Greetings from Bogotá.
Yes, you read right. For the first time in 17 months I am in our apartment in Bogotá.
Two weeks after my second Astra Zenica shot I had my first plane flight since February 2020. It was from Pereira’s new airport terminal, which was only being constructed when we were last there, flying from the old terminal.
The new terminal, now complete after almost a year of the airport’s disuse, is big and modern, and very clean. It was extremely clean in fact, in these days of Covid, with masked, gloved cleaners sweeping, swiping, spraying and sanitising everything in sight. There are many check-in desks but all were empty as the passengers I saw only had hand luggage and all had downloaded their boarding cards onto their phones. Masks were required all the time, both in the terminal and in the plane, but as the time on board was less than an hour it wasn’t too much of a challenge.
Much more of a challenge was the amount of dust that had accumulated over 17 months. I always remember English writer Quentin Crisp’s comment that:
“There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”
He might be right but I have no desire to find out. It is now looking a lot more loved.
Bogotá, at least around here, is much the same as it was before the pandemic hit, with a few noticeable differences. Almost everyone is wearing a mask, generally pulled down below the nose when outside but pulled back up when entering any shop or building or when in less than a couple of metres from others. Some restaurants near us have disappeared along with some coffee shops and cafes and places of refreshment. There is a lot of property available for rent.
I am here by myself, as Adriano is needed at Mykanos and our farms. We are in the midst of various things that must be attended to, and it is also good for him to have a holiday from me for a short time. Every day together for 17 months has been no hardship at all but a breather from my bad jokes is probably quite a good idea. It’s also good that he is there for the cats. Crispincho is OK but the two younger ones, Joaquo and Emily, have never known a day without us and it’s best if one of us is there to avoid possible panic.
I am proud to report we have another new farm. It is a little smaller than the last two, around six hectares, and is up the mountain above Mykanos. We prefer going up these days what with climate change. It is cooler. Over the past decade or so we have seen so much coffee land turned into citrus farms as it is getting too warm for top grade Arabica. The new farm is now called El Bosque. It has a good house, one with a secadora or coffee dryer for a roof, as was often the fashion. It looks like a flat corrugated roof until it is wheeled back to expose the drying area. From El Bosque we can look down at the top of El Moro, which is a hill on the top part of Mykanos, and then on to the mountains and valleys amidst which we live.
El Bosque has a nice creek and pond next to the house and I am delighted that, now we have a family living there, some of our ducks have relocated; lots of drakes in particular. The drakes were impregnating the ducks constantly, and as they are all free range, eggs were appearing in every garden bed. We only eat duck eggs these days. Unfortunately Alvaro and Julian never find all of them and we keep getting yet another eight tiny ducklings turning up, following Mum to the kitchen door. Why the kitchen door? Because Adriano likes to give them food as they are so cute.
Fortunately we have planted 180,000 maize plants, between the coffee trees that had been pruned, and they are yielding lots of maize. It’s no wonder the ducks are happy, and no wonder the area outside the kitchen is usually festooned liberally with duck droppings.
No duck droppings here but plenty of reaction to being 2,600 metres up after a year and a half at the farm. Thin dry air, disturbed sleep, breathless walking up some mild hills, dry skin … one sure gets unfamiliarised quickly.
However being here also gives me the opportunity to refamiliarise myself with some of our books, one being my father’s book ‘Reminiscing in Tempo’.
I have read it before, and I lived though the latter half of it, although not always fully aware of what was going on, but it was really inspiring to be reminded how instrumental Dad (Ron Wills) was in the development of the recording industry, and the appreciation of music, in Australia, particularly jazz. He was fan, record collector, record sales manager, journalist, broadcaster, critic, record label owner, jazz club organiser, Artists & Repertoire manager, record producer and music publisher, for jazz, classical, folk and pop.
One passing mention fascinated me, and it concerned Frank Sinatra. Sinatra had become huge, singing with the big bands, but when he went solo, much to the delight of the ‘bobbysoxers’, his career did not go so well.
It is commonly alleged that this was because he left his wife and family to have a brief marriage with Ava Gardner, and lost his voice, and lost confidence, and all the other things that Johnny Fontaine in Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather’ goes through.
My father was with EMI at the time and was not impressed with his solo records but he said that was because Artists & Repertoire at Columbia was being run by Mitch Miller, who hated Sinatra and kept giving him bad songs to try and finish his career.
When Sinatra was released from Columbia and went to Capitol, Dad sympathised with his opposite number at ARC who represented Capitol in Australia, and who said that they had to release every Sinatra record, and was forecasting ruin. Dad said that ARC need not have despaired, as the clever people at Capitol soon built Sinatra “… into one of the greatest performers in the history of the record business”.
He did however admit ignoring ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley and the Comets, as a single, preferring ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’, which was on the same record. It only did lukewarm business. A year later, in 1955, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ was featured behind the titles of the movie ‘Blackboard Jungle’ and the world changed.
I also read about something that changed my world.
MIDEM, the Marché International du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale, is the world’s biggest music business event, and is held in Cannes, France, each January. It is the music industry version of the Cannes Film Festival.
My father went to MIDEM representing RCA for many years, and after retiring, was asked by the Aussie music business to be the organiser and manager of the Australian Music Business stand, in conjunction with AUSTRADE, at MIDEM from 1979 to 1984.
When he and Mum no longer wanted to go, I was nominated for the job. By the way, it wasn’t just nepotism. By then I had worked in import records, music publishing and band management, so I was not a novice.
It provided me with a SYD/CDG/SYD completely flexible ticket, that had to be used within 12 months, and my plan at the time was to go on to London to pursue production of a stage musical I had written with Andrew Thomas Wilson, but that is another story.
So in January1985, I arrived in Paris for the first time.
I was working with Michel and Denise, who worked in the Trade Department at the Australian Embassy, and Denise and I duly drove down to Cannes in a big Citroën press car, which was a bit like a huge floating aircraft carrier.
I remember our first dinner, which we had at Restaurant Vernet, while we were overnighting in Avignon. For an aperitif I suggested I have a beer. Denise was horrified. I said it could be an expensive beer, “… after all I am Australian”. She said “Non, non, non’” and introduced me to a kir royale instead.
For the main I ordered rabbit, which surprised Denise, as she had never known an Australian do so. My choice, combined with the fact that my belt matched my shoes, convinced her that I was not beyond saving and noting my fondness for cheese, took it upon herself to educate me in French cheeses. She would engage the ‘fromagier’ in lengthy earnest conversation, make a selection for each of us, and then instruct me on which to eat in which order, which included her plate. I learnt a lot, then and over the subsequent years of our friendship. Denise is reading this, I hope, and also hope she does not mind the story.
Denise and Michel, who sadly is no longer with us, knew my parents very well and they developed a huge fondness for each other over the years. Being French, they pronounced my mother’s name Psyche, as See-chay, which my mother loved. She was just as delighted when Adriano, then Emilson, pronounced Psyche the same way on their first meeting in Sydney in 1987. Incidentally, Denise, who is still a great friend, now living in her ancestral town of Louvier in Normandy, once told me that, having observed me since January 1985, I am a much happier and fulfilled person since Adriano Emilson came into my life.
Couldn’t agree more.
Love from him and me
Barry
