Yeay! Birthday time!

X, her mother, her grandparents and myself ventured down to Gothenburg this Saturday to catch up with Tyra ((and her family)), who celebrated her turning five years old. Yeay! Following a very early morning, X and I quickly set sails through the subway system, hooked up with a train and then were on our three-hour way towards Gothenburg. We gladly left a very cold and rainy Stockholm. During the trip south I saw "Crips and Bloods: Made in America", a documentary on the rise and current situation in Los Angeles where the two biggest gangs in the worlds are battling since more than 40 years. Stacy Peralta. skateboard legendary, has written and co-directed that film, believe it or not. It was very well-made, including great use of stock footage, interviews with different generations of members of clubs/gangs from way over the spectrum of time and loads of research, not to forget the very human people were portrayed; no blame-game except for the American government and their xenophobic and racist tendencies, both then and today.

We met up with X's mom and grandparents and had a few laughs on the train, and as X's grandparents went to our final destination by car, the rest of us walked there, through Nordstan, where we bought flowers, dodged human traffic as it's quite different from Stockholm ((In Gothenburg, people walk however they want, I'll tells ya!)) and just had a nice time. It was cold in the air, leaves wilting all around us and we were wearing loads of clothes, but the sun was shining mightily.

We had a great time at Linda and Mattias' place; Tomas, Bittan, Ante and Johanna were there as well, along with others... Tyra was duly celebrated and Alvin got some presents as well, e.g. a car that we gave him; he had a fun time watching it race, but a slightly harder time figuring out that it had to be pulled back to get speed. By the way, the little guy was stuck to X like glue. It was so cute to see him whenever he was a bit away from X; he urgently searched for her and when he found her, flung himself into her arms and often laughed while doing so.

As Mattias showed us film they'd shot during their stay in New York, Alvin thrusted himself onto X, vaulted onto me and then slid back down onto X and did this over and over again, until the thought of having children seemed farther away than for a long while. This paired with Tyra's wanting to play (which she loved, changing the rules of the game we played as she saw fit in order to win) plus both kids strung-out on massive amounts of sugar wore me down. But it was really great to unite with the family on X's side for a while again! It's our big family. And I love Gothenburg. It's truly a beautiful city. When we saw Primal Scream at the Way Out West festival a couple of years back Mani shouted that Gothenburg is the best city in Sweden; "Fuck Stockholm!" In there lies a little more than a thin wafer of truth.

Rob Gretton's handwritten notes from when he managed Joy Division

On the way back home I watched "Joy Division", a brilliant documentary on the English band and also a documentary on Manchester, or so the film claimed; it's written by Jon Savage, a noted Manc journo. The film was really intense and beautifully made. Some lyrics here, a few wide-angle shots of locations there. Hommages to the Factory way of numbering their catalogue items. Not too nerdy, though. Some of the main players were interviewed; Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris, Tony Wilson, not Deborah Curtis but Annik Honoré, Genesis P-Orridge and Kevin Cummins. It was tastefully done. Dreamy. I remember a hypnosis sequence quite lucidly for some reason, during which Sumner has put Curtis in trance and asks him questions. Also, there is a few really good bootleg video recordings thrown in here which really show Joy Division's power onstage. And it also shows how shit they were at the start... Martin Hannett really came out differently than the madman he's portrayed as in "24 Hour Party People" which isn't the truth at all as far as I'm concerned, thinking of what a brilliant job he did both on "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer". As the band puts it, he had a zen way of working.

All in all, the weekend was very sweet, apart from working yesterday; If I were paid by every Microsoft patch I installed yesterday I'd be a wealthy man, but I'm NOT so there! Instead, I'm a happy man right now. Autumn's really hitting me in a good way. I'm even getting used to everything turning pitch black at around 5pm. Yesterday evening I saw the second English film on Kurt Wallander (starring Kenneth Branagh) and it was fair in comparison with the first one, which I deem as the better film so far.

What remains? X and I are still DJing tomorrow (details here), do come!