APAD #10: Supporting Cast

[I am so, so sorry. There's rhyming in this one. No idea what came over, hope it won't happen again]

My favourite TV show ends
and I soon come to feel like I've lost a best friend.
I miss the overly long intro,
that awful music at the end;
All the annoying little things on which I had
come to depend -

And look I know that my very own
supporting cast
Is devastatingly attractive and constantly entertaining,
but when I'm all the way out in my hometown
and it's dark
and it's raining
(Like some Danish movie's end)
I can't help but frown
and wish I lived closer to them.
So I think this, and then:
That feeling once again -
Like I've lost a best friend,
But this time only
for the length
of the
long weekend.

[End. Written whilst listening to: Yet more Okkervil River. Plus Ones and On Tour with Zykos.
Edited whilst listening to: I Need Some Sleep by Eels. I'm home from university for the holidays and am rather missing both the usual ensemble cast of the Miles at Uni Show and the other supporting cast that I try to see when home but who mostly live in a big city a tiny bit too far away. Ho hum. Reading Jonathan Coe's book about BS Johnson, eating chocolate pie pudding from M&S and listening to the new Dirty Projectors' single way too much - These are all good ways to spend days at home with the family.]

APAD #2: McNulty and Me

I love The Wire
(really as good as everyone says)
but have developed an unfortunate habit
of making and eating one sandwhich per episode.
The BBC are showing one every night.

You can understand my concerns then.
TV is killing me.

If my body gets much worse
then being me will become a job nobody wants
and if
(and understand, you only took it because you
absolutely had to goddamnit you needed the money)
you do take it, you quit
as soon as you fucking can
and it's not just that all your friends
have heard the stories of how awful it was,
it's that you've reached the point now
where anyone in the same building as you
just needs to reffer vaguely to the line of work
and everyone will look at you laugh

and you laugh too,
but only because you sat down one day
and let yourself breathe in the memory,
let your lungs somehow suck all the suffering
all the unrelenting horror out of those two/four/six weeks
(eighteen years)
and return the thought to your lips,
now in third person
so now you can smile at how vile the whole affair was

just so long as you don't think about it when you're alone
when it's dark
when you're trying to sleep.

[End.
Written whilst watching: The Wire
Edited whilst listening to: Yo La Tengo (specifically Last Days of Disco and Let's Save Tony Orlando's House)]

My Week in Lists: Week Ending 7th September

Top 5 Things I've Enjoyed This Week

1. Episodes of Student Bodies on YouTube. I (and various friends I've linked to it) have fond memories of this stupid Canadian teen sitcom from my childhood and it turns out it's just as much fun now. Flash (the amoral, mercenary, female photographer) may be the best charchter in any 90s teen sitcom. Also it is a LOT better than Saved by the Bell ever was. [Take that, Saved By The Bell . You are dumb! Student Bodies is dumb sometimes too but not on the same level. Mostly.]
2. My new Spoon t-shirt from Insound. Took ages to ship (to be fair, I am on the other side of the Atlantic to them) but was totally worth the wait. They sent a really cool little catalogue along with it. And, uh, a Kate Nash poster, for no apparent reason. It has been donated to one of my younger sisters. So that's two amazing Spoon related things I now own - the other being a setlist signed by Rob Pope. I am indiegeek, hear me roar.
3. Peppermint Smints. SO much better than the normal/blue Smints. I may never go back.
4. Johnny Foreigner's album Waited Up 'Til It Was Light. It's been a month or so since I last gave the thing a serious listen and it's still one of the very best albums of the year, and not just for this most recent amazing single. I think my current favourite is the sole slow/quiet number [it always is], "DJ's Get Doubts" [I will add an mp3 here within 24 hours, promise]. I will point out that if this is the only JoFo song you've heard: The rest of them are high speed, high energy, electric-guitars-to-the-walls punky indie rock/pop madness. They're amazing, obviously.
5. The first disc of season one of Flight of the Conchords. Pretty much worth it just for Arj Barker and Eugene Mirman and John Hodgman (no YouTube because all his best stuff has been on The Daily Show and that's all at their site and blah blah blah). I hear Aziz Ansari
   turns up later on too! Yay for people employing comedians I like.

So there you go. I'll see y'all for a Midweek Musing about something but I warn you now that there will be no My Week in Lists next Sunday because I will be in a field in Dorset seeing some amazing bands.

What have YOU enjoyed this week, internet?