White Jacket Woman

A funny happened on the way to the opera...

Well, actually, that's not entirely true, we better replace "on the way to" with "on the way home from." That's better, now we have a funny thing happened on the way home from the opera. Still not entirely right, you see it wasn't so much the opera as it was the cinema: a funny thing happened on the way home from the cinema...better, but still riddled with untruth. To call Adam Sandler's latest movie, Click, cinema could get me beaten up in academic circles around the country, so lets go with: a funny thing happened on the way home for Click. Okay, now that the tag line is out of the way lets get on with the post.

a funny thing happened on the way home for Click...

Still chuckling from watching professor of linguistics Christopher Walken bouncing up and down, placing full stops in mid sentence and punctuating words like only he can, Jess and myself we're making our way through the bustling streets of our fair Metropolis to the car parked on the other side of the city. Not a particularly interesting journey once you delete the all too frequent drunken cries of yobbos in the night, but as the World Cup is on at the moment this only adds to the ambience of a city overflowing with soccer fans who have no idea of the sport there cheering for, but are patriotic to bone and most likely wasted on cheap 'n' nasty beer (works for me).

Somewhere between seeing the seedy bouncer of a seedy night club usher a group of young girls into his den for free entry and the car, we pass a guitar wielding busker, a busker of better than average talents it should be noted, yet nonetheless a site we've all scene before. Walking by, the independent musician suddenly comes to the understanding that his endless days of strumming Pearl Jam covers in cold doorways have come to an abrupt end, and inspired by his new muse, the struggling bard proceeds to sing a song about Jessie and her white jacket, which she wore this night more for instillation for the cold than to inspire art. Smiling, we carried on our journey.

Around thirty or so paces from the busker we stop, his lyrics still echoing in the distance. "How much change do you have on you?" I ask Jess. We count our loose pennies and make our way back to the doorway.

The music stops.

"Look," I begin "we've got about $4.50 here. It's yours. It's yours if you can scat for while on my friend's jacket here." Not knowing the code of the street musician, I think for a moment that I may have offended this gentlemen of the verse by forcing his material. Yet still mesmerized by lady muse, the busker glanced only for a second at Jessie's coat and inspiration flooded over him like confines of the dam of rhyme had been opened. No description I could ever conjure could ever do justice the magic of what came next, you'll have to downloaded and listen for yourself:

http://rapidshare.de/files/24039312/White_Jacket_Woman.mp3.html

What's so funny about these events is that I think the guy was genuinely trying to make a move on Jess, as he never took his eyes off her and seemed to be boxing me out of the way like Charles Barkley with every cord he played. Between the magic of Chris Walken and the song, I think Jess had the best night out of her life. Heck, Lord knows I did...

The flu made me do it...

I've had the flu for almost four days now and I can't seem to shake it.

Tried cold and flu tablets...

Didn't work.

Tried honey and lemon... Didn't work.

Tried watching 13 straight episodes of Northern Exposure...

Didn't work (but well worth watching).

With all conventional medicine taken and all fabulous mid-ninties television logged what defense is there left to battle that furious flu....?

Try editing the poster for a Gene Wilder movie in Photoshop...


Feelin' fine.

Woody and me

I own a bass.

A bass guitar that for the last two years has given me identity as a man of music. An intrument that has allowed me to see the underbelly of a culture I might not normally be privy to. People, especially musicians themselves, treat you differently when they think you’re a kindred spirit; I don’t think this is a deliberate judgment on their behalf; it’s closer to a sense unity between canards than an act of discrimination to those that “can’t wail.”

Case in point: A popular Indy bar – Melbourne. Sitting at a bar after a rather lively show, the bass player of the band that has just finished its set sits on the wooden stool adjacent to me and orders a pint:

“Hey man, badass show tonight.” I compliment the longhair.
“Thanks,” replies the skeleton dressed in Iggy Pop memorabilia.
“No, man, I mean it. You guys played a mean set.”
“Yeah, well, what would you know about it, Narc?” He enquires in a rather agitated tone; presumably he believes I bought my ACDC shirt over Ebay. I did, but he doesn’t know that. In defense I quickly retort, “Hey, I’m just like you, man, I play bass too.”
A moment or two passes. The pale rocker looks me over, presumably grading my rock ‘n’ roll presence. I must score at least in the lower percentile of his criteria, because he says to me, “sorry, chief, I’m a little jumpy lots of posers out here gets under my skin, you know? Than again, it could be the speed kickin’ in, you never can tell.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I reply and run for door as fast as my girlish legs will carry me, but not before raising my first in the air and yelling “rock ‘n’ roll.”

What the Skeletor look-alike doesn’t know is I can’t play a lick on the guitar. I do own a bass, this much is true, but outside of a few relatively simple Nirvana songs, I can’t play a thing. Well, that's not entirely true, I can play Summer Lovin' from Grease, but that’s got more to do wearing leather pants than it does rock ‘n’ roll.

Like all slackers of my generation, I started out with noble intentions: the desire to learn, evolve and eventually create my own art, but soon got distracted by the latest installment in the NBA Live series, and left the guitar in the corner to collect dust, where it’s done so since sometime in early 2004.

What can be learnt from this little espisode? That the identity of a musician is only a superficial thing? Maybe, but then again I was posing as a musician so does that make me even more superficial? Maybe so. I have thought about taking another crack at learning the bass, but that would take far too long and cost millions of lives in the process. No, I thought it better to take a page out the Bill and Ted's book of learning and instead of exhausting countless hours making my fingers bleed, I decided to travel through time and learn from some of the greats long past.

It's amazing, but in only a few months of jumping through the circuits of time (yes, just like Bill Espreston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan) I found myself jamming with folk legend , Woody Guthrie. Don't believe me, here's the evidence...and for the seceret to time travel just originate Pi to its 1,000,000,000 place and divide by two - it's that simple, and fun to boot.

Excelsior!