my life as a artist
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street life
Monday 17th March 2008 6:45 PM
Two years ago, James Street was a dead-end street. He was going nowhere, except to some death-grey industrial units, and the council tip. He wanted to go to Layerthorpe, but couldn't be arsed, so instead, he petered out onto a concrete, grass-scabbed wasteland, boarded off with pale ginger chipboard, and sulked.
James Street was scruffy, lonely and unlived in, and because of his disability, was shunned, and sometimes abused, by the other roads and streets in the area. Even the cycle-path turned her nose up at him. He'd tried getting some traffic lights at his junction with the Hull Road, and he'd had his tip modernised, but he still felt inadequate and alone. Maybe he should change his name to Jim and grow a moustache?
One day last spring, I collected all the broken dreams and useless fantasies from my secret shed, put them in the back of the Mazda, and decided to take them to the council tip. When I turned into James Street, I was amazed to see that at the bottom, in place of the usual chipboard amputation scar, there was now a long, flowing, new limb of fresh tarmac, stretching out towards undreamt of vistas, and Layerthorpe.
It was all so thrillingly disorientating that instead of turning off to the tip, I found myself, and all my broken dreams, driving down this strange new road, on a journey whose destination was deliciously unknown. I was drunk on wonder, and if there was such a thing as a spiritual breathalyser, I could have been arrested for driving while under the influence of mystery. Through the warp and weft of existence we rode that rebel thread, until, in a tumultuous fusion of ending and beginning, we spliced into the silken continuity of Hallfield Road, just off Layerthorpe.
What incentive, I wondered, could James Street have had to make such a remarkable transformation? What primal urge could have enthused such a dowdy, dead-end street to suddenly, and magically, blossom forth like a Glastonbury thorn? A few months later I had my answer, when huge billboards appeared on the old wasteland, announcing the arrival of a new wasteland, in the form of a giant Morrison's superstore.
In the years before he started up in the super-market business, Jim Morrison used to sing in a band called The Doors, and I distinctly remember him at the time, urging us to 'break on through to the other side'. If I'd have known he was talking about going shopping, I suspect I would have been less inclined to dabble in drugs.
Despite my disappointment with the gross commercialisation of the music biz, myself and the Travelling Libraries are still going to charge people five pounds to watch us perform at The Winning Post, on the Bishopthorpe Road, York, this coming Saturday, at 8:30pm.
With it being Easter Saturday, I thought it'd be a fitting time to resurrect the band. Chip Phatt'll be on bass, Ry Veeter on lead guitar, Bryn the Welsh wizard on dwarf clarinet, fiddle, accordion and sleigh-bells, and yours truly on vocals, guitar, harmonica and air Hammond organ. There'll be a free raffle with disappointing prizes, and hopefully a couple of new songs, including 'Fulford Prison Blues'. Be there or be oblong.
Comments
break a leg!!(go easy on the biscuits beforehand..)x
Posted by stevla , on Friday 21st March 2008, 11:39 AM
Maybe you could give away some of your broken dreams in the raffle.
Then they would be disappointed prizes as well as disappointing.
Have a good gig, and try to keep mum from breakdancing.
Posted by Phil Osophy , on Friday 21st March 2008, 11:10 AM
If you carry on down Foss Gate (as I like to) to come here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingability/2343226022/
...how true!
Posted by tom , on Tuesday 18th March 2008, 12:01 PM
in the spirit of true commercialism..(and shameless product advertising!)next time you need to move any unwieldy dreams around,try 'Riverside Removals.'.very reasonable..and careful!..(no wet carpets please..)nightmares cost extra!!!
Posted by stevla , on Monday 17th March 2008, 10:18 PM
No? Just pity and derision then!
Posted by John (aka Jono aka Jonault) , on Monday 17th March 2008, 9:31 PM
Will there be a disappointing prize or even a slightly disappointing prize for the audience member who travelled the furthest to your gig?
Posted by John (aka Jonault aka Jono) , on Monday 17th March 2008, 9:28 PM
I jusr re-read the blog - your useless fantasies were in there too? Come off it! You hired a Transit, didn't you?
Posted by Steve , on Monday 17th March 2008, 8:47 PM
That was a bit far-fetched! Do you really expect us to believe that all your broken dreams fitted in the back of a Mazda? I bet you used a trailer as well.
Posted by Steve , on Monday 17th March 2008, 8:44 PM
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