Reflections Upon Doorways & Soap-Boxes!!

Sometimes, Fellow Bloggers, as I while away the empty hours which my Ongoing Failure in the World of Pop Slop has consigned me to live through, I am seized by Dread! Of course, this is January, which, sitting as it does at the Birth of each New Year (or in other terms, the Death of the Old One!), is a natural time for re-evaluating not only where we've been but where we hope to be heading.  January is named for the Roman God of Doorways, Janus, who had two faces, one looking in one direction and one the other and so it is in January folks can look ahead and promise resolutely to go the the gym twice a week or look behind and wonder just what-in-the-hell they've done with their Useless & Pointless lives! So many hours frittered away on reading about the Russian Revolution and looking at Stroke Mags!!.... 

The STONedhoLYbloGER though, being yir Classic Narcissistic-Navel Gazing-Singer-Songwriter doesn't need it to be January to ponder where the fleeting hours have raced off to. Evidence of his Failure to Advance in this Pop-Schlopp-Life is ever present ; Watching 'The Wright Stuff' and 'Loose Women' everyday whilst eating biscuits is symptomatic of the malaise he finds himself wallowing in. So this dread that overtakes me does not come from the realisation that The Sweet Bird of Youth Hath Flown and my best years are behind me....though, to be honest, that is rather Disquieting, all the same!!

Wherefor then, comes this Dread, I hear you ask. A 'Mid-Life Crisis' perchance? True, the stOnEdHoLyBLoggeR, finds himself Smack Dab In The Middle of that Demographic whereby Gentlemen of Certain Years can begin to Ruminate on what they've done with the Precious Moments of Existence. Oh, to compare the Days that could've been a Magic Carpet Ride with what actually unfolded : A year on year exercise turning up to do some crummy job, kowtowing to the Boss and keeping up with the mortgage payments! As if from waking from a dream, a man can find himself weighted down with Houses and Cars and Children and Wives and Credit Cards and Annual Membership Fees to the Golf Club and all the other things our Consumer-Carousel-Society tells us are supposed to make us Happy. Having a Paunch, being slightly Balding and Needing Viagra to Stir the Old Boy into life does not help matters! It is then that being trapped in one more traffic jam en route to Sainsburys to buy Shoe Polish and a 'Taste the Difference' Shepherd's Pie can finally crack the Fragile Egg-Shell Character of a Man's Mind and he can start deliberating where to buy a length of hose to run from his exhaust-pipe through the Near-Side Window and into his car next Thursday night when the Missus goes to Zumba Classes! I am happy to report that, given the fact that Sometimes Nothin' Can Be A Real Cool Hand & since The stoNeDhOlYBloGgEr, as a Perennial Under-Achiever, finds himself unencumbered with all the things mentioned above,  I feel the Mid-Life Crisis theory lies behind neither the aforementioned Dread nor the many letters of a Blasphemous & Vitriolic Nature I post routinely to The Daily Mail!

No, the Real Reason behind this Dread, that can rise seemingly from nowhere to Fill the Stoned n Holy Heart & Chill the Blood in my Rock-n-Rollin-Veins, is the STonEDhoLYblOGgeR's 'Messiah Complex'. This is the Pathological Delusion where, in a Forlorn attempt to lend some kind of Substance to your life, you feel you've just gotta climb up on Soap-Boxes & Stages and tell the World you've got something to say. Ultimately it's a Primal Scream Howled in Defiance of a Vast, Godless, Pitiless Desert of Time & Space but I feel the Blogosphere is not the ideal place to delve into these Bleak Matters! But here's the thing about this 'Messiah Complex' - Stages are not being climbed onto, my Primal Scream not being Howled... and Time Is Leaking Out Of Me!...and still I am Mute!!! Gagged!!! Silenced!!!!

But Dread Be Damned for I wish to leave you, Good Souls of the CyberCommunity, on an optimistic note. (One of those notes which if played on a Guitar would lie up beyond the Twelfth Fret where Lead Guitarists like to Dweedle endlessly -  us Little Hands Of Concrete Rhythm Players know there is never any need to venture beyond the Fifth!!)  Meanwhilez...where was I?... ah yes! - It's 2012 and I do hereby promise that in my capacity as a Concrete Prairie Crooner and Secular Proselytizer of Peace, Love and Togetherness, I will strive to Throw My Pebble In The Pond and Get My Gospel Heard! A Whisper Can Be Louder Than A Shout - And The Word Is Out. The Word Is LOVE! Yeah, Baby!!

This Train Is Bound For Glory!
Next Stop The Toppermost Of The Poppermost!!!

Of Ploughman Poets & Champit Tatties & Bashit Neeps!!

Hey Gogglers of the Glowin' Screen, yi might no' ken it, sittin' aw oan yir lonesome there doing yir Tinternet Business, whatever that may entail, but it's January 25th and aw ower this Sceptred Isle and indeed, all quarters of the Globe, people who cherish the Poetic Stylings of Robert Burns, late of Alloway, Ayrshire, will be enjoying a warm, reeking and rich meal of  Haggis accompanied with some Champit Tatties N Bashit Neeps! Even as I write, a Handsome Pudding, just today purchased from the premises of  Mr. Abercrombie in Broughton Street, Edinburgh, awaits it's heating in the oven of the S t o n e d   H o l y   K i t c h e n !   The S t o n e d H o l y B l o g g e r  is One who shall, most assuredly, be raising his glass to the Ploughman Poet and Toasting his Immortal Memory!

The S t o n e d H o l y S c h o o n e r , however, will not be lifted in 

Salutation of the Canonised Burns of Biscuit Tins and Postcards,

 the Appropriated Burns of Tartan-Clad Parochialism, 

the Sanitised Burns of Conservative Club Suppers, 

nor the Emascualted Burns of the Highly Mannered and Codified Pantomime of Piping in the Haggis. I've got more than an inkling that Robert Burns Esq' would be spinning furiously in the grave which holds him at the thought of aw the shite enacted in his name!!

No, here at S t o n e d H o l y H Q  we will be raising our glasses aloft and Bringing To Mind another Robert Burns entirely :

  Burns the Radical, who, referencing the Religious Dissenters of the English Civil War, styled himself 'Robbie the Ranter'! 

Burns the Libertarian, who defended the American & French Revolutions!

  Burns the Democrat, who knew 'The Rank Is But The Guinea's Stamp'!   

Burns the Libertine, the self-confessed & Proudly Proclaimed Fornicator! 

Burns the Indignant, who blasted the hypocrisy of the Church and aw the Unco Guid! 

The Political Burns, who poured scorn upon the Parcel of Rogues who had signed Scottish Independence away! 

The Bawdy Burns, the Crochallan Fencible, who knew 9 inch would please a lady! 

The Convivial Burns, at home in the Inn and the Howff where the Swats were Reaming!!....

....and How, How, How could we ever forget the Burns who, one cold starry night during the Winter of 1786, upon attending a dinner party in the parlour of Mr. Adam Ferguson's 'Sciennes Hill House' in Edinburgh and encountering a fifteen year old lad by the name of Walter Scott, thereafter spent  the evening entertaining the Great n the Good of Scotia's Darling Seat with his intelligence and charming the Darling Young Things with his flirtatious wit, before begging his esteemed host's pardon for needing to 'Mak His Water' and quietly nipped upstairs & Tupped the Scullery Maid!!!

So without further faffin' aboot and without further bletherin', I ask you not to be upstanding nor raise a formal toast, but rather, just to take a moment to think on Robert Burns & Old Long Since! 

A Mover & A Shaker - Undoubtedly! 

A Rantin', Rovin' Billy - Unquestionably! 

A S t o n e d   H o l y   R o l l e r  - Most Ceratinly!..........

Doubt ye not that our Well-Thumbed copy of his Collected Verse takes its place Most Rightfully & is displayed Most Proudly on the Seldom Dusted Shelves of The S t o n e d H o l y L i b r a r y ! (It sits next to a facsimile edition of 'The Merry Muses Of Caledonia'!)

Let the final words be Walter Scott's : 

"Long Life To Thy Fame & Peace To Thy Soul, Rob Burns! When I Want To Express A Sentiment Which I Feel Strongly, I Find The Phrase In Shakespeare or Thee."  

Well yi cannae argue wi' that, can yi?!

SO REMEMBER TO TAK THAT RIGHT 

GUID-WILLIE WAUGHT! CHEERS!

High Horses N Pulpits!!

Today the dusty halls of Stoned Holy HQ are in tumult! The clamorous sound of High Horses & Pulpits being climbed onto & into is to be heard echoing off granite walls. Righteous Indignation, it seems, is abroad! Wherein lies the source of all this ferment I hear you ask. Well, Good Users of the Blogosphere, today our very own Democratically Unelected Prime Minister sought to redefine 'Capitalism' for all us poor and huddled masses!!

Well, I nearly fell off the chaise-longue where I get to spend many of my dreary hours of Pop-Slop-Zero Failuredom! Once in my Green Youth, when my keen young eyes sparkled, I read of a spectre Haunting Europe & dreamt of Futures Bright....these days I rest my Middle-Aged Beer-Gut on the aforementioned piece of furniture and I read the newspaper so as to enflame the Burning Bile of Bitterness which eats away at my Tender-Stoned-Holy-Heart and consumes my slowly diminishing regard for the Human Race and all it's Deplorable & Lamentable Doings! It's not easy being a Pop-Slop-Nobody y'know...casting Pearls Before Swine really takes it out of a body, let me tell you! Oh, you don't know the half of it!!

But to the task at hand, Gentle Readers. The 'task' being to pour vitriole upon the couiffured little head of our very own, wholly pre-fabricated, one-size-fits-all Numero Uno and his latest venture into 'Blue-Sky-Thinking' or whatever it is they're now calling their own brand of idiotic, pseudo-intellectualism down Downing Street way.  'Popular Capitalism' is what the Tomato-Faced, Eton Educated Dimwit has decided to sell to us as a vision of the future! I'm sure you can see right away that all those tens of thousands of pounds Mr. Cameron Senior lavished on the 'education' of the Fruit of his Stockbroking Loins was not wasted! A New, Cuddly Teddy Bear kind of Capitalism where people are 'Nice' to one another as opposed to the 'Turbo-Capitalism' of the Blair & Brown years - How Marvellous! Has the World gone completely mad? Did I really just hear a Tory Prime Minister trying to put down Labour as the Party of Unfettered, Uncaring Capitalism?!?! Now I know, Mr. Cameron is a Personality Black-Hole and little more than a Ventriloquist's Dummy for the Avaricious Puppeteers of the City but this really takes the biscuit. Yes we know the Pitiful, Toadying, Little Turd is a Virtual Blank Page who believes in nothing other than his God-given right to be at the helm of H.M.S Britannia, yes we know he lives by the Auto-Cue and would say anything his team of Media Advisors asked of him if it meant one more meaningless sound-bite played out in the Pantomime that is Prime Minister's Questions, but asking us to buy into the crackpot notion of a new-improved, soft-centred Capitalism as the mechanism whereby we are airlifted out of these squally waters of Economic Difficulty in which we are currently immersed, is a new level of utter ridiculousness even for him and his Silver-Spooned, Cherubic Whipping Boy Mr. Gideon Osborne!! I know Mr. Cameron's and his Party's view of the Great Unwashed is pretty low but just how credulous does he think people are?!?! The answer, of course, is very.

There's even been talk of stripping Mr.Fred Goodwin (he of the monstrously inflated pay-off) of his knighthood. Does this man have his finger on the pulse of the nation, or what?! Here is a man who would not take it anymore! Ah, how the Avenging Sword of Justice strikes another blow for the Bankrupt whilst the Morally Bankrupt System that Spawned all the Little Frankensteins heaves on!! It seems this House of Cards is not for falling just yet!! We're all in this together after all, is what we're constantly being told. Belts are being tightened in the Cameron household, I'm sure. Which household is another question ; the recently upgraded one in Witney, Oxfordshire or the one that came with Mrs. C and her dowry on the Isle of Jura?.....& let's not forget his little bolt-hole in Westminster, temporary lease notwithstanding!! Yes, I'm sure they're feeling the pinch there as much as they are on the 19th floor of the high-rise in Leeds or Liverpool or Glasgow!!!

It's getting late, Good People of the CyberNetic NetherWorld, and even curmudgeonly old geezers like the StonedHolyBlogger have gotta sleep!! Hypnos, I call unto thee. Come, Morpheus and ease me into thy Velvet Kingdom! And Sleep, that Shuts Up Sorrows Eye, Felicit Me Awhile From Mine Own Company!!

SWEET DREAMS YOU THEORISERS & PHILOSOPHISERS!!

Egg-Nog & Child Brides!!

At last, the heddy whiff of egg-nog and mendacity has finally cleared and here we are, newly washed up on the Virgin Shores of 2012. Halls, just recently bedecked in holly and a various assortment of tacky & garish tat, have been returned to their former state of woodchipped dreariness. The gloomy streets are now a graveyard for discarded Norwegian Spruce. Enough paper to giftwrap the entire world ten times over is currently being stuffed into landfill sites up and down the breadth of the country and ignored by a vast hungry army of herring gulls more interested in what little meat still clings to the festering carcasses of 25 Million turkeys. Chrimbo is officially over. Thank Christ!....or maybe it is we should blame the sandal wearing, beardy one for kick-starting all this mallarkey in the first place!! Yet no-one chooses the bed they're born in and it wasn't him who settled on the barn and the whole swaddling thing with cattle troughs and those three weird geezers from bugger knows where bearing a right load of old crap that would have been of no use whatever to a blubbering infant and his exhausted mother.....and let's not forget strange objects moving through the sky and those useless bloody shepherds deserting their flocks! And if all that wasn't enough, the proud new parents had to fill out a census form at the same time!! Damn those pesky Roman invaders and their armies of faceless pen pushers but who knows what they put in the space marked 'Father'! If Yosef had any lingering suspicions of his 13 year old missus doin' the dirty on him he barely had time to voice them before King Herod's ethnic cleansing squads were trawling the dusty streets of Beit Lahm looking for newborns to slaughter. These roving hitmen little realised that one day the town would have a Muslim majority and it would be twinned with Glasgow!! Meanwhile Yosef n his Darling Child Bride Maryam had no sooner finished with the formalities of the Brit Milah (ie; seperating the 8 day old lad from his foreskin & naming him Yesua) than they had to load up the family donkey and hot-foot it to Egypt to escape the unwarranted attentions of said Death Squads. Here they existed on a diet of falafels & eish masri whilst they waited for Herod to pop his clogs so that they could return home to Al Nasira and Yosef could take up his old trade of chippying. Nowadays, a joiner running away with a 13 year old girl who's just popped a sprog in the backstreets of some Provincial shithole of a town only to be informed that it's not his would be the stuff of tabloid outrage and the snooty expostulations of ruddy-faced Tory toffs twatting on about benefit fraud & the Decline of the West! As for using this woeful tale to start a new religion professing Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all men...Puh-Leeze!! But it's a rum-do sure enough and there's no accounting for just how wacky this goofy old world can be! So here's tae Chrimbo....and we've not even mentioned jollicose old geezers in red, fur-trimmed suits and flying f*****g reindeer!!!...or Chimneys.... or Sleighs... or elves.... or grottoes.... or hooses at the f*****g North Pole for f***'s sake.....!!!!