Arg. Coconut.

Who knew there were that many Christmas albums by country artists? Every day someone calls and asks me for another different one. If anyone out there has Oak Ridge Boys Christmas Cookies get on eBay with it right now... somebody's a-lookin for it!!!

A couple of other favourite Xmessy interactions were the guy who came in looking for music "for the wife" who apparently is into "hip-hop be-bop." When I confessed to never having heard of this type of music he clarified with the more concrete terminology of "dance shit." He left with a Ray Charles and a Basement Jaxx CD.

Another grave lady called up asking if we had anything in stock by The War Brides. I said we had nothing in stock but we might be able to get something in for her. I then asked if they were a local band (figuring she might be shopping for some glam metal band from Penniac to give to her grandson, or something). She took a deep breath and informed me... "They are NOT a local band. I'm referring to The War Brides... [dramatic pause]... OF CANADA. Ah.

Since I rarely go to the malls I seldom have to deal with the weird bulldog-like behaviour the holiday brings out in people. Today though, I took a fifteen minute break to get lunch and grab a new notebook from Shopper's Drug Mart in Kings Place to keep track of special orders. There was only one cashier line open and two people ahead of me. I hadn't gotten food yet, but this looked like a short wait. Just as I was thinking this the lady just ahead of me reached into her huge stringy shopping sack and yanked out a wrinkled and knotted Shopper's bag from an earlier visit. The thing was you see... she'd been in on Saturday and bought some Pot of Gold chocolates that were on special. BUT... when she got home she realized she had bought the brown box... and, you know, those are nuts. She didn't like nuts. So... she'd come in a grabbed a white box... and, you know, those are just milk chocolate (or something). She really wanted a black box... but they were, you know, all out. So... the cashier (who was male and sported a Shopper's name tag that advertised his name was Jonni [his spelling, not mine]) struggled, and struggled, and struggle to untie the top of this bag (why the fuck do people tie the tops of bags that only contain large rectangular objects that will never in a million year slip out?) while my brain screamed at him SCISSORS. SCISSORS. SCISSORS!!!. Finally Jonni got the bag open and pulled out the receipt and told the lady, "the other box was $3.99... this box is $4.99." To this she countered, "I called and the girl said I could just swap them." While all this was going on the line behind me had begun to stretch out to near the back of the store... so a "supervisory cashier" came along to open another till. The Supervisor told Jonni that he'd have to fill out a refund slip then ring the new box in at the sale price and then bob's your uncle. Then he wandered away. Jonni filled in the refund slip... something that involved a handwritten document... then he moved on to the ringing in the sale price. BUT... the supervisor had taken the returned box away when he left, which Jonni apparently needed to re-swipe the UPC (or some shit). So he runs to the back of the store, gets the brown box, swipes it, then looks at the white box for what seems like a very long time. He swipes it, and it comes up at $4.99... because... obviously... it isn't on sale... the sale was on Saturday. It should be mentioned that all this time the lady, mid-60s, weird backwoods accent, is offering all sorts of non-helpful suggestions that are only further confusing poor Jonni. Finally, with the help of two other cashiers, a ring of keys and a new spool of register paper... they arrive at the novel solution for getting the $4.99 box of chocolates to be $3.99... they ring it in manually!!!! Somewhere outside a tenament apartment a small crippled child named Tim was weeping tears of joy!!!

So next time someone tells you life is like a box of chocolates... get out of line.

Holla Holla Holla

Here's something you can print out, photocopy and staple/tape to any surface you desire:




Hopefully first in a series.



Things I have learned, but will soon forget:

1) Don't pick Sunday for your night to drink.
2) If you do pick Sunday for your night to drink, don't drink strong beer, lager, stout, rum and eggnog & creme de menthe in one sitting.
3) If you do #2, don't make it on a day you went to a buffet for breakfast.
4) Buffet and Breakfast... not a happy pairing.

Things I've seen/heard:

Cover of Cosmopolitan at Shoppers with Kate Winslet on the cover... they quote her philosophy: "You have to make the most out of every day." What would we have done without that bit of wisdom?

In the same vein was a radio "report" on the nature of crosswalk signal buttons... do they work? Should radio do "reports" on shit people talk about when they're too stoned to cross a street?

A blind guy with a walking stick trying to get through the King's Place food court. He started whacking people, then the anchored seating, eventually getting turned around and heading in the completely opposite direction he was initially heading. It never occurs that someone could really suck at being blind.

Three people, two guys and a girl, all wearing high style camo tops at the Subway on King. (The girl had red jogging pants on... someone is going to spot them).

The other labs in D'Avray are closed tonight. I have a bunch of beefy guys working on some Education or Phys Ed. group project and Shane singing along to country videos with headphones on.

How many days 'til Xmas?

Holla.

Ahhooooooooum.

Thank goodness for a weekend away.

November typically features a dipping down of the energy from September until the resurgence that comes before Xmas. The parents with lists haven't started in earnest, so the offbeat interactions are limited to arbitrarily strange:

The woman looking for any scratched 7"s we'd like to give her... but passing on the 99 cent ones... free only, please.

The man who wants buttons for his daughter... but not music buttons, because his daughter isn't into music buttons... which leads one to wonder, ah, what time of buttons might a music store carry?

And my favourite:

Quick background note: At times folks bring in boxes of records that are less than absolutely necessary for our collection... when we make noises like we're going to pass on them they usually go from bartering for a small amount for each or a small amount for the lot or, ultimately, offering them for free to do whatever we'd like.

So, in this case... it's August, guy brings a box of records. The guy has other business in town and says he'll drop by later after I've had a chance to look them over. The records are mostly crap, damaged no-gos or more of the same titles we have 3-6 copies of already. However, as is usually the case, there are a handful that we can actually, probably, sell. Day ends. Guy doesn't come back in.

Two days later guy calls and asks about the records. I tell him I can offer $20 for the few we can use and he can have the rest back. He says he doesn't want the rest back, but will stop in on Saturday for the cash and to see which ones we took.

Saturday comes along. Guy doesn't.

Week goes by. And half of another... and finally I figure the statute of limitations have gone by. I've not put anything out yet because it isn't totally out of the question for dudes to change their mind after, say, talking to an idiot buddy who says something like, "Shit man, I would've given you $10 bucks for that Best of Steve Miller Band!" Then when dude comes back to find out I've sold it for 25 cents, he gets a little huffy. But. Two weeks after they've dropped them off and still no contact... shit is mine.

Late November comes along. Dude wanders in and says, "Hi, my name is ***** and I dropped off a box of records in August. You said I could have $20 for the ones you could use."

I have to point out here that this is not a bottle picking, King's place hanging out kinda guy. This is a wife and kids and weekends at the cottage kinda guy.

I say, "well, all my paperwork from FOUR MONTHS AGO is packed and sent down to Saint John, but if you have your copy of the receipt for the cash...."

Dude says, "I didn't get a receipt."

I say, "How's that?"

Dude says, "I didn't come back in for one."

I say, "Ah."

So. Beyond everything else, the question I'd like to ask is: Why today? Why after four months would it suddenly occur to him that he's owed $20? He was always cheerful and never demanding, even when he came back in... but that makes it even more puzzling. In the usual case, after four months and no contact, one would expect just a nice clean write off.

I wonder if anyone out there owes me $20. Maybe I'll start a store to store inquiry.

Post-Remberance

Ah, underwear.

How I missed your firm support.

Let's Not Twist Again...

I have a folder of pictures from the last Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville from this past May. It's a New Music festival that I go to with Marc LeBlanc every year... and this time I managed to get ahold of the standard press package that goes out to all the journals and magazines that review the event (which I do actually do for Exclaim!, but they usually only run 2, 1 or none of the photos to save space). My idea was that I'd do a full show by show review of the festival over on the Surgery blog, but now it's November and it seems a little past prime time to proceed.

The shot above is of Norwegian duo Fe-Mail who make a fiercely loud and varied racket with their voices, french horn and a table-load of homemade/modified electronic apparatuses. Tear your head off they will, and look damn good doing it, too.

The Third annual UNB Poetry Weekend is over. It was a fun time seeing old friends visiting to read, like Matt Tierney and Adam Dickinson, Michael Debeyer and some recent and new acquaintances to boot (not that I booted them). The semi-official kickoff was a Friday night launch of QWERTY's tenth anniversary anthology at Alden Nowlan house. The anthology has an introduction of sorts by me, some captions for images and a poem. Since I'm a local, surviving old-timer I was invited to read. Although the other readers were current MAs reading from works in the anthology I decided to present a non-reading/reading. Having been to more than a few readings in my time I've developed a mild allergy to the standard process... often finding that the introductions and descriptions of the works about to be read more compelling than the works themselves. To that end I prepared an introduction for the reading of a chapter of a book I haven't written, nor have any plan of writing. The "book" was titled The Coefficiency of Friction and it involved, centrally, irritations. I'll leave the rest to your imaginations.

This morning it had snowed, so the walk to work was a little gunky... but still I was in pretty high spirits; mentally energized by the better segments of work I'd heard over the previous two days. At the store there were a few milk crates of vinyl and CDs to reshelve after a record show in Moncton. I grabbed an armload of records out of the very first crate and a few slipped out of my arms so I pivoted and bend to grab them and my lower back wrenched or pinched or buckled or some shit. Anyhow now I have to walk around like I have a load in my pants, wince like a beaten puppy each step I climb and in the interim sit in this chair while my spine locks up into a new interesting shape.

Of course tonight is the night where printers get jammed, polycoms break down and need replacement parts, posters are picked up and multimedia stations need setting up... everyone is very sympathetic and ask if I'm o.k., which is nice, but it'd be nicer if they just went and built snowmen and left me alone... oh well.

Also, something else I've been wondering about...

What you suspected afterhours might look like

Watch a nearly one minute movie here.

Music courtesy of Bill Frisell and Dana Hope's iTunes

Never leave your rubber on the road

Like, why would I, like, care about, like, that?

One of the strange new modern quirks in communication comes courtesy of the cell phone. Something that always gives me a chuckle is the sight of two folks walking side by side down the street and one of them is having a conversation on their cell phone. It raises the question: how boring is that person they're with? Are they friends? If so why aren't they talking to each other?

I was asked, last year, by a student doing a project on the impact of new communication tools upon the process of education. The upshot of his questions to me was, "what was it like before you had cell phones and IM?" e.g. "How did you survive not being in constant touch with your moron friends?"

After a brief chin stroke I had to confess I never really felt out of touch. After all, I did have a telephone. I knew my friends' telephone numbers. Frequently I would actually go to where they lived and saw them in person... often carrying on full, open air conversations using verbs, nouns and modifiers. Moreover, we were often in the same places at the same time, drinking similar beverages. Is that out of touch? Then thank goodness for being out of touch.

I read an interview in UNCUT magazine with Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers yesterday. One of his points about the vacuity of current youth culture brings up the point that kids have no skill at being bored any more. He rhapsodizes about "sitting on a wall for six hours" doing nothing except being bored. It makes sense. After a while the boredom festers and you're driven to action... to accomplish... to do something structured and big and sometimes fucking lunatic. These days low grade stimulus (cell phones, IM, iPod, PS2, XBox, YouTube, etc.) provides a constant buzz of low grade radiation that elevates its users a step up from boredom: catatonia. Admittedly this catatonia looks very social, everyone talking to everyone all the time about whatever stimulus they were radiated with that day. William Burroughs said "language is a virus." Maybe then communication can cause a new kind of cancer.

As I write this two young women are sitting about 10-15 feet behind me. One is carrying on a IM conversation with someone somewhere else while the other one is carrying on a one-sided conversation; directed at the first, but really to no one in particular; as she swivels in her chair, smells the inside of her shoes and monologues about her exploits on various wrestling team excursions. A quick glance over my shoulder and my imagination of what that must look like will make eating and sleeping difficult for some time to come.

I can only imagine what the IM conversation must be about, but if it's anything like the real world one...

"When I, like, got here, he was, like, messaging me to come over and, like, see him and stuff. But when I, like, got there, he was gone."

The Posey Question

First a gag:From Dork #11 by Evan Dorkin.

Then on to the post:

When it turned out that I wouldn't be going up to visit my folks until Sunday (instead of Saturday) last weekend I decided to use my now-clearer Friday evening to visit the uptown Mall district of Fredericton. My main objective was to purchase a new stock of receipt books for the store... but while I was up there I decided to peruse the many other goods and services offered. I bought a bottle of cheap Italian wine, for instance.

The other object/appliance I thought of purchasing was an mp3 player. There have been periods where I was so obsessed with having a portable music player (walkman, discman, whatever) that I can recall once not leaving the house because I'd neglected to recharge batteries. No music... no walking. Recently it's been less and less important to me... not to mention some concerns about what hearing loss I might already have inflicted upon myself. The one instance where it still seems vital is during prolonged travel by bus. Not having something that shields you from direct contact with the fellow transit patrons is as dangerous as practing unprotected sex in Central Africa.

I went to Future Shop and looked at the iPods and the iPod knock offs. The winsome little Shuffles were on sale for $75... but then I thought: if I were to get one of these buggers for my Sunday departure I'd be faced with the hassle of bringing CDs up to the lab, ripping them, loading the player, charging it, etc. Instead I perused the portable CD player section. Pickings were slim, with models ranging from $19.99 bottom feeders to, remarkably, high end ones that ran for around $150. The brilliant flash I had a while ago revolved around the fact that the $75 512 MB Shuffle was a diaphonous and sexy little electronic doodad... but... BUT... doesn't a blank CD-R hold 700 MB of info? Therefore if you were of a mind to fill one of those with mp3s it would contain more music than your Shuffle would hold. AND couldn't you prepare a few dozen of these based on your unstable mood shifts, therby never being locked into whatever you planned on one measly little 512 MB plastic bookmark??

So I looked a little harder at the CD players that played mp3 discs. The one that caught my eye was the Panasonic SL-SX480:
It had the added bonus of looking like a digital clam, and the headphones were white so I could hide it in my jacket and the casual passerby might mistake it for an iPod... so I could maintain my futuristic cred, yo. The Future Shop price was $49.99. I looked at it long and hard. I looked at it harder. I picked up its little clamshell casing and lifted it and lowered it along a vertical axis several times. Then I put it back.

Then I went over to Zellers and bought the same one for $39.99. Yay!!! I like shopping at Zellers. Somehow it feels like I'm buying something from a slightly retarded street vendor... like I'm doing something good for my community.

I decided also to stop at Rogers to flip through their discount DVDs. Occasionally you can turn up something good... and in fact I did. I had been just talking to James Kerr during our trip to Montreal how I never seem to see After Hours for sale anywhere (I believe this derived from the original topic of Rosanna Arquette). But here now in the 3/$24 pile was a honest to goodness copy of the underrated Martin Scorcese comedy (that's right... Martin Scorcese comedy!!!) I also bought a copy of Wolf Creek, which I hadn't seen but did enjoy, though Roger Ebert says this of the Australian film:

I had a hard time watching "Wolf Creek." It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.

Roger Ebert can be a bit of a pussy sometimes.

The last piece of the tryptich-de-DVD was Blade:Trinity. Now, yes... I should know better. I saw the movie in the theatre. I know it's crap. Really I do. But I like the other two movies so much... and... and... what good is a trilogy if you don't hve the third part. I mean, some of you out there bought Godfather III, right? Right?


One of the things about the movie that contributed to it's badness, but simultaneously somehow made it more fun was the trio of vampire villains who worked the evil machinations against Blade... y'know by resurrecting Dracula... I mean, what would you do to defeat him? The trio was played by... ahem... from left to right... Triple H, Parker Posey and Callum Keith Rennie. Having these three together in one movie, let alone one onscreen frame, is akin to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom featuring a segment on Koalas stalking Penguins in Nebraska. A WWE wrestler, the guy who played Billy Talent in Hard Core Logo and... well... Parker Posey. WTF?

By far the most fun is watching Parker, who seems to be acting in a different movie altogether... something closer to an all-female Three Stooges retrospective.

Made me start thinking about her work in general... I mean how's this for a schizophrenic list of credits... the ones I've bolded are movies I've seen and think are great... the ones in italics... well, you decide. The last one (or first one, actually) on the list is a new Hal Hartley film... a sequel to Henry Fool... I can't wait to see it.

Fay Grim (2006)
For Your Consideration (2006)
Superman Returns (2006)
The OH in Ohio (2006)
Adam & Steve (2005)
Blade Trinity (2004)
Laws of Attraction (2004)
The Event (2003)
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Personal Velocity (2002)
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
The Anniversary Party (2001)
Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Best in Show (2000)
Scream 3 (2000)
Dinner at Fred's (1999)
The Venice Project (1999)
The Misadventures of Margaret (1998)
What Rats Won't Do (1998)
You've Got Mail (1998)
Clockwatchers (1997)
Drunks (1997)
Henry Fool (1997)
The House of Yes (1997)
SubUrbia (1997)
Basquiat (1996)
The Daytrippers (1996)
Waiting for Guffman (1996)
The Doom Generation (1995)
Flirt (1995)
Frisk (1995)
Kicking & Screaming (1995)
Party Girl (1995)
Amateur (1994)
Dead Connection (1994)
Mixed Nuts (1994)
Sleep with Me (1994)
Coneheads (1993)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Joey Breaker (1993)

So... overall... Parker Posey? Should we keep her? Is dating Ryan Adams the last straw? Is being in that commercial with Jimmy Fallon?

I say we keep her.

Dave's girlfriend knows what Yo La Tengo means.

So I saw YO LA TENGO, right?

Here are the point form details (edited down from an e-mail sent to someone who will also read this and wonder why I wasted her time making her read both... sorry, m.)

Friday September 30

5:30 pm: Road gets hit. Travellers: Driver: James Kerr. Shotgun: James MacGregor. (we are proud to feature a Jamesian front line) Center-seaters: Mike Nason and Muhammad AD Rock. Back row (bad kids): Marc Bragdon, Eric Hill. Bad kids have a half-pint of Crown Royal.

8:00 pm: We stop at gas station in Grand Falls to food up. My footlong oversauced Meatball sub turns into a two pound bag of marinara. Marc B. compares it to a full diaper. I shove it under the seat.

11:00 pm: Another gas station after Quebec City. I buy two Heineken tall boys to celebrate... whatever. Turns out my bladder doesn't need the work. The first half hour in Montreal is a tense one.

1:30 am (ish... or 12:30 am Quebec time...) We drop off Marc B. and start the chain of MapQuest fueled destination searches. We immediately get turned around, heading the wrong way on Decarie and I have to wind over to a parked Police Car and chat up an attractive Police Lady to get re-oriented. She didn't seemed taken with my obvious charms, perhaps it was my beer breath or the bullet proof jacket around her heart. The directions start to take effect, after Mo deciphers that the distances between turns are on the wrong lines. Thee drop offs continue. Finally the Jameses and I end up at James' M's buddy Dave's place. We scarf some Pabst Blue Ribbon and lay our heads down for a few hours.

Saturday September 31st

9:30 am: Is that the phone? I don't live here, so it's not for me. There's that phone again... still don't live here. Again. (Dave and James M. are staying across the street at Dave's girlfriend's apartment). Is that the doorbell? I don't live here. It's probably a Jehovah's Witness anyway. Is that Mike Nason talking on his cell phone below the window on the street? I better put some pants on and see. Yes it's Mike... he's talking to Cristal, Dave's girlfriend, on his cellphone. I wave. Cristal waves. He goes to Cristal. Who can blame him.

11:00 am: Breakfast at John's. From the Grill means two eggs, toast, homefries and every type of breakfast meat you could imagine, incl. Cretons!! So greasy. So good.

2:00 pm: Science of Sleep at Forum AMC. Quirky fun... maybe not as good as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... I'll think on it. Charlotte Gainsbourg has that unkempt Parisian hotness nailed, plus her mom's (Jane Birkin) British accent... double whammy.

7:00 pm: Dinner at Abiata... Ethiopian restaurant. There are 13 of us. Jameses, Dave, Cristal, Jess (her roommate), Mike w/ Steve and Scott, Mo with Sean (i think, right?), and James M's sister Margo who happens to be in MTL. coincidentally, and here boyfriend. The food is served atop soft bread on platters: spiced meats of all types, grains, lentils, vegetables... all eaten with bread and hands and nothing else. My taste buds thanked me.

9:00 pm: The National (venue) Why? and Yo La Tengo. Reminds you how good indie rock can get when professional and unpretentious balance out. We run into Mireille about 78 seconds after getting there. World? Not big. Afterwards there are beers and cabs and kitties and sleep.

Sunday October 1:

10:00 am. Wake up, shower. No one around yet. Weren't we supposed to meet to go to breakfast around 10:00?? 10:15 am Mike and Steve show up. 10:30 James shows up, tells us that Mo can't make it 'til 11am. 10:35 Mireille calls asks for directions, she is 15 minutes away. Dave, Cristal and Jess show up. 10:45 am Mo calls and won't be joining us, we'll pick him up after breakfast. We wait for Mireille. 11:30 am... no Mireille, we follow our stomachs to Greene's on Greene. We have huge breakfasts, made even more impressive by one half of the group splitting an enormous smoked meat poutine.

1:30 pm. We pick up Mo, find our way out of MTL.

5:00 pm. Stop for gas, somewhere. Pick up 12 Labatt's 50 for Howard, James M. buys two quarts of near lethally alcoholized beer, stores them in the hatch of the van, and we're off.

7:00 pm. Stop in Edmunston for food... they've taken the Subway around the corner to beat it up. Mo. opens the hatch to get something from his bag... James' quarts attack him, he defends himself, he wins, James loses. Mo buys James a sub. And we're off.

10:30 pm. Fredericton. I watch Basquiat. I go to sleep.

Monday October 2

7:30 am I get up and start to gather documentation for grants... and the cycle continues.

This week's favourite quote. So far.

Young woman, responding to a message I left reminding her a CD she'd ordered was ready to pick up... She said she hadn't been in yet because she "had a lot of College and stuff to do."

Don't we all.

Sometimes you are your own worst enemy.

Magnetism.

Awhile ago I made a joke in passing about how I planned to get rich in about 10 years. My scheme was to go to all the pawn shops, flea markets and yard sales and buy up every last cassette Walkman that I could find. Then around 2010 I could start selling them--- perhaps repainted or decorated--- to teenagers as fashion accessories. The trick would be to get whoever the Paris Hilton or Avril Lavigne of the day was to be seen wearing one first.

I can actually see this working... it has a component of nostalgia (the good kind... the kind for things you never participated in in the first place), it has kitsch, it has functional uselessness, it promotes uniformity with enough variety to make a fad viable (you got a red Kenwood? mine's a Sony--- the kind you could take in the shower!) etc.

One of the reasons I started thinking about this again, and thinking it could catch on, is the alarming rise in people asking if we carry cassettes at the store. We haven't for about 5-6 years by the way. At first it was just the people who only had a tape deck in their car... usually a car less valuable than the cost of installing a CD player. Then it was mostly hipsters on tour with their skinny bands who wanted a few yucks listening to the soundtrack of Against All Odds. Now it seems to be confused young men in their early 20s looking to "collect" them for their eventual skyrocketing value. Again only people who hadn't previously been exposed to cassettes would believe that they have any secondary value.

I mean the Bubonic Plague is rare... but I wouldn't buy it on eBay. Or would I?

Surge gone... tide goes out.

The weekend has passed, and these things I have learned.

1) The best time to plan/promote/stage/play an evening of multimedia excitement is not your first 50-hour work week of the year.

2) It's especially not a good idea to have to go set up and play three hours after said work week ends.

3) Climbing ladders makes you sweaty.

4) Harmless Jazz. Booze. ZZZzzz.


All in all it was a fairly successful affair. We could've had more people, but you always can have more people. The pieces fit well together... though a little more time smoothening out the rough edges and improving the "look" of the evening might've been a good idea. All things to carry forward to January.

Now it's a matter of figuring out what's next... and that could be a show down in Moncton with the Houlton RD Trio folks sometime in late October... details have to be ironed out (or ironied out, perhaps).

On the day to day front... there's a Fredericton loiterer who seems to be following me around in a bid to have me witness his passing. I say this because for the last couple of days there has been the sound of a very distinctive, and very mortally-wounded coughing coming from across the street in front of City Hall. That alone is not a matter to raise speculation. After all, those park benches are magnetic beacons for those loafers who aren't part of the King's Place food court caste. However, on my way through the graveyard connecting Carleton St. this morning what did I hear but KAAWRRRF (more or less the sound of styrofoam packing encased in a block of ice and thrown into a wood chipper) coming from beneath a tree near the Junior High building. I thought, "oh good, he knows the end is nigh so he's crawled into a cemetary... nice planning." Except that around noon I was doing some paperwork at the store and what did I hear but KAAWRRRF coming from a bench in Phoenix square yet again.

All I can say is that when I'm in Montreal at the end of the month if I hear that noise... I'm running.

Hour 43

Just got a call from Greg Byrne, Liberal candidate from our riding. At least I think it was him… all I heard when I picked up the phone was silence, then “this is Greg Burr…” then I hung up. Any time there’s that moment’s silence before someone speaks you’re either about to be solicited or broken up with. Maybe he was calling to say we’re over. So sad.

Since pretty much most currently interesting/peculiar things are still in process and have yet to achieve narrative fullness, I thought I’d regale you with a triptych from the vault.

--------

In the late 80s I had a summer job working at a youth hostel near where my parents lived on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. It was called “Auberge du Chateaux” or The Castle Inn. This being because the owner/operator had undertaken the long term project of building a large, multi-turret castle in the woods about a half kilometer behind the main building of the hostel. I’ll talk more about this whole affair at a later date. My job was initially supposed to be two separate jobs, funded by two separate grants… but only one grant came in so I was hired to do light housekeeping, meal preparation and general administration in the morning then light carpentry and painting of the castle in the afternoon. Weird. At one point in the summer one of the guests did a little laundry and put a couple of t-shirts and some underwear on the line out back to dry… then left the next day forgetting the stuff. One of the shirts was a cool design for a Picasso retrospective at a museum in Montreal. Since it didn’t look like he was coming back for it I made that shirt mine. A perk.

That same summer my friend Kevin B. was working at a Home Hardware in Campbellton, NB where we both went to high school. Near the end of summer, aside from his usual customer relation/stock monkey duties the manager asked if he could, for some extra pay, paint the outside second floor cinder block wall and chimney. Since it was a two man job, and on a Sunday, he offered me the chance to help him in a Huck Finny sort’ve way. We tackled the wall and the job was going well. It was essentially one large white expanse that needed to be red now, for some reason, that stretched up about 25-30 feet with a 6 foot chimney at the top of the wall. The catch was that our footing was a sheet metal first floor roof that was at about at 35-40 degree angle. The extension ladder we were using was well anchored by nailed two by fours, but at the chimney part you were standing about 50 feet off the ground. I volunteered to do the chimney because I was the more experienced painter, having been doing it on and off all summer long. I had the paint can hanging off the side of the ladder, holding on with one hand and flailing away with a wide brush with the other, leaning my youthful torso back at the waist to get a better range of motion. Just then I felt the top of the ladder slightly pull away from the wall and start to tip backwards. Vertigo hit immediately and I slammed the ladder back forward, dropped the paint brush and put both hands on the ladder and started breathing heavily through every hole I had. Eventually I creeped down the ladder and then down to the parking lot and that was the end of my, till then, fairly benign relationship with heights.

At the end of the summer Kevin’s Home Hardware manager decided to have a staff party aboard a fairly nice cabin cruiser boat he rented. We were going to take an afternoon jaunt in the Restigouche from Campbellton out to where the river opened out into the Chaleur Bay in Carleton, QC, about a 100 kilometer round trip. Since I’d ostensibly been staff, though only for a day, I was invited along. The other staff was nice enough, though not overly appealing and squarish in their demeanor. Still the party offered something neither Kevin, nor I, in our seemingly endless quest for dissolution, could resist: free beer. I put on my Picasso shirt and packed up a change of slightly warmer clothes, being warned that the trip back might be significantly cooler, being late in summer and early evening by then. The voyage was great fun… though I felt a little awkward not really knowing most of the other folks, and they mostly joking around in that “work story” way that people have when they aren’t privy to any other part of each other’s lives. But by the time we’d reached Carleton both Kevin and I had helped ourselves to enough of the FREE BEER that we could’ve made (in our definition of it) pithy conversation with Death Row prisoners or dolphins if we had the chance. There was swimming (which I didn’t partake in) and a BBQ (which I did) and with my long-standing natural clumsiness around food, managed to splatter mustard all over my now-cherished Picasso shirt. I changed into my back-up garb… which was fine since we were soon enroute back to NB. The river was much choppier and windier on the way back, and Kevin and I were much drunker. But instead of the seasickness you might expect, we took to the roughness, parking ourselves at the bow of the boat and shrieking like Vikings every time a blast of spray shot up in our faces… which was often. Eventually the manager encouraged us back into the cabin citing worry for our safety. As we approach the wharf Kevin and I had decided that this was indeed one of the best Sundays EVER and that it shouldn’t end so soon… what with it only being 7 or 8 pm. While everyone else was chatting and hugging and saying “good rest of the summer,” and such things, Kevin and I loaded up our backpacks with as much of the leftover FREE BEER we could carry and stealthily (we thought) slipped off the boat and started running down the wharf. Kevin, being naturally clumsy around everything but food, tripped over his feet and a few bottles went tinkling across the gravel, sparkling in the twilight. I glanced over my shoulder back at the boat to see if anyone had spotted our less than spy-like escape, but it was hard to focus on that distance. Kevin gathered himself up and we wobbled back to his apartment. We were celebrating out masterminded coup… the liberation of the beer… for about 45 minutes until Kevin passed out on his couch. I quietly continued drinking, lying on the living room floor, listening to Rush or Marillion (all Kevin seemed to own) until I too surrendered to the night.

It was only the next day, nursing hangovers with leftover beer and strange pita/ham/cheese/mayo sandwiches Kevin had made, that I realized that my Picasso shirt hadn’t made it off the boat. Ah the casualties of war.

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Just a side note. I wrote this early morning at home (where I have no internet) so I saved it on a Zip disc. The Zip disc, which is about 5-6 years old wouldn't work in any of the external drives we have at the lab... so I had to take it down the hall to the audio lab that has a G3 with an internal drive that seemed to read the disc without trouble... except it isn't hooked up to any networks or internet... so I had to find another Zip disc to temporarily save this on... realizing that most of the discs we have are 250 MB and the G3 will only handle 100 MB discs, I had to scrounge 'til I found one of those... then save it on the new Zip, bring it back to the main lab, unload it via the external onto this computer and bang... blog entry. How much do I care about you guys?

the new new new year

So I'm back and grinding.... This term my 11 hour days number four in total. Mike, my able and cheery part time store employee, is hitting higher education for real, taking 6-7 courses this term to wrap things up in his degree. I applaud higher education. The me-centric downside is his inability to work any day except Saturday, ergo a 44 hour work week in four days... plus a 6 hour kicker on Friday. I'll be rolling in cash ... that is until I fall asleep atop it all from age and exhaustion. Still.

This week is the hard one to get through. Fiddlehead stuff gears up. Store stuff gears up with many many new releases. Exclaim! reviews deadline. And, of course a performance/event to coordinate for this Friday. See here for more.

Most of the above is actually taken care of... except for an event program and my own sound file contribution to the Five, One Hundred performance (John, Chris and I). We've decided on doing a tribute to Phil Iverson. There's soooo much going on this Friday, though... hope we get a crowd.

If you're starved for music today you can listen to the Backstreet Blog's Summer in September mix. Just click riiiiiiiiight here.

Going.

Going.

Gon.

Why Run Lola Run is the Paradise Lost of our generation

All right already!!!

I love you guys too.

Sorry I've been so neglectful. It seems lately whenever I was in front of a computer it was to fight to keep it connected to the internet (a certain PC/Aliant/Eric disagreement) or to design for/write about the upcoming Surge! Events kickoff... coming to a Charlotte St. Auditorium near you on September 15th. I'll elaborate later.

What have I been doing lately you may ask? You may. Go ahead.

Well I kicked off August with the below mentioned event at the Underground Café that was a good time and drew a crowd of... well... Margaret came out. Thanks Margaret. Still it was fun hanging out with the Houlton Road Trio folks. It'd be fun to work with them again in the future.

I had a three week stint holding court at Howard and Linda's with nothing but fishes and televisions and blinky computers and Mandy and a rock band to keep me company. The latter bit... the rock band... was old timey friend Selina Martin who was on her way back through from playing the Evolve festival and spent an evening at The Capital and hanging out with yours truly and her band (AnneLise, Robin and Dan). They're good folks and funny and I wish more people would've come in to listen to them play rather than stand on the deck where it was 15 degrees cooler but 5 bucks cheaper. Sigh.

Anyway they went out one door and Mandy came in the other and we celebrated by BBQing hot dogs and sausages. Always a good time. We played Scrabble and drank beer and watched Iron Chef and some show about how models are really sexy (what? really?). The next morning we gathered things from stationary stores and art supply places then bugged out for Florenceville where we had garden fresh corn and potatoes and I ate a pork chop and drank Stella Artois... 'cos I'm fancy. Then the next morning we bugged out for Bangor to get clothes from Goodwill... me for Surge! silk screening and Mandy to dress scarecrows. We are not typical. We went to Borders and I bought the new Chuck Klosterman book and Wings of Desire on DVD. The we went to Bull Moose Music and I bought the new Centro-Matic from the used section. Later we stopped up the road and ate at a Governor's diner... I had a burger named after the current governor of Maine and a side of sweet potatoe fries. Then we drove through the night... me reading aloud by flashlight from the Klosterbook and Mandy doing the wheel turning. The next morning it was the early bus back to F'ton and straight to the store.

The rest of the month are a "rinse and repeat" kind of blur. I remember fighting with the computer; watching Big Brother 7 and Rock Star:Supernova; eating chicken; wrestling a raccoon for ownership of a garbage can; taking buses and cabs; doing laundry; playing PS2 hockey and golf; y'know... by the numbers.

Now I'm back in the saddle. Soon to return to the 11am-10pm grind... so y'all can expect to hear from me on a more reg'lar basis.

I'll explain why Franke Potente is a modern touchstone at a later date.

TTFN.

For the casual fan.

Here is an not-inappropriate/innacurate reaction to our music.



But still... you should try and come out to the Underground Cafe on Saturday Night and catch a earful. Good times will follow you.

Cartoon is from Jeffrey Brown's I Am Going to be Small
.

horizony things

Click to make it biggy big:

Synaesthesia

It's been a mean week. I don't think I've worked as hard to have so much fun in quite some time... All of it blends together in a sort've fever dream... y'know, the kind you wake up from and ask:

Is that my doorbell?

Did I kill those campers?

What's another word for genital agitation?

If I didn't drink why am I so hungover? Wait is this Thursday or Friday?

Is the reading at 7 or 8?

What's this wet?

I don't remember eating all that cheese, so where did it go?

etc.


I recommend sleep in chunks of no less than 7 but no more than 8 hours. Eat only when your body gives you the thumbs up. Always try to let people know you're glad they're around (unless you actually aren't... glad I mean). Don't feel like you have to watch the special features right away. Buy a calendar and a non-electric clock. If you have two umbrellas don't leave them in the same place.

etc.

Now I move on to lesser things.

How about you?

So busy.

I can only stop to cough. KOFF KOFF. That's me coughin'. There is no room to be clever in this post... I leave you to your own devices... KOFF KOFF. Feel for me.

Holidays for shut ins.

Sometimes you just want to hide from everyone and put blueberries in your breakfast side salad


Other time you just want to watch the rain fall... and bugs.
click for: downpour

...of the just.

Two weeks in a row... though not on the same night... have I decided around 8 or 9 pm to lie down for "a little nap" only to wake up around 3 or 4 am with that not-so-refreshed-but-more-confused feeling. Sleep should not turn to shit. Quote me.

The Never Ending Story...

...ends when the big shaggy flying mop crashes into the side of a Wal-Mart in Michigan.

Or elseways when, on Monday, I get a non-Sunday day off for the first time in three weeks. Not that I don't love my job... (or at least not that I don't Sometimes love my job)... but I'd get tired of doing anything 6 days a week... except maybe fly fishing with grizzled old timey outdoorsmen.

The humidity has brought out admirably loopy folks... like the guy who had inherited a box of "classic" vinyl and wanted to sell it to me so he could pay to have his teeth fixed. When asked a few pre-emptive questions about the "classic" nature of the vinyl he seemed above board until...

Me: And of course they have to be in good condition.

He: Well, no, they're actually not... scratches on most.

This is remarkable!! Usually it goes, "No they're in PERFECT condition, only played once, taped and stored in an airtight lead box," then they bring 'em in covered in mold, barnacles and with a small wild animal near starved at the bottom of the pile. So to admit up front that they're crap... what progress!!!

My favourite surrealist quote this week came from our "not-as-hip-as-he-would-hope" Nirvana fan... friend of the disgruntled Ponderosa worker... who, holding up a 7" of Fleetwood Mac Tusk asked this now timeless question:

"Does this single have any Stevie Nicks or is it just The Mac?"

I think we've all asked ourselves the same question at least once in our lives.

I'm not run down because...

...I had a Vitamin C tablet on Sunday... I'M SUPERFUCKIN'ENERGIZED!!!!

King of All Media

I usually do my best not to be noticed... but lately that's been kiboshed.

It started last Tuesday with my "appearence" on the Rogers TV program Crosby Live. Ben Conoley and I were brought in to discuss our thoughts on Rolling Stone magazine's 1000th issue. To save you ordering transcripts I'll boil it down for you:

Used to be good... now (i.e. for the last 30 years) not so much.

Then on Thursday I became the cover model for Here magazine's current issue.

First off... thanks. I mean to those of you who might not have an opportunity to come into the store, mention you saw the issue and congratulate me for being on the cover. There's a slight-to-not-so-slight embarassment that encroaches on ego when you are acknowledged a few times a day then start consciously wondering as you pass by people on the sidewalk, "Does she know I'm on the cover of a magazine? Does he? Does Gus Mazzuca? Does he respect me, now?"

But... just know that being on the cover was not my idea. I (unvainly) thought the article was going to be about the store, ergo a nice shot of the neon sign outside or a macro pic of a stack of vinyl.... Kyle Cunjak's picture of me makes me cringe... but only because it's me... otherwise it's quite a well-taken photo.

Finally, the article... overall it's good, but there are a couple of instances, unfortunately both within sentences attributed to me, where careful editing wasn't thoroughly applied:



I believe the quote was closer to "The other store will have them for sale much cheaper... and they are more mainstream successes, whereas Flaming Lips would still bring customers in" or "we would still bring in for our customers."



Here the point was, loosely, that stores shouldn't be overly afraid of the download-for-sale, as a combination of online and offline shopping is attractive to VORACIOUS music buyers.

This is the dictionary definition of voracious:

vo·ra·cious Pronunciation Key (vô-rshs, v-)
adj.

1. Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.
2. Having or marked by an insatiable appetite for an activity or pursuit; greedy: a voracious reader.

There is a dictionary entry for veracious but it isn't something anybody could, er..., be one of.

OK. Nitpickiness time over. If I don't use my English degrees from time to time they erase another vowel from my diploma.

So anyhow, if anyone still would like to stalk me... that's my street at the top of the post. It's nice and quiet... full of pleasant foliage, no?

I've come this far.

Flurrious activity... with my one day weekend I must squeeze together some sound squiggles for the upcoming show (see below), meet with Andrew Miller and strategize the long term viability of a Fredericton-based avant garde festival, and do a little research on the history of Rolling Stone magazine so I can give some "expert" opinions on a Rogers Cable show on Tuesday night. I get the feeling the host wants mostly positive feedback about the generational and political importance of the publication... I hope I don't blow this with my thoughts on how it's sucked since 1975. We'll see.

Upcoming

Oh the curds... show me the whey!!

So... FIMAV was fun as always. It's a special place where people from many nations speaking many different languages come together and try to burst your eardrums.

Not in all cases, of course, some of it was quite sublime... but two back to back nights, Saturday and Sunday featured large scale performances by some of the most infernal racketeers you'd ever want to hear. Saturday was a double bill featuring Keiji Haino and Sunn O)))... then Sunday was a supergroup of sorts featuring old school American jazz/noise merchants Borbetomagus and Japanese noise rock pioneers Hijokaidan. It looked like this on stage:

This photo is courtesy of the event's official photographer.

If you want a show by show run down you can pop over to the Surgery blog where such a thing will soon exist.

Slept on and off much of Tuesday (which I pre-booked as a day of rest...) caught up on e-mails, not much else. Then back to work. One thing about taking any amount of time off is that the first day back is usually a painful thing. I was quickly reminded of my place in life when someone called with 78 rpm records and "regular" records to sell. I gave my usual pitch, they named a few albums... some of them promising, some of them Supertramp. I had poo pooed the 78s early on, given that we don't have the space for something so slow to turn over. He assured me the music on them was older... "even older than Supertramp," was how he described it. Is that even possible?

Here are a few more sights and sounds... well sights anyway... of the weekend, including the legendary Poutine Galvaude of the wonderous MAX POUTINE!!! (all caps for effect and for J.Mac's benefit.)

In the details

It's a couple of days (less than 48 hours) before I take of for the FIMAV in Victoriaville. Taking care of last minute details gives me a rash... what am I forgetting this time... census, curling iron, cats on fire (got to put 'em out). Do people stay on top of the little things like getting haircuts and putting out the recycling on time? I feel like I used to. But now... well it's more conscious, that's for sure.

Marc B., James and I are taking a route through Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to get to our respective destinations... I've never done this drive before. Scenery is one of my favourite things to look at.

Things have been pretty laid back whilst house-sitting. My only bit of heart acceleration came mid-late last week, walking to work. My route is down Reid to Albert and across the top of the Middle School sports field over to York and down again. I was cutting the corner onto York, which has a fairly steep 5-6 foot dip down to the sidewalk. A black dog three or four houses down the street across York was barking frantically at me even before I got to the corner. Stupid dog, I grumbled, especially after seeing he was safely tied up. When I got to the very top of the decline I saw that not me, but a full-on bushy tailed skunk was what had the dog so excited. I sucked in air and backed up slowly but deliberately, crossed over Albert to the opposite corner and crossed there. I gave the, now obviously, smart dog a big thumbs up on the way by.

At work, other than the usual springtime cavalcade of phone calls by people who've discovered records in their basement and think they've solved their money woes for 2006... only slight irritations, annoyances, and opportunities to be amused have occured. To whit:

Two young men (15-17... who can tell?) browsing the store. The blonde one is a "regular," but the type of regular who comes in twice a month, never buys anything but always asks for "rare" Nirvana stuff (vinyl, singles, imports) or K. Cobain endorsed things like Vaselines, Daniel Johnston, Teenage Fanclub, etc. When confronted with any of the things he so desperately desires he either "has it" or will "pick it up later." Later of course means never, though a great show of disappointment is made when he comes in three weeks later to find the Nirvana single sold. But I digress.

His friend, a first time customer, I think, has a Slayer CD and a copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on a Japanese label. Here's how this goes:

He: This says it's Japanese.

Me: Yes.

He: Does that mean it's translated in Japanese?

Me: No... it's on a Japanese label.

He: So they put it out in Japan?

Me: Yes. The Japanese love to rock.

He: [furrowed brow] But it's not in Japanese?

Me: No.

He: [putting CDs on the counter] Are you looking for any work here?

Me: [piecing it together] Ahhh... I don't have to look, I have work here.

He: You Do have work here?

Me: I have work here. Were YOU looking for work here?

He: Yeah... yeah.

Me: Sorry, we're not hiring.

He: Oh well, thought it would be better than working at Ponderosa.

and SCENE.

I fed the kitties some Limp Bizkits...

...and they started to mutate:



I'm giving them some Korn for dinner. Maybe that will make it better?

I did it for the Kittie, the Kittie...

I hope everyone's forgotten Limp Bizkit sufficiently to not get the title of this entry? Good.

I've begun a stint house sitting for my friends Dana and Chris...

It works out well just now as they have an office with a view of the back deck, Hi Speed internet and a nice Mac to work on... and I have reviews to write for an Exclaim! deadline. Noon tomorrow.

They also have three things which might (pre)occupy my attention:


Simon


Phoebe

...and my old nemesis... SATELLITE TELEVISION!!!!

I'll let you know how the battle goes later.

So why are we here?

The wonders of weeknights off!!!

After a pleasant ramble through points Maine-ish and Quebecois with Mandy over the weekend (see pictures below) I've been revelling in the new-found ability to go where I want when I want after 5 pm. Of course 3 of the last 6 nights that's been up here to the lab to get caught up on work, but still... it's only 'cause I could choose to do so.

On Wednesday the routine was broken up by wine bottling with Howard and Linda. Two new batches to add to the wine cellar/gymnasium/sewing room/darts emporium. Some of those things probably aren't meant to co-habit, no problem for the Renaissance couple, though. H & L take quality control quite seriously so much scrubbing, filtering, sterilization was involved. The process post-pre-clean is dynamically perfect for three people: 1) Howard on racking (or bottling) 2) Me on corking and 3) Linda on labelling. The final step is the application of the plastic seal... the shrink-wrappy thing that goes over the cork... I did that with a super-heating paint stripping gun... worked a treat.

Each momentary pause between steps of course calls for a sip of the wine from a newly decanted bottle. Only when the process is over (we did 2 batches of 28-30 bottles each) do you realize how wrecked you've gotten.

I capped the evening off with a walk home... which is about an hour from their place to mine... across the river... but it was a nice night and I had my CD player (you may remember portable CD players... they were early prototypes for mp3 players). The only little bit of unexpected fun came as I got to the South side of Westmorland Bridge. There was no traffic so I crossed over the road to the City Hall side of the bridge and walked down the on ramp to the riverside. I crossed the Westbound lanes to the central median when I noticed a set of headlights approach under the bridge... so I stopped to wait for the car to pass. However when I stopped the car stopped. So I thought a thought halfway between Hmmmm and Oh Fuck. As soon as I started walking again the car sped forward... propelling me further in the Oh Fuck direction. Soon enough I could see that it was a police car and they pulled across from me blocking my path.

Cop: How are we tonight?

Me: Doing OK, thanks.

Cop: Where are you off to?

Me: Just headed home.

Cop: We saw you just standing by the road... what were you doing?

Me: I was waiting for you to pass so you wouldn't run over me.

Cop: Oh. Alright then.

[speeds off]


The other little bits of synchronus silliness at the store this week consisted of not one or two but three different organizations calling or dropping in looking for junk vinyl to decorate for parties/functions they were planning. All of them essentially hoped we'd just hand over something no questions asked. My favourite of the three was the Marriott call centre chick. Now the Marriott is, I believe, a fortune 500 company... million/billion dollar revenue jokers, y'know? The lady's pitch was that they were having "Associate Appreciation Hootenanny..." or something to that effect... with a retro rock theme. She wondered if they could "borrow" some of our records with the promised they'd return them in the same shape at a later time. My response was propelled from the Oh Fuck (off) direction.

Not pictured here...

Clicking makes 'em bigger...