“For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction.”

Newton’s law popped into my head as I lay on the bed just now, tears streaming down my face.

As it does.

I think the tears are a direct, and very natural, response to the situation I’m finding myself in.

Today, I feel ready to come home now please thank you very much.

And I am missing someone.

So these tears feel like the explicable, direct result of those feelings; as opposed to the, in theory, inexplicable tears of depression.

But then, I take issue in a way with those who describe depression in purely chemical/biological terms, that depression is ‘inexplicable’ but for the actions of neurotransmitters and levels of serotonin streaming (or not) through one’s system.

Depression is debilitating because, once it has gripped you, it is hard to fight. And that is, indeed, its chemical USP. As one writer (I forget who) put it: no evil mastermind could come up with a more cruel weapon to use against people than depression, an illness which by its very nature robs one of the ability to overcome it.

But the fact that it grips you in the first place… well, I am a firm believer in depression being a symptom of something else.

An equal and opposite reaction.

Depression is the physical manifestation - the natural result - of all not being well emotionally/mentally. And in many ways, thank goodness for that.

I read the case for this argument not long ago, in fact, in this interesting Guardian article by psychiatrist Paul Keedwell, who argues that depression is a very natural, understandable and necessary part of the human condition.

B would often argue with me that depression was chemical. And while it clearly helps him - and many others - to see it in this way; it conversely helps me not to see depression like that. It helps me to understand depression’s root; to want to dig deep. Because then, and only then, by finding the cause (or more likely: causes) do I feel that I can properly tackle it, and break free of its grip.

And after much digging, I feel that I can explain my depression; that I do understand its causes. But still it debilitates, as I say, and makes it hard to bring yourself back, no matter how well you now feel you understand yourself.

I have strong doubts that my anti-depressants are working for me; but, not being a fool, will at least remain on them until I am back home and can see my doctor again.

And in the meantime… In the meantime, I will try to ride it out; and to not give myself a hard time for having feelings that are, when all is said and done, probably just an equal and opposite reaction. Ah, that Newton was a bright fella… A physicist, quite possibly a psychologist - and who knew that he could also make lovely fig biscuits?

“And my heart won’t beat

Until I wrap my arms around you.”

My friend N back home told me that he wants me to “have more adventures”.

So I told him about the following:

1. On Saturday night, I found myself drinking champagne in the VIP area of a nightclub with a) a guy who “owns” SE Asian streetwear culture (I think I understand what that means), in the way that one “owns” such things, as opposed to, say “owning” a car; and b) his friend, who seems to be the Malaysian, male, Paris Hilton.

At one point while I was talking to MMPH - or I, as I shall call him (as long as that isn’t too confusing, in terms of me not talking about I/me/myself. I’m sure you’ll cope) - he pointed out his bodyguards to me, who were inconspicuously dotted nearby. Well, relatively inconspicuously. They looked a little older, and slightly more bored , than the rest of the nightclub’s clientele. But then, looking bored is probably as de rigueur in a VIP area as drinking Moet. I don’t know. It was the first time I’ve done such a thing, and I felt like P Diddy.

2. On Sunday, someone I know out here called to offer me what can only be described as “protection” following last week’s nasty event. I think you’ll forgive me if I don’t go into details about this, but suffice it to say that the U word was used. The U word being the title of a film starring Kate Beckinsale.

*Gives wide-eyed stare*.

I have to say I am both comforted, and yet not, by their kind offer.

Now, are those adventures enough for you? Because I think they are for me.

J came up with another much-loved, but seldom-heard, classic in the bar tonight (last night? Egads, it’s another late one).

This song.

I used to play ‘War Baby’ on loop when I was a teen. And yet I’ve barely heard it, and it had disappeared from my consciousness, ever since then. Until last night.

Admittedly, again, it’s not jazz. But it’s at least jazzier than Andrew Gold’s ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’. And it’s just such a wonderful song. With quite possibly one of the best opening-line lyrics in pop.

(Note: that first link is also a download. Tom Robinson, rather brilliantly, has put all his album tracks up for free on his website here. Another track I loved from Hope And Glory is this one. Listening to it again now, I’m struck that even as a 13-year-old, I seemed to be (a) a romantic and (b) a nascent jazz lover).

As I just wrote in a comment to Vic, I don’t want to dwell on yesterday/the night before too much. But something struck me as I went down for lunch yesterday.

I found myself feeling incredibly subdued, and only responding quietly as I smiled and said hello back to people, and asked how they were.

And as soon as I caught myself acting like that, it suddenly hit me: I felt exactly the same way, was behaving in exactly the same way, as I did when I was bullied at school, at the age of 13/14.

And the behaviour of this person has been very similar to those bullies.

They’ve picked me not because of anything I’ve done; but probably because of what I represent, and because they needed a target. If I have upset them in anyway, then their behaviour is completely out of proportion in its anger and bile; and it’s just as childish and spiteful as that of the girls who picked me out all those years ago.

I guess that partly explains the huge shock at this happening: I haven’t experienced this for over 20 years.

And it also explains the muscle memory: which makes me subdued (those girls all those years ago succeeded in turning a confident, bubbly girl into a terrified shell of herself); and questioning what on earth I have done to cause this treatment.

But of course, with bullies, there’s precisely nothing one could do differently to avoid it happening. This would have happened whether I was, indeed, the “f****** b****” they seem to think I am; or Julie Andrews.

And there’s one crucial difference between me and the 13-year-old I once was.

Back then, I took on board every single criticism of me, whether justified or not. I wanted nothing more than for everybody to like me; and was terribly, terrifically upset if they didn’t. And as a result I did, indeed, let the bastards grind me down.

But now, I know that sometimes it really is other people that can have the problem - not you. Or, rather: me.

Especially if they don’t like Julie Andrews.

And so, rather like a bad dream, I now want to banish all thoughts of this. I don’t want to let this one event, this one person, be an overriding memory of my trip, nor undo all the goodness of all the other people I have met here.

In short, I want to draw a line underneath it all.

And here it is:

—————————————————————————————————–

OK, so it’s 5am and I really should be asleep, BUT bear with me for some music geekery (the act of behaving like a geek, as opposed to geekiness, which is the state of being a geek).

At the end of the gig tonight, J the DJ put on this record.

Not at all jazzy, but when it’s that song, who cares?

I immediately rushed into the sound booth and cried: “I love that song!”

I haven’t heard it for years.. and for the life of me had no idea who it was by. Possibly Paul Carrack? Who knew…

And so J - who had immediately cried back: “Me too!” - looked it up, and we saw that it was by Andrew Gold.

Didn’t mean anything.

So I looked him up on Wikipedia, and whaddya know…

Andrew Gold is the son of Marni Nixon - the woman who I often bang on to people about, because she is one of the music world’s most unappreciated stars.

Marni Nixon supplied Natalie Wood’s singing voice in West Side Story… and Deborah Kerr’s singing voice in The King And I… and Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice in My Fair Lady.

And she was one of the nuns in The Sound Of Music.

But as if that revelation about Andrew Gold wasn’t enough…

He was also the man behind this hit:

- along with Graham Gouldman from 10CC. I had no idea (back then, when I was 16…). Gotta love that ’80s miming.

And while we’re at it:

Andrew Gold sang/wrote the theme tune to The Golden Girls (”Thank you for being a friend…”).

And this terrific song was his other big pop hit. Make sure you watch it through to the very last beat :-).

Mr Gold - I don’t say this lightly, but: thank you for the music.

To all my friends, wherever you are:

“Someday

When I’m awfully low

When the world is cold

I will get a glow just thinking of you”

And I did, tonight. (Just the way I gigged tonight). Thank you xx

And thank you, too, to whoever wrote this card tonight (well, obviously it was ‘Malik’, but whoever he is):

It was a nice gig last night; I chatted quite a bit to two of the American guys who have been coming to the club fairly regularly, and who are going back to Ohio today. I will especially miss B, a (I’m guessing) 50-something pacifist, actor and lover of standards, who’s been propping up the bar just about every night. He said: “I’m really going to miss just being able to wander down the hall and hear great live jazz every night.” Aww.

So, a lovely, friendly night… which then all turned horribly, horribly sour at the end.

Something happened, and I’m afraid I won’t - can’t - explain here exactly what it was; but suffice it to say that it was horrible, nasty, unbelievably hurtful, highly personal (as in, directed very specifically at me), and came a massive shock.

It left me shell-shocked and upset and questioning just about everything.

My first instinct was to call home; to call my parents, or a good friend, or B.

But then I realised the person to call was T.

Who responded in his usual, wonderful, supportive way: telling me how well-liked - no, loved - I am by the people here; saying that this was just one jealous individual. He then sent L to come and find me, who also helped enormously. These guys are like my big brothers out here, and I don’t know what I’d do without their care and support.

Maybe at later date I will explain what happened; or maybe not. But I just wanted to explain why I might not post anything particularly interesting today, or respond to all your comments right now, given how I’m feeling.

That said: I woke up to a text message from R asking me if I was free at lunchtime to have a little rehearsal with him, because he’d like to do some recording with me while I’m here. My first instinct was to say no, and to hibernate. But then I thought: this is exactly the sort of thing I need to do when something bad happens. And so I got up, jumped into the pool (actually, that wasn’t strictly speaking the next direct step), and now sit here in the Business Centre, awaiting my pick-up.

In short: I’m not going to let the bastards - or rather: bastard - get me down. And the show must go on. And all that.

Speaking of staying on this little island: I’ve been asked if I’d like to come back here to perform in June and July, too.

After saying, “Blimey!”, I thought for a while, and then said no. I wouldn’t want to come back quite that soon (after all, earthquake-damaged Britain clearly needs me), but hopefully will return here another time.

And in the meantime, it appears that this little ol’ blog of mine has turned out to have a useful third purpose* in terms of filling my shoes. T has been forwarding the URL to musicians and other venues, and it seems that Lost In Transposition has become quite the hit in terms of selling this gig (and hopefully, erm, me) - and he now has people queuing up to want to come here. Who’d have thunk it?

Meawhile, in other good news: I’m going to be doing some writing and photography work for T’s agency, creating the pages for various acts.

And in other, even better news: I’m about to take delivery of a bouncing new baby black Macbook, hopefully tomorrow. The announcement of the new Macbooks this week by Apple has meant that prices of the old models have now been slashed; and Penang’s Apple reseller has a shiny new/old 2.2 black Macbook with a 160GB hard drive for less than I (or rather: my insurance company) was about to pay for a new, inferior white one. In some ways, it would be great to get one of the brand new 2.4 white Macbooks - they’re faster and the battery life is better - but they don’t know when they’ll get delivery here, and it might not be for another three weeks. So, after reading all the reviews online and weighing it all up, I’ve decided to go for the older model, and get it soon.

Here endeth the geekery.

Oh, and one more piece of happy news: I’ve found out that American vocalist and Personal Jazz Hero Kurt Elling is coming to Singapore as part of a music festival next month - and he’s giving a vocal masterclass one Sunday, my day off. Unfortunately, places have now closed in terms of taking part, but you can get tickets to watch it - so this might be the perfect time to take up that offer by the hotel owner, D, of coming to Singapore for the night. And actually, it’s probably just as well there’s no more places for students. I think I would just pee my pants if I had to sing in front of Mr E. And considering this isn’t a masterclass for three year-olds, I’m not sure that would be socially acceptable.

*The first purpose being: to keep me sane. The second being: to reassure friends and family of my sanity.

One of the (many) joys of living in a hotel in a foreign country - for a Brit, at least - is that you get to watch CNN.

Granted, I’m watching a fair amount of CNN because it’s the only English language channel apart from Star Movies (and I just never seem to be in my room at the right time to catch The Horse Whisperer) - but I’m watching it also because I’m enjoying indulging myself in a slightly geeky love.

Election coverage.

I’m not sure why, but there’s something about television coverage of elections that stirs something in my, well, not quite my loins, but some sort of region like it. My mental loins, perhaps.

I think it’s partly the ‘comfort blanket’ effect - childhood memories of election-night coverage, these strange one-off events in which adults stayed up in a TV studio all night, in some sort of grown-up sleepover; which I could never match, given that I was, erm, a child, and not an adult, and therefore had to go to bed early. And like all ‘comfort blanket’ events, it’s regular, and inevitable. Like the Queen’s speech. Or Wimbledon. You may not like it; you may not follow it; you may not even agree with it. But its mere presence, every year (or four or five years), is comforting in some way.

Also, of course, it’s simply an interest in politics - and more specifically, political analysis. This combined with the fact that it’s the American election - an event whose interest in which I wouldn’t be able to indulge in such depth back home - makes watching CNN’s coverage a delight. To the extent that I get rather annoyed when I switch it on and it’s Business News, or World News, or a special report on polar bears.

The American election coverage is gripping due to the current contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, of course; and the emergence of John McCain as the Republican front-runner, and the possible consequences of that. (Is it only me who finds McCain’s public-speaking frighteningly like Linus’s at the end of A Charlie Brown Christmas?).

But on CNN you also have John King, America’s answer to Peter Snow:

- who bears an uncanny resemblance to another CNN political correspondent, Anderson Cooper:

Anderson Cooper

John King

Fortunately, I have quickly learned to tell them apart a) by their hair (John King’s is more bouffant); and b) any time they’re on the same show together. That normally makes it quite easy.