I was there, was I?
Always historisise and to do that your have to periodisise.
Which takes us to the 60s and to Biba, the boutiue, the stilletto heel, Twiggy, Justin de Villeneuve, Carnby street, pot, pills, valium, ualus, cocaine, injections in stange houses,
but I stopped at heroin and that is why i am writing this.
So this is a confessional book, which might appeal to our cousisns across the pond
in the US of A, which is the most neurotically confessional culture in modern history.
Where in the land of the free, there is a belief prevalent that whatever is not
instantly externalised is inauthentic.
And it is hard for us Europan to get by in a United States which seems not to value
reticence or obliquity. The country is awash with witness, therapy, victimage,
public self-exculpations, lowlier-than-thou protestations. Are they aware in their
confessional mode that confession can involve power, propitiation, dependency,
self-humiliation; how it can pleasurably generate the very guilt it seeks to
assuage; how it may be a way of provoking as well as avoiding punishment, or of
vaunting the self in the act of abnegating it. Even crudely, confession can be
employed as a come-on So this confessional novel is conscious of it being...well, confessional.
Lets start witht he Beatles, I, Bosco, would ride in the tube with my uber street smart
friend (let us call him) John Dandy, a Borstal graduate, in the UK a prison for
adolescents. JohnD let us term him that, was later to become a major Hollywood
producer, an icon in the film in Hollywood, giving lectures at film school across
the USA.
But 1962 JohnD was an artful dodger, a wide boy. And like so many of his cockney
fellows having a pulsating intellignece that if properly employed would have
enriched society. But it is a lack of vision that drives this class of street urchins
to feel that winning the argument through guile and native cunning, of getting one
over on the other, of employing rat like only means, cunning and casuistry. And how would they view the educated? they would view them as naive toffs.
So on this dayin 1965, the epicentre fo flower power, Bosco and JohnD rode the
London tube laughing at the Beatles, "all those rings on his fingers...all he need is a teapot and he could be telling fortunes at the local fair." The Beatles were only current in these
two's bhoyo's minds at present becasue JohnD saw an opportunity. For JohnD was a
man who truly had his ear to the ground, scanning the horizon for the smoke signals that would draw him into action.
"Are you sure about all this?" asked Bosco, already overawed at where all this might
lead..
"What the fuck, does it matter how I know, I am telling you...look I've got a mate who is a butcher, I sold him this Insurance Policy and his brother Joey, is a stuntman
and he told me that ther is this audition coming up...alright."
"So?"...said Bosco,
"Well. you are ideal for it..."
"Am I?"
"Yes. remember the birds in Oxford Street, in that coffee bar>
"Oh yeah."
"They thought you were a Beatle."
Bosco laughed in fond, embarrassed memory.
Now partly convinced by his pal's salemanship he asked, "So what do these
stuntmen have to do?"
"Jump off the top of buildings into bowls of soup with the Director screaming at them not to spalsh the sides" and John laughed heartily at his own joke. "What do you think they have to do? Just do as I say, its a doddle. Now look these stunt guys all train down at the YMCA in
Tottenham Court Road, so just shut up about it and leave it to me.
For the stunt guys climping ropes, doing somersaults on trampolines, lifting weights
and other asinine pursuits, they were a little excited themselves for though John they ]
were going to meet a bit of a celeb himself. "Yeah, that Bosco he's coming daahn."
"What a fighter he was
"Well he was a boxer, clever wasn't he said Joey, used his noodle, used his feet to
stay out of trouble" said Joey sliding down a rope.
"Yeah, he did kind of danced out of trouble, didn't he?" confirmed Alfy.
He looks like em. Not John, but maybe George or Paul."
"Come on," John and Bosco hurried across Tottenahm Court Road and were into the
YMCA haring it down the strair to the dungeon gym. Joey, having vaulted over the 'horse' landed with a plonk and was looking directly at the two new arrivals.
.
Always historisise and to do that your have to periodisise.
Which takes us to the 60s and to Biba, the boutiue, the stilletto heel, Twiggy, Justin de Villeneuve, Carnby street, pot, pills, valium, ualus, cocaine, injections in stange houses,
but I stopped at heroin and that is why i am writing this.
So this is a confessional book, which might appeal to our cousisns across the pond
in the US of A, which is the most neurotically confessional culture in modern history.
Where in the land of the free, there is a belief prevalent that whatever is not
instantly externalised is inauthentic.
And it is hard for us Europan to get by in a United States which seems not to value
reticence or obliquity. The country is awash with witness, therapy, victimage,
public self-exculpations, lowlier-than-thou protestations. Are they aware in their
confessional mode that confession can involve power, propitiation, dependency,
self-humiliation; how it can pleasurably generate the very guilt it seeks to
assuage; how it may be a way of provoking as well as avoiding punishment, or of
vaunting the self in the act of abnegating it. Even crudely, confession can be
employed as a come-on So this confessional novel is conscious of it being...well, confessional.
Lets start witht he Beatles, I, Bosco, would ride in the tube with my uber street smart
friend (let us call him) John Dandy, a Borstal graduate, in the UK a prison for
adolescents. JohnD let us term him that, was later to become a major Hollywood
producer, an icon in the film in Hollywood, giving lectures at film school across
the USA.
But 1962 JohnD was an artful dodger, a wide boy. And like so many of his cockney
fellows having a pulsating intellignece that if properly employed would have
enriched society. But it is a lack of vision that drives this class of street urchins
to feel that winning the argument through guile and native cunning, of getting one
over on the other, of employing rat like only means, cunning and casuistry. And how would they view the educated? they would view them as naive toffs.
So on this dayin 1965, the epicentre fo flower power, Bosco and JohnD rode the
London tube laughing at the Beatles, "all those rings on his fingers...all he need is a teapot and he could be telling fortunes at the local fair." The Beatles were only current in these
two's bhoyo's minds at present becasue JohnD saw an opportunity. For JohnD was a
man who truly had his ear to the ground, scanning the horizon for the smoke signals that would draw him into action.
"Are you sure about all this?" asked Bosco, already overawed at where all this might
lead..
"What the fuck, does it matter how I know, I am telling you...look I've got a mate who is a butcher, I sold him this Insurance Policy and his brother Joey, is a stuntman
and he told me that ther is this audition coming up...alright."
"So?"...said Bosco,
"Well. you are ideal for it..."
"Am I?"
"Yes. remember the birds in Oxford Street, in that coffee bar>
"Oh yeah."
"They thought you were a Beatle."
Bosco laughed in fond, embarrassed memory.
Now partly convinced by his pal's salemanship he asked, "So what do these
stuntmen have to do?"
"Jump off the top of buildings into bowls of soup with the Director screaming at them not to spalsh the sides" and John laughed heartily at his own joke. "What do you think they have to do? Just do as I say, its a doddle. Now look these stunt guys all train down at the YMCA in
Tottenham Court Road, so just shut up about it and leave it to me.
For the stunt guys climping ropes, doing somersaults on trampolines, lifting weights
and other asinine pursuits, they were a little excited themselves for though John they ]
were going to meet a bit of a celeb himself. "Yeah, that Bosco he's coming daahn."
"What a fighter he was
"Well he was a boxer, clever wasn't he said Joey, used his noodle, used his feet to
stay out of trouble" said Joey sliding down a rope.
"Yeah, he did kind of danced out of trouble, didn't he?" confirmed Alfy.
He looks like em. Not John, but maybe George or Paul."
"Come on," John and Bosco hurried across Tottenahm Court Road and were into the
YMCA haring it down the strair to the dungeon gym. Joey, having vaulted over the 'horse' landed with a plonk and was looking directly at the two new arrivals.
.
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