It was just a wee bit of letting go. Helps exorcise those Sunday blues. Thanx for the nod. Made a very old man very happy.

But I've been indoors for the last 8 years and this is my first head around the door, as-it-were. I spent every penny I had doing this, I've nothing left, so I'm trying to claw something back.

No friends, no kids, no wife to listen to my moans. I bought a PC with my benefits money to acquire something approaching a social life.

Don't kick a guy for trying to regain his self-respect.

you're a honey.

Read this Eddie G?

I need a wee boost. Starting to regret bearing my soul. Maybe should've held back on the woe-is-mes.

Ahhh... this interweb lark, the things you can't take back... you hit that submit button and your dreams turn to ashes.

Costanza Syndrome in all its wretched glory...

too quick of the mark G. Really sorry about flying off the proverbial handle, but I'm an emotional celt (God, that's starting to get old).

Chin up sir, I'm fragile and foolish.

Be safe, be well.

Irish, Welsh or Scot?

then you've got enogh problems, mate!

I'm kidding!

Listen, I've had my tea, I've hadme medication and I'm really sorry about the quick-fire response to something that could've been (had I taken the time to think) a very amusing - if not apt - remark. And if anyone else sees this - please don't be afraid to rattle my cage. I'm a big boy.

eddie, I haven't slept much since I started all this. Please keep a welcome in the hillside for oul' HudD.

Cheers.

just got the new Brit version of Spidey yesterday! Its the only drug have have yet to renounce... well, save for the odd camberwell carrot...

I used to collect them too, I used to have the US copies of Amazing Spider-Man 14-66! But I sold them all when I was 17 to a student from Ardglass - he gimme £20 and a bag of mint imperials!

Cheers, TB. Much appreciated, tell yer mates!

I'm not kidding you, but I've seen the name many times, but (to my shame)I've never actually heard him. He's like one of those people who've always been in my peripheral vision but I never checked him out. Will now, though.

Indebted.

so I'm bound to get a lot of things wrong, but I'll try n' be brief from now on. Somebody compared me to an overactive labrador puppy - I think that about sums me up. Fido Costanza. Lost of brashful energy but very little common sense - the HudD's drivel heading was my way of holding up myhands before it was pointed out. I know me too well.

I've yet to get the hang of the ettiquette and those little things yez do with the dashes and sem-colons, but hey - smiley face...?

I getting quite emotional now... if you check the thread above about the Flaming Lips you'll know why, so if the following sounds a bit shrill or the syntax is riddled with discrepencies please forgive me.

I came very late to Joni Mitchell, it was an Elvis Costello interview in one of the mags and he talked about Blue, so i thought it was about time I gave her a go. When I heard those opening lines "Dreams are like tattooos, y'know..." I fell in love immediately, and I thought - this is gorgeous - now I know where Liz Fraser gets it! But why is it that so many love Joni, but hate the Twins? You'd've thought Robin & Liz would be as big as all-get-out by now, at least amongst the cogniscenti. Joni is that rarest of all creatures, an all-rounder, a bona fide genius, she's so talented it scares me, but she's in a differnt field, she's not ploughing that same furrow, even if her voice swoops like a seraph, she isn't as commercial as the Cocteaus, so in my humble opinion, it must be that lack of communication. The lyrics. If Liz had bought a rhyming dictionary instead of a butterfly book (Twins fans will get this ref), they'd be in the same tax bracket.

Thanx v much for your kidness. Choked, darling, choked.
G'bless.

So is it

so it says.

Fair play to you, HudD, for your enthusiasm, but by continually promoting your own blogs to keep them in the Recently Updated list, you're pushing other people's blogs (which may be as interesting and considered as your own, possibly more so) into obsurity.

You have three blogs in the 'hot topics ' list and in each case half the posts are your own. It's like... there's a group of you in the pub and one guy keeps dragging the conversation back to what he wants to talk about.

Is that fair? Sorry if I'm out of line, we're not used to labradours in here.

When I first moved into this tower block, as i said, I was just out of rehab/incarceration, very paranoid and very unsure as to what i was gonna do with myself, so I bought a pc - purely for burning CDs and writing my books (I thought I'd do a semi-autobiographical thing and hawk it to the local arts council - I have no formal training, I'm self-taught, and despite my problems i believe in myself). But I knew that if I ever got onto the net something like this would happen - i'd devote all my man hours to chatting with cyber-people and i'd never get any work done. I had to do something get back some self respect. I was used to living on me wits, i've got the gift of the gab, but i'd alienated everyone i'd ever worked with - drink does that - i couldn't start another band - I was a laughing stock.

Now, I had a bit of cash from the sale of my house (I did have a wife & day job but i lost them too), but thanx to the housing boom over here, i made a tidy profit on my property, only trouble was, i'm on incapacity benefit and the bills were too high, so i threw myself on the mercy of the local council and they incarcerated me in this tower block), then i got in touch with a wee studio on the outskirts of Belfast and booked every Wednesday - just office hours, no long nights, to record the songs i'd written since getting sober (nothing ever gets in the way of me music, not even sobriety & solitude). It was as much part of my rehabilitation as the writing - one i did at night - during the day, when i could make noise, i practised the songs and made sure that when i got to the studio i was well rehearsed. I played all the tracks, bass, guitars etc and wee bit of keyboards to add some colour - and once it was finished and mixed, I took the CD home and played it to the only friend i had left, a lovely girl who shall remain nameless. She said her son was well up on this net thing MySpace (of course I'd heard about - it just frightened me to death). I was wary of 'putting it out there' copyright and all that - so she talked me round by telling me that we could make so the songs couldn't be downloaded - people would just be able to listen, so we put three tracks on. Nothing.

3 years passed.

I was still writing my 2nd book, so i wasn't that bothered, but once i finished - i used a wee rebate from the council - £1000 last december - and bought a new PC (the old one was just used as a word processor and I had a photoshop programme to make my little CD sleeves - but by this time even the media player wouldn't work), went onto the MySpace site and updated it (quite easy once you've spent 13 hours trying to do anything! As you will notice there's very little artwork or text - I still haven't figured that out yet) I just put on all 10 songs from the album today!

the next thing - I signed up to word and if you check my profile - that's as long as i've been at this!

Nothing sinister or underhand, dave. I swear to you.

HudD is an open book. I wouldn't make up a lotta shite just to impress people i want to bond with. I'm just a broken man who's trying to put himself back together again, using the only tools I have to hand. My wit and my guitar.

I wish i could tell you more, but as i said, i live in a very dodgy place, in a very dodgy city - as i write i can hear some sort of commotion going on outside! It never stops! This is my only outlet now, with any luck i'll get a book published or the arts council will gimme a grant to do another album, as it is, yez are my only link with a better world.

don't feel bad, dave, you've every right to be suspicious.
G'bless.

Yeah, Tom's a b*stard right, though isn't he... never writes never phones... he just used me!

In all seriousness - I would love to be your MySpazz buddy - gimme the url.

Cheers.

Housebound and needy.

But I'm not really a good typist, I look at the keyboard and then look up to see what I've written. I've been writing non-stop for the last 8 years - 2 novels, three short stories and an epic celtic-folk story in rhyme (Gypsy Judy).