A candid life

To be emotionally honest is tough. To be strong enough not to pretend when something hurts you that it actually doesnt takes more guts than not to. Its so easy to lie & say that your emotions have not been touched by someone elses actions. Its easier to tell everyone you’re ok than to admit youve been crushed by the words or deeds of another.

 
So this is why so many of us do it: the avoidance of pain. But with a strength or a purpose to admit that humanity, by nature, is emotionally frail & that I, myself, am human and therefore frail you can never lose yourself. You may feel acute embarrassment. You may feel crushed by the pain that has been done to you but through all that you still know who you are. Never wavering from it. After all, it is ourselves who it is most easy to lie to. Others can see through it so often & so easily but we fall for our own lies everytime. Because we want to.

 
Ridicule may be a powerful weapon but so is emotional intelligence and losing the sense of who we are is much worse. From one you may escape the other can be permanent.

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The Echo Arena: Its Saturday night,its raining, its Liverpool & its perfect Pt2

At the end of my last post I fully intended to continue with my story about that night explaining what happened at the gig, what I saw of the now infamous bottle throwing at Morrissey & my response to it. But a day or so later an article turned up on the Liverpool Echo website about the Morrissey gig cancellation by a guy called Nick Peet (you can read it here ) that incensed me so much I was compelled to see if I could have a right of reply. I contacted Alison Gow the Executive Editor,digital, for the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo on Twitter (@alisongow). having been on Twitter since 2007 Ive been following Alison for ages & we have tweeted many times in the past so I hoped it wasnt too much of an imposition to ask about Mr Peets article & whether it was possible to respond to it over & above the comments section on their website.

Alison was gracious enough to allow me to write a piece with a possible view to publishing it. Now as you can tell Im no writer and I tend to write in the way I speak, which often means lots of commas which in my speech pattern are qualifying statements. So I didnt hold out much hope for coming up with a lucid argument but I was determined to try.

What riled me about Mr Peets post was threefold. Firstly his take on the gig itself, his portrayal of Morrissey and his fans & his tacit acceptance of the violent bottle throwing at Morrissey. Now one of the things that has annoyed & dismayed me in equal measure throughout my life is bullying. I despise it in all its forms. From school days to now Ive always railed against it. Sometimes Its done me no good & has landed me in trouble but the suppression of peoples true personalities is a crime & so Ive always done my level best not to allow myself to be forced down a path just for acceptance. I dont see why anyone else should be either.

But ridicule,psychological & aggressive bullying are a menace that exudes from some elements within society & no more than within the scally community of Liverpool, but of any city Im sure. So for Liverpool to once again be linked with an act of anti-social behaviour really galled me & lead me to renounce my Scouserism & decided I wouldnt associate myself with that name. Liverpudlian yes but not Scouser. Im not a patriotic person & see our place of birth as nothing more than an accidental in many ways but I do care about our society. My society is in Liverpool & so through birth & desire I wish it to be a city of great things untarnished by bullying & aggression as much as it possibly can.

Anyway I wrote the article & Alison agreed to post it on the Echo site so I wont say anymore except to thank her for her generosity,encouragement & time. I hope you have time to read it. You can read it here

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Its Saturday night,its raining, its Liverpool & its perfect Pt1

Last night was the Morrissey gig at the Liverpool Arena. I’d been looking forward to it for most of the year after his last gig at the Empire was a tad lacklustre and we were up in the Gods & therefore couldnt see much. Thats not to say it was wonderfully marvellous to see a man Id admired for all my adult life but he seemed out of energy. After so many years stuck away with Panic Attacks at home to be able to go into town & see Morrissey was literally something I thought would never happen and like being reborn.

So as this time at the Echo Arena got closer, as with anything youre really looking forward to, you cant wait for it to get here but in a way feel a little sad that once its happened then thats it, its not there to look forward to. The previous weekend had been my closest friends 40th birthday & as part of her 5 days of celebration one night had been put aside so I could come into town & have a meal & a drink to toast her birthday.
It was Halloween so when we got into Town there were tons of students all in fancy dress milling about the area we go drinking (which is the arty,studenty pubs) being hilarious. As you can tell from that last ,dry sentence its not really my sort of fun but it was all harmless & without any the edge that usually surrounds throngs of drunken people in Liverpool, so it was a pleasant change. What was unusual was the amount of people on the street in that area of Town. Anyway as I say all harmless & Im happy to say I was in good spirits (no pun intended) so I took it all in my stride.

I may sound curmudgeonly and a party pooper to any reader but Id just like to make the point that we cant all find the same in enjoyment in the same type of merriment. Im just not wired that way yet it is often seen as a crime not to ‘enter into the spirit of things’. I physically shrink at ‘forced merriment’ – new years a perfect example – & now Halloween seems to be heading in the same direction.

So, we went for out meal but whilst I was there I began to feel ill & started to get gripy pains. This is one of my trigger points for a panic attack & so I also began to become anxious. I thought it best to top up my Diazepam so I nipped to the loo & tried to regain my composure. After about 20 mins Id calmed down, thanks to the loo trip & the pill, we finished up the meal & I thought Id be ok. As we walked down to the Philharmonic pub I again began to feel pain & my anxiety kicked in.
We all split up whilst some people went to get money out of cash machines etc & so arranged to meet at the newly opened Korova bar on Hope Street.I really liked the feel of the other bar on Wood Street (?) & so was pleased to see it open up. As soon as we walked in you could tell the atmosphere wasnt as good & after a moment or two we decided to leave & sent texts out to say we were all now to meet at the Everyman Bistro.

As we got there, joy upon joy the 3rd room was open. Ive been back to the Everyman a good few times now but the hallowed 3rd room where I spent so much time of my youth has always been closed.
We decided to sit in there & bit by bit we all turned up. I was still feeling ill & it didnt seem to be going away. I was knackered by this time trying to keep my panic down & we all decided only to stay for a few. I was determined to stay til the end, or as close to it as possible.

Then after dealing with illness, panic, anxiety & pain in walked people whose faces registered with me. I’m loathed to go into it on here in public but feeling in such a fragile state I thought that it was the final straw.
I mentioned to my friends my concern at what might be about to happen & although ordinarily it wouldnt have been a final straw, after the night Id had, it was & so we decided to leave. 45 mins later,yes it took that long, we were gone, only to find out later on that I narrowly missed the confrontation that wouldve pushed me over the edge.

So Ive been feeling rough all week, doubting my ability ever to go into Town again & decrying my emotional weakness. The ironic thing was that in the car into the city I was telling my friend how I felt close to being me again, that shedding my beard was like casting off my cocoon. How fate has a way of puncturing our pomposities (to be honest I think she was a little harsh on me to be fair, maybe she wasnt paying attention properly).

Anyway as I started to feel well through the week & a friend suggested we take a trip to the local Hypermarket two towns over. I wasnt really in the right frame of mind but knowing the Morrissey gig was coming up I forced myself to go. I was fine & the boost in confidence it gave me set me up for tonights trip into the city.

To be continued….

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