Tuesday, 30 April 2019

Tinnitus Rings in the Changes

Tinnitus Rings in the Changes ©

Michael Casey

Well my Tinnitus seems to be getting worse, or rather feels worse, or should I say sounds worse, especially at night. I do get to talk to God more,Oh God let me sleep. My mother used to say, say the Rosary if you cannot sleep. So I’ve tried that too, as well as listening to the BBC World Service on the radio, it is very good actually, so give it a try if you find yourself all alone in the middle of no sleep. Otherwise cuddle your girl or boy, why listen to the BBC?

So is Tinnitus, the ringing in my ears some form of call to Prayer? God really does have wicked sense of humour.It can drive you to your wits end, or it could if I were witty and not just a half wit. You are so cruel you don’t respect your writer, you should be giving me a ringing endorsement. Less of the ringing and more of the dorsement which is some kind of German support used in buildings, or a flying buttress used to keep my underpants up.

Alarm bells would ring should my dorsement fail and my flying buttocks be all exposed, firm but over large. Can somebody turn those alarm bells off, oh they are off, it’s just my Tinnitus. Ah well I’m used to it by now. In the day its a gentle static forever noising in my ear, it would be quite Romantic, like the waves breaking on the beach at Cromane in Ireland. Only you cannot stop the static, maybe there should be a Protest March, stop the static in Michael’s attic. Though I doubt if the Middle Classes would march for me as they leave their litter everywhere, especially outside the Daily Mail. And the chances of me me being somebody’s Daily Male, I can only dream of. But these are just symbols crashing in my head amongst the 1970s jokes.

I used to listen to music all the time, now I listen to symbols all the time, like Buddie Rich with his egg whisk. There is a story about him playing with just one arm due to injury and he was still fantastic. If I could catch him I’d break his other arm, just for a chance of some Peace. He’s in Heaven now doing his Rhythm Method, he’s so good he hangs out with the Catholics, it’s a band of Angels.

You do get used to the hiss, but you really do need to have something making noise as well, to kind of distract yourself. Just as you distract a child before the Doctor puts the needle in. I did actually kick and punch our GP, Dr Hickman, I was 4 and it was the booster needle prior to starting school. Generally though daytime is ok.

Night time is the worst for Tinnitus as the ambient noise level is so low, or even zero if you have a padded cell, Monks have all the fun. In my case I have some music on to takeaway the Tinnitus, which is 4 times louder at least in the night. Sadly as nice as the music is, recently it’s been of no avail, and nuns don’t dress up any more. So I hear 100 tracks through the night before dawn seduces me, and it’s not Dawn either, but daybreak. Dawn seduces me with sleep as I am so exhausted.

And yes every 2 hours my ckd kicks in, so even if I finally get to sleep I awake every two hours. Yes it’s a strange life, or existence. But at least I can Write, so I’m glad of that. You may wish I didn’t bother, but for me it’s all I can do so I rejoice in it. So here’s the moral of the story just as Star Trek used to have morals. We are all different playing many parts in life’s orchestra, sometimes we conduct our own life, other times we are sat on the side. Sometimes the conductor allows us to play all the instruments like a one man band, or some really clever musician like Mike Oldfield doing everything himself. Sometimes all we do is play the triangle and hit just one note. Whatever your talent, make that one note, the best you can make it.

Or be like me, Michael Casey a really irritating noise in your ears.

Monday, 29 April 2019

Perfect Food

Perfect Food ©

Michael Casey

Well I’ve just mastered WPS2019, ok I clicked in the right place, the menu is slightly different so it threw me. Yes I’m stupid but the non beta version is cleaner so you have to tell it to drop down the options from the Blue Home button. Yes I know a two year old could work it out, but I like things that I’m used to.

Such as food. Yes I am a simpleton, I lived on frozen food such were my working hours and timetable. The MSG on the frozen food could have caked my veins and subsequently led to my unplanned quadruple heart bypass 4 years ago. However I used to go and see bands in a very smoky bar for years, before everybody got trendy and banned smoking everywhere. Not forgetting working with noisy and dirty printers in my early print room days. So it my not have just been bad diet.

Which brings me to today’s theme, perfect food. I have some Iceland frozen chicken kiev ready, some Irish sausages, the Richmond ones, and some sweetcorn with seeded bread all lined up for my dinner. So that’s a perfect dinner for me. We are lucky in our house because my small daughter is turning into a Little Chef, not the food places, but she can really cook. We have some fancy knives which she knows how to use, maybe Delia Smith will adopt her in future. So when I’m not making my DIY dinner my small daughter can and will impress.

There is a pause now while I cook and eat my dinner, I’ll have a gossip with my daughter too once she gets home from school. And yes if you are interested my left shoulder came out to play today, PAIN on a plate served up with plenty on wincing, WINCING, not MINCING, what kind of writer do you think I am? If I had any flesh lettuce left I’d slap the backs of your legs, go google Larry Grayson while I go eat.

Well its 7 hours later, no I’m not a greedy pig eating for that long, though in the old days sometimes the King would not eat for a day or so, hence the Feasts. I had my food and then a pain induced nap, it does tire you out, and yes it may bore you too hearing about it, but this is this writer’s life these past few years.

I am reminded of a Feast or rather a Chinese friend’s Wedding Meal, when each guest brought some food. There was loads of variety, and plenty to eat, a DIY banquet, and afterwards it was cleared away fast as they only had the church hall for so long. I did shed a tear at that wedding because as the man was pronounced Man and Wife a friend or even the Best Man handed him the phone so he could tell his Mother back in China that now he was married. My own mother was long dead when I was married, so maybe that day 10 years ago or so reminded me of my own mother not on any phone.

But back to food, it does not have to be perfect, if it is properly cooked, or even if it is cheap and cheerful food, what matters are who you are eating it with. Obviously you need to stay out of my way if I am eating, and yes I do eat with my mouth open. Barry and Julie were forever telling me off, but I always ignored them. Food is the breaking of bread, and the way people eat can reveal a lot. Poor people, simple people, Farmers if you like, they eat more with their hands and will tear the bread, and share the bread. I hope I’m still like that. Que Aproveche is the Spanish if memory serves, no doubt my Spanish readers will smile when they see that.

A meal should do you well, it should not just be a mechanical thing, we are not just machines as some doctors might like to think. Perfect food should have taste and quality and variety. Try Ukrainian apples from your local store, try a different cheese, try a different bread. Don’t stay in the Ghetto of Taste, we always eat sliced white, we never eat anything else. Yes, if in the end you are Warburton white person, that’s fine, but if you can be grabbed by your baguettes with a different butter or marg on top, then be tempted.

Food is not a Sin, besides we have past Lent and Easter day now, so wipe off the Cadburys from your smile and be tempted by all kinds of everything, and I don’t mean make a pass at Dana. That’s why we all go on holiday, to try different foods and drink. If you are a boring person, you’ll expect egg and chips everywhere you go and Manuel should speak the Queen’s English. Or perhaps if you are American you want Burger King everywhere, and to stay in your island of friends, experiencing just yourselves, and not the location you are it. Little America but in X Y or Z. I’m sure my American readers might be upset by me saying that. I just want you to all THINK.

And finally just to make Peace with the Americans, when my dad discovered Hamburgers in 1968 or thereabouts while we were in Rhyl Wales he thought they were so good he had 6 of them one after another and waited for the street vendor to cook them for him. I can actually remember the place with a low wall where they were being cooked. My own record is 3 hamburgers in a row after a rugby match, where I was playing, maybe 45 years ago.

This is simple food, far from Perfect Food, but at the time and place on a family holiday it was perfect as far as we were concerned. I’ve had Chinese dumplings in Shanghai too, my mother in law had all of them and brought them to the hotel in the city centre where we were staying. The other locals were disgusted that she bought all of them so they had to wait. I ate too many and the result was disgusting too, as I blocked the toilet once they went through my perfect stomach.

Saturday, 27 April 2019

Having a Lie In

Saturday, 27 April 2019

Having a Lie In

Having a Lie In ©

Michael Casey

Well I’ve just had a lie in, and I hadn’t got around to talking to you all, so I thought I may as well write about lie ins. I had actually had a nap, my chest decided to pain, just where the breast bone had been broken for the bypass. 4 years on and still pains, hence the need to retreat to bed, but at least it’s given me an idea for a piece of writing.

Now we all love to have a lie in, especially if our girlfriend can lie in too, John and Yoko spent a week in bed, I think the dry cleaning was late being delivered, they should have chosen a better hotel. A lie in signifies ease and rest, lack of hurry and time to spare and waste. All this changes once you get a pet, then you have to take the dog for a walk, or collect its pooh from around the garden and put it in an old potato sack. But right now you are having a lie in with your girlfriend.

You practice all the positions from that Channel Four tv show, only you hurt your back, and then need to stay in bed, alone, for a week. Your physiotherapy male nurse goes to work while you stay alone in bed, watching the rest of the series of that Channel Four tv show. Practice, Prevents, Piss, Poor, Performance so they say, so you watch all the episodes back to back while your back gets better. You’ll not get caught out again, once your back heals.

Having a Lie In, denotes holidays or weekends. So you rush downstairs and make a jug of coffee and put it on the low table by your bed,then you’ll put the Today show on BBC Radio4 on your DAB radio. You heckle from the warmth of your bed, Nick Robinson is besides you cross examining those liars who call themselves Politicians. If he could see the spots on your bum he’d climb back into the radio. Or if he could see all those glorious curves, he’d lose his voice or stutter, imagine having somebody naked in front of you, and trying to remain professional. A prostitute always remains professional, but Nick is no Prostitute, he just works for radio4, he never has a lie in. What would Nick and John do anyway if they were in bed together having a lie in, shall we get up and torture a Politician or two?No lets cuddle, cuddle the news papers that is. I cannot imagine the pair of them being like Eric and Ernie in the 1970s.

As you lie in you want to stay in bed as long as possible, but your bladder needs emptying after that jug of coffee. Then if you don’t hurry back to bed the warm spot might disappear, or you trip over the duvet and burn your naughty bits when you knock the jug of coffee over. That’s a sight for your neighbours, you screaming and holding your knackers. Luckily your boyfriend is a male nurse, so he can examine your knackers, and advise do you need hospital treatment, in the meantime you put your bits in the freezer box of the deep freeze.

Your boyfriend takes a rear view photo, and puts it on FB, saving our sperm ready for a surrogate pregnancy is the caption. And after he stops laughing he only then realises that the 2 of your must become the 3 of you. So burning your knackers accidentally was in fact a turning point in your relationship, and all because you had a lie in.

Thursday, 25 April 2019

How Writers Write but Not Me

How Writers Write, but Not Me ©

Michael Casey

Oh no, not another self indulgent piece, I just want a STORY. Well if you Listen you may just discover something to help yourself to Write your own stories, then you won’t need me, just like Nannie McFee. So a writer will begin with an idea and then sketch it out, then he’ll put his first words on the page. I gave up the page in 1989, yes 30 years ago. I decided that I wanted things on a computer so I bought an Atari 520 which cost the earth, 300quid back then, maybe a month’s wages. But I was single and no wife or kids, a bit like being Gay or Lesbian, without the gay of lesbian bit. In clear English no Family, so no outgoings. Gay and Lesbians are the richest because a family costs money.

I had written 238 pages on a typewriter, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker was finished on Leap Years Day 1988. After I finished I made two photocopies which I may have in a plastic bag somewhere. The original is lost. Then I got my Atari. I’m thinking maybe I actually got it at the end of 1988 and not 1989. Anyway I wanted my masterpiece to be on computer, and scanning wasn’t even thought of back then. So I thought I’d copy type it and so have it on a computer.

This was so boring a process, and new ideas formed so I wrote an expanded version of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. It then ended up as 616 pages or so.I had also written Shoplife my comic play masterpiece, which was accepted by a Professional Theatre, though not finally produced. I wrote a couple more plays too, including They Are Knocking Our Street which was based on one chapter from BBU. So When I was writing an expanded version of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker I used the play as material to go back into the book. A circle so to speak, from chapter 8 to play then back into chapter 8.

I did not do any rewriting, or more “drafts” So effectively everything I write is first draft. Yes I don’t have a Monet on the wall like Jeffrey Archer, but he does 13 rewrites I believe, and that would kill the love of words in me. Maybe if he reads this he’ll send me a photocopy to hang on my wall, assuming I like the Monet, he can send an email first with a photo in, then on approval he can send the photocopy framed.

So there you have it, I am a storyteller, I hope you’d give me a seat by the fire and a glass of Stella Artois to wet my lips with. I sit here in front of the screen and let the story drip out or pore out as the words dictate. You could say I turn the tap on the cask and the story comes out. I don’t know how big the cask is, or even what is in the cask. I just hope it tastes good and is not bitter to the taste.

Because of my age and because of my decades or listening to stories on BBC Radio4 and watching hundreds of films, and reading 100s or even a few 1000s of books, as well as watching 100s of bands perform in an upper room I have an idea of how a story should sound. Even a lifetime of going to Mass and listening to the Readings and the Priests give sermons all of this means I know words. Yes that’s a pompous statement perhaps, but I’ll say it anyway, I know words. I know nothing of:- cars, or electrics or brick laying, or carpentry, I’m not a carpenter’s son, I am the son of a Kerry Blacksmith.

Being a radio listener for so long before I started to write, 20 years of constant Speech radio, means I notice words, they mean more to me than most people. A mechanic knows by the sound if a car is wrong, just as a plumber or heating engineer will also know. So that is my only skill. Now that my Health means I have a pain day, then a good day, a no sleep night thanks to Tinnitus and all other manner of health annoyances, this means being able to Write means more to me than the average illiterate blogger.

There are nuances of words, just as there are nuances of pain. But lets stick to words. I write and I let it pour out, generally I don’t stop and rack my brain for a word here and a word there. If the words aren’t coming then finish the story. I’m old enough and experienced enough to know if what I’m writing flows or not. A story has its own life, it’s own flavour. Take an egg you can do this literally later on. Boil one egg, scramble one egg, poach one egg, fry one egg. Now taste test it, you can do it while you have it for tea with your old mum. Each egg tastes different. Scrambled and fried would be my favourite, hard boiled would be third, as for poached I’d give that to the cat. You could mix in Heinz beans as you scramble eggs and then you have another flavour. Or soak the egg into bread before frying it, then you have French toast which I discovered in 1980 in Boston Mass.

Now accidentally I’ve given you a cookery lesson. A paragraph ago I did not even know I was going to write that. I have SatNav that gets me to the bottom of the page, the path of words leads the way, leads the story. Just as I didn’t know a sentence ago that I’d write the path of words, SatNav led to the choice of the path of words. Yes it really is that quick and random.

This morning at breakfast I said to my girls that my body was all broken and cracked with pain, just like Humpty Dumpty, would I, could I even be put back together again whole and pain free? One daughter laughed aloud, she’s sat in the corner like Little Jack Horner revising for her A levels. I added the Humpty Dumpty line in the morning because it’s Easter and we had Easter Eggs, so it was a subliminal line, just as Little Jack Horner was a second ago.

Subliminal influences feed the fire of my imagination, but having over 50years of memories and more, maybe 56 years of memories as I can remember when my sister came home from hospital as a newborn. There is a pool of memory to draw from, or in my case an Ocean to draw from, so I cast my net and pull the fish ashore, and then I feed the Page and all my readers . That’s all I’m going to say now as my stomach needs feeding, and no I won’t be eating Birds Eye fish fingers.

p.s. try always to finish with a smile line, then you’ll be remembered

Michael Casey 007

as Bond 25 is announced today here's something from maybe 007 years ago

Michael Casey 007

By Michael Casey

I had a security pass with 007 on it, so it got me thinking. What if I was in a Bond film. There will be a new film and Daniel Craig will be the man again.

Could I be a baddie? No I couldn’t possible do that, I mean I don’t look like a baddie do I? My girls wouldn ‘t like it either, daddy couldn’t possible be a baddie, and as for the wife, I was her Panzi after all. Panzi meaning Fat Fat Boy in Chinese.

So what could I be in a James Bond film? I could carry his bags, I did work in a 4star business hotel for 3 years. So I have the practice. I could carry James Bond’s bags up to his room and knock a few things over, or spill things on James Bond and try to wipe him down with a towel, so James Bond pushes me over the balcony into the pool.

Then the next day Bond lounging by the pool, and me/the porter trips over him so Bond throws me in the pool again. Later in the day I knock his Aston Martin with my trolley, so I get thrown in the pool again.

Finally I/the porter annoys him again, so this time he shoots me. And Bond says “I never believed in tipping.”

Now if Lee Evans is not available for the above then I’d do it. Wouldn’t we all love to be in a Bond film, just think how much they could charge for the privilege.

*************

I will return rattling with pain killers and write something new late on, after I finish combing

Joe Biden's hair, it smells so nice too.

Wednesday, 24 April 2019

welcoming Bolivia to my family

this is from my wordpress

Well Malaysia was reading today and tonight Bolivia has joined my readers club.
Don’t forget there is a TRANSLATE BUTTON which can translate everything, don’t just read only the already translated stuff.
It does warm my heart when I get even more far flung readers. Today was a pain day after a bad night due to my Tinnitus, tonight as it approaches Midnight the pain has lessened, it will return it always does but by writing my silly stuff at least I can amuse myself and hopefully all of you all over the world. Hopefully I’m a piece of chocolate to please amongst whatever kind of day YOU are having wherever you may be.
Hasta Luego chicos y chicas Michael Casey o
Miguelito el gordo con pelo silverado y shades
forgive my bad Spanish, speaking is easier than writing.
Google Translates my written pieces not me