death – BLANK CANVAS

Birthdays

These are funny things. The spotlight turns on you. At a young age, the frisson of excitement is almost too much, anticipation and then release. Seeming to take for ever to arrive. As an adult there is more nervousness, whether the presents you have bought your partner are really any good. Will they like them. What made you choose that? Lack of money. Pressure. Having to fulfil expectations both as a giver and a receiver. It’s a day you have to enjoy yourself. Too much pressure. Which is why you should spread it out, have a birthday week. Enjoy the chance of a lie in. Alter your patterns. The Covid 19 pandemic changed birthdays, a screen full of friends, acting, playing games, memories. Almost more connection, although virtual. Rafts of in person events cancelled. Meetings on doorsteps, sneaking off to the park, borrowing a dog for a secret rendezvous. Under control, police states surfacing almost instantly, the collective behaviour altered irreparably. Eat out to help out. Now we can’t afford to eat out or are bored of it, living in a small town going to the same places, eating average food at expensive prices. In doorways, lumps of human flesh are concealed, wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets, possessions stuffed around them, trying to stay warm, trying to be human. Birthdays, like every other day should be about trying to help, to recognise the plight of fellow humans. Stop and talk. Be there. Be present.

I don’t really want to celebrate but I feel obliged. OK I can enjoy it but having a deep winter birthday I try and add some sunshine to my spheres, to meet with friends and get the year moving; light is returning. The flood of deep winter deaths relenting. Hawaiian parties, Latin music, sparkle, light, glitter. There are never any expectations. Spring and summer birthdays have it lucky, or get disappointed due to the weather, or people being away. At least in the winter everyone is generally around, and desperate for something to alter their states of mind. One friend has his birthday at the end of May, often falling on a bank holiday, a time when people are away, doing their own thing. This creates a sense of isolation, a lack of connection as couples, families have their own agendas which cater for their inner circle, the unit, not especially interested in friends at that point. Birthdays can highlight the lack of children, tensions in family, a poignant moment. My dad died on my birthday. Thanks papa. Some sort of perfect symmetry, 23.1.23.

Must you Create a Legacy Instead of Just Existing

Why can’t I just sit at home and exist. What drives me to make some sort of mark on the world, create a lasting legacy, be constantly active, a diary full for months in advance, no time just to sit around and think. It always seems to be the way, agreeing to things without really first engaging the brain. A desire to do stuff, to be helpful, to explore ideas and put on events. Why can’t I just say no or keep my powder dry. Surely it would be easier just to sit on the side-lines, let other people run events but maybe that’s my nature of being an artist. One of the organisers. I’m not even sure it is one of my strengths. Well actually wooing is, so getting people to do stuff, to work with people, help, facilitate, be the natural number two. Peter Taylor to your Brian Clough. There is nowhere to go after over promising. You have put an idea into some else’s head and to stand and deliver. Or else try and back down gracefully without losing face or reputation. Keeping your mouth shut, thinking about things before promising. Review the logistics, the costs, the possible scenarios that could unfold in your head. It’s generally better to under promise, set expectations at a base level so you can gradually work up, surprise people, start to reveal the full extent of what you hope to achieve. Or don’t even say anything, keep your powder dry, have thoughts running around in your head that can stay there, under control, a multitude of concepts swirling within the brains matter. Is it a need to be liked, an area of conversation or just a desire to collaborate, support projects. By saying something it means you really have to deliver, it puts the concept out in the open. Surely this can be a good thing though as it counters inertia. Provides the possibility of creating something great, making a change, a mark on the world that delivers happiness to yourself and others once you have battled through the stress of putting the event on. If you don’t go out there and put your head on the line then you are not a competitor. You are someone happy on the side-lines, which is fine. Some people need to be the creators, innovators, those who push things forward and support a change in the world. Over promising is their reality. Realising dreams. Is there any point in any of this though. I mean we all shift off this mortal coil. Famous people are dying all over the place. Geoff Capes, iconic strongman of early TV. Seemed like a lovely bloke. He will be remembered. DJ’s Janice Long and John Peel, an anarchic Top of the Pops double act, laughing, joking, no longer here. A young guy from pop reality stars One Direction, plummets to his death from an Argentine balcony. Going in one direction, down. Quite youthful world cycling megalith Sir Chris Hoy, terminal cancer. All that healthy exercise and being superfit leading to inevitable doom. Maybe he should have just sat around smoking fags. Same result. You see people heading off for their daily jog or skulking around corners with rollies dangling from their mouth. Which one are you, what path do you choose. Lady Di. Princess of the people, changing the world, battered in a Parisian underpass alongside son of rapist, Dodi Al Fayed. He should have been the one in the car. Justice. If there was equity and fairness in the world then all those out exercising, eating healthily, being kind to the planet, one or no car families, care workers, doctors and nurses, nutritionists, musicians, actors, authors, recyclers, councillors, counsellors, cancellers, administrators, supporters, non-hierarchical activists, and famous shot putters should have the longest lives. We should know how long there is. Surely that’s fair. Otherwise, really what is the point. To be remembered? To leave a mark? To have in some way helped to make the world a better place through selfless behaviour? It is within your own heart and soul that this probably needs to occur, by doing stuff, creating events, putting your neck on the line, trying to improve other people’s lives, being proactive and making a difference is probably worthwhile. You might not get a medal but there should be peace of mind, inner comfort, a warm glow emanating from you, understanding that you have maximised your time on earth, nothing has been left undone or unsaid, like riding through the final 10 minutes of a spin class, pushing until the end, warn out but satisfied that nothing else could have been done.

https://open.spotify.com/concert/1ezpzIxWYHttqXE0pcwH7s?si=e178103aa2e14387

Gig poster for Acantha Lang at Seaton Gateway Theatre, East Devon. Friday 6th December, 2024

Perspectives on Life

Through life you have varied perspectives, middle age suddenly provides a balanced review, looking backwards as much as forwards, remembering events. The mind still clear and lucid but reflective. What a lot has happened across the years, how lucky I have been. That should be remembered and equate to happiness. A life well lived. Sit back and rejoice. No need to constantly chase forwards although that is your natural inclination. News of death always comes as a jolt to life, stopping you in your tracks and reminding of the annoying fact that this doesn’t go on forever. It stops. Seasons may change, you remember key events and reflect, you dream and love, but at some point everything comes to a juddering halt. Our own lifespan, predetermined or forced through actions. Probably best to make the most of it, every minute, stop worrying about the individual annoyances and reflect on the whole. I’m currently moved by the outpouring of love shown between contestants on Celebrity Masterchef, where food and pressure seems to have brought the absolute best nature out of people. They all seem so lovely and loved up. Enjoying the best experiences of their life. It is my new mantra, be the best you who would be on Masterchef, even though my cooking would fall apart, I want to wrap up the energy and be the best human I possibly can. Lets cook.

View looking out through two windows out to sea on the South coast of England.

De’ath

I used to have a teacher at secondary school called Mrs De’ath. I never saw her as the harbinger of doom but just another adult with a slightly French sounding name. The innocence of youth gradually slipping to the realisation that death is all around us, shadowing our every move. On the news in our personal lives. Gunmen running amok in schools. The first part of life is generally great where you just have the odd moment of death in your life. Pet cat, extremely old grandparents, distant acquaintance at school. As you age then it gradually becomes increasingly central to your life. Mortality is up front and central. Cancer crawling around inside people, pulling rugs from lives. Kids left stranded, fending with the parent who is left. Grief rippled through their conscious and subconscious. Refugees fleeing death and risking almost certain catastrophe through cramming onto overly small boats, wobbling across the channel. Iconic and less known musicians die. They don’t go on for ever which seemed to be the case when you were growing up, Everyone was immortal. Friends phone with news of close family members. The cancer has come back, just a few weeks to live. It is something we all carry with us but reality bites hard, takes us away from moments of extreme joy dancing in fields or watching the sun gradually set over a blue, green, orange, yellow sky. Walking or cycling to work, any moment could be a slip where you fall off the pavement or the back wheel slips and death comes roaring into view. You could just stay at home, frozen in stasis, safe from harm although that meteorite heading for earth could come screaming down and finish it all for everyone. Climate change, the death of the planet is ingrown for children of today. Welcome to your world, which we have managed to f+ck. Streams of traffic stuck bumper to bumper in city after city. The world distracting itself by suggesting that they are tackling global warming. Mass queues in airports as passengers fight for connecting flights, oblivious to their part in the planet’s downfall. Pollution, poisoning millions of people daily. Invisible fumes that activate cancer cells. The old days of smoking in shops, bars, homes gone as the most direct health risk is tackled whilst leaving a whole host of others gapingly open. Food. What’s on your plate, a rainbow of colours mimicking the setting sun? Or is it just overcast and grey. Beige. The colour of death. Youth still have technicolour lives, tik tok inspired over bright gaudy flashy sickly multitude of colours whereas the ageing sit in light brown piss stinking armchairs waiting for the chance to exit. Losing their mind as friends and family gather around, a ritual as we see off one more member of our tribe.

Sunset over Glastonbury as people walk along a pathway

Reincarnation

Watching Top of the Pops at 7pm on a Thursday evening in the 1980s. There were only 3 channels, or 2 if you were from a strictly English middle class background and banned from watching the sin of ITV, where adverts and common accents prevailed. Friday mornings saw avid discussion of the latest fashion, moves, sounds, tribes drily piped into our homes by John Peel or his overly smiley fellow presenters. Peel was an instigator, someone who broke the norm but was high profile, someone you could get behind and follow.

There were other Radio 1 DJs in the UK such as Annie Nightingale, David “Kid” Jensen, and Janice Long who were also important but less resonant. Without Peel these DJ’s might not have successfully traversed mainstream and underground arenas. One person centrifugally centred, orbits spinning right round baby right around his beloved Liverpool.

On 25th October 2004 John Peel died at the same moment that my youngest daughter was whizzing into the world, catapulted out and almost immediately tying herself in knots by an overly long umbilical cord. as is tradition, I kept a copy of the newspaper from her birth day, splashed with news of Peel’s untimely death. An icon who had informed the music tastes of millions, defined genres, was gone at the same moment my lovely new daughter was born. I’m sure she will have as much impact but in a different way.