Brian Messitt

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=82 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Warp Experience</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Warp Experience"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles"><U><B>Articles</B></U></A></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=398 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfc3.jpg"> <div> <B>Brian Messitt </B></div> <div> (born 19th November 1937)</div> <div> Murdered in Eton Avenue, Hampstead, London March 14, 2005 </div> <bR> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="1dc96c20.jpg" border=0 width="150" height="194" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div>  </div> <div>  </div> <bR> <div> Like a sudden CLIMAX</div> <bR> <div> To a medieval JOUST</div> <bR> <div> The wrecking AXE</div> <bR> <div> Held HIGH</div> <bR> <div> Smashes DOWN</div> <bR> <div> CRASHES DOWN</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> ON THE SCREAMING HOWLING</div> <bR> <div> Poor messed up BRIAN</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Utterly off his HIGH HORSE</div> <bR> <div> Huddled on his quaking knees in EARLY MORNING Eton Avenue</div> <bR> <div> Unable to ward off with DUSTBIN LID SHIELD</div> <bR> <div> The HAILING DOWN AXE BLOWS</div> <bR> <div> Pulping his sixty-seven year old</div> <bR> <div> Sun tanned balding head</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> INSANELY DELIVERED</div> <bR> <div> By Brian's WELL DRESSED old <I>FRIEND</I></div> <bR> <div> JOSEPH</div> <bR> <div> SCREAMING IMPRECATIONS</div> <bR> <div> As he hits</div> <bR> <div> HITS</div> <bR> <div> HITS</div> <bR> <div> HIS HOWLING DYING MEAT TARGET...</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> JOSEPH SCREAMS</div> <bR> <div> SCREAMS</div> <bR> <div> SCREAMS</div> <bR> <div> "TWENTY YEARS YOU HAD THIS COMING MESS-IT!"</div> <bR> <div> Adding, for the staggered passers by, "STAY AWAY,</div> <bR> <div> it's a PRIVATE MATTER."</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> NO INTERVENTION CAME.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Once Brian's head was almost free to ROLL</div> <bR> <div> Joseph calmly waited for the LAW</div> <bR> <div> HOLDING HIS BLOODY AXE BESIDE THE CORPSE</div> <bR> <div> He looked a man RELIEVED HIS TASK WAS DONE.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> After they'd led the SATISFIED VICTOR to his CELL</div> <bR> <div> Brian is TAPED OFF INSIDE A SQUARE</div> <bR> <div> UTTERLY KNOCKED OUT INSIDE THEIR RING</div> <bR> <div> LYING DEAD IN ETON AVENUE</div> <bR> <div> Like he'd become ANOTHER REFERENCE POINT</div> <bR> <div> In the history of `REVENGE ART'.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Exactly one hundred years after the BIRTH of `Les Mademoiselles D'Avignon',</div> <div> another CUBIST CHARACTER hits the DUST. A cubist character? IN EVERY SENSE.</div> <bR> <div> Despite the fact that Brian's body took its last breath of air whilst being</div> <div> decapitated by an old acquaintance, many of his multi-faceted personalities</div> <div> will STILL CARRY ON thriving inside the hearts and minds of his old fellow</div> <div> travellers...and who knows, maybe there'll be some NEW ONES.</div> <bR> <div> The thing about Brian is he's so multi-layered...like a Picasso or Braque</div> <div> cubist COLLAGE...there is NO POINT in trying to be so called `objective'.</div> <div> Even to one person, Brian could be MANY UNSUSPECTED DIFFERENT CHARACTERS.</div> <div> Bearing this in mind, I will not be surprised to hear that I've upset some</div> <div> of Brian's friends by this account. My main aim is to be true to the `Brian'</div> <div> Brian knows I jived with.</div> <bR> <div> On one level, Brian was like a be-bop saxophonist who'd HOCKED HIS</div> <div> HORN...and then...lost the ticket. A BEAT POET who got STAGE FRIGHT and LOST THE PLOT. This seemed to have happened to him when his was about twenty-one.</div> <div> That was the year before I met him in 1959 outside my BEATNIK caff,`The</div> <div> House of Sam Widges' in Soho.</div> <bR> <div> He seemed perplexed by his inability to actualise his aspirations, and</div> <div> was...as an alternative...living off women as a sort of existential form of</div> <div> art. Of course this way of going about things didn't meet the approval of</div> <div> all his `inner characters', so he frequently seemed to be immersed in an</div> <div> atmosphere of humorous NIHILISM...like he was living inside a FIENDISH</div> <div> CARTOON. His mind a steady sweep of  bric-a brac left over from many </div> <div> artistic epochs, and ideas from obscure foreign films mixed with images </div> <div> of kinky sex and ordinary daily life.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Standing outside Sams on that summer evening, Brian looked every bit the</div> <div> gigolo that he was at that time. Extremely slim and sun-tanned, Brian was</div> <div> dressed in a new BLACK corduroy suit and Spanish beach shoes. He could have</div> <div> been ACTING in a Fellini film.</div> <bR> <div> There was a blonde tart hanging on to his arm who he seemed to IGNORE like</div> <div> she was not supposed to be in HIS script. In front of her, Brian went on about how</div> <div> he was being kept by a voluptuous French countess who he lived with in</div> <div> Paris.</div> <bR> <div> He said he was OBSESSED by Tapies, the Spanish abstract painter and was</div> <div> trying to paint in the same vein. He invited me to stay with him and his countess</div> <div> Zee...and then added I might find his `work' not up to much. He sort of</div> <div> admitted that he was living off his looks...and that he believed his</div> <div> physical presentation and ATTITUDE was a work of art! Brian found it very</div> <div> AMUSING that a lot of very BEAUTIFUL WOMEN found his calculated COLDNESS</div> <div> very ATTRACTIVE.</div> <bR> <div> It was very difficult to ever know if Brian was sincere or not...on any</div> <div> subject. He was like one of those ACTORS in search of an author. It was like</div> <div> he was always playing two tunes in his head at the same time. Switching from</div> <div> one to the other. He could be very kind and helpful but suddenly switch and</div> <div> be WILDLY VIOLENT!!! At the time I visited him in Paris in 1960 he told me</div> <div> Zee enjoyed being BEATEN UP!!!</div> <bR> <div> He was very taken with the Beat Poets and spent some time with Ginsberg in</div> <div> Athens. In Paris Brian hung out around the Beat Hotel and got to know Brian</div> <div> Gyson, Bill Burroughs and Gregory Corso. Their restless energy turned Brian</div> <div> on. Brian was a prowler and like them he was never SETTLED. Or CENTRED. </div> <div> It was like he felt DRIVEN to ACT out one part after the other. Courting petty crime. </div> <div> Weaving through the Paris drug scene. Getting BUST with a massive amount of MANDIES and</div> <div> getting locked up for a lot longer than he thought he deserved. </div> <div> Getting a few paintings exhibited.</div> <bR> <div> Then he became OBSESSED by photography. It was his passport to a justifiable</div> <div> EMOTIONAL COLDNESS. He liked the way LIFE could be FROZEN inside an IMAGE.</div> <div> Not surprisingly this led him to become a speed freak. So EXTREME he almost</div> <div> copped it that way. He found it very funny...when he was coming round from a</div> <div> close O.D. to be asked the name of the Prime minister. He had no idea. He</div> <div> told me that the first thing he thought when he came round was...`why isn't</div> <div> Marsha-(his wife)-in the same near death state as me?' He believed that HIS</div> <div> WOMAN should die for HIM! He told me he was SO ANGRY that she was O.K. </div> <div> He wondered why I didn't find this idea FUNNY? His humour moved through weird</div> <div> dimensions...like it suddenly exhibited CLAWS!!! For instance he loved to tell the story</div> <div> of how he tried to murder his parents when he was about seven years old. </div> <div> Unseen by them, he slipped a bar of soap into the tea-pot brewing on the kitchen table.</div> <div> Brain then calmly sat on the floor and waited to see his mother and father....at last....</div> <div> Drop DEAD! You can imagine the beating he got after they'd spat out the foul tasting tea</div> <div> and discovered the bar of soap.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> We went through some very heavy SCRAPES together in Paris and in Notting</div> <div> Hill gate. But even in the most opressive situations....Brian could somehow discern a humerous perspective....and suddenly we would be cracking up with wild laughter.</div> <bR> <div> Then twenty-five years ago Brian became an OBSESSIVE DIARIST. After I came</div> <div> back from India in 1984 I took Brian to hear Krishnamurti and then when he</div> <div> came to stay with me in the Highlands of Scotland I laid on him a biography</div> <div> of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Ramana seemed to turn the key for him. He set his</div> <div> mind on going to Arunchala. I don't know what Brian was writing every day</div> <div> but it seemed that he felt COMPELLED to record everything that was happening</div> <div> around him. I never saw a word of what he wrote.</div> <bR> <div> I don't think Brian ever looked after a woman. Women were there to look</div> <div> after Brian. And in India Brian hit the jackpot. He moved into a brothel fifty miles</div> <div> south of Madras. The whores, all TRIBAL WOMEN, loved him he said. He showed me photos of some of these very dark skinned creatures posing naked with</div> <div> Brian. Their non-possessiveness gave Brian the emotional space he'd always</div> <div> yearned for but had never been given. What Brian had always craved for was</div> <div> CONSTANT ADULATION and from all accounts, it seems the brothel staff laid it</div> <div> on him with a shovel. He didn't care WHY they admired him so much. It was</div> <div> NECTAR for him. He fell in love with MOTHER INDIA. And it softened Brian</div> <div> very noticeably. He told me not long ago that he felt he was sorting out his</div> <div> KARMA...by the way he was living in India. A few days before he died he told</div> <div> me that he planned to DIE IN INDIA.</div> <bR> <div> Joseph had other IDEAS.</div> <bR> <div>  neil oram 23 March 2005</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>