my life as a artist
You are viewing the archive, containing all posts older than 20 day(s). To return to the front page, click here.
liverpool one milan too
Thursday 24th May 2007 12:52 AM
I've just been to my mum's to watch Liverpool lose 2-1 to A.C. Milan in the European Cup Final. The game didn't actually take place at my mum's. She did apply to FIFA to stage the game, but the European ruling body turned her down on the grounds that there weren't enough toilets, even with a lend of my porta-potties (I've got a guest one), so we watched it on the telly instead.
Pennant was germane to Liverpool's sweet station and at 8:25 was unlucky to miss a connection to Gerrard's cross. Just before half-time, Milan stole the lead (off the church roof, and sold it to Silvio Berlusconi, who melted it down into a giant pair of protective underpants) through a fluky ricocheted free-kick off Philippo 'face like a slapped arse' Inzaghi, just before half time.
In the event of FIFA changing their mind about the venue at the last minute, my mum had made loads of sandwiches for the interval, so we had a sandwich-eating competition, which I won. The thrill of victory, and my mum's grace in defeat, was balm to the wound inflicted by Philippo ' whining, petulant, sulky ten year old, who maybe off the pitch is a really nice guy, and it's just a chemical thing, bless him' Inzaghi.
Liverpool pressed for an equaliser in a tense, but open second half. The quality of the opposition was undeniable and it would be childish to pooh-pooh Kaka. When Benitez brought on Harry Kewell after an hour, the tension was really getting to us. My mum said we needed some passive marijuana smoking, so I went downstairs and got one of the students to do a few bongs on the sofa between me and my mum, in exchange for some sandwiches.
The effects of the second-hand bongsmoke were so successful at relieving tension, that when Philippo 'he can't help it' Inzaghi scored the second goal, we were happy for both him and his family. Liverpool got one back just before the end but Milan held on for the last few relaxing minutes. We watched Paolo Maldini accept the cup, then we finished off the sandwiches in a non-competitive way.
I think Fifa missed a trick not staging the final at my mum's. The sandwiches were really tasty and the atmosphere was fantastic.
Posted 12:52 AM | 2 Comments | Permalink
she sits amongst the cabbages and peas
Wednesday 23rd May 2007 12:29 AM
Ten days ago, at a car-boot sale, I bought some cheap lilies. ( that's to say I paid under the going market rate for them, I'm not saying that the lilies were in any way vulgar or lacking in integrity)
About five days ago, three of the top buds opened on the same day, and gave birth to three immaculate flowers. The visitation of such strange perfection, in so imperfect a caravan, caused me to give full rein to my wonderment at the magnificence of the natural world. This wonderment was tinged with a certain anxiety. If I am of the natural world, and heir to the harmonious beauty of her sublime symmetry and rhythms, why does my caravan look like a shit-heap?
I think this might have something to do with free will. I suspect lilies don't have free will, and even if they did have free will, what would they do with it? Probably behave really badly like the chickens. (I've just had to tell the same bantam to leave my caravan for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. I know they haven't got a great memory, but that's sheer wilfulness.) Maybe lilies do have free will and choose to align themselves to the will of God. I had a motorbike like that once.
As soon as those lilies reached maximum loveliness, they were dying, just as the moon at fullness starts to wane. Now there's only one lily left, hanging onto life with it's wrinkled, puckered flesh and receding gums, ready to shed it's petals to the floor, where they'll lay like feathers in a field after a fox attack.
Such brief, fierce beauty! Meanwhile, pickled and preserved in its own filth, the caravan endures in slow, lumpen functionality. I suppose I wouldn't want one that was exquisitely beautiful and then fell apart after five days. Might be nice for a weekend. As for ugly flowers that never die……..
On August 12th, 2006, in Springfield, Kentucky, a certain Basil Rose and one Lily Woodruff were married by a Reverend Herb Flowers. I just thought you ought to know.
Posted 12:29 AM | 2 Comments | Permalink
mysteries
Friday 18th May 2007 11:54 PM
Why is the milk of a red cow white, if it only eats green grass? My mother has sung this question to me for nearly fifty years and I still don't know the answer. I would have imagined it to be a sort of greeny red colour, almost brown. Maybe they bleach it. I'm hoping my mum will tell me the answer soon.
Last night some aliens from the star system of Sirius landed in the field between the caravan park and the golf-course, and came round and watched the EUFA cup final between Espanyol and Sevilla on channel 5. In space they can only watch the matches that are broadcast on satellite, so if there's an important match that's only on terrestrial, they have to come to Earth to watch it. One of them brought a packet of Pringles, which unfortunately had lost a lot of it's crispness through too much inter-dimensional space travel, but was nevertheless a thoughtful gesture. I did wonder if they were going to perform sexual experiments on me, so a packet of Pringles was a nice surprise.
A couple of them got quite pissed on some organic tempranillo that I got on offer from the co-op, but as Sevilla, 'their team', won 3-1 on penalties, they were fine. Except for a bit of radioactive slime on the sofa they were no trouble at all. Before they left, they gave me a piece of super hi-tech laser communication hardware. They said if I reverse-engineered it I could patent it and make a few bob. I gave them a Tupperware container for their Pringles.
As I walked them to their spaceship, (mainly to stop them mutilating Mark's cows) I marvelled at the passion that the game of football engenders in the hearts of so many varied sentient beings across the universe. I suggested that next time they came we could arrange a game. Me and my mates could be Man United and they could be Spaceman United.
Posted 11:54 PM | 1 Comments | Permalink
she makes lunch just like a woman
Thursday 17th May 2007 11:33 PM
Last night I performed at a Bob Dylan tribute gig, in celebration of his sixty-sixth birthday.
'I came to a low place of darkness and swamp
The bendy-bus ran through the centre of town
I locked up my bike to a post on the rise
Went into the Welly just to wash my throat down
A man called Chris approached me for a gig
I knew right away he was not ordinary
He said we're looking for someone to sing Mister Big
I said 'I aint got no talent', he said 'It aint necessary'
We set off that night for the Post Office club
I gave him my bike-clips and he gave me his word
I said ' Will you pay my bus fare?' he said 'Yes, and a pint!'
I said 'That's the best news that I've ever heard!'
I remember doing one for his fiftieth. That night there was a quiz, won by a table of bobologists from Halifax, who scored twenty-eight out of thirty, considerably more, in my opinion, than Bob himself would have scored.
Those bobologists from Halifax, in their bobniscience, would be among the first to agree that Bob's sixty-sixth birthday has far more significance than his sixty-fifth. As the age for retirement, and a free bus-pass, sixty-five has some significance in the mundane, sublunary world of work and finance, but sixty-six is heavy with a cosmic meaning, especially for those that know. Those blokes from Halifax probably know. I don't.
I do know that sixty-six is two times thirty-three, which is the number of years of Christ's life and the highest degree in freemasonry. If you add Highway 51 to thirty three, you get eighty four, then take away five believers, obviously, and that leaves you seventy nine, which is the number of verses in Gates of Eden.
One of the most interesting times in Dylan's career was when he went electric. Up unto that point he had been iconic as 'man with guitar', a shamanic bard, a mystical troubadour. His duty was to hurl mighty words of white light and wisdom, against the demon controlled structures of the planet, and play a bit of dodgy harmonica.
Dylan's wholesome curly-haired-folk-singer image changed dramatically when he released Electric Lay Lady Layland. The first time he performed the new electric stuff was at the Newport folk festival, and they couldn't take it. If it had been in Newport, Gwent, he might have got away with it, but it was in Newport, Pembrokeshire, and at that time the folk festival was nearer to an Eisteddfod. After listening to a few harp recitals and some choral stuff, mainly in Welsh, the audience of local farmers couldn't really cope with 'Leopard skin pill box hat', turned up to eleven. On the live recording of the gig there's a bit between numbers where someone from the audience shouts out, in a strong Welsh accent, 'Could you turn it down a bit, please, Bob? It's a bit loud isn't it?'
Quick as a flash, Bob replies. 'I don't believe you! You're a liar'
During his time in Wales he wrote Rainy Day Women, Buckets of Rain, Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Before the Flood, Shelter from the Storm, Idiot Wind and Hurricane. (and of course, Llanrhaedr-am-mochnant Woman on my Mind)
His bravery and inventiveness are really impressive. I was watching 'Don't Look Back', a film about the 1965 tour of the UK, and at one point, he's in a room, and Alan Price is playing a George Formby number on the piano. I think it was 'Leaning on a Lamppost'. You could see Dylan's hawk-like eyes taking it all in, and less than one month later, he wrote 'Its all right ma, turned out nice again'
He's looking well for his age. I think it's because he's made of really high quality leather. The same leather that Mother Theresa was made of, and Keith Richards. They say he's one of the hardest wearing guys in showbusiness.
When I was about ten, my dad used to make us smoke dope and listen to Dylan. Cannabis was really cheap in the West Riding in the mid-sixties, and the coalman used to deliver ours. We'd get two sacks a week, one of Afghani and one of Nepalese temple balls, which I suppose would be the equivalent of ovals.
Every evening, 'after us teas', he go up to the stereogram, which was made of half an acre of teak forest and the size of a small saloon car, and line up Dylan's first five albums on the autochanger. Then he'd go down to the cellar and come back with a coal-scuttle full of sticky, black lumps of hash, and he'd thump it down onto the carpet and say, 'I'm off to t'pub… and ah want to see that smoked afore ah get 'ome!'… and by God, we had to!
Now I'm older, I'm grateful to my dad for his firm and unusual guidance, although at the time, it played havoc with my eleven-plus. It's forty years later, and sadly, my dad's gone, and so has the stereogram, and sadly, so has the coal-scuttle, but I'm still here, and so is Bob, who's birthday is next week . I don't think I'll bother getting him anything. After all, he's got everything he needs, he's an artist, he don't look back.
l
Posted 11:33 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
bye bye blair
Friday 11th May 2007 10:15 PM
When Tony Blair speaks
he often pauses
between phrases,
sometimes for ages.
I think he thinks it gives him
some sort of gravitas
whereas
I don't.
Pathocracy is government by psychopaths, which, unfortunately, is very fashionable these days. To be a head of state it helps to be charismatic and have a mad, staring left eye… or in the case of Putin, two dead ones. I don't think Gordon Brown quite fits the bill, so I expect we'll get given that nice Mr Cameron instead.
Tomorrow morning I might fly to Monaco with my mum, and play roulette in the Hotel Royale. If we win loads of money and become existentially disgusted, we might smoke crack cocaine and play 'chicken' with really sharp knives. It'd be a change for both of us.
If we don't go to Monaco, we'll go to the car-boot sale at the race-course. I'm looking for a replacement tap for my sink and anything else that I think could bring some sense of beauty and meaning into my life for under a fiver.
The tap I've got at the moment is not sexually compatible with a hosepipe so I'm looking for something a bit more priapic. My garden, the Sitting Buckets of Babylon, needs regular watering and jugging's too slow. Also, in a few months, when the vegetables are firm, ripe and tempting, if the government come and try and take them away from me, I'll be able to hold them at bay with the hosepipe until I come up with a more long-term solution.
No two-bit, blood-sucking, global elite elected pathocracy will ever take my broad beans! I'll eat them there and then, and if they arrest me and put me in custody, or custard, I'll break wind and they'll have to let me go.
Maybe I should grow some artichokes.
Posted 10:15 PM | 1 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] [27] [28] [29]
