Just a couple of days to go to Bob now. Bob Dylan we're talking about. Seeing him Sunday night and then Mon. First on my own and then for the second taking along Murty Carla. Reviews so far have been positive, in fact getting more positive as the shows go on, so fingers crossed the London shows are gonna be a pair of Bob Blinders. In fact, thinking about it, it is seven years since I last saw Bob at Wembley Arena, a show that was written about within the Jitterbug Dragster cycle of writings in the Justifying the Star collection of Bob pieces that I put together for the period 2000 - 2005. That was an eventful show, the one seven years ago in 2000, but not for reasons that you would easily guess or that I would particularly want to go back into at this point in time. Guess if I ever get it together to stick all that stuff on a blog it would then be available.
London Bob Dylan shows post millennium that I have attended have been two in London Docklands 2002, Hammersmith Apollo 2003, Fleadh Finsbury Park 2004 and three at the London Brixton Academy 2005. In that time Wembley Arena has supposed to have been done out and improved in line with the spanking new stadium that has been erected. This I will soon find out. It was a right old barn in the past that was for sure but if efforts have been made to make it less of cattle shed with shit acoustics then I am sure it will be for the better, if it is just a case of adding a couple more burger bars then it will be a bummer.
Sat morn. Weather kinda grey but they say it is gonna be warm today so I guess we'll just have to wait an' see what comes along. Friday night I was in bed by 10.45 pretty shattered, night before had slept badly. Woke up at something like 3.30 am and my eyes were wide open starin' into the dark. In the end I lay there doing breathing meditation to calm my roving mind as thoughts swirled about uncontrollably. The counting and the energy expended from the concentration finally put me to sleep after an hour or so but that didn't stop me from waking up feeling knackered yesterday. Never quite shook it off throughout the day so it was early night time especially since Tamdin was away and sometimes evenings on my own can drag on a bit if I aint got any particular thing to do and there aint nuthin' on the box.
Sleep last night was better but still not exactly sensational. Woke a few times but not till after 5 so at least I had already got a good six hours or so of rest under my belt. Half considered getting up at that time instead of just lying there, and getting into an early meditation session on the cushion but I just never made it. Slumbered an' snoozed instead or whatever you wanna call it...wasted a few precious hours. Slipped in and out of half dreams. Last one in which I was walking on a hot Indian plain trying to get somewhere but my feet kept sinking in the sand and then out of the blue a dirty great snake came from out of the ground and I had stand there as still and silent as a rock in order not to get bitten. Think these kinda snake dreams which come along from time to time are slightly improving for me, as before in those dreams I have completely freaked out and ended up trying to run a country mile, bag full of fear for me life, hoping like crazy that wasn't gonna get bitten.
Dylan plays Sheffield tonite, then tomorrow down to Wembley and London where I will be in attendance on Sunday for the first of my two shows. Sheffield. Done that one a couple of times before. Both with Murty Carla and both of which have been covered in various writing cycles within Justifying the Star. Up the motorway in the car then a late night return on both occasions, chewing buzz gum to stay awake behind the wheel. 2000 and 2003 if I remember rightly and I most certainly do. Monday of course I am going again with Murty Carla. I gave him a quick bell yesterday to make sure he was still up for it and also to quickly go over the time and place for our pre-show meet up so I can give him his ticket and we can shoot the breeze over a beer.
He was in the thick of it for a Friday when I called, and I think he was gonna be glad for the w/end. He mentioned it was Friday 13th which I had kinda forgotten about and when he reminded me it kinda spooked me I guess. Made me wanna lie low for the rest of the day as the last thing I wanted to do was incur the wrath of the gods. I went through the things that had already occurred and realised that, yeah, the gods and stars were kinda outta kilter and accidents could happen.
For Murty Carla the Fri 13th experience was that he had come into work that morning and been informed by one of his customers in Portugal that two tons of chemicals had not yet been delivered when Murty Carla thought they had got them months ago. Shippers fuck up in other words. Panic. On top of that it had been Murty Carla's colleague who had been dealing with the situation and he of course was now off for a couple of days. Always seemed to happen like that. Murty told me he had managed to trace the chemicals to Germany but then after that the trail got murky and they were probably somewhere in France. As luck would have it, Friday 13th style, the French coordinator was also off which meant Murty would have to wait till Monday to get more information on where the fuck the chemicals were and when they would get to the customer in Portugal. Big fear is of course that they have simply disappeared. Murty works for a small chemcial company run by a Dane called Klaus down in Caterham, Surrey. He has been with them for the best part of 10 years now and he holds a position of some responsibility which involves occasional trips to places like India and China, the new world heroes.
As for me I realised I had also had a few close shaves on the13th as well. In the morning at Wisdom Books the scales engineer had come to look at our scales in the warehouse which had fucked up after we had tried to insert a new postal chip. He ended up having to take them away with him which initially looked like bad news indeed, but by midday he was back again with the repaired scales. All for 200 quid which actually was not as bad as it could have been as we thought at one point we might have to get a new pair. Managed to avoid that situation.
In fact the scales going down led us to look at how long we had had them and I was kinda staggered to find out they had been with us for over 12 years. Incredible. When looked at like that then a couple hundred quid to get them sorted aint too bad at all 'coz apart from that little incident everything has been more or less boom tinker with them since day. The engineer gave them a good clean as well and told us that if we looked after them they should be fine for years. Yeah well, fingers crossed. Good one, but nearly could have been a bad one. The 13th jitters.
Then in the afternoon I had another close shave as I went to buy a transformer for a pill crusher which Tamdin had bought off an Amercian website. Incredibly hard to find are pill crushers believe me and this one of course comes with a three point US plug on a different voltage. Coupla weeks ago I found a place round da corner in Woodford that had a transformer that would fit the bill and went yesterday afternoon to buy it for a cool 50 quid. Took a bit of sorting out when I got there as it is not the kinda thang people buy from them everyday. Also got a special plug to stick the wires through from the cable that I had ta saw in 'alf an' I was so engrossed learning how the new plug worked from the geezer behind the counter that I walked straight out of the place without the transformer which was a dirty great bastard of a yellow box weighing not much less than a car battery.
It was not till about 45 mins later when I was in Ikea buying an ergonomic pillow for Tamdin that I thought to myself whether or not I had picked up the transformer. Then when I got back to the car realised I hadn't. No way Jose, it just wasnae there marra. Drove quickly back round the North Circ to the electric shop with worst case scenarios runnin' through my head; that I had took it out the store then put it on the ground beside the car and drove off without putting it in the boot of the Toyo. Has been known to happen.
As I hit the fast lane on the North Circ I just couldn't remember if I had done that which meant I had to break fast as I approached the speedos on the side o' da road. No worries though as when I walked through the doors of the electric shop the look on the face of the geezer behind the counter told me he knew what I was coming back for. He made a joke of it and told me I must have felt an inch high when I realised I had forgotten it, a fuckin' great thing like that. Yeah, funny joke that but I smiled my way through and then gratefully loaded the it into the back of the Toyo to get it safely home. So there ya go, a coupla of close shaves on Fri 13th. Both could have turned out a lot worse than in fact they did an' yeah mon I am full of thanks and praises that all was well as what happened.
Nevertheless after Murty Carla's Fri 13th observation I kept me 'ead down for the rest of the day and like I said turned in early, energy kinda low but my mind quietly buzzin' over the staggeration of it all in this crazy kinda life we're livin'.
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