Train of Thought (Part Two)

In the crushing grip of a touch of writers block, I decided to look for a little inspiration in older posts and stumbled upon Train of Thought where I tried an experiment just allowing my thoughts to steer me in a certain direction and eventually see which song popped into my head.

I thought I would have another go.

In this particular case, I didn’t have to wait long before an external event interrupted me - in the form of one of my cats.

I have just fed them and hoped for a nice quiet brain storming session. You would have thought that the three of them would respect my wishes. I know – it’s stupid really expecting them to behave themselves.  Besides, they are all higher in the pecking order than I am so I have to bow to their every whim. Telling them what to do just doesn’t work.

All three of the cats have different personality traits, which are highlighted when it’s time for dinner.

Jasper, the boss of the entire house, is a fat monster who is so demanding when he’s hungry that he actually resorts to physical abuse. He miaows repeatedly until he gets attention and then he tries to lead me into the kitchen. If I don’t respond, he sits as close as he can and then gently puts his paw on the nearest part of my body. If that fails, the claws come out and he gently demonstrates how sharp they are, without actually drawing blood. Finally, he uses his teeth and actually takes a nip.

One time, when I allowed them into the bedroom (they are all banned now and that’s a completely different story), I woke up to find him sitting on my pillow and chewing my hair.

Normally I can make him move by using the word Dinner. I’m sure he thinks his name is Dinner.

Suffice it to say, the monster scoffs his dinner faster than I can put it in his dish.

Poppy is a coward who lives upstairs and refuses to come down – this is mainly due to Liquorice, our hellcat. Poppy wails with a high pitched squeak if she’s hungry but, rather than eating proper cat food, she craves cat treats instead. In order to make her eat her food, I pop a treat into the meat.

Liquorice is a hellcat who hates to be left alone. She follows me everywhere – I am her favourite human (I don’t know why) and she often sits next to me, demanding attention but ready to eat my entire hand if I touch her in the wrong place. She is the easiest to feed because she loves cat biscuits, which means that we leave her a permanent dishful on the shelf, allowing her to leap up when she wants to have her fill. She is the most agile of all the cats in my house.

Jasper is a greedy monster and after he has eaten, he will wander around the house looking for Poppy’s leftovers. He can’t get to Liquorice’s food because he can’t jump that high any more.

What’s this got to do with my train of thought?

Jasper has just interrupted me by walking in from the kitchen having gorged himself on food and started bellowing at me.

He’s been doing this for a couple of years now. He usually walks into the back room with his head held high and starts howling – a sort of cross between a miaow and a growl.

Mrs PM calls it his “assembly call”, probably because he’s warning the other cats that he is about to invade their territory and claim what’s left of their food.

I disagree; I think he does it to say:

“Let it be known that I am the king of this house and you are all my minions”.

He has started to make the same noise when I walk past him or if he wants something, like a tickle under the chin, or his ear to be scratched.

And, of course, being a sucker, I oblige him.

All of this means that I am at the command of my feline master – and his minions too – because the two female subordinates also miaow at me to order me around. Liquorice is slightly less patient and I have to be careful not to incur her violent wrath.

Following on from this train of thought, the song that has popped into my head is kind of predictable.

I am a cat person; I have three black cats and if you combined them all into one, you would have a hungry mini black panther, potentially vicious enough to rip off your arm.

If you’ve seen the movie Cat People you’ll know exactly what I am talking about.

I give you the legendary David Bowie with the theme from Cat People, starring all three of my cats (combined and blown up to look a little larger of course). In fact they also appear in the video below.

Train of Thought

It’s happened again, dear reader. There I was, innocently walking downstairs from work, on the way home and I found myself singing a song that I would never ever sing  but, worse, that I don’t even like.

I am not even going to tell you what it is: that’s how ashamed I am.

Nevertheless, it has got me thinking. What train of thought caused this dreadful song to pop into my head in the first place?

With that in mind, I have decided to conduct an experiment. Here are the details:

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate my train of thought and try to make sense of it.

METHOD

I am going to clear my mind and just write a blog post and let my path through my imagination guide me.

RESULTS

Okay – here goes. As I write these words, I have no music on to distract me or to influence the course of my thinking. What leaps to mind as I drift into my imagination? Well the first thing is that I am writing something new and posting it in cyberspace so that people can read it. And that is quite a scary thing.

Some people who read this will have struggled through my work before and are probably rolling their eyes thinking, “Oh my God! Another crap post.”

Others might be amused. Yet more might think “Why doesn’t Dave talk to me about his odd mind? I’ve known him for years.”

It strikes me that when I write, I bare a little bit of my soul, mostly to people I have never met. What kind of person does that? Am I an attention seeker? To be honest, I don’t think so; I am merely practising for that elusive novel/book that I aim to write. By posting this nonsense into cyberspace I am seeking some form of approval.

So in a way, maybe I am seeking attention. Is that a revelation of some kind?

I am writing these words because I want the feedback of total strangers who may say “Yes, PM. It’s garbage. Don’t give up your day job.”

The problem is there is a part of me that really does want to give up my day job. When I analyse my career, I acquire approval on a regular basis because I am reasonably good at what I do. The problem is I am bored of it. I am bored of trying to teach computers how to behave themselves. I see myself  as a combination of a teacher and doctor, where my pupils/patients are computers. When I teach, I educate these electronic gadgets, instructing them how to operate and how to perform the job that is required of them. And when they get it wrong, I operate on them, to cure them – commonly known in IT as fixing bugs.

Now that’s a strange idea, isn’t it? I see myself as a mentor to computers. It’s like something out of a science fiction novel. The difference is that these computers are generally stupid and I curse their stupidity on a daily basis – actually more like an hourly basis. I find myself swearing at them – and myself.

My work colleagues probably think I’m nuts.

Hang on, I remember something I saw on YouTube – here it is:

Now, rest assured, I am not that bad. I cuss and swear under my breath but I do not destroy company equipment in a fit of rage. I may give the impression that I am a man who likes to stand up and rant on his soapbox about all and sundry but the truth is, I am quite laid back.

I have learned how to step back and take a deep breath when I find myself overcome with negative emotion. Sometimes it’s difficult to control a red mist moment but I find these days that taking a step back and trying to look at the situation from a different perspective does help. Work can be deeply frustrating sometimes, and this doesn’t just apply to my chosen vocation; I can imagine that exasperation can manifest itself in many walks of life.

For example, in my extended family we have a couple who are both police officers, both of whom have to wrestle the stresses of their jobs with bringing up a young child.

And, believe me, I have heard some stories that I wouldn’t want to share.

Yet they are both in control and reasonably happy with the chosen career. One of them even finds time to be a musician.

He is a big fan of Bob Dylan and has produced his own a CD of folk songs.

Click here for an example.

He is also in a band in Blackpool called the X Rays, who play what they call skiffle punk, covering old punk songs from the late 1970’s in a skiffle style.

Here they are performing live:

I’ve seen them play in local pubs in Blackpool and they are entertaining.

And that in itself fills me with a modicum of regret because if I could go back in time to the moment my music teacher asked me at the age of 11 what instrument I wanted to play, I would have begged and pleaded with him to let me play the guitar so that I could write my own songs.

Imagine that –  the Plastic Mancunian a rock God, writing and releasing his own songs?

I may actually have achieved that goal unwittingly. Way back in 2009, I wrote a fun Christmas post with alternative words to Jingle Bells. It was just a bit of fun to cause a mild amount of amusement. I was surprised, however, when a local band from West Yorkshire asked me if they could use my alternative version in a Christmas pub gig in Bradford.

You can read the post (and the comment) by clicking here.

I told them that they could (what do I care?). Whether they did or not I’ll never know but if they did, my alternative lyrics were probably belted out by a folk band to a pub full of people.

And the thought of that makes me smile.

That would never have happened had I not initiated the blog (it may not have happened but I like to think it did).

So not only could I be a writer (subject to approving comments from readers) I could also be a comedy lyric writer for bands willing to embrace alternative versions of traditional tunes and perform them at a Christmas gig in a Yorkshire pub.

Who would have thought that?

SO AFTER WRITING THAT DRIVEL, WHAT SONG POPPED INTO YOUR HEAD?

Unsurprisingly, the song that is in my head right now is this one:

So I managed to conjure up a song from Undertones simply by writing drivel.

CONCLUSION

I think this post proves something that I think I have always known:

I am one weird individual!


If you disagree, I have a confession to make. This was the song that I was singing out loud on Friday - and I hate it:

Weird, huh?