Two Hundred
I note from earlier in this blog, that my one hundredth post was entitled ‘One Hundred’ so I suppose calling this one ‘Two Hundred’ is appropriate. At the time of writing I now have a little over one hundred and twenty-one thousand words. My rationale for these posts was outlined in post one hundred and hasn’t changed. Random thoughts about random places I visit, written down off the top of my head. I spend time working on novels and the effort in what seems endless rewrites is considerable, so it’s nice to be able to write something without the toil and pressure to do better. I’ve just recalled a film ‘It Might Get Loud’ (2008) when Jack White from The White Stripes, sits down and records a track in one take, mastering it onto acetate and then filing it away. I thought that was pretty cool and in stark contrast to some tales I’ve read about musicians spending months working on a song until they agree to let it go. Not that one method is more valid than the other. They both have their place. But I have to admit, the Jack White approach appealed to me. I did a similar thing years before, during a recording session in Palladium Studios in Edinburgh. I felt the song the band was working on needed a harmonica break – no other song we had ever recorded featured one, and I hadn’t mentioned it – but on the day of recording I produced my harmonica, and suggested I go for it. The reaction was along the lines of, ‘but you can’t play harmonica’ which was true enough, but I knew I could bluff it as I had practised for only this one song. So I donned my headphones, stood in front of the mic and nailed it in one take. I remember hearing back the comment, ‘you never said you could play’ to which I replied, ‘I still can’t’ and thinking about it now I only ever played it once more on another track. The sort of music we did then didn’t require it, but I enjoyed featuring random instruments and sounds, hence the harmonica. So, after quite a lengthy story there, the immediacy of writing these blog posts in one take still appeals to me.
I was in Glasgow recently – I visited some new sites which will feature later on – and was having lunch while sitting on the steps of the Gallery of Modern Art. You can see from the photo I’ve used for this blog post, of a seagull that stood near me. It was the only one, along with a couple of pigeons, which I thought a bit unusual as seagulls tend to appear in great numbers whenever there is food about. (See blog post Part 131 for another story about seagulls). Anyway, I was sitting with my Greggs coffee and Tuna roll, my left knee playing up a bit as I had covered a lot of ground that morning and this seagull hopped a little closer, standing on one leg. The webbed foot (the left one) was curled up and the gull clearly couldn’t put weight on it. I was close enough to see that underneath its foot was red raw and had been bleeding. It got me thinking as I was taking timeout. There is a need to keep on keeping on. (I lifted this from Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up In Blue from 1975, though Len Chandler recorded a song Keep on Keepin’ On in 1964. Believe it or not there is a wikipedia page dedicated to this phrase). Life is about having to work with what we have and make the best of it, while trying to do better while looking out for new opportunities and experiences. Why such thoughts should come to mind while having lunch with a one-legged seagull is beyond me. It was an odd moment, just the two of us at the corner of the Art Gallery. The seagull seemed to be managing fine, so I saved part of my roll and tossed it over on leaving. There appeared to be nothing wrong with its appetite, which was good to see and it finished it without fighting off competition from the pigeons.
Thanks again to all who have taken the time to read and subscribe. I have a list of topics already jotted down, so I’m confident I will keep on keeping on with this and write them up as soon as I can. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s nice to be able to do this with no pressure or expectation and doing so in one take.