I have always hated maths. Probably because I was terrible at it and I tend to hate things I can’t do… But there is one equation knocking about which I DO get and have quite frankly had enough of – the equation which continues to dominate the world of Art: Talent + Person = Drug addiction
I have just finished reading Sebastian Horsley’s Dandy in the Underworld, which I REALLY recommend. It is hysterical. If you think of yourself as a bit of a rebel who makes their own rules and are on the hunt for a twisted role model. Horsley is your man and this is your book.
Horsley sadly died in 2010… but what a man he was!
Dandy in the Underworld contains some genius quotes – great one liners… As far as quotes are concerned, I imagine he will become a sort of Churchill for the rebellious.
Here are just a few:
“Life is just the misery left between abortion and euthanasia “
”We can’t all be stars because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as I go by”
“Of all the sexual perversions, monogamy is the most unnatural”
ONLY one thing annoyed me…..
I am ABSURDLY bored of liking/worshipping/fancying someone, running off to read their autobiography/biography or watch their life story and finding it is ALL about their hopeless addiction to drugs.
I know it was/is their life and so it needs to tell their story and their story includes drug addiction but I just wish once in a while it would skip that bit out. (They could have a sort of interval – a red curtain which comes down with the words ‘out of it’ painted across it for a second or two and then back in the money – well the music, poetry, art whatever the talent in question is)
Ray, Walk the Line, Scar Tissue, La Vie en Rose, Factory Girl, Songs they don’t play on the radio – the list goes on and on and on and on…
I cannot take it much more… if I have to hear about a bloody speed ball one more time, I will speed ball myself out of here.
I know I will continue to research these people, because unfortunately they are the people who interest me and I know I have no right to bang on about how they should have lived their lives (especially if it is just so I can enjoy their story a little more) but please just for once, can someone with talent avoid the alley laced with heroin? They could go REALLY wild and just take the busy street, perhaps on a horse and carriage, with a ‘I heart London’ cap on and a Mr Whippy ice cream in hand.
