Till The End Of November

Monday 18th November 2019

Long lie in till ten because I was late to bed having stayed up to watch a Dracula film but I slept through the end of it. Me and Jenni went out in the crisp midday air and over to Newcastle. Was good to just wander, no hurry. Jen helped me out enormously with the paper mission this afternoon. Got coloured card and paper for Anomalies Deluxe book. Need toner cartridges for laser printer. Have yet to come up with Steve Achieves: Did a five-hour Monday stationery haul? Made Jenni laugh whilst eating peanuts? Watched programme about Snowdon. Might be fun to go climbing sometime. Got loads of clothes on. Jen has put the heater on but my toes are numb. Watched first episode of Cold Call drama starring Sally Lindsay. Got to be up early tomorrow for the Waddy workshop. Looking forward to just getting a copy of my book made. Dave Gorman is on TV. Pretty funny. 10.28 pm.

Tuesday 19th November 2019

Woke pretty early. But Jen had her alarm on anyway so I wouldn’t have slept in. Gateshead by ten. Bank transactions sorted. Chocolate and oranges bought then bus to Durham. Read quite a bit of The Danger Game by Kevin Brooks. Pretty fast paced novel, teen protagonist from family of private detectives investigating trouble on a council estate. Got through penultimate Waddy session okay but felt time went quick and we didn’t do enough computer editing. Bought more paper for Deluxe book-build and read more Brooks on the bus home. All-day breakfast for tea then ITV political debate. I dislike Johnson profusely but didn’t think Corbyn came across much better. Fell asleep during ‘other leaders’ show. 11.55 pm.

Wednesday 20th November 2019

Slow day. Toner cartridges won’t be here till Monday. Cracked on with selections of material for Waddy Lecture – basically an old performance poetry set from 2014 plus Joyriding With Hank essay from 2011 about Henry Rollins, then how I got from warehouse to Waddington Street Centre via 1998 mental breakdown interspersed with poems from a few of my books. I’ll use Gateshead ‘Library Meet the Author’ notes; plus Sunday Assembly ‘Inside the Mind of a Poet’ from this summer – a looser, more conversational rewrite of my January Steve Achieves #14 piece… Have read some political stuff. Hope to see the Tories decimated next month. Nice to hear from Stephen Clark and discuss Swans. Checked trains and coaches for Jarboe gig in Liverpool next May. Probably won’t be able to make it. London is expensive. Oh well, suppertime. 10.47 pm.

Thursday 21st November 2019

Morning Pages. Email checks. Bank transactions. Poetry Jam event page on Facebook. PDF of the poster off to Waddy.

STEVE ACHIEVES #325

It was a slow night so I made an A2Z list of bands/musicians and played a song from each before midnight.

Adam and the Ants – Beat My Guest*,

Black Sabbath – Paranoid,

Canned Heat – On the Road Again,

David Bowie – Heroes,

Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),

Fugazi – Waiting Room*,

Girlschool – Emergency,

Hanoi Rocks – Village Girl,

INXS – Don’t Change*,

Jarboe – Yum Yab*,
Killing Joke – Love Like Blood,

Lydia Lunch – In My Time of Dying*,

Marilyn Manson – The Nobodies*,

NIN – Head Like A Hole*,

Ozzy Osbourne – Bark At The Moon,

Prince – Sometimes It Snows In April,

Queen – Spread Your Wings,

Rollins Band – Followed Around

Swans – Beautiful Child*,

Twisted Sister – The Price*,

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday*,

Venom – Black Metal*,

Whitesnake – Here I Go Again*,

XTC – Senses Working Overtime,

Yazoo – Only You*,

Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction – Prime Mover*.

*Songs seen performed live.

THANKS:

Steve May for flagging up changes to biog on Poetry Jam poster.

Barry’s Bargain Superstore for all the sweet and savoury goodies.

Jenni for getting my coats cleaned at the laundrette –

“Nosferatu’s Brother” returns this winter. 11.59 pm

Friday 22nd November 2019

Losing track of the days. Seem to have been in a fog all day. At least it hasn’t been so cold. Made very little progress. Kept getting distracted by politics. It’s important to know what’s going on but it takes a lot of effort to keep up to speed. I don’t retain all the facts so I’m shit in a debate coz I can’t back up my argument. I could point someone to an article that I know contains the answers. Fucking sick of all the election stuff already. Devoting time to it. I’ve read bits of the Labour manifesto but my head is mashed. Would take me a week or two to digest. A novel, you can get the gist even if you lose the detail. Compared to the Johnson and Swinson car crashes on Question Time tonight, Jezza and Nicola looked like true leaders… Anyway, tomorrow is another day. Less social media, more graft. The clock is ticking. 10.40 pm.

Saturday 23rd November 2019

Absolutely shite day. Worn down. Tired. Sick of the slow computer. Sick of Tory wankers. Sick of trying to put lesson plans together. Had a sleep mid-evening but didn’t feel any better. Can’t wait till admin is over so I can get on with putting my handmade books together. Fucking sick of my own stuff being last in the queue. Enough! 9.27 pm.

Sunday 24th November 2019

Didn’t get up till eleven. Warmer in bed than previous nights. Removed outer hoodie and two pairs of socks. Chipped away at a lesson plan but gave up after tea. Read some blog posts by Bishop Auckland based novelist Wendy Robertson, mainly about moving over from traditional publishing to self-publishing. Had a lush bacon sarnie. Lush chicken curry. Read three-quarters of Matt Haig’s Reason’s to Stay Alive. 11.46 pm.

Monday 25th November 2019

Trajectory knocked off-kilter by Lesah Magee’s one-line post in Henry Rollins Fanatics Facebook group stating that Hank has a new book out today. Got into various discussions about his stuff, posted info about his WORKS chapbook and NOW WATCH HIM DIE. And a link to the essay I’ll be reading part of in my Writing and Mental Health lecture on Thursday. Info late afternoon: STAY FANATIC Vol 1 – a coffee table book of archived records and flyers accompanied by Rollins’s ‘obsessive collector’ stories. Lots of complaints that the book is expensive. Well, forty dollars (£31.00) isn’t bad for large format, full colour, 315 pages. But airmail for such a hefty tome is as much as the book itself. I got some student stuff done today. And a variation on the Anomalies Deluxe picture inserts for the first recipient. Can’t wait to be sewing up a book. Hopefully on Wednesday. 11.45 pm.

Tuesday 26th November 2019

Only six hours sleep. But little to pack this morning. Bob Kelly wrote a great review of the ‘Waddy Works 2019’ anthology and it’s going in The Street magazine on Monday. Session was okay but paperwork a bit gruelling. We got through it all and had a bit of fun with some of the previous easy exercises to round off our final session of 2019. Felt a bit knackered afterwards in two minds about going to Newcastle for paper. But the rain stopped so I went. Got a ream of cream A4 and a steak pie. Had a look in HMV. Then 7.20 pm to Consett. Into Tesco for supplies. Home by nine. Set up my stage notes and had another run through the Waddy Lecture. Tomorrow I’ll try to ditch the notes and see if I can shave five minutes off so I can insert Snow poem. 11.29 pm.

Wednesday 27th November 2019

Fucking hell! What a mammoth book-building session. Twelve and a half hours from opening a ‘Contents’ signature word file of Anomalies Deluxe to posting a Steve Achieves about how it’s going. Pages printed and folded. But I’m out tomorrow so the rest will have to wait until the weekend. I now have a colour guide for the book pages the next copy shouldn’t take so long to print. I’m always pleased to get away from the computer screen and just have the materials and tools for the proper crafty bit. I listened to a great Kira Roessller (Ex Black Flag) interview online tonight. My bed isn’t accessible until I clear away all the coloured paper. So it’s going to be midnight. 11.41 pm.

Thursday 28th November 2019

WORK LOG: Morning pages. Pay log to College. Got some photo inserts printed. Did more prep for Waddy Lecture. Assembled music stand for my stage notes. Did the Lecture for real at six tonight. Didn’t fuck up any poems. Pretty full throttle through the set. Only about twenty minutes of it was poetry. Rest of the 65 minutes was a monologue from notes with adlibbed digressions. Then a bit of time answering questions. Tidied up and left. 9.00 pm.

THANKS: Waddy for the opportunity to flex with the longest set I’ve ever done. Thanks to Peter for printing out my photos for Deluxe. 9.12 pm.

Friday 29th November 2019

Had a good time in Newcastle checking out bikes in Start Cycles. Enjoyed browsing zines in Travelling Man, although mainly comics. Enjoyed looking at music books in Waterstones: Nick Kent, Queen, Pistols Bollocks Diaries. Also Richard Brautigan novels, Leonard Cohen, Simon Armitage and Salena Godden poems. Got food for me and Jenni. Soup at seven. Good laugh watching The Last Leg and Goggle Box. Jenni taunted me with vegan cheese melted on a cream cracker and it fucking stank. She didn’t even eat it herself – just wrapped it in plastic and threw it in the bin. I’m on midget gems and dark chocolate digestives. Two weeks from now the election will be done and we’ll know if it’s more shit or a new beginning. I’m not following the situation so avidly at present. Next year I want to pull back and get more stuff in print. 11.26 pm.

Saturday 30th November 2019

Lie in till almost eleven. Big sticky clog of porridge with Bramley apple sauce. Lots of hot lemon squash. Answered a message from Chloe (Beamish Hall) about vegan boots. Online conversation with Andrew Talbot about Bukowski. Bought a couple of Xmas presents (books) this afternoon. And food to keep me and Jenni going through the weekend. Veggie burgers and chips for tea. Saw a great Seamus Heaney documentary on BBC4. 11.25 pm

Sunday 1st December 2019

Up around ten. Facebook ritual then early Steve Achieves about future publishing schedule. Watched Local Hero film set in Texas and Scotland; lots of younger versions of current household Scottish actors. The Grinch was pretty good. Stayed awake for His Dark Materials but lost the plot due to missing last week’s episode. Didn’t bother with War of the Worlds. Think Jenni wishes she didn’t either. Really cold tonight. Hot cherry pie and custard for supper. 10.10 pm.