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angelophileIn some ways it's quite depressing when you read up about pop icons from your teenage years and discover they're no longer involved in the business, never made those millions and are doing day-to-day jobs.
For example, Miki from Lush, one of the reasons I have a fondness for bottle redheads in black tights, now being, in her words, an "office worker" and mom. (Apparently she's an assistant editor for some magazine or another.) Or Myles Howell from Kingmaker, who went from working at Homebase to the Hull Daily Mail. Or the members of Elastica (Justine Frischmann - an abstract artist somewhere in the US. Donna Matthews, a student at Dartington College of Arts and head of the Christian Union.) Or more depressing, like Martin Gilks from the Wonderstuff, dead in a road accident at 41 or Liam Maher of Flowered Up, also dead at 41 from a drugs overdose.
On the other hand, it's quite nice to know stuff like Ian Dench from EMF winning an Ivor Novello Award for co-writing Beyonce's Beautiful Liar. Or Clint Mansell from Pop Will Eat Itself going on to score a bunch of movies, including Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Moon and Golden Globe nominated for The Fountain.
(Incidentally, during the course of my search, I did discover that I still find Tanya Donnelly from Belly and The Throwing Muses distractingly attractive and apparently 15 years isn't long enough to make a mad crush vanish.)
But in some ways, it's reassuring that there's plenty who are just living normal lives. Fame's fleeting and, at the end of the day, a lot of the people I grew up thinking of as famous are, basically, now doing similar jobs to me, living the same kind of life, the same kind of worries and day-to-day grind. It's a strange way to look at it, but I do start thinking "hmmm, I've not got it so bad. I'm doing as well as anyone else." Sure, I never had that moment in the spotlight, but who wants to be chasing that their entire lives? And when you get it, what happens? It's soon back to the clean up on aisle three.
So, I guess, at the end of the day, I'm quite happy with my lot. I've never really put what talents I have to great use, but I've not wasted my life any more than anyone else either.
I think I'd probably rather be happy with my lot and to have accomplished what I set out to (ie: not much) than be someone who entered showbusiness, made a bit of cash for other people, then retired back to the normal life.
Normal's underrated.
For example, Miki from Lush, one of the reasons I have a fondness for bottle redheads in black tights, now being, in her words, an "office worker" and mom. (Apparently she's an assistant editor for some magazine or another.) Or Myles Howell from Kingmaker, who went from working at Homebase to the Hull Daily Mail. Or the members of Elastica (Justine Frischmann - an abstract artist somewhere in the US. Donna Matthews, a student at Dartington College of Arts and head of the Christian Union.) Or more depressing, like Martin Gilks from the Wonderstuff, dead in a road accident at 41 or Liam Maher of Flowered Up, also dead at 41 from a drugs overdose.
On the other hand, it's quite nice to know stuff like Ian Dench from EMF winning an Ivor Novello Award for co-writing Beyonce's Beautiful Liar. Or Clint Mansell from Pop Will Eat Itself going on to score a bunch of movies, including Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Moon and Golden Globe nominated for The Fountain.
(Incidentally, during the course of my search, I did discover that I still find Tanya Donnelly from Belly and The Throwing Muses distractingly attractive and apparently 15 years isn't long enough to make a mad crush vanish.)
But in some ways, it's reassuring that there's plenty who are just living normal lives. Fame's fleeting and, at the end of the day, a lot of the people I grew up thinking of as famous are, basically, now doing similar jobs to me, living the same kind of life, the same kind of worries and day-to-day grind. It's a strange way to look at it, but I do start thinking "hmmm, I've not got it so bad. I'm doing as well as anyone else." Sure, I never had that moment in the spotlight, but who wants to be chasing that their entire lives? And when you get it, what happens? It's soon back to the clean up on aisle three.
So, I guess, at the end of the day, I'm quite happy with my lot. I've never really put what talents I have to great use, but I've not wasted my life any more than anyone else either.
I think I'd probably rather be happy with my lot and to have accomplished what I set out to (ie: not much) than be someone who entered showbusiness, made a bit of cash for other people, then retired back to the normal life.
Normal's underrated.
