Paul's recollections of the bloodied past of the Fluxster reminds me of his travails after Colombus had invested some of his loot in an electronic keyboard - and when a neighbour of Paul's on the first floor of Walton Street.
Now, Colombus was to music what Bilbo's dressing gown was to a good wash. But, Colombus feeling that divine intervention would simply flow through his thick skull and out through his fingertips, just cranked up the volume on the Yamaha and started bashing.
The fiery Ibo added syncopation a-plenty and dashed about the knobs and switches on the keyboard sure that the resulting notes collided in such a way to create melody and harmony.
Did it work? Did lush, warm tones seep under the door and lull Paul into a sleep-like trance?
No. Paul tried, good comrade that he is, to impress upon Colombus that some form of introductory education might precede his attempts to murder the Yamaha. Colombus, being Colombus, was having none of it and said the sounds he was making were God's blessings. Paul, like the bible character of his namesake, wept. He banged the walls when the Yamaha was at its worst, he yelled in the corridor - it didn't work - Colombus was working up a storm of bad notes and odd drum beats.
I can't quite remember how this story ended, but end it did as I can can recall the time after the keyboard was gone and Colombus's room was filled, as ever,with huge pictures of himself. Images of Colombus in faux speaker pose, surrounded by very sad looking women, of him looking off into the distance. Colombus loved the camera as much as he loved the keyboard.
So, Gog's world returned to one where silence, at least of the Yamaha type, returned and he was, once again, the only person at Ruskin who could handle an instrument and not send people running.
In Solidarity
Ian
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