Sdtrk: ‘My name is Nobody’ by Ennio Morricone

SATURDEEEE
Panic and Adventure were the Order of the Day that day, as I had arrived at Jeff’s house, and found him repairing the babygate, as the latch had self-destructed. Fascinating device, the babygate, as it happens to be constructed entirely from the bones of recently deceased infants. Also, it’s really haunted. As implied by the name, it keeps out babies, and pretty much everyone else, really, by apearance alone. But it was busted, and Jeff’s wife Kari was stressing out about it. She took off in search of a new one, at which point, Derek materialised, and the three of us headed to the basement to ostensibly began our evening. We managed to watch the first episode of ‘Nighty night‘, which is a riotously dark Britcom, and well worth viewing, when midway through that, Kari returned home, and asked if Jeff could go looking for a better babygate. So after the Nighty night ep was over, we scrambled upstairs, piled into Derek’s car, and sped off to the nearest Meijer.

We wandered round probably for a sum total of ninety minutes. Jeff, cos he walks so damn fast, lost Derek and I, and then my phone rang and I lost Derek. Mari rang me, as she was just getting off work, and said she’d meet us up at our Meijer location. As I was on the phone with her, my eyes were drawn to a rather nice-looking watch that I figured would finally be my current watch‘s successor (more later).
Eventually, I reconvened with Derek, who’d found Jeff, and we ran into Mari down the front of the store. Jeff couldn’t locate a babygate that wasn’t up to his standards of material — when you’re used to your gate built of femurs and the like, you’re gonna be rather hard to please, let’s face it — so he’d picked up a hook-and-eyelet pack, so he could jerry-rig a new latch. Materials and participants duly gathered, we then headed back to Jeff’s. I went with Mari to make sure she didn’t get lost, so I got to drive her car, which was fun. To me, it’s always fun driving other peoples’ vehicles, as it’s like a wee holiday from my own automobile. Like a little rolling Ibiza.

We returned to find that Tim and his new friend Mikki were already there. They needed to meet up with Derek, as Tim had left his phone betwixt Derek’s sofa cushions on Friday night. That sounds rather pervy, but we’ll let it pass. The lot of us kinda milled round the kitchen, Jeff and Derek having a go at the babygate repair, and twenty minutes later, anti-infant security was restored! Then Derek took off, cos he needed some sleep, as he’d been up since 7am playing World of Warcrack.

Back downstairs, the main thing we watched were highlights of a fillum that Jeff chose to review for his digitallyObsessed.com gig; a real piece of work called ‘Let me die a Woman‘. It. Was. HORRIBLE. Apart from the esteemed Dr Leo Wollman speaking to the camera and obviously reading from cue cards, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film with so many random sex scenes that were utterly devoid of any vestiges of eroticism. And there was this excruciatingly close-up sequence of Dr Wollman examining a post-op shoddily-assembled male-to-female transsexual that will give me nightmares for the rest of my days. I will never look at roast beef sandwiches the same way ever again. Yes, we were all laughing, but I think it was mostly due to shock.
Eventually, Tim and Mikki ran away screaming took off, and we viewed the first four eps of ‘Black books‘, as I had raved about it to Mari on several occasions. Then Jeff kicked us out round three. A fine, if partially repulsive, evening!

SUNDEY
Met up with Mari late in the evening, for the purposes of ‘hangin’ out’. It was a bit unusual, as I hardly ever go out-of-doors on Sunday, as that’s my ‘catch up on stuff that I neglected over the course of the week’ day, which could also be read as my ‘get out of bed at 1pm’ day. Anyway, I got round to Mari’s digs round 7pm, and since everything was pretty much closed, we hit Meijer, and wandered round there for almost four hours. Yeah, that astonished me as well, when I got home and realised how much time we spent there. That’s a whole lot of Meijer. However, I did manage to buy that watch I’d mentioned spotting.

I’m having some difficulty getting the fecker set though. Also, there’s no light-up function for it, the lack of which I would’ve overlooked, were I not having difficulty setting the fecker. So I might well return it later this week and try again. Looks nice though, doesn’t it?
Our evening came to an exciting conclusion, as we stopped round to Blockbuster video, so Mari could rent some fillums. She grabbed four: Oldboy, The Football factory, Immortal, and something else. I’d suggested the first three, as The Football factory was ace, Oldboy is worth seeing cos the first half of the film is fantastic (but the ending’s shite), and I’ve been wanting to see Immortal, so I’m having her be my guinea pig for that one. And then I dropped her off home, and then went home myself. A fine, if mostly Meijer, evening!

Happy 23rd! The end

Sdtrk: ‘Microtronics 13’ by Broadcast

So yeah, as you may have suspected from the Subj.title and soundtrack choice, I decided I was well enough to go witness Broadcast on Sat eve. Was it worth it? Indeed it was!

Jeff, Tim and I left got to the Magic Stick round 8.30, as the doors were due to open at 9, and we didn’t want to have to wait in a potential queue that stretched round the block, like when the faint played there. Oddly enough, there wasn’t a line at all! Not that we were complaining, of course.
As I’d stated, the doors (meaning, the iron gate at the top of the steps that lead up to the venue) were supposed to open at 9, but they didn’t actually do so until almost 9.30, which was weird, as the Stick is usually spot on with their ‘door open’ time. That’s the sort of silly bollocks that we’d come to expect from seeing shows at St.Andrews in downtown Detroit, back when 90% of the good shows played there, which is something that hasn’t happened since the mid-to-late Nineties. But St.Andrews used to do that all the time — they’d say ‘Doors open at 8pm’, and they’d open like an hour later, sometimes longer. I tell you, waiting for whoever to get their shit together and open up when you’re physically waiting out in the weather was truly the Apex of Fun. But I digress.

So we get upstairs and grab a table off to the right. About ten minutes after that, the merchandise guy materialised, offering vinyl, T-shirts, and the coveted volume 2 of ‘Microtronics’. Broadcast has always been a band that have worn their influences proudly on their polyester sleeves, and the Microtronics series is no exception. Basically, it’s their collision of the heyday of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the Manhattan Research Incorporated years of Raymond Scott, and music from science class 8mm filmstrips. Pretty much standard Broadcast fare, only each track is an instrumental averaging about two minutes in length. Plus, the art is done ‘in the library style’, meaning the 3inch Cds look as if they belong on the shelves of a broadcast (ho ho) studio’s library. All of these factors add up to Cds that are required purchases. Besides, they’re a snip at $8..

Round 10pm, the opening act Gravenhurst, from Wales, by their own admission, took the stage. Labelmates of Broadcast, they’re best described as ‘competent’, and ‘indie’, and unfortunately, ‘nothing to write home about’. They had a number of fans amidst the crowd, as signified by the number of ‘wooooo!!‘s between numbers, but you could also chalk that up to people getting their pints in. Unremarkable? Yeah, pretty much. Good try though, lads.

Broadcast went on round 11. Trish, James, and the two new/fill-in blokes played to a by-now full house, performing songs from ‘Tender buttons’, and a couple dating back to ‘The noise made by people’, and going on for about an hour. I had a couple of misgivings when ‘Tender buttons’ came out, as former guitarist Tim Fenton had left the group, bringing the number of original members to two. Not only that, but the recent release had more songs based around a drum machine. Don’t get me wrong, Odhinn knows I love my drum machines, but to me, it initially didn’t jibe with what i considered the ‘original Broadcast sound’, despite the fact that you can hear the change from ‘Work and non work’ up to now. So initially, I was like, I dunno.. Thankfully, they didn’t let me down at all live. Although it was weird to see everyone save the drummer using Roland PC-70s, instead of more traditional analogue keyboards..
Much like New order during the Eighties, Broadcast had to do the double duty thing with their instruments: Jam played synth as well as his bass, the New Guitar Guy played synth as well, and when Trish wasn’t playing her synth, she had this odd little guitar which boasted a large headstock and a shortish neck. (I wish I could remember what it was called, as the name was right there on the pickguard, but I do remember it said ‘London’ beneath the name.) The fill-in lads did a really good job as well; any drummer that can manage to get through their extended concert version of ‘Drums on fire’ and not literally burst into flames can definitely hold his own. And during the encore, they played a really ace version of ‘I found the F’. Nice!
Between their darkly psychedelic Motorik sound and their customary visual backdrop, which consisted of film stock from Sixties and Seventies-era science class filmstrips, it was an excellent show! But it’s Broadcast; you simply can’t go wrong by them..

The three of us stuck round after the performance, cos I wanted to get autographs, like I had done for the past two times Broadcast visited. There was a bit of a wait — Trish and Jam were set upon by four people apiece — but it was definitely worth it. I requisitioned Trish first, and as soon as she got a good look at me, she exclaimed, ‘I remember you! You’re the one with the ace name!’ She even managed to pull Jam’s attention away for a couple of seconds from his own signing frenzy to notice me.
‘It’s something-cat, right?’ she asked.
‘Yep.. Dave. Davecat,’ I replied. ‘I was rather happy to hear that you had a song on the new album called “Black cat”!’ Which is entirely true, as it’s one of my favourite songs on that release, and the title just makes it better.
While she was signing my copy of Microtronics v2, I asked her about that strange guitar of hers, and if she’d found it at a car boot sale. No, you can still find them in shops here and there in England. She mentioned it was just her size!
I got James to sign as well, and asked him, ‘Everytime you guys come to town, you’re missing a member, what’s going on with that?’
‘Well, Tim left cos he wanted to go and do stuff on his own.’
‘Was the split amicable?’
‘Not really.’
‘Ergh.’
He also mentioned that he wanted to do either two more volumes of Microtronics, or four more volumes of Microtronics. Sounds like a plan!

They’re fine people, Trish and Jam. Wouldn’t hear a word against ’em. Come back soon!

Sdtrk: ‘Nonstop to Tokyo’ by Pizzicato five

Saturday was fat-packed full of Excitement and Adventure, as instead of getting together round at either Derek or Jeff’s in the evening as per usual, we decided to make a day trip to Toronto, as we try to go at least once a year, and we missed out last year. Plus, we wanted to go before it got unspeakably cold, and before having a passport was absolutely necessary. Those of us living in Southeast Michigan are lucky, cos we can visit a whole other country after simply crossing a bridge or a tunnel; however starting next year, foreign visitors will be required to have a passport to visit Canada from Detroit, for the first time since the bridges and tunnel were built. Naturally, you can chalk that nonsense up to homeland ‘security’.
Aaanyway, it was to be a proper group outing, involving Jeff, Derek, Mike, Tim, Marika, and myself. Tim was the first to cancel, as he claimed financial embarrassment; plus he had to do something with his aunt on the week-end. Mike pulled out on Friday eve, due to some loan shark issues or some such. Since we were only going to be there for the day, none of us were carrying a lot of dosh; out of all four of us, I think I had the most, at $125. So, with our reduced numbers, Derek decided to stuff us all in his Cavalier as opposed to the van, as the mileage would be significantly better.

Having awakened at an unspeakable 4am Saturday morn, I left my house at 5.15 to obtain Mari, and she and I got round to Derek’s at maybe 10 after 6. Jeff was already there, polishing off his Egg McMuffin. We took off at about 7am, stopped at an ATM, bought fuel, drinkies and snacks, and were off in due course to the Blue Water Bridge.
Now, taking the Ambassador Bridge or the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel is fine if you’re only going to Windsor, but the Blue Water Bridge is much better for Toronto journeys, as it cuts the five hour drive time down by about an hour, as you don’t have to navigate through Windsor. However, we’ve noticed on our trips up there, that they’re a little bit more likely to stop you at the border, cos there’s less traffic, and the guards therefore have more time to inspect cars. So we were pulled over! Of course, adding to the suspense is that, apart from Jeff, none of us had proper ID — drivers’ licenses just barely count, and Social security cards aren’t valid. Don’t even bother with a school ID, and, as you well suspect, those ExpressPay cards they give you at Kinko’s aren’t an option, either. Whilst they disassembled Derek’s Cavalier, we had to go inside and present ourselves to an official over at the Immigration booth. After we proved that we were indeed on a peaceful mission, they let us go on our way; the whole process taking about 20 minutes. It was inconvenient, to be sure, but as we didn’t have to submit to a forcible cavity search, we left pretty satisfied.

Fueled by high spirits and various songs by Pizzicato five, the Space channel 5 sdtrks, and that song by Black eyed peas where the lass is singing about her ‘lovely lady lumps’ — a song so stupid, it’s funny, we all agreed — Derek drove, Jeff belched profusely, Mari knitted, and I passed out. I woke up round 10.30ish, when we had made it into Toronto airspace proper, and it was raining. As I’d brought Clicky Mk II, I had intended to take photos of the city from the view of the motorway, but it was too windy and cold (it was in the low 40s) to roll down the window, and with four people occupying a small car, the windows were perenially fogged up. C’est la vie..
After barely successfully navigating our way down several one-way streets, we pulled into an underground car park near City Hall. Fab Thing About Toronto, No.342783: You know how in ordinary car parks you have to remember ‘Red F’ or ‘Blue 6’, so you have an inkling as to where your vehicle is at? This being Canada, the floors were identified by various Canadian-related animals, such as ‘Squirrel’, or ‘Moose’, or ‘Rabbit’, as seen here.

Left, a 2D silhouette of a bunny; right, Mari

Very nice!

We hit Eaton centre first, to get out of the fucking rain (Normally, I don’t mind the rain, as you well know, but when the wind is actually flipping your brolly inside out, then it’s a problem) and to have lunch. We hit Sushi-Q, which was both good and bad — Good, cos I was hoping it was still there from the last time we visited T.O, but Bad, cos I had forgotten how small the portions were. Should’ve expected as much; after all, it’s a sushi stand in a mall, not an actual restaurant.. After scarfing the lot, we stopped round to Indigo, a book chain store akin to Borders, where Mari and I unsuccessfully tried to locate a copy of ‘Still lovers‘ (out of stock, the bastards), but I did see a copy of ‘The Stanley Kubrick Archives‘ by Taschen. It even comes with a Cd of an interview from the Sixties with Kubrick, as well as an actual 12-frame strip of film from ‘2001: A space odyssey’! Who wants to give me $200 USD to pick up a copy? You? Good!

Shortly after that, we made our way outside, where it was still pissing down. We’d noticed a lot of commotion towards the Sears side of Eaton centre, where various people were running — literally running — with tags of a sort stuck somewhere on their clothes, and more often than not, holding a piece of paper. As we left Eaton centre, we encountered more and more of them as we walked toward Chinatown. Over the course of observing several small groups of these people, we overheard a couple of conversations they were having over their cellphones; it was a good ol’ fashioned scavenger hunt. Hm! Although finding anything in a city that vast would be an epic undertaking, without question..
Chinatown was ace, as it always is. We hit a couple of bootleg backup DVD shops, and variety shops — there were more than a few places that had cheongsams on offer that would’ve looked delicious on Sweetie, but I passed — and eventually, we hit the creepy Chinese mall (Chinatown Centre) on Spadina, which is just an experience in itself. You kinda get the impression that the place was bought at a discount. The floors are always covered with leaves, the elevators sometimes work, the escalators don’t work at all, but it’s ace regardless. Plus, it’s got Kikiwai!

From there, we made our way back to Yonge (still raining, although not as windy), hitting Silver snail in the process, and then spending time in Sam the Record Man. Looking round as we walked, you couldn’t help but notice how much construction was taking place. Lofts. EVERYWHERE. Giant outdoor television screens. EVERYWHERE. New shops and restaurants. EVERWHERE. Having grown up in Detroit, one of the qualities that draws me to T.O is that it’s an actual, functioning city, with people, and transportation, and hundreds of places to visit and things to see. There was a metric ton of people making their way up and down the sidewalks, despite the inclement weather. Not only is it a living city, but it’s a friendly city, which amazes me no end. I mean, I don’t see myself suddenly becoming a people person upon moving there, but I’m sure my interactions will be, by and large, a lot more pleasant. I’ve been to Toronto probably about twenty times, and it’s always been like that. As I mused aloud to Mari, everytime I go up there I see something new, even in the places I’ve visited before, and I love that. And this is coming from someone who swears by consistency.

As we were running out of time — we wanted to leave Toronto by 8pm, plus, the walking was knackering us — we made our way back to the food court of Eaton centre for dinner, made a quick stop to Shoppers drug mart, where I acquired my requisite chip booty (four bags of Miss Vickie’s Original recipe, two bags of Ruffles All dressed), and we headed back to the car park, but not before getting one more decent photo in. An hour after leaving the city limits, driving through rain mixed with snow (!), I fell asleep again. All told, we really didn’t spend a lot of money, which I suppose is good. Jeff purchased the latest Goldfrapp Cd that’s not yet available in the States, I believe Derek bought a couple of DVDs, a wooden sake set, and a geomancy mirror, and Mari bought some Tylenol. Naturally, we had to let the border guard on the US side know that I bought some chips. Don’t you feel safer?

All in all, a lovely trip, weather and time restraints aside.

Yonge st, from the second floor of Sam the Record Man

Y’know, it’s all I can do to not drop dramatically to my knees and kiss the pavement every single time we visit Toronto

Posted in Can't stop spendin', Essays | 3 comments »