Taooftash - July 2008, a birthday without Tash.

Sydney looked to be quite a positive night, a better and more complete gathering than happened in London, which to be honest was more of a down. It rained all day, in almost monsoon proportions it has to be said and the traffic was, as happens occasionally in the capital, total gridlock. It took Karen two hours to get from Canary Wharf to Liverpool street station, a trip that usually takes twenty minutes. I have to be honest and say that it would have been nice to see more people, not for me, I had my support in place. Moreover the knitters were there, as reliable as ever. It was a messy night, due in part to that lack of critical mass but also in no small way due the fact that I write this and Wednesday was a shockingly upsetting day for me. I never looked forward to her birthday, Tash neglected to learn my maxim that you buy presents for people because you want to, not because they expect you to. So she would always be a bit of a nightmare in the six weeks prior to July 9th and so I associate it with much stress. As I write this I realise that this was probably why, there was a chasm there this year and I had nothing to fill it with except my grief, a new type of crying to add to the list from the last post, very painful and to a degree, very public.

Sydney

I have been having an email exchange with KylieAnn, who ventured the following about the night in Sydney.

Wednesday night was moving, celebratory, honest and difficult.

Everyone had the opportunity to share their most remembered things about Tash .

Amelia and Rhonda took heaps of photos, they might go up on facebook (they are here in Facebook, I cannot download them).

The was a lot more talk about what Tash was really like for all of us in our own ways.

There was laughter, tears, the works really.

Cinnamon wore Tash’s scarf, Michelle wore purple boots, and Christine brought heaps of photos.

Also from (Smokey) Swanage

And a late arrival from Stockholm

If you have pictures, please send them.

Tash's Birthday events.

There have been a couple of things that have come up that can only be described as serendipitous. Partly it is our need to still feel that Tash is in our life, but some of it is just freaky. You may well be seeing some of it yourself, the key is to step up and explore the positive, make the best from what we have been given.

Tennis.

"Aww can you believe it, another example of that old Pagie luck, youknowwhatImean". Michelle (Page) Tash's work colleague who along with a many varied menagerie of friends and relatives in the UK were asked each year by Tash to receive the ballot papers for Wimbledon tickets. This year Michelle struck gold with two seats at the Women's final on center court. The holy grail of Tennis and something that would have made Tash very happy. "Well you know I took Paula the wife of that couple that looked after me during my divorce, not that you and Tash didn't, you know, but I thought it was proper to take her to say thank you. I did take my camera and you know what, awwww, I was taking pictures and the bloody batteries run out, just as William's was right in front of me with the trophy, I went to press it and" (enacts holding camera and pressing button) "what's going on!".

Pete.

I remember Tash talking about this Pete Doherty event, his first proper gig in the big wide world, at the Royal Albert Hall arguably the most prestigious music venue in England. It was scheduled for April and she risked using a link off of one of the dodgy internet forums she used to frequent to get early tickets. This of course happened way back in January when the year looked different to us. You know how things went for Tash and I, Pete's year didn't go to plan either as he broke the conditions of his probation and got sent back to prison. The gig was postponed.

Tash had sold two of the four tickets and if it wasn't for the dude she sold them to contacting me to ask what was going on, I wouldn't have remembered. I asked Matthew to come with me, seeing as we both had endured far too many nights / early mornings at the rhythm factory waiting for this idiot to come on stage, We did discuss not going, though concluded that this was for our Tash and we just had to be there.

We spent the first half of the gig in the now closed downstairs bar, talking away, with the occasional sound of his badly played guitar filtering back though to us. Soon we had to concede that we here for a reason and go through to the arena, bloody hell, we were 4 rows from the front, good work Tash, super fan. This might of been a fantastic thing if it were not for the fact that both of us have been close to him at the rhythm factory, though never, I observed to Matthew, close enough to successfully get a good punch in. Typically there was someone in our seats, using the pitiful "oh I was moved from up there excuse", off you go mate and we sat down, looked around at the massed semi-hysteria in the place and then at the fool on stage doing the exact same routine that we have both seen on so many occasions previously.

Twang plink clunk, a couple of chords that are audible and in sequence then no more than two verses of what ever song he is now trying to play, the first verse of which is drowned out by the screaming and clapping, then he'll forget the words and say something into the microphone like "weeeelIseemtohaveforgottenthewords, thisnextone ispuffthemagicdragonthoughitisnotohhwellhehehe " no really, I have never understood a word he has said on stage, though a microphone or not.

We sat, looked around and started to chat and take the piss. The venue was really filled with wannabe's and try-hard's; if you were hardcore, we ventured you'd have seen him in East London in his natural habitat (or if you are really hardcore, in his flat, but the prospect scared even Tash). One of the said massed throng distinguished himself as soon as we entered the area, up a flight of stairs that come into play in a second; you can always tell the type (there are two types of PD fans, the first is described now, the second, well, you'll know) they have the skinny jeans and a strangely bulky torso, I imagine hiding all the flesh and bone that has been moved upwards to get the drainpipe trousers on, and always a pork pie hat. These two types can mix, if they are old enough to drink alcohol that is, and this chap certainly had. We didn't see what he had done, but in standing waiting for the red jacketed RAH official to appear to eject our seat interlopers we had a ring side position to observe this doofus wrestle with two man mountain security guards and then watch in hysterics as he actually threw himself down the stairs to the exit. brilliant work.

Being a proper venue there was an intermission, so we legged it to the bar, but so did everyone else, we waited for a drink ....and waited ....and waited. The PA called "5 minutes until Pete Doherty is on stage" (a very odd thing to hear), as did the three and two minute warning. The queue went down, we got a drink and then I badly proposed a toast to "the coolest girl that we knew" the problem was in the tense, for us both she is very much still here, but the moment had gone and a new part of the evening had started. Rather than go straight back into the arena Matthew and I went down stairs again to the closed bar and talked some more, this time about Tash. She was a significant influence on his life and though, as you will always hear me say, I am not Tash, this is a responsibility and friendship that I am happy to take on and one we are both prepared to develop. We hadn't had any real time to talk since he came to the hospital on the day before Tash died and just as the conversation was about to dip significantly and painfully for us both, the beers became empty and we could hear the tell tale stamping of feet on floor that usually signifies the encore. Time to go and see what PD is up to.

In kicking some more desperates out of our seats the both of us could clearly see that this gig was starting to fall apart in fine Pete Doherty style and I am not making reference to the increasing inebriated state of the fool on stage, there were a lot of people stage side now, standing waving at this hero of the people, who as we sat down was shaking a few hands, wearing hats and taking song requests, I tried shouting for "Born in the USA"(Link) again, but this time my voice was lost in the increasing hysteria. Then it happened, like hair down a plug hole, like the gig and like his chances of being asked back to the RAH, once one "yoof" got up on stage for a mugging, another followed, then two, three and five. At all the other gigs where this has happened the stage and the number of people present have restricted this action somewhat to nothing more than a mild annoyance, however with this many people it became a idiot tsunami. Soon there were more people on stage than in the audience. Doherty trying to be the troubadour he aspires to be, kept on singing whilst he was being, well mugged I think, until there was a loud "eihhh" someone had pulled his mike lead and he was cornered at the back of the stage, we think, you could just see one massive unruly mass. This is the other type of his fans, not the ones wearing nice clothes, but the football oinks who quickly remove their shirts to reveal neo-nazi tattoos. And that my friends, was the end of the gig. Here witness 4 minutes of chaos.

As Matthew and I left, laughing all the way, we concluded that this was a fine night and although she could not be with us, a good night for Tash. A bruised and bashed night for Pete by all accords, by if you have never worked out how much I dislike him by now, you never will.

My last week in the flat and London has begun, it is far from easy and I remind myself that as significant as it is to leave twelve years of life in the capital behind, it is just something that has to happen on my road to recovery. To be honest I feel that I have become quite proficient at dealing with the effects of loss in the last two months and that even the prospect of not writing the Tao any more is not phasing me. This is the penultimate post I am sorry to say.

blank

<< June

blank