This Here... “...Worthy of Greater Condemnation.” (C Brialey)
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ISSUE #36 This Here... “...worthy of greater condemnation.” (C Brialey) “Would you like to take tomorrow off?”, being better (as EGOTORIAL pathetic as this is) than them as came in answering with lower numbers. The rationale of “We want to help you out, WALKING DISTANCE we know it’s slow” is at least semi-bollocks, since because I had another Zoom yesterday. Brits of a certain age may Murica I won’t get paid for time off, and the company won’t need clarification that it wasn’t a phallic ice lolly, although have to stump up minimum wage for that shift. I decided I’d there may have been elements of the interaction that would take advantage, though, partly to have both an extra day to conjure a conceptual if surrealistic comparison, and I very work on this here zine and be able to stick me ‘ead in Phallic much doubt that demure organizer Alison Scott will engage Phirst Phursday and hopefully see some Fishlifters in in an advertising campaign along the lines of: “First particular and anyone else in general, for values of “anyone Thursday! The Phallic Ice Lolly of All Fanmeets” any time else in general” turning out to be half-marathon man Jim de soon, or ever, despite the potential of Liscard and Noel Collyer of arse a massive outbreak of behind the tattoo notoriety. hand sniggering with a leavening of I might still have difficulties with the “Oo-er missus”, “F’nar F’nar” and etiquette (if, indeed, there is any) of the cherry on top of “Nurse! The these Zoom get-togethers, since screens!”. when you’ve got, say, more than The by now apparently four or five people in a given room, “traditional” (translation: has it does tend to be that the loudest occurred more than twice) virtual and gobbiest prevails - it may fanmeet is not usually graced with surprise some of you to learn that it my presence, since Thursday’s a isn’t always me. Most people who workday and it’s all over by the time are not American seem to have it I get home, though I had tried on down that you keep quiet (or even one occasion to be in via iPhone mute yourself) when someone’s in from the taxi, which wasn’t very full flow and politely wait until easy (no fault of the organizing) and they’re done before adding comment so I packed it in after ten minutes or of their own, comparable perhaps so. Yesterday, however, was an unexpected day off. with convention panels where the Q&A and/or Although only required to work an 8 hour shift (5am - 1pm) disagreements happens at the end of the statement which I’ll typically start at 3am or a bit earlier and work 10, even gets allowed to complete itself. What we lose is any ability though this only means one (or if I’m lucky, two) extra rides. for the kind of rapid-fire convo and interjections which This is a slack time of year under any circumstances, and would be typical for an in-person pub meet, and thus I doubly or triply so what with the Plague. I get back to the finally arrive at the topic I gobbed off about toward the end drivers’ room to process paperwork and drop the money at of the zooming: the difference between socializing in the end of Wednesday’s shift, and top boss cab manager America and in the UK, the latter being centralized Desiree is quizzing the arriving drivers: “How many rides significantly in pubs. did you get today?” I raise an open hand, indicating five (in ten hours, right, I know) which is apparently the cut-off for THIS HERE... 1 T H I S H E R E . # 3 6 This is a broad-brush comparison, I’m sure, but basically I’ll up there somewhere”. “Well”, sez one of the bartenders, say that while British fans will get together more frequently “We can’t let you up there but I’ll go and have a look”, and up the pub (in smaller or larger groups), American fans tend not entirely sotto voce to his colleague as he went off “I bet he to have less frequent (though not necessarily infrequent) was pissed last night!” house parties. This isn’t to suggest that either method of Ian got his bins back, fairly unscathed if I remember right... socialization is superior, or fully exclusive to their respective It’s all good. country. American fans will have had get-togethers in bars, just as British fans will have entertained at home. The 4 December 2020 defining metric is walking distance. Anywhere I ever lived in England (including the little village of less than 1,000 ADIO INSTON people in which I endured my early youth) was within easy R W walking distance of a pub or several. Nowhere I’ve ever lived SONNY ROLLINS (IN HOLLAND) in the States has been that close to a bar. The flats I lived at I’m not entirely sure why this should be (although I’ve in Hitchin, Woodcote House, had a pub underneath, the always had rather broad musical tastes), but lately I’ve been name of which eludes memory except for the recollection clocking some historic and legendary jazz performers. I’ll that it changed a few times. My “local”, though, the tend to blame jazz critic and historian Kevin Whitehead who Bricklayer’s Arms (“the Brickies”) was a mere couple frequently has bits on National Public Radio’s programme hundred feet up the road - I was mildly croggled to learn off ‘Fresh Air’, whence I learn that both Chick Corea and Sonny M Strummer that he’d never been in the Brickies with me, Rollins (for two legends) are both not off the twig yet. though he did recall an incident involving the pub underneath which I shall naturally now relate. I used to do the occasional dinner party at the flat with a suitably select guest list, and unsurprisingly one or two trouser-press level stories came out of those, some of which get conflated into the same event because it’s all a drunken and gastronomic blur. For example, Steve Green getting trapped in the lav (the door lock fell apart) did not occur at the 7-course Japanese banquet but at an earlier do. Steve always maintained that he was fairly swiftly released from this confinement, whereas I recall that he’d been so gloriously wasted (and thus massively annoying) that we left him in there as long as was feasible (i.e. until someone else desperately needed a slash). The Japanese banquet (which Mark recalls rather more fondly than I do, but then he wasn’t cooking the fuckin’ thing) gave rise to one of my Ian Sales tales - the collection is unlikely to appear at Ansible editions (or anywhere else) anytime soon. I should preface this by noting that Ian is a good mate and would later be an exceptional Best Man at my wedding to Dee Ann. The flat was a two-level affair, kitchen at the top and the rest of the accommodations on the floor below. Off the kitchen Rollins can fairly be said to enjoy deserved godlike status in was a little balcony where we usually chucked the rubbish the pantheon, not least for his bouts of extreme disillusion bags prior to collection and it looked down on the flat roof with the recording industry - while lesser mortals might of the pub below. Salesy, in a perhaps less than have easily caved to the demands of an agog public, seized complimentary verdict on the food (or a reflection of upon by record companies as a possible good earner, Sonny, unfeasible amounts of sake consumed) puked over the like any artist in any medium qualifying for the descriptor balcony rail, so energetically that his glasses fell off and “genius”, wanted to do what he wanted to do, and not down they went. Next morning we (Me, Mark, my then necessarily what was expected of him. There’s also, girlfriend Louise and Ian) went down to that pub which at fundamentally, a significant difference between “studio” opening time exhibited Jim Linwood levels of emptiness, Rollins and “live” Rollins. In a 2005 profile in New Yorker with the twin requests “Four pints of lager, and can we get magazine, critic Stanley Crouch wrote: up on the roof because my mate’s glasses fell off and they’re 2 THIS HERE... THIS HERE... #36 Over and over, decade after decade, from the late seventies Friday March 12 2021 (midnight PST) through the eighties and nineties, there he is, Sonny Rollins, Voting ends. Ballots submitted must be received by this the saxophone colossus, playing somewhere in the world, some point, by whatever means they are sent. afternoon or some eight o'clock somewhere, pursuing the combination of emotion, memory, thought, and aesthetic Sunday March 28, 2021 (time TBD) design with a command that allows him to achieve Awards ceremony, which will occur online (via Zoom or spontaneous grandiloquence. With its brass body, its pearl- similar means), hosted by Jerry Kaufman, after which the button keys, its mouthpiece, and its cane reed, the horn "results issue" of TIR containing full voting numbers will be becomes the vessel for the epic of Rollins' talent and the distributed. undimmed power and lore of his jazz ancestors. The Incompleat Register The treasure of the “Holland” sets is Rollins cutting loose Apart from the official ballot, this is also a voters' guide with effortless skill in his preferred trio format, accompanied listing the fanzines and contributors for 2020 that I'm aware only by bass and drums, which truly allows for a full of, and hence will inevitably be "incompleat".