The Fame Blame
I found myself thinking today about what song I would sing if I were to appear on X-Factor (possibly out of a puff of black smoke, like the wizened omen I know I could be).
This is not because I harbour any twisted dreams of becoming a pop star. True, I don’t have a bad voice, but also true that I don’t have anything approximating a decent one, either. Besides, all that anorexia sounds too much like hard work, even if it did prove the ideal way to stop Cheryl Cole beating up toilet attendants. No, I found myself humming away through feckless daydreams because I was washing up, and it’s very hard to do anything else of use while you’re up to your elbows in homely stereotypes.
X-Factor notions begat ponderings on the concept of fame, which in turn prompted memories of the various brushes I’ve had with the Beautiful People. Which is why I’m now sulking through text at my laptop; I’ve had fuck all flirtations with fame. To me, “vip” is the noise you get when you zip your muffin-top into the gusset of your jeans.
Swe.Ge has had plenty a dalliance with Them Who Glitter, having worked in the alternate reality of a luxury hotel for a number of stressful years. He’s met everyone from Westlife to Bob Dylan to the Taoiseach to every B-list Irish actor known to mankind. The cunt.
My experience, on the other hand, stretches but as far as …
- Sharing an aunt with Pauline McLynn of Fr. Ted. Through marriage, though.
- Seeing comedian Tommy Tiernan come out of an ice-cream shop. Not in a sexual way, though.
- Getting a wave from Hector O’Huckleberryfinnagan in a pub in Galway. Not giving one back, though.
- Accosting Howard Marks in a club in Cork. He didn’t seem to mind, though.
- Getting a smooch from my hero Danny Howells. Not that you fuckers know who the hell he is, though.
- And this one time I saw the PGA trophy.
My astounding lack of celebrity-laden yarns and twaddlings means that I’m fuck all use to anyone when boredom strikes. I know people who can triumphantly state, from experience, that Cillian Murphy is a prick, or that Angela Lansbury is extremely snooty, or that they have bigger tits than Jordan and Jordan’s not at all happy about it. All I can venture is that I was born and reared only out the road from W.B. Yeats’ gaff. Sure no one respects anyone who hangs about on Leaving Cert exam papers! Plus he’s dead. Or so we’re told; he did do a lot of messing with occult texts and funny candles. Anyway.
Fucking depressing, isn’t it? We stumble through the darkness for a glimpse, a taste of something of meaning (or at least the dregs of a line of coke some soapstar hoovered from a nightclub cistern), and yet I’ve been deprived, by stupid fucking happenstance, of the opportunity to tan in reflected glory. Is it any wonder I’m as pale as a stick of albino chalk? Anaemia indeed! It’s hanging out with you plebs that’s done it!
So, while I spend today collecting the results of my recent blood tests (yes, really), you can cheer me up by telling me about your own hopeless mooching at the borders of high society. Unless you happen to be the godfather of one of the Beckham brats. In which case, just fuck off. There’s no room for high-falluting ding-dongs here.
And by the way, the song I’d choose would probably be Smack My Bitch Up. Cheryl would dig it.
I’m sure you’d sound lovely, whatever you chose to sing…..
Here’s my list, for what it is worth:
Bert Sugar (boxing writer)
Andrea Marcovicci (actress/singer)
Al “no justice no peace” Sharpton (activist)
Chuck Scarborough (television news presenter)
Werner Klemperer (actor)
Tom McGurk
Edward James Olmos (actor)
Donna Hanover (television news presenter/actress/former wife of Rudy Giuliani-former Mayor of New York City)
Cliff Gorman (actor: Boys in the Band, All that Jazz)
John Lindsey (former Mayor of New York City)
Michael Lebron (known as “Lionel” radio host on Air America)
Forget the list. Did you see the clip on the “news” of Skeletor Spice on t.v. earlier? She was walking with the strangest gait, made even stranger by the fact she was walking beside a normal sized/shape woman. I have jumpers heavier than her.
p.s. I’m mightily impressed with the Pauline McLynn tidbit.
I’ve met Pete Doherty and Carl Barat (separately). Both of those were a big deal for me, they’re two of my favourite musicians.
Other than that, I met Bertie Ahern years ago when he was visiting my local Superquinn for something. I think I was still in primary school at the time. I asked him a question just for the sake of talking to the Taoiseach. My mate got his attention and I asked the question – a two- man job.
I asked “What’s it like being known everywhere you go?”. He responded (very nicely actually) that it had its advantages and disadvantages and was about to continue before some bitch interrupted him with “I’m a teacher and I’m not happy right now”.
The teachers were kicking up a fuss at the time over something I was too young to understand. I liked Bertie after that though, me and my mate were just two little scuts, and he was surrounded by tons of people wanting to talk to him, but he was very nice to us.
I’m verily impressed by the fact that Mary Mcwhathaveyou met Edward James Olmos. Was he wonderful? Was he as regal and dignified as he is in BSG?
did the dishwasher die then. Yeah, I would likely drift off in those directions if my DW/clean crockery storage unit, as distinct from the dirty crockery unit aka the sink, died.
I can testify to Richard E Grant being a humble witty and charming guy and also to Damien Rice being a collosol cock (not having you understand, being)
Hola Sweary!
I swallow the son of God every time I go to Mass. You cannot be getting more famous than that! Escept maybe Mohammed, but you cannot swallow him.
Besos
Manuel
I met Timothy Leary at a party in LA once too…
Fuck off, you.
MaryAnn, the only one I know there is Al Sharpton, and probably because they lampooned him on South Park or something. You have passed.
bendersbetterbrother, for only seeing Posh on th’telly, and for actually being impressed that I share an aunt with an actress (I refuse to say novelist) I’ve never met, you have definitely passed. You’re even sadder than I am.
Mark, Pete and Carl are both far too famous for my liking, and Bertie only spoke to you two scuts because a scut is all he ever was himself. You have failed. True, you have only three people on your list, but they are quite illustrious people. And one scut.
O, what about my brushes with fame?! Don’t come on my blog post and ignore me! Hey! HEY!
Dishwasher, Vince? How very middle-class of you! I’m aghast! Besides, my mam lives in Galway.
Waxydan, Richard E. Grant is again a far too impressive sleb to be bandying about here. Now if you’d just said Damien Rice, I would have been more inclined to let you pass. But Grant just banjaxed it for you.
Manuel, do you really think Mohammed is more famous than Jesus? I don’t think Mohammed ever guested on Family Guy.
Neil Hannon
Mary McAleese
Dermot O’Leary
Michael Palin (Twice)
Gwen Stefani
Pete Doherty
The Strokes
Bloc Party
Brian O’Driscoll
Ben Kingsley
Natalie Portman
Jim Sturgess
Bob Geldof
That’s my list!
Oh and I forgot Richard Attenborough, Mischa Barton and Shirley MacLaine!
That couldn’t BE more high-falutin’. How is that supposed to make me feel better?
I want stories about … I dunno, shifting someone who came fifth in Big Brother or something like that!
you met me…..I was popular and had friends back then
Had a pee with Dermot Morgan in the Chatham Inn
Sold a lamp to Tracy Piggott
Sold a brooch to yer wan from Altan
Lots more but these’re the only ones I’ll admit to
oh yeah! Also Sweary is my Facebook fwend !!!
I can pick up the phone, and within 24 hours be sleeping on the couch of any Fair City cast member. I also once shared a glove with OJ Simpson, but I can’t say too much more for legal reasons.
…and my X Factor song would be Rocket Man. The Shatner version, obviously.
After startling her with “Howareya Mary?”, told Ms. McAleese that I “ couldn’t stop to talk cause the dinner was on the table” .
Got slapped by a Bishop too.
You told Mary McAleese that you couldn’t stop to talk because the dinner was on the table?
Wow.
That is the most Irish thing anyone, anywhere, could ever do.
Galwaywegian, you think I could be famous? I might try it out this weekend. I do tend to be on the guestlist at the Cruiscin Lan in Cork City, but anyone who knows the gaff would hardly be impressed by that. Concerned, maybe, but probably unimpressed.
Flann, you crack me up. Go away now, it doesn’t do to have someone funnier than I am posting here. Oh, wai…
I saw that taxi owner fellow out’a Fair City in a Donnybrook pub, once. That count, eh. And I’ld a thought that a dishwasher that’ld boil water to clean dishes would be a requirement for every Galway person. Better safe that having the squirts, given the Corrib is a great soup of swirling cess, and Gart is connected via the water main.
I love all your lists…..
Forgot a couple of mine……
Buster Poindexter (musician)
Joe Jackson (musician)
Allan Ginsberg (poet)
Gregory Corso (poet)
Bob Grant (NYC conservative radio host)
Jerry Capeci (journalist and Mafia expert)
MaryAnn, that’s some list. Did you happen to run into most of these people in their own bedrooms, while they were asleep and you were cutting off a lock of their for future sniffing?
Ho ho ho.
Nope, not in their bedrooms…
Mainly at parties, galleries, readings, fundraisers, through mutual friends, happening to sit at the next table in a restaurant, in an elevator…all manner of places and situations.
all best,
MaryAnn
If it makes you feel better I once sneeze in Dylan Moran’s face?
sneezed*
P.S.
My list is not nearly as impressive as my husband’s (used to work in a swanky hotel)….
Martin Sheen (what a dish!)
Ed Koch (former Mayor of NYC)
Bill Clinton
Elton John
Celine Dion
There are probably more but I can’t remember them….still have to get my morning coffee…….
P.P.S.
Also, I haven’t met anyone (celebrity-wise) since being buried in the wilds of Westchester County, so things kind of balance out…..
Working in the business what I do, I get close to lots of the famous and infamous:
Henry Kelly
Kelly Jones
Paul Jones
David Byrne
Barbara Dickson
Lea Delaria
Rupert Everett
Eddie Izzard
Sophie Ellis Bextor
yadayadayada every day another star
They were all crap in bed and never wrote, never called….
My uncle is friends with Declan Nerney’s manager, beat that!
Living in SoCal, it’s impossible to go into LA without running across (or nearly running down) some person who looks vaguely familiar and you might have seen on that TV show, or was it a commercial? E Listers galore, there’s no avoiding them, but I’m crap at remembering names; I wouldn’t even remember the Spouse Sparrow’s were it not tattooed on my left arse cheek.
I did meet and converse with Ray Bradbury a few times, back in the day, and got several books autographed, and I tried not to fawn too much.
So, your blood test results… Was there any blood in your alcohol system? Or did the vials that they drew out evaporate before they could test them? Did they have to mark “FLAMMABLE” on them before they sent them to the lab? Keep us posted, enquiring minds want to know.
Now that my system has been properly infused with caffeine, I remember some others….
George Plimpton (Paris Review) I remember his shoes were falling apart at the seams…
John Updike (just barely…he scurried away from me when I started to speak to him)
Isaac Asimov (writer)
David Lehman (poet)
The eighties and nineties were a busy time….these days are much quieter….
and…for my DH…..
Keith Hernandez of the NY Mets
Kathy Bates (actress)
Keith Gallagher (owner of the Dublin restaurant Peacock Alley) but less famous than infamous, I’m afraid…..
Brenda Fricker’s sister saw my bare ass. Was renting a house off her for ma holidays in Connemara and the cheeky blurt peeped thru the winda.
I grew up in a posh LA suburb. My Lithuanian immigrant parents worked hard (dad was a chemical engineer) and bought into the area before the real estate market exploded in the 1970’s. We were like the east euro Beverly Hillbillies by the sea.
Leif Garrent and I shared the same dentist, I saw him in the waiting room a few times but was too terrified to say anything.
The tennis player Tracy Austin was 2 years ahead of me in school. All the press at the time went on and on how sweet and down to earth she was but at school she was cruel and blanked me like the rest of them.
A boy I dated in high school lived next door to The Sylvers, a 1970’s disco pop sibling act ala Jackson Five. We got high with the youngest a few times.
I once sat next to John Ashton “Gomez” of Addams Family fame in a vegetarian restaurant in San Diego.