Last Exit

 

I'll be concentrating on writing (drinking) over Christmas. So I'll be submitting a lot of work for publication in the new year (being tired and lazy and probably hungover). Going to leave the blog for the next couple of weeks, to focus on being productive elsewhere (wearing trampy track-bottoms and eating crap). Have a good break y'all. Be Excellent to one another.

Pabs

Newton

Back in the olden days before my knees turned to concrete, I used to meet up with this guy (and some other weird little dude from New Cross who has since decamped to LALA Land) and skate about after buying comics off him. Newton was always a good artist and for some reason it's taken me this long to link him up. So go HERE and check it out.

Old work

You should really be doing something else.


Look at the earth from space
Be kind to the elderly
Cross your fingers not your eyes
Make bruises show in public
Waste no more time or money or hatred or thought
Kiss your mother
Find a father
Have a baby or 5
Leave the country
Learn something
Take a life
(Any but your own.)
Watch the moon rise quietly and laugh out loud at the
Insignificance
Of
It
All.

On the performance of the performing poet.

  

Do these poets and poetesses desire a career on the

Silver screen

Name up in lights

Flowers down at

Feet? It seems that way tonight.

Would they rather they were a singer or rapper

The label ‘poet’ as just a temporary affliction?

The question hangs in the air.

They writhe and shout and contort themselves while lost

In the moment (Or if not the moment then a moment.

Yet still nowhere near Jimi inside the Star Spangled banner)

And exuding confidence, the crowd falls

In line

Laughing

And then the dreaded WHOO

I hate the whoo

Call me a traditionalist

Call me an old

Man

Call me a hater and jealous and better than you

And I am all these things

But some words are meant to be read

Not read

Out

And while there are exceptions to the rule – this

Particular night was saved by SW – they are few

It is for Carl GJ to discern the introvert/extrovert ratio

I am just here to listen

To make it through to the beautiful reflection of the

Cold and dark, in one piece

Back home alone in my small silent corner

To write about them while they

Tour the stages of the

World.

Shinichi Maruyama

Long exposure nude photography. More HERE.

SWXSB

Off to see this dude and some other spoken worders tomorrow night. I'll try to do a small review later in the week if I don't come out of there totally despondant about my lack of effort towards producing anything creative and and worthwhile in life...

Chet Childress art stuff

I really want to go to this show opening, but it falls on the same night as Saul Williams

at Southbank. Classic. Still, if you're around you should go. Looks good.

Cab & Hosoi

This is my happy face.

Small things to keep you awake at night.

I consider the distance between the

Table and sofa

While my heart

As miner’s canary

Takes its last breath

Too far by a matter of inches

Or just right

The voice laughs

It is never just right

I cannot sleep

There was a time

I think

But no more

Everything is tomorrow and yesterday

Everything I knew was coming

Has

And will

I guess that makes me a real smart guy.

Quote of the night

If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.

Alfred Korzybski

AITU

As previously reported - from the Art in the Underbelly Exhibition - here is David Lemm's art coupled with mine. From the forthcoming booklet of the show.

SG_PJ

She walked in between two thoughts;

The glass case over the cookies looked like one huge breast

A disproportionately bulbous nipple-handle atop it

And

When was I going to turn into that crazy old man

That all around me would find wonderfully eccentric?

I heard the click clack that

Always makes your head turn

And there she was for the first time in, well

The devil only knows how many years

But here now

Yet not the same

Someone I knew who’d been once so

Disarming and light of heart and head

Now looked down at her shoes as though the weight of the room

Was

Too much for her to remain in any one spot

For longer than a few seconds

I stood back and watched as opportunities passed

Her

By

As she ignored - or pretended to ignore

The smiles and eye contact

There was no fear to her but rather apathy

Then looking up she caught my eye and in an instant I was lost again

Swimming in what she used to be

What she could have been

(anything anywhere to everyone)

Her head fell back down just as quickly

She stared towards the floor

Shamed by something

A choice she never made

Or one she did

To be removed, distant, steely yet alive

I felt guilty for reminding her of all those things -

Ordered my coffee and left without a word

Who am I to regret the passing of yet another good one

One who decided to throw it all in for no other reason than

The rest of us just aren’t worth the damn trouble.

'Are you lost yet?'

 

Here's the setlist from Radiohead at the O2 on 9th October. I'm not going to review the show because honestly, it would take too long to find the right words. Suffice to say, now REM are gone, these guys are the closest thing we have to Wyld Stallyns. Bloody awful venue though...

Lotus Flower, Airbag, Bloom, The Daily Mail, Myxomatosis, Bodysnatchers, The Gloaming, Separator, Videotape, Nude, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Reckoner, There There, The National Anthem, Feral, Paranoid Android.

Give Up the Ghost, I Might Be Wrong, Planet Telex, Morning Mr. Magpie, Street Spirit (Fade Out).

Staircase, Everything In Its Right Place, (True Love Waits intro) Idioteque. 

Quote of the day

In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professors is routine.   Noam Chomsky

From Juxtapoz.

Stars

Winner of the astronomy photographer of the year - Earth and space category, Masahiro Miyasaka. Photo taken in Nagano, Japan. Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades.

David Lemm

Illustrator David Lemm very kindly adapted a piece of mine into this nice artwork which featured in the Norfolk and Norwich Festival Visual Arts exhibition. Poem is below.

I am in retrograde orbit

As parchment disintegrates in the rain

Drops

I am bruised fruit

And sweet and soft and living underneath

Shiny

Green apples

I am the furthest place from home

The space between as the

Space between proton and

Electron

I am the fallen mountain

The smoking volcano

I am the hours it takes to breathe in

And out again 100 times.

EL-P

 Off for some of this action tonight - then straight home to bed. Early start tomorrow!

Last day at work...

 

A week off then a new job and no more trains. Very odd - but good.

No poets

I was asked if I could round up some poets for a reading

And I said I can’t remember the last time I

Went to a reading or

Spoke to another writer

This was/is by choice

But it suddenly dawned on me

It may cause me to be viewed as some

Sort of misanthrope

Which I am – but for reasons other than

Objecting to the company of other writers

For so long now

There have been no performances

No poets

No sitting alone drinking like some

Burgundy hearted movie star

Jack and Coke and a keyboard in the corner

There is zero drama

Everything is now clean

A new job

A grown up brain trying

Desperately to hold on to

The memories of why I started to do this

There are painkillers and toys in the bath and

Early nights

There is this underlying happiness

Unsettling and comforting all

At once

There is me and us

But not really them

Anymore

Nothing is missing

But something

Something is suddenly needed

A drive under the influence

A razorblade flashing under a streetlight

Escapades

Screaming women

A bottle thrown at your feet that

Makes you dance one more time.

Del Mar

Curiosity

Quote of the day

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.   Carl Sagan

Agraphia.

Even lacking the will to power

I can generate this repeated fluctuation

Double the black outs

Half the capacity

Mindlessness and conspiracy

And then a

Slam on the back of the head

A boot falling

A hand pushing

And then a reaction

And then nothing except silence and pain

Grey fog lifts to reveal slobbering wrecks

Of humans

Staring, gormless

It is not us

It is never us

It is and has always been

Them

FTW.

Quote of the day

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Dino's VS Aliens

The Art of Rap - review

I was excited to see this documentary existed and even more so, to attend a screening with a Director Q&A. The director in this case being Ice-T, who was joined onstage prior to the film by its two British Producers. The session didn’t prove too illuminating. I was hoping for more insight about the background context of the film and the filmmaking process, but as everyone was there for the film and time was getting on it wrapped up after about 30 minutes.

The movie began promisingly, if not predictably. Skyline/helicopter shots of New York in blown out colours (the West Coast would get it’s mention in the last quarter). The silent flight of the camera juxtaposed with the loud beats of the hip hop soundtrack. The directors stated that the film contained ‘no archive footage whatsoever’. I’m still unsure why this is. The repetitive nature of the visual is one of the major failings of the piece. Two hours of the same format got tiring, until I actually found myself losing focus on a subject I have loved for the last 25 years.

The film was ‘not about Hip Hop culture or the history of rap.’ they said. But again, to be informative to the layman, any documentary around this topic must surely cover as many of its diverse and varied proponents as it can within the running time without such restrictions? As a long time fan of the music I was gripped by much of what was on screen, but people wanting to discover something new, I feel might be left lacking.

On the point of omitting certain subjects entirely, an acknowledgment by Ice-T that they had to leave a lot of interviews on the cutting room floor made no real sense when even key figures such as Bambaataa or even Rakim, were given a mere 5 minutes screen time. While Grandmaster Cas featured prominently throughout due to – according to the directors ‘the fact he let us into his home and had a great deal to say’.

I did enjoy most of the interviews and stories probably never before heard. However there were so many missed opportunities from scene to scene that it became frustrating to watch. It felt like hip hop 101; an introduction for the uninitiated, rather than an intricate study of the artform’s various masters or huge diversity of styles, that people were expecting.

Too much focus was also given to the OG rappers of the 80’s, with some of the segments bordering on embarrassing. Where in some cases they would state unequivocally how they were still on top of the rhyme game (when in reality some are no longer recording). 

Redman was caught for interview while shopping for trainers, yet no mention was made of EPMD, under whom he came up into the rap game. And even when arriving on the West Coast, it was down mainly to Snoop and Dre to offer opinions and advice – rather than the film crew searching out a member of Funkdoobiest or the Pharcyde – two of the key groups in hip hop’s 'original style' category.

This is a film full of highlights and low points, an oftentimes contradictory account on rap and rap only according to its makers, yet featuring an interview with DJ Premier. And with absolutely no mention of contemporary masters of the form like Saul Williams or Aesop Rock, Black Thought or Reks, nor many of the standards such as De La, Kool G Rap or Big L (who was merely among those credited in the ‘RIP’ end credits) you can but hope that the question asked at the start of the night regarding a Blu Ray disc with extra footage will become reality. There is a lot more to see and hear.

Death and sunflowers.

A tattoo of sunflowers around a baby’s face brings up thoughts of godlessness and anarchy from my stomach as each day wished away remains unformatted a broken line of roots a tree branch a stand alone synapse gradually diminishing reaching out to nothing but still we are sure there is a point and a reason and a living to be made and living to be done yet still we shoot at the clock hands bows and arrows and shade our eyes from sunlight while lightning offers no more solace than any other demon we face striking out at us for our blood and we sit and write it all down to escape to destroy to remain complicit and subjugated while the id plots and plans like the rancorous enemy we surely are because just as the sum total of our resentment builds to cataclysm and pyroclastic flow at no point does the thought of stopping and speaking the cold hard truth ever enter our conscious mind knowing as we do that a single syllable would surely spell the complete end of our cursed and privileged time upon this crumbling planet full stop or maybe not but would you be the first one to gamble on the positive to roll the dice with angel wings and see what number comes up because I cannot truly say I have the strength to back that play knowing as I do that everything I have seen and heard up until now will only go on repeating like a single vinyl groove worn down by a single edged diamond so I keep the dice in clenched fist secret and selfish with no chance of foreseeable loss no rain no crowds no gravity no death no sunflowers.

Gareth McConnell

I have met a lot of photographers in my time, both via friends and though work, and there were regular occasions where I’d find the work immensely attractive only to meet the person behind the camera and discover they’re aloof, immodest, or at worst totally unlikeable. I guess it’s like hearing a band and after buying 3 albums finding out the lead songwriter is a fascist or something... 

At the other end of the scale is the rarity of seeing great art and then finding the artist is actually a really nice person. Gareth – who I haven’t seen in over 5 years since leaving my old job in Soho – was a gent. And his photos are great. He has an eye that is very close to what I would see in things when I was shooting so I think that drew me to a lot of his work in the beginning. They can be deceptively simple, but are always intruiging images. Website here.

Quote of the Day

A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value. Isaac Asimov

Soundgarden at HRC

It was too much to ask for that the Friday here at Hyde Park would start out as it did for Pearl Jam back in 2010. That day was spent sitting around on the grass trying to keep the beers cold and avoid sunburn. You wouldn’t be sitting on anything this time round – the ground turned to a muddy slush the previous weekend having now been entirely covered with woodchip to soak up the water and any more incoming rain.

The clouds parted for long enough that Iggy didn’t get rained on, and the Stooges rocked the main stage for a short set including Gimme Danger, which I was thankful to finally hear live. The grey sky remained for a while as the stage was set for Soundgarden – this included someone hoovering centre stage for some reason – which got quite a few laughs.

The band took the stage dead on time and despite reports of the gig being undersold, still faced what looked to be a good 20,000 people. The set consisted of mostly mid-career songs, with a couple from Screaming Life/ Fopp and Louder than Love thrown in for good measure. A two song encore of Rusty cage and Slaves and Bulldozers pushed Cornell’s voice to the limits at the end, but he still maintained the scream that everyone was there to hear. 

Now I hate the rain, and have managed to go my whole life without standing ina muddy field to watch a band I love. The rain had been falling in gentle sheets on and off for the 2 hour plus set, so we were wet but not soaked through. Though watching Soundgarden – the archetypal Seattle band – in warm, wet weather, somehow fit the mood and at the same time enhanced it. No more so when 20,000 people sang ‘wont you come/and wash away the rain’ to Black Hole Sun.

Punisher

Bass

Mr Colin Peters. The first person I ever knew who owned the black/white - as opposed to the white/black - Adidas Superstars, back in like '92.

Mondo

Mondo do the best poster variants. Click to Embiggen.

Frusciante

I swear this blog goes from music to skateboarding and back again - omitting anything even vaguely resembling 'prose'. I need to change the name... Anyway, John Frusciante is one of my favourite muscicians and writers (sort of related to prose!) and his website is getting updated more on the run-up to the new album release. Check it. 

Aes Rock is in the building

Skelethon is out today. Here's an AR interview from Ladygunn. 

A site I'd never heard of but it looks nice and the interview's good, so read that shit.

Paid in Full 25

 

Many of the online articles about Paid in Full being 25 years old this week, have begun with the ‘this makes me feel old’ line of thought.

The fact is, I remember this album coming out but was too young to appreciate it fully. I did however wait in anticipation for – and buy Follow the Leader on the day of release, and by that time had absorbed the classic material on Paid in Full a thousand times over.

This isn’t the place to discuss Rakim’s obvious relevance or contribution to not only rap, but hip hop culture overall. There are countless message boards and sites dealing with the never-ending back and forth of ‘Nas is better than/Biggie is better than/Jay is better than...’. Hell - I'm not even going to link up a YouTube clip. I just wanted to post a dedication to this album and Eric B and Rakim, who were without doubt, a massive part of me discovering who I was throughout my teenage years.

Suffice to say, Paid in Full contains some of the best lines, best rhymes, cadence, flow and proliferation of ideas in the history of hip hop music. And along with the Bomb Squad production on early PE, remains quite literally fresh every time you listen to it. It's so hard to pick just one example – but:

‘I'm not a regular competitor, first rhyme editor, Melody arranger, poet etcetera, Extra events, the grand finale like bonus, I am the man they call the microphonist...’

...nothing that dope could make me feel old.

Countdown

 

NudeDragons