Another Month In & Musical Geekiness

Wow again I am surprised that a month has gone by so quickly and in a few days my parents aunt/uncle and Mikey Lavilla will be here in London. And then even more fun continues. Somehow I am going to crack down on all the work before visitors arrive (God knows how) and in all of this I am going on an epic walk through London again. I hit the West End and Westminster last time. Now I am going to head east. We'll see where fate and fortune bring me.

This past Monday, I had an extra long Radio show because the DJ before me asked me to fill in for him: of course I obliged. Jess I think summed up the spirit of my show best: "'It's about mud killing people in a medieval totalitarian society...but I'm not really sure' is what I heard when I tuned into your show. You achieve nerd status more thoroughly than I can ever hope to." Yes, I got really pretentious doing a 2 hour long show focusing on progressive rock. Oops!

But this coming Monday will be a good show: I have a special theme planned that I think people will like...this may even be one of my more accessible shows for the unwashed masses!

To add to my musical nerdiness, I would like to talk about some discoveries I made. First, the band called Tangerine Dream: amazing ambient/electronic music from the 70s/80s. Really, this is some great stuff. People ask me why I have so much music and keep constantly trawling for more. Tangerine Dream and a conversation I had with a friend in NYC sum it up the best. What if there was the perfect song out there, but you never found? Some of the stuff I have found and loved, if I hadn't been adventurous I would have never come across. There are so many great diamonds in the rough (some from stuff even out of print on CD!!) that I could fill up pages. So my search continues and I find music like Tangerine Dream that blows my mind.

Another musical discovery, which may give a hint for the theme of the show this Monday. I always said my favorite rock instrument is the mellotron (want to know what songs contain it?) but now I found something awesome: the first sampler/synthesizer known as the Fairlight CMI. Not cheap (it cost £25,000 when first realized in 1980) it really was hard to come by. But musicians like Peter Gabriel (Shock the Monkey was made from 60 different pieces strung together on the Farilight [Download here and make a free log in name in order to remix "Shock the Monkey" yourself!) and Tears for Fears and producers like Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes (of The Buggles and "Video Killed The Radio Star" fame) made it very very popular. It was very unique in that it had a light wand and DOS computer screen on which, the you could draw the sound waves and the decays of the sounds. It also had a massive (at the time) sample library. Here are some samples that you may recognize hearing in songs. And of course songs, which once you realize were made with the Fairlight CMI, you will never forget its distinctive sound.

So yes, thank you for taking my musical odyssey detour. See you next blog post!

Life In The Fast Lane

A little too fast this past weekend. I'll do the fast version: Chelsea Wharfs = really nice residential condos overlooking the Thames. Spent some fun times there. Then spent some more fun times in a club/pub in South Kensington called Cavanaugh's (spelling/correct name?). I save a bunch of us from getting trampled by two drunks guys getting into a brawl. After having drank too much, JP and I almost get caught relieving ourselves in an alleyway by bobbies in a van. Close call. I get back to my room and start acting like I wasn't doing so hot, which I wasn't. All hell breaks lose. My apologies if you were on the receiving end of it. Despite rumours to the contrary, reports of my misfortune/death have been greatly exaggerated. My apologies again. Also I need to chill out slightly: it was too much that night. Though I have had more or the same amount other nights so I don't know what went wrong this time. Either way, less drinking is probably a good idea. I'm already plotting with people how to drink our pints in Leo's when we get back to Georgetown since we have become so accustomed to it here.

In other news, Jack was here and that was fun to see him again. Soon enough even more people will be here. Plus I will go to Paris eventually, so now my rest of the term is even more thoroughly packed: I wonder how school work fits into this....
Had an extra long radio show today due to me covering for another DJ. Two hours was nice being able to stretch my legs, but it got a little tedious and even a little hectic still even though I had more time and didn't have to worry about rushing through it all. I think LSE just runs a tighter ship than WGTB hehe. It'll be nice getting a slot again next year. I wonder who I will partner with, if even that. Being your own guy has its perks: you run the show and you are boss to yourself :-) Maybe I will have rotating guests come on and join me in my musical odysseys. And I will force them to like my music haha

So yes this week, I have not been very productive, but I need to get stuff done ahead so my parents, aunt/uncle, and Michael will all be clear. Luckily, the workload this week was light, so I'll try to burrow through it all in the next few days. Also my bamboo plant is growing another shoot and the existing shoot is sprouting even more. I wonder how big it will get...

Weird News

It's 3:30Am and I had been thought/left for dead. Here is the situation synopsis:

1) Heath Ledger was found dead in his NYC apartment Tuesday afternoon at age 28. My world has been crippled. Think Buddy Holly plane crash in 2008. (Not really, but I wonder how long I had you going)

2) A bag of microwaveable popcorn I had caught fire when I put it in the microwave and cooked it. Damn.

Rumble in Brick Lane

So the four of us (JP, Jess, Stefan, and I) went on an uneventful trip to Brick Lane. We got to the street and for some bizarre reason, before we made it to our usual frequenting of Monsoon, we were accosted by hawkers from all sides, especially some from the restaurant across from Monsoon, Saffron. As the Saffron hawker was talking to me, I went like deer in the headlights and zoned out, while the Monsoon hawkers were poking fun at Saffron. I thought nothing of it, as I snapped out of my daze and we walked into Monsoon as usual.

We sat down to dinner at a window by the door and all of a sudden on the street we saw two hawkers raise their voices and then start throwing punches at each other. Out of nowhere, tons of Indians, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis descended on the street and other hawkers tried to break up the fight or join in on other sides. One of the hawkers ran into Saffron and took off his jacket, while the other guy tried to follow him in and everyone was holding them back. It seemed as though things had come to blows between Monsoon and Saffron across the street from each other and a Cold War had begun. For the rest of the night, everyone was watching everyone stealthily from the windows of the respective restaurateurs.

As we were eating dinner and noticing the street still looked pretty fierce, we worried about our precarious and exposed position in the restaurant. I mentioned that someone could throw a brick through the window and hit me in the head. Jess admonished the peril of a body coming through the window. Always the optimist, I made the best of the situation by saying if flying debris hit me in the head, I would at least be able to wake up from my coma in time to greet my parents when they arrived in London. Stefan even improved it by saying I could write a book about all the weird dreams I had when I was in a coma and people would buy it to read that shit and it would be a bestseller. He said even if I didn't dream anything, I could still make shit up because people would still love it and eat it up.

Nice.

Tempus Fugit

I noticed this as soon as I got back to the room after Christmas break: my bamboo plant grew a shoot that sprouted. For months since I had bought it in October it had done nothing practically. And now it even had some roots in the water. I was afraid the window didn't provide enough light, but it seems like it did the trick. I don't know what possessed me while I was buying crockery and other things for my room back in October why I bought it, but it was standing there and it called to my soul--what can I say? I think everyone should be required to take care of one of these and if it dies under there care, they should not be allowed to have children. Maybe even sterilize them to make sure. Hehe just kidding on the last part, but why not have this as a test of ability for parenthood? It's the least we can do I say. Hmmm, it'll be sad in June when I have to go. What will I do at end? Try to smuggle it in my luggage back to the states? Nah last thing I need is to get arrested at customs for bringing back a cheap bamboo shoot I bought at Ikea. Hopefully someone from my flat will take it.

As I realized with my friends last week, everyone and his brother are coming to London. In addition, there are other events that will make this term go by even faster than last:
-The traitorous Jack Thorlin comes this Thursday
-I have been graciously invited to a Boy George concert this Friday
-My parents and aunt&uncle come February 5th
-Mikey Lavelle comes the 10th
-Kate Davey comes the 3rd week in February, around the 20th
-Sometime eventually after these, Jess and I go to Amsterdam
-LatAm paper due March 5th (my only big assignment this term)
-And before I know it, I'll be flying home on March 14th

Just to let you know, from March 14th, I'm back in the States until April 10th or so. So I guess I will see everyone around then?

A Week of Celebrities...and Photos!

I want to apologize for not putting up photos; formatting where the photos go in Blogger is a little time consuming and we wall know I am lazy...my apologies; perhaps this post will change things.

To start off, I saw Christian Slater in "Swimming with Sharks" an off-colour black comedy. I thought he did a could job, though some of the American accents of the other actors seemed dubious at best. If you have seen the movie True Romance, this play echoed slightly of the feel of his character, Clarence Worley, especially the scenes in True Romance where he is trying to sell the load of Mafia coke to this big shot director and he is talking about the director's magnum opus "Coming Home in a Body Bag". There you get to hear a great Slater monologue about movies, America, etc and so he also does in this play too,many times has great deliveries. But "Swimming" really had a lot of good one liners and Slater did a great job playing a scurrilous character. I also laughed at the really off color parts like when he was being tortured by his assistant. I think Jess can agree with me that that was pretty damn funny. Unfortunately if anyone wanted to go see it, the last performance was this past Friday. Don't feel bad, I almost missed out on it too but I was determined not to. But no the fun did not stop there. I thought I was done for the week until the weekend, but I was invited to see Othello with none other than Ewan McGregor playing Iago! One nice thing about this theatre was its size: it was so small. There were only 3 rows in the balcony and the orchestra only had, maybe 9 max? Also it was set in the round so all the seats surrounded the stage on 3 sides. So I was really close to Ewan and the rest of the cast. Also he looked into the crowd as he was delivering some soliloquys and other speeches, so I caught eye contact with him a few times. One time he looked long and then looked away, sort of rattled: I wonder if me stupidly grinning during a Shakespearean tragedy weirded him out. But how can you not if it is Ewan McGregor giving a stellar performance in front of you? The rest of the cast was very good too. All in all, great theatre performances. Back in NJ, my mom would always take us to musicals on Broadway and oh how I loved going to them. Still like musicals. However, one thing I feel Broadway was lacking to Theatreland (London's theatre district) was high quality plays. Here, I have not been disappointed at all with the acting and plays and lack of musicals (hehe maybe perhaps the musicals are better back in the states as the one I saw here, Spamalot, was good but did not measure up fully with Broadway.)

So finally, I got all my work together and done. Boy did I feel relieved. Now I get to start it again for another week! Haha! But before that begins, I got to see Van Morrison on Friday at the Hammersmith Apollo. Jess gave me the heads up on this and we were psyched, we listened to a Van Morrison greatest hits compilation to get us up to speed, we listened to his two great albums Astral Weeks and Moondance. Worst comes to worse, the generic Van song has a droning background musical part and he sings "a-runnin-and-a-lovin, a-runnin-and-a-lovin, a-runnin-and-a-lovin, yeah-yeah-yeaaaaah..." (sung/spoken really quickly) That is every Van song, when in doubt. So we get there right before he is come onto stage. He has a backing band of 8 players and 3 backup singers. Wow impressive. And then all of a sudden the show starts and Van walks on in a fedora and glasses (I couldn't tell if they were sunglasses or not). So I don't recognize the first song. OK no big deal, probably playing stuff off a recent album. Then song 2, 3, 4, 5, 6....Jess and I would look at each other to see if either of us had any glimmer of recognition: nada. Also all the music we didn't know, although the band was in top form, it sounded like lounge music. While being puzzled at attempting to decipher songs, I had forgotten about Van's infamous concert histrionics. In the middle of a song, as he was singing the "a-runnin-and-a..." drone I explained above, without warning he just dropped his mic and it fell and hit the stage with a loud THUMP! and he slowly began to wander off stage and behind the curtain. The band looked a little puzzled but continued to play and finish. Van after the song ended came back on stage and the bassist leaned over and tried to talk to him but he started another song. Again, he placed down the mic towards the end and silently and mysteriously walked off stage. Finally they ended the show with what we realized was the finale when again Van abruptly left the stage, never came back, an announcer shouted "THAT WAS VAN MORRISON!" and the band began to pack up. Bizarre indeed. Hopefully some reviews will comment on this. In the end, I only recognized 2 and 2 halves songs: Moondance, Gloria, some cover of an old crooner standard from the 40s or 50s, and a cover of St James Infirmary. We were both a little disappointed at the concert afterwards. I think my favorite members of the band, based on their performance and solos were either the woman play steel guitar/slide guitar/banjo or the keyboardist. Both of them were awesome. The lead guitarist's style I just really did not like: something was grating about it.

Should I save in other news for later? Nah, two quick observations: Closet-gay-yet-he-himself-doesn't-know-it-yet Matthew (long story, maybe it will be the topic of another post) from Development Economics might be onto something in one of his descriptions of the denizens surrounding High Holborn Hall: there really does seem to be a crazy guy that shouts randomly at 3 in the morning outside our dorm. I didn't believe Matthew until I started hearing him too. It is really bizarre. Now here is the annoyance: I am sometimes really surprised about niceness among people in London. There is a record store I go to in London, and I buy from there and I am not regular, but I come in enough that I think they might recognize me. So I put on hold two used CDs that I need to check online and the counter assistant gets all indignant and huffy and puffy like I just told him off. Jeeze! If I pain you so much, I won't come back then, asshole. I'm a customer, I buy stuff from you, I actually come regularly, and you need to hact like I am hurting you in someway all the time? Get a fucking life...and a new customer. (though I probably will return again hehe) Now this makes it even stranger: so I walk back to the dorm from the store and I need to cross a busy street, Charing Cross. Bus drivers in London have a reputation for being rude and mean, and not caring about pedestrians (they speed up when you cross in front of them!) So I need to cross the bus lane and there is a bus, and I wait for it to go. However, there was a backup and stop in the bus land and can you believe this: he stopped further back and waved me through. I couldn't believe it, just stunned me. This bus driver, who will never see me again was so much more nicer to me than the store owner, who actually probably recognized me and knew I was a regular paying customer. Sometimes people don't cease to amaze me!

Argy-Bargy & Christian Slater!

For a long time, I thought Argy-Bargy meant Argentine or Argentina or something pertaining to it in British slang. Perhaps I was inspired by my LatAm professor here? But instead I found out it is British slang for argument. My mistake. However, it is relevant because I have read LatAm until blue in the face. And I still have more to do. However, it's really interesting yet bizarre, the economic history of Latin America. For example, did you know in the Argentine (as my teacher calls Argentina for some odd reason), there was a higher quality of life than many areas of Europe during the Fin de Siecle? And it was a leading country until the 30s and has had the highest amount of foreign capital ever invested in a country? But the million dollar question is, why is it not a developed country? Why is Latin America not OECD yet? Hopefully, we'll see in the course...

But yes, my apologies, talk about work and class does not an interesting blog make, however it is relevant. Last week, I let shit get out of hand probably because I had been spoiled by a 3 week vacation and the lack of work thereof. I slept for the majority of the time I was in Britain, didn't do enough work and procrastinated. I let it all backlog: bad idea. Now I'm back on track and in control of life. My apologies to any that were negatively affected by this.

So now to what I have been doing. We finally tracked down a place that plays Georgetown basketball games: a BBQ joint on Poland Street in Soho called Bodean's. I actually had walked by this place before and is right by 2 of my favorite record stores in London, including Sister Ray. There were sooooooo many Hoyas: maybe 30+ and around 18 or were undegrads studying abroad? I think the remaining few restaurant patrons were confused as to what was happening. I tried to start the fight song in middle of the game, but I didn't have the balls to shout "Hey Hoyas, how long's it been?" Next time though, I will. My friend shouted it at the end of the match, after we had narrowly won and the whole restaurant (and by that I mean all the Hoyas) went into a rage singing it. I got a kick out of the fact some Brit was recording the whole proceedings on his cell phone video camera.

In other news, my radio show is back on again! This time I think my production is even more slick! http://pulse.dj Be there or be square! Also tonight, I go with Jess to see Swimming with Sharks, starring none other than CHRISTIAN SLATER! I realized just in time that the pay ends its run the 19th so I got tickets luckily.

Also, in closing, I have to say I saw one of the lamest op-eds ever in The Hoya. I won't say who authored it, but the writing was bad, it was all truisms and platitudes, was too stereotypical, and didn't give any insider insight into London. Hell, I could have read that shit on any nickel-and-diming blog on the web. My British "efficiency" rant I think would be a great basis/start for a rebuttal op-ed by me. Hehe, maybe I will make a response op-ed: don't know if I will get it published. After British efficiency, I can move onto other topics I have brought up in my blog and in other places/emails on numerous occasions: crazy driving, chavs, street "navigation", accents & the subtle class system, how a British bar argument ensues and is resolved, the police state, lack of good genetic material, British uni/school culture, and many other fun topics as I re-read them or re-remember them. If I do actually write this, I'll let you know. Oh yeah and on the Lancastershire hotpot, a great stew thing made with lamb and potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables. It's good and I can avoid getting Mad Cow disease by eating it. I need to work on eating more veggies and fruit. So after a long hiatus, you get a long blog post from me. Enjoy! More to come!

Old Britannia

So finally I get back and what do I find? My dorm somehow "doesn't have water" even though my sink works and they are fixing the hot water. I don't get it, hopefully something awful isn't just about to happen? No that would have been my flight back. So I took a redeye from JFK to Heathrow and when we get to Heathrow at 7:15AM, we are circling around Heathrow but there is a lot of air traffic really bizarre for 7 in the morning and we are supposed to have made really good time and come in early, but instead we had to go into a holding pattern. We circle back around to Heathrow and we get a great view of the dawn and London (I didn't notice until I saw the Eye and Hyde Park. It was pretty cool going over all of it) So we neared Heathrow and we descended, I saw the other parked planes, I saw some airport buildings but something wasn't quite right...

We seemed to be right on target but as I looked out the window, it seemed like we were going way too fast and were not low enough or at the right angle. As I pondered whether we were going to nosedive into the tarmac or land too far along the runway to come to a complete stop by the time it ended, I heard and felt the engines jump back to full thrust and the plane quickly bank up and to the left and away and we quickly accelerate off. We were all puzzled as to what happened. we were pretty close to landing when we pulled out or should I say close to the runway because I don't see how we could have landed that. So we wait and then we realize we must have almost hit another plane.

The copilot comes on the intercom and says not to worry, that it was "normal operating procedure." I laughed with the guy sitting next to me because, yeah of course if you are going to hit another plane it is "normal operating procedure" to take evasive maneuvers! So then the pilot comes on and explains that the airport was really busy (I knew that) and that a plane hadn't finished clearing the runway and so we had to abort the landing because of safety requirements on distance between planes. I don't know how close we came to rear-ending a plane, if it was even that or if we were going to collide head on. One can only hope that wasn't a close call and that I didn't use up a spare life that morning.

But now back to London. I was really tired, somehow the jet lag really hit me a lot this time so I spent much time in bed. Oooooo was it nice... We found a bar called The Maple Leaf for Canucks so that was fun. I also rediscovered, even though I am not a picky eater, that English food again was fitting the stereotype and I had been spoiled by home cooking for three weeks. Oh well, I have the whole term to get readjusted! I did my first radio show of the term today. Went really well I thought except for a few slip ups that I will keep to myself and not tell anyone else. Now I have a permanent slot so I have plenty of time to stretch out my legs, though it seems like I always feel rushed trying to fit the music for my show haha. If only I had another half hour or hour...

It is nice to be back. It was good being home too. It's the little things you appreciate. Like The London Paper. The worst paper ever, but it is free, so I read it. It borders on the tabloidish, has a relationship column and a paparazzi center spread for celebrity faux-pas's and of course it "reports the news" Example: the Tory candidate for Mayor of London is Boris Johnson who has gathered the reputation, internationally as well it seems, for always putting his foot in his mouth and just acting really clumsily. If you see a picture of him with his frazzled, disheveled genius hair, you can't but sympathize with the criticism. He went around a tough area of London in light of recent stabbings and some youths recognized him as "that guy off the TV who does stupid stuff" Man I love this trashy newpaper. I'm going to miss it when I am back in the States. At least they have a website.

Holidaze / Hopping The Pond Again

Bah! I guess leisure got the better of my life and free time. Don't worry: once I return to school and work I will have more time to post here! Haha, how perverted is that? Life does funny things to you like that. Example: you are most productive when you are under stress and have a million things to finish by a certain deadline. Then when you have tons of free time? Complete and utter sloth and lack of productivity. Hell, I can rattle off so much stuff I wanted or had to do this break and didn't do or am rushing to get done now. Oops, my mistake! But really the Holiday went by so quickly and even though it was fun, seems like a daze in my mind.

On a good note, my computer is mysteriously working again, inexplicably so. The best that Best Buy could say was it must have been a short caused by loose wiring. Whatever. Funny anecdote along with that: I was going around with my Mom today doing various and sundry things, like picking up my fixed computer, getting my hair cut (it will be a shock, I assure you. Sorry all you fans of the long hair. No fears--by end of Lent Term it will be back up to length again!), and going to Borders to take advantage of their 30% discount. Now this is the funny part. At Borders, you can only use the discount one per customer. So my mom and I would determine what books and stuff we wanted and go back and forth by ourselves to the counter to different cashiers each time and use the discount to buy one thing each. After a few runs and feeling completely like cheapskates we laughed as we carried our loot off to the car: Borders didn't know what hit them.

Ahh, yes it was nice to be home for 3 weeks. Almost too short in a way. I think life is accelerating and there is nothing I/we can do to stop it. As Steve Miller said "Time keeps on slipping into the future" Again restlessness creeps up on me and something seems not quite right. And once you see it, you can't go back to how it once was: the cat is out of the bag. I guess you could say I have a crisis of free will: do I really have control over my life and what I am doing? Or am I playing out a script written a long long time ago and my actions have all be set up for me? Do we just follow in the footsteps of our family before us and are doomed to repeat what they do and take on their characteristics and become what we despise? (cf "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin and The Breakfast Club) And if the game has been rigged (or even worse, completely decided for us already) who the Hell has written it and why?

Haha, I sound like a stereotypical worrying Socrates! Depressing thoughts no? Maybe there is hope for us to say a big "Fuck you" to those forces trying to corral us and break free and do what we want and will.

On that note I hop the Pond in less than a day. Scriptwriter, if you are listening, don't mess things up too much or end my plotline just yet. Thanks

Darkness On The Edge of Town

New Year's Day -- We'll see what 2008 brings...

It's unsettling when you look at a picture and you can find nothing wrong with it but then the longer you stare, the more its tears, runs, and discolorations become visible. Once you see these imperfections, they nag at your eye and you can never look at the picture the same way again. Even if you try to take the whole thing in, the little stray defects keep appearing and distract you from the rest of the picture and all the important details. Eventually you don't want to look at the picture anymore because you can't look and appreciate it and it gets relegated to the dust heap.

I return to London on Saturday. Break went by quickly, no?