Happy Hour in Herne Hill

The correct Latin translation for nostalgia is pain of return, or so I’m told by a reliable source, Mr Robert Yates, a poetry and translation genius.
This morning, I was staring at the cover of my John Coltrane A Love Supreme CD. I know, not having it on vinyl makes me an official Jazz twat. I still think it’s the greatest piece of music ever recorded in the twentieth century but I hardly listen to it these days. Most Jazz and Classical music I listen to is purely a background thing; it’s good for me when I’m writing or just staring out of a window. But whenever I put on A Love Supreme, I have to be listening to it, every note. Sometimes I ignore what Trane is playing and listen to the wonderful things Jimmy Garrison is doing with his bass in the background or tune in to the percussion of Elvin Jones. They seem to have the music equivalent of good cop bad cop going on. One of them will be holding the piece together, keeping the time while the other goes crazy, then they swap over. But as hard as I concentrate, Trane always wins me back by the final segment, the one where you read the prayer at the back of the album and it matches every note that Trane plays. You can really hear that tenor sax speaking, but it’s more beautiful than any words could ever be. As a poet it lets me know that I’ll always be defeated and that’s okay.
I used to listen to A Love Supreme every night. Nearly ten years ago I lived in a small room in a Young Women’s Christian Association Hostel in Windsor. I worked as a gardener in a nearby theme park, getting up at five thirty every morning and getting back home by four in the afternoon. I’d usually end up knocking back a few beers or a bottle and a half of red wine. I’d bash out a few poems on an electronic typewriter, invite one of the resident ladies into my room to drink with me or just sit at the windowsill and stare out. That album would always be on in the background. I didn’t know what was happening with my life. I’d been kicked out of art school a year before and I didn’t want to be pushing wheelbarrows for the rest of my days, not knowing I’d be doing that for the best part of the next decade. I’d try reading a lot of philosophy, psychology and poetry. I’d take every word I read for gospel because it was in a published book, only half understanding it and I’d spout it at any poor bastard that looked interested. Nowadays, I laugh at the gibberish written in those books. The gardening, labouring and dustcart jobs taught me a lot more than those naval gazing academics ever could.
One thing hasn’t changed though. Whenever I put on that record, the world seems to shine, like everything that exists has come about in that very second, and that very second would last forever. Perhaps that’s why I don’t listen to it as often these days, because I might just end up believing in God again.

“I’m a very spiritual person”- Read this as; “ I know that religion is a crock of shit but I still can’t summon the nerve to give God the blow off.”
Sorry about that, had a busy day yesterday.
Started it with a seminar in “ Becoming self employed.” I arrived promptly at the big building in Blackfriars.
“One of our entrepreneurs, eh”, asked the first security guard.
“ No, I’m a …writer” I replied, lacking the balls to give him the full truth.
“ Oh, wow, what do you write”?
“ Oh, I’ve written some literature and jazz reviews, I’ve also released a book of…poetry.”
“ Jazz, eh?” It was the second security guard, a tubby middle-aged fellow. “ I’m a big fan of jazz! What did you review?”
“ Erm, I reviewed the new Coltrane and Monk at Carnegie Hall.”
“ Coltrane, oh I was never really into Coltrane, or Charlie Parker, or any of that lot, now if you’re talking about…”
I’ll spare you the rest of his impassioned monologue about Stan Getz and the mainly white Jazzmen that played it dull and straight. I had two theories as to what was going on with him.
Either a) he knew the bit about writing a jazz article was a complete lie
Or b) he was a middle aged security guard, therefore he was going to be an amateur, specialist in something and obviously the fucker was into Jazz. He’d probably written hundreds of Jazz reviews and they all got rejected. Then he sees this thirty-year-old whippersnapper who’s claiming to be a published Jazz journalist, to the degree of being able to make a living at it. He probably went home to his long-suffering, menopausal wife who had to listen to him exclaiming “ Jazz journalist! JAZZ JOURNALIST! And he’d never even heard of the Benny Shipton quintet!”
It was an awkward situation, and I started wishing I was a suicide bomber.
I made one of those hum sounds followed by an awkward silence with no eye contact that always works in ending conversations.
The seminar was in a boardroom where sixteen of us sat around a long table. We did the usual introduction routine, the one where you say your name, followed by what you do. Among the interior and graphic designers, IT consultants, where some interesting gems, one being Henry, a part time council worker who was teaching excluded kids how to be DJs. He was a cool guy, kicking up a minor protest about there being no biscuits to go with the other refreshments, and guess what, we got biscuits! We got biscuits off THE MAN!
When it came around to my turn, I held my chin up and declared, “Niall O’Sullivan. Poet.”
There was an awkward silence, like Grandma just farted at Christmas dinner.
Then, a hippyish looking woman announced that she was a spiritual life coach. Yep reader, spiritual. When she entered the room earlier, she spoke about how she had a lot of grief from the security guard. Those boys, they could spot one quicker than I could, I’ll give them that.
She drank this green looking infusion out of a clear sports cap bottle. She scattered her card about the room, had to be the centre of attention during the seminar. Now, I always thought the first step on the path to enlightenment was knowing how to shut up.
She offered everyone her services, hooking onto the gullible, the weak, the impressionable. She seemed to be intent on avoiding The Poet though, probably had me down as one of those pseudo-Nietzchean misanthropes, which wouldn’t have been far wrong. Still, who needs more spiritual support than an old cynic such as my good self? Nah, she didn’t hook onto me because poet=no money.
I’ve got her card with me right now. It says:

The River knoweth where She floweth,
Your job is to keep on paddling!

Did you see what she did there? Spelling river and she with capital letters! Writing knoweth and floweth instead of knows and flows! Spi-ri-tual!

~

The rest of my day consisted of collecting 1000 flyers for The Cellar, having a quick beer and burger by the fireside at The Commercial (don’t tell the duchess!) and hosting Poetry Unplugged at The Poetry Café in the evening.
It was the usual affair, slightly chaotic, a mixed bag of readers. Maricel got up and read for the first time in over a year, mainly her older work about lots of sexual stuff that I wont reprint here for the sake of our mutual modesty. I remember feeling a little awkward about seeing my girl read out all her raunchy stuff in front of some sexually malnourished male poets, but you know what? She was brilliant. She’s reading at The Island Queen in Islington on Friday with Francesca Beard, Clare Pollard and many others. That’s ma’ girl!

Just been to my local Sainsbury’s to buy ingredients needed for Maricel to cook one of her Filipino dishes. They have these unmanned check outs where you swipe the items yourself, then pay with cards or cash. I think they’re great, it cuts down on the human contact, the false smiles, the pretending the children of the person in front of the queue aren’t annoying. The first time we used it we had some check out boy try to show us how. It looked simple enough, swipe the thing over and put it in the bag, but if we were slightly delayed in following the instructions of the machine, he’d try snatching the item off us to swipe it himself. There’s nothing more annoying than a person who tries helping when his pissy help isn’t needed, and I felt like checking if the machine would read his teeth as a barcode. Maybe he was number one on the “useless check out assistants we’ll sack first if the plebs work out how to work those machines” list. Either way, he was taking the fun out of the exercise and I told him so. He left after that, probably to cry over the frozen foods. You knew that he’d be the first to go in this revolution. Only the strongest check out assistants would survive; the stroppy ones that lobbed your items down the conveyor, hoping they’d be lost forever under a deluge of loose plastic bags; or the ones that openly sucked their teeth at you if you took too much time handling your money. Today, they had one man looking over the four check points to see if anyone was cheating, it looked like a GCSE exam. Something told me he wasn’t going to jump up if some senile old dear swipes the same tin of cat food fifty times, “I’m sorry madam, the screen says £67.80 and the screen never lies.”
I warn you once more, through pitting machines against long suffering check out assistants we will only breed monsters. Let’s just hope the fuckers don’t join forces.