Now that we've mentioned Deodato

That last post wrung blood out of me, oh it's so hard to deal with real things. I mentioned Deodato in there, but didn't mention that one of our favourites in those days was the guitar player for Deodato, John Tropea. Hey!

Kien at Bullet

We hurried, the Professor and I, at the last minute as always, to the bar where Kien Lim was booked as the main attraction. What was he like? Well, imagine Don Williams, Doc Watson and Gillian Welch melded together by eldritch energies, their very protoplasm being drawn out and intermingled to become one person who then loses some weight and becomes a wiry Malaysian. Pretty gross, huh? Also probably not very helpful. Let me explain.

Kien was very obviously wrestling with nerves when we got there, walking here and there in the bar while Prof and I listened to the acts on before him. The gig was running late, the usual technical problems. We sat there, enjoying the other performers, while Kien's posture slowly became more and more foetal.

Finally, it was time for our boy to take the stage. After a bit of fiddling and quiet tuning, Kien ambled unassumingly to the microphone with his D-28 slung oddly low, and then, well, took over. The first song started quietly, Kien barely tickling the strings, then swelled and receded like the tide coming in, a lonely song about chemicals. No-one else made a sound until he finished. Then we clapped. He carried on with a series of simple sounding, but craftily constructed tunes. No swagger, no fuss, the boy just stood there, picked his guitar and sang with a mellow low voice, songs about loneliness, songs about women, though no songs about lonely women that I could detect. He played, and after a while it seemed as if we had always been there, like living in a neighbourhood where you wave at every shopkeeper. Suddenly, it ended. We came back to ourselves, and life carried on.

That's not what you expect from an old schoolfriend, years after banging on cheap guitars and dreaming together about being Jimmy Page, playing Deodato covers, and generally being your random, scoffish, awkward teenagers. But it is what we all, those of us who have resisted a cynical acceptance of eternal mediocrity, it is what we all keep our little candles burning for.

Just a Minute

"You have one second to talk without hesitation, deviation or repetition about indoor sports."

"Judo.."

The Hard Road

Let me tell you about the Professor. We all agree that anything worth doing is going to be hard to do. No pain, no gain, right? After a long time spent looking for the right human, in bars, in cars, on buses, up and down dale, journeying through rents in the very fabric of spacetime, I have finally found her. It took a long time, and she is Baby Bear's porridge.

"Now how can you be sure?", I hear you say, "You are naive, love is fleeting, things change, your hubris leads ineluctably to nemesis!", you expound. Thank you very much, I'm not taking that from you overeducated naysayers. Go away and predict the heat death of the Universe. Bad philosopher. No biscuit!

Harrumph. Well, to continue. With the Professor, although I said that my search is finished, I have no sense of finality, of ending. Deploy your sick bags now, please. I feel, instead, that my journey is finally beginning. When I think of the Brainy One, I think of possibility, of change, that a problem shared is a problem halved, of someone to watch my back. More roads open, and none are closed. Okay? Now wipe your mouth and listen to the rest of it.

The difference is, that this is not the dizzy, out-of-control, moonstruck passion that we all remember with varying degrees of nostalgia. No. We just help each other out, become better people, and make other people happier. No drama, just competent life judo. It was tough getting here, and we're tougher! It also helps that we can chatter away to each other until the cows come home. Almost a year on, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than hang with the Professor. It's just too much damn fun.

Jump from a helicopter

Some small blessings need to be counted. I got iTunes. I got Mannix. If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I mean!

Thespian

Well, here's an award-winning thespian if ever I've seen one. Three gongs for the non-smoker!

May I present Edwin Sumun, stylish recipient of my plug of the day. This young and magnetic hopeful may some day rocket Kuala Lumpur to the top spot in the list of places where famous people come from. The hardware is for his tour-de-force design, production and performance in Five Letters from an Eastern Empire, a deep, terrifying, enigmatic and downright weird one man play (well, I haven't seen it, but how could it be otherwise?) Look at the awards on the Cameronian arts award page. Here's raising a glass of Theakston's Old Peculiar to ya!


Count 'em. Three! Way to go, Edwin!

Juice of the Orange.

On holiday in France last year, we were stretching our legs at a rest stop on one of the autoroutes. Never being one to mind my own business, I became interested in a man with a family, who was trying hard to finalise the family drinks order. He reminded me of Columbo, with his grubby raincoat and hunched over intense manner, as he jabbed his finger at each family member in turn saying "Cafe, cafe, jus d'orange..", then being interrupted by a request for extra milk or cake, then again, jab, jab, jab, "Cafe, cafe, jus d'orange.."

I don't know whether he finally managed to buy any drinks at all. That is not what concerns me here. What stuck in my mind was the strangeness, to my ears, of how nouns and adjectives go together in French. Juice of the orange. Bicycle of my grandmother. That's how it goes, adjective of the verb. Natural for francophones, archaic feeling for English speakers.

Imagine Peter Falk shambling into a diner, fixing the hapless server behind the counter with a lop-sided stare before saying "Gimme a.. a.. apple danish and a coffee to go", paying for his danish and coffee, then turning round and saying "Just one more thing.. a Juice of the Orange for the wife." I don't know about you, but it makes my mind reel.

Duff

OK, just had to squeeze this in. My boss, in an off-duty moment at home, doing what bosses do when they're not being bosses, reached into his fridge for a bottle of Bud. Just as he pulled out the refreshing golden brew, his sharp-eyed 7-year old daughter said, "That's a Duff! You're Homer!" His eyes swelled with tears at the clear perceptions and sheer cuteness of his child.

How can you resist?

Lunchtime

It'll get better, I promise. The phenomenal success of my first post (ever!) has encouraged me in my quest to foist inconsequential nonsense upon all and sundry, without distinction as to race, creed or species.

So it's lunchtime, and I'm taking advantage of the statutory midday break to compose my second world-shattering post. The conditions are favourable, having just consumed a large shish kebab. The endorphin-releasing properties of the grilled meat fill me with peace and the desire to share my sense of well-feeling with the world. The office is quiet and peaceful, and I feel strong in solidarity with my colleagues (more on that in a future post). Really, that's all I have to say. A good meal followed by a good sit down and maybe a cup of tea; that's wealth.

For any one who wants a little more, here's the Story of Mel.

YAFP

Yet another first posting by a newbie. Jeez. I saw 'Jaws' 5 years after everyone else did, and here I am late again. Even dogs have blogs. Come on!