" I Can't Get Enough of Your Face"
Went into town yesterday. There is nothing like the Mac for fostering a workable sense of alienation: I know no one will ever come near me as I scribble furtively in my notebook. Yeah, not even a laptop, I use pen and paper. How affected: it might as well be chalk on slate or a stylus on wax. I suspect somewhere in the east end of London someone is brushing away a waxen scurf even as I type this, but a pen and paper is as outre as I get.
I was writing some notes for a copy of the The Brexit, the Brighton based satirical comic that appears to be approaching its sell-by-date as we hurtle towards Brexit actually, definitely, really happening. We've lost. Its going to happen. You would think it would make people happy. I mean: Trump is still in power and will probably run for another term, Boris is in power and will probably win the next election too and Brexit is definitely taking place at the end of the month. But the people who voted for it are still furious, still pink and quivering with rage, this time because they can't get a bell to ring when they want it to.
We live in a TV world of false jeopardy, of constant manufactured drama, as though we we permanently on the cusp of going to an advert break. I wonder what it would take to actually make these people happy. They have every thing they want and it still hasn't done the trick. The problem with internalised misery is that eventually you have to stop blaming other people for everything that's shit in your life. At least some of it is down to you. They'll be the people in heaven complaining about the Wi-fi speed and that they're too near a blameless Eritrean family. "I can smell their cooking. It stinks." "This is heaven. There is no food. You don't have corporeal bodies." "I wondered why you'd wiped my tattoos. Its a bloody disgrace."
You won. Get over it.
As I'm approaching the Mac from the steps of the Victoria Centre - I'd been in to House of Fraser to check out the shirts in the sale - all vile - and to spritz myself with The Incorrigible Lohan tester - its my fave scent but its 200 quid a pop so fuck it - a man flags me down. I assume he's a tourist because a) he wants to talk to me and b) he's quite well dressed, but no: he is a photographer and he cannot resist my face.
This is unusual. Recently my face has tended to just be an image that baristas are unable to retain so this sudden endorsement of its aesthetic qualities was very welcome. As a younger man my face had a brief window of being attractive in a conventional sense, but recent comparisons had placed it somewhere between David Byrne and Freddie Starr, which is a sandwich no one wants to be filling.
I was immediately putty in the photographer's hands. This is how it started for Kate Moss at Storm, after all. I mean: I hadn't shaved and I was wearing my glasses and my hair needed cutting and was hovering over my head like a mushroom cloud over the Marshall Islands. I was wearing a dark rain coat that I'm fairly certain was covered with so much dandruff that a sudden noise would have caused an avalanche. But they have all sorts as models these days: fat, old, limping. There must be room for a resting Gammon in someone's portfolio. And I'm always looking for ways to extend my brand. What's the money like as a muse?
There was a Paul Smith advert on the wall behind us - a rainbow coloured zebra - and he thought my monochrome stylings - I look like a badly poured Guinness - would look good next to it. And for the next ten minutes he snapped away as I posed, variations on Lewis Morley's Kray twin photos though with more pouting and frowning.
At one point he said "You look a lot like Morrissey" and I didn't physically attack him, which showed great restraint. Instead I went into a reverie, imagining myself as a nineteen year old, with my slim body and dark hair and pleasantly pretty face, being stopped in the street by a photographer and being told I looked like Morrissey. Of course, in retrospect, that would have every hallmark of a casual pick-up, which this definitely wasn't. But I wonder if I would have had my photo taken at the time, and I have to say I doubt I would have done. I was shy. I thought I was cool. I would have been worried about what other people thought and I would have been too insecure about what I looked like. I would have never risked it for the same reasons I kept myself from doing anything for half my life. Now of course I don't care. I'll do pretty much anything. Why not?
At one point, after he had put his camera away once, the photographer whipped it out again. "I can't get enough of your face," he murmured. This is the sort of positive affirmation I can get behind.
I looked at his other photos. He'd had a busy morning. They tended to fall into two camps: attractive young women who were slightly alternative looking. And mad looking old people. I had no illusions about which camp I fell into. But I'm fine with that. When, if I ever do see the photos, I expect I'll be surprised at how fat I am and discouraged by the cotton-wool of my hair, but I'll recognise the 19 year old swaddled beneath the pink crepe of my skin, finally brave enough to have his photograph taken by a stranger.
 |
| This is not one of the pictures he took. But here it is just for focus. |
I was writing some notes for a copy of the The Brexit, the Brighton based satirical comic that appears to be approaching its sell-by-date as we hurtle towards Brexit actually, definitely, really happening. We've lost. Its going to happen. You would think it would make people happy. I mean: Trump is still in power and will probably run for another term, Boris is in power and will probably win the next election too and Brexit is definitely taking place at the end of the month. But the people who voted for it are still furious, still pink and quivering with rage, this time because they can't get a bell to ring when they want it to.
We live in a TV world of false jeopardy, of constant manufactured drama, as though we we permanently on the cusp of going to an advert break. I wonder what it would take to actually make these people happy. They have every thing they want and it still hasn't done the trick. The problem with internalised misery is that eventually you have to stop blaming other people for everything that's shit in your life. At least some of it is down to you. They'll be the people in heaven complaining about the Wi-fi speed and that they're too near a blameless Eritrean family. "I can smell their cooking. It stinks." "This is heaven. There is no food. You don't have corporeal bodies." "I wondered why you'd wiped my tattoos. Its a bloody disgrace."
You won. Get over it.
As I'm approaching the Mac from the steps of the Victoria Centre - I'd been in to House of Fraser to check out the shirts in the sale - all vile - and to spritz myself with The Incorrigible Lohan tester - its my fave scent but its 200 quid a pop so fuck it - a man flags me down. I assume he's a tourist because a) he wants to talk to me and b) he's quite well dressed, but no: he is a photographer and he cannot resist my face.
This is unusual. Recently my face has tended to just be an image that baristas are unable to retain so this sudden endorsement of its aesthetic qualities was very welcome. As a younger man my face had a brief window of being attractive in a conventional sense, but recent comparisons had placed it somewhere between David Byrne and Freddie Starr, which is a sandwich no one wants to be filling.
I was immediately putty in the photographer's hands. This is how it started for Kate Moss at Storm, after all. I mean: I hadn't shaved and I was wearing my glasses and my hair needed cutting and was hovering over my head like a mushroom cloud over the Marshall Islands. I was wearing a dark rain coat that I'm fairly certain was covered with so much dandruff that a sudden noise would have caused an avalanche. But they have all sorts as models these days: fat, old, limping. There must be room for a resting Gammon in someone's portfolio. And I'm always looking for ways to extend my brand. What's the money like as a muse?
There was a Paul Smith advert on the wall behind us - a rainbow coloured zebra - and he thought my monochrome stylings - I look like a badly poured Guinness - would look good next to it. And for the next ten minutes he snapped away as I posed, variations on Lewis Morley's Kray twin photos though with more pouting and frowning.
At one point he said "You look a lot like Morrissey" and I didn't physically attack him, which showed great restraint. Instead I went into a reverie, imagining myself as a nineteen year old, with my slim body and dark hair and pleasantly pretty face, being stopped in the street by a photographer and being told I looked like Morrissey. Of course, in retrospect, that would have every hallmark of a casual pick-up, which this definitely wasn't. But I wonder if I would have had my photo taken at the time, and I have to say I doubt I would have done. I was shy. I thought I was cool. I would have been worried about what other people thought and I would have been too insecure about what I looked like. I would have never risked it for the same reasons I kept myself from doing anything for half my life. Now of course I don't care. I'll do pretty much anything. Why not?
At one point, after he had put his camera away once, the photographer whipped it out again. "I can't get enough of your face," he murmured. This is the sort of positive affirmation I can get behind.
I looked at his other photos. He'd had a busy morning. They tended to fall into two camps: attractive young women who were slightly alternative looking. And mad looking old people. I had no illusions about which camp I fell into. But I'm fine with that. When, if I ever do see the photos, I expect I'll be surprised at how fat I am and discouraged by the cotton-wool of my hair, but I'll recognise the 19 year old swaddled beneath the pink crepe of my skin, finally brave enough to have his photograph taken by a stranger.
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