Getting The Needle
Everyone aware of my eternal scepticism knows that, compared to me, Doubting Thomas was a dead-ringer for the protagonist of a Neil Diamond song (en passant, and by the bye, Bette –the mother of Mike Nesmith,member of pop group The Monkees that back in the 60s had a hit with the aforesaid Neil Diamond song ” I’m A Believer ” – was the woman who invented Liquid Paper which, like the German Tipp-Ex, was a correction fluid used for rectifying typos: a brilliant invention blessed by countless typewriter users, though it don’t’arf make your computer screen smeary: NO ! NO ! don’t try it, Cosher Bailey only joking !).
When a friend told me he was going to Donaueschingen to see his acupuncturist and invited me to go with him, adding that I too could cop the treatment on his wife’s health insurance, I thought:why not? Acupunture was not summat I’d tried, nor even been interested in; it hovered above me “load-of-old-toffee” file – in which I’d shoved all that guff about reiki, colour therapy, the Bermuda Triangle, all the so-called esoteric codswallop which gets bandied about in certain circles – but hadn’t yet been deposited within. I reckoned it’d be a pleasant manner in which to waste time; a trip through some beautiful scenery, and might turn out a bit of a giggle.
Over many years, I’ve driven along countless thousands of miles of Autobahn and/or Motorway, and never had the slightest problem. Then one dreadful day, as we drove to a gig, quite suddenly, unexpectedly, without hint of prior warning, an attack of the galloping heebie-jeebies assaulted me: cold sweat broke out on me loaf, dripped down me neck, covered me bod; damp palms gripped the driving wheel; my heart began leaping about inside me in an attempt to burst through me ribcage, fear…nay…Terror overwhelmed me and, shaking like the proverbial, I waited for the next Exit, pulled off onto a country road, stopped at its side, and tried to explain to a startled, concerned, Shirley what had happened. I drove the country route for a few kilometres, with no re-occurrence of the “attack” then pulled back onto the Autobahn. About ten minutes later, then old galloping heebie-jeebies struck again. I remained on the country road till we reached our destination.
This pattern repeated itself everytime we set off somewhere; a few minutes, usually ten or twenty, along the BAB, and the galloping nasties struck. It became nightmareish. Finally I gave up using the sodding Autobahn altogether, travelling country routes only, every journey taking at least twice as long as it should have – it was a right bleeding drag, believe me, but I was powerless. Now and again I’d have a bash at the Autobahn, but always ended up a pool of trembling sweat.
Then I went with my mate to his acupuncturist!
We left his house, and all was well until he turned onto the BAB, then after some fifteen minutes or so the nasties paid their (now expected) return visit. Although dripping with cold sweat, and palpitating like a good ‘un, I simply couldn’t raise the moxy to inform the driver of my predicament, just kept a tight sphincter, and babbled a stream of disjointed, over-excited, meaningless sentences (yeah, okay, I’m aware some people reckon that’s par) and longed for a side road. Eventually, to my relief, we turned off the Aurobahn and finished the journey cross country.
The acupuncturist stuck needles in my friend (who promptly fell into a snoring sleep) then told me to strip down to me underpants, and lie on the bed/massage table. He asked me what my problem was, I’d really only gone along for the ride, but thought I may as well tell him of my Autobahn phobia. He took the news calmly, assured me I wasn’t alone with this trouble, however didn’t hasten to assure me he could cure me of it. He dangled a pendulum on a length of thread and moved it above the length of the outstretched me. ‘Ullo, ‘ullo, I thought, eyes down look in for the hocus-pocus twaddle.
He didn’t refer to my phobia again, just put down the pendulum, began to stick needles into selected parts of my hands, wrists, and legs. “I’ll be back in half an hour, just relax, and sleep if you want. ” he said
I lay there, not sleeping, just keeping very, very still (I discovered early on that moving led to tingly, rather painful, electric-shock like feelings – apparently indicating that the needles were acting in an efficacious manner) and thinking deep, profound thoughts. Learning to lie still and relaxed has proved useful – I can lay on a bench, table, or floor backstage and doze off, no bovver. A well known Blues singer who I introduced to Shirl said to her: “First time I saw your old man, he was stretched out, unmoving, on a table in the dressing room. I thought he was dead.” He has expanded this tale, I overheard him telling someone about the first time he met me: “…he was dressed in a black suit, arms folded across his chest, I thought he’d snuffed it.” Blatant lies (I’ve never had a black suit) but amusing myth-making.
After he’d woken and de-needled Hans, he de-needled me. We shook hands, said turrah, and off. Back through picturesque countryside, onto the Autobahn, and…wham! the old galloping heebie-jeebies came rorting in. Fat lot of bloody good that acupuncture did me, I thought crossly, mixing irritation with sweat and palpitations. Nonetheless I agreed to accompany my friend the following week, going through the same procedure (other than the daft pendulum swinging) and getting the same negative results: the “load-of-old-toffee” file was obviously about to receive an addition.
I dunno how man visits we’d made to Donaueschingen, three or four I think, when one day, on the way to a gig, I discovered that to my surprise, instead of travelling along a country road, I was bopping down the Autobahn – and feeling fine ! Not a sign of the nasties, this disturbed me a wee bittie as I knew I ought to be feeling rotten. I tried to encourage me jam-tart to hop around, and the cold sweats to break out, but nothing happened! I was driving along, perfectly happy, as if ‘twere ever thus; as if I’d never suffered Autobahn phobia, and the galloping heebie-jeebies. I had to acknowledge – a bit reluctantly I will confess – that the visits had not been in vain; without the acupuncturist even suggesting he could cure me, or ever mentioning my problem again, he’d done the trick. No longer was I petrified of driving down the Autobahn.
I was only bloody cured, wasn’t I?
This happened about 20 or so years ago and since tn the ‘orrible nasties have, thankgord, kept their distance. When I was stricken with a throat ailment which left me unable to speak, I was sent to a throat specialist who used acupuncture. And Vince, having tried several unsuccessful times to quit the Indian Weed, went to an acupuncturist, and stopped smoking a coupler days later. No surprise then that me “load-of-old-toffee” file certainly doesn’t contain a folder marked “Acupuncture”, though it does hold plenty of suspect esoteric stuff: healing crystals, feng-shui,mysterious crop circles, cosmic timetables and the like. I’m still to be convinced that any of this airy-fairy tripe will improve my life, although I do know folk who are sold on one or more (usually more, I presume once you’ve succumbed to the nonsense there’s no escape) of these, to me, highly dubious disciplines.
An Irish woman came backstage at a gig, invited me over to her gaff after the show. She turned out to be very nice, but a wee bit nutty – into the old esoteric claptrap, though she didn’t’arf give a smashing massage. She told me anytime I was around the area, on the way to another town, I should drop in. I always like to break my journey after two or three hours, and as she lived about two and a half hours away from home, on a route which I frequently travelled, this was welcome news. I became a fairly frequent visitor, calling on her for tea and craic whenever I was passing close to her town. She was, as I said, very nice but a wee bit nutty: told me about a house she’d lived in on the Irish coast which was haunted, already! She actually believed this, too, she honestly did, no spoofing! The yarn concerned some farming geezer who topped himself in the room next to the one she used as a bedroom, and his ghost was a right bugger for moaning and groaning and carrying on as spectres are intended (possibly rattling chains, I know not) every night until, thoroughly pissed off at lack of sleep, she finally confronted, and mollified him by promising not to initiate any ghost-bustery, as long as he’d knock off the noisy spookery – shades (no pun intended) of Canterville. Well, she is Irish, and so was our Oscar; though me Uncle Fred wasn’t, he was a Londoner, who swore blind that when he was visiting the snakeless isle, he’d spotted the little people, same as Darby O’Gill (though he never mentioned crossing wits with Brian of Knockasheega, king of the Leprechauns). Some unkind folk might ascertain this was influenced by the intake of too much Guinness and Bushmills’, but Uncle Fred wasn’t into the River Ouse bit, so we knew that wasn’t the cause. Whatever, no matter how much disbelief and ridicule was heaped upon him, he stuck to his story – he’d seen the “Little People” and that was that. Even his fierce wife, my rough, tough Auntie Rose, who could have taken on the All Blacks single-handed and duffed ‘em, was unable to make him change his tale, he’d seen the “Little People “… basta!
He was also a stubborn sod, despite all the evidence I provided, he refused to concede there was such an instrument as a valve trombone: “Rubbish, doesn’t exist!” I played him recordings of Bob Brookmeyer, showed him photographs, but he remained unmoved: “No such thing, it’s a big trumpet, it’s not a trombone.” Admittedly I do revel in an argument (I emerged from the womb arguing the toss, and have never ceased. My mum said that when I was but a tiny toddler, she once grew annoyed and said: “Colin, don’t argue.” To which I allegedly replied: “Don’t you argme.” So, whenever Auntie Rose and Uncle Fred paid a visit, it wasn’t long before I’d worked the conversation round to valve trombones, and Leprechauns, and away we went.
One day I rang my Irish friend’s bell, and when she opened the door was surprised to see her right leg encased in plaster. She’d slipped, fallen, and broken it. “And I so wanted to come to your concert tonight.”
“Do me a favour” I replied, it’s about two hours away from here.”
“I know, but I haven’t seen you on stage for ages, so I wanted to come tonight.”
“Never mind, there’ll be other times.”
We drank several cups of strong tea, had a long rabbit on various subjects, and then I took off.
That night I walked on stage and was disconcerted to spy, in the front row, propped on a stool, a long, white object which I recognised as a plastered Irish leg. She’d hired a Sandy, the told the driver to stay for the entire gig so’s he could drive her home afterwards. Blimey, all told it was about a four hour Taxi run, gordnose what it could have cost her.
Like I said: very nice, but a wee bit nutty.
