Introducing Kevin Bonko || An interview with Sue Gives A F**k
There are two conversational shorthands that I hold especially close to my heart.
The first is one that I haven’t had the opportunity to use in a while, because it’s quite specific to social situations. It’s a shorthand for that moment when, for no reason at all, you arrive somewhere and realise in a single, crushing moment -
‘Oh no. I’ve left my personality at home.’
And that’s it. There’s nothing that can be done.
My friends and I refer to this as NPD - No Personality Disorder. This is not a shady dismissal: it happens to the best of us. You’re an interesting and interested person, talking to someone fun, clever and kind, but you can’t seem to stop flailing around in a conversational hinterland. You’ll grasp at some low-hanging fruit, your face crinkled with effort like a walnut shell. ‘How’s work?’ you might ask, and then instantly cringe. Nobody wants that question! You know this! But least it’s known terrain; NPD brings with it the very real risk of entering a fugue state and regaining consciousness only to find yourself ranking your favourite chain restaurants in order of how reasonably-priced-to-extortionate you believe their garlic bread to be.
You can’t fight it. When NPD strikes, you have two options:
1. Leave immediately.
2. Find a friend and mutter the code. They will nod knowingly, and from there you can relax, and tuck into a comfortable debate about your favourite celebrity cameos in The Simpsons.
Having someone lovingly acknowledge and accept your NPD may prove reviving. If not, I’m afraid it’s back to option one. Get outta there.
Since they announced our semi-imminent return to society, so many people I’ve spoken to have reported feeling hopeful and apprehensive in equal measure. A new crop of social anxieties are beginning to rear their ugly heads, just in time for Spring. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I no longer know how to dress myself properly – I exist unwaveringly in the pandemic standard-issue leggings and big holey jumpers, or the three pairs of scrubs I wear on rotation for work: Peppa Pig in a profoundly unflattering shade of bubble-gum pink, toothpaste-blue with orange pockets and a big smiling cat on the shirt, Hawaiian shirt-type design with a hippo, palm trees, and a bird carrying a knapsack. The thought of wearing jeans again is honestly laughable. I’m not up for engaging in any of the panicked pre-end-of-lockdown diets and workouts I keep hearing about, but I do worry that my social muscles have all but withered away.
I suspect that NPD is going to be a more common occurrence as we emerge, blinking, into the light, and on its own, that’s manageable. I think (I hope) we’ll be gentle with each other. But now he has a new friend. The second conversational shorthand is very specific to this year. The phrase is, and please bear with me, Kevin Bonko’s come to stay.
His origin story: my friend Tash was reflecting with a writer friend on the challenges making good, creative work in this Time. Was everyone else finding it impossible? Was anyone else finding it impossible?
‘Oh don’t worry,’ says her friend, calmly. ‘I’ve gone 100% bonko.’
The fact is, I don’t have a sophisticated enough vocabulary to describe why, and just how much, I love this response.
I’ve gone 100% bonko.
I live for its simplicity. Its certainty.
1000% would’ve been meaningless hyperbole, but 100% is a statement of fact, coolly delivered. You could be reading that from a clipboard. Sorry, how much bonko did you say? I just have to cross-reference the figures. Ah, yep. 100%. Great, that’s what I had here.
Crucially, it’s not just a bit bonko. Oh no no no. We are talking full bonko.
And within that, most of all I love its total lack of angst. There’s no judgement or self-flagellation. It’s not me, it’s not you, it’s… well, really pick anything you like. It’s a proportional response.
Lastly, a simple truth: bonko is fun to say. Let’s take our pleasures where we can, you know?
From here, 100% bonko somehow morphed into your friend and mine, Kevin Bonko. For Tash, her housemate Ella, and their friend me, Kevin Bonko’s come to stay became the code for a new and unwelcome houseguest. Madness. Sadness. A heady combination of the two.
It feels important to note that Kevin Bonko isn’t a way of making light of the very real mental health challenges people are facing this year; it’s not a veiled way of describing Depression or Anxiety. It’s a shorthand, not a euphemism. It’s not a shame thing; like all the verbal equivalents of discreetly slipping a tampon up your sleeve when skulking to the toilet. [Side note: are we still expected to do that? Is that still a thing?] He’s tricky to describe but I suspect you might know exactly what I mean.
Kevin Bonko is brain fog, hysteria, bewilderment.
Kevin Bonko is that bit in The Simpsons when the inside of Homer’s brain is revealed to be a monkey in a waistcoat playing the cymbals.
Kevin Bonko is a Flibbertigibbet, a will-‘o-the-wisp, a clown. Come to think of it, you could sing the entirety of How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? but replacing the name Maria with Kevin Bonko and honestly it would still work. I’m not saying the scansion wouldn’t be tough, but it just requires a bit of commitment.
Kevin Bonko had definitely come to stay with my friend Rachel when she sent me this text:
The beans-on-phone is standalone Bonko behaviour, but almost more troubling - more signature Kevin B - was my immediate response:
Not ‘You clearly have a lot on your mind. Are you okay?’
But ‘Sure, beans-on-phone; that checks out. But do you have backup beans???’
This year, rarely has my phone been un-beaned. Reading that sentence back, there he is.
As I was writing this, I texted Tash and Ella to say that I was trying to express why Kevin Bonko is such an important concept, but that every word was like squeezing blood from a stone. A stone really maintaining its fundamental essence of stone-ness.
This, we agreed, was classic Kevin. Struggling to form a coherent thought? ‘That’s just Kevin knocking on the door every five minutes’, wrote Tash.
Me: (silently trying to put a sentence together)
Kevin: NEED ANYTHING??
Me: …
Kevin: JUST GONNA DO THE HOOVERING IF THAT’S OK!!
I think Kevin Bonko has had his hand in every quixotic lockdown project attempted. If you catch yourself thinking ‘Now is the time to finally knuckle down and learn how to make my own Sauerkraut!’ Kevin can’t be far away. A significant portion of TikTok is 100% bonko, in a way that I find quite moving.
Peak Kevin is that bit in Parks and Recreation where Ben Wyatt gets really into Claymation.
Kevin Bonko refers, I suppose, to a sort of situational depression. Which is to say that it’s an appropriate response. When the world has gone 100% bonko, to be anything but would be almost perverse. Kevin Bonko is the baseline on which we’ve had to re-build our lives and manage our unwieldy feelings. You just have to accept him and live your life as best you can.
He barely requires acknowledgement now. We’ll preface phone calls:
‘By the way, Kevin has very much come to stay.’
‘Oh god, same. How’s your day been?’
The other day my friend Georgia observed, quite unworriedly, that ‘we’re all going mad in our own idiosyncratic ways.’
In a few short months, the stars of Kevin Bonko and NPD may align for the very first time. Lord help us all.
The Cameo
My guest this week is Sue Gives A F**k.
What’s your job title/profession?
Drag queen and admin bitch.
What would you love for people to know about your work?
Not the admin bitch bit. I need to stop telling people that.
What might people be surprised to discover about your work?
That I’m not really a drag queen. I’m just a comedian in a dress. Sometimes I lipsync but only coz that’s what drunk straight girls demand.
What made you/helped you to choose what you do?
I’ve got two contradictory narratives about this. One is that, being a queer sort of person, I went to queer nights where everyone dresses up a bit, and each time I went I’d dress up a bit more, and then before I knew it I was on a stage in a gown. The other is that, in 2015, RuPaul came to town to do the catchily titled RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Ambassador competition. I made a nice audition tape so I got in, and I was horrendously out of my depth. Literally my first time performing in drag was in front of RuPaul. I wasn’t ready, I didn’t like it, and I wanted to cry. I was, however, immortalised by Katie Price in the line “Can I have a porn star martini? No? Ugh. Fine. My favourite’s Sue.’
What’s your perfect breakfast/lunch for a workday?
I usually have more than one breakfast because I need to fill the time and don’t know how to budget. I get one of those ridiculous pots of tropical fruit you get in supermarkets and I have that with cereal, and then a bit later I might have a sandwich from Pret. I miss Wonga.
Do you have a set morning routine?
Be late. Write at least one joke on the tube to work, and come up with at least one new excuse for being so late.
Do you have a dedicated/preferred space for writing? If so, what does it look like?
Wetherspoons is my go-to. They have cheap coffee and actually not bad food, and they’re so big that even if you don’t buy any of those things you won’t feel awkward. And they have wifi. And plugs. Political objections pale in comparison with plugs.
What are your work hours like? Do you try to create a routine for yourself or is that impossible given the nature of your work?
I try to behave like I have 2 full time jobs. So I finish work and I’m like ‘ok now I can start work’. So I’ll either do a show or some writing or a photoshoot after work, and the same again at the weekend. Or sometimes I’ll see friends, which I count as work.
Do you work with fixed goals in mind or take it day by day depending on what comes up?
Gigging is very reactive. You wait for or try to get a booking, and then adjust what you’ve got to fit whatever audience you’ve convinced to watch you. I’m trying to do a bit less of that at the moment so that I can focus on creating work. I’m making YouTube videos where I do the news and a podcast where I have sex with people, so I’m trying to keep those in mind as solid goals.
What’s your favourite thing about your job?
I used to act a bit but I was quite bad, and one of the reasons was that I was playing the wrong gender. So now I get to play the right gender while making straight people uncomfortable. If you think you’re a straight person who wouldn’t feel uncomfortable, you’ve clearly not been to one of my shows.*
*I’m joking, straight people are very welcome at any of my shows.**
**They’re welcome everywhere. That’s how privilege works.
Least favourite?
Sometimes straight people do come to my shows.
Go-to work sustenance, meal, drink or snack-wise?
White wine
Do you have a go-to treat to get you out of a slump?
White wine
What do you do to get through days when you just don’t feel like it?
White wine. Except actually I don’t drink before shows any more. Book me.
How you define a good/successful day?
If I make something exist or happen that didn’t exist or hadn’t happened before.
What’s been your favourite failure? One that you learnt a lot from, or one that you can look back and say ‘well I got through THAT, I’m unstoppable!’
I once got so drunk on stage that I got stuck in a cardboard box. I’d planned to get in the box and then emerge doing a parody cabaret piece about overly earnest political art. The box was society and the piece was about Brexit. Unfortunately it was a time when I was using white wine to deal with horrendous stage fright, and I hadn’t eaten enough, and I had a cold, and I had a new comedy partner who intimidated me, so I’d misjudged how much to drink. I tipped forward in the box so I was upside down and the opening was against the floor. I kicked upwards, and one stiletto boot came out of the top of the box and got stuck there, and I was still upside down, and starting to thrash about. After a few minutes of watching the box move about an audience member had to help me out of the box, sit me down, and take the microphone away. That was the end of the show. I’m better now. Book me.
Any hot tips for the old work-life-balance conundrum?
Ugh. Straight people have lives. Queers have beverages.
Do you have any hobbies/passions outside of your work?
Again, for straight people.
What’s the best piece of advice someone’s ever given you? (Or worst!)
Before I was all profesh I did a runway competition at a Sink the Pink ball, and I didn’t have a name. So when Oozing Gloop, the host, announced me to the stage, they announced me as ‘Who gives a fuck?’, but I thought they said ‘Sue Gives A Fuck’, so that’s my name now.
What are you evangelical about recommending to people?
Switching your gender to female on Tinder. Straight men are wild.
What’s your top tip for getting shit done?
Maybe try having a bit less white wine.
Photo credit: @elliot_moody
Follow Sue on Instagram (@suegivesafuck) & Twitter (@SueGivesAFuck)
Listen to her podcast, Transgressions.
Subscribe to her YouTube channel. I think about this video about brands’ gnarly co-opting of queerness, allll the time:
Some Music
When I listen to this playlist, I’m imagining myself in a training montage narrated by Danny DeVito. And that’s exactly why I made it.
You can listen to it on Spotify here:
A Poem
The Art Of Disappearing
by Naomi Shihab Nye
When they say Don't I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.
If they say We should get together
say why?
It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.
When someone recognises you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.
From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)
nod briefly and become a cabbage. This line has taken up permanent residence in my heart.
Links!
What does Britishness mean in 2019? Tom Rasmussen writes so beautifully about growing up in the matriarchy of Lancaster:
It was by no means queer. It was often homophobic. But it was here, taking cues from these trailblazing, hard women, and the way they dominated men, that showed me there were ingenious ways to survive if you’d been dealt cards that put you to the bottom of the deck.
(Yes, this article is clearly from a while ago. I treat going through my bookmark folders like an archaeological dig - lovingly dusting off cherished links with one of those tiny toothbrushes.)
My friend Emma Sidi has made a Spanish-language telenovela set in her home-town, and it’s called La Princesa de Woking. I absolutely adore it, and am desesperado for a full series. (The fact that I had to consult Google Translate there is fairly trágico. And again there.) You can watch it on YouTube below, but it’s also now on BBC iPlayer! Magnífico!!! (Yes.)
Anthony Mordkhe-Tzvi Russell, Jonah S. Boyarin and Arun Viswanath are developing respectful, anti-racist Yiddish vocabulary as part of ‘a broader initiative to enable people to speak in Yiddish about the racism and discrimination that Black Americans continue to experience today.’ The terms include prejudicial treatment, excessive force, economic justice, and systemic racism. The comment section is unusually heartening: lots of shared acknowledgment of this as an important but imperfect start.
I wrote to them on Twitter, mostly just to say thank you for the excellent idea, but also because I was curious about one of their translations of the Black Lives Matter slogan:
אַפֿראָאַמעריקאַ֜נער בלוט איז נישט קײן וואַ֜סער!
Afroamerikáner Blut iz nisht keyn Váser
African-American blood is not water!
Here is Arun Viswanath’s reply:
‘There is an idiom in Yiddish, בלוט איז נישט קײן װאַסער ("blood is not water"), which can be a condemnation of spilling blood, or an emphasis on the importance of family. I think they both resonate well in the message behind "Black lives matter".’
For anyone else who grew up glued to Sesame Street, this is a fascinating read: The Forgotten Tale of How Black Psychiatrists Helped Make ‘Sesame Street.’
And if you’re not already a Sesame Street fan, I humbly submit this video for your consideration:
And this one. I find myself coming back to this whenever an immediate serotonin boost is needed. In other words, with alarming regularity:
Daniel M. Lavery’s translations of Catullus are magnificent. His translation of 48 is especially heavenly:
I’M INTO KISSING AGAIN
FORGET EVERYTHING I SAID BEFORE! Listen: Juventius, if I could kiss
your eyes? Your honeypot eyes, globe-sweet? Let me AT IT,
quarter-million times, easy no question; I will never get sick of this!!!
kindly do not attempt to remind me of anything I might have said
about kissing in the past! you will be MUTED!
I was not kissing Juventius then! It didn’t count!
I’m kissing Juventius now! EVERYTHING’S KISSING AND I’M JUVENTIUS
Ask Baba Yaga: How Do I Know When To Let My Heart Guide Me?
This is a very good question and a very good answer.
And that’s it!
Love,
Katya