Monday, February 11, 2013

OMG! The first publicity for the "Everything So Far" tour and now we're committed.  Bernard Griffen and I, on the road, playing music, he's okay, it's me I'm worried about. 
I watched a TV celebrity-watch kind of programme from the Bafta's tonight and was totally mesmerised by the big screen TV that had arrived in our house yesterday - not by accident, Bernard bought it! The old one is sitting in the armchair like a big fat visitor, wiating for someone (me) to take it to the e-waste.  I emailed the disability workshop at Glenfield, and will have to drop it off.  Meanwhile our last TV which finally gave up talking,  sits there like a big empty laugh (the surround sound that never got set up).
Bernard is smitten by the new girl - "I can hear!" he says, "is it loud?"  Not as distorted therefore as loud as that old bastard used to be.  One other reason to use earplugs!  And stay in the bedroom with my book.
The point of this story was being mesmerised by the narcissism and the sheer will and drive of all those great actors and stars, the way the women posed in their beautiful dresses and Helen Mirren twirled, as if it were the point of their lives (which it is of course, it's their job).  I realised that they were great stars because they could do that show-biz chatter, they had the tenacity and resilience to succeed and keep going when it's hard, as well as the talent and ability to deliver. 
There are two types (and a gradation in between, like Lawrence Durrell's six sexes of Alexandria?) of people in the world - people like Bernard who takes it all in as entertainment as if it's being delivered for his personal enjoyment, all those people putting on a show to keep him amused and diverted.  Then there's the minority (me) who feels diminished and can't stand everyone else's ideas and chatter, I can only do what I do ...  "I know," Bernard said, "I get guitar envy, you get talent envy."
We never stuck it out, I was an early and great success at self-doubt and self-criticism, "which doesn't make what we are doing now worth any less," says the ever-philosophical Mr Griffen.
So today tour posters went out, I posted the first lot to The Yot Club in Raglan, and OMG, there's all these emails from friends saying they mentioned me on Facebook and when I go and have a look at what they're talking about, there's this unbelievable thing there, Under the Radar with Mr Griffen's announcement of a major New Zealand tour launching his album  "Everything So Far" with "long-time partner" Kirsten Warner (!!).  I suppose he'll go, anyway, and no one will notice if I'm there or not. 
Joseph said, "go Mum, you could sit at home for three weeks.  It'll be life changing.  It will make you... or break you."  That's true, I suppose.  Sam at the boarding house had tour envy - and he's a really good guitar player.  He oculd go instead, but the duets won't be the same.
My previous angsty posts on this blog which no one commentecd on but some people actually read, it seems, were about being a writer.  Well I have decided on a new life, writing ain't doing a thing for me, and this is it. 
I know music people who take photos of themselves all the time, and love how they look and pose and make videos and all that - I can't bear to think about all that. 
I was lying on the couch in my short summer dress I've had for about 15 years and people still make nice comments about the dress, it's got a Japanese style of old-fashioned print and hangs well in a lose romantic shift kind of way (I like it and I keep the clothes I like).
I was thinking I used to have great legs and maybe from this angle looking down I still had them, from that angle anyway... and thinking that all I could do was sing and not think about how I looked and what happened to my life... and my youth and beauty, those kinds of thoughts or else I lose the moment and drift off and make a mistake ... all I can do is let the music happen and hope for the best.  Hahah.  OMG.
Then someone liked me on Twitter, which I do nothing about, and I thought this is it, time to write again, but in a different way.  Like on a blog,  where I can say what I bloody like.  That's what was wrong with the novel, I suppose, I didn't or couldn't, say what I liked, write about myself, I had to write fiction.
When every day there's a story.  Like the sheep that had a go at me... but I'll tell that another time.  Mr Griffen does a clever line most days (he said someone had "poisonality" the other day;  then the next day he said about a woman we know called Carey, that "she really Careyed on" ... he's so clever with words.  We're going to write them all down in the back of his notebook which Marcella gave him for Christmas which says something like "Nothing is more important than music" on the cover.  We had the best Christmas ever, but that's another story.  Well I tell stories.
So music is the new life, the one after I give up trying to be a writer.