One Halloween Lewis wore my Mothers rabbit suit. It was a fairly well made pink fluffy bunny suit with green fur as the underbelly and tail. We all went out dressed up and getting loose in Newcastle. Lewis managed to pull some student lassy and went home with her back to Jarrow. The next day was a Sunday and we all sat around in the Buff House editing the now classic NSF advert where carmine pretends he's a mafia boss and says the Line 'NSF3-Christmas.' It was raining heavily outside so we concentrated fully and got loads of filming slash editing done for the advert. Everyone sat around still covered in fake blood that proved impossible to remove. Lewis finally turned up around 3 still in the bunny suit and similarly covered in blood. He was soaked, bedraggled and exhausted (a state Lewis reaches so often you can tell he secretly thrives on) and we all had a good laugh at him when he walked in. To add to the hilarity Fortini was probably smoking a cigar at this point.
Lewis in his infinite wisdom had pulled the lassy and jumped in a taxi not thinking that he had nothing on under the bunny suit. He had gotten his freak on or whatever he did, I don't know I wasn't there looking through the key hole and then he had slept off the concoction of rum and alka-seltzer he was drinking. In the morning realising he had no pockets in the bunny suit found himself penniless and 7 miles from home. He had left the love nest and walked to the metro thinking he'd jump it back to Newcastle, a practice which was a lot easier back in the day. Unfortunately as so often happens the metro service had been suspended between shields and town and the bus replacement proved a lot harder to jump. Lewis was faced with a 7 mile walk home in pouring rain wearing a pink bunny suit through some pretty dodgy housing estates. He received quite a bit of heckling but amazingly avoided a beatdown.
I returned the Bunny suit in such a state to my Mother that she subsequently binned it, she was however particularly tickled by the story of Lewis' walk of shame as some sort of recompense.
NSF 3 First Trailer from Pete_G on Vimeo.
The Parrot poster post from last week got me thinking about the time my Mother tried to save a missing budgie, so here's a slight better punctuated version of a story originally printed in BrainMind issue 3.
Woman, are you crazy? AKA Let The Budgie Live.
A rare morning asleep at my family home. A soothing and deep sleep which is difficult to attain in the floral box room. A room which is always roasting hot and devoid of oxygen. A room stacked floor to ceiling with old boxes. A room that is continuously sweltering and claustrophobic. Through my dreary sleep I can tell that it is morning from the smell of burning toast that brings me back to Sunday mornings of my youth. But this is no Sunday, weekday work awaits me. Dragged form the safety of a borrowed duvet, not buy my alarm however, but by the commotion coming from my Mother's bedroom. I can hear her unmistakable squawk, she's hysterical, calling my name and asking for assistance. I rise from the bed scratching balls and pulling at my T-shirt to cover a hint of morning wood.
The sight I was confronted with beggared even my most deep seated beliefs. My Mother dressed in outrageous pink pajamas was standing one footed on a wicker basket hanging half torso out of her bedroom window. In her hand was the long handled fishing net that me Dad uses to dreg scum out of the pond she was waving this erratically whilst cooing and repeating "here Joey."
I approached rubbing sleep out of my eyes and presuming that I was dreaming. Playing Kirby's Ghost Trap last night might explain the Pink Pajamas but from where in my brain was this upstairs aerial fishing scenario? Now that I was beside my Mother I peered to see what she was fishing for and there it was the trigger for an ornithological escapologist flashback....
....Three weeks previously my Mother had received a computer printout through the letterbox detailing the loss of a yellow and green budgie in the Westoe area who went by the name of Carl. The bulletin mentioned that Carl was cold and timid and it included a phone number. I had found this document both preposterous and hopeless, as if you would ever find a budgie? It would have flown for never-look-back freedom the second it saw an open window most likely straight into the jaws of a neighbourhood cat. I had taken this missing pet notice for my collection and put it on the wall of my not so plush Heaton Attic/apartment where it had kept me in good spirits....
....Cut back to the current situation with my Mother, apparently insane, shouting "tweet tweet Joey, come to your Mam."
This was almost too much. My Mother, clearly in a heightened state, obsessively fishing at a rather scared and rigid budgie was possibly at first assessment of fragile mind. I thought carefully about what to lay on her. "Mother get down from there, You'll set you're neck or worse still fall out of that window" was the best I could come up with.
My mother brought her head in with hair ravished and wind swept and said "Oh there you are, here take this, your arms are longer than mine, get up here" she thrust the fishing net into my hand and ushered me up onto the wicker as she descended from it.
Shaking my head I leaned out of the window fishing net in hand but couldn't reach the bird which stood defiantly on the plastic guttering. "Well go on then, ENCOURAGE him" pleaded my Mother.
"This is stupid he needs an incentive, haven't you got any bird seed" I asked at which point my Mothers face perked up and she rushed off down stairs.
I stared at Carl. He looked surprisingly well for spending 3 weeks on the streets of Westoe, he looked strong and street smart, the Ray Mears of the domesticated bird world surviving on just his wits and instinct. Carl didn't want to be caught he was having the time of his life free from the cage and living off the land like Rambo in First Blood.
My Mother returned shouting "there is no seed, there is no seed, but we have this" in her hand was a large fresh butter croissant.
My mother had a long flagpole to which she offered the croissant and to the end with reams of selotape she wrapped them together.
"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.
"All birds love croissant."
"Are you kidding me" I replied "that croissant is as big as the budgie."
"So what?"
"Well how would you feel after finally escaping a lifetime of captivity you only lasted 3 weeks before you were knocked off a roof to your death by an enormous puff pastry doppelganger?"
"Don't be stupid I won't knock him off." My mother replied and with that she ascended the wicker, leaned out of the window and offered the croissant to the budgie (who was still well out of reach) and began a discourse "Here Joey, tweet tweet Joey, here's a croissant, lovely budgie, tweet tweet croissant."
I could barely look, what would the neighbours make of this scene, they were probably phoning the RSPB as we spoke. I could see it now, the newspaper headline reading-woman clubs much loved family pet to death with obscure French baked goods weapon.
As predicted Carl was not impressed. He took a second look at the croissant and then made for the sky never to be seen again. As my Mother disappointedly climbed down from the wicker the dog jumped up and made short work of the croissant.
Who knows, I thought perhaps Carl will go on to a better life and meet up with the rebellious activist group-the ex pets network.
