The Land Where I Belong Part 2

It was night time in the big city, wet taxi cabs flew by, hot red buses full of crack pots and junkies went by, we jumped on one, made some jokes then dropped ourselves off at the Canteen restaurant, Spitalfields.
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It's a nice enough area now, but back in Victorian Britain it saw many of Jack the Ripper's victims draw their last breaths. It's quite trendy now; quite arty with famous residents Tracey Emin and even Damien Hurst a few years back. Jeremy Bentham of 'greatest good for the greatest number Utilitarian' fame was born there too.

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So after a rather drunken meal, well drunken for me anyway...culminating in a nice drop of brandy, ended then we stumbled out, across white paving, under funky lighting reflecting off smooth shiny new walls of glass and steel.

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After a few drinks in a glorified factory, and cashing in on it too, we went to a place called Tabernacle, a weird if none-event which boasted big crowds and bigger prices upstairs, but a quite quaint yet smart club downstairs, with a lit up disco floor, and small star lights in the wall. Not that I paid much attention of course; I was too busy getting pissed on sambuca, tequila, beer, vodka, gin, wine and whatever else took my fancy. Twas like Tom Brown in an alcoholic sweet shop!

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So after an expensive night then I was well out of reddies. I went to the Sudanese corner shop at the top of the road and scraped enough for some juice and a crap pizza. Fell from rich to poor in a matter of minutes. At least I had my Oyster card...oh shit where has that gone?

So

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So I enjoyed it, LONDON, but it wasn't me. You can't look at people on the bus, can't talk to people at the bus stop, exchange a familiar glance with communters on the train home, can't moan about the weather or the shit running times of the trains. You leave your place in a morning and go all focussed in getting to work. I still do it; I will bump into someone and still say sorry. You do that and they treat you with the same level of contempt if you were to bump into someone then walk away in Nottingham...lots of words there for a very small point. London is my capital city, I feel proud to walk past the statues of Cromwell and Churchill...tourist points for the Japs and Americans, my heritage, MY HISTORY. London is my capital city but I don't belong...I don't belong anymore than anyone else down there.
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Get back home, or jump up and down Briggate in Leeds...I feel welcome there. I still feel welcome in Headingley, or in the Dolphin or Leeds Market, or Upper Parliament Street.
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London; theres shit loads of people there, all different nationalities, all faiths, a mixture, DIVERSITY, the buzz words we're all shouting out for...a diverse city! That's good though; I welcome it, but it's not my capital, not like Nottingham or, dare I say it, Ilkeston, or Leeds. I'd rather be a Midlander, or Northerner than a Londoner. Notice I didn't say Southerner? I like some parts of the south...queen of the south, not THE Queen. Give us back our houses, sell your jewels and give the money to the poor.

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Grassroots

So I was at this event tonight, where this priest chap was talking about his work in Zimbabwe. You may see him on the street and think "_________" because if you saw him on the street you wouldn't think anything, you'd just walk straight past him without thinking anything. We do it all the time; we ignore people, even people we know, we don't look at people, we don't acknowledge.

Now this guy turns out to be a bloody saint. Not a 'self-professed, look at me working for UNICEF in front of all the cameras and holding little babies' saint. A proper self-less, humble person who acts, not for himself, but for other people. He says he looks after children who are orphaned by AIDS...not single orphaned, but double, i.e both their parents have died. They have no-one anymore. So this charity takes care of them, looks after them, feeds, clothes, houses them and even pays for their medicine. Of course the moneys there. It won't always be, but for the most part we can say 'yes I donated, I helped.' But out of us, who could say that they cuddled that child when their Mum and Dad died? Who could say that we entered Zimbabwe knowing full well that if the government saw us then they would imprison us and kill us? Who could say that they eat with lepers and people with cholera? I can't. It would take a lot of courage to do that. I'm not sure if I'm spiritually strong enough to do that.

At mass at the weekend the priest said that faith wasn't some inward thing. Faith has to be outward looking, it has to work from inside to out, to be transformed into action.

I suppose what I witnessed tonight was the telling of faith. True Faith (NO NOT NEW ORDER!) of a real kind. The kind that isn't done through countless reading of religious texts and saying 'hmmmm but if we look at what Augustine was saying blah blah blah." It is grass roots, it is on the ground, with the poorest of the poor. We're not saying here that God hates the rich. God loves all of His children. Its just that the older rich children take more from the poorer children and so God, as the Mother is telling the rich off and giving back to the poor what is theirs. This is what the liberation theologians were all about. Even today this message is fresh, it's new, but it's the root, the first drop of water from the fountain of Christianity. This is how the Gospel speaks to us. It's a liberating set of books telling the life of a liberator. That liberator is Jesus Christ...he doesn't mince around in gold vestments saying lots of nice prayers with candles and incence and all that stuff. He gets his hands dirty, mucks in with the farmers, the cleaners, the builders, the carpenters, he isn't bothered where you're from, but he espeically sees the good in the outcasts of society.

Yours sincerely, not me

Well it's been an up-and-down couple of days.

I'm just not feeling myself right now. There are words inside but they just don't want to come out.

It's just one bad thing after another. Can't go into it, don't want to go into it.

You know, being a happy jokey, walking, talking, jumping, smirking, laughing dancing chancing guy I find it frustrating when i just want a few quiet moments. If i'm not joking in a meeting, or not shouting my mouth off when out then people think something is wrong. 9 times out of 10 they probably are right.

Saw this poster on a bus shelter last night:

The fact is, I AM tired of putting on that same brave face. There's no cancer involved here, but that really sums it all up right now. I love my job but it's boring sometimes, there's not enough hours, not enough money, I want to get out, I'm going to get tied down. I need to escape. The more I escape the more I realise that I actually want to be there. My mates at home are good. I love them, I respect them, I enjoy going out, having a laugh, blah blah blah, but I need to escape the town, the house, the way of boring life. Not that Leeds wouldn't have its boring bits, but it'd be a new start, a fresh beginning.

Depression is an over-used condition, though sometimes I do get depressed. I haven't felt this bad in a while. There's no 'pulling yourself together'...that just ain't working right now. Probably doesn't help that i'm skint, overweight, underpaid, no car, stuck.

I suppose i should ride out the storm and see where I go!

Loving the alien

Can't read this? Be creative!

These relationship things get going so quickly don't they?

The amazingly fucked up thing for me is that the girls see me as a friend. Fuck Friendship. She told me someone had invited her for a drink and I didn't reply. She knew. I never say anything. I'm rather quiet. I'm repressive, silent, that's why these words are loud and I'm bitter inside.

Asking a bird out now is like filling out a job application. Emailing birds because they have things in common with you:

• You both like felines
• You both have never been married

I pay good money for that...pathetic! I pay money to feel shit, to be rejected, to say, yeah I like cinema, found Cuckoo's nest very sad but no date thanks...good luck. Good luck? Am I jumping out of a plan? Is this Nam at My Lai?

I'm good at this, shit at that, what's my best feature, what do you like doing in your spare time? Fuck me you don't have to come out with these things on a Saturday night at City. It's all 'I like Jimi Hendrix too - lets go back to yours!'

My soul is open on there. So many pictures that someone could go up to me in the middle of the street and tell me what I do, how many pets I have, my ideal places abroad, but no, I don't want to go on a date with you.