Twenty years ago today I met Gavin Friday for the first time. It was outside the Roxy club in Amsterdam. He was slightly overdressed considering the sveltering heat that afternoon, a little shorter than expected and completely charming. He let me in to watch him soundcheck for his show that night. I love watching musicians practice their craft and shape their show and no one’s more driven and meticulous than Gav.

I have lost count of how many times I’ve watched him soundcheck since then, how many drinks we’ve had and ciggies shared, how many afternoon chats over cups of cappuccino. There have been dozens of postcards, letters and faxes, a couple of hundred phone calls and e-mails, a thousand or more text messages. And art. The songs we love, the albums treasured, the films we’ve seen. It’s what we love to share. And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, if you want to know Gavin, you listen to the songs he recommends. They tell you everything he doesn’t say.

I love being able to see the world through his eyes, to learn through someone who ’sees things differently’. The people he meets, the company he keeps, his ridiculously famous friends… he always has a story to tell. He is the most contrary, argumentative man you’ll ever meet and he’s taught this conflict-avoider to enjoy his verbal fireworks.

In return, I offer unwavering loyalty, a one-woman-PR-campaign, a familiar face in unfamiliar places, honest and informed feedback, my web-related skills, a 24/7 help desk, a personal Googlist and occasional snarky sideline commenter.

It is rare for artists and fans to connect and Gavin is a notoriously private man. Although I have been working with him since forever, and I ‘get’ where he’s coming from instinctively, it took fifteen years for me to think of him as a ‘friend’. But in the last five years I think we’ve finally got the measure of each other.

I can’t wait to see what the next twenty years will bring us.

I didn’t see a lot of gigs, but Leonard Cohen, Elbow, dEUS, My Bloody Valentine, Scott Walker’s Drifting and Tilting and the Rogue’s Gallery shows were very memorable. While many reviewers dwelt upon the alleged darkness of Walker’s Drifting and Tilting, the one thing I took away from the show was its wicked humour.

Musically often impenetrable, these lighter moments were brought to the fore by Walker and show director Ann-Christin Rommen’s staging. Afterwards, Walker’s albums, Drift, and Tilt, didn’t seem quite as ‘difficult’ to deal with and the show stopping ‘Patriot’ became my most played track of the year’s final three months.

Musically I mostly stuck to old favourites, but I enjoyed newcomers Duffy, Rachel Unthank, Sam Sparro, The Aftermath, and welcomed the return of Tricky and Grace Jones. In the last few months of the year, I mostly craved Hi-NRG beats. Hercules & Love Affair, Sparro, The Potbelleez, Ne-Yo and Robyn all scratched that particular itch. I’m not an album listener anymore, my iTunes/iPod is always set to ’shuffle’, but judging from my iTunes and Last.FM stats, Duffy’s Rockferry was my favourite, or at least the most played.

I spend more time watching TV-series than I do listening to music and genre shows came out on top this year: Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, The Sarah Connor Chronicles were unmissable. Comedy came second, with 30 Rock and The Office constant features on my list of weekly downloads. My favourite drama series of the last two seasons is still the awesome Friday Night Lights.

I’ll spare you the full list of the shows that I watch, it is endless. I think watching TV-series (and following some of its complex stories) has replaced watching films and reading books for me. I don’t do either much anymore. In fact I haven’t read a book in years, certainly not since I stopped commuting. I find most (Hollywood) movies disappointing and have not made an effort checking out arthouse flicks as I would have in the past. Films I did enjoy this year included Burn after reading (One of the few Coen Brothers films I liked), Iron Man (I’ll watch anything with Robert Downey Jr), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (same goes for Philip Seymour Hoffman) , and In Bruges.

On a personal level, while the economy plummeted, my health improved steadily and I lost quite a bit of weight and dropped from a size 18 to 12. To compensate for no longer being able to tuck into Chinese roast pork and other such delicacies, I picked up a serious on- and offline shopping habit, partly necessary as I had to replace my wardrobe, partly pure indulgence. (Six pairs of new shoes? Really?) Consequently I rekindled an interest in fashion and started reading fashion magazines and websites.

I finally got a job that seems to agree with me, in a place where I can learn things. I made a bit more money, spent it even more. I travelled a lot. Four great trips to Ireland, three to the UK, three to Paris and two trips to Cologne and Antwerp.

I’ll remember walking along the Salthill promenade in Galway, hanging out with Ben in Coffee @ Whitecross Street, becoming my nephew’s godparent in the Eglise de la Trinité, sitting in a park in Brighton with Stuart, looking for chickens in Gav’s garden in Killiney and, of all the time I spent with him this year, our mad dinner in that dingy cellar in L’Ecurie in Paris.

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In 2009 I hope to continue doing well in my job, which is going to change slightly as our project moves out from development to production. I’ll have to travel less, because I really can’t afford what I did last year. I need to pick up the camera again, didn’t do enough of that in 2008. I intend to stick to my food regimen, drop another stone or so and hopefully be taken off even more of my medication.

U2 is releasing a new album and will be touring, so that’s going to create a bit of work over at u2log.com, even if I don’t know why I’m still doing that. Whedonesque.com will enjoy a traffic spike as Joss Whedon’s new series Dollhouse will start airing on Fox on February 13. But there are other things afoot on Planet Prol that eclipse Whedon (easily – I’ve kind of lost interest, really) or U2 (just as easily) which are going to be as time consuming as they will be rewarding. I can’t wait to tell you more about that.

Engage! So say we all!

I found out someone in the
Dominican Republic had been drawing money from my account, between June 19 and June 25. They did this until the account maxed out, robbing me of a little over 2,000 euro.

I called the bank
and was told my card had probably been ’skimmed’. Criminals tamper with
ATM’s to scan your card when you use it, and use a camera to record
your pin code. It probably happened at the ATM in my street. I was told I should cover my fingers with my other hand whenever I punch in my pincode in future.

The
bank cancelled the card and started a ‘case’, in which they investigate
the matter and contact the bank in the Dominic Republic to ask for
camera footage, etc. I was told to go to the police to report the crime
and then hand in a copy of the police statement to my local bank branch. Which I did, after I had a good cry.

Apparently I will get my money back eventually, as the bank are insured against this kind of thing, but I’m sure this will take ages.

In the meantime, once I get a new card, I’ll have to dip into my savings to get by this month. And hope not too many bills come in while the account is still empty. Needless to say I am wishing hell and damnation on the entire Dominican Republic.

The next day I clicked a wrong file and then spent most of the day trying to rid my computer of the most persistent malware I’ve ever come across, it took ages to find the right fix.

So, how was your weekend?

He makes some good points. I don’t agree with a lot of what he says. I think his ‘don’t eat out’  and choosing off the dollar menu at fast food is infantile bordering on self-destructive. Good, healthy food is one of the great pleasures in life, to be enjoyed as often as possible.

Rockwell also states watching television makes you stupid and modern tv shows are all bad. I’m not going to go into that one, the same way I’m not going to touch his Mac-fetish. As for using coupons… the man says he’s got Scottish roots, but by golly, he might as well be Dutch.

No, I think money shouldn’t rot in the bank. It’s got to roll. But I liked his section on home owning. Too be able to afford his camera addiction, Rockwell lived in a ‘nasty’ condo until he moved into his wife’s house. He says ‘Don’t buy a big house’. Right on.

I get a lot of flak from members of my family who don’t understand why I live where I live, why I don’t spend money on improving my house, why I don’t move, why in nine years of owning the place I’ve only invested 3500 euro in renovating the balcony, have never done any paint jobs on it and haven’t spent a dime on furniture..

Instead, I spend everything I earn on computing, photography, travel, music, eating out and meeting friends. Things that make me happy. Me being the operative word. While my relatives for the last thirty years have put all their money in their house and garden, painting and re-painting, tiling, re-tiling, buying new chairs to fit with the new kitchen to fit with the new front room to fit with the new dining table and whatever the hell else they keep changing… I’ve gone and had and will continue to have a good time indulging my obsessions. So. fucking. there.

Thank god I’m not tight like Rockwell, though.

And damn him for bigging up the Nikon D40 so much now I, a Canonite, actually want to buy one.

The upcoming release of MT4 is another incentive, I’d like to get to know it intimately, before I apply it to my other sites.

So I’ll keep using VOX for what’s really ‘private’ and do everything else here at eachman.com. I don’t know if I can bring my readership back up to its former size… unique visitors have dwindled to 48 per day, returning to 13. Regular updates should help.

Dag.nl is located in the INIT building as featured in the previous post.