A beautiful faux-spring day. I spent some of it sitting in a churchyard talking about books and sundry related issues with the ice-cap-melting sun in my eyes. I saw a heron and two dancing tortoiseshell butterflies. (There was actually someone else there as well. I wasn't crouching over an ancestor's grave telling them about the mixed feelings of giddiness and shrugginess I'm alternating between over this here book, about which I'm thrilled and not really much bovvered at once.) It was bliss, frankly, even if it made me
fret about stuff as the world is really meant to be
doing more. (That first link's really good, by the way.)
Previously, at about 1am, I was on Oxford Street when a large sleek heart-coloured American automobile slouched by. I admired it - I like a bit of car occasionally. I did ogle a
VX220 earlier - you almost never see them as they never caught on, but apparently they're brilliant. They are properly sexy cars, because they have a certain wackiness and humility about them. People just didn't want them cos although they're basically modified Lotus Elises, they still said 'Vauxhall' on them. People are shallow. At least the ones who buy sports cars, it seems. So someone with one of those I might infer could look past the superficial and I would be immediately Interested, whereas a knob with a Porsche could take his pretentions elsewhere. Most cars that are meant to be sexy leave me cold. But yes.
I was trying to figure out what it was (something wide and American, in any case) when I noticed it said 'WESTWOOD' in big silvery letters across the top of the windscreen. So in fact more like
WESTWOOD
And lo, as it slunk by I clocked that still really not entirely unyouthful face in profile. Despite having met quite a few quite famous people and all but witnessing that they go to the toilet just like the rest of us, I am filled with a certain helpless unapologetic childish glee upon sighting a Famous. On this occasion the glee was somewhat enhanced because well, it was 1am, work it out for yourself. So I did shout, or rather holler, "WESTWOOD!" Or indeed
"WESTWOOD!"
If I'd had my wits about me I would have gone
"WESTWOOD GOODLOOKINGOUTTHERE MYMAINMAN UPINTHEBUILDING BABY BOY HOLLA BACK!"
But y'know, I think I made my point clearly and concisely. Then I made to my companion the neither concise nor clear point that Westwood is actually brilliant, because while many many claim to, like, Not Give A Fuck what people think, he is one of about three living individuals who actually Don't. He must be one of the most ridiculed public figures ever, but he continues to be ridiculous without a blink. It is hard not to believe he's not putting it on, but I think if he was then the enormous number of hip hop artists who give him mad props would have nothing to do with him, and would probably go out of their way to insist that he's a laughable assbag who insults their culture every time he loosens his chiselled white jaw. And, y'know, surely the fact that he was popped in a drive-by shooting in 1999 gives him credibility in his field. Unless someone just thought he was a laughable assbag, of course, in which case the rotten bastard should have put their gun away and just posted something rude on the Radio 1 website like any normal idiot.
I'd just come to London for the first time to live (excepting when I was born, because I was born in London and am a proper actual Londoner and deserve some sort of prize dammit) and was staying in Kennington when
said incident went down. (Ooh look, and that's the hospital where I was born that they took him to as well. In
London.) I was aghast. The guy doesn't even allow swearing on his late night show and dubs noises over all the fucks in the stuff he plays, which means some tracks just consist of a smattering of phat beats and loads of birdsong like they have on Big Brother when someone says "Adidas". He's just a nice bloke. Bonkers, obviously, but nothing warranting a cap in the ass or even in the arm.
(Heh: "police think he may have been followed". Oh, really?) So I am
down with Westwood, due to his setting of a beautiful example of how to be yourself even when white middle-class tossers who would probably love to be a bit more like you like Toby Young and Marcus Brigstocke smugly deride you as a fraud, and everyone else thinks you're a bit of a silly embarrassing twat. I salute his indefatigability.
Go hard, brother number one. N junk.
A bit of a week of new excitingness, really, aside from celebrity hollering (I also saw Neil Tennant in Soho last week, although I didn't holla at him, it would have been inappropriate.) This year is looking at least some shade of fine. 'Fine' in the
urban sense, I mean.
Could someone tell me why they silence out the 'god' in 'this ain't a scene/it's a goddam arms race' in the Fall Out Boy song of the same name when the video is on the telly, but not on the radio? I suppose Nietzsche would listen to emo.
Labels: book, booyah, good music, holla, idiots, insects, menflesh, proper world events, some alcohol may have been taken, the south will probably rise again if it hasn't already, your momma
