I’m in the mood for love, simply because you’re near me. Actually, you’re not near me at all, and what I’m in the mood for is a rant. I feel as I did when I wrote “A Man of Mirth and Song” for my (universally ignored) album Sorry We’re Open three-quarters of a decade ago. The world is in a meeting every time I call.
As La Hynde sang, I gotta have some of your attention, but how on earth to get it? Yesterday, outraged by the thought of Fucko the Klown (previously Donald J. Trump) having the ability to order young Americans to put themselves in mortal jeopardy, I created a little graphic. Something south of half a dozen people liked it. Meanwhile, a Facebook casual acquaintance of mine commented, “We’re screwed now,” in response to FTK’s latest oration, and 128 people’s LIKES suggest they thought him notably wry and insightful for having done so. Maybe, I thought, the guy has a great many more Facebook friends than I. Nope. Fewer. I’m back in the amphitheatre at Santa Monica High School now, wishing I didn’t have to eat my lunch alone while the ocean breezes torment me with the blown-over-the-Administration-building laughter of popular, confident classmates who don’t know I’m alive.
I wouldn’t even venture a guess as to how many dozens of hours it takes me to compose a song, rehearse it with the band, record it, mix it, and make a video of our pretending to perform it. And yet none of the several Freudian Sluts and Stonking Novels I’ve posted here in the past 18 months has been viewed by a quarter as many people as found “We’re screwed now” a source of delight and intrigue.
Back, always, to the Sluts. Maybe you’ve gotten the impression that we don’t play the sort of music you most enjoy. I get that. Not everybody likes everything, and maybe some of those who do generally like the sort of stuff we play don’t think we play it well. I get that. But nine fucking viewings?
The group’s exquisite and talented singer, Suz eQ, leaves London to move back to the Midlands, whence she sprang, and declares herself available for one performance and no rehearsals per month. With the utmost reluctance, I advertise on line for a new singer. Perhaps two dozen respond, several in barely intelligible textspeak, to my gumtree.com and joinmyband.co.uk adverts. I send them to our Website. Not one gets back to me. I'm well aware we’re unlikely to appeal much to a death metal or jazz or folk singer, but is our stuff not pretty distinctive? Are our videos not quite professional-looking? Does the site not suggest that we’re smart, funny, and committed? And a month after I began advertising, we’ve yet to get someone over for a live audition, and I’m asking myself the same question I asked a million times as a kid: What am I doing wrong?
I send 45 UK literary agents what I imagine to be quite irresistible emails inviting them to read my latest novels. Three say OK. Of those three two don’t think they can sell my work, for whatever reason, and the third is never heard from again. I send a snazzy, well-researched proposal for a nonfiction book about a particular erotic subculture, and this time two are willing to look at the sample chapters. I revise the proposal to send to magazines. Not a single editor responds.
I apply on line for countless dozens of graphic design jobs. (Of all the things I do, design might be what I do best.) I have worked for posh, prestigious employers like Deloitte, and have put lovely MAC lipstick all over the pig that is my CV. And what do I get back? Crickets, and the occasional form email telling me I’m really terrific, but Not What We’re Looking For At This Time, But We’ll Keep Your CV on File In the Event a Position That More Closely Matches Your Skill Set Opens Up. I make a series of life-changingly hilarious little radio shows. They seem to interest no one. OK, maybe they're not so hilarious at all, but the stat counters don't tell me that listeners are tuning out after a few seconds. They're not listening even that long.
I haven’t that many years left, FFS. What am I doing wrong?
I have heard tell that there are cultures that venerate the elderly. My guess is that this is no longer the case anywhere Iggy Azalea is popular. It's certainly not the case in the modern "west." Age makes you invisible, more than undesirable, a nothing.
ReplyDeleteWhat a cruel, and completely apt, way of putting it! Thanks for reading and commenting.
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