I got there at 11.30 - very nervous. About the prospects of changing my life for ever -
To find out my appointment was for 10.30 -
I just burst out in tears
Love Tracey
The useless
(from Strangeland by Tracey Emin)
-----
Reccomend to read. This is the most brutal confession I have ever read.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
My Booze Heaven (from Strangeland by Tracey Emin)
The phone's ringing. My head's ringing. It's Wobbly (Gillian Wearing).
'Wotcher, Wobs,' I said. 'Congradulations on winning the twenty grand'.
She begins to relate her highlight of the night before. And even though she was dead chuffed to have won the Turner Prize, it was my Rock Maiden Rides Out TV appearance.
'But I wasn't on TV,' I say. 'Last night I fucked up big time. I missed out on five hundred quid.
All I had to do was sit there and talk about "Is painting dead?" But I blew it to celebrate with you.'
Gillian insists I was there, live on Channel 4, pissed out of my brain, my final remark: 'I want to be with my friends. I've got to phone my mom.'
'Very funny, Gillian, but you don't get me like that. What a wind-up!' I hold on the phone - my brain's about to explode, but I'm laughing - and turn to the man lying next to me. 'Oi, Mat, wake up. Was I on TV last night?'
Grunts, 'No'.
'Hey, Gillian, get of the phone. My hangover's too bad. Just take your humour somewhere else.'
I close the call with her still insisting that it's all true.
I go back to sleep thinking, How wonderful that my friend has time to crack a joke, even at the height of her celebrations, in the wake of her success.
A few hours later, I'm sitting in a cafe in Shoreditch, drinking coffee and feeling slightly more alive. I open the Guardian.
Complete fucking horror.
It's me, wearing my Vivienne tan top with the accessory of a bloody-bandaged broken finger, pissed on the television. And now it starts to come back. It wasn't someone's house: those comfy chairs, those strange people. It wasn't a dream. It was real. It was me.
I switched my mobile on. The elctronic voice tells me I have twelve new messages. The first is from Angela Bulloch (another Turner Prize nominee), laughing. Just her voice, laughing.
Every bloody message is the same: all me mates, all of whom caught the Turner Prize coverage of video.
Radio 5 calls me. They want a quick interview. The Tate calls to reassure me that I have caused them no embarrasment: I am an artist and that's the end of it. My gallery is inundated with requests for me to appear on chat-shows.
My art's selling like hot cakes.
My mum calls to say, 'Thank you for remembering me, even though you were on the point of unconsciosness.' (She had seen it on the news.)
All the phones are ringing every few minutes. I can't cope. I'm emberrassed and confused. I don't understand. It's like remembering nothing from your childhood, being shown photos, being told events and, bit by bit, assembling a possibly false memory from those fragments.
Am I now the George Best of the art world? He was a bloody good footballer, world class. But what is he remembered for?
I still don't understand why I behaved as I did, drunk or not drunk. My broken fingure, and the painkillers I'd take for it, must have been something to do with it, although that's no excuse.
(a chapter My Booze Heaven from Tracey Emin's Strangeland)
Here's the actual video from Channel 4.
'Wotcher, Wobs,' I said. 'Congradulations on winning the twenty grand'.
She begins to relate her highlight of the night before. And even though she was dead chuffed to have won the Turner Prize, it was my Rock Maiden Rides Out TV appearance.
'But I wasn't on TV,' I say. 'Last night I fucked up big time. I missed out on five hundred quid.
All I had to do was sit there and talk about "Is painting dead?" But I blew it to celebrate with you.'
Gillian insists I was there, live on Channel 4, pissed out of my brain, my final remark: 'I want to be with my friends. I've got to phone my mom.'
'Very funny, Gillian, but you don't get me like that. What a wind-up!' I hold on the phone - my brain's about to explode, but I'm laughing - and turn to the man lying next to me. 'Oi, Mat, wake up. Was I on TV last night?'
Grunts, 'No'.
'Hey, Gillian, get of the phone. My hangover's too bad. Just take your humour somewhere else.'
I close the call with her still insisting that it's all true.
I go back to sleep thinking, How wonderful that my friend has time to crack a joke, even at the height of her celebrations, in the wake of her success.
A few hours later, I'm sitting in a cafe in Shoreditch, drinking coffee and feeling slightly more alive. I open the Guardian.
Complete fucking horror.
It's me, wearing my Vivienne tan top with the accessory of a bloody-bandaged broken finger, pissed on the television. And now it starts to come back. It wasn't someone's house: those comfy chairs, those strange people. It wasn't a dream. It was real. It was me.
I switched my mobile on. The elctronic voice tells me I have twelve new messages. The first is from Angela Bulloch (another Turner Prize nominee), laughing. Just her voice, laughing.
Every bloody message is the same: all me mates, all of whom caught the Turner Prize coverage of video.
Radio 5 calls me. They want a quick interview. The Tate calls to reassure me that I have caused them no embarrasment: I am an artist and that's the end of it. My gallery is inundated with requests for me to appear on chat-shows.
My art's selling like hot cakes.
My mum calls to say, 'Thank you for remembering me, even though you were on the point of unconsciosness.' (She had seen it on the news.)
All the phones are ringing every few minutes. I can't cope. I'm emberrassed and confused. I don't understand. It's like remembering nothing from your childhood, being shown photos, being told events and, bit by bit, assembling a possibly false memory from those fragments.
Am I now the George Best of the art world? He was a bloody good footballer, world class. But what is he remembered for?
I still don't understand why I behaved as I did, drunk or not drunk. My broken fingure, and the painkillers I'd take for it, must have been something to do with it, although that's no excuse.
(a chapter My Booze Heaven from Tracey Emin's Strangeland)
Here's the actual video from Channel 4.
women with no name
Walked back with a Finnish director who lives in Beijing. He said there are 400 000 millioneres in China but some have no name. Those he has heard of belong to a ethnic minority and all of them are women. They just have nicknames. They were not given a name upon their birth.
3 Men That Made Me Happy in One Day
Finally Prague and out of metro for Florence Bus Station. A man is selling books right outside the metro. He stands with his back looking for something for two customers. Two Activias lie on the shelf next to the books. Maybe it's not worth asking and I can look around myself and find the bust station. I look around. No particular signs. He turns and I say excuse me, bus station? He tuns back and gets a piece of paper. Comes a step forward and hold the paper explains - 'go there', shakes hand meaning straight 'and then...' looks into the paper and says "right" ... "and then..." shakes hand meaning straight and looks into the paper again and I notice he has marked down several words and bellow the word "right" it's an arrow showing the direction of right and bellow the word "left" there's an arrow towards left. After a long journey with couple mistaken directions this makes me feel good even though I have to wait another couple hours at the bus station.
The bus arrived late in Jihlava, some time after 11.00. Several people got off and I had to ask direction since I had no desire to call taxi. broke. One woman said she had no idea where my hotel was. Three men stood nearby. Looking like boddies hanging around stations at this time. Middle aged men. I asked them. They started talking in Czech and I could only gather words. It seemed they were saying the place is somewhere close. A girl stood nearby. She asked if I spoke English. I said, yes. She said they are saying it's somewhere very close, that direction. Then her taxi arrived and the man said something like 'I will take you'. This was what I got and I said ok. He rolled my suitcase and we crossed the bus station. Getting out at the street he was talking things but we could not understand each other and there was nobody around. Suddenly he crossed that very street and turned ito a dark park corner. What I understood here he was saying don't worry, don't be afraid. something related to 'ne boysia'. I followed him thinking that he probably a shorter way and encouraged myself saying out loud half joking 'strashno'. He noticed an inconvenience and at the very first lit building he indicated: '.... (some kind of) institut'.
Finally out on another street, again nobody and the place which he thinks should be the hotel turned out to be a closed down restaurant. He had missed it by two buildings and we made it to the hotel. He took of his black glove from his shaking hand. We shaked hands, I expressed gratitude in all the possible jestures and then I met the porter. I said my name. He repeated my name and Anna's name, saying Anna Pshpshpsh. I laughed and said she will come in two days. He said 'if your friend not here, I will be your friend'. We laughed again and as I went to my room behind the door he waved his hand and said "Chusy".
The bus arrived late in Jihlava, some time after 11.00. Several people got off and I had to ask direction since I had no desire to call taxi. broke. One woman said she had no idea where my hotel was. Three men stood nearby. Looking like boddies hanging around stations at this time. Middle aged men. I asked them. They started talking in Czech and I could only gather words. It seemed they were saying the place is somewhere close. A girl stood nearby. She asked if I spoke English. I said, yes. She said they are saying it's somewhere very close, that direction. Then her taxi arrived and the man said something like 'I will take you'. This was what I got and I said ok. He rolled my suitcase and we crossed the bus station. Getting out at the street he was talking things but we could not understand each other and there was nobody around. Suddenly he crossed that very street and turned ito a dark park corner. What I understood here he was saying don't worry, don't be afraid. something related to 'ne boysia'. I followed him thinking that he probably a shorter way and encouraged myself saying out loud half joking 'strashno'. He noticed an inconvenience and at the very first lit building he indicated: '.... (some kind of) institut'.
Finally out on another street, again nobody and the place which he thinks should be the hotel turned out to be a closed down restaurant. He had missed it by two buildings and we made it to the hotel. He took of his black glove from his shaking hand. We shaked hands, I expressed gratitude in all the possible jestures and then I met the porter. I said my name. He repeated my name and Anna's name, saying Anna Pshpshpsh. I laughed and said she will come in two days. He said 'if your friend not here, I will be your friend'. We laughed again and as I went to my room behind the door he waved his hand and said "Chusy".
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