CDs

[This post took two weeks to write. I don't think I'll do another one like it]

While in Boston recently I took advantage of what Donna is calling 'our half-price trip to America sale', so called because our pounds are worth twice the number of dollars, and bought myself a stack of CDs.

A little background - as I listen to various music podcasts, including NPR's All Songs Considered,CBC Radio 3 from Canada, KCRW in Los Angeles, and the long absent 3Hive.com's podcast, I'll scribble down the name of a song or artist that catches my ear. Later I'll add them to my amazon.com wishlist. Occasionally I'll see what other artists amazon recommends as a result of my browsing, and add them too. Much later on, I'll print out this list before heading to the shops, and I'll browse for as many of those CDs as I can, buying them only if I can find them cheaply. In general these are artists who not played widely on the radio, or who have a fairly small following.

Very often I have no memory of how and when I first heard these people, and it's not until I get the CD home that I might pick out the track that I first listened to and have an 'ah-ha' moment. Occasionally I am bitterly disappointed and wonder what frame of mind I must have been in to add them to my list. More often than not however I am delighted and feel as if I've discovered a hidden gem.

I know this isn't the model of how many people are getting their music these days, in which downloads are rapidly becoming the major form of distribution of music. I love the access to music from far and wide that the internet gives me, but I hate the lack of connection I feel to the thousands of songs on my harddrive. I love holding a CD in my hand, looking at the artwork, reading the sleeve notes. It fixes the music in my mind and connects it to me in ways impossible to obtain without that physical object.

A while ago we had the brilliant idea of copying a friend's entire iTunes collection. We only managed to grab A-H before it brought our computer to a halt. I've slowly gone through and tried to listen to all of the music, culling out the ones we don't want, highlighting the gems, but probably half of the music is unlistened to. That was two years ago.

This is without getting into the fact that digital files are most likely compressed, or my orderly but idiosyncratic system of organising my music, one that cannot be squeezed into the purely logical sorting options of iTunes.

Here then is a list of the recent CD purchases.

James Yorkston - The Year of The Leopard
I didn't know why I bought this CD at first, full of simple folksy music, nice but unremarkable. It reminded me of one of my favourite singers, Adem. That was until I got to the track Woozy With Cider, and I remembered that it was played on NPR's All Songs Considered. In fairness, the host did say that this track was different than the rest of his work, so I shouldn't have been surprised at this hushed, spoken-word meditation on life in London over an aural texture of sound, contrasting strongly with the rest of his songs.

Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
We loved Silent Alarm too much (initially a 3Hive.com discovery for me) to not buy their second album purely on faith. That, and the fact that they reference our now beloved Northern Line in the track Waiting For The 7.18. Right now after a couple of listens the album feels like a bunch of half-formed ideas and loopy sonic experiments, not the watertight 80s-dance-indie-pop I had fallen in love with. Still, when I don't immediately love an album it can often grow on me on repeated listens, as I discard my expectations and listen to it with fresh ears.

The Frames - The Cost
If I didn't know better, I would have sworn it was Cat Stevens (sorry, Yusuf Islam) singing his heart out on this CD. The Frames are a band with a wall-to-wall big sound mixed with sudden quiet, heartfelt lyrics and with a vocal line that wails over the top of everything in a way that makes the neighbourhood dogs suddenly sit up. It's the kind of music that makes a Grey's Anatomy producer sit up and rush in to the editor's room and say "We have new songs for Meredith's end-of-episode tedius-ologues!". In any case, I like it, I'm a sucker for this stuff, until it's overplayed on the radio (goodbye Snow Patrol and The Frey)

Fountains Of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
Fountains of Wayne are clever. They make well-crafted, fun songs that sound like other songs, about people who are not them, in a way that could be both sincere or ironic. Sometimes the good craft and ironic tone is all there is to a song, enjoyable for one listen and tiresome after that, if there isn't more to it. I do like it very much now, let's see if it lasts.

Brazil (remastered soundtrack) - Michael Kamen
I already have this CD, but this is a remastered edition and I couldn't pass it up. One of my favourite films with a score that evokes everything from personal isolation to operatic action. Dialogue snippets on a score album are a pet peeve for movie soundtrack collectors, but in this case it actually works. My favourite is one that reads like a potential interview with a certain Mr Bush in 2007...

INTERVIEWER
Deputy minister, what do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings?

HELPMANN
Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seems to have forgotten certain good old fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game, they'd get a lot more out of life.

INTERVIEWER
And the cost of it all, Deputy Minister? Seven percent of the gross national produce ...

HELPMANN
I understand this concern on behalf of the tax-payers. People want value for money and a cost-effective service. That is why we always insist on the principle of Information Retrieval Charges. It's absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval Procedures used in their interrogation.

INTERVIEWER
Do you think that the government is winning the battle against terrorists?

HELPMANN
On yes. Our morale is much higher than theirs, we're fielding all their strokes, running a lot of them out, and pretty consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game.

INTERVIEWER
But the bombing campaign is now in its thirteenth year ...

HELPMANN
Beginner's luck.

Battlestar Galactica Season 2 - Bear McCreary
I didn't start watching BSG until recently, during its up and down Season 3. What I came to love as much as the show was its rich score, unusual for a television show. On the surface it's full of the cliches in recent film scoring - taiko drums, 'ethnic' instrumentation, and solo tuneless female vocals. Yet these choices fit with the central dramatic tone of the series - a dark and ambiguous tale of human survival, with characters trying to connect and pulled apart often by their own self-destructive behaviours.

Handel's Messiah (Complete) - Trevor Pinnock
I used to be obsessed with Handel's Messiah. I had a tape recording of the 'complete' Messiah, and much as with the first James Bond film you watch, it came to define 'my' Messiah. I don't know who performed or conducted that recording, and I've been searching for it ever since. Actually I think it was recorded from an old girlfriend, so perhaps my feelings about it are wrapped up in that as well. Years ago I bought a budget recording of the 'complete' Messiah. I then learned that not all 'complete' renderings of the work are equal. There are more versions of the work than there are of the original Star Wars film. That's a lot. It did have a rich expansive sound that conveyed the drama wonderfully, but it was marred by constant mistakes, including a bad trumpet note right at the climax of the piece, and in the end I got rid of the CD. Since then I've searched and searched, and bought this version based on the recommendation of all the Classical Music guides. It's nice, to be sure, but still leaves me cold. Gimme a less 'authentic' recording that adds a few hundred voices to the chorus and I'll be happy. As long as they don't hit bad notes and know how to come in together.

Buck 65 - Secret House Against The World
Ahh, the turkey of the bunch. I love the CBC Radio 3 podcasts, in which they play Buck 65 every other week. And everytime I like his music. So, how could I go wrong buying his latest album? Quite a bit, apparently. Moving away from the hip-hop of his that I've enjoyed, the album strays into odd sonic territory including country music, and it just sounds like a mess. I re-read the Amazon reviews, and I'll give it time. Perhaps its 'genius' will reveal itself over time.

Jason Collett - Idols of Exile
Another Canadian, but a winner this time. I was charmed by his upbeat Here Comes The Sun summery song, but the rest of them on the album are just as winning. Those Canadians musicians are a tight bunch, with Amy Millan listed on the liner notes singing backup on one song and Leslie Feist clapping her hands in others.

Storyteller - Peter And The Wolf
I didn't get this album in Boston, but they're our first bona fide discovery since moving to the UK. They opened for Piney Gir at Borderline in Soho a few weeks ago, and between Hugo the upright bassist, Donna the stand-up drummer and Marc the singer on guitar and piano, singing folksie/indie rock songs that sound both very familiar and yet fresh, we were won over. I had to scour the local music shops to find this short album, but it was worth it.

London | Soho | England | Music | KCRW | CBC Radio 3 | 3Hive.com | NPR All Songs Considered | Battlestar Galactica | James Yorkston | Jason Collett | Buck65 | Peter And The Wolf | Handel Messiah | Brazil | Fountains Of Wayne | The Frames | Bloc Party |

The Boston Marathon, come rain or shine

Donna ran it last year as well, you can see how much she's improved in a year, especially considering how a large spring storm rolled in just as we arrived.

More on this soon...

Boston | Marathon | Running

Arriving/Settling

It's tempting when trying to make sense of a large number of changes to impose a structure onto things that are otherwise fluid and resist easy categorisation, even chronological. That said, with our work on Harry Potter concluded, Easter just passed, our flat finally organised, the weather changing, and our three month anniversary of moving to London, it seems like a natural place to put a marker in the sand. Before it, arriving, and after it, settling and starting to live our life in London.

We're celebrating this moment by returning to the USA. Not permanently (not yet, anyway), only for this weekend in Boston for the marathon. It's another major mental marker for us - Donna's training having straddled across both autumn in San Francisco and winter in London, with all the difficulties of adjusting to a new environment whilst training. She's managed incredibly well, and knows the city backwards and forwards. With this year's Boston marathon she will have completed five marathons in a 12-month period (not including a few smaller races and one 200-mile relay race), she's considering giving marathons a rest for, well, at least three or four weeks I reckon.

Easter weekend started with The Boat Race, mostly an excuse for lots of al fresco drinking and partying. Good Friday we travelled to East Sussex and found ourselves in an idyllic English springtime countryside landscape that needed to be seen to be believed. Small villages set into the green rolling hills, bleating baby lambs leaping through daffodils, horses grazing, bubbling streams, and country churchyards alive with blossom and flowers. Easter Sunday we spent amongst family, organising an Easter egg hunt inspired by our neighbours in California. Easter Monday is a 'bank holiday' in England ("yipee let's take a day off - the banks are closed!"), which we used to good effect to rest and tidy. When I first moved to the USA only to discover that Easter was barely even noticed, let alone an excuse to take several days off work, I was traumatised. And this was before I found out that I couldn't buy Easter Eggs like the ones I was used to from the UK in US shops. It was as if someone had stolen Christmas and only I remembered it any differently.

Recently I've been meeting up with old friends, some of whom I've not seen in over a decade. Of course, the same way that I returned to London amidst a pre-midlife crisis, they are asking themselves similar questions and deciding to leave London in search of their answers. So my old university housemate Stuart decided to pursue a two-year job contract in Hong Kong a month after we arrived. Thanks Stuart. Another university friend Clare is on a career break and spending the time in both Africa and Nepal (but not before she took us on the aforementioned walk through the English pastures on Good Friday, in between travels). Another university housemate, Simon, who, as we all left our 'Physics with Space Studies' far behind, actually fulfilled the promise of our youthful dreams to become a bona fide rocket scientist, is moving to Germany to be the lead engineer on some project that sounds far too exciting. An old school friend, Sam, is about to change jobs for one that will send him traipsing all over the world on business. A fellow Master's friend Deepa has been posted for six months to California of all places. And another university friend Nikki, a successful producer in London's commercial industry, with whom we had a lovely lunch last week, is.. actually not moving far away. Thank you Nikki! Her latest project is a music video with Take That, a boy-band on a major comeback after having spent a decade mostly in obscurity, previously referred to more as 'the band in which Robbie Williams got his start' than anything else.

These are just the people I've seen or had contact with recently, there are still many people to catch up on in one form or another, to say nothing of the people who've married and made a brood of little genetic copies of themselves. I still feel frustrated that I haven't had more time to see more people, or catch up on the phone at least. Trying not to be too hard on myself.

I'm not much one for regrets. I used to spend a lot of time mulling over the past, picking over it, trying to form it into some more acceptable shape than the misshapen mostly accidental lump that it really is. Nevertheless, looking at all the paths of my friends in the last ten years, all successful in their ways, managing the slings and arrows of life, paths diverging like the train tracks leaving Waterloo, it is impossible for me not to wonder about what would have happened if I'd turned left instead of right ten or fifteen years ago, or stayed in the UK instead of going to the USA. Or.. or.. I keep wondering when I'm going to have it together and start taking things seriously. They probably feel as I do, struggling to take one day at a time, each decision as much chance as forethought, the difficult things being those that they never imagined, the things that our parents tried to impart us their wisdom on, which we wilfully ignored in favour of pursuing own ideas. Only to repeat the same mistakes, and probably a few new ones in the process, if we're lucky.

London | Soho | England | Travel | Easter

The Candyman is Real!

Tony Todd, the Candyman himself, wandered past me on Regent St with his family. I was gobsmacked - I walked into one of his children and had to apologise.

If I had said 'Candyman' one too many times I think he woulda gutted me right there and then.

London | Regent St | Celebrity | Candyman | Tony Todd

Letter to Transport For London

April 1st, 2007

Dear Transport For London,

I want to acknowledge what a difficult and thankless job being a busdriver must be. You have to deal with all manner of chavs, tourists, freeloaders, drunks, "I left my ticket at home, honest", people who view your bus as their personal rubbish bin or toilet, to name but a few. And that's just inside the bus. Outside on the road there's the insane cyclists, clueless pedestrians, psychotic cabbies, and car drivers who think the 'bus lane' applies to them.

Let me just say that I'm not like that. I pride myself on being a proud user of the bus system, and a good passenger. I like to see the bus system and its agents as my friend, not my adversary. I like to say hello when I board and goodbye thank you when I depart. I like to have my Oyster card fully charged with the correct fare. I like to give up my seat for the old, pregnant and needy. As the campaign slogan says, My other car is a bus. Actually it's my only car. One of my best friends is a bus-spotter. What else could you want?

On Saturday March 24th, 2007 at approximately 4.50pm, I was standing on Clapham Common South Side, by the 'Windmill On The Green' bus stop. I was waiting to catch the 155 Bus, which arrived promptly after only a couple of minutes. I boarded the almost-empty bus to have the bus driver say, "You must be joking with me". He wasn't laughing.

I am not a comedian, although I do like to make people laugh from time to time. It was my bicycle. A bicycle on a bus? Well, yes. I see people board the bus with all manner of wheeled devices - yummy mummys with their space-swallowing SUV pram-equivalents, to name but one. I am a cyclist. I like to keep my carbon footprint relatively small. My bicycle was in need of repair, and I was taking it to the local bicycle repair shop. How else can one do this? I assumed that on an empty bus (there were three people in the bus, and plenty of room there for my bicycle), at the bus driver's discretion someone like myself who has a valid ticket, who says hello when he boards and goodbye when he departs, and who only needs to travel four stops, would be allowed.

"You must be joking with me", he repeated, incredulous and angry.
"What do you mean?" I was a little taken aback at his aggressiveness.
"You can't being that on here."
"My bicycle?"
"Yes of course not!", he spat out the words. "You are trying to joke with me. Get off my bus."

He was reacting as if I'd come around to his house and left a floater in the loo.

"Who says I can't come on the bus?", I asked, still trying to get my head around the situation.
"I say so! It's my bus, I'm the bus driver. Get off now!!"
"But the bus is empty." I could feel my blood rising, desperation increasing as the window of time for taking my bike to be repaired was shrinking rapidly. Mostly it was his horrible tone of voice that was upsetting me. "Why can't I bring my bike on? Where does it say that I can't?"
He rolled his eyes, "I AM SAYING IT!", he was shouting now. "You are joking with me!"
I didn't want to let it go now. He was digging in his heels, and so did I. "I don't understand why I can't ride. What is your name?", I asked.
"I'm the busdriver, that's my name." he wasn't looking at me any more, just shouting away from me.
"What's your name or driver number? I want to complain to Transport for London at the way you're treating me."
"I'M NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU MY NAME. I don't have to give you anything. You're not going to complain! GET OFF MY BUS!"

Later, I thought about all the 'jokers' he has to deal with on a daily basis and how that must wear on a person's soul. I felt sorry for the people around him who need to deal with a small and angry person like him. At the time however I wasn't feeling pity, I was angry.

I wonder what could make a person so full of bile over something so small. Maybe his children weren't doing their homework. Perhaps he had had an argument with his wife. Most likely he was a person who knew no other way of tackling conflicts. Of the many ways in which he could have expressed his position on the whole matter he chose the most insulting and demeaning. Ok, I admit, I shouldn't have called him a fucking wanker. I apologise.

I thought about refusing to leave the bus. What would he do? Call the police? Drive on? Get out of his cab and confront me physically? What else could I do - I got off the bus, hurting. "You don't have to be so fucking mean about it." I said. The nameless and numberless busdriver shouted at me and drove off, running over three kittens, a gaggle of puppies and five children in wheelchairs. Not really, but he did shout at me.

Unable to take my bicycle to get fixed as planned, I walked home, shaking, unable to fully process what had just happened. I even started riding the bicycle before I realised that it was a reckless thing to do.

I suppose my confusion partly arose from the fact that here is a capital city in a country with a 'green' agenda more aggressive and political than any I've ever seen. Gleefully encouraging people to leave their cars at home, ride public transportation, get on their bicycles, to change their lightbulbs, insulate their houses properly, turn off the TV when it's not in use, to walk to France instead of flying there, to recycle their own poo (well, not yet, but I predict this will be a campaign issue in the next election, the way things are going). How could a city like this, have a blanket ban of bicycles on buses, without a little wiggle room? It didn't make sense. In California urban buses have a nifty rack at the front of the bus that accommodates two bicycles, which I have taken advantage of on more than one occasion.

The TFL site states the following:

London Buses will take folding bicycles at the discretion of the driver. This is consistent with rules for pushchairs and other larger shopping, luggage etc.

My bicycle is not a folding bicycle.

Much as it confuses me in a major city such a London, I realise now that trying to bring a bicycle on an empty bus for four stops is not allowed. I have seen how this city tackles small things that fall outside of the line (parking fines in excess of £100 for minor offences), with a nuclear strike when a simple sledgehammer would do the job just as well. Or insulting and demeaning a customer when a calm explanation of the rules would have achieved the intended result. I have no choice but to continue using the bus system, but it is tainted by the behaviour of one driver. You could say I don't have a thick-enough skin for a place like London, but I would prefer not to harden up so much that talking to another person that way would be considered part of a normal day. I don't think I deserved it.

On careful consideration, I withdraw my earlier apology. The bus driver was a fucking wanker.

Sincerely,

Juan-Luis

London | Transport For London | England | Travel | Public Transportation | Bicycle