This one’s for Tanya in SC

here you go, a lot of photos from b & a off to london manana

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

For a fine set of pix from last night, check out Mariola Zepeda’s Flickr photos

He referred to the Smiths obliquely as a ghost who is always nearby but still gave it some welly with songs like Panic and Girlfriend in a coma. The crowd, myself included, couldn’t help but join in more with those songs rather than his relatively sedate solo stuff. He made the odd stab at Spanish with some, frankly, baffling dialogues seemingly influenced by his recent move to Italy. “Is there a Julia in the audience?” which is something to do with the police in Italian. (pull)Fair play to him for shouting “Tapatios” to the crowd though, we liked that.(/pull) And there was the requisite booing when he mentioned that tomorrow he’d be playing in Mexico City. Sita especially appreciated the changes of shirt with an average of 4 songs to each ripping off of silk shirtery…

Interesting backing band too, shaven-headed 25/40 yr old men forced to wear some bizarre dungaree outfit. They had the songs down pat.

Overall a fantastic concert and it was definitely worth arriving early to get to the rows where you could see every passionate expression. Even if it meant watching Eurovision clips from the 60s, New York Dolls footage and a Bjork/Kate Bush percussionist/keyboardist act named Kristeen Young.

The setlist via a source I will soon track down:

William
In the future when all’s well
Don’t make fun of daddy’s voice
Panic
Dear god please help
I’ve changed my plea to guilty
First of the gang to die
Disappointed
You have killed me
Ganglord
Let me kiss you
Everyday is like sunday
Girlfriend in a coma
I just want to see the boy happy
Life is a pigsty
Please please please
How soon is now?
Far off places
Irish blood English heart

Have to go to work in 5 mins, so a quick post about the weeked. Saturday: Sita had her tequila class and I changed the oil in the car. Well I took it to an oil change place, there’s no quickilube so it had to be a garage. i thought I’d show some brand loyalty and took it to Multiservicios Gaytan first, but they were closing and somewhat brusque so i went elsewhere and got to watch the entire mysterious process which you don’t usually get to see. Jose came round in the evening and we never got round to the podcast cos he’d forgotten his notebook (the paper sort). Good night all the same, though. Yesterday I went to the baratillo (pictured) the huge sprawling market that takes over Oblatos on Sundays and picked up Aeon Flux, which has had terrible reviews but what the hey… since I was in the barrio i checked in on Cesar at his house, he was there and i caught up on 2 yrs worth of news. He might be up for going to see Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling) on Tuesday evening, but I’ll not hold my breath. Watched Shaolin Soccer in the evening which was grand, then flicked through the channels and got hooked on a fantastic film about drug addiction, i didn’t know what i was watching till the end, but it was Requiem for a Dream. Bloody brilliant film, i foresee a lot of nightmares. It’s by the same director as PI, which is another great film… anyroad, off to work. Wish me luck, I’m meant to have come up with some kind of unifying theme for the Camino Real documentary and to be honest, I haven’t. it’s hard to summarize the history of a 2000 mile stretch of road over 500 years. In Spanish. Ah, we’ll see how it goes, i’ve got a few ideas…

I’m in apple green, long hair… more info about the event https://runningupforair.com/

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by RUFA (@running_up_for_air) on Feb 10, 2019 at 12:35pm PST

So, my fastest up and down time for this in the past was 1hr45m which I more or less did the first lap, then diminishing returns, 3rd lap’s ascent was brutal but it does help to be told ‘Good job’ by everyone flying past. Happy with me results. + a Personal Record for the descent on lap 3: 30m43s, I’ll take snow over rocks and roots any day of the month.

At least 30 people came to our party last night and at one stage dancing broke out. The empty bottles won’t fit in our huge recycling wheelie bin. And even Atticus behaved himself. T’was grand. There’s a few photos which I’ll get on here soon of peeps. Anyroad, thanks to everyone who came. It more than made up for our uneventful new year’s eve.

Let’s start with Friday. I got home from work around 5ish and Sita and I took Mr. Atticus to the beach where he was correctly identified as part schipperke by a stranger. This happens with alarming regularity, many denizens of Santa Cruz appear to have an encyclopedic knowledge of dog breeds. My in-built dog reference guide has bulldog and poodle with a big gap in between. anyroad, after much leaping around and photography we headed home, put Atticus out to pasture and brought Klem and Lulu in for a hop around the furniture… Then we went out for a sophisticated romantic dinner at Pearl Alley Bistro with fine wine and rare meats, dessert and an espresso, all bankrolled by my folks as birthday treat. We went to Well Within and on the way out saw a friend from Scotts’ Valley High, where I used to work, we spent 15 minutes in the street catching up on the goings on of the last few months, and agreed we’d meet up for a beer in the near future. We said our goodbyes and then, as one, turned around and said let’s have them now. Lo it came to pass and we spent the rest of the evening getting through pitchers of Newcastle Brown in the Poet and Patriot pseudo-Irish pub and talking nonsense. Result. or ‘Epic’ as some readers of this blog may say… got home settled Mr.A into his deluxe doggy bed and hit the hay… cue saturday morning. – TO BE CONTINUED- Have to go and watch sita play netball with girls from ucsc at the local elementary school.

Sun streams in throught the window, coffee gets brewed, breakfast is slowly knocked together and a nice long phone call from me mum’n’dad arrives… after that i saddle up the Nissam Altima, get me mobile, radio and camera together and I headed off into the Santa Cruz mountains for to explore the sights and sounds. I timed it just right to hear Car Talk, This American Life and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell me on NPR. And when they ran out I had a few episodes fo the ‘The 99p Show’ burnt onto CDs. Went all along route 9, stopping at the summit for an hour’s walk or so with well pretty views, then moseyed on to Saratoga for a coffee, a muffin and to pick up a copy of The Wave and then onto town…