 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||
| archive |
about
us |
links |
contact |
current |
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dandy
in the Underworld: an Unauthorised Autobiography |
|
| Aidan
Campbell |
||
|
Famous for being crucified in the name of performance art, Sebastian Horsley has been many things in his time: punk rocker, art student, charity-worker, husband, stock market rentier, artist and journalist, male prostitute and drug addict. He failed in all these professions. More interestingly, his book describes how and why he has become Britain’s most famous dandy, man-about-town and gentleman who lunches. Sebastian was born in the early 1960s into a dysfunctional but extremely wealthy family on Humberside. Through family connections in the 1970s he met Jimmy Boyle, a Glasgow gangster incarcerated in Barlinnie's Special Unit, who was lionised by the cognoscenti for reforming himself through art therapy. Sebastian helped Boyle manage an Edinburgh art charity; Boyle returned the favour by cuckolding him. In the 1980s, Horsley, still young and suave, left for London to find his fame and fortune. Soon after he arrived he became a yuppie, first by gambling his wherewithal on booming shares; and then by spectacularly throwing it all away in the 1990s on threads, narcotics, prostitutes and rehab bills. In between times Horsley painted, swam with sharks, wrote magazine columns, played Russian roulette with his Colt .38, and fell in and out of love with Rachels 1 and 2. In the millennium year, he took young Brit artist Sarah Lucas to the Philippines to film him being crucified by fundamentalist Catholics. Saint Sebastian blagged the cooperation of the reluctant villagers in this venture by implying that he was a devotedly transcendental artist. The rogue received celestial comeuppance for his trifling with blasphemy. When his footrest gave way, he fell off the cross. As Andy Warhol might have said at this point, ‘So far, so what?’ The ‘what’ is that Sebastian Horsley is the best dandy alive. But what exactly is a ‘dandy’? Whether you call them libertines, bucks, rakes, fops, roués, gallants, beaux or cockscombs, Western history seems chock-full of them. Some of the more famous include Alcibiades in ancient Athens, the Venetian Giovanni Casanova, the 2nd Earl of Rochester at the Restoration, George ‘Beau’ Brummell and Lord Byron in Regency England, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud in avant-garde France, Oscar Wilde in Victorian times, and Quentin Crisp in London Town’s swinging sixties. Some of these inspired Horsley, but he is so much better than them. He will tell you that himself. During an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting Sebastian was attending, the facilitator reminded the room of step two of its twelve-step programme: come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. ‘Does anyone here have a problem with this?’ she asked rhetorically. Sebastian raised his hand. ‘Yes, Sebastian?’ ‘I don’t believe there is anything greater than myself’ (p240). After this it can hardly come as a surprise that Sebastian defines a dandy as ‘divine’. He believes a true dandy ‘needs a complete conviction that he is right; the views of the rest of the world simply don’t matter’. True dandyism for Horsley is ‘rebellious: the real dandy wants to make people look, be shocked by, and even a little scared by the subversion which his clothes stand for’. Hence the title of the book: ‘Dandy in the Underworld’. But it’s not all about the contents of your wardrobe, sartorially defiant though they may be. To Horsley’s mind, clothes are ‘the least important part of the personality of the dandy. Dandyism isn’t image encrusted with flourishes. It’s a way of stripping yourself down to your true self’. It is not fashion, it is not beauty. Rather, ‘Dandyism is a lie which reveals the truth and the truth is that we are what we pretend to be’ (p178). Horsley
loathes religious fundamentalists. They both agree, however, that art
is an irreverent pack of lies which can have very serious consequences.
Costumes and decorum cast a polite veil over our unsightly scars and
private penchants. Sumptuous fashions and refined courtesies enable
us to pretend to be what we are not. ‘All the world’s a
stage and all the men and women merely players’ warned the Bard.
Treating life as if it were all an act has become a habitual mindset
for contemporary people. Fundamentalists insist that the truth be told
on this mortal coil, however unpleasant; they reserve fantasy for the
spiritual realm. The rest of us find ourselves in a relativistic landscape
where nothing we value can be trusted. Furtively easing itself into
this vacuum, an industry has emerged that promises to render our deracinated
lives simpler and more reassuring. It does this by coating them in culture.
The catch is that we’re putting ourselves at the mercy of an irrationalism
not that dissimilar from fundamentalism. Horsley is proud to be a dandy, and dandified men are all the rage in our effeminate age. Traditionally, however, they have been objects of scorn. Their preening mannerisms and partiality for sophistry were perceived to be indicative of social decline, decadence and depravity. These misapprehensions have no objective basis: dandies and relativism have been present in every phase of civilisation since its genesis, as the example of ancient Greece attests. Nevertheless, dandies were often forced to get ‘proper’ jobs. In his day Alcibiades was a fine Athenian general. The Earl of Rochester was an excellent sailor, helping to secure sea victories against the Dutch for Charles II. Casanova was a soldier, spy, alchemist and lottery director. Brummell had been an army captain. Byron was a poet who fought for Greek liberty. Rimbaud was a poet who traded in African slaves. The majority
of dandies were sissies who did nothing exceedingly well. The well-groomed
libertine was an indolent courtier whose extravagant dissipation stood
in stark contrast to the belligerent warriors who guarded the citadels
of medieval kings. Sometimes these two adversaries could be found combined
in the chivalrous knight, the flamboyant cavalier, the dashing hussar,
the elegant equerry or the swaggering recruiting sergeant. But troops
rigged out in ceremonial kit are not very effective on the battlefield.
Military dandies may swank and strut, but they just look silly if they
have to charge the enemy. Dandies and danger simply don’t agree.
Back in the seventeenth century the French playwright Molière was staging farces that mocked the awkward nouveau riche for mimicking fads among the nobility. By the mid-twentieth century this teasing had soured as film stars and flappers, vamps and ‘bright young things’ stealthily exerted their Svengali-like influence in the corridors of power. With the coming of the long peace during the Cold War, truculent teenagers and impudent pop stars succeeded in ruffling the composure of the great and the good. By the 1990s, there had been no combat in the West for over half a century and aging rockers were being co-opted into the establishment. After Diana, the shallow cult of wooden-headed celebrity began its millennial reign over royalty. Dandyism, a former aristocratic idiosyncrasy, now dominates the public sphere of reason. With everyone busy pretending to be famous, it is hard for the authentic dandy to stand out from the crowds of phony wannabes. People in our era may fear fundamental change, but not something as shockingly banal as contemporary culture. Now this mediocre mode of art is firmly entrenched among the higher echelons of our society, the culture industry is obliged to ramp up its minor embellishments to generate a modicum of interest in it. That’s why there’s so many tepid award shows around these days: they inveigle us into believing that something artistically great is happening to our era. The upshot is that a myriad of nonentities get a plethora of platforms to rehearse their insipid inanities. When we all imagine we’re due our fifteen frenetic minutes of fame, it’s difficult to separate out genuine divas from the bogus. It is this abundance of over-dandified facsimiles, not his indifferent dad, nor his difficult drug habit, which constitute the true horns of Horsley’s dilemma: why aim to be a great work of art when quick-change artists are two-a-penny? In Calvinistic Caledonia people flung their fish suppers at our hero as he parked his fluorescent pink Roller. In sordid Soho, however, life was even tougher for our dandified neophyte: ‘I was standing around on street corners,’ he moans, ‘causing no sensation whatsoever’ (p179). Mass society made Sebastian, but it also presented him with a colossal challenge - how to get himself noticed. Now that dandification is de rigueur for young people, there’s only way to go for the real deal. Horsley became a dauntingly deviant dandy. Playing at being a dandy has become the norm. Being a deviant dandy, on the other hand, is nowhere near as safe. The latter must be everlastingly revolting. He isn’t advocating an alternative genre to replace convention: his sedition is directed against the immutable constancy of taste itself. He subverts conservative conformity by making his own life the discombobulating hub of a permanent pageant. Sebastian is super dandy. Hitherto being a dandy meant acquiring a reputation for evading hazardous situations. This dodging of danger is completely in tune with our contemporary risk-avoiding zeitgeist. The closest a modern dandy ever gets to an armed contest is being embraced in a partner’s arms during a dance competition. Horsley traduces this fluffy dandy by deliberately seeking out all manner of menace. From an early age, he had being debauching himself in unconscious preparation. At one time or another he was a vandal, thief, torturer of small cuddly animals, transvestite, dope fiend, heterosexual deflowerer of maidens, homosexual molly, iconoclast, masochist, gigolo, gambler and blasphemer. Having served this vagabond apprenticeship, he emerged as a fully-fledged dandy in the underworld. Why take cognisance of Horsley at all? Does he measure up to his illustrious predecessors? Civilisation filches the imagery of every culture and remodels them to create its own designs. Horsley adroitly samples this vast legacy. Classic libertines like Alcibiades and Brummell are cultural cripples in comparison since they had so much less to inspire them. Like any dandy, Seb wants attention. He’s after flattery for no-one but himself. He’s very explicit about this. Au contraire with other modern personalities. They’re not nearly as honest as Horsley about being conceited. Instead, practically every obsequious, sycophantic, lickspittle toady of a celebrity pays fawning obeisance to the nauseating nostrums of our empathetic age: the environment, victim culture, charity, therapy and New Age hocus pocus. Horsley scorns the lot and gives them a well-deserved lashing in his book. What really sets Horsley apart, and elevates him into the pantheon of great gallants, is his passionately self-destructive streak. As he has it, ‘You must risk your life to stay alive’(p155). This isn’t to imply that he is stupidly fearless, or is preternaturally morbid. Regarding the former, his autobiography speaks to the contrary. On the latter point, I can personally vouch that he is a cheerful chap, endearingly charming and often the life of a party. At times, it’s hard to remember that he’s supposed to be a nasty nihilist devoted to the annihilation of all human association. In an age when most people are unswervingly intent on prolonging their utterly monotonous existence for an extra few weeks by endlessly regarding their navels, or by watching life go by on television, Horsley confronts his demons and puts himself out there to make waves. He is the proverbial fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread. Mere celebs tend to be pusillanimously vicarious: Horsley trumps them by being brazenly visceral. Designer Coco Chanel once declared ‘Fashion is what goes out of fashion’. She could have been talking about the raffish Horsley, whose recklessness keeps him on the leading edge of the artistic danger zone. The notice that Seb gets from this dicing with death must be a huge boost to his ego. Throughout Dandy in the Underworld he makes it clear that he worships at only one shrine: his superior self. Strangely though, even in the act of claiming this pre-eminence, he diminishes his individuality by turning it into little more than flouncing about like a model on a hot tin cat-walk. In fact, his whole stance towards his inner self is curious. How can a Master of the Universe also be a confirmed masochist? When I interviewed him after returning from his self-inflicted crucifixion, Sebastian told me that one reason he had done it was ‘an attempt to push my personality off the rails….I wanted to hack off the ball and chain of personality’ (‘Suffering For His Art’, spiked, June 2002). This wasn’t the egocentric megalomaniac I knew. Why is someone who deifies his self also bent on destroying it? Sebastian the individualist makes a great show of deriding groups and institutions. This is where his nihilism comes from. When laughingly applauded by a bunch of misfits attending a group therapy session, he acts all puzzled. ‘I was beginning to like this group stuff’, he claims (p240). This is peculiar, because he refuses to live anywhere else other than in that vast ‘group stuff’ better known as the city. Entrenched in his Soho gaff, deep under the pleasure-dome of one of the world’s great conurbations, he doesn’t exactly live like a hermit. Again, when once becalmed on a tropical beach, he merely took the opportunity to dismiss the splendid Nature around him as ‘only a good place to worship the city’ (p301). The species Horsley is definitely an urbane critter. His antipathy towards human amalgamation seems to be just a way of getting his defence in first. It’s like he’s saying, 'I don’t care what they think of me because I’m an individual, not a citizen'. Dandies are notoriously narcissistic, but you can’t usually learn much by endless introspection. Their self-absorption only succeeds in mystifying the origins of their special personalities. Vanity is not a private love affair. It is largely a social matter. It’s true that dandies do have forceful personalities. But it isn’t just that intoxicating self that’s responsible for their triumphs. Pursuing a vigorous relationship with a knowledgeable public obliges dandies to draw on enormous reserves of inner resilience. Pressure from the former creates the conditions for developing the latter. The consequences can be exponential. Success for the dandy comes when they fuse their exhilarating personalities with a loyal and affectionate audience. Without these fans, with the time and patience to lavish adoration on them, any dandy would find it difficult to exist at all. With them, anything becomes possible. It has never been the case that confident personalities only get their chance to advance when society is looking the other way; or that powerful realms only endure because they are populated by submissive simpletons. Contrary to these conventional myths, combinations of lively individuals tend to beget sturdy multitudes, while fragile communities prefer to breed the placid and quiescent. Dandies do best in the former, rather than the latter, environment. The line between winning and failing in Dandyland can be slim. Their superlative selves receive a relentless battering from the remorselessness of their own relativism. ‘If nothing is meaningful’, it whispers to them insidiously, ‘that means your much-vaunted superiority is superfluous too’. Because a dandy doesn’t often grasp the intimate dynamic that exists between an individual and society, their self-centredness may rebound into distressful self-abuse. Many debonair beaux have ended their days in the doss house as a result. No matter how deep the pit that he fell into, Horsley managed to avoid this shabby decrepitude. He did this by periodically suppressing his relativistic instincts, emphasising integrity instead. In his words;
Truth has been rehabilitated, at least temporarily. Soon Horsley’s nihilism is being annihilated too: ‘I was fed up with cynicism. The armour of the romantic, it may be intellectual dandyism, but still I was fed up with it’ (p244). Many rebel dandies are ready to undergo absolution at this point; the apostates converting to the alien absolutes treasured by polite society. In reward, they get to queue with the lollipop ladies and rural posties for a gong in that ultimate award show at Buck House. Not so Horsley. Like the modern corporate world, he found his fundamentals in the implacable materials of the Pacific basin. He charged his hardcore batteries cruising among the shark packs that congregate off antipodean shores, and by joining in the primordial rites of penitential Filipino peasants. Deeply reinvigorated, he continues to contribute to London’s frolicsome nightlife. Is Sebastian going to repeatedly ricochet between metropolitan parties and the primeval underworld? If he is, that’ll be dandy.
|
||
|