The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth

(It turns out that I’m stopping for a while. Below is the accompanying spiel ;)

Me and Les (aka The Strunts) once said that The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth. Have you ever felt as though you had been bestowed with Prophetic powers?

No, me neither.

Never the less, our song, written in 2018, looks a little Nostradamist, though I say so ourselves. These days most of the gruesome Billionaire Oligarchs are geeks. So are the software geniuses behind Ai. And so are all the human gargoyles running the social media platforms. Not to mention the music streaming leeches.

Nothing inherently wrong with being a geek. But it seems that when the geeks are running the show, when they get too much power, things go wrong. Things could be going very wrong.

Yes, I’m afraid that I’m having one of my periodic meltdowns over my relationship with the Digital World. The world in general perhaps. “Too Much Of Everything” to quote again from my Strunts musical history.

I feel the need for a break from that world. But a complete break? Almost impossible. I don’t think so. Yet it feels that anything I personally throw at the digital world is a puny handful of hundreds and thousands, tossed into a giant ocean of hundreds and thousands. Does it feel that way for you too? Or maybe you’ve got a more pragmatic, realistic take on all of this. To be fair, sometime I do too.

But most of the time, it feels like the people in my life, especially the ones who I only, or mainly, have contact with online, become lost or blurry to me in this pixelated vastness. I become lost and blurry to myself as well.

And, yes, this happens even with the people in my real life. Just like you, probably, I can sit in a room with real physical beings, whom I know and even love … and spend time on my iphone.

When push comes to shove, it should all be about people. I like them. I am one. But I feel a little less motivated to spend time with them (even with YOU!) in this more confused, new world. The waters seem muddied. And to my mind, there is something very wrong about that.

Originally, this whole Homesong thing was about real people, live, in the room music, and learning to stay human in the midst of a growing digital matrix. It was one of my “Big” ideas. And it really mattered to me. And now I’m struggling to realise or be motivated to realise that vision on even a small scale. Something wrong with that too. It went online.

Yesterday I read these thoughts from a character in a novel I just started:

”Only people who don’t know what the hell to do with themselves start decluttering, for want of being able to set the world to rights” (from The Accordionist by Fred Vargas)

And those words felt a little close to home. It’s not an existential crisis. Lots of things about my life, as hopefully comes across, that are Fandabidozi. But I’m feeling like a break of some kind from a lot of my digital existence, in order for a little bit of reflection. But ultimately with the aim to come back in a way that feels a bit simpler and clearer. To me anyway.

For the record my “online content” goes out, to varying degrees, on:

Facebook
Youtube
Feetunes.com (my website)
Bandcamp
Spotify (And hundreds of other digital streaming services that hardly even aware of through Distrokid)
iTunes
Squarespace (this website)
Mailchimp
Whatsapp
Signal

Some of these “platforms” I genuinely hate. But I have never achieved a helpful, effective and happy way of using any of them really. And there are far too many of them.

And that is the digital world as a “creator” you may well point out. Suck it up, as they say.

Or not.

If and when I find a way to simplify in a good way, I’ll definitely be back. But for now I’m going to give this blog a break. It’s been great to be honest. You’ve been great. And I’m very, very, glad I’ve done it.

I’ll still be posting my monthly songs on my website, and staying in touch, with most of you I hope, through email and whatsapp in some way or other. I may in this period quit Facebook, for good this time. I did once before and came back for more. FB has got some good aspects. But the bad ones do my head in, and are far out weighing the good, to my mind. I think I’ve only stayed on for this long through some misinformed fear of losing touch with people completely.

I didn’t know how today’s blog was going to end. I wasn’t even sure I was going to stop doing the blog, when I started writing earlier. But I think I’ve talked myself into it.

Thank you so much for reading. And not just reading, but getting in touch with me to respond. That contact will be the biggest loss to me for a while at least.

All the best. And my love to you in the meantime. I mean that.

David aka Fee aka A Human Being.

If It Wasn’t For The Wind

Today’s Sunday Song: If It Wasn’t For The Wind

David Olney had that fatal description - the songwriter’s songwriter. So you probably haven’t heard of him.

But he had a songwriting career, and a reputation among his peers, and his life ended while playing on stage. There are different measures for “success”, but that sounds like a success to my ears.

But I think the word “success” in most ways we use it, is generally a very unhelpful measure. It rarely leads to any kind of contentment or sense of fulfilment.

Unless, that is, we remove the option of comparison with others from the equation.

Alien In Slovenia

Alien In Slovenia was a madcap song idea. It tells a tale through the eyes of the wife of a certain President. In this story she is planning a casual fling back in her homeland. And before she goes away she gives Hubby a presidential shopping list of things that he might need to remember to do. Things like polishing the nukes, keeping the social media ticking over, etc, etc.

We make our stories up, exaggerating, expanding upon, playing with and even twisting reality.

But sometimes the reality turns out to be madder than the fiction.

It’s a strange world out there.

I’m hoping to wake up soon.

It Can Only End In Tears

It was the second night into the week long walk with my sons and friends. An event I had planned for over a year. In my head it was going to be a time of banter, and laughter, and good conversations, and walking, and an evening pint or two, followed by some sleep beneath the stars.

You can see how it looked in my head, even if it isn’t something that might appeal to you.

But quite a lot of things in that idea were very quickly bent and battered out of shape, by that bugger we call Reality.

It was only the second night in. And for the first time in a long time I felt myself to be in a very dark place. A return to a long gone, if not forgotten, Miserable Me. Self pity and loathing, those dang dogs, reared their ugly heads and barked at me through a sleepless night. The rain lashed down. A quagmire within and without.

That kind of thing.

And you don’t even need to know the relevant details. Perhaps you’d like to, but I can’t really explain adequately. I don’t want to anyway, at least not now, it turns out.

The thing is…. tears were cried. They’ve been cried in the past. They’ll be cried again in the future. Yet strangely, on this occasion, and for the first time ever, I could stand back and notice in the midst of the storm:

“This is how I feel now. It will end”.

And it did. I think that simple act of noticing it all without judgement, at least at certain moments, helped to change my outlook. By morning things weren’t so bad. Nobody had died. Good things emerged, both immediately and later too.

It was another experience had. Another happening happened. And, in a different form, continued happening. Looking back, I can smile.

They say, and I’ve sung, that It Can Only End In Tears. But these days I know that other possibilities are available.

If I use myself as the measure, I’m going to call that progress.

Imagine That

I am/turned/became/was/could be/celebrate becoming sixty today.

Imagine That!

But it’s just a number/idea/concept/dream/word/moment in time that disappears as soon as it arises.

There are a multitude of point of view to pretty much everything. That’s my overwhelming feeling today. I find them all competing for attention in my head. Not just today mind you. And whenever that competition for attention plays out, I get a headache.

I suspect that my head, and yours too, contains absolutely everything.

My ability to focus, on the other hand, is limited to one thing at once.

And the best present I can give myself will always be that.

Just this.

Blood And Bandages

So … If you were reading the blogs about my walk on the West Highland Way last week, I need to apologise.

First off, apparently it wasn’t clear to some that every days description was written ahead of time, as though I had access to a Time Machine. Yes, it was all a figment of my imagination.

Secondly … well, it turns out that my imagination is pretty poor at predicting the future. Suffice to say that the actual experience was nothing at all like the prophecies that I wrote so confidently in the week leading up to the walk.

I will probably, definitely, possibly, maybe write more about the whole experience. It wasn’t quite a week of Blood And Bandages. But there were casualties. And suffering. And emotional wounds.

There were some good bits too. And we all survived, it must be said.

There are also a lot of lessons learned or needing to be learnt. By me anyway.

I just need some time to process it all … :-)

Like Minds

The travelling of time ends today. We finish, in theory, the West Highland Way.

So, we’re on the final stretch to Fort William and our train back to civilisation. One thing we’ve had plenty of time for on this nearly completed walk, is time to chat.

And we’ve discovered, as we talked, that in many areas we are all Like Minds.

But often it was the Not Like Minds that made everything more interesting. Not knowing what we were going to see each day made for a wonderful walk. And not agreeing with each other about everything made for some brilliant, albeit sometimes tense, conversations.

Are we still all friends (and family!)?

Of course.

This is the world we live in. The one we have to constantly learn to live in. Vive la difference! And bring on the next challenge. That was a humdinger.

Everything Is Wasted

Back to the future WHW, once more my friends…

And back to the clearances I spoke about yesterday. It wasn’t just people. Scotland was once covered with trees. And not those non-native Sitka Spruce deserts. It was very different then. Native Caledonian conifers and wild oaks, hazels, rowans, beech and birch were a large part of an immensely rich landscape.

Attempts are being made (where mass land ownership by wealthy absent owners allows) to restore some of that previous heritage.

But still.

Today we’re walking through the modern day version of Scotland on our way past Kinlochleven. It’s got an epic beauty, no doubt. Yet a time traveller, like myself, but from 300 years ago, would think, looking around at this present day “classic” highland scenery, that Everything Is Wasted.

It’s food for thought.

Weaver’s Bay

My Tardis informed WHW. It’s all written in the past. But it could be true!

Today is our longest hike. Nineteen dang miles. We’re looking forward to a bit of luxury at the end of it all though. A bunkhouse/hotel. Hot showers. Not that we stink. Oh no! But anyway, a nice respite from Tent Land, before our last two days of walking.

And here’s a thing. This constant walking feels like a bit of suffering by our standards. But have a listen to Weaver’s Bay, and imagine what it must have been like during the clearances here in Scotland. People forced to leave their very homes and leave for a completely uncertain future in another land.

I’m imagining that today. This little ramble is a relative walk in the park. Any one of those involuntary migrants would have swapped places with me, without hesitation.

I’m a lucky bugger.

Everything On Gold

So what’s been happening today (in my imagination) on the West Highland Way…

Fortunately, to survive, we don’t have to put Everything On Gold.

As wild walks go, the WHW is relatively tame. For instance there are lots of places to fill up with water and a lot of out of the way little tuck shops, with nobody there, except for an honesty box. Try that one in London!

It’s refreshing that this kind of honesty and trust is still around in these “interesting” times. And it’s literally refreshing to get a bottle of cold (ish) fresh orange when you’re tired after having already walked for ten miles.

The views have been fantastic. And being away from the madding crowd is also wonderful. But people, it’s good to be reminded, can be very decent, given half a chance.

Ranches And Mansions

Back to the future West Highland Way…

Tents. They’re a home of a sort. We are creatures of comfort of course. Not used to sleeping so CLOSE to the outside world. Not used to NOT HAVING a slumberdown, goose feathered, body hugging mattress.

Tents are not Ranches And Mansions.

We may or we may not acclimatise. But either way, we’re stuck with them.

And there is a beauty in hearing the rain patter so close to your head without getting wet. A beauty in hearing a Tawny Owl close by. And the wind in the trees. Of being further from civilisation than usual.

I can overlook the little bit of aching, and the not quite enough sleep. It’s a price worth paying. See you tomorrow.

Too Much Of Everything

Welcome back to the WHW Tardis!

Well, it’s raining already. Yep. Inevitability is a thing. And we’re doing actual hilly bits today. But it’s fair to say that we’re not yet at the point where it’s all …

Too Much Of Everything

Maybe that moment will come, further down the line. We’ll soon be at Balmaha, where we hope to meet up with songwriting blues guitarist, Dave Arcari, and then along a part of Loch Lomond to Rowardennan. That’s where we’ll be losing three of our number. The part-timers! From ten down to the seven who will hopefully make it all the way.

We’ve just climbed Conic Hill, so I’m a little bit out of breath. It’s tougher with a rucksack of course. So you’ll forgive me for stopping to enjoy the view for a while…

Angus

For the next week, welcome to my Time Machine as I write my imaginations regarding the experiences I may or may not be having while doing the walk I am not doing right at this moment, but will be doing once we enter our West Highland Way Tardis thingy. I’m going to have to wangle my song titles into this. Could be tricky. Three, two, one…. Atomize!

So here we are walking happily from Milngavie to Drymen on the first day of our walk. Unlike my original forecast, we are experiencing blue skies. Everyone (almost … there’s bound to me a moaner ….could be me) is in good spirits.

And why wouldn’t we be. The sky is blue…look there’s an Aberdeen Angus frollicking in a field…. and we’re fairly skipping along. We’ve already escaped the northern outreaches of Glasgow, and though the world renowned Highlands aren’t upon us quite yet, we are content.

Only 10 more miles to Drymen. Only 96 more to Fort William. It’s gonna be a doddle.

Indian Summer

I don’t know about an Indian Summer. I’m expecting more of a Scottish Spring over the next week as we start to walk the 100 miles of the West Highland Way tomorrow. Our Irregular Spring is coming to an end.

Dry would be nice, but it likely ain’t gonna happen.

And that’s what happens.

I’ve got organiser nerves. Where are we eating? Will we survive the midges? How will we cope with the wet? Are we well enough equipped? And so on.

Mostly I want everyone to enjoy it. But whatever happens, it will be another chapter in the Great Happening.

See you from my Tardis Writing Desk on the way from Milngavie to Drymen tomorrow ;-)

Miss You When You Go

“Miss You When You Go"…

… that’s what we often hope that people will think of us. That’s what I might have once hoped that Ineke would be thinking tomorrow, when I head off on my big adventure with an all male crew for our walk of the West Highland Way starting Friday.

But really … I don’t hope that anymore. If she thinks about me, I hope it brings nice thoughts of course. Just because I hope she has nice thoughts. They’re better than the other kind.

It doesn’t need to be of me though. It could be of anything. Maybe she doesn’t give my absence a second glance for the 8 or 9 days I’m gone.

Missing someone, or something, will always be a part of the human experience. But it brings a sense of loss. And that shouldn’t be a given. True love wouldn’t wish that experience upon someone else.

Would it?

Potatoman

Sometimes I’ll drive you mental
Sometime’s I drive a van
Occasionally I’m up in space
I go there when I can

I try to keep myself awake
That’s usually the plan
But sometimes I’ve been let down
By weed and temazepan.

I like to be outdoors a lot
I’ll find myself a view
And when the sunshine shines as well
The view is often blue

You’ll often find me writing songs
I’m regular with bran
But don’t ask for help to build your shed
I’m not a handyman

In my head I’m fit and sound
You could call me He-man
More often, when snacks abound
I’m Fried Potatoman


Well, I rhyme words like scan and flan
And ban and span and gran
It’s hard to do it all the time
Coz there are only so many out there.

Forty Two

There’s a number that will certainly fix
Your particular problem quite quick
It’s called Forty Two
And it’s the answer for you
If you’re looking for seven times six.

Your Couldn’t Care Less Heart

Today’s Sunday Song is the new release by another long time songwriting friend, Murray Webster.

Your Couldn’t Care Less Heart is a completely self made project, video ‘n all. Murray, as well as being a very talented songwriter and musician, is also the founder of London Songwriters, introducing and helping develop the craft of songwriting with a large number of very grateful students.

The song (and recording) is excellent, and gets a big tip of my hat. Albeit that my hat is not as cool as Murray’s ….

Shine On You

Shine On You crazy thing.
Shine on when the night is falling
And the song is ending
Shine on when you don’t want to.
You can’t help it you mad fool.
It’s a light that cannot go out.
Even if you wanted it to.
It’s powered by life.

And you are the torch.

So shine on.

Suspicious

It’s Suspicious.

The Skies have been blue for forever. It’s been lovely. But it can’t last. It’s got to stop sometime.

And it is gonna stop :(.

Next week apparently, according to weather reports. Just when I’m about to start a week long walk along the West Highland Way, with my Boys and a couple of friends, camping en-route.

*Shakes fist at the Sky. *

“Why Me!!!!?????” WHYYYYYYYY!

Doh! I’m complaining before I’ve even started.

That’s the spirit!

ps. I’m really looking forward to it though. It’s to celebrate me turning Sixty, and I’m very grateful to the victi…volunteers who are joining me.