Q: Who’s Bad? A: Not me.
It has been an embarrassingly long time since I last put anything up on here and for that I feel ashamed. I could try and explain it away by saying that I , once again , have fallen into one those damned wormholes in time and space that instantly deposits me almost two months into the future with no recollection of my actions over the missing time but I won’t because that excuse is wearing thin these days and on more than one occasion my negligible qualifications in quantum physics have been used as a counter argument to my claims. I could even say that my life has been unexpectedly full of wonderful and interesting things that have distracted me from the business of sitting down and writing this blog. If I were to do that then it would mean that I’d have to start explaining what all these wonderful and interesting things were and frankly I don’t want to do that. This is more a platform for self flagellation in the form of humiliating remembrances.
There have been some interesting things happening in the “real” world though since I last wrote. North Korea launched a biscuit tin with a Walkman sellotaped to it into space and half the world panicked , Madonna has continued her dubious policy of aggressively repatriating African children with a zeal unseen since the days of the slave trade but without doubt the biggest story has been the self styled “King of Pop” Michael Jackson shuffling off his mortal coil ( but sort in a backwardsy/forwardsy kind of way with a little spin at the end and punctuated with an “Ow!” ) . He left behind a wake of devastated fans who had followed him since childhood , his and theirs. This got me thinking about my own childhood. Whilst never the biggest Jackson fan he did have some impact on my young life.
I had a friend , still do in fact , called Tom that at one point was really quite into Jackson. He used to wear the black slip on shoes with white socks , attempt to Moonwalk on slippy surfaces and on occasion wear a black fedora. He also at one stage thought he was a vampire , so much so that if you made a crucifix sign with your fingers at him he’d cower , turn and hiss at you before fleeing. That was a lot of fun.
I digress.
On a day trip with my Dad into central London or “Big Town” as I called it then , my friend Tom and I , just shy of ten years old , went to a joke shop and bought those fake plastic knives that when you “stab” someone the blade retracts into the hilt providing hours of stab happy family fun. We’d discovered that by holding your thumb over the top of the hilt and then removing it you could produce an effect similar to that of a flick knife with the blade shooting up seemingly from nowhere. This was , like , the coolest thing ever. Walking across Waterloo Bridge and inspired by the video for “Bad” we bounded around flicking the blades at each other like little twerps and asking “Who’s Bad?” If there is one thing I’m sure of it’s that Michael Jackson never intended to glorify knife crime to a couple of impressionable boys from the London suburbs, but somehow he had and we were now on a helter skelter ride of dangerous thrills that could only lead to prison. By letting us buy these plastic knives it was as if somehow my Dad had sanctioned our becoming criminals. Both of us felt it , although only walking a few meters ahead of my Dad , that we were “Bad” , we were dangerous and off the leash in the big city , that something had changed and we wouldn’t be the same again. “Sorry mother I can’t come home for tea. Haven’t you heard that I’m bad now? I’m bad mum , baaaad , look I’ve got the knife to prove it”.
In a testament to my Dad’s parenting skills somehow Tom and I found ourselves alone down in the area then known as “Cardboard City” which is now the BFI Imax cinema. This was THE area for London’s homeless in the 80’s. Back then if you didn’t have a box down there then you obviously weren’t taking the whole homeless thing seriously enough and should just go back to living in house or something. It was dark , the stench of urine overwhelmed , the concrete architecture Brutalist in design , dark huddled shapes moved in the shadows , graffiti covered the walls , there may have even been an oil drum with a fire in it surrounded by men in fingerless gloves staring at the flames and passing a bottle between them. In short it was like a Billy Idol video or something from Robocop. To two street punks like us the message was clear…we were home.
Almost at once we spotted a business woman making her way down the ramp into our “turf” clutching a briefcase oblivious to the two criminals laying in wait , ready to pounce. We hid behind a pillar and listened to her footsteps echo off the concrete walls as she got closer. “Now!” whispered Tom. We jumped out in front of the woman , revealed grey plastic blades and asked her “Who’s bad?” MJ style. Not making the immediate connection with Michael Jackson ( perhaps she was more of a Prince fan? ) she quite rightly screamed , more out of shock then genuine fear and dropped her briefcase. Instantly our bravado was replaced by sheer terror and panic at what we’d done. I found myself some 17 meters behind my legs which were already at the top of the ramp in the sunshine running back to Daddy. This was one of those moments when what was a great idea becomes instantaneously stupid and regrettable the second you realise that you hadn’t really considered the implications. ( This was just like the time I decided to hit a plate glass window with a cricket bat, just to see what would happen. This was at a friends house who had the most fearsome and consistently angry father known to mankind so I was running quite a risk in my little experiment. I was genuinely surprised when the window shattered with an almost cartoonish type sound and as his dad appeared , really thought that I might be murdered.)
The woman’s scream had brought us back to reality with a startling jolt. Why wouldn’t she think that she was being mugged by two horrible children with flick knives? Why would she think for a second that we were just indulging in some stupid criminal fantasy inspired by the collaboration of Michael Jackson and Martin Scorsese? She’s behaved perfectly reasonably and her scream exposed us for the posing little cowards we really were. Now we were sprinting along Waterloo Bridge , gripping each others t-shirts , at least one of us bawling ( I’d like to claim it was him but I can’t really be sure ) looking for my Dad. When we found him we were tear stained, snot heavy and wild with fear. I think we made up some story to say that we’d been scared by a tramp. We stuck close to him all the way back to the station partly because we‘d scared ourselves and partly out of fear we‘d see the woman with some police and that she‘d point us out as the boys that tried to mug her. We’d be carted off to some Dickensian workhouse and never see our parents again all because of Michael Jackson.
I learnt that day that I just didn’t have the makings of a violent criminal. When I got home I put the knife in a drawer and never played with it again so frightened was I of it’s potency.
