Before I start,
before I begin to talk about what I do
before I do anything else
There is something I should say
Out front
before I go any further
And that’s tell you what kind of person I am
I take risks, but not in life, in art
In art I take all kinds of risks
And I love danger and I am hooked, on failure.
That is, I am most happy
When the risk of failure is at its highest.
But in life,
in real life,
I am a coward.
I am scared, a real yellow belly
But I think I am going to change that………… I think
The other thing is,
Well……you know that we all have this, interior life
Where we have our own thoughts, anxieties and such like
And we would just die if any one knew what we were really thinking
Well,
there is something that I do
That I can’t help,
I watch people on the tube
And I wonder what they are all thinking
When I used to travel regularly on the tube
I had a secret interior life
I used to imagine I was some kind of super hero,
I don’t mean that I had special powers or anything
Just that I would save the world by some heroic deed
solve world problems,
conflicts and famine,
that kind of thing
I hate super heroes with special powers
Because there is nothing heroic about them at all
Because they are invincible
for them doing great deeds is just about the least they could do
And another thing they do it,
in some stupid costume or with a mask, why
Take superman by day he is a timid news reporter,
Why, what’s he trying to prove?
What’s the point, is he so bored being super that he wastes his time
Being this nervous nerd.
Maybe it makes all those nervous nerds
feel like superman
I don’t know
Don’t get me wrong, I know I am a nervous nerd
Anyway my fantasies would get very complicated
and take up more and more time
Sometimes I would continue even when I was not on the tube
I thought I was going crazy with all this
Then I stopped making regular journeys
And forgot all about my complex stories
I think
this is a symptom of some kind of medical condition.
For a while, when I lived in this big house in Hackney
I got into this habit of locking the doors and turning off the lights in a very particular order, and
if I got it wrong I would have to go back again to the beginning
Well this innocent thing became more and more of a nuisance and
It would took me ages to go to bed.
so in the end I had to make a big effort to stop
before it got out of control
for a moment, I am just going to interrupt myself
as a matter of fact,
I do this quite a lot
Interrupt my own train of thought that is, anyway
Its was Sunday night in a hotel in Caracas,
I had been there about four weeks
It was about eleven thirty at night,
I went to bed early
But I could not sleep
I had this story that I had to tell, so I got up,
switched on the computer
And started to work.
so I am awake !
at this point the local dogs who live somewhere below my room
on the ninth floor
began their regular chorus,
first one starts
this just encourages the rest
After a while all hell breaks loose and they kick up such a racket
Then you can tell their barks are getting dry
and its even getting on their nerves so they begin to stop,
but one just one won’t, and keeps on
and the others are obliged to follow,
anyway I am sure their throats are dry and sore and its just this one left who keeps trying to encourage them
And I imagine the others all thinking “for Christ-sake give it a rest”
Well, I just wanted to share that with you
The dogs that act like a pack
Anyway, another thing about me is that
I am very susceptible to suggestion.
Bye the way, I am by nature stubborn and impatient.
What does that mean by nature ?
I often use it, but I don’t understand what it really means
And I think, if I did understand, I probably wouldn’t agree with it at all
Anyway, if I watch a movie and the adverts show an ice cream or a hot dog
I begin to crave it, even when they show things I don’t like,
I crave them
I must see the beginning of the movie, even if I miss a second
Its ruined and I have to leave and come back another time.
I love the first scenes and shots of films and I really like the end sequence.
I am not always so mad about the middle
Then when the movie starts I am immediately taken in
I hate it if people talk. I especially hate it when people I am with,
talk to me at the movies.
It’s why I usually go alone.
Years ago, I went with a friend of mine called Susannah Fellows,
This must have been about 30 years ago
I had a real crush on her,
but as usual the last thing I could ever do, is tell her, anyway
I was crazy about her.
She was an American and an actress and when she was in Hollywood hung out with Jane Fonda,
who was much older than her then and as a matter of fact still is.
Her dad was the American actor Don Fellows he came to England and you can see him in lots of movies,
he often plays the American in TV shows and films made in the UK but mainly he was a theatre actor.
Anyway Susannah knew everyone.
So we go to watch Star Wars and all through the movie she talked,
when the big wooly sidekick of Harrison Ford came on,
she knew his real name and took great pleasure in telling me,
she new the name of every alien in the picture, that annoyed the hell out of me,
I was not so crazy about her for a while after that.
but I quickly forgave her
She played lots of parts in the west end;
she played the lead in Evita for a while.
I saw her in everything she did, almost.
And I would always go back stage and see her in the dressing room.
She specially liked to ask me what I thought about the play because she knew I was honest,
so I would say ‘you were great but the play stinks’. That would always make her laugh.
Well as I said, I prefer to see movies on my own, usually in the daytime.
I get a real kick at coming out when its still daylight.
I remember when Alien first came out I saw it twice in the same week.
I thought it was the best film ever made,
I love science fiction like that, and I hated Star Wars, because I could not believe it,
but alien it seemed possible.
Some big corporation risking the life of its crew just to get an alien for its weaponry division.
This was a real dig at capitalism and I like that.
But that’s not why I liked the film, the thing is, I get absorbed by it and I came out exhausted
as if all the things that happened to Ripley actually happened to me.
I am the kind of person that is perfect for advertisers.
If I watch TV and there is a travel programme about some country, I want to go there immediately.
When I saw the James Bond film the first with Daniel Craig,
I came out the cinema, I was on my own,
and I thought I was James Bond,
I looked at everyone as if they were an assassin.
And I imagined being attacked and how I would deal with it and then I think, for christ sake
I am to old for this. But the thing is I can’t help it.
Well on this trip I took with me a book to read, I always take at least one book.
This time I took a book I owned but never read.
It is called the catcher in the rye. I often buy books then don’t read them, I don’t know why I do this,
anyway I bought this book second hand years ago, its meant a be a classic.
Someone on a book awards ceremony said the definition of a classic book, is a book everyone has heard of but no one has read.
It’s a really funny remark, but I don’t like it, its too clever by half, but there is some truth in it.
So Catcher in the Rye, - I have always loved the title but it is a book we were told at school we had to read,
and that was enough for me to decide never to read it.
I forgot to mention along with stubborn and impatient I am very contrary,
I really hate it when some one says you must read this book or something like that.
Right there and then I decided, I wont.
This is stupid because I miss some really good things but I cant help myself.
Anyway enough time has passed and I don’t feel obligated to the earlier
Version of myself
plus I was curious about what all the godamn fuss was all about.
Also though I love the title - I have no idea what it means.
Well, it turns out to be a fantastic book. I could have read it all in one go, I usually do this with books,
I can’t put them down, but with this book, I didn’t want it to end, it’s such a funny book.
Anyway, the central character is Holden Caulfield and this piece, this talk or lecture or whatever it is
is written in his style, or rather the style of Salinger the author who became a recluse and hardly wrote another thing.
Anyways, the book is about three days in the life of this tall seventeen year old kid.
I know it does not sound promising but believe me it is.
If you have read the book then you will know exactly what I am doing in this lecture
If not I suggest you got out a buy a copy.
Anyway for the longest time I did not think I was a real artist
Because you could hear them at talks and lectures, artists that is,
talk and explain their concepts etc and sound so sure of themselves.
And I just did not make work like that and I felt like a fake
So when I was asked about my work
I tried to make up something that sounded
just like all the other crap I heard, but I could not do it.
The thing is I am a very bad liar. If I try and tell a lie, I just sound guilty.
And you know what the worse things is,
even when I tell the truth I feel guilty.
Now I am more confident and if I get asked a complex question that I don’t understand,
for example, usually when you make a talk, there is some one there who feels life has dealt them a poor hand
and is all wound up inside, anyway they ask a question that’s so godamn complicated and goes on for hours and hours and,
I feel like I would shoot them if I could and then they expect an answer….
.......Before I would have been freaked out, now I just say - I have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
I don’t teach much, I am not a natural teacher, there is that word natural again, I should not keep using it but I like saying the word and
besides I don’t have anything to replace it with.
Anyway I have no patience, I told you that already
so when some goddamn student wants to talk about their work,
the truth is it bores that pants of me. I pretend to listen, but really I retreat back into my interior world.
What I hate is when some student starts telling me their concept and I say, - don’t speak anymore just show me something, and
they say - I have not made anything yet, and I say - then what the hell are you talking about,
I cant sit here wasting my goddamn time while you just use me to try out some half arsed idea just to get my approval.
If you want my permission to do something forget it, I don’t give a damn.
In fact when I started a two-year teaching fellowship at a London Art school
I gave a lecture right at he beginning called the art of learning. I thought I better set the record straight right from the start.
I said I don’t give a damn about your work any more than you give a damn about my work,
so don’t come to me and expect some approval. Do what ever you want, don’t make anything for me.
This might sound a bit rough
but the thing is when you are a student you kind of get a kind of crush on the teachers and
you want them to like what you do and if they don’t like it, you are either destroyed by it or you hate them.
I did not want anyone to hate me, so from the start, I said it, I don’t care,
and I did not want to raise any ones expectations.
Anyway, its better that I say that, I hate those crappy teachers who think they know something and
try to impress the students because they are better read and all that.
I was at a private view the other day and the artists were telling me their concepts and I could feel myself drifting off.
Anyway they kept on talking and talking and I was exhausted, I imagined putting my hands round their throat and ringing their necks.
But I didn’t - I just pretended to listen.
I though to myself if anyone asks me that question… what’s your work about, what’s the intention I am just going to say the truth.
-I just felt like doing it, that’s all. If you want a better answer then make one up yourself.
The thing is I know something about myself, and what surprises me is that I manage to get anything done….
or appear, when and where I am supposed to.
For example, when I visit somewhere, like here now in Caracas, I feel I have always been here and that I will stay forever.
I have a hotel room, which I keep calling my apartment,
and I get back at night and say out loud to myself ‘ I really need to redecorate’
Anyway, then one day I have to get on a plane and leave and then on that day I prepare to leave
but how do I know what day it is, or that I should leave because I hardly keep count or anything yet I always get it right, I don’t know how.
Actually that’s how I do most things I just bumble about and somehow things turn out ok.
Working with the music students has been fantastic they are so up for the adventure and just get on with it,
I have worked with them a lot and now I can see all their different personalities.
But I enjoy what I do; on the whole I like being me.
I am setting up a new art school, its called the experimental art school.
This might seem strange after what I was saying earlier, but that’s another thing about me I am very contradictory.
I say one thing one day and then something completely different another.
Sometimes I can do that on the same day and even in the same conversation or even in the same sentence.
I did this fellowship, that I told you about and at the interview I said I just wanted to do my own thing and sprinkle around magic dust,
I think they quite liked that and I got the job.
On the last page of this book Catcher in the Rye, actually there are loads of great lines, but this one I like the best
…….I mean how do you know what you are going to do until you do it ? The answer is, you don’t . I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.
J.D Salinger
So maybe I am a fake............................ I think so
But at least I am a goddamn real fake
Gracias thank you
Caracas April 2011