Ditching the Television proves to be a breath of fresh air!

Again, I have to apologise for not posting for so long.  It has been, to put it fairly mildly, a tough few months.  The music and teaching have not paid as well as I thought they might and on a few occasions I've been known to raid the penny jar and use Sainsbury's self-check out to buy a loaf of bread. Therefore, topping the internet dongle up has been low on the priority list, and the library has been frequented for the purposes of checking emails and updating the world in short sentences!

However, one decision this period of poverty thrust upon me was to get rid of my television.  I was, in all honesty, watching, or half watching rubbish, not sleeping properly and letting it drain time, energy and motivation from me on a regular basis.  It was also watching the TV licence suck money out of my bank account, and I decided it had to go.  I was, intitally slightly concerned about the lack of it, but then, when I saw the space it created on my desk, the fact I could now fit my digital piano on the desk instead, put my PA mixer on the desk and actually play music through it, and enjoy the sound of keys, I realised what I'd been missing.

By letting the television dominate the space in my home (I live in a small studio flat which essentially consists of a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a couple of chairs, a few kitchen units and a shower room) I'd let it dominate my life, and now being free of it I began a journey of discovery, not only of music that I'd not listened to in ages (The Best of Gong got an airing, crazy awesome stuff about Pixies and Flying Teapots!), but of books.  I realised that I'd almost completely forgotten how enjoyable reading could be.  

So, in the first few days of having no television, having no job to go to, and not too many commitments I decided to ease myself in gently and re-visit the books that had coloured my childhood with fantastic characters and amazing thoughts.  I read right through my Roald Dahl collection, starting with "Boy" his autobiographical account of his early years.  What's interesting about reading that first, is that you then start to see where a lot of his characters and stories come from as you read through the excellent "BFG" and "Witches" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" etc. etc.  Reading these books as an adult was as exhilarating and wonderful as reading them when I was a child, and I'd recommend any adult who has them in their collection to go back to them.  The quote which remained with me from this revisitation was from "Danny The Champion of the World" it is a footnote to the book  and reads like this "A MESSSAGE to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own do please remember something important, a stodgy parent is no fun at all.  What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY".  Now I have to say that my Dad, and Mum are both Sparky in their own way, and that spark inspired the person I am today.  I hope one day to pass that spark on, and I am determined that I should never be a stodgy parent!

So, where do you go from Dahl?  Well, in my world, there is only one answer to that - Go straight for the big guns and read some Albert Camus!  Albert Camus was a French existentialist novelist and philosopher who died in 1960.  He won the Nobel Prize for literature and as Jean-Paul Sartre said "Camus could never cease to be one of the principal figures in our cultural domain, nor to represent, in his own way, the history of France and of this century".  It is a sadness to me that I am not fluent enough in his mother-tongue to read the books in their original French.  However, I am possessed of some great translations.

I can not stress enough how utterly beguiling, inspiring and beautiful this man's writing is.  He has an understanding of humanity so deep and so truthful that one often finds oneself thinking "Yep, that's how it is, I'd behave just like that if it were me".  His characters are so well drawn and his descriptive language really takes you to the places where his books are set.  If you wish to read Camus, I'd recommend starting with his first (and shortest) novel "The Outsider".  It is truly a masterpiece of existentialist writing.  Camus himself, when asked to sum up the book said "It is the story of a man who is put to death, not so much for the murder of an Arab, but for not crying at his Mother's funeral".  Powerful, emotive and moving, it really does just take you away from this world and into Camus'.

I had planned to blog using quotes from the various books I'd read, but having been so inspired by them I felt the urge to share them with someone who I knew would appreciate them, so they are now in the hands of a friend.  I will try to remember a couple of the quotes which I bookmarked but forgive me if they are paraphrased!  

From "Exile and the Kingdom" a series of short stories - "The Artist at Work".  "The canvas was bare except for a word in very small writing which could be made out but without any certainty whether it should read solidary or solitary".

From "The Outsider" "When I woke up Marie was gone, she had said she had to go to her Aunt's.  I remembered it was Sunday, I don't like Sunday's so I turned over and tried to find the salty scent of her hair in the bolster and slept until ten".

From "The Plague" "At Oran, as elsewhere, for lack of time and thinking, people have to love each other without  knowing much about it".

Now, these short quotes don't really do justice to the myriad wonderful writings of Camus (Wikipedia is bound to have an article or two for the curious!) but they stuck in my mind for a few reasons.  The first quote, is from the story of an artist, who had essentially got too big for his boots.  The beauty of the ending of this book, the quote I gave is that this man had spent hours in a special loft room alone, working on this final work and the ambiguity of the word he has written (A later translation has it as "Independent or Interdependent", the meaning is essentially the same) marks out the eternal question of humanity - are we best of working alone, or working together for the "greater good".  The brilliance of Camus is not in answering the questions of life, but in posing them in ways which challenge and refresh the mind!

The second quote is essentially because I have a memory that is triggered very strongly by smell, and I know the feeling of trying to find the smell of the hair of a girl who's shared your bed, just so you can rest easy again.  Camus' character portrait of this young man, Mersault, is flawless, and so true to form that a number of times I was left thinking "How did he know that's how I'd think?".

The final quote is from Camus' wonderful allegory of occupied France, a difficult and at times upsetting read, which nonetheless is very worthwhile reading.  I love the fact that Camus' is so frank about humanity, about love, about life, and the things which get in the way of living as one is capable of doing.

I recently received an email with notes on "The Outsider" produced by my old Parish Priest who is a devotee of Camus.  I'll finish this blog with some words from them, as I think they will give you a great flavour of what Camus was all about!

"The existentialists claim that the human creature is not like the rest of creation: he/she is free to live as they like.  BUT, say the existentialists, the tragedy is that we actually renounce our freedom and choose to live according to fore-ordained patterns of behaviour.  Born a bundle of infinite possiblities, we settle for the wretched uniformity of the cabbage. 
Basically, we live as society wishes us to live.  We conform."

I guess, as a committed non-conformist, I certainly don't live, or wish to live as society wishes me too.  I will remain a long haired, flowery shirt wearing hippy for as long as my hair and shirts last!

A case in point - I had a job interview today, I need to sort a bit of cash-flow out to sustain my live music and beer habits.  Did I show up in a boring suit with a boring shirt and a boring tie?  No, I showed up in my suit with the shirt I bought to play at the Globe, Cardiff which is flowery, to say the least, and my Dad's old tie which is a tasteful black - with Pink Elephants on it!!  I was asked if I'd be prepared to tie my hair back if it was a problem.  Being a job interview I said of course not, however, on reflection - if any of the women in the office have comparable length hair which is not tied back, I'll refuse on grounds of sex-discrimination!

So, the Weekend looms large, and music-filled is the order of the day!  Lewis Creaven's amazing band are playing my local, The Cat and Wheel on Friday night, not to be missed!  Then Saturday daytime I'm at the Seven Stars playing a solo set, followed by guitar and harmony vocals for Chris Stanley.  Then Chris and I will rush off to the Pucklechurch Beer festival to entertain the lovely crowds there.

Then Sunday, oh Sunday, day of dreams come true!  I will be playing a support slot for my favourite band, in an awesome venue.  I will be supporting Panic Room at the Robin 2 in Bilston.  I simply can not wait!!