3-20-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #77 (Back to London, 1981)

Bshzoop!  Back to London, 1981.  Well, it was the best of times and the worst of times.  (Thank you, Charles Dickens -- a Londoner.)  Temporarily, I was catsitting and staying at the flat of the petite powerhouse of photography and networking, fellow expat Gervaise Souerouge, near Tottenham Court Road.  I was a fan and devotee of the invaluable street guide, London A-Z, part of the “knowledge” of those amazing London cab drivers.

Believe me, without a London A-Z, you couldn’t really get around the town very well.  In fact, I still have it here and look forward to (maybe) visiting ol’ London towne again.  But then again, I tend to shun big cities these days. . . I dig the boondocks, the quiet, the occasional people & plentiful nature. . .

Anyhoo, in 1981, London was starting to gear up from being a sleepy town to something TOO big, fast, crowded, and cosmopolitan.  But, being a New Yorker (from Manhattan), London was quite manageable at the time for me, thank you.

The unmanageable in my life was my physical and mental health.  I’d been a vegetarian (no red meat, very little chicken, mostly fish, cheese, eggs) since the age of 15, and it was starting to wear on me.  I was also plunging into a sadness I couldn’t shake off. . . I think we (at least I) take it for granted when surrounded by loving family & friends. . . even though they may seem like a hassle every now and then when sharing our space, they really do help to keep us together.

So. . . I’d get to crying often for little reason, feeling very tired & taking naps every day, invariably. . . my appetite was OK, but I felt scared and lonely and tired of life.  Every time I thought I’d scored a victory in life, something dire or dismal (like having Mickie Most tell me I didn’t have a career in music!) would happen to SMASH me and my mood down again.

I even tried taking up tap dancing (how can you be depressed tapping?), but that didn’t really work out (your foot reflexes need to be quite keen, you know -- and being in my mid twenties was a tad late to start if I couldn’t commit hours to practice). 

I knew I needed to work -- for my pocketbook, peace of mind, and sanity -- but how and where to get “clean” work off the books? 

During one of my weekend visits (or “haunts”) down the King’s Road in Chelsea (take the tube to Sloan Square and start walking!), I started to think about the many bars and eateries there. 

I inquired in a few places, then bingo!  One of them -- a trendy pub in the middle of the King’s Road -- took me on to be “pulling pints” that very night (Guy Fawkes night, Nov. 5^th).  Cool, I thought. . . just the thing to bring up spirits and replenish the pocketbook. . .

3-11-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #68 (Almost Losin’ it in London -- Part II)

As glad as I was to have almost miraculously been introduced to another expatriate American who successfully lived in London and seemed to be having a great time (Gervaise was around 40 years old at the time, dating a younger, handsome guy named Gary, a Cockney who sounded alarmingly like Dick Van Dyke as Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins), all was not well.

I might as well fess up and admit: I’ve been waging war with depression most of my life, along with (un)healthy amounts of anxiety. This may be why I work so hard at everything and rarely relax.  I am driven by a force that’s part terror, part high energy nervousness.  Sure, I love most of what I’m up to, but you can be sure I have a lot of darkness I’m trying to avoid, meanwhile.

But in general my outward mien is cheerful, optimistic, and funny.  In fact, after meeting Ms. Soeurouge and staying with her a few days and nights when we’d go to north London to catch Nick Cave’s band The Birthday Party and a few other cool London bands (we also needed to go over stuff at the flat for the few months she’d be out of town, get to know the kitties & such), she blew up at me:

“Do you HAVE to be so damned cheerful?  You’re like Mary fucking Tyler Moore!  It’s insufferable, really.  Knock it off, Lauren!”  I guess I should have laughed, but I was stunned and hurt.  Overcompensating for my darkness resulted in an overdose of sweetness and light.  Ugh.  Of course I apologized profusely -- a reflex action, like a gag reflex -- which pissed off Gervaise even more. 

LUCKILY, she was leaving the next day, cute boyfriend Gary in tow, to work on a documentary or something in the U.S. and so I wouldn’t be getting on her nerves much longer.  But before going, she showed me her stash of “good acid” in the freezer. “Feel free to trip, I have plenty,” she commented, breezily.

Oh yeah.  I’m nearing suicidal with worry and deepening depression, and here’s this erstwhile hippie telling me to go ahead and drop some ‘cid.  Oh really.

But three days after they’d left, one of the kitties had a new litter of babies -- which lightened my mood, considerably.  I mean, how can you be depressed with such cute little mewling babycats? 

And then came a knock on the door from a neighbor, a little old man who called himself “Alfie”. . . .