first DJ ever

Got a message my book on DJ culture was overdue. Started in it quickly. They were a bit surprised there were hundreds of books about the Beatles and none on DJ culture. So am I. Great anecdotes on how DJ culture started, well written. Title, of course: Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.

The first DJ ever must have been Jimmy Saville. It was in 1943, that he hit upon the bright idea of playing records live, armed only with piles of 78s and a makeshift disco unit. The amplification system was constructed by a friend from salvaged parts of Marconi radios, a gramophone, a wing and a prayer. “It was to present hi-fi sets what the Wright Brothers’ first efforts were to Concorde,” wrote Saville in his autobiography. “I hurried to inspect this important discovery. A short demonstration was all I needed to realize its potential. I mean, music by Glenn Miller and Harry James in larger than life quality: it had to be worth something.”

Saville hired an upstairs function room as his venue, and entry was set at one shilling. The evening itself was not without technical difficulties. “Installing the equipment was fraught with great dangers,” he wrote. “It was in several pieces connected by wires. These covered the top of a grand piano, glowed red hot when switched on for longer than five minutes, and charred the top of that noble instrument for the rest of its days. By 9 PM we had taken eleven shillings, the machine had melted at several soldered points and died quietly, but not before giving a final electric shock to its inventor, causing him to weep openly.” The evening was salvaged by Saville’s mother, who performed songs on what was left of the grand piano. He was nevertheless convinced he had created an important new form of entertainment. “Disaster or not, there can be no doubt that the world’s first disco, as they have come to be called, took place in the top room of the Belle Vue Road branch of the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds.”

Later Saville was asked to present the very first season of the English Top Of The Pops, in the sixties.
Glad to share that information with you.

schrijvers zijn blijvers

Kreeg meteen een paar vragen waarom ik 'nu al' een terugkomst aan het plannen ben. Nu ja, dat nu al valt ook wel weer mee. Als ik terugvlieg ben ik precies vier-en-een-halve maand weggeweest. Misschien vergeten mensen dat snel. De tijd vliegt natuurlijk voorbij bij jullie. Is ook weer niet best, dat je niet eens gemist wordt.. Hoewel er best een paar mensen zijn die IK mis, kom ik niet persé daarvoor terug hoor. Het is heel praktisch: de basis van het boek staat wel zo'n beetje in de steigers. Maar ik merk dat ik gewoon veel meer Nederlands voorbeeldmateriaal wil hebben en dat veel zaken toch niet zo lekker op internet zijn te vinden. Naast de Beatles, Keith Haring en Ronald Reagan wil je het toch vooral hebben over actie Tomaat, Doe Maar en Erwin Olaf, om maar wat te noemen. En nu heb ik nog geen enkel hoofdstuk echt kunnen afmaken. Dus ik ben niet echt terug hoor, straks, doe maar net of ik er nog niet ben. Ik ga lekker dagelijks in de mediabieb in Hilversum zitten denk ik. Weet iemand nog iemand die zijn huis wil ruilen in Hilversum voor twee weken met mijn huis in Amsterdam..? Lijkt me heerlijk. Laat maar weten!En in augustus ga ik nog twee weken onderzoek doen in Engelse bibliotheken, ook leuk. En maar schrijven en maar schrijven en maar schrijven en maar schrijven en maar schrijven.. Lekker hoor. Wat ik al eerder meldde, zou er zo mijn dagen mee kunnen vullen.

Alaska-I'm coming

Ha! Found an alternative for a cruise. So I will be flying to Prince Rupert July first, staying there for two days and then on a ferry which will take a day and a night to take me to Juneau.



Chances were I had to sleep on deck, but in the end they had a cabin for me. In Juneau (anyone been there, tips..?) I can do some gletscher walking/seeing and enjoy the snow capped mountains and perhaps some more whales. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Have images of quiet mountains and endless sea touching each other and cold busy creeks running through a small town. That last part I haven't thought of until now.. Will have to do a check on the population of Juneau.. And hope I can get myself into a few tours. Read they have tours flying unto a gletscher and taking a walk there. Have done such a thing in New Zealand. A high point. Hearing the creaks and seeing the different colors of the ice around you. Very very impressive. Is it ecologically sound?? Hmm, I will recycle extra until then. And on july 8 or 9 I hope to fly to Seattle and stay there for a few days before returning to Vancouver and then to.. Amsterdam..
A nice last two weeks I guess, so working steadily on the book until then.

Haring for winter people

Have been starting in two new books today. One about Fassbinder, the German director, and the Journals of Keith Haring. Haring hit the big time during the ‘winter’ timeframe (1982-1988). At the end of the eighties he was as famous as a rock star. Thousands wore his T-shirts or send each other his postcards, millions knew his style. Why? The book states: “Haring tackled the issues of his times, the threat of thermonuclear annihilation, the obscenity of apartheid, and the horror of AIDS. But more than that: he also drew on the need of women and men for emotional response from others, for security of the long-term sort.”
His iconic simpleness was reflected in his baby-drawing: “The reason that the ‘baby’ has become my logo or signature is that it is the purest and most positive experience of human existence.” That will be recognizable for the masses..

There is a clear relation between the ‘Haring-hype’ in the eighties and pop-art, which reigned the art world during the previous winter timeframe (1961-1966). Art historic Jonathan Fineberg sums up his gift: “Haring created icons of mass culture to which everyone could relate.” His style was easily recognizable, simple but always emotional. There was a lot of interaction between figures in his art, they seem to give movement or energy to each other. And that warms peoples’ heart during the winter timeframe.
Haring did not want to work with canvasses. They scared him because of their value and ‘finality’. He prefered paper: “It is loose, natural, real, uninhibited, beyond definition. It is temporary and its permanence is unimportant."
The question is: how temporary will his art be? I don’t see a revival of his work in our current timeframe, again a ‘winter’ period. Shame he died so soon, would have been interesting to see how he would have developed his style.

tarantino sucks..

Hilarious review of film maker Quentin Tarantino in a book by Ian Penman. Copy/past:
“Quentin Tarantino has once said he likes to take genre characters (‘the pimp’, ‘the gangster’) and put them in a real-life situation. Which, when you think about it (which you’re not supposed to) is really only a pseudo-adult kind of Roger Rabbit with guns.
So you see -unreal people in real situations - that’s the reason that despite their spitty hissy tom-cat woozy-Uzi male-violence malevolence these are real ‘feel-good’ movies. A real feel-good deal for People Like Us. People who can spot pop-trash references the way people used to spot wildflowers and lapwings. People too sassy smart to get a feel-good fillip out of Forrest Gump but yet too squishy-brained to make the effort to get haunted by some Kieslowski meditation on the fracturing of late twentieth-century identity. Because these (last) days People Like Us want our fractured identities signed sealed and delivered inside a fast-food pop-cult package - you see, we don’t want to be haunted; we don’t want to wake up later in the night with strange visions shifting around the bare room of our conscience, or tears of trepidation asking to be cried; we don’t want to ask too closely about the failure of love in all our lives and the fever of disappointment that stalks us daily. No, we’re far safer in San Quentin, the adult Theme Park where everything is just a mild wild half-teen half-toon update of old nasty noir references; where pasty-faced men in black suits are our version of giant Mickeys and Goofys who pat us on our nodding heads on the way to the exit as they say: It’s OK little children, go home safe in your fan-fan-fantasies.
Tarantino’s bad guys are just one-dimensional parodies of badness: boy-men facing unreal pulp dilemmas. On some level -like a lot of society- Q.T. is both dazzled by the glare of ‘bad’ men and frightened of the real evil that lurks in all our tense hearts. Thus in Pulp Fiction, we get a six-foot-plus hyper-cool black assassin who talks with the voice of a nerdy white video-rental-store manager. This ice-blooded Isaac Hayes of the hinterlands talks about things like The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and A Flock Of Seagulls and stuff that nobody talks about - black or white - unless they’re a Q.T. kinda pop cult bore; unless they’re Q.T. in OD.
His success speaks to us like this: if I can be cool, so can you - just by enjoying my film and repeating the lines afterwards with your friends in the pub where they have the Pulp Fiction CD on an endless loop on the CD-jukebox... “ Says Penman, obviously no fan.

From the NRC website:
“Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, Deathproof, has been reviewed badly in Holland. The director of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill has made a movie with violence in abundance, about “Chicks with cars.” Reviewers Bas Blokker and Jeroen Stout found the humor uninspired and too stupid for words, the total movie lazy and sluggish.”
Has Tarantino passed his time on the forefront of culture? Seems like he keeps making movies in the spirit of the times that made him successful: the ‘summer’ timeframe of the middle nineties. Shame for his fans (but may be they too cling to the past?). Must say I personally agree with Penman.

Back to business

Brought my brother to the airport yesterday. Again, it is harder to see someone going than going yourself. There is a feeling of loss seeing Hans and Chango move past the gate. But we had a very good week.
Here it is back to business again, my last month here, I gather. Like I promised Hans, it has started to rain again, the day after he left. We had a full week of 26+ degrees.. I don't mind that much. Yesterday it was close to 30 degrees and I am more of a spring climate lover. Give me 20-22 degrees and life is good. After swimming practice I opted for the library to get into the swing of reading and writing again. Must say I yawned more than I wrote. But read some interesting material about 70s fashion. It is interesting to see that with social confusion rising and especially (heterosexual) men under fire, the fashion turned into compensation, at the end of the 'summer' timeframe and the beginning of autumn (1977). No more unisex or androgynous (glam rock, disco) clothes, but cowboy boots, lumberjack shirts, army inspired GI-style clothes. Leading, in the end, to the parody of the Village People: all masculinity icons turned into a huge carnival.

And in the mean time I thought: let's search for a week of holiday again before returning to Amsterdam, at the beginning of july. Would like to see some glaciers in Alaska, but cruising there is not easy, on your own. 200% extra on a ticket seems a normal phenomenon. And by air we encounter the monopoly of Alaskan Air. Will see what will show up.

Whistler whales

Vandaag gedaan wat gedaan moest worden: een whale-watching trip. Cynisch gesproken betekent dat een fortuin neertellen om in totaal 5 uur in een bovenmatig bulderende boot door de golven te stampen om uiteindelijk op enige afstand te zien hoe een paar vinnen zich licht uit het water verheffen. In normale taal: “..Orca’s...!!” Ik heb me prima vermaakt (geef mij water, besneeuwde bergtoppen in de verte en mooie eilandjes en ik ben wel gelukkig), Hans ook en Chango een stuk van de reis. En hij kan op school vertellen dat hij Ruffles heeft gezien, de 55-jarige, zeer herkenbare Orca, door de vreemde kronkels in zijn staartvin. En ik ook, hier op dit log. Bijzonder, toch wel.

Gisteren was hilarisch, een dagtripje naar Whistler, dat we bijna misten doordat er geen taxi te vinden was. Een man op straat waarschuwde ons ook nog: “I don’t think it’s allowed to hail a cab on the street in Vancouver..!” Zou me niks verbazen, als daar een ‘regulation’ voor zou zijn. Maar we haalden de Greyhound die Hans ééns in zijn leven wilde nemen en hebben bovenop de berg in de sneeuw gespeeld, in onze t-shirtjes (25 graden). Sneeuwballen gegooid, geklommen en Chango ervan proberen te overtuigen dat hij echt niet in een uurtje skieën kan leren, laat staan snowboarden. Hij wilde wel twee keer op en neer in de kabelbaan. Hans niet, dus gingen Chango en ik nog een keer samen, glijden door de sneeuw, tot op het bot nat, en dan weer beneden in de zon opdrogen. We hebben gekeken naar de ‘coole’ snowboarders met hun sikjes en mutsjes (nog steeds..?! Iedere groep wentelt in zijn eigen clichés, ook bij 25 graden). Helemaal lekker, dat je binnen drie uur van het strand boven op een besneeuwde berg terecht kan komen. Vijf uur sneeuwpret en toch lekker op tijd weer thuis.

Morgen alweer het afscheid. Jammer hoor. Moet ik gewoon weer aan de slag. Doorschrijven! De laatste restjes van het internationale materiaal dat bruikbaar is voor mijn boek. Daarna terug naar Nederland, om daar de bronnen op te zoeken die de details van mijn hoofdstukken moeten gaan invullen.