Written – whilst on United Airlines 56 to San Francisco 

You know, I like to think of myself as a bit of an old romantic at heart. I love a little rom-com at the movies. Love a cuddle and a candle lit steak and sometimes will even send flowers; especially if I think it will aid my chances of scoring.

Last year in Cannes I’d sometimes in-between playing my Abba and sleeping, go down to the steps at the beach and sit with a packet of haribo bears and watch the world go by; day dreaming about one day meeting the girl of my dreams and what she’ll be like?

Would she be blonde or brunette? Would she try and make me have sex outside again and try and get us caught. (I hope not, I was scared stiff last time) Would she double check the door for me when we leave the apartment, if we were low on hand soap would she just go out and buy some more without being asked. Would she learn to love and support West Ham. Actually that’s not a deal breaker, as long as she’s not a Tottenham fan. (sorry Em)

And of course, how all of a sudden she will pop into my life?

I mean I must admit at times, I have gone looking for it and that’s when you never find it. Hovering around the frozen peas in Waitrose. At airports whilst trying to blag an upgrade (or at least an exit row), trying to get myself a hot stewardess, numerous nightclubs, facebook, even the girl at the clinic gave me her number, but no; she wasn’t the one either. Nice girl though.

Maybe I just needed to go back to basics, be more romantic, not look for it and it would find me.

Anyway, I’m going to take you back a year now, until last August, I was djing all summer long at the World Famous Hotel Martinez in Cannes. I was coming near the end of my stay, with about 3 weeks to go and  was starting to come out of my shell abit.  I found this cute little sushi restaurant for lunch, I made a couple of good friends and was even being a little more daring with my music. I played a song by the guy who formerly called himself prince (I know, get me!!)

So, the story begins. I think it was a Tuesday, although I can’t be sure, I awoke to find this envelope had been passed under my door. I was a little apprehensive at first as I though the hotel had reengaged on a deal to cover my washing and had send me a bill but no, I was wrong. As I opened it up, I appeared to be a love letter, of course it was all in French and I still don’t speak at dime, so I couldn’t be sure but it was sealed with a big red lipstick kiss, so I kinda got the gist, but how romantic!!

Wow, at once I came off facebook, had a shower, put on my speedos and ran to find Florance my bar manager friend to have her translate to me.

It read, “Monsieur James, I’ve noticed you around, I think you are a wonderful DJ, I’ve never felt this way about any DJ before, I have a house somewhere in France I think you should come stay with me. I’ve been watching you everyday now and I just know we would be perfect together”. (I mean, No Joke, this shit is real!)

But she never said who she was or gave any contact info, not even and address to reply back too, I didn’t know who she was. I mean; I like a little mystery and I don’t mind playing a few games at the start of our relationship but if this really was to be the girl of my dreams, I had to see her!

I mean she sounded perfect, own place, must have had a bit of cash flow behind her to be cruising around Cannes all summer, obviously liked Abba if she thought I was the best Dj ever. Why was she being such a little Multeaser like that??

Anyway this went on for a week or so, letter after letter under my door.  I was hoping that one day she would knock and say hi, but also how the hell did she know my room number, maybe she had someone on the inside?

Until one day Florence translated to me that, this would be the night she would come and introduce herself to me.

As you can imagine, my heart skipped a beat.  I was so excited. I could hardly wait till 6pm to start my set, I was in such a good mood. I even played man in the mirror again for the guys behind the bar for the humteenith time, I was in that gooda mood. I had been there 50 odd days already by now.

Florence came over with a little Pina Calorda to settle my nerves and I started to get into the rhythm of the evening. With every new person that came in the bar, thinking;  “is that her?”

Lots of cute little hotties were coming in, I was thinking, could it be, but no, no one approached me, time was going by now, the Maratchi band they had hired for the summer along with me and done there set, I had my steak dinner and was just about to return to work for the graveyeard shift when I get a tap on the shoulder.

Now I like an older Woman, just as much as I like and younger woman, or a little 18 year old but she was old; Face like a leather bag that had been run over my a double decker bus, no really! Scraggy long blonde hair that looked like it had never been washed, actually that part I was fine with; I don’t wash my hair either. And these great big claw like fake nails and the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen in my life, protruding from her face! Ahhhhhh! It was not a pretty sight.

“Hello James,  I’m Jacqueline”

My god, what had I done to deserve this, who had I pissed off up above?

I was polite and went to give her a kiss on the cheek and the cheeky little thing attempted to catch me on the lips with her tongue out.

With that I made my excuses and said hold on; I had to start my set, running off to the safety of my decks backing off like how the bird in Alien did from the Alien. 

She was one scary human being.

Florence comes over laughing at me with another Pina Colarda, a large one, asking who my hot date was; who by now was sipping a cocktail at the bar a few meters away grinning at me.  There wasn’t even anywhere I could go, I had to stand there and play Abba, I was stuck with her just staring at me. It was the strangest thing in my life.

At least if you meet a bird off facebook and she doesn’t look like her pictures as she gets of the train, you can do a runner before she sees you, but no, I was stuck there.

I didn’t even go back to talk to her, I just kept on motioning to her, a few more minutes and I submerged my head back behind the screen of my laptop, doing what I could to make myself look busy.

2am finally arrived with her still there watching me, I waved sort of goodbye and with that was off like a shot to my room, locking and even putting the security catch on my door to protect me. Barricading the bottom with packets of baby wipes and the coffee table.

Maybe she did know someone at the hotel?  All these thoughts started to go through my head.  God!  Maybe she had a key! That night I didn’t sleep a wink.

But it didn’t get any better, the letters kept on coming, and every night she was at the bar, grinning at me with her leather face and teeth, like she wanted to eat me for dinner.

Finally August 31^st came, I had survived something like two weeks with her there everynight just watching me, from the moment I started until, “New York, New York”, at the end; foaming at the mouth, chomping at the bit to get her Jaws into me.

I’d survived and it was time to go home back to the safety of the metropolis of London. I’d run out of wet ones anyway, so I had to go back.

I returned home and the memory faded. Autumn turned to Winter, the snow came and went and so did Christmas once more and here we are again now in the midsts of summer.

I’d forgotten all about her, until today when after just finishing a shoot in Hawaii and boarding a plane to San Francisco, I turned on my data roaming one time to many, logged into facebook and got the shock of my life to see, she had only bloody found me on facebook.  Even my silly name change to Jammy hadn’t thrown her off.

She was like a bloodhound tracking my scent. 

Hell, she’s probably at the airport waiting for me to land.

So if I make it to baggage re-claim and she hasn’t abducted (eaten) me, I think I might start going back on the hunt again rather than letting love find me.

At least then, I know what I’m getting

Wish me luck

 jtx

“will you be my valentine?”

The words ‘single’ and ‘Valentines’’ never go too well together, but then add in to the equation having to DJ at a Vvalentine’s party full with people who are so in love it makes you sick, and what you have is enough to make anyone want to find a quiet corner and cry.

In the hope that I would be wrong and that my letterbox would be overflowing with Valentine’s cards, I got dressed and eagerly ran down the stairs to see what was in the mail.

To my surprise there was an envelope there; with great excitement, I grasped it with both hands and ran back up the stairs to open it. I ripped open the envelope with two fingers and peeked inside.

My face soon dropped though as it wasn’t a Valentine’s card at all, far from it. It was a letter from one of the London Councils, (I can’t say which one, but it’s the one where all the traffic wardens are right evil bastards and will ticket you whilst you wait for the traffic light to change.)

As I read on, I soon realised that I had been a naughty boy, and they even sent me a nice picture of me in my car (it did look hot), committing one of the most atrocious of driving offences. No not even my usual favourite of speeding, not even driving in a bus lane. Much worse. Have you guessed what it is yet? No, neither did I until I read the fine details. I had made an illegal turn.

I mean, I had; they had me bang to rights. But honestly, is this what the world is really coming to. So now not only did I not get one single Valentine’s card, I now had to pay a £100 fine and I still had to make it through the rest of the day, and then I had to host a Valentine’s Party at one of those posh hotels.

A few hours later I was at the hotel, all set up; and I still had a bit of time to kill and lets face it, I wasn’t having the best of days, single, dateless, hopeless and now working just to pay off my fine.  So I thought I would treat myself and grab something to eat in the hotel restaurant, after all, it beats having to eat those horrible sandwiches they always try and feed you.

I went in and sat down. Now I do have real problems with sitting eating at a table for one, especially on Valentine’s night, I just can’t cope with it at the best of times, I mean everyone looks at you and thinks you must be a right weirdo with no friends; of course in my case this is Not True! But if you didn’t know me you could easily assume I was just like everybody else.

Then you have to decide what to do with yourself when you’re not eating, for example, chat up the Eastern European waitress? Order more weak shandy? Play with your knife and fork? Play with your phone? Well luckily tonight I was ok, as I took my laptop to dinner with me and indeed started writing this, although maybe I cheapened my image a little bit or maybe they thought I was an enthusiastic food critic eager to write what he thought there and then.

Anyway, I looked through the menu, having to be really brave as I couldn’t really understand anything on it; all the “jus” and ‘berrere blanc” etc, I was just looking for the words, “steak and chips”, but to my dismay I couldn’t see it anywhere. However, after the waitress gave me the translation of the food in my terms, I did manage to find something.

The food was very good, to start I had tiger prawns in this little pastry teepee, not that it was called that on the menu and for my main I had to settle for veal; which is quite like steak although, it did come with lots of green stuff, however I managed to wade my way through it and subsequently feel much healthier for it already. The ice cream was amazing too, in fact it was so good that I had three portions, vanilla with little raspberries and this little strawberry jus decoration around the perimeter of the plate.  (After all this was the only excitement I was going to get tonight.)

I was also surprised with my shandy as when they told me they only had Stella on draft, I was worried that I would go into the party trying to cause fights with everyone, luckily this was not the case and I quite enjoyed it although maybe there wasn’t enough of it in my shandy to make a difference.

I finished my meal and at that point I was feeling quite happy, but when it dawned on me why I was indeed in the restaurant in the first place, the realisation soon soured the mood.

Now normally how it works with DJing is that you have to get all the women up dancing first, and the all the men will join them, but at a Valentine’s party this has to go right out the window as they’re all in couples, so there are no groups of women to get up and help get the party started, and it makes it ten times harder.

By 9.15 I was starting to pull my hair out, counting the seconds till 1am. I was beginning to feel the strain from the day and with the added pressure of no one dancing and having my boss in the room watching me, I was starting to wish I was somewhere else; anywhere, Brazil, Leeds, at this point I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to be there!

Although there were some gorgeous women in the room, so at least I had something to look at, but it was a bit of a tease; like being a kid in a candy shop with no money, you couldn’t buy anything, as they were all taken. So I had to be on my best behaviour, for in fear of having my lights punched out by one of their jealous boyfriends.

Eventually I managed to save myself by cracking out a few classic love songs, a bit of Barry and a little Percy Sledge, and this did get everyone up but even then how do you follow that up? I mean couples don’t want to dance all night and go crazy to the James Taylor Roadshow, they want to sit and enjoy each other’s company. Well some of them. Some by the looks on their faces hated being there as much as I did. Maybe they realised that they didn’t fancy each other as much as they thought or maybe he just got her the wrong colour underwear or maybe it was my music.

Anyway tomorrow’s another day and as my Dad always says, “As long as you wake up tomorrow; you’ve got a result”, that is as long as it’s not Groundhog Day.

Happy Valentine’s.

Jtx

“Written in the Garage - Canvey Island”

It’s New Year’s Eve. And I’m off to work in a few hours, so you would think I would be getting ready to have it large, getting myself all hyped up; well that may come later but now I’m sitting at my desk finishing this.

I actually started writing this yesterday. I was in the gym when the idea popped into my head.  I even got quite excited about what I was going to say; compiling all the funnies as all the ideas started to come together and then out of nowhere, whilst getting dressed to come home, there he was standing. A man with a really hairy back and I just thought to myself, God, I’m so lucky.

I mean I do have my own issues like:  no-one can understand a word I’m saying when I talk and I wash my hands more in one hour than the average man does in one week and then I could go on to say how when I lock my car I have to go back 5 times to make sure it’s locked or the fact that whenever I see a mirror I feel compelled to look in it and put on a silly face, but at least when God created me he left the hairy back box unchecked. Phew.

Anyway, Christmas. Wel,l it’s nearly all over again for another year.  The little tiny bit of snow we had has melted away, the tree will be down next week and I just know my Dad is going to try and rope me into taking down the great big stupid flashing reindeer in the back garden. I told him not to buy it; we’ve have been the laughing stock of the street this year. 

My Dad does love an ornament or a gnome, especially if it flashes. Thank God that’s one trait that didn’t get passed down to me.

Christmas changes as you get older. It’s just not … well, the same anymore since I found out that it was in fact my Dad all along that used to eat those peanuts Mum used to make me leave out by the chimney, apparently these were Santa’s favourites and if I wanted that new bike, well I had to do it.

Of course the rest of the year nuts are fiercely banned in the Taylor house, I mean can you just imagine my face when I found that one out.

I’d been had for years!! Having a nut allergy is the bane of my life!!

Anyway, now that I’m older, 20, Christmas is also the busiest time of the year, I DJ pretty much every night, playing the same old songs night after night and let me tell you that’s a lot of “Come on Eileen” and “New York, New York”, but that so much I don’t mind. I have to say, I am a bit of a creature of habit.

The thing that does really get me though, is working with drunk people every night, I mean I do DJ all year round but normally I get a week in between jobs to recover. It’s exhausting.

You see you get two types of drunk people; you get the ones who put the empty glasses on your speakers and dance really close to the front of your equipment and then they start to get more and more drunk until they fall onto your equipment and then it’s like a coconut shy, 50 points for a light, 100 points if they fall into your mixing desk taking the power out, subsequently causing the music to stop, and you will be amazed, as it can be anyone, this Christmas already it’s happened to me 3 times.

I had an old man of about 65 fall into me taking down everything, causing everyone to stop and pick him up, that was 200 points. Then I had a really annoying fat woman ending up at my feet taking out a light on the way, at least- 75points ;as for the third one, I don’t care to remember. Then I’m left to pick up the pieces and replace all the damaged bits for the following evening and by the time I’ve stopped off at Hadleigh Kebab on the way home I’ve payed out more than I’ve earnt.

The second type of drunk person is the one who wants to sing along to every track using your microphone; this is normally a balding middle aged man who thinks he does a fantastic version of the “Wonder of You”, and then under the same bracket you get the ones who think they know how to do your job better than you; for example wanting you to play the most obscure tracks that won’t fit with how the party is going, and then they come up and start looking through your records, at which point I kindly ask them to fuck off.

But although I may moan and complain like a grumpy old man, and protest that I would rather be at home, I’ve been at home now for the last week, doing absolutely nothing; it feels like every day has been a Sunday, all I have done is slept, eaten junk food and watched Toy Story, and it’s not as If I don’t have things to do.

I just have no motivation at the moment, I mean, I did manage to drag myself to the gym today, and I did even manage to do some work as opposed to talking to my friends for the whole time and looking at the girls, but even then on the way home I was compelled to have a KFC, which then renders the previous two hours a complete waste of time and at the moment I would quite happily go back to those drunk idiots, which is quite fortunate as I will be doing exactly that in about 4 hours time for tonight; the biggest planned letdown of the year.

Yes that’s the one; New Year’s Eve!

Merry Christmas

Jtx