people power

to start the week after green man proper we thought we'd celebrate with a documentary made up entirely of footage from another festival! SOUL POWER is the story of the concert in zaire in 1974 to bring together the biggest names in african and african-american music to celebrate the rumble in the jungle fight between george foreman (he of the grill) and muhammed ali (he of the massively inflated ego an exaggerated pronouncements of his greatness). james brown, bill withers, the detroit spinners, sister sledge and celia cruz were amongst the american names and the movie started off with a little context of the promoters trying to get in the money then all these people gathered on the plane, treating it like a drug fuelled tourbus, singing and dancing and elated with the occasion. the biggest thing to come out of this section of the movie was the social conscience that the performers had. with james brown declaring "i'm black and i'm proud" they all talked about going "home" to africa and although when they got there and finding people living in poverty once they met the african performers found they had more in common than first seemed. it was quite quaint seeing people so excited and naive about a country like africa, so unaware of the politics as they are now. but it was also quite sad, knowing that many performers today such as akon who displays such ignorant insensitivity to diamond mines and the rap world's misogyny. anyway, aside from politics the film showcased some marvellous performances. bill withers, ever my favourite and oft neglected performer, made me cry. he performed "hope she'll be happier" which is about a man's ex moving on and how sad it makes him feel. very prescient when i found out who was in the audience. we had a drink with pedro afterwards and it was nice to see him but the song had lingered in my head all night and i was sad he was sat behind me and i hoped it had not made him upset.

wednesday i had the feliecitous opportunity to go usher for ADAM, a romantic comedy about a woman meeting a man with aspergers syndrome. when i had a quick look in the programme at this my heart sunk. a) a romantic comedy b) an actor "doing" autism. i shuddered at memories of FORREST GUMP and RAIN MAN (and smirked at seeing the posters of neil morrissey playing the dustin hoffman character in a theatre in cardiff coming soon). but thankfully all my fears were unfounded. this was a sweet, but not saccharine story that treated the character of adam with dignity but didn't make him overly serious and certainly didn't do scenes showing his freaky abilities. he seemed like just an ordinary man with social problems. the film left me feeling warm and satisfied afterwards, like i'd got to know someone better. the film also linked in marvellously with what i did on thursday. i was ushering for ADVOCACY MATTERS, which is a group of people who have various types of learning disabilities and offers them advocates, a sort of friend finder to help them get on in the world. they had made a dvd themselves (martin proudly told me how he'd held the boom, sandra did the interviews etc) and they were premiering it in CHAPTER. it told the story of how you get to become an advocate and what they are like as people, how they want to be treated as individuals not just put in a ghetto and forgotten about. afterwards i stayed in the room as they needed extra space for the people with aspergers. one of the signs of the condition is feeling a little claustrophobic and need space and less people around them. i sat talking with the group for about an hour and we talked about ADAM, some of them had seen it and were impressed with how it didn't patronise them. after watching the advocacy video and seeing adam it made me want to make everyone see them, to make them more human and less like some stereotype. it meant the week was a real education for me.

any spare time i had on wednesday i spent most of day sorting out the end of a project i'd been doing for steen: making a covers cd. he'd not asked me to do it but i'd had the idea after thinking of a great cover i'd heard and then getting some ideas from friends and seeing some stuff on the internet. i found some great things: tiny tim doing both the sonny and cher parts on "i've got you babe"; peter sellars doing the beatles' "she loves you" in a dr. strangelove accent; the residents doing "its a mans world" as well as the more sublime dreamy covers that he's probably heard but i didn't care, like joan jett doing "crimson and clover" and this mortal coil's version of "song to the siren". lush. he's listening to it right now so i'll find out what he thinks of it when i get back.

wednesday night the swooning started. thanks to the valiant efforts of the amazing charlotte braddick we cardiffians (yes, most of us) went to the lovely THEKLA in brizzle to see the dreamy BILL CALLAHAN. someone there talked about it being the gig of the year and it definitely is right up there as one of the most intimately beautiful gigs i've seen for a long time. we dashed in and caught almost all the support, SOPHIA KNAPP. she was a massive disappointment. we've been to so many gigs in the thekla with amazing support acts that i think we have been spoilt. she was brought over by bill himself but she was woefully dull. terrible lyrics (hold my hand, understand...) and and uninteresting voice its the first time i've been bored enough to want to walk away and have a chat upstairs. of course, i would never do that with bill callahan. oh, that man. after me, steen and leah and snaked our way to the front and descended into a swoon as soon as he came on. the experience of watching bill callahan reminds me of a teacher i had at university. he was very dignified and quietly spoken and he once swore to make a point and it made me blush. bill callahan makes me blush, he makes me feel his songs so intently i blush and i cry, its like entering another world. afterwards we hugged each other, hugged ashli more (she was shaking) and then went outside and caught up with his band, one of whom did a gig for noel and adam's lesson #1 a couple of years ago. good times. an intense evening broken up with laughter like whistling in the dark.

i was working on thursday so instead of going out for holly's leaving do we just watched a dvd will had gotten from the library RED ROAD. i remember this coming out and missing it in chapter and heard such good things about it i was kicking myself. it was certainly one of the most tense movies i've seen. jackie, who works in a cctv police servicewatches the screens voyeristically, catching people in acts of violence, lust and love. small moments of the lives of the citizens of glasgow are on view for her. you feel there is something a little sinister about this but not that she is a creepy person, just a little sad and lonely. one day she catches sight of someone who was important to her on the screen and this starts a dangerous path towards finding out more about him and his life. the film is acutely focussed on the characters and the actors make these people very real, properly rounded. it was also about a place, the red road estate and what places like that mean to us. the cctv views everything with an objective unfeeling eye, reducing human beings to pixellated dots and that is what we do to people in society. the red road flats are a monolith of "bad, scary, dangerous" but there are individuals living inside each with complicated problems. compared to everything else i did this week this meant made me consider the way we lump people into easily dealt with lumps rather than looking at each person's needs. that great line from HAROLD AND MAUDE where they are in a field of daisies and she tells harold that each daisy is different but people so frequently think that they are all the same.

what an interesting week! well, tonight we are cooking food for smallsteen to celebrate his birthday and have made cakes and as yet have no plans. tomorrow i am doing a marathon shift in the cinema before going to gwdihw for another all dayer (well it'll be a single band by the time i get there) so loads to look forward to!