my life as a artist
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google nimrod
Saturday 22nd December 2007 10:25 PM
A nice man called John sent me an e-mail yesterday, saying that he'd tried to put a comment on Thursday's blog, and the comment had just disappeared into the ether. To let me know that this was an altruistic act of information-sharing, and not a complaint, he added that he felt no bitterness about the whole tawdry affair. Thank you John, for your generosity of spirit and steadfastness in the face of a recalcitrant blog.
In contrast, a nice man called Steve sent me an e-mail, saying the same thing, but adding that he thought the blog was awkward and wilful and was a bastard. Thank you Steve, for your fiery honesty and bloody-mindedness in the face of a recalcitrant blog. (I've forwarded you John's e-mail address and I think you should talk to him.)
I've also received a few non-judgemental phone calls, telling me about the same problem, so it looks like I'll have to go to the craggy highlands of North-west Scotland and see my internet providers, Kate and Sidney Pi. When they ask me what's wrong, I'll say 'no comment'.
However, despite the comment box problem, a few have got through. One was from myself, as a test, and rather splendidly, the validation word was 'sun'. Another was from the inhabitants of the fabled lost city of Beffel, a mysterious forgotten citadel of the mind, who's lofty towers pierce the swirling clouds of illusion, and look out onto the unbroken, blue truth of tribal memory. Rather like Shamballah, Beffel is a mythical place of the imagination, which some people believe may have an actual, physical location on the planet, possibly near Oswestry.
The comment tells of a Beffelian attempt to perk up the sun, and describes a successful act of sympathetic magic, wherein the young Minka, for it is she, draws a picture of a sun on a piece of paper, with the word 'please' written underneath it, and slips the paper under an ivy-covered log. I think this story illustrates the awesome and enduring power of simple good manners, and one wonders whether Alistair Crowley would have been more effective in his magical workings if he'd have said 'please' more often.
Hippy out of the Horn, or Hooth, as she has affectionately become known over the last few seconds, wants to know who Nimrod is. So do I. In the nineteen seventies there was an actor with pointy ears, who played Dr Spock on Star Trek, called Leonard Nimrod, but it's not him. To be honest, Hooth, I only included Nimrod because, somewhere on the internet, I came across a list of Gods whose birthday was the 25th December, and in a rather careless, cavalier fashion, assumed him to be of virgin birth.
Finding out exactly who Nimrod was, was fraught with difficulties. The first problem was that as soon as I'd decided to google Nimrod, for a few hours afterwards, I couldn't do anything else but say the words 'google Nimrod', to myself, over and over again. When I eventually got on the net I was met with a bewildering array of different stories. He was a Mesopotamian king, he was a dismembered and resurrected God, he was the arch-enemy of Abraham, and he was supposed to have built the tower of Babel. It didn't say anything about him being of virgin birth, but he sounded like quite a handy bloke. Honestly, check him out. Google Nimrod!
Posted 10:25 PM | 4 Comments | Permalink
come on sun, you can do it
Thursday 20th December 2007 11:52 PM
Sometimes the sun doesn't even get out of bed these days. It sleeps all night, and then during the day, sulks under a duvet of cloud, listening to Smith's records. It's started going to sleep halfway through the afternoon now, and I'm getting a bit worried about it. I think it might be depressed, or maybe even on drugs.
It's difficult to know what to do for the best. Suns, by their nature, always want to be the centre of attention, and are very strong willed, and once they get in a mood, they can be quite openly stubborn, and as we all know, can't be distracted by novelty.
I've talked it over with my landlord, Mark, who as a farmer should know about these things. He says that the one thing that always cheers them up is a blood sacrifice, and tomorrow, if I want, he could kill one of the beautiful white geese. I didn't feel comfortable with that, so I talked it over with the beautiful white geese, and they thought that given time, and left to its own devices, the sun would probably just snap out of it.
To my mind, Mark's idea is too pro-active, but on the other hand, I find the geese's attitude a bit laissez faire, so me, Jimmy the donkey and Molly the pony, have decided to involve the sun in a drama-therapy session tomorrow morning. We're going to do something based on 'It's a Wonderful Life', and encourage the sun to take the part of James Stewart, and, if he can find his motive, Jimmy the donkey is going to play Clarence the angel. I'm going to play the bridge and Molly the Shetland pony is going to be the river of attempted suicide and rebirth, and we might let some of the chickens be chickens.
Rather like the sun, I've been a man of small ambition this week .I've resisted the as-advertised-on-TV temptation of driving sixty miles down the M1 to the Meadowhall shopping centre, because it's a 'world of shoppertunity', and have instead been staying in bed, listening to Smith's records, and not sulking, but reflecting on the inordinate amount of birthdays coming up next week.
Apparently, on Tuesday, it's going to be the birthday of Jesus, Horus, Adonis, Bacchus, Mithras, Nimrod and Hercules. All of them were born of virgins, and in light of their subsequent achievements, it does beg the question, 'Do families need fathers?'
I expect they'll have a massive, full-on party in heaven, but if the sun's still on a downer, they're going to have to keep the noise down, otherwise there'll be hell on. Jesus is hilarious when he's had a few, so tomorrow morning, you can rest assured that me, Jimmy, Molly and the chickens are going to give it everything during our drama-therapy session. If Jimmy can genuinely discover Clarence the angel's motive, and I can stretch to being a bridge, then I honestly believe we can turn the sun around.
Posted 11:52 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
not so mellow capello fellow
Friday 14th December 2007 11:51 PM
If you're the sort of Rory blogwatcher, who in these times of rampant global injustice, finds it frustrating when I write about football, then I'm sorry, but I make no apologies about doing it again. Sorry. If you don't want to know the latest score on the England manager, then look away now, or if it's being read to you, stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'Na na na narny na' very loudly.
I predict that Fabio Capello's spell of management with England will be brief, and end in tears. His expressed admiration for General Franco, Hitler, the Yorkshire ripper and Davros, head of the Daleks, is a worrying sign. English footballers are about power and passion, and as only about three of them have got the level of technique that Fabio is used to working with, I think he'll struggle, and when he struggles I fear he'll resort to the tactics of his heroes, and start exterminating people.
The England manager's job is of massive symbolic importance to the psyche of the nation, especially in the lower chakras, and since they've given the job to an Italian, I feel sexually humiliated. After the flaccid impotence of Steve Maclaren, I was excited by the possibility of the moist vacancy being filled by a tumescent Harry Redknapp, or some other outstanding English member, but instead find myself being cuckolded by some Mediterranean, jut-jawed Mussolini-alike.
I don't want you to think there's any racism going on here. While I believe that sunshine and an olive oil-rich diet can lead to an excess of energy, that can easily become violent extremism, (as opposed to the mere grumpy stoicism that you get with rain and potatoes), it goes without saying that I think many Italians are absolutely gorgeous, including Gina Lollibrigida, Gianfranco Zola, 'thunder and lightning, very, very frightening' Galileo Galileo, and, of course, Garibaldi biscuits. I've also heard that Fabio's got two brothers, Coolio and Groovio, who are apparently a bit more laid-back than him.
Steve Coppel(o), as a choice, would have been fine with me. As first name on the team sheet for Manchester United and England for many seasons, he would have commanded the instant respect of the players, and I believe the fact that he's got the mannerisms, complexion and facial features of a tortoise, indicates a deep, underlying reptilian wisdom, that we haven't seen since the days of Alf Ramsey.
One other obvious candidate, who's English, and had success at international level, is Hope Kelly, the England women's team manager. She's certainly got more tactical nous than most, and, except for Kevin Keegan in his pomp, by far the curliest hair.
The English candidates have got so much to bring to the table. Stuart Pierce has got experience with the under-21's, passion and mad eyes, Sam Allardyce has got big jowels, Alan Curbishley's got a quizzical smile, Gareth Southgate's got a beautiful soul, Gary Megson's got ginger hair, a dog's got his bone in the alley, a cat's got nine lives, a millionaire's got a million dollars, King Saud's got 400 wives, and Alan Shearer's got a tell-tale dimple of determination on his chin, that tells me if he'd been offered the job, he'd have done really great. Steve Bruce, Ron Atkinson, Carlton Palmer, Sammy Lee. As Hovis Presley would have said, the end is listless.
Posted 11:51 PM | 1 Comments | Permalink
have you got a light?
Friday 14th December 2007 12:26 AM
My idea of a party these days is being in a room with more than two people and smoking cigarettes. C'mon everybody, let the good times roll! I fought and died in two world wars for this country, and during my time in the trenches, a cigarette was considered a beautiful thing, a small beacon of hope and comfort in that bleak, all-hating world. According to the press, we won both those wars, so why can't I have a fag with my celebratory pint?
My mate Steve, who's dissatisfied and from Yatesbury, was asked not to smoke when he was at Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain, in a force eight gale. I sometimes worry that the suffocating health and safety culture, as promoted by the increasingly authoritarian Whitehall hologramobots, diminishes the potential of human experience. Danger and risk should be welcomed into our lives, for they can often lead to innovation, solidarity, courage, and serious injury.
This morning, in the newsagent, Greg-behind-the-counter was looking particularly grave, the crumpled heaviness of his creased and furrowed frown in marked contrast to the sleek buoyancy of his perfect Anna Wintour power-bob. He said he'd seen this Plato film, about God throwing googlies on the wall with a torch, and had come to the conclusion that the material world was nothing but the shadow of the fourth dimension, and that all these newspapers he was selling, were by extension, nothing but the shadow of the shadow of the fourth dimension.
Even though I hadn't seen the film, I had to agree that most of the newspapers, and especially the tabloids, were distinctly lacking in substance. On the cover of The Star was a picture of a prone David Beckham, naked, except for a brief pair of tight underpants, underneath which he appeared to have a scrunched up Gary Neville. It was the shadow of the shadow of the shadow of the fourth dimension, and at that time in the morning, it was really horrid.
Celebrity bollocks is a deadly foe in the common persons struggle for identity, and me and Greg felt under attack. We both suddenly felt the need for the comfort of something sinuous and soothing, so we left the warm trench of the newsagent and went outside for a fag, into no-man's land.
Posted 12:26 AM | 1 Comments | Permalink
hello out there
Tuesday 11th December 2007 4:34 PM
Hello out there, or, bearing in mind that I'm beginning to suspect that outer-space is exactly the same place as inner-space, hello in there.
Did you know that human beings are generally the mean size of an atom and the sun? Alan Shearer mentioned it during a discussion of the Aston Villa, Portsmouth match on Match of the Day on Saturday night. Gary Lineker, who was expecting Alan to say something more along the lines of 'Benjani's done great there', seemed genuinely excited. Intimations of the underlying divine order behind existence seemed to suffuse the BBC studio with an air of renewed hope and understanding, and on this form, I'd say that Alan Shearer was a shoe-in for the post of England manager.
Further to the Linton Kwesi Johnson blog from last week, Linton's first response to 'was this poem written with irony?' was a low, growled, 'That is not my aesthetic.' This weeks 'Poetry through history' reverted to type, with an epic poem by Very Very Dryden about the fire of London. According to Very Very, it seems the king did everything semi-divinely possible to put out the flames, and that the ultimate culprit was the wind, which, rather suspiciously, came from Belgium.
On Friday evening I drove to Bollington in Cheshire to do a stand-up gig. The M62 at that time, in the rain, with a bit in the middle of the windscreen that my sub-standard wipers would only smear, was a true test of my warrior spirit. The concrete surgeons of the highways department were mine enemy, and as I turned south onto the M60, I felt that, as a malevolent foe, they were ever-vigilant. As far as I'm concerned, the A6 is a big, important road, and if I'd built the M60, when I crossed over it, I'd have said something. As it was, I had to intuit. When things started to feel really 'A sixy', I took the next exit, and ended up in a place called 'Edgely', which, according to my AA book of the road, didn't exist, and was in fact, just a play on words.
However, Bollington, which really puts the ling in Bolton, found me. I got the gig via Agraman, the human anagram, who only books me into places where he feels the audience would be willing to put up with my pleasantness. I got an encore, and they seemed to like it all, except for one line. I was explaining about the roots of words, and how 'education' is taken from the Latin, 'educare', and means 'to be bored in an under-ventilated room'. They laughed at that, but when I followed it up with, 'if you say it three times, it means 'I'm going to spend all the money on bombs', there was complete silence, which being the sound of no-hands clapping, had a certain zen quality to it. All I could say was, 'just me then', and move swiftly on to a posh knob-gag.
After the gig I was explaining to the compere, Dynamite Dave, that twenty years ago the comedy circuit had a bit more edge. 'Yes', said Dave, 'but it's different these days, there's nothing to protest about, is there?' Dynamite, Dave, dynamite.
Posted 4:34 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
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