Lager Time

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening? How we doing?

So this week I’ve started work back on Make Your Own bed and Hope for the Best; which is a solo theatre show about my experiences of employment. I started developing it back in 2019 – To be honest its become a bit of a labour of love, which is ironic, considering the subject matter but I’m determined to get it finished this year.

It’s been through various iterations, most of which you can see for yourself on my YouTube channel, where I’ve been documenting the process. The most recent incarnation was back last July, where I did two nights at Camden People’s Theatre; as a full work-in-progress show. It went alright, all in all but I still wasn’t happy with it. So I’m back playing with it again and have been re-working the stories, which form the core of the material. It’s odd, the more I write this sort of stuff, the harder it seems to get.

Last year, when I went through this process, I found it quite useful to share what I was doing online, I think it helped build up a little bit of interest, whilst helping me edit the work. I’m going to try and do something similar again but in cooperating the old Substack. Well, it’s not old, is it?

I gotta’ say, I’ve been enjoying doing this though, putting things up on Lager Time. I think I will continue to put up various bits and bobs: poems, stories and thoughts; as well as the show material as I go back through it, until I find my stride with it.

I’ve also been putting a bit of time in to get better at recording audio. I can be quite lazy with that kind of thing but at some point, I’d like to try my hand at voiceovers and the like, geezers gotta’ eat somehow… and that seems another way to earn some much-needed spondoolies; so it’s good practise for me. Maybe not recording right next to a window would be a good start in improving things.

Large up all of you that have been supportive with it so far, I hope you’re enjoying it, like I am. On a quick note, before we get into the material, there’s two new books that have bene published this week, which are both very significant for me and my beats & Elements collaborators.

Making Hip Hop Theatre Beatbox and Elements – by Conrad Murray and Katie Beswick &

Beats and Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy

The former is the go-to guide, on making hip hop theatre, alongside interviews and the latter, is three plays, No Milk For The Foxes, Denmarked and High Rise eState of Mind. Two of which I co-wrote. It’s nuts to see both the work and process in print. We made most of this stuff from nothing.

They’re both published by Methuen Drama and are available at all good book stores.

PAPER-BOY

Apart from that job I got licking stamps for a mate of my dad’s; some primitive spam-operation for a charter flight company, in the Gatwick metro centre, when I was about nine, the first proper paid gig I got was being a Sunday paper boy, for Smith’s Newsagents, Horley, in Surrey where I grew up. 12 years old man and boy (northern accent )

My brother Will’s mate, Mark, had originally held that paper- round but he’d graduated from Sunday Paper-Boy to that coveted role of Saturday assistant in Smiths. He phoned up Will one day and asked Will if wanted the vacant round. Will asked mum and dad.  Dad said he can only do it, if he split the round with it me. So through a blatant case of nepotism and state intervention, I got my first job, in partnership with my brother Will. I was a working man… boy.

Few months into doing it and Will also got a Saturday job and in what I now view in retrospect, as an aggressive cooperate take-over of the partnership, the whole round become solely mine. Yes. The whole £3. 300pence, all for, me.

Getting up early is tough, especially when it’s dark, cold and wet and the only people about: are dog-walkers, odd balls, airport workers and casualties from the night before. But I get to ride my bike really fast through the subway the empty high-street, pulling little wheelies.

Each week I’d sit on the steps of the British Legion, at the start of the round and scan the back of the tabloids for the Millwall match reports form Saturdays games and any other football news as well any pictures I can find of semi-naked women .

Increasingly I began to take note of the front pages too. Politicians, commentators, journalists; who are these people and why are they always in scandals?

I’d listen to my Walkman, really loud. Missioning it between the streets; compilation tapes, hip hip, grunge, jungle, metal and whatever else my older siblings fed me. I learnt which houses I had to have special requirements for, paper under the mat, top letter-box only. The ones which the crazy dogs, which gaffs took the tabloids and which was took the broadsheets and would curse those ones for the sheer size of the papers in proportion to their tiny letter boxes. Who had time to read all of that?

Each week I’d ride past the bike shop and look at all the sick bmx’s and mountain bikes and try and work-out how many weeks paper-round wages it would take me to save for one. Adds up with fingers And then I’d quicky abandon that calculation because I hate maths and it would probably take me years, anyway.

I got good at this job and I was reliable; that’s what Mr Smith said to me one day.  He started giving me extra rounds when the other kids were off sick or on holiday, which meant more dough, which brings me to the best bit in all of this; riding back to the shop, when I finished the round and Mr Smith pressing that magic button to open the till, sliding out the dough, then placing those solid, grubby, heavy, gold nuggets; three of the queens finest English pounds, right into my sweaty-palm.

I’d look at it, enjoy the weight of it. Then I’d always have that brief moment, like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings where Gollum’s his eyes bulge at the sight at the ring. I’d get this sudden urge to buy things, stickers, sweets, magazines, newspapers, greetings-cards, stationary, paper-plates and party poppers, napkins and ladies tights. I wanted it all! Right there and then!

Sometimes I would spank the lot, right then and then, on sweets and stickers and whatever else, then regret it later on. But most of the time I didn’t. Having the paper-round, meant I could pay for birthday and Christmas presents, and lynx deodorant and Oxy ten spot cream, that stuffs expensive and mum weren’t buying it for me. I liked the feeling that I could pay for stuff, using money that I’d earnt.

I’d ride home, say hello to mum and make myself a boiled egg with soldiers, then watch the Holyoaks Omnibus and I remember thinking to myself, if this is what working life is like, I’m alright with that

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cree.substack.com

I mentioned in the first part of this, that it’s probably going to be a bit all over the place. It is. And I’m probably going to contradict myself.     I’m trying to work out where I stand on the sincerity of social-media posting, particularly in times of tragedy.

I’ve always had this stubborn side of me, that wants to quietly rebel against consensus. I’m not quite sure why but I find it pretty annoying; as in, why can’t I just accept things like most other people. I suspect it has a lot to do with my own ego, which, despite calm / gormless appearances, can be a raging-mess, like a quaint, inconspicuous (and fully soundproofed) village-hall; housing a packed, drug-fuelled gabba-rave.  But that’s not the only thing.

My first memory of it rearing its head was in primary school, watching some slapstick-theatre show, prancing about the school assembly hall. All the kids were cracking-up; except for me. I can remember this conflicted feeling I had – this sort of frustration, that I wanted all the other kids to understand that this is shit, it isn’t funny ­- versus the feeling (though I could be making this bit up but I’m pretty sure it was the case) of actually wanting to laugh, because perhaps; it was funny, in places.

The classic one these days, is if someone recommends me something to watch, or listen to, that’s current, or popular, or both. My normal reaction is something along the lines of that’s probably going to be shit. See, I can be a prick. However, in some cases, that inner-prick, is often right; subject to my own preference and opinion, of course. Kendrick Lamar is a decent spitter, but he ‘aint top ten, no-where near it, mate. And Line of Duty, was no better than a soap-opera. It was alright, but nothing special. Sometimes I wish I could accept the consensus though. Life would probably be a bit happier.  

Sometimes it’s not all ego-driven, or just something being over-rated. Sometimes, it’s a hunch or a suspicion, that something else is going on. The bull-shit detector. If it’s mass-consensus, sometimes it could be tribalism that’s driving it, or self-preservation perhaps, which gets masked as earnest, which then makes it insincere, thus bull-shit; especially in the realm of politics. Sincerity is important to me.

There’s numerous cultural and political examples I could give here. A major tragedy happens, a mass-shooting, a war, some big social-justice-type moment and immediately social-media timeliness are awash with more platitudes than a political speech-writing-workshop. But why?

My own reaction to this sort of stuff could well speak to that inner-prick, he exists, most certainly. Also my own social-inadequacies. If I wasn’t so awkward, perhaps ‘d be jumping on board the big save-the-world-sloganeering. 

Sometimes it’s an insecurity thing; they’re probably related. I mugged off grime when it first came about. I think deep-down, I thought it had stolen drum and bass’s thunder. How stupid is that? Like I own drum and bass, or something?! It’s all music. I love music. I’m glad I saw through my own bullshit there. I love grime. Equally, I used to cuss-off 90’s R&B music, saying it was cheesy. But in truth, I did like some of it, I think my issue was that I associated it with men that were confident with the ladies; which of course, I wasn’t.

What’s triggered this post, is the recent death of UK MC Skibadee. Unfortunately, with easy access to instant news, it seems not a week goes by without some legend passing away, and it’s always sad, especially when that person means something to so many. Skibba meant a lot to me (and many, many others of course) but it was the first time I felt moved to write something and post it online and even then I was conflicted. Only time will tell if I’d detected the smell of my own bullshit again, whilst writing it.

The only time I’ve ever chipped in previously was when Leslie Neilson died, and that was only a short tweet. But this one’s bought the conflict up in me again. This conforming thing. I’ve seen a lot of it of late, but for some reason, it doesn’t sit right with me and I don’t know if it’s just that egotistical-dick-head-insecure-not-in-the-cool-club-side-of-me, or the side that’s sometimes, is right to be suspicious[U1] ?

I fully understand that there were many people that knew him, or grew up listening to him, or knew how much of an inspiration he’s been. But some of the things I was seeing, from accounts that I’ve never seen post anything about him, or drum and bass even, felt insincere. Call me a prick here but it seems that if his passing somehow fitted into the sphere, however tenuously, of those accounts own ‘online brand’, then they would comment. Like an industrial trawler, sweeping up everything off the ocean floor, so long as it looked like a fish; it all has a value.  I’m not going to include any examples here, as I’m well-aware I could be completely wrong. I’d rather keep focus on the general sincerity online, or lack of, whenever any big tragedy happens and the cultural-capital that can come with commenting.

I know only too well, what a few of those heart-like-clicks can do to my brain, I can feel it fiending for them, like my dog when I whip the treats out, whenever I post something and then check in, at numerous intervals, to see if anyone has liked it. I’ll be checking the stats on this post, no doubt. That dopamine hit from a click validation – it’s addictive.  And what better way to get those hits, than writing something, in emotional times, that appeals to people’s sense of loss and occasion? Get it right and you’re a wide-boy with the keys to a charlie-factory.

As I write my way through this, I realise it’s probably a mixture of both.  Sincere and insincere. Maybe it’s ok, to reach out for validation, in times of high emotion. The day before I got married, when the pressure was on, I felt the sudden need to reach-out to my parents. I had a little cry and I hugged my mum and I think that was what I needed in that moment. It wasn’t online of course but I would never share anything like that online, that’s just not me but I think the motive may be have similar. For some, maybe that’s what it is, a little reach-out for a virtual-hug, as well as wanting to honour the dearly departed. No shame there.

But is that the case every time? I don’t think so. There’s some people, out there knee-deep in clicked-sourced-dopamine and looking for that next hit. But you tell me. These things are very difficult to prove and of course call-out, due to the sensitive nature of the subjects. I guess it's down to perception at the end of the day, that and smokey mirrors.

We’re all still figuring out the dos and don’ts of this social media thing. What I do know is, most cultures have specific ways to honour their dead, they’re time-honoured traditions and every part of it, is designed to serve a higher purpose, way beyond gassing-up someone delivering a half-arsed eulogy. Large up the real ones and RIP Skibadee.    

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cree.substack.com

I’m not sure exactly where I was when I heard Skibadee Mcing, for the first time but I’m quite sure it was on the school bus, sat next to my mate, Graham, who lent me a copy, which I copied, of a DJ Brockie set; from a One Nation tape-pack. What I do know is, that it was on that tape, that I first heard Skibba and it stayed in my Walkman, for a very long time. I still have it somewhere and can still recite many of the MC’s lyrics on it. We all have a that tape – I’ve got two, this is the other one.

The year was 1998, I would’ve been about 14. The tape itself, was definitely from 98. That was the year that another legendary UK MC passed away, Stevie Hyper D. His name, along with ‘R I P’ was chanted a lot throughout that tape and a lot of the other DJ sets that were in that same tape-pack. It was pertinent, because from my point of view, and a lot of others, Skibadee went on take Stevie Hyper D’s crown, as the King of Drum and Bass MC’s and all-round UK MC legend.

For those that don’t know what, or who I’m talking about, that’s ok, I’ll try and explain but I’m not quite sure where to start. Perhaps yesterday (Sunday, 28.2.22) I saw online, whilst sat watching that new Kanye West documentary on Netflix, that Skibadee had passed away. I felt that pang in my chest and belly, took in a short breath and paused the telly. This, a week after another UK music stalwart (albeit, from a younger generation) Jamal Edwards, had also passed away.

This morning, I felt compelled to put some thoughts down, not quite sure why but I hope I’ll figure that out as this goes on. It will probably be a bit all over the place, as I’m going to try and link it to something else that I’ve been thinking about, which is something along the lines of; posting-things-on-social-media-as-a-form-of-expression- and-when-is-it-genuine? But I’ll deal with that, in a second post, I’ve got too much to say about Skibba and it’s probably more interesting.

But back to Skibba and that DJ Brockie tape. If you grew up in the 90’s, were from the UK, London or the surrounding counties and were tuned in to underground dance-music, chances are, you’d know about jungle / drum ‘n bass. Maybe you went to the raves, maybe like me, you had a mate and an older brother, who played you a tape, or a record, maybe you heard it blasting out of a souped-up Ford Escort XR3i, or maybe you were playing with the radio dial one day and you picked up one of the numerous pirate-stations that were broadcasting off London rooftops. And if you were nerdy, like I was and still am, you’d get obsessed and chances are you’d know that line of lineage, from Jungle to Drum and Bass - to UK Garage, to Grime, to Dubstep, to UK Rap to Drill, and the roots of that line from rave / hardcore, breakbeat, acid-house, techno, hip hop, bashment /dancehall /ragga / roots-reggae and dub. And you’d be proud of it. Too me, being a nerd is just an extension of passion, after all.

I loved Drum and Bass. I still do. I’ve talked about it a lot in my writing. I played the actual drums as a kid, so I love beats, big beats. When I first heard sped-up, chopped up, amen-breaks, I lost my shit. I soon learned that there was this whole scene, that came from London, just up the road from me, in Surrey and in it existed producers, DJ’s, promoters, pirate-radio stations, raves, flyers, tape-packs from said raves, record shops, record bags and clothes and of course, MC’s. It was sick. And it was from London.

But back to that tape, again, finally. When first hearing it, I didn’t yet know how it all worked. The raves, the pirate-stations and the setups, how the music was communicated, with the DJ’s and the MC’s and how they worked together. I had little or no exposure to that world. I knew hip hop and knew about house and techno, through my older siblings, amongst other sounds. But Hip hop was on TV, house and techno were on BBC Radio 1.  I remember trying to exclaim to my brother, Will, that I’d heard this tape with all of these London MC’s on the records, that the DJ was playing. He had to explain to me, that the MC’s were live, on the mikes, at the event, hyping up the crowd and spitting their lyrics over the beats the DJ was playing. That was how it worked. Despite its similar DJ/MC lineage, 90’s hip hop and its era of wildly successful recording artists, making actual tracks in studios, were hardwired into me at this stage. I had no idea, I thought all those voices that I was hearing on the tape, were recorded on the records. I even thought Skibbas name was ‘Skipper-d’ for a good while.

The whole thing was exciting to me, for a number of reasons. A lot of the MC’s were rapping in the double-time style. Super-fast lyrics, that sounded like machine-guns. I love breakbeats and what there were doing, was making their voices into rhythmic instruments, like watching a drum solo from Buddy Rich, not just sitting in the background providing a beat. I often had no idea what they were saying but it sounded sick. Sometimes they were freestyling, I couldn’t believe that either, just making it up on the spot, like it was magic, they all seemed so talented. But they were doing it, over Drum and Bass beats, which I loved and they had London accents, often intermixed with Jamaican ragga styles. But that sounded far less alien, to this pasty kid from Surrey, than an American accent on a hip hop beat did; as much as I loved hip hop, of course, it was American.

Typically, on a DJ set from one of the big raves, like One Nation, if it was Drum and Bass, you’d have two or three MC’s, sometimes more, sometimes less. The raves would then produce the sought-after tape-packs that you could buy, with all the DJ sets recorded onto cassettes and they’d have these mad futuristic designs on the covers. That first tape from the One Nation 98 pack that I heard, if memory recalls correctly, had 5ivo, Shabba, Fearless, Moose and Skibbadee all MCing on it. Skibba wasn’t on it much but when I heard him, he really stood out. I assumed then, that he was like a young up-and-comer, so only got a little spot. Again, highlighting my lack of understanding about how those big rave events worked, he was all over the other tapes that I later heard, just not the Brockie one. I wanted to hear more of him, though. That little segment was enough to get me hooked. He came on, mid-set, with that lyric that included the words ‘when am I gonna get my dividend’ which is also where I first heard and later learned the meaning of that word; financial education from Skibadee – what was school for?

His staccato, double-time flow, sounded so cool to me. No one did it like him but we all tried. Go on, say that above sentence to yourself, rapidly, without pausing for breath and you’ll go someway to understanding why he was so effective as an all round MC .

‘when am I gonna get my dividend, I get my piece of the action’

His vocal tone, flow and energy, just sounded perfect. I’d rewind that bit, over and over, loving it when he cut in and rode the beat, like a horse to war, full of slickness and confidence. It was his bars and a few of Stevie Hyper D’s (someone else I’ve also written about) that I first tried to copy, when I decided I was going to be an MC.

Since I’ve been into it, Drum and Bass’s popularity has often fluctuated. At the time I first heard that tape, it wasn’t that popular anymore, it didn’t seem it anyway. Wide-boys at my school were listening to speed garage – maybe their elder siblings liked Jungle back in the early 90’s but it was seen as either too fast and aggressive, or just a bit mental. The music was definitely quite-dark, back then, when I first latched on to it.

Me and my brother Will, would go into the newsagents and scan through the big dance music magazines of the time, like DJ and Mixmag and see if there were any Drum and Bass features, it was slim pickings, they barley got a mention. I remember getting upset one day when Loaded magazine casually said it was ‘dead.’ How arrogant have you gotta be to say that? Regardless though, that music soldiered-on, along with its infrastructure of raves like One Nation, Helter Skelter and Droppin Science.

With the commercial success of UK Garage, came the rise of MC-led garage and the So Solid Crew era. Suddenly, UK MC’s were at the forefront, as rappers, on tracks and in videos, not just crowd hypers at the raves anymore. UK hip hop has always been around, as far as I can remember but it was very niche. At this point, Drum and Bass seemed to get more popular again, this time, with a lot more focus on the MC’s, so naturally, Skibba rose to the top. He even featured on a chart-topping Shy FX track that got playlisted on BBC Radio 1. I remember getting pissed-off when Chris Moyles played the record on his drivetime show and was doing bad impressions of Skibba. I felt like he had no idea who Skibadee was and had just disrespected an underground legend, who’d found commercial success.

This era also spawned a whole load of rudeboys, to want to pick up a mike and start MCing – when I first was in my early teens, everyone wanted to DJ, Mc’s were thin on the ground where I grew up. That all changed. Skibba was the one they always seemed to gravitate towards, trying to imitate his rapid double-time style. When am I gonna get my dividend. Everyone loved Skibba. But there’s only one Skibadee and a DJ set, with 7 rudeboys doing bad impressions of him, could easily be MC-overkill and ruin a DJ set and often a whole event; which it did, many times. Thus, the tables had turned somewhat, in the eternal conflict between DJ’s and MC’s but it turned off a lot of people, myself included.

I was heavily into Drum and Bass, for a long time but as I got into my early twenties, I gradually started to drift away from it. I’d been Mcing for a few years and had a few gigs under my belt but had gradually transitioned to focusing more on writing lyrics and trying to make tracks but not drum and bass tracks - hip hop, grime and whatever else; drum and bass was still very a much a club-based scene and I didn’t think I had what it took, to be the hyper-energetic rave MC. That and I got fed-up with moter-mouthed rudeboys trying to hustle the mike off me all the time.

I can’t pretend I’ve been this unwavering, hardcore Drum and Bass head. I haven’t. I still went to the occasional event but chances are it would be something like Rupture – which focused a lot more on the breakbeats and didn’t seem to attract the crowd that wanted the MC’s, spitting constantly over Jump Up beats. In some of those circles, it was almost frowned upon to like those MC’s, or the beats they typically rapped over. Even in an underground sub-genre, with sub-sub-genres, there was still elements of classism and cultural superiority. I certainty had traits of this but if I’m honest, I still loved a bit of Skibba and Shabba on a jump-up set. Every now and again, I’d blast an old tape with MC’s like Skibba spraying all over it. And with the advent of You Tube and the wider application of the internet in general, people were uploading all sorts of old DJ sets from raves and radio and records – so I’d go down these rabbit-holes and enjoy the lyrical-barrages of an MC Convention set, in the safety of my headphones and a few premium-strength lagers.

I work a lot with young people and I often ask them what music they listen too. Many will cite British-born rappers, in fact, these days they’re more likely to listen to British rap music, than they are American. It’s a huge turnaround from where it was, when I first got interested in all of this. I remember people smirking when I told them I liked UK hip hop. Those drum and bass MC’s, along with the UK Garage MC’s and of course the likes of So Solid Crew, Heartless Crew, Pay As You Go (as well as the UK Hip Hop guys Like London Posse, Blak Twang, Roots Manuva, Jehst and Skinnyman) made it a lot more acceptable for your average British kid, to listen to UK MC’s.

The wider acceptance of British underground dance and rap music, was helped massively with the advent of BBC 1Xtra and Channel U. Both national platforms, with a much bigger reach than anything before, where a wider audience could be cultivated and it was. These platforms allowed rappers to have legitimate careers and it sent Grime into the mainstream. I was always chuffed, when those stations showcased the Drum and Bass guys that came before; Skibba was often on 1xtra doing freestyles. And you’d often hear the first wave of successful Grime MC’s, who were getting major record deals, paying homage to Skibba, Shabba, Dett, Stevie Hyper et all, preserving the lineage.

Years later, with social media, I’d be able to occasionally check in with these guys. I followed SASASAS all those MC’s and DJ’s from my past and have regularly watched short video clips of all those guys, shutting down raves and festivals the world over, still going after all these years and as someone that still likes to rap and MC, fast approaching 40, it’s inspiring to me that they’re all still doing it, into their 40’s and 50’s even, and still headlining events. It was only on Saturday, that I looked at a picture of Shabba, Harry Shotta, DJ Phantasy and Skibadee, with the caption asking their fans what festivals they wanted to see them at this year.

With the current crop of Drill rappers, making their way in the music world, I don’t know if they know, from whence they came, in terms of the rap industry in the UK. It’s neither here nor there if they do, they’re doing their own thing and I respect it, as any new generation should -  however, if they care to look – they’ll see Skibadee up there, as one of the great UK MC’s, who helped blaze a path for this whole British rapping thing to happen, and me, and countless others who grew up on the tape packs, pirate-radio and car-stereos and raves, will forever be indebted to his legacy.

I hope he’s up there, in his final resting place, going back-to-back with Stevie Hyper D, keeping the eternal rave-souls lively in the dance. Skibba dealt with the matter and dealt with it proper.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cree.substack.com

Sunday Loathe, by me Paul Cree.

Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening.

Something a little different this week. It’s a short story, that I wrote around 2014. This   will most likely be a bit longer than my usual offerings on here, bare with me, I’m trying something.

I have this character, called Reece, who I’ve written a number of stories about, over the last ten or so years, which I’ve never done anything with (apart from entering this one into a short story competition; I’m assuming I didn’t win.)  

He first appeared as character, in a spoken word piece, called My Town, which I wrote around 2010 and used to perform it a lot, it was like my flagship piece. I stopped performing it, because I felt didn’t really fit with everything else that I did, which was largely autobiographical. So I decided I was better off keeping him in short story form and every now and again, I’d dig him out, along with his mates, and start writing. Saying that, I wrote a draft of a two-hander play, in which one of the charters was Reece. Also, never went anywhere.

I always enjoy writing as this character, just never really know what to do with it, which I spoke about in the first blog on this here Substack. Most of the stories are just ideas, really, some a bit more developed than others. This was one of the better ones.  

Hopefully, I’ll have a crack at writing some more at some point. Hope you enjoy it.

SUNDAY LOATHE

Sunday Roast

I'm at an age in my life where I don't actually mind living with my parents but they probably do. Well, my dad definitely does. I don’t blame him, though. My parents are old school. As a man, you leave home at eighteen - nineteen, get a job, make your way in the world, get married, set up a new home, have a couple of nippers and all that, then once-in-a-while you feed them on the odd Sunday lunchtime, Christmas or Easter, like they did you. That’s it.

 I'm approaching thirty and I haven’t yet flown the nest. I pay rent and bills, like most other people (just not as much with the rent bit) but I make up for that tax-break with massive debt re-payments from historical credit binges and general financial mismanagement, that sees me permanently squatting in my overdraft, with nothing to show for it, other than several pairs of once-banging trainers, several hundred booze ups and a few holidays abroad with mates, where we got boozed up, just like we normally do, except under the sun; sporting t-shirts with un-imaginative names written on the back.

Being at home, I sometimes get the benefit of Mums cooking. The meals can be a bit samey but I'm not that fussy when it comes to eating and I don't like cooking, so I'm grateful, most of the time. Really. I am. I just hate sitting around the table to eat as a family. This day was another one of those days, Sunday lunch, the important one, with me, hungover, again, having got cunted the night before, again, which never really helps, does it.

'This looks lovely Pam'

Normally Dad rubs his hands together at this point, like an excitable child, upon being presented a plate full of Mum’s finest Sunday roast. There was no cheery hand-rubbing on this day though. I figured he’d not had his customary pre-match clear-out, which had probably put him out of sorts. This is all part of the build-up for Dad. I normally hear it in my room, unfortunately positioned next to the carzi. It’s awful, though not as bad as the main event, that comes after dinners done.

'Sorry but I think the potatoes are a bit overdone.' Mum, modest as ever.

As I work varying shifts at the call centre, I'm often able to get out of sitting round the dinner table to eat during the week. Sitting together brings it all home for me and stamps it on my face. I'm all too aware that I'm encroaching into my parent’s final swansong, as they approach retirement, like a London Marathon runner, looking like a prick, in some stupid costume they probably regretted as soon as the cameras started rolling; staggering down the Mall towards the finish line, glad that the whole ordeal will shortly be over.

There's not a day that goes by, when I wish I wasn’t an inconvenience on their part. I'm grateful for the roof and the food but I find this tired ritual of eating around the table a mild form of torture, and so does my sister, and it's likely that so do my parents, yet they insist on persisting with it. It's as if were at a conference and I'm the resident fuck-wit, speaking on how to be a complete waste of valuable oxygen and maximise parental disappointment, with a sticker across my chest that says BELL-END, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it.

'Can you pass me the pepper please Dad?'

'Speak up Reece, I can't hear you, you're mumbling.'

'Can you pass me the pepper please Dad?'

Dad was in one of those moods where he doesn’t really want to talk. Tip-toeing around him can be like walking across a minefield, blindfolded, not that I've ever walked across a minefield, blindfolded, but I imagine it to be pretty stressful. Closest I ever got, was picking the football out of the stinging nettles in the garden. I was hungover and in no mood for walking, let alone tip-toeing, that required delicate movements and intense concentration. My sister Kerry, was kicking me under the table. I looked at her and she nodded at my hand, which was underneath my chin, elbow resting on the table, supporting my head like a really shit pillar, as if some can’t-be-arsed student had made a crap attempt at a Greek Amphitheatre using cardboard and Sellotape, for a GCSE tech project. The one free hand, my left, was forking up little bits of food then tipping it back over onto the plate.

Over the last few years of being at home, me and Kerry have developed this physical dialogue and perfected it; this wordless and slightly painful form of communication is used specifically for meal times, mostly on Sundays. There were several phrases, most of which roughly translated too;

'REECE YOU MELON, IF YOU'RE HUNGOVER AT LEAST TRY TO LOOK LIKE YOU'RE NOT HUNGOVER, YOU KNOW IT WINDS THEM UP.'

Dad shovels his first forkful into his cement mixer of a mouth, lips smacking like a racehorse with the munchies. I find the sound of people eating repulsive. It's one of the most basic of human functions yet, I can’t stand it, even when I eat. We piss, shit and fuck separately, why do we all have to do this one together? Sat around tables like a bunch of mugs, pretending to enjoy each other's company. Most of my mates' families didn’t bother with this tired ritual. They thought I was posh because my family did it, was always really awkward when they came round for tea. What’s the point in having a fucking sky-dish if we’re not gonna spend dinner time gorping at the Fresh Prince, like a stoned Goldfish? I must have automatically winced when Dad made a particularly loud lip-smack, because Kerry spoke me again, KICK;

'REECE, FOR FUCKS SAKE GET IT TOGETHOR!'

'How’s work at the moment Reece?'

As ever, Mum attempts to break the ice, whilst desperately trying in vain to hold this pangea together, instead of letting evolution explode us in to our independent land masses; for the record, I'd probably be some crap island cut adrift in the North Atlantic, fuck-all minerals to mine and too weak to defend itself from imperialists, who'd want to use it as an military base to attack somewhere much bigger, wealthier and generally more useful to humanity.

'It's aright...thanks.' I say, forking up and twisting another bit of mash.

'Nothing new then?'

'Na... not really,' staring at the mash, thinking that it looks like a fluffy cloud.

'Your mum is asking you a question Reece.'

Dad interjects with a mouth full of food, speaking words as if there was a sock stuffed in his mouth. A lone pea and a couple of bits of swede escape out and fly onto the table cloth, like debris from a restaurant bomb-blast shattering into the street, I follow the peas trajactory. The pea lands just in front of the water jug, right in my eye line;

'Sorry Mum, just don't have much to say about it at the moment, nothing positive anyway...The mash potato is really nice.'

'Dunno why we bother Pam.' Dad ploughs back into his food.

My response was C/D borderline at best, could do better, just like most of my school reports, reminding me of that time I made that half-arsed Greek-Amphitheatre out of Sellotape and paper for my GCSE tech project.

I looked at the pea for a moment and wondered if he was hoping, that another one of his mates might come flying out of Dad’s mouth to join him on the table, whilst Dad was barking at me. Alas, he was still on his own, isolated. must have been hard for that pea, despair was something I could empathise with. Dad finally swallowed then spoke, the pea must have winced;

'You spend full working days there, five days a week and you have nothing to say!?'

'Not really...What do you want me to say, Dad?'

'I want you to give your mother a proper answer, not some crap attempt like the poxy one you just gave.' Think Dad must have been constipated again.

'Leave it Tony, he doesn’t want to talk about it.' Mum speaks, her eyes closed and her chin to her chest. KICK

'YOU FUCKLING IDIOT REECE, MUM'S UPSET NOW, WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS?!'

Mum looks as if she could cry, she stares at her plate, composes her-self, then asks Kerry about how her A-levels are going. Kerry answers, Kerry to the rescue, she speaks well, talking about her uni-choices, giving Mum and Dad reason for optimism.  A daughter that could genuinely go on to make some actual achievements in life. Kerry knows how to play this game. She finishes her modest Oscar speech ,then gives me a double KICK;

‘I'VE GOT YOU OUT OF THIS ONE AGAIN, SEE, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ENGAGE THEM, IT'S NOT THAT HARD REECE, IS IT? STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOUR-SELF, YOU’RE LIKE A FUCKING CHILD SOMETIMES!'

Mum and Dad start talking about the Seventies Weekender they'd just been on down at Pontins, after Kerry had tactically asked how it went. They seemed to perk up at this, even Dad raised a smile, sounds like they really enjoyed it. I’m glad they enjoyed.

I looked at the pea again, the lone, green pea, the maverick escapee, seeking asylum from the death camps of my Dad's guts, where the stodge of low quality white bread, streaky bacon, digestive biscuits and shitty larger, permanently undulate in one mass gloop of shite. Sitting quietly on the kitchen table cloth, lonely and isolated, far removed from his earthy beginnings. It wasn’t meant to be like this, was it Pea?  I reckoned he was waiting round to see if anyone else made it out. The swede were straight goners to the floor, no chance anyone will ever find them other than the hoover. This pea was probably well educated, expecting great things from the promised land of the table cloth, but he was on his own, no help from anyone and probably seen as a piece of shit to be disposed of, but he's free, free, if only he knew it!

Somewhere in-between fantasising about the pea, the conversation had moved from the seventies weekender in Pontins, to Mum and Dad's history together, a regular feature at the meal time and one that always left me feeling worse than I already did, upon hearing their achievements and inevitably comparing them to mine. More appeasement from the school of Kerry’s-Diplomacy.

'1984 I think it was, me and your Father managed to buy our first place, a small flat in Norwood, I think we were 22?' Mum looks at Dad, Dad shovels another load of food in his mouth then replies;

'No, 21. We were both the first in our families to ever get a mortgage'

Every time, years younger than what I am now, married and on the property ladder. I'm pretty sure they don't do it on purpose, but stories of Mum and Dad’s achievements are like someone laying the boot in, a real wind-stealer right in the ribs, whilst you're already lying on the floor, having had the shit beaten out of you by the school bully, in front of everyone, after making the mistake of trying to stick up for your-self.

tell myself it's pointless making comparisons, they didn’t have Pimp My Ride back then to microwave any ambitions they might’ve had, but still, I couldn’t help making those comparisons and inevitably feeling like a massive piece of shit that had taken up permanent residence in their bought-and-paid-for home; me and the pea were one now..

'Norwood was a lovely little place. That area was a bit different back then, really nice little community it was, you knew who your neighbours were, not like it is now, no, couldn’t go back to London now'

I looked at my parents and watched their mouths moving as they spoke. I began to imagine that I'd conducted a full-blown MRI scan on their brains as they were sat there at the table, whilst talking to Kerry, and I was now analysing the results, via the medium of Mirocoft Powerpoint, the lone pea, wearing a little lab coat, glasses and holding a clipboad, as my assistant;

'if you see the red patches here these are momentary flashes of xenophobia, normally triggered during moments of nostalgia, quite common amongst people of this age.'

'That's right. Wouldn’t go back to Norwood now, no chance. Ted from work still drinks there from time to time, when he goes up to watch the Palace. There was a shooting on our old street Pam! It's all gangs fighting over drugs now.'

If you pay particular attention to the male, these yellow patches here are nerve endings, sending messages to the bowels to release a highly toxic gas, known to stink-up the whole top floor of a house, often requiring fumigation afterwards. There is a severe build up of this gas in the gut, due to years of bad diet and stubborn refusal to adhere to any type of dietary advice. This blue light here just above it, is directly linked, it's a revulsion for anyone who dares to suggest implementing a dietary change, and anyone that does is either an obnoxious middle-class twat or just plain homosexual. This green light here is an internal query, queering whether-or-not 'plain homosexual' makes sense as a phrase, and this purple light is an insecurity, due to the word 'query' being used internally in reference to homosexuals, sounding a bit too much like 'queer' triggering this red light here at the back of the brain, which is an anxiety about whether or not there is a subconscious link.'

'That was lovely Pam, really hit the spot that did.'

Dad gets up from the table and goes into the kitchen, returning with two slices of white bread to mop up the gravy still on his plate. I look at the pea and I'm sure I could sense a small feeling of humour, emitting from the little green being, like a snigger or something, at the look of Dad with the white bread.

'Would you like any more love?'

'No thanks Mum, I'm stuffed.'

'What about pudding? It's apple crumble, your favourite.'

Apple crumble has never been my favourite, I might have said I liked it once, when I was about twelve. I stopped eating puddings a few years ago, yet Mum still insists on offering it. I read somewhere it was bad for your digestion, to eat a load of sugar-blasted food straight after a heavy meal. This was probably instantly dismissed by my parents as 'codswollop.' Even though Dad would’ve most likely gone upsatirs after the meal to obliterate the toilet, yet fail to make the connection, whilst condemning the upstairs part of the house, again. KICK;

‘STOP THINKING ABOUT DAD'S EATING HABBITS!'

'I'm ok for pudding thanks Mum, I'll go and start the washing up.'

I got up and left, washing up was my exit card. A chance for me to stick my headphones on, listen to some beats and block out the dull and painful thud of my own failings. As I got up from the table and walked into the kitchen, I suddenly thought about the pea, stranded, no longer under my protection. BANG;

'That bloody boy, doesn’t clean up after himself!'

I suddenly noticed that my leg was hurting from all the kicks. It wasn’t meant to be this way, was it. 

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A young man of nineteen is rummaging

through his wallet, looking for his gym

pass. In amongst the receipts, chewing

gum wrappers and train tickets, he

finds a date-expired, unused rubber;

curry flavour. He’d bought it from a

vending machine on his sixteenth

Birthday. He holds it, he can feel it’s gone

dry and crusty. He’s still wearing too much

Lynx and the hair-gel is still slooping off

his head in wet-weather, V-Plates are

still very much intact, along with his

optimism. Never give up he thinks

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Plans for the indecisive

Plans for the unconfident

Plans for the ill-prepared

Plans for the avoiders of conflict

Plans for the effeminate

Plans for the masculine

Plans for the identity clingers

Plans for the identity seekers

Plans for the identity shredders

Plans for the bored

Plans for the un-motivated

Plans for the negative, cynical and depressed

Plans for the self-aware bad-habbiters

Plans for the spouse disappointers

Plans for the family embarrasses

Plans for the compliment shirkers

Plans for the compliment seekers

Plans for the distant whisperers of hope

Plans for long-term excitement

Plans for vitality and wealth

Plans for God, divinity

Plans for organisation

Plans to get well soon

Plans to unclip the seatbelt and press the ejector button

Plans to convert passive to electric

Mayne that’s a good place to start

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December, eh? Few words and a poem

Greetings, seasons greetings. Life’s been a bit hectic these last few weeks, hence no post. This might sound like I’m contradicting myself but I’m currently out in America, on my honeymoon. It was hectic in the run up to getting here and we’ve been travelling around; New-York, Boston and now Dallas. So far so good, until I got COVD. I’m currently self-isolating, don’t feel too bright but it’s warm and I’m fortunate enough to be staying at my wife’s sister’s house, I’m being looked-after, this could all be a lot worse.

Anyway, it’s my first chance to pick up the lappy and pen something, so here it is. A little piece I scribbled on the train home, a few weeks back, after a little gig in Norwood. December. So this is also being recorded on my phone, on a new piece of kit I got to help me live-stream but so far it’s not worked, so I’m back to the trust voice-notes

If you’re reading / listening to this, I hope wherever you are, you’re housed, warm and fed. Large up for the support, happy Christmas, Paul Cree.

December comes like a hit and run

Where’d December come from?

Snuck-up like a last-orders bell – slap

red letter dropping on the doormat

No choice but to deal with it now

Was busy living then blinked and

It got dark

Yawned and it got cold

Chin tucked into jacket ill equipped

For worst weather

Was gonna go for a run as well but

It’s raining outside until April

And even then…

So now what?

Footballs off

Make the most of it, mate

Little lights like rain illuminated under

Car headlights, highlights are thin

On the ground this time of year

Like the snow that settles for seconds

Then forms all forlorn and wet disappointment

seeking holes in soles and soaking socks

I swear yesterday it was hot or

At least mild and

Still light at seven and

Christmas was one of them things you

say you’re not even thinking about until

It comes round which is

Well, now

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I’m a stickler for nuance, especially in the times we’re in now. Sometimes, it can be a pain in the arse - someone can state something and I find it hard to let it go without piping up, sometimes I wish I wouldn’t, sometimes I do shut-up then wish I did pipe-up, I can’t win and it probably makes me a pain-in-the-arse to be around. It’s worth mentioning, though, all of the above, I only tend to do offline, online that’s a fight I’m too afraid of, which was part of the reason I started this blog.

Some trite examples of popular opinions, in the past few years, that were often on my radar, where I  at least try to present a more nuanced point, would be The amazing feat of Leicester winning the Premier League and The amazing success of Stormzy as an independent artist to Jeremy Corbyn is a Marxist and Nigel Farage is a fascist. All these four things are nowhere near as clear or as simple as they’re made out be, some more serious than others, of course but I’m not settling for any of those four statements, as absolute truths, which they’re often presented as.

Brexit was a big one for me, as I’m sure it was for many. A binary question on a highly complex issue - I can see pros and cons on both sides. The toxicity of the mainstream campaigns and debates seemed to detract from what I thought was the original question.  It just became another battlefield in the so called culture-war and it all got a West-Side-Story.

Maybe that’s what the problem is, we’re too quick to get partisan and jump in the what we think are the best equipped camps, no one wants to be in no-mans land; expect perhaps for nobs like me who want to take time to figure things out, when there probably is no time. Trouble is, for someone like me, I can only act on what I know and whilst I do read a lot, especially about politics and social issues, I don’t always understand it and when it comes to arguing it, I often struggle to get my points across; yet that insatiable desire for a bit more nuance never goes and I can get obsessive seeking out alternative views.

At times It feels like a dangerous obsession, or at the very least a nagging one that often riles me up and I don’t quite know what I get out of it. Perhaps I’m just an aspiring smart-arse, who’s not yet earned the ‘smart’ part of that phrase.

At some dull-yet-turbulent moment in twenty-twenty, I wrote this little poem, tyring to make sense of what I’m doing. Suffice to say, on the long road to Damascus, I probably got side-tracked at a service station stressing about what flavour of crips I wanted with my over-priced motorway meal deal, when I should’ve opted for the Pan-Pipe Moods CD compilation from the bargain-bin.

The Unlicensed Diver, by Paul Cree

At some point I got lost deep diving for truth

whatever that is

been learning to breathe ever since

can barely swim, let-alone dive

no tanned-man in Thailand

just read what I could

asked a few questions from the few people I

knew and the few books I had

made maps on the internet marked with x’s

got my Nike’s dirty down rabbit holes

realised some rabbits weren’t as wise I thought

just a lot of rabbit talk

I remember getting that irritating twitch back

at school, from playground spats to classroom analysis

often thinking there’s more to this than what’s being presented

just never quite knew what it was

some other texture and taste I weren’t getting from that

bland food I was instructed to swallow

got older and felt the same about the news and everyday

views I’d hear out and about

felt stupid when I aired mine

unformed and messy, like a piece of homework

produced on the bus, I’d produce my two p and

instantly feel out my depth, like I took a bath, shut my

eyes and woke up fighting a storm in the North Atlantic

convincing myself I was better off with the inflatables and the

flumes, at least they were a laugh, that and I

wouldn’t get cast out the clan for

breaking ranks

give it a day or two and the feeling resumed

just didn’t know what to do

so I took to diving, with no licence

just a bunch of erratic thoughts and a thirst for something more

I’ve unearthed a few things that muddied the water

each time I come up for air, I find the land more divided

spliced-up and taking sides

status seekers and self-publicists

political mules nudged into reactions

nudged into action

all armed with their half-truths,

cherry-picked data grenades, firing at will

desperate to catch a dart from the opposing side so they

can spin it out the stratosphere

sealing off all access routes to alternative views

dogmatic with diminishing returns

seen the distance between them turn from stream to river

with the banks threatening to burst

I’m back at school again, choking on the tripe I’m being

co-erced to swallow, thinking there’s a lot more to it, a

lot more, I’ve tasted it and I’m

barley getting started but I’m no

Olllie Twist, please sir… just

forget it

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If you know me, or you know the name of this blog, at least, you’ll know I very much enjoy drinking lager. These days, I don’t get to do it nearly as much as I’d like but I do enjoy a pint, or five. Those that know me well, know that I’m no fan of craft beer. It’s an odd thing to say, as craft-beer is a very broad-church and that rational part of me knows it’s an irrational thing to have a gripe about. BUT, I can genuinely say, I’ve never drunk one I liked the taste of but it’s not the content inside the glass or the tiny can with the whimsical illustration on it, that gets my back up a bit. It’s the perception, in my tiny paranoid mind, that I’m being told this is better, I should be drinking this. Well, what some it, just is’nt

Certain arguments I get; small local brewery versus cooperate bemouth full of chemicals and in many cases, I can understand people’s reasons to opt for the stinky hops, but it’s not always that simple is it. I remember waking up one morning after a night on that Camden Hells and my head felt like I’d been drinking Special Brew in a park, all day. I don’t think it’s all that squeaky clean. Then when stories broke of Craft-Beer-big-bollox, Brew-Dog mis-treating their staff, it made me think of that pious man that runs Canada who keeps getting caught doing black-face. What if, SOME of this craft beer stuff, is actually bollox

In a similar way, all this can be applied to food - see vegan /organic / sour dough etc and of course, to my other favourite thing, football. I’m a Millwall fan and like most Milllwall fans, I know that being in the to- ten of the second-tier in English football, is a decent achievement and if we’re there, it means that we’re probably punching above our weight.

These days, with Man City’s brand of football being the zeitgeist, playing the ‘right way’ means having multiple players that are comfortable on the ball and can move and switch positions. Trouble is, the players that can do that, tend to cost a lot of money. Millwall, not having the financial resources of other teams, have had to rely a bit more on being stifling-boring and defensive or failing that, the trusted four-four-two, blood and guts method. Which is often considered archaic. But what if it works

I’ve sat through and endured many teams attempting to play the ‘right way’ and sometimes, they get no-where. What if, SOME of the proponents of the ‘right way’ are just, a bit shit - see poem below

THE EMPOPERS NEW FOOTBALL KIT

They say they play proper football

how the game should be played

passing the ball, from back to front

and back again, all one touch

like a slowed down pin-ball machine

gracefully pinging about the pitch

yet they never get out their own half

they don’t ever score, nor do they

ever win, but the crowd applaud and

the pundits praise, because they play

proper football, how the game

should be played

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Mirror Movements by Paul Cree 2.11.21

Including the poem Weak Walking Shoes, at the very end of this 

  

One of the many reasons I enjoy writing, to borrow a cliché, is that it allows me to hold up a mirror to my own behaviour and by extension, others too, hopefully. When I think about this, there is one image that often flashes up in my mind, over and over again, reminding me of that particular reason.

It’s probably a compound of many memories, spent working in Waitrose as a teenager (and any other customer service type job I had, there was a few!) and witnessing some customer going ape-shit, at me, or some other hapless part-timer on the checkouts, over the condition of something relatively minor, like a tin of soup and inevitably demanding something in return for the pain of it; the attention of the senior management, a reduction in price etc. I call it the mirror moment.

Back then, I always used to think, that if you could pause-time in that moment, unfreeze that customer, like a drama improv-exercise and hand that angry customer, one of those little rectangular mirrors we used to use in school, l to measure light-angles or whatever, they could look at themselves in that moment, take a moment and hopefully think  ‘yea, maybe I’m being a bit of prick here.’

There are many more of these memories, people having overly-loud telephone barneys in pub lic, hyper-devout church attendees, out-singing everyone else and of course, the over-whelming vast array of behaviour-questioning memories that scrutinise my own actions, hence the poem in this post  but for some reason, it’s always that Waitrose one I return too; I don’t know why but I don’t suppose it matters all that much, it does the required job and encourages me to question to my own motivations.  

I guess where all this is leading too, is that in each of these examples, my amateur psychological guess, is that each person is signalling something, which may not exactly correlate with what they’re presenting, almost like they’re misleading us, the public, the audience, the viewers etc and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like it, it’s dis-honest. Maybe honesty is in itself, a signalling thing but I still don’t like it.

In an age of social-media, this goes on a lot and yep, I’ve most certainly done it myself. I can’t turn on the telly, without some huge mutli-national corporate entity encouraging me to take up whatever moral-crusade they’re promoting, or more simply, some poet who just so happened to pen a poem on the day of some huge tragedy and immediately stuck it up on line and encouraged everyone to share it. I don’t like it.

Mirror moment, why are we doing this? And if we really knew why we were doing this, would we still be doing this? Mirror moment, why am I doing this? See below

Weak Walking Shoes

Back then I didn’t know many people into

outdoor pursuits, certainly not outside Ikon-Diva

Crawley’s premier late-night go-to in 01

gone 2am with a curb-side-view, scuffles on the

pavement, arguments in the kebab que

couple of times I put on a pair of clumpy walking

shoes, zipped up the ugly- fleece and attempted to

scale the moral high ground, preaching to my mates

below that fighting was an immature thing to do

Now I’m at an age, where, keep it down, yea but

I might actually enjoying walking and I might-possibly-

have considered purchasing a pair of ugly-arse walking

shoes, because they’re water-proof and comfy and …

listen, that kid my mates mate slapped that time, probably deserved it

mouthed off unprovoked, squared up, probably shirtless

and when push came to shove, I was probably deserting

knowing deep down, I lacked the right gear for that sort of pursuit

wrong sort of shoes

so I ascended hilly peaks and preached my views

convinced I was on higher ground like a

champagne-socialist one windfall

away from a super yacht cruise

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