I did a week of events (NY, Austin, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA) around the theme of Cities and Bikes and how we get around. I began each one with a broad introduction that I hoped would set the scene — a background on how our cities became so car-centric, and some alternatives in various places around the world. There were some funny slides too.
As I mentioned earlier, at these events I was followed by a city representative, a representative of a local advocacy group, and an urban theorist. Different folks in each town. Q&A at the end.
The turnout was great — the theaters for the most part were lovely and averaged around 700 seats. It really does seem like this was a little catalyst for an issue that has reached a point of acceptance.
The “theorist” in San Francisco, Michael Teitz from UC Berkeley, proposed a lovely and surreal thought experiment in which the car had never been invented. An alternate present, with, for example, tunnels being a priority in many cities, as they make it easier for cyclists to avoid hills. In Los Angeles the man in this theorist role, Don Shoup, is a sort of famous specialist in parking. Such a thing may be laughable to some like me who don’t own a car, but in LA and elsewhere it is a serious issue with many ramifications. He pointed some out — if the price of a street meter (or a free spot) is lower than the nearby lot, then folks tend to circle the block in search of these bargains, to the point where the streets become clogged with naïve and hopeful drivers who spend a crazy amount of time looking for a spot. We’ve all done it, I know I have. I have also done concerts in “new” areas of LA (like downtown) and gotten complaints from folks who didn’t know if or where they could find parking close by. I think attendance suffered at those gigs because folks were worried about it.
The events in some towns, like Portland, well known for being bicycle- and public transportation-friendly cities (despite the frequent rain), were almost like little rallies; whereas LA, like Austin in a way, is so spread out that it has more obstacles to overcome.
I spent the morning walking around LA’s lively downtown district. One whole store sold nothing but glass pipes (for smoking) and another sold nothing but super realistic BB guns, and accurate reproductions of Glocks and Uzis.
An old cafeteria has a waterfall inside with a mechanical bear that emerged from a hole!
I suggested to the city rep that one might try adding bike lanes, etc. in specific neighborhoods, little by little, and not try to instigate a whole citywide program. Downtown, Santa Monica and Venice would be obvious candidates. Her response seemed to imply that the state of LA politics and bureaucracy makes that impossible — if one hood gets something, they all want it. Of course, if the mayor or other higher-ups were more sympathetic, as they are in Portland (or even Mikey B in NY), that entrenched bureaucracy might open up here and there. A poke from the top can indeed unclog a logjam.
Naturally there were some questions from the audiences about the messenger who nearly ran me over and, from the other side, why can’t I have a bike lane on my street? The question raised by the first issue is: can our behavior change? One is always skeptical if that can ever happen; one doesn’t naturally think that North Americans can be like the Dutch or the Danes. I think it was at the NY event where I came up with what I thought was a pretty good analogy in response to this question: who would have believed that those independent-minded New Yorkers, with all their attitude, would stoop to picking up doggie shit in little baggies and carrying it steaming in their hands to the nearest trash can? No one. But they do. Pretty much all of them. So, people can change some old habits — it happens.
I’m on a one week tour — a series of events focusing on bikes and cities timed to coincide with the release of my Bicycle Diaries book. I told the publisher I didn’t think I’d be very good as a reader — which is the usual way authors are trotted out to promote their books — so I suggested instead we do a series of forums focusing on our cities and how bikes have become a symptom of a new interest in urban living in North America. (This has a little bit of the added effect of hinting that the book is not just about riding a bike.) The publicity department of Viking, the publisher, generously helped put these events together. Sometimes they are held in bookstores, as those are the venues the publisher knows; and sometimes, like last night in Austin, in small theaters.
At each event there will be a representative of the local city government; an advocate; a theorist/designer/planner or historian; …and me. We each do short (10-15 min.) presentations about our area of expertise and then there is some Q&A and then we’re done. So far, I’ve been to NYC and Austin and Seattle and it’s working pretty well. By bringing these elements and people together the events serve as a catalyst, a reminder and a symbol that perception and policies are changing — about bikes as a way of getting around and about how our lives in cities can be. The interest and turnout might be as much for the content as what’s on stage.
The morning after I arrived here I rode around Austin and discovered that a surprising amount of the downtown area has been given over to parking.
There are parking lots everywhere and, maybe because of the oppressive heat in the Texas summers, lots of indoor parking structures as well. Some of these take up a whole block and some only take up the ground floor of a downtown building. Either way, they kill any potential for life, business, interchange and encounters on those blocks. It seems that not only did the city accommodate cars with some massive freeways that are often jammed up, but they have given some of their best downtown real estate simply to house automobiles. I was reminded that the vibrant “people” streets (South Congress and 6th St.), no matter if you love or hate those scenes, would never exist if there were massive parking structures on every block there. The vacant lots on S. Congress are now filled with tent kiosks and tiny Airstreams and other trailers that serve as specialized food carts (like the ones in Portland). I got a mushroom tamale and berry smoothie at one, and they were great.
Austinites were surprised when their city bike lane and trail rep Annick Beaudet revealed how many of the city’s residents commute by bike already, and how much new infrastructure is going to be added in the coming years. If they can conceive of replacing some of those parking lots and structures with mixtures of cool housing, office and retail they would inevitably lure more folks into the central district, where cars are not absolutely essential for every activity. Where will all those new workers, consumers and residents park then? — well, some will find it more practical to use public transportation and some will…ummm…ride bikes. The policy of infinite accommodation to the car needs to stop and be reversed if our cities are to survive as more than clumps of offices and parking garages.
After the Austin event I rode to the Continental Club (the hotel has loaner bikes) to see the guys in Heybale do their usual Sunday evening set. The band, partly made up of veterans from the bands of artists like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, play their repertoire of mostly classic country songs (Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Webb Pierce) and a few originals with consummate skill. The guitar player Redd Volkaert and the pedal steel player in particular are amazing musicians — their frequent and concise solos are both surprising and inventive, and technically mind-boggling. More than once I’ve seen young musicians standing close to the stage with their jaws hanging open as these guys whip off another effortless solo. I was reminded of the days when Clapton was heralded as a guitar godhead — well, these guys are in that class, though the tunes are a little different. At least three of the band members sing, and pretty well, too.
I happen to love those songs, though I realize they’re not to everyone’s taste. What’s just as wonderful as the band is the audience they’ve amassed over years playing this Sunday night residency — all ages: 20-somethings and folks my age and older, many of whom have come to dance the two-step or the waltz, depending on the song — and they fill the floor as soon as the band starts. I’ve seen 20-year-old girls in dancing dresses and grandmas in the same outfits. Last night one of the very best dancers in the joint was a young man who didn’t look like your typical country music fan — he could have been Mexican, Indonesian or Syrian. All the girls were happy to dance with him.
Living the Dream
The next morning, as I changed planes at Dallas Ft. Worth, I saw a guy talking on a cell phone outside a fast food place on one of the endless concourses. He was in full cowboy costume and it was, to me, so extreme and clichéd that he could have been a member of the Village People. I don’t think he would have appreciated hearing that. He had the full gear — a checkered Western shirt, old Tom Mix-style hat, jeans, boots, a belt with a giant buckle, and a handlebar moustache. Halloween ain’t for a few more weeks!
I guess you can get away with that here in Texas, though this guy was pretty out there. There isn’t much call for ropin’ and herdin’ around DFW, unless it’s rodeo season, but even then the rodeo guys I’ve met don’t dress like this. This guy, it seems to me, is role playing. If he’s not that guy he’s going to at least look like that guy. If he were to walk into a NY office in that getup, folks would point him to the casting call across the way. But Texas is, sometimes, big and crazy enough that one can take the risk and reinvent oneself and folks go along with it.
Sufficiently caffeinated from the morning’s bus coffee, Mark and I hopped on bikes and rode downhill to the seaside hotel in Leith. Fed, showered and shaved I ride back into town, noting the interesting shop fronts along the way.
Later I meet up with Hungarian-American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth and his family at the Talbot Rice Gallery, where he has an installation. Right now the family is living in Roma, which must be interesting — a lovely city, but I imagine it’s a bit hard getting things done and running an efficient organization out of a southern Italian town.
His show consists of quotes from Nietzsche and doodles by Darwin, interspersed and rendered in white neon. One has to “read” the exhibition. It’s presented in a room that was one of the studies where Darwin worked; this one originally contained thousands of stuffed birds. The frilly Victorian details add a nice touch; the columns along the walls serve to break up the texts at irregular intervals, making reading a bit difficult. Cleverly, Joseph arranged that the text fits perfectly, making a circle around the entire room and its little balcony. The Nietzsche quotes form an argument that art and creativity are the highest forms of philosophy… the Darwin doodles look like proto-genealogical trees, as if his hand was unconsciously figuring out how evolution worked.
Next door is a show by Jane and Louise Wilson based around some stuff they found in Stanley Kubrick’s archives. Here is an image from the Kubrick archive site:
Apparently he’d planned to make a film about a Polish-Jewish woman who passed herself off as a Catholic in order to save her family. The film was never shot, but a lot of screen tests with a young actress, and much location scouting, were done.
The Wilsons’ video shows the now slightly older actress re-enacting some of the earlier screen tests and poses, with her voice-over added. In another room were some of Kubrick’s location shots, which, to me, were truly bizarre. Like anthropologists or archaeologists he photographed banal details (windows, doorways, corners of rooms and stairways), always with a striped yardstick in the picture, sometimes held by an assistant. (The inches were alternately painted black or white, so they could be easily counted in these 8 x 10 prints — much easier than trying to see the little gradations on a regular yardstick.) As with archaeological and dinosaur dig photos, these give an accurate sense of scale — critical when one is looking at a photo of a fossilized bone fragment or a piece of partly buried pottery, but a normal Polish room interior? It seems a bit obsessive — a clue to Kubrick’s working method — and maybe that’s the point of the Wilsons’ inclusion and interest in these.
I wonder how many unfinished projects Kubrick had on the go? Another one was A.I., the film about a robot boy looking for love, which was eventually directed by Spielberg. Apparently the original story and script was a Kubrick project, and completing it was Spielberg’s way of making homage.
I meet the Kosuths at the Café Royal, where Joseph claims Princess Anne used to meet her lovers. It’s a baroque pub and café tucked away in an alley behind busy Princes Street, so it does seem plausible — though the place is too crowded for secret assignations these days. I have local food: black pudding (blood sausage) followed by local oysters. The food is gastropub fare nowadays — the black pudding isn’t wallowing in grease as it might be in a more typical Scottish café. Here there are dainty little greens sprinkled around it.
I went for a walk in a sheep pasture this afternoon and wondered to myself why it is that friends and acquaintances ALWAYS, without fail, marvel at how we get around by bus, while journalists NEVER ask about such pragmatic or mundane matters. Maybe the journalists already know how such things work, maybe they think their readers don’t care, or maybe it’s the fact that it’s all somewhat the same for many touring groups, so there must be nothing special about us. Maybe our friends are interested because they are completely unaware of how musical acts get around, or they think we all travel by private jets — like their image of rock stars of yore, or bands like U2 and Rolling Stones today.
Anyway, here’s how it works:
The other day we played in Amsterdam. The day after we played in London. We don’t hang around. Economics of a tour of my scale mean that I have to play a certain number of shows a week (at least four, but often more) and of a certain size (and therefore income) to be able to pay everyone’s salaries, the bus rental, the gear rental, etc etc. Budgeting is worked out before the tour begins — I sit down with some folks and look at the numbers, which tell me more or less what level of show I can do that year: how many performers to hire, if I can carry my own lights and PA or not, how many busses we can afford… all of that is determined before the tour dates are booked.
In the past, live shows were viewed as loss leaders to sell albums, but I doubt that too many folks believe that anymore… though shows do make people a teeny bit aware of a new record. Record companies who espoused the loss leader approach used to advance money to up and coming acts to cover tour losses — but I don’t know anyone who does that now.
On this tour the shows tended to be in medium-sized theaters — around 2,000 seats on average (I think). Occasionally we’d play a place quite a bit smaller (see the “Thank You U2” entry), sometimes larger, or a big pop festival that would pay better than the theaters — thereby subsidizing shows in the Balkans, for example. We traveled with 3 busses this year — one for band (which includes me), one for singers and dancers, and one for crew. Note to friends and acquaintances: I do NOT have my own bus with a big round bed in the back.
The busses have bunks in them, so that’s where most of us sleep. (Some folks have issues sleeping on the bunks — more on that later.) The bunks have their own air vents and curtains, so there is a measure of privacy — and they’re surprisingly quiet. For someone who sleeps through NY traffic noises, a bus bunk is quiet. In the US the bunks have little fold-down DVD screens! — though I’ve never used those. Rule number one: always sleep with your FEET pointing forward — if there is a sudden stop or accident you don’t want your head to impact first.
We usually have drinks backstage or at a nearby bar after the shows, say hi to friends and fans, pack up our personal stuff, and within an hour or two the busses are rolling. Sometimes we watch DVDs before we go to our bunks — The Wire or The Mighty Boosh were big favorites on our bus. During tennis season Mauro and Keith would go to a separate lounge and watch games they’d recorded on a TiVo type hard drive. There is a refrigerator and microwave, a coffeemaker and a toilet (though only number 1 is allowed). There is electricity, and this year, wi-fi!... so sometimes the common area would turn into an internet lounge. Nothing wilder going on than the tapping of little keys.
In the beginning of this year-long tour, the singer/dancer bus was more of a party bus — they put on music and danced for at least an hour to burn off the adrenaline and excitement. That doesn’t happen as much any more, though everyone still enjoys the shows.
On average we’ll roll into the next town at some Godforsaken early hour — so sometimes at 5 or 6AM the singer/dancer bus will arrive at a hotel where an arrangement has been made for very early check-in. They rouse themselves and stumble into their rooms and attempt to get the rest of a full night’s sleep. More power to them. I think they’re nuts — but whatever works.
I prefer to stay in my bunk and get my 8 or 9 hours sleep — which means that if we arrive in the wee hours, the bus driver will park at the hotel or outside the theater, plug the bus into a power source, and turn off the motor. At around 9 I’ll wake up, make some coffee, do emails, read the paper online, heat up some leftovers, and most days ride a bike (which was folded up in the luggage compartment) to the hotel to shower and shave. Then I’ll explore the town some more, maybe have a nice lunch, or go to meetings if some have been arranged, and return to the theater by 4 or 5 for soundcheck.
Dinner is provided after soundcheck — we eat backstage. Because we jump around during the shows most of us can’t eat much prior to going onstage, and we certainly can’t eat right before the shows. So as shows are often around 8PM, we can’t meet friends for dinner, and as we leave town on the busses about 90 minutes after the last note rings out, we usually don’t go anywhere to eat afterwards either.
As you can see, in this scenario we don’t spend the night in a hotel bed — though if there is a day off, we do. The hotels are booked so that we usually have to check out by mid- to late afternoon, and we never return unless it’s a day off. It’s not as bad or weird as it sounds — you get used to the pattern and sequence. And the big advantage as far as I’m concerned is that by traveling by night, one has most of the day available in each town to explore. When you wake up you’re already there. If one flies (commercial flights) then one usually has to get up early, do the whole airport rigmarole, and then one doesn’t arrive at the hotel in the new town until maybe an hour before soundcheck. It’s MUCH more draining to fly that way than to do the bus thing.
Our US busses ran on biodiesel. Not sure if the European ones did. That meant we’d book refueling appointments based on estimated fuel consumption. Local fuel tankers would meet us at pre-arranged places and times, as most gas stations don’t stock the stuff… yet. Sometimes I’d walk out of a hotel and see the little biodiesel tanker arriving in the parking lot to mate with the busses.
Here is a tube station poster for this installation:
I spent the day talking to the British press and demonstrating the workings of the Playing the Building installation, which opened here tonight in a building called the Roundhouse, a former Victorian industrial train repair facility in north London (near Camden Town, and sort of near Kings Cross station). Because the building is round, steam engines could be rotated over troughs radiating from the centre, positioning them in the proper direction for repair.
In the ’60s it was the site of (UFO) psychedelic rock shows, some promoted by my friend Joe Boyd — Ten Years After, Pink Floyd, etc. It also hosted The Living Theatre and other scandalous naked performers. I played my first UK gig here — Talking Heads opened for the Ramones and the Stranglers in ’76. We had a single out at the time, no album yet. The place was pretty grotty, and here we had our first experience of gobbing — the quaint UK custom of audiences spitting on bands as a sign of appreciation. Yes, it’s for real, and it was disgusting. One could see, like little shooting stars in the stage lights, the white gobs of phlegm flying your way. I didn’t get hit that much, but the Ramones really got pelted. They REALLY didn’t like it. Luckily their leather jackets served to protect them and, in this case, went beyond just presenting a unified look. Beers in plastic cups were also thrown — one landed right on my hairline and tipped its half-consumed contents over my head. Funny how England, the country fairly well known in centuries past for fulfilling its self-proclaimed duty to export “civilization” to the unwashed and the heathen of the world, has a flip side on a par with any unsavory sport or bizarre cultural practice anywhere else. Well, we all do I suppose, but gobbing is a pretty weird way to show your love by any measure.
The venue fell into further disrepair, though being an industrial landmark it was never torn down, and its unique shape made it recognizable. Occasionally it was used for performances that took advantage of its funky rawness, but that also limited its use. A few years ago it went under extensive renovations, and a new structural shell was built that, miraculously, is almost invisible — the Victorian era scrollwork, and cast iron pillars and girders still appear to hold the building up, and are what my installation “plays” — and the new supporting structure is now largely hidden from view, sandwiched between the exterior roof and the massive, original wood beams of the inner roof.
Here is a view showing where new and old interact:
The new roof can support 20 tonnes of weight if needed, more than ample for flying PA systems, lights, stage gear and sets. None of that was possible before, so now this is poised to become a much more viable and active venue in town — though the round shape still makes it unique, and inappropriate for shows requiring a conventional proscenium.
The book I wrote over the last couple of years (though the notes for it date back as far as 15 years) came out in the UK this week. I decided that since I am finishing my tour here, the UK publisher (Faber and Faber) and I would auction off the bike that I rode around many of the cities featured in the book — Sydney, Istanbul, Berlin, Columbus, and London. The proceeds will benefit the London Cycling Campaign as the bike is located there — which means that the auction is really geared towards UK bidders.
After helping to oversee the installation of Playing the Building at the Roundhouse on Thursday, Danielle, my studio manager, and I needed to get to the Smithfield area of London for a dinner appointment. London traffic is notoriously snarled much of the time — though congestion pricing has alleviated that a bit — so we decided to take the tube (subway). Rain began to pelt down; we used bin liners (plastic trash bags) to cover ourselves. The nearby Chalk Farm tube station lobby and ticket area was filled with people, and a young man was writing on a whiteboard that no trains on the Northern line, northbound or southbound, were running. There was no suggestion of “20 min. delays” or “We’ll let you know when it’s fixed.” Instead the instructions were, in a word, “Go away.” Then, to add insult to injury, he hollered at everyone, “You need to clear this space because of fire regulations, you can’t stand here” — effectively shoving everyone out into the torrential rain. We saw a sign for a southbound train approaching the station and rushed down to the platform, but we missed it and that was the last one. We took the man’s advice and went looking for a southbound bus, which we found not too far off.
The windows were all fogged up, but using the GPS on our phones we could see where the bus was going, and when it began to diverge from the direction we needed to go, we hopped off and got on another one (at least London busses run frequently), then repeated the process. After riding three busses (and purchasing two umbrellas) we made it to the restaurant, slightly soaked but on time.
The show at the Barbican was being filmed in HD, so I went in early and helped adjust lights with our LD David Ambrosio and Will from Hillman Curtis’s crew so that the stage looked to the camera more or less the way it looks to the eye… at least on the songs that hadn’t previously been shot. Before that I went up to Camden Town to the Roundhouse, where the Playing the Building installation will open on Friday, to see how it was going. The building, now cleared of circus staging and other crap, and with its skylight open for the first time, is spectacular. Mark McNamara and Justin Downs were just getting some of the motors and pipes into position, so no sounds to be heard yet… but all seems to be well. Here’s a shot of work in progress:
The crate containing the actual organ was opened in shipping — probably by Homeland Security, who carelessly repacked it, as they do — and in the process the keyboard was almost destroyed (though it’s repairable). We hope none of the other mechanical or electronic bits inside were damaged, but will know soon enough. I feel more secure, don’t you? How, I wonder, is international shipping of goods, samples, art, products, etc. supposed to happen if this kind of behavior is tacitly encouraged by the US government? The Bush legacy lingers. Is there someone we’re supposed to pay, some service we’re supposed to use to guarantee more considerate handling? The inspection would be fine if they had put the bits back with some semblance of care.
[Alice Rawsthorn adds: "Your problems with Homeland Security reminded me of László Moholy-Nagy's misadventures when taking his enormous Light Space Modulator into the various countries where he and his family lived in the 1930s. Whenever it crossed a border, customs officials pounced and refused to believe that it was a work of art, until Moholy took to describing it as "hairdressing equipment" and it sailed through unscathed."]
I walked on the net, high above the Roundhouse floor, that rings the innermost catwalk… you can see it in the photo. The ring looks like it’s floating… very exciting.
I tubed it down to the Barbican Centre, where our show will be. The walkways, as one approaches this sixties brutalist monstrosity, provide views reminiscent of the scenes in A Clockwork Orange when Alex returns to his parents’ flat after a night of the old ultra-violence (minus the blowing trash).
Anyway, at the show Leo Abrahams sat in with us for two of the songs on which he played on the recent CD collaboration with Brian. He wore the mandatory white, and plugged straight into and out of his laptop, using some software effects — and it sounded great. No amp or other bits of gear! I lent him my spare Strat, so he didn’t even need to bring a guitar.
Jenni surprised us by bringing Julian Barratt (Howard Moon) from The Mighty Boosh backstage to say hello as we gathered in our snack room. We were all stunned and flattered. He came to see us even though he really, seriously does like jazz. Julian, Thom Yorke, Brian, and some others joined us after the show. I made the rounds saying hellos, then Cindy and I went back to the hotel. Thom was very excited to meet her — I guess from his art school days, she was (is) an icon of sorts. I was wearing a not so special white shirt and Thom immediately knew the designer — a friend of his. He must have spotted some subtle detail. I never would have pegged him for someone knowledgeable about fashion.
C and I pedaled over to a show of design art furniture at the V&A. There is some truly lovely and wacky stuff, but not enough of it to be a real survey of the currently hot genre. The whole categorization is questionable for some — as it’s limited edition furniture that is super expensive, and usually not that comfortable to sit on, placed into an art context. It’s functional but not really. The not really part makes it art — if one agrees that art doesn’t serve an (obvious) practical purpose. I’ve done a series of functional (you can sit in them) but uncomfortable chairs in a variety of materials that could be considered to fall into this genre, so I’m fascinated.
This one, by Sebastian Brajkovic, is made mostly of cast bronze — it must weigh quite a bit!
The show is called “Telling Tales”, as if there was some Grimms’ Fairy Tale theme running through the work — death and incest and dark mothers and fathers and forests… though to me that all seems like a stretch. Pretty much all the work, except for two pieces (one British — Julian Mayor — and one by Boym, the Russian-American designer), is Dutch. Leave those out and the show could have been called a survey of recent extreme Dutch furniture design — though there is a lot more going on there design-wise as well. The Eindhoven-based Droog Design crew, which spawned Hella Jongerius and quite a few others, don’t strictly make furniture — they are also pushing design boundaries.
A road sign in Hyde Park — there’ll always be an England.
The One Year Family
The tour is winding down and we’re all feeling a little weird. I suppose my dreams are all related to the imminent end of the tour. It’s amazing we all held it together this long — there were few meltdowns and only one crew person defected, and that was months ago. The shows have been successful, and the band doesn’t have any serious substance abusers or complete lunatics — which was fairly common for a pop music tour back in the day — so maybe all those factors helped to contribute to how well we held it together for an entire year.
Extended tours like this are like movie shoots — everyone bonds, like a little family. We often do things together, and we all sleep together (well, close by) on the buses. We know our family will only last a year, though there are sometimes splinter unions that last longer. Some of the crew will go on to work on other projects and tours; some of us musicians, singers and dancers will work on stuff together in the near future; friendships and even love bonds have formed — but none of those projects or relationships will include the whole one year family. This particular unit will break apart in about a week…
We’ll all keep in touch, I hope.
There was going to be one final farewell concert in NY— a free show in Times Square to inaugurate the permanent closing of Broadway there, and celebrating the greening of the zone, on August 17 — but the production needed funding from some donors. We would play for free (or at least I would), but the cost of the stage, toilets, trailers, PA, local crew, lights, etc. was considerable. Though we came very close to finding the money (Janette from the DOT was doing this part — I don’t know donors or sponsors) and doing the show (a free show in Times Square! Santogold was going to open!), at the last minute there just wasn’t enough to cover costs, so we had to admit defeat.
South America? Didn’t get there this year (except on holiday). I’ve played many cities there many times, but this time — maybe due to the financial crisis and its ripple effect down there — the offers simply weren’t enough to pay for band, crew and shipping. So, despite asking friends and others for advice and contacts, I had to let the idea go after a while.
So that’s it. A year of touring this show (there was a break over Xmas and New Years, and during the month of May) and we’ve been almost everywhere we can reasonably go — sometimes more than once. The show has been incredibly well received, the record has sold so-so (though because it was self-distributed in a fashion, there were profits early on) — and we all feel exhausted but very, very satisfied… like, um, after something else.
I am in an apartment or loft — possibly my home, in New York. I hear the freight elevator arriving — funny, I wasn’t expecting anyone. It is an old-style NY freight elevator, the kind you have to operate manually, with a scissors gate that has to be opened before the regular door.
Anyway, the elevator in the dream arrives and inside is a gaggle of “bank robbers” (dressed in dark suits, I think) who are holding civilians in front of themselves as human shields.
I grab an old pistol (a Colt-type revolver) out of a nearby desk drawer (I don’t own a gun) and begin to do what I have to do… unfortunately that means that some of the hostages get shot as well. I shoot one of the civilians, and as that person drops, the bad guys are revealed and exposed, and, as the elevator is manually operated, they’re too busy defending themselves to leave my floor. I eventually kill everyone, though I have regrets about those poor human shields who also had to die.
Dream 3
I am packing up the folding bikes and someone is watching me, commenting, “No, not like that… that’ll never work… those folding pedals are useless…”
I am in an African village, staying with a local family. It is a Sunday (or similar day off) and family, relatives and friends have all assembled for a backyard get together. There is a large table with food, and people are in attractive local dress (instead of the Western stuff worn during the regular week).
After some festivities, I notice a high, mournful voice singing – not too far away. I follow the source of the singing, and just beyond the gathering I come upon a young African man, maybe 20 years old, at a keyboard singing Neil Young songs. He’s got the high, whiney voice down perfectly, and for a moment I am simply stunned. He sings one song, then goes on to the next one in the Neil Young songbook. I think to myself, “Some Peace Corps person must have left a Neil Young cassette behind, and this kid has taken it upon himself to learn all the songs.”
My hosts and some others appear and ask me if I am impressed with the young man’s talent. “Is he not great?” I tell them yes, I am impressed, he’s amazing, but I politely omit the fact that his talent is, to me, completely useless. My hosts press on, “Since you recognize this man’s talent and skills, don’t you think he could surely be a success in your country?” I am flummoxed, and try to explain nicely that his talent is astounding and surprising — if you close your eyes it really could be Neil Young — but to me, it is of no interest past the moment of initial shock. My hosts aren’t having it. They KNOW this man is talented — and they’re right — and are therefore absolutely certain that he could be huge outside of their village and surrounds. I again try to explain that in my country, a Neil Young already exists, and an African copy, however faithful, is simply unnecessary.
The discussion peters out in mutual misunderstanding and incomprehension.
We are staying in a large hotel that is very design-heavy — like a scene from 2001, the movie. We’ve stayed in boutique hotels before, and they typically feature dark hallways and clubby lounge music in the cafés and elevators, which are often also dimly lit. Philippe Starck and others have a lot to answer for, having been responsible for the top of the line and premier versions of this trend. This hotel puts the receptionists inside a kind of pod.
The pod is less substantial than it seems — on approaching it one notices that it is a plywood shell wrapped in translucent fabric, stretched over a wire frame. If you leaned on it you’d sink into it. There are curving walkways outside the lobby and some chairs and ottomans that are oversized and bulbous like some weird Matthew Barney props.
In the rooms, the built-in furniture is all white and a speckled shag rug completes the mid-century view of what the future will be like. The floors are padded rubber (!)… which is actually nice and cushiony on your feet, and practical in other ways we will eventually discover. A single black (!) moderne chair sits on the rug, and if you sat in it you’d find it would collapse on one side; we soon find out that like most things in this version of the future, a sleek, cool appearance belies a broken-down substance.
The window blinds open via small motors, and they squeak loudly. So far, it’s all hilarious. We’re reminded of the Jacques Tati movie Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, in which the eponymous lead character visits his relatives who are living in a modern house with all the mod cons — and they all squeak, clank and gurgle. The door in this room bleats like a lamb in pain, and after leaving the room, I return to find that after numerous failed attempts at opening the door normally, the electronic keys don’t work — or, to be precise, one has to heave oneself at the door, at exactly the precise moment, to achieve entry. I guess the latch mechanism is in disrepair.
The nice large bed floats in the middle of the room, and strangely, its wooden frame also encloses the bathtub! The frame is slim and must be made of teak or some other water-resistant wood as one is sure to splash water out of the tub occasionally. It is so slim, however, that there is nowhere to put bedside items like a book, newspaper or a glass of water… they have to be placed on the rubber floor or behind the bed, on the rim of the tub. A design that initially seems cool and inviting turns out to be somewhat ill considered and often impractical — besides being in disrepair. I don’t think the construction or maintenance here would pass muster with Mr. Starck.
I plan to check my email etc. as I usually do upon arrival… but there is nowhere to sit at the “desk,” which doubles as the mini bar and TV stand. I clear a space near the edge and pull out a cube-shaped cushion to use as a chair. It sort of works.
On the second day, the hot water turned brown. There are street works up the road, so maybe the ancient Roman plumbing was shaken, rust and sediment were loosened, and that explains the sudden brownness? No, that can’t be right, as it’s only the hot water that’s affected — so it must be something inside the hotel. It doesn’t stink — so it’s not sewage backing up, thank God… but it’s pretty disgusting. Here’s what a full tub of it looks like:
You think that is disgusting? Here’s what was left after the water drained:
It reminded me of one theory regarding the fall of the Roman Empire: that because their elaborate and innovative plumbing system was made of lead pipes, the entire population that lived within the exclusive precincts of the city therefore poisoned themselves and slowly went mad.
I was told by some locals that when this hotel opened a couple of years ago, it was a sensation. The idea of a hip hotel/lounge hangout chic-spot was intriguing, and sure enough, on Sunday afternoon after we all arrive, the pool/bar on the roof is packed with handsome boys/men and lovely Italian beauties. It’s an Armani ad come to life, and we are scared off, as we are not familiar with the ways of their planet.
On a bike trip to the Vatican to purchase kitschy gift items (e.g. a Popener — a beer bottle opener with the Pope on it), I was surprised to see some very non-religious merchandise.
Here are the typical Davids as seen all over Firenze:
In Roma there were many mosaics, framed and for sale, of Jesus, Mary, and the Pope — but also of Al Pacino, Obama and The Gladiator, Russell Crowe.
Of course, there are ruins all over Roma — massive structures like the Coliseum or Hadrian’s tomb, walls, columns and bits of aqueducts. But there is a much larger number of minor ruins. If construction begins on a building and ruins are discovered while digging the foundation, one is by law obliged to stop and either revamp the building plans or somehow protect the ruins. Our 22nd century hotel has a glassed-in area, just to the left of the entrance, that looks like a diorama of a barely begun building site — there are wheelbarrows, plywood ramps and piles of dirt and rubble. They are, of course, ruins, so the hotel was built over them — and we never saw a single worker doing excavation in the time we were there. Like unopened time capsules, these things are all over the city, seen and unseen.
The venue we played — an outdoor theater in the center of a cluster of pod-shaped concert halls designed by Renzo Piano — had to be rethought while the foundations were being dug. Construction ceased, and the whole design was revamped. Eventually the halls ended up being built on raised platforms rather than sleekly laid out on a piazza as originally planned. So, tucked behind the central auditorium around which the pods loom is what looks like a vacant, abandoned lot — but one can see that the weeds and grass have grown over a grid of partial excavations. Another time capsule.
Most of the ruins around town are unremarkable, though plenty of tourists pose for photos in front of them, and they are rigorously protected. I wonder to myself what archaeologists and the rest of us hope to get out of these numerous crumbly bits. They’re everywhere — and while they might inform us of the size or hierarchy of former rooms, they can’t possibly offer us much else. The more substantial ruins of temples, sports palaces and circuses tell us quite a bit about how the Empire lived, governed, entertained and thought of itself — and how the more contemporary entertaining and infantile antics of Il Duce, Berlusconi and his ilk are therefore no surprise.
Here’s Altare della Patria (altar of the nation), a temple built by the King of Italy (Vittorio Emanuele II) in the early 1900s more or less for himself — and designed stylistically to align himself with the glory of the Empire. I suspect most tourists think that this monument is as old as the other Roman temples nearby. (Thank you, Rosy G!)
But what about all this other stuff — the crumbly bits? Do we have to respect every piece of rubble? What can we really hope to learn from these pathetic foundations and remaining stumpy bits of wall? Have the Italians sacrificed some part of their future in honoring and maintaining their glorious past? Am I being cynical? (I would certainly rather see ruins than block after block of ugly, concrete apartments!) The Italians must, I imagine, feel hamstrung by their past, which must justify in their minds the escape from the past represented by the ugly apartment and office buildings that fill these cities outside their historic zones.
