my life as a artist
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hello out there
Tuesday 11th December 2007 4:34 PM
Hello out there, or, bearing in mind that I'm beginning to suspect that outer-space is exactly the same place as inner-space, hello in there.
Did you know that human beings are generally the mean size of an atom and the sun? Alan Shearer mentioned it during a discussion of the Aston Villa, Portsmouth match on Match of the Day on Saturday night. Gary Lineker, who was expecting Alan to say something more along the lines of 'Benjani's done great there', seemed genuinely excited. Intimations of the underlying divine order behind existence seemed to suffuse the BBC studio with an air of renewed hope and understanding, and on this form, I'd say that Alan Shearer was a shoe-in for the post of England manager.
Further to the Linton Kwesi Johnson blog from last week, Linton's first response to 'was this poem written with irony?' was a low, growled, 'That is not my aesthetic.' This weeks 'Poetry through history' reverted to type, with an epic poem by Very Very Dryden about the fire of London. According to Very Very, it seems the king did everything semi-divinely possible to put out the flames, and that the ultimate culprit was the wind, which, rather suspiciously, came from Belgium.
On Friday evening I drove to Bollington in Cheshire to do a stand-up gig. The M62 at that time, in the rain, with a bit in the middle of the windscreen that my sub-standard wipers would only smear, was a true test of my warrior spirit. The concrete surgeons of the highways department were mine enemy, and as I turned south onto the M60, I felt that, as a malevolent foe, they were ever-vigilant. As far as I'm concerned, the A6 is a big, important road, and if I'd built the M60, when I crossed over it, I'd have said something. As it was, I had to intuit. When things started to feel really 'A sixy', I took the next exit, and ended up in a place called 'Edgely', which, according to my AA book of the road, didn't exist, and was in fact, just a play on words.
However, Bollington, which really puts the ling in Bolton, found me. I got the gig via Agraman, the human anagram, who only books me into places where he feels the audience would be willing to put up with my pleasantness. I got an encore, and they seemed to like it all, except for one line. I was explaining about the roots of words, and how 'education' is taken from the Latin, 'educare', and means 'to be bored in an under-ventilated room'. They laughed at that, but when I followed it up with, 'if you say it three times, it means 'I'm going to spend all the money on bombs', there was complete silence, which being the sound of no-hands clapping, had a certain zen quality to it. All I could say was, 'just me then', and move swiftly on to a posh knob-gag.
After the gig I was explaining to the compere, Dynamite Dave, that twenty years ago the comedy circuit had a bit more edge. 'Yes', said Dave, 'but it's different these days, there's nothing to protest about, is there?' Dynamite, Dave, dynamite.
Posted 4:34 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
Bishopthorpe Social Club
Friday 7th December 2007 12:11 PM
Thanks to the media savvy of the fabulous Tom, here's a few extracts from me and the Travelling Libraries, (Mike and Brin) ,at last night's gig at Bishopthorpe Social Club, which is a lot like the Buena Vista Social Club, but in Bishopthorpe. It was a benefit for the York Corinthian Foundation, a fabulous football team and charity, to raise money to connect a school in Tanzania to the national grid.
Apparently we raised more money than last years quiz, and it gave me a chance to show my fellow Corinthians that my comedic skills aren't just restricted to the football pitch.
Posted 12:11 PM | 2 Comments | Permalink
linton not-crazy johnson
Monday 3rd December 2007 12:16 AM
I've just been listening to Linton Kwesi Johnson reading his poem 'Di Great Insohreckshan', about the Brixton riots of 1981, on a Radio 4 programme called 'Poetry through history'. This was surprisingly edgy stuff for Radio 4, and I think they got more than they bargained for. The poetry was powerful and, 'because the wind doesn't howl in iambic pentameters', quite raw. After the first ten minutes of celebratory and righteous 'lootin' and a burnin', I sensed the producers wishing they'd chosen 'The charge of the light brigade' instead.
Unfortunately, during the last five minutes of the programme, my attention was divided by a chicken coming in to the caravan and trying to have perfunctory, but enthusiastic, sex with an attractive tea-cosy, completely unaware that the cosy's delicious body-warmth was being provided by a freshly brewed pot of Earl Grey tea, underneath.
By the time I'd cleaned up the mess, and counselled the chicken, to a point where I thought it was fit to go back out into the farmyard, the programme was over. During a silent affirmation with the chicken, however, I did manage to catch an extraordinary exchange between the poet and the white, middle-class presenter.
I can't remember the exact words, but the presenter more or less said, ' So Linton, this poem was written twenty-six years ago…since then, the battle for racial equality has just about been won, what, with Trevor MacDonald reading the news and stuff …. is the poem still relevant?.. in fact, would you say, in retrospect, that you wrote it with a certain amount of irony?'
My shock, at such a crass, tit-knob of a question, was picked up by the chicken, whose subsequent squawking drowned out most of the poet's reply. I think it was something along the lines of 'No, irony is for English poets'. (this is Linton speaking, of course, not the chicken squawking). I haven't got a 'listen again' facility, so if anybody heard the reply, and wasn't having to deal with a sex-crazed chicken trauma (with tarka dal and pilaw rice?) at the same time, I'd be grateful if you could tell me what it was.
Meanwhile, an overseas reader, whose validation word of the day was 'urgent', thanks me for penetrating the media black-out of Somalia. It pleases me to think that I might be lighting a candle by complaining about the darkness. When I say 'the darkness' here, I am of course referring to the influence of the demon-controlled structures of the planet, and not the high-pitched soft-metal warblings of a popular beat-combo from Lowestoft. You can't complain about a man with curly hair who believes in a thing called love.
Posted 12:16 AM | 4 Comments | Permalink
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