French Film Land

There is vaguely Eastern music. An elderly Chinese man stares out of his apartment window at a young French woman in a negligée through the window of the apartment opposite. We cut to the next day, where an old man in a smelly, sweaty T shirt hangs his enormous beer belly over the balcony. He is listening to the young French woman moaning in ecstasy as she makes love to her boyfriend in the apartment below. After which she walks to her window and stares out, thoughtfully.

The beer-bellied man stubs out his cigarette when his wife calls him in, and the girl returns to her bedroom for another session of love-making. The elderly Chinese man finishes his vigil at his apartment window. It’s just another day in French Film Land. The subtitles flick past too quickly, as I try to pick up the French words for ‘fuck’ and ‘coitus’.

“Deep down, I wish I didn’t exist.” That’s what she’s saying to the elderly Chinese guy, in her apartment, after the ad break. And after pretending to be blind for a while, she fingers a packet of suicide pills. It turns out the Chinese gent was a chef and he leaves her lying on her bed in her negligée, pausing only to read out a letter which has been slipped under the door complaining about the volume of her nocturnal love-making activities.

It’s another evening. The old guy and her dance. He says ”I dance like a breadstick.’ She drinks chick-friendly herbal tea. She loves it. He watches her sleeping, from a blue chair. Just as I’m thinking he’s becoming more like Leonard Cohen, he rearranges her lingerie as she sleeps, and runs off as soon as she wakes up, startled.

There are cafés full of lovers, wearing polo necks and smoking. Giving each other meaningful looks through the haze. We focus in on one couple. He stubs out his cigarette and gets up to leave. She glances up at him, turns away and breaks down in tears. We fade into another ad break. This has obviously been the movie’s light relief, the ‘shopping for hats’ scene.

“You never bring me flowers.” She’s breaking up with her lover, telling him it’s over, at the same time as the Chinese man is washing and ironing her nightie in the apartment opposite. After her lover leaves, she walks out of the bathroom naked, to receive the freshly laundered silk. We still haven’t seen her fully clothed and the film’s nearly over. The vaguely eastern music starts again as the elderly man dresses her.

It’s hot tonight and I can’t take any more of this particular movie. There are chopsticks and jazz. Meaningful looks and a fade to black. A quick fade up for a light embrace between the old guy and the young woman.

Outside on the deck, the girls are talking about Apple computers. I have no idea why.

As the young French woman attempts suicide, I change channel.

Man, I love this French Film Land.

From Sommeri 6am to Melbourne with Christmas coming

Sommeri 6 am

The European tour ended at 6 am in Sommeri, somewhere east of just about everywhere. Walking home with Marc, trundling The Bag by my side, we passed a gravestone which, as Marc’s girlfriend pointed out, probably marked the final resting place of the last person to try to make this walk from venue to B&B on a freezing cold December morning.

I’d just played the final concert of 38 concerts. 38 concerts in 60 days. Then I flew back to Australia with 60 kilos of luggage – one for every day I’d been away. Like picking up a jar of marmalade every place I visited.

Bloody nice marmalade.

Just now I opened my guitar case and caught what I fancied was a blast of London studio air. Hadn’t opened it since producing a song for a friend there, sandwiched between Concert #38 and flying back.

It was 39 degrees centigrade yesterday in Melbourne. The tarmac on the road was sticky, and getting off the train I looked around to see where the shot came from, before realizing that I had stepped on a molten bubble in the pavement and it exploded beneath my feet.

Today a cold wind is blowing through the open windows, it’s in the low twenties and sheet rain is falling. It’s more like being in a car wash than a rain shower. I am thinking about that 6 am morning, walking home from the last show of the tour, and listening to a Robert Forster interview on ABC radio.

I heard the first part of it yesterday afternoon, whilst on my way to the car pound.

Around these parts it’s $300 if you get your car towed.

That’s a bill of $300 for looking up old Rolling Stones videos on youtube and trying to find the John Lennon interview with Bob Harris from 1974 I saw at a friend’s house in Italy.
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There’s no extra charge for looking at pictures of vintage J-45 guitars – that comes when you try to buy one.

The tour that started in a bar in Copenhagen at the start of October is over. From Denmark’s cobbled streets, rattling the bones of my bags and guitars, I took the bus to Berlin. Flew to London and engaged in practices of the UK kind for thirty days and thirty nights. Travelling with Rad, who’s got the road sewn into the lining of his Iowa jeans.

We headed up to Scotland, practised bad Scottish accents and had a wonderful time with friends and shows, flew to Belfast and picked up The Insignia (or was it The Enigma?) – a sports car to rattle cages and set this driver’s heart a-flutter with its digital radio cranked up loud. Smelt like success. Drove that thing to Dublin and back three times and didn’t feel a thing.

The book was launched in Belfast on a wonderful Friday evening in the Black Box. Rad playing jazz piano, poetry everywhere, speeches and sister Ali joining me in the reading. We’ll be doing more of this in February – watch this space.

Before this, the album was launched in London at the Half Moon, another atmspheric evening (and only the second time Rad and I have played ‘Letter From T’).

In Italy a few days later the onstage conversation turned into band – with bass, drums and female vocals, all talking Italian. I settled back into the world of driving fast and eating lunch. Three weekends later I took a train from Milano Centrale north to Switzerland, which led me via late nights and laughs to that lonesome road, hauling gear at 6 am.

The last concert of the tour was recorded – that is one I’ll be listening to. You have sent videos too – will be in touch.

I’ll try to put them online, and any photos I can find, too. The ones of the J-45 you’ll have to look up yourselves.

Until we meet again,

Happy Christmas and let’s have an amazing 2010.

See you next time …

Andy

Triangle Sandwich

the transcript of an actual conversation I had with marc as soon as I met him at the station yesterday. warning – this may only mean something to those who read the ‘swiss toast’ blog last year.

A: ‘hi marc’

M: ‘hi andy’

A: ‘I need to get something to eat’

M: ‘no problem, I have a triangle sandwich in the car’

A: ‘a triangle sandwich?’ (surprised)

M: ‘yes, you know with three sides?’ (confused why I don’t know what a triangle is)

A: ‘yes, but …’ (thinking of all kinds of nice swiss bread and not UK-style motorway service station sandwich)

M: ‘you know, it’s made with toast’ (totally seriously, without irony)

A: ‘toast?’ (incredulous, deja vu feeling)

M: ‘yes, toast’

A: ‘and it’s absolutely cold, white bread, cut in a triangle, in a plastic container.’

M: ‘yes, I can get it from the car now’

A: ‘a square, cut in two diagonally,’

M: ‘I told you – it’s a triangle sandwich. like you’re used to, made out of toast!’

A: ‘hold on, I’ll just get a coffee’