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January 22, 2004 #
 Book: Bill Buford's Among the Thugs Music: The Jam - "Saturday's Kids" "Saturday's Kids" (Swiss Cottage '00 Remix) by Michael Tully My dad has twelve brothers and sisters. He's from Ireland. Out of that rather large foundation, three relocated to London, where they gave birth to my twelve English cousins (I think I have 40+ first-cousins in all, just on my dad's side). My sister, three friends--including Krucoff, and I take a trans-Atlantic trip in March 2000 to experience my Shepherds Bush family. They are working-class Londoners--although, now that I think about it, I don't recall any of them ever mentioning work. All they seemed to do was wake up late, drink tea for a few hours, and then float back to their local pub at 3 o'clock to get belligerently pissed all over again. How can I describe it? It was like "Nil by Mouth," but without the bruised skulls and split lips (at least we didn’t witness any domestic fisticuffs). It was like "Wonderland," but without the lush Michael Nyman score (although Randy and Grellan provided us with our own soundtrack by keeping the Beta Band's "The Three E.P.s" on repeat the entire trip). It was like every Mike Leigh film (only without Timothy Spall). It was exactly what we thought it would be, and it was ten times more than that. Some highlights: 1. We're at a pub, dizzy from trying to make sense of the magically growing row of fresh pints stacked beside our current drinks. We'd take a sip and more pints would appear like, uh, Irish cousins. Anyway, Krucoff is talking to my 16-year-old cousin Amanda’s new boyfriend, the recently prison-released h-o-o-l-i-g-a-n Denny, and Krucoff mentions that he casually follows the North London football club Tottenham Hotspurs. "You're a Yiddo?" Denny asks him, not angrily, but in genuine disbelief. Krucoff admits, "You mean Jewish? Yeah." Denny can't understand, remarks with 100% sincerity, "but you ain't got a big fuckin' nose!" This leads into a dangerously intense argument over something about England bailing the U.S. out of the Vietnam War (huh?) and while Denny can’t seem to get past our pathetic efforts in the World Cup, Krucoff detonates the conversation by reminding him the English have never beaten the U.S. in a "bona fide war." I thought Denny was gonna go Begbie on his ass. At one point, Krucoff got up to take a leak, and after a few minutes, Denny stormed into the bathroom. I had visions of Denny flattening his head on the loo wall like Cage at the beginning of "Wild At Heart." But he just had to take a piss, you know, urinate. By night's end, Krucoff and Denny were hugging as they exchanged goodbyes. Alcohol is the strangest drug of all, indeed. 2. My cousin Antoinette's boyfriend, Richard, wearing a "Fuck Britpop" t-shirt, speeding recklessly through narrow London streets like Shaun Ryder on a meth-bender, nearly crashing and causing us to brown our drawers. Later I would be rolling on ecstasy in our hotel room with my 17-year-old cousin Laura, who sealed her induction to the Islington Hall of Fame by reflectively remarking, "My tongue feels like a carpet." 3. Next night, "rolling" again with the good times in Camden led to some late night hotel weirdness... (AK: Mike, let me take over here. The gay dance party broke out when Grellan threw on a Manchester United jersey and Randy sported orange-tinted ski goggles. This was March. In London. After watching lawn bowling on SKY Sports until 6am and deciding we'd start a league in Central Park, I asked Randy why the hell he brought ski goggles on the trip. Like a tape-nosed Owen Wilson in "Bottle Rocket", he only replied with a hushed "Exactly.") 4. During our stay, Amanda learned that she was pregnant, news that wasn't received so glowingly by anyone in the family. Perhaps it was the abandoned hope everyone got from Denny, who later went on to fulfill our prophesies by landing himself in jail again. (Note: as of today, Amanda and Denny have two kids, and I think another one is on the way.) Carpet-tongued Laura had one between then and now. Older brother Con and his wife Stephanie have two. Antoinette just had another. Actually, it feels like every time we hear from them, someone has just given birth, is about to give birth, or has just been knocked-up. My London cousins are not just "Saturday's Kids," they cover the rest of the week too. Archives "The Other Page" powered by Removable Hype. RSS. Copyright © 2003 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, stock tips, and family gossip. |
