Lorde Save Us

Dear Lorde

Firstly, I would like to apologise for sending you an open letter. I realise open letters are very popular at present, with Sufjan sending one to Miley and Miley sending one to Liam and BlackBerry sending one to its customers no one, but I'm not jumping on the open wagon just to be as hip and down with the kids as BlackBerry. I would have sent you a closed letter but I doubt 'Lorde, Somewhere in Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand', would have reached you. I'm guessing being as busy as you are you're not at home much anyway. I also read NZ Post are only delivering letters on the second equinox of every fourth leap year so I decided to play it safe and rely on the extensive readership of my blog to get this important communiqué to you. As a token of its importance I just spent five minutes working out how to put the accent aigu over the 'e' but gave up and copied and pasted it from the internet. Michael Bublé has an accent aigu too. Have you met him? He seems nice but I don't like his music much. Don't tell him that if you meet him, as like I said he seems nice. Perhaps one day you could add an accent aigu to your name. This is how it would look.

Lordé.

Not bad. If you ever do a French album it could be a shrewd move as the French seem to appreciate it when you make an effort to speak French. You would have to say your name differently though, a bit like Debbie Dorday. Do you remember Debbie Dorday? She used to have a TV ad in NZ where she would breathlessly exclaim, "See you at Burgandys!", but this was probably a bit before your time. There is also the chance you could be confused with Eurovision Song Contest winning monster mask wearing Finnish hard rock band Lordi, so don't rush into it.

I'm really enjoying your music. You've got a great set of pipes and it's very refreshing you seem happy singing not half naked. I imagine life must be bit of a blur right now. Zipping round the world on Works Deluxe fares, being able to get into the Koru Lounge whenever you like and meeting glamorous people at glamorous gatherings in glamorous places. I see you just sang at MoMA in NYC in front of people like Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfield and David Bowie to help celebrate the career of Tilda Swinton. That must have been awesome. According to the MoMA website Tilda has "multihyphenate talents" and who can argue with a word like that. David Bowie most certainly has multihyphenate talents and there you are right between them, another multihyphenate talent hypenating their multihyphenate talents.

But, there is someone else in this photo. No, don't turn around, he's still there. Just keep looking at the camera. His head is right to your right. Smaller than yours, perfectly framed and monstrously in focus. A tanned medium sized beardy head gazing into Tilda's ear and grinning...that grin...that only he can grin. That all-knowing knowing-all grin of someone who knows he's made it to the perfect position to make it in shot. I have seen this grin before. It has many faces and many names, but I know it only as...

Sandrooooooooooooooo.....(whisper)......ooooooooooo....(hardly audible)....ooooooooo......(out of breath)

How does he do it? How does he find these background bonanzas with such consummate beardy ease? I don't know. I've spent the last eight years of my life trying to find out and it's left me a bankrupt, broken, itchy, rubby shell of a man. I even wrote a play about it and spent a small fortune on flyers and stuff but nobody came. Why?

Sandrooooooooooooooo.....(whisper)......ooooooooooo....(hardly audible)....ooooooooo......(out of breath)

His power is as deep and immense as his beard. I have tried in vain to warn the world and failed but I hope this open letter will succeed in warning you. Like me my warning is short. Five short words.

DON'T. LET. HIM. SKETCH. YOU.

He will ask. He may have already. But if not, he will. Maybe on Twitter. Maybe via email. Maybe he will get Tilda to ask for him. But he will ask. He always asks. He didn't ask me, but he will ask you. And once he's sketched you before you can say...

Sandrooooooooooooooo.....(whisper)......ooooooooooo....(hardly audible)....ooooooooo......(out of breath)

...you will be forever in his power and he will be travel the world with you and photobomb your photos. Forever.

I know this sounds like the ramblings of a crazy man. From what I've read you've got your head screwed on, but you must understand, his is a power like no other. Tilda fought valiantly but lost. And she was Jadis, the White Witch! Even by writing this I'm putting myself at risk. Everytime I did my one-man show I expected it to be my last, and based on how much money I lost at the Melbourne Fringe I'm a bit miffed it wasn't.

Please dear Lorde,  I beg of you. Think of him as a dog thinks of a power pole, or that Chinese guy thinks of his garden path. Just spray and walk away. You don't need to be sketched by him. There are plenty more sketchers in the sea. Rolf Harris would love to sketch you and he even painted the Queen.

Now I'm going to go check the door is locked and stroke the cat

Your fan

Greg

P.S. Happy birthday.