Even just the way the interview started. Even BEFORE hearing the start of the interview, I knew it would be awesome. But…just the start. The ringing phone, and as soon as the phone is answered Frank saying “give me a one-two” and Jim saying…well, I won’t spoil it.

But it had be grinning like a loon from the get go. And the smile didn’t leave my face for the following 50 odd minutes.

A lot of the stuff Jim has said before, of course. And when you listen to EVERY interview he does, you’ll hear the same things over and over. But it never gets old. He never seems to tire telling them. There is always the same level of enthusiasm in his voice and in his relaying of the stories and the telling of the tales.

And…I fall in love with him AGAIN. Over and over. It all goes round and round.

I guess the thing that sunk in this time, even though he has said it before is that…he’s right. To have done what he has done. To have that relentless drive to make a success of it. To push on. To not be defeatist. To use the knock backs and set backs, and the things that would put other mere mortals on their knees – it takes “a type”. You need to be “a type”. Luck…and to be “a type”.

I think it is singularly the thing that makes me love him most of all, is that he IS that “type”.

You know…yes! I do fancy the pants off him for the aesthetic, esp. of the younger man – I won’t lie. That’s where the lust and sexual attraction is – but that’s the thing too. The thing that makes him sexy AF probably actually ISN’T his looks, per se, it’s everything. The whole sum of his parts. That drive. That ambition. The absolutely stone-faced, dogged, utter infallibility of him!

There’s a bit in it in which he said to Frank that he remembered a time that Frank gave him “a serve” as we’d say in Oz. A kind of “dressing down”. I won’t go into a lot of detail because I don’t want to spoil the enjoyment of you guys listening to it. But the end of it was Frank saying to Jim, “What are you gonna do about it? Go home and cry to your mummy?”

You know. I would have. I did. I would do. I was weak. I have always been weak. And my weakness shows in a life barely lived.

But he took it as fuel. He took it as fuel to push on. To just…stick at it and make the most of a shit situation. To not let it get the better of him. Defeat him. He’d knuckle down. He’d get the thing licked.

And I guess this is why I attach myself so much to Jim. Because he just…he makes me feel alive. He gives me oxygen!

He’s just a million beautiful, positive things. Passion, drive, energy, talent, brains, beauty. I love him to pieces. I just do. Retrospectively, from point dot. From that young upstart dreaming the dreams of getting the band together until the present, Mr “Elder Statesmen” who you can hear when he talks still has that buzz of that 16 year old kid.

It’s why I wish more than anything to be his friend. I just want to be around him. I just want to bask in his light. He’s like the sun.

But…he’s a winner. And as a winner, he likes to surround himself with fellow winners. Hence, he would want absolutely NOWT to do with me! Loz from Loserville.

I could listen to him talk all day, every day. I could happily bask in his light all day too. Just to feel some of that sun.

I wrote this years ago, about him. It hasn’t changed. I still feel exactly the same.

I was buzzing for ages afterwards, mulling over it all in my head. Smiling, trying to drift off to sleep, hoping I’d dream of him. Dream of sitting around talking to him. Or perhaps walking and talking with him? My friend Stephen has planted this whole being “taken up The Trossachs” idea in my head…as the ultimate dream. As if! As if he would.

I tried to settle and get to sleep and thought, “Geez, I wish I was Frank!”

You can find the details of Frank Gallagher’s Soundman Confidential podcast in my previous posts.