a forty fifth story...'arthur c bojangles on the legacy of the earthling 'pop' band, the beatles'

Judy loved the Beatles.  She grew up in Liverpool, and was a teenager during the sixties.  The decade of Pop Goes the Weasel, sexual awakening and so on.  Every Earthling ‘Friday’, Judy would head to the Cavern Club and dance to Mersey Beat with the local boys dressed in winkle pickers* and drainpipe trousers**.  Together they would bob up and down, up and down, to rock n’roll, fresh off the boat from the Big Apple***. 

Boing, boing, boing!  It was an innocent time, and a right old jolly.

Back then there was something appealing about dressing up like a BBC+ executive among the young, and the Beatles did much to perpetuate this fashion, or rather their manager, the fastidious homosexual++, Brian Epstein was perhaps responsible.  Leather was out, ironed white shirts and black tie was in!

If the Beatles twisted, you shouted; if the Beatles asked to hold your hand, you came over all wobbly at the knees and fainted.  If John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than the prophet Jesus, then they were; if McCartney was the Walrus+++, then he was. 

(E-extract from ‘Swinging Sixties: a Descriptive History of Ancient Earthling Paradise’ by Arthur C. Bojangles)

~

..It may surprise you to learn, I am writing this from the far flung future.  The Beatles are ancient history nowadays, and they and Judy are piles of dust, or worse a series of astro particles dispersed into the gravity free atmosphere of the solar system.

When I was walking my lunar pet, Bubba, only seven Fyre ‘hours’ ago, I came across a Time Capsule embedded in a bank of sand.  At a distance it looked like just another piece of lunar rock, but something drew me to it all the same; up close I could see what I had thought to be a lump of lunar rock was, in fact, a metallic container.  Now it stands in the lava lamp lighting of my lunar living room, with all the sand atoms removed by an electromagnetic scrub.  I have also managed to wrench the door open with an animatronic beak. 

Inside, would you believe, there is a cathode ray tube, a grammar phone, a piece of vinyl, a Cavern Club membership card with a bunch of boy’s (?) telephone numbers scrawled all over, a couple of grainy sepia photo portraits, and an old earthling print (yes, print!!!) newspaper front page with a vengeful editorial against the aforementioned John Lennon.

You see, I am a historian of earthling popular culture.  Earthlings would have called me an anthropologist.  My speciality is the sixties, or ‘swinging sixties’, to use an ancient phrase from the era.  In spite of the millennia separating you and I – you at home, in the 21^st century, seated on your cushioned ‘settee’; me, hovering on what you might consider a ‘magic carpet’, writing this communiqué to you using my telekinetic powers and expert knowledge of Olde English – Fyrians still love to learn about the Beatles, the Cavern Club, Mersey Beat, Brian Epstein, hell, even the lives of everyday ‘working-class’ gals such as Judy.  Or at least enough of us Fyrians do to afford me to live on more than a diet of Mars Planets (the oldest known and most intergalactic confectionery in the universe, as well as the cheapest).

On your earthling calendar you will note it is the earthling month of October, the year 2012.  If you venture into one of your earthling record shops, you will likely find a big glossy poster of the Beatles tacked to the show wall – it’s their fiftieth anniversary.  On my Fyrian calendar time is more of an abstract than it is to you, but if the Beatles had been cryogenically preserved, in earthling terminology I am living through their five thousandth anniversary.  Talk about leaving your thumb prints on ‘civilisation’!

By the way, the prophet Jesus, has almost altogether disappeared from the annals of history, along with Adolf Whatshisname, the comic actor, famous for his slapstick mime.  Besides, no one, to ‘date’, has put a Jesus record in a Time Capsule (not even Cliff Richard) and, I’m told, film (including The Great Dictator) of Adolf Whatshisname has largely been deleted from the vaults of Christendom’s library, or at least from the main hub on Cloud Nine (there may be some bootlegged versions floating around in Space).

So, I have often wondered, dear Ancient Earthling, why the Beatles remain effervescent, still written and talked about; heck, some of us Fyrians even listen to their music – our favourite? ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’.  A spiritual throwback if ever there was!

Why then is this? 

Here is a summary of my theory: because, whatever ancient earthling Anabaptists, Rolling Stones, distant relatives of Mike Love (who wrote Back In the U.S.S.R, my polkadot arse!), the creators of the now outlawed suckmybeatles.com, ancestors of Sharon Tate, Charles Manson, contend…the ‘fab four’s’ pop jingles never actually hurt anyone. 

Pete Best excepted.

In short, the Beatles music represents colour, fun, delicious, artful simplicity, togetherness, love and hope – qualities of our existence, Fyrians and Ancient Earthlings share, and always have shared (save perhaps, the artful simplicity).

Yours ever,

Arthur (or Art)

END COMMS.

~

*Ancient earthling headgear, looked great, but pinched your ears rather

** Ancient earthling legwear, looked great, but were so tight around the crotch area as to limit ancient earthling reproductive capability among the male species

*** Ancient earthling citadel in the ancient earthling land of England, a little way east of Liverpool, the capital city

+ British Broadcasting House: providers of pornographic material for undersexed male and female ancients

++ Ancient earthling term for entrepreneur

+++ A small, toothless ancient earthling rodent, around the size of a small pebble, but with up to one hundred legs

Alfred's Method - Phil's latest story

Alfred settled back into the leather armchair, which was rubbed to a shine on the arms and seat from all the powerful and self-regarding bodies that had sat in it over the years, and resolved to change things.  He was a man with a plan, or rather a scheme. 

Slim, grey-haired, with compact features and a neat, unfussy dress sense, Alfred was relaxing in the company lounge.  It was a broad low room with soft, easy lighting and a fully glazed end wall, offering a panoramic view over the city.  The lounge was scattered with easy chairs and dark wood coffee tables.  It was a little early for lunch and a little late for morning coffee, but not many people in the company could touch Alfred.  He had a near-flawless record, yet he was known as a workhorse rather than a creative savant, and this meant he was just outside the top spots.  He was a partner, but not a senior director, a position he coveted.  There was a rumour, fanning out from the water-coolers, that a place at the big dicks’ table would be available sometime soon.  Mr Claridge was surely ready for retirement; that heart scare last year, grandchildren arriving, and so on and so on.  However, Alfred well knew that there would be competition. 

As he was pondering this, Alfred’s foremost rival entered the company lounge.  Jeffery Sharp, ‘Jeff’ to all and sundry, was younger than Alfred, and much bigger.  He was a fat man, but not with big wobbling rolls.  He seemed to have a solid cushion under his shirt, extending all the way down from the top of his chest to below the waistband.  From this wide jar of flesh, his legs tapered rapidly to narrow ankles.  In his preferred black pinstripe suit, he was a geometry lesson; in profile, a cylinder balanced atop two scalene triangles, finished with a squat pint-glass of a head, missing only a handle out of the back. 

Jeff loomed over Alfred as he bellowed, “Morning Alfred, you’re taking it easy already?”  He spoke at high volume in any context, which did nothing to diminish his air of self-importance. 

“Why yes, Jeffery.  Would you join me?” replied Alfred, in a far more considered tone.  “Let’s have a drink; it is Friday after all.”  He knew this would get the other man sitting down.

While Jeff made himself comfortable in the chair opposite Alfred’s, Alfred collected two glasses of scotch with a drop of water from the minibar in one corner.  Knowing Jeffery wouldn’t know the difference, he poured Jeff the cheapest blend, and himself a Campbelltown single malt, which was older than his daughter by a few years. 

Sitting back down, Alfred asked, “How’s the Fincher account coming along?”  He was aware that the combination of alcohol and the chance to share his own brand of pugnacious self-promotion was the best way to loosen Jeff’s mind and tongue. 

“Smashing, old fella!” yelled Jeff. “Should be able to drain at least another half a mil out of that one, and still leave satisfied customers behind!”

“Ah, well done Jeffery.  That will be very helpful for the company, I’m sure.”  Alfred allowed his eye to slyly run up and down his adversary, noticing with distaste how Jeff’s trousers pulled tight at the crotch, his belly resting heavily on the top of his thighs, completely engulfing his belt. 

Jeff gulped noisily.  “What is this fine stuff?”

“You’re drinking a 18-year-old Speyside single malt there,” Alfred lied.  “One of the few independent distillers left in the region.”

“Excellent!  I should learn more about whiskey.  I’ll bet they are always on it up there.”  Jeff’s eyes went skywards; the senior director’s lounge was directly above the one in which they were sitting. 

Alfred could sense his opportunity.  “I suppose you’ve heard all the juniors’ chit-chat?”

Jeff entered his element with a harrumphing sound.  “Claridge is done!  I couldn’t be more sure.  The old bugger is just clinging to that table upstairs with his fingernails!”  He paused.  “You wouldn’t be interested in… taking his place, would you, old lad?” 

Alfred and Jeff connected gazes for a moment.  Alfred considered whether he had misjudged this man; perhaps he was craftier that he had taken him for.  He would have to move carefully.

“Oh, I’m not so far from retirement myself…  But if the company could benefit from my experience, I couldn’t turn them down.”

Jeff sat back and laughed, a performance of a laugh, room-filling and aggressive.  “Ho, nice dodge my man.  I’ll be less coy – I deserve a seat at that table.  When Claridge shifts out, I should be in there.”

He swigged at his whiskey, proud of his challenge to the other, tasting the thrill of his unabashed mercilessness. 

“In fact,” said Jeff conspiratorially (if such a loud voice could be considered conspiratorial), “I’d say there’s already room for someone like me.”

“Oh, do go on,” invited Alfred, crossing his legs and looking deliberately dandyish.  “Let us speak… freely.  You believe you could replace any one of them.  Could you rank them?”

Jeff licked his lips.  They had hit on one of his favourite topics.  He had spent many hours considering the precise nature of the incompetence of each senior director.

“Well… Anyone would put Smythe rock bottom.  He’s a yes-man, never pushed a client for more cash his whole career.  He’s a total flop, couldn’t negotiate his way through a turnstile.  By all accounts, useless with women too.  Smythe is only up there because he was a bootlicker for Clarendon-Smith for so long.  You no doubt heard about how he let the Festinger account go?  What a drip.”

Alfred gently touched the tip of his nose with his finger and gestured for Jeff to continue.

“That old battle-axe would have to be next worst.  Mrs Hampshire, Havisham more like!”  Jeff guffawed at his own literary cleverness.  “I just imagine her as some kind of spinster dominatrix, whips and chains, probably using them on old Rupert Ritherdon!  Ha ha!  She’s a right old sort, eh?  I love how she browbeats the big clients, makes them run home to their mummies.  She’s a hack, though; doesn’t know the first thing about the nuances of international trading.”

Jeff was warming to his theme more and more.  Alfred sat quietly, paying out the rope, counting off the knots as Jeff accelerated his rhetoric. 

“Third worst would have to be Danielson.  Oh Danielson, he’s a slippery one, no mistake.  Have you heard how he schmoozes with the big money?  He’s all over them with gifts, trips to see the dancing girls, and his promises of a ‘personalised service.’  As if mate.  He can’t keep them happy for more than five minutes.  He barely knows the numbers, let alone how to smooth over them for clients.

“So that just leaves Ritherdon and Clarendon-Smith, apart from Claridge, who’s out of the picture anyway.  The two don’s!  Ha ha!  In their dreams.  Ritherdon’s the weaker of the two, I suppose.  He’s never aggressive enough.  He puts on a show but can’t snare the really lucrative deals.  I’ve made twice as much for the company as him.  No balls, that chap.  At least he has a bit more business acumen than Danielson, although that’s not saying much.”

“Indeed,” Alfred murmured, sipping his whiskey.  His eyes flickered towards the ceiling, confident that all the directors were in their lounge above.  They tended to review the week’s successes over coffee on Friday mornings, so they could get away early to their second homes on the coast for the weekend. 

“Clarendon-Smith,” Jeff continued, “is a slightly different animal.  He is the only one of them who’s any use.  I can respect a man who drops a client or a consultant like he does, when he’s finished sapping them dry.  I’d say he’s the only one roughly on my level.  So he’ll top my ranking.”

There was a pause, during which Jeff drained his glass.

“Well, thank you for sharing your insights,” said Alfred, working hard to mask the sarcastic slant of his voice.  “You seem to have it all worked out.”

“That’s right!” shouted Jeff, standing up.  He had made himself heard, imparted some wisdom to someone less capable than his magnificent self, and thus he was done.  “Now, old chap, good chat, must get back to the desk.  I have a conference call with the Beijing office.”

With that, Jeff Sharp departed, leaving a deep dent in his armchair and an unpleasant lingering odour of egotism. 

Alfred sat very still in his seat for a minute or two, expressionless.  He listened to the muffled, yet obviously raised, voices from upstairs.  Then, gradually, he permitted himself a smile that began slowly at the corners of his mouth, and spread over his whole face. 

He recalled his little visit to the senior director’s lounge just thirty minutes ago. 

Alfred had opened the door ever-so carefully, confirming there was no one inside.  He checked the telephone in the corner for its extension number, since the line to the senior director’s lounge wasn’t listed in the company phone book.  He found the digits displayed on its little rectangular screen.  Then he dialled the phone in front of him from his mobile.  As soon as it rang, he hit the speaker button and said hello into his mobile, to check it came through clearly.  Alfred sat down on the arm of one of the chairs across the room, and slid the mobile underneath.  He spoke to himself at normal conversational volume:  “Jeffery Sharp will never enter this room,” twice over like a mantra.  The telephone on the table in the corner repeated his words along with him, Alfred noted to his great satisfaction. 

He stood and smoothed off the arm of the chair where he had reposed; then Alfred left the room silently.  He walked downstairs to the junior lounge, holding his mobile phone with care so as not to accidentally cut the connection to upstairs.  Alfred settled in his chair, slid the mobile underneath and waited for his opponent’s arrival.

Now, after Sharp’s departure, he chuckled to himself, reaching underneath his chair and hanging up the call that his mobile phone had been making for the past half hour.  Alfred went back to the minibar and poured himself another scotch; it tasted all the more gratifying as he reflected on the now inescapable demise of one Jeffery Sharp.  

a forty fourth story...'better than ___'

You’ve fancied her for ages, but actually acknowledging this makes you feel eleven years old all over again.  And there’s a game on – your team is playing.  And it’s not just any game, no, it’s against them.  The best moment of your life came when your team was playing against them, and while avoiding defeat against them can bring an enormous flood of relief, winning brings a kind of ecstasy you just don’t experience anytime, any place else.  It was four years ago, the best moment of your life: three minutes left on the Anfield clock, the league to play for, a late corner, flicked on at the near post, a poke of that long leg of his – the bloke who’s now at Sunderland – a connection, the sweetest connection and WOOSH! To infinity and beyond! (at least for a tumultuous minute, before you remembered you still had the slowest one hundred and twenty seconds in human creation to endure)..

..‘I didn’t know you were a football fan’, she says, as your eyes are drawn from the screen to her, to the screen and back again; your personality tugged from one extreme to the other – the sensitive, interested, intelligent young man and the monomaniacal, obsessive compulsive football supporter. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so’, you find yourself apologising, thinking at the same time, if we ever become bedfellows, you’ll have to get used to the fact there’s no I in threesome. 

‘I think I could get into football’, she continues, smiling up at you as you bob this way and that as your team attacks, as if it’s really you weaving in and out of the opposition defenders.  ‘You could?’, you reply half in hope, half in the knowledge that getting into football is a damaging psychological activity that will end up affecting your central nervous system far more emphatically than any form of new fangled amphetamine, not to mention having a deleterious effect on any potential relationship.  

‘Yes, my father used to play.  He was a defen---‘.  ‘AARRGH’ She is cut off, mid-sentence as you grab her shoulders, completely by surprise, completely unintentionally: the opposition keeper tips a swerving shot from your man, your boy, onto the cross bar and out for a corner. ‘Oooh’, she exclaims, but luckily, luckily for you, you feel the shock leave her body and she relaxes. 

But while, in the normal course of events, you might put your arm around her and offer a pseudo romantic apology, this, THIS COULD BE THE MOMENT.  ‘Oops’, you say instead, flashing a lunatic grin at her and turning your full, and I mean FULL attention back to the screen.  Your boy is placing the ball in the corner circle and your man, THE MAN, Van The Man, is lurking in the six yard box.  He’s a ghost, he has all the stealth and ruthlessness of an assassin from the very top of the Assassin’s Fucking Guild.  You’re super-glued to the screen.  Pupils as big as buttons.  You’re sensing the adrenalin building in your stomach, you know your boys are capable of Great Comebacks.  You recall once again the GREATEST MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE, you think to yourself: to hell with the girl, she can go hang..if..IF..please, pretty please, your team scores at this moment.  This moment I shall hereby remember and cherish for the rest of my life, you think – if, if, if we score. 

~

Then everything happens very quickly, the cross..the movement across the opposition defender, the diving header..YESSSSSSSSS! FUCKING YEESSSSSSSSSS! UNBELIEVAALBLE! The boys, the boys, the boyZ! Brief visions of you as Kenneth Branagh playing Henry V flare in your minds eye.  ON ST CRISPINS DAY! 

YESSSSSS.  Van Persie.  R O B, V I P, Van Persie is the man for me - it’s a silly chant you made up yourself, but what do you care? You’ve done it, you’ve done your bit for the boys.  You bask in victory, beautiful, sweet, warm, delicious, delectable victory. 

~

..About five, perhaps six hours later, when the trip is over, the realisation strikes that the girl your future happiness could, in real, every day life depend on is no longer with you, and that you’ll have to explain later, in a quiet and intimate moment, in some more welcoming public drinking establishment (maybe one of those ones with an expensive wine list, and Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the loos), using all your philosophical nous, why you went AWOL and ignored her for the rest of the evening; why your team scoring a winning goal against them is better, far better than sex, better than sex on your wedding night, your honeymoon, better than being at the birth of your first child. 

Better than flying to the moon.

a forty third story...'there's kids in here'

..There goes someone, at it.  Havin’ it.  You feel a spike of hatred, blind fury, rage.  But first time you catch yourself.  Perhaps the lad behind has got Tourettes, or some form of learning disability..And here go the opposition, streaming forward again.  Your fingers are crossed, your arms are folded, your body contorts with every cross that drops into the box, every near miss.  It’s agony.  Watching your team – the weekend revolves around it.  But at moments like these, you wonder why.  You wonder: why do I even like football?  Then again you know, you have to be there for your boys, in front of that screen, in that pub with that halfwit who supports the enemy mouthing off behind you.  The enemy/opposition have a corner, you grit your teeth.  Here comes the delivery.  In a flash you stake your life on one moment, just clear the fucking ball, out, away.  Get a bloody head on it!  For a moment you’d sacrifice your girlfriend, your job, even your family to see the ball punted clear of your goal or sailing harmlessly over the bar.  Gnnnnnnr. And then the sucker punch, the sickening blow.  The ball glances off the forehead of an onrushing opposition attacker and into the goal.  As the net bulges and the opposition players wheel away arms in the air in celebration, the lad behind explodes with vicious delight.  ‘FUCKING YES, FUCKING HAVE IT, YOU CUNTS!’ .  He’s joined by his ‘mates’.  ‘GET IN, YA BASTARD, FUCKING CLASS!’  In an instant you are wishing death on him as well as his conniving mates.  And if it were possible, if you were the fighting type, if you were only more than average in every physical respect you would administer the punishment.  Your blood is hot, hot, your skin is beginning to blister, your anger is in danger of boiling over.  But you know you’ve only got your wit.  And that’s never enough.  ‘FUCKING UNITED…CUNTS, FUCKING CUNTS’, the lad again, that fucking Liverpool fuck, that fucking Scouse bastard, that fucking attitude, that fucking sense of fucking entitlement.  You’ve had it with him, but what can you do?  You look around for a pool cue, an umbrella with a sharp end, a piece of pub clobber you can bludgeon him with.  And then, there in the corner of the room, you notice for the first time your weapon.  You turn around, and face him, in his ugly red shirt, with the ugly badge with the ugly red dragon on the crest and the two justice flames licking the sides.  You search quickly for your most commanding tone.  And somehow you find it and injecting a bit of menace for good measure you look at him directly in his small, mean eyes and say firmly: ‘Do YOU wanna cool it, mate? There’s KIDS in here!’.  

Ivory - a short one by Phil

After months of acrimony; teenage petulance and parental stubbornness, I thought I’d seen a new phase beginning in the relationship between my husband and daughter.  We were on holiday in Thailand, the three of us, enjoying blissed-out beach time.  It was a welcome reprieve, but not without dramas, such as our daughter’s vigorously ill response to some searing spicy street food, and my husband offending monks at a temple with his attempted deference; it came off like a piss-take.  Nevertheless, all of us had begun to forget the conflicts of home, where the minutiae of the exact time our daughter was due home, her precise location and the people accompanying her when ‘just out’ had become overwhelming, a cul-de-sac.  That day, the beach was beautiful, the sea a folded blanket gently resting on a deep carpet of sand.  I blistered uncompromisingly in the sunshine while my husband took a swim with our daughter.  They had been pushing against one another so hard for so long I felt a rising relief to see them relax with each other, goofing about in the water. 

A magical moment then occurred, when my husband shouted urgently to Fiona, ‘What’s that, behind you?’ as a dark shape moved in the water a few meters away.  She swam towards him and turned, and both saw that it was an elephant swimming right there in the ocean, unconcerned about the tourists, nobly skirting most swimmers as it came into the shallows.  Massive but elegant, its trunk stuck periscopically two feet above the surface of the water.  Fiona and Daniel watched with childish excitement, and I saw him put his arm over her shoulder.  I could see the fondest of memories forming, could feel the two of them remembering they loved each other.  It was dreamlike, unreal, as the elephant swam until the water was too shallow then proceeded to loll about in the wet sand.  Serene and self-possessed, the beast unabashedly sloshed water and sand about.  Tourists took photographs.  My husband and daughter just stood in the water, drinking up the scene. However, the reconciliation was to be incomplete.

Just then, a gunshot sounded, so unexpected and intense, and the elephant shrieked shrilly.  The anguish was human, unbelievable.  Two more shots followed, with quick ferocity.  The elephant thrashed about, the wounds to the head, neck and chest – a deadly triumvirate.  Shocked tourists scattered; Daniel and Fiona rushed towards me on the beach.  We clustered on the towels, Fiona shivering.  The gunman ran out of his vantage point among the palms, heading a gang of five men with hatchets and machetes. 

One plunged a hatchet into the elephant’s neck, as though to ensure the murder was done.  The others dragged the front legs back, and the head upwards, giving them plenty of room around the tusks.  They viciously hacked at the root of the left tusk first, two men holding the tusk and rocking it back and forth.  One man repeatedly raised his machete high in the air and brought it slamming down on the side of the elephant’s great head, uncompromising in his violence.  They worked fast, in silence, so we could hear the garish butchery.  Blood mingled with the perfect sand, a sudden and shocking confession of brutality and desperation. 

The team had removed the first tusk within ten minutes.  The second was more difficult, with the elephant’s head lying over its root.  The tourists returned to gather and bear witness to the macabre scene.  The men chopped away even more aggressively.  They were all bare-chested, blood and sweat-soaked.  Eventually, while we watched, still stricken, they yanked out the huge right tooth.  It took two men to carry each tusk; hoisted onto their shoulders like they were bearing a coffin. 

The men dashed off, disappearing into the trees, leaving the mutilated giant on the beach, the wavelets of the receding tide lapping at its haunches.  The crowd slowly dissipated, and the three of us went to the elephant and each touched it once on the forehead, a shared moment of humbling melancholy.  

a forty second story...'changes'

The tour had been cancelled half way through out of respect.  A giant skull and cross bones had crushed the drum technician to death.  The skull and cross bones had been part of the tour set design.  At the time of the accident, Paul was on an errand - his errand to procure eleven bags of honey coated Spanish almonds for the bass player of the group.  The bass player of the group was called Pulex Irritans, or rather this was his stage name.  Pulex Irritans' real name was Clive. 

Clive liked honeyed almonds.

..By the way, the group were called Capsicum Pubescens!  They were world famous!!

~

Paul had been a roadie for various bands in his life, but Capsicum Pubescens, was, to use the trade venacular, his best 'gig'.  Travelling the globe with Capsicum Pubescens, Paul had seen so much of various cities and cultures, as well as developed an extraordinary, and probably unrivalled knowledge of international health food emporia.  Then again, he still didn't know Holland & Barrett began life in 1870 as a clothing store.

But until of late, neither did I.

Anyway, Paul loved the 'gig', and the tragic accident that befell Capsicum Pubescens' drum technician cast a long shadow over the future of the group, and the 'gig' - three fourths of the group believed in Karma, there was it seemed something in the waters, and the whole incident was an omen. 

The omen said: 'Stop Touring.  Pack it all in'.

As it turned out three fourths of the group were only too delighted to retire to the luxury of their rock star pent houses, and, coincidentally the music cogniscenti all thanked their lucky stars and pin badges for the omen as well!

~


The omen, of course, did little to suit Paul.  He was forced to return to the Birmingham suburb where he had been living and resume his job alphabetising vinyl in his mate Tony's record shop: 'Tony's Records'.  Unfortunately, he returned home to discover in the few months he had been away, Tony's record shop had started selling women's lingerie instead.  It was now called 'Fig Leaves'.

'What on earth did you do that for?', asked Paul when he and Tony hit the pub on Paul's first Friday home.  'Why?', replied Tony, supping a pint of stout.  Why!!? Paul asked again, only for Tony to explain that while Paul had been away he realsied his days selling old, unwanted Deacon Blue LPs were over - he too had seen an omen (ironically, Deacon Blue, with his partner, at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, on their 'Hipster' tour!). 

Enough was enough.

Closing Time!!

..And so on.

~

Poor Paul was at a loss.  He didn't know what to do next.  And a visit to the Job Centre did not help either - Paul sat together for two hours with a plump, bespectacled spinster called Majorie, and the only skills relevant to the world of work Paul could muster on paper were as follows:

Lifting and safely storing heavy objects; shopping for health food items - honey coated almonds, in particular; driving a minivan; doing as he was told.

Marjorie had then pushed her horn-rims back onto the bridge of her nose, adjusted her butterfly broach, stamped a couple of official documents and suggested Paul try for another job as a roadie.  Paul sighed. 

Once a roadie always a roadie! 

~

 
For the next four weeks Paul exerted himself scrutinising the local classifieds, but there was nothing he seemed fit for.  Nothing whatsover.  And as far as trying for another job as a roadie, well, as Paul told Tony when they hit the pub on Paul's second Friday home, Paul wanted to bow out on a high.  'I had the best gig in the (roadie) business', lamented Paul, 'I'll never get better one, and I'm not one for (roadie) come backs'.  There was an element of logic in this - Capsicum  Pubescens really were the biggest band on the planet (at least according to their fanzine, The Chili Sauce), and the only way for a roadie was down, even if Paul was forgetting the main, or perhaps the sole reason for the comeback: money.

~

Then a few days later, as Paul was eating his morning breakfast cereal, his eye fell on an advert in the weekly classifieds.  Paul hesitated, droplets of milk shuddering from his spoonful of cornflakes: the money was good, the hours were..good, the location was..within walking distance, the job description seemed to involve..doing what one was told.  The name of the place was..

..wait for it..

..

Fig Leaves!

Paul, resubmerged his spoonful of cornflakes into the bowl from whence it had just been raised.  He gazed at the job advertisment for a full two minutes, hardly blinking at all.  Next, Paul pushed back his chair from the breakfast table, stood up, walked over to the sideboard, took a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer and returned to sit down.  From here, Paul made an incision with the scissorblades around the job advertisement for 'Fig Leaves', and, as if examining a banknote, held it up to the light. 

A moment later the job advertisement was tacked to his pinboard and he had edited and updated the contact details for what had once been Tony's Records in his mobile telephone.

   ~

On Paul's first day working as a shop assitant at 'Fig Leaves', he had firmly to resist the temptation, when processing stock, to hang on what might be considered rather too long for a man of his appearance and bearing - Paul was a dead ringer for Jimmy Nail - to the knickerlace being passed through his hands.  That is not say temptation wasn't staring Paul in his long, hangdog face.  How he wanted to feel with his big, rough hands the fine weavings and intricate, fiddly little patterns that he was discovering seemed to characterise women's lingerie, but like Jesus in the desert, resist temptation he did!

On Paul's second day as a shop assistant at 'Fig Leaves', he was arranging a window display for the new stock of plunge balcony bras they had just received in when he looked up to find one of Tony's Records' most loyal, obsessive, and generally irritating customers staring at him askance through the glass.  Paul, ex roadie and friend of the hard rocking Capsicum Pubescens, and their bass player, Pulex Irritans, was deeply, deeply embarrassed; Roland, on the other hand, who had spent the fullness of his sexually active life as a fully active and fully incontinent member of Record Collector Magazine was deeply envious.

(the closest Roland had got to getting his hands on women's lingerie was Roxy Music's third album cover - Stranded)

But get this: on Paul's third day as a shop assistant at 'Fig Leaves', he was asked to remove the knickers from two female manekins in the centre floor display.  Paul felt fifteen all over again!  It was like being reborn (albeit as a teenager in a hairy, forty something year old body undressing a giant, sexless barbie ).

Needless to say, it felt good.

~

After a month at 'Fig Leaves', Paul was an expert in women's lingerie.  He found he could talk at length about Camisole Vests, the virtues of the Big Wave Break Chemise over the Pandora DD Chemise, the difference between Bamboo Leggings and Contour Tights.  To eavesdroppers in the pub, Paul might have sounded like an Executive Transvestite; but Paul's audience, a motley crew of ageing, sex deprived rocksters, were able to fulfil their erotic fantasies through his chatter (at least up to a point - when they opened their eyes they were still faced with a Jimmy Nail lookalike).

Indeed, with time, Paul began to view his former career as a roadie as something rather uncouth, as some kind of interlude in his life before he found his true calling.  Where before he had only an appreciation of leather and cotton, now he dealt in satin and silk.

Rags to riches!

And so, dear reader, Paul's little story is proof we can change, we can change, we can
change!

You just have to be open to it.

         

a forty first story...'aliens, brothers'

ZAP!

ZZZAP!!

ZORRRRRRRRG!!!

ZZZARPP!

~

The Aliens had landed

And with scant regard for Box Office Ratings – it wasn’t even July 4^th!

~

..Anyhow

On the morning the Aliens arrived, earthlings were going about their daily business as usual.  They had no idea, beyond what they had seen in sci-fi movies (then considered fictional representations of extra-terrestrial encounters portrayed on the ‘silver screen’, or cinema), what was about to happen.

..When the Alien invasion got underway, the indignation the earthlings displayed might have been considered ironic in view of their own historical predilection for invading one another’s earthling territories, thereby continually redefining the earth map.

Mercifully though, once the Alien invasion was over, the chaos wrought by the Alien invaders had a far less damaging effect on earthlings going about their daily business than usually happened when earthlings invaded one another, as well as a far less damaging or, indeed, divisive effect on the earth map.

The numbers dead and wounded on each side looked like this:

Alien invaders: 5,345,327

Earthlings: 4.5

The number of hostages taken by each side, as follows:

Alien invaders: 0

Earthlings: 4,654,673

You see, the Alien invasion was a strategic disaster.

Other than their obvious physical disadvantages (they were only three inches tall, luminous pink, and armed with weapons with the same capacity for causing death as the average Nothern European Mosquito), the Aliens were committed to doing everything in groups of ten, and in these groups of ten, everyone of them had to hold equal rank, and had perform an equal function. 

It was how the equivalent of their DNA worked; it was in the very nature of the Alien invaders to do everything fairly and justly (and obsessive compulsively).

But of course, because of their very nature, they were easily over-powered and drastically outnumbered everywhere they landed – and they landed in armies of ten in a million different locations, scattered in precision manner across the entirety of planet earth.

~

So, why bother invading planet earth in the first place?

Well here’s why.

The reasons behind the Alien invasion of planet earth were these: the Aliens believed the earthlings on planet earth were behaving in anything but a fair and just manner –again, this went against the equivalent of their DNA – and that earthlings needed to be taught a lesson.  Moreover, the little, luminous pink Aliens shared the same galaxy, living as they did on the planet Korgg, floating on an asteroid belt in the Milky Way, and felt earthlings, who they had seen over thousands of years wreck their earth planet beyond repair and recognition, might soon do the same to Kluj (Mars), Zarkk (Jupiter), Klob (Saturn) and so forth, before dumping their weapons and piles and piles of waste on Korgg.

Still.

In the aftermath of the Alien invasion, earthling commentators condemned Alien conduct for what they termed a pre-emptive strike..(ahem!)

..And while earthling commentators and the earthling public at large continued to vent their indignation, earthling governments had to decide what in Jehovah’s name they were going to do with all 4,654,673 Alien prisoners of war.

~

Since many of the Alien spacecraft were intact, there were some earthling politicians who felt the little, luminous pink Aliens should all be sent back to where they came from.  However, others argued in equally typical earthling fashion, the Aliens should be put to use on planet earth (i.e. that they become slaves).

The earthling proletariat, famous for their desire to humiliate one another, largely agreed with the view the Aliens should be subjugated, denigrated, ranked as second class citizens, or anything that would make earthlings feel better about themselves in diametric opposition.  

Earthling politicians, who tend to be forced to sacrifice their ideals to stay in favour with the earthling proletariat, therefore came up with the idea of Alien farms.  However, the issue over what the Aliens were actually going to do on these Alien farms remained. 

In the end, earthling politicians reached an agreement with, appropriately enough, executives from Mars, Inc. (an earthling confectionery company), that the Aliens would be enslaved to package M&Ms – popular, multicoloured earthling sweeties – and Tic Tacs (once popular, multicoloured earthling sweeties).

~

At first, the earthling slave masters at Mars, Inc. had trouble ensuring the Aliens were productive, and they had to exercise restraint when reprimanding them for their relative inactivity – after all, there were a finite number of Alien slaves (the Alien slaves were not allowed to reproduce), and the Alien slaves were only three inches high, making them vulnerable to physical correction from someone perhaps seventy two inches high (not to mention perhaps forty inches wide).

Fortunately, sooner rather than later the earthling slave masters at Mars, Inc. realised before shift got under way every morning, the luminous pink Alien slaves would automatically form themselves into groups of ten.  Once the earthling slave masters had established that this was not an act of sedition, rather a natural habit, productivity started to rise. 

Indeed, after a couple of years, production was so efficient, Mars, Inc. had made some enormous cost savings on both lines of earthling sweeties, and started to think of more creative ways to use their little, luminous pink Alien slaves.  One was to dress the little, luminous pink Alien slaves up in M&M costumes and film them dancing to earthling music for earthling TV commercials (between thirty earth seconds and one hundred and twenty earth seconds of televised, corporate propaganda).

Slowly but surely the Aliens realised they were in fact becoming a valued part of Mars, Inc. and some of them even started to feel at home!

~

Some of them even started receiving other job offers!

For example:

Quality Sprinkles Ltd tried to recruit 1000 little, pink Aliens to make hand-crafted hundreds and thousands for earthling cake decorations.

Safe Sense were after 100 little, pink Aliens to test the strength and impermeable quality of their new contraceptive wear at their ‘laboratory’ (the Aliens were three inches long, four when they had their arms above their little, pink heads).

Meanwhile, a distant relative of the short lived Sharifian Caliphate attempted to order 10 little, pink Aliens to become part of his entourage.

And so on..

Mars, Inc. of course was having none of it.

~

Nevertheless, Mars, Inc realised the need to do something for their increasingly in demand Alien slave workers, and the little, pink Aliens began to be rewarded with little earth privileges here and there.

Although, many of the rewards received by their ‘workforce’ – the little, pink Aliens were now called referred to as workers rather than slaves as part of a sly public relations manoeuvre –  were impractical (Virgin Air Miles; clothes store vouchers etc), the (Alien) workforce at Mars, Inc didn’t seem to mind, and most tried to take advantage of them.  Indeed, shoppers in Macy’s reported a group of ten little, pink Aliens carrying around a loyalty card on their collective shoulder, as they marched in the direction of the Children’s Department; while regular flyers with Virgin Atlantic reported several times several groups of ten little, pink Aliens occupying the seat next to them, ordering all manner of duty-free. 

The little, pink Aliens were becoming accustomed to life on planet earth, and it was only a matter of time before they started to mimic the behaviours of their earthling hosts.

~

Yes, gentle reader, I am afraid so.

They were changing their colours!!

If we move the story on another five years, the little, pink Aliens resembled their slightly less little earthling hosts in all but the luminescence of their skin, although even this had taken on a rather dull shine. 

As their obsessive compulsive nature began to break down, the Aliens started littering and fly-tipping, and at the same time their rigid, and previously thought unchangeable belief in justice, fairness and equality also began to erode as the number of their individual possessions and rewards from Mars, Inc. began to multiply.

When, through the help of an earthling translator, a little, pinkish Alien calling himself Klum was asked in an exclusive interview on the David Letterman show whether he harboured thoughts of one day returning to Korgg, he was translated as saying he would rather stick his little, pinkish head ‘where the sun don’t shine’ (Executives at the aforementioned manufacturer of contraceptive protection, Safe Sense, smiled thinly at the irony).

No, the little, pinkish Aliens wanted to stay.  Life on planet earth was so much more fun without the confines of justice, fairness and equality, as well as a neurotic attachment to making the planet a clean and safe place to live. 

~

Next time, you are decorating the top of your sister-in-law’s second birthday cake, having safe (but hopefully very enjoyable) sex, thinking of building an entourage or simply eating a bag of M&Ms..

..Spare a thought for our little, pinkish brothers! 

For they have become like us.