Sometimes those distorted eye events make me wonder if I am actually a computer with a glitch? It’s as if something has malfunctioned, the problem is that you’re not sure if it’s just the screen or something on the hard drive that’s breaking down. It’s like a switch has been turned on (or off), suddenly there’s a small disc on your periphery, it’s spinning, glowing, jagged light. Is it a virus? Is it sentient? Is it a machine? Today it was slightly different, usually, it’s an arc that pulsates that waits, then drifts from one eye to the other before disappearing like a ghost. Today’s circular spinning disc sat in the right-hand corner of my eye and didn’t move, finally dissipating after about 15 minutes, I wondered if it was a scout? Consequently, something of a slow day, as these invaders take away your energy, your enthusiasm, my idea is always to fight back and this is what I did, but first this is how it was:

The easiest way to overcome this inconvenience is to ignore it as much as you can and take ibuprofen, put on your sunglasses and lie down for twenty minutes. As you recover from the distortion you get up, move around and just deal with the dull ache. In the early days, I’d been down for a week terribly sick, pained by light, noise and touch, vomiting, unable to keep anything in my stomach, a terrible headache, numbness in my limbs, sweating, a nightmare. Those days are thankfully gone and I suffered with this from about the age of ten to my early twenties. Then on joining the ex-band, I joined in with smoking a lot of weed, for about ten years, in that time my migraines disappeared, when I stopped smoking, they came back. In recent years they’ve grown milder but there was a time in between where they could still be bad and I would carry medication with me wherever I went, a nasal spray. One day I forgot it and the migraine wasn’t so bad so from that day on I stopped the medication and discovered that as I’d grown older the attacks were milder. That’s where I am now.

Today after the disc had dissipated, I considered a walk to the beach, fresh air, the stimulating sea, getting the blood flowing, walking down the hill to Long Reef, watching the surfers in the sea, the golfers on the golf course and the exotic birds flying in between. But then I thought no, it’s going to be Saturday night, a night off, let’s go to the local Collaroy cinema (walking distance) and see a film. But then I thought let’s make it a social event, Rory who played drums with me in America is in Mona Vale, sessioneer Rohan is in Crows Nest, both on this side of the bridge, Collaroy being within striking distance. I ran it by Olivia and asked her what film she’d like to see (apart from Elvis) and was it on at the local cinema. She wanted to see Everything Everywhere All At Once with Michelle Yeoh so I got in touch with the lads and invited them to the film and dinner at Tony’s house, home-cooked by Olivia.

My head had cleared, Rory came over earlier and we went to Woolies to get some food for after the film and made it down to the cinema to meet Rohan at 6.30. Strange place, it opened in 1938 and although it seems to keep a lot of its original features its refurbishment seems to have airbrushed some of the past away. Having said that there are some wonderful design elements in the roof, with old speakers on the wall, curves and lines and it fits snugly into the end of the art-deco and the Streamline Moderne movement pre-World War II. As for the film, it was nuts, haha, really, I don’t know where to start as to explain it, except to say a woman who owns a laundrette finds herself battling an adversary in the image of her daughter in different realities. I’m not going to even attempt to explain it any more than that.

We came back to Tony’s and Olivia cooked Linda McCartney’s sausages with roasted potatoes, carrots and cauliflower, simple and super. We chatted the night away and I felt better, that was the point, success.

Music today has remained in 1970 with Ten Years After’s Watt, like Uriah Heep’s …Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble it’s worth it just for the cover. This was Ten Years After’s fifth album and like Uriah Heep’s debut wasn’t given the greatest reception on its arrival on the planet, Rolling Stone’s Melissa Mills commented on The Heep’s debut, “If this group makes it I’ll have to commit suicide. From the first note, you know you don’t want to hear anymore.” This attitude prevailed with bands like this, that is of course if you can put TYA and The Heep in the same bag, and that would depend on your attention to detail. Blues rock from a developing sixties band, proto-prog, metal from a new band, it all sounds the same to 21st-century ears.

Music Of The Daze