Too many mornings lately, I’ve woken up and thought, ‘What’s the point in making music or being in a band, or even writing the diary? Why can’t I just stay in bed all day, shouting at the radio, particularly when Vanessa Feltz’s phone-in show on BBC London is on?’ The utterly idle, nihilistic life, a life like an invalid, or hermit, or both, is far less costly to the nerves and wallet, and is indeed what I feel like doing with my day most mornings. Some talk about the joy of the ‘challenge’. I’m not one of them. I like everything to be as easy as possible. Life is too much like hard work. Fun is too much like hard work. Art is too much like hard work. And I haven’t even begun to think about actual Work.
At least, that’s what’s going through my head in the difficult waking hours lying in bed, feeling tired, sluggish, awful. Then I eventually get dressed, put on a tie, and start to adjust. Hours have already passed. Then I find one single chore that mysteriously expands to fill the rest of the day. Like the contents of a handbag, or traffic on a congested motorway after an extra lane has been added. All available space is filled before I know it. By the time I feel just about ready to face the day and get on with what I really want to do, it’s time for bed.
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Sat eve: To the Lark In The Park venue in Islington, to see bands with friends in. Martin White’s Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra and David Barnett’s New Royal Family. Nice contrast in vaudeville: the former’s quiet, droll ditties versus the latter’s noisy rock cheeriness. It’s a gathering of many people I know, have known, or am getting to know, or am known to. Friends past, present and future. The promoter of the club night – Club Mental – used to write me fan letters in the Orlando days. She doesn’t anymore, suffice it to say. I don’t bring the subject up with her, in case she says what I would say: we all do silly things in our teenage years. But I still have the letters somewhere. Real ink on real paper. Writing to me was just her little phase. Beats sniffing glue.
Was I very different then, too? Am I worse now, or better? And her?
Not for me to say. But I’d like to think bits of me are better, bits of me are worse, bits of me are different, bits of me are the same. Some people have gone through Dickon Edwards Phases in their life. I’ve got one of those too, it’s just lifelong.
Anyway, this is all hypocritical, because I go through phases too, despite the more or less fixed appearance and aloof stance. It used to be bands I became obsessed with, then turned my back on, now it’s more societies, libraries, clubs, gatherings, social scenes.
Yesterday I suppose I was Ms Gillian Kirby’s little phase. She asked me – via Facebook, how very 2007 – if I would pose for a photo session for her. I live to be photographed, so I agreed. The afternoon was spent draping myself around the stone angels of Brompton Cemetery. I loved it, naturally. I suit cemeteries. Quiet tombs, wild flowers, the egos of the dead.
