Written – but of course you have to find one first! 

 

I’m at the stage in my life now, where it’s starting to get to the business end of things, I’ve not actually told too many people about this; well until now but actually I’ve been doing the odd acting class as late and really enjoy it.

A very close friend of mine, who’s an actress and actually was in my favourite kids show growing up, “I used to fancy the pants off her, but lets keep that between us”, forced me into giving up my favourite Monday Quiz nights and going along to class with her.

And although I miss my Quiz team and they now struggle when it comes to the Spice Girl Lyrics round, now I can’t really thank her enough, Acting is right up my street and if anything I wish I had of started sooner.

The trouble with modelling is and don’t get me wrong as I’ve had a fantastic career, it’s taken me all around the world on many adventures and I’ve met some amazing people along the way, however it just doesn’t keep my mind busy enough. I need things to do.

My fathers was Comedian, my big Sister is one of the heads of Midwifery for Sydney, my middle sister is a Genetic Scientist in New York, so really I should have all the ammunition up there waiting to tap into, I mean; I love having my photo taken and probably always will but my favourite kind of jobs are commercials or moving film.

I’m not really one of those high end fashion models anyway, I don’t really do that many catwalks anymore or actually all that many magazines, well that was until the phone rang last Thursday, with a last minute magazine shoot happening the next morning.

I was actually pretty excited, as I said I don’t really do that anymore, maybe I would learn something new and could take that with me and use it for future modelling assignments.

I was shooting the Barbour campaign the other week, with this excellent photographer and he taught me something, which now; I’m all about. 

The drunk walk!  You know those shots where they want you walking towards camera, “Walk like your drunk!”, easy as that, gives you fantastic leg shapes.

Who would of guessed? That’s right up there now in the memory bank now.

Anyway so I get the call and with that the next morning at 7am, I know! I was on a busy tube train, across London to the shoot location at some posh house in Chelsea.

So I arrive on set, and I’m ushered upstairs into hair and make up at this point, really enthusiastic and excited about the day. The make up artist is lovely and we starting talking about my latest love life dilemma; you know, as you do.

And then in walks the photographer. Now how magazines work, are they don’t pay the model. Well they pay like £50. In fact I normally spend more on, getting to the shoot and taking the girl model out for dinner after but what they do get you, are pictures! And pictures make the world go round.

So there I am, by this point, the hair stylist has grabbed hold of me and they always make me nervous, you can never really tell their abilty when it comes to Men’s hair, occasional you might get one who knows there stuff; they are the ones you let trim your sideburns but other times, they just want to get so busy, and start blow drying, then straightening, then curling, then send you back to wash your hair again as it didn’t look as they envisaged. Anyway, I’m not going to go into him, as I have bigger fish to fry.

So I’m sitting there, and the photographer kneels down next to me and shakes my hand, for a second Donald the hair stylist turns the blow dryer off to I can hear myself think and the photographer goes on to explain the days shoot.

“Your agency did tell you didn’t they, that it’s all back off the head shots today, we aren’t going to show your face as we don’t want to distract from the clothes.”

“No, they didn’t!”

“Is he kidding me?” It’s meant to be one of the hottest days in London so far this year, one of the days it’s not actually raining, one of the 3 days of actually summer and he now he has me; trapped here, with Donald fucking up my hair and they want to shoot the back of my head!

I mean this would be ok if I was just starting out and needed the experience of how a shoot works and needed to start building up my resistance to people like Donald, or if I liked you and agreed to help you for some project at school, then I don’t mind shooting the back of my head, but this was not the case, I’ve been modelling 12 years now, I really didn’t need to be here doing this. I was not a happy Bunny!

I think the photographer sensed my agency did not mention to me that indeed it was non recognisable and I wouldn’t be getting any pictures, indeed after a brief conversation with them, apparently he hadn’t cared to mention it to them either.

And then the plot thickens, he goes on to say, that actually I wasn’t even his first choice hand model and that actually, the one he had chosen had dropped out last minute (probably as they found out what the shoot was) and I was the stand in.

Great! I wasn’t even a first choice hand model!

I’m always the professional and put a brave face on it, smiled and got on with the day, doing all they asked, building my story in my head of what I was going to write, once I escaped back to the pool at Shoreditch house.

After what seemed like an eternity the end of the day came and just as I was getting ready to leave, the photographer comes back up to me and says, “James, there were some cufflinks from the last shot that have gone missing, would you mind emptying out your pockets!”

I know! Right?! You couldn’t make this up!

I’ve given up my whole day, gritted my teeth, whilst sweltering away in hot jackets in the baking sun on this summers day, finally finished the job and now, he’s accusing me of stealing?

All I had with me was some flip flops, a pair of shorts and grey T-shirt, my phone, a travel card and some money.

“Was this guy for real!”  He doesn’t know me at all!

I wouldn’t steel anything from anyone! Well maybe a pint glass or hotel towel, but who doesn’t.

With that, with a look straight into his eyes, “Can I go now?” and I was off out the door!

So that night, after I finally calmed down over a Mojito by the pool; I decided that it’s time to make a change and do something for me and applied to one of the best acting school in the world, in New York City!

And I’ve only gone and been accepted!  I didn’t need to pay anyone off or anything. So maybe this is time for the next chapter in my life; time to follow my dreams, and Ride that Unicorn!

After all, you can’t be seriously good looking forever…

Wish me luck

jtx

“Another One Bites the Dust”

You know the days where everything goes wrong and it seems as though the whole world starts to crumble in, and it can be for an array of different reasons:

You have a bad day at work; get told off by the boss, then you go home to find a picture of you car with a speeding ticket attached to it.

Or you have a row with a parent and exchange words that you don’t really mean; go for a walk to calm down and get splashed by a lorry driving through a puddle, then a bird shits on you.

Or as what’s happened to me today, you find out that the girl you have just split up with has found a new boyfriend.

Now, I’ve been roaming the earth for the last 20 odd years, and for the last 5, I have been dating. I couldn’t really get a girlfriend at school as I wasn’t in the, “in” crowd and none of the girls really looked at me, although I wouldn’t go as far to say I was a geek either as I wasn’t, I just didn’t fit in. At the age of 16 I got me first real girlfriend, who I can honestly say I loved dearly.

We met in the strangest of situations; it was at a go-kart track. Which isn’t together all that strange. Infact let me give you a bit of background there or it doesn’t quite make sense.

When I was much younger, I used to do a bit of karting and used to race in the British Championships, infact against a boy you alI know quite well now called, “Lewis Hamilton”, although he was much much better, I was alright; not the best but did have a real flare at starting at the back of the grid and going through the field like a hot knife through butter, like Sterling Moss on speed, but just a younger fatter version; although once I got to the front and was leading and everything was going to plan, I just could never keep my head and would always end up head first into a tyre barrier, until one day, I ended up trying to go around a corner, actually on my head, carrying the kart on my back,

“Anything to get a faster line me”. Needles to say my Dad wasn’t too impressed and I didn’t race again professionally again after that.

Anyway, a few years later, in the school holidays to keep me out of mischief, I would compete in the junior championships at my local indoor circuit. Now, here, I was in my element, and not to brag, but I did pretty much win every race. After all I was by now close to 17 and I was racing 12 year olds!! So I did have a pretty unfair advantage, but winnings winning in my book.

Anyway, one week I made friends with this family and they were asking me if I would give their son some pointers, which I gladly did, and sure enough the results started to show.

The following week the family again were there, but this time they had brought the daughter along too. She was gorgeous; blonde hair, blue eyes, she really was beautiful.

Anyway as I had made friends with the family: I sat with them and spent the whole day talking to her and we got on really well.

It was the last race of the day, I was leading and her brother was in second and on the last corner before the straight: (where she was watching) I pulled over to let him win his first ever race.

That night she came round to my house, and before long; we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

We stayed together for about 9 months, and we had some really good times together, although towards the end we just drifted apart. We didn’t speak for about a year after, as she did break my heart, (she dumped me), although later we patched things up and too this day, we are still really good friends and she often calls me up and asks me what she should do with her love life, as she has met someone new, etc, although I’m the one that really needs help with that.

Since then I have not really had a girlfriend, I mean I have seen lots of girls, for all different lengths of time; ranging from 1 night to a few months but never pushed the boat out and actually committed.

Some I quite liked but I would always find something wrong with them, something that I wouldn’t entirely like, although maybe my bar was up to high or maybe I was just scared to open up after already having my heart broken or maybe I just liked playing the field although; I would always get caught out when I did this as I would always pick the wrong girl, that new someone; who new someone; that new someone else you were seeing. Not that I made a habit of this but you know what its like when your young.

Which brings me back to today, all that aside, a few months back I actually did meet a girl who I really did quite like and it got to that point again after a period of time where it’s sort of into that zone; you know the one where you are together but not if you know what I mean; not that I really know what I mean.

Anyway she was edging me to commit and I would always resist until recently she got fed up with this yoyo situation and finished with me. Obviously now as I couldn’t have her anymore I really wanted her and was happy to re-think about the whole being an item thing; but by this time; a few weeks on, it was too late; she now had a new boyfriend.

I went for a drink with her tonight, on the proviso that we are just friends nothing more. (Her terms; not mine)  although it ripped my heart out, not being able to cuddle or kiss her and even her attitude towards me had changed.

I dropped her off after back at her flat and said goodnight, probably for the last time as I now realised it was over, “I hope it all works out for you both”; I said through gritted teeth, knowing that I had just lost something, very special and deep down knowing that if I had of tried at bit harder and been a bit more considerate, or just realised what I had; when I had it, it wouldn’t have of come down to this; well at least not until the divorce anyway.

(Out in front again, locked up the brakes and off into the tyres )

Oh well, One day I’ll get it right,

night

Jtx

“written - whilst looking for bird seed”

Now people might say, that I’m a little hyperactive; of course this is not true. Well maybe a little, you see I do get quite excitable at times. Not that this would have anything to do with the fact that I drink about three bottles of Lucozade and seven cans of Coca Cola a day or my fetish for cream eggs and then there are wine gums and Skittles, especially the red ones although if it was just the red ones in the pack without any other colours, you know for a fact that I would want a green one, just because I couldn’t. I won’t even go on to fruit pastels.

When I was younger I remember going out for a walk with my granddad every day, and living by the sea we used to go to the beach. He would teach me all about the sea and the tides and we would hunt for crabs under the rocks. At the time he was giving up smoking, so he used to eat about nine packets of fruit pastels a day to compensate, well maybe it was more like we had half each, subsequently all my baby teeth either when black or fell out, to the dismay of my next door neighbour, Auntie Annie who’s like a second mum to me, passionate about my teeth always on at me to go upstairs and clean them, even now. Thankfully I got my adult teeth through and have cut right down on the sweets and I do brush quite regularly, even my dentist comments about how lucky I’ve been, otherwise I don’t think I would be doing what I do now.

I mean I don’t always run around like a headless chicken, sometimes I even think before I speak and I don’t always mess everything up although I know for a fact that in the past maybe I have lost a few jobs as the odd client has thought that I was a bit too crazy; obviously on some happy pills, but this is Never the case, I’m just high on life.

Ok, so last Sunday night I get a text from this number, saying something along the lines of,” Hi James, how are you, I’ve just seen your commercial on the TV, do you want to go for a drink?” Now as most of my numbers are still in Brazil, I didn’t have a clue who this was. So I gave the number a call, not knowing really who to expect.

It turned out that it was only the most beautiful girl I had ever met. The particular girl in question I met a few years back whilst filming a pop video for their band, we had even chatted a bit in the past but nothing ever came of it and it had been a good six months since we last had spoken, anyway she said to give her a call tomorrow about hooking up for a drink.

So with that the following day I gave her a call and that evening we went out to a nice restaurant around the corner from where she lived. Obviously it wasn’t quite so simple as that as I did have to decide what to wear all by myself which in itself took all day.

I thought the date when really well, we had a good chat and the food was ok too and she did look every bit as gorgeous as I remembered. We were in the restaurant about two hours when we got the bill and being the perfect gentleman, I gave her a lift home; I even got a kiss on the cheek for my troubles.

Driving the one-hour journey back to my house flew by as by this time I had a huge smile on my face; pleased with how the night had gone, dancing away to all my favourite songs, with the windows down even though it was -2 outside.

Once I got home I tried to give her a call, and it just rang and rang, so I left it about another hour and sent her a text thanking her for a wonderful evening, she texted me back straight away, saying pretty much the same thing and that she would let me know when she was next free.

Two days have gone by and I still haven’t heard a thing! Maybe I came across a little excitable or maybe my idea’s of jumping on a plane together and going skiing was a little too much for her. (What?  I didn’t mean right then, no no, much later like a week or so. Not that she would know that.) Or maybe I should have let her sweat a bit and not tried calling her like all my friends were telling me, in hindsight all these things go through your mind, but when it’s happening it all seems like the right thing to do.

You see I’m just not very good with playing this whole game thing, I just can’t get to grips with it, with me its always the same story; the ones I really want, I never get; I always mess it up, getting all excited and too keen, scaring them off and as for the ones I’m not that interested in, where I don’t pay them much attention, I can’t beat them off with a stick.

I was explaining my situation today to my friend and he compared me to a pigeon. Now at first I was like, what are you talking about, but then it all made sense.

You see at the moment I am like a pigeon, I chase too many girls that I don’t really want, and then I’m too keen, bobbing my head up and down chasing them, (like a pigeon), where instead I should be more like an Eagle, soaring high up above until he sees the one girl that he really wants; when he swoops down and gets her.

I’ll get it right one day! You never know; she could just be making me sweat a bit, or maybe she’s just busy, or maybe she popped to Rio since the date. Only time will tell! 

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