Power, Harmonicas, and Wine

Mr. Buchanan,

I apologize for the lack of activity in the past two weeks, I've been pretty busy. But for starters let me pick up where I left off last time. As promised, here is the Set List for my Open Mic two weeks ago:

Two Coins
Hotel California (reggae Style)
Dancing Nancies
Farmhouse (by Phish)
Slide
Carry You
The General

That night was actually pretty eventful. Before I came on this guy named Gordon got up and played harmonica. He was good enough that the bartenders gave him a free drink (they never gave me one!? I was a little bitter about this). Anyway, afterwards I introduced myself saying that I knew some songs that I thought he would like and that we should get together and Jam sometime. He seemed interested and promised to friend me on facebook. More on this later. Later that night a girl and guy duo got up and started playing. The girl (whose name I never got) stunned everyone in the bar as soon as she opened her mouth. It was like Eva Cassidy was performing in the bar for us! She was unreal. She sang "Summertime" "Walk away" and "Babe, I'm gonna leave you". The Led Zeppelin cover was particularly surprising and yet pleasing. I didn't think that a female singer could pull that song off, but she sang it in such a way that someone who had never heard it would have thought that it was written for a female singer, not Robert Plant. My friends said that despite the fact I had a really good set, it was good that I went on before her, because she was impossible to follow. I couldn't have agreed more.

That week we had lectures in IR concerning Power and its place in the discipline. These were perhaps some of the most interesting and thought provoking lectures thus far. With discussions of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Marx, to current IR theorists and sociologists, my favorite of whom was Michael Mann. His theory basically says that instead of thinking of power as the ends (like machiavelli), he thinks of it as the means for whatever desires humans have. He then divides power into what he sees as its four sources: political, military, economic, and ideological. While this may seem like a no brainer, its actually considered a pretty radical in the field of IR.

In English we finished Wuthering Heights, which I loved. I found it to be my favorite writing that I've read in a good while.

In Swimming we swam against Dundee, who beat us (sadly). Not much else to say about that, other than the fact that at the post-meet dinner at the Whey Pat Tavern I found out that ale must be an acquired taste because I found it to be DISGUSTING. I think I'll stick with beer, cider, and wine for now. Speaking of Cider, I'm wondering why cider isn't popular in the United States because its really good. It's pretty popular here.

Another international difference in Taste-buds I found interesting is the Scottish obsession with anything fried. Fried Snickers and Mars bars are pretty amazing. But, fried Pizza? come on now, that's just ridiculous. Jenna and Josh tried some last week, and thankfully reported it to taste just like it sounds, disgusting.

A few weeks ago was the Rugby World Cup. In case you didn't know, the England/ Scotland Rivalry is similar to that of Yankees and Red Sox, which is to say, "I support two teams, The Red Sox, and whatever team beats the Yankees" (insert scotland or england for yankees or red sox, depending where you are from). Needless to say, the Bars were packed to see England play France. St. Andrews has kids from all over Great Britian so the supporters were pretty evenly split, which made for a fun but tense atmosphere. England barely outlasted France, but went on to lose to South Africa in the Finals (much to the happiness of all the Scots).

Last weekend was pretty fun. Friday was the "Fancy Dress" bop. However, don't be fooled by the name the way I was. When somebody told me it was fancy dress, I assumed I would be wearing a coat and tie to the dance. However, "fancy dress" in this context actually means the opposite. There were pirates and togas and I dressed up as a rapper, wearing warm ups, a Michael Jordan Jersey and a sideways Texans hat. Pretty "fancy" hunh?

As promised, Black Cat Bone came back to Aikman's bar and again played a killer set. I saw my harmonica playing friend Gordon was there and suggested that we should jam sometime. We realized that we couldn't jam between then and then and the next open mic, so we planned on jamming before the next one.

That night I found out there was an open mic at the Union, hosted by the St. Andrews Music Association. I played three songs (hotel california, steeples, and the general). I had a good enough set that the Presidents of the MUSA asked me to give them my contact info in case someone around town had a gig and needed someone to play at it. So that was exciting.

At the open Mic on Monday, however I got an idea. I asked Gordon if he could just solo over a progression in A minor. He said that he could. So I played him the riff so he could get it in his mind before he got up there. I told him I would play that song last in my set. So i proceeded to play the following set:

Steeples
Here We Go
All Along the Watchtower (DMB style)

Gordon played amazingly during the solo for Watchtower. It sounded awesome. Josh and Jenna said it was by far the best set I had played thus far. Hopefully I'll be able to play up to it next time. Gordon and I had a great Jam session on Wednesday. We played some DMB, Dispatch and good ole' classic blues. It was so fun that I forgot about my Laundry in the washing machine!

This week in English we learned about my grandfather's favorite subject of criticism, Feminism and Queer theory. While my first lecture on these subjects I absolutely hated, the lecture I had concerning a feminist reading of Pride and Prejudice was actually very interesting. It discussed gender roles in the book and explained many characters actions through these gender roles. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was interested by and agreed with much of what was said in this second lecture.

Then on that night I had dinner with all of the Febs here at St. Andrews. We went out to Pizza Express and spent the night just talking and sharing stories of our adventures thus far. One girl got meet Hugh Grant while he was here for the Alfred Dunhill Tourney!

Then Yesterday Jenna, Allison and I went to the Luvians Wine Tasting Festival at the St. Andrews Golf Hotel. Allison is a friend of mine that I met in English Class who is from Dallas and went to Hockaday. She actually met two girls in my grade, Hannah Herzog and Anna Nutter, while she was on a "City term" in NYC. The wine tasting was really fun and informative. It was supposed to be the biggest festival of its kind in Scotland. Jenna found out about it through the St. Andrews Wind and Cheese Club. I'm pretty sure we were the only students there (there may have been some post grads, but it was mostly adults). I got to try many wines and I found that I like basically anything from New Zealand, that my favorite kind of white is Sauvignon Blanc and my Favorite Red is Shiraz. Prior to this I really didn't know much about what kind of wine I liked, I just knew what kind of wine my parents liked. I also learned that no matter what, its pretty hard to screw up champagne.

Anyway, since tonight dinner is not served at the dorm, Jenna and I are going to the Dunvegan, which will be the first time I will have gone there since Dad left. I can't wait for the Sticky Toffee Pudding!

Cheers

Tyler

Currently Listening to:
"Dog Problems" - The Format