Valley of the Trolley Dollies

I spent part of today reading the Wikipedia entry for Jordin Sparks (don’t ask; I’m just an inveterate clicker of HtML links, and have a tendency to let them lead me to the more obscure parts of the WWW).

I’d gotten there via Jesse mc Cartney, Leona Lewis, David Arugula Archangelo Argueletta, all winners of American idol or it’s UK Equivalent X Factor, and, reading Ms Sparks’ entry, a thought struck me:

Here’s this girl, who’s just a normal, everyday kid, with a certain amount of talent - not an Einstein, but personable, and talented nonetheless - who wins a competition and suddenly her life changes.

She’s flying round the world, recording a lead vocal in LA, a Backing track in New York, meeting producers in Miami (OK, so, to date, she’s mainly flying around the US, but she’s done some overseas promotion, trust me), and it must all be so very exciting: The first class flights (cos you know she wont be flying coach or that jumped up coach - mid class) the fancy hotels, the sudden seismic shift in your lifestyle and your life experience.

And I remembered what it feels like. When I started at a little Japanese Derivative house in ‘93, I went from just another banking grunt at a huge faceless monolith where all grunts were just that - faceless, replaceable non-entities - to being a grunt at a company that had taken the decision - unusual even in those days - to hire the absolute best they could get, treat them as well as they possibly could, and demand a 100% commitment.

We worked long looooong days, weekends, nights, bank holidays, New Years, whenever; but in return, they paid: My salary went, within a short period of time to levels that nobody in my family had ever earned, and the bonuses (at a time when the company I was working for was making per capita profits miles beyond their competition) were satisfactorily high.

But more than that, there were the Business Class trips. To New York, to Hong Kong; the limousines and the 5 star hotels (and, later, when the volume of people travelling to New York made Hotels a ridiculously expensive prospect, the apartments in Manhattan with Balconies and Penthouse Fitness Suites looking out over the Statue of Liberty).

The dinners at top restaurants - everywhere from Balthazar and Pravda in New York to Quaglinos and the Butlers Wharf Chop House in London (this was before the inexorable rise of the Celebuchef, though I do recall a trip to an early Ramsey place).

All now, somehow, tainted as symbols of greed and hubris. But, back then, they weren’t; they were what I said above: Recompense. They said “You are not just worthless cannon fodder; you are a star, and we expect you to behave - and produce - accordingly. And, in return, we will open unto you a world of Limos and Luxuries.

And I LOVED it.

I still have vivid memories of my first business trip to New York (only the second time I’d been there). Of being upgraded to the front seat in the upstairs lounge, and of the door to the cockpit becoming unlocked and swinging open as we took our night time descent into JFK (could you imagine that happening in a post 9/11 world?); of the magic of looking down on the bejewelled black quilt of Manhattan by night from the vantage point of the captain of a 747. Of standing in front of a wall of window in my room - not a suite, but to a boy raised in a two up two down, the epitome of Luxury - on one of the upper floors of the Downtown Millennium at night as Broadway snaked like a glittering yellow brick road beneath me.

 

Of calling my parents. From the phone in the toilet. And being genuinely - childishly - amused at the concept of having a phone by the crapper (this was in the days before mobiles; seems like every time I head to the loo nowadays, someone’s standing at a urinal, dick in one hand, cell phone in the other, deep in conversation with their mother).

Of the magic and wonder you can only experience when you look up from your desk on the 80^th floor of the much missed World Trade Centre and look out at clouds beneath you, with the tip of the Chrysler building poking through them in the distance.

Of meeting people - people from other countries, other cultures, other worlds, it sometimes seemed, and finding so much in common, and of finding how much you liked them and how much they liked you. Of being unguarded and open and, somehow, all together in this amazing adventure.

Of being Toto and Dorothy and The Lion and Tin Man and Scarecrow all rolled into one.

And it was - there is no other word for it - wonderful. Every day was exciting, filled with wonder, filled with hard - often stressful - work; but I was learning so much, and I felt the tectonic plates moving beneath me; my life (and David’s, cos we both shared this adventure) was changing, sometimes in little ways, sometimes in scary ways, and, in some areas, seemingly, not at all; but my life was changing as a result of what I was experiencing, and, I just knew, would never be the same again.

And now, it’s changed. And I look at the Jordin Sparks and the Leona Lewis’s of this world (there are only entertainment examples to be had; nobody in Finance is having that sort of excitement nowadays, believe me) and I know how it must feel for them.

And I wonder: Is that it? Have I had my excitement? Is my life - the changed, and, believe me, no-regrets-changed life I have today - fixed now?

Or is there still magic out there, waiting to be discovered?

I’m not looking back any more. Those end-of-year reviews? Not this year. It was a summer filled with fun and love and joy. I never wanted to be 40 (it’s ancient, really, isn’t it?), but the alternative seemed a little less palatable. And the summer - the garden party, the regattas, the dinners and the dressing up and the whole unmitigated joy and love (I said that already, didn’t I) was wonderful. As was the September trip to NY with my parents. I finally rediscovered how much I loved writing, and being around writers, and the two classes I took on my fiction writing have made me feel like this is something I NEED to do - not just would like to, or would enjoy daydreaming about: I NEED to write and get published. Not for the money; not for the validation - I know I’m a good writer - but because in some way, to do anything else feels almost like constant masturbation without orgasm - always straining towards something, and never really doing anything more than wanking in front of the computer.

But large swathes of the rest of 2008 have been pretty shit, to be honest. Deaths. Friends in legal trouble. Friends getting sick. Worry and fear and stress as the finanical carpet on which our lives rest  began to unravel beneath our feet. Culminating in the feeling that I simply couldn’t cope and a terrible depression that just felt like a big black wet rubber blanket being thrown over my head: No escape, no hope, nothing to be done.

Bollocks. So far this week: The heating packed up. The shower died. I heard strong rumours that my financial future may be severely affected by the current financial conditions in my industry.

It’s not gonna matter. I’m not gonna let it. Head up. You’re bigger and stronger than all of this. You have beautiful people and beautiful things around you, the voices say; and I have a decent brain and wit and some talents, and a huge amount of things to look forward to.

And that’s what I’m doing: looking forward. Letting go of an annus horibilis (no, not you Carlie). More of that to come…

For now, the one little bit of looking back is the list of musics from 08 that I am looking forward to blasting out of the speakers into ‘09.

In no particular order:

This is Alphabeat - Alphabeat (who, I’m told, have been dumped by their record co. WTF)

 

 

Discipline – Janet Jackson (her best pop album in a long time; shame it tanked)

Somewhere in the real world – Vanessa Amorosi (it just rocks)

Let it Go – Will Young (his best album, IMHO. Again, shame it seems to be tanking)

Way to Normal – Ben Folds (well, a third of it; the bit that’s not filled with bitterness and negativity)

 

Funhouse – Pink (cos it’s fun and raucous)

 

 

And Winter Came – Enya (Cos it’s Enya. And she’s not U - Fucking - 2!)

The Alesha Show – Alesha Dixon (Cos it’s nice to see a fresh(ish) face on the scene. And Xenomania have done the works with her - check out Cinderella Shoe)

Circus – Britney Spears (Cos she is loopy, isn’t she. Let’s see: Child star? Check. Biggest hit had her dressed up as a little girl? Check. Bad mother? Check. Drug fiend? Check? Boozehoud? Chec? Unsuitable / unstabel husband? Check? Bad relationship with at least one of her parents? Check. Liza Minelli’s mother? Oh, wait… Apart from that one, she’s bascially Judy fuckign Garland, isn;t she? Yay!)

The Circus - Take That (Because the inclusion of the definitve article makes for a very different album - one of their finest, frankly, if a little ‘grown up’ - and proves they are not crazed, drink-drug befuddled bad mothers with career trajectories like Lorna Luft’s old ma. Though Robbie may rejoin them next year…)

C’mon – Keith Anderson (’Cos Country can be wonderful, and Keith - of whom I know nothing other than I love his album from front to back, and he’s not too bad on the eys neither - is a prime example)

Metropolis: The Chase Suite – Janelle Monae (’Cos It’s Genius. Psycho-Bladerunner-Hey Ya Crazyness. Like Michael Jackson should be doing. She’s getting a UK launch next yr. Should be good.)

Backwoods Barbie – Dolly Parton (’Cos it’s Dollie. And it’s got lovely tunes, great lyrics, and a cover of “She drives me crazy” that almost improves on the original!)

Spotlights and Catfights – Sugababes (Never had a SB album. Never wanted one. Then this one came along - filled with hit after hit after hit. Except it’s tanking. Boo! The curse of Derek strikes again.)

Hurricane – Grace Jones (Cos It’s Grace. And because “Williams’ Blood” alone - lifting the veil on the aloof icon and showing her human side - is worth the cost fo the whole thing).

Alchemy: GST Reloaded – Ultra Nate. (For playing loudly through headphones whilst running. It CAN NOT be beaten!)

 

 

 

Me, in the late seventies. Re-enacting a scene from “Whatever happened to Baby Jane?” with my father.

It would be twenty years before I’d drive again.

Noticeable is the open doors of some of the houses; nobody locked their doors then. Also the almost total absence of cars. I count three, and the sort of red van that was almost invariably used for bank job getaways in The Sweeney. My parents still live in the same house, in Dublin, a city that has redefined the phrase upwardly mobile, and when I return nowadays, the entire street seems to be double parked luxury drives.

I loved that go-kart, and would give the other kids rides - them standing on the rear axle and hanging off the back of the seat. Until the seat snapped off, and the axle started buckling, at which point I was heartbroken.

I guess I should have learned that sometimes, even if it runs the risk of losing you friends, you need to learn to say “No.” It would be twenty plus years before I started to get that lesson.

But my dad fixed the axle. I think a mallet may have been involved, but since perfectly precise three point turns weren’t the most common manoeuvre in it, the fact that the kart steered “A bit bockety” was never an issue; the lack of a seat, however, was potentially huge, until my dad made a four-sided box from chipboard, lined it with red shag pile carpet, and screwed it to the frame, and I had an instant couture kart.

And the fact that I just used the phrase couture kart probably explains why I never had many friends as a kid growing up on the not-so mean (but car-less) streets of south Dublin in the 1970’s.