Greetings. What a week, eh? Even a pasty, occasionally misanthropic and increasingly anti-social prick like me, likes a bit of sun from time to time and it came out this week, in all its glory. Charged up on a bit of Vitamin D, seems to have a put a smile on mine on my wife’s face, on what feels like a long winter here in England and I weren’t even here, for a good chunk of it.
Since I’ve come back from America, I’ve been back running-round London doing workshops again. Poetry, theatre and a bit of rapping; even a rap-battle workshop with some senior citizens , which was a lot of fun.
I’m knackered, mate but I’m not complaining, I’m glad of the work. I’m scared to say it, as after the ups and downs of the last two years, who knows what’s going to happen but this is the closest it’s felt to what it was before like the pandemic; before all us freelancers got those dreaded ‘project cancelled’ emails. But I’ll save the COVID moans for another time, I’m just pleased to be out and about, doing what I enjoy and seeing people again.
Large up everyone that came to BAC for the duel-book launch, last week, of Making Hip Hop Theatre and the Beats and Elements Hip Hop Theatre Anthology. Got to perform with the team again, Conrad Murray, Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens and Gambit Ace, alongside the mighty Beatbox Academy, who are finally back out on tour again, with Frankenstein and we got to see some new stuff.
Felt like I was part of hip-hop-theatre history in that room. The godfather himself passed through, Jonzi D, Cons original company, TDC, were inside, of course Beats & Elements and the Beatbox Academy and a lot of family and friends. Go cop the books, if you’re interested in getting into theatre or getting into hip hop, or both, there’s something for everyone.
With all this running back and forth to London (now that I live in Maidstone) I spend a lot of time on the train, which is where I’m getting most of my writing done. That one-hour journey to Victoria seems like a good solid block for me and I’m making good-progress, re-working a lot of this show, I’m now half-way through. It’s a lot of work but I’m enjoying it. Some of the stories have changed massively, some are now gone completely, some are only changed a bit. It’s getting there… he says.
If you’re interested in seeing what I’ve been doing with it so far, go check the You Tube channel. I’d like to start doing some more videos again. Anyway, here’s story number 2: Smiths. Enjoy. And oh yea, if you like, give it a subscribe; it all helps.
Smiths (3 mins)
School? I tolerated it. I liked seeing my mates but I don’t think I had the required focus for it, I fidgeted a lot, looked out the window. From about year 9, I found myself drifting, figurately and literally, to the back of the class. I just didn’t get a lot of it. Maths, Science, French. I preferred a good old daydream, like I did on my paper-round but difference with that was, there was no one there to tell me off.
One day after school I get this call from Mr Smith. He tells me that my brother Will’s mate Mark, has since left Smith’s, to tread that golden path to the golden arches of McDonalds, in Gatwick’s South Terminal - meaning that the coveted role of Saturday assistant was vacant - sound the trumpets and did I want the job? Me. The anointed one. £2.50 an hour, 5 hours a week, plus my Sunday paper round, that’s like…MORE money!
‘Yes Mr Smith - I’ll Take It’
So through a blatant case of only employing underage, underpaid, internal candidates, I was now a shop assistant
14 years old and balling out of control, it sounded sick
Until there’s a que’s going the door, I’m on my own in the shop, busting for a piss and most of them want lottery tickets and the machine is temperamental at best, the tickets keep getting stuck and I oh no, I’ve short-changed someone, again,
Nice try son
he thinks I did it on purpose!
I get confused when adding up prices. Mr smith, he’s like a maths genius, does it all in his head and just dishes out the change like a casual fist bump with his mates. I have to punch it all in the clunky old till, where half the time the buttons don’t work, and I still seem to mess it up.
Then I’m a blind-folded donkey, trying to pin the tail on whatever brand of obscure cigarettes these customers want, Peter Steveuyson, no, next row to the left a bit, down a bit, down a bit
Some rude-boy comes in, all curtains, bauer-turbos and spliffy jacket wanting fags, he looks about 15
Sorry, mate have you got any ID?
What, have you got any ID bruv?!
I’m still only 14 and Mr Smith tells me to say I’m 16 if anyone asks, especially if that guy from the council comes in again.
The lottery tickets are still getting stuck, someone else now thinks I’ve tried to swiz them for change and some girl, who I thought was smiling at me, has just walked out , with spiffy-jacket-kid, eating a load of pick n mix, which she hasn’t paid for and just looked at me, again, laughing.
Then it all goes quiet, just when I think I can finally slip-off for a piss, on que, that creepy guy walks in. Same time every week, side parting and glasses, 80’s sports Jacket and cream trousers with the press. Picks up his three broadsheets, has a quick glance left and right and then like a lizard catching a fly, leaps up to the top shelf and selects three jazz mags. Slots them between the broadsheets, brings them to the counter, lifts up the corner of the paper-pile so I can only see the prices but I can tell by the branding that this week it’s Mayfair on top, last week it was Club Internationale I don’t know how I know that but I just do … I look at him and he looks at me and I know that he knows that I know. He pays up, he slips out and I feel weird, I feel a bit repulsed by him but at the same time kinda sorry for him; I wonna look at that jazz mags too.
Mr Smith arrives to lock up the shop. I get a crumpled £5 note in my wages plus coins. I take a piss, at last and head home, knackered, just in time to leave for church.
I liked that feeling of the money my pocket every week. But I felt like I was no good at that job and I dreaded going back in every Saturday, like I dreaded going into school, knowing I found both so difficult.
