Eric Clapton before bedtime

Eric Clapton before bedtime,
I just finished wathcing a 2 hour documentary on Eric Clapton, A life in 12 bars.

Very good programme, my brother used to listen to his music on a Toblerone shaped speaker when he trying to get into university nearly 50 years ago. He got into Queens, Oxford.

Meanwhile my other brother adopted the speaker, he got into the other place, Downing, Cambridge.

Now I've had the speaker for years, I just became a writer. 16 books on Amazon so far, which you all refuse to buy as you can read me here. I'm gently weeping now, Clapton wrote that song for me.

I did of course meet Eric Clapton in 2002 or 2003 at the CPNEC Birmingham, I tried to carry his bag only I went to the wrong end of his sports car. So I said, sorry Sir, the wife drives a Skoda, this made Eric smile.

I did try to pension off the speaker but after 2 days in the sun outside our house nobody wanted it. So I cleaned it with apple spray and brought it back in. I then reconnected the speaker  and it sounds good, even after 50 years in our family. We do have a Ginger in the family, as foreigners mispronounce my wife's name. Our Ginger makes so much noise she should be in a band with Eric. So if Eric ever reads this and wants to conquer China, then my Ginger is availavble.

I'm glad Eric has found Peace with himself, life can be a bit of a journey, I speak from experience  too, the trick Eric is to get on the right bus, get a ticket to ride. In all its meanings.



Eric may recognise me from the younger photo below 2002 to 2005

Just a quick qustion to Portugal

Just a quick qustion to Portugal.

Is it because the data line lands in Portugal first that you guys always read my stuff, or is it that the local dentist has  ran out of magazines, so in desparation you look at my words.

Desparation probably, not unless you are on Pilgrimage in Fatima, I was in Lourdes myself when England won the World Cup in 1966.

So if you are in Fatima Portugal please light a candle, a very big candle for me.

here's somebody else's words.

   I Said a Prayer for You Today

            I said a prayer for you today

            And know God must have heard.

            I felt the answer in my heart

            Although he spoke no word!

            I didn't ask for wealth or fame

            (I knew you wouldn't mind).

            I asked him to send treasures

            Of a far more lasting kind!

            I asked that he be near you

            At the start of each new day;

            To grant you health and blessings

            And friends to share your way!

            I asked for happiness for you

            In all things great and small.

            But it was for his loving care

            I prayed the most of all!

*** I was going to post one of my poems but I found that instead, I know you'd prefer the above

 to my stuff

As Ever I return to Music

As Ever I return to Music (c)

By  

Michael Casey

Well I’m trying a different word processor so forgive any mistakes, it looks darker like an old fashioned newspaper, with the print, the ink coming off on your fingers. I don’t know if I like it yet, it’s Abi Word you can try it for yourself, as Vangelis plays in the background. Which brings me to today’s talk, as ever I return to Music. I do always return to Music, yes with a capital M, it plays a most important part in my life. As does talking to you, some would say writing is my therapy, the Cards amongst you would say if you read Michael Casey then YOU need therapy, you are all so cruel. The Card was a book by Arnold Bennett and a nice film in 1952 as well, so go read or watch that if you have had enough of me already, have a Guinness too, a Sir Alec Guinness.

So what’s it with music, as a Chinese theme plays through the speakers. Well its the thing that binds us all together, it is a heart beat, the internal tick of time that plays through our lives. I remember this or that or even the other when a certain track was playing, or an entire Barry White double album when me and my lady got acquainted. Music is the rhythm to our lives, the beat, the slow slow quick quick slow as we dance through our lives, or enjoy Barry White with somebody we love.

In times of trouble when your heart is broken maybe after you smashed his Barry White collection because, well just because. Then you retreat to the bathroom or the sofa somewhere to cry. But as these gentle tears fall you just need a bit of loving and compassion. So you play your dad’s Nat King Cole, because Nat was a gentleman, and as those tears fall his voice is brushing your hair, and wiping those tears away, your love may have met its Waterloo, but you’ll survive because you have the eye of a tiger. So you play I will survive, and the winner takes it all, cos your mate is a divorce lawyer, so you smile.

I’ve digressed as usual, but its the winding road that makes the story, the long and winding road that leads us all home. Music is a special place in our hearts, it soothes us, it reminds us. Celine Dion was singing on the radio the night my mother died so now her song Because you Loved Me, has a powerful reminder and effect on us all. I just put it on the speakers and I’m almost crying now as I talk to you, so that is the power in music. I’ll stop and listen to the song.  

We each have a song that makes us happy or brings on the tears, or coaxes us back to the right path. Grannie would bribe us with sweets when we sulked, and we’d listen to the radio with her, so now when we hear that song we think of grannie too. So when she was even older you made sure she had the best DAB radio money could buy so that she was not all alone in the old people’s home.

Music is Love, if you think about it, it really is true, maybe explains why Mick Jagger is still dancing in the street, or why musicians always had groupies, music is a magnet, as is musicians’ large back list. None of us can live in silence. Silence is loneliness, silence is even pain, we all need music in remembrance of love, of kindness, of hope. If ever you have walked through an accountancy firm it’s like walking through the valley of the death, they don’t talk, yet they exist.

So when they leave the office it’s like a fart exploding with noise and relief. To be able to speak, to listen to music, to dance in the street even. We all need to escape into music, to be swept along by the rhythm and the beat. Even if it is only Agadoo, though we may be blind drunk and desperately looking for the toilet, through that big gold handbag will do, Laura Kuenssberg shouldn’t leave it lying about.

Earlier I was listening to a piece by Sky and I imagined a chase through a woods to rescue a child from a kidnapper, the ending to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker in fact, the undertaker praying he’d not have to bury the little Indian Princess, the butcher vowing to kill the kidnapper, the baker cursing his dog for chasing squirrels. Then as the music plays in my imagination I can see the result, all played out to music, such overpowering music. Yes that is the power of music, in fact Betty’s son writes film music I believe, while I dream my comic novel makes it to the screen, 5 years ago a low budget film producer did take a look.

So as Vangelis plays chariots of fire in slow motion, my dreams are in slow motion waiting to hit the floor and accelerate. So it’s time to finish so there is only one track I can play Windmills of my Mind from the Thomas Crown Affair, or maybe Queen’s I want it all and I want it now…

me and mum 50 years ago maybe

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

Influencing the Writer

I was tidying up with just the pain monster for company so I decided to give you this as well. I'll write a new piece tomorrow I hope. Pain is such a bastard, so when my boat does come in I will found a pain relief clinic, and no its not some sort of Nevada house of ill repute. I mean a medical clinic/hospital. Though that s a chance in a billion...  

Influencing the Writer ©

By Michael Casey

I was having a lazy day today, the pain monster came last night so I thought I deserved it. Last night was good on tv as The Lady in the Van was on the telly, its a famous play by Allen Bennett. I do in fact have a copy of the book, it’s on my garden wall waiting to be taken away by passing scholars, or tramps in need of tissue paper. I’m sure Allen will praise me for my recycling efforts. I bought the book cheap but never got around to reading it. Then the play was on the telly last night, the film version with Dame Maggie Smith, she got an Oscar for the Prime of Jean Brodie.

So now the book is on the garden wall awaiting recycling, but I’ll keep an eye out for the rain as nobody wants a mushy book, in all senses of the word. Speaking of words Allen was interviewed in a documentary and the foul words he used en passant, if he used more of such words then he might attract a more working class audience, if I might steal some of the style in some of his stuff. I did email him once but I don’t remember did he reply, though I do send rather a lot of emails.

As you can see I am influenced by what I’ve seen on tv or read in the Press or on the radio, but then again a look out the window can provide an idea. Though lots of material I choose not to write about. Yes really. Today I pumped into our dog walker, I asked why he and his wife was so thin, recently both of them have lost a stone+ each, or 10kilos if you are handicapped by metric. See I add a throw away line just to annoy people, or to see if they are awake.

Our dog walkers are a form of clock for me as a I look up from the keyboard as they walk past. It turns out his wife has also been doing step ups, no she hasn’t been polishing her doorstep which was big in the 50s, no she has used the step up method. And no this is not a form of contraception for tall people, love should have no barriers. I could go on and on I do have a Doctorate in BS after all, I know you know already.

I’m still chewing now I had to grab a bite so I had fish fingers a la Birds Eye, they are the best you know, with a squirt of BQ sauce on top, wrapped in a slice of whole meal bread. I am Gordon Bleu you know, and where my 3 girls, they were at an Italian restaurant eating boring pasta. Meanwhile upstairs pussy, our Totoro the 4^th female in the family was fast asleep on a duvet. I’m sure she’ll give me fleas one day.

I’m waiting for the kettle to boil now and I wonder does Boris my Eastern European Everyman understand the style, or does he think Bloody Foreigners, I’m not letting my daughter go to England, or certainly not Birmingham. They are strange people, as he rehangs his Putin calendar on the fridge, chest exposed.

As I talk to you I wonder was I really Ronnie Corbette’s and Joyce Grenfell’s love child, would that make me Gerald Wiley? Life is strange and you have influences all over the place. Coffee is warming me now and I’m glad I resumed drinking it after a year or was it two break. 50 years plus a coffee drinker. Only instant, Kenco Rappor, do you think I could afford anything more? It is my guilty pleasure.

I pause for a sentence, perhaps Allen Bennett will knock the door and proffer one. Only its just the mad christian people, knocking at my door on a Sunday, have they got nothing better to do? I have a good mind to tell them to Allen Bennett off, I am a man and I have history, I know how to swear, I find it clears the air, and gets rid of unwanted callers at your door. I bet Allen is writing all this down in his notebook, under never to be used. I hope he falls off his bicycle.

I need another coffee so I’m going to leave it there for today, I was going to add just one word after “off his bicycle” it would have been so much more dramatic. But Allen would say it was a stunt, so I controlled myself and let the crude comic alliterative possibilities alone, sometimes you have to do that or people think you are just a …

here's some photos are they worth a 1000 words, maybe I should be a model