A kiss from Kate Moss, a bowl of Froot Loops from Kinky Friedman, kind regards from Clint Eastwood and all four Ramones
The furtive secrets of an accidental autograph collector
The signatures of George Saunders and Jonathan Franzen are not identical, but if the situation arose - trying to pay by cheque for a bag of pretzel rods in an all-night garage having accidentally swapped coats at an awards ceremony, perhaps - the two writers could get away with impersonating each other. Both favour an impressionistic swirl rather than a legible approximation of their name. It really is hard to distinguish any meaningful form in the scrawls, but with a bit of effort you might just be able to pick out one (not both) of the initials in Saunders’ truncated mark. The curls and swirls of Franzen’s autograph don’t even seem to hold to the rules of the roman alphabet. It’s like the linear expression of a saxophone solo played on a frozen milk bottle.
Why do I know this? I know because I own signed first editions of books by both Franzen and Saunders. I sought them out and bought them early in the belief that the signatures would add value, or something, to the books. And they do, sort of. The authors’ hands held the books. Maybe a fingerprint remains on the dust-jackets. But there’s something a bit industrial about the whole thing. Both of the daubs appear on a printed page above the legend “signed edition”, which makes them official, but also impersonal. It’s tempting to look at the economy and the carelessness of the signatures and picture the writers in an office burrowing through an avalanche of their own hardbacks, signing with more speed and less care.
I have many signed books, because publishing seems to be the one industry in which autograph hunting is an acceptable adult pursuit. Not all of them were shop-bought. I recently acquired a Nick Cave, which was accompanied by a posed photograph with the author, though my own 30 seconds of intimacy came at the precise moment when Cave announced himself daunted by the length of the queue and had to take a private moment to get himself back into the groove. I have many signed Richard Fords, because there was a time when his written voice was vital to me, and I have a (scarce?) Don DeLillo, an unloved Ian McEwan, and an understated Clive James. They all have a meaning which is more or less independent of the signature. The Clive James signing was a disappointment at the time. He barely made eye contact. But I remember the reading as a moment of light in a dark time of my life. I had moved to London and felt lost. But that night, in the erudite accessibility of James’s wit, I thought that maybe there was something to be said for a city in which such events were routine.
Is it better if the author is deceased? Not for the author, obviously. But for the books, you would imagine so. Norman Mailer signed my favourite title of his, though the book is in storage somewhere after a decade or more in my mother’s loft. Mailer made a mistake with his dedication and scribbled it out. Spalding Gray’s signature is special because of what came before it - an hour or so in which the great monologist talked himself back from the verge of suicide before hugging me gently and writing “Some chat!” on the title page. These two examples are cheating, as they were a by-product of journalism. Derek Jameson, the former editor of the News of the World, gave me one of the hundreds of copies of his autobiography that he kept in the boot of his car, and signed it sincerely. (Jameson’s ideal front page was - from memory - a topless woman, Manchester United, and £1m newspaper bingo.) Michael Parkinson was kind enough to suggest in his message to me that I was “every thinking man’s choice”. As an interviewer. I think. And I recall the time Clint Eastwood gave a press conference at the Caledonian Hotel; decorum broke down as a phalanx of starstruck hacks proferred their press-kits for his Hollywood daub.
These are all men, I see. I didn’t ask Patti Smith, or Marianne Faithfull, or Doris Lessing. I wish I had. But PD James wrote a nice message for my mum, and I have expressions of love from Goldie Hawn and Jane Fonda, which isn’t bad. Jane Birkin signed Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire De Melody Nelson for herself and her daughter Charlotte, who was in the womb on the startling cover image. And who could forget Kate Moss? Not me. When I took her hand it was like shaking a kitten’s paw, and though she told me a story about a man dropping his trousers and asking her to sign his arse, I wasn’t deterred.
The more traditional autograph exists as a symbol of an unequal transaction, proof of proximity. My George Best autograph is a hybrid. I spoke to him for half an hour in his dressing room at the Glasgow Pavilion, but in order to get his signature I had to pay my fiver and join the queue like everybody else. A Polaroid photo cost extra. I didn’t get one. I wish I had. (The chat, though, is a more precious memory than the scribbled evidence in the souvenir programme. “Slim” Jim Baxter is in there too, and that’s just a sad reminder that he wasn’t exactly in his pomp at the time, and had settled into a routine with Best, where they made jokes about their drink-related foibles).
I have some autographs from adolescence, when the business of collecting them was unselfconscious. I have a whole book of golfers, collected when the British Open came to Muirfield, and the grandeur of some of the names shines the modesty of my North Berwick High School mini autograph album. Gary Player is alongside Jack Nicklaus, Tony Jacklin, JC Snead, Tom Weiskopf, and Lee Trevino (twice). Trevino was pure charisma.
The Scottish golfer Bernard Gallagher is in the golf book too. I caught him in the steps of the Marine Hotel, North Berwick, where I later worked as a kitchen porter. I remember thinking he was deeply tanned. I also remember the uneasy look on my father’s face when I suggested to him that Gallagher was very handsome. There are golfers in there whose careers I have forgotten, but whose stories repay a second look. Dave Hill would have impressed me more if he had been the guitarist of Slade, but it’s instructive to learn now that Hill was an irascible character who broke his putter in two on live television, and famously recorded a score of 108 strokes on a single hole at the Thunderbird Golf Classic in Evergreen, Colorado in 1966.
From the same era, I have a couple of football autographs, both of them Celtic players. Tommy Callaghan was staying in the adjacent caravan during a family holiday in either Pitlochry or Callander (I mix the memories up) and signed the book I got as a school prize. And my mum’s Auntie May happened to live near the Lisbon Lion, Bobby Murdoch, and arranged from him to sign a postcard. I was struck dumb, but this apparent lack of gratitude prompted Auntie May to phone me and berate me for not penning a thank you note. The wound from that humiliation remains open, and the whereabouts of Bobby’s autograph are uncertain.
I have some autographs from late adolescence, when - unbelievably - it was possible to get backstage at the punk shows at the Edinburgh Odeon. I have all of Buzzcocks including the sainted Pete Shelley. Elvis Costello signed a photo and a poster, the Boomtown Rats did an album cover, and despite the presence of Sir Bob Geldof it appears to have no re-sale value whatsoever. I wasn’t present for two of my favourite autographs: my brother took my Ramones album and my Rezillos single to Bruce’s Record Shop in Edinburgh, and both records have a full set of signatures. The Ramones album is particularly poignant, as none of the band members is still alive.
My other two favourites come from country music, a genre in which the star-fan relationship has always been key. My favourite, if it’s real, and maybe even if it’s not, is my signed photo of Johnny Cash, which I bought at one of his concerts, and I’d like to think The Man In Black was principled enough to do his own autographing. I was in the room (actually the bus) for Willie Nelson, who finished his fish supper first; and Dolly Parton, who went the extra mile for her fans at Dollywood, posing for a photo and signing it in her own flamboyant hand.
Perhaps my favourite dedication came from Kinky Friedman, the country songwriter who wrote such timeless hits as They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore and Get Your Biscuits In The Oven and Your Buns in the Bed. Friedman was talking up this detective novels about a wise-cracking country-singing detective called Kinky when I met him, and he chided me when my questioning began to cut through the edges of his routine. The routine, I came to realise, was the thing - cutting through it was not the point. But he was happy to sign his book, and gave me a choice of dedications. I’m pleased to report that the Kinkster signed his name beneath the legend “fuck ‘em and feed ‘em Froot Loops”, a piece of homespun wisdom which never goes out of style.