Wine

The Return of The Wrath of Grapes

by Enormous on February 12, 2010

My mum gave me two bottles of wine yesterday that she had left over from Christmas. ‘Don’t tell John – he’ll be really angry with me,’ she said, with genuine concern in her eyes.

Last night, I had just finished the vocal to new song The Girl Who Turned Into Herself, and, as I was tidying the studio, Audrey looked up at me with her big brown eyes as if to say: ‘Hey, father, you’ve just done a great job there, why don’t you reward yourself with a small glass of that lovely claret that grandma left you this afternoon?’

‘That’s a very agreeable notion, my girl,’ I informed her. ‘And, you know what? I think I jolly well will. But let’s not tell John, eh? Ha ha.’

Of course, I didn’t just have one glass. I had both bottles. My normally extra-strong resolve completely disintegrated after the third glass.

I blame Audrey; it was her idea.

This morning I feel fit and healthy and generally absolutely wonderful. (I’m holding up a big sign at this moment that says IRONY on it.)

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Stereo-untypical

by Enormous on January 19, 2008

I had a cancellation in the studio for Saturday so I decided last night to put my feet up and get drunk.

I made myself a hearty meal of pasta and vegetables, placed a bottle of red wine on the table in front of me and turned on the television. I was watching an interesting documentary about Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. I finished my food and sat back, corkscrew in hand with my good eye on the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, salivating at the thought of the fruity liquid it contained.

The documentary was accompanied by an anodyne soundtrack of some unremarkable and unidentifiable piano music which must have had a distinctly soporific effect upon me because within mere seconds I could feel my eyelids growing very heavy. Thus it was, in spite of my evil intentions, I managed to resist drinking a bottle of one of my favourite alcoholic beverages. Not through willpower or noble resolve, but, rather predictably, I fell asleep. I fell asleep on the sofa before I had even removed the cork.

As always happens on these occasions, I was plagued by lucid dreams full of bizarre characters that I felt inclined to attack physically or to argue vehemently with about the true nature of reality. (I long ago accepted with careless and neurotic abandon that I possess a great deal of surplus combative will.)

I dreamed of Tom Cruise, movie star and irreducible nutter. I dreamt that he was the Anti-Christ and that he was trying to inveigle his way into mankind’s collective consciousness by using subliminal messages that were iniquitous and malevolent and truly horrific in their intention.

He was somehow secretly downloading his messages on to people’s iPods and mp3 players. He was building them into the very transistors and microchips that lie inside home stereo-systems and inside the speakers of radio and television sets. These were messages that, because they only existed in my dream, were, by their very nature, vague and amorphous – but they were insidious and malignant none the less. The awful basis of them was the monstrous and mendacious assertion that he, Tom Cruise, was the true saviour of the universe.

Not if I can help it, I thought.

I very cleverly managed to penetrate Tom’s inner circle (- sounds painful – Ed.) and turned his own people against him, revealing to them what a pathetic individual he really was. I was on the verge of sending him back to hell when I awoke, mumbling to myself and covered in dribble. It was 4am.

Judge Judy was pontificating on the TV and a lonely car alarm was protesting in the street outside in annoying and strident, high-pitched tones. ‘No one can hear me! No one can hear me,’ it was shrieking. And in spite of its acute shrillness, its message was comfortably melting into the night.

I know how you feel,’ I sighed as I climbed the stairs to bed.
‘I know how you feel,’ I sighed as I climbed the stairs to bed.

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Clearance For Take-Off

by Enormous on June 20, 2007

No post yesterday. Apologies – I was somewhat chemically compromised.

The chemicals in question were alcohol (wine and tequila) and quails’ eggs. (Are eggs chemicals? The last time I looked, they were more like unborn baby birds. But hey, what do I know? – Nutrition Ed.)

I was taken for lunch to the Moon Inn by an old friend and we rather overdid it, I am sorry to say. I was not sure I wanted to go with him at first but I asked my conscience and it said, ‘Go for it! You enjoy yourself for a change.’ (Or words to that effect.) So predictably, giving in to my immature enthusiasm, I looked at my friend and said, ‘OK, we now have clearance for take-off. Fly me to The Moon, old chum.’

Once there, I cannot clearly recall anything past the opening of the third bottle of Chablis. I can vaguely remember salt and limes and shouting a lot, and at one point, dancing on a table and then trying to kiss an old man. I shall never know what really happened. It is all rather a blur, and, needless to say, I can never go back there.

One element of the occasion that I do remember fairly well, however, is consuming abnormal quantities of the aforementioned quails’ eggs. I have, somewhat fortuitously, never eaten such things before and I never will again. I am convinced that it was they who were responsible for the inevitable abdomen and bowel inconveniences that we both had to endure later in the afternoon. I really did not expect such things to be such a devastatingly effective natural emetic, and I can subsequently recommend them to anyone wishing to open up the sluice-gates at both ends, as it were.

At one point, my companion locked himself in the restaurant toilet for a full hour and whilst in there, his ablutions were so loud and dramatic that it sounded as though he had taken a snare drum in with him. Needlessly to say, we drew some puzzled though earnestly concerned looks from several of the pretty waitresses.

All in all, I was very glad to have had such an exciting afternoon but I am relieved that everything is back to normal now.

This morning, as I sit here pecking away at my keyboard, I am happy to report that I feel fresh and magnificent. And I use the words ‘fresh’ and ‘magnificent’ quite wrongly.

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Dreamboat

by Enormous on April 6, 2007

Last night I dreamed I was marooned at sea in a small boat. With me were Nelson Galaxy – Big Arena Records’ glamorous and angst-ridden transvestite songwriter, my dog Audrey and Brad Pitt.

We were in the Iranian Ocean and I remember feeling very queasy; it was like being drunk, when the ground becomes variable. Audrey was barking at the legion of colourful Arab fish that were trying to leap into our small craft; Nelson was very animated. Gesticulating wildly, he was chattering away to me about something I couldn’t understand (the more passionate he became, the more I grew afraid that he would capsize the boat) and Brad was just quietly sitting there, his knees up to his ears, stoically gazing out to sea.

The American film star was naked apart from a small pair of pink Speedos that were so tight, you could tell his religion.

I was trying to ignore Nelson, who by this time had begun to sing, and I was trying to catch Brad’s eyes. But he would not look at me. I couldn’t help noticing his sculptured abdomen and arms, and I remember half waking up at one point and feeling generally physically inadequate.

Then I noticed that Brad and Nelson had become very busy together. They were trying, with their big hands, to activate a small metal contraption that was lying on the bottom of the boat. They had suddenly become very conspiratorial; their eyes very narrow, whispering quickly to one another.

At this point, I noticed that Brad was heavily made up: he was, in fact, wearing more make-up than Nelson – something that is quite difficult to achieve. As the scene developed, it began to resemble a pantomime and became rather comical. And as I continued to watch their stylised performance, they looked to me like the evil genius and his useful idiot, hard at work in their watery laboratory. Audrey moved her attention from the tasty fish and began to bark at these two intense schemers instead.

It was then that my laughter caused me to awake completely and I found that Audrey, sitting at the foot of the bed, was indeed barking, happily shouting at the world as the morning sun streamed though our bedroom window. She was protesting about the torturous racket that was emanating yet again from the car-alarm belonging to the hideous neighbourhood simpleton who insists on parking his vehicle outside our house. Plus ça change . . .

I have spent all morning meditating on the hidden meanings and paradoxical themes of my sea-faring dream, but so far I have no idea what it could all signify. It will, perhaps, become clearer to me this evening: I plan to finish work in the studio and settle with Audrey in front of the television, whereupon I shall open a couple of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveux and proceed to drink myself into Bolivia.
Ta-ta!

On the Fantastic hi-fi today:
Beatles for Sale – The Beatles

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Network With Us

by Enormous on April 2, 2007

My dear friend Nelson Galaxy came round for tea and biscuits yesterday evening. We spent most of the time setting up elements of our musical network of friends in cyberspace. Oh what fun we had: listening to Burt Bacharach, drinking ice-cold rose wine, eating pretzels, laughing and singing and making lovely new acquaintances from all over the world! Why not join us? Pop over and shake hands, say ‘Hi!’

Here are just a few of our networking sites; there are more to follow:

Napoleon Fantastic on Virb
Nelson Galaxy on myspace, Virb, Purevolume
Davy Lawrence on Virb, myspace
Enormous on myspace
Slaughterhouse 5 on Virb, myspace
Big Arena Records on LastFM

We’re all over the flippin’ place – see ya there, amigos!

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