Yuka been down for a couple of days as if anyone would notice and there’s a little fly crawling across my screen. Oh the corruption of everything!
Since I’m obviously no good at this I have handed the writing over to a guest writer (stealing Geoff’s idea of a few weeks ago. What? You mean you haven’t been reading his lovely erudite site? Shame on you! It’s far better written than this. See the link over on the left for details.)
Guest writer Sylvie says “Woof!”
So cetaceans. Better check the spelling on that one as I don’t often have reason to type it. “What’s that you say Flipper? We’re talking dolphins here?” Well there you have it right from the blue-grey fellas mouth. Went out on a (medium) speed boat on the Intercoastal Waterway on Saturday and verily, an hour or so into the trip (gently pottering up the river slowing down every now and then so as not to maim the Manatee’s, “oooh me Manatees are giving me gip”) out of the water a hundred feet or so behind the good ship Speedy, jumped a dolphin shaped object in that particular, “I’m really having a lot of fun” way that they seem to have. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I vaguely remember that their closest land relative is the cow. Something about their shared land ancestor deciding to return to the sea. Or did I dream that?
Anyway, check out the little video thingy here of me swearing and being impressed in a very embarrassing way when Flipper decided to suddenly turn up next to the boat five minutes later… Warning: Contains grownup language and hippy-like exclamations.
Then Monday back to Ann Arbor via a far less bumpy plane ride than the one to Florida and a couple of nice days chilling out after all this hard work then Wednesday, horror of horrors, the return journey begins. How the hell did 3 months go by so bleedin’ quick?
Flight from Detroit to Newark and then a taxi to a most depressing motel room near the airport featuring a pizza and a bit of TV before setting my alarm clock for 4:30 am ready to catch BA flight 106 (errr scary sounding one…) to London Heathrow. Excellently, although I was in economy, the flight was far less than full and so I had the dream ticket of a row of 3 seats to myself all the way home. Stretch out and relax in front of The Office Christmas special from last year (yup, cried like a big girl at the end, innit sweet?) and then watched a DVD of David Bowie’s last tour (pre heart op) on me laptop. I love my laptop like Father Jack loves his brick. Top live show anyway just as I remembered from Wembley.
At Heathrow I wished my phone still worked as I waited to get picked up by my lovely sister who had just moved into her first house that she owns. In my tired confusion I managed to tell her the wrong terminal number to pick me up from. STILL not getting any cleverer.
Friday was a day of tiredness jetlag style with added grumpiness for no apparent reason. Did manage to get the new Douglas Coupland book though and it’s signed which is kinda groovy. Did I mention that I love Douglas Coupland?
Saturday was a day of catching up with friends in a proper English style pub, followed by a short stint at a party and then back to a mates for a bit for a natter before falling like a dolphin from a particularly large leap into me big comfy bed and giving it ZZZZZZZzzzzzzz’s.
And now your up to date cos it’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in me mum’s front room listening to an old Flesh 4 Lulu album and drinking a cup of tea.
So where next? France, that’s where. Off there for 2 weeks on Wednesday to catch up with my favourite person that I’ve ever spent a month in Manhattan with and then down to Toulon to say “‘ello” to some old friends and to see whether I can speak French still.
Berlimey it’s odd to be back in Eng-ger-land.
Good afternoon, it’s Monday (Well it isn’t necessarily Monday while you read this or indeed a good afternoon, but it was when I wrote it, OK?) and I’m on Delta Flight 276 out of Sarasota going to Atlanta for an hour long lay over. I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned this before but when ever I find out a flight number I’m going to be on, I try it out in sentences to see how comfortable it would sound to hear a news anchor type person saying it; so for instance I will try out, “The doomed Delta flight 276 out of Sarasota…”, “The ill-fated Delta flight 276 took off from Sarasota”, and various others to set my mind at rest that I have at least a slim chance of getting to my destination without the words “Plummet”,”Cornfield”,”Fireball”,”Tragedy” or “The Brave Pilots Wrestled With The Controls Of The Stricken Aircraft Narrowly Missing A Local School” becoming involved in a news type way. Now the last flight I was on was Delta flight 1120 out of Atlanta. That sounds eminently safe as it doesn’t fit into either of my test sentences comfortably, I mean it just doesn’t roll off the tongue right? On the other hand “Delta flight 276” is a bit more of a worry and to top it all we’ve got a nun on board. I’ve seen the movies OK? And every single one of them features one of these Brides of Chucky. If she pulls out a guitar, I’m getting off. Did I also fail to mention we haven’t taken off yet?
Let’s go back to Florida, not literally, as I’m back to Ann Arbor today, but let’s go there in our minds shall we? I’ll lead, you follow and for gawds sake, try to keep your feet off mine? This suede is a bugger to clean. Florida has great roadside billboard adverts which kind of give you a clue about many of the people who live there. There’s ads for hip replacements, dentures, arthritis treatments, mole removal, and of course funeral parlours. A significant segment of the population here is O-L-D as Daphne and Celeste might say, and they probably never ever needed an alibi because they are all pretty much retired accountants. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve known some really nice accountants in the past, Dave, Trevor, Rhodri, Kevin, and other’s, all of’em diamond geezers to a man in a sorting-your-money-out type of way and in a social let’s-get-drunk-and-have-a-laugh way. But a state populated largely by geriatric accountants seems to me in some way to be lacking a little variety. I’m sure even the elderly accountants would probably agree with me on this one. They’d probably like to have a conversation on the golf course or over a bowl of the local chowder with someone who did something different to what they did. You know, just to get the brain cells kicking along a bit? Maybe I’m wrong.
Also as I go through a day I often just note down a couple of words if I think of, or experience something, that I think would be good to put in this big page of rubbish. The next note in my little black book (Moleskine) seems to say “Gay Locals”… I have no idea. Instead, I’ll commend the last Divine Comedy album to you. It really is very very good.
More flying to do now… Back probably when I get back to Britainland with more pictures and working technology…
Beers Tuesday next? Red Lion about 6? Oh yes…
x
Last morning in Florida then before flying back to Ann Arbor for a couple of days then back to Britainland on Thursday… berlimey that were quick!
Technology has become a little issue as my phone has bitten the dust with pics from the last few days on it and I forgot to bring the lead to Florida for me little digicam thingy. Doh…
Should be able to get some pics up here in the next couple of days I think. Oh it’s all so tricky!
I’ll leave the stuff about hiring a boat until I get the images to go with it so what else? Yup, yesterday met up with Ken and his missus Yoim and a couple of their friends for a mellow lunch in a bar called Coasters by the intercoastal waterway. Very nice indeed and another ridiculously hot November day. Then back to Nigels condo for an evening of NFL watching. After a bit of explanation I can almost see why that’s exciting as a sport. It don’t ‘alf go on a bit though…
So here I am in late November sitting in a pair of shorts on a balcony overlooking a small lake. Life still not becoming too tough.
After the stunning success of my Moose safari up in Vermont, I’d been itching to get back on the wildlife trail. The primal human desire to hunt animal flesh in a vegetarian way has been eating away at me (not them) and so when presented with the chance to track down some new wildlife in Florida I jumped at the chance like a rubber spider attached by a short piece of piping with a bulb on the end of it that you squeeze to scare small children.
“Alligators are the new moose” is what they all say down here, so being easily led, I forgot all about my antlered friends and went off in a man-against-nature-way into the wilds with my good friend and host “Crocodile Nigel” in search of Alligatus Manytoothicus. In scenes reminiscent of Deliverance (well, I’m not from round here and I have it on good authority that I sure have a purdy mouth) we headed off alone into the swamp lair of the ancient and venerable beast in our trusty boat guided by a small bird, armed recklessly with only a camera phone and a can of coke…
Actually that wasn’t the boat we went on, and we kind of actually didn’t go quite as alone as I’m making out. This was the boat…
And these were the people we went with…
Anyway, supported by our brave geriatric troop we paid 8 dollars each for… OK it was a pleasure boat ride full of old people ably piloted by a retired biology teacher with a microphone and a love of birds.
So here we go… See if you can spot the alligators in these pictures…
Come on there’s not much time…
Yup, alligators are like moose in many ways, well mostly one way, they are very hard to spot. I do promise that there was a toothy reptile in each of those pictures though. They were just small and far away. Ah well, nearly Christmas…
Off to hire a proper boat today to go out on the intercoastal waterway for a few hours. See you after water danger…
La Floride, or the Flower as they say in Espagnol allegedly. Have you ever seen so many medical centres? There’s a lot of old people in Sarasota, some would say more so now that I have arrived, and they seem to need a lot of medical attention. Billboards advertising hip replacements are kinda funny though… Florida is the place where middle-management-and-above America retires to. They all wear identical clothes and, I’m guessing, have identical conversations, possibly comparing joint replacement deals.
Florida is also the place where some very nice people live ruled over by Princess Demi Del Monaco and her love of dancing, bubbles and jumping up and down.
These kind people took me in for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving (celebrating the help the Native Americans gave to the European settlers when they were close to starving back in the 1600’s I think) is just too easy a target for me so I’ll leave it alone… no I will… gmmmmph… I’m not saying anything… honest… you should hear the noise in my head now though.
I however give thanks for nice people who made me a vegetariananian version of their biggest meal of the year and provided good company throughout the day. That’s my Thanksgiving. Let’s try to hire a boat today shall we?
Right so where were we up to then? errrr… the last bits of Ann Arbor.
Well after I last spoke to you (how have you been by the way?) I had a bit of an odd day to say the least, which was started by the sound of moaning coming from the next door apartment. Being British, obviously I ignored it at first, in fact, knowing vaguely of the guy who lives next door, I assumed he was lying in a pool of his own vomit trying to work off the last of his hangover. The moaning, however, continued at increasingly high volume until I was forced into action. For action, read, forced to put on some trousers (or pants here) and go knock on his door. I really hope, by the way, that I have not managed to pick up an embarrassingly American accent by this point. It’s very difficult to know. Maybe I’ll record my voice and see if I can discern any difference.
Anyway, back to Moany. I knocked and “No Answer” came the stern reply. I knocked again and was rewarded with another most blood curdling moan so throwing caution to the wind I took a run up and barged open the door with my shoulder, shouting, “everyone down on the floor with your hands where I can see ’em, this is a raid.” Actually, no I didn’t. I called 911 (which is not a joke in Ann Arbor) and a few mins later some of the local “Bears” (as they called them in the song Convoy the sound of which reminds me of the first time I ate peanut butter as a kid while playing with me train set) arrived and took a run up and barged open the door with their shoulders, shouting, “everyone down on the floor with your hands where I can see ’em, this is a raid.” Actually, no they didn’t. They opened his window and went in to find him in a diabetic coma, so they called an Ambulance.
Call me old fashioned but I’m thinking the ambulance should have arrived before the cops, but what do I know? Well I do know that shortly afterwards, a big fire engine arrived too, packed with big, burly, US firemen (steady ladies) who presumably were there to cover him in water should the poor guy accidentally catch fire while being injected with adrenaline. They had a good look and seemed to think that he was not a fire risk so left shortly afterwards, but it’s best to be safe right?
Actually, I think this is possibly symptomatic of something that’s been bugging me during my time in Ann Arbor. You see, Ann Arbor thinks it’s a city. It’s not. It’s 1 main street and a few roads that branch off it. But I’m guessing that when anyone calls 911 in the lovely TOWN that is Ann Arbor, the emergency services feel duty bound to come over like they were dealing with a major incident on the streets of Manhattan, possibly one that has taken out three or four blocks and poses a threat to thousands of innocent civilian lives. In their minds eye I’m thinking they see “Godzilla trampling buildings” and are most upset to find “Bloke Moaning”. Anyway, that’s Ann Arbor, lovely town, NOT A CITY. Grrrr… rant… grumble…
Where was I? Ah yes. Bloke Moaning. So anyway, after a lot of injections of insulin and adrenaline and a fair bit of shouting as he came out of his coma, Bloke Moaning, became Bloke recovering and the cops, bears, ver filth, whatever you prefer, came by and thanked me very much for calling them and told me that the ambulance woman had said I’d saved his life. So that was nice.
That got me thinking about all that cause and effect business and consequences and stuff and how if I hadn’t ditched my job and then rented out my house and come to America and in the meantime met someone random online by accident that I ended up staying in Ann Arbor with, then Jason, for that is Moany’s name, would quite possibly be deaded by now. Then obviously, because it’s me, I worked way backwards via my parents meeting, their parents meeting, the pilgrims going to the US, The first humans evolving, the spark of life starting in the primordial soup (does that come with croutons?) on an infant earth, the forming of the solar system from the dust cloud that became our galaxy after the initial big bang where everything that makes up anything that ever was including you and me, existed in the form of an infinitely small dot, and how we are now part of a universe that is experiencing itself subjectively (thanks Bill) and then that there’s that really good poem about this stuff called In the Beginning by Primo Levi the Italian, Chemist, Partisan, Poet and Work Camp survivor, and how I always think that the title of that poem is The Black Stars, but it isn’t because that’s another poem by him that is much, much more depressing but also very good.
So are we all clear?
Anyway, Jason came round later and thanked me for saving his life and I mumbled “That’s fine” in an embarrassed way because, well, because it’s embarrassing to have someone thank you for saving his life. You try it. I suppose that we are now blood brothers in some way or is it that now having saved his life, I am now responsible for what he does with it? I can’t remember, but sod it all, I’m in Atlanta now anyway so he can’t hold me to it.
“Atlanta?” you say. “Isn’t that in Georgia in the South Of the US?”. “Why, yes it is” I reply and I’m here for but 2 hours on a stop over on the way to Florida. When I got on the plane this morning at Detroit airport, initially, not many people got on with me and I thought “Oh good, I can stretch out across the seats and have a nice relaxed flight, possibly watching a movie on my laptop or snoozing.” Oh dear no. The reason that the plane was near empty turned out to be that they had to get contractors in to widen the tunnel that gets you on the plane because the family, friends and doppelgangers of Augustus Gloop from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory had chartered the plane.
Now when they say, “Plane seats 80 passengers” in the manual that comes with it, I’m guessing that they are not assuming that 1 of those passengers is a skinny little bugger like me while the other 79 of them are Sumo wrestlers who frankly have let themselves go a bit, crowbarred into elastic wasted casual clothing. Jeez, the plane ended up taking off held together with bungee cords and sellotape. But it made it here, just, although I’m not convinced that they managed to get all the wheels off the ground for the journey… It were bumpy enough.
So Atlanta’s Jackson airport. What’s that about then? Well it’s full of Guys and Girls in full Desert Storm regalia or is it Operation Freedom nowadays? I forget, and don’t even get me started on those 21st century euphemistic mission names for going out on killing sprees… The fast food shops sell Polk Salad (Annie, gators got your granny – Great song) and Pork and Greens, and Mess Of Greens and all those other crazy deep south sounding food stuffs that they have in old blues songs. Bet you could get squirrel too if you asked nicely. I had a grilled cheese sandwich (no tomatoes) and a Sprite and sat down for a bit of a read. Damn, flying makes me want to smoke. Did I mention I’d given up? Well I have. So there. Stopped the Saturday before Chicago (back down there in the mists of the internet) and apart from a when I was sitting in the hot dog bar where I cracked a bit, nary a puff has passed my lips since. That’s 11 days today I’ll have you know. Methinks I may crack again in Florida, but hey, waddya do?
Hang on, got to get on a plane…
OK back from that tangent, Jackson airport, surrounded by infantry in desert fatigues, some bloke playing I Just Called To Say I Love You in the style of Richard Clayderman on the piano in the lounge, I sat down for a read of Carrie Fisher’s Delusions of Grandma, (very very good so far, possibly a bit camp for your average GI but full of excellent short observations as only Carrie can pull off), found a copy Soldier Of Fortune so started reading that instead. If you’ve never seen it, in theory it’s a magazine for military mercenaries (soldiers of fortune as they prosaically put it, hired killers as might make more sense.) In reality, it’s a mag who’s readership mostly consists of geeky computer programmer types who are looking for a cheap testosterone/ adrenaline thrill. Full of ads for big guns and articles comparing and road testing tanks rather than cars. Might get a subscription.
I had a point when I started writing that but lost it somewhere along the line in a mess of very very rocky turbulence. My laptop just floated in front of my eyes for a second or so and then landed softly onn thr tray in front ogr mre, (authentic turbulence typing!) and I left my stomach somewhere a few thousand feet up and my heart in Ann Arbor. Some people got nasty bumps on the head from flying luggage too. How dramatic. All seems nice now though and after having taken off in fog, and then ascended into cloud filled with concrete lumps and big bungee jumps, the plane has come out into clear air and a beautiful multicoloured sunset and I can see the sea below me which I assume is the Gulf Of Mexico. On the little TV on the plane it showed that Jackson was nearish to Memphis Tennessee which is nice in an Elvis-y way. I like Elvis. Even the bits where he got fat and played sad ballads at the end of his life. So sue me, as they say here. Soft Shoe me as I prefer. Now I’m on the plane, 20 minutes from Sarasota, several thousand feet up in the air, a bit like my life.
In closing, I’d just like to say, I really hope that John Stewart’s Daily Show is on TV every day when I get back to the UK as the man is a genius and could do more to make Europeans realise that Americans are not bad people than most people ever could and has helped me mantain my sanity here. He is also very funny.
I rest me case yer ‘onour and throw this extended edition of gobbledegook on the mercy of an unsuspecting public. Back to monosyllables and pictures next time I promise. Now get me that Orange Juice. Alvie says “Hello Florida woof”
Who put the Chic in Chicago? Who put the Ram in the Ramalamadingdong?
Well I went there anyway. (Chicago that is, not the fictitious land of Ramalamadingdong). People I was with had tickets to see The Pixies there so I tagged along. Apparently The Pixies sucked so that was good. I on the other hand when faced with an evening of staring at a TV in a hotel room (and not a witty and erudite one like the one I had in New York) decided to do something I NEVER do and go and sit in a bar on my own and see what happened.
I went to this bar…
Now looking at it you might wonder what exactly about it out of the the several dozen bars I could have chosen attracted me to this godforsaken looking place? (And deep breath. That was a hell of a sentence. Well done for getting through it.) Well the sad but true reason is that when I walked past it the first time, there was a bartender and one customer in it and that customer had black clothes and a Velvet Underground circa 1969 type haircut. The idea of going into a trendy looking bar full of jolly young people listening to modern music (it’s all bang bang bang and you can easily tell the boys from the girls, not my sort of thing at all) filled me with dread so after a brisk walk in the wind and rain to the hotel to get me ID, into the Hot Dog Bar I went. First there was a stilted conversation about American Football, they tried, I failed. Then we moved on to what we did for a living, again my answer tends to annoy people more than anything. Finally we got on to a safe subject, music. The bartender was a drummer in a band he’d started and liked much the same dodgy music that I did, Allelujah! 3 hours passed in the blink of 6 beers and 5 shots of Makers Mark bourbon. Remember what happens when I drink bourbon?
Yeah well it happened again. It was a great night though. Patrick the ace bartender, poured many beers and gave many free shots and tried to charge me a paltry amount at the end of the night (like about £4.50 seriously). We chatted and laughed, agreed about most things musical, set the world to rights politically, and exchanged email addresses in order to hear each others musical efforts.
Now some might laugh at my going into a bar attached to a hot dog shop and spending all night drinking with the bartender in an empty bar but those people would be mistaken and evil. They can laugh at this instead…
Well you need shades with a hangover the size I had…
While in Chicago, I also bought one of these…
Dunno why but they are another thing that I am inordinately obsessed with from my childhood along with Sea Monkeys, X-Ray Specs and Charles Atlas body building courses for 9 stone weaklings like myself who get sand kicked in their faces by tough guys. Perhaps all those old imported Marvel and DC Comics I got given as a kid warped my mind in some way?
There’s a very good St Etienne song called Zipcode which deals with my childhood in a bizarre parallel way. I did have the wrist radio, and if you replace apes with pigs then pretty much the whole song happened to me. So there.
Hmmm what else now I’m in a posting kind of mood? Well there’s other pictures like these…
Food with a Greek what? (first spotted by N)
Are you sure that’s safe?
Huh?
And finally in other news… What would you say is going on here? Please use the comments bit to post your picture caption if you can be bothered…
So after another night of crap sleep, this time involving a dream of living in a world covered under a layer of the liquid that Ed Harris uses to breathe in The Abyss, I wake to find that the heating has been up full all night. Doh! Well that explains the difficulty I was having breathing under water then… Neill, you were having your engagement party under the goop too but the money we bought you got all wet and it was difficult to dance.
Oh what a night (der dup der dup dup) as Frankie Valli might once have said… fortunately the people at the SciFi channel have saved the day by putting the best damn trilogy ever on all morning. Wassat you say? “What’s The Godfather doing on the SciFi channel?”. Don’t be daft! It’s Planet Of The Apes innit. Not that new stupid version, the old Roddy McDowell/Kim Hunter versions. Pure class. Currently on Escape From The Planet Of The Apes which is a little lighter than the first 2 with much advanced-chimps-dressing-in-70’s-clothes hilarity, before the more tragic end followed by the more hopeful epilogue. “mama… mama…”. Ooh it’s so twisty and turny and Ricardo Montalban is in it…
It’s got a bit colder here in Ann Arbor since last posting, very much hats and gloves weather, so I’m glad I bought a hat and gloves in the last post. Well this is just gold dust isn’t it. Glad you started reading? Bet you are!
Me go back to monkeys… they understand me…
…and geese…
