28june2013
it's taken me a little time to figure out a name for the post, without implementing people, even so this still can be construed as such, nothing of a sort, this being of the nutter. for if you knew his name the title would be obvious. i first meet jester in jan/feb 1964, my first day of kindergarten , a strange day indeed. for, at this time i had done things them other people knew little of, firstly, i had everything , a car, morris minor ute, the old boy won the lottery, he had a few cars at that time, and the morris was mine, even though i couldn't drive and was young, it was called my car. so i was driven to school in my car. for me to go to such a school i had to be baptized, being a catholic school. so i was baptized a few weeks before going to school. all dolled up, i walked into classroom. all these little shits crying, i thought fuck this, and bolted back to the car, climbed in the back, my mother and the nun trying to talk me into going back, saying i had to. i still remember that. eventually, i was coaxed inside (at this point i'd like to take time out to tell , google, their dictionary really sucks, i have to always look in the proper paper one, how many times, too fucking many), i felt betrayed. talk about chaos, half the class mainly girls, just crying, and half the class running around the playground following a spazz running and flapping his arms like a bird, the nun just let them go and tried to calm the others, what a sight. by lunch he was still flapping but the followers had halved. the next day he's off again flapping round the playground, the followers had been widdled down to 5 or so , the rest being feed up or lost interested. next day, he off again with 4 followers, with the class basically under control , time for the nuns to work on birdboy , they got it down to 3 , then 2. birdboy and jester, by the end of the week , jester dropped off every now and then, but started again. i tell you something , birdboy finally did settle down, but he wasn't the full quid.
1july2013
i talked to my mother about that first day , she reckons , she had to sit with me on that first day cause i was crying, i'm not surprised, hated it. this ain't about that anyways. it's more about my next 7 years of endurance. jester and birdboy had some intelligence about them, in a goody goody sense, but something wasn't right. for starters neither could stand on a chair, jester was worse. birdboy used to rock back and forth , every now and then make farty noises by pushing his hands together, i think there was some autistic thing there, now. there was probably encounters, but fast forward to 1967or 66, i got one of them james bond corgi cars for my birthday. by this time the money had gone, we were living in what we called the shack. the parents back at work, the cars gone, mine even, no rights when your under 18 them days, any days really. i got busted by the old cheese looking for my birthday presents, it was never the same again, a lot like bart simpson getting caught shop lifting. i think kids go through the thievery stage around that age, some get caught and stop , others, well they don't.anyways , i took my last real birthday present to school. the teacher took it off me, and put it aside. came the time for class to end, and it was gone, the teacher forgot about it. someone tea leafed my james bond car. months later jester brought one to school , he reckoned it was his.
8july2013
although jester had the height thing, in the water was a different story as i remember. it was his little revenge thing he had over me, which he used conveniently to his advantage , when i done swimming lessons. you have go forward to 1969 for the next remembered episodes. i had to sit next to him for a time, that class was shambles that year. anyway, me and jester ended up having a full on fight in the classroom, we were sent to the head nun , i just bolted up the road, home.at this time we had moved from the shack to a rented house not far from the school. then went back and got the cane. another memory of that same year, concerning jester , was someone had burnt a broom and written shit on the wall with the blackened stick, it was a big thing with the nuns. the words were , look that up in your funk and wagnels . we weren't allowed to look at it. it got real heavy, that jester had to own up, and another. but jester had written it. on reflection , she must have thought it said you fuckin wankers or something, for such fuss. jester and two others were elevated to 6th class for the rest of the year.
25july2013
now we joined jester in the 6th grade, the head nun had him under control . his daily ritual was to clean the black board standing on a chair, you think that's nothing, but for someone who freaks out on heights, it was a sight . then came the day of the voice. must of been near the end of 1970. i was sitting behind birdboy or 1 up from him, daydreaming . jester doing his ritual after lunch. birdboy rockin with the occasional farty noise. next thing jester throws the blackboard duster hitting birdboy in the side of the head, temple, he was gone. the nun didn't know what to do , police were called . now my recollection is somewhat vague, now but, something significant happen that day.
28july2013
leaving that school and going elsewhere that year end, meant i wasn't to see them two again. i caught up with jester around 1976/77 . i was working at the steelworks at that time, doing fitters labourer work. he had just got his car licence, amasing. he couldn't fucking drive. he picked me up from home and drove into town a few times. i remember him checking out my record collection, he was surprised at my records, i was going through a zappa thing then, so there was a few of him, probably all up about 60 albums then, i remember buying the eagles greatest hits at that time, the hype. thinking this isn't that great. probably now i could listen to it. as far as west coast thing goes at that time , i was mainly into zappa, i thought beefheart was demonic, after the street life of 1975, i had lived, i needed a safe place. jester drove me into town around the next couple of weeks, but me doing shiftwork and a weekend off a month , i don't know what happened there. years later, i learnt he crashed the car and ran away.
4august2013
here's where it becomes sketchy, 1984, not really, because i keep a diary that year. i thought it would make a good year for such. enter simon pieman middle name peter, friend of john mc and jester, he played the blues, or white poor little rich kid blues. i had heard about pieman through the others years before. i had a flat in town, i'd caught up with them there, and invited them back. i was trying to learn guitar and writing, i had two guitars , and a amp. a washburn acoustic and an ibanez les paul copy, which i played mainly just barre chords, the blues what pieman played didn't fit my ascetic, of that time, which was mainly punky reggae type of thing. jester had lost his wallet and was strangely coming and going, looking for his wallet. he still had the height stance thing as he clinged to the wall walking up the stairs , that hit a nerve with the what comes back thing.
7august2013
around this time, maybe even before, i caught up with jester at a psychedelic furs concert. he was into stuff like sid barret and julian cope, and other fringe type stuff which surprised me. a long way from following birdboy around the playground. probably a year or so later , i sold him a teardrop explodes 12" ep, the only thing i remember of that was ouch monkeys. i never seen him really much after that, on occasions. i remember, me and a girlfriend, nymph fartarse, were having pizza at a pizzahut . next minute, who should walk pass but jester. looking at the people eating pizza through the window, he done the mime act of holding a piece pizza near his mouth, pulling it away and letting go, then jestered with the hand that pizza comes back and hits them in the face, then laughs, a laugh i could heard in my head from way back. i just thought you dickhead and laughed, he didn't spot me though.
15august2013
at the end of 1988, i chucked the railway job in, done the jack, on the road. lived in the van basically for a year and a bit. after that i got a flat in the same block as 1983, this time in the ground level, the rent had almost doubled, that gypsy life , changes you in ways. i met up with jester , he lived not far , probably what you'd call a block away. he was working , but lived in a mens guest house, he had a morris minor, the same as my old car but a sedan. he used to drive everywhere in 1st gear, reminded me of mr bean, not as radical though. he was still into cope alot. he gave me a swell maps album, i didn't go much on it, i thought midget submarines was about the best thing on it. some drama at the guest house and he was turfed out , he lived there for some time. i'm not sure if he done the little excursion before or after that. his work gave him the opportunity to work in the middle of australia, eyres rock, and put in the fibre optic. i told him he should do it , do something you can look back on. he did it. he used to ring me up from there, in a stinking hot tin humpy, saying he couldn't hack it, i told him to hang in there.
20august2013
strangely, i'm not sure, before or after the excursion , he got a flat in these old tower type flats. under him was nymph fartarse. pieman had chucked his job in and was living in a half house, we visited each other, playing cards and yakking . he told me , he had slept at jesters house as a youth. he slept in jesters bed and jester slept in his brothers bed. jesters old man came home, started laying(hitting) into pieman, thinking it was jester. pieman says he bolted home. they lived in a different suburb to me. another story, these other class mates told me, they had a swimming pool with all stuff stored in it, not water. jester set it alight. they keep him in a parrot bird cage til the cops arrived. in 1993, i was in hospital and jester visited me , i appreciated that.
29august2013
probably never seen much of jester after that, although i did bump into him around '97. he gave me a few dr who postcard things, he was right into jerry anderson and that stuff , a big collector. maybe a curse from the james bond car. it's funny how he turned up in 97, i was thinking about birdboy and that voice. all i remember it said about jester, to forget about it and tell him to get on with his life. i asked jester about that day , he said it was the scariest day in his life. i asked him what happened, he said best forget it and get on with life, that's all. the exact words of which that voice had said. birdboy??, i was curious about birdboy, what happened to him. pieman and jester both ended up going to the same high school, as did birdboy. during our card games, i asked pieman if he knew him, this is around 92. straight away, he started doing the rockin and hand moves to a tee. he reckoned he copped a hard time in high school , the other guys burnt him with cigs and stuff, i thought that sad, i seen birdboy in the 90s one day , i didn't say anything, but all of a sudden he picked up a vibe and looked around strangely , he didn't see me. about 4 , 5 or something years ago, i walked out unanderra way and decided to go to the church, thinking, i know this church better than most of them, then all of a sudden this bloke walks out, it was birdboy. i felt like God had hit me back, birdboy always left at a particular time, and he was still doing it after all them years, i felt a revelation.
21march2019.
today i bumped into jester , had a bit of a chat. i hadn't seen him in years.
