Look North

Had an unexpected day today; chaos theory in action. The batteries ran out of my illicit MP3 player as I walked towards peasholm park on my afternoon rounds, diverting me to that shop on the corner in search of batteries. This set me back 5 minutes, and as the afternoon play finished on Radio 4 a red scooter sped past me and crashed square into the side of a ford fiesta. The driver looped up in the air, then landed, then stood up, then collapsed. Oh shit! He was ok though, and I got to feel vaguely important (but obviously not as important as when protecting council revenue) directing the traffic so all of 3 directions of traffic (it was at the t junction near atlantis and peasholm) didn’t wait too long. I had to hang around to give a statement and share two cigarettes with a Man from the AA which put me back further. When I finally got to scalby mills and started checking tickets there were 3 girls in a car, skinning up, with no ticket. Advised them of the score (0-0) and just as I walked away the rain intensified loads and suddenly sheets of rain were hitting me so I ran back and, for the first time in a whole day of periodically intense showers, had a friendly car to sit in for 10 minutes at the end of my shift. Then the miniture railway to Corner café, a slightly surreal conversations with a open top bus driver and his supervisor, then off on the bus back to base. But then, around the marine drive, who should we see but that weatherman off look north!! Paul someone. And the waves were BIG today, and it was nearly high tide with the occasional splash over the side, so the bus driver slowed down so we could have a look. Then as I looked through the window, seeing everything with a happy sheen, a MASSIVE wave came and drenched everything and everyone including him and his van!! And the WHOLE of the side of the bus, QUALITY!! So me and the driver were pissing ourselves and all these other people in the back-tourists- are like ‘you shouldn’t laugh you know its not very nice“

Saw lizzie last night, was really nice, and realised I needed to do some stoned pseudo-epic ranting. Make the unforgivable statement that, in conversation, I was funnier than her but she had the better points to make J, funnily enough her rebuttal was complete. Think perhaps just smoking less weed is making me feel a bit non-plussed with everything, but that will pass and am actually quite happy I know what it is. I think all my outside influences recently have been a bit negative or at least reflective (turning 20, being a wage slave, back in my childhood him (and the fact I can now say ‘childhood home’ cos I ain’t a child), nick drake, lauren), not least fucking

a)almost open civil war in Iraq now
b) Lebanon/Palestine

I think maybe at some time in the future Tony Blair will be like ‘ok, clearly Iraq is a more dangerous, unstable and unliveable now than pre-invasion (even if he says this in 10 years), and clearly it was foreseeable, and I am sorry’ and I will still want to beat him over and over and over till I run out of energy and collapse, crying, on top of him. How can Blair and Britain allow America to perpetrate these atrocities in the name of the dollar bill?

And ever half hour on the radio I had John Reid in my ear using words like ‘massacre’ and ‘indefinite critical state’ and Bush calling the potential bombers ‘muslim fascists’. I think Reid is doing like Thatcher and seizing the role of Parental Statesman facing the enemy with unerring resolution whilst Blair is on holiday and Prescott is shamefaced. Paxman once called Reid Labour’s ‘all purpose attack dog’, and it seems to fit him perfectly.

Finally, a nice email from my ’new’ auntie Yvonne had a bit of an annoyance as its finale along the lines of ‘make more of an effort to bond with your dad’. like giving a chicken miracle grow.

Ciao
Ben

sunday

Really haven’t been feeling it over the past few days. I don’t know if it is my haircut or what, but people (as in my friends) seem to have been a bit cold towards me recently. This could of course be paranoia, and I am going to try and stop with the THC for a week or two, but I dunno. I was trying to articulate some of this to Rachel the other night, and said something along the lines of ‘I understand now why some people are short with you for no real reason, because they have ‘seen it all before’ and can’t motivate themselves to get excited (or even interested) about, say, a young person who has just realised the utter overwhelming economic and social corruption of the planet, or someone who has just learned moonlight sonata on the piano. Before I used to just think they were arrogant windbags, but now I find myself feeling like them a litte’ and Rachel gave me this ’I can’t believe you just said that you southern arrogant bastard’ look. The funny thing was that comment was triggered by a random punk in rachels house who seemed (and initially acted) like the type of travelling punk who is exactly that- they have seen and experienced everything and nothing you can do will get you more than a raised eyebrow and quiet, almost tryingtobepolite acknowledgement., And then last night sam was going to come over so we could go and take part in Rachel;’s archaeology dig in her back garden and one thing led to another and we were 2 hours late and when we got there everyone was just like ‘oh, you’re here….so how you anyway sam?’. And all this time I am trying to balance the small amount of time I have off work between my clarinet and my friends, with people like suann and roger losing out cos I just don’t have any time. So all in all am feeling pretty shit. I slept a long time last night/this morning, and feel a little better now, and to be fair alcohol and weed together do always make me a bit stressed out and paranoid, but it feels more ingrained at the moment. I shouldn’t be surprised I guess, loads of my friends have stopped smoking for exactly the reasons I am describing. Maybe my body and brain could just hack it for longer. Fucking hell.

I am off to London tomorrow to get my visa, and am going to meet up with feder, bari, henry and jess with a couple of her Lebanese mates which should be nice. Will be my last trip to London before america.

WOMAD, TRAFFIKING, SOUNDWAVES, MISC

It has been a busy 10 days. Last Monday I started my new job as a……… traffic warden. Quite funny I know. I am doing carparks, 9 to 5, in a uniform with a Teepee (the machine you use to give tickets out with), my own boss, sneaking the Jazz classics into my brain all the while with a sly MP3 player. It is ok really- I just have to walk and walk and walk (my boss estimates 10 miles per day in what I consider school shoes) and give out the odd ticket. Ok money. Have already been told that I am too scruffy but what can they do, tuck my shirt in like Mrs Roberts used to? The only trouble is that by the time I get home I am knackered and can’t really do much in the evening, except for play my Clarinet, which I am now taking SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY (with capitals) would mean more serious than I think I could take anything except world wide revolution, but certainly serious with a capital S. At the moment I am aiming to

a) relearn the Mozart clarinet concerto that I blagged for A level. This is because next year in US I have to audition to even get LESSONS, and my prospective teacher is Mark Brandenburg, surely of the Brandenburg concerto lineage, and its not a chance I am ever going to get again (certainly not for $150 a term) and if I am serious about being a MUSICIAN (this time capitals justified) then I need to get my classical tits in gear. Apparently he doesn’t teach jazz. And if you can play classical you can play anything, right?

b) get my scales as sharp as Scottish josh’s one liners

c) learn the clarinet solo on Messiaen’s ‘quatour pour la fin du temps’ (quartet for the end of time) which is soooooooo beautiful, but am dubious to its technical significance.

Once those are done I can send off my audition tape and get on with funking it up.

But anyway, traffic warden, I must admit I have a bit of bias when it comes to fucking spotless Land Rover Discovery 3s that are 10 minutes out of time over messy skoda s with a kids seat in the back. But its cool and I execute my job with professionalism. Much better than a job selling deckchairs or ice cream, which I was planning to do at one stage.

But I was only there 3 days (enough to complete my training) before disappearing off to the World of Music and Dance otherwise known as WOMAD. It isn’t really a world of dance, cos everyone is middle aged with kids and has too much money in their pockets to shake their booty effectively (Mbira queen stella chiweshe had to positively cajoled the audience into standing up during her second set) HOWEVER, it was certainly a world of music and was I think the best festival I have been to (possibly with the exception of Glastonbury with Radiohead, sigur ros, and belle and Sebastian etc) in terms of music. I won’t bore you with lots of superlatives about bands I already like, but I will give you the name of ‘Think of One’, a Belgium afro-beat/funk/summer vibey fusion band led by a delightful 67 year old Eritrean lady. OOOh and Stella said (in that superb deep Zimbabwean female husk) ‘listen….we are all talking about forgiving each other….isn’t it about time we forgave ourselves?’ I know a few people who should listen to that lady.

It was sunny the whole time except for when FEMI KUTI (fela kuti’s son but a wicked musician in his own right and a very beautiful man) played, when the rain belted down. After my radical haircut the backs of my ears got very burned.

My cousins were also there, 17 and 15, very much into getting wasted the whole time, made me reminiscent. Met a great chap called Joe from leeds there, I was recycling with him (15 hours emptying bins and giving out bags and I got a free ticket) and we talked solidly for 3 hours about everything in one of those FAST HARD connections you make with someone. He had recently given up weed cos it was shooting him through. It seems to be making more and more sense to follow him.

And then another overpriced ticket home with GNER before sound wave. For those that don’t know, it is a one day free festival run by and for young people, that each year is a bit of a miracle (that it happens and is successful) and an event that I have been as involved as I can be in for the past…4 years. This year it was being almost entirely organised by 16 year olds and below (understand the logistics of putting on a whole festival) and, although there weren’t as many people as usual and in my opinion the music wasn’t as full of gems as it usually is, it was cool and a nice vibe. However, I was really tired after WOMAD and my playing- with Protocol (Mbira for sam’s band), Ozzy’s new band (sax) and as myself with Billy Bass and burgeoning young MC Jo was average at best. I was hoping to really engage the crowd with my Mbira, especially with Billy’s wicked beats, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe I was just dehydrated, too stoned/not stoned enough and tired, but I walked away unhappy.

And now for the best snapshot of my life at the moment (which, after all, is what this blog is for, both for you and me), I have to go cos I have a million things to do, not least go to sams for a spliff and jam.

See you

1/8/06

At least five of my friends are going noticeably mad. The line between theoretical moriarty/plathy madness that we once revelled in and not being able to hold it down is blurring.