my life as a artist
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a spot of bother
Friday 13th July 2007 3:44 PM
Here are some reasons why, on Wednesday night, I didn't deliver a self-indulgent, bridge-burning diatribe against the BBC.
a) I've calmed down a bit. One of the old English bantams has been unusually affectionate towards me this last week, and for the first time in my life, I've begun to experience the redemptive power and healing grace that you can get from the love of a good chicken.
b) On the morning after my no-show on the radio, I woke up with a small spot in the middle of my chest, right above my heart chakra. Over the next two weeks the spot grew, until it became a livid red Glastonbury Tor, rising from the misty chest-hairs of my off-beige Avalon chest. I got Pat to dowse it, and she discovered that it was situated on the path of my body's most important ley-line, that runs from my penis, through my navel, nose and brow chakra, over my head and down my spine, and finishes at the label on the back of my Marks and Spencer's underpants. I call it the St. Michael line.
Last Wednesday night, as I was staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor, ready to launch my blog of wrath, my eyes were magically drawn to my little Glastonbury Tor, nestling in the valley of my unbuttoned shirt. Wishing to trace the mystical contours of its subtle labyrinth, I went to touch it with my finger, and as I did so, the yellow St. Michaels tower on the top blew off, and there was a tor-flattening eruption of unspeakable white stuff. (Apologies to anyone currently eating a walnut whip)
Dear reader, that pus was my anger! Now that it wasn't inside me, all I had to do was wipe it off with a tissue, dab the wound with the tea-tree oil of forgiveness, and I'd be free from its destructive poison. So I did and I was.
c) The respectfully full and frank apology that I received from the BBC on Wednesday morning, while not being as overtly fulfilling as the love of a good chicken, or as prophetically symbolic as the bursting of a big spot, was nevertheless the main reason behind my change of heart.
So there you have it, my faithful blog-follower. There'll be no ugly outpourings of impotent rage going on in this blog, thank you very much. Neither will it continue to be written in the style of an e-novel, with pulsating narrative and unbearably tense cliff-hangers. Or will it? Don't miss next week's wordtastic blog, here, at rorymotion.com! ( Now with added ammonium lauryl sulphate, to bring out the Goddess in you!)
Posted 3:44 PM | 1 Comments | Permalink
eat my blog
Thursday 12th July 2007 12:34 AM
Dear hungry blog-eater,
Before you try and touch me with your tasting tongue, or put me in your mouth and mash me with your mind's molars, or just swallow me whole, without bread and butter, consider this. While all the ingredients of these blogs are home-grown and organic, many of them are unwashed, and you may find them dirty or gritty sometimes. That's farming today, I'm afraid.
Truth is the brown rice of any balanced blog. Cultural insights and clever wordplay may be pumpkins and beans, and witty one liners could be lime and chilli pickle, but without truth we can't go to the toilet the next day. When I cook truth for a blog, I always make too much, because I know that if I leave it in the fridge, I can go back to it a few days later, and it'll still be true.
Today's truth is special, it's basmati. I'm serving it to you as a love offering. It's my way of saying, 'You're more to me than just a tall, pixillated blue tower on a webstat graph.'
When I started blogging in January, to be honest, you were a funny looking little thing. You were small and squat and actually wider than you were tall. However, in March and April, your stocky, blue body grew strong and you became taller than the beige tower. (I don't know who that is, but don't worry, you're taller than them). In May, fed by the fabulous pumpkins of spring fever, you trebled in size, and on mid-summers day, you stood before me, a bright-eyed, handsome, tall, pixellated blue tower on a webstat graph, and I was proud of you!
However, in the last two weeks of June, while hitting the road in a loving way, I abandoned you. Caught up in the selfish solipsism of showbiz, I left you to your own devices, deserted you, neglected you. The next time I saw you, I'd swear you'd shrunk. I don't know who you'd been hanging out with, but your trousers were torn, your complexion wasn't good and I could see you'd been fighting. I'm not completely sure, but I think you were on drugs as well.
Since then I've been trying to feed you up, by including extra protein, in the form of cliff-hangers and memories of Stingray, and I'm glad to say you're nearly back to your old self again. This intense catering has, however, not been without considerable cost to myself. I feel a blog should be of the day and complete within itself, whereas for the last two weeks it feels as though I've been writing an e-novel. All that narrative and connecty bits… it's doin' me 'ead in.
At the end of the latest chapter of my latest e-novel, 'On t'road',I was in a remote Welsh cottage with my friend Pat, about to listen to myself on radio 4, in a recording from the Glastonbury Festival. To create a bit of bearable tension, I said that I didn't think it would be very good.
As it happened, the programme wasn't very funny at all. The fact that I'd been edited out and replaced with another comedian, and nobody had told me, didn't raise much of a chuckle either. The next chapter of the e-novel was, at some point, going to veer off the narrative, and I was going to deliver a self-indulgent, bridge-burning diatribe against Radio 4.
However, while listening to the Archers, I decided not to, for various reasons. What are those reasons? Are they valid? Find out soon, here, at the new, different, fresh, organic, cybertastic, rorymotion.com! Now with added meaning!
Posted 12:34 AM | 4 Comments | Permalink
life in a welsh sitting room
Tuesday 10th July 2007 12:09 AM
Pat's small cottage was built in 1600 BC on the site of a Neolithic Rayburn. The solid dry warmth afforded by its wise old stones was in marked contrast to the weekend's sodden misery of mud-flapping canvas. After the swirling cacophony and bowel-wrenching bass cabinets of Glastonbury, the songbird-speckled silence of the place was sweet balm indeed. In the afternoon we walked along the Kerry Ridge and looked out over the roof of Wales, which was leaking.
The First Wednesday after Glastonbury is traditionally celebrated by the Cleaning of the Wellies, when thousands of well-slept and freshly washed festival-goers go out into their gardens and chip the dried mud off their wellies with a golden toffee-hammer. Sometimes pieces of the dried mud are wrapped in clingfilm, and sold as cannabis at the next festival.
This year, comfortingly, the First Wednesday after Glastonbury fell on a Wednesday. Due to the complete absence of anything remotely resembling mud-baking sun, I washed my wellies down with a golden hose-pipe. Feeling partly shriven, I discussed with Pat the potential karma I'd accrued in the act of taking the sign to Beguildy. We decided we could either put it down to experience or put it on e-bay.
Refreshed and healed by the freely-given natural remedies of Mother Earth, we now considered the benefits of human civilisation from a more generous viewpoint, how the brutal concrete alienation of the city can sometimes cause such friction in an individual, that they become illuminated with a creative fire that can make them a beacon of hope for others. Lulled into bovine contentment by the sirens of bucolic bliss, we knew it was time, once more, to re-engage in the search for holy conflagration, to face the screaming banshees of a pre-apocalyptic urban hell, so we drove into Clun to buy a Guardian.
We went into a little café and shared a pot of Earl Grey and a large slice of carrot cake. (it looked nicer than the Brussels sprout cake) Then we went to the Spar shop and bought some thin-cut orange marmalade and a bottle of soy sauce. After about forty-five minutes, we both noticed that we were becoming illuminated with a creative fire, and being beacons of hope for others, so we went home.
The news section of the Guardian was filled with tragic stories of suffering, injustice and routine atrocity, so we were quite glad when we got to the crossword on the inside back page. I find cryptic crosswords are a bridge to happiness. They get one across without getting too down.
In the papers 'what's on' section we saw that the radio programme I'd recorded at the festival was featured in pick of the day. It said '11pm. Radio 4. Comedy recorded at the Glastonbury festival , featuring Canadian stand-up Phil Nicholl, performance poet Rory Motion, Janey Godley, Sean Hughes and Ed Byrne.'
It was nice to get a two word description, although it did go on a bit. My memory of the gig was one of tepid joylessness for all concerned, and I wasn't sure I was looking forward to hearing it…
Posted 12:09 AM | 4 Comments | Permalink
it furthers one to cross the great water
Saturday 7th July 2007 5:20 PM
So, the black Mazda is being swallowed by four and a half million fluid ounces of floodwater and I'm lustily singing the theme tune to Stingray, but it's not doing any good. Like the Mazda's screaming engine my mind is racing. What would Troy Tempest do? If only Marina was here! I remember her so well. She was like Brigitte Bardot with gills.
Then suddenly, in a flash, all of a sudden, out of the blue, with no warning, something happened really quickly. Gradually, slowly, bit by bit, imperceptibly at the beginning but quite a lot towards the end, it began to dawn on me that I was evoking the wrong craft! I thought Stingray could go underwater, on land and in the air, but I was wrong. Stingray was only a submarine. Admittedly, it was a fantastic submarine, but it was only a submarine. By evoking it I had unwittingly been encouraging the Mazda towards total submersion, in its understandable search for elemental self-expression.
Supercar! Of course! That's what was needed! Supercar could travel underwater, on land and in the air! I sang. 'Der, der, der, der, der, der, der, der, dum, di, di, der!' It was as though my mind was a ten-inch flat-pressed disc of vinyl with the theme tune from Supercar engraved on it, it's inward spiral only awaiting the stylus of active memory. I knew then that I was Mike Mercury, and if I was going to survive, I had to let my inner-Doctor Beaker take over.
The effects of my heartfelt singing were almost instantaneous. The tyres of the Supercar Mazda started to grip on solid earth, and as she regained a sense of direction and purpose, the thin band of light at the top of the windscreen started to broaden. Although I was missing the dreamy sensual elegance of Marina, it felt more appropriate to be in the practical hands of my inner-Doctor Beaker.
Soon the Mazda's breathless bumper was breaking into light, and while it's grinning radiator grill was greedily and gratefully gulping the cooling air of the late Mid-Wales afternoon, its side-panels were shining like the flanks of a new-born foal. Giddy with the gift of new life, we climbed the steep valley side, zig-zag wanderers moving towards a new future and Betys-y-crwn, (Betsy Croon), both of us yearning for a cup of tea and a gentle rub-down with a genuine chamois leather. As we reached the brow of the hill I could see Pat's cottage, squatting defiantly against the rain, just over the next rise. The lights were on and her car was there!
Later that evening, in front of a roaring log fire, I told Pat all about our traumatic journey, and as the third cup of Lapsang souchong gurgled into the Mazda's radiator, and my aching body thrilled to the touch of genuine chamois leather, we both agreed that I shouldn't have taken the sign to Beguildy.
Posted 5:20 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
when the boat comes in
Friday 6th July 2007 1:11 AM
First of all, I'd like to express my appreciation to Barbara Cartland for her elegant comments, subsequent to Tuesdays blog. Thank you Ma'am! Clive James once said your eyes looked like two crows that had flown into the white cliffs of Dover.
Tuesday's blog, entitled 'Wales is a small country, roughly the size of Wales', was unusual, in that it finished on a cliff-hanger. ( the fact that 'cliff' has been mentioned twice now, unrelatedly, and in two consecutive sentences, is not meant to imply a theme or sub-text. It's sheer chance). In a postscript to this tense, thrilling and unlogoffable blog, I promised some sort of revelation, to be posted today. It was a rash and foolish thing to do, and I regret it. With all the crosswords and pottering I have to do, I've got enough pressure in my life already.
Imagine, if you will, that I'm Charles Dickens, cyber-space is the Atlantic ocean, and you're waiting at Tilbury docks, with jellied eels and rickets, for the next instalment-bearing liner. Well, my loyal yet cruelly betrayed reader, that instalment-bearing liner's not coming in tonight, because it's been boarded, mid-Azores, by a bunch of morally ambiguous pirates, led by Johnny Depp. These mysterious, marine vagabonds are in this case analogous to those life- events that hi-jack the smooth running of things.
Keira Knightly, who is my will-power, is going to try and persuade Johnny Depp to let the boat continue to Tilbury. Although initially repulsed by his personal hygiene and confused as to his moral status, she's developing a powerful erotic kinship with him, and I expect them to have sex by the weekend, in which case the instalment-ship-metaphor should be sailing in on Saturday/ Sunday. Until then, from me, standing on the poop, avast behind to you all!
Posted 1:11 AM | 3 Comments | Permalink
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