With Gusto

Double Booked

Whups. Just realized today that I've double booked my bands. I'm playing the B.C. Schizophrenics Society Christmas show on the 11th, and I'm also to headline the Cambie in Nanaimo later that evening.

Charlie Parker used to get his sleep in cabs inbetween shows.

Strange Day

Truly a student-at-the-end-of-his-semester type day. Woke up at 8 a.m. to write humourous rhyme, then studied the secondary characters in Atonement to what Jachogins writes about in his chapter on character in his how-to. Then it was ten a.m. and I had to read ten lines of poetry, and ten seperate lines of scansion. We were to match up the meters given to the lines of poetry given. Then we were to take the second letter from the second substituted foot in each line - which amounted to ten lines - and unscramble them into a sentence. Only the sessional gave out the wrong directions. The first two people to unscramble the incorrectly scrambled sentence won two books.
Greasy cheese and vegetable pizza for brunch. Coffee at the pub until two-thirty, then off to class at the other pub, where the prof bought us all pitcher after pitcher. By this time I'd ditched Joy twice on her coffee breaks. Then back to the original pub to find Joy smoking alone outside. I ate her fries and we chided each other for a good while. Joy had to leave to write an essay. I got into a huge debate with a few near-strangers about LOTR. ? Once at home I walked Joy to the store where everything fits. At home for the second time I settled into a bath and zen poetry, with ideas for ripping off an ancient buddhist monk and reading it aloud at a future date to a trendy bar filled with people who want to watch movies. Now it's 11:30 pm and I'm going to fry some potatoes.

The Fear --

Halls and halls filled with books, third floor sections filled with peers, peers of peers, and I'm not in a single one of them. Get the fucking boots on, man, there's work to be done. I need to plan something, something, to keep me going. It's as though every sentence has its weakness, take out the knee, and you have something unbending; leave it in, it'll bend whether you like it or not.

This month, I'll send something out. Why is it we don't like doing what we're best at? At least that's my situation. I'm too scared to apply myself at one thing. The way I see it is that I have to do eight things, then live in the space where they all overlap. Like a family holding hands where five borders meet, a family in each border, plus 3 ghosts in 3 ghost-states.

Spontrol Proom

Just watched "Control Room." A very intriguing documentary that looks at the role satellite TV plays in the Iraqi war, from basically an Iraqi perspective. Lots of Al-Jazeera type stuff, their thoughts on the Invasion of Iraq. Most surprisingly, a journalist from Al-Jazeera -- notably journalistic in their approach, certainly a great idea for a television station -- jovially arranging dinner plans with the media operations dude from the US side. US dude was balanced, smart, but obviously coming from what I'd call a corrupted viewpoint (that America is justified), but a viewpoint which has its balances nonetheless. It also goes into explaining the lies that the US were spreading, and the media coverage of certain events, such as the weight given to media coverage during the invasion of Bagdhad (almost none) compared to the timely Jessica Lynch (still trying to forget). And so forth.

Also watched a French film called "Wasabi" a cute little number about a badass French cop who goes to Japan to see his now dead girlfriend. He inheirits a lot of money and gets involved with the Yakuza, and at the same time, a daughter he's never known. Think "Lost in Translation" meets "Beverly Hills Cop" meets a burly Frenchman.

Finished the first draft of my first chapter today. I got a whopping 17 pages done. I've decided to add another character so I can inject witty banter whenever the hell I feel like it. There's something liberating about writing something purely for the sake of entertaining myself, or to say it another way: to have a work with hardly any ambitions at all. I like the idea of an idea novel, but that's what everyone does. Though to present it any other way would mean to explore monkey shit on the end of a tube and then throw it into a bag of grits.

So They Think You're Stupid

A day spent writing at S3cond St0ry with Joy, the other dude who's always there, and the passing colors of the day; from gold to dark-blue tinged with street-lamp orange. I got twelve pages done for my first chapter. I need thirty, so I'm about half-way there. Going to the café again tomorrow to finish things up. I plan on breaking all the rules, that or not caring about them. I figure after listening listening listening to rules for the past five years, I can ignore them all. It's the best way, or the only way I'll ever produce anything, so I better go with it. It doesn't matter if it's art, now does it.
I need to set my scenes better, spend time with the action before going into background, that sort of thing. Run at the image: best advice I've ever heard. That and: start and end with characters/action.

But enough.

I just ate bunny shaped pasta with cheese, brocoli, mushrooms, and tomato.

Tonight I'll be going down the BBJs, and spend some money I don't have, though I won't spend much of it. Looking forward to it. I want life to be filled with music, writing, friends and fucking. Where all of the above is work and pleasure undivided, without need of seperating.

What Religion Best Suits You

Take the quiz: "WHAT RELIGION BESTS SUITS YOU?"

Pagan/Occultist
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Spending your entire life searching various forms of philosophy and religion, you choose to observe everything and believe little. You're personality is one of truth seeking, nature respecting and god/goddess accepting. Lastly, you don't judge anyone, but if annoyed, you will exact some form of revenge. You don't believe in the Three-Fold Law.

Guh -- Why

So. . . quantum mechanics. . . why did I decide to write a poem on this? I'm now lost, lost in the basics. . . that and I'm trying to run stanzas opposite each other, where a quantum scientist has an idea.

fuck this. I can't even explain it. note: don't drink a six-pack then try to understand quantum mechanics. More importantly: string theory.

Quantum Physics

I
In the moment of examing things very small
Einstein mentioned two ways
of calculating light, that both studies
were islolated from each other, bridgeless.

II
A car the size of a grain of rice, its wheels without enough traction
to move it, oil too thick, gumming up the engine. This is where our laws
deteriorate, and where the true random begins, where everything is tied
by colors too small to see.

Mondays

I slept in this morning and missed two classes. This is after not doing any school for a week. I congratulate myself, thanks.

Still have the strangeness from waking up, though that'll change when I hop in the shower, and get my day on the go. To Do: go to workshop. Then play video games.

Teen Age Riot

Caffeine is the word of the day, almost too much. Time keeps moving on, the vacation drawing itself into the weekend, the brakes on, as Monday returns me to a world without surprises.

I bought two new albums: Sonic Youth - Screaming Fields of Sonic Youth
and
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

I paid about 15 bucks. I was with Jay and he bought The Faces - Ooh La La on vinyl. We stopped off at the Steamer's patio for a coffee and talked about music, and a friend's upcoming wedding. Jay said he has plans to order him the "fuck-eye whore" for the bachelor party, or something along those lines. Apparantly I'm invited. The wind blew around us, everything grey.

Ok, I'm off.

Sing While You Save

People have their lucky numbers.

Now. Why do some people always look at the clock, albeit accidentally, at odd times? such as: 11:11, which, coincidentally, is a very significant time, in relation to both family and love. It takes two people to produce a child, therefore, 1+1 often equals 3. Love, well, 1+1 can often = love.

For months my father woke up at even times. 3:33. 5:55, etc. He'd wake up, almost refuse to look at the clock beause of the mind-fuck that would follow. As of a few months ago, I believe this has stopped

For myself, this number since high school has always been 44. I see this number everywhere. It could be that there are so many numbers being (three copula verbs in a row) thrown around that the subconscious will seek out these numbers at a level desired. Our daily lives are surrounded by numbers. Even now, you're reading the number 44.

For instance, albeit very cliche: the number eleven. September eleventh = 09 11. Add these numbers together and you get 11. The number of days that passed between this incident and the bombings in Spain add up to 11. Even the towers themselves used to look like the number eleven. Who knows. Think positively.

All I know is that for whatever reason, my number is double-fours.

People have favourite numbers. I chose 44 as my favourite number, mainly because I was obsessed by the fetus, hence, Fetus Forty-Four: Theee "F"'s in a row. This number, for whatever random/subconscious reason, appears several times a week in my life.

If numerology or astromony play any significance in this, I say otherwise:my numerology number is seven and I am a cancer, born in the seventh month of the year. Add seven and seven and your get fourteen, but add four plus one and you get five. Disproven.

A double number is usually the sign of something significant. In this case, the closest I can come to terms with is that as a young person I'm aiming at doing as much as possible with my limbs. As much as possible with my FOUR limbs.

Forty-Four.

on a further edité: clever in the business world is equivilant to the Shakespeare's definition of ambitious, espeicially in the hands of a girl. It was advanced of Sartre to write in the 50's that "it was an unfortunate time to be a thinking woman," but if you said that today, you'd be a bigot. Now though, I don't know what to say, except, unfortunately, it is often still unfortunate to be clever. I've been turned down for jobs because I blatantly said, "I have my own my of doing things."
Big Joe Williams pulled it off, which spurned into Dylan pulling his own stuff off, which led to Dylan saying, "Sing while you save, but I just get bored."

To Do:

nothing.

any suggestions?

Rain Rain Rain

I bought a cheap dumb video game that I plan on playing. The next few months are all about making fun cheap, and not expensive and ethereal. Tom Waits wrote a line that goes, something something something, "I'll drink a thousand paycheques and in the morning I'll be gone." I believe he's referring to booze. So. . . I'm left with few options, one of them being video games, the other being DVDs, the other being something mellow.
Looks like the clouds of winter despair have rolled in and they look pretty endless right now. The street is wet, just beginning to dry, so it has a timeless feel to it, like it was always there.

Volume Never Smelled Empty

In the throws of existential nothingness. Nothing will change, although atomically we're changing faster than you can eat a banana. The whole idea that today you can become something you aren't, or start walking towards an otherness you'll eventually become.

Ideally, I'll become productive. Get organized, find a way to slip through the cracks and not pay the bills because a person like me oughtn't involve himself in the routine of such everyday things, for atomically, buzzards swim more importantly than the way a human pays money for something that should be an essential service. Tax.

Further more, on the cusp of reading break. I have a three-day weekend ahead of me, today not being one of them, though technically it's 2pm and I'm done for the week. I have class on Monday, tuesday off, then reading break until next Monday. A road trip needs to happen. In Pete's van. If not a road trip, I'd like to start my novel. But I'd need a road trip to start it. I could be in the throws of an idea right now, an Idea that would put me where I need to be: road-tripping, writing, meeting my characters along the way. Landscape, geography, cartography, flaws. Doing it all. Though I'll probably just sit around drunk, naked, holding a Japanese sword and the pistol I found in the trash, waiting for someone to knock my door or phone, so I could tell them all about it.

Volume. I need to poetry more. I need to fiction more. Music is coming along. I got the old Moonshine Revellers back together for a while. We're going to headline the B.C. Shcizophrenic's Society Christmas dinner in about a month, plus plan a few shows around town. Now that we're all musicians, the songs sound a billion times better. Though I'm still partial to music where I'm involved in the writing, and not some lowly drummer in the back, hailing comments like, "tight drumming." I want to song!

It all starts with one phrase, and each phrase is a mutating call for another phrase. Each stanza can work its way into the middle of a novel. Each novel can be condensed into a line of poetry. Now let's do some drugs and fuck it.

I hate booze these days. It feels negative being drunk. I love a bottle of beer. That's about it. Booze can suck itself dry, as not one person alone can suck booze dry. It's like fitting a cat into a squirrel. It goes the other way around, despite the will of the squirel.

The institutionalization of poetry is a very strange thing. We're all taught that when you write a poem, you are entering into a dialogue with all poets, alive or dead. Doesn't that sound awfully intimidating? Or, along the idea I just thought up: presumptuous. People think as long as they obey the rules, Chaucer will care for them. Without god, a poet turns to poet and goes about the exact same thing. A dialogue with another poet exists as long as that door is open. If not, then not. I can close the door any time. Bunch of freaks anyways. Let's make some money.

I'll out-spice them all!

took out the trash, flattened cardboard, cleaned piles of laundry, piles of mess, organized, made a list, played guitar, made arrangements, vacumed, thought about homework, played myself into the hands of a monkey. . .

I have the craving for pizza from the Joint. I have to write a poem today about cigarettes, and read a novel, then practise with an old band, which I'm looking foreward to.

Hither To the beach, for leaves! Last week I ate Sashimi: hunks of raw salmon, tuna, octopus (sorry octopus), and something else served on a bed of wet leaves and a few palm sized rocks. I ate a small mountain of wasabi thinking it was fish. Hah. It didn't affect me that much. I have a massive tolerance for spice, and I'm not one of those jerks who's saying it because they can take spicy salsa and not really worry about. I'll out-spice them all!