CHINESE EYES

Before autumn arrived, I returned to The Temple at Cleve and invited Mum to come and stay in the cottage there.  She had drinking problems of her own, and had isolated herself in the villa in Menorca I’d bought for her and Dad many years before.  I thought we might help each other.  I suppose this attempt at solidarity in alcoholism was as mad as Mum thinking that sending me off to live with her crazy mother Denny might help me – but I found The Temple a peaceful and restorative place, and I imagined it might help Mum too.

It did help us both for a few days, but I quickly became impatient with Mum’s self-obsession.  I went to the local bookshop in Wallingford and bought Remembrance of Things Past by Proust.  I took long walks while Mum cooked food I couldn’t eat – usually strange Spanish fish dishes – and did endless crosswords in the puzzle magazine she bought in the village when I wasn’t reading.

In September 1981 Chris Thomas and Bill Price started on my solo album Chinese Eyes at Oceanic. We only worked for a week or so before we got stuck.  The problem was that the songs I had written were incredibly hard to perform.  Chris had to start work on an album in Paris with Elton, so I was forced to face the fact that I wouldn’t make the revised November delivery date Atlantic was hoping for.

Ramones: Howling At The Moon (Link)

Text:  Pete Townshend, Who I Am, New York, Harper Collins, 2012

DON'T COME CLOSE

     I am “passed accomplished” in feeling and expressing feelings on the paranoid side of things.  Without troubling the point excessively, these aren’t necessarily bad or unhelpful qualities in my line of work, though I don’t recommend them for general adoption.

     My trepidation antennae are too fully extended, however, and my tendencies toward interior monologue have now reduced my external conversation quantities barely above bare minimum levels.  Add in my increasing, encroaching deafness to the mix and this body carrying my driver’s license, passport and memories  has become kind of “hors de commerce” on some of important social levels.  At least I have my credit cards with me also.

     Yesterday we drove through Occidental and UCLA.  Today we’re visiting USC and the Pompeii exhibition at the California Science Center.  Rebecca says the cats are fine and West Chester Veterinary Center says the same about the dogs.

     I am about to take the long jump.  I used to be a high jumper.

Ramones: Don't Come Close (Link)