To Where I Am Now
Thursday November 28th 2024
This is a telling face from the ornate theatre in the city where the homeless sleep between the arches.
Saturday is the third Live Stream, 11PM Porto time, and I decided that I won’t play any 12 string acoustic, just 6 string acoustic, just to change it up. It has a lonelier sound so I suppose I’ll be playing lonelier songs, we’ll see, but it will be different songs to the first two Live Streams. I’m sending this out on Substack to over 1000 people. As I write every day, I try not to send everyone a notification every day, because that would be just annoying. It’s been about a week since Substack started so this will be the second notification in a week, so sorry if that is too much but it’s mainly because of the Live Stream. If you are on it, FB tells you there is a post everyday, if you want to read it, but there are other posts on Substack that are not announced on FB, fiction and musings. Confused? Don’t worry, I find that people find what they want and thank you for finding me, reading me, listening to me and donating in these tricky times for us all. If you want to see the live stream it is on my Youtube channel here.
I went out into the street today and noticed that people are rugged up in coats and hats and they are cold. Why am I not cold? I suppose it’s what you are used to, an Inuit person probably thinks that England is warm in the winter and an African person thinks that Stockholm is cold in the summer. Do we adjust or do our bodies stubbornly stick with the climate it is brought up in? Anyway, it doesn’t justify more than a waist coat and T-shirt for me.
I dropped in at Tubitek to ask about the Black Friday records and see how expensive they were. I can’t afford anything at the moment anyway, but I still inquire. I did notice that Cat Stevens Tea For The Tillerman (1970) in a book-like presentation with a dbl CD, including demos and photos galore, was cheaper than the coffee and the small cake I bought after I left. How is that even possible? Will the masses ever see music as a worthy place to spend their hard earned wages again? I suppose you can’t argue with expensive versus more or less free, but even really cheap and high quality doesn’t seem to spark much of a general interest. If it’s physical it’s clutter, if it’s digital it asks nothing of you, only your fingers. Whilst in the coffee shop I read a chapter of my book. Books used to be everywhere in coffee shops, not anymore.
I walked through the market to see if they had any Chrissie decorations up and they did. I walked back out of the same entrance that I came in. In the street there was a homeless man lying in a doorway shouting ‘“Porto, Porto”, holding up a transistor radio. I later realised he was celebrating Porto’s first goal in their match today against Anderlecht. Could he have imagined he would be here in 2024, instead of sitting in front of a big screen watching a game in comfort like some of us lucky ones do?
Just close to him there was an optician. My glasses are all falling apart, broken or so wide that they fall off my face when I look down. So I popped into see how much it might be for a new eye test and a new pair. So the test is free, the glasses are from 91 Euros, depending on the frames - I don’t want posh frames but as I write everyday and read, I might have to seriously consider this most fundamental of needs. Next week it’s the second leg of the mouth surgery, then I’ll have to think about the glasses later but not before the brain transplant.
I was in The Archive today trying to empty more boxes which feels good but emptying them doesn’t put the records in the shelves, that’s another time consuming stage, oh well Roma wasn’t built in a day - they drew 2-2 with Spurs tonight. Joakim from the café opposite helped me take the empty boxes to the recycling. He asked me how the music was going and I explained (in Spanish) about the issues, he said (in Spanish) “Siempre esperanza”.
Music today was Godspeed You Black Emperor again. I’m not sure if your musical introduction to your day makes you do things differently? Maybe the colours you wear, maybe what you have for breakfast, maybe the weather, who knows? Or are you just the same person and your moods manifest themselves despite your early waking influences - or shocks.
Music Of The Daze
MARTY WILLSON-PIPER
I need to get The Cure album onto the turntable!
Marty, have you watched any of the recent David Gilmour interviews, etc?