Head Candy-whirlygig, mindgasm, oblivion

'Amazing how grimly we hold on to our misery, the energy we burn fueling our anger. Amazing how one moment, we can be snarling like a beast, then a few moments later, forgetting what or why. Not hours of this, or days, or months, or years of this... But decades. Lifetimes completely used up, given over to the pettiest rancor and hatred. Finally, there is nothing here for death to take away'

Charles Bukowski
So, my 43rd year unravels before me.

Obviously I'm handling it all very well.
I daresay as a bastard son (as well as just being an old bastard) of that gen X thing and a grubby child of the seventies, the disappointment of the noughtie's is profound. How could it not be-caterwauling through the punk revolution of the mid to late 70's, blowing the wind through crusty old world creakiness, we bought into the lie of anticipating a future that would be beyond a Fritz Lang wet dreamtopia. Our prophets where Asimov,Arthur C Clarke and we were the Tomorrow People.
Growing old wouldn't be an option, as with Logans Run, in the future one could look forward to being collectively assembled on your 30th Birthday, and vaporised in some final whirlygig, mindgasm oblivion. But what a ride to get there, transporter beams in every apartment where you could materialise Jenny Agutter in a sparkly silk pashmina like the most delicious slice of takeout pizza-fuck chatroulette style.
Where you could get away from it all with holidays on the moon, whilst served martian cocktails by Gabrielle Drake, knocking off a few photons at extraterrestrials along the way.

And I was going to be the greatest artist of the 21st century-a critically acclaimed rockstar dauber, living like emperor Caligula, whose art would be poured over by the masses in galleries honored in my name and in the pages of 2000ad.

What a ridiculous naive and foolish child I was, sinking as I am now, on the arse end of middle age under the weight of my own disappointment.

Tosser

Still, there are graces and favours-I didn't die in my 30s, not from whirlygig, mindgasm,oblivion or the more likely liver disease, which if you knew me back when, is nothing short of a miracle.
I didn't make it to the moon, but I did make it-to America, which if you knew where I started is like reaching that far.

I still have my own hair and teeth,and more importantly the love and respect of my kids and Lani,who is still amazingly by my side which makes me the luckiest shit kicker this side of Toxteth.

Heres that other prophet of my time, lamenting the end of a space age dream, in what still is for me, the greatest music video ever.