Tuesday 14 October 2008

Day 23 - Nu York State

First time I have actually gotten up late today. I set my alarm for 7am, so that I could do my clothes washing and still have time to get to Uni. The best time to do it, according to Mia, is midday, as nobody is around. But as like the other 99% of people at Uni, we have lectures at that time, so the other ideal time would be about 3am in the morning. Seeing as there are 610 students at clarence dock, and only 8 washing machines and dryers, one of which tends to flood and another which takes your money, it can get pretty busy in there.
After a day of lectures, I got back and washed my clothes straight away, as some had been there since my first arrival. I couldn't be bothered to seperate my whites, as they'd never get done otherwise, so just threw them in with colours and hoped they wouldn't run or I'd be on the football field with a pink Bucs shirt.
I found it quite funny but worrying at the same time when a girl walked into the laundry room (sounds American) and had somehow lost her clothes. Reminded me of Jack,
"I'm sure I put them in this one".
Never did find out what happened to them as I went back to do a 2nd load, as I had too many clothes to fit in only one washing machine. I reckon I'm just gonna buy more boxers and socks, as I only wash my clothes when they (the underwear) runs out. It's £2.60 a wash too, so I'd be saving money by buying more, I hope.
After I set my first wash I had a 34 minute wait for it to clean, so went back to the kitchen where Mia was cleaning it up (she said it's because she hates messy places but I'm guessing it was more out of bordem). Feeling bad just sitting there eating my pasta and chicken (which had gone off, though I hadn't noticed yet) I helped. Also Adam and Laura had made everyone angel delight randomly, mine was in the fridge, it was really nice, never had angel delight before. In return I said I'd make them my salad cream suprise dessert (the suprise is salad cream).
Man this story has no structure does it ? Anyway, I went back and put my first load of clothes in the dryer and put my 2nd load in, put in my money and went back to my room for 30 minutes. Annoyingly I came back and saw that the timer was still on 34, I thought I was the victim of a practical joke, but turns out I forgot to press "start" to begin the cycle :$
Anyway this messed up my plans as I had to be gone by 7:15pm to see a Jazz band at the Union, but I now had to put my 2nd load into the dryer, leave it there and take it out when I got back, hoping nobody would steal or do anything to them.
I cooked my dinner, the chicken and pasta I made but there was an odd smell. Another stupid mistake, since I had made it, I forgot to put the whole bowl in the fridge, so the chicken had gone off. Quite a waste really. I still ate the sink tasting pasta though, but will learn from this mistake. However, Nu York State awaited me.

On the way to the union, I approached 4 people, 3 men about 50 - 60, and a slightly overweight woman who looked about 40 and I think she was crying. As I walked up to them they all got up and began staring at me,
"Mugging a black man, big mistake"! I thought as I got into my taekwondo roundhouse kicking stance.
As soon as I walked pass the oldest of them called me back and began asking if he could have 17p for bus fare since they all needed to get back to Hyde park which is really far from where they were (It really wasn't) and they had loads of bags too. He went on to say how other people were ignoring him etc. I was a bit weary at first, as I thought this might have been a trick or something, that I'd take out some money and he'd have someone else come up behind me and take everything else from me, including my virginity. So stayed a safe distance back and took out 20p and gave it to him, still weary of what he was up to.
"It was 27p I needed not 17".
:S Unless his accent was really strong, I recall him saying it was 17p, since he repeated it more than once. Ah well, I gave him the money and he said I was a real gentleman. At the time when he stopped me and began talking to me I would have felt bad/scared to just walk away as he didn't look like someone who would take too nicely to it. Hopefully he was telling the truth as to why he needed the money and they all got home safely now with a big statue of me (gold platted of course) in their living room.

Finally I arrived at the Union. I met up with Luke (a fellow jazz society member) who was already pretty pumped up for the night. After waiting for about 30 minutes for a keyboard player to arrive, we were let in. We all got a table and were talking about jazz related things for a while. I got annoyed that I spent £3:10 on a bulmers to see if they are nice (they're alright I guess) when seconds later Luke got back saying how they do a blackcurrent soda for 15p :@ I got one and they were nice, a lot nicer than Bulmers!
No matter, the night of jazz soon made up for it.
The first two bands to play were students from Leeds and Leeds Met doing music, but compared to Nu York State they sounded like year 3 pupils playing recorders.
They are without doubt the best live band I've ever seen. There was a guy playing bongos who had dreadlocks which I really want, he could rap really well over jazz songs, and he was white! But at heart was blacker than me, so he has made it to my idol list, just wish I knew his name.
They also somehow did a funked up version of Superstition. Considering that it's already a really funky song, the fact they cranked that funk up even more is beyond belief. There were a few other Stevie Classics thrown in too, and had they played Sir Duke my head probably would have exploded. They also did a jazz version of crazy in love as well as a jazz version of Billie Jean and American boy.

By now everyone had long hit the dancefloor. I tried to catch the eye of a tiny white guy who had some pretty sweet moves as I was quite up for a black off (In my eyes he was black), but he seemed too interested in dancing on his own at the front of the stage so I left him be. But at this point it was all getting too much for me. As musicians know, the brain has a limit to the amount of jazz it can process at a time, just like your liver can only metabolise a certain amount of alcohol, too much and you get drunk. The same applies for Jazz/funk, it was just an overload to the point I got drunk with it.
You can't neutralise it with water either like you can with alcohol, you gotta neutralise funkxins (play on words with toxins) with music you hate. But there was none there, so still drunk with funk, I danced my way home way over the legal limit, so lucky I didn't get stopped by the funk police. When I got back to Clarence Dock I checked the washing machine and dryer, someone had taken them out of the dryer and left them on the chairs. Thank you whoever that was, rather that than them being left in there and causing people to have to wait due to my lack of preparation.

All in all I'd say it was one of the best nights out I've ever had. There is also gonna be a jam session this following Sunday at another Union bar. I played in the last gig (even though I never one knew what key we were meant to have been in) and the standard was pretty high. So hoping this one will be even better.
Long live funk!

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