Friday 30 August 2013

a seventy fifth story...'the blues oracle'

Jimmy sat on the pavement outside Café Nero, and strummed his acoustic guitar, occasionally running his long golden ringed fingers up and down the smooth neck, picking out quivering, moody notes.  Every now and again he would look up from his playing and survey the street scene from behind his Dylanesque shades…smooth. 

He was thinking, among other things, of a name.  Every great bluesman needed one – Howlin’ Somethingorother; ole’ Johnny Whatshischops; Blind Billy from Shit Creek, and so forth.  On his Styrofoam coffee cup the waitress had scribbled ‘Jimmy’ with a felt-tip pen.  But only Jimmy.

~

Some years previous, when Jimmy was (just about) holding down a job as a deck-chair salesman (the astro-turf show court was – almost – his element), he had read in the newspaper during a quiet period at work that none other than Sir Thumbs Aloft had just recorded and released an album with Starbucks.  Starbucks are a multinational coffee chain; they also have a record label.

Café Nero, meanwhile was, and had been for a while, where Jimmy entertained the parallel fantasy that one day someone (preferably a tall, leggy, blonde A&R girl) would discover him.  The fantasy that he played out every other weekday morning went something like this:

Jimmy would come in from the deserted street, guitar slung across his back.  The waitress would stop grinding coffee beans and look up.  Jimmy would tip his hat, and approach the counter, as her eyes filled with (some kind of) awe.  Perhaps the jukebox (a flight of the imagination in Café Nero, Jimmy had to concede) would go silent - but the expectation would be palpable. 

Jimmy, seating himself on a high-stool at the counter, would look from under the brim of his battered Stetson, and just before the waitress dropped the china she had been cradling in her hands, ask for a coffee (not a Latte, or a Mocha), a good ole’ black American coffee – straight from God’s good earth.  Amen!

~

The next bit was always slightly harder for Jimmy to imagine, he, like so many others, was hopeless at writing dialogue – especially in his own head. 

Anyway, after a muted exchange, even at which the waitress would not be able to contain her excitement at having a mysterious bluesman - the Crawling King Snake -  in her midst, he’d lift the guitar off his back and launch effortlessly into the beginning of Keith Don’t Go by Nils Lofgren or something equally show-stopping: da da dada da da da!

Once he had played several numbers, and a small (but extremely appreciative) crowd had gathered (and perhaps started to whoop and cheer as his magic fingers danced up and down the fret-board), the door would open again: cue the entry of the A&R girl.

And fame.  And money.  And sex (maybe with the A&R girl, maybe with another star child).  And fast cars.  And parties.  And (soft) drugs…would follow.

But to start with Jimmy needed a name!

~

Jimmy’s first port of call in search of a name was The Urban Dictionary of Hispter Slang.  Yessir! 

Jimmy figured that if this didn’t lead to him finding a name, he might in lieu pick up a smattering of blues lingo along the way.

He did.  And started playing it straight-from-the-fridge ever after.

(Well, he tried).

Next, he visited Bandnamegenartor.com (Oh! The fun one can have with this marvellous innovation).  Here are some of the possibilities it offered him straight off:

- Bitter Jimmy (this he thought had a certain ring, but might be easily misconstrued)
- Aging Jimmy (while this was true, Jimmy didn’t particularly wish to acknowledge the advancement of his years, at least not until the BBC Four retrospective of his career was broadcast)
- Jimmy Bamboo (Jimmy dismissed this one out of hand; it sounded like the kind of name one would confer on a musical panda)

..and Veggie Dyslexic.

Veggie Dyslexic, however, were already a popular alternative punk band, so it turned out, playing Shoreditch clubs – they had a policy of no meet at their gigs, and no lever.

~

Lo, the quest for a name continued, and on one damp September morning, Jimmy was to be found at Southampton dock waiting to board a sail-boat heading to America.  There he planned to visit the Windy CityChicago, the Home of the Blues, and consult the Blues Oracle.

The Blues Oracle was reputed to live in a small, dingy, rented room underneath the Brown Line on the Chicago loop, where CTA trains rattled by the open window day and night.  Some said The Blues Oracle was an ancient black man with big yellow eyes, liquor stained teeth and a chewed up suit; others said the Blues Oracle wasn’t a man at all, simply a dusty box of 1950s Chess records.

Either way, Jimmy hoped to see for himself.

But hoping is sometimes the biggest mistake one can make.  Hope too much and fate and fortune will desert you.  For when Jimmy stepped off the Brown Line CTA train at what he thought was the home of The Blues Oracle he found a sign on the door - it read: ‘the Home of the Blues has now moved to Jackson, Mississippi’, and then underneath, almost as an afterthought: ‘and so has the Blues Oracle’.

Epic fail

Jimmy broke down and cried right there on the doorstep.

~

So back to London Jimmy went (he couldn’t afford a Greyhound bus to Jackson), and back to his favourite café (the one named after a murderous Roman emperor)..

..then, about a month later, sitting in his usual place on the pavement one lazy mid-week afternoon, plucking at his guitar, musing on life, love, law, poetry and so on, he noticed a crowd forming.  Presently the crowd turned into an orderly queue with nearly a hundred men, women, boys and girls, some of whom were clutching autograph books, and other assorted memorabilia. 

Jimmy stopped his noodling, and wondered.

Just who where these people waiting for?

A great Coffee Barrista?! A Russian oligarch??  A Premier League footballer?? 

For the next half an hour the queue grew longer, until it was reaching all the way down the street to the cross roads and around the corner.  Whoever this is, Jimmy thought, is BIG.

And now two long black Mercedes Benz had pulled up across the street and the orderly queue suddenly turned into a mad rush, hundreds descending on the two automobiles like a pack of dogs, or a flock of Hitchcock birds. 

Jimmy did something he rarely did – he put down his guitar and stood up to get a better view.

The police were on the scene quickly - wobbly chins, rubber truncheons, day-glo jackets - and began to attempt to quell the ravers, make a gangway for whoever was about to emerge from the scrum; the scrupulous dignity of a few moments earlier had entirely disappeared.

While Jimmy thought how it would be such an anti-climax if all this fuss was for Madonna, flash bulbs started going off, and the shrieks and cries from the near delirious mass intensified – sporadic and hysterical chants of ‘Hey Jude’ and few other Wings songs were breaking out all around.

Then the passenger door of one of the Mercedes opened, and out stepped Sir Thumbs Aloft, turtle like and seventy plus, yet still sporting a linen suit, still a star, and with him his tall, blonde, (one) legged A&R girl.

Jimmy’s blue heart leapt.

Perhaps all his time spent posturing on the pavement outside the café had and would not be in vein, after all.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

The Same Thing Over and Over

The salt from the two sachets, torn open as a pair, settled on the back of Derrick Harper’s hand. Some dusted his anatomical snuffbox, the rest collected on the fleshy part beside the base of his thumb. He took a deep breath, held his arm at the elbow with his free hand and said, ‘Ok, go.’ Derrick ground his back against the brick wall behind him as Ed Flavin gently placed an ice cube from a paper cup up on top of the salt. Cecilia Masyonete started the stop watch on her phone. The other kids around, including Stevie Nicks, tensed their bodies on Derrick’s behalf. As the seconds went by, Derrick meshed his teeth and dug his feet into his shoes as though they stood on a sandy beach. Ed said, with a chapel-hush, ‘You’re doing great, D.’ Stevie chipped in with an awed ‘yeah’ but didn’t know what else to say. Even with the pain, Derrick flicked him a derogatory look.

Finally, with an atavistic shout of ‘Motherrr-FUCKER!’ Derrick Harper swept off the water, remaining ice and the salt; Cecilia stopped the clock. She held up the phone so everyone would see the display. ‘Four minutes thirty-seven,’ yelled Ed. ‘That’s gotta be a new record!’ ‘Let’s see,’ said one of the others in the little gathering, who had filmed the event and was now uploading the video. Within a couple of minutes, comments populated the page, many confirming that, yes, this was the longest time anyone had seen or heard about.

Ed shook his paper cup like a deranged carol singer. ‘Any… challengers?’ he gleefully asked. Without warning, two smaller groups had formed: Ed and Derrick facing the other four. The kids of the larger cluster looked at each other, knowing this was expected now. ‘Aww…’ began Stevie, frantically grasping for an excuse – aware that he was the natural mark. ‘Well volunteered,’ commanded Ed, yanking out Stevie’s arm by the wrist. Stevie’s face flushed, his birthmark shading almost burgundy. ‘Oh, ok, alright, I’ll go first,’ he said, looking pointedly at the spare three kids, bolstering himself with a measure of bravado.

The salt and the ice were arranged on his hand, a weird offering. Stevie grimaced for thirty seconds, until Cecila said, ‘Shit, I didn’t start the stop clock.’ Ed smiled at her; ‘We’ll have to start again.’ Stevie wiped his hand on his blazer and held it out again, not even bothering to present the other hand, knowing it would be rejected. This time, Stevie went for fifty-five seconds before gasping and brushing his hand clean.

‘Huh,’ was all Derrick said. Ed expressed his thoughts for him: ‘Not even one minute, Stevie Nicks.’ Abruptly uninterested, the group fell to pieces, leaving Stevie Nicks holding his hand in his mouth, like a dog running from an explosion.

Stevie Nicks was his nickname, not his real name. He was called Steven Nicholson, but his mother had called him Stevie all his life. This was tolerable back in primary school, but when the children from his year carried it into secondary school, their own secret weapon for fitting in – a gift for other kids and an uncomplicated unifier – Stevie knew, to his dismay, that he was stuck with it. The abbreviated surname to go with it came from his English teacher, stupid bint, who heard the other students call him Stevie and said, ‘Well, that almost makes you Stevie Nicks!’ She proceeded to laugh loudly at her joke. Of course, it soon became funny to Stevie’s peers; someone ran a search in an ICT lesson and found a photo of the Stevie Nicks in 1970s finery. Laughter galloped around the computer suite and the full title was fixed from then on.  

The same English teacher was also unforgivable in her casual reference to Stevie’s birthmark, a laterally inverted South America that began just below his left eye, as a ‘port-wine stain’, as though this was acceptable terminology, as though it wasn’t insulting, or didn’t imply some gout-ridden alcoholic uncle sloshing on his head in a demented baptism. Stevie’s mother didn’t know about this, and would have complained if she did, but Stevie never mentioned it and would have been mortified at her calling the school, or worse, marching up the path for a meeting. This was the crux of their discord: just how much of one’s live should be shared. For her, teenagers were incomprehensible, with their need for personal space and privacy, eschewing her attention where only short years ago it was craved.  Her need was to care – care hard.

She saw the raw blotch on Stevie’s hand, as any good mother would. ‘Oh! How did you do that?’ Stevie sat like an anvil. ‘Food tech,’ he blurted. ‘Oh dear, dear. Did you run it under cold water?’ ‘Of course mum.’ He glanced furiously at his younger brother, David, who was squirming on his chair. Stevie knew that David knew; he was aware that he had to keep him quiet.

Later, Stevie was flipping through a manga comic when David sidled into his room and shut the door. ‘Have you ever done the blackout challenge?’ Stevie gazed at him, hovering between brotherly concern and senseless one-upmanship. ‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I think we should try it,’ said David.

The two boys pulled down bedclothes and arranged them on the floor. David took out his phone. ‘We have to film it.’ Stevie nodded, ‘I’ll go first.’

Stevie squatted in the middle of the soft area and breathed in and out rapidly, hyperventilating, while David counted aloud, using a stage whisper. At thirty, Stevie stood up, stuck his thumb in his mouth and blew out as hard as he could, but without letting the breath escape so his cheeks ballooned like rumours. After a moment, he slowly staggered first right then left, his eyes starting to loll, and collapsed onto the duvet in a fashion akin to being tipped from a sack. David stopped the recording and checked his brother – ‘Stevie?’ Stevie rolled over and grinned at him. ‘How’d it look?’ ‘Epic.’ David had a go too, wilting peculiarly slowly to the floor, and soon the videos were online for all to see, except their mother, who didn’t really know how to use the internet, thank heavens.  

The next morning, before school started, Stevie was shooting some baskets in the yard, on his own as usual. It was not that he was bullied as such; yet he was always on the edge of other children’s lives. An afterthought, or just not a thought. On this morning, though, he was approached by Ed Flavin. He had Shemera Johnson in tow. ‘That was fake,’ opened Ed. ‘You dropped your knee before you fell over, so you can’t have blacked out,’ explained Shemera. Stevie held the basketball in two hands. ‘It must have just gone like that on its own. I was unconscious!’ he protested. ‘Whatever. No one will believe that,’ summarised Ed. The duo walked away, leaving Stevie hopelessly standing there, as though cut off by a rising tide.

That weekend, Stevie and David were at their dad’s so they had to catch the bus after school on Friday rather than walking. On the 65 at 3.10, Stevie sat just behind the rear wheel arch on the left-hand side. He noticed a little crack, making a jagged hole in the corner of the curved plastic plate bulging up underneath the seat in front. When the bus went over a pothole, the portion of floor bounced up some. You could just catch a glimpse of the wheel spinning below. Stevie was blessed with a moment of inspiration, one that would change his life, no less. As a result, at his dad’s, all weekend he was jittery. The three of them went fishing, and dad was cross at Stevie for ‘spooking the fish with those hyperactive legs.’ They went to see a fantasy sequel at the cinema, but if you asked Stevie today what happened in it, there’s no way he’d be able to tell you. David, who knew Stevie better than their dad, was conscious that something was up and watched his brother carefully. In the bunk beds in the little room over the garage on Saturday night, David whispered: ‘What’s going on with you?’ Silence for a minute. ‘I’ve invented a new challenge,’ murmured Stevie back. ‘Salt and ice, blackout… they’ll be nothing compared to this.’ David felt a thrill – he wasn’t so old as to be unimpressed by default. ‘What is it?’ he breathed. Stevie lent over from the top bunk and squinted at his brother in the dim light. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’ David bugged for details, but Stevie kept quiet. His glory was not to be shared.

Being a teenager goes on forever; it’s just long years of the same thing over and over, unpunctuated with excitement. At any rate, that’s how Stevie Nicks felt. However, the day had come for a genuine highpoint: something unforgettable. Stevie told Ed at school in the cavernous dining hall. Derrick was there too but one did not speak to him directly – if you were a boy named Stevie Nicks anyhow. ‘Ed. I’ve invented a new challenge. Better than salt and ice, much more dangerous than blackout.’ Stevie was breathing hard, gnawing the tip of his finger. Ed and Derrick smiled, almost lovingly, at one another when hearing this charming notion. ‘Oh yeah?’ said Ed. ‘What is it?’ ‘Come on the number sixty-five at ten past three tonight and see,’ Stevie offered. Ed grunted at the lack of information. Derrick waved his hand and Stevie left, unsure if he’d have the spectators he wanted. He had to risk it anyway. He went and found David near the maths rooms. ‘Tell mum when you get home I have revision club after school,’ he instructed. ‘Why?’ ‘I have to do something. Just tell her… please.’ ‘Ok.’ David’s friends stared at Stevie’s birthmark. He frowned at them then brushed his fair hair forward with his fingers and walked away.

Stevie waited at the bus stop; word had evidently circulated and vague curiosity or boredom had assembled a small crowd. He was glad to see Derrick and Ed lurking there, with Shemera and Cecilia and various others, but his nerves jolted, for he realised he couldn’t back out. The kids who normally got the bus anyway knew something was up. When the 3.10 pulled up, everyone let Stevie get on first. ‘Afternoon, Driver!’ Stevie said cheerfully as he slid the change into the tray, feigning confidence for his first time in front of an audience. The woman behind the glass looked balefully at him. Stevie went to the seat behind the one over the wheel arch again, and the other children gathered on around, most standing. Once the bus heaved away, Ed queried, with atypical courtesy, ‘Well, Stevie Nicks, we’re all here. What challenge have you brought us to see?’ The others tittered. The way he said the name seemed to remind them it was funny – although many had forgotten why.

Stevie bit his lip and bent down under the seat in front. He slipped his hand into the crack in the floor and lifted the arc of plastic up a few inches. ‘Can you see the wheel?’ Necks craned and excitement grew. ‘You can get your arm down there. The challenge is to hold the wheel when the bus stops, and only move your hand away when the bus moves. If you aren’t careful, you could get your hand trapped.’

Derrick stuck out his bottom lip in a begrudging ‘not bad’ gesture, but Stevie couldn’t see him from where he was. ‘Ok, but it’s only a challenge if you leave it till the last second,’ Ed told him. ‘Otherwise, there’s no risk.’ ‘Sure,’ conceded Stevie. He looked around at everyone from his kneeling position on the floor.

The bus halted at some traffic lights. Stevie paused then shoved his arm into the gap. He held the wheel, gripping the rim within the tyre. Shemera elected herself adjudicator and knelt down to verify that Stevie was holding the wheel. ‘He’s done it,’ she declared. There was a hiss as the brakes were released and Stevie hastily withdrew his arm. He looked around for some sort of approval. The kids were underwhelmed.

Derrick Harper spoke: ‘Too easy. You can hear when it’s setting off.’ He pulled a paper napkin from his blazer pocket. Taking his time, for he knew they’d all wait, Derrick tore it in two. He twisted each half into a feathered nub, like a pair of shuttlecocks. ‘Earplugs.’

Ed picked up the theme. He crouched beside Stevie and removed his striped tie. He set it carefully around Stevie’s head. Ed reached back for the napkin earplugs and handed them to the plucky Stevie Nicks. He took them and pressed them into his ears. Ed pushed down the tie over the other boy’s eyes and patted him on the shoulder like you might a horse, to say ‘let’s go.’

Stevie swallowed nothing, his mouth dry. His legs were shaking. He raised the plastic floor with one hand and gingerly reached in with the other. The bus stopped at a shelter, lurching so the onlookers grabbed bars and seats to keep their balance.  Stevie reached in further and took hold of the wheel for a second time. The cluster of children was silent. Stevie’s legs stopped shaking and he closed his eyes behind the blindfold. For a moment, he felt relaxed, calm and sort of mesmerised by his own vulnerability. It was like being in the zone for a perfect free-throw. The other people heard the hiss and the clattering close of the doors; they shifted about. Derrick raised a hand to quiet them all.

The bus moved away from the stop, but Stevie Nicks held on. Suddenly, the vehicle accelerated and they all saw Stevie jolt forward nauseatingly. Then he flopped back, in a bent heap in the corner formed by the seat behind him and the wall of the bus. Horror and panic clutched the group of school children. The bus hesitated in a queue of traffic. Cecilia leapt to the door and stabbed the emergency exit button above it. The whole pack bolted out of the door, the bus driver hollering after them.

Stevie slumped on the floor, smiling faintly to the ceiling as his stump wept onto the grey floor. At least, it would not be the same thing over and over, anymore.

The Reinventors

Why were there so many reinventors in one place? They were at a weekend retreat, that’s why.

The night before, they had all listened to the welcome speech from the grandiosely named Edgar De Quincy. He told them that life is like the formation of a river. At first, the gentle trickle of water follows the curve of the land, helplessly obeying gravity. Later, the water gathers the power to shape the land to suit itself. Thus they must live. Edgar De Quincy explained that the reinventors should learn from his example. He claimed to have never made a mistake, because every choice in his life had contributed to his being here, and there was nowhere he’d rather be.

One woman, this at the circle time on Saturday morning, suggested that she needed reinvention because her marriage was in trouble and it was down to her. They were seated in a large conservatory, among the exotic plants. Most of the reinventors were sweating, but De Quincy, in a black polo neck, was preternaturally cool.

‘I’m always snapping at him,’ the woman groaned, her nagging easy to believe. ‘I tell him off for stupid things. I used to be so much more relaxed about him going off for golf or just watching The Ashes all day on a sunny day.’

Edgar De Quincy listened with two fingers pressed to his lips. He ran a hand through his luscious grey hair and sat forward.

‘You have sown the seeds of renewal on the cracked earth of your marriage just by coming here, Louisa,’ he said quietly but firmly. He was staring intently at the woman, who was sitting as though she was in a vice. ‘Now you and your husband must water them together. And you will reap the harvest of your reinvention.’

Louisa, stunned by the sage advice, flopped back in her chair and breathed: ‘Thank you.’

Oh, there were plenty of others. A student, who had dropped out three times, never satisfied with his choice. De Quincy’s advice: ‘Ask not what a degree in archaeology will do for you, but ask what you can do for archaeology.’ Wise words, and practical!

Another reinventor said she drank too much. De Quincy was silent for a time, looking at her, and the woman shifted around in her chair so her bones wriggled hither and thither under her skin. Eventually, he said: ‘Life is so precious. You must be alert to joy as well as to sorrow. There is no way to enhance or numb these things.’

In awe, the bony woman closed her eyes and tears dribbled down her face. Edgar De Quincy smiled earnestly inside: reinvention was well under way.

Next, there was a hefty man in black jeans and a black T-shirt, Mediterranean hair silvering at the borders. He probably drove a large Mercedes. He had a deep, slightly growly voice.

‘Ed,’ he began. No one called Edgar Ed. ‘Ed, I was violent towards my wife.’

All in the circle straightened up as though a decorated general had dropped by. My, my, but here was a story!

The swarthy man continued: ‘I held her by the shoulder against the wall with my left hand then slapped her quite hard with my right.’ The precision of the man’s tale seemed to matter to him. Although he was large, he didn’t look particularly strong; many years of rich meals and a light gym regime put paid to that. He looked now at Edgar De Quincy with his palms suppliant, sincerely hoping for help.

Not often was De Quincy speechless. There was the time his first wife told him she was ditching him for her secretary (Edgar did not know whether this was a male or female secretary). There was also the time when he was present for the birth of his goddaughter and she came out as one of a pair of conjoined twins, missed on the scan. This heavy man, too, had silenced Edgar. Never had he been approached with an issue like this. The quiet in the conservatory got hotter. Everyone’s eyes went from Edgar to the confessor like they were at a tennis match.

Finally, Edgar De Quincy looked up. ‘Anthony,’ he said, ‘you need to call your wife. She needs to be here too.’ He nodded for the next reinventor to continue.

The next two around the ring were somewhat cursory in their complaints, but by the third, everyone had simmered down and was listening indulgently to each reinventor and De Quincy’s inspiring words.

Anthony’s wife Caroline arrived that evening. De Quincy staged a private intervention with the pair. He took them into the hotel sauna, fully clothed, and locked the door.

‘Grab your husband by the testicles,’ he instructed Caroline. ‘Don’t argue. Do it if you want to save your marriage.’

Reluctantly, Caroline reached down into Anthony’s back jeans and grasped his testes.

‘Good,’ said Edgar De Quincy. ‘Now squeeze them, getting progressively harder as you tell him how you feel about what he did.’

Caroline did so, stopping having built up to a scream of ‘You bastard!’ Anthony was moaning and perspiring.

Edgar led them into the cool and stood with a hand on each spouse’s shoulder at the edge of the pool. He breathed in conspicuously through his nostrils and whispered, ‘The power balance in your marriage has been restored. You will proceed.’

That night, no reinventor had much sleep. They struggled their sheets into knots and tried to weigh De Quincy’s words with their minds, finding that the more they pondered them, the more they frayed. De Quincy himself slept well, naturally, feeling very pleased with his new method of fixing cases of spousal abuse.

The Sunday of the weekend retreat rolled on much like the Saturday: discussion of the root of reinventors’ needs, exercises in self-renewal and what have you. Then everyone went home, satisfied.

The question now, of course, is: ‘did it work?’ And the answer (don’t be surprised), is yes.

Louisa returned home; her husband was out playing golf. Although she was incensed that he was not there to welcome her back, reinvented, she did not snap when he came in, but hugged him, kissed his neck and said I missed you.

The student in the end chose Art History (near the start of the catalogue), and performed adequately enough to pass the course. Bravo!

The alcoholic stopped drinking and starting gambling, the better to experience life’s moments of greatest elation and deepest dread.


As for Anthony and Caroline, their marriage rumbled on pretty happily. She only felt fear of him very occasionally, a kind of loose burn in her chest when he was angry. But, as our friend Edgar De Quincy would say, ‘Reinvention is always a compromise between what you are and what you could have been.’

Sunday 25 August 2013

a fourth conversation piece...'tindersticks - mountain of gems'

‘Music, is to me, proof of the existence of God’ – so said the late, and very great Kurt Vonnegut.  What he was really getting at in saying this (it seems) is that music is extraordinarily magical.  Three minutes of popular song can change one's physical chemistry, typically for the better.

At the moment I am sitting, nursing a bank holiday hang over – cheap red wine, some whiskey that tasted like, and could have been motor oil.  And I’m listening to a compilation I made of Tindersticks.  I called it ‘Mountain of Gems’.  It seemed an appropriate title, one which encapsulates the power and magic of their music.

Tindersticks were formed in Nottingham in the mid 90s; their first video they made with Pulp – however, since then they have largely eschewed the lime-light.  Perhaps their best record, the stirring and achingly beautiful Simple Pleasures, is currently out of print;  and while they will undoubtably fill the Barbican Centre this autumn when they play their one London date of 2013, they have enjoyed as much if not more success outside of the UK, particularly in Europe (at the time of writing, they have just finished their sixth film score for French director Claire Denis).

In vocalist Stuart Staples they have a man whose rich, deep baritone can fill auditoriums and find space in the smallest box-bedrooms.  As well as one of the finest lyricists in pop history.  His lyrics deal with unrequited love, fumbled relationships and bruised egos.  He has the gift of saying an awful lot in not so many words. 

It is Staples’ voice and words accompanied by the evocative musical arrangements of (variously) Dickon Hinchcliffe and David Boulter - acoustic guitars, strings, organs and brass – that makes Tindersticks the perfect soundtrack to the flayed tapestry of life, as well as one of the best tonics.  They are like cognac for the soul.

They are also proof, to echo Vonnegut, of the existence of God.

And if God, as is also often said, is love, then at the heart of love is humility.  Tindersticks music has helped teach me humility in some awkward moments in life, and I am all the better for that, and for them – they are magic.  I love you, Tindersticks: I am very humbly yours!

Thursday 22 August 2013

a thirty sixth poem...'orientation'

How do you
Go forward
When every day
You don’t know
Which way
You’re facing?

Wednesday 14 August 2013

a seventy fourth story...'interview with an old man'

He’s sitting back on a black leather recliner, trousered legs out in front of him on a black leather foot rest, feet - in polished black shoes - twitching (excitement? nerves? or simply irreparable damage to the central nervous system?). 

He wears a blue and white striped shirt buttoned to the neck that covers his bloated belly, swollen from years of excess, mainly alcohol.  He has both his elbows on the arm-rests of his black leather chair, and moves his withered hand to his mouth every so often to take a slow drag on his cigarette.  His jaundiced eyes are hidden by a pair of dark blue tea-shades sitting on the bridge of his nose; his cheeks have inroads (again track marks of excess), his lips are turned down, his whole countenance exuding a mixture of world-weariness and disgust. 

During our ten minutes together he has called me ‘a fucking idiot’ (twice), ‘thick as three short planks’, ‘part of the analytical division’ (he smiled thinly at that one, whatever it means to him) and thrown in another few insults for good measure.  When he isn’t smoking or insulting me, he treats my questions as arse-wipe, at best delivering grouchy monosyllabic replies, in between times clicking his tongue, twitching his feet.  He’s the chairman of the awkward squad, and although he probably doesn’t give a fuck what happens to me when I leave him, he’s enjoying me now – I am his sport (and quite probably his only company, let alone sport, for today).

~

When our time together is almost up I ask him if he can remove his tea-shades.  ‘Fuck off’ he sneers.  There’s a short pause.  Undeterred, and already quickly accustomed to his vulgarity, I say I want to see his eyes.  He moves his hand towards his mouth again, and takes a drag, shooting smoke out the side of his mouth. 

‘What for?’, he says after a few seconds.  Maybe, I think, I’ve got him interested at last.  I say again I want to see his eyes, what he really looks like. 

Another pause, a longer one. 

~

We’re miles away from anywhere out here on his range in the back country.  He’s only his horses, and his carer as far as I can tell (outside of the farm-hands, farm manager and vet, who I imagine have to deal with him on a weekly (?) basis).  I asked his carer for a word or two about him before we sat down to interview, she couldn’t offer anything; I took it that it wasn’t she didn’t understand, more she hadn’t anything good to say about him. 

His head is titled in my direction now, or it appears so, as if he is trying to listen in to my thoughts; but silence has set in, and it’s probably time I wrapped – in my profession quiet time is wasted time, however brief our time has been talking. 

Turning off the camera on the tripod behind me, I begin to put away my things.  His carer meanwhile has appeared in the doorway, hovering anxiously, probably, or so I imagine, awaiting the next volley of abuse or disdainful command.  She’s actually quite a good-looking middle-aged woman, perhaps in her mid-forties, with big doleful, but not unattractive eyes, dark, smooth skin: it’s not how she ended up looking after him, I think to myself, but why she stays on; he’s had her, he said, for six years – perhaps compassion in us all is innate, a somehow irrepressible human trait. 

~

Once I’ve everything stowed and my kit bag zipped, I sling it on my shoulder and turn to face him again.  He hasn’t moved, wisps of smoke rising from his cigarette, lost in a moment, or several moments; he looks like vestige from the Gorgon tales, only in modern drag, strangely effete (he would hate that word most likely). 

As I go to shake his hand, he cocks his head a little, and as I am taking my leave of him he says, in a low, throaty voice what I think (or did I dream!?) was the answer to my hitherto unanswered question: ‘I’ve too many regrets’. 

There’s a human being in there still, behind the shades, even if he refuses to show, as self-aware (and, yes, pig-headed) as the rest of us - that’s the tragedy of it.

Friday 2 August 2013

a third reflection...'a quick riposte to the royals post inevitable publication of baby shower pap snaps'

I have been bothered lately by a growing anxiety that the Royal Family are beginning to ‘modernise’, at least in the eyes of the British public who might once have sat on the proverbial boundary fence between constitutional monarchy and republic, thereby appearing somehow relevant.

Yes, what with Prince Hewitt’s ribald 21st century antics, Wills and Kate’s pact with Hello magazine, the arrival of George-the-brand-new-Royal-Baby, and Kate’s raunchy sister, Pippa, the Royals have become celebrities, A-listers no less.  And every honest, hard working British citizen loves their celebs (and the magazines they appear in) to a fault, right?!  The Royal Family are so NOW.

Especially if on top of this they are great news for tourism, the armed forces, Schweppes Gin and Tonic, Pimms and Lemonade, Clinton cards and flag manufacturing.

Oh and we’ve also had a slew of free gifts from our benevolent heads of state (they’re a bit like a hydra aren’t they?), largely in the form of public holidays.  Even if on the occasion of the Queen’s jubilee it literally rained on her parade – life has a delicious irony every now and again.

~

A quick aside - think irony, think Oliver Cromwell.  It’s amazing the rough time he’s been given by historians past and present, isn’t it?  Never mind that he was something of a visionary when he was, we are told instead, a fat, balding, blood-thirsty political heretic the rest of the time!

~

Anyhow, on the weekend of the aforementioned Queen’s jubilee I was naturally in a pub, but no, I wasn’t raising a glass to Lizzie, more contemplating her exasperating and curmudgeonly insistence to, well, not die (or abdicate), and lo bring about the decline and fall, or gradual removal of the Royals from public and quasi-political life.

In a society that is quite rightly increasingly concerned with social justice and equity, quite how, where and why do the Royal Family have any place whatsoever?

Fine.  They are good for tourism.  But if they disappeared tomorrow people would still come from across the globe to see where they used to live – Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle – just as people go see Versailles

Fine.  They are ambassadors for Britain.  And in truth fairly hard working representatives of Britain on the world stage, but no more hard working than a travelling politician or government servant.  Nor will you find them doing anything ‘real’ on their travels beyond cutting ribbon and asking queues of people what they do for a living.

Thus isn’t it time we turned the Queen’s favourite question back on her?

So Liz, what do you do?

And what do you really represent?


~

‘She is the head of state, she brings our nation together’ goes the refrain.  Sure, but what about those of us who are after a republic?  What about those of us who understand the difference between respect and deference?  What about those of us who perhaps have an issue with the idea of national identity, the kind the Royal Family simply reinforces, because it engenders otherness, opposition, and not togetherness or unity? 

After a republic?

Yes.  After all a president is elected, i.e. chosen by the electorate, and not by God (who may or may not exist).  So is a prime-minister, granted.  But still above him remains the Royal Family - reinforcing the absurd idea of the untouchables, a part, yet apart.  In ideological terms I think this undermines Britain’s constitutional democracy.

Britain’s compromised democracy might be more apt. 

Meanwhile, a president can not only perform the role of ambassador, but can execute further and hopefully lasting initiatives towards a fairer more equitable society, which asserts the value of every individual as equal, and not in any way subordinate.  A president in charge of a republic can cultivate respect for one another as equals, not endorse by his or her presence outmoded vertical hierarchy.  And if a president fails we can elect a new one; not wait around for him or her to expire.

It is interesting that my experience of Europeans of a certain age I associate with is that they are politically clued up and far more eloquent on the subject of making a more just society for all.  It’s because political debate is genuinely and exclusively at the heart of their society, they have to be interested, and who knows, one day they might be in charge?  And have their face super-imposed onto a stamp to boot.

Liz, Philip, Charles, Wills, Kate, the Hewitt boy etcetera are probably perfectly decent human beings behind the Royal Façade, but together the institution and social hegemony they represent is not so decent. 

People tell me, ‘oh but they don’t get a salary’, and ‘they have a sense of duty’.  Given.  But they have one free lunch after another, and they are human – one would hope they had a sense of duty.  Thing is how far is their sense of duty again serving only their own purposes?

I can’t remember a time when I have ever felt the Queen has represented me; I have felt represented (thereby acknowledge as an entity in society) by my local MP (yes, really), even our PM.  Why?  Because they are (at least in theory) as elected politicians committed to improve my lot, and my next door neighbours', and my neighbour’s neighbour – which is great.  Moreover, this is a duty that is selfless and to be respected; the same goes for people in all warps of life working to make others feel a bit better from doctors, nurses, shrinks, peace campaigners, aid workers, philosophers, spiritual leaders, teachers, parents and so on.

The expunging of The Queen and her tribe would be mourned in part because she and they embody ‘a tradition’.  Yet I find it odd that this particular tradition involves the ideas of decency and duty: it seems to me that the tradition of the Royal Family smarts of an archaic assertion of forced deference over mutual respect, subjugation over emancipation, collusion over consenting collaboration, and in people’s refusal to acknowledge this too widespread an apathy - the Queen’s in residence, things are OK, keep calm, carry on!!

What? Carry on going nowhere fast?

See, a society that has started to embrace social mobility, seriously entertain the aforementioned ideas of social justice and equity, simply cannot maintain at its heart a tradition that by its very nature does not reflect and embody any of these.

The Royal Family are indeed symbolic. But not necessarily in a positive, or relevant sense, however much they are starting to ape Posh n’Becks and appear in popular magazines.