Phone Blinkers

For lunch I nipped to the Mean Eyed Can for a couple of Empanadas and a diet coke (see here), and found it almost amusing the number of people sat in the sun, or walking but engrossed in the mobile devices almost oblivious to anything else.

While I listen to music (and now radio) on my phone I very seldom do anything that distracts me for walking or whatever. If I want to take a picture or video I stop and make sure that I am not blocking anyone or at risk of running into anything.

While listening to John Niven he told me about a book "Makin' Tracks" by Debbie Harry and Chris Stein that resulted in him getting into Television.

So although phones are very useful they do seem to act as blinkers for so many people, blinding them to all that is going on around them. Having said that I have been guilty the odd time of concentrating too much on my phone and nearly walked into to a person or stationary object.

Little Pockets Of Hope

It sort of brings me down that money is often the most important thing in people's lives often because of the way society has been allowed to evolve. It's still better than barter, although barter does involve actual goods and services.

In recent months I have lost friends, seen friends affected by Alzheimers and Depression, thought deeply about how people must be in such a dark place theythinkabout taking their own lives, to stand and think "I do this and everything ends, that's it", even thought of everyday situations thinking my god, if that happened I could be very hurt or worse.

I think of the five injections and twenty tablets a day I take to keep myself here, added to that contact lenses and lots of other little things and in the end thinking "doing these makes it possible for me to enjoy life, and to feel good."

Yesterday I went to the Mean Eyed Cat where they were selling Coffee and Cake to raise money for the Alzheimer's Society and when I shared my Instagram Post to Facebook it asked if I wanted to add a charity donation button to my post whis resulted in a number of donations from friends. Something actually useful from Social Media possibly instigated by the #Alzheimers Hashtag here . This was organised by friends doing things to help others, and it makes me so proud to have friends like that, they know who they are.

Earlier this week my friend Jon invited me to see Rahul Kohli a brilliant Indian Geordie comic but the bonus on this night was the very funny Turkish Geordie Louise Young, and also Gazza, Paul Gascoigne turned up as well. He had a great sparring session with Rahul, and Gazza has had some very bad things to cope with but it was great to see him on Tuesday.

Then I was in No 28 on Friday and saw someone at the bar, and thought "I'm sure that's Louise Young". I'm a devil for thinking I know people and it not being who I thought it was so often I don't say anything and then they wonder why I supposedly blanked them. Anyway I didn't get a chance to tell Louise how much I enjoyed her set on Tuesday so I went up, expecting it not to be her, but it was, and had a great chat with her and th eguy she was with, so that was another high point this week.

The thing is there are always ways to make things better, and if things are not good for you PLEASE ask for help, and people will help if they can , even if it's just supportive words.

So go out today, give some change to a homelss person, phone a friend, as it's Father's Day phone or talk to your dad, visit a neighbour, do something that  lifts you up , watch or ignore football, listen to some great music, make yourself feel better.

One other thing, the most important person in your life is YOU, because if you are not 100% you cannot be there for those that matter to you.

And this post gives me an excuse to share The Beatles' "Help" which I loved from the first time I heard it.

Another 13

It's the 13th of June, this is the 1613th post, I've just passed page 13 while reading Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" so there's a lot of 13s occurring today. I'm off to Leeds for a course which could be "interesting".

Last night I saw Rahul Kohli at The Stand who describes himself as the "Newcastle Brown Male". My mateJon had recommended him so we went via The Mean Eyed Cat. Rahul started the show, the Paul Gascoigne showed (cue joke about him mistaking Rahul for Raoul Moat) then there was and excellent Turkish Geordie warm up act Louise Young, who was worth the price of admission alone, before Rahul's show. If you get the chance to see him or Louise you should definitely go along.

As I'm going to Leeds we'll have something from The Mekons, their excellent second single, as they were formed at The University of Leeds and are still going. This is still one of my favourite songs.

Anyway it's a gorgeous day and I now need to get off to the stations, so have a good day everybody.

Walking The Mean Eyed Cat

I woke up this morning actually wanting a lie in. It's been a busy weekend. We're over half way through April and I am only just keeping up my steps for my rolling three month Million Steps Challenge. This is something I took one my self that was inspired by the Diabetes.org challenge last year, but I've kept it going. The thing is with a challenge like this you may hit your day's steps but the following day you have to start again, but if you don't hit your target one day they you have to do more the next day if you want to make it up, so to take the pressure off I try to so more steps than neccessary each day so there is no pressure ti hit the daily steps as my target is 340K a month. The thing is this month I keep really slipping off teh pace for one reason or another, it started with bad weather at the start of the month then yesterday I went to Dunblane and back and as a result only did 6K steps, and am about 1K ahead of my required steps.

At the weekend Preston North End came back again to win after being behind against a Queens Park Rangers team who are on fire at home. Preston have won more points from losing positions this season that any other team, but of they reach the play offs it will be akin to a miracle but it still could happen given the final three weekes of matches in the Championship.  I feel my walking this month is like that, but I am determined to hit the 340K.

Last night I watched the Tom Cruise film "Oblivion" which was quite good, but unusual in that you never actually get to see an alien in the film and is clever in making you think that humans are aliens, it is worth a watch.

So today the weather is good and I intend to hit my step target.

Mean Eyed Cat Food

On Friday I had a Tortilla and Empanada at The Mean Eyed Cat which was rather excellent and I will be doing that again (you can see it on my Instagram Channel here) , and Fiona had said she thought it was a Johnny Cash song. I thought it was Billy Le Riley, but Fiona was right so that's the song I will leave you with. Some details here. While looking for the song on youtube I found this great cover by The Johnny Trouble Trio which I can't embed but you can watch here. Don't you love what you can find on the internet.






Have a good Monday.

There's A Mean Eyed Cat ...

.. so Bill Haley says, but really we have a great Mean Eyed Cat in Newcastle, and I visited it today. I was not feeling physically too good but thought a walk would do me good so went along to St Thomas' St and entered.

The place improved my mood immediately, garage band and rock and roll decor with CoyoteMen memorabilia photos of Johnny Cash and a big Cramps sign over the bar with Dave Campbell playing Mein Host and we chatted on with another couple of guys while I had a Diet Coke and we talked vinyl and rock and roll and the failures of the music industry. You can see a short video I took of the place here.

We were talking about the first picture discs which both Dave and I though was Curverd Air's "Air Conditioning" which you can see here but it was predated by a German Elektra compilation called "Hallucinations Psychedelic Underground" which features The Doors, MC5 and others and you can see here. I sourced both of them from Discogs.

SoThe Detroit Cobras were on the sound syste so I'll leave you with "Cha Cha Twist", but if you want a new slightly different pub  with a great atmosphere, great people , and great music get yourself down there and enjoy it.

I will be back.