I simply wanted to know what sort of live music was happening at my local bistro. It had a sign out the front advertising “Friday Live Music”. We all know to look online for instant answers. I looked up the bistro website. Nothing. Their Facebook page? Of course it would tell me. No it didn’t. It just said “Friday Live Music”. Would I get synth loop dance music? A Bob Dylan tribute show? Trad jazz? A blues harmonica player with backing tracks who played the same screeching riffs over and over again? I actually called the bistro.
“Oh” said Katy who answered the phone, “I don’t know what you call it but it’s beautiful music.”
“Beautiful?” I asked.
“Lovely music” said Katy.
“Phil knows what you call it but he’s not here.”
“When will he be back?”
“Not for a few weeks. He’s backpacking somewhere in South America – Colombia I think.”
“Thanks.”
Maybe the music would be Andean panpipes and flutes and those mini Peruvian guitars and Spanish lyrics.
But perhaps I was reading too much into Phil’s South American trip. He could have gone to Colombia in search of the perfect arabica coffee beans to bring back to the bistro. Then again, maybe he was searching for the purest cheapest heroin. Maybe not. I had never met him. He might be setting up a job training program for out of work Colombian baristas. Just because Colombians grow great coffee beans does not mean they know how to make a decent espresso. Melbourne Australia is the coffee snob capital of the world, as everyone knows, so of course bringing baristas across the Pacific to train them made perfect sense. Meanwhile I still did not have an instant answer about the Friday Live Music. It looked like I would have to actually go there to find out. I continued to speculate about what the music would be. Country and western? A brooding folk singer with an out of tune guitar and a vocal range of half an octave singing Leonard Cohen?
I arrived at the bistro, went in, looked around and found …nothing. No musos, no PA system, no live music, not even a groan of a guitar being tuned. I asked a staff member about it, hoping for an instant answer.
“They couldn’t make it” said the same Katy whom I had spoken to on the phone.
“They all have food poisoning. It must have been something they all ate.”
“Not here of course” she added quickly while blushing furiously.
“Come back next Friday. It’s beautiful music.”
No answers at all this week, instant or otherwise.
My search for instant answers continued. I wanted to know why the roses I had bought my wife for our anniversary were still in beautiful condition after three weeks in a vase with some occasional water top ups. I sometimes listened to the talkback radio host Roger Rager. He was always inviting his listeners to call him about “any topic, any time”. So I called him and asked him my rose question, hoping for an instant answer.
First of all, he accused me of being “one of those global warming nutcases trying to close down coalmines and oil refineries to save the blooming flowers.”
I tried to explain that my question was about the life expectancy of cut flowers not petroleum products. Grudgingly, Roger threw the question to his listeners for an answer. Caller one blamed the government for allowing in “cheap imported flowers injected with hormones that are grinding local hard-working flower farmers into the dirt.”
Caller two had a crack at the United Nations for permitting genetic modification of roses which could spread to human beings causing enormous lifespans, overpopulation and an end to human life as we know it.
Roger conceded that this was a “fair point.”
Caller three wanted to know where to buy these everlasting roses. Roger directed him to the multinational supermarket corporation which sponsored his radio show. I had actually bought them at my local fruit and vegetable shop which I was pretty sure had different rose suppliers to the Gigantico Supermarkets which advertised with Mr Rager.
No instant answers from the radio talk-backers.
I gave up on the longevity of roses question and turned to another issue for which I needed a quick answer. I was helping to organise an outdoor community event and I wanted to know which month generally had the lowest chance of rain. Easy. Only 12 months to choose from. Surely the government weather bureau would be able to tell me straightaway. Once again there was nothing useful on the weather bureau website so I threw computer technology to the winds (so to speak) and I tried calling the weather bureau on the phone. Eventually I got put through to a meteorologist.
“I could tell you the answer” he replied “but under our new user pays policy I will need to charge you for the information.”
“How much?”
“$950 plus tax” said the meteorologist.
“Are you crazy?” I responded disbelievingly.
“This is for a community organisation not a corporation!”
“I don’t make the rules” said the meteorologist “and I’m not crazy. According to my psychiatrist, I’m just high on the craziness spectrum due to work stress. It’s the weather, it’s always changing.”
No instant answers there either, at least not at a cost I could afford.
Suddenly I had a brain wave. Cliff, who lives next door, was always talking about the weather, and had a rain gauge from which he faithfully took readings every day. I knocked on his door and posed my question.
“January and July” he said instantly.
“October is the wettest month and January and July are both the driest months at least for 95% of the years since 1950. Anything else you want to know?”
“No I guess not. Thanks Cliff.”
“That’s okay” he said and closed the door.
At last, an instant answer from right next door. Maybe Cliff knew about our local bistro music and everlasting roses as well.
I’ll ask him tomorrow.
