A tormented song

"My Funny Valentine" appeared first as one of the tunes written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers for the show "Babes in arms" in 1937. Since then it became a standard not only for musical theater (by the way, fuck musical theater, it sucks!) but also among jazz musicians. The initial chord progression has an eerie quality that's usually not exploited in the more saccharine Broadway-styled performances. This version I'm posting is from trumpetist and singer Chet Baker's last big performance, two weeks before he died when falling from the balcony of his hotel room in Amsterdam, allegedly after taking heroin and cocaine, in may 1988. He was 58 at the time, and he had struggled with his drug abuse ever since the 60's, when his career and discography started to be uneven thanks to all the legal problems caused by his drug habit.

Anyway, this last recorded performance of the song he said he "owned" is as moving as it is eerie. His quiet voice sounds deteriorated yet still in tune. The image that comes to mind is that of an old man singing at his wife's grave. In a sense it was a way for Baker to say goodbye to the song that made him famous back in the 50's with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet.


Powered by Castpost

Just an old comic strip

I was just browsing through my old backup files and found this silly comic strip I made five years ago. As you can clearly see I'm far from gifted when it comes to drawing, but well... it was funny to find this anyway :D

Downloaditis

So, you finally got your broadband connection. You’re king of the world, master of the universe, the almighty. Suddenly you get the access to the marvellous world of piracy: movies, CD’s, TV Shows, books, audio books, software, games, etc. In no time you have all the peer-to-peer clients running on your computer. It’s been just a few weeks, perhaps just a few days, and now you’re running out of space in your hard drive. It’s time to buy blank media to burn the overwhelming amount of stuff that’s been downloaded.

It has taken a bit of time to burn all those discs, but the hard drive is clean again, ready for a new batch of ones and zeroes. It wasn’t so long since you bought the 100-pack of blank CD’s, but suddenly you notice that there’s only a few left. The rest is backing up the loads of previously downloaded stuff. Now you have the DVD rips of your favourite movies, all the seasons from your favourite shows from the telly, concerts, full discographies, enormous software packs… But when are you going to have the time to actually enjoy all those goodies? Maybe some of the discs will remain shelved and forgotten, even a few copies of the very same disc downloaded in different occasions.

Is that you by any chance? If not, it’s almost certain that you know someone like that; who always tells you about their most recent downloads anytime you ask “what’s up?”

- Check this! I downloaded the whole (insert name of artist) discography, 5 GB!
- Wicked! Have you listened to any of it?
- Well, no. I don’t have the time. Right now I’m downloading all the “Seinfeld” episodes and the whole Rolling Stones discography.
- What about the movies you downloaded last month?
- I haven’t had the time to check them either. By the way, did I tell you that I’m getting a faster connection?

It’s just a case of “downloaditis”, the sudden urge to download as much as possible as fast as possible, without ever sitting down and actually enjoying the pirated goods. In most cases these people would be better off without the computer and the high speed connection, although they might continue with the exact same behaviour pattern, just focused to something else, like building a huge library without ever sitting down to read anything.

Snart är det dags att flytta!

Efter att ha väntat länge fick jag äntligen en lägenhet (en liten 1:a i centrala K-stad) dit jag ska flytta om drygt två månader, alltså vid årsskiftet. Det blev alldeles för svårt att hitta något nära Malmö, så jag stannar i Kristianstad och fortsätter pendla till plugget. Det kostar nästan lika mycket, även med månadskortet och dessutom drar jag alltid nytta av tågresan.

Det har varit uselt att bo i en studentkorridor där de flesta grannar är lortiga tonåringar. Jag tröttnade på det äckliga köket och det äckliga vardagsrummet som jag måste dela med dem. Att vara tvungen att städa efter någon jävla gris bara för att kunna laga mat för mig själv är inte alls roligt. Visst finns det några få trevliga grannar, men det är ju alltid bättre att ha något själv. Jag har tröttnat på att förgäves klaga på de andras svineri.

Skitsamma, nu ser jag ett ljus i ändan av tunneln!

Sobre las sequías creativas

Esta es quizá la tercer vez en la que la falta de inspiración y de ideas frescas resulta en sí una inspiración. Así como cada quién tendrá su forma de experimentar un racha creativa, igualmente tendrá cada uno su forma única de experimentar una sequía creativa.
Puede suceder que las ideas surjan en el momento preciso en el que uno se encuentra desarmado, nada más para que luego intente uno (usualmente en vano) resucitar dichos conceptos una vez que se tiene a mano las herramientas necesarias para trabajarlos. Una y otra vez desaparecen las ideas, vilmente asesinadas por los pensamientos mundanoe e irrelevantes, Podrá uno improvisar algo nuevo, engañándose quizá a sí mismo disimulando que la idea original nunca se escapó.

En otras ocasiones la asesina de la inspiración es la pereza, combinada con el hecho de volverse muy confiado en que la idea es tan grandiosa que el recordarla no será problema, incluso al día siguiente. Por supuesto al día siguiente quedará si acaso un medio esbozo que eventualmente se tornará inservible y quedará sepultado en los confines de la mente, junto con otros pensamientos que corrieron la misma suerte.

Sucede también, aunque no tan seguido, es hecho de que el flujo de ideas se vuelve tan intenso que se vuelve imposible poder enfocarse en tan sólo una entre tantas. Naturalmente se vuelve uno codicioso con la tormenta de ideas, tratando de conservar todo lo pensado durante el usualmente corto lapso. El sólo hecho de intentar verbalizar uno de esos pensamientos implicaría cortar de tajo momento de intensa actividad mental. Lo mejor que se puede hacer es sentarse con tranquilidad y resignarse a disfrutar esa agradable sensación de intensa y constante actividad.

A veces me pongo a pensar sobre la clsae de ideas y conceptos maravillosos que se han esfumado de las cabezas de los grandes artistas. ¡Cuántas partituras se le habrán muerto a Mozart por tener que enfocarse a obras destinadas a complacer a la caprichosa realeza que le proporcionaba su sustento! ¡Cuántos increíbles universos tuvieron tan solo una efímera existencia en la trastornada mente de Dalí! Increíble ha de ser esa música, esas obras de arte, esos libros que jamás llegaron a ser más que un destello de ingenio en las mentes más prodigiosas.