Blue Saturday

caveat: all i know abt trawlerman culture is (a) in this thread (b) when the boat comes in (c) that old ad that said "gone fishing gone away"

but am guessing it's a culture where, rather than the whims of the factory boss that everyone faces, you are mainly confronting the market directly (if you catch and sell enough, your family eats) -- so that cutting across the shared knowledge and tribulation of the other adversary (the sea), where you feel at one with those who know and disdain for those who don't, there's an intense competitive rivalry... cultural solidarity but not really economic solidarity?

not sure how this extends to docker culture (abt which i also know nothing obv except for on the waterfront)

marcus rediker has argued that the tradition of libertarian constitutionalism began with atlantic pirates: radical individualists by persuasion (they called themselves "masterless men" in an age when this had huge meaning) , they were nevertheless all in it together ("or we all hang separately" etc) and collectively recognised the need to strike up a contract with the pirateship's pirate captain, abt equitable division of spoils and abt restitution

^^^the latter is what the "black spot" is in treasure island: the crew's right to vote out their captain

obviously trawlermen aren't pirates *or* dockers, so i'm not sure where i'm going with this

Heh trawlermen are at least half smugglers, whatever about pirates

another culture i know nothing about, let me generalise some more (i read moonfleet as a kid)

Sexton Ratsey? No it's just the way my trousers are hanging...

Hull trawlermen as I understand it where at the whims of their bosses - they were hired labour on boats owned by a small number of wealthy family companies, and the owners didn't go to sea iirc

but their contracts are renewed on a single-voyage basis? that will also cut into economic solidarity (and is closer to dockers) (at least, the ones in on the waterfront)

oh yeah, the reasons for non-solidarity are clear, tho I think many of them were unionized to some extent

*deletes long speculation abt vikings*

lately get more and more sick of the sound of my own voice even when it's only internal

prefer it when my brain plays instrumentals

Dream baby dream

True story, I couldn't open this thread in zing for like months.

I'm in the weirdest mood, like I actually feel good (if drunk, which is in itself bad, for me) but also --1

Haha I fell asleep before I could finish articulating what I meant, nm

yeah I didn't really know how to respond I was half asleep when I read it

I dunno I mean -1 seems fair enough to me

here are the young men the grapes on their shoulders

had a real urge to nail myself to something today, then spent a while thinking about what substances might kill me quietly and painlessly, then thought about going back to the pub, then made a sandwich and turned the central heating on, then chatted shit on the internet

of all of the little tricks and rituals to help survive being alive, possibly my #1 is don't listen to decades, ever

i wasn't! i just thought of the grapes thing.

i once told a woman i really loved that the reason i was chirpier than her was because i listened to reggae and not Lou Reed first thing in the morning but

there's definitely something to that. maybe i can rig finally by cece peniston to be my alarm

Best alarm song is Si Begg’s “River” feat. Jinadu from The Director’s Cut (2003)

i listened to decades : /

all I wanna do is cocoon myself in the house and meditate on sadness and pointlessness but I'm still not going down the Joy Div route :)

promised myself I was gonna stop posting, there's the first failure of the day

https://www.whsmith.co.uk/pws/client/images/catalogue/products/9781/47/3627345/xlarge/9781473627345_1.jpg

Armstrong and Osman, kings of looking like smug wankers while wearing shirts and jackets without ties.

If I could pull off that look, I'd be the CEO of a second tier tech company.

never stop posting iirc

http://memegenerator.net/img/images/5103481.jpg
"Always... Be... Cposting..."

Finally, they come along
The weight upon their shoulders, it just can't be wrong
If you'd only seen, the trauma and degeneration
I just can't describe it, oh no no

Finally it has happened to me, door slammed right in my face
My heart's lost forever

like at the end of a shower when you turn the hot off

good session with my counsellor yesterday, feel like I'm making real progress, so obviously I went on a fourteen hour bender, came home, passed out, slept all day, missed work. fucking fuck's fucking sake I fucking hate myself, worthless useless feckless cretin, some merciful god kill me and stop fucking everybody about

You are worthy

i'm sure you'll shrug those feelings off quickly if you haven't already but you're none of those things nv & you don't deserve to hear that shit, from yourself or anyone else.

i just don't understand why i keep failing in the same way. 30+ years of drunk. one of the stories i told my counsellor on Thursday was about how i turned up to my Oxford Uni interview with the remains of the bottle of cider i'd be drinking on the way down.

now i keep saying i'm not an alcoholic cos i'm not fucked up every day. i manage to go a week or more before caning it so hard i end up injured or put at risk or lost or off work. same kind of pattern for 30 odd years, sometimes more frequent, sometimes a little less. 6 months of sobriety maybe 3 or 4 times. endless debt and failed relationships. and tho i still feel like today - ok that's enough, no more, only an idiot would keep doing this, i know for sure that in another day or two i'll start to wheedle myself around - gotta go out for the end of term, gotta go and watch the football, gotta keep in touch with my friends, one or two won't hurt, just need a bit of control, i can do that. and round we go again.

i know the dramarama self-loathing doesn't help me. i don't know much that does help me. breathe deep, keep working on the counselling, keep trying i guess. and you can't dwell on the past or feel constrained by it but sometimes you leave enough wreckage in your wake and it makes the path forward very narrow.

might be important to not view your life as one unified item. some days go badly, some relationships fail - but sometimes it's good, some weeks you get on top of things, some seasons you storm the league. and what feels like constant regression to booze is just one of many modes you operate in. anyway, good luck with keeping the demons at bay, we're all rooting for you

some days charlton lose, millwall and palace win, and england's faint ashes hopes get murdered into the earth with a thousand jagged stakes

Eyes know nothing of these pleasantries; they do not recognize exchange. When our eyes meet someone else's they become uneasy, as if they could make out their own empty, soulless reflection in the other person's pupils. Hardly have they met when they slip aside and try to dodge one another; their lines of flight cross in an invisible point, making an angle whose acuteness expresses the divergence, the deeply felt lack of harmony. Sometimes unison is achieved and eyes connect; the beautiful parallel stare of royal couples in Egyptian sculpture, the misty, melting gaze, brimming with eroticism, of lovers: eyes which devour one another from afar. But most of the time the eyes repudiate the superficial agreement sealed by the handshake. Consider the popularity of the energetic reiteration of social agreement (the phrase 'let's shake on it' indicates its commercial overtones): isn't it a trick played on the senses, a way of dulling the sensitivity of the eyes so that they don't revolt against the emptiness of the spectacle? The good sense of consumer society has brought the old expression 'see things my way' to its logical conclusion: whichever way you look, you see nothing but things.

not sad but peaceful, i have very forgiving friends, i shd learn to accept to deserve them

rum: loneliness: weekend: let's go

7:30:2:30::coffeeshop:bar

high five

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFfOgtTEji4

Fin.

findeed.

bad and self-hateful hangover.

with reference to ongoing flirtation thread i may be not checking my "libido flattened by age and antidepressants" privilege.

maybe a less harsh and self-hating way of putting that would be "a kindly disposition" or "avuncular". Well, that's what I tell myself, but ugly old bassa is closer to the truth!

work smarter, not harder

that feeling when you're that bored that you end up clicking on ILM threads or Chapo Trap House just because

it's a very bad feeling

I recommend incognito view so ILX doesn't keep reminding you of your lapse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il6OKhd5iyM

Sure as fuck is a loooong Saturday this particular one, this fucker, this comedown. If it will ever come down at all. And if it will, down to what exactly? (i'm floating fyi)

Murmurs. Frost-bitten soul gnawed away at. Not terribly much left iirc. The bottles rolling over the floor when I accidentally kick them annoy me to no end; they get in the way of my feet when I try to get up from the sofa tryna find my way to the bedroom, the bed, unsuccessfully. I sure as hell didn't bring them bottles in aye? "Of course you didn't! Dem fucking drunks, fucking drunks bringn them in!"

Fucking drunks am I not right, fellows? More murmurs, more bullshit, all this bullshit, never-ending stream of bullshit. If I die tonight that's quite alright, just give me summat nice to listen to. Not a lot to ask tbh. Something sedative, something nice. Pretenders? Why yes aren't e all.. Oh the song yes, yes that will do, yessir ty. And I didn't get those bottles in here tbh, really didrn't wasn't me iirc but it's ok, mann this is a looongg saturday, this will do, quite nice chaps, ah yes that's nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Hy7uAb_eU