Dear Me, Scott King

I am 40 years old today. Happy Birthday To Me!

So what does it mean? Nothing perhaps, but I’ll tell you this, I’ll tell you who are not yet 40 years old this: Being 39 is awful. I’ve not had a bad year or anything really. What’s been really shit is the waiting to be 40 – when you’re 39 nobody can see or ›hear‹ that – they ONLY know that you’re ›Nearly 40‹. If someone asked my age and I’d said 39, their immediate response would be: »Oooh, nearly 40« or »Oooh, nearly there then…!« or some other inane shit.

The point is: 39 does not exist, not for the victim nor the spectator – there is only ›Nearly 40‹ – so, in a way, in a Godforsaken Lemming Like Way – thank God I am now 40. Thank God that it’s over with. I’m not yet experienced enough as a ›Forties‹ to tell you what it’s like, I have no words of wisdom on officially being closer to death than to birth – but – I have to say, I’m quite happy with it, I’m quite pleased. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die, it’s just that being closer to death than to birth has made me feel quite ALIVE. All last week I was in this strangely euphoric mood – usually I’m as miserable as fuck, sometimes I hate waking up and wish I could stay in bed all day – but not last week. Last week I couldn’t wait to get up and bounce around the house - happily ringing my accountant, joyously collating every discarded CD and archaic QuarkXpress file for my new book (you heard it right, a new book is out next year, a monograph no less: An Illustration of The Illustrious King Career-ette)… I’ve been so happy! But it’s nothing to do with the book or ringing my accountant.

Now – you have to understand, I’m not stupid. I know what it’s like when someone dies – the organisation of the funeral becomes an obsessively focussed and even enjoyable act for the remaining family members – I’m no div – all my early morning activity, all my sorting out loose ends and digging through Guinness stained CDs of old artwork is me organising my own funeral – I know that. But I’m glad – I’m glad to get the first half of my life out of the way – it was often anxiety and stress filled – I was preoccupied by trying to become SOMEONE – I tried too hard and eventually it began to backfire, eventually I lost sight of ENJOYMENT… and I still never became what I wanted to be. But now everything is alright – now I don’t give a flying fuck. Maybe I can even become The Artist I Always Wanted To Be.

Now, I AM FREE*

*As I said, I’m not a Dimothy – I know that this FREEDOM is just biological, I know it’s just my body and brain slowly readjusting themselves to the reality of death. Still, if this is what getting OLD is like – DEATH must be brilliant!

P.S.: Before I go, I must tell you – I just re-bought »Quadrophenia«, both the film soundtrack and the original 1973 LP. I didn’t really know why I was doing it as I clicked away at those late night eBay buttons. But this morning, when Tony the Postman handed them to me at the front door – then I opened the padded envelopes – I knew exactly why. This was the soundtrack of my 10-15 year old self – this was as near as I ever got to a religion. I completely believed in Jimmy, I wanted to be him – the romantic, doomed, Lambretta riding hero/tragedy … well, that was my first thought, that was my obvious thought.

THEN

I started to look at the cover of the soundtrack LP – and I was struck by a thunderbolt – a tragic, hideous graphic design thunderbolt. Because, Germans, I thought I’d bought the soundtrack LP for the above reasons (a slightly more subliminal reason was because I wanted to see the cover – I wanted to see Jimmy’s angst ridden face stood in the Brighton alley that represented his Heroic Yesterday).

BUT

Once I had it my hands – once I was holding the LP cover, I realised that all the above was nothing – it was just fantasy – What I’d really wanted to see again was the white border on the front of the LP cover, the white border that frames the picture of Jimmy in the Brighton alley – the white border that has the word »QUADROPHENIA« in very small, delicate type sitting squarely in the middle at the top of the sleeve.

I

Do not know why, but when I was young that white border meant so much to me – I remember now how unusual, and perhaps tasteful, I thought it was. So, sadly, I must have been born with some kind of Graphic Design Gene.

ALL

Of which reminds me – when I was 15, I went to a party and got completely drunk – horribly drunk, I was being sick in the back garden of a house in Pasture Road, Goole. Audra Constable, thinking she was helping, rang my dad (DAVE) and told him he’d better come and get me. I was lying face down in the garden when my dad’s car skidded to a halt – I was dressed in my ›Jimmy from Quadrophenia‹ gear. DAVE grabbed the hood of my parka and dragged me face down across the garden – I remember the lawn – then he threw me in the back of his car. He drove home at 80mph, then he dragged me, still face down, by my hood upstairs to my bedroom – I remember the stairs carpet burning my nose – my mum was waiting there and was trying not to laugh. DAVE wasn’t laughing.

As they undressed my collapsed (then skinny) body, one of my mum’s eyeliner pencils fell out of my parka pocket. I vaguely remember DAVE saying: »AND! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS…?« I tried to explain to him that ›Jimmy from Quadrophenia‹ wore make-up on the 5.15 train to Brighton. DAVE wasn’t buying it, convinced he’d fathered an alcoholic transvestite, he stormed back downstairs in disgust. My mum burst into fits of laughter and kindly put me to bed. Superb.