THURSDAY 5/4/20224: PORN STARS, OP SHOPS, AND FREE COCAINE
I got up early the next morning with Dick, who was going to visit a friend of his, Marquis Thewlis. Thewlis is an Australian punk scene vet of Dick’s, who now lives at Loch Ness and writes books about Satan and the paranormal and, well, Nessie, of course. Dick wanted to visit and interview him and catch up, so was getting a bus up to “Inversea,” as he called it, seemingly unable to grasp the word “Inverness.” (Nessea?) He seemed slightly out of his element travelling abroad. His attention tended to wander quite easily, so I soon found myself reminding him of the time, to make sure he got his bus into town. He missed it, and was not entirely sure of the bus system, so I got him into the town, got him on his bus to Inverness, and got myself back down to Crosshouse.
It was a dry day, rain forecast for the early evening. The more things change. I made Andrew and Fred their first roll oan sausage wi broon sauce (square sliced sausage on a bread roll slathered with brown sauce – amazing), which they both liked. We then hopped across the road (not literally – that would have looked pretty bizarre) and got on the bus up to Kilmarnock (aka Killie). Fred was sitting in a seat facing Andrew and I, and Andrew was in the row in front of mine.
You could tell he and Andrew were very easy in each others' company, old friends, and there was no awkwardness between us at all. As the bus pulled off, Fred, in his own wee creative childlike world, instantly started doodling with his finger in the steam on the wet window. He wasn’t doing it to show off, or for attention, he was just doing it for himself because, well, that was just what he does. This instantly started a mini sensation, and a reaction you don’t often see on public transport – I certainly never had, on the strange bus we were on. I got up and walked over to what he was sketching, but couldn’t quite make it out – it looked like a…nose…or…toucan beak or…something? But the people at the front of the bus watching him were quite animated, and it galvanised them. It was quite fascinating to see, cos the Scots can be quite dour, unexpressive - but kind-hearted - people.
(Last photo: Andrew Leavold)
“What have you drawn, Fred?” I called over to him.
“It’s a Scotsman!” he called back in innocent, non-malicious artistic explanation.
“Oh no it’s not!” said one old matronly woman to my right across the aisle, laughing. But she was not being mean, she and the people round her were quite engaged and animated by the unique sight of this 65-year-old man doodling unconcernedly in our conspiratorial breath vapours on the window, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. I genuinely couldn’t believe it and observed, fascinated. I also soon found out that this was normal for Fred, too, and he caused quite a sensation wherever he went.
Fred’s friendly old unassuming man demeanour, and eccentric clothing, disarmed any criticism of him and his artistic ways. He just seemed like a lovable eccentric. Which was just as well, because the next thing he mischievously cooked up on the window was one of his patented ‘onions’, as he euphemistically called his drawings of vaginas to his kids, in his documentary.
What the average untrained eye would see was a stylised cartoon illustration of what looked like a miniature man, complete with arms and legs. But closer inspection revealed a large slit right up the middle, with a clit nub at the top that looked like a nose if you didn’t look too hard, or know what you were looking at. I chuckled knowingly and took a couple of photos as we got off the bus, thankfully without erotic illustration recognition and subsequent lynching by an angry fazed bluehair bus matron brigade. Thank Heaven for small art critic mercies.
“It’s a Scotsman!” he called back in innocent, non-malicious artistic explanation.
“Oh no it’s not!” said one old matronly woman to my right across the aisle, laughing. But she was not being mean, she and the people round her were quite engaged and animated by the unique sight of this 65-year-old man doodling unconcernedly in our conspiratorial breath vapours on the window, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. I genuinely couldn’t believe it and observed, fascinated. I also soon found out that this was normal for Fred, too, and he caused quite a sensation wherever he went.
Fred’s friendly old unassuming man demeanour, and eccentric clothing, disarmed any criticism of him and his artistic ways. He just seemed like a lovable eccentric. Which was just as well, because the next thing he mischievously cooked up on the window was one of his patented ‘onions’, as he euphemistically called his drawings of vaginas to his kids, in his documentary.
What the average untrained eye would see was a stylised cartoon illustration of what looked like a miniature man, complete with arms and legs. But closer inspection revealed a large slit right up the middle, with a clit nub at the top that looked like a nose if you didn’t look too hard, or know what you were looking at. I chuckled knowingly and took a couple of photos as we got off the bus, thankfully without erotic illustration recognition and subsequent lynching by an angry fazed bluehair bus matron brigade. Thank Heaven for small art critic mercies.
We went down to my bank and Andrew gave me some put some cash in my account, then I tried to pay Friday’s GMAC screening room rental in Glasgow on my phone via a bank transfer. It wasn’t initially working right, and the money wouldn’t go through. Andrew and I wrestled with trying to get the damned money to them whilst Fred disappeared off next door into what the duo charmingly called “op shops,” or “opportunity shops,” or “charity shops” over here. I loved that name. Andrew told me that he and Fred often haunt the op shops together. It’s great fun, and you never know what you will come up with. Loving hunting books in op shops, I knew the feeling.
Eventually, after trying everything we could to get the money to go through, including trying calling the place to be told they didn’t accept Paypal, we FINALLY THANK FUCK – managed to make the payment. Feeling our blood pressure lower, Andrew nipped into the charity shop, CASE (Caring And Sharing Effectively) to find Fred. Then came back out alone after a minute or two.
“He’s not in there.”
We shrugged and reckoned he must have went into Hillhouse next door, another charity shop. So we went in there and looked. And he wasn’t there. Getting more confused and concerned, we went back into CASE to case the place. Nope, not in there. We walked back out onto the street and looked left and right, starting to feel the same sort of raw panic you might experience upon a toddler going missing in a busy city. Which was ludicrous, of course, but so was the fact he seemed to have disappeared without a trace. How was it even possible? Where the Hell could the cunt be? This was mental!
I went back into CASE for a last time for no clear reason, checking every nook and cranny and crook and nanny, looking under and over and here there everywhere. To see, right at the back…half-hidden behind some clothes on a rack…a sign pointing to a staircase to a second floor of trash and treasure! I nipped up and, thankfully, saw Fred browsing all the stuff and nonsense, informed him we had thought he was lost, kidnapped, in prison, or dead, and went and got Andrew to let him know the good found-artist news.
We went back upstairs and browsed for a while, Andrew and Fred picking through seemingly every rag and painting and book and doodah in the entire room, providing a hilarious running commentary on stuff, which I gleefully added to. Fred made me laugh out loud by picking up an old record with a cover photo of a young girl sitting on her instrument, dubbing it the “toilet harp.” Every ancient cracked-scratchy-warble record in the place got a stream-of-consciousness ripping comedic riff, and it was all funny as fuck and utterly unrepeatable and impossible to explain.
“Just buy it, you’ll hate yourself if you don’t. You had it here in your hand and then let it go,” I smiled, playing Sex Addict Devil’s Advocate. But he knew I was right, and ended up buying it, along with another Blu-ray doc about the Nazis and art in WWII. I didn’t buy anything, not having any means to play most electronics – I am practically a Luddite. The three of us then nipped across the road to Costa Coffee and had a brew. Sitting in the window, I explained to my fine Australian guests that the statue of Robert Burns, just to our right in the square, was because the national bard’s first volume, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Vernacular (AKA The Kilmarnock Edition) was published in this town.
Doing some vaguely touristy stuff, we walked round the corner to the Laigh Kirk, the church in the town centre. Unfortunately, the gates were locked, but Andrew and Fred were amused when I pointed out the sculpture Homeless Jesus in front of the church behind the rails. It’s meant to draw attention to homelessness, which is not funny, obviously, but we had some blackly humourous laughs singing “Your own homeless Jesus” to the tune of Your Own Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. They were also morbidly bemused by the gravestone, just visible through the fence, of the severed heads (only) of John Ross and John Shields, as documented here:
http://www.covenanter.org.uk/kilmarnock_ross_and_shields.html
(Mary Millington and Robert Burns, a juxtaposition you won't encounter too often)
Doing some vaguely touristy stuff, we walked round the corner to the Laigh Kirk, the church in the town centre. Unfortunately, the gates were locked, but Andrew and Fred were amused when I pointed out the sculpture Homeless Jesus in front of the church behind the rails. It’s meant to draw attention to homelessness, which is not funny, obviously, but we had some blackly humourous laughs singing “Your own homeless Jesus” to the tune of Your Own Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. They were also morbidly bemused by the gravestone, just visible through the fence, of the severed heads (only) of John Ross and John Shields, as documented here:
http://www.covenanter.org.uk/kilmarnock_ross_and_shields.html
We were going to take a wee walk up Dean Castle Park, but it was a half-hour’s walk away and it was starting to spit with rain, and time was tick-tocking on by – by this time it was 3.30 p.m. We nipped over briefly next to the now-defunct church graveyard not far away, which is now the Portland Funeral Directors. It's a small graveyard and not hugely fascinating, so we weren't there long. Fred and Andrew were hungry, and we then went into a wee place I have never been into called the Killie Café to get some chips. As we had been walking by the place initially, before they decided to turn back to get some food, there was a family of four, parents and two young kids, pointing at Fred and laughing at his clothing. I don’t think he even saw, but he probably wouldn’t have cared, even if he did: he must have gotten that reaction so much, just for his own wild yawping freedom, that it would no longer make a mark on him. Like I said, he had an impact wherever he went, and scarcely seemed to notice it. The guys came out a few minutes later with thick-cut chips (none of that American ‘fries’ rubbish, which I call ‘potato debris') and, giving me one, I discovered they were the best I had ever had in the town. Noted for future reference.
We got the bus back down to Crosshouse and bought some Stella, starting drinking. 5 p.m. or so rolled around and a very good friend of mine, award-nominated writer Chris Kelso (I did the intro for his book Burroughs and Scotland, about William S Burroughs in, well, this country), turned up. As he walked in, I resumed air guitaring to the Blood Visions album by Jay Reatard. He was in a GG Allin teeshirt, and was bearing gifts for our Australian friends: a tin of shortbread, and Scotland scarves for both Fred and Andrew. They loved them, needless to say. He also had brought some The Eagle Has Landed, a tasty Red Ale, and those went down a treat too. Chris took an instant shine to one of Fred’s 78 creations, the funnily punning-named Umberto Eco and the Bunnymen, and bought it for $200 Australian. Great taste.
We got the bus back down to Crosshouse and bought some Stella, starting drinking. 5 p.m. or so rolled around and a very good friend of mine, award-nominated writer Chris Kelso (I did the intro for his book Burroughs and Scotland, about William S Burroughs in, well, this country), turned up. As he walked in, I resumed air guitaring to the Blood Visions album by Jay Reatard. He was in a GG Allin teeshirt, and was bearing gifts for our Australian friends: a tin of shortbread, and Scotland scarves for both Fred and Andrew. They loved them, needless to say. He also had brought some The Eagle Has Landed, a tasty Red Ale, and those went down a treat too. Chris took an instant shine to one of Fred’s 78 creations, the funnily punning-named Umberto Eco and the Bunnymen, and bought it for $200 Australian. Great taste.
After drinking for a while, we headed out round to McChristies for a couple. It's a decent wee gaff. We had to pass Patos (best pizza in Kilmarnock! Hand tossed!), whom I used to deliver pizzas for before my car had to get scrapped after failing its MOT a few months ago. Outside was young Danni, the owner, a great person all round. I had asked her if she had a few towels she could loan me, and a couple of pint glasses too. She had gotten them, and asked if I wanted them right then. I said no, we were going to the pub, but would be back round before closing later to get them.
There weren’t that many people in, and it seemed such a shame that the screening hadn’t gone ahead. Shrug. I introduced the crew to Kirsty, and we grabbed a table. Andrew and Chris were at one end, I was at the other, sitting across from Fred who, as usual, was sketching away, reproducing the evolving evening’s scene on a Judy Garland 78 of The Trolley Song/The Boy Next Door (must not be used for radio!) from her 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis. And why not? It’s as good a medium as any.
The evening slid and sloshed amiably on by. Chris was delighted to find out that Andrew knows the guy who owns the flat from the 1981 Andrzej Zulawski body horror film Possession. He just wrote a book about it (I have an interview with German director Jorg Buttgereit in there) and Andrew is going to hook him up for a visit to the place. A guy I have met a few times called Dougie came over with his dug (dog) and talked away to Fred about music, feeding the jukey as he did, being a big UK indie music fan. I got Fred to tell him his hilarious story about Kurt Cobain, who “nicked his flannie” (stole his flannel shirt) on a trip to Australia one time. He’d told me this story earlier on, and it cracked me up. Having been a singer for decades, sharing a stage with some big name bands in the different outfits he has fronted and backed, Fred had stories for days; his one about Nick Cave’s musical taste at a drunken party was hilarious, as was his puking-pissing Mark E Smith one. It was amazing how effortlessly art and artistic stories just spewed out of this man like a mad fire hydrant.
There weren’t that many people in, and it seemed such a shame that the screening hadn’t gone ahead. Shrug. I introduced the crew to Kirsty, and we grabbed a table. Andrew and Chris were at one end, I was at the other, sitting across from Fred who, as usual, was sketching away, reproducing the evolving evening’s scene on a Judy Garland 78 of The Trolley Song/The Boy Next Door (must not be used for radio!) from her 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis. And why not? It’s as good a medium as any.
The evening slid and sloshed amiably on by. Chris was delighted to find out that Andrew knows the guy who owns the flat from the 1981 Andrzej Zulawski body horror film Possession. He just wrote a book about it (I have an interview with German director Jorg Buttgereit in there) and Andrew is going to hook him up for a visit to the place. A guy I have met a few times called Dougie came over with his dug (dog) and talked away to Fred about music, feeding the jukey as he did, being a big UK indie music fan. I got Fred to tell him his hilarious story about Kurt Cobain, who “nicked his flannie” (stole his flannel shirt) on a trip to Australia one time. He’d told me this story earlier on, and it cracked me up. Having been a singer for decades, sharing a stage with some big name bands in the different outfits he has fronted and backed, Fred had stories for days; his one about Nick Cave’s musical taste at a drunken party was hilarious, as was his puking-pissing Mark E Smith one. It was amazing how effortlessly art and artistic stories just spewed out of this man like a mad fire hydrant.
(Last photo, of Fred trashing the record: no idea whatsoever, maybe Dougie)
Fred told some “man walks into a bar” jokes about the likes of Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, and such (Sample: “Jackson Pollock walks into a bar and says ‘I’ll have a pint and a mop.’”). The jokes were funny in themselves, but their painterly erudition betrayed a man who, if you knew nothing about him, you would never credit with the artistic insights and education and talent he had. It was mental, and totally fascinating. Every aspect and facet of his character built to a wider volcanic artistic whole, spilling out of him in some way or another all the time. He would sit quietly vinyl-doodling with coloured paint pens, legs ceaselessly moving, knees moving and knocking in and out, mind always in motion, hand and eye sharp and focused and art-ready-and-steady.
If you addressed the artist he would drag himself up a slight level of comprehension, always just lurking under the attention surface. Drinking and thinking and drawing and listening and talking, it was all a seamless slipstream-of-consciousness process, never a beat missed, never a sloppy move made, never a stagger or stumble. I never once saw him drunk and flailing, despite his constant drinking, tempered by his drinking hand being full of pens and beauty and intent. This was Fred’s first-ever innocent-abroad trip outside Australia (except for having visited New Zealand, which doesn’t really count, as it’s the same continent), and he was soaking up every detail for later (or sooner!) cartoon reproduction. It was genuine genius in constant aesthetic or communication action, and I don’t say that lightly or easily. Fascinating and thrilling to watch, or to just be in the general vicinity of from start to finish.
Fred eventually took the record he’d been drawing a piece entitled Acid Pussy Eaters on and bit into it for no clear reason, breaking it into three pieces. I still have the pieces of that now-triptych artwork, and told Fred that him trashing it was like it being a self-destroying Banksy. He laughed. It's drawn over a 1949 Frank Sinatra 78, A Slow Boat To China (backed with Haunted Heart), and I daresay Ol' Dead Eyes has never looked or sounded better.
If you addressed the artist he would drag himself up a slight level of comprehension, always just lurking under the attention surface. Drinking and thinking and drawing and listening and talking, it was all a seamless slipstream-of-consciousness process, never a beat missed, never a sloppy move made, never a stagger or stumble. I never once saw him drunk and flailing, despite his constant drinking, tempered by his drinking hand being full of pens and beauty and intent. This was Fred’s first-ever innocent-abroad trip outside Australia (except for having visited New Zealand, which doesn’t really count, as it’s the same continent), and he was soaking up every detail for later (or sooner!) cartoon reproduction. It was genuine genius in constant aesthetic or communication action, and I don’t say that lightly or easily. Fascinating and thrilling to watch, or to just be in the general vicinity of from start to finish.
Fred eventually took the record he’d been drawing a piece entitled Acid Pussy Eaters on and bit into it for no clear reason, breaking it into three pieces. I still have the pieces of that now-triptych artwork, and told Fred that him trashing it was like it being a self-destroying Banksy. He laughed. It's drawn over a 1949 Frank Sinatra 78, A Slow Boat To China (backed with Haunted Heart), and I daresay Ol' Dead Eyes has never looked or sounded better.
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A somewhat...merry man in his sixties called Rab came across, being somewhat loud, trying to inveigle himself into the evening’s proceedings. He and Andrew somehow got talking, and when it came out that Rab has a Filipino wife, and Andrew has spent significant time in his life in the Philippines (after all, it’s where he made The Search For Weng Weng)…that was it, we had another partier on our hands. He did annoy me at one point, sitting in between me and my own guest party at the table, but ultimately it didn’t matter worth a fuck and the evening staggered to a close. Rab wanted the crew to stay at his house, barely coherent – doubt his wife would have approved! – and he was thanked. Think Kirsty was giving him a lift up the road, as his earlier-phoned wife was somewhat nonplussed, for obvious reasons.
The three of us, not exactly sober, got back to my flat and wired into the Stella. I tried on Fred’s coat, looking like a Latvian whore down on her luck, unable to carry the look off, unlike the garment’s owner. The old familiar dark wet beer curtain started to liquid crash, and my last memory was our terrible trio singing the song Burger Shop Slaughter to Andrew’s phone in close-up. This song, from the 1987 I Spit On Your Gravy (one of Fred’s many bands) album Fruit Loop City, is a stone cold classic, such a smiling jeering sneering yawp of absolute fuck-you freedom, and I can never get enough of it. Getting to howl along to it (my upstairs neighbour Mike was not in, working night shift that night, and there are no other neighbours really all that nearby) was a life highlight. Probably. Need to see the video again, Andrew!
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