Aglio E Olio
I am home again. Back in the land of bills and bank statements. And the flats in tip-top nick. Yay! Churminator even remembered to feed the fish. Either that or they’ve gone solar powered. The mail waiting for me wasn’t even that scary. A safe return all round.
Venice was really good. It was very hot, like fucking cooking. It meant that you were constantly soaking in sweat from first thing in the morning until about ten o’clock at night when it cooled off a bit. Apparently it was much hotter than normal and even all the locals were freaking out. But after a few days it seemed almost normal to have really hot wet skin all day. Trish demanded that I buy some shorts which I was going to do anyway, but I drew the line at a pair of sandals. She wasn’t impressed with the new level of nasal assault my trainers had achieved and kept going on about how she’d get me into a pair of sandals, claiming that ‘my feet would thank me for it’. Well, I decided that since my feet haven’t seen any sun at all since the late seventies that it might be asking a bit much of them to cope with suddenly being consummately scorched; and since they’ve never thanked me for anything up until now, I can only assume they’d be ungrateful anyway. So the Adidas stayed put.
Apart from the heat it was a crazy place to navigate. Lots of canals obviously, and narrow streets and alleyways punctuated by lots of sort of small squares. My mental compass is fucked at the best of times so Lorna and Trish did most of the navigating and we got everywhere we needed to go eventually. We did quite a lot of walking which was pretty nuts because of the heat so sometimes we took the river taxis which we never paid for. And we pretty much lived on a diet of pizza/pasta, ice cream and beer. The ice cream and pasta was cheap and the best I’ve ever tasted. Ever. The beer was okay and the fags were dirt cheap.
The art was absolutely amazing. The old stuff that is. There are churches everywhere that you can pretty much just wander into and find yourself standing in front of something totally epic like a Titian altarpiece. The best one was called the Frari. And then there’s the Accademia which blew my mind. It was fucking incredible. Those guys really knew how to make art. After a few hours you just start to get overwhelmed and leave with your head spinning. One of the best things I saw was an early Tiepolo that had an angel standing on a cloud taking a piss.
The Biennale was okay. There was some good stuff and some absolute shite. The Italian pavilion was pretty good. I saw some paintings by a Polish guy which I was really into. The Arsenale had some good things in it too. And there was a painting show which had a lot of big names ( Guston, Richter, Kippenberger, Rushka etc) and it was alright. I saw a Schnabel for the first time which was good but it was a plate painting and I don’t really like them as much as the rest of his work. And then there was a lot of crap. It’s safe to say the Scottish pavilion kicked the pants off most of it.
The Scottish party was a great laugh. It was outside in this big playground with free booze, loads of ‘wegies and the Optimo DJs. Some nutty girl called Mu played and she was excellent but she was on early when the vibe was still a bit flat which was a bit of a shame. I managed to get drunk and danced on the stage. It’s the first art opening I’ve ever been to where the booze didn’t run out all night. It never even showed signs of running thin. So I took it upon myself to consume copious quantities of beer, whisky and red wine. Which worked. Then, I woke up the next morning without a hangover. Not even the slightest trace! It was actually uncanny; I woke up fresh as a daisy. Testimony to the therapeutic powers of sweating no doubt. Apparently Robert Johnson had me as odds on favourite to be the first person to drunkenly fall in a canal. As far as I know I didn’t.
Highlights
Buying a pair of psychedelic cat pants
Punching a pigeon in Piazza San Marco
Stealing a ‘Yoga Magic’ ashtray
Buying a can of Hell Bier
Not getting a single mosquito bite while Lorna and Trish got eaten alive
Lowlights
Leaving Trish
Jun 18, 2003 at 22:13 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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I’m in Stansted airport just now. I tried to update from an internet cafe in Venice but it fucked up and my time ran out and I didn’t bother trying again. So here I am, back on home turf in one of my favourite places, an airport. I’m going to go and play some arcade games now and I’ll update properly when I get back home.
I really hope that Rob hasn’t let the flat turn into a state in my absence and that the gas or phone hasn’t been cut off.
Jun 18, 2003 at 13:09 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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Went to Mono for a wee while to have a gang meeting about a show and then stayed on for Fred’s birthday. Which he failed to mention when I saw him in the street earlier on. Fred’s got a great street chat technique though. Like ‘Hey Hi! How’s it going? Okay bye I’m just off to…’. No bullshit, the way it should be. But I got home in time to burn him a copy of the Macrocosmica cd which is sort of bad because they rock and he’ll love them so I’ll have to make him buy an original. Some birthday present then. Ha.
I am mostly sober and that is good because I am going to Venice tomorrow for the Biennale and there are going to be loads of people out there, like half of Glasgow. So I need to pack and do all that sort of crap. I don’t know where I’m flying from or at what time, I don’t know what hotel I’m staying in or anything. All I know is that I’m meeting my girl Trish out there and I’m meeting Laurie and Lorna in Central Station tomorrow at half eleven at the nuts stall.
Jun 9, 2003 at 23:52 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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Just spoke to a gallery in London about some of my drawings that were supposed to have been sent back that never arrived. It was all threatening to turn into a bit of a saga. I had given up hope of ever getting them back and assumed that Fed Ex and/or Gasworks were just starting to bullshit me. So I was just about to start getting aggro down the phone at the girl Fiona from the gallery who was actually very nice when she just said ‘It’s okay we’ve found them, they’re in Battersea’. Of course. At least they’re somewhere. Hopefully they’ll get back in one piece.
Jun 9, 2003 at 13:27 Filed Under: Blog Comment
The Seagull Returns
Got a wee bit of a hangover. Didn’t make it to the CCA last night. Went to the Arlington instead. Drank lots of Guinness with the installation folks. Then out of the blue Big Andy phoned me. He sounded drunk and said that he’s in town so he came to the Arlington too. It was good to see him again. We got some vodka when the pub closed and drank on into the wee small hours. He crashed on the sofa because he had to teach a drawing class at the Kelvingrove this morning and it’s just opposite my flat. I saw him through a painful haze this morning and he really looked like shit. The fact he had to go and teach kids how to draw in that sort of state made me laugh which made my head hurt.
Went to Stereo this afternoon to fix the hangover. Which met with moderate success. Saw the guy from Mudhoney playing some nice folk tunes then came home. I’ve been smoking a lot recently and smoking even more when I’m drunk. This is not a good thing. Today I got the first hint of the seagull I’ve had in ages. The seagull is this: A violent pain in the chest akin to having a large and somewhat restless adult herring gull trapped just below the ribcage. (The seagull is easily induced with John Player Special).
Jun 7, 2003 at 19:30 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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Just finished fucking around with code to get the page you are currently viewing looking so damn funky dear viewer. A nice eighties home computer vibe if you will. I spent a while fucking about trying to use colours with hex values like DDDEAD, DDDADA etc. However, the conceptual nature of the whole endeavour meant that the visual aspect instantly turned into shit. Just like in art really. Anyway, now my retina are about to spontaneously distend so I’m just going to quickly run through some stuff because tomorrow night (tonight) I’m going to the CCA for the Beck’s Futures opening and I’ll get very drunk.
Okay, I was in the studio today, made some things blah, blah, blah…
Jun 6, 2003 at 2:07 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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This weblog is now a week old and I like it. So I’m going to make it look good.
Jun 5, 2003 at 23:50 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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Jamie is a guy I met in Florence at the beginning of the year when I was doing a Zobop installation for Jim Lambie. We bonded in an Italian Irish bar over Grappa which is basically window cleaner. You can read his journal here. If you go back and look at the entries from the beginning of January you will find references to ‘a funny Scottish guy’ and his drinking habits. That’s me! Also found out recently that Fantagraphics are close to going under. This is bad news. Anyone interested in the work of alternative comic book luminaries like Pete Bagge (Hate), Dan Clowes (Eightball), The Hernandez Brothers (Love And Rockets) et al. should be sad. Apparently if you buy more than $500 of their books you get a personal phonecall from Gary Groth to say thanks. If only.
The Park Attack website is now online and gets top marks for being basic and good- two things that rarely go hand in hand on the web. For any one who hasn’t heard of them, Park Attack are a local Glasgow band. And for anyone who hasn’t had the good fortune of having me drunkenly slaver at them, it was my band, my idea etc. (This of course is not true. It is my flatmate Rob ‘Churminator’ Churm’s outfit. And they have degenerated into a damn fine band since the moment I left- which, I might add, was after one and a half practices). It’s nice to see the song Dennis’ Leg mentioned though. That was my song. I wrote the lyrics. If turning up and shouting the first thing that comes into your head counts. If memory serves me correctly the lyric sheet should look something like this:
And I fully expect royalties when they get signed.
Saw Neil Mulholland when I was down at Transmission yesterday. He’s making a documentary about David Shrigley. Except Dave doesn’t want to be in it so Neil wants me to play him. Ha! It should be filming soon and then shown on Channel 4 in August. Its going to be about half an hour long and maybe it could be a good laugh. Plus, I don’t have any lines to learn.
Jun 4, 2003 at 11:03 Filed Under: Blog Comment
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I am a very hung-over boy. My brain feels like it is going to hatch. I am in the gallery and some people have just come in with a small child who is running around shouting ‘Hello’ repeatedly.