I had the idea to post a blog about procrastination & perfectionism, mmmm, about a month ago. I was gonna make it a New Year blog. Fresh approach, new beginnings, that kind of thing. So, I finally get around to it today, four weeks into the New Year. Ah, well, I have been on holiday. I still am, in fact, so get me. Better late than never.
What had got me focussing on procrastination was a visit to Tate Britain’s ‘Turner & The Masters’ exhibition. The curatorial blurb that accompanied the paintings kept hammering home the idea that Turner was intensely competitive and obsessed with outdoing his peers, and the masters that came before him. Apparently, at the Royal Academy, it would seem that part of training an artist up was to get them to copy a great painting, then try to ‘better’ it.
Inevitably, I found myself comparing the paintings I was seeing. And hearing other punters expressing their opinions about which they preferred, which was better. It made me irritated and itchy to be cornered into this approach. Why couldn’t I just look at the paintings and appreciate them individually, without reference? So, I decided I would, and stopped reading the blurb.
I still got an idea that this was a Turner, or that was a Rembrandt, ‘cos I could detect consistencies in style, and recognised a few of the paintings. But I found I got a lot more out of the exhibition once I stopped reading the blurb and just observed.
I was inspired enough to get some charcoal on the way home, that I might do a bit of sketching. Before bed, to relax, I thought I’d have a go at making a pretty picture. As I picked up my sketchbook I was suddenly overwhelmed by the depressing realisation that I can’t just knock off a masterpiece like Rembrandt in five minutes, so what’s the point? (I doubt he knocked out masterpieces in five minutes, either, mind you, but I’m lazy like that and I want it all NOW.)
After I reminded myself that I could draw a sketch and it wouldn’t matter if it was complete crap so long as I got something out of the process of doing it, I was able to put charcoal to paper and came up with something that was perfectly okay. So, I did it. It’s on my bedroom wall. If you’re ever passing by, drop in and take a look. There’s nothing else quite like it.
Scorching sex with random strangers.
Far too many cigarettes.
It seemed a sensible exchange
To swap you for some fresh regrets.
It wasn’t till the statements came
I saw I’d added to my debt
And kindling an aimless flame
Had rendered me a silhouette.
Some of the things I have done to get over you is a project gathering first-person testimony for a theatre installation. They want people to write to them with some of the things they have done to get over someone. They’ll then post a selection of contributions on the blog. Names and email addresses remain confidential.
A cabaret triptych of queer artistes coming together in celebration of the love that, once upon a time, dared not speak its name; and shooting down the modern-day myths of romance. Kick-ass queer cabaret for the loved-up, the lovelorn, and the downright louche.
Fucking cool prizes, tantalising turns and sticky treats.
Starring:
DICKIE BEAU … unfurling the Language of Love that’s thrust down our throats and gets stuck there in this age of Romantic Tyranny. And it’s fucking blue, so wash your c*nting mouth out.
TIMBERLINA … touching hearts, reaching into the heady depths of love, lust and self-loathing. Obsession is more than a fragrance. Smell her!
And special guest … DAVID MILLS … performing his New Black piano bar meltdown, the ramblings of a love stricken, obsessed stalker, set to an elegant jazz meets 90s power ballad soundtrack.
A Valentine’s Day Massacre coincides with Lesbian & Gay History Month, and is presented in conjunction with the Gay Mafia behind the PRIDE LEGACY PROJECT (www.pridelegacyproject.com)
Kick-ass queer performance, fucking cool prizes and a whole lotta free love. For a fiver.
Tuesday 10th February, The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, 372 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5HY
Tel: 020 7840 0596
Doors: 7.30pm. Shows from 8.30pm. Entrance: a fiver
So, it’s coming round to that time of year again where we are encouraged, if not enforced, to enact expressions of dedicated love to the specious – sorry, special someone in our lives. To shower them with precious gifts and Hallmark cards by way of declaring everlasting love and undying commitment.
It’s the time of year when those of us who are single are forcibly reminded of the mainstream consciousness that to be a solo player is to be the poor lamb whose life is not yet whole because we haven’t found our other half: “But why are you single? You’re so NICE!”
I’m no expert in Darwinian theory, but it seems to me that since Carl Wittman wrote his “Gay Manifesto” in 1969 there has been regression, rather than progression, when it comes to gay matters of the heart. A couple of million years ago, we were little more than monkeys, sitting around playing with each other’s bits without any fuss or fanfare. Then along came the church, and ideas of respectability, and propriety, and the imposition of an ideology that demanded lifelong commitment between a man and a woman. Ideas of sexual and social liberation blossomed in the 1960s and 70s but now, in the 21st century, it seems everywhere I turn gay men are hellbent on apeing this out-of-date straight model of relationships.
In his recent book, Boy Crazy, Michael Shelton suggests that the monogamous model might not even be completely natural for heterosexuals beyond the period of about four years – the point at which, statistically, many relationships draw to a close. The argument for the historical relevance of this pattern is that the first four years of a growing infant’s life constitute a period in which it is most vulnerable and requires maximum support and protection, best achieved by both parents remaining in close proximity. So, historically, a (temporary) committed partnership had a practical purpose – literally for the sake of a child’s survival. Beyond this, there is no natural necessity for complete lifelong sexual exclusivity for straights. In fact, males sowing their wild oats widely is a beneficial strategy for engendering genetic diversity.
So, when a rational deconstruction of the monogamous model suggests that for straights it is non-essential, and for benders it is completely irrelevant, why the persistence of the idea that we should all aspire to partner up with a handsome prince?
My theory of this devolution is that we are in the grip of a romantic tyranny, which is manifest as a cultural epidemic of codependency, one that is evident in the majority of Hollywood movies and in practically every love song. Romance is frequently written into the script as a tool for the entrapment of another person. Assumptions about who the desired partner is take precedence over the reality of who he/she is; and the conditions of the relationship, tied up with expectations of how it should evolve, are sewn down before the true dynamics of the relationship are given space to be expressed authentically.
Gay marriage, when founded on this romantic ideology rather than on practical concerns, is not a forward-looking concept. Instead, it is a retrograde bourgeois fantasy. And, more insidious still, it is one which holds at its crux a diminishing deferment to heterosexual hegemony; it is an act of retreat into the shadows of the status quo: “we recognise that straight people do it better; but, look, we’ve exchanged rings, too, so we’re almost as good as you, really!”
Now, I understand that in the early days of a relationship the excitement, verve, and sexual spark can mean we do wish to focus on this one person over all others; that exclusivity comes easy, even naturally. But the honeymoon period doesn’t last; it can’t, because the basic fact is our brain chemistry won’t let it. So, promises of enduring love and exclusive commitment are unwise – you are likely to change your mind.
There is nothing wrong with exchanging gifts of love, on any day of the year, provided the wrapping paper doesn’t conceal a hidden agenda. But, for my money, the most meaningful thing you can do this Valentine’s Day is to divorce yourself from expectation and duty, release yourself from the grip of romantic tyranny, lean across to your loved one and softly whisper these three little words: cards kill trees.
Dickie Beau and Timberlina, in association with the Gay Mafia behind the Pride Legacy Project, present A (pre-)VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE on Tuesday 10th February at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, with special guest, David Mills. Doors, 7.30pm. Show @ 8.30pm. Entrance: a fiver.
Having casually assumed that I would be transmogrified into anti-matter this morning when the megaparticle nuclear velociraptor was switched on I’ve been letting things slide on the domestic front to a considerable degree for weeks. I haven’t blogged at all. There is something of Chernobyl about my sock drawer. So, waking up early this afternoon to the discovery I wasn’t in a black hole was consequently a bit depressing. All this washing I’ve got to catch up on.
And, as if by magic, by order of some cosmic act of buffoonery… no water in the pipes. Not in the kitchen, not in the lav, not the shower.
But there’s nothing to be done. The Council blamed Thames Water. Thames Water blamed the Council. Thames Water asked me to go out into the neighbourhood and canvass nearby buildings for analagous drought issues, because if I could find a neighbour in another building with no water they might accept that it’s their fault. I told them I can’t be seen in public without having had a shower. Deadlock. The Council are going to send someone out within four hours, by which time I might have turned into Pete Doherty.
Thank fuck for the lifeline that is the interweb, so that the world might continue to revolve around me, though my resurrection has had to be postponed as a ‘tomorrow problem’.
That was a nice message. I could reply to it right away. So, I’ll reply … mm … later. First, I’ll have a cup of tea and read that article that caught my eye on my RSS feed.
While I wait for the kettle to boil, perhaps I could put some washing in the machine. No, by the time I’ve sorted out my colours, the water won’t be BOILING hot anymore and I’ll have to boil it all over again. Forget that. I could … I need a pee, I’ll pee.
You may, if you’ve been rigorous in your consumption of online current affairs (i.e. following FaceFuck updates), already be aware – so apologies for repetition – that a pigeon shat on my head outside Starbucks on Friday 13th. Apparently, this was “lucky”.
I had the idea to post a blog about procrastination & perfectionism, mmmm, about a month ago. I was gonna make it a New Year blog. Fresh approach, new beginnings, that kind of thing. So, I finally get around to it today, four weeks into the New Year. Ah, well, I have been on holiday. I still am, in fact, so get me. Better late than never.
