I like to think of myself as, on balance, an optimistic person. Not that you’d know that from reading this blog recently. Everything seems to be getting on top of me recently, putting me in an increasingly frazzled and foul mood.
This blog is teetering dangerously close to really bad stand-up comedy. It’s not very constructive for me to rail about polyphonic ringtones, people with umbrellas or cigar smokers. Pet peeves don’t always translate into good writing. If I thought it was cathartic, I’d happily write about it. Just let it all explode onto the web in a gory mess of Travis Bickle bloodletting. But it doesn’t make me feel better. It just makes me stew for longer on things that don’t really merit so much scrutiny.
Some painful belt-tightening recently has resulted in me widening my outlook to find entertainment and distractions that fall between the posts marked “Cheap” and “Free”. I’ve found it difficult to devote time to simple pleasures in the last month or so. I miss reading uninterrupted for long periods of time. I miss the feeling of loosing my imagination free of its constraints to let ideas surge onto a page. I miss the ability to sit and watch a movie without feeling my eyelids fighting to stay open. And I miss the sensation of listening to someone talk without getting aggravated and confrontational. Sometimes, just stringing a coherent sentence together is an epic task.
Yesterday, it was clear that the good weather had well and truly passed for the time being. Good news for me, as it means my hay fever has gone on hiatus. Fed up of lunch breaks that consisted of sitting in St. James’s Square munching on sandwiches, Becket & I decided to go walkabout. We ambled down to the Mall, flicked through the overpriced magazines in the ICA bookshop for ten minutes, and then headed on over to the Horse Guards Parade. Over thirty years living in this city, and I’d never really seen it properly before. The rain whipped our faces as we checked out the big-ass cannons in the courtyard. It was great.
The rest of the hour was spent deliberately treading the back streets of the city up towards Leicester Square. Browsing the graphic novels in Comic Showcase up on Charing Cross Road. Stumbling upon out-of-the-way noodle bars in the alleys around Chinatown’s Gerrard Street. Amazing to think that where Dr. Johnson once convened with his Literary Club, you can now bag some Japanese pink mags and a copy of Battle Royale II on VCD. Now that’s what I call progress.
Best lunch hour I’ve had for a very long time. And the walk was more nourishing than any sandwich could have possibly been.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Brother Ray
Murph: Tell me a little about this electric piano, Ray.
Ray: Ah, you have a good eye, my man. That's the best in the city of Chicago.
Jake: How much?
Ray: 2000 bucks and it's yours. You can take it home with you. As a matter of fact, I'll throw in the black keys for free.
The first time I saw The Blues Brothers at a young, hairless age was also my first exposure to the grandfather of soul Ray Charles, kicking some serious Hammond funk on “Shake Your Tail Feather”. It broke my fragile, unschooled mind.
There are obituaries all over the ‘net for Ray, so I’m not going to duplicate all that business here. You want to know where he was born, his discography or any of that mess, look elsewhere. This is what the man and his music meant to me.
In an age where “soul” is just as much an overused and abused word as “genius” or “classic”, Ray Charles epitomised all three. My all-time favourite Ray Charles track is still the one I’ve been playing all weekend whenever I’ve been able to snatch five minutes for myself. The title track of Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (just like the better-known “Georgia on My Mind”) opens with that unique anguished howl yanked out of the dark abyss at the core of the great Soul Men, that gives you minor heart palpitations, like a lovesick werewolf baying for heartbreaking, soul-destroying sex.
Genius + Soul = Ray, and in this age of anodyne pop “idols”, music just got a lot less interesting. I’m mildly placated by the fact that he’s now jamming with Miles, Marvin and Barry White, drinking, cussing, grooving and checking out the heavenly bodies. He deserves it.
Ray: Ah, you have a good eye, my man. That's the best in the city of Chicago.
Jake: How much?
Ray: 2000 bucks and it's yours. You can take it home with you. As a matter of fact, I'll throw in the black keys for free.
The first time I saw The Blues Brothers at a young, hairless age was also my first exposure to the grandfather of soul Ray Charles, kicking some serious Hammond funk on “Shake Your Tail Feather”. It broke my fragile, unschooled mind.
There are obituaries all over the ‘net for Ray, so I’m not going to duplicate all that business here. You want to know where he was born, his discography or any of that mess, look elsewhere. This is what the man and his music meant to me.
In an age where “soul” is just as much an overused and abused word as “genius” or “classic”, Ray Charles epitomised all three. My all-time favourite Ray Charles track is still the one I’ve been playing all weekend whenever I’ve been able to snatch five minutes for myself. The title track of Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (just like the better-known “Georgia on My Mind”) opens with that unique anguished howl yanked out of the dark abyss at the core of the great Soul Men, that gives you minor heart palpitations, like a lovesick werewolf baying for heartbreaking, soul-destroying sex.
Genius + Soul = Ray, and in this age of anodyne pop “idols”, music just got a lot less interesting. I’m mildly placated by the fact that he’s now jamming with Miles, Marvin and Barry White, drinking, cussing, grooving and checking out the heavenly bodies. He deserves it.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Ray Gun
It’s not earth-shattering, but B-movie actor, Alzheimer’s sufferer and one-time POTUS Ronald Reagan is no more. And I really don’t need an excuse to draw some tenuous links between movies and current affairs.
Some aimless surfing yielded this interesting quote from Ronnie from an address to the nation on January 16, 1984: “History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
GWB obviously wasn’t taking notes that day. Say what you like about Reagan, but the man was an actor, and he knew how to deliver a killer line. Whether he believed it or not is another thing.
My favourite Reagan-related exchange is, of course, this:
Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, "future boy", who is President of the United States in 1985?
Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?
(chuckles)
Dr. Emmett Brown: Who's Vice President? Jerry Lewis?
Marty McFly: What?
Dr. Emmett Brown: I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady. And Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury. I've had enough practical jokes for one evening. Good night, future boy.
Some aimless surfing yielded this interesting quote from Ronnie from an address to the nation on January 16, 1984: “History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
GWB obviously wasn’t taking notes that day. Say what you like about Reagan, but the man was an actor, and he knew how to deliver a killer line. Whether he believed it or not is another thing.
My favourite Reagan-related exchange is, of course, this:
Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, "future boy", who is President of the United States in 1985?
Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?
(chuckles)
Dr. Emmett Brown: Who's Vice President? Jerry Lewis?
Marty McFly: What?
Dr. Emmett Brown: I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady. And Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury. I've had enough practical jokes for one evening. Good night, future boy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)