So much for me thinking I could shut up talking about myself, I guess I’m a little devoid of other topics so I usually end up back on about myself. If I paid more attention to the press no doubt I could rant and rave about whatever is in the headlines, but then this would just be a blog by some guy who likes to rant and rave a lot… as opposed to a blog by some guy who likes to analyse everything he’s ever done or thought about doing… yeah I don’t quite know which one is worse either.
But, until I can think of something else to rant and rave about you’re stuck reading about ME, so get used to it and settle down =) I’ve been watching this show called ‘What about Brian’ a group of 30 something’s in various stages of relationships. Obviously you’re supposed to focus on Brian, after all it wouldn’t be called What about Brian if it was really about Adam, would it? So, Brian is 34, searching for that elusive ‘miss right’ never seems to find her yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah… usual story everyone is stunningly attractive, no one seems to lack money or time, but still it’s slightly addictive, not helped by the fact I’ve downloaded (Oops! me bad) 2 seasons and have been watching them back-to-back.
In a way it’s a bit like the therapy I was seeking in an earlier blog, a lot of the ‘dilemmas’ that face the characters in the show mirror, to varying degrees, things I feel myself. Of course the reality is very much different from the show, for a start Brian is impossibly good looking, so you kinda have little sympathy for the guy who seems to have stunning girls fall for him in every episode and so far all I’ve gathered is he’s an expert in bed as after every one night stand the girls has swooned and gushed (pardon the pun!) about how great he was. Not for Brian the embarrassed fumblings as he struggles to maintain an erection and nervously hoping he could blame it on the booze rather than what was going on in his head. But minor quibbles aside, it’s a good show.
It’s reinforced in me the idea that I need to stop being so fucking nice, I need to stop being so obliging, being everyone’s friend and forgetting to be my own friend. I need to start being selfish, going for what I want and to hell with the consequences. But I also saw albeit in the show, the possible outcome of being that selfish.
Let me introduce the 3 characters (in alphabetical order) Adam, Brian & Marjory. Adam and Brian are best friends from when they were both knee high to a grasshopper, New Year’s eve they are both out, Adam has a date with an unattractive girl, Brian is dateless. Brian sees Marjory enter in a stunning red dress, they bump into each other and chat and flirt and they Brian chickens out of asking for her number and walks off. Later he decides to go see her, and as he fights through the crowd he spies Adam chatting to her, Brian goes to the bar and gets drunk. then Adam comes along and begs Brian to take the ugly date off his hands as he’s off with Marjory; he asks Brian is he’s cool with it and Brian, being nice, says yeah, it’s all cool.
Cut to a year later, Adam and Marjory are getting married and Brian realises that he’s really in love with Marjory and that the reason he hasn’t settled with anyone else is because he compares them all to her and they can’t compete. he realises he has to go for what he wants, his happiness comes first. He declares his love for Marjory, she’s torn between Adam and Brian, wants both. Adam and Brian fight and on the day of the wedding Marjory leaves them both and moves to Minneapolis.
The lesson to be learnt from that I guess was the realisation that I’ve had my fair share of Marjory’s in life. Girls I couldn’t have either physically or emotionally who I then compared every other girl to and dismissed without even getting to know them. I really was a jerk! I also learnt that there is a huge danger in just ‘going for what you want’, I can’t just wander around declaring my love for someone who is already in a relationship. The repercussions could be immense, of course it helps that in the show Brian and Marjory are both hot for each other, it would have been a pretty dull show if she had said, “Sorry Brian, I’d love to have an affair with you but I just don’t fancy you.” It left me in mixed feelings, of course on one had the romantic side of you wants ‘true love’ to win and Brian and Marjory to settle down, as you already know Adam doesn’t really want to get married. But then I also hated Brian for not leaving Adam and Marjory to give their relationship a chance, for all we know Adam and Marjory may have settled into a perfect life of bliss but instead, because Brian couldn’t live without letting the world know he loved Marjory enough to risk losing all his friends for. He obviously didn’t love her that much because he didn’t go to Minneapolis to be with her…What a jerk! Ifs, buts and maybes don’t make a future so there is no point putting too much hope in thinking they’ll guide us on to the promised land kinda sucks to have to accept that really, doesn’t it?
For this post’s musical interlude I contemplated ‘Your love alone’ the single from The Manic Street Preachers new album, you know the one, with the utterly, utterly gorgeous Nina from the Cardigans singing. Her inclusion rescues what one can only imagine would be a nightmare if it were left to the Preachers themselves, pretty much like most of their stuff barring their first album and the odd track here and there.
But instead I thought I’d leave you with a depressingly uplifting track from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album, No More Shall We Part. I won’t go into the story behind the first time I heard it, it involves Aurélie so you don’t really need to know much if you have read anything I have ever written about her. But anyway, this track, “Fifteen feet of pure white snow” is hauntingly beautiful, as is the whole album.
I really enjoy lying in a steaming hot bath while listening to this album, don’t ask me why but it really cheers me up. Whether you think the same I probably will never know but have a listen anyway =)
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