Sleep, Dylan and Golf

Fri morn. Good Friday. Nice sunny day, probably gonna be quite hot I reckon. Slept kinda late today 'coz I was late going to bed last nite. Had to pick up Tamdin from Blackhorse Road at half past midnight and that meant by the time we got back and settled down to sleep it must have been 1.30. Kinda feelin' dazed from it but OK. Now it has just gone 9.

In days gone I don't think I would have learned the lesson of required rest quite so well and I would have got up an hour or two earlier even if I was feeling shattered. Just because I would have been unwilling to break my routine of getting up at a certain time each day. Inflexible. Now I think I know that if I don't stay long enough in the sack when I feel tired I am only going to suffer for it later on. Suffer badly, as in my body feelin' like a crumpled crisp packet. Lessons of life; learn what your limitations are. Be aware of your limits. Aint no point in rushin' out the blocks if you're just gonna come to a grindin' halt later on in the day. Be happy with what you can do. So today that meant resting long enough to know that when I got up I would not be feelin' absolutely knackered a couple of hours further down the line. So I finally made it downstairs by 8.30 where I did the usual things I do every morning; tidy up a bit from the night before, put the coffee on and fill the water jug for the water bowl offerings.

Gotta say I'm kinda getting excited about seeing Bob Dylan next week. I've written pretty extensively about Bob in the past and there is a strong possibility I will be posting some extended posts in the next coupla weeks, reviewing the two London shows that I will be attending in just over one week's time. You know, the two shows I went to last year didn't really fire me up in the way that Bob shows have in the past but I am now looking to seeing him again.

Bob's 2007 European tour began last week in Stockholm and since then I have been checking out the set lists online each day along with the reviews from fans who have attended the shows. All been positive so far. Big difference between this year and last of course is the fact his first album for five years, Modern Times, came out in September 2006. What people are enjoying now is the first real incorporation of songs from that album into the set list. When I saw him last June in Cardiff and Bournemouth we were really reaching the end of the Love and Theft cycle of songs and touring which had been in place since late 2001. In many ways I questioned just why the hell Bob was even bothering coming over to Europe to tour at that point in time. It was all old material he was playing and although there were interesting parts to the sets it was mainly going over extremely well trodden ground both for Bob, the band and the vast majority of the audience.

Things have changed now however and I will be surprised if we don't get at least five Modern Times songs on each night that I see him next week. Great. The back end of the main set is looking particularly promising and it could well go something like this on at least one of the evenings -

Highway 61 Revisited
Spirit on the Water
Desolation Row
Rollin' and Tumblin'
Nettie Moore
Summer Days
Like a Rolling Stone

Well, if Bob is burnin' that would be kinda fantastic I tell ya.

Bob is the best live performer I have ever seen. Period. He is the ultimate shape shifter. So many different kind of projections are placed upon him from so many different people that at times he is transformed into an indefinable energy field. Inexplicable yes, but an awesome sight. So yeah Bob has pretty much rolled onto on the edge of the horizon now and the fires in me are slowly beginning to tick over. It will be the 28th and 29th times I will have got to see him since first getting into him back in 1992. 15 years ago now. Well how about that! As far as Dylan goes that is actually quite late in the day for arriving on the scene considering people have been seeing him as far back as 1962, 30 previous to when I started. If ya get the chance, see him. Don't even ask, just go.

First night, Sunday 15th, I will be going on my own. Think I'll hit the City in the afternoon for a bit of trampin' before getting the tube up to Wembley late afternoon and taking in the atmosphere. On Monday 16th I am going with Carly Murtagh an old friend of mine who I haven't seen since the summer when he took me to see Ron Sexsmith. Me an' Carly Boy have a bit of history as far as Bob is concerned. We first saw him together back in '93 at the Fleadh in Finsbury Park. Since that we have seen him in Brixton, twice in Sheffield, Stirling, Wembley, and London Docklands.

Think the last time we went to a Bob together was Sheffield in 2003. The night before the traumatic experience of taking Tamdin to see Bob in Birmingham when virtually every possible thing went wrong. I wrote about that nightmare experience in the Three Bob Shows cycle of writings from Justifying the Star. Maybe one day I will post all that old shit onto Ghost Eternal. Or maybe even create a separate Bob blog just for stuff like that. Yeah, good one. I'll think abut that one. Could be a neat idea. But then again, maybe not...

So anyway, originally I was gonna take Tamdin on the Monday but she has kinda indicated by way of saying nah nah nah that she don't really wanna go so there aint no point in forcing someone to see Bobby if they don't really wanna. She has never really recovered from the Brum experience and I have to admit it is something that I still look back on with more than a little degree of shame an' 'orror. Yeah well, that is just the way the deck shakes sometimes and there aint really that much that ya can do about it...Day after Mon 16th just happens to be my birthday, April 17th. This year I'm forty fuckin' five so I will be beginning my 46th year of trampin' along the pathways of this wonderful revolving planet. Going this way an' that. Sipping nectar by the lake of happiness one minute, stuck in the valley of pain the next, all part of the game. Highs and lows, the good and the bad. Just keep it even, that is the trick. Oh yeah...Bob Dylan! What a lucky geezer I am to have gotten into him. Will always think that...

So- this and that today before heading up to Suffolk on Sat. Couple of days with my folks. Hope they behave themselves. Hope we do too.

Ended up watching an hour or so of golf last night on TV. The Masters. Wouldn't have normally watched something like that but the fact of the matter was that I had to hang around late evenin' for the call from Tamdin to go an pick her up. Beautiful green landscapes of Augusta. It was relaxing, watching all these people out in Georgia. Such a beautiful beautiful golf course. People. Competitors; golfers and spectators, the golfing fans. Never really been into golf myself apart from a couple of times when I went down to what was little more than an extended pitch and putt kinda thing about 10 years ago in the Lea Valley between Walthamstow and Hackney. You could say I aint a golf club man...

Needless to say golf is immensely popular. A sport, a pass time, a life style all in itself. People are mad for it. Mainly men judging by the demographic on the screen last night but plenty of women too. Always kind of looked down on it myself, sitting there wonderin' just why the hell people would spend so much time and money trying to hit a little white ball into holes over the course of a couple of hours. But that is clearly just ignorance on my part. There is a whole history, a whole culture to the game that I know absolutely nothing about. Heroes and villains who have walked it's pages through the years, known to so many...

It is also quite clear after watching these guys last might that they possess a tremendous range of skills as some of the shots they pulled off looked quite frankly impossible. TV coverage is so damn good these days. The way the BBC presented it was educational. Action and history blended together. Nice. Jocks in front of the camera indicating just how fast the greens run and stuff like that. Made you realise just how difficult something as seemingly simple as a putt really can be.

Seeing these guys going round the course allowed me a tiny little insight into the kind of lives they lead. The circuit, the clothes, the air brushed attitude to life. Some players are naturals and they probably don't have to practice as much as others. Some are just awesome. Tiger Woods. Many probably have to practice day in and day out. In fact, thinking about it, I guess that all of them probably have to work like stink to get in shape for a competition like this one if they wanna do well. Lack of preparation will most definitely show, unless you strike a lucky patch. Not as easy as it might appear. All of these guys who have made it to play in the Masters are as far as their own little ponds are concerned very big fish indeed; way, way, way better than anyone else in the places from whence they came.

The spectators clearly take it seriously as well. Extremely seriously. There are people out there who have no doubt been planning for this event for many months. Going over the finer details of getting there, booking vacation time, booking accommodation. Coming in from all over the country, all over the world in fact. Talking to and meeting up with old friends who have seen and done it many times before. Sharing their insight into the performances they witness. Picking up on particular things they see which the might completely pass by the untrained eye. Wonderful. Best of luck to them. Golf. Probably saved a lot of people from the wilderness, so I aint gonna knock it from now on, 'coz millions out there will now if they ever get to hear what I say that I just dunno what I'm talking about, so I aint. Talkin'.