More Moaning. Karl Pilkington

to get some fresh air in Central Park. I love parks, and I’d say they do for me what galleries do for art lovers. It’s natural art that I like – trees and lakes, insects and birds. I’m considering getting a dog, though, as I get strange looks from people when I’m walking through a park on my own. Dog or no dog, later that day I was definitely going to be getting funny looks as the plan was to get involved in some performance art in Central Park. In performance art, the artist is the body, and the live action they perform is the work of art. I suppose it’s not too dissimilar to what I had been doing with Trina, except this time there was no chance to start again if it didn’t work out, as it would be in front of a live audience.

      In London, I used to see a lot of performance artists in Covent Garden. Getting to the shops was like walking through Britain’s Got Talent auditions. Everywhere you looked there were jugglers, clowns on unicycles, sword swallowers, tightrope walkers, endless numbers of human statues and mime artists. I’ve done a bit of mime myself. It was when I was in the Peruvian jungle. I was in my tent and was really fed up, so I imagined unwrapping a Twix and eating it just like I normally do, biting the caramel off the top first and then the biscuit. It sounds mental but it kind of worked. After that I mimed eating an orange. That didn’t work quite as well, as an orange does more to your taste buds, but the upside was I didn’t have sticky hands. I did it again recently when I was thinking about buying a table tennis table. I stood there reaching for and hitting a nonexistent ball onto a make-believe table, but I got bored fairly quickly so binned the idea of getting one.

      The performance artist I was meeting was called Matthew Silver. He’d been doing his art on and off for nine years. I met him at the apartment he shares with a friend and a cat. On first impressions you could think Matthew was a proper mental, or homeless, or a stand-in for Tom Hanks in the film Cast Away. A gangly, thin man with a mass of hair covering his head and a smiley face. He looked like a dandelion. He invited me in and made me a cup of tea. I quickly realised he wasn’t mental when he offered me a posh cinnamon herbal teabag. Not an official way to work out if someone is mad, I know, but then I’ve heard that one of the ways they work out if someone is a psychopath is by asking them if they like cats, so judging someone on their choice of teabags doesn’t seem that daft. I’ve never got into these types of teas as you can’t dunk biscuits into them. But I wanted to be polite so I accepted the offer. I didn’t want to drink much of this tea, either, as cinnamon sends my heart rate through the roof for some reason, and it was already pounding thinking about having to perform in front of strangers in Central Park.

      KARL: How did you get into this, then?

      MATTHEW: Well, I was the class clown, I was always one of those characters. I go very simple, I go very raw and just like (makes fart sound) or (makes chicken sound) and then just dance in my underwear. I use awkward pauses to create tension, and usually because they are complete strangers they start laughing. It’s freebase, it’s all improv, it just happens, I just do it. I have a little technique, but the good thing about performance art is even a disaster can look amazing.

      I think everyone would like to have the confidence to do what Matthew does. Most people don’t take it any further than singing in the shower, but I don’t even bother with that since I’ve moved to a house with a water meter. I try to get in and out as soon as possible. What I do like to do is dance for the cat. I mainly do it when I’m hanging around for the kettle to boil. I count while I’m dancing to see how long I can keep his attention before he looks away or closes his eyes. He’s a tough crowd. I tell you, if Cowell ever leaves The X Factor they should get my cat in. Or do a version of The Voice – three cats, once they all look away, you’re out. Would be good that. I’ve gone off point, but all I’m saying is, we all like to show off and perform to ourselves (and cats), but it’s a different ball game when there’s a crowd.

      Matthew handed me a pair of ‘lucky pants’. They were Y-fronts, dyed bright green with ‘LOVE’ written across the arse. He said we should go onto the roof so he could show me the sorts of things he does. I popped on the green pants and he stripped down too, and then I gave him some help getting his props up to the roof. These were mainly toys that he had found, along with a wobbly stick and part of a highway barrier. He put on a motorbike helmet and carried a sign with ‘LOVE’ painted on it. He then went through his method.

      MATTHEW: I like to just come out with a silly movement, you know, something like (waves arms and dances on the spot), really stupid, you know, and when you do it, you look at people’s faces, make eye contact. You’ll notice that people are actually smiling. You’ll see people who are not into it, but then you’ll see people who are into it, and if that person is into it and they’re smiling, you can take it to another level. You could do my two favourites – fart sounds or the chicken noise. Eventually someone with an iPhone will start recording you, right? And then boom! That’s your opportunity to come closer to that person.

      KARL: What? Because they’ve got involved then?

      MATTHEW: Right, they got involved. They gave you permission to . . . You know, if they’re smiling or if they’re videoing, they’re involved. So you come up to them and you engage. You go up to them slowly, though, cos if you go in too quick you might scare the shit out of them. But if you just, you know, smile, they might be into it, you know.

      Matthew’s message was all around giving love to people, but that isn’t really me. I find most people are a pain in the arse so I tend to avoid them if I can. I didn’t even have an imaginary friend when I was a kid.

      I thought about what message I would like to push in my performance and remembered the warm-up exercises I did with Trina where I had to walk as slowly as possible. I showed Matthew my skills as I thought I was quite good at that, and he liked it, so I suggested we both do it. Instead of spreading the message of love, I came up with spreading the message to slow down. New York is a place where everything is at a fast pace – it’s the city that never sleeps – so it’s a good message to get out there. I showed him my moves and he copied. He was impressed. Jamie the director just stared at me not saying much, which didn’t really help. Who should I take notice of, Matthew who does this daily, or a bloke who makes TV? I decided I believed in the idea enough.

      We went back inside and painted some cardboard signs with the word ‘SLOW’ to use during our performance.

      KARL: What about money and stuff?

      MATTHEW: You know . . . I perform when I can and lately I haven’t been holding out the bucket. I don’t ask for it. I let them give it to me, out of love, you know? Cos if I’m focused on making a certain amount of money, I’m not happy. I do all these great performances, I make a lot of people laugh, but then I’m like, oh, but I only made ten dollars. You know, today’s typical person, if they don’t make a certain amount of money they feel bad about whatever art they do. That’s why art and money don’t really work together.

      I was confident. That was until he told me we might not be able to do this in Central Park as it was starting to get dark, and suggested Times Square instead. The idea of that made me nervous and I started to shake. Though that could just have been cos I was stood on Matthew’s roof on a cold day in December in just a pair of green underpants, and I had less hair on my body than normal due to being shaved at Trina’s body-painting session.

      We headed off to Times Square to do our thing. In a way there was no better place to spread the message of ‘slow down’ as it’s the most hectic place in New York. Thousands of people filled the streets. My heart was pounding like I’d eaten a full tub of cinnamon. Matthew had nothing to fear, he does this day after day. He doesn’t even have to do anything, he just looks funny. He said I looked funny too in my costume of green pants, socks and trainers, and my back brace. The back brace wasn’t part of the costume, though. I need it due to my bad back. I felt weak as I didn’t have his hair and beard. I can’t imagine he would