my life as a artist
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does ghetto blaster make glasto better?
Monday 5th May 2008 10:38 PM
On the announcement that Jay Z, the 'rags to bitches', hip-hop super-star, is going to headline the Glastonbury festival, Noel Gallagher says;
'I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong.'
Noel, who also 'slams City's sacking of Sven', goes on to say that the festival has a long history of miserable white blokes playing guitar-based songs with unfeasibly long anthemic choruses.
The last time I bothered making the trek to the pyramid stage was in 1961, to see Pearl and Teddy Carr, so it's unlikely that I'll get to see the Jay Z gig. Except for Iced Tea, 10 cent and Snoopy the Dog, my knowledge of the hip-hop scene is sketchy, so I thought I'd check out some of Jay Z's lyrics on the internet.
There could be layers of irony that I'm not getting here, but he mainly talks about what an all-round brilliant bloke he thinks he is. He tells us that he's the best rapper and really hard, and that he's immensely wealthy and gets plenty of sausage action. I suspect that this delusory self-celebration masks a chronic insecurity, and it wouldn't surprise me if he holds onto his willy when he sings.
A lot of Jay's pain comes from a difficult childhood spent on the mean streets of Brooklyn, where he was set apart from his peers by a state of extreme poverty. While the other kids were running around in the latest fashionable trainers, Mr and Mrs Z were so poor that the young Jay had to suffer the embarrassment of 'hangin in the hood' in a pair of Kermit the frog wellington boots. A muddy Glastonbury could offer Jay the chance of healing.
This time when he slips on a pair of wellies, it'll be an act of inclusivity, and maybe, for the first time in his life, he'll be able to experience the practicality and comfort, and that indefinable sense of impermeable nurture, that only rubberised footwear can bring. When I wear wellies, I feel held and protected, and it gives me an almost godlike inner strength, where I feel that I could heal the sick and walk through water.
if it's dry and not a drip-drop
you'll hear the sound of clip-clop
that's the slapping of my flip-flop
as I'm dancing to some hip-hop
by a bloke who thinks he's tip-top
but should be working in a chip-shop
Posted 10:38 PM | 4 Comments | Permalink
looking for a sign
Tuesday 29th April 2008 11:03 PM
It's Monday evening, and I'm enjoying the trance-like after-effects that you get when you drink a particularly perky cup of orange pekoe, china rose petal tea, and listen to Money Box Live. Seeking something to write about, and aghast at the sheer multiplicity of things, I decide to consult radio 4 as a five second oracle. I briefly consider consulting radio 5 as a four second oracle, because it's a sort of joke, and then go back to the original plan. It's a woman's voice speaking calmly but firmly.
'You just have to tell them what happened. They're going to be a bit disorientated….'
So I'm telling you what happened, and if my divinatory powers of radiomancy are still functioning, then I imagine you must be feeling a bit vague and directionless. Don't worry, me too. I like to think of it as a place of all possibilities.
I decide to go to today's magic validation word for inspiration, so I click on home page, go to 'my life as a artist', scroll down, click on comments, eat six oatcakes, covered in tahini and honey, because it feels nice against my skin, scroll down, past the comments to the magic validation word… and…. the magic validation word is…. 'word'. When the world becomes tight-lipped and inscrutable like that, I often think it's best just to go to bed, so I did.
It's Tuesday evening, and I'm enjoying the after-effects of unused adrenalin, pumped and clotted during the heart-congealing hour and a half of the Man United versus Barcelona game. In the last ten minutes, I tried to medicate myself with one of the 'magi-cigs' that my mum bought me at the car-boot sale last week, and I must say, it tasted really spicy, and I could really feel it doing me good.
'The game was a living painting, and on the crowd-framed canvas of the pitch, artists of different schools splashed and crafted their myriad styles, passion and technique fused in a fabulous flurry of physical paint', Rio Ferdinand said afterwards. Ronaldo's rococo swirls, (possibly Lisbon's most popular breakfast cereal), were in impudent contrast to the elegant functionality of Art Deco. To be honest, during the last-ten-minutes, I lost my focus a bit, and it just ended up all Brown and Messi.
Posted 11:03 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
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
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