Winging It

St Louis. Mo. I'm taking a tour group on Route 66. I don't know why, but I'm having real trouble coping with jet lag. Actually, I do know why. I'm anxious as I don't know my stuff inside out so I try and catch up on my studying at night in my room but usually end up falling asleep. It's my fourth time of doing the trip but I've not done it for two years so I'm rusty.
I was going to bring my monopod with me in an attempt to get sharper pictures, especially when I go to Huntington Beach to photograph the surfers. With luck, I get a free day in Long Beach and I usually hire a car and drive out to the beach. Any how, my case was overweight so the monopod had to go.
I enjoyed Chicago and I'd really like to come back and visit properly with Marianne. One day in town when you are half asleep is not the way to do it, though I do appreciate the chance to be here.
I got up early on the first morning and walked to the Bean, where I was one of only a few people. I love the Bean; it's beautiful to look at and underneath it's like the most complex hall of mirrors you've ever seen. The official name for it is Cloud Gate, sculpted by Anish Kapoor. I'd love to see a copy in London.

Cloud Gate

This is one of the myriad ever-changing views from the underside of the sculpture.

Last night we were in Springfield, the Capital of Illinois and I treated myself to a really nice meal in an expensive restaurant on the top floor of the Hilton Hotel (Known as the Penis on the Prairie - if you saw it, you'd know why). I had a large filet mignon, rare, with fantastic mashed potatoes and asparagus followed by a huge chocolate creme bruleé. Heaven. It came to seventy dollars but it was worth it. It's nice to spoil yourself sometimes. And besides, it's my first dinner of the tour.
So far we've made a side trip to Wilmington to see a Route 66 icon, the Gemini Giant, and we've stopped at the Chain of Rocks Bridge which spans the Mississippi north of St Louis and used to carry Route 66 across the river. It has a twenty-six degree dog leg bend halfway across ( due to having to move the pillars one one side after construction was well under way) it used to play havoc with traffic when two trucks met at the bend.

Tomorrow, we visit the St Louis Botanical Garden which is lovely, followed by the Budweiser Brewery, which is not: it's slick and soulless, rather like the beer.
Once we are done, I intend to get a few photos of the Gateway Arch, maybe slightly different from the ones I've taken before (Chance would be a fine thing). It's an impressive structure.

A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu

I spend a lot of time looking back these days; maybe because I have more past than future. I'm not alone: I peek at nostalgia sites for the town of Newhaven where I grew up to find several familiar faces from my childhood posting there.
I've taken pictures since I was ten and most of them were put into albums and forgotten about, but as time goes on, I want to sort them out; remember the times and the people captured in those images and maybe chart my path through life via the pictures that document it.
Truth be told, I'm not sure why I want to do it but I know I have to do it. Is it for my family or for whoever might happen upon it? Or just for me?  I may figure it out one day.
I also have the family photos, some going back to the nineteenth century. I feel like I'm the guardian of the family jewels, though nobody else has shown much interest in them - just as well, as I wouldn't give them up without a fight.
When we were kids, we used to get the photos out at my grandparent's house and go through them. They would reminisce while telling us stories about the people in the pictures and giving us glimpses into their lives. I look at those same photos now and see some familiar faces but there are many who mean nothing to me; I should have written those names down when my grandparents were still around. Too late now and it's the same with my parent's photos, though at least we know most of the faces in those as we met them and lots of them are still around.
I want to document my pictures while I have the chance.
This photo is a case in point. I took this at a Pow Wow in England in the mid-Seventies when I was aged nineteen or twenty. I went with my friend and co-worker at Woolworth's, Alan. He was into Native American culture at the time (He changed enthusiasms on a fairly regular basis back then, though a quick check on the net reveals that he's into rockabilly and Rock 'n' Roll, which he discovered not long after our pow wow adventure).
All I remember was that it was in Northolt and that there was a miniature railway running around the perimiter of the park. Thanks to Google Satellite, I was able to pinpoint the location as the Northolt Community Centre by zooming in on that railway track.
I wanted to find out more so I searched the web for UK pow wow sites. I found a few but they were rather neglected. I sent emails and received no replies, though I found a link to a Facebook page through one of the sites - Pow Wow England. They were able to put names to several of the faces and I've put the pictures up on their FB page so that others who are likey to be interested can see them and maybe be connected to their past (There are not many old photos of British pow wows up on the net).


Ted Blackmore in the mid 1970s Identified for me courtesy of the good folks at Pow Wow England
You can see the rest of them Here.

Getting My Kicks on Route 66

I'm back on the road on Sunday, taking a tour from Chicago to Los Angeles on Route 66, or as much of it as we can see from a tourist coach.

I've spent the last couple of days compiling cds for the trip. It took me a couple of days because the software kept freezing and I had to restart the laptop to get it going again, losing what I'd done in the process.

I really enjoy making music for the trip, though I try to tailor it to my clients' potential tastes, curbing the urge to include anything too raucous, leaning towards the slightly safe. It's frustrating but rewarding too. As we leave Chicago I'll be putting on a selection of Blues, Jazz, and other artists who either came from the city or sang about it, like Frank Sinatra and Christy Moore. I'll even squeeze in a bit of John Prine & Sarah McQuaid.

I've been trying to interest others in the  music that I like since I was a kid. It's always been an uphill struggle, from making compilation tapes for friends who were completely indifferent, or to going to gigs on my own because my friends were too slow in making their minds up. It's a lonely road I travel but I have an evangelical zeal when it comes to music. "You'll love this - it's great!"

On my last tour, there were two people who came up and told me that they liked the music. Two out of eighteen is a pretty good success rate, though the tour was to Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans so it's safe to assume that most of them were there for the music. This time I have forty so we'll see how I do.