From what I was saying, then, to what I am saying now.

If this were a soap opera - my life, not this blog of which I am done trying to address what it is or isn't - Procrastination would be the seedy crime lord that blackmails his way through life, and I'm the penniless single mother he pays to shed a tear during birds and bees type guff that I understand little of because it's a soap and you never get to see anything of raunch in soaps, so all you know is something depraved has gone down and I'm a little upset about it.

I'm ignoring the red squiggle under raunch, Shakespeare would have. Between humoring a drunk with his Bard-based advices, for this blossoming young whatever, and churning through Morrissey's recollection of the court proceedings where ex-Smith drummer Joyce claimed assumption of 25%, when reality was 10%, the issue by then was 13; but Joyce won because Morrissey didn't like the institutions or Mrs. Thatcher and so even though he was right and had proof, a more respected man decided that he was wrong. So, err, yeah.. between those two anecdotal's I've been considering convention, institutionalism, "law" and "order", and figuring out how to go about undoing them. We could ask TV, look at how Sherlock brought down that Murdoch-type the other night - should we kill our enemies, the champions of the current? No. I don't think I'm of the shape or size that'd do well locked up in Winson Green, Birmingham's foremost crime school. Ridicule doesn't work, because only one end of any spectrum will join in the mirth and the other end will just blush and tell the other end to grow up. I say this after last nights Weekly Wipe (for those reading this outside of the UK; it's a TV show about TV shows and news and how we're all morons) where I laughed with tears and cried with laughter at Diane Morgan's thought-provoking piss-up of what the police stand for, in her guise as Philomena Cunk. It's all well and good me, the concurring, laughing at the stupidities of our society, but the conservative amongst the population must either turn the channel since this Cunk character is making a mockery of all that we hold dear, Britannia and the Waves and junk, or nod along - not realising that they're being made fun of.

We must stand up, let ourselves be laughed at for attempting to orchestrate change - they don't laugh at the mission, they laugh that there is a mission; when we could just go home and eat beans on toast and watch the one show (this monotony, my idea of death through existence). Last week I nearly came to blows with a scumbag on the #18 bus, after I called him a cunt during an argument regarding him watching porn, noisily, on a public vehicle. I really had no choice when I used that word that you may not like repeating; for my suggestion that he bottle up his filth with headphones or solitude, he cackled and called me a "hippy do-gooder", I scoffed at the use of a positive trait as a negative trait as proof that some of us evolve and some remain cretinous apes, and that he should feel more shame for being such a.. y'know.. I've said it once already. Two old ladies jumped to my defense when he jumped for me, he was put to shame when a motherly voice said what I had said in layman's terms, and went back to his seat. I, too, was scolded for my use of such a profanity, as I should have know better - normally I'd argue that profanity is a prime way of demonstrating emotion and opinion, subscribing to Vonnegut's opinion on the matter, an opinion I'll dig out later - but these old girls had just kept my ass on the bus with their pacifying tones, so.

Back to the point at hand, orchestrating change.. no.. procrastination was our topic, well never mind that now, change is in the air. At this point in time, there isn't - for me, at least - an argument to further, I lust after equality across gender lines, racial lines, I'd say blurred lines but then I'd have to wash my mouth out with soap, but I'm not well read enough to join in with the high brow debates on the matter. I doubt it would be very well received anyway, of these causes there's too often a militant end of the spectrum that wants more than equality, want scum like me - me having been on top for millennia now - subjugated. The issue isn't the conversation, it's the masses that don't know of or care for the conversation. I see a lot of it because of my worklife, at a conny club. For those of you reading outside of the UK, a conservative club is where the salt of the British earth get together to agree on prejudices against women, homosexuals, "coloured" people, and even white people if they don't see eye-to-eye or speak English very well. You'll hear sentences start like this:

"I'm not being racist or nothin', but all these Paki's/Muzzy's/wog's..."

I know I'm serving a dying minority of idiots, but constant exposure to these cretins makes me want to do something drastic to ensure they cease reproducing and brainwashing their spawn with hate-speech and fascist theory.

________________________________________________________________________________

Wo there - quite the high horse I was riding when I wrote this. But thinking more in terms of convention, I've been considering conformity. During the weekend that has passed since I started writing this entry (before the line: 17/01/14; hereafter: 20/01) a pisshead at my club - my club, ha, like I belong - challenged me on my untamed beard. I tried to shrug it off, joking that if I pruned it I might no longer appear homeless (I made the same joke last week to a more preferable punter and 'banter' was achieved) but this tool had drank himself into a cantankerous state (if the lad bible hasn't already formulated the term 'bantankerous' - it's because it has too many syllables) and quite aggressively threatened to remove it for me, should I not. It is not his face, his spawns whimsical whiskers and clueless expressions, and though I may be but staff at a club where he is a member, he has no dominion over me and never will; I know some intelligent and noble 'gardeners', but here is a man who never could make a living, legally, were it not for lawn-mowing. I don't think he could appreciate that I willfully try and differentiate myself from them, and anyone, because 'normality' is tedium, conformity is materialism, making yourself look nice is just falling in line with the age-old idea of what it is to look nice, "baaaaah, baaaaah, baaaaah". Christina Aguilera was, like, sooooooo right in that god-awful song that made her famous: I am beautiful, disheveled, hairy, human, fit as fuck. I'd like to say words can't bring me down (nooo, no, no, no) but here I am in a funk: wanting to tame my beard, because it needs taming - I keep getting moustache in my meals, but not wanting to give said scumbag the satisfaction.

Were I to bring my soapbox to work, well I'd probably get sacked/get my head kicked in/all of the above, I would make the point that my hair grows long - everywhere - because I have grown up being told that my hair should be short. Especially there, in da club, but seemingly across the binge-drinking nation, of louts and ladettes, the idea of what a man should be is a feral concept. Drink this drink and you're a puff, but eat McCoys and you're a maaaaan; a real geezer, a pleb if ever there was one. It is a masculinity of high-octane conversation, where differences of opinions are settled with fists, because agreeing to disagree is too civilized. Testosterone-fuelled, people are afraid to make eye-contact as they pass one-another on the street, nods and how-do-you-do's make you look mental.

A sharp contrast from my sidewalk days in Alabama, where those not safely locked in their SUV's would step with springs on their way to nowhere fast, doffing caps and winking at strangers, with "howdy"'s and "how ya doin?"'s rolling freely. Ok, so a lot of Alabama's sidewalkers probably were mental, or impoverished, making friends so they might ask a favour, but this good-christian spirit extended itself throughout the state - seemingly. At college, there, I did meet some cynics and haters - and my English-reserve led me to befriend a more monotonous ilk of man - children of the grunge-era, raised on Daria maybe. The holier than wholesome deep South isn't without it's christian-inspired prejudices, but misogyny there is an expression of pity or charity - "bless your sweet soul" - here it seems vengeful. The same applies, I feel, towards race and sexuality - though it's safe to say we are ahead of Alabama in terms of welcoming homosexuals - there any difference is an incurable ailment; on our grey streets, you are not like me because you are willfully trying to piss me off, how dare you [grabs brick and charges at brown person].

It's an issue I've heard raised at the bar where I stand staring at emptying glasses, and though it mightn't be the speakers fault, our members or like-for-like clones of them are partially to blame. They who spit bile at those of colour, pinch asses and use the fear of being considered a faggot should you not drink your pint of Carling fast enough. Arson is certainly an option.