I used to regard myself as bohemian, when sat in the back of a silly little bar, in the forgotten London suburb of West Pealings, listening to my pal Bob the Bluesman.
I’ve always been his biggest fan, a ‘nerd’, if you will, in my love of the music which came from the overtly racist part of North America.
Being autistic – in a way, I, like them have something
in common with oppressed people.
A self-indulgent claim, which prompted a suitable comment from Bob, who described me as a ‘pretentious twit’.
I pleaded, ‘But I’m bohemian!’
But I forgave him, for I doubt he’d heard of somewhere called Bohemia.
He loves to play songs of the Mississippi Delta,
even a bit of jazz from New Orleans,
watched by Dorothea.
She foot-taps along, cheerfully admitting it’s all a bit foreign,
as she used to be strictly operatic.
But was intrigued, when I told her Bob was once ranked high on the list of talk-show hosts,
with his earthy tales and brilliant guitar chords.
He’d also inspired a legion of ageing rockers, though I’ve always regarded them as frauds.
They never came to see Bob, in that silly little bar.
He even, for a while, entertained a new generation in his band Goodtime Girls,
when blues, like folk, was considered ‘cool’.
His lead vocalist was a singer who’d once appeared in a US TV sitcom, Bustling Broads.
A name that alas, is no longer politically correct, classed with humour considered puerile.
That’s right, I refer to Bob’s lady friend, Dorothea, who loved to swirl
around the stage in an enveloping dress, emulating that folk music icon Maddy Prior,
who sings about maidens dancing around village maypoles.
Well, Americans love all that stuff.
It’s rumoured that her and Bob once did that in a hippy commune, but in the buff.
The growling guitarist well remembers the day he rescued ‘Dot’, as he calls her,
from a cult, which had brainwashed her into leaving the ‘sinful’ environs of Hollywood.
Touring the US Bible Belt, he saw her being chased by an all-white posse,
so sent it the wrong way into a swampy wood.
Dot is a great cook, so they got on famously, camping out under the stars to evade pursuit,
on a vast prairie.
She fell in love with the blues exponent, as he listened to her harrowing life-story,
serenaded by Beethoven’s Fifth Movement, and was pleased when Bob grudgingly
acknowledged that classical music, like the blues, could move his soul.
Hers was a harrowing tale, which included meeting a future king.
She couldn’t say which one, but he secretly feared it was a notorious royal.
Oh, I wish I could sing like Bob and strengthen my claim to be Bohemian.
For what is Bohemia?
Well, it’s not in this silly little bar, watching the Bluesman,
a treat now denied to I and his faithful regulars.
For I’m sad to say that he and Dorothea are fleeing once again.
This time not from a cult in the Bible Belt, but from those ageing rock stars.
According to a legal eagle, my remark in the stanza above hurt their feelings.
Some mischievous creep leaked it on Facebook, spelling the death knell of
that silly little bar in the forgotten suburb of West Pealings.
Now I’ve nowhere to go to hear the music I love, for that authentic musical
haven has been transformed into a trendy sports pub.
But I have been recruited to tell the story of operatic Dot and Bob.
For, together with this odd duo, I’m now a fully-fledged citizen
of – guess where? – Bohemia.
If you’re wondering where it is, it’s somewhere up the long, dusty,
well-trod road from the Mississippi Delta.
