(Or - dear God, where has all the time gone?)
Two unrelated facts about me...
I played Andy Capp more than 25 years ago, in a drama studio in a converted kitchen in a South Wales secondary school.
It wasn't the full show, just choice bits as part of a cabaret. We were probably fund-raising. We were always fundraising. And we were always working. Unpaid, mostly, but I swear we worked harder than any National Theatre or RSC season company. In 9 years I performed in more than 40 productions. Plays. Musicals. Shakespeare. Classics. Cabarets.
I also built most of the sets, occasionally, single-handedly. I learnt to sing on stage. I tap-danced. I tangoed. I did harmonies really, really badly. And I drank enough snake-bite and black to sink a pirate ship filled with rum-soaked psychos.
Chris, a dear friend I met in University, ran the company the way a Godfather runs a crime-syndicate: with absolute power.
He picked the texts that would put bums on seats and then he'd pick plays no one else was doing.
When we put on Tango At The End Of Winter, only Alan Rickman and me had ever played the lead in the UK. How cool is that? I've no idea if it's been performed since, but if not, with Alan gone, I'm carrying the mantel for us both. Me and Alan.
That's because of Chris.
Back in our 20s we were theatrical powerhouses. Sort of. We'd churn out shows like men possessed. We were untouchable, producing proper old fashioned rep together, fuelled entirely by sweat, tears and a desperate need to put on shows.
When I left, aged 30, I never performed again.
I often think a part of me is still there, painting set till three in the morning, laughing, throwing up, listening to show tunes I couldn't stand at first, that over time became as familiar to me and as cherished as my deepest insecurities and anxieties.
For ten whole years I did nothing but work for that theatre company. No, it wasn't work, it was joy. It was angst and exhaustion and conflict too - but mostly it was joy.
At the time, I had no idea how lucky I was.
When Sarah and I marry later this year, only two people I worked with back then will be there. My Best Man, Miles and our Celebrant, Kate. Special people. From special times. I don't wish I was back there, but sometimes I do wish I understood where the past has gone.
The choices we make. The roads we choose. The fault lines that appear. The crossroads that take us from the path we were once on. The skip we keep outside, where we throw everything we fully intended to return to at some point, but never do.
The second fact is that I'm a huge Mickey Rourke fan. I've been saying those words ever since I sat on the floor in the lounge in my family home as a teenager in the '80s. I'd recorded a film called Diner. I'm not sure I knew anyone else in it but Steve Guttenburg.
Then at one point Mickey Rourke drives into a parking lot and pulls up next to a guy who tells him the relevant sports results that mean he's lost a big bet. Mickey drives to a parking space, consumed with anger and frustration that his bets have screwed him over. Then he loses it. Properly loses it. He punches the steering wheel. He punches the roof of the car. He lets everything out in a way I had never seen before. I couldn't look away. I couldn't blink. When the scene was over I rewound the old VHS tape and watched it again. It was even better the second time.
I'd wanted to be an actor since playing The Coroner, aged 11, in a school production of The Wizard Of Oz. But I didn't really know what that meant. While watching Diner for the first time everything dropped into place. It was suddenly simple - I wanted to be Mickey Rourke.
Angel Heart, Barfly, The Pope of Greenwich Village. The man oozed talent.
I shook his hand once on holiday, when I was still an actor. His hand sent shockwaves through me. At the time, there was no-one else on earth who could have made me feel like that.
It was an entirely chance, and once in lifetime, encounter about (God help me) 30 years ago. These days I can see and hear him on Instagram all the time. Along with tens of thousands of others. Two or three clicks on my phone and there he is. I wonder how many of his followers have shaken his hand, though, eh? I wonder how many of them think that would be better than his latest story post?
Andy Capp and Mickey Rourke. Two facts. But here's a third:
Andy Rourke, the bass player of The Smiths died this week. He was 59.
That's the number of fingers on one hand older than me. A single hand!
Andy was the bassist in the band that provided the soundtrack to my youth. He wasn't Morrissey or Johnny Marr, but right now he's more important than both of them combined.
Because Andy's the reminder. The reminder that within the years of fingers on one hand, people we love will be gone. Gone forever. People we wished we'd called, wished we'd visited. People too young for it to be true. People too close for it to be bearable. People. Gone.
The gap between today and everything that ever meant something to us is forever stretching. Forever breaking. Forever ejecting the people we thought would live forever. The Smiths, officially, can never reform. That might not be too much of a big deal to most people - but 25% of a small part of my youth is gone. That's a big deal to me!
Yesterday an old chap's body was pulled out of a river. He was 80-something. A young woman in her twenties finally succumbed to the illness that had been coming for her for more years than her doctors said she's survive.
And Ray Stevenson died too. He was 58.
Less years older than me, than the fingers on one of my hands.
Christ.
From the beginning, the middle and the end of life, people are dying every day.
Death is a lottery, and every day each of us is handed a ticket for the jackpot none of us want to win.
I guess if you embrace the comfort of religion, maybe there's solace in knowing your time is up? But for the rest of us, it's the ultimate change in our circumstances.
And, let me tell you, I don't like change. Not one bit.
One day all of us will be gone. And all that will remain is this blog in a forgotten corner of the unread internet. So if there's anyone you care about, anyone at all, and you're avoiding them right now because they're a humongous pain in the arse, or they've irritated you or they've made you paint theatre set till three in the morning when you want to be revelling in the common ground only you and Alan Rickman share - reach out. For God's sake, do it now.
Three days before they died, none of these people were dead. Think about it. What are you hoping to do three days from now?
(I just messaged Chris, my director, and reminded him about when he let me play Andy Capp. If the lazy git bothers to reply, I'll let you know what he said.)
* He did get back to me. Late. He was in the pub. Of course he was. :)
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