MY LIFE IN HORROR: ENTERTAIN US BY KIT POWER

My Life In Horror
 
Every month, I will write about a film, album, book or event that I consider horror, and that had a warping effect on my young mind. You will discover my definition of what constitutes horror is both eclectic and elastic. Don’t write in. Also, of necessity, much of this will be bullshit – as in, my best recollection of things that happened anywhere from 15 – 40 years ago. Sometimes I will revisit the source material contemporaneously, further compounding the potential bullshit factor. Finally, intimate familiarity with the text is assumed – to put it bluntly, here be gigantic and comprehensive spoilers. Though in the vast majority of cases, I’d recommend doing yourself a favour and checking out the original material first anyway.
 
This is not history. This is not journalism. This is not a review.
 
This is my life in horror.
 
Entertain Us
 
It seems impossible that I was eleven years old - and yet, it seems most likely. Surely no older than twelve.
 
We've previously discussed - at arguably too much length - the transformative power that Guns N Roses had on my young mind. There’ll never be a part of me that doesn’t want to be the singer in a long haired rock and roll band. I’ve had enough experience of being in a band by now to know it was never, ever going to be a viable career path for me; but still, I’ve tasted the zone often enough, that sweet, sweet moment when the wall of perfect noise surrounds you, when the part of you that is you is both amplified and totally subsumed by the living moment of vibration in the air; the moment where The Living Now becomes All, and you are fully present in an instance of pure expression. It’s a drug, of course, a rush they can’t touch you for. The Disciples of Gonzo are unlikely to ever play again, and I miss it, and them, already. We made a  good noise, in our day.
 
As for writing, it’s just always been something I knew I could do. There’s no way to say that without sounding arrogant, and I apologize for that - and, to be clear, I’m not actually saying, even now, it’s something I can do particularly well, necessarily, only that it always felt like a natural avenue of expression - but it’s undoubtedly one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t go much harder, much sooner on writing. It’s very clear to me that if I’d started writing twenty years ago, or even ten, instead of five… well, I’d have five to fifteen years more experience, and that couldn’t fail to be helpful. But, so it goes, we are where we are, and damn if the journey isn’t fun. Regret? Sure, but nothing more work won’t cure.
 
 But there was another love, one I’ve rarely spoken about. We touched on it briefly back when I was laying out The Ballad Of Scott. And yet, from the ages of ten to eighteen or nineteen, it was, ostensibly, My Calling - the profession that was to dominate my existence, the art I was committed to. I’ve mentioned before that I failed BTEC in Performing Arts (yes, I actually managed that); given my oft expressed proclivities, you might fairly have assumed that was in the music strand.
 
Whereas, in point of fact, it was Theatre.
 
People often say they feel like they haven’t really grown up; that they feel, inside, perpetually stuck in their late teens or early twenties. I can relate to that in a lot of ways. To this day, the movies and music of my youth resonate with me on a bone deep level (as this five-year-and-counting project is clear testament to). I will absolutely make a complete idiot out of myself at any wedding disco where Sweet Child O’ Mine is played, for example, because I have air guitar game that can rarely be matched. But I have to say that this part feels utterly alien to me now. I know, intellectually, that I did it, that I was kinda in love with it (or, at least, with performing in front of an audience)... but there’s no resonance there at all anyone. Tell me you’ve got a pub rock band looking for a front man, I do believe I’d be there in a second (as long as it was reasonably local), but tell me you’re putting an amdram production of Hamlet together, and there’s not a flicker of anything.
 
It’s possible that doing the music turned out to be the cure, as I think about it. It was always what I really wanted, anyway, and it was only a combination of crippling low self esteem, pretty low raw talent, and a couple of incredibly toxic people who I trusted telling me I was dreadful at singing that kept me from trying it. Theatre felt safer. It wasn’t really you on stage, after all, it was the character. You got to disappear for a little while, and bathe in the rapt attention of being someone else. Plus it was storytelling. I’ve always had a thing for storytelling.
 
Still, the fact remains - form the age of ten to the age of nineteen, I was always attached to some stage production or other. In panto, I played the genie of the ring (the green makeup took hours to wash off, and made the Coke I drank smell of farts), and King John in Robin Hood. That was properly brilliant. The Sheriff was the comedy villain, who did all the slapstick and stupidity, but I was the straight up flint eyed villian. There was a moment in the final scene where I marched in, back of stage to front, coldy cutting down the good guys scheme and seemingly killing the happy ending. The boos and hisses were loud enough to rattle my fillings. Fantastic.
 
At college, I played one of the teachers in Spring Awakening, Prof. Strychnine, behind a heavy, cod-Comedia mask. I played one of the shepherds in an abridged version of the NT’s mystery plays (learning the yorkshire accent was a job of months, mimicry never being a particular strong suit of mine - again, in retrospect, a pretty worrying gap in the skill set for someone aspiring to acting). Even better, in the first act, I got to play Isaac, and was almost-sacrificed every night, to stunned silence. Good times. I also played a psychopathic killer in a play I co-wrote with two other students. Growing Pains was a one-night-only production. I’d love to see the script now. I remember it fondly.
 
But before all of that, there was A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
 
So, there were two youth theatre groups running out of this arts centre. There was a juniors group, which ran 10-13 year olds, and then there were the teenagers. The teenagers got all the good parts, of course - often, in fact, all the speaking parts. The kids, we just fit around whatever was going on.
 
And for Midsummer Night’s Dream, that meant fairies.
 
Goth fairies, I feel I should add. Oberon was played by Brian, an impossibly tall pale goth with jet black hair down to his arse. He strode about the theatre like he owned the place, and indeed all of creation besides. I worshipped him. Titanya was impossibly beautiful, also pale, and black haired. And we of Oberon’s train were made up in the image of our king - faces painted white, with black and silver work around the eyes, hair sprayed black, torn black jeans and T-shirts (any visible skin beneath the holes also painted white - we were a professional outfit).
 
We looked fucking awesome, is what I’m trying to say. Best faeries ever.
 
And I got to drive the tree.
 
I have no idea how it happened, at this distance. Obviously, none of us had speaking parts, but we were instructed to react to what was going on when we were on stage, becoming part of the psychodrama between Oberon and Titania. My suspicion is that I gave good react. Regardless, the upgrade was pretty sweet;  we had a tree that was spray painted silver and mounted on wheels, and my job was to move it around the stage at certain points, to simulate being in a different part of the forest, and also the effect of the fairies interactions on the lovers. The practical upshot of which being that I was on stage a lot. I remember getting a note, about two or three weeks from curtains up, where the director praised me for, at one point, coming out from behind the tree and jumping up and down in delight as the lovers fought. I can't think of a clearer testament to how much respect I had for our director that I still feel a surge of pride at  the memory. You’d better believe I did the move at least once every night of the run. Sometimes twice.
 
My memory is that rehearsals were every weekend, for three months. What I am certain of is that we were all expected to attend every rehearsal, without exception, and missing even one was grounds to be removed, unless we were actually ill. I have no idea if the rule was enforced, but I do know that I never missed a single one.
 
It paid dividends in two ways - neither, sad to say, involving the installation of anything resembling a work ethic on your humble correspondent. Both payoffs had the same root, which was that as a consequence of my attendance, by the time the play went on, and for several months afterwards, I could recite the entire play, from cover to cover, word for word, without hesitation, deviation, or repetition. Eleven year old brains are like that, I guess; or at least, mine was. I retained enough of it that when we came to study it at school when I was 13, I could cruise through the lessons paying basically zero attention and still scored an A for the work for that year. Yes, I am counting that as dividend one, and no, I clearly wasn’t kidding about the work ethic.
 
The second major benefit came about because of an encore performance.
 
We did a four night run. It was very well received, even though we had to abandon one performance right at the end due to a fire alarm - a garment had been thrown over one of the bulbs surrounding a mirror backstage, and the smoke had triggered the premature evacuation. It went down so well (the play, not the fire alarm) that we got invited to put on a performance at a local school. I remember the dimensions of the performance space were narrower than the stage at the theatre, which meant I had to work on my tree blocking to make sure I didn’t overshoot my marks. Hey, us tree fairies are serious business. Shrubbery doesn’t drive itself.
 
Anyway, that went well enough that we were invited back to the home theatre for a command performance on the final night. This was basically unheard of, and we were absolutely thrilled.
 
And then Peter Quince got ill.
 
She was the sister of a friend of mine, so I was often around her house. I’d seen her the night before, and she’d said to me that I might have to step in if she didn’t recover. I’d laughed it off, then spent the entire walk back to my house running through her part in my head (or, knowing me, probably out loud).
 
Just in case.
 
I walked from school to the theatre the following day, a 20 minute stroll, entering the premises around three thirty.
 
“What does your uniform look like?” The director asked, in place of a hello.
 
“Erm, it’s black…” I began.
 
“Take your coat off, let me have a look.”
 
I did.
 
“Do you have a tie?”
 
For reasons passing understanding, I did. I had a purple clip on bow tie. Not part of the uniform. I think… I think I had it in my bag because I’d worn if for a stage magician act I’d done earlier in the year and never taken it out again, but who the fuck knows why eleven/twelve year old boys do anything. Either way, I had it, and I put it on.
 
“Yes, it could work… you’ll need a jacket. And a clipboard.”
 
“So… what’s going on?”
 
“Peter Quince is ill. You’ll be playing the part tonight. The other mechanicals are upstairs. We’ll be rehearsing in ten minutes.”
 
And here and now, decades after the fact, I can be honest; I pretended to be nervous, but in truth I was absolutely thrilled.
 
And honoured, of course. This was a promotion from the kiddie league to the teenagers, and it  happened with absolutely no hesitation. I was in, and I was in because the director knew I could do it. She was right, of course, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel a kind of pride and confidence and acceptance I have rarely felt as strongly or clearly since. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if most of my devotion to acting for the following six to eight years didn’t have it’s root in that one simple moment; a feeling of belonging, a feeling of a challenge that I knew I could meet that others could not. As buzzes go, friends and neighbours, I gotta tell you, it’s elusive to find, and very, very tough to beat.
 
The rehearsals went like a charm. I had the script on a clipboard that I was to use as a prompt, but I didn’t need it. The other cast members mouthed every single word I was supposed to be saying whenever I made eye contact, and I didn’t need that either, but I did appreciate it. I even got a mention in the local paper review, and they damn near spelt my name right. It was, and I can't find a more apt word, in spite of it’s troublingly confrontational implications, a fucking triumph, and it gives me joy to recall to this very day.
 
Funny, how something as simple and knowing you can do something well can feel so transformationally good. Damn if there isn't a lesson in there somewhere.
 
And if you’ve come this far and are wondering why on earth this is a My Life In Horror column, as opposed to a My Life In Nostalgia For Childhood Glories, I hear you, and here’s why; there was a party in the theatre to celebrate the last night of the show, and at that party, I got drunk for the first time in my life.
 
I stole the beer, I remember that. There was a crate of possibly-stout that had been left under the bar. It came in a glass bottle with one of those rubber corks attached to a metal contraption you had to pop open. When I did so, it foamed out and splashed everywhere. It also tasted, to my twelve year old pallet, almost undrinkably bitter.
 
Keyword there; almost.
I *think* I took two bottles under the bleachers, and drank them there. I don’t *think* I drank them openly. I feel like someone - even a group of Devon teenagers, mostly themselves also underage and drinking, though not as underage as me - might have said something. I do remember - later, once I was definitely drunk - confessing my state to at least one of them. His girlfriend thought I was joking, but he, after looking into my eyes gravely for a few seconds, declared with a friendly grin that I was. I can also remember the surge of pride and validation I felt in that moment.
 
It gets fragmentary from there. There was a guy who ran the sound effects, who played the Sweet Child O’ Mine riff on the keyboard, to demonstrate a specific sound, and I remember a rush of recognition and joy at that. Later, that same guy, incredibly drunk, would film drunk me rambling and swearing incoherrently. He was drunk enough that he dropped the camera at one point. Years later, I bumped into him again, and he told me he still had the tapes, but I never saw them. I still can't tell if I hope that footage is still out there or not, at this point. Part of me would love to see it. Another part… wouldn’t.
 
Later, I remember a drunken not-quite-row with one of the older girls, concerning the bi-or-homosexuality of Freddy Mercury, and the wieldy apposite nature of the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody, given the cause of his death. I was arguing against his being gay, not out of homophobia, but rather a visceral distrust of the tabloid press who had run the stories. So, I was being an idiot, but at least a well meaning one.
 
Was someone running the lights, or where they on some kind of auto pilot? I don’t know. What I do know is that they were flashing more or less in time with the music, and the stage itself was empty - everyone was congregating around the sound desk, or copping off in the bleachers. The stage was mine.
 
And when Smells Like Teen Spirit came on, I took it.
 
Now, just a refresher for those of you not down on your early 90’s musical tribal allegiance. I was a Guns N Roses kid in ‘91. And that means that… well, okay, it means I was definitely twelve when all this happened, because Teen Spirit came out in ‘91. In point of fact, I’d just turned thirteen. So, okay, I was thirteen. Fine. The point is, GnR was my band, which meant I wasn’t allowed to like Nirvana, from a purely legal standpoint. Grunge was The Enemy, y’see, and as I’ve previously noted, one that claimed many former friend from the rocker tribe over the course of that summer and autumn. I mean, full disclosure, I actually did have a copy of Nevermind on cassette that one of my mum’s cooler friends had recorded for me - the same cool friend who would later take me to my first rock show, The Pixies at Exeter Uni, so pretty fucking cool - and sure, I’d listened to it, but…
 
Well, here’s the thing; while I could freely admit Nevermind had many of the qualities I’d come to find desirable, even admirable, in music - namely, that it was ear splittingly loud - something about it didn't connect with me. I think in retrospect, my issue was with the nihilism. I love me some angry tunes - then, now, always - but there’s a coldness at the heart of Nevermind, I always think; a darkness that’s more despair than anger, like the anger is a symptom rather than the focal expression. And while I appreciated it some then, and appreciate it a great deal now, it doesn’t speak to me, doesn’t resonate with my soul. I am angry, of course - perpetually so. But I find that anger to be life affirming. In my anger with injustice, I am reminded that justice can exist, that better ways are possible, that we, collectively, deserve better, and that sometimes, via an expression of collective will and outrage and struggle, we can achieve better. I am angry, but I also believe in change-for-the-better, and in the transformative power of anger to help facilitate that change.
 
And the anger of Nevermind is absent that. The anger of Nevermind is an ill-fitting mask for desolation, hopelessness. Appetite For Destruction (vile misogyny, snarling misanthropy and all) felt like a call to arms, a battered grin that said it could take every punch you could throw and would spit blood back in your eye and just keep grinning. And maybe that’s projection, probably that’s projection, but it’s how it made me feel, how it still makes me feel, and Nevermind…doesn’t. Nevermind is a howl of pain into an all consuming void.
 
And as Teen Spirit started playing in the theatre, my drunken teenage brain started firing a new synoptic pattern, and - suddenly - I got it. And I danced, flinging my head around, the last (the first?) of the mad moshers, alone on the stage where I’d taken what would prove to me my finest moment in theatre, and one of my most straightforwardly good days ever, and I span and headbanged, letting the guitar riff fling me across the stage. I danced like nobody was watching, and probably nobody was. I felt through the booze haze the turn of that song, that band, and I danced not because I wanted to but because I had to, to express something I had no language for but felt right down to my bones.
 
Alcohol is a shit drug. It’s a depressant, and an irritant; it makes us dumber, and angrier, and   
clumsier, and really, as a species, let’s face it, those are not qualities that we are well served by exacerbating. It’s telling that we use this substance so freely at our moments of greatest triumph; indeed that our very celebrations involve profound overuse of a depressant; it’s almost as though we feel the need to punish ourselves for feeling joy.
 
I still drink. Often in moderation, occasionally to excess. I love whiskey, with the kind of passion I normally reserve for gaming, and like gaming, it’s something in my life that can be healthy, and can be… not. It does bring me pleasure, on occasion. And truth be told, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found the numbness and relative stupidity comforting, in a way I doubt young me could begin to comprehend.
 
Still, I think back on that moment, that day, from time to time. My biggest stage moment ever. My first drunk. And connecting to Nirvana on a level that had hitherto eluded me. And I can’t help but feel - and I’m kidding, but I’m not - that God is a terrible, terrible hack.
 
Because there’s no way, as a writer, I could get away with making that shit up, is there?
 
KP