my life as a artist
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first poo now spit
Friday 7th March 2008 10:38 PM
Shepherds pies rarely have shepherds in them, except, maybe, in the Todmordon area, but rather contain the object of the shepherds care and protection, i.e. sheep. Similarly, I expected bird's-nest soup to be made of eggs, or maybe even tiny little birds, and was very surprised to discover that it really is made out of bird's nests.
The nest in question is the home of the swiftlet, a small swift from South East Asia that fashions cup-like dwellings on the sides of cave walls. The swiftlet builds its nest like the swallow, but instead of using bits of mud, it uses its own spit, which hardens into a sort of semi-opaque plaster-board material. A nest takes about a month to build, and I don't know what sort of a percentage the bird's on, but I'm told that a kilo of it can fetch up to £5,000.
To be honest, I'd never really thought of spit as a food product before, not even in my famished years, but I was so impressed by the incredibly high price it commanded, and the fact that it was vegetarian, that I thought it might be worth experimenting with spit from different animals.
Although Jimmy the donkey and Poppy the dog would have provided an obvious, ready source of saliva, I was after something a bit classier, so, with Mark the farmer's permission, I've collected and dried about ten grams of chicken-spittle from some of the Old English bantams in the yard. It's been a tricky and time-consuming operation with mixed results.
On the one hand, as a food product, you can't get away from the fact that it tastes like dried bird spit, and I'm not convinced it's got much nutritional value either, but on the other hand, I've got much closer to the chickens, and because of it's novelty value, I managed to sell three grams of it to Greg-behind-the-counter at the newsagent, for fifteen quid.
The relationship with my flow of income from art and literature, or 'our Flo', as I like to call her, has always been capricious at the best of times, but last month we had a blazing row and she left me, and she won't answer her mobile. I said that I thought she lacked a sense of humour and was too materialistic, and she told me that she thought I was vain, selfish and lazy.
Then she smiled mockingly, and gave me a cheque from the Performing Rights Society. It was related to one of my songs, 'Eric Cantona', being played on a karaoke machine somewhere in Hong Kong, and was for two pounds seventeen pee, and in retrospect I wish I'd kept it and bought some sweets, but I was impassioned and wanted to make a statement, so I gave it her back and, rather childishly, suggested that she give it to Paul McCartney instead.
A man's got needs, and until I can win back 'our Flo', with a concerted display of humility, selflessness and hard work, it looks like I might have to go with another flow, and sell spit. I'll still keep writing the blogs, of course, and I promise that soon I'll try to do one that's not about waste body products.
Posted 10:38 PM | 8 Comments | Permalink
motion on motion
Thursday 28th February 2008 10:29 PM
Steve La Rive comments that he thinks a Thetford 365, with its 'real flushing action', could be the answer to my Porta Potti shame. I went to the website to check it out, and was greeted with a fabulous picture of seven shiny Porta Potties, grouped in a semi-circle with their lids open, looking like a clutch of baby Daleks waiting to be fed. It was a cheery sight to see sanitary products looking so happy and relaxed, and yet so vulnerable and open at the same time.
At the moment I'm using a Thetford 165, and although it's only available in one non-colour, grey, and doesn't have a real flushing action, it does have a generous 21 litre capacity waste tank, and an integrated swivelling pour-out spout and pressure release button, to ensure splash-free plop-emptying.
Obviously, I'd like the kudos, and the real flushing action, that comes with a Thetford 365, but I'm a bit worried about being caught on an endless wheel of desire. I believe that in the past, many of mankind's noblest enterprises have been abandoned in the overrated search for improved toilet facilities.
Consider for a moment,(or if you've got more time and dedication, fast for three days and meditate on it, but gently, and with no thought of outcome or reward), Fran Franne, the slaughterman, who used to live in the caravan opposite. He had a small, dull, monochrome Thetford 345, with a measly 12 litre capacity waste tank, and yet seemed spiritually fulfilled, enjoyed a great social life, and once had trials for Sheffield Wednesday.
Where will this illusory search for improved toilet facilities end? I notice in one of my mums Hello magazines that predictably, Bono, Madonna, Sting, Jordan and Gordon, (Ramsey the chef, that is, soon to ascend to single-name star status), all use a top-of-the-range, granite-finish Thetford 465, with electric flush, and yet none of them, to my mind, have half the likeability of Fran, despite his endless slaughter of cute-faced animals.
There's a fine line between sanitary and sanitised, and to me, the Thetford 465 is indicative of the rising tide of soullessness that is swamping the modern age. I suspect that Bono, Madonna, Sting, Jordan and Gordon don't even empty their 465's themselves, but have low-paid staff to do it for them. Not only are Jordan, Gordon, Boredom, Stink and Nobbo missing out on the unfolding mystery of the integrated swivelling pour-out spout and pressure release button, but they'll also never know the deep catharsis that comes from splash-free plop-emptying.
Although during the day-time, my waking mind is engaged in constant battle with the demons of temptation, at night, the sword of my discerning intellect is scabbarded in sleep, and I'm defenceless. I keep having this recurring dream that I'm the owner of a brand new, granite-finish Thetford 465, with electric flush, and it's in the shed next to the old 165. In the dream, there's hundreds of monochrome Thetford 345's, with their measly, one-night-on-the-piss-and-it's-full, 12 litre capacity waste-tanks, gathered round the shed, and it's as though they're waiting for me to do my business on the 465. Despite the pressure to perform, I manage to pass a well-formed Rory, and after using the electric flush, I go outside to meet the throng, and one of Thetford 345's at the back opens its lid and shouts 'Judas!'
So Steve, thanks for the sanitary tip, and giving me the spur to investigate the incredible and varied world of Porta Pottiland, and also for giving me the opportunity to engage in scatological discourse, and talk crap.
Posted 10:29 PM | 7 Comments | Permalink
hands that do dishes can feel soft as your face
Saturday 23rd February 2008 10:11 PM
I've always found that the finger of Fate, though fickle, can often be quite helpful, in a prodding, pointing sort of way, whereas the hand of Fate only seems to be interested in dealing blows. I think this is because Fate is still really upset at only having one hand, having lost the other, a few years ago, in a really bad hand-accident. When Fate uses her finger, because she's got a choice, she feels more empowered and at ease with herself, and doesn't tend to lash out as much.
Last week I invited Fate round for a meal in the caravan, along with Destiny, Justice and Deliverance. I'm a bit sensitive about my porta-potti, so these days all my dinner guests tend to be non-corporeal archetypes, because they don't go to the toilet.
I noticed that Destiny only had one hand as well, but seemed to be much more relaxed about the whole thing (and dealt with the peas better, as well). Justice was late, as usual, and at one point we thought she was never coming. To pass the time, Deliverance played us a few hill-billy tunes on the banjo.
Archetypes can sometimes get a bit lofty, and I like to think that it did Fate good, to share a simple meal with a lowly poet, in a humble, but filthy, caravan. It's often said that if the finger of Fate is ever going to penetrate the sticky fundament of mystery, it has to be dipped in the milk of human kindness first.
Interestingly, a lot of non-corporeal archetypes are keen Huddersfield Town fans, and there was fierce competition over the 'Andy Booth; Legend' mug when it came round to coffee-time. We discussed last weeks disappointing F.A. cup result against Chelsea Ltd. Fate and Destiny were actually at the game, but Deliverance and Justice couldn't get a ticket.
Posted 10:11 PM | 8 Comments | Permalink
save the babies
Thursday 14th February 2008 6:39 PM
Whilst out shopping for cheap nuts at Jacksons Insanesbury's, I met a man in the queue who gave me a leisure tip.
'You've got to get play-station three, it's fuckin' awesome! On one of 'em, I was a sort of Knights Templar, on mi way to Jerusalem, and I went through this desert, and I was on this fuckin' horse for an hour! Then there was this time machine thing, and I pressed the button and I was in fuckin' York! It was 1951, and I was walking down Micklegate, holding this fuck-off big machine gun, and there were cunts coming at me from all directions, tooled up to fuck they were, it was fuckin' awesome! I've been right into it! I played on it all this morning, and this afternoon, when I was at the hospital waiting for an appointment, every time a doctor walked passed, I found myself wondering how I could fuckin' 'ave 'em, without anyone seeing me!'
'Do they do a vegetarian version?'
'There's a button you can press for blood or no blood, so yes, I suppose so'.
On Question Time, on Radio 4, this weekend, they were talking about how the literacy rate in Finland is higher than in Britain, despite the fact that they don't learn to read or write until they're seven. Rudolph Steiner, educationalist, mystic, and guardian of the threshold (goalkeeper) for Bayern Munich, says that for under-sevens, word-learning is a hard frost on the natural flowering of the imagination.
Imagination is the true source of a nations wealth, but unfortunately, due to it being a loving act of creative will, is an alien concept to most politicians. In the Guardian I read that the government, featuring the fabulous Golden Brown and the Miligrams, are introducing mandatory computer skills for children over the age of twenty-two months. That should learn 'em!
Posted 6:39 PM | 6 Comments | Permalink
rock on
Tuesday 5th February 2008 10:50 PM
I've just been on the phone to 'The Winning Post', trying to arrange a date for me and the Travelling Libraries to play a gig in March, and by a process of elimination, geomancy, date synchronisation and sheer fancy, have come up with the twenty second. It's Easter Saturday, it's the cusp between Pisces and Aries, and it was the only available date.
To a vegetarian transcendentalist like myself, such pro-activity can often feel like an act of aggression, so before I made the phone call, I ate a large slab of fresh tofu, and poked the eyes out of some organic Maris Pipers. (They were looking at me, OK?)
Having brutally manipulated the future, I rang round the band to confess, and, as usual, Brin the bass player took it the hardest. He's a committed vague'un, (a pure edgetarian, that doesn't do diary products) and the sheer specificity of it all shocked him. However, the trauma of having a horribly scarred calendar, didn't stop him from opining on the true nature of rock'n'roll.
He believes it's a hormonal thing, and questions whether a band with an average age of fifty-eight can really lay claim to being 'rock'n'roll'. After watching a Captainless, Captain Beefheart's Magic Band play, three years ago at Glastonbury, I believe they can. In light of the rejuvenating promise of the projected 2012 paradigm shift, I think that fifty-eight is the new eighteen, and that given encouragement, nearly half of the Travelling Libraries could still be capable of performing the sexual act, and nearly all of them of half-performing it.
Obviously, we're not as physically vigorous as we were forty years ago, when we we're a boy band, but we've adapted. Instead of doing the usual two, forty minute sets, we tend to do four twenties, so we can have more wee-breaks, and last week I got a stannah amp-lift. (My niece bought it me from Fender, you know!) Those same forty years that cursed us with incontinence and thick carpets of ear-hair, however, have also given us loads of time to spend in our bedrooms, where we've learned the technical expertise necessary to explore the many varied rooms of rock'n'roll's mysterious mansion. Our lead guitarist, Ry Veeter, has even been inside the walled garden, and had a look in the potting sheds.
Rock'n'roll, at it's best, should be performed by the possessed, for the dispossessed, and should oppress the comfortable, and comfort the oppressed, and though musical expertise is certainly no barrier to these things, neither is it essential, and in the idealistic world of rock'n'roll, it cannot be denied that the artless innocence of youth has a special power all of it's own.
I remember going to a gig twenty years ago, in a village hall in the Dordogne region of South-West France. The band had an average age of fourteen, and the sparse audience seemed to consist mainly of their parents and grandparents. The lead singer was a scrawny, mini-Tom Verlaine-type, with a skinny black tie and a huge, floppy, greasy fringe that diagonally obscured half of his spotty, feral face. The music was fast, raw and angry, and ran round the room like a scalded cat.
The listening public, who looked like the sorts you see in paintings of failed potato harvests, were surprisingly receptive, despite the lack of melodious accordions. It might have been pride and blood-loyalty, but they watched the band with a delighted, reverent attention. In a nod of respect towards the roots of punk, the lead singer would occasionally sing a line in English, which I suspect none of the audience understood. What else could explain the contented twinkle in a granny's eye, as she observes her 'petit chou-chou' lean towards the microphone, push his lank hair out of his eyes, and in a high-pitched, unbroken voice, half spit, and half yell,
'I wanna drink! I wanna smoke! I wanna fuck you! I wanna die!'
Posted 10:50 PM | 5 Comments | Permalink
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