Iain Sinclair

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0bleak

Well-known member
sus said:
Bleak don't be a Nancy now tell us about your own paps
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my blood pops - uh, kind of typical dad, I guess - really into sports (kind of feel like i disappointed him there since my visual-spatial processing and my motor skills are for shit), but he didn't press too hard about it beyond, say my elementary school years, so i can't really complain there - pretty supportive regarding my passion for music (mainly rap as I was growing up, then branching out into other electronic music)
I feel like whatever you could think of with a typical American dad would be him.
he did various jobs when I was really young, ones that didn't stick until I was about 7 (I'm guessing... and trying to remember that far back), until he got hired on with the fire department as a paramedic and stayed with them for multiple decades advancing into different positions
my stepfather is a pretty good guy, too - can't really complain - mild mannered professor/civil engineer (doctorate) then left his teaching position and started doing other stuff from designing computer programs for large corporations like Fluor, to working for government subcontracts for nuclear waste clean-up sites
I started butting heads with them more and more though (as is typical) when I got into my middle to late teens (I mean, there's normal teenage rebellion, and then there's the complications from undiagnosed nvld on top of that which contributed to it even more for various reasons)

they're both old as f*ck now though - dad is in a care home as of the last couple of years, and my stepfather is declining more and more mentally and physically (it's really disheartening - the rate of decline since I moved in with him and mom 5 or 6 months ago has been drastic)
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Yeah my gramps is going through that now. There's a cliff it feels like, for a lot of people. Just comes out of nowhere and is really fast and scary.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Did have the personality of a paramedic then? Was he cool under pressure? Why do you reckon it stuck?
 
0

0bleak

Well-known member
Mom just corrected me a few minutes ago because I brought it up to her since I was too young/it was too long ago for me to remember the specifics (we're talking about the late 70s here).
He actually first got hired as a fireman then took the test to become a paramedic, and even although ("according to him" she said), he got the highest scores on all of the tests from the cpr test (she also couldn't help but mention that she was also teaching cpr at the time and that's where she met my stepdad later on) to the IQ test, he was passed over for like a year until the next time, and that's when he became a paramedic.
She also reminded me that "it was so-and-so that I was working for at the health department that had actually just started that paramedic department because the city didn't have one for the fire departments before that time."

It's funny though that you ask though if he's cool under pressure, and maybe I never really noticed before when I was younger because it's just what I knew things to be like, but I noticed a few years ago when I moved back his city and started seeing him more often again, it seemed to me like he gets set off very easily. OTOH, I don't know if being easily set off doesn't mean you can't also be cool under pressure when it's needed.

I think one of the reasons it stuck was because that's where and when he met my soon-to-be stepmother who was also working there (!) at the time, and also a lot of the male camaraderie (I don't remember specifics, but I definitely remember my mom being bothered by their antics).
and then becoming a trusted figure and moving up in the ranks over time and taking on higher leadership positions in different stations in the city.
 
version

version

Well-known member
Dunno whether his style's clicked for me or whether it's just a better book, but much preferred Lud Heat to White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. He's less frustrating when you aren't expecting something resembling a story.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
I was living in Grays when Downriver came out and it did feel revolutionary- this arseend of the country getting some kind of literature. Scenes set in Tilbury pubs. A recognition that the Thames flowed past Essex and not just heritage towns out to the west of the city. The layers of violence mixed with heady esoteric knowledge (Mithras, Freemasons, Egyptology etc) all set against the triumphant Thatcherism - Isle of Dogs/Canary Wharf, rampant City macho capitalism made for exciting reading. With the benefit of hindsight it can be seen it’s a high wire act that is subject to the law of diminishing returns. I think his best book is probably Lights Out cos he strikes the balance - it’s probably his most readable book. Or Rodinsky which has the advantage of another, plainer writer to leaven the mix.
 
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