Saturday, September 24, 2005

Rule 11: Demand pure lies from the ones you love.

Why do they ALL want things we cant give them---like untempered truth?

If I asked you to grant me one wish, it would be lies. For once, I want to know exactly what you will give me. NO more christmas boxes parked in my bed,I want you to give me the purest thing possible--which to me, is lies.

Please. Talk lies untainted by emotional uncertainty. Whisper lies untainted by hmmmmmmmm.... Tell me about things you have NEVER done--but tell me you've done them. And often.

Light a fire beneath the truth. A fire to lick hungrily at the windows of the library. When the truth burns away, let the winds come and blow the booky Ashes of Almost all the way to yesterday.

Because the burnt belongs to today.

And today we shall lie:

Truth is for the weak.

I never read your diary.
I don't care what what you really think.
I respect your privacy.
I never wished you had bigger boobs.
I think you are perfect.
I could never even consider visiting a strip club.

I never have sexy dreams about anyone else.
I never smoke.
I never kissed another man.

In the lies is where the real truth sits.

Trust me.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Rule 10: We all suffer at least one diseased admirer.

i got kisses and romantic treats from my last boyfriend, but since i switched to tb guys, all we exchange is bacteria.

at first i resisted. as you would. if there was herd of tb victims crouched outside YOUR front door. but it is futile to resist them. you know they're there. you can hear them coughing in the bushes ALL NITE.

oh juliet, if romeo had been cursed with tb, would you have loved him so? would you have left him wheezing and sputtering beneath your balcony and drawn a hot bath instead?

all nite they cough, sneeze and sputter. they try and make the coughing romantic. they try to cough the lyrics to stevie wonder songs, and strangled compliments.
it goes a little something like this: ughghhghkoffoffkoffff-beautiffoffkoffkoff. and so on, with other drowned phrases like 'silky hair, shiny skin, smell nice, and healthy lungs.' --at least that is what i think they're saying.

eventually i could keep my distance no longer. i invited the sickest, louis, in for tea. i let him blow his nose and offload his bacteria onto my couch.

that was both the end and the beginning of my tb love affair.

first there was one, now there are nineteen.
we do everything together.

sometimes i wonder how i ever lived without them because i am never without them. our lungs rattle together in the pub; together we double over in the cheese aisle in tesco, gasping desperately for breath. i had to stop biking to work because they insisted on following me on foot. it took two ambulances to pull them all out of the canal after they fainted two blocks along.

i'm not strong enough anymore to cycle myself. in fact, i cant remember the last time the tb mob left my bedroom. here we sit, swathed in wool scarfs, menthol rub on our chests, making phlegm sculptures. we dare each other to take a deep breath and laugh about the good old days when the bushes were leafy and the nights outside my window were long.

Rule 9: People tell us it is cruel, but NO, it is art.
















There they stand, in the window, with their placards. Carefully arranged letters bait the public and bid them to join the ranks of protest against us.

People tell us it is cruel, but NO!
it is art.

in the name of art we organised trips to the dump and scuffled through rot-ravaged wood to harvest. the newborn splinters to serve as a delicate backdrop to our exhibition.

now here he sits. painted in honey and licked by fire ants. (well, licked is what i call it, but from the growing tomato tinge in rolf's face, i rather suspect the ants are angry. and you would be, after having fiery sticks poked into your nest to rouse you and capture away your entire fleet.)

but still. rolf sits. in the name of art. biting idly on a piece of rotten wood to dull the cries of pain.

just yesterday we found him, in the job centre, mumbling about a degree in post-modern painting and performance. and we knew. we had the right man for the job. there was only one thing to do.

we took him to tim's flat and pointed him to towards the bathtub. jane raced off to buy razors. we knew fancy razors with pleasing colours and two blades were out of the question. we couldn't even afford shaving foam. but we figured, he was hairy, he was an artist, simple soap would be enough.

jane returned. grinning triumphantly. proud to have only spent 70p and procured 7 razors! there would be surplus. perfect for the turks. hints of our next exhibition danced in our nimble minds.

rolf lay in the tub expectantly. we let him keep his pants on. not for modesty's sake, only because none of us had eaten breakfast, and we wanted to avoid any flaccid sights on an empty stomach.

things got tense when tim turned the tap and only a few drips of hot water came out. further enquiry turned up tips from flatmates about rusty pipes, absentee landlords, and showers at the hostel down the block...damn.

we would not be daunted, we were artists. we had spent six hours trawling dumps and job centres to make our art happen. there would be a way.

mat's eyebrows raised jauntily as he stared out the window at rain, lost in thought. off he dashed without a word, only to return, minutes later. with four plastic bottles filled to the brim.
puddles!
of course.

rolf kept schtum and looked nervous.

tim started us off by scooping up an ankle, jane took a wrist. matt and i started on the ears. everything must go. we had twenty minutes to make rolf follicle free.

we worked quickly, alternately rubbing discount soap across rolf's fur and swiping boldly with our Niestzermauer's Finest Single-Blade Specials.

the skin squeaked as we worked. perhaps it was rolf, in semi-silent protest to the sea of razor nicks blooming across his chest. however, to give rolf his due, likely in anticipation of the four pounds we promised to pay--he never screamed. not once.

matt finished off our handiwork by emptying all the remaining rainwater into the bath. muddy road water washed rolf's hair along to stuff the rusty drain.

while rolf towel dried, tim stomped off to procure the fire ants. jane gathered pots of honey, matt nipped off to pick up some pile cream, and i stuffed the remaining razors into her purse (lest rolf get goosebumps on the way to the gallery. this would mean sprouting stubble!).

no stubble!

i suppose news leaked to the protesters from the ant people. maybe the tiller in Lidl talked. maybe it was the honey farmer. or perhaps one of tim's german flatmates.
flatmates with soft-spots.

we didn't know about any of it yet, were too busy getting ready.

to give you the short version:
it was cold. rolf did indeed get goosebumps and accrued stubble in sensitive regions. jane raked away at the stubble as we processed to the gallery, prying the bleeding flannel from rolf's chin and scraping away the clots and get at the hair beneath.

NO STUBBLE!

there are cobbles in the grassmarket to this day. cobbles inevitably produces wobbly steps for foot traffic: commuters trip up curbs, teens poke cell phones into their ears, and jane, misses rolf's chin and shaves off a piece of his ear.

rolf, the love, merely inhaled a sharp cry. our proud art-for-hire nibbled his nails so as not to betray earless pain to the shocked shoppers in the window of the cashmere boutique.

still, they sure stared. everyone stared at the hairless man covered in blood. his shirt constantly tugged open by a small beared man whilst a tall hippie girl raked cheap german razors across his bare bloody flesh.

by the time we finally arrived at the gallery there were at least twenty people following silently behind. kebab shop owners, traffic cops, surly underfed pregnant teens, grassmarket tatoo artists, the entire staff and waiting room of the colonic irrigation clinic on the corner (one patients still absentmindedly clutching his souvenir hose, besmirched with last nite's psyllium husk stew....).

oh rolf.
rolf perhaps enjoyed these moments of fame? we will never know. for when we sat him in the gallery and let loose the ants, honey and pins, it all went black.

the black panther protest party had gone wrong.

Friday, September 16, 2005

The Rules (see further posts for guidance)

1. if you're going to buy one bottle of wine, you might as well buy three. its a nice surprise.

2. If you skip a few pages and it’s still more of the same... might as well skip a few hundred pages. Escape the gory details.

3. are they dead? stick your fingers in. if they are still moist, then they're not dead.

4. if they're dead--then burn the roots.

4. Endless fun = play with them, eat them, and then play with the wrappers for hours.

5. Red and yellow make green.

6. Green and yellow make blue. duh.

7. mannequins always sleep on the left side of the bed.

8. It’s useless to hide from the taunts. For the headless, they are everywhere. the headless have a hardtime of it.

9. People tell us it is cruel, but NO! it is art.

10. We all suffer at least one diseased admirer.

11. Demand pure lies from the ones you love.

12. Life's great tragedy is the ideas that die in the morning.

puppet in PERIL

puppet in panic

the sacred (photo by jane)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

i put it on beaterator

bob played the swish hoop
amy played the all bran
jerry played the mangled feather
mama played with her antlers.
we put it all in beaterator
and i made a tune.

magnimonius, yes, but what does it mean?

it just means unusual.

magnamonius means, i think magnanimous means proud, but not being a twat about it.

ignominus.

ignominonus, i could never pronounce it--like a lot of things.

ignomines, shaun, what does it mean?

its like handbag, and keyboard in one, except it makes animal noises. they hate you for a few weeks, they bash the broom against the ceiling, thinking it was you that made the noise.

yeah, i wish dictionaries had a description like that one. now i really feel like i understand the word.

i love all the descriptions.

read all the descriptions.

which one sounds really unlikely... um....

i cut bits off the fronts of my hair so i could do this.
i'm knitting my hair into my scarf.
that way, i would always be warm.
why, if i were russian....

lets see your pout matt.

i dont pout.

lets see your pout matt,

i told you i dont pout.

tell me a joke matt.

i told you, i don't pout, and i dont tell jokes.

tell me a joke mark.

they shouldn't let people like you out.

who shouldn't?

they.

the they. do you know what they are doing?

i ARE they, what are you talking about?

i KNOW, but they still did this.

i am they.

that is beautiful, sharon. guts and misery.
knit me a golf shirt. for a line of clothing,

we have to have a golf ranged called GUTS AND MISERY?

i'll go with that.
only if, the tshirts can have photographic images of real flesh innards on them.

Friday, September 09, 2005

i think its time for bed

i cant bring my teeth together and i can't scrape my eyelids off my eye lashes, i think its time for bed.

i stare at the shoes and coat and will them to come to me. i hear the rain clouds and taxi wheels on the pavement.

i consider taking a taxi one block to my house.

i wonder distractedly about flushing myself home.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

banjoman

Dear,

First, I must give you some instructions upon how to successfully read this text. A word of warning if I may….
1. Please read slowly.
2. Please do not read when surrounded by growling chaos or colleagues hard at work.
3. Please do not read when water is boiling, or your last sip of tea has gone cold.
4. Please read in loose comfortable trousers and a chair with a spongy back.
5. Allow yourself to slouch slightly, and slip on a slinky ambient tune.

I want to be alone with you.
Lie down.
Close your eyes.

Sorry. Pardon. Return to the chair and smooth your skirt.
Pardon.

Let’s begin.


You put the ass back in bluegrass.
You put the C back in Dundee.


Warmed up now. How about a tune?

You can’t stop it
Time is passing slowly.
Time to go with the tempo.

Banjoman, banjo man,
He ride in an ice cream van,
He fought in Afghanistan
Plaied his banjo,
there in,
the rotting sand.


Change the channel.

They found him behind enemy lines, chewing on his banjo case. After four days of capture, he had forgotten all the words to Country Roads, and so his captors dumped him in a cave. The thing that kept him going during the empty days was the knowledge that Bella Fleck would one day play on Radio 4.

Keep going.

Magda forgot her drawing pencil. It was a pencil from the world’s largest pencil factory. Certainly not a fair-trade pencil, not very politically correct that the graphite was potentially mined by underpaid Liverpudlian men. Men who could not afford the officially licensed version of their team’s jersey.

For shame. You call yourself a Crusader?


Haircuts. I don’t know how you get all those noises out of it. I tried once at home and there was nothing. I also tried to cut my own hair. If I remember correctly, there was a piece that kept sticking up. A hairy albatross upon my head. Sqwawking to other teenagers of my embarrassment each morning when the styling mousse coagulates upon my ear.

I always worry I will forget to wipe it off before I leave the house. God forbid the other carpoolers see me come out of the house dressed in a suit, but with a wet towel still wrapping my hair and dark circles yet undisguised beneath my eyes. Why do we wish to hide the fact that we got up late, that we are still tired, that we can’t fall straight asleep, that we fell asleep without moisturizing, that we are human just like them?


This is My story about My banjo.
One day I’m going to make a VIDeO.
About Playing. And what it can do to your tiny mind.
Cursing the body with RSI and leaving the fingers cigarette stained and trapped in plastic fingernails.

Why don’t you take up the flute instead.

Have you figured who I am yet? I’m God. Or at least I’m playing at being her. I am sitting back from this conversation recording the world as I see it. I am letting the conversors move on with their lives and then later returning to rewrite the history. To insert conclusions and commandments as I see fit. I build in the threads of general light human observation, and try to spark them all together to create a fire of universal smarts. Alone we will never put all the pieces together. But if we pool our resources and look carefully, we just might find something there.

We do not have enough time in the moment to explore. It captures our thoughts and reels us along like a curious dachsund . Desperate to stay and sniff the sidewalk, we are tugged along despite ourselves by inertia greater than our will.

This is why I sit here. Four days later looking at the words of my cohorts. Playing god to try and weave their feathers of understanding into a cosmic duck.

Perhaps, if I sit each Wednesday and record their words and then later sit and try dream up the missing pieces…this will in the end (a year of Sundays) give me a few nuggets of truth.


I’m going to tell you a story about my banjo
My banjo stay with me
my banjo fly away from me…
Your banjo
Our banjo
Let’s all do a line
Seriously na na nnNice chords
On that banjo

When I think the connections are built, I must remember that my work is not finished. I must reconsider the text with additional stimulation. A Brahms CD. Whilst eating mushroom tortellini. During a bath. All affording new entry point to the text and help to make it whole.


I’m going to tell you a story tell you a story tell you a story about…my banjo.
There we were.
G
C
A
D minorA minor.

I never knew she was a minor. She looked at least nineteen.

Conversor alumnus take note: When looking at the text, try to guess which words were your own and which were added later. Do you remember them? How has your perception of the evening changed after reading this?
Just curious.
Remember, this isn’t scientific, this is existentialist.


The man from country western Sudan
wants to tell you a story…
About a Rastafarian banjo band
Rasta man in da banjo band

Dreadlock bluegrass.
Spliffs in da harmonica

Please don’t let me make you feel inadequate. Remember that I am putting even more at stake. As I am writing this I brim with confidence in the brief belief that THIS IS GOOD. THIS IS really good what I am writing. Man. I must keep going.

Later I will look at it and deflate. Hunh? Inadequacy enters the building (I hate him) and smothers me. What seemed brilliant just yesterday afternoon now seems juvenile and trite. I am embarrassed to hear my literary voice braying like a sick rooster.
No one must read this.
It needs a lot of work.

Chances are I will not return to this project. After humiliation it is dismissed. I cringe inside. My muscles involuntarily twitch into a grimace when I debate this in my mind, walking down the sidewalk. I pass in front of Harvey Nichols. Posh young girls twitter to see me make such a funny face for no apparent reason..

This seems a good part of the reason why I do not (have not yet) written a longer piece. Perhaps if I just keep writing without rereading and editing, I will be able to press on in the belief that what I am working on right here is a work of UTTER GENIUS.

BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW ITS NOT.


Jane called
She wanted to come over. For olive’s port and cheese

Electronic noises Jaw jaw
a whore so sore she can’t sing any more
spoons to hit our pots with…

Here he comes in his wheelchair
He like big tits and has blonde hair
Jaw wired shut
And an empty gut,
Wired up jaw of the banjo man.

What a committed committee.
We all go insane at the same time
Very promising
We ALL conspire to glue glitter to tents and tents to lampposts.
And lamp posts to amplifiers.
His song, your song, my song
We all go insane at the same time.

(Hybrid: Wide Angle Special (CD2). Track 2: BURNIN (live)

I want to take you to the concert. In fact, you deserved to be there with us in the dark tent with strobes and black lights flashing. The beat was a bear that sworded your chest. With weak knees you trembled and kicked at the damp sawdust. Without realizing it you closed your eyes and forgot where you were and who you were and that there were 10,000 other people possibly watching you dance. Of course they weren’t watching you dance. Your suddenly realise what it means to have charkas, and realise that yours are now open. Maybe for the very first time. Every so often you stumble a step, open your eyes, and look over to see Tim grinning like an idiot, kicking at the damp sawdust like a joyous bull.

The silhouette song Is sung All different

Preferably In a classy tone. Baritone.
Give me the zippy zip top.
You don’t wear shoes!

take it from the top.

THIS IS AMAZING. WE MUST PRESS ON.

Sometimes I forget when he’s around. Has a way of making himself invisible. Even with a ukelele strapped to his back. One minute he is sitting there and talking to you, the next minute he has evaporated. Then there are only four while he sneaks around, photographing the bottom of shoes and the voodoo dolls on the shelves. Life is an eternal crime scene for him. One never knows when a moment will become important. Risking nothing, he rather selects the moments to crown as memorable. He captures them in image the way I capture this night with words. And we both publish our findings online.

His are easier to read. The instructions are much shorter. More people definitely read his. But he is selective. I must learn this. The way a musician picks through tunes, I must learn to shelve and mix my words.

THERE IS A TASTE OF DIRT IN MY MOUTH. I SUSPECT IT IS THE INSTANT COFFEE. COFFEE AND CIGARETTES INDEED.

Now bandage wrapped and wheelchair ridden, Banjo man begs by the bench. Warms his hands beneath the blanket in his lap. Secretly fears it begicide to hide an empty palm while potential donors rush past.

BANJOMAN!! * flaps about * !!!
‘Take me to the beach!’
He has memories of the Taliban that the noise of water soothes. At the beach he has bangs pots and spoons to scare away rabid albatrosses that only he can see. ‘Disconcerted Killer Birds!’ Birds are determined to spoil his beach holiday. He fights to keep them away from his caravan. His pals at the caravan park fight to keep him sober, a losing battle in light of the birds attacking his brain.

At night they dine on beans, fish fingers and beer. Sitting in miniature Bavarian replica chairs. The caravan registrar is also cook and bartender. Later he will spin the tunes and watch the lowest element of society practice their best dance moves and sweat off their discount antiperspirant and cheap hair gel. He will see them couple off at closing time and think, Jesus, they are going home to breed.

Of course they must breed. If they didn’t, his caravan park would be forced to close. There needed to be lots of people living below the poverty line, lots who could not afford dream vacations to Magaluffe. Instead they pack up their teenagers and bastard grandsons to flee the council estate for a swathe of grass in the suburbs.
Lets call it camping. We’ll plug in lots of fairy lights to drown out the starlight. We can switch to cheaper plastic replicas of our lives and sleep on the hard ground. This way, when we return home after a week, everything will seem luxurious and rosy. And we’ll be able to cope for another year.

Sorry, I’m not listening. I have a disinterest in pain. I am an evolutionary dead end.


Ras said, “why is there cheese in my coffee?”

On the way home you had your tuner out

Who am I now?
I am god. who am I to you?
Yes, I’m she and I’m he too. I’m late for the movies, and I’m stronger than you. I’m the one that fell off their bike in front of you, I’m the one who smells of mothballs in the car. I know what you think before you thunk it, I’ve had every good idea two years ago. I can forget that it’s a sunny day just to spend a few more minutes with you. I don’t like it when you stare quietly at me. I don’t like the awkward silence when they wait for me to sing. I wish you would oil my wheelchair so it doesn’t squeak so much at the movies when I have to go out for a pee.

I’m the one who broke the last wine glass.
I’m The One

I’m banjo man.

Boo.
_
Afterward: See? You have done something today. Ok, you look like hell. And you didn’t make it to the Cartier-Bresson exhibition. Or for a walk in the sun. And you ended up getting stoned. And listening to two whole Future Sound of London cds….But at least you wrote something!