Print/collage: Untitled / The Rebel (on a wobbly rail)

Untitled, RTomens, 2019 (and unfinished)

I'm walking along Kentish Town High Street when I see a guy sat outside the cafe and I think "I love rebels like him!" but he isn't rebelling against anything consciously, probably oblivious to the fact that he represents everything we normal people (?) shouldn't aspire to because, anyway you can't aspire to slide that far down the Social Ladder - not that he's down and out, he's got a coffee, him and his mate - both ragged but I focus on him, hunched, smoking a roll-up, wild hair, ragged clothes, intense screwed up eyes pondering how he got where he is? I doubt it. His type don't ponder, navel gaze, reflect - do they? yes, in quiet moments...what does he think about when he's in bed at night (does he have a bed? yes...is it made of straw and cardboard? Probably. No, a bed in a hostel? Maybe. A stained mattress, dirty sheets well off-white bed never made). He got it all Wrong and he doesn't know it. He sits there whilst us Normals walk past going to and from work, pushing babies, dragging children, shopping, delivering to shops living Normal lives whilst he...what? Exists! The dirty ol' bastard - defiant. Ugly. Probably smelly. He's not going to the gym anytime soon. He's not getting a tattoo or watching Love Island or buying a pug or listening to Rap - what would he listen to? Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman? He is Free Jazz. The rest of us a production line boy/girl bands by comparison. He's out there. He's late-Coltrane and Sun Ra on an improv trip. He's Cecil Taylor and he's travelling on a very wobbly rail. I hope he doesn't come off anytime soon...