Thank you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
It's Halloween this week, and when I started looking for songs that share their names with horror movies, I hit a bumper bundle. But did you guess them all?
In case you're wondering, Outwood is just down the road from where I work in Leeds. Fortunately, I've never spotted u-two while driving through there...
A tough one this, and probably not one you could guess from the clue alone... but once you worked out the theme... maybe?
Anyway, the photo above is Bernie Nee, the singer on the track below. The rest of the Blobs were session musicians, so no photo exists of the "band" itself...
It's not often you see Damon Gough without his hat on...
Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining
Not Number One because it's my favourite song... but it is my favourite horror film.
Such a bounty of horror-film-related songs did I find, that there will be more to share later in the week... and a much less scary Snapshots will be back next Saturday.
Last weekend, Louise and I had a bit of an argument. It wasn't a particularly important one, just one of the hundreds of squabbles most human beings living under the same roof as other human beings will subject themselves to over the course of the year. I can't even remember what it was about now, but at the time I was livid.
I'm kinda putting off tackling the subject of anger in this series, because it's a huge kettle of anchovies. I'm avoiding it because it looks like it'll be hard work... and those of you who read last week's post will realise that's rather counter-productive of me. Hey, I'm not claiming to be following my own advice all the time - take your "physician, heal thyself" comments and stick them where the sun don't shine.
Anyway, after the argument, I took myself off to stew in the living room. I hate any kind of disagreement, so will take the first opportunity to run away and do whatever I can to avoid it starting up again. This will usually involve not discussing the subject of the argument or anything else for as long as possible, since any form of communication might re-trigger the aggro. Some people might call this sulking. I prefer to term it Crisis Management.
After about a minute though, Louise came to find me. "Here we go again," I thought, at which point Louise said...
"Are you finding those new tuna tins hard to drain? I find they leave a ring and you have to press down and it doesn't get all the water out so you end up with really mushy tuna and..."
I'll spare you the rest, but it was as though our earlier disagreement hadn't even happened and instantly we were back to discussing the trivial annoyances of day to day living. Well, Louise was, anyway. Me... I find it much harder to reset my emotions like that.
In her immensely readable book Unf*ck Your Brain, the delightfully foul-mouthed Dr. Faith G, Harper tells us...
"Our emotions influence our thoughts and behaviours. They are meant to be a physiological signal to the rest of the brain. Once they have done their jobs, they are then meant to dissipate.
Do you know how long an emotion is actually meant to last?
90 seconds.
Seriously, just one and a half minutes for an emotion to run its course.
But you are calling "bullshit" right now, I know. Because if that were really the case, why do our emotions last hours, days, or years? 90 seconds? Not so much.
Emotions last longer than 90 seconds because we continue to fuel them with our thoughts. We do this by telling ourselves the same stories about the triggering situation over and over. This is when they stop being emotions and start becoming moods."
So how do we stop our 90 second emotions becoming full-on hissy fits, extended bouts of pout, or lock-yourself-in-the-toilet meltdowns?
The answer, according to the experts, presumably people who never experience more than 90 seconds of negative emotions at any one time, is to take control of our own feelings and become emotionally self-aware.
This all seems like a shed-load of work to me, but here's a few tips from Psychology Today about how to stop 90 seconds of upset ruining your entire day...
“Look at the second hand on a watch. As soon as you look at it, you’re now observing yourself having this physiological response instead of engaging with it. It will take less than 90 seconds, and you will feel better. Of course, you can always go back to thinking those thoughts that re-stimulate the loop. There’s probably a thought somewhere in your brain of somebody who did you wrong 20 years ago. Every time you think of that person it still starts that circuit. When things are getting hot and you’re getting hot-headed, look at your watch. It takes 90 seconds to dissipate that anger response.”
We keep coming back to this on Self-Help For Cynics. Make yourself aware of what your brain is doing as a first step to taking back control. But how easy is that to do in the heat of the moment when your brain is fired up with the matter at hand? I reckon it'll take practice.
Sweary Dr. Faith takes this idea one step further. She suggests facing your emotions head on. Sitting down and wallowing in them. relishing them, living them to their full potential.
Not avoiding them.
Not just putting up with them.
Actually grasping the nettle and saying to yourself, "Hey, I'm angry / frightened / sad / etc. right now. This is what it feels like. It might feel pretty awful, but I know it won't last, so let's just give it a bit of time, give it its space."
Again, hardly the easiest course of action - particularly for those of us who are Professional Conflict-Avoiders. But, Dr. Faith assures us...
"If you attend to what you're feeling, you get over it way more quickly than if you avoid it. I've noticed I'm bored with myself about three minutes into committing to sitting with my feeling for five. I'm ready to go make a cup of coffee, read a book, find the cookies I hid from myself, or do anything other than perserverate."
All this makes me think that the brain is like a small child that wants our attention when we're otherwise occupied. You can try to ignore the child's continued efforts to disrupt your day... or you can try to muddle along, balancing the thing you're doing with giving the child a bit of attention. Or you can drop everything and give the child your full attention - blatantly. "OK, I'm watching you... what are you doing? Can I watch you do that too? Show me more! Let me watch YOU!"
I've actually done this with Sam on occasion, and often he'll get bored with this sudden bout of hyper-attention and actually want to be left alone for a bit. The people in the know tells us that our brain will do exactly the same thing... if we give it the attention it craves.
The coffee in my travel mug tasted off. Maybe I hadn’t
rinsed the Fairy Liquid out properly, or maybe it was just that off-tasting
water you get in the kettle sometimes, no real explanation for
it. Whatever the cause, I couldn’t handle the commute without a coffee, so I
decided to stop at the Co-Op petrol station and get a machine Costa. It was
Friday morning, the roads were quiet and Google Maps was telling me the journey
would only take an hour today, not 75 minutes, so an extortionately priced
“Signature Blend” was, if not exactly enticing, then at least better than
washing up water.
As I walked across the forecourt, a grubby-looking White Van
Man sprinted past me, clearly eager to pay for his petrol and be about his day,
ogling young women, driving aggressively close to other motorists, and
screaming obscenities at both. Except… that wasn’t why he was in such a rush.
Oh no. He wanted to get to the coffee machine first. Clearly he’d seen the look
on my face, assessed my need, and decided his was greater. Either that or he
was just an arsehole.
And so, I had to waste my time pretending to scour the Meal
Deal sandwiches, while standing just close enough behind him to be in a sort of
queue if anyone else with a desperate murder-you need for caffeine should try
to butt in. And of course, White Van Man didn’t just want one machine coffee,
he wanted three. My life was slowly ebbing away. And then he was done. At last,
I stepped up to the machine to order my elixir… and that’s when I noticed.
No big cups.
Only the small ones.
I stormed out of the Co-Op in a huff, back to my car, and my
off-tasting travel mug. Which didn’t taste so bad now, to be honest. Actually,
it was all right.
Laurie Shaw is another artist I discovered through compiling
those interminable posts about songs that randomly mention pop culture
ephemera. He’s from the Wirral but currently resides in Cork. He’s incredibly
prolific, having recorded over 100 albums according to bandcamp (7 of which
were released in 2022), and the one with the best title is If You’re So Good,
Then Why Haven’t I Heard Of You? Lately I've been very much enjoying Weird
Weekends, which sounds a lot like pre-fame Pulp. Slightly sordid tales of
yearning adolescent misadventures set to a lo-fi indie soundtrack. He’s even
mastered the Jarvis yelp. Quite wonderful. He's a wonderfully natural storyteller...
We were in your room And we were listening to your mum’s old records You put the White Album on And said this was their magnum opus I didn’t know what you meant But I could see down your vest And then the grooves got out of focus
“There’s a party on on Saturday night, You should come” I said “I’d love to, but the lift in’s a pain For my mum” She said “well, you could stay at mine And it might coincide with my mum Doing nights in the hospital”
If you’ve not caught it yet, Poker Face is very good. It’s
by the guy he does the Knives Out movies and it's basically Columbo for the 21st
Century. Natasha Lyonne brings her typically ramshackle Top Cat chutzpah to the
role of a human lie detector on the run, stumbling across murders wherever she
goes, then bumbling her way to delivering some kind of justice. Highly implausible, but
very entertaining, and Lyonne is a natural successor to the legendary Peter
Falk. Good soundtrack too, including…
My brother lost his wallet in the pub last week. I don’t
talk about my brother much, but here’s all you need to know to understand this
story: he’s a retired builder. Now when I tell you that there was £700 cash in
his wallet when he lost it… well, I just need to refer you back to the previous
sentence.
When he realised his wallet was missing, he returned to the
hostelry in question and asked if anyone had handed it in. They hadn’t, but the
staff were happy to take a look at the CCTV. Sure enough, there was my brother
enjoying his meal, and – whoops! – there goes his wallet onto the floor. Fast
forward to after he’s left the pub and another couple take his table. And… oh,
look, what’s this on the floor? Oh, it’s a wallet. I wonder what’s inside?
Well, we better keep that safe… tell you what, why not put in your handbag just
in case anyone unscrupulous should find it?
The police were informed, but my brother’s partner also
decided to enlist the help of the Local Vigilante Action Syndicate (aka
Facebook), posting a CCTV still of the woman with the wallet and asking if
anyone could identify her.
A few hours later, they received a private message.
“That’s my sister. We haven’t spoken in 20 years since she
shacked up with a former MP who’s also a paedophile, but she still lives next
door to me. Here’s the address…”
Rather than pass this information onto the police (see
paragraph #1), my brother instead chose to drive round to the address in
question… but there was nobody in. So he put a note through the door with his
phone number. I don’t know what the note said exactly, but something along the
lines of “Give me my wallet back and I won’t shop you to the bizzies.” Not that
my brother’s a Scouser, I just miss Jimmy Corkhill. A little while later he
received a phone call and was invited round for tea.
Well, not tea, but he did get his wallet and all its
contents back. When asked why the couple hadn’t handed it in to the bar, they
replied, “Oh, we didn’t like the look of the bar staff.”
Don’t ask me why, but I’ve been listening to Grand Funk
Railroad’s Greatest Hits lately. They’re a good time rock ‘n’ roll band, not
quite up there with Steve Miller’s lot, but ploughing a similar furrow. For
some reason, I always thought they were from Canada, which doesn’t make any
sense since their biggest hit was We’re An American Band, but logic was
never my forte. Here’s my favourite track from the compilation, originally
taken from the album 1974 album All The Girls In The World Beware!! Ah, the
70s…
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