Freak show

Like every good Goldsmiths student, I went through a photography stage, reading Susan Sontag's On Photography, then spending about, hmmm, a week poring over pictures by Andreas Gursky, Walker Evans and Diane Arbus. Then I got bored and moved onto, I dunno, skateboarding, or something.

Anyway, those Arbus pics really stuck in my head, so I was quite excited about going to the exhibition of her work at the V&A last night. And it was very good, spanning 15 years (1956-71) of her portraits - of ugly women, New York, transvestites, women who look like men, circus freaks, celebrities, the disabled and old nudist couples. It had bits of her writing too (she was amazingly eloquent, in an oblique poetic kind of way) and memorabilia (less interesting - though it's quite exciting to peer into the lens of one of her old cameras). I also managed to resist the temptation to piss everyone off by pointing at photos and exclaiming in exaggerated American accent, "Dude, look that one! What a totally gross freak!"

It's hard to say anything about the photos. Sometimes when you try to analyse great photography or beautiful poetry, pull out the meaning, it gets so frustrating. You just want to give up and shout, "It doesn't mean this, or say this! There is no better way of saying it than the thing itself!" Perhaps that's what Arbus meant when she said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know." But probably not.

Everybody needs them

I have just one thing to say today. Happy birthday Neighbours. And Cliff Richard, happy birthday to you too.

Tom and the Chinchilla

Got a text from my friend Angry Tom yesterday to tell me that he'd just had "a rather embarrassing encounter" with ex-Art Brut guitarist Chris Chinchilla, who he'd spotted in the street. I said that I hoped he hadn't told Chinchilla about the Harvester advert idea we drunkenly came up with a few weeks back (it involved the man Chinchilla, a small dog wearing a skinny tie and Bob Hoskins). Tom said no:

"I spent five minutes modulating my walking speed so I was awkwardly next to him on New Cross Road. Turned. Smiled. And asked simply... 'Do you know any local guitar collectives?'"

Google nemesis, or The Two Blakes

Funny article in the Grauniad today by Blake Morrison about his namesake, another writer who's also called Blake Morrison. "Bad luck on my parents, who thought they'd called me something inimitable," he muses, realising his uniqueness has been shattered. I find doppelgangers, name-sharers and lookalikes pretty interesting, especially as my every waking second is haunted by people saying, "You look like Bob Dylan Gene Wilder Edward Norton."

When you type my name into Google, as well as the crap I've written, you get some articles about the other Will Parkhouse, an American football player from Bristol. He worries me, particularly as he's jumping up the Google list pretty fast. He does seem to be quite good at the sport too ("he seems to have a big game every week," gushes one report). Pretty alarming, as the more plaudits he gets, the more I'm likely to become "the other Will Parkhouse". He must be stopped.

I should be thankful though. My friend Darren Lee is topped in the Google rankings by The World's Number One Elvis impersonator, Darren Lee. Take a look at Darren the non-Elvis impersonator's new blog, if only to help him in his quest to destroy his lip-curling hip-swivelling namesake.



Postscript: if you type "Blake Morrison" into the Guardian website search box, ironically, you get a review he's written of a Vikram Seth book called "Two Lives". Ha.

When I say 'x', you say 'y'

I love the whole "when I say 'x'..." thing. Not sure how it started (old skool hip-hop perhaps?), but it's a ridiculous and under-celebrated genre, in a watching-car-crashes kinda way. It used to be quite basic, with the MC stopping mid-song to go, "When I say 'ho', you say 'hey'. Ho!" The crowd then shout, "Hey!" and everyone's happy.

I actually find the whole thing really embarrassing and rarely participate, just stand on the touchline, silently egging them on. Especially as the whole thing has now developed into something unwieldy and wrong; witness this cumbersome exchange, which took place in Big Brother over the summer:

Antony: Eugene, when I say "Do you really like it?" you say "Is it is it wicked?" Do you really like it?
Eugene: (reluctantly) Er, is it is it wicked?

There were two more classics at the gig I was at on Wednesday last week. The first came from a pair of rapkids called Natural Selection (imagine if a huge asteroid wiped out all the world's MCs and just these two remained! What a thought!):

Natural Selection MC: When I say "music", you say "snobbery". Music!
Crowd: (muted) Snobbery.

The other one was great, mainly because the choice of words was so unusual and strange; it came from headliners Crack Village. I found them confusing, but quite fun - original too, though the enthusiastic man in front of me ("This is groundbreaking! Groundbreaking!") was probably overstating the case a bit. Anway, one of their rappers, clad in Bobby Gillespie style insect shades, took a moment out to shout, "When I say "crack", you say "village". Crack!" The crowd, loving it, and as one, all yelled back: "VILLAGE!"

Well not quite everyone. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Bury the rag deep in your face

It's been a while since I wrote the blog. Oh lordy lordy it's been a while. Since the Guy episode, I've moved house, and been drinking - nay quaffing - from the cup of culture like a thirsty Brian Sewell.

The question I've been asked constantly over the last few weeks is, "Are you watching /did you see the ScorceseDylan documentary?" They all know I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan, see. The answer has been "no". I managed to buck the trend, by going to a Dylan tribute concert the night of the doc, in which various singersongwriter types got onstage and played Dylan songs. Billy Bragg, Martin Carthy, Odetta, Willy Mason, Liam Clancy and KT Tunstall were all pretty great. (I've noticed that a lot of people loathe KT Tunstall but are unable to give a reason for their hatred. If I hated her, my reasons would be that she gets a bit MOR at times and her voice is just a bit too perfect. But I don't hate her, so I'm not bothered about this.)

I'd like to single out Roy Harper and Barb Jungr, who also played, and were appalling. Barb Jungr particularly, whose cover of Like a Rolling Stone made me want to wrap my jumper round my head in pain. After turning Ring Them Bells into an over the top Celine Dion-like mess, she demolished Like a Rolling Stone, transforming it into a horrible slow "atmospheric" ballad. Lines like, "Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?" she'd sing with a questioning inflection in her voice, point at an imaginary person, and put on a slightly cross face. This triad of inanities was unbelievably painful to me. Even more painful than Christopher Ricks' dire Like a Rolling Stone article in The Independent the other week.

Anyway, they filmed the show for BBC4 and you can see a couple of clips (of Bragg and Tunstall) here.

And tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be Nathan Barley: off to Medicine bar in Shoreditch to see an alt-rap hip-hop collective called Crack Village. Totally Mexico. Read the press release. They sound terrible.

Swimming with sharks

"Do you want to swim with sharks?" says Guy, a Welshman who I went to University with. I hung out with him a bit back then, but don't know him too well. We're out in a big birthday drinking group in a noisy bar in North Clapham. I haven't seen Guy in about three years and this is his opening conversational gambit. He just walks up to me and asks the question, as if he was an extreme sports travel agent and could offer me the holiday of a lifetime.

"Er. Yes?" I say, encouragingly, trying to give the right answer.

"Why would you want to do that?" he says, looking at me like I'm insane.

"Er. I like to live life on the edge? Take risks and that?" I say.

"In what way do you live life on the edge?" he asks me accusingly.

"Er, sometimes I cross the road before the green man appears." Guy looks at me blankly. I give in. "No, I probably don't really live life on the edge. And I can't really think of any recent examples of risk-taking."

"Mmmm. So you'd want to be in a cage full of sharks - they're fucking dangerous, man." (He's completely serious.) "I'd never do that. I wouldn't swim with crocodiles either, they're fucking vicious bastards too."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Swimming with sharks is probably not that great."

"I don't understand people like you, going out to Australia and swimming with sharks and crocodiles. And snakes man, you lot love fucking snakes."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"A grinning Hugh Dennis lookalike"

We had our "goodbye house" party on Saturday and it brought together the usual array of interesting drunkards and reprobates. One of my particular favourites was my old friend Eric, or Ez, from school. Ez is a virtuoso pianist (currently working on the Rach 2) who is rarely seen wearing shoes, not because he's a socialist, but due to his love of roller-skating. He spent the entire night knocking back strong cups of coffee and sitting around like a sage, occasionally dispensing pearls of wisdom to people talking nearby.

Because he left in the morning before I was awake, Ez charmingly left a message on the stairs. "Gotta run. Thanx for party. Ez." The thing which sets Eric apart from the rest of mankind was the fact that he'd written it by carefully arranging small grey stones to spell out the message.

Other exciting people in attendance who are worth a mention were: a grinning Hugh Dennis lookalike; another schoolfriend I haven't seen in years, who is certainly the first of my friends to get themselves an agent (he's an actor); the man from the NME, who explained to me in great but genuinely fascinating detail how Madonna, Prince and Jackson are the holy trinity of '80s pop; the girl who saw my Viva La Raza (Viva the people) t-shirt and asked which people it was I wanted to live, as if I was some kind of pro-genocide butcher; and finally one young man, who, instead of bringing a bottle, brought us flowers – an apparently touching gesture, later undermined by the discovery that he'd stolen them from a funeral. Respect also to the thirsty fool (currently pursuing a career in the law) who awoke and began demolishing the leftover Sambuca, before moving onto the white wine.

The party took place between the hours of 7pm and 5am, although I have to admit me and Sarah skipped out around 4 to go to a house party we'd heard about up the street. The door was answered by a guy in a big fake afro (where do these things come from? Whenever there's drinking, there's always someone wearing a big fake afro).

He looked at us, waiting for an explanation. We remained silent, me knowing that the excuse "I'm here because my mate's mate is mates with the guy who lives here" would not do. Sarah also remained silent, perhaps knowing that "I'm here because my boyfriend's mate's mate is mates with the guy who lives here" would be even worse. Then he stepped aside and let us in. We didn't stay long; despite the DJ, the well-thought out lighting, the preparation, the people in there didn't look like they were having much fun. So we returned to House Party #1, and all was well.

Original pirate material

Many people have been asking me about the progress of the boy Paul, who finally embarked on his Russian odyssey last week. Had an MSN chat with him this morning, and here's the verdict in full:

Big Fat Melting Pot says: So, how's Rusher?
Hit It and Quit It says: Let me put it this way: the other day, I bought the entire 1960s-70s Stones back catalogue on pirated MP3 CDs from a kiosk on the street at 3am for about 2 quid.

So there we go.

Country Grad Ballad Man

Tuesday was graduation day for me, despite the fact that I finished my Goldsmiths MA over a year ago. But all went without a hitch: digital cameras were wielded, the chancellor was charmingly Dumbledore-like (despite baldness and lack of beard) and gowns were returned largely unripped.

After the ceremony, it was all out to the field out the back to tussle over canapés, meet parents and help selves to glasses of free wine. Me and Darren went over to say hello to ex-Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, a previous alumni of the College who was there getting an honourary degree. Bizarrely, the three of us then chatted as if we all knew each other quite well. No small talk needed when you know exactly what it is they do for a living and how they beat their alcohol problem.

Coxo was very nice. I asked what kind of privileges you get with an honourary degree. "They gave me a folder of stuff I'm supposed to read," he said vaguely. Left is a picture of him desperately trying to get the annoying woman to leave him alone, so he can continue his glorious conversation with us.

Well, then the booze ran out and the place emptied out pretty quickly. Death of a Party all right. So we went to a pub up the road in New Cross. Then we went to a pub in Greenwich. Then to a restaurant. Then to a rather hideous bar off Leicester Square that played disgracefully cheesy music and charged far too much for a beer. It was amazing.