the royal family as your emotional toilet

 one of them’s in the throws of dropping one today, and all i can think of is a hair conditioner i once used..made from animal afterbirth placenta. oh days of long long hair..    so long ago.

i’m now thinking how the deal between the royals and the public is extremely perverse.

in old days of henry the eighth,they were something to be very scared of, but in the 21st century they’re set up as something to collectively worship or snarl at, and in exchange for this gimp/master game, they get to live in full luxury.  i am not a royalist, but having lived for big chunks of time outside of the united kingdom, i’m very aware of a cachet they bring to the country, that curiously translates on to the stockmarket…they are the very essence of clever marketing…..the marketing of a country.

while we’re no empire anymore, it became apparent to me in america how those bucktoothed royals still swing some serious weight outside the village .. now i’d be happy to see the royals evaporate, simply cause i like the idea of nearly everything in the 21st century downsizing, but that’s not really what i want to write about here ..

the thing that intrigues me is this weird dynamic between the royals and us… not all folk, but a lot of sparky folk seem emotionally invested in the sly limitations that’ve hijacked their lives….it’s like some sort of stockholm syndrome..or even like the warm piss,when we wet the bed…one could almost lay still in it, just to stay warm. no one easily admits how we do glorify our hardships..they get worn like badges of honour, while the buckteeth royals play out a role that says that even if you did try harder, it wouldn’t be enough…you’re either born into wealth like us or you’re not, so why even bother trying to be remarkable..it’ll only be like flogging a dead horse.. and this construct created out of the dynamic between ourselves and royal blood, galvanises a lazy comfortable pessimism. the price for those leading an extraordinary life is a license for many of us to loath them … we enjoy that. it’s the luxury of disgust…our own stench of virtue backfiring on us.

am i talking bollox? … possibly .. they do say i’m wired to a mars bar.

i often think mick hucknall is a good downscale example of the same thing … i dinnae give a hoot what anyone says, but that boy has the most gorgeous tone to his voice…it really is exquisite…it reminds me of esther phillips..the lady who sang ‘what a difference a day makes’ .. now mick hucknall didn’t make many great records, and i for one own none of them, but that vocal on ‘holding back the years’ is a thing of beauty….so here’s a guy with all the right social credentials…northern….working class..ginger…raised by his single parent father…no relationship with his mother…was very very poor…… speaks FOUR languages fluently… and yet somehow everyone laughs at the very mention of his name…especially working class scenesters … and i’m left wondering, who’s side is anyone on anyway.. it seems to me we’re more loyal to our false constructs than our own possibilities as people….i mean…if there’s one thing the likes of mick hucknall spell out loud, it’s that if you’re hearts into it, and you go the extra mile, good things can happen…most of us don’t have to stay in that hole we’re in………..not unless we want to….but we just can’t handle the truth, can we….and i’m sure the royals can’t either.

george michael is another…though he’s popular now, having gone through a certain rites of passage…humilation in a public urinal…dwugs…dead lover from aids.. so now we warm to him more freely…he’s the kid who you hated until you found him beat up in the cruel playground of life, and now you love him…but it wasn’t always that way, was it …

george, in good greek cypriot fashion, was raised to have an unpretentious honest attitude towards making money…he was unabashed about his aspirations, and your average brit at the new musical express hated him for it…there really is nothing like success to make the knives come out…just like they never said a good word about the now vindicated led zeppelin….but poor old mick hucknall ..he just refuses to have a bad time…he gets laid by tennis players who can jump like gazelles..he doesn’t boast.. he just won’t lie to you…i guess it all looks a little bit too self satisfied for most of us…but to play down obvious good fortune is plain creepy…i like it that he doesn’t want to insult our intelligence. it’s like that line leonard cohen wrote in a song to joni mitchell “don’t wear those rags for me, i know you’re not poor”

i myself was fairly ambitious as a young man, clearly not ambitious enough, but i remember the ridicule i got from pub rock musicians, as i guiltlessly attempted to navigate towards some sort of higher ground…they were so snide…drinking and sniding, and now i realise that it’s all part of the deal…if you want an extraordinary life, the unwritten deal is you also become an emotional toilet for those left at the bar …. which brings me back up to the royals…that’s their role in the early 21st century … emotional toilets…we shit on them when they’re flouncing around, and then we cry and weep on that very same toilet seat when one of them gets killed by paparazzi.

happy bank holiday to all lovely bleeders living in england today… with red leicester cheese sandwiches, grilled on a breville toasting machine … mary fairy liquid

p.s dear reader … if there’s one thing i wish for us all after next weeks election is that we bear in mind all those other currencies above money… the currency of our own personalities..the currency of TIME … to be fun company for the ones we live around … to drive our senses of humour to new levels ….to be a good ride…all that stuff…no one can confiscate those things.