About a year ago I was sitting in a small room off La Cienega in Hollywood feeling frustrated. Two days previously I’d been in a hotel room in New York and a man had screamed abuse down the phone at me. “These people are no f*****g good! I want interesting people – the people on this tape aren’t interesting!” I looked over to the TV where my copy of the same tape was showing an overweight transvestite with his Uilleann Pipes and wondered how much more interesting it could get.

We were in the middle of casting some Entertainment Tonight spots. The gag was that we would shoot a musician playing the ET theme in a new and “interesting” way. So here I was back in LA in a room about 12 foot wide by 20 foot long (think average living room) and one by one an endless stream of guitar players, bass players, fiddlers and saxophonists were giving those familiar notes a particular beating. Then the door opened and the casting director informed me that something special was about to happen.

First two guys wearing suits came in with a drum kit. Next came the Marshall stack and the organ, then the PA equipment and the bass rig! I sat at my desk watching with an increasing sense of wonder as the piles of gear edged closer and closer towards my feet. Finally I realized I had my own front row seat to a Blue Meanies concert. The auditorium was packed with an audience of one (me) and all seven of them were as nervous as I was.

The drummer adjusted his seat, the singer nervously tweaked his shades, the trumpeter cleared his horn of some day-old spit and suddenly they were off. The walls literally shook. The glass of water on my table trembled and my heart leapt and danced. This was awesome – my own private show!

OK so they didn’t get the gig. We were looking for just one musician for each spot but they made my day. They walked in with a sense of humour but also complete purpose. Yes, it was a joke, but there was just a chance they would pull off the audition and it could break them and that made it worth the effort. I wasn’t really aware who the Blue Meanies were before that moment but now I would never forget them.

Today they sent me a copy of their new album “The Past Wave” (it’s on MCA) with a note from their manager saying “‘do you remember that Spinal Tap moment when the Blue Meanies loaded their gear into that tiny room and mangled that song?” How could I forget?

So I think you should rush out and buy the CD. Imagine a frantic collision between Madness, The Ramones and Sugar Ray and you’ll get the idea. They’re great live too – I know ‘cos my ears are still ringing.

An old friend sent me an e-mail today. One of those circular things. It started like this…

“My friend opened the drawer of his wife’s chest and took a packet wrapped with rice paper: “This, he said, this is not any packet, it is lingerie”. He threw away the paper and he observed the beautiful silk and embroidery. “We bought it the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She never used it. She was keeping it for a special occasion. “Well I think this is the right occasion.” He went close to the bed and he put it next to the other things he was going to bring to the funeral home. His wife had just died.

Turning towards me he said: “Do not keep anything for a special occasion, every day that you live is a special occasion.” I am still thinking of his words, they have changed my life. The word “someday” has disappeared from my vocabulary. I am not sure what my friend’s wife would have done if she had known that she would have not been here for that tomorrow that every one takes so much for granted. I think she might have called all her relatives and intimate friends. Maybe she would have called some old friends to make amends for an old dispute. I like to think she might have gone to eat some oriental food, which was her favourite…

The message is longer but you get the gist.

Tonight I came home from the movies and logged on to my web newspaper to read that someone I once met a number of times had been found dead in her house. Her 4 year old daughter was playing nearby.

Ever get the feeling that someone is trying to tell you something?

I must remember to give thanks more often. There’s so much that can happen in 24 hours…

Midnight Tuesday finds me standing outside Dartford Power Station – an enormous metallic edifice on the Thames Estuary bullied by cold winds coming in from the Channel and isolated on a patch of land beside the infamous Tunnel. We’ve been shooting Mel B here for two days and its been so cold (in the middle of July) that I had to borrow her green fury camo jacket to keep warm. Of course the need for thermal underwear and hot soup throughout the shoot didn’t stop me from making her writhe around on a bed of fur in her undies just for the camera but Scary Spice is anything but scary – she’s tough, resilient, frank and enormously sexy, well worth the transatlantic trip. We bid our farewells and I ride back into London encountering a traffic jam in Camberwell when you’d think most good citizens would be in bed.

I’m at my laptop by 7am on Wednesday. I have a video treatment which the label wants tweaking and though I tried to do the work on my return last night I was just too exhausted and had to turn out the light at 2. The band is Good Charlotte, their lead singer is called Sickboy and they’re full of ideas. The fax lines are humming to New York before 8 and I have three hours left to pack, iron and enjoy breakfast with Andy and Charley before the cab comes. The cab driver tells me he’d just dropped off Roger Taylor (Queen) at Heathrow who was on his way to Vegas for a few days and just the other day Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) had snoozed in the very seat I’m now sitting in – he was flying to Abu Dabi with his Dad to go and see some horse racing. I suppose that request I made to be in Keith Richards’ guitar-playing shoes got lost in the translation and I got his cab-seat instead. Rats.

There’s a mix-up with my ticket at Gatwick and they send me back and forth between the ticket counter and the check in desk. I’ve had too little sleep for this kind of palaver but my mood is lifted when I track down a copy of ?Playing The Moldovans At Tennis? in the bookshop and settle down with a full English breakfast to wait for my flight. Tony Hawks wrote ?Round Ireland With A Fridge? a hilarious tome about hitching round Ireland with a small white kitchen appliance as a bet. Amongst his adventures he winds up on national radio and has a one night stand with a cute girl in a large dog kennel! After watching the Moldovan soccer team get trounced 4-0 by the English on TV (they must have been bad) Hawks accepts another bet that he will play each member of the Moldovan team at tennis or strip naked on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan National Anthem! The resulting paperback is a blast and has this warning printed on the front: ?Far too hilarious to read alone in a public place.? So I sit on my own by the window in a public place and proceed to chuckle and guffaw like a jackass much to the annoyance of the cell-phoners and lap-toppers in my vicinity.

Flight across the drink pretty unremarkable: Erin Brokovich on the video, more of the Moldovan adventure and a long snooze. We land in Boston in the late afternoon. I’ve been to Boston before but not for years and never by plane. We come in low over the harbour where, very kindly, the inhabitants of the city have taken the afternoon off work to put on a remarkable boating display which has the desired effect and makes me want to visit the city and enjoy a few days rest. Well, another time perhaps because today I’m on route to Toronto and I’ve just 70 minutes to clear customs and immigration make a few phone calls and check in on the next leg of the flight. As I step outside the plane it’s warm and balmy and it feels like summer again.

As we rumble off North and West for Toronto I’m reading and chuckling again. The stuffed shirt in the seat beside me is not amused. The earrings really upset him, my guitar case in the over-head locker totally pissed him off and now I’m enjoying myself. He’s not a happy camper… but I am.

And then there’s Toronto far below and I’m already thinking about the meeting I’ll be having soon…but the dramas aren’t over yet. We’re probably 100 feet above the tarmac in final, final approach tearing towards the threshold when the engines make an almighty roar, the aircraft lurches urgently and we’re all thrust back into our seats as the tons of alloy, luggage, passengers and duty free drinks scramble to get back into the sky again. I hear gasps from those at the windows behind me and the aircraft lurches again. I’ve never known a passenger plane this large jump through the air so violently this close to the ground. Stuffed Shirt is sufficiently ruffled to forget his previous inhibitions and turn to give me a look of concern. The speakers crackle into life as the captain dryly announces: ?We’ll try and land again in a minute…only this time we’ll pick a runway without a 747 taxiing on it!?

Just 24 hours after giving Mel B. a goodbye hug in cold and windy Dartford I’ve reached my third country of the day and a cab is whisking me along Lake Ontario to a hotel room where a cluster of producers and location scouts are ready to grill me about details for the Good Charlotte job. I feel happy to be alive – I must give thanks more often.

The near miss is headline news on the radio next morning.

Last week I failed at something.

I don’t know why you are reading this but here you are. Perhaps you’re one of the many people who leave messages in the Guest Book, you say nice things about my work (thank-you by the way) and then you ask: ?How can I become a rock star? How can I get into Film School? What does it take to become an actor?? Well, I think I have the answer to all these questions – you have to fail at something first! As Judy Weston, my acting teacher, would always say ?To succeed you have to be prepared to fail spectacularly.? And you know what – we all do fail sometimes.

Last week I went for a meeting about a movie. I didn’t get the gig. I’m gutted. Word is that I disappointed the guys in the room. The script is great and I really wanted to make that movie. I can’t blame the six guys – they’re all sharp, clever, successful men but they didn’t like what I had to say. I answered their questions with passion and honesty and left the room exhausted but failed to impress them.

I’ve asked myself over and over: ?Why didn’t I say this, Why did I say that?? I now have the answer: I have a greater test ahead of me and I will now succeed at that, whatever it may be, because I failed at this. I’m stronger now. It’s one of Bob Buss’s rules 2gether fans – The John Travolta Rule.

So, if you?ve read this far you can either laugh at me (I can take anything I’ve cycled Going To The Sun Road) or you can learn from my mistakes by making your own. Feel free to look failure in the face, embrace it, enjoy it and learn from it because you will fail no matter how hard you try – nobody?s perfect.

Oh yeah – and if you see the trailer for a comedy next year about two young goombahs who get into film production while trying to plan a heist go see it – you’ll have a blast.

It’s probably 18 months since I first met Britney in a dance studio in New York. She’s gone from being a cute unknown who could sing and dance into a multi-million selling singing sensation and grown from being a bubbly kid into a young woman.

What’s more frightening to the casual observer (i.e. me) is the way the world has changed around Britney. When we shot ?Baby One More Time? at Venice High Britney could walk around the campus unnoticed. Today she can’t so much as poke her nose out of her Winnebago without three video crews descending upon her.

The abiding memory of this shoot was a moment when I turned around and saw Britney coming on set. In front of her cameramen were walking backwards as they pushed their lenses in her face, she was bathed in the glare of hand held lights as she walked, talked and tried to sign an autograph. I try to allow an artist the space to relax and prepare before they go in front of our cameras to do their thing. For someone like Britney this is just not possible anymore.

I have spent two and a half days hanging out with Britney this time and there has not been a single moment for personal reflection between the two of us. No chance to say ?How are you doing? What’s really happening in your world?? It’s not Britney’s fault or the fault of those around her – it’s us, the consumers, that are ultimately to blame. We all feel we need a slice of Britney (or whoever we idolize) and god forbid that our idol should be tired or in a bad mood when we thrust that grubby piece of paper in their face and ask for an autograph.

I always wanted to be a star when I was a teenager…but now I’m so grateful that when I was 18, wearing loon pants the size of a small tent, experimenting with rather ridiculous facial-hair options and exploring the wonders brought upon my brain by too much alcohol there was no-one following me around with a camera or a tape recorder.

I always wanted to be a star when I was a teenager…I think, now, I’m glad it didn’t happen.

These are the notes that appear on the call sheet….
Beware of rattlesnakes.
No touching desert turtles – it is against the law.
Remember sunscreen and protective eyewear.
No walking on runway except with clearance.
An aircraft is being used and it will be flown in close proximity to the crew and equipment. Anyone objecting to the above should notify the prod. mgr. or 1st A.D. prior to any filming.

We’re at Trona airfield 80 miles North of Mojave with a wonderful shiny DC3 built in 1939. The DC3 (or Dakota as it is known in the UK) is one of the sturdiest aircraft ever built. For reasons I cannot explain watching this magnificent machine hurtling towards us down the runway excites and thrills me in a way that stirs something deep and fundamental in my stomach. There is something so proud about this aircraft and one can only wonder the sights it has seen in its 61 years of service. And yet it seems frisky and playful too – not stern or frightening in the way that a warplane might. I’d go so far as to say it?s a work of art. I just wanted to caress its sides and feel every rivet under my fingers. Skip, the owner and pilot, hung large buckets under each engine while it was parked to collect the oil that dripped from its nine cylinder engines and, with its nose tilted towards the sky where it belonged, the Dakota seemed like a big, fine, friendly horse having a bit of nosebag before returning to work.

The body of the plane is made entirely from aluminium and last night we sat in the back on seats which resembled nothing more than a line of moulded tea trays. Skip took us up for a spin with the enthusiasm of a 16 year-old boy driving his first sports car. Vance flew a circuit (!) and then I got to sit in the co-pilot’s seat as we came into land. My father once flew in one of these when he went to join his squadron in Germany. I can’t believe this business: I had an idea last week about a DC3 and three cute girls. This week I get to fly one and they pay me for it!

I admit it – I’ve been grumpy lately. And short-tempered and impatient to boot. I’ve moved house and my new digs are being re-constructed around me which means lots of dust and inconvenience and all of my clothes, guitars and CD’s in storage. Enough to make anyone cranky right?

Then you get an afternoon like today. We were down in Long Beach driving back and forth across the Vincent Thomas Bridge towing Jessica and three other girls in a bright red vintage Bronco. The sun was out, the crew were cracking jokes, Jessica was doing her thing just like I asked her to and then as she yelled out “I think I’m In Love” for the 20th time a B17 (four engined WW2 bomber) appeared in the blueness over San Pedro and we got it in the shot!

OK, so maybe the B17 won’t make the cut, but it was a blast and a reminder why I do this. You get free food, you get to hang out in the sun with loads of sexy camera gear and the cops lock down four lanes of traffic just so you can turn one of your ideas into reality. I think I will sleep well tonight.

On Monday night and Tuesday morning the phone started ringing and the e-mails started arriving and the news wasn’t good. Ian Dury was dead – aged 57 – from cancer. No more Billericay Dickie for him, no more Sex and Drugs and Rock n’ Roll.

I used to work with / for Ian in the 70’s and 80’s but it would be inaccurate to call him a friend and the word acquaintance suggests more intimacy than we shared. However for a number of people I presume that the fact I knew him was enough for them to want to reach out and share the sad news. And I felt strangely moved especially as my memories of the man were spread across the map.

I remember in my first week at Stiff driving the company car East along the Marylebone Road on a warm autumn afternoon. The windows were wound down, the sun roof open and the stereo cranked up high as I played New Boots And Panties for the very first time. I pulled up at the lights and cast a wily eye at the attractive, but respectable lady in the Volvo in the next lane. At that moment Blockheads came to an end and there was a moment of glorious silence…and then Ian’s voice yelled the intro to Plaistow Patricia: “Bastards, arseholes, f+++ing c+++s and pricks!” Oh I don’t know who was more shocked, me or Volvo lady.

In time New Boots And Panties became Stiff’s biggest selling album and Ian had our first number one hit with “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.” One summer night Paul and I drove up to Manchester to see a gig on the tour. It’s a no win sitch being a drone at a label when you go to a gig: if you turn up backstage no-one really wants to see you, if you don’t show your face then you’re not supporting the artist. Paul and I sat in the band’s dressing room before the gig. I felt self-conscious and ill at ease. Ian was watching the World Cup on the telly and upstairs the punters were going nuts in the theatre, we could hear their stamping feet and their slow-hand claps. The band were getting increasingly itchy and ready to go on but Ian wasn’t budging: he was going to see the end of the game band or no band.

Enter Fred, Ian’s “personal,” a tough looking bloke from the East-end with a serious amount of porridge under his belt for various blags. “C’mon Ian, time to do the business,” says Fred. “Knob off I’m watching the match,” says Ian. Fred looks at the band who shrug their shoulders at their employers resolve. Ian is Fred’s boss. Fred doesn’t care that his boss had polio at the age of eight and can only shuffle about with the aid of a stick, he moves and stands in front of him blocking his view of the TV. Fred leans forward, points a finger at his boss, clenches his teeth and spits, “Listen to me you f+++ing cripple there’s 3,000 kids out there who paid good money to come and see you tonight, now you go out there and do a gig before I brain you with that f+++ing stick!” To the credit of both men, Ian said nothing, turned round and went out on stage followed by his faithful Blockheads. Fred continued to be Ian’s minder for years afterwards.

A year or two later I had become Stiff’s press officer and I took great exception to a review Paul Morley of the NME had written about Dirty Looks one of our new bands. Furious at the unjust paragraphs of bile written by a bitter and miserable journalist I wrote a letter to the paper standing squarely behind everyone of the artists on our label. I was stunned when the paper actually printed my letter and even more speechless when later that same day Ian appeared in my office with a huge bunch of flowers, “Thanks Nige, this is from me and all the other blokes on Stiff, we appreciate the support.” He smiled and shambled away with his pork-pie hat at its usual jaunty angle.

And now he’s gone. No more clever rhymes about Nina and Cortina but he gave me some laughs and I’ll never forget all those boxes of SEEZ4 that I had to carry down into the Stiff basement or the way the girl I fancied stared longingly at him that night at the Lyceum on the first Stiff tour. Those were great days.

Official Ian Dury web site: www.iandury.co.uk/biog.html

Unsung Heroes of the set: dancers.

I’ve been shooting Mandy’s latest video which is for her single from an upcoming movie Center Stage. The film tells the story of a new selection of young dancers arriving at a fictitious dance school (The American Ballet Company) and their trials and tribulations on the road to success. For our video we hired 13 dancers to prance around in leotards and Pointe shoes for two days…at least that’s the way it looks to the uneducated eye.

Reality: We had a casting session last week to which maybe 60 people turned up. Within 15 minutes they’d all learned a basic routine choreographed by Travis Payne and ten minutes later we’d sent the bulk of them back out into the cold night air in the knowledge that they’d lost the gig.

The lucky troupe then rehearsed solidly for two days. Travis, and his assistant Bart, made them do a series of gravity defying, muscle ripping moves over and over again until they were sinew perfect…then I arrived on the scene. Yesterday I made them hang around for hours before thrusting them into the routine over and over and over until I’d shot what I wanted. Despite their cries for rest and water I pressed on till I was sated.

This morning I watched them all arrive, slip through make-up and warm up in the big room, lost in the anonymity that being a “crowd member” gives them. I marvelled from across the room as they pulled their legs up level with their faces, stood up on their toes and pulled themselves across the floor as their bodies screamed silently against the impossible shapes they were being forced to assume. And this is just the warm up – the necessary limbering they must do to prevent serious injury when dancing commences. And a careless slip or twist can put you on the breadline in no time. Somebody mentioned that our star dancer (Sascha Redetsky – he’s in the movie) has had two operations on his ankles because of his dancing and he’s only just in his 20’s.

For a dancer the pay is nothing to write home about, the work is sporadic and injury is a fact of life. Yet nothing can displace the passion they all have for this wonderful art – the throwing of their bodies through the air and the turning of their heads and torsos gently that way or this to put a lump in one’s throat as 26 arms flutter in glorious, choreographed harmony. It is a wonderful sight to behold as 13 humans take their collective years of training, subjugate themselves to one man’s vision and intricately ape each others moves so that we can all experience a moment of beauty.

Thank-you.

The weather is playing tricks with us again and there’s a big storm coming in so at call time we have to re-arrange the schedule and shoot the afternoon stuff first so we don’t get drenched. This makes us all look like idiots in front of the band who have to swap out of the outfits they’ve just changed into.

Today is another one of those races against time. The band got up at 5am this morning to be on set at 6am. We need to get them out of here by 6pm so they can make a 730 flight out of LAX for London. From London they will fly to Dublin and race to a gig they have scheduled tomorrow night. When they step onstage they will have not been to bed for 30 hours…thank god bands make good money and get to hang out with hot girls, they certainly earn it.

I’m looking at reels over lunch and see a commercial set in a car wash with all sorts of cool angles on water coming out of hoses and foam smearing everywhere. I want to rip up my shot-list and start again but have to remind myself that I’m selling five great faces and not a Japanese motor car!

The band is wrapped in time and when I get home the storm hits – torrential rain and the mother of all thunderstorms. I’m safe by the fire with a bowl of pasta but I bet those guys are stuck at LAX waiting for the storm to clear so they can race East to make that gig.

Videos are weird. I’m shooting a video for a band who I’ve met for maybe an hour the day before yesterday, and I can’t remember their names. I’ve had to write them down on a piece of paper along with their pictures, stick it to the front of my video cart, and hope no-one notices while I surreptitiously glance at the picture before barking out an order. Back in Britain this would be sacrilegious as Westlife have had 4 Number One hits in a row – must remember to get autographs for the godchildren.

The label wants something very “down to earth” – no fancy sets – so we’re shooting in a carwash in the valley owned by a friendly chap called Homer who takes great pride in his business. Everything is painted bright yellow and black, very graphic. Just the place to shoot the American dream: cute girls, chrome plated cars and young guys in T-shirts.

The crew keeps referring to the band as Englishmen which is very un-cool as two of them come from Dublin and three from Sligo i.e. they’re all Irish. Calling them English is like asking someone from Calgary what it feels like to be Texan. You may not have been reading the papers for the last 200 years but the Irish and the British are 2 very different cultures and nations and rather a lot of bullets and rhetoric have been spent trying to sort this out.

When we reach the last set-up of the day the guys sing in 5 part harmony – a glorious sound. They finish off with the Backstreet Boys “I Want It That Way”!

Commercials are different than any other kind of film-making. Prior to me getting this job there had been months and months and months of focus groups, ideas submitted, rejected, re-written, re-worked and then finally I get 12 hours to get it all in the can, weather permitting.

As a result of all this intense preparation a whole host of people descend on your shoot to make sure that you don’t deviate from the plan and do some cool stuff. It’s a brutal fact of film-making that virtually no director gets to do his own thing creatively without a bunch of people second-guessing his every move over at the monitor. When it goes well, and I think it did go well today, the “interference” is minimal and everyone can enjoy the day. At it’s worst I’ve been pulled away from the middle of a scene to be told by a producer that I wasn’t directing the scene right….and he was in his bed with his sleeping wife 30 miles away!

On a commercial you get to work with the agency producer, art director and writer. Our Producer (Victoria) is responsible for keeping her client’s requests satisfied. The Art Director (Craig) keeps watch on the visuals and the Writer (Chas) on the words. Typically the creatives are clever, funny, driven individuals and the team we’ve had today were just that. Craig is a keen cyclist like me and used to race Porsches, Chas is a huge music fan and I turned him on to Q magazine and he turned me on to Vic Chetsnutt. After the movie this was a fine way to get back into the commercial pell-mell.

And while I wondered through the halls of Grant High what did I find? Two 2gether stickers in a classroom! Oh my God – what have we unleashed on the world?