That pure Cane Spirit since 1848.

Saturday, November 29, 2008



Minus 6 all day.
The first sniff of a deep frost is always profoundly evocative for me. It’s an acid flashback is what it is. I am returned to the bedroom I had as a fourteen year old, God knows why I am transported back there, it’s just where I am taken is all.

It was a cool bedroom, everyone said so. I had painted a big Oor Wullie sitting on his bucket on one wall and a big version of the face on the King Crimson LP on the other. I had posters from Sounds and pictures cut out of NME, especially Frank Zappa, tacked and sellotaped to the wall and I played my records on a huge valve radiogram the size and shape of a chest freezer. I bought it at a scout jumble sale and they, the 72nd Troop, brought it round in a van and bustled it into the house in their kilts totally ignoring my mother’s embarrassing objections.

And then there were the fabulous mobiles that I made out of tin foil hanging from the ceiling. It’s a thirteen foot ceiling so they worked really well. I had painted the ceiling and frieze deep blue and stuck white stars on it. I loved those mobiles. They were an excellent embodiment of some-sort-of-Roger-Dean-type-mysticism.

Back to the green microdot. On just such a cold night as last night then, I sloped back in, having dropped some LSD. Well I ask you. There I was, fourteen and a half, eyes like organ stops, sitting up in bed listening to Wishbone Ash considering the mobiles and the soft focus girls in Mayfair, when God unexpectedly turned up in my head to tell me everything.




I mean the lot. The whole meaning, the structure, the point, 42, everything. I felt very pleased with myself. It was a marvellous privilege having God explain everything. After an hour or so, once God was sure I understood all these marvellous revelations, they were gently withdrawn, in the way you would remove a book from the hands of a sleeping child.

By December the room was emulsioned white, the mobiles, posters, and radiogram were gone in favour of Habitat Scandinavianism and I had inveigled my way into the 17th birthday party of a girl whose boyfriend never turned up. Obviously I kept the Frank Zappa pictures, because he, more than anyone, I realise now, was who I wanted to look like! Can you believe it? Frank Zappa. Me.

35 years later I was floating through Tate Liverpool on its disturbing sprung floor, tutting and sighing to myself at their utterly pisspoor mobiles when I was arrested by something much more to my taste; the altogether breathtaking sight of a beautiful woman. Well, who would have thought it?

If you are very, very, good, I will tell you what the smell of woodsmoke does to me. RZZZZZ!

20 comments:

the anti-barney said...

Ah yes, was it the Hall of the Crimson King ?, 'course that was before my time.

Dr Maroon said...

Was it? Before your time?
21st CENTURY SCHITZOID MAN!

Mrs Pouncer said...

x

Eryl Shields said...

Oh dear, dear Doc.

Anonymous said...

Some things don't go away, Doc. I never know whether they should.

Anonymous said...

x

Mrs Pouncer said...

Maroon, I don't like the look of this. Be careful. Be slack. Walk towards the bottle with a steadfast tread. Don't be mislead by someone banging on about Galois Theory. Remember what we agreed.

Dr Maroon said...

Oh fucking hell. What do they want? Will I never be free of them?
They're on to me Clarissa.
Who blabbed? Do you think somebody with too much time on their hands has been sniffing round some online Cambridge alumni list? Surely not. Pure maths, Jesus. What about that second rate factory for mediocrity called Trinity? Cambridge Appointments Board? Don't make me fucking laugh. The Jobcentre are better at it.
Harumph.


And what the Hell do you mean Eryl? Oh dear what? What have I done to annoy you. If you are annoyed at something sing out, we're amonmg ourselves. Don't be cryptic, I've had fucking cryptic up to here thank you. Oh Happy Saint Andrew's Day by the way. Tell Kim will you, he's in denial.

Dr Maroon said...

Ahah! I see a light I think.
backs or green nisb?

Dr Maroon said...

Nick!
How the devil are you? Long time no drink.
When shall we see you?

Dr Maroon said...

come gather ye rosebuds.

savannah said...

what are you drinking, sugar? xoxox


(you missed my party, darlin,)

Dr Maroon said...

mescalin

Happy thanksgiving Savannah.

the anti-barney said...

Of course it was before my time,
my time is NOW, always was.

My copy of Yessongs is almost worn out, from Malicia bringing to and fro' the car-boot sales. She reckons it's the best sales barometer of all time. If someone looks at it admiringly and wistfully and nods a grunt of approval, said person will buy fuck-all. Guaranteed.

savannah said...

mimosas

thank you, sugar, but we are two this past 28 nov.

xoxo

Dr Maroon said...

My copy of Yessongs is almost worn out, from Malicia bringing to and fro' the car-boot sales. She reckons it's the best sales barometer of all time. If someone looks at it admiringly and wistfully and nods a grunt of approval, said person will buy fuck-all. Guaranteed.

I have often said this. Nothing makes me laugh, but once a week without fail something on the web makes me laugh out loud. Once again Barney. to you, the roses. Fucking brilliant.

Savannah, you have lost me my lovely. I know it was the 14th or the 11th or whatever but what have mimosas to do with it. Surely mimosas are food eaten by the other Indians?
Have a belter of a Sunday.. I wish you were over here with us, you'd love it. Glasgow would fall at your feet. I know about these things, believe me.

Unknown said...

Did God pluck the knowing from your head with a pair of zircon encrusted tweezers?

Dr Maroon said...

yes

Unknown said...

Frank then went and named his son Dweezil, must have been a difficult birth.

Dr Maroon said...

And Moon Unit of course.