6 April - Future & Blues

Last night saw Source Code - good, could have done w/o the last five minutes but realised he had to tag them on to explain/resolve stuff that may have been too difficult to comprehend by Joe and Joanna Midwest or similar - sorry American friends. Then went to watch a gig by someone I had no clue about and was more than pleasantly surprised, an amazing blues guitairst from Essex Ramon Goose & a kora player from Mali, Diabel Cissokho at Blues Kitchen in Camden. Cue both me and Toph after parking the car in Arlington rd, telling each other we dined at the Crown & Goose and at the Cafe' Delancey zillions of times back in the days there wasn't much else and Camden was cool. Mid-80's perhaps? It helped that the Camden Palace was my main attraction in Steve Strange days and my mate I. lived for 19 years two streets away. Two or three things in a night has often been my style. At the gig we were handed a compilaton CD and one of the tracks on there is by the North Mississippi Allstars. Hi Cody and bro. And how I'd like a little road trip round your woods. Tonight have a round trip to collect some Kilye tix from a friend who can't go next week, will take the token gay friend to it, then go watch some comedy in Kilburn which I never do but this is more story telling than comedy. Tomorrow is art in Shore shores, Friday is DFW allace at Foyles. No wonder am always knackered, I run around as I did when I was 30 and for what? Gigs, talks, dance, art but what does it all add up to? Stuff that clogs my brain and that I no longer remember the feeling of after the event. In fact, since it's a slow day at work, I'll try and remember a few salient shows: The Verve somewhere up north, only because Richard Ashcroft did 2 or 3 songs (see, can't even remember how many) the other night at japan disaster benefit and it triggered the memory of that gig and one of the very few times I've fainted like a stone to the ground. Always for same reason, forgetting I don't smoke dope and doing so because...you can't always say no. On this occasion I should have known super ultra better that what F. smoked was too strong even for her (major paranoid woman that she became after spliffs). It's no fun fainting by the feet of thousand of other gig goers, but at least there was grass (ha ha ha) in the field and so didn't crack my skull. The Araki exhibition at the Barbican, because it was an early date with Toph and felt super heightened by the fact that Araki's work is highly sexualised and therefore was a way to check he wasn't a bore in bed. Not sure what he was checking... that I may be into being tied up? He didn't /hasn't tried it - yet. The first Glastonbury, quite late in life, Prodigy and Underworld headlining, where I lost W. and had his tent /car/keys all to myself whilst he was busy taking 40 E's with S. who he met there (she had the bag of drugs as she worked as promo person at a label) and married a couple of years later. And didn't that turn out well. The second Glastonbury because contrary to the first, it was rainy/muddy/miserable and have hardly been back since. Vittorio Storaro being interviewed at the NFT because of all the beautiful excerpts of his cinematography. Probably at the time of Under a Sheltering Sky? I wanted to marry him. From that movie memory springs another, Blade Runner in Leicester Sq, possibly with DB. If not him then maybe MC? But DB for sure watching Rirchard Gere in American Gigolo same place. Then walking out of Three Colours Blue, at the end of course and deciding that it had to be the end of me and C. Much before then, crying my eyes out at a french movie about a doomed love story set in a circus, which my friend K. had taken me to on NYD 1989? because she didn't know what to do with my fountain of tears (MC had left me that morning). I also remember being stunned by Diva and Betty Blue (that gives away my age so easily) and liking going to the movies with P. beause he likes directors I didn't know... like the one who did In The Mood for Love and 2026. Am sure I can come up with more movie memories. Can't think of that many exhibitions... Andres Serrano at the Barbican? Sebastiano Salgao at the same? The art bus one summer from the V&A round graffiti locations? Anish Kapoor at the Hayward? the Biennale with A. ten years ago? Jenny Holzer at Moma in NYC? was on my own i think. Some great dj gig with FBS but which one to pick? I never went to the best ones in Ibiza. Maybe the one at Brixton with Armand van Helden? the first one on the beach in Brighton? the last one at the Big Boutique? The last Stone Roses gig at Reading and the end of me and N? but after which gig did we make it back to the Langham? Must have been Wembley.... The Acacia gig with Bjork in Dublin when Bono and Edge stood behind me. that festival up north they don't do anymore and Julian Cope was playing and me and C. had a great trip as if we were a real couple and not an affair to hide? Simple Minds at Wembley when we knew them? Actually for gigs there are too many of these and should be just the first ones which come to mind like Psychedelic Furs in West Brompton or Eurythmics at the Barracuda. Plus the two I never saw by accident... Marley at the Rainbow and Nirvana at the Waterrats. The first flotation tank in LA the year Altered States came out? Have seen precious few catwalk shows and they've never held me in thrall much. Clubs, oh my god where to start/stop? The nights spying on yellow jersey at Taboo? The ones at the Wag? or Love? the first time at the MoD when it was amazing? Ok, am boring myself now so will stop. how about dance? maybe the first time I saw Michael Clarke back in his first shows at Sadlers Wells? how about theatre? have seen tons and some fab stuff but it never sticks? Juliet Stevenson in Death and the Maiden twenty years ago? various Neil La Bute? various Checkhov? how about classical? Love Esa Pekka Sanonen directing anything he chooses? how about restaurants? zillions but am not a foodie so love Petrus (the marcus wareing version), loved Brawn in Columbia Rd the other night, remember milk and honey, arbutus, a lunch at Scotts, a b'day lobster in ireland, some pasta by the sea in italy, a dinner at l'aterlier de joel robuchon, some sunday lunches at the ringside in kingsland rd, doesn't exist anymore, the first time I ate avocado puree' in LA, which bore no resemblance to the avocado at Cafe' Pacifico back in the days when that was the one and only mexican restaurant in london, some amazing chinese in HK, street food anywhere in the east, the dahl and rice on the nepal trekking, but there's lots I will never remember and frankly never anything I've cooked since I eat to live and not live to eat sadly for Toph who sees his 'let's go out for dinner' often curtly declined. Basically what happens to Tilda Swinton in I'm Love will never happen to me, I just don't think my taste buds function properly, they're marginally better at savouring wine. But see, I can never really zone in on one thing and recall it perfectly, it's more 'oh yes, that was good'. Maybe too much choice?