I was lifting myself off of the slightly damp grass after a brief afternoon sojourn in the park, leaving the monotony of the office briefly to catch up on some reading when I decided I would take the longer detour around the park to return to work. It was mild overcast day quite typical of the city. The wide, gentile pathway lead up a slight slope with benches at distance from one another on either side. One bench contained a sweating man in athletic gear looking blankly at the expansive lawns ahead. Another contained a plump looking man and a frail looking woman covered in a giant black parasol. There was no funeral in sight. Perhaps it was just their statement of fashion.

My leisurely stroll got me to the aforementioned slope within a minute or two. On my right past the benches I saw a man approaching the pathway. A large, bloated hiker’s rucksack choked his filled out frame which almost seemed to burst out of his ugly green knit jumper. His face was read and sweaty and despite being in what seemed to be his late thirties or early forties, somehow the affects of weathering did not age him entirely well.

The main thing I noticed, and I tend to observe people from a distance quite often, is that he seemed to have singled me out in this park. Perhaps I was a bit more approachable than the more stuffy business types or aloof tourists that tread the park. His eyes were set on me. Of course I knew that within a few seconds some sort of interaction was going to take place.

“Excuse me, are you local around here?” he said. Fair enough question. It was common to be asking a tourist for directions. The blind leading the blind.

“Sure I guess.” I said, hesitant of my somewhat short time in this city.

“You sound American.”
“I’m actually Canadian.”
“Hmm…” he said. No comment there. “Ok, do you know how I’d get to Hammersmith from here?”

Well fuck. Not a part of town I’m in regularily. I think… “…if you’d go St. James’s Park station,” at this moment I point in the direction of “you’d be able to get the Tube to…”

“Nah, I’m going to walk.” he interrupts, shaking his head as for some reason regular city transport was not an option. This seemed to be all fine at first. One could mistake him for some sort rugged cross country type.

“Do you know where the Isle of Wight is?” he says.
“Sure do.”
“Well, I’m from Scotland and was visiting down there for a bit. I’m now heading to Hammersmith to meet a friend to go to Oxford.”
“Ok.” At this point I’ve got places to be so I let the tourist go on his way but he puts his hand out and says: “Come on, walk with me for a bit.”

I start getting a bit suspicious but am a bit curious where this is going to go. I’ve been in places like this before. An elaborate courtship for financial favours. An overtly friendly stranger. The strange predicament this man is in. In this case it would seem to be his refusal to take the tube.

“By the way,” he says. “My name is Gary McDermott*”
“Mine is Jack.” I say. The use of only the first name was intentional.
“So yes,” he continues “I’m on my way to Oxford and have to get to Hammersmith. I’m having one bitch of a day, I tell you. I got my wallet swiped and had to cancel all of my credit cards and bank cards…”

There was a bit of a silence as I was still walking forward, looking for the point where my path would diverge from his. He seemed pleasant enough but sadly I know that humans aren’t beings of absolute optimism and in this case this man was obviously setting me up for request of assistance, but in a really roundabout way.

“Jack, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a graphic designer.”
“Well, that’s quite nice.” he says, acting out a gesture of feigned enthusiasm. “Do you mind if I ask how much you make a year?”

For a fleeting moment I had a thought that this man might be the stereotype of those entrepreneurs from the old days. The ones in the old black and white films that show up in some American city with only a small wad of cash, a grand idea, a suitcase and a pair of fine pressed slacks. Say Sonny, why don’t you and me and you go into business together? We’ll be partners. Whaddya say, pal?

I at this point explain I do alright and do not divulge any numerical answers.

“Well,” he says “I’d think that working in this part of town can’t be treatin’ you too bad.”
“Nope, doing fine.” I say. “Well, I’m heading off this way. The way you want to head is down that way toward Hammersmith if you’re walking.”
I point in the direction of Hammersmith. I think it’s that way. I lift my thumb and point it over my own shoulder to indication the direction I’m going. The almost total opposite direction. I can see the man starting to tense up a bit, needing to advance the conversation a bit further in bigger, swifter steps.

“Jack, can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Rather, can I ask you a favour?”
I sigh: “Well, what’s that?”

“Do you trust me?”

That was a bold step forward. Flashbacks of some sort initiation to the Church of Scientology come to me. Or worse off, Jim Jones. This is perhaps an over-reaction but hell, the prologue to this whole courtship dance of favours was a bit much. I came up with a reply:

“Well, considering I’ve gathered about two or three pieces of information from you in about a couple of minutes that would be ‘no’.”

This was not the answer this man was expecting but how else would you answer this?

“What do you mean?” he says.
“It’s a bit of tall order to trust someone I’ve just met.”

At this instant the man gets irritable and defensive and his best new friend, that being me, is no longer his friend. Without even saying another word he’s quickened his pace in the direction that I had pointed out him all of but a minute ago. Despite my lack of engagement into this weird little social interaction, I’m feeling a bit displeased with my being “used”.

Perhaps the man was going to ask me for money; for help. I’m an empathetic person and one that understands the plights of folks needing a hand. A more socialist approach sitting on the other side of the more conservative fence where every person fends for themselves. The mindset of only helping yours truly or anyone else that might be worth knowing to get a leg up in the big pyramid that is western society. Thinking how I might have approached the situation if I was in his shoes: perhaps contacting a relative or going the police or a traveller’s help centre may have been more effective than skulking around the park like a sweaty nomad. It would have also perhaps been more effective to make his point in about 4-5 sentences or less.

I think about it for a couple of minutes more on the return journey to the office; better ways I could have handled it. Perhaps I could have been frank and told him if he was hard up there were places he could go. Perhaps he thought I was a mindless money minion like a lot of the people buzzing around the area.

It took me about four minutes to get back through the doors of my building. He may have just been rounding the north side of Knightsbridge. Another two hours to Hammersmith perhaps? It would give him plenty of time to think about it.

* GARY MCDERMOTT IS NOT THE ACTUAL NAME OF THIS MAN IN QUESTION.

MORE

CRYPTIC GREETING

Standing underneath the roof of windows and geometrical white beams, I’m looking out for someone in the shade and into the sunlight. I have my headphones in my ears; calculated layers of texturized fuzz. I pan to the left and attempt to focus in the distance for a few seconds when I feel a tap on my right shoulder. There is a somewhat unkempt man in an orange t-shirt motioning me to take my headphones. I do and then look at him cautiously.

“Nice day out, isn’t it?” he says.
“Sure.”
“How are you today? And why are you standing in this shade?”
He reaches out to shake my hand to which I automatically comply.
“Wow, why are are your hands cold?” he says.
“That’s because I am dead.” I replied.
“Ha ha ha. Funny one. Hey there mate, you wouldn’t happen to have any change you could lend a guy, huh?”
“No.” I reply flatly.
With that instance the ‘long lost buddy’ front drops and he’s turned on his heels and gone elsewhere. I don’t think my dry humour helped either.

And I think he may have grumbled something under his breath, perhaps the word ‘prick’ but I wasn’t quite sure. This individual had just as much of a right, perhaps even more of a right, to confront my space to ask for resources and time as much as an advertising billboard or a sales representative on the street but they might not be getting the reaction or results they’re looking for.

DISCONNECTION

There’s been some certain unsettled feeling that I’ve been trying to pinpoint for a while. It’s not entirely easy to know exactly what it is. I supposed my most recent trip back to Vancouver shifted the dynamic of this in a way that might come out to a resolve. The feeling can be represented with this epic metaphor: climbing out of a boat and onto the ladder of a helicopter. I’ve been on the boat for a long time. A lot of familiar friends and people were on the boat. Plenty of drink to go around. Many great times and memories have happened on this boat. But the boat is a pleasure cruiser with a certain ceiling and there’s more to this life than nautical miles, looking out starboard and funny white captain hats. It’ll be going the same way for a long time.

I look around and make out a helicopter and despite the difficult logistics of climbing out of a boat and into a helicopter. Getting ready takes a long time and my fellow boaters aren’t certain that I’m actually going to go ahead with it. The helicopter lowers to the boat and I’m starting to reach up. There’s this long, strenuous period — quite dark — not a lot of fun, destitute and painful. There’s a lot of different things in that time, in the actual transition, that are painful and too weird and numerous to mention.

I think I’ve been dragging out the metaphor for a while and am loosing focus on it. I realized that my return trip got me to re-connect with certain people, certain elements of that time but it’s definitely not the same. I’m making good footing where I am now and making a home somewhere else. The past can stay where it is, really. There’s plenty of artifacts in my life that will provide a document of it: thrashy old songs, beat up journals, bad jokes that still have staying power after 5-10 years, correspondence once in a while, and the same goals and ideals going into this new decade. The disconnection will always be there, but now I know there’s a whole lot more things up in the helicopter…

This is a bit of a stepping stone of a post but I came across this little gem of a post, giving something out for free to the world. This something is the one album put out by the band, The VSS. The album is called “Nervous Circuits”. This album is one of my favourite records of all time.

Notoriously out of print for 10 years and then recently re-released by Hydrahead in 2008, it’s now available as free, approved download from the Pukekos website; a site I frequent often enough as it seems to be an archive of a lot of things musically I was listening to in my early 20s. To quote:

“I first heard Nervous Circuits in December of 1996. It was a dub of a dub of rough mixes that we listened to on my car stereo, the audio quality left a lot to be desired but that wasn’t why we were listening. Leaks were harder to come by in those days, etc.

“The VSS were like The Velvet Underground — not many people saw them or heard the records, but those who did all started bands or labels. This was a different era when to go on tour was literally to take the message to the people. The only way to find out about new bands was to go see them — if you were lucky enough to know about the show. Zines with ads for the tour would be be hit with delays and not come out until after it was over. If you were out of the loop, you missed it. It was an inscrutable world, and the only way to gain entry was to meet someone who already knew about it.”

And on the subject of music, archives, and that sort of thing — I’ve managed to squeeze in time (usually the last twilight hour before I force myself to go to sleep) in midst of everything else going on to put some work on some new White Lodge Podcasts. There’s three! And they’re fun. This will be announced soon enough for the small fraction of the world that has an interest in listening.