Sunday, July 29, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
It's a quarter to three, there's nobody in the place here but me...
Im in a bar, some anonymous bar somewhere downtown in the back end of a side street, one of those bars you hear about but never think to go in. Yet here I am sat at the bar, not quite yet slooped down behind the neon beer signs. I'm on my 4th or 6th scotch, Louis Armstrong on the stereo but I'm getting my ear chewed off by 'Raphael', 2 stools down, who seemingly has no home to go to. I'm half-heartedly flirting with the waitress, haven't eaten in 2 days and barely slept in twice that. My heart isn't sufficiently mended to be have been rebroken so soon and I realise I shouldn't be here.
I also realise, in a bit of a flash, I'm actually not here at all. No, I think I'm in a Tom Waits song.
Finally. I've 'made' it. And it feels.....
Bad.
So, I resolve to do what all his antiheroes do sooner or later. Get a car and just drive.
I'm going to see if I can get to the Atlantic tomorrow, just point the car east and put my foot fucking down.
Because I shouldn't be in this dark drinking hole in Quebec or in this distant continent at all right now. Monday, yes. Next year and beyond, most definitely. But right now I should be somewhere else. It's just that I can't be where I'm supposed to be - and I can't quite believe it. So I'll go as far as I can, to the bit that left Britain and Ireland behind rather longer than a year ago.
And when I get there, I'll ask it if it was such a good move.
Tom Waits - Bad Liver and a Broken Heart
Tom Waits - Frank's Wild Years
Buy buy!
|
Im in a bar, some anonymous bar somewhere downtown in the back end of a side street, one of those bars you hear about but never think to go in. Yet here I am sat at the bar, not quite yet slooped down behind the neon beer signs. I'm on my 4th or 6th scotch, Louis Armstrong on the stereo but I'm getting my ear chewed off by 'Raphael', 2 stools down, who seemingly has no home to go to. I'm half-heartedly flirting with the waitress, haven't eaten in 2 days and barely slept in twice that. My heart isn't sufficiently mended to be have been rebroken so soon and I realise I shouldn't be here.
I also realise, in a bit of a flash, I'm actually not here at all. No, I think I'm in a Tom Waits song.
Finally. I've 'made' it. And it feels.....
Bad.
So, I resolve to do what all his antiheroes do sooner or later. Get a car and just drive.
I'm going to see if I can get to the Atlantic tomorrow, just point the car east and put my foot fucking down.
Because I shouldn't be in this dark drinking hole in Quebec or in this distant continent at all right now. Monday, yes. Next year and beyond, most definitely. But right now I should be somewhere else. It's just that I can't be where I'm supposed to be - and I can't quite believe it. So I'll go as far as I can, to the bit that left Britain and Ireland behind rather longer than a year ago.
And when I get there, I'll ask it if it was such a good move.
Tom Waits - Bad Liver and a Broken Heart
Tom Waits - Frank's Wild Years
Buy buy!
|
Monday, July 23, 2007
The Revenge of the Shit
As the weeks went by, it became obvious that Wars and I were stuck with eachother. I had even managed, in the last weekend of July last year, to find an eccentric old lady in Dun Laoighaire who was delighted to take her. 4 days later, I was called to recollect these damaged goods. SW had made a mockery of her goodwill, her care and her beautiful apartment. This woman was of a certain age, for sure, but she was also very French, a wealthy-looking art collector (ie. a kept woman) and completely fucking noisettes. I remember she 'had a lover in the Lebanon' and everything, but everything in our conversation was related back to sex. She had decided, after living a life of complete and avowed selfishness, to try and look after something - hence Star Wars. And it would have worked beautifully if only the cat had assented. It was when I returned to collect her, in failure and shame, that she chose to register her disgust with me. I popped her into my car and then returned to get her stuff from the apartment, saying my goodbyes, only to open my car door and find a fresh cat turd plopped out neatly on the front seat.
So I took her home again and she positively relished her return. My girlfriend at the time, still a full week away from laying her own disgusted gesture on me, had offered to co-foster in her house so that I wouldn't feel so stuck with an animal I had been ambivalent about. I took the symbolism to heart - this poor destitute rag of cat, once many years ago a great and vital beast no doubt, would be rehabilitated by our good care and love and would flourish once again.
I would commit and make this work. It would be beautiful, rewarding and demonstrative of our amazing ability to renew our love.
And then she dumped (on) me.
I still don't know exactly what happened or why I was responsible for what did, but a year down the line it's got all the relevance of a footnote to a foreword in a book about bollocks. I'm here and now and making different mistakes, thank you. I was left, quite literally, in a world of shit. Came home from the dumping to find Star Wars had somehow psychically, empathetically vomited all over the flat. My bed, chair and lounge carpet were the big recipients. I was, i'm very ashamed to say, violently fucking upset and very grateful that she was faster than me or i'd have done something i'd have hated myself for, forevermore. As it is, I shouted at her with the deeply angry voice of God himself and she vanished quicker than *sniff* my hopes and dreams 20 minutes earlier (oh piss off. I've written precious little about the worst day of my entire life thus far. Can't tell the Star Wars saga without the Nutgroist Love-Lost Telenovela). I sat down, stared again at the vomit, and spent the rest of the week puking my eyes out.
But of course, symbolism be damned, I still had a cat to care for. So I made peace with her and realised that the real meaning of all this was that there but for the grace of Dog went I. Staring down the barrel of my empty future, I was now deciding whether I was going to go and live on the streets (tempting but highly stupid and, as romantic gestures go, suicidally silly), keep on living in hope and Dublin (very tempting but not the most comfortable state of extra-marital affairs to maintain, when i'd just spent a year creeping along the tether) or just fuck the fuck off to wherever the fuck and try to forget the last ten years ever happened (ummm.... I've done much better than I expected, but I don't necessarily recommend it). Really, my cat's life had been a mixture of all three. Clearly a housecat of origin, for she had little problem understanding what indoors was and showed no obvious feral traits, yet cast out to live on her own she obviously didn't manage to make a good go of it.
But she also never gave up.
I would redouble my efforts to relocate her but this time, we'd try out of Dublin, now a city of blight for us both. And in the meantime, we'd have a laugh. I'm not consciously trying to put a photomontage in your head of us sitting by the fire, playing monopoly, gorging on cake, getting pissed on Grappa, dancing to James Brown and the like. But nevertheless we had some good times and she became ever more friendly. Whilst the shit and piss decreased, regrettably the vomit increased and so I tried a few different dietary regimes to see what the offending foodstuff was.
I also let her out of the apartment a few times, trying to give her a feel for the area, meet the local alleycats who ruled the backstreets of the stadium near my place etc. But she'd just hide in the nearest bush and not come out for hours. I even decided to give her her own home entirely, in front of the washing machine in the utility room, located outside and underneath the stairs. With a basket, a door left ajar and me topping up her food and drink, I thought she might become an independent cat again who I could regularly visit and feed and give affection to (shit, only now do I see something more symbolic in this relationship, but anyway...) but instead, some local fucking brazen Tom came and nicked all her food and sent her scurrying to the very far corner of the utility room, behind a MASSIVE pile of accumulated crap from the landlord that was covered in grease, oil, shite, glass, leaves, cobwebs and more shite. And I, tired and sick from a cold, having not eaten in several days nor slept in weeks, spent 4 or 5 hours emptying it out into the driveway, cutting both hands and breathing in huge bags of 1980's dust, breaking all manner of materials in the process, long into the night, just to reach my poor, frightened pussycat. Who then bit me very fucking hard when I finally reached in to get her. It took all the willpower I had left in my broken body not to lock the door and melt down the key.
And then, a miracle. A friend of friend of a wonderful comedy promoter friend of mine had found someone about 3 hours drive away in the middle of the country who would simply love to take her. They fostered all manner of cats and no matter how difficult this one was, it wouldn't be a problem and would I like them to drive over and collect it?
No, fuck it, my dear, I shall come to you. You're doing me and my cat the biggest favour possible, so it'd be a pleasure. Is there anything I need to do beforehand? Oh, get a blood test? Vaccinations? Sure, I can do that. I'll do it first thing tomorrow. Yes, of course I understand. Can't have one animal infecting all the others. The vet seemed to think she was clean from all that sort of stuff but yes, one can't be too careful and no I don't mind at all
The next day, Star Wars, my now ex-sister-in-common-law and I drive to the vet and get the tests started. The vet is very happy to hear we've found a home for her and bids us on our way.
The next next day, Star Wars, my now ex-sister-in-common-law and I drive to the vet and are told that the results of the blood test mean that poor Star Wars is suffering from jaundice, which is leading to liver failure and a prolonged and extremely painful death. We have to put her down. As we walk back in some distress to the car outside, we notice something is missing from this picture. It's the car. I'd inadvertently left it in a zone in which you can only park when there's a fucking R in the Month or an S in the Day or some screw-the-people greedy bullshit and so the Dublin Municipal Parking Enforcement and Waffen SS Department had picked it up and taken it away. Oh Star Wars, if you'd only known how much a blood test and car requisition cost these days, you'd have had the good grace to tell me you were dying and ran under my car when you had the chance. Although in retrospect, if I'd have had any common sense at all, I'd have been able to read the vomit more accurately. Which, by the way, had recently become much rarer in frequency. Things had been looking up, at least for her.
In fact, as the ex-sis-in-common-law and I tearfully, defiantly discussed when we did finally return home, Star Wars had never been in better health. Could the vet be wrong? We couched opinion from all sides and eventually all but I decided it was for the best that she be put to sleep. And so, with a heart heavier than Led Zeppelin playing on the Titanic, we took her back a few days later to be, oh what a pretty word, euthanised. The vet explained very simply that she would inject my cat with a strong sedative that would make her fall asleep and within a minute her heart would stop beating. In fact, because Star Wars was in such a weak state, it shouldn't take more than ten seconds. I made one more feeble protest to the effect that she was no ordinary cat and should be given more time to improve, but it was quickly brushed aside by many years of accumulated medical evidence and my own scorched-earth policy in regard to, well, anything and everything that was associated in any way whatsoever with my about-to-be former life.
I don't think it's right to describe her death in detail here, though I remember it all too clearly. Let's just say that after 30 seconds, she was looking at us with puzzled eyes and I knew I shouldn't have brought her.....
TEN FUCKING MINUTES LATER, AFTER MANY SOOTHING EMPTY WORDS OF REASSURANCE FROM THE VET AND ANOTHER, MORE POWERFUL INJECTION, SHE WAS STILL MOST PALPABLY ALIVE. HER HEART BEAT AND HER CHEST ROSE AND FELL. I STOOD STARING AT A THING DETERMINED NOT TO GIVE UP.
It took a third injection, directly into the heart to kill her.
We drove home, my little sis in tears and I as numb as a coma. 10 days later I was gone too.
Star Wars, Dublin, August 5, 2006.
A superb breakbeat taken from an album I used to own a very rare original copy of a long, long time ago.
|
As the weeks went by, it became obvious that Wars and I were stuck with eachother. I had even managed, in the last weekend of July last year, to find an eccentric old lady in Dun Laoighaire who was delighted to take her. 4 days later, I was called to recollect these damaged goods. SW had made a mockery of her goodwill, her care and her beautiful apartment. This woman was of a certain age, for sure, but she was also very French, a wealthy-looking art collector (ie. a kept woman) and completely fucking noisettes. I remember she 'had a lover in the Lebanon' and everything, but everything in our conversation was related back to sex. She had decided, after living a life of complete and avowed selfishness, to try and look after something - hence Star Wars. And it would have worked beautifully if only the cat had assented. It was when I returned to collect her, in failure and shame, that she chose to register her disgust with me. I popped her into my car and then returned to get her stuff from the apartment, saying my goodbyes, only to open my car door and find a fresh cat turd plopped out neatly on the front seat.
So I took her home again and she positively relished her return. My girlfriend at the time, still a full week away from laying her own disgusted gesture on me, had offered to co-foster in her house so that I wouldn't feel so stuck with an animal I had been ambivalent about. I took the symbolism to heart - this poor destitute rag of cat, once many years ago a great and vital beast no doubt, would be rehabilitated by our good care and love and would flourish once again.
I would commit and make this work. It would be beautiful, rewarding and demonstrative of our amazing ability to renew our love.
And then she dumped (on) me.
I still don't know exactly what happened or why I was responsible for what did, but a year down the line it's got all the relevance of a footnote to a foreword in a book about bollocks. I'm here and now and making different mistakes, thank you. I was left, quite literally, in a world of shit. Came home from the dumping to find Star Wars had somehow psychically, empathetically vomited all over the flat. My bed, chair and lounge carpet were the big recipients. I was, i'm very ashamed to say, violently fucking upset and very grateful that she was faster than me or i'd have done something i'd have hated myself for, forevermore. As it is, I shouted at her with the deeply angry voice of God himself and she vanished quicker than *sniff* my hopes and dreams 20 minutes earlier (oh piss off. I've written precious little about the worst day of my entire life thus far. Can't tell the Star Wars saga without the Nutgroist Love-Lost Telenovela). I sat down, stared again at the vomit, and spent the rest of the week puking my eyes out.
But of course, symbolism be damned, I still had a cat to care for. So I made peace with her and realised that the real meaning of all this was that there but for the grace of Dog went I. Staring down the barrel of my empty future, I was now deciding whether I was going to go and live on the streets (tempting but highly stupid and, as romantic gestures go, suicidally silly), keep on living in hope and Dublin (very tempting but not the most comfortable state of extra-marital affairs to maintain, when i'd just spent a year creeping along the tether) or just fuck the fuck off to wherever the fuck and try to forget the last ten years ever happened (ummm.... I've done much better than I expected, but I don't necessarily recommend it). Really, my cat's life had been a mixture of all three. Clearly a housecat of origin, for she had little problem understanding what indoors was and showed no obvious feral traits, yet cast out to live on her own she obviously didn't manage to make a good go of it.
But she also never gave up.
I would redouble my efforts to relocate her but this time, we'd try out of Dublin, now a city of blight for us both. And in the meantime, we'd have a laugh. I'm not consciously trying to put a photomontage in your head of us sitting by the fire, playing monopoly, gorging on cake, getting pissed on Grappa, dancing to James Brown and the like. But nevertheless we had some good times and she became ever more friendly. Whilst the shit and piss decreased, regrettably the vomit increased and so I tried a few different dietary regimes to see what the offending foodstuff was.
I also let her out of the apartment a few times, trying to give her a feel for the area, meet the local alleycats who ruled the backstreets of the stadium near my place etc. But she'd just hide in the nearest bush and not come out for hours. I even decided to give her her own home entirely, in front of the washing machine in the utility room, located outside and underneath the stairs. With a basket, a door left ajar and me topping up her food and drink, I thought she might become an independent cat again who I could regularly visit and feed and give affection to (shit, only now do I see something more symbolic in this relationship, but anyway...) but instead, some local fucking brazen Tom came and nicked all her food and sent her scurrying to the very far corner of the utility room, behind a MASSIVE pile of accumulated crap from the landlord that was covered in grease, oil, shite, glass, leaves, cobwebs and more shite. And I, tired and sick from a cold, having not eaten in several days nor slept in weeks, spent 4 or 5 hours emptying it out into the driveway, cutting both hands and breathing in huge bags of 1980's dust, breaking all manner of materials in the process, long into the night, just to reach my poor, frightened pussycat. Who then bit me very fucking hard when I finally reached in to get her. It took all the willpower I had left in my broken body not to lock the door and melt down the key.
And then, a miracle. A friend of friend of a wonderful comedy promoter friend of mine had found someone about 3 hours drive away in the middle of the country who would simply love to take her. They fostered all manner of cats and no matter how difficult this one was, it wouldn't be a problem and would I like them to drive over and collect it?
No, fuck it, my dear, I shall come to you. You're doing me and my cat the biggest favour possible, so it'd be a pleasure. Is there anything I need to do beforehand? Oh, get a blood test? Vaccinations? Sure, I can do that. I'll do it first thing tomorrow. Yes, of course I understand. Can't have one animal infecting all the others. The vet seemed to think she was clean from all that sort of stuff but yes, one can't be too careful and no I don't mind at all
The next day, Star Wars, my now ex-sister-in-common-law and I drive to the vet and get the tests started. The vet is very happy to hear we've found a home for her and bids us on our way.
The next next day, Star Wars, my now ex-sister-in-common-law and I drive to the vet and are told that the results of the blood test mean that poor Star Wars is suffering from jaundice, which is leading to liver failure and a prolonged and extremely painful death. We have to put her down. As we walk back in some distress to the car outside, we notice something is missing from this picture. It's the car. I'd inadvertently left it in a zone in which you can only park when there's a fucking R in the Month or an S in the Day or some screw-the-people greedy bullshit and so the Dublin Municipal Parking Enforcement and Waffen SS Department had picked it up and taken it away. Oh Star Wars, if you'd only known how much a blood test and car requisition cost these days, you'd have had the good grace to tell me you were dying and ran under my car when you had the chance. Although in retrospect, if I'd have had any common sense at all, I'd have been able to read the vomit more accurately. Which, by the way, had recently become much rarer in frequency. Things had been looking up, at least for her.
In fact, as the ex-sis-in-common-law and I tearfully, defiantly discussed when we did finally return home, Star Wars had never been in better health. Could the vet be wrong? We couched opinion from all sides and eventually all but I decided it was for the best that she be put to sleep. And so, with a heart heavier than Led Zeppelin playing on the Titanic, we took her back a few days later to be, oh what a pretty word, euthanised. The vet explained very simply that she would inject my cat with a strong sedative that would make her fall asleep and within a minute her heart would stop beating. In fact, because Star Wars was in such a weak state, it shouldn't take more than ten seconds. I made one more feeble protest to the effect that she was no ordinary cat and should be given more time to improve, but it was quickly brushed aside by many years of accumulated medical evidence and my own scorched-earth policy in regard to, well, anything and everything that was associated in any way whatsoever with my about-to-be former life.
I don't think it's right to describe her death in detail here, though I remember it all too clearly. Let's just say that after 30 seconds, she was looking at us with puzzled eyes and I knew I shouldn't have brought her.....
TEN FUCKING MINUTES LATER, AFTER MANY SOOTHING EMPTY WORDS OF REASSURANCE FROM THE VET AND ANOTHER, MORE POWERFUL INJECTION, SHE WAS STILL MOST PALPABLY ALIVE. HER HEART BEAT AND HER CHEST ROSE AND FELL. I STOOD STARING AT A THING DETERMINED NOT TO GIVE UP.
It took a third injection, directly into the heart to kill her.
We drove home, my little sis in tears and I as numb as a coma. 10 days later I was gone too.
Star Wars, Dublin, August 5, 2006.
A superb breakbeat taken from an album I used to own a very rare original copy of a long, long time ago.
|
Sunday, July 15, 2007
A New Hope
So Star Wars and I drive home. She's very calm, surprisingly. Like she knows she's being rescued, that no harm can come to her. She's probably dreaming of a nice meal of tuna or mouse, a warm home to prowl around in and a comfy lap to curl up on. When I was very small, we'd had Fleabag, a typical 1970's moggie who used to sit on my lap every afternoon cradled in my arms, until the day she decided to jump out of them and run headlong into a truck on the main road outside our house. Then in my teens there'd been Beethoven and Buttercup aka Blackbum, both of whom were absolute bitches to me and just as stylish, cruel, and deeply sexy as any lady I was to encounter later on. I hated them because I think that's what they wanted.
But with the rescue of Star Wars came my chance to reconnect and make peace with The Feline. So I pick her up, still docile as anything, and carry this bag of bones to my door. Whereupon opening, she shoots upstairs into my apartment and promptly disappears. It takes me a good 15 minutes before I find her, in my open wardrobe hiding behind some thick winter jumpers. I reach my hand in to pull her out but it doesn't get further than the spine-chilling rasp that tells me she might need a bit of time to readjust. Turns out she needs about 2 weeks, only coming out briefly to eat and drink when she thinks im not looking. Her toilet is mainly my wardrobe too. I of course had stupidly thought the neighbour would find a home for her immediately but, despite daily briefings, she never did. So I went out and bought every piece of cat-related equipment you can find and made her aware of all the nice things I'd bought for her. When she did finally emerge to spend time out in the apartment, she considered the littler tray carefully, before deciding to shit and piss next to it, twice daily.
It's funny how quickly you can get used to cleaning up the horriblest poo and wee - I'm now no longer afraid of that aspect of fatherhood - but it's also scary how quickly you can get used to NOT cleaning it up immediately. Friends would come round to meet the new lady in my life and I'd be sitting in my lounge drinking a cup of tea, eating a biscuit, reading a magazine, nice bit of reggae on the stereo, large splat of cat diarrhoea on the carpet, piss dribble up the wall - that sort of thing.
Certain friends, if they were to read this (or know of it's existence) might accuse me of waiting for them to come round and do it for me. That's a scandalous lie based entirely a misreading of coincidence. You just happened to arrive while the steam was still coming off the freshly-laid
But yes, over the course of the time I had her, Star Wars managed to shit on every floor, on every chair, on my bed, in my bed, in my bath, on my sofa, on my stairs, on the windowsill, in my car, on my carseat and most memorably of all, on my lap. It would have been explicable if she had never used the litter tray, but she did. It was an option for her, just one of many. She might take it, she might not. She often did, but she often didnt. I tried everything, of course. Feeding her at regular hours, then making a note of when it was poo time so i could follow her around with the tray and if need be pick her up mid-shit and shove her onto it. That never worked, for she would hold it in until i got bored and the very second my attention wandered, there's be a pooey or weeey smell coming from somewhere new.
Oh yes, she also shat and pissed in every cupboard, wardrobe and closet space I had. Many clothes were ruined. She was clever too, because she only chose the good ones.
To this day, when I smell Ammonia I think of her and I, battling it out. Me with my big bottle of disinfectant, her with her capacious, prolific bladder. It was war, no doubt, and my side was annihilated. I even tried sanctions, first cutting out the special lactose-free milk (who knew cats were lactose intolerant? perhaps we do have something in common after all?) and downgrading to shit catfood instead of tinned tuna, sardines and kippers (alright, i was advised not to make it regular anyway), then to dry food only, with wet food becoming a treat. Obviously starving was out of the question, though I did think about purposefully constipating her.
My sister-in-common-law and I had taken her to the vets for an initial assessment and they'd warned us that Star Wars was desperately thin, having not eaten for many weeks and might have sustained liver damage through jaundice. Apparently cats aren't designed to go without food and water for a long time. Who knew? I had presumed she was a kitten, so small and wretched did she look. The vet said she was probably 4 to 6 years old. I don't know if she looked at the rings on her feet or something. So it was our mission to care for her and fatten her up, and in less than a month we'd scrubbed her down, doubled her weight and made her feel wanted. She was looking healthy and starting to be more outgoing and affectionate. This became a problem too, as I'd often wake up in the mornings with her sitting on my face. She also took to coming and asking for food whenever she was hungry, which seemed to be every morning at around 6am. I'd feel a paw dabbing at my face and hear a miaow in my ear, then as soon as i'd open my eyes she'd make me follow her to the bowl and pour out some chow.
Meanwhile, everybody I'd ever met in Dublin and plenty of people I hadn't had been doing their best asking around for possible adopters. Many potential suitors had come and then quickly gone again when they realised the scale of the task. Clearly I was trying to offload some faulty feline goods here but secretly I must admit I was a little pleased. I was starting to grow fond of her and her me. At that point, I was still thinking I was going to be living in Dublin and although I hadn't checked the terms of my lease, my landlord had never ever been round and couldn't care less as long as he got his 1100 euro for the glorified shoebox on stilts that was my apartment in the shadow of Lansdowne Road (literally the shadow, when the sun deigned to feckin' shine).
'Tomorrow', how the Empire Struck Back - in the form of liver failure and, er, lover failure.
|
So Star Wars and I drive home. She's very calm, surprisingly. Like she knows she's being rescued, that no harm can come to her. She's probably dreaming of a nice meal of tuna or mouse, a warm home to prowl around in and a comfy lap to curl up on. When I was very small, we'd had Fleabag, a typical 1970's moggie who used to sit on my lap every afternoon cradled in my arms, until the day she decided to jump out of them and run headlong into a truck on the main road outside our house. Then in my teens there'd been Beethoven and Buttercup aka Blackbum, both of whom were absolute bitches to me and just as stylish, cruel, and deeply sexy as any lady I was to encounter later on. I hated them because I think that's what they wanted.
But with the rescue of Star Wars came my chance to reconnect and make peace with The Feline. So I pick her up, still docile as anything, and carry this bag of bones to my door. Whereupon opening, she shoots upstairs into my apartment and promptly disappears. It takes me a good 15 minutes before I find her, in my open wardrobe hiding behind some thick winter jumpers. I reach my hand in to pull her out but it doesn't get further than the spine-chilling rasp that tells me she might need a bit of time to readjust. Turns out she needs about 2 weeks, only coming out briefly to eat and drink when she thinks im not looking. Her toilet is mainly my wardrobe too. I of course had stupidly thought the neighbour would find a home for her immediately but, despite daily briefings, she never did. So I went out and bought every piece of cat-related equipment you can find and made her aware of all the nice things I'd bought for her. When she did finally emerge to spend time out in the apartment, she considered the littler tray carefully, before deciding to shit and piss next to it, twice daily.
It's funny how quickly you can get used to cleaning up the horriblest poo and wee - I'm now no longer afraid of that aspect of fatherhood - but it's also scary how quickly you can get used to NOT cleaning it up immediately. Friends would come round to meet the new lady in my life and I'd be sitting in my lounge drinking a cup of tea, eating a biscuit, reading a magazine, nice bit of reggae on the stereo, large splat of cat diarrhoea on the carpet, piss dribble up the wall - that sort of thing.
Certain friends, if they were to read this (or know of it's existence) might accuse me of waiting for them to come round and do it for me. That's a scandalous lie based entirely a misreading of coincidence. You just happened to arrive while the steam was still coming off the freshly-laid
But yes, over the course of the time I had her, Star Wars managed to shit on every floor, on every chair, on my bed, in my bed, in my bath, on my sofa, on my stairs, on the windowsill, in my car, on my carseat and most memorably of all, on my lap. It would have been explicable if she had never used the litter tray, but she did. It was an option for her, just one of many. She might take it, she might not. She often did, but she often didnt. I tried everything, of course. Feeding her at regular hours, then making a note of when it was poo time so i could follow her around with the tray and if need be pick her up mid-shit and shove her onto it. That never worked, for she would hold it in until i got bored and the very second my attention wandered, there's be a pooey or weeey smell coming from somewhere new.
Oh yes, she also shat and pissed in every cupboard, wardrobe and closet space I had. Many clothes were ruined. She was clever too, because she only chose the good ones.
To this day, when I smell Ammonia I think of her and I, battling it out. Me with my big bottle of disinfectant, her with her capacious, prolific bladder. It was war, no doubt, and my side was annihilated. I even tried sanctions, first cutting out the special lactose-free milk (who knew cats were lactose intolerant? perhaps we do have something in common after all?) and downgrading to shit catfood instead of tinned tuna, sardines and kippers (alright, i was advised not to make it regular anyway), then to dry food only, with wet food becoming a treat. Obviously starving was out of the question, though I did think about purposefully constipating her.
My sister-in-common-law and I had taken her to the vets for an initial assessment and they'd warned us that Star Wars was desperately thin, having not eaten for many weeks and might have sustained liver damage through jaundice. Apparently cats aren't designed to go without food and water for a long time. Who knew? I had presumed she was a kitten, so small and wretched did she look. The vet said she was probably 4 to 6 years old. I don't know if she looked at the rings on her feet or something. So it was our mission to care for her and fatten her up, and in less than a month we'd scrubbed her down, doubled her weight and made her feel wanted. She was looking healthy and starting to be more outgoing and affectionate. This became a problem too, as I'd often wake up in the mornings with her sitting on my face. She also took to coming and asking for food whenever she was hungry, which seemed to be every morning at around 6am. I'd feel a paw dabbing at my face and hear a miaow in my ear, then as soon as i'd open my eyes she'd make me follow her to the bowl and pour out some chow.
Meanwhile, everybody I'd ever met in Dublin and plenty of people I hadn't had been doing their best asking around for possible adopters. Many potential suitors had come and then quickly gone again when they realised the scale of the task. Clearly I was trying to offload some faulty feline goods here but secretly I must admit I was a little pleased. I was starting to grow fond of her and her me. At that point, I was still thinking I was going to be living in Dublin and although I hadn't checked the terms of my lease, my landlord had never ever been round and couldn't care less as long as he got his 1100 euro for the glorified shoebox on stilts that was my apartment in the shadow of Lansdowne Road (literally the shadow, when the sun deigned to feckin' shine).
'Tomorrow', how the Empire Struck Back - in the form of liver failure and, er, lover failure.
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...well, ok, a year ago to the day...and in ireland..no, england...well...
I was in England for my friends' wedding. The fact that I saw them quite unexpectedly here last weekend in Montreal on their wedding anniversary has prompted this post. I was staying with one of my best friends in South London whilst I was there. It was, I think, the day of yet another boring world cup final. Now the night before I flew back to Dublin, he'd told me his big news:
"We're getting kittens"
-oh, great. What are you going to call them?
"Jango and Boba"
And I said... "that's ridiculous. I'm tired of people giving their pets pop culture references as names. I promise you now, if I ever get a cat, I'm going to call it 'Star Wars' "
I might add that I don't like cats - because dogs rule - so this would be a doubly cruel thing to do. Next day, on returning to Dublin, I take a bus to my then-girlfriend's house to pick up my car and as I am literally putting the key into the lock of the driver's door, I see an old man in front of me leaning over the railings of her next door neighbour's house talking to someone in this sunken open basement. I'm mildly interested until I notice that he's talking and the respondent is miaowing.
And yes, this is going where you think it is. Only it's ultimately a tragedy and not at all funny. So read on, mirth fans.
I go over and there below us is the most heart-breaking scene you ever saw: a tiny black, white and ginger-striped muddy, thinning rug of pussycat hair and eyes trapped in this deep concrete bunker with no food, no water and no way out. But I have keys to the ex's house so I go in and grab some slices of ham and a tin of tuna from her fridge, chuck one slice down to the cat and we watch her pounce and tear it apart as if she hasn't eaten in weeks. Turns out she hadn't. I throw some more down and the same thing happens. Old man and I discuss things and he says a neighbour round the corner has a ladder, so I go and ask and this very kind middle-aged couple come over with their ladder and lower it down, then the husband bravely descends and has a bit of a struggle to pick her up but eventually he does - and as he does, he lets out a sickening grunt, which I cannot understand until, as he climbs back up the ladder and places the cat in my hands, suddenly makes complete sense. For although this is a full size adult cat, she feels exactly like a stripped roast chicken-carcass. There's little more than just fur and ribcage attached to this dirty, manky head and lifeless tail. As she empties the tin of tuna and a big bowl of water I've put out for her three times, the four of us look at eachother and all say much the same thing...
"Well, I can't take her"
So we call the ISPCA and they can't and we call our cat-loving friends and they can't, but the lady says she has a definite connection to a cat fosterer who she can't get in touch with until tomorrow, so I reluctantly (though maybe not entirely so) pick her up and pop her on the passenger seat of my car with no idea where the hell i'm going to put her when i get home. Just that I have grown strongly attached to this wretched thing who looks like it's had a rough time (I think pop psychiatrists call it 'projecting') And as I drive off, the neighbour asks 'what are you going to call her?' and that's when I realise that less that 12 hours earlier i'd made a promise I never thought I'd have to fulfil (for why else does one make such promises?). And so, a year ago this week, I became the proud foster-parent of a 4 year old tortoiseshell calico cat named Star Wars
Tomorrow... How Star Wars turned to the Dark Side, shat and pissed on every single valuable thing I had and ended up killing my pet Ewok
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I was in England for my friends' wedding. The fact that I saw them quite unexpectedly here last weekend in Montreal on their wedding anniversary has prompted this post. I was staying with one of my best friends in South London whilst I was there. It was, I think, the day of yet another boring world cup final. Now the night before I flew back to Dublin, he'd told me his big news:
"We're getting kittens"
-oh, great. What are you going to call them?
"Jango and Boba"
And I said... "that's ridiculous. I'm tired of people giving their pets pop culture references as names. I promise you now, if I ever get a cat, I'm going to call it 'Star Wars' "
I might add that I don't like cats - because dogs rule - so this would be a doubly cruel thing to do. Next day, on returning to Dublin, I take a bus to my then-girlfriend's house to pick up my car and as I am literally putting the key into the lock of the driver's door, I see an old man in front of me leaning over the railings of her next door neighbour's house talking to someone in this sunken open basement. I'm mildly interested until I notice that he's talking and the respondent is miaowing.
And yes, this is going where you think it is. Only it's ultimately a tragedy and not at all funny. So read on, mirth fans.
I go over and there below us is the most heart-breaking scene you ever saw: a tiny black, white and ginger-striped muddy, thinning rug of pussycat hair and eyes trapped in this deep concrete bunker with no food, no water and no way out. But I have keys to the ex's house so I go in and grab some slices of ham and a tin of tuna from her fridge, chuck one slice down to the cat and we watch her pounce and tear it apart as if she hasn't eaten in weeks. Turns out she hadn't. I throw some more down and the same thing happens. Old man and I discuss things and he says a neighbour round the corner has a ladder, so I go and ask and this very kind middle-aged couple come over with their ladder and lower it down, then the husband bravely descends and has a bit of a struggle to pick her up but eventually he does - and as he does, he lets out a sickening grunt, which I cannot understand until, as he climbs back up the ladder and places the cat in my hands, suddenly makes complete sense. For although this is a full size adult cat, she feels exactly like a stripped roast chicken-carcass. There's little more than just fur and ribcage attached to this dirty, manky head and lifeless tail. As she empties the tin of tuna and a big bowl of water I've put out for her three times, the four of us look at eachother and all say much the same thing...
"Well, I can't take her"
So we call the ISPCA and they can't and we call our cat-loving friends and they can't, but the lady says she has a definite connection to a cat fosterer who she can't get in touch with until tomorrow, so I reluctantly (though maybe not entirely so) pick her up and pop her on the passenger seat of my car with no idea where the hell i'm going to put her when i get home. Just that I have grown strongly attached to this wretched thing who looks like it's had a rough time (I think pop psychiatrists call it 'projecting') And as I drive off, the neighbour asks 'what are you going to call her?' and that's when I realise that less that 12 hours earlier i'd made a promise I never thought I'd have to fulfil (for why else does one make such promises?). And so, a year ago this week, I became the proud foster-parent of a 4 year old tortoiseshell calico cat named Star Wars
Tomorrow... How Star Wars turned to the Dark Side, shat and pissed on every single valuable thing I had and ended up killing my pet Ewok
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Sunday, July 08, 2007
*STOP DE-PRESS*
It appears I was somewhat hasty in my judgements back there, for indeed I am still attached after all. Good. However, after my best friend, an old school friend, my girlfriend's flatmate, my landlady and even the satanically well-versed Salman Rushdie all going through big ugly splits within the last week, it would be wise to hold off on that combination toaster/goldfish bowl wedding gift you were planning on buying me. I'll let you know when...
But just to be sure, I hereby vow never to go to another concert of theirs. No, that's not actually strong enough, is it? I vow never to consider going to one of their gigs. If I accidentally end up at one, all well and good, but I shan't tempt death, destruction and jazz for people who would rather call it dance music (which is kind of what it is)
Here's a peace offering to, like, the universe maaan: another Cinematic tune, quite inappropriately called Burn Out
If you don't have their music, it's time to buy some.
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It appears I was somewhat hasty in my judgements back there, for indeed I am still attached after all. Good. However, after my best friend, an old school friend, my girlfriend's flatmate, my landlady and even the satanically well-versed Salman Rushdie all going through big ugly splits within the last week, it would be wise to hold off on that combination toaster/goldfish bowl wedding gift you were planning on buying me. I'll let you know when...
But just to be sure, I hereby vow never to go to another concert of theirs. No, that's not actually strong enough, is it? I vow never to consider going to one of their gigs. If I accidentally end up at one, all well and good, but I shan't tempt death, destruction and jazz for people who would rather call it dance music (which is kind of what it is)
Here's a peace offering to, like, the universe maaan: another Cinematic tune, quite inappropriately called Burn Out
If you don't have their music, it's time to buy some.
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Friday, July 06, 2007
What is it about The Cinematic Orchestra playing in my town that promotes serious misfortune?
4 years ago they played Ronnie Scott's and I was due to go, but at the last minute my ex's dear cousin died and we were in Paris for the funeral instead. Friends who went pronounced it "best gig ever". It had not been such a good week for me. I may write about it at some point. It certainly bears retelling.
6 months later, they played Shepherd's Bush Empire and my best friend bought tickets for us. As we reached the venue he realised he'd forgotten to bring them. And indeed he had no idea where they were. We spent the night driving around London listening to their albums instead. Not bad but also kind of shit, too.
And so, last night, they played Club Soda here in Montreal as part of the Montreal Jazz Festival. They were brilliant, just brilliant and very almost worth the wait. It's true what they say - Luke Flowers is an amazing drummer, there is a sense of absolute perfection to what he does that makes the live show sound like a very tight recording session. They played all the hits, had a special guest spot from the vocal, local boy Patrick Watson and finished with the best and bizarrest cover version I've heard in a longly while: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring! It was deep, dark and viciously, viscously funky. (Not that the crowd liked it too much - more of that later) Even the lighting was original and rather fitting, I dare say even cinematic. The band looked like they were encased in these great sombre primary colours bleeding into eachother through darkness and fog, just like you see in press shots of live acts but actually never in real life. To be fair, though, the band had an easy ride as half the crowd were clearly in love with every note of their music, wildly applauding every intro that they knew and throwing many bizarre whoops and cheers out for some fairly unexceptional moments of soloing and for the rare harmonic changes of the pieces themselves. To give Jay Swinscoe credit, I think what he's managed to do better than anyone else out there right now is crack the jazz conundrum: how do you make jazz accessible to the millions of people around the world who have the ears to listen to it but don't? His answer is to play it like it's dance music and damn the purists if it gets people interested. Good man. So that was all great then.
Oh, and I went with my girlfriend of four months who is also a big fan of the band. We both had a great time after a difficult couple of weeks and by 3am we'd walked back happily to her apartment.
And at 3.10am I'm walking home down Rue Rachel, single again.
Here's the fucking Rite of Spring in all it gory, anyway, taken from this blog which is a bit more expansive about the music itself.
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4 years ago they played Ronnie Scott's and I was due to go, but at the last minute my ex's dear cousin died and we were in Paris for the funeral instead. Friends who went pronounced it "best gig ever". It had not been such a good week for me. I may write about it at some point. It certainly bears retelling.
6 months later, they played Shepherd's Bush Empire and my best friend bought tickets for us. As we reached the venue he realised he'd forgotten to bring them. And indeed he had no idea where they were. We spent the night driving around London listening to their albums instead. Not bad but also kind of shit, too.
And so, last night, they played Club Soda here in Montreal as part of the Montreal Jazz Festival. They were brilliant, just brilliant and very almost worth the wait. It's true what they say - Luke Flowers is an amazing drummer, there is a sense of absolute perfection to what he does that makes the live show sound like a very tight recording session. They played all the hits, had a special guest spot from the vocal, local boy Patrick Watson and finished with the best and bizarrest cover version I've heard in a longly while: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring! It was deep, dark and viciously, viscously funky. (Not that the crowd liked it too much - more of that later) Even the lighting was original and rather fitting, I dare say even cinematic. The band looked like they were encased in these great sombre primary colours bleeding into eachother through darkness and fog, just like you see in press shots of live acts but actually never in real life. To be fair, though, the band had an easy ride as half the crowd were clearly in love with every note of their music, wildly applauding every intro that they knew and throwing many bizarre whoops and cheers out for some fairly unexceptional moments of soloing and for the rare harmonic changes of the pieces themselves. To give Jay Swinscoe credit, I think what he's managed to do better than anyone else out there right now is crack the jazz conundrum: how do you make jazz accessible to the millions of people around the world who have the ears to listen to it but don't? His answer is to play it like it's dance music and damn the purists if it gets people interested. Good man. So that was all great then.
Oh, and I went with my girlfriend of four months who is also a big fan of the band. We both had a great time after a difficult couple of weeks and by 3am we'd walked back happily to her apartment.
And at 3.10am I'm walking home down Rue Rachel, single again.
Here's the fucking Rite of Spring in all it gory, anyway, taken from this blog which is a bit more expansive about the music itself.
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Thursday, July 05, 2007
A beautiful moment on the subway today.
I'd just come from a bit of an expensive new-agey holistic bullshit session complete with untestable methodology and highly interpretative results, by which I mean I don't believe in it at all, rationally, yet I feel it all too keenly to dismiss it as pure nonsense. The difference between the me that walks into that room and the me that walks out of it 90 minutes later is undeniable, palpable and significantly lighter by 70 dollars. Something good is happening, we just have very different language and viewpoints to describe what.
So I walk into the train carriage that's arrived at my metro station, sit down and immediately begin to scan my environment for the usual array of physical threats, edible prey and fertile cavewomen but instead I somehow settle my eyes on a young, dark kid dressed in all his gangster finery. He's maybe 19, looks half-Indian and half-African, kind of big and threatening - and... looking... straight... back... at... me.
I wasn't prepared for this, I'm normally so good at peeping around that no-one sees me seeing them and besides, I don't stare idly into peoples' eyes without good reason (if then). But my brother taught me to stare down anyone and everyone, always, and it's a piece of advice I've recently re-applied for licensing rights of, having gained a brash slice of confidence in the last few years (relative to a fieldmouse with a birthmark, anyway). So I stare straight back, and of course he's NOT flinching. And I'm not flinching, because I'm a man and he's a boy. A couple of miliseconds go by and still he doesn't budge. I can read in his eyes the simple, completely justified thought "What is this odd-shaped white man doing staring me down? Does he really want me to kick his ass? I will kick his ass" and with that in mind, I opt very quickly to lose this battle of 'wits', darting my eyes any which way but that - and besides, it's really gay staring into a man's eyes on the train. What if... but no... it could never be. Or could it...?
I look back. I can't help it, I just have to. I'd only looked away half a second ago and already i'm back, staring at him. I can't even think why. I'd say it's because I have an appalling short-term memory, meaning my thought processes go something like "Where was I? You were sitting here staring at that guy in front of you. Oh yeah, thanks. No problem" But for some reason, and I think it's not unconnected with my previous chakratic fondlements, I SMILE at him. I think it comes from realising the absurdity and hilarity of the situation more than any desire to actually make peace. I'm really just smiling at myself, not at him at all. However, he catches my eye again, sees me smiling and I watch him struggle, really struggle with himself over the next split and a half seconds as he loses the fight, breaking into a massive, beaming grin too. And all the while we're still staring at eachother and for all the world to see it looks like two young men from different sides of the tracks, both dressed in their boldest heterosexual clothing, have finally found true gay love, through the barricades, by staring into eachothers' eyes and smiling. Oh god.
We both look away, but I can't stop laughing now and out of the corner of my eye I see he's also still very amused by this. And so we reach level three of major social awkwardness as I pray it's his stop next and get my wish granted.
Well I guess it was his stop. He got off. To be honest, if it hadn't been, then it would have been mine. Maybe I forced him off with my disarmingly friendly fauxmosexual advances? I have to watch myself now, though not too closely.
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I'd just come from a bit of an expensive new-agey holistic bullshit session complete with untestable methodology and highly interpretative results, by which I mean I don't believe in it at all, rationally, yet I feel it all too keenly to dismiss it as pure nonsense. The difference between the me that walks into that room and the me that walks out of it 90 minutes later is undeniable, palpable and significantly lighter by 70 dollars. Something good is happening, we just have very different language and viewpoints to describe what.
So I walk into the train carriage that's arrived at my metro station, sit down and immediately begin to scan my environment for the usual array of physical threats, edible prey and fertile cavewomen but instead I somehow settle my eyes on a young, dark kid dressed in all his gangster finery. He's maybe 19, looks half-Indian and half-African, kind of big and threatening - and... looking... straight... back... at... me.
I wasn't prepared for this, I'm normally so good at peeping around that no-one sees me seeing them and besides, I don't stare idly into peoples' eyes without good reason (if then). But my brother taught me to stare down anyone and everyone, always, and it's a piece of advice I've recently re-applied for licensing rights of, having gained a brash slice of confidence in the last few years (relative to a fieldmouse with a birthmark, anyway). So I stare straight back, and of course he's NOT flinching. And I'm not flinching, because I'm a man and he's a boy. A couple of miliseconds go by and still he doesn't budge. I can read in his eyes the simple, completely justified thought "What is this odd-shaped white man doing staring me down? Does he really want me to kick his ass? I will kick his ass" and with that in mind, I opt very quickly to lose this battle of 'wits', darting my eyes any which way but that - and besides, it's really gay staring into a man's eyes on the train. What if... but no... it could never be. Or could it...?
I look back. I can't help it, I just have to. I'd only looked away half a second ago and already i'm back, staring at him. I can't even think why. I'd say it's because I have an appalling short-term memory, meaning my thought processes go something like "Where was I? You were sitting here staring at that guy in front of you. Oh yeah, thanks. No problem" But for some reason, and I think it's not unconnected with my previous chakratic fondlements, I SMILE at him. I think it comes from realising the absurdity and hilarity of the situation more than any desire to actually make peace. I'm really just smiling at myself, not at him at all. However, he catches my eye again, sees me smiling and I watch him struggle, really struggle with himself over the next split and a half seconds as he loses the fight, breaking into a massive, beaming grin too. And all the while we're still staring at eachother and for all the world to see it looks like two young men from different sides of the tracks, both dressed in their boldest heterosexual clothing, have finally found true gay love, through the barricades, by staring into eachothers' eyes and smiling. Oh god.
We both look away, but I can't stop laughing now and out of the corner of my eye I see he's also still very amused by this. And so we reach level three of major social awkwardness as I pray it's his stop next and get my wish granted.
Well I guess it was his stop. He got off. To be honest, if it hadn't been, then it would have been mine. Maybe I forced him off with my disarmingly friendly fauxmosexual advances? I have to watch myself now, though not too closely.
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Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Happy July 4th. It's important to remember the important things. DO double-click pic to read the inspirational inscription...
Taken in Vermont last week. The towns went 'Hippy. Redneck. Hippy. Redneck. Hippy. Redneck' all the way along. I wonder if you can guess which kind of town I took this photo in?
Anyway, I'm in the midst of the biggest jazz festival in the world right here in Montreal at the moment, and clearly unable to articulate just what that means right now, hence the pic below taken from last night's soiree downtown.
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Taken in Vermont last week. The towns went 'Hippy. Redneck. Hippy. Redneck. Hippy. Redneck' all the way along. I wonder if you can guess which kind of town I took this photo in?
Anyway, I'm in the midst of the biggest jazz festival in the world right here in Montreal at the moment, and clearly unable to articulate just what that means right now, hence the pic below taken from last night's soiree downtown.
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Monday, July 02, 2007
Coming soon from ECM: Keith Jarrett - Rants.
Featuring the all-new Montreal July 07 rant Part I: "Everybody with a ..f..fucking camera, put it on the floor if you want any more music, otherwise we're fine walking off. Someone has to stop technology's march of...ignorance and...lobotomising..there.is.no.reason.to.have.a.photo.of.us"
and Part II: "If i know French newspapers... and i do, the headline tomorrow will be 'Keith Jarrett says No Fucking Photography, it won't have anything to do with music or anything to do with what we played. It might have something to do with what we wore, because visual media's everything now, so cut the damn thing out. You still have years to live, without your camera."
And the famous Chicago Feb 07 harangue, previously released here
The embarassing Vienna Nov 04: "I will not sit down until you stand up. You, yes, the guy videotaping me. Do me a favour and forget the home souvenir. I know you've paid to come here but I pay in my own way. Please"
And the thought-provoking London July 03: "The problem with music today is that the double-bass is recorded so loud on CD that people can't hear it unamplified anymore, but when we play live we have to turn it up and then it distorts everything else. If people could only just listen"
Special Bonus Tracks
The notorious London 1989: *Audience cough*, he raises his hands off the keyboard in mid-solo, *applause*, silence.... "Now I've finished"
The infamous Paris 2006: http://skittlesmaze.blogspot.com/2006/11/jarretts-regime-of-phlegmy-fear-jazz.html
Note the blogger and many of his readers' desire to have KJ perform perfectly whilst according to their standards of behaviour, though to my knowledge none of them have performed to his standards of musicianship
Next month: Keith Jarrett - Grunts, a collection of the best groans, moans, squeals, screams and swoons from the master himself. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll come in your pants - all things you'll hear in these recordings. Piano edited out for clarity. Limited Edition Aphex Twin remix due Fall '07.
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Featuring the all-new Montreal July 07 rant Part I: "Everybody with a ..f..fucking camera, put it on the floor if you want any more music, otherwise we're fine walking off. Someone has to stop technology's march of...ignorance and...lobotomising..there.is.no.reason.to.have.a.photo.of.us"
and Part II: "If i know French newspapers... and i do, the headline tomorrow will be 'Keith Jarrett says No Fucking Photography, it won't have anything to do with music or anything to do with what we played. It might have something to do with what we wore, because visual media's everything now, so cut the damn thing out. You still have years to live, without your camera."
And the famous Chicago Feb 07 harangue, previously released here
The embarassing Vienna Nov 04: "I will not sit down until you stand up. You, yes, the guy videotaping me. Do me a favour and forget the home souvenir. I know you've paid to come here but I pay in my own way. Please"
And the thought-provoking London July 03: "The problem with music today is that the double-bass is recorded so loud on CD that people can't hear it unamplified anymore, but when we play live we have to turn it up and then it distorts everything else. If people could only just listen"
Special Bonus Tracks
The notorious London 1989: *Audience cough*, he raises his hands off the keyboard in mid-solo, *applause*, silence.... "Now I've finished"
The infamous Paris 2006: http://skittlesmaze.blogspot.com/2006/11/jarretts-regime-of-phlegmy-fear-jazz.html
Note the blogger and many of his readers' desire to have KJ perform perfectly whilst according to their standards of behaviour, though to my knowledge none of them have performed to his standards of musicianship
Next month: Keith Jarrett - Grunts, a collection of the best groans, moans, squeals, screams and swoons from the master himself. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll come in your pants - all things you'll hear in these recordings. Piano edited out for clarity. Limited Edition Aphex Twin remix due Fall '07.
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