glengarry glen ross.
There was a time, a couple of decades ago maybe, when I rather fancied to have the Stooges' "Gimme Danger" played at my funeral. Well might you chortle. These days I am no longer quite so given over to melodrama. At a push I often feel Lieutenant Pigeon's "Mouldy Old Dough" would be a good deal more fitting. Not to mention modest.
I can easily visualize some c@nt in black tails and stovepipe hat fidget a liver spotted finger onto the button primed to lower my casket as that jaunty drum roll kicks in. Like Jacob Marlowe in leather and mothballs, I take some rancorous comfort in those perceived gasps fluttering up from the pews. Assuming the news of my demise might scrape up any mourners at all, of course. The way things are heading fiscally, the end result is more likely to be a black plastic body bag stuffed in the fiery maw of an anonymous hospital waste disposal unit.
Worst case scenario ? Our government has already drafted a skein of (none too) secret measures to cope with the anticipated surfeit of Swine Flu fatalities. Mass burials might soon be back in vogue on European soil.
For a time back when I brokered health insurance. There's a laugh; have I confessed that one before ?
I even sold life insurance direct down the phone; cold calling at its worst. Of course, neither myself or my fellow agents ever dreamt of similarly investing in the same. Think 'Glengarry Glen Ross' and you would not veer too wide of the mark. The floor we worked stank of mints and bad feet. Farts and desperation.
A supervisor patrolling the aisles of our hunched undead once found a bag of smack in the cracks between floor tiles.
I'm sorry. I hope I never sold you any product, brothers and sisters. I had a gun to my head. Meantime, like Tiny Tim on death row, I tiptoed through the tulips.
I'm doing my utmost to make up for it now.
Recorded September 10th - October 6th, 1972 at CBS Studios, London.
▼ IGGY & THE STOOGES: GIMME DANGER from "Raw Power" LP (Columbia) 1973 (US)
4 comments:
Ah, Glengarry Glen Ross...a great movie and I can understand the use of the comparison to your time in Salesville
I think the Factory gives us life insurance in case we fall down on the job, die with one's boots on as it were.
I've often given thoughts to what I would liked played before my final push across the River Sanzu; and I have long desired the wonderful track "Stone Dead Forever" by Motorhead (specifically, the Golden Years EP version) . I hope that the irony will not be lost upon the mourning few.
'Salesville UK' was a soul-destroying workplace to inhabit. The most successful call centres were called upon as a blueprint for those huge financial institutions to emulate in their thirst for profit in the days before it all went tits up.
FSA guidelines were largely ignored, and the dedication to training sales teams grossly minimised.
I think we all have a clearer idea these days where we stand with regard to the bonus led culture so beloved of Thatcher and Blair alike.
BTW, I haven't heard the Golden Years EP version, I don't believe; "top tycoons", you and me both.
You need to hear the Golden Years EP version of Stone Dead Forever, it is electriFRYingly brilliant
Here's a taste
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m64nlADfE5Y
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