“Shoot the glass!”

Midnight Quatermass 19: Baltimore 2003 and Spy-fi 1967

Good evening from Copenhagen.

We’re travelling for a couple of weeks, but after the last issue’s annoyance I’m carving out some time to deliver a full newsletter. Apologies to those that hate this bit and skip it in favour of the story. This week you get both.

The British part of this journey was annoying as fuck, but saved by one of you lot. Just as we sat down in the airport after running a gauntlet of moronic protestors and bypassing an hour long bottleneck by spinning a yarn to an exasperated police officer holding a Heckler & Koch MP5 my phone pinged to let me know that a wonderful bloke by the name of Dave had found my long dormant Buy Me A Coffee page and dropped me a note. That coffee arrived at just the right time and I’m very grateful. And another huge thanks to Mitch in Scotland who did the same thing to keep me caffeinated on our arrival. MQ readers are the absolute best.

So seeing as I’m in Denmark and there’s so much here to talk about I thought I’d open with something completely different.

It’s December 2003 and we’re in Washington DC for Christmas.

This is the first leg of a three month trip that will take us across the USA, into the jungles of Mexico, then down under to Sydney, Perth and Australia’s Gold Coast before winding up in Tokyo. This was pre-social media, but the entire trip was built around random strangers we’d met on the Punk Planet message board and the optimistic hope that we wouldn’t get killed.

We only came close a couple of times, but that was all ahead of us.

Right now we’re sat on DC Mike’s couch wondering what to do next. We’d just got back from seeing the steps that Father Karras took a header down at the end of THE EXORCIST (1971). We’d already visited the Häagen-Dazs that Henry Rollins worked in prior to joining Black Flag, and also seen a couple of shows at the legendary Black Cat. We were pretty much done with DC.

“Who do we know in Baltimore?” asks Jess.

Todd is an affable giant and waving as we pull up. I possibly still have the bruise from his bear hug and then he and DC Mike punch each other a bit and we laugh over the call to the FBI that I made on the drive over.

And then we’re off to the place that Jess says is going to blow our minds: The American Visionary Art Museum.

And it does. But as cool as the outsider art is it’s not the real reason it’s stuck in my craw some 20 years later. I tend to rush around a museum and then do a second pass to take in the stuff that sticks out while Jess will ponder each little rectangle of information, often taking notes. It’s a staggered approach further complicated by DC Mike and Todd getting stuck in front of a tableau of nudes so I found myself alone and back on the ground floor on my way up to find them again when I saw him.

I guess Jess and I had been together at this point for around four years. One of the many many annoyances she’s had to put up with over the years is my eye for spotting a celebrity out amongst us in the real world. Living in London means you trip over a lot of famous folk and while many of them are ‘that guy from the thing’ or ‘the chick that was in that one thing that time’ to many people I am cursed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of supporting actors and their characters.

So Jess has to put up with an almost daily, ‘Hey look, that’s Neil Maskell from KILL LIST (2011) again’ or ‘We just passed Iain Glen who played Hamlet in 1990’s ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD on a bicycle.’

Jess often replied with ‘Who?’ or ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Mike?’. But I’d also spot some of her favourite actors and by the time Jess turned around they were lost in the crowd which wound Jess up and lead her to believe I was making it up. I never did. I’d spot Ian McKellen walking out of a sandwich shop in Soho, and Jess would be annoyed with me for not telling her sooner that Gandalf was a fan of tuna on rye.

She referred to this as THE GAME and she was not a fan.

Which is all to say you can imagine her face when, slightly out of breath, I find her and DC Mike and Todd at the top of the building and tell them that Alan fucking Rickman is downstairs and about to leave the museum.

Jess rolls her eyes and begins to explain to the others that this is just THE GAME and that I’m a huge asshole. Exasperated I grab her arm and drag her down four flights of stairs as fast as I can while the other two chase after us. We get to the lobby just in time to see Alan Rickman and friends pulling on their jackets as they head to the door.

Over the years since I’ve been lucky enough to meet a lot of my heroes and even work with a few of them, but it’s rare I interrupt them because I don’t want to be that guy. A couple of occasions that I did break that rule was when I spotted Ron Glass in my favourite cafe in LA and ended up chatting to him about Barney Miller and on this occasion, when I shouted “ALAN!” at Hans bloody Gruber.

Everyone in his group turned to look at us apart from Rickman.

He just stopped and I cold see his shoulders sag a little and I knew I’d fucked up. We walked over and I tried damage control with, “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but we’re from London and--”

He turned and narrowed his eyes at me.

“Here? Of all the places in there world you had to find me here? In Baltimore? In the The fucking American Visionary Art Museum?”

I nodded sheepishly.

“For fuck’s sake…” he replied, rolling his eyes.

It was DC Mike who saved us.

“Dude,” he said to RADA and the RSC’s favourite son, “You were fucking amazing in Closet Land.”

The frown disappeared instantly.

“Oh. You saw that one? We only had two weeks and it was a really interesting shoot…”

And so we chatted for a few minutes about dystopian movies and didn’t mention DIE HARD even once which I think he appreciated. And then with an actual real life flourish he pulled on his jacket and left with a wave.

We don’t get a mention in his posthumously published diaries, but he does note being in Baltimore that day so I’m positive an over zealous editor cut out the bit where he noted what idiots we were.

But the only thing that matters is that Jess got a hug from Alan Rickman.

And I won THE GAME.

Story time.

YOU ONLY DIE TWICE

Imagine a sleek private jet circa 1967 cutting its way across a cloudless blue sky.

The interior is plush, but our attention is taken up with the dashing chap in the white tuxedo holding his hands up with a bemused smile. He’s a little over six feet and half of you are thinking Sean Connery in his prime and half of you are thinking James Coburn looking just as good. If I describe a young Roger Moore I’m going to ruin it so let’s just say he’s cooler than any of us. Especially when the music in your head is about to kick in.

Let’s call him Double-Oh Double-Oh.

Seated halfway down the plane, strapping himself in with one hand while training his pistol on our hero with the other is a rather rotund gentleman, around ten years older with a vicious duelling scar running the length of his cheek. You do a double-take as you realise the weapon he’s holding is a Walther PPK Special as seen in Bronson’s mitt in 1972’s MECHANIC rather than its stubby cousin favoured by the other feller.

That and the fact the hand itself is more of a claw and seems to be made of solid gold.

“Do you expect me to talk?” Asks our hero. You can decide on the accent.

“No, Mr. Double-Oh Double-Oh,” replies our East German bullion dealer as he flips his armrest to reveal a huge red button that looks too good not to press.

“I expect you to fly.”

~

We’re outside the jet just in time to see the door explode away from the aircraft and a moment later we’re with our hero in free-fall. Delete your expletive as we’re in a (mostly) family friendly spy-fi so despite the wind shear and velocity we can still hear Double-Oh Double-Oh’s summation of his current predicament.

“Botheration!”

We’re not complete novices with this kind of thing so we do a quick 360 to check for a skydiver waiting to be relieved of his parachute. Zilch. We have a good look at our hero’s back for the tell-tale bulge of a hidden chute. Nada. Well this is interesting we think as the ground rushes up towards us.

You can probably hear the music now as Double-Oh Double-Oh pulls a pen from the inside pocket of his tux. He pauses for a second despite how close the lush green ground seems and without a perfectly positioned haystack in sight.

His thumb is poised over the pen’s clicker.

Is that what you call it? No matter.

“This had better bloody work, Queue.”

He pushes the pen and his body is suddenly seemingly wracked with an electrical charge causing him to spasm and jerk.

This goes on right until impact. His body falls loose for the last few seconds and we can’t tell if he’s just unconscious or dead and then it doesn’t matter because gravity has the measure of him and we look away, but do hear the god-awful crunch of it all.

~

Let’s take another look at that bloody pen.

Once agin it’s in Double-Oh Double-Oh’s hand, but this time he isn’t falling out of an aeroplane. He’s wearing a smart grey suit, the same bemused smile and the patience of a man twice his age wearing a white lab coat.

“Do be careful, Double-Oh Double-Oh. It may look like an ordinary pen, but in reality…

Only a slight pause, but it does give us time to take in the wall-length display cabinet in which are racked a whole selection of Double-Oh Double-Ohs. They all look unconscious although consciousless is a more accurate phrase. They all look slightly different. One sports a light tan safari suit, another a dark black tuxedo, another is wearing full scuba gear… you get the idea.

The faces are identical and every single one of them looks like he could kick your ass.

“…it’s a Neuron Transmitter,” Queue continues. Get into trouble with Orlac Giltclaw and all you need to do is give it a quick click. It will instantaneously shock your personality, memories, your id, out of your body and into one of these waiting cloned spares.”

The bemused smile gets a little broader. Here it comes. Brace yourselves.

“Out of the frying pan and into the choir, eh, Queue?”

~

Still with us? That was a flashback. You got that, right? Cool. I’m still reeling from the pun too. We’re in this together. Let’s crack on.

Hokkaido, Japan. Some 600 miles from Tokyo and home to the rather wonderful Asahiyama Zoo which is where we are now. The place is brand new, but much to the dismay of the zookeeper the broken corpse of Double-Oh Double-Oh is suspended high in the branches of a tree right next to the small, but perfectly formed gift shop.

Instead of translating all the cursing that follows I’ll let you know how Queue responded to the quip only a few days prior.

“Very droll, Double-Oh Double-Oh. Just remember your licence to live only allows a single transfer. Once your original body is dead you’re stuck in the new one. So don’t mess it up.”

And now we’re with Queue in the present day. He’s talking into a rotary telephone as younger men in white lab coats monitor the still sleeping 00-00s behind him.

“I have no idea what happened, Em. The Neuron Transmitter was triggered and he should have woken here. No… I’m afraid he could be anywhere…”

~

We’re still thinking about Queue hanging up the receiver with a shake of his head and a sad, “Anywhere at all...” as we watch the same zookeeper, now sweeping outside a cage filled with bamboo and a large pile of hay.

As he walks away the hay begins to shift and then suddenly a startled looking panda bear pops up and looks around slowly before settling on us with a bemused smile.

“Botheration!” says the panda bear.

Let’s shoot up above the enclosure and look down as the panda rolls from the hay and comes to rest on its knees, its head pushed back as it screams into the sky a single plea.

“QUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUEUE!”

~

Giltclaw is smiling at a huge pile of gold on a small wooden trolly. Stood near it are his dastardly henchmen. Both in their 30s, but one is at least seven feet tall and sports a serious set of late 60s dental technology while his partner is not quite four feet tall, in need of a shave, and wearing a boy-scout uniform.

“Braces! Bob-a-job!” Giltclaw barks at them. “Don’t just stand there. Get it outside!”

Braces turns only to get instantly punched in the chops by a huge black furry paw. Teeth and dental tech fly in every direction as he drops like a sack of potatoes.

“Not so fast, Giltclaw!” says the speeding monochrome shape as it ducks behind the pallet of bullion. Bob-a-job, forever figuratively and literally in the shadow of his older brother, grins at the unexpected opportunity to prove his worth and advances with a twirl of his woggle as Giltclaw looks on with wide eyes.

“You have an annoying habit of turning up when least… wait… are you a panda bear?”

As if in answer Bob-a-job is suddenly propelled backwards through the stacked gold.

“I hate to hit a boy-scout,” says Double-Oh Double-Oh with the furry arm that punched Bob-a-job still extended and Giltclaw dangling from the other.

The panda now looks directly at us, fourth wall be damned, and we don’t even have time to duck before he hits us with it.

“After all when I was young I was a cub myself.”

He then raises a single eyebrow.

Salt in the wound.

~

A group of American tourists wearing the finest leisure wear of 1967 are on a tour of the zoo. Amongst them is Queue. He’s wearing an Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat and sunglasses. He’s talking into a large hand-held walkie-talkie and ignoring the lovely young Japanese tour guide.

“No, It’s been a week and still no sign of him I’m afraid.”

The tour guide stops outside a cage filled with bamboo and a large pile of hay.

“And here in the panda enclosure we have Ling-Long and Ding-Dong on loan from Hong Kong. Panda bears are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, but recently we have seen more activity… in that area… as you can see for yourself.”

Queue, lifting his glasses, as his mouth drops into an O shape, drops the walkie talkie to the floor.

“James?”

You can start humming that theme tune again if you like.

Rolling around in the hay is one happy, but exhausted panda bear as her partner, bemused grin from one furry ear to the other, looks directly at us and says…

“Ding Dong!”

Roll credits and of course…

JAMES PANDA 00-00

will return in

EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES

Sorry, not sorry, but we went to the zoo today...

See you next week. I think we’ll be in Sweden.

Tack!

Mike.