Pynchon

Sometimes you can get so tired that you just crash, and that is exactly what happened last night. I did intend to post, but you know how it goes? Too many late nights, too much stress at work, too much fretting about visitors, too much food, sit down, turn on TV... ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Anyway, now I'm back. For a short time, at least. ("C.S.I. : Crime Scene Investigation" and the "Lost" double bill commence in 24 minutes.) I will be brief.

Saturday.

Work. Went very well. I was on shift with The Gnome. (He's a nice guy. Very focused, very quiet and... Er... very short. I can't say anything. I am only 5 foot 5 inches myself, but I am taller than Napoleon, so fuck you, guy!) Ostensibly we were in the office to supply out of hours phone support, but I think we took maybe 2 phone calls all day. Oh... It was heaven. Just joy. It is amazing just how much work you can finish without arsehole customers ringing up constantly saying that they had forgotten their own name.

Lorraine also came into work. No surprise there as she cannot leave it alone. She had convinced Kevin Callow and Tina Noir to also come in. We got a shitload of work done.

Afterwards, Kevin Callow offered us a list home. We took it. In the car we got talking about music. Kevin told us about how a friend, who is somebody high-up in the music industry, got him tickets to see U2 on the last tour and how he ended up in an executive box sitting next to Lionel Ritchie. Kevin asked me what the last gig was that I attended. I told him The Streets. He was gobsmacked by that.

"You saw The Streets? But that stuff's for the 12 year old kids!"

"But in my head I am a 12 year old kid", said I. And I am. Then I asked him what sort of music he thought I would be listening to at nearly 43 years of age and he said... wait for it... "Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and David Gray".

Now... you could write on a postage stamp what I know about those three artistes. I know maybe a couple of Deep Purple tracks ("Smoke On The Water" and "Black Night"), one Black Sabbath track ("Paranoid") and a handful of David Gray songs ("This Years Love", "Babylon" and his cover of "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye"), but they are certainly not my preferred listening. I won't slag those artistes off. I don't know enough about them.

I am definitely not on the cutting edge of what is new in music these days, and I really love my old pop music, but I certainly hope that my tastes have not crystallized and become frozen in time. It can happen. The mighty John Peel once said that he was terrified that one day it would happen to him. Luckily it never did.

Is it embarrassing for a middle aged man to want to get on down with the kids? Frankly, I would rather be Keith Richards than Cliff Richard, although I hope to avoid falling out of any palm trees.

I have run out of time. Pynchon family birthday meal and some quick thoughts on "United 93" to come.