Sid And Nancy - Redux


I was up late last night playing poker online (my new obsession) and watching 'Sid and Nancy' which is one of my all-time favorite bedtime stories. The slow-motion falling-garbage alley kiss pretty much sums up how I feel about love: it's not elevated and rare, it's base and universal...and that's a beautiful bit of poetry.

BUT...

It occurs to me that, counter to my high school "fuck the world" hero-worship fantasies, Sid and Nancy were kind of horrible people. Boring, loud, irrational, prone to fits of vomiting and screaming, obsessively drug-seeking, totally unprofessional, surrounded by GREATNESS in the form of Iggy Pop & Joe Strummer (who had similar life challenges but somehow managed to be both creative and reliable) utterly self-obsessed and completely unmotivated to change.

What I'm saying is, if I knew Sid and Nancy, I'd try to keep them at a distance in my life. I'd be one of those dismissive assholes in the movie, impatient with Nancy's shrill tantrums and Sid's random anti-social acts.

This impression is clear in REALITY of course, watching 'The Filth and the Fury' (which is supposed to be S&N at their best, performing for the camera) one is overwhelmed by the oh, just die alreadyness of it.

But I'd always thought that the romanticized S&N stood in for the tragic 'you and me against the world,' 'love in the time of cholera' thing. And it is, except for the fact that it's NOT the time of cholera...it's the time of free money for talentless screaming onstage. S&N are the architects of their own downfall.

I mean, if you can't rise to the minimum standard it takes for Malcolm McClaren to exploit you, you're just not trying. Here's a guy who could turn a pickled pig fetus into a rock star as long as it showed up on time.

So, Sid, call me when you're feeling better. We'll do lunch. Nancy, a pleasure as always. You look radiant.