Joey Deacon

So, welcome. Welcome to what is now the definitive repository for information and superbly distracting misinformation about the spastical phenomenon that was, is, and forever shall be, Joey Deacon. Repulsive as it may be, it's here. And you like it. Unless you work for The Net magazine, in which case you don't.

More people than I anticipated remember Joey, and more people than I ever thought had a desire for photographs that they could alter to make it look like Joey was eating shit. I am impressed - you all have a laudable compulsion to laugh at the group of people formerly known as spastics. Then scopers, and when that faded out, spastics again. Now... I don't know.

This page is now nearly complete - you can find pictures, a transcription of some of his book, shockwave, actual audio of people singing about him, all I'm lacking is real samples of Joey's voice, and a film sequence of Joey spitting out his soup. I even wrote a flipping limerick!

THE LIMERICK

There was a young spastic called Deacon,

Whose talent was not for plain speaking.

And not to be glib,

But he needed a bib,

As his mouth was persistently leaking.

FOR THE COMPLETE JOEY BEGINNER.....

Joey Deacon, in the heady days of my youth, when anything seemed possible and Electric Boogaloo was the sequel to the remarkable film Breakin', there emerged a worrying trend. As well as spinning on their heads and finding Peter Simon acceptable, easily led children were caught holding their breath, and then blowing on their thumbs. The hope being that they would slump unconscious to the floor, and wake up with Cerebral Palsy.

"Why de hell dey do dat?", I can almost hear the ones amongst you, at least the ones who talk like that, ask. Well, they were jealous of Joey Deacon, who had appeared on TV in a plea for understanding for the condition. But understanding went too far....

Instead of bringing about a sense of compassion and empathy, cerebral palsy became fashionable. Ten years later, Tourette's Syndrome enjoyed a similar fad, but around 1983, CP was the disease to be seen dribbling to.

Diseases these days are tragic, contagious and mucky. Whatever happened to those personal diseases, that diseases where sufferers could be pointed at safely by people who knew that they get close and bully that sufferer without fear of catching the disease themselves? Down's Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, the wonderment of an epilectic grand mal, and to a lesser degree, Cancer?

To the memory of this sterling man, I have dedicated this section to the collection of Joey Deacon information, pictures and sounds. Thanks to you lot, I have far more information than I began with, and have had to split the original page up into sub-sections. You make this vile life worthwhile, you really do.

[thanks to Milan for the Joey logo, above]