Naked Tea finally.

It's out! Just in time for Christmas. 54 pages of world-class literature and exciting graphics.



I'm charging $12 (plus $5 shipping and handling) unsigned. Signed copies are $20 (plus $5 s & h). About what you'd pay to watch a vampire flick. A hamburger will run you that in a lot of places. With fries if you're lucky. And it's not my fault. They cost a fair bit to print...then there's tax and I have to give the author something. It doesn't leave much for me to maintain a few bad habits.


You can buy a copy here....

Books

Naked Tea Book $12.00 CAD Signed by Author Copy $20.00 CAD

Naked Tea

A bloke called Philip Willey has asked me to help him plug his book about William Burroughs. Why not? I think Burroughs has a lot to answer for to be honest but I don't mind helping a struggling author. I was one myself once. The book is short but contains some pretty good writing. The graphics, by Lyle Schultz are excellent. Here's the cover... More info here. It's not on the market yet. When it is I'll let you know. Dick.

Happy birthday Zippy!

Looking for a diversion from the unreported irradiation of the entire northern hemisphere? Bored by yet another set of liars on the idiot-box, filling the airwaves with disinformation about the invasion of Libya? Try this....

Fan Tan by Brando and Cammell.

It looks like the sort of thing you might stumble across in a remainder bin in a used book store. 'Fan Tan'. Ah hah I thought another obscure masterpiece cobbled together by some old alcoholic expat in a Thai village. Judging by the cover (never do that) it looks like a Harlequin romance set in the mysterious East. There’s the exotic Asian woman in some sort of silk kimono thing and the besotted Western sailor on the ground wondering what he’s got himself into. So imagine my surprise when on closer inspection the authors turn out to be Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell! Brando of course is the well known actor who spent his later years on an island near Tahiti. But what was Cammell’s name doing there? Cammell was the film maker behind ‘Performance’ starring Mick Jagger...a destructive little shit according to Keith Richards in his autobiography ‘Life’. Intrigued I picked the book up...bought it and took it home. This could be good. Well not exactly. It isn’t a cliché ridden load of rubbish but it comes perilously close. The year is 1927. Anatole ‘Annie” Doultry is a middle aged adventurer serving six months in Hong Kong prison where he befriends a well-connected Chinese pirate. Once out he meets and falls in love with Madame Lai Choi San the pirate’s beautiful boss. Together they sail around the China Seas on her sampan looking for treasure. They plan to attack a freighter full of silver, the biggest act of piracy the world has ever seen no less. One would think this might provide for some interesting character development. But Doultry is too much like Brando. He’s a man of action but his mind wanders all over the place like Kurtz in ‘Apocalypse Now’ and his philosophical musing isn’t coherent. He has an aversion to authority of course, intellectual swashbuckling, that’s his game but he can’t stick to the plot. Here’s Annie on his bunk meditating… “However though he was once a Scot, it was not the future of the city that bore on Annie Doultry’s brain, not the world’s either; his own future it was, or would be. The reality to be expected, the facts of it. But was there such a thing as future fact? There was one for Mr. Wittgenstein, indeed.” Huh? There’s a kind of surreal madness about the book that kept me turning the pages but a lot of the writing is pretty bad. Mind you there are steamy sex scenes to make up for it. There’s plenty of action including a typhoon, intrigue and hand-to-hand combat. There’s even a reference to the famous butter scene in ‘Last Tango’ which should amuse movie buffs. It’s a strange book, full of perverse little asides, and it all takes place against a background of the revolution in China when the Nationalists and the Communists and others were forming temporary alliances. To be fair it should probably be described as a treatment rather than a novel. And it turns out that putting Brando’s name on the cover is a publishing trick. Cammell wrote it. In fact the best part of the book comes at the end where film writer David Thomson explains how the book came to be written. Cammell had tried to get Brando for ‘Performance’. Brando was in hospital at the time after scalding his private parts with hot coffee. Anyway he turned the offer down. Later, with Brando weighing about 300lbs due to ice-cream addiction Cammell tried again. They had a complex relationship. The book did get written but getting it published was another matter. Brando baulked again. Maybe he was ashamed or maybe he just enjoyed tormenting Cammell. Anyway Brando died and Cammell shot himself. The twists and turns of the publishing process would make a good book in themselves I thought.

Fun in Belgium.

Time to get animated.

Nick Kent: Apathy For The Devil.

(Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Faber/Guardian) Julie Burchill is full of shit. Or maybe just plain jealous if her bitchy mean-spirited review is anything to go by. She has nothing good to say about Nick Kent’s book or about Nick Kent for that matter. Nastiness in rock-writing has acquired a kind of permanence and old feuds live on. Kent has described her somewhere as Myra Hindleyesque. Now Kent has written a sort of biography, or ‘ 70’s memoir’ if you prefer. Nothing very unorthodox. His parents were straight middle class people but not unkind (he eliminates the Philip Larkin excuse in chapter one). They thought Elvis was ‘some degenerate hillbilly maniac’ and Frank Sinatra was ‘a smarmy little gangster’. Kent was a fairly typical bedroom hermit. He went to school. Literature attracted him. He’d been impressed by Keats and Elliot and made a serious study of Joyce’s Ulysses. But he liked pop music better. His parents thought he should go to university. The music press at the time consisted mainly of bland promotional copy. Seeing the Rolling Stones at the tender age of 13 was a pivotal moment. The young Kent was much taken with the Stones. He liked their ‘don’t give a shit’ attitude. As a young man he was shy, awkward and effeminate (his own words), and something of a misfit. The Stones music was exciting and primeval. It drove the girls wild. Changes came fast in the Sixties. Woodstock and Altamont were seen by some as the high and low points of the so-called counterculture. Rock Sculley called them 2 ends of a mucky stick…the ‘bloating of mass Bohemia’ (there is a distinctly cynical tone to this book). Anyway at some point Kent seems to have had an epiphany. Reading Creem and Rolling Stone he suddenly knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a writer like Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Lester Bangs. New journalism it was called. Kent prefers the term Zeitgeist-surfing. He likes the word Zeitgeist. Kent even went to America to meet Lester Bangs and learn the art of myth-debunking from a master. In 1972 he landed a job writing record reviews for Frendz, a radical magazine, at £4 a month. Seeing his words in print was exciting. Nick had found his niche. He quickly realized that he was in the right place at the right time, part of a new kind of rock writing. He was free to write whatever he wanted. Hands on stuff where the writer becomes a willful participant. Alternative magazines like Frendz were struggling in 1972. The revolution wasn’t going well. But there was plenty of music to write about. Music fans were almost begging for an extreme, abrasive kind of writing that would penetrate the pot haze. Kent did some interviews and it wasn’t long before the New Musical Express noticed his efforts. They hired him to increase circulation. He, Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald had the UK scene pretty much to themselves for a while. He wrote a two piece article Led Zeppelin which really got the ball rolling. Led Zeppelin liked it. So did the NME. Sales figures improved. Everything was going well. Nick found interviews easier to get though Bowie remained elusive. Rock writing could be dangerous work. There was trouble in the toilet with Bob Marley, a near death experience with Iggy Pop, an unhappy relationship with Chrissie Hynde, and a vicious attack by a Sex Pistol. The bulk of the book deals with his years at NME, interviews, anecdotes, drugs, getting sucked into Keith Richard’s vortex, that kind of thing. Young readers will probably find it all a bit silly and pointless. In retrospect a lot of it probably was. Kent himself seems almost apologetic sometimes. But he was definitely there. There aren’t many startling new revelations about the private lives of rock royalty however. Kent has dealt with them elsewhere. In the ‘The Dark Stuff’ for instance, when he was on top of his form, he wrote about the down side of rock, people like Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett and Kurt Cobain. Perhaps he got too close to the maelstrom. Maybe he thought he could handle heroine. Maybe he was just young but he became a victim of his own dark side. Compassion was in short supply in the music industry. Kent can sound whiny at times, as if he feels unappreciated. He has certainly mellowed. Almost fatalistic. There are a few flashes of the younger acerbic young rock-writer but he seems almost embarrassed about some of his excesses which makes for an interesting combination of self-effacement and self-importance. Regrets? Some, but he thinks he got what he deserved. And things turned out OK. Laurence Romance, quel nom alors, replaced methadone in his life. They have a son, James. Kent now lives in Paris and writes the occasional piece for Mojo. Things could be much worse. So what have we learned from all this? Nick was on top of the music scene for a while but he messed up? That’s too easy. It would be kinder and more accurate to say that he got taken over by events. Rock changed. Yes getting bashed with a bike chain by a three-chord junkie like Sid Vicious was just another McClaren publicity stunt but it must have hurt in more ways than one. Kent says he was too stoned to remember it. He was already pretty strung out by this time, his girlfriend at the time had left him and he was homeless. Still it’s hard not to see the event as a metaphor for the prevailing nastiness. Or some kind of karma perhaps. The point is he lived through it...and he did really love the music, it may have only been rock and roll but he liked it, and he wrote about it well. Which brings us back to the ongoing feud with Ms. Burchill. They seem to deserve each other in a way. It’s tempting to speculate on what kind of loving couple they would have made. Kent is definitely on top when it comes to self-knowledge. Good for him. His book makes a good read. Ms. Burchill can get knotted.

A job with a view.

The Silk Road.

I’ve been reading up on the Silk Road. Fascinating story. A good place to start is Peter Hopkirk’s book ‘Foreign Devils on the Silk Road’. It’s a very readable account of how people like Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein et al. rediscovered lost cities and helped themselves to artifacts and manuscripts (for which the Chinese have never forgiven them.) Here’s Paul Pelliot in Dun Huang…
Paul Pelliot et le trésor national chinois
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Ricky and Louis.

Some viewers may find this offensive. Some may not. Some may be so bummed out they just don't give a shit.

Ginsberg and McCartney.

Not many people realize how influential Paul McCartney was in the London 'underground'. His generous donations were a big help to Barry Miles who founded Indica with Peter Asher and John Dunbar in 1965.

Izzy breaks out.

Who? E@L's delightful ex-flatmate of course. No not the bloke with the tattoos. See here for details. Xiaxue keeps on shopping.

Siam and South Korea (1931)

with Nathaniel Shilkret's Travel Talk Orchestra.

Hitchens, Amis, Cancer & God.

I know, I know, it sounds like a prestigious law firm. But it's no laughing matter. Hitch may only have a few months to live. Great career move by Goldberg when he's not drumming up wars. "How am I? I'm dying."

Mick Farren looks back.

Mick Farren, looking very er...mature and dignified, discusses his book Speed Speed Speedfreak with Richard Metzger...

Mick Farren - Speed Speed Speedfreak from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.

Nick Kent: The Seventies

I haven't read the book yet so a full review will have to wait. Julie Burchill says it's not very good....but she would.

Frienemies, the Afghan War explained.

http://www.markfiore.com/

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet.

‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet’ David Mitchell is set in Japan in 1799. Jacob Van Zoet is a young Dutchman working in for the Dutch East India Company at the precise point when European powers are trying to get a foothold in Japan. The Dutch East India Company is the only European company permitted to trade so most of the story takes place in the claustrophobic foreign enclave of Dejima where the foreigners are confined. The Japanese distrust the foreigners but they are also fascinated by all things Western. This tension is a constant throughout the book as the forces of European colonialism and Japanese tradition clash like Sumo wrestlers. Dutch pragmatism is contrasted with the Japanese love of the transitory. We see the seeds of modern Japan being sown. East meets West has been a staple topic for numerous writers. Great writers like Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess and even Chuck Woww have all had a crack at it. Mitchell excels in the research and his imaginative powers are extraordinary. He is able to project himself backwards and create vividly detailed vignettes and authentic dialogue. Unlike ‘Cloud Atlas’, TTAOJDZ is a straightforward linear narrative. It’s written in the third person and it doesn’t stray far from Dejima. Jacob meets, and falls in love with, Miss Orito Aibagawa, a medical student whose face has been scarred, making her unmarriageable. Orito gets whisked off by a powerful abbot who runs a mysterious mountainside convent/shrine dedicated to a dark fertility cult. Jacob brings her back. This is an adventure story complete in itself. TTTAOJDZ is packed with stories. Sailors, merchants, clerks, interpreters are all squeezed into a small hot space where they are obliged to deal with each other on a daily basis. When these characters aren’t busy private-trading on their own account they pass the time by defrauding the company and telling each other hair-raising stories. So the book is essentially a series of anecdotes joined by a common location. This is what gives it its intensity. There are points where it seems as though Mitchell is getting carried away with his own imaginative virtuosity. This new novel sprawls, like the title, but it’s compulsive reading.

Burroughs/Gysin/Dream Machine.

Flicker is a film by Nick Sheehan. It’s a look at artist/writer Brion Gysin who never got much attention during his life. He was born in 1916 in England to Canadian parents may have given Gysin something of an identity problem. Or perhaps he was naturally rootless. He grew up in western Canada and later attended Downside School near Bath, Somerset. In 1934 he moved to Paris where he studied La Civilisation Francaise, an open course at the Sorbonne. Whilst there he became attracted to the Surrealists but he got in a fight with Andre Breton and was expelled from the movement. This event is not given much weight in the film but it must have driven him further in on himself. Then came the legendary meeting with Burroughs in Tangers, the cut-ups, and the years they spent in the Beat Hotel, Paris. The film contains comments from people like Kenneth Anger, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithful, Jean-Jacques Lebel and Genesis P.Orridge. Various intrepid cultural icons record their experiences in front of the machine. They talk about amazing colours etc. but any long-term effects on perception are unclear. Some of the most illuminating comments are hidden between the lines. Gysin comes across as a complex character. Prickly, knowledgeable and obtuse. An outside outsider. Not bitter or anti-social particularly but isolated from the mainstream avante garde. He appears to have genuinely wanted to transcend himself, much more than Gertrude Stein or even Joyce and Beckett ever did. A rose is a rose…I am that I am that. Apart from his collaboration with Burroughs nothing seemed to go right for him He invented a dream machine but failed to interest any companies in the commercial possibilities. It wasn’t seen as a second Lava lamp and he couldn’t get an article about it into Rolling Stone. The lack of success or recognition must have weighed heavily on him. It’s harder to dismiss Gysin’s paintings. There the main concern is language itself. The paintings represent many different attempts to become the ‘other’ and to isolate the essence of language. Robert Palmer in his introduction to ‘The Process’ talks about Gysin’s paintings being written in Japanese from top to bottom with Arabic across it from right to left. John Geiger describes him as a mythomaniac. His book ‘The Process’ has been reprinted perhaps as part of a general reassessment of his legacy. Was he an important cultural figure? What’s the book like? Well, it’s not very good. The basic idea is a pot-smoking black American professor, Hanson, who is hired by a Foundation to cross the Sahara. So it’s a quest for or away from the self. This involves him in a personal journey into his own self. The Sahara dominates everything. It is both spectacularly beautiful and completely merciless. Life there is hard and all travel is controlled by a handful of regional officials who act like petty tyrants. Carries a tape recorder. Gysin transcribes the conversations. I, thou, he, she, it…these are the voices of his other selves. Lovingly described keef pipes keep appearing and Arab boys are plentiful. This book is not for homophobes and the geography is confusing. It’s not clear how he gets from In Salah to Bechar and then to Oujda but he spends a lot of time squeezed into trucks with strange people. It’s hard not to read the book as autobiography. Gysin wasn’t black but he did have an academic background. The book is a quest. The trouble is he’s not much of a writer. He comes up with some good sentences but he can’t string them together. In spite of William Burroughs glowing endorsement the writing is flowery and pretentious for the most part. Gysin was a friend of Paul Bowles so there’s more than a hint of the ‘Endless Sky’ which is basically a fictional account of Bowles own journey into the endless waste. Or maybe Gysin set out to write something mysterious and druggy along the lines of Carlos Castaneda. The ‘Teachings of Don Juan’ predates ‘The Process’ by a year. Gysin is no Burroughs, Bowles or Castaneda. He’s good at creating allusion, he uses lots of tricks but The Process rambles and goes nowhere. None of this makes the book unreadable. The attempts at humour don’t come across well, Gysin doesn’t seem to have had much time for self-deprecation, but there are some interesting details about traveling in the Sahara once you get used to the tone. There’s also something fascinating about watching a self-absorbed individual trying to get away from his own self. And it is a very unusual book…there are points where it seems to read the reader.

The Pregnant Widow

In his new novel, ‘The Pregnant Widow’, Martin Amis has tried to blend Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ with a heavy helping of the Narcissus myth. Keith, an aspiring chain-smoking poet with a proletarian name, is a mock-hero spending a summer in a castle in Italy with some friends. He wears cool pants and he’s having an on again/off again thing with his girlfriend Lily. They’ve gone there to get away from it all but of course they bring it all with them. Some of Keith’s friends are posh. Scheherazade is being chased around the castle by Adriano, a vertically challenged Italian aristocrat. Whittaker is Keith’s gay drunken mate who gets fucked by the predatory Rita. They are joined by the mysterious Gloria Beautyman whose shapely arse attracts a lot of attention from the lads in the village. Most of the time is spent lounging around the pool being witty and there’s a Muslim of course to represent sexual repression. Amis loathes Islam. For Keith, who is looking for the ultimate sexual experience Scheherazade’s breasts represent eternal female bliss if he can just find the right formula. Looking back years later he can’t quite work out why he was disappointed when he actually got whatever it was he thought he wanted at the time. It’s not clear what kind of book Amis was writing. Is it a sexual comedy of manners with major themes or a memoir? Or both? Nothing much happens and there’s no real story. Unless you count the parts where an older wiser Keith reminisces about it all the writing is flat. I was in trouble from page one. The topic, sexual revolution, seems promising but the dialogue is just too clever. Amis focuses on that point in the early Seventies where young people became sexually liberated. There was a major cultural shift going on. Girls wanted to be boys, according to Amis’ thesis, and boys weren’t sure what they wanted apart from orgasms. Love maybe? The Pill had arrived. Sex was everywhere, right out in the open, available even to the spottiest. All you had to do was ask. Well not quite. You couldn’t just go jumping on people,there still needed to be some preliminary negotiations, but there was plenty of interest and getting laid wasn’t too difficult. So there’s a lot of sex, frank discussion of sex, and nobody is squeamish saying ‘fuck’. Frequently. The girls in particular are embarrassingly liberated. They can’t stop talking about their tits and clits. There’s much of the usual smart word play we expect from Amis otherwise it’s all a trifle tedious. He’s at his best when he deals with aging but you still have to get through a lot of puerile humour and not particularly funny literary jokes. As Keith himself observes ‘Sex is bad enough, as a subject, and the self is pretty glutinous too.’ It’s all a bit of a yawn really but it’s Marty so I’m sure most reviewers will gush all over it. I'm probably just jealous.