A Tout Le Goût

First World Problems

2011-10-26T18:14:00.004-07:00

Sometimes, when my mind is sick, I need to listen to the open mouthed roaring of the guitar tone on Inquisition's Magnificent Glorification of Lucifer. It doesn't help in the sense that it makes me feel better. It just kind of fits the mood well.

i want to rip apart something living.
i don't know why.

swim good

2011-10-05T00:46:00.002-07:00

a mysterious message on a tuesday night and i'm lost in a reverie from a moment that doesn't exist. listening to frank ocean and shuffling with my eyes closed on the carpet of my bedroom. life's so busy now, i'm always keeping busy. taking my time.

revving up

2011-09-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

so, what am i even doing right now? in class, writing about it instead of listening to it, pretty standard.

classes starting up, this is my third. 2/3 seem cool, inspiring, relevant, challenging, 1/3 looks boring, pointless, the prof is flighty, talks about personality metrics, wants laptops in the front of the class. great. no classes before 1pm though, so that's alright.

got a nice place to live. oak bay, new neighbourhood. quiet as a library, nothing open past 7 p.m. except the one local bar. neighbours are irrelevant anyway. roommates, all girls, house smells like bath salts all the time. fridge full of yogurt and salad fixings.

mood swings recently. evenings are boring. lots of tv to watch, no interest. video games to play, shrug. going to sugar tonight. looks like this might be the year. we'll see. $3 highballs.

riding the bike. it's hot as fuck. maybe i finally stop wearing all-black t-shirts? mmm, don't know if i can swing that.

i'll keep you posted.

Cap

2011-07-28T01:00:00.002-07:00

Just saw Captain America with a three man, one woman crew, in my leather jacket with Timmy Ho's in my fist, Speed Racer by MellowHype, swaggering, walking home alone but I'm fine, no tilt, three days off, head's in the right place, mind's in the right space, just got asked to join a band. Fuck three hours ago. I love now.

yep

2011-07-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

i know everyone's been yelling it at me since i started being able to read but i think it just recently began to dawn on me as a writing student that like 75% of writing is just sad people telling other people they're upset while trying to make it sound less pathetic than it would if they just moped around without trying to be chic.

for the sake of it

2011-07-22T00:38:00.001-07:00

just to get the words out there
apologies to jon rickard

[A basement bedroom on Cedar Hill Road. It is too hot, but only near the computer where the boy's 6000 open Chrome tabs are taxing his laptop's processor. His window is open, spilling all-inclusive utility heat into the cool summer air. Beside him is a letter he's writing in a sketchy, dyslexia-esque penmanship. His fingers feel slick and greasy from the hand cream he's started using to fight the dry skin on his palms from the low humidity at his computer store job. It is day three of a two week shift and he works at 9:30 tomorrow. Tyler, the Creator's Bastard plays through a set of speakers purchased in 2003 with a fistful of $18 cheques.]

SOL: I don't know what I'm doing up. An hour ago I was tired, now the computer monitors light is keeping me awake. In eight hours I have to wake up for work. It never seems to matter how much sleep I get the night before. I'm just always tired.

[On the desk near the boy's hand stands a bottle of Arnold Palmer Arizona half & half iced tea lemonade. The bottle was recently filled with canned limeade. Arnold Palmer's lined and grandfatherly face squints regally at the boy from above the loopy and polished signature. He looks like Bond-era Connery playing a retired Bruce Wayne.]

ARNOLD PALMER: What's stuck up your ass, kid?

SOL: [shocked] What the fuck?

PALMER: It's me, Arnold Palmer, AKA "The King". Star of the PGA Tour. World Golf Hall of Fame.

SOL: I'll have to wikipedia that later.

PALMER: You look like a cat shit down your throat.

SOL: Just a little life tilt.

PALMER: Ah, the old life tilt. You can drive it, chip it onto the green, but sometimes you just can't putt that crap for shit.

SOL: Golf metaphors: I do not understand them.

PALMER: It's a real sport.

SOL: Yeah.

PALMER: Look at me. I look like a million dollars. You wish I was your great uncle. I screw girls your age before breakfast.

SOL: Yes.

PALMER: Imagine we're here in my den at my villa off the green in Buena Vista. Your family is out buying novelty t-shirts. I let you hold a glass of 150-year scotch. We're talking. You have a problem. Tell me about it.

SOL: [scratches some awkward areas] I don't really know what's up. At some point summer went from being all Halo 2, chicken wings and bike rides to working seven days a week and moping in my downtime. [PALMER squints even harder and SOL goes to explain Halo before shaking his head.] Everyone's got worse problems than me. I'm just sitting here in my room the detritus from my many hobbies and evidence of a bunch of classy young adults having visited recently. My bed's not made, I do my own laundry, also I'm feeling really insecure and I hate it.

PALMER: Bootstraps, pull yourself up by them, etc.

SOL: It's like, I try and spend as much time with my friends as I can, and that's so good for me. Like, I've never been this social. In my life. This is the new me. And four months ago I was cock-of-the-walk ready to smack talk a steamroller.

PALMER: Nothing's gonna break my stride. Arnold Palmer. That's me.

SOL: Right. So you and Adam West are basically the same person.

Silence

SOL: It's just so easy for me to overthink stuff and worry about stupid shit all of a sudden. And it's really embarrassing. And it makes me feel pathetic and all, which just feeds it all back. It's like, one morning I wake up, walking to work with my shades on, listening to the new Pusha T single, if I had ever popped a collar I would have had my collar popped. Nobody's ever been going to work as smoothly as this. Upper lip freshly shaved.

PALMER: I've tried them all. You can't beat the Glenlivet for aftershave.

SOL: [Nodding] Yeah. And twelve hours later nothing's left but a quivering mess, going to bed and turning over six times, making fistfuls of pillows aimlessly, brain gears churning, empty soul.

PALMER: I knew you were my ex-wife in disguise.

SOL: I just gotta beat this rap somehow. Don't know how much posi music there is or if that would even help. Summertimegindepressivetape sure ain't. Does my self-confidence usually revolve this much around things I basically make up? I don't think so.

PALMER: Holla atcha boy James Blake. [lights a cigar] I "rep" that. The street, I mean.

SOL: And then I think about what summer's usually like for me. I look forward to it all year, that time when I can ride my bike all the time and it's sunny out. But really all I did in '09 was play Vice City alone in the basement till two and then drag myself downtown to flog Macs all day. And last summer was even worse, when I was a gimp and didn't work for months before blowing hundos on an ill-fated tour. And the thing I remember most about those summers is getting unlimited text, because all I did in no-friends land was (probably) irritate girls I was into.

PALMER: Never call them. Never wait for them to call you.

SOL: Thanks, guru.

PALMER: I charged Bill Gates twenty grand for that advice.

SOL: And then during the school year I just got busy all the time and threw myself into my downtime with abandon? Spent hours dirting out in the paper's office doing a questionable amount of work, and flailing Thursday nights at 11pm to swim/tims and write 3000 word fiction pieces. Priorities I guess.

PALMER: That's like the time I chipped out of a sand trap with a nine-iron and then-

SOL: Give a shit level: zero.

PALMER: I won that PGA Tour. Fuck you, Trebek.

SOL: I don't think I'm ready for prime-time.

PALMER: Please. Let me lay it on the line for you. You're saying you feel emotionally dependent, but sometimes it doesn't seem to faze you at all, sometimes it doesn't happen at all, but other times it's bad and embarrasses you, and usually the balance is fine but when you dwell on it it's garbage. And you don't get enough exercise, so there's no mood stabilization for you, and you have no right to complain because your shit is all in your head, and you're a perfectly normal person and etcetera, and in fact actually kind of cool maybe, if only you could stop being such a chump and just get up some willpower and remember how you felt sixteen weeks ago when you could've hit on Taylor Swift and worn Quiksilver jeans that were torn in the crotch and thought you looked like Justin Timberlake in The Social Network.

SOL: Fuck you, I never thought that. But yeah, I guess, I mean I guess that sums it up.

PALMER: The next time you mope like this I'm going to make you put on some running shoes.

SOL: Good luck, paper label.

PALMER: NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Sol goes the hell to sleep, it's 12:35]

sorry if you read this whole thing

The Worrying

2011-05-15T01:28:00.001-07:00

Oh god, it gets me every time!

Life Tilt

2011-05-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

Go to sleep at three, wake up at eight for no reason, life tilt for a while. Your bedroom is too hot, you made poor life choices, your jaw hurts from a root canal and you can't stop touching the sharp edge of your drilled out tooth with your wounded tongue. People are angry with you, disappointed, maybe they're upset and it's your fault, you're upset and it's your fault, and for the first time since the writing workshops ended you feel the aftermath of grinding your molars together all night. And maybe you read things you decided you wouldn't read, and they put you on tilt harder, and that's fine because you knew better than to read those things, good for you for being right. It doesn't feel right that you were somehow competing with that; -30 to your shaky confidence. Put on a record to mask the sound of trucks going by outside the window you had to open to moderate the temperature. Try and fall asleep again, because you have nothing real to do on your last day before work starts, and remember how ten hours ago you couldn't wait to go to sleep so the days you were looking forward to would come sooner. And now you're sleeping to pass the time, so wounds will heal and you're grow up the necessary amount to not be an idiot, and maybe try and get some emotional validation through self-development instead, even if it makes you feel like an self-centered prick.

But you can't fall asleep again, there they are in your recent memory, lying right next to you, and the fact that you earlier slept dreamlessly for five silent hours makes you feel cold and emotionless, and a single slat in the venetian blinds dangles like a broken spine, there are no new messages on Facebook, and in a few more hours, you will force yourself to get up, take a shower, get dressed, and think of something productive to do, another contributory member of the human race, doing Cool Things that are Good For Society, and try to decide how much sulking time to budget yourself before you start to irritate your friends and begin to seem too emotionally invested in everything.

When you're dealt a bad hand, sometimes you have to fight the urge to keep it. And when you mulligan to six, and then to five, and then maybe even to four--even when you know you did the right thing, that opening seven seems pretty cash. And then, to save everyone time, sometimes your best call is just to scoop 'em up. You shark, you.

Chomp.

Good Mood

2011-05-08T02:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/

Things are looking up. J Mascis at 2 AM, webcomics, a contented smile, and a light heart.

The Mope Slope

2011-05-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

Listening to this right now, some great music I found last summer as I was riding my bike to Oakridge in the sunshine every morning to work. All instrumental, all just the guitar speaking in feelings. Really strikes a chord with me (ha ha).

Seems like this is a harsh time of transition for a lot of people; the promise of summer days and great weather and a break from school don't seem to be as carefree as they should. I don't read too many blogs anymore, but the few personal ones I do try and keep up with have been full of sick parents, hopeless seeming situations, raw wounds of jealousy and regret and disappointment. We're all just sick puppies it seems. I know I've done (and am still doing) my share of moping, though I probably have less of a right to it than most.

I'm still resisting the temptation to spill my guts out all over this page and spare people the specifics (or even the vagues) of the dumb shit I'm concerned about and I think that's the healthy route. One of the things I've always been worst at is self-control, in the sense of preventing myself from just saying what I think immediately about something. It's like this stupid molar that I toy with every day; when it hurts, I look for things to bite on to feel that jaw ache. Like I was saying in the last post, web chat is like the worst possible offender for it; encouraging you to just say whatever right away without considering the implications or how you're coming across, and the regret you feel after a few hours when it slowly dawns on you how pathetic and insecure that sounded.

I've been through sad shit before, but it's always been "easy". Not in the sense of actually going through it, but in the actual situations involved. Sometimes when you break up with someone or you're in conflict with another person things resolve and then you have the aftermath to recoup your losses and regroup, to sit alone for a while (preferably listening to music, in your own little bubble, in the rain somewhere). Other times you have to wait out the process as things go through and force yourself to keep in mind how smoothly things can go if you can just suck it up. It would be a lot easier if I had more distractions around, but waking up at 10am expecting to be productive and then realizing all you have to do is eat and play games all day is somehow a little soul-crushing--especially when engaged in a pursuit activity that makes you constantly gauge your confidence level and self-assurance. The little voice in my head that dream-crushes me is still considering dropping out on principle, and whether or not that would be more noble and healthy, but I don't think I have the guts.

I'm so sick of complaining to my friends. For their sake and mine. I feel sixteen all over again. Please give me a job and let me move in all the way so I can feel like an adult again.

Live and In Person!

2011-05-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

It's a ugly overcast day, so I've wussed out on the lawn and the biking downtown and just planning to cook up a scramble and bus down to the Magic trap, A.K.A. Yellowjacket.

I think a lot of writers feel stronger in their penned work; that's where they feel their inner strength lies, and they are more outgoing and comfortable within that zone, always lamenting their inability to be so open in person and say the things they really mean. Maybe this is just me stereotyping to support my point here, but that seems like a 'thing'. Cyrano de Bergerac penning love letters to his heartthrob, living vicariously, too ashamed of his nose to "make a move" or run game (as they say).

I think I've realized over the years and as I read over the archives here that my writing is really an outlet for weakness, in a manner of speaking. I'm often actually a lot more comfortable in person than I am communicating through writing. There was a lot of time where I was equally uncomfortable in both worlds; house parties and clubs were not my scene, and though the emotional distance of MSN Messenger reduced some inhibitions, I was still the weak-kneed chunky teenager this blog is full of posts by. Here now, after seven years of emotional and physical development, I think I've really grown into my own skin a little. Playing in bands, having girlfriends, being somewhat independent, all these things have fostered this sense of self-assurance that is finally almost in step with my ego.

In person I can be (and seem) calm, patient, wise, friendly, supportive, and most of the time, I can say all the right things. I've become inured to interaction and no longer feel stomach anxiety a solid third of the time. I feel like I can be good company, a good friend, without having to watch myself and second guess my actions Of course, I still have all kinds of flaws; I'm too easily open to frustration, to indifference, to laughing at the wrong times, to asking permission for things I don't need to, and those are all harder to catch as a somewhat confident person--not to mention more embarrassing after when I've realized my misstep. But generally, I'm happy with myself and my behaviour for the most part, and as I go through this short transition from one home to another, the (hopeful) return to full-time work from school, I'm realizing my natural compunction to wake up at a decent hour, to get out of the house and see people, and avoid camping out here with video games and a website.

Because the more I ruminate on things and try to put them into words, the more this thought process leads me to overthink things, to wonder about circumstances and possibilites I shouldn't be considering, concepts that theorycraft myself out of the things I should be doing, the things normal people would be doing without a thought. I'm next leveling myself by overthinking every overture I make and every text I send, and really when I just relax and let it go and focus on other things, my behaviour normalizes and I become the person I want to be again. I don't want to scare people off and I don't want to mope around in this plateau of mental double-crossing.

I guess I'm hoping that continuing to post here is going to let me work out all those thoughts and put them here, in some vague concept-based form that lets me gripe about them without scandalizing anyone or boring them to death. Maybe if I lay these out here then they'll stop bothering me at the 27 bus stop beside the Tim Hortons on Shelbourne as I decide whether to play it the Safe- or the Fairway in picking up vinaigrette ingredients, and maybe people will be able to put up with reading them. It's strange how I have trouble valuing this blog unless people read it, but that's a post for another time.

See you at the races.

Revival

2011-05-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

3:45 AM, always the time I seem to feel like writing. I've had to work up to it a bit this round; I'm so out of the habit of writing for myself, and not for a grade or assignment, though it's not like I didn't put any of myself into my homework this year. It's really quiet in this house. For the first time since September, there's a closed door between me and an oil furnace, or a fridge compressor, and the double-pane window admits no wooshing wind sounds or the mewing of neighbourhood cats.

I feel like I'm in a hotel room; the bed that isn't mine, the elegant looking furniture that was here when I moved in... Living out of a duffel bag in the corner of the room, and nothing on the walls besides a big mirror and some Bowie posters left behind by Evan, who lives here September-April, the posters like a highbrow parody of the sailboat paintings in the hallways of a Best Western. I slept here for the first time on Tuesday, and I guess the difficulty of finding people to help me move my furniture over here has contributed to the temporary feel of this space.

I think the main difficulty I've always had with posting on this blog has been trying to decide how to best organize them; I know there are things I want to say, or get out in writing so I can better think about them, but I don't know what the most efficient order is. And sometimes the process will help me remember what the next part is, and sometimes a tangent will make me forget all about how I was going to mention that thing I was thinking about at the bus stop almost eight hours ago. Jesus christ, that's how fast time has moved today; since I stood in my new, shared kitchen thinking about whether I had time to make dinner, I've blown into my old house, startling my ex-girlfriend, dashed back out to pick up a camera and seen a friend's new condo, shot a Pixies concert, gone swimming at 1 AM, watched friends install a new graphics card, rewatched 30 minutes of Superbad, and come home to a blank computer screen.

Handy google clip art, there. Consider these part of my effort to make this crap more readable, I mean, everyone likes pictures, right? The internet is multi-media.

I guess having twitter and facebook updates and all that has kind of weaned me off the habit of writing long-form about what's going on in my life, and I'm not sure if that's actually negative or not. I always wondered whether anyone actually enjoyed reading this, and from there I always wondered whether I was really gaining anything from the process myself. I guess the EV compares favourably to playing video games all my non-productive waking hours, but so does everything else really. I've been considering graduating from this site to a tumblr, given how conveniently that would fit my desire to post random crap everywhere, but I don't know; somehow all those cool links and funky videos (the definition of ephemera) feel too ephemeral to commit a full website to. It would make me beholden to post stuff on it all the time, and I think the intention of this page (to make me write long-form) is somehow purer. We'll see if this all pans out.

There's this new house, and one of the things these roommates do is each cook a meal once a week, so they all trade off (with one "fend for yourself" day). This is cool; my cooking skills have atrophied since last year, and I've been reduced to frozen perogies, dagwood sandwiches, burgers and hotdogs, lazy caesar salads and breakfast scrambles. I'm planning to step up the game again with the roasted potatoes, this pork gnocchi recipe I found, maybe some peppered steaks... One classy recipe a week, in bulk, I feel like I can handle. Like everything else in my life I seem to be unable to complete anything without a deadline and some expectations, so this is fuel for that I guess. I was standing in the grocery aisle today, in the midst of dropping $76.42 on things like cheddar cheese and coca-cola and other things that alliterate with the letter C, and I had that déjà vu of second year when I had ambitions to make impressive foods. I'm sure it's a little about being single again and caring more about the appearance of my possessions and my self, I'm not sure, though I'm a little uncomfortable discussing those particular issues on the internet right now. I know I noticed the long, grow-op-esque lawn outside my window and plan to mow it tomorrow with the electric thing I found near the garden shed; we'll see how my new roomies react to that. I'm a little worried about bonding with them and whether I'll stay too deep in my shell here, in the furthest room possible from the upstairs. Again, we'll see. Here, this'll make you puke... I get one of these next week:

The most boring and awful thing in the world is looking for work, which I'm in the midst of now; I had two interviews on Tuesday that felt really great, and Friday being three days later, I'm still antsy to recieve callbacks and find out what's going on. I have a couple hundred bucks salted to eat off of (there's a whopper of an unintentional mixed metaphor) but being in the full black will be a weight off. I've taken far too much of my parents' generosity this year and am feeling a little like a spoiled brat, and hopefully some honest work will assuage the guilt.

As usual I feel like this whole post has bored everyone to death and I'm not quite sure why I'm still posting it; the better part of this blog for me has always been a place to put a few paragraphs here and there of inspired, semi-poetic writing, and not to thought-dump everything in a dense blob that interests nobody. Maybe I'm hoping this will help unjam the gears a little and open myself up to writing more here, which would be a healthy thing I think.

I'm looking forward to fully moving in here, getting my drums and bass amp and everything into the new jam room, rearranging the furniture in my 10x7 cell and feeling like I'm home again. I'm on a quest that's tearing me up a little and making me ask some serious questions about myself, which is good but painful, and I think making me grow a little. As always, there are personal, no-deadline projects I'm half-heartedly working on, and I'm feeling a little listless having no set time to wake up or sleep or do anything really. And as always, in this 4:41 AM moment, I'm thinking about the trust and warmth of friends, and how being close to them wards off these periods of introspective, productive writing. If I show up here again, it may be this me; it may be a cheerful and directed cook me, with photos to show you; it may be a broken hearted me, or a career hungry me, or Sol-who-plays-too-many-video-games. But for now it's too late to stay up playing Portal 2; I'm shuffling off to our shared bathroom to take out my long-suffering contacts.

Though they were ridiculous and probably pretty insulting to Japanese literature (or just really embarrassing) I kind of liked the idea of ending all of my posts with a haiku. It wasn't that format particularly that made it special, but the intention of finishing off something of questionable artistic value with an attempt to bring some serenity and elegance back into it (which they all failed to do). I haven't come up with anything really slick yet in that direction, but here's some song lyrics I guess.

If I had to lose a mile

If I had to touch feelings
I would lose my soul
The way I do

I don't have to think
I only have to do it
The results are always perfect
But that's old news.

Would you like to hear my voice

Sprinkled with emotion
Invented at your birth?

I can't see the end of me
My whole expanse I cannot see
I formulate infinity
and store it deep inside of me

-Oh Me, by the Meat Puppets

Better known as covered by Nirvana on Unplugged

Transition

2011-05-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

Here I am. Listening to Sting (yeah, fuck you), drinking a lone bottle of Mickeys that I found orphaned in the downstairs fridge (sorry, whatever ex-roommate I "borrowed" this from). After three days of having no speakers anywhere but my laptop, it's great to be able to hear actual fidelity. In about ten minutes I'll be walking to the 24 bus stop, about a kilometre down Cedar Hill Road, past the Canadian Tire and the loading dock of the Home Depot at University Heights, on a strip of road that winds and rises and falls in a way that cries out for the longboard I've already lent to a friend. I'll be heading downtown to pick up a friend's camera on the way to shooting the Pixies concert at the Save-On-Foods memorial centre; probably the first productive thing I've done since Tuesday? They're saying they may publish them online for Monday Magazine, and that'll be a feather in my cap.

Nearly a year since I posted on this blog, and I'm already kind of sounding like the melodramatic basement-dweller this site has enabled in semi-privately moping since 2004. I'm even using all kinds of run-on sentences. I have to run now, and catch this bus, but you'll hear from me later tonight. Maybe something cool will happen (yes, yet cooler than shooting a Pixies concert). Maybe the slow creep of "wow! concert photography" jadedness will stop for a few minutes (if they play some songs off Doolittle). I'll keep you posted. Consider this a minor relaunch, I guess?

The Lay of the Land

2010-07-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

I never really understood the point of the blue headrests on the Greyhound bus. If you're tall, they don't reach past your neck, and they lean so far back that you have to be lolling your head like a stroke victim to relax in it comfortably. The C Train is rolling by out the window past the huge, satellite dish-encrusted fortress of the Calgary Herald/National post building, and on my right the eye-catching architecture of the Alberta Children's Hospital sits on a hill like Donut Boy's lego set. I'm riding the semi-express to Red Deer to meet back up with the Burning Canada tour van after spending too short of a day with Zoe. A swim in the pool, a small concert, and a couple hours in downtown Calgary.

This really is a beautiful province, Alberta. I am so used to the constant evergreen of the coast, big fluffy cloud cover looming with rain and feeling the moisture of the ocean even indoor, miles away. I've spent too many months in Edmonton in the winter with its dry skin, muddy snow and sad, bleak plains. Calgary in the summer is like Edmonton gone to rehab; beside the highway wild grass grows back with a vengeance, sandy riverbeds a mosaic of coloured rocks. Big oil trucks race the trains parallel to asphalt, and trees grow in carefully chosen patterns. I almost expect to see the green diamond from The Sims hovering somewhere, laying down geometric handfuls of pines spaced evenly apart like an art installation. Prairie Forest by Ikea, $9,999. I see a family of buffalo with white tipped tails lashing the flies off their backs, grazing in a field rimmed by new wood posts-and across the horizon, a glance away, twists a high banked river bordering Cross Iron Mills, the second biggest mall in the province. The clouds stand tall in shocking 3D, white tufts billowing up from their flat, grey bottoms. Backlit by high prairie sun they glow like frosted bathroom light fixtures.

I don't take the bus far enough anymore. In Grade 12 I would spend hours every couple weekends on the ferry and transit riding into the island peninsula on my own, just my headphones and a couple empty seats to spread out in. There's really few better places to appreciate a full album of music, especially the kind of life-soundtrack-underscore music that you can only listen to properly when you don't have to talk to anyone. I could do this, you and me maybe, our headphones on, with lots to say but nothing to say out loud. Watching the light scatter on the yellow field flowers and the three men, far away, climb over a chainlink fence out of a farmyard. With my telephoto I reach out and watch a dozen horses gallop across a long, fenced-in plain like wild animal spirits. Some kind of harvester on tall wheeled legs squats powerfully in the corner of a field, and a pickup truck stops on the shoulder of the highway to give roadside assistance to an industrial forklift. Black Holsteins munch grass and for once I stop wishing I could smell the sunshine for a minute. Big red barns haven't died out here; they just sit with their hay roofing, flanked by aluminum Quonsets. In the middle of a green grass field, a lone blue-painted oil derrick bows and returns like a desk ornament.

The tour is going pretty well, considering the absence of our headlining frenchmen (The Seven Gates). It's only been five days or so yet, but thank god we found four guys we can get along with. Auroch and Titans Eve have sworn themselves blue in the face and made enough uncomfortable sex jokes to scandalize a London tabloid; Seb's girlfriend Lee napped peacefully under leopard print blankets and our driver, Steve, stoically bore our stupidity as he downshifted and coasted down long passes through the Rocky Mountains. Loading and unloading our cavernous trailer has become a loosely (barely) organized ritual and rest stops pass idly by in a few minutes of leg stretching, Tim Horton's coffee, and cheap Viceroy cigarettes. If we can keep the smell of Jesse's feet confined to the far back bench and get all the thrown trail mix out of the seat cushions we should be good to go as far as Halifax and home.

I spent a long time hand-wringing over this trip. Paying my rent this September and living my middle class student lifestyle will have to be fueled by a part time job or two, and with no opportunity for short term employment at the beginning of the summer I spent most of May and June getting nervous, being unproductive, drinking slurpees and riding my bicycle. My co-op program was pushed back a year and I never finished most of the things I'd planned to start. But now that we're here, at least for now, I can't feel a single regret. Whatever ends up happening to me and my life/career as a musician, going on tour is something I never knew I'd needed to do so badly.

Finally we turn off the #2 highway and cross the overpass, for some reason going opposite of the "Exit to Red Deer" sign. We're on two-lane blacktop now, a proverbial back road, making some kind of carefully planned detour I'm sure. There's still another hour or so to this journey. I'm going to try and catch some military sleep... But I don't know if I can shut my eyes on this countryside. Vaya con dios.

Retraction

2010-05-24T21:04:00.004-07:00

So I ended up going to another show this weekend, Mass Grave and War Hero at the Casa, and I take back what I said about the fans in Van... It was a thoroughly enjoyable show, mostly because the venue was so tiny that everyone had a great time moshing and maintaining the camaraderie, drinking tall cans in the parking lot and throwing the skinny punks at the bigger ones. If you ask me, unless you're Slayer (GM Place, no substitutes) you should play the Casa or the Croatian and forget about every other venue in the city. I'm kind of sick of going to shows and playing in venues with half-assed bar service and people sitting in wicker chairs, plus, you gotta love the sombreros and cactus in the Casa. That said, I haven't been to the Rickshaw yet. We'll see.

A hipster menagerie at a Hats Off Gentlemen/Goodbye Enemy Airship show at the Casa
(June 7, 2009: link to my lame old photo blog)

Potential UVic Courses

2010-05-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's what I might be taking this year... Let me know if you're in anything I might be in!

Year 3 First Term Courses:
-WRIT 202 11521 Fiction Workshop w/ Bill Gaston
-WRIT 204 11530 CNF Workshop w/ Lynne Van Luven
-WRIT 335 11558 Form+Tech in Short CNF w/ David Leach
-ART 241 15714 Photography (TBA)
-ART 261 15719 Digital Media Arts (TBA)
-WRIT 300 11536 Narrative+Myth Structure in Film w/ Hendricks
-ENGL 310 12638 Practical Criticism w/ Leighton (is this honours students only?)
-ENGL 401 12668 Web Design w/ Keller
-FA 245 11574 Arts and Technology (TBA)

Year 3 Second Term Courses:
-WRIT 202 21523 Fiction Workshop w/ Bill Gaston
-WRIT 204 21531 CNF Workshop w/ David Leach
-WRIT 315 21550 Advanced Journalism (TBA)
-WRIT 330 21556 Media and Culture (TBA)
-MUS 306 21661 Recording Techniques w/ Kirk McNally
-MUS 306 21663 Recording Tech Tutorial
-ART 242 25715 Photography w/ Lynda Gammon
-ENGL 406 22670 Special Study in Prof Writing: Video Production
-FA 245 21574 Arts and Technology (TBA)
-WRIT 314 21549 Changing Perspectives (TBA)

Bloodied But Unbowed

2010-05-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Mackenzie and I went to go see this movie tonight. I won tickets from this short, last minute contest on vancouverisawesome.com's site, sold out show but they had to fix their hacked website so they gave the tickets away.

We rolled in there after a fracas with the door people, "oh, who are the tickets for? don't you have a membership?" No, lady, I won these tickets, I just wanna see the show. I'm a nineteen-year-old metalhead with a Slayer t-shirt and no job, I don't want to join your documentary film festival.

Anyway we blow in there and the place is full of aging ex-hipsters, you know the type, one piece of Urban Outfitters, designer blue jeans and a Patagonia sweater, the demographic Toyota is playing to with its' Swagger Wagon commercial. I'm thinking, these people wouldn't know punk if it spit in their face, and I'm not all that into punk myself but we could tell it. But okay, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, 32 years ago I'm sure they were all packing the Smiling Buddha with Jeff Wall and Randy Rampage before they got jobs. And meanwhile on the screen, Joey Shithead is mouthing off on how some people decide their punk phase is over but he just does what he does, sitting in a fancy downtown studio with Bob Rock of all people making a shitty new D.O.A. album (hate to break it to you Joey).

It sucks making heavy music in Vancouver right now. Not only are there no venues ("There weren't any venues in those days!" Yeah, bite me documentary interviewee) but the fans are the worst part. I know you're not supposed to criticize your fanbase but it's the bands' faults too. Punk today makes me sick, it's the most elitist crap I've ever seen in a music group. I can't really blame anyone. Honestly, quote unquote mainstream music is so accessible these days and so widely liked (I listen to Dubstep, so do you... You sing indie, I will too) that anything right below the surface is now considered the most esoteric close-knit scene ever. But all that happens is you go to a crust punk show in Vic or a Dangers/Graf Orlock show here in Van and everyone either already knows each other or just stands quietly in the crowd "appreciating" the music like it's so serious.

It's true the musicianship has gone up dramatically. The stuff people write now makes bands from '82 sound like nursery rhymes. Bullshit all you want about songwriting skills and the legitimate sound of an 8-track, but the bar is set so high for hardcore music that it's really hard for anyone but the best to break out. And it's so easy to make your voice heard to millions of people that nobody cares about spreading a political message anymore because you and a billion other stooges on the internet would be doing it.

I just find myself hating all this retrospective crap, all this "it was better back in the old days" and "kids don't understand what it was like". The hypocrisy is laughable, honestly. You guys don't realize that's what your parents said three decades ago about you? I understand you can't come out to all our punk shows these days (you would be out of place) but don't act all like you lived in the glory days, and what's worse is if you still live the style but don't interface with the rest of us. Two hours they had us sit in this theatre before they'd put the movie on, and Wendy13 is sitting up there at the front and no mention of her at all, no mention of the death of the Cobalt, no connection with modern music, and they wonder why they think nothing is going on. D.O.A. touring Germany and Henry Rollins spoken word circuit isn't punk anymore and hasn't been for thirty years, and besides, it doesn't suit your custom Lands' End polo and John Fluevogs. Go listen to Dave Matthews band--I bet that's what was on the stereo of your Sienna SE on the drive home.

Sweat Stain

2010-05-14T00:02:00.006-07:00

Went out for my second night of running, so my arms and forehead are all sweaty and resistant to towels. I weigh 240 lb. right now and at 6" tall I roll with a Hank Hill-esque physique, though my calves and thighs are decently muscular from longboarding, biking and heavy metal drumming.

Hey, it's me. Propane accessories.

I hate being such a fat ass, and with me not having a job at the moment I feel like I should be doing something besides empty the dishwasher, play video games and sleep from 4 a.m. to 2 in the afternoon. I read a post from this guy over at The Living Doorway about how he used to skate as a kid and then became a lard machine, and for the first time I decided running wasn't all about fit, sleek assholes with MEC shirts... So cool, I guess. Dude lost 60 pounds in seven months, so I figure that's encouragement enough. I just hope his tattoo's didn't all warp from losing all the potential soap in his epidermis.

Let me tell you, it's kind of a bitch though. I mean, I haven't done actual cardio more than once a month for years. Even with biking every day and skating and whatnot I never end up going fast or far enough to get a sweat up, so I kind of just glide from one activity to the next. Plus I kind of love eating, I mean, who doesn't, right? Shit. Yeah, I'll go for the super size popcorn, and why don't you hook me up with cheese on the hamburger because I'm only eating one or two meals a day and sleeping through the other one.

Gaze upon my corpusculent form

I was looking at the Canadian Forces website because they have a job where you go through bootcamp and become a war photographer, so basically instant cred, and started watching youtube videos about BMQ (Basic Military Qualification). Realized I couldn't possibly do 5 km in thirteen minutes and I doubt I know anyone that could; the pushups and situps, yeah, it's possible, but I can't even do one pullup (you couldn't either if you weighed this much). So anyway I'm trying to run every night and skate more often and we'll see if I have the willpower to keep that going.

Staycation

2010-04-05T15:11:00.002-07:00

Dusting out the cobwebs in here...

Easter weekend in the last month of university before summer. Four days off in a row, no access to buildings on campus and everyone on holiday so I couldn't really work even if I wanted to. I've shot a Muay Thai kickboxing fight night and a Protest The Hero show and played Mass Effect 2 for about two days cumulatively. Last night I went to sleep when the birds started chirping.

My god it feels good to be on vacation. In the past year I've become more productive than I ever have been in my life, and I've actually felt pretty good about it. I think I've accomplished a lot. Got a position at the Martlet, done a lot of photography, made my own website... Maintained a great relationship, watched 30 or so episodes of the West Wing, got half decent grades, recorded drums for an amazing metal album, and managed to feed myself for nine months, give or take a few McDonald's indulgences and fancy date dinners. But I haven't been on a vacation, a real vacation, since July '08 when I went on a cruise to Alaska (why would I get cold in summer, I don't remember) and interned on Galiano Island for a few days. Every time I listen to Kyuss or Yawning Man I think of driving through California or Mexico in a VW Vanagon, sitting in hammocks and drinking Corona with lime on a beach with bondi blue waves. Suddenly that's appealing for the first time; not sitting in an all-inclusive getting fat and eating Japanese food shipped in from Seattle.

Zoe upped and bought me two books, apropos of nothing really, although she tried to pass it off. I just finished The Sex Lives of Cannibals by Maarten Troost, in which the author spends a year or two on Kiribati eating sea worms, getting Dengue Fever, bodyboarding, and raising mangy dogs. When they come back to Washington D.C. after this pilgrimage to the Pacific Islands they find themselves ridiculously unsuited (literally) to modern America and resolve to return to "subsistence affluence". It seems like everyone's always talking about moving off the grid to someplace where you don't need to work super hard or earn lots of money, and I think a lot of people plan to do that when they retire, but by that point it seems like you'd have been driving your Dodge Caravan to Walmart for so long you can't imagine switching to a rusty bike on a coral atoll. And this summer I'll be spending another three months in fluorescent indoor hell with no windows. At least I'll spend a month camping across Canada in the summer, so it won't be all bad. But I want to go somewhere hot. I want a camper van and a case of Squirt soda. I want to shirk some of my hard earned responsibility. Until then, video games and sleeping in will have to do. And when I come to think of it, I haven't had that kind of staycation in nearly a year.

Ayn Rand and Obamacare

2010-03-05T12:38:00.002-08:00

Trawling through the press releases of the ARC (Ayn Rand Center) and Objectivist forums I am disappointed to see an outpouring of distaste towards the Obama administration and the Democratic congress' movement towards single-payer and a comprehensive health care plan. Ironically this path is one of the best possible methods of government intervention in the free market, something which Rand and I will continue to unilaterally disagree on the importance of. Understand this: People cannot afford healthcare or healthcare insurance in the United States. People CAN afford healthcare in many other countries. Why is this? It is largely because of the fat skimmed off the industry by private healthcare providers. The encouraged inefficiency, the greed without production of wealth, and the deliberate politicking done to obscure the real cost of people's health insurance is something that Roark and Dagny would no doubt spit on. And unlike other social healthcare programs where the government becomes a monopoly, the current program merely adds a more efficient and far more competitive healthcare insurance policy to the market. The backroom machinations of the healthcare insurance providers and HMOs represent nothing more than the fear of competition and the desperate attempt to avoid the loss of their fat and undeserved profits. Obamacare is in the truest form of the principles of the free market--a new competitor arrives with a better, cheaper product, and forces a revolution in the standards of the past. To deny it in the name of Objectivism is hypocrisy to the highest degree.

Pedantic Grammar

2010-02-01T11:50:00.003-08:00

This quiz wasn't for marks, and I had an Econ exam and a 3000 word story due today, so I didn't study, but even if I'd had time I probably wouldn't have. I got maybe 50% on this one.

This 300-level writing class is a savage exercise in boredom, the mental equivalent of tire running and elbow crawling under barbed wire. Predicate, subject, conjunction. Most people understand grammar and how it works. If you speak English, you know how to make yourself clear, and youth even experiment with grammar, pushing the limits of understanding to express different artistic or literary intentions behind a sentence. I personally have a basic intuitive grasp of grammar; I can tell you why a sentence is wrong, and how I'll fix it, and I can catch most of the errors that the prof likes to sneak in there, but honestly I couldn't tell you why it bothers me. I've read enough books and digested enough published, edited writing that I know what's acceptable to readers, and if you ask me that's all anyone gives a shit about. I feel I've been transported back to high school, complaining about classes I don't see any utility in taking, but wouldn't all of us in this course be better off just editing other people's work than sitting here and learning how some grammarians prefer to include "articles" as parts of sentences? Isn't that nothing more than literary pedantism?

November Crunch

2009-10-30T14:22:00.002-07:00

Looks like we're going a comfortable month in between blog posts now, I'm going to try and maintain that and stop twitter from sucking up every word I write on my own time.

Sloppy joes are simmering on the stove. Joes, like grilled onions, are sons of bitches. They play hard to get, making you wait for them while they cook on low, low heat, taunting you with their slowly releasing sugars until you jump the gun and eat them before they're really ready. I'm wise to their schemes though, it'll be another 20 minutes before I can stuff my face.

I feel like I've been spending too much time in the real world.

I'm constantly on the move, waking up at seven, biking to campus to print assignments, going to class, running out of class to the Martlet, shooting photos in esquimalt, going to church dinner, reading entire assigned books in a few days, playing in a 16 hour recording session, taking the ferry home, taking the ferry back, going to concerts, shooting them and writing about them, spending time with Zoe, attending pointless co-op meetings, worrying about the summer, picking up my olympic press pass, taking photos with vintage cameras, working on essays, book proposals, journalism assignments, and writing workshops, not getting enough sleep, drinking Strongbow, fixing broken alarm clocks, writing and re-writing a resume, bothering Glen at the Martlet, staging cover photos featuring my roommates, reading twitter feeds and RSS, keeping up to date with the world, cooking semi-elaborate casseroles, buying groceries, watching House at Patty's on mondays, and doing the (endless) laundry.

I haven't played a video game since this summer, and barely even then; I watch a movie every couple of weeks, when I have time, and my archive of stuff to watch keeps building. This time last year I was barely involved; I sleepwalked through classes or just outright slept through them. Now I struggle to take detailed notes for music, which is suddenly a math course, and other classes have become some bizarre hybrid where lecture attendance is optional but assignments come every few minutes like angry hornets attacking out of my iCal window. The most painful and ironic thing is that I would actually really like to write a great journalism article, crank out an amazing two chapters of a creative non-fiction book, write a non-fiction story about lesbianism on campus, get an A+ in a first year English class, and ace music and computers so I can do Recording Techniques - but not all at once, for god's sake, because all my work is suffering.

I need a vacation, a real vacation, and it's the first time I've felt that in my life that I can remember. We sometimes go on those nice, picturesque family vacations where we spend a week or two somewhere else; we've done Mexico, California, Europe, Israel, Alberta and more often Whistler, which is nice in itself. I'm just so sick of staycations where I sit at home for a few days and play video games, procrastinating with the looming threat of work right around the next Monday. I guess what I'm saying is, I want to play Half-Life in the Bahamas. Especially considering all this fucking constant rain of late.

I seem to keep picking up fascinating hobbies and diversions and as usual spend hours educating myself on topics fundamentally pointless in my current academic environment; vintage rangefinder cameras, cool sneakers, old school skateboards, and cooking, among others. My bass and practice pads get dusty now that recording is over, and somehow I feel more guilty picking up the Fender than I do surfing Reddit, as if the fact that I can command-tab back to homework makes it less objectionable. I'm not even swimming like I should be, and the weekends where I make time to drink six packs of local Philips brews have been piling up on the pot belly I'm starting to share with everyone else in my house.

There are two more days of this intense, frothing madness, and then I get two spaced-out weeks of final projects and papers before December sets in in earnest and I return to Vancouver to slave over silver Macbooks for another month (hopefully). We'll see how that pans out. I'm excited for second term, which usually means I'm just bored with first term, and all I really want to do is blow tuition on camera gear and a year's rent and go worship the feet of some wedding photographer who'll let me carry his light stands and rescue me from homework.

Anyway, you make the time.

Yom Kippur

2009-09-28T15:39:00.003-07:00

It's been cold today, all day today, cold and gray. I wore my jacket this morning as I spent an hour on the bus heading out to the hospital for a five minute reunion with my orthopedic surgeon who I don't have to see again unless I have problems and then you know where to find me.

Last year I went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur for Kol Nidre. I went all alone, not really knowing anyone and having no social compunction to go, but feeling like I should really dress up and do it. I still didn't know anyone on campus really; that early in the year, late September, all I'd done was sleepwalk through my introduction classes and go to grindcore shows hoping I'd find something to occupy myself with. I guess I reached out for some kind of connection and going there felt like what I needed to do.

I fasted today. It's surprisingly easy to deprive yourself when you aren't being held by your parents or your community's requests, when it's solely of your own volition. It takes all the fun out of being contrarian. But I found what I've had to fight is actually myself. Not my hunger - that's easy. It's only two meals I'm missing. No, it's my mind working, fueled by excitement of my surprising competency in the kitchen I've discovered this month, bolstered by the strength of what it considers logical, disapproving of this religious stuff. You drank water this morning by accident anyway, and your mouth is parched from skating to the clinic and biking to class. You didn't observe a "day of strict rest" anyway, man... You went to class. You went to the hospital 20 kilometers away. What are you trying to prove? There's nobody around to watch you, and even if there was, that wouldn't be your real motivation anymore. I don't get it.

It's the right day for it really, cold and gray like I said, a day where you need to stay warm and not go out and have fun but sit alone and ruminate. But I missed Kol Nidre last night when I was out with my friends taking photos of Rifflandia for the Martlet and hanging out in a nightclub, and today I blew 9 am services for a doctor's appointment, and it seems like now that I'm here in Victoria on my own time, it became... inconvenient. And what a pathetic cop-out that is.

I spoke to my jewish friends a lot today, sussing out their plans, deciding where to go... But the synagogue here won't announce the time of their evening service, and it feels anti-climactic and half-assed to go for the final service of a five-part program over all of today. So we're all going to finish out the fast ourselves until 7:30 and do our separate things, and I feel like I should do something more to go with that. I feel like I've fulfilled my own requirements in the fast today and by spending a quiet afternoon in my room in an empty house with the wind blowing outside, trying to nail down every specific moment that I hurt someone's feelings this year and thinking of how I can better myself as a person and improve my interactions with other people. That's often how I approach my religious ties these days; I try to look at what the holiday is really about and the intentions behind it, and follow those through my secular life. That's what I'm comfortable with. And really, spending a holiday in the synagogue without my father's warm tallit and my mother all dressed up and my little brother reading quietly isn't much of what I feel about my faith anyway... Not that I have much faith in the first place. But again, it's about taking the best parts of that tradition and keeping them alive in ways that make sense today and provoke introspection in parts of myself that I usually gloss over. My heart is in my throat now, strangely, as I don't remember thinking this hard about Yom Kippur for many years - even in years when I committed wrongs much greater than this year. I appreciate so much about my life these days that I feel I must earn this life, and I need to atone for things I've done that make me undeserving.

I'm sorry if I've done anything to hurt you this year.

If I've conspired against you.

If I've been jealous of you instead of celebrated your success.

If I've made a choice I needed to make for myself that hurt you.

If I held a grudge against you for trivial reasons.

If I directed hate towards you.

If I spoke about you behind your back.

If I wronged you, acted unjustly towards you.

If I lied to you, mislead you, didn't tell you the whole truth.

If I made an apology and didn't mean it,

I mean it this time.

I'm sorry.

Know that whatever I said then, I don't mean now.

Vidui.

I acknowledge before You, Lord my G-d and the G-d of my fathers, that my recovery and my death are in Your hands. May it be Your will that You heal me with total recovery, but, if I die, may my death be an atonement for all the errors, iniquities, and willful sins that I have erred, sinned and transgressed before You.

Our G-d and G-d of our fathers, may our prayers come before You, and do not turn away from our supplication, for we are not so impudent and obdurate as to declare before You, Lord our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that we are righteous and have not sinned. Indeed, we and our fathers have sinned.

We have transgressed, we have acted perfidiously, we have robbed, we have slandered. We have acted perversely and wickedly, we have willfully sinned, we have done violence, we have imputed falsely. We have given evil counsel, we have lied, we have scoffed, we have rebelled, we have provoked, we have been disobedient, we have committed iniquity, we have wantonly transgressed, we have oppressed, we have been obstinate. We have committed evil, we have acted perniciously, we have acted abominably, we have gone astray, we have led others astray. We have strayed from Your good precepts and ordinances, and it has not profited us. Indeed, You are just in all that has come upon us, for You have acted truthfully, and it is we who have acted wickedly.

Vidui.

It's been a while

2009-07-16T01:31:00.004-07:00

Casa shows with HOG and GEA were always a big deal; a hundred sweaty hipsters with value village blazers and pointy leather shoes from 1973 stuffed into a tiny room, either knocking each other unconscious with flailing elbows at each momentous thud of Duncan's kick and swaying drunkenly to the eyes-closed refrain or screaming their lungs out trying to be heard over three saxophones, a trumpet, a string trio and a guy in a duct tape dress beating the shit out of a floor tom with a tambourine. But you bring them in with a shoegaze-esque trio with a sample arsenal and enough delay pedals to turn the earth back an hour and a pop band with near-legendary local status, put them up in a 250-person capacity hall with actual stage lights and a sound guy, and then promote the show as the last of the duo for this year (or forever) and you're basically guaranteed the most psychotic Wednesday night possible.

It's actually intimidating sometimes listening to local bands that are so good; sometimes it seems that no matter what you do you'll never get to the point where people appreciate your music that way you appreciate theirs, and the arrangement and conveyance of emotion through songs seem totally effortless, like they were born to do it. Maybe it's being a musician that prompts these feelings of inadequacy in my mind but even before I could play an instrument I felt left out as if I could never achieve something as righteous as what I heard. We can become a part of the moment with our own skills, with our photography, our writing, our words, our memories and voices but we are all reflecting the creativity of these people that we venerate so highly despite how close they are to us socially.

Holding them up on a pedestal can poison you too; it can make you resent those who you feel are not respecting the art and the artists that you are so emotionally drawn to, and it can make you yearn for those 13 seconds of fame you could garner by screaming into that mic just one more time, even though you are ashamed because you know how pathetic that hope is, as if the people around you are going to sit around on streetcorners after the show passing around cigarettes and commenting on how cool that guy was that knew all the words. It can make you feel so inadequate that you cannot appreciate the music anymore, that you are so caught up in needing to be included and so vindictive of those who treat the music like it could be anything that you lose the joy and basic connection that drove you to listen to their EP fourteen times in a row on repeat in the dark in the middle of the night what seems like all those years ago.

And that's important. You can dissolve yourself in the miasma of young passion surrounding the venue, soak up the exuberance and delve into the spirit of the moment, yell the words until your voice is hoarse and smile like an idiot right back into the eyes of the guy bleeding onto his guitar strings. Because that's what it's there for. This is a song about friends, this is a song about playing songs to people you know, this is a song about love, love lost, love found, love in the past, this is a song about what you used to be like and how you used to feel, this is a song about how you feel now and how you will always feel. Hoot hoot. Captivated, that's what you are, and it's such a close-knit coven of folks, those songs are written for them but it's more than that now, it's everyone, it's everyone touched by the songs and the words and the melody of one blue Ibanez with a left echelon and a fake vintage Danelectro. Driving to Queens of the Stone Age in a van with someone you just met and someone you wish you knew better, trading Palaniuk novels that have since coloured your reading of every novel and every literary interview and remembering that as you feel so enveloped by the sound and the sensation, the poor kid's having a breakdown from the stress. We knew though, we knew the sun would come up and that this was bigger than we could have imagined though it will never leave this place. We are so earnest, so earnest, so earnest. You challenge me to do better and I try, I try to encapsulate the sensation with my own voice and show you how I think of your music - you talented, honest, simple, creative, kind little son of a bitch. One day I'll look back and know again how much this meant to me and try to choke down the feeling that I missed out on the full experience, because everyone else seems comfortable with their role in this. It feels like my words just aren't good enough sometimes.

The big band is the same way but different, a cacophony that they readily admit is a wall of sonic blasphemy, the sound guy protesting wheezily as the horns blend into the keyboard and the celloist saws through every horsehair on his bow. There's never enough instruments to fill the stage, a growing, building, screaming intensity that draws everyone in and makes sweat pour from the brows of everyone who wore a tie because that is the appropriate attire to get down in this venue. A legion of instruments formerly used for passive, lonely, piecemeal verses colliding like an earthquake hitting the Long & McQuade band department and fronted by two bat-shit crazy presidents with voices like velvet, hammering on floor toms with no reservation and somehow pulling the team together with the audience in some kind of colossal indulgent mind-fuck, a hive brain of souls in unison yelling over and over that I'm not an adult yet, methuselah. Sweat hard, sweat hard because there's fifty minutes left and there's no blood on your suit jacket yet; time is running out, you're growing up, you're getting a job, life is getting serious and one day soon you'll have to hang up the rainbow suspenders and act like your dad.

So get out, get out, go home, show's over. We'll see you next year maybe, or never. You'll know where to find us. We're here.

It seems like everything is working out

2009-06-26T00:47:00.003-07:00

Everything is working out; I've nothing to complain about.

Circumstances seem okay.

I felt the same way yesterday.

My ankle aches and my eyes are heavy

but it's alright, my bed is ready.

Tomorrow will be much the same,

but... I'm off till Saturday.

My throat croaks and phlegm comes up

I haven't felt that much like writing

It seems that I have things to say

but they come out slowly if ever.

Half baked ideas appearing and disappearing in my mind.

I feel useful to be doing work

but rarely creative

and mostly just tired.

I installed new pedals on my bike

I used a 5/8ths crescent wrench

and got dirt and oil on my fingers.

WD40 smells like work. I felt competent.

Honestly, you could have done it.

Sort of like my second job. I am a human vending machine

and sometimes I sweep the floor

but mostly, I drink iced coffee.

To be frank, I haven't really thought that much about it

I guess it seems like too small of a chance to linger over

but I think it's been sitting in the back of my mind

and making work easier.

Here's hoping. Things should have worked out that time.

Maybe we'll get another chance.

In Limbo by Radiohead

and Blaise Bailey Finnegan

I cribbed the style of this post from someone

that I used to date.

Or did I?

It feels pretty organic.

Neoprene biking gloves, business cards, Slayer tickets

A p-bass, red plaid loafers, work clothes draped over a fan.

A green skull-shaped shaker that Seb bought me for no reason.

Pirate bandaids. Headphones for listening to underwater.

A CD player I got for free when I was 14.

A carabiner that is unsafe to use for climbing.

Wine glasses I used once. How ornamental. Ostentatious?

A recursive beer mug. A craft vise in which I crushed a coke can.

Lots of coke cans. Duct tape. Staples. Peg winder.

A lava lamp that doesn't work anymore.

I'm too nervous to longboard at any reasonable speed.

Even on my bike

rolling over manholes makes me cringe

but I think the confidence will come back at some point.

All the roads I ride look so inviting for urethane.

I have more drum keys than I know what to do with.

When I got home today, I had a bunch of things to do

and exciting things to tell my dad

but there was KFC on the table and only one plate.

It was ok, though.

He came back later.

My brother was listening to Ride The Lightning.

I gave him some more music to listen to.

Made me kind of proud.

He will be a serious dude someday.

If he doesn't discover cold fusion first

that would be death for his social life.

How ironic!

She paid like fourteen bucks for a cable I got for $1

at the Dollar Store, no less.

CAT-5 was invented in 1974 at Xerox Parc.

I have a package of fake moustaches on my desk.

The plug for my mouse is taped down because it is broken

I can't even imagine what life will be like in three months

How inconceivable.

But really,

it's not a big deal.

I wonder if they'll let me keep my lego AT-ST...

It's a collector's edition.

(He just came into my room

and said it would have been awesome

if, as apparently they almost did,

Harmonix had put Angel of Death

in Guitar Hero: Metallica.)

Did you know?

Brian Gibson works for that company.

He is also in the band Lightning Bolt.

There is a tissue burnt from the application of a soldering gun

and a five hundred page guide to traveling in Mexico

for the sort of people who would travel in Mexico.

If i'd worked this job last summer

it would have been craaaaazy.

Maybe we can interface at some point

I'm available by many forms of electronic conveyance

I've collected about ten stickers that say  Thank You

and I dare you to type that on your keyboard.

Carrier pigeon and homing owl are not recommended

but you can probably send me an email.

I want a capybara.

Good night.

Bafflegab

2009-05-19T02:50:00.002-07:00

It's kind of funny how there is such a backlog of my personal history on this blog. Admittedly it's kind of like the letters your parents got from you at summer camp saying how you hated it and wanted to go home even when camp really wasn't that bad and you only had time to write when you were homesick anyway, and I am surprised sometimes to find how upbeat other people's blogs can be.

I think I've become really exacting about the kind of stuff I'll post on here, like I expect it to hold up to some personal standard that doesn't really have any guidelines. Hesaidquote is kind of about that; it has some more rigid guidelines that turn each post into a calculated take on whatever topic, as opposed to here where I just futz around and vomit verbiage pretending that people actually enjoy reading it. In fact I find that a lot of material on here is like some kind of purgatory for thoughts that irritate me so much I have to write them down, and it's often so lazy in terms of creativity and thought that it's basically the equivalent of HST typing out other people's books on his Selectric. That's a good example actually - I noticed the last time I used that word that I'd mentioned it twice more pretty recently and that bothered me. I think the kind of artistic sensibility that I like to imagine I share with people like Mackenzie sometimes bleeds into my view of a lot of things in my life; I'm judgmental about album art and other people's photography for example when they, for whatever reason, appear "incorrect" to me.

This kind of writing is interesting if you're focused on a specific topic and have some kind of goal in mind but I often find my own words on this blog so boring. I drone on about whatever topic with weak metaphorical explanations in disjointed paragraphs that have questionable specificity. I used to end each post with a haiku until I decided I was kind of insulting the great tradition by jumping lines and using curse words and that you can't really write haikus in any other language than Japanese... But anyway, I kind of like that sentiment. I'd say that I'll make more of an effort to include imagery but who am I kidding, I'd regress back to here anyway...

This weekend was a strange mixture of loneliness and good times with friends; I spent nearly every day with A&M, saw Wolverine, went to band practice where we wrote a great song, checked out the Skull Skates yard sale, ate at the Topanga Cafe, and beat most of MGS3 on normal... But last year just like this year my family was out of town and I came home every night to a house that was too big to be my space alone. While I'm whinging, my ankle is almost healed but I probably won't be skating for another three months even with lots of attention from the physiotherapist of questionable credentials who was constantly chewing gum and hooked up electrical suction cups to my foot.

Maybe it's that I don't often do much that is really noteworthy that hobbles my ability to come up with moments I feel are worth writing about. Really, who gives a fuck that I bought a slurpee (even though I didn't because I can't carry them without somebody to help me). Hmm, let's see what else - I wasted hours of my life arguing pointlessly with people I don't know very well over a largely irrelevant topic which wound me up to the point where I had a stomach ache on my way to the job interview I had today, which by the way leads to the most worthwhile thing I've been doing lately... It looks like I'll be gainfully employed at the very boutique Apple Store downtown in Pacific Centre as well as the laid-back and locally owned Park Theatre on Cambie St. So I'll have something to do during the waking hours...

It's pathetic really, I go on Facebook sometimes and see people planning things I'm not involved in and have to remind myself that there is no malice involved and that I really live nowhere near whatever event is going on. Playing video games by yourself is cool as long as you have video games, and when you beat them all and have nothing to look forward to you might as well go out and hang out with people and actually get a real life. It's like summer is limbo where you are suspended in a constant shifting state of lethargy and labour before returning to the plane of reality for eight months of speaking to other people and drinking copious volumes of alcohol.

Anybody reading this should check out the album Decline of the West by Holy Sons... You are probably totally into indie music and therefore you will probably like it a lot more than any of the sweaty armpit grumpy metal bands I'd otherwise be tooting the horn of.

I wrote a pretty off-the-cuff op-ed thing for the summer edition of the Martlet about the election, and I haven't heard back so I doubt it'll be published but either way it'll probably end up here too. This blog is so often a catalogue of disappointment that it seems like it'll fit right in. Christ I am a bucket of sunshine this morning... I have to turn off the Godspeed You! and start grooving on something posi.

Lost for months at sea, craving human contact... Come in Cape Canaveral...

The Allure of Old Spice

2009-05-14T21:22:00.003-07:00

I can't say how many times I've seen the new Degree Men's ad on tv... You know, the one that opens with "7 out of 10 men prefer Degree to whatever Old Spice scent," and then features a funny looking "average guy" jumping out of an airplane with a shopping cart and then zooming through two semi-trailers on the freeway. You can watch it here: http://www.degreemen.com/Men/Degree-Men-Deodorant.aspx It loads on the right side of the screen and you can enlarge it. I can't imagine the kind of jumped-up twitchy-fingered intercity/midtown card-carrying gym membership meathead jock that this ad is tailored to appeal to, but either way, mentioning that "fewer men like Old Spice" is really just unnecessary. I wouldn't be surprised if Degree was more popular that Old Spice, but I think that's because their target markets are far different. If the fans of Degree Men are Chad Ochocinco and shopping-cart-jumping guy, Old Spice is represented by Bruce Campbell and is probably used by Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man In The World. Here's an Old Spice ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af1OxkFOK18 Damn. That was TASTEFUL. Now you know: Degree Men is nothing short of embarrassing.

As Usual...

2009-05-04T01:17:00.002-07:00

This blog has lately been a pit of self-inflicted misery and poor and unenviable writing, I think. It's been really nice having my uncle here this week while he was helping my mom attend to my ailing grandmother. We cooked nasi goreng with prawns and all kinds of Indonesian-slash-Dutch foods involving thoroughly disgusting and rank "fermented shrimp paste" combined with delicious sambal. We also did hamburgers in the frying pan accompanied by scratch made flatbread, which is a surprisingly good burger bun substitute. Hopefully I'll be able to cook enough not to starve in September, or at least avoid scurvy from over-consumption of ramen. (Looking up nasi goreng now has me slavering over dutch cuisine and pictures of buttered mussles on wikipedia. Is it bad that it's making me reconsider the Utrecht exchange program?)

Still pretty much spending every day sitting around doing nothing and wishing I wasn't on crutches, but then I said I wasn't going to write about that. I've applied a bunch of places for jobs, and I haven't called anyone back yet but I'm pretty sure that I'm still mostly unemployable for the next three weeks or so. It was a little strange going back to Choices and filling out an application; I was hesitant, as last summer they gave me a weird interview with questions like, "What does organic mean to you?" and "What do you think are the top 5 priorities of Choices Market?" They didn't hire me because apparently I couldn't work full-time in the shifts they wanted, but we all knew it was because I blew the interview with the aging hippie-slash-vietnam veteran manager. But they apparently got new management along with their facelift and I was warmly interrogated by their "Head Cashier". I wouldn't mind working there at all.

Chris called me back on Thursday morning while I was at my dad's work watching his epic course-setting presentation of the year, and now I have an assured place to live next year. The room Chris showed me wasn't at all what I was expecting but over the last week or so I've been toying with it like a sore tooth and imagining what it could look like. I hope I have some money to make an Ikea run and pick up a desk and some bookshelves. I'm sure that Jens and Cobi and Chris and I will make a raggedy bunch of roomies in September and I'm really looking forward to it, although... Sometimes I get this feeling of loneliness, even among people I really like, even when I'm hanging out with those people all the time. Like my life is on a different tangent than everyone else's in the world and my thoughts and emotions just don't connect with those of others. Some people understand that intrinsically, I think because they sometimes experience it as well. I don't know who I till turn to for moral support. I'm sad about Lauren. I'm sad about Zoe.

In any event...

Had a lovely dinner with Uncle Leo and my parents on Saturday at Seasons in the Park, a high-falutin' restaurant at the top of Queen Elizabeth park. Delicious seafood fettucini carbonara, but it hit me like a carb grand slam when mixed with the wine glass that magically stayed full. Somehow I made it through to a 9:30 show at the Cobalt opening for Victoria's Mother Died Today and the revitalized Masquerade of Silence. Played a really solid show despite the ankle and not having practiced with the band for months before Friday. It'll be too bad to have Seb over in Chile for a month just when I'm able to get back on the throne, so to speak. I think we've got some recording aspersions this summer and there's been talk of an island tour, but certain people (AKA me) have roundly failed to secure their driver's licenses in time, and having your dad drive you is gauche unless you're Protest The Hero.

Cooped up in the house mostly, as I said, so I've been playing video games of course... I won't go into the nerdy details so suffice to say that Portal deserves all the praise it's garnered and that World In Conflict is one of the best RTS games no one's ever seen (yet). Plus, Steam is magnificent scam that will have me blithely downloading Left4Dead with the next Freaky Friday promotion.

Broke the ground wire in my p-bass again. I hope Eric doesn't mind how much abuse I've put it through to date since he lent it to me (maybe a year ago now). Although I keep mouthing off about it to everyone, I don't know how likely this sludge side project is to get off the ground. I don't think I'm much of a songwriter or a vocalist for that matter. On the other hand, it might just be a case of getting Seb and I together in a room for a couple hours. I don't feel comfortable referring to myself as a bass player without some kind of band experience, as if I need some kind of legitimacy to deem myself a four-banger. My insecurity is showing again.

It was maybe five years ago or so that my family visited our friends' home in Courtney, B.C. for a week or two; I remember looking up to their oldest boy with respect and being fascinated by his miniatures and Mechwarrior 2. Building robots out of lego that were close enough to the game schematics to surprise even myself. Picking leeches off my leg after standing in the freezing creek. Elia getting sick and feverish. Minigolf. Biko making nachos in the microwave after everyone else had gone to sleep and eating them casually, barefooted, in the middle of the kitchen. I don't remember thinking about girls once, although I was probably jealous. I wonder what they're doing now.

[Kinski - Montgomery]

I'm in a spaceship, flying away,

and this is my journal.

No letters to write, it's too long a flight

and it's tough to get wifi for email.

The radio's dead, I'm alone in my head

and I've had all the Tang I could want.

I'm flying away, to horizons of grey,

because all the windows are covered;

I can't bear to see, a reflection of me

come hell or even high water.

Don't leave me alone,

to an quiet dial tone

I realized nobody was there

and that's what they said, when they found me dead

"His mind was quite empty of thought."

As you were.

Another Month

2009-04-23T12:35:00.003-07:00

Another month of crutches. 30 and 50% weight bearing, whatever the fuck that means.

Another month of not being able to carry anything and needing help all the time.

Another month of taking forever to get anywhere and begging for car rides.

Another month of being too self-conscious to apply for a job.

Another month of fighting to get up the motivation to leave the house.

Another month of wearing two different socks and pumping up a sweaty cast.

Another month of nothing but brown cargo pants and shorts.

Another month without longboarding or riding my bike.

Sigh. What the fuck am I gonna do.

Page Edits

2009-04-22T17:35:00.001-07:00

Bunch of new links up on the sidebar, and I'm looking at some templates. You can see what I busy myself with now, huh.

it's tough...

2009-04-22T17:08:00.003-07:00

...to get up the motivation to do something today.

i can't longboard.

i can't bike.

i can't walk very far.

i can't spend any money.

friends are all leaving or studying for exams. no point in packing yet, since i'm still two days from going home. don't have anything that can't be done tomorrow or the day after. no appointments. no commitments. sounds a lot better than it is.

i won't talk about it, because it's not fair, but it sucks and i feel empty. it will take me a long time to stop feeling like a part of my life is gone. i ask myself what i was thinking a lot.

i can't help wondering if this is what vancouver will feel like. four months of working and coming home to be with my little brother and my parents instead of the people i've eaten dinner with every day for the last seven months. i'll be leaving my little room.

it's the end of the school year and i should be elated. i'm out of here! it's sunny for the next 120 days. but the light in my room is flat and filtered with grey and i'm very nearly miserable.

i don't think i've listened to anything but Kyuss for the last two days.

decisions

2009-04-17T01:58:00.003-07:00

i have these decisions, you know, quite simple decisions

at least they seem simple at first

or maybe at last, when the pieces are obvious

and i feel stupid for considering so hard.

these decisions, you know, tough decisions

sometimes i stay up all night thinking

weighing objectives and problems

and bashing my head on them.

decisions, you know, those boring decisions

it's often easier to not think at all

go off and waste my time on nothings

shooting zombies with rayguns.

decisions, you know, meaningful decisions?

thinking about the past and future

what i've sunk into my course in life to date

and ascribing value.

these stupid decisions, pointless decisions

just do whatever you want.

if you don't know what you want,

just pick a suggestion.

you're only 18 and life is long

nothing you do is forever.

fuck!

A letter to Adbusters.

2009-04-14T03:16:00.000-07:00

I don't understand you, Adbusters.

I admit to owning quite a few back issues of the mag, and a friend of mine asked to borrow them a while ago. He was a little surprised to find that I own only sporadic copies: 74, 77, 81, 83, and so on. As he read, he began to add comments in conversation that he'd read in Adbusters, and we had a back-and-forth about my ideas on the magazine. I realized that I keep seeing a new one on the magazine rack, flipping through it, dropping my $8.95 and taking it home only to become deeply confused.

83 had some interesting pieces by Robin Lawrence, Luke Whyte, Douglas Haddow, and a little comic by Phil Selby. But it also had a nearly decade-old Tom Wolfe quote on hooking up, while Maclean's just ran a cover story about how teenagers are developing some morals and fucking each other less lately. It had a comment by Andrew Tuplin that was either about how easily today's stupid people are manipulated by media or how prohibiting consumer goods can apparently help change human morality. It featured yet another horrifying and painfully true holocaust-to-gaza comparison that again complained about the symptoms while ignoring the disease. Then it proceeded to jump from foot to foot, chewing its lip nervously about how people seeing Australia in theatres won't know exactly how it was paid for or what influenced it; nevermind whether it was a "good" movie or not. Finally, it explained to everyone how, since Nike bought Converse, it's no longer cool, because before one brand was sold to another it was somehow more than a brand. Just like our $50 sneakers, in fact, which you should buy, as long as it's not a Buy Nothing day (because you can always walk down to Home Depot and get your $1.50 Painter's Touch tomorrow).

Where are you trying to go? Should I love my neighbour or worry that he is too stupid to believe 9/11 wasn't fake? Is planting a victory garden that would never be able to feed me the best way to combat evil capitalism? Should I smash church windows for censoring the Anarchist Cookbook but grassroots lobby for Amazon to ban Japanese rape fantasy games? Is causing a fuss about my 100-mile diet making a difference, or is it just making me feel superior to all my friends who can't afford to buy organic?

I'm glad you often publish letters like mine; a balanced viewpoint is a lofty and noble goal. But until the hypocrisy and self-serving activism stop, and this magazine grows up a little, I will continue to read Adbusters for the pretty, pretty pictures. Ooh, sparkles!

-Sol Kauffman
Vancouver, BC

Watchmen: The Verdict

2009-04-04T05:48:00.003-07:00

So, I saw the movie this evening finally after having read the comic a few weeks ago... I must say altogether I was very happy about the adaptation and found it a pretty good interpretation in movie form without disrespecting the source material, so kudos to Zack Snyder. I didn't really notice most of the small things they cut, although a re-reading of the comic I'm sure will reveal a lot of "easter eggs". I did particularly miss the backstory on The New Frontiersman and some of the characters but 2:43 was a long enough time. The choice of some songs in the soundtrack were awesome while others were a little iffy; I very much enjoyed hearing Bob Dylan in the EXCELLENT opening montage, and Nat King Cole's Unforgettable was a very good accompaniment to the Comedian's murder, but Simon and Garfunkel during the funeral scene was just out-of-place, as was the 30 seconds of "99 Luftballoons" during Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II's dinner, and while I know the scene is intended to be silly, playing Hallelujah during the Archie sex scene was very off-putting. Not to mention that the inclusion of a My Chemical Romance cover of Bob Dylan will forever prevent me from purchasing the 12" vinyl picture disc, but I digress. Overall I think the movie had a little more gore and sex than was really warranted - it takes a great director to imbue a film with a dark and crawling undertone without blatantly filling it with broken limbs and ecstasy, and I guess Snyder isn't quite there yet... A lot of the scenes freaked out Lauren and I had to do some hand-holding, but she's a trooper for watching it with me. Some cinematography really jumped out at me as well, for example the swinging bathroom door in the prison while Rorschach kills the midget, and the slow motion of the Comedian's death was well done too. I also gained a big appreciation for how badass the Comedian was despite his obvious sociopathic tendencies; Rorschach is unquestionably hard boiled, but with his oppressed past he seems less of a heroic personality than the Comedian's stogie-smoking flamethrowing tear gas shotgunning attitude.

Either way, go see it if you haven't already, and in the words of millions of clammy-palmed nerds everywhere, I recommend you read the comic first ('cuz otherwise you're a poser).

Denouement

2009-03-31T23:39:00.003-07:00

It's sure been a while since I've visited this blog. Like usual it seems I only feel compelled to write on here when I'm feeling mixed up, confused, or depressed. I'm feeling alright right now, but there's this feeling of listlessness or disappointment lingering.

I wrote three exams today. Tomorrow I'll have review classes for my finals on the 6th and 20th, dates that seem like tomorrow and far, far away respectively. I can't believe it's been seven months of school here. Time is passing just as fast as it did in high school, and to be perfectly honest, it hasn't been much more difficult at all. Essays are the same, just with more facts and stricter attribution. I still never take notes, even though I easily could. But some of my courses have drawn me in, and I'm so excited for next year I could burst. "Independence Lite" has been a lot of fun this year; all the perks of living on your own without having to cook or clean much, and being so close to my brand new friends all the time is really nice. I can hardly complain about Lauren, either... She's been so good to me especially lately, and is usually very reasonable for a teenage girl. She has no hair though, since last weekend, which is a little strange. There's been a lot of great musical exploration for me this year; I got into dubstep, Control Denied, Notorious B.I.G., Sepultura, and rediscovered Nirvana, all on top of the great indie stuff my UVic friends have been feeding me. My photography has grown from a curiosity to a passion, and my writing has developed into a career path. I consider myself better informed, more self-sufficient, and more myself, although the jury is out on whether that's the result of attending class or just being here.

Of course, it's not all's well that ends well. I'm in nervous worry about finding a job (or jobs) this summer to afford a place to live next year, and as for where to live, I'm still so undecided. The choices seem clear but are coloured by all sorts of big, serious questions. My broken ankle is like a three month house arrest sentence I'm almost halfway through serving, and the fear of slipping on tile floors with worn-through crutch caps is nearly as bad as taking the down escalator at Bay Centre. I never really realized how much being mobile factored into my sense of independence. I'm going to need help getting to the ferry on Tuesday, because I've got to carry two weeks of clothes, and while I would usually be excited about packing up, it now feels like a big chore. I'm tired of constantly asking my friends to carry my tray for me, and I don't know if Lauren really knows how much I've needed/appreciated her help with my laundry and whatever other crazy things since March 4th. I know I've taken some of my frustration out on her, which is something I'm terribly sorry for. She doesn't deserve anything near that.

I've got to admit to feeling strange about Aron's friend Tom replacing me for a couple band gigs this month. I'm not worried, per say, but there is something strange about it. I guess I might not like the idea that another guy can learn all my beats in less than a month, and maybe that just shows my vanity. But I think I'm a part of the band in other ways as well. We'll have to see how it pans out. As of right now, my leg is having trouble remembering what it's like to kick the shit out of a bass drum, and that's pretty discouraging.

It felt good to know rain again today. This whole year, even through all of winter, I never had to go outside in anything more than my hoodie (except when it snowed), confident that it wouldn't rain any harder than would dry within five minutes of class. There was a real downpour today, one of those rains where five minutes in it means you have to hang everything you own up to dry and leaves you wishing you could wring yourself out. It really reminded me of home, which I've been missing lately. It seems like a good thing until I remember that returning home means searching for work, something that being on crutches really cramps.

I'll have to go out and collect all the loans out of my library. Seems like I lent tons of books out this year, and all the people actually wanted to read them. I'm really astounded by the people I've met here; unconditionally accepting, friendly, supporting, relaxed, smart, and confident. In contrast to the people I used to know that constantly skulk around my building and embarrassedly avoid my gaze, they seem like superheroes. It's such a shame that Zoe won't be with us next year, but I'm sure these people will always be friends of mine. I can't wait to grow up with them. Next year I'll be in eight writing classes and I'll turn 19 in the very second month of school. I'm practically salivating at all the shows I'll be able to go to.

I hope I can work somewhere I actually like, and preferably with air conditioning for once. I'm looking at Long & McQuade, Choices, the Park Theatre, Black Dog Video, the Apple Store, and maybe even being a waiter at the Old Dutch. I wonder where people find those construction aid jobs; a hardhat and steel toe boots can apparently get you $17.44/hour here for 40 hours a week, and that is almost preposterous. I've scanned craiglist and am on the verge of sending out some emails, and my first plan of action is to check out the Georgia Strait's job listings, but I don't know what I'll be able to do by May 7th when the cast apparently comes off. Will I be able to walk without limping? Will I be able to carry things? Dr. Stone seems stodgy with the details, and this is pretty inconvenient time to be holed up, walking on one foot.

Things are ambiguous, I suppose is what this post is about. I don't really know where I am right now. I've got goals in mind, but the path is unclear, and I'm running out of time. The only thing for it is to keep going.

Ferry Follies

2009-03-02T14:59:00.002-08:00

Maybe it's because of my pounding headache or profound exhaustion but this ferry is full of assholes.

The departure lounge features a twisted, 14A version of a family sitcom featuring a mother yelling at her kid as he innocently plays with her suitcase. Tyler, you will break everything inside that. NO! DON'T OPEN IT! The child is unfazed, but I can't help wonder what underlying psychological damage is developing from this discouraging parenting failure. Maybe there's something... private... in that suitcase...

In the boarding lineup, I am brusquely nudged by a mid-20s Ed Hardy advertisement wearing enough makeup to turn Oscar the Grouch into Miss America. Resisting the urge to punch it in the teeth, I turn my cheek only to be blockaded by it's D&G bag as I try to walk through the doorway. Honey, just because your track suit has tattoo flash all over it doesn't mean it can fix your face.

Resigning my stomach to another 30 minutes of waiting rather than join the cafeteria sheep, I get stuck behind a wheezy altecacker with a waxed moustache who seems to find every inch of the ship utterly fascinating. I mutter excuse me and weave across the corridor like a quarterback looking for an opening. Of course, by the time I get to the front lounge, all the good seats are gone.

After a couple laps of surreptitious surveillance I park across the bench from a Grisham pulp fictionist and an UGG trendonista with an Apple sticker on her Dell (the irony!). Though she isn't using the plug above her head, she's placed her colossal dufflebag on the seat next to her and spread her possessions around like a plane crash.
Sorry, I'm just going to grab the plug up here...
Can you get an extension cord? *Ignore*
sotto voce: An extension cord? On the ferry? You couldn't offer to exchange seats or something? I guess i was right about the sticker thing. It's not ironic, you're just stupid. *Blithely plugs in*

Fuck you, Vancouver on the ferry running 30 minutes late. You can suck my goddamn nuts.

mood swings

2009-02-10T23:34:00.002-08:00

i just spend a half hour of my life looking up all the skate shoes on zappos.com that are made with leather. ironic, since earlier today i was amazed that a significant portion of the facebook conversations between two MALE friends of mine consisted of fashion discussions involving mostly shoes.

i broke a lace today on my No Sweats. the right shoe has already worn down through the sole to the point where the front of my foot sometimes touches the ground, and i realize that past the extremely fragile rubber bottom, there is less than an inch of insulation. it's depressing that this is how they afford to sell union-made, sustainable products for competitive prices; $50 should buy me pretty good shoes, no?

these ones lasted maybe six months. not even - i bought them in september.

i find myself avoiding in-depth conversations with my parents lately. i go to them for advice or to complain and i get earnest suggestions that don't do much but make me feel down. i guess i should probably be thinking more about saving money and what i'm going to do over the next few years, especially since school is often such a mindless slog lately... but i honestly find it very difficult to consider life after april without some element of trepidation. it's easy when lauren is considering table sets from ikea for a rented apartment and she's worried about all the things we'd need to buy; reassuring someone else is something i can do. reassuring myself takes a lot more effort.

seems like my mood swings a lot lately, sashaying from side to side like an early '40s teenager (groan, what an awful simile). waking up to sunshine makes my day, while with grey skies i sleep in and miss class. case in point - while i started this post feeling mopey, i now feel pretty sweet while i watch kevin costner gallivant around in another post-apocalyptic vanity project that i can't help but be fascinated by. i've edited chris' short story, and tomorrow after classes i'll meet up with him and go over it before i go downtown and get some new sneakers and pick up some hot sauce. maybe i'll head over to lauren's after that. then i'll do my laundry. living day by day and keeping short term goals in my really keeps me occupied and lets me stay pretty happy.

to endeavours.

cat power

2009-01-19T22:18:00.006-08:00

kurt cobain's Something in the Way has lost out in the competition for Most Depressing Song Ever. currently holding the title is Chan Marshall (A.K.A. Cat Power) and her song Hate. imagine a young ex-heroin junkie with a resigned expression and eyes full of pain, playing an Gibson ES-335 like Samuel L. Jackson in Black Snake Moan after his whore wife left him.

Anyone can tell you there's no more road to ride

Everyone will tell you there's no place to hide

There's no laws or rules to enchain your life

But the ones who didn't make it, the ones who couldn't take it

So glad they made it out alive

Everyone loves the fun, everyone comes by

In the wind I crunch, I want to die

They can give me pills or let me drink my fill

The heart wants to explode far away where nobody knows

Do you believe she said that?

I said I hate myself and I want to die.

Half of it is innocent, the other half is wise

The whole damn thing makes no sense

I wish I could tell you a lie

Hey, come here let me whisper in your ear

I hate myself and I want to die.

Do you believe she said that?

Can you believe she repeated that?

I said, I hate me, myself, and I

Said I hate myself and I want to die.

you know, i understand the circumstances that have lead to this sensation, but i don't understand why i feel it. i guess i'll get over it. maybe i already have. It's kind of ironic how listening to Chan Marshall's voice makes all your problems seem astronomically insignificant in comparison.

shit, i forgot to go run the washing machine.

bc ferries

2009-01-19T00:21:00.014-08:00

this kid won't shut up and he won't pick up any cues.

riding the ferry is sometimes a really special event for me. it used to be really exciting, back when i didn't go to victoria often and had little experience being on the sea (as much as the calm fraser inlet can really be called the sea). it was exciting not in a theme park ride sort of way but in that you could appreciate all the rituals and idiosyncrasies of riding a BC Ferry; the rush to the cafeteria at the beginning of the sailing by (mostly american) motorists who don't realize it's better to wait the 30 minutes till it's slow. scouting for seats in an empty row so you have a place to put your stuff and not have to share your personal space with anyone. in 1997 it was mostly playing video games and drinking hot chocolate that came from a machine. early last year when i started going out with Lauren, i ended up taking trips to victoria about once a month. riding the ferry was always a big deal during that time as i was in high school all week and spending five hours traveling made it seem like a real escape. i would spend the whole time with my headphones on in my own little world, reading hunter s. thompson letters and eating fries in a little cup with tons of vinegar. the bus trips went through farms on the peninsula and i felt like i was going hundreds of miles through manitoba, my head up against the shuddering side of the bus and my eyes closed beneath the hood of my sweatshirt. now that i go to UVic i still spend about the same time on the ferry, but it feels like i've lost some of the magic in those trips that i used to have. i've got to be on my own and not have anything to watch on the computer. you can really make something special by limiting how much you can distract yourself from it. anyway, the special trips happen less often now, and sometimes only for certain moments, unlike before when i used to spend a whole day of travel in some kind of quiet floating world. i often take the ferry with Lauren, which is nice, but experienced in quite a different way. she has a sense of not-quite cynicism about it, a sort of developed nonchalance come from the number of times she's taken the ferry, and so it might as well just be us sitting together in public. which is nice, but not quite the same.

unfortunately this fucking anti-flag fan is sitting next to me and texting the shit out of his cellphone, blathering on about his bros and his sublime ripoff band. i guess i probably complain as much as he does but at least i generally keep it written down instead of said out loud. i'd really just prefer to be left alone. the ferry left maybe 20 minutes late and they're saying arrival at 9:10 due to the fog, which means i might miss the direct to UVic 80 that is the whole reason i took this particular sailing. he's offered me a ride in his mom's passat and i feel like i can't say no. he'd bother me about it anyway. i guess it's kind of stupid to prefer an hour and a half of bus rides and waiting in the cold to a 20/30 minute drive. my politeness is my downfall, and it's ironic since if someone acted the way i'm acting to this guy, to me, i would just fucking leave. i know when i'm not wanted. my headphones are on, i'm focused on the screen, and i only speak in grunts.

she turned 19 yesterday, and tomorrow she'll be in a bar with some of her friends (that i adopted while she was gone). i never thought i'd really have to relax my feelings at all in a relationship, to be able to let things go and not let them bother me. then again, i don't think the things that bother me would even occur to most people. part of spending so much time thinking is finding things to think about. i worry sometimes if discussing relationship problems on here is crossing some sort of line, and that somehow letting the people who see this in on these particular thoughts is too exhibitionist. but i often speak to this blog as a way of speaking to myself, and i don't think i get enough returning readers to really make it matter. either way, just like the party last week and the spin the bottle all those months ago, i'm learning to let my trust reassure me and actually act the way i feel, and slowly to stop imagining problems that won't happen. i can't lie and say it doesn't make me feel strange to suddenly be the official younger person in our circle. my job, as i sometimes see it, is to be the wise one, reassuring, protective, and knowing, and it's strange that the law has made me feel like a subordinate. all week she spoke of her time in germany and how she was legal there and how strange it was that she would not be allowed to drink until sunday, like those three days were so inconsequential. in comparison to the nine months it'll be till i can drink, they seem at once like forever and nothing. it's somewhat ridiculous, that distinction. why does this matter so much? it doesn't really faze me, and wouldn't at all if she wasn't involved. anyway, it's good that she'll be spending time with her friends without me. i've definitely developed my own group at UVic, and when she is invited to events with them i can see in her the same feelings i had when i first met her friends; being left out of the inside jokes and not quite being treated the same. besides - i have more in common with a comp sci student or a bunch of writers than class four welders, and the distinction isn't cruel. we'll need our escapes eventually. plus: you act much differently in a couple than as a pair of stags. would going to a bar with them be that comfortable? no, just like i wouldn't invite her to a cigar party with the boxing duo. you can see my natural sedatives have kicked in now.

i'm just pulling my thoughts out now onto this screen like (forgive the reference) dumbledore and the pensieve. often i look back on posts like this and get frustrated with the non-linear passage of thinking, my lack of capitalization, the stupid ways i phrased things without really considering them like i might in more complex or thought-out posts. my current english class supports this phenomenon with it's line by line analyzation of short stories, implying that the author picked every one of 1200 words specifically and carefully.

8:53 and this ferry should have docked by now. the kid is sleeping. cat power's the greatest still isn't boring. i hope the 80 waits for us. god i need to sleep. i need to see her again. i need a haircut. i'll go swimming tomorrow and maybe i'll forget to worry about where my life is going. that would be nice.

that would be nice.

I tremble

2009-01-07T23:53:00.002-08:00

hard to be soft; tough to be tender.

writing when you're depressed is a little like playing music when you're stoned... it makes you feel better to do it, so you figure you're pretty good, but usually you just suck. sometimes your impression of yourself impresses others, which is how we got bongzilla and jimi hendrix, but i always wondered if those coked-out musical geniuses ever got sober and went back and plugged their 70s curly cord headphones into the stereo and were deeply embarrassed by themselves. i know that's what it's always like for me looking back on my writing during depressing times. my life always changes for the better or my mood just improves and i wonder how i could ever feel so down in the first place.

it's been a melancholy day, slumping around in the rainy gray day and trying to summon up enthusiasm for classes i'm not captivated at all by. i went to the bookstore with $200 expecting to have leftover and i'll have to go back tomorrow because that was barely half of how much they cost. it's not like i can't afford them or anything, thankfully, but it sunk me into this fugue of worry. ever since my dad was surprised that i didn't think i could afford new drumsticks i've been spending little bits of my budget on things i don't really need. not in any serious amount, but enough to make me feel guilty and worried when i'm already depressed. in the three months of this summer i'm going to have to earn more money than i've ever had in my life in order to afford school, which isn't an insurmountable goal by any means, but certainly worries me. add to that that i'm not sure where i'll be living, and especially that i don't know where she will be by then, and i start developing phantom stomach pains and aching headaches that last all day. which is kind of pathetic, really.

as i try to focus on my happier days in this room i come to the realization that they were filled with optimism for the future; i was looking forward to second term so strongly because i knew she would be getting home and i would get to experience a bunch of new courses. so far it's been cold and drab here and i find it difficult to engage myself in these courses. now that i know more what i'd like to take i urgently wish i could drop all this APA MLA essay crap and focus on creative writing. i dropped by the Martlet office to get some cds and things to review and ended up going home with four cds; the leisure editor said nobody ever rooted through the box, so i should be back again pretty soon. but i think i shocked her by finishing all four 300 word reviews in one night. throwing myself into work i can really appreciate is a great escape that i wish i could make use of more often.

i need a job. i'll drop off some resumes this week, right along with going back to swimming, scheduling radio volunteer hours, buying more textbooks, and doing something with my life. riiiiight.

the dryer should be done by now. honestly, sometimes warm sheets are the highlight of my day.

Back To The Grind

2009-01-07T12:39:00.003-08:00

Sigh and slouch, English 125...

I've got a stomachache. My chicken sandwich this morning left me a little worse for wear, not to mention my only semi-serious sleep. School's in session again, and I'm happy to be here still, but it's not quite as exciting as last term. I'm still slogging through sociology 100 and not quite taking the classes I really wish I was, but most days I don't start 'till 12:30 and my life is very relaxed still. I wish I had a job, and I should really start looking for one. I'm doing cd reviews for the Martlet and considering offering the engineering paper a music column, plus getting volunteer hours scheduled for the radio program so I can eventually launch my show, Drop C Radio (I know, I know).

But I'm okay, you know, life is good.

Photography

2009-01-02T21:29:00.002-08:00

If anybody is interested, particularly if you're disappointed with the (temporary, I promise) stagnation of this blog, I'm setting up a site for my photography here at Through The Looking Glass. It's going to have a lot less language as I'm going to try and let the pictures mostly speak for themselves, so if you're sick of reading you can just look instead. Comments appreciated.

Seasick

2008-10-16T21:58:00.001-07:00

July 21s, 2008 Monday 5:26 PM Royal Caribbean Cruises
It had been a quiet refuge for me until now - I wandered the decks and found the places that were empty of other travelers, like some kind of anti-social spectre sneaking around the ship with Youth Pictures mellowing over my headphones. The smell of the sea and the blowing wind that others seemed to disdain, I would enjoy, lingering in the silence and quiet.

But even the walk of the lone wanderer loses its excitement after a time, so I slunk down five decks to the theatre to watch a movie. The last time I'd been there, it had been deserted, the projector flashing a stark blue tapestry on the wall like a big brother film, and I sat and enjoyed the rare moment of being in the dark and alone. But this time it was occupied by a small group of adults, chattering to each other in anticipation of the film.

I tried to lose myself in the movie, to forget I was on this ship for week, but my arm was empty, draped over the seat next to me in the empty row I had found, far away from the other moviegoers. I stared down at my feet for a while, a mournful trumpet singing in my head until she murmured love to me from hundreds of electronic miles away. I sighed and settled in, resigned to watch the movie.

It's been an hour or so of watching Alex Supertramp run from his parents and his tortured memories and cold sweat has begun to leak from my forehead. I swallow hard and breathe, trying to fight the feeling. I hadn't been seasick since getting on this ship - hell, I prided myself on my sea legs and strong stomach. But the confines of the theatre hide the swell outside and the motion of the film confuses my ears. I get up and stretch, pretending I feel fine, trying to trick myself into comfort again, but my stomach clenches. I snatch my bag and flee out into the mood lighting of the sports bar.

The announcers scream scores at me as my vision hazes and my footing gets risky. Jesus, look at these lizards! We must get tennis shoes or we'll never get out alive. My stumbling gait alarms no crewmen as I reach for the elevator button. I must get some fresh air; yes, that will cure me.

The top deck is a windy terror. I clutch my useless radio to my belt and suck in freezing air, staring out into the blackness. Somehow the sea air will heal me, I know it! I just have to keep breathing it like it's the last gasp of in your oxygen tank. I grip the railing with weak-willed tenacity and grit my teeth as the sea swell toys with my balance. This is a waste of time.

Belowdecks it is silent. It must be past midnight by now. Where I once stalked the halls and feasted on the silence, it seems dead. The ship is a deserted hulk, run aground, crew killed by toxins, every surface crying death, the jazz trio in the lounge makes a mockery of the damned in a once-cheerful melody that has become the haunting cackle of the deranged. I stab the elevator button with a force that seems to suck the energy out of my very soul. I suddenly slump, my will to fight gone. I shamble onto the descending lift as the speed juggles my intestines and tempts me to retch. Thankfully the elevator is empty, so nobody sees my obvious discomfort. The ship is dreadfully afraid of plague - they would make me walk the gangplank as they prodded me with plastic-shod lances.

The hallway towards the room is long and seems to warp as I drag my feet over the thick, absorbent carpet. I hold my room key out in front of me like a lantern vigil, trusting it to somehow guide my bleeding mind to the right door. I feel like a zombie; I'm sure drool is leaking from one side of my mouth at least.

The room is empty and dark. I trip over something on the floor and sprawl halfway onto my bed, moaning and pulling myself up onto the sheets with shivering claws. I kick off my lead boots, not bothering with the rest of my clothes, and throw my bag on the floor beside. I shut my eyes, surrendering to sleep, and dream of falling down an endless passage…

oh god we're so fucked it's all going to hell

2008-09-26T23:03:00.003-07:00

Justice - Stress isn't helping it's making the scene come out stark like a moody documentary shot by frightened mice and the whole courtyard is full of "THOSE" guys i can see it from this window down the hall are 50 dipsomaniacs two girls fighting on the bottom floor landing as i push the door open and begin to walk towards the cafeteria at closing time 10:55 five minutes before the peanut butter comes off the shelves and i've never seen so many at once my personal space isn't violated but there are a hell of a lot of people out tonight the dorms have turned out and it's become a pre-riot a cop is talking to three men and a case of pacific pilsner a crowd around the streetlamp doing something illicit and there's a smell in the air i start walking faster like i'm being followed cold sweat

cafeteria doors open and inside there is a man making gestures at another man two sandwiches and a banana and i'm in the checkout line with six jumpy juvies with three inches on me and pop off tearaways god i need to get out of here NOW i'm sure they have knives and bad intentions i'm sorry for the waitstaff maybe the chefs will survive

i'll take the scenic route maybe to avoid these gangers and no here are two men in the light of a bedroom on the asphalt beside a white van you need to calm down you need to fuck off only last week a guy i know had his jaw broken i look out of place here getting glances like why aren't you drunk yet it's fucking eleven thirty or some shit god he's probably a faggot or some shit should we beat him up not worth the trouble

open container laws haha stop picking fights mckinley god DAMN it's cold out tonight and harrison you motherfucker get off my etnies i just bought that shit this song is building to a climax as i get to my door and i rip out my keys stealing quick glances around me the door is open and i close it fast behind pacing to the staircase blocked by two cell phone leeches and she comes down the other way sally are you okay yeah i'm fine. sally! really it's all fine trying to ignore this spat that is unrelated to me i clumsily sneak past up to my floor aaaaand here it is the apex where all the swamp donkeys are lurking with their shitty beer and flavoured liquors the bass drum is punching me in the stomach you can smell the sex leaking underneath doorways and the liquor breath i should have a cigarette holder and a selectric for this assignment furtive glances in all directions clutching my chocolate milk like the last ticket out of saigon this place will be the death of me if i linger in these halls and now the door is locked and the stereo silent the window shut it's quiet and what i just saw outside wasn't real it couldn't have been

mind on my money and my money on my mind...

2008-09-26T21:44:00.002-07:00

the youngbloodz are blasting down the hall.

a drunken young man stumbled into the fourth door bathroom and held the door open.

i walked to the end of the hall

to see a dorm room packed with XXLs.

it's not that i'm against old school twenty four inch rims pistol on your little finger crips vs. bloods west and east coast gangsta rap. i kind of like it, actually.

and yeah, i'd love to blast it out my dorm room with a coven of poli sci majors sipping microbrews and singing it really loud.

but not with johnny come jock and his swamp donkey girlfriend. instead i'll watch CJ Craig lip synch to The Jackal while the fictional White House Chief of Staff and his dudes clap and laugh.

fuck yeah.

Really. I'm Okay.

2008-09-25T21:39:00.002-07:00

It took a couple weeks of forlorn sighs and brooding but I'm settled in now. My weekends are full of concerts, trips home, and longboarding with new friends, and my weekdays are filled with downloaded tv shows and writing articles for the Martlet.

The homework has kicked in and I've got my first essay: a 1000-1200 word Sociology paper that needs six academic sources. I'm a little lost on how to write this damn thing but I've got an appointment set up with the writing workshop in the library for Tuesday so hopefully that's enough time to put it together... For some reason I thought it wasn't due till the end of October but that seems a little unrealistic. We'll see how it goes. Other than the essay, I've only had some low-point grammar exercises in my writing class, a summarization assignment for english, a one page essay on Kant for philosophy, and some pop quizzes.

I still miss her, of course. It's easy to let the thoughts slip sometimes and focus on other things, but it's important to talk to her, and see her smile, and make sure she's okay. Even if it opens that pandora's box again. I talk to her in the morning and then I see her swimming in the pool, I see her longboarding past Petch Fountain, I see her three booths down in the library, and then I do a double take and see the space where she would have been. A week ago it turned the skies grey and made me sulk through dinner, and now it makes me smile and keeps her in my thoughts.

I've had a lot of good music to listen to lately; the Black Lungs (of which I now have both their album and a 7" with some bonus tracks), MF DOOM and his MM..FOOD and MM..LEFTOVERS albums, The Sword, Sleep's Dopesmoker, Dangers, Crystal Castles, etc. I've always been somewhat of a loner, I just had to get into the groove, and now that I'm used to it I'm back to my normal self, sneakers slapping the sidewalk with my Sonys on and my iPod shuffling. And I'm kind of glad to be that way - I don't feel lonely enough to feel left out of the KD social group here, and that's a positive thing. For the first while I realize I kept trying to inject myself into situations where I was tolerated but not really wanted, and kept doing it out of lonesome desperation despite clear signs of unease. A good friend gave me a tongue lashing and set me straight, and now that I'm comfortable with my place again, I feel alright about it.

Wallpapering this apartment is a pastime. I've got Ghandi, Jules from Pulp Fiction, and Dr. Gonzo watching over me. Some mysterious artist's thick-marker work is plastered next to my window, a treasure scavenged in Vancouver last weekend. Inserts from Limb from Limb and Earth 2 vinyls face my desk along with a painting Lauren did of a webcomic character. A few Achewood comics are posted up, along with Juno, Emily Haines, and two Cancer Bats posters, one signed, the other stolen from a lightpost downtown. A limited edition Johnny Truant poster. A printout of a Misfits poster, due to be taken to Kinko's and resized. A handbill from the Dangers/Gorlock show. An ancient Art Nlko poster I found somewhere. A collage of facebook photos of my Vancouver friends.

I think I'm progressing a little at bass. I really prefer full D tuning lately. More fun to write riffs around it, I find. I've just been sitting with it while watching my catalogue of West Wing episodes and figuring out Weedeater songs by ear. Kira May was a lot of fun.

Not quite sure what else to say, really. This has been another one of those autobiographical posts rather than one of the more artistic ones I prefer to put out, but I guess it shows what my life is like for the moment. If you live here in Victoria and have some free time, I have far too much of it - so keep me busy. My 250 phone number is on Facebook.

Back to President Bartlet.

Just Fine

2008-09-16T10:14:00.002-07:00

After lying down again, I was just drifting off when I realized I hadn't set my alarm. So I set it and passed out into blessed sleep.

Just woke up to golden sunshine with a smile on my face and Money For Nothing on the radio.

Doing just fine.

Insomnia

2008-09-16T04:49:00.002-07:00

This never happens to me.

It's 4:50 AM. I got out of bed about twenty minutes ago after thrashing around with a parched throat for what felt like hours. I was asleep until then; I'd passed out at a relatively reasonable hour of 1:30 when I was beginning to feel tired, knowing I had 8.5 hours of blessed rest before me. What the HELL?

This water tastes fetid over my fuzzy teeth and the blankets are clammy with sweat; my skin feels slimy. Suddenly, I'm no longer tired.

I only wake up in the middle of the night when I need to puke, and I feel fine. My head is spinning a little bit, filled with ideas or misplaced thoughts. Maybe it's cabin fever. After all, I've pretty much been in this room since dinnertime. You see my neighbours appear not to be the neighbourly sort, although that is more than likely due to my overall shyness, and my high school former running crew act strangely toward me - earlier this evening they knocked on my door and fled like impertinent children. They seem to either intentionally not inform me or are just ambivalent about my presence, requiring me to phone them constantly or something in order to figure out their evening plans, which definitely does not lend a sense of being wanted. Lauren's friends, while loads of fun and extremely pleasant, do not live on campus and so sadly I cannot just spend time with them as I would prefer to.

Sigh. The campus residence appears to be full of nothing but college jocks and Kanye West slotted-sunglass wearers awaiting any excuse to get liquored up and re-enact American Pie and every other down-home good ol' boy red blooded USA drunken hussy orgy. I feel like I ought to stride the halls in L.L. Bean shorts wielding an IBM Selectric and muttering to myself like Hunter S. Thompson at the Kentucky Derby. Steadman would have a field day sketching these animals, he would say. Filthy swine the lot of them. I'll strike out with a Dunhill smouldering in my cigarette holder and creep the halls at five in the morning, injecting a stalking pattern of footfalls into dreaming minds and twisting dreams into haunting reverie.

I'm going to try and get back to sleep, twenty minutes later. Will I even remember this tomorrow morning? Wouldn't that be a lark.

University

2008-09-10T15:11:00.002-07:00

She left for Germany today. Or is leaving at this point, probably sitting in the airport lounge waiting to board her flight.

It's been about a week and a half of living and "working" here. Adapting to the bus system (which is frustrating and tough to navigate), to the food (good, but a departure from my diet), to the campus and classes (easier than high school and yet harder), to doing my own laundry and keeping my own place neat (surprisingly easy), and dealing with so much free time. It's not a depression so much as a lack of purpose that makes me listless; no assignment for class so far has taken more than a few minutes, and no engagement has presented me with future hopes or challenges. I'm not much of a self-starter, although I'm surprised at my willingness to begin swimming again and watch my diet. Time will tell if I follow through with these. Time will tell if I'm being silly for complaining of a lack of effort.

Auroch is going ahead with a bunch of shows lined up. I hope I can keep in drum shape with one or two practices a month. Playing bass is really exciting and I wish there was some opportunity for me to mess around with it in a band setting. All these ideas for side projects we had in Vancouver and all. I would love to play bass to Seb's guitar at some point, but trying to coordinate traveling to Vancouver in the midst of my classes and life here is daunting and I've gained new appreciation for Lauren's efforts to visit me when I lived in Vancouver.

I'm kind of worried about next summer. In second term I should hopefully be able to apply for a Co-op program and pay for housing with that, but for this summer I have four months to raise more money than I've ever made in my life. I was looking into treeplanting today but I don't think I have anywhere near the fitness or willpower to get through a season of that. Lauren is hoping to move to Vancouver and I can't decide whether I would want to stay at home or not. I'd really rather stay here. Maybe I could pay rent to Patty and stay downtown. But then again, the band would want me back in the city, and at the place I am now, what would I do all summer besides work and stew in pointlessness?

I've leeched off of Lauren to find friends here but I honestly need some on campus and for one reason or another I haven't adapted to phoning people or eating in the same cycle as everyone else. My 11:30 classtimes are a blessing and a curse, I guess.

Signed up for some clubs at the fair in the quad today. The Martlet is kind of a suggestion-based paper, unlike Youthink, so we'll see if I have the entrepreneurship spirit to plan my own articles. The radio station sounds fun too; Zero Tolerance radio seems like a great gig. I avoided signing up for the Sailing club because it's 9am-12 noon on Saturday mornings and I worry it'll get cold, plus it's $70 to sign up. On the other hand I suspect I'll regret missing out on being on the water, living here; plus, the weather has been relentlessly sunny since I got here, and it's getting on in September. Just another one of those things I should probably have done. *sigh*

This post sucks. I guess sometimes I need somebody to talk to sometimes. So far I've been ignoring or pushing away negative feelings, like sadness about Lauren leaving, or a sense of bleakness about being lonely here, or being directionless, or doing well in my courses. At first I was nervous about establishing my routines, which was an eye-opener to how much I rely on regular patterns and the little bit of OCD anxiety that builds up when I am trying to hammer out my living conditions. But now that I have it all squared away, I have all this spare time and nothing to do in it.

I'm on hold with Rogers now, trying to change my number to a 250 area code. Feeling kind of sorry for myself. I'll go have dinner around six and then motivate myself to go for a swim, I guess. Maybe I'll watch Gladiator or read more of the Dharma Bums. Again though, they're just escapes, putting off the social problems I'll have to cope with eventually. I wish I had one other friend here, someone else who doesn't know anyone, who I could hang out with a lot without being the 'needy' one. I don't want to be a burden on people, I guess. The price I pay for being a journalist/photographer type, I observe, not interact.

As it goes with these I'll probably feel better tomorrow and roll my eyes at the drama of this post, just like how I tortured my parents with doom and gloom letters from summer camp.

Son of a bitch.

(Something Cliché About Summertime)

2008-07-14T14:39:00.004-07:00

There hasn't been much occasion for flowery language and languid metaphors in my life lately, I guess, which is why I haven't been writing so much - or at all for that matter. Since I graduated, I've been oscillating between working exhausting and overheated closing shifts at the pizza store and messing around on the weekends with my friends. Tusk has played and set up some excellent gigs lately, not to mention getting 50 EPs printed with my graphic design work, which I am very proud of.

Summer is usually like this, for me. It's like one big friday afternoon after a day at school when you have the whole weekend ahead of you but there's still class on the monday. I am looking forward to September so hard because of the courses I'm taking and new place I'll be living; the idea of packing up all my worldly belongings and moving out is so exciting that I almost wish summer would end already. It's the same strange sort of response I get from my friends that are already in various post-secondary schools; during the summer, they always seem almost blasé and resigned to their fate of relaxation for three months. I keep looking for things to do to keep myself busy and prevent myself from spending money that I should be saving, all the while putting off the things I say I'll do after I move and feeling kind of useless for not creating or actually working on anything in between Tusk practices or shows.

Dad keeps "helpfully" riding me about getting up before 2pm every day, but honestly, what would I do with that time? There's nothing I could do that early at home that I couldn't do at 3am when I go to sleep, and I would just get hungry. Either that or I would organize some expedition to 4th or broadway and find some excuse to blow another $100 on records or sneakers or what-have-you out of boredom impulse. Be a hero, you lethargy capitalist.

I scan back through this blog's archives periodically and discover so much teenage angsty crap, so much terrible writing that I am embarrassed to show, I just chuckle at myself. I like to think I've matured a little since then. I sure feel like it, I just hope other people think so too - especially in light of the disasters that some of my high school relationships have become. Maybe I give too much credence to the opinions of people I have fallen out with, but then, if you only listen to your nicest friends, where are you? I certainly wish people would give friendship a chance, or even just allow us to patch up the wounds we've inflicted on each other, and a lot of people I went to school with allowed me to do that. Hey, time heals, and what's the point of maintaining grudges with people you won't be living with anymore. I'm not a naturally cold person. But some people are just unwilling to address it and would rather keep up old hatred, and as much as I try to brush it off and move on, I can't escape the idea that there are people out there who truly loathe me for who I am, and I think it would be irresponsible to totally ignore that. I'm still maturing, and I think I probably will never stop growing in that respect, so I'll keep that bitter commentary in mind when I communicate with the people I know. That's the least I owe to the people I've offended, I think.

At the same time, as much as I'd like to be the good guy always and wish everyone would just get along, I just don't get along with some people - and others I would go so far as to say I cannot stand them. And that little part of every human's mind that delights in torching others, that part cackles maniacally and reminds me of their shortcomings every time I extend olive branches. And as much as I'd like to call hatred poison and as much as I worry myself about being the awful douchebag that I am sometimes purported to be, I occasionally take delight at being able to shut someone out of my life. And to be honest?

I think that's okay.

Rat's Eyes

2008-05-19T01:10:00.002-07:00

It's a lukewarm night, air like a stagnant haze settled over the night city. The skytrain above me shunts air and slides on oil-greased rails as I walk out of the lit terminal. It's a grim sight on this corner as the vagrants troll for loose change, flea bitten rags leaking rank unripeness and disgusting the Sean John sycophants, size XXL on a Youth Large torso, $5 aerosols combating the stench with engineered pheromones of perceived lust.

I see the world through
Rat's eyes
Burning
Rat's eyes
Sullen
Rat's eyes
Dirty
Rat's eyes

Two-slice-and-a-soda when my toonie loonie fistful tumble into the cash register, sweaty fist gripping the paycheque of a hobo, your rent money in a cardboard box. Grease pizza drips flavour like a faucet down my chin, stains the napkin impermeably; you imagine scrubbing at a paper napkin with your home cleaning product stain remover 2-in-1 action pack with soft scrub action (results may vary)

I wear rat's shoes
And my sneakered feet slap the ground in a steady rhythm
I pay rat's dues
The heat taxing my mind like a toll booth to keep walking
I make rat's moves
Slinking bent over in the shadows scratching at the scalp
I sing rat's blues
Singing out loud to ward off the urban bears I know are watching

I see the world through
Rat's eyes
Burning
Rat's eyes
Sullen
Rat's eyes
Dirty
Rat's eyes

Here's a bus stop devoid of people, pop cans piled on an overflowing wastebasket, bus transfers like discarded bills fluttering. The 99 rolls into existence announcing itself like an impatient hippo and leaving a suck of dead air in it's wake; one person to three seats and you move out of the personal space because I don't trust Mr. John Anderson. Massive polish brute squeezed into his tech job's uniform polo glares at me sullenly till his skinny flailing compatriot distracts him. Two native boys with crooked teeth and lanky limbs chat up a lonely curly haired brunette, receptive and willing. Badass boards the bus, dreadlocks a fly, tattoos ablaze, muscle walk like it's too hard to stroll with these pecs, ma'am

I want you to touch my filth
Bubblegum wrappers and the free daily litter the bus rear
I want you to feel my filth
The cloying sweat of everyone clings to your skin like an oily film
I want you to look into my eyes
A haunted look, gaunt, like I never sleep, a savage grin of malice
I want you to look through my eyes
And see what I see, see yourself, see your city

I see the world through
Rat's eyes
Burning
Rat's eyes
Sullen
Rat's eyes
Dirty
Rat's eyes

60 Grit

2008-02-27T10:47:00.002-08:00

My throat feels like sandpaper, this is my third roll of nose-blowing toilet paper, and I'm getting punched square in the face by a sinus headache every couple minutes. My sense of balance is all screwy and my lips are chapped; when I talk on the phone, it sounds like Marlin Brando. I'm reading essays by Hunter S. Thompson and reading wikipedia for fun facts about Lazarus Taxae and glypheoid lobsters. Do we really learn more from high school than we do on our own? I hesitate to answer that one.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time walking around and noticing things that kind of inspire me, but don't really give me enough material to justify writing. Vancouver is a pretty nice place, just in general.

I feel like everything is temporary - like graduation and the end of high school is so near. I'm operating on that principle and kind of coasting through work and everything, getting everything done fine, and doing it well, but not dwelling on it, not throwing up my hands and realizing it's a long time still. I don't know if it's a good thing or not.

When I cough, it sounds like wet newspaper.

Lazy Sunday

2008-02-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

I slumped around the house this afternoon feeling mostly useless. Band practice is sometimes the high point of my week, but everyone just sat around while we recorded guitar, bass and vocal tracks. I played the host and tried to keep everyone entertained and fed.

Everyone's gone home now; dad's at his band practice, mom's grocery shopping or something, who knows where Elia is... All the lights in the house are off, and the sun is slowly setting at it's accustomed winter time of 5:30 or so. The credits of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor are scrolling across the tv screen, and I keep pressing on the remote to repeat this chapter. I don't know what this song is, but the quiet toned dynamics of this jazz drummer and his little ensemble are stretching out my mood, keeping my mind empty and clear.

Each piano key is like a drop of water falling into a pool, the ripples expanding perfectly and rebounding lightly off the inside of my skull. I move my head slowly to prevent it from sloshing around. Inside my mind is a peaceful place right now; it's like a warm rock grotto, the steam rising from the placid water condensing on the wide window that faces out to this grey sky.

I've got an essay to write, and even though there's no school tomorrow, I think of it with a sense of forboding. I'm lightly pushing the feeling away with my fingertips hitting this keyboard and wishing I had a vacation to go on.

Hello, everybody. Welcome. Let's sit in a heap on the floor together and fall asleep listening to 65daysofstatic; that's all I want to do today. It's an Emily Haines evening as I Kate Bush here on vinyl. I wish, right now, instead of a sweater, I had four comfortable friends.

98 B-Line

2008-01-26T02:07:00.000-08:00

I've spend a lot of late nights out in Richmond lately. I always end up catching that 1:09am 98 B-Line back home. It's empty.

I like to sit in the rear section right after the accordion so I can watch it stretch and squish when the bus takes corners hard. I stretch out on a bunch of chairs and zone out to the Beatles or Crash Test Dummies or whatever happens to be playing on my iPod.

I walk home from Granville St. and sometimes I sing out loud. I wonder if the sleeping people in the houses next to me actually hear me or if they're used to tuning stuff out because of King Ed being next to them. I had this sort of vision, like, all the houses behind me lighting up as I walked by, like that Mars bar commercial.

I'm having less profound moments lately. Life's hectic and I don't have so much time to appreciate everything - I'm too busy doing it. I don't know if that's good or not, really. I feel like I'm getting more realistic and less "head in the clouds", but on the other hand it's kind of like I'm losing something.

Losing the magic.

I Have A Confession To Make.

2007-12-28T04:59:00.001-08:00

It is 4:59 AM on a Friday morning, December 28th, 2007. I have just watched Season 3 of the american version of the The Office in it's full entirety.

Julia and Zoe, and anyone else that I might have told that I couldn't understand how people liked sitcoms, well, turns out I'm wrong.

Every five minutes over the last several hours I have spent watching this show has been filled with Dwight's paranoiac gullibility, Ryan's youthful womanizing, Michael's unintentional sadism, and finally Jim's quiet and adorable love for Pam. I finished the last episode seconds ago. He confessed. They kissed each other. End of season.

I feel like I should be holding a tub of ice cream and and crying my eyes out or something. God, this is embarrassing. I love this show. Screw cigarettes, NBC should be screened for nicotine.

Christ.

Things To Love About The Winter Season.

2007-12-10T00:41:00.000-08:00

1. Frosty little cups of eggnog in the quiet dark house before padding upstairs to bed.
2. Crisp evening walks to starbucks/video store/choices market.
3. The crunching sound the grass makes.
4. How normal boring people are suddenly in the "christmas spirit".
5. Turning off all the lights and watching the snowflakes fall under a street lamp outside.
6. Cheesy but heartwarming christmas tv special classics that you act like you don't like but really do.
7. Christmas/Hanukkiah lights standing out against the dark world in bright and merry colours.
8. Wearing toques.
9. Seeing your breath and pretending to be a train when you think nobody is looking.
10. The numb toe dance.
11. The numb finger air keytar solo.
12. Turning on the radio and never finding sad music; those carols you say you hate but you really love.
13. How cold air tastes.
14. Feeling coffee heat up your insides.
15. Heaping blankets on the bed until you're toasty.
16. Curling up in front of fireplaces.
17. Breaking the ice on the pond.
18. Shortbread.
19. How making it somewhere at all is something to brag about (much less on time).
20. Hugs.

Waka Nusa

2007-11-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Winter; it's brutally cold outside.

Bike in the garage, bags in the corner, I empty my pockets into the basket and trudge upstairs. The cloth of my uniform is suddenly chafing and painful before I shrug it off and cast it into the hamper. Jeans on, t-shirt on, hoodie on, I take a moment to savour a Chinese bun from a shop on the way home. I lie down on the bed and lay the record player's needle down in the groove that preludes Kinski's Waka Nusa.

It's not like it's hard to play. One double-tracked acoustic guitar and some nature sounds. It doesn't ever escape the same rough note pattern. But there's something ethereal about the quiet acoustic swells that's calming and centering. Sub Pop knew what they were doing when they signed this band.

Everything Kinski writes is communicative in a way that is so non-verbal that it is hard for many people to relate to. I might consider myself a writer and a lover of the english language, but I am not a linguistic person. Other languages do not come naturally to me, like they do to some. I struggle to tense verbs and wield alien grammar. But I find it easy to understand what Kinski means when they speak through instrumental music. Waka Nusa is a lullabye, a good night on the end of the record, the denoument of the album, a pat on the head from a bunch of well-meaning seattle musicians. It is the sound of my Western Zen Temple, illustrating serenity from a plate of fragile vinyl.

Good night.

Starbucks Run

2007-10-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's surprising how comfortable the new headphones are.

Every year I buy the same pair of $24.99 Sony behind-the-ear headphones. The fabric earpieces wear and it's a ridiculous escapade to replace them. There are little plastic ear mounts on the band that hook onto the back of your ears, and I always lose those too. But these ones are fresh and unworn, the 1/8" minijack cable still remembering it's prepackaged fold pattern.

It's student council's attempt at twin day, so none of us are wearing uniforms. It's not exactly a rarity for the administration here at my school to screw up a course block. My second-last period class was conspicuously missing a teacher, so we played catch with an overly-hard hacky sack until someone busted a ceiling panel. After ten minutes or so we decided there wasn't going to be a teacher and evacuated the classroom.

Everyone decided to bail in various directions. The rain outside was oppressive, heaven's tears condensing onto the windows of the school, and innards felt cold, the cement confines of my school no longer comforting. I left a note for the predictably late emergency sub and signed out at the office, like I was supposed to.

Over the last few days I've rediscovered Hounds of Love, a 1985 record by Kate Bush that my dad has kept for many years. I am unapologetic about how much of my feminine side has been awoken by this album. I find it a very personal and quiet work, for listening to on my own when I'm in my own little world. She is singing of memory and moments over a dark and lilting Irish jig as I step outside into the drenching rain.

Despite feeling the droplets smashing themselves on my shoulders I am powerfully isolated by the hood of my sweater and the singular soundscape of my ipod. Nobody is out in this downpour except for the people in their cars, isolated in their own fashion by their metal cocoons. Lost in my own head, I realize I've just stepped into a three-inch puddle, soaking my Vans in murky rainwater.

The carpeted unter-lobby of The Bay tenders an opportunity to shake out my hair and squeeze the water out of my shoes. My sneakers squeek on the tiled floor of the store itself as I pace through the aisles of hosiery and little boy's pajamas, 3 and under (fire resistant).

The food court's starbucks is sort of a designer island adrift in the food court's overly bright signage and branding. The coffee franchise may be standardized and prepackaged but at least it makes an effort to be tasteful. A cross section of the upper-middle-class is huddled around the pickup counter waiting for their lattes. My pumpkin spice is finished quickly and I elope with a cup sleeve and grande lid from the side table.

I walk back to school, sipping through the whipped cream. Upon return the lobby now looks inviting, the cold of outside offset by the warm coffee heating my insides. I sign back in and slide into the library for a half hour until the improvised and unintentional study block ends.

Sometimes serendipity grants us a reprieve from our routines. Spend some time in your own head.

Rituals

2007-10-10T21:34:00.001-07:00

I came to a realization today; all the things I love most about life are essentially rituals. All my movie moments and special slices of time are immortalized because I recognize significance. I may not neccessarily repeat them, but they are enacted in a slow, deliberate fashion.

There is no gravity - the planet sucks. Or at least, that's how I felt today. But it was dark at 7:30 so I decided to venture out in the cold autumn evening. My old snow jacket was comforting and warm as I struck out into the night with my bag on my shoulder, fresh razor burn like peppermint on my cheeks. The night felt like a cloak as I paced down the half-lit sidewalks to Cambie street. Contemplative music flowing, I had my first ritual.

Enter Black Dog Video. Every time I come here, it smells the same, a comforting humidity, the small two-room store always a comfortable warmth. Like every time, I methodically scan the new release shelves, searching for gems. Dare you to try that at blockbusters. Once in a while I will pick up a dvd case and scan the back for a summary. Glance, grasp, peruse, replace, until I find something worth the $5 that's burning a hole in my wallet. Ritual two.

Crossing the boardwalk that spans the trench of the RAV line. It's all cheap plywood and orange spray paint, rebar guard rails appearing frail beside the depths of the pit below. This street halfway resembles a warzone, an army checkpoint, the traffic pattern integrity all fucked in the name of economic efficiency.

Kestrel Books is the domain of an aging cat, who presides over the well-worn paperbacks with the air of a distanced royalty. Secondhand bookstores are a ritual too. I always feel compelled to walk very slowly, to open each book with care and breathe in the scent of turned pages as I imagine the thousands of hands that have caressed the letter-filled pages. My science fiction-section search turned up dry, and I nodded a smile at the clerk as I left. Number 3.

Walking to the corner of Cambie and 19th, the Park Theatre's alcove shone light onto the sidewalk. As I passed the Thai bakery and Indonesian Satai cafe I smelled the cool night air, tinged with the gritty concrete taste and ozone tang of the construction workers' generators. I feel like a journalist for some reason; the weight of a portable typewriter sits, a ghost, in the crook of my arm and an imaginary smouldering cigarette droops from the corner of my mouth.

Starbucks plays the wrong kind of jazz for my mood, which is more a Zero 7/Kyuss state of mind. I order something with the words "pumpkin spice" and "latte" in it and sit in the corner on a high stool. My jacket goes on the back of the chair, coffee near right hand, book out of the bag, iPod on the table. I dive into the world of William Gibson.

Hours pass. I went home.

I've started listening to records; I like to brew tea; I like walking in the rain. The digital age was supposed to save us time, so what are we doing with it? Slow time is not dead time, and there's no better use for your life.

Alone Time

2007-10-04T14:57:00.000-07:00

Things accomplished today:
-Chai Tea Latte
-Unintentional Marine Corps haircut
-Boondocks DVDs returned
-Master and Commander + Dead Poets Society rented
-Japanese food consumed while:
-Several Cryptonomicon chapters perused
-Milk and Pumpkin Pie procured
I get stuff done.

I spent a lot of time on my own, last couple of weeks. I walked home from the Hats Off show on Main and 3rd, cruising through the stale industial zone with hip hop pulsing in my earphones. A Saturday was spent wandering around North Van and downtown Vancouver in the rain. Today I had to wake up early in the diem which was quickly utterly carpe'd.

downhill [a poem]

2007-09-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

what's happening again?
right, i'm falling.
down there is the ground. i imagine i'll get there eventually.

what about the things i should have done?
the things i should have said
places i should have gone
people i should have spoken to?
my responsibilities are sloughing off like dead skin
and i wonder if i ever cared about them in the first place.

still falling.
i can only see the brown colour of the ground i am racing toward
it is silent except for the rushing wind
and i feel as if i am gliding
rather than crashing down.

the things i missed out on
do i resign my loss to fate?
did i ever have them
or were they products of my fertile imagination
suggesting schemes and scenarios to my psyche
the career i would work for
the house i would earn
the children i would raise
the wife i would love.

the ground is closer now.
scale becomes apparent as the ant people in the canyon look up at my shape
plummeting through the hot, dry air.

did i contribute?
what good have i done for the world
have i ever been anything other than a self-serving, craven animal?
will my soul suffer when my earthly form becomes one with the dusty earth?
will there be any trace of me left after my body becomes a corpse?
i wish i had thought about these things before it became truly necessary to know.
i'd have a plan or an understanding
at least a concept of what will happen to me.
i feel lost and ignorant.

i guess it'll end soon.
i only see blank faces below me
but i imagine their expressions of shock
i wonder if they realize that i am a person too.
here it comes.

darkness.

dinner party [a poem]

2007-09-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

porcelain
fragile settings for a two faced event
silverware flashes by white china
dark agendas hidden by steely gazes

false charm
manufactured civility
the humanity here is preprocessed

eyes filled with acid flicker across the place settings
a double take of recognition
quickly the look withdrawn

what evil lurks beneath this preprocessed grace and elegance
for we all know it is merely a facade
lying under what we claim to be genuine

they display a visage of health, in fear
that the secret schemes of the species
will crack through the mask
and expose all of our gangrene intentions.

Cheese Fries Taste Better At 3 AM

2007-07-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

This morning/last night I left the house at 2:30 and went for a bike ride on the spur of the moment. Found some bike lights, clamped them on, put on my headphones and explored the empty streets.

There's something magical about the empty city at night. Everything is lit, but nothing is open. The only movement and signs of life come from roaming taxi drivers and the smoke breaks of gas station attendants.

I rode in wide circles in the centre of Granville, sped down the hill on Broadway in Kerrisdale, and waved at the rare traffic. I sang along to my iPod.

This is something everyone should experience. A set of good lights, a nice bike, and some practice staying up super late (or really early) let you see the city at a time few people ever do.

Just waiting for it's people to return.

solace reached

2007-07-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

i'm sitting in the early evening sunlight listening to the quiet grooves of the Pixies album that my lovely lady lent me (enough alliteration for you?), and this is so swell. i woke up today in a daze, feeling scummy and slow, but i got home, had a shower, changed clothes, and felt human again. i have started reading The Five People You Meet When You Die, and I think, this is the perfect headspace to read this book. It discusses death and the lessons you learn from it, and today feels like a very peaceful summer day to digest that sort of thing.

my family likes to go on vacation during the stressful work/school weeks, but i always feel less inclined to do it around that time. but today, now, i would feel very happy to go to galiano or whistler or go camping with them, to sit in a hammock on the beach and read, to cook marshmallows with my little brother. lifting the pressure of school has softened me and left me more accepting and caring and craving even more solace. So much in this house reminds me of school because here is where i am constantly going to hide out from the day-to-day, and now i want to travel to a place where i can hide out from hiding out.

i feel like i snapped at my mom a lot yesterday, and for all i talk about feeling compassionate it is nothing if i don't act on it. i will apologize to her today. she works too hard to deserve my bullshit all the time. i think leah has softened my heart in more ways than one and i suddenly need to apologize to people and thank them for what they do every day.

thank you.

doing good

2007-06-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

today at flying wedge, a man came up with a menu and gestured to the pepperoni classic, then he very quietly said "medium". i rang him through and while he was using the debit machine it stopped working for a minute. i get to get the manager to fix it and meanwhile he was wildly gesturing that it didn't work in frustration, but was totally silent otherwise. she got it to work and i gave him a thumbs up and gave the receipt to him.

i figured he was deaf.

i realized i hadn't told him how long to wait, so i wrote a note that said 20 minutes and showed him and he gave a nod and went to sit outside.

hopefully i helped him out without being condescending.

we so often forget how insulting it is sometimes to be treated differently. people with disabilities want to be treated like everyone else.

something to ponder.

ikea

2007-06-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

as a kid, my family and i always used to go to ikea to stock our east-side residential casa with sleek and cheap eurofurniture. my pervading memory is the sense of hope and... ripeness in the preset and easily adaptable room settings; filled with the promise of a new home, a family, kids running around the hardwood floors in socks, assembling drive screws into finished 2x4s with allen keys, lying on your "anes" queen bed between "billy" bookshelves under "inlopp" cabinet lighting, the simplicity and openness of the Scandinavian aesthetic promoting the travels of your thoughts.

i want to build a new life with her, our floor-tile-counting ocd minds laying out the perfect location for each piece of swedish perfection, windows looking out over a peaceful foggy city, simplicity and beauty in the completion of our transition to maturity and final arrival of everything to a place of perfection.

it's only my second decade, but i want to spend the rest of them with her already.

<3

Radioactive

2007-05-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

What is so morbidly intriguing about nuclear crises such as Chernobyl? They've never actually caused huge crises (except for the atomic bombings in Japan), and the loss of life pales in comparison to genocides and other terrible events. So it is not merely an appeal to every human being's morbid curiosity. There is something unknown, enigmatic, darkly mysterious and lurking about nuclear accidents. The eerie lack of destruction, the invisible presence of deadly, untouchable forces. The terrifying visages of gas masks, dehumanized, horrific radiation burns, slow, painful deaths from gamma bombardment. The lasting touch of radiation, cursing the land and it's products, for decades or longer. A legacy of lethality. Returning to the point of the accident after so long, there is still a lingering fear. Abandoned homes and buildings. Haunting silence. Grey clouds stand over empty streets and a crushing sorrow in everywhere. Here, a deep cut has been dealt to the earth, leaving it scarred and unlivable for ages. You feel it, clawing, quietly crawling beneath your skin, in your head, telling you to get out. Get out. Leave. Never return.

Mellow

2007-05-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

My weekend: i posted this on my friend's facebook wall and it sums it up so well.

I was in Hope "More like NO hope!" BC for a synagogue retreat, sleeping in a tent with other stinky men, not showering, sleeping in the same clothes I wore all day, eating fake meat chicken tenders with a bunch of aging hippies in a cheapo christian retreat "resort" in the middle of fuck all nowhere, without wireless high-speed DSL.

i make it sound worse than it really was, though. i got to sleep in a tent with my buddy Ira who i don't see much. we listened to loud music late at night and watched movies.

i helped run this little film contest thing for the bar mitzvah-age kids, which was fun. some of the kids were really cool. and they told me they thought their group got the best mentor. yeah. nothing like younger people's admiration to boost your ego. the sweetest thing was this little girl nadia lost her mom and ask me to help look for her, and she didn't want to stay with anyone else until she found her. she only trusted me. and then once i reunited her with her mom, my dad came and told me that big gentle people are very reassuring to little kids and told me he was really proud, and i felt happy for the whole day.

i'm sitting in my cousin's house, watching his and his wife's cats for them, with a warm kitty in my lap, trying to put the experience i had this evening into words properly:

after spending a weekend surrounded by people, yet in isolation from the world, i found that in the city i could be more anonymous than in nature. i left the house and walked to flying wedge, ate dinner outside, wandered down the wrecked construction site that is cambie, browsed in Black Dog video, decided to go to starbucks. i ended up stopping in at Kestrel Books, a cambie street institution, and browsed the used books. the store had been closed for about a year due to a debilitating fire, and had only recently returned to it's quiet ambiance, the regal cat occupying one of the easy chairs, quiet music, the not-yet annoying dusty smell of well-read novella, and oddball assortment of books. i picked an old battered copy of a William Gibson novel i haven't read yet, and last month's adbusters, and wandered down to starbucks (which of course was closed by this point.). i retreated, walked back down cambie to blenz, and got some interesting sounding coffee beverage with caramel in it.

i sat outside in the cooling evening and watched the sunset fall on the cafe kitty-corner to mine. it was breathtaking and i wish i'd had a camera to take a picture. there's so much hidden beauty here. everywhere. i sipped my coffee concoction and read adbusters, comfortable in my jeans and old, worn, comfortable hoodie, surrounded by endless time and the free emptiness of the open air around me, few people wandering by on the sidewalk, a car or two cruising by, all construction stopped, time passing sedately at a pace i felt comfortable.

i will go back tomorrow night, if it doesn't rain. anyone who reads this is cordially invited. call me.

what i'm listening to: Sick Friend by Aesop Rock
procrastinating on: overdue spanish term project

EDIT: I forgot some things.

I fell off my bike on Monday and had a bit of a rough accident, badly scraping up my arm and putting my iPod and bike out of commission for at least a week or two. So naturally I am forced to walk places that are near without having something to listen to. It's so easy to forget the sounds that are incumbent around you without headphones on, and how amazing it feels to ride a cruiser bike with no helmet down quiet streets in a cool breeze. I was laughing the whole way to my cousin's house with a huge zen-like grin on my face. You miss a lot because of technology.

Amnesia

2007-04-06T03:33:00.001-07:00

I'm watching Batman. Bruce Wayne got hit in the head and kidnapped to a work camp where he forgot who he was.

I'm here thinking, if I suddenly lost my identity and had to find my way back to myself, would I be the same? What would I learn about myself by reexamining who I am?

I invent loneliness within myself when I stay up late and haunt facebook like stalker philosopher, leaving comments that hopefully make people laugh and think. Who is like me?

In a world where we fight to be individuals so much that being independent and non-conformist has become mainstream, we still search for people like us except in gender, the piece of humanity that fits what is missing within us. In future a teenager may hope to meet someone who will fit that spot enough that the glue of romance and attraction may smooth the rough edges of that connection, however, in the meantime we frantically search for a fragment of mirror that can reflect ourselves back with at least a semblance of care and touch.

I feel as if I am in a room filled with the pieces of shattered mirrors, searching endlessly to find the one that will finish my mind's endless, hormone-slanted puzzle. I kneel on the floor to examine the pieces, to search the images for the one that reflects back, but I am surrounded by too many responding pieces. They all connect deeply, any of them could slot neatly into the shifting jigsaw, but their edges are indistinct like so many dividing amoebae, constantly changing so that none could fill the need. For we are all merely unfinished marble statues, waiting for the sculptor of experience and growth to finish us with his chisel of understanding and hammer of self-discovery.

I stand in frustration and realize that all around me are thousands of other rooms, filled with young teenagers trying to fill their puzzles - but so many have found pieces, perhaps roughly edged, but fitting, that help complete their mind. While I am happy for them, having helped search for those pieces as friends do for their friends, their happiness subliminally mocks me in my drive to find my own missing piece. The reflections and possible matches dance tauntingly in front of my vision, saying, I could be the one that would finish you, if only I needed your puzzle piece too. In an ocean of water with none of it to drink, my fraying mind gasps for air among the crashing waves of loneliness and derision. Oh for a life preserver.

Why only when I disguise my emotions with eloquence do they become true? Is not saying, I am lonely and am treated as just-a-friend by those who truly appreciate me, mean the same thing? Somehow in simplification the point is lost, as in complification - my intention is nebulous, portraying first an emotional poet, and then a pitiful wreck. If your electrons flow on the same diameter wave as mine then come forward and beat back my obfuscated whining with a witty repartee. Perhaps you shall be the one to be cherished as a counterpart, completing the yin and yang cycle.

Blah blah blah, I should play guitar, dye my hair and become emo. Is that worse than being stuck between average and intellectual? How does a Solomon dress? How am I classified? Please, cultural undercurrent, my deep desire is to be classified like a genre. How else shall I know how to live my life, much less fix my profile on facebook.

Today, it feels like summer.

2007-03-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on the back porch of my house. The sun is out, and inside, the house is sweltering. The cool breeze caresses my skin and sways the leaves on the tree that towers above me.

I just rode my bike home from school in the warm sun and it feels like summer. On my bike it was as if only the weight of my math textbook was keeping me from pedaling into the sky like the little boy in E.T.

As I watch tiny bugs scurry across the wooden stairs of the back porch I hum Alexisonfire and listen to the murmur of nature welcoming summer into my quiet neighbourhood.

Welcome back, they're saying. Welcome back. We missed you.

Victoria

2007-03-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

Some special moments from my two-day trip to the land of the proverbial newly wed and nearly dead.

-About 30 kids sitting at a bus stop, totally bored. When I walked by, one of them put up a sign that said: "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!" and they all looked at me. I figured, what the hell? Clapped my hands. They all applauded and cheered. What a happy bunch. They must've been art students.

-Sitting in the home of my parent's friends, petting their shaggy, goofy dog until it lay down and fell asleep. All the while in my head all I could think of was Dallas Green's "Hello, I'm in Delaware".

-Meeting a stoner-type from white rock on the ferry. He was eating chocolate cake and we nodded to each other, then he walked over and said hi and we spent the rest of the trip discussing media propaganda, whether global warming was real, and how the world's resources are unfairly distributed. Interesting time.

The world's full of interesting and special moments if you can find 'em.

Thought Dumping

2007-03-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

I read a book a long time ago called Microserfs in which the main character occasionally dumps the contents of his brain into his computer. You end up with these pages in the book that have random, seemingly unconnected words or phrases that litter the page in different fonts and sizes. I really enjoyed reading them and looking at his thoughts, so I'm going to continue doing them sometimes.

sometimes i see myself as an asshole.
i'll occasionally grab a bit of self-awareness and realize some of the things i do and say every day and just because i almost never see effects doesnt mean there arent any
it seems horrible the way that i treat others and if i was someone else watching myself (which i think about frequently) then oh god would i hate myself?
perhaps i am nothing more than a hypocrite
are we not all oxymoronic in our frantic quests to institute rules that will prevent us from devolving and following our baser courses?
"if only i had more willpower" is a frequent cry of those who live in our world
more than ever before, we have more resources than willpower to control our urge for consumption
there are only two possible courses for humanity to follow in my mind, either we continue with our consumption and new forms of creation until limitless supply of anything is neccesary, thereby creating a colossal cultural change in humanity as a whole
what if you could replicate food like on star trek? poverty/starvation solved
otherwise we will develop massive willpower and transcend our weak-willed current minds
homo sapiens voluntas, as in:
the power to control ourselves
somehow i doubt it
nobody is motivated enough
i would not be suprised at the supression of a way to supply goods cheaply to all
after all, can you profit with no demand?
the human condition is so depressing
i am a nihilist today.

Poettree

2007-02-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

so the things i leave behind sit here in an attic waiting for someone to touch them with a magic spark in which case beautiful things will result from this intermission please return to your seats in english class sometimes they talk calling it a train of thought but its less like a train and more like a river lake flowing into the ocean where all the fish live harmoniously there is an instrument called a harmonium in napoleon dynamite he walks in a brown suit while it plays a song by the penguin cafe orchestra and i remember it from my childhood like i remember the beatles and sting and deep purple. i watch my friends fight with their parents and realize what/how much i take for granted do we deserve the earth? because thoughts linger and when i thought of that (see its a process) i thought of "thoughts vault, songs have been written" which is lyrics from Aesop Rock and thats the first time i used real capitals so i will stop now because the paradigm must keep itself secure in the knowledge that it is foreverlasting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is like you are locked behind a wall in which there are many keyholes and strewn around me are pathways which i may or may not be sure they lead to mystical places all of which contain keys.
how am i to know these things that lead me to the correct node structure of keyfinding in order to unlock your neural pathways and give me total root user access to your emotions and knowledge?
it is a guess and test question in which i will keep trying integers until one source finally fits and hopefully i can correlate it with other possible paths in order to build essential parts of my psyche!
however my chances are not endless i must select carefully lest you become nervous and bail out like a pilot when i am only 10 feet above the cold ground of loneliness like so many other have.
my trust in you should no longer be a gamble and when i say you i mean all those who have taken my heart and soul and perhaps unwittingly toyed with it like a cat with a ball of pastabrittle yarn.
i wish that sometimes i could pick better when to let the metaphysical cats play with my fragile yarn ball so i can minimize self-esteem damaging backtrack clauses within my headspace!
everyday someone new it seems comes along with the ablility to comprehend my quirks or maybe just the possiblity of that existence but i search for you anyway and risk my mind and soul on you...
eventually i worry that the number of possible integers will spiral out of control as if dividing by zero on a calculator with hope installed and the limit to possible decimals removed in the same of science!
the more that my subconcious sprouts forth repressed knowledge i have been poring over i seem to gain insight into my steller underbody and my writing i hope now resembles nonchalant nonsense
some people can create words with just the flow that spawns from the abcesses of their minds and i disgust myself on occasion with the corrupted fruit that my mental tree has the power to bear
WILL SOMEONE GIVE ME THE FUCKING ACCESS CODE SO I DON'T STUMBLE IN THE ENDLESS DARK FOR LONGER THAN LONG?

life can be complicated but things that aren't challenging arent worth doing anyway therefore (three dot sign) if my life was too easy i would be more inclined to do bad things to it.

More RFR Yay

2006-12-09T02:05:00.000-08:00

I think the reason I like a kid's tv show over shows aimed at my age group (like The O.C.) is the depth of the characters in the things they do. Robbie is a thinker, a rebel who really wants to make his voice heard, but on the flipside can get kind of arrogant sometimes (like me! :p) Lily is the kind of tomboy I always had a crush on in elementary school because they did all these cool things I couldn't do, like play guitar and beat guys in sports and not be nerdy. Ray... I guess his redeeming quality is his humour, which I definitely value, although his awkwardness and sheer lack of tact can be really hurting. Then Travis is a total intellectual who's traveled the world and experienced tons of things, plus he has hella skills with the RFR equipment - his downside is that he can be really shy and awkward sometimes.

All of the characters have qualities that I see in myself or that I admire, and the characters in a lot of the shows today just don't do that for me - I can't admire some O.C. kid's skills at tennis that were paid for by his rich parents, or the models in ANTM and their insane perfectionism and emotional instability. I just can't relate to that type of person - they don't have any depth or character traits besides those that advance the storyline to hint at lesbianism or to ruin a character's life for dramatic effect. But Lily's skills at guitar, learned from some dirty hippie guy, and Travis' worldy knowledge gained from travels all over the world, Robbie's deep thought, and Ray's goofy sense of humour are all things that I value and think are really cool.

I also love the idea of a radio show and being able to express myself on the air and actually have people listen to me. I can't afford a broadcast license but this blog is kind of a manifestation of my wish to get myself and my opinions heard, even if it's just a review of the new batman movie. Who cares? I didn't say you had to read it.

There's also one thing about RFR that makes it different, which is that it doesn't mess around with dramatic multi-episode plotlines that include Air Force One crashing into Yosemite Park. I finish every episode with a smile on my face, not an anxious disapponted face that can't wait for the next episode. TV is supposed to be fun and have a happy ending, for chrissakes. Get rid of all the goddamn drama. Why would I watch a movie that makes me feel bad afterwards?

Sometimes, I wish that
Everyone would just see the
Damn light already

Googlism

2006-10-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

What google thinks.

sol is ready to face
sol is
sol is not going anywhere
sol is back
sol is one of the most
sol is all its made out to be
sol is of interest because of the
sol is a great beach and diving vacation rental on the
sol is syntactically ``more
sol is high
sol is an affordable oasis
sol is a collection of challenging
sol is colloidally unstable the formation of
sol is 100% wow
sol is ready to face the flak by martin lipton in the end it did not come down to money
sol is sidelined by ian ladyman sven goran eriksson last night learned that sol campbell is likely to miss england's
sol is styling by rhinobyte
sol is one of the most difficult books in history of western philosophy
sol is all its made out to be – plenty of fly in accommodation with huge high rise buildings on the beach and lovely long white beaches
sol is a great beach and diving vacation rental on the pacific coast
sol is syntactically ``more expressive'' than fol
sol is either >unsound or
sol is subjectivity
sol is vice president technology at ericsson telecommunicatie bv
sol is a new internet programming language designed as an elegant alternative to java
sol is a project in the vision and modeling group at the mit media laboratory
sol is simply los angeles spelled backwards
sol is a the #1 spanish
sol is located just 20 miles from sacramento
sol is to assist in spreading esoteric knowledge in an ethical manner to all who want to receive it
sol is a collection of challenging and addictive solitaire games with an easy
sol is a new software product from instar that provides accelerated access to files stored on cd
sol is ideal for cd
sol is one of the world's outstanding ecological developments which has become a benchmark in costa rica for a new kind of life quality in
sol is the most unique gaming complex in arizona with remarkable architecture fashioned
sol is a oceanfront community that offers exclusivity
sol is informal
sol is also the national contact and information centre for the leonardo programme
sol is colloidally unstable the formation of aggregates is called coagu
sol is a cheerful explosion of the west coast spirit
sol is 100 ft
sol is beautifully decorated with furniture and handicrafts personally selected from all over
sol is born
sol is not for everybody
sol is designed for continuous learning from operating experiences
sol is linux as it should be
sol is a taste of the best that africa can be
sol is the heart of the city
sol is a 75 unit ocean front condominium located in mazatlan
sol is the place to stay
sol is a 2 star hotel located in the marina district/ lombard street area
sol is back in brownwood charged with tax fraud counts
sol is a great giant of a man
sol is for the spanish teacher
sol is capable of solving each of these odor problems
sol is a family
sol is from argentina
sol is the most technically advanced water
sol is an interfaith center to assist individuals in the exploration and development of a greater sense of spirituality
sol is exactly that
sol is the most flexible rpg designed to date
sol is a biweekly program on chicano/latino issues
sol is what makes it so unique and why we are proud to open the doors and our hearts to the public
sol is another word for the sun
sol is a contemporary forum for essays that reflect some of the historical principles of stoicism in relation to a new cosmology and new spiritual
sol is on spain's southern coast and
sol is at a bar
sol is a luxurious condominium
sol is at the very south of spain
sol is a group exhibition of conceptual art now
sol is located in the heart of the picturesque marina district just off lombard street
sol is designed to be financially self
sol is a trip back in time to the desert southwest of arizona and new mexico
sol is the first oil obtained in each campaign
sol is a collection of 70 solitaire game variations
sol is an unprecedented cooperative partnership formed to promote the rich cultural diversity of san diego
sol is to
sol is a one
sol is in dolphins so is odins dolphins do hip hops on dolphin hinds dolphin do dips dolphins dip dolphins hid dolphin nips dolphin
sol is constantly looking for creative
sol is goal # 6
sol is the best value in quito
sol is a moderate hotel located in exciting san francisco
sol is another jack nicklaus signature course
sol is taught
sol is a well
sol is the most versatile 2" printer available
sol is a wonderful place to spend time to relax
sol is pleased to contribute 1% of all sales to the village banking project through coffee kids
sol is the most versatile 2 and 4 printer family available
sol is a global learning community dedicated to building knowledge regarding fundamental institutional change

solomon is made king
solomon is bird stamps
solomon islands home page
solomon is weapons amnesty ends today
solomon is dive specials
solomon is recipient
solomon is louisiade archipelago
solomon is the sexiest woman alive
solomon is here
solomon islands situation during
solomon is lost on the nation's highest court
solomon islands map & stats
solomon is made king 1 kings 1
solomon islands village stays
solomon islands pearl of the pacific
solomon islands real estate and property tracts and commodities
solomon is senior scientist
solomon is named director
solomon is
solomon is recipient of common wealth award
solomon is in
solomon is louisiade archipelago bismarck archipelago
solomon is outstanding employee
solomon is a racist
solomon is the wisest man
solomon is extraordinary by patsyterrell
solomon is just
solomon is and south pacific
solomon is lost on nation’s highest court
solomon islands
solomon islands information includes anthems
solomon is an
solomon is international long distance phone rate comparison top 10 plans
solomon is believed to be derived from the hebrew word for peace
solomon is currently expecting diamond drill assays
solomon is serving her second term as state democratic senator from district 14
solomon is one of these innovators
solomon is a vocal
solomon is born to michael solomon and kate levy solomon
solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics
solomon is having none of it
solomon is installed
solomon is a windows based business simulation designed to develop basic financial skills in players with limited previous experience
solomon is the co
solomon is;
solomon is pacific
solomon is a journalist whose accuracy and courage in revealing the media bias "behind the news" informs and inspires audiences around the country
solomon is a non
solomon is an absolutely thrilling percussionist
solomon is a leading marketing researcher
solomon is unique in that in addition to this type he also fits another type of divine mediator the "exorcist"
solomon is back

Seven Deadly Social Sins

2006-10-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ghandi's 7 Deadly Social Sins; one of the wisest people alive gives you something to think about.

The Word "Goodbye"

2006-09-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

Most people logicaly assume that the word "Goodbye" is a simple compound word made up of "good", which is a state or feeling you might have whle eating a stack of particularly good buttermilk pancakes, and "bye", which has something to do with giving permission for something, like getting out of a swordfight or a Monopoly Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. However, such is not the case. It is actually a corrupted form of the old english farewell, "God be with ye". This is a problem in today's world. Always someone is tryign to change a fundamental part of the world, but it stuck in the mud of history. The grandest things are laid low by an unwillingness to change, because change is scary, because it's unknown. Because the unknown is scary, humans always try to explain things they don't understand. In medieval times, magic was too scattered and independent for it to be a cohesive explanation for bigtime kings and other sophisticates to rely on. Religion, and God, were much more civilized (at the time) ways to explain tough questions, like:
-Why are there all these trees and rocks around?
-Who put them there?
-Why do things hit the ground when you let go of them?
-Why does excrement smell bad?
-Why did Auntie Jean die of plague?
etc. ad nauseum
However, today our sophisticated scientific method is pretty good at explaining that kind of thing. So science is today's usual way of explaining things laypeople usually don't comprehend. And just like how cave people probably couldn't comprehend the Holy Trinity, I'm sure future humans will usually scorn but grudgingly respect today's rejection of religon for science and spirituality. I guess what I'm saying really is that I go out on tangents. No. Actually, what I'm probably trying to say is that from my young naive perspective, religion is our explanation mechanism too outdated to really use, but that our culture is still chanied too. Yeah,

Galiano Peace Camp

2006-08-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from two weeks on Galiano Island with ten Israelis, ten Palestinians, eight other Canadians, a bunch of adult facilitators, and a crapload of national media. I can't honestly say if what we did will have any effect on the conflict, but I can hope and pray. We also made a bunch of student movies, and if you want to watch any, come on over to my place or go to Movie Linkage and check 'em out. Pictures are over at our Flickr account at: Picture Linkage

A Wednesday Morning Classified

2006-07-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

I was sitting alone in a booth reading a book, I had bleached hair and was wearing jeans and a hoodie; you and your family walked in and sat down in the booth beside me. You had a red bandana, black hair and piercings - you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. We had some eye contact but I didn't know what to do or say. I wish I'd done more.

That is my craiglist classified.

This morning I had to take my little brother to summer camp. It rained. I bussed. I walked around the foggy damp city reveling in the peace of my mind and the light touch of the rain falling. I ate a preprocessed althogether depressing Extreme Grand Slam. A girl and her family sat down in the opposing booth and started to decide on what to order. I glanced at her because I didn't want to stare. She shocked me. She was amazing.

Later on she caught me glancing and we looked at each other. I wasn't sure whether she was scared or just suprised. I caught her looking at me a couple minutes later.

I finished eating, paid, and left. I couldn't stop looking. I walked for a block and thought about what I should've done. I imagined that I could have asked her to come over to my booth and said cheesy lines, like, "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," even though it was true. I imagined that I could wait until she got into her family's cheap suburban econo-box and run after it and waited for her to write her phone number in the condensation on the window.

I didn't. I walked on through the pouring rain and decided that I wasn't going to regret my inability to act.

Isn't that depressing, in a way?

I love rainy days outside.

It's too late to turn back now...

2006-07-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

If you look closely (click the picture for a bigger size), it's my Unholy Alliance concert ticket. Here's hoping I don't get killed.

Boss Trouble

2006-06-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

Today our overboss (she owns all three locations of our store) came in to kick some ass. Right during the lunch hour rush she barges in and starts criticizing and revamping the whole system. I totally see where she's coming from, and it will be much easier once she makes all her changes, but not during lunch hour, and she has to do it in a positive way. People are getting alienated and quitting because they feel attacked. When she came in all of our heartbeats jumped a couple notches. I have chest pains.

I am beginning to wonder how many times the supervisor has quit in disgust and this cycle has happened. Our boss seems pretty used to it.

This scares me. I need hugs.

Turnover

2006-06-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

My awesome supervisor walked off today. Apparently our boss (who noone likes) asked him to come in on his only day off to be embarrassed publicly at a small manager's seminar. It was the last straw.

The food service industry I work in has a 300% employee turnover rate, which means that three times every year, statistically, the entire staff is replaced.

Transient.

Thoughts on the NCSY Shabbaton

2006-05-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is todays 5th post, so make sure you read 'em all.

I had some odd thoughts this weekend in Edmonton about Judaism and religion. See what you think.

I believe that the last couple of generations have had it easy enough that they do not require religion. People have concrete things to hold on to now, and they do not need to neccesarily entertain the idea of a omnipotent all-seeing being.

If you quizzed a group of kids my age and they all were 100% truthful I doubt you would find many that really, truly, believe in God. We're all skeptics in this day and age of limitless knowledge. What facts? Creation? Riiight... Not that I think that, but thats for later.

Judaism has a lot of cultural baggage to go with the religion. We are the oldest monotheistic religion there is, and one of the few that strongly connects the race to the religion. Kids our age and especially marrying adults feel extreme pressure to marry Jewish-you've gotta keep up the fight to stay alive, because assimilation kills more Jews that Hitler etc. etc. I'm wondering if we've been around to long. Shouldn't all things change?

My synagogue is progressive because it allows leniency in the laws laid down by rabbis in Russia hundreds of years ago (who most believe were really just writing down God's oral commands). It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me that women should be allowed to be rabbis and sit on the same side as men. Many Jewish laws don't apply these days because of technological and cultural advance, but the people cling to them because they are hallmarks of the faith. Keeping kosher began because animals needed to be slaughtered properly to prevent disease and infection (like how Jews avoided the Black Death in Europe through rituals like hand-washing). It is an important part of Judaism today, partly because, sure, God ordered us to do it, but also because it's a Jewish thing to do. We never question WHY God wants us to keep his commands (some are obvious, like tzedakah etc.) because everyone says "You can't possibly comprehend God's plan". They also say that you still have free will (a vital part of Judaism) because God knows what choice you'll make but it's still yours to pick. Your answer may change because of knowledge that God knows what you will pick but God knew you would choose that and etc. etc. lots of paradoxes. That's beside the point. I don't feel in tune with a religion that I cannot possibly comprehend. Why are we the chosen people? We've done some bad stuff in the bible. We can't ask those questions because we won't get answers. So what's the point of a religion that you blindly follow? I'd say I was interested in a more sensical religion like Buddhism, but I can't really, because I would disappoint my rabbi and my family and my friends and etc. etc.

That was a huge rant but I suppose my real point is that many people especially my age follow religion because of custom and tradition, not because of belief in God. Sometimes I wonder if religious Jews are more observant of the laws because they crave some sort of more physical connection to the religion in the absence of a real spiritual one. I've seen some damn religious Jews who are not really torah-observant but I am sure are closer to God than a Yeshiva kid who can quote every line of torah but doesn't feel that connection. Rabbis rant it to us all the time at my youth group, that, you know, religion without faith is nothing, but how many actually feel a real connection? Do we need to stop holding on to our religion's past in the hope of it's return? Or should we evolve along with the world and try to make that ideal return ourselves? That is a lot more realistic and noble than merely awaiting God to come down and fix everything for us.

If anyone has interesting religious comments, spit em.

Segmented Journal Notes #4

2006-05-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

As the fast-food industry continues to mechanize food preparation and etc. the number of available minimum-wage jobs will decrease. Unskilled labourers will continue to be shunted from industry to industry as each replaces more of their workers with machinery. To aid this process, technology such as adaptive programming will be developed. Hand-made goods and services will become even greater luxuries. The nano-age will eventually dawn, giving even the lowest class the ability to transform matter at will. Hunger will disappear, worldy issues will cease to matter - all will come down to the human psyche and error, and this is when evolution's mind will be clear enough to advance our race.

-Sol Kauffman, "A second technological coming"

Segmented Journal Notes #3

2006-05-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

I noticed recently that I have a bit of an addiction to the 1950s. I love the technology. Roto-broilers, autochefs, conveyor belts galore, all covered in new space-age shiny diner vinyl and chrome. Why? I don't know. Everyone seems so happy and optimistic (despite the threat of nuclear war, oddly). I remember being fascinated by a robo-cafeteria in LA. Where they had vending machines that dispensed whole 14" microwaved pizzas and cook-while-you-wait burritos.

Not a state of fear.

Segmented Journal Notes #2

2006-05-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

"No Valentine? Ask for a hug" project. T-shirts, media etc. recruit people. Film it, documentary, world needs more love.

That's straight out of my journal, but it needs some development. Valentine's day is supposed to be happy and friendly and joyful but most of us are still looking for that someone and it just ain't fair how we gots ta suffer. So I think next Feb 14 we should all print the t-shirts and walk around downtown. See how many people ask for hugs. I would venture a LOT.

Isn't that so nice? Wouldn't it cheer you up? If enough people are interested I'll look into printing the shirts.

Segmented Journal Notes #1

2006-05-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Time to push those lame quizzes farther down the page. Here's some scribings from my little journal book, which I have seperated because they have to do with different issues. They are unaltered and as close as I can get to scanning the pages of the book (which would be impossible to read).

I have a job at Solly's Bakery. I think it's important to try to get a feeling of the environment on that side of town (it's in the shady East SYDE!). Use your hands and physical labour lack of real bodily sensation these days - Humans are designed to hunt and gather, not to work in offices. We are programmed to find muscled and tanned people attractive, yet the jobs that are best paying are the most intellectual. Do we evolve faster than nature can keep up? Animals take forever to change - I think human intelligence has surpassed evolution and Darwin's ideas can't keep up with all the new factors we involve. This would be why poolboys and waitresses = hot, lawyers+C.E.O.s --> money (success) This is why I find jobs like arctic outpost construction interesting. Good pay+strong muscles+major props.

That's right!

2006-04-22T00:52:00.000-07:00

*NAME PROTECTED*: (12:49:59 AM)
you shoudlve gone to melted

+Solomon+ OH NO! I know too much! says: (12:50:21 AM)
nah

+Solomon+ OH NO! I know too much! says: (12:50:59 AM)
i'm not interested in rampant drunken teenage unprotected sex

Aircraft Hangar Foam Mishap

2006-04-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Linkage to a very silly and odd mistake which resulted in the complete filling of an aircraft hangar with fire-retardant foam

momentary

2006-04-17T00:24:00.000-07:00

i just had a thought

do the other letters ever feel depressed that the capitals are bigger than they are?

jealous?

are they role models?

do all the little lower case letters aspire to be upper case someday?

Graces From Other Places

2006-04-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation the other night with some friends of mine (Silber and Ari) about my elementary school life, my friendship with Silber, and my current situation, and I just wanted to bring up some points that we discussed.

First off, I had a really bad time in elementary school. I took school really seriously, but I had a lot of issues in the Hebrew and Math departments, and got frustrated a lot. I was also depressed a lot of the time, and had some really difficult times with friendships and such.

I was a big nerd-I'll admit it. I played pokemon cards (although most people did then). I got really into neopets (yeah, I know, sacriledge). Most of my friends were nerds too. I got made fun of alot because I was pretty fat and slow. I tried to be friends with the popular kids, because I saw that's where the good times were, but I usually got rejected or used. My friend Silber was a really popular guy who controlled a lot of the cliques, and I eventually began to blame him for my harsh treatment.

I went to Hatikvah summer camp for a couple years, which I had hoped would make more popular and introduce me to new people-however I quickly developed a rep for being a bit of a flaky nerd, which ruined any hope of that. I made some friends, but I didn't (and don't) have enough connections with them to hang out with them back home. Maybe it was the wrong choice of camp for me-I had always assumed Hatikvah to be the best camp because it had all this cool stuff, like sailboats and etc. but I realize now that the people were more important and that I get along much better with some people who went to places like Miriam and Solomon Schacter.

Something happened around Grade 8. Maybe it was getting contacts (which would be interesting, like how women who get plastic surgery are amazed at how differently people treat them), maybe it was a smaller school, I don't know. Suddenly I started to become less of a loser. I got some friends who were cool. I felt part of the group. I got more self-confidence. I realized that Silber wasn't the reason I had had a bad time and that he was actually an ok guy.

I also realize that going to Jewish private schools for my whole childhood is probably not the best thing for me, socially. I keep meeting people outside of school who I like-the problem is that they all live too far away. Being so entrenched in the Jewish community has kept me from meeting people I like who live in Vancouver, and stopped me from becoming familiar with social groups outside of my own ethnicity.

The problem is I feel it's too late for me to make any big changes-my high school life, and most of my teenage years, will be frozen in stone the way they are. I have two precious years left of high school. I can't switch schools-it's too late for that, I need good grades for university. I can't go to camp, because it's already over. So it's my responsibility to get all of my aspirations for my teen years done in the next two grades (while still keeping to who I am-I can't let myself change because I'll never forgive myself): girlfriend, first meaningful kiss, moderate social status, close group of friends, special memories, etc.

I'd better get started.

Embark on this path
To a much greater future
Find my very own route

Currently listening to: Be Yourself - Audioslave (random, but fitting)

blank

2006-04-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

You know it's bad when you're listening to Nirvana's Something In The Way on repeat on your iTunes.

For hours.

If Only

2006-04-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

I wish I could take my bicycle and appear at your house. We would ride to the beach on the road and sit on rocks and talk about life and how people think and talk and act and work. I wish I could be there with you now. It would make me complete.

I need that. But life gets in my way.

My Fear.

2006-04-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

From Post Secret:

Planning for the Future (Among other things)

2006-03-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

I wrote a good post already but accidentally hit delete, and now it's 3am. Ah hell.

Here went some moaning about how our futures are being planned out too early, and my aspirations for being a cool, relaxed university student, then a resident, and doctor, etc.

Then there was a bad joke about watching too much House, MD (got 1st season on dvd) and then one of these:

And I started talking about how I wanted more people to read my blog, because I wanted some conversation, some debate, some thoughts...

Then there was some great stuff (great stuff) about how I don't fit into any social cliques, and the people that I would match with don't live close enough or go to different schools. About how I don't like any of the girls my age, and don't want a relationship unless it includes dialogue and thought, despite the possibility of having a stress-free mutually-pleasureable relationship. I considered switching schools, but I can be patient for a relationship at least until uni. I don't want to confuse my next two years of hard work (to get into uni) with a possibly-but-unlikely happy caring interesting relationship.

All I worry about is lack of experience when I do decide to have a relationship, although I think if the girl is cool enough they won't care.

Oh yeah-then I talked a little about parties, and how I found them boring when the gangsters start coming in and everything is suddenly an excuse to grind... And how I don't understand fully why nothing happens to me, ever, at parties...

I suppose it has to do with my rep, really-most of the folks I see at parties know me from my notoriety at camp (the SOL!!! thing) and I was a lot different back at camp and when I was in elementary school. I'm trying to evolve myself, and I think it's happened, but I still don't know. For sure I look different-I have a sense of style now, I'm wearing collared shirts and knit sweaters with my sneakers and khaki cargoes, got an earring, hair looks ok... By my standards I look like a pretty normal guy, so it must be my behaviour.

What I am doing that's odd? It's true I dance a little crazily on the techno, and I play drum beats on my knees, and wander around the party aimlessly a bit, but seriously? Not a lot of other folks are acting cooler than I am, I think. Am I missing something? What do I do wrong at parties? New people usually like me, why does this crowd not? It's time for a change of scene for me, but I can't switch schools now-not going into grade 11. I don't have time for readjustment while I'm working on my two sciences and all, not to mention upping my motivation and work level in the rest of my classes. I think (and hope) that university will be my big time, as I work better in that sort of environment and I'm essentially getting a fresh start. We'll see.

I gotta tough it out through two more years of high school.

I wonder what people think when they first read my blog? Is it shocking? What they expected? Thoughts are nice.

Please disseminate (that's distribute, Brad) the link for here to people who know me, if you know me-it's the easy one, solkauffman.blogspot.com

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Unblind Patriotism is Cool.

2006-03-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some reasons to be proud to be Canadian:

1. Smarties
2. Crispy Crunch, Coffee Crisp
3. The size of our footballs fields and one less down
4. Baseball is Canadian
5. Lacrosse is Canadian
6. Hockey is Canadian
7. Basketball is Canadian
8. Apple pie is Canadian
9. Mr. Dress-up kicks Mr. Rogers ass
10. Tim Hortons kicks Dunkin' Donuts ass
11. In the war of 1812, started by America, Canadians pushed
the Americans back...past their 'White House'. Then we burned it...and most of Washington, under the command of William Lyon McKenzie who was insane and hammered all the time. We got bored because they ran away, so we came home and partied...Go figure..
12. Canada has the largest French population that never surrendered to
Germany.
13. We have the largest English population that never ever surrendered or withdrew during any war to anyone, anywhere.
14. Our civil war was a bar fight that lasted a little over an hour.
15. The only person who was arrested in our civil war was an American
mercenary, who slept in and missed the whole thing... but showed up just in time to get caught.
16. We knew plaid was cool far before Seattle caught on.
17. The Hudsons Bay Company once owned over 10% of the earth's surface and is still around as the worlds oldest company.
18. The average dog sled team can kill and devour a full grown human in under 3 minutes.
19. We still know what to do with all the parts of a buffalo.
20. We don't marry our kin-folk.
21. We invented ski-doos, jet-skis, velcro, zippers, insulin, penicillin, zambonis, the telephone and short wave radios that save countless lives each year.
22. We ALL have frozen our tongues to something metal and lived to tell about it.
23. A Canadian invented Superman.

BUT MOST IMPORTANT!
24. The handles on our beer cases are big enough to fit your hands with mitts on. OOOoohhhhh Canada!!

Oh yeah... and our elections only take one day.

More Profoundness

2006-02-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

Been reading a lot of Douglas Coupland lately. His work is really philosophical in a way but very real in another. A lot of it is vaguely depressing, kind of like falling asleep after a bad day.

It's been making me think-sometimes I'm worried that I'm missing out on vital teenage experiences, like dating or wild parties or various rebellios and possibly law-breaking activities. This is not so much because I am very interested in such things, but more that I don't want to have nothing to remember from my high school life. Characters in Coupland's novels and indeed in a lot of pop culture always seem to have vivid and important memories from their pasts, like the movie moments I mentioned a while back (first kiss, prom, whatever). I want to have something to reminisce about, some special memory. There are lots of moments I could think of, but time makes them slip away and I rarely have pictures or records of them-for some reason my movie moments (I like Moments of Serenity or something-movie moments doesn't work) happen usually only happen when I'm alone.

Does this mean I am a naturally lonely person?

Tests say I'm extroverted, and I know I act that way-but it doesn't really fit my own vision of myself. I think of myself as (I apologize for upcoming self-flattery) a quiet, earthly, wise individual, rugged, caring, solemn, standing alone. I can even think of examples of people I wish I was more like.

Are you what you act or what you feel like inside? Actions speak louder than words, but sometimes your inner self seems repressed.

Does everyone have a vision of themselves?

How often are they accurate?

I hope my blog becomes a repository of special thoughts, like the lone narration of a book's main character, talking about inner beliefs and philosophies, provoking deep thought.

Maybe I'll publish a novel of misc. thoughts.

Did you know that miscellaneous is one of the few words I routinely cannot spell? (I got lucky this time)

I wish everyone took a bit of time to really think about their thoughts. I want to read them all and learn about people's inner selves. I hope people see what I say here as the real me-no matter how contradictory my outside life seems. I think it's frustrating that there's noone to see me when I'm most at peace. Or that noone recognizes it.

Maybe your soulmate is someone who feels the same serenity moments as you.

I think the world moves too fast sometimes. I love summer because time lags. In winter everything is snappy. Bam! Wake up. Bam! School. Bam! Work out. Bam! Home. I don't want a pre-scheduled time-allocated life. I need it sometimes, and I have a half-assed ideal of being a snappily-dressed lawyer type with rolled up sleeves on his oxford shirt and a tie because I like challenge and that thought appeals to me. I'm still now sure right now. Being a Zen-Buddhist plumber or an organically-farming Gulf Island hammock sleeper or writer appeals too.

Sometimes I don't know who I am. Alot of the time, actually.

Anyway-back to how life moves too quickly. It's all about getting to those serenity moments. Have you seen that Lexus commercial? Here, I'll give you a link: http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/2010/

Now if that commercial wasn't a money-driven car-selling vehicle it would be one of the most beautiful pieces of video ever. It sums up a lot of my personal philosophy.

Speaking of beauty, I seem to find it in different ways than a lot of people my age. I found that music video with the kid biking across the Earth beautiful (Did I talk about that? Here's a link: http://youtube.com/w/Love-Generation---Bob-Sinclair?v=hM5CctJ0RuM&search=love%20generation%20bob) and a lot of my friends didn't. Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder.

I think anyone named after Solomon the Wise must be deeply profound to the core, just by verbal association.

Again-I wish people only saw my inner side.

I have to stop writing-I keep getting good thoughts but it's wayy too late on a school night.

I think I'm profound today because it was so beautiful outside today and I rode my bike (this blog post came from my bedside notebook on Sunday).

You know sometimes I catch myself parroting someone else's personality. I hate it. I think it means I don't have a true one of my own (yet). Maybe I'm like the Circle from that kids book, you know, he rolls around trying to find his missing wedge.

I hope I like what I find.

I hope I find it soon.

This post is quite long
It's size is enormous
"That is what she said!"

Hopeful Future Eerie Resemblance to Seth Rogen

2006-01-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen the 40-Year Old Virgin? Did you perhaps notice a resemblance between this guy:

and this guy:

Maybe not now, but in 10 years or so (he's 24 now, in 10 years I'll be 25). Wouldn't that be cool? He's definitely one awesome dude, being an actor, writer, AND producer (all of which I'm interested in). Plus, creepily enough, he was born here in Vancouver... Either we're clones or he's a forgotten older brother.

Now please excuse me
I must grow some facial hair
Large sideburns

Currently listening to: Slow Ride by Foghat (No I'm not stoned like the monkey in family guy)

The Yin and Yang of Rock and Roll

2006-01-22T03:23:00.000-08:00

I went to Battle of the Bands at the JCC today. Pretty good stuff, some bands I really liked, Dust, Life in a Box, etc. Best part of course was the mosh pit.

It's hard to describe exactly what a mosh pit is-if you want to be technical, you could say it was a group of people aggressively dancing in a small area, including shoving and pushing and with a strange "pit etiquette" that prevents anyone from getting really badly hurt. However that doesn't really explain the atmosphere and the feeling you have deep inside the churning energy of a mosh pit. Everyone around you is moving, all the time-there are no static moments. Although you are pushing and shoving and being pushed and shoved you don't feel angry, just excited, just happy to be there, enjoying the moment. You are exhilarated, jumpy, more in tune with the music and people around you. If someone falls down, everyone helps pick them up. If you lose a shoe, someone holds it up for you to find. There is no animosity-there is camaraderie. People three or four years older than you slap you on the back and say "You're a machine, man" or "That's a pretty gnarly scrape, dude". It doesn't matter whether you're white, black, yellow, Jewish, Christian, gay, straight, ugly, pretty, guy, or girl it's all the same. The mosh is an equalizer. You ride the tide-speed up when the song gets faster, jump higher when the song gets harder, slow down and bob your head when the song goes into a lull. If the security guards come in to break it up, everyone bonds by hating and resenting the man. If you get hassled by them everyone congragulates you for fighting the power. So much energy is present that you don't feel pain or exhaustion or anger. It's one of the best feelings ever.

As much as I love concerts there is an opposite side that I feel-a yin to the yang. I look up at the people on stage, their control of the crowd, their skill with their instruments, the glory that they must feel, and I think, I want to do that. I don't want to be the 30 year old businessman with a wife and kids who says you know if I had taken that chance I could have had way more fun in high school and gotten all that glory. Problem is I don't see chances yet. I get discouraged when I see the skill of others and I worry that people who give the chances to me are too skilled for my level. Then I get greedy and wonder if drumming (my instruments) is really what I want to do-sure, it's fun, and it's a skill, but I want to up there as part of the band, talking right to the people, jumping around on stage. I could probably sing if I wanted to-I don't know if people would let me. Opportunity is not knocking on my door yet-I worry if it ever will. Or worse-that when it does, I'll miss it.

I am waiting now
For my chance for much glory
Am I strong enough?

Movie Moments

2006-01-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

I had an orthodontist appointment today, so I slept in a half hour and biked down to Broadway for my appointment. It's a nice, clear, winter day. A bit cold of course, but I wore four layers (it's Vancouver right). Anyway, afterwards I was a bit hungry so I stopped over at 7-11 for a bite to eat. I grabbed some sort of burrito thing and sat outside on the curb, looking at the city.

I felt a strange sort of sensation come over me, one of disassociation and odd calm. I recalled the beat of an upbeat and optimistic-sounding Kanye West song-it spun around my head like a pebble in a swirling drain, or the gumball light of a police car. I had a Movie Moment-a scene straight from a Disney youth movie about self-confidence and beating the odds. I felt elated, happy, joyful, free. Exactly, errily, one of those slow-mo bright n' happy moments about a kid beating cancer or a girlfriend on her boyfriend's shoulders. It's happened to me before. I love it. The best feeling in the world.

I think somehow my brain is storing away snapshots of my life like a dragged-out slideshow of special moments at someone's Bar Mitzvah party. This feeling must occur whenever I have a special lifelong memory-whenever I'm accessing my long-term storage databanks. My memory allocating anagram is splitting my life into concise segments: Independent moments, oneness with nature, childhood crush, first kiss, first girlfriend, graduation, more graduation, job, wife, kids...

Deep Thought Number One
I had I felt I think now
Wonder about it

My pirate name is:

Mad Tom Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

P.S. Josh Hertzman is sitting on my right. He is a good, righteous fellow who donates to charity and makes meals for the poor. This has been an announcement from the Josh Hertzman Promotional Society.