I’ve always thought a life in the Old West would have suited me. The movie version, not the real thing. I’d arrive back at the homestead after a hard day’s swogglin’ horns and pokin’ cows, to be greeted by my pretty blonde wife who is wearing a starched gingham frock which nicely accentuates her wholesome bosom. She sets the table with homely and nourishing vittles while I wash my face in the wooden pail set out on the porch for the purpose. I’d hang my six-gun on the back of the door, tousle little Junior’s head and wolf down some swell home cookin’ – “you pass Pa th’ biscuits, Junior!”. Later Mary-Beth an’ me. why, we’d set on the porch a spell, watch the sun go down over yonder butte, and I’d pluck my trusty guitar accompanied by the appreciative howls of distant coyotes.
Imagine for a moment there’s a better life for you – difficult, given how fortunate you are in this one – what, pray, might it be?
I’ve sacrificed my normal life to live a fantasy life! Most people do it the other way around.
I think we need context, and details.
Photos as well, if possible
I’ve never worked a job I didn’t love. I’ve surrounded myself with books, movies, art and music. And I’ve been friends with amazing people. I don’t have a bucket list any more because I checked it all off. My house is full of treasures. People think it’s weird, but I don’t care. It works for me.
Oh.
In actual occasional dreams, I seem to be in space somewhere. I’m wearing a white smock – I have a huge gaff with large windows looking at the stars and planets etc. Lots of white cotton, marble and a huge warm-watered swimming pool that takes up an entire floor and I can swim underwater with ease. The most delicious food appears from pipes in the wall and comes in the form of luncheon meat – it’s absolutely beautiful to eat. Other people come and go but ultimately I am living there by myself in absolute worry-free luxury. When I wake up, I am relieved.
Piped luncheon meat is a very specialised fantasy, not for everyone I’d say.
It’s the “relief” part that concerns me.
My theory is that the swimming pool bits are a message from my bladder. So there is that form of relief at play when I wake up also.
Ye-ess …
I live in a cabin in Utah, have a bunch of kids who call me pa. Sometimes I catch rainbow trout.
By the way HP, Junior is your son? I think he deserves to know.
Yes, I am his biological father. The entire point of this thread was to create a (finger waggle) “safe space” to break it to him in the most nurturing, stress-free way possible.
I read this, Dad, just before my head hit the hay last night and let me tell you I did not rest easy. Now Stephen King as my biological father, that I could live with.
@gary – would you care to be my jovial sidekick? I’d prefer you to be Mexican, with a decorative sombrero, but it’s not a deal breaker. I’d like to stress that there’ll be nothing remotely gay about our relationship, but there may be occasional bouts of manly horseplay – pushing each other into horse troughs, stuff like that.
Whatever you do with “Pancho” is your business but please keep him and his razor away from the donkey….
I’ve given a lot of thought to this proposal, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline. It’s not that I’m utterly repulsed by it and find even the mere thought of it repugnant in the extreme to the point of wanting to kill myself. Not at all. It’s more that I very much enjoy doing nothing and I think that would be incompatible with the required undertakings of a jovial sidekick, even a Mexican one.
*shrugs*
Your loss, pal.
I have imagined being a jovial rambler, roving from town to town. Maybe in a rickety horse drawn caravan, although sometimes it’s a converted bus. With a chimney. I spend my days telling tall stories, and seldom get run out of town. Life is a lark and I always have money or charm enough for a cloudy cider. The young people look me out for my wisdom.
In real life, I don’t really like cider, the first glass always reminding me why, I don’t suit dungarees and wear glasses. And don’t much like young people.
Your real name is Ronnie Lane, and I claim my ten shillings.
Or Vashti Bunyan.
You could have a song written about you too.
Were you once a children’s entertainer in Hi de Hi?
I guess my final statement earmarks me as a natural, judging by past appointments.
Blokes who clean pools seem to have a nice life, according to some of the films I’ve seen.
And yet Enrico the pool boy does nothing but moan and whine every time I see him.
“See” him. And the rest.
I spent a teenage summer cleaning “pools”. Or, at least, hoovering up their contents. Stank of cess from July through August. A shit job, in every way.
I spent a couple of summers in the South of France as pool guy at a very upmarket gîte near Aix-en-Provence while I finished my third novel. That’s the kind of thing we authors do. You can fuck off, Moose.
You people seem to be associating poolmanship with work, betraying your lack of knowledge of progressive international cinema.
I found it a transformative and cathartic process. The physical methodology had a natural cadence to it that enabled fresh models of creative thought. I found myself envying those honest souls who “work for a living” and the blessed, unconscious simplicity of “normal life”! Yet – Art chooses the Artist, and acceptance of the burden is in its own way a humble work of the soul, and in setting out the loungers and parasols and sweeping the tiles I like to think I forged a bond with the coal miners and labourers of the world, and perhaps understanding them a little better made my Art that little bit more transcendent!
Are you a coal miner, Moosey?
Aye, honest graft keeping your toes wet with the man on the street. And your readership, your readers, as they clamoured around the pool, craved that reassurance that, after all, you were one them. And I have it, on the highest authority, that Stephen King enjoyed those reality checks, discourse with a humble artisan, for who to say the pool is not a craft. His publicist says he always came back from those holidays bursting with ideas.
No, this canary is with me for religious reasons.
Funny place to carry it though but.
As I said – religious reasons.
Has its beak been snipped?
Yes, he’s kosher.
How does he smell?
The spider on the bread roll will get him.
Born into a noble rich Spanish lineage I would spend my days roaming my castle and attached lands. The odd dip in the Mediterranean whilst waiting for my prawns to marinate.
No rain.
Soaking in the Med will certainly marinate your prawns.
If in doubt, get some batter on them.
Please guys…it’s my fantasy. Don’t besmirch it!
I can’t imagine a better life than the one I’m already living, except I would like an Apple Vision Pro.
*yawn*
Had I known that baring my soul so openly would merely elicit an affectation of boredom I wouldn’t have exposed my innermost desires with such a reckless lack of inhibition.
I walk the streets to a soundtrack of early 70’s jazz-funk; my world is a combination of “The Avengers” , “Jason King”, and “UFO” with an underlying Lovecraftian mythos. All working class people derive from sit-com stereotypes, as do “foreigners”. Travel is similar to that experienced by James Bond in the early films. Scientists are like Professor Quatermass. Thank goodness for these defences against reality.
In another parallel life I was a wrecker off the Cornish coast waiting for ships to crash into the treacherous rocks. Once me and the gang had availed ourselves of the treasure we would retire to the local ale house where we would slap the bottoms of the buxom serving wenches,sing bawdy songs and remain totally oblivious of the PC future that was still not yet even on the horizon.
Was Trump one of the gang?
He’s referring to the hegemony of Microsoft, which has totally ruined everything for gnarled Cornish grifters.
Not one of my gang- my behaviour would be playful and consensual – his would be pervy and sinister.
I am a systems analyst for a medium-large insurance broker. I have a comfortable semi (oh yes) in Uxbridge, a loving wife (cross between Felicity Kendal and Una Stubbs) and 2 point 4 children who are challenging but rewarding. Every day I think about going to the top of a tower with a high-velocity sniper rifle and just waiting for the end.
You’ve got issues @mc-escher
Come join me in my Spanish castle.
He could be your jovial sidekick.
After a relaxing morning snoozing in my bunk and then reading the next chapter of Alan Ross’s ‘The ‘55 Tour’, I feast upon rotisserie chicken, mini roasties and stuffing backstage, then conduct a short zoom call during which my wife flashes me, before playing rhythm guitar at that evening’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse show. Neil – ever the gentleman – allows me to play a cover of my choice before we close the show with our now traditional encore of ‘Country Home’.
Now this is interesting, because woven into my Old West fantasy I somehow end up jammin’ with Neil. The details are hazy, but he asks me up on stage during “Hurricane” at th’ Old Saloon, handing me Old Black, and my epic impassioned solo leaves him shaking his head in admiration. He insists I keep the guitar but I modestly decline and step outside for a cheroot, lighting a kitchen match on the seat of my pants (as they’re called).
A lot of fantasy lives involve backstage stuffing, I dare say.
Oh I say.
not 100% clear on the details of mine, but it involves cobbles and fog and a decent sized Mitteleuropan city in the last decades of the Habsburg Empire. And some (quite a lot actually) of that lovely black lager they brew over there.
Similarly, I am not 100% on all the detail in mine – but I am definitely married to Kylie Minogue. Just need to flesh out the remainder…
Liking your ambition.
I work in a 60s/70s recording studio, not a posh one like Abbey Road, but somewhere groovy like Olympic. I’m not some poncey producer, but a roll-my-sleeves-up and get on with it Engineer. I enjoy nothing more than selecting the correct micophone for the job, positioning it, plugging things in, spooling multitrack tape, making the tea and cracking crap jokes with talented musicians. I am Glyn Johns, in other words.
I never did take that sensible job that paid better money, and have never needed to encounter a database, or to use ProTools.
Careful, @niallb ‘ll be around in a mo, taking photos and weaving anecdotes about your gaff.
@fentonsteve @retropath2 Indeed. Mine would be similar, maybe a session drummer at places like Olympic, Morgan, Advision and Trident. Driving around town, kit in the car, knowing all of the engineers and cool producers, occasionally filling in for gigs with great bands and being known as a fantastic safe pair of hands.
Yes, I want to be Dave Mattacks.
Played in a band with him once. Just once. *goes back to sleep*
*wakes up again* Actually, now that you mention session musicians, I think my fantasy life (I’ve been struggling) might involve being a session musician in LA in the 50s/60s.
@fentonsteve You are Phill Brown and I claim my five pounds.
The main revelation of Get Back was that Glyn Johns was, at least in 1969, an absolute honey.
Er, according to some women I know who watched the film. You know, those women who watch nine-hour rockumentaries. Yes, definitely.
See the Bears game last night?
I’m a retired rock star. I haven’t toured or recorded for about 25 years, which is probably the last time I checked in on myself. I think these days I float aimlessly around my country estate with one of those bat and ball-on-a-string things going WUPPA WUPPA WUPPA all day long, wondering if the young man who imagined me into existence will ever come and visit again.
Is the friggin’ thing warped, like Governor Lepetomane’s? Mine was always warped. WU – shit. WU- shit.
Right now…
A small dwelling, ideally just below the mountains on the edge of the desert. Wide wraparound porch – wooden of course – with a couple of bench seat and rockers.
A couple of dogs, and no neighbours for a couple of miles. Tough winters in a warm and cosy dwelling, and tough summers defeated by the aircon.
If I’m lucky, it’s three years away.
You forgot the solar panels. Good luck with the aircon otherwise…
“Aircon” = palm fronds being waved gently over me…
I can swim through the air.
Oddly enough that was part of my dream the other night so I’ll share this with you.
I like it when that happens – it’s usually quite lucid, in that I realize I am dreaming and can direct where I swim to and that this is a normal ability. In fact, on the occasions when this wakes me up, I quite often go back to sleep so I can be flying Sal again.
I’d like to be RayX
…that would be cheating
Plus, I think he’s gone, whilst you’ve been, um, resting.
Unless, of course, you live your like?
I only flipped over to the Wordle New Year comp to see what befell him. As someone commented , that was one of the great flounces. A shame it had limited viewing. … the abomination that is Chiz. Gold. If only I could have used that during the Ashes. 😉
Who knew Baron was such a funny guy using his alter ego like that? Hats off, applause even.
Oh.
Does that mean there isn’t going to be a thirty best songs poll?
😒
….and no opportunity to join the committee for the Hall of Fame.
I run a bar in New Orleans. The Hot 5 are the house band and the coke is still in Coca Cola.
My fantasy life would be similar to that of Steely Dan’s Deacon Blue, except instead of working the saxophone I’d have learned to play piano like Oscar Peterson, or possibly drums like Art Blakey. But stamping my own imprint, obviously. Didn’t die behind the wheel, though I had a few close shaves in my wilder days.
My movie soundtrack work in the ’70s and ’80s would assure me a comfortable life now. I’d be a highly respected elder statesman of jazz, turning up regularly at the major jazz festivals in sunny climes plus doing the occasional recording session with today’s young bucks and lady practitioners, for love of the music.
Presumably you still make love to women languid and bittersweet? Crawling through the city streets like a viper could become tiresome though. Beware what you wish for.
Some of that stuff would be strictly for the younger me. My knees aren’t up to the crawing like a viper stuff any longer.
Would rise to the challege with those languid and bittersweet women though, given half a chance.