steen's way with cakes from pans

right, on with the show. i have to keep doing this diary otherwise i will forget things like i did last year. last year was so wonderful but when i came to do the review of the year for the JOY COLLECTIVE i'd forgotten most of it. i want to keep my notebook for stream of consciousness thoughts, my filofax for work hours and gigs and this for what i think about the everyday. god, i compartmentalise, don't i?!

i work more at weekends than any other time of the week. when other people are winding down i am speeding up, fridays are like my mondays. the trouble is a lot of good stuff goes on at weekends and by sunday i'm usually burnt out and finish work after 9pm and sit and stroke the cat (that's not a euphemism) for an hour before falling asleep. however, this week i was determined to get into town to see PEDIGREE FALCON put on ROCK OF TRAVOLTA in dempseys, especially since STRAY BORDERS were doing their last ever gig. we had a very busy night in chapter and i had run around apologising for late food (including BUSINESSMAN keith lerego, who was very nice and understanding), dealing with the mounds of people coming in to see some oscar nominated films and trying to keep my head. an easy shift before the gig this was not to be. so i cycled into town like lightning and got there just as STRAY BORDERS were due to do their set. woohoo! i was sure i'd missed them and was ready to do a strop face and have a drink. they are one of my favourite local bands who give us lovely solid post rock, filling the room with a warm sound. when i watch them i close my eyes and imagine scenes from a film i will one day write where the heroine falls in love, their music has the ability to make my heart flutter a little. this feeling of falling was enhanced by the tears in the eyes of the band. they just can't get in the same place long enough to play gig together any more "life has got in the way" one of them said to me. they were excellent and i bought two of their eps (one for a gift but i think it was mainly because i had just about enough money for two once i'd borrowed 20p from deans and i wanted to just fling all the money i had at them). ROCK OF TRAVOLTA were fantastic. they had a big sound but were occasionally twiddly and had samples. i was thinking whilst watching them that it felt like i was watching a piece of classical music, i didn't know where it was going or how it was going to end, it just built up and up and twisted and turned and lifted me and brought me falling again. sweet baby jeebus, i do love post rock. they were really nice at the end too. steen bought some merch and i had no money left, having spent it on stray borders but the nice bassist gave me his badge. they were really happy about the reaction they got in dempseys, saying that most crowds are just there to hang out and look cool and pull girls but we all looked like we were LISTENING. god, we're a bunch of geeks in cardiff, arn't we?! it made me proud.

monday i was too tired for anything so missed UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, which i was a bit annoyed about cos they were great last time and i'd convinced my friend noel to go along too. rubbish. instead we stayed in and watched TRANSAMERICA on dvd. it is a film about a pre-op male to female transsexual who is travelling across america with her newly found son. it came to chapter a couple of years ago and i missed it but found a copy in splott library. felicity huffman was very convincing as bree, but the film really came to life when she went to visit her flamboyant parents. it was an example of that great american independent cinema that i've spent my lifetime enjoying. it was quite light and felt like a romantic comedy in places, but about a subject that many studios would bat away like an irritating insect. it made me realise that the last 3 dvds have been about unconventional comments on sexuality: incest (savage grace), old age (venus) and transgender (transamerica). i didn't do this on purpose to freak steen out.

tuesday was shrove tuesday, or more universally recognised as PANCAKE DAY!!!! i really like the fact that a lot of these celebrations have the religion stripped out of them and just leave gorging on food (christmas, easter, pancake day...). a muslim friend of mine asked why we have pancake day so i explained it was about jesus going into the dessert for 40 days and 40 nights and how this has translated into monks fasting for that long. before the fasting the monks used up all the ingredients they had in their larder which was flour, fat and eggs and made pancakes(convenient, non?) so this was the last meal before we can start eating again at easter. "oh, yeah, like ramadan." exactly. i won't start going on about how all the religions are basically the same and why can't we just all get along but it is bloody stupid sometimes how similar things are when you step back.

we were going to have a pancake party. it was quite hastily organised but we were going to have the patti girls over for pancakes and that quickly turned into me inviting everyone i spoke to that day. by the end of the working day i was actually quite scared so bought enough for about 15 people. the patti girls had to drop out as well as a couple of others so steen and i started cooking, thinking it was only going to be us. then casey and rich turned up at the door and my housemate chris and his boyfriend ian and our small amount of mixture had to be stretched. i was busy arranging drinks and steen started making pancakes. he was very very good at them (nice flipping action) and they were very tasty. we had sweet potato and spinach pancakes for savoury and good old fashioned lemon and sugar for sweet. it was damned tasty. then we had to dash out to see MILK at chapter. it had won an oscar for sean penn the day before and its a gus van sant film so i had high hopes. it was good, i felt it was a bit safe for van sant, it was very standard biopic where i was expecting more flourishes, the best thing about it was that i came out of it feeling militant and ready for fight. seeing the 30,000 people marching through san francisco at the end was really inspiring. it made me think a lot about the year i was in america and when i came out there and started to feel really comfortable with myself. my friend libby took me to the castro and i remember meeting a few people there who had owned businesses for years and one lady was talking to me about the castro for a long time and wishing me luck in my life in a really knowing way. we take so much for granted these days. these days most people know someone who is gay. when i was a kid i always felt like i'd have to move to london to find other gay people. i told steen how i'd gone to swansea uni on a rumour that they had gay people there, that it was a lot more likely i'd find gay people in swansea than hull and nottingham, the other places i'd applied. its amusing to think that i was so naive but when i was a teenager growing up gay i knew there were some interesting people on channel 4 who probably lived in london, there was that man from eastenders but that was about it. in the 90s it seemed to explode but i still didn't know anyone who was gay till i was 20, i probably DID of course - we're everywhere, in everyone! - but the closet door was still only creaking open then, things are so different now.

wednesday we had the book group at splott and then we were meant to be going to see mark e smith and gindrinker but he'd broken his hip (smith, not dc gates) so we went to the PANEL 9 FROM OUTER SPACE comedy night in buffalo instead. we had some very good food in buffalo first, including some of elis' freebie tapas, then sat in the front row for the charming clint and dan mitchell drones duo hosting a panel game with local comedians. it was very much fun, the stage decorated in cardboard planets and aliens and laura bryon wearing a fetching afro wig.

thursday i have no memory of, apart from us sitting down to watch the two videos casey had brought over by FUTURE OF THE LEFT and TRUCKERS OF HUSK and eating the rest of the pancake mixture. chocolate, bananas and strawberries - i felt a bit sick. the videos were very good though, we'd helped out in both and were pleased that they had turned out not just ok but brilliant. my favourite bit in the truckers video were the bits with the boys playing trumpets, will and rosie turning into foliage and caroline getting stabbed by a medieval sword. i declared it the "sledgehammer for our time" i hope they settle their differences and it gets lots of play. the future of the left video looks gorgeous. now i know what all that smoke was about! it has a really nice sheen, a warm brown look. my favourite bit in that is when it focuses on ed's pretty eyes when he's holding a fish. casey and ewan are very clever lads.

friday i had the night off to celebrate hell's bent's birthday. this was not to be, as i have ranted about further down the page. but instead we went to see GINDRINKER, PAUL HAWKINS AND THE AWKWARD SILENCE and the ALEX DINGLEY BAND do an acoustic set. alex dingley was excellent as usual, really engaging even with no-band-bar-the-keyboardist. i am always taken aback by the power he has on stage. PAUL HAWKINS was an odd bunch. they had a short shaggy haired lead singer wearing a suit jacket and a guitarist-cum-keyboardist wearing a balaclava. if you ignored the rest of the band it was like that scene in shaun of the dead where they meet their parallel selves. it was very gindrinker-esque. good though, i really enjoyed the bitter stories he had to tell. but onto the headliners and GINDRINKER were fantastic as usual. they have grown so much in the past year and are one of the most exciting bands to watch in cardiff.

we then headed down to DIG in GWDIHW. i only recently found out that this means owl in welsh. its a good word. carl played ace psyche tunes as usual but we were all distracted by our loss of the point and what it meant for our friends who worked there and cardiff's culture. the night that was due to be a big celebration ended up subdued and mournful.

saturday was meant to be the LOOSE gig for me but i was too tired after a really hectic day in chapter so i missed it but apparently it was quiet and beautiful, as expected. liz and ryan do put on some great nights. i hope i don't miss the next one. instead i was the usher at dance production SOFT MURDERS. the first half was about gilbert and george's exploitation of working class gay men and really effective, sharp and sexy and muscular. the second part was about francis bacon's set in soho and i think it worked less well, my concentration waned a bit although it had some nice ideas. the stage was full of people and the landlady greeted everyone with "hello cunties" and stood there suspended, colourful and proud like a circus ringmaster. the famous line by bacon was repeated "champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends", it is great but makes him seem like more of an oscar wilde figure whilst i think he was more complicated and shyer than that.

so that's it for a week. i dunno what i'll do later. casey is showing films in GWDIHW tonight and i also want to go to mab jones' poetry evening D DAY in chapter. we'll see if i have the ability for both.