Yentknob

I seem to recall when flicking through a dog-eared copy of Dr. Benjamin Spocks seminal work ‘Baby and Childcare’ there isn’t a chapter recommending the development of language that encourages a fucking moronic unworthy father to repeatedly go ‘wooooo’ ‘wooooo’ over and over and fucking over for the best part of half an hour whilst maintain the exact same robotic tone, pitch and volume. I believe it doesn’t then advise to do the exact same precise thing just as I’m trying to go to sleep before ‘soothing’ the infant off with an impromptu gig, which includes the classic ‘woooo’ chorus. What a fucking Cunt.

Because of the vast amount of boozing I’ve been doing for the past few days I undertook the decision to abstain. I’d also run out of grass so I was in for a double whammy of misery. I was fully aware of this as I cycled home and parked my bike in the van; even as I entered my flat I knew that there was nothing inside to delight me in the same way a wine and spliff does. Despite this I took the time to make a roast, and even as I ate it, crying out for a glass of Claret as it was, I fought back the booze-urge and focussed my attention onto the food and nothing else.

The evening passed through a cycle of cigarettes, tea, TV and abstinence. I knew once I’d made it to 11 I’d be okay, getting there was another thing. But there was one little light in the alcohol-free pit of horror.

I was looking forward to watching the Alan Yentob’s programme on Surrealism, despite Alan. Relying as I was on a crack team of researchers to plaster over the cracks, even I was genuinely amazed that the programme was a 24-carat balls up from the opening shot to the last. Fundamentally the hairy cunt didn’t even tell the viewer what surrealism actually is.

Yentob virtually ignored all the female surrealists though one was mentioned, despite being capable of eye popping misogyny, surrealism is the first movement in art history to introduce the ‘female artist’, and they got a lot closer to the true understanding of the concept than most of their male counterparts. Step forward Dorothea Tanning, Leanora Carrington, Eileen Agar, Meret Oppenheim (she did the seminal ‘dejeuner en fourrure’ (hairy tea cup and saucer)) and the muse and photographer Lee Miller, whose eye features in Man Ray’s metronome as vengeance following a doomed affair.

Alan mentioned but failed to recognise Hans Bellmer and completely ignored Yves Tanguay (whose work was plagiarised by Dali) both genuine exponents of the movement and more crucially members of the group, I’ll touch on that shortly.

To add insult to injury The BBC punctuated the programme with very basic and crass visual antonyms, like Alan talking on a phone, which became a banana, then some flowers etc., isn’t ‘surreal’ it’s merely the juxtaposition of objects and coveys nothing outside of the fact Alan doesn’t know what surrealism is.

Firstly, to be in the movement, Andre Breton its founder had to let you in, if he booted you out as he did Dali for being a self seeking Franco supporter then you were no longer a surrealist, merely a follower or at best, a devotee to the fundamental concept of, as Lautréamont (whose death predates the movement by 60 years I hasten to add) put it, ‘the chance encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and umbrella’, Alan acknowledged the quote at least. George Melly who heavily featured (Alan’s mate clearly) should know better calling himself a surrealist, especially as he’s a so-called ‘expert’ on the movement.

Secondly surrealism was a largely literary movement and political by nature, communist to be precise, the idea behind surrealism was to shock the public into a different way of thinking about the human being in society. Essentially it was a dark movement designed to impose itself onto the subconscious via it’s two basic themes of sex and death and there are plenty of examples where this manifests itself in genuinely upsetting works, outside of the media friendly works of Magritte and Dali, of course, and Alan playing with a fucking inflatable moon on a beach dressed like a Woody Allen in the last part of ‘All You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex but Were too Afraid to Ask’ ain’t it.

So, what is surrealism? Well as Alan couldn’t be pissed to do so, I will enlighten you. It’s like that moment between being awake and asleep, the where the fuck..? or what the fuck..? experience we have every bloody morning just before you realise you’ve a massive woody, in my case. Or it can be the very moment when the hairs stand on back of neck when you thing you caught something otherworldly out of the corner of your eye. Put it this way, The Blair Witch Project is a lot closer to the fundamental gist of what constitutes surrealism than Monty Python, say.

I’m in a fucking awful mood. I’m knackered out and it’s raining again. But there is hope. Big Brother starts tonight, and I’m a unashamed fan. So much so that Piqued may suffer in order to contribute to Watch With Mothers (link, right). I will certainly be reviewing tonight’s opener tomorrow so why don’t you join me then.

Join me.
This is one of my favourites

joie de vision

I’d forgotten to mention that I was acutely aware during Thursday’s gig that this would be the last time I could (legally) smoke in a venue. I’ve tickets for motorhead before the fucking ban but as it’s in the Royal Festival Hall smoking isn’t permitted anyway. Indeed, I’m now very aware that I’m on borrowed time as far as smoking in pubs is concerned; it feels like the end of an era approaching. Balls. I hate change.

Another thing, the swervedriver video I posted in Fridays blog, the red motorcycle (it’s a Ducati 900ss) I used to have one of those. It’s a miracle it made it to the end of the video, mine was more unreliable than radiotherapy.

So, what’s been going down this weekend, yeah, well, not much frankly. On Friday afternoon Myfwt came round for a cup of tea and a chat, it was lovely to see her despite her not feeling on top of the game. After a couple of hours she left to do some work, I did some housework which included fucking hovering, a task I despise out of all proportion. I’d decided that due to the previous evening hedonism that I wanted to share a night with the self, I nipped out to get some tobacco and settled in for the evening. At least my carpet no longer looks like Brighton Beach.

I was an unremarkable night but very much needed. I read, started a short poem and watched TV with a few G&T’s, spliffs and roast chicken wallowing in gravy and cooked to perfection roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables. Jools Holland was the highlight of the evening, it has to be said that if you have any passion for contemporary music, there will always be something to tinkle ones fancy, in this instance Wilco, LCD Soundsystems and surprisingly, Joan Armatrading.

I was woken late Saturday morning with a phone call from Myfwt, she was going away for the weekend so I went back to my pit and slept until early afternoon. After a bath and late lunch I spent the afternoon looking at grot on the PC before watching Apollo 13. Early evening I met Frank up the road for a drink. Our usual venue was stuffed full of no neck cropped haired wankers all yelling at a large flatscreen TV, we decided to leave them to it, it’s wonder their knuckles weren’t wearing shoes.

We convened in this bland wine bar cum eatery and were forced to drink fizzy bastard Carling in lieu of man’s ale. At least the place was quiet. Frank and I discussed Joy Division and this http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2457332 which beggar’s total disbelief. I wandered home after a few pints following a short visit to fucking Tesco, the bane of my consumer life for a bottle of wine and crabsticks that I think I’m addicted to. BBC2 came to my rescue in the form of The Seven Ages of Rock featuring Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Genesis and most inappropriately, Roxy Fucking music, or Poxy Music as my dad calls them. What the fuck were they doing there? Utter shit, who did they influence in the 70’s apart from The Yorkshire Ripper, probably. In order to cleanse myself of Brian Fairy and the girls, I bathed in session of progressive rock and metal, which saw me well into the small hours. I went to bed a little squiffy don’t you know.

I was up in time for the Grand Prix on Sunday. Monaco, one of my favourites despite the circuit making overtaking almost impossible. It was an impressive race, if a little samey, due to the two victorious Mclaren’s and the continuation of the remarkable fledgling career of Lewis Hamilton, 19 years old with makings of a world champion, so long as the team orders on Sunday weren’t the thin end of the wedge as far as he and Alonso are concerned. I can tell I’m boring you, I don’t care really. Okay I do.

I met my bro at 5 for a pint at the Sunday usual as he had some dinner appointment with his missus and friends at 7, we drank wine, some quaffable Spanish fare because he’d just had lunch with our folks and had a few glasses on board and didn’t want to mix his poisons. The subject of Poxy Music being on that BBC2 Rockumentary came up, my bro informed me that dad wasn’t impressed either which comes of no surprise. My dad isn’t an aficionado on all things ‘rock’ by the way but he’s fairly well versed in 60’s ‘pop’. I remember when I was about 7 telling him that I thought The Monkees were much better than The Beatles, dad was under the Maxi (he was always under some Leyland design fault in the 70’s) but he downed tools, popped his head out from under the door sill and yelled ‘don’t be so fucking stupid’ so loudly my mum heard him in the back garden. I still think I’m right by the way, fab four my arse, Jerk, Prat, Git and Ringpeice.

It’s worth noting that since Friday evening it’s pretty much been raining constantly. The upshot is that I’ve been forced indoors for virtually the whole weekend and bank holiday, save a few trips to the pub to see Frank and my bro. The flat is now entirely spotless; I’ve even had time to purge my clothing rail. Actually, I’m bored fucking shitless, I especially wanted to take the black bitch out for a ride. On the upside my head has been farting out ideas, I wrote a poem and after an hour of drunken deliberations over a succession of evenings concluded that all art was the subjective manifestation of projected thinking. As I type this it’s Monday afternoon, I’m meeting Frank for a pint in a couple of hours then home to eat and watch a film.

I’ll leave it to Ian and the boys to provide today’s entertainment. (I think Ian may be on drugs, maybe if he’d read that story in the link he’d still be with us today)