Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I Can See Clearly Now...

"I bet you get a good variety of background music in this job," I say to the window fitter.

"Yeah. The bloke yesterday, the old bloke who had the dirty house, he asked us if we liked trad."

"Trad jazz?"

"Yeah. He played it really loud. It was blaring out. He played the whole album."


I asked him about the background music because the window fitters were probably earlier having a good laugh at our choice of television programme to watch as they put in the windows upstairs.

We've got a lot of catching up to do so we watched two old documentaries, one on the Chelsea Hotel, the other on the background to the Lou Reed song Walk On The Wild Side.

The first documentary had a very camp man taking tourists round the hotel, singing and namechecking Brendan Behan, Oscar Wilde and William Burroughs amongst others. As he walked past some painters and decorators on the stairs he compared their work to Jackson Pollack.

We saw Burroughs and Andy Warhol at a dinner party, talking about chicken-fried steak, Quentin Crisp talking about his hair products, and Jobriath singing a super song about naked brunch. the documentry also featured a glorious sequence showing Viva's daughter watching her mother give birth to her on video. The birthing screams reverberated round our house and sounded like a long loud orgasm until the baby started to cry.

The Walk On The Wild Side documentary included interviews with several transexuals from Warhol's gang including discussions of "giving head" to sailors.

Unsurprisingly, with all this going on, the window fitters finished fitting the windows in record time. I bet they can't wait to see what we've got in store for them when they do the doors tomorrow.

22 comments:

  1. Orgasms and Sailors? I bet they'll be itching for Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen by tomorrow morning.

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  2. Anonymous9:15 PM

    I enjoyed your review of the Chelsea Hotel documentary.
    www.hotelchelseablog.com

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  3. And the coloured girls go
    doo do doo do doo do do doo
    doo do doo do doo

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  4. Yes, Billy Burroughs' culinary tips ... not for the faint hearted.The wonderful look on Burroughs' face during dinner - like he would rather have been anywhere else.

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  5. It'll give them something to tell the wife when they get home.
    These guys must see life as it really is.
    They must find reality TV very tame.

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  6. Now's your chance to dust off all your Helen Shapiro albums.

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  7. Murph - I put on my Union Jack bowler hat and waistcoat combo and led them a merry dance round the close.

    Anon - Thank you.

    MJ - Surprisingly the coloured girls weren't mentioned in the documentary.

    Anthony - I think I'd rather be anywhere else than at a dinner party where Andy Warhol is wearing headphones. He probably wasn't even listening to anything, just wearing them for effect.

    Kaz - We went upstairs today and read as quiet as little mice...

    Arabella - ...except for when I did the washing up and put on Who's Next by The Who. The logic was that no young man can find The Who repulsive (then again maybe his grandad used to bore him sick playing all those sixties bands - "'aven't you got any Weller?").

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  8. A DVD of Hitchcock's Rear Window?

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  9. Tony - Welcome. I can now re-enact that. I just need to break my leg.

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  10. *waves to Tony who I swear is following me around today*

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  11. a glorious sequence showing Viva's daughter watching her mother give birth to her on video>>>

    Is this on You Tube yet?

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  12. In the better-late-than-never Category:

    Freda Pane

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  13. Spin - If it is, I don't want to know. Once was plenty enough.

    Murph - In a duet with Roddy Frame.

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  14. Philip Glass?

    Judee Sill?

    The Venetian Blind Boys of Alabama?

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  15. Putty Smith.
    K-Glass.
    Richard and Window Thompson.
    Seal.

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  16. David Ledge of The Wedding Present.

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  17. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. You could play requests. Or try to educate them with highbrow classical. Or find something from when they were teens.

    How about "When I'm cleanin' windows ..."
    or "I love the sound of breaking glass"

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  19. They were in their teens about 3 years ago so even Glazin' Squad would be too old for them.

    I love the sound of breaking glass
    Especially when I'm lonely
    I need the noises of destruction
    When there's nothing new

    But the windows ARE new!

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  20. You should be in good shape for 'Factory Girl' now. Bit of a dud IMO but don't let that put you off.

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  21. "When Andy met Edie, life imitated art"

    (stilted conversations about nothing)

    Not that that's not entertaining.

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