Don't leave old darts lying around . . .

Turns out I hit a 180 with Shot Zen Ki's back in 2022. 

Did I ever hit another one before today? I don't have a scooby.

79/50

'Don't do it !!!!

Another day of life messing with my head. Old darts revisited.

Decided to pick up the Shot Zen Ki 26g darts  just for the sake of it. I hadn't thrown them in three or four years. "A few moments later  . . . "

In fact, it was that long since I'd thrown them that I couldn't even remember what brand or weight they were. I had to look them up.

78/50

Sweets Memory

 

Don't forget those bastard Texan bars. They could extract (not so) precious metals from places where they should never have been extracted. IYKYK . . . fuck that, OIKWH.

'Can someone please explain the reason for this strange behaviour'

Posted 31st May (3.57 am)

Excuse the waffle, just trying to stay awake. That banging Friday Playlist from 2007 has now finished - played it twice - and Spotify being Spotify has decided to kick into a new playlist determined by songs previously played. That explains why Duran Duran's 'Skin Trade' immediately popped up.

I've always loved 'Skin Trade'. This isn't me Monday Morning Quarterbacking. I always thought it was one of their best singles. In fact, I remember at the time being surprised by how good it was. By 1987 they'd been on the creative dip for a few years. I always thought their material from Seven and the Ragged Tiger onwards was decidedly sub-par. Laughable lyrics coupled with ponderous, plodding pop music so beloved from the mid-80s when 'New Pop' had bolted and all that was left was ever increasingly bloated music videos, big hair and post-Live Aid save the world messiah complexes. 

The weird thing is that I have another distinct memory of 'Skin Trade' from 1987 itself. Sitting in the back row of a General Studies lesson at Longdean School, wishing I was somewhere else, and I hear James Adkin (I think that's the spelling of his surname) from the other side of the classroom expressing the opinion that it's a great single. Why would I remember something so passing, and seemingly so inconsequential, from someone I hardly interacted with at the time forty years on? I can only attribute it to the fact that by 1987 Duran Duran were seen as passe, something from yesteryear. They'd had their moment in the sun, and now it was the turn of  . . . who, exactly? I can't actually remember. Had SAW taken over our musical world at that point or was it six months later? Those bastards were definitely on the horizon. In that moment, James Adkin was someone I recognised as a fellow pop kid, someone who could spot a brilliant tune . . . even when it came from the 'wrong place', He definitely went up in my opinion on that day, and that why I think I still remember his pronouncement after all these years.

I should be sleeping.

76/50

When 1 and 2 are the wrong way round.

A bounce out on the bull deprived me of my second ever 12-darter. A possible 12-darter turned into a 21-darter. Woe is me. (Still a 71.6 average, I guess.)

136, 140, 140 . . . and, then, aiming for the T15 I hit a S15, went S20 and then the dart bounced off the wire when I was going for the bull. Fast forward three other rounds before I finally won the leg against the bastard bot.

I'm not even playing that well at the moment. Just once of those brief moments that keeps you enveloped in darts.

Fast One by Paul Cain (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard 1932)

 

Kells walked north on Spring. At Fifth he turned west, walked two blocks, turned into a small cigar store. He nodded to the squat bald man behind the counter and went on through the ground-glass-paneled door into a large and bare back room.

The man sitting at a wide desk stood up, said, “Hello!” heartily, went to another door and opened it,said, “Walk right in.”

Kells went into a very small room, partitioned off from the other by ground-glass-paneled walls. He sat down on a worn davenport against one wall, leaned back, folded his hands over his stomach, and looked at Jack Rose.

Rose sat behind a round green-topped table, his elbows on the table, his long chin propped upon one hand. He was a dark, almost too handsome young man who had started life as Jake Rosencrancz of Brooklyn and Queens. He said, “Did you ever hear the story about the three bears?”

Kells sat regarding Rose gravely and nodded his head slowly up and down.

Rose was smiling. “I thought you'd have heard that one.” He moved the fingers of one hand down to his ear and pulled violently at the lobe. “Now you tell one. Tell me the one about why you've got such a load on Kiosque in the fourth race.”

Kells smiled faintly, dreamily. He said, “You don’t think I'd have an inside that you’d overlooked, do you, Jackie?” He got up stretched extravagantly and walked across the room to inspect a large map of Los Angeles County on the far wall.

The Way It Is

Posted 31st May (3.23 am)

Where's that second wind? My eyes are drooping for christ sake. It's not looking good for early morning laundry  . . . it's not looking good if I don't do early morning laundry. Decisions, decisions  . . . just to avoid the deserved decibels.

Still on an Elvis Costello tip. Listening to this Friday Playlist from 2007 whilst typing this up. A bit obvious in places but enough left-field tracks (including a Costello album track) to suggest that I still had my music mojo in the 2000s. 

Nicole Atkins should be at the Las Vegas residency level this point, folks. What the hell happened . . . or, rather, didn't happen? And check out that Duran Duran track on the playlist. A banger that I've not listened to in years. They were always good for the deep cuts.

75/50

The Invisible Fan

Posted 31st May (3.11 am)

Trying to stay awake through the night so I can do the laundry super-early. (It's a NYC thing.) Decided to try and rush through a backlog of old(ish) 180s. Reading up on Elvis Costello and his falling out with the Attraction, Bruce Thomas. Maybe I should read Bruce Thomas's autobiography? Maybe I should just read  . . . period.

Realising I don't listen to as much Costello as I should. Maybe it's the voice. Saturation can be too much, but I always return to him 'cos he is such a brilliant songwriter. The above 'The Invisible Fan' is a play on 'The Invisible Man' from the Punch The Clock album. One of his early albums which don't get that much love. Probably seen as too poppy, too mainstream. I like it.

74/50

Addendum.

I should have mentioned that the 180 is a Brooklyn Bar 180 from a practice session before the final league match of the season. All round it was a bit of a nightmare, though it hasn't hit home yet as such. We lost 14-13 on the night. Going into the final of the cricket singles match of the night, it was 13-13 against our fellow bar mates (a proper Darts derby), and I lost to AB. No excuses at my end. I had the upper hand for most of the match and AB clawed it back brilliantly on the bullseyes (in local parlance, "the corks"). The victory would have been nice. We've been a bastard losing streak for the second half of the season, with a final league record of 3-7. 

On a personal performance note, I also lost out to the All Stars first place. It would have been the second season in a row. (Still waiting on the T-shirt lads.) Going into the final round of the season, I was still leading the stats by about 47 points but I wasn't feeling confident. The eventual winner, EB, had been clawing back the points in the recent weeks and by the end of the night I kind of guessed that I hadn't scored enough points on the night to retain the top spot.

The funny thing is that, days later, I'm still more gutted about losing that Cricket singles match. Go figure.

The Forensic Records Society by Magnus Mills (Bloomsbury USA 2017)

 

The Forensic Records Society
 
‘I saw you!’
 

We listened closely. The voice sounded slightly remote, as if it came from an adjoining room. It was followed by a fuzzy silence.
 

James gazed at the turntable as it ground to a halt.
 

‘That’s Keith,’ he said.
 

‘You certain?’ I asked.
 

‘Yes.’
 

‘Not Roger?’
 

‘No.’
 

He played the record through for the third time. This was the agreed number of plays, so he then removed it from the turntable and returned it to its sleeve. As he did so he gave the label a cursory glance.
 

‘Fabulous music,’ he remarked.
 

I rose from my seat and went over to the window. Outside there was snow lying everywhere.
 

‘Do you realise,’ I said, ‘we were probably the only people on the planet listening to that?’
 

‘Surely not,’ replied James.
 

‘Just think about it,’ I continued. ‘They released it almost fifty years ago and it was a moderate success before disappearing without a trace. You never hear it on the radio these days, or anywhere else for that matter. The song was a deliberate joke: the lyrics are childish to say the least. They’re practically meaningless in English, let alone Chinese, French or Russian.'

 

“Marvellous ensemble performance nonetheless,’ said James.
 

‘Of course.'

The Hit (1984)