Hemingwaying

Asked the other day by a colleague and collaborator how best I would describe my writing method/style.

I replied that I write the story then I hemingway it; pare it down to the bare bones.



then I hemingway it again.

Sometimes my stories vanish completely.

Punctuation

the pedant of Canada questions my use of punctuation or sometimes non-use of same.

Let me tell you, my little pedant, punctuation is the the spawn of the printer and and did not exist before Caxton.

Therefore I feel entitled to use it where and how I fancy?"

What is so hot about DJ's

In the 70's the DJ was the sad bloke turning the records over at parties because he didn't have a bird to snog.

I faked my own death and then helped cover it up!

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.