Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Cardigans and Consequences
Something I've noticed recently, when I stand up after a period of sitting down, my knees ache. Maybe they've been that way for awhile but now the ache is enough that I actually notice it. I'm forced to contemplate all those years of playing hacky sack with my friend Steve. I imagine they inflicted a certain amount of wear and tear. I remember I used to do this one kick a lot, where I flicked my foot back and around up to my side and so that my back heal hit the hacky sack right by my hip. If that makes sense. Steve used to comment a lot on the weird angle at which my knee would bend, because I often pushed it so that my knee bent so much my heal would go forward past my hip. I remember the kick never felt entirely comfortable, but you push yourself doing that kind of stuff, and I would just shrug it off.
Or, maybe, I simply have sore knees because I've reached the age where you start noticing shit like that. I don't know. I also have a weird numb spot on my right calf slightly above my ankle, that I believe is from hockey. We played rough when we were kids and you got chopped in the shins frequently, and pretty frigging hard.
I also have a weird numb spot at the top of my right calf just below the knee. Its the only residual injury I have from the car crash I was in a few years ago. I'm actually not even positive it's a real physical sensation I feel in that spot or just the memory of the sensation. My bodies way of holding onto something from that experience. That dare I say, amazing, experience. If amazing is the right word? I believe it might be because amazing doesn't necessarily denote an experience as being either positive or negative. I don't know. All I do know is it will always be one of the most valuable moments of my life. And not in quite the same way as almost drowning in Byron Bay, Australia.
That moment was terrifying. The closest I have to a genuinely harrowing experience. An experience it took me days to physically recover from. The crash on the other hand, happened so fast and was so completely enveloping, you didn't really have time to feel fear. I clearly remember sitting in the passenger seat and when the car flipped, sort of clinching all my muscles at the same time and staring out the window, repeating over and over again in my head,okay,stop rolling now. Then it stopped upside down. And as you may have heard before, we crawled out the back window, and even though it was 9:45pm and pitch black outside, all our memories are of the inside of the car being bright as day. Oh and when I stood up and saw the outside of the car around the passenger seat I immediately noticed the car roof had been crushed down way past where my head would have been. But I was looking at this stood outside the car, uninjured.
Once again, I don't know. I'm just talking here.
Sat here in my Liverpool slippers and my grey wool cardigan, which I have just this moment remembered was purchased by myself at a really good Value Village on the outskirts of Winnipeg on the very road trip we were on when we had the car accident I was just talking about. In fact, we'd left Winnipeg the morning I purchased this cardigan, and many other items, intending to stop in Thunder Bay. The town we were roughly an hour and a half outside of when we missed an injured moose, lying in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway, by mere inches and rolled off the highway. We were late leaving Winnipeg that morning precisely because of the time spent by myself in that very good Value Village purchasing this very warm grey wool cardigan I'm sporting right now. Kind of funny, don't you think?
I mean its easy to consider such a set of events and ask what if? What might have happened if we had left Winnipeg on time? Maybe we wouldn't have crashed the car. Maybe some other poor soul would have hit the moose instead?Maybe they would have died? Maybe something equally bad or worse might have happened to us at some other point down the road, between Thunder Bay and Toronto? Maybe I'd be sitting here right now typing some other sort of nonsense, freezing my ass off with no old grey wool cardigan to keep me warm?
Who knows. I just think its kind of a funny set of events, when you put them all together. Kind of makes you wonder in awe at the way of this world. I mean, especially when you consider, and again you may have heard this bit already, but especially when you consider that for most of the drive between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay I was hanging out the passenger side window trying to take a good photo of a particular road sign I had never seen before. I kept seeing them, kept taking the photo and the photo kept coming out blurry or the sign was out of the picture. In case you don't already know, the road sign was yellow with a picture of a big moose in the middle and below the moose it said night danger. That's kind of weird too, isn't it?
And this is coming from me a man whose friends routinely joke about my absence of heart. About my lack of emotions. One time I was watching television with my Aunt Cathy, a news story about an American man who was on trial for murdering his pregnant wife, then trying to cover it up and flee the country. They showed footage of the man as he watched the judge read out a guilty verdict. He stood watching, void of all emotion. And my Aunt turned to me and said something along the lines of "He's emotionless, just like you,dude." It was very funny, and I laughed until I cried I think, but its still a good example. I don't know, maybe I'm only like that when it comes to people. Because most people are assholes. Or maybe my whole hilarious, I'm an emotionless asshole thing is just for show? Maybe not. Either way, Daisy Mae was a sweetheart. A sweetheart that made me laugh all the time, at a time when laughing was probably pretty important. I mean laughing is always pretty important, maybe most important. But anyway.
I never actually intended to talk about any of this today.I'm not even fully sure how I got onto this topic. I logged on here today intending to talk about exciting stuff like the fact I had two cups of tea today, and both were delicious. That the button for typing in upper case just started acting up on my typewriter. Now every time you try and capitalise a word or start a sentence it jumps ahead eight spaces. Its very irritating.
I also wanted to talk about this great Japanese band I just discovered called Boris. They are blowing my mind. They sort of do this ridiculously loud post rock drone metal thing mixed with 70's classic rock and big guitar riffs. Either way they are superb. And apparently a million times better live. A friend of mine back in Toronto has a band called Orn, a ridiculously loud metal band with a very singular fuzz drone metal kind of sound. He said they had opened for Boris at Lee's Palace a few years ago and that Boris were incredible. One of the loudest bands he'd ever heard.
I've also recently become a bit obsessed with Ray Charles. I picked up two albums just out of curiosity, the Genius of Ray Charles and Genius Sings the Blues. And both are absolutely brilliant.
I don't know. That seems to be the running theme of this thing right here. I don't know.
Or, maybe, I simply have sore knees because I've reached the age where you start noticing shit like that. I don't know. I also have a weird numb spot on my right calf slightly above my ankle, that I believe is from hockey. We played rough when we were kids and you got chopped in the shins frequently, and pretty frigging hard.
I also have a weird numb spot at the top of my right calf just below the knee. Its the only residual injury I have from the car crash I was in a few years ago. I'm actually not even positive it's a real physical sensation I feel in that spot or just the memory of the sensation. My bodies way of holding onto something from that experience. That dare I say, amazing, experience. If amazing is the right word? I believe it might be because amazing doesn't necessarily denote an experience as being either positive or negative. I don't know. All I do know is it will always be one of the most valuable moments of my life. And not in quite the same way as almost drowning in Byron Bay, Australia.
That moment was terrifying. The closest I have to a genuinely harrowing experience. An experience it took me days to physically recover from. The crash on the other hand, happened so fast and was so completely enveloping, you didn't really have time to feel fear. I clearly remember sitting in the passenger seat and when the car flipped, sort of clinching all my muscles at the same time and staring out the window, repeating over and over again in my head,okay,stop rolling now. Then it stopped upside down. And as you may have heard before, we crawled out the back window, and even though it was 9:45pm and pitch black outside, all our memories are of the inside of the car being bright as day. Oh and when I stood up and saw the outside of the car around the passenger seat I immediately noticed the car roof had been crushed down way past where my head would have been. But I was looking at this stood outside the car, uninjured.
Once again, I don't know. I'm just talking here.
Sat here in my Liverpool slippers and my grey wool cardigan, which I have just this moment remembered was purchased by myself at a really good Value Village on the outskirts of Winnipeg on the very road trip we were on when we had the car accident I was just talking about. In fact, we'd left Winnipeg the morning I purchased this cardigan, and many other items, intending to stop in Thunder Bay. The town we were roughly an hour and a half outside of when we missed an injured moose, lying in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway, by mere inches and rolled off the highway. We were late leaving Winnipeg that morning precisely because of the time spent by myself in that very good Value Village purchasing this very warm grey wool cardigan I'm sporting right now. Kind of funny, don't you think?
I mean its easy to consider such a set of events and ask what if? What might have happened if we had left Winnipeg on time? Maybe we wouldn't have crashed the car. Maybe some other poor soul would have hit the moose instead?Maybe they would have died? Maybe something equally bad or worse might have happened to us at some other point down the road, between Thunder Bay and Toronto? Maybe I'd be sitting here right now typing some other sort of nonsense, freezing my ass off with no old grey wool cardigan to keep me warm?
Who knows. I just think its kind of a funny set of events, when you put them all together. Kind of makes you wonder in awe at the way of this world. I mean, especially when you consider, and again you may have heard this bit already, but especially when you consider that for most of the drive between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay I was hanging out the passenger side window trying to take a good photo of a particular road sign I had never seen before. I kept seeing them, kept taking the photo and the photo kept coming out blurry or the sign was out of the picture. In case you don't already know, the road sign was yellow with a picture of a big moose in the middle and below the moose it said night danger. That's kind of weird too, isn't it?
And this is coming from me a man whose friends routinely joke about my absence of heart. About my lack of emotions. One time I was watching television with my Aunt Cathy, a news story about an American man who was on trial for murdering his pregnant wife, then trying to cover it up and flee the country. They showed footage of the man as he watched the judge read out a guilty verdict. He stood watching, void of all emotion. And my Aunt turned to me and said something along the lines of "He's emotionless, just like you,dude." It was very funny, and I laughed until I cried I think, but its still a good example. I don't know, maybe I'm only like that when it comes to people. Because most people are assholes. Or maybe my whole hilarious, I'm an emotionless asshole thing is just for show? Maybe not. Either way, Daisy Mae was a sweetheart. A sweetheart that made me laugh all the time, at a time when laughing was probably pretty important. I mean laughing is always pretty important, maybe most important. But anyway.
I never actually intended to talk about any of this today.I'm not even fully sure how I got onto this topic. I logged on here today intending to talk about exciting stuff like the fact I had two cups of tea today, and both were delicious. That the button for typing in upper case just started acting up on my typewriter. Now every time you try and capitalise a word or start a sentence it jumps ahead eight spaces. Its very irritating.
I also wanted to talk about this great Japanese band I just discovered called Boris. They are blowing my mind. They sort of do this ridiculously loud post rock drone metal thing mixed with 70's classic rock and big guitar riffs. Either way they are superb. And apparently a million times better live. A friend of mine back in Toronto has a band called Orn, a ridiculously loud metal band with a very singular fuzz drone metal kind of sound. He said they had opened for Boris at Lee's Palace a few years ago and that Boris were incredible. One of the loudest bands he'd ever heard.
I've also recently become a bit obsessed with Ray Charles. I picked up two albums just out of curiosity, the Genius of Ray Charles and Genius Sings the Blues. And both are absolutely brilliant.
I don't know. That seems to be the running theme of this thing right here. I don't know.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Old Year/New Year
Sat here watching this All Tomorrow's Parties documentary, realizing I don't know nearly as much about music as I think I do, wishing I hadn't have eaten so much Ben and Jerrys, I figure I should do one of those encapsulating this past year type things everyone seems to do.
So, this past year...Ummmm? Way back in January we flew over to Dublin for our friends 30th birthday. I remember eating pate and drinking and listening to Major Laser and eating steak and drinking and the weather was bad. Lots of snow. The city was practically at a stand still and the airport closed temporarily. We did a lot of dancing, some more eating and a lot of reminiscing. Tom showed me his tentative wedding music playlist. And we watched a film, the name of which I can't remember.
We went to Sweden in June for Tom and Cicilias wedding. Flying into Stockholm, and eventually getting the night train up to Ostersund. We walked all over Stockholm, saw a lot of kids dancing to bad dance music on the back of large flat bed trucks. We indulged in swedish cuisine at a restaurant called Pelican. We laughed out loud at the price of alcohol. We danced and admired the weird night sky that never got dark. We ate at cafes. And took lots of photographs. We went to the Photography museum for the Annie Liebowitz exhibition. It was very good. I was continually bewildered by the Swedish film posters and the weird rating system. each poster was covered in quotes from critics and a series of weird ratings symbols, similar to our 4 star rating system. Only there was a dozen of them and they were strange symbols like 4 ducks, 4 moons, 4 cars, 4 cats, 4 rainbows. I assume they perform the same function but I still don't understand why there were so many of them on each individual poster.
We got the train up to Ostersund, and took in all the sights the fine city had to offer. We spent time in the strange hotel bar that always seemed to contain a weird mix of tourists, young locals, old locals, and rather seedy locals. We were impressed with the breakfast buffet, me personally with the endless trays of salami and brie. We met up with the wedding party and drank and laughed, eventually we went to the wedding and it was beautiful and the night do was legendary.At some point I drank too much swedish jaegermeister, the nights a bit of a blur after that.
A few weeks later we went to Manchester to see Broken Social Scene at the Academy. We met my friend Jam and his lady there and all really enjoyed the show. Hearing Stars and Sons live is never any less exhilarating. While in Manchester we went to bar 99 I think its called(maybe) and watched England play Germany. It was an obviously sad display. Unless of course you were German or not English, and enjoyed really one sided displays of counter attacking football and just football superiority in general. We also went to a great little cafe/bar called Odd bar and had a wonderful breakfast.
For our anniversary we got the train down to Liverpool. My first time in the great city. We stayed at a nice hotel and went to Jamie Olivers restaurant and the legendary Cavern Club, the latter a slightly disappointing experience. Still we were there. I wore a stupid wig for national Beatles day. We witnessed a hilarious encounter of a drunk scouser needlessly winding up a drunk homeless busking scouser. We marvelled at how much fun the city was in general.
In September we flew back to Canada for a surprise wedding and family visit. We took in the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the great new Danny Boyle film 127 Hours and a brilliant new Korean film called I Saw The Devil. I went to see Buck 65 at the Drake Hotel. We went to various places for food and drink, including Smokes Poutinerie, Coras, The Fox and the Fiddle, and a great diner on Queen Street west, the name of which now evades me. We went to my Moms wedding and had a blast. We went up the CN Tower and enjoyed a lovely meal. We went to Niagara Falls, again. It was lovely, again. I think always will be. It is a ridiculously gigantic waterfalls, in the end. On the way back from the Falls we stopped off at a winery and saw a bronzed bust of Dan Akroyds head, that was a very good likeness. I spent lots of quality time with black cat and family and friends. I realized again, how much I miss Toronto when I'm away.
Oh,just before Canada, we went up to Glasgow for Nic's birthday and to see Fever Ray. The beautiful terrifying exhilarating supernatural spectacle that is the Fever Ray experience. We had our minds duly broken into small pieces. It was one of the single greatest live experiences I've had in my life.
Hmmmm? Most of the other things that happened this year are a bit of a blur. We saw Stuart Francis, the Canadian comedian, live. We went to Lancaster to see Sean Locke live. We went to the cinema to watch various great films including The Town, Inception, Kick Ass, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim VS The World, etc. We also went to the cinema to see various terrible films including Saw 3D, and ummmmmm? There were lots more but I forget what they were called. We also watched lots of films on dvd. Some were great some weren't. I watched some great tv shows, Justified, The Walking Dead, Dexter, True Blood, the Trip, Sons of Anarchy. I watched some bad shows too but, again, I forget what they were called.
I listened to lots of music. I've been writing this too long already, and the idea of trying to think of all this years music is sucking all the energy out of me. Joanna Newsom, though, thats sticks out.
Oh and we saw Ash live too. An old British band from the 90's. They were surprisingly good. Oh and Idlewild too. I almost forgot. They were superb. Really superb. We went to the Navy Club after that, sort of a Phoenix Nights type place, if you know what I mean, and we got very drunk and ended up dancing very purposely, like total weirdos. That turned into a bit of a theme this year. Dancing like total weirdos. Its fun, you should try it. You dance in weird shapes and jittery starts and stops and don't do any of it to the beat of the music. All the kids will be doing it soon. I did just the other night in Glasgow at the Flying Duck on New Years Eve. I started out just doing it here and there but then got caught up in it and did it all night. It got pretty weird but I had fun, goddang it. It was really just sort of a convulsion dance, just done at various speeds. Kind of like Ian Curtis only weirder and more erradic. Poeple either thought I was some weird cool guy or an idiot. I can probably guess which, but as you know, I could careless.
Oh, we saw Buck 65 and Holy Fuck at King Tuts in November too. A show I coined the Holy Buck show. It was tremendous. Buck was doing a bit of weird convulsive dancing, which I will admit may have subconsciously been a massive influence on the increased weirdness of my dancing post Holy Buck.
So, that is a basic, and decidedly half assed summarization of the year that was 2010. We did a bit of travelling, I turned 31, I danced stupidly, food and pop culture was consumed, the end. Okay, so thats an even more basic summarization.
In the end, the bottomline for 2010 was, that it was a decidedly stressful year, not least because I did very little writing. Too many big ideas have remained on the backburner. A real shame given the amount of time I was forced by the government of the United Kingdom to have off work. It was a year of frustration financially and professionally and a frustrating lack of discipline creatively. So I guess that'll be my big resolution for the year 2011, my 32nd year on this planet. Be more disciplined creatively. And make 2011 a great year for the Claycocks.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of things in 2010, and I am grateful for it all. Especially the births and marriages of close friends and family. And I look forward to more of the same this year.
Anyway, I hope everyone had a great year, and I wish you all a great 2011. And if you made it this far down this blog entry, well, god bless you.
So, this past year...Ummmm? Way back in January we flew over to Dublin for our friends 30th birthday. I remember eating pate and drinking and listening to Major Laser and eating steak and drinking and the weather was bad. Lots of snow. The city was practically at a stand still and the airport closed temporarily. We did a lot of dancing, some more eating and a lot of reminiscing. Tom showed me his tentative wedding music playlist. And we watched a film, the name of which I can't remember.
We went to Sweden in June for Tom and Cicilias wedding. Flying into Stockholm, and eventually getting the night train up to Ostersund. We walked all over Stockholm, saw a lot of kids dancing to bad dance music on the back of large flat bed trucks. We indulged in swedish cuisine at a restaurant called Pelican. We laughed out loud at the price of alcohol. We danced and admired the weird night sky that never got dark. We ate at cafes. And took lots of photographs. We went to the Photography museum for the Annie Liebowitz exhibition. It was very good. I was continually bewildered by the Swedish film posters and the weird rating system. each poster was covered in quotes from critics and a series of weird ratings symbols, similar to our 4 star rating system. Only there was a dozen of them and they were strange symbols like 4 ducks, 4 moons, 4 cars, 4 cats, 4 rainbows. I assume they perform the same function but I still don't understand why there were so many of them on each individual poster.
We got the train up to Ostersund, and took in all the sights the fine city had to offer. We spent time in the strange hotel bar that always seemed to contain a weird mix of tourists, young locals, old locals, and rather seedy locals. We were impressed with the breakfast buffet, me personally with the endless trays of salami and brie. We met up with the wedding party and drank and laughed, eventually we went to the wedding and it was beautiful and the night do was legendary.At some point I drank too much swedish jaegermeister, the nights a bit of a blur after that.
A few weeks later we went to Manchester to see Broken Social Scene at the Academy. We met my friend Jam and his lady there and all really enjoyed the show. Hearing Stars and Sons live is never any less exhilarating. While in Manchester we went to bar 99 I think its called(maybe) and watched England play Germany. It was an obviously sad display. Unless of course you were German or not English, and enjoyed really one sided displays of counter attacking football and just football superiority in general. We also went to a great little cafe/bar called Odd bar and had a wonderful breakfast.
For our anniversary we got the train down to Liverpool. My first time in the great city. We stayed at a nice hotel and went to Jamie Olivers restaurant and the legendary Cavern Club, the latter a slightly disappointing experience. Still we were there. I wore a stupid wig for national Beatles day. We witnessed a hilarious encounter of a drunk scouser needlessly winding up a drunk homeless busking scouser. We marvelled at how much fun the city was in general.
In September we flew back to Canada for a surprise wedding and family visit. We took in the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the great new Danny Boyle film 127 Hours and a brilliant new Korean film called I Saw The Devil. I went to see Buck 65 at the Drake Hotel. We went to various places for food and drink, including Smokes Poutinerie, Coras, The Fox and the Fiddle, and a great diner on Queen Street west, the name of which now evades me. We went to my Moms wedding and had a blast. We went up the CN Tower and enjoyed a lovely meal. We went to Niagara Falls, again. It was lovely, again. I think always will be. It is a ridiculously gigantic waterfalls, in the end. On the way back from the Falls we stopped off at a winery and saw a bronzed bust of Dan Akroyds head, that was a very good likeness. I spent lots of quality time with black cat and family and friends. I realized again, how much I miss Toronto when I'm away.
Oh,just before Canada, we went up to Glasgow for Nic's birthday and to see Fever Ray. The beautiful terrifying exhilarating supernatural spectacle that is the Fever Ray experience. We had our minds duly broken into small pieces. It was one of the single greatest live experiences I've had in my life.
Hmmmm? Most of the other things that happened this year are a bit of a blur. We saw Stuart Francis, the Canadian comedian, live. We went to Lancaster to see Sean Locke live. We went to the cinema to watch various great films including The Town, Inception, Kick Ass, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim VS The World, etc. We also went to the cinema to see various terrible films including Saw 3D, and ummmmmm? There were lots more but I forget what they were called. We also watched lots of films on dvd. Some were great some weren't. I watched some great tv shows, Justified, The Walking Dead, Dexter, True Blood, the Trip, Sons of Anarchy. I watched some bad shows too but, again, I forget what they were called.
I listened to lots of music. I've been writing this too long already, and the idea of trying to think of all this years music is sucking all the energy out of me. Joanna Newsom, though, thats sticks out.
Oh and we saw Ash live too. An old British band from the 90's. They were surprisingly good. Oh and Idlewild too. I almost forgot. They were superb. Really superb. We went to the Navy Club after that, sort of a Phoenix Nights type place, if you know what I mean, and we got very drunk and ended up dancing very purposely, like total weirdos. That turned into a bit of a theme this year. Dancing like total weirdos. Its fun, you should try it. You dance in weird shapes and jittery starts and stops and don't do any of it to the beat of the music. All the kids will be doing it soon. I did just the other night in Glasgow at the Flying Duck on New Years Eve. I started out just doing it here and there but then got caught up in it and did it all night. It got pretty weird but I had fun, goddang it. It was really just sort of a convulsion dance, just done at various speeds. Kind of like Ian Curtis only weirder and more erradic. Poeple either thought I was some weird cool guy or an idiot. I can probably guess which, but as you know, I could careless.
Oh, we saw Buck 65 and Holy Fuck at King Tuts in November too. A show I coined the Holy Buck show. It was tremendous. Buck was doing a bit of weird convulsive dancing, which I will admit may have subconsciously been a massive influence on the increased weirdness of my dancing post Holy Buck.
So, that is a basic, and decidedly half assed summarization of the year that was 2010. We did a bit of travelling, I turned 31, I danced stupidly, food and pop culture was consumed, the end. Okay, so thats an even more basic summarization.
In the end, the bottomline for 2010 was, that it was a decidedly stressful year, not least because I did very little writing. Too many big ideas have remained on the backburner. A real shame given the amount of time I was forced by the government of the United Kingdom to have off work. It was a year of frustration financially and professionally and a frustrating lack of discipline creatively. So I guess that'll be my big resolution for the year 2011, my 32nd year on this planet. Be more disciplined creatively. And make 2011 a great year for the Claycocks.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of things in 2010, and I am grateful for it all. Especially the births and marriages of close friends and family. And I look forward to more of the same this year.
Anyway, I hope everyone had a great year, and I wish you all a great 2011. And if you made it this far down this blog entry, well, god bless you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
