tour

Cool Runnings…

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 | deepchild live and dj sets | No Comments

…of course, right? I’ve just crossed over the US/Canada-border, from Vancouver to Seattle….via Washington “Rambo-In-Black” border-protection squad, who were mercifully decent to me this year, and in personable spirits for those in such a position of power. I threw down an additional $13 to upgrade from an ‘economy’ to ‘business’ class seat on this trans-national train, entitling me to the exclusive viewing of “Cool Runnings” - the early 90’s John Candy classic, which pits the Jamaican ‘noble-savage’ (black) bob-sled team against Germany’s cliched ‘proto-Nazi’ ruthless, under the guiding hand of America’s ’salvation-for-all’, happily overweight John Candy.

I recall, as a younger-person, feeling strangely touched by this film, tho’ on re-viewing, it seems embarassingly obnoxious - racially condescending in a fashion which Spike Lee would doubtlessly find vomitous…only, perhaps, out-done by the cringe-worthy ‘Jah-Jah Binks’ who cameod in Star Wars’ first digi-sequel since the early post-70s eps. It’s a strange state of affairs, indeed…I cannot see Pres Obama rolling comfortably with any of the partonising cliches so readily embraced during the 80s/90s.

Strange, then, to feel so culturally endebted to not only America and Germany (thank you Detroit, Berlin, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Berlin, Frankfurt etc) but also, of course, to Jamaica. I feel both deeply embarassed, and curiously encouraged, by just how abominable this movie is. Germany’s team play up to the cliche’s of retarded, cold-war calculation, as much as much as Jamaica’s team ride the wave of passive ‘porch-monkey’ passivism. I’m ashamed by the stereotypes….ashamed more-so by the fact that a film like this might have once have been deemed culturally-progressive. Yet, perhaps, in its own way, it may once have been. Today, I know that all would be demeaned by these painfully cheap cliches.

…and so…

The previous 5 days in Vancouver arrived and departed all too quickly. After months of Australian heat and festival-craziness, arriving in Canada felt like a long-overdue descent into temporary atrophy, sleep and silence. Days watching documentaries, drinking coffee….nights drinking red-wine and watching much the same, save for my scheduled performance at Open Studios.

The performance for the Subversive crew was as surreal as it was rewarding. After postponing the booking (due to visa-issues) last year, I felt relieved to finally throw-down. Only more overwhelming, felt the reality that this was another headline-set in North America. Years crawl, stumble and lope forward…and, suddenly, (still!) descends the realization that, yes, the ‘dream’ is being lived. Who knew, right?

I suppose that this is why journaling at least some ’sketches’ of this comedic life becomes so personally vital? Hundreds of nights, fragments, memories and re-contextualisations…so easily lost in the haze of travel and forgetting.

I still feel like a 15 year-old, messing around in 8-bit, Windows 3.1, audio-editing strictly a fantasy. Pre-web. Pre Pro-tools. The cusp of early 90’s techno-discovery, european-imports and dreams of finishing final school-exams.

These dreams still visit me, almost nightly….20 years from their first appearance.

And so…we trawl on to Seattle…another wonderful ‘proto-family’, so very very far from my ‘home’, wherever that is supposed to be.

The last week has served, yet again, to remind me of the deep Grace which my vocation seems to offer me - my Canadian hosts feeling a whole lot more like family than ‘associates’, displaying a tender generosity I can only aspire to reciprocate, some-time in the future. Swimming in the hazy reality that I’m here, once more, is deeply wonderful…life changing.

Bless…x

Tags: deepchild, Open Studios, Seattle, Subversive, tour, Vancouver