Once a month my auntie and her friend go around a few pubs in town for an afternoon of drinking. So she recognised these two characters. She said they usually have their dinners and then go around a few pubs and partake in a little karaoke.
A bit later we moved pubs, a grotty little one hidden behind Stockton high street. I heard the worst butchering of any song ever, he was attempting to do Run by Snow Patrol. Imagine the club singer round off Shooting Stars, only 5 times worse. He was miles behind the tune, but occasionally sang a few lines really fast. Amusing, but very very terrible. (incidentally though, he was a dead nice guy)
After we'd gotten bored of that pub, we decided to go to one last place. It was, scummy, to be honest. But the atmosphere was pretty good, even if I was terrified of looking any of the patrons in the eye for too long for fear of a kicking. But, karaoke was in full swing. Unfortunately Snow Patrol man had arrived here a while before us, and subjected us to another rendition. Generally it was fun though.
And here I meet John. He was singing as we were sitting down with our drinks. Bad bad Leroy Brown. (baddest man in the whole damn town). Turned out him and his wife were sitting right next to us. The couple my auntie had pointed out to us earlier.
I think he's the coolest person I've ever seen in Stockton. My auntie had told us all these things about him, which I was lucky enough to witness.
First she told us he was good on Karaoke, as was his missus. And he was. But better than that, he smoked a pipe. Sure enough, after a while, out came the pipe. Then he cleaned it with a pipe cleaner. Now, I know this makes me sound totally stupid, but over the course of my 23 years, it had never occurred to me that pipe cleaners actually had a purpose, nevermind one so obvious as actually cleaning pipes. Obviously pipe cleaners aren't one of those things you really spend a lot of time pondering. But seeing as I'd only ever seen them in the crafty upstairs section of Boyes, occasionally in art classes, and that time I wore loads in my hair for the year 10 fashion show. Anyway, pipe cleaner revelation aside, John was sat right right next to me. He had suave hair, which every so often he would comb, with a comb whipped out of his suit jacket pocket. He was also wearing pretty sweet boots which I can't really describe, except to say they were like cuban heels but loads loads cooler.
My auntie had also told me that he every so often, would make a weird motion, like wiping his nose on the back of his hand - taking snuff. I had no idea that stuff was still even around.
Bang on target, out comes the snuff. I sit in awe. I hope against hope that my aunties last prediction comes true, because its the coolest one, a monocle. But it never came out. Disappointing. I wanted to know if anyone apart from Patrick Moore can pull it off. Even more disappointing though, was that I got a sneaky look at what he wrote down for his next karaoke song. And I thought, KNEW, it was going to be beautiful to see him sing it. I told my mam and auntie that he was going to sing a mint song, but said they had to wait and see what it was. But there was a massive que for karaoke, and eventually we had to leave. Our dog hadn't been fed for a while and she'd been home alone for a few hours so we needed to get back to walk and feed her and all that.
So that's the story of John. I hope we get to do it again soon, it was quite a fun afternoon. What a cool guy.
And the song he was gonna do for karaoke?
I've got a brand new combine harvester
Fantastic.
(auntie left, mam right. camera on self timer on upside down glass)
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