It’s Saturday afternoon so I’m starting to get over the hangover from last night. The end-of-course party was OK as parties go I suppose, went for ten hours (I was there for eight of them). Having crashed & burned miserably on shorthand I can’t get the diploma and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go along. But I did and was pretty sociable, apart from avoiding the shorthand tutor. It’s my fault not hers & I’ll sort out some kind of re-sit later, I just don’t feel up to thinking about it just yet. I lost count of how many beers I had, but stopped just as I was beginning to feel queasy and managed to avoid a repeat of this Valentine’s Day.
I ended up with the impression that I don’t have very much in common with my (now-ex) classmates. Probably just as well since journalists as a whole have to provide an overall picture of the society in which they live – it would be a terrible loss if they were all like me. But I found the sausages, rugby on the big-screen tv, emphasis on alcohol consumption, and bland mainstream music a bit weird. I made two token attempts to put on CDs I’d brought (everyone was asked to bring some) towards the end, which I thought were pretty accessible: Tom Waits and Anti-Pop Consortium. They were each met by a swift aaarrrgh turn that shit off response which took me back to my high school and first flatting days. Oddly the music of choice included a lot of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, The Band, The Beatles, Trinity Roots… all stuff which I rate, but for me it’s partly the way artists have to be prepared to challenge audiences and if necessary not give them what they want that matters. Neil Young’s ‘dark period’ albums Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach are masterpieces, Dylan & the Band are famous for getting booed all over the world in 1966, the Beatles’ songs are OK because they did things like ‘Revolution 9’ as well (my mother refused to believe it was the Beatles when I played it to her, and couldn’t even handle ‘I am the Walrus’). And I doubt that my classmates would enjoy Derek Bailey for example or even recognize what he does as music.
The inevitable discussion of the merits of Britney Spears had me in an ‘against’ minority, and I pointed to her appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 saying we should all just follow ‘our’ president as evidence of the links between pop music, corporate capitalism and conformism. The argument for was that it’s OK to tune out to something mindless once in a while, which is OK but in the case of Britney Spears one could argue that her music just plain sucks. I think I will go see Alien vs Predator this weekend though.
Maybe it’s partly because the party wasn’t a celebration for me since I didn’t get the shorthand, but I didn’t score anyone (though it did seem to be a night for the singles to pair up). Some of the female classmates are distinctly sexy but somehow I just wasn’t interested. There was an attractive older woman who was flirting with me but she would have had to outright ask me home with her for anything to happen. It takes a special/unusual kind of woman to be interested in me (backhanded compliment to the very few who have), I think the rest just look straight past me. And I wouldn’t have the faintest clue how to ask someone out, I generally wait for them to ask me – which can mean waiting a very long time.
I also wanted to go see Nigel at the Cross to talk about ideas for the Fringe show in February, and went along there after the party dissolved. The Chandeliers were playing to a full house of people, all really into it. I remember seeing them last year playing there on Wednesday nights to five people. Their music has improved a lot since though, presumably reflecting the time spent on it. A Fringe show is going to be a big undertaking, too much for me on my own so it’ll obviously have to be a collaborative venture and it’s great to have Nigel on board. My friend & valuable collaborator Mike is also keen to do a Fringe show – he’s got a musical presentation of George Orwell’s 1984 in his head which he wants to make happen. That’ll be more of a ‘musician’ thing though, complete with scores so my ability to contribute would be limited. My Fringe idea is to work up something good with the Ascension Band, which I see as a way of getting a bunch of people together and providing a loose structure while letting them all express themselves individually - kind of based on the John Zorn method of telling people when to play but not what to play. The band should be a mixture of trained (to give it form and musicality) and untrained (to keep it raw & unpredictable) players. We’ll have to work out if there’s enough common ground to combine the ideas or if they need to be separate shows.
The downside of going to the Cross (with a few drinks inside me) was seeing Elisa there with the latest in a long series of new partners. I warned him to look out for her or she’d ruin his life, and said to her ‘I wish I’d never met you’. So much for growth & maturity this year. The last time I saw her she gave me a rather petty & hurtful putdown just when I thought we were having a good conversation, so this was payback (and probably venting my shorthand frustration). What used to be a beautiful relationship’s now deteriorated to the level of a childish slanging match. I shudder to think what a divorce with children and property involved must be like.
So, feeling angry with myself for not putting enough work into shorthand, having failed to find a lover or long-term friends in the course, and just generally feeling alienated from the Wellington scene it’s just as well I’m leaving for a while. Going into exile maybe, not sure for how long but in any case it’s intended as a prelude to traveling around overseas, a way of easing me into a new nomadic lifestyle. I’ve been in one place long enough. I’ll take a guitar, pen & paper, a harmonica in my pocket (my good luck charm – I lost mine a while ago so need to get another), and be open minded and meet new people on the way. It'll be good. Two more sleeps then I’m out of here.
I'm a little worried at the moment though as my chest feels a bit heavy & I'm coughing up a lot of stuff from deep down. It seems to happen once a year, and four years ago it turned into pneumonia. I suspect that's what's going to kill me in the end, I'll go not with a bang but a whimper. Hopefully not for a long while yet though. I might just flag going out for Saturday night and have a bath and read a book instead. I borrowed a couple from my mother's bookshelf to take away, William Faulkner's The Sound & the Furyand George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying. I also picked up JG Ballard's Cocaine Nights from a 2nd hand bookshop so those are my reading for the trip. I'll have a low-key weekend, wrap up warm, pack my bags and work on a couple of short stories before I go. It'll be nice to not have assignments due.
http://fiffdimension.tripod.com
I am among those people who enjoys some stupid, mindless music now and then... I'm sure you'd be appalled at some of what's in my CD collection (I'm appalled myself sometimes). But it makes me happy, so I let it slide -- happiness is too hard to come by to start denying any potential source.
But for god's sake, even I can see that Britney's music is just completely and utterly worthless crap. Enjoying stupid music is one thing, but you can still have _some_ standards.
Posted by: Sister Novena at October 17, 2004 08:59 AM