Episode 6: Creeps, from Individuals, Eccentrics, Weirdos, Monsters, Pests, Creeps, and Alfreds.

[…continued]

What’s worse, I’ve been thoughtless enough not to give her the chance to recover from the trauma of seeing me earlier, like an abandoned dog finding its new owner, bounding towards her – wearing a fucked-up latex face-mask that looks as though Salvador Dali’s chosen to visually adapt Alice in Wonderland on a particularly bad day.

With that kinda look, anybody might think I’m…

A Creep

The last thing I wanted to do was contribute to a person not enjoying their evening. That’s just shit.

Maybe this is a retribution narrative? An historical one. You know, like the denouement of Richard the Turd. (1)

I’m creeping around like good old Richie!

We’re not far from the Tower of London, actually. (2) Maybe I should creep back home that way?

I’m so embarrassed. To be honest, I’m dangerously flirting with the wish to be buried beneath a car park in Leicester. (3)

Suddenly, I realise I’ve got the hump. (4)

I’ve got a bigger hump than Inspector Clouseau’s inflatable Quasimodo outfit. (5)

I haven’t got the hump against Goth Van Guard, I’ve got the hump against the history of my actions, looming up and confronting me in a very Gothic return-of-the-past motif.

But why am I being punished as a creep by the wheels of history?

…

Do I like to have confusion? Yes I do. Am I in any danger? Yes I am. Do I like what's happening? Yes I do. And can I deal with it directly? Yes I can.

I take the trouble, I take the time I get the feeling that I'm doing what's right I may be reckless, maybe a fool But I get excited when I get confused. (6)

…

Well, I’ll tell you.

At September Torture Garden, DJ Kitty McPaws decided to talk to me as she was waiting in that confusing bit on the top floor of the Electrowerks. I was so amazed I fell into a state of bewildered silence. I think I managed an ‘Ooh, rather.’ Or something…

But, then again, she posted a ‘meme’ about being respectful of shy people in fetish clubs. So, it can’t be that. I’m ok on that front.

Maybe I’m being punished because, at September Slimes, a nice Australian woman kept trying to begin a conversation with me?

“Oh my God, you’ve got some moves! You’re a great dancer! Wow! Let me buy you a drink at the bar.’

‘Oh, thank you, but I’ve just got to stay right here.’

I go terribly coy when I’m given a compliment but I had the more pressing issue that I’d waited since July’s FFFrenzy to hear Jonny Slut’s next set. (7)

I’d missed Jonny’s quadruple set in August because I’d attended my parents’ Emerald Wedding Anniversary in Northants. I also made damned sure, at that time, I was the fully dutiful and loving son, to show recompense for the unwavering compassion, kindness, patience, and understanding they’ve shown towards a dissolute renegade. I won’t get into what my sister, Bella, has had to put up with. That’s for another time.

Anyway, Jonny was in the middle of his set. I came to see Jonny! Never mind this ‘you’ve got great moves’ here and ‘let me buy you a drink’ there. The outrage! I shall dance to Jonny and not be pushed off course by the unpredictable waters of unexpected compliments. Beggars belief, sometimes.

She returns.

‘Come and meet my friends! You’re great!’

‘Oh, that’s kind but I’m so sorry, - I’ve waited three months to see Jonny.’

So I kept running off.

I feel bad for giving her the cold shoulder.

I do now.

Mind you, that cold shoulder probably wasn’t as bad as this cold hump.

So… it’s 05:35.

I’m miles away from Stockwell. I’m psycho-socially naked and far from home! (8) I’m in the docks.

There’s no hope. There’s not a single woman in sight wearing a strap-on.

Alas! Oh, these deep tones of woe. (9)

I well-wish I was in the stocks.

Actually, coming to think of it, there’s hardly anyone left. Where’s everyone gone?

Creep off.

Quietly.

But, hold on, the Wraith ticket said ‘no creeps’ allowed! (10)

I understand and appreciate the policy, but, what if, by coming here in the first place, you’ve been transmogrified, by the sheer pressure of avant-garde circumstances, from an ‘individual’ into ‘a creep’?

Am I still allowed to be here? Isn’t this Wraith’s fault? Did I break any policies?

They’ve got an entry policy but do they have an exit policy?

Are you allowed to go out a ‘creep’?

I shall be writing to Parma Ham about this. Oh, the injustice!

Oh, the Karma Ham.

Oh, God, I feel awful. And old. I think I might be turning into…

An Alfred

It’s just as well I met Aarron O’Connor and Jxn Coco earlier.

Meeting them turns out to be the highlight of my evening; and I’m meaning no disrespect to…

[to be continued, rhizomatically]

The Interminable Footnotes

A Creep: Footnotes

1) Richard III, 5.3.119-176. Of course, it isn’t just this scene that illustrates the retributive textual impulse. Many of the female characters, particularly widows, foreshadow the punishment that will befall Richie much earlier in the play! [Return]

2) A ‘Princes in the Tower’ reference was irresistible taken in relation to the location of Wraith in the Docklands. [Return]

3) The extraordinary story of the locating and exhumation of Richard III’s body from underneath a car park in Leicester using forensic science is featured in many documentaries, accessible on-line. [Return]

4) Please don’t get me started on the tragicomic complexities surrounding the representations of Richard’s physical form. A multi-faceted issue. Here, I appropriate the earlier play:

‘To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body’

Henry VI, Part III, 3.2.157-157, ed. Norman Sanders, (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1981).

I mention this speech to draw attention to this extraordinary soliloquy which Laurence Olivier chose to interleave with the opening soliloquy of Richard III in his film adaptation. You’ve got to admit, how can you film Richard III and resist putting in the line that Richard will ‘set the murderous Machiavel to school’? Good boy. [Return]

5) Blake Edwards (dir.), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (United Artists: 1976). [Return]

6) Fischerspooner, ‘Get Confused’, from Odyssey (EMI: London, 2005). [Return]

7) Jonny Slut is my favourite DJ of all time. End of. My counter-cultural hero. He’s practically provided me with the soundtrack of my life and is my subcultural Shakespeare! The circumstances in which I thought he was fourteen different people are yet to be revealed in a future confession. If you haven’t yet listened to this set, then I urge you to tap on the following link: https://www.mixcloud.com/jonny-melton/boys-dance-with-the-other-boys/

[Return]

8) You wouldn’t be able to cope with learning about the first 7” single that I bought many years ago with my nan, when I was 6 years old. Why? Because I was so fucking street-cred you would not dare venture out on the pavement ever again. Agoraphobia time! So, I’ll be gentle on you - and reveal the second 7” single that I bought instead. Actually, maybe not! [Return]

9) I don’t believe it but I’ve actually intentionally echoed the long vowels in Milton’s opening of Book IX of Paradise Lost. Fuck me, Roland Barthes, you cunt, anybody would erroneously think that artists actually know what they fuck they’re doing, including the Parisian Situationists. Ok, another confession, I admit… [Return]

10) From memory, this is what was advertised on the purchasing tickets original entry policy for Wraith. Please correct me if I’m wrong! Love to you all… [Return]