Sadly I'm Not Steve McQueen

Sadly I'm Not Steve Mcqueen,

I knew it, I just knew it, I knew that when I grew up I was gonna smell fresh peaches in the air, baked pavements and milkshakes. Wild cats would eat my pets and I'd drive everywhere in a red open top car filled with sun bleached cassettes for I would live in Malibu, the home of the stars where Keith Moon would be my neighbour.

But you see,

 

Sadly I'm Not Steve Mcqueen.

 

The only Malibu I've ever seen is the white bottles of booze, Malibu and pineapple in frosted glasses held by girls with short skirts and scratched legs in suburban pubs, tropical drinks to keep the English winter from their bones. You see, I have not seen the white sands of west coast California but I have seen the weak shores of Leigh on Sea, with more mud than sea, more polluted estuary than zesty pacific, more decaying grey rot than rose coloured California, for you see,

 

Sadly I'm Not Steve Mcqueen.

 

I've never drove a big red shark on the pacific highway but I did once own a 2CV that I bought for four hundred quid from a widowed man in a brown corduroy suit. The roof came off and often didn't go back on. Now, I drove that car up and down the A13 past Stratford and under the river to the city at night with my girl next to me, the lampposts and streetlights serenading our scene. Then back south past Tilbury Docks and Rainham Marshes with a glove box full of apples, and my hand in her lap, on our way to Canvey Island. And you know, nothing smells like the start of the English summer, all mustard fields and new fauna, beer gardens and false hope. So you know, maybe if Steve Mcqueen could see me and my girl, laying down, her head on my chest and we sweat in her dads caravan until morning when the sun fills the windows and there's a cool wind from the west, then we realise we're more in love than the night before. You know maybe if Steve McQueen could see that he would think, he might think,

Sadly I'm not Scott Lavene

Sadly I'm Not Steve Mcqueen,