my life as a artist
| Calendar |
|---|
You are viewing the archive, containing all posts older than 12 day(s). To return to the front page, click here.
Bishopthorpe Social Club
Friday 7th December 2007 12:11 PM
Thanks to the media savvy of the fabulous Tom, here's a few extracts from me and the Travelling Libraries, (Mike and Brin) ,at last night's gig at Bishopthorpe Social Club, which is a lot like the Buena Vista Social Club, but in Bishopthorpe. It was a benefit for the York Corinthian Foundation, a fabulous football team and charity, to raise money to connect a school in Tanzania to the national grid.
Apparently we raised more money than last years quiz, and it gave me a chance to show my fellow Corinthians that my comedic skills aren't just restricted to the football pitch.
Posted 12:11 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
linton not-crazy johnson
Monday 3rd December 2007 12:16 AM
I've just been listening to Linton Kwesi Johnson reading his poem 'Di Great Insohreckshan', about the Brixton riots of 1981, on a Radio 4 programme called 'Poetry through history'. This was surprisingly edgy stuff for Radio 4, and I think they got more than they bargained for. The poetry was powerful and, 'because the wind doesn't howl in iambic pentameters', quite raw. After the first ten minutes of celebratory and righteous 'lootin' and a burnin', I sensed the producers wishing they'd chosen 'The charge of the light brigade' instead.
Unfortunately, during the last five minutes of the programme, my attention was divided by a chicken coming in to the caravan and trying to have perfunctory, but enthusiastic, sex with an attractive tea-cosy, completely unaware that the cosy's delicious body-warmth was being provided by a freshly brewed pot of Earl Grey tea, underneath.
By the time I'd cleaned up the mess, and counselled the chicken, to a point where I thought it was fit to go back out into the farmyard, the programme was over. During a silent affirmation with the chicken, however, I did manage to catch an extraordinary exchange between the poet and the white, middle-class presenter.
I can't remember the exact words, but the presenter more or less said, ' So Linton, this poem was written twenty-six years ago…since then, the battle for racial equality has just about been won, what, with Trevor MacDonald reading the news and stuff …. is the poem still relevant?.. in fact, would you say, in retrospect, that you wrote it with a certain amount of irony?'
My shock, at such a crass, tit-knob of a question, was picked up by the chicken, whose subsequent squawking drowned out most of the poet's reply. I think it was something along the lines of 'No, irony is for English poets'. (this is Linton speaking, of course, not the chicken squawking). I haven't got a 'listen again' facility, so if anybody heard the reply, and wasn't having to deal with a sex-crazed chicken trauma (with tarka dal and pilaw rice?) at the same time, I'd be grateful if you could tell me what it was.
Meanwhile, an overseas reader, whose validation word of the day was 'urgent', thanks me for penetrating the media black-out of Somalia. It pleases me to think that I might be lighting a candle by complaining about the darkness. When I say 'the darkness' here, I am of course referring to the influence of the demon-controlled structures of the planet, and not the high-pitched soft-metal warblings of a popular beat-combo from Lowestoft. You can't complain about a man with curly hair who believes in a thing called love.
Posted 12:16 AM | 4 Comments | Permalink
there is no limit
Monday 26th November 2007 10:53 PM
I'd heard there was a terrible refugee problem in Somalia, from a friend who's working out there, so I thought I'd see if there was anything about it on the telly, but it seems they're not interested. There was the odd bit about Iraq and Darfur, and obviously 'Dog Borstal', 'Can Fat Teens Hunt?' and 'Jimmy Carr is an Eleven Stone Tumour Feeding on the Diseased Body of TV Entertainment', but nothing about Somalia.
I went to the newsagents to see what the papers were saying, but except for the odd bits about Iraq and Darfur, it was all just cleverness and tits. Greg-behind-the-counter looked bewitching, in his one-size-too-small pair of red lederhosen, and now wearing his hair in a sleek power-bob, and had such an air of new-found confidence that I found myself asking him if he had any news on the Somalian refugee situation. He said he didn't but was keen to know if I'd had sex last night.I said I couldn't remember and went home to see if I could get some news off the internet.
I found a site called Hiiraan Online, which ran a story, under the headline 'There is no limit to the suffering', about Halimo Omar, a forty year old Somalian woman, looking after her blind husband and four increasingly hungry children, in a hut made of twigs and torn plastic. Embedded into the article, in an attractive, highlighted blue font, were three google adverts. One was for a diet book called 'Fat Loss 4 Idiots', one was for a dating agency for military singles, and the other was for a Patriotic Logo Item Store, offering custom flag pins and patriotic promotions. A bit like Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel peace prize, this sort of thing doesn't make satire any easier.
In a world torn apart by greed and war-mongering, where surplus sits side by side with starvation, and the media is full of people who aren't me, it's difficult not to get angry. Apart from lighting a candle in silent vigil, I find one of the best ways of dealing with this anger is expletive infixation, a useful form of tmesis, that's really helped me with my stress levels.
Expletive Infixation is a natural form of concentrated swearing that can release up to seventy per cent more bile than other grammatical constructions. Tom-from-the-comment box told me about it, and last week I went to an E. I. meeting with him, at the Quaker meeting house in Friargate. The next day, when I was in the newsagents, I asked Greg if he fancied coming along. He put down his nut-denuded walnut whip and looked at me, his perfect bob quivering coquettishly, every gleaming, lacquered hair moving in liquid unison, to form a fabulous tidal-wave of softness, that made his forehead look like a boulder-strewn granite beach. 'What's expletive in-fucking-fixation when it's at home?' he said.
Posted 10:53 PM | 6 Comments | Permalink
my cup of joy is carved with sorrow
Sunday 25th November 2007 8:09 PM
This morning, on an uneven playing field, York Corinthians lost 5-1 to CCP in the quarter-final of the Junior Yorkshire cup. (They'll be singing in the streets of Credit Card Protection tonight) The Junior Yorkshire cup is an open-age competition, and CCP were from the distant planet, 'Young', and exhibited such other-worldly skills as pace and hair colouring. If the Corinthians had been loose with their seed as teenagers, then CCP could feasibly have been their grandchildren
The Corinthians fashioned the first chance of the game, after eight minutes, when Speedy Rich sent in a looping cross to the unmarked Evans, lurking menacingly on the penalty spot. With the entire CCP defence, and indeed his team-mates, expecting him to volley it, the wily, old campaigner fooled them all by going for it with his right ear, which, recently weakened by a niggling ear injury, lacked the necessary power to trouble the keeper.
After half an hour, Evans, as one-eleventh of the Corinthians, received the ball behind ten-elevenths of CCP, two-thirds of the way into the first-half of the quarter-final, and was fractionally off-side.
The mid-field quartet of CCP, Nozzer, Snozzer, Wazzer and Bazzer, were running the mid-field, and, hopefully, an enormous student debt. By half time, the Corinthians were three-nil down, and when it became four, just after the break, all eyes looked to the tight-lipped, ashen-faced figure of the Corinthians manager, Brian, under his umbrella.
The fifty-something, York-born manager made a bold, double substitution, in an audacious, last-gasp attempt to wrestle something from the tie, and also in the interests of everyone getting a game. He put on John and Rudy for the tiring Bob, and the enigmatic Evans, who at times had been reminiscent of Anelka and Berbatov, with his electric bursts of nonchalant strolling.
The decision played immediate dividends when the Corinthians won a penalty, which was duly dispatched by Tim, his powerful, low, left-foot finish, and blood-vessel-bursting, fist-clenching, eye-popping celebration, putting us all in mind of Stuart Pierce. For the Corinthians, the goal was brandy from a Saint Bernard's, and though they still had a mountain to climb, a hot surge of new hope and belief thrilled through their sclerotic veins. Two minutes later, CCP went 5-1 up, with a goal scored by a young man whose complexion was so fresh, that it was almost mocking in its luminescence.
The stunned away crowd, huddled on the left touch-line of the exposed Knavesmire pitch, and called Kev, dwindled away from the disappointing spectacle, long before the end. Yet another quarter-final exit, in a major tournament, for the so-called 'golden generation', has put an unbearable strain on the Corinthians beleaguered manager, Brian. The question on everyone's lips is, 'Apart from the pub, where do the Corinthians go from here?'
Posted 8:09 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
ndili bwino
Thursday 22nd November 2007 5:08 PM
It's cold today and I haven't got any gigs, so in an act of sympathetic magic I'm posting a picture of myself gigging in a hot place. The picture was taken by my old mate Steve, who besides being a musician, writer and photographer, also contributes witty comments to this blog, and is often 'Disappointed of Yatesbury'.
The picture was taken three years ago this week, in a little town called Cobue, on the shores of Lake Malawi, in Mozambique. I was going to strongly urge you, but have decided against it, because I think there's already enough pressure in your life, so instead I'm going to humbly suggest, that you visit Steve's website and read and see all about our rorytastic adventures in Africa. If the following URL connection doesn't work, google stevemarshall.org.uk and go for the result that has 'africa 04' in it. Muli Bwanji!
http://www.stevemarshall.org.uk/africa/africaindex.htm
Posted 5:08 PM | 3 Comments | Permalink
[Front Page] | Archive Page: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]
