Confessing My Guilty Pleasures

I’m going to start this like a fourteen-year-old with no creative writing aptitude whatsoever who has been handed a comprehension task in English, by writing an asinine and pedestrian question: What is a ‘guilty pleasure?’  A guilty pleasure can probably best be described as an art form, be it literature or music or film or television, or an activity which is considered a bit naff or in poor taste by the general public, but one in which the subject person takes a secretive joy.  Like line-dancing.  Or maybe Adam Sandler movies.  I will take this opportunity to point out I do not refer to myself; I would quite simply rather drag a cheese grater over my scalp than suffer through one of his execrable movies.  I’ve never line-danced, either.  Maybe one day I will, but the day does not appear to be forthcoming.

 

I am going to confess that I, too, have guilty pleasures.  Confessing is supposed to be good for the soul.  I’m not buying it.  I haven’t knelt in a Confessional for well over thirty-five years, and given some of my more nefarious habits, have this image of myself whispering, ‘Bless me father for I have sinned.  Can’t remember my last confession, but I was about eleven years old.  Have you packed a lunch?  Never mind, just put me down for one of most things but I don’t steal and I don’t murder, okay? Oh, and I’m not one for coveting the neighbour’s wife.’

 

I try to be high-brow, and I try to be cool, and I try to be healthy.   But there are some things I like to do when nobody’s around.  There are things on the Internet I like to view.  The Internet has made viewing this material very easy.

 It is when I’m alone I gain the most frisson with my guilty pleasure viewing.  I prepare a simplistic meal of steamed vegetables (possibly to atone in some way for what I am planning to do).  I might undo my good healthy work by pouring a glass of wine.  I will possibly close the blinds, and then sit at my computer.  Even with the blinds drawn, I will take a furtive glance around, and then search the material I wish to view, and feel soiled for viewing. 

 

I cannot help it.  There is a great joy to be had when one finds a clip of Ernie Sigley introducing Jamie Redfern to sing Hitch A Ride On A Smile.  It is the ultimate in guilty pleasures to watch the talented lad (and he was talented) singing a cheesy song, as he executes some terribly choppy moves, dressed in a jump suit adored with Native American style fringes on the shoulders and shins.  The suit is very badly fitted, which could explain the awkwardness to his dancing.  Either that or a shit choreographer, unless he’s trying to remember some of the routines from Young Talent Time.

 This does not sate me in my questionable viewing.  After this, I am inspired to seek more.  I find myself looking at another Gilbert O’Sullivan.  I don’t mind a bit of old Gilbert.  Some people swoon over Alone Again, Naturally.  I don’t; it’s got to be the most incongruously upbeat tune behind the most lugubrious lyrics ever.  I like Get Down, even if the woman of his affection is being likened to some kind of mutt.  No, what I really sicken and embarrass myself by watching O Babe, What Would You Say?  It’s a monstrous guilty pleasure, made even worse by Gilbert’s dance moves, which eclipse Jamie Redfern’s for sheer uncoordinated spasticity.  Seriously, those moves are straight out of the school dances of good old Merriwa High School back in the late Seventies.

 After this, I wipe the sweat away and watch something perhaps a little more innocuous.  It’s Tony Christie singing I Did What I Did For Maria, an uplifting first person narrative by a guy about to face the firing squad.  Tony’s dance moves are little more fluid than Jamie’s and Gilbert.  I noticed this once I was able to look away from the moose knuckle brought about by the tight pants.

I’m not sure if I should feel good at revealing this about myself.  Is it a weight from my shoulders?  I don’t know.  Sometimes, I feel like I should be at a support meeting, standing up and saying, ‘Hello.  My name’s Simone, and I like looking at daggy video clips on You Tube.’