Valley of the Trolley Dollies

I was going to write last week about the collapse of gay marriage and the odd reaction I had to it.

Two wealthy white men – one a celeb, the other his husband – have decided, a year after their ‘Panto-themed wedding’ to call it a day. They’d been together, prior to the wedding, for three years, and one can’t help wondering whether it was the actual formalising of the relationship that hastened it’s demise. There surely can’t have been cracks already appearing. I mean, why would you get married if you’re already beginning to think “It’s run its course”?

Oh right: Gay wedding pressies.

I’m making facetious gags about a pretty sad event, but when the parties in question announce their split through a firm of solicitors, I’m always inclined to feel a bit WTF. Brad and Jen (never actually married, true), Jim Davidson and his latest Foolish Woman, Paul and Heather, they all ended up with legal press releases, and I thought that they, too, showed a level of self-importance that might have been part of the reason for the collapse of the marriage.

But what do I know? I don’t know any of these people. And I didn’t know Matt Lucas or his soon-to-be-ex-civil-partner either. So why did that split make me cringe when the others left me unaffected?

I’m reminded of a conversation I had recently with a wonderful old lady. And when I say ‘Old’ I mean in years; her spirit was that of a frisky nineteen year old, and her outlook would put many of my mid-twenties acquaintances to shame. The lady in question was born and raised in Chicago. Her parents were European Jews who fled Europe just ahead of the Nazis and settled in the United States.

And, growing up, her mother would always tell her “You need to be better. Better than anyone. More polite. Better mannered. More cultured. Better. You pass a nun on the street, you smile and say ‘good morning sister.’ You get homework to do, you do it better than anyone else. Your clothes cleaner. Your shoes shinier. You don’t never give nobody a reason to say a bad thing about you. ‘Cos you can’t ever have them say ‘See. Just like a Jew.’ They’re waitin’. Waitin’ to say it, to have their prejudices confirmed. So you don’t ever confirm them. You don’t give anyone the opportunity to say ‘I told you they were less than us’.”

It wasn’t enough, for this generation that had escaped Holocaust to be safe; they had to earn their safety. They had to be better.

And I guess I feel a bit like that. Stupid, I know: These guys had four years together, How many years did Britney Spears and her first husband have (approximately 1/1460^th of their time) and yet that failed marriage didn’t make me feel as sad as this one. Perhaps it’s projection: It’s easier to place myself in Matt or Kevin’s shoes than it is in Britney or whateverthefuckhisnamewas’s.

Or perhaps it’s just the last vestiges of self-hatred. I don’t know.

But then I realised that nobody in the media seemed to make a big thing of it. “Couple break up,” was roughly the only headline I saw. No diatribes in the Daily [Hate] Mail, which actually printed the following: ‘They have grown apart and fallen out of love. It happens in gay relationships just the same as in straight ones. There is nothing more dramatic in it than that.’

And I though, Maybe I need to chill out. Maybe things are getting better. But Jeeeeesus! A Panto themed wedding? That was asking for trouble!

When this add was broadcast. Nice, I thought. Clearly a play on a straight relationship – not really meant to be gay at all. But still, the kids unphased by the show of affection, the whole shebang, I though Nice.

And now, Heinz has canned the ad. After over 200 complaints.

Now, call me naive, but did Heinz really think that nobody would complain?

Did they really think that the ad would go out to a chorus of ‘Ahhh’ from everyone?

So, if they anticipated a degree of dissatisfaction would come their way, what was the acceptable level?

“Hey Nigel, the ASA got 100 complaints about the add?”

“A hundred? Fuck‘em. Ignorant bigots, the lot of em.”

“It’s up to 150 now, Nige.”

“You mean there’s only 150 small minded homophobes in England. Glory be! I’m takin’ the kids there for Pride week.”

“199”

“Keep showin’ the add, Frank. That’s one hundred and ninety-nine to 60,600,000. Screw ‘em.”

“Two hundred now.”
“Two Hundred? Mother of God! Pull the ad!!!! PULL THE ADDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

What if the two people in the ad were a White man and a Black woman? And what if 200 racist morons complained that it turned their little stomachs to see disgusting, stomach-turning inter-racial pecks on the lips at mealtimes? Would it be pulled then?

What was the magical number? Or was there ever a magical number? Why put the ad on if you’re going to pull it for 200 complaints?

Maybe for exactly the reason that you put any ad on: It made people talk about the product. And, now that they’ve talked about it, you pull the ad.

Why O why O why O why am I surprised when ad people act cynically? Why do I feel used and angry and upset, as though, again, I’ve been the punchline to a joke: “Oooh look, aren’t they funny, two men aping domesticity with kids. Funny, eh? What? You don’t like it? Nah, me neither. Faggots. Fuck ‘em!”

Heinz, like Becks before them (who sponsored, then publicly renounced, the first series of Queer as Folk on Channel 4) have joined my list of companies I don’t really like any more. Not quite in the arms manufacturers level, but disappointing.

Grace Jones is a legend. It’s that simple, if not that pure. And like all legends, she is surrounded by gossip, myth, apocryphal stories. For instance, there’s the one about her rider consisting of first class air fares for her and her band from New York to London (when both her and her band actually lived London already; the tickets were cashed in, and the money pocketed, it’s said). Or the demand for Cases of Krug or Kilos of Coke to be delivered backstage or else the lady would not appear.

There’s the story that, in September 1998, Jones was banned from all Disney properties worldwide after baring her breasts in a concert at Walt Disney World.

I’ve seen her perform twice before. Once was a charity bash where she came on, did one song, and blew the whole of Wembley away. The first time was a concert at Brixton academy. Let’s just say it wasn’t one of her best performances.

Shambolic, quite frankly, was the word used at the time. She was three hours late, sang the songs and made little or no attempt to build any rapport with the audience, and spent much of the show lounging in an office chair being pushed around by two muscle Marys.

So I didn’t approach last night’s South Bank Centre show with a great deal of optimism. It was part of Meltdown, an annual season curated by various luminaries of the musical world. This years, being curated by the Bristolian Trip Hop Duo, was referred to all over the shop as Massive Attack’s Meltdown, prompting me to wonder whether we’d ever get something similar hosted by, say, Britney Spears, and D to respond that, surely, we’d already seen Britney Spears’ Meltdown. And her vagina. Frankly, I thought, if Grace Jones turns up, it’ll be a miracle.

I was so wrong. It was fanfuckingtstic. In D’s opinion (and believe me he’s (a) a huge concert goer, and (b) not one for hyperbole) it could very well be the best concert of the year. The Year. And it’s only June.

Miss Jones - Jones the Rhythm as she was once famously referred to - appeared half an hour later than scheduled. The show was due to run 80 minutes. It ran almost 240. With nary a pause between songs (although each song ended - and began - with long instrumental breaks, allowing Ms J time for the multitide of costume changes, and the audience time to appreciate one of the tightest bands I’ve heard in a long time).

She seemed invigorated. Her voice was infintiely better than I remembered it (one can forget, listening to the classic recordings nowadays, that what you’re hearing, by and large, is what was recorded. And in a world of pro-tools and auto tunes, that just increases the shock of hearing a live performance as good as - if not better than - the recording. Hello Mrs Ritchie, I’m talking about you). Her sense of the absurd was as sharp as ever (an opening number dress so tight that, although she appeared at the top of a huge flight of steps, she was incapable of actually walking down them, resorting, at the end of the song, to a practice my brother and I used to refer to as ‘bumming’ down them (or, as she said “This…… is how I descend (visible shudder) stairs. It’s called …. (Pintersque pause as she bums down two more steps) …. The Craaawl.”)

Lighting was a little odd. D asked, at one point, whether she always performs in a blacked out stage, as there seemed to be more lights on the audience. Not sure whether this was a deliberate ploy to pull the audience in, a theatrical manoeuver to highlight the anitcipation (possible, since as the show progressed, the lighting, by and large, improved drastically), or just a cack-handed lighting director (also possible as Grace’s disembodied voice, at one point, is heard calling “Hellooo. I’m over here,” before the follow spot slides stage right to find her).

Her sense of theatre is amazing. Four songs in, and “Not enough of you motherfuckers are up,” she decides, as the band loop into a funky groove - all pounding baselines and scratchy guitars. Sixteen bars in, and still unhappy with the level of ‘upness’ in the audience, she, quite literally stage dives into the crowd. Grace Jones is sixty. She has buns she can bounce a roll of quarters off, legs that go on forever and ever, a voice that has improved with age, she is wearing fishnet tights, nine inch heels, and a corset with a gusset consisting of dental floss. And she’s fucking crowd surfing. She’s a prettier Iggy, baby. And it works. Because, of course, when the act on stage leaves the stage, the only way for anyone in the audience beyond the first five rows to follow the action is by standing up and craning ones neck. Job done. The house is up, and, largely, remains that way for the rest of the night.

There was old stuff. New Stuff (surprisingly good; much better than some of her mid ’90’s product, and with a fantastic, hook ladedn, funky single “Keeping up with the Joneses” thats promising a whole new lease of live when the much awaited - in our house, at least - album comes out later this year). And banter with the audience, as when she announces, at the start of a new song, that she can’t actually remember the lyrics. Three minutes of the band grooving are punctuated with her increasingly paniced demands “Bring me my goddam lyrics! Why are you doing this to me, you motherfuckers?! I need a drink!!! Fuck it, I’ll have to improvise.” Before she blasts into some of the most lyrically complicated verses of her canon - part rapid rap, part languid Jamaican Grace, all in a song called ‘Life’. It’s obvious, by the end, that she not only knew the lyrics all along; she’s got them engraved on her heart.

“I was only fuckin’ with you,” she smiles at her adoring crowd.

And, as the penultimate song “Pull up to the Bumper” blasts out, she calls the crowd up on stage with her - a freak show of fats, femmes, muscle marys with ancient heads, arty gays, housewives, all grinding and bumping and, for a moment, it’s the mid seventies, it’s studio 54, everyone’s on something other than this planet, and there’s hope for a world where we can all get along, where talent doesn’t need to be packaged in glossy blonde smiley packages, talent show desperadoes  or misogynistic gnagsta rap, where 60 year olds can flash their tits at Mickey Mouse and crowd surf, and where hats, my dear, are a vital statement.

“I was only fuckin’ with you,” she said. Long may she fuck.