Nick Cave

I probably write out of a different part of my brain when I’m as tired as this. Just lying here, lights down, eyes slightly closed, laptop whirring in the night, fingertips dancing. God bless illuminated keyboards. I don’t try too hard. It’s the pleasure of writing this blog. I don’t care how it sounds. It’s just for me. This is just bare bones writing. No imagination. Just typing.

I took a very quick jaunt around town today, avoiding the preparations for Manchester Pride. A poster on Manchester Piccadilly shouted at me this morning: ‘People are just born gay. GET OVER IT!!’. It never occurred to me that I had a problem and I disliked the implication that I did. The only problem I have is people shouting their sexual preference in my face. I can’t recall the last time I walked down a street and angrily accosted a stranger to tell them I’m into brunettes with large breasts and thigh high stockings. I’m just glad I’ll be out of Manchester tomorrow before the festival kicks off. There’s now a huge glitter ball hung outside the transvestite club across the road from the office. For me, it’s not a matter of having any particular attitude towards what people do in their bedrooms. It really is not my business. But I do dislike the gaudy aesthetic. I’m just not a glitter ball guy.

I don’t usually get out of the office for anything longer than it takes me to get to the nearest shop and buy lunch. I should rephrase that. I can go out for lunch but I don’t want to be stuck in the city for nine hours. However, today, I was a little longer and it ended with me facing a dilemma. I noticed a poster advertising that Nick Cave is signing his new book at Waterstones at the end of September.

This is Nick Cave, in the flesh, in a book shop, signing hardback copies of his new book.

Damn!

I fail to understand other people’s hero worship and I’ve never come to term with my own. There are writers, singers, cartoonists, actors, and directors that I hugely admire but I have never thought of myself standing in line to meet them. The closest I’ve ever come was running onto a cricket pitch as a young lad to get the autograph of a cricketer playing a testimonial for a locally born sporting hero. I think I ran up to Barry Richards. I don’t know what became of the autograph. I suppose I have it somewhere, in the envelope where I keep my Geoff Boycott autograph and a letter from Graham Dilly, who was my favourite bowler as a teenager.

Since then, I’ve tended to avoid famous people when I recognise them. I once walked past Barry Humphries in Liverpool. Nobody recognised me and he gave me a strange look when he knew that I knew. I bowed my head, walked on. The same thing happened when I walked past Alex Cox. It was instinctive that I nodded and smiled to him. I thought he was just somebody I knew. I felt terrible when he nodded back to me.
These days, my only contact with ‘heroes’ (for want of a better word) are through signed books I occasionally find. I have a copy of ‘Breakfast for Champions’ signed by Kurt Vonnegut; a copy of ‘The Village’ signed by David Mamet. I also have a cherished autograph of P.J. O’Rourke. I also other signed books, Will Self, Jeffry Deaver (I know!) and a few science fiction authors.

Most of my long standing ‘heroes’ are dead: W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Peter Cook, Arthur Miller, David Lean, Billy Wilder. Even people I’ve discovered relatively recently are no longer with us: Johnny Cash, B. Kliban, S J Perelman.

Who would I like to meet? Tom Waits, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, the Kinkster, Andy Hamilton, Armando Ianucci, Galton and Simpson, David Mamet, Martin Scorsese...

Tom Waits is the one person I venerate, though Nick Cave isn’t far from inspiring that kind of awe. I love his passionate songs, his angry songs, and his danger songs. Yet I also adore his religious ballads, with ‘The Boatman’s Call’ being one of my favourite albums.

Do I want to go meet him? Hell yes I do. But it’s not going to happen.

It would feel like I’d be breaking some fundamental agreement with myself. Perhaps it says more about my ego than anything else but I feel like it would be tantamount to giving up. Do I want to stand in line, mutter some oft-repeated note of appreciation? Do I want him to mutter thanks, desperate for the whole sorry evening to be done so he can get back to his life? That’s not for me. What’s the point in meeting somebody you admire without being able to ask or say something meaningful? What’s the point of reducing them to the level of prostitutes you’re paying with the amount of a hardback?

I admire them too much for that. I think I’ll stay away.

[Postscript 1: Here's the strange thing: I realise I already have Nick Cave's autograph. A friend of my sister was in charge of organising a big rock concert in Australia. He couldn't think of who to book so he asked my sister. She asked me. I immediately said Tom Waits and Nick Cave. A month later, I hear that The Bad Seeds were booked to headline the festival. About three months later, I got an autographed programme. I'll have to dig it out just to prove that I effectively arranged to get coins deposited in Mr. Cave's extremely dapper waistcoat pocket. It's my one and only claim to fame.

Postscript 2: I only discovered today that Cave dedicated his recent Glastonbury performance to Farrah Fawcett. That pleases me even more than Harry Shearer's deliciously ambiguous announcement that 'without Michael Jackson, there would be no Spinal Tap'.]