Were Old Times Good Times??!

We've got to that time of the year, have we not, mes bloggy budding snow-drops, where we re-assess where we're going and re-visit where we've been?

I'm going nowhere at the moment, to be honest, as we've been snowed into our little house on a very steep hill for days and days!

Anyhoo, back to the plot!

As we get older, don't you find that we've a tendency to look at the past with rose-coloured spectacles?

Old Times Were Good Times, that kind of thing?



How realistic is that as a motto to live by?

We've a dear, dear friend, a chap, who is always looking to the past, harking back to perceived past glories, imagining that if he'd only done this, e.g. dated and married GJ's sister, (perish the thought, each of them is as bad as the other!), then all his life would have turned out much better... He'd have been someone, done something with his life... (He's 48 this month).

In my, (always less than humble opinion. let's face it!), he chooses to stick with these backwards-facing thinking patterns because he's got nothing to lose (because it'll never happen, as it's in the past he cannot go back there...), and it's a get-out clause that permits him to remain in his 'stuck' behavioural patterns in the present... Living always in the past, as he does, he has an excuse for the present, as it's all pre-ordained, everything is doomed to failure in any case, no matter what he does...

He's managed to keep this up through a plethora of failed relationships, jobs and business decisions... He never accepts advice from us, but will take on really bad advice from others (whom he sees as successes in life, even 'though they're not all that they seem...) - All 'froth and no substance', 'all fur coat, no knickers' - That's another story!

I don't know why I'm putting all this out into the Universe on this occasion, mes bloggy loves, but it just seemed to fit with my love of the Son of Dave and this record... (I'm showing my age there, you see, talking about a record, rather than a track or a tune! There's no hope for me, you do know!)

And the fact is, you've got to keep moving, in my opinion... Move on. Embrace the new to a degree, and don't keep on about the negatives of the past.

You can't change the past. So don't choose to live in it. Don't let it continue to hurt and abuse you.

Je ne regrette rien, as the Little Sparrow sang...

I recently had cause to quote Gandhi at someone, well to paraphrase, and I said, (and I accept it's very easy for me to say this, and hard to live it! And I swear I'm not trying to sermonis/ze again...):

'Be the future you want to see...'

And, the day I wrote this, my funny little quote of the day muttered,

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you" - Satchel Paige

Serendipity, non?!

Ciao bellas. Mwah dahlinks!


And original painting above is 'The Long And Winding Road' by Kelley Stengele . SOURCE

Groundhog Blues...

Ian Siegal (born 1971) is a British blues singer and guitarist, whose style reflects the more rootsy side of the genre, drawing on influences such as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Junior Kimbrough and Tom Waits.

This is the second track of his 2008 album 'Swagger', and it's called Groundhog Blues.

(...My thoughts are with troubled musician, Michael Jackson - for the child that was, and the man that failed to be...and his children - With hopes for those children's futures...)





And here they are playing live with Mortal Coil Shuffle...

You might remember... La Fhina went with her family a few weeks ago, to see the Johnny Winter band at the Opera House in York.

And they were totally blown away by the performance of this support band, with Ian Siegal at the helm...

Ian, up close, (because I did get relatively close to the band - We were in the front row, and then I bought a CD, which neither of my men were brave enough to go up and have signed during the interval - So that task fell to moi! More of that jape laters!), reminds me of a young Mickey Rourke, and what a talent that actor had, demonstrated for me very much in the shocking movie Angel Heart...

When the band first came on stage and Ian addressed the audience, my husband, GJ, and I both believed that they hailed from the banks of the Mississippi, so cool did they look, so world-weary and road-worn-ragged-weary - Dolled up convincingly as age-old and timeless, American blues artists...

And then the veneer began to peel away, like the layers of an eye-wateringly ripe onion, and we learned that Ian is from London, and Andy Graham, a man who moves his body and shimmies - magically, mesmerisingly - across the stage like a bass-player who was born to play the blues for his bread and butter, is an osteopath, who puts people's backs right for a living..., and who keeps a Great Dane who is frightened of thunder... And I think the drummer is Danish.

I am coming back to music again, mes bloggy blues-notes..., after years of raising Grizzler, we now have some time and a little spending money, (very little, such is the shame!), to trot off to see bands play live again...

I am becoming the ageing rock chick I always feared I might, and although I won't be taking any plaster casts of musicians' extremeties, Pamela des Barres is one of my favourite women!



I hope Ian and the band have a big future ahead of them. One that does not involve drugs and drink, boxing, tiny dogs, (no disrespect to tiny dogs anywhere, of course!), and allegations of violence and madness...

If you enjoy the blues, do look out for Ian and his band - They have la Fhina's rollicking and rocking blues-groupie stamp of approval...