Jarkko Lehmus Diary

Whoa!!! Who Stole The Time?

It's been a couple of months since the last entry and I really managed to stretch myself thin during that time, but, ladies and gentlemen, the man's back in the house! And when I say the house I mean The House, as in My House! Yes, sire, I'm a proud owner of a rather lovely Victorian top floor flat on the South Side of Glasgow. Wicked! Being the jammy git that I am I also snared in two tenants to pay for my mortgage. Sorted. Unfortunately that means that I can't walk around naked when ever I want. Boo-hoo! The sacrifices we make... On a brighter note I can still indulge in my naturist passions in the comfort of my own bedroom. Nice.

I have to say though, that this whole flat buying business really took it out of me. The whole process took about ten months not including doing the place up, having a huge party and cleaning up after it. It's all been woth it though; there's nothing like having a place you can call home. I love waking up in my own bed, in my own home, and just lie there for a while and let it all sink in. It's a feeling very closely related to the one I had when I got the job with Scottish Ballet, my first full-time contract and my first own flat. It's a very rooting feeling building a life after being a rootless and penniless free-lance nomad for near enough ten years.

I'd better keep my butt on the straight and narrow to keep the job then. I need to be useable enough to claim my position in a ballet company which is occasionally a bit tricky because me and tights don't play well together. Another niggling problem is my abused body. See, when i was a kid I used to think I was invincible and unvulnerable and I'm paying the price for that now and trying to drown the sorrow in the bottle which is probably destroying my liver. Damn... A no-way-out-situation! The traditional Finnish way of dealing with it would be to drink more, but I can't do it the way I used to. It's this work I tell you. It's messing up my drinking habit! Since I can't drink my problems away I guess I have to face them and actually deal with them. What's that about? Real men don't deal with problems, they ignore them and hope that they'll go away. Then again, real men aren't supposed to dance either...

So what's the business with the company? The Spring Season's almost done. A couple of days in Inverness (I havent' booked my accomodation yet..).and it's all history: Ms Margaret Barbieri teaching charleston in ballet-jargon (In my book dancing is just a funny way of walking, but if someone else insists on calling a run a jete, it's fine by me. There's enough space for all of us on this little mudball of ours.), venerable Mr Alexander Grant showing the moves although he can hardly walk (Respect to the man!), subjecting the body to another full scale assault from "32 Cryptograms" and getting paid for rolling around on the floor with beautiful women while Aphex Twin is pumping through the speakers and Ashley is watching over. It's been an interesting process and during it I did my back in a couple of times and my left knee and my left ankle and my head a few times. Did I mention stretching myself a bit thinly earlier? Live fast, die youg, and all that jazz.

On the whole the audiences seem to be picking up every season which spells good things for the future and finally I can officially talk about the future. Edinburgh Festival sees the company for the first time for twenty year, the programme is pure Balanchine so me and Diana will be grooving at the Dance Base while the rest of the company's tearing their tights on the Playhouse stage. The Tramway-project is inching itself forward and the move should happen, the gods of the builders allowing, during the spring of 2008. Chris Barron, the Chief Executive and the driving force of the Company's rejuvenation alongside Ashley, is leaving for greener pastures of Birmingham Royal Ballet next autumn so we're on the market for a new CEO and a bunch of board members, and Fiona Gibson from the fund raising is going to seek artistic fulfillment on the design field. Fancy running a national ballet company or trying to get enough money together for someone else to blow it? Go ahead, you know you want to! A flock of fresh dancing blood is dribbling in during the spring to fill the ranks. It'll be interesting to see who bit the bullet. It's not such a bad place to be, although one of our cellists threw the bow in the corner a couple of days ago. May he rest in peace. A moment of silence, please. (Que uneasy shuffling and sniffling noises.) Thank you.

Coming from Finland, the long time king of the suicide and alcohol abuse statistics, I aim to enjoy my own life all the more while it lasts. Even if it kills me. Lately my form has been flagging a bit so I called in reinforcements from Helsinki and the assault force of three (Artzi, Jussi and Pekka) flew in last week armed with four litres of Koskenkorva, dry white Finnish table wine (in a true Finnish fashion drunk lukewarm from the breast pocket), and a sack full of sausages, rye bread and salty liqourice, all the good things a man needs to shoot his blood pressure through the roof. The least I could do to make them comfortable after their arduous journey was to get a stretch limo and a lovely lady to pick them up from the airport. They were so grateful that they promptly drank all the booze in the house and poured the rest down my neck and once it was all finished these fine gentlemen trekked to the distillery on the Isle of Arran to buy some more and brought back half the stock in their rucksacks and continued helping me rid myself of the deadly dehydration. It's quite astounding how one even after drinking all night still wakes up with a dry mouth and a headache. Now that I'm back in form, maybe I don't need to face my problems after all... I sign off by sending my love to my homies in Helsinki and my liver to Quick-Fit.

My man Pekka The Tank ready to save the Scottish distillery business.

Posted by Jarkko at April 25, 2005 01:29 AM