tag: Memories



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16
Aug 2006

Life Experiences Meme

by Jim Bliss

Yeah. Another meme. Sorry about that. This time it’s from here. It’s a long list of stuff that you copy and then highlight the ones you’ve done… adding comments should you feel so inclined.

I’m not entirely sure why it caught my eye, but I’ve no intention of inflicting it on anyone else… 150 items? It’s kind of over the top. But it’s been ticking over in my ‘drafts’ for a couple of weeks, getting added to whenever I run out of steam on another piece.

So I may as well dump it on the website now before unleashing my next pseudo-philosophical musings on you my dear, long-suffering, reader. Without further ado…

  1. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
    More than once. Though usually – thank christ – in countries where you don’t need to take out a mortgage to get involved in pissed-up extravagance of that sort.
  2. Swam with wild dolphins
  3. Climbed a mountain
  4. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
  5. Been inside the Great Pyramid
    I became incredibly claustrophobic and didn’t stay long.
  6. Held a tarantula
  7. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
  8. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
  9. Hugged a tree
    More than that, I even wrote a haiku about it… Middle-aged couple / discover me tree-hugging / all a bit awkward
  10. Bungee jumped
  11. Visited Paris
  12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
  13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
  14. Seen the Northern Lights
  15. Gone to a huge sports game
  16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
  17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
  18. Touched an iceberg
  19. Slept under the stars
  20. Changed a baby’s diaper
    It was an emergency and I was the only person available. I don’t think I did the best job in the world, but I did at least use the word “nappy” and not “diaper”. Fricking Americans!
  21. Taken a trip on a hot air balloon
  22. Watched a meteor shower
  23. Got drunk on champagne
    I no longer drink… booze just doesn’t do it for me anymore. But I’ve got the kind of curious nature that’s meant I’ve been drunk at least once (and ususally only once) on just about every drink you care to mention.
  24. Given more than you can afford to charity
    ha… ahh ha ha ha! One day I’ll tell that story.
  25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
  26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
  27. Had a food fight
  28. Bet on a winning horse
  29. Asked out a stranger
    Never got a response in the affirmative, mind.
  30. Had a snowball fight
  31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
  32. Held a lamb
  33. Seen a total eclipse
    Well, it was damn near total… ninety-something percent… London about six years ago.
  34. Ridden a roller coaster
    But man do I hate the things. I prefer to get my ‘intense experience kicks’ in other ways.
  35. Hit a home run
  36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
    Pretty much every time I’m moved to dance actually.
  37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
    I was Scottish for a day while my Scottish friend was Irish. Leastways that was the theory… I think most of the time we were both Welsh-Pakistani.
  38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
    Hell yeah! Lots and lots of moments. Without wishing to be too gloomy, it has been a fairly long while though.
  39. Had two hard drives for your computer
    Right now I’ve got three. But what’s that got to do with anything?
  40. Visited all 50 states
  41. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
    Yup. And I think… if I worked it out… I must be at least breaking even in the “had to be taken care of” Vs. “taken care of someone else” stakes (which is – as everyone knows – the only test that matters when St. Peter decides whether to let you into heaven or not).
  42. Had amazing friends
    All my friends are amazing! (you’ve no idea how far an attitude like that goes when you’re asking to borrow money).
  43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
    Yup. And I’ve danced with a foreigner in a strange country as well.
  44. Watched wild whales
  45. Stolen a sign
    A sign? ‘A’ sign, you ask? Myself and A.R. stripped an entire suburb of road signs one drunken teenage night and placed them all in a local (drained) pond. To this day I’ve no recollection of the moment we decided on that mission, but I’d love to recall the conversation that led up to it.
  46. Backpacked in Europe
    Technically every time I go to the shop.
  47. Taken a road-trip
    Starting to get a bit mundane now…
  48. Gone rock climbing
    … I mean, ever climbed some rocks? What’s that all about…? Seriously, what’s next? ‘Ever eaten some food?’
  49. Midnight walk on the beach
    Oh come on!
  50. Gone sky diving
    Ah, now we’re in better territory. Of course I’ve never gone sky-diving. I’m not a freaking nutter! The decision to jump out of a plane is – inherently – one you take as a matter of absolute last resort.
  51. Visited Ireland
    Clearly not expecting too many Irish respondents to this wee quiz.
  52. Been heartbroken for longer than when you were in love
    What? You mean it can pan out any other way? Really?
  53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
  54. Visited Japan
  55. Milked a cow
  56. Alphabetized your cds
    Oh man, you wouldn’t believe the time I’ve spent re-ordering my music collection. The male brain has an inbuilt tendency towards autism… and that’s where I let that little side of me run riot.
  57. Pretended to be a superhero
    Yes. But I was, what? 6 years old at the time?
  58. Sung karaoke
    No. And I never will. People don’t understand my objection to this… I don’t have a freakishly objectionable singing voice or anything. It’s just, when you’ve heard ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ butchered by an angry red-faced drunken middle-aged wino in a Cricklewood pub, the whole notion of karaoke loses its innocence and becomes something dark and unpleasant, filling your memory with little links and associations that you never asked for and can never ever escape.
  59. Lounged around in bed all day
    If whoever compiled this quiz had been really hardcore they’d have specified a week! That’d separate the men from the boys.
  60. Posed nude in front of strangers
    I posed nude (in crucifiction pose no less) for an artist when I was at college. But she wasn’t a stranger. I guess it all depends on your definition of “posed”. I was filmed by a van-load of policemen running nude across a bridge. It’d be stretching it to describe that as “posing” though.
  61. Gone scuba diving
  62. Kissed in the rain
  63. Played in the mud
  64. Played in the rain
  65. Gone to a drive-in theater
    When I was living near Chicago I hung out a few times at an old abandoned drive-in. It had an incredibly apocalyptic atmosphere and I was vibing on that at the time. Never saw a movie at a drive-in though.
  66. Visited the Great Wall of China
  67. Started a business
    More than once.
  68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
    You’re shitting me right? That really happens?
  69. Toured ancient sites
    Oh yeah, I’ve contributed to ‘tourist erosion’ at ancient sites all over the world. The Great Pyramids beat the rest hands-down. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. I dig lots of others too, don’t get me wrong. But the pyramids are a bit fricking special.
  70. Taken a martial arts class
  71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
    Probably. But I wasn’t a D&D geek for very long before my music-geekness kicked in and I stopped having time for anything that didn’t involve loud guitars and beer.
  72. Gotten married
  73. Been in a movie
    I was an extra in some WW2 mini-series starring Kenneth Branagh. Can’t even recall the name of the thing. I was a British soldier dying in the background. I’ve also been in a couple of low-budget student films. I was credited as “The Hippy” in the first and “Stoned man” in the second. Arguably the roles didn’t stretch my acting abilities all that much.
  74. Crashed a party
    I’ve crashed a fair few parties. Though none recently.
  75. Gotten divorced
  76. Gone without food for 5 days
  77. Made cookies from scratch
    I’ve made them from other things too.
  78. Won first prize in a costume contest
  79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
  80. Gotten a tattoo
  81. Rafted the Snake River
  82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
  83. Got flowers for no reason
  84. Performed on stage
  85. Been to Las Vegas
  86. Recorded music
  87. Eaten shark
    I was a fully fledged carnivore up until my 16th birthday. Ate a lot of stuff that makes me think “hmmmmmm, not sure about that” these days.
  88. Had a one-night stand
  89. Gone to Thailand
  90. Bought a house
  91. Been in a combat zone
    Not exactly. But we did get occasional bomb-threats in some of the countries I grew up in. My dad worked for a high-profile US corporation in some places where anti-American feeling could get violent. Mind you, this was back in the 80s… I suspect the kids attending (for instance) Cairo American College today are experiencing a whole other level of paranoid weirdness.
  92. Buried one/both of your parents
  93. Been on a cruise ship
    For all the more like ‘jazz heaven’ from Stardust Memories.
  94. Spoken more than one language fluently
  95. Performed in Rocky Horror
  96. Raised children
  97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
    And my second-favourite, and my third-favourite, and bands that probably struggle to make the top 20 these days.
  98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
  99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
  100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
  101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
  102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
    I was a motorist for about a year and a half in my late teens. Where possible I’ve done my best to avoid cars since then. However, during that brief time, it’s fair to say that I was rarely in the car without either Bowie or Talking Heads playing right at the edge of distortion volume. And it would be rare indeed if I wasn’t singing along. These days I must content myself with singing along at home… I still don’t give a toss if anyone’s looking.
  103. Had plastic surgery
  104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
  105. Wrote articles for a large publication
  106. Lost over 100 pounds
    Remember the dot-com boom? And the biotech boom? A chimp with smack habit could’ve made money in the stock market in the late 90s. I did anyway. Round about mid-2000 however I heard about a small UK tech start-up that was having its IPO. They were going to be the next big thing. They worked in the field of nano-grinding and I believed they were absurdly underpriced. Turns out they were absurdly overpriced. I lost a wee bit more than 100 pounds.
  107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
    Huh? Well, I’ve talked people down from some seriously bad trips. Does that count?
  108. Piloted an airplane
  109. Petted a stingray
  110. Broken someone’s heart
  111. Helped an animal give birth
  112. Won money on a T.V. game show
  113. Broken a bone
  114. Gone on an African photo safari
  115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
    Been stabbed. Does that count?
  116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
    Never in anger I’m happy to say.
  117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
    Wellllllll….
  118. Ridden a horse
  119. Had major surgery
    That’s the only kind of surgery I’ve ever had! Minor surgery is when it’s happening to someone else (to steal a line).
  120. Had a snake as a pet
    Anyone with reptiles or insects for pets needs to deal with their issues in a more healthy way. And pet birds are pretty damn borderline. Though fishtanks I kind of understand on a purely aesthetic level. Sorry but there you have it. Pets are about companionship. Companionship implies empathy. Empathy with non-mammals is pretty fricking weird in my book. I’m not saying repressive legislation needs to be drafted to deal with these people or anything. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just suggesting they wear some form of identification so the rest of us can shun them.
  121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
  122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
  123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
  124. Visited all 7 continents
    A question restricted to the handful of scientists stationed in Antarctica. Talk about exclusive!
  125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
  126. Eaten kangaroo meat
  127. Eaten sushi
    Not high on my list of favourite foods I have to say.
  128. Had your picture in the newspaper
  129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
  130. Gone back to school
  131. Parasailed
  132. Petted a cockroach
  133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
  134. Read The Iliad and the Odyssey
  135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read their work
    Not quite sure I understand this.
  136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
    Indeed. Mackerel. I have caught, gutted and pan-fried them over an open fire.
  137. Skipped all your school reunions
  138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
  139. Been elected to public office
  140. Written your own computer language
  141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
    Sadly not in a good way.
  142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
  143. Built your own PC from parts
  144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
  145. Had a booth at a street fair
  146. Dyed your hair
  147. Been a DJ
  148. Shaved your head
  149. Caused a car accident
  150. Saved someone’s life

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6
Aug 2006

Where once we learnt, now we park

by Jim Bliss

On a recent jaunt to London I happened to wander through Camden and up Kentish Town Road. I passed the building where I attended university for four years. Most of it has been gutted and turned into a multi-storey carpark. As a final insult though, the front section has been converted into a big-franchise pizza place.

Sadly I wasn’t carrying a petrol-bomb that day.

It struck me as I walked past, that although many of my beliefs have evolved since my time there – some beyond recognition – that it was nonetheless in that building I learnt the way of looking at the world that I still use to this day.

It was the early nineties and I was studying philosophy in what was – then – one of the most politically radical universities in Britain. It hadn’t been my first choice uni, but nor was it my last resort, and I chose it over a couple of more prestigious (but conservative) places. During my first year it was called The Polytechnic of North London, but it had become The University of North London by my second.

Not saying I had anything to do with that…

The department was heavy on Critical Theory, Deconstruction and all that jazz. And even though that wasn’t where my head was at just then, it was a great environment to study philosophy in… whether it was political philosophy, theology, epistemology, or whatever. There was a sense that – intellectually speaking – everything was up for grabs. Philosophy was an activity, not an archive, and looking back on it I feel genuinely privileged to have spent part of my life in that environment.

In fact, I’m half-convinced that anyone who didn’t study Theories of Rationality at PNL / UNL between 1986 and 1996 is going through life half-blind. Seriously. The number of people who never ask the question, “does what I believe actually make sense?” staggers me. But even among those who do ask the question, there are so few of us who understand that there’s a process that can be learnt for establishing the answer. It’s like this big open secret, hidden in plain sight on the dusty shelves of the philosophy departments.

Of course, while courses like “Discourse”, “Language and Logic”, “Truth, Meaning and Metaphor”, and “The Philosophy of Psychoanalysis” have helped me better understand the world, I’m also certain they’ve helped alienate me from much of it. So it’s been a double-edged sword.

One I’ve been happy to wield, mind.

Nothing is eternal though, and by the time I left university the humanities campus in Kentish Town was already scheduled to close (though I never in my wildest nightmares imagined it becoming a Pizza Fricking Express / Car Park). Recently UNL in its entirety has been amalgamated into London Metropolitan University.

I’ve heard much of the radicalism of the humanities department has disappeared. Where once it occupied its own dark, imposing stone and redbrick bunker, it now lives alongside the business and accountancy faculties in a shiny glass office block on Holloway Road. This has changed the culture of the place apparently. Who’d have thunk it?

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7
Jun 2006

The food of love

by Jim Bliss

Ah music. Music music music.

About fifteen or sixteen years ago I was in my first band. We were good. No, really, we were. We weren’t “commercial” in any way but the sound we produced had the ability to transport some of our tiny audience to that sacred place where time stands still. It was in the days before CDRs and mp3s… the days of cassette. And it’s years since the last of those demo tapes disintegrated. Now there’s no record at all of the music we made.

I don’t see that as a great tragedy though. We were never that serious about “recording” and those tapes that did exist failed to capture our sound; our philosophy was about connecting directly with small groups of people, about removing as much of the mediation as possible between the act of playing and the act of listening.

Each performace would begin with Pete – the bassist – creating a deep throbbing drone… the bass was routed through numerous filters and distortion devices until it became an unearthly low growl. Then I’d begin to talk… barely audible over the sound of the bass… I’d describe a vision I had one evening after I spectacularly misjudged the amount of Psilocybe Semilanceata that it’s sensible to consume in one sitting. Or indeed, in 8 or 10 sittings.

After three minutes, the rest of the band would kick in… drums, guitar and keyboard… all improvising around the rhythms of my voice and the bass. Sometime before the 10 minute mark, what we called “the click” would occur. Everything came together. By this point my speech had become a kind of chant; each time different; I’d hit upon a series of short phrases in my little mushroom riff and work them into the music. By the end of 22 minutes the room would be too small for the music it contained… as though the hypnotic throbbing sound had expanded the very space around us. Then, at 23 minutes, Alison (our groupie) would unplug all the plug boards. Amps, instruments, microphones, all would suddenly get shut off and the 20 or 30 strong audience would freak out.

We’d take a five minute break for “refreshment” of various kinds, then play a couple of cover versions, a couple of fairly straight songs of our own, and then repeat the 23 minute jam. All in all we’d play for a little over an hour.

Last night I dreamt I was back there. Every detail, every burst of feedback, everything was exactly as it had been. Except our guitarist was Prince.

Fuck it was good.

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10
Mar 2006

Hotel people

by Jim Bliss

I’ve probably spent between 18 months and two years living in hotels. So perhaps it’s no surprise they feature so prominently in my dreams.

It’s interesting how the same dream can go through phases…

… the essence of the dream is always the same though I’m sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion. I’m trying to get somewhere – it’s unclear exactly where – while trying to avoid being seen by certain people. I spot the hotel and decide it would be a good place to lay low for a while… you can loiter in a hotel lobby for a long time without drawing attention (usually in a comfy chair), and hotels have dozens of places to hide. In the dream the hotel isn’t quite a safe place, but it’s safer. It’s a place where I’m at a greater advantage.

I spent several months of my early teens living in the Athens Hilton and then later another spell in the Nile Hilton in Cairo. It always felt like there was intrigue in the air… that a James Bond film was just about to unfold at the top of the stairs next to the hotel casino… or perhaps in the rooftop bar… It was a world full of beautiful, self-confident women and successful, powerful men; a world where the most sumptuous luxuries a palate could desire would be demanded on room service as a snack to eat with a movie; a world of swimming pools and tennis courts and important business breakfasts with Jordanian princes and Kuwaiti sheikhs.

For about a year after returning from Brazil I would dream of grand old colonial hotels crumbling and decaying; overrun with amazonian flora and fauna. It was always night-time in those dreams, and the hotel would be bathed in moonlight, seeping through cracks in the ceilings and walls, splashing off a million shards of shattered chandelier. The air hung heavy with the scent of jasmine.

But recently it’s reverted to a slightly less exotic setting. It’s daylight and I’m making my way through the streets of Chicago. I spot the Hyatt Hotel where I spent four months. Trying not to run, because I know that’ll draw attention, I walk through the revolving doors and into the lobby. The lobby is sparsely populated, and the few people who are there are non-threatening. They’re exactly who you’d expect to find in a hotel lobby. They are hotel people. To my right is the news-stand and beyond that a smaller lobby with comfortable booths and relative privacy… straight ahead is the Atrium Café, currently serving lunch… there’s a hushed stillness to the air and my footsteps make no sound as I begin walking through the lobby.

The hotel becomes a carpeted labyrinthe. I walk through it for a long time, down corridors, past gift-shops and restaurants and bars. Up and down rarely used staircases and through dimly lit lobbies past mezzanine coffee shops. Around me the hotel goes about its business. Ignoring me exactly as it should. All the silent hotel people dreaming of sleep and going about their day. And the far off tinkling of a piano can be heard above the muted hum of the hotel soundscape.

I stayed at a hotel just outside Chicago – a place called Rosemont – for 5 or 6 weeks. The project I was working on required collating and analysing data gathered by a dozen or so field engineers. There were four of us living at the hotel. Four separate rooms. Plus another room which we converted to a makeshift office (the result of our analysis would determine whether or not it made sense to set up a permanent office in Chicago). Another two rooms to house the field engineers who each made regular short trips back to “HQ” to be debriefed and receive further instruction.

I would wake in my room. Walk the short distance to the elevator which dropped me off next to the breakfast bar. There I would choose from a menu and buffet containing every breakfast your heart could desire. I would eat with my three colleagues, and at 8am we would walk the short distance from the elevator to our “office room” where we would work until 8pm (with a sandwich ordered in at lunch). Then it would be back to the room to order room-service and watch a pay-per-view movie.

After work the other three would eat together, with a few beers, in the sports bar. I was seen as a little odd for disappearing as soon as work was over. Me… I just couldn’t spend an evening with the same three people I’d had breakfast and lunch and spent the entire day cooped up in a hotel room with. I need a bit more space than that.

And there’s an amazing sense of space to be found in a hotel room. I mean, these rooms in Rosemont were huge (two big bedrooms and a living area; each with big screen TVs; plus a bathroom and small kitchen… that was one room… like a mini-luxury-flat). But I’m not talking about the physical size of the room.

When you get back to your hotel room after a day working, the time you have in that small box belongs to you in a way that time rarely does. And the space around you expands to compensate. All of the essentials of life are provided for, but you’re coccooned from the real world. The real world may as well not exist when you’re in a Hyatt or an Intercon or a Hilton or Marriott. You’re in a castle outside time. You and all the other hotel people.

The dream continues until I emerge from the hotel through a side entrance. I occasionally become lucid or – more often – wake up at this point… leaving the hotel is leaving a dream.

And finally…

I apologise, by the way, for yesterday’s dreadful joke (the George Bush / bird flu thing). I was trying out a system for styling blog entries by category, and came up with the “NewsBite” category. And that dire attempt at comedy was the first thing that came to hand. I can only hope that my category-styles will tart up better content in the future.

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