Today’s Birthday: Nicholas Berkeley Mason

Nicholas Berkeley Mason was born 27 January 1944 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. He is an English drummer and founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, and the only member to appear on every single album. I heard Nick Mason play with his current band Saucerful of Secrets. In his honor I am reprinting the post I wrote in which soccer, Pink Floyd, and pizza met…. – Jadi

YES, I already have tickets for the next time he comes to town! Hell yes!

On July 4th, 2014 Germany made soccer history. They are the first country to ever make it to four World Cup Semi-Finals in a row. I’m back in the US for a visit, and watched that game early in the morning on my friend’s couch with the German flag in face paint on my cheeks and a German lei draped around my neck.

I came to soccer late. It wasn’t until after I moved to Europe in 1992 that I realized how exciting the World Cup is. The globe takes its soccer pretty seriously (understatement of the century!); I first became a fan out of a need to share in the experience or miss out on life for weeks at a time. When Germany hosted the World Cup in 2006, I became a fan for real. What great matches! What a party!

So here I am in 2014, cheering on everyone. I’ve cajoled my friends into going to pubs and restaurants with wide screen televisions, or watching at home. I was happy to see the USA make it through the elimination round in Group G (the Group of Death), ironically up against Ghana, Portugal, – and Germany. I rooted for both even as I knew Germany would take it.

During the next round I watched the Argentina-Belgium match on a Spanish speaking station. I had the volume turned low, but I love hearing the cheering and chanting of fans in the stands.

The sounds suddenly reminded me of Pink Floyd, of all things. I was 16 years old when Dark Side of the Moon was released, and if you know me that fact explains everything. [1] But Floyd’s earlier album (and that’s a word that really dates me) Meddle contains the song “Fearless” with a background of singing Liverpool F.C. fans. At the time I didn’t know from soccer. I was sure the sound had to be religious chanting, like the noise of saffron-robed Indians on a hillside in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Remember the scene in Dharmsala where they sing out notes and point at the sky? I somehow made a connection between religion, and Pink Floyd, and joyous tones.

Decades later I moved to Europe. When I heard the chants of fans in the stadiums, I realized with a start that “Fearless” is really about soccer.

So it’s all come full circle. I’m back for a visit in the country of my birth; I’m watching the land I currently call home kick butt and take names as they make sports history; and it’s all accompanied by a soundtrack that returns to me to one of the happiest times of my life.

GO TEAM !!!

NOTES: [1] EVERYTHING. © Jadi Campbell 2014. Previously published as Soccer, Religion, and Pink Floyd. Uwe’s photos of our trip to Japan and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de. A shout out to Mark O’Brien and American Dream Pizza in Corvallis for opening up the bar early so we could watch Germany make more history as they beat Brazil. 7-1, baby! Soccer ball image courtesy dreamstime. Cover art work for Pink Floyd’s Meddle, image courtesy of Wikipedia. Music video courtesy of YouTube. Go to my earlier post The Year the World Came to Party for more on soccer.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out. Books make great gifts!

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. The Trail Back Out was honored as 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist for the Independent Author Network. In addition, The Trail Back Out was an American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was a semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts, and named a Finalist for Greece’s international 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

The Death of Robin Williams

NOTE: The brilliant Robin Williams was born on 21 July, 1951 in Chicago. In honor of his upcoming birthday and his incredible gifts, here is my original post written at the news of his death. — Jadi

Feste the Fool: “This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.” —Shakespeare King Lear, Act III, Scene 4

Robin Williams is dead. He killed himself.

Both of these statements shock and sadden me. Put together, they are almost unbearable. Since his passing the nights have been cold indeed, and it’s taken days to reach a place where I can try to write about him.

Caren Miosga is an anchor for the major evening news program in Germany, and German journalism is a serious business. Caren reported the news of his death barefoot and standing on top of her news desk. “O Captain! My Captain!” she recited from there. There is no more fitting way to salute him.

I remember when he burst onto the world stage. He was incredibly funny, his wit like lightening. His brain and mouth moved so fast that it still takes repeat viewing (and listening) to catch up to him. And even then you wonder how he could improvise like that. He would recite Shakespeare – and play all the roles himself.

A good word to describe him is irrepressible. Robin seemed impossible to hold back, stop, or control. And he embodied the next meaning of the word: very lively and cheerful. But like all clowns he knew the flip side of laughter is sadness. He was a fiercely observant social critic and he spoke about what he saw. As our greatest court jesters have always done, Robin told us the truth.

During the 1980s I lived in San Francisco, and I remember going with friends to the newly opened Hard Rock Café. As we sat there, a murmur rippled through the big room. Robin Williams, two women, and two very young children had just been seated for lunch. As the news spread, people stopped eating and turned in their chairs to stare.

Robin was a guy who’d simply come in for lunch, and looked uncomfortable with all the attention. But he signed autographs and smiled. I was struck by how youthful he looked, and how shy. He didn’t have a glamorous aura. I tried to figure out what was remarkable about how he looked. In the end, I was startled by a sense that he was terribly vulnerable.

And that is the secret to his magic. Robin Williams didn’t just make us laugh. He made us feel the absurdity of our prejudices and fears, and yes, our hopes and desires, too. He reminded us at all times of our humanity. He was searingly honest about his own short comings and dreams. He turned himself inside out with a candor and lovingkindness that made his humor a healing force.

Our world is a sadder place for his passing. It’s a better place for his having lived and shared his immense gifts with us.

He is already greatly missed.

R.I.P. Robin McLaurin Williams 21 July 1951 – 11 August 2014

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

Book Excerpt: TNT 2

They stood at the long service counter. Just a single table in the room had free seats. A dark-haired girl sat at it, and Todd looked her over. She had delicate features in a heart-shaped face and wore the stock student fashion of jeans and short-sleeved sweater. Todd noted embroidery around the sweater’s shiny buttons, and that her long hair was pinned back with a wide silver clip. The girl was simultaneously young and very grown up, poised and alone in the din.

He set down his beer. “Watch the master.”

Donny watched. His buddy claimed the empty captain’s chair beside the stranger. Todd touched her shoulder to get her attention as the musicians returned to the stage for the next set. “I’m Todd Taft.” The band picked up their instruments and began playing, and Donny couldn’t hear the rest.

The girl shook her head as she spoke. Todd’s brow furrowed and he added something. But she laughed as she shook her head again.

The guitarist started to sing.

“Ready?” The man who’d reached the table ignored Todd, eyes only for his date. She got up and they left the bar. She looked great from behind; her escort wore a sports jacket over faded jeans and looked like a preppie out slumming.

Grinning, Donny brought their beers over to the deserted table. “Nice going, cowboy.”

Todd rolled his eyes as he cupped his crotch. “I’m in love!”

Donny laughed and ordered another round. They remained until the bar closed, drinking a few last beers as the band played Eagles cover tunes. Todd drove home with the girl’s brown eyes impressed on the lyrics of Peaceful Easy Feeling.

He kept thinking about her. It was the challenge of being turned down, or maybe it was the boredom when work finished up and he had nowhere to go. Or the way he’d felt inside when she gazed at him. The attraction rolled over him in a gigantic wave, pulling him under with a siren’s lure.

He headed back to Cumberland in the hopes of finding her, the girl who’d refused to tell him her name.

Book Excerpt: TNT 1

For your reading enjoyment: excerpts from my coming book. I’m writing madly, aiming to finish by December. A pre-Christmas book release sounded like a no brainer. Unfortunately that’s just what I feel like half the time when it comes to promotion. I’m still figuring out the marketing end of self publishing.

Anyway.

Prepare to meet a hero with dangerous fantasies. A young woman trapped in a cult. A person who dreams other people’s futures. A man drinking glühwein at a Christmas Market as he waits for disaster. And Lynn, the connecting thread, taking a train trip with a seductive stranger. I’ll be posting the first pages to each chapter.

Committing my characters to an appearance on this blog makes them real. As of tonight, they exist beyond my imagination.

Here are the opening pages to my novel (Name being withheld until publication date). This first chapter is titled, TNT.

1976: A History of the Hunt

TNT: Noun, 1. A yellow crystalline compound, CH3C6H2(NO2)3, used mainly as a high explosive. –Dictionary definition

The lot attendant waved his hand and vehicles inched forward. A Camaro was next in line, and he motioned wearily for it to advance.

He was in his late twenties, with short hair and a carefully shaved face. He wore worn-in work boots with metal tips shined to a high buff, jeans, and a nylon jacket over a tee shirt. The jacket flapped open suddenly to reveal a shirt printed with tangled stick figures. Red letters advertised Certified Muff Diver. Demonstrations upon request.

The attendant bared his teeth and closed the jacket as the teens in the car stared. “Five bucks parking, make sure you place the receipt on the dashboard or plan on paying to retrieve your vehicle from the towing company.” He handed over a parking stub and pointed to the farthest corner of the lot. “Over there, champ. You’ll want to keep this nice conveyance safe.”

No one in the car said a word. “Nice shirt,” the teen in the back seat commented once they were out of earshot. “Who’s that?”

“You don’t know? That’s Todd Taft. My sister Janine graduated with him. Todd was a big hero back in the day,” the driver recalled. “They called him TNT. Now he’s just a guy with a bad attitude who works parking cars.”

***

The last sports fan drove off with a wave after the game ended. “So long, pal,” Todd called cheerfully. The driver turned into the street and Todd stopped smiling. “Dim mother fucker,” he added under his breath. The rainbow painted on the side of the microbus faded in the distance. Todd watched until it vanished from his sight. The work keys jangled as he attached the chain link fence across the entryway. He walked back towards his booth, whistling.

The part-time attendant strolled over from the other end of the tarmac. Donny Shoemaker wore a clean pair of jeans, his ponytail tied back with a rubber band.

“Feel like a beer?”

“Well, that depends. Got somewhere in mind?”

“I thought I’d head over to Cumberland. Dante’s has a live band on. It’s Ladies’ Night! And in Cumberland that means college women.”

“I don’t need someone who can debate, Donny. I’d rather get laid.” But Todd reopened the booth where he always kept a clean tee shirt behind his crossword dictionary.

Donny waited impatiently. “It’s quicker if we take the back roads.”

“It’s all back roads, remember? This is upstate,” Todd said dryly.

“Christ, Taft,” Donny remarked when he was finally done. “Don’t you ever buy clothes in the right size?”

Todd looked down at the fresh shirt, tight on his barrel chest. “What are you talking about? My shirt?” he asked innocently. “Oh, it fits. Free advertising, Shoemaker, free advertising.” Todd ran a comb through his short black hair and let out a rebel yell. “It’s Saturday night. Look out, ladies, here we come.”

Soccer, Religion & Pink Floyd

On July 4th, Germany made soccer history. They are the first country to ever make it to four World Cup Semi-Finals in a row. I’m back in the US for a visit, and watched that game early in the morning on my friend’s couch with the German flag in face paint on my cheeks and a German lei draped around my neck.

During the next round I watched the Argentina-Belgium match on a Spanish speaking station. I had the volume turned low, but I love hearing the cheering and chanting of fans in the stands.

The sounds suddenly reminded me of Pink Floyd, of all things. I was 16 when Dark Side of the Moon was released, and if you know me that fact explains everything. But Floyd’s earlier album (and that’s a word that really dates me) Meddle contains the song “Fearless” with a background of singing Liverpool F.C. fans. At the time I didn’t know from soccer. I was sure the sound had to be religious chanting, like the noise of saffron robed Indians on a hillside in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Remember the scene in Dharmsala where they sing out notes and point at the sky? I somehow made a connection between religion, and Pink Floyd, and joyous tones.

It was decades later that I moved to Europe. When I heard the chants of fans in the stadiums I realized with a start that it’s really about soccer.

So it’s all come full circle. I’m back for a visit in the wonderful country of my birth; I’m watching the land I currently call home kick butt and take names as they make sports history; and it’s all accompanied by a soundtrack that returns to me to one of the happiest times of my life.

GO TEAM !!!

NOTES:

A shout out to Mark O’Brien and American Dream Pizza for opening up the bar early so we could watch Germany make more history as they beat Brazil. 7-1, baby! http://www.adpizza.com/
Soccer ball image courtesy http://www.dreamstime.com. Cover art work for Pink Floyd’s Meddle, image courtesy of Wikipedia. Music video courtesy of YouTube.
Go to my earlier post The Year the World Came to Party. for more on soccer. Travel Karma & Remind Me Again: What Are We Doing Here? describe trips to India.

Tag: Rock & Roll

The Death of Robin Williams

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Book Excerpt: TNT 2

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Book Excerpt: TNT 1

1976: A History of the Hunt

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1976: A History of the Hunt

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