Jazzman goes talkabout

So I checked out of the Hotel and knew that by the time I final kick back in my seat on the plane and relax my feet will be rancid. It was 33 degrees outside and I had a 20 minute ride on the KL mono rail and probably an hour wait until boarding.

I was traveling light and had acquired a few more items in the fews days that I had been here but especially during my 2 days stay in Singapore. The consequence of which is that I could not pack my trainers and had to wear them to the airport. I hadn't brought any socks either as I couldn't quite conceive a scenario where I would require socks either in Malaysia or Singapore. I barely wear socks in the summer in London and temperature here barely gets above 25 degrees. So socks, in Malaysia/Singapore where the July temperatures average 35 degrees, seem superfluous. I thought maybe I could take them of when I get to the airport and waiting to board. In the end, the my single minded determination to get a decent seat with leg room I forgot to retrieve my sandals from my luggage and my feet just got hotter and smellier. So I wander around the duty free shops a little in the knowledge that I had very little Ringits left and what little I had I need for my caffeine fix before I get on a 14 hour flight back to Blighty. So I wander some more.

When the seat belt signs finally went out, I made a mad dash for the loo - drawback of having a caffeine fix before any flight, however long t is. I am always dying or a pee whilst the plane is taxing in to take off. After I had relived myself I sat back down and promptly eased my trainers off from my throbbing feet and kicked back.

Now, I must have unconsciously held my breath because the first I knew my feet were really rancid was when I heard from behind me, a fellow passenger ask her traveling companion if he could smell 'that'. "Somebody has taken their shoes off and their feet smell real bad!" "It's disgusting". I allowed myself a wry smile plugged my earphones in, tilted my seat back and thought ' Suck it in Baby"

It had occurred to me tonight that I have not been to the dentist for years. My last check up was uneventful until I stupidly asked the dentist if he could polish my teeth. A procedure that my last dentist in Leeds performed as part and parcel of my routine check up. However, I had now moved back to London and this dentist screwed up his face in disgust and informed me that he could but he'll have to charge me a rather lot for it. "But I can recommend a good Hygienist who would do it cheaper'. Stroppy, i I thought. And I hadn't been to a dentist since. That was in the summer of 2000.

I, for reasons best know to my mad self, have take it upon myself to learn Mandarin. Little did I know that this language was specifically designed to exclude me. I know a labour under rather unfounded notion that I can learn any language. I suppose the fact that I am bilingual and the fact that over the year I have spoken. to some degrees, up 3 languages at once at any one time. English, Yoruba, French, Spanish, Kiswahili and now making a concerted effort to learn Mandarin. But I feel the Chinese have anticipated this and there designed the language to thwart any of my efforts to get to grips with the tongue twisting nuances of the Chinese language.

Not only does one one to deal with a language that in the written form is pictograms and ideograms but also tonal in the spoken. I shall not be beaten though. I like a challenge!

I have posted a few pics from my trip up north to Leeds last weekend. I spent many memorably years in Leeds but I had not been back there for many years. The places was bustling and all the banks and building societies seems to have morphed in to bars. Leeds is a great place to hang out. Not sure if 'd ever move back there though.

So it took me 3 visits to Qingdao to final getting round to giving the Beer Factory a visit. Tsingtao beer is after all world famous and I drink nothing else whenever I am in China. If I was to be honest, I could have waited another 3 visits.It is not the most interesting thing to do in Qingdao. A visit to to old German Governor's office is more illuminating but you do get two free samples of the famous beer and getting to see a working beer factory in action.

I was in Qingdao again to see my friend Angel and also to teach Salsa and Bachata for my new friend Jenny. Jenny run a salsa school/bar in Qingdao called Salsa Q. A friendly warm joint attracting a wide cross section of people dancers from the QD community including a few expats like Ricki from Korea and Massa and his wife both form Japan. The main attraction being, apart from the Salsa of course, the relaxed and friendly environment in which to learn and dance. The Salsa community in QD is small and although closely knit, it is also very welcoming. I felt straight at home their and like a long lost member of the QD Salsa family.

I am back from my trip to China and Taiwan but still somewhat jet-lagged. Unfortunately I was not able to update my blog in China as the Great Firewall of China now blocks most blog sites I think. I will post some pics today but filling you in on what I got up to on this trip in China later when I have the energy and had had enough sleep. At the moment, I can barely stay awake past 8 pm and I am wide awake at 4 am.

I remember them well. The 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections. I remember the incredulous disbelief that GW was elected not once but twice! What is wrong with you people. Or is it me? I am living in a parallel universe where GW is actually a witty and articulate fellow. I was resigned to a life time of neocon nincompoopery. The world has changed and I'd better get used to it and stop getting angry.

I discovered Barrack Obama earlier this year in February or at least that is the earliest time I can remember taking any thing more than a passing interest in the man who was going to make history and change the world yet again. I was in my little brother's apartment in Atlanta, Georgia. Well he is six foot 3 and weighs about 16 stones so he is not so little really. I was in ATL, as it is affectional referred to in the US, to see my younger sibling and to get a flavour of Flava 3 Salsa Congress. About mid morn when I awoke from my much deserved slumber, after hours of pounding the dance floor to the hypnotic beats of the salsa dura, I automatically reached for my Mac and scanned Youtube for any interesting videos whilst I waited for my brother to wake up. It is during one of these sessions that I happened upon a speech of Mr Obama. I was mesmerised. I then spent any spare time I had in ATL on my Mac watching his speeches, interviews, etc. This I have done now for months and throughout the democratic primaries I was glued to the screen of my laptop scouring the web for any piece of information about the primaries I could lay my hands on. I was hooked I have to admit I went right off Hilary and I certainly changed my ideas about Bill Clinton whom I had supported from afar and thought he got a raw deal from the rabid right of American politics during his presidency.

The truth is,I have also witnessed the false starts of Jessie Jackson is then 80s.So I bought in wholeheartedly to the premise that an African American is unlikely to get the chance in the US to run for President let alone get elected President. I bought into the Southern Strategy malarkey, the Bradley Effect shenanigans  and all other political theories which deftly articulated why this scenarios is unlikely to ever happen. Well, not in my life time anyway. So you can imagine my shock when Mr Obama actually defeated Mrs Rodham Clinton and was actually nominated as the Democratic nominee for President. Damn! I thought. Can ths really be.

I watched in earnest as the Presidentially campaign rolled out and I have to admit again I expected disaster. The well oiled Republican wrecking machine will soon swift-boat his sorry little skinny arse like they did a certain John Kerry back in 2004. I waited and waited and nothing of any substance materialised. Sure they was the Reverend Wright but to be honest I just did not see this as an issue that could fatally wound the slick Obama Express. Sarah Palin turned up and sure I thought, Shit! This is it! Then she open her proverbially gob and then we all realised that this was but a mere comic interlude the relieve the otherwise serious business of electing the most powerful person on earth to office. Incidentally I think Africa ought to be a country as well as a continent; The United Sates of Africa. Granted it would be a bureaucratic nightmare but the it more or less is. Why not have it centralised.

I stayed up all night to watch the US presidentially election. I did not even do this for Bill Clinton. Gore to be honest I thought was a bore. So did everyone one it they were honest until he made that film about the environment. John Kerry? Something told me h was just another Jimmy Carter waiting to happen but I'll hazard a guess that it was a case of anyone but Bush so he'll do.

I had CNN for company all night and watched every result as they develop and were eventually called. I consumed an unhealthy amount of tea interspersed with the odd rum and coke. Sure, I would have liked to have had it the other way round, but it was a school night and I was not going to rolling into work mid week suffering the ill effects of too much rum and tension.

And when the moment came and Mr Obama was declared the likely winner, I still held out for that phantom republican wrecking machine to deliver an unplayable yorker and rip through the carefully constructed alternative reality of Obama winning the US presidentially election.

I can not remember any other time in recent memory when I was happier and I was not on a dancefloor somewhere. Words can not describe my feeling so I am not even going to try.

But it is at moment like these that I am overcome with that surreal feeling that things outside my field of vision don't actually exist. And things just get rolled out minutes before they come into view to fool me into thinking that I exist. But I am onto them, because every now and then they slip up and have illogical constructs like a gimp being the president of the most powerful country in the world for the lat eight years or americans voting for a mixed race fellow whose surname has more than 2 syllable and his middle name is Hussein to be President. Yeah right. I am on to you guys. 

I am rediscovering my love for Jazz and this can be solely attributed mainly to iTunes, or to be more accurate it is down to the new gizmo in the latest version of ITunes called Genius. Genius searches through ones iTunes library and recommends other songs it thinks might be to ones taste. I was completely skeptical at first but then again, I am an Apple freak and will give any new Apple idea a bloody good go like the rest of the Apple faithfully. This blindly believing that Steve Job can do no wrong. Well I was well and truly stupefied! This gizmo actually works. And as a result, I have bought as much music from iTunes in the last two months as I have done for the first eight months of the year. Hey, hey hey not daft these Apple folks

Most if not all of the music I have bought on iTunes in the last two months has been Jazz in one format or another. I pretty much like most formats of jazz except the so called Trad Jazz which I loathe with a passion.

Jazz is somewhat akin to marmite in so much that you either love it or hate it. I live it. Words can not begin to express my passion for jazz. It ability to not only to reflect my moods if need be but also to change my moods when called upon to do so.

My earliest memories of being captivated by jazz was in my early teens by George Benson, before some A&R man suggested it might be a good idea if he sung, Earl Klugh was another favorite of mine. What Mr Klugh and Mr Benson had in common was that their instrument of choice was the guitar. Which, interestingly enough, belies the much held notion by some that jazz equal saxophone. I can't for the life of my remember Earl's track but George's was called 'Weekend in LA'. In fact I am going to buy the tune again on iTunes. Three decades after I first heard it.

Somewhere along the road to complete jazz addiction I came across Oscar Peterson. A great pianist. The first time I ever heard 'Take The A Train', it was Oscar's version. Mr Peterson did to jazz piano what Ella Fitzgerald did to vocal jazz. To listen to him languidly but effortlessly sprinkle tunes from his perch in front of an ever shiny grand piano was to have you mesmerised that sound beautiful music can emanate fro such a large contraption.

So my journey began. I devoured jazz where ever I could get it to satisfy my insatiably appetite for the format. This was back in the day before CD, before internet and certainly before iTunes. Of course a journey like this begins cautiously taking in the well known jazz greats which are pretty much household names these days but I get hook on the be-bop boys, the moody melancholists, the new school. Dudes like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Art Blakely, et al. Yeah the smokey black and white clips were cool, the suits were sharp but most of all the music touch my soul, stopped me in my tracks and made me think "This is why we live".

Okay some random shots

Paparazzi Bar in Bratislava

Well not quite, since the place is tiny. At the beginning of July earlier this year I spent six glorious days in Rovinj. What a truly beautiful and peaceful place this is. Although ostensibly we, Mo Neil and I, went for yet another Salsa Congress, the truth is we really went there to chill, lay on the beach and for the infamous pool party.

Is it possible to buy shares in Ryanair? I have certainly cover some miles in their planes this year, mostly to Eastern Europe. I nearly went to Rovinj two year ago but back then it seemed to me a hellish place to get to. Thankfully, one now need only to fly to Pula and it is but half and hour drive or so from there. I am surely glad I went this year. We managed to rent an apartment in the Old town which was thankfully air conditioned. Rovinj is boiling hot in July. Our apartment had cool wooden floors and a 'postcard picture' view of one of Rovinj main squares. Easily walking distance from anywhere we'd ever want to go in Rovinj. Even from Monvi, the only nightclub in Rovinj. Actually its about 10 night clubs in one! Where everyone drinks Sangria straight from the jug like those big german tankards of beer. I had to stumble back drunk all the way from Monvi at 7am whilst Mo shook his head disappointingly at the sight of me try to negotiate my now sangria soaked six foot four frame through the uneven streets of Rovinj. He is use to hanging out drinking with Rugby League players so he really could understand how someone can get so drunk and what seems to him so little. I don't think it was the Sangria though, but the hour of rum and coke session with one of the Dejays after the club had shut. Nonetheless it goes down as a good night in my books if not in my memory.

Rovinj, I hesitate to add, is very popular with families from Northern European countries which is not really a problem but I think it did get very tedious being stared at by families of four everywhere we went as if we had just landed from Mars. The locals on the other hand were very friendly and always had time to stop to have a quick banter. After all Croatia was primarily responsible for England's non-participation in Euro 2008. "We kicked your arses" my good friend Ivana kept reminding me.

Our daily routine basically consisted of and without much variation; get up very late, have breakfast, hit the beach, have a few beers, hit the beach, late supper and then dance all night. Amazingly enough we didn't discover the coolest bar in Rovinj, Zanzibar, until our last night as Mo and I walked around refusing to go to sleep as it would mean the end of such a lovely break. After a few drinks at Zanzibars we had to leave because they were closing, so went wandered over to he sea promenade and smoked a few cheap cigarettes with the sound of waves gently lapping the sea wall as we reminisced about our splendid long weekend in Rovinj.

The first time I went to Berlin I honestly can not remember ever stepping outside of the hotel. I really can't. I must have, even if it was just to get to the Salsa Parties) Why do European Salseros always refer to the as Salsa Parties). The only times I remember being outside the hotel is walking from and to the airport. I really only remember this because this must be the only airport I have ever been to where I have been able to walk from the airport to my hotel. I think it took about 10 minutes.(Any guesses as to which airport).

So on my return visit a couple of weeks ago, even though I was only in Berlin for two nights, I was determined to see the gates; if nothing else. I did really enjoy Berlin this time round but I really wasn't over enamoured by the bit of the city that I saw. The gates were beautiful even though someone went and plonked a monstrously characterless building right next to it. But in general the city seemed quiet and not all together that exciting. Admittedly I was in what was the Eastern part of the city and quite possible the soul has probably been ripped out by past communist bureaucracy and it has still yet to recover. It could just because I needed more time to appreciate the place. I think a third and much longer visit is in order!

Twice I was asked today if I knew what you call a date like 080808, I didn't even realise there was a special name for days like these but twice I lied and said I knew but had forgotten. Why I did this I know not and care not but I am nonetheless curious as why this increased obsession with dates and number arrangements. For many years through my life as a pupil/student, every day I wrote the date at the top of my exercise book/note pad and in those days dates did fascinate me. But this is an acceptable schoolboy pastime but for adults it isquite frankly worrying.

I have not blogged for a while for a variety of reasons. The main culprit being Facebook the other being the haphazardness of my life at the moment but I do remark to myself every so often that I ought to blog more often if only jut to practice and sharpen my writing skills. I am somewhat becoming bored of Facebook having acquired over 240 friends many of whom I never seen or spoken to. On the other hand it has been good in the sense that I know communicated with a lot of my salsa friends whom ordinarily I just say Hi to and dance with. I have long being convinced that Salsa is fully of the socially challenged with negligible social skills. Thankfully every week, I am proven wrong and as a result of getting to know more about my salsa companions other than their ability to keep time. I am constantly pleasantly surprised.

And so it happened that two weeks ago to the day, I found myself unemployed for the first time in 20 years. With all this time on my hands I decided to do a few things I have always been meaning to do but somehow never quite got around to. Top on my priority is learning how to swim. Oh, and the fact the my GP, well the locum doctor because my GP was away, suggested that at my 'age' I ought to slow down and go easy on my joints. Try swimming he said. I'd have to earn first I thought.

It is rather interesting for me to learn though that on informing people of my lack of ability to swim the assumption is made that this is due to some fear of water. Never quite under stood that one. Well I can say with some joy that I have been practicing my 'kicking' all afternoon in the tranquil swimming pool at the Royal Club Mohamed-Aly on the shore of the Nile in Cairo. Hence the title! Incidentally, visiting the Pyramids o Egypt somehow crept up to second on my list of things to do whilst I have the time so to do. I think the 'kicking' is coming along fine but not quite kicking - so to speak. But the Royal Club Mohamed-Aly sure is a nice place to practice. It is away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Cairo and is a 20 minute taxi ride through the ever present Cairo rush hour. A cacophony of blaring horns, near misses screeching and random phrase in Arabic tossed in the air with hand gestures for good measures. For some inexplicable reason that I really can't be bothered to delve into I thrive in this kind of urban mayhem. I fell at home surrounds by ritualised chaos. Nonetheless the tranquility of the Royal Club Mohamed-Aly was very welcomed.

Today is my first full day in Cairo since I arrived on a very late flight this morning. As we came in to land over the night sky of Cairo, I peered out of the window as my plane glided serenely through the clear skies. Where is all this much talked about Cairo smog I wondered. Cairo looked absolutely resplendent at night. With isolate settlement twinkling in the dark like a great constellation in space. I liked Cairo already!