Larry put your shirt on..Sal Paradise

SAL PARADISE..SWITCH ME OFF

The Tom Chronicles

The Tom Chronicles

How can I write a short article about a guy who burned like a shooting star across my universe for 26 years?

I first met him on the Greek island of Ios in 1976. I was living in a cave behind the beach trying to ‘brown rice’ it a bit, and as in a long series of me trying to be God in my life, I was about to strike out again.

I was sitting in the local café, nursing flu, when suddenly in this guy bursts in and slid to his knees in front of the waitress and cried ‘LAYLA, YOU GOT ME ON MY KNEES‘ (she was of the same name)

He got his beer and cast his eyes around, only to spot this pallid white man in the corner. He came and sat down uninvited, held out his huge hand

”Tom”..we shook

“Larry”

He banged on in his normal way till I finally said

“Look mate, I reckon we might get along some day, but I feel like shit, so give it a while and visit me, second cave up the mountain”

Two days later, I returned from a nice walk up and down the mountain, feeling a whole lot better. I heard music from my cave. It was Tom, playing my guitar and the fuckin cheek of it, wearing my best shirt.. Ah I loved the guy from that moment on.

We roamed the bars and towns of the island, seeking out fun and women, my brown rice days a long memory away.

He looked like a cross between that American blond guitarist from Thin Lizzy, Scott something?, David Bowie and a middle-weight wrestler, a babe magnet anyway. I wasn’t too bad with the chicks myself in those days but I didn’t have to contribute a thing around that mf , he had it all.

We eventually teamed up with an Italian guy, Paulo, who seemed to be rather well off, and he eventually explained why. “I was in this bar in New York and I see this wallet beside me, I grabbed and took into the bathroom, 20,000 dollars in the motherfucker”

“Crikey, how long ago was that” says I

“Three fuckin days ago, whadya thinkI’m doing here?”

Paulo wandered off to spend his wealth elsewhere while me and Tom soldiered on.

Some of the bars in Ios were breath-taking in 1976, sunsets to die for, Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark side of the Moon’ loadsa funky gals, and me and this maniac on the loose. We sought similar souls, as you do, ie hunting in pairs.  There were were two French/Canadians girls from Montreal, and the bastard never let me forget this , but I discovered one of them as I staggered into the girls bathroom by mistake..”oops sorry”. hmm, thinks I..best wait till she’s not on the toilet. Ah, the four of had a brill old time.

So me and the boy took our friendship back to London and did similar stuff. My one lasting memory of our days there, was at his parents house in Harrow. We’d both been down the pub and came back to his folks place to watch TV. There was this pop show called ‘So it Goes’ and we both witnessed the Sex Pistols for the first time. We collapsed with laughter, but in the morning we both agreed… that was something else.

So I went to Savilles records in Enfield Town the next Monday morning and bought three copies. EMI versions,  (priceless today and I aint got one of them, I mean how can you instinctively buy THREE copys of a future antique and not keep ONE..story of my life) one went to a mate’s juke-box, one I gave to a girlfiend and the other went to Tom, who’s one regret in subsequently burning his parent’s house down was losing that record, plus a signed photo from Bert Weedon I’d got him. But that’s another story.

Still Ios, Greece. 1976, hot and summer…

A man sits astride a beast of burden. Flat brimmed cowboy hat. Solemn. Seeming for all the world like Clint Eastward, setting to right some wrongs. He squints into the sun and decides to head west. He spurs on his beast, no response. Comon, gee-up boy. Still no reply.

Problem was it wasn’t his fuckin donkey, he’d just decided to nick it two minutes before, and unless I specifically state otherwise in these tales, Tom is half-pissed and his mate Larry is silently crying with mirth behind his sunglasses within video range (wish I’d had one.)

The donkey owner comes rushing out uttering all kinds of Greek oaths and threats. Clint gives him the evil eye, cool as fuck.

“Endaxi, pende letta” (OK five minutes) says the owner.

Clint dismounts and rejoins his mate in the bar.

“Gotta let these people know they’re alive” says Tom.

Next Day

9 am..breakfast in the town square..

“Larry, you are a fuckin wanker, he told me for the first of many times”.

Suddenly he noticed a guy who’d upset him the day before, and I was off the hook. Ever see a real fight? It’s over in seconds. Ever see a Hollywood fight? Yeah it goes on a bit. This brawl lasted for an hour at least. I was frightened at first but it went on so long that I actually got comfortable with it, and was actually ordering breakfast and even considering starting an open university course.

He so loved brawling. I had to put up with many wrestling matches with him myself in time,  until I started to win as the booze weakened him in later years. Ah that’s a later episode.

12 am at the port

We are saying goodbye to the French/Canadian girls as they get their boat back to Athens. Tom was rather glad to leave his girl, Marie. But I was kinda sad to be leaving Leanne, and as I was kissing her good-bye, the police started to hustle us cos kissing was not allowed in public places at that time.

Now in those days you got a little boat taking you out to a big boat, no real jettys, and the little boat was already leaving, so Tom grabbed Leanne and jumped a full two yards with her in his grasp and onto the little boat, plonked her down beside her mate, leapt over the side and swam back.

“It’s all for the best” he explained.

I’ve heard it called an ‘enabler’ like some people need someone who will accept your actions and still love you, guess I was that guy.

So we’re back in the UK and Tom met my parents for the first time. Check, him Irish, formal folks, me English, liberal folks..plus my Dad had a bar in the house. This was not the only reason, but Tom came to adore my parents, they were just so cool.

“You are the only mate I’ve got who’s parents I prefer to the mate” he once said, and probably called me a wanker again.

Ah but such love from a mate I have rarely known, can’t wait to tell you all rest.

Paros  Greece 1990

A bit of a gap, ah these aint in a chronological order, just as they occur to me.

He lived in Athens at the time with his long suffering Mrs, and I phoned to tell him where I was, only a 4 hr boat ride away. He told his wife he was going out for cigarettes and jumped onto the first ferry. She told me once that she liked me, but I always brought out the madness in him, not that it was ever that far from the surface anyway. Whenever I passed through Greece as I did a lot it those days, I’d ask him for Rena’s reaction to my arrival.

”Not 100%” was his stock answer.

I’d arranged to meet him at the Paros quayside but I got kinda delayed and missed his arrival. Where the hell was he? Ah well I’ll go back to my hotel, see if he went there. Suddenly the proprietor comes rushing out to meet me in panic.

“Mr, your brother, him in my fridge!”

“What?”

We went into the hotel café and sho nuff there was Tom, beer in hand, squashed in the counter display thingy nestling up to a few lobsters, aubergines and all.

“I refuse to come out until that Berridge personally apolosises for his non-appearance at the quayside.”

“What he say?” said the boss

Now this hotel owner was an ass-hole, I’d managed to pick the only hotel on this island of debauchery where you couldn’t bring women back, and to make matters worse the old fucker had made a pass at me. Tom winked at me and I knew he’d sussed out the guy, and had come to the same conclusion.

“Well this could be very tricky,” I said, stringing out this delicious moment, “you see,..my brother…he is very unstable, you know, mental hospital, crazy. We must be VERY careful, what we say and do.”

 A lobster slid along the floor and skidded to a halt at our feet.

“And fuckin stay out” shouted Tom.

Ah, we milked it for a while till we got bored, and the guy was about to phone the cops anyway, and moved into much more suitable accommodation.

We roamed the hills howling and the moon, and grieving over my Dad’s recent passing. He even once even said he was so sorry about my Mum’s death (alive and well in Hertfordshire)!! I mean how drunk and confused can a guy get?

The years and the beers had taken their toll, he was skinny and pale. And he kept asking me where were the girls I’d promised him and I kept telling him. He wasn’t listening. We did meet them eventually. At 38 I could still just about get the young crackers at a pinch but his lady-killer days were well behind him. They thought he was a heroin addict, and though we didn’t exactly get anywhere with them they kept us around cos they wanted to just chill, and Tom scared off any unwanted attention

(and he was still very funny, the body gone a bit, but the wit remained, at least then)

We were sitting at an outdoor café one afternoon, when Tom suddenly leans over to this studious looking American eating his lunch alone. Tom had these bright blue Paul Newman eyes and they always narrowed to a slit when he was plotting mischief. I knew he was up to something.

“Excuse me mate, but you are probably wondering why my mate Berridge here never takes his sunglasses off”

“Well it’s sunny” says the guy looking a bit startled

“No you don’t understand, my old son, my mate Berridge here never takes them off, even in bed, whadya think of that eh?”

The guy is looking around for a waiter, clearly wishing to leave asap.

“so I’m gonna tell you why my mate, that wanker sitting there, never takes them off.

They are not in fact sunglasses. They are solar panels connected to a pace-maker in his heart and if he takes them off for just one second, JUST ONE FUCKIN SECOND, you understand.. he’s dead, brown bread… And that’s my mate Berridge for ya, look at him, fuckin poser.”

After the guy had left I asked him why he did that to people. Mind you I was no help cos I was crying with laughter behind my sunglasses whilst trying to keep a straight face and he fuckin knew it.

“ah just trying to cheer people up”

Athens 1980

“I like to see the young people enjoying themselves Berridge. I often say that and I don’t know why….”

Tom was off on another of his abstract rants as we sat in a trendy Athens street café. Parked just in front of us was his Kawasaki 950. A beast of a dream-bike in anyone’s book. His pride and joy. Tom wore shades, a leather cowboy hat, fringed leather jacket, black boots and jeans. He was in his prime and looking like any rock-star should.

The tables outside the café were filling up with some very desirable looking women, not that we noticed. And as usual he’d had enough to drink.

He stood up, cast an eye over to the women, and slowly ambled towards the bike. I knew exactly what was on that mf’s mind. That’s right, he wanted to let them know who’s machine it was.

He threw his right leg over the beast like any cowboy about to save the world. Problem was he did it a bit too vigorously and the momentum took him tumbling over the other side with the bike crashing on top of him.

Naturally, all the girls were tittering away.

Never one to panic, he majestically disentangled himself, re-erected the bike, retrieved his shades from the tarmac, adjusted his hat and slowly sauntered back to our table. He didn’t look at anyone, especially me. He sat down, took a long pull at his beer and said, as he stared into the sunset..

“D’you think anyone noticed, Berridge?”

His main line of work was as a painter and decorator, (though when meeting new women the ‘decorator’ bit was left off) and he took me on as a side-kick just to help me out. I was fuckin useless but he never once complained, just tidied up after my blunders like a solemn and loving brother-monk.

One Sunday, he took me with him to price up a job in a posh Athenian suburb, and after having fallen headlong down the marble stairs and with the client fussing around his bleeding body with band-aids etc..he turned to me and said..

“Answer me one thing Berridge, does a man have a right to have a drink on his day off or what?” and to the client “you wouldn’t have a beer by any chance?”

So we started the job and it wasn’t long before Tom told me he’d completely under-priced it, and that he’d found a better one. So his plan was this, I’d turn up the next day, a Friday, and say that Tom was indisposed, get as much money as I could, and then we’d do a runner. Hmm..well OK..we’d done some bloody hard work and we were broke.

Six months later on my next visit, Tom reminded me of this incident..

“Oh yeah, what happened”

“Fundamentally, I blamed it all on you Berridge, In the home-improvement circles of Nea Halkidona you are a dead man. You will never work there again.”

“You drink too quickly Berridge” he once told me in a bar “Yeah, well I know when to eat and sleep” was my defensive reply.

Athens 1986

Rena had finally left him, leaving one of her houses for him to survive in, but with no more money. He told me “Berridge, your timing is terrible, this time last week I was flush..and NOW you arrive”  (he’d met me at the airport that afternoon, waving a huge card with my name scrawled on it, crying ”RENT A WRECK..MR BERRIDGE!!”)

Problem was I was none too flush either.

So we were both broke in a nice house.

In Greece you get these kiosks on the corner selling everything from newspapers to drinks. Tom was a regular visitor, and in a last attempt to host me proper he went down to the kiosk. He came back with no beer saying to me “I fought the kiosk and the kiosk won” and “why don’t you give it a try Berridge, they don’t know you”

Ah it was hopeless.

So I did something he would never forget for as long as he lived.

Every day for the next two weeks I went down and busked at the local train-station. It made enough to feed us sardines and bread, some cigs and beer..nothing fancy but enough.

It was an interesting experience though, like, the people..

Best contributors were women with young children, secondly were sympathetic elderlies, third were the student types who dug the tunes, well, there were no more except for two horrible sub-categories, young men who were so far up their arses with pose that they didn’t see me, and worst of all, businessmen who actually looked into my stash to see if it was a viable option..needless to say no dough from either .

But it was at one point during these busks that I had a huge experience (and I diversify into another story but please bear with me)

Two months earlier, I had been hosting a centre-fold model in my very own penthouse in London. An old mate phoned just as I was getting rather involved with her. “How ya doing?” says Bill “Well great“ says I, looking down at this lovely and around at the recording studio, “but could I phone you back tomorrow mate?”

Ah… the place was repossessed, the girl vanished, and the car, and the expensive habits…a memory.

But my mind flashed back to this moment just as some pompous Greek twat of a businessman walked by, looking at me like I was a piece of shit.

I threw down the guitar and sprawled on my back on the pavement, crying with laughter at the irony of it all, ah man, I was so happy..cos I wasn’t trying to support that stupid and vacuous previous life-style anymore, I was free, and simply trying to support me old mate. Old ladies milled around like..is he OK?..yeah I was. Never better.

Next up was Pasca, the Greek Easter, a huge deal over there. We busked together in the street as a massive throng of bodies passed by in the carnival atmosphere (he played blues harp and seemed more able to by then, must have been all the sardines.)

Yep we were making a fortune, working class area, the most generous peeps in the world naturally.

But Tom just nipped off with all the profits to get more booze at every opportunity, until my side-man was lying comatose in the gutter.

“Tom, I am NOT going to leave you sleeping in the gutter!”

“I am not sleeping, I am socially relaxed.”

Dino

I’ve had two incredible dogs in my life, both cleverer than half the humans wandering around this planet and this story is about one of them.

Dino was actually my boss’s dog. I did eight seasons in Corfu, Greece as an entertainer, musician, stand-up comic and general trouble-shooter when the electric generator gave up.  This was April to Oct.. 1989 -1995. so it was for four years in total that I had the privilege of his company

Dino kinda adopted me cos I was feeding him better than the boss and he swiftly moved into my apartment. Before I knew it we were a locally acknowledged item. Where Sal goes, there goes Dino, they would say. And he was the kind of animal that you could take anywhere, such was his character.

Dino was in fact an American thoroughbred poodle brought back from the states by my boss, though through being totally un-primped, his black coat was more Bob Marley than dog show.

I remember removing all these barbs and shit from his coat and bathing him in my tub, and though he hated all of it, I sensed he just knew it was all for the best, and he would always brave it out.

No matter where I went, shops, work, disco, there he was as happy as could be.

Mind you he would not suffer fools. Once, this really aggressive dog was giving it large around him as we were out on a nice walk. He looked at me as if to say,

“Won’t be a second, Sal” and went and tore the mf apart.

He ran back to and looked up at me with his twinkling eyes..

“OK, shall we continue with our perambulations now” he seemed to say, tail wagging again.

I always got the impression that, regulations permitting, you could pop him in a back-pack with his little head sticking out of the top and take him anywhere in the world and he would have had more manners than most.

Also, check this..other animals loved him too…birds, rats, whoever..he was completely approachable, like a canine guru..and the cats loved him. They used to rub up against him all the time…and one day (I knew what was going through his mind by then) he decided to give this cat one, seeing as she was being so friendly. He mounted her..and got a bite and a scratch for his trouble..OK ..lesson learned..I was cracking up laughing.

During my 6^th season there, Dino disappeared for the longest time. He eventually limped back to me in a complete mess. Word was he’d gone crazy over a bitch and had lost it completely and gotten hit by a car in the process. I patched him up and fed him about twice his body weight in dog food. He slept so deep. Then at midnight my mate burst into my apartment, drunk, I’m going..”Drew, shut the fuckin door”, but Dino was gone again….can’t hold a good man down…

We decided to re-home him at my bosses other gig, way out in the country and especially away from this madness that would surely kill him.

Last time I saw Dino was when I arrived for my last season there. I was told he had gone virtually blind over the winter. I sought him out and crept up. I was ten yards from him. 

“Dino” I whispered..

He sniffed a bit.

Then he ran like mad and took a blind leap of faith and up into my arms.

Hooker Dilemma

A young mate recently visited me in the Algarve. Within two days he’d been with a hooker.
“Ah, you’d have done the same at my age” he said.
“Actually, and I’m not judging you, but I’m kinda too religious to consider all that stuff, and on a sexual level I couldn’t be attracted to a woman who fundamentally didn’t particularly want me”
But I actually did sleep with one once, and h...ere’s the story.
Thailand 1992
Had some brill Thai mates there, and at this party on Chaweng beach, I made the once in a lifetime mistake of drinking Mekon whiskey. I wont bore you with details but it is evil personified and apparently laced with embalming fluid.
So at the end of the night ‘Lolen’ was incapable, so my Thai mates bunged me into a taxi with a hooker friend of theirs, telling the girl that I’d look after her if she looked after me (I uncovered these details in retrospect and gave them hell, nah, I loved them really, they were always playing tricks on me)
Next morning I woke up with a hang-over I could have donated to medical science, and suddenly.. WTF!!! Clearly this was a prostitute in my bed..”OK, end of story” I’m thinking..”I’m dead, aids..slow and painful demise” and all.
Then I noticed that I was fully clothed, as was she.
My movement woke her. I didn’t hesitate to ask, such was my paranoia.
“Good morning nice to meet you, did we have sex last night?”
“No Lolen, you so dlunk, you wan now?”
Relief..
”No, I’m fine actually..um..”..
So the next plan in my haze was to get rid of her without hurting her feelings.
Ah,.. an idea entered my fevered brain...the guy in the bungalow next door was a Dutch flying instructor, who’s one and only reason for being in Thailand was whoring. His catch-phrase was “she very good looking”..He was a silly old fucker actually and got ripped off all over the place by the local girls, but I was in dire need of his expertise.
So I knocked on his door and asked him how I could respectfully dismiss my new playmate.
We walked out onto his balcony, by which time the Thai girl had wandered onto my balcony. He looked over at her.
“Why you not fuck her, she very good looking”
“Listen mate, if you could just answer my original question, I would be eternally grateful.”
“Well if you really don’t want her, give her a fair amount of money and say it’s for a taxi”
“How much would that be?”
He told me.
“Thank you very much mate, brill, you’ve been very helpful.” I shook his hand.
I went back and gave her the money.
“What this?” she said
“For taxi” said I
She digested this info at length and finally said
“You give me money for nothing”
“No, I give you money for taxi”
Another pregnant pause as she mulled this over..
“You good man Lolen, I clean your house.”
And with that she went to the broom cupboard and got out all the cleaning stuff etc.
And here’s the thing, she started singing at her work. Now Thai women’s voices are about an octave above those of western women to my ears. In other words she woke up the whole flippin neighbourhood, not to mention jacking up the pain in my head by several notches.
My landlord came by and gave me the thumbs-up, like, ‘good Thai woman Lolen’
Aw hell, I gave up…let people think what they want…all I wanted was to have many quiet moments alone with my hang-over.
So I staggered along the beach and collapsed in the first place I could find where there were no people.
She was gone when I got back, bless her, and the place was in far better shape than it had been for ages.See More

The Only Buddhist Nun in Greece

OK, we’re talking 1991.
I was out on the Greek island of Paros, looking for a gig or an adventure. Walking through the town square one day I saw this thing on the town notice board “Buddhist nun requires volunteers to help build a centre in Butterfly Valley” Well flippin hell, I had only recently been in a Buddhist Monastery in England where they’d sorted out my woes to great effect, and I had a vision of me going up to that place and giving her the biggest hug ever. Dunno why I thought that, cos you don’t normally hug nuns on the whole, but as it went she was a Kiwi Tibetan nun.
What a gal, ex political activist, karate black belt, had her own radio spot back in NZ. And she was also the only nun I ever heard swear.  “Some rich devotee left this place to the Dalai Lama and he sent me out here to build it up in the middle of the bush with only two fuckin cats for company”
But tough as she was, a bloke who spoke Greek and could hump a bag of cement was a great asset to her cos at the end of the day she was a yellow and maroon bedecked woman in a far off place.
And the beauty of it, I had her to myself for two weeks. And her personal late night dhamma talks were amazing, she had this kinda ‘stream of consciousness’ hypnotic style.
(By the way I was having an affair with a mad Greek woman back in town at the time, and I would nip back there occasionally as you do, and take in a football match and sink a few while I was at it, so I was pretty happy with life. Problem was this Greek gal was on the fringe of the local mafia and one or two of them had taken umbrage to laughing boy getting straight off the ferry and into her bed.)
But back to the nun. She had contacted all of her global allies to come and help her build the centre, but this involved transport from the centre to the port so she could meet them from the ferry. So here’s where I came in. I asked the local farmer to take us there and he said I’d have to work in his field all day to pay for the ride. Fuckin hell, bales of hay or what? Ow ar
The first one we picked up was a Brazilian Shiatsu masseuse from New York. What a gal again, she would walk into any space and pick up the vibe. Eventually she worked her magic on me and I swear she got me so relaxed that she left the room and I didn’t even notice.
The next one was a yoga teacher, American, flying in from India. This guy was the best teacher of yoga I have ever known and he taught me a personal programme that makes me feel a million dollars to this day, when I can be bothered, (I am a lazy f….er.)
But it was at the port café, waiting for this guy that I had a ‘moment’.
On one side of the café was the local mafia, clearly waiting for an opportunity to show me their feelings. However I was drinking tea with the most unusual and esoteric being that anyone had seen in those parts ever. I was protected, as I had protected her.
I looked up into the clear Greek sky and said ‘God, why are you doing this to me?’

My Dad vs Paul Rodgers

OK nostalgia night, but I think you’ll dig this story. In 1967 or so we got a gig supporting Free, the number one band in the UK at the time, we were still at school, 15 yrs old, but you could do that in those days, no rules..
 It was at a place called ‘The Barn’ in the middle of nowhere, (herts?) our dads had to drive us there in the boy scout van..After they left us there to set up and went to the pub..we just pissed around with the van driving it all over the place and sitting on the roof etc
So at the gig we got up and did our thing..we were crap but I remember two naked women got up and danced on stage with us, like I said no rules, Then came the main act but we had to carry our gear back thru the audience to get it out, and the lights had gone down, anticipation..
Then one of my mates said that we’d left a plugboard on the stage. My Dad overheard..’Was that the plugboard that you’d saved up to buy?’..’Yeah Dad but leave it, Free are about to play to 1000 people’ ‘fuck that’ he said and with a huge rubber torch he pushed his way thru 1000 hippies and climbed onto the stage.
Paul Rodgers looked amazed but Dad was into his stride. I saw him foraging around the back of the Marshall stacks. Then to my eternal embarrassment he emerged with the plugboard, nudged Paul Rodgers aside and said into the mic ‘Got it son!’..and to the band ‘OK.. carry on lads’ Love you Dad RIP