24 Vavoom, Ted the Mechanic

Sometime during the late '80s, in Stowe, VT, when we were writing the DP album 'The House of Blue Light', I met a man in the pub.

It was mid afternoon and I had escaped from the 'Playhouse' where the rest of the band was squirming in creative angst. The idea was to find a quiet corner where I could work on a nascent idea, along with a fine pint of inspirational bitter. Well that was the plan until in walked what's'isname.

One of those kind of guys; he wanted to talk and so we got into an easy conversation. Over the next hour or so he told me his life story and I managed to scribble it all down on a few napkins, which I put into my exercise book and promptly forgot……until some years later when they fell to the floor as I was moving my stuff.

I was intrigued that it was possible to encapsulate an entire life on to a few napkins. Obviously it wasn't an entire life, but all the important bits that he wanted to talk about. Needless to say all of it was far to boring to justify a song, but I took a few snippets and then used my imagination. His name wasn't Ted, but it is now, and he wasn't a mechanic either.

I'd never heard the word Vavoom used in dialogue until a friend of mine 'Twinks', used it to describe the sort of thing a girl should have if she wanted to get on in life. The 'sort of thing' being the pelvic thrust perfected by one of the artistes at the Cabaret Club, in Orlando. This was when it was a real strip club, now they all wear knickers, disgraceful, and more to the point, really stupid!