letter to a friend following my first salsa class

hi buddy,

you should see a salsa class. i've had my mits on so many pretty women this evening you wouldn't believe it. of course it takes a lot of concentration. when you are looking at what your feet are doing its a bit difficult not to gaze down your partner's cleavage at the same time. took some pretty determined focussing i can tell you. i wasn't much good at the dancing. but with twice as many women as men who cares? i'm going to practice.

interestingly enough, although you are no doubt aware of this, the steps tie into the rhythm in eights. its ... one, two, three, rest, five, six, seven, rest. the 'rest' is where i tried to recover from the previous faux pas. for those who know what they are doing it seems to be a kind of off-beat in the dance pattern. this was a great ear-opener for me as previously salsa had sounded like a sort of serpentine percussive writhing punctuated with dramatic hispanic ejaculations. now i know different.

the few men and the ladies, at least the ladies of my approximate age, were really friendly. and started telling me about salsa weekends. which they strongly recommended as there would be 'expert dancers and really good teachers.' 'we dress up,' they said. happily only my imagination boggled.

so far so good. the first part of the class, during which i had impartially stepped on several pretty girls' feet, had been engrossing. the second phase was a different story. this was the 'intermediate' session i was told. for those who knew a bit. i could learn if i watched. so i watched.

sure enough they knew the steps. moving smoothly across the floor with assured reserve, there was not a bead of sweat to be seen. no mistakes. no eye contact. no flirting. zilch.

like a cold shower came the realisation ... these people were enthusiasts. enthusiasts. how disappointing. sure they made the dancing look easy. but they also managed to make it look boring. they had no passion. they could have been collecting rare toilet duck empties or back copies of 'routers monthly'. but would they die for their art? would they fairy cakes?

a bit like jazz, i cherish the idea that this music was born in blood, sex and death. not created by jo and jane soap in the fifty four minutes between finishing their fat-reduced-brekkie-snacks and the trip to B&Q for a vacupac of 20mm cross headed self tappers and the half litre tub of grouting. and it does not need to be commandeered by the rhythm wing of the caravan club. it deserves better. it deserves addicts, acolytes, adepts, fanatics, ego trippers, martyrs, prima donnas, anything in fact, except enthusiasts. ‘a weekend with this lot?’ I thought. ‘you must be joking.’

i’ve done enthusiasts’ weekends. as harmonica player with country and western band frisco i still bare the scars of a new years three nighter at pontins prestatyn on my heart. the punters, tho harmless, were seriously barking. they just wanted to dress up as their favourite western movie character.

in addition to a plethora of bog-standard cowpokes we had several Abraham Lincolns, a smattering of 7^th cavalry officers, more than one high tone east coast lady and a happy abundance of saloon bar hookers. a memory persists of an immaculate six foot apache brave with a scouser accent you could float a liner on. now that is a trans cultural experience.

but, not to be too judgemental, if four nights full board at brean sands encourages the dancing ladies to dress up as skankin’ swamp goddesses, all hot mud and serpents for £175, then why not? and, while we’re all getting primeval, what might flow from their enthusiasm once it had been burnished with a little rum and proximity?

perhaps a salsa weekend might be an experience to remember after all.

just call me snake hips

yours affectionately

personal first and last post

You probably know how powerful a word can be. Sometimes when one feels a little low in oomph a couple, well chosen and out of the blue can make a big impact. In fact in this case, such a big impact that they’ve brought on a creative crisis.

They’ve made me realise that I’ve got a public. And its you, Nava. Oh and a fine upstanding republican chap known as the Johnny b. (No I don’t think he’s republican really. That’s ironic brit humour. So its not funny? Even more ironic, huh?)

Anyway now I feel I can no longer maintain my exclusive correspondence with the moon, the stars and the dark night sky. My days of artistic solitude are at an end because ……….. someone, apart from a few very close friends who only do it because they know i'm going to test them on it later, might actually be reading my stuff.

I’ll have to speak to my agent for advice. Should I continue with my wrandom wrambling style? Or should I focus on turning out more of what first made me famous? I am famous aren’t I? Please say I’m famous.

What about the implications for my heirs? (I haven’t actually got any heirs. But they do say it never hurts to plan ahead.) Will there be dynastic duels over the rights to my oeuvre? (The aforementioned lack of heirs probably answers that one. But you must remember it is the function of the writer to imagine.)

Or perhaps you think I’m over-reacting a little? Possibly a surge of meteor endorphins caused by the butterfly kiss of recognition has lead to irrational euphoria? (is all euphoria irrational?)

You could be right.

But thanks anyway for your second instalment of kind words. Which at the very least allows me to say again how much I liked your portrait of Nitzku. And trust me. I am not so shallow as to say that just because you were nice to me. No I’m not. I really am not.

It’s a beautiful portrait. Wedged with love.

dreams dreams dreams

they're bastards really. dreams. and ironic bastards at that. you can't live without them. apparently. the argument goes that if you can't pretty up the future in your own image what is the point of putting up with the slings and arrows of the outrageous present? there is something in that i suppose but you have to admit that they do absolutely nothing to protect us from the elements. or keep us fed. no they leave all that to us while they just bang on having fun and being dreams.

or aspirations if you want to be sociological. of course the more you filter them through academic discliplines such as sociology the more they subtly shape-change. push 'em through one specialism and they take on the semblance of possibilities. once they've got through two they're starting to look like four-square facts.

in the interests of credibility its tempting to adopt the aspirations tag. they at least may be achievable. serious and unflappable sorts talk knowlegdably about aspirations. which have gravitas. whereas dreams have slightly less substance than the glitter on the christmas fairy's frock.

personally i've never had much truck with aspirations. i find them a bit bourgeois. with too much of the weekend colour supplement about them. there's aspirational meals for example. who would not die for an 8 inch high column of poached toad's liver, prawns, lemon grass and something really clever you (well actually not you but the narcissistic and pouty chef) can do with ugli fruit? especially when its served in a refurbished rural post office tastefully decked out in a myriad shades of brown. well me for one.

then theres the aspirational thatched mansion in kent. a 17th century farmhouse for 2.5 million smackeroonies. or that ever diminishing piece of ice cream-hued neck ware that'll let you download and store the entire creative output of the rock and roll industry through the twentieth century. so useful even if it will take you five lifetimes to listen to, with the proviso that you are so sad you have nothing else to do but plug into it.

and thats not all. the thing's so goddamn clever it'll put you in touch with everyone in the world in the twinkling of a credit card. even the guy on the third seat from the right of the back bench of the shed in chengdu (capital of szechuan, dummy) who supervised the thing's auto-assembly in the first place. and who you might like to phone up to order your next generation gizmo when, after an entire 13 months of selfless service, your current purchase becomes the unforgivably obsolete fashion gaffe we all secretly knew it would.

thats where you'll end up if you allow yourself to be seduced by aspirations.

no, best to stick to dreams. if i didn't have mine i'd have become a cynical old badger myself years ago. that i haven't (i haven't ok!) is down almost entirely to the fact that i've kept a careful eye on them. any sign of upward mobility, you know aspiring to aspiration status as it were, and they've been firmly, and not all that gently, tugged back into line. oh i've been loyal to my dreams i have. but have they been loyal to me?

well they're still there. so they've kept the faith. and i guess that's loyalty. they're not quite so sparkley and fresh as once they were but nonetheless, prodding and calling they are. like so many trees on a far hillside. just as they used to. hauling me back from spiritual dead ends and creative cul de sacs.

so what can a poor boy do if he finds his dreams quietly purring away round his feet under 4 decades of life's rich patina just a little wrinkleyer, but still recognisable and quite lively? one answer would be to scrape away the detritus and give them their head. because by now it might be time to accept that they ain't going to change. nor are they going to leave you alone. and a bit like love, you don't have much choice in the matter.

as if you ever really thought you did.

watch this space .........

sounds of travelling ... work in progresss

listening to the traffic drive up the swansea valley through clydach where i now live digs deep. to when i used to lie in bed in granny's house as the few 1950s cars slowly puttered through resolven illuminating my bedroom ceiling as they passed. it gave me the sensations of excitement and security at the same time. a big adventure negotiated from the cosiness of my own blankets. guess i've always been a home boy. preferred travelling in the mind.

we used to visit resolven a lot mum and i. on the swansea train to the foot worn station serving the little town where she had hated growing up. don't know why she disliked it so much. it must have been pretty dirty, like most of south wales when men had man's work to do and women cooked, cleaned, and had the babies. respectability was rife and no-hope mothers didn't shoot up smack. its nastier and more hopeless now.

granny lived in a nice end of terrace on the main street with rachie her fond neighbour to one side. to the back what seemed like a huge garden held a substantial wooden swing frame, borders, a lawn. pear trees grew uncertainly in a walled bed right outside the back door. there may have been a swing in the frame. honeysuckle swarmed before draping itself over the cross bar.

it was the doctor's house. i never met him. don't know if he ever saw me. he'd been a doc in world war one and since had aquired a taste for the drink. what pain he was trying to fix no-one ever knew. these days one might imagine. post traumatic stress hadn't been invented then and alcoholism was not understood as a disease. more of a weakness.

nobody wins a war. wars give history a chance to blow itself out of a bottleneck. but history is an unforgiving general who thinks nothing of grinding mere mortals under its armoured heel. grandad didn't win his war. like so many of his contemporaries he offered his all in defiance. only to be wasted like the leaves in autumn. my gut feeling is that he probably tried his best. at least to help those who had stopped the bullets. and the gas. and the shrapnel.

she had had the benefit of a good education had my gran. been to university in aberystwyth in the early 1900s. one of the leaders of her age really. and she had married the doctor before he left for europe.