The Place We All Go To

The place I am now has fantastic skies, looking West towards Camden.

I heard today about the death of DJ Tommy Vance – real name Rick West – here’s a nice biography of him with some soundfiles, my favourite of which is called 31 Days In May. Go listen. What a fabulous voice he had. Tommy was “first English D.J. to broadcast on a USA radio station” so he claimed. With a voice like that, who would disagree?

I sit staring at the gorgeous site of sun fanning golden fingers through clouds 3 miles from here, “huge girders of light arriving from space”, IG called them. Tommy has just left the building. Tommy’s 21 grams have vanished. He has breathed his last. He is an ex-Tommy.

Why is the parrot sketch so funny? Because it is about death. Taboo subjects always heighten our tension and make easy meat of us for clever carnivorous comedians.
Why tension? The unknown. Death is the limit. Of understanding. Of consciousness. Of Us. Or is it? We just don’t know. This is the Big One. The big