Prozac and Whimsy

I’ve not written in a long time and didn’t think I ever would again. I have tried, I really have but no idea has truly set the fire in my brain, and I don’t think I have any spite left in me. The last couple of things I have tried to squeeze out of me have both shared one thing the phrase “None Of This Is Real”

The first was going to be a biography of a band that doesn’t exist playing songs that don’t exist in the genre that doesn’t exist. They were going to start out as a straight hardcore band called Sho/T/Gun and cover their sixth and final album Messiah before splitting up mid tour and eventually resurfacing as a new, bigger and better band. The new band were going to be called Disposable Horses, I was going to (and still may) make merch for them (More on all that at some point in the future) It was going to be a whole 33 1/3 style book but everything about it was going to be pulled from my brain/arse. The main problem was I know nothing about writing or playing music. I had line ups, character history, family connections, pages and pages of lyrics and track listings and timings and then…

And then reality and my imagination collided, and I drunkenly (so, so drunkenly) saw a band Called Outlander at a small festival that had Lambrini Girls at the bottom of the bill and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs at the top. Outlander played the second stage which was in a foyer and near the one and only bar so the queue for drinks intermingled with the crowd for the bands, which was how I found myself watching them. I was immediately rapt; they were ear splittingly loud (as all good music should be) crushingly heavy (as all good music should be) and just so unbelievably slow. They were everything that I wanted Disposable Horses to be, and I knew then that I would never write another word about them. This doesn’t count in that statement as this is about the book Disposable Horses not the band Disposable Horses that the book Disposable Horses was going to be about.

Umm anyway the line “None of this is real” was going to be the opening line to the book and lyric to the, again imaginary, song Time Is An Illusion. I fully intended on it being the one and only clue to none of it being real. Sometimes I really overthink things like this and get carried away. It’s a whole thing, I once wrote a novella about mix tapes called C90 where every track mentioned could have fit onto the C90 in question.  I abandoned Disposable Horses in 2023 but the line None Of This Is Real has stayed with me as I have bounced up and down the mental health scale over the years.

I’ve been “quite” low of late, which is down playing just how ill I have been of late but we’ll come to that topic another day. During this low I got to feeling like nothing I was doing mattered or changed anything and the idea of a time loop story came to me.  I was still in my never going to write again phase but the idea niggled a bit and I wrote exactly 382 words before giving up. This story was going to be called 100 Days, a title I have wanted to use for at least a decade in honour and now tribute to the sadly late but always great Mark Lanegan. It was going to be a journal of the same day (a Wednesday) played out 100 times in a row. There were rules, because there are always rules (we’ll come to the rules of this place once I figure them out)

1. The loop is already in play at the start of the story and we don’t know how it started or how long it has been going on already
2. We don’t know if the loop is ever actually closed
3. The protagonist can remember yesterday but not the yesterday before yesterday as that was Tuesday which he can remember (obviously)
4. The day resets when he falls asleep so staying up into Thursday is viable but only for so long
5. Naps count as falling asleep

In Disposable Horses “None Of This Is Real” was going to be the first line. In 100 days it was going to be the last. I like the last line in a story and have worked backwards from one more than once. I knew the ending of Stay Happy long before I knew the start or middle bits (Stay Happy was always called 100 Days at one point) C90 started and finished on the same line (looping like what how a tape did/does!) The phrase and notion of it still wouldn’t leave me. I knew I wanted to do something with it but I didn’t know what and truth be told I still don’t but that didn’t stop me having wee stickers made anyway.

I have one of these on my phone (actually two but one is under a flap) There has been some left in the park, one on a train and a few sent to Scotland when I posted a rock to a stranger. At this point I think the statement may tie into the detachment I’m feeling from things but I also like the vagueness of it and the thought of someone seeing it with absolutely no context makes me smile and maybe that’s enough?  If you’d like a sticker drop me a line, if you don’t know how to drop me a line then you can’t have one. But remember that none of this is important because none of this is real.