my life as a artist
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room for swinging cats
Sunday 27th April 2008 12:27 AM
On Wednesday I moved into my new caravan of dreams, where the climate is milder, with sunny toilet and occasional shower. It's taller, wider and longer, and instead of feeling like I'm living in a cleft in the Ganges Valley, the extra two-foot in width seems to make the front room stretch out like the plains of Rajasthan. Sometimes I have to get nomads with camels to go and close the curtains.
Jimmy the donkey, Molly the pony, the chickens, and rather touchingly, some of the rabbits, have clubbed together and bought me some hard-wearing, dark-blue, kitchen carpet tiles from B&Q. They're essentially made of oil, but as they're a gift from the natural world and imbued with loving intent, to me they feel like washable, warm turf.
Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen is a keen chicken-fancier, and last week came round to cast his experienced eye over, and possibly handle, Mark's silkies. While they were in the yard, I tempted him in with some of my mum's ginger and lemon biscuits, to see if I could get any free interior design tips.
He said that with the bluebirds-in-a-magnolia-forest curtains that Marks mum was throwing out, and my mum's bamboo coffee table, I should go for an oriental theme, but with more woodchip. He was really friendly, and because he was covered in chicken shit and feathers, didn't seem as posh or puffy as he does on the telly.
Lawrence agreed with me that it's vulgar to have a television in the front room, so I've put it in the bedroom, in a corner, in a yashmak. Soon, its shining face will be unveiled, and in the achingly tender voice of John Motson, it will speak to me of Chelsea versus Man United, and other ties. I heard on the news that Man United lost, even though Mark Lawrenson, (son of Mark and Lawrence?) says they've got unbelievable belief.
Posted 12:27 AM | 2 Comments | Permalink
our house
Saturday 19th April 2008 10:12 PM
I'm really sorry I've not been here for you these last two weeks. I've been working like an Etruscan. (Greg-with-the-Anna-Wintour power-bob at the newsagent says that Trojans are actually quite lazy) I've been refurbishing my new home, and have become lost in the gloss and the monomaniacal mist of midnight magnolia.
I know you're feeling neglected, but I'm doing this thing for both of us. Let's face it, things haven't been that great between us recently, sometimes we don't get it on for a week at a time and more. I know it takes twenty thousand a month and one to tango, but I blame myself.
I feel sure that when we move into the new caravan (with flushing toilet and snooker room), I'll feel less hemmed in and freer to express myself. I think you'll like it too. You'll have noticed that I've painted the lap-top in magnolia, and white-glossed the 3G data-card, and I've been thinking of doing the screen border in woodchip. When it comes to decorating, cyber-space is so mind-numbingly enormous and complex, that not only does woodchip hide a multitude of sins, it makes it look a bit cottagey as well.
I've still got to put some carpets down, and there's some glossing to do in the hall, bedroom and keyboard, but I reckon we could be in by next week. Can I go and watch Match of the Day now, please?
Posted 10:12 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
relatively bigger
Monday 7th April 2008 10:47 PM
When I was younger, I used to take life by the scruff of the neck, shake it like a terrier with a rabbit, and say 'Grrr!
A few years ago, life got in touch with me and said 'Can you stop doing that?'
This weekend, my eldest brother Nick got married in Portsmouth, to an exotic African love-nymph called Pam, but I couldn't be there because I was exhibition-sitting in York, so instead I sent a poem to be read by sister, Rachael, an exotic Yorkshire love-nymph and 'best man'
POEM TO OUR NICK.
You were relatively much bigger,
When we were little shoots,
A sort of authority figure,
We called you bossy boots.
In retrospect, t'was kindness,
You were only showing care,
In your red-checked hipsters,
That made you look like Rupert Bear.
When you became a hippy,
Then you were much less scary,
Everything was trippy,
And you were very hairy,
You thought you'd found your inner feminine,
We thought you were a fairy,
But at least you changed your trousers,
And looked less Rupert Beary.
Everyone had a magical day, Portsmouth got to the FA cup final, and the day after the wedding they woke up to two inches of snow, such a rare occurrence in Portsmouth, the last time it happened the local newspaper headline was 'WHITE HELL.'
Posted 10:47 PM | 9 Comments | Permalink
dreaming of a white easter
Wednesday 26th March 2008 12:03 AM
On Good Friday the Corinthians celebrated, and at the same time illustrated the reasons behind, Vic's imminent departure to Australia, by playing a game of football in outrageous arctic conditions. Our hail-stung flesh singing, eyes creased against the icy blast, we trudged across the endless frozen wastes of that polar nightmare. The last I saw of Derek was when he said he was going up for a corner, and that he might be some time.
On Wholly Saturday I did a gig at the Winning Post with the fabulous Travelling Libraries. The as-advertised 'free raffle with disappointing prizes' went much better than I expected, with the prizes turning out to be surprisingly exciting and desirable. Fourth prize was a battery-operated, three-inch diameter disco ball and a bar of Swiss chocolate.
'If that's fourth prize, what the hell's going to be first prize?' I could hear the audience thinking. Third prize was a book called 'Psychic Warrior', the true story of the CIA's paranormal espionage programme, and a swede, which I claimed was the head of the programme. Second prize was a cafetiere, courtesy of my mum's magic cupboard, complete with a small sachet of 'Dewy Egbert' coffee, and another bar of silky smooth, seventy per cent, mm, it's really lovely, Swiss chocolate.
After presenting the second prize to a nice man, who I honestly felt would honour the chocolate and cherish the cafetiere, I showed the audience the first prize, which was twelve of my mum's biscuits, six almond and lemon, six chocolate chip, presented in a daringly see-through, crush-proof plastic carton. The tension in the room was palpable, but unfortunately, I didn't have a palp. As arranged, my sister, Rachael, won the biscuits, and we met up later at a motorway service station, and she gave me them back.
On Sunday I got Mark the farmer to put a huge boulder in front of the caravan door, and stayed in bed all day, doing crosswords. On Monday morning he rolled away the stone, and I rose again, and went unto the newsagent, to buy a Guardian. Although the mystery of Golgotha hung in the air, Greg-behind-the-counter was still keen to know if I'd had sex the previous night.
Posted 12:03 AM | 5 Comments | Permalink
street life
Monday 17th March 2008 6:45 PM
Two years ago, James Street was a dead-end street. He was going nowhere, except to some death-grey industrial units, and the council tip. He wanted to go to Layerthorpe, but couldn't be arsed, so instead, he petered out onto a concrete, grass-scabbed wasteland, boarded off with pale ginger chipboard, and sulked.
James Street was scruffy, lonely and unlived in, and because of his disability, was shunned, and sometimes abused, by the other roads and streets in the area. Even the cycle-path turned her nose up at him. He'd tried getting some traffic lights at his junction with the Hull Road, and he'd had his tip modernised, but he still felt inadequate and alone. Maybe he should change his name to Jim and grow a moustache?
One day last spring, I collected all the broken dreams and useless fantasies from my secret shed, put them in the back of the Mazda, and decided to take them to the council tip. When I turned into James Street, I was amazed to see that at the bottom, in place of the usual chipboard amputation scar, there was now a long, flowing, new limb of fresh tarmac, stretching out towards undreamt of vistas, and Layerthorpe.
It was all so thrillingly disorientating that instead of turning off to the tip, I found myself, and all my broken dreams, driving down this strange new road, on a journey whose destination was deliciously unknown. I was drunk on wonder, and if there was such a thing as a spiritual breathalyser, I could have been arrested for driving while under the influence of mystery. Through the warp and weft of existence we rode that rebel thread, until, in a tumultuous fusion of ending and beginning, we spliced into the silken continuity of Hallfield Road, just off Layerthorpe.
What incentive, I wondered, could James Street have had to make such a remarkable transformation? What primal urge could have enthused such a dowdy, dead-end street to suddenly, and magically, blossom forth like a Glastonbury thorn? A few months later I had my answer, when huge billboards appeared on the old wasteland, announcing the arrival of a new wasteland, in the form of a giant Morrison's superstore.
In the years before he started up in the super-market business, Jim Morrison used to sing in a band called The Doors, and I distinctly remember him at the time, urging us to 'break on through to the other side'. If I'd have known he was talking about going shopping, I suspect I would have been less inclined to dabble in drugs.
Despite my disappointment with the gross commercialisation of the music biz, myself and the Travelling Libraries are still going to charge people five pounds to watch us perform at The Winning Post, on the Bishopthorpe Road, York, this coming Saturday, at 8:30pm.
With it being Easter Saturday, I thought it'd be a fitting time to resurrect the band. Chip Phatt'll be on bass, Ry Veeter on lead guitar, Bryn the Welsh wizard on dwarf clarinet, fiddle, accordion and sleigh-bells, and yours truly on vocals, guitar, harmonica and air Hammond organ. There'll be a free raffle with disappointing prizes, and hopefully a couple of new songs, including 'Fulford Prison Blues'. Be there or be oblong.
Posted 6:45 PM | 8 Comments | Permalink
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