Interlocked Fingers Unlocking

All day, or most of it in bed - on account of the cold. Heating turned right down to preserve the franklins, so I can go out in old clothes and not eat...and try to impress someone. The mind thrives when the stomach shrinks, but I look pale and my eyes are red. Tomorrow there's work, and the following three days after that, so I have to eat or I suffer pangs and feel sick. However I'm enjoying the silence; besides tomorrow we'll be laughing at work, laughing at other people and lastly ourselves. I might be delivered from the cold cycle and the fear that my paintings are mediocre sans humour - Pavel ~

Itchy Teeth

I have a sudden, almost violent urge to proclaim temporary insanity and grab the duffle coated moomin by her vinegar tits and dance a merry dance with her. In a scissor motion, I cross my arms like two Wilkinsons and gesture lewdly at my loins, same as Stone Cold. What do you want! I taught a Spaniard the meaning of popping a sprog from a faff, and blushed scarlet in the process. Head bursting with spiders, take aim me lads!

Sick and tired of people wasting my time, coming in from the cold. Want a giant mallet made of jelly that I can liberally belabour them about their cloth ears and tell them to make some purchases. If they were any slower...the image of a giant iron spoon mixing a bowl of molasses and treacle.

And yet.

See Me Now?

Sweaty teeth.

Dry hands.

Clammy toes.

Rancid gums.

Moist loins.

Rain outside.

Nivenesque Dressing Gown.

Need I say more?

Dead Again

There you go, on bony feet behind the temple, under and over the leaves. A conflagration of thorns like Herzog, hands like lumps of living ice tucked into the deep mouths of pocket, turning about, clenching keys or coins, or both. Looking at fingers red raw, a law unto yourself. Thinking of demons sitting on the shelf, an incubus made of iron sitting on my chest or a horse's breath from a coin.

Two dogs, alike only in appearance and density of destiny. I wanted to be them. I loathe myself. 

Alive Again

Peaceful in the throes of a cold afternoon. Bladderfull, piss like Lucozade the last few days, ants in the bladder marching. Heavy chest, an abrupt call to the tax office - life's minutae. The creases in the Malay's trouser legs, he walked like robocop, he smiled at me. I wondered what it would be like to try and talk to the people in the restaurant - wondering if they'd ever smoked like I have, felt the heavy green curtain come across their perception of things. It's not something you want with you forever. It has it's place but that's that and Amen to't. Lost too much time in speculation that has lead, like the ants in my bladder to an insignificant conclusion and the pressing touch of mortality. At least you can be sure it's your lungs filling with tar and liquid; destructive. I am too prone to demolish things in my haste. Sure I killed some airspace last night waving my hands to some swinging soul. Oversized silver coins in my pocket and wine like petrol.

And then the prospect of moving - silence and clever conversation, witty repartees, the desire to be better within oneself. More at peace dare I say it. It could happen. 

Club Vs Knife

He returned to that moment, stood at the window as they were packing away the carnival. Tarpaulin over coloured lightbulbs, the jutting limbs of iron and springs. A possible frost over the grass, where he would sit with her a year later, watching the stars change. The gloomy church with the cyclopean steeple; the remembrance of a vital day.

Edward is Sadness
Edward is Fatalism
Edward is Doubtful

He was assured of change and it didn't affect him. Infact he relished the thought of being proven right again. If his pain was a construct - it was built sturdily. But for now there was her, a tin of tobacco and some green - twice smoked. Once Geraldine came up and sat with us. Then the unfolding afternoon; Gypsy music; Lee Dorsey; Dylan. Later I would tell someone how unbearable it was to hear it again - Because I fucked her I said to a stranger. As if fucking were that simple. It never is. My private share of cynicism; private belief. The little death - disassociate your brain from your dick. My hand has never let me down.
Watched a short film of Bukowski kicking his fiancee in a fit of rage. You cunt how dare you sit next to me and say those things. You sit here and you say we're gonna get married and you're gonna live with other people - how dare you; fuck you!


And I'm thinking to myself, if I carry on like this that's how I'm going to end up.

ACRIMONY

Shit in one hand and collect wishes in the other. See which hand gets full first.

TwothousandandgreatTwo

There's the male organ and the dick it's attached to.
There's the tug of the spine that makes the muscle jerk.
Manifold worries and uncertainty.
The skunk that delivereth us unto the moment.
The crushing stress.
The stressful crush.
Drum & bass.
Drills, sparks and chains.
The word amazing.
The backlit proscenium arch of the window at four thirty a.m.
Two, maybe three kids whose heads are begging to be stomped on so their eyes burst like boiled eggs.

I want my joie de vivre back :(

Bookish

My great fear - if I will admit to it is that I'm running round the inside of my own head, and nothing's changing. Reading to expand my brain, my intellect and my vocabulary instead makes me bitter and distracted. Habits, defeats, cycles, clean teeth, the sexy Italian waitress chewing gum, nonchalant and maybe even dismissive. Her eyes looked Egyptian, fish like. Run away run away, Ed your anger will make you sick.

Failure

Reading a book on failure I realise I sit in the category neatly summarised by Confucius: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. The defeat that puts faith in future victory, that defers it for a later time. So where's the fucking victory then? Am I to suppose; am I to hope - to fall back on optimism? Deep down, maybe I am a piece of shit. Despite being utterly annoyed at Valerie Solanas for saying it, maybe she was right. Men deep down know they are pieces of shit. It's tiresome to be told by someone else though.
Instead I'll opt for empty rhetoric that might serve to kill this bastard hour, lead me to another hour that is linked to the next and so on. Disgust at the mother laughing at the Creed show because it's upsetting for a Sunday. Cunt. I don't have a dream of redemption for myself; you remain a cunt and I'll never see you again. I'm a piece of shit and you'll never see me again.

Leaky, Vital Entity

She's the picture of a dork - someone who recieved the plash from a pitcher full of dork. A picture perfect picture of putrid - smeared green, wave after wave of angry Oestrogen wafting out; like the time at Il Divo - mad women and their husbands. Her tongue is a knotted leather whip, lips cracked, the nanny nurse, the overbearing harridan foe. Sick sick sick! You make me sick. Worse than a hanger on or a drifter, somehow bleakly burning into my attention, wanting communication, a sliver of lava, a smouldering bowl of liquid lead presented in a half skull. Angry woman, I can imagine today as a test, stood overbearing - head tilted, culpable and spotless to everyone else but to me. Inner eye bulging with ferocious judgement.
But to see me this morning, best pals with next doors tom. He was curled up against the fence, the very picture of satiety. In his own way, actually quite Eastern looking, Russian. He didn't run away as I approached, with my cat call (a chirp or two you know). Instead he just waited. Accepting the first touch and the electric thrall of species meeting. Then a flinch, settling into my knowledged hands. Sad to leave him as he smiled and spoke to me. Furry testicles! No wonder the fury of mating is so fierce in felines.
Then prison. One comment making me mad all day; the place I am mentally, even more so.

On your Axe

The cold shake of limbs, the gorgeous suggestion of freedom. A sky at five thirty three, full azure blue setting into a great big salmon pink, the leaves like tasseled coins - some burnished shake on the branches and I am here, regretting the choices I have made, in the sky cabin, curled in upon myself and resolute. Teeth on edge, losing faith, losing time before I give up altogether and declare the whole thing a farce and believe Peter's sad words. Folly. 

Monks

Dear Matthew Lewis,
Last night was brilliant. David le Dandy brought over a bottle of Bordeaux; La bas by Huysmans; some A2 paper and his compressed charcoal kit. I brought some sugar paper from Poundland and a pastels kit from Spectrum, that witches lair in the dork (sic). For two hours or so we drew each other in preparation for a performance we may be doing later in the year. David was weeping with laughter at his own creations which may give you an idea of how great they were. I laughed til the tears rolled down my cheeks. Both from my own drawings and David's. Truly I felt more confident and at ease with my art than I have been in four years. We must learn to let go. It is the works that somehow exist on the periphery of praxis that become the real deal. I have been so blindly pompous and conceited all this time. Since I was nineteen, maybe before then. Of all the people we lie to - it's ourselves we lie to the most. So...why this love of crudity and disproportion? Why so stubborn all this time? It's what defines me and makes me stand apart, blowing raspberries at art destiny and history - why worry if it's just a posture? Others have thrived on much less, much more trivial concerns. Jorg, that bastard! He said my ideas could be torn apart and scattered at a moments notice. But he forgot he could just as easily be taken apart piecemeal by someone above him. Stop playing God. Wake up and enjoy yourself. I have a brilliant drawing of me looking like I have crept from Primordial ooze and shook the silt from my scales. It's stuck on my slanted ceiling. The idea is I'll wake up and immediately laugh. Victorious in something I can't pinpoint, even before the day proper has begun. My room is slowly coming to life: anyone who traversed the cabin will remember my wonky magic. And so, it's getting better, and I'm ready to pursue again. Poised.

LOVE Sean Beaningsten Creator , E

Wonderment

Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting. This seems to me a perfect appendage to today's chapter. I feel strange and distant, caught inbetween small trappings of anger and worry and yet a blissful assurance; so rare these days; in my own abilities. Just to sit down and paint for a few hours - stopping only because I felt sick from the turps I was inhaling, then folding out the colours from the brushes on an old work shirt. It is a small satisfaction to do this. To use something functionally, that I would otherwise throw away or in a less likely mood, burn in a hole puckered oil can with four imaginary hobos / oracles. 

I guess I feel like a bit of an outsider still, but I must relish this time, I know from experience it won't last. Better to be aware than indifferent. Ultimately anything that brings me a crumb of what I want will keep me going, albeit with mighty hungers. To look at me you wouldn't immediately think I was a devourer; then again I think we all have the capacity to surprise ourselves. How many more surprises for me then, outside of my sky room, sour mouths? Right eye sore. Right hunger. Wrong way to keep me interested. 

On Hilarity & Horror

Martin 'let it bleed' Creed ringing his division bell, summoning this imp from his hot little hovel to impishly glare at his workforce, full of hatred today, and weary as fuck. Too dried up and angry from Miller the last few days, on the bus, positively seething as Miller did at the great forward trudging bustle of life - snorting the ferment of disillusion. Feeling now as I did some seventeen years ago; equally as baffled and angry. More lines on the chops though. Fuck awful music, dying to be homeward bound to scrape the names of those I despise on the stone walls then directly, and without ceremony, to tell them directly to their faces 'vous etes tres mauvaille traville ici' (misquote of Mobutu Sese Sako).

The Unlife & Death of Baby B

Three hours sleepless but in an ecstacy of touch - careless in extremis. When being exhausted is elation and the heat of skin on skin melts away the worries of silence: remembering the flurry of leaves as rats run in tandem amongst the railings by the car park in the middle of fucking nowhere, and the arched shadows are a dark green that you won't find anywhere else in the city. Maybe the mute challenge of the Taboo Cinema - all awash with a flat black paint and one door open leading to an obliquely lit interior. You see nothing, you sense more. But in passing I see a place I exumed dead earth, weeds and stones, up another weird crooked little road with unecessary double yellow lines...with Jacque. The day/s my legs shook with weakness and menacing baldies stared at us withered under a withered tree, with flower boxes full of dirt. I couldn't even hope to explain. All this and then home again, only slightly put out by the loss of my Tony Krauss platinum blonde wig and yellow tights. Me girly gets full respect for being nice even on pinkies. Same can't be said for everyone. I slept in a full sweat, I stink. I win!

Bartlebooth's Worries

In the fast approach to evening, the imp watches the sky change her clothes. He is concerned by the feeling that every other imp he knows has some higher purpose - some necessary goal in life that pushes them on, if not lifts them. 'The buggers!' he says half to himself and the wind. As an imp - a good trickster imp at that - he has learned his trade wading into the great roaring river of life, snatching kisses from illicit missus'; eating and drinking in the smoky confines of attic rooms; defying the gravity of walls and car engines; showering pages with cursive flair; his voice a spectrum of colours; in his heart - a tight knot of bursting joy lined with wrinkles of disappointment - he sees himself a small figure amongst the Magogs; the demons; the frost queens; the very real minotaurs; the hard working cyclopes in their forges; the nymphs at play and working hard at breaking hearts in orchards and stinking bashments.

One imp. That's all. Just a lowly imp. But he has his own purpose; his own idea of a higher purpose. And if it fails, so be it. There's still time to find another.

The Jamaican Coke Rush

We were glad to be ignored by the urchins they had crawled from their respective corners, gangster lean with the usual quota of two street girls - fatty and thinny - to be honest they were all shadows and silhouettes to me at all costs. On the corner - lit from the weak flare of tangerine streetlights, or pulling quietly on a cigarette or spliff. The beauty of outsiders. Walking towards the main roads, liquidly rolling into view, a beefcake with his top off - it was hot enough. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I ask myself - is life worth living should I blast myself? We start laughing because the thought was simultaneous - but as he walked towards me he wasn't Matt anymore, not for the moment he was another outsider walking at me making the oldest of conflicts flutter into dark life in his chest. I, perturbed and out of sorts, Matt happy. Naturally infectious though in the night, and so I coped with my ego. I put it underfoot - the dragon under Saint George's heel - same as that old print we had at the top of the stairs - opposite the windowsill that gave me the fantods when I was a nipper because it was DEAD SPACE. The thought of it frooked me out as much as the prospect of eternal life - I dislike phantoms. And so lying awake in a kind of fearful ecstacy - now awake with a less than celestial cluster of thoughts in my head and dick in hand; sticky sheets; wet feet. Angry again, there's no escape from being churlish or stuck behind the gates at that time in the morning. A stupid, ugly cunt in the shop, face like a twine of rope, numb boyfriend - a unit - the thing Shiona taught me to slip out of before it was too late and everything became predictable. I really want her to go away.

A remarkable Jaw

Last night was strange for everybody. No-one could sleep. It was stickily humid; the sort of heat that coats bones in increasing layers of pig iron. Dry mouthed and salty tongue'd the unfortunate insomniac wrestled with his increasing tiredness whilst his brain bubbled with cyclical nonsense. Caged up in his own conciousness, the deep thick bloom of night, silently amassed with a trail of stars, offered him no rest. Raging he paced up and down the spiral stairs that lead to his room, still pulsing with heat. The silence had a superadded edge of irritation for him. Dying to embrace, to fall into the lull of sleep. Not for another hot, sticky hour.

A bad mood followed all day, until a dignified looking man with silver on his jaw walked in and nonchalantly leafed through a magazine. The expression on silverface (the name the insomniac had flown upon) was so intense that the previous night's horrors were melting away in a new sort of heat. THE HEAT OF ASBESTOS GELOS!

THE IMP

A much needed visit to Manchester to meet my wound maker / healer last week has left in its wake a strange trail. For the duration of that day, I was someone else. Someone unfamiliar to myself. Manchester does that to me. In itself it is a constantly changing city; a proper hermit crab - now with extra jewels encrusted on its shell. The changes made me weary, like I didn't belong anymore. Indeed ask a few people and they'd tell you I now class Birmingham as my home. Strange roots are planted here.

That day was as magical as I could've asked it to be. Unashamedly walking the corridors of my memory, crossing the same wooden floors I did over two decades ago. Taller now, quieter, more observant of my surroundings. More eager to project remembered conversations and meanings upon static, stuffed exotic birds: Mantiq al-tair by Farid al-din Abi, being one. Or noticing the strange colour of the muslin that housed two mummies; still excellently preserved. And of course the Lion. He hasn't changed in four years, and still gives me the fantods. And the giant Japanese Spider Crab that has always been synonymous with the museum for me. When alone, I chanced upon a diorama that drew attention to the fact that museum categorization is flawed. I was impressed. Back to late afternoon tea...and a sore throat.

Now I am sad. Going away always entails having to face the return. How much like Heyst do I wish to extricate myself from the tangle. Maybe I don't want to come back.

Artists are Dickheads

I wake up at around 5-6 o' clock every morning, partly from an excitement of something unformed and looming on the horizon, partly from pure rage at any number of petty household problems - but most of all from the Godawful cacophony of a Balsall Heath morning. It starts with a pigeon or two alighting on my chimney, some two or three feet from my skylight. The COOO COOO comes down directly on my head like a bag of hammers, I get up, grab a balloon and shove my hands out of the window and give the said airbag a royal scrape with my fingers - the resulting rubbery screech usually sees them off. More than once I've seen a startled, almightily pompous expression on their birdfaces - almost as if they're saying (in their heads) 'How dare you!' It almost makes me laugh were my eyes not so heavy and my frayed temper fraying to the point of unwinding altogether.
Then, Christ preserve the ignorant for their follies - the cats start. WOOOOOOOOW! A grey fucker with tip ex in his eye where he was probably whapped for his amorous pursuits with his tiny barbed penis. This warrants it's own sound effect - usually a giant PISSS or GEERRRROUUT OF IT! I neglect to mention there was a female involved - when isn't there? There he was wooowwwing away at this tabby atop a fence. What a touching scene - two mangy fuckers making all sorts of noise, tails swishing - he, enraged at her manifest lack of interest, she pointedly looking down at him from her queendom. Gone were the echoes of your ancestors who purred in the laps of Pharoes, or had sphinxes built in their honour. Instead the pathetic reality of two loudmouth quadrupeds at 6 in the A.M. Je suis trop exhaute!
Then, whyever not? Let your bastard dogs out. I love dogs with all my heart. It's the owners I hate, because quite simply dogs can be easily trained to behave. But no, you biscuit heads refuse to take a few simple measures and as a result off your dogs go on a two hour barking spree, peppering the silence with a wonderful array of sleep shattering WOOOOS / WUUUUUS /WEH'S! Fucking nut!

Wallfahrtslied

It's not fair that you make me feel this way. I cannot take it. Brave, or so I thought I was being. The great disarming effect of  a touch, that simple deception, the ego overcome to realise something missed. A powerful feeling - a dark flapping shape like a pirate flag over a dark dark wood - flashes of silver and diamonds of white, blood red gold, this old feeling groaning back into life like Lazarus; the murmur of my heart; the full pulse of blood around my heart. Swimming in dark pulsing lakes of rippling unctuousness. Putative feelings, simple moment - hard to keep unbound my fears my face flushing to the dark hue of the carpet. The high cathedral notes - the strings in the ceiling! Or a copper eye wrought of reams of copper - looking down at our place in the world. Callous universe, this. Only you make it worthwhile, somehow. You, fucker! x

Trouble; A Head

A great fire for his mane, the sun setting the sky aflame; all the clouds in silent conflagration, roaring - a Viking's eyes set my heart to soaring.  

His Royal Highness

I miss him with his uncertainty and his quick wrath. A hybrid marking of piranha and tiger's stripe, a cheeky boy with his gullivers snipped but still randy.
Baron Benson of Great Barr; Abbe Bensoni; Son of Ben. All the names I have conjured for him, but he will always be Benson. Man is Dog's idea of God. Benson is my idea of a baron, a stately pompous baron amongst dogs. In the undergrowth at Great Barr park, the sun shining through the loop of his tail...snuffling in ecstasy the hot undergrowth. Running away from collies, upsetting a gulp of Magpies. But he wouldn't dare, in the final stages of our walks, breach the gaggles of Black Necked Canadian Geese. Hundreds of the bastards - aloof: King Midas amongst them. Instead a furtive nail dipped in the deep green/brown water. I know he dislikes the water when it's deep. Happily he will wade through a stream, but as soon as the murk creeps in - the tentative suggestion of an unknown space (evidently with it's own deep scent - as his nose skims the skin of the surface) he becomes that peculiarly endearing coward that Tony, Emily and I know so well. Looking with eyes as big as the moon, his handsome brown eyes - looking up at me. A moment of atavism. My hero.
Need you now buddy. Need you like you don't even know. For affection that costs nothing, has no bounds and asks no return. You make me soft, lad.

From other times

First then, the breaking down of all you held to be true or right by yourself. The close secrets and unfolding mystery of intimacy that was latent in you. The acrid side - missing a check for an STD because of snow; waiting for an hour on a freezing night in Manchester; but it was worth it to reveal a bottle of red wine; a painting of  a cyclopean sea captain with a gold background - or to snatch a cigarette from her mouth in a comical act of bravado. No-one wants the other to die, no-one can stand the bond that makes a separation that much harder to bear when it's gone. Each of us have a way of expressing that grief - some admittedly more eloquent than others, some jealously guard those words and are dumb through choice. Those must be the most beautiful words of all. Like a quick glimpse of a dark small fish in  a pond, swift, back into its hiding place. The vanity of shyness.

Myself, I prefer to pick up the pen and feel the heat on my shoulders. Still happy and safe in foreknowledge steeped in layers of grief - cum - elation. Rebecca all the way from Korea - sorry about the one that got away - my subsequent mad dance like the time I saw a cat run over, and it danced before it lay panting and expired right in front of me. I, you, we live on. We never stay still, even in meditation or sleep. Outside I can hear a carnival, horns and drums. My eyes are bulging! My teeth stickily coated, my tongue a-drip.

For you then, anything you want. I taught myself the lessons, the turning away - the 'construct' pain as construct; and the infallible promise of a daily scream from next doors surly little boy or the cats who scream like men. All this blends together in a myriad moment of delicious heat, along with those eyes that could cut ice, but the loins that could melt icebergs! Impossible not to be humorous - the last resort surely, but the strongest. Dursn't matter. Here's at 'ee. All the things we shared. I love them and remember them not as I might; a cenotaph; a spectacular fit of puking; of unimportant memories - of something buried and gone; but as I once said : the pale blossom leaf jigging in the shade of a tomb. Distinctly dancing towards the light. Come with me.

Besos

Los jóvenes y muy hermoso como un Vikingo I sabían una vez. Pelo en el cambio de signo de perfección. Filamentos finos, pozo comportado y ajuste. Fresco e inteligente, un recordatorio que puedo sonreír la sonrisa de un hombre que no tenga nada en su mente sino buenas cosas. Incluso en tiempos de distensión, como más de una de nosotros está ahora. Los pilares de la sal temblaban anoche y genuino me perdieron para las palabras en esto, mi vida adulta estúpida. La amenaza del amor y de la locura en la bahía como perros bien preparados con las gomas suaves y los dientes agudos que esperan para rend la cortina de mi sensibilidad y equilibrio. En lugar la floración lenta de la amistad por la cual sostengo siempre más. Para perder más difícilmente a un amigo que un amante.

Su movimiento!

The Horror, The Horror

For approximately the fourtieth time in my life - and this is no exaggeration - Amy Winehouse is raping my ears with her disgusting voice. I categorically cannot see the appeal in a singing syringe. Whatever. I will be quickly shouted down by those amongst you looking for someone fitting the 'quirky /gritty/twisted /mistaken - tragic angel type.' There are millions of better people, with hatchet faces who I would rather hear right now. It tests my fucking patience. Don't go back to black Amy - go up your own bumole like a bees bonnet Ouroboros. Sing to your crack addled guts, eat your reptilian tail.
Enough. This isn't the thrust of this blog, today's blog - this greasy moment. There was a wicked night of grimey d'n'b at the Hare & Hounds on Saturday and it was over all too quickly. The bass wasn't like anything I'd felt before. Snares on top with a bit of mashcore; then below that the bass; then like a whale breaching booooooooooo there came the deeper bass and it fairly set me and Jin screeching like harpies. Or Amy Winehouse. It was rad. You had your supplement of main heads with neck tatts and chav wear - more than the A level d'n'b night we attended a while ago - but they were happy to slosh their sweat about like the rest of us when it came to it.
Time was Jazz used to fizz me up to the extremes and I'd stick my shirt in my pants, pull those very same pants up to my chest and play air sax. Now I've grown up a bit I seek the dirt sandwich that is drum and bass. Like I said to Jin - it infects me. No other music does that. Infects me. Except Winehouse - her music is a lethal pathogen.

Deep Freeze

I have a headache. I am in a bad mood. This might be the daily supplement of someone's facebook status. I hate seeing those platitudes. So and so is tired; so and so is hungover!!! (note the use of triple exclamation marks). Where's your bloody imagination? All the same I have a headache and I'm moody. Everybody's stepping on the coat tails of my patience, it seems. The couple who always come into the shop and spend half an hour chosing one item; the old woman pouring orange juice down her throat is excruciating to watch; the nasal voice from the cafe; the ugly people; the long hours; the chipmunk laughing - God, I hate her so. My only wish? That I had the guts to tell her how ingratiating her invincible laughter is.
Last night there was a great programme on celebrity fallouts - a top 20 of fatuous people (mostly plastic American women vying like harpies for an ex rock star or Flava Flav's enormous clocks - although there was a smouldering face off between Hulk Hogan and his wife's personal trainer). There was the complementary name calling and in - yo - face beyatch - ery; then came the taunts and the throwing of drinks in faces - something dear to my own heart, for those in the know; then the physical violence. Women scare me when they fight. Hair pulling, gouging and shrieks of pure rage. It's like they really want to fuck each other up. With men it's blunt and hopefully resolved in a few punches and a kick - couldn't say the same for these prima donnas.
On a subtler level there was the surprisingly hilarious Nokia Green Room highlights - cringe with embarassment as Tadio Cruz strums on a guitar, having absolutely nothing to say to The Charlatans; feel your toes curl as Ashley Simpson gets ripped to shreds by some smug faced little shitface; best of all was Sam Sparro's reaction to Shaggy saying he had 6 mango trees...
The jist of it was tension, the sort I feel today, where silence steps in and language falters. And the unfulfilled promise of violence. It's like flirtation. I am not happy. There's another status for Facebook. :)

Rose Drop / Timnah Part II

An empty head and a long afternoon do not happy bedfellows make. If they were to mate they would shortly sire this moment in a flash pregnancy and everyone would be disturbed by the utter plainness of the baby - neither boy or girl. Sexless as a worm. The doctor (me) would shake his head imperceptibly and put down the tongs, the billow of his breath warm against his face mask.
But then there are always intruders - they elope around the fringes of vision. They are thieves of silence and attention I am unwilling to give. Neutral, boring and alike. Unless ugly, foreign or beautiful in a difficult way; to say 'I really shouldn't like you but I can't help it.' Or something acerbic like that. Drifitng conciousness like a slick of oil, the call of someone. Plaintive cry. Irritation. En masse. STUCK!

Is this my return?

Recently, I don't know why, I can only guess or make vague gestures toward knowing, I have felt the return of my creative self. Having near scorned the art world for its perversities, intrinsic unfairness, vacuity and desperate brilliance (and that's only Birmingham!) for the last few years I want to work my way back in and make some shit hot art. If only for myself.
It's already happening pasque - dieux! With installments being worked on for Insertspace, new films being made (see Pissy Lynne on my Facebook page); and a whole boiling sea of ideas eagerly awaiting the spill like mastiffs roaring for quarry. I'm excited about things. I am susceptible to stimuli in ways I haven't felt in five whole bloody years - the divining rod in my head singing. I laugh aloud at the smallest things - I have always held by asbestos gelos - inextinguishable laughter. It's time to stop making excuses for the things I'm not doing and start spurting hyperbolics about the things I am. They are large in number and swell daily.

Swell me bell.

Rose Drop / Timnah

Rose drop by Lester Bowie, a dog barking uproariously ruins the moment. I am partially ruined and disgraced. Very sad, this music. Maybe I am too.

(G)Usher

Gotta do it for the ladies
And I gotta keep it hood
Where we at Polo (Ay)
I see you Ryan
What you do was right
But we just gettin started
Yeaa Man..

Usher
You see you searching for somebody
That'll take you out and do you right
Well come here baby and let daddy show you what it feel like
You know all you gotta do is tell me what you sippin' on
And I promise that I’m gonna keep it comin’ all night long

Lookin’ in your eyes while you walk the other side
And I think that shorty I’ve got a thing for you
Doin’ it on purpose winding and workin’ it
I can tell by the way you lookin’ at me girl

I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)

Usher
You got some friends rollin’ wit you baby then that's cool
You can leave them with my niggas let em know that I got you
If you didn’t know, you’re the only thing that’s on my mind
Cuz the way I'm staring miss you got me wantin to give it to you all night

Lookin’ in your eyes while you walk the other side
I can't take it no more, baby I'm coming for you
You keep doin’ it on purpose winding and working it
If we close our eyes it could be just me and you

I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)

Young Jeezy
(Well, you know we always rollin!, Im on em')
Yea, Let's Go
I’m what you want, I’m what you need
He got you trapped, I’ll set you free
Sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally
I’ll be like your medicine, you’ll take every dose of me
It’s going down on aisle 3, I’ll bag you like some groceries
And every time you think about it you gon’ want some more of me
About to hit the club, make a movie yeah rated R
Pulled up like a trap star,
That's if you have yo regular car
You ever made love to a thug in the club with his ice on
87 jeans and a fresh pair of Nikes on
On the couch, on the table, on the bar, or on the floor
You can meet me in the bathroom yeah you know I’m trying go

Usher
You might as well give me a kiss
If we keep touching like this
I know you scared
Baby, they don't know what we doin
Let's both get undressed right here
Keep it up girl and I swear
I'ma give it to you non-stop
And I don't care who's watchin
watchin, watchin (watchin, watchin)
oohh, in this club, on the floor
Baby let's make love

I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)

Yea...


What a misguided fool!

Amy Winehouse is a cunt

'We only said goodbye in words; I died a hundred times'.

Once is enough you fucking wretch!

Donny Hathaway

I first heard about Donny Hathaway a couple of years back in an issue of Loaded. There was a small musical section in the back that dealt with new Cd releases: old classics rubbed shoulders with the latest d&b, r&b, rock etc. The article was about Extensions of a Man, an album I later checked out but didn't pay much attention to, sadly.
It wasn't until recently I picked up the thread again. Listening to some cheesily wicked Roberta Flack, I came across a few duets he'd done with her, the most famous being Where is the Love? I knew about this track from a Grover Washington cover, so the order of discovery was really fucked up. If the path there wasn't in a straight line, I still got there in the end.
So the album in question this time was Donny Hathaway Live, and my particular favourite track, and I do mean particular (imagine if you will a whole heap of wickedness, a pile of lusty gems the like to make your soul's fortune, and every one is a drooler, but you have to choose one above all the others) is Jealous Guy. Fuck me this guy's got a voice like a pan of warm caramel, and he just keeps on pouring it out. As my darling friend ____ said about Elvis' voice : 'It's like a warm chocolate egg bursting inside you'. And Al Green too : his voice is like a chocolate grinder, all that rich high pitched laughing goodness showering out from the speakers. You almost feel guilty it's that good.

A horifically trivial top 3 of my favourite voices (and subject to change):

1) Donny Hathaway
2) Jean Carne
3) Al Green (see what I did there? Clever eh?)

Get listening!

Fucking Funny Texts

This was initiated by a reading from Charlie Brooker's Dawn of the Dumb; randomly text someone you know this message: Wahey, I'm in a HELICOPTER! Hilarious! Anyway Batty took it a step further and the dialogue runs like milk & honeyz:

Batty: Wooo I'm in Florida
Me: Waaaa I'm indoors. Roly's mum's doors*
Batty: Ow my god just wrestled an aligator! Wow!
Batty # 2: Just found out I've been diagnosed with back cancer. They cut it open and found a diamond bigger than a peach!

Batty wins everytime.

Then a little later w/r/t his and Charlie's night out:

Batty: YES MAN! Were (sic) going to clean up man. Peoples be like 'wooooh these brothers be like straight out de jungle' womans be like 'who are those two?' i'm like 'yes babe i'm like the king of sting, the bruin of ruin, the mash in your potatoe, the knight of all knights at night time! I'm the rime in your crime doin overtime! Be leave babe'

Me: Classic: the chicks drop jaws like bible laws 'woah! who are those two crude dudes?' and we're like "peter piper, the midnight viper, come to clean up your dreams, drop a no brainer with brains, make your night out of ribbons and gold, hold you in bed so ya don't get old - we're miracles in male form and speak in rhyme like goats. Big willy = big happy. Moves like weird

Wicked!

*A story too long to go into here.

16:16

Yes, it could start here, and why not? The start of my five year plan to stop getting so fucked up in my head. Because I haven't smoked in a few days, an excess of saliva has built up in my throat. I've been blustering like an old Colonel in my bedroom, drinking flagons of tea to clear the blockade. Yesterday Batty & I sat in the garden for the first time over a cup of leaves. I noticed the tree at the back of the garden, as if for the first time. IT DEVOURED THE SKY like a green mace. The sky was seal grey, smeared with fatty clouds. It'd gotten hotter at last. My bones were warm. We talked with the neighbour.

'Alright lads. How's tricks?' It was the father of the house, with his screaming progeny running rife about him; he was continuously stopping to scold them in Indian or English.

Batty had picked up a toy from the paved upper half of our garden.

'I could use this', said the ever industrious Robinson,
'Keep it! I bet that's the first time you've heard that'. I liked the father: his face was kind and strong.

This lead into an inevitable conversation about what we do as artists.

'You do paintings then? You tried that gallery up the road? (the _______) etc. Touchingly naive, but interested, like a cabby.

Maddening to think we'd been in this house for eleven months and not once sat in the garden to drink tea and talk for an hour. One hour in the munificence of those many days. I felt guilty almost. It was like Batty said:

'You can hoard all that time up and not do anything with it. You keep imagining this vital time you've built up is mine mine mine, (making a scooping gesture, like a highwayman / miser drawing in his riches); and still nothing. It just goes to waste'.

(note the use of yellow for dramatic effect).

Soon after Charlie came and dropped Minda's keys off, discussing moving into the house. Joy! She noticed some weird growths coming from between the paving slabs. Batty plucked one and threw it at my bum crack as I was stooping over. They laughed.

From Horace's Odes: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

Seize the day, trusting little in the future. And I might add a little embellishment of my own:

Grab a minute, innit.

Uncle Ed is Dead!

What an appalling week. With unavailing constancy I have stared at the cracked walls and the sobering trees which are grey and smooth, from my garrett window. This was my hardiest attempt at reaching outside. Bleak days that stretch out, rain filled or gleaming in chill sunshine. A rainbow on Thursday, arching over the garden: changing nothing. Just another fact. Charlie straightening her hair on the bed. I stood quietly looking at the rainbow: the green shoots sitting in the gutter, in their crimson sheaths drinking the remnants of the rain. Not going out tonight. Not going anywhere. I'd be angry if I could summon the energy, but instead I'm listless and blasted in a clean - empty way. What is independence worth anyway, if it makes you so miserable and aloof. Ten years in the making. Dh Lawrence; the Trespasser, left open on my bed, upstairs, emanating. Invitation. Open, read, get really upset, relate, relate. Have a look in the mirror. I don't like you. It's funny, really. But...I think I've got past the stage where I can file and forget. I'm grinding my toes into the floor, thinking about what comes next. To belittle what I'm feeling makes me furious. A glowing stem of grudge, rooted deep. Yet I'm sorry.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, late into the night, staring at the mask on the wall. The ties and scarves have formed an elegant oriental shadow about it like an aureole. I realise all I have left now is my words. My title. I speak to you but you can't hear. My lips form the words, but the roaring of the gulf drowns them. My worst day this year. Jesus, I'm sorry.

Hear Here

Before I start proper: I forgot some of the performer's names from last night. When you see a _______, it's not a mistake.

What an insane night. The beatniks of lore would be proud. Approaching the gallery, you could smell the warm tang of buttery popcorn. A comfy set up of chairs and bean bags, and bring - your - own - beer. It had all the makings of an interesting event, as indeed for many reasons it was.
Michael Hesp was in full effect, doing what he does best - loud social pariahdom, with a streak of fear thrown in. Infact, he surpassed his usual antics, screaming down his megaphone in people's faces; falling over; abusing people and eventually being thrown out of the gallery only to come in and disrupt another performance (which was beautifully read by ________). I was surprised by how quickly the dude reacted, leaving his laptop and bottle behind to bring the appalingly drunk Hesp down, taking out a portion of the audience and spilling beer. 'He got me, he got me' blabbed Mike. It was almost funny.
Sliding back to the start of the performances: Ana Benloch was superb, intimating the cool (as in temp, not kudos) and plummy tones of her select automated voice recording. Fritz gave an amazingly concise and crisply dry anecdote about catfish and cyanide (a true story! - and talk about German efficiency); _________ strummed his ukelele and told a hilarious tale about learning said instrument, somehow incorporating Audrey Hepburn, cleavers and black eggs speckled with stars; Caitlin's short stories were bolstered by the addition of a very loveable dog whose barks complimented the applause at the end of each performance. Special mention to Stuart Tait, who never fails to surprise me. This time he told a wonderfully brief and hilarious faux naive story about a summer holiday. And Matt Westbrook, yeah man, very good indeed. Not forgetting Ben Neal's Bye / Buy performance which hypnotized me like Terry Riley's 'In C'.
As for David and I, let's just say I was well pleased with the reading. It's always a good sign when someone can suck on a lozenge and still speak with a tongue wrested in silver. My sincere thanks to Mr David for collaborating with me again.
But a super big up to Steve, Liz, Naomi and Jamie for yet another successful Crowd 6 event. As for Mike...yep, you guessed it: GROW UP!

Tara a bit.

Post Wunderkammer

It's not just your general public that are idiotic. Within Brum, we also have a select idiotic art public. The mind boggles. More about this later. I don't want to taint this blog with grumpiness; nevertheless - some things have to be said.
My nerves were ringing about quarter of an hour before I was to get in my cabinet. David was resplendent in his gimp suit, atop a silky mattress, his supine body tied down with delicate strands of ribbon. Presentness is grace as I recall the line from an essay. I, on the other hand felt like a clumsy oaf, with my entourage of ridiculous objects, which would not stay in place. The volume on my amp was wrong, and needed speedy adjustment before the performance began proper. Even so, as I was later told, you could barely hear the sound. No matter.
I adopted the mummy pose which I was to hold (supposedly) for the duration of the private view. Once the lid had been put down I understood immediately the painful position I had put myself in. The pressure was distributed on the tips of my skinny elbows, maybe the funny bones. Within ten minutes my arms were fizzing with pins and needles: as I was supposed to be lying 'in state'; any movements I needed to make to alleviate the pain had to be tiny. Same went for my feet - though I had a little bit more leeway because I was wearing my boots.
Then there was the breathing. This was the weirdest part and required the most concentration. At times I felt like I was suffocating - at others I was breathing regularly and unusually focused. The music I had used in my sound piece got me hyper at some points - though anyone observing me would have been at a loss to see this, obscured by a cheese face mask as I was.
This was my first attempt at a durational performance and it took me to many different, unexpected places. Pain was evident, though not foremost in the piece. Second was the awareness of myself in relation to the people around me. I felt twice removed. Hidden by my mask, then segregated by the cabinet. This was where the problems began. I can allow for people being naive, but there comes a point where sheer ignorance kicks in. For those who really should know a lot better. On more than one occasion, someone left a drink on the cabinet - and in the crucial moment which made me decide I wanted to get out, someone (not mentioning who - needless to say I think you're a CUNT) left a can of Strongbow right above my head. It was left there for about two minutes, which is a cunting long time when you're trying to concentrate and not move; incredulous and really really angry, I wanted to scream. Then my breathing became really difficult: it was time to get out. This spoiled the experience for me. Otherwise, the performance, however successful others deemed it - was rich, giving me time to reflect and think hard about future performances of a like ilk. Still I am baffled by certain individuals behaviour. People in glass houses don't throw boulders. I have only to think of when I scattered Greg Cox's sculpture with a kick at Candice's show at Moor St station. I don't want to come across as a pedant, I am amongst the ignorant: but on Wednesday someone wore the crown of foolishness so well you'd have thought they were born wearing it!

A very big thank you to Charlie and Cujo for curating such a good show, and for giving me a chance to reconstruct my badly ailing practice. There may still be time.

Pre-Wunderkammer

What is it about your general public that makes them so jaw droppingly idiotic? At first I believed my scorn to be born of egotism : look only to my withering 1997 comment 'Chimps ; all chimps' to describe almost everyone around me. Hermeticised in the belief neatly surmised by Dan Ashcroft in Nathan Barley: THE IDIOTS ARE WINNING! But I knew I wasn't the only one. The question is how far do you object without seeming pedantic?
They knock things over; they don't look where they're going; they ask ridiculous questions you don't need to answer; they lurk. Of all things I hate most it's loafers, lurkers and hangers on. They drift on the fringe of action and inertia - maddeningly poised. I wish you'd do something to break the tension.
Nowhere was this more evident than in Borders. The larger an institution the more it magnatizes the flotsam; induces the destitute hour. Perfect for loafers and non-buyers. I've seen people spend three hours just leafing through books, sullying the pages with their fingers.
If all this speaks of regimentation and haste; I assure you the opposite is true. Chill out is maximum priority at our house. But I dislike and mistrust sharing my time with passive, spectral hangers on. I insisit you give me something to do with our shared time. CHOP CHOP! Lest I become as you are.

Wunderkammer tomorrow. Maybe some pre show nerves are playing in my head.

Je suis headache

This morning I was watching Deadwood; one of the best shows on tv. In one of it's typical moments of casual and outrageous violence, two giants (Dan Dority & Captain Turner) have a royal rumble in Deadwood's thoroughfare. I was laughing at the sounds of porky fists mashing guts and blasting faces. Bone on bone! At the climax, the Captain smashed Dan's head into some rocks, but in an unexpected turn, Dan lifted his hand and clawed out Turner's eye. I was nearly sick on my cheese toastie. But then I thought: 'This is what great television's all about!' I watched it again and laughed.

Mort - Ibis : Part II

Reh! Roh! The dogs bark in binary code! When I went to dash Billy's brains in with a rock for disturbing my reading of Vurt...I though of telling you.
Too many reminiscences, but I'll try not to be remiss. I embellish and slobber over my words like a glutton: although thin. Brevity it should be, but I am prone to go on and on. With you I can't help it. All I want is to raise a famous Dan smile. Like Melville, in place of an explanation I offer a list (chronology alas falls victim to the elephantine foot of my memory, if I make mistakes feel free to amend them):

Chewing gum in Mouth Menace.
Spitting drinks in Revival.
Thomas!
It's like woah, man, yeah man, like nowhere you've ever been before man. Stalling so many times so as to cement my rep as a bad driver. I am.
Caged heat: 'I'm gonna spill a can of whup ass on ya.'
Tennis ball brain and Styrofoam vs briefcase neurotic.
Bartleby's : 'I would prefer not to' vs Bartlebooth's sculpted heel of David.
Grinding Dan Kelly's face into the back seat of the coach in Bilbao.
Crocodile vs shark.
Stinking dough.
Olbeter, of course.
Robin hood's bar.
Sack face.
Dave bladdy Pearson.
Ape etchings that made me jealous!
A crafty reef in the park.
Gandi's mania.
Peanut butter fold overs and Space Invaders music. Sock over the fire alarm.
Tudor John.
Your hilarious appearance, and surprisingly apt stint as a Dada Automaton.
'First we remove de anus': Gunter von hagens.
PI.
'Trouble!' 'What kind of trouble?' 'This kind!'
Fucking everything about Enemy Mine.
Django.
Reggae.
Jams.
Shiona.
Maeve.
Jude.
The meeting of your dad and mine underneath the Arndale.
Ibis.
Pavel & Ian.
Night and Day bar with our brown envelopes.
Er....dos san miguel, please.
Wakefield Apricot Jam.
The epic photo of you on a mountain crawling, facing a sheep.
A lyrical yarn about Cape hunting dogs and their intro to the Lake District.
Dali the horse.
DK in a lake wearing a mask of Chris, subsequently getting attacked by a swan.
The Ramblas.
POUND THE GROUND!
Dubism at Music Box.
Margaret Mitton - she's a fittun. She also wore the same boots as you, and made sure everyone knew about it, the git.
Dootson, the cyclops.
UMMMMF!
Magic Bucklers / Gwangi.
Mandolins and melodicas.
Liverpool voyages: 'Bitch! Don't you ever!' 100% blazer re-adjustment.
Catching grapes in your chops.
Betamax plateau.
Fishing hook in the mouth / lifting the fist of glory.
Electronic drum kits.... & 'needs a lick o paint'
Red King.
King Crimson.
Lemuel / Vincent / Rorschach.
Here at Lufthansa we have a certain philosophy...
KWIP!
Denterdogg.
Our encounter with Crazy Dave in his balaclava.
'Chimps...all chimps.'
'Do as I do.'

And more, so much more as you well know.


Happy Birthday mate. I love you.

Mort - Ibis

You'll see him there in the salt lagoons, balding withered parchment skin; black as deep wells. Beady eyed and wise, but prone to a preen when he remains unseen.

Zuki - proof. The sky is a burst sack of luminous krill which he hungers to gobble up and soak his beak.

A shout from his gullet,

is more than you bargain for.

Its peals are as a drowned bell, turned green by rust.

A kick from his claw can rend hills. His poise says:

I can turn you inside out and not drop a bead of sweat.


Mort - Ibis, Ibis Lagoon. Zuki proof, dipped in simoom.

Wunderkammer

I'm excited about the up and coming Wunderkammer show at Margaret St, dans le foyer. The joint curatorial genius of Charlie & Kate should make this a good event. David Miller, a.k.a The Dandy a.k.a The Merman (from our own bevvy of collaborations) and I will be performing on the night. Last time we performed together for the Crowd 6 Mingling & Mistletoe show. It was a rad blend of modern myth making and Marshall mini amps for voice projection. This time we will (hopefully) be appearing in separate exhibition cabinets; I can't account for David's performance as yet; as for my own it's in its infancy.
A recent discovery of some old cassette tapes has informed my decision to do an extended sound piece called Kasegesicht. Thanks to Babel fish for this one: roughly 'Cheese face'. So named for the character I will be appearing as on the night. Anyway, back to the tapes.
I wrote a short synopsis for the press release and that's when I remembered the 5 or so tapes I'd made between 2001-2. These combined (and in order): learned ramblings; the Pleistocene epoch; newspaper readings of shark attacks; music; typewriter recordings; dense, multi layered voices and manipulations: whistling, breathing slowed down and sped up; eating; hiding in cupboards and screaming down cardboard tubes. Hilarious! However my aims were deadly serious, and the way I come across is urgently earnest and excitable. It's embarrassing! However these are important qualities I lack in my practice now. I want that feeling back. Like the art is the most important and cathartic, sometimes maddening but always uber relevant means of my self expression and self awareness. The means of becoming engaged with an idea, no matter how frivolous it seems.
In the Chronicles of Edward Winter I took that to it's extreme. Edward Winter was my main alter ego for the duration of 2001. I went to some significant lengths to explore the colour white (my then monomaniac pursuit): shaving off my eyebrows and bleaching my hair then pasting myself white all over for a photo shoot. Then came the tape - which was a culmination of all my discoveries and ideas surrounding the colour / non - colour. This was a piece by piece dissemination, my crazy attempt to categorise (like Melville in Moby Dick) the vast implications of whiteness. Like Melville I didn't come up with a definition, just a list. But the feeling was one of: 'Wicked, at least I've tried and come up with some good shit into the bargain.'
The rugged charm of these tapes - the very rugged charm; still exerts an influence on me. Admittedly I haven't had a practice since 2006. With Wunderkammer, and like performances I hope to build something up again. Sound pieces will very much have a part to play in this.

Wunderkammer, 9th April, 6pm - 8pm at Margaret St!

Warehouse

I've recently heard that the warehouse in which I lived for two years has been demolished. We all expected it, but didn't know when it would face it's inevitable demise. Leaving there was less emotional than I anticipated. Which surprised me. That place had drawn it's share of tears and roars of laughter - mine being amongst the most copious and loudest.
It felt like there was no time for cheery reflection as we were onset with the devastating prospect of a $10k bill for unpaid business rates. This, all of us faced with the determination and grim realisation that there was no way out. However one clown, and clown is the word - for this boy was a fool, an oaf in surfers clothing, who abused his position and his privileges - thought he could do away with the significant portion he owed. Month followed month, and as most of us were forking up preposterous amounts of money to keep the venom'd tongue of the council off our backs, Mr Dan Lindsell kept a monkish silence up in Northamptonshire, in between jobs, a pikey toss pot living with his mum. Once or twice we had ventured to let him know his position, that time was wearing thin. Silence. There is nothing worse than sending a messenger pigeon out to never hear it's wings beat on the homeward passage. Whether it's that phone call you've been promised, that letter or even a fucking text. Silence. Immutable as law.
Then, late as you like, late late late in the day when we had a mere wedge of Franlin$ to hand over; though enough to constitute a months wage from hard graft : this pikey dickhead has the unmitigated audacity to send us an email saying he won't pay his way because he's filing for bankruptcy! What's more he wangles out of the stranglehold by saying he wasn't on the tenancy agreement. Jesus wept.
So, it followed that after many angry words we had to hatch a plan to get the money together. We wanted to take legal action against the bastard, but eventually realised the extra time and money was going to work against us. So the bastard leaped.
You paid cheap rent for a place that would define you for years to come and would offer you the sweetest, craziest memories of hedonism and collective energy, the brilliant art, the videos, the table with a thousand tea cup stains - that housed meetings with Reactor, Ayling & Conroy, Franko B (!), AAS, Springhill Institute; the warehouse parties which attracted throngs of 300+ people each and every time; bands like SHIT, Greg now going on to greener pastures with Battle for Prague; whereas your pastures are brown for all the shit you've spoken, spilling from your mouth, surrounding you.

Disbelief at someone who could so flagrantly eschew his responsibility at the last hurdle, has overtaken my anger. Now it's a tried and tested lesson of be careful of who you choose to live with. We made a mistake in trusting this idiot. Whereas we lost Franklin$ over the affair, Dan lost his friends and much more besides. That should remain his lesson.

Casanova

I've been reading History of my Life by Giacomo Casanova for the last few weeks. It's a beautiful Everyman's edition; weighty; with it's own ribbon bookmark (always a nice touch). The content is no less beautiful. Here was one extraordinary man: a priest; a thief; magician; gambler; traveller, ultimately a wicked diarist, whose confessions read like a more lurid Pepys, with an equal eye for detail. I've already lost count of all the women he's fallen in love with. Can't remember who sang the song, maybe Ultimate Kaos - whoever they were they were shit, but the line sticks: 'I am not your Casanova.' True enough, he did sleep with scores of women (and maybe even some men) but that doesn't make him the uber libertine some would make him out to be. Unlike the Ron Jeremys, the Simon Cowells and Wilt Chamberlains* and countless others we all know and love (or despise); Casanova elevates his encounters to the level of genius. He has an affinity and a genuine adoration for the whole personality of his mistresses. He isn't a sexual predator or a fiend - and I suspect he was a lot better looking than Michael Douglas, to boot. His joy is infectious, and his intrepid pursuits of his ultimately all - too - willing darlings, will raise a universal smile for those of either sex. SEXY TIME!




* 'Wilt the Stilt' allegedly bedded 10,000 women!

First Outing

As the eponymous title suggests, this is my first foray into blogging. After a small chat with Ana B, (herself a blogger of many years), on Friday; I decided to pick up sticks. It's taken a while. Although I have been keeping diaries for eleven years. The first one - a blue bound, gilt edged puppy with an incongrous gold Reebok design stencilled on the front, resides with E, in Bearwood. It was one of my proudest moments to exchange this book for two, maybe three of her memoirs. She was sixteen at the time of writing. I was seventeen.
I continue writing. Not every day, as I used to back then. In fact I've decided to do away with a dated diary for a year, instead using a blank ruled notebook : plain and unassuming, functional. The result is perhaps closer to one of the many areas of writing I've been exploring in my formative years as a diarist: recording thoughts without interruption. I mistrust the term stream of conciousness - the watery element I like, the adaptability of it. But it sounds wishy washy. Automatic writing sounds like you're just feeding words into a gun and letting rip. I don't know. At a guess, my writing falls somewhere in between; perhaps as a means of excusing my awful grammar or avoiding the self imposed regimentation that diary keeping can fall into. Either way, here's to't.