in the street of denmark

that was meant to sound a bit like 'in the port of amsterdam, so just nod and smile.

as i was a-walking down denmark street, the sound of an altercation taking place down a side alley was heard. we walked past, and stopped. a tall black man was being held against the wall by a shorter, peak capped, be-spectacled, white man, who was saying he was a police officer and the man was under arrest for dealing drugs, saying he'd just swallowed something, while a nearby homeless person was protesting that he'd just asked for some change. the man claiming to be police shouted at us to ring for the police, which under the circumstances was the only reasonable thing to do, and i would have done if someone else wasn't already doing it. i stood and watched for a bit, offering moral sympathy, while adrian went to pick up his bass. the man - now adding he was an off duty police officer - was holding him firm, and being wound up by accusations of racism by the 'dealer', who seemed to absolutely accept whole-heartedly that the man was indeed a police, something that i just wasn't sure about. why on earth would an off duty police officer take it upon himself to walk down central london backstreets and look out for drug deals, before going it alone to try and arrest people? as he harped on to the man - he did sound like a police - he was holding about how when they got him to the station and took his prints and see what they led them to, &c, the 'dealer' started resisting a lot more. he shouted at me - straight at me - to help him hold the guy. i told him it was none of my business. he said 'i'm ordering you as a police officer to help me'. i walked away. rounding the corner, the 'dealer' legged it past some seconds later, and then the police cars rolled up. i'd have loved to find out if the guy was actually a polcie man or not, but i suppose we'll never know now.

it all reminds me of the start of 'a confederacy of dunces' - i should have started shouting that 'the poliss are all comuniss' and how the poor boy was just waiting for his mother. that would have been confusing, if nothing else.

diary stuff

so there was our first band practice, as somewhat detailed over on http://partypiglet.blogspot.com - i don't think i captured the daylight feeling of the meeting at london bridge. it's irksome that we've not hung out as a band yet. it's irksome that we can't play the songs yet either, but i'm sure that will come when we gel as a unit and people know what they're meant to be doing at any given moment. i printed off songbooks today, i'll annotate them for individuals so we can do a few practices off paper.

after the rehearsal, i wasn't going to, but i hightailed it over to somewhere north to join in with girls girls girls acoustic. it turned out they didn't need my help this time - the only acoustic instrument was the bass. but i did a couple of numbers of my own - starting with a premier of 'jammie thomas'

i then played lake and, oh some others. i tried to get through 'my disgrace' by kefranski but ed shouted for me to stop. i haven't learnt how to deal with hecklers yet.

the thursday after, we finally had that aaron in the back of our car to to the vocal on the 'don't think i'll sleep tonight' remix. it's done but it's a little scratchy; you can head over to dj gallowslutt's myspace if you want to listen to it right away, but i reccomend you wait a few weeks til i've fixed the vocal perhaps. but what if i never do? maybe you should give it a listen now then. listening to it now, that vocal is to loud. and too double-tracked. i've got some great footage of aaron too, which hopefully i'll sequence up into a proper video for it and it'll be a massive multimedia youtube hit.

new blogness

for specifically band news, please got to partypiglet.blogspot.com
it just occurred to me - why would i want to be in a band? it just makes recording more expensive. these thoughts are obviously reserved for my personal blog.

the aaron mcmullen remix is finished and awesometastic.i'll upload it as soon as i get authorisation from the record label/can be bothered to sit and wait for stuff like that.

what's funny is how good my remix album sounds. it's my best album ever. i should be ashamed. or maybe it's just that long-distance collaborations are a really good idea.

i miss rachel. she's been awfully ill all this week. we just want her to not be in constant pains.
xxxx

war

so i've been reading nick cohen's 'what's left?'. once i've finished it i might write more but i've some things it's made me think of.

as i read it, there's a lot i agree with, but i do try and read critically and i know i'm easily convinced by text. there's also something deep down that i can't formulate yet that i resent about the book, but hopefully if i don't listen to my walkman too much i'll be able to drag it up.

something i know i disagree with is his smearing of the anti-globalisation movement - 'they can't even decide on a name' (not a direct quote) being one of his criticisms. they're a diverse, pluralistic bunch. they're protesting at exactly the same kinds of things he's writing about - the failure of western governments to act effectively in times of need. mainly, i just don't think you can make generalisations about 'the anti globalisation movement'. cohen seems to assume that they're one thinking block, and then criticises them when they don't think or act like it. and then criticises the middle class herd instinct. and then criticises people who criticise people both ways.

one thing its reminded me of was my reasons for protesting about the iraq war. cohen begins the book with a long hard look at just how bad saddam was, stuff i never knew. so why was i against removing him from power? well that's the thing isn't it - i wasn't. but i didn't want a war. i guess the question is, what did i want? what was my big idea for getting rid of saddam? as i admitted at the time, i didn't have one. as i said at the time, something had to be done about him. the reason why i went on the anti-war march was because i was so fucking furious at our government. there were clearly no wmds, so that was a lie, despite half the american public at the time believing they had in fact been found, a belief created by suggestion and falsification - i remember enumerable reports saying things like 'we've definitely found evidence in this dump now, we just need to send them away for testing but this looks like it'. it was clearly not a humanitarian mission - the iraqis had been in dire straits since they'd been abandoned after the last gulf war, when instead of taking out saddam, they'd just contained him at the saudi's bequest. if blair had been the pretty straight guy he lied he was, he would have said 'look, right, there's absolutely no reason why we should go into iraq now instead of twenty years ago. but this is the time the americans are doing it, and whatever reason they have for going in, it's going to make iraq a better place because saddam is _that bad_,' i'd have had to say i agreed with him. the only thing is having a villain like saddam means you can get away with still being absolutely terrible, and playing the 'not as bad as the last guy' card, right? so you can go in, and gut the public services, and sell the whole fucking country to your friends' companies and leave it in a state of terror, whoops, people don't thank you. that moment that soldier put an american flag over the statue of saddam's head was terrifying. i remember i said to alex adkins at the time, i know no matter how many people march, it won't change anything, they'll invade iraq. but i wanted blair to know we were watching and we cared and if he was going to do it, he'd better not fuck it up. and they did. depends on who you listen to, as to whether it's better or worse than under saddam, depending on their bias. so we'll not know unless we listen to the iraqis. ourselves.

i'm not going to re-read this and edit it today. so sorry if it's a bit shit.

super mega catch up

christmas. why did no=one ever open a pub called 'bar humbug'?

so i went home for a long time... lots of too much of everything... food and constant inebriation and quite a lot of telly, but not in the grumpy (i think they mean smug) old men way of escaping the family. although i was quite glad when i just had my immediate family to myself.

then i came back here at th'weekend afore new year.

i failed jasmine's party and instead played it safe at rachel's. she'd been railroaded into hosting the pre-party, which was a good big gang of people. if i try to remember everyone i'll leave someone out so i shouldn't try, but i think it was - the parny crowd of esther, ruth, jo; the thalia crowd of ian, thalia, claire; the faversham crowd of james, his sister heather, and lorraine. i know this won't mean anything to most people. there was so much food, and it all got et; homity pie, chilli con quorne, dips & shit. i hope i never hear that bloody whalefish song ever again, leading me to internet it over to the esure and cillit bang remixes.

then we went outwards, to the pub where we were supposed to have tickets. ruth and i went upstairs to check out the craic with the band, who were a drumless acoustic five piece, it transpired that ruth had orchestrated the whole thing - saying it was gonna be a really good night, it's ohmygodimissyou endorsed &c. - just so she could try and get off with 'dj ian' from the afore mentioned ohmgodimissyou who she knew would be there. she pestered him all night, to which he successfully remained feckless.

i've not been out on new year's for.. i can't actually ever remember doing it. at school i just went round emma halls or bov's or something. i think one year i went to brighton beach. it's not an experiance i really want to repeat (damn i'm writing shit today). i can't be bothered to realise my reasons; new year's is a big pile of croc and i don't want to spend it surrounded by people who think it's a special day. try explaining to people how you can't have a start to a year because it's circular, they won't believe you. the dj's were playing a very mixed bag, which is good because i could dance to some tracks but others were just hateful.it's difficult trying to explain to someone who's never heard of brakes why you don't like them. i tried to leave just gone midnight but got talked into staying a bit longer, and did actually enjoy it for a while. we walked home for about two and snacked.

i'm getting old; it wasn't a heavy night - or it didn't feel like one at the time - but the next day i was wrecked. sigh. we went for a decent fry up and just sat around for a bit. then got noodles and played settlers of catan.

this week wasn't too bad. the first day back at work i got to have lunch with rachel on clapham common, but the heron and the cormorants were away. last night, i made a very good aubergine/halloumi/tomato/pasta dish with adrian, the only effect we used was cumin seed. sorry i mean seasoning. not 'effect'. the rest of the time i've been trying to make this prince charming/like i love you mash up work, getting frustrated at free (no, actually free) software. i'll do some now i think. after another post, a piece of toast, and starwarscraft.