Many of you may not be aware of it, but I usually write these posts about two weeks in advance – unless something particularly unusual happens that requires a more immediate write-up (as in the case of this post), I tend to write a batch and then schedule them out over the weeks like a conveyor-belt of sexually frustrated rage. And two weeks back I published a “College Of Awesome” post about speed dating - specifically scheduled for the day before Valentines Day. And in the post I briefly mentioned my predilection toward red-haired members of the fairer sex, following the comment up with this frankly fantastic image.
Well holy shit if the ginger lady folk haven’t taken all of this as a call to arms. Everywhere I’ve been in the last two weeks there’s been gingers popping up. And I don’t mean an extra couple on top of the usual one or two you’d see in an average day – I’m talking about a veritable rusty-crotch revolution.
Now the weekend before that post published, I was down in London to see The Black Keys play at Alexandra Palace - I was bloody excited about seeing one of my favourite bands playing live, and managed to squeeze in seeing the newly released Muppets movie (which is one of the funniest films you’ll ever see). But on the train from Stroud I constantly had 4 ginger girls sitting within 2 rows of me, like some sort of copper-top entourage. And if one got off the train, another ginger would come and take her seat. Strange coincidence? I’d written the speed dating post a few days before, but the ladies of the flame could obviously sense it’s publication was imminent. How often do you see groups of 3 & 4 ginger girls walking through London on a Saturday afternoon? NEVER until that weekend. But I shit you not it happened 5 times in 3 hours – and 2 of those hours were spent in a dark theatre watching the Muppets.
No, I'm not counting Beaker...
That’s 15-20 gingers an hour…
And every time I stopped and stared they’d just look back at me, smile, nod knowingly and walk on. It’s as if we’re in some alternate reality where my Tyler Durdin split personality has started a Project Mayhem for ginger kids… and the first rule of Project Mayhem is you don’t talk about Project Mayhem…
Clearly the ginger ladies were out in force, and it was getting a little weird. But not as weird as they were about to get at the Black Keys concert. I’d organised to meet up with a fellow (but non-ginger) Aussie there – no show. So instead I stood up the back near the curtains like Freddy-No-Friends, but enjoying Dan Auerbach (and his amazing ginger beard) tearing it up on stage. There was still a lot of gingers kicking around though – more than the norm. But when “Lonely Boy” started up, I grabbed my phone out to record some of it: I’d been commenting a few weeks before, to a lovely ginger lady from Louisiana I’d met in Edinburgh during the 2010 fringe, about how awesome the guy in the song video was and I wanted to grab some of the live performance for her.
And also because I’m a douchebag that gets his phone out at concerts.
I also pretend I can dance like this guy whenever I hear this played….
What I wasn’t expecting – in the 38 seconds of recording – was to bring the camera down to discover I was suddenly surrounded by another 4 ginger women that came completely out of nowhere to stand within a meter on all four sides of me. What… the hell? The ginger tsunami hasn’t slowed down since – gingers on the train back to Stroud, gingers in the supermarket… GINGERS IN THE STREETS! When Martin dragged me to Costa the following Monday morning, sure enough a ginger mum with her little ginger son and ginger daughter sit down at the table opposite 30 seconds after we did. When I started my new job the next day, the girl who’d started work on the shop counter the day before me – fake redhead. I tried asking her what was with all the gingers about, but she just winked and said “What gingers?”
What gingers? How about that EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS THERE HAVE BEEN FLAME-HAIRED GODDESSES RUNNING AROUND IN EVERY DIRECTION I LOOK – WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ALL COMING FROM? And more importantly: why didn’t I get the memo that the revolution had started? I may proclaim to be king of the gingers, but I am only joking – that title clearly belongs to this guy. So while I don’t think I started all of this, I did expect to be told when we started the global redhead coup. I’ve been out here, flying the ranga flag for years. But now that all the other redheads are coming out of the woodwork, you’ve all decided to leave me out of the loop like the ginger bloody seal.
So, if there are any real gingers out there who weren’t aware the red-olution has started: it has. Slap on the sunscreen my melanin-challenged people: we’re heading outside and taking this planet back.
[...] Menstrual Mondays – Ginger Tide [...]