The Hope I Have for Poor Ebeneezer (Christmas Babble)

 There’s something quiet about Boogie Street tonight. Macy’s is run down and it seems as if that death sentence from the blues is in effect. The printing presses of the world went off to write about the comedian who died in New York after all and that left us with some hope that someone will do some good.

Meanwhile in Sin City, someone put the chairs on the table as a dame called Nancy caught a bus to Ohio and now that its cold and empty, I looked among the debris for that lead on the succubus. I found only a box of rouge.

Winter has set in now in some parts of the world and the specters are getting ready to pay a certain Ebeneezer a call.

I take off the cowl, slip into the prepared face and I wonder if enough time has been spent preparing for this. A small snap of my fingers brings the djinn forth and I ask it to gather the elves’ artifacts together. Without warning it slips past me onto the sixth plane and Mists off into the distance, a reindeer looking to find other mates to pull cargo.

I walk to the edge of the rug and shrug on the red and white. People associate me with winter, with the Yuletide and with cake and meat and ale.

 I associate myself with cocoa and gingerbread and a large mistletoe plant which has an infestation of Grinch traps.

My quest for the succubus leads me to an alley where a boy lost his parents and became a legend that the criminals of a fictional city fear. I also remembered reading the story of a doomed planet and two survivors, one of whom is a reporter by day and leaps tall buildings at night.

And maybe this little rant that a man sitting in front of a terminal with fae lights strung up around him doesn’t mean too much factually, or the ring on his finger will as of yet take some time to reassure him he will be safe; but then again maybe this man and his stories about the stories he read about me and about Boogie Street and the man who laughs are where my succubus has gone to hide.

So maybe I should pick out the old book of tales where this ancient holiday was first named and remember the first thought that brought me gamboling into this world.

I smile as I put on the red and white and the djinn returns with my vehicle in tow. I hope poor Ebeneezer doesn’t feel too low tonight.

Off I go!

The Bilge Master

Sixty Ton Angels Gliding

“A sixty ton angel falls to the earth

A pile of old metal, a radiant blur”

Although this was not the first song I heard from the record In Absentia, it was one of the tracks whose imagery stayed with me for some time.

That was a time I don’t want to go back to. But life has a funny way of taking turns that lead you somewhere, just not here.

7^th November 2025, Aquatica, Kolkata. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun is playing softly on speakers as a music thirsty crowd slowly starts swelling around me. Steven Wilson is in town and at 7:30PM, he is going to perform less than 20 feet away from where I am standing. I’m wearing a t shirt my friend drew for me and he’s standing next to me chatting with my elder brother from another mother whose t shirt says it all. A strip of cloth on my wrist reads “Overview Tour 2025. Diamond.” I am miles away, in the mind of a confused and hurting 20 year old, whose mother has just hit him again and whose father isn’t there to stop her (he never was). I recall listening to Steven Wilson then. The year was 2015. Hand. Cannot. Erase. had just come out and somehow Ancestral and Regret #9 made so much sense to me back then, because here was a man who understood. Apparently, in half an hour that man was going to be in front of me, spectacles and long hair and guitar in hand. Was I ready? I did not know. Was I scared? No. I was not 20 anymore. I had grown beyond that, and I wanted to come and see the man who was there for me and to just enjoy myself.

The Kolkata concert was a masterclass in sound and VFX. It also boasted a fantastic setlist with songs like King Ghost, Lazarus and (of course) The Raven That Refused to Sing as the closing song.

Kolkata has become a different sort of place to be these days. One of the friends who came with us started headbanging when Staircase was being played. He was a bit skeptical about how much he would enjoy the concert, but in the end…there was a moment when something in his eyes shifted.

Behind me, a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time suddenly passed his beer can to me and kept saying, “Do send me the photos” and of course I will. To my right was a group that burst into tears at the end of Pariah and when Luminol came on, I cast a backward glance to see a mini moshpit.

When it was over, the crowd started to slowly dissipate. In a daze, I ambled off a bit and I wondered…these songs that helped me when I was sick came back to me 11 years later and I could enjoy them, film some of them and I could see the concert through to its end. I was going to be fine. I’d come a long way. It was nice to know.

A sixty ton angel glided over Kolkata yesterday night.

Thank you, Steven Wilson 

The Bilge Master