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....