Sinister: love and marmalade - an e-mail in three parts

[ian]

(as the title said, there are 3 parts.  the first two are my spraffle.  the
third is where i  reply to list murmurings.  if you'd rather avoid
self-indulgent waffle, skip to the end.  although there's plenty of
self-indulgent waffle there, too.

anyways.......)


so much talk of love...
so much crap spoken about love...
so much smegma spoken in the name of love...
time for some more:

someone i once thought i knew told me:

"ABC
easy as 1, 2, 3
.....that's how easy love can be"

that turned out to be the most vicious of lies.  later on, that man cut his
nose off to spite his face.  in his elder years he asked me "what about
elephants?".
i didn't answer.  i know nothing of elephants.

i typed in "love" on the internet.  i got a link to a page full of women
fucking each other with dildos.  perhaps they loved each other, but i wonder
at so many loves in such a short space of time.  i also got a link to a site
telling me how much that ol' devil called god loves me.  strange, because
the internet also tells me that god hates fags.  clearly, my relationship
with god is one of those tightrope things.  and, after the initial adrenalin
rush, it gets very dull to walk a tightrope.

  best not to think of god's love, or to ask the internet about anything.
the internet can be trusted no more than the man (one of the many) who sang:

"love is the sweetest thing
what else on earth can ever bring
such happiness to everything?"

whilst working for the mafia.  i don't know, frank.  covering someone's feet
in concrete and dropping them into a canal, perhaps?

i looked in a book to find out what love was.  a book that was recommended
to me on the subject.  it said:-

(vb.) 1. to have great fondness and affection for a person or thing

it also said

9. a score of zero in tennis, squash, etc.

this merely confused me.  i found another book.  it said "in the beginning,
there was darkness".  i put it down.  i know enough about darkness.  someone
told me to read shakespeare.  so i did, and i found the following:

"thou whoreson zed!  thou unneccessary letter".

that seemed illogical.   unnecessary?  not if your name is zelda.
particularly not if your name is zelda and you are a zebra living in a
zambian zoo.  shakespeare clearly knows nothing of love.  and, nothing, it
seems of alphabetical necessity.

i tried philip larkin.  a pleasing title for a poem - "love songs in age".
but, alas, this too brought disappointment.  larkin describes love as a
"bright insipience".  clearly, larkin has not felt the love that so many lay
claim to.  for who would die for a bright insipience?

i tried looking at my feet for a while.  that got boring.

then came the answer.  odd, that after so long - so much soul-searching by
so many searching souls, the solution should come from such an unexpected
source.

i'm sure the enlightened amongst you know i mean bernard summer.

i am, of course, familiar with the ouevre of the artist.
consider his early work, in which he asked:

"how does it feel/ to treat me like you do/ when you put your hands upon me/
and you tell me who you are?"

i don't know.  but i considered it only fair to ponder laying my hands upon
him for some time.  i even, out of devotion, laid my hands upon myself
whilst considering laying my hands upon him.  to no avail.  i had no idea
how it felt, and decided not to think about it any more.  jason priestley
was far prettier, and didn't ask such awkward questions.

now, i regret neglecting this great prophet.  for, on consulting his most
recent work, i found the following wisdom:

"here comes love
its like honey
you can't buy
it with money"

and i am amazed that this didn't cause great hysteria upon release.  for
it is so obviously, abundantly, marvellously simple.  yet so incredibly
true.  one cannot buy love with money.  and, therefore, it is plainly a
sweet substance produced by bees that one occasionally spreads on toast.
as for the trauma of trying to obtain a pot of gales from such retail
establishments as safeway, holland and bastard, and even, sad to report, the
marvellous marks and spencer, i'm sure i need speak no more.  how many of us
have got to the till, hoping against hope, clutching a five, ten, twenty
pound note?  how many of us have pleaded, begged the assistant?  how many of
us have offered sexual favours, only to be told this would place us in debit
rather than credit (oh, just me, then) and still been unable to obtain the
fabled nectar?
anyone who knows anything about life, and love, i'm sure.

which does make me wonder how that little jar of yellow stuff got in my
cupboard.  perhaps i've been smearing chicken fat on my toast all this time
without realising.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

but, my dears, onto other matters.  if love is honey, then what is
marmalade?
well, the answer is simple.  for many of us, marmalade is the naughtiest
girl in the world.

now, this isn't a prompt for a discussion of children's television.  that
would only bring opprobrium upon my head and boring mails upon my in-tray.
this is an epitaph.

charlotte coleman, aged 33, died of an asthma attack yesterday.  or perhaps
friday.  the news said she'd be most remembered for her role in "4 weddings
and a funeral".  the news, as so often, is not to be trusted.  for this was
the nadir of what was otherwise an inspiring screen life.  you see,
charlotte coleman WAS marmalade atkins.

i can see half of the list scratching their heads, and perhaps pressing the
"delete" key.
the rest of you will know what this means, and why her parting is sad.
marmalade was the kid we hated, but also wanted to be.  as an intensely
reactionary child, i watched her antics with horror.  i watched as she put
itching powder into the nuns' habits, as she caused a riot during her term
in jail (why was she locked up with men?  clearly there was something about
marmalade we weren't told), as she... erm... i can't remember what else she
did.  it was what she symbolised.  two fingers up at the world.  inspiring
to a child who wouldn't have dared raise a digit, even he'd know how.

charlotte coleman also starred in "oranges are not the only fruit".  and a
frustrated teenager wondering about his own sexuality watched her and found
some comfort in knowing somebody else had been there too.

oh, and she appeared in some film with hugh grant.  of whom the less said,
the better.

i don't believe in mourning celebrity deaths.  the passing of a poet, a
presenter, or an actress is no sadder than the passing of a plumber, a
teacher or a shop-assistant.  but still i feel a little depressed by this
news.

r.i.p. marmalade atkins.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------

now, if any of you have read this far, there follows some random spraffle:

james gilmer quoted me:

>Ian said: "somewhere in the black mining hills of dakota there lived a
young
>boy called..."
>
>And now I have that bloody song stuck in my head. Someone hand me the
mental
>floss, Beatles song or not, I need that out of my head.


you want that out of your head?  okay....

"desmond has a barrow in the market place
molly is the singer in a band
desmond says to molly 'girl i like your face'
and molly says this as she takes him by the hand.... -"

if you know the song, you're already singing it..

he also, controversially, dared to say the following:

>Speaking of Talent-Free Zones; Tori Amos.....<snip> The same goes for
Magnetic Fields.

well, vive le difference, my friend.  i feel the same about jimi hendrix, i
borrowed a copy of "electric ladyland" the other day, to see if i could
figure out what i'd missed, and, sad to say, its fucking boring.
personally, i think tori appeals to those of us who would like to visit the
moon in a big green snow-shoe.  and that will inevitably be a limited
audience.  an audience that would die on reaching the moon because they'd
packed lots of books and neil gaiman comics but no breathing apparatus.
as for the magnetic fields, i reckon its like marzipan.  you either get it
or you don't.  and, personally, i just love them almonds.

ruvi simmons pulled down the moon and posted it to sinister, and suggested
moving christmas:

>When January
>descends like a great bore and we wear two pairs of socks for the cold,
>waiting for Spring. After all, it is in the dark hours when the kindness of
>strangers, or virtual strangers, or real strangers, counts for the most.

lovely.  and if poetic prose could shift symbolic events, december would be
staring at the gaping hole in its midrif as we speak.  however, i like
christmas where it is.  we're near the death of the year, the death of
everything that has to precede re-birth.  and, after a death (the solstice)
there has to be a wake.  january holds a whole new year within it.  its a
time for hoping, and saying you'll never make the same mistakes again.
a bit of darkness and sobriety is what is needed for such reflection.

failing that, its a good time to purchase a large bottle of tequila and some
sunbed sessions.  with the money you'd otherwise spend on a pair of musical
santa socks for some ungrateful bastard uncle who'd never wear them.

and now, i think its time for my virtual mouth to rest.  so, finally, i have
an "ian award" to give out.  the first of the year.  sophie ellis bextor is
the beneficiary, and her achievement is to release the song with the most
appropriate title of the year:

"murder on the dancefloor".  in which she warns us "you'd better not kill
the groove".  thank you for the words of advice, sophie, however we both
know they are a trifle redundant.  the Groove is twitching its final
death-throe on the plush-pile carpet, and the nail file in its heart bears
your preposterous finger-prints.

i don't have a hair on my keyboard, and would probably refrain from telling
you if i did.

thank you for reading.  and, as the buddha once said "shut the fuck up, ian"

ian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow will bring happiness
Or at least, another day

Phil Ochs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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