A
long time ago, before The Beatles were invented and skiffle was all
the rage, with Lonnie Donegan leading the skiffling pack, I bought a
tea chest. I know you won't know or don't know what a tea chest is
but in case you do want to know and would enjoy partaking of the
knowledge - here is one:
It
was used for keeping loose tea leaves in, and could be obtained from
tea distributors. People actually did 'obtain' them and use them when
they moved house, to pack with books and other things, which weighed
heavier than bricks and broke many a furniture remover's back.
This
was before the tea bag – the scourge of tea drinkers – became
popular and as you can see from the above there was no top; they were
only used once. The reason I got the tea chest was to turn it into a
bass for my little skiffle group.
I
always wanted to play the guitar but at that early age I couldn't
afford one but my dad had a mandolin; so I got hold of the that, took
all the strings off and put four guitar strings on to it and tried to
tune it as a guitar.
Not
that it made any difference to me how it was tuned I tried to get a
tune out of it the best way I could. I would belt out the songs and
strum along to the skiffle and rock'n'roll records we didn't
have – yes I would shout and scream “I'm a gambling man, man,
man. I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm a gambling man, man, man. I'm
a gambling man.”
The
neighbours didn't call the noise abatement society once or the
police. I think my parents would have called for help if we'd had a
phone but back in those dark days only the really posh people had
phones.
In
fact as a child I only knew one family who had one.
Because
I didn't have a plectrum (what the Americans call a pick) I would
suffer from blisters on my thumb; it became so bad I had to use a
coin which sounded terrible.
Well
terrible out of tune as opposed to the sound of the thumb which made
it as a few strings being played out of tune but “I'm a gambling
man, man, man. I'm a gambling man, man, man” was belted out
whenever my parents were out.
The
tea chest was supposed to be played by my brudder as a bass.
Here:
That's
not him but you get the idea.
One
day I was going nowhere in particular, and a woman came and asked me
how I was and what I was doing and things like that.
That
woman, I believe, was a teacher; at least I was told that she was,
and I was also told that she was the aunt of Donald Maclean, whom we
made our first holy communion with, before he became famous as a
comedian. He is a papal count now so he must be very holy but
when my mother told him later on when he was famous, who she was and
that she knew his aunt, he denied it; denied he knew my mother and
denied the woman was his aunt.
Anyway
the woman asked me what I was doing and I told her I had formed a
skiffle group.
“How
wonderful” she said “here.”
And
she gave me some money.
“That's
toward the group and I wish you every success.”
I
was taken aback so I said “oh no, I couldn't.”
I
said this as a matter of manners, thinking she would say something
like “no; you take it” and I would have.
But
she put it back in to her purse.
The
money she offered was quite a lot by the standards of those days but
it would have been put into a box or bank or something waiting for
the day when someone else would offer me some money towards the
venture.
Needless
to say the group didn't get any further and the tea chest was used
in the move to our next house - breaking the back of the poor
removal man.
But
these days there is a way of raising money for ventures; films,
plays, groups or whatever and that is crowd funding which I
will be doing with my play The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone.
Here's
how it works: I will make a budget for the play which will give me a
target that I have to reach. I have to give a set date – shall we
say one million dollars – (it won't be but . . . . ) and we will
have to raise that amount by that date.
If
$999,999 is raised the whole deal is off – sounds ridiculous, I
know; we can't just take what has been pledged or drop out when it
reaches a figure we fancy, in point of fact if that was a real target
I'd get someone I know to put the $1 in.
How
do people get involved?
They
state how much they want to give - $20, $40 up to whatever amount is
tops. There will be little gifts for each amount like a copy of the
script signed by the stars, if it's a movie and things like that.
I
have donated to a few crowd funding ventures and they weren't all
successful.
When
you donate you give your credit/debit card number and that is only
accessed if the full amount is realised.
When
I did it last year nothing happened to the one which wasn't
successful as the producer cancelled the
campaign. I don't know if he was ever told who donayted; the others
just took the amount I had pledged from my card and sent me the gift
– well one didn't send the gift even after I asked for it –
it was only a post card and wouldn't have killed them to send it -
and I know what I'll say if they ask for more this year.
So
wish me luck with my play – it won't be till next year and I dare
say some of you who know me will receive news and will be asked to
pledge but I will be doing most of it through social network sites
like Facebook and Twitter.
Here
is a little teaser trailer -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K32XDFrs6i4
A
word about my movie by the way; I asked Amazon why it isn't available
over here and they said it was to do with licensing so . .. what can
I say?
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