Art Speak

Ho hum, there goes another week. I’ve been working away for Jim, getting stuff ready for the Armory Show. But don’t worry, I’ve also been managing to squeeze in a wee bit of drinking.

Yesterday I was out and about buying record for Jim, which involves trawling charity shops, offering to buy all of their vinyl in a oner and then complaining about the price if it’s any more than fifty pence a record, on the basis that I’ve got no intention of listening to it. Anyway, I was in a charity shop haggling over the price of some records when a mad looking old lady came in, walked right up to the woman at the desk and said ‘Have you got any good *deios?’ [ * = an indeterminate vowel sound ] The woman just looked blank and said ‘Sorry?’ So the old lady repeated the request. The woman was sort of going ‘…emm…’ and I was thinking ‘Radios? Have you got any good radios? That’s weird…but so is this old lady’. I was just about to suggest my translation when the old lady pointed at a shelf of video tapes and the woman behind the desk said ‘Ah, videos! Well, we’ve only got what’s there- nothing new.’ Then the old lady just turned around and walked out, at which point the other young woman at the desk, who was Chinese, looked at me, pulled a face of mock surprise and went about her business laughing slightly, shaking her head and repeating to herself ‘Rideos!’ in a Chinese accent.

I eventually managed to find a place where they were selling lots of records at the sort of price that could be considered reasonable when your intention is to throw away the vinyl and chop up the sleeves. It was a fairly big warehouse sort of place and out the back, behind all the junk, they were respraying a couple of hearses. There was a white one and a yellow one. And the men were complaining that the cold was preventing the paint from drying. I sympathised with them, bought a Commodore 64 for three pounds and left.

Last night I went to an opening at 273, a new space on the High Street. 273 High Street funnily enough. As usual it was pretty difficult to see the work through the throng of drinking artists, aesthetes and free-loading booze hounds. Speaking of which, it was good to see Bob from the ‘Nand in attendance. It’s the first time I’ve seen him out and about since their meteorological rise to fame. And he looks as much like a rustic baker’s son as ever.

Predictably, the evening was concluded at Mono. I drank some drinks and words came out of my mouth.

I drank so many drinks in fact, that I was in receipt of a startlingly bad hangover this morning. Not quite a full blown mental emergency, but enough symptoms were simultaneously manifest as to cause some alarm. I had a headache for a start. This is something I’m not particularly prone to and always manages to catch me off guard. It was one of those alcohol induced headaches that lies camouflaged somewhere in the psyche until physical movement of the head encourages it to suddenly flash into the brain and destroy anything that moves. Apart from that, my nerves were brittle like raw spaghetti and my mind felt as if it had been replaced at the last minute by a poorly made replica.

Holy shit thought I.

I had to give an artists talk today, you see. So I battened down the hatches and set about repairing myself. I’m not one for brand loyalty but it has to be said that Anadin Extra have consistently proven themselves to be the only thing capable of squaring up to such mental assault. So I took a couple, had a shower and ate some scrambled egg and went to the pub. I had one pint of guinness, collected my thoughts and made some notes about what I was going to talk about.

By the time I got to the space I was almost back to normal. Whatever that means. A small group of people turned up and I managed to talk about my work without collapsing, melting or floating away.