Recently I got myself into a very very weird situation
But actually looking back on it. I actually learnt something really important from it. So I want to share what happened
so basically I was out going for a run late at night it was I think it was gone midnight on a Monday night and
I was running through the village where I used to go to school and
I
Ran Straight past this guy who was like lying on a wall like a little wall
And he was quite clearly drunk and his lying there
So I as as most people do ran straight past and it was a few seconds later
When I bumped into an old school friend who I hadn't seen in ages this guy Joel
and so I stopped and I had a chat with this guy and
we were you know catching up, and I look over his shoulder, and
the drunk guy was
Stood up now and was walking towards us
So I'm thinking the way I hope
nothing kicks off here and
Then Joel my friend goes
Billy! Billy! how's it going mate, and he starts talking to this drunk guy
And it turns out
They'd seen each other before in a pub
when Billy was going round
trying to drink the dregs of people's drinks and trying to smoke the ends of their cigarettes from the ashtrays and
Had been kicked out of every pub in the village and was basically causing havoc around
But somehow Joel just had this way of talking to him like
He he knew all the right things to say and this guy
was laughing and we just ended up having a chat
I was kind of like on the sidelines trying to you know trying to get involved but not like I'll be honest
I was feeling a little bit uncomfortable about the whole thing
but
What ended up happening was Joel goes, "Oh come on, Billy, you silly sod" like "let's walk you home"
So that's how I ended up walking through the streets of this village
with this
Crazy drunk guy and my old school friend. I mean he was somewhere between
50 and 75 you really couldn't tell I mean he when he came over to us he presented us proudly opened his
overcoat and showed that he had like one bottle of wine in this pocket and another bottle of white wine in the other pocket and
he was wearing this like this old dusty old flat cap and
He I think he had like two pairs of glasses on at the same time
So really really wacky guy, and we were walking down these streets in the dead of night
And so when we get back to his house after you know probably 20 minutes
he says oh come on guys you got to come in for a drink and
so I look at Joel like is this a good idea like should we be doing this and
he kind of just went like,
Why not so we ended up
Going into this guy's house
I have no idea what what kind of state this guy's house is going to be in
But he shows us in and we sit down on his sofa
And he pours us a drink from the wine and if I think I was drinking out of just a regular
like water glass
But he couldn't find another one so Joel was drinking out of like vase
it was pretty big well over a pint of
wine
But he's you know really enthusiastic a "ah guys, sit-down, you know make yourself at home" and
basically we ended up sitting and
drinking wine and chatting with this guy and
We're talking about all kinds of stuff some of it's
incoherent ramblings and some of its stuff about how this guy used to know Pink Floyd
before they were huge when they used to be back in - when they got started in Cambridge, and he's so
hospitable and so kind of enthusiastic
He like insisted on on making us some food. We had some oven chips and like turkey twizzlers
So many times of the night me and Joel are looking at eachother like, "is this okay? Are we safe here, is this cool?"
But he was a really
well-meaning guy. When we finally
Got around to leaving about 2:00 a.m.. Or something
He shook both of our hands like really
really tightly and said you know, what guys like you know you guys
Thanks. It was great to spend the evening with you guys like you know, I really appreciate it
And you could tell that he basically you know didn't really have
the opportunity for this he was basically lonely. You know, he told us that that his wife had died and that
He actually was sleeping on the sofa because he couldn't bear to go
into the bedroom because that was that was because he could like feel her presence
You know and so that kind of put a lot of the rest of it in perspective, so you know you kind of get a sense
from spending a bit of time with this guy, but that he was basically just really lonely
I came back from it thinking like
This is the kind of person who you could make a documentary about and then it made me think you know
Even writing a script who knows if in five years time, I'll write a character
Who's got like who wears two pairs of glasses or who says one of the many crazy things that this guy came up with?
Mostly I couldn't help but think that
Joel was the one who initiated
everything he was the one who got billy to come over he was the one who's started the conversation
You know I was certainly just kind of going along for the ride.
Every level he was the one saying yeah, let's do this yeah this let's, you know, be nice to this guy and
So me as the film maker
me as the person who's supposed to be curious, and who's supposed to be looking for characters and looking for stories
He was the one who actually
Ended up doing it all and I was the one who would have just ran straight past
And so that really challenged me about being curious
Because I reckon there must be so many stories out there so many people so many
Interesting characters and stories that people just don't hear. That I just just run straight past you know?
and so that really challenged me.
So I'd love to hear if you have any wacky stories from crazy characters and situations that you've found yourself in because it
Certainly seems like it's just kind of rich, rich material for writing and filmmaking in general
so feel free to share those in the comments and
I'll see you next week.