On a
Drunken Night
Once drunk, life
happens
By
Life is very simple.
You drink too much late at night whilst having just finished writing your last
novel, and instead of starting a new one, you waste precious time listening and
watching the people you admire most, and to write to them instead of creating
your own stuff. Well, if I am crazy enough to write a full book to one of my icons,
I am certainly crazy enough to put it online. So here it is, RM's Letters to Mycroft 2 (not his real name, of course),
one of the most important French singers, in perhaps the most influential
French band of all times. Though all my letters have been sent to him, there's
no guarantee he has ever read them or ever will.
The introduction is in
French, but you can jump over it and start reading the letters which are in
English except one. I am not even certain if he understands English, but who
cares? These letters are written as much for myself than they are for him,
since I always assume that none of them will ever reach him.
I am not telling you
who it is that I am writing to, simply because the interest of these letters is
more an exploration of my own psyche once completely drunk. It is innocent,
naïve, raw and genuine. And so it is charming to see myself like that, when in
reality I am so different than this person talking here.
When one is drunk, life
happens.
Roland Michel Tremblay
Note: shit, there is no
point hiding to whom I am writing, so I won’t.
Envoyé le 7 décembre 2007 à 23h00 via
http://www.myspace.com/sirkisnicola
Message 0 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Introduction
Bonsoir Nicola,
Enfin, après quelques nuits noires où j’avais bu un peu
trop d’alcool, après avoir trop écouté les chansons et les vidéos d’Indochine,
comme ça j’ai commencé à t’écrire des lettres.
Premièrement je les envoyais à Indochine.fr, mais alors
je savais bien que cela ne se rendrait pas jusqu’à toi. Après le quatrième
message (que je te ferai parvenir ce soir et cette nuit), j’ai tout mis en
ligne sur deux forums Indochine.
Sur le premier forum ça a passé inaperçu, mais sur le
deuxième ça a créé une crise inexplicable. Des milliers de lecteurs plus tard
et une centaine de réponses, ils ont fermé la discussion et je leur ai demandé
de faire sauter mon seul message sur leur forum, mes lettres à toi. Je n’ai
plus l’intention de poster quoi que ce soit sur ces forums, je ne le fais
d’ailleurs jamais.
Mais tout cela n’a pas été peine perdue, car un membre
m’a pointé vers ton site myspace dont j’ignorais
l’existence. Il m’a également dit que tu étais le seul à entretenir ce site, et
donc, c’était le seul endroit où envoyer mes lettres.
Aussi, quand j’ai le courage d’écrire ça, il est tard la
nuit, et alors je suis vraiment dans un état avancé d’alcool. Je ne prends pas
de drogue, heureusement. Alors l’anglais me vient plus naturellement. Et je
pense que tu dois bien comprendre l’anglais ? Sinon tant pis, je traduirai
le tout si tu le désires.
Bon, en assumant que tu n’as encore rien lu de ces
lettres, je dois tout de même te préparer psychologiquement. Je ne l’ai pas
fait sur le forum, et ça a été une explosion, pourtant je n’aurais pas cru que
le contenu de mes lettres était si explosif. Mais voilà, tu pourras juger par
toi-même.
Et prends en compte que l’alcool est une invention
diabolique qui, même s’il permet l’ouverture des tripes à l’infini, et de
toutes les émotions possibles, c’est également un liquide qui fait disparaître
le jugement et transforme l’auteur en toute sorte de choses loin de sa vraie
personnalité et ses opinions de tous les jours. Il faut vraiment garder ça à
l’esprit.
Pourquoi une telle introduction à de simples
lettres ? Well, enfin, un écrivain n’écrit
jamais pour rien, ça fait maintenant tout de même partie de mon oeuvre. Aussi parce que ces lettres ont été écrites dans
des conditions difficiles, tard la nuit, sous l’effet de l’alcool, alors que je
travaillais le lendemain. Ça parle aussi de moi, et finalement le résultat est
fort intéressant, et certes, serait difficile à reproduire. Dans ma tête ce
sera un livre virtuel éventuellement, et ce sera littéraire en un sens.
Tu recevras ma première lettre dans moins d’une heure.
Vôtre,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
De : Roland Michel Tremblay [mailto:rm@themarginal.com]
Envoyé : 30 October 2007 00:45
À :
Objet : Message 1 to Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel Tremblay
Importance : Haute
Dear Nicola,
My name is Roland Michel Tremblay, I think
it unlikely that you should have heard of me before, and yet, who knows, maybe
you did.
I am a French-Canadian author with six
books published in
I recently spent a year in
http://www.lemarginal.com/workfilmtv.htm
I have been living in
I have written novels, poetry, songs,
essays, diaries, theatre, science fiction, theoretical physics, both in French
and English, and I believe I have successfully inspired many people out there.
I have written this page about known people I may have inspired, but it is not
accessible from my website since people would think that I am delusional for
believing that I could have inspired them. I admit that I am not certain if I
have inspired them, you can judge for yourself:
http://www.lemarginal.com/inspiration.htm
Anyway, after such an introduction, you
must be wondering what I have to sell. Yes, I do have something to sell, myself
actually, though money is the least of my concern. Art is my concern, Indochine
is my concern. What I offer is my collaboration. I would like to work with you,
and it does not matter much on what project.
Indochine has always been my favourite band
ever, with Depeche Mode and the Cure. Not only that, Indochine is the only
French band I have ever listened to. To be frank, I really love you, I love
your style, I love your music, I love the poetry in your music. I am gay, but
hopefully this won’t stop anything, I am no crazy fan. Some people have called
me a force of nature, I believe you are a true force of nature, and I wish I
could work with you, that’s all. (Dear me, I am not even completely drunk yet,
and look at the bollocks I am stating here for my sales pitch.)
French is my first language, however I
thought writing in English was more likely to attract your attention at this
time. What I am proposing to you, is to have a look at who I am, all that I
have done up until now, visit my websites, and then please contact me. If you
decide not to contact me, then please feel free to draw inspiration from
everything I have written. I love Indochine, to think that I could inspire you
even slightly, would be for me a great honour.
To be honest, I think that you are the most
remarkable singer and songwriter this planet has ever known. You alone give me
faith in the French language, that it can be so poetic. All my latest books
were written in English, but if I ever revert back to writing in French again
one day, I am certain that it will be because of you.
I have a book of songs in English, that is,
my poetry that I feel would do good songs, and I also have most of them in
French on my French website (The Anarchist series):
http://www.themarginal.com/bookofsongs.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/anarchiste.pdf
However, I doubt that any of it would be
suitable for Indochine. What I have mind for our collaboration is yet to be
written, it needs to be poetic, just like 7000 Danses
(my favourite) and Paradize (my second favourite)
(though my overall favourite song is Comateen 1, and
I do understand the implication and meaning of the song, it pains me as much as
it does you, I’m sure. And yet, I wonder if perhaps it could pain me more, as I
am crying writing these words, as I can so connect, as powerful this song is).
This is more the style that I believe is Indochine. Kind of French poetry,
great literature, meeting Depeche Mode, but much more.
I don’t think that you are at the end of
the road just yet, I think that you are just like me, at the beginning of
something great, even though we have already achieved so much, especially you.
I am thinking of something which requires re-invention, and yet, still
Indochine.
I have to say, Indochine is what kept me
sane and alive in the last few months (my main topic is existential crisis).
After I decided to find out what happened to you, as I was cut off from
anything French for so long, 15 years in fact, I was pleasantly surprised to
discover that you had achieved great heights, and written so many great songs.
You truly have a special gift, and I also believe I have one. Together, I
wonder what we could create, something to be remembered, no doubt.
That is what I had to say, really, I do
hope you will contact me, or at least draw inspiration from me, from such a
lost soul still wandering this Earth. I am yet to find my true purpose in life,
who knows, perhaps that destiny is to be Indochine, and I cannot think of
anything better. This is why I am sending this message tonight. I suppose you
could read it again and leave the emotion out, then perhaps you could make a
cerebral decision to contact me and discover where this could lead, even if it
was just to be a great friendship. Are these things not important to history? I
think they are.
If somehow you think that you do
understand, I am telling you, you do not. No one truly understands anything.
Regards,
Roland
Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
No, I am not an anarchist, the titles of my
websites come from Antonin Artaud’s
book Heliogabalus, The Marginal (Heliogabale
ou L’Anarchiste Couronné), about a Roman King from
There is one book I have written which
speaks of prose poetic, in the style of Indochine. It is The Revolution, but
you have to skip the first part and jump to page 45:
http://www.lemarginal.com/revolution.htm
This is not what I have in mind for our
collaboration, and yet, I felt the need to specifically mention that book. I
guess it proves just how far gone I really am. I don’t care, I wish I was
actually that far gone. And I can be, I will be for Indochine, for you.
You do not know of the future, I am the
future, you have to contact me, so together we can be the future, before we
die.
De : Roland Michel Tremblay [mailto:
Envoyé : 22 November 2007 03:49
À :
Objet : Message 2 to Nicola Sirkis, Indochine - from Roland
Michel Tremblay
Importance : Haute
Dear
Nicola,
I have to
say, my obsession with you has grown ever more since I last sent my first
message to you. I am truly impressed with you, even annoyed. Who can look
better today than he ever did 25 years ago? You, of course. I guess you had to,
you had no choice, before all, your job is to look great and cool, and yeah,
make sure the songs are the genius stuff that can keep it all together. Though
most forget it, the songs are everything, and would not need anything else to
stand, however, when you can make it whole with the look, the coolness, the
image, then you have a true winner, and that is all you are all about, and
always have been.
I have
decided that you will now become my new correspondent, and I will be writing
many letters to you over the next few months and perhaps year. It does not
really matter if you read my messages, or answer them, I guess it is as much
for myself than for you that I will be writing these. It is not the first time
I write letters to one of my idols, though I am bit ashamed now about who was
the first. I guess it just happened, and I wrote many letters to him, and that
was it, and yet, in the end, that was the first ever recorded history about
myself in English, so it has served its purpose, it may have launch in a way my
career in English.
About my
letters to you now though, I am not certain about the why and what the
consequences may be. It will end up on my website at some point for sure, don’t
know when, don’t know if. If you think too much about these things, then it
defies the logic of doing them. I simply feel like writing to you, and the idea
that you might actually read what I am writing to you one day, seems to be
enough for me, motivation enough to write to you.
Yes, I do
admire you. I thought for a very long time that you were gay, it pains me to
read your biography and sort of realise that perhaps you are not. That like
Depeche Mode and U2, and even The Cure, you played on that image, as if somehow
being gay, or looking gay or asexual, was somehow cool. I agree, it is true,
and yes, if you played on that image, you were right to do so, and should
certainly continue to do so. The fact that I am gay and sorry that you are not,
does not really matter, I am not offended, I am pleased in a way, but I would
like you to be gay, of course. So I could dream that one day we could not only
be friends, but more. Even though, just being friend with you would mean a lot
to me.
I don’t
think you could understand what it means for me to admit as much. Because I
usually do not want friends, I do not want to meet anyone, in fact, I was in
And you,
I admire you, I love you, but not only this fake image, your mind also, which I
suspect you must have behind all that you have accomplished. This intelligence,
this intellect. That might have started on the puppet show side with Bob Morane, and yet, behind all this it was already all there,
the intelligence, the mind thinking, the necessary distance to be able to fall
into all that, and yet, out of it came such great songs and videos.
There is
something I need to say now, is that I do not only like you because you remind
me of Depeche Mode and The Cure, though these are my favourite bands. I
actually liked you before I could actually make any link between you and those
bands, as I got to know them way after I got to know Indochine. And now that I
look at all that you have done, I see that you are on your own right something
huge, something as huge as the Beatles in the French world. And that if you had
sang in English, this is what you would be right now, The Beatles, The Beatles
of the French World, even if personally I don’t particularly like the Beatles.
The thing is, though, if you had sang in English instead of French, I do
believe you would have been one if not my favourite bands, but it would not
have been the same. You are my only connection back to the French world, as you
are the only French thing in my life. And for someone born in Québec. who has
been living in
I was
reviewing all your albums tonight, Indochine is certainly not an easy band to
describe, as you do appear to have gone for it all, many different styles. I
agree that throughout all, you always managed to have great songs and videos
out of each album, and yes, I did notice that those specific singles were not
always representative of the albums. The rest of the albums then can only be
appreciated if you do get into the beat.
I am
certainly biased here, but hey, I certainly would encourage you to stick to
working with the same sound engineers and programmers who worked with Depeche
Mode, as I feel they really did give you direction with Paradize,
and the whole album became something else, a real piece of art. Amazing that
these guys don’t even need to understand the language to help produce such
wonders. When you reach an album like Paradize, it
does not seem to matter much what Indochine is as a band, or what image
Indochine projects, or even whatever is the History of Indochine and what they
did before. In itself the album is something that stands on its own, which can
inspire life, which can motivate people to live, just as it did for me.
To tell
you the impact Paradize had on me now, whilst I just
spent a horrible year in Los Angeles, and that I am now back in England, I
don’t think you could ever understand. It may certainly have saved my life.
Just at a time in your career when you might have wondered about what would be
the point in making a new album, and would certainly have had no reason to be
motivated to do so now. You have after all had such an impact on me with 7000 Danses when I was young, you proved to me that French could
be poetic, that there was a future in writing French books.
Of
course, throughout the years, after six books published in French in
I am also
always listening to Le Baiser, which I find is the
other great album of Indochine. Though from Un Jour dans
notre Vie, the song itself and Savoure
le Rouge are also songs I cannot tire of listening to. You may have changed
look often, and I feel that it is great, but watching again all your videos
lately, I feel that even when you looked stupid, you were great, showing
intelligence, determination, enthusiasm, it amazes me.
I would
give anything to meet you in person, but also to become your friend. And now
you must be worried, that perhaps I would not think that you are that amazing
person we see in the videos, and would be disappointed after all, after I meet
you. But that would not be knowing me. I can see through that. I know that if I
were to live with you daily, I could find you boring and nothing special. It
doesn’t matter. I see through all that as well. I feel that you have a key
mind, curious by nature, with a message to get through, whatever that message
is and if it changes over time and perhaps contradict itself over time. It is
also your personality, who you are, that fascinates me, which makes me think
that after sharing my life with so many uninspired people, I wonder, what it
could be like to share my life with someone like you.
I have to
be careful about what I tell you here, because I am not so unknown, strangers I
meet have heard of me and read me, and so I do have some sort of an image to
cultivate. My first bunch of letters to someone I admired, before you, looked
very much like an innocent little aspiring someone hoping to meet his great
idol. It was laughable, and yet, I found it charming, so I did put it online
after a while (Letters to Mycroft, on my website). It may turn out that my
letters to you will sound just the same, that I will sound naïve and in awe
before you, and so be it. I don’t really care. It is also part of the charm, of
the game, where I may sound genuine and innocent, when perhaps I am not. I
don’t have millions of fans like you, but I still have a fan base, a
readership, and I am alone dealing with it, cultivating it, working on that
precious image I need to project by whatever I state at any given time, whether
I am drunk or not.
By the
way, I am drunk tonight, this is what gives me the courage to write to you. I
was drunk when I sent my first message to you. And it is likely that I will
only write to you when I’m drunk, late in the night, whilst I have to go to
work the next day, just like tonight. So whatever I will tell you, I would not
normally do in normal times. And so, do not jump to any conclusion about
anything I tell you, it may very well be that these opinions, I only have under
the influence of alcohol. But hey, I would not be writing to you otherwise.
Perhaps
what I admire most about you, is how literature seems to mean something to you,
enough that you read and draw inspiration from it. I have to say, in the whole
world of music, you might be unique about that side of your personality. Yeah,
The Cure wrote Eloïse and Stranger on a Beach, but
these were exceptions. I don’t think they were that inspired when they wrote
Friday I’m in Love.
And I
always somehow, secretly hoped, that one day I could become such a great
author, that you would find me worthy of reading, and draw inspiration from. It
would have made such a painful existence all worthwhile, and this is why I am
perhaps writing to you now, even though I sincerely love you and everything you
do, and everything I feel you are all about, and yes, I can see through the
marketing and the PR, I think I have got you pretty well sussed out. Such a key
mind, a lovely face and body today despite the age, such genius… when it can
all come together and become something like Indochine, you can only but admire
such an achievement. Some people have the one quality, perhaps two, but without
the genius, it never amounts to anything. And so you are special and worth knowing,
and of course, be written to.
I can
predict you will receive weird messages from me in the next few months, but
don’t read too much into it, I will of course be drunk then, and probably not
thinking any of it the next day. You may think I am suicidal, and perhaps I am,
but only when I’m drunk, so don’t worry. Existential crisis has always been the
main topic of all my books, figuring out what this universe is all about and
what is the purpose if any of humans within it. It is the only question I have
ever asked, the only quest of my existence. Once I find a suitable answer to
that question, then I guess it will be okay to die. Nothing else will matter
then, whatever I may leave to posterity. Though recently I got motivated by
your song Marylin, I now want to live, encore plus
fort, whatever this concept could really mean. It was not lost on me that this
song has some sort of gay undertone. That is how I love my Indochine after all.
And if you are gay and still have not admitted it, I admire you even more, that
for so long you could have maintained such double meaning in all of your songs.
Such secrets are good for the art, and art would lose something from sudden
admission. Triple layer meaning of songs for a start would become clear,
something that often is best left to imagination and hope.
Well, it
is now 3h41 in
I love
you man, I would love to be your friend, and it don’t matter if you decide to
remain silent. I would love to know if at least these messages are being
forwarded to you, it would be motivation enough to continue, but it is likely
that I will continue to send them anyhow.
You can
be proud of yourself, you are truly one great human being on this planet, with
far more impact on so many than perhaps you are aware of. You certainly
inspired me in anything I have ever written and will ever write. You are a
great inspiration to me right now, my only motivation in fact, to continue and
write another book, and still feel like it is worth so much efforts and energy.
I thought you should know, that it goes both ways, that you draw inspiration
from literature, and literature draws motivation and inspiration from you.
You may
be weird, because you’re French, and French people are weird, but you are the
best weird French person I have ever known. I am fascinated and motivated by
finding out who you are and how your mind works. How you come to think the way
you do, and how it becomes the songs you write, and the melodies that accompany
them. In a way, you are a true mystery to me, and I’m sure you could never
cease to be one even if I were to get to know you better. French people think
so differently from the rest of the world, I find it refreshing.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
De : Roland Michel Tremblay [mailto:rm@themarginal.com]
Envoyé : 01 December 2007 04:52
À :
Objet : Message 3 to Nicola Sirkis, Indochine - from Roland Michel Tremblay
Dear
Nicola,
I sincerely
hope this message finds you well tonight, assuming it does reach you. Somehow I
have chosen to believe that it does, because I am a weird one, a weird fan, which
deserves to reach out through all the crap which could perhaps prevent this
message from getting through.
This is
2007, nearly 2008. I am alive right now, you are alive right now, how sad a
world this would be if I could not reach you by any mean possible at my
disposal? It would be like René Descartes and Albert Einstein living at the
same time period, and both trying to reach each other, and yet miserably failed
to do so, because somehow both were inundated with bullshit letters from all
four corners of the world. Sad indeed, if I were to die in the knowledge that
none of my messages to you ever reached you. I suppose I could send you a
telegram, or flowers with a message in them, then surely these might reach you,
but I’m not that desperate right now in order to reach you. It will either
reach you, or it won’t. This is another sign of the times we’re living in, when
one message can be drowned in so many thousand others.
Drowned
in all those messages from other fans of yours, and by now I could guess how
they look like, since they must look like my latest fans, all dressed in black,
in the Matrix style, with stylish sunglasses to match, and they’re probably
barely 17 years old. Gothic style, though I could never actually identify with
the word gothic, for me it has always been alternative style, but then, perhaps
I am getting old. I could be disconnected, but I’m not. Goths it is then,
attracted to you because of your look, and attracted to me because my website
is called L’Anarchiste Couronné.
I suspect my fans would like you, and your fans would like me. In both cases it
is some sort of mistake, or is it? Since at heart one can be revolutionary, and
yet, in the cold light of day, we’re just like everyone else, drones.
This is
actually a very interesting aspect of both Indochine and I. The word revolution
has been mine and yours for a long time, even though I feel that for both of
us, it might not be more significant than it could be for a certain layer of
the population. Which brings the question, how revolutionary are you really?
How Che Guevara are you really? Che
Guevara is
How
socialist are you? Are you even slightly communist? We could easily get that
impression. Well, I am not socialist, I am not communist, I have never read
Karl Marx. I am the fruit of my American nation, capitalist to the teeth. With
a firm hand. Let’s destroy
Was that
your initial statement? One could only hope so in this day and age, and who could
still understand anyway the French supremacy behind the real power in the
underworld? Who would not wish for a strong French Empire, even at this late
hour, against British and American powers? There lays the dilemma, the
dichotomy. Where do we wish to lay, where do you stand in all this? Apart from
returning from Indochine yesterday, with a Monkey in Winter? And what is the
real meaning of this song, if any? Where do you stand? How political are you in
this world? You seem politically involved enough, but are you really?
What I am
getting at, is I do wonder about the message you might have tried to spread, if
any. You have written a book I hear, I do need to get my hands on it. It might
explain a lot. Not that I am political myself, and not that I think that you
are that much yourself beyond the fact that it makes great songs, and songs
need to be about something. And clearly you have read more than I did, and spat
back stuff more significant than I ever even gave any thought about. But now I
wonder, what was all that really about? How militant and revolutionary were you
really? And most importantly, what is the message you really did try to get out
there?
I am
still completely in the dark, barely understanding most of your references. And
what is this obsession with Mao Tse Tung? I do admit
that his childhood might have been romantic, but come on, the rest of his life
has been destructive indeed, with tens of millions dead, moreover, that was in
peacetime. The Little Red Book was interesting enough, barely, yet in practice
it has been a disaster. What do you truly mean by your Mao references? The man
was a monster! Probably still only admired today through fear!
You see,
I think you do need to write that book, just so you can explain yourself, so we
can finally understand what you really stand for and mean, for which songs
could never really do any justice to, beyond being great entertainment.
Anyway,
in a way, I have been less extreme than you, and yet, I feel I am under
surveillance from our Great British Government which leaves nothing to chance.
I had vans in front of my flat for years now, spying on me, and my phone and
internet communication being probed non stop, to the point that it wrecked all
my communication, and yet, dear me, I have never stated anything worse or even
as bad as you did, in songs which reached the top of the charts in many
countries. (Note: under alcohol I have exaggerated much more than I truly
believe here, I don’t think the British government is watching over me, though
sometimes I did wonder. It is however unlikely, and no, I am not that
paranoid.)
Do you
have anything to say about it? Have you been listened to, followed by
governments unsure about who you were and what you were all about? Some sort of
foolish revolutionaries in the making? And I mean beyond stating on stage that Popstitute is for Fuck George Bush? It is not in the
obvious that our governments are worried. Are they worried about you, as they
seemed to have been worried about me, even though they had no reason to, since
I am quite a peaceful fellow, once everything is considered? God knows, I might
have acted like Thatcher given the opportunity, or Blair, or Bush. I wouldn’t
mind seeing this world going to waste, just to make a statement about
something, whatever how significant that something is.
And yet,
I’m not sure if any of us truly understand what you stand for, if anything. Is
it just entertainment, or you truly have some sort of soul of the revolution,
whatever that revolution is? What do you mean exactly in all your songs?
And now,
I do believe that you are just like me. Revolutionists without a cause. Rebels
without a cause. Oh yes, there are causes, there are reasons, and yet, none of
them important enough to make it so clear to the masses. After all, this is
entertainment for the masses, nothing should be that clear. Because in the end,
what is most important, is to be against the establishment, whatever the
establishment truly is or represents. To seek freedom and liberty at any cost,
no matter how futile and small the matter is. Being revolutionary at heart,
even if there is no true reason to be so in the first place, except perhaps
whenever an extreme right government takes power in whatever country. And then,
better not be too specific about anything, this is entertainment after all. And
so, I do understand that we will never get a clear picture about what Indochine
is all about.
Well, for
many years now I have a website called The Marginal (and L’Anarchiste Couronné). I have a
published poetry book called The Anarchist. And one of my first books is called
The Revolution. And yet, if you were to ask me, just as I am asking you now,
about what it is that I am truly about or think about, I would tell you that I
don’t know, and certainly nothing specific. I guess ultimately my own personal
revolution, anarchy and so on, had nothing to do with anything out there, even
if unlike you I have not been so specific about anything political. I suspect
however that it is the same for you, and that all of this, all of it, is more
intrinsic to you, and it means, and could only mean something to yourself.
Or are
you much more political and involved than I give you credit for? And if so,
please enlighten me, because despite all of your songs, I am still completely
in the dark. And I would think that by now you would have wanted us to look
more into it. Well, what books have you read, what history do you wish us to
read? What is it that you are truly trying to tell us? I tell you, I still have
no idea, and yet I have the Internet and Wikipedia one centimetre away from me,
and can find out anything instantly.
But let’s
change the subject. Why I love you and Indochine, after all, has nothing to do
with any of that. I’m sure by now many of your fans are weird ones, all dressed
in black like in The Matrix, just like many of my fans are, and perhaps this is
just a by-product of whatever we were working on without thinking too much
about whatever would be there next in line telling us we were geniuses. After
all, we are for the masses, mainstream stuff, and yeah Indochine certainly is,
and sometimes I wonder if I am, or if I don’t go more towards the marginal side
of it. Might have been a mistake, and yet, I found these are the hardest fans,
and will not let you down no matter what direction you might decide to go
towards to next.
I was
surprised, because I never thought of myself as being like them, and yet, I
understand now that the image I projected was exactly everything they were
about. Just like the image you project right now, which is exactly all that
they are about. Not even alternative anymore, gothic most certainly, with a
touch of druidism and the Matrix all mixed together. A nice mix if I may say so
myself. I suppose your marketing department has gone all over this by now, and
certainly you did yourself, your look today says as much. We cater for the same
crowds, no two ways about it. You, deliberately, me, by accident. I am but just
an author after all, only now do I understand the crowd that is attracted to
whatever I may be writing.
Anyway,
it was not my intention to bore you to death with so much bullocks. One needs
to be about something, anything, better be about vague politics than baby I
love you. That much I agree with. Even though Indochine has done great in the
department of the Baby I love you, great songs, because obviously Indochine is
capable of the best.
Your baby
I love you songs are almost intellectual in nature, certainly the poetry in
there is wonderful. I can’t say that much myself about my own books, I have to
admit. It kills me. And now I wonder, how could I emulate you on that level? I
wonder. This world is still very much as much about revolution than baby I love
you, and I want to put my dick inside of you, even though Indochine would never
be as crude as that.
It is all
about some sort of romantic idea that does not even exist anymore within this
world, isn’t it? Love is just not that romantic or poetic. If it is, I have
never experienced it in my 35 years on this planet. What’s your secret then?
What is it that French men are capable of experiencing that, me, a lost
French-Canadian in
Are you
and I so different? How can this be? French was the language we were both born
into, no matter it if was two continents apart. Granted my French is the old Napoleonian French of the colonies, and your French is God
only knows what, since it has changed so much since Napoleon, that I wonder
where it came from. I only know that you speak like a book, you speak somehow,
a literary French. I speak real French, the French of the past, just like they
speak it not only in Québec, but also in the North of France, in
You are
so French, it is maddening, and yet, I wonder how French you are when we
compare you to the History of France. I think the real French, you can only
find in
I guess
if I had finished my studies of French Literature at
I have
but one dream in life. To buy a house in the South of France one day, and write
for a living, in English perhaps, in French hopefully, and make a living out of
it. As it stands right now, I somehow successfully remained in
Being
born in Québec for me was meaningless. I don’t feel I was born there or that I
was Canadian or American, I am French, no matter how the law sees it. And I
will live in
I am
tired, very tired of this life. I am 35, and yet, I feel like I am 70. I wonder
why, I truly do. Perhaps I am a man out of time, and out of place. I have no
rights to anything, not even the simplest freedom. I am alienated, completely
so. And this needs to change soon, or I will do something insane. I am so
exhausted. But one day I will live in
Indochine,
such a great name for a band. Jasmine tea, so civilised, it almost makes you
forget everything this world is all about. Almost, but not quite.
I am so
sorry for this outburst, it is so not me. But hey, I think this will do for my
third message to you. Perhaps my fourth one will be much more philosophical, I
almost have a university degree in philosophy after all, I need six more
courses for it to be true. Political philosophy was what I enjoyed most. I
always thought I would write a book on the topic one day, and this year I think
I did, it is called “Destructivism, The Path to Self Destruction”, such a title
is very fitting, don’t you think?
http://www.lemarginal.com/destructivism.htm
I am
teasing you, I have always been ironic, full of sarcasms. That is me. And I
think it is a wonderful way to portray any message to the masses.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
De : Roland Michel Tremblay [mailto:roland.t@virgin.net]
Envoyé : 05 December 2007 01:58
À :
Objet : Message 4 to Nicola Sirkis, Indochine - from Roland Michel Tremblay
Dear
Nicola,
Oh dear,
Why is it
that every time I am drunk enough to write to you, the next day I am so ashamed
of myself for having written so much bullocks to you, that I can’t even stand
seeing the received emailed of what I sent you the night before (as I carbon
copy myself on the email I send you, to insure it was sent)? And yet, as soon
as I drink a few beers, here I am wishing to write to you more.
Well,
this time I don’t intend to talk about politics. Je retourne
ma veste, I already see more clearly, well, not
exactly, I just see that in the early days you were much more political and
clear about what you stood for. I heard you say in an interview that it was
difficult to be socialist and collecting the millions at the other end, which
might explain why you moved away from politics.
Well, I
don’t know, I believe both can be quite compatible, for one good reason. No one
can do a revolution or carry any message without a lot of money, and if you
have a message to get through, how could you do it without a lot of money? And
I am not only talking about revolutions, any mild message is the same, and in
the end, a mild message always goes through much easier than an extreme one,
because only mild messages are actually allowed to go mainstream.
Anyway,
is it not clear to anyone that this is entertainment, just a bit of fun? And as
such, any topic is permitted? And am I to understand also that you would have
been much more political if that little critic had not stopped you?
Interesting. I wonder what you would have written by now… I wonder even how it
would have affected me, my writing, the next ideas for my books. It is quite
likely I would have done the same you did. What is the point of accomplishing
something that will alienate all the journalists? There is a way to create some
sort of scandal which is beneficial, there is also a way to self destruct in
the process if one is not careful. So it is understandable.
I had
decided to find out if you had written a book or not, and found out that you
actually did, it is called Les Mauvaises Nouvelles (from a title from Serge Gainsbourg,
I believe?). After going around emule, shareaza and all torrent websites, it is nowhere to be
found. Only one last recourse, pay a fortune to get it exported outside of
By now,
don’t you think you should have written something about your existence, the
impact you had on this world, and what it feels like, and whatever it is that
you tried and perhaps sometimes failed to communicate to the planet? Such a
book would be worth gold, and if you don’t write it before you die, perhaps I
will have to write it for you in your own name? Of course, for that I would
need to meet you and speak to you, as a friend, since as a journalist or a
ghost writer, I could certainly only talk bullocks. Joking apart, I really
think you need to write a book about your thoughts and experiences. Writing
something literary is certainly commendable, but there must also be a need for
you to write about your life.
Even
then, I am curious about the kind of fiction you have written. I laughed when I
read: « un Président dément
qui rêve de tuer en direct,
à la télé, tous ses concitoyens », as this
is so you, your personality, and yet, somehow I wonder if you ended up writing
something interesting about such an idea. Sure, it can make great songs,
however, I wonder how I would go about writing a short story about that very
topic. It would need to be deeply psychological, be dark indeed, philosophical,
political, and yet, intelligent. I am curious now about how you went about it,
I may have to buy the book after all. Better yet, could you not send me an
electronic copy? I find it hard nowadays to read books on paper, I find it
actually impossible.
FNAC mentions that you were inspired
by Pierre Loti, Marguerite Duras et, surtout, l'énigmatique J. D. Salinger. Well, Pierre Loti, I
have heard of while studying French Literature in three different countries.
However, I admit I never read any of his books. All I know is that he was gay,
and that is interesting enough.
My best
friend at the
I wonder
what became of him now, Joël he was called, he was
such a good friend, so intelligent and knowledgeable, so caring too (shame he
was such a Québec separatist and enjoyed his soft drugs a bit too much). I
can’t believe he is not a renowned author by now. I would have thought he would
get there way before me.
And yet,
all those talented friends I ever had, none of them ever succeeded at anything
in the end. Because it is not enough to have talent, you also need the
determination, the enthusiasm, the dedication to see it through. Something
that, thank God, I have, and I know how rare this is, and so much talent is
simply wasted out there for whatever reason, any reason would do, unless you
were born for it, like you and me.
I have
read Marguerite Duras, and watched many of her films.
All great and wonderful, really worked for me, and yet, it did not inspire me
anything. Except perhaps that I have heard that the last remaining years of her
life, I believe, a young gay man was taking care of her, and was her best
friend. That, somehow, inspired me, as I was the same to the best known
French-Canadian author called Anne Hébert, whilst she
lived in
Funny, on
Wikipedia they don’t mention any of this about Duras,
this young gay lover called Yann Andréa, and he was
15 years of her life. In
I thought
all of this was quite charming, however, to be honest I never truly gave a shit
about it. For Anne Hébert, it was a one year
friendship whilst I studied in
I have to
admit, there is something great about being friend with these great women
authors, who in their own ways revolutionised everything in their days. It
makes for great conversations, however I have my own life and own career,
unlike that Yann Andréa who could only suck up to the
one thing he loved, and yet, could never bring out something himself, or give
her what she needed most: sex. And this is the lack of intimacy that drove Duras wild into more douleur, yet
again. Oh boy! Get a life!
J’ai bien aimé l’atmosphère de « Un Barrage contre
le Pacifique », mais je pense que j’ai idéalisé le livre avant d’enfin le
lire, car je m’attendais à bien mieux, mais bon, j’ai de bons souvenirs de la
petite fille prête à se prostituer avec the rich man,
in order to witness new
horizons. Anything
will do, someone needs to get out of his hell hole, one way or another. Seulement les décisions extrêmes permettent une telle existence. Et Dieu
sait combien je les ai prises, ces décisions insensées qui ont rendu tous mes
proches aliénés complètement. Ils n’ont jamais rien compris,
of what this life was all about, and how one needs to live to the max, wherever
this will bring him in this world.
I only
had two boyfriends in my life. The first one was perfect, I met him when I was
barely 19, he was 24, it was in
This
whole thing, with the fact that the grandfather of my boyfriend was actually
gay, is something I was denied writing about in my books by this ex-boyfriend,
who is still my great friend by the way, and oh dear, how much inspiration it
would have brought me. Well, in the end he left me, not I. He was not faithful,
and this is what made him decide to leave me.
I soon
met my second boyfriend in
And yet,
I am still with him, because now I have nowhere else to go, since I cannot work
in
And yet,
I think my actual boyfriend in
There is
just secrecy about all this, it is barely believable. And yet, I have heard him
many times speaking Dutch in his sleep, and yet he claims he doesn’t speak the
language. He was born in 1960, so certainly there is no link between him and
the holocaust, and yet, I wonder where the link is, if any.
I bet
this is all in my mind, I always have to transform everything around me into a
novel, or I see conspiracy theories everywhere. It is just likely that he is
Protestant, just like I am Catholic, and it is probably true that he is one
quarter Irish and three quarters English. (Note: I am quite sure of it.)
I can’t
believe I lived with so much history for so long, and yet, none of it ever
reached me in order to inspire me to write the greatest literature ever. Today,
it seems, you can be more openly gay than you can be openly Jewish. And yet, I
would have thought the opposite should be true. Either way, one cannot deny his
or her origins, one need to be proud about whom he or she is, or else, how can
life be worth living?
I know
nothing of Salinger. I, however, have two of his books here, for some weird
reason. I may actually read them, because of you, of course. The Catcher in the
I guess I
should continue to talk about literature. I do know about your influences now,
I guess it is only right that you should know mine. I was quite into Milan Kundéra at the beginning (though not anymore), however
nothing had more influence on me than
Sure,
some author and some book were always the starting point for me to start a
book, I will even admit that Arthur Rimbaud and Émile
Nelligan inspired most of my Anarchist series, they
were both young gay men ready for the adventure, one across France, the other
across Québec. I guess that was my Revolution, and even then The Revolution was
inspired by Joseph Bédier and Kundéra
(nothing that political after all).
My
biggest influence recently, I am almost ashamed to say, is Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, I only wish I could write in that style, but being born French makes
this impossible. I can only admire him. I certainly read all the books of
Arthur C. Clarke, and it has inspired me since I started writing in English a
few years ago.
The only
books I read over and over again are the Rama Series of Clarke and Sherlock
Holmes of Doyle. That is now, when I was young it was Rimbaud and Bédier. There is something about the first ever known
French books ever that is attractive, the innocence, the directness of raw
emotions, the ultimate sacrifice for reasons that today we would judge
completely mad. Like Paul et Virginie. Complètement dérisoire, mais où avaient-ils donc la tête
alors ? Bonne question, donnée toute entière à la philosophie de
l’existence à travers les siècles.
Et aussi, une grande influence sur ma vie, a certainement
été Antonin Artaud, qui a même inspiré le titre de mes sites Internet, alors
même que depuis je me demande si je ne devrais pas m’éloigner de cet Anarchiste
Couronné, pour devenir plutôt Le Marginal à temps plein. Inutile de projeter
une image d’anarchiste alors qu’il est clair en lisant mon site que je n’en suis
pas un.
Antonin Artaud, malade mental, drogué à pleine capacité,
un des seuls trois auteurs inspirés Français dont on ne comprenne toujours pas
ce à quoi ils faisaient référence. Les deux autres, des Saints qui ont reçu la
visite de Dieu, dont Sainte-Thérése D’Avila, dear me,
on ne rit plus. Bien que moi, je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir.
Tintin ne vous a rien inspiré ? Et pourtant, ça
c’était politique, et clair. Je me souviens quand je vivais à Bruxelles à
La physique théorique, ma passion depuis toujours, là où
les questions trouveront des réponses, when philosophy failed us so spectacularly. And, are there any
existential questions that politics ever answered? Nope. So who can care about
it? Not me, that’s for sure. Cos I am only about one thing, as I said before, what
is this universe we’re living in, and what is the purpose of our existence
within it, if any.
I do not
have a high opinion of the human race, I have to say. I cannot see us being
more than the most insignificant virus or a bug colony infesting some body. I
am not impressed by what we have qualified this high capacity of processing
data with our brain, or this so-called great awareness of being alive and
kicking. I do not particularly believe that we have evolved much in the last
2000 years, I was expecting a much bigger explosion within my lifetime. By now,
I would have thought we would be halfway across the galaxy, and it pains me
beyond words, that we have perhaps only visited the Moon, and still wondering
why
I have
some answers, though I do not have them all. Thinking about it keeps me alive,
before the routine here in
Still,
better be here than in America and be part of the next Civil War, be it the one
of Québec against Canada, or the American one overthrowing leurs
partis politiques encrasssés, where I’m not sure we can trust either the
Republicans or the Democrats, as blurred and rotten the whole thing has now
become. And yet, an American President, is this not as much our President as
any French one could ever hope to be? I have no idea who is the French
President right now, I don’t even know who is the Canadian Prime Minister,
and yet, I studied in detail all American politics. Can we trust Hillary
Clinton? God, I hope so, since she must be our last hope. And even then… I
truly wonder how far corruption really goes.
Funny,
when I was living in
I bet
those unpopular nuclear tests might come handy one day. But I hope
No one
can think anymore, entranced as they are by their 2000 television channels. I’m
sure Star Trek or the X-Files are playing somewhere around channel 945.
Otherwise, I think tonight there is a biography of Céline
Dion on Channel 300. Dear me, I need to record that at any cost, just so I can
forget about everything else. And I wonder, what is your opinion of Céline Dion? Don’t worry, I couldn’t care less either way.
And yet, she is French-Canadian, got to admire that, if nothing else. Even
though she will never find her way into my MP3 player, let’s just put it that
way. And yet… as French go in this world, she is certainly a master of exporting
the language into this world. Something I would have hoped Indochine could have
done, because if not Indochine, who else could? Well, only Céline
Dion. She is the only thing from the French World who has reached out so much,
along with Indochine. So I guess we still have to admire her for that unique
achievement.
She’s the
pulse of the nation, the American nation, the American fools. Who cares as long
as those billions are being pumped back into Québec’s economy? Who’s the fool
now? Céline Dion is no longer an artist, she is an
industry. I suppose that from that point of view, it’s okay if Titanic does not
find its way to my MP3 player. God, I’m gonna be
sick.
Oh well,
it is almost 2 am, I’ve got to go to bed, I’m working tomorrow. I’m not sure
this entry will rate that high in the interesting ones I have spent my nights
on, whilst I have so little time to write my books. I must be crazy, why am I
wasting precious time writing to someone who is unlikely to even read the
bullshit I am writing, when I could be writing instead for posterity, my next
novel?
And the
next one is quite something important, it is one for French-Canadians and French
people to be proud of, about what would
I don’t
know if I will have the time and the courage to write it, I really don’t. How
much dedication one needs, especially when so much history about
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44 (0)20 8847 5586
Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Message 5 à Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel
Tremblay
Note à propos du message 5 : Je me suis demandé
sérieusement si j’allais t’envoyer ce message. D’autant plus que voilà deux
jours, quand je l’ai écrit, je ne l’ai pas envoyé à l’adresse e-mail du site
d’Indochine, comme j’avais fais pour les autres. Il était clair dans ma tête
que je n’allais pas te l’envoyer, c’est que le message a davantage été écrit en
réponse aux membres du forum Indochine.
Le tout n’est demeuré en ligne que quelques heures. À mon
retour du travail, sur l’heure du midi, j’ai tout fait disparaître. Plus par
peur d’un jugement quelconque que du fait que les membres étaient négatifs, en
fait ils étaient assez positifs avec ce message plus francophone.
Quelle importance, l’important est que tu saches que le
message s’adresse plus à eux qu’à toi. Et Dieu que j’étais saoul, deux nuits en
ligne, je ne bois jamais deux soirs en ligne, et ça a été l’enfer le lendemain.
Une autre raison de te l’envoyer, maintenant que j’y pense, est qu’il est
pratiquement tout en français.
En tout cas, en relisant ce soir, je trouve ça très
drôle, c’est amusant, on sent la panique absolue sortir de partout, et je ne
sais plus ce que je dis. Well, ce message sera une
entrée unique dans mes messages pour toi, et ça montre un autre côté de ma
personnalité sans doute, un côté que je ne reconnais pas. Ça fait maintenant
partie de l'histoire de ces lettres, et qui oserait cracher sur l'histoire (moi
sans doute).
C’est aussi mon dernier message cette nuit. Je ne sais
pas quand et si j’en écrirai d’autres, sans doute que oui, mais j’ignore quand.
Tu les prends quand ils viennent.
RM
Cher Nicola,
Je viens de comprendre que peut-être ton anglais n’est
pas aussi avancé que je l’aurais d’abord cru, gracieuseté d’un forum Indochine
que j’ai trouvé hier soir très tard, alors que je travaillais le lendemain.
J’ai trouvé deux forums, j’étais suffisamment saoul pour avoir posté mes
messages à toi sur ces forums, espérant sans doute que tu les lierais.
Le résultat de cette tentative, alors, je pensais, serait
comme sur le deuxième forum. Cinq personnes ont lu mon message en 24 heures,
aucun impact, mort. C’est la réponse que j’attendais, et cela n’avait aucune
importance, car mon seul but était que peut-être tu lisais ces forums. Je me
rends compte maintenant que certainement tu n’en fais rien. Je sais par
expérience. J’ai moi-même des forums littéraires sur mes sites, un très
populaire à la grandeur de
Mais voilà, ce qui a laissé indifférent tout le monde sur
le forum numéro deux, comme je pensais serait le résultat, sur le forum premier
d’Indochine, ça a été une toute autre histoire. 100 réponses plus tard et 2000
visiteurs, en moins de 24 heures, mon Dieu, je semble avoir lancé une bombe sur
le forum. Et je n’ai même pas encore tout lu, et je n’ai qu’une seule pensée,
est que mon chum va arriver dans 30 minutes, et alors je devrai aller me
coucher, parce qu’il sera d’une humeur massacrante, et le verbal abuse va
commencer, uncalled for and yet,
toujours au rendez-vous. Je n’ai donc que 30 minutes pour t’écrire, à moins que
je ne sois prêt à confronter l’orage, et à continuer, despite
the thunderstorm.
You
certainly have great fans, though I am still there trying to read the reaction
to my messages to you. They are still so polite and expressing themselves in
such a great French, ça rend le reste
du monde médiocre, at best.
Tes fans sont civilisés, I wish I could say the same about mine on my own
forums. I have stopped writing on my forums, or any forums, a long time ago, parce que je déteste
la confrontation, le combat, la bataille. Ce n’est pas pour moi, parce que je n’en ai nul besoin. Cependant, depuis
hier, je vois que je dois maintenant écrire en français, because
apparently you are a spastic when it
comes to English.
Shit, get
over it, Céline Dion learned English within six
months when she needed to in order to conquer
L’anglais, quand je suis saoul, après 15 ans en
Angleterre, est ce qui vient naturellement. Écrire en français, maintenant,
pour moi, après tout ce temps, demanderait que je pense d’abord en français, un
exercice qui dans mon cas n’est pas si facile, après 15 ans.
Ah shit, voilà que maintenant, je réponds à la overwhelming response de tes
fans, en réaction à mes simples messages à toi. This won’t
do, I will not stand for it.
Je devrais les ignorer tout à fait, parce que mes messages ne sont pas à eux,
ils sont à toi, et non, je ne vais pas me mêler à eux, même pour une seule
minute. Il n’existe qu’une seule personne que je cherche à atteindre ici, c’est
toi, Nicola. J’ignore comment powerful
ce forum is, j’ignore si tu lis ce forum, mais je
vais certes tenter ma chance. Il n’y a que toi qui compte, rien d’autre, peu
importe comment horrible ils deviendront towards me.
Je dois passer par-dessus. Ce forum, after all,
pourrait bien être ma seule façon de t’atteindre. Nothing
else matters. Rien d’autres
n’entre en ligne de compte.
Vraiment ? Ton anglais est si pourri, que tu ne
pourrais pas comprendre ce que je t’ai dit jusqu’ici ? Pardonne-moi, mais
je n’en crois absolument rien. Comment cela pourrait être possible ? Nicola Sirkis, incapable de
comprendre l’anglais ? Et moi qui pensais justement qu’en écrivant en
anglais, je ne deviendrais pas une cible pour tes fans, que peut-être toi seul
me comprendrait. It’s bullshit, I’m sure you understand everything about English, or
else, my God, I wonder, what planet you must have been living on for so many
decades.
Je dois te dire la vérité. La nuit dernière, j’étais fort
saoul. Je t’ai écrit mon quatrième message depuis le 30 octobre dernier, en
pensant, probablement à raison, que personne ne te ferait parvenir mes
messages, envoyés à une adresse générale, j’ai tout mis sur deux forums
Indochine. God
damn it, I thought, you will receive these messages one way or another.
Je savais cependant que ces actions insensées avaient été
prises sous l’effet de l’alcool. Et toute la nuit, et tout le matin au travail,
je me disais, je dois faire disparaître au plus tôt ces postes. Je suis arrivé
en trombe sur l’heure du midi avec l’intention de faire disparaître le tout, espérant
que personne n’aurait eu le temps de lire tant de…
Mais j’ai eu tort. Tes fans were
on the ball, ils ont tout lu, ou tenter de lire, en
anglais, mes pensées pour Nicola Sirkis.
It was
ugly, it was confrontational, just like on any other forum out there. Et pourtant, pour moi, they were out
of the picture, it was not meant for them. It
was only meant for you. Et quelle honte
pour moi de t’écrire ainsi, espérant une quelconque réponse, qu’écrire en
anglais, au moins, allait leur passer par-dessus la tête, et alors, quelle
sorte de commentaire négatif pourraient-ils inventer, if they
didn’t understand anything about what I was trying to tell you ?
Je n’avais qu’une seule intention sur l’heure du midi,
effacer ce message sur ce forum. Je ne désirais pas m’attirer les foudres des
membres. Mais voilà, après avoir lu les commentaires, je ne sais plus. Tes fans
sont édifiants, ils comprennent mon désespoir. Certains. D’autres, sont la
raison pourquoi j’allais tout faire disparaître. C’est un miracle que je n’aie
pas fait tout disparaître ce midi, parce que je pense que finalement ils ne
m’ont pas tous jugés telle une cause perdue. Et alors, mon but ultime,
peut-être finiras-tu par lire ces messages ? Maudit, combien difficile
est-ce d’atteindre Nicola Sirkis,
sur cette planète, at this
time in history ?
Ce jeu, c’était pour moi d’atteindre quelqu’un
d’inatteignable. Et maintenant, puisque je l’ai décidé, c’est aussi de gagner
cette cour de Louis XIV dans sa suite. This is not
acceptable. Ça va influencer tout ce que j’aurais voulu te dire. Ceci sera mon
denier message sur ce forum, peut-être, à moins que je ne voie là un moyen de
t’atteindre. And from now on, this will be in English, no matter how bad your
English is. Dear me, there are translators all around the Internet, il existe des sites de traduction
partout sur l’Internet. Comme un de tes fans a dit, Google is
your friend, Google est ton
ami. Mais bon, voilà, traduis toi-même :
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn
Tu comprendras l’essence de l’existence, au moins,
l’Existentialisme de Jean-Paul Sartre, at the very least. Anyone has got to start somewhere, sur le sentier de l’apprentissage. We’re no longer limited by any
means, it is about time que les Français comprennent ce qui se dit
d’eux, dans leur dos, de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique. Autrement, comment
espérer une quelconque révolution ? Mais qui donc sont ces fans ?
Qui ? Pourquoi ? Comment ? Comment sont-ils arrivés ici à écrire
au-delà de 10,000 messages chacun ? That is dedication on a massive scale, I could
dream of having such dedicated fans. And dear me, I think I do have them on my
forums which should go back online within the week, mais
je n’ai jamais porté trop d’attention
à ces fans. Une autre erreur
sans doute, les fans sont tout. Les plus hard, les plus véhéments, ils
indiquent la route à suivre. No wonder I never gave it another thought, fuck them
all ! I will do as I please, one way or another. I am already living on
such a thin string, how could I care about futilities? I am beyond all that.
I wonder
about Indochine, have you read it all? Do you plan your next album whilst
considering all the bullshit your fans have stated? I hope not, in fact, I’m
sure you do read it, but ultimately you do go on and write and compose what you
can actually do, what where you are at in your existence will permit you to
achieve. Whatever fans may say, yeah, read, digested, taken into consideration,
but ultimately, this is what I have to offer, because at this particular moment
in time, this is what I am all about. And hence, this is all I can give to you,
to this world. Like it or hate it, there is nothing I can do about it now, this
is what I did, that I was capable of, and you can all go to hell as far as I am
concerned. I suspect, that in the end, for Indochine, it has got to be that.
J’ai trop bu, encore une fois, deux soirées en ligne. Ça
va mal tourner au travail demain, on ne peut être un zombi deux jours en ligne
sans attirer l’attention des Managers, le plus grand evil
de ce monde.
Oui, si je puis enfin sortir du marasme de ce forum, et
de mon existence, je voudrais dire quelque chose, demander en fait. Shit,
dérangé en plus par mon autre moitié, I can’t remember ce que je voulais dire.
Obviously,
I need to assess if writing on this forum helps me or not in trying to reach my
goal, qui est de t’atteindre,
toi, Nicola Sirkis. Let’s
give it another 24 hours and see how vicieux ils peuvent devenir,
sur ce forum. Méchants, gratuitement, sans comprendre, sauter aux conclusions, sans
comprendre. Tolérance zéro de mon côté. Je vais tout effacer, comme j’en avais
l’intention ce midi, alors que j’étais okay, in my right mind, saint d’esprit,
libéré de l’influence de l’alcool, qui te fait prendre des décisions ultimes
dérisoires, avec un quelconque espoir d’atteindre, un quelconque objectif.
Je n’écrivais en anglais que parce que j’espérais que tu
puisses lire couramment l’anglais, et alors, ils comprendraient que ces
messages n’avaient rien à voir avec eux, mais tout avec toi. Je n’ai pas le
temps de traduire en français, sous l’influence de l’alcool, après 15 ans à
Londres, il n’y a que l’anglais qui coule comme le ruisseau essentiel à tout un
village. Mais si tu ne comprends pas l’anglais, à quoi bon t’écrire en
anglais ? J’ai des choses à te dire, cher Nicola,
mais voilà, à ce point, cela n’a peut-être plus d’importance. Tu vois, tu vois,
je ne te parle déjà plus, je parle à tes fans. Big mistake, which requires more
thinking.
It is unexpected
to say the least, but if I have to first go through your army in order to get
to you, I guess I should. Only hope I can stay awake that long, and that my
boyfriend will finally go to bed before I fall asleep. And that the parrot will
calm down, and the seven cats, and the dog. Have I told you that we have a zoo
here in
This
discussion is no longer about me to you, it is now between me, your fans, and
you, something unexpected along the way, but perhaps something I can deal with.
I will go and read what else they have written about my drunken outbursts, and
I will get back to you in a minute.
I think
they may be accusing me of self-promotion. It is laughable, since until I wrote
that fourth message, I only had one thought in my mind, convince you I was
worth a look, and didn’t know these forums existed. I know I am worth some
attention, but how would you know unless I tell you?
Are you
left handed or right handed? Both my boyfriends were left handed, and somehow,
I believe this is significant on many levels. They were also both dyslexics,
also part of their charm, I admit readily. Are you?
I have
not finished yet reading the 200 answers my single entry has generated since
yesterday. Je n’ai pas le courage de lire les 200
réponses à mon message de la nuit dernière, alors que j’étais si saoul. I wonder, ai-je le courage, et le coeur,
de lire ce qu’ils déblatèrent? Leur jugement me tuait avant même que je ne le
lise, le pourquoi aussitôt que j’ai eu la chance d’effacer mon message sur
l’heure du midi, je l’ai pris. Mais voilà, ça a pris une vie on its own, et je n’ai plus le
courage d’arrêter cette nouvelle vie à mes messages pour toi. Peut-être alors
ça va attirer ton attention, Nicola ? C’était after all mon seul but. Never mind
tout le reste.
Wake up ! Tes fans ont été surpris par mégarde par
moi. Il semblerait que mon message est du jamais vu sur leur forum si propre et
ordonné. Comment est-ce possible ? Les plus ardents ont eu le temps
d’écrire au-delà de 20,000 messages depuis sa création. As-tu lu quelques-uns
de ces messages ? Je l’aurais certes fait moi-même, après avoir compris
comment these are such die
hard fans. I would… je ne sais plus ce que j’allais
dire.
Je ne sais pas non plus si l’histoire de fou que je viens
d’entendre, de la part de mon chum, me permet de continuer ici, puisque je suis
complètement out of it. Apparently,
we have some Jamaïcains
smoking dope in our car park,
avec un oeil sur notre chien, et notre perroquet, et
tout ça ne devrait pas m’inquiéter. D’Hammersmith ?
J’ai demandé. De Shepherd Bush in fact, je comprends
alors que c’est désespéré.
On vient de perdre 30 minutes, d’ailleurs, à propos
d’hier, alors que j’étais déjà saoul, il me demandait ce soir à qui j’écrivais
ces messages, qui l’inquiètent grandement, comme si ces messages signifiaient
la fin d’un règne, et un renouveau complet pour moi, un nouveau départ pour
l’aventure, je ne l’ai pas épargné ces dernières quinze années.
Il me demandait qui était cet homme chauve dans les
vidéos d’Indochine que j’écoutais hier, randomly,
vraiment, dans tous ces vidéos, à quelque part, il y a un homme chauve, avec deux
petites filles qui dansent autour ? Mon Dieu, de quel vidéo
parle-t-il ? Et il est jalou, il me demande si
c’est à ce chauve que j’écris tous ces messages depuis des jours ? Je lui
ai montré, toi, Nicola sirkis,
et je lui ai dit que c’était à toi que j’écrivais mes messages. Étrangement, ça
semble l’avoir soulagé. Bizarre, d’autant plus qu’il aurait dû alors comprendre
que lui et toi, vous vous ressemblez complètement. Vous avez le même âge, la
même taille, la même grandeur, tous les deux extrêmement désirables, mais
alors, il est aveugle face à toi. Il n’a vu qu’un chauve avec deux petites
filles, dans un des fichiers Indochine que j’ai, et Dieu seul sait ce que je
visionnais alors, je ne puis le retrouver à cet instant.
Je ne lui dis pas tout, mais presque. Il sait que j’écris
à ce mad French man, pour peu importe la raison, que
c’est mon obsession actuelle et que je me fous du reste, mais ça n’enregistre
pas dans son cerveau, comment je le laisserai en un instant, pour toi et
Drôle, qu’il soit aveugle face au danger que tu
représentes, que de te voir sur le moniteur de mon ordi, il n’a aucun doute que
jamais tu pourrais devenir mon ami, et que je serais prêt à tout abandonner
demain matin, pour toi. Il n’a aucune idée de l’Aventurier qui sommeille en
moi, l’explorateur, alors même que voilà deux ans je l’ai abandonné pour Los
Angeles. Peut-être est-il imbécile, after all, il n’a
certes aucune intelligence intellectuelle, sinon pratique.
Nicola,
je ne peux plus continuer. Il me semble que j’écrive davantage pour tes fans en
ce moment que pour toi. Parce que je sais que ce message se retrouvera sur ce
forum Indochine. J’espère que c’est juste un message de transition, une misère
nécessaire afin de continuer à mettre mes lettres en ligne là où j’aurais une
chance que tu liras ces messages. Mais voilà, je ne t’écris plus, je n’écris
même plus quelque chose qui pourrait au moins être intéressant sur mon site
éventuellement, tout est perdu.
Mes messages pour toi avaient deux intérêts, l’un que tu
me lises, deux, que le tout fasse comme un blog d’intérêt d’un auteur alors
qu’il était saoul et qu’il ne savait plus ce qu’il faisait. Who
cares, je dois admettre que lorsque je suis saoul, mes écrits sont
philosophique, deep, psychologiques, pensés, songés,
bref, quand je suis saoul j’écris toujours quelque chose de profond et
intéressant, peu importe le destinataire.
Honte, oui, le lendemain, surtout quand ça finit sur un
forum public prêt à fustiger l’auteur, quelle honte. Mais je m’en fous, parce
que, avant de lire les commentaires, après avoir lu quelques-uns, j’ai relu mes
messages à Nicola Sirkis.
Je voudrais dire que ça vient du cœur, des tripes, mais voilà, étant saoul, je
me demande, d’où ça vient vraiment. Et j’aime ce que j’ai lu de ce que je t’ai
écrit, et alors, il me faut absolument passer par-dessus ce qu’ils disent, ne
pas arrêter, ne pas répondre, ne pas être influencé, juste continuer, et voir
où cela me mènera. Au désastre, sans doute, les forums ne pardonnent jamais.
Voilà pourquoi étant l’auteur d’un des plus importants forums littéraires
francophones, je n’y lis rien, je n’y écrit rien, ou pratiquement rien. Tout de
suite ils sont à l’attaque, tout de suite ils te détruisent, et franchement, je
n’ai aucun besoin d’une telle négativité. Voilà pourquoi je ne participe jamais
à aucun forum. Et si je suis ici cette nuit, je n’y suis pas vraiment. Je
t’écris un message, à toi, Nicola Sirkis,
dans l’espoir qu’il t’atteindra. Je ne répondrai à personne d’autres qui
m’attaquera ici, I am beyond
that, beyond that bullshit.
Je me demande, de ce qu’il reste à discuter, on a night like this. Il y a des choses que
je désirais aborder, difficile maintenant de me souvenir, après cette crise.
All right then, cette folie a maintenant pris une
tournure imprévue, j’étais certain qu’aucun d’entre eux allait porter attention
à mes messages à toi en anglais, mais voilà, I have opened
a Pandora’s box. And I will have to deal with it, somehow. I sincerely hope it will
all be worth it, and will, at any rate, attract your attention. Surely you’re
not that impossible to reach? How much of a stir do I need to create on this
forum for you to pay attention to me?
They now
say I have alienated tous les members du forum. Ils s’étripent, apparently, à propos de mes
quatre messages pour toi. Je ne sais qu’en penser, et comme je suis saoul,
encore ce soir, à cause de cette crise, et Dieu sait comment ce sera l’enfer
demain au travail… je ne puis que dire comme réponse : God
save the Queen !
Ils parlent d’un “3615 My Life”, whatever
that is, I have no clue. Moi et ce que l’on appelle
le minitel en France, on ne s’est jamais rencontré. Je n’ai qu’une vague idée
de ce qu’est un minitel, mais franchement, « 3615 My
Life », quel titre fantastique pour un nouveau livre ! I will have to think
about that one. But ultimately it will have to mean something else, since it
will have to tell something to the world as a whole. Imagination will be
required indeed in this case.
French
people are so weird, and so funny in some unexpected ways. 3615 My Life, si j’étais Français, j’aurais déjà
un livre publié avec un tel titre. C’est suffisamment provoquant. Et même un
Québécois peut s’en rendre compte. Là commence un renouveau absolu, de tout. It
has to be, it must be, un mal nécessaire. Nul ne
peut se limiter à
I need to see
you live, mais je ne puis venir à Paris, trop cher,
passeport périmé, whatever. Lilles, c’est là où je
dois te rencontrer, l’Eurostar arrête à Lilles. Psychologiquement, pour un Britain, Lilles is the limit, du monde entier. Lilles, there is nothing
beyond Lilles. So romantic, for reasons I won’t go
into right now. I have a big fan there. However, he is way too young and good
looking for me, I would never dare trying to meet him, he would be way too
disappointed. I can’t afford any of that shite right now. Maintain the fake
image of an author, maintain the ideal of one’s life. Anonymity of an author is
great. I always wanted to see what Lilles looked
like, but I’m afraid, je ne vais jamais
voir Lilles, de cette vie.
You do
have great fans out there, who took my defence against so many gratuitous
attacks from those out there who appear not being able to understand what this
was all about, against what they thought was unthinkable. That is, me writing a
few letters to you. I had not realised that this was such a unique event on
that main Indochine forum, that it warranted such a crisis. Well, do pay
attention to those ones, I believe they are die hard fans, and will follow you
even to the doors of hell. I love them already.
As to the
others, who could hate them, they are just as society would expect them to be,
as polite society would expect them to be, to react, and so on. They have been
programmed that way, tough, they would never admit to it, since who could know
how programmed we have been?
Je suis bien trop hors de ma personne normale, pour
continuer ce soir. Je suis trop saoul. J’ai détruit des choses dans
l’appartement, que même étant en état d’ébriété ordinaire avancé, je n’ai
jamais auparavant détruit. Mon partenaire est en panique absolue. C’est un
signe clair qu’à partir de maintenant, peu importe ce que j’ajouterai, ce sera
dérisoire. Je ne pourrai me défendre contre un tel extrême, et même les 7000
Danses ne pourront me venir en aide. Il y a un risque, gotcha !
Il y a un risque et on s’en fout, gotcha ! J’ai
pris un risque, et j’en suis fier, gotcha ! Et
il y a quelque chose à propos du mépris, avant les la la
la. Let it be a lesson to all of us. I am already too far gone,
je suis déjà trop loin,
pour m’en faire, cette nuit anyway, demain, who knows,
qui sait?
Mon demi vient d’exploser, apparemment je parle en
écrivant ici. Il n’en peut plus, et moi non plus. I don’t
care how good he looks even
at 47, in his under cacas, he can fuck off and disappear pour toujours, et bons baisers de partout, pour
toujours. Something
will have to happen soon, one way or another. Pour
un second post, ça me fait grave. Dites-moi, comment je pourrais m’en
contre-crisser? Ma relation intime est terminée, ma vie est un enfer, que
j’écrive dans n’importe quelle langue qui existe sur cette planète, je n’existe
pas. Et quoi ? je suis saoul un soir et j’écris à la seule personne qui
m’inspire encore à ne pas me suicider, et vous radoter encore des whatever, à mon propos ? As if I should give a
shit ? Comme si ça m’importait ? I am about to commit suicide, you
moron ! Non, je ne puis plus m’inquiéter à
propos de rien. Une seule personne existe pour moi en ce moment, Nicola Sirkis, and that is all.
Si seulement il n’y aurait aucune conséquence,
j’étriperais mon partenaire en ce moment. Ne peut-il pas me laisser tranquille
pendant quelques heures pour lire vos attaques et me défendre ? Sans que
je n’aie besoin de premièrement le tuer ? Je suis prêt, je suis fou, au
cas où vous ne l’auriez pas encore compris. You do not have any idea about who you are
truly dealing with here. Why don’t you just let it be? Parce
que, franchement, au point où j’en suis,
I cannot care about anything anymore, sauf ma seule évasion, Indochine.
Et vous noterez que je parle maintenant bien davantage
dans la langue de ce forum, bien que, certes demain je le regretterai, et
peut-être je ferai disparaître le tout. I am so confused right now, dear me, it
wouldn’t take much for me to commit suicide. And so, I can assure you, I don’t
give a shit about anything you say. And yet, here I am answering you, so
perhaps I am not so out there. Je vous aime, alors même
que vous me détestez. Try to figure that one out, if you can. I bet you
can’t, homme de peu de foi.
Good, all
of that is now out of me. Dear Nicola, I am back to normal, to before I did put
my messages to you online. I am surprised that I survived all these attacks
unscathed. I am so sensible, emotional and all, and yet, perhaps I am not. I
survived it, and I do not feel this feeling of regrets, remorse, whatever. I
survived your fans, and who knows, this maybe the way I will reach you. I sure
hope so, after all that. I will admit, your fans are much more disciplined than
mine. Mine, by now, they would have annihilated me, which is why I would never
write on my own forum. How merciless people can be, it is disheartening. No
longer my problem, I survived the initial burst. I will survive now. And my
next message to you will be more enlightening. I promise.
Dear me,
you have no idea, how difficult it is for me to put this online, at this time,
I am so dead, it is like as if I was not alive at all. Mais!
Ça sera online cette nuit. This is the most difficult thing I have ever done,
put this online, cos I’m so dead… you cannot even
imagine. And yet, I have to do it.
Regards,
Roland
Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Message 6 à Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel
Tremblay
Right,
time to give you my verdict on Alice & June. To be honest it took me a
while to get into it, because it was radically different, though in retrospect
I guess this is the direction Indochine was going towards to after Paradize.
At first
I thought it was heavy metal music of some sort, too hard for my ears,
certainly it could be qualified as Industrial Music, a bit like
Type-O-Negative, a band I actually like. But from Indochine, I thought, perhaps
this one was not for me.
This has
all changed however as I found that the songs did stick in my head, and the
next day at work, if I had drank too much, some of the songs of Alice &
June were the ones stuck in my head as some sort of loop.
So I got
back to it, listened to it many more times, and now my final verdict is that it
is your best album yet, better than Paradize, and I
didn’t think this could be possible. It is also possible that I think so now
because I am in deep need right now of something hard, and even Muse lately did
not satisfy this need. But Alive & June does it nicely, and moreover, in
French, which is almost in itself unbelievable.
Truly a
great album, in the sense that it is hard, and yet, there is a good balance
between hard and soft, which makes the whole long album easy to listen to
without tiring too much. And also that it is full of great ideas and music
loops, in the end, it is a masterpiece. You have done it again.
Sometimes
I wonder where your inspiration comes from, after such a long time, that for
most people inspiration would have dried up by now. It is admirable. And those
musicians, don’t know how you came to meet them and incorporate them into
Indochine, but they’re good, they’re the best.
Alice and
June, the song, is a classic, everything about it is that clear, that it could
become a signature song. It is the kind of song a new band would come up with
at the very beginning of their career, and then, never again come up with such
a great song, for unexplainable reason. Just like Paradize
is, I could have said the same about that song. No wonder when I discovered
that recently, I went halfway mad, that my old band Indochine could have
achieved such wonder now and reach me in ways I would never have suspected
could be possible from Indochine. No wonder I started to write to you, because somehow,
since we are French, I thought, somehow, we’re like brothers, you may be
reachable.
And it is
not only those singles that are great, I have to say, every single song, the
whole albums are simply the work of genius, really inspired, and it does inspire
me no end. In particular
Well,
that is all I had to say tonight, sleep well and dream up more great songs.
Music is important for me, when I write, and it has become more difficult for
me to find these joyaux over the years, because I am
too disconnected from everything out there. I’m happy I re-discovered you. And
to top it all, God you’re cute! And such a great voice. Oh yes, I am in love.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Message 7 à Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel
Tremblay
Sent 19
December 2007 at 02h17 via :
http://www.myspace.com/sirkisnicola
It is one
thing to be an author, it is one thing to be published, to put it online on
websites, and be read by millions. Yeah, as long as we feel that people are
actually reading and that it has some sort of impact, whatever that impact
might be.
I have to
say however that it is something entirely different when you write something to
the people you admire most, and that they might actually be reading it. It adds
a new dimension to the work, suddenly the most insignificant sentence or
statement becomes just like a line in a signature song, that will be sang for
years to come in front of crowds who will be singing it until hopefully the end
of times.
Such
words then need to be chosen carefully, since they become part of history, of
posterity, they enter the collective psyche forever. One misplaced sentence in
there, and that’s it, the oeuvre d’art is destroyed. And sometimes going back
and adding, editing, etc., just destroys it, because then it is no longer part
of what it was, its origins, the mood it was written in.
There are
songs and texts which can be highly political, and yet, have no impact
whatsoever. Be it dry, intellectual, lack of style and imagination, whatever.
Listening to your song Marylin, I feel one does not
need to speak about politics to be political, or at the very least to be
philosophical. The song gets back to basic, first basic emotions of any human
being, a cry and a desire to live, and I assume be happier with oneself.
The song
is so powerful, it does not need politics to be political. It is loud, strong,
explosive. It is more revolutionary, about life and existence, than any
political song could ever aspire to be. It is also better targeted, as if suddenly
one would feel the need to live, to be happy, and somehow, to feel this strong
emotion of being free, then politics is of no more concern. It only becomes
this small hurdle to bypass, amongst so many others, in order to reach that
point where one can actually live encore plus fort and feel elated.
Marylin must be your most political song, even though it has
nothing to do with politics. A strike of genius, which obviously can only come
from deep down inside, a mind who suddenly wishes to be free and to live
forever. What anyone must be intrinsically aspiring to, and this song helps a
great deal to focus that goal in anyone’s mind.
Ultimately
there are things more important than politics, and the history of the world on
the political scene. And that is to feel that we are actually alive and can
make some sort of difference. And the better when it is loud, powerful, weird
and wild, even kinky in your case, and who cares when it can set alight such
large crowds, and how else could you achieve such a success? It certainly
attracts the required attention. Raw emotions, raw feelings, of such a desire
that life could actually be something else, that life could be worth living
after all.
As an
author, I am well aware of my limitations. I will never set fire to a crowd for
example, I will never be able to so instantly set 30,000 people alight, so they
would suddenly feel this great need to be alive, to wake up and do something
significant and worthwhile. Though, I will admit, that through my Anarchist
series, poetry no less, I feel I can get the readers that close to feeling the
same, on an individual basis.
So
perhaps I have succeeded more than your average other writer out there, but as
it is limited to paper, or a computer screen, or hopefully a mobile phone
display, extremes are necessary in order to reach out, something only words in
music can actually achieve. And you’ve got it, beyond any hope. You have
succeeded where no literary bastard could ever succeed.
You
inspire life. And sometimes I hope I am doing the same, but somehow I feel I
might only inspire death. Even if some fan mail I received confirms that I have
saved some lives. Probably some gay people ready to commit suicide after
suffering all that life has got to offer to such misfit entities, such marginal
people.
It can
only come from the heart, des tripes, from deep down
inside. And in order to put this into words, a miracle is required. And that
miracle is embodied into the song and video of Marylin
(and perhaps also in Mao Boy).
I hope
you don’t get the impression that this is a highly intellectual analysis of Marylin, I don’t do intellectual analysis of anything,
because perhaps I am not French, French are experts at that kind of thing. They
end up destroying everything and miss what is actually raw and powerful in
anything.
Intellect
requires a soul. Or else they are not practical enough, or not intellectual
enough, to realise the full impact of anything. Being too cerebral about things
that come from the heart, is incompatible. Being too cerebral about art is a
waste, because art speaks to the heart before anything else.
I am
finishing my fourth Kronenbourg, which is my set
limit tonight, because I work tomorrow, in a Crown Court in the
Don’t get
me wrong, I have lived more than anyone else, and yet, it is not enough, it
will never be enough for me. I bet you feel the same sometimes, doing the same
show for the xth time, having to sing the same songs
over and over again in the same places, night after night, year after year.
There are routine and loops in everything in life, even when you’re living the
high life.
I’m not
stupid, I know I may never be happy in anything I ever do or achieve, I may
never be happy. However, being happy might be in small things, like writing to
you tonight. This is out of the ordinary, this is something to look forward to,
whenever I can do it, whilst I am in between writing two books. It is only in
the details that someone can find happiness and the force to continue in this
life. I feel this might explain your own page on myspace.
I am not
certain if I have found a reason to exist. It would be simple if it was just to
write books and be read, express opinions about everything that is happening
out there. I’m afraid it is not that simple. I don’t care for anything that is
happening out there. I don’t care to write books and leave something for
posterity. If I did, it would be simple, I would have already accomplished all
that I could have hoped to accomplished in this world, no matter how successful
I could have become as a result. I used to say that I was beyond all that, but
I think it is more serious.
There is
nothing that could ever make me happy in this world. I have been suicidal for
as long as I can remember, and seriously considering it until I reached 35, at
which time I finally realised that I was mortal and there will be an end to it,
and how long it will take for this end to come is bearable, as it is unlikely
to be more than what I already suffered, and that was sufferable, so far.
I
sometimes feel that every single book I write, every single page, every single
line, should not have been written, that it was written in borrowed time, as I
should have been long dead by now. So everything I write is a bonus, and so it
should damn be important and significant, to justify the fact that I am still
alive right now to actually write it, since it could easily be the only reason
justifying my existence.
And even
then, it does not justify it, I am not still alive just to write some more, I
feel I have said everything I had to say a long time ago. And yet, every new
book I write, somehow, is more significant than the last one, so perhaps my
inner logic fails me.
Anyway, I
feel that I have enough steam to survive beyond my death, but perhaps I still
need to write that great successful book, just one, which will ensure my
installation. I guess I do not wish for my life to be that useless, as horrible
as it might have been, or felt. I could so easily be forgotten, and at this
point, I don’t really mind. I just wish to end the nightmare. And why is my
life such a nightmare? I can’t say. I’m not happy, I suffer, that is all. And
that is wrong. As simple as that.
I realise
I am an extreme case, and perhaps you are not ready for that. I trust life has
been better on you, even though I am aware that it may not be the case. After
all, what you do is certainly hard work, not many could do it, and do it so
well. At least I am quite lively when I am not drunk all by myself. So I am not
always like that. But when I am, dear me, you need all the will power in the
world not to end it, and hope for better days that you know will never come.
Oh well,
I’m just going to finish watching this file I downloaded somewhere:
Indochine
- Video clips (QUALITE EXTRA 672x544 video=2100 Kbps, audio=192 Kbps SATRip Samedi Live W9
28-01-2006).avi
And then
I’ll go to bed.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Message 8
à Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 28
December 2007 via:
http://www.myspace.com/sirkisnicola
My
dearest Nicola,
I wonder
if you read at least one of my previous letters to you. And if so, which one?
Not that it really matters, not one is more important than the other, the
overall letters is what is important.
Tonight I
have been listening first to Le Baiser, then 7000 Danses, then Alice et June, and now Paradize.
A few days ago I listened to Génération Indochine, Danceteria, Un Jour dans notre Vie and Wax. I was getting worried that I might tire
of listening to your music, listening to it like this non-stop for months now,
it really does worry me, because then I don’t know what I would listen to.
Fortunately you have so many albums, and so many great albums at that, that I
believe I still have many months of hard listening to do before I could get
tired of listening to your great voice, your poetry and the great music
accompanying it. It has been a while since I discovered such a gold mine of
great music, even though, most of it, I already knew about and simply just
re-discovered it lately.
I like
the fact that your album has got a z in paradise, which is clearly American.
Even in
Much has
happened to me in the last month. I told you I work in a Crown Court, for over
a year now, and I have been unable in my lifetime to keep a job for more than a
year before. Now it seems that I have signed a new contract for another year.
It is actually the easy way out, this job is no trouble, being on my doorstep,
with people so uninspired and simple minded, that nothing is that threatening
there. For the first time ever, writing a book about my life, that one called
Crown Court Madhouse is actually quite positive, a nice place to work, nice
people I wrote. This is a first for me. You can read it here, in my daily sort
of blog:
http://www.lemarginal.com/madhouse.htm
I went in
there trying to dig out some dirt about them, and denounce it all, and apart
from the fact that most of the top managers have been drug addicts at some
point or another in their lifetime, I found nothing worth reporting. And even
the fact that they were drug addicts is not worthy of writing about, since it
seems quite natural these days. Of course, as long as you forget the fact that
every single day in that court we send people in prison for possession, but
usually it is for with intent to supply. Still, I guess it could look bad, but
not that bad in my opinion. Drugs should have been legalised centuries ago, and
they were then…
This is
precisely what we need to fight against nowadays, not political corruption, not
genocides, but our most basic freedom. I don’t personally take drug, however we
should have that right, and it would solve many other great problems in this
society, it would free up the court system, it would permit the government to
tax it, and probably get rid of a big chunk of the criminal world.
Other
most basic right that I feel we need to fight for are to get rid of most
cameras, ensure the government doesn’t listen to our phone conversations and
emails like this one. This fight, I feel, can no longer be won, not after 9/11
and the new terrorist laws. Even the European government does not care about
our most basic freedom and liberties, or human rights, except in the extreme,
of what happens in the third world. Ours don’t matter anymore. And it is
certainly not serious enough that a civil war will be necessary to get rid of
all that has turn our lives a real misery over that last few years. We have now
learned to live with it, to become perfect citizens as more and more laws and
regulations see the light of day, for our own protection they say, whilst we
feel more and more tracked down, punished, and paying a hefty price, each one of
us, that we are now all criminals without even knowing it. It is clear that the
defence never has accessed to all that CCTV, only the prosecution. And so,
whenever someone does something wrong to you, none of that protection will save
you, it will only be used against you when you do something wrong yourself.
Unless of course it is a rape or a murder, then CCTV will come to your help,
but then, only because the prosecution will be on our side, they will be
defending you. CCTV is but a threat to any of us, it is there as a money
grabbing machine for the governments. Everyone knows it, everyone is powerless
to stop it, and we’re all victims and criminals now, though none of us truly
are.
I am not
usually someone who would talk like this, however after 15 years in
My
partner has been angry all day, I’m not exactly sure why. His mother just
bought him a used car for Christmas, a Smart Roadster, just the toy he needed
to calm him down. A car we obviously could not afford, in the process I lost my
only asset, my Renault 5 Monaco, the deluxe version with leather seats, but
from 1989. It cost his parents to fix it so much in that last month, and it was
still not working, that they decided to buy him a new car, but I lost my car in
the process, and now to flee to Richmond Park during a huge fight is
impossible, I need to ask permission to take the car, and that permission will
not be granted. I have to flee on foot, walk to
I can
talk about all this whilst listening to
The
second battle ground, yet again, is not at a political level, but on work
level, our employers, or our bosses. In my case it is not as complicated as
your situation, I do not have band members, managers and agencies, record
companies, PR and marketing departments and the overall medias and public to
deal with, I only have about eight managers, all telling me what to do, and all
contradicting each other. It is enough to render someone completely bunker.
I did
venture far this Christmas in order to try to connect to them. I went to every
single work party there was, and tried to remind myself that there is nothing
more dangerous than go to a work Christmas party completely drunk. You can so
easily start insulting everyone, as the truth about everyone finally comes out
of every pore in your little body.
That was
before however, nowadays I actually can use these work soirées to my advantage,
use them to help my promotion, and I believe I succeeded this year. I don’t
believe I have insulted anyone apart from a few, but they are unimportant, and
I feel that I have secured all my future promotions with the main managers.
Of
course, most of it is completely meaningless to me, and ultimately in my case
it wouldn’t matter much if I had managed, once again, to alienate all my bosses
within an hour, as I used to do whilst drunk. If you read the beginning of my
blog about it (the link above), and how it all started a year ago, you would
understand what I mean, that I never took that job seriously, that I was only
there as some sort of spy, ready to denounce everything that goes on in one of
the most important criminal court in England. That I found nothing of interest,
doesn’t really matter now. What matters is that I have written 500 if not 600
of a normal published book, about it all. So it has become a big chunk of my
life, of what I will leave to posterity as an author. Just like you would feel
about putting out a new album and see it evolved in history, totally out of
your control, over the years. Yeah, in your case it is much more serious than
in mine, because for you everything is so about commercialism and money, even
though I am sure it is not how you would wish it to be. For me, it is only for
if ever I become a successful author one day, be it after my death, where
suddenly every single word or sentence I will have written will become of the
utmost importance in trying to figure out what I am all about. I have studied
French literature long enough to understand what an army of students at
university level, and professors at that same level, can do to instantly
annihilate all that you may have worked so hard for over the years, just by
misunderstanding one book, one blog, one paragraph within your oeuvre. And
considering that often write whilst completely drunk, and not having the time
to re-read myself, I’m fucked. I hope they will see enough contradictions
everywhere that they will stop and wonder if whenever I wrote something I was
actually completely of my mind or actually very much aware of my position in
this universe.
I don’t
suppose you have that problem. From the time that you write a song, to the time
it appears on a CD and perhaps plays on the radio, an army of people must have
gone over it, and told you to change this word or that sentence. So the version
we get must be completely sanitised and would leave very little for the analyst
given the job to psycho-analyse you to state anything of interest. You are not
likely to be given the chance to make such a mistake as I could do tonight, by
stating something stupid and putting it online within the hour.
I guess I
live dangerously, much more than you ever will. Maybe I like it this way. I
used to wait at least two years before putting my blogs online, by then I
didn’t care at all by whatever I might have said then. I consider everyone
concerned by such a blog as good as dead, because none of them could have now
any influence over my life. I also used to write them all in French, whist
living in an English speaking world. So none of them could actually ever read
what I was writing about them.
I now
have it all online instantly, in English. One curious mind at work could find
it overnight and get me sack the very next day. I have now accused or denounced
all the managers from being drug addict at some point in their past, and that
would be enough for most of them to be sacked, and so if they were to find that
out, I am sure they would protect themselves with law suits against me, sack me
and try to get me to delete it all. I would obey of course, I would have no
choice. I do not seek trouble, especially if they can be so easily avoided by
pushing the delete key. However, I am playing with fire right now, I could lose
my career instantly, by of course this is not my career and I never really
cared about that job anyway in the first place. I don’t even know what else I
could write about this job right now which would warrant me working there for
another year. I feel something will happen soon in my life, as per my destiny,
to bring me somewhere else, so I can write another book about my life which
will actually be interesting, like when I had this job in
http://www.lemarginal.com/corporateamerica.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/kiddo.htm
http://www.themarginal.com/losangeles.htm
Above are
the three links to everything I have written within the year that I was in Los
Angeles, many drunken nights indeed were necessary for these to come into
being, to help in the nightmare I went through. No doubt if any of them were to
read this today, they would sue me, even though it is all true, and how I felt
at the time, and so they would not have a leg to stand on. Not only that, I was
nice to them, well, nicer than I could have been let’s say, because I am not
completely blind to people actually nice to me and who are trying to help me,
and my bosses ultimately, they did try hard to keep me there and happy.
Everyone else around just drove me to madness, and many drunken nights indeed.
I went through hell, even became agoraphobic, couldn’t leave my luxurious flat.
I believe you have a song somewhere talking about what I felt then, something
about you stating that you do not wish to get out of your room anymore, or
something like that.
My year
at the Court in
http://www.lemarginal.com/annamaria.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/destructivism.htm
I
recently got some feedback for my novel Anna Maria, from one important online
magazine and publisher. Most of them read the book, which is actually hard to
achieve, it means that it went beyond the comité de
lecture. Half of them thought they should publish the book, the other half, or
even one important one in there, thought that there was not enough action,
plot, intrigue, etc. They asked me to rewrite it all, that a major re-write was
necessary.
Well, I
have written well over thirty books by now, six published, I’m not stupid. The
novel Anna Maria is fine as it is, there is no need for a major re-write. I
will not be caught dead doing such a thing for a might be publisher, unless I
actually signed a contract with them and I knew it was worth it. I politely
told them to fuck off. If a second and a third publisher tell me the same
thing, I may think again and start re-working it, until then, I know what such
comments are worth, nothing. I will not rewrite Anna Maria, it is perfect as it
is. Anna Maria is exactly what I had in mind, it is exactly what I wanted to do
with it, any more editing would simply destroy it. I prefer to concentrate on
my next novel instead.
I’m still
thinking about my next project, I’m excited about it, even though I still have
no idea about what it will be about. The fact that I am between writing books,
is the only reason I am writing to you now. You will note that it is getting
closer to being the size of a normal published book these days, I am certainly
prolific, if nothing else.
I have
confession to make, whenever you I listen to the song Des Fleurs
pour Salinger, and that you sing the line about Des Écrits
Explosifs, I always thought of myself, because this
is what I have been writing for years, des écrits explosifs. And I wonder, always, how truly explosifs were Salinger’s books for you to state such a
thing in one of your songs. I bet it was nothing explosive compared with me.
Nothing
that explosive could ever go mainstream in the first place, I am not
mainstream, I am raw. And you, just like Salinger I suspect, just like Madonna,
are at the limit of being explosive, so you could still go mainstream, and you
are, all of you. Be extreme and you will immediately be shut down.
Don’t
despair, it is as it should be, any more explosive and none of you would have
been mainstream and got heard in the first place, and so none of you would have
existed. It is harder to be at the limit of being explosive in order to go
mainstream as it is to simply be explosive and never go mainstream. And so what
you have all achieved is highly respectable and admirable. It is the way to go
in order to reach out globally and be heard. It is only with whispers that you
can wake up a nation, it has always been my motto, since my first and only
girlfriend told me so years ago.
That
first and only girlfriend I ever had, is now an insignificant psychologist in
the North of Québec, I found her again last week actually, sent her a message,
she has not answered back, she might not. Who cares? She was a nightmare to
live with anyway, I guess she was too idealistic even for me, and yet, it
amounted to nothing concrete. And I thought she was revolutionary, whilst I
thought I was non-existent whilst I was with her. Well, I am now very much out
there, reaching out, and she is as good as dead. Teaching students about safe
sex and the importance of sexuality. Let me stop here to puke for a second.
Ginette she was called. Ginette. I don’t
believe you would understand the full implications of that name, because I’m
sure you are completely ignorant of the best ever French-Canadian band in
existence. They are called Beau Dommage. If you do
not know that name, I tell you, you are indeed ignorant and you need to buy
their greatest hits. You need to know at least Beau Dommage
and Corbeau, that came out from Québec throughout the
years. This is our making, this is what we’re made of, this is what we’re all
about.
Beau Dommage is to Québec what Indochine is to
I have an
announcement to make, from this second, this conversation à sens
unique is now online on my website. I won’t provide the link, however it is
called On a Drunken Night. Fear not, my dear friend, your name does not appear
anywhere. Except on that last letter which I have not yet edited your name out
of it. I will tonight or in the next few days, whenever I get a minute. So you
won’t be associated with such a devious mind as mine.
How
interesting, it is now a totally different ball game. What I state here is no
longer between you and I, it is actually between me and whoever might end up on
my websites, and be attracted by such a title of On a Drunken Night, amongst so
many other links. Luck and destiny is required here for them to fall on that
very link, since they have so much choice. However, the title, I feel, is
attractive enough. It could lead them right here, and lead them away from other
links I would prefer them to avoid, like my actual blog and the ones of last
year.
I have
however mentioned these blogs here, and provided the links, but it doesn’t
really matter, it is unlikely that they would reach that very page where I
provide these links. My generation has no patience, there is no way they would be
able to read that far, to this very page, before moving on to another website
about perhaps, who knows what, Nintendo? Yeah, that’s about the sum of it. I am
safe. With a two minute attention span, we’re all safe, no one reads beyond the
third page before moving on. Thank God! I may then live to see another day.
And for
the older generation, I’m not worried, they would not even reach my website,
and if they did, they would not even click on one of the links. It is not their
attention span that is the problem here, it is just that new technology is just
too much for them, they would prefer to die than having to surf a website and
read something. Thank God! I may then live to see another day.
Hey, this
is celebration time, a new page online, which would be near 100 pages of a
normal published book. An unexpected page I might add, I never thought I would
be writing to you, and that many pages for a start. I think this is great,
different, refreshing, God knows I can no longer stand my actual blog, I’m just
repeating myself over there, over and over, like if I was stuck in a time loop.
Talking to you, at least, I’m talking about stuff I would never have talked
about in a million years. It broadens my horizons. I hope it does broaden your
horizon too. I would like to think that I am not talking the same boring stuff
than most of your other fans. If so, I might as well shoot myself right now. As
an author, you see, I have to be original, or else, what is the point? However
I am not worried, the crisis that happened on that forum after I put there my
first four letters to you, prove that I am original, that this was something
different that they had never seen before, hence, they instantly went into
panic mode and freaked out about it. Tout le monde a
peur de la différence, du marginal. And yet, I am asking you, what was so different
and marginal in my four first letters you ? I wonder. They don’t need much
to jump to the barricades and start shooting down everyone. No they don’t.
Which is great, I have to say, because I thought it was becoming harder and
harder to be different, to be marginal, I thought it had become impossible,
that there was nothing new under the sun.
I guess
everything is new under the sun for a new generation, because most of them
ignore what came one generation before them, and this is just how it should be,
so everything can still feel new and clean and revolutionary, when we all know
it is old school stuff. But who needs to know? And who needs to shut up about
it? Yeah. Let them live, let us live! For us, this is new, this is our
generation, it has never been done before, and will never be done again. Let us
appreciate the full impact of it, the meaning, the possibilities, we want to
live, encore plus fort! Isn’t that so? Yes it is so.
Well, to
get back to what I was initially trying to tell you, before I became all
philosophical on you, this year I took a big risk, I attended all the Christmas
parties at work, even though they are all Indians at the court, so in fact I
need to get Christ our of it and call these the End of Year celebrations, since
for them Christmas is completely meaningless.
I used to
go to these parties just to insult all my managers and all the top directors,
and one year I reached the summum and insulted the
top owner of all the distilleries that ever were in existence in
http://www.lemarginal.com/eclectisme.htm
Well, all
this to state how dangerous it is to attend these functions. You never know
when you will be accused of attacking someone in the men’s toilets, when in
fact, you barely told them something insignificant.
Well,
this year, I trust I said bad things, especially against the British people,
however it does not really matter, all my bosses are Indians. I have been
promoted, in the New Year I will now be IT Assistant to the Court. It doesn’t
mean more money, in fact it means me going to every single court in the morning
to tell people how to turn on their computer before the Judge arrives, so in all
it is meaningless, and will prevent me from actually doing my job, paying
invoices from counsels and solicitors.
On that
point I have sort of been demoted. I will no longer have to deal with these
invoices, it is a demotion, however, since it is the hardest job at the court,
the one no one wants to do, and that I have been doing it for a whole year,
then they feel it is a recompense to get me off of it.
Sad, I
actually enjoyed the only challenge this court had to offer me. You see, I have
enough experience as a manager, I could run the whole court, however they are
unaware of that. If they had been, they would never have hired me in the first place. I told them I was a moron in
order to get that job, you have no choice if you wish to become a civil servant,
and so far it worked just fine, they don’t suspect anything, they still believe
I am brainless. And I haven’t done anything in that last year to contradict
this, there is no doubt that in their mind, I am brainless. Sometimes it makes
me wonder, perhaps I am brainless after all, that would explain why I fit in so
well.
I only
realised how our daily conversations were so far off anything intellectual, the
day we got an IT Engineer showing up, a Transvestite from
If the
transsexual shows up again, I will speak French, and I will speak against her,
that British bitch colleague of mine, what obviously she is worried about. I
miss him, I mean, I miss her greatly, our conversations. Perhaps I am missing
out, being a simple British civil servant, after all, if a transsexual from
I think I
could marry her, for her mind that is. What a great personality she has. I just
don’t know what I would do with these fake breasts, puke in the sink, I would
imagine. Nobody’s perfect, certainly not I. I’ve got a lot to learn in this
world, but much less than most of the others surrounding me, I know that, at
least, I am at least a bit more open-minded. I would marry her and see where
that adventure would bring me. It would certainly be a great book! And I am so
desperate for sex right now, I could fuck a dog. So a transsexual from
I don’t
think that even André Gide ever stated something like that, I must be off my
mind, it must be the Gin. Better blame all that is wrong with us on alcohol, it
is after all the perfect excuse to everything, isn’t it? I sure hope so.
Despite all your songs, I’m sure this is way beyond your capacity to accept.
Don’t worry, I guess it is also beyond mine. I am gay, I am not an alien,
though sometimes I truly wonder. And who cares anyway? No one, as long as you
do not have a name and some sort of credibility out there, which I don’t, so
I’m still free to say it as it comes. I would marry the bitch from
I am
listening to Alice and June for the third time tonight, I feel this album is
totally off key, filled with distortions, the result is quite weird, and worked
just fine, wonderfully in fact. It is also the first album where what you say
is often impossible to decipher, as if you wished not to be understood on
everything you say. I like that very much, I have to say. This is so new for
you. It is so refreshing.
I just wonder
what your next album might be after that, just as I am wondering what my next
book will be about, in which language, fiction or not. Will we have the
motivation to do it? The chance? Yeah, big questions. And yet, we must,
somehow, continue. I feel, when it comes to you, how important it is for
posterity, for the history of
Just
don’t go mad, we don’t need 15 to 20 songs. Well, it is quite nice, 20 new
songs, considering that most of them are quite extraordinary, but if this is to
stop you from giving us a new album, 9 songs would already be something worth
living for. Actually, start with the idea that you will only do 9 songs, to
motivate yourself and the others, and then go on to do 15 to 20 great ones.
That would be acceptable. And if you can only come up with 9, then we will live
with it and be happy, I tell you.
It is
always easier for me to write a new book if I feel that I am almost at the end
and that it will be finished soon, even though I have just started. You always
feel the need to feel that you can see the end of it, or else, where could you
find the courage to continue and finish the damn thing? Especially when
achieving these things easily take a whole year of your life? So many drunken
nights indeed.
To be
honest with you, I don’t know how I do it, how I managed to write so many books
and actually finish them. I cannot explain it, since each one of them required
a miracle to see the light of day. There is only one explanation, I was born
that way, with this capacity and ability to write books, just like I believe
you were born with this capacity and ability to write great songs and albums,
something I admit out right that I feel I couldn’t do.
So in a
way we are both special in this world, even though your success and my lack of
it could easily mean that only you is special in this world. I however do not
think like this. Commercial success is something admirable, but it is not
everything. You know it, you have come up with great albums in the 90s, and all
of them should have rightly gone to the top, and they didn’t for some reason.
You cannot be failed on this, these albums, these songs, were as great if not
better than what you had achieved before.
So I do
believe that you understand when I say that success is not essential, as long
as you feel that what you have done is truly great, something you can be proud
of. I am proud of what I was able to achieve in my life, nothing else matter. I
feel I have done better than I thought I could ever do, and that is enough for
me, it is the only important criteria. I don’t care for the opinion of others,
only mine is important, and I think this is how it should be. So I don’t feel
like I am popstituting myself.
Somehow I
feel you think just the same. Which is why you continue to this day. Creating
something new out of nothing is your raison d’être, so is mine, until we die.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Message 9
à Nicola Sirkis from Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 7 January
2008 at 20h00:
Dear
Nicola,
Hi Darlin’! You know how we are, us, gay people, we spend all
the money we earn almost instantly, and since we have no children (we can’t
even marry), and no family (our parents reject us all as soon as they learn
we’re gay), and since we’re all rich (somehow we’re all bright cookies with
high salaries), well, we spend a lot. This phenomenon has a name, it is called
the Pink Pound. Whole industries are spending a fortune trying to attract the
pink pound, or Pink Euro in your case I suppose (was there ever a Pink Franc?).
So, today I went shopping, and I feel the need to tell you all about it, just
like us gay people always do, we go shopping and we spend hours telling our
friends all that we bought. (I am being sarcastic, just in case you have not
noticed).
I know
you couldn’t care less to hear about my shopping spree, you might be a bit more
once I tell you what I was shopping for: Indochine DVDs. Highly frustrated from
being unable to find anything Indochine being a few miles away from
After
paying, I realised my folie. I had no idea how much a
Euro costs these days. For all I knew, I might have spent 300 pounds on you. I
almost had a heart attack, and since I am drunk, I knew very well that my heart
attack would actually happen tomorrow morning, once I woke up and realise the
stupid thing I did whilst I was, once again, drunk. Well, I quickly went to a
currency converter website and found out that I spend just a little under 100
pounds on you. Phew! Now I am breathing.
Shit! I
forgot to buy your book! I need to go back and add to my order, this is my
unique chance to buy your book Mauvaises Nouvelles. Thank God I thought of it. Should I buy the
cheap pocket version from J’Ai Lu, or the broché version from JC Lattès, or
something like that?
Dear me!
There are plenty of books about you on amazon, shit,
I have to buy them also. In that case I hope you will forgive me for buying the
pocket version of your book, I just can’t afford hardback cover, and anyway, it
is too difficult to read. Did you know that the only way for me to read a book
these days, is by first scanning it, passing it through a OCR software to
recognise the text, and then read it on my mobile phone? I can no longer read
on paper, I guess this is a generation thing.
Shit,
shit, shit, just about every single book about you is a hardback, and hence I
only bought expensive hardbacks, and so, I have to buy the hardback version of
your book. How sad would it be for me to buy a bunch of books about you, all
hardback, but the very one you wrote would be pocket, this is not acceptable,
so I bought the hardback. Shit, shit, shit, I am spending another 100 Euros on
you tonight, that makes two. I should be shot for being such a victim of my
race, the gay race, Pink Pound indeed, spanning a whole industry. Will someone
stop me? I won’t eat anything for the rest of the month! I know I said we all
had high salaries, and I used to, believe me, but I have decided to become a
civil servant, working around the corner, in order to have time to write my
books, and so I am the poorest cunt alive right now. I’m in trouble. Thank God
I was able to stop myself from buying
Oh God,
Dear God, I just know I will live to regret this. 230 Euros, I am beyond
wanting to know how much that is in pounds sterling. I just hope I can afford
it, the transaction is paid for, for sure, but I certainly will not be going to
Tesco this month. I will go to Marks and Spencer instead, I have 65 pounds
worth of vouchers. I hope it will buy me more than a few carts of blueberries.
You see?
What you make me do? Last time I spent a lot of money on any band, it was the
Moody Blues, I went to their record company in the South of England, bought
every single CD, VCR tape and DVD I could find, spent 150 pounds I think. You
are my record. I never spent that much on anyone in my whole lifetime. I hope
it compensates for all that I have downloaded for free about you over the
Internet. Well, I just need quality right now, not sub-quality products with
such a bad sound, it makes you want to bang your head on the wall. So the
morale of this story is, don’t worry about all those illegal downloads, if we
like it, we will buy it. I almost bought all your CDs as well, for another 100
Euros, and I might eventually, but for now I hope all those DVDs will do the
trick.
So, don’t
you want to know what I have bought? I am so excited! I can’t wait to receive
it all. I spent a bit more to get it within two days, I just couldn’t wait.
However I had to ask them to wait until they got everything before sending it,
otherwise it would have cost me double the amount I spent for shipping. It may
take a while before I receive anything, up to three weeks, I’m just unsure how
I will survive the wait. Three weeks! Shit! You would have thought I was
halfway across the world, that I was in fact living in
Can’t you
do something about it? Can’t you send me your own copies of all these books and
DVDs? You are rich, aren’t you? Well, I would settle for one thing you could
send me, a DVD, a rare one, yeah, send that to me and all that I have just
spent will be forgotten. You must get all sort of stuff from your record
company, rare stuff, that you don’t care about. You have my address. Anyway,
here is what I bought tonight, after drinking a whole bottle of
1 "Indochine : Les Divisions de la joie"
Nicolas Sirkis; DVD; EUR 9,81
1
"Indochine : Indo Live"
Nicolas Sirkis; DVD; EUR 22,58
1 "Indochine : Paradize
Show - Edition Collector"
Indochine; DVD; EUR 20,62
1 "Indochine : L'intégrale des clips (inclus un
poster + son remasterisé en haute-définition)"
Indochine; DVD; EUR 23,08
1 "Indochine : Indochine et Nicola
Sirkis, adorés ou détestés mais toujours là"
Jean-Marc Gosse; DVD; EUR 11,79
1 "Indochine - Alice & June
Tour (Edition 3 DVD)"
Indochine; DVD; EUR 19,63
1 "Les mauvaises nouvelles"
Nicola Sirkis; Broché; EUR 10,81
1 "Indochine de A à Z"
Sébastien Bataille; Poche; EUR 5,40
1 "Sur la muraille d'Indochine"
Philippe Crocq; Broché; EUR
14,32
1 "Indochine : Insolence rock"
Sébastien Michaud; Relié; EUR 23,41
1 "L'aventure Indochine"
Christian
English; Broché; EUR 16,21
Well, I
bet you you just had a small heart attack. I’m sure
there is something in that list that you would not want me to watch or read. If
you’re truly gay, surely one of these books will tell me? Or is your life so
straight, so boring, that there is nothing interesting about you beyond the
obvious and the fake image?
It just
occurred to me, that if I read all those books I could find about you on
Amazon, I will become an expert on you. I would imagine that this bibliography
is complete, Amazon sells everything about everyone, never mind if it is on
backorder or no longer available, it is still there. Short of reading every
single article in newspapers and magazines, which I am sure these books are
mostly based on, I will be an expert on you.
How does
it feel to hear something like that? I know you feel nothing, because I feel
nothing, despite the fact that many university students from all around the
world have contacted me, saying they have written their PhD on me and my books.
It left me blank, I’m not sure why. You would think I would be jumping up and
down, celebrating such a state of affair. Is it not the mark of one who has
succeeded? I think my pretence prevents me from celebrating. I feel such things
are normal for someone who has done as much as I did. I was in fact expecting
much more, and I expect much more for the future. So for me, instead of
celebrating, it bores me to death, it reminds me that I am not everywhere at
once, at the top of my field, just like you are, at the top of your field.
How
pretentious one needs to be to feel like this when confronted with such an
honour, that someone would take the bother to write their PhD on you? Well, in
fact, I just don’t want to let it all go to my head. Or else it will most
certainly explode. And at the moment, I can’t afford my already inflated Ego to
blow up. Anyway, I reached that blowing point many times, and yet, I still woke
up the next day just as it always was, a miserable existence, where, it seems,
everything is still all ahead of me, everything still needs to be done. It is
like re-starting from zero every single time. It kills me. I’m sure you are
highly familiar with that kind of thing. At the end of the day we are all still
human beings, worth almost nothing.
I’m so
depressed right now, I’m not sure why. Yes, you do help a great deal, as I am
always listening to you to motivate me. My boyfriend is about to arrive from
work, I will have to stop writing to you. He is a talking machine, and he talks
bullocks most of the time, it could not even interest a fly. And yet, he needs
to talk and needs to be listened to, and if he doesn’t, he gets the hump, he
freaks out, he attacks me verbally all the time, it becomes harassment, verbal
abuse, and this is my nightmare. An author needs peace, to be left alone, this
is very difficult. He just arrived. He is already panicking because I am still
listening to Indochine, and he cannot tell me all about how his boss harassed
him today at work. And I couldn’t give a fuck about such trivialities. It makes
me want to commit suicide.
Well, it
is time to go to bed for an hour or two, until he goes to bed, and finally I
can write some more, my novel hopefully. So this is goodbye.
By the
way, thank you for adding me as a friend on myspace.
I know you have thousands, well, I have one, you…
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 10 à Nicola Sirkis
from Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 10 January 2008 at 2h18:
Dear Nicola,
Dear, dear, dear Nicola. I feel so sorry
for you. I read on the Internet what people think of you and your band, and
they are damn negative, and crude, and mean, freely, and it is all so
completely unjustified. Is it not obvious that they don’t know anything about
Indochine and never listened to your albums in years? How can they say that you
“chantes faux”? You have the loveliest of voices.
Shit, if they want to listen to opera, they should buy a Pavarotti album.
Don’t you feel people are just parrots in
this society? They repeat and adopt the opinions of others so easily, so
quickly, and so completely, it is very sad. I tell you, people who can actually
form their own opinions and state them are very rare indeed.
Like, it is now very difficult to read any
biography about Indochine which does not appear to have simply been stolen from
Wikipedia. What? Is Wikipedia going to define the life of a band who has been
working for 25 years? Is this what will remain after our death? I hope not.
What is written about me in Wikipedia is quite basic, and shitty.
One needs to be made of cement today in
order to survive and confront the critics. I’m sure you feel that it was much
easier in the 80s. And believe me, it was even easier in the 70s, and probably
so much easier in the 60s. Any old crap was considered great and not one person
was there at the front to say it was crap, whether it was or not. In those days
they were desperate for anything, and anything went. For example, in those
days, my friend tells me, publishers were rushing to all universities like
Today you really do get an instant feedback
from everyone, not just journalists. So you get the great feedback from the die
hard fans, but also everyone else who could not care less about anything you
do, and they certainly voice it, even without reading or listening to anything
you do. And then the parrots take over, and repeat that crap forever, opinions
that are not even theirs, since I believe a great percentage of the population
is simply incapable to have their own opinions, they just adopt the ones of
others, which also explains how it is possible for religion and extremist
political parties to still be so popular, when it is so clear they are all
about the destruction of just about anything, and most especially slavery of
the mind.
And yet, the French people I have met are
much more opinionated than most other people from every other country I lived
in. More than anyone else they can form their own opinion and voice it quite
loudly. The downside is an avalanche of more negativity, since it is quite rare
that they will state anything positive about anything. Today I bet Edith Piaf
and Georges Brassens would remain unknown if they
were coming out today with the very songs that confirmed their success.
Certainly Boris Vian, moving from literature to
music, would have been crucified.
I have suffered many negative critics
myself, so I do have some experience on the subject. Of course it is not on the
scale you have to suffer it. I have developed some carapace over time, just
like you must have. I am not that bothered. The worst of my critics was an old
man who pretended to know all about literature and annihilated me on the spot.
I ignored him. A few days later he apologised and admitted never reading more
than a few pages of one of my books, I have written over 30 books in my
lifetime. How could he destroy me, after reading a few pages, when I have
written over 30,000 in so many different styles? At least he had the decency to
retract himself, it is not often the case. I am able to ignore them without
suffering too much because I have written so much already, and that if they
didn’t like one book in one writing style, I don’t really care, I am not
limited to one book in one style. It will take a lot to really reach me and
destroy my confidence and conviction in what I do. I imagine it is the same for
you.
I am guilty of that myself, criticising
people quite harshly without having invested much time in finding out who they
are and learning about everything they did. I do try to be more careful now. I
remember seeing a play at the
It is just as well, because today I feel
that none of it mattered, his plays were actually boring. I was already writing
then more interesting plays, and to this day none of them even raised an
eyebrow, they never went anywhere. Perhaps because of my failure to communicate
how I saw all of it, where music and light played an important part, but then,
how could they understand this just by reading a play on paper? They couldn’t.
I have not written one single play since then. I do intend to eventually, when
I find the right idea. I can assure you that this time it will be great and
will raise eyebrows. I will get inspiration from Robert
Lepage, la référence québécoise en théâtre.
I’m sorry, I don’t know much about theatre
in
Should I tell you what happened to me
tonight when I arrived from work? Let’s see. It is almost 2 am, I’m working
tomorrow, I am already drunk, still finishing my glass of Gin and Tonic. I
can’t believe I started to drink this disgusting drink because I didn’t have
the money to buy alcohol and I had those bottle of gin in the flat, and now
that I got paid and can buy any alcohol I want, I am actually drinking gin. I
developed a taste for it.
I came back from work and my cousin from
Québec was waiting at the door. His girlfriend kicked him out, she said: pick
up your things and get out! He is leaving tomorrow morning at 9h45 for
My cousin arrived in
Just like me, moving to the other side of
the
He was very honest with his girlfriend,
that was his downfall. If he had lied to her, just like every normal other
straight guy does, it would have been easier for her to hate him and to forget
about him. She is from Cape Town in South Africa, her father used to be extra
rich, to the point where he owned his own planes, but he lost everything when
the colonies decided to take their destiny into their own hands (to
catastrophic consequences, I might add). Zimbabwé. I
don’t know. Does not sound like a place I would like to live, being gay and
all, I do not want to be executed for being gay, you know. Funny, my most
anarchist books have been highly popular in
Funny, I went to speak at a conference at
the
Regards,
Roland
Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 11 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 12 January
2008 at 03h05:
Dear
Nicola,
Today has
been an Indochine day for me, it was all about you. I had the afternoon off,
for Christmas Shopping. I know it is well past Christmas, but at the Court
where I work, for something like a whole century, every single employee always
had a half day off for Christmas shopping, and this year some bitch somewhere
who thinks she’s tough, or who wishes to project the right image of a tough
bitch, cancelled it, for the first time in a hundred years. The back lash was
so huge, I think they sacked her and offered us our half day for Christmas
shopping in late January instead. Oh well… it has become my Indochine half day,
and it has spilled well into the evening, and now about to spill all over the
night.
How
mundane do you wish our conversations to be? Today I walked the dog in
How
mundane do you wish this conversation to be? I am almost ashamed now to tell
you all about me, little me, whilst you are some sort of huge human being
exploding all over the generations, making history faster than I can even
imagine myself to be part of history. Useless it was for me to feel pity for
you after reading a few negative comments over the Internet about your band,
after all the live concerts I watched today, you are adored by millions. Even
my single email to the singer of the Smashing Pumpkins, now that his band is
dead, I’m sure he read. I find it almost unlikely that you would read any of my
eleven messages to you so far. Never mind. You don’t even speak English anyway,
so why should I worry? Of course you have not read any of this, and anyway, it
is not the point.
What did
I watch today? I started with the bonus DVD of Live at Hanoï.
Then the main DVD. It was the first time I actually saw what
I would
have by now moved on to another subject, however after watching both DVDs of
Live in Hanoï, the memories are flooding in. Every
single night that she slept in bed, I woke up with me in her arms, as an excuse
she said that she was used to sleeping with her boyfriend. I understood why
when I finally met him, he was certainly the best looking guy I have ever seen.
And believe it, I was even better looking than him then.
St. Rémy de Provence is also perhaps the loveliest place I have
ever visited in my lifetime. The Roman ruins certainly add a lot, but even
without them the place is a paradise. And so near
I
sincerely hoped I wouldn’t become disrespectful and disgusting, and I truly
apologise for what I am about to state. However, if I do not say it now, it is
unlikely I will ever say it. And this is too important a fact about my life for
me to simply suppress it. My grandfather is also gay, he has always been called
the artist of the family (he has 15 brothers and sisters), great musician,
great cook, great painter and at bricolage. He even
built and decorated his own house. The first ever porno movies I ever had, were
copied from him. These films were either gay, or Vietnamese girls. Do not ask
me why, I have no clue. He used to play these porno movies on Christmas day and
on New Years day in front of the whole family, laughing himself to death,
whilst the rest of the family stood there wide eyes, half scandalised, half,
because we do know him, he is mad, although extremely funny.
So when I
was freshly out of the womb, the porn I had was gay or straight Vietnamese. One
of my cousins eventually stole from me the gay VHS tapes I had, he is now
married, with children I believe, and everyone in the family now conveniently
forgot that for a while, on his wall, he had as many naked pictures of women as
of men. Maybe this is why I so connected with Élizabeth
Nguyen, all the straight porn I had ever watched was with Vietnamese girls,
with a tight vagina, as my grandfather used to say. I don’t really think so,
however I was not displeased when I was waking up with her holding me on her
arms, I did love her, even in a sexual way, which for me is certainly unheard
of. It was certainly my first and final fling for a girl, I must have been 16.
In such an idyllic place, as exotic as St. Rémy and
What else
did I watch today? Vidéo Indochine Concert Grand Rex
24.01.04.avi (MCM En Direct). First I didn’t think it
was Indochine, until I spotted your two teddy bears on one of the speakers.
Then I knew it was you. It started with a bunch of girls singing a song I was
very familiar with, Muse, followed by Creep of Radiohead, both great songs I
love. I think I told you I feel I may have inspired the band Muse, their sci-fi
side, and I believe the song Shrinking Universe is for me, as it is is about suicide, me, and that Shrinking Universe is both
the title of my first sci-fi novel in English and the name of my theoretical
physics theory? This is beyond coincidence. Black Holes is the main subject of
my English website which is a site about helping sci-fi writers, helping figuring
it all out. I was Development Producer and Researcher on a television series
called Black Hole High for NBC. Muse is my favourite band now, after Indochine
and Depeche Mode. I actually only got to know Muse after I did a search on
Shrinking Universe, as I often do, searches on my name and titles of my books,
to find out what people say about me. This is how I discovered Muse.
What I
particularly liked about that video of yours, at the end, are those three songs
you usually never sing, chosen by people over the Internet. Savoure
le Rouge is a song I love, thought I would have chosen Un Jour dans Notre Vie instead. Je n’embrasse
pas was a real surprise, as this is also one of my favourite songs. And you
might not believe it, but I have also a lot to say about Je n’embrasse
pas. A nice little story from my past.
I
particularly love the song Je n’embrasse pas because
in 1994 I saw a film of the same title in a cinema in
If you had
asked me which song I would personally like to see you sing, I would have told
you in no uncertain terms, any song from 7000 Danses,
except Les Tzars. Even though that very song must
have been the one I listened to the most from you in my youth, since I bought
the 45 at the time, before I bought the album.
The songs
on 7000 Danses are not only my favourites of
Indochine, they are all my favourite songs of all time. Now, on that album, my
favourite song is Une Maison
Perdue. As to why this is my favourite song from you, I could not say. I think
we would have to go back to my enfance to find out,
the traumatic state of affair I was going through at the time. Today that song
is all of it, resumed in five minutes and fifty-four seconds. It brings me right
back there, the nightmare of my adolescence. But that album, that song, was my
escape, my evasion, my dreams. It brought
me somewhere else, in another universe. Le refuge d’une
passion émue, la dernière image de la lune. Shit, I am crying now. I must be very sensitive
indeed, oh, I guess I could always blame it on the alcohol.
I guess I
lost track of you after Un Jour dans notre Vie, up until then I was a great fan of yours, and
these songs Un Jour dans notre
Vie and Savoure le Rouge, I listened to like a fan on
TV in Canada, and in my hyper great stereo system. I remember when I bought Le Baiser. That was quite an event. The CD had some special
packaging, with some carton around with Indochine découpé
on it, and the booklet inside was of some special paper I came to love since
then.
Without
knowing of the album Wax, Satellite and Drugstar were
songs I certainly did listen to hardily. So I guess Danceteria
is the album that marked the end of my love affair with you. And the reason is
very simple, I was then living in
Only
after my return from
Most of
the songs were from those two last albums, and I guess that I should have been
annoyed at the fact that I could not recognise any of the songs. However, it
was so extraordinary, such wonderful songs, I think it never crossed my mind. I
just assumed these were songs you did whilst you were out of reach from me,
because I was living between
This is
when I became once again, after 20 years, your number one fan. This is why I am
writing to you now, even though it is possible that even if you had stopped
after Generation Indochine, I would still be writing to you tonight. At least
then I might have reached you. Now, I understand, your last album Live in Hanoï being number one is so many countries, it is unlikely
this message will ever reach you. I have to keep telling myself that it does
not matter, what is important is that I actually write to you, and that I
actually truly enjoy it. This conversation is now well over the length of a
normal and small published book. It is
a testament of my love for you.
“Et il est si beau!”, une jeune fille disait à ta défense
sur un site où tout le monde te détruisait systématiquement. C’est la seule
phrase dont je me souvienne, sans doute parce que je pensais la même chose, bien
que la discussion faisait bien 100 pages d’un forum quelconque. Ça faisait
suite à ton apparition sur un canal français où apparemment tu as été très…
quel est le mot? Merde, je ne me souviens plus. Arrogant. Ils ont même dit que tu
étais suffisant. Tu as parlé de Mylène Farmer, je crois. J’ignore qui est
Mylène Farmer, et de toute manière, je m’en fous éperdument. Tout ce que je
sais est que même sans avoir vu cette émission, je suis tout à fait convaincu
que tu avais raison d’être arrogant et suffisant. Même que ton image actuelle
le demande.
Te rends-tu compte? Tu es devenu un de ces seuls hommes
sur cette planète, qui aussitôt qu’il affirme quelque chose d’extrême, ça fait
la première page de tous les journaux. Te rends-tu compte du pouvoir que tu
détiens? Il est temps que tu balance de côté ton amour propre, ta sensitivité
face à l’aversion et les critiques négatives, et que tu utilises ton pouvoir
régulièrement afin de finir sur la première page, tout simplement en affirmant
des balivernes quelconques sur n’importe qui, comme Mylène Farmer. Go for it ! I’m
sure you will have the bénédiction of your PR
department. Ça ne peut durer qu’un temps, il faut en
profiter et y aller à fond pendant que ça dure. Bientôt, peu importe ce que tu
diras, personne ne sera intéressé.
Pour moi c’est différent. Je ne suis pas une mode qui
passe, une dépêche mode, ce que je dis aujourd’hui n’a aucun impact
aujourd’hui. Ça ne peut avoir un impact que dans 25 ans au moins, peut-être 50.
C’est le temps que ça prend pour un écrivain pour se faire entendre. Et
seulement si l’écrivain en question a réussi à conquérir le coeur
des universitaires. Alors seulement un écrivain sera encore vivant, naîtra, et
seulement alors ce qu’il aura dit signifiera quelque chose. J’en suis fort
conscient. Si je que j’écris n’aura aucune signification dans 25 ou 50 ans, je
suis hors track, hors sujet, je perds mon temps. Un
écrivain ne peut parler que de choses éternelles. Mon cul. Et pourtant, c’est
vrai, en un sens. C’est quelque chose qui ne peut se construire qu’underground,
après 25 ans. J’ai confiance que j’y suis déjà, que j’ai déjà craqué cette
chance. Que je vais peut-être survivre ma mort, car j’en ai déjà fait beaucoup,
sur plusieurs décennies.
Pourrais-je mourir aujourd’hui tout à fait ignoré, comme
si je n’avais jamais écrit quoi que ce soit ? C’est en fait fort possible,
malgré quelques breakthroughs ici et là. Cette idée,
certes, comme tu peux le comprendre, me tue, mais pas tant que ça. En fait, je
ne crois plus que cela m’inquiète vraiment. Malgré que je sois lu par
plusieurs, malgré que peut-être j’ai inspiré des grands, malgré tout, je suis
encore inconnu des masses, avec aucun espoir de changer les choses dans
l’immédiat, et peut-être jamais. Je continue tout de même, comme si j’avais une
mission à accomplir, rapporter les événements de mon temps, comment c’était de
mon vivant. Au tout le moins cela aura une valeur sociologique. Et ça restera
en ligne sur l’Internet longtemps après ma mort. J’en ferai sûr.
Je suis plus connu que je ne me l’admets. J’ignore
pourquoi. Sans doute parce que la reconnaissance que j’escomptais, est celle
que tu as. Et qu’en littérature, cela est impossible. Il n’existe qu’un seul
Michel Houellebecq par 50 ans, et même celui-là je suis convaincu d’avoir
inspiré, au point même où son personnage principal dans Les Éléments (Atomised en anglais/Les Particules Élémentaires) s’appelle
Michel, il est gay, son copain s’appelle Bruno, comme le mien alors, sa mère
Nicole, comme la mienne, et qu’il part une compagnie de conférence, comme moi.
Et j’ai un journal qui s’appelle Les Éléments Urbains, tout à fait une
référence aux particules élémentaires en milieu urbain… alors, est-ce beyond the coincidence ?
J’ai recensé dans ce roman toutes les références à ma vie, dans les 100
premières pages, j’en ai déjà plus d’une centaine. Avoir inspiré Houellebecq…
le seul écrivain français international depuis quelques générations, Jean-Paul
Sartre est mort en 1980, ça vaut peut-être la peine d’avoir vécu jusqu’ici.
J’aimerais m’en convaincre.
La vérité est, j’existe tout à fait indépendamment de ce
monde. Je ne suis qu’un observateur, un témoin. Je rapporte, l’enfer qu’est de
vivre en ces temps, en ces lieux, à l’heure où l’on se pensait tant supérieur au
passé. Voici l’ère moderne où tout est si merveilleux. Non. J’aurais pu être
plus heureux voilà 1000 ans, aujourd’hui cette société n’a su que me conduire
au suicide. Mood : distressed. But for real. A miracle is required to save
me. Sometimes I wonder, if even you, could be that miracle for me. You are so
French, you are so weird, maybe you could be that saviour. Je peux m’identifier avec n’importe qui au Québec, au Canada anglais, en Angletterre, en Irlande, en Cornouailles, en Écosse, en
Australie, en Nouvelle-Zélande et aux Etats-Unis. Mais j’ai peur, de ne pouvoir
m’identifier avec toi, avec
Je ne puis m’identifier avec
On dirait que je suis
en crise d’identité.
Nicola, you brought that upon me. Before you, I was quite happy to be British.
American. And anything else that this world could bring upon me, be it
Vietnamese or Chinese, ou Indochinois.
I wrote something about that, like, 15 years ago. What is it ? Ah, extrait d’Un Québécois à Paris et de L’Attente de Paris, tous deux
publiés à Paris :
« Néomie, on me l'a répété plusieurs fois, elle-même le dit
sans cesse, elle se cherche. La femme de 35 ans aux enfants de 10 et 13 ans,
divorcée, qui n'en peut plus d'attendre sa liberté pour vivre, voyager, étudier
à Paris peut-être et qui se cherche. Elle n'en peut plus d'attendre, elle a 35
ans, elle doit absolument faire ce qu'elle doit et veut faire, elle a 35 ans et
n'a plus de temps à perdre. La limite est atteinte, le gouffre s'en vient,
vite-vite-vite ! Il me semble voir là la façon la plus rapide d'atteindre
le ravin. Elle se cherche. Que veut dire cette expression ? Elle est en crise
d'identité, and so are we,
en crise d'identité. Le gros mot. Le Québec se cherche, les Franco-Ontariens se
cherchent,
Nous sommes tous en crise d’identité. Mais pas moi. Je
suis ce que je suis. Un alien, un étranger, de nulle
part, sans identité, sans terre natale. Je l’ai accepté voilà plus de 15 ans.
Je vais l’assumer. Je ne suis rien, ni personne. Je n’existe pas. Je ne désire
pas exister en ce monde. Car ce monde, je n’y puis m’y identifier, ce monde, ne
m’appartient pas. Et pourquoi je pense qu’il devrait m’appartenir, est un
mystère. Le monde n’appartient à personne, un fait qui semble être oublié par
tout et chacun. Le monde n’appartient à personne. S’y identifier d’une
quelconque manière, est l’erreur ultime de l’humanité. Le monde
n’appartient à personne.
And so, I
should be able to go and live wherever I damn want. You have no authority upon
the subject. If it is my desire to move to Indochine tomorrow morning, I have
that right. Fuck you!
Regards,
Roland
Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 12 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 16 January
2008 at 04h55:
Chère Nicola,
L’avantage d’écrire en français, est que l’on peut définir
le genre. Dear
Nicola just won’t do it tonight.
Cette nuit I have been watching
« Indochine - Canal + Concert Privé & Un
Flirt Sans Fin - Avril 2006 by DarkWillow.avi ».
My bloodstream is going berserk. I’m not sure if it inspires me anything. I
stopped watching it after one hour and fourteen minutes. And then I plugged
myself directly into Alice and June.
And this is
now. Que vais-je maintenant dire ? Que puis-je
dire ? I suppose I could speak my emotions, what I feel, though I am
uncertain what I feel right now. Why do I feel disturbed by what I just
watched? I suppose it hits at many different levels.
Indochine,
is my band, my own band, that no one else in the world knows anything about.
You cannot do any more underground than that. I realise also that I have been
living in my own little closed up bubble universe. I don’t know anything about
France, the people within that country, how they feel, how they fuck (if they
actually do), their taste in music. I am British, it seems, I can only see the
world in a British way. Meaning, we are on the top of the world, and nothing
else exists.
Never
mind about
The real
brain was Margaret Thatcher, just like today it is Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Perhaps also puppets, but maybe puppets more involved than any American
President has ever been, put aside this capacity to cash in millions of pounds
to do what needs to be done in order to remain at the top of the world.
Remember, we cannot blame any of them, to history they will be the well paid
scapegoats. It is who is behind them government after government that truly
matters, and these people are behind and control the United States, Canada and
the United Kingdom, and by extension, the world. And somehow, I think they’re
British, not Americans. So, we are at the top of the world, I am at the top of
the world. (I truly hope you can read all the irony in everything I write to
you, or else, there is truly no point for me to continue to write.)
Being
British I can only move my head up, look at it from quite high up, and snob it
all. They’re mad, they don’t know better, they’re lost, they need us in order
to find the right path. As a consequence, there is not one single French band
or musician which anyone outside of
Viewed
from outside,
There is
no reason why you could not make a full English album, learn to lose this thick
French accent, and actually sing meaningful songs, just like the ones you sing
in French. One would be tempted to simply translate into English your songs,
and that would already be refreshing enough for the English market, but you
can’t do that. It needs to be new stuff, and yet, inspired by what you have
been all about for the last 25 years.
I don’t
believe anything I am saying here tonight, but I continue to extrapolate to see
where it could go. I imagine that many record producers approached you in the
past, suggested to you a full English album that could go global, so they could
cash in millions of pounds. You probably laughed it off, and rightly so,
Indochine is French, not only French, but Indochine symbolises French success,
that it can be done within the hexagon, and still make you a rich man, and be
exported wherever else they don’t actually speak English, and let’s see how
global you can actually be then.
I’m
afraid. You could be tempted to make an English album, and it could be crap,
all surface, dear, and only surface dear. This is not what Indochine has been
known for. And the backlash in
But then,
you would no longer be mine, my band, the only one outside of the French world
actually enjoying something that no one else can, prevented by the language
barrier. For me you are the ultimate underground band, the ultimate alternative
band, the one you need to feel you are the only one to fully appreciate, the
only one to actually love and admire.
All that
to say, you should continue to sing in French. I know it is a pain, because
then you are so victimised by the French press, so limited to
Just
because you switch language does not mean that you should also lower you IQ or
your standards. Words need to be as significant in English as they are in
French. And words are your force, despite the great music accompanying them. It
is the key of your success in English, to remain true to
L’humilité te sied très mal, chère Nicola.
L’humilité me sied très mal, alors même que je n’ai aucune raison d’être
prétentieux. Alors je ne suis pas humble. L’humilité, je ne connais pas. Ça
sied très mal avec la presse, but fuck them. Il n’y a qu’une seule chose qui compte en fin de
compte, l’image que l’on projette pour les fans, les lecteurs assidus, les
écouteurs assidus.
Je parle souvent de ce que je vais laisser à l’humanité,
la postérité, mon oeuvre. Il est fort possible que je
ne laisse absolument rien, au contraire de toi, qui a déjà été la source de
plusieurs livres à ton sujet. C’est la réussite absolue, quoi d’autres
reste-t-il à faire pour toi? En effet, il n’y a rien de plus à prouver. Il ne
reste plus qu’à continuer, à faire mieux, à se parfaire. Mais à devenir
more global? What would be the point? Si la réaction
était négative, ça te tuerait. Si c’était positif, comme ça l’est en ce moment,
well…
Une raison à l’existence. Une raison à continuer. Peu
importe les conséquences, positives ou négatives. Écrire, la seule raison à
notre existence, l’unique raison de notre existence. Le processus de création,
c’est peut-être tout ce qui compte en fait. Et combien ce processus dépend de
tout le reste, comment tout ce reste peut influencer le tout, que peut-être je
devrais arrêter de t’écrire. Je ne voudrais pas influencer quoi que ce soit. J’aimerais
n’être qu’un observateur. Je ne suis qu’un témoin qui rapporte la vie de son
temps. Ce que c’est, ce que c’était, que de vivre en ces temps (quelqu’un
a-t-il un fusil, pour que je puisse me tirer une balle dans la tête ?).
What I
felt tonight, watching that video, that killed me, is that, you are out of
reach. And if you are not, you should be. When someone can put out such great
stuff as you do, there is truly nothing else to say. The art speaks for itself.
Probably exactly what Salinger thought of. When you are successful with the
public, I guess there is no point talking to the press. Only if you are
struggling, then it becomes a necessity, because then, how would people know
you even exist? But if they already know by the millions, then what is the
point?
I’m
listening to Dark right now. Such a great song. I hope you realise everything I
tell you is pure bullocks. I know shit about anything, just like you. I guess
the real danger is to listen to anyone else, when you can only truly trust
yourself, your instincts, what you feel like then. And forget any sort of PR or
marketing speech about people who feel they know better, we all know that they
know shit. I guess you wouldn’t be where you are now if you didn’t already know
what to do, so I will shut up. After all, I am still nowhere, so what do I
know?
I think
you’re doing fine. I also think that you are a genius, a genius mind. Your
interviews, perfection. Your words, your singing, everything, perfection. I
wonder, can you do anything wrong? I have not seen yet anything you did wrong.
I suppose it can only come from a honest and true human being. So I guess you
have nothing to worry about, you cannot go wrong whatever you do.
I love
you. And this I love you, I would say, is more intellectual than physical, even
though I’m sure it is a bit of both. If I had achieved what you have achieved,
I feel I could die happy right now. This is quite central to my existence, to
actually find the right spot for me to die, after which, whatever I may write
might have no impact whatsoever and be of no importance. And as long as I feel
I have done enough, or done everything I could do, the best way that I could,
then dying is fine, even desirable. The problem is that you never know if you
have done enough and couldn’t do more until you finish your next project. So I
always get on with my next project, and see where it can lead me. And then,
remains to hope that one night you will not drink too much, to the point where
you might feel you have nothing else to contribute, and suddenly decide to end
it all. It is a great struggle. Thank god I do not get any feedback whatsoever
on any new book I write, I don’t have to deal with that shite. Otherwise I
would have already committed suicide by now. Though, I have to say, I do have a
great capacity in accepting negative critics, though I always feel they missed
the point, they do not understand anything about what I was trying to do.
Ultimately, they become my motivation, and if I can lose them some more, then
great. These books were obviously not written for them in the first place. Many
people do actually connect, you know. For you it is in the millions, for me it
is in the hundreds, maybe thousands, but I do not think so. Maybe I am too
hermetic, too close minded, too different. Living in my own little bubble
universe, but I would not have it any other way, so fuck them.
This is
the voice of
This is
the voice of
On ne peut faire l’histoire qu’une seule fois, mais on
peut faire l’histoire du début de notre vie jusqu’à la fin.
This is
your voice of
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 13 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 19 January
2008 at 07h16:
Dear
Nicola,
Funny, I
was going to write dear Dominic. I had that in mind, I almost wrote it.
I’m so
fucking depressed. You really can never trust anyone on this planet, no one.
Even when you feel it is safe, that the person is not from
Lies,
lies, and more lies, is all that come out of their mouth. Thank god I have now
so much experience with liars, I can spot them 5000 miles away, but this one
got me going for two days, until I figured it out. And yet, he is from Québec,
I feel he is my brother, I was about to work for months for free for him, on
some lunatic film script for a television series which I knew from the start
had no hope whatsoever, and he got me hooked through lies!
I must be
losing it, can’t believe he got me going for 48 hours. I believed him, that big
wig producer for Radio-Canada, his wonderful project about things from space,
and what else. I cannot believe I even believed that crap about the fact that
he needed a real scriptwriter with some credibility to write his project for
him, because he is recognised as a director, not a scriptwriter.
Even
people from Québec have been contaminated by the
Is there
anyone else on this planet that is still trustworthy? I don’t think so. That is
it, this is the end for me, I will never, ever again, trust anyone. That this
American disease from
N’ont-ils pas de conscience? D’amour propre?
Quoi? Il allait me faire écrire tout son projet pour une série télé, et
m’oublier dans un coin noir ensuite, pensant que je n’aurais jamais l’énergie
et les ressources de le poursuivre en justice, pendant qu’il encaisserait son
argent? Il est malade ou quoi? Ça, ça marche seulement quand on a un grand
studio hollywoodien derrière soit, et lui avait Radio-Canada. C’est tellement
risible, c’est à pleurer.
Et moi mon problème est que je suis
tellement honnête, tellement sensible, c’est à peine si j’arrive à comprendre
cette mentalité de gens prêts à n’importe quoi pour prendre avantage d’autrui.
La plupart du peuple est comme moi, et quand on est confronté à ces êtres sans
vertu, sans morale, nous sommes estomaqués, et alors il est toujours trop tard.
Que des mensonges ne sont sortis de ses
messages depuis deux jours, je les ai crus, mais je me suis fais suffisamment
fourré par Los Angeles depuis plus de cinq ans, je ne suis plus un con. Et même
là, ça m’a pris 48 heures pour comprendre l’infamie, seulement parce qu’il
était québécois, et je ne pensais pas qu’un québécois puisse avoir si peu
d’éthique qu’il utiliserait les tactiques d’Hollywood.
Alors ils sont partout. C’est généralisé,
c’est mondial. Je n’écrirai plus un seul scénario pour la télé ou le cinéma. Je
ne vais qu’écrire des romans et de la littérature. Le monde des médias est
pourri jusqu’à l’os, je ne veux plus rien à voir avec eux.
J’ignore pourquoi je te dis tout ça ce
soir, cette nuit, ce matin en fait. Ce projet que l’on venait de me proposer,
c’était la mort de toute communication future entre toi et moi. Ça allait
manger tout mon temps libre après le travail, à écrire des scénarios d’une
série télévisée pour Radio-Canada, qui certainement n’allait jamais voir le
jour, basée sur autant de mensonges. Alors soudainement, de l’avoir compris, je
me précipite sur toi, Nicola. Ma seule base réelle en
ce monde, et pourtant, pour moi, tu es si virtuel, peut-être même tu n’existes
pas. Enfin, ta musique existe, je l’écoute sans cesse, c’est mon ancre pour
cette réalité futile. Ou alors, c’est mon ancre vers l’évasion, vers l’irréel.
Peut-être que rien n’existe vraiment, finalement.
Je suis enragé! Que l’on puisse me prendre
ainsi pour un imbécile, prêt à être encore une fois exploité! Non! Mon temps
est bien trop précieux. Stick to your rules, man! Ne travaille que sur tes propres projets, ne
développe que tes propres idées, jamais celles des autres. Jamais! Garde
tous tes droits, protège tous tes droits.
There is not one fucker in this world you can trust. You
can only trust yourself, and even then…
You are
my only bit of sanity in this world. Tu es ma seule raison
d’exister.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44 (0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
Note: non, Nicola,
remets la chanson d’avant sur ta page sur MySpace. La
nouvelle chanson va me faire commettre un suicide ou un meurtre.
Note :
I apologise for not being the cool nobody sending you nice videos and pictures
of themselves, if it truly is a representation of themselves. Or nice photos
they took of you on stage whilst touring in
Wonderful,
I can even make myself cry…
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 14 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 22 January
2008 at 2h45:
Dear
Nicola,
Here is
your voice of
I just
wanted to re-assure you that I didn’t suddenly go mad two days ago, well I did,
after the six large counterfeit beers one can buy here in Hounslow, I suspect
directly shipped from
http://www.themarginal.com/changingtimelines.htm
So at the moment, je m’éclate, meme si peut-être toute cette histoire n’ira pas plus loin.
For a
while my messages to you concerning that guy will not appear online, just in
case he reads it and I destroy in the process a unique chance to work on a
television series in Québec. I doubt very much it is worth such precautions,
his project is probably going nowhere, and it is unlikely he would actually find
that very link amongst hundreds on my websites, but you never know, life is
weird and there are many coincidences that still remain unexplained.
I’m
watching right now the video Pink Water. Great song, great video, great words,
this is another classic from Indochine, far superior to anything you have done
before. So classy, so brilliant. How nice must it be to have so much creativity
that you can do whatever you want, and create such classics. Genius. This
inspires me much more than The Secret or Esther Hicks. From what you create, I
am much more likely to go on and produce a classic myself and become immortal
than simply wish myself being a genius and hope to become one the very next
day. I guess inspiration is a necessary ingredient for anything in order to
create something worthy from scratch. Whatever you could wish for yourself, to
suddenly happen overnight, there is still a need for hard work. It will not
come overnight out of nothing. Hard thinking, sweating, hard work, and in the
end, you can fully appreciate what you have accomplished, be proud of yourself,
you have done it, and God only knows where it came from, assuming there is a
God, assuming we are not the God of our own universe. Sorry, this may be a line
I stated many times, but it is also a line of a song by Muse, from the song
Shrinking Universe. I now have to listen to it, but don’t worry, I will
immediately get back to Indochine afterwards. Though I may listen to Hysteria
and Starlight, if you will permit. It is so rare nowadays that I listen to
anything else but Indochine, I’m sure you will forgive me. Shrinking Universe
is an amazing song, if only I could find out if it was truly written for me.
The way he screams, is simply exquisite. Such pain he seems to be suffering. And
what could possibly this song be about? Only myself, I feel, can understand. So
special, I might as well have created this universe which made possible for me
to listen to a song written for myself by one of my heroes. Do you get the
hint? Can you be so inspired by me? Oh, I so wish so… and you better suffer,
and sound like you suffer, just like in Shrinking Universe. I am joking with
you… well, half joking really. You better suffer, let’s hear it, just like in the
Shrinking Universe! Whilst you ponder on this, and manage to download the song
somehow, I will pour myself another Pernod.
Isn’t this conversation à sens unique refreshing?
Is this
not comfy? Oh, it is so re-assuring, it is so awe inspiring, that you may be
there at the other end actually reading it, and understanding it, it makes my
existence all worthwhile, for a while anyway.
I heard
you were working on a new album, which might be ready by the year 2009. I have
to say, I’m so pleased to hear it. Not only that, you have offered me so much
up until now, that waiting until next year won’t be a problem. I can wait, as
long as this wait will make it all worthwhile, and that what you will bring us,
bring me, will make the wait all… worthwhile. You do intend to make it
worthwhile, don’t you? You better… (I am again being ironic.)
Your mood
on myspace has been distressed for as far as I can
remember. I hope your new album somehow will reflect that distressing mood,
even though you have in recent years enjoyed so much success and must have
become such a rich man. I hope that you do understand that none of your fans
truly really cares about that, we’re not stupid, we all know that the American
Dream is all but a fake, and that no matter in how many millions of Old French
Francs you roll in, this is not the way to happiness, and that you can still be
as depressed and distressed as one needs to be in order to get the inspiration
required to write the best album ever.
Surely
your wife does not understand you, surely your children drive you as mad as my
parrot and my dog and my seven cats do, they drive me to insanity! Surely you
are depressed from such a lack of absolute freedom. And so, surely you can
continue on your string of doing better and better and bring us the best album
you have ever made? I trust that you can… no pressure! This is a problem you
have to deal with, that is a problem I do not have to deal with, thank God. I
am as free as a bird on the wire… to do whatever I want, to create whatever I
want, be it as crazy as it may be, no one cares. Be it a lesson to you. You are
as free as the air as well, go for it, go mad! I could so write your album, it
would take me one night, on a drunken night, just like tonight. That’s all.
There, I finally justified the title of my correspondence to you. On a drunken
night like tonight, I could write you a whole new album, dépressif
à souhait, it could not fail to be a number one, once
again.
I
sometimes wonder what you were thinking of when you filmed the video Troisième Sexe. I wonder if you
know then, that you were making history. In that very video where you were
wearing a dress and a blouse, even though you actually looked really cool,
despite the fact that this was even more revolutionary then, than your
guitarist today wearing some weird leather dress. I wonder, if you knew then
that you were making history, and that none of us would ever be able to forget
it. Wow, what a moment, this is something. And it is even more so today, that
you have no idea even today that this was making history. How proud would I be
if I even got a glimpse of that today, through whatever I may have written, I
could never have such an impact on just about everything that there is, that
existed until then. And I’m sure, all of this came out of such spontaneity, so
little calculations about what you were doing, it was just like a big sudden
explosion. Let’s get out there and screw everyone else, we don’t give a shit.
It blows me away. It is as if I had written something crazy one night I was
very drunk, woke up the next day in shear horror at what I had done, and yet,
incapable of stopping my ultimate mistake. But that this ultimate mistake went
on to become history and change the planet. I can only admire such spontaneity,
such madness. And I wonder, today, is such mistakes possible? Is such
spontaneity possible? I wonder. Still, might be more calculated now, you are
still at the forefront of that madness, of that spontaneity, even today. Might
be more difficult to make history now, it seems the world has seen it all, yet,
no one is like you are in the French world still today, so I guess, you are
still making history. It was your attitude, your frustration, your anger we
could see, we could feel, that’s what made you so cool despite everything else.
For all we know, then you were perhaps on drugs, and that would make it even
better, as if you were out of your mind, not knowing what you were doing, what
better way to make history. But no, I do not feel you ever took drugs, that you
were even drunk before a show, and that makes it even better to me. Ça a été fait à froid. Then you must have been off your mind, and you must
still be to this day. This is admirable. I am in awe before you. I wish I was
that far gone à froid, that I was so bold à froid. Perhaps I am, I know I am, I certainly feel this
world could blow up at any moment, and this is perhaps why I admire you so
much. You are unique.
You know,
I am gay. And yet, when I was a teenager, I still had girlfriends, three to be
précised. The last one, I think I only loved, or liked, because she looked like
that fat girl in your video Savoure le Rouge. She was
dancing just like that, I recognised her so much from that image, it may be why
I was first attracted to her. What a disaster. I almost caused her to commit
suicide when I left her. Just like I almost did for my three girlfriends. I was
so good looking then, so cute, I would have committed suicide myself if I had
lost myself as a boyfriend, and being so intimate and all, without actually
ever a penetration. But I was gay, and I was about to start my life, ma jeunesse, at such a late time. That girl eventually
married, I met them both one night, he was kind of okay, I could see she was
still in love with me, and she was not even hiding it in front of her
boyfriend, who eventually became her husband. I felt bad, really bad. Poor guy,
he should have dropped her there on the spot, but I guess he loved her. He was
willing to accept his fiancée having one last dreamy night holding the hands of
her first love, an impossible one. After I broke up with her, we were still
friends. We found ourselves on a bench on
Well, she
survived, she married that cunt of a husband eventually, she, I hope, forgot
about me. I certainly never did. I’m still traumatised to this day. That I
could have caused so much pain without realising. And did so with at least two
others girls who certainly never deserved it. And who seem now to live with
feeling that they are still something from their life, even though they are
happily married with children. It was to be the love affair of a lifetime, but
it didn’t quite worked that way. I was gay. I still loved them, spiritually I
guess, certainly not physically. Dear God.
If I had
known then that I would end up in London with a fucking whinging boyfriend, who
seems to hate me as much as he says that he is willing to die for me out of
love, I would have married any of them, and I’m sure I would have led such a
happier life than anything I have experienced so far… I wonder sometimes.
That is
nothing compared with Christiane. Christiane is mon amie d’enfance. We spent every day
together for years. She was so in love with me, a love I simply could not
understand, she asked me many times to squeeze her in my arms, and though it
meant the world to her, it meant nothing to me. She has been in love with me
for at least a decade, a decade that I was so depressed myself and so close to
suicide, because I thought I would never know what love was all about, because
I was gay, and that it seemed to me at the time that I was unique in the world,
it apparently made me more irresistible to her.
She is
now married, with a man who does not want sex, who seem gay from my point of
view, but hey, they have two children, and I cannot deny that as children go,
they must be the best two looking kids in the world. Still, I feel something is
missing in her life, still today. She is the only girl I ejaculated with, and
believe me, I had quite a hard on then. She simply looked at my in the eye when
I ejaculated, she said she wanted to remember this moment. I even thought I
would marry her, I thought it was my only solution then. How miserable I would have
made her life. I think she is miserable now, but at least, I am not responsible
for her misery. I hope her children compensate for that misery. I wish her
children were mine and hers, not the one of a stranger who does not deserve it,
who should not even be in the picture, especially that he is no better than I
could have been. Better not think about this too much.
I’m sure
you will be pleased to hear that I eventually married a woman. She was French,
she was mad, she was punk, she was a lesbian, and yet, managed to become
pregnant, expediting our divorce. No, the child was not mine, I never slept
with her. Her wedding dress, that I bought with my meagre salary, was of a dark
leather read, it opened at the back to let everyone see her ass. An invitation
to fuck her. My wedding turned out to be a cocaine party, of which, I was the
only one who did not take any. I was anyway so drunk, I guess I was as far gone
as any of them. What a nightmare that was. I remained in
http://www.lemarginal.com/eclectisme.htm
I think
you should read that book. I think this is the most profound book I will ever
write. It is certainly the only book I have written that made my father proud
of having a son for a writer. I cannot think of a better praise, even though
out of the six books of mine that have been published, L’Éclectisme
is by far my biggest flop. It does not matter, for me, it is my greatest and only
achievement, as I never thought such a book could ever be published. And now,
of all that might remain of me after my death, at the very least that book will
survive dans la bibliothèque nationale
de France, wherever that is. That is all that matters to me. I cannot ever die
now. I will never write another book like that, you need to be in a special
place, you see, I cannot see how I will ever find myself in such a place again.
It is unique, it is making history, just like Troisième
Sexe, off your mind, doing something without even
noticing, without even being aware you are doing it, and yet, it speaks volume,
that is what is called making history, whatever at what scale…
I
remember the very day I started that book, I was living in Paris, at
The first
time I was forced to try a Pastis of Marseille, my
Vietnamese or Indochinoise friend from St-Rémy forced it down my throat, in
I’m
listening to June right now. Shit, this is really out of this world. And yet, I
feel I could have written something like that, if I had to move back home in
There is
no hope for me, I’m so far gone already.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 15 à Nicola Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Sent 25 January
2008 at 4h05:
Dear
Nicola,
Can you
believe that fucker who sent me an e-mail? He read six pages I have written in
my entire life, out of 30,000, and gave his verdict about who I am, what I
write, what I am all about. Online! For thousands who will reach his website to
read, at the first search on Google. His critic will become me, all that I am
about right now! I know you suffer the same faith, inutile de le denier. Il faut vivre avec, somehow, I don’t really care, I really
don’t give a shit.
This is
what he read (and it is in French):
http://www.lemarginal.com/3615mavie.htm
And this
is what he wrote:
De : Jérôme Ecolan d'Armor [mailto:
Envoyé : 23 January 2008 15:55
À : rm@themarginal.com
Objet : Aujourd'hui j'ai écrit ça dans mon journal.
Aujourd’hui j’ai écrit ça
dans mon journal.
Mais comment fait Roland Michel Tremblay pour écrire autant (et aussi
mal) ?
Qu’il soit québécois n’est pas une excuse, Dieu ! que non. La richesse
francophone de l’Hiver (pour reprendre la merveilleuse image de Gilles Vigneau)
est bien au contraire sans égal et si rafraîchissante pour nous : pauvres
francophones ! estampillés du vieux monde.
Je
choisis au hasard un extrait de son journal en libre accès sur son site. Et
chaque fois je suis estomaqué. Il lui faut une page pour dire ce que j’écrirai
avec trois fois moins de mots. Malgré cela, son style - devrai-je évoqué un
non-style à tel point il en devient précisément un - à l’emporte pièce, cette
manière de façonner à la vitesse d’impactes de mitraillette, de dire et s’y
perdre jusqu’à ne plus certainement savoir lui-même où il va ni de quoi il
parle ni d’où il est parti ; ce style donc, le sien et unique, me fascine.
Une telle spontanéité m’émerveille. J’aimerai avoir aussi peu de scrupules à
simplifier, dire sans y revenir. R.M. Tremblay écrit comme tout auteur devrait
s’efforcer à le faire : sans se relire ou, mieux encore, en faisant croire
qu’il ne se relit pas. Vue de l’extérieur son journal est un délicieux constat
d’échec. On y croise tout un univers prévertien : le musicien qu’il n’est
pas, des collègues encore plus névrotiques que lui, l’enfer, le paradis, une
star de cinéma, le peuple anglais, le Canada, un écrivain troublé (lui), un
perroquet, du whisky vomi sur un clavier déshabillé de ses touches, quelques
pilules en vrac mais en fait inexistantes, une fenêtre d’où il souhaite tout
balancer, ses ambitions de gardien de nuit, un chat… quoi d’autre encore ?
La vie. Tout simplement la vie d’un jeune auteur prolixe convaincu d’un talent
dont, semble t-il, lui seul se reproche les élans.
Je n’attends aucune
réponse.
Le plaisir de vous avoir lu
me suffit.
Jérôme
Don’t you think he needs to be
shot ? In the head? I think so. Well, I don’t really, to be honest, I
really don’t give a shit. All I am worried about is that it is 4 am, and I have
to go to work tomorrow, and I am drunk, and I won’t survive the day. I should
be shot for that alone.
There is
no hope for me, I’m so far gone already.
Regards,
Roland Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
Message 16 et dernier message à Nicola
Sirkis de Roland Michel Tremblay
Written on 8 February
2008, sent on 15 February 2008
Dear Nicola,
This is my last message
to you. You have to understand, it has nothing to do with you, because I love
you, and I always will. Something happened. Something horrible that it seems I
cannot get over with. It has destroyed everything. It has destroyed my love
affair with you. I hope not.
It seems that I am now
still in love with everything you have done before Oli
the Sat came into your life. Anything that I am certain he had nothing to do
with. Everything you ever done before then, I still love, and can listen to.
Anything after, anything after Satellite, I am telling you, it is painful for
me to listen to. I am not sure if I can recover, if I will recover.
You don’t really have
to worry about it. The man is childlike, he is as much in love with you as he
ever was, and for that very reason, I guess, he shut me off when I tried to
contact him.
In a way, this is quite
a result. He shut me off, he rendered me unable to send him any message on his myspace. So in a way, I created a reaction, I reached him,
I reached Indochine somehow, enough that Indochine decided to prevent me from
sending them any message. And yet, it has somehow destroyed everything. It
rendered me incapable of writing to you anymore, as I feel, I don’t know what I
feel, certainly it made me feel like I was undesirable, that what I was writing
to you was not welcome, perhaps even offensive. I felt guilty, I felt bad, I can
no longer write to you.
It has affected me more
than I wanted to admit to myself. I tried to convinced myself that if Oli de Sat decided to ban me from sending him messages, it
was out of loyalty for you, but how could I possibly think that? I felt this was
so rude, I could no longer even listen to Indochine. I went back to Love and
Rockets, Depeche Mode, The Charlatans, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, anything still
bearable that could make me forget Indochine. Somehow it didn’t work, it left
me with no music to listen to, to be motivated about, to inspire me.
I cannot even tell you
to get rid of the man, he is obviously some sort of genius mind, and even
though he would be nothing today without you, he can still make out of
Indochine something worth listening to. I have to admit, I completely fell into
his influence, what he made of Indochine. How could I regret you taking him on
board and the influence he might have had on Indochine?
And yet, from my
personal experience with him, for me, Indochine might as well be dead now. I
can no longer love you, I have been hurt deeply. So much better and intelligent
it was for you to accept all incoming communication, never to answer any of
them, and yet let us believe you might at some point read it, than actually
just shut us down and clearly making it clear that our simple little messages
of appreciation to you were so unwelcome and so distressful, that you needed to
ban us altogether.
Yes, I got a reaction
from Indochine, but it was such a bad one, I can no longer write to you, I can
barely listen to you. I am that close to tell you that I hate you. However, I
can still, I hope, make a distinction between a member of your band and
yourself. I hope… I wonder.
I guess I am sensitive,
too sensitive. I don’t need much to upset me. I hoped I would get over it in
time, this is why I waited before sending you this message, I find that I am
unable to. This is why this is my last message to you.
Not that it really
matters, accepting all incoming messages as you do, you certainly do not upset
anyone, but certainly you do not read anything coming through. So I guess it is
time for me to move on. Forget about you, create my own things, built up my own
legacy.
I don’t know how many
books I started writing since I first contacted you, a few are becoming quite
real, I can see myself finishing writing some of them. I guess I should
concentrate on that. It makes me forget, it makes me stronger. I hadn’t
realised how sensitive I was. So here we are, my last message to you.
This conversation will
still remain online on my website, for this unique reason that I have written
to you a whole book, and so much work and energy in my case cannot simply go to
waste. Most of it is about me, about how I feel, and so, it deserves to remain
online. It is an insight on who I was in that specific period of time, in that
specific state of mind. What I was all about, what I was thinking, and so I
cannot delete it as I initially intended to.
I suppose this love
affair had to end at some point, I would have thought it would have ended after
some sort of life changing event within my own existence, or a crisis external
to you, but it is as well that it will end like this.
I was listening to
Depeche Mode, and I felt happy that they never shut me down in such a way. I
have to admit however that I never tried to impose myself into their existence
before. If I had tried, who knows, I might have been met by a brick wall. I
have actually met one member of the band Depeche Mode in
I wanted to go to Lille
to watch your next concert, I wanted to bring along my partner, I’m sure he
would have loved it, even though he is British and cannot understand a word of
French. It would have been such an adventure. This was a crazy idea. I will
never ever see Indochine live now. I feel so bad. I feel so guilty somehow,
ashamed with myself, I should never have written to you in the first place. I
don’t even understand why I did it. I’m truly sorry.
Why you, amongst all
the bands I love so much? Only because I thought you were reachable, that you
would read what I would send you. Now I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I am
so sorry about this, how this simple little correspondence to you, could have
turned into such a shameful nightmare for me, that I might very well delete
this book I have written to you, at the very least, until the day I die.
You have to admit, what
I have written to you, is not worthy of an author who wishes to transcend
history. It is so disgraceful, the little kid in love with a music band, I
might as well just die. Lost all credibility after this, and yet, I could not help it, I did it, I put it online, and I
still do, because I love you, because I feel Indochine is a significant band,
because I feel you are about something, and it is worth considering. That within
Please, if you do
happen to read this, do not mention it to Oli de Sat.
I still think the man is essential to your next album. And if this is my last
message to you, perhaps it is because it was the right time after all. I need
to move on, I needed something to remind me, I have my whole universe to
create, and it must be independent from anything else, even Indochine, even
you.
Long life!
Regards,
Roland
Michel Tremblay
44E The
Grove, Isleworth, Middx,
Tel: +44
(0)20 8847 5586, Mobile: +44 (0)794 127 1010
All
previous messages to you here (in different formats):
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.htm
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.doc
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.pdf
http://www.lemarginal.com/onadrunkennight.lit
*** fin ***