Joe The Dough

Photo

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:34:56 +0100

Your last post about Herb's anniversary was beautiful. So, you say ask you anything? Do you you need an internetterly remote but heartfelt man-hug?

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:56:12 +0100

Always :)

lazenby: LBJ kissing his father goodbye. This makes me think...

Tue, 22 May 2012 01:19:00 +0100

lazenby:

LBJ kissing his father goodbye.

This makes me think of…

We all kiss on the mouth in my family. We’re stupid and common and we don’t got no class whatsoever. Somewhere in the history of everyone else came a time when men stopped kissing men because of fuck knows. And then from somewhere else came kissing on the cheeks. Sophisticated. European. Modern. In France they got two kisses because of the unions. In the UK we only got one because of rationing.

Meanwhile, stuck out away from civilisation on the Wirral, no one thought to tell my family who still to this day grab each other and kiss on the mouth.

I don’t tell people anymore. To warn them, I mean. I just take them out there and let them come to Jesus on their own. My wife, first time she met them, was bombarded; hardly knew what the fuck was going on.

They’re a strange bunch anyway - particularly for a girl from the South. We spent two or three days over there with them. She got kissed on the mouth a lot by a lot of strange people. Drunk, mostly. She makes it worse by being the kind of person you want to just grab and kiss anyway.

When we were driving home she suddenly turned to me and said “They kiss, your family, you know? They kiss you on the mouth.” as though she’d only just realised it herself.

“You’re goddamned fucking right they do, baby.” I didn’t say because, Christ. But I thought it.

And this picture of LBJ saying goodbye makes me think of that, and Uncle Ian and a family of thousands all saying hello and kissing you because that’s how we do it.

This - Richard Burton reading Churchill’s ‘Blood,...

Thu, 03 May 2012 12:03:29 +0100

This - Richard Burton reading Churchill’s ‘Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat’ speech - was tacked onto the end of a Parkinson best-of - almost as an afterthought. I searched for a copy of it online, couldn’t find one, so here we jolly well are.

This was Burton’s party trick. If anyone has ever said WAR with more power and conviction then I shall go to the foot of our stairs.

A full transcription of the actual speech (with bonus MP3) is here: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/usa/winston-churchill-blood-toil.htm

Anniversary, Scars, Grand Canyons

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:46:00 +0100

On March 17th last year, at the age of 1 year and a couple of weeks, my son Herbert had a stroke for no good reason on God’s green earth.

I was at work in York when it happened. Gem tells me he was shovelling beans into his face like he does almost every day when he went all floppy on the right side of his body. Gem screamed him to hospital in Wythenshawe and the attending doctor that night put him on an emergency course of worst-case-scenario antibiotics. She figured it couldn’t be a stoke because babies don’t have strokes.

A few hours later when I arrived back in Manchester he was cuddled up in her arms with a huge bag of Some Drugs dripping slowly through a canula into his good arm. He still had a hugely high temperature.

While we were changing him in the little bathroom there, his eyeballs rolled back in his head and he went away. That experience tends to stick with you.

We were in the hospital for 2 weeks and we have to go back a fair bit with checkups and physio and whatnot. I’ve struggled with sadness a fair bit since then. I became aware that I was filled with it and I couldn’t get away from it. I began to feel like a cave full of cold, dark seawater.

I got help from lots of awesome people. I briefly took drugs for it - they were excellent really. I tell people that my heart broke. Those are pretty much the only words I have for how I feel. Still, actually. My heart broke and that’s where the seawater leaked in and I think it’s irreparable - though I hasten to add that I’m fine and I’m happy and I have an awful lot of closure on the whole business so, please, don’t call in.

Anyway, I was talking about grief the other day with my Mum. My younger cousin lost a baby at the age of 6 months - Poppy her name was. She died because sometimes babies have strokes and sometimes they die. I was talking about that with my Mum. We were talking about how my cousin hasn’t had another baby since Poppy died and how that probably wasn’t surprising.

I love my cousin. He’s like 6 years younger than me and we grew up pretty close. When I think about his losing Poppy it makes me think of my son in the hospital, rolling his eyes and going away and it makes me wish I could help my cousin more. Or that I had helped him more.

Poppy died years before my son was even invented and I couldn’t even begin to imagine at that age how much it must have hurt my cousin. I was appalled, of course. I was sad and I cried. But it’s like the Grand Canyon; it’s one thing to hear about how big and impressive it is and quite another to stand on the edge and stare down into it.

I said exactly that to my Mum and realised I’d accidentally been profound. My choice of words took me right back to hospital and I was staring at Herb and he was going away and I could feel the ragged edges of the wound on my heart, still tender, filled with cold, black seawater and now somehow vertigo-inducing and terrifying in its enormity.

(A horrible collision of metaphor. Not unusual, if you know me. I pretty much just tend to toss my words together like a salad and chuck them out there. You’re lucky, frankly, if you can understand one word in ten.)

But that wasn’t my sadness - it wasn’t even my cousin’s. Just something I’d projected on to him that he may or may not feel and, either way, wouldn’t be pleased to hear that I was feeling on his behalf. Depression is like a dropped lolly-ice in that respect; it’s sticky and picks up other things all too easily and pretty soon you can’t tell cause from effect. It’s all just a big ball of woe. (I am a student at the Katamari Damacy School of Amateur Psychiatry.)

So: scar tissue is what I guess this is about. The Bad Thing that happened is going to stay happened - and every day that goes by (365 and counting!) puts another few layers of skin between me and the wound.

And, to add yet another layer of ridiculousness to this already fucked-up metaphor, the wound is clean, cauterised and doused, for good measure, in Scotch.

Related story: the above all happened a week or so after the anniversary of Herb’s stroke. The actual anniversary was spent with my sister and her kids at the beach in East Kent. It was lovely. In actual fact though, I had no idea that it was the anniversary. Somehow I’d got the wrong date in my head. When I finally realised my error, I had a little cry and lost my temper a little bit, chiding myself that I’m a bad father, until it occurred to me that what we’d done was exactly what I would have chosen to do to mark the anniversary - with the added bonus of not having to dwell on painful memories.

So anyway. I just wanted to write these things down to mark the occasion, and to note that it is an occasion, however painful and inconvenient that might be, and to bring people up to date. Which I have now done. Please return to your gyrations.

Hello Tumblr. You are broken.

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:00:05 +0000

Hello Tumblr. You are broken.

darlingohara: Frank Sinatra

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:47:44 +0000

darlingohara:

Frank Sinatra

Current Status doyourwardance: Haters gonna hate.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:37:03 +0000

Current Status

doyourwardance:

Haters gonna hate.

Photo

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:39:23 +0000

Tell us a story, Joe.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:34:00 +0000

My Dad likes to decry the current state of teaching in this country. Actually my Dad likes to decry lots of things. Decrying things is what gentlemen do when they’ve wrestled all the bears and slayed all the dragons. Ou sont les bears and dragons d’antan, innit?

Anyway. Amongst the things my Dad decries is the current state of teaching in this country. I rarely listen too much. (I agree, as it happens, but I am busy planning my upcoming bear-wrestling bouts.) This Christmas he told me a story about the man who taught him poetry when he was a kid. I pass it on to you, anonymous asker.

The majority of teachers at my Dad’s school in the fifties were (he tells me), ex-servicemen. Some had limps, some had scars. I’ve assumed that most of them saw service in the second world war. I could be wrong, but it seems likely. Dad’s headmaster certainly did. He had a limp to boot. His name was KFW Walker.

One day Mr Walker is teaching my Dad’s class about poetry. He reads Keats’ Sonnet To A Cat to them. It is, he tells them, one of his minor works.

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand cliacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? - How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all the wheezy asthma, - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a mail,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass bottled wall.

And after he reads out the poem he tells the kids a story. And the story he tells is set in a forest in Belgium some time in late 1944. Captain Walker and his company are caught unawares in an artillery attack; they have no time to dig in and have to scramble for cover where they can. The bombardment is extremely heavy and the shells are bursting in the air.

Walker tells the kids that all he had time to do was throw himself down onto the forest floor and try to make himself as tiny and thin as he possibly could while the trees literally exploded around him. He tells them that it is the single most terrifying sound that he’s ever heard. And he tells them that the only other thing that he can hear as the trees crack and fall and the shrapnel rips through everything is a line from Sonnet To A Cat repeating in his head over and over and over:

…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me
…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me
…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me

And that, Walker tells my Dad, who tells me, is why I can never forget that poem. And that, my Dad tells me, is why I decry the current state of teaching in this country.

(I’ll write this properly at some point. Or at least I’ll try to write it *less*. I will also tell the other story involving my Dad, KFW Walker and a ping-pong ball which will make you all cry. In the meantime, please all feel free to use the Ask Me Anything button. Press Button. Get Story is my new rule)

etrangere:

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:22:40 +0000

etrangere:

The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:11:31 +0000

By Tina Fey

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her

When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.

Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget.

But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

what did you have for lunch?

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:24:07 +0000

You’re wearing it.

I’m trying to count the ways this will never happen...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:53:28 +0000

I’m trying to count the ways this will never happen again.

Pike poetry

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:33:51 +0000

I think that the Lt. Pike meme should be extended from the amazing photo memes that have been circulating, into the world of poetry; the artistic form of preference for the jackbooted thug. Below is a humble example.

The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY
And that has made all the difference.

Some days you are the dog. Some days you are the deer. Some days...

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:32:52 +0000

Some days you are the dog.

Some days you are the deer.

Some days you are the guy in the chinos.

Some days you are the guy saying ‘heh’ at the end.

The Fairy of the Phone (1936)

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:25:19 +0000

The next time you’re involved in a conversation about the degeneracy and moral turpitude of this generation, point your fellow debater at this video which shows that people in the 1930’s managed to overcome the threatening shadow of worldwide fascism and still be super gay. (Video via @severalbees)

Photo

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:22:52 +0000

chrismear: (via Gunshow - Two Friends)

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:21:53 +0000

chrismear:

(via Gunshow - Two Friends)

Do you reply to these questions? Where do the answers appear? But more importantly, what are you wearing?

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:49:35 +0100

1) I do. I just rarely notice I have them. How exciting!

2) I don’t actually know

3) T-shirt; jeans; hang-dog expression.