Things to Make and Do

{ ETHER CIRCUS }

I took some promo pics of Jake's band down by the old railway tracks last week. They said this summer is going to be the best yet: they have so many shows lined up and there'll be all kinds of festivals and parties — I should go along if I'm still around.

I'd like to, but the truth is I'm not sure how much longer I'll be about. On the one hand, I love the idea of more West Coast. On the other hand, I'm beginning to feel like I'm treading water, and anyway, my visa is running out. I thought about going to Canada briefly and then back again, but I have to be realistic: I spent all my money on an imaginary hitman and I can't afford to "go to Canada briefly and then back again".

I think it might be time to move on.

Tall Tom featuring Jeff the Goat

This is Tall Tom, who lives in the house next door and is a rapper and a farmer. When he told me this I didn't quite believe him. A rapper and a farmer? How is that even possible? But he just laughed and shrugged like anything is possible and invited me down to his farm to take some photos. Tall Tom has three goats, countless chickens, and a voice like magic jelly beans.

My Heart is a Cold Hard Stone

Daniel thinks I should stop blogging about heartbreak. He doesn't want to sound like an asshole, he knows I'm going through something of an upheaval, but I'm not doing myself any favours by writing about it.

"Oh," I say, and we sit down on a bench on Mississippi Avenue. It's beautiful here at the moment: the sun is shining and the cherry trees drop blossom all over the place. It's the kind of time of year that would make your heart sing with joy, if you were happy. In fact, if you were here right now, and if you were happy, you might pick this exact moment to write one of those texts to your other half that just say: "I love you!" — just because you want them to know.

"Don't get me wrong," Daniel goes on. "I've written my share of angst in the past. It's just, maybe, you know…"

Yes, I do know. I'm suspicious of Daniel. I suspect he wants to kiss me. He'd already reached for my hand, some time ago, and I'd jumped back and said, uh, I'm sorry, but I'm not ready for this, I'm going through a process here, can we just be friends?

Daniel had lied and said yes, and one night I went along to his show and watched his band play songs about, yes, you guessed it: heartbreak. Why is it okay for musicians to go on and on about their failed romance, but not for me? I wish I were a country music star. I'd write sad songs about walking away from love and then I'd go and sit out on the porch and play them again and again, day after day after day. Blogging is the worst type of writing because once it's out there you can never play it again. You can't take your pain on tour and every night have a different crowd sing along. You just have to pick yourself up and find new content and try not to censor yourself and carry on.

Fiona and I sometimes play guitar together in the evenings. She tries to teach me to sing and play at the same time, but I keep losing my rhythm and the notes go all over the place. Fiona has natural musical ability and I have none: I feel the same way about music as some people feel about drawing stickmen. But Fiona also has great patience and eventually, together, we play Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson and anyone else who ever sat out on their porch in the name of love — and love long gone.

Daniel sighs. I think he's losing patience. But I'm not interested in placating him. I'm finding it difficult to feel anything for the opposite sex right now other than indifference. My heart is a cold hard stone.

"My heart is a cold hard stone," I explain to him. "I already told you I'm going through a process. Don't think you can speed it up just so we can kiss."

"Jesus, Annie," says Daniel, getting up off the bench and going off me. "I'm not trying to kiss you, I'm trying to help you."

"Oh," I say, again.

Yeah, well. I get up, too, and we walk together in silence, down to the end of Mississippi. We pass the street cafés and the food carts and the people sitting around with beers listening to reggae. If you catch anyone's eye in this town they smile at you and you smile back: that's the rule. It seems like spring is turning into summer despite everything, and sometimes I can feel myself turning with it, too. But it just takes time to accept certain things, doesn't it? Life goes on; seasons change; people come and go.

If you love someone, and you're thinking of them, now might be a good time to let them know.

The Briefcase

A Photo Love Story

David & Lola

Rolling Around in the Hay

There's a sign at the supermarket checkout making me feel anxious. "Bring your own bag," it says. "And win a tree".

I do not want to win a tree. Where would I put it? Almost everything I own is in a storage locker in Ireland and here I am still rolling around in the hay with the west coast of America. A tree is the last thing I need.

On the train back through California from Oakland, I'd sat and stared out of the window at the mountains and the pines and felt something happen in my chest. It was a familiar feeling: elation and nerves and unrest. Oh God, not again, not yet... I can't let myself fall in love with America. It's okay to have this stupid crush, yes, but I don't have a work visa and I'm not in the mood for unrequited love just yet.

But my flight back to Ireland left yesterday, and I lay in Fiona and David's garden and watched the aeroplane fly over my head.

"I think I'll stay a little while longer," I called out to them through the open kitchen window. "If that's okay with you guys...".

Luckily, they said yes.

Oakland We Love You

There were only so many pieces of graffiti we could film before Astrid looked at me and said: "We need to meet more people." These are some of the stories we heard after we started getting out of the car and introducing ourselves:

Gordon

Gordon lost his right leg last July after it went gangrenous. He was on his way back to the hospital when we met him, although he didn't want to go: it's been hard, living like this, and he's scared they're going to want to amputate his other leg now, too. "There's a hole in my foot this big," he told us, shaking his head. Gordon is homeless and spends his nights trying to get some sleep in bus shelters. He has a cousin in Oakland, but he doesn't want to bother her. "She don't really like having me around," he said. "And I don't want to be a burden." Astrid hugged him before he left, and I wondered if the last time someone touched him was when they cut off his leg.

Tevere

Tevere is six years old and the only thing he's interested in is dinosaurs. "This is a Triceratops," he said, holding up his drawing for the camera. "He ate plants and lived in the Cretaceous period." Gordon wondered where the hell Tevere learnt to say all these crazy-ass names. "Didn't you like dinosaurs when you were a kid?" I asked him. "Well, yeah," said Gordon, closing his eyes like he was trying really hard to remember being someone's child. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Chonkie and eNinja

Chonkie and eNinja are turf dancers, marking out their territory on street corners. They've been dancing for years, but it's only in the last while that they've been getting paid for it. Now everybody wants them on their tour. "We're going to Europe this summer," Chonkie tells us. "They're flying us to London in a private jet."

Toni and Antoinette

Toni and Antoinette stopped to watch us filming the dancing. "I've seen those kids on TV," said Toni, and I told her we were making a music video for an English band. "What? You've heard of them in England?" she exclaimed. I said she could be in the video too, if she wanted, and she picked up her baby girl and they smiled for the camera. "We don't have any pictures of us together yet," she said, and I promised I'd print her out a copy and mail it to her.

Nathan

Astrid asked Nathan if he was proud of Oakland and he shook his head and said no. Why not? "It's so violent," he said, like it's obvious. And it is. The mural behind him is a tribute to two young girls who were killed in the building last year. One of the girls was shot in her bed, when a bullet fired through her bedroom window. But Nathan doesn't want to talk: he wants to dance. We filmed him for a while until the yellow school bus pulled up. "That's my mom," he said, pointing at the driver, and we felt a little odd, like we'd just been caught doing something we shouldn't have – filming someone's son. But Nathan's mom just laughed and said oh yeah, he loves to dance, that kid.

Tanisha

Tanisha's housing block has been taken over by gangsters, who broke in in the middle of the night and shot a tenant in front of his kids, telling them they had one week to pack up all their things and get out. Astrid filmed an interview with Nanci: aren't you scared? "No," said Nanci, looking pointedly at the camera. "I'm not scared. I know the police will do right by us, because that's their job." A cop pulled up on a motorbike and Nanci told him the whole story. He listened, he understood, he got them an attorney. It made no difference: every single tenant in the complex has since been evicted.

Monetta and Tachelle

I started talking to these women after the car pulled off, but just as I was asking them if I could take their portrait their pimp appeared from around the corner wanting to know what the fuck was going on. I backed off.

DD and his Cadillac

"May I take your photograph?" I asked DD, after spotting him across the street working on his Cadillac. "Hell no," he said, pulling his cap down over his face. "Well, can I take a picture of your car, then?" I asked, and all of a sudden it was a different story. He turned up the speakers so loud the whole street could hear, and then he stood there posing for me, letting me take as many photos as I liked. "You gettin' those rims in?" he asked.





[Astrid's back in London now, editing the footage, which will be released in September as a video for the new Cornershop track "Milking It". More photographs from our three days together over here.]

East Oakland

Driving around Oakland's Eastside is unnerving. On International Avenue we'd driven past a man loading a gun, crouched behind a car door, and I'd sank lower into the passenger seat and felt my heart leap in my chest. Astrid tells me that two people were shot dead last night just around the corner from the hotel. Today, in the glaring sunshine, the streets are mostly deserted — except for the obligatory dealers and prostitutes sitting on the corners.

We'd met up with a mural artist called Desi W.O.M.E. who said he'd take us to see some of his paintings (don't call it graffiti: it's art, not crime) so we could get some footage for this music video for Cornershop that Astrid is directing. But then at 2 o'clock he'd had to go and he'd left us on our own.

"You'll be fine," he'd said. "People don't be trippin' on neutral people."

"But how will anyone know that we're neutral people?" I'd worried, wondering what exactly 'trippin' meant, and Desi had looked at us — two pasty white women in a hire car — and laughed.

"At the very worst, they'll just think you're cops."

Astrid had arranged to meet a guy called eNinja on the corner of 88th, so we made our way up there together to give him some money. In exchange, he and his friend Chonkie will dance for the video out on the street the next day. I was excited to meet them – I'd seen a beautiful film of them "turf dancing" on the day of their friend June's funeral. June, they tell me, died when he was shot in the back of the head through his car window, driving through someone else's territory just a couple of blocks away.

Yes, driving through the Eastside is unnerving: but I left all my fears in the desert, didn't I?

"If I do get shot at in Oakland," I thought to myself. "After making shit up on my blog about getting shot when I was in Arizona… then be it on my own head."

eNinja