Two women and the middle aged white man.

It suddenly hit me earlier that the post I was going to write next I had already written a few years ago. It was about the time I first moved to LA and the frustrations I found with the various gadgets such as the way to put a table lamp on as they were not the same as in the UK. 
After my little accident I went back to the car rental place and they didn't say anything, didn't reprimand me or charge me any extra just gave me another car – a bigger one a Le Sabre.

So axe that idea and look at the two women at the top of this page; those were the two women who argued about me and, hopefully, the only two whoever did. Maybe it's the reason I have always preferred women to men.

I heard a story recently about a guy who had to meet someone in a bar in Australia. It might have been in the outback but the guy was a journalist and had to meet another guy, a stranger, as he was researching something and the custom in the bar was to drink a lot of beer as fast as you could to prove how much of a man you are – or even were!

The journalist had heard this before and heard stories about men coming in with their wives or girl friends and other guys in the bar wondering why they were talking to their spouses instead of standing with the guys guzzling beer. 'Come over here, ya baaastard, and drink with the guys' etc. 

When the journalist had enough to drink he said he would like to go but the guy looked at him and said 'No! You're going up to the bar and getting another couple of beers.'

The journo said 'No! I want to go.'

The other guy, looked the journo in the eye and repeated what he had said before but this time with more than a little look of menace in his eyes.

The journo went up and got the beers and the other guy started to drink as if he hadn't been menacing at all.

Now what this has to do with the fact that those two women above fought over me which might have made me prefer the company of women as opposed to men I have no idea; the Australian story just came to me. But it might be true. In my dotage I still prefer my women friends to the men. Men are boring talking about shit and not listening. I spent an hour or so with two men in a bar in Northampton as they told jokes. They must have been thinking about the next joke when they were being told one so, I suppose, were performing for me and the more they drank the more the jokes became stale and you can tell what that would be like when I tell you that the first gag was crap.

As Shakespeare said What a piece of work is a man!

Those two women? My mother and my granny. There she is on the left, my grandmother Mary Tuite, nee Fay; born in Dublin Ireland and on the right Esther Mary Sullivan nee Tuite, also born in Dublin.

My granny emigrated to Manchester with seven of her eight children leaving one child back in Dublin. That one child? My mother – Esther Mary Tuite. She was old enough, in her twenties, not to be ruled by her father who wanted her in by 10.00 at night at that age and that's why she moved in with her friend May Davies.

Now May Davies was a name that was always banded about our house as she was my mother's best friend but we never met her. We didn't meet my dad's best friend either and he was called Joe Picard.

My granny moved to Manchester and when my mother was pregnant she sent me to Manchester to stay with her.

Maybe it was too much for her to look after me at the same time as trying to work I don't know and maybe granny suggested it in any case.

My mother came to Manchester to have the second baby and I would be two years and two months old and I can remember standing on the table being dressed by both of my parents as we were going home and my father was arguing with granny. Granny wanted me to stay – isn't one enough for you, she said. It was okay for me, being spoiled by my grandmother, getting her picture taken with me and treating me to whatever I wanted. That picture for the next twenty years was in every one of the houses of the siblings – seven altogether don't forget. I was also told that my Godmother had her photo taken with me too and that she wore a glove on the left hand to hide the fact that she wasn't married and pretending I was her child.

So a complicated how do you do, don't you think!

I did notice that when we left the house in Manchester it was very calm and that is the way to settle arguments.

Exit!

Here we are many years later and those two women are gone; my granny was only 18 years older than my mother and died when she was 55 and my mother died when she was 79.

My father decided where I would live. A very kind gentle man and definitely in charge who wouldn't stand nonsense from either sex.

These days we hear the description of the people who run the world and it boils down to the middle aged white man – sometimes in a suit – but always the middle aged white man.

And of course the middle aged white man has made a mess so far so is it time for the middle aged women to run the place? Is it?

You'll have to think about that. I watched the recent series of Endeavour on TV here and the episodes were set in the 60s. The university lecturer was very badly written. He ate in a very lower middle class home with his meat and two veg, a small dining room piece of shit table and behaved like a salesman at home with his wife or a bank manager wondering if it was the night he has to jump on her when they get to bed or is it the night when they do the jigsaw puzzle.

At work when Morse, the detective, talked about the murder the lecturer referred to women as some kind of species from outer space. For example they do this, or they won't do things like that as if working with a woman was some kind of drudge.

I remember when I worked for the post office as a postman, for the short time I did, that the office of about 100 postmen had one woman and one immigrant – a Sikh. The men had a complaint about each of them.

Mr Singh would grab all the overtime and the woman wouldn't load the vans.

To me? One woman, maybe twenty five years older than me meant one thing. A shave every morning with after shave. Told you I have always liked women.

Of course it was some middle aged old bastard of a boss (a PHG) who would take her outside for a smoke all the time. Would make sure she got a lift to her walk (her mail round is called a 'walk') as her bag was a bit heavy and maybe even more - I didn't know. 
I was always looking for a way out: a job on the vans, a late start (I had to be in there 5.00 am) anything. I would meet old school mates and when I told them what I was doing they'd say 'well it's better than walking the streets!'

It's no good writing about it here or even showing it on TV – you had to be there. If you want to know what it was like back then it is better to look at some old TV on Talking Pictures or a channel that also shows old TV shows as you really had to be there and ask yourself, which we didn't at the time, how did it ever get like this?

So I didn't really reach a conclusion here did I? I didn't think I would when I started but I will say that I don't think I have ever been sexist – I know that as a young man I would look at the young women but the older you get you still look but with age comes appreciation of age.

I was, as I said before, going to write about Los Angeles here, but when I went to have my eyes tested the other day I told the optician about my Heath Robinson photo – this one.

                                          

Only my little joke about Heath Robinson as my distance glasses were away getting replaced so I tried this joke and the lens worked but . . . .

I also found the photos of my granny and my mother which started me off so I have to apologise for such a long post – unless you enjoyed it of course!

Head on.

               Sunset and Crescent Heights

You hear on the radio that someone knocked a kid off his motor bike and killed him. Then you hear it was a head on collision and the next thing is the car coming the other was on the wrong side of the road. Later it transpires that the car driver was an American not used to driving on the left and then we learn that the driver had diplomatic immunity and has fled the country.

She was over here with her husband so the diplomatic immunity is in his name, and the USA will not send her back here - then we hear she is in the CIA.

Don't watch this space as it's an ongoing case but it reminded me of the first time I went to Los Angeles.

I was wondering, before I got there, what it would be like, driving on that side of the road, even though I had driven the length of France, which is where they drive on the right too. That time I was in a British car where the steering wheel is on the right so it's difficult to see anything if you want to overtake. The person riding shot gun would look out for oncoming traffic and shout 'GO!!' 

And I would go.

In Los Angeles, at the airport LAX, I picked up my rental car and drove around for hours looking for somewhere to stay. Every place I tried was too expensive. I tried to knock them down but none of them would have it and eventually I settled down in the Travelodge in Santa Monica. On the main street, Ocean Blvd I reckon.

But I was delighted, as I settled into my room, that I had found the driving on the right experience second nature. The next morning I checked out and set out for Hollywood Blvd where I had an appointment with a casting director or agent, can't remember which. I got there nice and early then went for a short drive to kill some time.

I saw Laurel Canyon, on my drive, and I thought 'I've heard of that' so I took a right. I was on the right so I took a right and even though the light was on red I could still go around as the road was clear the other way – I new thing for me and a law LA invented – great stuff.

It was wonderful I was playing Aretha Franklin on the stereo listening to the power of her voice and the feeling she had for all those songs. 

Every time I hear that album today I think of that hazy day in Hollywood all those years ago.

I drove to the top of Laurel Canyon and came to Mulholland Drive. I was at the junction there not knowing whether to go right or left. 

It was the crossroads where a guy I knew, in later years, was shot dead as he sat in his car.

This day I turned; I knew who lived on Mulholland Drive – Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and, even though I tried to look at buildings and drive at the same time, I couldn't really see houses as there seemed to be trees in front. 

Then I did a U turn and went back.

There was no traffic on the road so Aretha was singing and I was in America and it was sunny and then there was a jeep coming at me, on my side of the road, I tried to turn and go passed him but it was too late!

A head on crash!

The big thing about it was that we saw each other and we both slowed down so the impact looks more dramatic on paper than what actually happened.

You see when I saw him, not registering that it was me on the wrong side of the road, I had tried to go passed him on the wrong side too.

'Hey you came at me' he said.

'no I didn't – well I didn't mean to.'

I explained and he had to make a call. He was a script writer on the way to an important script meeting and he told them at the other end that he had hit a Brit driving on the wrong side of the road.

'I'm Irish' I said.

TOMORROW: I move to LA - watch this space.