As ever, Ive done a Christmas song. It just wouldnt be the same other wise. This year though its a collaboration with The Reindeer Brigade (myspace.com/thereindeerbrigade) which I think is just Yuletidely perfect.

Its on my myspace page (myspace.com/littlename2) & on http://www.ilike.com/artist/Little+Nameaswell as being on The Reindeer Brigades page.

Have a listen and get into that happy/sad Christmas mood? 

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At the end of my last post I fully intended to continue with my story about that night explaining what happened at the gig, what I saw of the now infamous bottle throwing at Morrissey & my response to it. But a day or so later an article turned up on the Liverpool Echo website about the Morrissey gig cancellation by a guy called Nick Peet (you can read it here ) that incensed me so much I was compelled to see if I could have a right of reply. I contacted Alison Gow the Executive Editor,digital, for the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo on Twitter (@alisongow). having been on Twitter since 2007 Ive been following Alison for ages & we have tweeted many times in the past so I hoped it wasnt too much of an imposition to ask about Mr Peets article & whether it was possible to respond to it over & above the comments section on their website.

Alison was gracious enough to allow me to write a piece with a possible view to publishing it. Now as you can tell Im no writer and I tend to write in the way I speak, which often means lots of commas which in my speech pattern are qualifying statements. So I didnt hold out much hope for coming up with a lucid argument but I was determined to try.

What riled me about Mr Peets post was threefold. Firstly his take on the gig itself, his portrayal of Morrissey and his fans & his tacit acceptance of the violent bottle throwing at Morrissey. Now one of the things that has annoyed & dismayed me in equal measure throughout my life is bullying. I despise it in all its forms. From school days to now Ive always railed against it. Sometimes Its done me no good & has landed me in trouble but the suppression of peoples true personalities is a crime & so Ive always done my level best not to allow myself to be forced down a path just for acceptance. I dont see why anyone else should be either.

But ridicule,psychological & aggressive bullying are a menace that exudes from some elements within society & no more than within the scally community of Liverpool, but of any city Im sure. So for Liverpool to once again be linked with an act of anti-social behaviour really galled me & lead me to renounce my Scouserism & decided I wouldnt associate myself with that name. Liverpudlian yes but not Scouser. Im not a patriotic person & see our place of birth as nothing more than an accidental in many ways but I do care about our society. My society is in Liverpool & so through birth & desire I wish it to be a city of great things untarnished by bullying & aggression as much as it possibly can.

Anyway I wrote the article & Alison agreed to post it on the Echo site so I wont say anymore except to thank her for her generosity,encouragement & time. I hope you have time to read it. You can read it here

 

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Last night was the Morrissey gig at the Liverpool Arena. I’d been looking forward to it for most of the year after his last gig at the Empire was a tad lacklustre and we were up in the Gods & therefore couldnt see much. Thats not to say it was wonderfully marvellous to see a man Id admired for all my adult life but he seemed out of energy. After so many years stuck away with Panic Attacks at home to be able to go into town & see Morrissey was literally something I thought would never happen and like being reborn.

So as this time at the Echo Arena got closer, as with anything youre really looking forward to, you cant wait for it to get here but in a way feel a little sad that once its happened then thats it, its not there to look forward to. The previous weekend had been my closest friends 40th birthday & as part of her 5 days of celebration one night had been put aside so I could come into town & have a meal & a drink to toast her birthday.
It was Halloween so when we got into Town there were tons of students all in fancy dress milling about the area we go drinking (which is the arty,studenty pubs) being hilarious. As you can tell from that last ,dry sentence its not really my sort of fun but it was all harmless & without any the edge that usually surrounds throngs of drunken people in Liverpool, so it was a pleasant change. What was unusual was the amount of people on the street in that area of Town. Anyway as I say all harmless & Im happy to say I was in good spirits (no pun intended) so I took it all in my stride.

I may sound curmudgeonly and a party pooper to any reader but Id just like to make the point that we cant all find the same in enjoyment in the same type of merriment. Im just not wired that way yet it is often seen as a crime not to ‘enter into the spirit of things’. I physically shrink at ‘forced merriment’ – new years a perfect example – & now Halloween seems to be heading in the same direction.

So, we went for out meal but whilst I was there I began to feel ill & started to get gripy pains. This is one of my trigger points for a panic attack & so I also began to become anxious. I thought it best to top up my Diazepam so I nipped to the loo & tried to regain my composure. After about 20 mins Id calmed down, thanks to the loo trip & the pill, we finished up the meal & I thought Id be ok. As we walked down to the Philharmonic pub I again began to feel pain & my anxiety kicked in.
We all split up whilst some people went to get money out of cash machines etc & so arranged to meet at the newly opened Korova bar on Hope Street.I really liked the feel of the other bar on Wood Street (?) & so was pleased to see it open up. As soon as we walked in you could tell the atmosphere wasnt as good & after a moment or two we decided to leave & sent texts out to say we were all now to meet at the Everyman Bistro.

As we got there, joy upon joy the 3rd room was open. Ive been back to the Everyman a good few times now but the hallowed 3rd room where I spent so much time of my youth has always been closed.
We decided to sit in there & bit by bit we all turned up. I was still feeling ill & it didnt seem to be going away. I was knackered by this time trying to keep my panic down & we all decided only to stay for a few. I was determined to stay til the end, or as close to it as possible.

Then after dealing with illness, panic, anxiety & pain in walked people whose faces registered with me. I’m loathed to go into it on here in public but feeling in such a fragile state I thought that it was the final straw.
I mentioned to my friends my concern at what might be about to happen & although ordinarily it wouldnt have been a final straw, after the night Id had, it was & so we decided to leave. 45 mins later,yes it took that long, we were gone, only to find out later on that I narrowly missed the confrontation that wouldve pushed me over the edge.

So Ive been feeling rough all week, doubting my ability ever to go into Town again & decrying my emotional weakness. The ironic thing was that in the car into the city I was telling my friend how I felt close to being me again, that shedding my beard was like casting off my cocoon. How fate has a way of puncturing our pomposities (to be honest I think she was a little harsh on me to be fair, maybe she wasnt paying attention properly).

Anyway as I started to feel well through the week & a friend suggested we take a trip to the local Hypermarket two towns over. I wasnt really in the right frame of mind but knowing the Morrissey gig was coming up I forced myself to go. I was fine & the boost in confidence it gave me set me up for tonights trip into the city.

To be continued….

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Just done a quick and hilarious attempt at "there is a light that never goes out". Did it in one take , as you can probably tell. Im a bit rusty but suspect that this is the best it gets really. Cant leave this up for long cos of copyright & all that but Im in such a downbeat mood that I decided to post it anyway. Opus dei put a cilice on their leg as penance & this is my form of masochistic version.

Anyway heres the link to the ilike page. Listen?

http://iLike.com/s/99PxI

Lee

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Crunch
noun
1 [usu. in sing. ] a loud muffled grinding sound made when crushing, moving over, or hitting something : Marco's fist struck Brian's nose with a crunch.
2 ( the crunch) informal: a crucial point or situation, typically one at which a decision with important consequences must be made : when it comes to the crunch, you chicken out.


A day or so ago I was pleased as punch that I'd done something, actually got things off my to-do list and was making a little progress. Today or rather tonight I realised it was an illusion.

I thought I'd upload a 'live' version of Tracy & I that Id recorded a little while ago but when I came to listen to it pickiness got the better of me & I thought Id just redo the vocals. I felt it didn't matter seeing as it wasn't under 'live session' rules anymore and so I proceeded to get all the gear out. At the same time I thought maybe it'd be fun to video it and that would sort of re-dress the balance of 'liveness'.

It was another act of extreme optimism as I always hate myself on camera, noticing things about my aging face that worry me in a sort of Marty Feldman way (although thats given me some food for thought now). Anyway I looked a twerp so I rubbished that idea and thought I'd stick to just the recording. Whether its cos Im out of practice or what I don't know but the ensuing vocals were atrocious and I tried a few times. In a live setting , at a gig say, you may not notice the fluctuations but on a recording they're as plain as the nose on Rebecca Addlingtons face, although I think she carries it well if Im honest, and then I hit the crunch.

I've been thinking for a while that Im unsure I've got the talent to accomplish what Id like to do with the next set of Little Name songs. Nothing groundbreaking but something I would feel suited me, and my age, now. I've tried on numerous occasions to revitalise the situation and had new beginnings etc but I keep hitting the brick wall of ability and I come up lacking. I realise now that integrity is the thing that is most important to my well being. I don't think I've ever phrased it like that before but thats what it is, integrity.

The thing about loves is that when you feel them slipping away people tend to do one of two things. Some people tend to withdraw into themselves when others, like myself, rush towards them trying to grasp hold of that thing that brought so much fun, smiles and reasons to life. Unfairly, loves are like a scared little furry animals that the more you race toward them the further they run away.

So what to do?

When you feel you are sort of being told something and 'deep in the well of your heart' you know that something isnt right and in reality you have proof, what do you do? Carry on and ignore it? Ive never done that and is probably why I find my life in the state it is now. I never let things lie because doing so makes a liar of me and if I dont know who I am, what I stand for, then I dont know what to do and how to be. Ignoring things whittles away at your self esteem and Ive done so much whittling already over the years the stick is nearly a match. Its integrity again isn't it.

I was told recently that you should wait for the bearer of bad news to come to you with it and not give them an easy way out by pre-empting them. If they've got news thats going to hurt you, you should let them come to you and let them deal with the guilt and I agree with that completely. That cant happen in this situation though, can it?

I think Ill leave it a couple of weekends and see how I feel but tonight, as it stands, ....I feel less than sure.




 

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The Christmas deccies were taken down before and so now this isnt Christmas and what has been done. (I cant be bothered carrying on that War is Over joke) I managed to stay quite calm for the de-decorating even though some drawing pins where trying my patience and decided they didnt want to go back in the box. I showed them who's boss though.

Anyway they're all away now and oddly I seem to have neglected to take a pic of the new tree in all its silver,black & transparent colour scheme. The tree was a fake green one from Lidl but it all worked really well oddly enough. You'd think that black , not being a traditional xmas colour, wouldnt work but on the tree with the mix of white, silver etc it was simple and had a more xmassy & snowy feel that what is normally done with gold and red etc.
Shame I didnt take a pic to prove it, you'll just have to take my word for it though, it did work well.

One good thing about the end of the festive season is that it also brings to an end what feels like a 'week of sundays'. Its always the same aswell, the telly gets gradually worse (although I noticed this year with the proliferation of digital channels that the quality was spread very thinly and with only having freeview you miss out a chunk of what used to be on terrestrial but is now on satellite, bloody SKY TV and so see even less) and your stuck in holding your breath until the country wakes up from its slumber.
But thats all New Years fault, stupid phoney festival.

So now we're clear of that its time to do something else but what? I might upload a 'live' (and by that I mean sorta live) version of a few songs I did. They were planned to be used on the radio for Dave Monks show on Radio Merseyside but I took an eternity to get anyone to help that I think its too late now to send them to him. Shame really cos Dave was very accommodating with me and my situation and I feel I let him down but more so I missed a great chance. Ah well he may consider me another time when I bring out more songs. Anyway, the first one will be Tracy & I, but we'll see how brave Im feeling.
After that theres something I'm considering doing as a test for myself on the songwriting front but Ill save that for tomorrows post.

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Im not sure how this has happened but Ive got a fair bit done today. I mean any progress in anything seems like profound optimism at the moment so Im astonished Ive got all these jobs done. Some are small , some have been hanging around waiting to be finished for ages but never the less they are done and dusted now.
Add to that I made sushi so Im feeling pretty pleased with myself. I love sushi. Its tasty, low in calories,its very healthy it quick to make and easy to eat and doesnt leave you feeling bloated. If I lived in the city (& I had money) Id be at Yo Sushi! all the bloody time. Nuts to any other type of food, Ive found my perfect meal.
Years ago I loved mexican food and I still do like it but ..r examination it was only really one, maybe two meals that I liked and everything else just wasn't that great. Enchiladas & Tacos and thats it. With Sushi its every veggie thing thats available plus Miso and tofu. I realise sushi could be described as the same thing again and again with a different centre but there's a range of tastes and textures that suit me down to ground.
Ill have to get a flat in town and a paid job and then I can join the Yo Sushi! members club (oh there isn't one? There should be ;) )

As for the other things today, of note was the publishing of my new designed Little Name site. It needs a few tweaks here and there but it feels great to finally have lifted the weight off my back. Ive had good reports and I thank those that took the time to look. The blog is spruced up aswell and although thats got a few Windows IE bugs I can fix them soon when I get a chance.

From there I arranged to send back my faulty mouse,activated my credit card and also went out and bought fresh veg for Rosies guinea pigs. Not all in that order but its pretty good gong for me.

Ive been in a low for a little while now so it feels good to do something. If I can just block out a few negatives maybe I can lift myself up and start to achieve stuff again. Its hard though cos Im a 'dweller' & I like everything to be sorted and calm before I can do anything. All arguments resolved, all tasks completed and then I can start to do the things I want. Oddly though thats when I least want to do them! Are you thinking lost cause yet?

Anyway, twas a good day & now I want another. :)

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I watched Joanna Lumleys programme on her trip to the Northern Lights last night on the BBC iplayer and although shes obviously a LOT of a lovey it was a great programme and made me want to see them for myself.

So instead of making a New Years resolution Ive made a resolution to see them. It may take 10 years but it's really something worth doing and seeing. Ive long wanted to go to Iceland in particular and Scandanavia in general really so its decided and something to aim for.

Lumleys enthusiasm was infectious and I think if I've learnt anything about human nature its that we respond to enthusiasm regardless of whether we think its warranted or not. It make people seem more attractive, happier, more alive.

I should get me some of that.

So its to the Northern Lights..one day.

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Well the new Doctor was announced today and I've got to say I was underwhelmed. The only saving grace was that it wasn't bloody James Nesbitt so its not a disaster. I do think Matt Smith http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7808697.stm looks like a good actor and has an odd look about him but at 26 is way too young in my opinion to carry off a 900+ year old Doctor.

He may prove me wrong but I also think the Producer etc have got it wrong on another aspect when you consider who his companion will be. If its a woman of around the same age then they'll seem like a couple almost straight away and although Im sure the writers will use that to best effect to attract those member of the viewing public who'd like that sort of thing (Im talking about women obvs ;)), I think its been done and its best left to the Tennant and Piper era.

None of this is important but aside from this nowts happened so I thought this would do at a pinch.

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I dont know if I'm going to make any resolutions this year. Thinking about it I suppose I should have them set already if I was going to. Last year was much clearer, I just had to get out and go places so thats what my resolutions where and thats just what I did.
Oddly though, once you've had a little freedom you realise how in gaol you actually were, and still are. Is day release actually more of a torture than constant incarceration? When you're locked away from things its easy to forget all thats possible out there but when you get a glimpse, a view, a peek it makes going back only the harder. Dont get me wrong Im glad for all Ive done but its now shown me actually how far I still have to go to have the freedom I crave and hanker for. Although there in lies another question, when you achieve your goals and they're not as liberating as you thought they'd be, where do you go from there?

So, is it worth making resolutions?
I cant seem to make all the steps I need to take ,and that I see in front of me, anything less than a whole. Instead of accepting that things will take time and will happen “step-by-step” all I can see is how far there is to go. This is what puts me off making resolutions. In fact it's putting me off using New Year as a start to anything.
Maybe I'll have a think and make my resolutions when I'm ready not when some calendar dreamt up by some Popes flunky in 1592 (thanks Wikipedia) asks me to.




 

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