We tackle some more of Russell's autobiography 'My Booky Wook', and it becomes a slightly different form of harrowing as we approach Russell's adolescence. Want the rest of this episode? Head to https://patreon.com/OnBrand
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| This is propaganda live. | |
| I only suggest how to think and how to vote. | |
| An extraordinary cultural moment, already iconic, already iconic. | |
| We love you, you're welcome here. | |
| I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a bit late now. | |
| They don't want to have a conversation in the debate, but they're lying. | |
| And this is a matter now of fact and record. | |
| Trump is like Hitler. | |
| Let me count the ways. | |
| I'm a Nazi, actually. | |
| I'm a Nazi, actually, and I've kept it now till now, but this is my chance. | |
| God is propaganda. | |
| Did you guess it? | |
| Did you guess it? | |
| I feel that Christ may have had a better vision. | |
| Bastards, aren't they? | |
| I mean, you can't watch them after this without realising they're absolute bastards. | |
| Let's go full screen on Russell. | |
| Hello! | |
| What you are about to experience is an extract from the on-brand book club, monthly book club live stream, tackling Russell's 2007 autobiography, My Bookie Wook. | |
| And this is part three. | |
| Parts one and two are up on the Patreon already. | |
| And what we're going to be looking at is someone in the middle of the book, and it's going to be a pivotal story from Russell's adolescence. | |
| Telling the story of his father taking him on a sex tour of Southeast Asia. | |
| That's what that is. | |
| Now, throughout the book thus far, there have been numerous incidents of child abuse, of animal abuse, of various forms of sexual graphic stuff and all of that. | |
| This chapter isn't too heavy, but it does get a bit graphic, so, like, bear that in mind. | |
| And just bear the graphic, unpleasant nature of Russell's prior existence in mind in general. | |
| Because, like, I've been thinking about how to describe... | |
| The book in general, because it is firmly unique as a book and as an autobiography. | |
| And the best way I've thought of it so far is, have you ever like told like a dark joke or something about your past or something, you know, that you thought was quite funny? | |
| You know, just made like a little reference to like your upbringing or whatever that you thought was entertaining and then... | |
| You look at everyone's faces around you and they're horrified and being like, are you okay? | |
| Imagine that, but for 30-something chapters, and that's what you've got. | |
| You've got genuinely troubling incidents and trauma and all kinds of things. | |
| Told in a very kind of frivolous and jovial kind of way, and it's very jarring. | |
| Nonetheless, nonetheless, that's what we're looking at. | |
| And yeah, like I said, we're about halfway through. | |
| If you want to listen to parts one and two, they're up on the Patreon. | |
| Four, five, and six we'll be getting through as well. | |
| It's me reading excerpts and whatnot from Russell's autobiography. | |
| And then when I'm done, I'll edit them all together and make a nice thing out of them for everyone to experience again and again, should they choose. | |
| And there's plenty more to work through afterwards as well. | |
| There's My Bookie Wook 2. This time it's personal, I believe, is the tagline. | |
| I'm not kidding. | |
| And I've got a copy of his children's book that is... | |
| It was universally panned at the time. | |
| It was just absolutely eviscerated in reviews, which for a children's book you don't expect. | |
| Having read a little bit of it, I see why. | |
| However, the illustrations are fantastic by Chris Riddell. | |
| Anyway, plenty of future things upcoming. | |
| In the meantime, yeah, let's get into this little story from Russell's life. | |
| Good luck, I guess. | |
| And I'll see you Thursday for the main show. | |
| Okay. | |
| Chapter 15. It's called Click Clack, Click Clack. | |
| And, um... | |
| Yeah, this is gonna be the story of Russell's dad taking him on a sex tour to Southeast Asia. | |
| That's what this is. | |
| Um... | |
| No other way to put it? | |
| That's what we're looking at. | |
| Alright. | |
| Socrates says the male libido is like being chained to a madman, and the links in my chain are these. | |
| One, I love sex, like everyone, because of the old biological program. | |
| Two, I enforce my identity and status as a man through sex and the seduction of women. | |
| And three, I have a hopelessly addictive nature. | |
| Perhaps you're wondering what formulated my peculiar sexuality. | |
| It ain't that peculiar. | |
| I'm a bloke from Essex who likes birds with big bottoms and big boobs. | |
| Lucy Pinder, Lindsay Dawn McKenzie, Maria Whittaker, lovely dolly birds. | |
| I don't mean to be dismissive. | |
| They might be incredibly dark, fretful, Sylvia Plath-style heroines, for all I know, but if they are, I'd rather not find out, because life's difficult enough without women who superficially resemble a Disneyland for my dinkle thrusting me into a torturous realm of introspection. | |
| Women are sex objects. | |
| Okay. | |
| Although I sometimes like to portray myself as a rakish fop, meandering up corridors, waltzing around squares, fox-trotting across quads, nimbly tottering through dormitories and boudoirs, I like the same women as readers of Zoo and Nuts. | |
| Strip away the innovative barnet, mascara, inky bejeweled wetsuit, and the old gift, and I'm just a West Ham fan from Grey's, a straightforward, red-blooded sort of fella. | |
| And yes, Russell was 17 on this trip to Southeast Asia, just for the record. | |
| The episode that defined my relations with women and with myself occurred in Hong Kong with my dad. | |
| I was 17. There you go, he's confirmed it for me. | |
| His third marriage had just broken up, so he needed someone to go on holiday with. | |
| I was unemployed, penniless, birdless. | |
| Birds means women in a nice derogatory name. | |
| And desperate for his approval, we were the perfect holiday companions. | |
| On the plane home, he said, I went away with a boy and came back with a man. | |
| Both of those people were me, so what happened to induce such a significant transition? | |
| When I think of my father, his face is obscured by a newspaper, which in my mind he was forever behind, turning over the corner to flick me a glance, rebuttal, or gag. | |
| We get on best when reciting lines from comedies that we both like, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Fools and Horses, or chatting about West Ham. | |
| Trips to East London kept our relationship alive, but when we travelled further east like bizarro pioneers, we found a new land of hope and opportunity. | |
| In addition to Hong Kong, we visited Bali, Singapore, and Thailand, and in all those places we saw incredible things. | |
| And if you'd like to know more, I recommend you go or get a rough guide, because as an adolescent there was only one site I was interested in seeing, and it would be disingenuous for me to proselytize about sleeping Buddhas or monkey forests or floating markets when you know and I know that that trip was about one thing. | |
| One thing. | |
| one thing that chewed its way into my barren little soul and gave me at long last a physical pursuit that I was good at. | |
| Sex. | |
| Disposable sex. | |
| Sex as leisure. | |
| Sex for pleasure. | |
| Sex, you sordid little treasure. | |
| Drag me from monotony and give me kicks too hot to measure. | |
| I nearly threw up in my mouth when I read that. | |
| Day one. | |
| We went to some sleazy dive hidden behind a thick black drape where women from the east traipse loosely along the mirrored promenade in garish beachwear. | |
| That promenade was a conveyor belt from which produce could be selected. | |
| I didn't know that then, but my cock did, twitching, preparing frantically, trying to recall correct procedure. | |
| This is not a drill. | |
| Repeat, this is not a drill. | |
| My dad sat there next to me, familiar with this glistening and foreign terrain. | |
| I didn't understand what I was witnessing, but by Jingo, I knew I liked it. | |
| Dumbstruck, I sat looking at the women. | |
| Their hair, each single strand identifiable as it, responded to a fan that had been placed there to elicit exactly the reaction I felt in my pantaloons. | |
| Their toenails painted and perfect, each solitary toe a match for me. | |
| They walked with the ease of women that fuck for a living. | |
| They didn't seem enslaved or exploited. | |
| To me, they weren't. | |
| They were mistresses, goddesses, salvation. | |
| I don't care if there is no god because she exists. | |
| She's there. | |
| She can resolve everything with a redeeming kiss. | |
| She can heal me with a smile, a touch, a word. | |
| In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was fuck. | |
| They didn't look exploited, so that's good. | |
| That's where we're at. | |
| Welcome. | |
| Welcome, Tom. | |
| You have entered at the crux of where we're at. | |
| Hello. | |
| I can't wait to tell my mates that I saw these women in swimsuits. | |
| Before long, I was sat on a bar stool with a Filipino girl called Mary Lou, or something similarly unlikely. | |
| I thought, I can't wait to tell my mates I was sat talking to Mary Lou. | |
| That quickly became, I can't wait to tell my mates I was kissing her. | |
| The velocity so severe I could but smile for the G-force. | |
| Then we were leaving. | |
| A street, a cab, perfume, hairspray, the three Asian prostitutes that my dad was drunkenly herding. | |
| Mary Lou, another girl, and the madam of the club who had come along just for sport. | |
| When I learned that she'd come along without payment, I thought that a testimony to my dad's powers. | |
| Bull fucking shit, by the way. | |
| That is absolutely a lie. | |
| But cool. | |
| Arriving back at the opulent Mandarin Palace Hotel, we revolved into the lobby like fairground teens dismounting a waltzer, the knowing staff boredly ignoring the click-clack-click-clack of hired heels across the marble floor as they beat the well-trodden path from door to lift. | |
| And I, with nervous downcast eyes and butterflies, made my way to the elevator and then up into the room. | |
| Once there, the room was illuminated by the TV and the two twin beds waited like centuries, preemptively guarding the orgy. | |
| So it's one room, twin beds, Russell, his dad, and three prostitutes. | |
| This is where we're at. | |
| Fun little bit of internal knowledge. | |
| Tom in the chat here was with me as I was reading this. | |
| No context as to what I was reading. | |
| And it was at exactly this point that I put the book down and closed it. | |
| I just went, that's enough, Russell, for one day. | |
| Oh, um... | |
| There was a witness, is all I'm saying. | |
| Right. | |
| Get some champagne, Russell, my dad said. | |
| So I called down to room service. | |
| I'll order not the most expensive champagne, but the second most, I hastily calculated. | |
| My dad set about unwrapping his two prostitutes like past the parcel where the music never stopped, and I sat nervously on the edge of the bed with Mary Lou, kissing her and thinking she was beautiful and falling in love. | |
| I'd only had anything close to sex once before, jabbing my silly prick at poor Marianne Laybourne. | |
| Naked. | |
| I was shy about my body then. | |
| I had trouble getting hard. | |
| The blowjob seemed daft, the way it feels when a customs official pulls your trousers down or a doctor puts his finger up your arse. | |
| Not sexual, just giggly and intrusive. | |
| After the unsex, I carried her in my weedy arms out onto the balcony to look at the view of a great looming skyscraper disapprovingly observing. | |
| She was a good prostitute, Mary Lou. | |
| She played her part very well. | |
| Sorry, we're getting the fucking Yellow Pages review here. | |
| Oh, we're getting the trip advisor of Mary Lou. | |
| Jesus Christ. | |
| She didn't make me feel embarrassed and was incredibly romantic, really, given the context. | |
| I stroked Mary Lou's hair and kissed her cheek and traced my finger down her perfect nose, scored by the cacophony from the adjacent bedlam. | |
| Yeah, come on! | |
| And four, you're juicy! | |
| So that's Russell listening to his dad having sex in the twin bed that was opposite his bed. | |
| Cool, cool, cool, cool! | |
| And as she was about to go, she said expertly, Russell, I must leave now before I fall in love with you. | |
| My heart skipped and I heard, Oh, fucking hell, I'm gonna be sick. | |
| A disapproving announcement from dear old Ron. | |
| Awake. | |
| Yesterday's shadow lay heavy on the dawn. | |
| Half-full champagne glasses, discarded bottles and underwear, perhaps even a lipstick and a broken heart. | |
| My dad, concealed behind a newspaper, folded down the top right-hand corner. | |
| Did you wear a condom with that bird last night? | |
| Oh, no, I didn't, Dad. | |
| He sniffed. | |
| You should have. | |
| Then the corner of the page flicked up once again, and he was gone. | |
| Fucking top-tier parenting here. | |
| In the course of the rest of that holiday, I fucked loads more prostitutes, always got a hard-on, never wore a condom, and never fell in love. | |
| In Bangkok, when bar girls in Patpong left their posts to follow me down the street, cooing and touching my hair, I felt that I had my dad's unequivocal approval. | |
| When I came back from Thailand, I was much more comfortable around women, sure in the knowledge that I had come back a man. | |
| Some of the attributes of a man included, I have now had a prostitute stick her finger up my arse while sucking my cock. | |
| Seventeen. | |
| He was seventeen. | |
| I remember the first time that happened, thinking, bloody hell, this is an interesting way to live your life. | |
| I still didn't become utterly confident, but it had hardened me, and my sexuality had morphed forever from bewildered innocence into something more complex and rapacious. | |
| This change was apparent as soon as I came home from the Far East. | |
| One of the first things that happened when I returned from that holiday was I got an acting job on this show called Eddie and the Buffon. | |
| It was an Anglia TV program about the evolution of a hairdresser's. | |
| There were scenes set in the 50s, 60s, and 70s with all these different wigs. | |
| It's not a show that has gone down in TV history as a landmark of quality and innovation, but David Morrissey, a really good actor, was in it as well. | |
| Fresh out of RADA, he was. | |
| Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. | |
| On the shoot, I was sharing a room with this gay lad on the makeup team who told me about going to gay orgies and sticking a puppet of a policeman up some fella's bum. | |
| And there was this woman on the crew. | |
| She was 32, which to me, being 17, seemed preposterously grown up. | |
| And I fucked her, well, as best as I could. | |
| I struggled a bit with getting an erection again. | |
| This was my first encounter post-Thailand, but she helped me get into the swing of things by being kind of rude and unabashed. | |
| On our first date, she stuck her finger in her own pussy and then in my mouth. | |
| I thought, oh my god, what kind of world are these people living in? | |
| So these were the folk that initiated me into a more sexualized world. | |
| Prostitutes, that 32-year-old, and my dad. | |
| After that, I started to get a bit more confident about sex and popped love in a self-storage facility in Finchley Road. | |
| How we all doing? | |
| How we all doing? | |
| That's the end of chapter 15. Rope kittens. | |
| Yeah, yeah, the kind of things that happened to him. | |
| It's like, yes, it's fucked up that his dad took him on a sex tour of Southeast Asia and they had sex in the same room. | |
| Incredibly fucked up. | |
| The things that happened earlier in Russell's life also fucked up sexually. | |
| Yeah, and his dad is a huge contributor of that. | |
| His dad would, when looking after Russell as a young child, would go off into the next room and have sex with women and leave Russell alone to watch Elvis films and pornography. | |
| So, you know. | |
| It's, yeah, it's not... | |
| Obviously, there are no excuses for Russell's actions at all, but yeah, you do see... | |
| The dots connecting when you understand the full context of his history. | |
| And even then, we're only getting a snapshot of that, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Okay, chapter 16. And this is the last one that we'll read. | |
| And this will veer away from the horrible sexual trauma and we'll preface The next book club that we do as well as we start to look at Russell's beginning of his acting career in earnest, I would say. | |
| So chapter 16, whop out a bit of acting. | |
| All right. | |
| I'm going to finish now because I'm hungry and I want to eat something. |