Put Your Love In Me

I only actually cried two times so far when someone died: One time was when my dad died of cancer in 2006 and the other time was this afternoon when I read that Errol Brown died. Just a couple of tears.. but still.. I have no fucking clue what happened there but it happened and if it says anything, it probably says something about the state that I'm generally in at the moment. There is a very well protected, very emotional person inside that grumpy old fuck.

I think the death of Errol made me realise that everything will come to an end. Everything. Everybody. And all that will be left will be the thoughts of the people that knew us - and this blog post will most probably still be on-line after I packed it in.

I never cared about Errol Brown. I don't know anything about him. And still, his death has touched me - because some of his music had touched me once when I was young and it stayed with me forever.

Tonight I wanna touch the stars

Tonight I wanna be in heaven

Put your love in me

This was my favourite song when I was 10. I loved that song more than anything. It's still in my top 10.

Most people know and like the more obvious Hot Chocolate songs like You Sexy Thing, I Believe In Miracles, It started With A Kiss, etc... the list goes on.. all nice, slightly boring pop songs.. but there was  a couple of songs that were better: Emma is a dark soul ballad with that dirty guitar sound that should re-appear some years later on the great dirty disco bump ride that was Everyone's A Winner. But one song always stood out for me: Put Your Love In Me is the killer track.. my ticket to ecstasy, the soundtrack to my first wet dreams, later topped up with amazing stuff like Supermax's Lovemachine..

These things stay with you. They become a part of you. There's a version by the Tindersticks which is interesting but can't touch the original.

I remember hearing about Bobby Farrell, the dancer of Boney M, dying and that was a similar feeling because it also remembered me of my childhood and early teenage years, it left me feeling a bit empty and clueless. Like hearing that a cartoon character has just died.. you don't seem to be able to compute it properly. Boney M also only had a couple of great songs, well.. probably only one. Look at Bobby, the coolest guy on the planet.. who would have thought that he'd ever die?

Some music just does something to you.. it lights up something inside you, it actually talks to you and takes you on a journey to something new and nothing will be the same after that. It preaches in a language that is completely new.. shit like this:

Shit that grabs you with one hand by the throat and with the other by your balls and drags you in. Soul music. I just read that Errol died of liver cancer - like my dad. 

RIP Errol Brown, you sexy thing.

How Pinterest killed my blog.

Well well well.. not REALLY. But hey, I definitely spend more time on Pinterest nowadays than here, writing up little nuggets for you, the counter-culture-loving armchair-revolutionist.

I am 'big' on Pinterest. That's not actually my words, that's the general reaction when people look at the number of my Pinterest followers:

Funny thing is that I've never done anything to get that many followers except from pinning pics that I like to some boards that reflect some of my interests. No networking or following or god knows what 'increase your Pinterest followers' tactics. My main reason why I actually enjoy Pinterest is because I don't have to talk to anyone. I only follow a couple of other people there and never really  talk to anyone. It's very meditative. It's like doing a massive puzzle, or like collecting stamps. It's therapeutic. It provides a safe visual haven in a digital world of action & reaction, of opinions & spin, of neediness & arse-licking galore. It's my safe place. That's why I love it and that's why I nowadays spend more time pinning than blogging.

There is a lot of trash talk out there about "Pinterest being for women", which I find both ignorant and misogynistic. It's just a platform for whatever you want to do with it. Just a canvas, nothing more. And of course, like any open platform and forum, it reflects society, so there is a lot of boring shit on Pinterest ; ] But also a lot of nuggets - if you know where to look.

I also often get asked "why don't you monetize your account??" Well, that would probably take the joy and lightness out of it, no? And therefore corrupt what I actually love about Pinterest. It's the same with this blog here: "Why is it not on wordpress with added SEOplugin??".. "why are there no adword ads??" .. "why oh why?" .. yeah.. because I don't care. I can't be bothered. I even ditched my custom supaswag.co.uk domain last year because the [German] host was a total dick because of some payment issues. No-one cares.

But hey, never say never. I rank front page in Google for a couple of great keyphrases with some of my boards. Please send your generous offers in a letter.

xxx

ps: I just challenged myself to spend one hour every week to write an interesting blog post. No fillers.. if I can't come up with something interesting after one hour I'll leave it and jump a week. I don't want to be a lazy arse blogger.

Visit Ingo's profile on Pinterest.