The Prepilogue: 'Double Vision: Or; - On How Not to Stage a Gothic Rock Concert'

Double Vision:

Or; - On How Not to Stage a Gothic Rock Concert

Dedication:

To Miss Fortune

The Prepilogue

Raising the Stakes

I seem to be in the enviable position that, quite out of the blue, kinky women keep asking me to do things.

No, it’s not that.

And I don’t need those.

Now, lean in, and I’ll tell you.

I’ve had my first reader’s request. Not bad after only one confession, I hear you say!

Here I was, with my hands full of Zara DuRose; or – an article about her anyway, and in swoops Miss Fortune with a nudge I just can’t refuse.

If the tale be told, I’m actually more on the tail end of Zara. But either way, Miss Fortune has elbowed me and asked me to grease mine.

My what? Grease my elbows, darling, my elbows. What were you thinking?

Anyway, at her behest, I’ve been asked to explain why I was suspended from boarding school.

Twice.

Miss Fortune is rather baffled at how I could have upset my teachers so much. She can’t quite square this shenanigans with this strange notion she has that I’m a ‘pleasant man’. So, I thought it only fair to relieve her of a spot of cognitive dissonance.

And so begins a droll tale. Or two.

But before I get into the rummy affair of Mr Norwood’s Taxis, that snake-in-the-grass P--l Swan, the refusal of Jock-the-Razor, and the sad ensuing silence surrounding my Gothic Rock band, ‘Screaming Brides’, I need to acknowledge how casually Miss Fortune has raised the aesthetic stakes for yours truly.

In fact, the stakes are higher than the moment when Dr Van Helsing breaks into Highgate Cemetery, raids a tomb, and is poised to release Lucy Westernra from her undead-limbo.

I’ll expand with an exposition, if you’ll excuse the excursion.

Penal Policy

Stop sniggering.

The word ‘penal’ isn’t funny, you know.

Honestly.

How old are you?

Now, we all know that when you’re in your teens most of your effort goes into the dodge-and-move strategy of trying to shimmy through three spheres of inevitable punishment. We have the rules of the institutional powder-keg known by the name of a ‘school’, we have the strong arm of the law with its complex regulations and Zero Tolerance fingering, and, most severely, - we have the direct intervention of the gods when they get sore over something.

They get particularly sore when, in your youthful exuberance, you’ve simply used your Promethean initiative to find creative ways through the loopholes in the other two spheres. In those circs. they really throw their weight around, don’t they?

You see, ever since my double suspension, the gods have chosen to punish me with enduring double vision.

Grim humour indeed. You commit the same crime twice and they’ll punish you with seeing things twice, - forever, and forever, and forever!

Mind you, I shouldn’t really complain, considering they could have written me off-stage permanently like that bloke who killed his dad and fucked his mum.

They even left him without any eyes at one point.

I mean, by comparison, I’ve got off lightly.

The gods have given me four eyes.

Maybe they’ve blessed me? Maybe they thought, ‘Hey, I like this rogue here with his hubris; I think he needs to be rewarded! Let’s give him double-vision!’

Maybe they think they’ve given me some Herculean superpower?

It would be just like me not to notice.

Right in character.

Double Vision

There’s absolutely no doubt I have double vision.

I am an automated doppelganger creator. Where you see one, I see two.

Think about this whole recent confusion between Miss Fortune and her identical twin sister, Miss Fortune Backup. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I’d got everything totally wrong.

She’s actually one of three triplets, as I had entirely overlooked Miss Fortune London.

Well, at least the Fortune triplets are decent enough to distinguish themselves by their surnames. That helps a lot.

Mind you, that’s as far as their largesse goes. I was really baffled at Monster Queen when I heard someone address all three of them by the same first name. Very odd.

Then there’s the whole Yasmin and Jess fiasco.

I’ve been addressing Yasmin as ‘Jess’ for at least six months. I must have misheard her on the way into Scala as she was checking our costumes:

‘Hi, I’m Yas.’

Heard as:

‘Hi, I’m Jess.’

Well, it’s bit odd that Yasmin hasn't once complained that I’ve been calling her Jess. Maybe Yasmin actually wants to be Jess? Very possible.

My suspicions of this were confirmed a few months ago. Jess was wearing this cool outfit when she was checking our costumes on the way into Fire TG. And then, lo and behold, a photo popped up three months later of Yasmin wearing an identical outfit and she had the same hairstyle. Uncanny!

Well, I didn’t know there was a costume-borrow-and-lend-system operating between the TG Guardians. Had no idea. I see they go to the same hairdresser too – that much is plain.

If this isn’t proof enough of my double-vision, you don’t want to get me started about the woman-with-the-boobs at the February and March Torture Gardens! That whole recognition-misrecognition and then re-recognition-of-face-and-boobs-when-its-too-late-shambles really oscillated between tragedy and comedy.

That’s why we have tragicomedy.

Anyway, all of these women are lucky. They should count their lucky stars! They’ve never had it so good!

And I’ll tell you why.

I once thought Jonny Melton was fourteen people.

…

I am your doppelganger creator, free of charge, at your service, - I thank you.

The Gothic Rock Legend

No, I’m not talking about Miss Fortune. Or Jonny Slut.

Catch up, will you? I’m talking about myself.

Yes, yes, myself.

I mean, I’m the Gothic Rock legend.

Ok, ok. Pipe down. I'll take some questions about that later.

I’ve gone off the rails. What was I saying? These delays, digressions, distractions and dilations have got my knickers in a wedgie.

Oh, yes; that’s right,- I was saying Miss Fortune’s bright and breezy request has presented me with a snag; the snag of confronting what can only be described as a bewildering omni-shenanigans.

Not only do I have to explain the mysterious circumstances of my double suspension from boarding school, but also how my double vision first arose as a result of my second suspension, and how the aftermath of these circs. propelled me into becoming a Gothic Rock legend that we have all come to love and know. (Yes, all of us.)

Tall order, tall order.

I think Miss Fortune has opened a can of texts.

I think Miss Fortune has opened a double-sided Jack-in-the-box.

I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

…

How is it even possible to get suspended twice?

Miss Fortune knows, and I know, and you know, that getting suspended twice is so rare as to be unique.

Anyone who’s ventured near an educational establishment has the punitive process committed to memory:

1) Caution

2) Suspension

3) Expulsion

In that sequence.

Third time lucky and you’re out the door.

I got stuck in the middle with me.

I got squashed in the rotating door.

…

What’s that? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your question.

The Gothic Rock legend bit?

You’ve never heard of me?

Or my band, Screaming Brides? No?

That's very odd.

Very odd indeed.

Well, ok, a legend in the UK.

England, actually.

Ok, I’ll concede that. Fair enough.

In Northamptonshire.

Happy now?

Right, right, ok, - a town in Northamptonshire.

A small town in Northamptonshire.

Yes, yes, quite remote.

On its borders.

A small remote town on the borders of Northamptonshire.

Satisfied, now?

You’re not?

Ok, fine.

A legend, for a period of time.

A brief period.

A few years, actually.

Maybe a couple.

Right, ok, well. I see your case. Yes, hmm.

So you’re saying that being a legend for a very brief period of time disqualifies me from being considered a legend at all? Have I summarised your view accurately?

Well, it is something for me to consider, yes.

I’ll note it down and get back to you.

In time.

In a long period of time.

Actually, I won’t.

Ask Becca. Ask her instead. She’s the one who told me I had turned into a legend.

Don’t trouble me with your ifs and your buts and your ‘Oh, I’d like to ask just another question about the authenticity of your claims, if I may’. Bloody cheek.

…

I think I’ve just been found out.

See what happens when I don’t ‘dob’ myself in, Yasmin? People find out anyway.

Oh - the wheels of fortune go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels of fortune go round and round over…

…

Enough of this madcap knavery and on with the tale!

Or two.

Part One

The Sweet Smell of Rebellion

Ah, the sweet smell of rebellion!

…

[More of this, sideways. To be continued, rhizomatically, darling…]

The Famously Flimsy Footnotes

As you are certain to know from previous correspondence, it would be remiss of me to disappoint my hardcore following of foot-note fanatics. No, it’s true, I don’t understand it either - but they’re relying on me. It’s not usually in my character to lecture or hector, so I’ll revert to the tonal texture of the gesture. I’ll gesture you towards the path which wastes more of your time, and mine, if that’s possible…

Dedication Footnotes:

1 Miss Fortune: considering the more than unlucky yet happy circumstances of my double suspension, the opportunity to dedicate the story to ‘Miss Fortune’ is too artistically fortunate not to pass up! As Miss Fortune has initiated the narrative request in the first place, this is for you…

As you shall soon see, at the rate I’m going, there’ll be more references to Fortune in this short confession than the whole of Tom Jones.

[Return]

Prepilogue Footnotes:

1 Prepilogue: my term for something that prepares you for the epilogue but could be read either as a prologue or an epilogue. It happens, quite arbitrarily, to be presented to you first. At the end, if you’re patience hasn’t run out, which is highly unlikely, you’ll find a ‘Logueiperp’. That bit will be a sort of mish-mash between an epilogue and prologue but, by chance or mischance, happens, quite arbitrarily, to be read at the end. I like this sandwich structure. It’s a sort of narrative-structural chiasmus. You know, an antimetabole: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but what you could do for your country.’ A narrative version of that syntactical structure. It's going to get really confusing when I add the Midlogue. Maybe I should have started with the Midlogue? [Return]

Raising the Stakes: Footnotes

1 I lied. That avant-garde article was completed, sent, and published by Gothic Culture Magazine, in Issue 26. You can buy a copy, if you want. No pressure. I think most readers don’t bother reading the words anyway, preferring to gawp listlessly at the Gothic Fetish models. I don’t blame them, to be honest. I do exactly the same thing. Words can be a distraction, can't they? Here’s a link: https://gothicculturemag.com/2022/11/november-2022-issue-26-with-cover-model-nisha-sara/

[Return]

2 Disgusting! Elbow grease! You with me, now? Really, I can’t take you anywhere. It’s a disgrace! (Yes, I am channelling a bit of Kenneth Williams here. I suppose it makes a change from the usual Frankie Howerd antics. Well, not that much of a change.) [Return]

3 I’m glad somebody’s reading my confessions. All one of you. This is, of course, mentioned in my confession: ‘A Call to Adventure: Or, On How Not to Enter the UK Fetish Awards’. [Return]

4 Bram Stoker, Dracula, Ch. XVI, 1897, revised edition, ed. Maurice Hindle (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003), pp. 228-232. I’ll be returning to the connection between the character Lucy Westernra and the exhumation of the Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s muse, Elizabeth Siddal, in my confession about the lyrics to The Cure’s ‘The Drowning Man’, a text, in turn, based upon the death of Lady Fuchsia Groan from Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast. A short piece about the exhumation of Siddal’s corpse can be found here: https://nonfictioness.com/victorian/the-exhumation-of-elizabeth-siddal/ but the specific connection between the event and writing of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is told with masterful detail by Christopher Fraying in Episode 2 of the BBC documentary series Nightmare: The Birth of Horror, 1996. See 36min to 39min on this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88edGlW3DT4 There’s also a lavishly illustrated hardback companion book that, really, should be on every Goth’s bookshelf: Christopher Frayling, Nightmare: The Birth of Horror (London: BBC Books, 1996). Dracula fanatics shouldn’t hesitate in also purchasing the 4 years of notes and research that he undertook in writing the novel, of which a facsimile edition, has been published: Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition (Philadelphia: The Rosenbach Museum, 2008). [Return]

5 Yes it is. Why wouldn’t it be? You’re right: Verse IV of the magnificently playful ‘Dedication’ of Byron’s Don Juan:

And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion"

(I think the quarto holds five hundred pages),

Has given a sample from the vasty version

Of his new system to perplex the sages;

'Tis poetry—at least by his assertion,

And may appear so when the dog-star rages—

And he who understands it would be able

To add a story to the Tower of Babel.

I love Byron’s well-chosen allusion to Alexander Pope’s ‘Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot’ there. It is. It really is. No, it really is. It's one of the most famous satires of the C18, after all. Have you ever thought of collocating the verb ‘rages’ with the noun phrase ‘dog-star’? You haven’t? Ok, if you insist:

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,

All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

[Return]

Penal Policy: Footnotes

1 This whole reference to ‘Zero Tolerance fingering’ puts me dreamily in mind of the severity of WPC Harland of Teesside once again. See my confession: ‘Individuals, Eccentrics, Weirdos, Monsters, Pests, Creeps, and Alfreds: Or; - On The Delicate Art of How Not to Have a Conversation’, Episode 5 Footnote 8. [Return]

2 Another ‘Modern Prometheus’, eh? I must confess, I’ve always rather liked Victor Frankenstein; - at least in those early chapters before it all goes tits up and he runs away. [Return]

3 From the film version of The Shining, dir. Stanley Kubrick (Warner Bros: 1980). I’m sure you’ll remember this is spoken by identical twins. Or was this just a production of my double-vision? (This is why I have chosen to spell ‘forever’ in Standard American English rather than ‘for ever’ in Standard English English.)

On that note, I noticed that TG used the carpet from The Shining for their Horror Hotel Hallowe’en do. A celebration that I sadly could not attend, owing to my second round of COVID. Bit of bummer, really, particularly considering I had a suit especially made for the occasion, alluding to not one - but two - hotels from 1895. Forthcoming confession: ‘Psychodramatic Scenario Suits: Or, On Not Wearing My Horror Hotel Suit’. [Return]

4 Now there’s a reference that would be patronising if I did add it as a footnote. I mean, come on! [Return]

5 Specking, or speaking, of four eyes, - that reminds me of being shouted at in Middlesbrough by an oik who called me a ‘fookin’ speckie bastard!’ It was said with such relish in that classic Teesside accent that I almost respected him and wished to thank him. I was at the time wearing my ‘Surgically Bohemian’ glasses, as I had Christened them at university. They were some sort of cross between lab eye protectors and John Lennon specs! Never seen anything like them before or since. You can probably guess why. They were a pair of specs so unusual I’ve saved them in my memorabilia box to this day. I’m sure you can imagine my smug bespectacled fookin’-speckie-bastard grin as I write this. [Return]

6 I suddenly have a fleeting envy for Narcissus. At least he noticed. Oh, look! [Return]

Double Vision: Footnotes

1 If you’d like to see how this confusion arose, see the main text of my confession ‘The Call to Adventure: Or, On How Not to Enter the UK Fetish Awards’ and the related Footnote 5. [Return]

2 Not to be disclosed here. A name hermetically sealed. Sealed. Hermetically. I’ve already done that, have I? The bit about hermetically sealed? In another confession? Ok, you’re right. I did it just to test to see if anyone was actually reading. You know, with a dwindling audience, and all… [Return]

3 I’d like to clarify to my very few readers that Yasmin has not copied anyone called Jess. Jess doesn’t exist! I thought Yasmin was called Jess, and that’s as far as it goes! So each time I saw Jess this year, it turns out it was actually Yasmin. My level of my confusion can be confirmed by a conversation I had at ZDR Events with a pleasant musician called ----:

----: Oh, I don’t go to TG much anymore, but I know Yasmin.

Purple Peril: Oh, I don’t know Yasmin at all. I recognise her though. But I do know Jess! She’s nice. You know, the one who checks the costumes on the way in?

[Return]

4 Turns out that Jess, - I mean Yasmin, didn’t actually notice. I think there’s a theme emerging here (especially for the few of you that read my confession: ‘Individuals, Eccentrics, Weirdos, Monsters, Pests, Creeps, and Alfreds: Or; - On The Delicate Art of How Not to Have a Conversation’, Episode 5). More proof that I get really worried about stuff that no one ever notices! More proof that I’m invisible. Or inaudible. Ah, inspiration! Forthcoming confession: ‘The Zero Complex: Or, On Not Being with Your Mates in Clubs’. I am invisible! Think of the UK Fetish Awards. There I was, wearing the suit that would ‘launch a thousand ships/And burn the topless towers of Ilium’, got photographed, which, in turn, never showed up in their digital world. Another failure to add to the ongoing narrative. Bastards. [Return]

5 That TG story needs to be told. Forthcoming Confession: ‘The Woman with the Boobs – A Tragicomic Tale: Or; On Not Recognising You’ve Been Given a Second Chance’. Tragicomic tale? Yes. Aren’t they all? [Return]

6 A true legend. Jonny Melton AKA Jonny Slut, my favourite DJ of all time. Please please please do yourself a fucking favour and listen to Jonny’s most recent mix, which is mind-blowing: https://www.mixcloud.com/jonny-melton/carry-on-screaming/

[Return]

The Gothic Rock Legend: Footnotes

1 See the unforgettable opening to PG Wodehouse’s Right Ho, Jeeves, originally published 1934, (London, Everyman, 2000), p. 9. [Return]

2 For Henri Bergson’s analogy between the dramatic structures of comedy and a Jack-in-the Box, see his essay ‘On Laughter’ in ed. Wylie Sypher, Comedy (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press, 1956), pp. 105-110. [Return]

3 Myself. I know the use of the object pronoun 'me' here is non-standard grammar because the verb is self-reflexive. Using the Standard English grammar wouldn’t really work stylistically with the scansion in the title of the song to which this sentence alludes, would it? Standards of sociostylistic appropriacy? Rather than outdated prescriptivism? Maybe? M.A.K. Halliday? Oh, don’t worry, he’s only one of the most important linguists of the twentieth century so there’s really no need to read him. Instead I’d recommend that you read wankers who know fuck all about the history of language complaining about the ‘declining blah standards blah of blah English blah’ in the drivel of impotent letters that The Times and The Telegraph regularly publish. [Return]

4 You know, like when Inspector Clouseau gets trapped in the rotating door in The Return of the Pink Panther (United Artists, 1975). [Return]

5 Becca. My friend, Becca Downey. No, not that Becca Downey. Not Goth Becca Downey. The other Becca Downey. Holy Shit! I think I’ve just had an attack of double-vision! I mean, my schoolfriend Becca Downey; - from the year when they decided to ‘pilot’ having girls at school. Yeah, something about going co-ed, I think. Something like that…

I don’t actually know Goth Becca Downey but Facebook does, which is nice to know, and seems to be quite persistent in its recommendations for me to befriend her. [Return]

6 Yasmin has, quite unintentionally, inspired me to write a forthcoming confession: ‘Dib Dib Dib, Dob Dob Dob: Or; On How Not to Dob Yourself In’. Thank you! I might stop calling you Jess, now. [Return]

7 I’m told this bit sounds a bit like the lyrics to a song. Never heard it. Doesn’t sound familiar at all. Probably some obscure post-punk B-side from 1979, knowing my friends. Oooh, a song we have. A lyric poet we have! Yoda we have. [Return]

7B Oooh, a double-footnote we have! Footnote double-vision we have! A four-eyed speckie-bastard of a Yoda we have! I rather like the metaphor of multiple narratives as wheels within wheels, or cogs or gears; like the crime series Spiral. Apparently, the original French title, Engrenages, translates more closely to ‘cogs or gears’, the intersecting narratives relating to complex system of the various processes of legal institutions and procedures. [Return]

8 ‘Knavery’ is one of my favourite words bopping about bouncily in the Renaissance, especially in Shakespearean hands. If I ever owned a pub I’d call it: ‘The Horse ’n Knavery’. The pub sign would be a picture of a jester sitting backwards on a horse. Oh dear, I’ve just been asked to explain this one. Back to oronyms again [see confession ‘The Call to Adventure’, footnote 3]. The whoreson knavery? See? Not very PC, I know, but you can’t tell me that the insult in King Lear ‘Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter’ isn’t the greatest insult ever written, can you? That blows the ‘Oh, you’re a waste of space’ type-insult-thing way out the water. I mean that one sounds positively mild in comparison. And unimaginative to boot!

For a book of Shakespeare’s insults, collected neatly, see Wayne F. Hill and Cynthia J. Ottchen, Shakespeare’s Insults: Educating Your Wit (Vermilion, 1995). For his innuendos see Eric Partridge, Shakespeare’s Bawdy, first published 1947 (London and New York: Routledge, 1968), and Frankie Rubinstein, A Dictionary of Shakespeare’s Sexual Puns and their Significance (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). For more general glossaries see C.T. Onions A Shakespeare Glossary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958), or the more recent David Crystal and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002). There are loads of on-line Shakespeare Insult Generators that continually combine three noun-phrase slots together to produce a new one. You know a bit like a syntactical slot-machine that rammed full of rude Shakespearean insults. Good for Chomsky fans too. Anyway, I’ve just ordered a new spiral-bound one that promises the following: ‘Just add 'thou' before any of the 157,464 different insult combinations and you'll be ready to set dullards and miscreants in their place. From 'apish bald-pated abomination' to 'cuckoldly dull-brained blockhead' to 'obscene rump-fed hornbeast,' each insult can be chosen at random…’; Barry Kraft, Shakespeare Insult Generator (Chronicle, 2014).

Oh, Jeez. No, I’m not. Bowlderisation? You want me to explain that too. After Thomas Bowlder? What he did to Shakespeare’s texts? Look, I don’t have time. But to think we have a common English pejorative word named in mockery after a sexually repressed idiot of a Shakespeare censor is just too good for words! No words could do justice to the poetic justice of history. Hence my silence. Silence. Well, maybe. Or, perhaps that’s for another time, eh? Forthcoming Confession: ‘The Myth of Sisyphus: Or; On How Not to Be Thomas Bowlder’. Ooh, a homophonic pun! Phonic, not phobic! [Return]