All Dressed Up and No Place to Write

The 29th Jan 2011 WriteOnSite Winning Entry

I don't know if it's unique to me, but I can only get inspiration to write if I'm wearing women's clothing. The excitement I get from ladies' garments is the only thing that energises me into being creative.

I've not been doing it for very long, but I realise now that I have possibly discovered my own answer to life, the universe and everything. However, it seems as though my path to spiritual fulfillment is not to be without its drawbacks.

I only dare try on my 'special outfits' when the wife is out, which is not nearly often enough. I keep an old trunk under the workbench in the garage, where I know it's safe. The last time she ventured that far into man's territory it was just to tell me my dinner was ready. And that was years ago. These days I just get a shout. If I'm lucky.

Every time she visits her mother, normally a Sunday afternoon, I now commence my new ritual. Heaving the trunk upstairs to the bedroom, I close the curtains, and spend the precious and all too brief time I have trying out different combinations. I try and make sure I have something new each time. And it was just about a month ago that I had my revelation.

I had been braver than usual. Buying women's clothes had always been as much of a challenge as wearing them without being discovered. Obtaining saucy underwear in my size was a new thing for me, and I wanted to be able to feel it in my hands and imagine how it would feel against my skin, so I mustered up the courage to visit the shops, rather than order things from the internet. The young lady in the lingerie shop had seemed far too put out that she had been asked to interrupt her texting to notice that I was taking possibly too personal an interest in the 'anniversary present' I was paying for. I guess they get all sorts. The choice was agony, but I settled on a basque and some suspenders.

That Sunday I felt like a new woman. My mind raced, and for the first time I found myself thinking of all the story ideas I'd had when I still harboured literary ambition. I started making handwritten notes, and only stopped when I noticed the time. I had barely got the trunk back in the garage when the wife got home.

This marriage of arousal and creativity gripped me like a whalebone corset. I planned to take it further, but was not quite sure how to proceed. Then opportunity presented itself perfectly. The mother-in-law fell terribly ill. How I rejoiced! This meant the wife would be going to stay for a while. This meant I could vary my routine.

I had dabbled in some creative writing recently, but always struggle for ideas. But now I was sure I could hold my own and compete.

I got hold of some make-up specially, and sat last Saturday in my underwear at the PC. The mirror on the outside of the wardrobe door caught my profile wonderfully. I was excited almost beyond the capacity of my brief underthings.

The anticipation of the possible themes set my mind racing, and the clock seemed to tick slower and slower towards half past five.

I felt truly alive, and sensual as a virginal teen. I refreshed my page at the appointed time and waited.

And waited.

The screen froze, and I became stuck hideously in the moment. My sexiness teetered on a knife edge.

Half an hour later I was a dejected middle-aged man with lipstick smeared on his face, his new dawn darkened by a faulty server.

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Brighton Dome, 23rd February, 2015.

Will bands like The Killers and Arcade Fire be touring their first album 30 years after its release? That I don’t know. What I am confident of is that Psychocandy is an album that will never go away, and an opportunity to hear it live, in all its wall of noise beauty, is not to be missed.

I played this album to death in the past, not so much recently. It is fantastic to be reminded that this short and sweet album actually consists of 14 tracks. From a band that grew a reputation for violence, drunkenness, short sets and no encores, there is an abundance of great pop built around minimal major chord arrangements; not really what you’d expect from ill-disciplined doom merchants. The thrill of the up tempo delights of songs like In a Hole, in which one is caught up instantly in the onslaught of whirling feedback,  just as important as any of the actual notes, contrasts sublimely with the gentler and more subtle aspects of songs like Just Like Honey and Sowing Seeds.

Jim Reid explained at the beginning what they would be performing: a limited set, followed by a short break, and then returning to the stage to perform Psychocandy in its entirety. And that’s exactly what we got. We were treated to some old favourites, and the pedant in me was pleased to hear Some Candy Talking, quite rightly not included in the main set, and of course Upside Down, this for me is the song that would have been least out of place on that first album. The short break was barely a couple of minutes, and then we were straight into the main event. With barely a let up from one song to the next, I suppose the experience was a bit like putting on the record, but when I listened to my cassette I was never literally moved in the way I was when the band let rip on Never Understand. The venue shook to the more powerful numbers, and an appreciative audience were willingly taken on what for many, looking at the apparent average age, must have been a nostalgic as well as immediate musical journey.

I remember being disappointed on the Darklands tour at the foyer notices telling fans that the Jesus and Mary Chain did not do encores. This gig did not have the sense of occasion that came with the Roller Coaster tour. Yet Psychocandy is such a wonderful collection of songs, done in a way that was new and exciting then, and has not really been matched for innovation and quality since, that a concert based around it cannot really go wrong. I do not think that a lot of bands would dare to end a set with a song like It’s So Hard, it does not really fit into the category of crowd pleaser or chart topper, yet in this context there is not really a choice as it is the last song on the album. Psychocandy, like all good albums, is not just a collection of good tracks, it is a listening experience, and performed so well by a band that are clearly still able to deliver, it makes for certainly one of the best gigs that I have been to. Younger bands are probably not thinking about longevity and reunion tours as they write their material, but to come back after 30 years and perform something that remains as truly wonderful as when it was first released will surely not happen too often. Perhaps the Reid brothers did get a bit lucky with the way things came about, but I was one of a grateful multitude then, and I was one of many again as I left the Brighton Dome. No, they did not do an encore, and this time I did not care.