Under Exmouth Skies (Part 38)

UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 38)

For some reason the track and particularly the video for Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwoord always reminds me of Exmouth.
Not sure why.

Factotum - Charles Bukowski

FACTOTUM - CHARLES BUKOWSKI

I didn't know what the word 'factotum' meant so I googled it and lo and behold, it means 'a person who does all kinds of work'. You learn something new every day.

Factotum is also the title of Charles Bukowski's second novel, published in 1975 though set just at the end of World War Two. It chronicles him (or rather, his alter ego Henry Chinaski) going from one dead end job to another, maintaining a healthy drinking habit along with the inevitable hangovers. Going from one cheap boarding house and rented room to another, encountering and more often than not doing his best to avoid all the people in a similar situation to himself. It's a bleak, miserable and depressing story but for all that, it has its moments.

Chinaski's a writer and it's from his writing that he wants to make a living but that's easier said than done. His constant drunkenness thwarts him from holding down any job for very long but that's okay because there's always another equally rubbish job to move on to. Or at least there was in those days.

What's more troubling and far more depressing than the world as depicted in Factotum is that nowadays if anyone gets a rubbish job - and there are plenty out there that can suck the life, the blood and the soul from you and all for a basic minimum wage - then they cling to it like a drowning man to a raft in an ocean of circling sharks. It's a constant state of despair battered further by the imposition of austerity measures whilst the rich get richer. Is it any wonder that when there's a riot, alongside lobbing bricks at police, people make a grab for a few commodities out of smashed shop windows?

Chinaski's actually a very funny guy, talking to those he encounters with short, wry comments loaded with an awareness of the absurdity of the situation they're all in. There's also a cruel, mocking element to many of his comments as if to say 'At least I know this is all fucked up, which is more than you seem to'.

There's also, however, a respect for those ducking and diving in a bid to get by and for those who are genuinely witty without even having to try. Respect is also shown to those possessed of a similar awareness, even if they're drowning it in booze as he is doing: "Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat."

One of the high points of Chinaski's confessions is when he receives a letter from a New York-based magazine he admires by the name of Frontfire that he's been sending countless stories to in the hope of being published. Receiving rejection slips is the norm until one day he returns home from another day at another rubbish job to find an envelope addressed to him containing an acceptance slip for one of his stories (entitled My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees Of The World).

It's his very first acceptance slip and he can hardly believe it: "From the number one literary magazine in America. Never had the world looked so good, so full of promise." It's a very sweet moment but is countered later on in the book when he tries to get a job as a reporter with a Los Angeles newspaper. He fills out an application form and surprisingly gets a telephone call back from them:"Mr Chinaski?" "Yes?" "This is the Times Building." "Yes?" "We've reviewed your application and would like to employ you." "Reporter?" "No, maintenance man and janitor."

It's yet another depressing episode being added to the pile though coloured with a sense of humour to help swill the bitterness down.

Whilst employed at another rubbish job, he's called into the office one day by the boss of the company who is sat there with another man, both smoking expensive cigars.

"This is my friend, Carson Gentry," says the boss to Chinaski "Mr Gentry is a writer too. He is very interested in writing. I told him that you were a writer and he wanted to meet you. You don't mind, do you?"

"No I don't mind," Chinaski replies.

The two men both sit there looking at Chinaski as they smoke their cigars. Minutes pass. They inhale, exhale, and continue to look at him without saying a word.

"Do you mind if I leave?" Chinaski asks. "It's all right," says the boss.

Walking home later on, Chinaski ponders the difference between him and the two men smoking their cigars who have sat there looking at him in silence. "Were they that much more clever than I?" he wonders. He concludes the only difference is money, and the desire to accumulate it, along with the will to bleed and burn your fellow man and build an empire upon the broken bodies and lives of helpless men, women and children.

All that Chinaski wants is to be a writer, a problem being, however, that almost everybody thought they could be a writer too. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, meaning almost everybody could indeed be a writer if they chose to. Fortunately, Chinaski thinks to himself, most men aren't writers and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything at all.

His dream is realised in the end, of course, and Chinaski (Bukowski) over thirty years has thirty-two books of his poetry published, five books of his short stories, four novels, plus the screenplay to the film Barfly starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. Factotum too has been made into a film starring Matt Dillon (which is up on YouTube, as is Barfly).

Factotum is bleak, miserable and depressing though within its pages are glimmers of hope and rays of light and that's much better and much more than a lot of other books I could mention.

John Serpico

Guilty Pleasures (Part 15)

GUILTY PLEASURES (Part 15)

The problem with someone (or something) like Psychic Sally is that she's an epitome of putting a dollar onto everything. It's a mindset of always thinking about how much money can be made from anything? What's its financial worth? How much can it be sold for? In Psychic Sally's case it's £24.50 per person, the cost of a ticket to get in to see her perform when her Call Me Psychic tour rolls into town. There's also Psychic Sally jewellery available alongside books, DVDs, greeting cards, bags, T-shirts and candles.

I understand how we all live in a capitalist society and that we've all got bills to pay so if you've got something to sell be it a certain skill or your labour, your time or your talent then you're inclined to use it so as to enable you to get by. Psychic Sally - or Sally Morgan, to give her her real name - uses her psychic powers.

Sally's a medium, communing with the dead and passing on messages from them to the living. I'm not interested in debating the truth of this because essentially, everyone is free to believe what they like and if anyone believes death is not the end then all power to them. It's their prerogative just as it's the prerogative of others to believe in what they wish be it reincarnation, angels, Heaven, Hell, or that dead is dead. Whatever gets you through the night.

No, the problem with what Psychic Sally does is her putting a monetary value on something that by its own definition stands beyond our earthly plain and therefore stands outside of any man-made system such as capitalism.

Is there nothing in this world that cannot be exploited? Is there nothing that can stand exempt of the profit motive and consumerism? It would appear not and that's why capitalism is so powerful and has been so successful as a system. It's this very strength, however, that is going to be its ultimate downfall because ultimately capitalism will exploit and consume itself.

Paradoxically, absolutely everything can also be exempt from being capitalised on and exploited but only if we so desire it. Regarding something like spiritualism and communing with the dead (because that's what we're talking about here) there are plenty of spiritualists and mediums out there who are happy and willing to provide their services for free. For nothing. Those who seek such services therefore have a choice to either go to those who are serious and are not wanting anything back in return, or to go to someone like Sally Morgan who say they are also serious but ask to be paid £24.50 for the privilege whilst putting tiny disclaimers at the bottom of their advertisements saying 'for the purpose of entertainment'.

So will I be going to see Psychic Sally at the Exmouth Pavilion? Will I fuck. Though I might just take a stroll down there on the night just to see what kind of people it is who are going. It would be funny though if it was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, wouldn't it?

Writings And Drawings - Bob Dylan

WRITINGS AND DRAWINGS - BOB DYLAN

Regarding Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature recently, the only question that needs to be asked is 'Why has it taken so long?'. You don't need to be a fan (and you don't need a weather man) to acknowledge the fact as Allen Ginsberg stated years ago that Dylan is the world's greatest living poet. Where's the argument in that?

Published in 1973, Writings And Drawings is a collection of Dylan's lyrics, sleeve notes and drawings dating from his very early songs, through all his albums from Freewheelin' in 1963 to New Morning in 1970. What's immediately apparent when reading it is how the lyrics stand up as poems in their own right rather than being just words to songs and of course, this is one of the reasons why he's been given the award.

There's an art to writing song lyrics and there's an art to writing poems, and it's actually not that often that the two forms are successfully combined to create a whole other. In respect of modern pop culture, Dylan was quite possibly the first to achieve this.

Throughout the book there are many classic songs and lines from songs, familiar if not by being sung by Dylan himself then being covered by other bands and artists: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - Bryan Ferry, Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds, I'll keep It Mine - Nico, Quinn The Eskimo - Manfred Mann, This Wheel's On Fire - Julie Driscoll, Wanted Man - Johnny Cash, All Along The Watch Tower - Jimi Hendrix, etc, etc.

Dipping into the book at random you land upon such lines as this: "I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade. Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way. I promise to go under it." And this: "You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children into the world. For threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed, you ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins."

Andrew Motion eat your heart out.

Writings And Drawings isn't really a book to be read cover to cover but rather to browse through appreciatively. It looks good on a bookcase also, or on the side of your table desk, particularly as it's out of print now...

And whilst on the subject of Bob Dylan, for what it's worth his best album (in my opinion) is Desire, from 1976. I remember first hearing it years ago in Athens, in a Greek hostel, sitting in the communal area drinking a coffee before setting off to catch a boat to Crete. The track One More Cup Of Coffee was being played over the hostel's sound system and the words would resonate with me for years after: "One more cup of coffee for the road, one more cup of coffee 'fore I go - to the valley below."

I landed on Crete and I remember a hippy lady saying to me "You look like the man who fell to earth," meaning Thomas Jerome Newton as played by Bowie in the film. I was seventeen, my hair was dyed yellow and my head buzzing with Anarcho Punk ideas.

Right.

Icarus descending.

Any right-thinking acolyte of Dylan should own a copy of this book. I do - and I'm not even really a fan; Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen being more my preference. I appreciate good art when I see it though and Bob Dylan is nothing but an artist and Writings And Drawings nothing less than a very good art book.

John Serpico

Under Exmouth Skies (Part 37)

UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 37)

I love the world I love the world I love the world I love the world I love the world I love the world I love the world I love the world...