Unreliable information since 1972
Wandered into The Whisky Exchange on Saturday. That place has become dangerous to me, ever since the bastards sussed out my taste in whisky.
Left with a couple of bottles, and am just sampling the first now. Smokehead. And, on reflection, I endorse this product. Just read the tasting notes on the website, and tell me that doesn’t sound like fun.
Best bit: 25 quid, and on a par with whiskies twice the price.
I have observed in the past that I visit places, and take photos of the wrong things. Here’s a photo from the beautiful, Georgian-architecture saturated city of Edinburgh.
This is a photo that works for me on about a few levels, but is almost certain to leave 99% of the population scratching their heads, so I shall simple say that in addition to doing a bit of scrap, these men will also tarmac your drive, and that this photo was taken in Leith. It won’t help anyone that doesn’t get the references, or find the jokes funny, and no I won’t be explaining, but I hope you at least like the colour toning and textures here.
There aren’t many artists that get a standing ovation before they’ve started playing. When Tom Waits walked on stage last night, the crowd were on their feet at once. I’m trying to find something more meaningful to say than that, something that’ll explain what this gig was, what it was like, why on earth I would fork out over two hundred quid (including travel expenses etc) to go see him, so bear with me if this is a little incoherent.
I’m very, very fortunate – I’m the only person I know who has seen him live not once, but twice. Firstly in London, for the Real Gone tour in 2004, and then yesterday in Edinburgh as part of his current Glitter and Doom tour.
Real Gone was an album tour, and was focused on that album – he played other stuff, too, but it was very much about that album. Glitter and Doom felt like a career retrospective – his personal favourites of his work, perhaps – at one point, when the crowd were shouting between songs, asking for their particular favourites, he paused and growled “Well, those are all requests – but they’re *your* requests” before getting on with whatever he damn well wanted to play.
And what he wanted to play was damn fine. I particularly enjoyed the way that so many of the songs were reinterpretations of his earlier work – not so heavily different that they felt spoiled, but enough that they felt excitingly fresh and new – not like heaving them for the first time, but enough that if felt like a privilege to be there, to hear these distinct versions of his songs.
Highlights of the night for me were Hoist That Rag, hearing the thumping percussion and listening him to him rasp “The cracked bell rings and the ghost bird sings/The gods go begging here”, the collection of down-and-outs “handcuffed to the bishop and the barbershop liar” in Bottom Of The World, and him inviting the audience to join him on the chorus of “Innocent When You Dream” which has probably taken the lead as the single most touchingly magical gig moment of my life, one that genuinely brought a tear to my eye, and then, during the encore, a track I really didn’t expect him to do, “9th and Hennepin”, because it’s not really a song – it’s a monologue set to some minimal percussion, but it’s that track that probably provides the best explanation of why I would pay 200 quid and trek the length of the country to see him.
You see Waits isn’t just my favourite recording artist, he’s one of my favourite writers, period. He’s got a knack for imagery that very, very few people can match. You can’t read a review of Waits without the writer going on about the world he’s created for his songs to inhabit – this slice of twisted carnival Americana, of three-time losers and late night blues bars, and the reason they all do is because the quality of his writing is so very strong, and doubly so when coupled with his perfectly pitched delivery, and it the imagery he evokes in every song so memorable and lasting.
“Such a crumbling beauty, ah
There’s nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won’t fix
She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
til you’re full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen…”
And all too soon, off he went, to another standing ovation, his third of the night. I’m honestly not sure what my upper limit for seeing him perform again would be, but it’s certainly higher for him than for any other artist. 200 quid, and worth every penny. Hope he’s back soon.
I’m in Edinburgh at the moment, as as per I am taking photos of things that no normal person would. This, for instance, is a photo of a bridge from a shopping centre to a car park. Hardly a great tourist attraction, but it caught my eye. I did go climb the Scott Monument shortly afterward (and let me just say that it’s a good thing that I don’t suffer from vertigo or claustraphobia) but I like this rather more than the convention shots I got from there.
No, I am in fact off to Scotland for a long weekend. See some of you there, I hope. The rest of you, try not to break the place while I’m gone.
I have seen it, therefore I must share my opinion with you all. That’s how these things work.
So, yeah, very nearly as good as everyone said. Well, everyone whose opinions retained some sense of perspective – anyone claiming it was a work of legendary cinema and “OMG best Mo!vie evaaaar!!!1!” obviously needs a slap and some heavy medication, because they’re plainly over-excitiable. Best superhero movie I can think of, though. Ledger’s performance is stunningly good – he is absolutely the best Joker seen outside of the comic, and never mine stealing his scene, he picks up the entire movie, wraps it in a bright red bow, and walks off with it under his arm, whistling nonchalantly – but I’m honestly not sure about Oscar worthy. I think he might get it on the grounds of being very bloody good, and dead, but if he’d lived, I’m sure the Academy would have felt he had better performances to come, and largely ignored this one.
I could have done without the car chase in the middle. I’ve never understood why every bloody Bat-movie has a Batmobile sequence, because (and I admit, I don’t read the Bat-comics closely) I can’t recall it getting a serious outing in the comics in that sort of context. It’s just sort of a thing Batman has to get around, you know? Yes, they made it work as much more than an action sequence, but still – every Bat movie, a car chase. And car chases just aren’t that interesting. Maybe it’s just me. Anyway, moving on.
Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart are also predictably superb, and I’m going to swerve here, because one of my criticisms of the movie is that Batman feels a little hollow this time around, and I think I’ve just worked out why Bale-as-Batman felt a little underwhelming this time out – all the emotional weight is carried by Wayne, Gordon and Dent. Whenever Batman’s about he feels kind of like a void – a black-armoured violence machine. I can see it’s part of the “forces of nature” parallel that’s being set up between Batman and the Joker, but the problem is that the Joker is so scene-stealing that Batman’s left looking a bit lacking in response. Also, it’s a man in a rubber bat suit, and look, I have suspended my disbelief from a very high ceiling, and I know what I’m watching and everything, but I say again: a man in a rubber bat suit. And I don’t care how good the actor is – when all he’s got to emote with is best described as “some of his chin”, you’re never going to get his best work.
Anyway, yeah: It’s a really, really good superhero movie. I don’t think there’s been better, and there’s certainly never been a better Bat-movie. Go. I know I’ll be going again.
Get up from desk to respond to courier arriving, removing headphones as I do so, discarding them on desk without really looking.
Return to desk to discover that whatever way I flung them down, they have landed in my mug of coffee, where they have been marinading nicely for the last five minutes.
