02JUN10
The pavements are lined with buttoned down shirts that are blissfully plugged into today’s summery soundtrack, blocking out the nagging voices of Apple’s sweatshop children. For each step is monitored, as not to take over or fall behind in the queue to the nearest cattle train. I suppose, we’re all entitled to a bit of me time – as long as we just don’t know.
One old man, however, roasts under his sandwich board making no movement but bearing his protest to this council’s housing benefit. He’ll make do with the occasional nod, unaware with the stigma that street charity workers fill their pockets with on the hour – apply for quick cash schemes and a c.v. solution. That’s proactive retirement. Although, my drummer’s grandpa often likes to sit at bus stops with a cranky wireless radio, puffing from a pipe whilst trying to solve the enigma on the constraint faces that moved in and out beside him. At least he has it down.
In Ladbroke Grove, my bad boy digits are cranked up – riding from cell to cell and rattling contact information. The walls are lined with records, flyers and faded newspaper headlines that remind me that there is a fair walk to travel before I can make a point. Every cutting belongs to Lee, a veteran 80s clubber with a soft spot for the apple logo, hounds and hustling. A heavy-duty fan coughs and sputters over his tangent mutterings that bounce from floor to ceiling and off down the street over the swansong of the BBC6 station. My gravelly squawk remains cooped up so I remain quiet.
God is permanently high and sells sawdust dope to philosophical gangsters. They pass the play and pray to him at the end of their day while alongside, I analyze various pigeon fights with a ‘beautiful mind’. Mind over any matter.
