Hi Folks!! I received this from Jules of Bath and Bristol's fabbo Zen Hussies today and said I would wack it on the blog so my mum could see it and lend her support.....if you're reading this and by some miracle you're not my mum, maybe you would like to do so too......contact Jules at julian_landau@yahoo.co.uk
(NEW ADDITION.......YOU CAN NOW SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/wireless/ )
Please read and forward to anyone you think cares about saving AM / FM / LW radio broadcasts after 2012!!
I am very worried about the imminent demise of broadcasts for transistor radios in the UK, currently scheduled for 2012.
Digital radio uses between 5 and 15 times as much energy as the transistor, and the simplicity of the circuit in the tranny makes it egalitarian, affordable and environmentally friendly.
Not all developments are necesarilly progress, and I think DAB is a case in point here. We need to lobby for the retainment of MW, LW and FM radio transmissions in the UK.
The BBC are trying to keep quiet about the amount of power consumed by DAB radios, a minutes wind on a clockwork transistor radio will give power for up to half an hour, on DAB equivalents, power lasts about three minutes.
That's 15 times as much energy consumed by DAB than conventional radio.
Aren't we all supposed to be trying to save energy in any way possible???
What sort of strain is this going to put on the national grid???
The incentive of course for broadcasters is that they can tell exactly who is listening to what, where and when, which all seems a bit of a big brother way of understanding their demographic.
If all the AM / FM bandwidth suddenly becomes empty in 2012, does this not open up all sorts of avenues of opportunity for Pirate broadcasts?
Some of these may be innoccuous and even of interest to lovers of unfashionable musical idioms like myself, but does it not also offer a platform for extremist groups to broadcast on a scale up to now unprecedented due to the limited availability of bandwidth?
I think a campaign needs to be mounted to save conventional radio, and am looking for any like minds who are able to put their weight behind it. I suggest a petition as a good way to start saying something like;
"We, the undersigned believe the proposed ending of transmission for terrestial radio in 2012 is ill conceived, and poses a threat to the environment due to the large volume of energy consumed by DAB radio, up to 15 times that of the transistor, and also to national security due to the opportunity this demise will afford to illicit pirate broadcasters."
I'm sure one of you out there can word that more clearly! But please, if you care about terrestial radio, get back to me with your thoughts on this and forward this mail to all your contacts.
I have no experience of organising any sort of campaign so anyone who does have any out there,any advice greatly received!
Many thanks,
Jules Landau,
A wireless lover.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Incredible News.....the weather has changed from Manchester-like and shit to Brasil-like and steaming hot.....95 degrees yesterday and 93 this morning...down to early 80's now....and no, I don't know what that is in inches......
........I admit I don't understand milk in feet either.....it's not that I'm awkward or non european-ist, I just don't have a real sense of it.....a metre is still about a yard and a litre is about 2 pints and a loaf of bread is about a diabetic day and a half if you stay in.
.......A foot is about 30 centimetres and a hectare is.....well when I was looking at a property of 9 acres a while back I found out that an acre is half a hectare, but then I wondered where that got me....what's 9 acres??.....I realised it was to me a big lump as opposed to a small or very small lump.
........You can do football pitches I suppose but I've only ever seen one for long enough to recognise it and switch channels, usually to something equally appalling like darts, or crochet, (or a programme on record collecting). So I was left with the realisation that the way I assessed a property's size and value was based on it's level of more or less undefined lumpness. Small, big, bigger.
Does anyone really know how big things are beyond a certain point? Would you be able to nip out for enough cups of sugar for the year if it didn't come in a cup?? If petrol tanks didn't have a hole at the top to overflow, would you know when you'd filled a tankful?? Would you really be able to buy enough string or hosepipe if it didn't say how much there was on the roll??
Cement? I'll have six please. Six what? Six s'worths please. Walls'worths? Patios'worths? And even though it comes in sacks, how d'you know how many you ought to want if you knew what you were doing?
When I was buying books for my ill fated boat, I knew I wanted good quality hardbacks, I knew I wanted a wide range of subjects, but how many did I want. Easy, I measured the shelf space, times it by number of cabins, added saloon shelfage, and ordered 76 feet of hardbacks please. Hugh the bookdealer never batted an eye....must happen every day serving people who don't actually read.
......My shop door had a sign on it that famously said "Back in 5 ".........people were forever hassling me about being more than 5 minutes ( often an hour or two) ......" 5 what?" I would reply," It doesn't specify 5 what. Could be 5 swimming pools or 5 cake."
Funnily enough I closed down earlier this year. No business.
So also today as well as weather, we had........replying to a friend who enquired re. tennis club purchase progress, and whether I would like the latest John Martyn CD Box set for Xmas......
I'm proud to say I've negotiated the whole package, well, on the uderstanding that I buy 2 independent packages and guarantee that at no time during transaction does Garden Guy have to be in same room (town?) as Building Guy......
........not sure why he hates him so much, apart from he manages to combine being both a c*** and a lying c*** at one and the same time with great ease.
........ I think it has to do with Building Guy knocking down the half of the roof and wall of the barbie which were on Garden Guy's side of the border, leaving a freestanding Auschwitz type chimney, and the end bit of the concrete barbie bench and table sticking out over the line......which will need cutting off when I build the dividing wall......if I build the dividing wall....shit, we have to negotiate that next.......
Elvis day ( forthcoming Sunday at the Bell) sounds good....I started singing Elv songs here in house when stuck in with leg, looked up lyrics to my faves, then moved on to Righteous Bros and then all the Doors songs.....
.......after a bit I thought I need a bit of echo, so grabbed empty thermos flask as I thought it would have mini bathroom acoustics......fantastic, and you can move it around to vary effect.....also acts as air microphone.....no really, do try it....it's a mini echo chamber......( and you must also have looked very, very cool indeed. -ED.)
As for John Martin......is that the box set that includes an extras bonus cd including the track of him vomiting brandy and cocaine ******** as he beats out a mesmerising rhythm using his amputated leg as a drum stick upon his customised Roland drum-synth-in-the-style-of-a-well stocked bar......that one has to be my favorite, and all done in the vocal and guitar style of Nick Drake which has made John so bankable over the years.......oh John, how do you think em up??
So that's a "yes please" then..... ( to the gift -ED)
Lots of love from Nashface the Lagoon XXXX
you are jusyt the most extraordinary gretat big fairy cake ive had all my whole life and would eat it sat pudding or breks and i'm diabetic i dont care eat you all up and then live in the fridge til dindins then out you come and start allover and when i have a car i take you in it everywhereandn we have fun and buy ices and seaside jumpy up and down in waves and later on the swings and then surfing like tarzan but seaside and everything is bbbbbbrillliant like the telly we watch and have fun and jokes....and later older on were nurses and i'm a doctor and your sick and i mend with a stethyscoat and prridge and brown papie.....and now my turn we do coronation road and I be betty driveway and your the stupid boy but clever and you hit me with your mummys head and spitting and brilliant and then another with policemen and Bill comes and we make a jokey How Much then and hes said no not Bill, I am Bill....hello bill no not a Bill man but a bill copp shopp...hahahahhhaa we go all to the banky......talking of who is it??? Knock?Me? Bankwho? Banknote hahahahhahaa another doctor whos got one he has who...doctor hahahahahwho? Hurrah for queenie shiplaunch sliding dowwn the way and off to Spaide or Portumgola in .....very nice withall sunni and spades and flowers for you and your all happy in buckets and then we re off any where.......love yooooooo Alexi Snayle from Paul Nashface
........I admit I don't understand milk in feet either.....it's not that I'm awkward or non european-ist, I just don't have a real sense of it.....a metre is still about a yard and a litre is about 2 pints and a loaf of bread is about a diabetic day and a half if you stay in.
.......A foot is about 30 centimetres and a hectare is.....well when I was looking at a property of 9 acres a while back I found out that an acre is half a hectare, but then I wondered where that got me....what's 9 acres??.....I realised it was to me a big lump as opposed to a small or very small lump.
........You can do football pitches I suppose but I've only ever seen one for long enough to recognise it and switch channels, usually to something equally appalling like darts, or crochet, (or a programme on record collecting). So I was left with the realisation that the way I assessed a property's size and value was based on it's level of more or less undefined lumpness. Small, big, bigger.
Does anyone really know how big things are beyond a certain point? Would you be able to nip out for enough cups of sugar for the year if it didn't come in a cup?? If petrol tanks didn't have a hole at the top to overflow, would you know when you'd filled a tankful?? Would you really be able to buy enough string or hosepipe if it didn't say how much there was on the roll??
Cement? I'll have six please. Six what? Six s'worths please. Walls'worths? Patios'worths? And even though it comes in sacks, how d'you know how many you ought to want if you knew what you were doing?
When I was buying books for my ill fated boat, I knew I wanted good quality hardbacks, I knew I wanted a wide range of subjects, but how many did I want. Easy, I measured the shelf space, times it by number of cabins, added saloon shelfage, and ordered 76 feet of hardbacks please. Hugh the bookdealer never batted an eye....must happen every day serving people who don't actually read.
......My shop door had a sign on it that famously said "Back in 5 ".........people were forever hassling me about being more than 5 minutes ( often an hour or two) ......" 5 what?" I would reply," It doesn't specify 5 what. Could be 5 swimming pools or 5 cake."
Funnily enough I closed down earlier this year. No business.
So also today as well as weather, we had........replying to a friend who enquired re. tennis club purchase progress, and whether I would like the latest John Martyn CD Box set for Xmas......
I'm proud to say I've negotiated the whole package, well, on the uderstanding that I buy 2 independent packages and guarantee that at no time during transaction does Garden Guy have to be in same room (town?) as Building Guy......
........not sure why he hates him so much, apart from he manages to combine being both a c*** and a lying c*** at one and the same time with great ease.
........ I think it has to do with Building Guy knocking down the half of the roof and wall of the barbie which were on Garden Guy's side of the border, leaving a freestanding Auschwitz type chimney, and the end bit of the concrete barbie bench and table sticking out over the line......which will need cutting off when I build the dividing wall......if I build the dividing wall....shit, we have to negotiate that next.......
Elvis day ( forthcoming Sunday at the Bell) sounds good....I started singing Elv songs here in house when stuck in with leg, looked up lyrics to my faves, then moved on to Righteous Bros and then all the Doors songs.....
.......after a bit I thought I need a bit of echo, so grabbed empty thermos flask as I thought it would have mini bathroom acoustics......fantastic, and you can move it around to vary effect.....also acts as air microphone.....no really, do try it....it's a mini echo chamber......( and you must also have looked very, very cool indeed. -ED.)
As for John Martin......is that the box set that includes an extras bonus cd including the track of him vomiting brandy and cocaine ******** as he beats out a mesmerising rhythm using his amputated leg as a drum stick upon his customised Roland drum-synth-in-the-style-of-a-well stocked bar......that one has to be my favorite, and all done in the vocal and guitar style of Nick Drake which has made John so bankable over the years.......oh John, how do you think em up??
So that's a "yes please" then..... ( to the gift -ED)
Lots of love from Nashface the Lagoon XXXX
...written in state of panic to my daughter Hannah.....
COME QUICK....ONLY ONE TEABAG LEFT!!!! ( PLUS ONE IN THE CUP )
180 DIVIDED BY 6 NASHER WEEKS PLUS 2 HANNAH WEEKS
180 8 ÷
--------------------------22.5 = PER WEEK
7 ÷
--------------------------3.214285714285714
= AVERAGE USAGE 3.21 PER DAY.
DON'T REMEMBER THE .214285714285714 BIT BUT COMPUTERS NEVER LIE.
LOTS OF LOVE FROM ME AND MY NEW CALCULATOR!!
you are jusyt the most extraordinary gretat big fairy cake ive had all my whole life and would eat it sat pudding or breks and i'm diabetic i dont care eat you all up and then live in the fridge til dindins then out you come and start allover and when i have a car i take you in it everywhereandn we have fun and buy ices and seaside jumpy up and down in waves and later on the swings and then surfing like tarzan but seaside and everything is bbbbbbrillliant like the telly we watch and have fun and jokes....and later older on were nurses and i'm a doctor and your sick and i mend with a stethyscoat and prridge and brown papie.....and now my turn we do coronation road and I be betty driveway and your the stupid boy but clever and you hit me with your mummys head and spitting and brilliant and then another with policemen and Bill comes and we make a jokey How Much then and hes said no not Bill, I am Bill....hello bill no not a Bill man but a bill copp shopp...hahahahhhaa we go all to the banky......talking of who is it??? Knock?Me? Bankwho? Banknote hahahahhahaa another doctor whos got one he has who...doctor hahahahahwho? Hurrah for queenie shiplaunch sliding dowwn the way and off to Spaide or Portumgola in .....very nice withall sunni and spades and flowers for you and your all happy in buckets and then we re off any where.......love yooooooo Alexi Snayle from Paul Nashface
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Update on activities here in sunny Brasil, where it's been dull, cold and raining for most of a week. Today it's around 80 degrees and rising. Whooppee!
The electric supply has just lost a phase here so we've hurriedly turned off computers and fridges.....time for a defrost anyway.
I'm writing this on batteries as an email for the time being. Oh the primitivity (word?).
As of last Saturday, I have finally written off the Tennis Club once and for all after giving Garden Guy a final chance to sort his brain out and sell it to me. He didn't come through with anything and so the deadline passed on Friday and that's it. Finito. Cabo.
So since Saturday I've been looking seriously at other property. I went out driving with Maria that afternoon and looked at 4 or 5 houses, one of which I liked a lot.....in fact I wanted to buy the house and the little old lady with it......she was lovely.
A big single storey place with big windows and a big lounge and big kitchen/diner and swimming pool and good sized garden with fruit trees....figs!!....and a massive sort of garage which with beds and stuff would make a gorgeous guest house at the bottom of the garden.
Oh and two tiled kennels for Hannah to kidnap the mangy Sharpei from Saquarema into. All for a start price of £35 grand, before negotiations. Did I mention the figs??
So two minutes ago Uli just came and congratulated me.
I asked what for.......and apparently I am now the proud owner of a Tennis Club, if I still want to be.
Garden Guy has just informed our lawyer that he's prepared to sell it to me as long as he doesn't have to have any dealings whatsoever with House Guy, and to be honest, I feel rather the same way.
As I've found out the hard way, you really do have to play the game of coolness......which I always found easy when buying for profit but less so when buying for love. The best way to get something at the right price is to walk away at least twice. The rules of the bazaar....as Charlie D. pointed out to me the other week. Easy to do for business, but hard to do when your emotions are involved.
So the big question is.....Do I go for it???
I've enjoyed the freedom of the last few days, being able to look at anything and everything....I had at least three properties of some interest on the go, with another couple of possibilities with commercial aspects chucked in.
But nothing that really hits the spot, that really excites me and that will end up being completely special. I realised once it had apparently dissappeared fom view, the Tennis Club was a chance to do something spectacular and at a bargain price, which is the only price I can actually afford! I
t's a chance to do something that's way beyond its actual budget. And finding another opportunity like that is a hard one.
I'm also aware that rebuilding the Tennis Club involves doing a lot of stuff I don't even know how to do in England, let alone in a foreign language I can only just about order a beer in.
So taking all that into consideration, and then ignoring it completely, of course I'm going to go for it.
But I am going to learn a lesson.....if you show your hand because you're frightened to lose the pot, you stand a very good chance of losing the pot anyway. So you might just as well be bold and play the game. Poker face. Display only disinterest. Even when it's love. And always walk away at least twice.
.....AND NOW ENORMOUS BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO HANNAH MY DAUGHTER ON HER 28TH BIRTHDAY WITH ENORMOUS LOVES AND KISSES......ALSO FROM SONIA AND DEBORAH HERE IN SAQUAREMA.....I can't wait to see Hannah back out here, hopefully early Decembro.........
.......so that means it was only 28 years ago this morning I was in the Arts Workshop's shop at 146 Walcot Street breaking into the collection box to finance phoning the ambulance, and later had to blag the busfare back into town from St Martins from another newlydad at the bus stop.......
......and also a big up to my old buddy Ric Knapp.....his birthday today too.....if you see him give him a Happy Birthday and a big smile......don't forget, a smile goes a long way......
Oh and I hope you've all, alright both of you, found the first part of "Gordon the Movie the Story" of some interest and not too tangential.....unless I receive substantial complaints, I shall continue with this mammoth project.....anything rather than show the film !!!
As I have been proud to say on so many occasions, am I not the man who put the letter "n" into cult????
And now back to an old and near forgotten tradition, the Burroughsian-cut-up-email section.
Written in reply to a dear friend only last night.....but tidied up slightly.....
I've been very productive this week...well yesterday .....I went with Maria to Niteroi, over the bay from Rio and sorted out my CPF number...later I get a card...hurrah....that allows me to pay tax here hurrah....but also to buy house, rent a video, get utility bills etc, and then went to the Policia Federal where a Federal Policeman ( Policia Federal) gave me a further 3 months of visaness, all the while with his pistola automatico ( pistola automatico) pointed disconcertingly through the flimsy partition at my even flimsier testicles. However Maria, having noted its proximity and apparent trajectory, managed as if by magic to make her blouse buttons fly open, thereby securing for me both my crutch and my 3 month visa. In fact securing two of my extensions in one fell swoop of her cleavage, as it were.
Then after a massive, posh buffet lunch (£2 each) she went off into Rio on the ferry on biz and I hobbled to the bus station ( in Ingles, bus station) to get the bus (bus) back to Saquarema, where I visited Hannah's tattooist and my barber ( in English, barber) and then got taken to meet an estate agent by my barber ( in english, still barber), and then I went to the Marisco restaurant, ate a slice of pizza, fed a bit to the birds flying around the restaurant, and got a bit pissed.
Then I got a taxi home with a nice taxista or taxi driver ( taxista or taxi driver).
Marisco is a funny word, as depending on who you ask, it means all types of shellfish, or it means mussels, or when you ask Maria it means something completely else entirely. And the word for mussels is something completely else entirely. So when I go to this restaurant I order anything else but marisco, as I never know what I'll get. Which is a shame as it must obviously be the speciality of the house, whatever it is. And also I like mussels which are seafood and seafood which are mussels or which are not mussels. Or seafood. I don't mind really. The slice of pizza was nice anyway....it had mussels and seafood on it. It's called a pizza de marisco. ( translates as " a pizza de marisco" ).
.......written in reply to another friend re. steaming wallpaper (ostensibly)........
aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhsteaming wallpaper......makes me hungry just writing it......I used to be a shopfitter so used to do it on an industrial scale....just as appalling but bigger.....(now I expect he'll start rambling about the past) ........yes here we go.....I have happy memories of being stuck in a large toilet with an ex marine called ##### for several days stripping wallpaper and talking in Geordie accents....it pissed me off cos his was so much better than mine......he was the gentlest ex marine I ever met.....he'd been on duty in the Falklands and was waiting for his flight out on the day the entire Argentine Military invaded.....him and his 95 mates took 'em on and were doing quite well until the wanker governor surrendered on their behalf......got prisoner swapped later on and went back as a scout with Margaret's task force......only talked about that bit the once......involved a bit of wet work I think.............tchou! speek next week!!
.......written whilst drunk to another bud.......
I'm really pissed ....just got back this min from my mate Sonia Cristina's house....we ate a lot of food and I paid for her daughter and mate to go to disco in town so long as they did a dance on one spastic leg for me......life is tough.....well not very but my leg hurts thank god.....
.........I wasnt going to write cos am pissed but then I realised it was you so better if i am hahahahah.....brilliant to get emu from you.....hahahahhahhaahaha
.........I like doing hahahas cos its the only thing i can type consecutively...ouch......that was a good example
.....had my first dance on dry land tonight....managed it in swim pool but tonite managed it dry to latinoreggae.......band called cidade negra....e muito bom!!!!
......must go sleep after poo and wee....coco e sheshe as we say round yer.....will communicate...sorry will communicate more .....tchou ......love you intensely from the bottom of my heart and from my wife's bottom too......am now as well as an estate agnt , an eco-architect, eco-boat designer and eco house building system designer.....isn't life funny sometimes...wait for it hahahahahahahahahah
love that.....
.......and again the next day.....ref. her friend Roger, the cabin boy, apparently.....
Had to reread your missive sober and realised I'd missed a few (well all) salient points....with ref. roger the cabin boy, yes, I will, whenever you like......I remember back in my seafaring days down in Willments Shipyard, oft was heard the cry "pass me another cabin boy, this ones split".....(true actually).....they were of course in very short supply by the late 80's so one often had to make do and mend.....thank the Lord for gaffer tape......big market for that in Ecuador too apparently....well you didn't really think they actually ate the guinea pigs did you?
....anyway I may be slightly off the track here.....but what the hey.....behind the shipyard in Southampton was the grave of a cabin boy. He was adrift for several weeks with his shipmates.....who in desperation finally resolved to kill and eat him as he was the smallest and weakest ( also probably therefore the tenderest).....they'd just got started on their din dins when they were spotted and rescued and all before they could hide the evidence.....and so were hanged. So heed the warning of an old seadog, always pick yer shipmates carefully, and always make sure yer not the smallest......haharrr.
......we used to scare the shit out of young ####, my yacht partner, the smallest and youngest of us, when afloat in a rough sea hahaarrr.....we'd all go very quiet and stare at him.....haharrrr! So was he that very cabin boy.....haharrr.....perhaps we'll never know......
I have to stop writing this i'm becoming very ill....I need my din dins.......haharrr stop it you bugger........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargghhhhhhhhhhhhhhI'll be fine on the morrow I expect
must go ......eat.....perchance to dream.......tchou.....lots of love and stufff.....Nash the lagoonboy XXXXX
Re tropical gardens etc.....
I hope all is well with you. How's the Africa lark coming on? I was telling my plant-head friend Uli about Neem and he said he'd planted a couple of trees here to protect some other planting, but didn 't realise how much other stuff it could do. When I told him of it's commercial value, he said he would kiss my feet if I could show him a viable commercial possibility using trees. Then I showed him my feet! Seriously, he would consider planting in bulk if it was worth doing. Maybe you could advise me on that.
As far as tropical gardens go, I couldn't have jumped from such a tiny frying pan into such a large fire if I'd tried.....the gardens at the house I'm in the guest house of are stunning. Uli also has another plot nearby on the edge of the lagoon....I was there eating tamarind and mango and stuff I can't remember off the trees t'other day. He also owns a mountain ( 300,000 m2 behind the lagoons, which he is planting with palms at the moment, prior to some very minimal building. )
I, in the meantime have become an estate agent(!), as Uli got me to put some property of his on the market. I am also as of yesterday, it would seem, an architect, having suggested a design for a house on stilts with mini-dock for the lagoon-side plot, and we're about to embark on an experimental earthbag building project on his mountain, which I also suggested.
I also reckon I'm about to become an architectural model builder, as I mentioned I used to scratch build models when I was a kid....he doesn't know I'm now near blind!!!
As well as that I broke my leg 2 weeks after getting here, agreed to buy an ex tennis club a week after getting here, which I finally called off yesterday after the two owners turned out to be various types of ass-holes.....as Kurt Vonnegut would now say, this * is what an ass-hole looks like.
Overall I've been having a great time, apart from a few short bursts of frustration (broken leg boredom and discomfort/mosquitoes/heat) and despondency ( tennis club buying from anuses discomfort)....but now leg is getting better....I can now hobble at speed.....tennis club house is definately off so I can get on with finding something else, and Hannah (daughter) is back soon which will be great fun.....
ref. unwanted correspondents......
Wappnin!
..........re religio-fascist I have his address, phone, email, age and name, also now full life history via mutual contact!!
I've placed him to rest in a file called simply "Loony" on my mail machine. He's there for when I have something lodged in my stomach I just can't shift.
Sorry to hear of yr mate.....but bristol is little safer....Ruby (my daughter)'s blokes dad was taken in on a sunday (big mistake) and the thingy machine doesnt work on sundays so he didnt get scan til monday by which time ulcer had exploded and everything had septacaemia (thanx for spelling)....consequently on deathbed then they screwed up again by putting wrong drip on(student nurse) ....accidental pun there.....then he caught the hospital virus.....it goes on and on.....he's now completely fuct and barely alive. Still, thank heavens for little nursies.
Lots of love from Lagoonboy XXX
....sent to Citikey Bath so-called shop guide website.....
First off my shop is Nashers Music Store
2nd I sell primarily records, not videos and cds
3rd the website URL (which you've made up) is nashers.demon.co.uk and has been since 1994.....
....and 4th I closed down on March 26th 2006 and have since moved to Brasil.....
.....apart from that the photo is nice but is 5 years out of date....
....can't see the point of an info site with so much wrong info!!
.....love from Nasher.
Re leg and stuff.....
Nah it's beeen ok...nice (brief) walks and nice weather.....hot but breezy and cool nights which are a relief......all is under control ish.....Uli and Maria are dealing with it all.....there's lots of other possibilities but my head still sees tenis club as home.....once its definately on or off I'll be able to switch to next enthuse.....I'm totally monogamous in a project relationship but totally promiscuous in letting go once its over and finding a new one. Now I'm declaring my promiscuity with projects...isn't life strange.
It's prob just as well Hannah wasn't here.....with her kickboxing skills she'd have crippled the seller and wife with a couple of deft blows and then headed off to find the errant one and maim him for life too......
So I should know in a couple of days whether it's on or off.......Uli's offered me a slice of his lagoon side condo to build on, and even to run the building and selling of other units there if I want ......and theres another lagoonside property Hann and I looked at which Sonia caretakes.....plus theres all the other property around.......I do want summat special tho'. All the houses here are nice cute cosy varandas etc but the rooms are always small even if the house is big. Whatever!!
As for mad women......you can spot them very easily but there are two things you must know......
1) they're women, and
2) they're mad.
It's that simple. Women are just people, and if they were men you wouldn't take mad ones home and put them in your bed so you could touch them. But you will when it's a mad woman, so you can touch them.
Anyone, having cheered things up a bit, I'll go for a jog.
The electric supply has just lost a phase here so we've hurriedly turned off computers and fridges.....time for a defrost anyway.
I'm writing this on batteries as an email for the time being. Oh the primitivity (word?).
As of last Saturday, I have finally written off the Tennis Club once and for all after giving Garden Guy a final chance to sort his brain out and sell it to me. He didn't come through with anything and so the deadline passed on Friday and that's it. Finito. Cabo.
So since Saturday I've been looking seriously at other property. I went out driving with Maria that afternoon and looked at 4 or 5 houses, one of which I liked a lot.....in fact I wanted to buy the house and the little old lady with it......she was lovely.
A big single storey place with big windows and a big lounge and big kitchen/diner and swimming pool and good sized garden with fruit trees....figs!!....and a massive sort of garage which with beds and stuff would make a gorgeous guest house at the bottom of the garden.
Oh and two tiled kennels for Hannah to kidnap the mangy Sharpei from Saquarema into. All for a start price of £35 grand, before negotiations. Did I mention the figs??
So two minutes ago Uli just came and congratulated me.
I asked what for.......and apparently I am now the proud owner of a Tennis Club, if I still want to be.
Garden Guy has just informed our lawyer that he's prepared to sell it to me as long as he doesn't have to have any dealings whatsoever with House Guy, and to be honest, I feel rather the same way.
As I've found out the hard way, you really do have to play the game of coolness......which I always found easy when buying for profit but less so when buying for love. The best way to get something at the right price is to walk away at least twice. The rules of the bazaar....as Charlie D. pointed out to me the other week. Easy to do for business, but hard to do when your emotions are involved.
So the big question is.....Do I go for it???
I've enjoyed the freedom of the last few days, being able to look at anything and everything....I had at least three properties of some interest on the go, with another couple of possibilities with commercial aspects chucked in.
But nothing that really hits the spot, that really excites me and that will end up being completely special. I realised once it had apparently dissappeared fom view, the Tennis Club was a chance to do something spectacular and at a bargain price, which is the only price I can actually afford! I
t's a chance to do something that's way beyond its actual budget. And finding another opportunity like that is a hard one.
I'm also aware that rebuilding the Tennis Club involves doing a lot of stuff I don't even know how to do in England, let alone in a foreign language I can only just about order a beer in.
So taking all that into consideration, and then ignoring it completely, of course I'm going to go for it.
But I am going to learn a lesson.....if you show your hand because you're frightened to lose the pot, you stand a very good chance of losing the pot anyway. So you might just as well be bold and play the game. Poker face. Display only disinterest. Even when it's love. And always walk away at least twice.
.....AND NOW ENORMOUS BIRTHDAY GREETINGS TO HANNAH MY DAUGHTER ON HER 28TH BIRTHDAY WITH ENORMOUS LOVES AND KISSES......ALSO FROM SONIA AND DEBORAH HERE IN SAQUAREMA.....I can't wait to see Hannah back out here, hopefully early Decembro.........
.......so that means it was only 28 years ago this morning I was in the Arts Workshop's shop at 146 Walcot Street breaking into the collection box to finance phoning the ambulance, and later had to blag the busfare back into town from St Martins from another newlydad at the bus stop.......
......and also a big up to my old buddy Ric Knapp.....his birthday today too.....if you see him give him a Happy Birthday and a big smile......don't forget, a smile goes a long way......
Oh and I hope you've all, alright both of you, found the first part of "Gordon the Movie the Story" of some interest and not too tangential.....unless I receive substantial complaints, I shall continue with this mammoth project.....anything rather than show the film !!!
As I have been proud to say on so many occasions, am I not the man who put the letter "n" into cult????
And now back to an old and near forgotten tradition, the Burroughsian-cut-up-email section.
Written in reply to a dear friend only last night.....but tidied up slightly.....
I've been very productive this week...well yesterday .....I went with Maria to Niteroi, over the bay from Rio and sorted out my CPF number...later I get a card...hurrah....that allows me to pay tax here hurrah....but also to buy house, rent a video, get utility bills etc, and then went to the Policia Federal where a Federal Policeman ( Policia Federal) gave me a further 3 months of visaness, all the while with his pistola automatico ( pistola automatico) pointed disconcertingly through the flimsy partition at my even flimsier testicles. However Maria, having noted its proximity and apparent trajectory, managed as if by magic to make her blouse buttons fly open, thereby securing for me both my crutch and my 3 month visa. In fact securing two of my extensions in one fell swoop of her cleavage, as it were.
Then after a massive, posh buffet lunch (£2 each) she went off into Rio on the ferry on biz and I hobbled to the bus station ( in Ingles, bus station) to get the bus (bus) back to Saquarema, where I visited Hannah's tattooist and my barber ( in English, barber) and then got taken to meet an estate agent by my barber ( in english, still barber), and then I went to the Marisco restaurant, ate a slice of pizza, fed a bit to the birds flying around the restaurant, and got a bit pissed.
Then I got a taxi home with a nice taxista or taxi driver ( taxista or taxi driver).
Marisco is a funny word, as depending on who you ask, it means all types of shellfish, or it means mussels, or when you ask Maria it means something completely else entirely. And the word for mussels is something completely else entirely. So when I go to this restaurant I order anything else but marisco, as I never know what I'll get. Which is a shame as it must obviously be the speciality of the house, whatever it is. And also I like mussels which are seafood and seafood which are mussels or which are not mussels. Or seafood. I don't mind really. The slice of pizza was nice anyway....it had mussels and seafood on it. It's called a pizza de marisco. ( translates as " a pizza de marisco" ).
.......written in reply to another friend re. steaming wallpaper (ostensibly)........
aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhsteaming wallpaper......makes me hungry just writing it......I used to be a shopfitter so used to do it on an industrial scale....just as appalling but bigger.....(now I expect he'll start rambling about the past) ........yes here we go.....I have happy memories of being stuck in a large toilet with an ex marine called ##### for several days stripping wallpaper and talking in Geordie accents....it pissed me off cos his was so much better than mine......he was the gentlest ex marine I ever met.....he'd been on duty in the Falklands and was waiting for his flight out on the day the entire Argentine Military invaded.....him and his 95 mates took 'em on and were doing quite well until the wanker governor surrendered on their behalf......got prisoner swapped later on and went back as a scout with Margaret's task force......only talked about that bit the once......involved a bit of wet work I think.............tchou! speek next week!!
.......written whilst drunk to another bud.......
I'm really pissed ....just got back this min from my mate Sonia Cristina's house....we ate a lot of food and I paid for her daughter and mate to go to disco in town so long as they did a dance on one spastic leg for me......life is tough.....well not very but my leg hurts thank god.....
.........I wasnt going to write cos am pissed but then I realised it was you so better if i am hahahahah.....brilliant to get emu from you.....hahahahhahhaahaha
.........I like doing hahahas cos its the only thing i can type consecutively...ouch......that was a good example
.....had my first dance on dry land tonight....managed it in swim pool but tonite managed it dry to latinoreggae.......band called cidade negra....e muito bom!!!!
......must go sleep after poo and wee....coco e sheshe as we say round yer.....will communicate...sorry will communicate more .....tchou ......love you intensely from the bottom of my heart and from my wife's bottom too......am now as well as an estate agnt , an eco-architect, eco-boat designer and eco house building system designer.....isn't life funny sometimes...wait for it hahahahahahahahahah
love that.....
.......and again the next day.....ref. her friend Roger, the cabin boy, apparently.....
Had to reread your missive sober and realised I'd missed a few (well all) salient points....with ref. roger the cabin boy, yes, I will, whenever you like......I remember back in my seafaring days down in Willments Shipyard, oft was heard the cry "pass me another cabin boy, this ones split".....(true actually).....they were of course in very short supply by the late 80's so one often had to make do and mend.....thank the Lord for gaffer tape......big market for that in Ecuador too apparently....well you didn't really think they actually ate the guinea pigs did you?
....anyway I may be slightly off the track here.....but what the hey.....behind the shipyard in Southampton was the grave of a cabin boy. He was adrift for several weeks with his shipmates.....who in desperation finally resolved to kill and eat him as he was the smallest and weakest ( also probably therefore the tenderest).....they'd just got started on their din dins when they were spotted and rescued and all before they could hide the evidence.....and so were hanged. So heed the warning of an old seadog, always pick yer shipmates carefully, and always make sure yer not the smallest......haharrr.
......we used to scare the shit out of young ####, my yacht partner, the smallest and youngest of us, when afloat in a rough sea hahaarrr.....we'd all go very quiet and stare at him.....haharrrr! So was he that very cabin boy.....haharrr.....perhaps we'll never know......
I have to stop writing this i'm becoming very ill....I need my din dins.......haharrr stop it you bugger........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargghhhhhhhhhhhhhhI'll be fine on the morrow I expect
must go ......eat.....perchance to dream.......tchou.....lots of love and stufff.....Nash the lagoonboy XXXXX
Re tropical gardens etc.....
I hope all is well with you. How's the Africa lark coming on? I was telling my plant-head friend Uli about Neem and he said he'd planted a couple of trees here to protect some other planting, but didn 't realise how much other stuff it could do. When I told him of it's commercial value, he said he would kiss my feet if I could show him a viable commercial possibility using trees. Then I showed him my feet! Seriously, he would consider planting in bulk if it was worth doing. Maybe you could advise me on that.
As far as tropical gardens go, I couldn't have jumped from such a tiny frying pan into such a large fire if I'd tried.....the gardens at the house I'm in the guest house of are stunning. Uli also has another plot nearby on the edge of the lagoon....I was there eating tamarind and mango and stuff I can't remember off the trees t'other day. He also owns a mountain ( 300,000 m2 behind the lagoons, which he is planting with palms at the moment, prior to some very minimal building. )
I, in the meantime have become an estate agent(!), as Uli got me to put some property of his on the market. I am also as of yesterday, it would seem, an architect, having suggested a design for a house on stilts with mini-dock for the lagoon-side plot, and we're about to embark on an experimental earthbag building project on his mountain, which I also suggested.
I also reckon I'm about to become an architectural model builder, as I mentioned I used to scratch build models when I was a kid....he doesn't know I'm now near blind!!!
As well as that I broke my leg 2 weeks after getting here, agreed to buy an ex tennis club a week after getting here, which I finally called off yesterday after the two owners turned out to be various types of ass-holes.....as Kurt Vonnegut would now say, this * is what an ass-hole looks like.
Overall I've been having a great time, apart from a few short bursts of frustration (broken leg boredom and discomfort/mosquitoes/heat) and despondency ( tennis club buying from anuses discomfort)....but now leg is getting better....I can now hobble at speed.....tennis club house is definately off so I can get on with finding something else, and Hannah (daughter) is back soon which will be great fun.....
ref. unwanted correspondents......
Wappnin!
..........re religio-fascist I have his address, phone, email, age and name, also now full life history via mutual contact!!
I've placed him to rest in a file called simply "Loony" on my mail machine. He's there for when I have something lodged in my stomach I just can't shift.
Sorry to hear of yr mate.....but bristol is little safer....Ruby (my daughter)'s blokes dad was taken in on a sunday (big mistake) and the thingy machine doesnt work on sundays so he didnt get scan til monday by which time ulcer had exploded and everything had septacaemia (thanx for spelling)....consequently on deathbed then they screwed up again by putting wrong drip on(student nurse) ....accidental pun there.....then he caught the hospital virus.....it goes on and on.....he's now completely fuct and barely alive. Still, thank heavens for little nursies.
Lots of love from Lagoonboy XXX
....sent to Citikey Bath so-called shop guide website.....
First off my shop is Nashers Music Store
2nd I sell primarily records, not videos and cds
3rd the website URL (which you've made up) is nashers.demon.co.uk and has been since 1994.....
....and 4th I closed down on March 26th 2006 and have since moved to Brasil.....
.....apart from that the photo is nice but is 5 years out of date....
....can't see the point of an info site with so much wrong info!!
.....love from Nasher.
Re leg and stuff.....
Nah it's beeen ok...nice (brief) walks and nice weather.....hot but breezy and cool nights which are a relief......all is under control ish.....Uli and Maria are dealing with it all.....there's lots of other possibilities but my head still sees tenis club as home.....once its definately on or off I'll be able to switch to next enthuse.....I'm totally monogamous in a project relationship but totally promiscuous in letting go once its over and finding a new one. Now I'm declaring my promiscuity with projects...isn't life strange.
It's prob just as well Hannah wasn't here.....with her kickboxing skills she'd have crippled the seller and wife with a couple of deft blows and then headed off to find the errant one and maim him for life too......
So I should know in a couple of days whether it's on or off.......Uli's offered me a slice of his lagoon side condo to build on, and even to run the building and selling of other units there if I want ......and theres another lagoonside property Hann and I looked at which Sonia caretakes.....plus theres all the other property around.......I do want summat special tho'. All the houses here are nice cute cosy varandas etc but the rooms are always small even if the house is big. Whatever!!
As for mad women......you can spot them very easily but there are two things you must know......
1) they're women, and
2) they're mad.
It's that simple. Women are just people, and if they were men you wouldn't take mad ones home and put them in your bed so you could touch them. But you will when it's a mad woman, so you can touch them.
Anyone, having cheered things up a bit, I'll go for a jog.
Monday, November 13, 2006
So if you've already seen the pics below, "Gordon the Movie" frame blowups, press and posters, here's the story so far......so far as the end, which is actually the beginning.......
If you haven't, I suggest you flash down for a gander and then flash back up here, and here's the story so far.......likewise so far as the end, which is actually the beginning.......
So...."Gordon the Movie, what's that all about then?" I've prompted you to ask me, completely off the cuff and out of the blue............
Well, and thanks for asking by the way, otherwise I'd have to find some laboured way of bringing it up......well, you've got me in a right flap now with your questions, I'm all a-flushed and all a-flustered, I mean I just don't know where to begin, I really don't.....
......well, I suppose, I should begin at the beginning, which, except in independent filmaking, is usually a good place to start.....
"Gordon the Movie" grew out of my frustration with only ever filming documentary material.....only filming whatever happened in front of the camera, always beyond my control.....obviously I could choose the venue, and the event, and to an extent pick my shots, but always on the fly, and never with any say in the action or the content, or in deciding who did what, to whom, with what and when.
But alongside creative frustration, I had a few other problems.....for one, I was scared shitless of even beginning to attempt to organise anything or anyone, and so although the answer to my frustration was obvious.....put together a project of my own and make it into a movie.....I had another frustration to contend with....that of my own inability to overcome fears and anxieties about getting out there and actually doing it.
Of course, if I came up with a scenario of my own, quite deliberate and specific, with "I made this! " stamped all over it, yet another major fear rears it's ugly head......I'll be setting myself up to be judged......if I make a crap film everyone will know I really am crap, or even worse, make an alright film and people will know I finally pulled something off and start having expectations of me. Oh No!.......The Horror........The Unimaginable Horror.......
And so far, I'd managed to get away with producing so little complete material on which to be judged, that I was quite safe from any of this. And when I accidentally did do something ok, like the film of the Nuclear Waste Train Ambush at Sharpness in '79, it could be put down to being a mere flash in the pan. "He'll soon get over the hump and settle back down to being crap again."
So there I was, hoist by my own, if I say so myself, not inconsiderable petard. Safest place to be is, as always, in stasis. Do nothing, risk nothing, remain quite safe. Of course whilst getting nowhere. But that's the object of the exercise, isn't it??
But in this funny old Universe of ours, things have a funny old way of turning around, so that even with the worst, the most negative intentions in the world, you can all of a sudden find yourself inadvertently being propelled screaming and shouting in the most unlikely of positive directions.
So dammit if one day shortly afterwards I wasn't out testing a new camera, running off footage around Walcot Village Hall in a cavalier, devil-may-care fashion, when out of the blue and into my frame danced one Gordon Robbins.
Gordon was in his fifties, and had been around the Walcot scene for years, doing stuff with the Arts Workshop and playing piano around the pubs. He'd even played toy piano live on stage with Bath's first punk band, "Discharge". He was a talented but ne'er do well piano player, and liked a little more than a drop, as they say. He had only to hear a tune once in order to perform his own extraordinary version of it.
His renditions of "The Laughing Policeman" and of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" were legendary in these yer (those yer) parts.
So he and I sparred around the camera for a minute or two. I said how about doing this and he tried it out. He said he could try doing that and we tried it out. We threw things back and forth to one another, the camera acting as the focus point. I realised I'd found someone who would do what I asked them to in front of the camera, enhance it with their performance, and be happy doing so.
So I had a first element. A character, albeit a real one, comfortable in front of the lens, but eccentric and not exactly a traditional romantic male lead.
So I started thinking....who else could I work with.....who else would consider working with me for that matter? Who was un-snotty enough to take direction from me? Who was un-snotty enough even to turn up, let alone turn up over and over again? I thought about the Natural Theatre Company stalwarts, but we're talking big egoes here, and I thought them unlikely to work ongoingly on a project of mine without ongoingly giving me problems.
Then I thought of Mick Banks, also a member of the NTC, but of a different breed entirely, and with another Theatre Group running concurrently for performing his and partner Corinne D'Cruz's material. Mick and I had always got on well, there would be no ego battle to contend with there.
So .......maybe I had two characters, well no, actually two actors, well, one character, one actor......in fact no characters, no plot, no story, just two people......basically two people who would allow me to boss them around, and who would also agree to be committed for the duration of the project, however lengthy. So something was possible, but what???
So now it's winter 1979.
I have two people who have agreed to commit themselves to my will, well at least they have up to a point! But I don't have much else. A few images, ideas, snatches of dialogue, some fragmentary plot ideas, but nothing like a movie.
So I'm out for a wander around the town and it's freezing, snow on the ground and more falling.
I'm cold and wet and thoughtful as I huddle down in a shelter in Victoria Park. I'm sort of watching people around me hurrying home in the dark, but sort of not. Definately more sort of not.
Images, ideas, memories all start to swirl around in front of me.....it's hard to distinguish one from another,
remembered nightmares merge with ever present fears,
a haunting gas hallucination from the dentists as a child merges with characters from a theatre production, all the more entangled with my worst moments in movies.
Gordon playing the piano becomes my own terrifying Lon Chaney in the original "Phantom of the Opera".
Ralph Oswick wearing a massive rotting wedding gown is a decrepit greaving Miss Faversham in my own variation on "Great Expectations".
Mick Banks is now the terrifying plastic surgeon wheeling the restrained and horrified Rock Hudson off to the slaughter in "Seconds", and a vividly blood curdling encounter with my dead grandmother whilst tripping as a youngster merges with the recent news story regarding the kidnapping from it's grave of Charlie Chaplin's dead body.
Images of flames, blood, offal, blackness and death surround the characters, all these and many more, intertwined and interconnecting, flooding and billowing around me.......the reality of the park and it's passersby has diminished to nothing.....the vision is all encompassing.
I come to.
The park is back.
I'm frozen, but I have my movie.
So this, according to my park hallucination, is my ending.
Easy. Nothing to it. Make a list. Tick things off.
Cameraman? Me. Sound man? Me. Lighting man? Guess who.
Grand piano? Walcot Village Hall has one. The hall is available next Wednesday afternoon.
Wheelchair for the slow tracking shot? The Red Cross have one available for hire.
Someone to push it? Kitty from the Arts Workshop's shop agrees to push me in it.
The Pianist/Phantom? Gordon is available....( by now, I'm so efficient that I actually checked that one first.)
So Wednesday comes....I'm in a state of disbelief.....all the elements are there. Everyone and everything arrives. I station the props and set up the lighting. I already know the music, I hallucinated that too.
It's the Third Man theme.
We take our start positions.
Gordon begins to play.
The wheelchair borne camera tracks slowly along the floor, towards Gordon's back.
With a tungsten bright movie light pointing directly towards camera from beyond Gordon, in camera he is barely a silhouette, the white light flashing around him with each movement of his head and body, until as we track in closer and closer towards him, he abruptly stops playing the Third Man theme and turns slowly to camera.
We are now in close up as he throws his head back and starts to laugh. The laughter becomes ever more maniacal, as he whoops and cackles to camera.
I signal him to tip his head back slightly and keep laughing. He does so. The light flashes through between his jaws.
That image became the poster for the movie.
We do one more take, but use the first.
We've used up nearly a whole 3 minute roll! Damn the expense!
And I know the heavily outdated stock will overexpose the image like mad, giving Gordon an enormous flashing cloud sized halo.
Perfect.
I have my revenge.
I've made the Phantom of the Opera my own.
If you haven't, I suggest you flash down for a gander and then flash back up here, and here's the story so far.......likewise so far as the end, which is actually the beginning.......
So...."Gordon the Movie, what's that all about then?" I've prompted you to ask me, completely off the cuff and out of the blue............Well, and thanks for asking by the way, otherwise I'd have to find some laboured way of bringing it up......well, you've got me in a right flap now with your questions, I'm all a-flushed and all a-flustered, I mean I just don't know where to begin, I really don't.....
......well, I suppose, I should begin at the beginning, which, except in independent filmaking, is usually a good place to start.....
"Gordon the Movie" grew out of my frustration with only ever filming documentary material.....only filming whatever happened in front of the camera, always beyond my control.....obviously I could choose the venue, and the event, and to an extent pick my shots, but always on the fly, and never with any say in the action or the content, or in deciding who did what, to whom, with what and when.
But alongside creative frustration, I had a few other problems.....for one, I was scared shitless of even beginning to attempt to organise anything or anyone, and so although the answer to my frustration was obvious.....put together a project of my own and make it into a movie.....I had another frustration to contend with....that of my own inability to overcome fears and anxieties about getting out there and actually doing it.
Of course, if I came up with a scenario of my own, quite deliberate and specific, with "I made this! " stamped all over it, yet another major fear rears it's ugly head......I'll be setting myself up to be judged......if I make a crap film everyone will know I really am crap, or even worse, make an alright film and people will know I finally pulled something off and start having expectations of me. Oh No!.......The Horror........The Unimaginable Horror.......
And so far, I'd managed to get away with producing so little complete material on which to be judged, that I was quite safe from any of this. And when I accidentally did do something ok, like the film of the Nuclear Waste Train Ambush at Sharpness in '79, it could be put down to being a mere flash in the pan. "He'll soon get over the hump and settle back down to being crap again."
So there I was, hoist by my own, if I say so myself, not inconsiderable petard. Safest place to be is, as always, in stasis. Do nothing, risk nothing, remain quite safe. Of course whilst getting nowhere. But that's the object of the exercise, isn't it??
But in this funny old Universe of ours, things have a funny old way of turning around, so that even with the worst, the most negative intentions in the world, you can all of a sudden find yourself inadvertently being propelled screaming and shouting in the most unlikely of positive directions.
So dammit if one day shortly afterwards I wasn't out testing a new camera, running off footage around Walcot Village Hall in a cavalier, devil-may-care fashion, when out of the blue and into my frame danced one Gordon Robbins.
Gordon was in his fifties, and had been around the Walcot scene for years, doing stuff with the Arts Workshop and playing piano around the pubs. He'd even played toy piano live on stage with Bath's first punk band, "Discharge". He was a talented but ne'er do well piano player, and liked a little more than a drop, as they say. He had only to hear a tune once in order to perform his own extraordinary version of it.
His renditions of "The Laughing Policeman" and of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" were legendary in these yer (those yer) parts.
So he and I sparred around the camera for a minute or two. I said how about doing this and he tried it out. He said he could try doing that and we tried it out. We threw things back and forth to one another, the camera acting as the focus point. I realised I'd found someone who would do what I asked them to in front of the camera, enhance it with their performance, and be happy doing so.
So I had a first element. A character, albeit a real one, comfortable in front of the lens, but eccentric and not exactly a traditional romantic male lead.
So I started thinking....who else could I work with.....who else would consider working with me for that matter? Who was un-snotty enough to take direction from me? Who was un-snotty enough even to turn up, let alone turn up over and over again? I thought about the Natural Theatre Company stalwarts, but we're talking big egoes here, and I thought them unlikely to work ongoingly on a project of mine without ongoingly giving me problems.
Then I thought of Mick Banks, also a member of the NTC, but of a different breed entirely, and with another Theatre Group running concurrently for performing his and partner Corinne D'Cruz's material. Mick and I had always got on well, there would be no ego battle to contend with there.
So .......maybe I had two characters, well no, actually two actors, well, one character, one actor......in fact no characters, no plot, no story, just two people......basically two people who would allow me to boss them around, and who would also agree to be committed for the duration of the project, however lengthy. So something was possible, but what???
So now it's winter 1979.
I have two people who have agreed to commit themselves to my will, well at least they have up to a point! But I don't have much else. A few images, ideas, snatches of dialogue, some fragmentary plot ideas, but nothing like a movie.
So I'm out for a wander around the town and it's freezing, snow on the ground and more falling.
I'm cold and wet and thoughtful as I huddle down in a shelter in Victoria Park. I'm sort of watching people around me hurrying home in the dark, but sort of not. Definately more sort of not.
Images, ideas, memories all start to swirl around in front of me.....it's hard to distinguish one from another,
remembered nightmares merge with ever present fears,
a haunting gas hallucination from the dentists as a child merges with characters from a theatre production, all the more entangled with my worst moments in movies.
Gordon playing the piano becomes my own terrifying Lon Chaney in the original "Phantom of the Opera".
Ralph Oswick wearing a massive rotting wedding gown is a decrepit greaving Miss Faversham in my own variation on "Great Expectations".
Mick Banks is now the terrifying plastic surgeon wheeling the restrained and horrified Rock Hudson off to the slaughter in "Seconds", and a vividly blood curdling encounter with my dead grandmother whilst tripping as a youngster merges with the recent news story regarding the kidnapping from it's grave of Charlie Chaplin's dead body.
Images of flames, blood, offal, blackness and death surround the characters, all these and many more, intertwined and interconnecting, flooding and billowing around me.......the reality of the park and it's passersby has diminished to nothing.....the vision is all encompassing.
I come to.
The park is back.
I'm frozen, but I have my movie.
There are some big fat gaps, but it's there.....I know it, I just watched it. The directors first cut. Always the deepest, as they say.
I realise that I have to start shooting immediately, otherwise the vision and it's feeling of being translateable onto film will fade. I also realise that although I have lots of middle bits, and an ending, I am short of a beginning. So I fix a day, and decide that the following Wednesday, I will start shooting. And first things first, I'll start with the end. First. That way I at least have an end. Which has to be a good start. I think.
So now for the horrors of actually organising something......what if this? what if that? what if no-one takes me seriously? what if no-one turns up?
The ending is based on a terrifying experience I had many years before, whilst still suffering the aftermath of excessive longterm LSD usage, an experience involving Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera.
Chaney's image in the 1920's silent classic had terrified me from being a child. (It still does, I shudder as I write this now!). So much so that I'd always avoided watching the film on the basis that if just the still image did my head in, seeing the movie would probably finish me off completely.
So it's 1973 and I'm staying up all night for a mammoth editing session at Bath Film Unit's HQ behind Great Pulteney Street, all alone but for some cold takeaway, as was my wont.
Somebody has kindly left me a roll of unknown ancient silent movie footage and an equally ancient projector, so I can scan through it for amusement when I need a break from editing later on. And about four in the morning, with a hangover and a cold chicken and mushroom pie lodged firmly, I proceed to run the mystery reel.
Oh what fun, I exclaim. Very dim black and white. Lots of flicker. Trailers....trailers for westerns from the twenties. Oh and trailers for dramas from the twenties.
Oh what joy, and, oh, something a little more substantial than a trailer, we're drifting slowly towards, what is that?.....the images projected by the 1930's home movie projector are none too clear.....yes, it's a massive piano, no, a theatre organ, and there's somebody there with their back to me, wearing a cloak, playing the thing, now we're closer.....
.......at this point, although I'd never seen the film, the hairs on the back of my neck clearly recognise both the movie and the actor, and they know exactly what's going to happen next......
........as the camera closes in behind the figure, Lon Chaney, the Phantom of the Opera, for it is he, turns slowly round to camera and I'm face to face with the most terrifying image I've ever avoided in my whole life. All the blood drains from my body....there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I am not a happy bunny.
So this, according to my park hallucination, is my ending.
Easy. Nothing to it. Make a list. Tick things off.
Cameraman? Me. Sound man? Me. Lighting man? Guess who.
Grand piano? Walcot Village Hall has one. The hall is available next Wednesday afternoon.
Wheelchair for the slow tracking shot? The Red Cross have one available for hire.
Someone to push it? Kitty from the Arts Workshop's shop agrees to push me in it.
The Pianist/Phantom? Gordon is available....( by now, I'm so efficient that I actually checked that one first.)
So Wednesday comes....I'm in a state of disbelief.....all the elements are there. Everyone and everything arrives. I station the props and set up the lighting. I already know the music, I hallucinated that too.
It's the Third Man theme.
We take our start positions.
Gordon begins to play.
The wheelchair borne camera tracks slowly along the floor, towards Gordon's back.
With a tungsten bright movie light pointing directly towards camera from beyond Gordon, in camera he is barely a silhouette, the white light flashing around him with each movement of his head and body, until as we track in closer and closer towards him, he abruptly stops playing the Third Man theme and turns slowly to camera.
We are now in close up as he throws his head back and starts to laugh. The laughter becomes ever more maniacal, as he whoops and cackles to camera.
I signal him to tip his head back slightly and keep laughing. He does so. The light flashes through between his jaws.
That image became the poster for the movie.
We do one more take, but use the first.
We've used up nearly a whole 3 minute roll! Damn the expense!
And I know the heavily outdated stock will overexpose the image like mad, giving Gordon an enormous flashing cloud sized halo.
Perfect.
I have my revenge.
I've made the Phantom of the Opera my own.
Watch this space, well actually this blogsite, for more enthralling tales of independent filmaking at its most erm, well cheap actually.
.....and carry on stanley donwoods, sorry, slowly downwards for pics and frame shots and stuff of the epic movie itself.....
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Well, I'm not sure what this bit is about yet.....to come up to date on life in Saquarema....not much is happening.....since Hannah left 2 weeks ago, I've mostly been fending off online Fascists or offline dodgy property owners...sometimes it's hard to tell one from another.....
I noticed from my site meter that the Fascist from Norway has made his third visit to the site he deems disgusting and written by a subhuman earlier today. Strange behaviour for one so alienated. One of my correspondents suggests he shows classic signs of being a closet homosexual. If so, I just feel sorry for the closet!
Anyway, no nearer to getting an answer to my ultimatum on the tennis club. I'd be quite happy to write it off once it's off, I just wish they'd give me a yea or a nay.....and I'm already looking at other properties, but then I always do that anyway.
This week went with Maria to get my CPF, an official number/card which gets you into the tax system here, and without which you can't buy a house, or get utilities etc. The first stage is at the Post Office.
So I stumble in with my crutch to the back of the lengthy queue, only to look up with horror to see Maria striding to the front and claiming priority for the foreign cripple with no legs and the crutch.....
......doesn't she realise I'm English???....we can't take that kind of thing!.....I wince outloud in embarrassment, but manage to strangle it into an apparent cry of pain, whilst stumbling a little over my crutch for effect.....
......the queue concedes, the Post Office operative concedes, we are at the head of the queue, although I am unable to raise my head above staring at the floor......unfortunately the computer is down, so we'll have to come back another day.
OK, I will plan ahead for next time, two crutches, some carefully choreographed stumbling up the steps, and some louder, more convincing cries of pain.
( And sure enough, next time when I arrive, again with the longsuffering Maria, I am fully equipped and prepared.....two crutches and a practiced range of groans.....but there is no queue, not a soul in sight, and the computer connection works faultlessly....I mean, where's the fun in that???)
..........however I see the beginnings of a short term, on-the-spot hire business.....Rent-a-Moleta....rates by the quarter hour.....15 Reais per crutch......stalls outside every beaurocratic institution in Brasil.....and inside, long miserable queues of tired, bored, guilt ridden apparently crippled people.
And I already have enough hardware to get started!!
So when you break a leg, or otherwise make yourself sedentary for any length of time, who knows what else happens? Something that doesn't obviously spring to mind when you think "broken leg", for example.
And something that doesn't spring immediately to mind when you think "gringo in tropical country"....in fact rather the opposite......anyone there yet??
Alright then.....we're talking about constipation.
In the tropics? A freshly arrived gringo? Surely not.....diaorhea more like. Well, in my experience yes. But this time no. Factor in a broken leg, and the ensuing weeks of arse sitting, and you get constipation.
And when I refer to the Worst Shit in the World, I don't refer to the usual Blair / Bush suspects....
This time, I mean, it really was.
And don't give me that "men have no idea what it's like going through childbirth" stuff....how many women do you know that have given birth to a sixteen pound four foot long conglomerated mesozoic rockjam through their back bottom ???
Just for reference here, you know those floating "problems" that occurr only at your Aunties, or at your new girlfriend's parent's house.....well on this occasion I left four of those "problems" behind. I had to bring the gardener in with the chainsaw. He can't look me in the eye any more. He just quakes and runs off. I feel shunned. Unclean. And he still owes me 15 Reais for crutch hire.
(( This is very much a cleaned up version --no pun intended-- there is no way to describe this event without causing great offence to a great many people.....however if you really want some graphic details, you can email me, but I'll have to be in the right mood.....mind you, so will you....))
So why. you might ask, the photos at the head of the post.....what, why, who, where? When and perhaps which? Probably not which.
These are in fact frame blow ups or similar from my great epic of bad taste and nightmarish morality "Gordon the Movie".....as I mentioned in a previous post, "Where Daydreams are Nightmares, and Death is a Way of Life...."
Actually when I say frame blow-ups, some of them were actually taken by casually holding a slide up to a light bulb with one hand and snapping with a digital camera with the other....real hi-tech precision stuff....the kind of work I'm famous for......done in my shop when I was bored!
I'll post more Gordon related stuff soon unless people beg me not too......you have been warned......
I noticed from my site meter that the Fascist from Norway has made his third visit to the site he deems disgusting and written by a subhuman earlier today. Strange behaviour for one so alienated. One of my correspondents suggests he shows classic signs of being a closet homosexual. If so, I just feel sorry for the closet!
Anyway, no nearer to getting an answer to my ultimatum on the tennis club. I'd be quite happy to write it off once it's off, I just wish they'd give me a yea or a nay.....and I'm already looking at other properties, but then I always do that anyway.
This week went with Maria to get my CPF, an official number/card which gets you into the tax system here, and without which you can't buy a house, or get utilities etc. The first stage is at the Post Office.
So I stumble in with my crutch to the back of the lengthy queue, only to look up with horror to see Maria striding to the front and claiming priority for the foreign cripple with no legs and the crutch.....
......doesn't she realise I'm English???....we can't take that kind of thing!.....I wince outloud in embarrassment, but manage to strangle it into an apparent cry of pain, whilst stumbling a little over my crutch for effect.....
......the queue concedes, the Post Office operative concedes, we are at the head of the queue, although I am unable to raise my head above staring at the floor......unfortunately the computer is down, so we'll have to come back another day.
OK, I will plan ahead for next time, two crutches, some carefully choreographed stumbling up the steps, and some louder, more convincing cries of pain.
( And sure enough, next time when I arrive, again with the longsuffering Maria, I am fully equipped and prepared.....two crutches and a practiced range of groans.....but there is no queue, not a soul in sight, and the computer connection works faultlessly....I mean, where's the fun in that???)
..........however I see the beginnings of a short term, on-the-spot hire business.....Rent-a-Moleta....rates by the quarter hour.....15 Reais per crutch......stalls outside every beaurocratic institution in Brasil.....and inside, long miserable queues of tired, bored, guilt ridden apparently crippled people.
And I already have enough hardware to get started!!
So when you break a leg, or otherwise make yourself sedentary for any length of time, who knows what else happens? Something that doesn't obviously spring to mind when you think "broken leg", for example.
And something that doesn't spring immediately to mind when you think "gringo in tropical country"....in fact rather the opposite......anyone there yet??
Alright then.....we're talking about constipation.
In the tropics? A freshly arrived gringo? Surely not.....diaorhea more like. Well, in my experience yes. But this time no. Factor in a broken leg, and the ensuing weeks of arse sitting, and you get constipation.
And when I refer to the Worst Shit in the World, I don't refer to the usual Blair / Bush suspects....
This time, I mean, it really was.
THE WORST SHIT IN THE WORLD.
Three quarters of an hour of absolute hell. Actually through the gates and right on into the flames.....And don't give me that "men have no idea what it's like going through childbirth" stuff....how many women do you know that have given birth to a sixteen pound four foot long conglomerated mesozoic rockjam through their back bottom ???
Just for reference here, you know those floating "problems" that occurr only at your Aunties, or at your new girlfriend's parent's house.....well on this occasion I left four of those "problems" behind. I had to bring the gardener in with the chainsaw. He can't look me in the eye any more. He just quakes and runs off. I feel shunned. Unclean. And he still owes me 15 Reais for crutch hire.
(( This is very much a cleaned up version --no pun intended-- there is no way to describe this event without causing great offence to a great many people.....however if you really want some graphic details, you can email me, but I'll have to be in the right mood.....mind you, so will you....))
So why. you might ask, the photos at the head of the post.....what, why, who, where? When and perhaps which? Probably not which.
These are in fact frame blow ups or similar from my great epic of bad taste and nightmarish morality "Gordon the Movie".....as I mentioned in a previous post, "Where Daydreams are Nightmares, and Death is a Way of Life...."
Actually when I say frame blow-ups, some of them were actually taken by casually holding a slide up to a light bulb with one hand and snapping with a digital camera with the other....real hi-tech precision stuff....the kind of work I'm famous for......done in my shop when I was bored!
I'll post more Gordon related stuff soon unless people beg me not too......you have been warned......
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