EVERYTHING COMES AROUND

Déjà vu.

When I met the TH nine years ago he was unemployed and formulating a major career change. So whilst I went out to work 24/7, he spent the first few months of our relationship lying on my living room floor ploughing through a pile of very thick computer language books and crates of special brew, learning how to become an investment banker. We had hardly any money in those days. So little money in fact that we totally lived on lentil soup and home-baked bread. (Pause for general readership gasping - the shark baking bread?! Baking anything?) Sure enough, he finally got the job of his dreams and has never looked back. To my knowledge he hasn't drunk special brew since either. (Which, if you know anything about that particular poison, can only be at least as good a thing as him getting the job.)

Forward wind nine years and whilst the TH goes out to work 24/7, I find myself unemployed, sitting on the living room floor ploughing through a large computer language book, formulating a career change.
We have more money these days so I don't make the TH bake bread, and I'm working through a rather lovely bottle of Gavi di Gavi.....

But, details aside, how weird is that?

The temperature is rising here. Summer spent last week a few blocks away and as of today it's trying to get in through our windows. I am resigned to spending the next few weeks indoors with headphones on trying to block out the industrial noise of recently acquired air-conditioners, which sound like someone is building a 20-storey block of flats in the room. Oh and apparently 85 degrees is nothing compared to the barbecue we are about to receive....
 

RFH Foyer Coney Island style. 

Busman's holiday 

TRAINS, PLANES & AUTOMOBILES

A strange surreal week. I woke this morning to tales of a major power outage on all NY mainline trains for hours and military planes have been flying overhead accompanying jets all day, not to mention the endless police sirens, which haven't stopped since 7am. Unconnected (?) things like that take on a weird significance in a foreign country, especially as I've been living on a diet of painkillers for the last 3 days due to perpetual underlying migraine, and am hence feeling a little surreal anyway. All very odd.

Then there was the shopping trolley incident. Woke on Tuesday with a fridge full of ingredients and a mind full of recipes for dinner for eight. Also woke on Tuesday with a killer headache. Couldn't face cooking, so decided to make use of the gorgeous deli counter at the wonder that is Wholefoods Market and buy up their entire selection of Indian vegetable dishes (the closest thing in the USA to the lovely Indian food it's possible to get in the UK). That way I'd only have to cook rice and poppadums etc. So I painstakingly filled up six large containers with vegetable korma and sag panir etc one by one, taking each one back to my trolley a few feet away as I did so. But when I returned with the seventh, all of them had GONE! Someone had stolen my food from the trolley, leaving only a couple of lemons and a bag of carrots. I did a check of the queue at the checkout to see if I could spot the thief, staring into people's trolleys like a mad person, but no sign, although in such circumstances everybody looks guilty. I asked a store assistant standing nearby if he'd witnessed the theft, to which he replied 'odd things are always happening in here, but yeah, that's pretty odd. Maybe someone was really hungry and didn't care what they ate'. Uh? These are cardboard containers I might add, so nobody would have had any idea what they were stealing, unless they'd just been watching me, because they had decidophobia and couldn't face the choice of picking dinner for themselves. Whatever. Weird bloody country. I had to start all over again, this time keeping the trolley right next to me at all times, much to everyone else's annoyance as they tried to access the counter. 'I'm sorry - I have to have the trolley here because someone is stealing my food!' The looks I received proved that I'm clearly becoming as crazy as everyone else in this city.

Deep down I knew that this was the doing of the God-of-Guilt, who was speaking to me through Indian deli kleptomaniacs, saying 'well that's what you get for cheating and not cooking the meal yourself'. It's the same guy who, when you plan to take a work sickie, makes sure you're actually sick that day, to pay you back for skiving.

Anyhow, the meal was a great success, American Idol was watched, The Eggplants' Myspace site was created, and it only took the band about two hours to decide which three words to use to describe their music style. (Lesson - never create a Myspace site by committee.)

And whilst we're on the subject, JB and I had a very constructive afternoon last week time-tabling his forthcoming album, choosing arrangements, discussing which tracks to use, when to record and which musicians to book. I'm very excited about this project as it's been a long time coming and is now at last really going to happen. JB is a truly talented singer and songwriter and you can hear an out-take and a 'bathrobe session' (a story for another time) right now, at his new Myspace site.

And now I'm back to plane-spotting, taking headache tablets and pondering on the fact that there is a job about to become available in London which I would really like to do....sigh.

HOME TRUTH

I told you so ;-)
After 63 million votes (uh!?) Taylor Hicks tonight won American Idol.

YAY!

AH THE FINS.....

I am streaming the eurovision song contest live on my laptop (unfortunately minus Terry Wogan, without whom it is clearly not the same). This year it's just me and a mug of coffee, which makes it an even sadder spectacle than usual, it being a far cry from the 30 or so folks and crates of wine I'm used to at the legendary HH annual eurovision song contest party. I'm also not familiar enough with the Warsaw pact to predict the voting without Tel's help. Some things don't change though - the French entry failed to strike a single in-tune note and there appears to be more wind on the stage than there was in the south during Katrina.

I will be making up for the lack of party on Tuesday, as I seem to have accidentally invited approximately 8 people round to dinner, which is approximately 80% of the number of people I actually know in this city. (Note to self - must therefore take extra special care not to poison them.) The timing is slightly unfortunate, as Tuesday night is the American Idol final and I'm excited to say the least, as my original winning prediction, Taylor Hicks, is in the final two. I hope my friends are not expecting to talk to me or anything...

On top of which I've not cooked for that number of people since last year's ESC.
All fail safe recipes which need no kitchen intervention whatsoever very welcome.
I will be the one watching the TV.

SAY WHAT?!

There has been a strange development in tai-chi class over this last week. One of the 70yr olds seems to have developed a very specific case of tourette's syndrome. Picture the scene - 8 of us engaging in gracefully flowing synchronised movements (as in the BBC1 ident) in the middle of the '42' (which, incidentally is the form being used for the Beijing olympics in 2008 - could THIS be my new career?), karmic ambient music in the background....
And then this guy every few seconds starts shouting the word 'GROIN'!
I counted something like 11 'groins' today before I totally lost concentration and had to feign cramp in order to stifle uncontrollable laughter.

On the treadmill afterwards I realised that my gym is full of total quirks. I see the same folks every time I go so I guess I've got used to them, but today, because I'd started, my laughing didn't stop - the Chinese guy who walks backwards on the treadmill (someone should tell him.....), the young guy who comes in at 12.50 on the dot and turns off every single tv monitor in the room before he starts working out (we all know to schedule our exercise before he comes in), and if anyone dares to turn one on again (even on the opposite side of the room) he stops his workout and turns it off , the woman who never does any exercise as clearly she believes everyone at the gym is actually her therapist and stands by any stranger without headphones giving them the sad story of her life and asking for advice (we all now know to wear headphones at all times), and a particular favourite of mine - the guy, who again doesn't do any exercise, but gives the mirrors a terrific workout standing in front of them in various 'I am beautiful' poses for about an hour. You'd be amazed how treadmill-time flies watching that dork. That's actually just the tip of the iceberg. (I also find the 20something girls who run at about 30mph for a couple of hours, then cycle at about 80mph for another couple of hours quite amusing, but that could be just jealousy....)
Who'd ever have thought the gym could be so entertaining.

And of course, after today, I'll be known as the strange woman who laughs hysterically all the time and wears headphones in the shower...

MELTDOWN

I have two bits of Meltdown news. The first is that David Bowie appears to be 'coveting' the RFH's long-running Meltdown festival and is staging the first 'High Line' Festival in New York in 2007. He was curator of the RFH's Meltdown in 2002. The festival went on for a couple of weeks, but unlike previous curators, Bowie was, how we say, 'less than present' for most of it, to the point where all the folks working on the festival took to carrying around a lifesize portrait of the man, just to remind themselves what festival they were actually working on. I hope he makes it to his own festival. Having said that, the day in which he did make an appearance, he was spectacular and did one of the best gigs I've ever seen in my life.
Anyway, we are clearly living in the Da Vinci plagiarising era, and we are also in New York, where yesterday is long gone and only tomorrow counts, so I daresay nobody else will even spot the similarity, never mind care. I do wish it were possible to copyright ideas though, having had a couple of stormers in the last week or two (well D had the best one in all honesty), but us being mere 'sax and the city' girls in NY, someone more influential would doubtless steal said ideas within moments of our revelations (yes, the ideas are THAT good). That's not to say that we're not having 'business lunches' about them though....and if there are any entrepreneur printers out there, please make yourselves known.

Meltdown two is rather more serious. The desktop died. This has resulted in hours and hours, no, DAYS of salvaging files, music and photos. Actually I've been trying to rescue most of the '90s if we're being honest about this. The tactile helpdesk is in serious danger of losing his title right now, and is holding onto it only because the information is still somewhere in the ether and I've been in a laptop downloading frenzy capturing it all over the last couple of days....
I think we're okay. But only at a price of $539 dollars, because frankly I'm so not in the mood to go through this hell again that I went out and bought a new ipod and a hard disk today, so that everything from now on will be in at least two places, and preferably three. 'I'm not really a computer person' the TH pleaded to me today 'I'm a person just trying to get through life'.
And in that endearing sentence lies one of the reasons I married him.

IDLE PREDICTIONS

Further to my career-threatening prediction of February 16th (yes, sadly American Idol has been going on for that long, and it isn't over yet), I'd like to point out (as I'm in CV-writing mode), that Paris Bennett got (unjustly) thrown out last week, but nevertheless made it to the final five (and will be a superstar whatever happens), and Taylor is still going strong. Well maybe not strong exactly, but he's in the final four, for those who are counting. Tonight someone else gets to go. I don't think it'll be Taylor. In fact the shark predicts we're in for a Taylor/Chris final. But it's a close call.......

10.30pm update - well Chris just went. Bit of a shock. But good news for Taylor methinks. He's in the final three. Yay!

BECAUSE A TOTAL LIFESTYLE EXPERIENCE IS UNSALEABLE WITHOUT A THIN LACQUER OF CULTURAL CRED

The reason I've not blogged in a week is that it would (with a couple of exceptions) read something like 'went to tai-chi class, came home, re-wrote CV (again), went to gig'. I would hate to be the author of something quite that mind-numbingly dull, so I haven't written it. Ok?

WHEN TO WRITE IS WRONG

I take it all back. How can I settle in to a country which has this as a feature on the tv news?
This is both wrong and ludicrous on so many levels I don't even know where to begin.
How does mocking and insulting a religion even begin to tackle the problem as to why there is conflict in the first place? It doesn't. Quite the opposite in fact - it probably reinforces terrorists' already fanatical 'reasoning'.
And as for how this allegedly works - imagine the scene - terrorist enters subway train 'errr excuse me, has anyone got a dried pigs blood pen on them?'
'yes me'
'ah right then' - terrorist moves to next carriage.
I mean really, this would be the stuff of sitcoms were it not so distasteful.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Several things have happened of late which imply I'm finally settling in. The weirdest thing by quite a long way is that my last two confrontations with Mrs N have not sent me running to craigslist in search of an apartment in another borough. This is a first, and indeed a second. In short, I think she has ceased to 'get to me'. I have a new policy now of alternating between totally ignoring everything she says, playing music so loud that she can't hear anything either of us are saying (and calling it 'my work') or laughing like a maniac for no apparent reason. This behaviour appears to 'disturb' her and her thrice daily visits have decreased to twice weekly. Result.

She is particularly disturbed it seems by Stevie's forthcoming album, various takes of which have been played over and over here for the past few weeks. As she has no music taste whatsoever (the one 'jazz' name - and I'm using the term very loosely here - she was able to recall, and I can't bring myself to utter, began in 'Kenny' and ended in the seventh letter of the alphabet), or indeed any music (her apartment being devoid of anything at all made of polyvinyl chloride or aluminium, as she is allergic), then this fact alone is a great selling point for the album I believe.

I was honoured to be allocated a small role as 'remote co-pilot' for the CD, which if you know about flying means I didn't get to touch the controls, but did get to suggest alternate flight paths, changes in velocity and integrated sequences of events, frequency modulations and atmospheric entry points. Obviously.

So I'm quite excited about it - not least because the playing is beautiful and the compositions so totally profound that even after dozens of hearings some of them still bring a tear to the eye, even in my new-found-neighbourless-state-of-joy. Clearly it's the remote-co-pilot's role to remain completely unbiased and remote. So I am totally unbiased and therefore wouldn't remotely suggest that you should all go buy it when it's out. Not at all.

Whilst listening to solo bass all day long, I've also been helping a few musicians out with their websites/myspace pages. This has been a really good learning thing and lots of fun. I am also fast on the way to learning to speak in html, mainly because I'm almost certain that use of it at the front door will further decrease the visits of Mrs N. On a more serious note though - all these things can be achieved whilst wearing pyjamas, which I'm beginning to think is the key to the perfect career. Granted, three times a week I swap my pyjamas for a different sort of pyjamas to go to tai chi classes, but of late I've been getting up properly at nightfall, when everyone else is putting their pyjamas on, and going out to gigs. Lots of gigs. Had a particularly good 4-gig evening with Tim Whitehead last week, and even more importantly a really interesting conversation with him about a possible 'jazz-project-which-cannot-yet-be-named', which would be the absolute perfect job for me, should it come about.....all fingers crossed please.

And the settling-in thing. Well. After months of exploring 'alternative' careers, imagining myself as anything from a paramedic to a scarecrow, I have realised over the last few weeks that I am meant to work with musicians. It's as simple as that and there's no escape from it. It's what I'm good at and it's what I enjoy the most. That doesn't mean I'm going to go work in a huge Arts Centre again - at least, not unless I'm a freelancer, but it does mean that I've been away from it for long enough now to come back with renewed energy and enthusiasm. And for the first time since I moved here, I'm open to interesting offers and I feel like creating things again....