HE'S A WHITE MAN!

A funny memory came to my mind earlier this morning as they do. Rickshaw's older brother and I went as teenagers to watch 'The Buddy Holly Story' musical at Bristol Hippodrome. I was a big fan of Holly's music back then (thanks mostly to the TV series 'Buddy' based on Nigel Hinton's book) but can't remember if Rickshaw's brother was even aware of it as he always seemed to be playing the Vangelis soundtrack to 'Blade Runner' 24/7. Still, he seemed happy enough to come along with me, my dad and another close friend of ours regardless.

It must have been about halfway through the story when one of the more memorable scenes of the production has Buddy and his band play at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem (the first white band to do so) in front of a packed out african american audience.

There's a moment of awkward silence before the first chord is struck where the crowd and the band seem uncertain of what happens next. It was then in that very same silence that Rickshaw's brother shouted at the top of his voice: "he's a white man! He's white!" to gasps from the predominantly white audience sitting all around us in the Hippodrome as they stared at the oblivious Chinese kid intently watching the action on stage as if he hadn't just spontaneously represented the entire Apollo audience from 1957 in an improvised fashion.

Sort of taken aback that my friend had done this, on reflection it now seems almost perfect as if he'd been paid to shout the line by someone on the production team prior to the show starting.

"Why did you do that?" I asked him at the interval as we tucked into our tubs of ice cream.

"Cos he was white."