was just the start. 

I wear glasses and having to wear a mask in the store is annoyance nr 2 because my glasses steam up every time I exhale so I shop without glasses and as result have to get up close to read the labels on some products. 

This is all chickenfeed irritation compared to ‘the others’… the ones that leave their trolley in the middle of an aisle, the ones that feel/squeeze and pinch goods and put them back, the ones that swap lanes at the checkout, get in the ‘pay by card line while only having cash or vice versa, the ones that see shopping as a social get together around a trolley encampment. 

Today was unusually busy, it seemed like everyone’s stress levels were up, probably expecting a more stringent lockdown during the week. 

This being said I was pretty stressed out myself by the time I got to the check-out. While I was loading my ‘spoils’ into the boot of the car, another car was waiting behind me, engine running to take the space after me, and the driver kept revving her motor as if to say ‘hurry up’, it goes without saying that I didn’t hurry, by this time I was rebelling against any friendly feelings toward my fellow man/woman. 

On the way home I was cut up twice by other drivers, a screen zombie on a bicycle cycled out in front of me on a busy road, and there were roadworks on my favorite route. Do I need to explain my mental state when I got home? 

After unpacking and storing the food and other stuff away, I had ginger tea and tried to relax. I started to go over my shopping experience in my mind. 

‘I wonder how others experienced me?’ Did I unintentionally get in someone else’s way without realizing it? All I want to say is this, we experience ‘others’ (the ones we don’t know) as at best a nuisance, at worst the enemy. But we don’t know their ‘stories’, the person blocking the aisle might be confused because someone near to them is ill or worse, the person switching cash-out lanes might be in a hurry because they are juggling two jobs to provide for their family, we don’t know. Every person that passes us in the street has a story, it’s impossible for us to know them all, but we can try and acknowledge the fact. Not all people are out to ‘get us’, maybe they’re just having a bad day. 

Cemeteries are full of unpublished biographies, appreciate that we aren’t alone on this rock and that our ‘problems’ might be the least of all problems. 

Note to self- set the alarm clock, shop early, relax, take your time, acknowledge others, and be part of the herd.   

Reboot Life.

 I don’t know about you, but for me the Novelty of this Corona/Covid19 plague is starting to wear off. At first it was a welcome break to the routine of the rat race (as long as we all stayed healthy) , loads of free time to do all the odd jobs that have been lying around the house waiting for me to change into my handyman super hero disguise. Then there were the vague ‘doomed to fail’ promises to myself that I would write a book, learn a new language, learn yoga, get fit, learn a new skill etc etc etc. 

The D.I.Y. jobs are almost complete, I have started some more or less creative projects like these columns (I write mainly for myself). Getting fit is a slow burner, it comes and goes, somedays I go on really long walks and then spend a few days thinking ‘what’s the point’, but I try. 

Now I’m starting to think that this could be how we live for a good few months yet, so I have to get my head around the feeling of a new reality. A new way of living, a total change around in thinking, consuming  and working. All the ‘projects’ I had lined up for myself were plans to get through the lockdown, a temporary period, now I have to start thinking in terms of ‘what if stays like this? What then?’. 

I don’t mind the uncertainty, I can handle that, I learned long ago not to plan too much, I try to live- if not from day to day, then from month to month. We never have real control over our lives after all, we can plan, but we never know what hand fate will deal us. There are so many random influences on our lives that it makes it impossible to know exactly how life will turn out. ‘Plan for the future, but accept that it could all fall down’ said my Dad. An unexpected illness, career disappointments, accidents , lots of things can thwart any future plans that we make, we like to act as if we have everything under control - but here’s the thing, we don’t. 

‘Pluck the day’ the slogan we all have lying around somewhere, on a tea cup or wall , pluck the day, great slogan but it is a bit open ended isn’t it? I mean how are you supposed to put that into concrete plans? If you take it literally, nothing would ever get done would it? 

For myself I’ve come to terms with the thought that there is no real ‘meaning of life’ except life itself. We’re here anyway we might as well make the most of it. So the bars and restaurants are closed now? Well they will reopen one day, in the meantime I’ll use the time that I save by not going to lunch or sharing a drink with friends to do other things that I enjoy. This doesn’t mean I have no empathy toward Bar and restaurant owners who face economic ruin, it just means that on a personal level I have to make the situation we find ourselves in work for me and my family. The virus has laid a new obstacle in the path of life, we have to choose how we ‘get over or around it’. 

The only way to stop this crisis driving us mad is to embrace it, that sounds weird but what I mean is, take the new reality into account, and move on. 

It’s not just life in general that we will need to re-evaluate, we ourselves are being forced to take a fresh look at ourselves and find new ways of ‘being’. It’s one really huge social experiment and we find ourselves under the microscope. 

Stay Safe. 

Cloudy Saturday.

 It’s Saturday, that used to mean something, pre-Corona. 

It’s 5 pm on a Saturday afternoon that meant even more pre-Corona. 

Saturdays, 5 pm , pre-Corona that meant getting ready for the Saturday crowd at whatever venue I was performing that evening, while listening to the football results on the BBC . 

Saturday crowds are different to Friday Crowds, Saturday crowds have had time to get over the workweek, they’ve had more time to get dressed up. Comedy would be just part of the evening ahead, food and drinks before the comedy  then maybe afterwards out till late, no commitments on Sundays except for those who fear hell. 

Saturdays were always special, pre-corona. Now it’s just another day. Another day to sit around, worry about the virus, about work, about the future about- well anything (nowadays we worry a lot). 

It’s Autumn, dark days ahead, the days I love (I’m not a summer person the heat sucks my energy) Autumn born and bred that’s me. Rainy days inspire me, there’s nothing better than putting on the waterproofs and walking in the rain, with promise of a warm drink and sugary treat when I get home.

Autumn, the warning sign of what is to come. Autumn isn’t for the faint hearted or for those on the edge of dark thoughts, in Autumn you need to keep it together, close ranks, increase the positive. 

I look forward to the walks, to the days where I have no need to explain why I  wear the same clothes days on end. The cosiness of sitting here just writing for the sake of it. 

I’m starting to see Covid19 as the speed bump that made us all pay attention, to slow down, to take care. 

Covid19 has taught us so much already about ourselves, most of which will only become apparent when we wake up after the plague has passed. 

I took charge of my new bicycle today, it felt good, I felt like a child again, I took it for a spin, freedom on two wheels, feeling good about myself, my old bike had turned 20 so it deserves a rest, still in good condition but needs to rest. I might restore it and give it to someone looking for a bike, Autumn weather or not, a bike still beats the trams and busses in these Corona infested times. 

It’s Saturday in Corona times, no gig tonight, but so many things still to do. Books to read, a podcast to make, jokes to write, food to prepare, friends to phone, messages to send, silence and thoughts to look forward to. 

Autumn is usually the start of a soft shutdown, now it’s just part of the new dystopian reality show we’re stuck in. 

Autumn reminds us to take charge of our thoughts, not to get sucked in to the dark negativity of what’s coming. Autumn forces defiance on us, turn on the lights, play the happy music, it’s the swim or drown season. 

So make your choices, strap yourselves in, it could be a bumpy ride these next few months, the good news is that we get to tell our mind what to think and how to react . The good news is we still have most things under controle. 

We get to listen to the music that turns us on, we get to eat the food that cheers us up, we get to choose a way to try and ride out the Corona/autumn storm. 

So bring it on Corona/ Covid19 or whatever you call yourself, challenge accepted. Lights, music applause.

Sense of the Common.

 All over the world governments are trying to get to grips with the Corona/Covid19 pandemic, balancing between economic interests and healthcare. 

It’s a 'hit and miss' social experiment trying to minimize infection rates and keeping an economy going, there are success stories but in the main, most of us are stilling feeling around in the dark. 

Nobody (as yet) really knows completely how to stop the spread, we could all just stay indoors and only go out to get food but then the world wide economy would just collapse, so we have to have these ‘hit and miss rules’. Stay home, unless you really have to go out for exercise or your job, keep away from large gatherings but if you can’t wear a mask, non-essential businesses like bars and restaurants should close but they can still do a take-away service and as many of us as possible should work from home… that’s about the sum of it. 

It’s not a problem that we can solve with a # hashtag, likes, or retweets. Fake news doesn’t help, politicians stuck between the ‘party policy’ and telling people the truth do not help, I guess that we’ll just have to rely on our own common sense and let science get on with finding the cure. 

Relying on our ‘common sense’ (which means a sense of the ‘common’, common being the community), is what raises most eyebrows. We talk about the collective ‘common sense’ as if it’s a joke- well sometimes it is- but we need to nurture it, believe in it. We need to work on our ‘common sense’ - feeling of community, a belief in ‘common good’ would benefit us in more ways than just battling Corona. From litter, rubbish, and dog poo, to solidarity with others in need, poverty, or people that just need a good chat. 

Of course, to get to that stage we need to take a step back from all the shiny little screens we stare at most hours of our waking lives and realize that real life is only to be found offline. We can find like-minded people online, ideas that interest us or interests that give us ideas (see what I did there) all can be found online, but real human interaction can only be found off line. 

Saying all this makes me realize that the more we stay isolated, locked down or in quarantine we not only flatten the virus curve, we are also in danger of flattening the common sense curve as well. We humans need to interact and not with algorithms. We need human contact, there is a reason that ‘solitary confinement’ is used as a punishment, lack of human contact doesn’t help our sense of the ‘common good’ or our sanity. When isolated we think more and more about our own situation and less and less about the others until we dislocate from the rest of society. 

So how to balance that? Big question. We have our little ‘contact bubbles’ small groups who we are allowed to see and meet with, these are our link to the rest, these small bubbles are our ‘sanity bubbles’ strengthen these links. 

A good thing about tech is that it gives us possibilities like Skype, Zoom or other video apps that give us (at least) a live link to friends and family we cannot see due to restrictions. It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing, at the moment we should grab every opportunity to stay connected however it might be. 

Whatever governments decide (and in Belgium we have loads of governments) we should hold up to the light of criticism, but in the meanwhile, life goes on and the fight against the spread of Corona/Covid19 continues, and for that, we need a ‘sense of the common’, common sense.

When all this is behind us we can squabble and fight about who done what and what was right and what was wrong, our judgments will be through the elections. But at the moment there is a fight to be won, a fight for the ‘common good’, and for that we all need to be on the same side. Team human. 

 

 Fail again, Fail Better.*

I can’t remember who said ‘Fail again Fail Better’* but it must have been someone that eventually made it, otherwise we would have never heard of it. 

Fail again, fail better, do what you want to do, don’t let others put you off, don’t let others fill you with self-doubt - do it. Whether you paint, sing, play an instrument, or act, whether you are a comedian or poet, it is impossible to just be good at the get-go. Every day you practice your art, you work on it, producing stuff that isn’t that good in the beginning, but with each ‘failure’ you get better, bit by bit. 

Self-doubt is probably the biggest threat to anybody who is creative. The fear of negative comments can lead a person to be defensive or over self-confident to compensate for the doubt, it can lead to that ‘creative murderer’ imposter syndrome which leaves you afraid of being ‘found out’ because your self-belief is rock bottom. Whatever you do there are the criticasters waiting in the wings to give negative comment on everything new you do, usually, they are the ones who never get around to doing anything themselves, on the other hand, there are also the creative people, they give constructive criticism, to help, to nudge you along. 

Now that comedy gigs are drying up due to the Corona pandemic, I was at a loss as to what to do with all the mental energy I seem to produce, the sort that keeps you awake at night thinking of anything from world peace to ‘how do they make elastic?’ A lot of colleague comedians face the same existential dilemma, what to do now? We love performing, part ego-driven part the love of seeing people laugh, we would do gigs anywhere. Since Corona I have actually done gigs anywhere, I’m not afraid of the ‘end of the world’ I’ve gigged there, in people's gardens, living rooms, in a park, in old industrial warehouses, and recently back in the theatres. Being on stage is addictive, we want to perform, and preferably every day. Comedians are the cockroaches of humankind, we survive and thrive on new comedic challenges, put it this way if the atomic bomb gets dropped, there will be a comedian stood in front of the mushroom cloud shouting into a microphone “call that a mushroom? I’ve eaten bigger mushrooms” as the flesh falls from his bones. 

But now the gigs are drying up I thought ‘what now’? Writing? I have always wanted to write, what? I don’t know, but I love writing, like now - sat here alone in a small room typing away, it’s liberating. I write in English although I live in Flanders, I could try writing in Flemish but I would make mistakes and there are always the people that search for mistakes to be able to criticize, they read looking for mistakes instead of trying to ‘get’ what you write. Fuck ‘em, I’ll write in the language that comes easiest to me English. After all, that is the language I was raised to speak, even after all these years English comes easiest. So I write, not a novel but like this, a sort of column, not because it can replace my comedy, but because it releases the creative tension and gives me something new to learn, a challenge to try, ‘to fail and then to fail better’.

Of course, I don’t know if anybody will ever read this, but that isn’t the point, it’s not a ‘product’, even if nobody ever reads it, I’ll still do it because it feels good and it helps to get things out of the overactive cranium and onto paper giving me less to think about when I should be sleeping. 

Stuck in this semi lockdown we are all at a loss (or most of us), we have more time now that Bars and restaurants are closed and Netflix starts to lose its appeal. I’m just saying, if you have the urge to do something creative, go for it, try it, don’t listen to your inner critic, don’t listen to others that want to hold you back, go for it - try it, fail again, then fail better. 

*Samuel Beckett. (try again, fail again , fail better)

Good News.

 ‘Bad news sells’ is an old but true cliché, reading all the news websites, doing your daily, time-wasting, social media tour, it’s all doom and gloom out there (I covered this in a previous post), but is it? Of course, there are some really frightening things going on, threats to our way of life and our planet are real, but should we, therefore, lose faith in humankind? What’s more, should we lose faith in human kindness? 

Our society is built around an economic system that needs us to consume and not just the things we need to survive, we need to buy, buy, buy, whether we need the stuff or not, in order to get us to consume, companies need to advertise and get us hooked on the instant gratification of something new and preferably ‘shiny’, the dopamine hit that makes real drug addicts look like amateurs. 

Bad news sells, we seem to seek out bad news items more than the good news ones, why? Well, it could be evolutionary that we humans have always had to be on the lookout for danger to be able to survive, so bad news attracts us like flies to a pile of sh.. (you get what I mean). Advertisers sell their products through the media outlet with the biggest circulation and well … so the system automatically feeds off its self. Bad news comes with ads for nice little shiny things etc. A simple explanation of an intricate system but it’s roughly correct. 

So we consume bad news like I eat chocolate and believe me it's bad. 

The danger is, we forget how much ‘good’ there is out there, we forget how many people are out there every day doing their utmost to help, aid, and comfort their fellow humans. I’m not just talking about the professional services here, there are, around the world, millions of people who risk their own lives or fill their spare time helping fellow humans, from volunteers feeding the hungry and the homeless (probably in a town near you) to young people helping out on development projects in the third world to retired people going back to their jobs to help out during this pandemic. When we concentrate on the bad we forget to see the good. Take for example a terrorist attack, we focus on the terrifying acts of a few individuals, as we should, but at the scene the reaction of the good swings into action, people donate blood, comfort and help the wounded, people come together in acts of solidarity, etc, for every one terrorist there are hundreds of people who rush to the aid of their fellow humans. When you look you see it when we concentrate on the bad we remain blind for the ‘random acts of kindness’ that give hope to the future existence of us ‘Humankind’ - Human kindness. 

Good news, positive stories and the day to day positive acts are never first in line when news services and media put together their product they need to sell, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. So next time you get overwhelmed with all the negativity being thrown at us, remember, there is more good than bad, there is hope, Human solidarity is real and out there.  

Ball of Confusion.

 I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m suffering from an information burnout and overload, we are living in a constant stream of news (fake or true, who knows) that gets us outraged, angry or makes us even more apathetic toward a society that seems to have not only lost its way, but also has no idea of the GPS location we’re supposed to be heading to.

You would think that the Corona/Covid19 plague would bring us together, after all it is non partisan, neither left or right, not communist or fascist, neither ‘boomer’ or ‘snowflake', it’s gender neutral and non racist. So hell yeah we could at last all come together and show that human solidarity, ingenuity and science can defeat anything, right?. 

Wrong again! 

Here we are a year after we first heard of it, and we are all raging against one another either in the streets or in the cess pool that social media has become. There are the deniers (some of whom have since died of the illness, or from Karma), the ‘deep state’ takeover believers, the anti vaccination groups, ‘herd immunity anti mask wearers’ etc etc etc . Some of this confusion is encouraged or even started by mysterious algorithm-groups like Q-anon where insanity is the norm or one of the tens of other conspiracist nut job self help groups. 

In short it is hard to find a way around the fake news/real news dilemma and get to the bottom of what’s going on with regard to the virus. 

Meanwhile people’s futures are at stake, the economy is teetering on the edge (or not, depending on your news source) and we are all struggling just to get on with daily life which has turned into some sort of dystopian nightmare or badly written Netflix drama.

If Corona isn’t enough for your insatiable ‘end of times’ outlook there are plenty more threats to get you reaching for the anti depressants, like the  ‘Mad Muslim’ fanatics chopping off the heads of anybody who dares mention the prophets name (it’s Kevin btw) or right wing white supremacists eager to start a race war -looking at some of the demonstrators a diet or war on carbs might be better- supremacists never look like what they are proclaiming. Oh, and did I mention yet that the climate is heading for a literal ‘melt down’? and that mass food production is poisoning us and the environment? What about Donald Trump? Chinese interference with our economy? Putin rigging elections and referendums? Brexit? Social media controlling and poisoning our children’s behaviour and minds? Enough? Because we’ve yet to discuss gender issues.

Meanwhile I’m sat here trying to get to grips with my insecurity about our collective future, I have sound silencing headphones on because someone has decided to start digging up the street outside, the air purifier is humming away in its endless futile fight against the over polluted Antwerp air(can we even still call it that?) and my activity app tells me I really should go and get some exercise. In the background the radio plays that old Billy Joel song ‘We Didn’t start the fire’ and I’m thinking ‘well, we might not have started it, but we should stop throwing flammable or even inflammable (yes there is a difference between the two) stuff into the flames. 

Time for coffee, fair trade of course. 

Attention.

 How the f**k am I supposed to concentrate? The radio is on in the background, the coffee machine -although smelling good- is making this sort of gurgling sound and I have wet hair from in the shower and some droplets are running down my neck. 

‘Silence is golden’ who sung that song way back in the 70’s? Or was it the 60’s? Who knows, everything fades and gets muddled, how do we know any of our memories are trustworthy. 

I struggle on, trying to make meaning where there isn’t any, digging into my soul to mine the last bit of creativity and at the same time thinking ‘what if I am just not creative?’ I read all these books and listen to all these tutorials saying ‘we are human therefore we are creative’, but what if we aren’t? What if evolution, and especially the tech revolution has taken away some or all of our creativity? What if ,what if. 

We often ask the question ‘does anyone still read books?’ The question in the future might be ‘does anybody write books any more?’ 

I’m 67 years old, that is the ass end of life, I could still drag it out another 20 or so years, but the best years are behind me ( damn I must have missed them). So why am I still struggling, struggling to get recognised, to be creative, to write?(that’s a new one). Why, Why am I stuck with this feeling of urgency in everything I do? 67 years old and still trying to work out who I am. I’m always reading of artists who have found their ‘unique voice’ their ‘inner selves’ their ‘authenticity’ - well I’m 67, I have been doing Comedy professionally for over 20 years and I still don’t get the feeling that I have ‘found’ my inner self. I have moments when I get the feeling that I am at peace with myself, but after a couple of minutes that blows over. 

‘My g g g generation’ sung The Who, my generation, being called ‘boomers’ now by all the young screen junkies- the meme following least unique of all generations. My generation, free of all the acronym illnesses, never heard of ADD, ADHD even nut allergies, if they exist now then they must have existed back when we were young, but nobody thought of it, nobody gave a shit about  young people back then… ‘Hey did you hear about John? He ate a few nuts and dropped dead, how fucking weird is that, well there was probably something wrong with him, poor fucker, anyway what time is top of the pops on the telly’. 

So maybe I have an acronym-illness, maybe I wasn’t just a lazy ‘know nothing knob end’ at school, maybe I had ADD or ADHD ? … and so another generation goes to waste, and here I am 67 years old and still trying to work out who I am, what I’m here for and what my creative side is. I’ll have some of that coffee now and get on with it, after cleaning up the garage.