Monday, July 31, 2006

Back on the road

Especially for Mark we're back on Geeetars. Sunday saw my first return to the stage for yonks. Two gigs in one day. This photo is from the first gig. Obviously being Mike Da Hat I'm the one on the left in the hat. My good friend Delbert Montage is on the right, on acoustic bass, and Rory, my new house mate, is front and centre.Christ on a bike we were good. Amazingly since we only had a couple of rehearsals to learn our set. IN fact we were so good the landlord of the pub asked us to play once a month at his pub. So that's the start of our "Pay the bills tour".
It's funny I'm not really interested in playing several times a week like we used to. But once in a while to pay the bills seems a lot of fun. I guess we're lucky to be able to do that. We don't have any allusions that we're going to be rich and famous playing guitar. But if they want to pay us for doing stuff that we love to do. What the hell! I know I'm going to be making a load more money than the people I photograph, the original bands, because we don't mind playing the covers. Give them what they want. Play the songs, take the money, and run. I have no problem with that. I am old enough not to worry about selling out. To me it's financial. I need the money. So I'm gonna play all sorts of crap and get paid for it. I've outgrown my teeenage angst and idealism.

Tonight I laughed more than I have done in years. I was visiting my children. The phone rang it was a telesales person. Vermin. Now recently I've taken to screaming abuse down the phone. But my children have taken a different tack on this. Gemma answered the phone. She stood there for five minutes saying "Hello I can't hear you." then my ex-wife took over asking "Why have you phoned me? Have you an vendetta against us or what? Should I call the police for harrassment?" But the piece de resistance was my boy Jamie, who took the initiative.
"Hello can you give me your mothers maiden name?... Mary? That's not exactly a maiden name but I'll accept that you don't speak English very well. Can you give me the town you were born in?... Basingstoke? Is that anywhere near Bombay?... No? OK just a few more questions and we can sign you up to our plan. How much do you spend on your mobile phone each month?... £30?...Well for a mear £25 you can subscribe to our abuse service where we guarantee you 50 minutes of uncensored abuse every month. With a guaranteed fifty swear words every minute. Not only that we promise to send you abusive texts 20 times a month. Does this interest you?..."
He hung up.

So we have decided that we need to write a script. So people can download it and be prepared for these intrusive calls. The thing is they are talking to a script, but if our script is better we can destroy them. If enough of us do it we can rid ourselves of telesales people.

So what we need you to do is to come up with some ideas where we can take the advantage and keep them on their back foot. Don't let them get the upper hand. We attack. A recent stagety of my son Jamies was to claim he had a Russian mobile phone that was paid for by the state. OK it weighed mored than a bag of sugar, but he had infinite free calls and infinite free texts all courtesy of the Soviet Republic, for a dismal £20 a month.

We need to regroup. We need to fight back. We need to give them as hard a time as possible so we can regain our privacy. Join the fight. If you've any tactics that you find effective share them with us. I'm pissed off with people with an Indian accent trying to tell me their name is Jeffrey, from Reading. Or Mingeater who claims she is Rachel from Stoke on Trent.

I'm fed up with people phoning me four times a week trying to sell me something I don't want. In fact it's a self defeating tactic because I wont deal with anyone who intrudes on my life to this extent.

The roof is leaking on my Squat. I'm out of here very soon. This week with luck.


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