my life as a artist
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hands that do dishes can feel soft as your face
Saturday 23rd February 2008 10:11 PM
I've always found that the finger of Fate, though fickle, can often be quite helpful, in a prodding, pointing sort of way, whereas the hand of Fate only seems to be interested in dealing blows. I think this is because Fate is still really upset at only having one hand, having lost the other, a few years ago, in a really bad hand-accident. When Fate uses her finger, because she's got a choice, she feels more empowered and at ease with herself, and doesn't tend to lash out as much.
Last week I invited Fate round for a meal in the caravan, along with Destiny, Justice and Deliverance. I'm a bit sensitive about my porta-potti, so these days all my dinner guests tend to be non-corporeal archetypes, because they don't go to the toilet.
I noticed that Destiny only had one hand as well, but seemed to be much more relaxed about the whole thing (and dealt with the peas better, as well). Justice was late, as usual, and at one point we thought she was never coming. To pass the time, Deliverance played us a few hill-billy tunes on the banjo.
Archetypes can sometimes get a bit lofty, and I like to think that it did Fate good, to share a simple meal with a lowly poet, in a humble, but filthy, caravan. It's often said that if the finger of Fate is ever going to penetrate the sticky fundament of mystery, it has to be dipped in the milk of human kindness first.
Interestingly, a lot of non-corporeal archetypes are keen Huddersfield Town fans, and there was fierce competition over the 'Andy Booth; Legend' mug when it came round to coffee-time. We discussed last weeks disappointing F.A. cup result against Chelsea Ltd. Fate and Destiny were actually at the game, but Deliverance and Justice couldn't get a ticket.
Posted 10:11 PM | 8 Comments | Permalink
save the babies
Thursday 14th February 2008 6:39 PM
Whilst out shopping for cheap nuts at Jacksons Insanesbury's, I met a man in the queue who gave me a leisure tip.
'You've got to get play-station three, it's fuckin' awesome! On one of 'em, I was a sort of Knights Templar, on mi way to Jerusalem, and I went through this desert, and I was on this fuckin' horse for an hour! Then there was this time machine thing, and I pressed the button and I was in fuckin' York! It was 1951, and I was walking down Micklegate, holding this fuck-off big machine gun, and there were cunts coming at me from all directions, tooled up to fuck they were, it was fuckin' awesome! I've been right into it! I played on it all this morning, and this afternoon, when I was at the hospital waiting for an appointment, every time a doctor walked passed, I found myself wondering how I could fuckin' 'ave 'em, without anyone seeing me!'
'Do they do a vegetarian version?'
'There's a button you can press for blood or no blood, so yes, I suppose so'.
On Question Time, on Radio 4, this weekend, they were talking about how the literacy rate in Finland is higher than in Britain, despite the fact that they don't learn to read or write until they're seven. Rudolph Steiner, educationalist, mystic, and guardian of the threshold (goalkeeper) for Bayern Munich, says that for under-sevens, word-learning is a hard frost on the natural flowering of the imagination.
Imagination is the true source of a nations wealth, but unfortunately, due to it being a loving act of creative will, is an alien concept to most politicians. In the Guardian I read that the government, featuring the fabulous Golden Brown and the Miligrams, are introducing mandatory computer skills for children over the age of twenty-two months. That should learn 'em!
Posted 6:39 PM | 6 Comments | Permalink
rock on
Tuesday 5th February 2008 10:50 PM
I've just been on the phone to 'The Winning Post', trying to arrange a date for me and the Travelling Libraries to play a gig in March, and by a process of elimination, geomancy, date synchronisation and sheer fancy, have come up with the twenty second. It's Easter Saturday, it's the cusp between Pisces and Aries, and it was the only available date.
To a vegetarian transcendentalist like myself, such pro-activity can often feel like an act of aggression, so before I made the phone call, I ate a large slab of fresh tofu, and poked the eyes out of some organic Maris Pipers. (They were looking at me, OK?)
Having brutally manipulated the future, I rang round the band to confess, and, as usual, Brin the bass player took it the hardest. He's a committed vague'un, (a pure edgetarian, that doesn't do diary products) and the sheer specificity of it all shocked him. However, the trauma of having a horribly scarred calendar, didn't stop him from opining on the true nature of rock'n'roll.
He believes it's a hormonal thing, and questions whether a band with an average age of fifty-eight can really lay claim to being 'rock'n'roll'. After watching a Captainless, Captain Beefheart's Magic Band play, three years ago at Glastonbury, I believe they can. In light of the rejuvenating promise of the projected 2012 paradigm shift, I think that fifty-eight is the new eighteen, and that given encouragement, nearly half of the Travelling Libraries could still be capable of performing the sexual act, and nearly all of them of half-performing it.
Obviously, we're not as physically vigorous as we were forty years ago, when we we're a boy band, but we've adapted. Instead of doing the usual two, forty minute sets, we tend to do four twenties, so we can have more wee-breaks, and last week I got a stannah amp-lift. (My niece bought it me from Fender, you know!) Those same forty years that cursed us with incontinence and thick carpets of ear-hair, however, have also given us loads of time to spend in our bedrooms, where we've learned the technical expertise necessary to explore the many varied rooms of rock'n'roll's mysterious mansion. Our lead guitarist, Ry Veeter, has even been inside the walled garden, and had a look in the potting sheds.
Rock'n'roll, at it's best, should be performed by the possessed, for the dispossessed, and should oppress the comfortable, and comfort the oppressed, and though musical expertise is certainly no barrier to these things, neither is it essential, and in the idealistic world of rock'n'roll, it cannot be denied that the artless innocence of youth has a special power all of it's own.
I remember going to a gig twenty years ago, in a village hall in the Dordogne region of South-West France. The band had an average age of fourteen, and the sparse audience seemed to consist mainly of their parents and grandparents. The lead singer was a scrawny, mini-Tom Verlaine-type, with a skinny black tie and a huge, floppy, greasy fringe that diagonally obscured half of his spotty, feral face. The music was fast, raw and angry, and ran round the room like a scalded cat.
The listening public, who looked like the sorts you see in paintings of failed potato harvests, were surprisingly receptive, despite the lack of melodious accordions. It might have been pride and blood-loyalty, but they watched the band with a delighted, reverent attention. In a nod of respect towards the roots of punk, the lead singer would occasionally sing a line in English, which I suspect none of the audience understood. What else could explain the contented twinkle in a granny's eye, as she observes her 'petit chou-chou' lean towards the microphone, push his lank hair out of his eyes, and in a high-pitched, unbroken voice, half spit, and half yell,
'I wanna drink! I wanna smoke! I wanna fuck you! I wanna die!'
Posted 10:50 PM | 5 Comments | Permalink
a bridge too far
Thursday 31st January 2008 12:03 AM
Just a quick word to all the stone-hearted tyrants out there, who trade in death and lies. Just because I'm writing about football again, it doesn't mean that I haven't got my eye on you, OK?
A couple of years ago, when Huddersfield Town got drawn away to Chelsea in the third round of the FA cup, I wrote a poem reflecting on the contrasting wealth of the two clubs. Nothing much has changed in the meantime, and bearing in mind that most of my poems deal with eternal verities, I thought I'd wheel it out again, in anticipation of the same fixture in this years FA cup fifth round.
I would have preferred Town to have been drawn at home, in a winnable tie against a championship team, or one of the flakier premiership sides, but as any away draw, at this stage of the competition, is bound to be a difficult one, it might as well be a lucrative one.
Two years ago, Town earned £300,000 from the tie, and a similar sum this time would maybe enable us to strengthen the squad. At today's prices, we could probably buy the small piece of gristle from Michael Owen's last knee operation.
John Terry, the Chelsea captain, is renowned for his work-rate. He earns in one week, what I earn in one decade. That's some work-rate.
When it's Chelsea versus Huddersfield,
It's not just wealthy versus down at heel,
It's a fantasy against the oh so real.
It's dinner at the Ritz versus a fish supper,
It's Lord Snooty and his pals versus Alf Tupper,
It's a Starbucks triple latte versus a nice cuppa.
It's Sainsbury's versus the corner shop,
It's Stringfellows versus the high school bop,
It's pink champagne versus a bottle of pop.
It's world-wide removals versus man and a van,
It's the internet versus a string and two cans,
It's America versus Afghanistan.
It's world war three versus a bit of a barney,
It's the global arms machine versus Dad's Army,
It's pain au jambon versus a ham sarnie.
It's the bright lights versus love in the dark,
It's a raging inferno versus a bit of a spark,
It's a Wembley cup final versus a kick in the park,
It's Ricardo Carvalho versus Tom Clark.
So it's not just wealthy versus down at heel,
It's a fantasy against the oh so real,
It's Chelsea versus Huddersfield, nil.
Posted 12:03 AM | 8 Comments | Permalink
no success like failure
Sunday 27th January 2008 10:57 PM
This morning the Corinthians lost 2-0 to Leeds Independents, on an all-weather pitch at Oaklands sports centre. I think it was the plastic pitch that was the problem. Most of the Corinthians are descendants of warrior gods, whose super-human powers rely on direct contact with the vital terrestrial energies of the earth, so when we play on plastic we tend to be a bit crap.
I'm descended from Odin, on my Mums side, and have inherited his ability to inspire frenzy amongst my fellow warriors, by the use of poetry. In recent times, and especially against Pocklington, I've seen one of my well-placed, stirring stanzas send Bob and Derek into an orgy of robbie savagery, but this morning I just wasn't on it. Even though I was substituted for twenty minutes in order to compose it, my half-time sonnet was hackneyed and listless, and rather than winding Bob and Derek up into coiled springs of fearless aggression, it just seemed to leave them in a state of torpid angst.
The etheric love-milk that nourishes this sort of poetry is suckled from the million green nipples of grass that grace a proper football pitch's velvet bosom, and this morning was like trying to breast-feed through a polyester blouse. Hopefully, our soggy tit of a home pitch will have dried out by next week. Brian, who's related to the ancient Persian warrior god Verethragna, on his Dad's side, reckons there's a goods chance.
Posted 10:57 PM | 4 Comments | Permalink
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