Cooper Brown: He's Out There
'You British are still not fit to clean the USA's shoes. But something here suits me – so I'm staying'
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Your support makes all the difference.I'm back from visiting Mom in northern California. I hate to say this, but I was almost relieved to get back to the UK. Obviously the weather was totally shitty and everyone behaved like an asshole and it cost me more than a duplex in Laguna Beach to get a cab into London but... it felt like home, and the USA didn't. That doesn't mean that you are better than the USA. Far from it – and don't start getting all excited and up yourselves, going around slapping each other on your fat backs, saying: "Cooper says we're the best. Hooray for us chappies." You're not, you're stillasswipes not fit to clean the USA's shoes. It's just that something here suits me, so I'm staying – forget what I said last week and thank you for all your letters asking me to change my mind. It wasn't because of them, it was me, so don't think that I ever listen to your letters. I don't. I don't even read them.
Humboldt-Fog was so thrilled to see me back. He's starting to look like a little bit of a lady-killer and drools when strange women are around – it's a good look. I took him out to Holland Park for some "man time". He has this new off-road buggy that carries coffee and stuff so we wandered aimlessly around the park getting high on strong lattes. There were several Milfs about and they were all happy to chat as they saw me as a superdad and spent ages telling me that they wished that their loser husbands would spend some time with their own kids like I did. I got the number of one stunning chick who kept telling me that her husband was away on business all next week (hint taken, darling, don't worry). If you live in South Kensington and have a beautiful wife called **** then best you cancel your business trip unless you want the Cooperman round your way...
The walk over, H-F and I ended up in Kensington High Street where we did some shopping before heading back to the Cooperdome. It felt good padding down the old streets with my son in front of me. Back in Eureka, California, we'd probably be settling into a POP-KID massage hour or some kind of tree ceremony where we all get into loincloths and run around like morons.
My mom, an eternal hippie, lives in this dumb commune in a redwood forest. You can imagine how happy I was to have to stay there for three days. The first morning, I woke up to a heavy mist hanging over the trees. It was drizzling and there was total silence. For a moment I could appreciate why some people think that these trees are in some way mystical – wood cathedrals, they call them. Then, chaos. A terrible whooping and shouting started as the commune began their morning "ceremony". There was a lot of wailing and humming and bad dancing, so I got into my rental and headed off into town to find a Starbucks.
We didn't have Starbucks or anything like that when I was a kid. There was one hamburger joint that pretty much fed the whole town – apart from that, and an ice-cream parlour, you had to make do with home cooking. Now, there's everything you could possibly need and I tried to shake off my horrible morning hippie experience with a venti Frappuccino. Someday I'm going to have to take H-F back there and explain this part of his genetic make-up. I'm sure going to leave it until he's well old enough to deal with it. He's got enough genetic reality with his British granny and grandpa to last him for a while.
As we get out of a cab outside my place, I see the lesbian sticker-lady moving fast away from the street where my Quattroporte is parked. She hasn't been active for a while and I'd kind of hoped she'd died. No such luck. I race round the corner and sure enough she's covered my beauty in newly designed, round stickers that read: "Honk if you hate American fascists".
I spin H-F round and we burn off down the pavement after her. I can't see her for a moment but then spot her turning down Seymour Street, so I pick up the pace. She looks behind her, sees me and starts running. I go faster and push a couple of nervous pedestrians out of the way. I can see that they think I have stolen a child but I don't care. I'm going to batter the lesbian sticker-lady.
Suddenly a wheel comes off the supposedly rugged stroller and H-F is propelled out, fortunately into a hedge, where he rests, screaming his head off. I am forced to stop and recover him and the lesbian sticker-lady gets away. Several busybodies surround me and start sticking their nose into what is going on and one even starts to call the police. Back home, I'd have been perfectly within my rights to pull out a handgun and shoot the lesbian sticker-lady down (invasion of property, etc). I realise that, much as I do feel at home over here and all that, there are certain things that the US does best. I bin the off-road stroller and carry H-F back to the Cooperdome where we chill out and watch Rambo: First Blood. I fantasise that I am he – hunting my mom, herhippie friends and the lesbian sticker-lady through a redwood forest with a crossbow. I take my time but I get them all, one by one. Off to South Kensington now... Cooper Out.
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