Attended an event yesterday evening which would have horribly confirmed any preconceptions any outsider may have about PR.
An assorted cross-industry gathering of people who practice the trade. I’d walked up and down the same Soho street several times looking for a venue with the right name. After asking someone I was told it was an alternative name for a bar I’d walked past several times already. Having walked through town from Waterloo I felt my shirt sticking uncomfortably to the base of my spine through my jacket.
Walking upstairs into the dark, first floor “VIP Area” I was assaulted by my own heightened self consciousness. Beautiful, groomed, typically PRy people adorned the room, the majority women. As with other PR-specific events I’ve attended - events outside my usual preferred trade which usually contain mostly male smart-casual entrepreneurs and younger bedroom geeks - I feel slightly out of my comfort zone. I don’t do gloss, big ultra white teeth, expensive clothes or attractive. How achingly transparent is my roughly 67% self belief?
Approaching the bar, one of the organisers thrusts her hand towards me. I’ve never met her before, introduce myself. I feel the mozzled sweat on my forehead beginning to fizzle lightly in this tight, warm, first-floor space full of bodies. My body also realises I’ve stopped walking at a clipped pace and tries to compensate somehow. I decide wiping my forehead with my hand would be more icky than ignoring it.
She introduces herself, offers a beer, gestures to her colleague next to her who I have met once before. Obviously they're both attractive. It’s a very mwah darlink atmosphere with cheek kisses aplenty, but I offer her my hand nonetheless, aware of the forehead sheen.. The way she shakes my hand immediately feels too stiff and formal for this environment and I feel faintly silly for not taking a step forward and confidently planting a kiss on both her cheeks. Then aggrieved that I should feel that obligation. I hate this gushy crap.
The next few hours brings chats with an assortment of characters, all with different specialities and at different stages of their careers. What’s obvious in the room is the desire, and almost desperation, to exude that certain winning confidence, utter conviction, strength, bravado. Even though plenty of us are new freelancers slightly concerned about whether this whole thing will be sustainable, and cautiously eye others in our own field as competitors.
A dark haired Irish girl who could easily be a forgotten Corr sister is a complete knockout. She has the exuding confidence thing totally nailed. Assertive, controlled, strong experience, firm head on her shoulders, human. Smiley but not too smiley – like some certainly were, as if shielding behind banks of big, gleaming white teeth (fashion and lifestyle PRs). And she was dynamic, vivid, energetic, damn hot. It was all there, she needed nobody. Disgustingly beautiful. She looked upon me with good natured tolerance as we chatted.
Lengthily chatted to an essentially dull but equally intoxicated chap who worked in a niche technical sector, giving me hope that such work exists. He rambled away at length, assuming a level of technical knowledge of me which I didn’t have but not testing it. Made conversation easy and undemanding.
Then another noteable later on in the evening was an experienced chap who must have been in his fifties: debonair, distinguished, brash and raffish. Not unlikeable. He had clearly had an impressive career, working for a number of top notch agencies, pitching in the Pentagon around 9/11 to the US defence (defense?) during a period spent in America. He was all about image, he told me: confidence, expense and not seeming cheap, he told me. You have to impress that on clients, not worry about expenditure if you have to go up north or overseas for a pitch. Wear the best suits, pay for prospects and clients’ meals and entertainment, flatter them.
I nodded earnestly to him, as if ravenously sucking up his knowledge, experience and advice. It all sounded quite horrible, fraudulent, a sham. Did I actually really want to do that sort of thing? He was obviously talking about his particular, highly successful niche which he’d operated in at a high level for a number of years. There are probably other, more understated ways of going about a reasonably successful career.
If you really want it..
After making a half-hearted attempt to find the organisers, I shook hands with the experienced chap and made an unshowy exit.
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
The employment dilemma: self freedom Vs employed security
Yesterday I revisited my old stomping ground. I fancied a change of scenery from my usual gym and decided to go back to the one I’d originally signed up in, the one which was close to my old work. It was only a twenty minute cycle across a largely suburban part of town.
Afterwards I revisited an oft-frequented Starbucks a short distance across the business park. A barista remembered me and my regular order, said it had been a long time since he’d seen me. I told him I’d been made redundant. I’m not sure if he heard, understood or if it went in. I imagine people who work in Starbucks are good at asking questions an delivering the usual lines, but when it comes to listening, then that’s not really in their remit. Reasonably enough.
He didn’t react or respond, so the conversation ended there. We’d always had a friendly but clunky relationship. Just missed whenever it came to actually conversing but been easy and amiable in the initial coffee transaction.
I took my mug to the window and gazed out at the familiar view across the business park plaza. Now I was weathered, new and different from several months ago, when I’d spent to many lunch hours sitting here reading books. Now I was aware, changed, moved on, matured.
I pondered the compromise of employment which I and many people have encountered of late. That dilemma: employment versus self employment, freedom versus security, incessant raging paranoia versus calm, relaxed obedience. You’ll get your paycheck for sure and that’s all there is to worry about.
Perching there I was pleased not to have to return to the leering, arrogant tower block, as I did so many times. For that moment at least, cupping the steaming coffee, I was at ease with being my own boss, happy to have the independence to be there at 4.30pm of a weekday afternoon.
Content not to be controlled or drawn back to a high-rise desk, and all its smugly impressive views.
Confident in sporting a tracksuit top, three-quarter length shorts and trainers in such a corporate environment.
Pleased, despite the current day-to-day crapping myself about the future and contentious sustainability of what I’m doing. At odds with the necessarily firm psychological self-discipline not to mentally slump: so hard when your natural inclination is towards the pessimist.
I would not return to that tower block or that office and all the nasty people in it if you paid me. But I’d still like somebody to pay me.
Afterwards I revisited an oft-frequented Starbucks a short distance across the business park. A barista remembered me and my regular order, said it had been a long time since he’d seen me. I told him I’d been made redundant. I’m not sure if he heard, understood or if it went in. I imagine people who work in Starbucks are good at asking questions an delivering the usual lines, but when it comes to listening, then that’s not really in their remit. Reasonably enough.
He didn’t react or respond, so the conversation ended there. We’d always had a friendly but clunky relationship. Just missed whenever it came to actually conversing but been easy and amiable in the initial coffee transaction.
I took my mug to the window and gazed out at the familiar view across the business park plaza. Now I was weathered, new and different from several months ago, when I’d spent to many lunch hours sitting here reading books. Now I was aware, changed, moved on, matured.
I pondered the compromise of employment which I and many people have encountered of late. That dilemma: employment versus self employment, freedom versus security, incessant raging paranoia versus calm, relaxed obedience. You’ll get your paycheck for sure and that’s all there is to worry about.
Perching there I was pleased not to have to return to the leering, arrogant tower block, as I did so many times. For that moment at least, cupping the steaming coffee, I was at ease with being my own boss, happy to have the independence to be there at 4.30pm of a weekday afternoon.
Content not to be controlled or drawn back to a high-rise desk, and all its smugly impressive views.
Confident in sporting a tracksuit top, three-quarter length shorts and trainers in such a corporate environment.
Pleased, despite the current day-to-day crapping myself about the future and contentious sustainability of what I’m doing. At odds with the necessarily firm psychological self-discipline not to mentally slump: so hard when your natural inclination is towards the pessimist.
I would not return to that tower block or that office and all the nasty people in it if you paid me. But I’d still like somebody to pay me.
Monday, 6 July 2009
"that ticket is for tomorrow, Sir"
It’s often with faint trepidation that I pass over a travel ticket for inspection. And when I don’t, when I’m relaxed and confident that I’ve done it right: that’s when I get busted.
On numerous occasions I’ve screwed up, smugly relieving a self service machine of my pre-booked ticket, only to inspect it and find the date printed on the ticket is yesterday’s. Once I made it late to an airport, roughly thirty seconds after the forty-five minute rule had been ruthlessly and officiously imposed by a young steward I wanted to smack. I lost a four-day holiday, complete with hotel and return flights. Which was quite annoying.
Today I offered my mobile phone, together with ticket details, to a coach driver’s oafish young assistant. He meticulously studied the words and code in the text message for a good thirty seconds before saying, “nope.” I took it back, but today’s the…
FUCKit.. Again.. This ticket was for tomorrow.
He didn’t appear an especially charitable sort of fellow. And his Captain Birdseye superior driver was equally dismissive when he returned. “No, bus is full anyway.” It didn’t look full but I didn’t complain. It arrogantly rolled away, out of the station.
I always feel hindered in such contests by not being female and cute, in which case I feel – whether rightly or wrongly – that my chances of being treated with some lenience would be drastically improved if I didn’t look like I do. If I were somehow more winning.
I went to a coffee shop and booked an online ticket for the next one, paying another twenty quid for the pleasure.
Few other people share these instances of making such errors, possibly because when it comes down to it, it is your own personal error. You are a retard for not being able to plan, differentiate numbers or double check dates. There isn't really anyone else to blame but yourself.
I’m fairly confident with travel tickets day-to-day. It’s those journeys which require pre-booking: coaches, trains, planes. Then, however hard I try to programme my brain with the appropriate date and time details, a slipped key or a one day longer idea just goes amiss somewhere. A neuron fails to fire and I’m fucked. I slink horribly, withdraw, swear at myself while never quite appreciating the conscientiousness of the person who tells me, effectively, that I’m an idiot.
And even when I know I’m right, I have it sussed, then I can’t shake the paranoia that I have forgotten something, misread it, there might not be enough time.
I’m never completely satisfied until I’m in my seat. Unless I then suddenly find I’m on the wrong vehicle and my innate idiocy is confirmed once again.
On numerous occasions I’ve screwed up, smugly relieving a self service machine of my pre-booked ticket, only to inspect it and find the date printed on the ticket is yesterday’s. Once I made it late to an airport, roughly thirty seconds after the forty-five minute rule had been ruthlessly and officiously imposed by a young steward I wanted to smack. I lost a four-day holiday, complete with hotel and return flights. Which was quite annoying.
Today I offered my mobile phone, together with ticket details, to a coach driver’s oafish young assistant. He meticulously studied the words and code in the text message for a good thirty seconds before saying, “nope.” I took it back, but today’s the…
FUCKit.. Again.. This ticket was for tomorrow.
He didn’t appear an especially charitable sort of fellow. And his Captain Birdseye superior driver was equally dismissive when he returned. “No, bus is full anyway.” It didn’t look full but I didn’t complain. It arrogantly rolled away, out of the station.
I always feel hindered in such contests by not being female and cute, in which case I feel – whether rightly or wrongly – that my chances of being treated with some lenience would be drastically improved if I didn’t look like I do. If I were somehow more winning.
I went to a coffee shop and booked an online ticket for the next one, paying another twenty quid for the pleasure.
Few other people share these instances of making such errors, possibly because when it comes down to it, it is your own personal error. You are a retard for not being able to plan, differentiate numbers or double check dates. There isn't really anyone else to blame but yourself.
I’m fairly confident with travel tickets day-to-day. It’s those journeys which require pre-booking: coaches, trains, planes. Then, however hard I try to programme my brain with the appropriate date and time details, a slipped key or a one day longer idea just goes amiss somewhere. A neuron fails to fire and I’m fucked. I slink horribly, withdraw, swear at myself while never quite appreciating the conscientiousness of the person who tells me, effectively, that I’m an idiot.
And even when I know I’m right, I have it sussed, then I can’t shake the paranoia that I have forgotten something, misread it, there might not be enough time.
I’m never completely satisfied until I’m in my seat. Unless I then suddenly find I’m on the wrong vehicle and my innate idiocy is confirmed once again.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
confinement to connection
People can be presented to you in a quite dizzying whirl sometimes, just as you become to feel as if you’re in some sort of pseudo confinement, fundamentally cut adrift from others of your species forever. Unable to engage and connect.
I opened a sporadically read paperback novel today. Out of it fell a slip of paper which I’d previously given up as lost. On it was semi drunken handwriting: a mash of dreary words about confinement while sitting in a Soho pub on my own. That day had come at the end of a long stretch of not actually speaking with anyone. Then I’d gone into town that day and professionally engaged with two separate groups of people. And females too. THAT other unknowable side of our species. And they’d been attractive ones as well.
After several solid days of extracting belly button fluff and intermittently moaning inside my head, I had seemingly transformed myself to a “normal” seeming, vaguely articulate sort of chap. I remembered how to speak, at length, just like that. It flooded back like I was regaining a superpower. And the second meeting was an interview where the industry researchers were actively interested in my thoughts and what I had to say. Me!? My views? But I’m a sad lonely twat who just got made redundant and is trying, quite possibly in vain, to become sustainably self employed. Felt quite preposterous.
It chimed with my experience yesterday, and in the preceding days. This week has slowly lifted me out of a horrible depressed fug simply because I’ve been active, out of the house, attending industry events, engaging and meeting people. Even though there still hadn’t been any concrete promise of money at the end of it.
Yesterday morning I attended a regular professional gathering in the centre of London and met a handful of people. One middle aged man, dressed as if he was in the heavy rock band, Limp Biscuit (or however you spell it), told me about his word for a charity designed to raise awareness of young male suicide: the largest, (or second largest) killer of young men in the UK. He had stats. Another older lady was passionately animated about education.
Later, yesterday evening, the other end of a sweaty coach journey west, my parents dragged me to our local village pub. There I chatted with an arrestingly sharp pensioner. A single lady who had lost two husbands, one exceptionally tragically together with one child and her own foetus in a car accident. She had worked as a nurse in West Africa, travelled extensively and spent her whole career serving the medical profession. She had serious cause to feel harshly treated, to become depressed after loving and having those loved ones snatched scarringly prematurely from her. Then lose her second husband too. She then spoke about the therapy of healing through the channeling of energies, an area I find rather alienating. Added to the insights she offered about the village’s history: the last trains to run through it, and the builder of its small primary school, which I attended; she was a fascinating person to meet and converse with.
Others in the pub supported the notion of a traditional country pub being a place where people can closely mix, banter and generally converse across generations in a way that’s much harder, or simply not done in a bustling city pub. Sure the physical dimensions of this particular pub are such that avoidance is difficult, if not impossivle, but even so the atmosphere is tangibly warm, open and inclusive.
Tried foolhardily to engage my mother through explaining my own ongoing angsty, misery, worries and fear. She accepted this as a cue to talk about her own insecurities about work and employment. Not that she needs to work anymore, and has a comfortable, large house in beautiful countryside, an adorable new puppy and a husband of fortyish years. I quickly gave up, just nodded and appeared to sympathise with her predicament.
I opened a sporadically read paperback novel today. Out of it fell a slip of paper which I’d previously given up as lost. On it was semi drunken handwriting: a mash of dreary words about confinement while sitting in a Soho pub on my own. That day had come at the end of a long stretch of not actually speaking with anyone. Then I’d gone into town that day and professionally engaged with two separate groups of people. And females too. THAT other unknowable side of our species. And they’d been attractive ones as well.
After several solid days of extracting belly button fluff and intermittently moaning inside my head, I had seemingly transformed myself to a “normal” seeming, vaguely articulate sort of chap. I remembered how to speak, at length, just like that. It flooded back like I was regaining a superpower. And the second meeting was an interview where the industry researchers were actively interested in my thoughts and what I had to say. Me!? My views? But I’m a sad lonely twat who just got made redundant and is trying, quite possibly in vain, to become sustainably self employed. Felt quite preposterous.
It chimed with my experience yesterday, and in the preceding days. This week has slowly lifted me out of a horrible depressed fug simply because I’ve been active, out of the house, attending industry events, engaging and meeting people. Even though there still hadn’t been any concrete promise of money at the end of it.
Yesterday morning I attended a regular professional gathering in the centre of London and met a handful of people. One middle aged man, dressed as if he was in the heavy rock band, Limp Biscuit (or however you spell it), told me about his word for a charity designed to raise awareness of young male suicide: the largest, (or second largest) killer of young men in the UK. He had stats. Another older lady was passionately animated about education.
Later, yesterday evening, the other end of a sweaty coach journey west, my parents dragged me to our local village pub. There I chatted with an arrestingly sharp pensioner. A single lady who had lost two husbands, one exceptionally tragically together with one child and her own foetus in a car accident. She had worked as a nurse in West Africa, travelled extensively and spent her whole career serving the medical profession. She had serious cause to feel harshly treated, to become depressed after loving and having those loved ones snatched scarringly prematurely from her. Then lose her second husband too. She then spoke about the therapy of healing through the channeling of energies, an area I find rather alienating. Added to the insights she offered about the village’s history: the last trains to run through it, and the builder of its small primary school, which I attended; she was a fascinating person to meet and converse with.
Others in the pub supported the notion of a traditional country pub being a place where people can closely mix, banter and generally converse across generations in a way that’s much harder, or simply not done in a bustling city pub. Sure the physical dimensions of this particular pub are such that avoidance is difficult, if not impossivle, but even so the atmosphere is tangibly warm, open and inclusive.
Tried foolhardily to engage my mother through explaining my own ongoing angsty, misery, worries and fear. She accepted this as a cue to talk about her own insecurities about work and employment. Not that she needs to work anymore, and has a comfortable, large house in beautiful countryside, an adorable new puppy and a husband of fortyish years. I quickly gave up, just nodded and appeared to sympathise with her predicament.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
The zombifying obligation to squint at screens forever
Our apparently civilised and developed 21st Century obligation to squint at a variety of screens for the majority of our waking lives is exhausting and horrible. Whether it’s a television, cinema, PC, tiny laptop screen or mobile phone, the new media age has beckoned in and enforced a soul-sapping, practically permanent dependence on various assemblies of almost imperceptibly flickering pixels.
But I don’t want to be another zombie. Can I be something else please?
Occasionally I hanker for a romantic, completely alternative vocation far away which involves none of my existing skills – most of which involve looking at a computer screen. As does the production of these very words. I am a sucker for the fundamental romance of distance and instinctively envy those who travel frequently, so I imagine and apply fantastic tales of displacement for myself, which seem on the face of it to be entirely unrealistic; like something you might read in a book or watch in a film about a flawed but loveable dreamer.
And the career. I feel that I could easily cast it aside really. I’m not very successful and am unlikely to ever achieve anything too significant. I personally know a considerable amount about my particular space, a volume which, with a bit more luck or drive, might be valued more highly than it apparently is.
But do I really care about it? Not much. In fact I’d be incredibly grateful to do away with the guilt which is pricked into you at every turn by the incessant flurry of media and messages. Professional peers insanely shrieking through any number of electronic channels, I’M BUSY!! REALLY BUSY DOING THIS IMPORTANT LOOKING THING!! LOOK AT ME!! IF YOU’RE NOT AS BUSY AS ME YOU MUST BE SHIT AND INSIGNIFICANT!!
But if they have time to frantically communicate their busyness at every stroke, can they be that busy?
Even if you did care little about earning a meaty wage and just wanted enough to comfortably survive, would you fairly promptly find yourself on the bones of your arse leading a miserable existence? Or moaning about basic home comforts you didn’t realise you valued?
An earlier age might have suited me better. One which was less immediate, less aggressive, provided fewer tools for self promotion. One where media wasn’t ubiquitous and constant, so was richer and more highly valued.
It’s irksome that my mind was swirling with these thoughts as I lay in bed, and the quickest way to free them was to consign them to yet another screen. Fucking screens. Perhaps it’s how humans will eventually be overcome or overtaken by Artificial Intelligence, or at least how the barrier between the two will become blurred. I’ve worked with technical developers who are so constantly ‘in the zone’ and dosed up on caffeine, you might struggle to perceive humanity.
Do I want to be chained to screens for another 40 odd years until my brain is turned to mush and I can't see straight? Or do I have the capacity to relinquish all of this? Would I have the courage to make such a drastic move? Go somewhere far away and not take an office job, a job which tied me to a screen? Probably not.
Should probably just buy a new laptop with a bigger screen.
Monday, 8 June 2009
being bitter and professionally plastic
Today saw the completion of a professional event which was just over six months in gestation. It was born of an idea which needed to be forced through after internal company meetings with nervous, careful colleagues unsure how much value organising an event would give our technical company.
It would give us exposure, I argued; exposure of our company, brand, our expertise and the services we offer – especially by having a chair of the event as well as a speaker who could present a session. It wouldn’t take up too much of my time: I could arrange a couple of speakers, a secretary of the organisation would arrange logistics with the sponsors. I assured them it was really no big deal. They grudgingly, tentatively agreed.
Or I accepted the outcome of the meetings as agreement, even if it was never given explicitly as such. It certainly wasn’t a no.
Then, about three months later they made me redundant.
Thanks very much.
Because I retained my duties for the organisation, which weren’t dependent upon my employers, I saw the organisation of the event through. Unfortunately I could hardly retract the offer of the Chair, or speaking slot at the event to my former colleagues.
The strangeness of professionally encountering the employers who made you redundant a couple of months before, yet still having reason to be amiable towards them, is one which could be compared to feeling obliged to hug an ex who cheated on you.
Hello, you utter bastards, you feel lke greeting them.
But you don’t, especially as there’s the faint, outside hope that they *might* provide you with some freelance work at some juncture. You smile, shake hands, ask how it’s all going, and continue the charade of being awfully professional.
(You would do this anyway of course, even if there was no outside incentive. Being starkly hostile is harder than being civilised.)
Before my former line manager gave his presentation, I had taken pleasure in quietly cackling at his predictable clunkiness. Similar in age and experience, we never shared the easiest professional relationship – possibly due to the level of testosterone between us, and he was likely instrumental in making me redundant. He was Old School within the company, having been there for almost as long as the company and practically his whole career. I was comparatively new but had equal knowledge of the space, if not slightly more. You could argue he felt threatened by this, which led to a tricky relationship. So, looking forward to a clumsy, nervy talk from him wasn’t too hard.
During it though, I felt such a sense of empathy with the nature of his discomfort: uncertainty, constant errrrring, and the jagged nature of delivery – that it was actually sympathy I felt more. I identified with his hesitance and self consciousness. I would have been extremely similar. What surprised me was my instinctive sympathy and encouragement to him afterwards, when he confessed that he thought he was rubbish. Perhaps I’m not such a bitter twat after all.
However, it does shame me to admit that I personally bottled addressing the 150-strong crowd. The opportunity was presented to me in an indirect fashion, left open. I could have easily claimed just a few minutes to introduce the day and open the event. It would have only been right as the day was my brainchild and much of its organisation and promotion was down to me. It wouldn’t have needed much at all.
But I failed to grasp the nettle, grow bollocks, address my fear, and weakly allowed my colleague ahead. I could try to justify it using a rationale that people who do what I do should never be the story, should always sit back and facilitate – but I know that essentially, I just bottled it.
You might not have been aware of this phobia and nervousness had you seen me on the periphery, orchestrating, arranging speakers, or in breaks, chatting and joking with the attendees. I maintained a confident-seeming air one to one, or one to a handful, as well as in the potentially awkward face of my former colleagues.
Did I imagine slight embarrassed guilt behind their shiny smiley, unknowably plastic eyes? Who can say? But I like to think I carried off the whole performance a mite better than them as I flitted around during the breaks. Shameless about my apparent uselessness to them. Unbowed. A delicately subtle waft of, And Fuck You Too.
Ah, no. There's that bitter twat. Still there then..
It would give us exposure, I argued; exposure of our company, brand, our expertise and the services we offer – especially by having a chair of the event as well as a speaker who could present a session. It wouldn’t take up too much of my time: I could arrange a couple of speakers, a secretary of the organisation would arrange logistics with the sponsors. I assured them it was really no big deal. They grudgingly, tentatively agreed.
Or I accepted the outcome of the meetings as agreement, even if it was never given explicitly as such. It certainly wasn’t a no.
Then, about three months later they made me redundant.
Thanks very much.
Because I retained my duties for the organisation, which weren’t dependent upon my employers, I saw the organisation of the event through. Unfortunately I could hardly retract the offer of the Chair, or speaking slot at the event to my former colleagues.
The strangeness of professionally encountering the employers who made you redundant a couple of months before, yet still having reason to be amiable towards them, is one which could be compared to feeling obliged to hug an ex who cheated on you.
Hello, you utter bastards, you feel lke greeting them.
But you don’t, especially as there’s the faint, outside hope that they *might* provide you with some freelance work at some juncture. You smile, shake hands, ask how it’s all going, and continue the charade of being awfully professional.
(You would do this anyway of course, even if there was no outside incentive. Being starkly hostile is harder than being civilised.)
Before my former line manager gave his presentation, I had taken pleasure in quietly cackling at his predictable clunkiness. Similar in age and experience, we never shared the easiest professional relationship – possibly due to the level of testosterone between us, and he was likely instrumental in making me redundant. He was Old School within the company, having been there for almost as long as the company and practically his whole career. I was comparatively new but had equal knowledge of the space, if not slightly more. You could argue he felt threatened by this, which led to a tricky relationship. So, looking forward to a clumsy, nervy talk from him wasn’t too hard.
During it though, I felt such a sense of empathy with the nature of his discomfort: uncertainty, constant errrrring, and the jagged nature of delivery – that it was actually sympathy I felt more. I identified with his hesitance and self consciousness. I would have been extremely similar. What surprised me was my instinctive sympathy and encouragement to him afterwards, when he confessed that he thought he was rubbish. Perhaps I’m not such a bitter twat after all.
However, it does shame me to admit that I personally bottled addressing the 150-strong crowd. The opportunity was presented to me in an indirect fashion, left open. I could have easily claimed just a few minutes to introduce the day and open the event. It would have only been right as the day was my brainchild and much of its organisation and promotion was down to me. It wouldn’t have needed much at all.
But I failed to grasp the nettle, grow bollocks, address my fear, and weakly allowed my colleague ahead. I could try to justify it using a rationale that people who do what I do should never be the story, should always sit back and facilitate – but I know that essentially, I just bottled it.
You might not have been aware of this phobia and nervousness had you seen me on the periphery, orchestrating, arranging speakers, or in breaks, chatting and joking with the attendees. I maintained a confident-seeming air one to one, or one to a handful, as well as in the potentially awkward face of my former colleagues.
Did I imagine slight embarrassed guilt behind their shiny smiley, unknowably plastic eyes? Who can say? But I like to think I carried off the whole performance a mite better than them as I flitted around during the breaks. Shameless about my apparent uselessness to them. Unbowed. A delicately subtle waft of, And Fuck You Too.
Ah, no. There's that bitter twat. Still there then..
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
musical happy clappy joy joy
After a day of meetings in town yesterday, I hung around. The dinner time zone was spent working in a coffee shop, then I went to a small gig which had caught my eye on some listings. The snippets of music I’d heard online sounded ok, the admission price was reasonable.
But it entirely failed to speak to me live. It felt as if it could have ben transposed to some kind of evangelical religious congregation in the deep south of America.
It shrieked about the goodness of life, love and sex, in terms not bereft of musical ability, but exposed with such threadbare unweathered naivety, it made me want to vomit. The frontgirl was a hippy, plaited hair, Irish, adorably open manner, slightly out there eyes, probably entirely middle class upbringing.
Obviously I speculate wildly on the latter. She evidently felt the earnestness of her music and lyrics. As did her band, tight eyed, looking to the heavens, smiling blissfully, singing over and over:
“When we kissed, the world fell in love!”
It wasn’t necessarily intended romantically, she’d explained before beginning the song. It’s about that explosive feeling you get whenever anybody kisses you, even your little nephew or whatever.
The sentiment made my stomach gurgle, as if it was considering ejecting bile.
Expressing yourself in music through SUCH rose-tinted spectacles appeared to me, to be foolhardy. Religion was never once mentioned, but the way in which it evoked praise and faith to a higher power was impossible to avoid and didn’t sit comfortably. The world isn’t perfect and ideal, life isn’t always a bed of roses.
A sad git like me will always find it difficult to always empathise with the brilliance of love and faith and other people and infinite heavenly sex and permanent hippy, happy bounceyness. I find it all rather facile.
Unreasonable, almost. Open to chiding.
Or maybe I’m excessively cynical.
It wasn’t a musical experience I took nothing away from but one which, given the general audience reaction of reflected splendour and praise, made me feel alienated and disconnected. People do apparently believe other people are awesome and sex is forever religious. And it doesn’t appear to do them any harm either, although they do look starry-eyed, spacey and stoned. And maybe that’s not really all so bad.
But it entirely failed to speak to me live. It felt as if it could have ben transposed to some kind of evangelical religious congregation in the deep south of America.
It shrieked about the goodness of life, love and sex, in terms not bereft of musical ability, but exposed with such threadbare unweathered naivety, it made me want to vomit. The frontgirl was a hippy, plaited hair, Irish, adorably open manner, slightly out there eyes, probably entirely middle class upbringing.
Obviously I speculate wildly on the latter. She evidently felt the earnestness of her music and lyrics. As did her band, tight eyed, looking to the heavens, smiling blissfully, singing over and over:
“When we kissed, the world fell in love!”
It wasn’t necessarily intended romantically, she’d explained before beginning the song. It’s about that explosive feeling you get whenever anybody kisses you, even your little nephew or whatever.
The sentiment made my stomach gurgle, as if it was considering ejecting bile.
Expressing yourself in music through SUCH rose-tinted spectacles appeared to me, to be foolhardy. Religion was never once mentioned, but the way in which it evoked praise and faith to a higher power was impossible to avoid and didn’t sit comfortably. The world isn’t perfect and ideal, life isn’t always a bed of roses.
A sad git like me will always find it difficult to always empathise with the brilliance of love and faith and other people and infinite heavenly sex and permanent hippy, happy bounceyness. I find it all rather facile.
Unreasonable, almost. Open to chiding.
Or maybe I’m excessively cynical.
It wasn’t a musical experience I took nothing away from but one which, given the general audience reaction of reflected splendour and praise, made me feel alienated and disconnected. People do apparently believe other people are awesome and sex is forever religious. And it doesn’t appear to do them any harm either, although they do look starry-eyed, spacey and stoned. And maybe that’s not really all so bad.
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