For The Dreamers

"This is a Story of Dreams mixed with Reality".

When Marek first showed me Hans Richter's film 'Dreams that Money Can Buy" as a potential project, I knew from this introductory salvo that I was in. It's a difficult, deeply flawed film in many ways but it is also remarkable, extraordinary, ground-breaking, massively influential, comic and poignant in turns. It says things about Surrealism, film, art, the American Dream, dreaming in general and the emergence of therapy-practitioners as the new priestly elite, that hadn't been said before - and possibly haven't since. It captures the mysterious, confusing, meaningless-meaningfulness of Dreaming in a way that few films have - apart from perhaps David Lynch's work - and it's obviously no coincidence that Lynch himself has declared it as a major influence.

I've always been very interested in dreams myself. I can still remember some from childhood and, particularly a few years ago, I felt very guided by them - the decision to make music, the name of the band for instance were nocturnally inspired. I actually dreamed of Valentine before I met him.

And last Saturday evening, playing our score to the film in the Turbine Hall with David and Cibelle felt in many ways a Dream itself. The building now called" 'The Tate Modern' - in fact the old Bankside power station - was my favourite building when I first came to London. Martyn and Sophie from The Tiger Lillies were squatting in a little ancient decrepit building (now demolished) on the area near the west entrance. The giant empty hulk brooded as we crossed Blackfriars Bridge from St Pauls to come to see them. It was very quiet then - and there were rats. But the transformation is also wonderful and it was amazing to stand where the giant machines formerly rumbled and play our music with the giant images by Leger, Calder, Ernst, Duchamp et al flickering above us. If you came, Thankyou - and I hope it felt special to you - because it really did to us and I never would have thought three years ago playing that first reluctant show at the Horse Hospital, that we would be here now.

But then that, I suppose, is the power of Dreams.

THE EYES HAVE IT

On May 27th, the Real Tuesday Weld will be performing their alternative score to the Hans Richter's wonderfully strange 1946 Jungian surrealist drama in the awesomely august surroundings of the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London. If you wish you can buy tickets here:

< THE TATE >

I will be there, I don't know about you.....

And, I do believe they have gone and recorded the said score for the British Film Institute for the first ever DVD release of the film in July.

Well, if I don't see you there, on the right is a new podcast: 'A NIGHTINGALE SANG IN THE WASTELAND" for you - a little taster of the past and something from the future featuring the remarkable and eccentric English Alchemist David Piper....


with TLC from TCK

elephantism

It's been an incredible year for animals in London. Apart from Alex's Mad Monkey, we had the London Whale and then, this weekend just gone, the absolutely incredible London Elephant. I swear, I have never, ever seen anything like it in the city and I doubt we will see its like again.

Parading up from Horse Guard's parade along the Mall, and down Picadilly to Trafalgar Square doing all sorts of odd and funny peculiar things along the way - this was pure real joy. I actually thought I was tripping at one point. We were singing all the elephant songs we could remember - 'Little Blue', 'Nelly the Elephant', 'Effervescing Elephant' and so on. Valentine even broke into a jig at one point.

I hope if you live here, you saw it and if you don't that you get chance to one day.......

Blessings on those with elephant sized imaginations and ambitions - and particularly on those who managed to keep the Health and Safety Nazis at bay -a gargantuan task in itself .....but oh, what a sight!

May you Plod preposterously on.......

ALEX BUDOVSKY MADE A MONKEY OUT OF ME....

I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS

“The Trans Pennine express will now be leaving. We’d like to apologise for the delay and for any inconvenience caused to passengers”

The announcer didn’t sound particularly sorry and as the train started to move nobody really paid any attention anyway – well, certainly not me - who had other things to think about. But then, of all the many inconveniences caused by late departures and arrivals over the years, I couldn’t have realised the particular significance of this one - though there may have been a clue a little while later when, gazing out the window at passing fields, I felt overcome with a strange, gentle but intense feeling of unexpected contentment.

My sister met me at the station with open arms.

“He just died.” She said and started to cry.

The time I last saw him, the window by his bed was open and the spring breeze wafted the sound of Astrid Gilberto’s ‘How insensitive’ into the room from the little radio on the ledge. The handsome, skinny, black French man in the next bed was depressed and defiantly resentful with the loudly cheerful nurses. But who could blame him? This was a waiting room - and for him, dying with cancer before his time - what point was there in social niceties?

My father's skin seemed like a membrane wrapping his shrinking body but it had become strangely beautiful in its detachment. The purple and blue bruises, the copper-green wriggles of veins, the parchment like transparency blended organically with the plastic, plaster and bandage fragments of various recent,fruitless, surgical interventions. As with apparently anybody whose body is fading, his eyes had assumed a dark, bright luminosity.

Things were said – too personal to record here where they might seem clichéd or banal – but which of course in that place had a poignancy and depth amplified by the context and our previous emotional reserve. But profundity jostled with non-sequitorial nonsense, dream seamlessly mixed with reality as the morphine ebbed and flowed. Expressions of affection were chased down labyrinthine corridors by peremptory instructions dryly issued to imagined companions. The ward itself became superimposed upon a room in our family home and floating names from the past attached themselves to passing visitors. However, it was a mistake to try to empathise by pretending to concur with his hallucinations for he could at any moment open his eyes, stare straight at you questioningly with complete lucidity.

I tried to keep him alert by talking about things from years ago. Childhood holidays, favourite relatives, a shared love of old English dance band music. We sang "I’ll see you in my Dreams" and a few other old favourites together a few times. He fell asleep again and so I sketched him as the afternoon slipped away. Then, just before it was time for me leave for London, he opened his eyes and said:

“Thank you”

I was shocked

“For what?!”

But he just looked at me and the distinctions of parent and child seemed to disappear. I suppose it was simply just one person being grateful with another for having been alive. No need for explanations or protests or polite humility. And, amazingly, that would be the last time I spoke to him.

The funeral was held at the Church that had been such a significant part of our childhood. I had rarely visited it since but the old words slipped out as easily as if I had said them only the Sunday before. So many turned out for the wake that we were startled into a re-evaluation of the respect in which his peers and a wider community of acquaintance held him. My friends Glen (who feels like a brother anyway) and Jed - who had known him since we were all children - came up with us to say goodbye. Afterwards, we climbed the hill onto the moor behind the house and drank and laughed with my sisters and the kids.

Who knows what the soul looks like? And who knows how another really sees or really feels themselves to be? At the hospital, I had spent some time with his body. The priest had gone but I was thinking of that traditional Catholic vision of the final journey to the Pearly Gates and suddenly a very palpable image of my father appeared in my mind. But strangely, I didn’t imagine him struggling up the steep road towards St Peter on crutches as I last remembered him. Nor striding purposefully toward his maker as I recall him from childhood – a tall, strong, implacable defence between me and the world. Nor, even as he must have been in his prime - in soldier’s uniform in some train carriage - before I even existed or before even my Mother knew him.

[ LISTEN - I'll See You In My Dreams ]

No. It was most peculiar. What I saw was a dirty faced, dark haired, eleven year old boy in short trousers turning, looking up and then running wildly up a green hillside toward a brightness on the skyline.

RIP

SONNY BLAKE

There's a little man called Sonny Blake who wears a grey trenchcoat and a furry cap with ear muffs and he smells of piss and faintly, of shit. He has big dark eyes and looks a little like a monkey. His shoes are long, shiny and black like Chaplin's. He carries an ancient red kit bag and pulls a decrepit old lady's shopping trolley with what looks like some Victorian underwear poking out the top. He whistles and wheezes and talks to himself and now and again he breaks into song. He frightens you and repulses you. You see him round Clerkenwell and he leers at you knowingly.

One quiet Sunday afternoon, I stumbled, devastated, back down the stairs from Amina’s flat. Sonny was at the bottom in the alley poking around in his bag. I pushed past him toward the street and, as I passed, he struck up one of his old jazz numbers in his reedy, phlegm filled warble…

'Who's sorry now......'

Unaccountably, of a sudden, I completely and instantaneously lost myself. I rounded on him:

'Shut up you fucking scumbag. I'll kill you - you fucking shit-filled, stinking scumbag. Shut up or I'll rip your fucking eyes out!'

Before I knew it, I had the collar of his coat balled up under his grimy neck pushing him up against the wall so hard that he had to stand on tiptoe not to choke.

'I fucking hate you, you little shit, following me around, whispering your fucking insinuating little songs'

His monkey eyes seemed bigger than ever - though strangely they appeared to be staring through me not at me. The stench of his mouth and his nose and his clothes was so bad that I was gagging. I almost felt for a moment as if I really could kill him but suddenly, with shock, I realised that in fact I was totally terrified of him. I let go his coat and stood back. He sagged, lost his footing and landed on his arse on the concrete in the corner of the alley.

'You sad fuck…’ I was still trying to shout but I felt strangely weak and was increasingly nervous of being overheard. I looked at the pathetic crumpled little bag squirming beneath me and tried to re-summon my rage:

'You're jealous of me aren't you, you sad fuck? You're broke and lonely and old. You stink of shit and no one gives a fuck about you. No one gives a fuck if you live or die. And you will die soon and they'll stuff you in your fucking bag and burn you ‘cause they won’t want to waste a bit of London land on you. And nobody will be there and nobody will notice you've gone and if they do they'll think: ‘Thank God that fucking awful smell's disappeared…’’

He just lay there in the corner staring and wheezing. I felt a migraine beginning. I turned my back on him and went on mumbling for some time with my head against the cold, damp brick wall next to the fire escape stairs.

After a couple of minutes, I realised that there was no longer any sounds coming from behind me.

'Fuck.’ I thought ‘I've killed him.'

I panicked and spun round.

Impossibly, Sonny had disappeared. On the floor whre he had lain prostrate was a piece of paper. I picked it up with no small amount of fear and unfolded it. In a beautiful copperplate hand was written:

"I love you"

Made of Stone

The more I got to know Valentine, the less I felt sure about him. I remember once we were on the tube because we couldn't find a cab. Although he could be a snob at times and would never normally take public transport, when he did, he looked around him with great interest. This particular night, on the platform at Farringdon, I saw him smile as he watched a couple of lovers - a pretty, black haired girl and her combat-trousered, small spectacled beau - necking on their way home. We got on the train and found ourselves in a carriage with them and with three Geordies in town for a soccer match. The Geordies were terribly pissed. Now I've been terribly pissed on the tube myself many times but whereas I tend to become withdrawn and maudlin, they were loud, obnoxious and confrontational. As usual, when there is any sign of trouble, the other passengers buried themselves in their magazines, their books, the advertisements above the windows - even in the pattern of the fabric on their seats –anywhere or anything not to catch the eye or attention. I took a particular interest in the sleeve of my jacket although Valentine carried on looking at the couple and smiling slightly as if lost in reflection. They, meanwhile remained absorbed in themselves - oblivious to the growing tension around them. Sneaking a glance up I noticed one of the Geordies poke the others and gesture towards the lovers. He staggered over, stood in front of them and bellowed:

'Is this train going to Bephards Shush?'

The carriage fell silent. The couple tried to ignore him

'Oi pet, I said: ‘Is this train going to Bepards shush?’’

The girl looked up, shook her head and looked down again.

'Can you give me directions then?'

She looked up again and nodded. He belched and grinned at the others who tittered.

'What’s the fastest way down your knickers pet?'

I winced. The girl looked down. Her boyfriend blushed. The carriage froze. The Geordies fell about laughing. Then, number one stretched out his hand, grabbed the girl's and pulled it towards his crotch. Her boyfriend stood up and pushed him away. Lout Number One grinned at him and then very deliberately, almost carefully, hit him very hard in the face. The boyfriend crumpled. The girl stood up, reached toward him and turned unbelievingly to the other passengers - all of whom were desperately trying to pretend nothing was happening.

'Please.........'

I was terrified and was trying to persuade myself to do something but my legs felt completely leaden. I just could not seem to move apart from to look at Valentine. Unbelievably, he was still smiling slightly as if still lost in his own thoughts. But then, suddenly, as if coming to, he leant up off the rail and walked the few paces down the carriage past the boy slumped in his seat and the girlfriend bending over him. The Geordies were looking on expectantly, still grinning.

'That really wasn't very nice old chap' he remonstrated gently
'I really think you should apologise you know'

Lout Number One looked him up and down with disbelief. The others guffawed and pressed up behind.

'What did you say cunt?'

Valentine gave the boy his handkerchief

'I said: “I really think you should apologise old sport!”'

With the other passengers I felt a miasma of fear and tension envelope the train. It felt to us all as if something terrible was about to happen. Whether through shame or sheer desperation to get it all over with, I managed to force myself, shaking, to get up and stand behind Valentine.

He turned to me.

'Don't you think so too old boy?'

I shook my head but he just smiled beatifically again until suddenly, the lout grabbed hold of the lapels of his beautiful suit, pulled him forward and head butted him very hard. There was a sickening crunch. I looked away. Everything stopped - even the train. There was complete silence in the carriage. I looked up. But Valentine was standing exactly where he was - and was still smiling. The head-butt didn't seem to have had any effect on him whatsoever - apart from a bit of gob or snot or blood that had landed on the lapel of his jacket. He looked down, noticed this and suddenly stopped smiling. He looked up towards his assailant upon whose face a scarlet mess had blossomed.

'Oh, now that really isn't on old sport '

He reached out and stroked the lout's cheek. The tension in the carriage thickened further at this most surreal of moves. The train juddered into life again although I could see an elderly man edging toward the emergency lever. Valentine reached further around the back of the lout's head and pulled it towards his own face. We heard him say, very gently:

'If ...you …..don't .... apologise,........ I'll rip ..…. your ...heart ....out'

I could see him as he said it. He was smiling again but when I looked at his eyes, my stomach churned. They had a look that was completely alien. I had a dizzying impression of something distant, cruel, cold and terrible.
There was a noise from the lout. I turned toward him. His face was contorted like some weird, giant baby begging for something. Suddenly there was a very bad smell. It seemed he had shit himself.

Valentine let him go and stepped delicately aside as he fell away and slumped to the floor, retching and sobbing. The old man pulled the lever, the train came into Kings Cross, the doors opened and the passengers pushed at each other in a rush to get off. The Geordies remained silent and still at the end of the carriage staring and fearful. The girl helped her boyfriend up. He was sobbing too.

'Thanks' she said but she didn't look at Valentine

'You're more than welcome my dear!' he said as he looked down at the lout and poked him with the pointed toe of his boot.

'Well?'

' Let me....Don't....Sorry. Alright, I'm fuckin’ sorry.......I didn't mean nothing, I...'

He wouldn't look up off the floor. The other Geordies remained backed away. Valentine winked at the girl.

'Tragic isn't it?'

She looked back at him nervously

'What did you....?'

'Oh you know, just a bit of the old assertiveness training!'

Her boyfriend pulled her hand and they jumped from the train as a guard got on.

'This chap's been being rude to some of your passengers old sport' said Valentine - ' and he seems to have got himself in a bit of a mess too!'

He turned to me:

'Come on pilgrim' he put his arm around my shoulder

'I think we'll get a cab now'

Valentine Rose

'What's your surname?' I asked him

He raised one eyebrow

'Rose'

'Valentine Rose? Are you kidding?'

'No I'm not kidding. It was my mother's idea of a joke old sport. Actually, I rather like it.”

'It must have been hell at school'

'School? Oh, I didn't go to school. Educated at home you know!'

He twirled his cane

'My mother was very particular. Very, Particular.'

'What's she like then?'

“Oh, she’s a great beauty. The greatest some say.'

He said this entirely seriously and apparently without any conceit

'Married beneath her of course. Her friends never really forgave her. Very proud woman. Very concerned with appearances. Gets quite jealous of the younger generation. Particularly the ones who aren't in her social bracket.'

He looked rather regretful as he said this and took off his round, green glass, shaded spectacles and began to polish them. I noticed that he blinked a little in the light

'Are you short sighted?' I asked

He put the spectacles back on

'Oh, I should say so. Practically blind old sport. Mind you it helps when you do what I do'

'What do you do?' I asked. The space around us suddenly seemed strangely hushed and far away

'Oh, you know, I like to bring people together'

He paused and smiled at me, lit another cigarette then looked speculatively at the gathered people in the club around us

'Or sometimes .....to tear them apart……'

XO download your valentine's day kiss here XO

the last days of cigarettes

Another year. Time goes so quickly now - I can barely keep up. It's funny isn't it? These days I never know when it's the weekend or a new month or even when it's time to go shopping or do the laundry

But I wanted to tell you that it's over. Really, this time. It's been a long romance - and you have left me with a lump in my throat and maybe a hole in my heart. You are always there waiting for me I know but you're killing me and each kiss leaves me gasping for breath. There is hardly anywhere we can go together now anyway and without you they say things will be better. Serge Gainsbourg, Bill Hicks, Humphrey Bogart, every French film I ever saw, every 1940's film I ever saw will always remind me of you. Clerkenwell and London will never be the same. Post coital langour, the drinking dens, the end of the evenings, waterloo bridge, Paris will never be the same.

We took drugs together, made love together, sung together. we even managed to dance together. You kept time through all those conversations about life, love, lust, longing. I shared you with friends, took you to business meetings, introduced your guest appearances on stage. I hid you from my family for so long but you forgave me. You always forgave me. You were always there waiting.

You are long and pale and slim. I have unwrapped you so many times. You make me burn. I can catch your scent - right here, right now

Will you forgive me this? For I am leaving you. Will i miss you? I hope so and I hope not.....

Yes, i really must give you up

with love

Stephen

Happy Winter Solstice ...

Here's a little ludicrous something for you
courtesy of
Father Budovsky and his little helpers