Frank Skinner Autobiography (24 page)

On another occasion, in the late eighties, I went to a club in Birmingham, and a singer came on in a blue velvet suit, red patent-leather shoes and a tight curly perm. He went straight into that old Andy Williams classic that goes ‘You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you . . .' Now it's a lovely song, but what you have to remember is the bit in the middle, after the big brass riff, that goes ‘Oh, pretty baby . . .' and so on. Now, that is a big fucking note, and if you want a hope in hell of hitting it, you have to start the song way down deep to give yourself a bit of a run-up. This guy had started high. I mean, too high. He had nowhere to go. All through the verses, there was a terrible tension in the air. I think the crowd, all white hair and bri-nylon, was genuinely concerned for his welfare. You could hear muttered phrases like ‘He'll never make it', ‘He's gonna do himself a mischief', and ‘Someone should stop it before it's too late'.

Finally, we reached the brass riff. The crowd was on the edge of their seats. I actually saw an old woman cover her mouth with both hands, preparing, I presume, to stifle a scream. Only the man in red patent-leather shoes seemed oblivious to the forthcoming carnage. With rhythmic certainty, like the clock in
High Noon
, the last few blasts of brass were sounded, ‘Barum-ba-ba-baaaaaa'. This was it. Suddenly, with no warning, the singer thrust his microphone straight at the terrified crowd, and they, myself included, all bleated out an ‘Oh, pretty baby' that would have sent a sharp pain through the ears of dogs some three streets away. And it wasn't even as if it was a gag. I'm sure the singer always thrust out the mike at that point, but with a sense of ‘I'm a great showman' rather than a sense of ‘Chew on that, you bastards'. Judging by his general demeanour, the thought that he, personally, might not have been able to make that note would never have crossed his mind.

Anyway, Terry and me finally got to the second pub and settled ourselves down near to the tiny stage, with me facing the prospect of my second brown and mild. If truth be told, I would have killed for a dandelion and burdock, but I had a vague sense of ‘rites of passage', and I didn't want to let myself down. I guess there was an audience of about twenty people in the room, which quickly became an audience of about seventeen because three of them got on stage and started playing instruments. Despite the fact that the drummer, a fat bloke in a pink shirt, looked as bored as I'd ever seen anybody look, I was getting excited.

Then the Man in Black appeared and made his way to the stage. As he grasped the microphone, he said, in an accent which suggested he came from the same part of America as Little Beaver, ‘Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.' One woman called ‘Hooray!' and my theory about that catchphrase lay broken and discarded on the empty dance-floor. The band played ‘I Walk the Line'. To my ears, I have to say, he sounded pretty good, and his Roy Orbison was even better. I remember being impressed by the fact that he had put on dark glasses for the Orbison section of the show. It was an early lesson in the importance of attention to detail. The seventeen people clapped and cheered throughout and the woman who had shouted ‘Hooray' did it again when he growled during ‘Pretty Woman'.

After the show, the singer mingled with the crowd, which I thought was a nice gesture but, looking back, was almost certainly an example of someone trying desperately to get laid. Terry called him over at one point and said he had liked the show. ‘He's a bit young, isn't he?' the singer said, looking at me. Ignoring this, Terry said, ‘He's seen Johnny Cash live.' The singer seemed a little dejected by this news. He looked down at the floor and then back at us. ‘I don't know why you brought him here then,' he said, and walked away. This was a lesson even more instructive than the sunglasses: if you meet a big fish in a little pool, never, ever mention the existence of the big pool. It's interesting, isn't it, that at fourteen I'd had my first taste of what it's like to face resentment because, through no fault of my own, I was seen as a representative of a glamorous outside world. I always bring this to mind when I make a guest appearance on Channel Five.

Terry, however, didn't like the singer's attitude. We sat and watched, me on my third pint, Terry on about his seventh, as the big fish danced with a woman who had hair like Harpo Marx. ‘I bet he's never had intercourse in his life,' Terry said, a bit too loudly. I took a boy-sized swig from my glass, nodded briefly, and then looked longingly towards a bottle of Tizer behind the bar. ‘How are you getting on with women?' Terry said to me. I froze. Maybe he'd forgotten I was fourteen, or, more alarmingly, maybe he had an active sex life when he was fourteen and I was about to prove a terrible disappointment.

I was obsessed with girls but there had been no really close encounters at that stage. Some of the girls at school were very saucy. On one occasion, when me and a couple of mates were sitting at the back desk in the physics lab, four of the girls, sitting at the desk directly in front, spent the whole lesson with their dresses pulled right up their backs so we could see their knickers. It was forty minutes of pure joy.

British Bullsnog was far behind me now. We had a game called the Nervous Test. One of us lads would approach a girl, put our hands on her hips and ask, ‘Are you nervous?' The reply was always no. Then the hands would move to the waist, and the question and answer were repeated. Finally, we'd arrive at the breasts, the girl would giggle and push you off. Except on one occasion, when I did the test with a girl called Jayne. When I put my hands on her breasts, she just smiled. We were both thirteen. ‘Are you nervous?' I asked.

‘No,' she said.

‘Oh!' I said. I paused. I'd never got to this stage before and didn't know where the game went from here. What I really needed was a manual. In fact I had two ‘manuals' when I got home, but let's not dwell on that. I looked at Jayne and she, still smiling, looked at me. By now, my hands had been on her breasts for about thirty seconds. My finger joints were starting to stiffen. (You can do the next gag yourselves.) ‘Are you sure you're not nervous?' I asked.

‘No, I'm really not,' she said. And now, finally, I came into my own. But I was wearing dark trousers so no one noticed. No, sorry, look, it's very hard for me (I didn't mean that one) to write about something like this without doing nob-jokes. This, like everything else in the book, is a true story but it's starting to sound like a routine. That might be because a lot of my routines are true as well. However, I'm trying to tell you about Jayne and the nob-jokes are getting in the way. But, a nob-joke to me, as Samuel Johnson said of Shakespeare's compulsion to pun or ‘quibble', is the Cleopatra for which I lose my world and am happy to lose it.

Anyway, I looked at Jayne and she looked at me. By now I had been holding her breasts so long I feared I was starting to restrict their growth. I had to do something. If we stood like this much longer, the smaller kids would start climbing on us. She raised her eyebrows, encouraging me to speak. It worked. ‘And you're definitely not . . .' She shook her head. ‘OK . . . right . . . well, thank you very much.' I released her from my grip and shuffled off. When I looked back, she was still standing there, smiling.

But this kind of stuff would be small beer to Terry and, as far as I could see, SMALL beers were not really his thing. The question was still hanging there. ‘Well, y'know . . .' I began.

‘The thing with women,' proclaimed Terry who, to my great relief, had interrupted me, ‘is that if you're nice to them, they'll treat you like shit.'

‘Yeah,' I muttered, ‘you can say that again.' And, of course, he did. About seven times. He began to reminisce about his youth. He told me that if he turned up for a date and he was on time, he'd nip off for a drink or just walk around the block, so that the girl was facing the disappointment of him not turning up at all. Then, when he showed his face, she'd be really grateful that he'd made it and be putty in his hands. He would arrange to meet on street corners or outside shops to make the wait that bit more unpleasant for them. He would even, he told me, turn up but hide from the girl, have a real good look at the surrounding area, and then go home. The next day he would track her down (we didn't really mix with people who had phones) and ask her what happened. She'd say she was there, Terry would say he was as well, prove it by describing something significant, and then she, unexpectedly freed from the pain of rejection, would be his for the taking. Terry, I should point out, was much better-looking than me. I nodded sagely throughout, and listened to the master. Then, when the brown and mild made me braver, I switched the conversation to football and I was able to join in and contribute my own opinions.

This was the life, sitting in a pub, drinking too much, and philosophising about women and football. I could get a taste for this. All thanks to Johnny Cash.

I had a chat with the publisher today. He said the book is brilliant and anyone who didn't enjoy reading it must be an idiot. No he didn't. I was just trying to put pressure on you. I think he quite likes it so far and he made a few points which I thought I'd share with you.

Firstly, there's more stuff about my dad than my mom. Well, my mom was the loving, selfless, gentle type, and also, she didn't drink, so I guess if she chose to hang out with a loud, beer-guzzling wildman, she must have been OK with him claiming centre-stage most of the time. Mind you, she could be really funny. I was never sure if it was intentional, but she's had me in tears, many a time. Once, I was doing a crossword in the
Daily Mirror
, and reading the clues out loud. One of them was ‘Type of penguin', ten letters. I could see my mom thinking it over. ‘Mmmmm . . .' she said, ‘I can only think of them black and white ‘uns.' I laughed for two days.

Another time, Yung Lung's, the local Chinese takeaway, was robbed by two men. They emptied the till and even made the owner, who was called, unsurprisingly, Yung Lung, empty his pockets. I was reading this story in the
Smethwick Telephone
, and commented on Mr Lung's stupidity, because he unlocked his glass door to let in two men who had stockings over their heads. ‘Well,' said my mom, ‘perhaps he thought they were relatives.'

I suppose my dad was the dominant partner, but my mom hardly handled him with kid gloves. I knew him to have a few minor illnesses in his life – flu, mouth ulcers, athlete's foot – and on each occasion she offered the same diagnosis: ‘That'll be the badness coming out of you.' This, and her accompanying smirk, never failed to wind him up.

Secondly, my publisher is worried I sound too happy with my lot and this might piss some people off. Maybe I've talked too much about money, flashy hotels and premieres. Seems like I learnt nothing from my conversation with the Smethwick Johnny Cash.

Anyway, I apologise, but if I moaned about how terrible it is being a TV funnyman you'd all really hate me. I didn't mean to rub it in about the success bit. Listen, my back hurts from leaning over a computer all day, I have lots of fights with my girlfriend and, age-wise, I'm nearer the grave than the cradle. Now that's just going to have to do, for now. If anything else bad happens to me from now on, it's straight in the book.

Thirdly, it's back to the religion thing. I know I'm trying your patience with this but I'm only following orders. My publisher said he'd like to know how my religion now differs from my religion when I was a kid. Well, I tell you, when I was a kid, I believed in God and Jesus and angels and heaven and, basically, I still do. I believed that if I asked God for something and he thought it would be ultimately good for me to get it, then I would get it, and I still do. And sometimes I did stuff because I was scared that he might give me cancer if I didn't, and now I don't believe that. Although I do believe if I miss Mass on Sundays, I might well lose a BAFTA and the Division One play-offs.

The thing is, I don't get these people who believe in God but who don't go with the Virgin Birth or the resurrection and stuff. If you're God, you can do what you like. Look, I'll tell you what. I wrote some prayers about two years ago. I thought it would be nice to have some to say that were sort of specific to me. I'm going to give you a sample or two, in fact seven. It's a very Biblical number. I'm not going to make any comment on them or try and defend them in any way. They weren't written for publication (Oh, no. Of course not) and they're very short. I suppose they give you a fair idea of what my relationship with God is like. This last sentence sounds very wanky but I'm leaving it in. I bet you never thought you'd be reading Frank Skinner's prayers, and not a nob-joke in sight.

1. Dear Lord. When you were down here doing carpentry and stuff, did you know you were God? Did you always know? Did it dawn on you gradually? Did you have flashes of it and did you ever think, ‘Whoah! I'm one of them mad blokes who thinks he's God'? You don't have to tell me. It's just that market-traders are all very hard and, when you overturned their stalls, I wondered if you had the old lightning-bolt up your sleeve. And if a very small, human-being bit of you, which hadn't really mingled with your God-bit, was thinking, ‘Just you try it, Sunshine.'

2. Dear Lord. If the priest occasionally stopped, mid-Mass, and said ‘Any questions?' would anyone have the nerve? Would I? ‘Erm . . . yes Father. Should we sympathise with Judas because he was a necessary vessel of betrayal? Without him, Jesus would not have been taken and no one would have died for our sins. In a way, Judas died for our sins as well. Maybe we should celebrate his birthday. Didn't Christ need Judas? Wasn't it a kiss of collaboration?'

‘No. Any other questions?'