*Boff takes up a seat at a little round table, while our guest eyes him keenly without moving. A simple 'snap of his fingers', and a young lady in a mini skirt arrives at the table with a martini on a tray* oooh thank you, extra dry, very nice. Hello my darlings, I'm here to catch today's guest, who's gathering some brief respite before continuing with his busy schedule. Now, our guest is something of a showbizz enigma, some people say he's the man at the other end of Noel Edmond's telephone, others say he's a billionaire play boy philanthropist with a keen interest in shiny armour, yet others say his deft use of a camera and witty prose is enough to turn most to putty in his hands, all I know is that round my way he's called the long haired git. *LHG just smiles to himself and adjusts his head slightly to look more directly at Boff*. Thank you so much for inviting us to come and see you today, it really is a pleasure. I wanted to begin by asking what kind of day you've had so far? what have you been up to in the last 24 hours?
Indecently pleased you could make it my dear fellow, oh, its been exhausting, turning depression into practicable sexual idolatry, hypochondria into legitimate seduction techniques, all to the usual array of soft candlelight, filthy southern rock, and the scents of winter spices. However, appearances can be deceptive, take Milandra here, while her manner of dress may shock, its really no more than a purely utilitarian measure. Mere workaday. I was of course showing her the correct way to polish her tortoise. Something for her forum friends. Its far more difficult than it sounds, and she, being a mere beginner required a thorough walkthrough. In fact until the proper shine was achieved, it took something of a double buffing. I'm really quite exhausted. The brandy of course, a gratuity well earned.
I see, wow, and you did that twice? wow. I didn't even know she had a tortoise, that's lovely, and I guess also, my readers would like to get to know the real you a little more, I know you're many things to many people, but how do you see yourself? how would you describe yourself?
For a while I struggled with notions of identity, not because of any lack, and I'll not spin a tale of square pegs and round holes, rather the converse, I am, contrary to appearances, a mere putty to cement others dreams. This is not to say I don't present a certain image, but finding ones place is an excruciating challenge for the talented, classically handsome, and infinitely applicable. Instead, self image becomes a question of delicious balances, the zenith of which is not success itself, but the accommodation of the internal human, the peership of truth, the evolutionary, ever changing pillar of trust. To be seen only as needed.
Ok, I'm an arrogant prick
Oh Sir, I think you're being rather too hard yourself, you are however an enigma and a swirly vortex of word-play and wit, so perhaps we can move on then, we've already mentioned that you are quite the deft photographer, can I ask what in your opinion makes a good photograph?
A pithy question, subject to a million whims. For some its a shadow of a feeling, an insulation for histories to come, memory never quite as the eye or heart remembers. Lenses are not minds, so we photographers impudently brand an angle on the passage of time, colouring, filtering, composing, lynch-pinning slices of life.
It is first and foremost, a lie.
It is not and has never been reality, so it must therefore become nuance, art, craft, a weaving in space and time, a compromise, a clash of the organic, and the technological, frustrated by competing with luminosities of all kinds. Perhaps there is never a true result, merely a marker in a personal continuum, the camera often a shield, a prophylactic where we hold back our immediacy, sacrificing reactionary exultation for the further intense scrutiny of tomorrow. We are a bestiary and perception. Photography at its best is a successful negotiation, a geneprint of one that speaks to others, a window to another life. When it pleases me most there is a suspension of stricture, a transposition, a lesson of feeling which imparts to the viewer not only a life you never led, but a frame of mind that is not your own. I want to like the way I'm lied to.
Basically if it moves, I'll shoot the shit out of it. While maniacally trying to possess its soul. Naked chicks with an exhibitionist streak are neat. I stare a lot. Cameras got like 12 buttons. I read the manual. 2 million shots later I can take a focussed picture of a running cheetah over my shoulder with my cock in my hand. People need that.
I....er... see....*Boff shuffles in his seat* and in terms of your own work, are there are particular themes or key aspects you like to include in your work? is it as simple as taking a camera with you and snapping things on the move or do you prepare for your work?
Given I loathe plebeian social gatherings, weddings are obviously a no-no, frankly I'd rather do funeral photography, so if there's a rule one to decent photography, its avoiding all circumstances where a sheep wearing a meringue believes they have all the prerequisite abilities of a movie producer. I have collaborated but prefer to work alone, or intensely with a subject, be they human or animal. In truth animals are better, being they never fake smiles and are seldom reticent about casual nudity, and have not to date ever required a confidence boosting speech.
The other great tool of preparation is to hold discretion utterly precious. From celebrities to small mammals I hold confidences dear, never intruding, influencing at most, subtly. I was a painter long before ever grasping a camera in anger, so that sense of light and description is carried within me, this serves a visual palette, etiquette, and style, the pigments exchanged for light. As a deft photographer I find a great deal of preparation unnecessary, I adore surprises and react quickly, that is a constant trial, and a self accepted challenge. There's a pride and an art, even if working for pay nobody respects you for relinquishing that. Except tasteless asshats. They don't get an opinion and I don't tell them how to be a better asshat.
Cretins. Absolute cretins. From supermarket vegans on raw diets not voting and swallowing more pesticide than a snail in a Monsanto testing facility, to mafiosa masquerading as businessmen, and their minions the politicians with dicks stuck so deep in revolving doors at rush hour their balls start to whistle with the wind, I'm surprised we're not already dead.
We've got one country with a military ten times the size of anyone else's with bases all over the world selling us propaganda that three countries who haven't invaded anyone in 600 years are a threat to national security, its all beyond laughable. In good old blighty things have shifted so far right its almost heresy to mention the word " sharing, and clearly being disabled is a cue for the pack to turn and tear its weaker members limb from limb. You need a mortgage for a garden shed, and people are on thorazine to avoid taking a sick-day off work with a cold. In the future a pension will be someone who refuses to use pens. Frankly things have got so neoconservative I could bring back hanging. Probably get applause. As a rule of thumb, I generally distrust any well spoken man without facial hair. Especially ones that shaved their heads 20 years early because their mistress requires it. Willie Nelson wouldn't fuck over your gran for twenty quid a week.
Its the reactionary nature of mankind you see, few seek truth, social media really highlights that tendency. Outrage is no longer pre-emptive, outcry has become a new courtship ritual, like pecs on the office worker, morality as divorce proceedings in the nursing home, rebellion in a tie, an expression of emasculation, an overcompensation for lacking tangible virility and the decisiveness that accompanies it. Mankind freewheeling clumsily in its search for new cajones.
Well politics is all bollocks anyway, but what about people in a more general sense? you've mixed with the great and the good, what have you learned about personal interaction? are you something of a social mover and shaker?
On personal interaction, its better not to mix with the general population, they range from personality clones to the diseased and easily offended. I like offending them, but its like painting the fourth bridge. I accept acolytes grudgingly, but its hard finding suitably defiant and attractive ones. Also they tend to be short, and I have a bad back. All in all, its like watching coronation street when you were in the mood for an Ingmar Bergman, and I have yet to see what's "fat" about a beat, or how weighing 8 stone in a tracksuit works in winter. Moreover there's only so many times you can tell them having four kids at Armageddon isn't a plus before you start laughing.
Its true, I have met a number of celebrities, and they all have one thing in common, and that is an inner simplicity that often outweighs their public careers or persona. Some are wankers of course, but usually its a veneer, and many like to make cider, do the gardening, a seatful of cocaine and sleep with thai shemales, and call en ex wife at the same time, that sort of thing. The simple pleasures. Like any common man would. They are however never as advertised. Enfant terrible Nigel Kennedy bought me a beer on no introduction, within ten seconds of noticing I'd lost my wallet. True story. No violins needed. As for photographing them, its simple, I'm documenting them, not living vicariously through them. In a world of a million outstretched palms the one who asks for nothing may find a friend. I have no idols, see no celebrities, just people.
Weirdly, I find myself influential. A wider effect of having invested a sharp focus on the few has led to insights concerning the many. From two million photograph views with zero public ingratiation, the images standing nameless and alone, to being adept among luminaries the influencer is of course, the truth, it retains a power that deception, even of the flattering kind, cannot muster. Its a flat dull thud that sets the base level, and few evade it for long, for the subconscious subverts all attempts of dominion and crafts an easy, though painful acceptance. It is the firm foundation to rebuild the self, and ones society. My sheer sexual charisma usually seals the deal. Failing that a photo of your cat adoring you proves to virtually anyone that your utterly trustworthy, even if you do drive a jaguar, and plan on blackmailing the UN by hijacking a laser satellite.
My work has its solace, and what it can lack in glamour it more than makes up for in a sensuality, from richness of image to its soundscape. I am alone in a crowd, and part of the crowd in nature, where chatter is bird calls in mist, the beat of a butterfly wings the rhythm, it is hobby, love, and sustenance. Also, I compose utter crap, from rock to classical. Its brilliant for immediately getting rid of people. Failing that I shout at everyone until they sod off. Also my latest book is approaching two million words, it fills those insomnia nights with all a life would otherwise lack. It gets quite porny frankly, and usually the humans all die. I find that soothing.
mmmm makes sense. You've also described yourself as something of a fucknado, so I wanted to ask what's the best / silliest argument you've seen or been involved with? Personally I do love it when I'm on a train and someone is ranting down the phone at a colleague.
Oh lord, that's a long list, since I turned thirty my IDGAF seriously kicked in. Plus I have a supervillains voice a bit like the Djinn in Wishmaster that starts happening when I get annoyed so I tend to take the assholes no-one else does.
Since you mentioned trains I'll start do that one.
Late night train back from Wales. I had nodded off. Woke bleary. Largely empty carriage, couple of Indian girls looking nervous, sat a few seats behind. This asshole, nazi tattoos, Mohawk, the works, just staring at them. You know how I love those guys.
Anyway, air was thick, this guy was gonna kick off. So I give him one of my raised eyebrow Paddington bear hard stares. So he starts on me. I do the whole " just ease off the pal making the ladies nervous " thing.He starts in with a load of fairly hideous racist comments, I'm a lover of this and that apparently...and yeah I had a half Asian GF for years so yeah , I'm annoyed. He squares up, as per usual form asks me what I'm looking at.
" An anaemic Biro addict that headfucked a chicken?"
"Fkin what?"
" ok...I'll talk in a language you can understand"
"Yeeaaah?"
"PUCKUCK!"
He just swore and left. Was sure he'd go for it.
Indian lass just giggled and said " Puckuck? Really? Puckuck?"
Smiled for miles.
Read. Lots. Be really aware of corporate trolls and moles in care websites, zoos, and particularly the fishkeeping and exotic sectors. Don't anthropomorphise your pet. Triple your cost estimates and exceed minimum enclosure sizes massively.
The first step in wildlife preservation is really to drop the human concentric view. Its held sway for hundreds of years too long, and as a result we've killed more than half of the earth's whole biomass. We fix it, or we all die. Not cheery, but true enough. Preserve all possible wildlife corridors, don't support or buy any product that causes significant ecological damage, and frankly remember wildlife is seriously more linked to our survival than domestics ever can be, so expend your energies in the right place. I could go on for days, but I won't. Humanity knows in its heart what it must do. Retract. Give back, use less stuff, be less prone to the foibles of fashion, create permanence. Scientific advancement does not beat conservation for effectiveness, never will, and time is short. You keep what you leave alive, living free, connected.
Mmmmm very true. Our interview is already drawing close to an end and I feel like we've only scratched the surface, I did want to ask you whether from your experiences you've learnt any particular words of wisdom you wanted to pass on to the great and the good?
Messages of positivity are exclusively introduced to you by by people who want to enslave you, your children , your friends, and want you to smile about your own inevitable doom at their hands. Kill them with burning dogshit. And selfie with them.
Also be nicer to violinists than you might have felt you needed to be.
Curvy chicks are way better in bed....
..and ...erm.....remember plastic boobs aren't genes?
...and sex before work. Cos sexual imperatives. Don't dare defy them for a happy life.
Whitescale properly.
Get your damn chin up in selfies, you ain't a spring chicken no more.
If you sepia tone your pics people think you smell of piss.
Don't smoke in your sleep.
That's all I got.
Also be nicer to violinists than you might have felt you needed to be.
Curvy chicks are way better in bed....
..and ...erm.....remember plastic boobs aren't genes?
...and sex before work. Cos sexual imperatives. Don't dare defy them for a happy life.
Whitescale properly.
Get your damn chin up in selfies, you ain't a spring chicken no more.
If you sepia tone your pics people think you smell of piss.
Don't smoke in your sleep.
That's all I got.
I see, I think that's equally deep and amusing. Well, that about brings us to the close of our interview but as a final question, I wanted to ask who would play you in the film of your life and why?
Tricky. I could bow to vanity and gravitas, but perhaps something more subtle is needed.
Toby Schmitz, for those unfamiliar, he plays Calico Jack Rackham in Black Sails. He has that posh sense of WTF? Something I feel pretty much all the time.
On a bad day, Ian McShane. As he was in Deadwood. Obvious reasons.
Hahahaha excellent, with that LHG waves his hand to indicate he's tired and a gentleman in a suit, who's been there the whole time without us noticing comes across to usher Boff and the camera crew back out again. As Boff leaves glancing over his shoulder he can see LHG smiling and nodding, to go forth and make well...
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