GLASTONBURYOFTHEMIND

Friday, September 01, 2006/REVISED TUESDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER STREET ARTISTS need timing, luck, a wary eye and then there they are - on the offside of your guard sidling along beside you. He was good this kid, well good enough to have me. I WAS Exhausted after a day trailing the sacred city of Barcelona. This place is an architectural mind blaster where you see and hear and feel the colours of music. Even without a note ever being played. I walked into what instantly became my favourite ever building, the church of SANTA MARIA , a glory of holy perfection and high high high (so high to piss all over our Wren and Archbish of St Pauls) roofs and stained glass. I WAS Dazed and elated after walking through it. I sat down on the stoop entrance afterwards outside. The beggar’s spot. Watching the people come and go - the Afri-can and the cat-a- lo- ni- an and the A- rab - ee- an I had a sense that Barcelona could be the actual incarnation of Arthur Lee’s culture crossing rock dream/ hallucination. Sometimes here that feeling is so strong to make you as calm in soul as one of them stony Gargoyles that protrude from the buildings hereabouts Feeling the underlying Ommm rhythm of life , seeing the people and thinking , like Arthur sang, “I could be in love with almost everyone” I had a strong feeling of Arthur’s spiritual presence sat there on the stoop. A recently ascended spirit following his demise, aged 61, from leukaemia, in a Memphis hospital, almost exactly a month to the day. Sat there on that Santa Maria beggar’s stoop I could imagine Arthur Lee coming here - there is certainly a Spanish/Llatin influence weaving through Forever Changes, that most wondrous of all musical emanations, recorded by Arthur and his band Love, in 1967. I could imagine Arthurr being from here and writing those Holy, neo Blakean words as a result. The words, from Forever Changes Aloneagainor , are, once agin “I could be in love with almost everyone” The almost is a product of 60s hip and the punk realisation that not all can be loved. Arthur’s band Love were actually on the the edges of the Love crowd. As a Garage band graduate cherry picking his cultural agenda from a vibrant mix that included Hippy Idealism, street suss and classical influence the mixed race Lee was a TRUE cross cultural hero. I guess the reason I am feeling Arthur so strong in Barcelona is because, as in Forever Changes, in Barcelona everything is so present, so real and so vivid. What is so great about Barcelona,on this day at any rate, is the narrow streets of La Ribera the old town and the like? They keep out the scorching sun rays. Make walking the city easier. You can walk and walk and walk and get lost in them streets. Maybe even find yourself. THEN Almost home at the end of night. And this guy approaches. He does the “where are you from” thing? In a friendly enough way. Of course. Lots of people who want something from you act friendly. Isn’t that one of the major planks of PR ? I MEAN …THE PSYCHOLOGY INVOLVED . WHAT I’M INTERESTED IN IS ..IS THE PRACTICE THIS GUY ENGAGES IN IS IT IN ANYWAY ANALOGOUS WITH THE TACTICS EMPLOYED BY OTHER , SUPERFICIALLY AT LEAST, MORE RESPECTABLE EMPLOYEES? HE Tells me THAT he is German, that his mother’s German, a detail he adds when he sees my slightly quiizzical look responding to his assertion of national identity. I mean of course Middle Eastern/Catalonian looking folk can be German, of course. But there’s no German in his accent, though he has some German he spouts at me. WHO OR WHAT Am I ? A soppy white liberal caucasian? Someone who came to this blogging cuntrree disguised as a 67 year old MYspace Venenezulan refugee? Whatever. But - who am I to doubt him? Anyway he’s doing the back slapping lets have a drink, shake hands, thing. Then he does this thing with his leg. And, oh dear ,Mister Unstreetly Wise I am because, at this point, I do not even see The Hidden Agenda. The birdie dance thing which he is instigating that soon disturbs and alerts me to what is really going down here. He puts his foot through the space between my lower legs. He applies pressure with the upper of his foot against the calf. Invites me to look down there at it. Saying come on come on. Like a game is starting. And I think… all very well , chap, but Call me a spoilsport and all that but I do so recoil at physical contact with males I do not know. In a big way. It is like a problem I have. Was never one from the communal shower of the locker room or soapy all men in it together traditions of Turkish bathing. Nothing against others doing it but its simply not for me. I feel his clasp on my shoulder tighten Then I realise ,while his foot as pressing against my calf and he is grinning at me like a jackanape, his hand is trying to find its way into the pocket of the shorts I bought about seven hours previous. Right there in the shop behind me - just yards away from the apartment where I am staying. The shorts, brand name Broke, sit on me in a way that makes it impossible for him to get purchase on either the digital camera, or the mobile phone, or the credit cards in the pocket. That middle age spread may have saved me a substantial loss! My immediate attitude is one of outrage. That he would dare try to do such a thing after leaning on my confidence and gaining access - enough to make this putative attempt at a robbery. What happens next all goes very quickly. There is an acceleration of my feeling of indignance. Perhaps subconsciously I am angry at myself for not seeing what was, it now dawns on me, obvious. He is saying come on , come on, almost like now I am meant to accede to the last part of the ritual. The script he had planned out in his head. I am screaming at him . He punches me in the face. I run away. That seems to be the only option. The cunt runs after me. He trips me up. I land on a step with my wrist And it certainly twists. But it doesn’t break. In fact now I am thinking there was something more he did to my wrist. He has really put his mark on there. Applying pressure to an area which is actually on the back of my hand, just below the protruding bone on the far side of the wrist. At the hospital thy X Ray and find no break. My left knee is skinne.My big toe has been stubbed in the trip up fall (later, xrayed, it is found to be broken) , and a blow to the front of the ankle causes the left leg round the shin to stiffen up. NEXT THING I REMEMBER IS I am shouting up the empty alleyway toward the main street. But only momentarily From behind me he, using his full strength now and, I detect, with a certain panic entering his performance he clamps his hands over my mouth. The sense of injustice rises within me. Its just what the OTHER guy did! HE WAS The drunk crack head who was working in tandem with a pal in a car, right outside my home in London’s fashionable East End. On that ocassion I began by thinking the assailant was a neighbour fooling around. Came behind, put arm over mouth and his other arm pulling my hands back. Then he gave the instruction to hand over my wallet. The iillogical nature of his request inflamed moi. On top of that the old realisation of intrusion and violation laid to boiling indignance. That guy WAS pissed up (unlike tonight’s act - he merely pretends to be). The guy in London? I pursued him to the waiting car, similarly adrenalised. I was screaming “what is your name?” Like he was going to give me it. Funny thing my sister tells me after a similar attack on her in Stirling years ago she kept repeatedly screaming the words “but I don’t even know you” at her fleeing attacker. SO I like to have my voice in situations like this. Maybe its the voice that saves me. The shorts, the gut, the mouth. Whichever way, whatever. So I’m thinking THAT is not fucking fair I must be allowed to scream. I take his hands off. THIS Is the point of blind fear. Its has been, from the point where I realise what is happening to me, a psychological mind warp condensed into a matter of seconds. A battle of wits between steet artist and tourist dupe. On speed dial. AS I grab his hands off and prepare to scream like a fucking trapped weasel, there is an extreme panic point. I think I have intuited that this is a game he has played before. And he is unlikely to have lost it too many times if he’s doing it again. People are passing and look down the empty street towards the source of the disturbance. MY voice isn’t strong enough, I need to make them come.A bike slows down. Great there’s a moped couple showing curiosity. Shit…they drive off BUt maybe he thinks a cop could be next to come along at the end of the street. He scarpers. If he was indeed harbouring a may cop approach suspicions - cat was right. Among the body of strapping young men I, in my post attack adrenalised need to confess, approach is an offduty cop. I tell what happened. Funny I remember the morning the London blasts happenned watching the e asks if I want to make a statement. Like the classic The Office Line where Lee, when his mates suggest his behaviour will insure his girl wont give out tonight, simply says “That’s ok I got cable”. Well “that’s ok - I got a blog.” BUT THERE IS ALWAYS LOVE And I still can sing that song. “I could be in love with almost everyone.” Thanks Arthur, I’ll hear it always in my heart . Though, maybe now, the almost will be heard a little more keenly. OK name me one person who can or will sing A Change Is Gonna Come now, at this perilous point in our post modern history. And make it sound like a reality.**I’d like to hear that! ** My pal Jonny has since emailed from his Playlist myspace portal the suggestion he makes for a Change cover artist - Neil Young - is an intriguing prospect.