this has been a long week of no sleep. our lad frankie has not been well and it has dominated all our thinking time, any time off i've had. ugh. anyway, i'll moan about that a bit later. at the start of the week he was healthy and well and all was good and i took steen to see my friend gerald tyler's new play THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH ABEL. gerald is a bloody lovely man who just happens to be an amazing performer and writer. i was lucky enough to be asked to usher for his previous play BIG HANDS in its two incarnations and its a joy to watch him work. his plays are thought provoking and beautiful but still retain the ability to have a universal appeal, anyone could enjoy them they are sublime without being pretentious. he works completely with his surroundings, the music in the show is not just a poorly thought out loop but music but in an organic way, it is an integral part of the show and uses a band called LIMBO during the performance like a greek chorus. the set in THERES SOMETHING WRONG WITH ABEL is a garden shed on a patch of lawn and the whole stage is used, nothing in this play is unneccessary. as with BIG HANDS (a beautiful play about a private detective who is given charge of a renegade angel) ABEL had a religious theme. gerald plays a man who at first appears to be a mad old bastard who lives in a shed and talks to himself but after the play is over you are not sure whether he is in fact cain, one of the twin brothers who started humanity and murdered his brother and has been placed in this present as pergatory by god to relive the murderous argument that ended his companions' life. in moments of comic genius and an attempt to contact god more directly he dials his number and finds himself on the end of a frustrating automated message giving him options to "if you are having problems accessing your faith dial 3". then he seems to re-enact his brother's murder, the initiation of evil in the world over and over again, in different ways, like groundhog day. these scenes are darkly comic. he is trying to spend some time day dreaming and is interrupted by a never seen and never heard presence in the shed that makes him vitrolic and he powers up his black and dekker making you sure that the other person hasn't come off so well. but is there really anyone else there at all? after these episodes he leaps up onto the top of his shed and convenes with god. in these moments cain is sad, measured and serene. we hear how cain thinks he has seen other biblical characters like judith on the bus but she seemed to not recognise him, he is always a heartbeat away from pleading with god to end this repetition and confusion. the play was tantilisingly short, leaving me wondering what had happened to cain. is he ok? is he really a biblical character or just a character in his head? it was very funny and fascinating study of madness.
on sunday the first film was ICE AGE 3, that we were showing partly for a kids party. it was a bloody awful experience, too many kids not enough adults and the adults who were there seemed not to care about them or the cinema. ugh. i won't dwell on this but i was very glad that the next film was ADVENTURELAND. i had liked the poster depicting two attractive looking indie kids in 80s ringer t-shirts and wasn't too put off by the fact that it was a new film by the man that did SUPERBAD. i thought it had michael cera in it. it didn't, it had jesse eisenberg in it, who is the kid from the ROGER DODGER movie that i enjoyed years ago and couldn't remember the name of till i imdb'd it a moment ago. in roger dodger he was fittingly irritating in that teenage precocious way, but he was still pretty irritating in adventureland and annoyed me all the way through. after being irritated immediately by jesse eisenberg i was then irritated by the 80s setting which seemed completely needless. why was it set in the 80s? i was hoping for some sort of plot development which meant it was essential to be the summer of '87 but none came. the effect made me wonder if it was just a cash in for the 80s nostalgia racket that leaves modern 10 year olds dressing a bit like i did when i was 10, which leaves me feeling a little like i'm wondering around in a sort of mass fancy dress party every time i'm on queens street. i'm not sure how relevant the 80s were as a setting but because the film was so good though, it put me in mind of those really brilliant 80s john cusack and john hughes teen dramas such as SAY ANYTHING, THE SURE THING, BETTER OFF DEAD, SIXTEEN CANDLES, SOME KINDA WONDERFUL, PRETTY IN PINK. i know i don't need to list them but i love the memories they evoke. as a introverted lass blessed with a tv in her room from a young age (thank you, rich relatives) i poured over these and thought i was the only one watching them till the internet nostalgia boom made me realise how popular they really were. this film stands up with them, which is massively to its credit. james (eisenberg) is a young rich kid who is planning a post-university trip with his pals in europe then told on the eve of the off that his parents can't afford it and he needs to get a job finds himself trudging up to the gates of the adventureland theme park to join a bunch of fellow poor outsiders. for a film set in the 80s these characters are pleasingly devoid of overdressing in every sense, they do not look like fancy dress characters, like the poor sods in THE WEDDING SINGER but seem like real people. james falls for emily, but she seems reluctant to fall for him, as she is otherwise engaged in a sleazy affair. he makes friends with the nerds that litter the park and gains some much needed humility. my irritation abated gradually during the film and by the end i was left with a feeling of what a lovely and quite old fashioned film it seemed, no gross out moments in a teen comedy is quite refreshing.
the next film i had a look at was the sumptious COCO BEFORE CHANEL. it was on my brilliant oldies shift and they bloody loved it. the film stock seemed to be printed on silk, it seemed to have such an expensive sheen. at first it seemed to have a bit too much in common with the previous big expensive french period drama LA VIE EN ROSE, a poor orphan and scenes in a dirty turn of the century bar being a bit too close to the previous story. but coco did not have the little sparrow's common touch. she quickly escaped to be the kept woman of a local landowner and made him fully aware that she did not wish him to ever mention that she once worked in such a place. it is made clear that coco always knew her own mind and although she was clearly using the landowner for status, her upkeep and power her honesty in the matter difficult to judge her poorly on it. audrey tatou is gorgeous to watch, those deep dark eyes of hers always hint at her glowering at those in her path but the film was a little dull. gorgeous but dull, like a lot of fashion.
the rest of the week was taken up with cat-ness. on tuesday afternoon frankie leapt up into my lap (very uncharacteristic, he usually just wants to play fight) and just wanted to be held and stroked. i looked at him and saw he had a little scratch under his chin. no problem, thought i. but then it was bedtime and frankie came up to the pillow and we saw this massive bloody bald patch where he had been scratching. initially i was worried it was fleas again and we gave him a treatment and went to bed with plans to take him to the vet. frankie slept next to me completely still all night, i had my hand over his fur to feel for fleas but there was no twitching. the next morning, having been awake most of the night a bit worried i too him to the vet. i expected him to say "there is nothing the matter with him, ms vaughan. please give me £25 for taking a look at laughing at you" but instead he said he had an abcess and needed an operation. wah! i was a bit upset, he said he could do it straight away and that i could pick him up after 4.30pm. because we'd failed to get insurance (he's only been going outside for a month!) it would cost about £90. ouch. needs must. i went home and paced about the house with a lumpy throat until i went to work for a bit and dashed out phoning the vet to hear he was ok and went to pick him up. the vet said to keep an eye on him but he should be ok now. ace! that night he was still very poorly and again slept next to us silently all night. the next morning he was a bit more awake and as i went to do a big tidy up of the house he played with me and then sat down and scratched at his neck. aaaaghgh! it was gross. big gross pussfilled wound oozing blood. i rushed him back down to the vet and we fitted a plastic cone (which i now know to be called an "elizabethan collar". i want ruffs next time). he hated it and hissed and growled at the nice lady vet. he's going to be very unpopular since he scrammed the one who diagnosed him, leaving blood trickling down his face. we did it eventually and i was putting the blanket back on the carry case in the waiting room when... he pulled the collar right back off. back in the vets' office she and the nurse then put bandages on his feet and the collar back on. he won't be doing that again. he sat there and glared at me. sorry, frank. we got home and he sat in my lap and didn't move. in fact, he didn't move for the next day or so. he looked severely pissed off. we had another night of interrupted sleep as he couldn't walk easily in his new weird bandaged feet we had to get up to put him in the litter tray as he was trying to shit the bed. friday night i was at work so steen had to look after him and when i came back he announced that frankie had managed to take off the bandages. but he did keep the cone on. by saturday evening he was trying to run around and be normal again and since he'd taken the bandages off anyway we took him outside with the harness on. he walks around like a gangster, head heavy with cone and still a little pissed off but learning to live with this new weird element to his body.
thursday night my parents had bought me tickets to see JOAN BAEZ at st davids' hall. as steen had other plans that night i put out a call and found that no-one wanted to go to see joan baez. stupid sods. well, no-one apart from the lovely willy downie who stepped in last minute and braved the vaughans, my mum's hippie dancing (hard to do in your seat) and my dad's anxiety that we will be late for anything. it was a great show. i saw her here a couple of years ago and she was very regal and the show seemed sort of sedate but tonight she seemed to be really having fun. she and her band did a few accapella numbers and it was themed with many appalacian gospel numbers, which happens to be one of my favourite things. she even did a dylan impression in the verse of a cover of one of his songs which shows was a lot more relaxed at this show that previously. her voice is still very strong and her age rather than making it a big nostalgia fest, brings even more pathos to the murder ballads and folk numbers. brilliant.
quite different from joan baez was the fantastic trio of acts at the barfly on saturday night. GINDRINKER were wonderful as always and thanks to their dark themes and the lighting at the newly opened up barfly stage, could have easily been the house band at the black lodge in TWIN PEAKS. there were a lot of people there that night who i never see at gigs and they all loved GINDRINKER, calling them genius and a great and inkeeping addition to the line up. next up was the very funny and slightly frightening FRANK SIDEBOTTOM. i haven't seen frank come up on the "things we liked in the 80s and 90s" programmes and i think he still remains uniquely northern, a lot of people still haven't heard of him. i remember him from kids programme THE 8:15 FROM MANCHESTER on a saturday morning. even then i knew he didn't fit in and that there was a joke somewhere i was too young to get but still found him brilliant and though he was the best thing about telly at the time. i haven't youtubed or googled him or anything since so it was truly a sort of weird forgotten memory from childhood that i saw in the flesh (and the papier mache) that night in barfly. he sung medleys of manchester songs, punk songs, always ending with the catchy ending he employs for showbiz effect (and as he rightly points out, a lot better than a lazy fade out). it is hard to describe what is brilliant about frank, he is like a showbiz entertainer from another time, part childrens entertainer part blue northern comic but never offensive. but there is something unnerving about that head. ending the evening was JOHN COOPER CLARKE. i saw him at the coal exchange a few years ago supporting THE FALL and for a poet he still has that rock star haze about him, he is far more jagger than he is andrew motion. his stuff is funny and true and it feels very much like a stand up gig, some of the jokes are bloody old and creaky but its how he tells them, it seems impossible to tut and not laugh. it was a really nice mix in the audience, a lot of men in their 40s reliving old days and telling me afterwards that they first saw frank / johnny clarke in 1980something a really great night. if we weren't so tired from all this cat worry then we'd be drinking all night with everyone instead we flew off home to sleep and sleep and sleep.
Showing posts with label gindrinker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gindrinker. Show all posts
19 Sept 2009
freeeeedoooom!
well, this week has mostly been focussed on two things: me being a bit poorly and the cat being released into the wild. last week working in the box office i had an increasingly hurty head caused, i thought, by the thump thump of the flamenco dancers who have a class in the room above us. on returning home to steen i asked if we could just wrap up and watch movies instead of going out so that's what we did.
sunday was mental busy in the cafe, which didn't make me feel much better but then i was ushering in the cinema for MESRINE PART ONE: KILLER INSTINCT. having watched part two last week i have seen these in the wrong order really but part one was still worth watching. it is faster paced, there is more jam packed into it and rather than the bloated remorseless killer in PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE, mesrine was on his way up the learning curve and this in itself was more interesting. KILLER INSTINCT set up the idea of mesrine as a brutal killer, but one was maybe formed by the french government: the brutalising of teenage mesrine in the algerian war and the problem of what to do with a young man who has been taught that might is right and the rough treatment he sustained in the montreal prison. but for all this there are moments when you realise that mesrine had a choice, he came from a middle class background but thrived in the underworld and surrounded himself with people who were seduced by and scared of him in equal measure. it is a fascinating story, more so for knowing that the french were so curious about him and how romanticised he was in his own country.
the film after that was THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD. the yes men are two anti-globalisation protestors who take part in "culture jamming" where they put up fake versions of corporate websites and pretend to be spokespeople for VIPs at conferences. whilst jigged up in their various disguises (usually just smart hair cuts and suits) they take the corporations' ideas to the extreme then give speeches to the delegates and members of the public and see how far they can take the joke. sometimes they get found out immediately and ushered out of the auditorium and sometimes the means has a very useful end. in the past they have provoked bush into famously saying "there should be limits on freedom" after theypublicly embarrassed him and here the biggest stunt had them posing as chemical company DOW's spokespeople and announcing that they would right their wrongs and compensate the people of bhopal for the chemical tragedy caused by their company in 1984. they managed to get on the bbc to announce this and used it to force the issue and make the company react but instead the company simply printed a retraction statement and saw their shares dip nearly 3%. another stunt here sees them getting an official haliburton deligate dress up in a giant blow up condom looking like a space bee and suggest to them that it had military and global warming potential and asking them if it would be possible to attach weapons to the suit. ludicrous. all of this has a point. if DOW made this announcement the share market would punish it, but it would be the right thing to do. DOW will never do this. it was an interesting film and the yes men were thankfully not smug, just engaging and funny.
after this i hot footed it to town to meet steen who was djing at the loose gig for BLITZEN TRAPPER. since it was so late i didn't think i'd make it with any time to see songs but i saw about four songs. i wasn't impressed to be honest, very alt country veering on lynryd skynyrd territory with one bit of feedback i liked that lasted about 30 seconds so i wasn't sorry i'd missed it. more sorry to miss the lovely MARTIN CARR do his thing with a big bunch of cardiff lovelies. pah! next time, gadget! but i was starting to feel a bit under the weather too, which would stop me from missing the brilliant SHE KEEPS BEES gig on the monday too. booo! one week where there is a gig per day of great quality andi've missed almost all of them!
one that i didn't miss was on wednesday: TIMES NEW VIKING. we saw them last year in clwb and they weren't just bloody brilliant but really lovely when we had a chat with them afterwards. subsequently they have had a lot of press and i was worried they would be a bit polished and arch but was still looking forward to it very much. the first support band on was the inimitable GINDRINKER. they did a sort of greatest hits set which played to the crowd nicely. they have a lot of bloody great songs that make your mouth curl up in a half smile, half grimace. BANJO OR FREAKOUT were on afters and steen likes them mucho. i liked them too, even if a tardy week later i can't remember much about their set, sorry. what i do remember is TIMES NEW VIKING coming out a little slicker than previously (certainly the singer's hair, which looked well silky) but still sounding diy and fresh. a mean feat. they do excellent pop songs that deserve to be danced around by teenagers in their pants in their bedrooms (well, this is what i would do if i'd heard them as a teenager, i've certainly done it as an adult). we immediately go out and i spend the money i was saving for things like food on things like 7" singles. oops.
friday will and i had the afternoon off together so went to the cinema to see the new almodovar film BROKEN EMBRACES (LA ABRAZOS ROTOS). i'm a big fan of his and was really excited about seeing this film. i had a picture of almodovar on my folder at school when i was 14 and made an effort to see as many films of his as possible. i loved all the candy coloured sets, flamboyant characters, the comedy and the melodrama. in recent years his films have matured with him and especially since the moving TODO SABRE MI MADRE (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER) they have taken on a seriousness he previously avoided. one of my all time favourite films is still HABLA CON ELLA (TALK TO HER) and that got very dark and introspective in places, the colours muted and the joy mixed with sadness. BROKEN EMBRACES has a blind scriptwriter's assistant needs to leave town for a while and leaves her son diego looking after him, who in turn has an accident himself. diego digs into the big secret about events that led to him giving up directing and becoming blind. the film has famously been described as almodovar's love letter to penelope cruz, his latterday muse, it is about a director's relationship to an actress and the difficulty of making a great film. unfortunately i did not think this was a great film. the melodrama was predictable (never something i have thought him capable of) and a little dull and the film within the film "comedy" of candy-coloured film "girls and suitcases" was not very convincing despite the joyous appearance of his previous muse rossy de palma. it had wonderful flourishes and he will probably never be able to make a film that is not interesting and without merit but after such a run of high drama and full, rich almost voluptuous films this felt a bit lacking in substance, tall (2 hours plus) but thin.
later that evening i was the barlady for the DRONES comedy club upstairs in chapter. due to all sorts of silly circumstances i haven't been able to do this shift for a long while and i'd forgotten how much fun it can be. the two dans and clint are great company and they were all out celebrating laura bryon's birthday the night before so how they stayed so sparky on stage was no mean feat. joined by so many other comedians i lost count but one of them being the very lovely ben partridge it meant that this night did not feel at all like work and instead i chuckled behind the bar all night. after running around like a mad thing to get the booze downstairs i returned home all smiley and happy. good nights' work!
the main event that has dominated this week has not been a film or a good gig but instead the emancipation of our cat frankie. i picked him up from splott library about a year ago and have done my darnedest to make sure he is well looked after like the baby substitute he truly is! i read up all my cat books, got advice from the vet and all of them say that its best to not let a cat out at least until its over 6 months old and spayed (some saying as old as a year old) and certainly not let them out at night. as he was a curious little sod who kept trying to escape every time we left the house we bought a harness and took him outside as often as we could so he could get used to it. just after 8 months when the weather was good i ordered a catflap and waited for him to pop his head through it. i had to wait a long time. he would look at the catflap and mew with incomprehension. we started lifting the lid of the catflaps so he'd get the idea. he didn't. so, about 4 months on, on sunday, i was stood in the kitchen and he was pawing at it and actually pushed through! joy! mixed with worry! this meant that the cat would actually be able to properly use the catflap. this meant that he would be able to go out by himself and i would not be able to guarantee his safety. like a mother who can't cut the cord i was suddenly all upset and wanted him to regress to kittenhood again. me and steen took turns to let him out and watch him come back in but i still wasn't happy with leaving the catflap open whilst we were out. then tuesday i had to go home from work ill and was forced to spend the whole day in the house so i thought i'd be brave and just let frankie do his thing. happily he came in and out of the catflap with ease and i was completely reassured. a week on from this and he seems like a much happier cat, no longer anxious to go outside and see what is going down, he comes through the catflap cooing when he sees us. its made things easier for us too, whilst the harness is useful it felt awful having to limit his travels when he is such an adventurer and it has made steen hunger for a cat cam he's seen on the internet, eager to find out where he's been in his day. all together a much happier household!
sunday was mental busy in the cafe, which didn't make me feel much better but then i was ushering in the cinema for MESRINE PART ONE: KILLER INSTINCT. having watched part two last week i have seen these in the wrong order really but part one was still worth watching. it is faster paced, there is more jam packed into it and rather than the bloated remorseless killer in PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE, mesrine was on his way up the learning curve and this in itself was more interesting. KILLER INSTINCT set up the idea of mesrine as a brutal killer, but one was maybe formed by the french government: the brutalising of teenage mesrine in the algerian war and the problem of what to do with a young man who has been taught that might is right and the rough treatment he sustained in the montreal prison. but for all this there are moments when you realise that mesrine had a choice, he came from a middle class background but thrived in the underworld and surrounded himself with people who were seduced by and scared of him in equal measure. it is a fascinating story, more so for knowing that the french were so curious about him and how romanticised he was in his own country.
the film after that was THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD. the yes men are two anti-globalisation protestors who take part in "culture jamming" where they put up fake versions of corporate websites and pretend to be spokespeople for VIPs at conferences. whilst jigged up in their various disguises (usually just smart hair cuts and suits) they take the corporations' ideas to the extreme then give speeches to the delegates and members of the public and see how far they can take the joke. sometimes they get found out immediately and ushered out of the auditorium and sometimes the means has a very useful end. in the past they have provoked bush into famously saying "there should be limits on freedom" after theypublicly embarrassed him and here the biggest stunt had them posing as chemical company DOW's spokespeople and announcing that they would right their wrongs and compensate the people of bhopal for the chemical tragedy caused by their company in 1984. they managed to get on the bbc to announce this and used it to force the issue and make the company react but instead the company simply printed a retraction statement and saw their shares dip nearly 3%. another stunt here sees them getting an official haliburton deligate dress up in a giant blow up condom looking like a space bee and suggest to them that it had military and global warming potential and asking them if it would be possible to attach weapons to the suit. ludicrous. all of this has a point. if DOW made this announcement the share market would punish it, but it would be the right thing to do. DOW will never do this. it was an interesting film and the yes men were thankfully not smug, just engaging and funny.
after this i hot footed it to town to meet steen who was djing at the loose gig for BLITZEN TRAPPER. since it was so late i didn't think i'd make it with any time to see songs but i saw about four songs. i wasn't impressed to be honest, very alt country veering on lynryd skynyrd territory with one bit of feedback i liked that lasted about 30 seconds so i wasn't sorry i'd missed it. more sorry to miss the lovely MARTIN CARR do his thing with a big bunch of cardiff lovelies. pah! next time, gadget! but i was starting to feel a bit under the weather too, which would stop me from missing the brilliant SHE KEEPS BEES gig on the monday too. booo! one week where there is a gig per day of great quality andi've missed almost all of them!
one that i didn't miss was on wednesday: TIMES NEW VIKING. we saw them last year in clwb and they weren't just bloody brilliant but really lovely when we had a chat with them afterwards. subsequently they have had a lot of press and i was worried they would be a bit polished and arch but was still looking forward to it very much. the first support band on was the inimitable GINDRINKER. they did a sort of greatest hits set which played to the crowd nicely. they have a lot of bloody great songs that make your mouth curl up in a half smile, half grimace. BANJO OR FREAKOUT were on afters and steen likes them mucho. i liked them too, even if a tardy week later i can't remember much about their set, sorry. what i do remember is TIMES NEW VIKING coming out a little slicker than previously (certainly the singer's hair, which looked well silky) but still sounding diy and fresh. a mean feat. they do excellent pop songs that deserve to be danced around by teenagers in their pants in their bedrooms (well, this is what i would do if i'd heard them as a teenager, i've certainly done it as an adult). we immediately go out and i spend the money i was saving for things like food on things like 7" singles. oops.
friday will and i had the afternoon off together so went to the cinema to see the new almodovar film BROKEN EMBRACES (LA ABRAZOS ROTOS). i'm a big fan of his and was really excited about seeing this film. i had a picture of almodovar on my folder at school when i was 14 and made an effort to see as many films of his as possible. i loved all the candy coloured sets, flamboyant characters, the comedy and the melodrama. in recent years his films have matured with him and especially since the moving TODO SABRE MI MADRE (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER) they have taken on a seriousness he previously avoided. one of my all time favourite films is still HABLA CON ELLA (TALK TO HER) and that got very dark and introspective in places, the colours muted and the joy mixed with sadness. BROKEN EMBRACES has a blind scriptwriter's assistant needs to leave town for a while and leaves her son diego looking after him, who in turn has an accident himself. diego digs into the big secret about events that led to him giving up directing and becoming blind. the film has famously been described as almodovar's love letter to penelope cruz, his latterday muse, it is about a director's relationship to an actress and the difficulty of making a great film. unfortunately i did not think this was a great film. the melodrama was predictable (never something i have thought him capable of) and a little dull and the film within the film "comedy" of candy-coloured film "girls and suitcases" was not very convincing despite the joyous appearance of his previous muse rossy de palma. it had wonderful flourishes and he will probably never be able to make a film that is not interesting and without merit but after such a run of high drama and full, rich almost voluptuous films this felt a bit lacking in substance, tall (2 hours plus) but thin.
later that evening i was the barlady for the DRONES comedy club upstairs in chapter. due to all sorts of silly circumstances i haven't been able to do this shift for a long while and i'd forgotten how much fun it can be. the two dans and clint are great company and they were all out celebrating laura bryon's birthday the night before so how they stayed so sparky on stage was no mean feat. joined by so many other comedians i lost count but one of them being the very lovely ben partridge it meant that this night did not feel at all like work and instead i chuckled behind the bar all night. after running around like a mad thing to get the booze downstairs i returned home all smiley and happy. good nights' work!
the main event that has dominated this week has not been a film or a good gig but instead the emancipation of our cat frankie. i picked him up from splott library about a year ago and have done my darnedest to make sure he is well looked after like the baby substitute he truly is! i read up all my cat books, got advice from the vet and all of them say that its best to not let a cat out at least until its over 6 months old and spayed (some saying as old as a year old) and certainly not let them out at night. as he was a curious little sod who kept trying to escape every time we left the house we bought a harness and took him outside as often as we could so he could get used to it. just after 8 months when the weather was good i ordered a catflap and waited for him to pop his head through it. i had to wait a long time. he would look at the catflap and mew with incomprehension. we started lifting the lid of the catflaps so he'd get the idea. he didn't. so, about 4 months on, on sunday, i was stood in the kitchen and he was pawing at it and actually pushed through! joy! mixed with worry! this meant that the cat would actually be able to properly use the catflap. this meant that he would be able to go out by himself and i would not be able to guarantee his safety. like a mother who can't cut the cord i was suddenly all upset and wanted him to regress to kittenhood again. me and steen took turns to let him out and watch him come back in but i still wasn't happy with leaving the catflap open whilst we were out. then tuesday i had to go home from work ill and was forced to spend the whole day in the house so i thought i'd be brave and just let frankie do his thing. happily he came in and out of the catflap with ease and i was completely reassured. a week on from this and he seems like a much happier cat, no longer anxious to go outside and see what is going down, he comes through the catflap cooing when he sees us. its made things easier for us too, whilst the harness is useful it felt awful having to limit his travels when he is such an adventurer and it has made steen hunger for a cat cam he's seen on the internet, eager to find out where he's been in his day. all together a much happier household!
9 May 2009
staying in is the new going out
after the magical holiday we were brought back down to earth with a gig in bristol. this was intended to be an exciting musical bang end to my birthday week but ended up being an expensive gig. two tickets for PJ HARVEY AND JOHN PARISH were £45 and the trains to bristol that day were being interrupted so we had to get a bus back so ended up paying twice for travelling, totalling another £40. with a £10 taxi to the anson rooms venue due to the trains being delayed and a drink each we waved bye bye to a hard earned £100! oof! it being my birthday week and it being pj harvey it was all forgiven, despite the anson rooms being a venue of peeling cardboard soundproof tiles and no air conditioning. but boy, did it make us appreciate what we have in cardiff. we have a bunch of hard working promoters putting on a tonne of gigs, the quality is usually excellent and its venues tend to be in the centre of town and fairly reasonable. i'm always appreciative on the fact that despite my miniscule income i still get to enjoy myself and see some great stuff. but getting back to pj, she was excellent. the night began with us getting there in time to see support who turned out to be HOWIE GELB from the band giant sand. i haven't been to a big gig for a while and it was very irritating to realise that many people just go to see the headliner and talk through the support. you've paid the same amount! why gab when you can discover something you've not heard before? pah, idiots. i had to throw a look at a set of posh lasses behind us who were talking loudly about how drunk they were at last night's party. it was really frustrating to be hearing the great howie gelb, hero of alt country, do some great acoustic numbers and reel off some amusing banter to a disinterested audience who would later hang off polly's ever word. its a good job they did shut up cos when she came on stage she was very quiet and nervous, looking glamourous in a lacy white dress and an amazing beaded headpiece with tassles that swung when she moved. i'd not heard the album they were performing from and wasn't sure what sort of set she would do but it was really strong. there was a few off the albums she had previously done with john parish, one that sounded VERY nick cave and a couple that sounded like david lynch scores. it was really good and worth the heat and the work of finding a window between the heads of the tall people of bristol.
things very quickly got back to normal after my birthday. since i'm trying to catch up i'll do this in a two week chunk. i saw a lot of movies in the next couple of weeks and not many gigs. the first one was TOKYO SONATA. i got the wrong idea about this from briefly reading the synopsis and just read that the director was a big name in j-horror. i kept expecting the ghosts to appear but the only ghosts were metaphorical. this was a beautiful, timely film, about the japanese recession. a family man in a managerial 9-5 gets fired and unable to express his career failure to his wife and children he carries on the routine of getting up and coming home to throw them off the scent but instead goes to the dole office and the free food queue at lunchtime. he befriends another man in a similar position who ends up killing himself and then to his shame finally finds a job as a cleaner, all the while becoming increasingly authoritarian at home in an attempt to have some sort of power over things in his life. the film quietly follows his wife and children as they rebel against his needless dominance, his youngest son discovering the joy of playing piano and his eldest hoping for a new life as an american citizen after joining the army. it was really delicately handled and believable, a scary portrait of what can happen when you cling to the past.
on friday will and i saw the FRANKLYN matinee. the write up sounded intruiging: a alternative futuristic world ruled by the church intertwines with contemporary london, but it wasn't quite as sci-fi as i thought it would be. it begins with the character of priest, explaining his godlessness in a world where everyone has one religion or another. he is a vigilante on the trail of a child killer and spends the movie coming into contact with various nefarious characters on the way. back in our london a set of characters, including sam riley and eva green are all trying to resurrect themselves from traumas in the past. eva green's character faking suicide attempts in the name of art and sam riley trying to find love after being jilted at the altar. their stories start to bleed into the same story and the world of priest also spills over, with characters being echoed. we see by the end how the two have been coexisting but one of the worlds needs to go in order for priest to be healed of his pain. it was a movie about how we deal with pain and the worlds we construct to take ourselves out of that. it was interesting but sometimes a little too much style over substance. the characters were not wholly believable and sometimes just plain irritating. however, it was a first movie and for a stab at it i think it was a good start.
on the monday it was time for something a little different. EUGENE ROBINSON from the band oxbow was doing a spoken word performance at chapter, organised by the brilliant blokes of LESSON #1. i was really intruiged by this, will had seen oxbow a few years ago and its in one of his top ever gigs: screaming, sweaty, aggressive punk where the singer got down to his tighty whiteys. eugene robinson has the reputation of being a frightening man, violent and confrontational. as well as the band he does a sideline in boxing and is actually very good. he has also written a book FIGHT. i went along to see what the fuss was about. i wanted to sit at the back but all the seats were taken so front row for us, i just hoped he didn't punch me. luckily for us, the brilliant D C GATES of GINDRINKER was on first. i love dc. i really do value and treasure that man, he should be fashionable and lauded with front page of the western mail or something as one of cardiff's landmarks but he would hate that and so would i. he brings a slab of intelligent bile to his work that is pregnant with disappointment and anger. his spoken word set was not different to a gindrinker gig but without the distraction of graf's razor-like guitar punctuating the sentences, it made you focus more on the delivery and the drama in the rants and observations. he came on stage, shabbily shambolic in his blazer and collection of notes, which included the back of microwave "meals for one" packets and discintegrating notebooks and read tirades about how "alan de botton is a cunt" and biblical passages denouncing capitalism. it was wonderful. my friend ash was in the audience and we just gushed "we're so lucky to have him in cardiff" to each other in the interval. he's a beligerent alcoholic but he's OUR beligerent alcoholic. long may he reign. next up was eugene robinson. the stage was dressed a single punchbag on stage and some sawdust. contrary to my expectations, eugene robinson turned out to be a graceful, literate, searingly intelligent gent with a slow drawl. he spoke eloquently about his childhood and his first fights and rites of passage to becoming handy with his fists. he was a wonderful speaker and gentle, genial soul who did a long q&a at the end where he explained how he tried to avoid violence unless it was truly necessary. a wonderful evening.
on the wednesday the film i ushered was the french documentary MODERN LIFE. maybe it was the late night i'd encountered the previous night but it did send me to sleep. it was beautifully shot and told the story of a community of hill farmers in the south of france whose way of life will probably die with them. they are men in their 80s who are still working the land and tending to their flocks each day out of neccessity, theirs is a tough life. it was good work from the director, sometimes getting a full sentence out of these men who don't often have full conversations from year to year. sometimes it was little hard going to have a question put to the interviewee a long, lingering shot on his lined face followed about 3 minutes later with a closed "yes" or "no" answer. it was worth seeing but it felt like a very long hour and a half.
later that day i went to see WENDY AND LUCY, the new picture from kelly reicthart who did the exquisite OLD JOY with will oldham. this film was similarly slow paced and prettily filmed in northwest 'burbs and again about friendship, but in this case it was between wendy (played by the brilliant michelle williams) and her dog lucy. they are travelling up the coast to alaska in her old car, hoping to start a new life, running away from whatever went before with no money but a lot of hope. early on wendy leaves lucy outside a shop, gets caught shoplifting and when she gets back finds lucy is gone. the guilt and relentless search for wendy's only friend makes up the majority of the film and her determination and devotion to lucy is heartbreaking. michelle williams is at the simultaeously vulnerable, one moment away from a flood of emotion and tough and purposeful. reichthart captures the people of the northwest perfectly and made me long to be there again.
thursday i was proud to be the usher for new theatre group zandeh's play POLITICS IN THE PARK, brought to the stage by becca knowles. it is the story of two elderly sisters who meet on a park bench and rib each other about their lives. it was a delightful, beautiful and simple play about domestic politics and what holds people and families together. i really enjoyed it and the performances were so good i felt like i would meet the old ladies downstairs for a drink afterwards.
a quiet couple of weeks all in, but it was about to get busy all over again!
things very quickly got back to normal after my birthday. since i'm trying to catch up i'll do this in a two week chunk. i saw a lot of movies in the next couple of weeks and not many gigs. the first one was TOKYO SONATA. i got the wrong idea about this from briefly reading the synopsis and just read that the director was a big name in j-horror. i kept expecting the ghosts to appear but the only ghosts were metaphorical. this was a beautiful, timely film, about the japanese recession. a family man in a managerial 9-5 gets fired and unable to express his career failure to his wife and children he carries on the routine of getting up and coming home to throw them off the scent but instead goes to the dole office and the free food queue at lunchtime. he befriends another man in a similar position who ends up killing himself and then to his shame finally finds a job as a cleaner, all the while becoming increasingly authoritarian at home in an attempt to have some sort of power over things in his life. the film quietly follows his wife and children as they rebel against his needless dominance, his youngest son discovering the joy of playing piano and his eldest hoping for a new life as an american citizen after joining the army. it was really delicately handled and believable, a scary portrait of what can happen when you cling to the past.
on friday will and i saw the FRANKLYN matinee. the write up sounded intruiging: a alternative futuristic world ruled by the church intertwines with contemporary london, but it wasn't quite as sci-fi as i thought it would be. it begins with the character of priest, explaining his godlessness in a world where everyone has one religion or another. he is a vigilante on the trail of a child killer and spends the movie coming into contact with various nefarious characters on the way. back in our london a set of characters, including sam riley and eva green are all trying to resurrect themselves from traumas in the past. eva green's character faking suicide attempts in the name of art and sam riley trying to find love after being jilted at the altar. their stories start to bleed into the same story and the world of priest also spills over, with characters being echoed. we see by the end how the two have been coexisting but one of the worlds needs to go in order for priest to be healed of his pain. it was a movie about how we deal with pain and the worlds we construct to take ourselves out of that. it was interesting but sometimes a little too much style over substance. the characters were not wholly believable and sometimes just plain irritating. however, it was a first movie and for a stab at it i think it was a good start.
on the monday it was time for something a little different. EUGENE ROBINSON from the band oxbow was doing a spoken word performance at chapter, organised by the brilliant blokes of LESSON #1. i was really intruiged by this, will had seen oxbow a few years ago and its in one of his top ever gigs: screaming, sweaty, aggressive punk where the singer got down to his tighty whiteys. eugene robinson has the reputation of being a frightening man, violent and confrontational. as well as the band he does a sideline in boxing and is actually very good. he has also written a book FIGHT. i went along to see what the fuss was about. i wanted to sit at the back but all the seats were taken so front row for us, i just hoped he didn't punch me. luckily for us, the brilliant D C GATES of GINDRINKER was on first. i love dc. i really do value and treasure that man, he should be fashionable and lauded with front page of the western mail or something as one of cardiff's landmarks but he would hate that and so would i. he brings a slab of intelligent bile to his work that is pregnant with disappointment and anger. his spoken word set was not different to a gindrinker gig but without the distraction of graf's razor-like guitar punctuating the sentences, it made you focus more on the delivery and the drama in the rants and observations. he came on stage, shabbily shambolic in his blazer and collection of notes, which included the back of microwave "meals for one" packets and discintegrating notebooks and read tirades about how "alan de botton is a cunt" and biblical passages denouncing capitalism. it was wonderful. my friend ash was in the audience and we just gushed "we're so lucky to have him in cardiff" to each other in the interval. he's a beligerent alcoholic but he's OUR beligerent alcoholic. long may he reign. next up was eugene robinson. the stage was dressed a single punchbag on stage and some sawdust. contrary to my expectations, eugene robinson turned out to be a graceful, literate, searingly intelligent gent with a slow drawl. he spoke eloquently about his childhood and his first fights and rites of passage to becoming handy with his fists. he was a wonderful speaker and gentle, genial soul who did a long q&a at the end where he explained how he tried to avoid violence unless it was truly necessary. a wonderful evening.
on the wednesday the film i ushered was the french documentary MODERN LIFE. maybe it was the late night i'd encountered the previous night but it did send me to sleep. it was beautifully shot and told the story of a community of hill farmers in the south of france whose way of life will probably die with them. they are men in their 80s who are still working the land and tending to their flocks each day out of neccessity, theirs is a tough life. it was good work from the director, sometimes getting a full sentence out of these men who don't often have full conversations from year to year. sometimes it was little hard going to have a question put to the interviewee a long, lingering shot on his lined face followed about 3 minutes later with a closed "yes" or "no" answer. it was worth seeing but it felt like a very long hour and a half.
later that day i went to see WENDY AND LUCY, the new picture from kelly reicthart who did the exquisite OLD JOY with will oldham. this film was similarly slow paced and prettily filmed in northwest 'burbs and again about friendship, but in this case it was between wendy (played by the brilliant michelle williams) and her dog lucy. they are travelling up the coast to alaska in her old car, hoping to start a new life, running away from whatever went before with no money but a lot of hope. early on wendy leaves lucy outside a shop, gets caught shoplifting and when she gets back finds lucy is gone. the guilt and relentless search for wendy's only friend makes up the majority of the film and her determination and devotion to lucy is heartbreaking. michelle williams is at the simultaeously vulnerable, one moment away from a flood of emotion and tough and purposeful. reichthart captures the people of the northwest perfectly and made me long to be there again.
thursday i was proud to be the usher for new theatre group zandeh's play POLITICS IN THE PARK, brought to the stage by becca knowles. it is the story of two elderly sisters who meet on a park bench and rib each other about their lives. it was a delightful, beautiful and simple play about domestic politics and what holds people and families together. i really enjoyed it and the performances were so good i felt like i would meet the old ladies downstairs for a drink afterwards.
a quiet couple of weeks all in, but it was about to get busy all over again!
1 Mar 2009
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.
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.
8 Feb 2009
lord have mercy
this week i actually managed to see some gigs! sunday i didn't make it to zonderhoof, which i was annoyed at myself about but instead steen and i watched HAROLD AND MAUDE, my favourite ever ever film. steen had not seen it so i was curious to know what he would say. when cathryn, alison and i were in university we used to test potential playthings out by making them watch THE LAST UNICORN and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, as these were our "friday night after going out" films. if they stayed the distance and watched them they passed. this is a pretty hefty sized task as one is a cartoon and not necessarily a late night movie and the other is a very disturbing look inside the heart of darkness. HAROLD AND MAUDE is one of those films for me. if someone doesn't like this film i won't necessarily give up on them but a bit of me will die inside, not to be too overdramatic about it. it is very special to me. i heavily identify with maude (apart from the petty theft) and hope that i stay pure enough to be like her as i get older. i didn't see this till i was about 20, jamie and erin showed it to me astounded i'd not seen it. everything about it is perfect: the cat stevens soundtrack, the oddly lingering shots, the casting (i think harold looks like steven black by the way, and told him so every week when i used to go to barfly, i don't think he ever really understood)... its just great. steen loved it. phew! i wouldn't have dumped him if he didn't but i'm very relieved. someone once made me harold and maude coasters, it remains one of the best presents i've ever received. anyway, enough of my fandom.
monday we went to see BRAKES and GINDRINKER. unusually for a forecast gig it was in tommy's bar. it was great. i hadn't been to a gig for ages and i bloody love gindrinker and had heard good things of brakes. dc was on top form, i worship at his lace ups. graf climbing things and playing the guitar on the lighting rig was a shot of genius. there were people who hadn't seen gindrinker before and they were full of bemused grins. job well done. brakes came on and had a little guy who looked a bit like my friend john in barcelona wearing a silver spacesuit which glittered in the light carrying a pineapple. the songs went from brilliant twiddly freak out to 5 second long rants "cheney cheney cheney cheney... don't be such a dick!". again, excellent stage banter. if only all band nights were unpretentious, clever and amusing like this. i danced around a lot and tried to avoid the blinding stage light that was in my eyes and tried not to jump on john rostron who was skulking behind me with a camera taking pictures. ahh, love those forecast boys. they do good things and are nice people. i am so glad they're back. last year when forecast folded for a bit i was gutted, i spent that month looking around cardiff for good gigs like an orphaned animal. luckily cardiff has so many good promoters (loose, peppermint patti, skelley etc) that i was easily entertained but it did leave a hole. hooray for forecast!
we were also forecast for snow (boodoom tshk) and it was magic walking in the snow back from tommy's bar on monday night. less magic was the fact that the rest of britain had dramatic, dangerous weather,whereas we only had a sprinkling. it was just a bit crap in cardiff, not scary or record breaking, just a bit shit. that was irritating.
but now for a fulsome hip hip hooray for liz of the loves, the school and more importantly LOOSE fame. liz does not get the recognition she deserves for all her hard work. i have loose gigs in my diary up to may and all of them look good. she has brought some amazing things to cardiff (daniel johnson ferfucksake!), always has a loose record stall (very important for picking things up you might have missed or not had money for on the gig night), always has sweets (tangfastic!) and is a bloody nice lady. her pardner ryan also had on a very good dirty mac. this week she was putting on EMMY THE GREAT. first up is YOUNG HUSBANDS who are made up of some of emmy's backing band. i liked them. no-one else i was with them did. they reminded me of TEENAGE FANCLUB and that band who were popular a few years ago but then sunk without a trace THE THRILLS (i once saw the lead singer all alone in my local cinema, which is entirely irrelevant but on my mind that night). they need stronger melodies but i thought it was a good start, they were doing things i rather liked. EX LOVERS were on next and one of their singers had my friend david's tongue on the floor. he liked her a lot. he was fascinated by her tattoo. boys are always agog by pretty innocent looking types with tattoos. she was indeed very pretty and had a sadness about her eyes and mouth that made her beguiling. the songs were quite good too, sad and pretty and beguiling like their singer. then we chatted with some friends for a bit and suddenly struck by the million people who were upstairs in clwb. it was a sell out and full of young uns. i was chatting to my friend ash later who said she thought it was "something to do with the internet". it made us feel quite old. emmy the great was also quite young, as the songs made you aware. i didn't know much about her music (she was at the first swn i think but i didn't catch her) but it seems like a first love break up album. some songs sound like plath-inspired 6th form poetry but not necessarily in a bad way, they reminded me of being that age and having unfulfilled crushes and relationships which neither of us were ready for. i was really tired by the end of the gig but soothed by the atmosphere, everything was hushed for her solid, clear vocals. her voice was refreshing, like a cascade of water, i'll be interested to see how her voice develops and what she does next.
wednesday was a lovely, domestic day. i had to sweep up everything in benny's main bedroom and put it in his little room for we have our friend jon staying with us whilst ben's in essex. i hate essex for its overpowering sway upon our lovely benny. we miss him loads and taking the stuff out of his room was sad. there was a picture of ben with his nephew maximillion* (*not his real name) and i put it in the sewing room so i can pretend ben is still around. then i made a veg soup and mixed fruit crumble, which was darned tasty, if i do say so myself. that evening we went over to our friends anne and helen's to see if crumble cures a poorly foot. we had cups of tea and amused ourselves with gossip and had a bloody lovely time.
thursday we both had off again and decided to go charity shopping to get some gear for the video that we're helping our friend out with this week. the theme is "1930s sunday best" and i instantly found a white button up dress that i think'll do and steen found a great jacket (that made him look a bit like graham coxon when he adopted the correct stance) on cowbridge road east. i didn't have enough money to go mad with shopping but i also bought myself some boots for £3 which feel like slippers and are amazingly a million times more comfortable than the pair i bought for £35 in the janurary sales. i set myself a goal to try not to buy new clothes to try and cause less waste, only stuff from charity shops and so far its working, i got some great things. after a much needed hot chocolate (i was being very grumpy due to the cold) we headed for JACOBS MARKET. i love antiqueing. i have always collected stuff from charity shops and antiques places as a treat. when i was a kid i used to collect old photographs so would ask in every shop i found myself in. you do see some tat but there is also great great treasure. i found a record player i desperately want but can't afford as well as some random niknaks that i really don't need but think i can give them a home, like stray animals. in the end steen bought two badges, a seahorse and one that says "jesus loved me" with a bible number quote. Loved? in the past tense? intriuging. maybe this bit in the bible is when jesus found mary magdalene in bed with one of his mates.
friday and saturday i was working in CHAPTER and lord lummy, it was busy. this makes me everso everso happy. we have survived through the redevelopment and business seems to be eerily picking up despite record bankrupcies and national debt. i am very excited about the reopening this summer and gives working there a real fizz. in the box office we had 3 sell outs yesterday, which i think might be unprecedented. friday was the 2nd birthday of the DRONES comedy club, which is ran by a lovely bunch who i am always happy to see. due to the nature of my working life i never get to go to the drones apart from topping up the money in the till or something boring like that but from what i can see its a really good night and we even had complaints cos that was a sell out too! afterwards i had a nice chat with all the lovely cardiff comedy lot and their mates and stuck around to have a half with my colleagues. a good night. on saturday we went to a full cinema to see FROST / NIXON in the evening, eschewing a good line up at clwb but i was pretty tired and anticipating a busy week helping out our friend in the evenings. richard nixon has always been my favourite president to study. as a man and his place in history he is absolutely fascinating. when i was doing my degree i would just gobble up anything related to nixon and his rise and fall. the man is like richard III or lear! so flawed and insecure, so disgustingly pitiful. he was so full of self hatred and hatred of other people and tried desperately to fight against his nature, he wanted to be good and civic minded but was destroyed by his own internal battles. i think oliver stone's best film is NIXON, it begins with a storm at night in the white house and nixon pulling kissinger down to pray with him, sweaty and shaking, kissinger looks visibly afraid. obviously that was fiction, as was this movie, but the man was a frightening character. the way he spoke to people and the things he did to solidify his power was astonishing. this film was good, it did have ron howard touches (obligatory appearance by clint howard, overly-dramatic close ups, slow pace until the denouement) but wasn't cheesy like a lot of his films can be. one aspect of the film that i expect was intentional was the parallels between nixon's presidency and that of dubya. here was a man who brought the country to its knees, destroyed faith in democracy and committed atrocious war crimes. ring a bell? the big difference here is that nixon was a smart man. flawed and unattractively vicious but fiercely intelligent. he was haunted for the rest of his days about what he had done to the country, his quaker guilt not giving him peace for a second, which seemed only fitting. bush is now playing golf and going for his runs in the morning with the sweet smell of two terms behind him, unbothered by his actions. i suppose that is why obama's election was so important and his speech needed to be a stinging attack on bush, we needed it to carry on and believe in america once again. heavens knows if obama will succeed but at least america has come good in bringing some intelligence and strength back into the office rather than a frat boy idiot. what was it bush said to sum up his 8 years? "hey, we had fun!" a fucking disgrace. this is the week my wife lost her job at the architecture firm and the world is worried about its future. 8 years of inertia in environmental matters and making the rich richer. we will a close up of bush in a tv interview realising the implication of his actions and coming to terms with a damned eternity, people are too media savvy to be caught out like this nowadays and i'm not sure he even has the emotional and mental capacity to weigh up all that he has done.
well, thats a sad note to end on. today i'm looking forward to some lovely food from the market and helping our friend casey make his video, which is sure to be fun and will distract me from these dark days.
till next week, dear diary!
monday we went to see BRAKES and GINDRINKER. unusually for a forecast gig it was in tommy's bar. it was great. i hadn't been to a gig for ages and i bloody love gindrinker and had heard good things of brakes. dc was on top form, i worship at his lace ups. graf climbing things and playing the guitar on the lighting rig was a shot of genius. there were people who hadn't seen gindrinker before and they were full of bemused grins. job well done. brakes came on and had a little guy who looked a bit like my friend john in barcelona wearing a silver spacesuit which glittered in the light carrying a pineapple. the songs went from brilliant twiddly freak out to 5 second long rants "cheney cheney cheney cheney... don't be such a dick!". again, excellent stage banter. if only all band nights were unpretentious, clever and amusing like this. i danced around a lot and tried to avoid the blinding stage light that was in my eyes and tried not to jump on john rostron who was skulking behind me with a camera taking pictures. ahh, love those forecast boys. they do good things and are nice people. i am so glad they're back. last year when forecast folded for a bit i was gutted, i spent that month looking around cardiff for good gigs like an orphaned animal. luckily cardiff has so many good promoters (loose, peppermint patti, skelley etc) that i was easily entertained but it did leave a hole. hooray for forecast!
we were also forecast for snow (boodoom tshk) and it was magic walking in the snow back from tommy's bar on monday night. less magic was the fact that the rest of britain had dramatic, dangerous weather,whereas we only had a sprinkling. it was just a bit crap in cardiff, not scary or record breaking, just a bit shit. that was irritating.
but now for a fulsome hip hip hooray for liz of the loves, the school and more importantly LOOSE fame. liz does not get the recognition she deserves for all her hard work. i have loose gigs in my diary up to may and all of them look good. she has brought some amazing things to cardiff (daniel johnson ferfucksake!), always has a loose record stall (very important for picking things up you might have missed or not had money for on the gig night), always has sweets (tangfastic!) and is a bloody nice lady. her pardner ryan also had on a very good dirty mac. this week she was putting on EMMY THE GREAT. first up is YOUNG HUSBANDS who are made up of some of emmy's backing band. i liked them. no-one else i was with them did. they reminded me of TEENAGE FANCLUB and that band who were popular a few years ago but then sunk without a trace THE THRILLS (i once saw the lead singer all alone in my local cinema, which is entirely irrelevant but on my mind that night). they need stronger melodies but i thought it was a good start, they were doing things i rather liked. EX LOVERS were on next and one of their singers had my friend david's tongue on the floor. he liked her a lot. he was fascinated by her tattoo. boys are always agog by pretty innocent looking types with tattoos. she was indeed very pretty and had a sadness about her eyes and mouth that made her beguiling. the songs were quite good too, sad and pretty and beguiling like their singer. then we chatted with some friends for a bit and suddenly struck by the million people who were upstairs in clwb. it was a sell out and full of young uns. i was chatting to my friend ash later who said she thought it was "something to do with the internet". it made us feel quite old. emmy the great was also quite young, as the songs made you aware. i didn't know much about her music (she was at the first swn i think but i didn't catch her) but it seems like a first love break up album. some songs sound like plath-inspired 6th form poetry but not necessarily in a bad way, they reminded me of being that age and having unfulfilled crushes and relationships which neither of us were ready for. i was really tired by the end of the gig but soothed by the atmosphere, everything was hushed for her solid, clear vocals. her voice was refreshing, like a cascade of water, i'll be interested to see how her voice develops and what she does next.
wednesday was a lovely, domestic day. i had to sweep up everything in benny's main bedroom and put it in his little room for we have our friend jon staying with us whilst ben's in essex. i hate essex for its overpowering sway upon our lovely benny. we miss him loads and taking the stuff out of his room was sad. there was a picture of ben with his nephew maximillion* (*not his real name) and i put it in the sewing room so i can pretend ben is still around. then i made a veg soup and mixed fruit crumble, which was darned tasty, if i do say so myself. that evening we went over to our friends anne and helen's to see if crumble cures a poorly foot. we had cups of tea and amused ourselves with gossip and had a bloody lovely time.
thursday we both had off again and decided to go charity shopping to get some gear for the video that we're helping our friend out with this week. the theme is "1930s sunday best" and i instantly found a white button up dress that i think'll do and steen found a great jacket (that made him look a bit like graham coxon when he adopted the correct stance) on cowbridge road east. i didn't have enough money to go mad with shopping but i also bought myself some boots for £3 which feel like slippers and are amazingly a million times more comfortable than the pair i bought for £35 in the janurary sales. i set myself a goal to try not to buy new clothes to try and cause less waste, only stuff from charity shops and so far its working, i got some great things. after a much needed hot chocolate (i was being very grumpy due to the cold) we headed for JACOBS MARKET. i love antiqueing. i have always collected stuff from charity shops and antiques places as a treat. when i was a kid i used to collect old photographs so would ask in every shop i found myself in. you do see some tat but there is also great great treasure. i found a record player i desperately want but can't afford as well as some random niknaks that i really don't need but think i can give them a home, like stray animals. in the end steen bought two badges, a seahorse and one that says "jesus loved me" with a bible number quote. Loved? in the past tense? intriuging. maybe this bit in the bible is when jesus found mary magdalene in bed with one of his mates.
friday and saturday i was working in CHAPTER and lord lummy, it was busy. this makes me everso everso happy. we have survived through the redevelopment and business seems to be eerily picking up despite record bankrupcies and national debt. i am very excited about the reopening this summer and gives working there a real fizz. in the box office we had 3 sell outs yesterday, which i think might be unprecedented. friday was the 2nd birthday of the DRONES comedy club, which is ran by a lovely bunch who i am always happy to see. due to the nature of my working life i never get to go to the drones apart from topping up the money in the till or something boring like that but from what i can see its a really good night and we even had complaints cos that was a sell out too! afterwards i had a nice chat with all the lovely cardiff comedy lot and their mates and stuck around to have a half with my colleagues. a good night. on saturday we went to a full cinema to see FROST / NIXON in the evening, eschewing a good line up at clwb but i was pretty tired and anticipating a busy week helping out our friend in the evenings. richard nixon has always been my favourite president to study. as a man and his place in history he is absolutely fascinating. when i was doing my degree i would just gobble up anything related to nixon and his rise and fall. the man is like richard III or lear! so flawed and insecure, so disgustingly pitiful. he was so full of self hatred and hatred of other people and tried desperately to fight against his nature, he wanted to be good and civic minded but was destroyed by his own internal battles. i think oliver stone's best film is NIXON, it begins with a storm at night in the white house and nixon pulling kissinger down to pray with him, sweaty and shaking, kissinger looks visibly afraid. obviously that was fiction, as was this movie, but the man was a frightening character. the way he spoke to people and the things he did to solidify his power was astonishing. this film was good, it did have ron howard touches (obligatory appearance by clint howard, overly-dramatic close ups, slow pace until the denouement) but wasn't cheesy like a lot of his films can be. one aspect of the film that i expect was intentional was the parallels between nixon's presidency and that of dubya. here was a man who brought the country to its knees, destroyed faith in democracy and committed atrocious war crimes. ring a bell? the big difference here is that nixon was a smart man. flawed and unattractively vicious but fiercely intelligent. he was haunted for the rest of his days about what he had done to the country, his quaker guilt not giving him peace for a second, which seemed only fitting. bush is now playing golf and going for his runs in the morning with the sweet smell of two terms behind him, unbothered by his actions. i suppose that is why obama's election was so important and his speech needed to be a stinging attack on bush, we needed it to carry on and believe in america once again. heavens knows if obama will succeed but at least america has come good in bringing some intelligence and strength back into the office rather than a frat boy idiot. what was it bush said to sum up his 8 years? "hey, we had fun!" a fucking disgrace. this is the week my wife lost her job at the architecture firm and the world is worried about its future. 8 years of inertia in environmental matters and making the rich richer. we will a close up of bush in a tv interview realising the implication of his actions and coming to terms with a damned eternity, people are too media savvy to be caught out like this nowadays and i'm not sure he even has the emotional and mental capacity to weigh up all that he has done.
well, thats a sad note to end on. today i'm looking forward to some lovely food from the market and helping our friend casey make his video, which is sure to be fun and will distract me from these dark days.
till next week, dear diary!
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