MORNINGSIDE MEMORIES: why here, why now?

So here I sit, a day or so after my Morningside flood of words, which I honestly didn’t know was going to happen until I sat down and wrote it. It poured out, or rather, gushed out under pressure. There was a lot to say. Why I would even go back so many years is anyone’s guess, unless my current health problems have brought mortality up so close it’s smacking me in the face.

I wrote the piece with the intent of doing more with it. I was actually intending to put it on Facebook, even knowing no one ever clicks on my links and actually READS what I write.  And if anyone follows my blog any more, it’s only to comment on things I wrote 10 years ago. So I do it for myself, or for that mythical discovery in ten more years, when, who knows, SOMEONE might happen upon it and have it speak to them, or maybe even sing to them.

So I wrote the piece, not knowing where it would take me, all eight pages or so, and it carried me along in a flood, so that I only needed a bit of tinkering and polishing. Then I posted a link on Facebook, but with a weird feeling.

Why now, exactly? It was an astonishingly long time ago.  But something clicked today that might explain at least a bit of it.

There’s all this stuff  coming out now about  Princess Diana, and the fact that 2027 is the 30^th anniversary of her death. Weirdly (and I just made this connection right now, this minute), Morningside ended in 1997, almost at the exact time of her death. Now the controversy is over whether people (her own brother, to be exact) should  still be “dining out” on her memory, bone-picking in other words, to make a cheap buck.

So has that Diana-stuff influenced me here? Could be, as I can’t help  but follow the wretched soap opera of the Royals, especially the lunacy of Harry and Meghan and their never-ending, ever-escalating melodrama (or “mello-drammer”, I should say, with a tinny piano playing). By 1997, when the show ended, I had pretty much moved on from  Morningside, though I was a huge fan of DiscDrive with Jurgen Gothe, a lovely man who became a good  friend (and died, like all my closest friends, a few years later). I think Morningside “petered” out, or just sort of gradually ran out of steam. It was an ‘80s sort of show with ‘80s sorts of interests, and it did not really provide anything a younger person would be interested in.

This means that any remaining fans of Morningside would have to be, at  very least, middle-aged. Or older. (Or dead?) But I felt almost compelled to post the link on Facebook, knowing it would go the way of all my other Facebook posts. Ignored. The one time I had a lot of response was when I told a silly little story about wearing casual pants to the mall, and having two old ladies titter at me, point to my bottoms and ask me if I was in my pajamas.

That’s it. I got 50+ comments, most of them gushing  with compassion for me for all I had to endure –such torture! The piece was written totally tongue-in-cheek – in truth, what these two old busybodies hissed at me struck  me as borderline comical. But as always, my dear friends on Facebook completely missed the point.

So now, when I could really use SOME sort of response, I won’t get any. I  don’t think  so, anyway. The original Morningside piece ran with the usual small, square image (Facebook crops these things for you, see), which was a  cut-down version of one of the book covers. If you don’t see a picture that totally encompasses everything that is in the article, then it doesn’t exist. It was hard for me to look  at all those covers of all those books, the endless series of recycled free material that was The  Morningside Papers. And I did something a bit daft, but I did it – I went on Amazon and ordered Gzowski’s The Morningside Years, basically to see if I’m in it (and if not, damn them anyway!), or if there’s anything more about Glen or Ralph Allen. Well, need I wonder? I KNOW they’ll be in there, along with a lot of twat-waffle from Gzowski about how magnificent they were.

After 30 years and a total revolution in human communication, Gzowski has been re-evaluated, along with the importance of his show. It really wasn’t much. It was a bit embarrassing, to tell the truth. I remember a few ludicrous features: Memorable  Meals (“I had pancakes on board a sinking ship!"), A Morningside Bestiary (“I saw a chipmunk this morning!”) and – my least favourite – a parody of  Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie poems. The one I remember is (get the sick bucket): “I’m sitting in the middle of a very messy kitchen.” No kidding, that was the featured poem, the winner of one of those innumerable little contests. (I won’t mention the others, as it’s kind of a sore  point for me. I  was told by one of the producers that my entry was by far and away the best, and that no, I wasn’t  going to be named the winner because Peter didn’t  like me. Not the piece I wrote. He didn’t  like ME. No specific reason was given.)

Well, listen, Peter-in-your-grave, the feeling is  mutual. You were no more the affable host than Ellen DeGeneres  was the purveyor of kindness and compassion, and Oprah Winfrey the shining goddess of self-help. All were revealed to be tin gods, mis-crowned by a deluded public. A lot of energy went into those facades, and in Gzowski’s case it was maintained by mobs of sycophants (including Glen Allen, the "courtly" writer who sucked up to the King) and lashings of alcohol and cigarettes, smoking being the pistol with which he eventually shot himself.

But I did notice, after writing that long blurt last night, that today I felt some sort of change. I’ve been struggling with a certain aspect of these memories, and trying very hard to somehow get back at the helm, to get back to myself, to know in my core that my feelings are my feelings and do not need to be justified to anyone. Self-possession, in other words, not possession by some  “demon”, as GA liked to call his worst habits.

So if I made this a series, would anyone bother? Likely not, but I do know, from how I feel right now, that this is doing ME some good. Yesterday was a horrible day for me, I felt really sick, I realized I am nowhere near finished with the intrusive medical tests that will eventually reveal whether or not I really do have cancer. That’s what is on the table. But this sort of writing is absorbing. The kids would say it’s my superpower. And by the time I went to bed, I felt more solid, less like I had been shot full of holes.

So it serves me.

Should I continue? Haven’t I always? You have to know when to get off the stage, but that may well be taken care of for me. The big cane may come out, latch on to me and pull me off before I am ready. So in the meantime, don’t I have the right to say what I need to say? 

I know the answer already.