I DON’T WANNA STOP ACTING LIKE A TWENTY-TWO YEAR OLD!
This is my entire, back pocket philosophy after a year on the road with a certain musical that uses the songs of ABBA. I don’t wanna drink less because it’s bad for my kidneys. I don’t wanna stop dancing like an idiot on tables at three in the morning, even when there’s a lot of people watching. (Especially if there’s a lot of people watching.) I don’t wanna stop having the occasional ciggy, or even the occasional joint if we’re having this conversation in Copenhagen. I don’t wanna stop flirting like a young heifer in a hayfield and taking a few bulls back home to my own paddock now and then. I don’t wanna stop doing everything I’ve been doing since I started enjoying doing it. I don’t wanna grow the fuck up. That’s what I don’t wanna do. I wanna act like Oliver Reed on the Michael Parkinson show when he was so pissed he could hardly grow his nails. I wanna hang out in strangers’ houses with fallen stars like in an old Norman Mailer novel. I wanna stumble past hotels at 5 in the morning before I realise this is where I live. I wanna tell younger actors what they should do, and for us all to be squiffy enough to think I might know what I’m talking about. I wanna laugh at lusty jokes about love and lovely jokes about unfortunate people’s genitalia and sad stories about broken hearts and no stories about your children…I know that’s harsh but you might as well talk to me about cars. I wanna not really know where I’m going to be in a few months and I wanna be certain that I’m not going to be where I thought I might be in a few days. (This does not include Death, in case You’re listening.) I wanna find a genie in a bottle and a fairy godmother behind my curtains and the fountain of youth in the door of my fridge and a guardian angel in my wallet. I don’t think any of this is too much to ask. I certainly, most definitely, absolutely, 100% do not want to start acting my age. Not at this late juncture. Who can make up those sort of laps?? Not I.
I think I’ve made myself clear.
But in case I haven’t, allow me to copy and paste this opening monologue from ‘Permanent Vacation’, the first film directed by Jim Jarmusch, which was shown on a loop on a wall in a gallery in a city called Vienna many, many months and rooms ago…
…this is my story…or part of it.
I don’t expect it to explain all that much. But what’s a story anyway except one of those connect-the-dots drawings that in the end forms a picture of something. That’s really all this is. That’s how things work for me. I go from this place, this person to that place or person. I mean, you know, doesn’t really make that much difference. I’ve known all different kinds of people. Hung out with them. Lived with them. Watched them act things out in their own little ways. And to me…to me those people I’ve known are like a series of rooms. Just like all the places where I’ve spent time. You walk in for the first time curious about this new room…lamp, TV, whatever…and then after a while, the newness is gone. Completely. And then there’s this kind of dread. Kind of creeping dread. You probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. But anyway…I guess the point of all this is that after a while something tells you…some voice speaks to you…and that’s it. Time to split. Go some place else. People are gonna be basically the same. Maybe use some different kind of refrigerator or toilet or something. But this thing tells you, and you have to start The Drift. You may not even want to go, but things will inform you. So here I am now in a place where I don’t even understand their language, but, you know, strangers are still always just strangers. And the story? This part of the story, well…it’s how I got from there to here, or maybe I should say from here to here…
That’s a bit dour, and the young man talking clearly needs some mates, but that was my year and basically I’ve realised I’m a Gypsy Man-Child and that’s the tiny, strangley-shaped gap in the Universal Jigsaw I was sploinked into the cosmos to fill. So I shall keep doing it to the best of my ability. I’ve had some practice you know.
So. That’s it. A year of a life. Hmmmm. Could have been worse…
Hasta Mañana ’til… NEXT!
