Brand - MY BOOKY WOOK: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up

And that I walk thus proudly crowned withal
Is that tis my distinction; if I fall,
I shall not weep out of the vital day,
To-morrow dust, nor wear a dull decay

Percy Bysshe Shelley,
And That I Walk Thus
Proudly Crowned Withal

When I was small and five
I found a pencil sharpener alive!
He lay in lonely grasses
Looking for work.
I bought a pencil for him.
He ate and ate until all that was
Left was a pile of wood dust.
It was the happiest pencil sharpener
I ever had

Spike Milligan, 2B or not 2B

On the morning of April Fools Day, 2005, I woke up in a sexual addiction treatment center in a suburb of Philadelphia. As I limped out of the drab dogs bed in which I was expected to sleep for the next thirty wankless nights, I observed the previous incumbent had left a thread of unravelled dental floss by the pillowmost likely as a noose for his poor, famished dinkle.

When Id arrived the day before, the counselors had taken away my copy of the Guardian, as there was a depiction of the Venus de Milo on the front page of the Culture section, but let me keep the Sun, which obviously had a Page 3 lovely. What kind of pervert police force censors a truncated sculpture but lets Keeley Hazell pass without question?armshangings too good for him, to the incinerator! Keep that picture of stunner Keeley though. If they were to censor London Town they would ignore Soho but think that the statue of Alison Lapper in Trafalgar Square had been commissioned by Caligula.

Being all holed up in the aptly named KeyStone clinic (while the facility did not have its own uniformed police force, the suggestion of bungling silent film cops is appropriate) was an all too familiar drag. Not that Id ever been incarcerated in sex chokey before, lord no, but it was the umpteenth time that Id been confronted with the galling reality that there are things over which I have no control and people who can force their will upon you. Teachers, sex police, actual police, drug counselors; people who can make you sit in a drugless, sexless cell either real or metaphorical and ponder the actuality of lifes solitary essence. In the end its just you. Alone.

Who needs that grim reality stuffed into their noggin of a morning? Not me. I couldnt even distract myself with a wank over that gorgeous slag Venus de Milo; well, shes asking for it, going out all nude, not even wearing any arms.

The necessity for harsh self-assessment and acceptance of deaths inevitability wasnt the only thing I hated about that KeyStone place. No, those two troubling factors vied for supremacy with multitudinous bastard truths. I hated my fucking bed: the mattress was sponge, and you had to stretch your own sheet over this miserable little single divan in the corner of the room. And I hated the fucking room itself where the strangled urges of onanism clung to the walls like mildew. I particularly hated the American gray squirrels that were running around outsidejust free, like idiots, giggling and touching each other in the early spring sunshine. The triumph of these little divs over our indigenous, noble, red, British squirrel had become a searing metaphor for my own subjugation at the hands of the anti-fuck-Yanks. To make my surrender to conformity more official I was obliged to sign this thing (see page 6).

I wish Id been photographed signing it like when a footballer joins a new team grinning and holding a pen. Or that Id got an attorney to go through it with a fine-tooth comb: Youre gonna have to remove that no bumming clause, I imagine him saying. Most likely youre right curious as to why a fella who plainly enjoys hows yer father as much as I do would go on a special holiday to sex camp (which is a misleading title as the main thrust of their creed is no fucking). The short answer is I was forced. The long answer is this

Many people are skeptical about the idea of what I like to call sexy addiction, thinking it a spurious notion, invented primarily to help Hollywood film stars evade responsibility for their unrestrained priapic excesses. But I reckon there is such a thing.

Addiction, by definition, is a compulsive behavior that you cannot control or relinquish, in spite of its destructive consequences. And if the story I am about to recount proves nothing else, it demonstrates that this formula can be applied to sex just as easily as it can be to drugs or alcohol.

Having successfully rid myself, one day at a time, in my twenties, of parallel addictions to the ol drugs and drinksif you pluralize drink to drinks and then discuss it with the trembling reverence that alcoholics tend to, its funny, e.g., My life was destroyed by drinks, I valued drinks over my wife and kids. Drinks! I imagine them all lined up in bottles and glasses with malevolent intent, the bastardsI was now, at this time, doing a lot of monkey business.

I have always accrued status and validation through my indiscretions (even before I attained the unique accolade of Shagger of the Year from the Sunnot perhaps the greatest testimonial to the good work they do at KeyStone), but sex is also recreational for me. We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings, but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.

And this is what sex provides for mea breathing space, when youre outside of yourself and your own head. Especially in the actual moment of climax, where you literally go, Ah, theres that, then. Ive unwound. Ive let go. Not without good reason do the French describe an orgasm as a little death. Thats exactly what it is for me (in a good way though, obviously)a little moment away, a holiday from my head. I hope death is like a big French orgasm, although meeting Saint Peter will be embarrassing, all smothered in grog and shrouded in post-orgasmic guilt.

Part of my problem was that these holidaysincessant as they wereno longer seemed to have the required calming effect. I suppose if you kept frantically scuttling off to Pontins every half-hour and ejaculating in the swimming pool then itd become depressing after a while.rehabilitation, thought a little stretch in winky-nick would do me the power of good, and used threats, bullying, love and blackmail to make me go.

They dont go in for the pampering of clients at John Noel Management. Even now, with my own TV production company, radio show, parts in films, DVD and stand-up tour, I still dont have yes men surrounding me, I have fuck off men. I suppose I ought to be grateful to have such close relationships with the people I work withJohn, Nik, whos Johns son and brilliant in his own right, and Matt and Gee from the Radio 2 show. They all seem to be dedicated not only to the fulfillment of professional objectives, but also to anchoring me to a terrain where my ego is manageable.

And so it was spitefully decided not to send me to some sort of celebrity treatment center, like the world-renowned Meadows Clinic in Arizona, because thats not the style of John Noel and the other stewards of my well-being. Instead, they insisted I should go to a facility where not all the places were private, where a certain proportion of people were there on judicial programsjail-swerves they call them, when youre a drug addict and youre offered a choice of prison or rehab. The same option exists for the terminally saucyget treatment or go to prison; in prison therell be much more sex but it could err on the side of coercive.