It Is… Pt 49 – into… Tales from the Hip pg2

‘into… Tales from the Hip pg/pt 2’
‘cf’

… Despte wearing his most favourite socks to date, the obligatory Christmas edition from Daughter 1 with the gimmicky Simpsons, beer and doughnuts series, by far the best yet by means of softness, warmth and easy on the all-important shin fit. Despite this contented wallow in sock solace, he was uncomfortable. Page 2 was missing, gone, vanished, vamoosed and he was miffed.

A computer glitch maybe, it happens, to some more than others, no fear, just write it again. What’s the alternative. He spies an eye to a slippered Homer, who shins an obligatory cheers. ‘Reintroduce the Belgian, hang on, who, wah, not, The Belgian!’ Aye, the Belgian, that enigmatic figure with loose locks and pudgy nose. The Belgian who sold cheap DVDs out of a wooden hut in Durban.  It had bugged him ever since that first day they met, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Now he had a vague recollection of a distant memory; Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Time to rewrite page two.

On the corner of a side street in Marina del Rey stood a house for over 80 years. It boasted broad concrete steps leading to a negligent pale entrance. Brick bottomed and overlayed by wooden panels from the first floor up, fine for its era and once prominent in the suburbs of LA. Now shadowed by inconsequence to the affluent location’s sprawl, it sat largely hidden in plain sight. 80 years wasn’t so old for this area known as the crack half mile, wedged as it was somewhere off West Washington Boulevard and Culver. An Englishman called Mick owned or rented it, I can’t remember, he was another one of those budding actors on Hollywood’s hit list who, as a sideline, set this room fuelled house to a hostel. And yes, just like that other Mick at Tekweni’s in Durban, here was another hostel and another Mick. But this was another life, sometime earlier, circa 1990 and this Mick irrelevant to this story, I just thought I’d mention him. I, being often referred in the first person is Prim and the same as the third person Jax from Durban’s Bread and infrequently the 2^nd, as mentioned in page 1, confused? You should be. Here, try this jalapeno. Wah, that’ll make your teeth curl. Anyhoo, I got a job at this inconsequentially located house yet neatly positioned hostel, helping out, but mostly taking the Ford 15-seater with one of those column gear sticks attached to the steering wheel, yeah, super Yank cool. I’d cup this stick up and across and drive the beast four miles to LAX airport to hustle backpackers to stay at our hostel. A gofer or go-getter or hustler, I don’t what, but it was fun, not sales, but helpful, a service, easy, pre internet days, no one had bookings in those days and heaps of folk were looking for digs. On my first drive to the airport Mick showed us how cool he was when we stopped at some traffic lights. He wound down the window and shouts, ‘hey Mary, Mary, show us your tits’, a street lady perhaps in her 40’s, hard to tell amidst the grime, she wore a plastic bag on her head and somewhere inside an oversized thick woollen yellow jumper her scrawny little body jiggered. She hungrily fluttered over, lifted her top, hoisted her skirt and screamed with delight, ‘there’s my tits and here’s my fanny.’ Chuffed as a chimp Mick gave her 5 bucks. I laughed too; it was funny, plus Mick was the boss. Tinsel Town’s scratch on survival came with lessons too, as Mick relayed how over time, he had educated Mary on English and American language differences, a true hero and philanthropist right there folks.

At LAX folk landed at the ready to hustle with the bumpackers or head straight to a waiting limousine. I tried to convince, in a non-sales way, peasants and superstars alike. Brian May and Anita Dobson, crikey they look alike, graciously declined lying through their real English teeth about having somewhere already booked. Were they already lined up on this internet thing.! Paul Young was in town on both business and pleasure. He also politely turned me down. But was very amicable and chatty. Martin Sheen void of politeness per say ignored me best he could and walked past smiling, the swine. When it wasn’t busy, I’d chat to the cleaner, a massive black fella, African American, I suppose the correct term, I’m not sure, but he was big and he was black and he was a lovely fella. When I say chat, he would spout the world’s fallings and how to lift them. Articulate and gentle of persuasion, I spent a lot of time trying to avoid him. Luckily Billy Idol landed, back in a sec nice cleaner man, ‘hey Billy, need a place to stay, downtown close to the action, cheap and clean…’, ‘go fuck yourself’, ‘yeah, right, right ho, rock on…’ So, you were talking about this internet thing Mr Cleaner Man…’ Cleaner man was gone, up by gate 3, but aye, he was a nice fella. It’s good to spout, share your opinion, take a stance on Speakers Corner and all that, you know, air democracy. A similarly large built fella like cleaner man, but a white Jesus town crier I saw Christmas shopping recently in Blackburn, rallied a pretty obvious personal nervous disposition stacked on blind authority as he yelled unto thee cold passers-by, ‘do you know who will let you in his house, Jesus will sir, not a Muslim or a hermaphrodite but Jesus sir…’, Ok, brilliant, that’s shopping finished, any excuse, ‘a hermaphrodite’ me thinks, should that be ‘an’? Either way, the bloodshot saggy jowls of this nervous man continued to be thoroughly ignored by an uninterested crowd, ‘Who will let you eat at their table? A Muslim, a hermaphrodite? No, Jesus will…; he caught me paying attention and grew larger and more confident as he walked towards me, ‘will you enter Jesus’ house sir?’ ‘Will the hermaphrodite be there?’ ‘You sir are the hermaphrodite if you question Jesus’ will…’ Well, I’d like to see what Billy Idol has to say about this’, I wagered, wagging a heavenly finger… ‘you sir are a hermaphrodite’, should that be an, I don’t know, content he was certified I ducked back into the shopping centre and bought Cluedo for secret Santa as a lady at the till with loose locks and a pudgy nose handed me the change she winked saying, ‘the hermaphrodite did it.’

… till page/pt 3 folks…

He sat at the screen and pondered…

 … well, that gave it away a bit, let’s go to the World News…

The conclusion of the 9/11 Commission Report suggests a failure of imagination is the worst mistake a country’s defence can make. We don’t do politics here, but this leans heavily on the creative side as governments across the globe tap into sci fi writers’ notions. Canada has pondered on Karl Schroeder’s 2005 Crisis in Zefra, an imaginable African city state, since erm 2005, while the UK has been syncing into sci fi stalwarts PW Singer and August Cole for nearly 20 years. Why, France even has the Red Team. All well and good, so long as it’s grounded in research and offers strategies to mitigate conflict. Right now, top on the US list is ex Aussie Major General Mick Ryan’s White Sun War: The Campaign for Tawain. Brrr, nurse, me abalones are playing up.

Italy is gunning for an EU army; a proposal saluted many times previously by the likes of Macron and Merkel. Send Gary Numan in with his Tubeway mob I say, get those pesky Rusky’s off the circle line and back up the Northern, then pick them off with a Jam hit squad around Midnight.

Denmark have built very attractive timber sheltered charging points for EV’s, which means the process isn’t likely to speed up anytime soon but at least your service stop will be aesthetically pleasing.

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Regardless of poo-poohing on fossil fuel to trigger electric bouts between those for and against EVs, they are being built and not much else anytime soon. Honda have invested E12.5bn into plants and battery manufacturing in Canada and say they will also be EV exclusive by 2040, which is 16 years away, I’ll be 72 and aching for a good ol’ fashioned rumbling diesel to show the grand kids, who in turn will be knee deep in Simpsons socks.

Standing room only from now on the Line 4 tube in Seoul. Last year it ran on 193.4% capacity, so they ripped the seats out of one carriage on every morning train to make more room.

On that note, take a load off and make room for another beer.

Oh no ease up and all that – there’s more… Politics too, do we need that Gabriel Attal and his new pad in Paris’ Hotel Matignon – na. Or Singapore and Malaysia finally putting in digital checkpoints on the Johar Strait to speed things up – na, ok everyone, back to your beer.

Keep it turning keep it wheel, keep it radioPrimco.com

Till next weak folks – spelling correct.