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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.110
Posted on Thursday, January 26, 2012 - 11:10 pm:   

Last night I went along to a local open mic night. I took my 15 minutes, accompanied by a great guitar player named Joe, and ended my set with a loose and messy version of Canned Heat's "On The Road Again". As I started my 45 minute self-indulgent harmonica solo (complete with violin bow, fan to keep my flowing locks from my face, and dry ice...) I heard another harp. And there, leaning against the bar, was a tall, dreadlocked character blowing into a harp of his own.

There followed a brief call-and-answer moment, which went down well with the punters. I mean, one old bloke actually glanced away from the Sky football on the telly and nodded, once, and another drinker briefly woke up.

Afterwards, Dreadlocks and me shook hands and introduced ourselves. At the same moment a young fella appeared and said he had bought a harmonica of his own two days ago and was practising hard.

Then...suddenly, the three of us were playing, just standing there, playing in perfect harmony, creating a foot stompion', chicken stranglin' sawdust raisin' hot n bluesy hoe-down.

We scrambled back onto the stage, elbowed the next act off the mike before he could tune his guitar and clear his throat and carried on for another two minutes.

At least three punters missed a sip of beer and someone nodded and shruigged.

It was one of those MOMENTS. Priceless, magic, unrepeatable, moments that bring a bit of colour and euphoria and show us what real happiness is. Something you can't buy, consume, possess or package into a tacky advert.

So, other MOMENTS anyone?

Cheers
Terry
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.1.155
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 12:46 am:   

Just wish I'd been there.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.135.194
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 01:31 am:   

I have one line in the play wot I'm doing right now where , in responce to one character telling another "But you can't get defensive over a wife you're trying to get rid of!" I'm supposed to reply - "I don't know, if you're trying to sell a car, you don't stop driving it the minute the ad goes in the paper..."

At the first dress rehearsal, this morphed somewhat and became

"I don't know - if you're trying to sell a bike, you don't stop riding it the moment the ad goes in the paper."

I think this may have stretched the metaphor past the family audience point and killed the rehearsal dead for a few minutes... which was a shame as we'd been almost perfect till that point.

whoops.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.19.91
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 06:26 am:   

I got a gas bill yesterday with a £68 rebate. Moments.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.109.65
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 12:23 pm:   

Too many moments of mine happen while watching telly - or the 'Moment Generator' as I shall from hereon call it. Last night's was David Brent saying 'A philosopher said you need three things for a happy life; a meaningful relationship, a happy job, and making a difference.' It was like a light going on. I won't say why it made me sad, but it did make me learn.
A lot of moments have come from coincidences recently. I've been very preoccupied with the meaning of life lately and got to thinking of how much I like the Tom Hanks film, Cast Away. In it there are a lot of Fed Ex trucks. As I was thinking about the film a few months back - in my quiet country village - a truck came by. A Fed Ex truck. Then the other day I was watching the Matrix and while I was ironing I put the commentary on by these two philosophers. In it Neo gets an invite to free himself from the Matrix - from a Fed Ex truck.
Maybe not the moments you were thinking of, Terry, but they affected me.
(So, last Friday night, did you and Stuart and Des accepting my cover for your book. I was on a cloud for a full 24 hours or so).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 12:32 pm:   

I have to disagree with that philosopher, Tony, as I believe it is possible to have a perfectly happy life without any of those three. Aren't there Zen monks who reach Nirvana by sitting on top of a pole?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 12:34 pm:   

Erm, you know what I mean...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.19.91
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 12:40 pm:   

Please make Joel work just a little bit harder . . .
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 212.219.63.204
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 01:12 pm:   

Stevie, did the Pole mind?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.155.206.59
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 01:20 pm:   

God, I sound mad, don't I?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 01:30 pm:   

Anyone who can reach nirvana by sitting on top of a pole should have a check-up.

It's always happy hour for double entendres on the RCMB. That's why I hang around here.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 01:47 pm:   

'A philosopher said you need three things for a happy life; a meaningful relationship, a happy job, and making a difference.'

That wouldn't have worried me, Tony, but it might have made me start a new page on my 'To do' list. If I was near the bottom of the page and didn't have three blank lines.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 03:59 pm:   

Love and work, Tony, as Freud said. Work, I think, implies the "making a difference" part.

I've long asserted, humans are literally incapable of performing purposeless acts—of any kind. If pushed or forced into such acts (say, unconsciously), the result, in metaphoric terms, would be like driving your car down the road, and suddenly jamming the gears into reverse. The resulting horror, that's what it's like when human beings foolishly continue doing things they no longer have any faith in—

Phooey. I like the pun path better.

So would a misplaced Czech do?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 04:04 pm:   

Wait... did I just repeat, less cleverly, Joel's pun?... egad....

Sword placed. Rushing forward. Farewell, cruel thread.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.155.203.20
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 04:43 pm:   

Or making DEATH WISH II.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 - 06:25 pm:   

Craig, it was Julian Clary's joke originally. Or rather, in all probablility it originated in the public domain. (I'm choosing my words carefully here.)
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 02:38 am:   

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David_lees (David_lees)
Username: David_lees

Registered: 12-2011
Posted From: 92.22.28.28
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 03:07 pm:   

I had a nice moment this morning, waking up to find I'd won 4th prize in the recent PS Publishing competition and there was a copy of Ghosts Know sitting waiting for me in the post!

Am well chuffed.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.132.174.115
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 03:40 pm:   

I went walking through a huge park in Washington last night. So deep and dark, and nobody around but me. Story ideas and lines came to me like raindrops - I couldn't switch them off. It was amazing, the sense of the trees 'breathing'. Like standing inside a pair of lungs. At one point I stood on the spot where thirty+ years ago a kid whipped me on the head with a dog chain. So odd, how time is, that I remembered the incident almost fondly.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 04:26 pm:   

I had a "moment" last week.

I've been running again for a fortnight - 3 mile runs, four times a week. The other day I had the experience all runners long for: the feeling that I was unbuckling from the world, momentarily taking off and leaving gravity behind. It was sublime. When I was an obsessive mid-distance runner in my 20s I used to call it a "fractured moment". It's bliss; my own version of a spiritual experience.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.132.174.115
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 04:28 pm:   

It'll be the breathing - people who meditate do it. Something to do with oxygen and the brain. And being alone. :-(

Everything is Kung Fu! ;)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 04:34 pm:   

It's more about feeling your physical body break away - the running stops being difficult, and you no longer feel gravity pulling against you. Something shifts. It's beautiful.

The meditation thing is true, though. If I ever need to resolve a writing problem - a plot point, a characters motivation - I go for a run and it all becomes clear. By not thinking about it, I think about it and solve the problem.

Ah, Grasshopper. Your king fu is no good.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.132.174.115
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 04:40 pm:   

That walk in the park in the dark (?) really helped me. I've been bogged down for days, weeks even. Wrote like mad when I got to the pub. We forget how important our bodies are to the process, don't we? We really do.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.19.91
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 06:13 pm:   

The embodied mind. The mindful body.

Simply that.

Yours,
Merle
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.19.91
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 06:13 pm:   

>>>We forget how important our bodies are to the process, don't we? We really do.

It's the mental straitjacket in which Rene Descartes locked us up. Experience tells us otherwise.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.29.252.215
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 06:31 pm:   

I just had a moment!

On getting ready to head out for the night I discovered an unfinished packet of 'ABC Letters' in my good jacket pocket.

I poured the remainder into my hand and had my head tipped back all set to shovel the lot into my gob when an idea presented itself to me.

Instead I poured the six remaining sugary comestibles onto the shelf in front of me - curious to see what they might spell.

What stood revealed was this: BLONDD !!!!

Okay, I had to turn a P round to make a lowercase b but I still take this as a favourable omen that I'm going to get it on with a DD blonde tonight!

In my defence... it is pay day weekend and it was a bloody long January.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 27.252.178.118
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 07:51 pm:   

Had a happy day with the family at Wellington Zoo which is situated above the city and harbour in the hills. The moment. When I looked down at it, smiled...and thought, I belong here now.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.83.90
Posted on Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 08:55 pm:   

Is anybody going to comment on the fact that Tony was whipped with a dog chain as a child? Snakes alive, are we numb?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.108.59
Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2012 - 11:03 am:   

It's ok Proto - I was sixteen or fifteen and it was another kid (quite smaller than me). I did need stitches like. Some weeks later I was sat on a bus one day and this little kid says to me, really sheepishly, 'I'm sorry I hit you.' My dog had gone for his dog, you see. His apology made me quite forget it all.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.9.30
Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2012 - 11:53 am:   

Flipping heck. It's not okay, though, is it? You were still a child and it's the casual manner in which you mentioned it that made it worse too.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.132.170.13
Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 - 10:56 am:   

Sorry, Proto. It just almost felt like it had happened to a stranger. I have no emotions when I remember it.
Unlike the slashing of three of our car tyres last night.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 - 01:15 pm:   

I know what you mean, Tony. I remember an incident from when I was about ten in which a mate of mine was caught by a bigger boy who proceeded to slice his initials into my friend's wrist with a penknife. The budding psychopath then had the shit kicked out of him by a group of adults once it got back to them what he had done. Thinking about it now the incident was just one of those things that happened to us when we were kids. It was all a part of the experience of growing up in Belfast in the 1970s - where violence was a way of life.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 - 01:30 pm:   

I remember the '70s being very rough. Was it just because I grew up in it, or was it actually rougher than the decades before or since?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 - 04:00 pm:   

My own theory is that the 1970s was an era in transition from the cosy conservatism of the post-War "you've never had it so good" years, and the youthful rebellion against such things that marked the 1960s.

In everything from the increasingly militant (and rightly fucking so!) civil rights movement (here as much as anywhere else) and the establishment's last gasp backlash against it (buoyed by immigration really starting to take off and the unease this caused in previously insular societies) as well as the "anything goes" sense of humour that prevailed (Bernard Manning, 'Love Thy Neighbour', anyone?), and the new acceptance of explicit language, as much as what was deemed visually permissible, in TV (i.e. 'The Sweeney', 'I, Claudius', etc.) and Cinema ('The Exorcist', 'The Godfather', etc.) and - above all of those - the terrorism that ran rampant (and the inference that life was cheap and nothing makes them sit up and take notice than a few dead innocent civilians) and the newly allowed bravery in reporting of these atrocities in the media, the 1970s was a decade of waking up, smelling the stench and making your voice heard.

Yet, for all its excesses, it was also a time of shared humanity and community values - a time when the human race gave out one collective roar of; "This is what we are, like it or lump it!"

Something that the decades since, with all their paying lip service to what is deemed right and proper, have drained from the collective psyche as surely as they've drained our collective wealth and natural resources. But the 70s are coming around again... last summer in London, and what's going on around the world, is only the beginning. And there will be blood. God help us all.
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.110
Posted on Monday, January 30, 2012 - 11:08 pm:   

Spot on Stevie, just how I remember it; rough and ready, but warm somehow.

And the music!

Cheers
Terry

PS: Managed to get in to see "The Exorcist" when the film was still damp from the developing tray when I was about 16 maybe 17, and it scared the life out of me.

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