Every day, I get a personalised horoscope, I’ve always enjoyed astrology for what it’s worth. This morning’s:

Perhaps you are thinking of reaching out for the holiday brochures, or even of taking up a new hobby or interest. Ponder no longer. There are favourable winds behind you urging you on to broaden your horizons in whichever way you chose. This is the time of year you review your beliefs, whether it be to do with politics, religion, education or just your philosophy of living. Discard what no longer fits and use new information to alter your approach.

Ponder no longer. I quite liked those three works and holiday brochure.

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For the past two days I have been struggling to remember someone’s name in the office. And as things then tend to happen, almost every moment in common areas needed an acknowledgement, I smile, I greet, and I can’t remember your name but that’s the last thing that I say.

This morning, I missed the yoga show, late again that was me because I was wasting time trying to decide what music to listen to in the car. I decided on the Go-Betweens, I was searching for Batchelor Kisses but on the album Spring Hill Fair, there is another song, Draining the pool for you which has this great opening verse:

Remembered your name
Evidently, you’ve forgotten mine.
You know a lot of people
I know, a mind dulled by work and wine.

And I still couldn’t remember then I just asked somebody innocuous and they said, ‘Yvette.’ My mind, dulled by work and wine, said a silent ‘hurrah!’

Before they re-jigged the office floor layout, I had an aisle seat, my back was toward the passing traffic and it took a while to get use the fact that I had people looking over my shoulder. Although it did have a few advantages, it was slightly away from the rest of the team who had chosen window seats, so if anyone of them approached I had fair warning, and since I wasn’t that close, they’d lazily send me email instead of constantly pestering me, I also had quick access to the communal printers and the water closets.

After the reorganisation they reworked the office space and we moved to a different wing and I got a quiet window seat. If you know the Green Point geography, I now look directly at Mano’s Café, which I still haven’t set foot in after all these years. This spot is definitely better the view is more open, you get a glimpse of the mountain and you can see Signal Hill as well as the traffic on the main road.

And now there appears to be one other thing that you can see,

My season’s change – play list:

I’m not in love – Hajime Yoshizawa

Portes, 7 Fenetres – Monade

I don’t know what I can save you from – The Kings of Convenience

Amerika – Bo Kaspers

A couple of years ago I started watching all of the Spaghetti Westerns that I could lay my hands. When I stop doing one thing, I often substitute it with something else, so my 40 days of alcohol expenditure was substituted with Spaghetti Western spend.

I remember getting quite caught up in the genre; eating lotsa beans sometimes straight out of the pan and soaking up the sauce with fresh bread. I of course was in my living room.

But the thing that I fondly remember the most was the classic dubbed but classic, words of wisdoms that found their way into my cerebral files:

Why don’t you do something useful with your life, like rustle cattle?

The secret to a long life is knowing how not to make it shorter.

Revenge is something that is best eaten cold.

You’ve still got a lot to learn kid. An unloaded gun should never be considered empty.

…Four bullets for one man, that’s an awful lot of bullets.

Hey Blondie you’re not going to leave me here like this?

You just shot an unarmed man. He should have armed himself.

Always check who’s behind you before you go killing someone…

Men may be different but guns are all the same…

Good beans amigo, good beans…

A hot school hall, more suburbia than I could deal with and the opening band had me looking at my watch and thinking, mmhm she sounds a little like Harriet “Sunday” but when are we going to get to see the main act.

Two hours later Jose Gonzalez appears on the stage, he strums, he plucks, he caresses those guitar strings and immediately demands your absolute attention – I sigh, what relief, here’s the MAN!

He plays every track off the Veneer album and more, his live sound is richer, the voice stronger and the songs have a certain sparkle that you don’t get in your living room when the cd is on repeat.

I admit that one of the reasons why I went was because I read that he’d be accompanied by Yukimi Nagano on backing vocals and Erik Bodin on percussion, and I really wanted to see Yukimi who has done some amazing stuff in the past most notably with Koop (yes she’s the Summer Sun starlet).

But the show was all Jose, who hardly spoke except to shyly say thank-you between tracks and very little else but there was no need the music spoke for itself. The encore, a five song mini set, featured the hit, Crosses, a new song and three good cover versions: Hand on your heart, Teardrop and Small Town Boy but no Love will tear us apart, not that it mattered the show was complete and the audience showed their appreciation by giving the trio a loud standing ovation.

There was an after party but I left the clamouring, pretty, young, suburnites and disappeared into the city night for a non alcoholic bad boy.

Jose Gonzalez you’re the man.

2007-02-25