Tuesday, February 28, 2006

In Convenient Skulls

What makes it art is the fact of the wig. Or, if you prefer, the toupee. The hair piece. The periwig. The merkin. Whatever. It’s no skin off my scalp.

As it sits there, literally the crowning glory to all the folly that has dogged him throughout his increasingly pointless life. The rest of the picture made up of a brown corduroy jacket, multi-coloured T-shirts, “faded” jeans and cherry red boots. Not cherry red boots - brown brogues. It’s a picture of something, I’m sure you’ll agree. He is, as someone once noted, an ambassador from another world. His battles, having been fought and mostly lost, are behind him now. So here, with his wig securely in tow, he is looking forward to creating a new, as they say, space. All that came before, all the detritus and dreck: gone. Forward is what it’s about. Forward with his new hair.

Let’s get to the point. He stepped out of his front door anew and quickly discovered that the world wasn’t interested in what he had to share. Which is to say that he walked through his city - down gulleyways and alleyways, up side streets and down streams - without so much as the merest hint of molestation. Nobody, and he could see it in their eyes, gave a flying fig about his wig.

Spilling forth, as the phrase has it, from beneath the catch of his now dusty wig, came memories and dreams that, in reality, gave him a false picture of how he and the city had once related to each other. During the time of natural hair and a full head of it.

There was, he thought, within this city a kind of Technicolorisation. Where the city was clean and straight-lined, primary-coloured, manicured and safe: a novice architect’s wet dream. The edges of the grass as razor sharp and as ordered as the silver edges of the concrete and steel. A beatific blue sky, shaded in stripes, hanging over it all. The quiet of the libraries, the certainty of the town hall’s stone steps, the sheer reasonableness of the lines of plastic. Like the opening sequence of Mary, Mungo and Midge. It was a city that, for all its calculated beauty, you couldn’t actually live in. Especially if you were in possession of drawn-on hair.

This was also the city of cold and snow, where the distinct advantage of a full head of hair was just that: a distinct advantage. Pooh-poohing hats and pouring scorn on hoods, this was a city like Moscow or New York where white and dirt combined to give it the reality-flavoured crispness that made proud-crowned young men stride down Jones Street, their hands stuffed into their pockets, their shoulders hunched and their best girls clinging to their sides. There and then, in the briefest moment of clear, the city and its environs are nailed in one cold glow. Not only could you crimp this city’s streets, you could live in it too. Warming your coat in the launderette, turning socks into gloves and tracing the sledge lines all the way down Harold Road. Who needs Jones Street when you’ve got Harold Road?

There is, then, much more to this wig than meets the eye. For how could its wearer not wear it without communicating some kind of statement? There is, after all, the fact of the wig, and the fact of art. Of course, it pays not to get too carried away. We’re talking window dressing here. Decoration. A splash, a daub.

His adornment was ornamental in that it didn’t really serve any purpose. It’s not as if anybody, save a few small children, actually gave a damn that he had lost hair. Or cared a fig for how that affected him. Nor did it serve any useful purpose in keeping out the cold, those thin synthetic fibres not at all a substitute for the warm wonders of the real thing. It was then, in a sense, simple topping. But even so, it was the kind of art that instilled in the wearer - the exhibitionist – a certain degree of carefree confidence. It was therefore necessary to take the wig at much more than face value. So what if small kids taunted him? So what if they followed him home with cries of “Baldilocks!” and “Kojak!” - despite the fact that, of course, neither Kojak or Baldilocks wore wigs? Those little kids might have better rammed their point home by shouting things like “Rug Mug!”, “Thatch Twat!” or “Bono!” Never mind. What mattered was whether those kinds of taunts were enough to make him tear his art from his head.

The meaning of the wig beyond its surface appearance? Does it relate to, or function within, the world? If it is accepted that the wig is simply a smudge on the landscape, do we have to conclude that it is just that and nothing more? That it is a literal smudge on the landscape - with no signification beyond mere decoration? The wig as a negation of the world, not a part of it? Void and meaningless within its own immiscible condition? Or might history tell us otherwise?

Who wears wigs? Cancer patients and celebrities. European totems of decadent bent. Cross-dressers. Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans. Actors and royalty. Dragsters. Colonials. Fusspots. Sixties birds and beehive types. Dead people. All proud wearers of the matted crinkle.

Well now, we laugh. By reducing him to the sum of next to nothing. A wig? In 2006? Such a thing is surely ridiculous. And yet, consider him now as he steps outside his front door, holding his breath, hoping, somehow, that the world will greet him like some long lost lover. Consider this ridiculous figure in his ridiculous wig as he recalls, in those brief moments of waiting, how his heart broke every day at the sight and thought of his hair leaving him in ever-increasing stages. And how he hopes that this small cosmetic gesture, this slender sprinkle, will be enough to ease his heart’s pain. It’s enough to make you laugh.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

A Pool in the Dirt

What women hate about me:

My pretty blue eyes. My strawberry lips. My converted barn and outlying shacks. My cherry red boots. My disdain for religion and the religious. My Sunday newspapers. My pomposity. My clutch at terra firma. My occasional stabs at flight. My huge collection of children’s annuals. My bandy legs. My cheese and chutney sandwiches.

What women like about me:

My collection of blue shirts. The way I sing sometimes when I wash the pots. My dedication to a kind of old fashioned rinky dinkiness. The indignant letters I write to the newspapers. My nerves of steel and my balls of twine. The way I steer the car to the supermarket. The indignant letters I receive from the newspapers. My huge collection of Latin Americana. The fact that I always do my thing, no matter what.

1. What women like about me is at least as much as what women hate about me. So, on the whole, I sort of do okay. Take, for instance, the fact that every night this week I’ve been out with a different woman. That’s five women. Of course, when I say this week I mean Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Five women in a week. I had sex with two of them. The week before I shagged three of them. So I reckon it’s about fifty per cent. I mostly get them on the footpath on the way home. You’d be surprised how many of them are up for that.

2. What women like about me is that I am old and stupid and smell of fish. They like that their cats like to lick me. And that I’m too old and stupid to get them off. The cats, that is.

3. What women like about me is the fact that I am never wrong. Never. And I tell them too. They like that, being told. It’s all about dominance and masculinity. Having a deep voice. Shouting.

4. What women like about me is my alcoholism and the clichés that come with that. The poetry. The academic half life. The affairs. The jumpers and cigarettes. The red wine stains on the carpet. They like the fact that I get invited to lots of interesting parties. That I’m surrounded by young people. Young students. Male students. They think they’re getting the dean. They think they’re the dean’s wife.

5. What women like about me is the money I earn, the car I drive and the big house I live in.

6. What women like about me is my tiny hands and feet. My thin chest and my poofy hair. They like to push me around and tell their friends how sensitive and considerate I am. They like that I’m opposed to animal testing. They like that I don’t drink. They like that I smoke weed. They like that I’m a whisper in the corner and that if they turn too quickly they can’t even see me. It’s a trick I cultivated at university. To hide the fact that I don’t really like women.

7. What women like about me is that I am cool, hard, domineering and unforgiving. Yet sensitive too. They like that a lot. The fact that I’ve got such a winning combination going on. And a big nob.

8. What women like about me is my dog, Ruggles.

9. What women like about me is that I make them laugh. It’s something I always do. As the saying goes, “Get them to guffaw and you’ll go faw.” Or “Once they’re giggling they’ll soon be wriggling.” I mainly make them laugh by telling them jokes. Like, you know, what did the lion do when he turned off his laptop? He plugged it into – no, hold on. I mean, what did the lion do when the battery ran out in his laptop? He plugged it into his mane. No, manes. He plugged it into the manes.

10. What women like about me is my tight T-shirt and jeans and the fact that I’m a good mover on the dance floor. They like that I take care of my appearance and that I’m well-groomed. They like the fact that I’ve got an arse that only a real man could love.

Friday, February 24, 2006

A Stain in the Dust

I am a fugue of balloons in motion. A helicopter ride skirting the stratosphere. From up here I can see your house. It looks like a blooey.

That noise, the tiles crashing from your roof. That was us, buzzing your house. Stand in your garden and wave. We won’t hurt you.

The deepest note ever generated in the cosmos is on its way home. Heaven cannot help you now. You need both feet on the ground. Watch out for our blades, they’ll crop you closer than most.

We fly against the weather. We chin back, take deep sips and grit ourselves down for the rest of the ride. From up here I can see your house. It looks like a blooey.

Your kitchen rattles. It’s not us. We are caught, crossing, a dot of spin in the wind. On your street the women are clutching their crockery. While you are reaching out for plates. Soft landings won’t help you now.

This is handicap. Your house is a blooey while we are smeared paste on the red horizon. Your street has bent its lampposts, curled its pipes, betrayed its stone. If there is anyone out there they’ll be thinking themselves lucky.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

For All Good Things

Tenement Wine. Your exclusive guide to city drinking, urban fucking and the lure of the pub. And what now, now that the English public house has become Patricia Hewitt’s front room? What now, now that you know that these people are literally bred to fuck you over? Do you need to ask why it’s your duty to hate the rich?

The pub fire. It roars orange.

At the back of the pub my love and I are engaged in tiny conversations. Time passes as we intermittently talk the night away. Alternately, we go to the bar to buy our drinks. At the bar, a row of anti-Americanism. We spit on them, they say. We hope their eyes melt, we hope their bodies burn. Whichever band of wretches stands against them we stand shoulder to shoulder with.

Harold Pinter believes his American Football was rejected because it had too much to say, was too close to the bone. In reality, it was rejected on the grounds that it was written by a child. Unbelievably, they give out prizes for this stuff. Read it and you will rot as you deserve to rot.

A head count at the bar. You see them there? They are your enemies. They were always your enemies. The trick is to stand against the fascists, not with them. Remember?

The pub has an everlasting charm that is diminished not one bit by the presence of televisions and football, by the extra people at Christmas, by rugby fans for fuck’s sake. Rugby fans. Tell a lie. Diminished is right. Demolished. They will demolish you sooner than you’d guess. The everlasting charm of the pub is misunderstood and feared and so must be destroyed.

Looking for a real Irish pub? Go to Ireland.

The star at the top of the brewery tower. You could see it from miles out. Shipstones. Nut Brown and Gold Star. There was, over the wall, a railway line that cut through the shrubbery and the grass bits, circled the gas tower, stretched far beyond where most of us could see or would dare to go. The gates of the brewery preserved for, God help us, the grandeur of a business park. And there, on the iron footbridge that took me over that wall, I was attacked one dark early evening and had my watch taken from me. On that same street, years later, I smoked Red Leb with old bikers and stole bottles of cider from the cellar steps.

At the back of the pub I have dreams of tall buildings and wide pavements. Don’t ask me why. I see above, because I’m always looking up, a world that is safely distant from your cretins, your bullies and your despicable allies. You - and Pinter - can fuck yourself with a lightning rod.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Sugar Smacks

A minor, yet relatively true, account of my brief time in the doughnut store where, in no particular order, I did the following:

1. Eyed up the doughnut boys. Those long-armed, sweet mouthed boys. Those dough-eyed creators of magic, sugar and swirl.

2. Whistled at cops. New York sassy style whistling - at cops. Twinkle eyed and Irish brouhaha brahs.

3. Dreamed of gentle. And recalled, wistful, my days in North Carolina by the old pipe yard and the yeller swimming hole with Bozo Jackson siree, his boys and their old rusty tractor. Smoke and stew. Rice, chicken and sweet potater yams. Yam yam.

4. Laughed at the clowns and the confetti throwers. Laughed a little too hard and drew attention to myself. Whaddaya know, whaddaya say?

5. Read paperback novels that were a rage of yellow and a little bit bendy from the old dimestore across the road. The old woman and her two lost bits.

Old Man Salvadore, the owner of the doughnut store, was the biggest homosexual I’d ever seen. The only homosexual I’d ever seen. And what has that fact got to do with the price of my doughnuts? he often asked. I had no idea. But seeing as I had a dearth of friends – and hey, who am I to judge – I decided to turn Old Man Salvadore into a very good friend indeed. Homosexual or not, we buzzed like old bosom buddies because, hey, I wasn’t choosy.

Apart from the homosexual thing there was also, let’s see, transsexuals, transvestites, gender babes, creamy dykes, plum duffs, brown bunnies, masochists, sadists, sadomasochists, draymen, sticklers, bum boys, lesbians, chalkers, verities, clog wogs, lispers, nancy boys, flashmen, bondage types, hurters, fatters, feeders, longeurs, crimson pushers, version markers, carrybags, lilliputs, fagbags, loose changers, crumb bummers, dinner mashers, snurders, bald poopers, scat merchants, pop soxers, butterfly babies, piss freaks, honest hagglers, chain gangers, clasp clowns, vandal stopes, pierced pricks, knotted twines, hurters, deepers, clawers, creepers, grabbers, sackers, stoners and bedwetters. The lot. All passing through that doughnut store day after day after day.

There was a buzzing TV in the doughnut store, just over the main counter. Old Man Salvadore was always trying to figure a way to make money from the people sitting there watching. It wasn’t enough that they paid for the doughnuts and the privilege of sitting down.

Now that I think of it, more is what we all wanted. Especially me and Fat Mick. And Red Bob. We wanted more than the deal that life had so far dealt us. There we were, day after day, flaming homosexuals and all sorts of things parading themselves as we munched and dunked and talked about our grand plans to one day get out and do the sweet watermelons instead of sitting there picking our noses, whistling at cops.

We were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, passing the Super-8 between us, swapping the digital camera. We were crisp and sunshine and cloaked from the cold in black and brown. Me in black. Which must have explained why I was grabbed by a family of Russians talking to me in Russian who soon realised I wasn’t Russian. We’re sorry, they said, we thought you were Russian! It must have been the Super-8. The bottle of vodka. The hammer and sickle.

In that doughnut hut of house I was an aspiring art historian with tattoos on my arm. A sprig of holly in my heart. From the unique vantage of stool I could see out into the street, all day long, and survey the art snap moments that only I, of all the citizens and patrons in that doughnut store, could truly appreciate. By the time I had filled my coffee with four sugars I was ready to go. To the people in the street I said: I’ve been here five minutes and I’m a) a powder blue decoration flown in from North Carolina, b) a certain cinch for NYU, c) a potential cop, d) a Jean Trudy, e) a figment of NYC.

On parade day I saw clowns and gazed at big balloons that filled the city air. On parade day I made dip from pinto beans and took out my old photographs. They said they’d come. But nobody came. I had doughnuts, too.

Oh, we were enthralled, one night, as I recall, when Old Man Salvadore and a few of his army buddies rolled into the bar I hung out in and smashed the place up. Just like that and for no good reason. High spirits, he said, high spirits is all. But not high spirited enough to stop the judge from sentencing him to three months. Three months away from the doughnut store where I, for three months, became monarch. My reign was characterised by goodness, by purity and by the art of giving stuff away. No open sign, no heating, no lights, no wages, no customers, no staff, no doughnuts.

Out of town by the reedy light and up the crooked country lane we travelled until we reached the sea. Whereupon we unloaded the mobile doughnut stand on to the beach and made a proper killing. It was greyish yellow, the sky, and you’d have thought that the sky would be blue, blue, blue. But not a bit of it. All those underweight people in their bikinis, crazy for a blast of warm sugar and solace.

Here’s something though: doughnuts are not sexy.

Doughnut girls were part of the parade. They floated beneath balloons and carried themselves over the Brooklyn Bridge. Below, just a few inches below, they could see the tops of heads. Laughing at the bald spots, they released spittle and laughed again and harder, depending on what their spittle hit. Doughnut girls were splendid in their tiny yellow skirts. Their white knee length cotton socks. Their dinky red sneakers. Their tightest of see-thru sweaters. They were a rush of blood for sure. A man called Elvis flew by on his skateboard.

The Brooklyn Bridge, floating cheerleader doughnut girls, a skateboarder called Elvis, a gang of Russians, Old Man Salvadore and me. They should have taken us out.

Old Man Salvadore’s original gypsy doughnut recipe is under lock and key at the back of the store. Out front, in his theatre of arena, he keeps his doughnut making skills on permanent working display. His staff, those sweet mouthed, long-armed boys, are as loyal to him as they are to their own sweet mothers. God made them that way.

For my money though, I much prefer the whistling at cops stuff. But when I like my doughnuts, I mostly like them hot.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Standing Up Like Steam

Who’s this with his broken nose, his flat feet, his cauliflower ears, his closed eyes, his cracked chin, his receding hairline, his burnt-off eyebrows, his knock-knees, his fallen arches, his bandy legs, his swivel hips, his one small ball, his Reynard fox, his boiling breath, his barnacled kidneys, his gap-toothed gums, his leaking belly button, his stalactite bladder, his stolen nose, his shrivelled nipples, his big Adam’s Apple, his tennis elbow, his galling stones, his typist’s wrist, his big fat tongue, his turning prostate, his honeypot fat, his Bluto shingles, his broken back, his spaceship teeth, his useless knob, his snapped neck, his ingrown toenail? Who is he, this specimen of a fine, fine fellow?

He’s a dappled, crippled version of you. Only slightly more attractive.

So he is. Bring him closer so I can get a better look. Does he sing?

I’ve no idea.

As a younger man I was known far and wide for my superb culinary skills. I was a member of all the choirs you know.

Culinary skills?

What?

You said culinary skills. When you were talking about singing.

Did I?

Yes.

How silly of me. I do apologise.

That’s okay.

But where was I?

Choirs.

Oh yes. I joined all of the choirs. I was very much in demand. I once sang for the Queen. At Sandhurst.

I didn’t know you were at Sandhurst.

It’s how I came to be so crippled and twisted. And it’s when I turned into this fellow here.

Is that right?

Actually, now I come to think of it - no. No, it’s not. I’ve never seen this fellow before in my life. Who is he again?

A dappled, crippled version of you. Only more attractive.

Are you sure? I mean, dash it - I suppose he does look a little like me around the eyes, but I really don’t see the resemblance beyond that.

You have to look closer. And smell closer.

Smell closer?

Yes. That’s shit you can smell.

Is it?

Yes.

Oh.

You know, of course, what I'm getting at?

That I too smell of shit?

Yes.

Oh.

And not just smell of it. You’ve got it caked around your arse again haven’t you?

Yes.

So has he.

Has he? Oh, yes, I see. That’s properly caked in, isn’t it? Properly dry.

It is. There’s years of work gone into that. Years of craftsmanship. You don’t get caked in shit like that without working at it. Just look at those intricate patterns. I tell you, he could teach that Chris Offli a thing or two.

Who?

Chris Offli. Ofili. Whatever he's called. He paints with elephant dung.

Elephant dung?

Yes.

What on earth for?

Etc.

Monday, February 06, 2006

One of Those Days

I am summertime red. That is, blazoned. In the middle of the park, in the middle of a thousand people, I stand out. The advantage, I suppose, of red. In the winter I am the blood in the snow. At the scene of an accident I am both arrival and departure. I am a red cross, a catch of light, a solitary telephone box. No wonder I am gloomy.

But adorning the High Street I made my way through the throngs. I threaded – weaved even – through the passers-by, the shoppers and the urgent walkers. Or, rather, I stood there, crimson and whatnot, as they blurred around and through me. I was a film, stop frame, powder and flash. A red streak.

I had a spot of red on my leg on the blanket. I was creased in the leg as I was creased in the blanket. Ignoring the grey of the shadow, I was pink and the colour of fine, fine hairs. Downy. There was the press evidence, the fold and the impressions of what I had just been up to. My heel was testament to careful steps and various shimmies. I was also, let us not forget, that red spot, somewhere around the middle of my leg. Its centre, blazing hot white. Its oriole blushing, shameful. Areola, that is. A Fordyce spot.

I strayed from the path and, as punishment, was ravished, if that is the word, by a man with a rubbish beard and what he imagined were cold, steely eyes. He drew me in and threw me out. He said to me, are there any more where you come from? I said no, not of this colour. He passed me, later, through the woods, reaching my destination long before I reached mine. He took me for a fool. A silly little thing. He gazed at me with those pathetic eyes. Before he could ask his questions I skewered him with a fireside poker. It burns! he cried while his skin burned through to red. Blazing his tiny scrap of heart.

My TV is visible through the mirror and I watch it when my room is red glow. Next to the mirror, a chair and, past the roll of kitchen towels, an open door. Through the open door a patch of light clinging to the wall. A red bit, wavering, at its edge. Is that light from white, or is it light from red? Have a look. Out there, through the door.

I wish I still smoked, sometimes. I wish I still had that brief pitch of red, that pull of light. I wish I had, sometimes, the rise of smoke, past the lampshade and delicate around the bare lightbulb. Grey? No, not grey. Red. Like the red of glory and the red of incontestable strength. The red of smoke and the cause of smoke. The red of endless cardboard boxes.

I was not at the TV this time when I noticed, as I headed towards the TV, how much more interesting the hang of the curtain was than the hang of whatever the shadows were fighting for with the reflections. Dark grey and finger prints, the curve of the TV screen, as it threw out the light it drew in and then threw it back out again. A window seen in the screen, the slats of four equal squares of white, the dream of a window despite the reality of the widow in two crooked slats. Anyway, the hang of the curtain was, by far, the most interesting visual aspect of this grim little vista. And I suppose that that was on account of the curtain there being red. A nice deep kink of mysterious, spread on red. As they sometimes say: a lick of colour adds new life to every room.

I had a habit of setting fire to things. When I disagreed with you I set fire to things. If you upset me, I set fire to things. Remember? Well, the other day I threw what little caution I had left to the wind and set fire to all kinds of things I didn’t like: chairs, books, newspapers, strips of film, policemen, women, tuffies, comics, cats, music, fireflies, coastline maps, crooked trails, rat bags, biscuits, alcohol, noise, pedestrians, bullseyes, noxious gases, education, idolatry, politicians, music, women, words, songs, dry humps, cheese, bicycle paths, water pumps, green lanes, cigarettes, public houses, toilets, traffic cones, women. These things, I’ll have you know, burnt all through the day. The red they cast was the red of grey. I turned to my companion, as we toasted our spoils, and smiled as he smiled back. It was one of those days.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Flap, Like Little Pages

The cool kind of ghosts you just don’t see any more are making demonstrations in Battery Park and panhandling their way up to the various midtown eateries that include, in no uncertain order, The On Oray, The Morning Star, Gilbert’s Glee, The Barnet, The Silver Spoon and Half A Moonstruck. Once at these eateries it is customary for the braver ghosts to do the ordering and lead by, er, example. So, for instance, these leader ghosts will request toppings and coffee, red cheese and bagels, strudel-strada, cham, milk-toast and blue westers. While the other ghosts – what you might call (if you were cruelly-minded that way) the laggers – lag behind and mumble something easy from the countertop menus. The spoons.

On Broadway somewhere – or maybe not Broadway – that Tom Verlaine of Television fame is in a deli eatery, holding the bathroom door open for some fella who, he knows, recognises him because he gives him half a wink. Coming out of the toilet too. Uh oh, thinks Tom, as he blows into his bucket of clam coffee and steps out onto the street, down into a bench. But to no damn avail. Because there he is soon, with his can I shake your hand bit and all that garbage about going back home and regretting not asking the mighty Tom Verlaine of Television fame to shake him firmly by the hand. So that’s what Tom does, he shakes him firmly by the hand. He should have wrung him by the neck.

Later, outside a brownstone building near the gay tattoo parlour, there’s a count of the steps and a quick glance up to a mysterious apartment window. That’s the one, I’m sure he lived there. Later still, down Jones Street, he missteps, stops in fact, while freewheelin’ his way into his private collection. He’s got his girl with him this time and she, she holds on to him for a while. It is, just so you know, a glorious picture.