When you’re young, you have all the answers.
And you know they’re the right answers.
All you’ve got to do is get rid of the old guys who are blocking your way.
Once you get rid of them, you can do it your way.
It’ll be great.
What everyone forgets is that we’re all on a conveyor belt.
When you get rid of the old guys it doesn’t stop there.
Right behind you is another group of youngsters who think you’re the old guys.
And all your exciting new answers look like old stuff to them.
And everything you were saying about the old guys, these young guys are now saying about you.
See, everyone looks forward to what they have to conquer.
They never, never look in the rear-view mirror.
So they never see it coming until it’s too late.
When I walk around Soho I meet a lot of these guys.
The guys who were really good, and they thought that was enough.
Guys who can’t get work now because they’re seen as old.
These are guys like Yozzer Hughes from the play ‘Boys from the Black Stuff’.
Yozzer was out of work and couldn’t understand why.
There were lots of people employed, doing work he could do.
He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t working.
He’d go up to people and say “I can do that. Gizza job.”
Which is how the guys I meet in Soho feel.
They can do ads that are better than most of the crap that’s around now.
How come they can’t get a job?
And they ask me if I know any jobs going.
It’s really tough.
Seeing good people, who want to work, but can’t find work.
People who’ve won loads of awards.
And they can’t understand how all those awards don’t mean anything.
Because, if they did, they’d have a job wouldn’t they?
My attitude is slightly different.
Money or not, I’d rather be working than not working.
It’s best summed up for me in a sequence in ‘The Magnificent Seven’.
Yul Brynner is looking for some gunfighters to help him defend a Mexican village.
He hears O’Reilly (Charles Bronson) is one of the best.
He tracks him down to a cabin outside town.
(Yul Brynner rides up to cabin.)
Brynner: “I’m looking for a fella called O´Reilly.”
Farmer: “Don´t know his name, but there´s a fella in back choppin´ wood for his breakfast.”
(Yul Brynner rides around back. Charles Bronson is chopping wood.)
Brynner: “Mornin´. l´m a friend of Harry Luck´s. He tells me you´re broke.”
Bronson: “Nah, l´m doing this because l´m an eccentric millionaire.”
Brynner: “There´s a job for six men, watching over a village, south of the border.”
Bronson: “How big´s the opposition?”
Brynner: “Thirty guns.”
Bronson: “l admire your notion of fair odds, mister.”
Brynner: “Harry tells me you faced bigger odds in the Travis County war.”
Bronson: “Well, they paid me $1,000 for that one.”
Brynner: “He said you got that Salinas thing cleared up.”
Bronson: “They paid me $2,000 for that one.”
Brynner: “You cost a lot.”
Bronson: “Yeah…..that´s right. l cost a lot.”
Brynner: “The offer is $20.”
Bronson: “$20?”
(Yul Bryner realises the offer is pitifully small and turns to ride away.
Charles Bronson looks at the pile of logs.
Then he puts down the axe and straps on his gunbelt.)
Bronson: “Right now, that´s a lot.”