i'm doing a blog for thequietus.com which will appear on their news section first and then will reappear here a day or so later. Here is the first installment (also, when I get the chance to upload video, I'm still compiling a video blog which is available at http://falcotron1975.blogspot.com/ ) ...
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In a way it is
kinder of United Airlines, a help, a service, that they charge ....such an
extortionate fee for alcoholic drinks on their flights. Truth be told, as the
ghost of memory tickles his mark onto the window with a bloodied finger, it is
a life-saver, a bridge between alcoholic states as much as cities and
continents.....
$6 is a lot of
money for a Heineken. Heineken tastes like revenge. ....
He crosses his
fingers when the snacks come. He wants trail mix. Pretzels remind him of bonsai
trees, Karate Kid 3 and sad, depleted buffets, of tables groaning under the
weight of cousin wood. After fourteen hours he is sick of the flight, the
leg-space, the clucking cakeist who had reclined the chair into his face the
second his maddeningly fat behind had hit the seat, the headache, the smell of
ass and fat fear. He pulls on his eye-mask and dreams of an elsewhere. He
dreams of a remote cabin attacked by rain and quiet, sure affection.....
Some things never
change. Love. Loss. Spanish imperialist ambitions. The calf-lengthening
properties of high heels. Ambition. Fear of the future. As the passengers move
around him, stirred by their bladders, he stares out of the window into the
darkening mid-western sky and reminds himself to live in moments such as these
rather than around them.....
He had begun in the day in Oslo,
juggling weight between cabin and hold baggage in a reassuring rhythm, folding
tshirts on the bed then forgetting and sitting on them. Heathrow had come and
gone in a fury of familiar magazines and newspapers, all gladly gathered, and
the Atlantic passed in the time that it took to wonder loudly at the puzzlingly
long career of John Travolta, star of the inflight movie in name and fee if
little else.....
Immigration at DC, though protracted,
had been a peaceful, calming process. After three and a half weeks of bitter,
salty touring there is a lot that can be said for having a suitcase taken from
your hands and pulled apart by a stranger in a fruity uniform. Hell, it sure
had put the whole laundry situation in its proper, immediate context and for
that, at least, he was grateful.....
He has learned over time that the
correct answer to the question 'what does your band sound like?' when posed by
a US border control officer is 'The Beatles'. At no point would he ever attempt
to engage the agent in a discussion as to the relative benefits of post-punk in
the modern era - in the unlikely event of them having heard of the Gang of Four
chances are that it would be the Chinese Communist Faction of the Cultural
Revolution that comes, rebidden, to their minds, and not the influential rock
band from Leeds who first made their funny and brilliant sounds some thirty
years ago.....
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls, we are beginning our descent to Los Angeles International …’. He closes
his eyes and stays in the moment. Another journey has begun.....