ON FAME WITHOUT FORTUNE

Funny old week. I get a call from Granada TV on Monday. Do I want to do the lunchtime 'Des and Mel' show (with Des O'Connor - old British crooner, think Andy Williams) this week. I don't blink. Nowadays, this year has been the worst ever, I don't actually believe something will happen, until the point when it is actually happening, or possibly even later. Why the cynicism? This year, 5 cancelled bookings and no work at all, all promises, promises, 'definitely want you…will call you soon'. Then they cut chords. Why do people never honour their word? Am I the only person in the world who does? Tsk. No wonder we're encroached in a dubious war now. Tsk, broken both parts of my Blog rules in first paragraph.

Anyway, the long and the short of it, after bending over backwards they don't want me to do it till 'next season' (i.e. never). It seems Des himself chose a ukelele player or something daft over me. I didn't blink. Life is too twisted and surreal right now to think about this for too long. The publicity would have been nice right now, but hey-ho.

I do sometimes wonder if I'm just on some long acidic kind of trip imagining people offering me all this work & stuff but really I'm just sat in a room, completely alone, imagining it all. (had a similar experience to this years ago when I was working in market research and was very very stoned one day); No, it is actually happening. Fuck me, what a strange life.

At the weekend I audition for an 'online talent show' entitled 'Me Me Me'. Surprisingly refreshing, it wasn't full of wanabe stars or idiots but run by a pretty intelligent New Media agency who seem interested in talent as opposed to toss and how to capitalise on it. A few days later I get a call, can I do a TV show tomorrow with them? (the other thing about showbiz people is that they want everything now, now, now, It's always today or tomorrow - never next month allowing you to actually plan some kind of preparation/life/work/sanity). This week I'm pushed, very pushed, but I decide to sod it, re jig, and do it anyway. Hell no, it could even be fun.

Now I know the score, I am ultra organised and prep it with a tech spec (essential for any thereminist) music clearance list etc. Unfortunately, this seems to have totally perplexed the idiots at the TV production company and I spend most of the rest of the day on the phone to half a dozen different people trying to explain the concept of mic'ing up an amp and studio foldback. Grrr.

I haven't been sleeping well. By the time it comes around, I don't know if I really can be arsed, especially as I have to hump gear around and whizz about to get there. Come on, Miss Hypnotique, put the old chin up and turn on the charm! I have to say to myself through bared teeth.

So by the end of the day I'm sitting in a studio. Aghh. Turns out to be exactly the same studio I did my first TV show for that shit cable network NOW. (The one where myself and Tony Bassett demonstrated the world debut of the stereo theremin. On a mono foldback. And the one where I got cut off after 5 seconds. And the one where the idiot presenter seemed to find it amusing to call me Miss Harmonica. Tw*t.). Better luck now. I arrive and there are a dozen small girls dancing around in spangly paedo-porn style costumes doing line-dancing. I'm going to be interviewed by former Page 3 'stunna' Melinda Messenger. I end up being rude to her during the rehearsal. 'How does it work?' She says, most originally, in that irritating 'butter wouldn't melt' bimbo way. 'As if by magic', I say. 'Someone like you could never do such a thing.' Button your lip, Miss Hypnotique! I can barely help myself.

The show is appalling in every way, but it's pretty amusing and not as catastrophic as previous TV experiences. We spend most of the time with the guys from the talent project who are pretty cool and the other 'turn', an astonishingly cool Russian Rapper called Space Angel, ripping the piss out of the other acts in the Green Room. The 'celebrity' guests include the singer from Altered Images (who is so desperate to be loved & tries and fails to charm us all) and the Lighthouse Family whom the gay presenter describes as 'more of an album kind of band'. I cannot help to gaff. This is why I don't own a television. It's just pathetic bland, wallpaper banter. These people are just desperate to cling on to a career which is sinking into the ocean and the superficiality and desperation cracks like the lines on their botox injected faces. If their sad lives are 'fame', you can shove it! The worst part was when the production people, permanent grins stuck to their faces, (for anyone unfamiliar with TV, these people are basically like the Red Coats at Butlins, and most of their work seems to involve elevated forms of babysitting) made us sit in the audience for the end piece and me & the other guy were trying not to totally crack up as the camera zoomed in on us and the presenter read out a list of 'next week's highlights' which included a 'celebration of the birthday of Liza Minelli'. That cracked it for me. My god, what torture!!

Well, in the end it was a craic if nothing else. God knows how hard up in life you'd have to be to sit through an hour of that sh*t. The playing was 'so-so', but not bad given the briefness of the slot, heat of the studio etc. My God, I think I'm becoming a mistress at pulling this off.

Well….this week has definitely made me ask questions about myself. I may say I'm trying to 'subvert the mainstream media from within', but how much am I subverting it and how much am I just a cog in its wheel? Do I come across as being as dumb-ass as all the other silly guests? Or am I brooding, dark, aloof and mysterious? J Am I the mistress of daytime TV fodder (having been the vamp of late night Channel 5)? Do I now qualify as a minor celebrity or am I just another tragic wanabe? Do I care?!

Well, despite what one of the American Levnet (theremin newsgroup) members says about thereminists being desperate attention seekers, I don't think this is the case at all with me. In fact, I actually get fairly annoyed at the amount of attention 'it' gets over me. I get sick of people saying 'tell me about it' when I really want them to say 'tell me about YOU', or just to lay off completely! I just find being an in the wings participant/voyeur in the fame game wryly amusing. It breaks up my week, it gives me a little something to do. I don't really give a shit about 'being famous', mingling with 'celebs' or being recognised or whatever, but a few more $$$ would be pretty sweet right now.

Right now, I feel like I don't care - just DO EVERYTHING - it's the way to go. The theremin is too marginalized to be a snob about playing it. I can do daytime chitchat TV, and play a cool underground gig, I can be in a quiz show and a tribute to Throbbing Gristle. The two are not mutually incompatible, in fact, given the extremities of the actions they are probably actually about the same. Both strangely subversive. Any muso who gets snobby and says 'but I won't work with you, you cheapen yourself…' is most probably part of some sad elitist who thinks you can only be part of the 'gang' if you make yourself so obscure you actually drop off the edge. You can test these people by asking what they think of fictitious bands like Hedgehog, Nancarrow or Pheromone 217. They will probably pretend they are also big fans.

As I was leaving the studio, one of the runners said he recognized me. 'Are you in Dawn of the Replicants?' Turns out he's a big fan and saw us play at the Water Rats last year. He said 'It's funny, we get all kinds of famous people in here, but you and the Russian girl are the first people I've ever recognised.' Now that, dear friends, is what I call true fame.