Velvet Elvis and the Guru of Bling
by Kay Sexton
I was sitting in a pub with the man who is probably my guru, although I'd never say so and he'd deny it if I did. I met him through yoga, which is why guru seems to be the right title, although I could as easily say mentor, guide, spiritual teacher, or leader. Whatever I call him, Malcolm would smile and turn it into a denial of anything except each of us choosing our own path through life.
On the wall behind the bar was a postcard of such scintillating vulgarity that it was hard to look away from it. A senorita in a yellow dress with black lace ruffles, carrying a fan with pink sequins, danced with a bolero-clad man whose red velvet sash looked like a squirt of catsup that missed his bar meal. I pointed it out, and Malcolm got up for a better look.
"It's lovely," he said when he returned. I laughed until my drink went up my nose and he slapped me on the back.
"Oh, come on! It's hideous, and tacky and . . . bling!" I said. Then I had to define bling. I went for flashy jewelry sported by adolescents and the whole culture of ostentation without aesthetic value. I sat back, pretty pleased with myself.
Malcolm smiled. "Mozart," he said. "Mozart must be blingy."
"No. No! Bling is crappy stuff, all show-off materialism like winter tans and gigantic diamond rings, and watches that cost more than some people's cars. Not Mozart."
"Why not?" He settled back with his pint and I realized I was in for a debate. I've never won a debate with him, and over the decades I've learned, finally, that sometimes I can even work out for myself why I'm wrong. But this time I was confident.
"Well . . . anything bling doesn't have staying power," I said.
"Ah. So Canova . . ."
We'd discussed this previously. It's a question of why a sculptor as talented as Canova fell into the habit of sticking fat boys with wings all over his work-—the putti (or baby angels) that people either sigh or gag over. I'm a gagger and so is Malcolm. But if I admit that Canova is a bit of a blingster, then how can I deny that Mozart had his flashy moments and some of his work is less than deathless? Wagner—very ostentatious at times. Dickens spread the gilt around in some of his novels. I sighed.
"Think of the difference between a Francis Bacon painting and an Elvis portrait on blue velvet," I said. "The latter is bling."
Malcolm took my wallet from me. There aren't many people I would allow to poke around in my belongings, but he's one of them. He extracted a photograph of my teenage son, and a picture of a snow hare. The former is sentimental, the latter just too beautiful an image to throw away. He went to the bar and talked to the barmaid. She looked surprised for a second but opened her purse and took out a couple of pictures. Malcolm displayed some of the contents from his own wallet. A customer chuckled, took out his wallet and did the same. Knowing there was a lesson in the array of pictures, I began to study them.
There were no velvet Elvises. The barmaid carried a picture of herself and her boyfriend on holiday, and one of her dog. The customer displayed his four grandchildren. Malcolm's pictures included an Indian temple he visited decades earlier on a pilgrimage and three puppies in a top hat.
He pointed to the puppies. "Bling?"
"Well," I tried to evade him. "A bit tacky perhaps?"
He picked up the puppy picture. "This makes me smile—it doesn't matter if it's a velvet Elvis or a Caravaggio, if it makes you smile."
The barmaid stroked the picture of her dog, the customer named each of the kiddies in his picture, I glanced at the Spanish postcard.
"So," I said. "What's the moral?"
"No moral," my guru said. "Only that if it makes you smile and doesn't harm others, then it doesn't matter if it's a velvet Elvis. There aren't enough smiles. Forget aesthetics. We spend too much time looking for what's worthwhile and not enough time looking at what's in front of us."
On the way home, my taxi driver had a pink dinosaur on his dashboard. "Nice Barney," I said, as I got out of the car.
"Yeah," he said, taking his tip, "my kid gave it to me—makes me smile, you know?"
"I know," I said. "It's a bit like a velvet Elvis."
BIO: As well as writing for the UK's premier sustainability journal, Green Futures, Pushcart nominated KAY SEXTON is Fiction and Creative Non Fiction editor at Her Circle Ezine. Kay blogs about writing fiction at writingneuroses.blogspot.com and has a regular column at Moondance.
Contact Kay at: kay@charybdis.freeserve.co.uk
ARTIST DEE RIMBAUD STATEMENT: Dee Rimbaud is an artist, poet, novelist and occasional new age gypsy. He is currently living in Isla Cristina, in the south of Spain, with his partner and child, after four months of travelling about in a Mercedes 609d van. He is author of two poetry collections, The Bad Seed (Stride, 1998) and Dropping Ecstasy With The Angels (Bluechrome, 2004); and one novel, Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God (Bluechrome, 2004). He edited the charity poetry anthology, The Book Of Hopes And Dreams (Bluechrome, 2006). He also edits The AA Independent Press Guide, a free online directory of magazines and publishers, hosted on his website alongside a host of useful writers' resources, as well as a port-folio of his art and a selection of his writing. His art is frequently used in magazines and internet zines and has graced the book jackets of collections by Janet Buck, Rupert Loydell, Norman Jope and many others. Dee's art is now available on t-shirts, posters, cards and assorted gift items via his CafePress shop. Aside from all that, Dee maintains a blog and a travel-blog Altogether, he manages to scrape a living that keeps him happily tightrope walking the poverty line. Rich patrons, poor publishers and penniless poets are welcome to email him with offers of commissions.
Contact Dee at: info@mercyground.com Artist's Website: http://www.rimbaud.org.uk/.