AlBarclay

Staying in London, looking to spend time with friends, I managed to get over for a flying visit to Minnie and her family. My regular friends, we used to hang to hang to hang, but life is life and it can be all encompassing. Flying by very briefly just in order to say hello… Every time we do that it makes the next time easier.

There are many old friends I don’t have in my life any more. From time to time I feel the lack of them. Some more than others, perhaps. Minnie and I have always somehow understood the gaps, so I never have concerns about contacting her after a pause. Others have responded with a lecture. “Hi Al, yes I got your message. I think you’ll find that actually my life is now xyz so you can imagine how surprising it is to have you contact us and abc.” I’ve had a few of those lectures over the years. They feel like doors closing. I cope by making light of it. “X has broken friends with me, they won’t sit next to me in chemistry class.” Etc. I think the hardest are the ones who vanish completely. But you can’t keep them all, friends aren’t Pokémon, the landscape will always keep changing.

I’m happy Min and I have kept consistency. I had a very clear dream about her dad the other night. Told him about it today. She’s family as much as anyone is. I was making sure nobody stole his big blue grocery bike.

London is in bank holiday mode. Everyone is out in the sun, booze is being consumed in vast quantities.

I went home after Minnie, stopped at a late night clinic for my doctor, got a referral to have a bastard skin tag taken off that catches in my seatbelt. Now just home, stopping, early bed, might even put fresh sheets on, resisting the call to get fucked ahead of an empty Monday. Happy I got the referral.

“I’ve cut one off myself,” he told me. I might do that to be honest. It’ll be down to how quickly they can refer me to do it with a skin numb and a professional implement. Cos otherwise it’s me and the nail clippers. Maybe we were always heading to that conclusion… Let’s see.

Since the Makita and the Wrecking Bar were both in my car, it made perfect sense to get down to Ditchling and help Lou. This poison estate agent needs to give her her deposit back. Even though the shelves in her unit were perfectly functional, they were chipboard. Nobody wanted them. So it came down to Bergie and I to sling them in time.

The screws were stars but of course I’ve got the attachment. I don’t understand how anyone even slightly handy insists on specifying what head they have on a screw. I had to service a lot of that lazy shit in Paris. Took the screws out, broke the glue, carried them down. It was open house at the workshops so all the rich people who do this for fun were letting equivalent people walk around in their units while we emptied a genuine maker’s unit so some posh girl can come in and fanny around.

I tried to break the boards timed well enough not to disrupt the punters. A bit of work around them probably lent the open day visitors a sense of authenticity to craft that, frankly, was much more “mummy look at me” than “I’ve got this burning thing”. These “artists” are my age largely. The stuff they do is more about them than what they’re making.

We put the broken up mdf into the car and said a last farewell to what was a possible space. “It’s for the best, I think,” I said and genuinely meant it. “You’ll get your deposit back and I’m pretty sure your diary is gonna fill up.” Yes I tend to put a positive slant on things. But as soon as that early twenties Agric College Graduate prat estate agent got the running of the place it was the end of creative truth there. It’ll just be another load of workshops for grown up rich kids to play at being artists. He’ll gradually kill everything he can’t understand. Little turd.

We slung the shelves and went back to Lou’s. She’s working FOH dayjob nightjob at a very cool outdoor summer popup in Brighton. So I took her there. Caravanserai. She’s there as I write, no doubt being patient with fucked people. She’s been part of culture in Brighton for so long that she’s woven into the fabric. There’ll always be someone she knows. The first time I came into town, a guy came by standing on a moving car for a stunt. They exchanged first name hellos. I somehow wasn’t surprised.

We went into the venue together for ten minutes and met someone lovely who is in the costume game like her. They exchanged pleasantries. Now I’m back in London. It’s just gone nine. I really want a quiet night. I’m hayfeverish. I would be snoring and spreading had I stayed at hers, and then I’d cough on her. Better to get this season of hacking coughs out of my body before spending too much time with my beloved. Preserve the mystery?! I don’t want to hack up pollen in her face all night long.

I ran out of petrol in traffic today. Was trying to get into a petrol station and was so so close. Like an idiot though I was running the air con, otherwise I would have made it. Traffic lights and I felt the engine go. Knew exactly what had happened. I had a mattress and a load of wood in the back. Hit the hazards and jumped out, gestured *slitty neck* to the lady behind me. She took the intended meaning.

Then I ran to the garage, grabbed an approved can, filled it up, paid. I was standing filling him up again less than five minutes after he bottomed out on me. Air con burns fuel fast.

Today’s job was grabbing a load of shitty furniture and throwing it away from a top floor flat in Fulham. Client had been getting great big quotes out of van drivers. John and I did it for £100 each and it felt fair. Three loads to the tip. Mattresses are never easy but they just fit in Bergie. The biggest fucker was the sofa as it was well put together. I left John with it and a wrecking bar for an hour while I took a load to the dump and by the time I got back he was sweating like a dog and the arms were off. We got it down the stairs and into the car.

Largely satisfying to do what we set out to do efficiently and at a price that suited everyone. That’s the game. I’m getting better at it.

Feeling pretty relaxed now back at home. Was about to go to sleep unblogged and suddenly remembered, as I was drifting off, hence the dumpstyle here. No time to be clever. I had sleepydrink. I’ll be running around Dreamland in ten minutes I can feel it coming.

That’s the first time I’ve run out for years and it is because I’ve not wanted to fill up at the price of any of the local garages. No choice today, but at least it was under £1.60. Just. It’s madness. But I will insist on driving my big car with an internal combustion engine. Makes days like today possible though, for me and for John…

Today I’ve been quietly PART of the ART.

There’s a woman I absolutely rate. She makes installations. She is brilliant at it. But she isn’t doing it for the usual reasons. She’s got no motive outside of bringing joy to people. But for it to work she needs hits on her whatevergram.

She found me. I found her. We discovered we both have similar priorities. Whatever she makes for me, I’ll inhabit it and own it. Because she’s brilliant. And doing it for the right reasons. And absolutely swamped in her medium by people who are utterly corrupt.

Yesterday we had a bunch of lovely people come, but they were all the CEO or Art Director of this that or the other well known global brand. They were my first people, before I had a clue how things are supposed to run. I’m sure it was fine but I think as soon as anyone gives significance to a wacky experience it dies. C separated two of these CEOs who came in their moment off, telling them they couldn’t have an honest experience together. I dunno. I think when it comes to people like that I can bulk them. “So, what’s this then, what am I supposed to do?” I don’t want that twice, and my interaction isn’t going to be interesting with someone who controls their entire environment so please don’t make me have to do it twice. I wanted to shout that to C when she gave weight to the interaction and twice separated pairs of high status nightmare people. “NO”! I wanted to howl, yesterday. As then I ended up having interactions twice with people who are so boundaried they have no play left. They’ve been dead for decades. This is not for them even if I’m happy that they came.

I’m here to PLAY with people. And this is a pleasant place for such things. But if you send me people who have forgotten play then that’s that. And sadly you don’t get to be a CEO without withering your play almost to extinction. I’ll still look for it. It’s still there. But fuck. Not the Joy I’ve always found. Too much entitlement.

Ah well. All will be well and all will be well.

There’s so much to be found here. But if people can’t, then they won’t.

Here we are once more under The Globe. A new creation tonight to satisfy a different client. It’s a hotchpotch of As You Like It and sonnets with me as a clumsy Orlando and Ffion as a boundaried Rosalind and it has been working well so far. They wanted All The World’s a Stage so that’ll be next as part of a celebratory medley of greatest hits. It can be a bit of a Debbie Downer so we are puffing it up with more energetic stuff, as it’s nice to have it when we are in amongst them. It’s funny how we both still worry but I guess that’s just caring. But it’s going well.

They just fed us a vegan aubergine and melon compote and it was much needed as I forgot lunch today so I was starving. They are generous usually so I reckon we will get mains as well, in our little underground back room with the friendly mices.

I rushed across town to get here. I’ve been next to Westfield helping out with the build on an art installation today. I might be more directly involved and deliberately not saying. It might be something I do reasonably often these days. If you come I might see you there.

It’s an hour’s drive to The Globe so I got in here just in time to get into costume and mic before the guests came in. We are miked down here as it can be a very very tricky room to quiet, especially if they are all hammered. As it happens, this lot are really lovely and attentive. I’ve actually been able to do some NUANCE, God help us all.

Tired though. Happy to have had a good earning day as looking at the coming months it is potentially quite empty. It always fills though, and I’m hoping I’ll be free in August to housesit up in the Peak District for an old friend – watch this space on that. Lots of healthy walking, and maybe I’ll find a local stable.

Round three about to commence. Time to make sure I can remember which order I’m supposed to say these words in. Ooh and they just brought us some chicken. My cup runneth over.

Global phrase trends are getting really annoying and should be addressed dammit. They’re another substitute for original thought. The phrase “rent-free”. This exists rent-free in everyone’s head at the moment. “Low key” is an epidemic on the scale of the “literally” epidemic we had in the noughties.

Accusing people you disagree with of having “low IQ” is another one. This one is because of the bad joke though, and his habit of conflating cognitive tests with IQ tests.

I’ve always found IQ a faulty metric. I can recognise patterns and am reasonably competent mathematically and logically but the final test is usually “do you want to pay for a certificate telling people how clever you are”. I like to think I’ve passed that one by always clicking “absolutely fucking not”. “I’m a member of MENSA” is code for “I’m an idiot but I’ll try and patronise you”.

The tests don’t catch intelligence, intelligence isn’t measurable. Observation, deduction, pattern recognition – you can get a good idea of someone’s brain I suppose. To me I can’t fully compute how anyone would struggle with these things, maybe nobody does, maybe they are designed to blow smoke up everyone’s arse and then take their money. Or maybe there are millions of people who genuinely can’t think beyond their needs.

People who are good with patterns can be catastrophic idiots too. Look at me! Look at the huge colourful world of what we like to call conspiracy theory. The pyramids and the speed of light. Etc etc. So yeah, that phrase “low IQ” can get in the bin. It had no meaning before the idiot started overusing it it and it has less meaning now.

I’m not an angel here. I can be prone to jumping on the phrase bandwagon. “Your mum” jokes are part of my lexicon. “Get in the bin” was overused and I just used it dammit. “Dammit” is a favourite of mine too.

Growing up it was Monty Python. That was one of the only shared cultural things so everyone would just suddenly start saying “Ni” or whatever. God it was annoying. And then they’d wait and look at you like you’re supposed to say “well done” or name the film. And they’d name it if you didn’t, like they were informing you of something new. “He’s not the Messiah he’s a very naughty boy” “this parrot is dead” oh fuck the lot of you. 

I always tried to avoid doing it. At drama school people would bring these things into improv classes and I would never understand why everyone would suddenly fall about laughing about something entirely banal and not at all theirs. Now the delights of internet mean we can share these things like diseases, and I’m culturally more curious now than It was then so if something feels like a touchstone – like the Louis Theroux recently, Lily Allen’s latest, etc – I try to get up to speed just so it doesn’t surprise me. Although I haven’t the patience for talent shows or the bad acting they call “reality tv”.

The craze for noun as verb. “I’m adulting”. “Shall we internet?” I noun-as-verb frequently. I like language and I enjoy playful language but it is also noticeable how quickly playfulness stops being playful when its overdone. And everything is always overdone all the time online. The loudest voices are not the voices with the most merit. We have some morally repugnant characters leading the cultural conversation online. They are sometimes “going viral”. “Go viral”? No meaning anymore. Nowadays millions of people WANT to be Star Wars Kid. No skill but everyone is looking at you. Be careful if someone says they can make something go viral, they’re selling you an NFT. Or is it a tulip? It used to be something negative, now people use it in marketing.

In schools we are now pretty much through 6-7 the spiritual successor to dabbing. Everyone has been “Gaslighting” everyone else for years. No they haven’t actually. And I didn’t say they have been. You’re just making it up. Read this paragraph again. I clearly said “Everyone hasn’t been Gaslighting.” You need to be sectioned.

Unalive. That’s just to get past censors but it’s a horrible word. I dunno there are gonna be loads that I’m not aware of. “So demure, so mindful” apparently… I don’t even know the meme there, just know it IS one. It came up in the R&D the other day.

Oh, and we will have a sharing soon in the west end somewhere tbd. I’ll let you know because fuck it, nice to see some familiar faces afterwards and I really like the crowd I’m with.

I’m feeling sated and happy. I had two dinners. The hay fever is STRONG in me though. I have to try and distract myself from the fact that I am bunged up and leaky all the time. I had a super hot curry even though I was full of risotto just to make myself sweat pollen.

Some seasons it is worse, some better. I’ve been gnomically predicting a good summer for months now to anyone who will listen, not based on wishful thinking. Based on things like holly berries in winter, bluebells, instinctual things observed in nature. If I was the village holy man I’d be staking my reputation on it. Hopefully I won’t have to move to the next village cos I fucked it. If I’m right I expect lots of cakes left in the stone circle please. And some of the more cynical villagers maybe coming and tentatively asking me what happens when granny dies. I can help with that stuff. If you want the medical stuff go to the witch or the hangman. I’ll stick with the guessing based on nature and life.

The pollen yield tallies with my “nature knows damn well it is spring” thing. I just feel like the seasons are doing the seasons. This will keep being mercurial a while but growing slowly warmer. Then a period of still warmth. Get your fans in, they’ll sell out. And autumn is gonna blow the fucking roof off, but not until October so we have a hot patch coming thank fuck.

Cue hurricane and ice age.

I’ve been coughing my guts out. London plane trees started my season and there was a field of rapeseed up at Ditchling today, and that always gets me. I called it rapeSEED so as not to catch any algorithms about that horrid American chap and his predilections. We aren’t doing politics today no matter what he did. Repeatedly. Over years. With children. No no. No politics.

Lou’s workshop is now mostly emptied. I tried to good boyfriend it, working methodically to load things up for her. She’s fucking great, and deserved a better exit from that place. She won’t have to pay the rent there anymore though, and things in her life are once again bubbling in really interesting unexpected directions. She had an online meeting on Microsoft Teams today. That’s the kind of thing that causes me to freak out as you’re at the mercy of tech. Within minutes she was talking to someone you’ve probably heard of and now she’s gonna be covering on a hilarious sounding tour starting very soon with a daily rate that is plenty good enough to warrant blocking the time out even though she’s actually worth more these days. But things like this add even more to her employability. She’s really hitting a vein at the moment, Lou, which is a comfort when so much is shaky around her.

I drove back to London today as I have to send a short tape tomorrow and haven’t got my kit in my car. Could’ve stayed in Brighton if I had had it, it’s only 3 lines. They’re asking for all the things – full length ident and blocking out the entire length of the shoot for a one day part. My agent thinks we should tell them my unavailability dates when we send the tape. I’m going with that advice even though a little bit of me is shouting “just fucking risk it!” The fact is though, and I know this from the good ones – if they want you they’ll work to keep you. We are the ones who bring value. They need to find us and their mechanism is audition, which is perhaps the fuckedest sorting mechanism in the history of sorting mechanisms when you consider that who gets those auditions is determined by a web of obligations and relationships spread around casting professionals and agencies as financial bodies, in some cases perhaps hundreds of stages before a single actor’s name hits the table but darling it just has to be Bumpy Plops, they’re the only one you need darling honestly.

I am happy as I got the Meisner Technique part so my summer is looking more robust and interesting with the strong chance of some free Meisner classes dressed up as rehearsals. I’m the remedial child in a room full of people who live and breathe Stamford’s work. They took their time quite rightly to establish I would be open to it. If everyone is working in a certain way, you are a fool if you refuse to, thinking your ways are better. Like with Factory – a shared technical approach can be heartbreaking and truthful but if people resist the shared approach and just do their own thing it can become a dissociative mess very easily.

I’m with Lou in her soon to be ex-workshop in Ditchling. The trust that lets these places out to makers and craftspeople has recently employed an estate agent and he’s turned everything to poison, as is their way.

I know his type very well. I looked him up online. Common name but I’m pretty sure the one I found in a flat cap and tweed smoking a cigar at Royal Ascot was the one I was looking for. Slappy cheeks and wet eyes. Just the right mix of inbreeding and money for him to be a toad and think he’s a prince. He’s been taught how to spell the word “perspective” and got no further. As he gets older he’ll spread and spread, he’ll never learn and he’ll make little versions of himself to drip the poison down through generations to come.

We are slowly taking everything out and bringing it in batches to a self storage until she can find an option in her area that is actually practical for a working person to have when it isn’t her only point of focus. To keep up with this one now, you either have to use it as your absolute primary, show up daily and slog to pay mister slappyface, or – as most of the people here – be from money, living a comfortable existence, occasionally bimbling around with a paintbrush to exhibit something at one of your clubs.

It’s a shame. It is a nice little room with a skylight. She dressed it up beautifully and the rent hoik took place just as her working life was angled towards her having the whole summer to use it. She had been looking forward to it. Ooh that little rich boy estate agent. I only googled him so I could have a picturetarget for my anger. I would have still hated him if he’d been playing with a cat. But all the external stuff in one image and that’s his social media profile, like he thinks that all that stuff means winning… Oooh he needs talking to that one. Needs coming down a peg or two he does.

Anyway, there’s work to be done. And cats to be groomed thereafter. And a storage locker to be filled cos of that prat.

The doorbell rang at midnight. I was awake, heating up a late night ramen. It’s someone I haven’t seen for maybe 6 years. He announces himself by first name only but I suspect immediately he won’t be in a good way.

I was living alone last time he saw me, the dynamic is very different now. I have other people and cats to factor in. But he clearly needed a sleep. I let him in. Of course I did.

He’s skinny and very very twitchy. There’s a hospital tag still on him. I almost immediately sit him down and feed him most of my ramen. He’s monologuing but it isn’t making a lot of sense. “Do you need the sofa for a night?” “Oh God please.” “I’ve got flatmates now. They aren’t home but I should run it by them first.” I message them but they’re out. I am kinda partly hoping they’ll play bad cop here but they keep out of the decision making process entirely. So I make a call that he needs it tonight and put him to sleep on the sofa. Otherwise he’s gonna be on the street for a night – another night? He crashes like he hasn’t slept in weeks. He’s asleep before the light is out, like he’s just been switched off.

This place is a safe haven and always has been. I keep it that way and I like to be able to help people out. But… he’s really odd energetically. I don’t have a lot of experience with crystal meth but I have a feeling he’s tangled up with something along those lines. I don’t like the energy of it, whatever it is, at all. And it’s not fair on Brian and Maddy. They don’t know him either, and even though I know he’s harmless I don’t like him like this at all.

This morning was a Buddhist study group in my district. I’ve been avoiding going for weeks but I first met him at Rita’s in maybe 2016, chanting Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo. Getting him there will kill two birds with one stone, in that it’ll get him out of the flat before he settles in and will send him to compassionate people who know him as well as I do. I don’t feel great about the sensation that I’m fobbing him off, but for me it’s about the drugs. One time I had a blazing row with someone who was about to do heroin in my living room, and I kicked them out. Believe it or not, I do actually have boundaries. They’re just … in a different place from many.

Now I’m about to run around the flat with sage. Feels odd to be put out by it all – twenty years ago that was just a normal Friday. But… I’m twenty years older now, I’ve got nice cats, respectful flatmates and slightly better calibrated boundaries.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if I was some vacuous pig with 2 million followers on Instagram”, I sometimes think before I remember what that would also carry. But I wouldn’t have to audition for things! Likely wouldn’t have very many genuinely interesting opportunities but … I wouldn’t have to constantly worry about how the fuck I’m gonna pay for stuff cos people would just offer me jobs.

Even without the following, just being well known enough would be nice. Wouldn’t work with this particular job though. Neither of those states would help with this particular job. Cos this particular job is ART, kids.

Auditioning sucks. All that personal cost for a possibility.

I’m getting a bit long in the tooth these days so my filter is janky. “Is this meeting about chemistry or proof?” I asked immediately. “Both,” she replied. Sure I was fishing, because people are reserved in these situations and sometimes they’ve got another option who is big in one direction. I had two things I needed to bring really as far as I could feel it. My guy  – he is the worst version of me. They might have been needing to see that I could go there. But also my guy – he is the worst version of me. They might have been needing to know I was safe. My hack attempts to get a read on that were expertly derailed. I was told that the part looks like me in their head. That takes away my tasty comfortsnack if I don’t get it.

It’s a small part in some lovely theatre type stuff. But everyone already booked works with a certain technique and it isn’t one I lead with, even if I get it. Sure, we have a suitcase full of tools and we choose the tool based on the job. There’s a shared language here. Can I speak it? Yes.

…

I’ll just drive my car and find out later, that’s the extent of it. In the morning I drove Maddy to Ladywell, packed a load of costumes, took her off to East Croydon. She made her way to Brighton with the costumes. Choir of Man is gonna be on the Brighton fringe. I’ve moved a lot of instruments and costumes for that show over the last year or so. Happy to take Maddy where she needs to be to do that, the fucking tube strike makes it hard for everyone.

The black cab drivers can normally drive with the mix of generosity and attack that keeps a city flowing. Knowing how terrible most of the drivers are on the roads at the moment, they’ve all responded by turning into bullies. So the bus drivers are always bullies, now the cabbies are too, the Ubers mostly shouldn’t be on the road anyway even if it’s 4am in January. Which means all the other confident drivers are having to drive defensively and all the less confident drivers are freaking out and doing random shit. It’s a jungle out there, and bikes everywhere, undertaking, overtaking, they’d just jump over you if they could.

I’m home safe. Met a nice dog. All is well.