'I was minding my business, lifting some lead off the roof of the Holy Name church'
Wow - Can't believe I got to Day 24 without a Smiths track.
The Holy Name Church name checked in the song was where I was christened so I imagine it will be the place of my departure too. Hope so, it's a lovely gaff.
It's just a brilliant song, one that springs to mind every time someone paints The Smiths as doom merchants. I love it. It sums up a lot of what was so good about Moz as a song writer, filled with humour and a brilliant rallying cry for anyone who sees themselves as being a little bit different. He encouraged people to celebrate their differences, whether it was wearing your NHS glasses with pride or swinging your hearing aid as you danced. It was an ethos that I took into clubland when I stared running my own club night because 'outsiders' and 'underdogs' and 'the different' were always more interesting 'the beautiful' and 'the glamorous'.
'A vicar in a tutu. He's not strange. He just wants to live his life this way''
Clubland was a pretty shallow place to work. There is no getting away from that. Always looking to do something different running my own club allowed me to create a safe place for people to celebrate their differences and express themselves however they wished. It wasn't a gay club and it wasn't a straight club. It was a club for the miss-shapes of the world - a safe haven for the kind of people the rest of clubland would rather stayed at home. We went out of our way to make 'the different' feel special. It was a club where you could wear a dress if you fancied it because no one would bat an eyelid. It was the kind of place where pensioners would star in our fashion shows, where shy people could come out of their shell and the confused could experiment with their sexuality without fear.
I remember doing a pirate themed party and used Adam Ant on the poster with the strap line 'Ridicule is nothing to be scared of'. Typical daftness but an amazing party. The following week a regular who suffered from Vitiligo (a condition that causes white patches on the skin and in the hair) turned up proudly showing off his new tattoo. It read 'Ridicule is nothing to be scared of'. I'd empowered him to feel confident about himself, to celebrate his differences via the power of an Adam Ant lyric. Who'd have thought it? It was then that I realised the power of my position and how even the most petty things can speak volumes to those looking for something to believe in.
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