The Weekend Starts Here: Part One
Well I know what it is
But I don’t know where it is
Where it is
Well I know where it is
But I don’t know what it looks like
What it looks like
Well I know what it looks like
But I don’t know where she comes from
Well I know where she comes from
But I don’t know what’s her name
The Man carefully replaces the receiver. He has a serious problem. After some years, Cathy McGowan has finally decided to leave ‘Ready Steady Go’. The Man is The Producer of The Show and the index finger of his left hand casually reaches out and presses a button on the intercom, the fourth button from the left. “This is Mike here,” he announces, “send Someone in.” There is a short pause during which Mike sets off his Newton’s Cradle, the ticking as regular as the beating of his heart. The Door opens, The Cradle stops, and Someone walks in. He is wearing tight black trousers and a white polo neck, just like David McCallum in ‘The Man From UNCLE’, but unlike David, Ed does not possess blonde hair. “I’ve got a problem,” says Mike. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help?” is the reply. “Cathy’s leaving The Show, and we need a replacement. Fast. I want you to deal with this. Your train leaves for London in half an hour. Your ticket is with my secretary.” “What do I do?” “It is perfectly simple,” underlines Mike, “it’s summer 196—, London is the centre of the universe. It shouldn’t be difficult to find some pretty girl on the streets just dying to become presenter of The Show on television. Today is Friday. The time is four in the afternoon. You have until nine Monday morning. The weekend starts here.” Ed turns to go, then instinctively pauses, awaiting the final words of his boss. “And good luck.” Ed opens The Door, his left hand curling around the aluminium handle and pulling. The Door closes. “You’ll need it,” Mike says to himself. His left hand restarts The Cradle and reaches down to open a desk drawer and withdraw a small bottle of multicoloured pills. “How happy do I want to feel?” he muses, prior to his selection.
A Man sits on a train. Distant landscape flies by the window. England. Summer. Lots of green and brilliant blue speeding past. Ed glances at his wristwatch. Good. He will be in London before nightfall. The Door to the compartment slides open and a bearded, coloured man in a combat jacket walks in, wearing a black beret with a single gold star. “Is that seat taken?” booms his voice, deep and American. “No.” Ed’s reply is short and sweet, resentful of the unnecessary aggression. “Do you want to buy one of these?” Ed glances up. The Black Man is holding a bundle of newspapers which he seems to have magicked out of thin air. Ed nods. “Two shillings.” Ed scrabbles in his pocket, finds two coins and hands them over. The Black Man leaves, and Ed spends his the rest of his journey leafing through ‘The International Times’ with its fervent relation of underground happenings. One advert in particular catches his eye.
It is the first time Ed has seen the new-look Railway Station. He passes through the ticket barrier, handing his ticket to an unhappy inspector, and he leaves The Station through doors which slip apart at his approach. Curiously, Ed still feels like he is inside. Evening is drawing on as Ed hails a taxi, which pulls up behind a red bus, and says one word in reply to the driver’s “Where to, guv’nor?”: “Sensetaria.”
This word appears as the centrepiece of a Peter Blake designed advert in ‘The International Times’ for what is billed as ‘the psychedelic experience’. The venue is somewhere near the Hammersmith Odeon, but the actual location is not indicated. Prospective members of the audience are advised to open their eyes, follow their ears and kiss their minds goodbye.
The Taxi Driver tries to engage Ed in some sparkling conversation concerning “those bloody long-haired, foul-mouthed hippies, I’d shoot the bleedin’ lot o’them,” but Ed refuses to be drawn on the subject, leaving The Taxi Driver mumbling “bleedin’ lib’rals.” Ed remains silent, collecting his thoughts in preparation for the promised mind-blowing experience. The Taxi Driver grumbles at the size of Ed’s “keep the change” and vanishes into the night, leaving Ed standing alone on the road outside the vast façade of the Hammersmith Odeon. ‘ALL THIS WEEK: THE WHO’ proclaim posters. Another message pasted across these posters reads ‘SOLD OUT’. From inside there is the distant sound of arms cartwheeling in dry ice, expensive equipment exploding as it’s hurled across the stage and rampant feedback as another guitar neck vanishes into the audience.
As Ed moves away, the night becomes almost perfectly still. Then dustbins sitting on pavements rattle as an underground train rumbles underneath. Steam flies up from an open manhole cover, the red-striped sides of a workmen’s temporary hut flap in the slight breeze drifting down from The North, and yellow warning lights blink like feline eyes in the jungle night. Ed looks out into the darkness, strains his ears to hear, prepares his mind to expand, and then hurls himself towards the pavement as a MG speeds by. Two girls stand upright in the back, long hair streaming behind them, dressed alternately in black and white. One wears white pullover, black skirt and white tights, the other black tights, white skirt, black pullover. The car’s red lights recede into the distance, brakes squeal, and then the red sports car swings to the right and is gone. Silence again. Ed picks himself up and follows.
When Ed rounds the corner, he sees the parked vehicles of the rich and famous lining the street which must mean that The Experience is near now. One Rolls Royce resembles the proverbial explosion in a psychedelic paint factory. The street itself seems quite ordinary; two rows of suburban houses whose front doors are reached up a flight of stone steps. Ed slowly walks down the street, then, behind him, a door flies open, light shafts out, and a figure is propelled out of the light, into the night, and down the steps into the dustbins. Ed moves to help, but The Head just smiles at him and waves him away. “This is the place,” Ed says to himself, climbing the steps. Ed knocks on The Door—wood painted on metal—and The Door is opened by A Jean Shrimpton Clone with large eyes too much makeup perfect hair and a pure white pure wool all-in-one figure-hugging dress who without further ado raises the index finger of her left hand in front of Ed’s face waves it to and fro a couple of times then draws it back with Ed following until the finger points up the flight of stairs rising up out of the carpet four yards from the door and as Ed climbs up coming closer to the repetitive thudding from above he passes a couple of Heads dressed military fashion like the Beatles on the Sgt Pepper cover sharing a crooked cigarette which smells “so sweet” one of them says to the other and Ed reaches the top of the stairs turns left down a corridor pushes open double doors at the end and he’s there: Sensetaria. Multicoloured lights flash fast then slow then faster, amoeba film slithers across the walls, fast music like the Rolling Stones at 78 threatens the audience with submission from six foot square speakers placed quadraphonically but the audience fights back shrieking shaking convulsing hair flying clothes jumbled together in insane colours and the smoke in the air not produced by any machine, and as Ed struggles down the stairs to the dance floor, a girl swathed in green PVC standing on a trapeze descends towards him her mouth opening and closing one word “Welcome” never ceasing, and as the trapeze reaches Ed she steps off and vanishes into the crowd and then the strobe is switched on and the music slows down, the motions of the crowd slow down and Ed attempts to track The Girl In Green PVC because She’s The Girl he’s looking for, She’s The One who’ll be presenting ‘Ready Steady Go’ next Friday because She is The One.
END OF PART ONE
Warhol’s unmistakable image of Marilyn – screen-printed in countless variations as a consumer product, it is a perfect symbol of pop-art styles.
Copyright 1986 Robert Sharp