My Xmas Turkey
A quick trip to Turkey to distribute and collect some delight. It’s one of those – arrive, eat, play, sleep, leave – jobs. Because it is Istanbul there is traffic on traffic in driving rain, roads like rivers, roads like car parks. There’s Guray, the gentle door manager who lives in the country, who keeps chickens and cats and dogs and grows parsley in summer time, enough to share with friends and neighbours. There is grilled meat and lavish salad, there is Raki (pronounced wrecker, an appropriately descriptive word for a deliciously devastating drink). Then there is Lux, the bar club in a back street in the still driving rain, in the increasingly vicious wind. Function One sound, crossover, house music, hotel, and another night of fitful sleep. Half dog tired. Half waiting for the alarm. Rain lashing on the windows. Image repetition – a series of known unknowns on TV – an explosion in a city; a crowd protesting in another; hot or cold weather in various regions of the world; stocks and shares going up and down; a man on a beach playing an acoustic guitar, a beautiful woman wandering, hopeless, aimless, pleading, vulnerable, all eyes. In my dreams or in the club or on TV, I am not sure now, the waves of bass throw words onto the shore. Boom – superabundance. Boom – obesity. Boom – instant gratification. I want it and I want it now. That system doesn’t work anymore, we all know that, we can feel it, but what do we have to replace it? We can feel it like the wind rocking to hotel, like the windows buckling and bending, warping out of shape in the lashing rain. We can feel it in our stomachs like a sharp punch or the slap of a bass wave from the Function One. Enough is enough I splutter as the phone beeps or pings or does something. I compose myself for a second – hello. Upbeat, sounding to myself like I am awake. There is nobody there of course. It’s just another alarm call on just another morning in just another room with a view. In the lift on the way down to breakfast I hum a simple tune: Stay hungry, stay smart That’s a start, that’s a start When it all falls apart Stay hungry, stay smart.