Wednesday 27 June 2007

When Life (in all it's dismal glory) Fails to Imitate Art...

One of my favourite cinema adverts dates from a good few years ago, and promoted that 'interesting' alcoholic confection, Southern Comfort. Whenever I saw the ad, it always prompted a yearning for me to be up there, on the screen, as a part of it. You may well remember it, yourself…

It’s late, on a balmy summer’s evening in New Orleans. A young couple are walking the streets, arm-in-arm, when a sudden cloudburst of almost Biblical proportions threatens to drown them. Fortunately, the neon lights of a jazz club beckon, and they are able to seek refuge, with all the others escaping the rain, in the warm bosom of the basement bar.

For an hour or two, everyone has the kind of spontaneous good time that we all dream of, dancing and cavorting the night away in a display of hedonism fuelled, we are invited to believe, by copious amounts of Southern Comfort. When the resident MC informs the crowd “It’s OK folks – the storms over!” it’s the cue for a collective groan, as everyone realises they’ll have to return to normality.

It’s always stuck in my mind that I’d love to experience that kind of wonderful, spur-of-the moment freedom, finding shelter from the storm in the warm embrace of a buzzing jazz club.

Well, the best I could manage when the heavens opened late on a chilly, Tuesday night (in a city which discretion prevents me from mentioning), was to dash into the doorway of the Liverpool branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken, where a sodden busker was gamely bashing out the hideously inappropriate Undertones classic, Here Comes The Summer, which young Justin played to death when it came out in 1979. I was able, at least, to reflect for a moment on the wide gulf that sometimes exists between imagination and reality. And watch the water, as it dripped from the end of my nose.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A nice reminder Mr Blunt. Southern Comfort used to be a favourite tipple of mine at art college - got a bit of a sweet tooth I'm afraid. I haven't tried it for years.

Anonymous said...

I clearly drew the short straw, dp: you got Art College, I got Life College...

Anonymous said...

Bill,

Think about the Southern Comfort you got. Colnel Sanders "We do chicken right." You fell into KFC and the colnel was from the south. Good choice if you ask me. Ha.

Jackie said...

Ahhhhhh....my dear friend what a lovely picture you paint. But,you fail to remember that us yanks are descendents of England's rebels. Therefore, perhaps, just perhaps, we are not quite as refined and from time to time have indulged in a more hedonistic fashion. Of course, I could not for a fact know this is true...but 1 can always hold to the illusion. Lovely post today...simply glorious!!

Miss Trashahassee said...

Y'all got Kentucky Fried Chicken over yonder? They done ruint it over here by cookin' it up in grease that ain't got no trans fat in it no more. Don't taste good no more. But it don't clog nobody's arteries. Probably 'cause ain't nobody eatin' it.

BFF,
Miss T

Anonymous said...

Thank you, theresa111 - but it was Hobson's Choice, in reality!

shinade - when your forebears escaped the cloistered stuffiness of England, they left us to it and got on with 'living' - you're right! Thank you for your kind comments.

miss trashahassee - yes, we have KFC over here, and I have been known in the past to indulge in its peculiar delights. So much so that Jasper has more than once poked fun at my love of it!