Bursting From The Grave…
I have been neglecting this blog.
That’s not quite right…as I said the last time I posted on here, I have been trying to avoid social media as much as possible this year and have - wrongly - lumped this blog in with all the rest of it. Not that I am succeeding. While what I said in March is true, and I haven’t been posting as much on my socials this year (or on this blog) other than to promote stuff, I have, sadly, been looking at social media a lot more again recently. Often without even realising I’m doing it. A phone suddenly in my hands and I’m scrolling through Instagram or Bluesky again to fill the briefest moments of silence or inaction. Like my brain can’t handle just being, without stimulation. I fucking hate it, and continue to try and ween myself off again every time I notice I’m doing it. I know addiction when I see it and there’s no other way of describing it other than addiction. And like all addictions, the stimulant has long ago worn off and it is merely habit now which brings me to the screen. I cannot remember the last aimless scroll which brought me any kind of real joy. There is nothing on there which cannot wait.
To help with the weening I have a notes app on my phone called SOCIAL MEDIA AVOIDANCE PROJECT where, when I find myself scrolling, I try to go instead and just write . Anything that pops into my head. And as I said in March, those notes are becoming the basis of lyrics in my ongoing project to write, record and release a new song every month, using only my Arturia Keylab synthesiser. (More on this later). Having the notes app though, plus a physical paper journal I write in too, and trying to avoid the negativity and pointlessness of the internet has meant when I have something to say that’s not a philosophical idea for Philosophy Unleashed, or part of some other writing project for publication elsewhere, I haven’t really thought about using this blog. But not using social media to express myself, I am realising there are things I sometimes want to say publicly they I no longer am. I’d like to rectify that but, instead of succumbing to the “fuck it” attitude of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and returning to social media, I realised I have this whole website dedicated entirely to me. What more appropriate venue is there for my thoughts about things? The only people who read this are people who are interested in me and what I have to say anyway - and if you’re not that sort of person, why do you need to know my thoughts?
This, by the way, is a classic start-of-the-summer-holidays feeling: that I want to write more on here. The website was created at a similar time of year the year of its inception, as was the original Strangely Shaped By Fathers blog which bloomed the “band”. End of July it turns out that I always feel the need to do some navel-gazing. It’s unsurprising. The one constant on every blog I’ve ever had since my first one at the start of the century is my annual look back at the past year every December. Well, I’m a teacher, and before that a student. July is the end of the year academically. Turns out the “year in review” pull is strong even when I don’t realise that’s what’s happening. The fact I just worked that out right now, in real time as I write this, is all the proof I need of the value of writing introspective shit like this: I have always written to figure out the world.
So let’s catch up. I’m going to use this blog more from now on, as a proper outlet for “everything DaN McKee”.
Last time I wrote here I hadn’t yet released my March song, The World’s Not Worth Saving Anymore. I had “recorded all the music last Monday after work, but a bad throat all week (something’s going around school) meant I couldn’t record the vocals.” The plan was “to do them tomorrow (Monday) and try to mix everything this week.” Which I did. The results were possibly one of the best songs I’ve ever written.
After all the bleakness, I wanted to write something happier in April. I think I succeeded.
Not only a jollier sounding song, but lyrics that really say it all:
It’s not all depression and despair
I like to laugh as much as anyone
Not the wild-eyed cackle of the lost and deranged
But sitcom sofa chuckles
The joy of silly voices
Goofy comedy songs
I sing around the house
To amuse my wife and cat
I like to go on walks to pretty places
see the trees and mountains
Hills and lakes
With my favourite person in the world
That said
It’s not like everyday is perfect
I’m alright
We’re okay
There is so much to be thankful for
Weekends we watch the football
In between too many hours
of professional wrestling and sometimes baseball
My music is misinformation
Showing only my bleakest self
While behind the lyric sheet
contentment reigns
My otherwise wonderful life
Causes me no urgent creative crisis
I tend to write most of my songs when I feel down
That said
It’s not like everyday is perfect
I’m alright
We’re okay
There is so much to be thankful for
That said
It’s not like everyday is perfect
But mostly it’s okay
I read a lot and listen to music
Write my songs and play my bass guitar
Everyday is perfect
I’m alright
We’re okay
There is so much to be thankful for
By May I was still in the mood to write happy songs. My school had told me they wanted me to run a workshop at the end of June that I had pitched, teaching kids about “the beauty of flaw”, in NOFX’s words, and getting them to write their own punk songs, no matter what their musical abilities. This, plus the latest issue of Razorcake coming through the door, inspired me to write a love letter to punk, and how it changed my life.
Fingers stained black again
Those fanzines marked me
in more ways than one
Filled my head with strange ideas
Like anyone can have a voice
Do things for passion, not for pay
Create the worlds you want to see
And champion all the things that you love
Here’s three chords now start a band
And when the band breaks up
Just keep on Doing It Yourself
Doing It Yourself
Bands nobody heard of
Except all of us that had
Records shipped from bedroom distros
To ears all over the world
Singing:
We accept you one of us
No more gatekeepers of talent
Ability in the beholder’s eye
Make your own kind of noise
Here’s three chords now start a band
And when the band breaks up
Just keep on Doing It Yourself
Doing It Yourself
This life’s not like the pop songs
This life’s an ugly mess
This life’s not perfect plastic
This life’s what we protest
Re-used envelopes through the door
Packing tape and thick black marker
Missives of hope from better worlds
That truly saved my life
Don’t let the bastards grind you down
Call out whatever needs calling out
And when the bullshit gets too much
You’ve got to get in the fucking van
Here’s three chords now start a band
And when the band breaks up
Just keep on Doing It Yourself
Doing It Yourself
Not only was the song fun to write and play (I even took my own advice and taught myself how to play a few chords on the piano) but, when June came around, I was able to play it live to my students, albeit only with a bass. That said, considering it wasn’t written on the bass, or for the bass, I was pretty impressed with myself! (I had to change its title that day to Ballad of an Aging Punk With(out) a Keyboard. Not that any of the kids knew the difference.)
By June, tired from the grind of the year and the familiar and seemingly immovable obstacles of the teaching profession that are baked into schooling (much to education’s detriment) I was back to a bit of bleakness. Albeit bleakness with a message of hope. Short but sweet:
An education is a battle
Fought each day against our schools
In the gaps between the classrooms
In the gaps between the rules
And what is learned cannot be tested
At your isolated desks
In coercive competition
In examination death
The real assessment comes from living
Yes living lives much better than
The lives they had timetabled for you
Yes living lives against the plan
That song is basically my anthem as a teacher. I guess it’s my creed. I wrote and recorded the whole thing in a single evening. As I told the group of students I did some punk songwriting with - all of the songs I played them took only about fifteen minutes to come up with initially (though some have been tweaked and improved for decades since I wrote them as a kid). The workshop was fun, though not necessarily everything I had hoped for. The students hadn’t chosen the punk workshop, as I initially thought they would be doing. Instead the school just appointed student groups to a workshop at random, so these weren’t necessarily kids who wanted to express themselves, through punk or anything else. Indeed, this led to probably one of the most depressing interactions of my entire teaching career:
“Can I get ChatGPT to write the lyrics for me, sir?”
“The lyrics to express yourself and what you want to say about something?”
“Yes.”
“Even though the whole point of this session has been to stress the point that the spirit of punk is not about getting it right, making the music or lyrics perfect, or even good, it’s about making it yours.”
“Yes.”
“No. You can’t use ChatGPT.”
For fuck’s sake.
Still, in the end all of the students managed to cobble something together, despite the lack of any prior musical ability for all but one of them, and a few were even half-decent. They seemed to get something out of it, and I enjoyed playing for them.
Here’s the set-list I played:
And here’s a link to the all original versions of those songs on Spotify:
July’s song was something I decided to do in June, when at Birmingham Symphony Hall to watch Bill Murray do his “New Worlds” show with Jan Volger. Murray - problematic these days according to some allegations but seemingly impossible for me to stop loving - gave sincere and well-acted deliveries of spoken word from American literature, or sang, to Volger’s beautiful cello accompaniment (as well as Vanessa Perez on piano and Mira Wang on violin). It was great - and at the end of the night Murray passed out roses to some of the audience, one of them coming to me - yet I had almost not bought tickets because of the cloud around his name. I wrote this poem about it when I got home, and in July, set it to cello, piano and violin:
I sat and watched a fallen childhood hero
sincerely sing and speak from literature,
over cello, violin, and piano
in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.
It had seemed so funny as a kid
to see Venkman hitting on Dana Barrett
in her haunted New York apartment.
But these days it just reads like harassment.
Another woman’s life made worse
By an entitled man without boundaries.
But it’s still my favourite film.
Ray’s parents left him that house; he was born there!
Meanwhile my grandmother lived and died in Dana Barrett’s building:
55 Central Park West.
If there are ghosts, she might still dwell in the service elevator
where she fell dead after brunch at Tavern on the Green.
The same place the Keymaster, Vince Clortho,
invaded the body of Louis Tulley.
Another entitled man in violation of bodily boundaries,
which I think about as I try and square my enjoyment of the actor,
singing covers of Tom Waits and Sondheim,
with the circle of his alleged wrongdoing.
What else do you expect from a vegetarian
who knows he probably should be vegan
but is too lazy to do all that cooking and food prep?
The world is much more grey
than it was ever black or white.
A reference to Michael Jackson,
perhaps,
who I occasionally also still listen to,
although I know I shouldn’t.
Ghostbusters was the first movie I fell in love with,
and Thriller the first album.
My grandmother,
the one who died in Spook Central,
and who might have made my mother’s life hell sometimes,
used to send me clippings
every time Jackson was mentioned in the papers.
She didn’t know who he was!
Was more into classical opera than the King of Pop.
But she knew her grandson loved him,
and that was enough.
Just as I still loved my grandmother,
no matter what my mother’s feelings.
Whatever the actor might, or might not, have done,
his performance was beautiful that night in Birmingham,
on the same stage where,
the year of its grand opening,
my grandmother had travelled from America to take us,
unwillingly,
to see the CBSO.
My only memory was of Sir Simon Rattle’s
wild and wonderful hair.
All these years later,
I would give anything to watch that concert I ignored again,
and spend one more precious evening with my gran.
But instead I get my favourite ghostbuster,
putting a little love in my heart.
He gave me a rose as he took his bows,
which sits now drying in a cupboard.
An artefact of a memory
I didn’t realise how much I’d cherish
when I guiltily bought the ticket,
and felt somehow like I shouldn’t.
I have no idea what music August will bring, but look forward to finding out. Part of me is thinking about breaking my self-imposed rules about using only the keyboard and seeing what could happen if I wrote something on the bass - something traditionally punky - and then added synth stuff to it? But it might go in a totally different direction when I get there. Who knows?
In other creative news, I have finally found the novel I was meant to be writing.
What do I mean by that? Well, at the end of 2024 I said the following: “a big decision I made in 2024 was to stop writing this as a philosophy book, with a careful and meticulously evidenced argument, and write it, instead, as a novel. A novel which will be messy. Which will not just be a one-sided battering of a point, but allow for creative exploration of many views different from my own. A novel which might be able to make its argument more subtly than pure philosophy will allow, but which has far more likelihood of taking root in the minds of its readers than a densely footnoted philosophical text would.
So far I have written the first three chapters. Nearly 12,000 words! That has where my creative efforts have been going while my guitar has lain silent. And it’s exciting to be working on a novel again. My first in nearly ten years. Perhaps it will be another to file alongside all the other unpublished and unwanted novels I attempted in my earlier life? Or perhaps this will be the one that all those earlier attempts were getting me in practice for? All I know is it is a lot more fun to be writing than any of the work I did on the original philosophy book over the last two years. And I hope in 2025, as the work pressures ease off a bit, the writing will continue.”
It didn’t. And the more I thought about why I wasn’t making the time to write it, the more I realised that, even as a novel, I couldn’t get myself motivated by the idea of trying to convince people that prisons should be abolished. Why would those not already attuned to the argument be motivated to read it? The obviousness of the position, to me, is just so clear that the idea of trying to persuade people who disagree with it within a novel just seemed like a road to nowhere. The same road to nowhere I originally found with the work as a philosophical argument. The logic is sound, the idea is righteous, but it’s such an uphill climb precisely because of the ideological brainwashing I wanted to alert us to in the novel. Given the extent of public perception about the supposed need for punishment, the question remained: why would anyone read it? And was I, a privileged white man who had never been to jail or lost anyone to police violence, the right person to write the story anyway? Is trying to shoe-horn an ideological point home to a readership a sufficient basis for a novel? Does it inspire interesting characters and a story worth hearing? On the one hand it did: I liked what I had written. But on the other hand, I never cared enough about moving the story on - making the argument - to carve out sufficient time to work on it much beyond those early bursts. I knew where I wanted it all to go - had a big old plan - but it was all based around making points. The novel floundered on my hard-drive as something I was sure I’d return to.
But then I went to America over Easter and another idea, percolating for years, suddenly clicked. I don’t want to talk about it too much at this stage, but like I said earlier, I think this one is the novel I was meant to be writing all along. Nothing about prisons and ideology. This is a generational tale about family, art, fate and love. And I love everything I have written so far. Nearly 16,000 words, and thousands more notes and bits of research. I am thinking about the story every day. Dreaming about it. Obsessing. The only question about this new project is when it will be finished, not if it will be. I am not trying to make an argument with it. I am just trying to tell the story I want to share. A love letter to my family.
A lot of creativity going on in between all the usual work and life bullshit (and in between the standard fun and family stuff that makes life worth living). And today I just found out a short story I wrote last year is going to be published in a collection of horror fiction coming out soon (I’ll post more details on here when I have them). This afternoon, my wife finally breaks up from school too and the summer can truly begin. But the bottom line, as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin used to say, is that I hope to be writing a lot more on here in the coming weeks and months (as well as adding a couple more thousand words or so onto the novel, which I am calling as a working title, for now at least, CARNEGIE) and look forward to reconnecting. Not only about my life, but about the dumb political stuff that I used to rant into the void about on social media too. I already wrote a retraction of my 2024 support of the Labour Party and my longstanding theory of the “tone of our oppression” over on my philosophy blog because I’ve been so disappointed in Keir Starmer’s first year as Prime Minister, but the recent suspension of Diane Abbott for saying something demonstrably true about different forms of racism is ridiculous (and I am saying this as a Jew who is also the son of an immigrant, yet who has passed in British society incredibly easily, with none of the associated problems of racism people with different coloured skin to me experience in this country every day). His purging of all left-wing elements of the party is disgraceful. Combined with waking up to see CBS’s obviously political decision to cancel comedy hero, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show - and The Late Show in general - to appease the tyrant Trump, and it hasn’t been a great few days politically. Unsurprising given the world is clearly in the early stages of World War III.
So yeah - if you’ve read this far well done. Hopefully there’ll be even more to read soon.