USABLE FUDGE - a glampunk story
Chapter Nine: Surprise Package
Welcome to Usable Fudge!
Check the chapters here [to be linked as they are published]
Ten / Nine [this chapter]/ Eight / Seven / Six / Five / Four / Three / Two / One
CHAPTER NINE: Surprise Package
Bristol, England
March 12 1977
"Welcome to ‘Rask's Surprise Package’, I'm Rask Bolden, and on this week's show we'll be delving into the latest in music with a glimpse of the coolest cats and the raspiest punks, as well as a few numbers by yours truly - the prettiest boy on TV."
Rask batted his eyelids most becomingly. He was dressed in a pink velveteen tank-top with sparkly gold lettering traced in a florid script that said Hot Bitch. He was standing next to a vase of pink carnations and was holding a single carnation up towards his nose as if to scent it. His hair was bouffed out so his thick ringlets fell about in an exotic chaos. You wanted to reach over and set the disorder right, which was exactly the effect he was aiming for.
He was twenty-nine years old but even the best efforts of the makeup girls couldn't make him look completely fresh. Louche was the word. He looked a bit like the early stages of Dorian Gray's portrait, those first few years before the buboes and the warts kicked in.
"And there's an extra-special surprise for all you South-West TV viewers! Winging in from New York City is my old chum Hexzei Monstrance. Is he gonna do another striptease? We'll see, folks..."
"CUT!"
Bob the director strode up to the set. He was fifty-eight years old and dressed in a gray knit cardigan with leather elbow patches. He smoked a pipe and subscribed to The London Review of Books. He was not a cool cat.
"Rask, you know, this is a kids' show going out on a regional TV network. You’re already treading on thin ice with all this..." He gestured to the tank-top, the pink nosegay, the spangly profanity across the chest. "...all this. You know you can't talk about stripteases and stuff like that, right?"
"Well, alright Bob." Innocence itself. Eyes aflutter. Butter wouldn’t melt.
"Can we take it from the top?” said Bob. “And maybe not so... you know... so artistic."
He simpered, his index finger coming up to the corner of his mouth. "But, Bob, I am an artist!" Bob sighed heavily, the odor of pipe tobacco sailing across Rask’s face.
"Alright, Rask, but no more striptease, right? Stick to the agreed script, if you please."
March 1977
"Rask Bolden: Greatest Hits" peaks at #28 on the UK album chart,
#55 on the US Billboard Album Chart
Hexzei and The Thrusters at #11 on the US Billboard Singles Chart
with "Thrust to Lust"/"Black to Comm" double-A side
Rask came back to the UK after the breakup of Diplodocus and the disastrous US tour feeling the desperation of the utterly unfamous. But he found a new spirit bubbling up in the streets of London that intrigued him. ‘Punk’, they called it. It was just like the defiant streetwise spirit of his early 60s mod days, but a lot scruffier.
The kids were making an effort to dress to impress once again, but instead of impressing with dandified elegance and style, it was all torn tops, gobs of phlegm and safety-pin adornments. It seemed that Bowie's recent flirtation with Nazi chic had registered with them as well, though these same kids with hollowed-out cheeks and bleached blonde haircuts and dark lipstick wouldn’t hesitate to call Bowie a boring old wanker.
Rask too. He was just some dinosaur to them, and it didn't help that his last band was literally named after a dino. Old at twenty-nine? He’d rocked with the best, and still could, baby. He got his mojo back, his desire to regain the top flights of the business.
After catching some punk gigs in London he soon understood that these kids loved Hexei Monstrance, now going by ‘Hexzei’ - the extra 'z' meant to suggest a central European jaggedness, something like Warszawa or Polizei. They loved his abandonment, his fuck-it-all attitude. At twenty-three he was seen as the father of them all, the most revered ancient of days, born out of some desire to scream made manifest. Rask was like their embarrassing grandad. Bowie was like an enticing corpse, a revenant, hated by all but still sexy enough to creep back into their wet dreams in unguarded moments.
Hexzei and Rask discussed plans on the phone, station to station, London to Berlin, to New York, to Kansas. They sent letters scrawled between tours, they passed verbal messages by go-between supporting players.
They came up with a punk supergroup project: Usable Fudge. This would combine Rask's metallest rambunctiousness on guitar with Hexzei's wildchild yowlings. Lyrics to be defiant, coruscating: Queen on Fire. Fuck Elton John in the ass. Hang the Pope on a Rope. Sam and Uli from Berlin were in, on drums and bass. It was a combo of glam, krautrock, garage and punk that would revolutionize the revolution.
Hex sounded excited, or at least he made himself sound excited. The whole Usable Fudge thing could only work for Rask if Hex The Monster was fully on board. Today would solidify that collaboration. Rask was right sure of it.
But for now, a cruddy pop show for kids on a regional TV station. Tacky enough on the comedown, but it broadcast nationwide and it was a way for Rask to get in with the new kids. He insisted on booking at least one punk act every week. This week there were two: Jake Marvell, the gay protest singer, a solo guy with an untuned electric guitar and a plaintive call for queer rights, and the daddy of punk, Hexzei Monstrance himself, to appear for an impromptu duet with Rask. A preview, or launch, or whatever, of the Usable Fudge concept.
But Hexzei wasn't here yet. Delays at Heathrow, delays on the M4, taking a train, running late. On with the show, then. What professionals do.
“Can’t we just fucking cancel?” I bemoaned, walking backwards while the roadie crew hauled the luggage and gear out of the van.
“Need I remind you that you were the one who wanted to do this,” Tour manager Jeff wheezed, barely audible over the receding sirens from the car wreck on the road”
“I only agreed to it because I felt bad for the old man. It’s a favor for a sad friend, nothing more.”
Jeff sighed. We tumbled and tripped over the uneven pavement. “You were excited about it, Hex! We rescheduled a big show for this. If you cancel now, it doesn’t look so good.”
I chewed at my thumbnail. The day was cold and dim yet sweat stained my pits anyhow. “It doesn’t matter if I look good. I don’t need this! I’m Hexzei Fucking Monstrance! Doing this fucking kids’ show doesn’t look too good. He’s grasping for relevance, man. That’s all he wants from me.”
Jeff squinted at the horizon where the train was pulling into the station and broke into a sprint, all the gear lifted high above the crew’s heads. Behind them all, I only jogged, muttering to myself, “He always wants what he can’t fucking have.” And I only got what I wanted once I stopped wanting it. So–no more wanting for me. I had everything I needed.
Gay icon Jake Marvell was particularly surly when Rask interviewed him on camera before his song. He looked sour at Rask in his spangly pink tanktop and gave only monosyllabic replies to the host’s welcoming effusions. Jake was dressed like a bloke from down the pub: manky haircut, gray-green pullover, brown cord trousers. Could be a university lecturer or a washing-machine repairman. Just ordinary.
He sang a folksy angry thing about how he got queerbashed week after week, the jangle of the untuned guitar discordant and angular, the sneer unchanging. He was like a rusty blade being worked into a wound. He was proud to be gay, and it didn't matter how many skins or how many rockers duffed him up. He found a bleak eroticism in the damage dealt. He knew they wanted him. He was glad.
Rask didn't see it. Where was the joy? He could see the anger, but where was the gladness he was ranting about? When the song was done, he walked up to Jake for a quick chat offcamera. Probably the bloke was a bit put off by the lights and all the telly brouhaha, a bit unsettled by the aura of it all. By Rask’s superstar aura too.
"So, Jake, great song, man, really loved it."
"Thanks." Eyes on the floor, packing his guitar into the case.
"I thought maybe you and me could do a duet, maybe later in this show, maybe another time. What d'you reckon?"
Eyes down. "I don't reckon."
"What's up, man? Where’s the solidarity? Isn’t that what you punks are all about? I've always stood up for the gays. I mean, look at me..."
"Yeah, look at you!" Jake'd stood up and was now looking directly at Rask, at the sparkly bitch, the soft-toned makeup, the bouncy disarrayed ringlets that you just had to set right, stretch out a finger to tend. "Grown man with a wife and child, playing dress-up as a poof. You're not gay, mate, you're just a fucking tourist in Queer Town!"
He picked up his guitar case and started for the exit, speaking over his shoulder. "Takes more to being gay than just putting on some faggoty gear and flouncing around, you West-End poser! You gotta get down on the streets and get yourself beat up by the cops and the skins, mate!"
"But I do wanna get down on the streets, Jake," called out Rask. He started to say that he wanted to get beaten up too, that actually he was from the East End not the West, but he stopped himself. He sensed then that he’d been pathetic. This Jake had set the control knob on the earnest-versus-carefree dial all skewed, and so he was doing punk all wrong. His problem, not Rask’s.
Rask took a deep breath to calm himself as the angry young protest singer disappeared through the fire exit. He felt serene again, but a line or two wouldn’t hurt. He turned to head for the bathroom.
Producer Bob was there beside him. Scent of Old Holborn tobacco and cheap scotch. "Never mind that one, Rask. Probably cut him from the transmission anyway. Likely to cause problems with that reference to… with all the nastiness.”
He reached over to touch Rask on the arm and beamed with joy. It was the most hideous thing Rask had ever seen, all broke teeth and sour decay. Too obvious a harbinger. “I’ve got good news. Hexzei's manager called from the station. They're cabbing over, be here in just a jiffy."
Video Two - “Top of the Pops” by A.P. Murphy
Music - “Top of the Pops” by The Rezillos (1977)
just fucking superb. and ... like... its my childhood years. its opening all the doors. the video and collages and words mash up...
its a work of art. I just wish there was a way that ALL the media could be ingested all at the same time.
Like... a giant orifice that you slip into (NAKED OBVS) and the inner surface is collage RUBBING your skin and screens showing the video and the words and there's the music and a voice reading the words and you're getting all SEX PARTS dealt with both ways at the same time. optional cocaine for those that want it. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK??? warm shower and fresh towels after.
and someone needs to make that Elton John number.
what's the collab process guys? Great world here, and characters, and prose and everything.