Dear Mr Wahlberg

I listened to a TED Talk on rejection today. The speaker, Jia Jang, realised that the biggest thing holding him back was his fear of being rejected, stemming from an incident in his early childhood. To counteract this fear, he decided to embark on “100 days of rejection” – where he would ask for something every single day that may result in his being rejected. This ranged from asking a stranger for a 100 dollar bill, to asking for a “burger refill” in a fast food restaurant (as in – a soda refill – but for burgers). And at the end of the 100 days, he had made significant progress in conquering his fear.

Empowered by this story, I have decided to ask someone out every single month in 2019. That way, when it gets to the end of the year, even if I’m still single I may have add some interesting dates and potentially have been rejected 12 times.

So far I have asked out 3 people (so I’m already ahead of my own goals! This is a very new and unusual feeling). The first one – on Bumble – promptly disappeared off the face of the earth. The second and third both said yes, and so far I have had one meetup out of this strategy.

When I told me sister about asking people out and having a good feeling about it, she said, “Is this the same good feeling you had when you wrote to Mark Wahlberg asking for a job?”

Oh yes. I had completely forgotten about that, but obviously it is burned into my sister’s memory as one of my most ambitious (most delusional) moments ever. It was the summer I was working on the TV show “Hustle”, completely miserable and wondering how the hell I was going to escape my current situation. From the depths of my unhappiness, I realised there was only one thing for it.

I had to write to Jerry Bruckheimer and Mark Wahlberg and ask them for a job.

So… that’s exactly what I did! I typed up a very polite letter that started, “Dear Mr Wahlberg” and went on to enthuse how much I loved the show “Entourage” and would love the opportunity to work on the show. I did pretty much the same thing with Jerry Bruckheimer, but swapped “Entourage” for “CSI Miami”.

I never heard back. But, as my sister often reminds me, God loves a trier.

On the subject of Mark Wahlberg, are you familiar with his daily schedule? For the ignorant amongst you, it looks like this:

2:30am Wake-up

2:45am Prayer time

3:15am Breakfast

3:40 – 5:15am Workout

5:30am Post workout meal

6am Shower

7:30am Golf

8am Snack

9:30am Cryo chamber recovery

10:30am Snack

11am Family time/ meetings/ work calls

1pm Lunch

2pm Meetings/ work calls

3pm Pick kids up at school

3:30pm Snack

4pm Workout #2

5pm Shower

5:30pm Dinner/ family time

7:30pm Bedtime

Are thinking what I’m thinking? Mark Wahlberg spends TWO hours of each day in the shower and significant time eating snacks. Couldn’t he just get up at 7am like the rest of the world and eat fewer snacks whilst bathing less?

It all sounds rather hideous to me.

Anyway, before we go any further, I need to share something major with you.

I saw East 17 over Christmas – plus Mariah Carey tribute act – and it may just have been the greatest night of my life.

Granted, there may have been only one remaining member of the original line up (Terry) and it wasn’t in the O2 (as one might be forgiven for expecting) but in a dark dingy pub in Birmingham’s Digbeth area, but it had all the ingredients of an amazing night. Here’s why it was so awesome:

1.       For a mere additional £5, we got VIP entry – this entailed entry to the “VIP room”, a glass of a mystery brand of “sparkling”, AND we got to meet the band. (Nevermind that “meeting the band” turned out to be only TJ, who only joined the group in 2018 and frankly looks like he’s been rescued from a life of stripping and Class A’s. We still met a real live member of a East 17!)

2.       Remember the Artful Dodger? Re-re-wind… the crowd say Bo, SELECTA!? Yeah, he’s now in East 17.

3.       Nobody in the audience was trying to be cool. Obvs. I mean, we’re at an East 17 gig, that ship has clearly vamoosed. Therefore we had license to sing along with as little shame as you might expect to all the classics (Steam, Deep, House of Love, Stay Another Day… what do you mean you don’t remember?)

4.       By 1030pm, the “merch” girl had only sold 2 East 17 tee shirts and was looking really quite depressed.

5.       The bar was selling Smirnoff Black, Hooch and Blue WKD. I was so excited I almost ordered a pint of Snakebite and Black (but then recalled a fateful night at ‘Liquid’ discotheque in Norwich circa 1999 and thought better of it)

I feel that I did ruin one guy’s life right before the concert commenced by informing him that Brian Harvey wasn’t going to be performing, and he then interjected wherever possible during the gig by shouting, “Where’s Brian?” (Remember how Brian Harvey ate too many jacket potatoes than ran himself over? You just can’t make that stuff up…)

What a time to be alive! Not only did I have the joy of experiencing East 17 (OK, Terry plus 2 others) LIVE in concert, but the Bros documentary, “After the screaming stops” was also aired over the silly season. It followed the brothers being reunited before their first concert in 20 years (they actually did play the O2) and featured just the most amazing quotes from Matt Goss.  In case you missed it, here’s a selection of some of the best…

On the classics

“Rome wasn’t built in a day. And fuck me that’s true… But we don’t have the time Rome had.”

On childhood

“The best toy we had growing up was a dart. No dart board, just a dart.”

On everyday heroes

“One of my songs is called ‘We’re All Kings’. Which is about a man sweeping the road – he’s one of my kings because I’m thankful I don’t have to sweep the road.”

On home

“The letters H.O.M.E. are so important because they personify the word home.” (No, Matt, they just spell it.)

On the media

“I’m obsessed with the news, it ironically relaxes me, if I don’t see the news, I don’t feel informed, then I can’t go about my day properly. CNN is the thinking man’s reality show.”

On the ancient game of conkers

“Please can we start a petition as Bros for this ridiculous thing where you can’t even play conkers, you have to wear goggles. That is the biggest problem…You can’t play conkers in England.”

On superstition

“I made a conscious decision because of Stevie Wonder not to be superstitious.”

On linguistics

“Epitome, which I believe is Latin for abstract.”

On creating

“When I’m writing songs I write so fast it’s just scribbles. But we have unique telepathy – you have to have telepathy to keep up with me, because there’s maybe a hundred tracks of backing vocals and it’s all me. We call it The Matt Goss-pel Choir.”

On philosophy

“I think hindsight is the philosophy of fools. You learn nothing in some way, because sometimes you have to do the same again.”

On teamwork

“Everyone has to be on the same page otherwise you don’t get to turn the page. Because somebody gets left behind otherwise and then somebody has lost the page of the story which may be the key to the ending.”

On geometry

“I was a rectangle and [Luke] was a rectangle and we made a square that became a fortress.”

On worlds colliding

“If there was ever 15 one way streets and one solitary two way street where me and my brother got to meet in the middle – you helped [us] find that one street. We’ve met in the middle. Two worlds definitely collided. When two worlds collide, two things happen: Destruction or the genesis of new beginnings, and you created water on a new planet, mate.” 

I just don’t really think I can follow those quotes up with anything.

East 17 on tour, Bros reunited… what a time to be alive!