What do you want from Life - The Tubes

Lyrics:- How can you tell you are doing all right, does your bank account swell while you’re dreaming at night? – Spooner & Evans

Song Choice:- If you were sixteen in 1978, and into ‘Live Albums’ as much as I was back then, your choice of vinyl was probably ‘What do you want from Live’ by The Tubes. They were an American Quasi-Pornographic-Rock-Band, and this 72-minute satirical comment on media, consumerism and politics delivered by larger than life scantily-clad characters that Mary Whitehouse would hate, was everything I could ever desire in an album. It still sounds ‘Alive’ today and although I didn’t see this actual performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, I was lucky enough to see them the following year and enjoy their full-frontal expose - which included their ‘Remote Control’ material too. What’s left of them are playing in Bristol in November so I might just relive the experience then, you never know.

Anyway, it’s always been a good question – ‘What do you want from Life?’.

I once knew someone that reached 100 years of age. A real feat of endurance for anyone I’m sure you’ll agree. He’d lived a full and meaningful life of moderation but was happy to meet his maker soon after the feat of being 100 years of age. You see all the important people he’d lived his life with were already gone and the folk he engaged with in his later life were at least 20-30 years’ his junior and didn’t know what it was like growing up in the 1910’s and 20’s just as folk born in the 21^st Century wouldn’t know what the world in the 60’s and 70’s, especially 1978 for me, and what the ‘World of The Tubes’ was all about.

Modern day history is well documented but if you didn’t live it, you will never know what it was really like and folk that lived life when you did, are a vital part of getting one’s past in order.

Getting to 100 is a good place to sign off as ‘Life’s Complete’ by then perhaps but deciding to get the most out of one’s years provides a larger than life challenge for many. Just consider the members of the ‘27 Club’ – you know the unusually high numbers of musicians like, Hendrix, Cobain and Winehouse that ‘Clocked Out’ with just 27% of their lifetime accomplished. It does make you wonder if they wasted their opportunity, or whether living it all in 27 years is better than sticking it out to become a Centurion and ‘Have a Good Innings’.

With 45% left on my ‘Life indicator’, I try and turn off as many battery-sapping ‘Apps’ as I can, so I can make the most of whatever ‘Life’ is left in me. And in answering The Tubes question, I know for sure that ‘Swelling your Bank Account’ doesn’t really cut the mustard (which is ironic as I’m speaking in London for the next three days about the ‘Process of Change’) but that ‘Someone to love and somebody that you can trust’ is what we are all really searching for, including ourselves. Sure, money is important and how manage and use it to enrich our lives is key to what we can afford to experience but not having folk to experience it with, is a fatal flaw IMO.

I’ll be considering these thoughts as I speak to folk over the next 72 hours and hopefully help them see the world as if they were sixteen again with a whopping 84% of ‘Life-Battery’ left and help them reflect on what they’ve used up so far and get the most out of their latest ‘App'.

It's free to download, anytime and it's called ‘Life’…

Rory Coleman - 989 Marathons - 243 Ultras - 14 Marathon des Sables

9 Guinness World Records - 8,511 Days' Alcohol Free

& 1 Inspirational Running Memoir - Get your copy here.

Location: Caerdydd, Cymru