#johnny rockard

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

A 4* Book Review, no less!

Coo-eee! The first review of my book on #onlinebookclub. Published on Amazon Kindle. #goodreads

4 out of 5 stars.

"John Langley had a challenging life, starting at a young age. Despite his harrowing experiences, he was able to recognize his potential and utilize his thinking faculties to overcome his obstacles.

In his book, Langley tells a touching story that made me question the unfairness of life. His experiences were relatable; I had faced rejection and had to take charge of my life at a young age. It's always easier to tell the story, but the experience is hellish. Honestly, I love how expressive the author was throughout the book.

Reading this book taught me the importance of opportunity, intuition, and initiative and how they contribute to success. It also reminded me that nothing is impossible. In addition, it emphasized the importance of avoiding judgment towards others, as they may not have had better options. Reading Langley's story was comforting, reassuring me that I am not alone in the face of difficult times. It reminded me that better days are always on the horizon.

Finally, it is worth noting that the book contains excessive profanity and raw sexual language. As a result, this book may not be suitable for younger readers or those who dislike reading such content. However, despite the abundance of errors and profanity, the book is still an interesting read.

I would recommend The Sexual Philanthropist by John Langley to individuals who enjoy autobiographies and those who seek to explore the sex industry. I would also recommend this book to individuals who may be facing rejection, homelessness, or other personal difficulties."

Buy The Sexual Philanthropist: Everything you always wanted to know about nothing at all from a former pornographer by Langley, Mr John (ISB

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

Season's Bleatings. November 18, 2021. 9.57pm.

Shops, shopping centres, and streets alike are all decorated and lit by mid-November to remind us all it's that of year again, Spendmas.

You can forget any existing, more traditional notion of Christmas, for that's since long gone here in the UK at least. Retail consumerism has hijacked the Christian celebration in the same way as the early Christians hijacked and commandeered the pagan festival of Yule and rebranded it as Christmas.

The jury is still out on the true birth date of Jesus as there are academics and theologists who believe it to be somewhere between January and March. However, since the original and presumably papyrus written copies of what we now know more commonly as the Bible are not something anyone can access to either prove or disprove there is no real way of knowing about any of it as it's all historical, theorised belief which keeps running like a well-stoked steam train: and very successfully, I might add for over 2000 years now.

These words may well seem surprising coming from someone who was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith as I was, for the first fifteen years of my life and then refused point-blank to have anything further to do with it and stopped going to mass on a Sunday morning, much to the chagrin of my devout parents.

Like with most things I find myself to be the square peg when all the available holes are round when it comes to Christmas, because for me at least; and I fully accept I may be in the smallest minority here it's a total screw-up which I can neither believe in nor support in any way at all.

In my heart of hearts I would feel as if I was being hypocritical and untrue to myself to engage in Christmas when I neither go to church nor have any belief at all in God, and even if I was a believer I would still struggle with it as Christmas is now so far removed from what was intended to be a simplistic and humble celebration that's now been taken over by mass consumerism, and it's all about the money; ker-ching, ker-ching. It isn't Christmas, it's a retail spend fest!

How ironic that despite turning my back on Catholicism for all my adult life I still do guilt so very well in this particular circumstance and with a larger proportion of my thinking being as to why people don't see through the bullshit of it all as I did by taking a step back from it all and open their eyes to what it really is!

There are even those out there whose Christmas happiness is wholly dependent on the value of what they receive and give by way of gifts in the same way that there are also those who will value their love for another person on how much they spend or have spent on them, and vice versa. So the more you love someone the more you are likely to spend on them or receive from them. How does this work exactly!

Surely, surely I cannot be wrong in thinking that the act of giving is about the thought and not the value? Even as I type I find myself stopping every few moments to lower my forehead into my hands while I pause to take stock of it all in both horror and disbelief.

We celebrate the birthday of a guy who owned nothing by buying the shops virtually empty. We welcome the appearance of a guy whose idea of a feast was a kipper and a small loaf by pitching in and stuffing ourselves with the contents of a supermarket. We give thanks for the arrival of a guy who preached love and truth by having family rows and telling lies to get out of places early or hopefully not get into them at all.

So, I'll tell you what. You take your Christmas and I'll hang on to whatever is left now of my sanity because quite frankly my logical brain will simply not process the schizoid nature of it all.

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

So, let's talk about death. Why not! Tuesday November 16th. 4.36pm.

I heard from Anna today. Anna is John's producer at the Beeb, and she's invited me to speak about death and this blog on the radio next Monday. Evidently I "write well" - who knew apart from my former and now well and truly deceased English teacher Bernie Winters, and by the way didn't have a dog named Schnorbitz.

Anyway, seemingly and with much appreciation for the compliment as well as the opportunity, I've been booked for a slot at noon which I'm looking forward to.

Now I'm working through what I might have to say even though there is no need. John is a very accomplished presenter and interviewer and knows me well enough to not stray from asking what to others might be seen as difficult questions or otherwise treading on sensitive personal territory, and I very much like this honest, direct approach.

John accepts that I will always speak from the heart and in his words with "eloquence and humour."

So this blog piece in a way gives me something of a dress rehearsal in which to challenge my own thoughts and feelings on the subject as I'm a bit of a fan when it comes to these mental audits of myself, and believe they're a very healthy thing to do from time to time as it allows for refocus where required.

Am I afraid of death? No.

Am I bothered by death? No.

Do I look forward to death? Yes.

At which point I am pleasurably interrupted by a visit from Amy Louise, who in typical banterish form I rebuke for not arriving naked. She laughs and mutters "wishful thinking" as she is halfway out the door towards the loo. In this tippy-toe world nowadays where people feel they have the absolute right to be offended about everything and anything, though more usually the least, most insignificant thing, I absolutely love the fact that those in my circle give as much of a shit as I do when it comes to speaking freely and no offense is taken either way because there is absolutely no need for filtration. We just say it like it is and enjoy the sideways humour while still respecting what would otherwise be overstepping a boundary too far. I can only dream of the rest of the world being like this nowadays!

Yes, I admit that I have an unfiltered gob, and while I would never purposely go out of my way to cause anyone upset there are those who take me far too seriously sometimes and fail to recognise my banter, sarcasm, dry wit, or po-faced expression and completely lose out on the moment and enjoyment of shared humour.

Now back to death, or more appropriately forward.

No, I'm neither afraid of death nor bothered by it for the simple reason every living thing has a finite life span, and we are born, we live, and we die. There cannot be any simpler explanation than this and I have always had an acceptance of the fact because there is no getting away from it. The only caveat to this is where death occurs by means of violence to a person because whatever choice they may have about their death is taken away from them, and it must never be the choice of another.

By nature, I weigh more heavily on the practical than the emotional. Like everyone else I have my moments where every few months there will be teary times, more specifically to do with overtiredness which leads to overthinking and a few minutes of 'woe is me' before giving myself a good shake and getting on with my day until the next episode. I cannot stand the thought of self-pity as much as I deplore the thought of people feeling in any way sorry for me.

I speak to Amy Louise about this and she genuinely admits that if she had to live with a terminal illness she would be "in bits" and "crying all the time." To me, this would be a complete waste of time and energy I could be doing more constructive things with, but I respect her point of view and one which would be a commonality to a vast swathe of people. Unless of course, someone is of a Buddhist or other far Eastern belief where death is seen in a different light altogether as well as being a perspective that shaped my own view of death.

I've never been a follower of David Icke, but I do agree with him on one particular aspect of us humans, and this being that we inhabit a genetic spacesuit that we ethereally occupy as a temporary home for as long as we live. This is quite possibly the most profoundly spiritual thing he has ever said which dovetails with my own Zen-based belief leanings. The rest is way too off-kilter for me.

Buddhist teachings also make us aware of separating the spiritual from the emotional, and that while emotions should be recognised they also present quite negative traits which are spiritually harmful and cause unnecessary distress to ourselves and others as well as causing dis-ease and general unwellness both mentally and physically.

In the round I am therefore very comfortable with my eventual, or maybe even imminent death - who knows which will precede the other!

So, do I look forward to death?

Yes, I do actually.

Life, like having a career is functional, and with any long-term career, people will know when they've had enough. So I'm using this as a metaphor rather than comparing apples with pears. I have had the most diverse and interesting life imaginable and achieved everything I wanted to and more. Now, I have absolutely no idea of what's on the flip side of this and in whatever afterlife may or may quite possibly not exist. However, I'm curious enough to be excited about and look forward to the journey on a par with perhaps Elon Musk's own curiosity for distant planets. Though knowing my luck I could find myself returning as an Extinction Rebellion flagpole.

I wryly joust with you, of course. What else would you expect by now? There is however an equally valid second reason as to why I look forward to death, and aside from winning enough on the lottery to completely decamp to the relative sanity of a spiritual retreat in some remote part of Nepal, or a similar location I see the world around me and within the western hemisphere at least, falling apart at the seams. The overall emotional instability and immaturity of people are beyond breathtakingly fathomable as is the breakdown of respectful living where people; particularly millennials run amok with no perceptible comeback.

Some may only be down to silly and totally avoidable little things like walking through the streets with a boombox blaring out and completely oblivious to the fact that other people really don't want to hear whatever the person is playing, and for half or maybe a quarter the price of whatever the sound system cost a pair of earbuds or headphones would be a lot less in spending power and nowhere near as annoying. People who play unwelcome music on public transport are another example. Then there are those who hold up emergency service vehicles by blocking our highways, and people who cycle on pavements when it's illegal to do so if you are an adult, as well as motorists who park on pavements whereby making it difficult or even impossible for people with pushchairs and wheelchairs to pass without endangering themselves. Even Jay, my cleaner has been subject to the sharp end of disrespect after lending a so-called 'friend' £20.

I will tell you know that is one of the nicest, polite, respectful and kind people ever. I absolutely adore her. She works for her money and I got her another little part-time job as well with a retailer friend of mine who I highly recommended her to, and Jay had to two hours for him for that £20. She is pretty much saving most of her income for university, and now she is asking for her money back this friend began giving her all manner of hassle and expected Jay to go to the other side of Bristol to collect it. Jay quite rightly remonstrated politely and now this girl has blocked her and Jay has no chance of seeing her money again.

She was in tears feeling so badly let diwn by someone she considered a friend, and I felt tearful for her. I pulled her into me to put my arms around her to give a massive, supportive hug. I cannot emphasise enough how lovely a human being she is and in no way warrants such disrespect and I don't want to see her at a loss knowing what a good and conscientious worker she is, so I'll give her the £20 myself because she is worth every last penny of it.

Then we move on to more serious stuff which impacts on others such as the level of street crime and violence which locally I'm sick of reading about in the Bristol Post. The spiking, the rape cases where young men are also more recently included in reports, and as for child sex offenders, well this is so off the scale of fathomability I find myself stuck for anything else to say within the context of educated discourse!

Believe me, I'm no saint, and neither am I standing up in virtue, but I do prescribe to sensibility and not engaging in the emotionally unintelligent fracas of disrespect and valueless spats with others where reasonable discussion and compromise has been replaced by needless and corrosive aggression both verbally and in action.

I've had E-N-O-U-G-H! Simple.

Wow, for a dress rehearsal I suspect all of the above in its entirety would take up far more airtime than scheduled for, but at least it's a start.

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

A passing thought. Tuesday November 16. 4.23pm.

Given that I have emphysema, how the hell am I still alive?

I sanitise nothing, breathe freely without ever having to wear a mask, hug family and friends, don't social distance, and worst of all I accept cash and pay cash.

Wow, I'm just a walking miracle! Are there any other walking miracles out there, I wonder? Surely I cannot be alone!

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

Cough, splutter. November 15th 2021. 9.40pm.

Today hasn't been one of the greatest since someone not so kindly passed a chest cold on and it's being brutal in terms of my emphysema. Shortness of breath would be the understatements of understatements at the moment. However, this isn't the first time I've had this and probably won't be the last. So I'll crack on as per usual and wait for it to clear.

I bought a bottle of Benylin, mucus cough max earlier today but despite the promising-sounding honey and lemon flavour it still tastes as vile as ever. Given I'm not sleeping too well, in hindsight I should have opted for my usual go-to and purchased a bottle of Night Nurse. Never mind, I'll just continue to cough and splutter inconveniently for tonight and return to the default medication of first choice tomorrow.

Somehow, possibly through this short-term memory loss thingy I even managed to overlook a phone appointment with my hospital consultant, which is annoying. Meanwhile trying to connect online with my GP surgery was enough to self-refer any sane person to psychiatry. What a palaver! Sending a copy of my passport was the easy part, providing a face image via some ridiculously highfalutin piece of AI provided by the NHS was not.

Suddenly I was in the Golden Shot game show, and in the crosshairs of this bloody stupid piece of software I was instructed to place my face within a provided on-screen outline and then told to move up, down, closer, go back, and come closer again until it said to hold while the image was captured, But no, this wasn't enough and ten minutes later I was promising myself to seek out the lunatic who thought this was a good idea and shove their AI where the sun don't shine.

Some twenty minutes later aha, Finally! All I had to do now was wait for verification and the job's a good un. Quicker than expected the email arrived mid-morning, and there was I all set to access my GP until I scrolled down and read that the face verification had failed. Oh deepest joy was not my reaction, as surprising as this may be, and now I'm left with starting the entire bloody process again and I couldn't be any more pleased to be living in this age of progress.

Now with my day complete in every way possible I will depart from my computer with Benilyn in hand and retire to my bedroom where I will sleep peacefully for at least fifteen minutes every hour, and continue to cough and splutter for what remains.

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

Sunday, Sunday. November 14, 2021. 7.49pm.

I find Sunday to be a kind of 'nothing' day usually. A day for staying under the duvet until the sheer boredom of it rouses me somewhere around ten o'clock when Bud gently paws my nose to remind me he wants breakfast, like now!

This morning however was different, in as much as the chili from yesterday evening had by now worked its way through my system and Usain Bolt wouldn't have beaten me to the bathroom. There I sat for twenty minutes to the point where I was on the verge of losing power in both legs through numbness, and Lulu; who I have to say has a very peculiar bathroom fetish, was typically quizzical.

It was then Bud's turn to poke his head around the door, probably concerned that I was dying before he had the chance to eat - judging by his facial expression at least. Lulu, on the other hand by now had perched herself in what she sees as her perfect place, between my back and the toilet seat cover. Her fetish should rightly be something of concern, however my focus was on doing my very best to recall in entirety every prayer my Catholic education taught me while sitting there in discomfort. Unlike yesterday this was no time for random thoughts of Johnny Cash!

By now nearly an hour had flown from 06.50 when I woke up to almost 8 o'clock, and it was time to return to the warmth of my pit where I would stay until 10am, well at least that was the plan - until the next bathroom visit and the final one after that.

In between visits my time was not wasted as afterthoughts from yesterday's blog got me thinking further about how I've segued from one thing to another, and more to the point how my relationship with myself has grown and matured over the years in much the same way as those longstanding weddings we read about in the press, where couples have been together for thirty, forty, fifty years or longer.

Marriages where people grow together, support and nurture each other through thick and thin. This was a lightbulb moment for me as I began to realise that the closest relationship any of us will ever have in the entirety of our lives is the relationship we have with ourselves. We are married to who we are; our better or worse self; the internal and external being; the conscious and subconscious; the yin and the yang.

This was my Zen moment, an appreciation and acceptance of the calmness within, and feeling comfortable with my other half - just being as one. It's never been a perfect marriage by any means, but I've had to stick with it because there was no other choice. There ain't no divorcing me from myself so everything has had to be negotiated and worked through.

Then for me it's back to the real world of people and Facebook before I rise from bed. I see couples getting together and breaking up. I see the bitter back-biting and animosity, resentment, jealousy, and shattered lives, and I wonder how well people really know themselves nowadays before embarking on a relationship with someone else before they've even got to know who they are.

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

Ring of fire. November 13th 2021. 7.31pm

Evening has fallen and my literary mojo is back in full swing at last, and my predilection for food reminds me that on an empty stomach I should not write if that doesn't sound too Yoda'ish. I saw no reason to pay my daily fodder pilgrimage to the M&S food hall earlier and instead opted to open the freezer for tonight's fayre while resisting the temptation to seize a bag of chips as first, and to be honest, laziest choice.

Aha, chili wings courtesy of Iceland, that'll do! I'll have eight, and I duly shoved them into the oven for the required twenty-five minutes, as per the destructions. At this point, I should make uber-clear the disclaimer that, when purchased they were bought with the naivety of a nun in a sex shop, as little did I know at the time that the heat from these may well have been enough to provide an Inuit with full-blown central heating for a day; and with ample left over to boil several kettles, fill possibly five hot water bottles, and still have sufficient for a thermos flask of freshly brewed snow.

Now, I'm not one to waste food where it's avoidable - and I fully admit to enjoying some heat. However, these were on another level, and while being absolutely brilliant at clearing my sinuses like I've not known for perhaps several weeks, as I sat there gingerly picking my way carefully through every morsel and feeling like Satan was entering my bloodstream, the discomfort I felt was suddenly offset by the most random playback of Johnny Cash singing 'Ring of Fire' in the back of my mind. Why!

In moments like this, I would so wish to become a nano-version of myself, so that I could crawl into me via my earhole and navigate the labyrinths to whatever part of my brain comes up with this type of random output, and check the wiring. Ring of fire!

Anyway, I managed six of the eight before disqualifying myself from eating the remaining two due to the effect of a lit blowlamp being inserted between both mandibles and having my fillings melted. Under normal circumstances, the cats would nosh away on the bones until the skeletal remains were stripped bare of all remaining flesh.

However, with the previous few minutes of experience still fresh in my mind, the thought of doing so created a mental image of lighting a touchpaper to feline anal explosion sometime later during the night and waking up to my walls being redecorated tomorrow morning, with me spending nearly all of the day sourcing an emergency hazmat suit purchase; with gloves, and all of which I have to say has absolutely nothing to do with what I intended to write about in the first place.

Now, do you get how my mind meanders off-course to the most bizarre places others wouldn't give any thought of going to?

Right, time to get back on track. So my day begins laying in bed and, as per usual all the unprocessed stuff from my sleep segues into a million and one other things as I attempt to process the day ahead of me. Eventually, my right finger taps its way to incoming messages, and among the general dross of subjects I divide into the oblivion of boring, sales pitches, utter drongoes, and spam, I see a reply email from John - a BBC radio presenter who I sent my blog link to a couple of days before.

John, to me I have to say is something of an incredible human being, and mostly because he has given quite a lot of airtime to me over a number of years where others may well have slammed the door in my face. He is a genuinely nice person for who I have a lot of time and respect, and I always look forward to our 'on-air' Tete a Tetes. If I was still a drinker he would be exactly the person I could share a brilliant evening of conversation with down the pub.

Anyway, I'm fairly confident he won't mind me quoting him, and this was his reply -

"Hi John, just read this and you write very well, a pleasure to read if the content and context is no pleasure for you. I will have a chat with Anna on Monday and see if we can give you a slot to talk about this, as we don't talk about death, preparing for it, and living with it when it's coming enough. And I know you will do it with great eloquence and humor too. All the best, John."

Isn't that nice?

Suddenly my mind is cast back to how many years we've known one another professionally, and a eureka moment brings to the fore how I have managed to continually reinvent myself without even realising it. From Bristol community campaigner to political candidate; to adult actor (I use the term 'actor' loosely); to Amazon author, and now blogger - all of which seamless as if predetermined somehow.

Like John, I have something of a passion for radio broadcasting. There's something about the intimacy of it which I feel we both share a warmth of - him professionally, and me as a contributor. Also, like John, I've done telly, video, and voiceovers. So we share far more in common than one would think off the bat, and I've even contributed what the industry calls 'packages' to the BBC in Scotland, as well as making and selling pre-recorded music programmes to foreign radio stations. Up until now at least one of my best-kept secrets was that I used to sneak into the local radio station overnight when I knew I would be alone and off-air practice broadcasting skills on the studio desk and download them onto cassette tape to send around various stations to try and get a foot further up the ladder.

Even though I've been blessed with what has been described nowadays as a 'late night' radio voice I've always regretted not following the dream when I was in my twenties. The truth is I was somewhat way ahead of my time, in as much as I was too much of a maverick. I was a risk, like Howard Stern on steroids and the Uk wasn't ready for me or anyone remotely like me who apparently there would have been little or no control over. Basically, no station bosses could have afforded the legal bills I would have potentially run-up.

Starting over nowadays I would clearly know better, but I feel that ship has well and truly sailed. So instead I contribute when invited to do so from the other side of the desk I still to this day remain in awe of.

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

An overflow moment. November 13 2021. 11.09am. City centre cafe.

For me, this is a blue-moon moment as I write this piece away from my desk, while I sup hot chocolate and people watch, as I find it inspires my thinking.

Yesterday was pretty much uneventful. Brain fog caused by a severe head cold hung over me like the dark cloud of literary constipation does. When Jay, my cleaner arrived sometime after 1pm she too was medicated for pretty much the same condition as me.

While she cleaned I attempted to battle through regardless, and to my credit achieved one paragraph, albeit that it took two hours to compose. Given that there is no such thing as senna for the brain I decided to quit while I was behind and settle myself into a day of nothingness without being in any way conscious of nothingness fast-forwarding so efficiently to bedtime - with a little help from online solitaire and hidden object games enabling this passage of time.

Conversely, today is the full-on, turbo-charged, Admiral James T Kirk version of yesterday's creative block.

I am reminded of how precious the solitude of writing from home where thought-flow runs freely when my one-fingered phone typing is abruptly interrupted by the incoming conversation of a random person stopping for a chat. This person, as lovely as she is, clearly hasn't the foggiest that I came here for peace and quiet. I break off to share the time she was offering me and converse politely while subconsciously mumbling every expletive known within the English-speaking language.

The universe must have noticed my disposition and rescued me by virtue of a phone call at which point she disappeared among the frenzy of pre-Christmas shoppers, while I sat collecting my thoughts, as by now I'd completely lost track of the flow I was in prior to her untimely arrival.