Love Is...

Love is always impatient, and usually unkind. It always envies, often boasts, and is endlessly proud. It can be rude, and is inherently self-seeking (either in a philosophical sense or otherwise), and cannot avoid keeping a record of wrongs, either yours or theirs. True, love does not delight in evil (yet can sometimes be complicit with it), but rarely does it delight in the truth, if the truth does not live up to its hopes. It tries to protect, tries to trust, can't help but hope, and is defined by its perseverence.

Yeah, I know the Bible. It just needs to be corrected for the modern romance. Love is cruel, it is bleak, but now and then, rare as it may seem, it is beautiful.

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How I Feel About Being Black...

Allow me to waffle away for a little while. I'm currently in my new flat, shared with three of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, wasting the days away contentedly until Uni starts up again. Life is slow, idle, and just the way I like it.

But no, I'm here to talk about race. Namely mine, straight-up Black-African. Ethnic minorities are no small thing in the UK, yet 92% of everyone in the country is white. Unsurprising, certainly to be expected. This includes all the white minorities, be they European, American, what have you. I am part of a far less sizable 2% of the population who are black; and as I'm not from the Caribbean or West Africa (read: Nigeria), I am of an even smaller subsection of the population. To the point where I think my parents know all the Zimbabweans in the country by now.

The UK, when broad strokes are applied liberally, is socially structured via the infamous class-system, which divides the country's citizens into various social strata for easier classification (see how the word "classification" has "class" within it? This is social science at work). Essentially there's the working, middle and upper classes; working class being the folks behind the counter, middle class being the folks buying Happy Meals for their kids, and the upper class pulling into the drive-thru in their Bentleys and asking for medium-rare steaks. Generalisation, sure, but we all know where to place ourselves.

Myself, I fit neatly into the middle-class. I have attended both state and private schools, I have been educated abroad as well as in the UK, I abhor rap music and have a penchant for the oldies. My favourite film is Blade Runner. My favourite musician is Bob Dylan. If I had a white man's hair, it'd be long and scraggly. I took a pseudo-gap year in which I did nothing. I am studying the humanities. And yet I'm black.

Before y'all start kicking off about how it is who I am that defines me, let me be perfectly clear that I too think this should be the case, and in a perfect world I wouldn't feel like writing this because it'd just be a whole lot of fuss about nothing. But it does matter, as I am an anomaly because of something I can do nothing about. I find myself partially defined by something I go against most of my waking hours, and have no barometer upon which to measure my social activity. I am anxious, frustrated, with nary a sense of why or against whom. It's a matter of perception, not how I perceive myself, but how society has trained people to perceive me. I am unable to exude an accurate image of who I am through what I look like alone. Sure, once you get to know me perhaps it is hard to think of me in any other way, but to the uninitiated, I'm just another black guy walking down the street. Even I get uncomfortable around black people, but luckily that's OK, because I'm one of them.

Allow me to stereotype for a moment.

British society's present image of the average black youth currently revolves around mugshots and headlines. There are twice as many black people in prison than there are in university. The people we have to look up to, who have succeeded in life despite the colour of their skin are those in the music business (constantly glorifying the perks of violence, substances and the nonstop party climate that, in reality, merely results in further dismay) and the sporting world (where the only thing you need to do in life to succeed is to kick a ball rather well, or run faster than everyone else). I read something recently somewhere that sums up what I'm trying to say: "Young black people don't want to be middle class: they want to be rich." Now.

Obama has stepped in as the de-facto role model of the day, despite his dipping approval ratings and rather lacklustre spectacle once he actually became president (at least for us in the UK; then again, I have no idea who any black British politicians are). And yet it was naive to think that by having a black person somewhere attain the highest office in his country, that we would see a new era dawning for black people everywhere. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

As my rampant stereotyping and generalisation have hinted, black people are increasingly defined by what we see and hear about ourselves in the media. Young black Brits are rude boys and gangstas, whether they truly aspire to that image or not. Peer pressure discourages those who wish to become their own person, insisting on a status quo of posturing. There are not enough of us to decide what we want to do, so we merely distort the American image of the pushers and the pimps to our own ends, substitute the guns for knives, and let it all kick off. For just about 2% of the population, we certainly find ourselves in a hefty amount of mugshots. If Raoul Moat had been a nineteen year old black boy from North London, no-one would have batted an eye. You walk the streets in the outskirts of the City and count the shrines to murdered relatives, friends, gang members. A lot of trouble for not-a-lot of people.

And so here I stand. No black people make the music I like to listen to. No black actors portray people like myself. No black people speak like I do. I have no black friends apart from relatives and those I knew in Zimbabwe. I can't run, I can't rap, I can't dance. Yet I get stop-searched more than probably necessary, people look uncomfortable if I am walking near them at night, my sense of humour is increasingly defined by my ethnicity, and I find myself venting in words. I don't like how I sweat more than my friends, how I can't grow a proper beard, how my hair is so monotonous, how I could never reasonably portray any president except Obama in a hit Hollywood movie.

I am physically black, sociologically white, and unable to reconcile these hemispheres. I am involuntarily black middle-class.

That's What Friends Are For...

I don't know how good a friend I am; obviously my level of friendship varies from person to person, and I don't profess to be equally wonderful/obnoxious to everyone I meet. Nonetheless, it's still reasonable to say that everyone approaches the art of making friends in different ways. Mine is a more passive, blend-in-with-the-crowd method, others adopt a firm and coloured personality that endears them to some, and shuns others. My method has, as its main bonus, the ability to make friends with almost anyone I meet. My circles of friends have varied vastly, and I imagine I'll meet ever more diverse people as the years roll on.

The flaw in my method comes with the second, far more important part; keeping friends. Between the beginning of my education and now, I've been to eight different schools (KCL included), which I feel has altered my perception of what a friend is. A childhood friend for most is someone you've known for a while, grown up together, experienced all the changes of life together, and you can share that; it's natural, it's what you do. When outsider Nash comes in, you bring him into your circle and go about your lives; but the void in background means that, ultimately, you'll always be better friends with those you've known for years. You're apt to share your secrets, your worries, all the minutiae of strong casual relationships, and save Nash for the immediate and the now, the parties and the homework worries.

Coming to King's, on the other hand, has put a different spin on things. I can't rely on my previous framework, since no-one knows each other here (save for some occasional pairs or threes from the same high school). A chance to start afresh, with the shared experience of university at your doorstep. Still, slowly but surely, it's happening again. You hear conversations about events you've missed, in-jokes you don't understand, plans you weren't privy to. You hear whispered secrets and hushed voices, things you aren't supposed to hear; are people talking about themselves? About you? How did this happen? Are you predisposed to make fast friends, but shallow friends? A flaw that can only be attributed to yourself, as everyone else seems to be getting along just fine.

After all, what's a friend? For the average guy or gal in uni, what does a friend mean to you? Is it a sounding board to bounce back the thoughts churning in your mildly insecure head? Is it a willing sidekick to your nights of debauchery and drunken mayhem, as you paint the town red in an effort to have a story to tell in the morning, complete with photos for the Book and lipstick on the sheets? Is it a repository for your deepest feelings, darkest secrets?

Somehow, I've presented my image of a friend as a guy who comes along, jokes a bit, drinks a bit, and fades into the background like a comforting mass in the ether. It'd be easy to say it takes two to make a friendship work (indeed, this is probably the most comforting thing I could imagine for my situation), but I'm just afraid that I'm the one who isn't putting the effort in.


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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - Beast Of Burden
via FoxyTunes

Stuck In A Moment...

'Tis my blog, right? Means I can talk at myself, about myself at will without recourse, correct? Class. OK, so, if some people cope with whatever troubles them through artistic endeavours or violent episodes, I'll cope with a post on this dusty old thing.

Hope all reading had a happy Christmas, and an agreeable New Year's do (somehow managed to blind myself in my left eye on NYW morning, meaning my own celebrations were sober, monoscopic and alone). The holiday has been an eye-opening one, for saddening reasons. I'm (hell, we all are) drifting away from a state that I was completely at ease with, into a set of circumstances that I don't fully know or understand. I don't know what to do about it, it's entirely out of my hands, and the groundwork necessary to maintain a status quo was necessary years ago.

I miss school an awful lot, and though uni is wonderful (and the cast of characters that I've met are an uncommonly excellent bunch of people), there was something about school that meant that I didn't have to worry about whether my relationships with my friends were being maintained. I'm not a massively social person, but I selfishly require a constant knowledge that people are there when I care to look. A poor state of mind, and I need to change it, but I've run out of time. There's friendships that are carrying on, thriving in the online cloud despite the foundation of constant contact we used to be afforded. But I can't do that, try as I might. And it doesn't stop me from missing people; it'd be a lot easier if it did.

Tried texting some people today, but occasionally the number I have is no longer valid. Nails in the coffin, I guess.

Mementos, Besotted

Last night we went to the Cafe de Paris, an apparently trendy spot where the theme was James Bond (meaning suits n' ties; no cheating and going as "casual Bond" 'cause everyone knows you're just copping out). Ana, Alix and I, them in a competition of sordid nature, I in a state of drunken contemplation. A regular state o' mind, I reckon. For me, anyways.

Who knows any more, maybe I'm just coasting through on a train of tipsiness. I mean surely by this point permanent damage has been done; I can feel my body aching away under the weight of all this fast food and liquor. Oof. I am a mess, but that's par for the course in this student life of ours; everyone's a mess, so it's not so bad. Once you get home, and realise that you're shivering all the time, and that your mom's homecooked spaghetti tastes even better than you thought possible, then you start to realise just how far gone you really are.

But one thing that sticks with me is my vocabulary, a trait which annoys me as much as anything else would. I become a li'l bit talkative after a couple, and that often spills over into a barrage of texts to whoever seems likely to reply (which, considering the erratic bedtimes of the student populace, is always a fairly wide selection of people).

Plus I make notes to myself, to give me clues as to what my thought processes were like during my drink-n'-club session. They tend to be dramatic, pseudo-eloquent, and usually pretty baffling. Here's one from yesterday:

'The phenomenon I've experience, where I've felt nothing but disdain for my fellow man, has been given a name by your constant writer; drunken sobriety (this being a common name for what I'm talking about, I was quick to find out the next day - Nash). This is when I contemplate the successes and failings of my fellow man, whilst wallowing in the vague aftershock of vodka shots and quickly dispatched cider. Playing catch-up, sharing those anecdotes of nights "just like this", and watching your liver give up the fight and take cirrhosis as it comes. Who gives a hoot? Right? Apart from parents, but they're never up to speed. Tonight is just "one of those nights". Loaded with alcohol, infused with cash, cruising to the end. Joy. Fookin' joy. "Drunken sobriety and a pack of scratchings, my good man"

We all walk a narrow path with jagged rocks on either side, but the urge to hop, skip and jump our way along is just too great. But hey, we haven't fallen yet, right?

Hopes/Dreams

You know how Hollywood love the idea of the American Dream, the unattainability of it, the ridiculousness of it, and the ever-present knowledge that while it's commonly accepted that not all of us can be the top dog, most of us refuse to accept that there may be a glass ceiling there after all, and try as we might, we can't overcome it. You'd need one sledgehammer of a metaphor to get through that, trust me.

So what does it boil down to? If we can't be objectively the best that we can be, and if there's no set-in-stone marker to define who is a success and who isn't, what are the options? Basically a choice between lowering your standards until everything you do is "the best I can do" (which, while being a bit of a cop-out, is perfect valid when you consider that external opinions only have as much of an effect as we ourselves attribute them) or actually getting out there and beating everyone else at their own game. It's a shifting platform, not a level field, and if you don't make your move you'll get left behind.

"It's not about winning, it's about taking part," they say. "We're all winners here," they say. Pff...

Groups, My Liver, and the State of Affairs

I have a niggling feeling in the back of my mind more often than I'd ever care to admit these days. That small feeling that I'm being pulled hither and thither by my own occasional influences and the enternal suggestions of others into doing this and that which, in my day to day state of being, would never occur to me. Nothing which causes great alarm to others, but enough to influence what others think of me, and it causes a modicum of discomfort in my inner self.

I have no reason to drink as much as I do, and the relapse into semi-regular smoking is actively sealing my lungs away from the outside world. I'm turning into something which I dread, for fear of becoming something else. I don't know whether its worth knowing as many people as possible, because attracting a variety of worried, skeptical and downright freaked-out glances from others surely doesn't equate to making new friends.

So I'm choosing today to make my stance, and to say that I'll cut back on the drinking, the smoking and the embarrassing actions of my besotted self. And maybe I can piece something together of these watercolour days I find myself living.

That Which Annoys: Part I

This series will be a collection of things that tick me off. These are the kinds of lists that lose you friends, make you enemies and generally decimate any chance you have of appearing impartial and open-minded. Because, like me, everyone has their breaking point. Mine just manifests in their own ways.

First on my list is this: Profile pictures with multiple people in them.

This is largely a Facebook-ism (where the whole profile picture thing is more crucial than ever: you're far more likely to make a new friend online with a friendly photo, as opposed to the distended anus of your drunken sex-face). If someone called "Ashley", or "Frankie" or any myriad of unfamiliar non-Western names then adds me with a profile picture displaying eight people, I don't know whether my new best pal is that strange man on the left, or the breathtaking girl on the right (prior knowledge would undoubtedly change my initial contact: "Hey there" for the former, "Heeeeey there" for the latter. As you can see, I'm a pick-up master)

The real-life equivalent of this would be eight people coming along, and introducing themselves to you in chorus with the line "Hi, one of us is [insert name here]; be my friend?". Surely there's cause for unbridled alarm?

Admittedly worse is the photo of said new friend and said new friend's significant other necking it off right there on your screen, everytime you want to talk to them. It's some sort of third wheel simulation, where nothing you do or say passes by without the judgemental appraisal of the kissing couple. Geddaroom, says Nash, vehemently (vehemence is my natural state of being when it's 8.30 and I'm already on the blog).

[I will add though, that even though the relationship status indicator on Facebook is known to be deceptive and often simply disappears instead of fessing up to the truth that said Facebooker has been dumped to high tide, the disappearance of the snogging profile picture always heralds hard times in a relationship. Life's a beehatch, eh? Should've just kept that charming smile from way back when as your Face-for-the-book and been done with it, but noooo...]

Chillin' in Tufnell Park

So, finally managed to get out and about with my hall-mates (OK, that's a misnomer for two reasons: a) basically none of them are in my halls, let alone my flat, so they're not exactly my neighbours, and b) we didn't go out, we went to the common room with drinks and stories to tell), How this all plays out tomorrow when sobriety kicks in again and we're all regretting the sordid jokes and anecdotes shared last night, who can say. A good night, nonetheless.

Also met up with Hedd, which was a nice thing to do; guy's been around forever, and always has a good batch of stories to tell. Burger and a beer later, and it's as if we haven't been hundreds of miles apart for the last bunch o' months. Classy, no?

Ash n' I have arranged our swap meet for giving each other our various knick-knacks (I have a bunch of her books and DVDs, she has some of my who-knows-whats). A civil, amicable way to move things along, rather than burning things in a fit of angst and snubbing any attempt to restore civility. We're good people don'tchaknow.

And that's basically all there is, apart from the whole finishing up that goddamn film, and going back to Cardiff tomorrow (or today? Still feels like Monday to me...); both of those are posts for sober-er times. Goodnights, boys and girls. If I don't wake up tomorrow, someone please arrange a nice (but non-ostentatious) funeral for me. With live, inappropriate music (ie. Vivaldi's Four Seasons; that'd baffle some people...).

Countdown to Uni

You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that harbinger of impending thrills, chills and spills, of sights unseen, places untravelled, stories unheard; that tickling promise of wonderful, fabulous, glorious events, mishaps and revelations that await around a tangible, visible corner of your life?

This is not like that; this is the sick feeling of travelling miles from home to a familiar-yet-strange city and having to do it all over again.

I do plan to be more drunk, sociable and noteworthy this year. I plan to make something of myself amongst my new halls-mates (something I didn't have last year), whilst going to Fresher's week (which I missed last year) and having a good time with good people I live with (which I barely did at all last year....last year was balls.)

So I've laid out the groundwork. I started/contributed to various discussion groups on Facebook, I've befriended a few new faces (replete with conversation, and shared anticipation) and I've bullied my parents into letting me move in only a day late, rather than just shy of a week (that's Sunday, for those who keep inviting me out in Cardiff for next week). El coolio, no?

This post makes me seem a bit weird, though. Luckily, no-one reads this thing...right?

Oceana Part II: James Corden

[What follows are further ramblings from a drunk-but-sobering-up mind. Any offense to certain comedians is purely unintentional (but understandably likely)]

We were in the Disco, Mikey and I, grooving along with Henry Tonks's madcap party crew (including some familiar faces from the Howells gang), when we spotted Danni and Sarah again, sitting and chilling by the wayside, like a pair of particularly watchful sparrows on a washing line (poetic? Nash says: yes). We moseyed on up to them and asked them what's the dilly-oh, to be battered with the frantic reply of "We met Smithy from Gavin and Stacey!". Mikey and I decided this was worth a trip to the Iceroom, and so it began.

He wasn't hard to spot, a pretty hefty guy grooving along to whatever-balls-was-playing-at-that-moment. All by himself. Which was weird, I reckoned; surely he'd have a massive entourage of cool cats to hang with him all night long. Sure, every minute he'd be spotted by a new group of drunken kids and be drawn into a photo opportunity, but you could see his face palpably drop every time it happened. "I tried to get out, but they pulled me back in..."

To be perfectly fair, he wasn't having a hard time getting the attention of the chicks (or, to his dismay, the guys, who constantly jumped on him, then ran away laughing like small children). Pulled like a mofo, he did. Power to him I guess (Note: while normally I'm totally for treating women like, y'know, people, in certain circumstances it's worth just telling it like it is. Guys are like this, y'see.)

He strikes me as the quintessential guy-who-knows-everyone, the one who's friends with them all, but doesn't throw his manhood around like DWP benefits. I know a guy who was known and loved by everyone in Year 13, but didn't get intimate 'til Uni kicked off (although whether this is by choice or through relentless failures is beyond my knowledge). Hell, I'm making reckless assupmtions and generalisations throughout, so take what I say with a dash of salt and a sympathetic ear.

Went to Wikipedia, found this: "James also appears in milk adverts in the Czech Republic and also is seen sitting in a deckchair in an advert in Saudi Arabia." Awesome.

I tried to figure out a way to qualitively say "I've met James Corden" without falling into hug-him-photograph-him mode. I went over, said "I imagine you're getting a lot of attention tonight"; he shrugged, "It happens"; I shook his hand. For a moment, I was totally Z-list friend-of-a-celebrity material. Then it was over. So I wrote this blog post to immortalise the whole thing.

My posts ramble when I drink. If you've got this far, go do something better with your time.

Oceana Part I: Blacking Up

[What follows is an account of frankness and sincerity hitherto unseen in most posts of a personal nature by impressionable youths of today. Alcohol plays a part.]

It's weird being a coconut in Cardiff (for those wondering, coconut is a term many Indian and Middle-Eastern Asians that I know use to signify a person who's "brown on the outside, white on the in"; I'm neither Indian nor Middle-Eastern, but black people are actually categorically brown, so there). An acute case of classic jungle fever mixed with a distinct lack of innate dancing skills and effortless charm promised me by the cool black guys on TV, leads to a social black hole that I cannot escape, for it is I. Awkardness, thine name is Nash.

Oceana is the flagship club for all non-aggressive clubbers in Cardiff; it's full of assorted themed dance-rooms (the Disco and "Iceroom/Icehouse (depending on who you ask)" are the main ones, with a weirdly serene tropical themed place downstairs, and the seedy-as-hell Boudoir). They play clubbed-up Top 40 songs and various retro classics from yesteryear. As you can imagine, it's great for white folks.

The only black people I see are the invariably Nigerian (I've asked them all where they're from, always Nigeria) guys in the toilet, and the weird stalkers who follow Danni and Sarah around. Occasionally I see some brothers-from-various-mothers kicking it old-school (or something) in the Iceroom, but this is rare. Regardless, they stick together, like a predatory cloud. I shake hands with them, pretend to be cool, but they soon see me for the phony that I am.

I drunkenly sing along to Britney Spears and Queen, but don't know the words to songs by Jay-Z, Dizzee Rascal or Whale-without-the-"H". Evidently I need to black up a little.

I smile at others; white guys give me a smile back, hug me, shake my hand, dance with me, because being seen with black guys is awesome. Even I think I look cooler around black guys. Then I remember that, considering my condition, I'm always around a black guy. Great. White girls, however, always give me a certain look. It basically says "Oh shit, a black guy!", followed by a quick retreat to familiar territory. Crude of me to say it, but this is a bad situation to be in. "We like our own kind 'round these parts".

Any flak directed at my seemingly-non-PC remarks can be directed towards your nearest gal-pal.

Want Some MOR from Life, Huh?

I forget when my last post was; needless to say, this blog idea is floundering at roughly the same rate as I predicted it would. It happens, I guess. Need to keep some sort of account of my life (the Life and Times of Nash, The Guy), but it turns out I'm not one for reckless record-keeping. But that's fine, at least this thing might stand the test of time, whatever happens to end up being written in it.

So yeah, music's taken a turn for the middle-of-the-road averageness that plagues the DAB radio stations that housewives and Southern belles listen to (unless I'm crudely mistaken, and they're all beings of diverse and bewitching musical tastes). This could be a problem, given my hopes of becoming a songwriter of note and substance, but then again, more people are likely to listen to me, now. Come for the sugar, stay for the cavities. Lowest common denominator alsways works; fact of life. I tell myself this to make myself feel better.

Also I've started going out a bit more, re-adjusting myself to single living, which has its ups (that loose and malleable feeling of freedom that seems ridiculously appealing, but doesn't really do much in and of itself) and downs (I've realised that I have a lot to say, but no-one to say it to). Everyone's entitled to that one naive relationship that you totally know is gonna last forever 'cause it's so darn perfect, but eventually evolves into an awkward waiting-and-hoping-for-better-times. This was the summer of our discontent, a rainy, cold, vaguely depressing time.

I've also noticed that travelling abroard over summer seems to herald a break-up. Second time this has happened, wouldn't you know it.

I also wonder, if it rained non-stop for weeks, would the Millenium Stadium eventually turn into a huge swimming pool? Because that would be awesome.

What's New

Ash (the very wonderful girlfriend) came down this weekend, which was very lovely; met my eccentric but lovable family, travelled to the beach, visited the local teahouse, and just had some good times. 'Twas nice, especially considering the strains that being consistently hundreds of miles away from each other for most of our relationship has placed on our togetherness. It does make us appreciate each other's company even more, though, which can only be a good thing. She is quite special.

Other than that, not much else is going on; Alice and I are planning a little project, but between extended spans of laziness on my part, it hasn't really taken off. We did go and see a gig at the Welsh club, which was pretty hard on the ears and liver, but a good night nonetheless (I'm guessing her blog will have more on that). Kiff's exam woes mean that he's not as free for endless Resistance 2 marathons as he used to be; things'll be righted once they're over and done with though, in about 15 hours or so. Slick.

Written some new tunes, which will make their way through the song factory and end up on the right hand side there ==>. Takes time, but it's worth it, especially now that my sound kit is back with me. Which means my UK Songwriting Contest entries aren't going to go to waste. Score!

Damn The Music Business...

As are basically half of the entire student population, I'm an aspiring artist trying to break my way into the real world of actual audiences and recognition. Making some money along the way would be nice, but I'm keeping my hopes to reasonable levels for the moment. Unfortunately, my bassist has defected to Sweden, so I have no band whatsoever, and my solo stuff isn't exactly blistering, heart-stopping rock.

London is where I should be, of course, but Cardiff will have to do. It's a bit of a huge village, everyone seems to stick out for each other here, which is nice, but at the same time you can't beat an international melting pot like London town. There's an ad on Gumtree that I've spotted for acts wanted in Cardiff. Think I'll sign myself up, can't hurt and it might actually go somewhere. Here's hoping they don't mind me using a variety of backing tracks and improvised ghetto-equipment.

A Word For Now: Presumptuous

It's just occured to me that making a blog entirely about myself, with my name in the title, without any plans of maintaining and advertising it actively, or any real direction in my thoughts, writings or opinions, is a bit bold. I think I might not be as instantly successful as I hoped to be (worrying after about a half hour of active blogging). Damn, now I'm downright miserable, in a hoody trapped in my sister's old bedroom with temperamental broadband.

Also, weirdly, Google doesn't have a decent way to blog from an iGoogle homepage. Don't know about you, but to me that seems a bit...daft, really.