Whatever comes to mind before I alter it with the overpaint of time. Mostly satire, poetry and fiction but occasional unreliable fact, as all facts seems to be today. From deepest Notting Hill. London.
Thursday 26 November 2009
BEAT
I shall be there of course. If only to heckle! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=197528849848&ref=nf
Penpal
We wrote to each other once a week. We did this for years.
Bill told me that soon there would be no need of letters (he was what you would call a bit of a geek), that we would communicate electronically through the ether. And would be able to have real time conversations.
I said: Bill. you are full of shit. That will never happen in my lifetime.
We stopped writing soon after that.
I wonder what became of Bill?
She complained as she poked her Facebook lover
Who poked her back
Unknowingly
from across the room
As he poked his facebook mistress
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Auto maintenance and feng-shui
What do you think Moll? I asked.
It's African isn't it. Nice. she replied. As she sorted through old Christmas decoration catalogues.
She then found a Feng-Shui plan for her appartment. At present I am sitting in the marriage area. Intelligence is in the lavatory... Can't say that I believe too much of this hokum.
Friday 20 November 2009
Domestic scene.
She said: Look son. You are 54 years old. You are going to have to leave home one day.
Friday 13 November 2009
Rain, pornography, coincidence.and Dungeness.
I decline Moll's offer of her pink umbrella and suffere the consequences as I attempt to travel across London by means of public transport; the tube system is truly awful and explains the miserable demeanour of it's occupants.
On the street I no longer get any satisfaction from splashing through the puddles although my preference for Converse in all weather probably has something to do with that. Moll is on at me constantly to get some work boots with steel toecaps...
Surely the toecaps will rust in this climate.
Somewhere near here. She says, passing me an old poloroid of two sisters standing fully and impeccably dressed on a beach.
I glance at the photograph then look again in shock. Moll notices my hand trembling. What is it? she asks.
I am too distressed to tell her that it is a photograph of Tilly and Buddy, daughters of a woman named Agat who had been my muse many years ago . I had once possesed an almost identical photo (probably taken the same day) of the girls.
Agat had traced me and sent the photograph with a note that read:
'The girls at Dungeness.'
Thursday 12 November 2009
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Nudity, Princess Diana and bait.
A month ago he told me he was helping a group of friends make a film.
He did not tell me it was like that.
the film won the jury prize in the competition and now Tristan's arse is the talk of the town.
I said: For heavens sake Tristan, fishing in the Serpentine is illegal.
He said no-one bitched at Marlon for Last tango in Paris.
But Tristan. I replied. Marlon was not fishing in the Serpentine.
For christ sake Tristan you were within sight of the princess Diana ditch. Have you no respect.
Only for my bait dealer. He said.
David Bowie, Iggy Pop, MC5, Mick Ronson & Jan Nieupjur.
I sensed the tension that already existed between the Spiders; they may have been ready for life on Mars but they were not ready for fame on earth. We thought it a good idea to write a song together, the mesquite helped we guessed, Mick was already paranoid about being let down and dying in penury, Woody wouldn't stop playing with his sideboards.
David wrote some words, passed them to me. I ripped them up in disgust, handed them back.
Angie shot me a cautionary glance.
David gave me that toothy grin and said: There's something here Jan. He laid out the torn shreds of paper randomly on the coffee table and picked up his guitar...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXq5VvYAI1Q&feature=related
All I could say was..... David. Put on those red shoes and let's dance.
Iggy came round and said: Hey man there is panic in Detroit. David picked up a notepad and said: Do you spell Detroit with a capital D?
Iggy. I said. I'm bored.
I said: Iggy. I'm the chairman of the bored...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGDb8X8limY
Iggy said he missed the MC5.
I don't.
Tuesday 10 November 2009
60's revisited, mushrooms and wraiths.
What HAVE you been up to dear boy? I ask.
Oh! He replies. This and that, but mainly that... That which results from spending the week foraging for mushrooms.
And what is that? I ask.
Listen. He says: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgEk4A-t1k8
Saturday 7 November 2009
A careless man.
I had been walking through Snowdonia for lack of something better to do. One evening I found myself some distance from the nearest hostelry and rather than tempt a broken ankle in the dark decided to make what I could of a derelict farmhouse.
On closer inspection i saw that it was not as abandoned as I had thought and the glow from an open fire lit one of the windows.
I knocked and entered to find a man seated before a hearth lit by nothing other than the glow from the fire.
Good evening I said. May I please join you, I am miles from my destination and it is an unhospitable night. I gave my name and offered my hand in greeting. He did nothing with either; just sat there in silence.
'Careless' he almost shouted some minutes later. I begged his pardon.
Careless he repeated. Then went on: Careless is my name... He turned and looked at me then and gave me an almost toothless grin. He said:
"It was over thirty years ago when I got that name. I've forgotten my given name and my mother died two years ago without reminding me. But thirty years ago not far from this place my brothers talked me into trying some magic mushrooms they'd been picking on the hillside. We lit a fire out there and sat around waiting for something to happen and before long something happened and I began to take more than a passing interest in the flames and hot coals of the fire.
I leant in to get a closer look and as I leant in my teeth fell out into the fire, and being plastic they burst into flames before I could retrieve them.
Careless bugger said Ifan.
Careless bugger laughed Daffyd.
Careless bugger roared I.
That's why I'm called careless."
He never spoke another word that night. But sat looking mournfully into the fire.
Ballooning, starlet, crop circles and prunes.
Thursday 5 November 2009
Fly agaric, woodland nymph and Never go back.
Are they edible she asked.
I tried one.
What happened after that is at best a hazy dream to me now.
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Rusticated thoughts of Rusty and arson.
The house is tucked away in a valley a mile from the road surrounded by rolling grassland and woods. Pheasants litter the garden and sheep dot the horizon. There are deer hereabouts but I have yet to catch sight of one. As I write this a posse of beef on the hoof ambles accross my line of sight and I think of Rusty.
Wild boar and wild night.
Monday 2 November 2009
Thoughts of Cliff Richard, et in Arcadia ego.
Sunday 1 November 2009
Saturday 31 October 2009
Tristan, eggs, bicycle: recipe for disaster.
We made do with an omlette.
Friday 30 October 2009
El Dia de los Muertos. A live 'Jancast'.
No Fluente I said. I'm going for the sombre not the sombrero!
We compromised with the stetson Rusty had left behind. Let's just say it was a frightening spectacle.
Fluente produced from his man-bag a bottle of tequila and some limes, then raided my 1960's cocktail cabinet for the crusty bottle of triple sec last opened for the funeral of Winston Churchill for my Maiden aunt who had a penchant for 'stickies' day or night.
'Aye yai yai yai yai' Fluente shouted. 'Margherita time!'
The party now beckons...
Virus, Hank, pies and Joy.
Blogs may be sporadic for a while until I get the virus geeked out of the other machine. Let us hope that it is easier to remove than Hank.
Hank was a male au-pair that my first wife Joy insisted on after the incident with the naked Danish girl in the laundry room.
Hank fancied himself as a photographer and insisted on making a photo-documentary of the life of a British housewife; this required him to photograph Joy at all times of the day, performing her everyday tasks. This seemed harmless enough in essence while she was removing casseroles from the Aga and suchlike but when I found him snapping away as she reclined in the bath I felt that things had gone far enough.
It took three more months to get rid of Hank and Joy soon followed him.
I learned some time later that Hank and Joy were living together in Harmony Nebraska. Rusty had bumped into them at a pie baking contest. Joy wasn't feeling too well.
She had a virus.
Tuesday 27 October 2009
A cry for help.
I have lost my yellow plastic spoon; it was a very important part of my life and work, it helped form me and inform me.
It was a teaspoon I picked up at the Hayward Gallery when having a coffee after seeing the Bruce Nauman exhebition some years ago. I had gone with a woman called Jane. I cannot remermber what colour spoon she stirred her coffee with.
Please, if anyone knows the whereabouts of a yellow plastic spoon, let me know.
I must return to the Hayward to see if I can replace it but deep inside I know it will not be the same...
Sunday 25 October 2009
Autumn
As I looked into the skip a womans head popped up; a mass of glorious curls redolent of the fragrant nurse Caz.
Hello dad! She said. She rummaged in a sequinned evening bag then handed me an object wrapped in paper. It is 93 year old birthday cake she said.I told her I only like the icing.
That's all right she said. Just eat the icing and lie about the rest.
That''s what every-body else does.
Friday 23 October 2009
Roof, liquorice, oboe and gobstoppers.
Thursday 22 October 2009
How Rusty got his name.
On the back he writes:
This is where it all started. this is where I got my name; Lula-Mae and me had been down to see Richard Brautigan one summer and we all decided to go skinny dipping by the bridge. Lula-Mae laughed when I stood naked in front of the red metal and she said: Far out Billy-Bob, you are so sun burnt I can't tell you from the bridge.
Richard laughed and said: "I guess Billy-Bob's just gone rusty, and it ain't even raining.
the name stuck after that.
Rusty wrote this part of a Brautigan poem at the bottom of the card. In place of a name:
It's Raining In Love
I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl a lot. -Richard Brautigan
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Art or Balls.
I found the balls in the back of a rubbish truck in Notting Hill. The bowl was a gift from a woman who knew that I didn't have one.
What worries me is that this image would be quite happily considered 'ART' by those who think they know best.
It is nothing more than a bowl of balls.
Postcard from Rusty.
Saturday 17 October 2009
Each time I visit I am encouraged to paint an image of my latest dream.
Last night I dreamt I was a child. It was a stormy autumn evening and I had been milking pomkin the goat who had lashed out at me with her hooves annd rendered me unconscious for a while.
Groggily I returned to the house and entered, but somehow I had gone in through the wrong door and found myself neither inside nor outside. there was a wall of raining teaspoons clouding my view of the walnut tree and of the three beakers on the window sill; my mothers red one, my dead fathers black one and my yellow one. Each time I reached out for my beaker (I was very thirsty) my hand was stung by the falling spoons.
I gave up in the end and finally fell asleep.
I awoke some time later on the straw in pomkins shed.
If it is possible for a goat to sneer, pomkin sneered.
Doctor F chuckled and clapped her hands on hearing the dream and seeing my painting and then ushered me out of the room giving me no explanation as to what it all might mean.
Rusty, depression and horse shit.
Friday 16 October 2009
Advice for young lovers.
Wednesday 14 October 2009
Sunday 11 October 2009
Rusty, Babs and Dame Nellie Melba.
We decided not to talk about it.
Instead I went to make cheese on toast for us all. I could hear Rusty and Babs talking and laughing in the other room as I grated cheese and then a finger. I burned the toast and Rusty came in to criticise.
I was about to throw the burnt toast in the bin when he pushed me to one side. He then grilled the bread on the other side, cut off the crusts and sliced the slices horizontally. once toasted on the cut side he had made 4 pieces of melba toast.
Here he said; presenting it to Babs.
What's that she asked.
Melba toast!
Why is it called that?
It is named after Dame Nellie Melba, who, when not eating peaches liked to eat this stuff.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Sunday 4 October 2009
Bridges I have lost shoes from. I've lost count.
Saturday 3 October 2009
Mountains, views and dogs.
And I think is that a view of a mountain or a view from a mountain and Babs says that the sky is as high as an elephants eye.
And I say you are lying Babs
And she says I know, I heard it in a movie. And eveyone knows that the movies lie.
I left that sleeping dog to do the lying.
Friday 2 October 2009
Horse shit. Bull shit. Holy shit.
I said no. Personal experience is like horse shit; it needs to stand around for a year or two before you dig it into the garden. Otherwise it is too caustic to do anything other than kill everything.
So you won't be writing about me.
Oh yes! I'll be writing about you, but only the stuff I make up.
Prairie omelettes, hangovers and male bonding.
He said, as he eyed my larder, she may be a nurse Jan but the only thing she is nursing right now is a hangover. He went on to say: Women teach us a lot of things Jan but all she done teach me is that I'm way out of my depth, and she aint teaching me to swim.
He found eggs, strawberries, black pepper and cream.
Heck, if we aint got a prairie omelette. He said.
What is in a prairie omelette I asked.
Whatever you got left in the chuck wagon at the end of a drive. He said.
Do you know, a strawberry and black pepper sweet omelette with cream is quite extraordinarily delicious.
Hey Rusty I said as we licked our fingers, let's go rent Brokeback Mountain.
Aw shucks. Said Rusty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRTiSq4qas&feature=related
Coincidences in nature, guns and tulips.
rusty came along shortly after the photo was taken and shot the thing with a Colt 48.
I said Rusty you can't do that and he said Jan, the constitution says I can do what I damn well please with my gun.
I said GULP.
Thursday 1 October 2009
Show business.
Tristan has a 'gig' (nasty word) coming up and requires my help for read throughs and rehearsals.
He is reading 3 poems with films made for the event at the Tabernacle, Powis Square on October 10th. Ditto TV are putting on the show... Probably best to be there. Just in case.
Babs says she will attend.
Swine flu. Pigs flying. what's the difference?