Sunday, September 19

it was 40 years ago today, jimi hendrix had to go away

I was an 18 year old dishwasher on Princes Street, working alongside a French girl called Priscilla Tournant. Gorgeous, with an accent to match. I can still hear her voice, so I guess that means I was besotted with her.

At the weekends we would meet up to take speed or acid and go walkabout, visiting drug people or wandering the streets till dawn, to see what would happen.

Completely chaste of course. She had a fiancé in the west, but she hardly ever saw him. "I like being with you cos you don't try anything. You respect that I have Andy in Ayr." I was too young to know that they all say that.

One night on acid, we stopped in at the Gorgie flat, and the news of Hendrix's death was on TV. I remember thinking: if I wasn't drugged up I would grieve.

On the Sunday morning after the big trip at Gerry D's place with Reg etc., I was in bad shape but I had to turn up for work. At least I would be able to shelter in the kitchen and just work the dishwasher. But that was the very day they chose to promote me to work the coffee bar. Out in public in a hairnet, filling teapots with writhing snakes.

Priscilla told the boss to send me home. Instead of going home, I met Gerry et al in Princes St Gardens, for a smoke in the sun.

A few weeks later, my room mate Eddie went away for the weekend, after he was shopped to the squad by you know who.

So I invited Priscilla to the bed-sit for a sleepover. When she turned up, she had her chum Monique with her as a chaperone. The two of them drank vodka in Eddie's bed and giggled in French. It was a farce. They say some women can't respect a guy who respects them. I wore my best pyjamas too.

7 comments:

  1. Albert? How did you get to know such horrible people? I heard that the one who grassed got tortured by some dealers and it was taped pour encourager les autres, as your froggy friends might say. I met him for the first time about twenty two years ago though he was known to some of my horrible aquaintances at the time. Of course, I usually only hung around with nicety nice people. BTW I saw Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight. I think it was his last performance. I fell asleep after two songs when he stopped to tune up his guitar. He couldn't waken me up either even with yon gigantic speakers. The Doors were much better! Hotboya

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  2. Hotters, yes the Doors have stood the test of time even better than Hendrix. Makes you wonder if they'd have done so well if they'd stayed alive.

    The torture story would be a good Taggart script. What are you waiting for? I'll be creative consultant.

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  3. Albert? Some people I knew claimed to have had the tape played to them! Hotboy

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  4. I say!

    So, you were safe, as far as the women were concerned.

    MM III

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  5. Mingers, that must be where I went wrong.

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  6. Jimi Hendrix is on BBC Four just now and it is much better than you'd imagine down there in the cultural desert. Speech from him. Stupid as well. But with the LSD ... it was a different time. Thank God I was gorgeous then. Bad luck not to be supported by the evil bourgeois and all and not having anything behind me except the wonderful mammy. Right now, their inheritances are falling into their laps just when they're too old to really enjoy it. Nae bliss either. And no real sense of self. After all that, it's a shame. Can't do anything positive except die. Well done for the British to have taken the black dude into their enjoyment. So it is. The boy couldn't have done that in the USA. Jimi is as British as the dole! Hotboy

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  7. I say Hotters, I'm not sure what drugs I would need to be on to decipher all that. Getting it off your chest does help, doesn't it?

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