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These appealed to my naughty sense of humour. And they’re delicious. Can’t beat a nice mouthful of tasty Spunk!

Due out on April 1st, 2025…

The above is the massive £1,500 limited edition boxed version. Below is the more affordable but still very dear £75 unlimited edition.

At over 600 pages, with 400 images, this should put the previous Taschen book on Baselitz very firmly in the shade.

I love Baselitz’s colour, touch, composition, and so on. The whole ‘upside-down’ schtick? Bit of a gimmick, to be honest. But not a bad one.

Painter, first and fivemost, printer, sculptor… I just love the vibe, the aesthetic, he has. I simply to MUST HAVE this book!

I was reading about the origins of terms such as pussy and beaver, when I (ahem) came across the above.

‘I’m not fond of either term but have always been interested in entomology.’ Love it! Is she perhaps studying the crabs, mentioned in the preceding paragraph?

Chilling in the garden. Post tooth-removal.

The anaesthetic wore off after about 2-3 hours. After that I was reliant on co-codamol to dull any pain. Truth be told, it hasn’t been too bad.

Teresa looks a million dollars. Unlike me, and my double- or triple-chin!

I didn’t do any paid delivery work today. Couldn’t book a goddamn shift! It’s getting to be preposterous. But in a way that’s ok. As I was recovering from rotten tooth removal.

We also took a car boot full of crap to the dump. Mostly from in the greenhouse. That felt good. Starting the Spring Clean purge.

I also helped Teresa set herself up for a tax refund. What a long-winded palaver that was! All rounded off with curry at ’Spoons, snooker at home (Trump whitewashed Murphy), and bed.

The above is a quote from Count Arthur Strong, I believe. And he says it in relation to attempts to stop cats ‘messing on my misanthracums’. Got to love Count Arthur!

It’s also how I feel right now. And I’m feeling – excuse the poo motifs – a shitload better now that I was about an hour ago.

I’ve been feeling more up than down for a little while recently. So in away I could see a downturn might be coming. Indeed, when I’ve felt very good recently, I’ve been rather wary. I don’t want too much (and by too much I mean any) manic depressive bi-polar bear shit!

Anyway, a combo of sexual frustration, lack of sufficient work/earnings, and increased costs that I simply can’t meet (hire and reward car insurance renewal, due soon; MOT and service for Flo’, due/overdue, etc.), and that’s before we even start on Council Tax and increasingly exorbitant utility bills…

GAAAHH!!!

When I’m this depressed or miserable I crave oblivion. And preferably with a side order of endorphins. I want booze. And poss’ also other drugs. And sex. Always sex. Lots of dirty, lusty sex.

But that shit ain’t a-happening. Except for a wee bit of booze. And doubtless that actually does no good. Poss’ even harm?

I tried to lift myself out of the slough of despond by doing the 10 minute Joe Wicks Seniors’ Workout, followed by a very hot bath. The exercise and bathing have helped lift my spirits a little. But nowhere near as much as is needed.

Still, at least it’s a bit of travel in the right direction.

I have lots of minor niggles, in addition to several long term issues, like psoriatic arthritis, psoriasis, and depression: itchy beyond belief feet; a shoulder injury that feels like RSI (brought on by booking and doing Flex shifts?); occasional bouts of insomnia; hay fever or rhinitis; and chronic exhaustion.

When the sexual frustration part kicks in, it’s more chemical/emotional. And it rapidly spirals out of control. If any little thing – like a recent incident with mouthy little shits outside Sainsburys – should add to the toxic mix, I feel explosions and meltdown are imminent.

I did a long early shift this morning. And I enjoyed that. Sunny weather, in and around Stamford. And this afternoon I put together about 150 or so of my poems, into a single volume PDF doc, which I then took to be printed and bound locally. So I’m doing stuff.

The outright misery kicked in with a combo of a tidal wave of sexual frustration, and a pint at The Ship Inn, just off the High Street. Fucking £5… for a pint o ‘piss!? That’s taking the piss. These are the times we live in. Royally ripped off in every way conceivable.

I drove to Wisbech, trying to secure a second shift. In addition to constantly hitting ‘refresh’ on the Flex app for what feels like almost the entire day. No dice.

The current snooker on ITV4 (coming from Telford) is failing to draw me in, as it has often in the past. I watched Richard Osman like a zombie…

So, a bath. Nice and steaming hot! And then bed. I was up here in bed by about 8pm. And here I am, typing this…

Jeezuz fuckin’ wept! What a shit-show…

And tomorrow? I’m away to The Dentist. For to have a dental-hygienist clean-up, and another cavity rotten tooth removed. Joy!

‘As all Marines are rifleman, all members of the Arkestra are percussionists.’ (liner notes)

This Sun Ra release, or at least my version, is on the Impulse label, not Ra’s own Saturn imprint. The cover sees Ra resplendent in full Crypto-Egypto regalia.

What was side one of the vinyl is now simply the epic opening/title track. ‘Space Is The Place’ has come to be very much identified with Ra and his Arkestra, as it was also the title of a 1974 film about them and their music.

The piece is structured around various riffs or motifs, some instrumental, some vocal. These elements weave a rug like tapestry on which the Arkestra and Ra ride, magic carpet style.

The track is loooong! At over twenty minutes. Poss’ outstaying it’s welcome? And in the latter stages gets rather stripped down, to relatively minimalist chanting, and Ra going all ‘lunar’ on his ‘space (Farfisa) organ’! I can imagine that live it might’ve been more compelling in its wacky intensity.

Side two is made up of four tracks. ‘Images’ is actually rather lovely. With Ra on acoustic piano, and a fairly ‘old-fashioned’ or straight ahead jazziness about it. Pat Patrick’s slightly out of tune electric bass helps remind us we’re on Planet Ra. And when the big band horns kick in…

‘Discipline’ is, along with ‘Images’, possibly my favourite on this recording, being one of the mellower and more ‘accessible’ numbers. The horns and wind arrangement are fascinating. I love how the piccolo-esque high flute parts dovetail into the mid- and lower register reed sounds. And the bass clarinet is fab.

The percussion on ‘Discipline’ is so very Ra; multi-layered, semi feral, chaotic, and utterly wonderful. He gets his Arkestra to layer cymbal sounds and bubbling percolating hand drums in a unique way. I love it!

‘Sea of Sounds’ is a mini-free-jazz-epic, and lives up to its title. I’m not a massive fan of free jazz. Esp’ not when it’s manic and atonal, as it is here. I can’t imagine listening to this track often! That said, Ra and co bring a sense of form and purpose to proceedings much free jazz lacks.

‘Rocket Number Nine’ is kind of nutty. It was released as a 45 rpm single (as was ‘Discipline’), on Ra’s Saturn label. That tells you all you need to know about Ra, et al. Almost nobody else on this planet would think of this manic chant based piece as single material. But that’s the whole point with Ra!

So, in summary, a mixed and interesting bunch. As usual with Ra, boring it ain’t. There are some great passages, and some terrific sounds. And whilst I’m not equally keen on everything, it all bears Ra’s hallmarks, and is a refreshing dose of pan-galactic Afro-Ameri-Egypto weirdness that is well worth hearing

As a footnote: the liner notes reproduce segments of Ra’s writings, which are semi-poetic screeds, that I find rather wonderful. I must get hold of his 1972 written anthologies.

I took these – my two art pads – with me. I seem to be taking these pads with me almost all the time, at present. Which appears all to the good!

I got the above Pink Floyd ‘special’, for Dan. I hope he can enjoy it?

Oh yes… I’m only on track four of disc one, and already I love this collection.

Sun Ra is… well, a Legend. In the face of his wildly fecund creativity, my paltry words seem pretty redundant. The best thing to do is… rack ‘em up, and knock ‘em down.

That said, Sun Ra was himself also a poet (and pamphleteer!); words were important to him… so…

I recall reading a rather sniffy review (of a different collection of early Sun Ra material, which also included some of these singles), in which Sun Ra’s own material was praised to the skies, whilst the doo-wop kind of stuff was panned. I think that’s a mistake. Ra and his Arkestra bring their wonkiness to everything they do.

From squeaking drum-pedals, to slightly out of tune organs, or bass instruments, all seemingly recorded, for the most part, in single room single takes (you can just hear the ambience of the whole band/the mix, live in the room). I’m sure Ra will have used overdubs, since he uses everything in the most experimental of ways, but there’s almost always a raw organic wholeness to an awful lot of what he does.

I must also mention something poss’ a bit arcane and off-piste. Such territory is, after all, home turf for Ra and co. And that something, or someone, is Fred Lane (& co.). Sun Ra and his cohorts are kind of the Afro-centric, madly prolific, and – whilst still filled with wit and humour – deadly earnest version of Fred and his ‘pataphysical’ loon-brigade.

Or, put (very rightly) the other way around, Lane et al were a pale and tiny chip of the mother block, that was Ra and his team-mates…Whether the resemblance, or echoes, are intentional or accidental, matters not a whit to me.

Did the bottom two whilst waiting for my shift to begin. Shades of grey to be added later, when time allows…

LATER…

Much fucking later (insomnia chews my butt, again!)… After deciding doing something was preferable to tossing and turning (and the dreaded itchy feet!), I came downstairs, shaved, and did this:

I’m staying downstairs, and having another crack at sleeping. This time on the busted couch. Don’t want to disturb Teresa any more!

I thought I should try doing some black and white stuff. It’s kind of nice to limit the palette. I’m still mining Picasso, as ever.

Meantime we’re watching – rather aptly – an old black and white movie, The Primrose Path,

Ginger Rogers is Ellie May, and Joel McCrea is Ed. Ellie May, a young innocent tomboy, is daughter to two generations of hooker. She meets Ed, falls in love, and gets married. But her family troubles follow, and blight things.

Ed abandons Ellie May. Ellie May’s alcoholic father, Homer, accidentally shoots Mamie, his wife/Ellie May’s mother. Ellie May seems doomed to follow the path of her female forbears…

Fortunately things turn out for the good, ultimately. I do like a nice old fashioned happy ending.

BACK TO ART…

I have to confess that I really love these two pieces. Are they just studies? Or are they something in their own right? I’ve no idea! And that’s fine.

I also feel that there’s lots of mileage in this direction. So I hope to keep producing stuff in this vein. And I hope I can transfer such ideas to larger format ‘proper’ paintings.

We shall see…