Dear Davy, I thought you were wavy gravy...

A couple of weeks ago, someone in the media referred to the late Davy Jones as a ‘prefab- Paul McCartney’. Does that seem like a veiled way of saying that this guy’s entire career was just a cynical attempt to cash in on the Beatle phenomenon and he was an evil facsimile of a sham pretendy man, or is it just me? A bit inappropriate considering he died, and this was a eulogy style situation, but maybe I’m just being sensitive.

Liking the Monkees is a little contentious as the band has come to represent music marketing at its most contemptuous. Everyone knows that the group was put together as an attempt to create the American Beatles, marketed almost exclusively the ‘the kids’. This proved to be very lucrative for a very short time and annoyed a very large group of people. However, you’d think 45 years on everyone would be able to stop being offended and concede the point that they did play their own instruments and they did write their songs… eventually. Authenticity, in some situations, is a matter of time.

Talking about the manufactured Monkees kinda brings up the Lana Del Rey issue. Poor Lana has been given a lot of shit lately. ‘They’re not her real lips’. ‘That’s not Mike’s real hat’. The arguments are the same and in the end I think we should stop and ask ourselves ‘do I really have time to give a shit about this? Shouldn’t I just focus on staying alive, comfortable and happy?’

I mean so what if Del Ray does not necessarily write her own music? Who cares if she might not make her own clips? So what if her fantastic Gangsta Nancy Sinatra trash chic image was perhaps crafted by a group of cynical execs to sell records? I still want ‘Video Games’ played at my wedding.

I think everyone’s beef with Lana/Lizzie/Gangsta Nancy is that she’s denying all these things so emphatically and even I’ll admit that there comes a point where you have to stop trying to justify your lies, wave your hands mysteriously and whisper ‘smoke and mirrors, my friends’. Just admit that you can’t have art without artifice and move on. The Monkees, starting life as a TV show, never had to pretend they were something else.

Ironically the careers of both Del Ray and the Monkees suffered without appropriate marketing. I had never heard of Lizzie Grant and from what I saw on Google, very little could have convinced me to care. Enter cynical musical marketers and boom; I want ‘Video Games’ played at my wedding. The Monkees were running along fine until they demanded creative control (threatening physical violence apparently) at which point the whole endeavour started haemorrhaging money and sense faster than stuck pig.

In any case, I’m sad that Davy Jones is dead. I liked seeing him crop up in teen sitcoms and strange movies, and I was really looking forward to the Monkees tour that was rumoured to be happening this year. He may have started off being the strategic Dream Boat in a fictional band but he went on to be a widely appreciated pop-star, cruise-line attraction and all round good sport, which is more than can be said for Mike Nesmith.

And as I am such a bad sport I’m laying down all my arguments supporting the credibility of the Monkees now before I go:

- The Monkees had a number of credibility increasing connections. Carol King, Neil Diamond, and Harry Nilsson were all involved in the Monkee music making process, either as song writers on performers. Jack Nicholson and the creative minds behind Easy Rider helped with their experimental film Head.

- Mike Nesmith was an established musician who went on the develop the concept of the music video to something of an art form, watch anything form Elephant Parts and tell me I’m wrong.

- Peter Tork was good friends with Steve Stills, if he hadn’t gotten his Monkee break it would have been Crosby, Stills, Nash and Tork (and sometimes Young).

- It would be a very sad thing if we only judged people by a section of their whole career. George Clooney may very well have been in Return of The Killer Tomatoes, but he also gets nominated for Oscars

- One of Lou Reed’s favourite songs is ‘Goin’ Down’- a Monkees song. And if Lou Reed does not have discerning taste then I don’t know what else I can do!

- They are famous and you are not so there.

The day I left my phone behind: A tale of Gen-Y anguish

Friday morning I left the house in a hurry. I had woken up late and had to wash my hair and was very preoccupied by the requirements of the coming day. I am not trying to excuse what happened, I’m not a bad person, I was just distracted, ok? I’m sorry.

I carry two phones most days, my work phone and my personal phone. By pure coincidence they are both the same model. This makes it so easy to make mistakes. I knew that the work phone went in the bag that day, and when I put my hand in my hand bag to check during the walk to work, I swear I felt two. I assumed that everything was as it should be, as it always was. It wasn’t until I got to work that I realised there was something was actually very wrong.

I opened my bag. I looked. I looked again. I took items out and placed them back in. I began to rifle through my bag like a starving animal rummaging through a bin, strewing it's contents across my desk. Nothing. Cold fear gripped me. It was as though I was missing a leg. I felt without. I felt incomplete. I felt stranded and alone. And so was my phone.

I picked up my desk phone and started to dial my number. Insane I know, but panic makes mad men of us all. What did I expect would happen? That the phone was going to answer itself and tell me where it was?

I imagined it ringing in my flat, the first few bars of Bend It plunking out, bleating sad and alone in the empty room. Unanswered What if the neighbour heard? I was embarrassed to think that they might hear it crying and think I was irresponsible, forgetful, undeserving of a phone. I pictured their judgemental glances in the hallways, their knowing whispers. ‘Neglectful phone forgetter’.

It rang through to voicemail. I heard my own voice. The sound was unrewarding and hollow. I still had no idea where my phone was.

I used my work phone to text my mum. ‘It’s Joey, Forgot phone, if needs be call on this line’. She texted back ‘ok, shall do’ and it read like damning disappointment. I thought of her, and all the other people who could possibly be trying to contact me today, and could not get through, assuming I was ignoring them, or dead (my mother has assumed this before). Was I missing emergency calls of urgent importance? What if my apartment was on fire and no one could tell me. What if I had won that lottery and claiming the winnings was dependant on my instant response? What if the Prime Minister was calling was calling, faced with an international copy-writing emergency which required my specific expertise to avoid nuclear chaos!?!

What if I hadn’t forgotten my phone, but lost it on the way to work? I pictured it dropped and laying in a gutter somewhere, the cracked screen soaking in dirty water. Perhaps it had already been found by a kind stranger with a caring smile had picked it up and was right now taking it to the nearest police station, or calling my contacts to establish a connection.

What if it was not a Good Samaritan, but a mean unshaven stranger, with malice of intent, pushing its poor little buttons with big dirty finger, scrolling though its contacts, interfering with its settings, stripping it down and removing its memory card? The thought of my phone in some foreign filthy pocket made me feel sick. My helpless phone had been already sold into slavery and there was nothing I could do!

But then I remembered my voice mail. I called it again,expecting at any second for a gruff voice to answer and demand a ransom, else they’ll be sending it back one key at a time. It went through to voice mail, either it was still at home, or I was way too late.

There was nothing I could do but wait. When my boss told me to take an early mark, I was gone. I walked fast. Half way home I began to run. I vaulted up the stairs, keys in my hands. I fumbled with the keys and swore, every second was crucial, another moment where things could be getting more and more dire. I opened the door and… There it was on the bed where I had accidently left it. Without touching the keypad I picked it up I looked at the sleeping blank home screen. Three missed calls, all from me. As I held it in my hands, the notification lightflashed like a fluttering waking eye. The reminder tone chirruped to me as if to say ‘hello mummy. Welcome home'.