B.U.S.H.E.D.

1994: night. I lie slumped before the glowing TV in a suburban lounge in Fremantle, Australia. I've been Down Under for months, having travelled overland via Calcutta, KL and Jakarta but all I’ve seen are the suburban houses of Hilton, the “Cappuccino Strip”, Perth’s hygienic centre, its manicured parks, its glinting shards, an ocean too choc-full of bio-hazards to enter even for a strong swimmer, let alone a stoner like me.

I never could skin up, my joints always fall apart, something to do with the rolling action or my watered-down saliva. Badly I roll another pure grass spliff on an album cover: Ian Dury, “New boots and panties”. Though shot outside Axford’s in Victoria the cover reminds me of home: Upper Street, Islington, the always-shuttered shop with the girdles that used to catch my eye. I miss London so much (the rough purple pub carpets) I puke.

Not England: London.

It’s Friday night: I have no plans other than to get smashed. I can’t afford bar prices; drunk, I just had a long conversation with "G", the girl I love back home. She can’t understand why I’d come all the way out to Australia then sit in the house getting stoned rather than – well, what does she expect me to do, wrestle salties? But then, G never really understood what it’s like: being me.

It’s only 10.30 and I’ve already watched “The X Files”, “NYPD Blue” and “Herman’s Head”. Pushing a half-blank VHS in the machine I lie back on the carpet and watch my edited highlights of “Rage”, an all-night video channel they stick on when they run out of programmes and which doesn’t start for hours yet.

First, Caligula’s “Roundabout”: that numerical countdown reminiscent of Peter Greenaway’s levels of hell from a few years back. Words flash on screen, in my eyes: RUBENEQUE DREAM, NO CONTROL. Numbers – counting up or down? Back in London I wanted to do a video of me in that style Greenaway used for his Dante project – numbers flashing, water trickling down the screen, me in black t-shirt wiping boozy sweat off my face. I still harbour improbable hopes that one day Mr Greenaway, out of the blue, will call me up.

Now Hole: “Miss World”. Courtney at her most vivacious, a straggly Debbie Harry, my first (and possibly greatest) love... Cleanliness is next to godliness, I’ve made my bed and I’ll lie in it. As Courtney stage-dives I catch her, peek up her dress: she slaps me hard round the face. I like it.

Next Frente – “Bizarre love triangle”, Australia’s greatest ever single and it’s by bloody New Order... her short elfin hair, Melbourne twang – do you think she knows Manchester’s rainy streets, stolen kisses beneath iron bridges? Her partner circles, guitar strumming: circling for the kill. I read somewhere Melbourne is rainier than Manchester. Bollocks.

Underground Lovers – “Las Vegas” – I’m a show girl... all feather boas and wavy dancing, the kid goes to Vegas and ends up swallowed whole, lots of feathers fluffy and pink, cigarettes... the singer too big and burly for the female role, the showgirl and the kid fade...

Massive Attack, “safe from harm”: a Bristol tower block: Shara Nelson singing as she ascends a stairwell, two men in the lift in denim jackets, dealing – they both look like me... come up and see me sometime, that’s my spliff-end smoking on the step... and there at the end, the gate across the door, a little boy in Freddie Krueger mask – is that Ian Brady? When I see those mean streets here in my Australian suburb I wish I was home in the badlands – why's that I wonder?

Now Shara’s “Uptight”... somehow you always seem to win... she’s in New York and that’s where I'm heading albeit the circuitous route via fucking Indonesia and Fiji. On the plane from Heathrow for Delhi I watched “A Bronx Tale” and grew glum: why didn’t I go there? Because I tried before and blew it. How the fuck did they do this “Uptight” video – all in slo-mo but mouthing word-perfect? An angular-faced woman hugs her man near the end, she’s taller, she envelopes him within her coat... I’m playing to win... Take a look in the video, there I am in the subway train... G said we couldn’t mate because she towered over me like an Empire State and she wanted us to be like the Twin Towers...

Pulp: do you remember the first time? Dark northern nights on the park and in a pile on unmade beds. Maybe I left Yorkshire too soon? Nah... weird video, up and round and over, giddy, like being drunk in dreams – dancing on and in shopping trolleys – the one they found in Sydney Harbour with “do not remove from LHR” on it... all these old cars with wooden frames, back to the old houses... the feel of cheap wood-chip on my palm as I went up to bed... I haven’t had sex since we got here – not once. A kiss in Thailand, a promise – there was that girl the other week, we were meant to go to the pics – forgot...

Aphex twin: “on”. A beach. Hardly seen one, too scared to swim, too many flies and big strapping Aussies kicking sand beneath contact lenses. The beach moves freeze-frame stop/start motion, matches music, strange tidings, a man in an ancient deep sea diver outfit dancing – has he walked Loch Ness? What would one see in the depths? I once read everyone in the world could squeeze into Loch Ness and I was impressed with the information, but I’m still not sure if I’m impressed by how big the lake is or how many people there are... it’s a small world, yeah, but not QUITE as small as I’d been led to believe...

I came to Oz because I wanted to see where they filmed “Home Sadly, and Away”: I’d watch it in the Holloway Road shithole above the curry shop and dream, and now here I am in Oz, dreaming of Holloway Road. The kid from Aphex is unmistakably of my time – t-shirt over long sleeved top, the baggy trousers T wouldn’t let me buy from Sonoco on Totty Caught Road in the five minute trolley dash before we hit the pub of a Saturday morning...

A little Ronnie Jordan, “come with me” – I want to, Ronnie, I wish to return, back to the Bronx where I belong. I blew it back in ‘89 – lost in cold-heart Boston and the Lower East Side, the sound of guns as I slept off Tetley’s Bitter after finding that pub in Manhattan called – bizarrely, in the circumstances, what with my being from the same moors they shot “An American Werewolf” – “The Slaughtered Lamb...”

Now the videos are all over the place – jump starting, static, “Rage” logos – chaotic as my disordered memory. I’m a decontrol freak... I found work chain-sawing, clearing drains, licking toilets, then the bitumen Bush gig - so I do have SOME money – yet somehow I just stay in and get smashed, Aussies weird and naive, not getting me one bit nor I them...

This is more like it – Beck, “Pay no mind”. Lava flows and so do toilets – we walk out among the manure. A giant dildo pierces the sky... that weird footage of cougars in Vegas lounge bars, kids freewheeling... the drugs won’t kill your day job. No, but they help kill the night Becky baby... I wanted to belong to this slacker age but – somehow it didn’t want me. Like – in India all the other travellers had dreads and tie dies and I'm there with me number-one haircut and DMs, not a part of it at ALL. Get out your lead pipe pipe dreams boyzzz...

Hey, whaddya know – I’m in the cocktail lounge, chatting up some woman twice my age. Just before leaving London I had one last fling with this Older Woman I’d been seeing and she made me promise to send her a postcard from the Taj Mahal – so I did... Love the end, the cop runs in the cop shop: Snoozer.

Beautiful South, “everybody's talkin'”? – a monstrosity – they’re trying to steal the song from Nilsson! I’m goin’ where the sun keeps shining... the best film ever made, “Midnight Cowboy”, or rather, my personal. Screw you Beautiful South, floating through Notting Hill on your fresh-made bed, whaddya KNOW? Here’s who: YOU DON’T. You don’t know what it’s like to be cold. I’m at the side of Westbourne Grove throwing rocks at yer float...

Now we’re TALKING: Sisters Underground: “in the neighbourhood”. Fab song, fab vid – some Kiwi slum, two fine gals, tough cookies these Maoris – I briefly worked with a gang of Maoris, told me to watch “Once were warriors”: shan’t. I know I know my enemy’s a white collar criminal... Hey, there I am! In the subway, look!

“Dreams”: The fair colleen out of the Cranberries – love that look, those dreaming Irish gamine eyes... means everything to me. So many vids at the moment are green, Nirvana-ish, rain falling down glass... remember In Tua Nua, that Dublin pub, possibly The Palace or Mulligans, circa 1988? Taping the conversation, the crash and groan as I drop the tray of pints...

Juliana Hatfield 3: spin the bottle with Ethan Hawke-eyes. Why am I not a film star? I was Sherlock in a school play (“The Three Garridebs” and pretty fine. Tall as Cruise. Not my looks no sirree. If I was there I’d spin the bottle and kiss her on the mouth. I never meet girls like that.

I never meet girls.

DIG: Ooh “that’s my favourite”... big and lovely, healthy happy, how sexy can you be? How much sexier than she could any woman ever be? Even her waistcoat is fucking sexy. Every time this song comes on I must dance...

Badly.

As for the bint off Whale – “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” in her polka dot dress, flashing her panties licking armpits as the men in dresses growl – spanking their silver foil butts with lollipops on a slag heap...

Dawn Penn – “you don’t love me”. I do Dawn, I do... The young blonde with pixie-short hair and the tall black guy dance as Dawn regards all, wryly... wiser and better but, if we’re being honest, not really more fuckable – that instrumental break stunning – old time dance hall... the girl throws the drink, the man rubs face rueful then he’s pushed away like I’m pushed away, like they push me away down the “Cuba Libra” or whatever the fuck it’s called, the one where P found me asleep on a table that night at 2 am... well, there I am, dancing badly in the corner – alone.

By some weird coincidence, by now almost every video features a girl to whom I’m deeply attracted – now Kristin Hersh – A Loon – halfway through she breaks out, into something new, in Amsterdam I think with her young son, about the age I was when I went with mum to that refuge, that old American woman: “oh he’s so cute!” Why were we there? All I remember are Disney comics, Huey Louie Dewey and bunk beds... you crazy loon... jumping in puddles as she holds his hand, carrying him across the bridge and talking in cafes, carries him home with wet feet - will I ever be a mum?

Pharcyde next, 4 better or 4 worse – hilarious – she catches him dancing in his medallion then the weird fucking phone call to some gym instructor – LA? Lost in a phone booth... the weird wedding...

“Puppet”: Lisa Germano trailer trash, sweaty, lurid, humid... touching herself on the swing, in the chair, if I was there I’d kneel and pray, I’m in Louisiana, you’ll be relieved to hear I don’t care about your braces Lisa... the drunk rockabilly gouching out before the portrait the big beefy guy laughing the big old trout slides down that pole peeling spuds madly...

Pigeonhed – “ain’t it so” – like a werewolf calling to new moons, breath spurting, peeking through those lacy curtains... so many of these vids reflect my dark obsessions... travelling alone, chain link fence, frills, cityscapes and beaches as dawn breaks, empty streets... why am I here in this empty town, this empty continent?

The Golden Palominos – “Prison of the rhythm” - Yanks again. Women who seem broad-minded. I should have been an American but then by now I’d be shot, stabbed, electrified... drugs, night and distorted faces, sometimes I think that’s all of it: my past? Sleaze: what is it about sleaze anyways? Dizzy from this fucking search I see the love of God? What – really?

Henry Rollins – Liar. Scary... Superman, a cop... the devil, burning buildings – I’ll turn you into me... and then the devil gives a chortle and he stalks off into the midday desert – I want to see the outback, the real thing – scary, a place to hide – or not... that burning redeye... I’ll come to you like an affliction and leave you like an addiction – I’ll burn your soul!

Cypress Hill – insane in the membrane – so cool and loose – loose fit. I never could wear those pants from Sonoco – too uptight, too – tight. Their flowing sound, the stage dives I’d never risk – who’d catch me? Louis Armstrong played the trumpet... and what’s that sample at the end – Gene Pitney? I think I’m going crazy...

More Cypress Hill – I ain’t goin’ out like that... the long slow shot of the lit match thrown... I huff and puff and blow ya head off... one of the best little riffs you ever heard – as I always say it takes confidence to do repetition...

Back 2 Life with Soul II Soul – Back to the Eighties. I am back on Holloway road. Gotta get off this Islington kick – earlier I kept rewinding “A Fish Called Wanda” to that bit where they show my flats in Clerkenwell – I photographed the screen fuck sake. Back to life, back to reality... G wonders why I don’t get out much but the truth is I’m happy here in my little spot, music and wine and a large tote – in my own world, dreaming. Each time I trip I remember death won’t be bad so long as I’m in a calm room with booze, soft bedding and LSD...

Another sleazy one, Superchunk’s First Part – the tough girl playing American football in her dress – the trendy young teacher in the – what? Reform school? Why is he in PJs, why the pillow-fight? Why do they all kiss the camera leaving saliva-trails on the lens? But what a riff... the riff’s all that counts...

And then – Orbital, Halcyon days. A housewife with red curls and marigolds, blue eyes vacant as she scrubs the dishes... her infant son dances in the suds. She applies her lippy and dances – a bald man emerges... and then on TV the logo for “Home and Away” but its “Halcyon Days”... it’s me. .. I dreamed, came and here I am washing bogs in banks (at least, till I got sacked for being “too intimidating”...)

Nirvana: come as you are familiar from the first – that Killing Joke riff – Kurt swinging off chandeliers – I swear I don’t have a gun... more water falls on glass. Kurt swings and then climbs into the clump of friends and folds himself away... The baby swims through true clear water, like a native – the gun flies...

Porno 4 Pyros / cursed female dark, disturbing - some closet queer stalking LA or somewhere getting blowjobs from queens, eating sugar sandwiches... I used to burn my Airfix planes, shit... checking all the machines in the laundrette for change – yeah, remember that - but is it right that he’s a GIRL?

Lush “hypocrite” live up to the name – Ashford fairgrounds, red hair, that broody violence of the Rusholme Ruffians and the last night at the fair... ah, the fermenting furies of the English. As Tom Paulin pointed out on Late Review: we Brits are uniquely, staggeringly, aggressive as a race. You lackadaisical Aussies have nothing on us, my friends...

Is Sonic Youth’s Bull in the heather the sleaziest video ever made? Drips with the stuff – taboos crushed under heel – old women in lace, young girls in corsets, the endless infernal countdowns... the boy tied to the tree like that girl tied me up when we were ten and we were beginning to realise there was a difference...

Then we have the Verys – “Colour Blue” – what strikes me is the video. Walking along a bleached-out beach, drinking at a kitchen table, obviously in the early morning, speeding through nights – it somehow rings true. The token girl, the video machine... Blue - that’s you; green - that’s me...

Though the best video ever made is of course that other Shara Nelson: Unfinished sympathy. One shot, powerful and passionate and full of HER... I cannot watch it without going slack jawed in admiration.

Walk: don’t walk.

Deee-lite: now I’m back in Amsterdam, with a girlfriend in 1990, staying on some boat, offered five thousand e tablets by some skinheads to take to Ibiza. I took one in the end – in an IRA pub – then walked home through the empty wet streets, hugging lamp-posts as she sighed... Groove IS in the heart lover, it is in the heart... and has anyone ever anywhere ever danced like Deee-lite?

Yes: Janet Jackson. Throb. Throb. Throb. The way they all move into time... the guy in the kilt can move and the one I adore is the little thing in the Union Jack top but you can’t beat Janet... here we go here we go here we go now...

Never dug Madonna – except here. Deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper... crass symbolism (pricked balloons) and all... I can’t help falling in love the further the further the further I go...

Damn it, I thought “Sabotage” by the Beasties was on here somewhere. I slide forward and rewind, slide forward, rewind, but it’s gone.

I switch off the machine. It’s not a video machine, it's a time machine, a hard drive connected to my 42 inch HDTV via media player. The video tape was made by Bush: at some point in Oz, back in '94, in rough Tippex I added an “E” and a “D”. Years later I converted the tapes to DVD and years later still copied and pasted the vobs. Now here they are at my beck and call on the same hard drive as my photos: of that trip and many others since and now of my wife of many years and my children. I’m back home in Islington, alone. My wife is at work tonight; two of my novels sit on the shelf. My children sleep, each in their own rooms for the first time. It’s both the end and the beginning of something.

I, um - I don’t get out much.