Dave_Jenkins2013-05-24T16:21:54-04:00Dave_Jenkinshttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=daveCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dave_JenkinsGood old fashioned elbow grease.Happy Birthday Dirk Benedicttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13090132012-02-29T05:15:56-05:002012-04-30T05:12:01-04:00Dave_Jenkinshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave/
As a Welshman it's illegal for me not to observe St David's Day. Meanwhile in the US it's National Pig Day. Most importantly, though, it's Dirk Benedict's 67th birthday... And a chance for me to tell you the tale of how I met a real life member of the A-Team.
I've watched the A-Team since it was first broadcast in 1983 and, unlike most other men my age, I've never, ever tired of watching it. Sure, as a child I was always a disciple of the Baracus sect but that's because I was too young to appreciate Faceman's woman-winning charm and cheeky way of evading the really gritty chores of A-Team responsibilities. A true 'player', over the years he's become the most enduring member of the fugitive foursome. Aspirational even; that moustache he fleetingly sported in season three took dapper levels to a record-breaking high.
I met in him Wolverhampton, having travelled up especially to see him play Columbo in Prescription Murder. The mature, cigar-chomping Faceman made an uncanny Falk-alike. A consummate homicide detective, it's like he'd always been on the right side of the law. His performance was mesmerising... Every one of the sold out crowd at The Grand leant forward, taking in his every move. Faceman from the A-Team was within sniffing distance and, in fairness, he was playing a blinder. We even ignored his flagrant abuse of the no-smoking laws as he puffed away on stage.
I decided to take action at the interval, eschewing beer time in favour of a word with the front of house manager. "My girlfriend is a massive fan!" I lied (she's more a Benedict well-wisher, having not been indoctrinated by the A-Team funadmentals at a formative age). "No problem sir," she knew I was lying. "He always goes to the stage door after the show and is always very friendly."
The rest of the play was a blur. What do I say to such a massive dude? Let's not forget, Dirk's other accomplishments have all been rather respectful... Battlestar Galactica, Charlie's Angles, Hawaii 5-0. He even managed to come out of Celebrity Big Brother with his dignity intact. What the devil do I say to him?
Naturally, I said the obvious. My friend Dan and I were fourth in the queue to meet him and by this point we'd wound ourselves up to a ridiculous level of excitement. A genuine natural high, my girlfriend said it was a glimpse to a five year old Dave, beside himself with enthusiasm.
"Dirk, I've just got to say I'm a massive fan. A-Team rules, and it's incredible to be able to tell you this."
Now here's where things get cool...
"Well I'll tell Dwight and T you said that too. Thanks. Where are you from?"
[Oh my OMG... Faceman's asking me where I'm from!]
"I'm from Cardiff, mate."
[Ha! I've just called Faceman mate!]
"I was doing Columbo there last month! Why didn't you see me there?"
"I was in Nepal. This was the first show I could make."
"You've been to Nepal? Oh wow! I wanna go to Nepal! What was it like? How were those mountains?"
Seriously, WTF? Faceman is asking me about my ruddy holiday! This is going waaaaay better than any Dave/Dirk scenarios I'd anticipated. I told him about the mountains, the curries, the craziness of Kathmandu and paragliding. If it wasn't for the incredulous tutting from the queue building up behind me I'd have shown him some pictures on my phone. He kept on asking questions as we posed for a picture before finishing with this...
"I love this! I'm with all you people in Wolverhampton, and you've all travelled so far and had such different lives. You've been to Nepal and me? I'm just..."
He paused. I took the liberty to finish his sentence.
"Being cool?"
"I'm just..." he persisted.
"Being cool?"
"I'm just..." he wasn't satisfied with my assistance.
"Being cool?"
"I'm just..." once more for luck.
"Being cool?"
"I guess!" he drawled with a larger than life shrug. At that moment I saw the 65-year-old as the 30-something Faceman. A submissive, affable agreement, all raised eyebrows and a big broad smile... I've seen him make that very gesture in hundreds of episodes. Sometimes as a double-crossing blag, other times in the quest for a little sexy time. For a second, there, I'd actually met my fictitious hero as well as learning that the man who played him had his premium dude levels fully intact. And I'm not ashamed to say the high it gave me remained for the entire weekend... And will stay with me for the rest of my life.
They say you should never meet your heroes. I say poppycock. Happy birthday Dirk Benedict!
]]>My Life at 33⅓tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12251522012-01-23T19:00:24-05:002012-03-24T05:12:01-04:00Dave_Jenkinshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave/xxxiii back.
Did you know our kid 33 is the boiling point of water on the Newton scale? It's also the atomic number of arsenic, the amount of vertebrae we have in our spine, the numerical representation of the Star of David and the numerical equivalent of AMEN.
Today I turn 33⅓. A significant moment in my timeline; not only am I a third of my way to 100, I've vinylly reached the coolest age for any vinyl lover.
Let us talk of the record.
The ultimate musical lingua franca: Colourful, weighty, documents that belie the nano capabilities of today's collections...They look and feel more alien by the day.
Don't worry, this isn't a nostalgic beard-tug. I'm so digital I these days I talk off the mp3 and .wav to people in the street. These days the stylus is simply the chap who trims my beard every week. But I have done my time with vinyl. Thanks to my music-loving dad, I was brought up on 7s and 12s, and as a DJ I once boasted thousands.
Sure, my piles of wax have dwindled, both literally and in my list of priorities. But that doesn't mean I can't celebrate my precise age today and remember a few occasions when records still reigned supreme.
1981: A 3.3 year old Dave was spotted jumping around the living room to The Police, holding records in the air calling them 'gungs'
1988: Dad gives me his old sprawling table top record player with cassette and radio. I break the needle within 3.3 minutes and don't have the bollocks to 'fess up for 3.3 weeks.
1990: I buy my first vinyl album. Guns n' Roses Appetite For Destruction. (I had other albums on tape before but they were shite so we'll ignore them eh?)
1992: I steal some Iron Maiden picture discs from a second hand record shop. And so a life of petty crime started for 3.3 years.
1996: I accidently burn my bedroom down. Madly, my sizeable collection of grunge and heavy metal vinyl survives and is largely untainted.
1997: Over the course of one night I go all ravey Davey, declare myself a DJ (they are my initials after all) and get a pair of wobbly turntables and mixer. An acute addiction to vinyl proceeds, lasting the best part of a decade.
It wasn't just the records, it was the whole experience. The excitement en route... What new tunes had come in? How many copies would they have? Could I get anything exclusive? This was before the internet crash landed; besides diligent research in the then biblical prose of the press and chatter with fellow DJs, there was no way of knowing what you'd find.
And who would be there? Would I bump into that friendly promoter who gave me a gig last week? Would I find out about a naughty little rave near the M32 next Saturday? One thing was certain; I'd see mates there. Standard. Mon to Sat, 9-6, I was guaranteed to bump into like-minded souls. Eventually I found them on both sides of the counter.
Of course to get this level of record shop in-ness, there were challenges; it's been scientifically proven that every DJ's virgin trip into an independent record shop will lower his self-worth by 33.3%. Those aloof dudes don't even crack a smile for less than two examples of nerdy knowledge or known association with bigger DJs.
Llearn the patter, keep up the chatter, make regular appearances and plough some serious coin their way before you'd even get a sniff of the acetate. Sneaky trial presses and white labels weren't just passed to the casual window shopper; you had to be a face who could guarantee the rare black circle some airtime in a local dancehall.
It took me a year to really feel part of my local record shop gang. Weekly payments of over £33.3 for tunes I felt essential to my repertoire ensured a smile and privileged first dibs. Sometimes I'd just pop in for a chat if I passed by. A community of opportunity.
But times change... By the early noughties we'd hit the modem ages, dialling up our discs and engaging in a much larger community on forums and chatrooms, scoring gigs and sharing tricks nationally. Ironically the first few years of internet vinyl gave its final flourish, connecting diggers with crates the world over, before being overtaken by compressed codes available at the click of an illicit button.
Even when my weekly visits to the record shop dropped, I still experienced a huge passion for vinyl. Yelping to the sound of the postman trying to force a square envelop through my wheezing letterbox. I'd run to the front door, wobbly of moob and bleary of eye, to sign for my latest consignment. Shucks, I'm not even ashamed to admit at least one postie caught a flash of my willy in my vinyl loving haste.
Neither the streaking or phonograph infatuation lasted. For me the arrival of the CD turntable revolutionised the art of DJing, its creative properties far outweighing any die-hard vinyl purism. By the middle of the decade I'd gone fully digital and any offerings of vinyl were reluctantly accepted, knowing I had no desire to play with what quickly felt like a clunky, awkward format. Plus I was running out of space to keep them, and, most importantly, girlfriend's patience.
Eventually I sold most of them. As a parting gesture they seemed to pass the clutter curse on to my sprawling CD collection. And I now fear my CDs are in negotiations with my mp3 collection, hoping to pass the curse to my hard drive. But that's a problem for another post. Perhaps I'll write about it the day I turn 45. And I'll no doubt chuckle about it when on my 78th birthday too.
So here's to vinyl lovers and the three unique ages we can nerdily salute. But how do I celebrate my 33⅓? How do I acknowledge how much of an impact it's made on my life?
Easy. I'm off to splash out on a load of mp3s.]]>How to Become a Curry Connoisseur in a Yeartag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12104412012-01-17T19:00:00-05:002012-03-18T05:12:01-04:00Dave_Jenkinshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave/
I have. Sometimes it's a humorous nib ('Stockport lass names her baby Madras!'), other times it's the anchor in a much larger socio-political piece, like last week's Guardian article on the economy, employment and immigration. Failing them, there's always an up to date piece on the myriad health benefits of curry's core ingredients.
Week after week, the media reflects our nation's fascination in the far away flavours of the east. From Eric Pickles' proposed curry schools to the coconut milk drought, curry is never far away from the headlines. And I read every single one. Sometimes I'm even involved in it myself; either as a spokesperson or even a principal character.
Had you told me this just over a year ago, however, I'd have laughed bitterly right in your face. I'll be a curry spokesman? Yeah right. I love curries, I cook them on the regular, but I'm the editor of a blooming dance music magazine, how the hell do I get to be a curry spokesman?
Rapidly. That's how.
Last January I took a day off from the role I'd been playing in the music industry for almost a decade, visited a local businessman in response to a GumTree post and proceeded to convince him I was the man to launch a new, national food and lifestyle magazine. That man was the founder of the British Curry Club and the magazine grew from those early speculative seeds into Chaat!, the UK's only consumer curry magazine.
In the weeks that followed we discussed names (I'm still dead proud of Chaat), content, remit, logistics, design, commercial campaigns and, most importantly, budgets. We had to be acutely realistic; my leap from the music game wasn't to be a financially secure one.
I did it nonetheless...
After eight years of being a tastemaker, I handed in my notice to become a taste explorer. No matter how risky the move was, I'd felt I'd done my time in the music industry. I'd travelled the world, met some fascinating people and made some great friends. I'd also DJ'd at some of the coolest parties, festivals and clubs, regularly appeared on Radio 1 and even released a few drum & bass tunes with my annoyingly talented brother.
But I was beginning to tire of rave jet set; fortnightly flights meant missing weekends with my missus. Clubs and parties meant losing this thing called sleep which I was beginning to really enjoy. And, if I'm honest, the endless piles of music I was being sent just weren't exciting me as much as they used to. I even heard myself say 'it's not as good as it used to be.' A criminal utterance for someone who's paid to make an exciting music magazine with its finger on the pulse.
A month later I found myself sitting in a small office above a Cardiff restaurant looking at a blank screen and bare-assed budget sheet. Suddenly all those bleeps and basslines sounded like a lush lullaby. What the hell had I done? Yeah, I love curry, but can I really do this?
Was I bloody mental?
Not really. The publishing company responsible for my last magazine (iDJ RIP) sadly folded four months after I left. A lucky escape...And an incredibly rewarding challenge. I realised this by the end of that very first day; within hours of officially setting up shop a PR company called. They'd intercepted my first ever press release, liked the cut of our jib and offered us a free publicity campaign!
Wins like this were admittedly rare. My attempts at ad sales left me feeling near-suicidal. I learned celebrities are nowhere near as easy to collar for interviews as DJs. And at 60 pages there was no space for whimsy or filler; every page had to count - both commercially and with heaps of reader value.
Still, it took form quickly. In 10 weeks we'd created a unique launch title that was given away in thousands of Indian restaurants across the UK, and a good few Tesco stores too. The feedback was humbling; for once I'd created something that had mainstream appeal. Something both my parents and my friends wanted to subscribe to. We'd also attracted the attention of the UK's most passionate curry lovers; men who'd taken their hobby to such commendable levels two have books coming out this year.
Within two issues we'd attracted the attention of the national press. Our PR people landed us on page three of the News Of The World and The Wright Stuff. Meanwhile my Top Of The Poppadoms curry chart scored me numerous BBC radio interviews and found its way into papers as far away as New Zealand. Appearances on the Asian Network and an invite from Radio 2 soon followed.
And all this within six months of leaving the music world. Since then the power of Chaat has led to an invite to Delhi by the Indian government for the very first Basmati rice conference. It's even given me the clout to request a stay in the same hotel Obama and Cameron stay in when they visit the Indian capital... Where butlers are provided to their dignified guests (!)
It's also given me some fine stripes in the school of spice science (some of the recipes in the magazine are my very own), taken me to the UK's most exciting spice houses and put me in regular contact with some of the UK's most talented curry chefs such as Gurpareet Bains, Cyrus Toddiwalla, Nisha Katona, Mridula Baljekar and Dev Biswal. Each one of them a headline DJ in my newfound journalist niche.
In many ways the curry scene is identical to the DJ world; scratch the surface and you'll find the same nerdworthy discourse, talented players and passionate amateurs...Both subcultures are powered by a fandom and enthusiasm that goes way beyond the floppy title of 'hobby'. And I'm very proud to have documented both.
