The best and worst of both worlds

I think this is now my fourth week at college studying Music Technology. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the skills I’m picking up when I leave but at the same time hoping that I’ll pick up enough in the relatively short time that I’m meant to be here. I’m enjoying the music production side, but find it very hard setting up musical equipment as my night blindness causes certain health and safety issues... basically I’m worried about tripping over mic leads and denting my face on the side of a grand piano. My tutors are really nice guys (although one needs to tone down the “bad cop” act a bit... I respond better to the lighter touch) and the atmosphere in the music department is very laid back. Actually it’s so laid back that I’ve struggled a bit to acclimatise to the uneven pace (sometimes rushed and frantic, sometimes slow and chilled).

I seem to be clicking socially with people outside my course more, which I sort of expected. There are the usual soap opera dramas going on including tears and arguments, but I’m trying to stay out of that and generally keep myself to myself. A few of us are trying to make a habit of going for drinks outside of the college as we’re not massive fans of the student bar (too many kids acting tough and too much loud music... do I sound like a grumpy old git? Lol).

For the first few weeks I seemed to forget what it was like being at home and so this week it came as a shock when I did finally go home and was reminded of what I was missing. It felt like I’d been away for months. I didn’t realise how much I missed my girlfriend until I saw her on Thursday and we had a long hug and spent the weekend just mooching around the house together eating takeaways... perfect.

I’ll make sure I go home every couple of weeks to remind myself of why I’m actually at college in the first place as I really was starting to forget.

We shall see.

I’ve neglected my own music writing while I’ve been here and away from my guitars. Being amongst professional musicians has made me feel like a bit of a fraud and a food and I’m finally appreciating proper musical craftsmanship rather than my own amateur noodlings.

Anyway, I hope to post a little more regularly now that I’m gradually settling in.

Right, onwards and upwards...

A student at 30

I’m writing to you from sunny Hereford in the college library. I’ve escaped to here from the canteen as it gets a bit like a kindergarten in there at times. Very stressful.

I’m enjoying the music course but finding it a little hard to understand so far. I’ve been a big fish in a small pond up until now.

The college accommodation is nice, although I’m sharing a lodge/cabin thingy with two brothers who were already here when I arrived... so I feel like I’m intruding a little.

I’ve made some new friends which is great. We go out drinking a lot to the student bar and have some bleary mornings, lol. I mustn’t drink too much or I’ll stop learning, but I’m tempted tonight because I feel a little stressed.

Things haven’t changed much since I was last here eleven years ago, apart from a new lick of paint here and there.

I’m only here for four months so I’m guessing time will pass quite quickly. I might go home this weekend but if the train strikes are still on then I won’t bother. I can’t be arsed with rail replacement buses.

I’ve heard that there might be riots in Sheffield this weekend due to a local political conference or something, so that’ll give me another reason not to head home.

Not sure how often I’ll update this while I’m here, although I do need to get my creative writing skills up to speed as my mind keeps going blank when I hit the keyboard, eek!!

Handymen, assassins, playwrights and aliens

Yesterday I signed on for hopefully the last time for four months as I should start college in less than two weeks. Apparently I’m getting some pro-forma in the post to fill out, erm, yippee. My last signing went rather smoothly. I mentioned that I’ll need to change my job search agreement when I return from college as I’ll be looking for music and media related stuff. We shall see how that goes.

My girlfriend and I had a nice night in for Valentine’s Day. I bought her a card, some chocolates (most important!!) and some bath stuff from Lush. She seemed to like it. I got a card and a bottle of wine from her. Not sure when I’ll drink it though. We watched some episodes of 30 Rock together but then she seemed to really feel the cold and had to sit on the sofa with a duvet wrapped round her. I let her go to bed and warm up and after a while I joined her. Nothing romantic happened once I was up there, but it’s not like I was in the mood or awake enough anyway.

I bought a new guitar lead from a music shop that’s just opened in town. I can’t hook up my effects board without it. I’m looking forward to trying it out. Am I sad for getting excited about testing a piece of wire? Yes, ok, maybe I am.

We’ve got our usual handyman in fitting a rail for the shower curtain. There was a temporary one that was just spring loaded onto the wall. It was rubbish but did the job. I’m not a big fan of babysitting workmen, but what can you do. For some strange reason my girlfriend never books them to come out when she’s in the house. Funny that.

I bought Luc Besson’s Nikita in a charity shop in Scarborough the other day and started watching it yesterday without the subtitles on. My eyesight’s so bad now that it’s too hard to read subtitles so it’s easier for me just to guess what’s going on. I know the Nikita story pretty well anyway, so I’m not too fussed about he fine details. It’s nice to watch a foreign film for a change, rather than reading it.

I’m trying to think of ideas for plays that me and my girlfriend can write and perform together. She gets sudden bursts of motivation for doing things but when it comes round to actually doing them she manages to find herself feeling ill with a vague malady. Oh well, I try to be as positive as I can and always sound up for trying new things.

We’re going to the cinema tomorrow with some friends to see that new Pegg/Frost film “Paul”. Apparently it’s getting mixed reviews, but I wouldn’t expect anything more/less from those two. It sounds like a three star film, which will do me fine. I hope there aren’t too many kids and teenagers at the screening as I can’t handle the noise and threat of being teased.

I think the handyman’s arrived, so must go and tend to that…

Travelling without moving

It’s all quiet on the old housemate front… but for how long? She made some angry and confused/drunk phone calls about her benefits and the house but things are now eerily quiet. I’m sure things will kick off again soon. We keep putting the chain on the door when we’re in the house so she can’t sneak in. Just had a call from her doctor checking that this was the right address for her but I said she’d moved and we haven’t got any forwarding details.

I’ve finally got my criminal record clearance through for college. It was all clean and spotless as expected. There’s been no word from the college, but I’ll give them a call today. Fingers crossed the next time I sign on will be my last for a while.

We went to Scarborough for the day yesterday, which was really nice. The weather wasn’t great but we enjoyed ourselves regardless. We had a nice lunch and played on the penny arcades. My gf had a bit of a panic attack and felt down but then seemed to level out. I got a bit frustrated as I’d hoped the day would take her mind off things. We took the coach up (£10… cha ching!!) so it was pretty easy going.

I need to clean the bathroom as it’s getting really icky. I hate going in there and using the toilet. We’ve got a workman coming to fix a new shower railing and I feel guilty about him having to see the state of the room. Not sure I’ve got time to do it today, but I’ll get it sorted. I hope.

I’ve still not heard from my dad. If he’s moved then he’s not furnishing anyone with a forwarding address. Oh well, we’re a troubled lot so I can understand if he wants to see the back of us.

I’m still in contact with my old friend from college and we have great chats on the phone. My gf isn’t used to me having friends so she gets a bit “funny” about me talking to him for so long. She’ll have to get used to it as she’s got loads of close friends that she talks to for ages and meets up with all the time. I might go down and meet up with him before I start college.

Anyway, better go and listen out for the door…

“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” – film review

I’m not sure what the moral implications are of watching a sequel before the original, but I’ve not really been that keen on catching Wall Street 1 but sort of guessed what the general gist of it was and heard roughly how it ended.

So, how does watching a sequel “blind” work out?

I guess I’ll find out when I finally watch the original, but for some reason I was attracted to seeing Money Never Sleeps to satisfy certain curiosities… namely, why does a director who tends to tackle quite serious political issues in one-off releases feel the need to dig out a film he made twenty years ago and make his first ever sequel?

I’ve not seen many Oliver Stone films, not because he’s a bad director or a boring visualist, but because, like Martin Scorsese, his usual subject matters don’t tend interest me very much. On the odd occasion that he does stray away from war films or political musings then you’ll find me forking out the cash for a reduced-to-clear dvd copy.

There’s an important and valid point made in Money Never Sleeps which the news media really needs to make clear to the general public when the country falls into another recession: a capitalist economy is cyclical, you’ll get dips and crashes in the market but this needs to happen in order for it to regenerate itself… so don’t panic!! Numbers can’t hurt you, things will work out in the end and people, lives and relationships are far more important than year end bonuses. Freedom and wealth can’t be counted and felt in bank balances and possessions.

I did brace myself for an angry film about sharp suited yuppies clambering for money and power, but I’m guessing that’s what the original film was about. Even though this one sort of starts off like that, it actually turns out to be a very sweet and warm hearted little film that wants to inspire people to push themselves to improve the world for the greater moral good rather than for personal gain.

There’re ace performances from the lovely (oh so lovely) Shia LaBeouf (who’s managing to prove that he’s not just another young stud from the Hollywood cookie cutter to end up in the forgotten footnotes of movie casting history), Michael Douglas (one of my favourite movie stars… he’s just so cool and nobody gets angry quite like him) and Carey Mulligan (who’s stunning emotional breakdowns and twinkly, tear filled eyes are given extra screen time and pauses by Stone’s adoring camera).

Money Never Sleeps is a film about hope and believing in doing the right thing even though it doesn’t earn you millions and billions of sweet, sweet dosh.

Give it a go, then watch the first one.

Old friends, old enemies, old problems

Well our old housemate decided not to move back in... I'm not sure why, but it still wouldn't surprise me if they turned up on the doorstep at the end of the month.

I've still not had my clearance through to start college. If it comes through in the next week or so then I'll start at the end of Feb. I'm getting fed up of waiting.

I got back in touch with an old friend from college. He rang me yesterday and we had a long chat for about two hours. It was great because we're now both into guitars and had more in common than last time. I have missed him over the years, he's a great guy.

I'm starting to record a medley using a click track. I want to warm myself up for starting my music course. I'm having a lot of fun.

My gf and I are going to the theatre tomorrow, which I'm not really looking forward to. Can you think of a way I can get out of it? Eek!!

I'm trying to do more exercise. Fingers crossed I can keep it up.

I've managed to get my gf into 30 Rock, which is cool. It is top aces. I'm going to order the third series on dvd.

Right, better be off, see ya!!

"Scott Pilgrim vs The World" - film review

“Alfie tells the story of a young man who leads a promiscuous lifestyle until several life reversals make him rethink his purposes and goals in life.”

- Alfie (1966 film), Wikipedia

“Slacker:
someone who, while being intelligent, doesn't really feel like doing anything.”

- The Urban Dictionary

“Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit and Joey got married
Shoulda known we'd never get far”

- from “Summer of 69” by Bryan Adams

The self-indulgent fantasies we have throughout our lives include themes of revenge, heroism, regret and sex. Scott Pilgrim vs The World joins a steadily mounting list of films such as Kick-Ass, Brazil, American Psycho, Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon A Time In America where the reality of what we’re watching is blurred by the suggestion that we are not watching events from a third person perspective, but from a first person perspective.

Scott Pilgrim, Kick-Ass and Brazil all feature fairly ordinary young men who go about their lives in a daze, fantasizing about being somebody they’re not and achieving things they can only dream about. In Brazil this is clear, most of the time Jonathan Pryce’s character Sam Lowry drifts off into soft-focus fantasies about being a winged hero rescuing a damsel in distress but eventually finds the reality of enacting such a scenario in real life far more complicated and painful. In Kick-Ass the fantasy is vague and based on how the viewer perceives things. Our main character pretends to be gay in an attempt to maintain a deception-based relationship with a girl he is in love with. The justification for this lying alter-ego manifests itself in a world of superheroes, where retaining ones secret identity is just as important and acceptable. Scott Pilgrim seems to be a little of both. A lot of what goes on in the film is clearly a fantasy, but there is no definition between the real world and the comic book/video game/superhero world. They are all integrated and intertwining in Scott Pilgrim’s mind.

The revenge fantasy of Inglorious Bastards presents an alternate reality where high ranking Nazi’s receive different and much more personally motivated ends and shares themes with Sergio Leone’s gangster epic Once Upon A Time In America about characters who cope with unresolved issues and feelings of guilt or desires for revenge through fantasy. It is believed that in Once Upon A Time In America the scenes where Robert DeNiro’s character Noodles returns to New York as an old man and attempts to solve a thirty year old mystery are the mere opium fuelled dreams of a guilt-ridden young man. With this in mind, you could argue that Inglorious Bastards ends at the beginning with the young girl escaping certain death from murderous Nazi’s through an open field… the rest of the film is her revenge fantasy unfolding as she flees. Scott Pilgrim gets his chance to revise the ending to his own movie, but not so subtly… he can just rewind events and play them out differently, something we’ve all wanted to do from time to time. I suppose you can forgive this time-bending attempt to wash away feelings of defeat and regret, after all, Pilgrim is being forced to play out the extremely petty revenge fantasies of seven other characters.

Towards the end of Scott Pilgrim vs The Word the titular lead character apparently earns the “power of self respect”. However he seems to have nothing but misguided ego and self-respect throughout the film as he lies and cheats his way through a series of meaningless relationships. Somewhere down the line Scott Pilgrim has convinced himself that this is acceptable behavior. He is another Patrick Bateman, and as with the American Psycho “serial killer” how can we possibly trust what our antihero tells us. If he is a liar and a cheat, then why should we accept anything that we see? Has the whole violent series of events we’ve just witnessed been just part of his fantasy?

Taken at face value Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a film let down by a central romance involving two attractive but rather dull and heartless people and never really recovers from it’s weakest but most pivotal plot point: if Scott Pilgrim has to fight seven ex-partners of a girl he’s only just met and knows very little about, how long will it take for him (and the audience) to get fed up and question whether she’s actually worth it?

Not long.

But as a first person fantasy about lust and wish fulfillment it’s an exciting visual spectacle with an abundance of strong supporting characters that add dimension to an otherwise cold little movie. In fact the film really seems to crank up a notch when Jason Schwartzman arrives on screen towards the end. He does so well to brighten things up that you sort of wish they’d written him into earlier parts of the film.

Anyway, none of this matters of course, as it was all just a dream…