Coachella (responsibility sucks)

The other day, the line-up for Coachella was released and it makes my pants tight.  A rough estimate puts my desired line-up at 17 first day acts, 13 second day acts and 7 the last day.)  If my math is correct (and you might want to check me on it) that's 40 bands I'd want to see.  40 bands!  And that's not even counting all the "stumble upons" I'd certainly witness.  40 divided by the $300 pricetag equals $7.50 per band (again, check my math.)

I'd be a fool not to go, right?  Even with airfare running $350 and a hotel which Michelle probably would finagle something cheap, I'm looking at $900.  Add a couple days worth of food/merch and whatnots, then that's going to push me over the thousand dollar mark.  Multiple that by two and it's a couple grand at the minimum.

Still, I tell myself, that's not a problem.  We have a specified vacation savings fund and there is money in it, but it's earmarked for the Stone Roses concert in June.  There is also a savings account designated for emergencies/household problems.  When I log into my bank's website, I can see the amount in the latter account and my mind is already in the middle of the desert bouncing like a fool to whomever is on the stage.

It's time to make the call.  I inhaled slowly, filling my lungs with oxygen enhanced hope as I dialed Michelle's work number.  A plan of attack has been formulated, counterarguments prepared and even though she can't see me, puppy dog eyes at the ready.  So confident am I, that I open my desk drawer to pull out a bottle of sunblock I keep at work in case I have to run home on bright day.  "I'm going to need this," I laughingly tell myself. 

The phone rings.

She answers.  "Hi babe, what's up?"

I ask if she's sitting even though there is a 90% chance she already is.  She's at work, not playing tennis after all.  After she confirms that she is seated and, should the power of my news overwhelm her senses, she would not have far to fall.

Phase 1 (aka My List): List all the bands I am excited about.  Don't give any context, just ramble off 40 band names, of which, she might have heard of eight.  She's got better things to do with her life than follow every flash in the pan band the music promotion industry says are amazing.  Sensing her bewilderment, I transition to phase 2.

Phase 2 (aka Her List): Again, mention those eight bands knowing that she really only likes four of them.  "You like Wu Lyf," I'd argue.  "They're the band that sounds like the singer is ripping his throat out."  There is a moment of silence before she asks me what the call is all about.  An outside observer might think she asked that because she's annoyed with me, but I know the truth: she's intrigued.  With the fish on the hook, I hit her with phase 3.

Phase 3 (aka Hyperbolic Statements of Interest): I tell her it's the Coachella line-up and remind her, although I have never been and have told her that I really don't like the idea of concert festivals, that going this year is the single most important unresolved thing in my life right now.  "You don't even like festivals," she'd say.  "You get all ermy in crowds."  She's clever, that wife of mine, so I hit with phase 4.

Phase 4 (aka Personal Improvement): 2012 is my year to tackle some of the things I've been putting off for a while: grad school, learning how to draw, expanding my culinary repertoire, going to wildly expensive concerts.  See, the pre-2012 me would have said he hated going to shows with more than 250 people.  Not because it's a scene thing, but more that he likes being able to see the band and, more importantly, easily navigate back and forth from the bar.  However, that's all changed.  I'm embracing throngs of people (not literally, I'm still working on my germ phobias.)  Although I don't explicitly say it, I do suggest that not letting me attend the 2012 Coachella would be a hindrance to my self-improvement.

At this point, all my chips are in.  I've played the excitement, intent and personal growth angles and there are no more phases left.  No additional phases could possibly be needed.

Michelle, for her part, really only needs one phase:

Phase 1 (aka Reality): I should learn to be more judicious with my wants/needs, especially when it involves spending money.  Either that, or I just need to find a job that pays me more than embarrassing so I have money to spend how I'd like.  But, I work in a poorly paid industry and although job satisfaction is good, my paychecks aren't.  No matter.  We save, scrimp and cut coupons and still manage to lead a good life, materialistically and otherwise. With that bit of background, she scuttles my idea with a list of ways our money is already spent.

We need a new oven.  We also need to have our driveway repaired, a fence put in and some hardcore landscaping I have zero intention of doing myself.  Our hardwood floors should be refinished and the plaster walls could use some work.  Those things are as fun as they are cheap.  Those are practical purchases that improve an investment, not improve my social calendar.  

It's easy, I invented a scale of how great spending money on home repair is:

As you can see from my poorly framed and nearly unreadable graphic that repairing one's driveway is not a good ratio of expense to fun while Coachella is.  For the price, Coachella is an amazing bargain.  The twenty year old me is sneering.  The pressure I put on myself to not give up my arrested developmentness is doing my head in.  On one hand, I know she's right and I know what the princely sum it would take to do the repairs I'm not going to even notice after a week or two.  But it would protect our investment and that is the right thing to do.

And, yet, I hate myself a little bit a lot for even using the phrase "protect our investment."  I do it, I'm responsible and, generally, don't sequester myself to a dark corner of the basement (the same one I where I wanted to put a sink) to throw a temper tantrum.  That phrase is something people who bore me say but, as much as I want to deny the reality, I can't.  

As anyone who has ever purchased a home knows, it's a stupidly expensive proposition.  Even beyond the mortgage and interest/principle, there are all manner of repairs, all of which are boring.  Dismally dull.  So dreary are these expenditures that you might begin to resent the contractors doing the job.  "Oh, they'll use this money to get drunk or go do something awesdome," you'd think.

But, on the other hand, I love my house.  It's so lovely coming home to it, it's cozy rooms containing the memories of our lives.  And there are lots of memories, mostly the good ones you tend to remember.  If I were to do a graph showing the assets of these moments compared to potential memories of a concert festival, there would be no comparison.  Three days can very rarely compare to eleven years. 

The worst part of all this is that it makes Michelle feel like a kill-joy bringing it up.  She feels like she's the one squashing my dreams and that isn't the case at all.  The truth is, I would have come to that realization eventually.  Unless you're the favored son of a dictator, chances are your days are filled with financial comparisons.  Should I get the 40,000 mile maintenance package on the Mazda or should I buy a ticket to the West Coast?  Do I need a $40 rib roast or will a pack of hamburger be alright?  

I guess, for me, it's forcing me to be patient, to see how events unfold.  Immediate gratification is still sexier than its delayed counterpart, but, when a moment which allows a bit of reflection presents itself, the payoff can be so rewarding.

That said, I'm buying a scratch off after work in hopes of using the proceeds for a ticket.   

Jane's Addiction - Mountain Song

Thanks crushable.com

The 90's were a weird time. In 1998, when I probably would have first watched this video on 120 Minutes (if, in fact, that show was even even still on), I probably sported the standard issue male haircut at the time.  A haircut social scientists refer to as the "Vanderbeek."  While my lack of a 5 o'clock shadow prevented me from having a Depp, I could grow some decent Priestleys.  My life revolved around how I'd be the first ever P&G employee who mastered that tricky balance between being a polished professional and the cool dude I totally yearned to be.  Patterned shirts I bought at Steinmart figured hugely as did fantasies of bringing  my guitar to work and blowing my co-worker's collective minds with an out of tune version of the Verve's Gravity Grave that, in real life, I couldn't actually play.

So, there I was, in my favorite apartment ever*.  I probably had just finished playing my 23rd game of that hockey game for the SNES and was probably wishing I had some weed when I turned on MTV and saw this video for Mountain Song.  At that moment, I really wished I had some weed.  Flea was still really cool and I had recently gotten back into Jane's Addiction, so seeing this was kind of like looking into the eyes of God.  I knew that by watching it, my mind would be blown, but I couldn't turn away. 

It's was the 90's when bands thought of shirts as the thing they picked up off the ground to wipe the sweat from their faces.  When a guy could actually get away having his hair resemble a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  When a young man might have leaped on his couch, carefully unbuttoned his Craft & Barrows work shirt so no buttons popped off, tried to take it off, but it got stuck on his glasses.  So, with a tangled shirt half off, he might have played righteous air bass Hooky style until he realized that his curtains were open and, oh my God, he hoped no one saw that.

Watching the video now, I can't help but feel that all-too-familiar twinge of nostalgia.  That was my time, you know, which is not to say I stopped being cool or I stopped giving a shit about pop-culture or whatever.  It just one of those slices of time moments where it makes old memories seem a lot newer than they actually are while, at the same time, looking incredibly dated.  Maybe people who saw that video in 1998 commented about how stupid Perry Ferrell looked, but I'm guessing not many did.

But, that bassline, probably close to 25 years old, still sounds clothesline fresh.  I'm not sure if I'm just too close to it or if it has a kind of timelessness to it that it makes it impossible to attach to a certain period of time.  Maybe to the reader the song screams 1989 or something the way other songs of that era do with me.  I guess that songs that connect with you have a terrific way of hiding the warts.

And it still makes me want to hop on my couch and pick up a bass (or, at least, air bass).  But, only after I double check to make sure the curtains are closed. 

*  Seriously, that apartment ruled.  Get this: off street parking, 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 baths, walk-out patio, tons of storage, pool all for $400 a month.  Sure, maybe I fell asleep counting the gunshots I could hear.  Sure, maybe I woke up for work at 2:30 listening to the guy in the apartment below me dealing dimebags from the basement apartment.  But, that apartment also had the best shower: no water pressure regulator and it had a window.  Plus, when we had hot water, it was really hot water.  I'd live in Mogadishu for a good shower.

It's like looking back in time

To bring you up to speed, I work at Xavier University's Library.  This is relevant because, for at least 24 years, my high school alma mater, Mariemont, has been bringing their senior level English students to the library to help finding research materials.  I was here 21 years ago, acting like finding books about John Hersey's The Wall was way more important to me than not having to be in class that morning.  I don't really remember much of that trip other than thinking it was kind of cool to be walking around a real, live college campus with real, live college chicks.

Older chicks.  Chicks who had something to teach me.

Naturally, I only walked out of the library that day with some photocopied chapters from Something About the Author, maybe one or two other books and the crushing disappointment that I didn't bang someone in the bathroom.  That crushing disappointment was nothing compared to the spirit crushing hopelessness I experienced when I got my final grade.  OK, I passed, but barely and only after I had to convince my teacher that my lack of coherent citations weren't acts of plagiarism but a poor understanding of how to properly compose MLA citations.

Helpful hint: when using Something About the Author as a resource, typing "Something pg. 126" is not the way to go.

Which brings me to the present and helping those Mariemont students find the research they were looking for.  When things slowed down and I was standing by the stacks waiting to help the next student, I watched them milling around, their demeanor, body language and how engaged they were.  I watched how they interacted with the teachers and vice versa.  One teacher spent ten or so minutes with one student, urging her on and giving her ideas.  The same teacher ambled up to one listless student, expressed a half hearted interest in his progress and walked away seconds later with a tap on his shoulder.

Later the same student stood on the other side of a glass wall making fish faces while his teacher's back was turned to him.

In those kids, I couldn't help but remember my classmates.  The over-achievers, the stoner/slackers, the defeated, the ones struggling but trying and the completely disinterested.  Each kid was a kid that's now an adult in their late 30's.  And, while I watched the scene unfold, it brought back small and forgotten memories of their counterparts, the guys and gals in my class.  Brief snippets of conversations or the shirts they would wear, the cars they drove.  The girls I lusted after, but never stood a chance.

There is something very comforting about that.

In many ways, I feel blessed to be working with young adults.  It helps me maintain a perspective that all the noise about how the younger generations just don't care and are hopeless different than we were just aren't true.  The styles and technology change, but the attitudes and behavior is, more or less, quite similar.  And in those faces, I saw JS, LW, JG, BB, LB, NS, TH, SW, TH.

My class didn't have their 20th reunion this year and, although it is scheduled to happen sometime this summer, I have my doubts that will even happen.  But, yesterday and today were a weird sort of reunion; one of memories and creatively assigned roles.

Turning the lights back on

Hi all,

As per usual, life got the better of me that last few months and SOLAST has been dormant.  Truth is, I thought about working something up here a lot and just never really put a whole lot of effort into it.  While I'm no expert on behavior patterns, part of it is that I'm running out of topics to write about.  I mean, what's the point of writing an essay about a song that was so important that it changed your life if that list is endless.  Do you really want to read about the day I bought Nevermind was also the last day I ever stepped foot in the McDonalds on Ridge Road? 

So, things need to shake up a bit and SOLAST will start looking a bit different.  Since music is still an obsession, there will be more random thoughts about songs/artists/concerts/albums that are more representative of the things I'm thinking at the time.  I'm also hoping to have guest contributors, so if you want to submit something, let me know.  It doesn't even have to be about music.

Another thing I am considering is dropping in bits of fiction that I've written. 

Primarily, 2012 is going to be the year I do the stuff I've either been too scared to do or just couldn't figure out how to do it.  Keeping SOLAST going is important to me, because it keeps me writing which is something I enjoy doing.  In the time since I've started this, I've had a very narrow definition about what should be included and that didn't seem to include anything under 3000 words.  Having that requirement put pressure on me to come up with 3000+ words when all I wanted to do was make a pithy comment or two about how Mick Harvey is criminally under-appreciated.

So, yeah.  You should detect a pulse here sometime next week. 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

The first time I ever laid eyes on the Tea Cozy Cottage, or rather, the sorry excuse of a building the Tea Cozy Cottage would eventually come to occupy, I was horrified.  From the walkway, I saw a mound of ivy that was vaguely cottage shaped.  The porch was sagging, the few spots paint was visible showed it was peeling and the window sills were rotting.  I turned to Christy, who had come along with me and said, "The place needs to be bulldozed."

Actually, for accuracy's sake, my first impression came not from my vision, but from my sense of smell.  And given that I have a deviated septum and was battling spring allergies at the time, that should tell you something about the power of that particular odor.  As I stepped out of my car some 150 feet away, I became acutely aware of cat piss and as I drew closer to the building, its intensity only increased to the point where I began to taste it.  By the time I stepped inside, there was an almost visible yellow mist.  "This place really needs to be bulldozed."

As bad as the outside and stench were, the inside was a train wreck.  The walls were covered in moisture softened mildewy wood paneling, ivy was growing through the windows, the electric wasn't working, the bathroom's concrete floor was sagging under the weight of a brightly painted orange claw foot bathtub and have I mentioned the smell?  If you, as a reader, ever wish to know the differences between Michelle and me, this is it.  On one hand, you have me wondering how much money one of those big Caterpillar excavators cost to rent while on the other is Michelle wondering whether it would make more sense to have all seating in the main room or if two or three tables could fit in the front too.  Sometimes, we're on the same planet but inhabiting wildly different worlds.

Notice the ivy growing through the window.

To my lovely wife, it seemed like a sweetheart deal: all we'd have to do is fix the place up.  That's it.  Then we could open a tea house and whatever money we put into it would be deducted from rent.  In one of my proud moments I might not be so proud of, I decided to quash this right then and there.  So, I walked around the inside and outside with her pointing out the myriad of things that would need to attended to while guesstimating the costs.  "Floors redone: $2000, new gutters: $2000, back and front porches rebuilt: $4000, etc.  Etc.  Etc."

She'd counter with the "well, if we did such and such repair ourselves, it would just cost materials" said with puppy dog eyes and slightly pouted lower lip argument.  My resolution was tested, my resolve weakening under the ferocity of her earnest pitifullest, but I stuck to my guns.  "The roof is sagging, the ceiling looks weird and I don't think there is enough napalm in the world to get rid of all that ivy."

"Did I mention there are nearly 200 bottles of wine in the basement we'd get to keep if we fixed the place up," she asked?

Well, no, she didn't mention that, but what gambler worth their salt is going to tip their adversary that they're holding an ace card.  Editor's note: the author doesn't know much of anything about poker, so he's assuming that having an ace is probably a good thing.  And while I had already played my trump card which appealed to her cheap frugal side, she smashed through that with hers which tempted my alcoholic side.  "200 bottles, you say," already conceding?

And with those four words, we were in the tea business. 

We spent the next six months or so with the serious help of friends and family rehabbing the place.  Michelle's step-dad helped build the front porch, my dad the back.  Jessica helped break up concrete in the bathroom, Gary, Victor and Chip helped put up walls.  CR created and manages our website.  Co-workers and friends came to paint and spruce the place up.  Outside of the gutter guys, a bit of plumbing work and the useless electrician, we did it all ourselves and, yes, it did save us tons of money.  The process nearly killed me though.  Between slipping off the roof, having a razor sharp knife and a 1980's era calculator bolted to a block of solid wood fall from the ceiling tiles and onto my head and the assortment of particulates, vapors and fumes I inhaled that summer, it is a wonder that I was able to walk away from it in one scabby and infected piece.

An after shot from just about the same spot as the before.

But back to the wine.  The property the slowly shaping tea house was on also housed a pre-Civil War era house that, for decades, had been one of Cincinnati's legacy restaurants, the Heritage.  The Heritage was the place that your grandparents would take you for your eight grade graduation assuming that a) your grandparents were rich b) your grandparents ate wild game c) your grandparents were alive.  For me, my grandparents took me to Bill Knapps because they could get 8% off when it was my birthday, so I only managed to get to the Heritage once for brunch shortly before it closed.

But, from what I hear, the place was something special.  They'd serve foods not usually seen in the area and season them with the herbs they grew in the building that would eventually become our tea house.  And since wine was such an integral part of the experience there, they kept a large stock of it laying around.  This was why I was so excited that there were 200 bottles laying around in the basement of our place, almost certainly forgotten and almost certainly to find their way to my basement wine cellar.  I went down through the creepy, trapdoor to the basement where Michelle swears she saw a ghost.  For my part, I couldn't dispute it since I always closed my eyes while in that room.  And there, stored between the mountain of coal, the coal furnace from the 1920s and the gas furnace that churned out carbon monoxide rather than warmth were a dozen, dozen and a half wine boxes.

"Squeeeee," I squealed.  "Daddy's getting drunk, classy style tonight," I may have said.

I walked over to the boxes and noticed immediately that they were covered in mildew and the once firm cardboard had taken on the rigidity of a pretty thick oatmeal.  But, as I pulled the bottles out, I was excited to see that the labels looked fancy, old and, were, by and large, in French.  As much as I enjoy wine, I am embarrassed to admit that I know next to nothing about it.  I know what I like and I'm generally OK with pairing the right wine with the foods I eat, but my palate isn't sophisticated enough to really be offended if I decided to have a Cab with chicken.

What I did now was that the wine was not well stored as the bottles were upright not on their sides.  The temperature was probably alright, maybe a bit warm, but a visual inspection determined that I still had to work my way through many, many bottles of wine.  Over the next few days, I'd transfer some bottles from the unusable boxes into stolen milk and mail crates and take them home.  There was a certain thrill of driving home, covered in dust, paint and bits of dried blood knowing that you have a couple dozen bottles of wine clinking around in your trunk.  I'd get lost in the fantasy of being a Prohibition era hooch runner, evading the fuzz.  Imaginary clouds of dust obscuring flashing blue and red lights, billowing behind my 1997 Neon with the sunroof duct taped shut.  Quite often, that daydreaming and the exhaustion of putting in a thirteen hour day resulted in me driving past my house.

Of course, I told myself that I was just trying to shake the revenuers.

For one reason or another, I don't recall us drinking that wine right away.  I think part of the reason was that we weren't 100% sure we were allowed to keep it.  The landlord said we could, but our he didn't always toe the line in regard to things legal and otherwise.  So, for the better part of the summer, we stashed them in a corner.  Finally, when we decided it was safe to sample our findings, I picked out the bottle I had my eye on for a while.  It was the fanciest looking as well as the oldest.  It had to be great, right?

And, that 1989 French red was great.  A really delicious wine which forced us to not gulp it down so as to savor the flavors.  I looked over at Michelle who was coming to the same conclusion, but with the addition of little dollar signs forming in her eyes.  "We could sell these.  We could sell these and use the money to help fund the tea house."

As much as I wanted to drink all that wine myself, part of me understood that neither me or my liver were up to that sort of a challenge.  So, I set about making a list of the wines to send to Rafe who had a cousin in the wine business.  All I'd have to do is wait a couple days and then try to figure out a way to sell the many tens of thousands of dollars worth of wine that was sitting in my basement.  In the meantime, we had another terrific bottle.  Things were looking up.

However, just as things were looking tasty and profitable, reality came crashing back to earth.  First came the email from Rafe saying that the wines, while fine in their own way, were not going to bankroll my plans for a Lamborghini yacht jet liner hybrid I had doodled in the margins of the agenda during a meeting at work.   I think the highest price given was $40 with the rest settling in in the $10-$15 dollar range.  Most, however, couldn't be assigned a price.

Well, crap.

At least we could still drink it.  And to wash that disappointment away, I uncorked a bottle and tipped it to pour into the glass.  However, instead of the wine flowing, what came out instead could be be described as purple cottage cheese.  Instead of a fine vintage, I got something that looked more akin to a grape jello salad.  You know when someone says not to do something and you know when you hear that you think "oh, they must be warning me off of making a grave mistake" or something?  You hear and think that but, almost reflexively, you ignore the advice and proceed.

I ignored the commonsense all-together and raised that lumpy messy to my mouth.  Until I painted the kitchen a couple of years ago, there was a vague yet distinctive reddish stain on the wall where it spit that clump out.  Without thinking too hard, I can still experience that soured metallic taste and my mouth starts watering like it does right before you vomit.  I dumped the rest of the bottle out trying as hard as possible not to breath through my nose.  It came out in blurbs and the kitchen smelled like rancid vinegar (assuming vinegar goes bad.)

With my mouth and throat burning, I opened another bottle so I could subdue the flavor horror I was experiencing.  Although not quite as dramatic as the first one, the new wine still came out quite clumpy.  Maybe a 2/3 liquid 1/3 cheese curd ratio.  "Ah," I said, "I'll be smart this time."  I grabbed a strainer and separated the two parts.  I tossed the lumps into the trash and gave my glass a swirl to let it breathe.  "To fine living," I murmured to myself as I toasted our microwave.

That time, I managed to spit the wine into the sink otherwise the stain on the wall would have had a playmate.  I never claimed to be cultured, let alone smart and looking back, I probably should have realized that if a wine pours like that then it is probably not going to be good.  Count that as a life lesson.

All in all and over the course of a few weeks, four more bottles were opened and they all had turned.  Seeing that and still trying unsuccessfully to get rid of that taste, I stared mournfully at our stash.  Instead of 194 bottles of possibility and financial windfall, they had transformed into cylindrical tormentors taunting me.  "Open me up, Christian.  I promise to be delicious," one mockingly remarked.  "No, pick me," another derisively declared, "I compliment a plate full of warm sulfur beautifully."

The whole affair depressed me greatly.  The boxes sat untouched in a corner for months, maybe even a year.  Friends would come over and enthuse about the collection.  I'd shamefully reveal the truth and would shrug my shoulders when they asked why I kept them.  It had been my plan to go back and root out one more good bottle.  After all, the laws of averages were in my favor.  But, so great was my disgust and resignation that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Instead, I found someone who bought the whole mess for $50.  To be fair, I was completely honest with him about how I found them and what my experiences had been.  Doing a little jig when he said he'd take them anyway, I shoved the money in my pocket and with a new found energy, helped him load the bottles into his car.  A few weeks later he told me that he had opened a number of bottles and hadn't found one that wasn't awful.

Caveat emptor!

That bit of education taught me so much.  Namely, that things which were once top drawer often have a way of disappointing the older it gets.  And because I tend to be a moody, overly analytical bastard, I couldn't just chalk up all that bad wine as being just one of those things.  No, I just had to add a significance to it, make it bigger than it was: I was getting older and would probably start sucking any day now.  Perhaps those lovable heroin addicted scamps in Trainspotting can help explain it.

Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : What do you mean?
Sick Boy : Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : Some of his solo stuff's not bad.
Sick Boy : No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just shite.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : So who else?
Sick Boy : Charlie Nicholas, David Niven, Malcolm McLaren, Elvis Presley...
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : OK, OK, so what's the point you're trying to make?
Sick Boy : All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of The Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : What about The Untouchables?
Sick Boy : I don't rate that at all.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy : That means fuck all. Its a sympathy vote.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy : Yeah.
Mark "Rent-boy" Renton : That's your theory?
Sick Boy : Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated.

I thought a lot about it and realized that a piece of fiction could be right.  I thought of my own pop-culture heroes, many of whom have been mentioned here.  Out of the multitude of CDs I own, I can pretty much count on one hand the number of artists who just keep being great despite the fact that they've been going for years: Nick Cave, Jason Pierce..umm.  Even acts I lovelovelove, acts like the Stone Roses, Public Enemy, the Dandy Warhols, the Stones, etc, etc, etc have all become a relative shell of themselves.  Sure, the newer stuff isn't bad, but it is nothing like the earlier stuff that had a fire to it.  Maybe Sick Boy was right, maybe age and success soften the edges too much.

And as these thoughts swirled in my brain and as I curled into a fetal position in a corner contemplating just what that meant to my life, my iTunes came riding to my rescue.  I don't know about you, but my iTunes/iPod has an uncanny ability to sometimes play the exact right song at the exact right place when it is in shuffle mode.  Sometimes, it is just eerie how the right song can give me a bit more motivation to get up that hill when I am jogging.  Or, maybe, I'm stuck in a morose moment and it will play some silly song that reminds me of better times.  Once, when riding the Chunnel train into Paris, just when we came out of the tunnel and the French countryside came into view, Luck of Lucien came up.

I love those moments.

Anyway, I was having an existential crisis when it decided to play Voodoo Child (Slight Return) by Jimi Hendrix.  Now, I had been a long time fan of Hendrix and counted him as one of the reasons I first got interested in playing guitar.  However, I hadn't really paid him much attention in many years once my interest started waning from classic rock to hip hop and indie stuff, so, at that time, chances were pretty good that was the first I was hearing it years.

And, with that time away from the tune, it really was like I was hearing it for the first time again.  About thirty seconds in, just after the wah intro, he launches into a maelstrom of guitar pyrotechnics that, to me, sounded like what I think the 60's would have been like.  Now look, I'm not talking that peace and love and flowers in your hair 60's that our parents have convinced us was coursing through America's consciousness at the time.  I'm talking about everything else that happened and how, in spite of attempts to revise it, that time really kind of sucked.

Close your eyes and conjure up as many images as you can of that era Editor's note: but open them after a little bit so you can read the rest of this.  Probably and without much effort, you start remembering black and white photos and video of marchers on a bridge in Selma being met by police dogs, clubs and fire hoses.  You'll think of the Zapruder film and Jackie crawling out of that convertible Lincoln, of Dr. King laying dying on a Memphis balcony while other men point to where the fatal bullet originated.  Robert Kennedy gasping for breath in Los Angeles, Thích Quảng Đức, Nguyễn Ngọc Loan and Huey helicopters airlifting wounded GIs.  Violence like the Chicago DNC, Paris, Stonewall, Kent State and Altamont come to mind.

And when you listen to the song, you can hear those things, especially once clear of the wah intro.  It's not an understatement to mention that Hendrix was an incredibly gifted guitarist and is certainly my favorite of all the usually mentioned as guitar gods.  In his and the Experience's playing, I heard the rage, anger, confusion and fear stemming from the unrest and culture clashes.  It sounds like a bomb exploding and, while I can't know what was going through his mind when he played it, that's what I hear.

The thing was, though, I wasn't even alive when those things were happening.  I was still a baby when Nixon resigned and the Vietnam War ended.  But, shortly after I started the song over, my own experiences replaced black and whites with full color.  That song again playing sound tracked the contentious 2000 Presidential elections, the Twin Towers crumbling down to the ground, Abu Ghraib, color coded terror levels, WTO protests, governments fighting their people in the Middle East, out of control political partisanship, Katrina, BP's Gulf oil spill, Enron, subprime mortgages, tax-payer funded corporate bailouts and the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the song took on a new life and, in a sense, it was reborn anew.  Despite the fact that Voodoo Child was pushing 40, it seemed to perfectly nestle in with modern times. Many of those same emotions, the fear and confusion, that were at work when he recorded were/are still prevalent, although the rage and anger seems to have been somewhat replaced with complacency and resignation.   That song is still relevant and, more importantly, exciting.

Now, I do enjoy and listen to a number of artists that would fall into that classic rock or even oldies genres, but, outside of a handful of songs, a lot of it sounds somewhat dated.  Part of that could be production standards, but, really, I think it is mostly that, over the years of exposure and by other bands taking influence, they don't sound current.  That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, it's just that I don't hear "today" when I listen to Buddy Holly or The Doors; it sounds like the decade in which they were recorded.

It could be that I don't spend much any time listening to rock guitar gods these days, so maybe if I did, then Hendrix's efforts would sound outmoded.  Thankfully, I don't and thankfully, coming to realize that even after nearly a half century, that song still held its power.  And, then, that got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't predestined to get lame.

Maybe.

If a song that is just a few years older than I am can still kick ass, then, yeah, I don't have anything to worry about.  If I sit and itemize some of the things I'm pretty happy with, those things are pretty cool and, yes, often even exciting.  I could list out why I think that but my editor told me that would be a fairly pathetic exercise Editor's note: I stand by that.

Either way, getting older will present its limitations and even now, I know that I'm not able to do some of the things I could twenty years ago.  But the cool thing is, I don't necessarily miss those things.  That's who I was then and as long as I continue to be who I am developing into being, then I'll be ageless.  Granted, once my body starts physically breaking down, that might be another story.  Check this space when I get gout or break my hip.

Even the tea house is moving on.  After what will be almost seven productive years, Michelle and I decided to close shop.  Part of it is that business is slowing, but, more than we care to admit, it's taking an immense physical toll on us, especially her.  In the years the Cozy has been open, it was, in one way or another, a fairly large presence in our lives.  It was demanding, yes, but it was more than that.  It was stories of bridal showers where the bride-to-be took Michelle aside to effusively thank her.  It was tales, we can now look back on and laugh about, of plumbing disasters and the perseverance it took not to lose our cool.  It was knowing that our creativity and dedication made memories and moments to friends and families to which we may or may not have had attachments.  The tea house was our home and we wanted our guests to feel welcomed.

We've decided that it won't be a part of our life anymore.  The edges are fraying and the taste is bittersweet.  But, I can only speculate as to how it's shadow will affect our future.  Until then, I'll remain optimistic that my life won't turn out to be lumpy purple vinegar.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

Thoughts on the latest Stone Roses reunion rumor

I should be excited, but my foot's not off the brake completely.  I saw the NME headline and Brown's quote saying "It's happening."  Where doubt comes in is that the quote is by a guy reporting to be his friend.  A magician friend.  A magician named "Dynamo."  Reported to the Sun tabloid.  From a text message.

You know me, I want this to happen and will probably ask all of you to help me find tickets if it does.  For as many shows as I have vacation days.  I'll do the same from my end.  It's not like if we both ended up with tickets we'd have a hard time selling them off.  Shoot, if I sold them and I was unscrupulous, we'd have enough for my air ticket over and one for you to come with me. 

I am excited and hopeful.  Look, I know it's not going to be 1989 again and I sort of hope they don't reform to record new stuff.  So, it is pure nostalgia and the fact that I'll be hearing and seeing played live, for my first time, songs I've loved for more than half my life removes all reason.  The logical side of me says to keep my expectations low in the hopes of being surprised.

My emotional half says "Fuck it, dude.  Lose your shit about this.  You've wanted to see them live since you heard "Fools Gold" on that blue mix tape Simon sent you in 1989.  You've wanted new songs since you heard "Ride On" and "Moses" on the (I think) "Ten Story Love Song."  I hope those four guys (and Cressa) enlist John Leckie and find the magic of the first album.  I really, really do.  How can I not want to hear "This is the One" played live?

We'll see though.  My doubts are many, but my hopes outnumber them right now.

Spiritualized - Songs in A&E the exciting conclusion

Catch up on the previous entries by clicking these handy links: Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5 and Pt. 6

The last day of any trip is always kind of bittersweet.  On one hand, you’ve got a lifetime of hopefully, great memories, but on the other hand, you know that this time tomorrow, you’ll be stuck in the tedium known as work, or worse, air travel.  And brothers and sisters, ain’t nothing worse than air travel.  That sounds like hyperbole, but I am pretty sure that having my insides eaten away by bug larvae wouldn't be nearly as soul-crushing.  There are the delays, the surly gate agents, the amorous attentive TSA agents, the shitty restaurants, sweaty Germans, screaming children, the inability to get a flask through anymore, customs at Miami-Dade airport, O'Hare, snow storms, ice storms, rain storms, wind storms, sun storms.  But, the primary reason I hate to travel is because I of my height.  Mother nature combined with a steady regimen of Flintstone vitamins and genetically enhanced meat as well as my solid Germanic make-up has made me quite tall.  Freakishly tall, some would say, but people who say that are assholes even if that is how I sometimes choose to describe myself.

We vertically enhanced people know that quite often the world is not made for us.  Oh sure, we can see the band on the stage, but that benefit is usually negated by some dwarf who, after you had been standing in that same spot for set-up, the opener, the second opener and some tattooed roadie shouting “Check, check, one, two, one two” into the mic for forty-seven minutes, decided to stand behind you and then spend the entire remainder of the show complaining about how their view from behind is blocked.

Really, outside of concert sight lines and maybe the ability to get things off of the top shelf, being tall actually kind of sucks.  Clothes are hard to find, our backs hurt a lot, we’re clumsy and more heinously, airplane seats bypassed “uncomfortable” and got off on the “Spanish Inquisition” exit.  Like they were designed by dwarfs’ intent on paying back the tall guy who blocked their view at that Jesus and Mary Chain show back in what was it, ’94, ’95?

Even on the shortest flights, even on those puddle-jumpers, I inevitably find myself sitting behind someone who, despite being short enough to warrant a booster seat, is the first person to recline and the last person to return their seats to a full, upright and locked position.  And despite my appeals for relief, kindness, human compassion and threats of deep vein thrombosis, that person ignores me at best, or at worst, starts aggressively rocking back and forth (true story).

Even with enough bourbon and Ambien in my system to impress Janis Joplin, sleep is hard to come by so I, generally, become quite angry and listless.  I know when I’ve reached my breaking point when I begin to consider mass genocide on anyone less than five and a half feet tall.  And that doesn’t even take into consideration all those other frustrations and annoyances airports offer in lieu of efficiency and service.

The worst was the time Michelle and I were to fly back from Tahiti into LAX.  There were only 2 flights on that route.  We were, if memory serves and if Michelle doesn’t correct me, scheduled to fly out on the afternoon flight.  Something happened to the morning flight and it never left LA, so you had 250 people who were stuck in Tahiti, which in and of itself doesn’t sound that bad until you consider that we were at the airport.  Airports have the remarkable ability to strip any charm or beauty from any surrounding.  Combined with the lack of the traveler's personal hygiene products to say nothing of missing connecting flights, things weren't ideal.  An airline rep went around asking for volunteers to give up their seats and a few accepted, leaving the rest of us to sit at the airport, waiting and hoping for the evening flight to arrive.

As minutes became hours and hours became more hours and as the sun was consumed by the sea, the plane, our plane, was nowhere to be seen.  Finally, around 7:00, a Hawaiian airline rep told us that the evening flight had been delayed in LAX for mechanical problems and updates would be given periodically.

Apparently, in Tahitian culture, “periodically” means “never” because that was the last we saw of her.  To compound things, that was just about the last that we saw of any airport official, save the odd janitor or security guard and the crowd…well, that crowd was getting restless.  One of those perpetual thorns in the proverbial side was getting louder, angrier, trying to whip the stranded passengers up into missed flight frenzy.

Finally, after eight more uninformed and sweltering hours in that airport, a plane arrived and, within an hour or so, we all had boarded to return to the States.  It was the first and only time I ever saw people cheering when the stewardess gave her safety spiel.

We arrived in LA close to 18 hours behind schedule, so connections were obviously lost.  The pilot informed us that there would be a cadre of uniformed employees who would help travelers with their connection needs, but as we exited the plane, all we saw was a lone, poor woman, holding a clipboard being surrounded by close to 50 screaming travelers.  The scene was quite sickening and reminiscent of an African savannah feeding frenzy.

Fortunately, my brilliant wife grabbed me by the arm and told me to leave it.

“But…but…but…” I protested, simple-mindedly assuming that clipboard wielding woman was our only hope.  “Just follow me and keep your mouth shut if you want to live,” I recall her saying.

In retrospect, I don’t think that was what she actually said, but for creative and intensity building purposes, it sounds way better than “I’ve got an idea.  Let’s go to the American Airlines desk and see what they can do.”

Now, I’ve never been the luckiest traveler.  If there are sweaty, smelly Germans, screaming babies or Jesus freaks on a plane, I will be seated within 6 inches of them.  If there is a plane that breaks down on the tarmac, I’ll be on it.  If, after hours of delays, the airline decides to cancel a flight which, in effect, strands me at O’Hare, I’ll be booked on that flight.  So, with that all in mind, I was prepared to either shell out hundreds of dollars for a new flight or spend the night in LA; neither of which sounded like a lot of fun.

But, luck be a lady that day.  More specifically, the Doritos lady.  As the vaguely familiar looking woman left the counter in front of us, an absolutely glowing young man waved us over.  “Dude…did you see her?  That was the Doritos girl.” (In case you’re a foreigner, aren’t up on obscure pop culture references or someone who refuses to watch TV because…you know, it’s soulless, vacuous and worthless and you get off spending hours telling people you think are your friends about how they are wasting time watching the idiot box while quoting bits of the Disposable Heroes of Hypocrisy, then just Youtube it using the search terms “Doritos girl”).

Maybe it was that he was walking on air or maybe he just was a really nice guy or maybe it was a combination of the two, but he, very much against regulations, somehow tweaked the system into getting us on a Delta flight leaving within the hour.  Amazing.  A bit harrowing, but we finally got home with our luggage.

Which brings us back to the cruise.  As the ship navigated through the crystalline waters of the archipelagos and into Stockholm, my mind was less on the sights we’d see or even Songs in A&E and more on the fact that we were connecting in Amsterdam on stand-by the next day.  An email I received from a pilot friend told me that the plane was pretty much at capacity, so there was a pretty good chance that we’d not get on.  Under normal circumstances, an unplanned night in Amsterdam would be great and, in fact, that thought was why I originally urged Michelle to arrange the flights that way rather than going through Gatwick or de Gaulle.  I mean, if we got stuck, why not be stuck in a city where I can get high to pass the time?  Of course, this isn’t what I told her.  “Schiphol is such a better airport than de Gaulle or Gatwick,” I said.

While that statement is actually true, I deluded myself into actually believing that I fooled her with my reasoning.  She knows how one of my favorite memories of going to Amsterdam was wandering through the streets at night, smoking a spliff and just being so at peace with my wife and the cinematic beauty of the city all the while floating in space.  That was 100% better than my first trip to Amsterdam, though.

I was 15 years old and traveling internationally more or less alone for the first time in my life.  In fact, I had never even traveled alone ever.  After the culture shock of Telford, England and its pork pies, the Red Hot and Dutch satellite channel and vindaloos, I was ready for home.  I had flown to ‘Dam with my dad who then flew on to Milan where he had business, so it was arranged that I would meet him at the hotel when we both made it back to the city.  No problem, right?  At the airport, I found my way to the train and made it to Amsterdam Centraal.  Almost immediately off the train, a sweaty man with an open shirt, hairy chest and chains came up to me.  Leering down on me, he asked if I needed a place to stay for the night.

Thankfully, my parents warned me against talking to strangers because little Susie McInstein down the street got kidnapped by Arab slave traders and they forced her into slavery where she was sold to a brothel where she had to entertain dwarf circus carnies and other nightmares directly from a Nick Cave song And after she got a bit long in the tooth, they chopped her up and made her into stew, so I ran.  I ran fast.

I ran fast right past the taxi rank, right past the bus information kiosk and right into the red-light district.  Now, you’d think that a 15 year old boy would be in heaven surrounded by nearly naked women gyrating in windows, but given a somewhat staid Lutheran upbringing and an ill-advised stint in Young Life, I, embarrassingly at the time, equated sex with eternal damnation.  Which is not to say that I’d patronize a hooker even if I was single.  Being as socially inept and out of the game as I am, I honestly just wouldn’t even know how to get started getting on with a hooker.  “Umm, so, you come here much, ma’am?” or “I would like a bout of fellatio.  Do you take traveler’s checks?” Plus, I’d know she’d be faking everything and that would just make me feel weird or make me start laughing or something.  That would get the pimp pissed and then I’d get the shit kicked out of me.

Either way, celibacy or the monogamous relationship I have with the missus a much better option.

Those are just some of the reasons I’ve never visited a whore.  Here are some more:

a) Fear of diseases
b) Exploitation
c) It might actually be a dude.
d) I’ve seen way too many police stings on C.O.P.S. and the whole “Are you a police officer?” thing never works.
e) I’d rather spend my money on an obscure seven inch single by a Madchester band no one but their moms and me have ever heard of, let alone remember.

I’m guessing it wasn’t the first time that a bunch of hookers saw a 15 year old boy running down the street, covering his eyes and wetting his pants, but it might have given them a chuckle that day.  I finally found my way out of the Red-Light District and was almost to the hotel when a scraggy man came up to me.  He said something I couldn’t quite understand, so I asked him to say it again.  “Hash, brown, coke?”

Cocking my head like a curious terrier, I stared at him quizzically.  “Huh?”

“Hash, brown, coke?”

A couple of things here.  I have never come across hash in Cincinnati, so at the time, the word hash only applied if the next word was “brown.”  And although I had heard of coke as slang for cocaine, I thought maybe the guy was just offering me breakfast and a refreshing drink.  “No thanks, sir, I’ve already eaten,” I said as I tried to past him.

“Nooooo, hash,” he said making the universal gesture of smoking a joint.

My eyes widened as I squeaked out a bit more urine into my already soggy jeans. 

By the time I arrived at the hotel, I smelled like a Canterbury record store, my heart was racing and I made my dad promise to not make me leave the room.  It wasn’t so much culture shock as it was culture rape. After some convincing, I hesitantly agreed to go to a McDonald’s across the street for dinner where I thought I’d be safe.  Naturally, we were panhandled by a guy with track marks all up and down his arms supposedly trying to get to Rotterdam.  To this day, I associate junkies with Rotterdam.

Over the years, that night had become something of a family joke and even years later when I told my folks that I was going back, they took care to make sure I was up for it.  Now I see it for what it is: A beautiful city, with tolerant, warm and friendly people, culturally diverse and, sure, it was nice smoking up while there.

But, now, on the second to last day of a 15 day trip, I was just looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed, however great the vacation had already been.  Nearly every experience we had during our time was amazing and we were just ready.

The ship docked and we took the shuttle into Stockholm.  It was the day of the marathon, so traffic was pretty bad and it took quite a while since certain roads had closed to accommodate the runners.  When we arrived in the city center and I was immediately overwhelmed by how many people were on the streets.  It was nothing short of amazing.  I’ve been to New York, London, Paris, Chicago and L.A. and am used to crowded streets, but this was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  And they weren’t just normal people; these were people who looked like they had stepped out of every MTV video ever made.  Punks with liberty spikes, Goths, emo kids, Salt 'n' Pepa hip hoppers, metal chicks, you name it.  And, they didn’t look like they were dated or even co-opting the style with a modern twist; they looked like somehow they stepped out of that era and were transplanted into 2008 Stockholm.  From a people watching perspective, it was brilliant.

We forgot to bring a map, so we just started walking through a pretty generic looking shopping district.  I had my eyes peeled for a record store, but at this point, I wasn’t expecting a ton.  After a bit of a hike, the crowd thinned out and we found ourselves in a leafy part of the town.  We stopped in a church and stared in awe of the design and artwork on its walls.  We visited a charity shop and while Michelle looked through the antique teapots, I asked the clerk if there were any record stores in the area.

Being the clever cat I am, this time, rather than trying to cobble together an awkwardly worded sentence, I asked her “Talar du engelska?” (do you speak English?) She said she did, so I asked my question but, of course, she could only give me vague recollection that there might be one back on a street we had already walked down.  Rats.  Michelle bought her stuff and we headed back out through another park, an outdoor market, into another church, past a group of Peruvian Indians playing pan-flutes and past the marathon’s 18 mile (or was that kilometer?) marker.  Leaning up against a wall, we watched as the runners pushed and willed themselves to continue.  I thought of my own personal marathon trying to find that rotten CD and decided that, hey, if a person can run 26.2 miles, then I can be a big boy and find a record store.  Or, at least, die trying.

 

We pressed on, up the world’s narrowest street, past a woman flashing her cooze while sitting somewhat inappropriately on the steps of a church and into a teahouse for some refreshment.  It was getting late and we had a very early wake-up in the morning, so we decided to head back to the ship to pack, get an early dinner and turn in so we could get some rest for our long flight.  As we made our way through the crowds, I thought over our trip and all the wonderful memories I had: Sharing a meal and drinks with Rafe’s parents at their home in Deal; eating sketchy kebobs by a canal in Canterbury; having Rafe and Karen show us their Oxford; the ship leaving London under Tower Bridge; that quiet church in Honfluer; sitting in a park in Copenhagen basking in the sun; speaking German to Germans for the first time; riding bikes through Bornholm as well as countless other memories bounced around my head.  I was so preoccupied them, that I nearly didn’t notice Michelle tugging at my arm, wildly pointing at a window.

A window behind which were CDs.  Lots and lots of CDs.  I gasped and knocked her to the ground as I made a beeline to the entrance.  If I was any sort of a writer, I’d concoct a story about how the doors were closing for the night and my frustration continued.  Or that the doors closed, but Michelle sweet-talked the clerk into opening just long enough for me to buy the CD after telling them the whole story of the hunt like the time she did when she got me the Second Coming CD at Gatwick the day it was released before the store even opened.

But, I’m not that kind of writer/liar and the store was not ready to close for the night.  Not even close.  Once inside, I think I must have blacked out, because I remember nothing from the time I crossed the threshold until I arrived at the “SPR” area of the POP/ROCK section.  I didn’t even need to flip through the CDs, because there, at eye level, was a display with Jason Pierce’s face, plastered next to a review of Songs in A&E. And there, next to his face and next to that review was the CD.  It was gorgeous featuring a simple white cover with green lettering of the title and the band’s name.  Lightening fast, I grabbed one of the 25 copies just in case there was a run on it in the usual point two seconds it would’ve normally taken me to get one.  It felt like I was floating in space Editor's note: boooooo, bad pun as I made my way to the till.

I handed the CD to the dreadlocked and pierced clerk excitedly giving her an account of my quest up until now:

“OHMYGODICAN’TBELIEVEIFINALLYFOUNDTHISCDICOULDN’TFINDITANYWHERENOTHONFLUERNOTCOPENHAGENNOTHEREORTHEREORANYWHEREHAPPYSOHAPPYDOYOUTAKEAMERICANEXPRESS?”

Smiling politely, she rang me up and handed me the receipt saying, “I hope you’ll like it.”

She hopes I’ll like it?  Helga, please.  It’s Spiritualized and has three songs with the word “Fire” in the title.  I had a CD player back at the ship, but decided that since we had a ton of stuff to do before we left, I’d just hold off until we reached Schiphol.  It wasn’t easy holding that glorious piece of plastic, wondering if I could make another 15 hours without hearing it.  But, I am strong.  I am willful and, like those marathoners, I’d push myself through to the last mile.

That night, we packed, had our dinner, had a last drink, then another and another after that before retiring for the night.  In the morning, a shuttle took us to the airport where we caught a connecting flight into Amsterdam.  After a bit of transfer hassle, we found our way to the gate only to discover that the flight was now oversold and our stand-by buddy passes might not work.  It didn’t matter.  I opened the CD, gingerly removed it from the case and put it in the player.  I put my noise-canceling headphones on and pressed play.
The first track was an instrumental piece before going into the disc’s first song, the gorgeous “Sweet Talk.”  Goosebumps.  Then the sparse “Death Take Your Fiddle” then the raw “I Gotta Fire” and the nearly pop “Soul on Fire.”  Stunning and, sonically, all over the place.  I pressed pause and handed the headphones to Michelle saying, “You’ve got to hear the first four songs.” And, although, they aren’t her favorite band, she did look up a couple of times saying “Wow.”

I got the headphones back and relaxed, at this point not caring whether we made the flight or not.  But, to bring this to an end, I’ll say that we did make the flight.  There were only two seats available, one in coach, one in 1st class.  Michelle, being the selfless person she is, took the coach ticket and insisted on me going to first class.  Me, being the selfish person I am, took the first class ticket and waved goodbye to her without a second thought.  In all fairness, I am, as I’ve said, quite tall, and the added legroom, better food, warm blankets, full sized pillows and unlimited wine and booze are really a health consideration rather than a comfort thing.

On the flight back, I spun that disc several more times and, over the months and years, it has remained one of my favorite releases of 2008.  And although it wasn’t my favorite that year (it was #5 after Portishead, Elbow, The Fleet Foxes and Nick Cave), it definitely was the most memorable.  And although it has been relegated to a sometimes listen over years since it found me, I can’t help but smile whenever my iPod plays one of the songs on shuffle.  Each note brings with it so many smiles and so many memories of those days. And, really, isn't that one of the things music is supposed to do?

And play a song for me
Play a song we used to sing
The one that brought you close to me
Play a song and I will sing along - Death Take Your Fiddle

Dedicated to the life and memory of Sean Beall, who I know would have loved Songs in A&E