‘Well, the third clown is Google. He’s really funny too. He has a wonderful motor-car and everything goes wrong with it – and in the end it blows up into a hundred different peices! Google has a fine little dog called Squib. You’ll like him. He helps Google with his nonsense!’
Circus Days Again – Enid Blyton (1942)
Last Thursday started the long weekend of the Rebellion Punk Festival in Blackpool.
It was four days of the best and worst of punk rock music and all it entailed, mohican haircuts, rainbow and (these days) pastel hair colours, studs, tartan, bondage trousers, leather jackets, firm hold hairspray (actually, hairspray is a misnomer, soap, sugar and water and lemon curd are the only things that will make that mohican stand up straight and for a decent time. Maybe glue for the more hard core. Regardless, they all contribute to the The Viagra of the Hair World).
I was there myself, for as long as I could hold out, with a smidgen of blue hair, just to observe and take in the ambience, draped with enough chains and studs to weigh me down to the nearest pub or free live event.
I was never one to go around in a ‘pack’ of punks and could never understand why such an movement, geared to individualism and uniqueness, went around in tribal groups, like a bunch of sheep, all dressed the same, in identical leather jackets. I never had a friend who dressed like me, to help breed the hypocrisy of the uniform and the pack mentality. You’re either an individual or you’re not. You either go it alone or you don’t. As a lone punk, you become a paradox and a truth. As a teenage female punk walking down the street, alone, I would get heaps more abuse than say, a gang of gelled up juveniles with blonde mohawks doing the same thing. No friends to back you up you see, to snarl for you, as it were. The lone sheep is always going to be subject to violence and attack, whether they are a punk, or a hippie, or a metal head, or someone who is dressed in polyester jersey and unfashionable flares, or maybe even just a nice cardie.
Nothing changes. Last weekend, I hung out, around the punk festival, but not at the punk festival, with people who think punk is a) what Clint Eastwood would deem a criminal element b) a snotty nosed whipper-snapper, who needs to get some military training ASAP or c) a piece of wood gone rotten at one end.
To explain, I was, for at least one of those days, with mum and dad. Mum looks upon the whole spectacle quaintly and serenely, enjoys the vibrant tresses, ripped fishnets, Doc Martens and dangerous looking wristbands, says punk people make her happy. When dad heard he was going to be around when the event was in progress, he groaned in resignation, ‘Oh no, I’m 73, I’m too old for this. It’ll be wall to wall punks.’ I like that expression, ‘wall to wall punks’. And that’s what he said when I met and embraced him at the train station, in his suit, tie pin and cufflinks. He said to me, ‘It’s wall to wall punks and I think I’m the only person within three hundred yards wearing a tie.’
‘Now that’s punk.’ I said.
I never went around in a group of punks, a ‘group’ meaning more than one, but like the Greta Garbo of the Johnny Rotten world, I felt isolated at times, alienated. As we congregated, in the square by The Cedar Tavern pub, I thought, we may share the same conical stud belt and crazy colour pigments in our hair, but that’s where the similarity ends. I liked to watch them, as one may like to watch herds of multi coloured wildebeest thundering across the Serengeti that is the Winter Gardens. But I’m a wildebeest too, who has been separated from the herd. I thought I might appreciate, admire these music fans and even get some tips for future dressing, I thought I would enjoy the whole thing from a distance. I thought, punk never died, it just got more pastel.
But then, I changed my mind, the weekend happened…four days…and it was like the best holiday ever. I never got near the Winter Gardens and the actual festival, but it didn’t matter. There was another festival, going on, on the outside, and, on the inside of my mind.
It was all a lesson in social communication. I felt like I belonged. I thought, if I can feel authentic once, I can feel authentic again. I know I can be authentic. Next year, I might actually get a ticket, be a bit rebellious.
I would be happy if I could be punk every day, to dress punk every day and to somehow live it, perhaps with like-minded people. Theatre. Punk. Writing. Music. If I could just incorporate these four things into my life, every day of my life, for the rest of my life, I think I would be happy.
I think everyone has three or four things that will make them happy, if they were pumped in, at the right measure, balanced, varied, those three or four things, interests, hobbies, loves, passions. We all have them. I don’t think it’s just one thing any more. I used to think it was. For me, it was writing, but then, I had the punk passion and the acting passion and I realised it’s usually a combination of a few things and that combination is like a flower arrangement.
It’s the flower arrangement in the vase of the window sill of your life. And then, once we’ve sorted out that part of our lives, we might find the space, energy and incentive to actually do what we were meant to do.
‘People telling you what you can and can’t say is unacceptable.’
– John Lydon, talking to MoJo magazine, by Pat Gilbert
‘If your heart’s in tune, you’ll be in tune.’
Charlie Hart talking to Ian Dury.
‘You will soon be happy, but only if you do not believe in appearances.’
-Beauty and the Beast – World Of Fairy Tales
‘The burden of a thinking person is that they think too much. My mind scents the danger of desiring and expecting something fantastic, something that could not possibly happen actually, and of being badly disillusioned.’
–Maggie Joy Blunt from ‘Our Hidden Lives. The Everyday Diaries Of A Forgotten Britain 1945-1948′ by Simon Garfield.
I went to the Jazz and Blues Weekend Festival in Blackpool last weekend held at The Winter Gardens. It was a free event, all for charity and jam packed full of very talented singers, songwriters and musicians. I’m not a jazz fan, I’m more into the blues, and never understood why they heap the two together. I don’t see the connection, they’re not the least bit alike. Still, I can appreciate and enjoy most kinds of music. My husband, who is not into music per se, and has chronic pain issues, sometimes needs to read to distract from that pain. He sat and read a book on inventions and science for the whole time and got some funny looks from po faced ‘serious’ jazz fans. How can you sit and read while these ‘cool’ musicians do a jazz version of ‘Tainted Love? It just looked odd to them I suppose. If they had the back story, I’m sure they would have understood.
I’d been listening for jazz for maybe two hours, when I realised I was in need of a bit of fresh air from the seriousness of it all. MACDONALDS, a perfect antidote. I just needed a bit of meat to counteract a Sunday morning hangover, which, unusually, this day, went on until 5 p.m. Ordered two no frills burgers, but was scandalised by the size of the dill pickle, which was about the size of a half penny and you have to be old and British to know what a half penny is. It would make you cry if you were a fan of dill pickle and saw the size of it.
So, burger break and then back to the blues festival and then I realised I had to get back home for role playing at seven. You know, like Dungeons and Dragons, but much better than that, as we’ve moved on from the 80’s stuff, honest, well, some of us have. I wanted to stay at the festival, hadn’t realised how good it was going to be and hadn’t realised it was on until 10p.m.
I had just had my senses assailed by the amazing Mickey Van Gelder and Pat Clarke. Pat Clarke. Oh, what that man can’t do with a harmonica! I wanted to stay so bad, harmonicas aside. However, I knew I had to honour my prior commitments. So, we were watching the wonderful Lauren Dalrymple, and, embarressingly, had to walk out in the middle of her set, which was at the more intimate Baronial Hall on the Sunday evening. I thought to myself, if role playing is cancelled, I’ll head straight back into town and hopefully, catch the finale!
We went home and discovered that roleplaying had indeed been cancelled. I got changed, headed back into town and managed to catch the awesome blues finale in the Spanish ballroom. Nick Unlimited were like a heavy bluesy Status Quo, with a bit of Manfred Mann and The Kinks thrown in.
There were kids running around, dancing like crazy, a really full on family atmosphere. I preferred that in some ways to the serious Soul Jazz going on in the other hall, with not a sound, a movement, or a muscle twitch going on. Both atmospheres had their attractions though.
A lot of the musicians, the cream of the festivals crop, went on to a local live jazz/blues/rock nightclub for the after show party. This is when you see passions burst forth with some really good performances. What fascinates me most about these kind of musicians, is the way they flit from instrument to instrument when they are jamming. They sashay from lead guitar, to bass, to keyboard, to percussion. It seems a bit slutty, but you can’t deny their versatility. It’s admirable. The musicians never seem to get drunk, or tired, or want to go home. These guys are really into the music, they feel it, love it and live it.
Blackpool Jazz and Blues Festival 2017 proudly raised funds for Trinity Hospice.
Last night, I had a dream about Victoria Beckham. She was sitting on a stool at her breakfast bar, in her kitchen. (No idea if she has one of these in real life). She was in her scruff, un-straightened hair, baggy black t-shirt, the lot. Although she still looked nice. Vicky would look good dragged through a hedge backwards, wearing a bin bag. She wasn’t with David though, which upset me. She was with some bruiser.
Later on, still in my dream, I was in some nightclub thingy and she’s scrubbed up and walked in there with him. They began to have a tiff and it turned into a mega argument and I was tiptoeing around them. When people are having an argument in public, we pretend it’s not happening, suddenly, we become deaf, dumb and blind.
So, anyway, I left the nightclub thingy, as unobtrusively as possible, secretly bemoaning the fact that Vicky had split from David and was now with some sexist, gold-digging thug.
And then I woke up.
‘After all, the computer doesn’t burn out, look down on you, or try to have sex with you.’
–HyperNormalisation – Adam Curtis.
Or does it?
I’ve been thinking about Johnny Cash. As you do.
Just finished reading a bio by Steve Turner, The Man Called Cash, which is an authorised biography. Not many people like authorised biographies, for obvious reasons. What are those obvious reasons? Sycophantic? They usually are. Like those sickly T.V bio’s and this is no exception, but it does attempt to show the man in a balanced light, albeit a balanced ‘golden’ light.
Cash is as cool as they say. He wore black. He was a christian, without judging others. He once said. ‘I gave my flesh to the devil and my bones to God.’
An amphetamine addict for a large portion of his life, he had various lapses, relapses, clean/straight times. His amphetamine habit aged him, gave him that characteristic haggard look that we all know so well. He wasn’t an angel, yet he was fairly confident that he would be forgiven of that. He saw God as a merciful God. He performed in prisons because he had an affinity with the men who were incarcerated there and felt he could have ended up in the same boat. He went to prison for a short time, for picking flowers, so he knew how easy it was to end up in the slammer. These guys however, had murdered people…and more.
He started off as John R. Cash. The ‘Johnny’ thing was a stage name. He hated the ‘Johnny’ at first. John’s father, Ray, made the young John Cash watch, as he drowned puppies in a weighted sack. His father shot anything that moved and was a strong dominant force within the family. As a result, John found confrontation difficult.
He saw death in his formative years, usually of the furrier kind, but then his older brother, Jack, a beautiful, wise soul, met with an untimely death as a teenager, some awful freak accident with a circular saw. Inadvertently, his father blamed John for the tragic event. This affected him deeply and influenced his outlook and creative output in later years. He sought solace in drugs and avoidance. On the plus side, he had a very loving mother, who believed in him and the voice that would one day make him famous.
He was married with four young children when he embarked on an affair with June Carter, who was also married at the time. After he divorced Vivian, his first wife, he married June and they had a son. June Carter was a very positive influence in his life. He liked to surround himself with strong women.
An army buddy gave Johnny Cash the idea for ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. He then passed it onto Carl Perkins, who then gave the song to Elvis to record.
Cash did a theology degrees and passed with flying colours. He went to church to preach, at the peak of his popularity, but fame got in the way. People began to take advantage, tried to pitch their songs while he was praying over them. So he got out of that. He was reluctant to leave the church, but felt he had no choice.
After leaving the support of the church, he returned to amphetamines.
There are many testimonies, from many different people, friends, acquaintances and people he knew, where he freely gave money, food, board and any favours he could, whenever he could. He was always trying to help people according to their needs.
Like I said before, not trying to make him look like an angel, but it sounded like he had integrity, love and warmth, like many of us have, to some degree.
While performing at San Quentin (he had already cut his teeth performing at Folsom prison) he could have incited a riot just by raising an eyebrow. He had all the men in the palm of his hand. He evoked strong emotions in them, not just because of the music and lyrics but through his charisma and unspoken philosophy. . .which was, we could all end up in this position, given the right circumstances and conditions.
They saw that he was real and that got them ready and waiting for a sign. No doubt there was a rebellious streak in them to begin with, but it wouldn’t have taken much to incite them to riot. He knew the power he held. He knew he only had to snap his fingers or whatever and that would be that. He chose not to do it.
Johnny had a very successful T. V show at the height of his career. One day, during the show, he naturally and instinctively, as a christian, began to talk about demonic influences in the christian life. The broadcasters of the show warned him that they were gong to cut it, as it would mess up his ratings. He said, if you do that, I’m outta here. They kept the footage in and his ratings went right down. Did he care? Na. He was never comfortable with the T.V show to begin with.
There was an incident with Richard Nixon, President Of The United States. Mr. Nixon asked Cash to play a couple of songs, ‘Welfare Cadillac’ which had a go at people on benefits and ‘Oskie from Muskogee’, which attacked Vietnam war protesters, Cash said he didn’t know those songs and declined to sing them. He refused the requests of the president.
I think, most of us, for good or bad, will remember, the last video Johnny Cash made before he passed. ‘Hurt’ was originally penned by Trent Reznor, lead singer of Nine Inch Nails. The meaning has been controversially disputed by many. Some say ‘Hurt‘ is about addiction and self harm, others say it’s about suicide and depression. It’s what we want it to be, it’s mercurial, and that’s the beauty of the song and no-one should take that away from us.
It reminds me of that song by Frank Sinatra. It Was A Very Good Year. It’s about a life spent. It doesn’t matter what happened in that life. It’s when we come to the end and look back, whether our life is ended prematurely or not, again, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing so fragile and delicate and beautiful as a life spent. It’s an aching beauty. Every person is important. The ending of such vibrancy is very moving. We are moved to tears, to sorrow. The song ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash is the epitome of all those emotions, grief, pain, hurt, sadness. It pre-empts a great release, a great change. It’s not so sad at the end of the day. Change is a good thing.
I hate that whole ‘cool’ thing. Hero worship. Really cool people are people you never get to know about, the person who lives next door to you, the bus driver who takes you to work every day, the cleaner in The Pound Shop. I don’t believe in ‘lauding’ people because they’re rich and famous. It’s okay to admire them and it’s lovely when they inspire you and give you incentive to do better but they should never be hero worshipped. I don’t believe he would want to be either.
John had his faults and his failings, like all of us. He seemed to be a good guy, we can see that he had integrity regarding his dealings with people, and that he wasn’t intimidated by the American President. He tried to do the best thing by people. He was a very good musician and songwriter. He is remembered by most, celebrated by all.
When people think of Johnny Cash, they think of a really cool musician/singer/songwriter who always dressed in black. He wasn’t always so cool, but then again, neither were we.
Things In My Head 