Wednesday 1 December 2010

Soap & Bubbles


The picture was taken out my window whilst writing this chapter.
Definitions….Welcome To Winter, with winter defined in some of our minds as snow. Definition of snow? A bunch of low temperature water particles that have the strange effect of binding civilizations in a collective huddle. “We are all in it together” Just like the Blitz days of WWII, not that I am old enough to have been around for any of that. The binding process appears to take place as we are all part of the same story. A large scale Soap Opera which we all play a part in.
A couple of Blog chapters ago I was going on about Rocks and the spaces between them. Let’s talk about Soaps and bubbles between them! More Arida pub philosophy?
If you got the bit about how we create time by `moving` and relating to objects then this bit should be easy. How do we relate to each other? The answer lies in the Soap Opera. Imagine our little life being a soap opera played out via events in our life with some of these events effecting other people`s soap operas , their lives. The more our soap affects other soaps the bigger, and more popular, our soap becomes. This usually increases the ratings.
If the rating increase vastly then the soap becomes the stuff of all other soaps. I think the definition of this would be A Legacy. And this is what our short, humble lives are seeking. A soap which people will talk about long time after our relationship with the rocks of the universe is over. We try and do this via our genes and our minds, always failing in the true motivation of self reproduction.
Self reproduction would be so much simpler since our own soap would go on “forever and ever”, the last song would be the first song and so on. Unfortunately everything is related to movement. Movement defines that we have to die at some point.  As usual, heavy stuff.
If only my bowel had not moved whilst contemplating those rocks I would have lived longer.
Most who will read this are probably also in Second Life. It gives a great insight into the Soap Opera theory. Look at the map, a bunch of green dots, look closer a mixture of green dots and yellow dots, look even closer a bunch of avatars that interact. And finally, make friends and become a character in their soap and their lives. Don`t be offended by the word `Soap`, as it’s purely an analogy of our interaction and effect on others.
Clearly when my mother said she would wash my mouth out with soap she was way off the mark. So what`s all this to do with song writing you ask? Well, in the POL Arida soap a song could be defined as a passing bubble. You write one and it floats into other soaps and has an effect to change that soap in a minor way. Thus the self reproductive Arida soap invades and lives on. The trick is to fire the bubble from an angle that takes people by surprise. And that’s what I regard as a decent song. Oh and never to be under the illusion that your own script ends in any way that is different from others people script. At some point all our soaps will become `One` again like a big reverse Big Bang.
Until then I will just keep blowing bubbles.  

Sunday 7 November 2010

Butterfly - Diary Of A Homeless Intestine

It would seem absolutely appropriate that before my untimely departure that I should at least have a brush or two with the Grim Reaper, if only to prepare me for the blackness round the corner. And so, whilst contemplating my last chapter the advance of `wind` seemed fairly normal.  Expansion and release is the norm for an artist with a need to expound on the world around us. Trouble was this `wind` was becoming rather painful and no amount of increased blood pressure to the face was shifting it.

Next thing, bang I hit the floor and feel like this must be it! An ambulance was called as this was rather unlike a POL Arida moment. Lying there as pale as a Goth on a good night out worried the people present who included my partner and two sons. The ambulance duly arrived, at last my first trip in an ambulance! “How are you feeling” said the helpful Paramedic. If I could have head butted him I would have. To add insult to injury they never even put the flashing lights and siren on, another dream unfulfilled. After an examination by a lovely female Doctor and an uncomfortable introduction to something I believe other people sometimes pay for, I was diagnosed as having a badly infected intestine. Transferred via taxi on the worst cobbled roads to the Guts and Bum Hospital, I was soon getting IV doses of that great health care employer, the antibiotic. I say this because without them half the health service would not exist.
So there I lay feeling better by the hour for two days until a consultant came to have a good look. He arrived with a gaggle of young learners and looked at the charts and went mmmm. “Your white cell blood count is way too high; you have to stay another two days” I pointed out that no blood had been taken since I arrived and felt much better. This was laughed off as he pointed to the chart. Actually they had not taken a blood test and they were looking at the one when I first arrived.  So with that one slight observational error the Butterfly effect began.
I contacted various people to arrange changes to my schedule, including two gigs I had on, arranged for supplies to be delivered and groaned at how many people this was effecting. Then a call saying all my Second Life land was about to close and to get there and pick my stuff. No chance!! So after four days I finally get out to find so many things had changed from the norm. In Second Life my prize reconstruction of my real life house was gone and no I didn`t have a proper copy of it, but along with all the other things which were cancelled, changed and basically screwed up, I was told I should feel lucky. Well yes I did, but it pointed out something everyone knows, that each tiny thing we do has a ripple effect on everything else, even if a simple decision is actually wrong.
What has this got to do with songwriting I hear you ask? Well, as with the last chapter on observation, it is the task of a writer to observe the ripples which effect people in so many different ways. A simple fart would have been a tiny ripple of no real effect, but still an effect, the bigger the fart the more effect spreads out to many other people. Thus the hidden intestine circled the planet and changed things that would never have happened if it had remained hidden. Perhaps my mission from now on is to analyze the world via the intestine; if I actually find my head in there it will all make more sense.  
POL Arida is alive and backJ

Monday 18 October 2010

POL Arida - Between The Rocks

The subtle problem with a backward blog is that even my death seems further away than it did when I first started writing. I seem to have lots to look forward to now! Like getting thinner, looking younger, re-gaining hope and trust, not understanding cynicism, giving my kids back and becoming a virgin. Wow it’s almost exactly the same as getting old and moving forward. And there lies the painful truth about life itself.
There is only one direction for anybody. It is forged with time itself that forward is the only direction there is, made up of millions of moments. It is these moments that we live for, but they only last for zero and zero is an abstract. Depressing that we are all just a waiting train crash, whilst enjoying some tea on the way. Then again, the optimists among us will say those moments and memories are what make us human. The pessimists will say that those moments are just points we cannot go back and change. Both are correct and both should allow us to learn something about ourselves. This is where it will get more complex.
If we understand that everything only goes forward with time we come to also realize that what we really are, is a `third party observer`. Let me explain. If we take two objects and we watch them, then we observe there is a distance between them, but actually the distance between them is only a relationship to us, that we `observe`. If we move a little we create the next observation and that is time. If we do not observe this, then the relationship between ourselves and the two objects does not exist. When we `observe`, we create the relationship and the existence of that relationship. Space and time. Making us all God in our own little Universe of our own observational relationship with our surroundings .
Now you might be thinking this is bar room philosophy and it probably is, but for me understanding the last paragraph enlightened me in many different ways. It defined, at the age of nine that I was an atheist, not because I did not like religion, but because it made no sense as an observation. The numbers one and zero, the idea of black and white, good and evil, the realistic and the abstract, oh and the fear of the abstract, that fear of death, all evaporated.
Some of these ideas are in my songs. I try to stay the observer even in what might loosely be termed as a love song. It has forced me to write about subjects and within them stay focused on the correct wording for an observation. Take the word I, you will find a distinct lack of that word in most of my songs and if it is used it is usually in the context of a third party observer. The point of the above is to ensure my head fits neatly up my own ass and to let you understand my process of writing songs.  After all, it’s always good to know when hot air is coming!   

Wednesday 6 October 2010

POL Arida - Connected

As you are probably aware, before my untimely demise, I decided to `get with the groove` and start some Social Networking …and it’s addictive!  For those not familiar with Social Networking I will explain it.

After years of fighting the fascist threat from the East, with their obsession of watching your every move you make,  as defined in the song “Get Out Of Here”, the global free world decided that we should all “Get Right In There”. So we created a technology system whereby we could watch everybody’s movement on a minute by minute basis. This could not be termed Totalitarian since we all signed up to it and embraced it.
Some people even had mobile phones that tracked their every move and uploaded the information onto the Internet to save terrorists from actually having to find where they were. This probably created an unemployment black spot in divisions of the security services and Al Qaeda.  You could tell people when you were at the train station or even on the toilet; it even gave a map to where that toilet was located. Photos coming soon!  “I am at work, feel free to rob my house” Ok I am not getting that app.
You would think I would hate it, actually the reverse is true since normal people just want to connect with others and let them know that they are actually still alive. And this part is the addictive part, since some people are actually fairly interesting. And one thing it’s great for is that it saves you looking for good videos on Youtube since people do that for you. Like a new form of TV programming. “Have you seen this? “ “Hell no let’s have a look”.  I suspect this all part of my 1 theory where the entire planet actually just wants to be 1 thing, more about that later.
So POL Arida finally arrived on Face Book and found he quit liked it after years of dedicated service to the FB Resistance Movement.  Oh and then there is Twitter, but that’s another story.
My dog Grozny even asked me for a mobile phone. Now that makes sense, exact locations of all his Pooh laid out on a Google Map. Tells all the other dogs what his patch is and saves folks stepping in it.
There is a moral in there somewhereJ

Saturday 25 September 2010

Data Loss

Travelling backwards, as with this blog, means things always look smaller as soon as you see them, and keep getting smaller in the distance. Just like when you think of something and think its important, as you get older it seems less important.

So, the morning before that morning before it all ended seems a little less of an event.
Oh and yes, writing a blog backwards also gives you a headache.

I remember when I first went to school at the age of seven (I was a late starter) the girl sitting next to me started crying for some reason. Even at that age I thought “she must be very frightened`”. Everyone in the class seemed to be ignoring her so I got up and went over to her. The next thing I slipped and banged my head on a chair. My first concussion? You would think I would remember that very well, but in fact the only reason I remember it is because someone told me afterwards that I had slipped on some liquid. That’s why the poor girl was crying.

Memories seem to be some kind of brain ricochet through life that land up as thoughts from a nowhere place that does not exist anymore. Wow deep thinking. This is probably the reason I have such a bad memory. Like most people, I never forget a face, but never remember a name. I stood and had a conversation with a chap the other day. He asked me how I was doing, did I still live where I did, how was the music coming alone and on and on. I don`t have a clue who he was, but he looked familiar.
I knew he could not be an ex-lover because I am straight so that, at least, gave me comfort.

I have heard Data Retrieval gets worse as the years go by. My mother had Alzheimer’s and that is by far the worst. In the end she did not even know who she was anymore. It started kind of funny, like her dog was either fed 17 times a day or it was not fed at all. Your current girlfriend was always called your previous girlfriend, you were always called your father’s name and President Kennedy was a good friend who had been hit by at train whilst washing the car and looking for boxes. The ricochet effect was getting out of control. I think I kind of summed it up in the song Juliet Forgets and know I am not alone in experiencing the effects the disease can have on people around it. Data Protection will take on a new meaning for many people soon.
So I am off now to walk my own dog and breathe. Or have I already done that?


ALL SMARTPICS BY FINGERS SCINTELLA

Saturday 11 September 2010

POL Arida - Survival Guide

The day before the day it ended seemed fairly normal. Like every morning, get up, check news, drink tea, pet dog and the rest. Why check the news? Well like most people its checking up that the world is as you left it last night, it never is, something always changes. The worst is when some old bugger you knew from the media dies, you didn`t actually know them, but it feels that way, totally illogical. I remember my Grandmother telling me ( she had no TV at the time) that she looked out of the window one moring and saw a train had stopped before the station and it had people running around it. Window news, confusion! until three hours later when there was a knock on her door to tell her that her husband had been killed by a train. He was 38 and died on November the 6th. I say this because this news reference has a follow up.

So when I was born years later I was brought up not to go near railway lines, good advice, I would be safe. Then in  a strange twist of fate when I was seven years old I woke up to find my mother in tears. My father had died of a heart attack whilst washing the car. The strange twist of fate being that it was November the 6th and he was 38 years old. Not a train is sight. Needless to say on the 6th of Novemeber when I was 38,
I stayed in bed with my fingers crossed. Illogical, but it worked.

It is a fact that we seem to remember more news black spots than we do the things that actually make our lives good. I cant even remember where I got my first shag, possibly because it was not on the news. Perhaps it wasn`t that good! Mind you some black news needs to be remembered as I look at the date today.

So after the news every morning at 10.30am, I masturbate. I have convinced myself this is required for my medical well being. "Oh God", I hear you cry, "too much information", but then again its just another box lying around. And its better fun than the daytime tv after the news.

"Nothing that changes can change without moving" So really what life is really about is movement which creates change every single nano second, you cant escape it or avoid it. Well unless its a train!

Saturday 4 September 2010

POL Arida - RIP

Let’s start at the end. Today at 4.15 GMT the Coroner signed the little bit of paper that confirmed, POL Arida is dead. It’s funny how when you die everything goes backwards, the smoke comes out your lungs and the cigarette gets bigger, you drive your car backwards to the supermarket and the first thing that happens is that people give you money to put food back on the shelves. You then reverse back to your house and look in the fridge. As for toilets, let`s not go there. The ultimate recycling has begun.

Image by: Fingers Scintilla

Its starts with blackness and finishes with blackness, the bit in between, or the bit I call `order`, is the bit where you spend a lot of time putting things in boxes that then create more `order`. I suppose having a lot of boxes by the end makes you a winner. What exactly you have won remains a mystery.

If anything the boxes just give clues to the person, the popular boxes are the ones which other people relate to their own boxes. “Look there lays POL Arida surrounded by boxes and vacuuming his own shit.” It’s a sight worth recording, if only for the realism that that will be you one day. On that note would it not be a great commercial idea to take people`s blogs and print them onto novelty toilet paper? I would have bought that and used them as special Xmas gifts so that folks could read a bit and then use a bit. It would work I think but admit the brail version might be tad uncomfortable.

So, everything that is written here has been written before this day, just like everything that has been thought, has been thought before. There is nothing really original, only boxes which are not boxed shaped and those tend to be more interesting. And anyway, let’s face it, you cannot write something you haven`t already thought, so it’s going to be recycled no matter what you write. Just like you can`t shit unless you have already eaten it. The world works in obvious ways so sign up here for “Recycling News”, a publication brought to you from inside a dead person’s box!