putting on the style.
photograph by mary ellen mark. england, 1975.
Written by Dave Edmunds. Regal Zonophone 1026.
When you need to score, remember the best shit is seldom sold by a man in a car coat on a rainy used lot; unless you carry a bigger stick.
▼ ROCKPILE: I HEAR YOU KNOCKIN' from "Rockpile" LP (Regal Zonophone) 1972 (UK)
PURCHASE THE BEST OF DAVE EDMUNDS REMASTERED
6 comments:
A thought provoking pic as always.
Wonder where they are now?
To qualify that last statement, the character on the left reminds me vaguely of the sod who jabbed an "HIV infected" needle at my neck in a late night bus station some twenty years ago. Forgive me if I don't shed no tears.
Thanks, Matt.
As a footnote to the bus satation fiasco - in the event that anybody is remotely interested - it is worth remembering that my reaction times in those days were considerably more honed. To bring it up to date, my response to danger now resembles a John Woo slow-mo sequence in real time.
Going back to the observation made by anonymous, It would be very interesting to find out how those three in the photograph have fared.
there is good and bad in every community....including the junkie one. The real bad guy's are the ones who live in mock tudor houses and drive 'Beemers' who import/sell the shit to street dealers, who in turn sell it to individuals like those in the pic. Basically the people in the pic are a sof target for your 'Fuck 'em' comment. You've probably never come across the real bad guy's.
Sure. But we know this by now; that there are two sides to the coin and good and bad in everyone.
Certainly, those criminals turning a profit out of people's misery - whether it's Marion "Suge" Knight or an east end villain in a black BMW - are deserving of your contempt, anonymous. Their addiction is money and power. As are those governments who collude in the distribution of narcotics for financial gain or political favour.
As deserving of contempt are those in the "junkie community" who discard syringes by casually hurling them out the fifteenth floor of a tower block because they have a chip on their shoulder and a hunger to commit murder by slow degree.
Their shit is as likely to be freely available on prescription; their works supplied on a 'needle exchange program' costing them nothing.
If my child were to stumble on a discarded needle in those circumstances, you can rest assured I would unhesitatingly stop the person responsible for dropping it and slit that fucker's throat. Or beat him or her senseless. We're not talking about sanctioning some SUV driving middle class mother for failure to dispose of or recycle household trash here.
Similarly, if I were to stumble across the bastard who tried to stick me in the neck 20 years back, I might possibly do an Ed Bunker and unzip my fly to piss all over him. I am not about to offer him my hand to help him up onto his feet.
My cup is not overflowing with Christian compassion. Or the milk of human kindness.
Like Johnny Rotten once said: "If you turn your cheek too often, you're liable to get a razor through it."
One more thing.
Is there such an institution as the "junkie community" ? Or is it just the pack mentality ?
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