Mostly Anecdotal

“We’ve got all kinds of good music, bands you’ve never even heard of,” she said. “Well there’s your problem.” I said, “bands—I’m more of an orchestra guy.”

Tim, Chris, Cinnamon and I were getting ready to leave for Las Vegas to play chess. Chris had purchased an FM transmitter for his iPod we’d be able to play his 30 gigabytes of tunes through the radio. Well not entire thirty gig the trip is only 400 miles, about six hours, more like 300 megabytes.

There was a time when I made the trip in five hours not six, but caution comes with age, and one too many tickets. “How fast do you think you were going,” he’d say. Today I’d say about 60 megabytes an hour officer, and smile knowing that I was not being stopped for speeding.

It was true what she said there were many bands I’d never heard of. My education started with Mercury Program, and their funky vibraphone sounds, then a reprieve was issued and we listened to some Britpop, all very melodic, and all quite enjoyable. Then came Bloc Party, a Post Punk Indie band, Nine Inch Nails, I’d heard of, a guaranteed headache. They are the poster child for all the angst and anger in the current generation. Ghostland Observatory and Ratatat followed, they both play electronica, but unlike Mercury Program they add lyrics. Then there was a German band Rummstein singing Du Hast. Won Beta Band, American Analog Set, Interpoll, oh my do they have a dark sound. A little bit of Thom Yorke and we were there.To be fair there was a Mozart Concerto and some Beattles in there somewhere, but mostly it was stuff I’d never heard.

All told we listened to 8 hours of music on a six-hour trip, thanks’ to Chris’ temporally transcendental iPod. I’m still a classical guy, but now I’m up-to-date and musically savvy.

We arrived at Heathrow 45 minutes early at 6:10 a.m. Chris said we could simply take the underground from Heathrow to Kings Cross the connection to St. Pancras and a train to Sheffield. Everyone knew exactly where they were going on the underground except three from Utah with oversize suitcases.

There were few on the train upon boarding but that quickly changed. At first it was students going to school, no problem we had seats and it was a 50 minute ride to Pancras Station. At the following stations the morning business crowd poured onto the train. They all exhibited an incredible sense of balance while standing in the aisle reading The Daily Something with the headline blaring “Blair says Saddam Has To Go” One young bloke wearing black slacks with a white tweed jacket, his air lightly spiked, and a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul in his lap was totally engaged in his reading. He looked up at us, the what the hell are they doing on the underground look, neither angry nor bemused. I can’t imagine what he was thinking.

The train kept getting more and more crowded I couldn’t imagine how another person could board, but somehow they did. I started wondering how the hell we would ever get off the train our suitcases pinning us in our seats, a mass of humanity between us and the doors, and trains that wait for no one. I could see two of us making it off while the third continued to ride the underground forever. A Kingston Trio tune, M.T.A., running through my mind. At the moment when panic was beginning to set in, the Leicester Station, a fair number of passengers departed. It was still quite crowded however. Luck was on our side when additional passengers departed at Russell Square making our task easier as we pulled into Kings Cross and exited the train.

Chris had told us that there was construction taking place and we would probably have to go outside. Just follow the signs were his instructions. Up stairs with stares from the Brits we trudged our 70 pound bags in tow. After waiting for a gap in a line of suits coming down the escalator we crossed to the stairs and the way out. The way to the surface was a little like using a Stairmaster while carrying a suitcase Chris had saved us money, at that moment I would have hired help, if any was available. We huffed and we puffed but finally made it to the above ground Pancras Station and the above ground train. Chris had scored a real bargain on our tickets from Pancras Station London to Sheffield $25.00 each. He purchased them on the Internet. He was concerned that we might have unexpected delays so scheduled our departure for 12:25 p.m. it was barely 9:00 a.m. when we arrived. I saw that a train was leaving at 9:55 a.m. and decided to see if I could exchange our tickets. “Internet tickets no exchange” she said and $250.00 if we wanted new tickets. Suddenly a three hour wait didn’t seem that long. A sandwich shop, a decent cup of coffee, and Allan Faust’s Dark Star in my bag would make it tolerable.

There are only a few in the passengers lounge waiting. A fellow bent over feeding a child in a carrier and a pigeon picking up after anyone that dropped a scrap of food. A businessman had commandeered the corner of the shop spreading his papers out all around him, and on his cell phone for the next 45 minutes trying to convince a customer that what he was selling was exactly what the customer wanted to buy. It was obvious even hearing only one side of the conversation that he had a long way to go. I switched to reading and the time passed much more quickly. It was not long until the train to Sheffield was ready to depart. We were ready too.