09/05/07
The best of luck! -
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Hello
So firstly, today I fell over.
I can't recall the last time I fell over in public but let me assure you it really doesn't get any less embarrassing the more you do it.
I was leaving my house to go to the Fopp gig this evening (Tues) and there was one of them foam sheet things that they use in packaging lying on the steps outside my house. Being a relatively lazy chap, bending over was never an option so I simply stepped on it. Slippy fuckers them sheets are. I fell for at least twenty seconds, flailing my little limbs in an effort to find some sort of solid ground but eventually lying in a heap on the second step, my knee red hot and feeling wet with blood already and my elbow throbbing.
Luckily there were a couple of hundred children from a nearby school walking past, otherwise nobody would have witnessed my feat of stupidity and found the necessary humour in it to laugh like fucking hyenas as I picked myself up and, for some reason, walked back into my house rather than to the car.
I gave it ten minutes before venturing out again (to ensure that my audience had moved on, and to check the damage to my knee which was horrific and probably needed stitches if I wasn't so brave as to just hold some tissue paper against it and cry a bit). Back on the first step I moved the foam sheet (which I actually suspect was from the packaging of my Jabba the Hutt statue from a few weeks back - dunno how it got there), and I actually hit it in anger. Genuinely, like a fucking five year old I hit it! It wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.
So into London I went, having a little mooch around Forbidden Planet and buying some comic books to kid myself I'm still relatively young. Mike McShane was in Forbidden Planet, speaking very animatedly to a friend about a comic book. I would have spoken to him but I don't know him.
I met Little Raji James who used to be on Eastenders but ruined it for a quick drink before the show. He was off to a film premiere in Leicester Square, some Shilpa Shetty thing, and when I met him he was bounding up the road from Leicester Square with his Ipod in his ears singing out loud to "Don't you forget about me" as he bounced along. It was like the end of the Bollywood version of The Breakfast Club and I didn't know where to look and so just simply stared in astonishment at the man. I was relaying this tale to my friend and Chortle Student Final maker up of numbers Ed Gamble tonight and we both agreed that we are worried about Raji's sanity. Or at least we would be if his slip from stability wasn't so fucking funny to watch.
I have informed Raji that he and I are not to talk at any length in the near future until we record the first podcast (that is so imminent you can almost smell it), because there are simply too many things that I want to talk to him about on the record. Our conversations are wasted in private, I want everybody to hear them.
Fopp was a nice gig this evening, with Edinburgh previews from Dave Ward and Al Pitcher. It was nice to see people getting nervy about the fringe, and going through the excitement of putting a new show together and that, but it provided me with no envy about not going up to Scotland this year. The idea of going up there really doesn't appeal to me right now - I am a big fan of the place, just from afar these days.
On my way home I stopped in at a KFC in North Finchley to grab something to eat. Oddly, over the last few weeks I have come across a couple of peripheral players from my life past who I really wanted to tell you about, but had difficulty in putting it into the right sort of words as it is a vaguely awkward topic to discuss, but I'm going to give it a crack.
I used to live in North Finchley when I first moved to London, and it's perhaps the only place in my life that I have ever integrated myself into the local community, due in no small part to the fact that I worked behind the bar of the Tally Ho pub on the High Road. It was a a fucking rotten job, but it was also one of the best and perhaps most decadent times of my life, I was getting over a long-term relationship at the time and so my life consisted of very late nights and going too far at the dark ends of the street with various barmaids and customers alike. Some may call it a slag phase, but I prefer to think of it as me simply having too much love to give...
(You buy that?)
I met some great people, as well as some cunts, but with the passage of time it makes no difference as I am no longer in touch with either.
There were two people that made a genuine impression on me at that time however, and they are the two people that I have bumped into over the last few weeks, the second being this evening outside the KFC.
The first one was a guy called William who lived in a 'home' in Barnet, who would come down to the pub on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon and be the most genuinely entertaining man I have ever met. He would wander around the pub, often collecting glasses and chatting with everybody. It is very difficult to explain how he spoke, but basically he would refer to people walking past and say things along the lines of "There's your dad! I didn't know you're dad walked around here!". I know it doesn't sound funny, but trust me - it really was. He had no doubt heard somebody say this sort of thing in a coherent way at some point and simply learned and repeated it, but it was genuinely funny - and not in a 'laughing at the special bloke' way, it was just surreal stream of consciousness. When I bumped into William in the Tally ho the other week I was with my friend Martin and William pointed at him and said "Hello Dickie Davies! (then to me) I didn't know you were friends with Dickie Davies!".
Martin doesn't look even a little bit like Dickie Davies. I hurt myself laughing at this.
Now, I am a bit of a soft touch with people like that, and would slip him free drinks at the expense of J D Wetherspoons, because the dude kept me entertained during 12-12 shifts, and despite his seemingly impenetrable personality I would often try to break through to him in some way in, I convinced myself, much the same way as Tom Cruise in Rain Man. I was often told that it was impossible, that he was on a different plane to everybody else, perfectly contentedly so like, but nevertheless not really aware of what we would consider 'reality'. The thing is, I did break through to him in a most unlikely way.
I would spend most of my time behind that bar singing. Wetherspoons had a policy of having no music in their pubs, and so to beat 'the man' I would provide my own musical accompaniment. On the day in question I was singing Simon Smith and his amazing dancing bear which is a fairly obscure song to most people - it's the sort of song that people think they know, but actually don't, it just has a familiar feel to it. As I was singing it one day, I heard from the other side of the pub somebody singing the piano refrain from the song.
Dooodoo do do do do, doodoo do do do do...
It was William, pointing straight at me with a massive grin across his face, his other hand miming playing a piano, whilst he cued me in to sing the verses.
From then on, whenever he came into the pub he would come straight to me and start the singing, we performed it as a duet more times than I can remember. I saw him the other week for the first time in about six years and he started to sing it again, later telling me sadly that he "did really miss me not working here anymore" which brought a genuine tear to my eye.
The other guy in Finchley who I regularly spoke to was a guy called Horace, a big black dude, who wanders around the High Street in a massive parker coat in all weather, often sitting down to draw some pictures in crayon, and incredibly endearingly shouting "The best of luck!" to any passer-by that gives him the time of day. Horace became known to me as Mr White, and I to him as Mr Boldsworth (my real name) as he once informed me that he was a "formal gentleman" and liked to be adressed as such and would adress me in kind.
Now, in contrast to William, Mr White is not quite as stable in his actions and would occasionally have enormously aggressive outbursts on the street, seemingly out of nowhere. From a long way away you would hear him go from "The best of luck!" to "You fucking cunt! You fucking fucking cunt!".
For a long time I just thought this came from nowhere, but as we got to know him better we found out that people were goading him into doing it. There was a word that when shouted at him will trigger this response. I'm obviously not going to tell you what that word is, it's pretty non-descript, and I don't know why it triggers the outbursts but it is genuinely upsetting to see, and as I got out of my car tonight I heard "you fucking cunt! you fucking fucking cunt!" behind me and knew straight away that it was Mr White.
I went over to him quickly and said hello, in an attempt to diffuse his temper. It worked immediately, and I was greeted with "Hello Mr Boldsworth, not seen you for a long time". We had a little chat, and he asked after Miss So-and-so who I used to knock about with, and a car pulled up beside us. Four lads inside and one of them asked Mr White if he wanted some food, Mr White said yes, and then this cretinous specimen threw an empty KFC drink and wrapper right at Horace, before shouting 'the word', triggering an outburst and driving away laughing.
When William would walk through the pub, certain individuals would wind him up, and take the piss out of him, all in aid of their own and their friends amusement. This is very different to somebody making disabled jokes or whatever, I see no reason to exempt anyone or anyone's situation from humour, but this is very precise, very specfic and personally targetted cruel bullying.
Seeing this cruelty still going on was the depressing downside to crossing paths with them both again. Like I say, I haven't seen either of them for around about six years, yet they are both still figures of fun to some people (not all I hasten to add - just a distinct minority), and have to endure this bullying when they go out and attempt to integrate into society. One of the main problems with the care in the community idea, wasn't the much mooted idea that these people simply can't operate in the community, but rather the fact that parts of the community are simply unable of offering any semblance of care, choosing instead to abuse these 'impaired' people for their own entertainment. There are genuinely some out and out cunts knocking about.
So the reason for me mentioning William and Mr White today, is just to say that I personally think they are both fantastic people - not patronisingly, genuinely. As I said, William happily entertained me consistently at my time at the Tally Ho pub, and a "Best of luck!" from Mr White would regularly temper any late night dark mood when I went down to the local 7Eleven. They should have every right to lead as normal a life as anyone, regardless of whatever mental issues they have, and the fucking bullying that I saw them endure is an absolute insult and disgrace. To find someone's weakness and exploit it in such a way for literally no reason is abhorrent.
The only evidence of retarded people I saw this evening were those lads who found it so funny to throw a drink at somebody after pretending to be friendly towards them. Like beckoning a cat towards you and then striking it. It may be one of the cruellest things I ever saw in my life, and my only bit of consolation is the possibility they were laughing so much at their hilarious 'joke' that they wrapped their shitty little Fiesta around a fucking lampost on their way home, ridding society of four less cunts in the process.
Tipping them out of their wheelchairs would be an exception to weakness exploitation I would gladly allow.
Comments:
· http://www.myspace.com\myspaceismychurch I recently worked in a pub who has a regular much like your William and Mr White. Though his condition stems mainly for his immense activity in the psycho-chemical world.
He is totally ingratiated with all of the other regulars and most of the staff...except one shite. Whenever any customer would start to bully him they'd get kicked out and barred...at the very least.
Sometimes he realises that he's getting bad and checks himself into hospital. When he comes back after a month or so he is almost normal. Then he descends back into his own ways. If ever there was an advert for the effects of long term drug taking, he is it, though he's also an advert for the way folk like him can be accepted and allowed to live thier lives when they find somewhere safe and friendly. I guarentee that the amount of pleasure knowing those guys gave you was felt on their side too. Doesn't take much to make a difference to someone eh?
Any way, I've only seen you once on TV and you were proper good. can't wait to hear your podcast.
keep on trucking...or something equally encouraging.
Ross
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