*Track 15

Back Together - 9th October 2018

“I think I might have seen the Falcon 9 launch you know, when we were flying over,” Stuart claimed, half facetiously, entirely fictitiously.

They were sitting in a cool, shaded waterfront bar, looking out over Waikiki Beach’s pleasing panorama of sun, sand, and surfers, and he had just finished telling Anne, having read a news feed on his phone, about Sunday’s successful flight and re-landing of Elon Musk’s latest SpaceX rocket.

“That’s just a complete lie,” Anne pulled him up, taking another sip of her Pina Colada before continuing, “did you really think I’d swallow that?”

“OK, it’s a fair cop,” Stuart conceded. But with time on their hands, and an icy cold Kona beer to enjoy, he judged there could yet be a drop more rocket fuel left in his tall story, “maybe I didn’t see it exactly, but we could have done. Should have. It launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, just outside Santa Barbara, at 7.21pm. That was ten minutes after we took off.”

“We flew from San Francisco though,” Anne replied, having reluctantly been drawn in, “how far away is that?”

“I knew that’s what you’d ask,” Stuart continued, “so I looked it up on Google Maps. It’s only 280 miles. ‘One small step’ in space terms. It’s a pity we didn’t see it though, it could have saved me a fortune.”

“Go on then,” Anne sighed resignedly, “you’re obviously going to tell me why.”

“Apparently the launch caused a spectacular, colourful nebula. A sort of Aurora Borealis for the whole Californian coast according to the story I’ve just read,” he explained, “so my thinking is; why pay through the nose to go all the way to Svalbard when you can see the same thing for free on Hawaiian Airlines?”

“Don’t think for a second that’ll fly,” Anne quipped, visibly pleased with her pun, “you’ve been promising me the Northern Lights for twenty years. There’s no way I’m settling for a few fireworks from Elon Musk as a second best. Particularly not theoretical ones. Because, however much you try to convince yourself, the fact remains, we didn’t see it!”

“No need to get shirty,” Stuart laughed, “plus I don’t think you’re in much of a position, sitting here,” and he waved his arm towards the crystal clear, turquoise ocean, “to start complaining about holidays, or a lack of them. I might have to admit we didn’t really see Falcon 9, but, like I said, we could have done. How about when Joe gets here we try convincing him we did? He’ll be really peed off.”

“Get me another Pina Colada,” suggested Anne (her request accompanied, as usual, by an a cappella rendition of the old Rupert Holmes’ chorus), “and you’re on. You have to hand it to Joe though,” she continued, in a delayed response to Stuart’s allusion to their stunning view, “this is some transfer he’s managed to pull off.”

They had arrived in Hawaii a couple of days ago, after a week’s stopover in California staying in the delightfully named, appropriately picturesque, Half Moon Bay; catching a couple of Joe’s new soccer team’s away games in San Francisco and Monterey, and now had a further two weeks to look forward to on Oahu as the second leg of their regular Fall Semester sojourn. According to Stuart’s guidebook, Mark Twain once described Hawaii as, “the loveliest fleet of islands anchored in any ocean.” Not one of his wittier quotations perhaps, but, sitting here, undeniably accurate.

After spending yesterday exploring Honolulu, and looking around Joe’s new university campus, this morning, on their son’s recommendation, they had walked the Makapu’u Point Lighthouse trail before splitting their afternoon’s entertainment. Anne had spent her time relaxing and swimming at the idyllic Hanauma Bay beach resort, while Stuart visited the Kona Brewing taproom at a nearby marina.

Having since returned to the city, and dumped the hire car back at their apartment, they still had an hour or so to fill before Joe was due to join them for a prearranged pre-‘Challenge’ dinner, their late reservation scheduled to accommodate this month’s unusual 11pm deadline (as dictated by Hawaiian time). They couldn’t have met Joe any earlier anyway as he needed to get back from pre-match training for tomorrow’s game, but a little more heel kicking in Waikiki was hardly proving a hardship. Stuart ordered Anne her requested Pina Colada and switched his beer selection to a Hanalei Island IPA, his favourite brew from the taproom earlier.

“What do you make of Musk anyway?” Anne asked, as Stuart sat back down with their drinks, having clearly dwelt on their earlier conversation. “He’s a bit of a prat isn’t he? Didn’t he call that diver in Thailand a ‘paedo guy’, just cos he snubbed his sub?” In Anne’s eyes Elon’s infamously controversial comment about the cave rescue hadn’t just been inaccurate and potentially libellous. It had verged on heresy.

“I think prat’s probably a fairly accurate assessment,” Stuart replied, “a ridiculously successful one though. Tesla’s pretty much the world’s biggest car company now, and SpaceX launch more satellites than anyone else. I like to think of him as the Stephen Jones of the technology world.”

Stuart knew he was straying onto dodgy territory here. If Anne had a favourite group then it was likely Babybird, the ‘virtual band’ moniker used by his referenced Mr Jones.

“What do you mean?” she immediately protested, “Elon’s nothing like Stephen!”

“Slightly irritating, completely paranoid, but always entertaining,” said Stuart, and then sat back, savouring his IPA, and rested his case.

“If you put it that way, I can see your point,” Anne conceded with a smile. She acknowledged and accepted Stephen Jones’s flaws but still loved him, like an unruly child, “but you don’t really think he’s a prat do you?”

###

If Anne were ever sad enough to compile a selection of her favourite songs there would be a lot of Babybird contenders. ‘Back Together’ would probably feature at the list’s summit, with a few others, like ‘Goodnight’ and ‘If You’ll Be Mine’, hanging around its foothills. Stuart habitually teased Anne over her unstinting commitment to an artist that most had long forgotten (or, at best, only remembered for ‘You’re Gorgeous’), but beneath this gentle mockery he held a sneaking admiration for both Anne’s loyalty and Stephen’s stubborn longevity.

Stuart’s favourite round of the old music gameshow ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ (especially during its classic Lamarr period) had always been the identity parade. The line-up typically featured the singer (or, more obscurely, the bass player or drummer) from some old, fleetingly successful band, seemingly prepared to trade any last vestige of dignity for one final appearance on primetime TV. Despite this coming with a built-in guarantee that they would be ritually and mercilessly humiliated.

Then, after the parade was over, Lamarr would rub further salt into his guest’s already gaping wounds by revealing that their forgotten band was still touring, still scraping a living from past glories, with a clear unspoken implication this involved playing to meagre audiences in minute venues. Once a musician, always a musician, seemed to be the moral of this segment; such obsessiveness predestined to end in tears.

Yet Babybird, the perverted brainchild of its lead singer and songwriter, had somehow managed to avoid any such ignominious ‘death by cabaret’. It probably helped that Jones’s earlier, temporary success had only arrived after years of following a DIY punk ethos, producing a string of lo-fi albums from his bedroom before unexpectedly hitting the big time by releasing eight chart busting (chart denting?) singles between ‘96 and ‘99.

The band’s candle burned brightly in this period, with regular appearances on Top of the Pops. They even had a promo video made for them by celebrity super-fan, Johnny Depp, who once referred to Jones astutely as, “the witty wart upon the moronic mug of mediocrity.” When Babybird’s flame inevitably flickered out though, Stephen simply reverted to his lo-fi roots, if noticeably more cynical and jaded. He had simply retired to his bedroom again it seemed (both figuratively and literally).

The most recognisable moment from Babybird’s purple patch was ‘You’re Gorgeous’, a single that entered the UK charts at number three (in with a bullet!) in October 1996. The song outsold, for a week at least, both Celine Dion and The Spice Girls, and was only kept from the top by Deep Blue Something’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (another one-hit wonder) and The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Setting Sun’ (with Noel on vocals).

Unfortunately, to this day, Jones appears to regard his one major hit as a poisoned chalice. A millstone around his neck. He frequently vents his frustration over this being the only song anyone knows him for, while the much wider Babybird catalogue, of which he’s equally (probably more) proud, has been allowed to drift into obsolescence.

Stuart could accept the argument that ‘You’re Gorgeous’ was never the band’s finest hour, but he still regarded it a great single, with an extraordinarily catchy chorus and a wickedly subversive lyric (a Babybird trademark). It still amused Stuart that if people had ever listened to the words carefully, as most clearly hadn’t, then ‘You’re Gorgeous’ would never have become lazily pigeonholed as a celebratory love song. Certainly not one since chosen, wholly inappropriately, for so many weddings!

However embittered and dismissive its creator may have become of his most famous legacy, the ongoing royalties from ‘Your Gorgeous’, along with those for ‘The F Word’ (used as theme music for a Gordon Ramsey TV series), at least gave Stephen options once fame had passed. He hadn’t been forced down the nostalgia road that leads to holiday camps and cruise ships. Instead, he had been able to strategically retreat back into the realms of self-sufficiency, using the promotional platform and selling power of the internet to eke out a musical living. Used smartly, nowadays, a little fame can stretch a long way if you manage to leverage a loyal fan base.

Jones had established himself an impressive, regular presence on Bandcamp; apparently retaining a large enough audience to support the continued production and sale of new material. His output on this forum was unarguably prodigious, if sometimes lacking a quality filter. More commercial material still appeared as Babybird, with a host of alter-egos dreamt up to house more esoteric compositions.

Anne was a proud, fully signed up member of Stephen Jones’s loyalist corps, buying his new music selectively while attending Babybird’s intermittent live shows to get a fix of her old favourites. This wasn’t a furrow she needed to plough alone though, Stuart applauded Stephen’s determination to carry on doing whatever he wanted to do, meaning he never needed (as Dylan once famously observed) to get ‘a proper job’, and loved the bloody-minded belligerence with which he carried out this mission.

More than anything else, Stuart thought, the man was a wonderfully bad-tempered grump. Yet, significantly, one still capable of churning out the occasional pop pearl from within his virtual vacuum. ‘Garage Flowers’ and ‘King of Nothing’ were two great examples of newer (and therefore obscure) Babybird songs that could (probably should) have been hits. In Stuart’s parallel musical universe they would have been.

Standing above any other member of Stuart’s maverick pantheon, and there were many strong candidates vying for this honour, Stephen Jones surely had to be the most magnificently morose. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he would also be in with a shout for Stuart’s best lyricists list. There was a surprising, often ignored depth to Jones’s words, hidden layers of meaning peeping out from behind their veneer of sarcasm.

###

“No, he’s definitely not a prat,” Stuart finally responded to Anne, having been lost in the interim to his long Babybird contemplation, “and you certainly couldn’t accuse him of being ridiculously successful. You know I’m only teasing you, I love Stephen really. He’s a great songwriter. If you asked me to list my favourite five couplets, right now, off the cuff, he would probably make the cut.”

“And I bet you could,” she smirked, “even sitting here.”

###

Stuart, inevitably, took this as a challenge that he needed to rise to, while Anne, content with her cocktail, was happy to kick back and let him ruminate:

5) Conor Oberst’s ‘Cartoon Blues’ – there were so many Bright Eyes options to choose from, but Stuart loved the jaded relationship fatalism of this old song, especially, “why do I envy the ending, right from the start, just get it together, to take it apart.”

4) Stephen Jones’s ‘Garage Flowers’ – a late Babybird release with a typically leftfield take on love (and cheap Eastern European imports), failing to impress on Valentine’s Day, “with flowers you think sarcastic, wrapped in Romanian plastic.”

3) Alex Turner’s ‘A Certain Romance’ – Turner has an unrivalled talent for imbuing common words with poetry, humour, and contemporary meaning; there is simply no better millennial rhyme than Alex’s matching of, “broken bones,” with, “new ringtones.”

2) Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’ – a seasoned purveyor of lyrical perfection, across a long, varied career, but Stuart always came back to the alliteratively inferred satanic omnipotence of Nick’s, “you’re one microscopic cog, in his catastrophic plan.”

1) Bob Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’ – such a pure, poetic lyricist it’s hard to single out one example, but managing to sum up years of racial injustice in just a handful of words, “D.A. said he was the one who did the deed, and the all-white jury agreed,” takes a lot of beating.

###

Just as Stuart was finishing running Anne through his quick, al fresco constructed couplet countdown, Joe arrived, which thankfully allowed him to sidestep her rather caustic response of, “how the hell does your mind work?” by immediately switching his effort onto corralling the troops.

“We need to get over to the restaurant now Joe’s here,” he insisted, changing the subject, “I’m hungry, and there’s a load of ‘Challenge’ tactics I want to run you both through before we get to 11 o’clock.”

It was only a short hop from the beachfront to Lewers Street, home to Waikiki’s most exclusive shops and restaurants; though far enough to successfully wind Joe up about ‘definitely’ having seen the Falcon 9 take-off!

Joe clearly treated these parental visits as prime opportunities to supplement an otherwise meagre student diet, and had suggested they eat at Yard House, an upscale sports-bar restaurant with a good, varied menu (including some interesting Hawaiian specialities), but which also, more importantly for Joe, came complete with that unmistakable American penchant for unhealthy portion sizes.

Having (impatiently) allowed Anne and Joe to settle down, order their food, and eat their starters, Stuart could hold back no longer. They were only a couple of hours away from the next ‘Challenge’, one likely to prove harder on foreign soil, and he intended using the gap until their main courses arrived to run through some preparations.

“Since we moved into phase two, since the font changed,” he began, mainly for Joe’s benefit (as he hadn’t been involved since August), “the ‘Challenges’ have started to repeat their initial pattern, but with an extra degree of difficulty added. Presuming that sequence continues tonight, then we will be back to converting numbers into letters, to make a word or phrase that solves the clue.”

Anne looked quietly sceptical that this formed an entirely appropriate topic of dinner conversation with a son they hadn’t seen for months, but seemingly taking her lead from Joe’s stated enthusiasm to, “get back involved,” she bit her tongue.

“So, to make sure we’re ready,” Stuart continued, unfolding three sheets of A4 he had taken from his wallet, “I’ve prepared these, summarising the key rules of the game. For example, you need to remember that 15 can mean either AE or O. There’s a ready reckoner of ‘numbers to letters’ written on each sheet, for easy reference later.”

This all proved too much for Anne, who somehow managed to simultaneously roll her eyes and laugh as she unleashed a Meldrew like proclamation of, “I don’t believe it! You’ve brought exam crib sheets all the way to Hawaii, and kept them hidden until now. Did you miss your vocation as a teacher? A very sad one!”

Joe however immediately took the wind out of her complaining sails. “No Mum,” he said, “these are great. We’re down to two hundred ‘Challengers’, so we won’t have much time. These mean we’ll hit the ground running later, rather than wasting time while Dad explains things.”

Anne’s grimace betrayed her conclusion that this must be some inexplicable ‘boy thing’, but, again deferring to Joe, she allowed Stuart to carry on talking them through his papers. At least until her fish tacos arrived.

Once Stuart’s ‘Challenge’ tutorial had finished they were free to enjoy a fantastic meal; further enlivened by Joe’s enthusiastic tales of life in Honolulu, including a fascinating wave by wave account of his first surfing lesson. He was clearly enjoying every minute of his transformative transfer from a sleepy Ohio.

After managing to squeeze in one final nightcap, at the Waikiki Brewing bar, directly opposite their apartment building, they made it back with a few minutes to spare before their unusual 11pm log on deadline:

###

(To be continued, at 10am tomorrow. Can you solve ‘Challenge 56’ in the meantime? If you think you have the answer, then please reply direct to this email post, to help keep the ‘challenge’ open for other readers.)