Saturday, September 13, 2003

 
CHOREOGRAPHY

This guy at work looks almost seven feet tall and built out considerably. My brother and I call him Bill Egghead - after the character Bill in the board game Guess Who, the one with the shaved Duncan Goodhew bald head and ginger beard, who would you believe has a head the shape of an egg (my brother and I made up the nickname when we were kids and it stuck). Not only is the Bill Egghead at work the spitting image of the Guess Who version (only sans beard) but if one were to imagine the Guess Who character's body, one would surely conjure up something similar to the fearsome hulk of this guy. To keep himself occupied throughout his shift he brings in a midi system and plays his own tapes and cds, seeing as he stays in one place and evidently doesn't want to put up with the radio. A quick run-down -

DATE: Mid July 2003 SONG: Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Can't Stop"
Bill Egghead sees me walking around the warehouse with a mop of hugely grown out seventies rocker style hair and noticeably erm...notices this. His eyes light up. I can tell he's thinking "Hey, somebody else who likes GOOD MUSIC, you know REAL MUSIC, with guitars and stuff". I approach to claim one of the cages he is distributing, and he's immersed in his Chili Pepper flavoured paradise, waving a fist in the air so that everybody knows how much the CHILI PEPPERS FUCKIN' RULE DUDE.

Of course, he's looking in my direction for acknowledgement, appreciation, mutuality.

DATE: Late August SONG: Oasis - "Rock And Roll Star"
Clearly unperturbed by my silent decline of his previous attempt to forge a REAL MUSICAL BOND BABY YEAH and by some strange coincidence (no sarcasm) now playing a song that corresponds to my recent mod-style cut, He pipes up, bellowing above the roar of one Gallagher or another some random work-related query to do with Chiswick. Seemingly innocuous, but he stalls on a response to my answer, raising his eyebrows. Just before I have left range of earshot, he pipes up again - "YOU KNOW WHERE CHISWICK IS MATE? WEST LAHNDAHN! YEAH! JUST LIKE THE WHO!!!"

DATE: Mid September. Last Night, actually SONG: The Darkness - "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"
By this time myself and my brother have begun a jovial second-guess construction of our Bill Egghead's cd collection and character. My brother had overheard Bill Egghead talking with another employee about how downloading music is wrong - "IT'S LIKE STEALING, MAN! YOU SHOULD BUY CDs COS THE ARTISTS DESERVE YOUR RESPECT IF YOU WANNA LISTEN TO THEM! THATS HOW THEY GET PAID! FUCK ME, IT'LL KILL THE WHOLE INDUSTRY!!!".

The Darkness' song had also been playing regularly on the radio while we work and we enjoyed several jokes about what is a cringeworthily bombastic and overblown record, built entirely round the singer's insistent falsetto - an attempt at glorifying, replicating and celebrating the thirty-nine-year-old Mondeo Man's self-amusing moments where he'll sing along with Robert Plant in a croaky falsetto of his own, "cos it's funny to sing high-pitched, huh huh".

Queue another similar work-related query as I accept a cage distributed by Bill Egghead. This time he raises his eyebrows on my response as before, but makes what seems a conscious and deliberate attempt to mouth the falsetto chorus of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" in full view of me, so that I know he's trying to grab my attention with it. I know the question he wants me - the person he aspires to being his big musical buddy - to ask.

The moment is choreographed. I had to ask him.

I knew exactly who the song was by, and I knew just how perfect and hilarious it was that two personal jokes could converge so smoothly at one time, but I still had to ask. I had to ask because the moment expected it of me, I couldn't possibly go on second-guessing his reactions to the kind of music he listens to, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to see his reaction to somebody acknowledging his affinity for a single like "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", even though I knew just what it would be - one of muted elation, of total self-congratulatory gratification, of the harmonious bliss he no doubt finds on every meeting of a person he considers to be a fellow long suffering dyed-in-the-wool rock purist.

With all the preconceptions he had of me and I of him, and how prominent they were in their corresponding mind, that moment could not have been more different for the two of us, even though we were witnessing and contributing to the same event.

For him, the moment meant that he had found another follower, another believer, another torch-bearer. He could be safe in the knowledge that his musical taste is something others covet, admire, revere. Just a small intonation of acknowledgement confirmed to him that there really are people who care as much as he does, who suffer for their musical integrity as he does, who know that rock music is an establishment in itself, a grand old tradition being kept alive by only a chosen few.

For me, it was the instance where the ideal that the guy was exactly as my brother and I had caricatured him was realised, even surpassed. It was the confirmation of every facet of character I had already ascribed him, and paid him the tiny acknowledgement he wanted out of gratitude. Good boy. You are what I say you are. Now here's your treat.
posted by Danny Lippard 3:13 PM