A Seal Around The Top

My appearance at the lung-judging festival was a year overdue. I knew this from the notes on the bottom of my repeat prescriptions, which had said bold and ineffective things, involving the words "must" and "essential", the last few times I'd collected my medicine from the chemist. I'd correctly assumed that the doctor wouldn't refuse to give me any, but hadn't thought the nurse would leave a voicemail full of antiseptic concern. We need to measure the capacity of your pipes. Your graph is full of gaps. Help us. Help us. But the last two times I'd done this I'd had index fingers wagged at my eyes, because I'd told them about how I inhale the fumes of burning money. And I find being judged to be a waste of my time. So I went with reluctance. But there were no fingers, I was surprised, just a flat statement of the capacity, four or five hundred lung-units, and I was weighed and measured, and found to be seventy or eighty of one thing, and a hundred and something of something else.

Great Satan's Sunday

We missed the bridge's birthday. There was a competition, nine billion years ago, to design it, and when the person who wanted to win the most didn't win, he gently suggested the judges reconsider their verdict, then won. Some money might've changed hands. This is either speculation or what happened. I did all my research years ago, in five minutes, on a hungover visit to the bridge's then-new informative shed, consider all this unverified, as per, I never let my conclusions get hoodwinked by the truth. And I'm more of a tunnels man, anyway, but they're much harder to spot, and tend not to celebrate their zero years with explosive flamboyance.
We were fifty corners away hearing the fireworks while watching the people watch the TV. I like watching the people watch the TV. There should be a show where you watch people do the crossword. There should be an advert that if we're going to have to see it four times in an hour is different every time. There should be a publicly-funded broadcaster that doesn't spend all day advertising a Bond film. 

An Announcement

Altar Ego Radio asked me to be on it a bit this weekend and I said uhuh, uhuh, when? and it said Saturday morning three til five and Sunday evening six til eight. And I asked it what else is on and it said shitloads mate, DJ Food, Old Apparatus, Miss Pink, Sage Francis, Solo One, Stanley Chow, a squadron.
So on the Saturday I'll be playing things that ooze and twitch, and on the Sunday I'll be merrily butchering your ribs with blades of black noise. There's much good stuff happening all weekend. Here's the line up. Listen in and shout at us.

Hold It Hold It Yeah Nice

I looked at the pictures of faces in the exhibition of pictures of faces. Two of them were so bad I wanted to phone some kind of very specific hotline and tell them it's their fault I'm infuriated and demand that they compensate me in ways it's not my responsibility to imagine, except to say that if they're not at least prolonged and terrific they'll be no compensation at all. I knew why I disliked these pictures, both at the original viewing and when I went back during lunch to check that I was still pummelled into froth by absolutely every aspect of their existence. But the good ones just made me think things like: yeah, good that, tones etcetera or: that's a really nice fence in the background there, a decent arrangement of shapes and colours, and I like shapes and can tolerate colours. For the bad ones I thought: these pillocks look like they've been asked to look like they're feeling the feelings people in compelling photographs feel, but all they seem to be feeling is the hope that the photograph might be good, which it isn't, because the hope for a good photograph is getting in the way of what's worth photographing, or is this actually the whole point and it's actually very successful, hence its inclusion in this travelling exhibition of successful large photographs, I wish I was looking at something less complicated. And when people asked how the exhibition was or why I'd been on lunch for ninety five minutes, you're not in France anymore mate, I didn't say anything about my detailed dislike of the things I disliked, for fear the amount of detail in the dislike would reveal other unpleasant character aspects, ones I don't cultivate on purpose, which might then ruin my chances, of what I'm not exactly sure.

Skills Gap Analysis

A man put a mask on and attacked the drumkit set up in front of the stage. Between the mask and his mouth was a small microphone. Between his back and the stage were two large amplifiers. His singing came through some looping and distortion and reverb boxes and out of the amplifiers. He played very fast and loud and intricate things on the drums. It was unclear whether he was enjoying himself or not or almost. The singing didn't involve words and the treble was like rusty sideways-raining needles. Eleven years ago, in a DVD, he jumped off a fridge and landed on his drum stool and immediately played exactly the necessary thing no sooner or later than it was required. He controlled the looping and distortion with his left foot. Men shook their hair and grinning women danced. A bald man plugged his ears with tissue paper. Absent people would say it wasn't music. The drumming stopped and over the applause he told a story through his distortion and reverb. The only intelligible words were Motley Crue.

Ponds

Up some stairs there's a room about the size of a basketball court with the floor painted black and water all over it and slices of large log in the water arranged so you can go from one slice to another in non-mortal delight. The water is oily from the log juice leaking into it. The whole thing is a recreation of the opening scene of a film that never got made or nobody saw or both. There's a man in one corner who I don't think was in the film but needs to be there in real life to make sure nobody gets despicable. Some of the slices are big enough to sleep on. Some of them wobble. The worst that can really happen is you get wet and cry about it for a week. I'd imagine this isn't what the artist intended but it's definitely a possibility he's introduced. I took the A4 photocopied explanation home so I could read it at leisure, but leisure hasn't arrived. One day I'm going to have an exhibition of sentences found in the descriptions and explanatory notes of galleries and museums. I just need a snappy title and I don't know if An Exhibition of Sentences Found in the Descriptions and Explanatory Notes of Galleries and Museums is it or not. It probably is, but also what about Mind Puke? Please advise.

Gentleman Practice

They told him he'd be doing a show at their gallery/house. There'd be an invited audience and musical support and a keg and fine times and popcorn. They hadn't told him that sixteen people from a variety of universes'd spent months disgorging their art into a whole big actual situation based entirely on his words. He'd been in a car having not the foggiest, with one of the pillars of the gallery/house next to him, driving, every day somewhere else and every night a gig, while the gallery/house behind them hoarded all the look-at-thats. When they finally got to the gallery/house it was late and he didn't want any tea. He had a look at what was stuck to the walls and hanging from the ceiling and settled on the floor and began to realise they all existed only because of his words. He'd sent sixteen people into various raptures and crises and puzzlements and they'd emerged thank-eyed and gladstruck, some of them through side-doors they hadn't known were there until they pushed, and the next night quite a few of these people and their friends turned up to look at the look-at-thats while fractured drones and glistening kicks crept into their ears and fifty mouths gobbled popcorn hot out of cones and yes pleased ale out of any available vessel until a writhing silence erupted and it was time for him to speak.

Tax Credits Could Top Up Your Earnings

I'm in this thing with them ones at that place. I sent my doings off today, in a tube. Zoosh.

Bid Submitted

Caroline made a world out of cardboard. There were devices and the sea and industries. People were invited to paint it and they did. It was part of a big yearly thing. It went on for about eight hours and as soon as it ended we took it down. Next door someone was making something out of paper and everywhere else there were things popping up and whizzing about and films and music and singing on the beach at dawn by some underground choir I think, but instead of noise when they opened their mouths I heard that what came out was Maltesers. We didn't make it. The next day we wrote messages onto bits of paper and put them in cigar boxes on the walls of somewhere Mark E. Smith isn't a fan of.

Up Sticks

I watched some music in a big field full of mammals. The coverage of it in the media was nothing like what it was. When the last band came on I was wearing my hat and I got excited and threw it in the air like at the end of the first world war. If everyone else wearing a hat threw it in the air at the same time that would've been something to see. But no one else did. There were a lot of people and very few hats. So it wasn't.
A DJ brought in a classic at the end of his set and the MC went who remembers this one and me and this other guy turned to each other and shat our hearts out because we remembered it and were happy, we made a single prolonged and ragged mouth-noise and the MC went yeah this one's goin out to all the oldies and we realised that the first time we heard it was a very long time ago and we were older than everyone else or they were strangely reluctant to admit to their knowledge. After that he played some other classics and when each one came in we turned to each other and made very loud noises with our mouths. Then he stopped doing it so so did we and left the tent separately.

We Are Very Happy

If it was puzzling you, we are sorry. It wasn't meant to go on so long. It was meant to display courtesy, sympathy and taste. Like in the song. We didn't want to get it all over your t-shirt. But if you're going to insist on parading it around, the least you could is shut up about it.

Halloween Heads

Sarah Coleman likes the dark. She has put together a show at the East Gallery, Brick Lane, imagining what might happen were the Pendle Witches around today. It features Tom Hare's wicker works, Anthony Saint James's photography and my words, around and within and amongst her inimitable inky curiosities. The opening will be on Thursday the 29th of October at 6.30. The closing will be sometime on November the 5th. Your attendance would be welcome at any time. Please let me know if you'll be there for the opening, though, in case the capacity is exceeded and the law swoops in looking for blame. There'll be music by Demdike Stare and small delicious things to eat by Jed Smith and a witchy brew to wash them down. A strange time is guaranteed.