The street of eternal memory.
The okupa, several storeys high. A neighbourhood of okupas within another neighbourhood of okupas. Next door is well known for its sophisticated forms of drag cabarets, almost completely free from notions of gender at all kind of vibe. This multi storeyed place; Sueno Lucido, lucid dreaming. Not so much.
Lots of men, some women. I can barely tell the young men apart by their character. A glamorous rock star looking Swedish man, bandana round his neck, looks much cooler than it sounds, with a very cool smart dog also with a bandana. He has a beautiful girlfriend, I see their gorgeous rooms briefly. Their dog comes up and licks me.
“Yeah, she had her face in a used sanitary towel earlier, don’t let her lick your face.”
A welsh man in a wheel chair with stubbly hansome chin, the easy smile of a charming man living off his wits. The warm welcoming smiles from everyone are spread out over a couple of weeks.
The night I arrive, I’m sitting on a low cushion on the floor with the dog. Curly hair, brown, young english man proabably the same age as me, maybe older, his mates, a fairly chubby, or muscly shaven headed white guy.
“MC at nightclub” mostly from Macclesfield, quite well brought up lads, not into much, ” just like getting stoned and chilling out, moved to Barcelona coz its cool, live in the squats coz its freedom inet, can just get on with it. Got our music, sing on the streets. gonna go check out this place round the corner, gonna open our own one.”
“Are you sure it’s empty?”
“Yeah we’ve been watching it”
“Have you ever broken into an empty building before?”
“No”
“You’re going to have such a fucking good time, it’s really fucking scary, its great. What tools have you got?”
“Not really got anything”
I give him one of the multi tools from my rucksack, an essential part of any artist kit.
I can’t help myself, I have to tell them about the first vacant building I broke into. Fourstacks, on Leigh Road in Worsley. Just on the edge of the woods, at the top of a hill that looks across Trafford and Manhchester and otherwise across Lancashire. I don’t need to tell them the whole story. I’m quite shy, I feel that as a newcomer I should try give them an impression of me, but I don’t really care what they think, so I just keep my mouth shut. The mansion had been standing empty for years. We had been watching it sink into a green overgrowth. The fences had fallen down the tennis court, a ghost. From the street it was wide and grand, but like a set for an old western, it was all show, a very broad, very narrow house, but maximized on the light from the grand lawns. Apple trees in the back garden. It was October, a cold one and the tall beech trees in the area were crinkling at the edges of summer.
I asked a couple of friends who would consider themselves braver, stronger, more masculine than I to come along and get in. There were four of us, investigating the strange combination door lock on the front, we had no chance, but what an ingenious idea. The windows were in tact so it would be clumsy to smash one, especially as we would be unable to keep the place occupied all the time. One window had a half black empty look to it on the first floor, looking to be around the top of the stairs. I levered myself using one ledge to gain a foothold on another and then heave myself up and onto a low roof to investigate. The windows had additional braced locks on the inside, but I could reach through the hole in the glass to unscrew them. It took a little time and the antique air exhaled from the house made the adrenaline rush and my heart pound. My three friends below, tittering with excitement in the darkness below. The night on mute apart from the occaisonal car blindly passing by, out of sight below a two metre wall that held up the front lawn above road level. The sounds of night time birds in the branches.
“You can get in and down and let us in”
“I’m not going in there on my own!”
“We can’t climb up there”
“Bastards”
I finally get the whole window open and can slide inside. I can’t see what’s in front of me, the blackness graudally becomes a floor to the landing. I drop down into the darkness. The air is thick, mouldy, garden centre smell. The stairs are to my right, I can see the light coming through the frosted glass door. I don’t want to spend any longer in here than I have to, so I speed down the stairs and let in the others.
We never found the combination for the front door lock, but all the other keys were conveniently left behind in the hall. It was a terrifying, fun, marvelous mansion. Games of hide and seek, stories round an electic fire. New years eve on the radio. When libary cards were hand written carboard envelopes with dates from a rubber stamp.
That had been a great time, but we couldn’t stay there round the clock so by the time spring came someone else discovered it and smashed the place up.
I don’t feel like talking much at L’eterno memoria. The first night I’m there, they offer me a room next to their main living room. I’m grateful for any place I can crash for a while. The room already stinks of piss. There is no window, no electric light, a mattress on the floor, smelling questionably. Despite being as cheerful as I can to everyone, I’m still utterly depressed and really don’t care, maybe there will be some sunlight coming through the tiny window just below the ceiling.
On the wall in the hallway is a mural by that dutch guy, big scary red face. He’s hanging around drunk out of his head before he staggers down the stairs.
People are sitting around drinking by the kitchen. The living room is on the second floor. The ground floor is just an entrance by the looks of things, mostly taken up by the place next door. The first floor is mostly all cannabis plants then the second floor has the living room, my room smelling of piss, and on the other side of the wall is Paul’s room. Paul’s a good deal older than the rest, from Liverpool. Another commited alcoholic, enjoying a life without the responsibilities of a house or a family, so drunk from morning until night.
“We’ve all be having a talk, and we think you should move out Paul.”
The welsh guy in the wheelchair is being diplomatic. It’s a rather tense situation. This guy Paul, who I barely know seems to be quite a character. His ruddy face sits on a turkey like neck as he makes his reposte. Spittle flings from his mouth.
“You don’t have to move out right away, we all like you, we just think there have been too many incidents and negative energy where you’ve caused disruption”
More spittle comes forth. I am intrigued by his position. He lists all the shortcomings of the rest of the inhabitants. I look around at the thick layer of grease that covers everything in the kitchen.
There are a number of small animals, the older black dog with a neckerchief, a couple of other small canines and a young cat. This cat thinks she’s a dog. She plays with Meady on the carpet before me. They wrestle and try to bite one another’s necks. The cat is a little more mature than Meady and has come to a certain age where her hormones are taking control. During their play she frequently lies flat on the floor with her tail in the air trying to persuade Meady to mount her. Fortunately Meady has no understanding of being pussy whipped.
I decide to be impartial and try to listen to everyone’s stories. I don’t pass judgement on anyone, but it is clear to see that everyone has faults and weaknesses, insecurities and is untrustworthy. The main problem is none can trust each other, but can’t get over that point and move on. They should accept that they are a bunch of narcisstic irritating second rate con artists fallen foul of their addictions and avoiding all kinds of responsibility, just like everybody else in the world.
Paul’s room is spotless. Everything is tightly and neatly folded away ready to move in a heartbeat.
“I’m not going nowhere for a bit me. I’m staying right here. That cheeky welsh cunt think he can tell me where to get off.” He has a window. “Have some wine, only costs a euro for a box this.” He passes me a carton of Campo Bello. I find the name hilarious, on the cardboard is a stylised design of stripy fields in a low saturation screen print.
“I was in prison, that’s where I learnt to be tidy”
“What do you do to stay alive?”
“I juggle me, I don’t really, I just know a bit, enough to make it interesting. I tell a story you see me, the tourists love it. You see you got to keep up with the times, its not difficult though. Watch this.” He digs out a trio of old juggling balls. “Mr Bush and Mr Blair” he juggles the balls, then balances one on the back of his hand while juggling the other two with his right. “They go to war, everywhere.”
“Very good”
“I’m not an alcoholic you know. I eat you see. You can tell an acloholic because they don’t eat. I go the bakeries and ask them for a loaf and they give one to me. It always pays to be polite to people. Always be a gentleman and always pay your debts”
Meady pisses on the floor of the kitchen.
In the daytime, the place is quiet. Nobody gets up until late into the morning. I make an attempt at cleaning the living room and kitchen. I manage to tidy up, sweep and mop the living room, but the kitchen would require a chisel. There are wire shelves with ‘recycled’ produce from the end of the market day. Artichokes arrange themselves at my eye level. I wonder if any of them know how to cook an artichoke. I don’t. Further down is a shelf full of over ripe plantain. I decide to fry them up.
The girl with the slim fingers is up. Her brown curly hair is short around her ears. Again she sits poised with a cigarette between knuckes and drops ash on the floor.
“I’ve just mopped there”
“There’s nothing cleaner than ash”
“I can’t fault you there”
The welsh man joins us and makes coffee.
“Sand is better you know” he pipes. “Nothing better than washing in sand, gets you really clean.”
He tells us a story about smuggling through airports with a wheelchair.
“It was right tense, I was shitting myself but I didn’t show it. All these police dogs were having a right good old sniff around the chair, I just shrugs and says I got a bitch on heat at home and they leave me alone!”
“What? you’re cooking bananas?” one of the engish boys calls from the sticky kitchen.
“They’re plantain, you have to cook them”
“Well fuck me, i didn’t know that. I thought they were just nasty tasting bananas.”
The english boys like hanging around near MACBA, the contemporary art gallery because the paved square in front is world famous for its skateboarders. They pass around a name I recognise. Turns out a friend from school has become a world famous skateboarder.
They like my drawings and offer me things in exchange. I do as many portraits as I can using chalk and conte crayon on corrugated cardboard. When I spray the finished articles with hairspray as a fixative, I notice the white chalk disappears until it dries again. This is an indication of an inert pigment, each particle disperses light at the same frequency as the liquid, it’s actually transparent and only seems white. One of the south Americans gives me a wooden box of monteChristo cigars.
“Here you have to try this, we have this all the time for breakfast in Sweden. it’s caviar”
I’m given a piece of toast with a fishy smear.
“this is caviar?”
“It’s not like posh caviar, its normal breakfast caviar, its delicious”
It is a really nice fishy breakfast.
There are some avocadoes turning soft in the kitchen and a little tin lunch box that has a snap close lid, a removeable shelf and another water tight compartment underneath. There’s also some lemon and garlic. I manage to make a greeny brown guacamole that has big lumps of avocado.
I call up Don at a private phone booth to get some dog tips.
Training a dog to walk without a lead requires being constantly alert and avoiding any pavements right next to moving traffic. I have a vocabulary of whistles and noises that he understands. It’s also best to walk at night. The city is constantly lit and the night air has a magical quality.
“Ay que mono! Como se llamas?” Oh how cute, what do you call him?
“Midi”
“Meathie?”
“Meady”
“Methe?”
I’ve given my dog a name that is unpronounceable in the local tongue.
I urge him to take a shit. He learned to piss from Trousers, so he squats like female dog, but he’s not doing done a kaka. As soon as the door is open a crack he rushes inside, bounds up the four flights of stairs and immedieately shits on the kitchen floor.
Studio Diary 