Mamas: let your sons grow up to be cowboys
The Cowboys, said a little sign. Two good ole boys around my age; in jeans, black t-shirts, black Stetsons. Black guitars. Quite close to 'my' pitch, they were outside a couple of newly opened cafés.
Pros. They kidded each other. They bantered. One said, pointing to a table, We're goin' ta do a request from two lovely ladies havin' coffee, and just sittin’ over there ...
And they Roy Orbisoned; Elvised; Buddy Hollyed; Proud Maryed ... One was right handed, the other left, and so, sharing a single microphone, they made a nicely symmetrical image, like Paul and George did way back then.
Eventually they packed up, insouciantly ignoring me in their transit to the next hitching post. Self-assured outlaws, movin' on down the line. Following them was a roadie who pulled a little box type trolley with their guitars, amp, and mic in it.
He stopped and said, Nice guitar, man ... You need a few crowd pleasers though, to make some real dough, he added, and moseyed on.
Crowd pleasers ... ?!? What do I care about pleasing crowds, or making money? I call ‘ladies’ women. And I always fully pronounce the 'ing' in present participles and gerunds.
You’ve got to hide your love away
Consider me, in my genuine 100% sheep-nappa John Lennon cap. John had a little Ferrari pin on the front of his. But not for me a symbol of degenerate capitalism. No indeed. My pin is, of course, the Hammer and Sickle within a Red Star.
In my country, said a shop girl in Crossgar, you go to prison for wearing that . . .
Not surprising really. She was from Estonia. When I went to Bulgaria I often wore CCCP T-shirts. Bulgarians are more relaxed about the Soviet Union, and there was never a cross word to me. Mind you, they were hardly ecstatic about the old days, but Russia and Bugaria go back a long way, allies and friends. For example, the treatment meted out to Bulgars by the advancing Red Army in World War II was very different to that endured by Poles, Ukrainians, and so on.
Anyway, I ended up in Varna, a Black Sea Coast resort. One day we walked eastward along the beach. Eventually our way was obstructed by a big trench wire fence that ran alongside of a community of luxurious dachas, all the way across the beach, and ten a few hundred metres right out into the sea.
Beyond that fence, back in the Soviet heyday, was the exclusive holiday preserve of Communist Party Central Committee members from Moscow. But in there the beer, and chocolate, and all the other very scarce treats were plentiful and cheap.
That must have been infuriating for the locals, I said to my companion.
Not at all, she replied, for we used to swim away out to where the fence ends, go round it, and then up to their beach to buy the stuff. Nobody said a word to us . . .
Mammy’s boy
The only thing that's stopping homosexuals from going to Hell, I told Jean, is that there is no Hell.
And the only thing stopping me from ripping up the Bible in front of a street preacher, I went on, is that mine is a lovely leather bound one.
And the only thing stopping me from ripping up the Koran in front of Cat Stevens, I said, is that the PSNI would say that's a different kettle of fish altogether, Mr Praetorius, and we'd need to see you down at the Station, like.
And the only thing stopping me from raping everybody, and then pillaging, pilfering, and so on, I added, is that I'm a lapsed Catholic, and terribly squeamish about all that kind of thing, and therefore can't get involved.
And the only thing stopping me from being a human being, I said, is that I'm an Offence Detector /Archaeologist.
In fact, I said, the only thing stopping me from putting my boot through the radio when the Nolan Show's on, is that it's an expensive Roberts model ...
Don't move house
It's a terrible thing to have a clear out, and thereby stumble into your very own time was when. Everything you unearth, every photo you find, tells the tale of not getting anything right; a life, a carnival of cack-handedness. After a while you just get numb. The past is a distant country all right, just not distant enough.
So I went down to see Ivy.
For a new generation: homage
I was standing at the fucking bus stop. Minding my own fucking business. Just fucking standing there, waiting for a fucking bus. The way you fucking well do. This fucking guy comes up and fucking looks at me. Stands there like a real fucker, fucking well just fucking looking at me.
What does he fucking say to me? He fucking well just looks at me.
Then he fucking says, Fuck off!
What a fucking fucker ...
This is where you'll find me
On what Jean calls, in her Non-U fashion, the patio, but what is actually a terrace.
The binoculars are there so that I can scour the far shore for big nudey women at their wild swimming shenanigans.
Nothing perverted about this, mind you. Any (lapsed or not) Catholic man of my age and rearing, will tell you that we hadn't a prayer of seeing nudey women in our day, so we have to make up for it somehow, in whatever little time there's left . . .
Farewell, Arthur Scargill
Busking on the Green in Strangford. Everyone eating al fresco at The Cuan and The Lobster Pot. Easy pickings here, said I gleefully to Miss Lotte Lenya.
In two hours I made £5.47. And then the rain.
I crossed back over to Portaferry. The sun was shining. As I strolled around, though, I couldn't help but note the number of no-marks hanging around. They used to be known as the 'working class', but the Guardian and New Statesman have coined a more apt term: 'low-information' types.
We left wing radicals quite rightly feel betrayed by these morons, for they have allowed themselves to be bought off by games consoles, smartphones, Brexit, and a Vindaloo now and again. Impossible to make them understand how urgent it is that men be allowed to put skirts on and make hay in the women's bogs and changing rooms.
So they can fuck off . . . retards . . .
⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . . when he can get a pitch. He is TPQ's fortnightly Wednesday columnist.
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