With Gusto

Happy Friday

Decisions on the loom. Loom, in both senses. . . a mound of black wool that needs to be made into a carpet.
Finished work today, stacked books. . . hundreds of books. Moved books, carried books, alphabetized books, seperated books, ate books, peed on books, shaved a book, punished a book for being a stupid book, sat on a book after it sat on me, mind-boggled a good number of books, buggered one book good.
Now that I'm finished my degree, I'm so not into doing any of the things that is has taught me. Obviously. If I was in the mood, I would've phrased it as such: I don't want to apply any of the skills that I learned in school.
I've heard from many a folk that once they graduated from their writing degrees, they couldn't write. . . somehow I hope this happens to me. I could be a walking tragedy, and I'm only twenty-four. Nah . . . I'm currently sketching ideas out as we speak. School was about a million projects at once, and now I can focus on one at a time.
Here's a plan:
June:
Write "Beware the Ides of Julie-Anne March" on tour.
Send out poetry for rejection.
September:
Send out poetry for rejection.

That's about it. Now that I'm done school, I feel as though I need to educate myself, so I'm going to learn a massive amount of songs on the guitar, read a lot of works, and not worry about producing volume for awhile.

Quand Vous Etes En Montreal

Just mixed myself a big gin, ruminating. In the first line of LE PETIT SOLDAT, Goddard's character said that he'd been through enough -- that it was time for reflection. I for one have always reflected. . . I'll think of a time when I was six, and go from there.
When I was ten I was in grade five, and had a female for a teacher. . . we threw a party for her at the end of the year. The girls organized it as a way to get the day off. We drank pop in the morning and the teacher, touched by the gesture, cried. Payoff.

Catch That Fever

Hey folks. I'm tossing a link yer way. The country album is done, has been for about a week. Eight songs, a half-hour long, full of fun and funny.

It's easy. It's driven. We're strolling down the avenue with cocktails under our coats, entertaining the people with our down-to-earth charm spiked with GIN!

stream: The World's Fattest Race Horse
on New Music Canada.

You Are QBASIC

You are 'programming in QBASIC'. This programming
language (of which the acronym stands for
'Quick Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code'), which is so primitive that
it cannot easily be used for any purpose
involving the Internet nor even sound, was
current more than a decade ago.

You are independent, in a good way. When something
which you need cannot be found, you make it
yourself. In writing and in talking with
people, you value clarity and precision; your
friends may not realize how important that is.
When necessary, you are prepared to be a
mediator in conflicts between your friends.
You are very rational, and you think of things
in terms of logic and common sense.
Unfortunately, your emotionally unstable
friends may be put off by your devotion to
logic; they may even accuse you of pedantry and
insensitivity. Your problem is that
programming in QBASIC has been obsolete for a
long time.


What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This Is a Closed Narrative

Jimmy talked to Mikey, and Mikey talked to Jean, and Jean talked to me, and I talked to Jimmy. That's how we were. We enjoyed it. But like that telephone game, something always went wrong. If Jimmy gossiped about Jean with me, by the time Jean heard of the gossip it was usually about something she hadn't done. One time in particular, on a pleasant afternoon at her aunt's sunning lawn, the gardener's arrived with lawnmowers and went to work. Naturally, Jean fired them both on the spot for sporting unruly mowers, and after a quick hottub, the gardeners were gone, dismayed, talked of hitting up the liquor store. When the news recirculated back to Jean, Mikey said Jean had bitten off her shoes and threw them into the paths of the lawnmowers -- pieces of leather went everywhere! I told Jimmy the Gardeners were fired after they arrived with a donkey, a plough and requested a few turkey dogs. . . Circulating a gossip-correction to gossip went through the same circle, but we enjoyed it this way, when Jimmy talked to Mikey, and Mikey talked to Jean, and Jean talked to Jimmy, and Jimmy talked to me.

Routine

I had a few coffees, cleaned the house, stacked papers, rummaged the fridge for a few eggs, vegetarian sausage links (not recommended on their own, but, if fried, they mix well in a sauce), tomato, and bread.
Sat with the Globe and a few more coffees.
More musicians in the S-L jamspace, cheaper rent. Recording later this afternoon with the Country Band. I need to sign something regarding royalties and S-L. Very strange. The S-L album needs to come out very soon. The pressure is on, yet I feel nothing. So I may as well go and buy a mickey of rye and bring it to the recording session. It's Friday, lay back a little, have a drink.

The Gomery what-have-you is a very corrupt thing. Jacques Corriveau has the airs of a complete liar. If you don't have alzheimers, don't compare your situation to a disease you don't have, like you did in the paper. So you're old; too old for jail, but you still looked like devil-man in the paper. Ugh. Politicians, are you aware that you are gross? --> For disillusioning the public even further, someone oughta line you up against the wall and hire someone to give your ass a routine buggering.
Politicians: collective noun used for singling out a slippery mass of old, pallid skins.

Song of the Week: HERE COMES YOUR MAN -- The Pixies

Recording

Recording with the country band of late. Should be good. We spent a lot of time yesterday quibbling over the very small. Necessities that need to happen so as to discover The Sound. We're dealing with shoddy modern technology that does the trick, but, again, there's the necessary quibbling over the levels, the necessary double-tracking of what-have-yous.
B. has a lapsteel now. That oughta be great.
The set-up: a living room with a microphone hanging off the cieling, anothe mike perched in a stand. An amp in the middle of the room, some dude with a guitar in his hands. Cords running from the guitar and mikes into a piece of machinery on the other side of the room with another dude behind it. I sit in a chair and watch. We record a track, record another, then we play with the levels until we agree to disagree and move on.

I'm doing this instead of looking for work. I picked my poison and my poison picked me clean.

Senor, I am very hungry. Is there a way you can get your wife to feed me a tasty treat? A bean sandwich?

It's Been A Slice

Strikes and Gutters

Fiction -- getting it out, arch
-- subversion an excuse for lazyness

Non - Fiction -- truly put me in new places, how to quote, immersed in the real
-- too much to handle, too much for me to expect of my days, too much sacrifice.

Poetry -- Pushes a life to brand new lows. Not really. . . but at least there's a worthwhile independence, which I don't find in much Non-Fiction.

I've never been a Nationalist but I'm always thrilled when I see Canadian money in the movies. My new creed: Exclusively write about Canadian money in the movies; some sort of multi-platform experience where the listener is at the same time a reader, a viewer, and artist, if he or she chooses as much.

[TIMPANI SOLO]

BFA

Grad party last night -- drinks here prior to. Jazz on the stereo, people dressed up and beautiful. No one launching beer off the patio. Class, I shouldn't have to say, is for my kind of people, and last night -- class by the troughfull.

In a packed SUB building filled with people too young to be graduating, a stranger fondled my arse in a line-up, and a Catholic man kissed me on the red carpet duct taped to the sidewalk. People from my highschool grad grading with me for the second time, a few stilted conversations waiting for the pisser. Beer on the Felicita's patio with The Crew.

And now, hopefully, I'm on my way outta all that with a BFA in my pocket. A new life for me.

Nothing to do today except rewrite some poetry and rework some non-fiction, schedule an interview . . .

My family is in Vancouver visiting a dying uncle.

The Year Before Beerology, To The Day. . .

. . .I was at Beerology.

This year Joy managed to make it down as well. The year prior, we'd been at the beach with a bunch of girls getting trashed.
Beerology -- cheezy, apt ska overtop a brightly lit Michele Pujol room filled with rez kids slamming beer samplers. A lot of people in tight clothes. Friends taking their shirts off. A fenced off lounge area outside with the sun and a fierce breeze. Then it was dinner time.

And I'm finished classes -- forever. Wondering what I should do with non-fiction. Dump it entirely or let is fester for a few years. Who knows. All I know is that I don't have to write a feature for the rest of my life. Goddamn that feels good. Now I have to find a different career entirely. A new life in the orient after touring the continent. I'm a doer, not a recreater. Oh well.

DUMPED.

The shows are starting to line themselves up. Tour is still looking sketchy -- no official shows. We have bands in Regina, Ottowa, and Montreal who want to play with us, but nothing booked. What is booked: a night in a Yurt in Pancake Bay.

Came home last night after rehearsal to Joy finishing O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU. A fine movie indeed. Then cigarettes on the patio and bed. Sweet sweet bed.

When did I stop going to coffee shops at night? A pontificating coffee at night.

When I Bite Her Ass, I Bite Fast.

Last week of classes. I'm very tired, though I'm not doing much work.

I'm in the middle of a 4 hour break between classes. The thing is, is that I don't have to go to the class after the break, meaning I'm killing four hours to go do something I don't have to do, while I could be at home re-writing poems, slinging coffee and laughing at my own sororiety of the mind. The joint female venture of subconscious, and sub-subconscious. That's where I go when I'm residing. And in the end, there is no such thing as race, or gender. Female is just as male as male is just as gooshy as gooshy is a mooshy Belluci. Right? Agreed? Think I'm "one of those?" Well -- yer wrong!

The promise of free beer -- diclosure! That's why I'm waiting. Although the promise was made via someone else, meaning there probably won't be any free beer, but the prof for my German Cinema class, a fine cat by any standards, even German, is rumoured to buy beer.

A prof got me drunk last semester. He kept on buying more and more pitchers of frothy goodness while no else drank. I kept myself with the heavy lifting, ended up rambling -- they made me, ME, district manager -- of VICTORIA! HAHAHAHAH!
The prof had written some good poetry -- namely about delivering whiskey, missing the ferry, then having to buy the same whiskey at jacked up prices.
See, see?!

So that's where I'm at -- in a computer lab with hi-end hum of the humdrum computers filtering odd-tonals into the ear, waiting for beer, as always, in the crux of the afternoon.

Had two shows this weekend. They both went off very well. Especially S3mi-L0uise. Raised a few hundred for tour. I want to play more shows. That band is more than ready.

Show At Logan's

Ghosts
People's War
Semi-Louise

c'mon down and enjoy some good ol' new fashioned post-punk retro-groove escapism.

You better believe yourself.