Everybody Loves You When You're Down And Out

Many years ago, an acquaintance who shall remain nameless posted an update on Facebook stating that they were shocked - and upset - by the fact that one of their friends seemed to have turned against them since they'd been offered a major writing opportunity. My response was, in retrospect, poorly timed. I replied to suggest that unfortunately there would always be somebody who hated the fact you'd got to the top of the tree before them, adding that jealousy and backstabbing were rife in the creative industries. I think I got called cold and cynical in response. Oh well - call a spade a spade, I suppose, although under the circumstances "cold, tactless gobshite" would have been more appropriate. I must make a mental note not to offer condescending titbits of advice when people are still upset.

But allow me a few minutes grace to defend my point of view in general, readers. It seems to me that when most people first enter a creative sphere - be that art, music, writing or even taxidermy - they are immediately struck by the comradely, good-natured attitude of most of the people engaged in the activity. They all seem encouraging, dispensing words of advice, getting the drinks in, and generally seeming like an extended family. "It's great!" the person in question will usually blog, "I've heard that London is full of careerist, backstabbing, scenester arseholes, yet within four months of engaging with 'the scene' here, I've made tons of friends and I've been made to feel totally at home. Truly, this city has a thriving, welcoming underground!" Oh - OK, nobody ever blogged this, to the best of my knowledge. But I know that I did put something exactly like this in my diary once, back in the days when I kept one.

I wasn't completely wrong, but then again I wasn't 100% correct either. Foulweather friends exist just as much as fairweather friends do, although I've been fortunate enough not to be on the boot end of many of them in London, partly due to my at-best-middling (and by now low) profile on my particular circuit, I suspect. I'm forced to recall a musician friend of mine who got to a point in her career when she received a small mention in the NME, and some late night airplay on Radio One. She picked up the telephone to relay this information to somebody she considered to be a close friend, and was horrified by the abruptness of his response. "I never want to talk to you again," he simply replied. She laughed, believing this to be a joke at first, but had her worst fears realised when the line went dead, and he did indeed cut himself out of her social life. She never went on to further success, so an apparently good friendship was terminated for the sake of a Radio One play hardly anybody heard, and a brief NME mention it's doubtful many people noticed.

This is admittedly the most extreme example I can think of, and to put it into some sort of context it's worth noting that the NME girl's friend had ceased his involvement with music a few years before due to a road accident which left him unable to continue playing effectively - so the bitterness doubtless stemmed from a very troubled, impotent place. Yet there are other examples too, and I've never understood why some people engaged with art regard success as a betrayal of the conditions of their friendship. Contrary to Morrissey's lyrics, it's fantastic when your friends become successful. Not just because they're your friends, and it's marvellous to see them content, appreciated and happy, but because there's some small vindication in watching people you believed in, people whose ideas you shared, getting the respect they deserve. I have friends I feel envious of, but never jealous of. And if anybody is unable to feel good about the success of their comrades and can only feel green eyed rage rising in their gut, surely having a friend on the inside is also extremely valuable? Sometimes the truly cold-hearted are too wrapped up in their teeth-grinding jealousy to even be mercenary and cynical about the situation. Truly, this is not the attitude that wins.

On the flip side of the coin, what I can understand - because I've felt it myself - is the infuriating sensation of unjustness when somebody seemingly without much talent, who isn't a friend at all, leaps up the ladder via friends in higher places, or their background, networking abilities or looks. I used to have a talented singer-songwriter housemate who spat invective every time one of Dido's wispy paeans to cocktail party melodrama seeped out of the radio, and I could feel her pain. I could hear she was better than Dido, and she knew she was better than Dido, but there was nothing she could do about it. Whilst her famous rival sang frailly about the regret she felt for having to dump her fiance to go on a two year world tour to promote her album, she was stuck listening to me arguing on the phone with the landlord about the unrepaired broken boiler. Anybody would have been pissed off about the whole situation.

Ultimately though, the arts aren't fair. History is littered with examples of talented people being ignored, whilst the mediocre and the at-best-rubbish forge ahead. My other blog "Left and to the Back" has become a catalogue of the unfortunately ignored who mistimed their entrances or else just weren't fashionable or pretty enough. Still though, these days, when I pick up a newspaper and see somebody much younger than me - because they're always much younger than me now - being touted as the latest genius when all they've produced are a few pieces of semi-amusing doggerel, I go quiet for ten minutes or so, and get slightly twitchy. Then I sigh. It's OK, you know. It's all right. Really. I won't comment on Facebook about it. I won't blog about how over-rated they are, about how this is just one more example of the emperor's new clothes. If they've anything to offer, it will become apparent in time, and their discovery will prove to be an early lucky break. If they've nothing to offer, they'll be forgotten about in two years, and that will be that. It's not worth starting wars over. Especially when I know, deep down, that if ever I get the same treatment, plenty of people more talented than me will also feel that same, slightly depressed chill, and I hope - deep down - that they'll remember I'm a relatively nice person, and won't feel the urge to smash my windows in, or, worse still, wipe my number off their mobile phone.