How to be a Legend

When I was a wee guy there used to be a localish radio show in Scotland called Scotty McClues… Radio… Show.. Hour.. or something, doesn’t matter to be too specific. I’ve wasted too much time already on this to be quite honest.

Anyway one of the things that used to happen was you’d get the Under 21′s phoning in because it was that kind of show.  Scotty was an old boy but for some reason they’d decided to start phoning his show. I didn’t really listen to Radio, still don’t. Ever. I like to have full control over what I submit my ears to but my friends all listened to it and said was funny so when one of them was over we fired it on.  It wasn’t funny. I know funny. I am f*ckin hilarious.  I could easily kill those weasels in Roger Rabbit. The only thing I remember was this guy called The Barbarian who used to talk like a total junkie in a fake adulty voice, he’d grow increasingly irate at Scotty saying he knew he was a young guy.

“You insinuatin’ ma age is a lie McClue!?” and so on.

Anyway one of my mates , Lapsley used to listen to it. Now Lapsley was sort of a soft touch guy, he was clearly going to become some sort of accountant. He was very fragile and looked kinda girlish with very fine hair. It was all there but you could see his scalp in a strong enough light, his head looked a bit weirdly shaped to me, like an alien, but I didn’t care because he was my friend. That’s real friendship.

His mum was f*ckin’ mental though right, when winter used to come in primary school (Even wee’r guys) what do you do? , correct, you throw snowballs.
Obviously you throw snowballs.
You’re a kid, It’s snowing. Someones taking a chunk of ice to the face and crying and that’s all there is to it. There might be a snowman made, but the bigger kids from high school would come over to smash them when they came over to throw snowballs at the older kids in primary. They were lot bigger and stronger so it became a bit of a losing range battle all the time but we were game. It’s what you did.  Rite of Passage.

Except Lapsley. You couldn’t throw snowballs at Lapsley.  Because his mum was watching. Lapsley house was about a half mile away on a hill that overlooked the playground. This could have been coincidence or the rabid beyotch maybe planned it from birth. Hell if I know.  She had binoculars Lapsley told us. We thought he was talking sh*t, but checked it with our own wee telescope someone brought in and she actually was doing it!  She was quite determined he would forever remain a child in the eyes of the Snow Gods.  We figured out she couldn’t see around corners , even with the fabled special attachment, and sconed him on the back of the head with some premium White around the side of the hall, YUS! The Snow Gods will was done.

Anyway fast forward back to the radio days, remember that?
He goes,hesitantly “Did you phone into Scotty McClue last night?”
I said no, I don’t even listen to it. Why?

He wouldn’t tell me at first but I found out.

***

Scotty : “Okay we have our next caller on the line, clearly an under 21, Ram Raider, this is obviously going to be p*sh”

Ram Raider : “Hiya Scotty”

Scotty : “So what are you up to tonight?”

Ram Raider : “Oh well you know Scotty I was just ALOPECIA LAPSLEY !!!! ALOPECIA LAPSLEY!!!!”

*hangs up*

***

How brilliant is that! , I didn’t even know what Alopecia was until that point! *
Alopecia Lapsley with his thin hair. It stuck too. People were getting told he had Alopecia.  Some felt sorry for him.
Some took the mick, which I didn’t understand, he had the same amount of hair from before it but now he had Alopecia it was different.

I never found out who did it either. It had to be one of like 4 people too and I knew all of them.
Tell you who also never found out; Lapsley’s mum.
Bet she phoned the school about a billion times wanting everyone rounded up and interrogated.

Sorry luv, yer kid’s got Alopecia and that’s all there is to it.

Bet she finds this page eventually too. No clues here. Sorry. Move on with your life.

Also, you failed, we snowballed him on his Alopecia head.

*Alopecia areata (AA) is a condition affecting humans, in which hair is lost from some or all areas of the body, usually from the scalp.

If you’ve read any of the rest of this blog then you’ve probably come to the conclusion I am capable of a pretty good rant. This is almost certainly a legacy from my dad, who is a world class ranter of epic proportions. 

My faither is definitely a Legend. It’s not that the maw isn’t a Legend at all, she is.  She’s a well good mum, does all appropriate mum things and also recognises a Big Trouble in Little China quote when she hears it. That is Cool and you know it.  If you don’t know it, then you should consult one of the Legend Lists that speaks of movies. It’s not up yet, but will be so show some patience my freaky darlings.

Out of the two of my parental units though my faither is definitely the most fun to write about and I think my mum would agree simply based on the fact he’s clearly mental.  Before I explain further I will say for the record that my faither is an intelligent guy with top DIY skills who looked after me perfectly well and that I would recommend him as dad.

We just actually can’t hang about that much together because of a personality clash in that
1. I like annoying people
and
2. He is Rage Incarnate. 

It’s a shame in many ways that I drive him mental because there’s lots of Real Man stuff he could show me how to do involving steel and wood. In fact his job is as trainer of these exact tpe of skills but I am “f*cking untrainable” apparently because my approach is to ask “why” things are done in certain ways and he thinks that’s cheek. Prompting the top teacherly response of “THAT’S THE WAY YOU DO IT ‘COS THAT’S THE WAY IT’S F*CKING DONE!”. We usually last about 2 minutes 49 seconds before “an incident”.

If I had to pick one word to describe my dad it would definitely be “Anger”. It’s not like he ever hit me or is a bully or anything even close to it. He just seems to love going nuts about things. He’s heard of this counting to ten and being calm and tranquil stuff  and it’s not for him

He’s a pretty simple man, I don’t mean that in he’s easily amused by shapes and colours I just mean his type of enjoyment requirements are not hard to fulfill and are in line with most of the world in that he likes having a bit of a sit in a comfy seat with whisky, smokes and John Wayne on the tellybox.  He doesn’t actually smoke anymore though because he used to drink moderately and smoke heavily and blow his top every 5 mins and he’s in his 50s so rather predictably had a heart attack. So out of drinking, smoking and going schtizo all the time he decided to drop the smoking.

That just made him angrier though. 

There is no room for racism or sexism with my dad since that implies there’s a group you’re actually well disposed towards in general. You probably do stuff all the time that he doesn’t like and will make him angry. I definitely do.

These include the following:

Driving too slow (if he’s behind you)
Driving too fast (if he’s in front of you)
Being on X-factor
Looking wrong (e.g. not a sensible haircut, any piercings or tattoos, “dressing like an idiot”, being WELL fat (okay I do this one too),bright colours, overly smiling (a sure sign of being a retard))
Not liking dogs
Forgetting he has right of way at every roundabout
Being born in the last 30 years
Not liking or knowing any John Wayne movies

The mechanisms of kicking off about any of the above used to have 3 stages or levels. 

Level 1 – Swearing about it
Level 2 – Swearing about it and face going red
Level 3 – Swearin about it and face going red with eyes bugged out and gesturing wildly

Since the heartattack though seems to just jump straight to Level 3 all the time.  I’m not that worried since he’s pretty much  unstoppable unless he gets a cold in which case he lies on the couch shouting for my mum to bring tea. (Flashbacks to the days of  him shouting at my mum to “Get him away from me” when I was tormenting him )

When he had the heartattack, they phoned the ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived he felt okay but got in after the paramedics said he should. This was lucky since he had another proper one on the way there. When I went to visit him in hospital the next day, he was in his dressing gown on his hands and knees in the break room fixing their TV and Tuner and explaining to the other old boy “This is how you do it son”. 

If you’ve ever seen “That 70′s  Show”, my dad is Red Foreman basically. 

Eventually he’ll see what I’ve written here and I’m reasonably confident of his reaction .. but it’s okay because I don’t live with him so won’t have to listen to him kick off.

(Sorry Mum)