Glenn The 14 Year Old Girl
On Friday afternoon I finally got to meet Embrace. I left work early and had a drink in the pub with Paul2. At 4pm I queued for the boys to sign their latest album.
I already have it but I picked up another two. There was an uneasy 10 seconds as Danny and Mickey watched me try to get the inlays out of the CD, but I think that was the only wrong thing that I did. I told them that their album was cracking, which they seemed to like. As Mickey signed the thing, Danny apologised for Richard not being there and told me that they only had one pen unfortunately. I thanked them and moved on for Mike and Steve to sign the covers. All four of them were polite and friendly, and they made my day. Wheeee!
It was a shame that there weren't more than 40 of us in the queue, but then again it is fucking Preston. They'd have got many, many more if they'd gone to Manchester.
I spent the whole of the evening jumping around giddily. A British Indie band had turned me into a 14 year old girl.
It all got a bit too much, when, like a hyperactive child whose run around all Christmas Day, I ran out of juice at around 9pm. We had some food and watched 28 Days Later but I felt exhausted.
The bursts of giddiness haven't finished yet. I keep smiling to myself, and remembering how happy and excited it made me. Sometimes it's good to feel young and idiotic again.
On Saturday we had a visit from my brother and sister-in-law. I didn't seem to be able to persuade them that maybe they should be buying albums by bands from Yorkshire, but we had a nice day mooching around Preston.
I haven't seen much of my friends lately. I think I've only seen Paul Simon Berry, Karl Konrad Kapofoloofolski and Paul Xenon2 Nattrass in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll arrange something soon. I suppose there is my birthday in 18 days time. Eeep!
On Sunday we travelled to Fleetwood so my parents could look after us.
It's kinda sad to admit but I had a nervous stomach most of the day and couldn't stop my leg jiggling around. At around 4pm, I couldn't sit still. I couldn't take my mind off the one thing that had been bothering me on an otherwise excellent weekend.
Whenever I've been through bad times in life, when I've been down for long periods of time or when I've said or done stupid things to ruin everything, there has been one band I've turned to. Even though the songs and lyrics have been sad and downbeat, they never made me feel worse. There was always a positive aspect there, a sign that things would get better. I've woken up feeling utterly miserable, but then spotted a video of theirs on MTV2 and been stood on the sofa singing joyously at the top of my voice.
Conversely, whenever life has been great and I've been as happy as I could be, I've turned to the same band. Since 1998, all the experiences in my life have in some way been tied (however loosely) to the same group. A group that does absolutely nothing for most of the people that I know, but who do everything for me; that can reduce me to tears, or leave me with a big stupid smile on my face, all during the same song.
In Field Of Dreams, James Earl Jones remarks that baseball has been the one constant in America, through all the good times and the bad. Well, I guess, Embrace have been like that for the last 6 or 7 years of my adult life.
I dearly wanted the album to get to number 1 in the charts and on Sunday I became really nervous about it. I wanted in some way for the band to get the recognition I thought they deserved. I didn't overly care that they'd gone the route they had to attract Coldplay fans. The album wouldn't have sold as many if they'd led off with one of their own songs, I didn’t mind, I wanted people to have a chance to feel how I felt about this music. I wanted some thoroughly decent people who'd done so much for me, to get what they deserved. I know what they’ve been through and how much hard work they'd put into Out Of Nothing. I wanted the good guys to come first.
At about 6pm I used my parent's computer. I loaded up the embrace message board to see that the band had indeed got to number 1 in the album charts. I did a little dance and found myself celebrating like I'd scored a hat-trick at Wembley.
It was the perfect end to the weekend. I think I can stop going on and on about Embrace in my blog now. Maybe.
It's really windy today. The clouds are moving really fast across the sky, which I find slightly worrying. What will happen if we haven't got enough clouds to last the whole day? When the last cloud flies by, will we be left with an empty sky? This is quite dangerous because if there are alien spaceships waiting behind the clouds, frustrated that they can't get through them to crush us, they will use this lack of cloud situation to conquer us. They are probably killer robots from Mars, and we will become their slaves until a young man in eighteen years time leads the resistance against them.
Personally, I don't want to spend my next eighteen years in a robot slave camp, making nuts and bolts, and earning extra treats by oiling up robot soldiers with WD-40. Okay, my dignity will be destroyed by doing favours for the guards, but at least my family will be able eat something more than the pathetic gruel we are given in the camps. Also, by "occupying" the time of the robot guards, it gives you lot the opportunity to make the escape tunnel.
I think the problems we are having with the weather in this country is down to the decline of the British cloud manufacturing industry. Government cutbacks and cheap foreign labour have meant that we've imported lots of clouds from abroad. These ones just aren't as good, they pretend they're going to part and let some sun shine though, but then decided to drop their entire contents of rain all at once.
Actually, this is also wrong. We remember our glorious British cloud industry through rose-tinted glasses. The foreign clouds that we import may have their faults, but what was going on with those British clouds that used to contain something called "snoo". Snoo was mental; a dense and cold white powder which would stop your car from working.
