Are Coming Down To Play In A Town Near You.

I was in a supermarket one afternoon when I overheard a woman saying  to another woman:

“Jeezus! I thought that woman was wearing a fierce funny hat!” 

and the other woman asking:

“What was she wearing?” 

“Ah, just an old fry-in pan.”

As if it would have been more shocking if it was a fancy fierce hat. As they continued on nattering and gathering up the gossip of the day I quickly glanced up and sure enough the ad in question did show a woman wearing a frying pan on her head and a great big smile but as to the slogan? I have no idea. It did do what it was supposed to do and make you turn your head to see if what you where seeing was real. Which reminds me of a time in London when we where signing on (unemployment benefits only for those actively seeking work like working our way to becoming ‘the biggest band in the world!’) As I was chatting to the ‘oh so friendly and intensely helpful chap – who oozed slow death and took ‘drip’ to a whole new low level’ slowly  melting behind the iron grill – like he was selling booze in an off-licence at 3 in the morning – explaining to him that, yes, I was actively seeking work, yes, I have applied for jobs, yes, et cetera et cetera… he looked at me dolefully, like a wasted owl, freshly fallen out of high tree and ran over by a 14 wheeler with snow chains, stamped my slip and grunted: 

“next!”. 

And here’s what happened next. Our flat at the time was above an off-licence. Outside our door was the bus stop. Outside our balcony window, which we could access through open mini french door/windows and sit on the parapet like weird muppet flowers in a concrete window box was the bus stop sign, eye level and six feet away. This made it so that when a bus pulled up to the stop, we could clearly see the people on the top deck and the people on the top deck could clearly see us. On this particular day we decided to put head sized cardboard boxes on our heads, wear  them like hats and sit on the balcony and wait.

Wearing boxes on our heads wasn’t a fashion statement. It just felt ridiculous in a cool kind of way. We felt like The Goons, so we ran with it.

The idea was to try to stay statuesque still when a bus pulled up and give Friday evening workers something to talk about over the weekend. Like a game of Statues, we tried to re-enact a group of apostles in a renaissance painting all staring into the distance, in different directions, trying to avoid the gawping stares from the bus riders. I got the feeling that Mick was getting most of the stares, probably because he was wearing a dress and looked like Bowie on the back cover of ‘Hunky Dory’. I happened to shift my eyes to see the reaction on some of the window faces and couldn’t believe what my squinty eyes’ saw. Guess who sat there staring straight back at me? None other than ‘Slow Death Drip’ from behind the bars of the Dole Office that morning! I moved my gaze and could feel his eyes try to take in what he was seeing. Sounding like a bad ventriloquist I squeaked: 

“don’t-look-now…but-it’s-the-guy-from-the-dole-office…third-seat-from-the-front…I-kid-you-fuckin’-not!” 

(try saying that without moving your lips and wearing a box on your head). The bus finally pulled off, with a deck full of rubber necker’s as we all cracked up laughing, cracked open a case of crucial brew and let the weekend begin. I did wonder if he recognised us, then remembered what we looked like back then, even without the boxes – a cross between Warlock Hippies,  Thrift Store North American Indians and Dowdy Glam Hillbillies – this last one seems more fitting, as we where known in rural Ireland as ‘The Punk Poofters From The Hills’. Although my Granny ‘Up The Hills’ (as she was known because we had a Granny ‘Doon The Hills’ to save confusion) (because of our exploits in London and our hill climbing she would refer to us) She would like to remind folks and us and refer to our ancestral cousins ‘monkeys like to be high and fools like to watch’ (I was invited to a party by a fashion designer on the strength of my altered frayed flares and my Ma’s best friends fake fur coat) for us the party didn’t last, as we where kicked out because I pissed in the bath whilst the owner sat on the toilet. I honestly didn’t see her! And a photographer in Camden Town asked could she take a picture of me, as she’d never seen flares with a pair of Lonsdale boxing boots before. It’s funny how, when you think you look cool, and spend time on your attire to try to be individual and stand out from the crowd when out of the blue, from the open window of an upstairs passing bus, a bunch of kids shout out with venom: 

Oi! you look like a fuckin’ health hazard!” Sticks and stones eh?.

To put our time, and things we have done on this planet, into perspective, me and a friend have a ritual of saying, when we find ourselves in the most bizarre or out of the ordinary situations, of relating them back to yesteryear: ‘who would have thought eh?, this time last year, we’d find ourselves on a Saturday night, boozeless in Morocco, on top of a Riad, overlooking a biblical scene, juggling oranges?’ or ‘who would have thought eh, this time last year, we’d find ourselves up a mountain, in southern France, in a ruin of a Cathar castle, sitting crossed legged and cross eyed, with a hip flask of absinthe and napkins on our heads for good measure?’ So in the same vane: ‘who would have thought eh?, this time last year, me and my ten year old son would find ourselves, on a Saturday afternoon, walking through the downtown streets of Austin, Texas, and my son wearing – wait for it – a box on his head? I love life’s little turns and unexpected turn ups. Maybe, like those people on the upstairs bus, we should do more of what we find amusing, the only danger is, we might find ourselves saying: ‘who would have thought, this time last year…’

“Okay Cindafella! Back to your chores!”