My last words

I am dying, I can feel it in my bones. I lie. I cannot feel it anymore.

Tristan says he will take over and manage the farm so to speak. He has my memoirs (such as they are) and promises to put them in some kind of order.

I am reminded of Aldous Huxleys last words: 'LSD intravenous', or something like that.

Gin intravenous... Thats more like it.
Gin; memories of my father I never knew before I killed him, my mother who self medicated on the stuff, the men who bribed me or drugged me with it when I was a teenager. Gin; oblivion for the women who needed it before that.

And of course the gin-trap that is life.

I cannot extricate myself from this trap and rather than gnaw my leg off to free myself I will quietly drift away in order to sleep that most peaceful and dreamless of sleeps where not even a muse can wake me.

I cannot be bothered anymore.

The most beautiful woman in the clap clinic

Happiness and absolute sorrow flow from the same wound.

I have, as usual been witholding information from myself.

Milk, Bukowski and Laughter

A friend calls from canada and asks: 'What are you doing?'
and I say I am drinking milk and reading Bukowski
and she laughs and it is that laugh, you know,
the laugh of someone you really like
and straight away you want to make her laugh again
not to make her happy so much
as to make her laugh again
so you can listen to it.

And when she hangs up I think of poetry
and what defines poetry
and the word metaphor screams
'As if writing a shopping list of metaphors is enough

to make a poem!'

the ghosts of spoons

I said to mona: How anyone can have an intellectual conversation about spray painting spoons beats me. but we seem to manage it.

Nietzsche and the cow

I am told by an American friend that a philosopher friend likes nothing more than to hang out at the cow with his new best friend and discuss Nietzsche.

Reminds me of the time I hung out Fritz and talked about the Cow. I seem to remember telling him about the goat.

Fritz took notes.

Bizarrely a horse looked into the bar.

Oasis

The Tabernacle is an oasis in this madness.

The man who brought his own hill

Carnival inevitably brings to mind Hein; the man who brought his own hill.

Hein; a big man, Travelled through the traffic of Notting Hill on a skateboard... He had the right; a native of Venice Beach California and a veteran of those gnarly breaks.

he sailed serenely over the horizon of Westbourne park road like nothing more than a clipper under full sail. his outrider was a German Shepherd.

Hein never had to put his foot down to push... He always brought his own hill.

A few years ago he had one of those momentous parties that are still talked about in the Cow, especially at Carnival. but, like the sixties, If you were there all you can remember is that it happened. I ran out of memory cells on the Sunday afternoon, the rest is a shadow at best.

Hein also was the man who gave me my first gold disc; it hangs on my bathroom wall, something I had always wanted... I had been round at his house with people and some beer or wine and needed to use the loo. there on the wall was a gold disk. It shone.

I told Hein that I had always wanted one of those in my bathroom.

He went to a cupboard in another room then handed me a gold disc for the first Stray Cats album. I could have wept.

A big man; Hein.

The first whistle

I awoke to a deathly silence; no busses, no people, no noise. It was the retreat of the sea prior to the tsunami. The lull before the storm.

Then inevitably there it is, rising over my aural horizon; the first whistle of Carnival.

It is followed of course by others, then hooters, then the first drum beats slip into my consciousness. It is as if Ghengis Kahn, Attilla the Hun, Vlad thhe impaler and Stalin have massed their collective hordes and are marching on my place. WHY PICK ON ME?

I have a choice... Get out there and party like its the end of the world or remain holed up above it like a first world war balloon observer at Ypres.

Friends phone me for battle reports.

I tell them that I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.

Carnival

Hurricane Carnival is about to hit us. The barriers are up and houses and shops barricaded. The lull before the storm is spooky and not a lull at all; walking home last night I came accross a massive steel band in All Saints Road. Fantastic!

The atmosphere is already palpable.

The only thing for me to do, once I have decided I am staying for it, is to decide which parties to attend.

Notting Hill this weekend is either the best place in the world or the worst.

Babs would love it.

Cycling without a stabiliser

I no longer have any stability in my cycling.

This was drummed into me yesterday as I multi-tasked my way down Westbourne Park road, the wind was strong, gusty, gutsy and fickle; of course reminding me of the nurse. I realised that the wind is no friend to the cyclist.

I mentioned this to a friend who said that there were cycling courses available. I should go on one she said.

I said that I was an autodidact and autodidacts don't do lessons.

she said I have a lot to learn.

That is the only thing I'm on this planet for. I said.

Which planet I'm on is a mystery to me.

Frieda and Tumbleweed socks

I invited frieda for breakfast in the square and was delighted when she said yes.

we spent hours discussing feet (a subject close to my heart) at some point in order to illustrate another point she removed her boots and socks, leaving them lying on the flagstones.

A sudden breeze caught her socks and sent them skittering away like nothing more than knitted tumbleweed.

A french lawyer let down her hair at a nearby table shook her head and then dazzled the sun.

Frieda then informed me that she was in fact a multi-millionairess with houses around the world and an island in the Seychelles.

'Why say you are a pediatrist'.I ask.

'I just love feet Jannie'. She replies.

The event and coming clean

I had better come clean.

I had rather more to do with the Event at Cafe Ravenous than I let on. I was in fact the producer and promoter of the thing, this I had done in order to give Tristan the opportunity to have his night of Glory (if you can call it that) and to create a little buzz of excitement in a stagnating Portobello.

Murray, Noel and Sam were the real stars along with Ali and Charlie from Ravenous. All of whom (and many others) ensured that Tristan had the night of his life.

It will be interesting to see where he goes with this.

Nurse, passport, coffin.

The nurse had taken my passport when she left. I suppose she wanted some sort of memento and it did contain one of the better photographs taken of late.

Rusty called yesterday to tell me that my passport had mysteriously been found under the nurses bed.

'What the hell were you doing under her bed?' I asked as the penny slowly dropped.

'I was looking for an escape hatch'. He replied.

'The only way you'll escape that woman Rusty is in a coffin'.

Bridges I have lost shoes from. No.1

the Event

More cycling tales.

Cycling and the pub do not make good bedfellows.

Grey and moody sky

Under a grey and moody sky I cycled, full of brio yet unsteadily fast, homeward. While distracted by thoughts of Lula-mae, marooned in Limbo Nebraska (pop 47) a bollard leapt into my path.

The bollard won.

Bruise

Days later I noted that the bruise resembled uncannily that grey and moody sky.

Look for the marzipan babies

http://pollocks.org/blog/

It is hard work being grown up

Curious Bums

The photograph is blurred as a result of my excitement.

I could not make this up.

I don't think I would really like to make it up.

I am thinking of having a tattoo that simplly says 'kill me, I've had enough.'

Frieda, Muse and pediatrist

In the pharmacy yeaterday ( I was looking for corn pads) a vision in starched white sidled up to me and offered to assist in my endeavours. Her uniform led me to believe her to be a nurse and her firm handshake indicated that she would have no problems gripping my wheelchair.

after making my purchase I offered her lunch which she accepted with a cheeky grin.

She said her name was Frieda and she was from Stockholm.

Then she dropped the bombshell... SHE WAS A PEDIATRIST and not a nurse.

My feet however wept with joy on hearing this.

the Event

Tristan, having found his niche as some sort of poet/raconteur performs on wednesday night (19th) at cafe Ravenous, Portobello Road.

I shall be going along to check it out.

Doors open at 7 apparently and the shit hits the fan at 8.

THE SHIT HAS TOLD THE FAN NOT TO COME.

Gone with the wind. The truth.

Many many years ago I spent some time in Hollywood, holed up in Clark Gables guest house working on a script for a cheesy Historical drama which would go on to become the highest grossing movie ever.

I finally lost my cool when the studio started re-writing the dialogue; the final straw was when they objected to: 'Frankly my dear I don't give a flying fuck.'

I removed myself from the credits there and then.

But is it Art Hmmmmmm

The other night (days blur at the moment) I attended with friends a production of Oscar Wildes Salome. It was being billed (verbally) as directed by Nick Cave. Hmmmmm

It was performed in the dirt yard (no one in their right mind could call it a garden) of a Pimlico squat.
The performance was billed to start at 8.00 prompt. We sat uncomfortably drinking cheap box wine from styrofoam cups (oh how eco friendly these grubby inheritors of the world are) and waited; at first giggling at the circus unfolding and the couples trying to stick tongues down others throats (I can only assume there were tasty morsels down there, yum yum), then with impatience and finally no patience we left.

I cannot review the performance... It didn't happen. I can only cringe at the memory of the scuzziest place I've ever been. My intrepid assistant(with the courage of a young Martha Gelhorn) entered the lavatory in order to photograph it.

Photo. Daisy Caren Vispi

The guide to the British Museum on the lavatory floor disabused me of the notion that there was no culture here... Sadly they were wiping their arses on it.

Nick Cave... Oh deary me.

Dylan, Scott Fitzgerald and Carribou coffee

Babs skypes from A coffee shop in St. Paul Michegan, she is on the run from Rusty and hanging out there before moving on. Over a carribou coffee she tells me that she is on Wabashaw; a street imortalised by Dylan in the song 'Meet me in the morning' which goes meet me in the morning 56th and Wabashaw, honey we could be in Kansas by the time the snow begins to thaw.

There is no 56th street in St Paul.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote 'This side of paradise' sitting in a house on Grand Avenue; Babs tells me that as well.

Babs teaches me a lot.

Tangled up in blue

A shop window stopped me in my tracks last night. Or rather something in the window stopped me; it was a blue velvet Playboy bunny girls costume.

A costume iddentical to the one that Babs had worn for a few weeks while working at the Playboy club in Chicago back in the sixties. I had caught sight of Babs as she bent to tie the shoelace of a young folk singer who I could quite plainly see would be soon tangled up in blue, the scut on her arse sending alarm signals as it bobbed in the neon glow. I ducked behind a pillar as she leant into him to pick a piece of lint from his coat then left when she was out of sight.

I stood at that shop window transfixed as the Blue velvet spoke through the glass.

It said: I first came to consciousness in 1962 as a girl called Gillian slipped into me and then twirled for Hugh, then giggled nervously as he adjusted the gusset and smoothed the knap on her breasts and her arse.

A string of men begged her to slip out of the club and then out of her costume and then post-coitally out of their lives. Until the last one (to my knowledge anyway) took me as a memento, a trophy.

I hung on his wall until he handed me on to a new girlfriend who kept me for many years in the dark with occasional outings to be slipped into and out of prior to her being slipped into and out of.

Over the years I developed my patina of cynicism.

that woman handed me on to her son who handed me onto his girlfriend who has slipped into me from time to time and now hangs me in this window, in all my faded glory for all the world to see.

I can see her face on the inside of my hands

The Doorman

There is a club I visit called 'The doorman'; I cannot tell you where it is because it is oversubscribed already, but it exists.

When you arrive at the club you are greeted by the doorman who says: 'I cannot talk now but if you go into the waiting room , have a drink and a dance, chill for a while.

I will spare you a minute when you leave'.

Art and its profound affect on rock & roll

Back in the sixties I put on a show in swinging London that almost became the talk of the town.

however a few minor celebrities turned up, especially from the music world.

Yoko Ono came along a few times and took notes

one of my pieces in the show was a ladder standing in the corner of an empty white space, painted on the ceiling above the ladder and unreadable without climbing that ladder, were two words; 'FUCK OFF'.

Gary, a pop star of sorts climbed that ladder and read those two words then having climbed back down left the gallery in silence.

Years later I met Gary again, in more troubled times for both of us.

He said. 'Jan if only it had said YES on that ceiling I would never have left the Glitter Band and gone off to interfere with children in Thailand.

Picadilly urinals

A well balanced diet

SSSSHHHHH!!! YOU'RE IN A LIBRARY

I saw the sign and had to go in.

Mick Jones' Rock & Roll public library at Portobello green. It is there until the 23rd of August. GO.

It is not only Mick's personal archive on view it is also a walk through ones own life; the ephemera that I failed to keep is all there to be pondered over and celebrated. It is like finding something long lost and long cherished in a forgotten cupboard.

there is none of the pretentiousness of say Sophie Calles birthday presents installations. It is to me a celebration of 'My Generation'. How many librararies would allow mick and others to play Sex Pistols songs in a rehearsal room on view to the public.

how i became a coppers nark.

True story but I cannot name names or venue or city even.

I met tonight a very beautiful woman, a talented woman, an intelligent woman, fortunately i am still suffering from the after affects of the bromide slipped into my night caps by nurse Caz so was able to listen to her story.

At some stage she informed me that she was a police officer and flashed her badge.

I gave in, admitted everything, took the blame for crimes I had never committed, pleaded to be handcuffed and interviewed at legnth. I longed to help her with her enquiries on condition that there was no question of bail and that I would be kept in captivity for ever.

I went home to a warm fish and chips supper.

Caught bang to rights.

Only in London

the Muse and memories

Sitting at the Muse at 269 on Portobello road with a coffee and looking back over all those years and remembering fondly the muses who have slipped into and out of my life; Mona Hebuterne, the ballerina, Babs, Lula mae, nurse Caz.

It dawns on me that 'Muse' is a collective noun now; they are all still with me, goading me, bullying me, kissing my metaphorical neck and laughing with me each time I clean my teeth.

The Muse at 269 is a gallery/restaurant that puts on some interesting stuff. It is also the place that rusty, fluente, tristan and I hang out at and shoot the breeze over a coffee and a beer. Check it out

http://www.themuseat269.com/

Rusty tears and kitten heeled cowboys

Walking on Portobello Road this morning I spotted Rusty weeping on the pavement outside a shoe store.

'Rusty' I said, 'pull yourself together man and tell me the problem.'

'come' he said and taking me by the arm led me inside. at the back of the store on a shelf was a pair of antique cowboy boots with kitten heels.

'Them's the identical boots to the pair that Lula mae always wore when baking pear pie' he wailed.

I left him there weeping under the suspicious gaze of the stores foxy owner. 'There's a man who is going to get stung'. I said to no-one in particular.

it's a lovely store full of vintage shoes boots and clothing. I bought a pair of boots there back in the days when nurse Caz was pushing my wheelchair.

282 Portobello, notting hill, London.

A lost coat

It

is not lost

the father of the bride's breakfast table

Bicycle thieves

I would like to congratulate the idiot who stole my bike lock and ruined the integral lock rendering the whole thing useless.

I'm sure there are many uses for a locked motorcycle lock.

I can think of very few uses for a siezed up bike. Except perhaps throwing it at the clown.

Taking shelter from the rain in a cow.

On the way back from a symbiosium meeting the rain came. the only thing to do was take shelter in the Cow on Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill.

Luti poured me a ginger beer (Rusty takes his with a dash of Tabasco but I find that a little excessive) to ease the passage of the coronation chicken. The Cow is a local and global institution and early evenings during the week it is the perfect local.

I like nothing more than to sit in a corner and lie through my teeth to any one prepared to listen; the missing tooth leaves a gap big enough to get some whoppers through.

http://www.thecowlondon.co.uk/

It was neccessary to dash through the downpour to the Westbourne accross the road to get online. Another good pub!

Mick Jagger, unreliable memories and the Tabernacle.

At the tabernacle, Notting Hill last night to hear Joseph Macwan and his band 'Out of Karma' (check him out). People have done good things to the old place (I remember hanging out there back in the sixties when it was squatted by a bunch of anti-establishment dreamers and schemers and downright bad guys) you should go down and take a look and a beer and maybe lunch and sit in the courtyard as I did...

and cast your eyes over the house opposite where Performance was filmed when Mick Jagger was something of a God and drugs were not only cool but obligatory and London swung like a pendulum do.

I was Mick's body double for the bedroom scenes.

That is another story.

The Tabernacle, Powis Square, London W11 2AY
http://www.tabernaclelive.co.uk/

Separated by a cigarette paper 4,000 miles thick.

I got a woman said Rusty. An American woman. The only problem is that she is 4,000 miles away.

Thats about the right distance for a woman said tristan

Collaborating in El Camino

In my new found bachelor-hood I have been eating at El Camino in Portobello road, under the Westway, opposite the tented market.

It is the place you hope to expect when feeling low and humming Dwight Yoakam songs and thinking of crossing the border with all the pretty horses.

They have a shelf of Mexican toys to play with if you need to play with a Mexican toy. It is run by nice kids who treat an old man with kindness and tolerance and it;s the right side of inexpensive. you might hear the fuck word but you don't have to pay gordon Ramsay prices to hear it.

Makes me think of Rusty Mcglint and Fluente Maiale: how are those boys, maybe I should give them a call, invite them down for a Taco and a beer and perhaps even invite Tristan too; we are all walking the same road right now.

It is time to collaborate.

Electric Portobello,, Joy, Hope, Grace and Charity.

Lunch at the electric, Portobello Road with Joy and her sisters Hope and grace. My change contained an American cent coin which I have been unable to spend.

I shall give it to Rusty Mcglint the next time we meet.

The girls greeted Charity warmly.

Confiture/comfort

I have just tasted apricot jam again.

Absorbent lint,masking tape and joy.

Joy, a new presence in my life, and although an amateur, an expert at putting comma's in the wrong place, is an excellent nurse with hypnotism skills par excellence and a fine turn of ankle, has agreed to tend to my immediate needs.

boy are my needs immediate.

I met her at the opening party of the International times Archive in east london, she was working the crowd as a strippergram nurse handing out packs of absorbent lint, something new to me as the only kind of lint I knew was the stuff that Babs picked from Rusty's coat as she leant in, whispered endearments and then talked of love.

I told her i was a poet, she asked what stream of conciousness was and i told her i don;t know and don;t want to know and couldn't care less then the ghost of Bukowski walked metaphorically into the room, pissed in the sink, drank all the beer... told us to fuck off.

I woke up with something resembling a hangover and a pack of absorbent lint stuck to my chest with masking tape.

as our american cousins would say: Go figure.

Change/evolution and burlesque at cafe Ravenous

My old sparring partner Rusty Mcglint has changed.

I put this to him the other night at a burlesque show at cafe Ravenous in Portobello road.
Heck no! he said. I aint changed I've evolved.
'I aint the man I was six months or a year ago; not because I changed myself but because shit happens and it affects you. I will be a different Rusty in six months time; I ain't got no control over that, it just happens.'
He went on to tell me:'I met a woman once, Babs was the name, I loved her good and she loved me. I told her straight though; I told her I aint gonna change and she said that was fine and dandy, let's proceed. Then she tried to change me; that got to me and I couldn't cope.'

Babs. Photo: Sasi Langford

'I let her down bad and I deserve the fires of damnation for that.'

'But women do that, they fall in love with potential then try to mould the man into their ideal. If only she had let me evolve I woulda turned into something else pretty fast through osmosis and capilliary love action, through just being close to her spiritually.'

'I ain't proud of my actions but I'm proud of what I have learnt and what I have become... Long may I evolve.'

You know I respect Rusty for that... He is evolving!

I hope Babs can forgive him too.

nurse Caz, Saki and silence

To misquote my old friend Saki; nurse Caz was a good nurse as nurses go and as good nurses go, she went.

I shall not speak of her again.

The Tree

There is a painting, a painting that has always hung in our dining room since my earliest memory.
It is a small painting of a tree, a painting of a small tree. Nothing more than that… A sapling growing in a hedge in an anonymous landscape. It measures twelve inches by eight and is set in a good guilt frame.

I have always imagined that the tree was painted by my father, painted by my father before my birth (my birth that killed him) not far from the house where I was born.
When I imagine that picture now I see it as part of a much larger canvas and in that larger canvas to the left hand side stands a young boy, a twelve year old boy, watching the artist as he captures his subjects; both the tree and the young boy.
The artist is oblivious to the child.
I lost sight of the painting when I became alienated from my mother many years ago, I feared that it was lost to me, that it rested in some bric-a-brac shop in Antwerp or on some strangers wall. Misunderstood.
I have missed that painting dearly for most of my adult life; it was ‘home’. It was the father I killed, painting a tree.
And in my imagination he painted me into a corner.
Last week I saw my sister for the first time in many years, as we were about to part she informed me that she had something of mine in her attic. Mother had given it into her safe keeping for me many years ago.
It was the painting of course.
Thank you Honey.
　

Beat

We often mistake enthusiasm for passion.

In 1963 I went to a party in Chelsea with a good friend who threw shapes in a beat combo when he wasn't throwing off the shapes of his nightmares or shaping up a hangover.

I thought I was a beat poet at the time so could write shit shaped poetry like that

I had bought a new pair of sneakers that day and my bullet wounds were playing up; yeah I hung with Michael X or was it Malcolm?

















I met a girl; an artist, her name was quickly forgotten but I remembered it that night... I was enthusiastic.

She could not take her eyes off my sneakers and I witnessed an idea growing.

I wonder what became of her?

I found the photograph in an old copy of IT.

There was a photograph of a naked girl in that 1960's magazine who was the spitting image of nurse Caz. I confronted her with the image and she soon confessed that it was her mother.

I now know why nurse Caz has a passion for starched white cotton and sensible shoes.













Nurse Caz being hit on by a lipstick lesbian.

Chivalry and Cod Latin.

She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

(Even when crying; normally a distasteful sight), as she sat sobbing under a hankerchief tree.

Of course I approached her and offered assistance, a shoulder, and anything else for that matter.

I asked why she cried so publicly. She replied that she wept because she could not reach the hankerchiefs that festooned the tree above her.

I smiled then and reaching up, plucked a starched white flower from above and offered it to her.

She snatched it from my hand, still sobbing. then turned and waved the handkerchief at a man standing in a window of the house opposite. 'I surrender, I surrender.' she screamed.

Moments later the door of the house opened and the most beautiful woman in the world flew into the bastards arms, He then wiped away her tears with a tissue of lies.

Sic biscuittus disintergrat!