Chapter 48: Object of delight, the humdrum, Aldgate EOL, an amazing artist & how I brought Crocs to the UK
All happening on October 19th, 2023
An object of delight
This envelope arrived today -
such deliciously scrawny handwriting …scrunched the envelope - nothing hard so it wasn’t some clever kind being sending back my bus pass or bank card (both AWOL). So tore into it and found….this
a real life fucking physical ticket - not a digital schmigical but an acshal fizzical thing and when I looked closer it’s signed Laurie Wright hisself….And that scrawled address on the envelope is probs his too.
Laurie and the band were playing as I walked down Camden Road on Sunday - thank you God for not sending a bus or I would have missed. I began to grin the minute I heard them - this was fuck off real rock - not the usual shitty pretty voiced kids singing note perfect zero soul pop covers - this was music to pick you up and blow you away with bravura and bite. I was dog tired but had to stop - here’s a clip.
The sound hit all the right buttons for me - the harmonica kicks blues into the rock and the whole band were having a ball - look at the rhythm guitar and drummer and they’re all grinning too. Laurie is straight out of the 60’s - his energy - the high glossy bouncy hair - the way he has the mic high so he has to sing up to it. I had to go and doze but I’d scanned the QR code on the flyer he’d given me and booked my ticket before I got home.
And it was only this morning that I noticed the name of their tour…
Get on THE END of it …spooky ha?
Why the humdrum matters
By humdrum I mean the 99% of your life when you’re not drunk/getting off with someone in the park/being diagnosed as having MND etc etc.
What made think about the humdrum was the story told me by H (the Airbnb guest in my flat) about the trauma that triggered her from being an casual recreational heroin user to becoming a junkie. In the telling of that moment (which was when she was traumatised by discovering she’d been betrayed by her closest friend and lover) she said 'I was early for a hair appointment and so I bought her some candies and dropped into where she worked'.
Somehow the mundane fact of her being early for a hair appointment that lead the trauma that triggered her becoming an addict for 12 years made the whole thing that much more poignant.
And from that came the thought that recently my stories have been quite heavily biased towards big events like “the encounter” and aftermath that makes it like most films where the focus is on drama and big events. But actually most of ours lives are humdrum and I want to try writing about that more.
LOL LOL LOL - I just looked back at my chapter headings and realise that my concerns about over stressing the dramatic are so delusional…One one night stand and a couple of drunk stories and he thinks he’s bleeding Errol Flynn…Cockfosters, Parkie symptoms, catheters…mate…so humdrum it could make your nose bleed.
Aldgate - the innermost End of The Line
Soggy Thursday morning set off for Aldgate the eastern end of the Metropolitan line, a unique EOL as it is in the City of London. Soggy is my kind of weather as it means I get to wear my glamorous new black Burberry and black Stetson (yes Mr Richards was right…[come on team keep up - see Ch47). My walk was steady and face relaxed so hit the Northern line feeling good.
Looking up and down the carriage I notice that all the 7 or 8 men have beards including the gay couple opposite me. The older guy looks wasted and had his head back sleeping. The younger one catches me looking at them and give me a quick once over. I go back to my new default of checking out the range of shoes in the carriage - trainers dominate.
But not on the feet of the woman directly opposite. I take her to be of my age or possibly older. A lovely face, fine skin over a delicate bone structure, my notes say ‘cultured, kind, intelligent mien’. She’s staring into the middle distance with the tips of her (gardener’s?) worn looking fingers together. She catches my eye and we exchange a quick smile. I’m touched by these spontaneous unguarded smiles with other old people. To my mind they say ‘oh hello I see you’re one too’. For a few minutes after that I deliberately look away. When I come back to studying her again her hands are folded on her lap. She is irrefutably middle class ‘it takes one to know one’ comes back again. Dressed in a old dark green quilted zip jacket, navy blue cotton trousers and black round toed flat shoes, an oldish carry on size black Delsey wheely bag. I decide she’s going to Liverpool Street to get the train back to her house somewhere in Suffolk. But she gets of at Moorgate - so maybe Moorfield eye hospital?
All this meant I missed my stop so had to get off at London Bridge and go north. The carriage is full, standing suits me what with me sciatica and that. Fine selection of footwear: very clean black DM boots next to winkle picker pointy leopard skin print, opposite some funky black trainers with beneath the laces looks like old kitkat wrapping and next to them Addidas trainers with soles that look like licorice allsorts.
Metropolitan line from Moorgate to Algate - so spacious compared to the deep tunnel lines and the seating arrangement is exotic; one side the seats are along the side of the carriage as per Northern line and the other side they are at right angles…[and he was worrying about over stressing the dramatic….] As we pull into Aldgate I notice the black guy opposite is wearing dungarees - I have a total thing about dungarees1 and these were uber trendy super baggy and rolled up short - as he got up I saw that everything he was wearing was Levi’s branded - some kind of ambassador.
Aldgate station is almost open air, I take lots of shots - (yes yes at the end children - first the words - then the pictures). As I leave the platform I see the other end of the line is Amersham…should think/write compare/contrast the EOL’s…nah probs not…too much like work
Out on the pavements onto Aldgate High Street - starting to feel a bit shaky - coffee needed soon. I turn left as per my decision at Elephant & Castle. I like the feel of this place - its a big mash up of old and new with old being quite seriously funky. So the feel - the vibe - was more messy old than money bags new.
Stop for coffee, so shaky the rollie is very messy. The coffee is great and the Almond Croissant is a meal - and served with a knife and fork. I realise I’m yards away from Whitechapel Gallery - there’s a big exhibition by Nicole Eisenman. I message A is she worth spending £9 on - he replies - “Yes, absolutely. And I’d like to know your thoughts”.
An hour and a half later I reel out of the Whitechapel and send him this
“AMAZING !! The most astonishing and consistently engaging show I think I’ve ever seen. Too tired now to say more but thank you for giving me the nod. What an astounding sense of colour and composition and humour and pathos and… and… I cried again …her later work is so profoundly full of the sadness of the ‘connected’ world. “
Now you probably think I’m going to show you some pics of the art I was so excited about - well I was going to but I’m tired now and it’s just past midnight - so I’m going to just put up the shots of Aldgate and I’ll come to the wondrous Nicole Eisenman in the next post.
In the meantime here is
How I brought Crocs to Britain
Sometime around 2004 when I still had a huge chunk of money from my Discovery exit I decided to make beautiful guitar cases for beautiful guitars…I’m not going to bore you with the details but along the way I ended up going to a huge musical instrument trade fair in Nashville. Apart from one memorable night when a bar full of guys and gals in big cowboy hats got up and danced on the bar counter Nashville in July was a kind of hell. Insanely hot and huge corporate spaces and streets that are too wide. I had designs for the Calder case but I needed something physical that would demonstrate the case would combine style, lightness and outstanding protection. I wondered into a sports shop looking for inspiration and there was a display of these weird shoes called Crocs. I picked one up…we’ve got used to them now but that first encounter was bizarre.. the shoe seemed to float - how could this be this light? I bought a pair and they worked a dream at exciting people at the trade fair.
The evening I got back to Devon there was a party at a friends house. At that party was super ebullient guy who I’d always been a bit chary of for exactly that reason - super ebullient…Anyway we chatted and I remembered that he was in the shoe business…So I told him about Crocs. He was interested and the next day I introduced him to the people at Croc HQ in Seattle (I’d been in contact about the guitar cases).
A few weeks later he told me he’d got the UK dealership…So that ladies and gennlemen is how I bought Crocs to the UK.
Now you might ask what did I get out of this…well a few pairs of free Crocs for the family. I told you I don’t understand money or business…and don’t ask about the fucking guitar case business either…
And ok - for those of you that came all the way to the end here is a little piece of Eisenman to whet your apetite…
The dungees thing goes back years but there was one occasion that locked them into my consciousness. As a student doing soil science in the lab in UEA in 1981 a close friend (not someone I’d ever fancied before) was wearing dungarees and a very loose and very grubby white t shirt underneath - at that moment she was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen - the dirty t-shirt in particular had a huge charge to it….not so refined as madelaines but…then I’m no Proust…
Love the Crocs story - your life is a glorious litany of What Might Have Been... As are all our lives of course, but few of us express the WMHBs so publicly and unguardedly. Kudos!
Agree. If I had to think of the least likely person to be responsible for crocs in the UK…