“Vive La Vérité Inattendue de ce qui est Manifestement Indesirable”
I realised I’ve been doing most of my blogging via Twitter now. I will make amends.
I spent last night on an all-night photo walk. It mostly involved circling from The South Bank up Tower Bridge and back a couple of times, with a detour through China Town for some Chinese food at an open-all-night Chinese Restaurant.
I’ll try to edit an upload later today.
<shameless self promotion> In the meantime feel free to have a look at what’s currently in my Flickr stream. </shameless self promotion>
Life got a bit interesting.
Long story short, my GP signed me off ill for a couple of weeks and when I returned my services were no longer required at RIM.
Few people hiring, many people applying.
So…challenges lay ahead!
Last Sunday I trundled up towards East Croydon to catch the weekly lunch-time jazz gig at The Green Dragon. This week featured a brassy jazz-fusion veteran Derek Nash and Sax Appeal.
I knew the local music scene shifted from The Ship to The Green Dragon a while back, after the Hogshead sold up and the facade was painted green, but never managed to check it out until yesterday.
Though a recent convert, I like jazz. Live jazz works better than listening to it solitarily on an mp3 player — I don’t know why really, maybe because the intensity and dynamics of the music doesn’t translate well in recorded form generally.
Though a budding fan, I went with an ulterior motive: I wanted to try my hand at gig photography. I thought a small local venue might be an easy start, so armed with nothing more than a Sony 50mm/F2.8, a borrowed Tamron 90mm/F2.8 and my little Sony A200, I gave it a go.
A few things challenged me, as would anyone photographing gigs. The lighting leaves something to be desired - like light mainly. So I cranked the ISO to 1600, the aperture opened slightly wider than a medium-sized volcano but still had slow shutter speeds!
I managed to get a table right in front, so a good vantage point. The front of the stage was a line of tables in front of a line of tables, with a few supporting beams in between tables to ensure complete lack of movement.
Stage design included roll blinds, black curtains, ducts, vents and mains sockets. The lights were quite good all in all, and the lighting guy did a good job. But the stage lights failed to reach the back of the stage for the most part so the drummer and shy keyboard player stayed mostly in darkness. I lost a few shots to the limitations of a cheaper camera - the sensor just can’t do strong red and green lights properly and the noise required quite a bit of post-processing fu in order to make them acceptable.
For all that I had a fantastic time, I loved the music and felt completely at ease. I tried out some ideas which worked well. I think all things considered I feel pretty happy about the experience.
Just a quick reminder for fans of “Flight of the Conchords.” BBC4 start showing series two tonight at 10:30 p.m.
As an aside, I don’t know why the BBC started using hashes instead of the actual program names in their URLs, but b00kgbcx is a small but hilarious comedy about a Kiwi two-man beat combo with an uncanny knack of using familiar musical stylings with quite funny plot-appropriate lyrics. Worth a watch if you’ve not seen it before.
“Take your power back!” my therapist often counsels me during our sessions. Whenever she says it, I find myself thinking of Austin Powers trying to find his lost mojo, man. Fitting, as in the tribulations of the last few years I feel like I lost my mojo.
I understood what she meant to an extent. I tend to hold things in for months or years for fear of reprisal or rejection. But repressing righteous indignation - for lack of a better term - turns justifiable anger or annoyance into depression. These days I think pretty much everyone accepts that anger turned inwards causes depression. The other side effect is when anger gets bottled up it eventually explodes at the worst moment - like an old unopened pop can, I’m likely to spew foul words when suddenly shaken up.
Being able to express my grievances assertively would also go a long way from slipping back into that victim mentality that makes me an easy mark for bullies.
I started to put that in practice in a few things at work and online in the last couple of days. I stated my grievances with the full courage of my convictions and kept my cool. In both cases I felt imbued with a lot more confidence than I’ve had in months, if not years.
The key to the confidence kingdom is one thing I’ve always known but never really taken to heart: If I present my anger or annoyances in a reasonable way and the response is indeed reproach, rejection or reprisal, it’s not my fault. Adults act very differently - they work out differences in the confines of a safe, productive conversation. A bit of emotion or heated debate illicits a greater need for compromise perhaps, not anger, tears, running away or other non-adult behaviours.
So my first lesson in being an adult. Result: I feel like I got some of my mojo back.
On Saturday I grabbed a train into central London and headed up towards Fleet Street to attend a “Fotogym” one-day course in shooting stock photography.
I learned quite a bit about what constitutes good stock photography. I feel pretty confident I can upload some of my work to one or several “microstock” sites. I also now know I probably couldn’t make a living doing it unless I decided to spend at least 40 hours a week at it. If I do wind up jobless this summer, might be something to think about doing, though.
Also taking stock of my life right now. I guess it’s no secret I’m on a bit of a dip of the pendulum. I keep thinking about last year. I know that’s silly, and I understand, and agree with the frequent-but-well-meaning advice to “just get over it.” I do try and keep on trying. But I continue to struggle with deep psychological scars and lack of closure, in spite of my best efforts.
In the meantime I just keep focused on photography (okay I had to go for the obvious pun), keep learning to “take my power back” as my therapist says, to stop being the victim and realise I’m probably having a lot more fun now than I was then, even if it takes a long time to get rid of that “something’s missing” feeling.
Okay enough emo-tainment. In other Kews….
The previous weekend saw me on another photo walk, this time solitarily spending a sunny Sunday in Kew Gardens. The bluebells had just begun blooming and the rhodedendron was in full bloom and quite stunning. If you managed to miss Kew when the bluebells are in season make the effort next spring. First week in May is usually when they’re in full glory.
On the odd chance you’re not out playing in the sunshine in the coming days…
TEA!
“For All the Tea in China” - Radio 4’s Book of the Week this week. If you worship tea, or maybe just like history listen to this. This explains how tea ended up the national drink, complete with political intrigue and occasionally racy.
Canny Satire
“Down the Line” - Fast Show’s Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson’s spoof of the more ridiculous aspects of radio phone-in programmes.
Hot Men in High Drama
“ER” - More4 are showing two episodes from the final series of ER. The second of the two features John Stamos, Noah Wyle and George Clooney in an aging-but-still-very-sexy actor near-implosion.
For Music Lovers
“Blues Britannia: Can Blue Men Play The Whites?” - After a fantastic season of 1959 Jazz, BBC4 continues it’s musical explorations with a look at Britain’s musicians love affair with American Blues.
During his presidential campaign Barack Obama mentioned his future pet plans, explaining his family wanted a dog.
The pet plans popped up again early in his presidency and during his first presidential press conference he explained his family’s dilemma.
“There are a number of breeds that are hypoallergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.”
Before the Obamas made their choice, Senator Ted Kennedy helped make it for them by giving them a Portuguese water dog named Bo.
Being a mutt like Barack Obama and someone who adopts rescue dogs, I too wanted to see the first family adopt a mutt like me. In many ways, however, Kennedy giving Obama the Portuguese water dog, or PWD, proves far more significant. The gesture is chocked full of political metaphor.
Ted Kennedy and his niece endorsing Obama during the campaign suggests the Kennedy clan are finally willing to pass the the long-hidden scepter of Camelot to the Obama clan.
And why not?
In 1968 Robert Kennedy told Voice of America within 40 years a black man could be president. Not only an uncanny prediction in some ways an uncanny likeness to any of the Kennedy brothers - an avowed liberal, a progressive democratic who seems to command the respect of both the party old guard — despite being younger and less experienced than most presidents have been. Much like Bobby during the ‘68 campaign, Obama faced critics claiming lack of experience, hopeful rhetoric over actual substance and well-wrought policy statement; both wanted to bring stability to a nation bewildered by unchecked laissez-faire capitalism, a war many people believed was being fought to aid greedy corporations rather than needy populations and revolutionarily new attitudes towards race and sexuality.
Some pundits compare Barack taking up the reins of a nation harnessed to war to Lyndon Johnson moving into the presidency during the war in Viet Nam. If you look a closer at the escalation of the conflict in Viet Nam, however, hot off the heels of the conflict in Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan better fit the situation in South Asia in the 1950s.
Iraq may resemble the difficulties Viet Nam presented, but really is something of a Bay of Pigs scenario. When Castro came to power, America still believed in an inalienable right to a Western Hemisphere hegemony. The original invasion and plan to overthrow Castro was conceived and approved by the Eisenhower administration. Much like the Bush administration seemed to believe in an inalienable right to hegemony in the Middle Eastern oil economies and planned the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
So, much like John F. Kennedy, Obama walks into a recessionary country with two distinct wars to fight while having to keep an eye on a growling Russian bear and the PRC making the west nervous by supplying arms to the dictators we don’t like.
Giving the Obamas a small dog, not only represents a supportive welcome from an old-school democrat to a fellow liberal, but welcomes the family to take over a much more symbolic role. If the Kennedys can’t be in the White House, at least they have a small dog helping mind the place.
Maybe the the sounds of silence are finally being filled, if only by a small bark.
I walk or take public transport everywhere since I don’t drive.
To keep the tinny phones and leaky headsets at bay I listen to a portable audio player, as do most people these days. I listen to music sometimes, but often opt for talk radio when I get decent FM signals.
I listen to the most erudite to the most banal talk radio programs, all over the dial - from Melvin Bragg to Vanessa Feltz and everything in between. I don’t know why, I just do.
Some teaches me new info or ideas, some just passes the time but the ignorance of the the presenters and their fans a like sometimes annoys the **** out of me.
Radio 4’s “Down the Line” brilliantly satirises the latter category. The slightly-brighter-than-his-really-stupid fans presenter and the “Have Your Say” style feedback of the fans is spot on.
Definitely worth a listen if you’re near an FM or DAB radio at 6:30 p.m. this evening.
Radio 4 On the Ropes
Whither Andy Kershaw?
Radio 4 heavily promoted this week’s episode of “On the Ropes” featuring Andy Kershaw.
Despite frequent trailers almost up until the scheduled airing, Radio 4 pulled the program without a word of explanation Tuesday morning.
Later in the day Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer offered an explanation on the Radio 4 Blog - it was to protect the privacy of the people involved. The program was cleared with BBC lawyers but still pulled. I suspect there’s more story here and hope at some point we’ll hear more about the impetus for the decision.
I respect Andy Kershaw a great deal, even if not a fan per se. He fearlessly relates the world as he sees it, even at the risk hurling hard truths straight at the comfort zone of his fans.
My main reason for wanting to hear the program, however, is I’m a fan of stories of recovery from hard times. I admire the courage it takes to climb out of deep emotional holes and the willingness to recount the effort. Kershaw lost the proverbial “everything” including, for a time, his sanity but keeps trying.
I can only hope Radio 4 can iron out whatever issues prevented them airing the program. In the meantime I can only wish Kershaw well and hope makes a full recovery and pieces his life back together.
Tags: BBC, Commentary, Radio 4
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