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Jan
27th
Fri
 

Cathouse - Australia Day

G’day. Tie me kangaroo down sport. Throw another shrimp on the barbie ya old cobber, etc… It’s time to throw on some ridiculous (and inaccurate) hats, drink pish beer and celebrate Australia day at the Cathouse.

This night only served to confirm that my memory is shot to pieces.

Not a good omen for upcoming degree exams probably.

This is a nice lassie. She bought me two drinks, and probably contributed to the destruction of my facilities of recall.

Working on a Thursday when you’re used to a Friday or Saturday really screws with your perception of the weekend.

I wish I could remember this girl’s name.

This guy looks like he really did just stroll in from the outback.

The wide angle lens makes the guy on the left look like a miniature person.

Sorry about that.

Got to love a bit of shoulder on display.

Ricky’s always a hit with the ladies.

I hadn’t really felt up to working this night after the emotional fracas of the past week, but I’m glad I did.

There’s a lot of talk about ‘community’ and what it means to be part of one. Something about the Cathouse has let it become an impressive (albeit dysfunctional) family. No matter what happens one day, it’s forgotten the next; as if it never happened. People you might fall out or have disagreements with never seem to hold a grudge, and it continually amazes me to be part of it all.

Here’s to communities in unexpected places.



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Jan
22nd
Sun
 

Wisdom dictates that one should not act in the heat of the moment, or write and post something online whilst angry and in the throes of intoxication. It can often be unwise and ill thought out.

However, as I’m sure you wonderful readers will know, sometimes you have to give words to feelings that you have immediately when they occur, else risk losing the zeal for them forever afterwards.

The past few days I’ve spent time with people that I’ve either not seen in a long time, or those who I’ve never really gotten the chance to hang out with outside of a brief encounter at work before.

On the way to meet one of my old friends tonight I couldn’t help but reflect a bit on going abroad and now being back home. Being in America, and so far away from everything that happens in regular life, it can be easy to dwell on the romanticism of disappearing off there for some sort of extended period. When you walk along streets that you know so well though, with people who work in the shops along the way waving as you pass, you can’t help but love your city. How else are you meant to find such a deep rooted sense of belonging than somewhere like that… a place that you love? No matter how long or how comfortable you get in Glasgow, there is always going to be a myriad of different people and things to experience… relationships that need to be teased out and explored. If you know somebody in one context, who knows how the dynamic might shift in a different one?

Case in point, this is Julie/Julz/Jules.

This fair red-haired maiden is somebody who I’ve known through a strange set of circumstances for quite a long time. Even though we’ve only ever had brief encounters before tonight, she’s a lovely girl who has always been dead nice to me, and given the close people in our lives that we have in common, it was way past time that we actually got together and hung out for a bit.

It should have been obvious that we’d get on since our connections are through some of my oldest and closest pals, but from the minute she turned up on my doorstep (okay, after getting lost a bit), we seemed to get on like a house on fire. Know where you can just talk and talk with somebody with no pretence and without playing silly conversational games, as if you’ve known each other for years? That’s how it was, and we both couldn’t believe we hadn’t been proper pals a long time ago.

Saying all of that, it’s amazing how the opposite can also be true, and no matter what ties you might think you have to the people in a certain place, how shallow and easily breakable they can turn out to be.

Whilst the romance of going abroad may be obvious, the romance of your home city can be just as deceptive. The feeling of community that is fostered between the weak relationships that we build up day-to-day is so easily shown up as hollow when you come up against certain situations, and leaves you wondering whether there really are any proper ties to your hometown, or wheter it’s all just social semantics.

One thing I am sick to death of is the pre-conception that males and females are unable to spend time together without having an alterior motive.

The social rigmarole that surrounds the idea of a girl and a guy together is probably the single biggest issue issue that pisses me off more than anything else.

As should be obvious from the focus I have on portraits, I love people. There’s something about the incredible complexity that is both fascinating and wonderful to me… and that’s without even considering the emotional response to that.

I often find myself battling against preconceptions because of this. Believe it or not, it is possible to be close to somebody of the opposite sex without having a primary driving motivator based on the physical act of sex.

Tonight I again encountered this pre-disposition in an ugly way, and am left feeling disaffected and jaded. Instead of rallying together to look after people who we care about in common, guys jostle for some sort of macho-bullshit-alpha-male position, not out of any real strength but some sort of deep-rooted insecurity, in order to claim some sort of ridiculous, superficial supremacy. Instead of recognising that those who we supposedly trust are able to be friends with the opposite sex and not simply some sort of arbitrary threat, time and again males opt for the defensive stance… which comes at the detriment of us all.

I am sick and tired of being treated a certain way because of my gender, especially by those who are doing so precisely because of their own corrupt intentions. It’s time that we start fighting back against this ridiculous idea of sexuality, and refuse to criticise those of our own ilk for their perceived actions off the back of our own biase. The more we adopt stereotypes for our own ends, the more we harm ourselves.

I apologise if there are too many big words in this post to be clear enough, and I wouldn’t expect those who I am directing this post at to understand, so let me state the general principle in no uncertain terms:

I will not accept being treated like an idiot again by anybody for being close to somebody of the opposite sex.

Clear enough?

Cool.



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Jan
20th
Fri
 

50.

It’s been over a week since I got back from America, and it all feels oh-so-far-away. Despite being a pretty private person, I’m often fairly open on here, which is probably partly because I feel like nobody reads it, so I don’t have any intended listener in mind. As a result, sometimes it’s a good idea to withdraw for a bit to avoid spilling out more truths to the world than might be intended - hence why this update relates to things that happened over a week ago.

Explanations over, below is my father. (I don’t really use that word with any seriousness. Me and my sister started saying it as a bit of a joke, and as with many other things it just stuck. I never was a fan of the usual words that describe people close to you, so it’s easier to mock it than make yourself feel vulnerable).

I think he was in the middle of telling me to make sure I got a good picture of the occasion, which was to mark his 50th birthday.

This is as good as it gets.

It was the Glasgow-based immediate family members that congregated to head to one of our usual haunts for such things: a Greek place on George Square.

It was a nice way to come home.

Going out for some sort of dinner for birthdays or whatever else has been something that we’ve always done as a family unit since we were wee. There’s something communal about eating and talking together, and has become an important ritual… along with drinking a fair amount.

This is my dad doing his bit as a preacher man and turning water into wine.

The older we’ve got, the more wine gets consumed, especially since the question of whether or not to order that last bottle of red isn’t just confined to one of my parents drinking it now… I’ll gladly help out whenever called upon.

A few ouzos later and things started to get a bit odd. My granda always manages to keep quiet all night and then do something outrageous silently in the corner. This time it was imitating a rapper. Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Got a lot going on just now. Not even had time to get post-travel blues.



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Jan
14th
Sat
 

American Update - The Finale

This is written from the comfort of my own bed back in Glasgow, after returning from sweet home Alabama. Even though I’d successfully taken numerous flights between three airports and a myriad of security checks (as well as a bus or two), I managed to fall at the last hurdle and take the long train back from Haymarket in Edinburgh to Glasgow. You know the one that stops at every god forsaken town in the central belt of Scotland and takes two hours?

Yup.

In the airport in Dallas I got talking to an American woman who had overheard me speaking to some German guy, and asked which part of Glasgow I was from. Apparently her husband was from Clydebank, and I was relieved to hear that he still had his Wegie accent even after ten years of living in the States. The Americans didn’t believe me that this would happen, but with something as important to your identity as an accent is to Glaswegians, it sticks with you.

This guy also asked me why I’d been out in Texas, and when I replied that I’d actually been in Alabama, he responded by saying: “Aye, very good, but that’s no really an answer to ma question, is it big man?”

You don’t realise how much you miss that sort of caustic response til you’ve been away.

Anyway, this is the last batch of photos from this trip, which is quite sad. It may well be a cliché, but even though I only literally got home last night, the whole adventure seems like a whole world away from here; as if it took place in some sort of parallel life. I’ve spoken about this a bit with all the girls (Natalie and both Carolines) separately, and you can easily underestimate just how disjointed it can be when you experience something in that way, and how it can feel like you have some sort of fractured existence. I’m not quite sure how to handle that better, except to try break down that ‘fourth wall’ that exists in some way.

I spent the last day wandering around where Kenneth lived in Mobile, and for once just enjoyed walking in the sun and letting my mind drift off. When I was younger I remember hearing a quote from C.S. Lewis (I think?) which said that he loved getting delayed when he was going somewhere, because it meant that he had been given time out of a busy world where he could do nothing else except sit and think.

I’ve always liked that idea, but in practice have been rubbish at achieving it. Being hyper-sensitive to what’s going on around about has never really let my thoughts just settle and wander about of their own accord.

Spending so much time in transit, or with my own company on this trip, and being so far removed from everything that might put an emotional squeeze on my immediate thoughts has allowed time for my consciousness to adjust a bit, and it’s got to be a good thing. Hopefully there’ll be some way to keep that ‘peace of mind’ intact.

This is Kenneth. Sadly I didn’t get as much time to hang out with him the way things worked out, but he’s a wonderfully intense, alive sort of person, who is fairly fascinating to spend some time with. We went round to his friend’s house with some Isle of Jura single malt and hung out for a bit so I could meet them, which was cool. The Couchsurfing community in Mobile seems to be just that… a real-life, vibrant community, which I’m fairly envious of.

It doesn’t have a huge amount of bars downtown, but Mobile has a couple that I could easily get used to spending time in. One of them wasn’t dis-similar in feel to the good ol’ 13th Note, and they even had a placed called ‘the Garage’, which actually was a working mechanics at one point. The Americans took great glee in the fact that I called it garage as in garridge, since they all pronounced it garaudj.

This is Stoney Boatman (how awesome a name is that?!) who works at the bar. He’s the one who gave me the shot of Jager and root beer on the very first night, and was a pure good guy man. It’s funny how you meet people along your travels who make things that bit more pleasant. Maybe there’s something in that that we should apply to everyday life…

It was in this fine establishment which we had our final soirée. Quite a few folk that I’d met over the two weeks turned up, which was nice and unexpected. I had some dollars left, and it was pointless bringing them home given the exchange rate, so decided to drink rounds of shots instead.

I’m not entirely sure what they were, as Melissa would say she was up for ‘anything’, but then go on to list what the shots shouldn’t contain, so I believe they were ‘something sweet but strong’. There was definitely rum, pineapple and jager involved at some point. This fine lady made them up for us.

I lost control of the camera at somepoint, so I’m in more than my fair share of these again. Not many people can operate the manual focus f0.95 lens very well… Although Caroline was an impressive exception, it must be said.

Like European countries, drink measures over here are larger than they are at home - partly because of the Weights and Measures Act, partly because they pour their drinks by hand, and partly in line with the fact they’re more expensive. As a result, tanking the booze in a similar fashion to how one would in Glasgow led to much quicker intoxication than usual. This is okay, because I had stupidly promised to join in the following, and required Dutch Courage:

Yes, karaoke.

All the days of being in a band were put to good use as myself, Melissa and Caroline sang none other than I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers. I think I may even have shouted “Goooodniiiight Alabama”, but I can’t be entirely sure.

…and so we finished the two weeks as we started them - drinking at the karaoke night in the Garage, Mobile, Alabama - except this time as friends for life.

I’m gonnae miss ya bastards.



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Jan
11th
Wed
 

American Update #something or other - the penultimate.

So it’s come to that point again; that point where I feel the horrible lurching feeling about leaving people that I’ve met behind, knowing that I might never see them again, and wondering just how far distance can stretch relationships… that time where I piss everybody at home off by missing a time and place that they weren’t part of; where it doesn’t really affect those along the way as much because meeting you is a smaller event in their lives than flying across the world is to you; and the time where you’re  forced to either let emotions fade upon your return or go crazy.

Before that though, there’s still some other folk to meet and things to ponder upon. Forgive the jumping around if you will.

Atlanta, Georgia - Museum of High Art

When I was coming back from Nashville I had a few hours worth of layover between busses in Atlanta again. I hopped on the train and went to the Museum of High Art, which was full of everything from furniture to contemporary American stuff. I skipped the floors on ‘European Art’ - partly because it was all old, partly because I didn’t have very much time and couldn’t get round everything.

I’m fairly open minded about things and can appreciate them without having to worry too much about the explanation or made-up purpose or anything else, but something like this….

… really isn’t my cup of tea.

There was some rather interesting things kicking about elsewhere though…

and there was a small section on Warhol, which I always find pretty interesting - more so because of his character than anything else. A death metal band from the US once told me that I looked like Andy Warhol, which was a bit odd.

My pictures have been pretty gash at the moment, and I’m in a position where I don’t think very much of anything I’m doing is any good. We all know that feeling, but it still manages to creep up at inappropriate times. It might well be partly because of the number of pictures you take when you travel that you wouldn’t normally do anything with, but which you neeeeeeed to for posterity’s sake.

Or maybe I’m just taking shiite photos!

I’m couchsurfing for the last few days here in Mobile with a guy called Kenneth. The energy and enthusiasm he has for life and the couchsurfing community in Alabama makes me pretty envious. He doesn’t lock his doors and is so laid back about everything that it puts most people I know (including me) to shame. We’ll be having a whisky or few tomorrow, so there’ll be photos of that to come.

The Alabama v Louisiana State ‘college football’ championship game was on last night, and we watched it in a local bar that was stocked with mental Bama fans. Chris explained the rules a bit, which meant I could actually follow at least some of what was going on. Alabama won with a ‘shutout’ (a clean sheet in our language), so there was a fair bit of celebratory drinking and dancing going on when we headed to a bar afterwards.

Coming out here the past couple of times has done a lot to shake up my outlook a bit, and because of that I felt it was high time to get a tattoo to make sure I didn’t forget that. I only have an out-of-focus instagram pic for now.

Easier said than done mind you. A three mile walk turned into an hour and a half trek which took me along train tracks, under bridges and (running) across highways.

I decided to opt to take a taxi back. Note to one and all: American cities (in general) aren’t really designed for people to walk anywhere. The car is king.

Not quite sure what I’m going to do tomorrow during the day, but we’re going out at night for one last swan song. I’m going to try not think about it just now.

…or the plane journey home. Or how to get back from Edinburgh airport… or…



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Jan
9th
Mon
 

American Update #7 - NEW ORLEANS

Wow… what a place. I’m not sure where to start. Anybody that gets half a chance to come here should definitely go out of their way to make it happen.

This American city is definitely my favourite so far. What Atlanta lacked in a bit of life, New Orleans has by the bucketloads: shops and bars and unique places round every corner, this is somewhere special. The French/Spanish past of Louisiana has left a lasting legacy on both the look and feel of NOLA, but on the culture and mindset as well. The buildings and infrastructure have a distinct ‘European’ flavour, but with a special American twist.

We found shops with all sorts of crazy things, like a massive antiques shop with old hats, sunglasses and err… weird expensive books like this:

Bourbon Street is the craziest and probably most well known part of the city, and it’s almost impossible to explain just what it’s like here. Photos alone certainly don’t do it justice. Essentially it’s one huge long street packed with all sorts of debauchery: hand-rolled cigars; eccentric street performers; people throwing ‘mardi gras’ beads off of the balconies of bars to people below; an assortment of super strong ‘drinks to go’ that you can wander around the streets with (legally!). I wandered around in a bit of a daze for the first part; it’s so far removed from everything else I’ve experienced in the States… and anywhere in the world actually.

All of this was compounded by the timing of our visit… which was right slap bang in the middle of the weekend where there were two big sporting events going on. One of these was the college football national championship match between none other than the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University. Over here that might not seem like that big of a deal, but here it’s a derby, and so the streets were packed with fans from all sides shouting their team slogans at each other.

What was probably most amazing was that despite all of the drink and insanity, there was hardly any negative feelings between the two sides. Back home the idea of rival football fans mixing in such a way is almost unthinkable without some sort of violence.

Saying that, it was fairly easy to see that the atmosphere of the city isn’t just down to the visitors that were there, and that no matter where you go, New Orleans has a whole lot to offer.

Not everybody was impressed by the heady environment though, as you might imagine.

Caroline studied at the University of Alabama, so practically her entire school was down in New Orleans for the weekend, and we met a whole slew of cool people, and did our fair share of indulging in those acts which apparently will send us to hell (not quite sure that’s theologically accurate, I have to say).

This is Stephanie, she had an uncanny resemblance to my old pal Kirsty from back home; mannerisms and everything. It’s really weird when that happens.

…and David, who stayed with me in Glasgow at the same time as Caroline. Pretty awesome to be reunited across the pond.

and this is Natalie Beck. She’s cute.

Traveling in this wasy is a double edge sword… it lets you go places and meet the most wonderful of people, as well as coming up with all sorts of possibilities and options of what your life could be if you lived somewhere different, yet doesn’t provide any time or way for this to happen easily. It’s a curse, and not for the faint hearted. I’ve not quite worked out if that applies to me or not yet.

Following on from that, there was a nice reminder of home in the form of a man in a kilt in one of the bars we had set up residency in later on in the night. I half expected him to be American, so when he replied in a gruff Glaswegian accent that he was from Govanhill, I was more than pleased… even more so when him and his pals repeated almost exactly the same things that I had been saying earlier about Scotland, which vindicated my positions. I had tried to explain previously that Scots tend to slag each other off, and that the language and everything else is actually an endearing thing… but not all the Americans were buying it (probably just thought I was a dick to be fair!), so when this guy turned up and almost straight away said something un-repeatable to me, then said it was okay because “that’s just what we do”, it felt gooooood.

The next day we kicked off things with bloody mary cocktails and hash browns in the glorious sunshine, listening to kids playing an assortment of wind instruments outside. There’s no better way to start a day, trust me.

My love for Melissa was firmly cemented on this trip; she was my unpredictable partner in crime, and who knows, maybe we’ll be flatmates in New Orleans one day.

So that was New Orleans. I spent WAY too much money, still feel rough, and was too busy drinking to get tattooed as planned, but I had a blast. Hopefully it won’t be my last venture out there. Lots to think about.



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American Update #6 - Nashville

Welcome to Nashville… ‘Music City’.

I like this place. It feels a lot more like a City than Atlanta did. Whilst the latter seemed fairly empty and lifeless, Nashville has a bit of soul, and a downtown area that actually has shops and bars to wander about in.

One of the cool things was walking past the various bars and hearing different styles of music wafting out all throughout the day. It seemed like everywhere that sold alcohol had some sort of band or musician playing. I ended up in a couple, and what was more amazing was that people in the bar were actually listening and enjoying the whole thing. At home you either go to see a band specifically or else it’s somewhat of an annoyance. Maybe if we had more traditional Celtic music without it having to be an ‘event’ then that might be a bit different.

One of the rather strange things about Nashville is that they have a full-size replica of the Parthenon from Athens, Greece, that sits in their Centennial Park. Apparently there was a temporary structure built for a celebration there at some point in the past, and it proved to be so popular that they turned it into a permanent fixture.

Having been to the real one a couple of times, I felt like I had to see what this was like for myself, and embarked on what I thought was a ten minute walk from downtown. An hour later I found it:

Inside they even had a reconstruction of the statue of the Goddess Athena, which is thought to have stood inside the Parthenon in this position. This was pretty interesting, since you haven’t been able to get inside the Greek Parthenon for a long time due to restoration works, and so it was a pretty impressive way to get an idea of what the inside might have been like.

Sitting flat in a park, it was never going to have the same mystique as that of the Acropolis, perched high above the city, and it would be easy to cynically dismiss it as an American attempt to appropriate a bit of ancient culture, but the reason they chose this particular building is pretty interesting. Nashville is apparently known as the ‘Athens of the South’, and so it’s fitting for that reason alone… but they also want the structure to be a symbol of education and knowledge, just as the ancient city of Athens was known for its perspective on the world. Pretty cool really.

I only could make it up to Nashville thanks to the wonders of Couchsurfing, so I have a lot to thank my wonderful hosts for. Dan lived in this brightly coloured house in Nashville, which apparently the neighbours aren’t too chuffed about.

I think it’s brilliant.



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