this is me...
This is the first of my posts to be transferred over from my website. There are two more of a similar size to come, as well as some stuff for the bar over to the right, as soon as I've figured out how to customise it... Then there are a few links, the poems, and other writings, but that's a longer term plan.
Like, I guess, most other people - by the age of 5 or 6 I knew for certain I was going to be richandfamous one day. I didn't even know what it meant or how I was going to do it, but I knew I was different. Another thing I knew at that age I kept secret pretty much until I was 20 when I started writing - I was scared of death. I knew I was going to die, and there was nothing beyond. I remember wrapping myself in the curtain and screaming the house down. I told my mother I wanted to be a cat - a cat has nine lives, longevity beyond imagining when you're 5.
I liked being around adults - my parents, their smart friends, or failing that on the radio. I liked reading and telling stories (later lying) which became writing. From a pretty early age I realised you could tell people stuff and get them to behave in particular ways. You could really fuck with people's head - make them see things, believe in ghosts, get them in trouble, anything - and I did it all. But it never occurred to me to be a writer, much less a poet. I did know two things - I was never going to work in a factory and I wasn't going to be a priest like my father (initially just because old people kept asking me if that's what I was going to do).
I was also really wilful - you couldn't tell me anything - and if you tried to then I’d just reject it anyway. For that reason I never read any classics until after my teens, and had heroes that other kids my age seemed not to know about - or be interested in. Okay Bruce Lee they knew about, but Mohammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Sonny Terry + Brownie McGee, Big Bill Broonzy, and Steeleye Span weren't big at my primary schools.
Middle school and high school were the worst years of my life (though subsequently I cut myself and came close to depression on a couple of occasions). I had no friends, didn't know what school was for, spent most of my time in the mountains, and hated most people cos I was bullied and ignored. Consequently from around 11 or 12 I almost totally raised and educated myself. Which is kind of where I was when I was living in London and starting to write (see a quick history on the home page).
In London I was pretty crazy - mostly confined to my room in halls I knew noone. At one point I spent a fortnight living in my walk-in wardrobe, liked dancing in a fairly uncontrolled manner to a bizarre mix of Beethoven, Motley Crue and the Stone Roses, and lying under my desk naked. I was living on processed cheese and tomatoes and my weight dropped to less than 58k (I’m 182cm tall). When I was outside if I wasn't wandering around in the dark or at college then I’d probably be talking to homeless people. Someone carved 'Jim Morrison' into my door and I used to walk around barefoot. Damn I was a whole lot cooler than I am now!
Like, I guess, most other people - by the age of 5 or 6 I knew for certain I was going to be richandfamous one day. I didn't even know what it meant or how I was going to do it, but I knew I was different. Another thing I knew at that age I kept secret pretty much until I was 20 when I started writing - I was scared of death. I knew I was going to die, and there was nothing beyond. I remember wrapping myself in the curtain and screaming the house down. I told my mother I wanted to be a cat - a cat has nine lives, longevity beyond imagining when you're 5.
I liked being around adults - my parents, their smart friends, or failing that on the radio. I liked reading and telling stories (later lying) which became writing. From a pretty early age I realised you could tell people stuff and get them to behave in particular ways. You could really fuck with people's head - make them see things, believe in ghosts, get them in trouble, anything - and I did it all. But it never occurred to me to be a writer, much less a poet. I did know two things - I was never going to work in a factory and I wasn't going to be a priest like my father (initially just because old people kept asking me if that's what I was going to do).
I was also really wilful - you couldn't tell me anything - and if you tried to then I’d just reject it anyway. For that reason I never read any classics until after my teens, and had heroes that other kids my age seemed not to know about - or be interested in. Okay Bruce Lee they knew about, but Mohammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, Sonny Terry + Brownie McGee, Big Bill Broonzy, and Steeleye Span weren't big at my primary schools.
Middle school and high school were the worst years of my life (though subsequently I cut myself and came close to depression on a couple of occasions). I had no friends, didn't know what school was for, spent most of my time in the mountains, and hated most people cos I was bullied and ignored. Consequently from around 11 or 12 I almost totally raised and educated myself. Which is kind of where I was when I was living in London and starting to write (see a quick history on the home page).
In London I was pretty crazy - mostly confined to my room in halls I knew noone. At one point I spent a fortnight living in my walk-in wardrobe, liked dancing in a fairly uncontrolled manner to a bizarre mix of Beethoven, Motley Crue and the Stone Roses, and lying under my desk naked. I was living on processed cheese and tomatoes and my weight dropped to less than 58k (I’m 182cm tall). When I was outside if I wasn't wandering around in the dark or at college then I’d probably be talking to homeless people. Someone carved 'Jim Morrison' into my door and I used to walk around barefoot. Damn I was a whole lot cooler than I am now!
Comments