Talking to a guy on the train into work today- nice guy but after a while he started to freak me out; mainly because he kept looking at my lips- to the point I thought I had a bit of caked toothpaste tainting my bottom lip or a piece of dried cornflake was dangling from the corner of my mouth! Either that or he wanted to kiss me! Which is fine: I mean, whatever- I may not be reciprocal, but it's nice to feel attractive- even if it is to a dwarfish,spotty,bespeckled,slightly incontinent,unwashed man in his mid forties! I take the compliments where I can get them these days, y'know!
Anyway turned out he was deaf! So that was a relief- (for me anyway! Not for him -because, well, he was deaf!)
This brought to mind a few experiences that I have had with the old "non-hearing" which I thought I would share:
When I had in Dun Laoghaire back in the mid-nineties I was living with my girlfriend in a crappy apartment, you know, not long out of college- still in art student mode -believing that less was more and all that palava- when we came across a Mr "B" who happened to live in the apartment below us. Talk about noisy -f*ck me! I mean this wasn't noisy as in late night parties or the arguments resulting from a disfunctional relationship -NO! This was a deaf guy who would play his "porno" movies -full volume day and night. I finally had to drop down and explain that he needed to turn down his dial. So picture Mr "B" standing in his doorway, with his own personal "cum-laden" soundtrack blasting out from behind him and me like some "shit" amateur mime acting out knob-turning (not a pun!)and "loud" as in, me with my hands on my ears moving them back and forth like some kind of deranged imitation of Kate Bush!! *Baboska, Baboska, Baoska, ya ya!! Until finally he got the point...
On a rather over-crowed Dublin bus there was a deaf guy quite nonchalantly leaning against one of the metal standing posts. The only problem was that he was pressed up against the "buzzer" that alerted the driver that a passenger wanted off at the next stop. So here we have this deaf guy motioning back and forth with every bump in the road, hitting this buzzer, quite oblivious to the noise of the buzzer and even moreso the frustration of the bus driver. " If you want off the feckin' bus, hit the button once, ya bleedin' eejits!! Buzz,Buzz,Buzz- It got to the point the driver exited the bus and sat on the kerb- muttering like someone demented!
The best must be the time I was working as a figurine painter in Norn Iron(Don't ask!)I had completely fallen in love with this red-haired vixen who just happened to be -yeah, well you guessed it: "deaf"
We had just left the cinema in Belfast after watching a 'Nightmare on Elm St:The Dream Master' and on crossing the road to get to the pub- I momentarily let go of her arm and .... Well let's just say she didn't hear me shouting "Watch out for that bus!" Then I was like laughing to myself "What am I saying? The girl is deaf!" Not only that, but why didn't I take her to a foreign movie as at least they have subtitles!
But it was too late...
I still have a lock of her hair embroidered into an old mo-hair jumper. I did however have to dye the hair black as I did not not want to offset the "goth" vibe that I was under at that time.
Memories...
* That may have been Wuthering Heights!
5 comments:
back in the early 'eighties, me and my mate, Shaun, used to go into pubs, and pretend to be deaf - not as odd as it sounds, at other times we pretended to be from another planet, nuclear submarine radar technicians on leave, and roadies for Bucks Fizz, amongst many other things - and we'd be giving it all the fake sign language, and talking REALLY loudly in bad deaf-people impressions. which was fun ( sort of ), until we ended up pretending to be deaf in a pub that was next door to a deaf school. I tell ya, them "deafies", they got no sense of humour. . .
these are great...I gotta tell uglyscott about these...he has this thing with the deaf...so, you go to work? I pictured you as this artist who did all his work at home in flannel pj bottoms. Maybe Freud would call it some projection-ism on my part...that's my fantasy life I just described...
Being almost completely deaf myself due to a slight teenage penchant for placing my head against the speaker during the occassional Motorhead concert, I have only this to say....
You dyed my hair black to match your Jumper?? How could you do it after I spent all those weeks in hospital because of you!
And the film was The Night Porter. Subtitles were not needed ;p
"Wellie, wellie, Miss contrary" God it is you!
When I went to see you in hospital, I did have that T-shirt on with the romantic slogan -remember? You looked at me with that one good eye and in a sweet whisper read the words to me: "If only I could Fu*k like Chuck" With the little head of Chuck Norris smiling just below the F*ck-
Beautiful...
Moments like that you really treasure.
However you ended, shacking up with your rehabilitation therapist - Never forgave you for that!
Your not too far off Angie, as I do wear my flannel pj bottoms to work- either that or a really tiny,tiny "sock"
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when i was young, my step-mom was working with the deaf as part of her schooling. one night she invited me to watch Jungle Book with the deaf kids. my ears still hurt. the sound on the projector was cranked up beyond the threshold of pain so the others could "feel" the music. ironically, it nearly deafened me. it was then i also realized that the deaf are cheated out of a good percentage of words in movies. those captions are quite brief. now, onto the blind. . .
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