A hell of a weekend

Ok - forgive me if this doesn't make any sense - I have had 9 hours sleep over the last 3 days and I am feeling decidely weird.

Still - what a weekend! (and it's not over yet).

So Tim and I boarded the TFC supporters bus at midnight on Friday and headed down to NYC to catch the game against the Red Bull (crappy sponsorship name). The bus ride was long, made more so by us non-Canadians getting taken of the bus and held at customs for 90 minutes. They actually asked me if I had been to the middle east lately?!!?@?@?

Finally we rolled into New York and through Harlem at midday on Saturday (Harlem was pretty colourful and we got the bird from a few people!) Happily we progressed through Harlem to our hostel on 103rd street in uptown Manhattan. Nice enough place and good that all the TFC fans have a base.

Plans for Saturday are unsure but Tim and I opt to head down to the Lincoln Centre (mainly because there is a bed, bath and beyond there and I had my orders!). Once there we happened to catch the last tour and managed to see the Met, the State Theatre and the Philharmonic venue. The Met and State theatre are very impressive and huge, but the philharmonic isn't that great.

Done with that we head of to get some stuff at bed, bath and beyond and then back to the hostel before heading out to the TFC party at a bar in the Village.

A football bar as it happens with 7 tv's all showing different games. TFC takes over and at $3 pints we're all soon drunk and singing although they oddly keep trying to drown us out with music. Doesn't work though!

2am and we try our best to manouvre the subway system back. We have a few incidents including getting caught trying to hop the turnstiles and ending up on a express train back Harlem. I felt whiter than I have ever felt standing on a street croner in Harlam at 2:30 in the morning but we cab it back to teh hostel and all is well.

Sunday and we find a dosgy breakfast place on Broadway where we have breakfast with an old New York guy who spits food a lot but knows a suprising amount about Canada.

After that we head down to Soho and the Village again and stroll around doing some shopping (I picked up a CBGB's hoody). I loved just walking around the place. It's an amazing place to be.

So onto the main events and a schoolbus ride to Giants stadium where we drink beer in the carpark and shout abuse at 7 year-olds "Who are you, who are you..." {New York Red Bull are very family orientated so it's hard to find fans you can shout at). Once in the massive stadium we discover just how few fans they actually have.

So onto the game. Actually lets skip the game. I belive there was a game but nobody told the TFC players from what I could make out Red Bull were playing some kind of practice match.

The fans on the other hand show up and then some. Oh Canada is sung in full voice and then the chants begin. Some classics include:

"C-o-l-o-u-r, that is how you fucking spell colour"
and
"We don't pay for health care"
as well as the usual chants and an odd "Taberncale" or some french Canadian insult? Any you Canucks tell me what the hell that was?

The fans finish the game with another rousing rendition of Oh Canada and then we jump on the bus and head to the true north, strong and free.

So here I am - awake but in a weird state of mind and now getting ready to go see Crowded House, one of my favourite bands who I thought I would never see play Massey Hall, my favourite venue.

A truly great weekend!

Songwriting

Lately I've been writing quite a few songs. It seems everytime I pick up the guitar at the moment I can muddle around with a chord and strum sequence and get something started.

The thing I'm finding strange is where the songs come from? Sometimes I'll start a song and have no idea where the topic came from or how the words found themselves strung together.

On rare occasions it's been very obvious. Sometimes the way I am feeling or what I am thinking will just flow out on to the page and the music will somehow manage to fit itself around them. I find that those are my favourite songs, I guess because they are the most personal ones.

But at other times, I have no idea where the ideas come from. I've heard people saying before that songs aren't really written, you just find them, like the words and the music always belonged together, they just needed someone to tie them to each other. Now I'm nowhere near that new age in my thoughts about it, but it is fairly wonderful sometimes when you finish something and then look back at it and think "where did that come from?"

Last night from nowhere I started writing a really, really depressing song. One of the verses was:

"Somewhere out there, there is a child with a gun
And somewhere out there he's not the only one
And somewhere out there another life is gone
But where do they go when the killing is done?

And I am not the one to bring them home
No, I am not the one to bring them home...."

From there it went on to dying stars, broken hearts, crashing planes, burning houses, hurricanes.........

So where did that come from? I just finished reading Harry Potter after a lovely day off at home on my own and hadn't watched any news.

That's what I mean - it's all a bit of a mystery sometimes.