Yesterday Once More, Thirty Times, for Three Hours

60 years from now, when we are aged beyond the recognition of ourselves in the mirror, and we turn in terror as we realise we forgot what we were terrified about, there will be those of us who can still use our limbs and our throats with enough gusto to be annoying in multiple locations. If we are so blessed, we may find ourselves in the cast of a Sunday afternoon of retrotianment, fondly mumbling the dulcit tones of our youth. I for one will represent an aged Kurt Cobain, during his now infamous dead stage. Others (Zaf) might bang out an old Prince tune.

And so, I had the pleasure of attending such an event not too long ago. First things first: I had a choice as to whether of not I went. I genuinely thought - and still think - that it would be great if I was still active enough in my golden years to do what these guys and 'gals' did. That said, I also anticipated a level of humour which maybe even transcended the irony of the event itself.

You can imagine my absolute, genuine delight when Marcia, Phyllis and Jackie came out to perform Teresa Brewer's "Music, Music, Music":

Yes. Yes indeed. I knew this afternoon was to be a treat. But my expectations were quickly dashed when Ivy Dempsey showed almost disappointing dignity and ability as she performed Patti Page's "Tennessee Waltz":

A shortlived victory, oldies. Bob quickly put the afternoon back on track with a baffling routine. I'm not sure if it's worse that he probably knew what he was doing. None of us did.

As Frank and Scotty Sang in my Brain, I wished I'd had a wide-angle lens, because this was a technofest. The singers had head mics so they had the freedom of dance and umbrella-twirl, and the musicians all had those goggles on with the lights, so they could hammer their synths whilst in the foggy dark. Awesome.

Sandy here made a good effort to reach all the notes, and we all politely pretended not to notice that she had forgotten to complete the more challenging routine of getting dressed:

Incidentally, Darrell up there on the right was a very good singer indeed. I found myself looking down the programme for his numbers, of which there were thankfully a few. UNLIKE THE NUMBER OF SONGS IN GENERAL. At this point I noticed that, a cool one-quarter through the entire running, a whole hour had passed, and no-one was even hinting at getting in the mood to hurry things along. They knew they had us trapped.

Notice this is an impersonation of fat Elvis. Out of several Elvis numbers - all fat Elvis. I wonder why.

We were, I thought, nearing the end of the show now at 2 hours. And as you can see, by this point, although there was still no hurry, sense was no longer featuring prominently.

The Twist

The Locomotion - every bit as sexy as it was in the 50s

The "Non-descript-free-for-all" - aka the Senility Shuffle.

Incredibly, even at 2.5 hours, there was absolutely no sense whatsoever of the need to wrap up. Now we are being treated to dance medleys - the longest non-final finale I have ever witnessed.

The costume department peaks too early...

...running out of costumes. But not time, it would seem.

Ivy's back. She's good, but these performers are just a little TOO good...

This man had to come onstage to ask where the Wizard of Oz performance was being held. Unfortunately no-one knew, so he didn't bother going to dress up.

Bud does it his way. The long way.

Three hours later, all hope of finding a convenience store for hard booze was lost. Bless them for actually DOING stuff, and it was kind of cute. But really, it was very, very funny indeed. You know when a joke becomes so worn out that it becomes funny all over again? Well, so too did we break through a very special pain barrier here, as the spectacle become vague disinterest, via extreme tedium, back through to the euphoria compounded by utter disbelief at having sat through a 3-hour show and seeing the end in site. I (I imagine unlike a majority of the 60+ audience) didn't even take a toilet break. I didn't even have the excuse of a worn-out, 80-year-old bladder like everyone else in the room, to make good my escape.

It was truly inspirational. So much so that I have begun work on my own 80s and 90s show, scheduled for the year 2056. Confirmed tracks and tentative running order as follows. Any further suggestions or amendments gratefully received. This is just the first half.

1. Spice Girls - "Wannabe"

2. The Jesus Lizard - "Puss"

3. NWA - "One Less Bitch"

4. Erasure - "Stop!"

5. Nirvana - "Tourette's"

6. Salt 'n' Peppa - "Let's Talk About Sex"

7. House of Pain - "Jump Around"

8. David Gray - (track tbc)

9. Prince - "Cream"

10. Alice Cooper - "18 Till I Die"

11. Rush - "Spirit of Radio"

12. Big Black - "Steelworker" / Rapeman - "

13. Depeche Mode - "Suffer Well"

14. Nickelback - "Photograph"

15. Queens of the Stone Age - "Feelgood Hit of the Summer"

16. Nine Inch Nails - "Closer"

17. B-52's - "Rock Lobster"

18. The Prodigy - "Poison"

19. Placebo - "Nancy Boy"

Briefly, from Tucson...

What goes around, comes in BROWN

Browsing through the Phoenix New Times today, I was delighted to spot an advert for this useful service:

This has, unfortunately, come into my life too late to be as useful as it might have been a few months ago. Still, I checked the website http://www.paybackpoo.com/ which confirmed, to my dismay, that the poos in question are in fact FAKE. Poor show. Still, I liked the slogan...

Hey Craig:

Huzzah!

In the true spirit of my blog, in which I take weeks, sometimes months to follow up doing something with posting it to this blog, here is a post which is long overdue - my trip to the Renaissance Fair.

The festival is a travelling one, where a number of complexes around the country sit, dormant, for most of the year, and for six weeks are occupied by the fleet when the fair is in town. Much like ye olde Brittin of yesteryear, the festival is swarming with scabbed, diseased children sobbing and clutching the pale, rickety bones of their mothers' leggs as they mill their way through rotting faeces and dead bodies. Also much like the festivals we used to host in our fyne lande, it takes place slap bang in the middle of the desert, with mountains and searing, searing heat.

The festival was thirsty work, and after a few beers I was ready to snap some of the local tomfoolery. I can only apologise that the wealth of terrible British accents cannot be represented here.




This man stood with two flaming torches on his head. He was indeed flaming. I'm not sure what I found most troubling: what was on his head, or what was happening around his buttocks. This is not cool:


Although these dancers were good, they did not have bellies which were ample enough to make me laugh. I want big bellies, wobbling up and down, turning some kind of sexy dance into a morbid spectacle.

Here we see some of the fantastic word play on offer throughout the day. The above was also another subtle reminder that there was a vaguely homosexual undercurrent to the festival.

Do you see?
And here it begins to get a little lazy. When no good pun is to be found, adding a letter here or there reminds us that we are in a world many years wrong.

In real life, this man was actually incredibly sexy. He really had very nice leggs indeed.

The man in this photo is gay. This was truly a carnivalesque day of misrule!


Ye olde telephone boxxe. Just in case ye need to order a cabbe.


And finally, here is proof that in the USA you are never more than 10ft away from some form of Spam product. Here, the SpamVan was supplying a much needed treatment for the maggot-infested wounds we all suffered.

It was actually a fun day, although it was hot as hell. One thing I wish I'd photographed but didn't for some reason was the "Dead Ed" show, which was a ventriloquist and his skeletal dummy. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on this sort of thing, but if the VENTRILOQUIST himself is wearing a face mask, where is the ventriloquism? It's like a balancing act taking place on the floor.

Still. Never mind.