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April 5, 2010
Coffee shop T.V 24x7
I've taken to coming to this coffee shop down town where I order a hot chocolate and sit on a bar stool near one of the corner doors. There's a major road intersection, maybe 7 roads crashing into each other through a set of traffic lights yet it's the public throughput that draws me here, something I hadn't noticed until just now.
I'm reading 'Big Sur' by Jack Kerouac whilst I'm here. The first time in decades i've ventured to read something like this in a lonnnnnnng time, if only because my favourite singer when I was growing up mentioned his name one time on a song lyric of his.....
"Read some Kerouac
and it put me on the track
to burn a little brighter now.
Something about Roman candles flicking out
burn a little brighter now,
burn a little brighter now"
so I've my head resting on my hands, my elbows on the table, my head literally inches from the pane of class that separates me from the rushing world outside. Every paragraph or so I stop and take a long drink of the brown stuff, pausing to catch up on the outside world. There's a pregnant mother sat on the otherside of the glass talking away to her daughter. I've no idea what they're saying, I certainly can't hear, so my mind wanders to fill in the gaps.
Then it dawns in me I'm watching coffee shop tv. I've a huge 120" tv set the size of a house wall and I've tuned in to channel 'London' for tonights enthralling episode, Jack Bauer style.
Your next allotted slot of 60 minute history. Make of it as you will.
3D tv? I've got it right here in more 1080dp than I'd ever get back home. Ok the soundtracks as good as coffee shop elevator music can get (nah) and I've got a lot of free play on the character roles, yet I do have the spontoneity of an ever changing scene. Some of it's quite funny, some of it sad, even, yet the essence of the recurring 'theme' if you will is 'there is life out there'. You've just gotta be smart enough to open your eyes and see.
And it's funn because sometimes th TV people stop to look back, watching the watche, seeing what we're eating, drinking or eating.
- hey lady! You're in my TV! Get on with your life
maybe I should too!
And there's no main actors, no script, no scenes to cut to, we're all just extras on lifes stage. Yet somehow it's a darn sight more captivating than he goggle box back home.
Like the coconut stand western styley...
Ha! And I've just realised there's a guy in the spaghetti house opposite sitting watching his tv. Guess what's on? Yeah. Me.
Posted by graeme at 5:42 PM | Comments (1)
April 3, 2010
Crying....
What's going on in the world these days? I mustve seen about 4 girls in as many days sitting or standing, crying. A girl on the bus sobbing away, one on the tube, another in the arch staying out of the rain, and one here in the coffee shop sitting across from me to the left, dabbing at her lower eye, trying to stop her make up from running.
And I'd go over, say 'you okay?' or something crass like that but I'd fear I'd get a 'what the fu@ks it to do with you?' as a repost.
Of course I'm assuming there's some jerk on the other end of the line delivering the bad/sad news. Maybe a break up, a no-show, a "it's not you, it's me" text or something. Maybe the cats died.
Now that'd be sad.
I felt really sorry for the girl in the archway. Her body language was so sad I could feel her curling up from the inside out. Turning away to hide her face and her hurt from the world. There's a lot of sad things in the world, I know, but a crying woman jerks me right at me heart strings.
What's a guy to do?
I made a women cry once. That's probably a lie. I've probably done it a few times but either never knew about it or can't remember the details. This one I do remember though as I'd just tried to be really nice to her and her tearful reaction was entirely unexpected. It was kinda shocking, and still is now when I think of it, that I could summon that intense a reaction from another person without even trying too hard, it made me realise in the very sense of Stings words 'how fragile we are'.
I guess tears are one of the most human of things we do as a species
Posted by graeme at 4:21 PM | Comments (2)